#no joke the streams were my after work wind down activity for a bit because boy this month has been a month

[nuclearloop]

Happy bday @padabana! It was so much fun to keep up with Balloon SMP this past month watching you and the rest of the team and I was wanting to doodle your sona anyway so, perfect timing. Yay nukes!

[rafescoke]

Brother’s Best Friend ; Rafe Cameron

masterlist

Request: heyy I’ve recently found your account and I just felt in love with the way you write and with your works so I was wondering if you could write a fic where the reader is Kelce’s sister, she’s sitting alone at home and suddenly she hears a doorbell ringing, she comes to open the door and that’s Rafe and she says something like “Kelce’s not home” or smth like that and Rafe answers “I actually came to see you” or smth like that. It can be smut or fluff or whatever I don’t really care. Sorry if this is chaotic but I just want the reader to be black and I have bad ideas lmao 😭 sending love ❤️❤️

Pairing: Rafe Cameron x reader

Summary: Fooling around with your best friend's sister is not a good sign, especially when it involves something more than skinny dipping and drinking alcohol together.

Warnings: Slight smut, mentions of drinking, slight angst, teasing Rafe Cameron

A/N: I'm so close to 700 followers wtf y'all are truly amazing ily! I'm finishing all requests in my inbox for the new few days; thank you to those who put their trust in me to write their ideas <33

(Y/N) could never deny the attraction she felt towards a certain brunette boy with that charming smile.

The feeling evolved for the first time when he came over to her house to see Kelce. He was so polite to her; giving her a turn on passing the ball and scolding Kelce and Topper for not wanting to give her a chance at playing basketball in the swimming pool.

But she was only 8 back then, and she regarded the feeling as nothing more than a silly crush.

Rafe Cameron changed when he entered high school. (Y/N) couldn't explain what was wrong, but he was not her Rafe anymore. He didn't hold the door for her, scold Kelce for making fun of her or do anything that used to make her heart soar.

Her thoughts were disrupted when a fresh blue towel hit her squarely on the face, causing her to yelp in shock.

"Do you wanna come down to the lake with us?"

(Y/N) rolled her eyes, pulling the towel to her side, and closed her magazine with a snap. Her eyes fell back to the three guys, lingering on the tallest one a little bit too long.

She cleared her throat, "No, I'm tired."

Kelce shrugged, walking towards the entrance of their home from the swimming pool. He didn't feel like having (Y/N) around anyways, because that would mean he would have to protect her from his friends.

Kelce loved his friends, of course, but he also knew the other side of them that uses girls like Kleenex tissue only to throw them away again.

"On a second thought-" (Y/N) said, stopping the three boys from entering the big house. "I think I'll go."

"You sure?" Kelce asked. God. Now he would have to play the big-brother stimulator for the whole night.

The night sky was dark, and the only light came from the moonlight up above and sometimes from the flashlight of each other's phone. Boozes laid messily on the wooden deck and their clothes were discarded all over the place.

Not one person was sober, and they were all laughing to a joke by Topper.

"Okay, okay, last one-" Topper said excitedly. He shivered, and (Y/N) thought about it as a response towards the cold lake water or the excited nerves of sharing another stupid joke. "Why did the chicken cross the road?"

"Easy. To get to the other side," Rafe answered proudly. A beer drop slid down from his lips to his chin, and (Y/N) felt a strong desire to lick it.

"Wrong."

"Okay, fine, I don't know."

Topper smiled widely, and (Y/N) could see this joke coming from a few miles away. "To get to the loser's house. Knock knock."

Rafe pulled a face, his eyebrows raised. "Who's there?"

"The chicken."

Kelce and Topper's laugh filled the silence around them, and (Y/N) found herself slightly smiling at the joke. Rafe groaned, finally understanding the joke and being angry at himself for willingly taking the bait.

"Okay, okay. The joke's over."

Kelce laughed again before taking a full swig of another beer bottle. He stared at the sky, and let out a loud huff.

"Wish we can go up there."

"Me too, man," Topper agreed. He joined Kelce by staring up at the dark sky, both clearly high out of their minds.

"Do you want to?"

(Y/N) looked to her side, not noticing Rafe who had moved from his previous position near Topper to beside her. She quirked her head to one side, her face questioning.

"Go up to the sky," he explained. He watched as she looked up to the sky, her mouth slightly parting. Her chest heaved peacefully, and her wet body donning the lilac bikini never looked so beautiful and perfect.

"Nah. I'm too scared."

"Even when I'll go with you?" he smiled. (Y/N) rolled her eyes, though her heart was soaring brightly; she would never feel scared anymore if he were to be around her all the time.

"Yeah. Even when you’ll go with me. Besides, it's not possible."

"Let people enjoy things," he said, and he was so close to her now because she could smell the coffee mint from his breath. Her heart was beating wildly, though this would be the ten-thousandth time he did this to her.

It never failed to leave her completely breathless.

"You're drooling," he whispered, and used his thumb to wipe her wet lips from the beer. Her breath hitched, and she couldn't utter any words back. She was too mesmerised with the whole situation.

His fingers stopped at her chin, looking into her eyes, and he was petrified too. He leaned in, but before anything could happen, (Y/N) moved away. He cleared his throat, and swam back to the deck.

‘I’m drunk’ was repeated by him all the way to the the place he threw his clothes off, shaking his head at the thought that he was so close to kissing her. He looked back to her direction in the lake, still staring at him. He focused back on the ties of his shorts, and made his way back to the Kelce’s house.

He ignored his best friends calls.

. . .

(Y/N) never really liked school, but she loved the after-activity that she got herself in.

Like cheerleading.

She used to think of the sport as something quirky, but in truth, once she was accepted into the school’s cheerleading team, she had never been more into a sport than before.

She walked down the field to the other side of the track where the other girls were waiting for her. Her training skirt flew slightly from the wind, and she was trying to hold them down all while carrying the water bottle and a duffle bag.

She exchanged a few greetings with her other friends, putting down her duffle bag and her water bottle. The sun was scorching hot, and all she felt like was eating ice cream inside of their boat whilst streaming down the lake, but the last time she had ditched cheer practice, it hadn’t ended well.

“Uh-oh,” someone exclaimed behind her. “Big bro is coming.”

(Y/N) looked up to the field, and sure enough Kelce was running towards her in his jersey. (Y/N) sighed, not knowing what she did now that could earn her a lecture from Kelce.

“Hey, I’m bringing a girl home after practice,” he said. “Would you mind getting a ride with someone else?”

She groaned, “Fuck, Kelce, no. You can tell your new scandal to fuck off because I am not getting an Uber to walk back to home.”

“Look, please? You can ask your friends to give you a ride, right? It’s important,” he begged. His eyes were scanning her friends now, obviously trying to find someone who could help his sister, and when he found one, his smile quirked upwards. “Yo, Sarah! Can you drive (Y/N) home after practice?”

Sarah walked towards them, her blonde hair up in a ponytail. She slung her arms around (Y/N)’s shoulders, noting the exasperated expression on her face, and gave Kelce a glare.

“You should let her drive a car if you’re going to bring a girl home after school,” she said. Kelce groaned, knowing the amount of shit he will be getting from the people around him, but he was truly trying to make it right for this new girl.

“Look, I’ll buy y’all anything for a week. Food? Sure. Clothes? Sure.”

Sarah clapped her hands, seemingly excited, and forced (Y/N) to say yes. She wouldn’t mind driving (Y/N) home, because she wanted to catch up with her about some gossip too.

“Fine. But I’m driving my own car tomorrow.”

“Yeah, yeah, whatever,” was all he said before he jogged down to the soccer team.

That evening was hell to (Y/N). She couldn’t get the formation right, the sun was getting hotter and hotter, her hair was sticking out weirdly, and worst of all, she couldn’t stop thinking about yesterday’s event.

He was so, so close to her.

“(Y/N), come on! What’s gotten into you? The top part, again!” The coach yelled, slapping her hands against her lap. There were sweat forming on her forehead, and she was obviously hot and bothered from this whole situation.

But sport was sport. The coach wasn’t going to let today’s training to waste, and she intended for the new number to work.

(Y/N) muttered a soft ‘sorry’ before going back to her position, her heart still thumping at the thought. The cheer started, and her mouth was saying the words, but her brain was somewhere else.

The two guys by her side picked her up by her calf, and she felt the wind gushing out from beside her ears. She was high up in the sky now, throwing one arm upwards and balancing herself on one leg, and it was finally time now, to twirl into the two boys’ arms, but she wasn’t ready. Her mouth didn’t utter any words from the cheer, too focused on the step, and before she could jump back into their arms, she felt herself slipping.

“(Y/N)!” The coach yelled, running towards her by the track. Sarah and the other teammates were surrounding her now, watching as she groaned on the ground painfully, holding onto her arms.

“Okay, I take that as the end of today’s training,” the coach said, sighing. “(Y/N), are you okay? Can you walk?”

(Y/N) held her thumbs up, because she had worse injury than this before. Hell, the boxing fight she used to have with Kelce in their childhood was more painful. She sat up from the track, feeling the heat of the ground burning on her bottoms, and stretched her fingers. The pain coursed through her veins at the feeling, but kinda liked it.

“Come on, let’s get you home,” Sarah said, helping her up. She groaned when she finally stood on her two feet, feeling so painful all she wanted to do was lay back on the track, but she knew she had to go home.

She allowed Sarah helping her limp towards a black Mercedes, her eyes closed the whole time.

Okay, scratch the fight with Kelce. This one was more painful than ever.

“Can I stay at your house?” She blurted when Sarah drove out of the school gate. “I don’t feel like listening to my mom’s lecture about my leg.”

Sarah glanced at her from the rearview mirror, watching as she spread her leg out the whole backseat. The ice bag someone had gotten her was pressed against her calf, and she was sweating from the heat and trying to contain the pain.

“Yes, of course, that would be better,” Sarah said. She had other plans that evening, but helping (Y/N) overstepped all of them.

“So what’s up with you and John B?”

Sarah turned to look at her fully on her face, furrowing her eyebrows. “What do you know about John B?”

(Y/N) laughed, “The light’s green.” Just on cue, the car behind them horned at Sarah, and she quickly pushed on the pedal.

“How do you know about John B?” Sarah asked, biting her lips. If (Y/N) could find out, she couldn’t imagine what would Rafe do if he finds out.

“God, don’t be worried. I’m not going to tell anyone about this, okay? Just relax. I think it’s cute.”

Sarah’s worried expression softened, “You think so?”

“Yeah. At least you got to be with whoever you want. Some people can’t have that.”

Like her. Kelce would kill her and dump her body in the ocean for the sharks if he ever finds out how much she likes Rafe.

“You’ll find the one soon. How about that guy in your maths class?” The car turned to the right, nearing the destination.

“No. I’m not looking for anyone.”

There’s only one, but Sarah won’t like the answer.

The time was 8.23p.m. now, and (Y/N) had been in Sarah’s room for a total of 3 hours. After catching up on new gossips, watched a movie, did her English essay, she felt extremely dehydrated.

Sarah was sleeping peacefully beside her, being so tired after the practice and school, and (Y/N) didn’t feel like waking her up. She have been to The Camerons household, but that was only for Sarah’s birthday party a few years back.

She sighed, getting up from the bed to find the kitchen. The house was like a maze, and she wished they had some kind of a map to browse through.

Alas, she found the kitchen, her muscles screaming from all the wrong turns she took before. She knew where the plastic cups and plates were situated, having to help Sarah get them during her birthday party, so she didn’t have any trouble getting some.

She drank the cold water quickly, feeling the liquid sloshing down her throat. The feeling was so, so good that she wished she could go through it again.

“I do not know where your sister is, Kelce,” a voice sighed not far from the kitchen. “I told you you shouldn’t bring that girl home and just drive (Y/N) home yourself.”

The voice, unmistakably Rafe, was getting nearer and nearer. (Y/N)’s eyes widened, trying to find an empty space to hide in, but there were none. She panicked, still looking for a way out that she didn’t notice the tall figure behind her.

“Oh. Found you.”

His hair was dishevelled and wet, his chest heaving and he was shirtless.

What a nice way to bump onto each other.

“Take a picture,” he started, shutting his phone off and placing them in his shorts. “It’ll last longer that way.”

Now we’re talking about the new Rafe.

(Y/N) scoffed, pushing him away and making a disgusted face at his sweat sticking on her arms. “I’m here for Sarah.”

“Why? Did she die or something?”

God. He really is insufferable.

She made to push him away to return to Sarah’s room, only for him to grab her by her waist.

“Move.” Her tone was stern, but her stomach was flipping wildly. She tried to not look so bothered, but failed miserably.

Rafe seemed to notice her behaviour because he didn’t let go of her. “Come on, where’s the fun in that?”

She was on the same level as his neck now, and he could still smell his expensive cologne even after he swam in the swimming pool. She sighed, placing her hands against his chest.

“Move.”

Rafe laughed, putting his hands up in defeat, and went to grab the same glass she was drinking from. He refilled the glass and downed the content, and (Y/N) had to look away from the innocent move.

Maybe he was just saving water by not using a different cup.

“Do you need help to return to Sarah’s room or something?”

“No, I’m fine,” she refused, and made sure he could see her fake annoyed expression before she returned to the hall she came from. But there were 2 halls now, and she completely forgot which one she had been before.

“Really?” Rafe stood beside her, and she looked up to his amused face. “Because you’re in the wrong hall. It’s the other exit of the kitchen, darling.”

. . .

Why couldn’t she not see his face every single day?

It was truly troubling her, to see that boy everyday, because she couldn’t think properly every time.

The lights from the stadium blared widely, and the deafening screaming coming from both teams’ supporters rang throughout the whole field. (Y/N) was sure the whole island could hear them too.

Two things happened earlier than evening. Number one, her skirt wasn’t completely dried after being sent off to the laundry for a week, and her hair wasn’t just cooperating.

So here she was; in a shorter uniform skirt, her hair hung up into a ponytail with lots of hairspray. She wished for nothing but to be all cuddled up with her blanket in her room.

“You’re okay?” Sarah asked. She fixed (Y/N)’s lips gently, getting the lipstick and lipliner even, and gave her a kiss on the cheeks. “Don’t worry about the skirt. It looks normal.”

For a little girl.

(Y/N) sighed and involuntarily pulled down the hem of her skirt. Ten minutes from the game now, and she was nervous she would flash everyone on the school compound.

In the locker room, Rafe was sitting right next to Kelce as his best friend prayed for a win tonight. He was never that religious, and he didn’t feel the need to mutter a prayer to anyone. But tonight, he listened intently to whatever Kelce was saying because he needed to win this cup more than anything in the world.

“You’re okay?” The coach asked, patting him on the shoulder.

“Yeah. Just nervous.”

“Don’t be, you’re the Star Player. Right?”

The Star Player.

Rafe gave him a smile, and went back to his praying.

When he first entered the field to meet the rival team, his eyes couldn’t help but scanned the bleachers to find his dad. Ward wasn’t there, but Rose and Wheezie were cheering for him.

Of course.

He sighed, and went straight to the middle of the field. It’s funny how everyone was there to support him, Rafe, the Star Player, the jock, the whatever else people were saying about him.

He just wanted Ward to see him.

“Come on, man, it’s fine,” Topper said, patting his back. “He’ll come later.”

Even his friends could see how miserable he was feeling.

The first match of the game went smoothly; he scored a try goal, everyone was cheering loudly, but it was just then that one of the opponents came knocking Rafe by his side.

Rafe fell to the ground with a loud thud, earning so many gasps from the stand.

“What the fuck?!” Topper pushed whoever responsible for his fall, and the sound of a whistle rang throughout the air. “He pushed him for nothing! You saw it, fuck!”

Rafe groaned on the ground, clutching onto his arms, and he tried to spread his fingers, but couldn’t. His other teammates were surrounding him now, trying to get a good look of him, all while Topper and Kelce and another friend of his went off to the referee.

Rafe put his other hand up, trying to sit up. “I’m fine, I’m fine! Move!”

The other members scattered away, sighing in relief when Rafe came back to his legs. The referee, still getting yelled at by Topper, shook his head at something he said, and before anyone could process what happened, Topper tackled the opponent who had pushed Rafe down to the ground.

Kelce pulled Topper away after a few long seconds, telling him to stop. But one thing about Topper is that he just won’t stop.

“Stupid fuck!” He yelled, throwing another punch.

“Topper, stop, they’re going to throw you off the field!” Kelce yelled. Finally, he separated them away after the opponent’s friend pulled his injured friend away.

The referee, expectedly, pulled a red card to Topper, earning a groan coming from their coach and the stand. Rafe cursed, knowing that Topper’s one of their strongest member. He watched as Topper tried to argue with the referee, but it was no use.

“It’s okay,” Kelce said, patting his back as he made his way back to the bench. “Relax, bro, okay?” Topper calmed down after the coach said something to him, but Rafe could clearly see the distress written on his face.

“You’re okay?” Kelce asked, pointing to his arms.

Rafe could move his muscles now though he could feel the sharp pain from doing so. But he was too content on winning this game.

(Y/N) watched as the second match unfold, her teeth biting into her lips in fear. She didn’t feel like having the next week full of gloomy students and disappointed teachers, so she wanted the cup as much as everyone else.

Rafe was fast, throwing the ball smoothly back and forth with Kelce and his other friends, but it was apparent that the Star Player wasn’t feeling like himself.

It might be the arm, or the fact that Ward Cameron was too busy with his work to see his son playing.

37 minutes had passed, and the other team was leading. They only had 3 minutes left, and with the team being so drained out and their captain with a broken arm, it was clear who was winning.

The whistle blared through the field again, noting the end of the match. As the other team supporters cheered happily the other side of the stands muttered silently to each other about the game.

(Y/N) watched as Rafe yelled something at his teammates angrily before storming off to the locker room. He winced in pain, holding his arm for support, and ignored every calls from his friends as he made his way to the empty room.

Looking around quickly, she muttered a ‘be right back’ to Sarah, and quickly followed Rafe into the locker room. She wanted to see if he was okay, and if he needed help with his arm.

In truth, she just wanted to be there for him.

“Hey,” she slowly said, and Rafe’s head perked up to see her before he looked down to the ground again.

“What do you want?”

She felt a struck of pain across her heart at his tone, but decided against it. “Are you okay?”

“Fine. You’re not supposed to be here.”

“I was just trying to see if you need anything,” she said, and when his eyes finally looked up to her again, she unconsciously pulled her skirt down again.

“Yeah? I don’t need anything. Go!”

“Wow, you’re a dick,” she scoffed, and before Rafe could mutter anything back, she exited the locker room and straight to the cheer team. She felt a mixture of anger and embarrassment all at once, because God, Rafe Cameron did not just yell at her for trying to be nice.

She should’ve known better than to be ‘nice’ to him. He wasn’t the same 8 year old she met 10 years ago.

. . .

A week had passed from the game, and everything went back to normal.

Except for one person.

Rafe didn’t come to school the next Monday, not that (Y/N) wanted to see him after getting yelled at, but she couldn’t help but feel sorry for him.

He didn’t just broke his arm; his father also chose not to attend his game.

It was finally Friday, and (Y/N) was too happy to stay home and continue watching Love Island. Life is better when you are focused on someone else’s relationship other than yours.

She was rolling in her bed, casually smiling at the cheesy joke made by one of the contestant, and before she could hear the reply towards the joke, the doorbell blared throughout the house.

(Y/N) groaned, thinking how Kelce must’ve forgotten his keys again, and waited a few more minutes so that he would just leave her alone and go to that stupid prick, Rafe Cameron’s house.

But the doorbell rang again, and she had no choice but to open the door. She was all alone in the big house, having both her parents still working and her maids having the day off.

But when she opened the door, the boy standing before her was the last person she wanted to see.

“Hi,” Rafe said.

“Kelce’s not here,” she mumbled, and pushed the door close. Rafe’s quickly put his hands to block the door from closing, and (Y/N) pulled away after deciding not to crush his other only working hands.

“What?” She asked, in the same tone that he had given her in the locker room. She felt good when his eyebrows were raised.

“I’m here for you.”

“Why? Did I die or something?” Bingo.

“God, you’re impossible,” Rafe sighed. “Can I talk to you? Just us two?”

(Y/N) sighed, wanting to get this done, and opened the door wider to grant him into her home. (Y/N) closed the door and pressed her back against it, crossing her arms.

“Okay. Talk.”

“Look, I’m sorry, okay?” He said. “I was just so angry with everything. I was pushed and Topper received a red card because of me—”

“You didn’t do anything, Rafe.”

“Yeah, but he was just trying to protect me. And, and I was just so mad at myself because I couldn’t play properly like I usually play. I’m so sorry for yelling at you. I didn’t mean it.”

(Y/N) sighed, “It’s okay. I’m over it.”

“Really?” He stepped closer, and this time, (Y/N) allowed him. “Thank you so much!”

He pulled her into a crushing hug, and before she could put her mind into it, he lifted her up and spin her around.

“Okay, okay, now you’re just pushing it,” she groaned, hitting him on his chest. “Put me down, Rafe, I swear to god.”

Rafe put her down, his face shining happily. They were close again, like that time in the lake, and (Y/N) didn’t feel like pushing him away again.

Because maybe, that 8 year old him was somewhere in there.

“Uh—” he looked away, scratching the back of his head. “Do you wanna. . . watch Netflix?”

(Y/N) cleared her throat, “I was watching Love Island. Wanna watch with me?”

Rafe nodded, anything to get closer with this girl, and followed her upstairs to her room. The first time he entered her room was 9 years ago, and it was only because Topper and Kelce had pranked him into thinking that her room was the gaming room.

“What are you doing?” The girl before him yelled, and before he could explain how he was lied to, she threw a pink hairbrush at him. He groaned from the pain, rubbing his head.

“I’m sorry, I thought this was the gaming room!”

“Out!” She yelled, and he quickly obliged.

Her room was still pink, but it was now filled with so many books, clothes and makeups instead of the dollhouse and toys he saw a few years ago.

“Is this the pink hairbrush you threw at me?” He laughed, holding the pink tool. (Y/N) snatched the hairbrush, embarrassed, and quickly stuffed them into the drawers.

He placed himself beside her on her bed, watching her as she resumed the video. He focused on the show, trying to find at least something interesting from the show, but there was nothing.

2 episodes later, he was too into the show that he pressed on the stop button before they could continue on the next episode.

“I wish they would just communicate,” he said. “Like the whole show’s pointless. They didn’t try to talk to each other about their problems.”

“Yeah, that’s what makes the show interesting, Rafe,” she said as if that was a fact, “And besides, if they communicate, everyone will win the show.”

“Then that’s just good. A win-win situation.”

“You don’t get it,” she groaned, looking into his face. “There’s no use in fighting with you about this.”

She pressed on the resume button again, and instantly, Rafe pressed on the stop button.

“Rafe, I will—”

“You still haven’t apologised for throwing the hairbrush at me.”

She widened her eyes, “That was 9 years ago.”

“And?”

“Fine,” she placed her laptop aside, and turned to fully look him in the face. “Sorry.”

“Not sincere enough.”

She groaned, “Rafe, I am terribly sorry for throwing my pink hairbrush at you. I am so sorry that it hit your face and be the reason why you’re still holding vengeance at someone.”

“I’m not talking about that kind of sorry.”

“Fuck, you’re annoying,” she said. “I’m not going to bow down to you or anything.”

“Just a kiss.”

She looked at him back, her heart stopping at his words. “No.”

“Why?”

“Why? Because you’re Rafe?”

“Rafe? Okay, fine. I’m not Rafe. I’m Rafael.”

“Okay, it’s still a no. You’re Kelce’s best friend.”

“Didn’t you kiss Topper last year?”

“That was a dare—” she sighed. “And it didn’t mean anything.”

“Exactly. This won’t mean anything. This is just a sorry.”

It would mean everything to her to place her lips against his.

“This is sexual harassment.”

“Not if you want it too,” he said, and leaned closer to her. “And you do want it, right? I can see it in your eyes.”

She didn’t know why God would put her and Rafe in this damn position over and over again, because it wasn’t helping her to get over him.

She looked down to his lips, and how it was so inviting, and she wanted more than anything to kiss him, to finally give herself to him, but she was afraid.

“Rafe—”

“Shut up,” he cut her off, and pressed himself against her. Their kiss was slow and passionate, none like neither (Y/N) or Rafe had experienced before. Her hands found themselves wrapping around Rafe’s neck, pulling him closer.

He pulled away, grinning. “I thought you didn’t want this.”

“Shut up.” She rolled her eyes, and pulled him in for another kiss again.

He pushed her down onto the bed gently, still kissing her, and his hands were roaming down her body. She was so, so perfect and every time he saw her, he would have to look away to stop the unwanted thoughts forming in his head.

During the game last Friday, he had to pinch himself from staring at her legs in that goddamn skirt for too long.

“Fuck, you’re perfect,” he whispered, and she hummed in response before pushing him over so she could take control. She sat on top of him, grinning widely. She was in heaven; seeing him all worked up under her with his chest heaving.

“You would be surprised at the amount of times I imagined myself on top of you like this,” she said, placing her hands flat on top of his chest.

Rafe grinned back, trying to contain his feelings. “Yeah? Wanna show what else you’ve been imagining?”

She leaned closer, making sure to brush her bottom against him and hearing his soft groans. She placed a soft kiss against his cheek, and whispered into his ear.

“Would rather have you show what you’ve been dreaming of me.”

Rafe licked his lips, loving this side of her, and he wanted more than anything to make her his. She looked so innocent sitting there on top of him, smiling and biting her lips.

Before he could touch her in ways he never did to a girl before, a voice rang from outside the room.

“(Y/N)? Have you seen Rafe? I saw his car outside,” the voice said. After a few seconds of silence, he sighed. “You’re okay? I’m coming in, okay?”

“No, no, wait!” (Y/N) shouted, scrambling from her position on top of Rafe as he quickly pulled her up, but it was too late.

Kelce saw them in the midst of trying to get away, with his sister’s leg on one side of his best friend and his best friend’s hands still around his sister’s waist.

“What. The. Fuck.”

