#not very proud of this snippet but it is what I wrote

[goldenbi]

First lines of 2024 thanks for the tag @onehundredflamingos The skirt did not become less distracting after the Charms incident. But it did become more fun when Sirius could do this.

“James?” Sirius called, mischief clear in his tone. He leaned against the counter in the potions storeroom.

“Yes?” James looked over his shoulder.

“Could you grab me the Mugwort?” Sirius’s eyes flicked to top shelf.

“But we don’t need—“ James started, but cut off as he saw Sirius’s eyes slide slowly down James’s body and stop right at the skirt. “Oh.”

James faced the shelves again and then lifted onto his toes, calf muscles bulging, and the skirt lifted too, exposing those thighs that Sirius wanted to sink his teeth into.

No pressure tag @jamesunderwater @melissamwrites @roryshitposts

[wisheslost]

The white-eye warbles, the camellia blooms.

As a writer of Yae Publishing House, you have to visit the shrine for work purposes quite often— and it is on these shrine visits that you came to be even more acquainted with the yashiro commissioner, of whom you were previously known to only as that writer he had bumped into at the Irodori festival, in his sister's words; the most cliché way possible.

cw : mutual pining, friends/strangers to lovers, fluff, reader gets screamed at but its fine its not by ayato, no use of y/n, reader is technically an oc but is never referred to with a name. pls lmk if I should add more!

a/n : ive been meaning to post this but i kept stalling😭 sorry

wc : 5.4k

Kamisato Ayato is a smart man. The revered head of the Kamisato clan knows all there is to know about what's going on amidst the different commissions in Inazuma, but not a single clue does he have about the feelings you harbour for him, and who knows when he will?

You seldom had the opportunity to go to the shrine, and so, everytime you came down from the shrine, everytime you hurriedly made your way through Chinju forest, you did with the same intention in mind— to see Ayato. It didn't matter if he didn't notice you, just a glimpse of his face made your day better.

One of these very days, Ayato saw you pass, and much to your surprise, invited you in to have tea. In an attempt to be polite, and since you were done with work at the time, you accepted his sweet offer.

And so it continued — each time someone of the estate saw you passing by, they'd invite you in and offer you tea, while you tried your best to decline most of the time, sometimes it was just… not doable. Convincing Thoma was a hard job, but to persuade Miss Furuta to let you go was even more difficult. 

Now, Ayato wasn't always there, sometimes he was out for a meeting or was doing work in his chamber ( the same chamber you found yourself too unimportant to enter, the chamber that felt almost suffocating to you the one time you went in there. ) but even when he was, if he heard of you having came, he'd offer you to tea with the condition that you had to wait till his work was done. You loved his company, so who were you to deny it?

And perhaps that love you had for the time you spent with him turned into the love you had for him. 

You two weren't strangers. No, not at all. You bumped into each other during last year's Irodori festival, and in the most clichesque way ever, all your documents had fallen down, and being the gentleman he was, Ayato helped you pick them up ( obviously !).

Ayato found himself writing you a letter ever so often, and your reply to it that laid there among his official documents was the last to be opened of the day—but not the least, no, it was a way for him to conclude his day positively, or so he had told you. And as you two grew closer, you only found it easier to share your work with him, snippets of something you wrote that you were somewhat proud of , but that didn't make it into the published version of the story, a verse from a poem you gave up on writing, anything you thought he would like— you sent him, and eagerly waited for his reply. 

You'd read him some of your poetry time to time— each time you came by his castle of a house, and each time he simply stared at you until you finished, and would then ask you why you used a certain metaphor to describe a certain thing, to which you'd happily answer, or commend you for having thought of something in such a different way, and at the end, he'd pass a rather funny comment, even if unintentionally, such as one like "I want this framed on my wall." to which you could do nothing but laugh, while he simply gazed at the beauty the sky harboured, seemingly deep in thought. Why he always did that, you did not know, and you could only wonder, what exactly did he think of each time?

Is showing your unpublished work to someone outside the Yae Publishing House breach of contract? No... Well, not exactly. You had agreed to abstaining from showing anyone anything that has to do with your unpublished literary pieces, but you knew the publishing house wasn't ever going to publish the poems you wrote on your own. They would say things like the topic's too vague, the metaphors don't make sense, and that the writing didn't flow, whatever that meant. So, what you wrote for the publishing house was what they demanded from you— quite different than what you actually wrote. Alas, they don’t understand your words when they're not catered to them. But it's fine, Ayato did, and what more could you ask for? 

Actually, if given the chance, you would definitely ask for something more.

Kamisato Ayato understood social cues quite well, or atleast one would think he would, as that was a big part of his duty. So why he couldn't comprehend your feelings for him, was a mystery to you. But I guess understanding if someone likes you or not isn't really something listed in the skillset a Yashiro commissioner requires. 

Now, what he could and couldn't understand was not your problem, and would no longer be, not after you confess your feelings to him. You figured it would be easier to do if you just played it out like one of your usual interactions, and so you wrote a poem. A poem you'd innocently read out to him one of those days you happen to stumble upon his house, and with it, he'd finally understand. Finally understand you liked him. 

Something else popped up. A question much unappreciated. The worst outcome possible. “But what if he didn't like you back?” Well the poem isn't even for him then! It's from the point of view of one of my original characters— yes, that excuse is good enough.

But then the day finally arrived, you were finally there, sitting in Kamisato Estate's courtyard eagerly waiting for Ayato to be done with his meeting that had started just as you came, it was not often Ayato had meetings in his chamber, so it seems you just happened to have bad luck today. Sitting on the cushion, waiting for Ayato to be done, you found yourself making multiple revisions to that poem of yours, and in the middle of that, you were suddenly reminded of the meeting at Yae Publishing House you had this evening, but the thought soon slipped your mind as you thought of another line for the poem.

He had promised it would not take too long, but one hour had gone by just like that, and before you knew it, you were barely keeping awake, you couldn't help it, running on 2 hours of sleep from having worked all night, your mind was starting to shut down. Resting your head on the table was probably the first mistake you made that day— but one could argue there were plenty other mistakes made before that, such as not having slept in the first place. 

You usually came to meet Ayato around the evening, not only because his workload was lighter that time of the day but also because the publishing house's important meetings and discussions of the sort were held most often, if not all the time, early in the day. And that was precisely why you had forgotten about that meeting you had this evening. Was it the two hours of sleep or the anxiety from the whole confession thing? whatever it was, it was just making your day harder and harder.

It had been an hour and a half since you arrived at Kamisato Estate, the hour spent waiting and scribbling, and the half spent peacefully sleeping as no one bothered to wake you up. It wasn't that the staff of the estate couldn't care less about you, in fact, everyone around noticed you having succumbed to slumber. But who dare to awaken you, Clan Head's possible significant other?

It's true that Ayato was unbeknownst to your feelings towards him, but those at Kamisato Estate weren't. It was easy to tell you had a thing for him, much too obvious that every time you saw him in the eye your heart skipped a beat, and practically every one of the estate's staff thought you two were together, and just trying to hide it. To them, the way you looked at Ayato, was the way he looked at you. His, a loving gaze that never lets go of your frame, and a soul that so desperately wants to tell the whole world how much he loves you(— but hell, he couldn't even fathom telling you) and Yours, a stare that quickly tries to focus on something else when noticed by him, a heart too heavy with emotions— emotions that cannot find their way through speech, and are expressed only through words. 

And that serene and loving gaze was the first thing you saw being woken up, because in that whole house, no one except Clan Head himself would have the courage to wake you up. 

It's not until Ayato's voice echoes in your ears accompanied by the faint pitter-patter of the rain that you realise your noses are barely inches away from touching as he knelt down to your level.

“Oh, my writer, it seems you've slept most wonderfully in my absence, and on Thoma's jacket, huh?” his tone had a bit of sneer in it, as if he was jealous of the fact you had used Thoma's jacket as a pillow. And there was that— “my writer”, it stemmed from an inside joke, wherein once when he was transcribing a poem you wrote, you called him ‘my personal calligrapher’ which warranted the “That would make you my writer, hm?” and you knew it was a joke but goodness, he called you that only when people weren't around, and the way he said it everytime, Oh Archons!

But wait— You weren't supposed to be swooning over Ayato right now! You should be at the publishing house, attending that meeting— and so you rose up frantically to leave, apologies leaving your mouth rapidly,

“Lord Commissioner, I'm so sorry but I must go, I had an important work thing and I- I'm sorry! I should hav-'' and that is when you get cut off by Ayato's forefinger upon your lips, if that was an attempt to shush you- it worked. “Just go. I understand.” he said, and the reassurance in his voice and the slight smile on his face brought you right back to your senses.

And so you hurriedly put on your shoes to make a run for it, uttering one final ‘sorry’ to him, much to his dismay. And as you made it out the door of the estate, you heard Ayato's voice calling to you- “Take an umbrella!” to which you could only respond— “I'll be fine! The rain's not that bad!” because right now, saving face at the publishing house was far more important than a few drops on your clothes. 

Except it wasn't a few drops, you had greatly underestimated the power of the Hydro Archon, because by the time you reached the doors of the publishing house, you were completely wet from head to toe— and saving face was no longer present in your dictionary. In fact, you never even wanted to show your face again- and god, how many and who even were the people attending that meeting? because you were going to embarrass yourself in front of all of them right now.

The second you entered that room where the meeting was going on, as if your bad luck wasn't bad enough, you saw a figure too striking, bright pink hair.. fox ears.. and those eyes, those eyes that didn't take even a full two seconds to notice your presence and announce it to the whole room.

“Oh, look who's here! did the Yashiro Commission- er, reject you, my dear? or did you finally realise where your priorities should lie?” and right after she had said that, you could feel that theories about you and the commissioner had already began floating in the air of that room— whispers of a mixture of words like yashiro commissioner, head of the kamisato clan could be heard, and among them was that name a bit too familiar- Kamisato Ayato. How she knew about your yashiro commission shenanigans, you had no idea, but you weren't about to question her— Guuji Yae was no god, but people were convinced she definitely was omniscient, the way she never lacked information about the people she worked with. 

You could swear on your life that the stutter after the words ‘yashiro commission’ was done on purpose, and you'd live. What she was trying to imply wasn't too obvious, in fact, the way she said it, it could easily be interpreted as something entirely different— but what was also true, only it wasn't something you were comfortable with everyone in that room knowing. You couldn't manage to respond to that, ‘tleast not in a way that would allow you to keep your job. And so Guuji Yae's lips spoke again, this time out of pity for you. 

“But hey, better late than never.” she said, gesturing for you to come sit next to her. 

And so the meeting went on like normal. You were trembling terribly from the cold, dripping wet still but there wasn't anything you could do about it, and as the guy sitting next to you took notice of that and offered you his jacket, you could feel watchful eyes throughout the room landing upon you two, waiting for your response. With the amount of writers present in this room, you knew this interaction was making its way into a light novel soon. Thinking of a response was hard, accepting it would give birth to more conspiracies, but not accepting it would blatantly prove Guuji Yae's previous comment about the yashiro commissioner right. And before you could think of a response to that awfully nice gesture, you were snapped out of your thoughts by your editor, who was currently explaining something on a whiteboard, something you failed to understand because of the preoccupations your mind currently had. “(Name), are you even paying attention !?” were his words, and as if enough people weren't already staring at you, now the whole room was. A nervously spoken ‘sorry’ was all you could let out, and it wasn't even a proper answer to his question. 

The meeting dragged on for another 15 minutes— 15 dreadful, cold minutes. And when it was finally over and people were getting out of their seats and as if your luck wasn't already the worst, it only got worse-r as your editor called out to you right as you got up, “Not you. I still have to talk to you.”  Did he not see you shivering? Looking like a sopping wet cat? Did he not have an ounce of sympathy? 

As everyone else exited the room, you were forced to sit until who knows when. Guuji Yae was the last to leave, and before she stepped out the room, she called the editor over to speak to him, uttering something along the lines of what you thought was “Go easy on the poor thing, ok?” and was that poor thing in question you? most likely, yes. And good for that— he shouldn't think to disobey the owner of this whole establishment right? 

But he did. Or atleast, the words that followed after she left did not seem like him ‘going easy on you’ at all. 

The way he had his arms on the desk, the way his figure loomed over yours, that expression on his face… oh, you were about to be scolded big time.

“You, tell me. What exactly is your problem?” 

“I'm sorry, sir. It won't happen again, I apologise.” You couldn't even make eye contact with him as you spoke, and while your attempt at an apology was well delivered, it was terribly timed. 

“If you were so fucking sorry as you claim to be, tell me, what the hell has been bothering you so damn much to arrive late to an important meeting when i had reminded you so many times the previous day!?” 

Oh. That was a first— never before had you heard him swear like this, and you're pretty sure it probably falls under top 10 things you shouldn't do if you don't want to lose your job, but who were you to say? your job was being held together by a single thread made of miracles. 

“I'm really sorry sir, it was just something personal- I can guarantee you, it won't ever happen again.” Ah yes, the infamous personal issue: the inability to manage a schedule.

“Did someone pass away?”

“..No.”

“Someone fall gravely ill?”

“..No”

“Family issues?”

“No-”

“Then WHAT the hell’s been bothering so much you show up late to a meeting with GUUJI YAE? Do you seriously not understand how fucking embarrassing it is? For the writer I had to practically beg for the higher-ups to not fire even though you kept being late and crossing deadlines, to show up late again?” He had yanked you out of your seat with his right hand midway through his speech out of the anger he possessed as of current, becoming physical when angry wasn't uncommon, but for someone who you always saw as calm and cool, for someone who always put up with you no matter what, the breaking point had arrived, and it was wholly your fault. 

But you understood. Understood the reasons behind his furious reaction, for he was right, it was truly embarrassing, because that thread made out of miracles that was holding your job in place wasn't made out of miracles at all— it was made out of your editor's continued efforts to keep you in this organisation. 

When you didn't, well, more like couldn't respond to him, and he realised the outburst he had just made, he let go of your upper arm, and his hand went back to the desk with his other arm, and as he regained his senses, looking down at the desk realising what he just did, he tried to apologise-

“I didn't mean to-”

“I-it's fine. You don't have to say anything.” Cutting him off was usually not something you would do, but at this moment, it felt right.

“I'm sorry, Please leave. And please, please don't tell anyone about this.” You could see the regret in his face as he sat down on his chair, head in hands refusing to make eye contact with you and instead choosing to stare at the hardwood floor instead, and you knew if anyone found out about this you both would be kicked out the publishing house together.

“I won't. Good night, sir.” and as you exited that room, you could hear a faint “good night” from your editor, who was too ashamed to even speak any louder. 

And as you left, you failed to notice the bright pink figure of the Guuji beside the entrance of the conference room, who had eavesdropped on that entire conversation.

________

It had been 11 days since then. 11 days of Ayato wondering whatever it was that you wanted to tell him that day, hoping you would at least write him a letter. But no letter came, and neither did you. 

While the Kamisato's days went by quite peacefully and ordinarily, yours were much, much different. 

Back at Yae Publishing House that day, the Guuji held your editor back to tell him to get you to write some sort of romance novel around this plot– A careless writer who has amazing skill in writing, but barely manages to keep her job due to the troubles caused by her family, and her editor who has to beg the higher-ups to let her keep her job, who's also hopelessly in love with her.

While the plot is good, you weren't too happy having it recommended to you in that way. Does the Guuji think you have romantic feelings for your editor? or is it vice versa ? 

Whatever it is that the Guuji thought, it didn't matter right now, because she demanded the first volume of the comic book that was about to be serialised be done in 15 days. With 11 days already gone by, and everything done on your part, you finally had some leisure time to enjoy, leisure time you were spending laying on the floor in front of the fan sipping cold lavender melon juice peacefully, almost on your way to dreamland.

That is, until you heard a knock on your door. When you went to open it, no one was there, or so you had thought, not having noticed the little kid dressed like a mujina at your doorstep at first, looking sleepy as ever.

“Oh, hello! What is it that brings you here to my doorstep, little one ?” as you bent down to greet the sleepy child, you felt a muscle in your back ache. Ah, the consequences of having the worst sleeping posture known to man.

“I'm not ‘little one’. My name is Sayu. I'm from the shuumatsuban, and Mr. Yashiro Commissioner sent me to relay an important message to you.” as she finishes her sentence, she hands you a little paper from her back pocket that says “I have something important to speak to you about. Come meet me.  -your personal calligrapher” 

 Oh. You're done.

