#oh you know. a classic dark middle ages production.

[operacomments]

screencap of anna netrebko looking very glamorous as lady macbeth, with platinum blonde hair and a slightly skimpy blue lace nightie. comment, from Lohengrin O, reads “Omg, what do her tits have to do with Lady M? pffff They got scared this will flop and unleashed the “tit power”? and they had to do this in Lady M? pffff Why not a classic dark middle ages production? when will the Met have again a descent Lady M?

[badly-made-tma-domains]

My QPP and I were talking about whether or not they know what time/date it is after the Eyepocalypse is reversed. Like. what happened to the atomic clocks? where they destroyed? did they stop during the eyepocalypse? did they all move with different speeds and show different times after the eyepocalypse?

We agreed on different speeds and procceeded to decide that there were several domains where the atomic clock was part of the horror. So.

Spiral Atomic Clock Domain: Pretty classic spiral time isn't real and doesn't make sense stuff.

Buried Atomic Clock Domain: You have so much to get done, you feel so hopelessly unproductive no matter how much you accomplish, you're drowning in work, and every time you look at the clock it's a little later than you expect it to be. By half an hour or an hour or something. More of the day is going by and you're not getting enough DONE.

Eye Atomic Clock Domain: Similar to the buried domain in that it's about productivity and feeling like time is moving too fast, but it's probably more of a timed test of some kind. And no matter how hard you try, how many circles you bubble in, you're just not fast enough, and they're judging you for it!

Dark Atomic Clock Domain: You're scared of the dark or maybe the dark has made you scared of monsters or serial killers or that one doctor who episode. It's the middle of the night, you've been awake for a long time, and at this point you've practically given up on sleeping. You're kind of just hoping to wait out the night, not sleep this time. How long can sunrise be away? But your clock says 2:00 am and feels like it has forever and time moves oh so slowly.

(I realize in hindsight that that might be what fnaf is but idk i don't play fnaf)

Desolation Clock Domain: You have a collection of watches. You think watches are so cool, you know all of the names of the brands and specific models, all the special little collaborations. Your girlfriend got you an expensive watch you'd had your eye on for ages for your 10th anniversary, you have a watch inherited from your late grandad... however in this domain you have to destroy your watches one by one.

End Atomic Clock Domain: very centered on every tick of the clock getting closer to your death. Idk this one's very self explanatory but you know to the second when you are going to die and the thought is just ruining you.

this is so clever i don’t even have anything to add to it i just need the words to see it

[cappymightwrite]

What draws you to incest ?

*sighs* Ok, here we go. I'm a real card carrying Jonsa now aren't I?

Anon, listen. I know this is an anti question that gets bandied about a lot, aimed at provoking, etc, when we all know no Jonsa is out here being all you know what, it really is the incest, and the incest alone, that draws me in. I mean, come on now. Grow up.

If I was "drawn" to incest I'd be a fan of Cersei x Jaime, Lucrezia x Cesare, hell Oedipus x Jocasta etc... but I haven't displayed any interest in them now, have I? So, huh, it can't be that.

Frankly, it's a derivitive question that is really missing the mark. I'm not "drawn" to it, though yeah, it is an unavoidable element of Jonsa. The real question you should be asking though, is what draws GRRM to it? Because he obviously is drawn to it, specifically what is termed the "incest motif" in academic and literary scholarship. That is a far more worthwhile avenue of thinking and questioning, compared with asking me. Luckily for you though anon, I sort of anticipated getting this kind of question so had something in my drafts on standby...

You really don't have to look far, or that deeply, to be hit over the head by the connection between GRRM's literary influences and the incest motif. I mean, let's start with the big cheese himself, Tolkein:

Tolkein + Quenta Silmarillion

We know for definite that GRRM has been influenced by Tolkein, and in The Silmarillion you notably have a case of unintentional incest in Quenta Silmarillion, where Túrin Turambar, under the power of a curse, unwittingly murders his friend, as well as marries and impregnates his sister, Nienor Níniel, who herself had lost her memory due to an enchantment.

Mr Tolkein, "what draws you to incest?"

Old Norse + Völsunga saga

Tolkein, as a professor of Anglo-Saxon, was hugely influenced by Old English and Old Norse literature. The story of the ring Andvaranaut, told in Völsunga saga, is strongly thought to have been a key influence behind The Lord of the Rings. Also featured within this legendary saga is the relationship between the twins Signy and Sigmund — at one point in the saga, Signy tricks her brother into sleeping with her, which produces a son, Sinfjotli, of pure Völsung blood, raised with the singular purpose of enacting vengence.

Anonymous Norse saga writer, "what draws you to incest?"

Medieval Literature as a whole

A lot is made of how "true" to the storied past ASOIAF is, how reflective it is of medieval society (and earlier), its power structures, its ideals and martial values etc. ASOIAF, however, is not attempting historical accuracy, and should not be read as such. Yet it is clearly drawing from a version of the past, as depicted in medieval romances and pre-Christian mythology for instance, as well as dusty tomes on warfare strategy. As noted by Elizabeth Archibald in her article Incest in Medieval Literature and Society (1989):

Of course the Middle Ages inherited and retold a number of incest stories from the classical world. Through Statius they knew Oedipus, through Ovid they knew the stories of Canace, Byblis, Myrrha and Phaedra. All these stories end more or less tragically: the main characters either die or suffer metamorphosis. Medieval readers also knew the classical tradition of incest as a polemical accusation,* for instance the charges against Caligula and Nero. – p. 2

The word "polemic" is connected to controversy, to debate and dispute, therefore these classical texts were exploring the incest motif in order to create discussion on a controversial topic. In a way, your question of "what draws you to incest?" has a whiff of polemical accusation to it, but as I stated, you're missing the bigger question.

Moving back to the Middle Ages, however, it is interesting that we do see a trend of more incest stories appearing within new narratives between the 11th and 13th centuries, according to Archibald:

The texts I am thinking of include the legend of Judas, which makes him commit patricide and then incest before betraying Christ; the legend of Gregorius, product of sibling incest who marries his own mother, but after years of rigorous penance finally becomes a much respected pope; the legend of St Albanus, product of father-daughter incest, who marries his mother, does penance with both his parents but kills them when they relapse into sin, and after further penance dies a holy man; the exemplary stories about women who sleep with their sons, and bear children (whom they sometimes kill), but refuse to confess until the Virgin intervenes to save them; the legends of the incestuous begetting of Roland by Charlemagne and of Mordred by Arthur; and finally the Incestuous Father romances about calumniated wives, which resemble Chaucer's Man of Law's Tale except that the heroine's adventures begin when she runs away from home to escape her father's unwelcome advances. – p. 2

I mean... that last bit sounds eerily quite close to what we have going on with Petyr Baelish and Sansa Stark. But I digress. What I'm trying to say is that from a medieval and classical standpoint... GRRM is not unique in his exploration of the incest motif, far from it.

Sophocles, Ovid, Hartmann von Aue, Thomas Malory, etc., "what draws you to incest?"

Faulkner + The Sound and the Fury, and more!

Moving on to more modern influences though, when talking about the writing ethos at the heart of his work, GRRM has famously quoted William Faulker:

His mantra has always been William Faulkner’s comment in his Nobel prize acceptance speech, that only the “human heart in conflict with itself… is worth writing about”. [source]

I’ve never read any Faulker, so I did just a quick search on “Faulkner and incest” and I pulled up this article on JSTOR, called Faulkner and the Politics of Incest (1998). Apparently, Faulkner explores the incest motif in at least five novels, therefore it was enough of a distinctive theme in his work to warrant academic analysis. In this journal article, Karl F. Zender notes that:

[...] incest for Faulkner always remains tragic [...] – p. 746

Ah, we can see a bit of running theme here, can't we? But obviously, GRRM (one would hope) doesn’t just appreciate Faulkner’s writing for his extensive exploration of incest. This quote possibly sums up the potential artistic crossover between the two:

Beyond each level of achieved empathy in Faulkner's fiction stands a further level of exclusion and marginalization. – pp. 759–60

To me, the above parallels somewhat GRRM’s own interest in outcasts, in personal struggle (which incest also fits into):

I am attracted to bastards, cripples and broken things as is reflected in the book. Outcasts, second-class citizens for whatever reason. There’s more drama in characters like that, more to struggle with. [source]

Interestingly, however, this essay on Faulkner also connects his interest in the incest motif with the romantic poets, such as Percy Bysshe Shelley and Lord Byron:

As Peter Thorslev says in an important study of romantic representations of incest, " [p]arent-child incest is universally condemned in Romantic literature...; sibling incest, on the other hand, is invariably made sympathetic, is sometimes exonerated, and, in Byron's and Shelley's works, is definitely idealized.” – p. 741

Faulkner, "what draws you to incest?" ... I mean, that article gives some good explanations, actually.

Lord Byron, Manfred + The Bride of Abydos

Which brings us onto GRRM interest in the Romantics:

I was always intensely Romantic, even when I was too young to understand what that meant. But Romanticism has its dark side, as any Romantic soon discovers... which is where the melancholy comes in, I suppose. I don't know if this is a matter of artistic influences so much as it is of temperament. But there's always been something in a twilight that moves me, and a sunset speaks to me in a way that no sunrise ever has. [source]

I'm already in the process of writing a long meta about the influence of Lord Byron in ASOIAF, specifically examining this quote by GRRM:

The character I’m probably most like in real life is Samwell Tarly. Good old Sam. And the character I’d want to be? Well who wouldn’t want to be Jon Snow — the brooding, Byronic, romantic hero whom all the girls love. Theon [Greyjoy] is the one I’d fear becoming. Theon wants to be Jon Snow, but he can’t do it. He keeps making the wrong decisions. He keeps giving into his own selfish, worst impulses. [source]

Lord Byron, "what draws you to—", oh, um, right. Nevermind.

I'm not going to repeat myself here, but it's worth noting that there is a clear through line between GRRM and the Romantic writers, besides perhaps melancholic "temperament"... and it's incest.

But look, is choosing to explore the incest motif...well, a choice? Yeah, and an uncomfortable one at that, but it’s obvious that that is what GRRM is doing. I think it’s frankly a bit naive of some people to argue that GRRM would never do Jonsa because it’s pseudo-incest and therefore morally repugnant, no ifs, no buts. I’m sorry, as icky as it may be to our modern eyes, GRRM has set the president for it in his writing with the Targaryens and the Lannister twins.

The difference with them is that they knowingly commit incest, basing it in their own sense of exceptionalism, and there are/will be bad consequences — this arguably parallels the medieval narratives in which incest always ends badly, unless some kind of real penance is involved. For Jon and Sansa, however, the Jonsa argument is that they will choose not to commit incest, despite a confused attraction, and then will be rewarded in the narrative through the parentage reveal, a la Byron’s The Bride of Abydos. The Targaryens and Lannisters, in several ways excluding the incest (geez the amount of times I’ve written incest in this post), are foils for the Starks, and in particular, Jon and Sansa. Exploring the incest motif has been on the cards since the very beginning — just look at that infamous "original" outline — regardless of whether we personally consider that an interesting writing choice, or a morally inexcusable one.

Word of advice, or rather, warning... don't think you can catch me out with these kinds of questions. I have access to a university database, so if I feel like procrastinating my real academic work, I can and will pull out highly researched articles to school you, lmao.

But you know, thanks for the ask anyway, I guess.

[marrys-dream-world]

Imposter

Read on AO3

Summary:  Adrien's mother is kind and sweet and loving. The only problem is that it isn't her at all.

Notes: This is based off on this post by @infinitysgrace and a post athat I can’t find anymore, but was about how Emilie’s eye color could be wrong in the wishmaker flashback because it wasn’t her, it was a sentimonster. I took some liberties with sentimonster lore because I’m not 100% sure about all that, but I think it turned out well. 

One of Adrien’s earliest memories is of crying. 

He was young, perhaps three or four, and his room was blurry through his tears. When he grew older, he would get used to his father’s insistence that a night light was coddling Adrien, but at the moment, all he knew was the darkness surrounding him. The room was too big and his bed was in the middle of it, the light from the huge windows playing shadows that tricked his eyes. So he started crying, hoping it would call his parent’s attention and that they would come to him.

(When he grew older, he would learn that crying was useless.)

He felt more than saw his mother coming in, leaving the door open in a crack of light. Her arms wrap around him and she hums soothingly, the sound filling up his chest. She’s warm and smells sweet, like her favorite lavender perfume. He sinks into her, tears drying and sobs reducing to whines. He has tired himself out with that and would probably fall asleep even if left alone, but his mother doesn’t leave. She tucks him in and stays as his eyes close.

The last thing he sees are her wide blue eyes. 

-

Both his parents have drastic mood changes, but Adrien would say that his mother is the most prominent example of this. His father is usually just stoic and, if Adrien pushes him enough, gets annoyed with him. At worst, he’ll get angry and rage at Adrien, calmed down only by his mother’s calm words as she diverts his attention so Adrien can get away. His mother, though, always feels like whiplash.

“Why can’t I go with you?” Adrien, aged seven, asks his mother. He’s sitting on her bed as she packs her bag for another trip with his father. He stopped keeping count of them after the fifth. 

“You’re too young, baby.” She said and even the pet name didn’t stop the sting from her dismissive tone. “Next time, okay?”

He bits back a ‘you said that last time, too’. 

“But I’m already- “

“Adrien.” His mother chides, frowning. Her (disappointed) green eyes held him down. “I said you could stay here with me if you weren't going to be disruptive. Can’t you behave, just this once?”

He swallows back a lump in his throat. “I-I’m sorry, mother.”

But she already turned her back to him and packed the rest of her bag in silence. His mother leaves out her customary goodbye kiss when she leaves for the trip. He isn’t allowed downstairs to see them go and Nathalie insists it isn't a punishment, even though it feels like it. Adrien mopes in his room, not feeling up to enjoy his free day, no tutors or photoshoots, when all he can think about is his mother.

That’s why he’s taken back when she walks in his room.

“Mother?” He gaps, unable to hide his surprise. “I thought you left. Aren’t you going to miss your trip?!”

“I changed my mind, Adrien. Your father and I decided that the trip would be more productive with just him.” She said, eyes warm. Adrien always thought it was beautiful how her eyes could look blue or green, depending on the light. 

“But why?” He asked. She had been so excited for the trip!

“To stay with my precious son, of course.” His mother said, taking him into her arms.

All his questions evaporated right then and there. 

-

After their last trip, his parents decided to take a break from traveling. To network, his father informed him, which meant more boring family dinners and stiff ties. His mom always tuts when he complains about it, so he stays silent this time. At least it’s a dinner with Chloé, his best friend, and her family, so he and her are really only required to have dinner and then they can go off and play in the hotel rooms. 

“Arnold- “ Mrs. Bourgeois starts during dinner, before being nervously corrected by her husband.

“It’s Adrien, dear.”

“Oh right, Adrien. You grew up really well, you look more like your mother everyday.” Other people say it gushing, followed by a ‘so cute’ and pinches to the cheek. Mrs. Bourgeois says it like it’s a fact she approves of; Chloé even copies the small nod her mother makes. “You have her eyes.”

“Thank you, ma’am, but I don’t think so.” He says as politely as he can, but everyone in the table still throws him confused glances.

“You don’t think you look like your mother?” His father asked, raising an eyebrow.

Adrien shook his head. “No, I just don’t think I have her eyes. Mother’s eyes are blue and green and mine are just green.”

The Bourgeois family looks at him like he grew a second head. His parents, however, become tense all of sudden.

“Emilie, Gabriel, I think your son might be colorblind.” Mrs. Bourgeois says dryly and Adrien waits for his parents to come to his defense. They don’t. 

“Maybe. You know how children are.” His mother says, lightly. “I love your hat, Audrey. Is it new?”

The topic changes to Audrey’s new fashion exploits and Adrien and Chloé are finally allowed to go play. 

(Nathalie takes him to an eye doctor Mr. Bourgeois recommended the next day. The colorblind tests come back as negative.)

-

At age eight, Adrien was already used to working on fashion shows for his father’s brand. It didn’t make them easier to go through, however. 

It’s a summer one, this time, and his clothes are light and airy and his skin felt itchy and hot in the air conditioned cat walk. Looking at the bright lights around him hurt and the camera felt like it was looking uncomfortably deep into his soul. Was it too obvious that he wanted to run away? The crowd claps everytime he comes and everyone is smiling. Except for his father. 

After the show, his father spends the rest of the ride in silence as his mother tries to defuse the heavy tension that permeated the air with small talk and gushing compliments about the clothes and Adrien’s performance. It falls flat as she hardly looks like she’s up for talking, dark shadows under her eyes and skin paler than usual. Whenever Adrien asks her if she’s sick, she denies. As soon as they arrive home, he drags Adrien from the car towards the house, grip strong on his left upper arm. 

“Do you enjoy embarrassing me in front of everyone, Adrien?” His father asked calmly, but his hand tightened on his arm. 

Adrien couldn’t speak. It felt like it was happening to someone else, his mind weirdly detached from the situation. The only thing stopping him from floating away was the pain in his arm. 

“That’s enough, Gabriel.” He heard his mother, voice muffled. It felt like he was underwater in the pool and she was speaking from far away. Her hand, though, he felt acutely as she extricated his father’s hand from his arm. “Adrien, go, please.”

He runs away without second thought, only pausing guiltily at leaving his mother with his irate father when he starts hearing his father’s screaming. Adrien hides under the blankets in his room, heart racing long after the noise stops as he tries to focus his mind into anything else. He startles when he feels a hand touching his blanket cocoon. 

“Shhh, it’s okay, baby.” He hears his mother’s voice and frantically tears his blanket away. 

Adrien relaxes as he looks into her wide blue eyes and comforting smile, trying to leap for a hug. She stops him. 

“Let me see your arm first.” She says and he reluctantly takes off his jacket, wincing. The bruise on his arm doesn’t look pretty, so it’s for the best that he doesn’t go out much after fashion shows. “I can’t believe I let you get hurt.”

Her tone is soft and she looks, weirdly enough, genuinely confused as she touches the bruise on his arm and coos in apology as he flinches. 

“Father is just stressed.” Adrien parrots back his mother’s usual spiel after his dad does something less than exemplary. “It’s just how she is, it’s okay.”

"It 's not okay.” His mother says right away. “I’m supposed to not let anything hurt you, Adrien.” 

She says that with such a passion that he can believe she actually means it. But instead of the elation he expected when he heard it, all he felt was a surge of anger. Because why now? After all those moments when she scolded him for avoiding his father or not looking him in the eye, why now?

“There isn’t anything we can do about it, is there?.” He snaps, echoing her words to him from what felt like yesterday. 

She deflated. “I’m sorry. There isn’t.”

-

His father went away from a trip again and his mother, once again, decided to stay. 

Spending time with his mother during father’s trip was great, especially since she was in such a good mood and looking much healthier than she did these days. She lets him have an extra scoop of ice cream for dessert as soon as Nathalie turns her back on them, she spends the whole day playing with him in the garder, she helps with his homework and makes him a snack between classes. They play the piano together, making up different tunes and giggling. 

“Don’t I have to practice this?” He asked, pointing to the sheets of the classical song he was supposed to learn. 

His mother wrinkled her nose.

“You already work too hard, Adrien, it’s nice to have some fun once in a while.” She said, twisting her wedding ring on her finger. She usually didn’t wear it when spending time with him, only when she spent time with father, so it caught his attention. “Besides, nobody has to know.” 

They watch a movie he picked that night. His mother rarely did that and when she did, she was very picky about it. Artist stuff, he supposed. This time he got to choose, though, and he picked on based on a manga he liked, Astroboy. His mother seemed excited in the beginning, but her mood quickly subdued as the movie went on. 

“Are you not liking it?” He whispered to her and she shook her head.

“I am, baby, don’t worry. Are you?”

“Yeah. It's not really like the manga, but I like it.” He said. “I just think it’s a little unfair, you know. How he doesn’t know he isn’t really the scientist’s son, that he’s just a robot.”

His mother’s arms tighten around him. “I don’t think it’s unfair.”

“Really?” Adrien watched as the images from the screen played on his mother’s blue eyes.

“Really.” She repeated. “Him knowing would be crueler.”

-

At age ten, Adrien is awakened on a rainy night by his mother shaking him.

It was the night his father was supposed to come back from a trip and he had spent a fun day with his mother, studying and playing (“You need both to be a healthy boy, Adrien!” She grinned at him and he beamed back at her). His mother had looked a little skittish earlier, looking over her shoulder often only to just find Natahalie and fidgeting with the ring on her hand, that she usually wore every time his father was traveling. She wouldn't tell him what was wrong and insisted she hadn’t been sick. Nevertheless, he worried. 

“Mother, what’s wrong?” He asked, sleepiness fading away as he noticed how frantic she looked. 

“Adrien, I’ve been thinking about this for a while. Every moment I’ve been conscious, it’s been on my mind. Can you trust me?” She asked him, stroking his head with the hand that wore her wedding ring, and he nodded. “I need you to pack a small bag and come with me, okay? We’re going on a trip, just you and me.”

“A trip?” It was all he ever wanted, but the look in his mother’s blue eyes made him hesitate. “Is everything okay?”

“No, baby.” She said, kissing the top of his head. “But it will be. Hurry up, I need you to pack while I handle some things. Meet me downstairs in five minutes, okay?”

With anyone else, even his father, he would have asked more questions. This was his beloved mother, though, so he just got up and started to pack his clothes and some of his stuff that he couldn’t do a few days without. He carefully closed his door, running down the stair and to his mother by the door. She looked damp, her outfit changed and an umbrella hanging by her feet along with some bags. 

“Adrien?” She asked, turning her green eyes to him. In her left hand, she held her wedding ring.

“Mother? Are you okay?” He asked, noting how much paler and shakier she looked than when he saw her upstairs. 

“Yes, of course.” His mother said as she put her wedding ring back on. “Whatever I said to you upstairs, forget it, okay?”

“W-what?”

“I didn’t know what I was saying.” She said, eyes staring straight at her ring. “Don’t worry, it won’t happen again. Go back to bed, baby. Your father is back earlier than expected and he won’t like to see you up so late. ”

He nodded, unwilling to argue, and took his bag back with him to his room. His mother suddenly acting weird and standoffish wasn’t anything new, it was fine. She would go back to being his sweet, kind mother soon enough. He was sure of it. 

(She never did.)

[andallthatmishigas]

Rules: Tag 10 people you want to get to know better!

Tagged by @emma-hahn and @corasorangejuice (omg you guys, thank youuuu! I loved getting to read your posts!)

Favorite time of the year: Autumn for sure.  I love the sunny days and the brisker weather and HALLOWEEN and I just love the pre-holiday time when we have the anticipation and the trees start to change but it’s not too dark or too cold yet and it’s just perfect.  We are almost getting to spooky season and I cannot wait.

Comfort foods: Macaroni and Cheese is my favorite food of all time, particularly the deluxe four cheese from Kraft and I add a little bit of truffle salt to it.  Other comfort foods for me are my mom’s ground turkey tacos and the grilled ahi tuna my dad does on the barbecue with the sauce my mom makes (sesame teriyaki with wasabi and sour cream all melted and magnificent)

Do you collect anything? I used to collect miniature snow globes and now I collect magnets whenever I travel.  And I don’t think books count as collecting but I live in a studio apartment and I have 3 enormous bookshelves and I need another one so maybe that counts.  Oh and I low key collect makeup products but I use all my insane shit so...

Favorite drink: Red wine probably.  But I love an old fashioned or other classic whiskey cocktails or a fruity vodka cocktail.  I mostly drink a lot of water day in and out.

Favorite music artists: Oh man okay get ready for a paragraph that no one will read.  I was raised on the big-voiced divas.  Barbra Streisand is the deity to whom I pray.  Celine Dion and Whitney Houston and Julie Andrews are how I learned how to sing when I was younger.  Bette Midler is deeply important to my soul, as is Cher (I basically have the taste of a middle-aged stereotypical gay man, it’s fine).  Liza Minnelli and Judy Garland and Patti LuPone.  Love a big belter.  And then if we get away from the showtunes and divas, I love almost anything from the 60s, especially Herman’s Hermits, The Beatles and all those fabulous Motown artists.  Peter, Paul and Mary and Patsy Cline are deep loves of mine.  Jim Croce (another reason for me to love Jim Hopper, he’s a Croce fan).  And then of course we have my all time favorite bands, ABBA and Fleetwood Mac.  Deep love of jazz standards singers, especially Ella Fitzgerald and Frank Sinatra (my whole family were jazz musicians so I was raised on Sarah Vaughn and the whole Rat Pack).  Also why I have such a love of Sadie and the Hot Heads and Michael Buble. Modern artists I love are Taylor Swift, Beyonce, Ed Sheeran, Walk the Moon, Lizzo, Lil Nas X, Sugarland, Michael Buble, P!nk, Miley Cyrus, Maroon 5, Lady Gaga, Kesha, Imagine Dragons, Florence + the Machine, George Ezra and uhhhh I’ll stop it there I guess.

Current favorite songs:

(not gonna link them because I’m running late right now so here’s just five songs off the top of my head that I really love)

Back to Before by Patti LuPone (original from Ragtime performed by the amazing Marin Mazzie but I just am too obsessed with Patti’s voice)

Leaving on a Jetplane by Peter Paul and Mary (my favorite song of all time)

Mamma Mia by ABBA (has become my go-to karaoke song because I sing it really well and it’s just so fun and people love it lol)

Daylight by Taylor Swift (created an entire AU crossover fic just so I could use the lyrics in a couple chapters and this song just hits my soul real deep)

Rainbow by Kesha (”what’s left of my heart’s still made of gold” is a lyric that came to me at a very hard time in my life and it makes me cry whenever I even say it out loud and it’s very important to me)

Favorite fics: (again not linking because I don’t have time but you can find them all on ffn) Galway Girl by @rahleeyah (Spooks AU fic that changed my life and I think about it at least once a week), A Messy Kind of Love by rahleeyah (Doctor Blake fic that is the reason Leah and I became friends and one of the most impactful things I’ve ever read and also changed my life), One Fine Day by rahleeyah (Spooks AU fic she wrote for me and it’s everything I could have ever wanted), Dolce Notte and Calda Notte by @whatsabriard (Downton fics, the concepts of which have been in my head for forever and I just cannot stop thinking about how magnificent the idea is), Heartlines by ladycobert (Downton fic so good I just didn’t work at all one day so I could read it and as soon as I finished it, I read it again), The Proper Way of Things by AndAllThatMishigas (my Downton masterpiece that I’m more proud of and had more fun with than anything ever), Forever In Your Arms by AndAllThatMishigas (Doctor Blake vampire Jean which is really what I want to be known for forever), Glances by AndAllThatMishigas (City Homicide story that is probably the most perfect canon/canon divergence story ever, if I do say so myself), After by AndAllThatMishigas (Spooks post-series story that truly just made me so happy to write and makes me happy to reread) and honestly I think that is enough.

Tagging: @blossom--of--snow @yesmadamepresident @callhimnowmarisamylove @featherpluckn @aboxfullofdarkness @doctoraliceharvey @whatsabriard @lovesclassicposts @margotgrissom @mandalamarigold​

[jimlingss]

Kale’in Me Softly

➜ Words: 17.1k

➜ Genres: 90% Fluff, 9.5% Angst, 0.5% Smut, Farm!AU

➜ Summary: After your grandfather's passing, you decide to take over his farm and plant the trendiest vegetable: kale. It's a struggle to be in the countryside when you've always been a city girl. But there's someone less than sympathetic — a grumpy farmer across the acres who's constantly trying to pick a fight with you.

➜ Warning: Strongly implied smut

cr.