-

@okayshoto @joselyn001 @onceuponateenagetrash @dyingsleeping @iwannabeapogue @meaganjm @rafesobxs @flossy2929 @unfortunatekiwitrash @scottybitch @asimpwriter @amaya124 @tommy-tommo @thatshithurted8 @fallincindy @marvelwhor3 @rafeswh0ree @kookap @supernaturallydc-blog @blank-velvet @alaniskauany @kiiim8 @witchywrter @kaitlyn2907 @heyimflo @overcookedpastasause @tsukkiswifeey @spidey-d00d @anonymousobxfan @gotmeinloveagain @chicagoblackhawkslover96 @lexi-writes @classydragonthingknight @belongtoyou-u @badbussylol @savannah-elliott @angelreyesgirl100 @haterpenny @beehappyyy @alwaysclassyeagle @maybankslut @kayleea122 @clearbolts @lovelyxtom @christianaevans @jemimah-b99 @opierdalacz @dangerdolns @wildflowerliv @classygirlything21 @pogueslandia 

[sugar-petals]

SuperM Fluff & NSFW Notes

↳ 🌹aka some of their romantic antics plus random 18+ imagines 👋

warnings ⚠️ rated (super) m, boyfriends hc, porn mentions, partial fem!reader, sex toys

FLUFF

since baekhyun knows how to make scented candles, he creates one for you as a birthday present with your favorite fragrances.

every entry in mark’s diary involves fond thoughts about you.

taemin kisses you more than his cat kkoongie on a daily basis so let that sink in. his smooch obsession is getting out of hand.

lucas, having giant fingers after all, learns how to knit in order to make you a warm scarf. he’s still a bit clumsy with it and had to call kun for advice, but the result is surprisingly proper and quickly becomes your favorite item. it’s a little huge but well, he thinks in his dimensions. lucas’ next project is a beanie.

ten overwhelms you with pet names. in fact, he seemingly seems to come up with a new one each day.

kai is a candlelight dinner, rose petals and music kinda guy. he does every old-school thing in the book.

taeyong can cuddle endlessly in bed. he just doesn’t wanna leave.

lucas gladly shares his sweaters. they’re ginormous so, perfect cuddle material.

baekhyun is already a fool. so — when he falls in love, he becomes an even bigger fool. or, the contrary happens: he becomes dead silent around his partner because he’s so enthralled. he can take this more seriously than you think.

mark likes to write little cards and many many texts to express his love.

lucas is the type who can help you put on your jeans when they were shrinking a bit too much in the dryer. he’s pretty sexy like that and things can get really touchy.

cheesy fucking kai, and there’s only one guy who would do this, has actually lowered himself over a puddle once so you would have a bridge. brushed it off like a daily workout rep.

not one shower missed without baekhyun joining you. yes, it’s not always sexy time, he likes it when you shampoo his hair and whisper sweet nothings. and obviously: it’ll all devolve to a laughing fit.

taeyong is the type who wants to be proposed to.

taemin will get a motorcycle license and take you for a frequent ride. he loves getting those kind of back hugs.

both ten and lucas are great at making bracelets. wayv’s dorm is fully equipped with charms, strings, and pearls, so expect matching ones for you.

we’ve seen it, that one’s his favorite move. kai wraps his hand around your shoulder when you walk together.

mark will ALWAYS share his melon.

making you swoon on a DVD evening is lucas’ favorite hobby. he will buy you the most sugary-sweet romance movies. he will often browse streaming sites to select the latest sentimental plots. all these dramas seem to have a male lead who is suspiciously tall and lanky.

if you allow him, taeyong customizes your white tees with his cute drawings.

since taemin swims in money thanks to his profession as the god of kpop (yes, this is a registered job name because i say so), he can fulfill you any wish. he’s stingy and pouty when the shinee hyungs can pay, and the motherfucker baekhyun is even richer since his albums have been taking off so he opens his mochi wallet when superm is gathered, but you... are a different case. taemin will humbly empty his entire pockets when he overhears you gushing over something. there’s a voice in his mind going: must splurge!!

mark loves christmas, you establish an annual tradition to stage a whole couple evening.

baekhyun likes to play charades and especially do karaoke with you. he’s always cutely wiggling his butt and dances like a drunk uncle. he hits the high notes anyway and makes sure you score 100 points.

taeyong can make out with you while at the same time making sure that the milk doesn’t get burned on the stove. kiss’n’stirr multitask tyong alert. gotta make sure the cocoa is served in time, you know.

all the members enjoy playing board games. yep, imagine the fun and sheer chaos.

lucas has the funniest laugh ever indeed. he’ll react to all your jokes, no matter how lame they might be. intensely reassuring.

taemin’s hand is basically glued to yours.

taeyong and mark are the kinds of boyfriends that spoil their partner with skincare. fancy a nice face massage with a nice fragrant oil?

baekhyun has been baking heart-shaped pizzas ever since you started dating. he just can’t make them round anymore.

mark will join you on anything you’re currently bingewatching. 

kai sometimes — only half-jokingly — goes down on both knees bowing forward with his hands on the ground just to show how much he wants to thank you. in case you didn’t notice: this guy treats you like a deity.

ten usually gets confused glances from the other members whenever he gets the current date wrong: he simply loses track of time with you.

lucas makes a habit of buying you flowers every other week. but on unpredictable occasions, and he arranges them in places you’d never expect.

taemin will build you a weird-looking snowman to make you laugh, and give it an even stranger name. ten will build one that looks like you. kai doesn’t build snowmen, he just stands there challenging you to throw snow balls at him.

mark will hang out with you at the beach constantly bringing his guitar. he’ll serenade you all the time.

returning from three months of touring, baekhyun has once climbed your balcony when your parents were in the other room. yep, he was that desperate to see you. somebody give this man a rope and helmet.

taeyong writes down heartfelt confessions on 365 folded slips of paper so you can open one every day. your reactions will range from ‘awwh!’ to straight-up tears.

ten does regular couple yoga with you. a mildly challenging form, not the circus acrobat version. he’ll do the difficult parts anyway. you can pretzel this guy up, he’ll do anything to make you laugh.

when it rains you hook your arm around his, and lucas always holds the umbrella. even the wildest gush of wind can’t make it turn inside out. you arrive home entirely dry. xuxi is so cute, he’s also a great source of cooling shadow in the summer without even trying.

taemin’s skinship overdrive doesn’t stop with endless hand-holding, back hugs and kisses. he wants to lay down in your lap whenever he can. he looks damn pretty with his hair splaying there. if you work on your laptop, you can pretty much count to ten and he’s already nestled there.

kai does pushups with you on his back. it’s a staple. each time he does one, he says ‘i love you’. he increases his count every day.

NSFW

it’s no secret that taeyong is great at acting or pulling off any outfit and costume. expect roleplay of the finest kind — literally. he looks good in a firefighter uniform. you’ll be burning up pretty much automatically.

taemin can’t keep his tongue in. it’s terrible. he’s always in the mood for head. his sloppy noises are the absolute worst, it turns you on way too fast.

lucas had some major problems finding condoms that fit him.

ten and taemin are so switchy, they have an unresolved power struggle going on. begs for a dominant third party to help them out.

kai owns expensive latex gear.

baekhyun may be the king of vocals and breath technique, but if you push him far enough he does get hoarse.

taemin often jokes how kai will one day break his dick from fucking too hard.

meanwhile, mark’s dick is already falling off – from fucking too often. this guy has some major hormones going for him. no surprise, a guy who can promote in four kpop groups at the same time is a stamina king.

taeyong likes eating pussy with another party involved. three’s a crowd my friend. sometimes it’s taemin who unleashes his spit waterfall power, sometimes it’s baekhyun who preoccupies himself with nibbling at the inner thigh while taeyong digs in.

taemin owns the most underwear.

mark takes valerian drops because he is so nervous in bed. it never really goes away, it’s his nature.

taeyong keeps a lube collection. a different flavor for all occasions. he likes associating certain scents with specific body parts.

kai has a heels kink. he literally goes wild over it.

taemin likes to have sex with favorite glasses on.

taeyong and kai are the most likely to cry during sex. baekhyun as well if you rough him up enough. 

mark gets rock hard the fastest, followed by kai. he’s a grower.

taeyong gets the best inspiration for a song when he gets a casual dick riding.

taemin watches extremely x-rated erotic thrillers and bdsm flicks that are heavy on the plot. he gets more invested in the characters and actors than you think. since his japanese is amazing? of course he also owns a giant 90s hentai collection. 

when he’s jerking off, baekhyun chokes himself. a) because he’d make too much noise otherwise and b) because asphyxiation is his favorite thing.

kai feels pleasure in his every cell. he cums the hardest. and, as you can expect, his body expresses it the most extremely, accurately, passionately. if you’ve seen it even once, you’ll never look at him the same again.

taemin has less experience than his discography claims, but more than you’d think. he researches sexual techniques as well. you can brace yourself.

mark has not just a tiger inside, but a freak inside, waiting to be unleashed.

sex while gaming is a go-to activity for baekhyun.

lucas has the best stamina when it comes to getting head.

taemin throws his head back during sex. and no, he doesn’t T-pose. i’m kidding — of course he does. but only when he’s on his back.

taeyong tends to grip a pillow when he cums.

or he humps one when he’s by himself.

ten has the best taste in sexy time playlists.

baekhyun has the best taste in singing his own playlist along.

oh, the things kai has bought at a gas station at 3AM.

baekhyun sucks strap the best. he can open his mouth the widest, drools a lot, and makes the best noises unsurprisingly.

how to turn on lee taemin? he likes getting slapped.

since he’s the most avid and most diverse eater, lucas’ sperm tastes the best. he’s shove 50 fruits into his system just to give you a sweet experience.

mark is absolutely a starfish. 

kai wears fishnet tops if you fancy it.

curiously, baekhyun out of all people doesn’t announce when he’s cumming. you’ll hear it, though.

taeyong’s dildo collection is one for the books.

taemin has visited a pro dominatrix a couple times. needless to say, he was the #1 favorite client at the dungeon. having fully submerged into a fantasy world, taemin was one whip crack away from falling in love with the mistress. but then covid happened and the venue closed.

mark’s dick looks really pretty.

taemin can grind on the strap at every humanly possible angle. he’s almost always ready to take it. he carries a prep kit.

kai — that fucker — knows how to make you wet the most with his bare hands. prepare for the thigh ride of your life, too.

taeyong, baekhyun, and taemin have the best arches. kai is coming for the top three as well. ten’s arch is so good, it can’t be considered one anymore.

baekhyun knows every adult movie out there. theoretically, nothing can shock him. in reality, he melts in your hands.

taeyong is so sexually active with you, he has quit eating garlic.

kai will exploit your muscle kink in any way he can.

taemin, being a devil, has that one button on his phone that he can press when you go out for dinner. he’s OBSESSED with getting you off. once you head home, it’s basically running down your thighs.

ten has once opened a condom with scissors to scare away a date that grew weird on him by the time it got to the do.

lucas is too tall for doing missionary normally.

this will surprise nobody: mark is great at constantly keeping up the dirty talk.

baekhyun’s car is sort of like a brothel on wheels. he can’t count how many times he got down and dirty in there. he cleans it all up by himself.

kai can technically grip you the hardest but he’s the gentlest and great at caressing the whole body.

taemin has the easiest time saying what precisely he wants. he is also the best people reader — most your wishes he can pretty intuit. taemin observes your interests well.

ten likes his hair pulled and makes angelic noises when you do so.

baekhyun likes camgirls and erotic chats with strangers online. he spends a lot of money for nsfw internet encounters.

[idontknowmyownmind]

Fanfic ideas which are obviously Mammon centric. I never include MC because I'm not that fond of a story that has oc as it's main character.

An effective old curse(?)

There is an old curse that will kill a demon if it is planted on them. To use it, they need a lot of sacrifice (not souls or any of that kind) that is really hard to get because the curse will 100% work. When you have already collected all the important things, the curse can be sent like a voodoo thing and the target will not realize it until the next day. It started with some kind of mark on their wrist and it began to travel to their body. Depending on how long the sender wants it to completely work, the curse will spread at a certain pace a day.

Someone who got this curse will slowly but gradually will started to feels tired fast and lost their senses. Before the day they are supposed to die, they will become an unresponsive person. Not paralized type but more like someone who lose all their senses type.

So, there is a witch who wants revenge on Lucifer by sending the curse. But unfortunately the curse got sent to Mammon instead. On the first day, he doesn't even know about it. He found out about the mark on the second day when it already covered his right lower arm. But Mammon being Mammon doesn't think much about it and doesn't know what it means.

Mammon knew about the curse two days after. He and his brothers are having a movie night, something that happens once in millenials. The rowdy type, Mammon, Asmo, and Levi, have their little quarrel. Asmo tried to attack Mammon with a pillow but slipped and pulled Mammon's top, exposing his right arm.

The other brothers who happen to look also don't know about it and asked Mammon if he got tattoos. But Mammon just looks at the mark confused and says bewilderedly that he is not and this mark just appears out of nowhere. He swears it was just covering his lower arm but how it suddenly covers his right arm, he doesn't know.

Lucifer is the only one who knows about the curse and how to recognize it. So he is surprised and dread following after when he looks at the marks on Mammon's right arm. He suddenly in front of him, startled not just Mammon but also the others, and grabbed Mammon's arm and inspected it. There is no doubt that it is that curse.

Apparently he grabbed it too tightly because Mammon started to complain and said that if he is angry because he thinks it's tattoos, he swears that it is not. But Lucifer ignored him and said that they needed to see Barbatos in a clipped tone. Still not letting Mammon go but loosen his grasp.

(Let's say that Barbatos is a master of curse.)

"Wow, wow. I don't think we need to, it's just weird marks. I'm sure it's gonna gone before I know it"

Lucifer hissed and glared at him. But not like his angry one, there is something else in his eyes, tone and body languages, something urgent and unreadable.

"Don't you know what this mark means?! You're gonna die!"

"Huh?" Mammon's brain shut down and his face was blank.

The other looked shocked. Asmo tried to laugh it off, saying that Lucifer was just joking. But when Lucifer doesn't react and is still in a staring contest with Mammon, his smile drops and fear begins to creep on him.

Series of activities happened and they are on their way to the castle. Lucifer began to intrograte Mammon and got little to nothing important information because Mammon himself doesn't even know a single thing.

The brothers also ask questions and Lucifer answers as far as he knows. Fear envelopes everyone while Mammon tries to joke to light up the atmosphere but gets an angry yet worried death glare from his brothers that shut him up.

When they arrive and explain what they knew, they get the heart breaking news that there is no way to lift the curse.

Some ruckus happens and they decide to find a way to lift it with the help of Barbatos and Diavolo. The curse spread faster than they imagined and on day five it almost covered all his upper body.

In those days, Lucifer, despite wanting to spend his last time with Mammon, just can't stop his research because every second matters.

Satan who usually would rather somewhere else than with just Lucifer always by his side to help.

Asmo and Levi make sure to always have Mammon in sight.

The twins always find time to cuddle Mammon.

Mammon was scared but also frustrated with his brothers. He tried to reason that they don't need to neglect themselves just for him, which got them mad, saying that he is more important that got him speechless.

He just let that happen but even he knows that it will be futile.

The possibilities are endless and I'm not sure where and how I want it to end. But one thing for sure is, in the end Mammon died.

Kind of like a sleeping beauty AU

• The brothers are currently at the party hosted by Diavolo

• After some time, Mammon came to the garden.

• In the garden are Levi and Satan who start to feel suffocated inside with all the social shits.

• With Mammon there, surely it's not gonna be a silent situation.

• He teases, argues a little and does things older siblings would do to their little ones.

• As you know Mammon is the fastest demon, and it seems that even Diavolo and Lucifer won't be able to catch up with him if he wants to.

• Mammon is secretly protective with his brothers, yes it includes Lucifer.

• He senses some malicious intent toward one of his lil bros.

• (My hc) Some of Mammon's power is about time. He's the fastest and he also can manipulate time and make it slower or faster w/o others notice, which is handy most of the time.

• He makes sure to use his power in a small radius, not too far to notice Lucifer or Diavolo but enough to prevent anything that may happen to his lil bros.

• Faster than they can blink, Mammon pushes Levi away.

• Levi yelped and Satan was also shocked by the sudden harsh action. It seemed like Mammon used a little bit more strength than intended.

• Levi looked up angrily from where he pushed off and was ready to throw some harsh words toward Mammon.

• All the words died in his mouth when he watched Mammon crunch down, arms hugging himself, with two arrows stuck in his back.

• He whimpered and hissed in pain when the arrows seemed to glow and disappear in every second along with weird and old looking sigils starting to appear on his body.

• Without a second thought Satan throws the book he's been reading and kneels beside his brother.

• He tries to call him but Mammon ignores everything. He also tried to take the arrows but couldn't and tried to solve what the sigils mean but it's the first time he saw something like this.

• Levi who kneels in front of Mammon tries to make him focus on him but to no avail Mammon's eyes just keep being between focus and unfocus.

• When the arrows completely disappear, the sigils glow a little as if sealing something in before disappearing completely and Mammon slump toward Levi.

• One thing imprinted on Levi's brain is how he saw a completely pure fear in Mammon's eyes before they turned dull.

• Levi froze in his place and when he snapped out of his daze, Satan was already cradling Mammon's lifeless body.

• Satan had Mammon's head pressed on his chest and that's when Levi saw how his usually lively and energetic brother looked like a soulless doll.

• His body looks like a doll that has no string to keep them up and his eyes are dull and lifeless.

• "Levi!"

• Levi looked at Satan who looked at him with apparent fear in his eyes and startled a little because right now, Satan looks like an innocent little kid who doesn't know what to do.

• Although he may be one of the smartest among the brothers and the fourth strongest, he is still the youngest of the brothers.

• "Levi, do something."

• He must be crazy because Levi can hear a hidden plea in his tone.

• It's slow but when Levi finally catches up with the situation, that he should be the one who is in Mammon's position and his brother just saved his life, fear and a sheer terror rush to him at full speed.

• He is afraid for his brother's life, afraid that he may lose him, that because of him he'll never be able to see his idiot but lovable brother anymore.

• He starts to shake Mammon awake, do anything he can, shouthing, but he won't bugger even a little. The only movement of him is the sway of his hair because of the wind.

• Levi doesn't know since when he clutched Mammon's shirt and pressed his forehead on Mammon's chest whilst he cried and shouted incoherent sentences in hope Mammon would wake up and laugh, telling him that it was just a prank.

• For the first time since millennials Satan felt lost.

• He always pride his knowledge but right now he feels useless because he just can watch when his brother suffers, died, in front of him.

• Hearing Levi crying and calling for Mammon, Satan couldn't hold his own tears as they began to stream down his cheek while he tightened his hold on his dear brother.

• It seems that their ruckus attracted some demons who were near the garden and they were smart enough to call their other brothers.

• Satan is silently glad because he swears he will tear them apart in anger if they just stand around and watch while they don't even know what is happening.

• In his mind, he vaguely knows that he needs to get the others but he doesn't want to leave Mammon's side. He's afraid that if he lets him go he will disappear forever and it looks like Levi is not doing any better.

• So they just wait and try to wake Mammon or just think, as much as their hazy mind can, what just happened and what they can and need to do.

• When one of the demons in the party comes to Lucifer, he doesn't really pay them any mind.

• He thinks that they may want to talk with Diavolo or Barbatos like the others before.

• Lucifer and his brothers have been Diavolo's companions since the middle of the party.

• What he didn't, never, expected is the demon talk, inform him that his brothers in the garden make some ruckus.

• When he heard the word white haired brother, the first thing he thought was how Mammon caused trouble again, in Diavolo's party no less. He felt irritated.

• But it melted away quickly as it came when he heard what was said after.

• Two of his brothers, Levi and Satan, weeping, shouting something while crying. Satan.

• And how they hold Mammon because something happened to him.

• He didn't hear what was said next because in a second he was already on his feet and hurriedly walked to the garden.

• There is foreign feeling in his chest and he registers it as fear, he feels his stomach drop.

• His mind ran miles for what had possibly happened.

• It better not be some kind of prank or he's gonna be mad.

• The other brothers, Beel wake Belphie when he senses that something is wrong, along with Diavolo and Barbatos who also hear the conversation following him.

• What they saw in the garden is an unexpected thing, something they thought would never happen.

• When Satan sensed someone closer, he held Mammon closer protectively and snarl at them.

• For the first time he is relieved a little when he sees his brothers, Diavolo and Barbatos.

• With tears still streaming down, he looks at Lucifer and says, "Lucifer, wake him. Wake Mammy, please"

• Mammy is Satan's nickname for Mammon, the only brother who he gave an affectionate nickname to, because he's the one who took care of him the most back then.

• Lucifer is trying his hardest to compose himself because he needs to keep strong for his brothers.

• Asmo went to Levi the moment he arrived and sowed tears when he saw Mammon lifeless eyes.

• He tried to call him, shakily, but got no response.

• He almost went into hysteria seeing his brother state.

• While Lucifer checks on Mammon, Asmo hugs Levi who keeps muttering that it was his fault and how it should be him in Mammon's place.

• Beel and Belphie tried to calm Satan.

• They don't cry but Beel looks close to losing it while Belphie tries to stay strong for his twin too.

• Lucifer's heart clenched painfully when he held his, first, baby brother in his arms, lifeless. It brings back all the bad memories of the past.

• Not a minute after arriving and assessing the situation, Diavolo commanded Barbatos to have all the guests come home.

• Diavolo always admired Lucifer for his calm and collected composure.

• But right now, he can see him slowly losing it the longer he holds Mammon.

• Diavolo knows, everyone knows, despite the fact that he equally loves all his brothers, he always has a special spot for Mammon, the second eldest.

• (Skip because I don't know what else I should write in this scene.)

• After Satan explains everything, they begin to investigate the current case.

• Satan may look fine but he drowns himself in books, something that has something to do with sigils and spells, more.

• Levi rarely went to his room and always stayed in Mammon's room. He may as well stay there with how many things he keeps bringing.

• Lucifer locked himself in his room and just went out to the castle to discuss it with Diavolo and Barbatos.

• Belphie, Beel and Asmo tried to help as much as they could.

• Mammon was laid down in his bed like a sleeping beauty.

• They found out that some demons/witches, for whatever reason, were targeting Levi but Mammon took the blow instead.

• The arrows were covered not only by some spells but also sigils.

• What makes it complicated is, the spells and sigils are the really old, complicated and strong ones.

• The ones that existed when Diavolo was a child.

• The fastest way to get rid of it is to wake the Demon King from his hibernate slumber.

• But they can't do that without any risks for the three realms.

• They need to solve it by themselves.

• It takes them hundreds of years (because I think thousands of years is too long... or maybe not?) to figure it out. The brothers, despite their resolve, didn't function really well. They are determined to wake Mammon but there are also times when it's too much for them.

• In all that time, Mammon was shackled down with holly chains to his knee in a dark void with water reaching his waist. Obviously when he wakes up later, his mind will not be in the best place and will be hard to fix.

• When they finally figure it out, Mammon doesn't immediately wake up and the brothers keep searching for what might be wrong.

• What they don't know is that awakening is a slow process. First, he's going to start to be aware of what is happening around him in his sleeping state. Then his senses will start to function again. And he will start to move his body.

• No one beside him, as they focus on what they can fix, for two weeks and in those weeks he almost regains all his senses and moves his body almost fully. He was still sluggish and trembling like a newborn deer but he got there.

• The first one who finds him is Levi. He walks in and throws himself on the sofa, unaware of eyes trailing his every move.

• Mammon is still skeptical if it's a reality or just something his mind keeps making up in his loneliness at that place.

• But when he is sure it's real, he brave himself to joke about how tired Levi looks.

• Levi looks startled and actually jumps on his feet. There is no way he's gonna mistake those voices, a bit scratchy for not being used for so long but definitely it belongs to Mammon.

• He stood there and stared at Mammon with wide eyes while the latter waved and smiled awkwardly, "well, it's nice to finally be back?"

• Levi's lips began to tremble and tears flowed freely from his eyes. Mammon who was sitting on the edge of the bed panicked and worried as to why his brother suddenly cried and looked pained.

• Without a second thought and ignoring how his body aches, he slowly but surely made his way to Levi and brought him to his embrace to comfort him.

• He is confused and doesn't know what to do when Levi starts to cry harder and hug him as if his lifeline depends on him.

• He spoke incoherently. And when Mammon heard something about that it should be him in his position, Mammon forced him to look him in the eye. Firmly and seriously, he said that what happened was not his fault and he did it of his own will and will do it many times for his brothers if he needs to.

• Levi laugh weetly and burried his face on Mammon's chest, still hugging him, and called him stupid. Mammon just says that it was because he is the great Mammon after all, boastful and laugh loud and clear.

• Levi missed this. So he let himself in Mammon embrace while the latter rubbing his back and caressing his hair gently.

• After some moments of bliss, Mammon states that he thinks he needs to see the others, especially Satan as he was also the one there when everything happened to him.

• They decide to come out when it's dinner to surprise the others.

• They rarely eat together again because it's not the same but this time the brothers manage to find time.

• While waiting for dinner, they talk about many things but not once talking about what happened and where Mammon might be. They talk and talk, sometimes just sitting there basking in a comfortable silence, like nothing ever happened.

• At that moment Levi realized something, every brother of his has their own role in this dysfunctional family. All of them are glue but Mammon is the strongest glue that holds them together.

• It's time for dinner and they walk downstairs to the dining room. Levi talk animatedly about new games and anime series with Mammon beside him, listening closely to whatever he said.

• When he is more sure that it's not some fuck up thing his mind torture him, he is more confident and want to savor everything. He misses his brothers so much.

• They walk slower than usual because Mammon is still not used to moving his body.

• The others brothers who already seated began to hearing Levi loud and antusias voice, something they do not heard since that accident

• They are curious as to what the cause of this and who he talk to but then they froze in place when they heard a familiar loud laugh following whatever Levi says

• They look at the door aticipantly and when Levi and whoever he is with arrived in their peripheral vision, they hold their breath

• Mammon stood beside Levi a little awkwardly and waved at them, trying to look confident and choky when he greeted them.

• Anyone would think it's Beel or Asmo who immediately rush to Mammon, or even Satan remembering how he look at that time

• But much to everyone's surprise, it is Lucifer who suddenly stands in front of them and hugs Mammon. He let a shaky breath

• There are many things he want to say, but he manage just to say, "welcome back, little brother"

[let-me-write-shit]

Hiiii! I absolutely love your writing. Could you do an imagine based off of your pregnancy one shot? Since H is incredibly private, would the couple be able to hide her pregnancy from the public and then announce it similar to like Kylie Jenner’s video diary of the whole experience? Thanks!!

A/N: Ok I was OBSESSED with this request, but for some reason I found it very difficult to write, so I’m so sorry if it’s shit. Hope you like it <3

Word Count: 2,698

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Is Forever Enough?

From the moment Harry found out he and Y/N were expecting their first child, he knew he wanted to document everything. He had been in the habit of capturing moments throughout their relationship, mainly of big events, but from this moment on, he wanted to capture it all. Little clips of every doctor’s appointment, every craving his wife had, every heartbeat, and every little kick. He wanted video documentation of the life growing inside his wife’s belly and everything that happened during that time. They had waited so long for this moment, and now that it was finally here, he wanted to make sure they would never forget a single second of it. From telling their closest friends and family members, designing the nursery, their tiny baby shower, attended by the select few that were lucky enough to know their secret.