What could it possibly be about !? What could Kamisato Ayato, Clan head of the Kamisato Clan and the Yashiro Commissioner have to talk about that would be important to you !? Whatever it was, it was scaring you. 

“Do I have to go right now?” as nervous as you were, you were also curious, what the hell was this man upto? and actually, was he even upto something, or was this just something to get you to come to the estate as quickly as possible?

“Yes, that's what he said anyway.” as she said this, Sayu sounded so, so done with you and Ayato that you couldn't really do anything. It seemed like if you didn't go right now, as soon as possible, Sayu would fall asleep right on your doorstep. 

“Alright, then, let us leave. But wait- just one thing-” and so, you went to your bedside table to pick up that diary you always took to Kamisato Estate, the one you wrote that damnee confession in- but, it wasn't there? surely you placed it somewhere else when under the influence of fatigue and forgot.. Well, with Sayu's patience running thinner- you should probably just leave finding that diary to your future self.

Sayu was not at all interested in whatever it was that went on between you and Ayato, she kept quiet the whole way from your house to the Kamisato Estate, except for a yawn or two in the middle.  

Your attempt at distracting yourself from whatever it was that Ayato wanted to talk to you about by looking at the flowers and the trees as you made your way to the estate was not quite successful.. for as the dew drops fell off from the roses, you could feel yourself perspire as well.

When you finally stepped foot in Kamisato Estate, you saw him, Kamisato Ayato, simply leaning on his balcony ledge gazing at the horizon, unaware of your resence and all he made you feel. You were quite sure this amount of sweating could submerge Jinren Island. 

Jinren Island being submerged aside, no one was there at the estate except Ayato. Miss Furuta wasn't standing at her usual place, Koharu wasn't busy cleaning something that doesn't even look like it needs cleaning, and even Mr. Madarame was nowhere to be seen.

As you were busy analyzing the current state of the ground you were standing on, Sayu's voice spoke—

“Mr. Yashiro Commissioner, I brought them.” 

Ayato turned around, his eyes finally meeting yours after what seemed to be an eternity to him. 

“Oh, thank you Sayu. You may go now.”

As the man came to sit down, he signaled you to sit near him as well, contrary to how you would usually sit, on the opposite side of the table. “Sit here, you sure look like you need to.” his voice beamed, and you could feel your heart burst into eight thousand pieces upon hearing him talk to you again. 

While you were most delighted to finally talk to him again, you couldn't help but wonder where the staff went, therefore naturally, you asked him as he poured his tea from the kettle into his little cup,

“So… where's all the staff gone?” 

“Disappointed no one's here to give you free snacks, huh? Don't worry, I'm quite generous when it comes to my food, Here, want a sip?” and as his sentence came to an end, he offered you a cup of tea by raising it to your lips, which you pushed away as politely as you could. “You know I don’t drink tea, right? You asking me multiple times isn't going to change that..”

“Well, it was worth a try.”

“But seriously, where are all the staff? in all my days spent procrastinating here, I've never seen it so empty..” 

“I told them to take a break as I was going to have an important person over to discuss some very important, urgent matters, and for that discussion, I need some privacy.”

“But then why not have the meeting in your chamber? Enough privacy there, no?”

“Of course, of course, but you see, this client of mine, they think my chamber is really stuffy and feels suffocating. So naturally, I decided to have said meeting here.”

“Oh, so uhm, when is this meeting of yours? considering the staff are already gone..It must be soon, yes?”

“Oh yes, yes.. Infact, for the staff, the meeting has already started.”

“Wait.. Am I..?”

“Go on, you're almost there.”

“Jackass, I'm the ‘super important’ person you were meeting, huh?”

“See, this is exactly why this meeting is being held. The way you address me, the way you talk to me.. it's not exactly the usual way I'm addressed.. Not even my friends behave this way with me.”

“You have friends?”

“Of course I- See ! that's my point, you talk so nonchalantly to me, what do you think people would think of you as when they see you acting like this in public ?”

“Disrespectful? Discourteous? Rude? Impolite? Ill-mannered?”

“My beautiful Oxford dictionary, that's not what I meant. Don't you think people would look at us joking around and think of us as lovers ?” 

As soon as you heard that “beautiful”, oh goodness, you were done for. you had fallen so deep in love with this man it was beyond any find and rescue team to help you. you couldn't make an answer to that statement, no, you were busy in dreamland wondering if all these people at the estate saw you and Ayato talk to each other and thought, “oh, these two definitely have something going on.” 

Snap. one snap of his fingers in front of your face, and you were thrown right back into reality. 

“So?”

“Uhm, we don't go out much, actually, we've never gone out together, so that's not a problem as far as I'm concerned.”

“The way you say it.. it's almost like you're mad we never go out.”

“Well, we don't. I've never even stepped foot on the east side of the estate.. let alone go anywhere with you.”

“Hm? Let's go there then.” near the end of his sentence, he placed his teacup down and got up, walking to the same place he was standing before you came here, and so you followed. 

As he leaned on the ledge of the balcony, his body facing the horizon, he looked at you, hands crossed, yours facing him. 

“So? What do you think, are we qualified to go out now?” he spoke, turning towards you, and as he turned, he looked up at something and then smirked, his eyes returning to you. Goodness, he looked so hot— but wait, what was he staring at? before you could fully turn your head to face behind you, his left arm quickly got hold of the side of your neck that you were about to turn, “Why are you-”

“Answer my question first.” throughout this exchange, his hand was still there on your neck holding it from turning around.

“Yes, we can go out together, but what the hell is behind me that you don't want me to see?”

Leaning in towards your ear, he spoke. And to say his lips were one breath away from touching your temple is an understatement. “You remember the thing i told you about the staff, right? Well, they've all gathered near the first window of the second floor, and are currently looking at us, waiting for something to happen.” while he said all this, he was staring daggers into Thoma's soul, who, being the one who accidentally spread the rumour that Ayato was going to confess his feelings for you today, was awkwardly smiling at the slightly pissed off clan head, whose confession of love was about to turn into a source of entertainment for his staff, and of course, something to tease him about later for his sister, also present with the staff. Finishing his sentence, he finally pulled away from you. 

“But.. waiting for what to happen..?” trying to get the butterflies in your stomach to calm down from what just happened, you focused back on the conversation. 

“Waiting for me to confess.”

 Stop the clock. He didn't mean confess his love, did he? Surely there's no way.

“C-confess what!?” 

“That- ah, I can't believe I'm saying this in such an ordinary way, but listen, I'm not a man of poetry, or atleast, writing it. I tried to, believe me, but it just looked so awkward to me, nothing compared to what you wrote for me in your diary-”

“YOU READ THAT POEM?”

Ayato put his hands on your shoulders, and in an attempt to calm you down, spoke forth. 

“Hey now! Let's calm down, alright? I didn't read anything beyond the 9th line because Ayaka snatched it away from me, so please, don’t be mad. I should have realised I was in no place to open someone else's very personal diary, and I don't even know if that poem was meant for me, but I just-”

“No.. Ayato, you're.. You're too sweet. I'm sure you had no ill intentions, I only freaked out because it was so surprising, and since it was indeed meant for you. And you can read the whole poem afterwards, but for now, please, please go on about what you were telling me.”

“I can't just go on like this, not after you've told me you wrote about me- Me, of all people! Me, after you've written about the sun, the seas, the sky, the surreal- after all that, you wrote about me. And so beautifully, too, I can't go on, not with my life, not with whatever it was I originally wanted to say.” his expression was one you had never seen before, so full of innocence, he looked like a wet puppy in the rain, like he'd die of a cold if you didn't shelter him right away, and you could swear you saw tears welling up in his eyes, and all this because you wrote about him, all this because his feelings were returned, all this because he finally felt loved. 

You couldn't even respond, hell, you couldn't even choke back tears, and so as you were processing his words, you wrapped your arms around his torso and went in to hug him, sobbing into his chest. He returned the hug, one arm around your shoulders, and one running over your head, a tear dropping on your head as he did.

When you both pulled away from the hug, it was just laughter and wiping away each others’ tears, until you both were staring at each other fondly. And then Ayaka's voice could be heard from the back— “I told you they wouldn't kiss!” followed by a subdued Thoma, “my mora..”

“You know we can hear, right? And betting on my love life? Seriously?” As Ayato turned to reply to his sister, the staff scurried away, not wanting to be noticed by him, and as amused as you were, you didn't join in on the conversation, instead choosing to pull Ayato's collar towards yourself and pulling his lips onto yours. Before Ayaka could respond, Ayato leaned in to the kiss, cupping your face with his hands, and you could feel him smirk a bit.

He chuckled while pulling away from you, turning to a very surprised Ayaka and Thoma, mouths open in bewilderment,

“So... I guess Thoma wins?”

[gremlinmodetweeker]

Bellowing Bull Calling Home

Please forgive me for not posting any stories in a hot minute! I've just been super busy and tired. I had a whole issue with my meds (thankfully it's been sorted out) and since I'm so angry I wrote something about König getting mad. I really like the idea of being yelled at by this man, so once I get to 500 followers, I might post some snippets of smut.

Also, I'm thinking about opening a Kofi soon. I don't make much money, but it would be a good place to post some more... Interesting drawings, so to speak. I could also take some comissions if anyone is interested. However, I'm not sure yet. I'm just floating the idea.

Anyways, enough about me! Time to read König getting mad because that's super hot.

TWs: König yelling and insulting recruits, slight allusions to degradation kink, allusions to a horrible government secret contained in a suitcase (you never learn what it is)

Wordcount: 4.1K

Art from This Post

Story below the cut

Bellowing Bull Calling Home

 Normally, visiting König at work was a laughable concept. A PMC base was no place for a simple civilian such as yourself, yet here you were with König’s (supposedly) very important briefcase that he’d been directed to hold close to his chest for the foreseeable future. You’d begged König to let you read them, but he had simply laughed you off and changed the locks on the briefcase again. He then politely hid it out of view to keep you from trying to break into it. You had no intentions of doing so, but apparently whatever was in there was important enough for König to go to such lengths to protect it.

Unfortunately, by hiding the suitcase to keep it out of sight and out of mind from your curious fingers, König had forgotten about it entirely when he left that morning. You wouldn’t have known were the suitcase not sat proud and regal on your humble dining room table.

Sipping your drink and leaning against the counter, you realized you had the perfect opportunity to try and hack the damned thing open. Whatever was in there had König muttering darkly under his breath and leaning away from your touch. Those accursed documents were driving a wedge into your relationship the size and depth of a canyon. Of course, you knew the case was tamper-proof. You knew that if you so much as cracked it open as much as a millimeter, it would most likely set off some sort of alarm if a proper code wasn’t punched in the top. You had the strange feeling, based on the hefty weight in your hands, that the case wouldn’t even so much as dent if you took a simple butterknife to it.

You swung it back and forth as you left the home, the weight of your relationship hanging with the suitcase in your hand. Making your way to the main gates of the base.

A soldier checked your ID before waving you through, getting another soldier to help make your way to your husband.

“So, I don’t know if he’ll be in his office right now, but we can swing by there first,” Horangi chirped as he followed behind you to a long, grey building that sat close to the entrance.

You passed through a series of doors under the judgemental stares of low-ranking officers as Horangi brought you down the linoleum floors to come to a plain wood door, its only decor being a brown and white plaque reading ‘LEICHENBERG’ in big block letters. Horangi flicked the back of his knuckles against the doors twice before rolling back onto the balls of his heels. He looked at the door expectantly, then to you, then knocked again.

“Sometimes I knock and he thinks he’s going crazy,” Horangi explained before turning back to the door, “what he doesn't know is that sometimes I’m walking by and I’ll knock on the door and leave before he can answer it. I don’t think he’s caught on yet.”

You shook your head tiredly. That would at least explain some of König’s strange tendencies as of late, at least. Friends like Horangi tended to shorten lifespans, so if König dropped dead on his next mission, at least you knew who to blame now.

Horangi pulled out a set of keys and unlocked the door to step through into the minimalist office. You balked at his gall, but the way the soldier swaggered through the doorway had you thinking that Horangi was far too comfortable with pushing his way into your husband’s office.

You barely got a chance to see your wedding picture on König's desk before Horangi cleared his throat.

“Whelp, looks like he’s not here,” Horangi sighed as he turned to face you, “guess I can just hand that over to him myself, if you’d like.”

You sighed, “I was really hoping to hand this over to him personally…”

“Why?” Horangi snorted, “so you can go fuck in a closet or something?”

“No!” you gasped, “I just… I wanted to see him. I never get to see him at work so, you know... I thought this might be a good chance to see what he's like at work.”

“Well who am I to deny such a fine and noble venture?” you could hear Horangi’s shit-eating grin through his mask, “if we’re gonna track down König, we gotta use plan B.”

“Plan B?” you asked warily.

“Plan B!” Horangi cheered before sauntering over and slinging an arm over your shoulder, “looks like we’re going on a goose chase today.”

“Please not a wild one.”

“It’s gonna be a wild one.”

You groaned as Horangi’s laughter echoed off the empty walls of König’s office. It figured that the one day you had to go to König’s work he’d be squirreled away into the farthest corner of the base. He had a habit of being in the wrong spot at the wrong time, which made you all the more anxious every time he was sent on deployment. It also had a tendency to haunt you in your daily life when he returned home to your awaiting arms.

Horangi trotted down the halls, conveniently pushing you past anything he considered a bit too explicit for civilian eyes and ensuring you were in front of him to prevent you from skiving off to some derelict corner of the base.

“König usually likes to go to the gym when he’s frustrated about something,” Horangi explained as he brought you from the main building to a separate section of the base. Once inside, Horangi rounded on the help desk like a tiger on a deer.

“So, Matrice,” Horangi drawled as he leaned his chin on the heel of his hand, somehow exuding smugness through his mask and sunglasses, “you wouldn’t happen to know where ol’ Col. Leichenberg is, would you?”

“Uh…” Matrice darted her dark eyes between Horangi and you, then down to the suitcase fearfully.

“König’s my husband,” you offered.

“König has a wife?” Matrice shook her dark curls as she tapped away on her archaic keyboard, “nobody ever tells me anything around here...”

“Well maybe if you actually came to the staff parties, you might get to know us a bit better,” Horangi slyly slid the dig into the conversation with serpentine ease.

“Horangi, last time I attended a KorTac hoedown you threw up in my car,” Matrice grumbled, “I’m never gonna be your DD again.”

“I don’t remember it being that bad,” Horangi snorted, then turned and muttered, “not that I remember that much anyways…”

“And that’s why I’m not your DD anymore,” Matrice scrolled through the page a couple of times before shrugging and turning to you, “sorry ma'am, but you’re outta luck here. Maybe try checking the cafeteria? It’s nearly lunch. Big boy's gotta eat."

“König would be the first out to lunch,” you grumbled after you thanked the woman. Horangi paid no mind to your whinging and simply turned you back around to head back to the main building.

“If it makes you feel better,” Horangi offered as he firmly pushed you across the road, “I think I saw him cut down on red meat the other day.”

“We’ll see how long that lasts,” you rolled your eyes. 

Horangi only laughed as he opened the door for you.

“I’m serious! He needs to watch what he eats!” you insisted as Horangi led you into the belly of the PMC.

“You know, sometimes I think about what your grocery budget is like, and then I think I'd rather go back to South Africa than have to pay your bills for a month,” Horangi chirped as he stopped you from missing a right turn, “watch your step.”

“You know it would be easier if you were the one in front,” you huffed as you swung down the bland corridor.

“I don’t like the thought of you being out of sight,” Horangi explained as he guided you around yet another corner, “König’s said some interesting things about you.”

“You guys talk about me?” you cast a glare over your shoulder at the tall Korean man.

“What else are we gonna talk about?” Horangi shrugged, “living on base isn’t exactly exciting. Dunno if you civvies got the memo, but there’s only so many times you can talk about special secret missions before it just gets boring.”

“Special secret missions?” you perked up.

“Cleaning duty assigned to whatever poor fucker got the shit end of the stick,” Horangi clarified.

You groaned, then complained, “Please tell me he doesn’t say bad things.”

“Not really,” Horangi replied, “but he tells me a little bit. Just the juicy bits.”

“Really?” you scoffed, “like what?”

“Did you actually forget your own birthday this year?”

You flushed, which seemed to be enough proof for Horangi to laugh at your humiliation.

“He told me you nearly had a heart attack when he told you,” Horangi snickered.

“Oh really?” the cafeteria came into view, “well has he told you he eats other people’s lunches as snacks?”

Horangi sighed, “I figured it was him. It’s not hard to guess that one.”