Home — you left it all behind for this.    The tractor chugs and wheezes. Its wheels roll over the craggy and unpaved road, making you feel every bump and pebble through constant jolts and bounces. The sweltering heat of the scorching sun was already making you break into a sweat and you sigh, listening to the buzzing of cicadas and the sputtering engine.   But otherwise, it was quiet. More than what you were used to. There isn’t any traffic, honking, construction or the noise of motorcycle engines or sirens of ambulances. There’s just the rustle of leaves and the swaying of grass strands.   “I can’t believe Old Man Seok had such a pretty granddaughter.”    A laugh bubbles out of you. “It’s all in the genes. Did you know my grandfather?”   “Everyone knew Old Man Seok. Everyone knows everyone here. But it sure helps that our farms are next door to each other. Just down yonder.” The middle-aged farmer grips the steering wheel. A good-natured aura in spite of his intimidating disposition, he feels like a strict but caring father figure. “He was very kind even to the end of his life. Offered my family a lot of jam throughout the years. A good man through and through. My condolences.”   Your smile softens. “Thank you.”   “I gotta say, it’s nice to have a new face around these neck of the woods. Doesn’t happen often.” The corner of the man’s mouth pulls and the wrinkles by his eyes crease. “You should come meet my son sometime.”   “I wouldn’t mind.” The tractor pulls up to the worn house you’ve seen in your mother’s childhood pictures. “I always love making new friends.”   You hop off the tractor the moment it comes to a stop and the man wishes you luck before you thank him again and he’s on his merry way.   With only one packed suitcase in hand, you walk up to the house and push your Gucci sunglasses to the top of your head to get a better look. The fence, door and roof are made with a cherry wood that compliments the forest green walls. The patio, on the other hand, is out of oak that matches the rocking chair in the corner. There’s white trim lining the rectangular windows, giving you a peek at the purple, paisley curtains inside.   The house looks tattered through time, but cozy.   “You’re leaving?!” — “Do you really think this is a good idea, Y/N?” — “Do you even know what you’re going to do there?”   The voices of the friends you left behind echo in the recesses of your mind while you fiddle with the hem of your dress in the shade of classical blue — 2020’s pantone colour and a fantastic fashion statement. It’s not farm-appropriate, but better than most of the things in your closet.   You went shopping for the last time before you packed your one pink suitcase, but you’re starting to realize those tight, denim overalls might not work like they do in the movies.   “You think you can run a farm?!” — “I didn’t raise you so you could go back to the countryside!” — “You don’t even know what you’re doing, Y/N! Grow up already and stop being ridiculous.”   An exhale squeezes out of you as you dispel away your family’s discouragement and you grip your grandfather’s letter as you finally muster the courage to approach the house.   When your grandfather passed away, you inherited ten thousand dollars and his five acre farm. It’s small. Nothing worthy of bragging about and one of the hundred of reasons everyone thought you would sell it. They even urged you to, so they could get a split of the money. But they never thought you would refuse. That you would leave everything behind and come all the way here.   It’s a mess.   Thick layers of dust coat the antique furniture and peering out from the kitchen window, the field is littered in leaves and twigs, wooden planks and debris. A sense of guilt overwhelms you.    You can’t believe your family let it become this way.    You set down your belongings and almost immediately, you begin to look around. Pacing the backyard, the field, the barn, trying to figure out what is what. And it’s not long before a dark-haired man with doe eyes and a permanent dear-in-headlights expression finds you.   He nearly startles you to death with his timid greeting. “H-Hi...”    “Holy shit!” You press your hand to your chest, spinning around and he boyishly grins. “You scared me!”   “S-Sorry…my bad...” Boots, jeans and a white shirt, he looks like a newly graduated high school student who stumbled into the wrong place. “Are you Y/N?”   “That’s me.” You wonder if he’s here to kill you. The farm setting was the perfect location after all and serial killers these days have the potential of looking as cute as he does. “You’re...?”   “I’m Jungkook. I used to work with Old Man Seok. My mom told me you’d be comin’ today and that I should show you around, so….” He scratches the back of his neck, oddly endearing for how awkward he is.    You let him guide you despite having already gotten the chance to peek at almost everything — a detail you leave out to spare him from being disheartened. But with Jungkook here, he has the strength to widen the doors of the old shed out back and you get a better look at the storage and old equipment.   “God.” You cough and bat your hand from the dust piles arising. “It’s so dirty.”   “Yeah. The tractor needs a bit of fixin’ up which I can help you with, if you need.”   It’s clear that towards the end of your grandfather’s life, he was too weak to properly take care of his property. You can tell by the way the field is in tatters, all his crops long dead and his machinery is in desperate need of repair. But as you gander at the space, you discover that there’s everything you need right here. Shovels. Wheelbarrows. Sickles and spades.   “Thank you. I would appreciate that.”   Jungkook nods, wearing a small smile. “Your grandpa used to help me out a lot, so it’s the least I can do. If you ever need any help, I’m down a few acres West by the market. Just give a holler.”   Your cheeks warm, realizing he’s not as young as he appears to be. “I will.”   After a while longer, Jungkook leaves you to get settled down and you bid him farewell. You know it’s going to take a bit of time for you to get used to this change, but with a sigh, you try your best to familiarize yourself with the land and surrounding climate.   //   Back in LA, you were a fashion design marketer.   Originally, you set out to fulfill your childhood dream of being a top designer for a big brand like Chanel or Dior, but along the way, you ended up in the marketing sector. It wasn’t as bad as what people thought. A kind of niche you actually quite enjoyed and while you might've left it all behind for the farm life, you know the first step to starting anything is doing market research.   So at nine in the morning sharp, you enter the farmers’ market.   Open every Sunday, there’s a certain bustle and liveliness in the atmosphere. People from surrounding communities and even far away cities have come to get their fresh produce and dairy products. The market place is held in an open building with doors and massive garages wide open, practically held outdoors itself, and as you walk along the stands, you notice goat milk to beeswax lip balm being sold. There’s everything someone could ask for, bath salts and herbal soaps, baked goods and handmade aprons and quilts. You didn’t know farmers’ markets had so much to offer.   “Would you like to try some raspberry jam, darlin’?” A plump lady offers you a spatula.    “Sure. Thank you.” The sweet taste ends up bursting on your palette and you hum at the taste, considering buying a jar for breakfast. But she interrupts with a curious stare and a bigger smile.   “I haven’t seen you around before, dear. Did you come from somewhere far?”   “Oh no, I just moved in. My grandpa was Seokjin….”   “You mean Old Man Seok?” Her entire spine straightens, face lighting up. “I never knew he had a granddaughter!”   You warm, proud that your grandfather’s made such a lasting impression. “I just moved in a few acres away.”   “Taking care of your grandpa’s farm?” she asks and when you nod, the woman practically swoons. “Why, what a gracious thing you’re doin’! Old Man Seok would be proud to have a granddaughter like you! Keepin’ his legacy alive like that. Heaven knows I can’t even get my boy up to milk the cows!”   You laugh and she ends up handing you a small jar of raspberry jam for free, wishing you the best of luck.    Apparently word spreads fast in this place. After ten minutes of exploring the market, kind and overfamiliar strangers approach from behind their stands, greeting you and taking your hands. Some muse how similar you are to your grandfather while others happily send you some cheese and bread. By the time you’re at the end, it looks like you went grocery shopping.   But in the midst of it all, you get the chance to talk to some customers. Making conversation with a pregnant woman, an elderly man, and a little kid overly excited to use his allowance for some candy. People are receptive and friendly, more than what you’re used to back in the city. But you study what they purchase, their spending habits, what people seem to be interested in.   Then, your attention is caught at a cute honey stand — jars of honey sealed being sold with beeswax candles tied with pastel yellow ribbon. More importantly, you recognize the doe-eyed boy at the cash register.    “Jungkook!”   He greets you with a big smile. “Oh, hey, Y/N! I didn’t expect you’d be here.”   With your previous lifestyle, the attention of a cute boy like Jungkook isn’t enough to make you bashful — a few years too late on that — but you can still appreciate how endearing he is. “I’m just taking a look around. Thought I should get to know the place since I might be here soon.”   “How’re things going? Did you settle in yet?”   “I did actually.” It wasn’t in the realm of your expectations to make friends so quickly out here, but to have such pleasant small talk with Jungkook proves your anticipations were wrong. “It took a lot of time to clean the house, but totally worth it! I strung polaroids above the mantle and I found a vintage armchair that’s really in style, so I’d say things are going pretty well.”   The boy grins from your enthusiasm. “It sounds like you’re adapting better than I would.”   “I’m trying.” Your smile becomes sheepish. “I’m still figuring out the fields and the land. I haven’t even gotten started in clearing out the shed yet.”    He nods, lips parting to respond. But then there’s a call of his name behind him and he sighs before sending an apologetic expression. “Sorry. My ma has more honey to unload from the truck. I gotta skedaddle before she yells, but I’m glad things are working out for you!”   Jungkook’s undoubtedly cute, even when he says goodbye and promises to catch up with you soon. You don’t dwell either, continuing to parade through the market by yourself and discover all the places you missed on your first walk that was overwhelmed with others intercepting.   What piques your curiosity this time is a wooden stall with a soft green cloth draped over the flat surface and a sign that reads ‘Romaine with Me’. What’s offered in the crates are lettuce. Lots and lots of different heads of lettuce lined in rows like plush animal prizes on display at carnival games.   You don’t pay much mind to the man behind the stall that’s sleepily blinking and leaning his head in his hand, elbow propped up and figure slumped over. He looks like he’s dozed off but somehow kept his lids peeled back.   You approach and read the labels underneath. Red. Green. Romaine. Boston. Bibb. Arugula. Batavia. Radicchio. Iceberg.   “I didn’t know there were so many types of lettuce,” you mutter to yourself.   “It’s two dollars for each bundle or head,” the man suddenly pipes up in a raspy tone, nearly startling you to death. You realize his pupils have darted right on you and that’s he’s not in fact sleeping with his eyes open. “Romain is three. And there’s a sale on the radicchio.”   The man has an oddly intimidating disposition for looking so tired. He has tender features and seemingly soft skin that makes you wonder about his skin care routine. Yet, his hair is as dark as his cat-like eyes that have narrowed in on you. You suddenly feel pressure to make a purchase lest you waste more of his time.   “What are the differences?” you ask, studying the lettuces in front of you.   “Iceberg, romaine and radicchio are crispy. But iceberg has a clean and fresh taste. Romaine is more bitter and radicchio is a bit bitter and spicy. Boston and bibb are butter lettuces which are softer and have a sweet taste. Boston's leaves are wider and lighter green than bibb's. Arugula is peppery. Batavia is your usual with more crinkled leaves. Red and green are your standard.”    The man breathes the explanation out with only one lazy inhale in between and when he’s done, he gives you a look as if asking if you’re satisfied. But you’re more than that. You’re genuinely impressed.   He spat facts at you and you’re not sure what to do with the information.   “You know a lot about lettuce.”   “I’m a lettuce farmer,” he deadpans.   “Really?” The corners of your lips pull, even more intrigued than before. You didn’t take him for much of a farmer. The man has a kind of bad-boy vibe that you’re accustomed to and without much thought, the clumsy words stumble out of your mouth— “I thought farmers were dirtier.”   “What?”   “Like sunburnt, straw hats, overalls.” You nod, studying the produce and missing his offended expression. “Like that’s totally the farmer’s aesthetic.”   “Aesthetic?”   “Yeah,” you hum, not realizing the man was glaring holes into you. “I’ll take a bundle of the romaine, please.”   You end up going home shortly after, trekking underneath the sun with recyclable bags full of food that fills your fridge, sure to be enough for a whole week. You’re not sure what to exactly do after that — there’s plenty of tasks and jobs to be done, but you’re not certain where to start.   So you decide to take a break — partly to relax and partly to procrastinate. With your sweat wiped away and a fan whirring in the corner, you plop down into the vintage armchair and grab one of the magazines you brought with you. But it isn’t a good read, not when you had already looked at most of the pages on the plane ride over here….   Your mind ends up wandering, considering what you should do with grandfather’s land, if there was anything new you could offer at all. And at the same time as you’re flipping through the magazine, you stumble on a particular page. A recipe for an avocado kale poke bowl.   You skim it and your eyes stop at a single word. Kale.   Kale. It sticks to you like glue and you squint at the text, the four letters in print. Your mind searches and it hits you that kale was never sold at the farmers’ market. There was everything, every fruit, every vegetable. But not kale.    A smile stretches across your face, determination blooming in your chest. Organic kale was a total new fad. Good for you. Healthy. Sought after in the city, but yet to be prevalent in the countryside. It was a perfect opportunity, one that was sitting right in front of you this entire time.   Relief overwhelms you as you make a decision on your niche: kale.   //   It starts off with books.    Gathering as much information as you possibly can, you also learn through guides and internet articles on your chosen crop. You find out that kale becomes bitter over the summer, sweetest in the Fall after being touched by a light frost. It bolts in Spring, so sowing seeds is most appropriate around April to May while they can still be planted throughout the seasons. It provides a yield between late September to early May, direct seeds maturing in fifty to seventy days while transplants take a bit less than half the time.   You learn how to protect seedlings from pests, purchasing lightweight fabric to cover rows, and you begin to plow the fields.    It takes time to clean up, to get your grandfather’s equipment fixed, to become financed. But you start right away and soon, you’re sewing the seeds eighteen to twenty four inches apart. Getting transplants. Watering them appropriately. Working day and night.   You’re not exactly sure if you’re doing this right. Especially on hot days when you’re sweating buckets, dirt has marred your skin and your lower back screams. But you know that even if you fail and have to pack your bags, the effort of trying would be enough for you to feel satisfied.   So, you persist.    And day by day, the seeds begin to sprout. The dirt is littered with tiny green specks and you feel thrilled that it’s actually growing. Slowly, but surely, you would return this farm to its former glory by your own hands.   //   It’s another Sunday when you take a trip to the farmers’ market.   In spite of having only been here for a short amount of time, you’ve become acquainted with the market. You don’t get lost anymore in the bustle and many like to stop you to ask about your day. It’s a hospitable place, never making you feel uncomfortable or awkward, and you feel relieved that your grandfather was surrounded by such warmth till the end of his life.   You’re also starting to become familiar with one particular wooden stall and the sleepy man behind it.   No matter what week it is, he’s always there, wearing the same loose flannels but in different colours, flipping through a pamphlet or dozing off. He only looks up when someone comes to buy lettuce.   But today, he’s joined by an older man that recognizes you all too easily. “I almost didn’t see you there without being so gussied up in those city clothes. Looks like you’ve gotten yourself comfortable with farm life. Almost reminds me of Old Man Seok back in his heyday.”   Immediately, the younger lifts his head up, brow cocked. “You know her?”   “She’s Old Man Seok’s granddaughter. I gave her a ride to his farm when she first came,” Mr. Min introduces and his son gives you a better look, one that’s ridden with a modest amount of distaste. “Y/N, this is my boy, Yoongi, that I was talking about.”   It never occured to you how similar they are. Their husky voices and quiet yet intimidating dispositions are unparalleled. But the older seems more open and friendly than the younger who has a blank expression and his eyes narrowed in at you. Although you don’t get much time to dwell, ask him that the issue might be or if that’s simply who he is.   Some people naturally have a resting bitch face and Yoongi might be one of them.   “How’s the countryside life doing for you so far?” his father asks and you smile, attention redirected.   “It’s not too bad. But the sun’s hot and I didn’t know farming could be so hard!” Your head quirks to the side, still awed that this was the lifestyle of so many. “I always thought it would be easy cause the organic edamame plant back at my apartment wasn’t so bad to take care of.”   Yoongi scoffs.   “Yep, it’s difficult alright.” Mr. Min’s engrossed and asks, “What’re you growing?”   Enthusiasm and a sense of pride makes you exclaim the answer— “Kale!”    Yoongi winces at the volume of your voice while his father is made even more curious.    “Kale?”   “I was thinking about what wasn’t being sold at the farmers’ market and I found that kale was underrepresented,” you rant, “Kale’s totally the new wave. It’s a trendy, super food and packed with antioxidants. Did you know that kale is among the most nutrient-dense foods on the planet?”   “Can’t say I knew that.” Mr. Min has his mouth upturned into an amused smile. Yoongi, on the other hand, sighs. “I’d love to hear more about it. My wife’s quite passionate about these kinds of things too. She practically runs the entire farm! You should come over for dinner sometime, Y/N.”   “She should?” — “I’d love to!”   Both you and Yoongi talk over another, but you don’t hear him. You’ve never been invited to this kind of thing before and your family rarely ate together. So, the aesthetic of sitting down for a countryside meal with a farming family, like it’s Thanksgiving, is a fantasy you’re eager to fulfill.    //   Unfortunately, dinner at the Min household has to be held off when your first harvest comes.    Finally after a month of waiting, there’s actual kale out in the fields that are ready to be collected. The leaves are small, a little bitter and it’s not a large yield — but it isn’t bad for the first time. You’re happy enough that you’ve grown something, so you don’t nick pick for now.   Instead, you focus on wrapping up the bundles, on preparing a stall, on organizing a spot at the market to sell. And when the days of busy work and high pressure accumulate into the first Sunday of the month, you’ve arranged crates of freshly washed, organic kale ready for purchase.   It’s exciting. One week you’re walking around as a customer and the next, you’re on the other side of the stand as a vendor. You get to witness the behind the scenes of other farmers, the doors opening at nine sharp, the increasing bustle of the market.   But for some reason, you only have a few people who stop by and only one who buys a bundle.   “Don’t be worried,” Jungkook comforts, having stopped by once he noticed you. “People tend to buy what they’re used to, so just wait a while. You’ll eventually get your own set of customers!”   You can only hope he’s right.   By five in the evening, it’s over and you hold in your sigh. You wonder what you should do with the abundance of kale you have left, but you try not to linger as you close shop and the market shuts its doors.   Everyone seems to disassemble their stalls with ease, carrying crates to their cars, collecting their earnings. Most are gone within ten minutes but you struggle, unable to keep up when it’s all too new to you and before you know it, you’re the last one left in the space that’s still cleaning up after yourself.   The only person you catch is Yoongi who’s walking off, passing you with a crate of two lettuce heads, having already sold most of it. You notice he’s in one of his open flannels again, this time it’s yellow and gray, and you send a friendly smile. But he doesn’t say anything or make a change from his indifferent expression.   But then he stops. Five meters away.   “You should stop treating this like a joke,” Yoongi deadpans, swiveling around on his heel.   You freeze, halfway from grabbing the mason tip jar that you decorated with washi tape the night before. You blink, not sure if Min Yoongi is actually and willingly uttering words to you or if it’s your imagination. “What?”   But it isn’t. He is very much talking to you. “The market isn’t here for someone like you to play games.”   Now, you’re just confused. “But…...I’m not playing games...?”   “It’s obvious you’re not serious about this.”   You scoff. You’ve had your fair share of running into mean girls in the fashion industry and in High School, the ones who are snarky and make passive aggressive insults that are disguised as compliments. You just never expected to run into something like that here.   And in such a straightforward way too.   Usually people are more subtle when they show that they don’t like you.   “You can’t accuse me. You don’t know anything about me!”   Yoongi stares at you boredly. “You’re making a mockery out of people’s livelihood.”   “I’m trying to learn.” You cross your arms, standing your ground.    You suppose from his perspective it might be off-putting that you’ve come from nowhere and you’re trying your hand at the farm life. But you swear you haven’t been condescending nor have you ever looked down on anyone. At least you hope it hasn’t come across that way.   “I don’t know what I’m doing, but if it seems like I’ve been mocking you then I’m sorry.” This isn’t just a hobby to you nor is it a spectacle for your amusement. You’re serious. Even if you might come across as ditzy, insincere and inexperienced. “But you don’t need to go out of your way to insult me. I already know I was stupid for coming here. Why do you think I came alone? This is a whole new world for me and I’m trying, so I’d appreciate some empathy.”   Yoongi stares at you. You stare at him.   The two of you have your eyes locked in one another’s, and you want to throw hands, but then he suddenly walks away as if he didn’t hear a word you said.   You glare at his backside, huffing out in frustration.    As if your day wasn’t bad enough, he had to make it worse.   //   “Stop being ridiculous, Y/N!”   Your mom’s voice is jarring on the other end of the line. It’s grating to your ears. There’s a strong urge to hang up, but you’re not sure if she’ll call again. You’re surprised she called you in the first place — the likelihood of a second time is slim.   “I’m actually doing well, thank you very much.”   She ignores you. “Sell the land and come home. Do you really think you can do this?!”   Tears sting your eyes against your will. You inhale to keep your voice even and steady. “I do actually. I’m learning while I’m out here and it’s not as hard as I thought it would be.”   “You’re making this harder than it needs to be. You had a high paying job. An apartment. Clean water to drink. Lots of food to eat. You were comfortable! And you gave it all up, why?!”   “The air’s fresher here,” you quip much to your mom’s chagrin and frustration. “I’m a grown woman, mom. I can make my own decisions.”   “Until you make others pick up after you!”    You wince, hand tightening on your duvet. You try your best not to cry. She doesn’t need to know that you’re running out of money, that your kitchen is filled with leafy greens you couldn’t sell, that your back aches from working out on the fields. “Don’t come running to me when you finally get bored or you’re halfway to starving to death.”   You know they think sooner or later, you’ll show up back home with your packed bag. But you refuse to give in. You’ll prove your friends and family wrong — you’ll follow through with this.   If there was one thing you were good at, it was being stupid. Being stupid made you at the bottom of the class, it made you have friends who used you, it made you struggle. And it made you resilient. It made you know what working hard to get to where you want meant. It made you determined.   And you’re gonna fucking give it your best! Even if the smarter route would be to give up!   So with your sleeves rolled up to your elbows, you brace yourself and enter your kitchen full of kale. If you can’t sell it raw, then there are other things that you can try.   //   “Get your kale kombucha! Your kale smoothie! Full of vitamins and nutrients!”   You’re holding a tray of paper cup samples, voice loud with a wide smile. A woman who’s looking at your stand curiously passes by and you steal the chance, smoothly intercepting her way. “Would you like to try one, ma’am?”   “Sure.”   She takes a sample and once she sips, her eyes light up and her expression becomes inquisitive. The woman approaches your stand, looking over the products you have. “It’s really delicious. How much is it for a smoothie?”   “The three sizes are here.” You gesture to the display and she hums. “Two dollars for a small, two fifty for a medium and three for a large. We also have salted kale chips, kale guacamole and kale pesto.”   “Is this all homemade?”   “It is!” Your enormous smile is proud. “I grew the kale organically and made these with fresh ingredients.”   “I’ll take a large smoothie, this guacamole and a bundle of just regular kale then.”   “Coming right up!”   You’re no stranger to the art of advertising — it’s one of your strengths with your marketing background. You’re pretty sure the chalkboard signs are doing a good job of directing attention to your stall and the samples are certainly going a long way too.   “Can I try one, miss?” A little kid tugs on your green apron and you lower yourself down to their eye-level, happily handing them two.   “Of course you can!”   Sunday after Sunday, you do better and better.   Of course, it’s not without constant trial and error, honing in recipes and packaging, learning how to keep products as fresh as possible. But the improvements make the labour all worth it.    You notice how Yoongi watches you across the floor and when you smile, he immediately looks away. But there's little time to pay attention to him when the lineup at your stall gradually becomes longer and longer. Jungkook helps you out when he can, whether that’s manning the register beside you or handing out samples to draw in curious customers.   “You’re gonna run me out of business soon, Y/N.” Jungkook says in the midst of a slow down when you’re finally able to catch your breaths.   “Please,” you giggle. “I’m sure you’re the one drawing in the business. Weren’t those last two customers trying to get your number for the past ten minutes? Last time they kept on asking me about you too.”   The boy laughs shyly and it’s all too endearing. “They’re just bein’ nice. If anything, you’re the one drawing in the customers since you’re so pretty and all.”   More giggles bubble out of your throat and you lean closer to him. “So you think I’m pretty?”   Jungkook realizes what he said and his face reddens. He awkwardly scratches the back of his neck. “I mean...isn’t that a fact?”   “You’re too sweet, Kook,” you sigh wistfully. “Thank you for helping me.”   “Anytime, really.” Jungkook’s smiles softly and his lips part, but before he can say anything, his peripheral vision finally catches the weight of a third party’s stare. His eyes travel across the market floor to the wooden stall of lettuce — right on the man behind it who’s rolling his eyes.    You follow his line of sight and a knowing smile appears on your features. “Jungkook, can you hand me the sample tray?”   You might not be the brightest crayon in the box, but you’re not that big of an idiot. For the past two weeks, you’ve noticed how Yoongi keeps staring at you. You don’t suspect it to be sudden infatuation either. Most likely, it’s surprise that you’ve proven him wrong or reluctant admission that you’re on your way to success, or perhaps passive aggression too.   Whatever the case is, you approach him and witness him visibly stiffen as you come closer.   Your smile remains bright when you ask, “Is everything okay, Yoongi?”   “I’m fine,” the man deadpans. “You should move. You’re blocking my customers.”   “You have no customers.”   “I would if you weren’t standing there.”   You scoff. “You are not cute.”   Yoongi’s brow lifts, amused at your comment. “Excuse me?”   “I want to make peace,” you outright declare, having no shame with confronting him. “I’ve had my fair share of drama back home and I’m not looking forward to picking fights here, so I forgive you.” Yoongi snorts as you raise your sample tray as a peace offering. “I know you’re curious, so you try one. My kale kombucha is my most popular item. It’s a fermented tea that has lots of healthy yeast and bacteria.”   “No.” The dark-haired man rejects without needing to blink. “Kale is disgusting. There’s a reason no one sells it here.”   You’re shocked, not knowing where to start. But there’s no point in arguing with him and spewing nutrition facts. Your pride is much too high to insist too, so you merely lift your chin. “Fine. Suit yourself. But one of these days, you’re going to fall in love with kale, Min Yoongi.”   It’s a challenge — but a one-sided one. Yoongi simply sighs as you strut away, feeling more tired than he did before.    //   The engines of the moving truck rumbles and coughs as it rolls down the dirt road.   It’s drawn the attention of several, including his dad and mom. They’re peering out the front window, curtains tugged with their noses pressed to the glass. Usually, Yoongi doesn’t care much for what the neighbours are up to or keeping up with community gossip, but for some reason, his curiosity is piqued enough that he glances out as well.   “What’s going on?”   “There are trucks coming back and forth from Old Man Seok’s land.”   Yoongi wonders if you’ve given up and you’re moving out. He wouldn’t be surprised.   But suddenly, before he can walk off and mind his own business, his mother whirls around. “Yoonie, go check up on our new neighbour.”   He exhales exhaustingly. “Why?”   “Well, you’re friends, aren’t you?”    “We’re not.” It’s a firm fact, but his mother doesn’t hear him. She’s already moving into the kitchen and making him follow her. He knows arguing is futile — once she’s set on her mind on something, no one can change it.   “Go on and deliver some cheese too.” She hands him a paper bag. “We haven’t welcomed her properly yet and it’s customary to at least give a greeting and gift.”   Yoongi begrudgingly obliges and minutes later, he finds himself making the trek across the acres to the cottage that always reminded him of Christmas with its cherry red roof and forest green walls. The polluting trucks drive away in the meanwhile, wheels turning against the gravel fading, and the countryside returns to its quaint atmosphere. As he comes closer, Yoongi notices the wooden spools on your lawn and some barber chairs littered around, akin to a dumpster yard, but he avoids them and walks up the porch, knocking twice on the door.   He can imagine thrusting the bag in your hand, muttering a greeting and question or two before getting back to the farm. Yet, what he doesn’t anticipate is silence and then noises farther away.   The man sighs and decides to follow the sounds lest he spends the rest of the afternoon waiting at your front door.   He rounds the house to the backyard.    “What are you doing?”   Yoongi discovers mason jars, picnic blankets, wooden crates sprawled all over on the grass — things he guesses the trucks brought over — and he finds you on a ladder with fairy lights tangled around your limbs.   You jolt. In horror, Yoongi watches the ladder dangerously wobble back and forth, but luckily, it steadies and you twist yourself around. “Holy shit! You almost scared me half to death!”   “What are you doing?” he repeats, more urgently and concerned than before.   “I’m setting up fairy lights obviously.” Your smile is big, cheeks swelling with it. “I’m gonna decorate part of the land with hipster furniture and channel the farm aesthetic. It’s going to become an Insta spot. Hashtag kale-in-farm.”   Yoongi doesn’t understand half of what you just said and he’s not sure if he should even ask.   “What’s a hashtag?”   “You don’t know what a hashtag is?” Your eyes are perfectly rounded, looking at him like he’s an alien and he chuckles. The irony isn’t lost on him. He isn’t the weird one — you are.   “Should I know what it is?”   You don’t answer, merely climbing off the ladder and his breath hitches at how you don’t watch your step.    Yoongi doesn’t get stressed easily, but he swears he’s going to get a heart attack looking at you.   You pull out your phone suddenly from your back pocket and after some tapping, you thrust the screen in his face. “This is Instagram, see? It’s an app where you can follow people and see the pictures that they post. An Insta spot is a place where you can take good Instagram pictures. Hashtags is a way to label the posts, so others can see and search it up. Or at least that’s what I think it is. It’s kind of hard to explain, it’s one of those things that just catches on and you get after using it. This is my page, see?”   You’ve given your phone to him and Yoongi eyes your bikini photos before handing it back.    “Uh-huh.”   “I can’t believe you don’t have an Instagram. You should make one and add me!”   “No thanks.”   You huff, pouting at him and Yoongi’s mouth twitches as he resists the small smile. There’s something in the way you react to him being mean to you that makes it all too entertaining.   “My mom wanted to give you some cheese.” He hands the paper bag over and you excitedly peer inside. “It’s just goat cheese. Usually she makes a cherry pie as a housewarming gift, but today….was a bit last minute.”   Yet in spite of the measly present, Yoongi’s taken aback at how happy you seem. “This is so sweet! Tell your mom I said thank you! I should probably give her some kale—”   He lifts his palm, stopping you in the middle of your sentence. “There’s no need.”   “Well, tell her I said thank you.” You put it down on the wooden patio steps and move towards the ladder. Then something by his foot catches your eye. “Oh, can you do me a favour and put that typewriter on the wooden crate?”   Yoongi doesn’t know why you have a broken typewriter, but he follows your instructions. His eyes travel to several worn bikes you have leaning against the railing. It’s strange considering you don’t seem like the type to bike.   As if reading his mind, you laugh. “They don’t work. It’s just for the aesthetics.”   “Uh-huh.” He turns back, about to bid goodbye and leave this mess behind him. But as he turns away, he witnesses you step on the highest prong of the ladder. The part you’re not allowed to step on. With the danger warning signs plastered on it that says ‘STOP’ in big, red letters.   Yoongi’s breath hitches and he lurches over, grabbing the ladder to steady it as it wobbles.   “Woah!” You regain your balance and turn to grin at him. “Thanks for that. You saved my life!”   “Get off.”   “What?”   “Get off the ladder before you die.” His stern command has you obeying and you come down to the ground again. Yoongi sighs and takes the lights from you. “I’ll do it. Tell me where you want them and hold the bottom rung for me.”   You’re bewildered, but you don’t reject his offer of help. Yoongi follows your instructions too, working quickly and more efficiently than when you were, and you can’t help but giggle as you watch him string the fairy lights.    He glares at you. “What?”   You look up at him, beaming a grin. “For being such a mean, old grump, you’re actually pretty reliable and considerate, Yoongi.”   He diverts his vision elsewhere. “Whatever.”   But it’s all too true.    In many ways, Yoongi reminds you of peppermint candy. Hard on the outside but with just a bit of melting, all too sweet and sugary on the inside.   //   It starts off with you.   A post, a cute caption, the hashtag. You manage to get Jungkook to follow suit and then it’s a group. A person who shows up with their friends, stopping by to enjoy your kale farm and haphazardly filming their adventure to put onto their social media. Then it’s three or four, more and more of the hashtag being used, of pictures being taken, of others catching wind of the trendy new place to take photos, of fresh kale being harvested and kale kombucha being sold.   It’s an exponential growth and before you know it, there’s a bustle at your farm.   Strangers that park in the designated area, families enjoying the picnic spots, young adults posing for photographs underneath the strung fairy lights after dark. Your kale chips and smoothie sales skyrocket and after constructing a website, you know you’ve made a name for yourself.   You hire Jimin, Jungkook’s cousin, to help you out. Recently turned eighteen, he’s gentle and luckily attentive. He excels in customer service and in between selling your products and doing measly tasks to upkeep the farm, you know you’ve finally found a sustainable income aside from the farmers’ market alone.   “This ‘s what I call innovation,” Yoongi’s dad muses as the two of them stand near the tractor, looking over the field to the figures prancing on your land and listening to the laughter that leaks over. “It ain’t often a smart woman suddenly shows,” he says, glancing at him. “You should take advantage of it.”   “It’s not smart.” Yoongi turns away. “It’s dumb luck. There’s nothing impressive about it.”   His dad sighs at him, but as they retreat home, Yoongi can’t help glancing over his shoulder.   //   Yoongi has accepted that you’re a complete wild card — when he thought you were making a spectacle of this rural life for your own amusement, you make a whole declaration about how serious you are. When he expects you to move out, you instead bring bits and bobs to your farm. When he expects you to completely and utterly fail, you thrive.   Yoongi always thought that he was the enigma — hard to understand, hard to get to know, one of the many reasons he isn’t particularly close to anyone. But in reality, you are. At surface level, it looks like you’re simple-minded, overly enthused, optimistic. Yet you continuously defy his expectations.   And he has to applaud you for it.    But of all things, Yoongi most certainly did not expect to see you on his porch one afternoon.   “I got invited by your mom for dinner,” you explain with another infamously bright smile and your arm lifts with a bag. “I brought kale!”   “You did.” He holds in his sigh.   “I don’t know how you want to eat it, so it’s raw….unless…..do you not have electricity? I can go back to prepare it.”   “What?”   “You know, electricity.” When he stares at you, you begin explaining to be helpful. “The stuff that gives you light and power and you can turn on the stove—”   “I know what electricity is!” Yoongi shouts. He’s almost always calm, but you have a talent for being condescending without even realizing.   “What’s with all the noise?” His mom emerges and her face immediately lights up, lips forming into a warm smile. She wipes her hands on her apron and comes to embrace you. “Y/N! I thought I heard your voice! Come in, come in! Oh my word, what’s this? Kale? Thank you! Was the walk here long?”   “Not at all.” You smile, being ushered in the kitchen. It still amazes you how much Yoongi looks like his mom. They both have tender, soft features. Albeit, the male took on his father’s personality and characteristics, his physical appearance compared to his mom is nearly a carbon copy. “It’s only a few acres away. I love your home, by the way. It has a good energy to it.”   Yoongi wonders when you got so comfortable with his parents.   “I’m preparing dinner right now. Should be done fairly soon, but Yoonie! Why don’t you show dear Y/N around the farm?”   Yoongi knows he doesn’t have a choice and you hold in your giggle at his dejected expression. It’s not often you can witness him being obedient and when he takes you through his backyard, you can’t help poking fun at him. “Yoonie?”    “It’s a childhood nickname,” he grumbles.   There’s an urge to squish his cheeks together. They’ve always reminded you of jello or bread loafs, but for the sake of not being slapped, you control the desire.   The Min property is vast.    Chicken coops and several sheds are close to the house, but in the distance, cows and goats graze in the open pastures. The lush fields seem to stretch to the horizon, only broken up by the occasional tree left to grow in peace. It’s a tranquil landscape and there’s an urge to sit back in a rocking chair and knit. Even though you don’t know how to knit.   “How big is the farm?”   “It’s a hundred acres.”   Yoongi says it like it’s nothing impressive, but it’s still fifty times the size of your own farm.   “Is that all lettuce?” You look over the plowed fields filled with green.   “Some of it is asparagus and carrots, but it’s mostly different kinds of lettuce,” he explains, “We don’t sell all of it at the market. We got a few contracts from grocery stores and those get shipped out, so we’re always busy year round.”   You’re amazed. His family manages to do a lot more than you and you already feel swamped half the time. But you suppose you still have a long way to go before you can call yourself a real farmer.   The pair of you approach the fence and you watch the goats chewing on their grass, bleating at you. You grin and mimic their noises, oblivious to the way Yoongi steals a glance at you. “What do you do with all the animals?” you ask.   “They’re for personal usage. We eat chicken eggs and my mom makes cheese a lot.” Yoongi diverts his vision at your intense stare and clears his throat. He didn’t know all of this was so interesting to you. “Have you ever milked a cow before?”   “No!”   “Do you want to learn how?”   “Yes!”   This time, Yoongi can’t hold back his chuckle at your childlike enthusiasm.    He leads a smaller cow into the stall, introducing her as August, and you help him brush her down. Yoongi shows you how to wash August with warm, soapy water, how to clean her utters and let the milk down by relaxing her. He demonstrates as well, clamping the top of the utter between his thumb and first finger before squeezing.   You follow his instructions, mimic his movements and milk squirts into the silver pale successfully. “It feels kind of weird.”   The corner of his thin lips pull. “Is it supposed to feel nice?”   When your hands get tired, Yoongi leans over to help you out, explaining how often someone can milk cows for, where August came from and how long she’s been around. You never expected how awfully endearing it would be to listen to a farm boy talk about his precious cow, but it is. Or maybe that’s just Yoongi being Yoongi. Everything that comes out of his mouth is interesting to you.   “—months ago and…..are you even listening?”   “Of course I am!” You totally weren’t and he doesn’t seem to believe your assertion either, so to divert his attention, you turn the direction of the utter and squeeze. The line of milk squirts directly at Yoongi’s kneecap, dampening his jeans and you laugh at his scandalized expression.   “What the fuc—!”   “Stop! Stop!” You stand, giggling incessantly while blocking your arms up when Yoongi lunges down and squeezes two utters at you. The milk is warm and sticky against your skin. “I’m sorry!”   “Too late!” His cheeks are swollen with a gummy smile, happily taking his revenge.   Before any of you have realized, the sun has gone down and there’s a lingering scent of milk on your clothes. But no one other than you and Yoongi notices or at least his parents don’t say anything.   “How are things going, dear?” his mom asks you with a satisfied smile as she watches you devour her dessert apple pie. Dinner at the Min’s was all too cozy and welcoming. Food had filled the rounded table and the family, albeit only three members in total, had gathered together.    For the past few months, you’ve been eating by yourself with a magazine by your side or in front of the old television with some obscure show on. You missed having conversations over delicious meals and part of you wonders how you’ll return to your regular routine after tonight.   After a taste of the forbidden fruit, you’ll wish every night was like this.   “Better than expected actually. It’s a learning process, so it goes up and down, but everyone’s been so helpful to me that it hasn’t been bad.”   Yoongi’s father nods solemnly. “All on your own too.”   You become shy under their praise. “It’s nothing, really. I just wanted to preserve the memory of my grandfather and all I have is his land, so....”    Sometimes you lay awake thinking about how much your life has changed. A year ago, you were still in LA in a high rise apartment working, and in an effort to connect with your family roots again, you left it all behind. But you don’t regret your decision whatsoever.   From the moment you came here, no matter what challenges you faced, it all became worth it in the end. It’s a hard life, but a peaceful one. A simple and serene way of living that you always needed.   “Bless your heart,” his mother swoons and you realize Yoongi’s gazing at you too — with an odd sense of gentleness that you aren’t used to. Or maybe that’s merely the dim lighting of the small dining room. “You are the hardest working, gosh darn smartest young lady I have ever met.”   You look away from Yoongi, face warming at the compliments. “No, I just try my hardest.”   “And try hard you do!” His mom leans across the table, eyes bright. “Don’t you think so, Yoonie? Isn’t Y/N marvelous?”   You turn to him expectedly, but Yoongi’s eyes are suddenly down at his empty plate. “Well, there’s nothing else to do out here but work, so isn’t that the default?”   You scoff and it takes his attention. “You aren’t cute at all.”   The corner of his mouth tugs. “Excuse me?”   “Don’t pay any attention to him, Y/N.” His mom bats at your arm. “He’s too much like his dad.”   “You mean, he took after my best traits?” The older man at the table has his brow cocked and you smile at the banter, but the woman beside you doesn’t entertain it.   “He took after your temper and grumbling.”   “Which is why no one ever bullied him.” Yoongi’s father slaps him on his back and he sighs.   His mom turns her head to continue, “Never mind them. I swear, Yoonie used to be the cutest kid in the whole country. I don’t know when he changed. Do you want to see his baby pictures?”   Your spine straightens and your eyes widen. “I would love to—”   Suddenly, there’s the ear-piercing noise of the chair leg scraping against the wooden floorboards. Yoongi has stood up and tosses his napkin down. “It’s getting pretty late. Probably time to go home, right?”   You laugh, but oblige only because it gives you reason to come over again. Yoongi’s mother at least assures as much, promising that next time you’ll be able to see all the albums and photographs of that time he cried while being chased by a goose — something you’re looking forward to, much to Yoongi’s dismay.   He’s just too much fun to tease.   The more and more you get to know Yoongi and the people in his life, the better you’re coming to realize that he’s not that much of a grump at all. It’s a facade, really. A thin curtain that hides how soft and pouty he actually is. Less like the bad boy you initially thought. More like a farm sheep.   “You didn’t need to walk me home, you know.” You turn to him, glancing at his profile. “It’s only a few acres away.”   “Yeah, but then I would never hear the end of it from my mom. It’s dark out anyway and it’s not like I mind.”   You nod and the pair of you fall into a comfortable lull. There’s a lot from tonight that you have to think about and it’s not just about Yoongi and his family. After seeing how they run their farm and how much they’ve expanded, you wonder if you’ll ever get to that size too.   “What do you think if I started growing quinoa and soy?”   He gives you an incredulous look, still visible in spite of the darkness, and it makes you laugh.   “What would you do with quinoa and soy?”   “I don’t know. Make different smoothies or flavours of kombucha? I would have to look into it. But it’s just a thought for no—” The pitch of your voice raises as you lose your footing, about to plunge. But then Yoongi yanks your arm back, steadying you before you trip in the ditch. “Oh my god! I almost died!”   “Watch where you’re going, woman,” he scolds and his hand boldly wraps around yours, palms clasping together firmly. You glance down, foreign to the feeling of his affection and Yoongi notices. He looks straight ahead, but quickly explains, “If you die and haunt the farm, that’ll bring down the value of the land nearby.”   You scoff. “You’re lucky you have a cute face, Min Yoongi.”   His lips curl. “I thought you said I wasn’t cute.”   “Your personality isn’t, but your face is alright.” If anything, you’re downplaying it, but he doesn’t need to know that. “Out here, you’re a good eight, but where I’m from, maybe you’re a six and a half.”   His laugh is mellifluous, and it infects a smile on your own features. “What about you?”   You look down to where you’re joined at the hands and muse how much larger his palm and fingers are to you, how his skin is calloused from working the fields, how warm and secure it feels.   “Clearly, I’m a ten wherever I go,” you quip. “Can’t you see?”   Yoongi apologizes, “I’m sorry, I might be blind then ‘cause I can’t see you as attractive at all.”   Another scoff tears from you, a lighthearted one that makes his grin widen. “You know what? I take it back. You aren’t cute at all. Not even your face can make up for your sour personality.”   Yoongi chuckles, squeezing your hand, and it’s awfully unfair how your face heats more.   //   Despite how busy you get managing the Insta spot, planting and harvesting kale, and cooking and packaging products, you never fail to find time to be at the market every Sunday. While your other sources of income are slowly increasing more than what you get from the farmers’ market, the atmosphere and sense of community is enough for you to scrape up time out of your week to set up your stall.   And it’s often the time that you get to have your conversations with Jungkook too.   “So….did you try it out?” Your eyes glisten, locked into his. “What did you think? Did it work?”   The boy scratches the back of his neck. “I...don’t think kale shampoo is it, Y/N.”   You deflate, keeping your sulking to a minimum. It didn’t work for you either, but you were trying to see if it was just your hair that was the strange one. “Really? But it looks soft.” You reach over and plant your hand in his black bed of hair. To your surprise, it’s even silkier than it appears.   “Woah! It’s soft!”   Jungkook ducks his head, colour blooming on his cheeks. He doesn’t bat your hand away nor does he lean into your touch when you pet him incessantly. “It isn’t that soft…”   “What shampoo and conditioner do you usually use? It feels so nice, Kook.”   The both of you are oblivious to the flannel-wearing man from across the market who’s glaring above the heads of lettuce. He bores his gaze into you, wondering what the hell you’re doing in the middle of the farmers’ market and putting on a show for all the older ladies to watch. Don’t you know how gossip and rumours start at this place? Merely chatting is enough to grab attention, but to be outright flirting like this was downright reckless.   His jaw ticks, nostrils flaring. He’s uncomfortable. It isn’t any of his business, but Yoongi feels an urge to do something. It’s utterly irrational. Completely out of the norm of his usual behaviour.   But somehow, he finds himself abandoning his stall and crossing the floor.   “What the hell are you two doing?”   “Yoongi!” You turn, greeting him with a big smile and suddenly that irrational emotion is replaced with something else that sits at his chest. To have your attention, he feels…..satisfied. Even if it’s childish. “I was just talking about the kale shampoo I made, but I think it’s an idea I’m going to have to scrap.”   “Shampoo?”   “It left a sticky mess on my head and took me ten minutes to wash it off,” Jungkook tells and his smile softens at your sigh. “Sorry, Y/N.”   “Maybe kale conditioner would work better....”   At the same time, Jungkook’s name is called by his grandma nearby, so he bids goodbye and a see you later to the both of you. It’s a slow down period right after lunch, so there’s fewer people around and with Yoongi here, you take the opportunity. “Can you watch my stall for me?”    “What?”   “I need to go to the bathroom.” You clasp your hands together and bat your lashes, trying to appeal to him. “Pretty please, Yoongi? I would really, really appreciate it.”   He exhales and waves his hand boredly, not sparing you a glance. But you already know he’s relinquished before he says it. “Fine.”   You jump up with a smile. “Thanks! You’re the best!”   In the next three seconds, you’ve jogged away and Yoongi’s left standing at the market, watching your stall and his stall from across the floor that he abandoned. He wonders how he got into this predicament, but doesn’t dwell when his eyes stray to your bottles of fancy kombucha on display.   He picks up a bottle, curious as to how you made these fancy labels, and he snorts when he notices in tiny text it says, ‘don’t kale me’. You’re such a dork, it’s impossible to believe. Then again, his mom decided to make a pun for the lettuce stall too, so he’s not one to talk.   For a moment, Yoongi ponders what the hell this kale kombucha tastes like.   He got a chance to try it before when you waltz up to him all those weeks ago with a tray of samples, but he denied you out of pride and stubbornness. He knows it must taste somewhat decent if you’re making all those sales. He’s seen people drinking it as they walk around too, but he’ll be damned if he actually went up to you and bought one. He’s sure you’d throw a celebration and do the whole ‘I told you so’ dance if it was actually delicious.   Relinquishing, he places the bottle back on the display.   But then the awful happens. Time slows — there’s a noise and the entire dainty shelf is collapsing. Yoongi is helpless to the way the bottles collide against the ground deafeningly, how the dark green liquid splatters on the concrete, to the way the glass shards spray. He cusses and manages to catch one bottle before turning around.   There are people staring at him — customers alarmed and vendors sympathizing.   But more importantly, you’re standing meters away, returned from the bathroom.   He catches your shock, your confusion, and then the heartbreak — even if it only lasts for a blink before you’re smiling again.   You come over, looking down at the mess. “I didn’t know you hated me this much to sabotage my stuff like this,” you quip jokingly. But there’s no banter or excuses being made. There’s silence. And you lift your eyes to meet Yoongi’s, realizing how mortified he is. “Hey, it’s alright. I knew the shelf had a few loose screws, but I didn’t know it would fall like that. I should’ve fixed it sooner.”   “I’m sorry. I’ll make it up to you.”   “You don’t really need to do th……”   “I’ll make it up to you,” Yoongi states more firmly than before, eyes darkened and you swallow hard. He knows you’re trying to cover up how hurt you are, how you’re trying to save face and not only is he embarrassed, he’s guilty. “You were supposed to sell all this, weren’t you?”   You give in and Yoongi grabs a broom, aiding you in cleaning up the mess. You’ve never seen him so serious and solemn before, but it makes you glad that he’s the one here to help.   //   At six in the morning, you wake up and less than ten minutes later, you hear the wheezing engine of a truck out front.   The sun was barely on the horizon, but when you walk out to the porch, you discover Yoongi shutting the door of his vehicle and coming up to you. He’s dressed in an oversized purple and black plaid flannel and gray shirt underneath, black hair flopping to the side, features softer than usual. He’s yawning and rubbing his eyes, all too endearing that you have to admit it.   “Mornin’,” you greet with a grin and he merely grunts, gesturing inside your house. A laugh draws out of you and you open the door for him. “You didn’t need to do this, you know. I told you I was totally fine.”   “Just accept my help, lady,” he sighs and looks around your living space, glancing at the polaroids strung above the brick mantle, the recycled jar of flowers on the kitchen counter, and the couch cushions made from flour sacks you reused. You grow warm under his scrutiny, realizing that no one has ever entered your home before. But while you expect to get criticism, Yoongi instead says, “I like what you did with the place. It’s cozy.”   You smile, still a bit self-conscious. “Thanks. Do you want tea? Coffee? Kale juice?”   “I’m fine.” He follows after you, stepping into the kitchen. The space is crowded or maybe it’s just you feeling small with him so close. “I’m here to help. What do you usually do at this time?”   “Well, I usually start by harvesting whatever kale I can. The weather seems good today too and there are some fields that need to be plowed, so I should do that and then plant some seeds…”   “Okay.” He’s already tugging his sleeves up. “Let’s get to it.”   It’s unusual to have someone join you during your morning chores, but it isn’t unwarranted. Granted, you have to teach him a little on the way you do things, but he already knows a lot from working on his own farm and you find Yoongi is a great listener. He might have a blank expression and be exceptionally quiet, but his occasional questions are insightful and he’s attentive when he mimics you.   It’s peaceful — the sun not yet sweltering in the sky or giving an unbearable heat that makes it hard to work, the animals in the far distance not awoken, the breeze curling through your hair. When you look up from your spot, you see Yoongi working as hard as you are and it tickles the corners of your lips into a subtle smile.   Things finish twice as fast and then you’re taking a break, making breakfast for Yoongi.   His company is nice at the table, even when he complains that your sunny side up eggs are too overcooked and you threaten to throw him out. It’s a kind of banter that doesn’t so much irritate you — rather, it keeps you on your toes, making you giggle at witty remarks while he rolls his eyes.   After breakfast, Yoongi insists on washing the dishes and succeeds when he whines and feigns annoyance on how you don’t trust him to clean your plates. He ends up fixing a light fixture in your kitchen too after you mention that it sometimes flickers off and startles you.   He’s helpful and handy, more than you thought he would be, but you try not to get used to it.   “This is where you keep your kombucha?” he asks as you show off the pantry that you’ve practically changed into a cellar.   “Yep.” You tap one of the large jars on the shelf. “It takes five to seven days for it to ferment after I make it. Then, I have to add in the kale and let it ferment for another three days. These babies will be ready for tomorrow. But I have to make a new batch today.”   “That’s a lot of work,” he comments.   “Oh. You haven’t seen it yet.” You brush past him, smirking.   Yoongi looks all too cute in the pink apron. It’s a comical sight and albeit, isn’t actually a part of your usual routine to wear one, you made it up on the fly just to see him wear it and he’s too cute.    “What?” His head whips up, brow cocked at the way you’re grinning.   “Nothing. Hand me that bowl.”   It’s a bit of an irony that Yoongi hasn’t tried any of your kombucha, but is first to learn the recipe from you. You show him how to brew the gallon of black tea, how to add the cup of sugar in and allow it to cool before pouring it into the jar.    “What’s that?” he asks when you’re sticking a rubbery flab into the jar.   “It’s a scoby. It has a bunch of yeast and bacteria that helps with fermentation. It’s made from kombucha, sugar, black tea.” You seal off the jar and Yoongi goes quiet. You look up at him, discovering a thoughtful expression on his face as if he’s impressed you know what you’re doing. “I’m not completely stupid, you know. I know I come across as—”   “I never thought you were dumb,” Yoongi suddenly states without missing a single beat. Your eyes become rounded and the corner of his mouth pulls. “Maybe insensitive and ignorant, but not stupid per se.”   “Hey!”   “There’s a difference,” Yoongi laughs and insists, “Being ignorant means you just haven’t learnt yet, but being stupid means you can’t learn at all.” He ducks when you half-heartedly swing and more chuckles fill the home, including your own. But Yoongi’s right. You had no clue what you were getting yourself into when you first arrived. Everything’s been a learning process, but it finally feels like things are falling into place.   Yoongi helps you wash the kale out back and stays by your side, peering over your shoulder, as you make the kale chips, guacamole and pesto. He stirs and gets ingredients when he can, and you find he has quite a knack for packaging things neatly. He’s somehow careful yet efficient.   “I didn’t know you did so much.”   “Yeah.” You wipe your sweat with the back of your hand. “I try to space everything out, but sometimes everything falls on the same day and I’ve been running low on products, so I can’t put it off.”   He hums, sealing the jar of pesto shut and then working on smoothing the label on the surface.   It’s mid-afternoon already. You didn’t realize how quickly time was going. The golden sun is already coming through the windows of the kitchen as you and Yoongi work across from one another, falling into a lull. You turned the staticky radio on, but it often acts as background noise when either of you start another conversation.   You giggle and he tilts his head up at the noise. “What? Did I put the label on upside down again?”   “No.” You shake your head, smiling to yourself. “It just kind of feels like we’re a married couple, that’s all.”   Unbeknownst to you, Yoongi freezes. But then he eases, the corner of his own mouth tugging.   “You’re not trying to seduce me, are you?”   “Seduce you?!” You scoff, looking up to see him focused on tying the ribbon around the jar. “I have higher standards than that, Min Yoongi.”   “Says the one who’s been flirting with me all morning.”   “I’m not flirting with you.”   “Uh-huh. Don’t tempt me with the suggestion of marriage then. I might actually do it.”   You’re baffled, made speechless with how he twists his words and how sweet he can talk. Your face heats and you know that if you open your mouth, you’ll blubber and make a fool out of yourself. So you opt for a huff and silence which only spurs on his chuckles and inadvertently makes you sulk harder.   If anything Yoongi was the flirt. But you’re not about to declare it in case he asks if that means you’re affected by it. Because you are.   The rest of the afternoon is spent finishing on packaging and storing away the products to sell tomorrow when the Insta spot opens and the following day at the farmers’ market. But as you dust off your hands, you feel the gurgle of your empty stomach and you offer to make him an early dinner.   “Is there anything you want to eat? My cooking skills aren’t that great—”   “Clearly.”   You glare at him. “—but I can look up any recipe you want.”   Yoongi makes a disgruntled noise and he leans over to open your fridge. You peep over his shoulder and at once, blood drains from your face.   “There’s nothing in your fridge, Y/N.” He turns around with puzzlement on his visage. “How did you make breakfast this morning?”   “I….used the last of my eggs to make breakfast. I didn’t think you would actually stick around long enough for dinner.”   “And what would you have eaten tonight if I did leave?” With one foot keeping the fridge open, he starts taking out several things like a maid cleaning out your kitchen. “The strawberries have gone bad...and there’s….mold on the bread. How do you live?”   “My budget was a bit low for this week and I underestimated how much groceries I would need.” When he pulls out the drawer with bundled kale, you stop him. “That’s for me to sell.”    “You don’t eat what you grow?”   “Not really,” you admit. “I don’t actually eat much kale….I brought lots of instant noodles from the city, but I ran out two weeks ago….”   He shuts the fridge. “I’ll talk to my mom and bring more eggs and milk to you more often.”   “You don’t need to do that.”   “No, but I want to.” Looking at you, Yoongi realizes that you’re really just a girl who came from nowhere to start a whole farm. Partly hopeless and causing an urge in him to take care of you, but for some reason, he doesn’t seem to mind as much as he thought he would. “Move. I’ll make dinner. You have some iceberg lettuce and kale that I can work with.”   He starts rolling up his sleeves again and you don’t let your eyes linger on his exposed veiny forearms for long.   You feel a bit embarrassed that you didn’t prepare more and that he caught you at a struggling week. But more than that, guests are supposed to be treated better. “I’m sorry, Yoongi.”   “Don’t be.” As he passes, he plops a hand on your head and you look up at him, surprised at the unusually affectionate gesture. “I’m quite the chef, you know. I make better breakfast than you do.”   Yoongi probably does, but your pride won’t let you admit it. “Psh. You haven’t started yet. Don’t get so cocky.”   You help by setting the table and then pulling a stool to watch him cook. Maybe it’s a bit lame, but you’re impressed at his knife skills and how fast he chops the lettuce and kale into thin strips, keeping a constant rhythm and never once stopping. You scoff when he glances at you with a smirk, but there’s little you can say, especially when he sautes it in a pan with oil and half an onion you have left.   The house is filled with a mouthwatering scent and it’s even more delicious than expected once the plate is plopped down in front of you and you get a taste.   “Oh my god….how did you make this?”   Yoongi smugly shrugs. “I made it up on the fly. Can’t help that my talent is inborn.”   You’re too busy eating to retort with a snarky comment. “Maybe I should marry you.”   He laughs and quickly eats before you steal his own portion.   The sun eventually goes down and it’s hard to say goodbye after one of the best days you’ve had since coming here, but you know you’ll see Yoongi tomorrow and the next day — whether that’s across the acres and through a giant wave or arguing as you do at the market.   He’s always been around, an addition to the farm life itself, and you wouldn’t have it any other way.