At first, keeping silent was a way to protect themselves in case Y/N’s pregnancy didn’t stick like their fertility doctor had warned them was a possibility. It took them nearly two years to conceive, and the thought of going through a miscarriage in front of millions of watchful eyes was terrifying. But by the time they became aware that they weren’t going to miscarry, they had gone so long without announcing it that there wasn’t a point to do it. Why ruin something that was so well hidden?

The decision not to announce their pregnancy to the public wasn’t a hard decision to make. Harry was private, anyway, and everyone knew that. He was rarely on social media and didn’t talk about his private life to many people, and those who he did talk to were very loyal and trusting. They just wanted to enjoy being pregnant without the prying eyes of strangers and it was fairly easy keeping it under wraps considering how private they were, to begin with.

The timing of Y/N’s pregnancy helped, too. The early part of her pregnancy was during the summer, so they could enjoy tropical holidays together without worrying about being seen because she simply wasn’t showing yet. But, towards the end, it got harder to conceal, like during award season in the fall when an oversized shirt or puffy dress couldn’t conceal the roundness of her bump and plumpness of her cheeks and lips. It was the first award season she hadn’t accompanied Harry to in years and people began to get suspicious.

That’s when the rumors of her possible pregnancy started. Of course, no one could prove anything. But that, along with the lack of sightings of Y/N was enough proof for some. Luckily, nothing more came of it other than whispers. Harry had stopped doing interviews when he first got wind of the rumors, so no one could catch him off guard in uncomfortable positions or having to lie to protect his wife, and he began to focus his attention back on his music, halting his pursuance of on-screen work for the time being until after their baby boy’s arrival. Instead, he was the man behind the camera.

For the most part.

There were times when certain family members or friends would pick up their camera and film some things for them, capturing little intimate moments of the parents-to-be. They even enlisted the help of Harry’s on-tour photographer, Helene Pambrun, to help film the birth of their baby. Though she focused mainly on photography, her knowledge of videography and style of filming fit exactly with what the couple wanted, and Helene was all too honored to be a part of the day.

And although the birth of their child was, albeit, a bit traumatic, they couldn’t have asked for a sweeter baby boy. Born on a frigid Friday evening on March eighteenth after twenty hours of active labor and an onslaught of chaos, Paxton Robin Styles was born, tiny, healthy, and beautiful, surrounded by family that already loved him so dearly.

The hospital staff was wonderful in keeping their attendance private, no one having a clue that they were even there. No news articles or whispers were heard of their newest addition to which they were grateful to be allowed to enjoy their first week home, getting acclimated to being new parents. They had fallen in love with him.

“Y/N!” Harry exclaimed, bouncing into the nursery on a Monday afternoon as his wife fed their son, his phone in hand, and a bright smile on his face.

Y/N looked up, surprised and slightly offended, “Don’t ever call me by my name again,” she joked, stroking their son’s cheek.

Harry laughed, “Sorry, love. But, look! It’s here!”

He held his phone in front of her face, playing the edited version of their pregnancy and birth journey in video form one of Harry’s editor friends kindly put together for them after the birth of their son. The five minute and fifty-one-second video filled with shortened clips of the last nearly ten months of their lives in becoming first-time parents. They watched it together, occasionally glancing down at their baby that had fallen asleep while eating in Y/N’s arms, in awe that this was their life.

Tears were streaming down both of their faces, and Y/N giggled, wiping her husband’s cheek with her free hand. He was an emotional being, she knew that, but she had no idea what the effect of fatherhood would be on her Harry. She couldn’t have picked a better partner to raise a child with.

“I think we should post it,” Harry said, causing Y/N’s eyes to go wide.

“Post it? Like...social media?”

Harry nodded, “Well, we can’t keep him a secret forever. People are already starting to talk. I’d rather announce it on our own terms than on someone else’s. We can still stay as private as possible, I’ve already talked to Jeffrey and my publicist about it. I just...he makes me so proud and I feel like I need to show people that.”

Y/N smiles sweetly at her husband, taking his hand that rested on the arm to the nursing chair and pulling it up to her lips, kissing it gently. “Okay. We can post it.”

Later that evening, the internet was in an uproar and their phones were blowing up like crazy, for on both of their Instagrams they posted a grey-scale picture of a name tag sticker that read “Hello, I’m: P”, captioned ‘link in bio’, where they were directed to a youtube link posted under Harry’s account.

As soon as the video began, Harry’s soft voice was heard, singing his version of ‘Lullaby’ by the Dixie Chicks in the background as unseen footage of their wedding a few years prior had fizzled into view, video of their first dance as husband and wife played while the tail end of a speech made by Harry’s mom, Anne, was heard over everything else.

“We are so incredibly grateful to have Y/N now an official part of our family and I wish you both years of love, health, and happiness….and giving me tons and tons of grandchildren,” earning laughter from the attendees, “I love you both to pieces. Congratulations.”

The video slowly changed to little snippets. Y/N running towards the beach, holding her hat tight on her head with one hand while the other was holding onto Harry’s hand that was at the bottom of the screen as the breeze whipped at Y/N’s hair and sarong, cut to a clip of the camera propped on the beach overlooking the two of them sitting in the sand, looking out into the ocean, Y/N’s head falling on Harry’s shoulder and him kissing the top of her head as the sun set.

Next was a scene during one of Harry’s tour where someone filmed Y/N at the front of the stage in a VIP area beside a few of their friends, dancing and singing along with Harry who stood in front of her, smiling and singing at her.

The next images were upsetting. When they first started trying, they recorded videos of themselves awaiting the results of their tests, hoping to capture the moment they found out on film. One after another, the video showed negative test upon negative test, wanting to document the struggle they faced in fertility, one of the main reasons they decided to post this video. If it helped just one person who struggled with infertility and gave them a bit of hope, they needed to show it.

They showed clips of Harry holding an emotional Y/N in his arms, her eyes filled with tears and a quivering lip as he kissed her forehead and stroked her hair. Until the next clip showed. A shaky still of a screen that read ‘Pregnant’ that panned up to show a reflection of Harry and his wife in the mirror, Y/N pulling the test up to her face with a smile while Harry looked down at his wife in pride, softly touching her flat belly.

Clips of an ultrasound showed, Y/N stomach looking more bloated than anything as the doctor slid the wand around on her belly, Harry filming while squeezing his wife’s hand. His voice could barely be heard over the music of the video as he cooed, “Is that it, right there? So little…”

They included a few announcements they made to family members. How they told Anne while on an end of summer family vacation with a little jewelry box that opened up to two little birds and an egg in a birds nest with a note that said ‘A little birdy told me you are going to be a Nana.’ making Anne burst into tears, hugging them. And when they told Y/N’s best friend by giving her an orange and saying, “That’s how big our baby is right now,” which caused confusion before the screaming.

Y/N had filmed mirror clips of her growing belly in the floor-length mirror that stood in the corner of their room and had gotten clips of Harry laying beside her bump, his hands rubbing her stomach, clasped on either side as he sang, or talked, or read stories.

“I can’t wait to meet you,” he could be heard saying before kissing the top of her bump, looking up and past the camera to his wife, smiling lovingly.

There were images of Christmas, Gemma having caught an intimate moment between the two of them, Y/N sat in between Harry’s legs on the floor, mugs of hot chocolate in her hands and still in their Christmas Pajamas, Harry’s cheek pressed against hers as he held up a blue Gucci baby suit in front of them, smiling and gushing about how small it was.

The couple’s silhouette could be seen in the dark light sky as they stood in the middle of the field, illuminated by the New Years’ fireworks that went off in the distance, Y/N’s belly pressed against Harry’s stomach as they kissed intimately amongst their friends.

A small baby shower inside one of their London country homes was next, littered with a few familiar faces along with some that were likely family members. Harry still sang in the background as the two of them opened gifts, smiling and laughing with each other, genuine happiness and love could be seen on everyone’s faces and a few people popped onto the screen to say a few words for the unborn baby.

“You have wonderful parents,” Y/N’s parents grinned, her mom getting teary-eyed. “I can’t wait to see the person you become.”

Anne’s bright, shining smile was next, “You’re going to do amazing things. You are so loved.”

“Hi, my sweet nephew! It’s Auntie Gemma,” she grinned, waving at the camera, “I can’t wait to meet you and snuggle you! I hope you grow up to be just as kind and loving as your parents. We are so lucky to have you in our lives.”

Harry and Y/N were seen in the background, Y/N eating a slice of cake while Harry casually kissed her cheek before stealing a bite of her food, earning a smile from his pregnant wife

Video panned over their newly renovated nursery, mostly designed to be gender-neutral with little hints of outer space; moon lights, a solar system mobile hanging above the cot, with a star blanket draped over the nursing chair. Harry moved the camera to Y/N who was hanging some onesies in the nursery closet, smiling and waving at the camera.

Next, they were laying in bed. It was dark and, but a glow from a nightstand shone and Y/N’s belly was visible, round and very pregnant, a few freckles near her navel, and the faintest linea nigra could be seen running from her belly button down towards the bottom of her belly. Their voices were barely audible over the music still sung by Harry. A little ripple on her belly cast from left to right and then her belly distorted a little as their baby boy kicked and pressed against the center of her bump, making the couple laugh and Harry’s hand appeared, softly rubbing where his son’s foot would be.

It changed. They were in a hospital now, Y/N in a grey and white spotted hospital gown. The camera was propped on a table filming Y/N  who sat on the edge of her bed, moving her hips from side to side as she breathed heavily, moaning, while Harry kneeled on the floor in front of her, his hands on her hips and squeezing to relieve some pressure. They were talking to each other, concern, and empathy clear on Harry’s face.

In the next clip, Y/N was laying back in her hospital bed, sucking on gas and air. Harry was filming this time, and his Anne could be seen this time, sitting on Y/N’s other side holding her daughter-in-law’s free hand. Y/N put the gas and air down, gave a thumbs-up, and smiled, “We’re having a baby today!” as her mother-in-law smiled brightly.

The footage faded to black before it flashed to Y/N looking at someone just out of view as the disembodied voice said, “Whenever you feel the urge to push, let us know. You’ll be meeting your son soon.”

It faded to black again, Harry’s singing more evident in these moments, louder, as the footage flashed back into focus. The camera was, once again, being propped up on a table. At Y/N’s head on either side stood Anne who was still holding her daughter-in-law’s hand, while Harry stood, back to the camera, mostly blocking the view of his wife as one hand stroked her hair and the other held her hand. The doctors could be heard saying, “Deep breath” before Y/N took a deep breath in, bringing her legs to her chest with the help of a few nurses that could hardly be seen, bearing down and pushing as the nurses counted and Harry said, “Great job, love. Keep going. You’re so strong.”

The screen went black. A doctor’s voice was heard saying, “One more big push.” Y/N could be heard taking a deep breath, and a little exasperated yelp before gasping from both Harry and Anne followed by the beautiful, gurgling cry of their baby. Harry’s sweet singing voice in the background of the video got louder and finally, the video came back into view of a little name card on the bassinet that read:

Name: P, Styles.

DOB: March 18th

Weight: 6 lbs 12 oz

Height: 20 inches

Time: 8:39 PM

The camera panned down to the top of a blue baby cap with a white embroidered ‘P’ in the center, moving as their son wiggled in his bassinet, the hushed reassuring whispers of his parents heard just behind the camera as little lip-smacking and coos could be heard from the baby.

The screen went blank as the song started to end and white words appeared on the screen.

“Welcome to the world, Baby P. We love you to the ends of the earth.

Love,

Mummy and Daddy”

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Taglist:

@odetostep​ , @thurhomish​

[kalimagik]

Enchanted

Sirius Black x Reader 

Requested by @grace22207 – Hi!! idk if you take requests and if you don’t that’s totally ok but i just really love ur writing. I was wondering if you could do a Sirius Black x Reader inspired by the song “Enchanted” by Taylor Swift?!? thx i love you 💖💗

Word Count: ~1500

Warnings: Underage drinking (only a tad bit) 

A/N: Okay, so this was my first request and I just love getting fresh ideas when I’m stuck! This has lots of fluff and anxiousness because boys can be scary...yeah...anywhooooo, if you enjoy reading, like, reblog, comment, or even follow! You know the deal by now! Thanks for the support guys! If you send me a request on anything and I really like it, I’ll probs do it, but just give me some time! Happy Reading <3 <3

*Not my GIF - credits to owner! 

She hated coming to these things. They were always the same. Old, pureblood families complaining about the growing influence of muggle-borns in the Wizarding World. But, nevertheless, Y/N’s parents dragged her to each party. Every. Single. Time. 

Plus, every single pureblood parent would come up to her and ask what she was planning to do once she graduated from Hogwarts and what her opinion on the rising dark wizard was. To be honest, Y/N didn’t have an opinion that they would want to hear, so she stood through each conversation. Tonight was no different. Y/N was forcing laughter and faking smiles with her parents’ friends. 

She never knew anyone else at these parties, so it was the same old tired, lonely place. Sneaking a drink from the bar, Y/N found a good corner of the room to sit and hide from being the center of attention. She moved to her favorite activity, people watching. 

Looking around the room, Y/N viewed all the types of people she had grown to detest over her last 5 years at Hogwarts. She hated these people with their closed minds and vicious words. Why was she still one of them? It wasn’t until her gaze landed on the corner diagonal from hers. 

Her Y/C/E eyes immediately locked on his deep, grey ones. He seemed to be watching her. The shifting eyes and vacancy that Y/N had been feeling earlier all vanished when she felt interest radiating off of him. 

His eyes whispered. Asking who she was and if they had ever met. He may not know who she was, but she certainly knew him. The boy was Sirius Black. From the teas that Y/N’s mother had with his, she knew that he was a disappointment to the great Black family. She also knew him from school. His antics with his friends were legendary as was his reputation throughout the girls that he courted. 

Oh, oh merlin. He was moving. Was, was he moving towards her? Y/N’s hands were up to her mouth as she nervously bit at her fingernails. She lost him for a moment, but his silhouette was making its way over to her.

“Hello, love. I’m Sirius.” 

Y/N offered her hand in proper high society fashion and he took it, tenderly kissing the back of her hand. 

“Y/N.” 

“So, which stiff do you think will get drunkest the quickest?” he joked immediately, scanning the room. 

“I didn’t think that the ladies drank,” Y/N responded timidly. 

“They don’t.” Sirius has a mischievous smirk on his lips. An alarm went off in Y/N’s head. This could be dangerous. “They don’t, but I spiked the punch to get some entertainment for the evening,” he snickered. “Oh, oh, oh! My money is on Mrs. Lestrange. She’s been downing it for about 30 minutes. 4 cups already.” 

Maggie couldn’t help but giggle as she watched the properly dressed woman begin to stumble. 

“Have we met before?” Sirius blurted. 

“Uhhh, not officially. We do go to school together though.” Y/N felt herself getting shy again under his intense gaze. 

As the conversation continued, it began to flow easily. Y/N didn’t feel nervous anymore. It all felt natural. It was all so playful and Y/N found herself countering all his quick remarks. The whispers felt like passing notes in secrecy. 

The hours blew by and Y/N’s parents found her in the same corner with Sirius at the end of the night. 

“Y/N. It’s time to go. Now,” her dad emphasized.

“Bye, Sirius,” Y/N waved. “Thanks for making the evening more entertaining.” 

“Goodbye, Y/N. It was absolutely sparkling, don’t let it go! I’ll see you at school at the end of the holiday. I’ll look for you!” 

Y/N felt wonderstruck. Despite her parents berating her for talking to the “poor excuse” of a Black, Y/N didn’t stop blushing all the way home. 

Lying in bed that night, she replayed the whole evening in her head. “I wonder if he knows I was enchanted to meet him. No wait. I couldn’t say that to him. It’s stupid.” She thought to herself. 

That didn’t stop her from thinking about him. Now she understood why he was known as a charmer at school. Y/N was wonderstruck, dancing around her room all alone. 

The rest of the Christmas Holiday lingered on. Every night that lingering question kept her up. At 2 am, she wondered who he loves. With the swirling idea in her head, Y/N was wide awake. She’d pace back and forth, wishing maybe he’d show up at her door. Or when they get back to school he would find her and she could say ‘hey, it was enchanting to meet you…” Why was that the only thing she could think to say to him? 

The Hogwarts’ corridors never seemed larger when Y/N returned to school. She couldn’t manage to catch a glimpse of Sirius anywhere. Maybe they wouldn’t see each other again. Maybe meeting at the party had been a fluke. But she was praying that it was only the very first page and not where the storyline ended. Her thoughts just echoed his name and they probably would until she saw him again. 

One night shouldn’t have led to these kinds of feelings. So, in natural teenage girl manner, Y/N poked around to see what her friends knew and listened just to see if his name came up in conversation. 

“What about the Marauders? Anyone know anything about them? I know James Potter is interested in Lily, but what about the others?” Y/N nonchalantly brought up the conversation.

Y/N’s friends loved to gossip about the boys in their year and the year above them, so Y/N’s words were enough to start the long string of gossip. There was James who had filled the charms room with flowers for Lily and publicly asked her out again in the first week of being back. Peter seemed to have his eye on a Ravenclaw girl, but all of Y/N’s friends giggled, knowing she wasn’t as interested in him as Remus Lupin. 

Y/N sat there, barely listening to the conversation, she whispered the words to herself “please don’t be in love with someone else. Please don’t have somebody waiting on you.” No one had said anything about Sirius as the conversation shifted to other boys. 

With all the giggling, Y/N completely zoned out. It wasn’t until the Great Hall doors swung open that Y/N jumped out of the thoughts in her head. The Marauders streamed in, one after the other, laughing and winded. Well, Peter was winded, the other three seemed to be in much better shape than him. With their entry, Y/N’s heart leapt into her throat. She hadn’t told her friends about the interaction she had with the boy over the holiday, so they didn’t see her tense up as he walked by their table. 

Y/N lowered her head. Maybe he wouldn’t see her and she could just stop thinking about him. Right? That’s how that worked. 

The talking at Y/H’s table stopped. What happened to Y/N’s friends? She looked up to meet those deep, grey eyes. “Why hello there, love. Have we met before?” he smirked. 

Y/N’s head spun to see her friends’ faces. Some were swooning, others were just drinking in the words he spoke. Surely he was directing his words to one of them though right?

“I told you I’d find you at school,” he continued. His eyes didn’t waver from her own.

Why were words failing her right now? She had been so quick witted with him at the party, but with everyone else watching, she went back to her ‘please don’t look at me…’ ways. 

“Did someone use langlock on you?” Sirius chuckled. 

“Uhh, no!” Y/N finally got out. 

“That’s good to know. Had me worried there for a minute! Anyways, the first Hogsmeade trip is next weekend. Would you maybe want to accompany me? I need an excuse to ditch these three.” He winked at her as he finished his sentence. Ugh, he was dreamy. 

Y/N only managed to nod her head a few times to convey the fact that she would very much so like to go with him. Merlin’s beard, why was she acting so stupid right now. 

“Excellent! I will see you then.” Sirius’ fingers drummed the table as he stood up to walk away. 

With his back to her, Y/N finally let the breath that she was holding escape. Her friends were all turning to her, asking about what just happened before they realized that Sirius had turned back around. 

“Oh, and Y/N. I was enchanted to meet you.” 

[wolf08]

Igniting the Fuse

A fic for @zutaraweek

Summary: Zuko can’t stand Katara’s obvious contempt towards him. Determined to fix their relationship, he asks Aang and Sokka for help, who, in turn, devise a series of team building exercises with the intention of sparking friendship between the water bender and the banished Prince. They hadn’t anticipated sparking something more. Pre- (and post-) Southern Raiders. Zutara.  

Available on A03 and FanFiction.net. 

Prompt: Loosely inspired by the prompt “Fuse” (Zutara Week 2020) Genre: Romance/Humour Words: 4293 Disclaimer: I do not own Avatar: The Last Airbender or any of its characters.

A/N: Hi! Please accept my humble offering to the ATLA fandom for Zutara week. :) I’ve only ever written fics for the Naruto verse, but I just finished ATLA last month and have been fangirling about Zutara and the Gaang dynamics ever since. When I learned that Zutara week was just around the corner, I just knew I had to write something. Enjoy. :)  

***

Igniting the Fuse

Now that he was part of the group of vagabond do-gooders (who he used to think were his sworn enemies), Zuko felt a sense of contentment and purpose like he’d never felt before.

It had been an excruciating uphill battle filled with awkward encounters and blows exchanged to finally convince them that he was on their side. But he’d persevered because Zuko just knew he was destined to be here, with them, to support their quest of defeating his father.

Thankfully, in the end, they accepted him.

Well, all except for the water bender, that is.

Katara, the last water bender from the Southern Water Tribe, who had the biggest heart and kindest smile that Zuko had ever seen, utterly despised him.

She made no effort to hide this fact, with how she always sat as far away from him as possible, sneered at his (attempted) jokes, and ignored him point-blank whenever he spoke.

As the Fire Nation’s banished Prince with a prominent scar on his face marking him as such, Zuko wasn’t unfamiliar with this type of treatment. But what made it different with Katara was that (a) she was avoiding him out of pure dislike – not fear (hell, he’d faced her in combat before and knew she could hold her own against him), and (b) it was Katara.

Why did it have to be her who hated him, of all people? She was level-headed, compassionate, and strong, in other words, she was an embodiment of everything that Zuko wished he himself could be.

And, not to mention, she was rather easy on the eyes and nice to be in the presence of (though, of course, Zuko would never dare admit this out loud).

Perhaps the worst part of all of this was that Zuko knew her hatred was justified. After she’d let her guard down in the catacombs of Ba Sing Se by confiding in him and offering to use her few drops of sacred water to heal Zuko’s scar (a gesture that Zuko would never ever forget), Zuko had responded by siding with her enemy and trying to kill her.

So, yeah, Katara had every right not to trust him ever again.

But that didn’t mean Zuko wasn’t going to give it his best shot anyways. After all, he was a changed man now. He was determined to reconcile for his sins. Earning Katara’s trust wasn’t just something he wanted – it was something he needed to fulfill his personal quest for redemption.

Not that Zuko had a clue where to begin.

After numerous fruitless attempts to force an interaction with her around camp like some school boy trying to get a girl’s attention, Zuko realized he needed help fixing his relationship with Katara.

He cast a wistful glance at Katara’s tent before turning towards the sea, where Aang and Sokka were currently fishing.

Zuko sighed and ran a hand through his shaggy, black hair. Despite being a little weird, Aang and Sokka were the most helpful sources of information around, with one of them being Katara’s brother and the other being, well, the Avatar. So he slipped off his shoes, hiked up his pants, and waded out to meet them.

Their fishing tactics were a rather theatrical sight, with Anng literally blowing fish out of the water with some air bending technique and Sokka spearing them as they flung into the air.

Zuko cleared his throat.

Aang, who was wearing nothing but his orange underpants, beamed at the sight of him. “Zuko! Have you come to help us fish?” he asked. “It’s not really my thing, but Sokka needed a hand.”

Zuko shook his head, folded his arms, and proceeded to explain his dilemma. The other boys listened attentively.

“Have you tried being, well, nice to her?” Sokka asked with raised eyebrows. “Katara likes everyone. It shouldn’t be that hard to get on her good side.”

Zuko rolled his eyes. “Of course I’ve tried being nice! But I guess I just suck at it.”

After a moment of deep thought, Aang’s eyes lit up. “I’ve got it!” he said, clapping his hands together. “We’ll do team building exercises to foster trust. When Katara sees that you can trust each other, I’m sure she’ll like you more.”

But Zuko wasn’t entirely convinced. “This isn’t Air Temple preschool, you know,” he grumbled.

“No, no, I think Aang’s onto something here,” Sokka said with a smirk. “No offense dude, but your social skills suck. Structured ice-breakers are exactly what you need.”

“What? My social skills don’t suck!” Zuko shot back, but Sokka just shook his head, still smirking.

Then, in a deep, mocking tone, Sokka said, “Hello! Zuko here. I sent an assassin after you. Can we be friends?”

Aang covered his mouth to stifle a laugh.

Zuko’s eyebrow twitched, his face burning. “Okay, fine. Let’s try your stupid team building then.”

“Great!” said Aang. “Let’s start after lunch. We’ll handle everything Zuko, so don’t you worry about a thing.”

***

In an effort to gain Katara’s support for their day of team building, Aang and Sokka selected an activity that she was sure to enjoy for the first exercise: surfing lessons – an activity that was, quite literally, right in Katara’s element.

It wasn’t a bad idea, Zuko admitted and side-eyeing Katara’s enthusiastic response to Aang’s proposal of the activity. Her blue eyes were brighter than he’d ever seen them.

Shortly after, the four of them, with the additions of Toph and Suki, were gathered around the shore, with the girls in their swimming attire (cropped shirts and shorts for all but Katara, who wore a white skirt overtop) and the boys in their shorts. Then, Sokka explained that there would be no surf boards.

“No surf boards? How’s that supposed to work for surfing?” Toph asked, voicing Zuko’s concerns.

Katara stood, a smile on her face. “I’ll bend the water to make you float – you’ve just got to balance,” she said. Toph raised her eyebrows and crinkled her nose and Zuko made every effort to refrain from making the same face.

The water bender proceeded to demonstrate. With her feet pressed to the rolling waves as if she were on a solid surface, she jumped and glided in a shower of water droplets, her arms outstretched, like she was sliding through snow or sand. In a way, it looked like she was dancing, Zuko observed, and he wondered if he could really do that too, so effortlessly.

The demonstration came to the end and Katara approached the group. “All right – who’s first?” she asked cheerily, while wringing water from her thick, brown hair.

Zuko avoided eye contact.

“I’ll go!” Suki beamed and hopping to her feet.

And said Kyoshi warrior, despite not being a water bender, made it look rather easy too, in Zuko’s opinion, his confidence boosting ever so slightly. Suki jumped and twirled on the water, laughing the entire time, clearly having a blast. Sokka wolf whistled as Suki neared the shore at the end of her turn. She met his eyes and blushed before leaping into his arms with a big smile.

Zuko watched the interaction from the corner of his eye and wondered if he could ever get Katara to feel that comfortable around him.

Yeah right.

Aang went next and he glided over the water with ease (though it was hard to tell if he was truly surfing or floating over the waves with air bending). Even Toph took a short turn, despite her obvious discomfort over being parted with solid ground.

“Zuko’s turn!” Aang exclaimed after everyone had gone, like he was afraid Katara would forget about him.

Zuko caught her gaze and was met with an icy stare. More like she doesn’t want me to have a turn.

He got to his feet and sloshed through the shallow water before turning to the group in anticipation.

With mixed emotions, he noticed that Katara was smiling at him now, her eyes bright once more. What’s with the sudden mood change? he wondered while returning the smile with much hesitation.

Then Katara raised her arms and he was off.