“Has he told you that he ate Stilleto’s cake?”

Horangi paused, “I thought he was a better man.”

“We both did,” you shook your head morosely, “but I guess she stole his evening snack or something?”

“Oh my God he didn’t try to justify it, did he?” Horangi groaned.

“I tried to explain it to him but he wouldn’t have it,” you pushed the door to the cafeteria open.

The massive room was empty save for a table of sergeants playing poker and a couple of officers sharing a coffee. The room was notably absent of any giant men with a propensity for malicious snacking. The warm and inviting smell of the room made you want to grab one of those dishwater coffees they served and kick up your feet, get a taste of the military experience, but the suitcase felt hot in your hands.

“Looks like he’s not here,” Horangi pointed out the obvious, “so maybe he’s outside training one of his teams? I hope not…”

“Why don’t we check?” you offered.

“But it’s so far…” Horangi trailed off weakly as you marched past him, “hey! Where are you going!?”

“To see König!” you called back.

Horangi rolled his eyes, but followed behind you regardless.

The outdoor training area had been split into three squads of men, each squad being led by a different officer. The first leader Horangi brought you to had looked you up and down suspiciously before promptly turning a shade of milk white when he spotted the suitcase in your arms.

“What the hell are you doing with that!?” the portly man squawked as he jabbed a finger at the offending black pleather suitcase.

“My husband forgot it before going to work,” you spoke softly, taken aback by the man’s animated reaction.

“Wh-König just left it at home?” the man’s pale skin was steadily flushing to a beet red the longer you let him sit with your answer.

“Can you show me where he is? I need to get this back to him,” you tried to calm him but he only grew steadily more upset.

“You’re telling me König left that suitcase in the hands of a damn civilian?” the man scoffed, “König’s an idiot, but he can’t be that stupid!”

“She’s probably telling the truth, Baker,” Horangi interjected.

Baker steamrolled over him with the grace of a bulldog chasing a rat, “So where the hell did you get that?”

“It was just on my kitchen ta-”

“It was on your what!?” Baker howled.

“Baker!” Horangi barked, finally making the man pause to let you breathe, “this is König’s wife.”

Baker’s eyes widened as his mouth dropped into a perfect ‘o’. He turned to you with a sheepish smile, “Sorry, ma’am, I… I should’ve put two and two together but just seeing a random civilian with that in their hands and… Well… You gotta understand, right?”

You tried to steel your nerves as you replied, “It’s alright! Don’t worry about it.”

“I really should apologize though,”  Baker blundered on, “I mean if I’d only known you were König’s wife I never would’ve-”

“Baker please,” Horangi pinched his nose bridge, “cut the shit. I’m really not in the mood to listen to you kiss ass for an hour straight.”

“Understood sir,” Baker snapped his jaw shut before subtly turning to you, “please don’t mention anything to König.”

“I won’t,” you assured him kindly.

“Thank God,” Baker quietly made the sign of a cross before returning back to his platoon.

Horangi dragged you along to the next platoon, quietly ignoring Baker’s inability to direct you to König. Instead you were brought before a short man with notably thick dark eyebrows, accentuating his severe browline as he scowled at his soldiers.

“G’day Horangi 'ow are what the hell is she holding,” the man glared at you as though you were but dirt beneath his steel-toed boots.

“This is König’s wife,” Horangi cut you off before you could even start, “she’s here to deliver what he forgot at home.”

The man’s dark eyes darted from you back to Horangi, “You’re tellin’ me big boy over there forgot the damn-”

“Don’t say it,” Horangi interjected harshly, “don’t you dare.”

“She don’t know?” the man whispered.

“Not a word,” Horangi’s threat was nearly lost under the shouts of men and the screams of whistles.

The man looked unnerved, but nodded along begrudgingly.

“Right, well, you’re lookin’ for the big guy?” the man glanced between you both.

“Sure are,” Horangi nodded.

“Well yer in luck!” the man’s face lit up, “big boy’s just over there.” With that, he pointed out into the distance at one big man sitting in a navy blue folding chair whilst commanding the smallest group of soldiers, no more than a squad in number. His back was to them, but it was clear it was none other than König. If nothing else, the mask on his face in the sweltering hot sun was a dead giveaway. It was a miracle you didn’t see him earlier.

“Damn,” Horangi spat, “you really think it would be easier to find him, but he’s damn good at getting lost in a crowd.”

“When ‘e’s in that chair it’s hard to spot ‘im,” the man chuckled, “now get outta my sight with that damned thing. Gives me the heebie-jeebies just lookin’ at it.”

You glanced down at the suitcase and back at Horangi.

“You don't want to know. Seriously,” Horangi muttered as he urged you onwards.

Instead of taking in the weight of Horangi's ominous utterances, you focussed on making your way to König with a skip in your step, eager to see your beloved husband. You were so eager that you didn’t notice how he tensed up as you drew close. Just as you were about to greet him, he slowly rose from his seat with a blood-curdling howl sent straight from hell itself.

“YOU!” König bellowed like a brazen bull, “JEFFERSON, YOUNG, MANDULU! GET OVER HERE RIGHT NOW.”

You stopped dead in your tracks. You had never, never, in your life ever heard König yell like that before. Sure he could curse up a wicked storm when he stunned his toe on the corner of your table, but this? This was another beast entirely. The mere thought of König yelling like this had been completely foreign to you.

“YOU USELESS ANIMALS,” König raged as he rounded in on the three cowering soldiers, “I have never, in my entire life, seen such incompetence,” König drew himself up to his full height, making even you shiver in your shoes, “and yet here you three are before me. What gives you the right to call yourself soldiers!?”

“I’m sorry sir, it won’t happen again,” the middle man’s voice quivered as he stepped forward for the others.

König’s laugh sounded downright demonic, “You’re apologizing for what? I haven’t even told you what you did wrong!”

You looked back at Horangi, who only threw you two thumbs up as he smartly backed away. You glared at his retreating form before König forcefully grabbed your attention.

“All three of you have been nothing but DEAD WEIGHT to the rest of your team. I’ve seen better performances from drunks moping up their own VOMIT!” König snarled as he drew close to the men, circling them like a hyena stalks its prey, “fucking Aziz is doing better than any of you. And Mandulu!” König clucked his tongue as the terracotta skinned man quivered like an aspen tree when König's voice dropped to a lull, “I expected better of you. You’re supposed to be up for promotion, yeah?" König leaned in close to scream, "DOES THIS PERFORMANCE WARRANT A GOD DAMN PROMOTION?” König’s face wasn’t even a foot from the man’s nose, leaning down and coating him with hot breaths from his draconic lungs.

The man, Mandulu, slumped as all fear left his body, totally replaced with encroaching shame. He dropped his head down, before tearfully admitting, “No sir.”

“THEN WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU DOING!?” König screamed.

A part of you wanted to intervene. You felt like you were witnessing a torture session with how König rounded on this poor man, but something held you back. Maybe it was fear, but maybe, just maybe… It was arousal.

You hated to admit it, but something about watching König’s muscles bulge in his neck as his mask swayed forth when he leaned down over men who easily dwarfed you excited you. You almost wished that you were in their shoes, but watching was more than enough. He was a glorious sight, rage burning like the sun as he lorded over his men like a god. He was a mountain of a man with how he held himself up above his victims. You wished to lay before him like Prometheus, let him rip you apart with his talons.

“And you two,” König spat as he turned to the others, “WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU DOING ON YOUR PHONES? What are you doing twenty feet off looking at the others while they work like ACTUAL FUCKING SOLDIERS.”

One meekly spluttered, “Sir we were just-”

“Just what? Laughing at Goetz?” you could see König whipping himself up into a frenzy as he hurled his next insults, “GOETZ HAD KNEE SURGERY THREE MONTHS AGO AND IS STILL HAULING YOUR USELESS ASSES ACROSS THE GODDAMN FIELD. AND WHAT ARE YOU DOING? PLAYING ON YOUR GODDAMN PHONES!!!”

You shuddered. If there was one thing König hated, it was soldiers on their phone during training. You gave a silent prayer for the poor men.

König stalked around them slowly, “I should have you thrown out. What would I be losing? Nothing! Not a single thing! I might actually gain something without you two dragging us down!”

The men cowered miserably. You couldn’t help but feel sorry for them, despite knowing the abuse was more than well deserved. From the sounds of it, it was a miracle König hadn’t beaten them to a pulp. Now that… That would be a sight to witness…

“ALL OF YOU,” König snapped as he finally stood to face the three men directly, “Mandulu! Give me a ten page report on all the reasons you’re still worthy of a promotion today at eighteen-hundred exactly, or you’re up for recycling. For the next half hour, you’re running laps around the yard. Maybe think how you'll structure your points, ja?” he turned to the other two, this time with a sadistic gleam in his eyes. You knew that under his mask, he was grinning from ear to ear through the fury etched into his face. “And you two!” he cackled, “give me your phones. For the next week, you’re going to be putting your phones in lock boxes. You’re going to carry those fucking boxes from the moment you wake up to the moment you go to sleep. If you’re good little boys, you’ll get your phone for an hour before lights out. Are we clear?”

“But sir, my wife-”

“I DON’T GIVE A GOOD GOD DAMN ABOUT YOUR WIFE,” König roared.

The man shrunk into himself like he’d been burned by the flames of König’s fury.

“You are to carry your phones in lockboxes for the next two weeks! Are we clear?” König snapped.

“Yes sir,” the two miserable whelps squeaked out before König finally relaxed.

The goliath finally stood straight before them, “All three of you! Dismissed!”

“Yes sir,” the three men saluted and slunk off miserably.

Just as Mandulu looked like he couldn’t be in any worse of a state, König called out, “And Mandulu?" the man raised his dark for eyes, "I’m disappointed.”

The poor man looked like his whole spirit had just been crushed to dust. His face crumpled in just briefly before he quickly turned his face and quietly left.

You watched the poor man leave with his tail tucked between his legs before turning to look at König. He was shaking his head slowly as he turned his back on his soldiers, all of whom were watching him for further instruction. He quietly turned to them, barked a couple of commands that had the soldiers scurrying into actions, then turned back to stare off into the distance. Incidentally, that was right at you.

“Ah!” König stiffened slightly as he locked eyes with you, “meine liebe! What are you doing here?”

“I brought this for you,” you held up the suitcase that had been weighing you down all day.

“Oh mein Gott,” König gasped as he rushed over, “ohhhhh mein Gott meine leibe I can’t believe you found this. I can’t believe I forgot oh mein Gott.”

“I figured you might need it,” you laughed as you handed the suitcase over.

“I knew I was forgetting something, but this? If one of my superiors saw me without this,” König shuddered, “I don’t even want to think about it.”

“Well it’s a good thing I got it for you!” you smiled brightly before scowling, “it was really hard to find you though.”

“Oh?” König put the case down and put his hands on your shoulders, “where did you think I was?”

“Well, first Horangi took me to your office-”

“Please tell me he didn’t take you inside,” König groaned.

“He did,” you chirped, “but he did knock twice at least.”

“Well that’s something,” König grumbled, “so where did you go next?”

“We went to the cafeteria afterwards,” you placed your hands on König’s hips and shifted from side to side.

“You went to the cafeteria? Why didn’t you come here first?” König scoffed in mock offense.

“König,” you cupped his masked face in your hands, “I know you too well to not check the cafeteria second.”

König sniffed indignantly but let you continue your regales of your odyssey.

“So anyways, when you weren’t in the cafeteria, Horangi took me out here to find you! It took us a couple of tries, but we got here in the end!” you lightly kissed the inside of his wrist, making him chuckle sheepishly.

“So you saw all that?” König grimaced.

“All of it,” you told him, “I feel kinda bad for them though…”

“Ach,” König scratched the back of his head, “Jefferson and Young are fucking idiots, but Mandulu is usually one of my best. I don’t know what got into him today…”

“Maybe he’s going through a tough time?” you asked.

“I really hope not,” König winced, “if he is… Well, I can’t apologize. And if he were out on the fields it wouldn’t matter, so this is a good experience. Still,” König paused as he looked off to where Mandulu left, “I hope tomorrow is better.”

“Can't you go easy on him?” you asked hopefully.

“It’s because I like him that I have to be harder,” König patted your head lovingly, “if I’m soft, he’ll never be what he wants to be. If I’m hard on him, he might get to my rank in a couple of years.”

“That fast!” you whistled, “he must really be something special.”

“I was the one who put him up for promotion,” König brought his hands back to his hils, “but… You weren’t upset by any of that, were you?”

“Not really,” you shook your head, “if anything, it was kinda hot.”

“You thought me going red in the face is ‘hot’?” König shook his head in disbelief, “you’re a strange woman.”

“It’s cool to see you when you get all angry and stuff,” you chirped, then quietly added, “it would be hot if you yelled at me like that.”

“I don’t want the neighbors to know about your kinks,” König drawled as you blushed, “but if you really want, we could always try something when we get home.”

“Could we really?” you grinned eagerly.

“Well, not like that,” König pointed over his shoulder at where the three men had stood, “but I’m sure we can figure something out. Now,” he picked up the suitcase, “do you need a lift home?”

“I’ll be alright,” you assured him, “do you need me to go?”

“I'd hate for you to go so soon. If you like, I can meet you back in my office, but as you can see I’m a bit busy just right now,” König gestured over to the soldiers hauling a massive log over their shoulders from one end of the muddy field to the other.

“Can you at least give me a kiss before I go?” you asked.

“Of course,” König laughed.

Without missing a beat, König lifted his mask up to lean down and press a kiss against your lips. He held you tight briefly, then let you step back from his grasp. His eyes shone with an undying warmth as he took in your form once more.

“Colonel König has a face!” a soldier screamed in the distance.

König closed his eyes as he let out an exasperated groan.

“They’ve never seen your face?” you asked.

“They’ve never been on the field with me,” König explained before ruffling your hair, “now go to my office. I’ll be there soon, okay? I love you.”

“I love you too,” you blew him a kiss as you walked off back to the main building.

As you did, you could hear König raging and roaring at the soldiers from behind you. You felt bad, but you knew you’d be on the receiving end of König’s rage soon enough. Funnily enough, you looked forward to it.

Story Masterlist

[newtonsheffield]

take me home country roads was probably the softest thing I’ve ever read I’m so obsessed with it that i read all the snippets you wrote in the hashtag for this story here! do you think you will ever write something in this universe again so we can have a little update for them? thank you for this one💚

Oh Muffin and Bear.

I miss those two softies. They were so sweet. They really helped one another heal and I think because of that their relationship is really strong. And their children would be so loved.

Imagine the very first time Neddy whittled something for Kate. Imagine how Neddy’s always sat with Anthony in his workshop, sat on the bench watching his Dad work, fascinated as he watches the shapes appear.

“Can I make something, Papa?”

Anthony knelt in front of his son, five years old and Anthony still can hardly believe Kate found him. Let alone the two beautiful children they have and a third on the way. His chest feels tight every time he watches Kate with their sons, the swell of her stomach just visible when they pile onto the sofa around her, desperate to be as close as possible to her while she reads to them with her chin resting on the tops of their heads. His wife and their children.

“Do you want to?”

“Yeah!” Neddy grinned at him with his curly hair falling in his eyes, his feet swinging over the edge of the table. “I wanna be like you!”

It had brought tears to his eyes the first time they had let Neddy pick out his own clothes and he’d ended up with a pile that looked just like Anthony’s half of the wardrobe and he’d let them fall with his head against Kate’s chest and he fingers in his hair.

“Of course he wants to be like you. You’re a great father, Bear.”

Anthony kissed his son’s forehead, ruffling his hair. “Let’s make something for Amma then.”

It takes weeks. Weeks and weeks of Neddy’s hard work. His determined frown and his frustrated pout before finally it’s done and he takes them inside, wrapped in brown paper and twine.

“Mummy!” Neddy rushed forward, the parcel big in his hands as he races towards Kate sat at her easel with Miles on her lap as she works, Newton dozing at her feet. “Amma I made something!”

Kate smiled at their son and Anthony’s chest felt tight when she kissed his cheek, wrapping him in her arms tightly for a moment. “Did you? That’s so amazing little cub. Did Daddy help you?”

Her eyes met Anthony’s sparkling at him in the fading light of the day. And Anthony shifted slightly, still lost for words when he looked at her sometimes. “Just a little. It’s mostly his work.”

“Well, let’s see then.” Kate hummed, tugging carefully at the twine while Neddy practically vibrated with excitement as the paper slipped away.