When Yoongi returns home, he announces that he’s back. There are storming steps, his mom enthusiastic and racing down the stairs to ask him how it went. His dad looks around the living room corner as well, and he sighs at their intrusiveness.   “It was fine.” Yoongi tosses the keys aside, scratching the back of his neck. “She’s actually a lot more hard-working than I expected.”   He walks off before they can bombard him with any more inquiries, but they understand their son well enough and they exchange knowing smiles.

You never expect to see Yoongi awkwardly lingering on your porch like a car salesman, especially considering you were once doing the same thing at his house not long ago. But while he’s here just to deliver some apple pie his mom made, you eagerly pull him inside.   “Why? Why?” he whines childishly, but stumbles after you anyway.   “I need you to try something for me.”   It was an Insta spot day, cars filled in the lot you designated, people from the city out in the back and the chatter loud enough to leak inside the kitchen. Families were strolling about, children picking kale, young adults posing for countless pictures by the picnic blankets and decorations. Yoongi can’t quite understand what their fixation and fascination is to drive all the way out here for such frivolous things, but if it works then it works, he supposes.   You set the apple pie on the table and notice Yoongi peering out of the window, primarily watching the brunette boy fussing about and working the register behind the cute stall you made.   “Oh, that’s Jungkook’s cousin, Jimin,” you tell him, even though he probably already knows. Everyone knew everyone around here. “I hired him to help out.”   “Doing well enough to hire people?” he asks, brow lifted and a smile raising on his cheeks.   “I guess you could say so.” Your pride is supported by the bustle outside the window. “I need all the help I can get.”   “Are you trying to get me to help out too? Because I don’t work for free, lady.”   “Pft. No. I thought you might want to try out the kale kombucha you made with me last week. You came right in time actually. I just got it packaged and everything. Wait here. I’ll go grab a bottle.”   Without another word, you pull the door open and Yoongi sighs with a softened smile, watching you march across the land to chat with Jimin. But within seconds, his attention is taken away by the squeak of the door and a middle aged woman sticking her head through.    “Excuse me,” her voice is shrill, “is there a bathroom in here?”   “Uh…” He’s fairly certain you don’t let anyone inside your house and that he caught sight of fancy porta potties you set up on the side. “No. If you turn the corner, there’re some bathrooms you can use.” Yet, she blinks blankly at him and Yoongi holds his long exhale in his nose. Whatever your intentions are, it seems like he’s working for you anyhow. “I can show you.”   Yoongi hopes he’s not wrong or it’ll be terribly awkward, but luckily for him, there’s indeed bright blue stalls and the woman thanks him as she waddles off. But he can’t take refuge inside your home when he’s interrupted by someone again.   “Excuse me!” This time it’s a group of girls around his age giggling with caked makeup and dressed in short rompers. They thrust their phones forward before he can utter a word. “Can you please take some pictures for us?”   “Uh, sure.”   Yoongi feels out of his depth. Embarrassed. While you knew nothing about farm life, he knows nothing about city life. You might’ve disproved a lot of prejudices and stereotypes he held, but he still feels awkward and out of place in their scrutiny. Like he’s part of a completely different world, and he’s not sure what to say or how to act.   But he still tries and crouches down, trying to frame the photo and catch the trees in the back with the stringed fairy lights above. “One. Two. Three. Smile.”   “Thanks!” The girl comes forward to look, but before he can ask if it’s good enough, her friend comes up to him with another phone.   “Can you take another one?”   “Alright.” He gets back into place and times it. “One. Two. Three.”   Yoongi hands back the device and is about to duck his head and seek refuge no matter who calls out to him, but the girl stops in front of him with a brightened smile. “Is it alright if you take a photo with me? I’ve never had a picture with a farmer before!”   Yoongi sputters, speechless. For one, he hasn’t taken a photo in years, much less for a stranger’s personal collection. And secondly, he’s not some spectacle to be gawked at. He’s not some dancing monkey or clown. Not a poster boy or a cardboard cutout. This is his life—   “I’m sorry.” A voice calmly cuts through his annoyance and Yoongi feels a hand against his shoulder. You’re beside him with a polite smile. “Staff aren’t allowed to be photographed.”   “Oh. Okay.”   They walk off and resume their activities. You take Yoongi’s hand and tilt your head towards the door. “C’mon. Let’s go back inside.”   He feels safe inside your house again when he can remain an observer and not a participant.   “Sorry about that. Some people can be a bit insensitive, but most of them have good intentions.”   “It’s fine.”   You pour out the bottle of amber liquid into a tall glass. “They probably just wanted a photo since you’re good-looking.”   “What?” Yoongi snorts and turns around with a grin. “So you think I’m good-looking?”   “Isn’t that a fact? That’s why people were staring at you. The whole rugged look works well for you.” You plop down the glass in front of him before you can think twice about the honesty that just unabashedly spilled from your mouth. “Try it. You had a part in making it, so it’s only right, right? And if you like it, I’ll even let you bring some home.”   He rolls his eyes at your mischievous smile and lifts the glass to his lips. It’s fizzy, and the taste is both tart and slightly sweet. It reminds Yoongi of sparkling cider, but with a herbal hint that he assumes is the kale. He doesn’t utter a word, even when you’re watching him intently. But after Yoongi smacks his lips together, he goes for a second sip.   And you take that as a positive sign. “You like it?!”   He’s startled at your overly excited voice. “It’s not bad.”   “See?! I knew it! All you needed to do was to try my amazing kombucha recipe and your mind would be changed. Didn’t I say that? I totally told you I would get you to like kale!”   “Hold on, hold on.” Yoongi stops you in your ramble. “Don’t get ahead of yourself. I only said it was decent.”   You laugh. “Sure. Whatever you say.”   He sighs, but ruffles your hair as he walks past, already bidding goodbye. “Get back to work.”   “Yes, sir.” You dramatically salute him and he leaves through the front door. But then it hits you a moment later. “Wait a minute….”    This is your farm. Not his.   //   You’re thriving in more ways than one. Aside from your personal projects on the farm, you’ve gotten yourself established at the market, like one of the decade long vendors who’ve spent their whole lives here. After a few months of setting up your stall, now everyone knows you by first name basis. A few older ladies even gave you the nickname of Sunshine and it only makes you love them more.   “You’re staring at her a lot, Yoonie.” His mother nudges him and he tears his eyes away from you across the market floor.   “No, I’m not.” He’s not sure why he bothers. Yoongi feels like a child trying to deny the obvious.   “Go talk to her. Lookin’ is not gonna do you any favours, young man. You have to talk.”   Yoongi already knows — he doesn’t need his mother to tell him.   “She’s busy,” he grumbles, “I’ll talk to her later.”    Fortunately, a customer comes up and Yoongi takes the opportunity to escape the conversation, immediately moving to ring them up and leaving his mom with a hopeless sigh.   At the same time, someone approaches you. After taking a sample from the tray, she decides to purchase a whole case of pesto much to your delight. “I actually bought smoothie and kombucha from you last week,” the lady mentions as you’re packing it up for her and you nod.   “I know. You bought two large smoothies and half a case of kombucha, right?”   Pleasant surprise takes hold of her expression. “How do you remember? Don’t you get a lot of customers?”   “I remember most of them, but I especially remember your Chanel classic handbag,” you point out with a smile. “The medium pink is a rarer one, plus it’s not the kind of thing lots of people wear in this sort of place.”   “You have a good eye,” the lady notes and you take the compliment. “It’s the only flashy thing I own and I have no other place to wear it aside from running errands.”   “Oh trust me, I’m like that too.” You grin, finishing up and passing the machine card for her to tap and pay. “I find that as long as you have confidence, you can pull anything off and it makes running errands a lot more fun.”   The lady laughs and easily agrees. She takes the box you offer her, but lingers. “Your kombucha and your smoothies are delicious by the way, and the pesto seems pretty good too.”   “Thank you. It took me a while to narrow down the recipe, but I think I nailed it.”    “You did.” She affirms and then out of the blue, asks, “Would you be willing to sell your products at the supermart? It’s a local grocery store I run with my husband, five miles from here, just down Imlings road.”   You’re speechless, blinking twice at her as your mouth opens and closes. The older woman waits patiently with a smile and you muster a half-coherent answer. “I-I would definitely consider it!”   “Great.” She smiles and then reaches over to her pocket. The woman hands you a business card. “Some folks around here have contracts with me too, and I’d love to add your products on the shelf. Give me a call some time tomorrow and we can chat about the details.”   You’re stunned and only broken out of your trance when a customer comes up and clears their throat.   It’s a triumphant day. You feel like you’re floating, walking on clouds — and Jungkook notices how you’re humming to yourself too and boyishly grins. “Something good happen, Y/N?”   The pair of you are walking out, Jungkook carrying your boxes as you lug your totes with you while waving goodbye to the other vendors that were leaving for the evening. “Just everything. I feel like things are going right for me, you know? And that’s kind of rare for me.”   “No, I get you. Pop always says there are rainbows after the storm. Then again, he always says how the Kim’s are running around like chickens with their heads cut off.”   That makes you laugh, but then the two of you interrupted by a sharp cry of your name. “Y/N!”   You witness Yoongi running up to you, completely out of breath.    “Hey. Are you okay? Where did you even come from?”   “Never mind that.” He straightens out. “Let me drive you back.”   “Oh, Jungkook was just going to….”   “Nah.” He insists and takes the boxes from the younger boy. “Our houses are closer together anyway. I don’t mind.”   “What about your mom?”   “She’s already left since she’s having dinner with a friend.”   You look at Jungkook who’s wholly confused, a deer in headlights and you decide to spare him from the trouble. “Well, alright. Thanks then.”   It feels a bit odd, but you take him on the offer and bid Jungkook a goodbye. The rest of your kale and belongings are packed into the back of Yoongi’s truck before you’re getting in. It’s old and worn, but the vehicle feels like it’s full of memories. You buckle yourself in and then he’s driving off with the fuzzy radio playing in the background as the golden sun sets over the horizon.   “Jungkook ain’t shit,” Yoongi suddenly pipes up after a moment. You glance over to discover him looking straight out the windshield, hands gripped on the steering wheel. And you burst out laughing.   “What?”   “He was seeing Aria for a while and then left her for the hills, so he’s got a reputation around here. I thought I should let you know.”   You see him peek at you in the corner of your eye, but you can’t repress your grin. “You sound like a boyfriend.”   “Yeah, well, I’m actually a good one.”   “Oh yeah?”   Yoongi’s knuckles are white and with the way his tongue peeks out to lick the seam of his lips, you wonder if he’s nervous. “I could show you.”   A giddy giggle that belongs to the sixteen-year-old you bubbles out. “And what would dating Min Yoongi look like?”   Yoongi plays off of your playful tone. “For one, I haven’t gotten to show you around properly yet and you still haven’t gone to one of Taehyung’s bonfire parties. He’s the guy with the strawberry farm. And I have access to his exclusive parties cause we went to school together, so you could use me to get in.”   “Hmmm….you drive a hard bargain, Min Yoongi.”   “I know how to cook a mean dinner if you give me real ingredients too.”   You laugh again, leaning your head back against the seat. “You’re too good at sweet-talking. Does your mother know you chat up girls like this?”   “Maybe. But I only really sweet talk you.”   He’s bold tonight and it’s not doing good things to you.   Your face is heating and you’re incessantly tapping your fingers against your leg. Beneath the lighthearted flirtation was a sort of simmering nervousness that’s filled with questions of if the line is going to be crossed and when that would be, and who would be the first to make the move.   Yoongi parks the car in front of your house and pulls the keys out of the ignition.   The pair of you naturally shift and look at one another. Your gazes lock together and there are three seconds of tense silence — neither wanting to get out, to break the rather intimate moment. Where you muse how brown his eyes are and Yoongi, himself, hitches his breath.   And then you’re lurching over for a kiss.   It’s all mouths and noses bumping together, obscene and sloppy, but a long time coming. His lips are softer than expected, only chapped at the corners, but you don’t get to think about it for too long or deepen the kiss. Not when you’re too busy giggling and laughing against him.   You pull apart, hands grasping onto the collar of his loose flannel. “You’re so eager.”   It’s a bit unusual to see Yoongi be anything other than annoyed or composed, but you soak it up as much as you can. The sunset is painting his skin golden and the car smells like him too. It seems like you’re surrounded in Min Yoongi and it’s fully welcomed.   “You are too,” he retorts on an exhale, hand skimming down to the dips of your waist. But then Yoongi swallows hard and retracts. He leans his arm on the steering wheel and looks out the window in disappointment. You wonder if you did something wron— “I can’t stain the truck. My mom has hawk eyes and she’s gonna know if we do something, and I’d rather she not.”   You scoff and lean forward, swift enough to plant a kiss on his cheek and pull away. “For such a good talker, you sure are stupid, Yoongi. There’s a whole house behind you and no one in it.”   A gummy smile spreads into his face and you feign a tired huff, lifting your chin and sticking your nose in the air. You add, “But for your information, I only give people the time of day when they make it worth it for me.”   He’s already opening the door and accepting the challenge before you can finish.    “Oh, I’ll make it worth it alright.”   You find out that Yoongi has a dirty mouth and an even nastier tongue. Part of you always wondered if he hated your guts, but you couldn’t be any more wrong.    You’re tugging on the strands of his hair, chest rising and falling as you pant. “W-Where did you learn how to do that?”    The bastard shrugs with a smug smile. “I might be unlikable, but I’ve had plenty of practice before.”   “Oh yeah?” The corner of your own mouth tugs. “With who?”   Yoongi grins and lifts himself up to plant a sweet kiss against your lips. “You wouldn’t know them. But they’re not as important as you are.”   “I’m going to choke over your greasiness, Min Yoongi.”   “Good. Choke.”   “You’re gonna have to stuff me with your cock first.”   Yoongi laughs at how you’re desperately tugging him closer to you, but he easily agrees with one condition— “Only if you’re good for me.”   The pair of you are sweaty when you finish. You thought the old bed frame was going to give up mid-way. Luckily, it held up even with all its loud squeaks and creaks. But you wouldn’t be surprised if there’s a dent where the headboard slammed against the wall.    But you’ll count your losses later. You’re just relieved that there was no one in the house.   While Yoongi might’ve been all soft groans and rapid exhales, he made you absent-minded to your own noises that somehow leaves your throat sore. You’re sure anyone who would’ve stood by your porch would’ve heard and been scandalized for the rest of their life.   “You know.” You turn to Yoongi, having stared at the ceiling. His eyes meet yours. “You’re pretty good for a farm boy.”   The playful quip ticks him off enough that he does it again. Yoongi pins you underneath him and is merciless. Your bubbling giggles turn to tears leaking down the side of your face from overstimulation, but you climax again through a moaning apology.   When you’re spent, Yoongi collapses next to you.    You’re surprised at how cuddly he is, how he naturally reaches for you, torso molding against yours and arms wrapped around your waist. In spite of feeling hot and sweaty, Yoongi holds you against him and you relish in it. “How is it possible that no one’s snatched you up yet?”   “Maybe it’s because I’m known to be standoffish.” He smiles against your temple, soothed by the way you run your fingers through the strands of his hair. “And what about you? Do you have a boyfriend or a husband I don’t know about that’s waiting in the city?”   “No. No one’s drawn me in quite like you have.”   Yoongi’s smile pulls into a grin, and the pair of you are lulled by each other’s inhales and exhales, unintentionally falling asleep in one another’s embraces like lovers underneath tree canopies on a Summer afternoon.   It’s some of the most peaceful sleep you’ve had, but then you’re shaken awake by a rattle and an ‘ow’. Your eyes open to find the other side of the bed empty and Yoongi nursing his hip after presumably bumping into your nightstand. You sit up, disoriented as he’s hopping up and down, barely getting his pants on.   “I need to get home before my parents find out I was gone the entire night and start asking questions.” His voice is thick and husky, hair in a disarray, eyes bleary and barely awake.   His panic makes you giggle and you watch him struggle to put on his clothes. Peeking outside, the sun isn’t up yet and the clock reads that it’s five in the morning. “Are they even awake this early, Yoongi?”   “I don’t know. Sometimes.” He fiddles with his flannel, putting his arms through the wrong holes, and even when he figures it out, he doesn’t realize it’s inside out. “I’ll...see you later?”   “Wait. Yoongi.” You stop him for a second and he turns around. It feels awfully juvenile, like you’ve reverted back into your sixteen-year-old self that giggles over crushes, but Yoongi always seems to make you feel that way. “Are we….dating now?”   “If I didn’t make it any more clear last night and by sleeping over, then I don’t know what else to do.”   It takes a beat for the words to sink in, but once it does, a bright and overexcited smile overcomes your features. Yoongi snorts before the corners of his own mouth tickles.   When he’s gone, you discover that you miss him already.

The morning alarm rings at six. But by then, you’re already up.   You’ve fallen into a natural schedule, a cycle that your body has picked up on and has awoken before anything needs to call you. And after brushing your teeth and running a comb through your hair, you’re taking care of your farm. Plowing fields. Harvesting kale. Having breakfast.   You also package the last of the pesto and guacamole, pouring the kombucha into the bottles with the proper labels. Some of which are prepared for the grocery store to pick up while others are packed for tomorrow. Afterwards, you come to the farmers’ market and meet Hoseok, a boy you’ve hired to help you take over. He helps you man the stall and the cash register, giving you the freedom to chat with customers and other vendors or complete other tasks with Jungkook.   By afternoon, you come back to the farm to check out the Insta spot and aid Jimin in running things smoothly.   “This is beautiful, Y/N.” Today, you’re graced by a few friends from the city. They drove out here after you reached out to them again and you couldn’t be more pleased from their genuine reactions. “When you said you were coming out to start a farm...I didn’t imagine this.”    “It took a lot of work, but it’s not half bad, right?”   Mina leans in, eyes flickering around. “Where’s this infamous Yoongi?”   A laugh spills from you. “He’s busy. You’ll see him next time.”   “I keep hearing about him, but I haven’t even seen him or his picture once,” Tiffany huffs. “I’m beginning to think he’s fake.”   You grin and insist, “I promise you he’s real.”   “Oh my god!” Yeri startles the group by the sheer urgency in her voice, but when you all swivel to her, she has her phone held in the air, screen directed to her face. “This is the perfect lighting! Guys, come here and take selfies up before the sun moves!”    You can’t help smiling as you watch them, matching their footsteps as they approach the fields. You can tell that they’re still surprised, that they love what you did — and you couldn’t be prouder.   At ten at night, the last people have filtered out and you bid them goodbye.   “Great job, Jimin. Thanks for the help as usual. It didn’t get too busy when I was gone, right?”   “Not at all.” The brunette with the polite smile shakes his head. “Oh, but the customer feedback box was full. I put it in the living room for you.”   “I saw that. Thank you. I’ll take a look tomorrow.” Looking ready to go, you walk him to the door. “Rest up then! I’ll see you tomorrow.”   “Goodnight, Y/N.”   But as one man leaves, you catch another down the road. The familiar truck is chugging, head beams piercing through the darkness settling across the horizon. Jimin recognizes it too after months of the same routine and smiles at you before he’s on his way.   The truck is parked on your lawn and the dark-haired man in the flannel is already smiling when he catches you through the front windshield. He opens the door and slams it shut as you lean against the doorframe, arms crossed and the screen door held behind you.   “Well, well, well. Look at what the cat dragged in.”   Yoongi chuckles and grabs a crate from the back of his truck. “It’s groceries from my parents.”   He meets you at the porch and plants a chaste kiss on your lips as a greeting. You follow him into the kitchen as he beelines to it. It’s almost like this is his home — an idea that tempts you greatly.   “Aw, she packed me more pie.” There’s goat’s milk too and you store it in the fridge as Yoongi organizes your cabinet, making sure there’s enough sustenance to keep you healthy for the week. You’ve already told him that you could take care of yourself, but he’s stood firm and you didn’t argue. It was a guilty pleasure to be pampered by Yoongi after all, and you weren’t about to refuse it.   “My parents want you to come over soon. They keep asking me about you.”   You nod. “I’m happy to come over whenever they want. But I should probably bake something. Your mom always makes me food.”   “Nah. She does it cause she likes to. How about Tuesday?”   “That works for me.”   “Have you eaten yet?”   One shake of your head leads to him cooking and then the pair of you sitting at the table across from one another and sharing a warm meal. You ask Yoongi about his day and he tells you about bailing Namjoon and Taehyung out of jail. Apparently, they landed themselves into trouble after they lost their cow and went looking for it. Yet somehow, they ended up miles away on an orchard farm where they had a confrontation with an old grump and got arrested for trespassing.   But as exasperated as Yoongi likes to act, the irony isn’t lost on you how he drove that far out to bail them out and keep the secret from their parents. He’s the kind of man that conveys his feelings through his actions instead of his words and you’ve come to endear that quirk about him.   After dinner and cleaning up, you turn on the twinkling fairy lights strung along the backyard and stand on your patio, leaning against the banister. The land and rows of kale are strangely bare without people and the ruckus of crowds, yet there’s a certain peacefulness of the uncertain horizon.   “What’re you thinking about?” A husky voice sounds beside you as Yoongi meets your side.   “Nothing.” You shake your head. “All day I’ve been feeling proud of myself, that’s all. I think...my grandfather would be proud of me too.”   “Of course he would be.” Yoongi drapes his arm around your shoulder. “I’m proud of you too.”   As calm and detached as Yoongi may be at times, he still has the effect of catching you off guard when he sweet talks. And it’s a kind of duality that makes you adore him even more.   You wrap your arm around his slim waist, grinning and he plants a wet kiss at your forehead.   “Hey, Yoongi. Since you love me….does that mean you love kale too?”   “Those things are mutually exclusive.”   “But kale is my lifeblood.” You look up at him. “You can’t love me without loving kale.”   He scoffs at your ridiculous argument, but it’s pointless back and forths like this that you enjoy the most. Especially when Yoongi gives in. “Fine. I love kale. But for the record, I love you a lot more.”   You laugh and lean your head on his shoulder. “I’m glad I came here.”   You’re glad you never gave up or gave in to the discouragement of your family, the apprehension of your friends or the voice inside your own mind.    You’ve finally found your place.   “I’m glad too.”   There’s no need to go home when home is right here.

[startanewdream]

It comes with the age

Summary: The thing about having birthdays is that you get older.

Or James Potter is not ready for his first white hair.

(Jily Lives AU)

Read below or on AO3:

It’s there.

James thought he had caught a glimpse of it in the mirror a few days ago, but he had accounted for just a strange reflex of the light. He had even searched for it in the mirror later - when he was alone, when no one would witness his moment of self-doubt -, but he hadn’t found it.

He was sure he had just imagined it.

Until today, when he was leaving the bathroom and checked himself in the mirror distractedly. On the morning of his birthday, as if the powers from beyond had decided to mess with him.

It’s there, a foreigner that has no right to be there and still is shining lazily and brightly against the dark locks around it.

His first white hair.

What should he do? Take it out?

He remembers teasing Remus a lifetime ago - though now he feels a lot more compassionate for Moony, whose hair was sprinkled with grey even before he was twenty - that if he took out a grey hair, another ten would appear in its place. It was Sirius that came up with it, so James is not sure he believes it, but he can’t take any chances.

One white hair is one more than he’d like to have until he was fifty at least. He just turned thirty. That’s way too young to have grey hair.

He takes a comb, something he doesn’t remember ever doing in this bathroom, and tries to arrange his hair for the first time in years (the last time was before his first date with Lily; Sirius almost laughed to death watching his attempt to straighten his hair and James had given up - whatever had possessed Lily to accept to go out with him, she clearly didn’t have a problem with his messy hair).

It helps to hide that white hair in the middle of the black strands, but then he turns his head and the light catches it again, exposing that revealing strand of hair. It seems to glow with the light, a bright silver sign yelling to the world: here, come look at it, James Potter has white hair.

It’s not that he is vain about his own hair - that would be Sirius, no question -, it’s just that its blackness was always part of it. If he was a fugitive, his character sketch would consist of his hazel eyes behind the rectangular glasses and his messy dark hair.

Dark hair. Not grey.

He needs to do something about it. It’s urgent.

He goes back to his room, searching on his bedside table for the ink they always leave there for some emergency letter. The pot is near empty and he files a mental note to replenish it later, but now he has more pressing matters.

He goes to the bathroom again, carefully opening the inkpot and pinching a little between his fingers. Then his other free hand grabs carefully the white hair, raising it; just a little bit of ink and it will all be fine -

'James? What are you doing?'

He lets the white hair fall immediately, his hand already messing his hair nervously and he turns to Lily with the most confident smile he can manage.

'Hi, love', he says, which makes Lily raise her eyebrows at him. It's really unusual for him to call her like that.

'You are taking long', she says slowly. 'Harry and I have your breakfast ready'.

'I'll be in a minute, just go downstairs -'

'Are you okay?'

'Yeah, yeah'.

'Then why is your hand covered with ink?'

James grimaces; his hand was hidden behind him, but the mirror - that treacherous thing that's exposing all his secrets today - showed the reflex, of course.

'Just trying something', he says nervously. 'Checking how I would look with a moustache, see?'

He draws a moustache around above his mouth with his hand, all curly at the end, and grins at Lily, expecting it to satisfy her curiosity - maybe Lily will just look at it as some weird prank.

'How do I look?'

'Classical', Lily answers amusedly. 'Now, not that I don't appreciate your effort, but what were you really doing?'

James sighs, defeated, and he sits on the closed toilet seat.

'I am old', he admits heavily. Lily blinks.

'Yes', she agrees carefully. 'Getting old is what happens on birthdays'.

'Not just because of it, but… look at it', he lowers his head.

'Hum… what should I be looking at?'

'Stop being nice to me, Lily. I know what is there. I can't deny it anymore'.

'James? I am starting to -'

'I have white hair!'

He raises his eyes, expecting to see the disgust on Lily's face, her realization that the dark-haired young man she married is fading away, but Lily is just blinking, confused.

'That one strand? It's no big deal'.

'Of course it's a big - wait, you already knew?'

'Yeah? You do know we sleep together, right? I saw it a few days ago'.

'And you didn't say anything before?'

'What was there to say? It's one white strand, not an illness'.

'It's a tragedy, that's what it is. It means my glorious youthful days are over'.

'I really doubt it, James', she says soothingly, kissing the top of his hair. 'You seemed pretty glorious last night', she winks at him and James feels smug despite himself.

The night before had been rather intense, he couldn't deny it; a very good start to his thirties, if he could say so himself.

And then there is something almost wistful sparkling in Lily's eyes, the remains of an old fear he always saw during the war.

'And I am glad you are old', she whispers, and when he opens his mind to retort, she lets out a soft laugh. 'More experienced, then. I mean… I am happy we are getting older together'.

'That's what we promised in our wedding vows', he remembers.

'To grow old and grumpy together', she repeats, eyes glistening. 'So… It makes me happy to see this one white hair. To know what it means. I hope to see many more'.

'Oh, fancying a grey-haired husband, Mrs. Potter?'

'If he is you, that's all I want', Lily assures him softly, and James grins back, raising his head to allow their lips to meet.

It's a very nice birthday kiss, and then he raises without interrupting it, pressing Lily closer to him, thinking that maybe he can also get a morning quality time for his birthday…

'Dad? Mom?', there is a cry coming from the bedroom.

They break apart with a familiar sigh - Harry always has impeccable timing; Lily winks at him, a promising gleam in her eyes, and James tries not to look too flustered.

'Here, Harry', he says nicely, leaving the bathroom. Harry is at the door of the room, his arms crossed and a grimace on his face.

'You were kissing, right?', he says, sounding properly appealed by the idea.

'A birthday kiss is a very good gift . One day you may find out', James teases, and Harry doesn't look convinced. James fights back a laugh. When he was nine, he wasn't very much interested in kissing anyone either.

'You were taking too long - wait, why is there a moustache on your face?'

'Oh', James flushes, while by his side Lily giggles, taking out her wand and cleaning his face. 'Just trying a new style. How would I look with a moustache?'

Harry shakes his head.

'I know it's your birthday - but don't'.

'And what's your opinion on grey hair?'

'Much better than a moustache', Harry answers, shrugging. 'I keep telling Sirius he should go grey, but then he goes he is a Black…'

'Wait', James blinks. 'Sirius has grey hair?'

'Oh', Harry stops, a guilty expression on his face. 'I shouldn't - never mind.

'Harry… come on, it cannot be that bad'.

'I shouldn't have seen it - I was just looking in his bathroom drawer for a band-aid, and then I saw it'.

'Saw what?'

'His entire hair collection', Harry whispers, amazed. 'He has a product for everything - more than you, Mom'.

'I knew his hair couldn't be that shiny naturally', James says to himself.

'Yeah, and then there was some hair dye too'. Harry flushes. 'That's when he found me. He told me it was for work, you know, for when he needs to disguise himself, but I am not sure'.

'So Sirius has grey hair then?'

'It comes with age', Lily replies, looking amused by the sudden change in James' humour. 'Now your ego is feeling better, can we go down for your breakfast?'

Harry jumps.

'Please, I am hungry! And we need to give you our gift!'

'We are coming', James promises, smiling. 'You can start, we will be there in a sec'.

Harry nods, grinning, and he runs out of the room; breakfast was always his favourite meal of the day.

'My gift is not a hair dye, right?', James asks playfully, as he and Lily leave the room.

She laughs.

'No, and don't go teasing Sirius about it'.

'I wouldn't dream of', James says, though he is feeling pretty happy that he is still far away from needing hair dye.

Maybe in his forties - if he still has hair; he remembers his father's hair had been wispy, and now he comes to think of it, the edges of his hairline have been thinning out...

'Oh, Merlin', he cries. 'Is my hair falling out?'

[jamilelucato]

hi!! I just followed and saw your open request for hp fics!! congrats btw!! I was wondering if you could write for me either a Fred Weasley x reader or Sirius Black x reader with Enemies to Lovers? If y/n could be a hufflepuff that'd be awesome too lol ❤️❤️ also I'm here for the banter + unresolved sexual tension 👁️👄👁️ thank you!!

Gryffies and Puffies [F. W.]

Pairing: Fred Weasley x Hufflepuff!reader

Summary: Fred and [y/N] were never close, in fact, they hated each other, but Angelina is determined to change that.

A/N: Hi! Thank you, really! I tried to follow your request as much as I could, sorry if the Hufflepuff portrait is not much Hufflepuff like, I’m not one and I don’t have many friends that are, but I tried to keep it as I knew. Hope you like it! (gif not mine)

Last chance to send a request! || Harry Potter Masterlist

Although, generally, [y/N] doesn’t bother doing her homework way earlier than needed, this time she knew she had to start soon if she wanted a good grade.

Professor Snape wasn’t very fond of the Hufflepuff’s students, so, as a proud member of her house, [y/N] felt like she had to prove the Professor wrong, and show the authoritarian how smart Hufflepuffs can be.

It was the third book she had got from the Library, and this one specifically was just about the subject — Ageing Potions — but [y/N] seemed more lost than before while reading it. Sh even asked, politely, to the Librarian if the book was in English because she couldn’t understand a full paragraph.

“Having trouble there?” asked Angelina Johnson before sitting down in the chair next to [y/N]’s.

[y/N] smiled at her long-time friend. Angelina’s mom was a great friend of [y/N]’s mom, and so, they grew up together, as a weird but cool duo. Angelina had a more explosive personality, when [y/N] was generally softer and prefered to talk instead of punching.

“A lot, actually,” [y/N] sighed. “Have you started yours yet?” the sixth-years Hufflepuffs and Gryffindors shared Snape’s classes, so [y/N] knew Angelina had the same assignment as her.

“Oh, haven’t even started,” answered Angelina, catching one of the books in front of them and flipping through it.

“Angie! Professor Snape already has something against you, don’t give him an extra to work with!” [y/N] retorted, genuinely worried for her friend.

Angelina chuckled. “By something against me, you mean because I sit with the twins?”

“Exactly!” the girls burst into soft laughter.

Angelina knew that [y/N] was out for the Weasley twins ever since third-year when they painted the whole Hufflepuff common room black for one week. Professor Flitwick had to step in to help get rid of the magical paint.

But that wasn’t just it. It seemed as if whenever [y/N] got into trouble, the twins, and more specifically, Fred Weasley, was around.

“So... Hogsmeade this weekend. You comin’?” asked Angelina when the laughter calmed down.

“Nope, got this to finish,” [y/N] sighed, pointing to the parchment blank. “Or gotta start it.”

Angelina protested, “come on, you never come!”

“With you, I don’t!” [y/N] frowned. “You always bring them!”

“They’re my best friends!”

“Ouch,” [y/N] pretended to be offended, but only gained a shove from Angie before her best friend started laughing again. Those two were always laughing.

“I promise they’ll behave,” Angie sparkled her dark brown eyes towards [y/N], and seeing a pit face, [y/N] knew she had lost.

“Fine,” the Hufflepuff agreed, closing the books in front of them, knowing very well that no preparation in the world would make her homework worthy of a good grade in Snape’s eyes. “But you owe me one.”

“Put it on the account,” smiled Angie.

***

“Here she comes, the Hufflepuff princess,” smirked an inpatient Fred Weasley, watching with a brow raised as [y/N] finally got out of the train.

Without staring the identical redheads, [y/N] apologized to Angelina, “sorry, got stuck with Bryan and Clary, they were tellin’ me about the...”

“No one cares, puffie,” Fred whispered, in a voice that sounded almost like a whistle.

“Shut it, Weasley,” [y/N] warned, with a tired look. If her visit to Hogsmeade was going to be like that, she did not know if she’d be able to honour the motto of kindness and forgiveness of her Hogwarts House.

“Oh, she acknowledges I’m here,” Fred smirked again, “finally.”

[y/N] rolled her eyes, wrapping her arm around Angelina’s, while she murmured apologies. The two girls took the lead, while the twins followed, and [y/N] could swear that every announced turn she and Angie decided to take, she could hear Fred sighing in complain — and she was loving that.

“First stop: Honeydukes!” [y/N] shouted, stating the way.

Angelina stopped when she noticed Fred had stopped too.

“No way — Zonko’s first,” he debated.

[y/N] turned around, facing the redhaired boy — really facing him, like she had not done yet. She sometimes forgot how cute he was.

Well, any boy taller than her, she considered cute really, because she loved how they leaned down to look at her — and Fred had a lot of leaning down to do.

“Honeydukes,” [y/N] said, hoping her voice sounded as scary as Professor Snape because he was the one she was trying to imitate.

“Look, you can eat later, puffie, but the good products will sell out if George and I don’t go to Zonko’s now,” he continued his pledge.

“You two go then — I’m going Honeydukes first,” [y/N] was trying her hardest to stand her point, but when Angelina and George puffed next to them, she lost a bit of her posture.

“You expect George and I will let you two girls walk around alone?”

“I don’t need a bodyguard!” [y/N] shouted, crossing her arms.

“If that’s supposed to be your scare-people-away face, then yes, you need bodyguards,” Fred argued.

“Let’s go to Zonko’s first, y/N. It’ll give less time for the chocolates to melt,” Angelina stepped in the argument, knowing that the two would continue to argue all day if they could. In fact, Angelina had already witnessed them arguing two whole hours about which team was better at Quidditch — and it seemed to be horrible to [y/N] offend Angelina as a player just to win the argument.

Puffing the whole way and not daring to face Fred, [y/N] followed them to Zonko’s. It was easier to avoid looking at him when the boys entered the store (already crowded) and got lost from the girls in the middle of the shelves, their eyes shining with new and classic products.

Taking advantage of the momentary peace, [y/N] wandered around the store, looking for something that could be used for good fun, like some board game. She didn’t realize that Fred was right behind her until he opened his mouth.

His voice a whisper so close to her ear, that it shivered all over her: “you should buy it if you can’t stop staring,” he smirked.

She turned around to face the boy way too close than she expected. Trying to step away, she bumped into the shelve, but fortunately, nothing fell.

“I don’t want a stupid...” [y/N] battled with herself if she should say or not the next word, “furry bear,” she ended up saying because she hated leaving phrases unfinished.