“Whoa!” he gasped, arms outstretched for balance, while the water carried him upwards and backwards, towards the sea. He pivoted and widened his stance for stability, while he adjusted to the strange sensation of a rapidly rolling current against his bare feet, and his total loss of control over where he was going.

Despite this, before long, Zuko began to relax, leaning into the waves’ winding motions, feeling a thrill with each dip and jump, as he climbed higher and higher and farther out to sea.

And then – SPLOOSH!

Like a rug being tugged from beneath his feet, the water supporting Zuko vanished, falling back to the sea – along with said fire bender.

He fell into the water in a rather undignified manner, limbs flailing. When he came up for air, spluttering, to his displeasure, just about everyone was doubled-over laughing.

Zuko gritted his teeth as he swam towards shore, glaring at the mischievous water bender.

“Oops,” she said with a shrug, though she didn’t look the least bit sorry.

Well that was a flop… literally, Zuko thought with a grimace as he trudged along the beach and shook water from his soaked hair.

Aang had the decency to try to look apologetic though tears were streaming down his face.

***

“The next activity better not end like that,” Zuko hissed when the boys regrouped. “How about we try something where she has to trust me this time? Because clearly the other way around doesn’t work.”

“Hm. Maybe you can teach everyone something. What are you good at Zuko?” Sokka asked.

“Fire bending.”

“Well, you can’t exactly teach everyone fire bending.”

“Oh, I know!” Aang piped up. “Zuko isn’t a bad dancer. He nailed the Dancing Dragon formation.”

Zuko dismissed the suggestion immediately. “That wasn’t a dance! And you’re out of your mind if you think I’d ever teach dancing lessons.”

A moment of silence passed while all three boys contemplated their next move.

“It’s probably best if I don’t hire another assassin and like… save her from it. Right?”

“Yes, Zuko. Best we table that idea.”

***

Zuko felt a little more confident about the second activity that Aang and Sokka planned for the group.

“We’re going rock climbing!” Aang exclaimed and gesturing to the ropes and makeshift pulleys he and Sokka had fastened to the cliff side earlier. For the most part, in Zuko’s opinion, this activity far exceeded the last because he and Katara would be on relatively even footing as far as their bending was concerned.

“Everybody partner up!” Sokka instructed. “I call working with Suki!”

“And I call Toph!” Aang shouted, which garnered suspicious looks from both Toph and Katara. “I thought we could work on our teamwork?” he added to the earth bender sheepishly.

Toph smirked. “Whatever you say, Twinkletoes. Gosh, I’m popular, huh?”

Through narrowed eyes, Katara directed her attention to the person she was evidently stuck with.  

Zuko tried his hardest to seem friendly, though he was suddenly uncharacteristically nervous. “You can go first, if you want,” he offered.

Katara lifted an eyebrow. After a moment, she said, “All right then,” and turned towards the cliff, her braided hair flipping over her shoulder as she did.

The rock climbing ensued, with Toph practically flying up the wall while she bended parts of the cliff side to jut out like stairs. Momo was doing quite well himself from a little further down, not even holding onto the rope, though Appa dutifully spotted him anyways.

Despite not having any distinct advantages, Suki flourished in this activity too, scaling the wall like a ninja. “Atta girl, Suki!” Sokka cheered on from below. She responded with a glowing smile at her rock climbing partner.

Zuko turned his attention to his own rock climbing partner, who was faring well, though not quite as well as the other climbers. Her movements were a little clumsy and she clung to the rope and handholds like her life depended on it. After all, with each step she climbed, the water bender ventured farther away from the comfort of the sea behind them.

There was no way Zuko would let her fall though, considering the death grip he had on her rope. He needed to prove he was the most trustworthy rock climbing partner she could ever have.  

Taking a page out of Sokka’s book, Zuko decided to egg his partner on. “You’re doing great!” he called.

Unfortunately, his comment prompted an icy glare. “Are you mocking me?” Katara snapped, as she freed her blue sleeve from a protruding twig that had snagged it.

“No...,” Zuko snarled through gritted teeth.

This is impossible! I can’t even compliment Katara without her getting mad!

She proceeded to climb in silence without sparing him a glance, and Zuko couldn’t think of what to say, so he just sighed and frowned in her general direction.

How on earth was this activity supposed to bring them closer together now?

She’s probably clinging to the rope for dear life because she doesn’t trust me to stop her from falling, Zuko thought with a scowl.

But then he was struck with a brilliant (and morally questionable) idea.

What if Katara’s rope were severed… for some reason… and Zuko caught her?

Now, Zuko was no expert, but saving someone from falling seemed like the ultimate gesture of trust if you asked him.

Surely Aang and Sokka would disprove if Zuko deliberately severed Katara’s rope, but she was maybe only twenty feet up – so surely, even if she did fall, she’d survive.

Before Zuko had properly thought through his plan, he’d sent a barely discernible fireball – no more than a small collection of sparks – up the cliff side. It went undetected by the others, who were focused on their rock climbing tasks.

With the softest of hisses, the fire made contact with the rope about ten feet above Katara’s head. The rope began to fray immediately but no one seemed to notice. Until –

“Whoa!” Katara exclaimed as the rope started to give. She clawed for the nearest handhold and gripped it firmly while looking around with wide eyes.

Now, Zuko thought, dropping the rope and racing towards the cliff.

By now the others were catching on to Katara’s predicament.

“Oh no, careful Katara!” called Aang.

“Hold on!” cried Suki.

“Just drop!” Zuko shouted from below, his arms outstretched. “Don’t worry – I’ll catch you!”

Katara peered down at him, like she was mentally calculating the risk of doing what he asked. When she met his eye, Zuko felt a swell of anticipation for a reason he couldn’t quite place.

Then, something determined entered Katara’s eyes and she directed her gaze beyond him, towards the sea.

The rope snapped and Katara began to fall.

Zuko braced himself for the impact, his arms at the ready.

I won’t let you down!

And then – WHOOSH!

Zuko faced an impact but it wasn’t the one he was expecting.

An aggressive current of water slammed straight into Zuko’s legs, knocking him off his feet.

“What?” he gasped as he lost his footing, toppled sideways, and fell to his back. Spluttering, he watched in disbelief as Katara bended a neat stream of water through the air, stepped into it, and directed it towards the ground to safety. She landed beside Zuko with a splash – soaking him from head to toe.

Katara straightened up and regained her composure, brushing off the front of her blue dress, as the water drifted back out to sea.

She turned to Zuko like she was just noticing him for the first time. “Oh!” she said while extending her hand. “You okay down there?” she asked, eyebrows raised and the slightest mischievous glint in her eye.

Zuko accepted her offer to help him up, but didn’t have it in him to celebrate the kind gesture – he was far too embarrassed and couldn’t meet her eye.

As soon as he was on his feet, he retreated and stomped away. “I’m fine,” he growled while shaking water out of his hair for the second time that day.

***

“The next team building exercise will be different. We’ll use our words this time,” Aang decided during a brief rendezvous with Sokka and Zuko.

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Zuko asked, eyebrow raised.

“You’ll see – I’ve got a plan. Just make sure you’re sitting beside Katara when we gather round the campfire after dinner. Trust me.” He patted Zuko’s shoulder and flashed him what he probably thought was a reassuring smile, but given their track record with team building exercises thus far, Zuko didn’t feel so confident.

“Fine,” he said anyways because he didn’t have anything to lose.

***

True to his word, after the sun had set, bellies were full, and Aang had summoned everyone to the campfire, Zuko claimed the spot beside Katara, even though he had to wrestle Toph in the process of squeezing in between them.

Katara gave Zuko a weird look and motioned to get up.

He grabbed her sleeve. “Wait – stay here,” he said before he could think better of it (and immediately regretting the motion).

She startled and opened her mouth to respond, but thankfully, Aang chose that moment to command everyone’s attention and start the activity. Zuko released a breath.

It turned out the activity was rather simple. Each person was required to share a compliment about the person on their right – and once everyone had a turn, they were to repeat the exercise in the other direction.

Zuko was skeptical about the cheesy activity having any effect on his relationship with Katara but he figured he might as well try.

He frowned and glanced at Katara, who was on his right, noticing the firelight dancing in her blue eyes. He would have to share a compliment with her first.

I’ve got one shot so I need to think of something good, Zuko mused while absently bending the flames from the campfire into little loops.

His first thought was to comment on her water bending, which was quite good as far as he’d seen. But would that just remind her of the times she’d used her water bending against him?

Then what could he say about her to get her to like him?

It was Sokka’s turn to pay a compliment to Suki.

He turned to the brunette Kyoshi warrior with a wide smile and an arched eyebrow, and said, smoothly, “Suki, you are as radiant as the sunset.”

Suki’s face lit up and her lips curved into a shy smile. “Oh, Sokka,” she sighed and shoving his arm lightly, in a friendly, teasing manner.

That’s it! That’s the reaction I want from Katara, Zuko thought, his chest tightening at the very prospect of it, but would complimenting her physical appearance have that effect on her? He wasn’t sure.

By the time Zuko tuned back in to the activity, Aang was telling Toph that she was the most terrifying girl he’d ever met.

Zuko watched the exchange in anticipation for surely the earth bender would take offense to the remark. But instead, she punched Aang’s arm and beamed. “Thanks, Twinkletoes!”

Would Katara want to be called terrifying? Honestly, Zuko thought she was the farthest thing from terrifying (unless she was really angry). No, Azula was terrifying. And Katara was… well, not like Azula.  

Toph turned to Zuko next, gazing up at him with a cheeky smile. “Oh, this is easy. Thanks for the entertainment in the water today. I haven’t laughed that hard in weeks!”

Zuko bristled with anger for a moment, but when he realized everyone was chuckling, and he remembered that he would much rather them find him funny than evil, he swallowed his pride and smiled. “You’re welcome,” he mumbled.

“Okay, Zuko’s turn!” Aang prompted, and then, suddenly, everyone was starting at him expectantly.

Zuko swallowed. “Okay,” he said before turning towards Katara, whose arms were folded and was watching him from the corner of her eye.

Here goes, Zuko thought. He said the first thing that popped into his head, inspired by Sokka’s earlier success.

“You’re… as beautiful as the… ocean?”

Now, Zuko wasn’t sure what reaction he was expecting, but, strangely, no one seemed to react at all. In fact, the entire group was eerily silent, their eyes trained on him, including Katara’s.

Suddenly, Zuko felt nervous. I did something wrong, didn’t I?

He turned towards Sokka for support, but only then, to Zuko’s horror, did he notice that Sokka and Suki’s hands were clasped together.

Is Suki his… girlfriend?

That hadn’t occurred to Zuko, honestly. He’d dismissed the idea because surely Suki was too good for the guy.

But maybe he was wrong. Maybe they were so close because they were dating. And maybe, by mimicking Sokka’s behaviour, Zuko had inadvertently suggested that he wanted to date Katara.  

He felt his face heat up.

I could use some of Uncle’s calming tea right about now.

Then, Katara was on her feet. She avoided eye-contact when she growled, “Really? Don’t have anything to say about my abilities, do you? I’m just some damsel in distress to you, huh?”

And then she stormed off, effectively ending the team building exercise. Zuko pinched the bridge of his nose in frustration.

I should have just called her terrifying.

He followed her.

***

Katara was perched on a rock near the ledge of the cliff, overlooking the sea and star-sprinkled night sky. She was hugging her knees and her shoulders were slumped.

Zuko approached with caution. “Hi,” he said when he was within earshot.

Katara glanced at him and turned away quickly.

He sighed.

Why do I suck at everything?

“Um, let me try the compliment thing again,” Zuko mumbled, not sure how much Katara was paying attention to him but going for it anyways. “My uncle taught me how to control lightning using the principles of water bending. I never really thought about water bending much, but since then, and since I saw what you can do, now I appreciate it more. It’s a… beautiful ability. And it’s strong. Like you.

“And that’s… what I’m trying to say.”

Katara glanced at him again, and to his relief, there was something kinder in her eyes.

This encouraged him to continue. “And I’m sorry for everything I did before. Please tell me how to make it up to you because I’m trying but I don’t know what I’m doing.”

After a moment, Katara’s lips curled into the smallest of smiles. She turned towards the sea. “You could reconquer Ba Sing Se in the name of the Earth King. Or bring my mother back,” she said sadly with a humourless chuckle, like what she was proposing was ridiculous. She buried her face into her knees.

Later that evening, after a brief consultation with Sokka about the story of his mother’s death, Zuko made plans for what would end up being the most effective team building exercise yet.

***

Many days later, Zuko found himself standing on a dock overlooking the ocean and a sunset painting the sky a glowing medley of pinks and oranges.

He had just returned to camp after a long trek with Katara to track down her mother’s killer, with the intention of executing revenge, but Katara ended up sparing him in the end – while still finding the closure she needed.

Zuko had learned more about Katara’s motivations and abilities on the trip, including her impressive repertoire of water bending feats.

To put it frankly, Zuko had no shortage of compliments to give her if they ever played that campfire circle game again.

And now that he understood Katara better he was filled with hope that maybe, just maybe, she didn’t hate him anymore. Though he wasn’t completely sure.

Katara was sitting at the end of the dock with her toes dipped in the water. Aang was beside her and speaking about the importance of forgiveness.

She got to her feet and faced the two of them. “Thanks Aang, but I didn’t forgive him. I’ll never forgive him.”

And then she turned towards Zuko, a smile blossoming on her face. Zuko’s breath caught in his throat.

“But you,” she said and drawing closer, “I am willing to forgive.”

Before he knew quite what was happening, Katara pulled him into a tight hug. Zuko was startled at first – hardly able to believe what was happening.

I did it! he thought in awe, thinking back to how envious he had been of Suki jumping into Sokka’s arms on the beach.

He smiled in spite of himself and returned the hug with equal enthusiasm, his heart racing.

But then, abruptly, Katara retreated. She stared at Zuko from a short distance away, looking positively radiant in the light of the sunset. A strange expression crossed her features. Embarrassment? Anxiousness? Zuko wasn’t sure. But then –

“I’m not flirting or anything, you know,” she said.

Not… what?

Katara seemed to remember that her hands were still on Zuko’s shoulders and pulled them back quickly. “I forgive you and that’s – that’s it!”

Zuko was still processing her words when she scurried past him, down the dock.

He gaped at her retreating form. “What was that about?” he asked.

Aang, who had been hanging back from the exchange, approached. One of his eyebrows was distinctly twitching. “Well, after the team building exercise around the campfire, everyone thinks that you… well, you know.”

Oh.

Zuko put his head in his hands, face burning. Something told him he was going to need a lot of help, and maybe even a new round of team building exercises, to figure out this new development in his and Katara’s relationship.

[oficytheft]

Finding His Way Out of the Time Stream: < Chapter 5 >

Leonard nearly got up and walked away when Sara sat down across from them with that shit-eating smirk on her face that reminded him way too much of the look that Lisa got just before she decided to mess with him, he could almost hear her before she even spoke. "Aw, look at the cute couple." The smirk almost seemed to expand into a grin at the 'I'm actually going to kill you' glare that came to his face. It's a good thing his gun was broken because if he had it he just might actually kill her.

He felt Mick's leg shift against his and let the glare fall from his face as he calmed his mind, deciding that instead of responding to what she said he'd find out what she wanted to talk to him about. "Since your already here anyway, what did you want from me Sara? I have things I need to do, seeing as it took all of what? A week of me being dead for one of you all to let Palmer break my gun?" Never mind that that blunder was on Mick, he felt the other bang his knee against his own in annoyance about the gun being brought up again. They'd thought he was dead, he guessed if he had been he'd rather it get ruined than have someone else use it. He never really was great at sharing.

"I want to know how you opened one of Cisco's portals onto the ship, and I also want to know how your alive Leonard. You've been dead for a year and a half-" Leonard froze for a second when she said that, not focusing for a moment on what she was saying well he registered that Mick had thought he was dead for a year and a half. "-and Gideon says that your frequency matches this dimension so it's not that you're from a different earth. You're just somehow still alive." The portal thing was new to Leonard, he hadn't realized he'd opened one. Honestly? He thought that he'd just made himself appear out of the timeline and onto the ship, but then again he had been pretty out of it when he was watching time. He didn't answer Sara right away, both because he was trying to find answers himself and partly because he was annoyed with her and kind of wanted to see how long he could stay silent before she pushed him.

He felt Mick's elbow bump against his arm though and finally spoke, he might not have a lot of answers but he supposed he could tell her what he did know. "I don't know, after the explosion I woke up and I was floating in this limbo. I think it was somewhere between the Temporal Zone and the Time Stream, I could see things happening if I focused on people I had a connection to but pulling myself out? Not as easy as watching people's lives float on by you." He remembered projecting himself onto the ship when Mick was spiraling into a self-destructive hellscape that he was sure was going to end with him dead, he'd almost managed to pull himself out then. Maybe he would have been able to if he wasn't more focused on pulling Mick out of his spiral than he was himself out of the limbo he was in.

"Gideon said that you had an active meta-gene that wasn't there before, Martin's theory is that the Oculus explosion activated a meta ability and catapulted you through time. From what your saying seems plausible enough, maybe you got stuck in between because the power was new and you don't have control of it yet." The theory made sense to him, but if he was honest? He really had no idea, he had been so out of it when trying to get back to the real word that he didn't remember much outside of when he'd nearly broken through the first time.

"I don't remember a portal, I don't even know how I knew how to pull myself out. All I knew was that if I focused on-" he paused for a second and sent a hard glare Sara's way as a warning against making jokes before finishing. "If I focused on Mick hard enough whatever power I have now started pulling me to the edge of wherever I was and back into the world. It felt like my brain was on fire from over-processing, couldn't do much more than follow my survival instincts." Sara didn't make any kind of remark about his admission that focusing on Mick had helped pull him out of the timeline. Mick's response however was to press his leg against his some more as he worked on the last few bites of his food.

The woman next to Sara spoke up then, he recognized her; she'd been talking to Mick a couple of the times he'd been able to visible manifest himself to Mick. Leonard would never admit that jealousy might have been a partial motivator to allowing him to be able to even do that in the first place when it seemed like she and Mick might be getting closer. "What I don't understand is how it took you so long to pull yourself out, why only now were you able to do so?"

It was a fair enough question, but Leonard didn't answer at first as he ate a bit more of his food; after taking a sip of his water he finally responded. "I almost managed to pull myself out sooner, back when you first ended up on the ship. Mick was spiraling and I was trying to reach him but I only seemed to be able to manifest myself enough that he could see and hear me. Probably should have focused more on wanting to get out than wanting to make sure he didn't wind up dying before I could. After that I blacked out and when I came to I reached out again and then woke up in the medbay."

He wasn't exactly surprised when Mick slammed his hands down on the table and stood up before speaking seeing as he was angry, but he also couldn't say he was expecting the anger to begin with. "Are you tryin' ta tell me when I thought I was goin' crazy that was actually you haunting me like some kind of time ghost?" Leonard stretched his leg's out a bit, almost annoyed at the lack of contact when Mick moved. " Exactly." No point explaining himself, Mick was gonna be annoyed either way it seemed. "Unbelievable!" He moved and stormed away to the fabricator, got himself a six-pack, and started back towards his room.

"So are we done here?" Leonard stood up as he asked the question, not really caring one way or another if Sara was done with this or not. He was done with this, and he was going to go see what had Mick in a huff about what he had said. Leonard didn't think it was all that big of a deal, even if it did bother him the others never really had the greatest opinion of him anyway. Why should it matter if Stein thought he was crazy for a day or two?

"Yeah, sure. I'll have Ray get the pieces of your gun together so you can work on it when you're ready." Leonard didn't bother responding, instead lifting up his hand up and giving a slight flick of his wrist as a 'later' as he made his way out of the Kitchen. He entirely ignored Stein when he tried to stop and talk to him and say how wonderful it was to see him again. He didn't care one way or another if the professor was glad he was back, he was back whether he was or wasn't happy about it.

When he made it to Mick's room he tried just opening the door rather than knocking, apparently he'd told Gideon to let him in if he tried because it worked and the doors slid open for Leonard to go inside. He spotted Mick sitting at his desk with his beers, seemingly having already downed one and moved onto the second. Leonard couldn't help the twinge of annoyance, he could always tell when Mick wasn't in a great place-he was a lot more dependent on alcohol when he was close to a mental break-whether minor or major. He pushed the beers back on the desk and leaned against it facing Mick with his arms crossed when he reached him, effectively blocking his easy access to more of them. "You know I hate it when you spiral instead of talking to me, just look where that got us in 2014-or after 2046 for that matter."

"I ain't spiraling!"  Mick knew better than to think that he would buy that and Leonard knew as much, he was glad he kept talking instead of making him push the issue harder. "If I'd realized was really you...maybe Ray or the Professor could have figured something to get ya out sooner..." He'd had a feeling it was something like that, so often it was Leonard pulling Mick out of trouble? The other always seemed to be harder on himself than Len liked when he failed to do the same.

Leonard uncrossed his arms and pushed himself off the desk, moving to sit on Mick's lap with his leg's on either side of his hips and his arms resting on the other man's shoulders. He was glad that the desk chair seemed to be plenty sturdy enough as he heard Mick drop the empty bottle in his hands onto the area rug under the chair without a care and felt his arms wrap around his waist. "As far as any of you knew I exploded in a fiery blaze of heroism saving you from certain death." He didn't emphasize it to make Mick feel guilty, he emphasized it to make it clear that Mick being the one who would have died if he didn't was the only reason he'd put himself in that position instead. Any of the others? He would have let them die in his place no problem, even if he might have been just a bit upset if it'd ended up being Sara. "None of you had any reason to think I was still alive, I'd say the idea you were hallucinating was more believable than the actual truth."

He couldn't even tell if Mick was hearing what he was telling him, the half-focused half-dazed look in his eyes as he listened to Leonard speak told him that just maybe sitting before he spoke wasn't the greatest plan. Mick nodded at what he said, at least acknowledging that he'd heard him as his hands trailed up Leonard's back until he could reach the back of his neck and pull him in for a kiss. Leonard didn't even try to pull away, he'd missed this and he was sure Mick had to. Even with their falling outs and the on-again-off-again nature of their relationship? The most time they had stayed apart before The Fire which caused a 10 month break was 4 months. At this point? It'd been at least 2 years for Mick if you didn't count his time as Chronos, it only felt like maybe 4-5 month for Leonard. He was going to need to remember to bring this up again later, because obviously they were done talking for now.

[cyrusharlow]

All in on a pair of Queens

“I thought we were friends, Marls.” Dorcas’s voice cracked slightly. She could feel tears welling up in her eyes.

“Fuck you, Dorcas.” Both of Marlene’s cheeks glistened with tears now. “You thought we were friends?

This is a little excerpt from a Dorlene fic I wrote! It’s friendly then frightning then right back to fluff, and it’s all around a good read if I do say so myself. The whole thing is right under the cut and is just over 2k words long. Please, enjoy!

“Flush beats three of a kind, spoils go to Sirius.” With a grunt, James complied with Remus’s command and shoved the pile of candy in the middle of the table towards Sirius. The latter just grinned; James had taught the whole group the rules of poker, so he couldn’t stand losing to his friends – especially to Sirius, who made a point of being an ass about it every round James didn’t win. All five players – yes, five: Sirius had convinced Lily, Dorcas, and Marlene to play as well – returned their hands to Remus, the dealer for the evening. Remus didn’t like gambling, but he liked mathematics, so dealing cards was a favourite way of his to spend time with his friends when they played cards to unwind.

“Do, you’re the small blind,” Remus began another round. “James, that makes you big blind.” Dorcas’s head swivelled at the mention of her name. She had been balancing a Bertie Botts bean on her nose ever since she folded last round. She saw Remus putting down the community cards face-down and patiently waited for the round to start while everyone stared at her.

“Why’s everyone looking at me?”

“You’re the small blind.” Remus answered.

“Right… What does that entail again? Do I match Marlene’s bet? Or increase it?” No one at the table had betted yet, but observable facts hadn’t stopped Dorcas’s conclusions before. Remus rubbed the bridge of his nose and sighed slightly.

“No, that’s big blind. Small blind puts down the starting bet.” Dorcas put the bean that had just fallen from her nose in the middle of the table.

“Not that one! We all saw you drop it on the floor a minute ago!” Sirius protested. Dorcas turned to Remus with an offended look on her face.

“I’ll allow it,” Remus responded. James began muttering in protest, but Sirius interrupted before he could say anything:

“Stay out of it, James, you’re not going to win it anyway.”

“Yeah James, my bean is none of your business!” Dorcas laughed.

“And it is his business?” James gestured at Sirius with a questioning look directed towards Dorcas.

“Oh, good times!” Sirius exclaimed, looking up dramatically as if he were in a stage play. “Good times indeed,” he continued, “when I was entitled to Do’s bean!” Lily smacked him on his back in Dorcas’s defence.

“Behave, Sirius! And don’t go blowing your own horn, I happen to know you weren’t as good at bean-related activities as you are at poker.” James and Remus burst out laughing. Marlene sighed and stood up.

“I’m going out for a smoke, play a round without me.” Remus nodded and took her cards back. Marlene had been a bit quiet all evening; this was the first time she’d spoken since a few rounds ago.

“I’ll come with you,” Dorcas said, also standing up. “Same goes for me, Moony.” She tossed her hand of cards towards Remus’s side of the table.

“You’ve already bet, Do,” Remus replied. “If you walk away now, you forfeit your bet for this round.”

“Oh, sure. Give the bean to Sirius so he can practice” she said laughingly. As she followed Marlene to the balcony, she heard Sirius defending his skills in bean-related activities, stating loudly that he didn’t need practice at all.

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

Marlene took out a cigarette from her case and put it in her mouth, lighting the tip with a small flame from her wand while protecting it from the wind with her free hand. She breathed out a cloud of smoke over the railing, looking down at the courtyard of the school below. Without looking, she held out the case of cigarettes to Dorcas behind her.

“No thanks, I quit smoking.” Dorcas replied. Marlene didn’t lift her head.

“Oh? When did that happen?”

“Last week, James caught me out of breath at training and I realized it was the cigs. Shit’s bad for you, Marls.” Marlene hummed, as if she agreed, before taking another puff and letting the smoke flow out through her nose. Hogwarts rules technically forbade smoking, but the teachers had stopped enforcing the rule when students had turned to experimenting with homemade spells to mask the scent and smoke. Madam Pomfrey had promptly decided that she’d rather treat a few asthma attacks than a whole legion of students who had accidentally made their cigarettes explode in their face.

Dorcas sat on the railing with her back facing the edge, her feet hooked around the carved stone posts of the balustrade. She looked at Marlene – who had not looked at her for the entire evening as far as she knew – and tried to form a sentence, but couldn’t find the proper words.

“You don’t have to come out with me if you’re not gonna smoke, Do.”

“I never came out here to smoke with you.” Dorcas fidgeted with the lowest button of her quidditch jacket.