Four bears on a log. That’s what Neddy had wanted to make. They were a little lumpy and imperfect but he’d made them with love and Anthony could see the way Kate swallowed thickly as she ran her fingers over the roughly oiled carvings.

“Neddy, it’s beautiful.”

“It’ll hold your brushes.” He said proudly. Leaning in to the touch of Anthony’s hand on his shoulder. “Daddy made the holes. That’s Papa, and Me, and Miles and the new baby.” He pointed to the Bear and his three cubs.

“You did such an amazing job, baby.” Kate’s voice shook as she kissed his face again, “I am so proud of you.”

Neddy took a deep breath, his chest puffing out, “Can we call gramma Mary and Violet so I can show them?”

“Absolutely, go and grab my phone.”

Neddy raced inside and Miles took off after him, desperate to catch up to his brother.

Kate stood slowly, wrapping her arms around Anthony’s waist and pressing her face against his chest. She breathed deeply, “You’ve been keeping secrets.”

Anthony huffed, holding his wife tighter, “It was hard. He was so cute about it but I took lots of videos.”

Kate sighed, leaning back in his arms, “Ugh who would’ve thought the grumpy bear I stayed next to one Autumn would make such sweet babies?”

“You did.”

“Yeah, I did. It’s so incredible to be right about everything.”

“Yeah yeah yeah.”

[thesherrinfordfacility]

What is your take on the whole "the Metatron threatened Aziraphale off-screen & Aziraphale lied to protect Crowley" theory that seems to have become very popular in the fandom? Personally, I think it does raise some interesting points, but I'm not sold on it for a variety of reasons. I love your metas btw! ❤️

hi anon!💕 thank you so much, that's very kind of you!

gosh, been a while since i've had a meta ask!✨ hmm. tbh, im in two camps, and i do think there's some merit in the two of them matching up. i wrote a couple of posts on this, breaking down the final fifteen practically shot-by-shot, and have read countless different takes from other brilliantly observant people, but essentially my thought process is this (lengthy explanation under the cut, im afraid - im a bit meta-rusty):

aziraphale did not want to go to heaven. that much is clear from the two refusals he gives the metatron. furthermore, he rejects heaven for what it currently is and what it stands for (and, arguably imo, reaches the end of his tether with god, too) in s1, when he realises that heaven is also firmly working to bring about armageddon. that it wasn't just the agenda of the archangels; the metatron, the voice of god, confirms that war is the goal, no matter the collateral. and god does not intervene. this continues throughout s2; aziraphale is notably still disdainful of heaven, is happy enough being separated from it... but it should be noted that he has replaced heaven, and the structure and comfort it offered him, with crowley ("it's nice to tell someone about the good things you've done... now that im not reporting to heaven...")

i do think what we're shown on screen is accurate. there's allowance for the fact that the flashbacks to the aziraphale-metatron conversation may be biased and therefore unreliable, being from aziraphale's pov, but... i don't think there will be anything necessarily revealed that wasn't shown to us in the FF. there might be snippets of that conversation that he's kept from crowley, but has essentially seen fit to share with the audience... so personally i think it's accurate, and nothing is missing. and tbh, if nothing else, it would feel narratively cheap if the 'solution' to the FF was in something being purposefully withheld from the audience. in that respect, i do take the FF at face value

we know that aziraphale has a low evaluation of himself. it's presented to us that he's evidently hedonistic and enjoys earthly pleasures just as much as crowley does, but i don't think it's as evident until shax's jabs during the demon raid just how much aziraphale actually might be - frankly - ashamed of these things. i think on a fundamental level he likes being an angel, it's all he's ever known. but even if he accepts that he may be a bit of a bastard - is even slightly proud of it - i think he's equally self-conscious of the fact that who he truly is will never be enough for heaven, god, or to warrant his own angelhood, and all these things he enjoys equally serve as a source of shame in how far it removes him from what his belief on what a good angel should be

in the same vein, he's caught between the devil and the deep blue sea in that he might feel that he's not enough for crowley, either. case in point for me, unfortunately, is that crowley has constantly reaffirmed that they are both on their own side, but when aziraphale opts to shelter gabriel, arguably the right thing to do for many reasons but ultimately because that's the kind of person aziraphale is (imo), crowley retracts it... possibly unconsciously, and completely understandably, but aziraphale definitely notes it ("i thought we carved it out for ourselves!") and his resulting petulant, bratty dismissal is textbook responding to rejection with rejection. especially when aziraphale clearly was not totally on side with "our own side" at the end of s1, but has come around to it and accepted it in the four years since. so, it feels like aziraphale has done what he considers to be the right thing to do, a core principle of who he is in modern day (having learnt some very hard lessons along the way) but that's enough for crowley to take back everything he had said previously

aziraphale loves crowley, that much is evident. and he may well remember the angel that crowley used to be with some degree of fondness. however, a) im not sold that the pre-fall flashback is aziraphale's POV, and b) that does not mean that aziraphale preferred crowley as an angel. imo, he fell for crowley whilst he was a demon, but because crowley was crowley. a demon that pretends otherwise, but is at heart, just a little bit, a good person. the concept of good is important to aziraphale, but he hasn't removed it from being a purely angelic trait. ergo, i think he considers crowley to have fallen unfairly, that it was a gross injustice (and i say this fully believing that 'just asking questions' may not have been the reason why crowley fell), and that if anyone deserves to be restored - to be forgiven and essentially be asked for forgiveness in return - its crowley

similarly, i think we can be led to assume that aziraphale doesn't actually know anything about crowley's fall, nor his actual thoughts and feelings on the matter. all he knows is what crowley told him - "sauntered vaguely downwards" - and up until the FF crowley hasn't truly (as far as i can recall) ever declared that he doesn't want the chance to be an angel again. he's obviously derisive of heaven, that is very clear, but when he states "unforgivable, that's what i am", i think that registered to aziraphale that crowley might feel like he won't be forgiven, but doesn't mean he wouldn't want it. all the sneers crowley has volleyed at heaven and the archangels might have been, up until now, simply been anger and resentment for something that was unfair in the first place. add to this that crowley has been placed in danger on multiple occasions by hell, and again i think the offer of restoration - to be beyond the reach of hell altogether - is lucrative to aziraphale... and it's now within his power to give.

so. i do think that there is an implicit threat in the aziraphale-metatron discussion. aziraphale visibly becomes very uncomfortable when crowley is brought up, the exact nature of their relationship heavily implied as not having escaped the metatron's notice. aziraphale is not happy as he walks back to the bookshop, and he's erratic and scattered when he delivers the news and offer to crowley. a threat may not have been intended, let alone been vocalised, but i do think aziraphale feels under threat of some kind... that any way you slice it, he doesn't feel like he has any choice in returning to heaven, and instead chooses to make hay whilst the sun shines etc.

but equally... i think aziraphale believes the best in everyone and everything. he has constantly been ostracised, mocked, or ignored as being irrelevant to heaven - and even himself perhaps wonders if he should be an angel at all. but here the metatron is, recognising that aziraphale might be "the angel for the job". whilst i don't think aziraphale buys in to the metatron's flattery, because im fairly sure that the angel as demonstrably intelligent as he is would potentially consider that the flattery is superficial and overplayed (especially given how nearly all of it contradicts the s1 conversation that he and the metatron had), i do think aziraphale might be thinking '...yeah, i am the angel for the job. just not the job you're intending'.

metatron mentions nothing about 'making a difference', but that's exactly what aziraphale tries to implore with crowley; that they could change things, and him being in charge - with crowley by his side, in on the subterfuge - might just be what is required. exactly as the people they currently are. there is something about heaven that aziraphale believes is worth saving, and i think that's where the "its the side of truth, of light... of good" comes in. qualities that he thinks heaven should be, was always meant to be, and he could restore. crowley however considers the endeavour to be utterly pointless.

i also think there's an element of doublespeak going on... kinda. more specifically, that aziraphale is speaking to two audiences in the scene (three, if you count us!); he's talking in a way that sounds entirely like he's dancing to metatron's tune, that he's heaven's man through-and-through... but also in a way that he's trying to sell the idea to crowley in turn - and is speaking in a way that won't tip either audience off to the full reality of the situation as he sees it. i wouldn't go so far as to say it's a code, though - e.g. i personally don't accept the ''time out' signal but crowley missed it' theory - but instead that he's trying to lead the metatron into underestimating him, and also perhaps downplay the exact truth of the situation from crowley. if crowley were to know that aziraphale is frightened or uneasy, or felt under threat in any way, i think he might be afraid that crowley would do something drastic, or at least inadvertently give 'the game' away. nonetheless though, he has to reveal some of his true intentions to crowley, in order to bring him on side - just very subtly.

regarding the restoration offer - kinda went over it above, but i do think aziraphale genuinely thought that crowley would want it, and would take it not just so he could be an angel again, but also in order to help change heaven and be with aziraphale. that being said, as he walks into the bookshop, i think a part of him recognised it might be a hard sell, and instead aziraphale would need to frame it in a way as being like... a disguise, or a cover, or some sort? but aziraphale severely underestimated crowley's feelings on heaven and angelhood, even if i don't think it was an unfair assumption to make, either. aziraphale was excited about it because it was something he could actually give crowley, something within his power to bestow - to right a wrong that he's possibly always thought was a gross injustice ever since job.

god im sorry this has taken so long but - no, i don't think the metatron threatened aziraphale off-screen, but i do think aziraphale feels threatened by the discussion and implications within it, and whilst feeling that he has no way out, instead opts to return to heaven to exact his influence - as an angel that's not like the rest of them - and to play his own game... to do the right thing, and make a difference.

and no, i don't think he lied to crowley to protect him. i think he had to toe a line between 'the metatron might somehow be able to hear and observe us, so i have to speak in such a way that makes it seem im on heaven's side', and 'what i say to crowley has to be without cottoning him onto the fact that i feel threatened, bc a) he might do something silly and b) the metatron would know, but what i say also has to be worded so that he can see why i truly want to go back'.

thank you for the ask, i really enjoyed it!!! sorry you have to read an essay tho oops💕

[fanfictilltheend]

❤️‍🔥Violent Heart❤️‍🔥 (dark stepdad!mechanic!convict!Joel x afab!reader fic) update

soooooo like i'm really sorry but we're at 25,622 words and i still need to write the conclusion so if you're invested in this fic get ready to read a fucking novella (and wait a bit -- sorry!!)!!!

but on another note i hope people like this fic and i'm sorry if it's not what you expected it to be but on the other hand i like don't care much because i wrote this for me, fam!!!!!!!!!! get wrecked!! jk jk ily all!!!

I am proud of myself for writing this much tho and sticking to an idea long enough to get it done (hopefully very soon).

Also just another warning: this is a DARK fic. I'm not joking about that. Joel and reader are not righteous people and joel even does things people may consider straight up evil. Of course on the fic itself there will be very specific warnings and tags but this fic heavily features a lot of deep domestic family issues and violence so don't go into this thinking it's just a smutty one-shot or something like that. This is slowburn and heavily relies on plot.

that's all for now! i genuinely did not think any one would care at all about this fic and your interest has helped motivate me in the hardest of times.

As always, HERE is a masterlist of snippets, mood boards, and even an important playlist to hold you over

sending love to all my dark joel fangirlies especially 💕✨

[cal-daisies-and-briars]

Hiiiii cal!!! I’m so glad you’re enjoying writing this way because I love getting to read these snippets - it’s like a bunch of mini cliffhangers that prompt my imagination to go wild and it’s so much fun!! I’ll be sending emojis for as long as you’re wanting them!

⚡️⚡️⚡️⚡️⚡️⚡️⚡️⚡️⚡️⚡️⚡️⚡️⚡️⚡️⚡️⚡️⚡️⚡️⚡️⚡️⚡️⚡️⚡️(they’re getting a house! And about to get married!!! And i might be misremembering but i don’t think you’ve done a detailed buddie wedding in any of your fics yet? I’m very excited to see how you do it!!)

🚨🚨🚨🚨🚨🚨🚨🚨🚨🚨🚨🚨🚨🚨🚨🚨🚨(the shenanigans and tomfoolery of being bad at hiding a secret relationship… it amuses me so!)

🩸🩸🩸🩸🩸🩸🩸🩸🩸🩸🩸🩸🩸🩸🩸🩸🩸🩸🩸🩸🩸🩸🩸🩸🩸🩸🩸🩸🩸🩸(as i’ve said many times before, my love for this fic goes beyond words!! And you’re venturing into truly riveting territory here i’m so pumped!!)

🔮🔮🔮🔮🔮🔮🔮🔮🔮🔮(my heart breaks for babby - my typo for baby bobby and i’m keeping it - my dear sweet babby)

🧟🧟🧟🧟🧟🧟🧟🧟🧟🧟🧟🧟🧟🧟🧟🧟🧟🧟🧟🧟🧟(i can already feel this one becoming my new obsession! Idk why i thought it was going to be something shorter when you first started posting about it but i was thrilled to see that anticipated chapter count on ao3!)

👑👑👑👑👑👑👑👑👑👑👑👑(islands in the stream has been stuck in my head all day and i blame you! I’m so looking forward to the madney sweetness!)

🔼🔼🔼🔼🔼🔼🔼🔼🔼🔼(oh my god cal the angst! It’s angsting!)

💐💐💐💐💐💐💐💐💐💐💐(huge fan of mays crush being named april - it makes me giggle every time)

🦮🦮🦮🦮🦮🦮🦮🦮🦮🦮🦮🦮🦮🦮🦮(cranberry my baby! And the covidness of it all is so vivid - i’m loving the buck-chris dynamic!)

I never count the amount of emojis i type as i go so i’m always a bit shocked at how many sentences i’ve requested of you when you post the reply 😬 thank you so much for putting up with my crazy requests it brings me such joy!

I hope you have a lovely weekend and week!!

SO AS I WAS FILLING THIS OUT MY FUCKING LAPTOP CRASHED. WHICH SUCKS BECAUSE IT HAS TAKEN ME HOURS AND HOURS ACROSS TWO DAYS. FUCK. Let's see if I can find the sentences I wrote again.

For TWATYTK and Zombies, those parts have already been posted, because as I said, this was taking so long. GAH!

I had a whole message typed out about how much I appreciate you. You are so kind! IT'S LOST TO TIME NOW.

I think this was what I had for ⚡️:

---

Their next call is to the scene of a fire. 

This should not be especially eventful, considering that they are firefighters and all. And, for the drive there, it isn’t. The transit process? Just fine. 

It’s the rest that sends Buck into a tailspin. 

He spends the ride seated next to Eddie, thighs touching. They’re back being partnered together. Sadie earned her shield a couple months back, and has been working as Ravi’s partner since. Buck is pretty proud of her - and himself, for training her. He liked working with her a lot. But he’s happy to be back where he belongs, in terms of workplace duos. 

Buck and Eddie - okay, mostly Buck - talk everyone’s ear off about the house for the time it takes them to get to the fire. They should possibly be a little less giddy headed towards an actual three alarm fire, but at that point, Buck thinks his mood simply can’t be shaken. How naive. 

It is perhaps due to this focus on the house, which is nowhere near the direction they’re headed in to get to this fire, that Buck doesn’t realize what is in the direction of the fire. In his defense, neither does anyone else! Not even Eddie! Even Bobby, who knows better where they’re going, doesn’t put the pieces together. 

Maybe it’s because they spend so much time driving around the city. Here and there. Fires and car accidents and medical emergencies everywhere. Everywhere looks familiar! They could all be city tour guides. It’s not like driving through a city where you only know a few places, so the places you know feel like beacons.

Or Buck is just making excuses for his lack of attention. Either way. 

Really, it’s not until they turn onto the street that Buck notices. Though, it’s a long road, and they’re still a few miles out. 

“This is weird,” Buck says. 

“What is?” Sadie asks. She’s sitting across from him. Noticing his sudden onslaught of nerves. 

“We’re on the same street as the wedding venue.”’

That makes Eddie look. He’d been typing a rather long message to his mother and not paying much attention to where they’re going. At Buck’s words, his attention snaps to the window.

“Shit, you’re right.” 

Well, obviously Buck knows he’s right. 

“Bobby,” he asks. “What’s the address of where we’re going?”

“Uh, it is…” Bobby reads. “Oh.”

“Oh?” Buck repeats. He grabs Eddie’s arm. “Oh? Oh, what?”

“Okay, well first let’s remember we don’t know how bad it is yet,” Bobby says, maintaining a steady facade. 

“Bobby, it’s a three-alarm fire!” Buck exclaims, voice raising an octave.