“Yeah, okay,” Fred pretended to believe, puffing his chest.

“I don’t,” [y/N] stated again.

“Sure, if you say so,” he continued his little game.

“Just because Hufflepuffs are kind, it does not mean we like all cute and fluffy and soft things, okay,” [y/N] tried to prove her point using of more complex sentences, but noticing his smile, she thought she only contradicted herself.

“Not all Hufflepuffs are the same,” Fred tried to help her.

“Exactly,” [y/N] crossed her arms.

“But you like the fluffy and plushy,” Fred raised an eyebrow, but he did not look into her eyes.

“Yes,” [y/] agreed, before even realizing what she was saying yes to. She only had time to listen to Fred burst into laughter, she could no longer take back what she said.

But for a second, it didn’t matter; his laugh was worth it. Until it wasn’t.

“So you like plushy, huh,” he repeated non-stop.

“Oh, for Helga’s sake,” [y/N] she puffed, desperately trying to get away from the ginger boy.

***

When the boys had finally bought all they wanted from Zonko’s, [y/N] and Angelina were already outside waiting. There weren’t many things that the girls founded interesting there. Angelina favours Quidditch stuff and, [y/N], as pointed out by Fred himself, prefers fluffy things.

“That took a while,” you pretended to whisper when actually you spoke loud enough for the twins to hear.

“Oh, did we make you wait, puffie?” Fred teased, but [y/N] just rolled her eyes, not ready to fall into his traps again.

“Well, for fairness, it’s you girls’ time to pick a place,” George said, and [y/N] involuntarily smiled at the more delicate Weasley twin.

“Honeydukes!!” [y/N] shouted before Angelina could say anything, but it didn’t matter. The three Gryffindors immediately started giggling at the girl’s excitement to visit the candy store.

Angelina and George got themselves involved in a talk about the new best broom in the market, leaving Fred and [y/N] behind. They both played Quidditch too, but George and Angie made no effort to include them in the conversation.

“See,” [y/N] decided to tease Fred since they were closest, “if we had gone to Honeydukes first, you wouldn’t need to carry those many bags around.”

Fred almost forgot how to walk. He was generally the one that started the teasing — [y/N] wasn’t much of the provocative kind unless she was provoked. However, Fred liked it.

“You would be the one carrying the bags then, genius,” Fred pointed out, turning his face sightless to the right to get a glimpse of her reaction.

“How many sweets do you think I’m buying?” she asked, analyzing the three plastic bags in his left hand and the two others in his right one. She compared it to the three chocolate bars and a couple of chocolate frogs she had in mind, and she was sure it would be just one bag.

Fred shrugged, letting out a soft chuckled. [y/N] might have had a point, but he was not going to admit it.

When they finally arrived at the candy shop, Fred lost sight of [y/N] because she fastly ran inside. Angelina entered the shop too, but George and Fred had so many bags they were afraid to walk in, so they decided to take turns inside.

Fred went in first, excited to see how [y/N] would be in her environment, but he didn’t like what he saw. As soon as he walked in, he saw her in a corner on the left-back, surrounded by some boys. At that distance, Fred would not guess they were Hufflepuffs.

His first instinct was to suppose she was in danger, but then she laughed. Really laughed, in the sweetest way possible, in a way she had never laughed to his jokes.

He knew she was alright, but he wasn’t. He rushed out of the store, surprising George.

“Back so soon?” George asked.

Fred was not in the mood to tell his twin that might have caught feelings for a certain uneasy girl, so he lied.

“Yeah, had no money left. I mean, if I still want a butterbeer,” Fred said, shrugging and taking his brother’s place as the guard of their Zonko’s products.

George said no more, glad to have the chance to buy something sweet for himself. In the middle of the night, after running around with Fred, George loved having a chocolate frog to recharge his energies.

“Next stop,” said Angelina, once the three got out of the candy store, “Three Broomsticks.”

Everybody agreed with ununderstanding whispers. [y/N], as she planned, got out of Honeydukes with only one plastic bag, that she teasingly raised towards Fred, who rolled his eyes, with a troubled expression.  

His reaction wasn’t the one [y/N] was anticipating. She wanted him to make a quick remark, mess with her bad eating habits, anything like that. But ignore a clear chance to mess with her — she did not expect that.

She rushed to Angie’s side, happy to get a chance to gossip with her best girl about what the boys she had met in the shop had just told her.

“So, Luke told me that Cormac McLaggen is chasing after your friend Alicia, is that true?” [y/N] asked.

Angelina turned her face to her best friend, confused with such a question. Not that the two never gossip before, but [y/N]’s tone was generally less invasive and judge than this.

“Why? Are you interested?” Angie asked, raising a brow.

[y/N] almost choked.

“Interested? Me?” she puffed. “Please.”

Behind the girls, one of the twins was paying very close attention to the conversation.

“He’s not really your type, is he?”

“I’m not interested in him,” [y/N] debated. “I could be, but I ain’t.”

Angie turned her face to the front again before pulling the door of the Three Broomsticks. The four got in, and George was looking around for an empty table when [y/N] asked: “what are you guys taking?”

“Butterbeer,” the three Gryffindors answered together, causing the girl to smile at their synchronization.

“I’ll get it; you go sit down,” she was actually being nice because, of all of them, she was the one with fewer bags.

Being friends with Madam Rosmerta had its privileges, such as [y/N] was first attended as soon as she reached the counter.

“Hey, Madam Rosmerta! How’s it goin’?” [y/N] asked, working extra hard her charm. The whole counter was staring at her, half angry, half not believing, that she was being served before them.

When the woman finally gave [y/N] her drinks, she headed to the table her friends had picked, noticing with an exhalation that the only chair left was in the middle of Fred and George.

“That was fast,” pointed out George, getting his butterbeer with a smile and tossing you a sickle.

“No need, it’s on me,” [y/N] said, giving George his coin back. “Actually on Rosmerta, but that’s supposably to be a secret.”

Angelina smiled, reaching for her cup and savouring the butterbeer as if it was more tasteful because it had been free.

Fred looked at you without exactly turning but grabbed his drink anyway.

“Thanks,” he whispered, this time Fred’s tone had no sign of banter.

[y/N] was scared they would remain in that dreadful silence, bt Angelina took her chance to tell everyone about her father’s newest accomplishment and how it would affect them — he had a bought a summer house near the beach. She was sure he would allow her to bring them for a weekend.

“Wow, Angie, count me in! Would love beach day!” [y/N] beamed.

Angelina chuckled. “I’ll see if we can go next holiday.”

The whole table cheered in excitement, and George was so happy that he decided to buy them the next round of butterbeer.

When the day in Hogsmeade was over, [y/N] and Fred got back to their usual bickering. George knew that would happen, but Angie was, in fact, hoping for them to finally develop a real friendship, better than the day to day teasing.

Days and months went by. [y/N] ended up getting the better side of Professor Snape, after all — he said her essay was the best one from that class.

Angelina kept trying to connect Fred and [y/N], but it was like she was running from him. Fred seemed neutral about it all, and that was a first.

“So my father got back to me...” Angelina started telling the twins as soon as the Quidditch practice was over.

“And?” George was genuinely enthusiastic.

“And we can go for the Easter holiday!” cheered Angelina. “Unless your mom doesn’t allow you to come...”

“Molly will be pleased to have two less in the house,” admitted George.

“Is [y/N] coming?” Fred asked, raising his voice so he could be heard since he was in the back of the tent.

Angelina exchanged looks with George before answering, scared that he wouldn’t like her answer. “Yes, she is, and I hope you behave.”

“Are you saying that to her?” Fred retorted.

“Don’t pretend you aren’t the one who messes with her,” Angelina tilted her head towards Fred, who just shrugged, puffing as if he was innocent. “Well, gonna invite Alicia and Katie. See you later.”

***

Part of [y/N] wondered why she had said yes. Sure, Angelina Johnson was her best friend of all times, but still, as her father drove you two to the beach house, all she could think of was that it would be a house filled with Gryffindors and she would be the only outsider.

She wasn’t friends with the others. She could become friends with Alicia and Katia, she guessed, and George was somewhat of a colleague, but Fred? Oh, Helga, she signed in for a nightmare.

Since the Hogsmeade trip a couple of months ago, things without explanation kept on happening with [y/n] more often than before. Clothes coloured in bright pink, her cat turning in with two tails instead of just one, and she even received letters with nothing written on — those were the most confusing of the pranks. Again, she was almost sure it was Fred’s fault, but since the pranks were harmless, she never confronted him about them.

Angelina and [y/N] had time to settle themselves down in a room just for the two — Katie and Alicia were getting another one, and Fred and George the one far most at the end of the corridor.

When the six kids were all together, things started getting, well, exciting. There was no way Fred and George were going to let that trip be a bore.

Without parents around, you six stayed on the beach until 4 a.m, watching the sun rising far away. Alicia had brought some firewhisky, but since it was only two bottles, the group decided to save for later.

When [y/N] woke up on the second day, she found herself lying in a mattress-shaped floater, tossed in the middle of the pool.

“WEASLEYS!!” she shouted, waking the whole house up.

With no wand around, [y/N] had no option but to jump in the pool and swim to get out of there. When she managed to cross half of the backyard, Fred and George appeared at the door, and you took a glimpse inside the house, where the girls ate breakfast like nothing was happening to [y/N].

“Morning-swim, huh?” Fred crossed his arms, smirking slightly.

“You’ll pay for that, Fred,” she replied, shaking, the coldness of the water that soaked her combined with the wind of the beach was not doing her good.

“Cute pyjamas, puffie” he continued teasing as she passed him by — his eyes following her back as she went upstairs. The nickname was not something she was quite fond of, especially because she knew he used it just because of her house.

George nudged his twin. “Don’t ask why she doesn’t like you,” George said, leaving his brother at the door and sitting down next to Alicia.

“What? You helped,” pointed down Fred, sitting too.

“Yeah, but she likes me,” George raised a brow, his confident expression did not even shake at the dark look his twin cast.

*** When the night came, [y/N] was sure she had gotten a tan, but after she got in the shower and took a good look in front of the mirror, it was like the tan was gone. She wasn’t hurt, though, so it wasn’t all bad.

Getting downstairs, she noticed that the group hadn’t been able to keep themselves away from the firewhisky any longer, because the only two bottles were displayed in the middle of the table set outside in the backyard.

[y/N]’s white dress was practically sparkling in the dim light of outside, and for a minute, Fred was out of breath, staring at her in a way he had never before.

Well, actually... Never before since they arrived. But Fred was not gonna mention the other thousand times she left him breathless by her looks.

“Where’s Angie?” [y/N] asked before sitting down, noticing that her bestie was the only one left.

“Still showering. Angie says she can feel the sand everywhere yet,” explained Katie.

“And who’s to blame...” [y/N] wondered aloud, trying to provoke the twins who had been fighting everyone in the sand earlier.

Even though Fred teased her the whole afternoon — how she would never win him in the fight, how she was laze, how he was fast — she didn’t give in, preferring to get sunbathed. It didn’t work though, but at least she didn’t have sand in all weird places now.

Angie finally got outside, wearing a beautiful set of shorts and a floral blouse.

“Let’s start the game, come on, I really need it,” she said, and the whole table agreed.

They played an updated version of beer pong, the muggle game, and [y/N] was losing badly to everyone else. That meant that she was the one drinking more, and, for Helga, she was not used to it, but with time, the effects seemed to disappear.

When the game was over, [y/N] had been sitting for minutes at the edge of the pool, wetting only her feet. There was a cup of firewhisky in her hands, but even if not drunk, she knew she shouldn’t keep drinking it.

Someone found a way to play muggle music, and Angelina, Alicia, Katie and George were having the time of their lives in the improvised dance floor.

Fred was walking, as silently as he could, towards [y/N]. He wasn’t very fond of the music playing, and he wasn’t as drunk as the others. Generally, he would have pretended to be, like George was doing, just for the fun of it, but watching [y/N] all alone, he knew he had to something about her.

“Hey,” she smiled softly, noticing the boy sitting down next to her.

“Are you okay?” he asked, but she never answered. She put the cup down though — Fred thought that was a good sign. “I’m sorry about the pool earlier.”

[y/N] stared back at him, this time trying to analyze every aspect of his face. Like how he had moe freckles on his left cheek then the right. How his nose was big but yet perfectly pleasant to look at. How he was leaning towards her even though he wasn’t noticing. But she did. And she leaned in too.

“You know, if you wanted my attention, there were other ways to get it,” she said, surprising herself with the bravery to speak up.

Fred froze.

“You could have apologized to my cat, that would’ve been nice, for starters,” she said, this time surprising him, who laughed it off.

“He didn’t like the extra tail?”

“He actually did,” she joined him in the laughter, remembering her pet playing with a smile in her dorm room because he now had two tails. “Hey, how did you found out that he was my cat and not any other?”

Fred smiled in the dim light.

“He was the fluffiest,” was his answer. [y/N] elbowed him, pretending to be angry, but she knew that, unfortunately, her cat was the furriest cat Hogwarts had ever seen.

After a moment of silence, [y/N] decided she better get back to her room — and she hoped this time she would wake up there too. Getting up without warning, she ended up scaring Fred.

“Where are you going?” he asked, getting up too.

“Back to bed,” she said. “Better get a good night sleep before tomorrow — it is our last day after all.”

Fred wrinkled his nose. He knew she was right, but he also knew that it was his last chance to do something with her, at least, under the spark of the moon.

But she seemed so far away...

“Well, at least let me accompany you,” Fred offered [y/N] his arm, which she took with a smile.

They walked in silence — the rest of the group didn’t even notice they were gone.

[y/N] was about to get to her room when Fred stopped her.

“Wait,” he was confused whether it was the best time or not, but it was his only time so... “wait here, I’m gonna grab something for you.”

He walked to the end of the corridor, rushing to his room. Fred was rummaging through his suitcase, looking for what he wanted to give her.

[y/N] waited patiently — and quite anxiously — for whatever Fred was going to give her.

“Here, ” he said, giving her something he had hidden in his back. [y/N] grabbed from his hands, surprised with the texture of what she got. “I don’t know if Angelina ever mentioned me and my brother want to open a joke shop, and well, this product... You kinda inspired me to do it.”

She studied the hairy, yellow ball in her hands. Thankfully, she held it gently, because when she turned the thing over, she noticed that two little blue eyes were staring at her, startled.

“Oh my Helga, Freddie, is this alive?” she asked, but the answer didn’t really matter because she was already petting the small furry ball.

“It’s she, actually,” he smiled, noticing how happy she was with the gift. “Has no name, though.”

“What is she?” she asked while playing with the pet, noticing she was warming up to [y/N]’s touch.

“George and I named it Pygmy Puff — a miniature Puffskein,” Fred explained, petting the furry ball too. “They are generally pink or purple, so yours was made with a lot of care.”

[y/N] looked up from the yellow Pygmy Puff to Fred and tilted her head, uncontrollably smiling.

“Guess the Pygmy Puff has something to do with me too,” [y/N] teased.

“The whole thing has something to do with you,” Fred let out, blushing immediately, but [y/N] didn’t notice. Fred fake-coughed. “So, what will you name her?”

[y/N] thought about it for a while. “I guess it would only make sense if she was named Gryffie. After all, her creator is a Gryffindor,” [y/N] blushed but avoided looking at Fred, focusing solemnly in the Pygmy Puff.

“It makes sense,” Fred looked from the pet to the girl and bit his inner cheek. “Two houses come together for an invention.”

“That’s the Hogwarts spirit,” [y/N] laughed it off. “Thank you, Fred,” she said before leaning on tiptoes to place a kiss on Fred’s cheek.

The Pygmy Puff enjoyed the time with no attention and walked from [y/N]’s hand to her shoulder, and Fred stared at the fluffy thing while [y/N] kissed him.

And somehow it felt like the pet was trying to say something.

[y/N] stepped away and said good-night, entering her room with a sad look. She didn’t want the night to end. So, after placing Gryffie on the bed, she turned to the door, ready to open it again. But Fred was faster.

They stared for a full second before both rushed towards each other, locking their lips in a soft but potent kiss.

Fred’s hands found her waist and pulled her closer, as closer as Fred could — close as he always wished she was. [y/N], of course, ran her fingers through his hair, something she had been wanting to do for a while now, and she was glad to find such fluffy and soft hair.

They were breathless, but neither wanted to pull away. Fred leaned to her neck, finding her sensitive spot right away, and there was nothing better than hearing her moan so close to his ear.

Behind them, the Pygmy Puff made some sound weird, but they just laughed it off and pulled each other closer again, as if they could be closer than they were.

The Pygmy Puff cried again, and this time non-stop, so [y/N] had to pull away. She was the mother of that pet for only a couple of minutes, but she was very protective over it already.

“What is it?” she murmured towards the fluffy ball at the same time Fred cleared his throat, making [y/N] turn to Fred again, who was looking at the stairs.

“Hi, little love birds,” giggled a very drunk Angelina.

Fred and [y/N] were instantly red, from head to toes, but Angelina and the rest of the group didn’t even care, they just couldn’t giggling and bumping into each other.

“Hey, George, I think I’ll better sleep in your room,” Angelina spoke again. “I believe you’ll have an empty bed.”

“Good idea,” George said, locking arms with Angelina to protect her from falling — she could do it at any moment now. “Good-night, love birds. Or should I say love puffs?”

The four teenagers were laughing out loud, they could wake someone up if only someone were sleeping. George and Angie closed their door as soon as they walked in and winking at [y/N] and Fred, Alicia closed the door of hers and Katie’s room.

“Well, I guess I just lost my bed, puffie” Fred sighed, pretending to be upset, leaning on the door frame.

His eyes sparkled in the dim light of her room. [y/N] smirked, pulling him by his collar, suddenly very aware of her Femme Fatale powers.

“Good thing I have an extra one here,” she said, kissing him again, and again, and again...

[poormeowmeowcollector]

First Kiss, But Not On The Lips

Pair: Tony/ace!Loki (platonic)

Warnings: mentions of insomnia, nightmares, panic attack, isolation and alcohol.

Notes: Basically, the idiots in love trope is my favourite. Tony is a bi mess, Loki doesn't care about a thing (or cares about too many things), Thor is a himbo and Steve is trying. Also, yes, Loki has the ace ring (and a pride flag in his room) and he legally cannot sit like a normal person. And Steve lost the bet because he didn't expect Tony to find out about his crush on Loki within a month.

Read on AO3

"You know what, I get it. We all deserve second chances and blah blah blah, but can't Loki redeem his name on another solar system? What about Jötunnheim? He did a genocide there too!" Tony argues. At least he moves past the redeem part.

"I told you they would not accept me," Loki sighs at Thor, trying to appear stoic. But Tony sees the disappointment in him. Because he knows how to spot it in the mirror.

"Fine, he can stay for a month as a testing period. But if he causes trouble, he's gone," Steve decides. He loves speaking out the decisions even though no one will disagree.

And Thor smiles widely and hugs his brother. But Tony can still see the disappointment in Loki.

~~~

Sleeping is hard while knowing he's in the same building. Tony expected it, but it's still annoying.

"You know he was a victim too, why are you so afraid?" He asks himself but no answer is given.

He knows he won't be able to sleep, and there is a broken suit waiting for him in the lab.

Well, if he's about to pull an all nighter, he better be productive.

~~~

Tony had gotten his all nighter on a schedule. He would wait until Steve is asleep, go to the lab, and return to his bed only one hour before Steve wakes up. Of course and they all noticed his dark circles and moodiness, but he would blame nightmares and get away with it. Not that he was lying.

And, apparently, Tony is not the only one with sleeping issues.

Thor was claiming that Gods don't need sleep or nutrition. But Thor is also a sleeper and eats every time like it's his last time. But Loki doesn't. He barely touches whatever food is placed in front of him or drinks a little water and he looks more sleep deprived than Tony. But no one has the guts to say to a thousand years old powerful cranky god to go sleep or to eat, not even Thor.

And he doesn't talk. It's been days since his voice was heard. Thor doesn't like it, but the few times he mentioned it or tried to get Loki to speak or take part in a talk, he only got a glare. And Tony still doesn't know how Thor still makes Loki even get out of his room.

~~~

Once again, Tony is working on a new suit, during his favourite inhuman hours. Because two things come out at 3am, the devil and Tony Stark.

But the first dude is not helping Tony with the non functioning leg that's driving him insane.

"It's not going to work," Someone comments from the lab's door. Who the hell is up that late?

"Excuse me?" Tony turns around, only to face Loki leaning against the door frame.

"Remaking the joint to resemble a human's is not going to work. You need less strength and more flexibility, probably even another material," Loki explains, staring at Tony. He makes a small nod. Loki then straightens himself and walks closer.

"You know about mechanical engineering?" Tony asks.

"Science, magic, it's all the same on Asgard… and I happen to be the Master of Magic, and therefore…" He trails off, something sad blooming in his eyes. Homesickness, Tony recognises with ease.

"Alright, so, how do you think we'll make it work?" Tony asks, a grin on his face. But instead of answering, Loki just lifts his sleeves and grabs a wrench.

Tony watches as Loki plays with the machine—he looks more like he plays than like he's repairing something—and uses his magic to change the elements on the materials, green glows appearing and disappearing. And, after the five minutes it took him, the leg is perfect.

"Wow…" Tony whistles. Loki grins and sits on the working table, spinning the wrench on his fingers.

"It will probably last for a millennium or two," He shrugs, like it's something easy. And Tony is more impressed.

And they go on with the suit, finishing it before it's time for Tony to go and pretend he's sleeping. And Tony would use this time.

"Well, I didn't know you're good at engineering," Tony trails off. Loki shrugs in response, again sitting on the table with his legs in lotus position.

"You never asked,"

"Yeah, sorry about that. You are just too…" He suddenly can't find the word.

"Cold?" Loki asks, raising his eyebrows at Tony.

"Reserved is how I would phrase it, actually," Tony responds, making Loki hum.

"You know what, nevermind. I'm asking now. What do you like? What don't you like? Just rumble about things," He decides, big brown eyes staring at Loki. And he responds with another shrug.

"I don't know… it is quite late, so I'll probably head to my bed. Good morning, Stark," He jumps up and leaves, before Tony can even think of stopping him.

Right, he's just waiting for people to ask…

"So… Do you remember the rumble offer? Cause it still stands," Tony eyes Loki. And Loki responds with a smile.

~~~

The next morning, Loki didn't appear. Thor explained that he crashed on the bed. And it must be the hell of a sleep because he got out of his room three days after. Again, while Tony was working on a suit.

"Hey, wanna help?" Tony yells at Loki as he walks outside of the lab. And Loki nods a yes and gets to work.

"Still not sleeping, Stark?" He asks, his smart eyes pinned on the helmet of the suit.

"No rest for the wicked," Tony smiles. Looks like he's more talkative now that he's fresh.

"Tell me about it…" He sighs. Then, he grunts a bit, probably gotten hit by some remaining electricity.

Tony hadn't noticed before how pretty Loki's smile is.

And Loki takes the opportunity and starts to talk. Tony learns a lot about Loki during the Great Rumble. Dandelions are his favourite flowers, thanks to the Æsir library he became an encyclopaedia of random fun facts (even took it far enough to share some), he's a cat person, he loves classical music or music without lyrics, and then he starts sharing some stories of him and Thor as kids.

But Tony notices other things too. He noticed that Loki's eyes seem to glow when he talks about things that make him happy, he moves his hands around, he has this cute little smile that makes his face shine. And when he talks fast, his Nordic accent slips out—just some trilled 'r's or some harder sounds—and he also has a stutter that slips out. And Tony finds all of those so beautiful, but he can't say it.

"Your turn," Loki says. And Tony freezes.

Because his mind is nothing but simping for Loki, right now.

"I… em… Ya know, I…" He mutters, trying to think of something. But, Goddamnit, those shining green eyes pinning on him and waiting are so distracting.

"I'm actually bisexual, but more attracted to women than men," He snaps, finally finding something. But what if Asgard is not so accepting? Earth is having issues with those things and those guys live in the middle ages.

"Oh, nice," Loki shrugs after noticing Tony's brief pause. And it's enough to relax Tony.

"And… Dammit, this is so hard… I like cheeseburgers?" He squirts. "I don't know, can't think of something right now… when something pops up, I'll let you know," He gives up and rubs his nose bridge.

"No worries, you're hot anyways,"

Loki grins after seeing how red Tony's face became. And Tony clears his throat in hope of containing himself somehow.

"Alrighty… How's the helmet going? Tony moves the subject away. He sees Loki short-circuiting for a long moment, before remembering what they are doing here and grabbing back the helmet.

"It won't let me fix it… whenever I try to do something to the source of the issue, I get striked," He answers.

"Have you tried plastic gloves?" Tony asks, not even looking up from the hand he's oiling.

"For the helmet?" Loki asks, his eyebrows furrowed at Tony.

"For your hands, you idiot!" Tony screams, his head snapping heavenwards. Why did he agree on this?

"Fine, fine… Norns, dauðlegir eru svo stuttir í skapi... —Norns, Mortals are so short tempered…" Loki mutters under his breath.

"You know JARVIS can translate from Old Norse to English, right?" Tony snaps.

Loki shrugs and leaps into the working table and walks across it with three big steps, jumping back down with grace and opening shelves to find the gloves.

"They won't fit," He yells at Tony.

"Whatcha mean they won't fit?" Tony yells back.

Loki jumps on the table again and ends right behind Tony.

"I mean, they won't fit. They're too small," He answers to Tony's ear. Tony has learned how much Loki loved climbing on furniture, so he just turns around instead of jumping around and cussing at the God.

"Come on… how big are your hands?" He asks. Loki grabs Tony's hand and places his palm against his own. Tony's fingers were beginning on Loki's second joints, his fingers long and thin. And Tony licks his lips, because he knows what big hands mean…

Stop being horny over deities, you idiot! It didn't end well with Jesus and it won't end well with this one too! The, usually silent, voice of reason reminds him.

"Maybe you can magic them into fitting…" He suggests. Loki nods and stretches the left glove with his right hand, a green light making it bigger as he slides his hand inside.

"Thank you, Stark…" He smiles and climbs back on the table, eyes pinned on the helmet as he's playing with the screwdriver. It's been two weeks since he came here, and he still uses only last names. But when Clint called him Odinson, Thor, Steve and the Hulk had to physically hold Loki from snapping the archer's neck. And no one dares to call him Laufeyson or even think about it.

"Hey," Tony snaps. Loki flinches at the sudden noise but composes himself right after. "Sorry, didn't mean to scare ya," Tony apologizes.

"It's fine… What do you want to ask?" Loki shrugs one shoulder, placing the helmet on his right and the screwdriver on his left.

"Why do you call everyone by their last name but don't want to be addressed as so?" He asks.

"I'm not anyone's friend, and first names feel too familiar for such a situation. And, I won't stay for a long time…" He answers, the livid glow in his eyes fading just so.

"And, your last name?"

"I don't have one…" He whispers, with what Tony recognises as shame in his voice. Tony frowns and walks closer, staying outside of Loki's personal space.

"But you're Thor's brother and he's an Odinson," He studied his words before speaking. The last thing he wants is to trigger Loki, even as an accident.

"On Asgard and Jötenheim, last names work differently. You choose the name of the parent who you are closest to and then add the -son, -dottir or -barn. But Odin and Laufey were not close at all, and Frigga could help but she chose to keep me at arm's reach. So, no last name…" Tony can see how Loki was trying hard not to show emotions, but he is so close to breaking.

"You know, with this logic, only Thor has a last name. Don't tell Steve, but Howard was a first class terrible father. Steve's dad abandoned him and his mother, after beating the poor woman. Clint's parents made him run away and go to the circus. Natasha was given her name in the Red Room, she doesn't know who her parents are. And Bruce's was violent too. The only people with decent parents are Thor and JARVIS." Tony should move the topic away, but he didn't. At least he tries to patch it up on the last bit.

"And Dum-E," Loki adds, with a barely visible smile. A fake one. Tony hears the robot's joints moving as he lifts his upper part.

"And Dum-E," Tony agrees with a smile, and the robot makes a few happy noises. Loki laughs.

"You know, he says he loves you," He turns to Tony.

"If that's so, he earned some nice oil," Tony grabs the oil and applies some to Dum-E's joint. It doesn't stop making those mechanic noises and when Tony is over, Loki's smiling at him from the table.

"He still says he loves me, right?" Tony asks. Loki makes a slight nod, not abandoning his small smile.

"And that you are the best dad," He adds. Tony laughs and pets Dum-E before heading back to the table. But he still won't get too close to Loki, he is very strict with his personal space.

Loki grabs back the helmet and starts poking it around with the tool, now ignoring Tony.

"So, you don't feel like talking, huh?" Tony asks.

"If you mean the topic you want to talk about, then no," Loki snaps, not raising his eyes. Tony nods, he knows better than invading Loki's personal space.

And Loki didn't open his mouth for the rest of the night. The next morning, he would pretend nothing happened, but Tony would see how something changed in him. How his eyes darkened and his face became colder.

~~~

The next night, Loki is even more grumpy. So, Tony avoids speaking, or making anything that has even the slightest chance to irritate him.

"You're scared of me…" Loki finally speaks, his voice soft like a whisper and his fingers playing with the black ring on his ring finger. Tony looks up from the metal glove he's making to stare at Loki.

"Should I be scared?" Tony asks, careful not to say the wrong words.

"You are too picky about what you do around me. Why not do that if not because you are scared?" He answers. And this is where Tony lets himself frown and talks without thinking.

"Maybe because I don't want to make you feel bad?" He lets his words come out without filters. And Loki raises his eyebrow at it.

"Well, you don't lie about it. But why are you so dedicated to this?" He narrows his eyes and crosses his hands, body leaning towards Tony.

And now, he can't answer. Why does he care so much? It's not that they're old friends like with Rhodey or ex-s but still friends like with Pepper. They're not even teammates. Loki said it himself, he will leave after the one month Steve gave him.

So, why does Tony care so much?

"Hmm, nice answer…" Loki snarls and looks away, playing again with the other hand of the suit.

"You're a cold son of a whore, you know that?" Tony spits, his eyes stabbing Loki. He now raises his glare again, but he looks more confused than before.

"I beg your pardon?" He blinks.

"I try to be decent towards you, okay? The reasons behind it don't matter. Could be fear, guilt, interest, it means jack. And you question me on how I dare be decent towards you and why and what I want from you! You know what, I have a question for you. Why can't you accept being treated as a normal person? Are you that messed up in the brain or you just love so much being alone and miserable?" Tony lets his thoughts come out as they are, not giving a care how much they will hurt Loki. But the moment he sees Loki's reaction, he regrets it.

The room gets cold enough for Tony to see his breathing. Loki leaves the tools and the metal hand beside him and locks his feet on a tight fatal position, his hands on his face and pulling some hair with enough strength to pull them out and his shoulders rising and falling too fast.

And Tony knows what this means… It means he messed up badly.

"Crap! Hey, buddy, I'm sorry. I didn't mean those things…" He sprints closer. Loki raises his hand towards him, a green glow erupting from it and sending Tony flying to the other side of the lab.

Loki mutters something to this in Old Norse, before jumping up and leaving, his feet shaking as he was trying to walk towards the exit. But he manages to vanish in the dark corridor anyways.

And this time, Tony definitely messed up the worst way possible.