“What?” Marlene turned her gaze towards Dorcas, confused by what she had just said. “We used to smoke together like every day, what are you on about?” Dorcas didn’t look back at her.

“I never came out here to smoke with you, I came out here to be with you.” They were both quiet for a minute.

“Oh. Thanks, I guess.” Marlene turned her head away again.

“What’s going on with you, Marls?”

“Hm?”

“All day you’ve been quiet – hell, you haven’t been yourself in a week.” Marlene didn’t reply. Dorcas sighed. “Look – if you don’t wanna talk about it, just say so, but it feels like there’s something wrong.” Neither of them spoke for a while. Marlene lit another cigarette.

“I don’t know if I want to talk.”

“Well, I’m here if you do. And you know I’m not smart enough to take legilimency like you, so you’ll have to use your words.” Marlene chuckled slightly. Legilimancy was not taught at Hogwarts, being considered a form of malicious magic, but she did take an extra credit class in occlumency. Dorcas had often confused the two, and it had become an in-joke between the two of them.

“It’s good to hear you laugh.”

“It’s good to laugh.” They were quiet again. It was Dorcas who broke the silence after a while.

“Wanna head back inside?”

“Not really. You can go if you want.” Marlene rested her head on the hand with her cigarette in it, her elbow leaning on the railing.

“Nah, I’ll stay with you. Got to be there for my girl, you know?” Dorcas laughed and playfully punched Marlene in the shoulder.

“Don’t, Dorcas.” Marlene didn’t laugh.

“Oh, sorry. Did I hurt you?”

“No – well, yes, but it’s not about you punching me.” Dorcas was visibly confused.

“What’s it about then?”

“Stop calling me your girl.”

“Wh-”

“In fact, Do, stop leaning on me on the couch, stop winking at me in the hallways and stop asking me to be your date to parties as a joke.” Marlene had turned around and Dorcas could see a tear running down her cheek.

“I don’t- But-”

“What?” Marlene raised her voice slightly.

“I thought we were friends, Marls.” Dorcas’s voice cracked slightly. She could feel tears welling up in her eyes.

“Fuck you, Dorcas.” Both of Marlene’s cheeks glistened with tears now. “You thought we were friends? You don’t get to lead me on for a year and then decide we’re just friends.”

“Lead you on? I never- I mean I-”

“You never meant to?” She paused. “I was so fucking happy when you got with Sirius, because I thought I wouldn’t have to waste another night crying over you.” She sniffed. “But you guys broke up, and I came out to you because I was naïve and stupid, and you played me like a fucking fiddle.”

“I don’t get it,” Dorcas cried. “What are you talking about?”

“It’s been a year, Do. A year since I came out to you and started trying to get you to notice me. Last week marked the official anniversary and I decided I’m done. I’m done with your friendship if it means you getting my hopes up and letting me down again. I’m done letting you string me along, Dorcas.” She wiped her eyes with the back of her hand. “The only question I have left is why. Why, Do? Why not just tell me no and be done with it?” Dorcas’s mouth hung wide open.

“Because I’m in love with you, you fucking idiot.” Dorcas jumped down from the fence to face Marlene. Now it was Marlene’s turn to be completely dumbfounded.

“You’re- Wh-”

“Why do you think I broke up with Sirius? Because you made me realize I like girls!”

“Why didn’t you just say so?”

“Because you told me you weren’t attracted to me when you came out!”

“That’s just something people say when they come out!” Had someone been watching from inside, they would have seen the two of them yelling at each other with tears streaming down their faces. The balcony doors had been hexed with a silencing charm, though, so the people finishing up their game of poker at the table inside did not hear a thing.

“So you do like me then?” Dorcas yelled at the top of her lungs, seeming more frustrated by the fight than relieved by the good news.

“Of course I do!” Marlene shouted back, equally worked up and seemingly angry. “You’re fucking gorgeous, why wouldn’t I?” They stopped yelling and stared at each other, both breathing heavily. Dorcas swallowed and scraped her throat.

“Where does this leave us, Marls?” Her voice was quiet now, but she sounded no less upset. No, not upset; Dorcas almost sounded scared, like someone about to receive bad news.

“I don’t know, Do.” Marlene chuckled a bit. “How about you call me your girl again, but you mean it this time?” She sniffled and let out a small laugh. Dorcas returned a smile and wiped her eyes with the cuff of her jacket sleeve.

“D- Do you mean you want to-” The words couldn’t find their way out of her throat.

“Oh shut up and kiss me, Do,” Marlene cut in, stepping forward and softly pressing her lips against Dorcas’s. It was a soft kiss, but a lively one; their lips interlocked and they stood there for what felt like minutes, first not moving at all, then both of them – Marlene first, followed by a cautious but increasingly comforted Dorcas – slowly leaning into the kiss.

“That was nice” Dorcas said quietly, when they finally pulled back a bit and could look each other in the eyes again. Marlene hummed in agreement. They were embracing; Dorcas’s hands had found their way onto Marlene’s lower back, Marlene’s were on Dorcas’s neck.

“I’m a bit cold,” Marlene said, “Could I have your jacket for a bit?” Marlene was in fact wearing her own jacket, a leather one, which kept her at a very nice temperature.

“This one?” Dorcas looked down at her varsity quidditch jacket. “But your aesthetic? And it’s not even that cold out so I don’t-” Marlene smiled at her silently. “Oh.” Dorcas realized the request for her jacket had very little to do with temperature. “Of course you can wear it. Anything for my girl.” She began to take off her jacket and Marlene met her with a quick peck on the lips.

“Thanks, babe.” The jacket was a little big for Marlene, but she didn’t mind. It was warm, and it smelled of Dorcas, and above all, it was a reminder that things were good now. Marlene stepped away from Dorcas and faced the balcony, lifting two fists into the air. “Woo!” she yelled in glee. Dorcas watched her and smiled, joining her at the balustrade while some student – most likely a confused Ravenclaw – cheered back from the balcony across the courtyard.

“If we work together, do you think we’ll have an advantage over Sirius?” Dorcas put her arm around Marlene’s shoulder, and Marlene rested her head against Dorcas’s neck.

“You really don’t get poker, do you?”

“Not really, no. I just like the candy and the prospect of beating Sirius.” Marlene let out a small giggle.

“Dorcas?”

“Hm?”

“Are we like- you know, girlfriend and girlfriend now? Or are we still just friends?” Dorcas pulled back a bit to look Marlene in the eyes and lifted her eyebrows.

“Would you like to be? My girlfriend, that is?”

“I would. I’d like that a lot.”

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

That’s all, folks! Thanks for reading my work, be sure to leave a like (or even reblog this post) if you enjoyed the story. Thanks to @w0tchermarauders and @stuff-of-pi (as well as some of my non-tumblr friends) for proofreading! As mentioned in the moodboard post, an rp thread featuring them based on this fic is in the works. Hope to see you there!

[bewitchcraftdogay]

Adrift Chapter 1

Hi there, I decided to subject you people to my first ever fanfic. In the first episode Eda says that all of our mythology is the result of things from the Isles leaking into our world. So this story follows our main character a human adult (who I can not decide a good name for to save my life) who gets dragged into the Boiling Isles though one of these leaks. If you can find enjoyment for this then have fun. 

“It’s cold for late summer.” I muse to myself pulling up my hood. The week has been pretty slow. Business at work has been pretty good, but not too busy, so me and Caroline have been able to relax. School started only two weeks ago so Alice is dealing with her homework fine. Mariana finished working on her last show, so she's spending time with her family. I'm on my way home after a late night grocery run. Some things we forgot to get earlier in the week, milk, toothpaste, napkins. I also decided to pick up some microwave popcorn. I figure we can watch a movie when I get back. Knowing my sister she’ll want to watch some old B movie that's so bad you can’t help but laugh. I couldn’t keep myself from smiling at the thought. Still I can’t help to feel like something is off. There is an odd sensation at the back of my neck, like a storm gathering. I furrow my brow and look around, besides me the street is empty, no other cars or people. Then again I take this route because it’s never very active but not in a bad part of town. I reason to myself trying to brush it off. Still I have this bit of uneasiness in the pit of my stomach.

 I pick up my pace as I continue down the street, the strange pressure building. Then it seems to snap, and everything goes sideways. My stomach does a somersault and it feels like I got ripped out of my body. One moment I’m walking down the street and the next... I’m in a forest? My brain fails to process what my eyes are telling me as I double over and try to keep from throwing up. It’s cold, chill winds blowing through the trees. Recovering from the nausea I look around, somehow half expecting the street to come back. The forest is dense, the trees tall and clustered close together. The bark is almost black and the leaves are a strong red orange, much too early in the year. But then I notice that the grass is the same. It’s not too dark, I look up at the moon… and there are two of them. One looks normal, about three quarters full. But close besides it is another smaller moon only half full. Then I noticed the stars aren't right. I was never good at identifying constellations. But even I could tell that they weren't where they should be. I stood there for a while not knowing what to do next. Still holding on to the hope that this is all some bizarre dream.

 A harsh screeching noise startles me, far off but still loud. Heart in my throat I realize. I’m lost in the middle of a strange forest I’ve never been in before. In the dead of the night. Not good. I pace in a circle, racking my brain trying to remember all the hiking advice Alice has given me over the years. First thing I should do is find a hill and try to get a good look at my surroundings, then try to find some kind of shelter. I start to wander around watching my footing. Not wanting to think of what a sprained ankle would mean. It still didn’t feel like I was actually here, this all has to be some kind of nightmare. Still I couldn't seem to wake up, despite my best efforts. “Things like this don’t happen.” I chuckle to myself, desperately trying to keep some amount of calm. Eventually I found a serviceable hill. I make my way up, careful to not fall. A small whimper escapes my lips as I look around. Bones, giant bones littered the landscape. Giant ribs towering at least a hundred feet in the air, and what looked like a massive leg in the far off distance. I shudder thinking about what that thing would have been like alive. Judging by the placement of the bones in the distance I seem to be in the area where it’s right shoulder should be. Then I notice a bundle of lights in the distance. A town! Or at least other people.

 I start off in the direction of the lights. I lucked out and managed to not get spotted by anything on my way. Still there were plenty of sounds to keep me company. I even spotted something out of the corner of my eye, no clue what, all I could make out were tentacles and eyes. I bolted, heart threatening to burst out of my chest. Chilled to the bone and exhausted but still in one piece. It turned out to be a town after all. I had no clue how late it was but by the time I made it to the edge of town. Most of the lights were out, people turning in for the night. I imagined Alice was getting worried that I hadn’t come back yet. WAIT! MY PHONE! I fished it out of my pocket, turning it on. My heart dropped as I noticed that I had no signal. It was almost midnight. I can’t imagine anyone would be happy to have a stranger knocking on their door at this hour. I groaned to myself, found an empty back alley and hunkered down to try and get some sleep.

 This isn't a dream is it? I was able to distract myself while lost in a forest full of nightmare monsters. But now that I’m somewhat safe I didn't have much else to think of. I’m here, wherever here is, and I have no clue how to get home. My throat started to close itself up and hot tears streamed down my face. Alice, Caroline, Mariana. What if I never see them again? I mean they would be fine without me, Mariana makes enough money to support them. But I can’t imagine life without them. Alice’s constant energy, although she does get pretty heated sometimes. It was hard not to wind up in a good mood with her around. Even if she wasn’t there in person most of the time Mariana always made sure to keep in contact. Updating us with whatever antics went on at the theatre. Whenever she was around she would make every second as much of a spectacle as she could. And Caroline, my throat closed up even tighter. Her smile, fragile and perfect. She didn't smile much on her own, but I was almost always able to get one with some stupid joke or pun. It was one of the few things I could say that I was good at. She always knew what to say when I was having a bad day, and I could always go into her arms and have a good cry. I don’t know what they see in me, but I love them. Finally starting to get drowsy despite the cold, fear, and sadness I swore I would find a way home. No matter what.

[vex-bittys]

Undertale Interactive Dating: Final Round (Finale)

Your burgers cool rapidly, sitting forgotten on the table between you and Sans. You and your skeleton date face each other, mouths nearly touching. You want to kiss him, but he drops a bombshell instead, insisting that he tells you the possible answer to your amnesia before you take things any further than science puns and ketchup-soaked French fries.

[ Moving away from the abandoned kiss, Sans tells you his theory about your problem. ]

Leaning back, he closes his sockets for a moment, gathering his thoughts. You push your french fries around your plate, too nervous to eat them. You hope the information is worth cancelling the almost-kiss for, but you also hope it’s not something too serious to fix.

“i know you were focused on the timeline variants when we were in the lab,” Sans says, and you nod your agreement. You didn’t bother looking at any of the other screens because the timeline signatures of your hodge-podge collection of pocket trash distracted you.

“i don’t think you noticed the SOUL trait scan, but i did. you have a really lovely SOUL,” Sans continues. You blush at the very intimate compliment. “you also possess an extremely high amount of Determination.”

“That’s what you scanned me to check for, right? Do you think that the reason for my memory loss might be related to Determination?” Sans hadn’t told you very much about Determination, but he said enough for you to get an inkling of where this conversation is going.

“in the presence of strong ambient magic like we have here in the Underground, humans can learn to harness their Determination and use it to RESET timelines or LOAD timelines from certain important points,” Sans explains.

“I’m not doing this on purpose! I don’t want to forget what happens to me,” you protest.

“i know,” the short skeleton reassures you, “but with your high levels of Determination, i think it’s happening outside of your control. when you kissed my check during Paps’ puzzles, it activated and RESET us to the beginning of the puzzle. a stronger emotional attachment might cause a bigger RESET, one that would take you back farther than your memory could keep up with, causing you to forget what appears to be several different timelines of travel.”

You panic. It could happen at any moment. Any attachment you form with anyone could vanish in an instant, and you wouldn’t even remember enough to miss it.  You start to hyperventilate, and Sans reaches out to gently touch your cheek and calm you. You recoil as if he raised his hand to strike you.

“Can you do anything to stop it?” you ask desperately, terrified that his answer will be no.

“it’s complicated,” Sans hedges. Your face scrunches up in the precursor expression to uncontrolled sobbing, and Sans hurries to continue, “but i think i can fix it.”

“How?” you sniffle, still not able to fully dispel the tears burning your eyes. How can Sans fix an overabundance of Determination, and if he can’t, how can you live your life always worried that you’ll lose everything?

“well, i would have to extract the Determination from your SOUL. i’ve never done it on a living human’s SOUL before, and it may be dangerous. it also might not work. i know how important this is to you, but i’m scared of the risk. i… i really care about you.”

“I want to do this,” you say firmly. “I need to do this.” Sans tentatively reaches out again, but this time he takes your hand.

“i don’t make a skele-TON of promises, but i promise that i won’t let anything bad happen to you. if things start going wrong, i’ll stop the procedure, and we’ll figure something else out.”

Sans’ sincere words put you at ease. You’re able to finish your meal with him in pensive silence. Once your food is gone and your plate pushed away, Sans takes your hand and teleports both of you back to the lab.

You fight off trepidation when Sans instructs you to lay on the metal gurney with the stange James Bond laser apparatus over it. You trust Sans. Without so much as a joke or a pun, the short skeleton goes to the control panel and begins painstakingly adjusting the settings. He checks and rechecks his work while you wait with growing anxiety.

“everything is set,” says Sans, walking over to the large extraction mechanism and positioning it carefully over your chest. “scream if it starts to hurt, ok?”

You can’t tell if he’s joking or not, but when he goes back to the control panel and asks you if you’re ready, you give him a thumbs up. He pulls a lever. Nothing happens… at first.

White-hot pain sears your body for a few excruciating seconds before the soothing embrace of darkness pulls you under into blissful unconsciousness.

You groggily surface into wakefulness to see Sans’ worried face hovering over you. Your whole entire body aches, and you want to rub the sore spot on your ribcage that houses your SOUL, but you don’t want Sans to feel guilty for hurting you. You know he didn’t do it on purpose.

“Did it work?” you ask, not bothering to shift your sluggish body into a sitting position if you’re only going to slump over in defeat and disappointment a moment later. Standing is for celebrating.

The too-wide, but entirely genuine smile returns to the skeleton scientist’s face, and you know the procedure was a success. You celebrate by leaping to your feet… or trying to. You lurch upright and stumble a bit before catching your balance. The flurry of activity winds you, so you sit back down on the gurney.

“I still don’t remember anything.” You sigh. It was too much to expect for the Determination removal process to fix everything. At least you wouldn’t accidentally RESET again.

“actually, while you were busy catching some Z’s, i managed to stabilize your Determination level. i also used my timeline portal machine to pinpoint the timelines you’ve visited. i thought that seeing the places you’ve been might jog your memory.” Sans points to a machine in the corner that you never noticed before.

A frame holds whirling blue magic that crackles like lightning. You can see images through the swirling movement, images that seem familiar. Suddenly, the memories come pouring back.

You recognize your home, your bedroom in fact. You remember laying on your back and staring at the ceiling, wishing you could be somewhere else, anywhere else but there.

A tall, gold-fanged skeleton smiles shyly at you from another section of the portal. Mutt. You touch the hem of your jacket, his jacket actually. You recall his look of longing after you kissed him, the taste of woodsmoke and spice, and a hunger he refused to let control him.

Another skeleton with angular features and a scar over his left eye watches you from another scene. His brother called him Boss, but you know him as Papyrus, lover of chocolate cereal. “NOBODY HAS EVER MET MY STANDARDS BEFORE... I TRUST YOU.”

The last image contains a smiling skeleton with sweet soft features. You stroke the honey bear in your pocket, which once belonged to him. Stretch, the honey fiend, who drank the sweet treat straight from the bottle and once told you: “you’re the only one other than Blue who’s ever been impressed with me before” after claiming to have a PhD in the napping arts.

Emotions overwhelm you, and you feel Sans sliding his arm around your shoulders. How could you forget these moments? How could you leave those skeletons behind? Tears stream down your cheeks at the bitter sweetness of your reclaimed memories.

“you have the power to choose your own path. you have enough Determination left to LOAD one of these timelines,” Sans explains softly, “or... you could stay here with me…”

“What happens to the ones I don’t choose?” you ask, voice barely a whisper.

“since you RESET, it will be as if you were never there at all.”

It’s so very difficult to decide.

[ Abandon your skeleton dating ways (Return home) ][ Stay with Sans (Do not LOAD) ][ Choose Mutt (Return to Swapfell) ][ Choose Boss (Return to Underfell) ][ Choose Stretch (Return to Underswap) ]

There will be a finale chapter based on your votes in this round.

(Leave an ask or comment, or reblog with your choice)

INDEX | Read on AO3

[erikandariel]

The Truth

[Notes from Ken: This is a sequel to How We Met. There’s actually typical G/t stuff in it! Near the end there’s an infodump(tm) that’s Ariel and Erik’s backstory. I’m sorry this story is so long. I’m hoping to write much! shorter! fic! now that I’ve finished this one. Enjoy!]

Length: 5,926 words

The summer after I met Ariel and Erik felt like it went by more quickly than any before. I had an internship in my hometown that made me feel exhausted once I got home. Ariel and I texted everyday and we’d Skype each other at least once a week. Erik was there for the first call, but apparently he usually had “business to attend to”—his words—so he rarely joined us. I tried asking Ariel what the heck he was doing, but all she’d say was that it was somehow related to their home country; which she continued to not tell me the name of. Then near the end of July Ariel had a surprise for me. “All three of us are going to Yellowstone National Park to celebrate the end of summer!” she announced during our web call. “If you want to of course!” Apparently at some point, I’d told her that I’d like to visit the park again at some point in my life and she decided to make that happen sooner rather than later. She somehow roped Erik into joining a group call to my mom and dad to get their blessing for the trip and they worked out the details. My friends would pay for our plane tickets, the rental car, our hotel room, and most of our food expenses. They would have paid for everything, but my parents insisted that they’d give me the money to pay for the rest of my food and to cover my entrance costs for any activities we did. If I wanted souvenirs I could get them myself with the money I earned from my summer job. At the beginning of my internship, I told my boss when my last day would be. I had worked it out so that I’d have a little over a week off between when I finished with them and moving back to college. Ariel took advantage of this, so the three of us would be fly out together the Saturday after I was done with my job and fly back the Sunday before my semester started. I was more than willing to go.

—

We only had three full days left of our week long celebration. I’d been enjoying the trip overall, but I was getting a bit antsy over Ariel and Erik basically taking care of everything? Normally I would have been totally cool with this, but they seemed to be looking out for me like I was some little kid who could get seriously injured at any moment. So instead of actually talking through this issue, I chose to assert myself by insisting I drive the next day right before we went to bed. It took a lot of convincing and pleading but eventually Erik sighed and handed me the keys. “Thank you!” I said and hugged him in excitement. When I met up at the airport, Ariel and I had immediately taken to regularly giving each other hugs. They were always a bit socially uncomfortable? My head came only to the middle of her chest. I still enjoyed them though because she felt so soft and warm. Erik, on the other hand, just didn’t seem to be the hugging type. After mine and Ariel’s greeting hug I asked him if he wanted one too and he politely declined. (And then quickly added that he was also glad to see me again.) Since then he’d never done the whole like non-verbal hug ask thing where you like hold out your arms to show you want a hug. So, I figured he just wasn’t into them and had left it at that until that specific night. And even though he’d started to gently hug me back, I started to pull away. “Sorry! Sorry!” I said quickly. I very purposefully looked not at him as blood rushed to my cheeks. “I should’ve asked!” Erik stopped my retreat with his right hand that was still on my back. “Yes you should have asked first,” he said. He sounded stern, but not angry. “However, we can hug right now if you want.” I let out a happy squeak as I catapulted myself into another hug. He snorted and gave me a soft, but awkward squeeze. Part of it was because the top of my head didn’t even reach his sternum. But, I think the weirdness of the hug came more from the fact that if he tried to hug me like a normal-sized person did, it would basically be like he was just giving himself a hug. So instead he had the ends of the fingers on one hand lightly curled around the top of my right shoulder and his other hand resting across the lower part of my shoulder blades. Like Ariel, his hug also felt warm in terms of temperature. However where as she was squishy and soft, he was literally a rock. Like there was some give, but not much. Before I could catch it, I let out a yawn. “I think someone’s tired,” Ariel teased. Erik started to push away but I closed my eyes, leaned my forehead into him, and let my arms drop to my sides. “Iz ‘kay. I’ll just sleep like this,” I said in a mock-tired voice. “I am fairly sure you can’t sleep standing up,” Erik said as he put both of his large hands on the front of my shoulders and gently shifted my weight off of him and onto my own feet. “I know that it doesn’t work for me at least.” I dramatically rolled my eyes before flopping backwards onto my bed, behind me. “Fiiine.” They both laughed. Since that got the reaction I had wanted, I flipped over and crawled underneath my sheets. “Night!” I said as I set the car keys on the night stand and took my glasses off. “Hey, I didn’t get my goodnight hug then!” Ariel pretended to whine. “Get over here then!” She bounced over and daintily sat down on the bed beside me. We both giggled as we tried to figure out how to give a side hug. “Night, Ken!” “G’night, Ariel!” We did one last squeeze before she moved to her and Erik’s bed, which was on the other side of the nightstand. I made my hands into a heart at Erik. “G’night, Erik!” With my glasses off I couldn’t actually tell for sure, but it looked like he gave me a heart hand back. “Sleep well, Ken.” “You too!” I replied and snuggled in for the night.