“And the wedding is in days,” Eddie adds, voice wavering with stress. “There’s no time to do any repairs, even if it’s not totally ruined.”

Days. Days. What the fuck are they going to do?

“Okay, let’s not jump to any conclusions. Technically, the address is for the building next door,” Bobby explains. “Everything might be fine.”

Everything is not fine. Quite the opposite, in fact. 

Two minutes after his painstaking revelation, Buck finds himself standing next to his fiancé on the street in front of their wedding venues, watching it plume with smoke. The wind blew the flames from the building next to it, and the roof caught. It won’t fare as badly as the other building, but it certainly won’t be available for their wedding. 

They are getting married.

In three days. 

Their wedding is in three days. 

Their wedding is in three days and has no venue. 

Because their venue is burning right in front of him. 

Their venue was also their caterer, so add that to the fucking fire. 

“Buck! Eddie!” Bobby calls. “Work first, react later!”

Easy for him to say! It’s not his wedding venue! 

“Come on.” Eddie tugs on his turnouts. “We’ve got to go.”

Buck feels like he’s been possessed by a heap of barbed wire. 

He turns his head to Eddie. His eyes are bugged out so wide they might pop from his head. An absurd but sticky thought pops into his head. 

“You jinxed us,” Buck accuses. 

“Buck!” Eddie complains.

---

And 🚨:

---

“Okay, that makes sense. Was it his family?”

Buck nods. “They were religious. Conservative. Southern.”

“I can relate,” Eddie tells him. 

“Eventually, I just wanted to be able to relax, though,” Buck says. “I made him promise we’d do it at the end of the tour. Not to his family. Just, to friends… And in public.”

Eddie’s expression softens as he realizes.

“And then he died.”

“Yeah.” 

And then he died. 

“I’m so sorry,” Eddie exhales.

Buck shakes his head. His eyes start to sting. 

“It’s stupid, Eddie. I know there’s no logic behind it. It just feels like once something is out loud, it can be taken away.”

Eddie nods, understanding the thought process. 

“We both know I can’t promise you I won’t spontaneously die,” he says. “Especially in a global pandemic.”

“I know,” Buck nods. 

“But, uh…” Eddie sighs. “It’s like you said when I was worried about Chris, right? I’ll just have to prove it to you.”

“Prove it to me?” Buck asks.

“Yeah,” Eddie nods. “I’ll just prove that we get to have a life together. Even if we’re both a little bit scared of dying.”

“I’m scared of you dying,” Buck reminds him. 

“Okay, well we’re at an equal risk, so… Not the point, actually. Buck, the point is, I’ll show you every day, alright?” Eddie promises. “We get to have this.”

Buck takes a deep breath. He leans forward in bed and grabs Eddie’s hand. 

“I don’t know if I’d believe anyone else,” he says quietly. 

Eddie shuffles up the mattress, closer to Buck.

“Believe me,” he says. 

“Okay,” Buck relents. “But only because you’re very pretty.”

Eddie smirks. “It’s a gift.”

“Mmm, or a trick.”

Eddie chuckles and kisses his temple, right beside the birthmark. 

“I love you,” he says. “That’s not going anywhere, okay?”

“Okay,” Buck breathes. 

He decides to try his best to believe him. 

---

And the 90 sentences I wrote for this damn 🩸:

---

But it does show Buck what she’s up to. 

It kind of makes him mad, actually. Eddie has gone to such intense, devastating lengths to hide himself. Meanwhile, his attacker has been out here, just living life. Posting about walks through the park and her latest baking experiment. How is that fucking fair? 

It’s not. 

It’s not fair. 

And while Buck knows what he has to do isn’t fair either - isn’t right or human or good - he tries to keep that in mind. 

She ruined Eddie’s life. Twice. She didn’t have to do that. Now, what choice does Buck have? 

February 10th, 2025

Eddie does something on Monday that he perhaps should not do. Something the tiniest bit risky. After his call with Adriana, he’s feeling that a bit of risk taking to get his life back where it needs to be is necessary. And anyway, he’s not doing anything illegal. Not doing anything wrong. Nothing he can be arrested for. 

He’s picking his son up from school. 

Chris pauses, exiting Durand School to see Eddie in the driver’s seat of the truck. His eyes widened with nerves for a moment. Eddie felt a rush of guilt. He doesn’t want to make Chris worry. Doesn’t want to cause any undue stress. He just wants to feel like a normal dad again, picking his kid up from school. 

But then Chris breaks out into a wide grin, and Eddie feels his whole body relax. 

“You came!” Chris exclaims, surprised, when he reaches the vehicle. 

Eddie climbs out to help him into the front seat. Not that Chris needs a lot of help anymore. Mostly just someone to hold his crutches and bag. 

“I did,” Eddie confirms. He tries to keep his voice even. 

“You’re not worried?” 

“No,” Eddie says. “Well, maybe a little. But I’m not doing anything I’m not allowed to do.”

Chris thinks about this. “I’m glad you came today.”

“Me too,” Eddie decides. “Do you want to grab ice cream or something on the way home?”

Chris narrows his eyes. “I’m not a little kid, remember?”

“Jeez, I didn’t know ice cream had an age limit,” Eddie frowns. “Buck will be devastated to hear this. You know how seriously he takes his Neapolitan.”

Chris smirks. “Fine. Okay. I want ice cream.”

Eddie grins. “Thought so.”

Fifteen minutes later, they’re sitting on a little patio, under the shade of an umbrella. Eddie is in the darkest seat, also covered by sunglasses and a hat. Chris sits in the sunshine, spooning strawberry ice cream from a little paper bowl. 

“So, I wanted to run an idea by you,” Eddie says. 

“Me?” Chris asks. 

“Yeah, you. Who else?”

“I don’t know,” Chris shrugs. “What is it?”

“Well, I think I need to get a job,” Eddie says. 

“But you can’t be a firefighter,” Chris fills in.

“No,” Eddie says. “I don’t think I can.”

“So, then what?” 

“Well, May suggested I look into telehealth services. Like a hotline for medical advice or something,” Eddie says. 

Chris nods. “You’d be good at that.”

“Thank you,” Eddie replies. “But, uh, I did a little research and I think I found something different that suits me even better.”

“What is it?”

“Well, there’s this nonprofit that operates out of Los Angeles looking for people with medical experience. Nurses. Doctors. Paramedics.” 

“Like a charity?” Chris asks. 

“Yeah, but I’d get paid,” Eddie says. “It’s a job. Bringing emergency medical care to people who maybe don’t feel safe to call for help.” 

“Like… You?” Chris whispers the last part. 

“Yeah, but not just like me,” Eddie explains. “All kinds of people. People facing deportation. Homeless people. People who can’t afford an ambulance ride. Stuff like that.”

---

This is easier to count again haha 🔮:

---

Buck wakes up with his cheek pressed into the bannister support poles of Bobby’s apartment stairwell. He can feel their imprint as he woozily pulls his upper body upright. His head is pounding and he feels vaguely nauseous. Almost like he’s been drugged. Though, the comedown when they’d been spiked with LSD had been far more gradual than the sudden, brutal snap back to reality that had been whatever that was. 

Not a coma, he realizes. If he’s sitting in the stairwell to Bobby’s apartment, not a hospital room, then it wasn’t a coma dream. Kind of an insane regular dream, though? And why had he passed out in the first place?

Acutely aware he won’t find any answers here, parked on his ass, Buck pulls himself to his feet. Slowly, and gripping the bannister for support, just in case, he straightens out his body. His legs give a little wobble. 

What the fuck happened to him?

Partway down the stairs, Buck looks up and down. Should he go out to the Jeep and risk driving home? Feeling like this? He supposes he could call Eddie. Eddie would come for him, no questions asked. He knows he could ask Bobby for help, too. No matter what just happened between them. But his brain is battling two contradictory memories; the fight he had with Bobby in the kitchen and the memory he somehow intruded on of Bobby at his father’s funeral. If that was even real. The easy thing to do would be to go downstairs and call Eddie, not deal with any of it. Hold onto the only thing he knows really happened. 

With a sigh, Buck turns and climbs the stairs. Up towards Bobby’s. 

The moment his foot hits the landing on Bobby’s floor, Buck sees the breathless, similarly disoriented face of his captain jogging down the hallway. He looks pale. Hair a little mussed. Half his face is red, like it’s been pressed against something, too. 

---

A bunch for this guy here 🧟:

---

“May is awake and lucid,” she says. “She’s asking for you.”

Athena grabs one of Hen’s hands and squeezes it. 

“Thank you. Thank you.” 

Then she hurries off in the direction of her daughter’s sickroom. 

Hen doesn’t go after her. She waits, lingering, to speak with Bobby. 

“Did you find Michael?” She asks. 

Bobby shakes his head slightly. 

“It looks like he was infected in the initial outbreak or sometime soon after.”

Hen’s shoulder sag. “Damn it. Poor Athena. Poor kids.” 

Bobby nods. He doesn’t know what else to say. Yes. It’s horrendous. Everything is always so horrendous and everyone’s families are always dying. 

“We should ask her to stay,” Hen says quietly. “She’s a friend. We trust her. The kids will be good for Denny.”

Bobby knows they have enough food to stretch to more than just the three of them. Plus, more hands means more potential to harvest more. Fish more. Preserve more. 

“It’s not just my decision,” Bobby says. “We’ll have to discuss it as a group.”

“No, but it’ll go whatever way you want it to go,” Hen says. “You know that.”

He does. 

“I think it’s a good idea, Hen. But I want everyone’s input.” 

“Like you did with the radio?” She asks.

Bobby raises his eyebrows in surprise. “Buck told you?”

“Oh, yes.” She says. “Wanted to get ahead of it, I guess.”

“Do you think I did the wrong thing?” Bobby asks. 

Hen might be the only person he’s willing to ask this of. The only person whose answer he really wants to know. 

“No,” she says. “I don’t think you did the wrong thing. But I’m worried about him anyway.”

“Me too, Hen.” Bobby admits.

He’s always worried about Buck. All the time. Every minute. Even when Buck hasn’t done anything deserving of Buck’s worry. 

One day, Buck is going to finally let himself realize they’re all dead. Maddie. Abby. Every person he knew and loved before this. He’ll realize they’re all gone. And Bobby worries, every moment, that it will destroy him. He worries he won’t find a reason to keep pushing forward.

---

A few here 👑:

---

Chim finally gets a chance to talk to Hen about it, privately, somewhere around four in the morning. They’re in the ambulance, driving back from yet another party gone wrong that resulted in a hospital transport. At least this time no one puked. Just a badly broken ankle from a drunken trampoline adventure. 

“So you forgot to get her number,” Hen says. “Can’t you go back?”

“Stroll up to a gated mansion tomorrow and say, ‘hi, I’m the guy who kissed your daughter while you were trying to set her up with rich hedge fund types?’ I don’t think so, Hen.”

“She’s probably trying to find your information, too,” Hen tries. 

“I hope,” Chim grumbles. 

“And, hey, you’re very findable on social media,” Hen adds. “She won’t have trouble.”

“Should I message her brother?” Chim asks. “Is that crazy? He was nice!”

“Mmm, maybe wait until you’ve slept for all forms of communication,” Hen advises. “She knows you’re at work, anyway. She won’t be expecting to hear from you.”

“Right. Right. You’re so smart. Why are you so smart?”

“I had a nap in the bunk room while you were at the party.”

Damn. Yeah. A nap would make him sharper. 

“So, it’s just a waiting game for now,” Chim sighs. This is not helping with the resounding feeling that he may, in fact, be a complete fool.

“I think so,” Hen agrees. “Sorry, Chim.”

👑👑👑

By some stroke of fate, he’s not waiting very long. 

When they park the ambulance in the engine bay and climb out, sore and tired, Chim is met with the sound of a strangely familiar voice. One he thinks he may just be hallucinating. 

“You’re the captain? That’s so cool!” He hears. “That means you’ve been doing this forever, right? You know a lot about it?”

---

OKAY BACK TO OUR REGULARLY SCHEDULED PROGRAMMING! THAT IS WHERE MY LAPTOP ABANDONED ME.

30 for 🔼:

---

She accepts the cards she’s been dealt, just like last time. After all, didn’t she shuffle the deck?

She sees her son as much as she can. She goes back to her office admin job as soon as she’s able. She misses Eddie’s shield ceremony. His request. She avoids his parents while they’re in town altogether. Her choice. 

Other than coworkers, she really has no adults to see. Compounded with that, she and Eddie have made the decision not to tell family - even Christopher - until her second trimester. So Shannon finds herself existing in this strange vacuum of silence. Again, one of her own making. But difficult to navigate nonetheless. 

That changes about seven weeks after her accident. Completely unintentionally, she might add. 

None of it was ever a plan in her head. 

She’s been seeing a physical therapist for her shoulder. Her ankle has healed on an intended timeline, not causing her much additional trouble. Her shoulder, on the other hand, has been a source of difficulty. Perhaps with everything else changing in her body, it can’t quite figure itself out. It wouldn’t be the only thing. 

She’s thirteen weeks along now. Almost at that second trimester mark. Almost at the point where not only will they be able to tell people, but they’ll have to. Namely their son. She’s not really showing per say, but she certainly feels bigger and tighter. Her chest is another matter entirely. 

So, to paint the picture, there she is; thirteen weeks pregnant with a man whose trust she shattered, shoulder hardly functional, sitting in the waiting room of her physical therapist in loose sweats and her baggiest tee shirt because nothing fits her boobs properly anymore, and who walks in? Or hobbles in, rather? Her soon-to-be-ex-husband’s best friend. 

---

33 for 💐 (YEAH THANKS I THOUGHT APRIL WAS FUNNY):

---

She orders a wine spritzer. April orders a cider. They sit in a corner booth and for a good few minutes, it’s awkward as hell. Neither of them really seems to know where to start. Which makes sense, because they didn’t exactly have any solid communication foundations to begin with. May is reminded, strangely, of the time Sue left her and Claudette to sort out their issues in the quiet room, right before the fire at Dispatch. Not that she thinks this will end the same way, obviously. 

“Listen,” May starts after the server brings them their drinks. “I’m sorry if I misunderstood things. I really got the sense you didn’t like me.”

April frowns. “I’m not sure how, honestly. I was trying pretty hard to get to know you.” 

“I think I definitely, uh, read things wrong,” May admits. “I’m definitely… Confused about things. But, come on, April. You have to admit, you were acting super competitive with me in class.”

Her brows furrow, hazel eyes giving the impression she’s sifting through memories. 

“Was I that bad?” She asks. 

“Yes,” May insists. “You disagree with everything I say. You compete over grades. When you did better than me on the criminology midterm exam, you literally said April always comes before May.” 

April’s cheeks redden. 

“Oh my god,” she mumbles.

“You did say it!” May reiterates. 

“No, I know,” April says. “I’m sorry, I just… God, it’s stupid. You thought I was serious?”

“Well, yeah?” 

April takes a long sip of her cider.

---

45 for darling Cranberry! 🦮:

---

Cranberry brings Chris the ball, pressing it eagerly into his hand. 

“Ew, so much slobber,” Chris complains, wiping his hand on his pants. Luckily, laundry day is tomorrow. 

“Well, you’re the one who keeps throwing it for her,” Buck says. He’s just been snapping photos to send to Eddie. 

“Gross, Cran,” Chris chides, and throws the ball again, a little absentmindedly. This time, the ball goes high. Higher than Buck would have liked. And at an awkward angle.

Cranberry twists her body as she jumps, catching the ball midair. When she comes back down, she fumbles, front left paw hitting the ground hard and buckling under her. She yelps and stumbles forward. 

“Cranberry!” Chris shrieks. 

Buck lurches forward to where they’re playing, straining his leg. 

Cranberry stands and stumbles a little again. She lifts her injured paw, favoring it. Tail tucked between her leg, she limps towards Buck, seeking comfort.

Buck lowers himself down as quickly as he can manage to examine her. 

“Are you okay, baby?” He asks. 

“Did she break her leg?” Christopher asks, bottom lip trembling.

Buck lifts Cranberry’s injured leg. It doesn’t look broken. He flexes it. Her elbow and shoulder move without resistance, but she fights him when he tries to straighten her wrist. It can move, it just hurts her. 

“Is she okay?” Chris asks again. 

Buck feels a pang of annoyance. 

“This is why I asked you not to throw it too high,” he grits out. 

Tears spill out from the boy’s eyes. 

“I-I’m sorry, Buck.” He blubbers. “I didn’t mean to hurt her!”