~~~

For the next two weeks, Loki doesn't get out of his room. And it only makes the knot in Tony's stomach grow tighter. He asks Thor all the time how Loki is, if he eats, if he sleeps, if he needs something. It's a wonder Thor hasn't grown tired of the constant questioning. And the answer is always the same, "I don't know, he won't let me in,".

And if everyone on the tower has learned something about Loki, is that things are bad when he keeps Thor at arm's length.

Tony wants to go and check on Loki himself, but he bets his right hand that Loki will spit curses at him, and he has every right to do so. So, he has to settle down on annoying Thor and worrying with him.

"You know what? It's my fault," Tony admits to Thor the night before Loki leaves. And Thor furrowed his eyebrows.

"What do you mean?"

Tony explains everything that happened that night, and Thor smiles with sympathy and touches Tony's neck.

"You were right on your words, that's why Loki reacted like this. He doesn't want people to know too much about him… But he won't be mad at you." He answers.

"But, why do I care so much? We barely know each other…" Tony asks.

"Have you thought of love?" Thor suggest. Tony is about to smack Thor for saying something like this, but it makes sense.

"Do… you don't happen to know if he's queer, right?" Tony makes the big question.

"I know very few Æsir who are not your definition of queer, but Loki was never open about those things. You better ask him…" He shrugs.

Well, Thor has a point. But Tony can't exactly ask Loki what his sexuality is while he's like this. So, he better wait till it's time.

"Thank you, Point Break…" Tony pats Thor's back. And then, JARVIS yells at them that Steve wants everyone in the central room.

And there is everyone here, even Loki. Well, an emotionally drained and mentally exhausted Loki, but he's there.

"As you know, your month has passed…" Steve begins talking, his Captain Voice on. Loki nods and lowers his shoulders to appear smaller.

"I'll be on my way, then…" He mutters, voice low and breaking. Steve wants to smile, but Loki's reaction stops him.

"So, you don't want to be an Avenger?" He lets his Captain mask fall, eyeing Loki with worry. And every single one of the Avengers is now doing the same. Tony hadn't realised that this antisocial emo little God had become so popular.

Loki lets his lips make a smile so big Tony bets it hurts like hell.

"You mean I can stay?" He asks, his voice now louder and livid.

"Can't see a reason to kick you out," Steve smiles too.

And Loki drags him to a hug tight enough to break the poor soldier in half, smiling like a sunbeam and rumbling thank you again and again.

"Alright, can you let me breathe?" Steve wheezes. Loki makes a small oh sound and lets go of the hug.

"Sorry, Steve," He hums, not breaking eye contact.

"Steve? Where's the "Rogers"?" Clint asks, his eyebrows raised and his hands signing along even though he wears his hearing aids.

"Well, since I'm about to stay, there's no point in calling you with your last names, is there?" Loki shrugs.