—

By 2 PM the next day, I regretted making such a fuss about wanting to drive. We’d been admiring a particularly large hot spring when there was a breeze that felt a lot colder than it should have on such a sunny day. I glanced in the direction the wind came from and groaned. The horizon was covered in dark, foreboding clouds and I thought I saw some small flashes of light in them. The forecast for the day hadn’t included rain so we’d left our coats at the hotel. Erik pointed out that if the storm did reach us, we didn’t know how long it would last so it would be a good idea to go back and get them. Of course we’d been on the complete other side of the park from where we were staying. Which meant it seemed to take forever to get back to our room. We checked to see if the storm was supposed to be severe but didn’t find anything, so we headed back out to where we’d been. At first there was just a light pitter-patter of drops landing on the windshield. I joked that we could have left the rental convertible’s top down, as both Erik and Ariel looked rather squished. But before we were half way back to the trail the rain changed to a raging downpour. The part of the main road we were on snaked along the edge of the valley most of the park laid in so there was no shoulder to pull onto. I turned the car’s emergency lights on and slowed to crawl, hoping there was a turn off nearby. Erik was my acting navigator and had already pulled out our paper map of the park. I started to look at him when suddenly the front end of the car jerked to the right; in the direction of the valley. I yanked the wheel to the left and slammed on the brakes but it was too late. We’d already gone over the edge of the cliff. I couldn’t do anything but wait. I could tell we were picking up speed and I hoped we smashed into something—a tree, a rock—anything to slow us down before we crashed into the valley floor. I heard Erik yell something and felt a stream of wind and rain, then noticed that the little sunlight there’d been get dimmer. It all seemed very far away though. But everything quickly came back into focus as we somehow jerked to a slow stop. Then, somehow, the car started to right itself from being almost vertical to horizontal. At the same time I felt my stomach drop like it would on carnival rides that quickly move up and down. Then everything in front of us lit up again but I was still frozen in my seat. Looking back through the windshield was a large face. Like it was taller than even Erik was; if Ariel stood on Erik’s shoulders, I think the head would still have been taller. And the colors weren’t right. The hair was a reddish-purple. The skin was a deep blue, except for the red lips and two sets of markings. One pair looked like a set of red, winged eyeliner that didn’t actually go on the eyelids. The other set was made of a line, thicker than my arm on either side of the nose and the same color as the first markings. And then there were the eyes. What should have been the whites of the eyes was a pale yellow and the irises where the same color as amber. At some point, Erik must have grabbed onto my upper arm as I was aware of him holding onto just a little too tightly. He was yelling something in his language and I realized he was yelling at the blue being in front of us. They cowled at him briefly before the large, golden eyes turned to me and their expression softened. Erik stopped shouting. “Ken, are you okay?” they asked, their voice rolling over me like thunder. But… it still sounded familiar. I quickly looked to where Ariel should have been sitting. Instead, the end of a large, blue finger with a nail that was almost as long as my forearm rested there, entering the car through an open back door. “Ariel?” I squeeked as I turned back around and shoved myself as far back into my seat as I could. I was suddenly aware of the other large fingers surrounding the car on the back an either side. It was as though the hand was holding up a small model car for its owner to admire. “Yes, Ken, it’s me,” my now large and blue friend replied. “You’re alright. You’re safe now.” “Ariel,” Erik growled beside me. “Set the car back on the road and get inside. Now.” She glared at him again but said, “Ken, I’m going to put you down now, so don’t drive away without me, kay?” I didn’t reply. I just kept the brake pedal pushed as far to the floor as I could, where it had been the entire time. Ariel switched to holding the car from above with her other hand. My stomach dropped again as she gently placed us on the far side of the road. Then before I had time to process really anything that had happened in the last few minutes, Ariel stood by her car door looking normal again. She looked like a long-haired cat that had been dunked completely underwater, but otherwise how I’d always known her. “Can I please come in, Ken?” she pleaded through the open door. “I promise we’ll explain everything.” I looked at Erik in suprise. They spent almost all their time together, of course he would know about Ariel. But the way in which he cautiously observed my face hinted that Ariel wasn’t the only one with a secret. I looked down at the steering wheel and slowly shook my head yes, feeling as though I didn’t really have a choice anymore. Erik finally let go of my arm. “Sorry,” he said in a soft voice. “If you want to, once the weather clears some you and I can exchange seats and I can drive us back to the hotel.” “Yeah,” I responded numbly. We waited with only the sound of the storm to fill the silence. Once we could clearly see the road again, he cleared his throat before opening his car door and stepping out. Refusing to look at either of them, I unbuckled and crawled over the cup holders to the front passenger seat, closed the door he’d left open, and clicked my new seat belt into place. It made me uncomfortable that the seat was still warm. Erik got in and wordlessly did the same before starting the car. I listlessly led us into the hotel. The front desk clerk made a joke about the rainstorm as both Ariel and Erik were still soaking wet. Ariel responded in kind and they asked if we wanted to bring any extra towels with us to our room. Erik said yes and I could tell both he and Ariel stopped walking in order to do so. I didn’t stop though. Neither of them went after me. Once in the room I didn’t bother taking my shoes or coat off. I just turned straight into suite’s bathroom and locked the door behind me. I turned the shower on. I wasn’t going to use it, but it just felt like the right thing to do. I moved the curtain so water wouldn’t splash all over the floor though. Then I kicked my shoes off, grabbed them, then stuffed myself under the sink and against the wall. There was a loud knock at the front door, a moment of silence and then it opened. A second later there was a tentative knock on the bathroom’s door. I responded by pulling my coat’s hood over my head and pretending to disappear. “Ken?” It was Ariel. My breath caught in my throat and the first few tears spilled onto my face. “Ken? When you’re done in their, can we please talk? I promise all we want to do is explain things to you and then you can decide what you want to do after that, okay? You can even go home early if you want; we’d buy you the ticket.” I didn’t move. I heard Erik say something to her before their footsteps went further into the bedroom. I heard them shuffling and moving things around for a few minutes. There was another knock on the bathroom door. “We will be in the lobby,” Erik said. He waited a moment, then I heard the front door open, footsteps  move into the hallway, and the door shutting again. I refused to move until I was somewhat certain they really had left the room. I tried to cry quietly until then too, but I gave up after a bit and sobbed in fits and starts. I still didn’t want to leave the safety of beneath the sink so I awkwardly felt around the counter above until I found the tissue box. I don’t know how full it was before I got a hold of it, but it was empty by the time I was cried out. I listened for movement before I left my safety spot. The bathroom was fully steamed up at this point. I felt bad for wasting so much water and turned the shower off. I took my jacket off and sat on the toilet lid to figure out if there was some way I could escape. As far as I knew, the only door that didn’t have a fire alarm attached was the one in the lobby so I couldn’t go out that way. We were on the second floor of the hotel with no features to hold onto nearby, so even if I did figure out someway to get through the window there was no way I was going to jump that far. I was afraid of what They might do if police or the fire department showed up to rescue me so no 911 calls. A bit of a similar thing if I called my parents. Also they were like 5 Midwest-sized states away so it would take too long to wait for them to get to me. Had this entire trip been some sort of plan to get me alone? But why? I’d never been a fan of the human-eating giant trope and besides, they’d had plenty of opportunities to do something like that before now. Like that afternoon! They could theoretically still try to kidnap me at some point. Did they plan on keeping me as some sort of pet? I groaned and put my head between my legs. All that succeeded in doing was making my head hurt from too much blood. There really wasn’t much I could do. And the bathroom was way too hot and humid and I was tired of staring at the tiled floor. I stood up and cautiously moved to the door. I unlocked it, waited, nothing happened. I opened the door less than an inch, waited, nothing. I opened it up halfway, put my glasses on, and peered into the other room. Erik and Ariel’s two large suitcases were up against the wall across from my door. On top of Ariel’s was a piece of paper and I could tell there was writing on it, but not what it said. Nothing else in the room seemed off so I slid out of my self-made sauna to take a closer look. I picked up her letter, but did yet another quick look around. It didn’t seem like any of my things had been moved, but the few things the other two had scattered around the room throughout the week were gone and I figured they must be in the suitcases next to me. I took a deep breath and read what Ariel had left me.

“Dear Ken, I’m so so sorry for scaring you today. But I’m even more sorry that my friend and I kept the truth about our real selves from you. We never meant to get this close to you; to anyone. I know that you must feel really scared, and that’s totally understandable! But please, just hear us out? You have our word that you get to decide what happens next! If you never want to go home right afterwords, we’ll buy your plane ticket electronically and you can take the rental car to the airport by yourself! If you never want to see or hear from us again you won’t! But please, please, can we talk? It would have to be in private of course and I’m really, really sorry for that. We know you aren’t comfortable around us anymore. It would just be in the hotel room. Erik and I will look and be the size you’ve always known us as. I know this is asking a lot, and I’m super duper sorry that we put you in this position. I have our cell phone with me when you’re ready. Ariel”

I sat down on my bed, pulled my phone out, and stared at it. I really did want to go home and never interact with them again. But that meant being alone with them. Shit, if they could change they’re size and what they looked like why couldn’t they just fucking shrink me if they wanted! But other than this one, very important thing, it seemed as though they’d never lied to me. They both made it a point to follow through with any promises they made. Until now, I’d trusted them. Although given the current situation I’d probably trusted more easily than I should have. “Heh, hindsight is 20/20,” I grumbled and pushed my glasses further up onto my nose. I unlocked my phone and opened the text app, “Okay. I’m ready.” I pressed send. And immediately realized I most definitely was not ready. I hurried over to the corner made by the top of my bed and the wall and threw my coat over myself. “I’m acting like a fucking rabbit,” I mumbled to myself, “I can’t see you so you can’t see me!” I stayed right where I was “hiding” and didn’t move. A minute or two later, there was a knock on the door. “Ken?” Ariel asked tentatively. I knew I should respond, but I didn’t want to. So I compromised and made a weird, unhappy groan-like noise. “Okay, we’re coming in then.” I listened as they came in and stopped at the end of my bed. “Oh… Ken!” Ariel sounded the most sad I’d ever heard her. I started crying again. “I’m sorry,” I sobbed. “No, no! You have absolutely nothing to be sorry for!” she said, her voice sounding closer to the floor than usual. I wondered if she was kneeling. “You’re scared and upset, and it’s our fault!” She was right but I felt terrible and hell if I knew if I really did feel bad for how I was treating them, or I just felt betrayed and just didn’t know how to react to it, or what the fuck. Thanks to my earlier cry fest, I really didn’t have much left in me and quited down quickly. “We can all stay where we are on the floor if you want,” Erik told me softly. It also sounded like he might be kneeling. “Whatever makes you most comfortable.” I groaned again. They didn’t say anything and I realized that wasn’t really a noise they could act on. I pulled my jacket off my face and stared at them. They were both kneeling on the ground. Ariel was a little ways past the end of my bed and leaning slightly in my direction. Erik was behind her with a hand resting on her back. “You changed clothes?” was the first thing I actually said to them. They glanced down at their outfits as though they were also surprised by this. “Well yes…” he said slowly. “It wouldn’t be right to make the hotel furniture wet.” “But you packed everything?” I tilted my head towards their suitcases. “Like I said, we didn’t want to get everything wet, and damp clothing is uncomfortable.” Despite his shirt being dry, he tugged on it as if to emphasize his point. “So you made all your stuff wet?” “Yes.” “Very logical.” I giggled despite how I felt. Erik and Ariel smiled slightly in response, but still mostly looked worried. I tried to diffuse the situation some more. “I think I should stop being squashed in corners, my feet are falling asleep.” I stretched out a foot and lightly tapped it on the floor. Apparently I was right. I wrinkled my nose, “Shit, I think they really are asleep.” “Do you want help standing up?” I could tell Ariel was holding herself back. “If one of you can fit over here. It’s kind of small.” Ariel started trying to scoot closer to me, “Huh, yeah. I’m going to get stuck like this.” Despite having pins and needles in my feet, I rolled forward on them so that I was on my hands and knees. My face ended up being only a foot away from hers, a lot closer than I expected. After a beat I just accepted it. “If Erik pulls I can help push you out.” She blinked, but then smiled. “I said I was going to get stuck, not that I am!” She backed up past the bed again. I used my bed to help me stand up, but quickly had to lean against the wall for support. Both she and Erik started moving towards me but I shood them away with my free hand. “I’m good! Just too much time on the floor so all the stuff in my head is going, vwoosh!” I tried to mime blood rushing from my head to the rest of my body. “Are you pretending to not be upset anymore?” Ariel asked, sounding worried. “Sort of, I think? But I’m also really bad at holding grudges so…” I shrugged. We were quiet for a moment. Erik spoke first, “Do you have a preference on how we do this? You can stand and we can sit or-” “Sit.” I realized that didn’t fully convey what I meant. “Like uh… can we all sit on one of the beds and I’m between you two and holding your hands and stuff?” Ariel offered me a hand and I latched on. She stepped out of the way so I could get to Erik. He slowly reached a hand out to me, obviously trying to gage my reaction I grabbed him as well before maneuvering us so we could all sit comfortably on the end of the bed. Before they started their explanation I brought their hands to my chest and kind of hugged them to me. “Okay. Now I’m actually ready.”

—

And holy shit was their story something I did not expect. As far as Erik could figure out from his research—which was one of the things he would do while Ariel and I voice chatted—the two of them were from another universe. Erik and Ariel weren’t even their real names. In their culture they’re given a special name by their community’s religious leader and only a select, trusted few ever learn what it is. So, when they’d needed to tell Ana and I what to call them, Ariel said the first pair of names that came to mind. Courtesy of a Disney movies binge. Ariel and Erik had been chosen by their community to fight “the lifeless ones”. They were these blob-looking entities—or maybe different parts of the same being—that drained the life force from any living thing they came in contact with. In their universe, it was easy to fight the lifeless ones. The largest ones only came up to their knees and as long as they used a weapon made from inorganic materials and didn’t let themselves get surrounded, all they had to do was whack or poke the blobs and they would disappear. At some point, their culture’s religious leaders all started having nightmares. Together, they realized they were visions of the lifeless ones obliterating a far off place—Earth. It wasn’t a place that could be reached by normal means though. They somehow knew that wasn’t even a place in their understanding of reality. And that was why the lifeless ones there were much more dangerous. Some were taller than the tallest trees and smallest ones were still as big as boulders. Their leaders realized the place they were seeing had no to fight back. They argued over whether or not to do something about it. They decided they needed to help in someway. Erik and Ariel weren’t sure how it came about exactly, but the leaders learned that they could send a pair of warriors to where the lifeless ones were wreaking havoc and stop them. They knew that whatever had changed the lifeless ones would have a similar affect on the warriors when they arrived. Somehow this only worked one way though. The warriors wouldn’t be able to come home. They chose Erik and Ariel. But no one had been able to figure out in what ways the trip would make them able to stand against the lifeless ones. Would they somehow be stronger? Faster? How would they deal with massive difference in size? As soon as my friends woke up on Earth, they learned the answer to the last question. Without using their abilities, they’re both much taller than Ariel was the afternoon we fell off the road. By a lot. Like your average person is comparable to less than a quarter inch compared to them tall. Over time they learned that they were also naturally invisible to creatures on Earth unless they wanted to be seen. They also could only interact with the lifeless ones unless they were visible and wanted to do something like carry a rock. They didn’t know for how long they fought the lifeless ones after they arrived. But it was long enough that the hoards they fought against became fewer in frequency in number. Eventually they came to have a feeling that their work was nearing it’s end. They started feeling tired in a way they hadn’t before. They wondered if it was the feeling that they’d die soon. They fought against it for as long as they could until one night, they both knew that when they went to sleep they’d never wake up. They said there good-byes to each other then laid down side-by-side under the star-dotted sky. They did wake up though, just not in the usual way. At first they were only aware of themselves individually. They knew who they were and that something was wrong. They couldn’t move, they couldn’t see, or hear, or even breath. Then slowly they felt life coming back to them. They realized the other was still there, beside them. As soon as they could, they sat up. They found themselves in an underground chamber that was actually large enough that they could stand up and lie down, but not much else. They heard small noises that sounded almost like singing, coming from the end of the hall where there head had been. And that’s when they met their first humans. (They’d seen humans around before, but never interacted with them.) Apparently while they’d been sleeping, a very small religion had started with my friends as their deities. The group’s theology even included the lifeless ones, except they were also a bit more like demons at times. They thought the lifeless ones could possess people and animals and that everything bad that happened was due to them. The group believed that the lifeless ones were too numerous again and that their only choice to save the world was to resurrect Erik and Ariel. My friends weren’t happy about this development. Unfortunately they didn’t have a choice but to spend the first few months with their tiny cult. They weren’t able to do much besides be visible to them and on occasion, physically interact with things—specifically food. They started feeling stronger and would test their powers on the rare occasions they were completely alone, just to be safe. When they felt ready they made their escape. It turned out there really was a dangerous amount of lifeless ones, especially given how much the human population had grown while they slept. Erik’s best guess is that they fell asleep at least 4,000 years ago. So yeah. A lot happened while they were out. With no idea on what else to do, they went back to fighting the lifeless ones. When they weren’t doing that, they started learning about modern life. I met them a few years after that. “Wait, okay,” I said at the end of their story. “So not counting the time you were passed out, how old are you guys?” “With the differences in how we measure time… we were around 25 years old when we first arrived on Earth…” Erik said. “But well…” “We don’t think we age,” Ariel finished. “Other than learning new things and normal day-to-day differences in our bodies, we haven’t changed. And it’s another one of those things that we just seem to know.” “Oh.” I said. “That’s going to be weird in a few years.” “You’re speaking as though we’ll be around then,” he said slowly. “Yeah, I guess.” “Please don’t think you have to make a decision now!” Ariel told me with panic in her voice. “You can take as long as you need to and of course you have every right to change your mind at any time!” “So one of the basic constraints of any healthy relationship,” I mused. “It is, isn’t it?” Ariel said after a moment. I squeezed her hand and she did so back. “Well my choice as of right now is that we should sleep. I’m too tired to make any important life-altering decisions after today. Also, what time is it?” We all looked around for a clock. “That one says it’s after 6 PM.” Ariel said, pointing to the one on the bedside table. I remembered cell phones existed and let go of her hand to pull mine out. “Sounds right,” I said. “My stomach also agrees.” “Do you want to eat by yourself tonight?” Erik asked. “No, we need a fun group activity,” I declared. “Let’s find somewhere that serves breakfast for supper!” We stood up and started getting ready to leave. I paused part way through putting on a shoe. “Wait, another question.” “Hmm-mm?” “So you guys don’t have a job and I’m guessing you didn’t get mountains of US dollars when you first got here, so how the fuck are you paying for everything?” I realized with horror what the answer was. “Credit card fraud.” I whispered. “No!” Ariel exclaimed. She looked and sounded as though I’d accused her of murdering a baby. “It’s an ability we discovered recently,” Erik said, also sounding perturbed that I’d accuse them of something so heinous. “We don’t know how it works, but once a month I will the credit card bill to be paid and it happens.” Suddenly he looked sheepish. “Although we only found that out after we obtained our card somewhat illegally.” I finished tying my shoe and stood up. I narrowed my eyes at him, “I know you’re telling the truth but that sounds like complete bullshit.” “I think most people would consider my friend and I even existing as ‘bullshit’.” He shrugged. “Okay, that’s fair,” I admitted. We finished getting our things together before I stopped us from going out the door. “’Nother question,” I explained and turned to try to look them both in the face. I hoped I looked serious. “You guys’ve never said I can’t tell anyone about you…?” Ariel bent over so her face was almost at my eye level. “That’s because we trust you, silly!” My heart fluttered. “Oh.” I looked up at Erik, and with a genuine smile, he nodded in agreement. “I- uh… thank you?” Not knowing what else to do, I spun back around to the door and opened it. “Breakfast for supper still good with ya’ll?” I asked over my shoulder. “If that’s what you want,” Ariel reassured me. I gave her a big smile and stepped out into the hallway. I didn’t know what I’d think about everything tomorrow. But I definitely knew that right then, I wanted to eat pancakes and sausage and ice cream with my two friends who were walking behind me.

[destiny-smasher]

So! Episode 2 of Before the Storm! It was very good! If you haven't read my thoughts on Episode 1, here those are.

If you want an audio discussion about either episode, I've recorded podcasts with my girlfriend, @mollifiable, as well as musicians Riley Hawke and Koethe. Here’s what we discussed on Ep1, and here’s the podcast on Ep2. BEAR IN MIND I will be discussing a number of things from EPISODE 2, so you probably shouldn’t read this if you haven’t experienced it yet. There are some inherent problems I still have with this projects conception (which I got into in that first post back in September), but Epsiode 2 has gone a long way toward giving me faith in why this story is being made. Or, at the least, that it's being made with a lot of thought and care. I've played a LOT of story-focused, episode games, and honestly, I think this episode is one of the best I've ever experienced, overall. I still struggle with some elements of the story (ex. I just don't like Rachel as much as I think I'm 'meant to,' BUT I think that ties into what the overall story may be about), and I still feel frustrated that your team is being limited by the nature of the setup (why is this all happening over three days when it could’ve been over three years, for example), but Episode 2 just has so much good going for it and I felt like it really showed what can be done with a project like this. Like last time, I want to address this to Madeleine, Felice, and the entire team at Deck Nine directly – and point out how much it means to us that you guys actually reach back and communicate with us, even encouraging criticism. I'm proud of what your team has been able to accomplish with this episode and think it stands out in the genre in a lot of ways.

Let’s get to it.

That being said, I do want to offer my criticisms, so let's just get those out of the way first. First off, Samuel – yeesh. Sorry, I just really didn't like the scene with Samuel. Part of it is his new voice actor just sounding more...creepy? I guess I'd say? But also, his manner of speech and the things he said felt out of place. Not just for his character but with the story in general. In LiS1, Samuel comes across as mentally different than those around him, almost like a sort of sage in a way, engaging with the world in a different way than those around him (there's a similar character in Supergiant's brilliant Pyre who comes to mind). But here, Samuel felt like a cross between a psychiatrist and a guy taking too many drugs? That's perhaps harsh, but especially given that his character model/rigging didn't seem to carry over properly, I was just rubbed the wrong way by his presence in this episode in a way that hasn't happened with any other recurring characters. I appreciate the intent I picked up from his scene – to remind us that there's more going on than just what we can see on the surface – but I felt like it missed the mark of who Samuel was as a character without really establishing why he would be different in this way three years in the past. On a related subject – the adult characters in this episode, or at least some of them, felt weird. MOST of them felt more like caricatures than actual characters. Wells felt fine, and I actually kind of PREFER this take on Wells because he feels LESS like a caricature and more like an actual principle. I can even kind of see a headcanon link between this interpretation of him and the version of him three years having just kind of shed away his decorum from the stress of managing a school undergoing so many changes and financial problems. I really felt for Joyce, and I felt that David's character was finally presented in a way that lacked the cliché “military” skew that LiS1 forced too hard while simultaneously giving the audience an understanding of precisely why his presence in the household would push Chloe so far away (though I still find much of the Joyce/David stuff odd here because we already know where this all leads and nothing here really seems to build anything new from that). Characters like Rachel's dad, the theater teacher, Samuel, Skip, Damon, and Sean Prescott all felt...a bit too cartoony in ways. Damon maybe least of all due to the intensity of that scene and the nice subtext we can pick up (after all, money is a realistic and pragmatic motive to drive one to aggression) In general, the adults felt flatter and more cartoony than I think works for this setting. Not to say they should NEVER be funny or anything, just that I was repeatedly taken out of the story by how jarringly one-dimensional a line was, or how flat a voice delivery was, etc. Fortunately, this problem doesn't really carry over to the teens, who are, of course, the focus of the narrative. I also noticed more moments in this episode where characters' eyes were uncanny, staring straight ahead in unnatural ways – or mouth movements being weird (Samuel being the biggest example, to the point that it jarred me out of the story and distracted from his dialogue). Minor complaint, all things considered, but worth pointing out as I didn't really notice this happen in episode 1, which makes me worry that maybe things got rushed a bit too much? (you guys did release this episode weeks earlier than expected) On the upside, though, this problem did NOT exist when it mattered the most, so at least that detail was put into the important moments. All right, last nitpick – I found the whole “drugging” thing re: the pre-play scene to be in bad taste. On the one hand, I LIKE the premise, and how it really does a fascinating thing with developing/contrasting/comparing Rachel and Victoria (in a way that requires knowledge of alternate events, something only a video game could do), but on the other hand...ya'll made drugging teen girls in an active, malicious way this...joke. While I do love that BtS has more comedy in its tone, I found turning Victoria's drug-induced passing out into a JOKE to be kind of offensive, especially given that she can get drugged and murdered in LiS1 (and Rachel AND Chloe both get drugged and/or murdered?), and just...yea. All in all, I think the concept of this scene works, it's the execution that makes it feel insensitive and kind of worrying. (ex. Victoria passes out and fucking NO ONE calls a doctor or tries to help her, the camera fucking PANS on her unconscious body like it's this joke and the way the whole thing is framed just invites laughter on something that kinda sorta shouldn't be funny given the full context of this story) Anyway, it's kind of like the wine scene in the first episode, but worse in terms of implications, I guess? I'm not THAT torn up over it since it's brief, and everyone's OK in the end, I presume, but it just feels a bit tone deaf when SO MUCH of this episode is SO GOOD. It really took me out of the experience – but the layered nature of it (how Rachel gets her way no matter what, how Rachel AND Victoria are both willing to drug each other, how Vic can be manipulated while Rachel can't) makes it really intriguing. I think the concept here was intriguing, but the execution on stuff like this could be handled more thoughtfully. I could get into pacing issues, I suppose, but honestly, I've already critiqued enough, and I think this episode was really good, so I don't want to get too down on the details when I'm sure others will get into this topic. (like the canon inconsistencies, they’re there, but aren’t really detracting from the good stuff)

OK! With all of that out of the way, let me get into what I loved about this episode, which was most of it. Episode 1 was unclear and uncertain in what it was trying to convey, which makes more sense now that we have Episode 2, which dives right into what this story seems to be about – passion, and the good and bad that comes from it. Passion, to be clear, being different from love. Love is steady, consistent, like a stream of water, while passion is fast and bright and sudden, like fire. I could get into the elemental symbolism you could correlate between wind, water, fire and Chloe, Max, and Rachel, but I'm sure folks have done this already. I do think it's still worth pointing out just how great a job you've done so far using fire as a metaphor for Rachel and Chloe's relationship, both within the story presented here and overarching into LiS as a whole. You managed to work it into the actual plot, as well, in a way that doesn't feel forced or thoughtless – an entire episode later and there are still consequences from it. Having just experienced the CA wildfires a half hour away from my home, I can appreciate a certain level of fear and awe at how much can be affected by fire, even the air itself, and just how quickly it can spread and how much damage it can do in a short time. The fact that the title screen itself it an analogy about passion makes me super excited at the potential for episode 3. Absolutely love that the title screen doubles as atmosphere AND symbolism. Specifically, I have to call out the dream sequence here as being quite awesome. From the moment I saw the burning car with a shadowed figure, I already knew what the visual reveal at the end of the scene was going to be, and was still thoroughly satisfied. I absolutely love LOVE the metaphor William presents about comparing/contrasting light and dark in terms of how both can cause us to lose ourselves, lose our ways, and be blinded. The way this correlates to Chloe's loss of William, Max, and Rachel (darkness) to how she can be blinded by light (passion for Rachel, even excitement about Max's power later on) is all encapsulated in a single bit of dialogue that communicates such an underexplored theme in the medium, and one that makes telling this story from a teenage perspective suddenly feel 100% sensible instead of just a coincidence. Telling a story diving into the theme of passion just wouldn't work the same from a character too young or too old, because it's this part of the human condition that we experience passion the deepest and the hottest. Which brings us to the fantastic play aspect, which is one of my favorite moments in all of LiS at this point. The layers of meaning at work here were genius. First off, it's all a play – an act. And Chloe is trying to keep up, while Rachel is clearly experienced with this. Secondly, the connections between relationships in The Tempest to the protagonists is great use of intertextual storytelling. Thirdly, highlighting a Shakespearean play, which highlights passion from teenage youths, yet another layer. Fourth, they go off script, which itself has really interesting connotations in terms of this game itself existing in the first place as an “off script” piece of the story, as well as how the content of their moment carries an unrealistic, impractical hopefulness to it that is inspiring, but still an act in a play, involving magic and fantasy. Fifth, concluding the scene with the way the play ends adds this really awesome extra layer of meta expression – Rachel as a character gets to be expressed and represented in a way she originally was not, with the help of fans of the LiS developing this prequel, but also fans of LiS breathing life into Rachel before this prequel existed; PLUS the prequel itself is a performance that you, the development team, are putting on for us, the audience. There's just so much going on here, and the musical choices helped seal the moment's emotional impact. Even as myself, coming from the perspective of not trusting Rachel's judgment/actions, I felt as if I finally had a 'moment' where I truly understood why Chloe was so swiftly enamored with Rachel. It reminded me of moments I've experienced in my own past, though nothing as 'magical' as this. It also just highlighted how Rachel's character has power and influence over those around her despite being so young. All in all, bravo. This scene came together fantastically, and I think it's one of the most thoughtfully put together scripted scenes I've ever seen in a video game. This was the moment I fell in love with this story – not because of AmberPrice but because it was so well put together by everyone involved. I think this will probably go down as the highlight of this game when all is said and done. To back things up a bit, I did enjoy the premise of the junkyard stuff. I really liked giving Chloe's character a bit of breathing room on her own – the kinds of things she thinks to herself while exploring the environment showed a bit of Max's influence on her still being present even as she's trying to forget Max. I liked that we could pick different objects to help decorate/fix the van, as well, but the flow of the scene would work better if we could do it all in one trip rather than taking two trips – I found myself disoriented after placing the battery into the car, and by that point had lost track of where specific objects were, whereas it would've been more fitting to maybe have Chloe make note of the items first, or even gather them all up into a pile and let the player choose from there. I predicted and felt satisfied by how the truck was utilized as an analogy for Chloe as a person – broken, banged up, abandoned, lost, but if given enough attention and care, could be back up and running. The therapy session Rachel and Chloe have was also nice at building their relationship further.