Buck clenches his jaw. He feels unreasonably angry and panicked. If Christopher had just listened this wouldn’t have happened. 

“I know it was an accident,” Buck manages. 

“I’m sorry, Cranberry,” Chris cries. He takes his glasses off to wipe his eyes. 

“I think it’s just twisted,” Buck says. “I’m going to bring her inside and call the vet to see if she needs to get checked out. Okay?”

[bagdaddyb]

please please please, jealous Larissa x teacher!reader

Mine

Warnings: S M U T 18+, minors dni!! Filth with little plot, possessive behavior, jealous behavior, slapping, man handling, (lots of) dirty talk, bulge kink, breeding kink, spit kink, praise kink, degrading kink mixed with a little verbal abuse, slight brainwash, punishment/spanking, tears, kinda toxic, Dark Dom Daddy Larissa (Larissa is a bit mean), Bottom Puppy Reader. 

Reader and Larissa have a non established relationship

Authors notes: I’m so sorry anon!!!! I wrote this whole snippet thinking the request was possessiveness then saw it was jealousy and had to work it in there so I’m so sorry if it seems rushed if you don’t like it anon just let me know and I will write something else.

You watched Larissa with a mixture of love and disdain as she shot the fake gun in the air commencing the Poe Cup. For a moment, you question yourself, were you not partner material? Was there a reason this goddess of a woman had only been using you as a sexual rouse for the past six months and not made any move towards progressing you're relationship. In the beginning it was fine you might of even said it was all you wanted at the time but now you longed for a loving embrace, a sweet kiss goodnight, the feeling of your fingers wonderfully tangled in another and while you did sometimes get those from Larissa it wasn’t the same. You wanted more than a fuck buddy wanted more than someone who just took out their frustrations on you and as you sit here and think to yourself you realize that's all Larissa wanted to be. Finally ripping your burning gaze from the woman you settle with yourself in the decision to move on with your life. Walking to the right of the stage to get a better view, your gaze turns to one of adoration as you watch Ophelia halls boat pull into first. Becoming the dorm mom of the hall was like a puzzle piece slipping into place and you couldn't be more proud of your girls. Smiling wide as the group of four run across the finish line you feel a strong beat in your chest when Larissa announces Ophelia hall has won for a second year in a row. Making your way forward you only slightly grimace as mud covers your black boots, luckily the extra height from the shoes saving your black pants from the same fate. Black sweater protecting you from the cold biting wind you carry over four towels to keep the girls from catching cold.

"I must say I'm impressed."

Your voice breaks through Enid's excited squeals and in a second you are surrounded by the rowing team.

"Did you see us Ms. (Y/L/N)?"

Enid says quickly and you can't help the light chuckle you let forth.

"No, I was watching the other Poe Cup across the lake."

You say with sarcasm causing an almost nonexistent smirk to cross Wednesday's face.

"You all were wonderful, what do you say I treat you all to a night of gravedigging."

Your smile was bright as three of the four grimaced at the offer.

"Sounds absolutely dreadful. Let's meet at nine."

Wednesday says trying not to sound overly excited before she walks away towards the dorm hall. Enid and the others trying to hide their disgust as they follow the girl. You let go of a content sigh before turning to make your own way back towards the school building. Your students' essays wouldn't read themselves. Well....... 

“Ms. (Y/L/N).”

Your head turned in response to the near yell of your name another head also turning in the crowd behind you.

“I couldn’t help but overhear your going out with your hall tonight need a second chaperon?”

A smile graced your features as one of the new assistant teachers spoke, you didn’t remember the woman’s name but you recognized her face as she had seemed to be bumping into you a lot recently.

“Oh I don’t need one those girls always behave with me but you are more than welcome to join in the activity it can be very invigorating.”

Your smile was returned as well as a small blush that ghosted the younger woman’s cheeks.

“I can’t wait.”

The young teacher made her way into the crowd leaving you to your thoughts as you began to walk towards the school. Lifting off the floor as you begin to walk on air you get lost within your own mind your abilities now being second nature to you. Steps end as you eventually just propel yourself forward reaching the school in seconds before lowering yourself in the middle of the quad. The walk from there to your classroom is short stepping into the dark room filled with beakers of different organs and body parts a smile graces your lips as you stare at the essays stacked on your desk. This job was a dream teaching monster anatomy coincided with your interests and it allowed you to cause a grimace on most of the students faces on a daily basis.

.......

An unpleasant feeling settled in Larissa’s stomach as she watched Ms. Kathryn Yeil become a blushing mess while speaking to you for the third day in a row. You were to naïve never found yourself pretty so you never assumed anyone else did either but Larissa saw you. The goddess she possessed and she knew your worth so it didn’t surprise her when one of the newbies took a liking to you. What did surprise her was the feeling it brought over her body. Kathryn was young much younger than Larissa pretty, smart, and she seemed to have a few things in common with you. Larissa was your polar opposite there was not a single interest you shared besides coffee and honestly that didn’t even count. So as she hears the end of your conversation your invitation and her acceptance she can’t help but feel that uncomfortable tingle of jealousy course through her as thoughts of you with anyone else fills her mind. Possessiveness takes over her body in waves and as she watches you set off towards the school a pinch of hurt hits her too, if nothing else Larissa owned you she had told you many times before and you always moaned out in agreement..... who even knows what you two have but Larissa was done tiptoeing around it. Toe of her heels digging in the ground as she set off towards the school to find you and put you in your place.

.......

 Sitting down at your desk with a content sigh you barely pick up the third essay on the six different stomachs in a giant before there's a knock on your door. Humming out a distracted ‘come in’ you don’t look up when the person on the other side of the door entered opting to continue reading the essay before you. Familiar heels click against the floor of your classroom and you ready yourself to say what needed to be said standing and dusting off your pants you raise your eyes to sharp blues. Voice nearly dying in your throat you get your courage back with a few fake coughs.

EHM   ehm   “Larissa... we need to talk.”

Your voice came out softer than you intended but you brushed it off deciding to stay strong. Larissa still somewhat scared you even after all this time and her domineering personality often made her lash out. A perfectly sculpted eyebrow raised in question before her sadistic smile she only seemed to shine your way made its path across her face.

“What does my little puppy need to talk to me about hmm?”

Her words dripped with an unspoken promise. The promise of what you didn’t know and honestly weren’t sure if you wanted to find out. Eyes never leaving Larissa’s you speak.

“Larissa... I can’t... I don’t want to do this anymore. You’re a great woman and it was fun sneaking around at first but I’m tired of cat and mouse I want something real. So what ever this arrangement is that we have it stops now.”

A look of surprise and something else graced Larissa’s features before she merely chuckled and shook her head while moving into your space. 

“Oh my darling girl have I not been clear or have you been to fucked out to remember?”

Starting off sweet before ending harsh Larissa bends to say the next words in your ear.

“When I have you screaming about how your daddy’s little plaything those words are not to arouse you in the heat of passion, though they do seem to get a rise out of you.."

Larissa’s eyes sparkle with mischief as a pink hue starts at your cheeks your strong demeanor slowly starting to fade as she reminds you exactly whose in charge. 

“Those words are a decree a collar you wear around your neck that only I can see. Would you prefer I kept you on my lap so that everyone can see just how much of a slut you are for me? You want real? Lets be real you belong to me puppy; body, mind, and soul. My thing to play with, my bitch to command, you are mine and mine alone but clearly you’ve forgotten that hmm?”

The last four words are sweet even as she grips you harshly and man handles you over your desk.

“How fogged your little mind gets when daddy doesn’t abuse this pussy for a few days.”

You put up no resistance as Larissa strips your body, as much as you wanted to deny it you couldn’t hide the way your heart thumped in excitement, the way your core pulsed in anticipation your mind began to slip back and forth you felt torn, you needed to fight this you wanted something real and the only thing this situation seemed to be was real toxic but as Larissa got you naked slid a hand up your abdomen over your chest and around your throat commanding you to open your mouth and you did so without question accepting her spit happily before swallowing she only proved her words to be true. She owned you.

“There we go puppy, you always take anything daddy gives you.”

Just as the praise registers so does Larissa hand harshly smacking across your face.

“Don’t think that changes anything whore, leave me? I’m the only one that loves you silly puppy is so dumb without daddy you wouldn’t make it a day.”

You bite your lip as the sting of the rough contact tingles on your skin and the words crash through your brain.

“Roll onto your stomach bitch and show me that pretty ass of yours I think you deserve punishment.”

Your body moved quickly as venom laced words continued to fall from Larissa’s mouth.

“I’m very disappointed puppy I thought you always wanted to please daddy. Instead you want to whore yourself out."

Tears build up as your mind begins to slip further.

“You’re going to count each hit slut miss one, we start over, and you’re going to take everything I give you forget your safe word tonight puppy, daddy’s mad and nothing’s gonna stop me tonight.”

crack

You lean a bit further onto your desk as the hard slap connects but don’t miss a beat.

“1.”

smack

“2.”

creak

whimper

“3.”

crack

“4.”

snap

Tears hit the desk in front of your eyes but you barely register them.

“5.”

whack

“6.”

smack

A sob escapes your throat yet you continue.

“7.”

whip

“8.”

wham

“9.”

By now your openly sobbing but it all means nothing to you, you disappointed daddy and you have to make it right.

crack

“10.”

By nineteen your backside screamed at Larissa, red and welping but Larissa only cooed as she ran a light hand up your back.

“Such a good girl, taking your punishment so well, one more puppy just one more.”

A pathetic whimper escaped your throat at the thought but you nodded none the less bracing yourself for another harsh slap. Larissa didn’t hold back her hand connecting with your skin just as harsh as it had the last nineteen times a slight scream escaped your mouth as you crumbled forward falling completely on top of your desk the strength in your arms long gone.

“20.”

A pleased hum left Larissa as she ran a soothing hand up your back.

“Such a good puppy for daddy, you did so well, I’m so proud of you.”

Rolling you onto your back Larissa easily keeps your backside lifted off the wood before sliding her jacket between your skin and the surface. You can’t help but grimace as she lowers you, your cheeks still plenty raw from her rough treatment but your mind focuses on the white haired enchantress as she makes her way between your legs. 

“I’m sorry, I’m so sorry daddy.”

Tears still stream down your face as you speak but Larissa ignores you spreading your legs wide in order to get a good look at you.

“Would you look at that.... it doesn’t matter how rough daddy is with you, you’ll still be a slutty mess between your legs.”

Larissa slips out of her own dress and undergarments easily, unpinning her hair before towering over you.

“I think you secretly like it when daddy’s rough with you....”

Larissa whispers to you as she begins to tease at your swollen clit causing you to gasp.

“Because you know how hard I’ll fuck you after.”

Long fingers easily slide into familiar territory as her thumb continues to play with your clit. Moaning you lift your hands to tangle in white locks.

“Daddy.

You moan out softly as you pull at Larissa willing her to be closer.

“Because you know I’ll fuck you deep and hard with my cock till I fill you with my seed.”

A loud moan slips through at the combination of Larissa’s words and fingers. The familiar tightness beginning in your stomach.

“You like that don’t you bitch, when I fuck you dumb then fill your little cunt with my babies.”

Whimpers begin as a sloshing sound starts between your legs while you respond.

“Yes daddy, I love when you fuck a baby in me, I’m gonna cum daddy, can I cum?”

Removing her fingers, Larissa stands to her full height before sucking your wetness off her digits.

“Oh sweetheart, you think you deserve to cum after the stunt you tried to pull? No puppy tonight is all about daddy, I plan to use you like a fleshlight till I cum, maybe if you behave tomorrow I’ll let you have your release.”

In that moment you see the transformation between her legs begin her vagina being replaced with a penis of her own, her warm thick tip brushing through your folds a few times before she began to push into your entrance. Moans leave your lips as your center still is recovering from the orgasm denial mere moments ago. When Larissa’s hips meet your own you almost quake with need.

“So full daddy.”

The smug look on Larissa’s face sent tingles through you as soft hands ran over your stomach that now bulged with Larissa’s presence.

“Your taking me so well puppy, feel so good inside.”

Your stomach clenches at the words squeezing Larissa and causing her to let out a pleased huff. Moving her hips slowly in and out for a moment you relish in your small adjustment period before Larissa’s left hand grips your throat, her right hand pushes on your bulge and her hips slam against yours. Your eyes rolled back as Larissa began to fuck you within an inch of your sanity, you felt every vein on her length, felt every brush of her tip against your g spot, felt every stretch at your entrance and the pleasure was to good. Tears never stopped flowing though they no longer came from pain now pleasure.

“Oh daddy.”

You moaned out voice a little scruffy from the hand around your neck. 

“Fuck this pussy daddy, yessssss, fuck.”

Your pleasure was blinding, the pressure was building and before you could even open your mouth to ask Larissa pulled out. Your whine was audible a natural response to your second denial but your body remained unmoving. Allowing Larissa to basically manhandle you onto your side, she lifts a leg allowing it to run up her body while the other was pushed out of the way. The first thing you noticed when she entered you in this position was how deep you felt her. You felt like one, her member hitting you in deep spots only she knew, grabbing your legs as leverage Larissa begins to drill you again, loud moans poured out of your mouth as your juices splashed all over Larissa’s jacket.

“Who owns you?”

“Daddy.”

The words seemed to please Larissa one of her hands leaving your leg to play with your clit as she fucked into you.

“Who does this pussy belong to?”

“Daddy.”

The word came out as a sob as your body begins to slightly shake. 

“I can’t daddy I’m gonna...”

In an instant Larissa’s warmth leaves your walls clenching around nothing desperately. Crossing your legs together Larissa slides between your wet thighs fucking them just as hard and fast as she’d fuck you its merely another minute before she pulls away from your thighs squirting on your punished backside. A whine leaves your lips as you suddenly feel the deep intrusion of Larissa's cock again.

“Such a good puppy, you took me so well.”

Larissa’s words where like a pillow as your drop takes full force, your body shaking with sobs.

“Always such a good puppy for daddy, I’m so proud of you.”

Larissa’s words continued as she wrapped her body around yours becoming the blanket you didn’t know you needed and suddenly you were the safest you’d ever been.

“I’m so sorry daddy, so sorry, I love you daddy I don’t want to upset you.”

The words struck Larissa and she was happy you couldn’t see the small blush on her face.

“And I love you puppy you are mine as much as I am yours and I don’t like to share. What we have is real.”

You ran fingers through soft locks and suddenly your heart started to beat out of your chest wrapped in the warm embrace of your lover still full and connected you felt pure bliss.

“Stop talking to Kathryn it makes me uncomfortable.”

Confusion quickly took hold of your face as you searched your mind before you responded.

“Who?”

[nashiriel]

Just reading the Black and Greens’ reactions to baby Luke claiming the Cannibal…I honestly could read 100 chapters, because can you imagine how the Greens would panic when Rhaenyra turns up in King’s Landing like “please meet my most loyal supporter and his dragon?” It would be truly heartwarming stuff.

And I would love to see the Rhaenys/Luke bonding. I wonder if her visibly getting on with Luke more would help head off Vaemond’s challenge (though he’d have to be pretty bold to be challenge Luke’s claim in the hall, knowing the Cannibal is waiting outside).

I am once again asking you to please, please forgive me for taking so long to get back to you. I am trying to work my way through my inbox, I swear!

But in the festive spirit…it’s not 100 chapters, but I hope you enjoy the below snippet from that AU! A very merry Christmas to you (if you celebrate!)

It is Prince Daemon who greets them as they dismount, teeth flashing in the curve of that cocksure grin that Rhaenys remembers of old. There is still much of that boy left to him, she sees. No grey dulls the silver of his hair, and the lines on his face are softened now, smoothed by contentment as he stands amongst the smoke and skies of his new consort’s domain.  

Marriage to the Princess of Dragonstone suits him well, it seems. Fury burns Rhaenys’ throat, mingled as it is still with bitter grief. 

Three moons. Her children, her grandson, have been dead for three moons.

“My brave girl,” Daemon beams as soon as Baela’s feet have touched the ground, sweeping her into his arms with an exuberance that sends her laughter pealing through the air. “Your sister has missed you.”

“How is she?” Baela demands excitedly, wriggling like a pup in his embrace. “How are her burns? Has she flown-”

“She is resting,” her father laughs, pride clear on his face. Laena’s letters had not spoken of such when she wrote of he and Rhaena in that last, lingering year.

“The maesters say the burn is healing well, sweetling, and she asks me every day when the dragonkeepers will let her back down to the beach. She says that she can still thread her needle, and that a set of reins are nothing compared to that.” 