"Alright, you know what we need? A party. Who's with me?" Tony claps his hands and yells, glad to see everyone agreeing.

~~~

Apparently, being an alien God makes you hold your liquor a lot. Tony knew about Steve, but he didn't expect those two to have this stamina as well.

But Thor has started losing his balance and yelling at everyone how much he loves them in Old Norse and Loki's accent and stutter are showing, but he is just sitting on the bar and watching over the chaos.

This is your chance. He's happy and drunk enough, what could possibly go wrong? Tony thinks and stumbles towards Loki before he sits on a tall stool.

"So, are you having fun?" He asks, smiling at Loki and sipping on his scotch. It's fine, he's done this countless times before and he can do it now.

"It's quite nice, yes…" Loki hums, now turning to face Tony.

"And, em… Sorry about the other night… It was too much, should have been midler on ya," Tony mumbles, trying not to lower his eyes and break eye contact. Loki makes a soft nod.

"It's fine, you don't have to apologize… And you were quite right about some things…" He gives Tony a small smile as he talks, making him relax his shoulders a bit a mouth a thank you.

"And I wanna tell you something… I also talked to Thor about it… And I think… No, I'm pretty sure I have a crush on you. And, that's why the care and stuff…" Tony rumbles, his eyes big as he searches for reaction. But Loki stays untouched.

"I am… flattered… But I'm also asexual," He breathes out, staring back at Tony for a reaction.

"Oh, sorry, I didn't want to make it uncomfortable…" Tony rushes to apologize. Couldn't he see the black wedding ring? It's a symbol of asexuality!

"You know, things can work out platonically. I mean, you do start to grow on me…" Loki responds, smiling just a bit.

"Really? I mean, you don't mind?" Tony grins at the response, his eyes big at the God. Loki shrugs.

"Yeah, If you are okay with not getting laid with me…"

"Oh, thank you! Thank you so much!" Tony gives Loki an ear to ear smile and grabs his right hand, kissing gently the black ring.

Loki's cheeks and ears get bright red and he bites his lower lip. Tony is quick to let go of his hand.

"I'm sorry, I'm so sorry. I didn't want to make you uncomfortable…" He chunters, now lowering his glare and playing with his glass.

"It was… nice…" Loki whispers, most likely to himself. But Tony still snaps his head up.

"Seriously?"

"Yes… And…" The red blush appears back in his cheeks as he fidgets with his sleeves. "It was the first time someone kissed me…"

"No way!" Tony exhales.

"I know, embarrassing…" Loki bites his lip again, breaking eye contact.

"I'm actually honoured. Not a lot of humans had the chance to steal the first kiss of a God, you know," Tony grins, hoping the joke is not that bad.

Loki reacts with a snorting sound and a light punch on the ribs, that sends Tony straight to the floor and makes the glass scatter in pieces.

"Oh, dear, are you alright?!" Loki squirts at Tony.

"I think I need a safeword…" Tony grunts.

He is sure that Loki will grimace on the joke, but instead, he giggles like a highschool girl.

"Most definitely yeah," He sighs, handing over an identical glass with the one they broke.

From the back of the room, no one sees Thor laughing as Steve sighs at the view of Loki and Tony and handing over the twenty dollars of the bet.

[septiembrre]

22 👀

Prompt: kissing someone’s cuts/bruises/scratches

Oh my god, Alex! I had so much fun writing this! It was a wild 5k ride these past 24 hours but here it is. I had never written hurt!comfort before, so this is my take on the classic Rio comes to Beth’s room late at night, bruised and bloody. 

I’m posting it here but it’s mad long. Feel free to check it out instead on AO3. 

I’ll Treat You Better (Than I Did Before)

It’s pitch dark in her bedroom and it takes Beth a minute to realize she’s awake. There’s a foggy, semi-intelligible lecture to Kenny swirling stubbornly in her thoughts. Was it even Kenny? Or maybe it was a pre-teen Annie of years ago...  It clings, insisting she pick up and finish the end of her rant if only to give her enough peace of mind to go back to sleep.

Earlier that day -- or Beth supposes it must be after midnight by now and the overly-rambunctious evening had all officially transpired in the past of the day before -- Kenny had come leaping down off a tree branch in the backyard. It was his latest attempt to “scare the bejeezus” out of his little sisters. He must have been up there for quite some time lying in wait for them to play below him. He had rappelled down like some sort of nightmarish, gangly monkey. Emma’s shriek had carried across the backyard to Beth as she sorted laundry in the mudroom, alerting her that there was mischief afoot. She could picture it in her mind’s eye, Emma levitating a foot off the ground. 

Meanwhile, her youngest, Jane, had sprung forward in instinctive defense of her more mild-mannered older sister, and tackled her pest of an older brother. Janey must have put all of her weight into it, too (and God, she would be great at football, if only there was a team that would take her) because she launched Kenny backward through the air to plop straight into a row of her beautiful, thorn-filled bushes.  

Beth had found herself sprinting barefoot across the yard, helicoptering in to extricate her thirteen-year-old son from his painful perch. After some careful maneuvering, her attempts had ended in a sniffling Kenny with blood dripping down his right arm from dozens of long, thin scratches. Luckily for Kenny (and Beth’s sanity), his mother kept her Neosporin stocked up in spades. Beth ended up sitting with him for the better part of the evening patching him up. 

At the cusp of his teenage years, Kenny is the spitting image of Dean, but damn, if he didn’t remind her of Annie at that age. Ballsy, sharp, plotting, and with little regard for self-preservation, teenage Kenny has really started to push her buttons. The same arguments come bubbling up from the years of yore, the same old patterns. Too quickly, she felt tears bead hotly at the corner of her eyes as she scolded Kenny to be sensical, to watch out for his siblings, to be safe. 

Then, when she was done, she had rounded on Jane. 

Beth’s thoughts continue mulling the evening over as she shifts under her covers. She comes further into consciousness, summoned by the underlying anxiety about the family history she worries could repeat, is repeating, in her children's lives. Beth considers the sheltered home-life she had carefully manufactured for her kids and wonders where she went wrong. Was this uptick in reckless behavior a product of the divorce?

She considers a quick Internet search — just to peek, get some reassurance. But, it’s just as likely she’ll come across something that will stress her out. Then she’ll really wake up and what she should do is go back to sleep, and leave the family pathologizing for the morning. 

Distantly, wrapped in the dark cocoon of her bed, Beth registers a robust rumble and the sound of rain— thunder? How long has it been raining? 

A bright flash of light peels through the curtains of the French doors and the windows of her bedroom, illuminating the ceiling above her. The answering thunder cracks loudly a few seconds later, and Beth, a grown adult, startles in her bed. 

Kenny and Jane certainly had too much of their aunt’s recklessness in them, but perhaps Beth and Emma (and sometimes Danny) were also too similar -- another thing to worry about. She wonders if her eldest daughter, her mini-me, is fated to a lifetime of boredom and self-effacement for the comfort of other people? Could this be the legacy Beth is passing on to her daughter? Oh my god. 

Beth squeezes her eyes shut, trying to shut out this unhelpful, midnight whorl of thoughts, and rolls over to check her phone. Three.

It��s too late, early, obscene for this particular spiral. But these are the kind of thoughts that take root in her mind, and come out in the middle of the night to make her second guess if she’s doing anything right in her life.

Beth takes a deep breath. She lets it out. Then, she burrows deeper in the covers, tries to settle back in her skin, and listens to the rain. 

It might have worked, too, except suddenly the French doors are jostled insistently from the outside. The handles smack sharply as they snap back into place, and Beth all but jumps a foot into the air. 

She’s suddenly awake, too awake, and pissed off. 

Beth has exactly one guess of who is out there. Who else could it be? 

Adrenaline pulses through her veins, as Beth leaps up to stalk to the double doors. She pulls back the gauze curtain and glowers at the shadowy figure outside. 

Lightning flashes again illuminating Rio’s glare that meets hers from the other side. He cants his jaw, raising a hand to rap impertinently at the glass. There’s blood on his face and his knuckles leave a red smear where he knocked on the window. 

Immediately, Beth unlocks the doors and steps back to let him in. The smell of wet earth floods her room, and abruptly, she and Rio are two shadowy figures in the darkness of her room. 

“You change the locks on me, ma?” Rio asks, playing wounded -- emotionally, that is. 

What a fucking night. 

“Yes.” Beth snips. She strides ahead of him to the ensuite and flicks on the lights to the bathroom. Her eyes squint as she adjusts to the brightness. “I didn’t want any more surprises.” Beth spins to face him. 

Rio has paused behind her, leaning against the frame of the bathroom. He brings up a palm to clutch the area of his chest over his heart. His knuckles are caked in blood, some of them still actively bleeding. Beth scans his face and registers the purple bruise blooming along one of his too-sharp, too-handsome cheekbones and there’s a dab of blood at his temple. His hoodie and pants are soaked from the rain and are dripping a puddle onto the bathroom tile floor. Her eyes drop down the length of him, and she notes that it’s the first time she’s seen his sneakers muddy. He must have tracked dirt all through her carpet. 

Worry coils knots between her shoulder blades. 

He looks like shit. 

But, still -- he finds the gall to drag his eyes suggestively down her body and she wonders what on earth he’s looking at. It’s the middle of the night, she’s not wearing any makeup, and her hair probably lies straight and limp from her pillow. Quickly her eyes flick sideways to the mirror to check that she doesn’t have drool flaking on her cheek. She doesn’t, but then her eyes catch on her frayed pajamas that in sleep have been pulled in an unflattering stretch across her body. She wonders if she could tug the fabric back into place without being too obvious, and her gaze rises to look at Rio surreptitiously in the mirror. In the seconds she’s looked away, his eyes have zeroed in on her chest and Beth is suddenly very aware that she is not wearing a bra. 

Quickly, the self-righteousness flares again. Once upon a time, she had thought it sexy-- okay, maybe a kernel of hers still thinks it’s a little sexy. But, now, after what happened between them, she never wants him to shed a drop of blood again. Beth wants to smack him, shake him… and draw him in, and warm him up, and kiss at the blood on his knuckles. The impulse beats warm, warm, warm in her chest. A clap of thunder sounds again, and like a flash she pictures his fingers illuminated in the dark of her bedroom, bloody and vibrant against the paleness of her skin. 

Somewhere low, her body throbs. 

Rio licks his lips. 

Beth swears at herself and tries to shake it off. “Get in here.” 

Blessedly, Rio doesn’t make any moves to touch her. Instead, they do a graceful pivot around each other, as he moves into her bathroom. She swears the air quivers with some spell of gravity or attraction manifesting itself between their bodies. Why-- Why is it like this? 

Beth bites her lower lip, exhausted, worried, and a little nervy. Rio tracks the movement of her teeth at her lip. 

Then, he shivers. 

It nudges her back to her senses. 

Beth lofts her nose in the air, prim. “Luckily for you, the Neosporin is already out.” She sighs, rolling her shoulders back. “It’s been a day.”

Rio nods along with her, his lips pressing together with the effort of suppressing a wry grin. “You’re tellin’ me.” 

She nods back at him. “I’m going to go get it.” 

“‘Kay.” 

Rio shivers again, and he looks disdainfully down at his wet clothes. 

“Don’t move.” Beth insists, exasperation and worry setting more firmly in. She wonders if she will find more blood under his clothes, knows she’ll see his scars again tonight, and prays he hasn’t added anything more to the collection. Beth tries to mask her concern. “I don’t want blood in my bedroom.” 

She starts to turn away, when Rio intones sardonic and somehow still with a thread of sincerity, “Thank you, darlin’.”

Beth throws him a quick glare and then tip-toes out of her bedroom to the kitchen. She takes the opportunity to adjust the set of her pajamas and combs her fingers through her hair. Then, mindful of not making more noise that would wake the kids, she quietly gathers the first aid supplies she had used earlier to tend to Kenny. There’s a quick moment of consideration, then she shoves the handle of bourbon under her arm. She makes her way back through the semi-darkness of the house, periodic flashes from the storm outside illuminating her way. 

Beth returns to her bedroom, the light from the ensuite beckoning her forward. Inside, Rio has settled on the edge of the tub. He’s pulled the hoodie off and it lies discarded in a sodden pile behind him in the tub. He’s left wearing a damp black t-shirt and soaked black denim. 

Beth sets the supplies on the vanity and then snaps her fingers, gesturing at him insistently. “Take it all off.”

“‘Scuse me?” Rio’s eyebrows raise in disbelief and amusement.

“Take off your clothes.”

Rio’s hands go to grasp the edge of his t-shirt.  “So it’s that kind of healin’, huh?”

Beth makes a dismissive sound and gestures impatiently at him to take off his shirt. Rio peels it off and drops it with the hoodie. 

His tattoos and the scars dance before her in the bright bathroom light like a mirage. Then, Rio drops his big, bloody hands to unbutton his fly. His thumb pauses, fondling the button as his grin spreads Cheshire-like across his face. Quickly, Beth grabs her towel off the rack and pushes it at his chest. Then she turns around and stares through the doorway into the darkness of her bedroom, to give him privacy. 

The night thunderstorm continues on, noisy and beautiful when she really comes to focus on it. Beth wonders if her children might have woken up with the thunder, but she hasn’t heard their footsteps. They could never successfully sneak around Beth, her ears tuned to their movements. Her eyes drift to the doorway of her bedroom and she sends a brief plea that they sleep through the storm. She doesn’t want Janey or Emma coming down to creep into her bed, while her crime boss is bleeding in her bathroom.

There’s a loud thud of soppy denim landing in the tub, and it brings her back to exactly what Rio is doing behind her.

She can hear the smirk in his voice when he calls, “You gonna kiss it and make it better now, Elizabeth?”

Beth shuts her eyes in a surge of pique. Why does she like him again?

But, hadn’t those same thoughts already flashed through her head? Of kissing his pain away?

She tries to get herself under control. “Are you decent?”

“Mmhm.”

Beth turns and finds Rio with her towel slung low around his hips, seated again on the edge of the tub. He’s dry now -- or drier. There are little beads of water that he missed lined under an ear, along a bicep. His blood stands out dabbed across his hands and at his brow. It doesn’t look like there’s any other damage to him. 

The tattoos look stark against his skin in the light, the scars starker but her eyes still have to skip past those. She wants to lick at the wings of his neck, to pin him underneath her, and suck at them in her bed. And god, he doesn’t look his best tonight. He’s not the sure-fire and graceful version of him prowling from his stupid, luxury car, or sitting incorrectly in whatever chair is around, or taunting her with his one-upmanship and wide smiles. But, want blooms wild at the sight of so much of him at once and she has a brief thought that the thunderstorm could work to their advantage. 

Rio shifts and stretches his legs out long in front of him. Then he slants his jaw at her in a manner that can only be described as cocky, daring her to ignore him, and her towel, and his probable nakedness. His eyes dance with mirth.

Quickly, regroups by Beth clamping her eyes shut again to dispel the image, the reality in front of her.

Does she still have any of Dean’s clothes? Damn, she knows she meticulously packed them all away for him to head off any possible excuse--  A loose shirt maybe? Or perhaps a spare bedsheet they could drape around him? No. That’s dangerous territory—

What was he going to wear out of here?

Well… she could always go grab more towels from the linen closet in a bit. Throw his clothes in the dryer. That was a start. 

Beth opens her eyes, and extends him her hand, “Let me see.”

“I can handle it, ma,” Rio says affectionately, seemingly sparing her in a rare show of grace. “It’s my mess.”

Ah, yes. His creed. 

“Why are you here then?” 

“‘Cause it’s pouring out and I was nearby.” 

She stares at him, trying to connect the dots. 

“...And you thought you could show up like this and I would— what? Be your hot pack?”

Rio scoffs a short laugh. “Don’t put words in my mouth.”

“You knocked on my bedroom door at three in the morning,” she hisses. 

Rio shrugs, not giving a quarter. 

“Is this supposed to be a—” Beth lowers her voice to an affronted whisper. “—booty call?”

He stares at her, his mouth falling open. Then he shakes his head in what Beth thinks is disbelief. “Pass me the kit.” 

Beth doesn’t move. Instead, she crosses her arms and stares down at him seated below her. “What happened?” 

Rio grits his jaw.

Their scowls meet in a stalemate. 

Thunder crashes again outside, loud as ever. Beth jumps at the sound, it loosens her stance as Rio gives another shiver from the residual chill on his skin. His gaze softens on her, and she relents -- for now.  

Beth grabs the kit, flips down the lid of the toilet and perches on the commode next to him. She holds out her palms again. “Let me see.” 

This time, Rio extends his hands. 

Beth can’t help a small grin at the victory. She cranes over his fingers, turning them around in her palms. Despite getting caught in the downpour, his hands are warm, strong as always and eclipsing hers. For the most part, the bleeding at his knuckles has stopped, and she feels her worry unknot itself. In reward for his rare compliance, she passes him the bottle of bourbon.

He wrinkles an eyebrow in surprise. “You okay with me taking a swig from the bottle?”

Beth considers it for a beat. Then she leans over and plucks the old sippy cup she keeps in the bathroom for brushing her teeth and offers it to him. He chuckles and opens the handle. He fills the sippy cup half way with bourbon and now it’s Beth’s turn to give Rio a look of surprise. He takes a drink. 

“For sharing.”  He grins at her over the rim of the cup, too charming for the middle of the night. 

Remotely, Beth can feel the tiredness pulling at her bones from the eventful evening caring to three of her four children and the subsequent interrupted sleep. But more pressingly -- the heat throbs low in her core again. 

She pulls the cup out Rio’s grasp, and takes a sip. The smell of the bourbon is sharp in her nose as it goes down her throat, settling warm in her belly. She hands back the cup and returns to her self-appointed task. 

She absolutely doesn’t think of the finally-healed bullet scars in her face. Or the expanse of brown skin exposed in front of her. Or his eyes resting warm on her face, occasionally drifting to follow the careful movement of her hands. 

Beth focuses on the cuts. 

First, she grabs the peroxide. For an eternity, or what really is just a few minutes, the only sound is the rain falling steadily outside and their soft breathing. The smell of the peroxide makes Beth's nose wrinkle and Rio gives a quiet laugh. His fingers twitch as she irrigates the wounds but otherwise he takes it well. 

For the millionth time, she wonders if Rio boxes. He must, right?

After she’s done with the hydrogen peroxide, they both take another swig of bourbon, polishing off the sippy cup. Then, Beth moves on to dabbing Rio’s knuckles with alcohol. 

Halfway through the first hand, there’s another loud clap of thunder. Beth’s hands tense and she presses too firmly into one of the cuts. Rio flinches and looks at her with a question on his face.

“You scared of thunder?”

“No.” 

He smiles at her, not seeming to believe her words. 

“I’m just tired.” --and overstimulated, and are you even wearing boxers underneath that towel?

Beth pivots. “So what happened?”

Rio’s smile wanes and he looks at her with that old guarded look-- that I’m a tough crime boss and I don’t talk easy look. She rolls her eyes and continues cleaning his knuckles. 

“I was out on business--” 

She looks up from his knuckles to search his face. 

“Not our business.” Rio clarifies, but Beth only has more questions as he continues, “And I got into a fight with some dumb motherfucker who didn’t do as he was told.”

“What was the problem?” Her mind spirals. She’s responsible for a sizable part of his wealth now but so much of his business is still elusive. But, the question comes out inelegant, too direct. 

Rio looks at her with reproach, pursing his lips. 

“Didn’t respect the pecking order.” 

Honestly, she doesn’t have enough context to be sure she knows what that means. But, she’s certainly had enough of those kinds of disputes with Rio herself. She knows it’s serious -- hence the blood -- and she decides not to press. It’s three, now three-thirty, in the morning and Beth doesn’t have the energy to work on their communication at this hour. 

She returns her focus to his hands, but the rest of him, the exposed length of him catches her eye from the periphery of her vision.

She recognizes that particular musky smell of him, of his skin, as their bodies lean close together.

She tries her previous question again. “And how did you end up here?”

Her gaze darts up to look at him through her lashes. She finds him staring solemnly back at her. 

Then, he shrugs.

“You were closer”

Beth bites her lip.

It was just two months ago that they had slept with each other at Paper Porcupine. It had been the first time since before and it just happened, late one night at a private drop between them. It had been electric, furious, and everything she had fantasized about alone in her bed. They had gone a few rounds despite the lack of comfortable surfaces. 

She tries never to think about it. But, it ends up filling all of her day-dreams. 

He had gotten on the table next to the printing press, and he had dropped to his knees and eaten her out. The look in his eyes while he had-- Afterwards, he pulled out a stack from the drop money and seemed to pretend-swat her ass with it. They had ended up spilling the bag out and they fucked on fresh stacks of cash. 

Then there was kissing, a literal bathroom break. Then, Rio, bossy, ridiculous, had led her over to a work table. He had pulled up her blouse, pulled down her bra, and bent her over the edge. His hand firm at her back, he had pushed her chest into a tin of setting pulp. God.  She had moaned around the thick fingers that he had curled into her mouth, impossibly turned on and feeling the… sluttiest she had ever felt. Rio had murmured dirty encouragement in her ear, egging her over to the edge again and again.

Not one to let him get the last word, Beth had insistently pushed off the table just before he came and pulled him out. Rio had watched in a fevered daze, groaning as she had sunk to her knees, sucking him off, tasting herself with a triumphant glint in her eye. Beth had let his come spill, joining the mess smeared across her throat and breasts.

Afterward, they laid together, sticky, sprawled out on the floor, and came back to earth. Eventually, she had tugged open the buttons of his shirt. He had let her. And Beth had cried — quietly, restrained — as she kissed the scars she had given him. Rio had eyed her steadily, carefully as Beth’s world tilted completely off its axis. 

They fucked again a week later at the hot tub store, in the water with strategic use of one of the jets. And a few days after that in his car, and then in the back of hers. Then, Paper Porcupine again and that was the last time. Beth had just managed to get him dressed and out the front door as Annie and Ruby had come through the back rallying for printing night. Beth had feigned ignorance as they had asked increasingly pointed questions about the eye-sore of a Mercedes that had just been parked outside of the store and reality came crashing down.

After that, Beth had kept her distance. And Rio… was never one to meet her more than halfway.

But, he continued to drop in on her -- more than ever. She is clearly on his schedule, penciled into the spare hours of the day. 

And still, she continues to resist it — the pull. 

She could admit they had their fun. Is that what people call the best sex they’ve ever had in their life?

But, she doesn’t know if she’s ready for something so unsteady, something that makes her feel so messy -- too alive. If she ever will be ready. But, she thinks of Rio bleeding somewhere out there and other nights where he won’t come to her, thinks of the night where she left him bleeding out, and her mouth twists in a grimace. 

Rio brings the hand she isn’t working on to squeeze reassuringly at her thigh. 

It feels really nice. 

Beth has to clear her throat and blink away a few tears. 

After she’s done with the alcohol swabs, she motions for Rio to follow her to the sink.  

As they both crowd around her vanity, Beth realizes she didn’t quite need to follow him as he rinses his knuckles out with water. But, she reminds herself, it’s the middle of the night and she’s tired. The cuts and scrapes haven’t been serious — but there’s been too much blood in the past few hours. 

She uncaps the Neosporin. It’s something for her to do with her empty, searching hands.

“Nah.” Rio shakes his head and turns off the water. “I don’t need that.”

Beth levels him with the look she gave Kenny earlier, brokering no arguments. 

“You want me to get it all over your bed?”

“Excuse me?” 

He blinks back at her. Then in affected shock, he continues, “You take my clothes, you ply me with booze and now you want me to drive across Detroit while it’s still pourin’ rain?” He tsks. “Damn, mama. That’s cold.”

Beth rolls her eyes — and she’s tired, and if he keeps his hands to himself and she keeps her hands to herself… what’s a couple of hours of shut-eye next to the lean, naked length of him? He would have to be naked. She wasn’t going to let him get into her sheets with wet boxers, even if he surprised her and they were somehow on underneath that towel.

Well, she’ll tackle it when they get there. For now, she abandons the Neosporin on the counter, passes over the bandaids and bandages she knows he won’t take, and grabs the hand towel to raise to his temple. He dodges away, playful but somewhat serious.

“I’m good. I promise.”

That’s not enough to stop Beth from zeroing in on the bruise at his cheek. She brings her fingertips up to prod at it gingerly. It’s swollen and hot. Rio winces beneath her touch, bringing his hands up to snatch hers. He lowers her hands to his lips instead, and he presses his mouth to her fingertips. 

“Thank you,” he murmurs hotly against her hand, effectively distracting her from doing anything else.

Beth gulps, as a spark kindles. Her skin burns where Rio’s mouth presses warm on her skin and shoots down her core. It coils in her belly and has her shifting in her stance. She’s still aware of where he touched her thigh just now and she craves more of his touch, the pleasure of his undivided attention.

Beth is flooded by thoughts of him, back in her bed. She thinks of him wrapped up in her sheets. She thinks of it now in the safety of darkness, with the rain still pattering down on the house. And she yearns.

She’s never felt like this before — not even when she was a teenager, young and hormonal. She had been too laden with responsibilities and a fumbling boyfriend who would become a boorish husband. Before crime, she had always accepted what had been handed to her without a complaint. But now... 

When she’s with Rio, Beth feels fire in her and it’s impossible to back away, to back down. 

She wants to chase him, be desired by him, bring him to her bed and into her life and never let him go. 

She blinks up from his mouth to look him in the eye. That look suspends between them heady, rife— 

It’s three-thirty in the morning and so what?

She licks her lips and lets herself loose. 

Beth pulls her hands away from his mouth and wraps them around his palms pulling them to her body instead. Goosebumps rise up along Rio’s arms.

She thinks, What’s one more time?

She thinks, I want to be the one who warms him up. 

She thinks, I want this. 

Beth brings his knuckles to her mouth, Rio’s hands weighty in hers. The musk of him fills her nose and it makes her light-headed, wet. She kisses them tenderly, her lips dragging against where his skin is unbroken. Her attention is trained on his hands, but she registers the wings fluttering again at his throat, as he swallows hard.

When Beth is done kissing each cut, she brings one hand to rest on her hip and the other’s fingertips to her mouth instead. She takes the tip of an index finger in her mouth and she bites firm at the pad.

When he groans, she feels deep in her cunt. 

She’s achingly empty, burning and she wants him. She can’t think of anything else.

But, Rio hovers a breath away. He’s never needed much convincing before.

And she thinks, Right. We’re here again.

Her bed.

So, she rises up onto her toes, her lips landing softly on his bruised cheek. As she lingers in what increasingly feels like their natural orbit — kissing distance — she brings Rio's hand under her shirt to squeeze at the warm, rounded weight of her breast. It’s her turn to moan as he cups her, his hand reaching up to roll her nipple between his fingers.

Rio presses his forehead to hers, panting open-mouthed against her lips. The tips of their noses brush. She feels his cock hard against her stomach, through the stupid towel.

She wants to devour him.

Beth pulls at the drawstring of her pants and pushes them down. She brings Rio’s hand that has moved to clutch her ass, to perch between her legs instead so he can feel how wet she is.

Rio groans and murmurs, “This for me, Elizabeth?”

His fingers give a perfect, exploratory swirl around her clit. Beth rocks back, scooting her butt to rest on the vanity. She spreads her legs so Rio can dip his fingertips to tease her cunt with a hint of what it’ll be like to be full.

“Always for you.”

It’s unclear who initiates the kiss. It doesn’t matter. It all devolves quickly after that.

[ethelphantom]

Form A Family Of Our Own

Just silliness and fluff and lots of romance and attempts at humour here, and absolutely no angst. You’re welcome! It’s a continuation to the Timari Soulmates Secret Santa I created for @worlds-tiniest-spook-pastry, though I’m just skipping things in the chronological order (aka the BartAdrien reveal but we all knew that was going to happen so it’s fine. This is also my Maribat March day 9, Sleepover at the same time. Have fun!

Ao3 | Part 1 | Part 2

This is Maribat -- don’t like; don’t read

_____________________

“Does everyone have everything they need? No one needs to use Mari to use the puppy eyes to get Dick to go to the store?”

Marinette laughed at Tim’s words while the others shook their heads. They had checked they had everything at least thrice already, it wasn’t going to change no matter how many times he wanted them to make sure of it. When Tim still didn’t look convinced, Marinette simply grabbed his wrist and stroked the skin with her thumb to help him calm down, just like he sometimes did for her.

After all, touching your soulmate’s mark would always be a comforting feeling.

Tim’s shoulders slumped a little as he relaxed before he turned to her and smiled gently. Marinette recognised this as a silent thank you, and so she beamed in response.

“Are we ready to ruin everyone else’s day now?” Conner then asked, leaning against the doorframe. He seemed to be trying to look relaxed and not in the least excited for this, but they all knew better, considering he seemed to be itching to go do just that.

“Oh yeah. I’ve got the cameras and the scavenger lists. Two teams of three, soulmates in the opposite—” Cassie began, but after she got the puppy face from both Bart and Adrien, she sighed in resignation. “Fine, soulmates in the same team. This is why I’m not supposed to look at either of them while giving orders. Damn it.”

Tim rolled his eyes. All of their friends were idiots (“Like you aren’t as well,” an accusing voice said in his head, and it was a bit concerning how much it sounded like Marinette), but they were also the best — Tim wouldn’t change them for the world.

“I love how the rule is supposed to be ‘no metas in Gotham’, but we’re getting like three metas and two that technically count as metas because Miraculous coming anyway to the home of the one that actually originally set said rule in place,” Adrien mused, remembering what he’d been told at some point after the reveal. And after they had already met Cassie.

Marinette let out an amused laugh. “Oh yeah. Anyway. Could someone please get our bags to the Manor so we can just start with the scavenger hunt?”

“On it!”

There was a flash as all their bags, Conner and Bart disappeared and Cassie took out a clock. She watched it tick for a few seconds before she lifted her gaze again to find her missing friends. “You’re slow. It took you two nearly ten seconds. We’re not even outside the city boundaries, boys.”

“Well, fuck you too, we were carrying five bags each because some of us don’t know how to pack small.”

Cassie simply flipped Conner off before she handed him a scavenger list. “You wanna be with Tim and Mari or Bart and Adrien? I’m fine with either one, just decide fast.”

“Bart. And Adrien, I guess.”

“HEY! ”

Idiots, the lot of them.

It didn’t take them long to sort out into teams and get to the centre of the city. Mari, Tim and Cassie stood on one side, looking down at the people that were all a lot taller than them. Mari cocked her hips and tilted her head, her dark blue sundress following the movement.

“Oh, you’re going down, Chaton.”

“I don’t think so, Buginette — I’m not sacrificing my win even if I’d sacrifice my life for you.”

“Okay, too far too soon, go away.”

Their lists were as followed:

Ask a cashier for the nutritional value of an inedible thing

Act like a stranger were famous and ask for their autograph

+1 if you can get them to take a picture with you

Offer a stranger a penny for their thoughts

Ask a stranger to sign your petition against the euthanasia of rabid puppies

+1 if you can get them to sign your palm

Lie in the grass next to a road and pretend to be making snow angels

Ask the opposite gender if they believe in fate

Ask a stranger where the closest local Christmas festival is

+1 if/when they say they don’t know, ask them how else do they appease the gods

Ask if you can get a discount on a thing that costs less than a dollar

+1 if you pronounce it horribly wrong

+1 if you buy the product with pennies

Ask a stranger if they have seen your cat and proceed to describe a full-grown tiger

Knock on someone’s door and sing them a Christmas song

+1 if the person is a stranger

+1 if you sing Frozen’s Let It Go after you’ve said you’re going to sing a Christmas song

Fake a cheesy proposal in a public place

Ask a cashier if dentists recommend using a toothbrush

Ask a cashier if they have healthy cigarettes

+1 if they say no, you yell “you’re lying” and run away dramatically

Ask a stranger if they can see anyone and point to an empty spot

“You’ve got two hours. The clock starts now,” Tim announced, set an alarm in their group chat so everyone would hear, and then they were all running to get things done.

❋❋❋

“Alright, Bart, go on. You’re the first.”

“You’re not allowed to complain if you wanted to do the same thing, then.”

“Remember, if it involves talking with someone, you can’t be going on your own pace, especially not with a civilian! The camera won’t be able to catch it!”

“Well, your cameras suck!”

With a blink, Bart was standing in front of a door and knocked on it. Adrien, who was right behind Kon, had to contain his laughter somehow because he knew that to Bart whoever lived there was taking ages, even if it was less than a minute — and thus bearable — to him.  

When the door was finally opened, Bart immediately started speaking. “Hello, are you interested in hearing Christmas carols?”

“...In the middle of the summer?”

“I know what I said.”

“Uh, no thank you. Have a nice day.”

Bart returned to them pouting. “They didn’t even give me a chance. I’m not that horrible of a singer,” he huffed, crossing his arms.

Adrien took Bart’s hand in his own and pressed a light kiss on his fingers. “Don’t worry, we still have plenty of time, and I doubt it was because of your singing voice. It’s just a weird thing to ask this time of the year. Try again.”

He did. Fortunately for Bart, the next-door neighbour opened their door much faster than the previous one.

“Hiya, are you interested in hearing Christmas carols?”

“Now?”

“Yes.”

“Well, I guess. Sure, go ahead.”

And then Bart proceeded to sing Let It Go off-key. The person listening to him even applauded his singing and gave him a candy (that Kon forced him to throw away or at least not eat until Tim could do a check up on it in case someone was trying to poison him or something. The Bat paranoia was getting to all of them.) It was fun.

“So, three points for us. That was a great start, Bart!” Adrien said, checking the boxes on the list. “You did film it, right Kon?”

“Obviously. I wouldn’t accidentally not. Hold the camera, Adrien. We’re going to a shop now and annoy the heck out of everyone. Tim is so not going to be happy when he realises some of us might get banned from the shop forever,” he snickered.

“I’m already feeling sorry for the employees.”

“At least we aren’t about to be assholes, really.”

“No, just weird as hell. Maybe they’ll get a story or two to tell others and discuss in the break room when they’re talking about the weirdest and worst customers they’ve had.”

“Do they really do that?”

“Oh yeah.”

“Damn.”

It didn’t take them too long to arrive at the store. Adrien and Bart went in first, pretending to be actually considering buying something when Kon came in and looked around for a moment. Then he walked to an unsuspecting employee. “Excuse me, do you have any of those clairvoyance foes? I was thinking of getting one.”

“I must ask you to repeat what you asked for, sir, I’m afraid I didn’t quite catch it,” the woman working said.

“It’s alright. I meant classical woes.”

“I’m so sorry, sir, I must say I don’t understand what exactly you mean by that.”

“Clarification folds, miss.”

“Oh, do you perhaps mean classification folders?”

“Yeah, that’s what I said.”

“...Of course, sir. Yes, we do have those. Do you want me to show you where they are, or would you like me to just point you in the correct direction, sir?”

“If you could show me where they are, that would be great.”

“Of course, sir. This way.”

The woman led him through the shop as Kon glanced behind himself and saw Adrien following them from a safe distance. Bart looked like he was practically vibrating, like he wanted to do something, but all he could do was jerking aborted movements. Actually, scratch that, he probably was vibrating. Of course.

“Here they are. Is there anything else I could help you with?”

“Is it possible to get a discount on these?”

“I— I’m afraid not, sir, but they’re only a dollar so…”

“That’s fine. Thank you for your help anyway.”

“It was no problem.”

Once the woman was gone, Adrien and Bart walked to him. “Oh my kwami, I pity her so much. I’m genuinely sorry she had to deal with you and I’m kind of considering going to find her and give her a tip for dealing with you,” Adrien snorted after he cut off the filming. “I don’t even care that’s not a custom in stores, I still want to do it.”

Bart laughed. “I’m gonna go do just that if you give me some money.”

Adrien did. He gave him twenty dollars. He could almost feel Wayzz shaking his head at the two of them even despite the fact Wayzz was with Marinette at the very moment.

“I hope you’re ready to keep recording cuz I ain’t done yet,” Kon said, earning an eye roll from Adrien.

“Sure. Let’s do this.”

Adrien kept his distance while they were walking to the checkout, Bart appearing next to him at some point. Adrien bumped his shoulder against Bart’s to express he knew he was there, the act soon returned. A smile made its way to his lips. They only started paying attention to what Kon was doing when they heard him speaking to the cashier.

“Excuse me, mister, but what is the nutritional value of this thing?”

“I’m sorry to inform you, but folders aren’t edible.”

“I am aware. That doesn’t mean it doesn’t have nutritional value.”

“I’m afraid I don’t know what it is, sir. I’d only be able to find out if they had given me a list, but unfortunately, they did not.”

“Oh, alright. Well, I’d like to purchase it anyway.”

“That makes one dollar.”

“Sure, wait a second.”

Kon pulled out his wallet and went through his money, counting it silently and quickly. Then he offered the cashier a handful of coins — all of them pennies. The disbelieving face on the cashier’s face, as he started counting, was miserable and a little sad to see, but no helping it now. Thankfully the product only cost a dollar, it didn’t take him that long to do it.

After paying, he went back to the end of the line, waited it, and asked the same person if they had healthy cigarettes. The cashier looked rather resigned at that point but stayed polite and told him that no, they didn’t have those because those didn’t really exist, and “are you sure you’re old enough in the first place?”

Kon gasped loudly. “You’re lying!” he yelled and ran dramatically out. The other customers didn’t even pay attention to him as if it was just another day. It probably was. This was Gotham, after all. Bart and Adrien made their way out behind him, slipping a twenty-dollar bill to the man behind the checkout and quickly apologised he had to deal with that, “please accept this.”

Then they were out and laughing, even if still feeling bad for doing it.

“Mari would kill me if she had to see that, honestly. She used to do this at their bakery and god, the stories she sometimes tells me,” Adrien said, shaking his head. “I hope that paying for them for suffering because of us was good enough. I don’t really know what else I could have done to compensate for having to deal with us.”

“No one does!” Bart told him before he snatched the camera from him. “Go on, your turn, Sunflower!”

The nickname was kind of fitting — blond hair and being a bit taller than Bart tended to do that. Adrien blushed a little at the pet name and then forced himself to get his thoughts back on the trail.

He buried his head in his hands before taking a look at the list. Then he grinned, getting a wonderful idea. Hopefully, he wouldn’t hurt anyone by doing it. If he was lucky (for once, considering he was the Bad Luck incarnated), he would end up finding someone who would ake it more as a joke.

Stopping someone who didn’t look like she was in any hurry, Adrien asked, “Excuse me, but do you believe in fate?”

“Yeah, I guess. Why?” she responded. Adrien visibly slumped in relief.

“Oh thank god.”

“...What is it.”

“My soulmate and I were just arguing about it a second ago and I needed a new opinion. Now I can tell him he’s very very wrong, and that we clearly belong together ”

The girl looked at him like he was a ghost. For a second, Adrien was afraid he’d hurt her feelings and was ready to apologise, but then she burst out laughing and doubled over.

“Oh my god. That’s wonderful and so hilarious! God, I was afraid you were about to flirt with me, dude, but that’s so much better. I wish you and your soulmate the best of luck. Buy him his favourite food, maybe he’ll then accept that you’re meant to be,” she said smiling and winked. Then she punched him lightly in the arm. “Go on, dude, your perfect happy ending is waiting for you!”

Adrien could feel a wide smile spread on his face. “Thanks, I will! You go get your happy ending as well, whether you’ll find it in a passion, person or a pet!” They exchanged numbers and names (her name was Zoanne, and Adrien had a feeling they’d become good friends over time), both excited about it, and parted in good spirits. Adrien waved to her as he walked to where Bart was staring at them.

Once he actually paid attention to how both Conner and Bart looked like (staring at him, Conner not even focusing on the camera), he tilted his head and arched his eyebrow. “What is it?”

“Dude.”

“What?”

“Duuuudde.”

“What?”

“Only you. Only you could make a friend while doing a scavenger hunt task and basically also pranking her. Wow.”

Adrien just shrugged. He wondered how the girls and Tim were doing.

❋❋❋

Tim was the only one of them who still had any sense of shame or embarrassment at this point (and they’d already completed most of the points on the list between the two young women), but he was determined to win and actually do something for the win as well so he wouldn’t be able to care. Soon enough, he was walking up to a stranger as Marinette was filming.

“Excuse me, miss, but have you seen my cat? She’s a sweetheart and I lost her when I was out with my friends.”

“Oh, you have a cat? I’m sorry, I don’t think so, but what does she look like? I could try to pay attention in hopes to see her later.”

“She’s a beautiful orange with white in her face, chest, belly and the underside of her tail, she’s about this tall,” he put his hand at about his waist, “and she’s got a lot of black stripes. Also, she’s a bit loud when she decides she wants to talk, but it’s not that bad.”

The woman backed off slowly as he was talking with a concerned look on her face. She was gone before Tim finished talking.

Marinette shook her head fondly and placed the camera in Tim’s hands as he returned. “Have fun trying not to laugh behind the camera!”

She wondered around like she was looking for something worriedly. When someone came to ask her what was wrong, she internally congratulated herself.

“Well, Monsieur, I was looking for the nearest local Christmas festival. Do you know where one might be?” she asked, looking innocently at him. “I really do need to find one, preferably close.”

“In July? Yeah, I don’t think I know where one would be at this time of the year.”

Marinette adopted a horrified expression on her face. “But— But— How do you appease the gods you might have angered, then?”

“The what?”

“The gods, obviously.”

“What gods?”

“Those,” she said and pointed behind the man. When the man turned around, he was greeted by the violet eyes of the fox god of mischief and trickery as well as the orange eyes of the pink tiger goddess of stealth and the brown eyes of the small but way too enthusiastic monkey god of jubilation. On any other occasion, she wouldn’t let civilians see kwamii, but this was an exception and she had Wayzz hide them from the view of every other person that didn’t know of their existence already, so it was fine. The most likely case was, the man would forget about meeting the kwamii or think of it as a hallucination of sorts later on.

When the man looked back to where Marinette had been, she was already gone. It was too much fun to mess with people a little bit. She knew the kwamii would be following her and perfectly capable of keeping themselves hidden when she told them so, so she didn’t worry about them.

Cassie snickered as Tim signed she was done filming. “That was amazing. I’ll go next!”

She walked to another stranger, Tim and Mari following her from a distance. Tim already had his camera recording. “Oh my god!” she gasped when she noticed a young person standing alone at the corner of a clothing shop. “It’s you! God, I never thought I’d meet you in real life!” When she ran to them and jumped a little as though she was excited, she also let out a squeal.

The person looked at her weirdly. “Excuse me? Have we met?”

“No, but now we have and it’s the most amazing thing! I’m such a huge fan. Can I please have your autograph? I want to show all my friends I met you!”

“Uhh…. Sure.”

Cassie handed them a piece of paper and a pen (which, where did she even get them?) and watched in anticipation as they wrote their name on it. Then she pulled out her phone. “Could I take a selfie with you? Please? I’m not going to put it all over the social media if you want to keep your whereabouts private, but I just want a picture.”

The person seemed to be already done with her, and probably guessed that this was the quickest way to get rid of her. They agreed and crouched a little to fit in the same picture easily. Cassie did a little peace sign, acting her role of an enthusiastic fan with all her heart. It took Tim and Mari their everything to keep from laughing.

When Cassie returned to them, flipping her hair, Tim handed her the camera. “Film this as closely as you can,” he said in passing and walked where there were as many people as possible, to the park nearby, Marinette and Cassie following in his wake. When Marinette was close enough, he made his way to her and swiped strands of hair behind her ear.

“Marinette, my dear, I love you more than anything in this world, you know that, right?” At Marinette’s slow but still a little confused nod, he continued. “I’ve thought about this long and hard, and I’ve decided I would like to take the next big step in our relationship,” he said loud enough for the people nearby to hear.  