Something that wasn't as apparent in episode 1 because it simply needed time to grow was the whole way that Rachel is presented as someone who is flawed. Because the story is from Chloe's perspective, there's maybe too many limits on how this can be developed, though we'll see how the finale handles things, but I really liked that all of the flaws we already know about her character from stuff in LiS1 felt contextualized in this episode. She can be manipulative, short-sighted, impulsive, and even self-absorbed, but it's not malicious or even intentional all of the time. Rachel herself is in a similar position as Chloe – they're teenagers – she is still figuring herself out, what she really wants, who she really wants to be, and how she can achieve those things. All of my doubts, concerns, and fears about this relationship between them all feel validated by their dynamics, by the theming and foreshadowing, and yet it simultaneously makes sense why and how they'd end up together – out of teenage passion, and a shared sense of longing to feel both needed by someone else and taken care of by someone else. The scene after the play, in the street, had a great sense of aesthetic to it, which felt like it was from a teen romance film from the 80's or something. The imagery of the scene highlights the nature of this whole story – a splash of light along a dark road that is Chloe's teenage years. The multiple ways this scene can play out depending on previous choices was neat, too. I was especially intrigued by the possibility of making the “Friendship” choice in Ep1, then asking for a kiss here in this scene – there's this amazing bit of animation in Rachel's face that really shows her thought processes clicking together in an ambiguous way that really fits her character. I'm also super curious as to what will come of the bracelet bit, since Rachel surprisingly gives it to Chloe if you ask for it, despite the fact that we know she ultimately gives it to Frank. There's multiple possibilities of what that could entail, and I'm really interested in seeing how that plays out. This actually reminds me of how much I liked the way decisions from episode 1 have branched out here. Rather than decisions having a single static meaning later on, you have aspects from Episode 1 lead to different branching possibilities of how scenes play out. The outcomes are usually the same, but still, it makes the story feel more dynamic, and I like how these aren't always super obvious. There's a lot of examples of this, from telling Rachel that Chloe feels romantically or not, to stealing the money, to what you do WITH the money, and some other smaller things, too. Great work with this stuff, it helps us see different angles to the characters when we have these options, and highlights what LiS was originally about re: characters – perspective is everything. And yet, Rachel seems almost immune to things in a sense, which is appropriate given how her character works and how she influences those around her. I liked the scene with Frank in the RV and the way it contrasts and compares his future self to his past self. Which reminds me, this episode had a bit more interesting 'character development through environment,' which was a highlight of LiS1 that felt missing from Ep1 of Before the Storm. Whether it was Frank's RV, Elliot's dorm room, the Amber household, or, most poignantly, Drew's dorm room, you guys did a great job letting us learn more about the characters through the environments. While you could argue that it doesn't quite match Chloe's character the way it does Max (and I'd argue that the whole nature of trying to socialize and make friends itself already is kind of against Chloe's character in Ep1), I think it works well enough and just makes sense from a game design standpoint. I liked that we got more opportunities for graffiti in ways that weren't just straight up wall graffiti (ex. Crossword, drawing on the newspaper photo). I glossed over this last time, but part of what I've been frustrated by with Before the Storm is the way Chloe at 16 years old...already feels like Chloe at 19, but slightly more awkward. Episode 2 helped resolve some of this by putting her outside of her comfort zone more and highlighting her vulnerability, cynicism, and uncertainty (whereas Chloe at 19 kind of doesn't give a shit and dives head first into everything and doesn't care what anyone thinks). I also really love the multiple ways you've referenced that Chloe was originally a “nerd” like Max, and has gradually been straying away from that – and yet, it's still part of who she is (and ends up showing itself later on in LiS1, like how she seems to know more about time travel theory than Warren does). In particular, I loved how she pulls up different characters' web search histories – something that doesn't specifically take much effort, but that most people wouldn't think to do. This in and of itself was a really clever way of adding more to character development for those involved. (“why won't puppy eat steak” is hilarious to me and I can't get over it for some reason) The entire scene with Mikey, Drew, and Damon was wonderful. I loved the multiple outcomes and how none of them are specifically good, and any of them can feel in character for Chloe. I think Damon's character feels a little one dimensional here, BUT the context makes sense – he wants his fucking money. He's collecting debts after suffering a huge monetary loss. Of course he's going to be single-minded. As a side note, I loved the small but significant bit re: Damon's e-mail to Frank. Props to whoever came up with that. What a brilliantly subtle way of telling us so much about Damon's true character and his relationship with Frank. Going back to the conflict at the dorm, I loved that you took a bully character who appeared simple and effortlessly fleshed him out enough to feel legitimately believable with real motives. I loved how I was able to figure out the passcode to his lock organically given everything I had seen, and how I then used that knowledge to express what I felt would be in his best interests in the conflict – even though, as my girlfriend pointed out, it might not have been the best long-term outcome. I wish we'd seen more of Mikey and Steph, but what was there was still good. Steph's brief convo with Chloe I saw coming in a good way, and I really liked how you presented it. I liked the bits we got with Samantha and Skip, as well, thought I'm wondering where you're going with Samantha and Nathan. I was actually really frustrated with the Backtalk sequence with Skip, but then, I think that was the whole point. Speaking of, I really didn't like Backtalk in Ep1, but it was overall much better here. In Ep1, Backtalk was like some weird 'Be an Asshole' thing, and it felt weird how the game inherently encouraged you to do this. In Ep2, there were multiple times where I felt unsure if Backtalk was 'the best' way to go, and even then, most of its uses felt much more organic. It wasn't just about being a jerk to make someone feel bad, there was often some organic purpose to it – talking Victoria out of being in the play in a way that made her feel like it was her own decision; trying to get info out of Frank; trying to get into a dorm you weren't supposed to be in; trying to stick up for Rachel in the face of discipline, or trying to help her confront her father. In every case, there was an interpersonal motivation – Chloe wasn't doing it for something she specifically wanted, or just to make someone feel bad, but to try and do something for someone else. Also, they felt more like arguments, or ways of manipulating someone, rather than straight up insults. In some ways, it reminded me of things in TellTale's The Walking Dead Season 2, using more manipulative dialogue to resolve a situation rather than just brute-forcing things. This also contributes toward the theme of 'influence' regarding Chloe being influenced by Rachel so quickly and easily that she's even picking up some of Rachel's tactics (which, one could argue, she uses later on when she's older). This being said, I'm hoping that in Episode 3 we're given a more high-stakes situation that can be resolved using those more manipulative mannerisms, which gives the Backtalk mechanic a “climax” of sorts.

I like the way that you've been able to build this sense of supernatural occurrences without actually showing anything supernatural. The All-Seeing-Eye, the recurring Raven imagery, the weird shit going on with Chloe and others seeming to be having mysterious, prophetic dreams (even Elliot and Frank seem to be having them), the way the ash fall at the end of the episode foils the snowfall at the end of Ep1 of Life is Strange. This builds to a fascinating moment at the end of the episode where, for the first time, perspective SHIFTS from Chloe to Rachel, only for a few seconds, but in a really neat way that leads you to FEEL like something supernatural is about to happen, only for it not to. In a way, this feels like what your overall story could be about in a sense, though it'd be downright odd at this point to have NO answers or resolution regarding what I described above. One of the original game's biggest flaws was how it drummed up mystery only to leave things unexplained or unresolved in ways that damaged the actual plot. Dream sequences don't necessarily do this, but with how much emphasis you've put on them and the Raven/Eye imagery, I feel like there must be a purpose you have here – especially if members of your staff are getting ravens tattooed on their bodies. Naturally, Rachel's mom seems tied to all of this, if not the origin point of it. And I can't help but wonder if we'll even get a perspective shift near the end of the story from Rachel's point of view, if only to help imply or insinuate some things that tie into unanswered elements of Max's story. Speaking of Max, I was much more happy with the 'letters' in this episode, as they spend very little time needlessly bashing a character who wasn't even present, and more time on Chloe quickly becoming obsessed with Rachel – which all makes sense with the arc you seem to be going for. I liked the extra allusions to Chloe's future with Max, such as the maze and William's remark about a “beauty” to come in the future. It's such a complicated thing to tackle – and trust me, I've spent two years and hundreds of thousands of words trying to tackle it myself with these same characters – but I finally have come to a place where I can appreciate the balance you've managed to find between supporting the good elements Chloe and Rachel had going for them, while also implying the bad elements and the reasons why Chloe would develop feelings for Max later on. On a personal level, I relate with Chloe a lot in regards to her relationships (I relate with Max in a lot of ways, too, but that's a separate matter). I have lived through both long term and short term experiences of passion, romantically and platonically. And I have been romantically involved with people who remind me of Rachel. And I think that's part of why I just...don't like her, personally. BUT I am at a place now, after this episode, where I like her as a CHARACTER, even if I don't like her as a fictional person. I never can fully let my guard down around her, but can totally understand why Chloe would (and did), and have been there. And now that I have the context of this episode, I can finally start to see what 'the point' of this story seems to be, which makes me very curious to see how it is resolved. Lastly, again, great job using mocap and facial animation to heighten realism for a lot of scenes. While I noticed more “flat” moments than before, it never detracted from the important moments having that level of detail to make them bring out an extra layer of inevitability. From Chloe knocking at a dartboard to finger-gun gestures, to subtle but complex expressions, just a lot of great expressive details going on here. On that note, I noticed a real improvement in Rhianna’s performance. She felt like she wasn’t trying to mimic Ashly Burch or Ellen Page and was instead just finding her own interpretation of the role, and it works MUCH better. In a way, I still feel a constant sense of ‘this isn’t exactly Chloe’ but not in a bad way, just a...different way. Instead of feeling distracted by her actress being different, I felt instead like I was being more absorbed into this alternate interpretation of the character. Both Hannah and Ashly needed some time to fill into their roles before ‘the good stuff’ really came out in their performances, so I’m really looking forward to what Rhianna might pull off in Episode 3, and what she can do in the future after this role, when she isn’t burdened by the complexities of this kind of situation. I could go on, but I've ranted stream-of-conscious style long enough. I still have some more broad strokes issues with this game’s narrative, but then again, I have issues with the original game’s, as well -- and this story isn’t done yet, so I want to wait until I have the full context before I comment on those broad-scope design elements. I hope at least some of what I've written here is helpful to your team, and that my critical comments highlight just how good a job you guys did with this second entry. Regardless of how I end up feeling about Episode 3 of Before the Storm, I am really happy for your team and what they've pulled off here, and am very supportive of what you seem to be trying to do, as delicate a balancing act as it surely is.

[19980115]

XSPORTSNEWS: Bermuda Visual Guide

What kind of a student were you during your school days?

Juyeon: I graduated from liberal arts concentration in a general high school. I wanted to attend school without standing out as much as possible. My teachers really adored me a lot. Really! They still keep in contact with me even now. I also listened well to what my teachers told me. I tried my best to balance my life as a student in school while also living my trainee life.

Younghoon: I was also from liberal arts. I think I had a lot of fun by playing. My high school life was really fun. Just like Juyeon, my teachers really liked me. They really liked me!

Juyeon: Only the two of us came from general high school. (The majority of The Boyz members are from SOPA and Hanlim)

Hyunjae: I also attended a general high school and then transferred to Hanlim, but when I was attending that general school, there were my neighborhood friends that I have been friends with for a long time so we joked and played around with each other and seemed to be such jokesters. After transferring to Hanlim, I lived as a quiet student. Before transferring I was in Natural Sciences stream.

Oh, why did you choose Natural Sciences?

Hyunjae: Since I was young I’ve liked sciences and mathematics for a bit so I chose the natural sciences. (Could it be because he was in natural sciences. The Globe that Hyunjae is holding in the picture is an item he picked himself)

Then, what are your favourite subjects?

Hyunjae: I liked science the most. (Between Physics, Chemistry, Earth Science, and Biology?)  Without creating distinctions, if it’s science then I would do everything enthusiastically. But while doing it I realized that it’s a bit hard. So at some point (laughs) it (T/N: his favourite subject) became Physical Education.

Younghoon: For me it’s computer class and domestic life class. We always go to the computer room during domestic life class and there was a time where I sat at the furthest back and played games secretly even though it wasn’t allowed (laughs)

Juyeon: P.E. class. Is there even a guy who doesn’t like it?

Hyunjae: I received 100 points in sport class. I also received an award!

Juyeon: Ah, I also like English. I’m not good with English but the teacher was really fun. So my English class too was fun.

As expected, P. E. is the best.

Hyunjae: I did really well in everything in P. E.!

Younghoon: Our members too are also those who are good in exercises/sports.

Hyunjae: I didn’t go to an academy or something like that but I think I’m a quick learner and can get used to something right away.

Juyeon: I like basketball, during sports competition day I even played until the final for basketball. It’s a league that starts from the beginning of the semester so it proceeds systematically beforehand, but in that sports competition I led our class to win the first place.

Younghoon: Although I wasn’t that good in anything… I played football and basketball passionately even though I wasn’t excellent in it. Ah, I was good at rope skipping! I can jump once in two spins. I am good at it!

So what was your role in sports competition?

Hyunjae: Truthfully, I always won first for running in primary and middle school but as I grow older I became slower. I don’t know the reason why… I really never lost the number one title but as I grew up I couldn’t keep it. I’m now thinking of practicing running really hard.

Younghoon: In sports competition, I would just sit and make noises rather than support or participate (laughs)

Hyunjae: Being absent from the typical school life…

Younghoon: I participated in what I was good at but didn’t participate in things that I wasn’t confident in and wasn’t good at (laughs)

Juyeon: For me, I put in the extra work to be able to win the general championship in basketball.

How was your school lunch? What did you like?

Juyeon: My school’s lunch didn’t really suit my taste (laughs)

Younghoon: I liked everything. I was in the first batch. I was close to the dietitian teachers in the school so I even asked them to give me more food. It was really delicious. Our school’s lunch was really tasty! It was the best!

Juyeon: I’m jealous…

Hyunjae: When I was attending general high school, the school lunch was delicious. There was fried chicken feet, and there was even pizza. I think everything was delicious!

How did you mainly spend your break time? As expected, convenience store?

Hyunjae: Of course I went to the convenience store and had a fierce physical struggle. There is that bread, the most famous Pizza bread. (T/N: He means that during break, it’s usually very crowded in the convenience store and so he would have to struggle his way and compete in terms of speed and strength with others in the crowd to buy the food he wants).

Younghoon: I think I know what it is!

Hyunjae: I had physical struggles with both juniors and seniors without exception for that bread.

Younghoon: We didn’t have a convenience store but there was a bread machine. The vending machine was surrounded by people, but in the second period there would be no one. So in break time I had to go fast and choose the bread quickly and came back.

Juyeon likes nature so you must have enjoyed nature a lot.

Juyeon: Our school was located in the mid-slope of Acha mountain, it was in the mountains so the nature was really beautiful. Although it’s not like I observed the nature during break time (laughs) I talked with my classmates, something like that. (Juyeon kept on saying “The weather today is so good” while enjoying the warm sunshine and wind as he gets absorbed in it.)

What was a song you enjoyed listening to during school days? If you listen to it, you think of “This is my school days”.

Hyunjae: SNSD - The Boys? (laughs) I think I listened to IU senior’s songs a lot.

Juyeon: I had a Cyworld account when I was in primary school. I was in my junior year. Was it 1st grade or 2nd grade? That time my BGM was Big Bang seniors’ Last Farewell. At the time no one else around that age listened to Big Bang seniors’ music but me. The kids didn’t know them.

Younghoon: For me when I was in middle school… I really liked animation. I watched animation by myself at home and played with my friend, things like that. I really liked animation and although I couldn’t express that (T/N: his liking) at school, it reminds me of the animation OSTs I listened to at that time.

Hyunjae: I also looked up animations and played with my friends. I think the “One Piece” OST sang by Koyote senior has in a way helped me live through my life until now. Shinji senior sang it and I really liked it.

What did you like the most about when you were attending school?

Juyeon: During spring, the cherry blossoms inside the school would be in full blossom. The cherry blossoms would bloom and it is really beautiful. All the students would not have classes and go out during that period. What should I say, traditionally? It’s not a regulation but it was like that and that period would come to my mind a lot. We would go out and take photos with the teachers too.

Hyunjae: I really liked going to school in itself in primary school. School was a “joy”. In middle school, it would be lunch time. I would go and eat delicious food. In front of our school they sell a lot of delicious food and because I can go out during lunch time I only waited for lunch time to come and ate a lot of delicious food with my friends. In high school, the end of the classes? I would get excited at the thought of going home and playing with my friends so seemed like I only waited for that time. Although I also worked very hard in school activities.

Younghoon: I also agree with you so much. I think I only waited for the end of the classes. Ah, just one more thing I waited for, lunch time. It was the longest. I can have fun playing and I played One Bound ball game too. I had so much fun playing.

Juyeon: I also liked lunch time because it was the longest. If the lunch time is 1 hour then I would play basketball for 55 minutes and eat for 5 minutes.

Younghoon: Guys are like that.

Juyeon: At the end I would rush back running, something as such. That time was really good.

In school days, students would celebrate “special days” a lot. Seems like the three of you were popular.

Juyeon: In primary school? I think I received the most that time. 100 of that bar snack... (T/N: Pepero)

Younghoon: Separately? (laughs)

Juyeon: That’s why there was once when it was very hard for me to bring them back.

Hyunjae: Are you sure it’s perhaps not a dream? (laughs)

Juyeon: Our mom enjoyed it a lot. In White Day I would give out candies to all my classmates. I went to all male middle school and then co-ed high school but because I became a high school student I didn’t really do it anymore. (laughs) I couldn’t receive any.

Hyunjae: When I had to go down to eat I had to walk past the juniors’ classes. The juniors seemed to show interest when I was walking (laughs). Just like now when The Boyz stand on the stage and the fans would cheer. (While sharing this story, Hyunjae was really worried that it would seem as if he’s bragging too much. Hyunjae said he’s saying the “facts”.)

Of course these are episodes that handsome can experience, so don’t worry.

Hyunjae: Ah, there was even a time when my mother misunderstood and asked me “Do you have a girlfriend?” Ever since I was young my mother is conservative and she wouldn’t let me date or do things like that at all. That’s why I didn’t have a girlfriend… My mother was in the hospital once and told me that the kids said that I had a girlfriend. Making up a girlfriend that doesn’t exist… There was that kind of a story too.

Though seems like Younghoon would of course have this kind of episode as well?

Younghoon: It was during middle school, I can’t remember what day it was but it was the first time I received a confession in my life. I was in first grade of middle school and I was like such a baby. I was so embarrassed so I ran away. After that too I never contacted her at all.

Did you also do club activities?

Younghoon: I didn’t do any in high school but in our school every class has to perform something like a choir so I did it. We sang “Lion King” OST together too.

Hyunjae: Please sing it once~

Younghoon: In middle school I did pra-model (T/N Gundam) assembling.

Hyunjae: I made pencil cases and posters. Badminton club too… I participated in a lot of things.

Juyeon: I also joined the choir but just after two days… (T/N: He left) (laughs) Ah, in middle school I did basketball for after school activity. Because I was really crazy about basketball (laughs)

Hyunjae: Even now…

Juyeon: Now I don’t have time.

Hyunjae: When you have time…

Younghoon: You also don’t do any other games but basketball.

Hyunjae: Do you watch many of our videos or basketball videos?!

Juyeon: Of course I always watch our videos a lot more! (laughs)

If I have to define my school days?

Hyunjae: Past.

Younghoon: Something I enjoyed?

Juyeon: Nostalgic.

Younghoon: It’s a memory I want to go back to. If I can go back…

Hyunjae: Study?

Younghoon: I have to study.

Hyunjae: If I can go back, I should have done even just 2 foreign languages since I was young… I would have listened to my father’s words. Our dad even told me, “Jaehyun-ah, it’s fine even if you don’t study but you have to study foreign language.” Our dad even saw the future…

Juyeon: You can start doing it now. There is enough time.

Younghoon: I want to learn Chinese or Japanese. I already started learning foreign language in advance. (The Boyz members are now learning foreign languages)

Hyunjae: I’m the smartest. Should I say that in The Boyz I have a good memory…

Younghoon: ? Please make sure to use it as it is!

Juyeon: Right.

Hyunjae: When memorizing I would memorize everything. (Hyunjae said that in reality he’s the best in Chinese so he’s in charge of Chinese in The Boyz)

What comes into your mind when you wake up in the morning and look at the mirror?

Hyunjae: I used to not get bloated but my condition has changed so lately I always get swollen in the morning. Because of that I don’t look at the mirror. Yeah right, don’t you think that lately I’ve been getting swollen?

Younghoon: I don’t really know… Lately every morning when I wake up, I check my skin first while also getting my make-up done. My skin has not been very good so I’m getting stress.

Juyeon: For me…

Hyunjae: (While stroking his own face) Ah, whose child is this? (laughs)

Younghoon: Ah, he’s really something else~ This one~ (laughs) (T/N: They are teasing Juyeon)

Juyeon: I don’t think anything comes to my mind as I look at the mirror. Just, today too be positive…

When did you begin to notice that you are good looking?

Hyunjae: Kindergarten? (laughs) When I was young, a lot of adults told me such things (T/N: that he is good looking) and I grew up while listening to those words, that’s how I knew it, but now it’s not like that. Now I don’t think like that! There are so many good looking people in the world.

Juyeon: I think it’s also the same for me. When I was young I heard a lot of those things from people around me so I lived while thinking “I’m good in my own way”, but after debuting and seeing our seniors… There are many good looking people in the world.

Younghoon: I didn’t know until I went to high school. I heard a lot of stories of my good look when I entered high school. I think my friends saw me that way because during middle school my cheeks were chubby and during high school I lost weight. I didn’t even make it up… I was really happy because of listening to those words. (In the text he may seem confident, but in reality Younghoon was very shy and chose his words carefully so do not misunderstand)

Then who are the seniors that you think are good looking?

Hyunjae, Juyeon, Younghoon: DBSK seniors!

Hyunjae: They are very tall and really cool.

Juyeon: I certainly think that men look cooler if they are tall. They were really cool.

DBSK mentioned that The Boyz was a junior outside of their company that catched their attention, right? They also said Juyeon cried.

Juyeon: We met them by chance two days after our debut showcase. At that time, I was really out of my mind and it was a situation where I still couldn’t believe that I debuted. We were just in time to greet the seniors that time, but then they also told us a lot of good stories. Ever since I was young I’ve liked them so much but because of receiving such advices, a realization dawned upon me and I cried without even knowing it myself.

When is the moment when you personally think you look the most good looking?

Younghoon: When standing on the stage while hearing the fans’ cheers! Deobi’s cheers make us become good looking!

Hyunjae: (After considering for a bit) When I’m sleeping. Sometimes the company staff would say “Hyunjae-ya, you look the prettiest when you’re sleeping…” (laughs)

Juyeon: When I’m drying my hair? There is this dressing mirror (T/N: Where he stands in front of it) for when you’re drying your hair.

Hyunjae: When your hair is wet?

Juyeon: I don’t want to see it that way but, just… (laughs)

From your own look, is there a part that you like the most?

Younghoon: Forehead and eyebrows bones. My eyebrows bones stick out.

Juyeon: You look like a foreigner.

Younghoon: I didn’t realize that before but I got to know it.

Hyunjae: To be honest there isn’t a part that I really like. I don’t know. I’ve… always been a modest person… (laughs)

Juyeon: For me, eyes.

Hyunjae: Didn’t you say “lips” before?

Juyeon: I think I’m changing, the part that I like. There isn’t a part that I like but there isn’t a part that I don’t like either. I like my face. I’m satisfied with my look.

Then, is there something from the other The Boyz members that make you think “Ah, I want this”?

Hyunjae: There is, there is. I want Q’s small face. I also want Haknyeon’s thick lips and Sunwoo’s bronze skin.

Juyeon: For me, it’s Sunwoo’s pupils.

Younghoon: Haknyeon’s skin.

Juyeon: Ah, I’m most envious of that. Haknyeon’s skin is squishy (pudding-like texture) and-

Younghoon: It’s a baby skin.

Hyunjae: It’s elastic.

Younghoon: It’s shiny.

Hyunjae: New also has a nice skin.

According to the three of you, what do you think is each other’s charm in Deob-muda?

Hyunjae: Younghoon looks manly and gives off a cool feeling when staying still, but if you live together with Younghoon and observe him more closely he’s really cute. He has that kind of a baby feel. Juyeon likewise also looks manly and seems like he has a cool charisma when staying still but he has this cute character of looking perfect but actually clumsy.

Younghoon: That’s also the same from Hyunjae. He looks manly when he stays still.

Juyeon: Hyunjae-hyung is, what should I say, he looks innocent but if you become close to him, he has a lot of playfulness. He might be lively and looks really pretty and innocent but actually just like that. Younghoon-hyung is just like what Hyunjae-hyung said and also has a lot of cuteness in daily life. He can’t act cute if you ask him to. In daily life, his way of speaking contains cuteness, like “Is it okay if I do this?”. (Juyeon impersonated that Younghoon’s cute way of speaking by himself)

Younghoon: I can’t act cute if you make me do it. (laughs) Juyeon is serious but he’s sloppy. He’s serious but he’s always not serious (?)

Juyeon: I am actually in charge of gag/jokes in our team. There are people who like my jokes. (I think you are indeed the one in charge of jokes!) Right? My type of jokes is only for those who understand it, because they understand high level jokes (laughs) (Younghoon and Hyunjae did not agree.)

Younghoon: Hyunjae looks delicate but is the jokester and the one who plays around with the younger members the most.

Juyeon: Hyunjae-hyung’s eyes’ look like deer eyes. His eyes are pretty.

Seems like Juyeon especially thinks of “eyes” importantly.

Juyeon: I think eyes are important for an impression of a person. The look in one’s eye, this kind of thing. Because when you see a person, you look at their eyes.

If there is a part that Deob-muda is working hardly upon to maintain their looks?

Younghoon: I remove my make-up neatly and sleep with a face pack! These days I use relaxing packs. The effect is…

Juyeon: Just skin lotion? I do nothing else other than applying moisturizing cream well.

Hyunjae: I originally used to apply cream using my hand but now I use cotton. There is a big difference. If you do it like this with the cotton, the dust comes off!

Juyeon: But the cotton will stick on the face? (Deob-muda shared a story for a bit of how there is a make-up cotton that doesn’t work like that)

Hyunjae: I also keep moisturizing cream in the fridge.

Younghoon: When we didn’t have activities it was fine but during promotion we use a lot of make-up so my skin doesn’t seem to look that good.

Hyunjae: Let’s do promotion barefaced (without make-up)!

Hyunjae, Juyeon, Younghoon who want to create memory for The Bs, please say something for them!

Hyunjae: I want to tell The Bs that I always love them and am grateful for them.

Juyeon: It’s really because of The Bs that we always maintain our looks and want to look good and pretty. That’s the only reason.