His eyes find Rhaenys’ then, amused. “You would be proud of how brave she has been, cousin.”

“I have always been proud of Rhaena,” Rhaenys says curtly. She has not come here to bandy pleasantries, not when Rhaenyra’s letters had made clear through their increasing urgent pleas that there was a matter that duty could not let her ignore. “As proud as I was of her mother. The day is short, Daemon. Where is the boy?”

The mirth falls away from Daemon’s face.

The valley that Caraxes and Meleys alight upon is not quite at the foot at the Dragonmont, but it is close enough that the restless murmurs of the volcano as it turns in its sleep rumble through the air. In comparison, the dragon whose coiled bulk blots out the sky and rocks from her sight is unsettlingly quiet, its scales a motionless dark sheen over the ground like oil laid over placid water. 

Rhaenys’ steps do not falter, even as Caraxes’ whistle shrieks in the air above her. Meleys had loomed larger in her girlhood’s eyes as she sang to her in the dark of the Dragonpit. She had seen Balerion’s wings blacken the sky, a majesty that even age could not rob from the greatest glory their blood had ever known. What is this shadow that she should fear it, no matter large it hulks with its butcher’s reek? 

Rhaenys might think it asleep were it not for the gleaming eye that watches her approach, gaze green and hungry as wildfire. With a sharp intake of breath, she sees the small form nestled against its black talons, not even half the size of those knife-like curves. As Rhaenys draws closer, he lifts his head from where it was bent over the long object clutched in his fist, dark eyes wide with astonishment. 

“Grandmother?”

“Lucerys,” Rhaenys says evenly, refusing to allow herself a flinch as a growl splits the air, loud enough to shake the stones from Dragonstone’s parapets. A black tail lashes the air in a brutal snap, heavy enough to cleave a castle wall in two, as the dragon coils itself closer still around Luke, teeth glittering in evident warning. It could crush him as easily as Rhaenys could an ant beneath her heel; Meleys bellows behind her as the whip uncoils in Rhaenys’ hand. 

“Cannibal!” a voice pipes up behind the ripple of the dragon’s wing, high-pitched and aggrieved rather than terror-stricken. “No! I said no!”

Ash lies thick as snow on the ground. Feet away, a cracked thigh bone protrudes from it, flesh brittled black and crumbling where it still clings. There had been guards watching over their play when the Cannibal’s shadow suddenly descended upon the sands, Rhaena had written in a wobbling sprawl so unlike her normal perfect lettering. With spears and trident, they had tried to draw him off. The precious seconds before they were charred to sprawls of greased meat might have meant the difference between life and death to her grandchildren, at least. 

“Easy,” Daemon calls down, his voice strong and stern as winter even as Caraxes’ wings beat the air. “It is your worry feeding his, Lucerys. Calm yourself.”

“I am calm!” comes the indignant squeal, shrill with a fury that Daemon’s words alone cannot have provoked. The Cannibal’s muscles go taut as a bowstring, the dark curve of his jaw shifting as a noise like a mountain cracking apart rumbles between his teeth. 

This one will not be brought to bay by a whip, nor soothed with the lullabies of Old Valyria. Rhaenys sees that clearly in this moment, that and the reason why Daemon has proved insufficient to manage this.

In all the history of Dragonstone, there is only one thing that has held any sway over the Cannibal, and - still to Rhaenys’ utter disbelief - it is the voice of the child who sits tear-stained and trembling in sullen rancour as the Cannibal looms above him, stretching up and up into the darkened sky. 

“The Conqueror himself never hatched a dragon,” she had overheard Laenor soothe Lucerys once in a shadowed corner of High Tide, cradling him close as they watched Vermax playfully char the meat Jace was throwing in the air.

“You’ll claim a mount one day. Like your aunt, like your grandmother. And I promise, it will be a dragon worthy of you.”

The Cannibal. How by all the seven hells had the boy ever managed to even attract his attention, never mind claim him?

“Lucerys,” she says again, sharp and swift as her whip.

He flinches at her tone, but Rhaenys does not care; the time for coddling him was before the gods in their folly put the Cannibal in the hands of a child.

“None are here to harm you or him, child, and you must make him know that. Remember all that the dragonkeepers have taught you. Breathe deep, and speak loud and clear. Lykiri-”

“I’m trying,” Lucerys says plaintively, one hand scrubbing at his dirtied face. She wonders how long he has been here, how often the Cannibal is pleased to let the human he has bonded with leave his sight. “He doesn’t know what they mean, he won’t listen-”

“Do you think any dragon is born knowing them? The words alone do not have meaning; they are there to clarify your intent, so that he does not blindly follow what you feel instead. You have claimed him, Lucerys. He will listen, but only if you are strong enough to ensure that he understands.”

There comes a choked sob, almost lost in the sulphurous blast of hot breath rolling across Rhaenys’ skin as the Cannibal turns its great head towards her. She does not break its gaze as she coaxes Lucerys to breathe deep, to gather himself together (a memory comes unbidden, of the song she sang to Laenor as a child to soothe his night terrors, and she bites down against another unexpected welt of grief).

Eventually, mercifully, the dragon settles, though covetousness still burns in those eyes like the distant stars as he watches Lucerys leave his shadow to come forth to her.

“Prince Daemon is right,” she says after the Rogue Prince has taken his leave at her sharp gesture.

“That dragon is a part of you now, child, and his rage is strong enough without you feeding it. If you cannot control yourself, what chance do you think you’ll have commanding him? If he tells you to calm yourself, listen.”

“Why? He’s not my father,” comes a furious sniffle, those dark eyes blinking ferociously in a bid to hold back tears. For the first time, she sees what it is he is holding so tightly; a broken spear, the snapped shaft still bearing the remnants of the crest of Dragonstone’s royal guards. 

“He is not,” Rhaenys says tightly; that much, at least, they can agree on. “but when it comes to dragons, you’d be a fool not to heed him, boy. And if you’re a fool with this beast, you won’t live long enough to know it. He is dangerous, Lucerys. You should never have gone to him.”

”But I didn’t,” the child says, lip quivering. “It was the Grey Ghost we went to the beach for, me and Rhaena. We brought fish-”

“Fish,” Rhaenys repeats coldly.

“From the kitchens, lots of them. Cook gave some to us every day; he’d thought we’d found some kittens. We had to hide behind the rocks the first few times; he only came out when he thought no one was there. We had to get him used to Rhaena’s smell. Aemond thought it’d work-”

He stops, small face suddenly stricken. 

Well. Rhaenys had never imagined that the queen’s and Rhaenyra’s dragonless children might once have felt close enough to venture ideas of luring a mount between them. It matters not now, she supposes. If ever there was ever friendship between the two, it died that night on Driftmark. Rhaenys had not needed to see the poisonous glare levelled at Luke from Prince Aemond’s remaining eye as she thrust him safely beyond Queen Alicent’s reach behind her to know that. 

“I didn’t mean for the Cannibal to come,” Luke insists, and an odd look comes across his face, almost hopeful as he looks back over his shoulder to where the dragon watches him with that unblinking, terrible gaze.

“But he must’ve been meant to find us. He’d never come to that beach before, the dragonkeepers said. It was Father, it must’ve been. He heard my prayers and sent him to me.”

No, Rhaenys thinks, and does not know if it is cruelty or kindness that keeps the words from her tongue. If my son could have sent you a dragon, he would have brought you his own Seasmoke.

“So he fell upon the Grey Ghost,” she says instead. “How did that lead you to claiming him? You could have been killed. Rhaena could have been killed. What were you thinking, boy, to get so close?”

“Meraxes,” Luke mumbles, so low Rhaenys thinks she misheard him. She bends closer, acutely aware of the shadow rumbling in warning before her.

”What did you say?”

“Jace told me,” Luke says, fidgeting; behind him, the Cannibal’s tail ripples black, spikes flexing with the motion.

“The only way a man can stop a dragon. Grey Ghost was trying to crawl away, but he couldn’t…he couldn’t move, and Rhaena was screaming, and…the Cannibal had to drag him back with his teeth with his head bent down like that, and I thought if I threw it-” 

The spearhead gleams sharp as dragon teeth. Luke looks up at her, pleading, his confession coming in a quavering whisper.

“I tried to get his eye.”

[liminalmemories21]

Fic Pride Friday

tagged by @freneticfloetry. Thank you, sweetie!

Rules: Post your favourite line or passage from as many of your published works as you’d like. Let yourself feel proud of your creations! Tag as many people as you post snippets, so your fellow fic friends can be proud, too.

A home isn't always the house we live in (still one of my favorite things I've ever written)

He finds he doesn’t like Carlos’ parents very much right now, which maybe isn’t fair, but he doesn’t know them, and he does know Carlos. Still, that’s not what TK’s asking. “Sometimes people don’t need you to fix things, they just need to tell you so that they know someone heard.”

The Knave of Hearts . . . he said he'd steal no more (because this one conversation, is I swear at the heart of the entire series)

TK stares wide eyed and startled, at the key he’s holding. “What?” He clears his throat. “If you want it?” TK’s quiet for long enough that Carlos wonders if he should take it back, wait for a better moment. Except TK’s hand closes over it tightly and he leans up into Carlos’s space. “If you keep letting me in, I’m never going to want to leave.” He presses a kiss to TK’s temple. “You’re on to my devious plan, whatever will I do?” TK snorts softly against Carlos’s skin and doesn’t let go.

the square root of sixty-nine (this was I think one of the first exchanges I wrote, and the entire story sprawled from there)

TK stares at him. "Okay, so my opinion of like everyone you've ever slept with before is dropping by the second, just so you know." TK looks at him closely, and says more gently. "This is not a deal breaker, and anyone who ever told you it was is a dick who wasn't worth your time."

We were in screaming color (I was so nervous about writing Carlos's sisters, and figuring out their relationship)

"Because Carlos,” and her words are as precise and measured as if she’s giving a closing argument in court, “I was scared. I was terrified that if we told you not to, if we all left and went back to our lives that the next time Mom called to tell me I had to fly home it would be for your funeral, not your wedding. So, I went to your wedding, even though you're right I've never really liked Iris, because I thought if they're married at least Iris will be there every day to make sure that he's okay."

tagging @strandnreyes, @rmd-writes, @paperstorm, @vineofroses, @carlos-in-glasses, @carlos-tk, @cha-melodius, and @walkinginland

[catreginae]

okay i really really want to start reading your vampire wars thing because first of all, im OBSESSED with the concept, and second, it just seems cool as hell, but i’ve been unable to read recently so i haven’t had a chance to get to it. ITS ON MY LIST THO 🙌🙌🙌

BUT I STILL WANNA KNOW ABOUT HIM HE SEEMS SO COOL. I don’t wanna ask annoying questions cos I feel like most of the one’s I have are things you’ve probably already answered haha, BUT TELL ME ABOUT UR SPECIAL GUY. Is there anything in particular you just really really wanna talk about? Any little details you’re really proud of that you want people to notice? Can he turn into a particularly fluffy little bat? If so would bat Wars appreciate head pats? Is there a specific vampire lore that inspired this?

-crazylittlejester

Sorry this took so long! This is the first ask I got after asking for them but it's the last I got to!

I think people realized these things but I’m going to talk about them anyway!

Warriors has bad self-esteem. He’s super protective of the others. He has the ability to regenerate, so it’s hard to hurt him in a way that actually matters. He can pretty much bounce back from anything. Anyway, all three of these aspects of Warriors feed into each other. He doesn’t care about what happens to him because he can regenerate. The pain is worth it if the others are safe. He thinks keeping the others safe by taking the really bad hits is how he’s earning his keep in the group because he has a hard time accepting that they actually like him for who he is. The others are working on it!

This boy is a pacer. When he’s restless and antsy, or hopped up on blood, he just starts pacing. He cannot help it.

Warriors is actually the sleepiest in the chain and beats even Sky. I headcanon Sky with sleep apnea (because of projection) but Warriors ends up sleeping the most because being half-vampire is actually really hard on his body. I like it imagine that sleep is the glue that keeps his Hylian half and vampire half together to make one mostly functional person. This is why he can pretty much fall asleep immediately if he’s injured but also had some blood.

The fluffy bat thing is a plan but hasn’t happened yet. It’s not a vampire thing in this AU (it is a nod to it at least?) nor is it his shadow crystal form. It’s wizzrobe bullshittery that he actually saw some use in so he begged Lana for some way to have regular access to a bat form. It’s probably some sort of jewellery. I wrote a very small snippet about Four throwing a tiny bat Warriors into the air to help him figure out lift. Of course, he’s a vampire bat because they can run on the ground and I think that’s pretty neat. Go look up a zoo feeding them blood, they just run on the ground and take little sippies out of a bowl.

And finally, the inspiration for this AU is a movie from the 80s called The Lost Boys. It inspired his appearance a little bit (he’s got the same yellow and red eyes). Lore wise, some of the abilities made it over but I used a lot of different inspirations for this AU and of course, I had to try to remix it fit Zelda too. The Lost Boys is the first inspiration though because I was in that rabbit hole when I wrote the first chapter.

[blu3cl0v3rs]

Mmm having Morro Thoughts.

So y'know how I usually write Wu as a good dad n stuff? Well, I've been undelusionalizing myself (read: watching the canon show and discussing it with friends) and I've come to the conclusion that Wu was probably not the best when it came to raising Morro.

Obv he got better when raising the Ninja, but he was definitely not a model figure for parenting with Morro.

Wu would be very standoffish, unclear, and distant. He also glorified the Green Ninja heavily, and almost immediately shoving Morro on that pedestal was probably not a good idea.

It shows in the flashbacks that he didn't exactly give Morro breaks when training, unlike how he'd only let Kai train once on the spinjitzu course in the Pilots. The one and only time we've seen Wu "hug" Morro was when saving him from being eaten by a Grundle.

So yeah.

Have this snippet I wrote in Discord

Morro picked up a framed picture, and held it facing Wu.

It depicted Wu and the Ninja, a proud smile breached the old man's face as he gazed upon his students. It was back when Lloyd defeated the Overlord.

"You never looked at me like this," Morro's voice waveres unusually.

Wu stayed silent.

"Y-you- You gived them breaks, you tell them you're proud of them, you- you hug them. For no reason! Jus-... Just because you can!" He spoke louder as he continued, and his lips quivered when he finished. He desperatedly held back tears.

"Wa... was I anything to you?"

It was barely a whisper.

"anSWER ME!" The wind swirled in the large room, and everything inside shuddered. "Was I anything to you?! Or was I just a chance at Destiny?" He spat the last word out.

The silence from the bearded man spoke the only answer Morro never wanted to hear.

"You were everything to me." Morro murmured angrily.

His grip faltered, still not used to his revived body, and the glass covering the picture cracked. It crossed over Wu's fond eyes and wrinkled grin.

Also apparently Wu doesn't light a lantern in DotD for Morro??? What the fuck????????

[imagines--galore]

Hi hi ^^

For the writers questions, here are my numbers :

7, 15 & 31

If you're not comfortable answering, feel free to not do it 🙏

I wish you a wonderful day sweetie 🌸

Thank you so much for the questions!

Share a snippet from one of your favorite pieces of prose you’ve written and explain why you’re proud of it.

Oh gosh! I have so many pieces which I ADORE and am so proud of! I'm gonna list a couple of them here! They are all placed at random and I dunno, I'm just really proud of what I wrote in them :D The Thread of Fate - Avatar The Last Airbender - Zuko x OC Theatrics - Avatar The Last Airbender - Zuko x Reader I Will Always Choose You - Fullmetal Alchemist Brotherhood - Roy x Reader Convince Me & I'm Convinced - Justice League - Superman aka Clark Kent x Reader Empowering - Marvel - Captain America aka Steve Rogers x Reader Bleeding Love - Marvel - Dr. Strange x Reader My Heart Calls Your Name - Pirates of the Caribbean - Will Turner x Reader The Consulting Detective and The Serial Killer - Sherlock - Sherlock x Reader Chasing Away The Darkness - Star Trek - Spock x Reader A Nonverbal Confession - Amazing Spiderman - Peter x Reader My Prayer, My Light, My Fëa - The Lord of the Rings - Legolas x Reader Written In The Stars - The Lord of the Rings - Legolas x Reader

If you could choose one of your fics to be filmed, which would you choose?

Definitely The Thread of Fate! All because I would LOVE to see Orora, my oc, in action and see the lore I've created for the thread of fate merge with the ATLA Universe. Also because I would love to have some art of Orora! I can't draw AT ALL. So having a visual for her would be amazing!

Do you take liberties with canon or are you very strict about your fic being canon compliant?

Well......I do take some liberties, I mean it IS FANFICTION. But I do tend to stick to the canon events especially when those events might be important to any of the canon characters. I mean I want my OC or Reader Inserts to be fun but I also don't want then to steal another character's thunder! So yeah!

[cssns]

Please welcome @motherkatereloyshipper to the CSSNS!

Your Tumblr and any other applicable names

Motherkat, ao3motherkat or motherkatereloyshipper

How long have you been in the CS/OUAT fandom?

3/4 years now (time flies when you're surrounded by the best people)

When did you start shipping Captain Swan?

Infamously, I needed a double-breasted waistcoat pattern to make a corset, accidentally stumbled upon the OUAT branded on for the red waistcoat of sex and had to find out who the gorgeous man on the cover was. I spent a very confused first season looking for 'the waistcoat hotty' and falling in love with Emma Swan, and then was smitten with Captain Swan from the minute she pulled him out of a pile of bodies

What drew you to this event?

@kmomof4 made me

What inspired your topic?

I'm and "artist" so the inspiration comes from the storiea

If you would like to share a snippet/sneak peek/summary of your fic or artwork, please use the space below.

Only Krystal's are done and I don't want to spoiler but I can tell you that I made a long haired Killian I am very proud of.

For our artists: What kind of art do you like to do? Picsets, painting, digital, etc? Feel free to give as much info as you like.

I do digital manipulation and cover art, it's so weird to frame myself as an artist, I just make silly Internet pictures

What are you looking forward to most about participating in this event?*

Waiting to see what Krystal signs me up to next? Seriously though, hopefully making it so some writers can see that someone else sees what they wrote. I guess I should probably stop being a wimp and talk to my writers eh?

We can't wait to see all of @motherkatereloyshipper's artwork dropping on 7/3, 7/19, 7/27, 7/29, 8/18, and 8/22. Make sure to say hi to her on Tumblr and Discord.

[pumpkinmetaphor]

opinions on tamakao? :P (through and through kyokao shipper here but im curious)

I'm a middle school crush Kaoru -> Tamaki truther

Actually, have this snippet from a draft of a fic I wrote and never finished/posted in March 2022

―

“I think,” Kyoya says, “we have things to reconsider.”

Hikaru and Kaoru both look over. They’ve become accustomed to Tamaki’s bouts of depression, dramatic flairs and posturing, but usually they intend to cause it for humorous effect. Today’s episode, causing him to cultivate a woodlouse farm amongst the sheets of piano music in the back cupboard, was entirely unintentional. 

Kaoru doesn’t really feel it’s their fault. Hikaru didn’t mean to spill the coffee, after all. He hadn’t carried a tray before. And the girl he splashed made an awful lot of noise about the bottom hem of her dress being marked by the spillage. If she’d been paying more attention to her surroundings and less to insulting his brother, she would have seen Kaoru pick the pitcher up before he doused her in lemon water. And after all, how else did she expect to clean her dress? And if her friend paid more attention to where she was going instead of trying to grab the front of Kaoru’s uniform, then she would have seen Hikaru’s foot shoot out before he kicked the legs of her chair out from under her. And really, if the girls wanted to be treated like princesses, they surely shouldn’t have picked the hosts whose whole selling point is their mischievous, boyish charm.

That’s what Hikaru said, and Kaoru copied, anyway. Kaoru does a very good job at mimicking Hikaru’s unaffected cadence even as the guilt gnaws away at him. He’s not guilty about the girls, not in the slightest, but he can’t help continually glancing over to the cupboard. This was not behaviour that Tamaki was proud of.

“It wasn’t very nice,” Hani says. He makes the bunny toy do an approximation of an apologetic gesture, which they both cringe at. 

“They were regulars,” Kyoya says, making another note, “Were, being the operative word. They’re unlikely to return.”

“What a loss,” the twins sound, sardonically. Kaoru comes in a beat late and Hikaru gives him a look. 

“So, your sole achievement here has been delivering us a net loss of customers,” Kyoya responds, sharply. “If sabotage is your new USP, you’re welcome to leave. I can personally escort you back to the middle school building.”

Kaoru feels the guilt rise sickly in his throat again. He looks towards the cupboard once more, before looking down at Hikaru’s clenched fist. This is how it’s always going to end with them, after all. They both know that. Kaoru knows he wasn’t the only one lulled into the false sense of security that having friends for once gave them, and it betrays him more to see betrayal written on his mirror image than to feel it on his own face. Hikaru’s eyes flash towards him, and the feeling is mutual. 

“Well, yeah?” Hikaru stands sharply. Kaoru joins, in belated unison. “So what? This is a bore anyway. We’ve better things to do than sit around here and be lectured. We're leaving."

“No, no, no!” Tamaki all but tumbles out of the closet, hands waving. Woodlice are displaced in a frenzy and Hani yelps, covering his plate with his hands. He points, dramatically, at the twins. Hikaru sighs and sits back down, preparing for a sermon. “I simply won’t have it! Mommy, Mommy! Are you going to let them leave??”

Kyoya looks mostly nonplussed, but visibly relents. “I was considering writing them out of the will.”

“And you!” Tamaki jabs Hikaru in the chest before then, for equality’s sake, jabbing Kaoru as well. Both frown and sit, rubbing the forming bruises. “I will not have you two walking out on this family!”

This posturing isn’t uncommon either. The first time he heard Kyoya referred to as “Mommy,” Kaoru watched his brother almost swallow his teeth. Kaoru had a similar reaction the first time Tamaki pinched his cheek and called him his “son.” He seems to be under the impression that the club is a makeshift family, like those off American sitcoms Kaoru and his brother think are inconceivable, obviously some cultural abnormality. They’d been happy just to have a few friends who were, for the most part, worthy of their time. Family hadn’t really been on their radar, and yet they appear to have got it nonetheless.

However, both he and Hikaru make the same face when Tamaki calls them his “sons,” so Kaoru knows it must be for the same reason. Whatever that is.

“No, I won’t have this! I didn’t raise you two to be such ungentlemanly devil children!”

“You didn’t raise us at all,” both retort.

Tamaki continues, unperturbed. “I’ll just have to teach you! We’ll change direction! If you can’t be nice to girls then we’ll have to make use of who you can be nice to!”

Kaoru’s brain immediately goes to the only other gender he can think of on the fly. “Hah?”

There’s a finger flying and pointing in his face. Tamaki looks gleeful, grin spreading from ear to ear. “You can be nice to each other!”

Ah, Kaoru thinks. That makes more sense. 

“Great plan. How does that help us host?” Hikaru asks sardonically. Kaoru second-guesses himself. Actually, this doesn’t make much sense either now that he thinks about it but it makes decidedly more sense to him than flirting with boys. That would make them gay, from what limited knowledge Kaoru has researched on the subject. 

“Ye of little faith,” Tamaki simpers, hand to heart. It’s comical, really. “You have so much to learn about women.” Kaoru is with him there. He’s researched girls even less. “Women like a man who’s in touch with his own emotions. Women especially like men who are in touch with each other’s emotions, if you catch my drift. And the fact that you’re identical– that just means you have an advantage over the competition!”

“The competition of other guys pretending to be gay, you mean,” Hikaru says, drolly, at the same time Kaoru says, “That’s what girls like?” because, really, you learn something new every day. 

Hikaru looks at Kaoru. Kaoru looks at Hikaru. “Hard pass,” they both say, deadpan.

Tamaki tosses his arms in the air and wails, wails, before falling to his knees. This is extra comical, and the two stare at each other, lips pursed as they try to restrain themselves from bursting out laughing. After all, this is a serious subject. It’s a serious request. One that they have no intentions of honouring.

Kyoya clicks his pen. “Tamaki forgot to mention how funny it would be.”

Tamaki stops, mid wail, and gives Kyoya a curious look. The twins stop tittering. Many unspoken words are exchanged through a series of covert glances between people for whom telepathy is genetic and between those for whom it’s contagious.

“On second thoughts,” Tamaki says, tearing his gaze away from Kyoya’s to look back at the twins. He wipes his eyes. “Maybe that’s not a good idea. After all, it would be rather mean to take such advantage of the girls like that. It just wouldn’t be honest. The worst sort of prank really.”

“Prank,” Hikaru and Kaoru repeat, cautiously. 

“Well, yes, I suppose that’s how you could describe it.” Tamaki sighs, dramatically, before shooting them the most obvious look they’ve ever seen. “It would really involve tricking these poor girls. They’re just, hm, too gullible for that. It wouldn’t be nice.”

It’s obvious. It’s painfully obvious. They both lean in further. “Okay. We’re listening.”

“No no, it just wouldn’t be right. I’ll come up with something else. Something so very boring, something that isn’t a fun game at all.” Tamaki turns away, the back of his hand resting wearily against his forehead. He cracks an eye open and looks over his shoulder, instantly giving the act away. 

“Besides,” Kyoya supplies, smiling almost menacingly, “You wouldn’t be able to do it.”

They’re being wound up. They’re being baited. It’s reverse psychology 101. They fall for it, hook, line, and sinker. “What? Yes we could!” Kaoru insists. 

“It couldn’t be that hard,” Hikaru continues.

“Bet we could do it in our sleep,” Kaoru adds. 

Tamaki barks a laugh. “I don’t think we need to hear about what you do in your sleep,” he says slyly, and Kaoru for a sinking moment thinks that he knows before coming to his senses and realising that, unlike Hikaru, Tamaki cannot read his mind and cannot know about the carriages. Which brings Kaoru up at a loss for what he could actually be referring to. 

“It’s not easy,” Hani comments, “You’ll have to keep it up for nearly four years! It’s a toughie to keep an act going that long.” He sounds like he’s talking from experience, and the twins share a look. Perhaps this whole cute shtick is just a creepy cover. Hani proceeds to shovel a forkful of cake at the toy rabbit’s mouth and they determine that no one could be that good at acting. Except maybe themselves.

“We can do it,” they say, in unison. 

“Excellent! Superb!” Tamaki cheers, twirling once before plonking down between them. They were sitting thigh to thigh, so he mostly lands on their laps and both grimace as they’re forced to scooch to make room for him. 

“Now, the first trick is to perfect the physicalities of the move. The context will change depending on the conversation, but the move– the move has to be a signature.” Tamaki snaps his fingers in Hikaru’s face and Hikaru looks like he might bite them if they were any closer. “Watch and learn, my protégé.”

He turns to Kaoru and presses his thumb to the dent of his chin. Kaoru, in turn, swallows hard and goes cross-eyed staring down at the imposing digit. “Eyes up,” Tamaki coaxes, quietly, and Kaoru obeys. “You have to be able to look at each other like there’s no one else in the room.”

Tamaki leans in and, he’s right, there’s no one else in the room. It’s just Tamaki and Kaoru. And Hikaru, of course, but always Hikaru. This close, Kaoru can count every one of his eyelashes if he had the time. They’re blonder up close, and he has three sunspots under the bottom eyelid of one eye. Tamaki’s eyes are so blue, not sea colour so he may drown in them but verging on violet so as they may prove detrimental to his overall health this close. His focus isn’t on lip reading, instead honing in on the cupid’s bow arch of his upper lip, barely moving as he speaks so softly that Kaoru can’t hear it over the blood rushing to his face.

He understands then, with complete clarity, why girls choose Tamaki and choose for him to look at them like this, even with insincerity, every day, time and time again. It’s overwhelming to feel, even momentarily, this entertaining.

The girls have better impulse control and Kaoru’s never wanted anything he couldn’t take. Before he can remember to breathe, he closes the gap between their lips and kisses Tamaki, square on the mouth. 

There’s dead silence. 

Kaoru moves back.

Tamaki looks stunned, speechless for probably the first time in his life. Over his shoulder, the telltale vein is throbbing in Hikaru’s temple and he’s fisting his hand in his uniform trousers. Kaoru doesn’t look around, doesn’t care to see what anyone else’s reaction is. There’s only two people in the room that he cares about, and the sickly, guilty feeling starts threatening to gain legs and crawl its way out of his throat, regurgitate on the floor in front of them as an apology because he’s never had to apologise for anything before in his life and doesn’t know if his mouth is physically able to form the words. 

Tamaki stutters, once. That’s all he has time for before Hikaru reaches around, grabs him by the tie, and yanks him around to kiss him on the mouth too. 

Hikaru pulls back quicker, or at least seemingly so. Kaoru felt like his lips were joined with Tamaki’s for an eternity, but watching it happen in his reflection appears less cinematic, more grade school monkey bars. Tamaki looks like he’s going to short circuit, staring at Hikaru in grey-faced, stunned silence. 

Hani giggles sharply in the background. 

Slowly, Hikaru’s face spreads into an almost menacing grin and, slower, Kaoru’s face lifts to match it. Tamaki’s gaze flits between them, index finger hovering mid-air, halfway between accusatory and revelatory. He sputters, and their faces light up in synchronised entertainment.

“They can’t do that,” Kyoya says. He hasn’t even looked up from his clipboard. “The board will complain.”

[bibliophilesince2003]

Do you enjoy (Star Wars) Bad Batch? Do you want to read a fan-fiction focused on an original character who is forced to work with the Bad Batch in order to save Omega and put a dent in an original antagonist's plan? Do you enjoy books with a sense of adventure and mystery, with wholesome, saddening, and comedic moments in between?

I enjoy reading fan-fiction from time to time, and I've always been a writer. However, I was shocked to find that most Bad Batch fan-fiction is either incomplete or a romance between a member of the Bad Batch and an original character. I wanted to write something not focused on romance, but focused on a realistic situation with realistic conversation.

Since I couldn't find it, I wrote it. Started in November of 2023, I finished the book in February of this year (2024) and am very proud of it. In fact, I am working on book two... a book following the events of book one.

What is it called and where can I find it, you ask? Well, here are the links to Star Wars: The Bad Batch - Keeper's Arena. I have it posted on Wattpad and Archive of Our Own, so it depends on your preference. On Wattpad, it has reached 3k reads. I appreciate all the love and support the people on Wattpad have given me; they were there when I first started. It has only recently been posted on Archive of Our Own; it has a very small amount of clicks at the moment.

Still need some convincing? Here's a snippet from an earlier chapter:

This was a very bad idea. Jade hastily broke off another piece of bread, hoping to finish soon or that the topic would change. She heard the doors open, and a hush came over the crowd, even as the electronic music continued to pulse, and the lights flashed. Jade risked a look over her shoulder, then looked away, her nerves spiking.

Omega's brothers.

She felt guilty and a bit worried. Did they believe the rumors going around? Did they know what she looked like? She assumed they began walking at a casual, non-threatening pace, as the chatter increased in volume again.

"Please don't come over here, please don't –"

Jade's inward begging would do no good; they were already heading for the counter. Jade lifted her face and tried to relax. If she didn't want them to notice her, she needed to be as calm as possible. She stopped tapping her foot, realizing she was doing it without thinking. Jade glanced to her left as the one with the bandana arrived at the counter first, waiting for the bartender. The one with the prosthetic arm was paying close attention to the bartender's conversation with the other men, frowning. Well, that wasn't a good sign. Jade drank more water, finishing it off. As long as she got out in time, she would be fine. She hoped the bartender would stay with the men a bit longer, but he noticed his new guests, coming to face the one with the bandana.

"Alright, men. What are you having?"

"We're looking for someone," the leader of the group – it seemed – stated.

"Do I look like a directory?" the bartender scoffed, clearly annoyed with the appearance of multiple unique guests.

"Maybe those men know more about it than you do," the frowning one pointed to the other side of the counter, where the three men discussing rumors with the bartender were seated.

"You mean that girl that was snatched?" the bartender questioned, turning his head to raise his voice. "Joe, what did you hear about this?"

Joe sighed, throwing up his hands. Jade carefully pushed her plate away and turned in her seat, staring instead at the booths against the wall. She fumbled a bit as she closed up her thigh bag, and the stool made a quiet squeak. Jade cringed, but she couldn't feel any eyes on her. Not yet at least.

"She had some sort of help, or else she was being set up. At any rate, she wasn't alone."

Jade froze, knowing what would come next.

"There was a woman with her, an older teenager. In fact, I'm almost entirely sure that's her, at the end of the counter. Whatever you're going to do, grab her fast. She doesn't look like much, and she keeps to herself, but she's armed."

He was talking in hushed tones, and Jade wasn't sure if she had even heard him right, but there was no mistaking the shuffle of feet.

"So much for being done with running for the day," Jade thought, and she slid off of the stool and ran, straight for the door.