Younghoon: Ah, please add me too. I really have the same mind.

Juyeon: It’s not that I want to show it to my mom (laughs) It’s really because of The B, for our fans that we are doing this.

Hyunjae: It’s also the reason we can improve day by day. Because there is The B!

Juyeon: And adding to that, though our looks too are looks but it would be nice if you can see our personality or various charms prettily. Our humane side too!

Hyunjae: Ah, but lately we have been showing our humane sides so much though (laughs)

[rememberthattime]

Chapter 43. New Zealand

What a phenomenal run to get to this point. 3 out of 4 posts done -- how’d we get here, you ask: First, “The Fellowship” of my family’s visit down unda. Next, “An Unexpected Journey” to London & Paris. Finally, “The Return” to Hawaii, celebrating Christmas on the North Shore. 

Now, to wrap up this four-part marathon, the epic conclusion to our holiday story: Middle Earth.

This post was always going to have heavy Lord of the Rings references. I get especially excited when I can tie movies or TV shows in my writing: Ireland & Star Wars, Croatia & Game of Thrones, Iceland and… space. New Zealand will be no different, as the landscape is intimately associated with the six-part series filmed in its undulating fjords, lush green meadows, snow-capped peaks, brooding basins, and turbulent climate.

Thank Gandalf, Chelsay & I had a day in Sydney between Hawaii and New Zealand. I hadn’t been home for 20 days, and desperately needed to switch my London/Hawaii clothes for more Kiwi-appropriate adventures. Not only was laundry a big benefit, but Chelsay and I were also able to wrap up the Hobbit & LotR trilogies. I just looked up the run times – in total, the six-part series takes 19 hours to watch. Jesus…

After arriving in Christchurch, Day 1 of our journey through Middle Earth would take us past Mt Cook to the South, into the lakeside village of Wanaka. It was a five hour ride, but Chelsay put together a killer playlist from the best Kiwi artists: Lorde, Flight of the Conchords, the LotR soundtrack. That’s about all the best Kiwi artists. We also had a sunny day, extremely rare in New Zealand’s turbulent climate, so our trip included frequent stops admiring the teal blue waters of Lake Pukaki and Mt Cook’s shy peak.

I say shy because one does not simply “see” Mt Cook’s peak – it’s so high that the top is normally covered in clouds. To exhibit how rare it is to see an unobstructed Mt Cook, I’ll share a small anecdote from my parents’ NZ trip. They stayed at the base of Mt Cook, and were similarly lucky to see the top from their table at dinner. At the next table over, a woman shed a tear as she gazed out at the mountain’s snow-capped peak. I’m not sure why this prompted a conversation, but my parents talked with her and learned that this Kiwi woman had visited Mt Cook six times and that night was the FIRST time she’d gotten to see the peak! I’m not sure how much of this comes down to bad luck or poorly planned timing for her visits, but contrary to Frodo’s acting, Kiwi’s are not a dramatic people... The fact that she cried at this sight gives you an idea of how lucky we were to see Mt Cook on our first day.

It was similarly tame weather when we arrived in Wanaka, which meant it was a perfect day to climb Roy’s Peak. Now, all I’d really read about Roy’s Peak was that it was a five hour round trip. I knew it had immaculate views, and given it was five hours, assumed it would be a long climb. (I later found that it’s 10 miles!) Ill-informed but blissfully ignorant, we hit the trail and immediately experienced the slope. This was pretty steep… Maybe just at the base but then it evens out?

Nope, it was steep the whole way up. We brought two, full, bigger water bottles, but had finished them within an hour… and this was supposed to be a five-hour trip! So many similarities with the Quiraing in Isle of Skye. First, the scenery: heath-filled slopes, gusting gales, and wild waters beyond. Second, the sheep: bahhh. Third, we were again woefully underprepared in terms of water. (Fourth, my solution to the limited water was filling up my bottle in a mountain stream. Fifth, #4 was risky both times, but I have a stomach of steel).

We weren’t-not making it to the top though. We’re taking these Hobbits to Isengard, if you will. We pushed all the way to the peak, and the epic views were absolutely worth it. From a mile up, the surrounding mountains and fjords were dwarfed. In the distance, Mordor loomed over The Shire. 

Battling the decline, the descent took a while, but we still finished the hike in 4 hours (20% faster than average). Not bad given we were water-less for the last 3 hours.

The next day, Chelsay & I grabbed coffees in Wanaka and stopped at the Cadrona Hotel for a bigger breakfast (like hobbits, we know about second breakfast). We needed a full base for this day’s activity: Queenstown’s human catapult.

For some reason, Chelsay had pegged this activity almost immediately after we booked our flights to NZ. She’s never been interested in bungee jumping, but I think the novelty of a catapult got her. This Queenstown Catapult is the world’s first and only of its kind, opened just a couple months before our trip. Rather than bungee jumping where you go straight down, the catapult works like a slingshot, launching you forward 500 feet, reaching 60+ mph in 1.5 seconds , and pulling 3Gs of force ... For reference, an average human can blackout at 4Gs.

Chelsay and I arrived and were the only ones that had signed up for the catapult. Apparently most people weren’t trying to blackout. We walked down a suspended bridge on the way to the platform… you know, the platform that they hurl you off… The platform staff were very strategic in their conversation, trying to distract us from the heights as we were strapped into the harness. “Where are you from?” “What have you done so far in NZ?” “Did you have a good life?”

For chivalry reasons, I let Chelsay go first. She really didn’t show any fear as they fastened her harness to the catapult and asked her to step out onto the ledge. It was only once the catapult pulled her flat that you could see a bit of distress – she was now staring straight down at a 250 ft drop to the canyon base. It isn’t really terror, but you can see her anxiety: just look at how straight her arms and hands were.

Then, literally in the blink of an eye, a *high-pitched* “WWAAAAHHHHHHhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh” – she was already 500 feet away from me, leaving nothing but a trailing scream as she flew across the canyon. My leg started to involuntarily shake from nerves.

After her initial launch, she reached the end of the line and experienced some big counter “bounces”. It’s like a really extreme Tower of Terror – there’s the first big drop, and you think you’re done and it’s okay. Then surprise, there’s another drop no one told you about and it completely flips your stomach. After a few of these bounces, Chelsay finally came to a still position and the staff pulled her back to the platform. She came back with a look in her eye. It was certainly a joyous look, but there was something kind of crazy there too. …She might have pooped herself.

That was a joke (because we were told we had to use the bathroom before doing the catapult).

I was next up, leg still involuntarily trembling. They laced my harness onto the catapult, then asked me to step onto the ledge… Great idea with my leg visibly unsteady. Probably from Chelsay’s scream, a crowd started to form on the catapult platform. Thank Gandalf they made us go to the bathroom, or this could end up as a grim memory for everyone involved.

In the background of my video, you can hear a woman from Northern England. It’s truly A+ color commentary. Better than Colinsworth, Aikman, or even Romo. In her heavy Northern accent: “Oh m’guwd – No! Wudn’t do that!”

I think the staff gave me some pointers or told me what was going to happen next, but I wasn’t listening. (Dude, shutup, I’m standing with half my foot dangling over a 250 ft ledge). He probably told me the catapult was going to pull me flat, but you can tell I hadn’t listened from my desperate arm flail to grab onto something. Good to see those survival instincts still work.  

I was now parallel to the ground, staring directly down at the base of the canyon. Maybe there was a countdown to launch? I don’t know, I wasn’t paying attention to anything but how high I was off the ground.

In a split second, I heard a mechanical release and then a WOOSH! Everything was moving SO fast. 0-60 mph in 1.5 seconds! I had the GoPro to film my face, but I wish I had one to film my view. Staring down at the canyon below, it didn’t feel like I was the one moving – it felt like everything around me (the canyon base, the trees, the river, the wind) was moving past me REALLY fast. Like Earth had a random “Matt”-shiver and rotated much faster for one second. In the background of Chelsay’s video, our Northern English colour commentator yelled, “Oh, SHIT!”

After the initial rush, and like Chelsay, I also experienced the Tower of Terror counter bounces – you can see my surprise as I flail my arm to grab the harness. Again, great survival instincts. This was an absolute rush – one of the most unique (and certainly the highest adrenaline) activities I’ve ever done. Although it only lasted a few seconds, the buzz sticks with you for days.  Chelsay and I were giggling like Frodo and the other hobbits at the end of LotR.

I think the catapult or adrenalin or our flipped stomachs must have triggered our appetite, because the only way we could follow our flight was with a massive burger. Chelsay and I braved the world-famous Fergburger’s 30-minute queue to grab two burgers, onion rings, and fries, and took our feast to a lakeside picnic bench with views of the surrounding Remarkables range.

We spent that night in Te Anau, having scheduled a crowd-avoiding early morning cruise through Milford Sound the next day. Small aside: in the months leading up to NZ, overtourism on the South Island was a major concern of mine. NZ now gets 4 million visitors per year (the entire population is only 4.5 million!), with a large portion of tourists coming over the holidays. Chelsay and I were visiting in peak season, so like Bali, we had to be very strategic in how we avoided crowds. Through decisions like the early Milford Sound cruise, overtourism turned out to be a non-issue for us. Despite being (or possibly because it was) an early concern, Chelsay and I didn’t have a single experience where we felt crowded. Well, except Fergburger.

Anyway, back to Milford Sound. The morning drive from Te Anau to Milford was beautiful. It rains almost constantly here, so it’s more of a mysterious, brooding beauty, but beautiful nonetheless. This drive is supposed to be tough given one-lane roads and tourist traffic, but again, because of our planning, we enjoyed unobstructed views of rushing waterfalls instead of the back of a tour bus.

We arrived at the Sound in a wet foggy blanket. I was a little concerned that we wouldn’t be able to see anything on the cruise, but our last two days had already been shockingly sunny. The odds were against three straight. Plus, if you don’t get rained out of an activity, did you even really go to NZ?

We came well-prepared with ponchos, umbrellas, waterproof boots… and coffee. The weather therefore didn’t impact our seat choice on the cruise: we were sitting outside no matter what. Given the time of the cruise, we were the only ones on the back of the boat. The wind was whipping, our ponchos cracking in the breeze, and the occasional gust would slap Chelsay and I with rain, but thanks to our rainproof planning, we stayed mostly dry.

The boat pulled out from the dock and journeyed into the foggy abyss. Mitre Peak, which is Milford’s most famous slope, was entirely hidden by the clouds.

Once we got past Mitre though, the setting became clearer. There was a mysterious feel to the fjords, with mile-high peaks briefly appearing and then disappearing behind fast-moving fog. Dozens of waterfalls plummeted down the steep slopes, as bursting gales guided the frigid South Tasman Sea into the Sound. It felt like sinister Smeagol might be prowling the mountainside, veiled in the shadows as he suspiciously stalked our visiting vessel.  (What a description). To give you an idea of scale, that’s a boat in the third picture!

On a less brooding note, we also saw some furry seals chilling under the waterfalls.

After our cruise, the boat returned to the dock and Chelsay & I warmed up with beef pies and soup. We knew we’d be going on a hike next, either Lake Marian or preferably Gertrude Saddle, so needed to build up our energy.

Now, about the hike options. Lake Marian is a cool walk, an alpine path gradually leading to a larger elevated lake. Gertrude Saddle is dope though. Incredible views of the Gertrude Valley, the trail crosses a waterfall and passes an eerie, small black lake, requiring steel cables to assist in the vertical ascent. The Gertrude “tramp” is classified in NZ’s hardest category, Expert, and the trail site describes the hike as being suitable for “People with high level backcountry (remote areas) skills and experience, navigation and survival skills required. Complete self sufficiency required.” …So me & Chels. Adding to the apprehension, the route is difficult to distinguish, and missing a marker has proved fatal. Gerty herself has been the heart of controversy, after two deaths called into question NZ’s obligation to maintain and more exhaustively mark these previously wild tracks.

I’d done exhaustive research on the routes and still wanted to do Gertrude Saddle, but the trail is challenging enough when dry. Eating our pies in torrential Milford, it didn’t seem remotely possible that we’d be able hike it. The park ranger reiterated our concern (Ranger: “Yeah, nah, yeah mate, don’t do it” – Me: “What?”), so we set out for Lake Marian. Gerty IS on the way though, and I couldn’t understand that park ranger to save my life, so maybe we’ll just stop by?

As we drove away from Milford, the rain subsided. The worst weather had clearly been caught in the fjords. As light grey clouds began to replace the heavy fog, we pulled off into Gertrude Valley with a sliver of hope. Correction, I pulled in with a sliver of hope. Chelsay was still very skeptical. The trek starts with a hike through the Valley, arriving at the base of climb. I convinced Chelsay to at least walk to that point, where we could evaluate whether it was safe enough to continue. If we were uncomfortable at all, I’d happily turn around… I’d rather test out Gerty and not end up climbing than embark on the less exciting Lake Marian, but it wasn’t like I’d leave her and try it myself. Gandalf said: “Don’t you leave ‘em Samwise Gamgee.”

We set off through the colourful Gertrude Valley, stomping through babbling streams in our waterproof boots, crouching through dense beech forests, tramping through waist-high heather, and taking in the steep enveloping slopes and waterfalls. We arrived at the base of the climb, looking up at the powerful waterfalls cutting through the snow still settled on the mountainside. Far above, we could see a few unnatural colors zig-zagging up the hill. Pink and highlighter yellow. These were other hikers! It now hadn’t rained in over an hour and the grey skies were only getting light. If these other hikers could make it up there, why couldn’t Chelsay and I?

We started the climb, which wasn’t as physically exhausting as Roy’s Peak, but was far more mentally tolling. We were focused and careful with every single step. Every foot placement. Every ounce of weight that we placed down. Any rock that we relied on. Always. Always. Slow. And. Careful. 

We eventually made it to the river crossing, which was just 15m from a waterfall edge. Hmm. It wasn’t obvious which rocks to use. I’d start down one path, but it would fall just short. I tried another, but this one stopped about 5 ft short. I think we need to jump? This was a fairly long ordeal, but we ended up making a short leap from the last rock to the other side of the stream. Challenge 1: conquered.

The next challenge wasn’t much further: ascending a set of slick bluffs using a steel cable bolted into the boulders. Oh, and the climb is only about 5 feet from a rushing waterfall. We gripped the cable tightly as we carefully made our way over the cliff’s edge.

Now at the top, we’d reached the waterfall’s source: a mysterious, small black lake hidden just beneath the clouds. This was the biggest reason I wanted to hike Gerty, and the exact view I’d hoped to find. When we were first planning NZ, I’d looked into visiting Lake Quill in the Fiordland. I’d seen it in the Prometheus movie series, but the only way to access was either a several day hike on the Milford Track or by custom helicopter flights… which was $1,000/person. It was so lucky to come across the same feel with Gertrude Saddle, and even luckier that we caught a day where it was remotely possible to make it up to the black lake. 

The hike continues a bit further, but we already bumping up into the clouds. Any higher views would have been blanketed in fog. Chelsay & I hung around the black lake and rehydrated (we brought enough water this time), before descending the same path we’d come up. In some ways, the hike down was harder than the ascent. First, it’s less stable to place your weight below you as you descend, as opposed to above you and leaning into the mountain while ascending. Second, and more plainly, we were tired. We were still extremely careful as we made our way down the slick boulders and across the waterfall, eventually arriving at the car after 4.5 hours (and just 4.5 miles return). I think that trip time, especially relative to Roy’s Peak (10 very steep miles in 4 hrs), exhibits how mentally taxing each step was on this hike.

We returned to Queenstown and our favourite AirBnB of the trip, where our suite looked out over Lake Wakatipu and the Remarkables (and our host made chocolate chip cookies). We’d also picked up takeaway Indian from a place my parents recommended, Taj. Holy shit. It was so good. “Messy” black dal mixed with jasmine rice, some spicy Murg Chettinad (South Indian chicken), a coke and The Hobbit on the side. It was bliss after a water-logged Milford Sound and tolling Gerty Saddle.

How could we possibly follow this day, one of our best ever? Hmm we really didn’t try actually. We slept so hard that night, and woke up extremely slow the next day. It was New Year’s Eve, but our only plans for the day were dinner reservations in Wanaka. With another big day of hiking still to come (Mueller Hut in Mt Cook), Chelsay and I decided to take it easy as we made our way out of Queenstown.

I did some “live” research that morning on quiet things to do around Queenstown, and the options are surprisingly limited in this adrenaline junky town. That said, I found most of the LotR & Hobbit (and Wolverine, and the Chronicles of Narnia) filming locations were right outside Queenstown, in nearby Glenorchy and Paradise. Having just finished the series, the sets were still fresh in our minds so we decided to visit Middle Earth.  

First of all, the road from Queenstown to Glenorchy is jaw-dropping. Look at this damn view!

The picturesque settings continued driving through Glenorchy. I’ll let the pictures do most of the talking here (especially because I’m on Post #4 in a holiday series that’s nearly rivalled the length of my wedding post). I’ll just write that I want to remember the vibrant and contrasting colours, fording through several small streams, and the dramatic juxtaposition of the green, cow-filled pastures nestled below towering plateaus. This was literally Isengard.

After a few hours in Middle Earth, we began our two hour journey up to Wanaka, passing “that” lonely tree along the way. I mentioned our NYE dinner was at an Italian place – no better way to ring in the New Year. Francesca was the top-rated restaurant in Wanaka, and despite making the reservation several days before, the only table available was at 5:00.

We’d have to last quite a while to make it to midnight, but the meal was phenomenal. Chelsay and I got three pasta dishes… and it wasn’t like this was a tapas-style restaurant. Asparagus carbonara, beef gnocchi, and tortellini ragu, all washed down with carafes of sauv blanc & shiraz. Mmmm.

Even only a few days into the trip, Chelsay and I were really tired at this point. We were also a little tipsy. This meal could be considered “loopy”, as we couldn’t stop giggling, similar to past “loopy” meals in Innsbruck and Western Australia. On this occassion, we thought we were being pretty smooth with our jokes to the waiter, but his responses suggested maybe our delivery was impaired. (“Ok… cool guys… Well… Have a good night…” *polite smile*)

Afterwards, we tried to sober up a bit by placing our feet in the chilly Lake Wanaka. Midnight was a long way off and we needed a perk. We also grabbed sorbet from Patagonia Ice Cream, which we definitely didn’t need, before heading back to the hotel to regroup. As I was drinking a coffee at 9:00 PM, I started thinking about our next two days, the last of our trip. We were heading to Mt Cook, and I’d planned one big hike (Mueller Hut, which was probably bigger than either Gerty or Roy’s Peak), then a few smaller options. Initially, I planned to use New Year’s Day to drive from Wanaka to Mt Cook and do a few smaller walks, then use our last day for the bigger trek. I checked the weather to confirm, and although the conditions can change dramatically, 1/1 actually looked like a far safer bet for Mueller. With a longer hike, we’d need to leave earlier though, which meant we’d need to get to bed earlier. Again, I was drinking coffee at 9:00 PM on New Year’s Eve, but an audible was the right call. I managed to knock myself out by 11:00 PM.

Alright, the next morning. “It’s New Year’s Day here in … Wanaka” (Charlie Robison song reference). “Robert” Mueller Hut day. An early start and beautiful drive into Mt Cook. The peak was out, another lucky day, just as the weather forecast prescribed. There were inbound sheets of clouds, but we’d already gotten to see ol’ Aoraki’s peak twice now. No worries.

We set off at the base of Mt Cook, heading up the adjacent Sealy Range. Now, I’d done some reading on Mueller, and I knew it would be a tough climb. The trek begins with a 2000 step up the Sealy Tarns stairs. It’s literally a staircase… and not like one of those gradual European staircases. These were the type of stairs that are higher than they are deep.

This was hard climb, and I was sweaty. But I also didn’t want to stop because I knew that Chelsay and I would be the quickest up the mountain. If we let someone pass, we’d inevitably just be stuck behind them 2 minutes later. I was like Gandalf on the way up: “YOU SHALL NOT PASS!”

After a gruelling, knee-shaking, butt-burning climb, we made it to the top of Sealy Tarns. DOPE views of Mt Cook and the Tasman Delta abound.

That said, the weather was starting to turn. At elevation, it was cold, and Chelsay and I didn’t have gloves or hoods. …At least Chelsay had a shirt that she wrapped around her head. The clouds had also enveloped us by now, so it was raining pretty hard. Luckily, we still had our ponchos from Milford Sound, and looked like legends braving the elements in these bright yellow and blue trash bags… Again, Chelsay still had a shirt wrapped around her head.

We were only halfway up at this point, but we’d made it through the worst, right? Wrong. The next half is known as “the scramble”, navigating an essentially vertical scree (which must be Kiwi for loose shards of rock). To make matters worse, the weather was getting really bad. Halfway up the scree, we passed an American guy on his way down. We asked what the weather was like at the top, and he said the Mueller Hut warden had just sent everyone down. The wind was meant to reach 50 mph at the top (genuinely considered “gales”), with the rain turning to snow, and the possibility of thunderstorms. WTF? The forecast said today would be clear… Remember we woke up early to hike Mueller on 1/1. Why did I go to sleep on NYE after a 9:00 PM coffee if the weather would prevent us from making it to the top?

Then, the shorts-clad bro said something that lifted our spirits: he complemented Chelsay’s tee-shirt head warmer. No, just kidding, that still looked ridiculous. He actually told us that it was only another 45 minutes to the top if we were quick. Now, this hike was supposed to be 7 or 8 hours, but we were already ¾ of the way up and had only been hiking for 75 minutes! My “You shall not pass” policy had worked!

Status check though. We were cold and tired and sore and wet, and it was probably safer (and easier) to turn back. On the other hand, it was only 45 minutes to the top… Should we keep going? Let’s do it! FOR ROHAN!!

Hiding our pruned hands in our pockets & under our ponchos (aka “the turtle”), we scrambled the rest of the way to the scree’s peak. Despite conquering the ascent, the Hut wasn’t quite in sight. We still had an 800m trek over rock, through snow, and past glaciers that were genuinely cracking as we walked by. Chelsay and I heard the booming sound and thought the thunderstorms had arrived early, but found it was solid ice slipping from the glaciated mountainside. At this point though, we couldn’t be bothered by glacial movement – we just needed to make it indoors. You can actually tell how cold it was because I took very few photos or videos to capture the last few paragraphs.

Luckily it wasn’t long until the Mueller Hut came into sight. We turtled our way across the remaining snow fields and rumbled to refuge in the Hut. We quickly removed our wet ponchos and sweaters to let them dry, and realized just how much work it was to get to the top when my back was still steaming in the cold air.

While we were in the Hut, Chelsay and I read through the numerous warnings our bro-friend had shared earlier. The message: the weather is going to get worse so head down asap. We ate a quick lunch and rehydrated, before grabbing our still damp gear. To get our temperatures back up, we started our descent by literally running through the snow fields we passed on our way into Mueller Hut.

We retraced our scramble down the scree, and were back at Sealy Tarns’ 2000 steps (aka Mt Doom) in no time. Like, genuinely no time. This was supposed to be a 7 to 8-hour hike… After finishing the steps, we checked our phones and had gone door-to-door in just over 4 hours. It’s amazing what you can accomplish when you’re cold and wet… and riding for Rohan.

We were really tired. Actually, we’d already been “really tired” the day before when we visited Glenorchy and had our loopy NYE dinner. Now, adding what had to have been a record time with the Mueller Hut, we were pooped. For the next 24 hours, Chelsay and I were like chewed-up gum: a boneless glob just sticky enough to pick up tasty foods and picturesque views as we rolled towards our departing flight from Christchurch. On the way, we enjoyed hot chocolate while finishing The Hobbit in our Mt Cook chalet, mouth-watering steaks from the Hermitage Panorama Room, breakfast from Poppies in Twizel, strolling through heather and lupin fields along Tekapo’s Cowans Hill track, beef pies and apple strudel from Fairlie Bakehouse, and finally, with a little extra time before our return flight, Mary Poppins Returns. The last one was payback for forcing Chelsay to hike Gerty Saddle. 

WHEW. That’s it. That was the trip. More broadly, that was the past two months. What a run. I want to just briefly recap the marathon that was these past four posts. First, we spent a month down unda with the Kerns. Then, I took a quick surprise reunion trip to London & Paris. Next, we celebrated Christmas with Chelsay’s family in the North Shore. Finally, New Zealand.

My conclusion won’t focus on the past four posts though. I’m only going to write about New Zealand. Although this fourth entry came at the end of this marathon, it absolutely demands my undivided attention. The past week was right up there with Iceland or Jordan as our best trip ever, so I need a similarly fitting conclusion.

What made it so great? Let’s break it down.

First, I’ll start with the superficial: the accommodation. I call this superficial because it’s more a circumstance of my planning. That said, Jordan’s accommodation was fine. Iceland’s was… supply-limited. For New Zealand, every place we stayed had plenty of space, incredible views, and a comfy bed and warm shower (critical on this trip). Also, our Queenstown AirBnB made us chocolate chip cookies.

Second, the food. No trip will be able to compete with Bologna for food… well, maybe Lake Bled & Sova. Regardless, Taj & Francesca were phenomenal. Those two alone made this a better food trip than either Iceland (hot dogs) or Jordan (???), and it only rounded out the trip to have tasty breakfast and coffee each day.

Third, I’m a sucker for a story. I had no real interest in seeing LotR or The Hobbit, but watching them before this trip absolutely enhanced my experience. Not only was it cool to see Isengard in Glenorchy or Mordor from Roy’s Peak, but at the end of the day, after a massive day’s hike, there’s nothing better than plopping in front of the iPad as we rested our legs.

Fourth, and most importantly, New Zealand might have been the most beautiful country we’ve ever visited. Iceland had a darker, blacker beauty, but New Zealand had so much diversity. From the snow-capped mountains surrounding Roy’s Peak, to the mysterious fjords of Milford Sound, to the alien setting of Gertrude Saddle, the pastoral beauty of Paradise, the heath and lupin fields of Tekapo, and finally, the turbulent slopes, glaciers, and deltas in Mt Cook. How can so much be packed into a single country? Actually, a single island of a single country! More broadly, how did this climate and geography end up in this part of the world!? It’s like a combination of Iceland, Scotland, Switzerland, and Scandinavia… but it’s somehow located in the South Pacific. I think Chelsay summarized New Zealand’s beauty best. She said that a lot of places can look pretty in pictures, but they don’t hold up when you actually visit. New Zealand is almost the opposite. Pictures don’t do it justice… They can’t capture the size and scale and strength. Other places require very precise conditions to get the same view you saw in the picture. No matter the weather, season, or camera filter, New Zealand is always both stunning and intimidating.

Now, I’m only writing this four days after I returned from NZ so I’ll need more time to truly say it was our best trip ever. For now though, I’ll try to describe our past week in Middle Earth with just one word… “Preciousssss”.