“Every time I look in your eyes, I get a peaceful feeling. When I am around you, everything seems perfect. I promise that I will always be there for you in whatever you do and support you in ups and downs as long as I live. You give my life meaning and make it worth living. You’re the shoulder I can always trust to be there for me to lean on when I need it, you’re the one who I can always count on to be by my side. You were made for me, and I was made for you, and no matter what our souls are made of, mine and yours are the same.” Tim took a deep breath and looked at Marinette, whose eyes seemed to be glimmering as she bit her lip.

“In case you ever foolishly forget this one truth, let me declare it out loud for you, in front of all these people who are here to witness this: I am always thinking about you. I want to form a family of our own with you. Your words are written on my skin for the world to see who I belong to, a reminder for you should you ever doubt it. Feel free to doubt this world — doubt the stars are fire; Doubt that the Sun does move; doubt the truth to be a liar; But never doubt I love. I certainly have never had even a moment’s doubt of that. I believe in you completely. You are my dearest one. My reason for life. You’re the answer to all those lonely prayers at night when I wished for someone to be there one day, and every day I thank God or Fate or whoever gave me you that you’re here now.”

By then Marinette was openly crying and she had covered her mouth with her hands, but Tim kept on going. He was not done, and he was determined to make this proposal the cheesiest he possibly could. As the CEO of Wayne Enterprises, people were bound to notice, and he only had one shot at it. “And I will love you against all odds in this world. Let me defy fate, let me defy stars. Let me defy everyone and anyone who may deny love, who may deny our love. Above all, you are my love, you are my stars, you’re my galaxy.” Tim lowered himself on the ground, now on one knee in front of his soulmate, his Marinette. He produced a ring box from his pocket and held it open for her. “So, as my best friend and the love of my life, will you be my one and only or my everything?”

“Are you— Is this for real?” Marinette whispered, tears glimmering on her eyelashes and staining her cheeks. Tim nodded, biting his lip. He knew it was one of the things on the scavenger list, so he hoped Marinette wouldn’t take this as only one of them.

Marinette swallowed and smiled brightly. “Yes!” she breathed out and fell on her knees next to Tim, not really caring if the action had her scrape her knees. Tim placed the ruby ring with a diamond halo on her ring finger and pressed a kiss on her fingers before Marinette lost her patience, cupped his face and kissed him on the lips.

When they broke apart, they could hear the cheering of the crowd. Tim looked to the side to Cassie who gave him a thumbs-up, the camera still in hand, probably recording as well. Bart, Conner, Adrien and the entire family, as well as Jagged and Penny, were all standing behind them. Thank god he’d half-planned this and told them to get themselves over there at a specific time and to stay behind Cassie so they wouldn’t bother or distract him.  

Adrien just ran to Marinette once they locked eyes and hugged her, congratulating her for the engagement. Bart slapped Tim’s back and did the same. When Tim got nothing from Conner, he raised his eyebrow because there was no way Conner stayed quiet about this without a very good reason.

“What is it.”

“Well. Technically, this can’t be counted as a point since you didn’t fake a proposal.”

“Fuck off.”

“You know I’m right.”

“Go away you overgrown toddler with too many leather jackets.”

“That’s such a creative insult you’ve got there, Timmy. Sounds like you had it memorised, even. How long have you been waiting for a time to use it?”

Tim just stuck out his tongue at Kon as Marinette and Cassie laughed at them.

Kwami, did Mari love her friends (and fiancé — she was never getting over being able to call him that.)

❋❋❋

“Alright. We gotta do something that is like, something people do at actual sleepovers,” Cassie announced as she flopped down on the mattress they had dragged into the biggest guestroom in the Manor they could find. The mattresses were all in a circle around their snacks so that it would be easy for them to talk and eat. Two of the mattresses were also bigger so Marinette could share with Tim and Bart could share his with Adrien. “I don’t know, like, trade secrets or gossip or… Oh, I know! Let’s play Never Have I Ever!”

The sly smirk on Cassie’s face did little to assure Mari or Tim this was a safe idea, but they were going to do it anyway, weren’t they.

“You did bring the shot glasses, didn’t you, Kon? Get them out, like, now. We gotta do this properly! And Adrien, you got the tequila, right? Please tell me it’s not flavoured.”

Adrien took out the bottles from his bag. “They are flavoured. Coconut, mango and chipotle.”

“Oh for fuck’s sake.”

Marinette saw it as a good moment to butt in. “Yeah, that works. Tim, choose the flavour.” She looked at her beloved next to her, poking his side when he didn’t answer.

“Huh? Oh. Uh, mango?”

“Alright, we’re going with that then. Adrien, can you please open the bottle?”

He did, and the game began. To the surprise of exactly no one, Cassie was the one to start. “Never have I ever ‘cleaned up’ by piling everything into a closet or pushing everything under my bed.”

She smiled as Tim, Bart and Marinette reached for the bottle with various states of grumbling, filling their glasses and downing them.

This evening was definitely going to end with them drunk. The only reason some of them wouldn’t be was if they were simply damn tolerant, which was basically what all of them except for Tim were — Adrien and Marinette because of the long use of the miraculous, Cassie because she was half goddess and technically an Amazon, Bart simply because of his fast digestion (damned Speedster), and well. Kon was Kon.

This was not going to end well, now was it.

“Alright, I’ll go next. Never have I ever lied to a police officer,” Adrien said. Marinette looked at him like he was crazy before it turned sour as she reached out for the bottle once again at the same time as the rest of them did. “Wait, how have you all lied to a police officer?”

“Well, Kitty, it might be because half of the police officers were corrupt in Paris during Papillon's time of reign, and it was simply safer. That's one thing. A better question would be, how have you never lied to a police officer?”

Tim rested his head on Marinette’s shoulder as he explained his own reasoning. “Then there's the fact my brother happens to be a police officer. I've totally lied to him multiple times. Same with Commissioner Gordon at least once or twice.”

The rest of them nodded along. “Yup, lied to Nightwing, which means, lied to Police Officer Grayson. No regrets, 5/5, would recommend, he's too much of a mother hen sometimes,” Cassie stated.

It was probably good she stated it then and not a minute later, because only a moment after that, the door flew open and Jason marched in. Marinette and Tim buried their heads in their hands or the mattress, Adrien just shook his head, and the three others were staring at Jason like this was somehow that much of a surprise. A minute later, a mattress was pushed inside the room as well.

“Hey kids!” he yelled as he settled in and had Cassie, and Bart and Adrien move themselves away from one another so he could push his mattress between them.

“Jason, what are you doing here.”

The deadpan question shot at him was said in a tone with such an irritated undertone that Jason mock-winced.

“Well. Our dick of a brother—” Jason motioned at himself and Tim, “—sent me here to be a babysitter for a bunch of kids over the fragile age of 21.”

“Dick! ”

Dick looked inside from the door and immediately got thrown pillows at. He scrunched up his nose and looked at them with disappointment. That got him six disappointed eyes staring at him from around the room. “Well, you can’t actually blame me! There are two couples sleeping in the same room and oh my god also on the same mattresses and I am worried and concerned and this is my safety measure to make sure we get no babies after this night.”

“You do know Tim and I are getting married, right?”

“Precisely, you just made my point.”

“Besides, we wouldn’t do it in the same room with these guys anyway, and also Bart and Adrien can’t get children because neither has a womb?”

“Still.”

Marinette sighed. “Fine. As long as you stay away for the rest of the night. At least Jace could be fun. You, instead, are not fun when you’re trying to mother hen us at the same time.”

“Rude much.”

“Now go or I’ll throw you with Jace.”

“You wouldn’t dare.”

“I would, and I could, in the transformed form anyway. I’ve thrown Chaton across the city, don’t test me.”

Dick huffed and closed the door. Jason laughed at Marinette’s words and patted her head after reaching towards her a little bit, over all their snacks and food.

“So, whatcha doin’? Drinking games?”

“Yeah. Never have I ever. You in?”

“Am I in? Oh, definitely. You couldn’t stop me even if you tried.”

“Sounds like trouble. I’m already regretting letting him in.”

A chorus of “same” echoed around the room.

“Alright, so…” Kon looked around the room before his eyes landed on Tim and a smirk tugged on his lips. “Never have I ever sneaked out of my house in the middle of the night alone.”

Tim frowned and drank a new shot. Marinette sighed, elbowed Adrien and took the bottle from Tim’s hands.

“Okay, Pixie, explain. You, sneakin’ out of the house, let alone in the middle of the night? Impossible.”

“Nuh-uh. Need I remind you, Ladybug. Papillon hardly cared about our sleeping schedule. Had to sneak out at night multiple times to save the city. Same with Adrien.”

Adrien nodded, agreeing with her. “‘S not like we had a choice in the matter, it was our sleep or the safety and lives of over two million people. Ga-bitch didn’t leave us much of a choice.”

It was Tim’s turn to interrupt. “And how have you never sneaked out of the house in the middle of the night? You, Mr. ‘I do whatever the hell I want, whenever the hell I want, fuck Batman’?”

“Well, with B it was easier to sneak away when it was the middle of the day and he thought I was somewhere else, and in the Alley, it was safer to either stay inside or stay outside through the night, not both. Also, no house to sneak out of at one point.”

“Oof.”

“Never have I ever died,” Tim shot with a pointed look at his brother and his best friends. Yeah, he was still a little bitter even if it technically wasn’t their fault, so sue him.

“Low blow, dude,” Adrien said as he downed the glass. Marinette shuffled next to him and the next thing he saw was her stealing Adrien’s newly filled shot glass.

He was, least to say, shocked when he saw everyone take a shot, his fiancée included.

“Akumas. To be exact, Desperada and Time Breaker, at the very least. Probably some others too. He’s never been that good at not dying, and there was one time when he had to witness me die like, 25 thousand times.”

“25,913 times, Buginette.”

“Sorry, 25,913 times. He saw me die that many times, and I remember exactly none of them. He probably remembers most.”

“Holy shit.”

After everyone had had time to think over it and let the realisation that two out of their three sunshines had died god knows how many times and had had to witness one another die as many times sink in, Jason simply grabbed the chipotle vodka and took a few gulps. “I need more alcohol to deal with this” had been his explanation, and when he’d been told he’d die if he drank too much, no one realised the mistake until it was too late, because…

“Been there, done that.”

Cue them groaning and hiding their faces in their pillows all the while Jason just laughed.

“Okay, back to the game. Never have I ever been related to a supervillain.”

“Fuck you too Jason.”

Both Conner and Adrien took a shot as they glared at Jason, and Kon gave him the finger.

The rest of the game went in the same style. Everyone was flabbergasted at how many times both Adrien and Marinette had to drink. Those happened with, for example, Bart’s question of drinking before the age of 21 (“We grew up in France, he was a rich ass bitch, what else did you expect? Besides, legal drinking age is 18 there.”), Jay’s of whether someone had peeked at another person in the shower (“Well, I suppose it could be called that. Chaton pretended to be in the shower every time I came over during an Akuma that came for his or Gabritch’s head, nevermind the fact he always had clothes on. It’s not like I knew.”), Cassie’s “never have I ever fantasized about a real person” (“I mean, I was a teenager with a huge crush on Ladybug…” “Gross, Chaton, gross.” “Don’t try and deny having a crush on me as well.” “Well, fuck you too.” “I think I’ll leave that for your fiancé.” “Oh my god, Adrien.”) It just went on and on.

After a few hours of different things, such as hide and seek in the dark (it went as expected — Adrien won. Damn that night vision of his even in civilian form), truth and dare (they were all superheroes or vigilantes, there was hardly anything they wouldn’t say or do in relatively safe company, especially when they were at least tipsy), strip poker (this one Adrien lost because he couldn’t stop making puns, Bart came second last because he couldn’t keep a straight face (“Well, it’s not like anything else about me is straight either.”), which, to everyone’s surprise, Marinette won (“Whaatt? I had to get really creative and good at bluffing during school and Papillon, why is this so shocking to you all?”). They stopped when the next thing to go would’ve been someone’s underwear), and they were definitely glad to finally just lie down and rest.

Then Adrien’s phone went off. He surged out from under the covers and unlocked his phone. In the darkness of the room, the phone lit up his face rather well. He was smiling. Bart pushed the covers aside and sat up next to Adrien.

“Whatcha doing?”

“Texting to a friend.”

“Oh, is that your new friend? The one you met while scavenging?” Bart sounded excited and got closer to be able to see the messages. Adrien just placed his phone so that Bart could see them more easily.

“Yeah, it is.”

Marinette sat up as well. Smiling, she asked, “Oh, you made a friend while scavenging? That’s so wonderful, though only you, Kitty. Only you could manage to do that.”

“Kon said the same thing right after it.”

“Of course he did. What’s her name?”

“Zoanne.”

Beside Marinette, Tim went still and paled. He swallowed audibly and forced himself to look at Adrien. “Do you know her surname?”

“Yeah, it’s Wilkins. Why?”

Tim buried his face in Marinette’s knees and thighs, whining. “Oh god. Kill me now, please. Maybe borrow the Cat Miraculous to do it. Or Jason’s guns.”

“Why? What happened?”

“She’s my ex and I might’ve left her in rather an unfortunate situation.”

Adrien stared at him. Then frowned. Then honest to god scowled. “Are you fucking kidding me.”

“Oh my god, Adrien swore.”

“She’s dating again, by the way. Some girl named Ariana.”

“Please tell me you’re kidding me.”

“Nope.”

“Fuck.”

Marinette raised an eyebrow at him. “Let me guess. You also dated Ariana.”

“Yeah.”

An amused sigh fell of Marinette’s lips as she stroked Tim’s hair. “You’re hopeless.”

Tim scrunched up his nose. “No, I’m not.”

Marinette gave him a look.  

“Okay, yeah, I am. Please kill me now. I can’t have you two be friends with nearly all my exes.”

“What do you mean nearly all your exes?”

“Cassie and Steph, and considering Adrien is friends with Zoanne, you’ll probably be soon too, and I’m sure you’re going to call Ariana your friend soon enough as well.”

“You’re forgetting I’m also friends with Tam.”

“Fuck.”

Jason just snorted. “Fuck, Babybird, you’ve got a ton of exes, and your fiancée and her best friend are friends with like, all of them. Damn.”

“Shut up, Jay.”

The next morning, both Tim and Jason were hungover, and Adrien and Marinette could definitely feel themselves having drunk the night before.

They thanked the kwamii they didn’t need to suffer as many or horrible consequences for the drinking and bought and or baked a ton of food for Plagg and Tikki.

___________

@the-navistar-carol @caffeinetheory @jardimazul @captainartsypants @marinettepotterandplagg @kris-pines04 @thethirdwheelfriend @daminett4life @abrx2002 @persephonebutkore @rebecarojas07 @corabeth11 @freshbark @maribat-march2020 @catsandfanfic @fertileleaf @eat0crow @cutechip

[meflemming]

The Ghost of You, It Keeps Me Awake || Solo

TIMING: Present  LOCATION: Flemming Residence, The Woods SUMMARY: Miriam is visited by an old face. She doesn’t take it very well WARNINGS: Body Horror, Gore, Death

Or, a reminder that tigers never change their stripes, and Miriam is, was, and will always be the villain (even if it’s her own story). 

A glass of wine dosed generously with blood. A bathtub filled with bubbles from one of those strange, sweet smelling bombs that Morgan had gotten her. The cursed Alexa actually playing decent music, something soft and classical. All perfect ingredients for a nice day in. 

Miriam didn’t want to stay cooped up in her workshop, pouring over half finished products or cleaning bloodied instruments. She wanted a small break. She wanted to… oh, what was it called? Relax. She wanted to relax, and desperately. So she pulled her hair up and sunk in slowly to the claw-foot tub in her bathroom, feeling more than a little decadent. The wine was nice, the hint of iron bringing out the other, sweeter flavors. She sank down into the water until her nose was completely covered, leaned her hand back, and closed her eyes. She let the music soothe her and willed herself to thinking. This was a relaxing time, not a thinking time. She just needed a bit of a think-free time.

There was a half-finished drawing on her bedside table, a portrait of Theo as she remembered him. She’d been thinking about him far too much, lately, hence her need to not think. More than just thinking about him, she was remembering him far too fondly, all the good times they’d had together. Trips to the lake on hot summer days, going to the movies, candlelit date nights, whispers of sweet nothings in the dark. And he’d faked all of that. There had been no love for her, only for her money, what it could do for him and his rotten coven.

The drawing was half finished because she kept destroying them, throwing his face into fires and garbage disposals. Miriam knew that Elle had found the remnants of one shredded drawing on the kitchen table when she’d watched the house a few nights before, but her assistant hadn’t said anything, merely cleaned the area up and left Miriam a bar of chocolate in its place. Elle didn’t ask questions; what she knew about Miriam’s life was what Miriam had deemed fit to tell the girl, and Elle didn’t blab. It was one of the many things she liked about her. 

Miriam sank down even further into the water, completely submerging and chastising herself. There would be no thinking, not right now. And so she didn’t. She simply stayed submerged in the water, listening to music until the water went cold and the incessant sounds of the ridiculous teeny bopper band that she’d recently learned was called Vampire Weekend started playing on the Alexa, forcing her to emerge from the water to scream at it to shut up.

Reaching for her wine glass, Miriam was going to give herself just a few extra minutes before she drained the tub and dried off. Except there was no wine glass. Miriam’s eyes brinked open.

Theo was not as she remembered him. Rather, he was sitting beside her tub as she’d killed him. Half dressed, half skinned, pale, and with dark, sunken eyes. He’d died of blood loss before she’d even made it above his hips. Her first time skinning someone alive, and it had been messy. She’d cried, too, as he cursed her name to hell and back.

Miriam jerked away from him. Theo took a sip of her wine.

“You even drink blood pretentiously,” he said, his nose wrinkling at the contents of the glass. He smacked his bloodless lips with a bloodless tongue.

“You aren’t real,” Miriam said. He wasn’t. He couldn’t be. She couldn’t smell him, couldn’t hear his wicked heart beating in his wretched chest. He was just another nightmare, a waking one this time, one that had tricked her into thinking she’d brought a glass one wine into the bathroom when she hadn’t. She hadn’t. This wasn’t real. “And I have no desire to deal with any more frivolous fantasy versions of you. Go away, Theo.” She stood up, soaking wet, and grabbed a robe before getting out of the bath. If she didn’t need a drink before, she certainly did as she avoided looking at him. He was just a figment of her imagination. Nothing more. Never anything more. 

“Oh, I’m very real, baby,” he said, his glassy eyes trained on her every move. “I thought, of all people, you’d know better than to not believe in ghosts.”

“Then you’ve finally decided to haunt me after all these years?” she asked. She laughed, the sound of it ringing bitter and hollow.

Theo grinned, taking another sip of her bloody wine. Apparently, even apparitions could grow fond of the taste. “I’ve been given an opportunity. I couldn’t let it pass me by.”

“You’re thirty years too late with any sort of opportunity, darling,” she spat out as she passed him, expecting to go right through him.

Except he was solid. His hand reached out and grabbed her arm, gripping it tightly, so tightly. Miriam jerked away from him, shocked. Theo held firm, his grin full of blood stained teeth almost reaching his eyes.

“I think I’m just in time, darling.” He leaned forward. He didn’t smell, but she could feel his breath on her cheek. It was unnerving. “You killed me, and that would have been enough, but you just had to keep going, didn’t you?”

“You ruined me, you--”

“No, I made you happy, you stupid bitch. I gave you a loving husb--”

“Bullshit!” She pulled away from him this time, her eyes flashing red and her teeth sharp, deadly. She would kill him again if she could. “You didn’t love me. You never loved me! You loved money, and when I ran out you would have left as quickly as you came.”

Theo sneered. “And I thought the Flemming family would never run out of money.”

“Fuck you!” Miriam shrieked, her voice hurting even her own ears. “Fuck you! You lied to me! You never loved me, and you lied to me!”

“And you killed me!”

Miriam looked over at this man, this corpse in her bathroom. Solid though he was, real though he seemed, he was nothing compared to her. Because, as he said, she killed him, and she could do it again. “Then we’re even.”

Theo got up in her face then. She’d forgotten how tall he was, especially when she wasn’t wearing heels. Neither of them looked as put together as they had in pictures. Her, with her wet hair and red, vampiric eyes. Him with his pale parlor and bleeding wounds. A ghoul and a ghost. Even in death, they made a miserable pair. At least, now, they both realized how miserable they were.

“You killed my family,” he said quietly, almost confused. “Me? I can understand me. But my mother? My aunts and uncles and cousins? Gilly?” His voice cracked, and she looked away. Gilly was still recent on her own mind, though it had been months. “They’d cared for you. They didn’t know why I brought you into my life, just that we all benefited from it, and they’d liked you far more than your own damn family had liked me.”

“They all deserved to die,” Miriam said, shaking her head. “They all deserve to die. All of you. Every last, wretched witch.”

Theo looked like he was suffering, and she took a sick amount of pleasure in it, even if her stomach twisted. It was just like when she killed him the first time. “And, what, Miri? You gonna kill us all?”

“Yes,” she snarled. She shoved past him into her room, and he followed, leaving bloody footprints in the wake of her wet ones.

“You can’t. It’s not possible. You can’t even leave the damn town line.”

“Watch me, you bastard.” She dried off her hair. In a flurry, she started getting ready, even though she had hours before the sun sank below the horizon, yanking open drawers and pulling shirts off hangers. She laid her jacket out on the bed, and he walked over to it, fingers just barely grazing it. “Don’t touch.”

“Why not?” he asked. “It’s mine.”

“Not any more.” She proceeded to ignore him as she spent hours prepping. Eventually, she watched him die all over again, and she looked away, unwilling to watch.

She strutted out, passed Elle, and drove off without a word.

***

Miriam licked her lips and looked over her handy work.

Far from her first time, she wasn’t nearly as messy with the middle aged alchemist she had pinned to a barren tree by her hands, her skin flayed from muscle and her muscle flayed from bone. She hadn’t even gotten any of the blood on her. Good. 

She kept her face impassive, stared for as long as she could before the scene in front of her no longer looked real. It was a painting from the Renaissance, a monument in the Louvre. It was ghastly and horrifying, and it satisfied her.

She fed off the scene before her, its pain and misery, just as it fed from her. 

When she was done looking, she doused the tree in gasoline and lit it on fire. After all, she was a witch hunter. All good witch hunters knew that the best way to dispose of a witch was to burn them.

That’s what she’d done with what was left of Theo, all those years ago.

She’d stay until there was nothing but ashes left, and she tried to tell herself that the feeling in her chest was pride over another witch dead. 

Out of the corner of her eye, she could have sworn to see a gathering of people ready to welcome another of their own to the other side. Theo was among them. Gilly, too. They both looked away from her. She looked away from them, as well.

[yamamuragaku]

Excerpt: Novel IDOLiSH7 Ainana Academy

Novel: Sasaki Teiko

Character Draft/Illustrator: Tanemura Arina

Original Work: Bandai Namco Online

(C) IDOLiSH7

In the darkness, a phantom flower bloomed.

It was a digital art flower projected on a jet black wall as if ink was painted on it. In a space where there was nothing, a speck of emerald green light suddenly flashed. Shining young buds quickly spread, leaves flourished, and at the tips, seven flower buds--fleeting like the moonlight--grew.

As the flower buds grew, each took on a different color and soft flower petals gently unraveled.

Here was the recording studio of a web-distributed program.

The ones filming were the members of the budding idol group, IDOLiSH7.

It was the recording of the final episode of the mini drama "Ainana Academy".

"Ainana Academy" was a drama in which Yamato, who planned to control the school, joined with Sougo and Iori to confront Nagi, Riku, and Tamaki.

Bright lights were lit simultaneously. The camera crew was on standby.

At the cue to start shooting, against a background of faintly lit digital art flowers, Nanase Riku, dressed as a cheerleader in a white chouran with the sleeves tied with a red ribbon, raised his voice.

"I hate the darkness! I hate your darkness! That's why with the power of love, I will burn away all your hatred! I will not forgive you--"

A gentle and honest voice resounded throughout the studio.

At that moment, a warm and pleasant atmosphere spread all through the studio.

No fragments of hatred could be felt from the way Riku crisply shouted, nor his direct gaze. Instead, Riku was making puppy dog eyes.

Confronting Riku was Ousaka Sougo, who was wearing a cape like a vampire, and Nikaidou Yamato, playing a doctor in a white coat, whose face relaxed.

"...Sorry, Riku. I don't really feel hated by you. It feels like I'm actually being forgiven,"

Told Yamato, who was fiddling with the stethoscope hanging around his neck.

"Um."

"If you say it with more contempt, onii-san might feel it."

"Uh...um."

Yotsuba Tamaki, who was waiting behind Riku, snorted.

Riku stared at Tamaki who just made fun of him. Tamaki, a current high school student, looked really good wearing a uniform casually and stylishly.

He looked back at Riku and as if a switch was flicked, Tamaki began roaring with laughter.

Standing to the side, Izumi Iori made a face like he swallowed a bug. Iori was properly wearing a uniform buttoned all the way to the top, with glasses as accessories. Iori pushed up the bridge of the glasses with his fingertips, and sighed heavily.

However, the director could not be heard saying "cut." In other words, filming continued.

"I-I will not forgive you!!"

Quickly turning towards Yamato and Sougo, Riku said his lines once more, for good measure.

Right in the middle between Riku and Yamato, Izumi Mitsuki who was tied up and sitting with an apron on, looked over Riku with a nervous expression. Next to him was Rokuya Nagi, holding a glow stick and wearing a happi. Nagi crouched down, untied Mitsuki, and stood up.

"OH! Riku. Hatred doesn't suit us. Even if your partner is the leader of darkness. When our weapon is ready, you'll feel not hatred, but love. So, Riku--"

Nagi informed with a smile. Hair of gold and eyes of blue. Anyone would be fascinated by the beauty of Nagi, who came from a small country in Northern Europe.

"Let us sing."

"What?! A song?!"

Riku batted his big eyes.

"Yes. Because we are IDOLiSH7. Come on, music!!"

Nagi snapped his fingers.

Music began playing.

While they were acting out the mini drama, in the background, a paradise of digital art flowers started playing, each bud blooming.

"...I didn't hear anything. About this."

Riku opened his mouth flabbergastingly. It seemed that not only Riku but the other members besides Nagi didn't know to sing there.

Mitsuki was the first one to suddenly run off. He raised his hand in front of the camera,

"Does each person have a mic?"

And signaled to the staff. The members each picked up the mics prepared by the staff.

They automatically settled into their positions.

The intro ended, and Riku's singing voice resonated in the mic. His overwhelming singing ability and rich singing voice enveloped the entire studio.

At first there was a bit of confusion, but once Riku began to sing, everything was clear.

A sparkling singing voice that would drive away the darkness burst out, and Nagi said, "Good job," and gave a thumbs up with a smile, and took his turn.

While Sougo waved his jet black cloak, he made a careful step.

Mitsuki's petite body jumped according to the music, exciting the staff.

Tamaki's dynamic dancing drew everyone's gaze.

Yamato looked at Tamaki's dancing, and showed a daring smile.

The appearance of Yamato, who was twirling the stethoscope while casually singing, immediately conveyed that, "Come to think of it, this is a scene from a mini drama."

He made a gesture like he was acting in a play, and while singing and dancing, Yamato’s presence overpowered Riku and Nagi. Iori immediately reacted to Yamato's acting, and he forced his way in front of Yamato to support Riku. Yamato was instantly impressed with the ad-lib and smiled faintly.

The director's "cut" still could not be heard.

The studio was dyed in IDOLiSH7's color.

IDOLiSH7 was asked to appear on a web-distributed program two months ago.

The first member who heard about this was Iori, who heard it from Takanashi Tsumugi--a manager belonging to the talent agency, Takanashi Production.

Although Iori was an idol, he had confidence in his analytical ability, and assisted Tsumugi a lot. However, that Iori took on the role of Tsumugi's brain was a secret to everyone. There was fear as a current high school student, whether other members might show resistance to the youngest among IDOLiSH7 leading the group.

"A web-distributed program...?"

"Yes."

As idols, IDOLiSH7 was a bud that just sprouted. With hidden sparkling and shining energy, they are absolutely "real idols", but they're still rather unknown to the general public.

As for the reason they haven't made their break yet, it was obvious to Iori. They had too little exposure.

If you listened to their songs and saw their dancing, you would become a fan. That was the only ability and charm they held. However, there were almost no TV programs that invited the rookie idols IDOLiSH7.

During this time, an offer arrived at the agency for a variety program that would be distributed online, rather than on TV.

"That's right. I think it may be good to try this,"

Iori said, checking the terms of the request. However, Tsumugi made a surprised face.

"Eh? Really? But before, didn't you say you had a concern about doing online programs?"

While Iori discussed IDOLiSH7's future development with Tsumugi, she recalled what he formerly expressed.

"Yes. I said that. We are an idol group that attracted attention from online videos. The assumption that we are familiar with online distribution is correct. But..."

Because of an accident, IDOLiSH7 had to sing outdoors during a storm, and a video of that went viral and drew them a lot of attention.

Idols of the Internet age. The video circulated among people who liked and favorited it on social media. Spread without corporate promotion, the radiance of a new and fresh group called IDOLiSH7. That was one of our weapons, Iori thought.

But at the same time, he understood that this precarious position was a double-edged sword.

"On the other hand, if we rely too much on online distribution, there's a possibility we may develop an unwanted reputation. If I may say this freely--I don't want us to become 'cheap idols.'"

"Cheap...idols...?"

"Yes. It's a really subtle balance...but with one misstep, cheap idols will fail. Now is an era where anyone can post online. Amateurs can get popular by posting videos online, and they collaborate with companies to make videos. In that context, we must think of what it means to be professional idols. It isn't just about increasing exposure."

Tsumugi listened with a despondent face. Although Iori wasn't mad about Tsumugi's management, he sometimes caused her to make this kind of face. Her chest hurt a little.

"But...I think it's fine!! IDOLiSH7's singing and dancing are not cheap. You're the real deal. You're true idols. I know for a fact. I believe when people see you, they'll definitely understand!"

Tsumugi looked discouraged, but as soon as she bit her lip and took a deep breath, and her big eyes moistened, she turned to Iori and declared this.

Iori, taken aback, gulped. Because she said this with a puppy dog face without calculation--manager is scary.

"Of course,"

He replied immediately. Because Iori himself "knew" that IDOLiSH7 was the real deal. 

The idol group that ran before them--TRIGGER--wasn't strong in variety.

Therefore, it was a good strategy to target the areas in which TRIGGER was weak.

Also--.

"This time, the web-distributed program seems to have a tight budget at this stage, so we need to tackle the project sharply. As for the film editor, a freelancer is better than a well-known one, but..."

He looked over the proposal, and checked the names of the staff along with the plan.

Before, Iori saw one of the names of the people involved with the filming in an interview online.

The name came up in a question about "interesting people lately" in the globally active, up-and-coming digital art group, Y-Classic.

He was a student who attracted attention in the art world for the stylish video he created as a hobby, which spread by word of mouth and became famous.

"I watched the video he made. In addition to his skill, his excellent way of showing the theme, the beautiful imagery, the quick tempo, and how it made you laugh, was understandably popular. If we find that kind of fresh talent and attract him to our program--isn't it okay to entrust ourselves to him?

Tsumugi stared in wonder and muttered, "I didn't know. There was someone like that in the staff."

"Our greatest weapon is Nanase-san's singing. If they hear our singing and see our dancing, the viewers will definitely understand that we are the real deal. Finally, if we make a corner showing our singing and dancing, along with the main point of the proposal, the mini drama ‘Ainana Academy’, I think the staff will surely challenge it and make something interesting. This job seems worthwhile."

"Understood. Then, I'll take accept this job!!"

Tsumugi responded energetically.

Five days later, the script for the drama arrived at the agency. A job for all the members of IDOLiSH7.

Within the group, MEZZO" already formed as a two-person unit, and Tamaki and Sougo had their CD debut, so their workload would further increase. Their responsibilities would grow, but even so, the two in MEZZO" were overjoyed.

In the first place, Tamaki and Sougo didn't have the slightest intention of only doing MEZZO". Rather, for the sake of debuting with IDOLiSH7 as seven people, they had been working hard to cut through as the advance guard, and clear a path.

It wasn't lip service; they were seriously acting with those intentions. Therefore, when the manager wanted to focus on IDOLiSH7's management and business, MEZZO" had a lot of work where it was just them alone. 

At a small and weak agency, idols were being produced. They couldn't buy a car for exclusive use yet, so the two people in MEZZO" moved around by train. For the time being, they hid their faces with sunglasses and hats, and moved with their idol switch off. Even so, people who notice will notice, but they haven't yet experienced someone overbearingly talking to them and causing a racket. 

However, Tamaki was disappointed in hearing "there's still quite a ways." 

Tamaki stepped into the highly exposed entertainment world because he wanted to find his missing little sister. He had not revealed this reason to others yet, but he thought he always wanted to be more famous. He wanted to appear on TV a lot more. It would be good if his sister saw his existence.

Tamaki had his head in the clouds while he was riding the train with Sougo. They were sitting next to each other on an uncrowded seat. To the public, MEZZO" got along very well, but the truth was entirely different.

"Tamaki-kun, did you properly read the script?"

Sougo took the script out of his bag, and began reading it. It was also Sougo who put effort into remembering their travel times. He was serious. He was the type of person who thought what you ought to do today, you should accomplish today. It didn’t mean he was not serious. He always kept his eyes on the ball, which was why he was now only thinking of their next job.

"I'll do it later,"

He brusquely responded. Sougo slightly lowered the corners of his eyes.

It was unknown how many times it had been repeated.

The two have had similar back-and-forths many times.

Sougo looks very kind, and spoke with a gentle tone. With an atmosphere like warm spring sunshine, Sougo was basically always gentle and kind.

However--sometimes Sougo gave instructive guidance to only Tamaki. Tamaki was displeased with this.

"Since it's a job for the seven of us, we must do our best. We discussed this when the job came in earlier. The recording is the day after tomorrow. If we filmed separately, it would look unnatural, so we're doing it on a day when everyone can gather together."

It always felt like this. Sougo just gave Tamaki a lecture.

"Okay."

"To match our schedules, the staff hurriedly booked a studio. Everyone suddenly had to memorize their lines, and they were even individually practicing in the dorm."

"Soo-chan, did Mikkii tell you to be so loud?"

It was a mini drama about a school. Sougo was cast as a hot-blooded teacher.

Sougo was worried about how to act hot-blooded, so he consulted Mitsuki about various things. According to Mitsuki's advice, Sougo tried waking up the sleeping Yamato with a loud voice and took him along running, loudly interrupted Nagi who was proclaiming his love for ‘Magical Girl★Magical Kokona’, confirmed the schedule, and earnestly asked, "For the next job I want to raise my level of enthusiasm, so please watch ‘Magi★Kona’ with me. I will use it as a reference." Even if Nagi wasn't asked, he was always devoted to spreading the word of "Kokona's splendor". When Nagi realized, he had Sougo sitting in seiza in front of him while reciting "Kokona Love", while Sougo nodded with a serious expression vowing to "study a lot".

"What was that, practice?"

Sougo nodded with a troubled face at being seriously asked this..

"It was practice."

"It was noisy."

"...."

"Last night, Soo-chan was so loud, I lost motivation."

Sougo, deeply serious about "creating a hot-blooded role", approached Mitsuki for a consultation. At Mitsuki's advice, he gently laughed, said "I'll try," and straightened his posture. Afterwards was a rare scene of Sougo loudly waking up Yamato.

Sougo boldly challenged Yamato who easily brushes those things aside, and yelled from the pit of his stomach. Sougo did not usually raise his voice like this.

Yamato dodged with a, "Sou, are you drunk? Don't run around, sleep next to onii-san," and it ended in failure.

Mitsuki laughed at Sougo's failure and said, "Don't mind." Sougo replied "yes" with a serious look on his face. Riku, Nagi, and even Iori surrounded Sougo and let out a laugh at the gap between the endeavoring Sougo and the everyday Sougo, 

At everyone's smiling faces, Sougo said, "Being hot-blooded is tough," and showed a bashful smile.

However, Tamaki could not laugh.

The inside of his chest felt prickly and unpleasant and hurt a bit.

When Sougo was around people other than Tamaki, he always gently laughed like a flower swaying in the spring wind. He did not get mad at anything Mitsuki said, and acted earnestly in accordance with Mitsuki's suggestions.

Sougo did not consult Tamaki, among other things. He did not rely on Tamaki.

Even though he knew he was unreliable, Tamaki still did not like it.

"Is that so. Sorry. So that I don't bother you, Tamaki-kun, I'll quietly practice in my room starting tonight,"

Sougo said with a troubled face.

He was bewildered by the apology. However, that wasn't it, thought Tamaki. Tamaki didn't want Sougo to apologize to him. But he also didn't intend to complain.

Even though he didn't say it was a nuisance--.

Did he mean to sound that way?

Sougo was good at extracting unpleasant words from Tamaki.

Tamaki got depressed at telling him to throw away his blunt words.

Sougo also got depressed being told that.

The two in MEZZO" were not good friends in the slightest.

Once again, the inside of Tamaki's chest prickled.

Sougo hid away the beaming smile he showed everyone from Tamaki, and the shutter in his heart made a loud sound and fell with a clatter. He pushed aside the feeling of "Today's smiles are out of stock. The store is closing now."

Sougo began reading the script fervently. Tamaki still felt like he wanted to say something, but he was irritated and without saying anything, he firmly pulled down the brim of his hat and closed his eyes.

So then, the recording of the web-distributed program started.

In the studio, each person was reading the script which was prior distributed, and Yamato who was wearing a costume, asked Riku,

"As I thought, isn't this look tight for onii-san? Wearing a high school uniform after all this time at the age 22 feels too much like a punishment."

One corner of the program was a mini drama--"Ainana Academy".

Somehow, Yamato was forced to wear a high school uniform. He wore a navy blazer, red necktie, and white button-up shirt.

"The size seems right. Yamato-san, it's a perfect fit. Where is it tight?"

Riku answered Yamato with a straight face, and looked over Yamato's school uniform from the front to the back.

Yamato didn't know what expression to make at being thoroughly examined, and looked to the sky.

Riku spontaneously burst out. Even if he explained his reason to Riku, he would not understand. Yamato pushed his glasses up and muttered.

"Mitsu, Sou, and even Nagi get to play teachers, so why am I playing a student..."

"Ah, I also thought something was strange. I wonder why I'm playing the youngest character. It feels weird that Iori and Tamaki are playing my senpais."

Yamato tilted his neck at Riku who was wearing the same school uniform.

"Oh. Rikkun is my kouhai?"

Tamaki, who was wearing a school uniform, asked Riku with the sense that he "just found out."

"Yeah. That's right."

"Oh."

"Yotsuba-san, incidentally I'm playing your classmate,"

Iori confirmed with Tamaki.

"Really? Okay."

Iori was also in a school uniform. He wore an armband that said "Student President" on his sleeve, and blackish green glasses. They were the type of frames that would look uncool depending on the person who wore them, but they fit Iori's fresh and neat look very well.

"Tamaki-kun.... You read the script properly?"

Sougo heard the conversation, and asked Tamaki worriedly.

Sougo wore a cool blue three-piece suit. The necktie was tied in a small knot, and he wore thin frame glasses. With silvery-green glasses adorning his serious-looking features, Sougo looked sharper than usual.

"Yeah."

"Not just read it, did you properly memorize the lines?"

Iori asked Tamaki to confirm again.

Sougo stared worriedly at the silent Tamaki. Tamaki, who was sensitive to people's emotions like an animal, noticed that Sougo was feeling anxious, and his chest prickled.

"Yeah."

Again, he made an uneasy face. Tamaki just made Sougo worry about him.

Mitsuki nonchalantly cut through the silent, awkward atmosphere formed between the two in MEZZO".

"Sougo's just like a teacher. Although he isn't hot-blooded. So math teacher-ish! If you were a calm and kind teacher, you'd be fine without having to practice for the role!"

Sougo made a troubled face at these embarrassing words.

"Mikkii is better than Soo-chan as a teacher"

Tamaki said softly.

"Really? Well, I'm also a teacher though. Of home economics"

Mitsuki's role as a teacher did not seem bad at all. He was wearing a necktie, but instead of a jacket, he wore a traditional knit sweater.

"...So why am I a student? Even if I wear a school uniform, I don't know whether I look like a student, so onii-san is really worried"

Yamato grumbled again. He was not seriously convinced.

"OH! Now that you say that, I am also really, really worried whether I look like a teacher! My elegance naturally flows out. My unparalleled beauty can't be thought of as of this world. I'm troubled about how to look like an ordinary teacher. There's no reality where such a beautiful teacher is in this school, so will any viewers complain?"

Nagi put his index finger against his cheek, and with a worried face, let out a sigh.

Was his wide-collared white shirt silk?

The sheen was clearly different from everyone else's shirts. There was no tie, and there was the impression that the suit was not ready-made, but an exquisite brand.

"Nagi's confidence is always impressive,"

Mitsuki had a distant look.

Nagi was pondering about something.

"It's fine because sometimes there are really beautiful and cool teachers,"

Riku said with sparkling eyes.

"It's fine if Nagi doesn't speak,"

Mitsuki continued.

"Really? But Mitsuki, I have dialogue too."

"Isn't it fine if you don't add OH or HEY to your lines, and avoid ad-libs and winks?"

Mitsuki sheepishly replied as if he had misgivings.

"But my role is a special English lecturer. 'OH' is in my lines."

"...OH......"

Mitsuki let out an "OH" from the bottom of his heart. Yamato laughed at the same time. Iori crossed his arms and furrowed his brows. Tamaki's expression did not change at all, while Sougo made a bewildered face. Riku grinned.

A girl ran towards them from the crowd of staff who were staring at them from a distance.

"...Um, excuse me. Can I take your picture? I want to take a group photo of you behind the scenes, and upload it to my blog for publicity."

"Yeah. ...It's fine, right? Manager?"

Mitsuki looked around, and asked for confirmation from Tsumugi who was talking to the staff.

After getting Tsumugi's approval, the costumed members of IDOLiSH7 turned toward the camera and smiled for the group photo.

On the other side of the camera, "kyaaa" could be heard from the women in the staff.

Nagi winked at the women.

Filming began. It was a scene where Riku, a transfer student who was late on his first day of school, was running to school with bread in his mouth.

Riku was running.

He was running--with a loaf of bread in his mouth.

Naturally a loaf of bread was not something you could just hold in your mouth, so he supported it with his hands while darting his eyes about. Looking like a small animal frantically putting food that's too big in its mouth, he put on a serious expression and filled up with motivation to run.

Everyone watching became rowdy. Even Tamaki, who was in a bad mood, burst into laughter.

"...Why is he running with a loaf of bread in his mouth? Is it this kind of scene?"

Sougo said incredulously.

"Sorry, it was my fault. It said in the script that it was a scene where he runs with bread in his mouth, so I bought some freshly baked bread,"

Mitsuki said.

Since it was freshly baked bread, it was not sliced.

"I thought about cutting it later, but I forgot.... It unexpectedly became an interesting scene..."

It won't block Riku's throat, right...?

In a sense different from being worried over his acting, all the members watched over Riku anxiously.

As Riku ran with bread in his mouth, he bumped into Iori at the street corner.

It was a clichéd opening scene.

Iori who was waiting across the street corner according to the script, looked considerably distressed at Riku's appearance, who was running at full speed with "a loaf of bread in his mouth."

Forgetting to act, Iori lost his bearings, made a surprised face, and came to a halt, and then Riku crashed into him.

Even though Iori tried to stop Riku who was protecting the bread, from falling, he bounced back, got his foot stepped on, and he pulled Riku towards his chest to support him.

The bread was sandwiched between them, and his face became mixed with astonishment and worry. Iori said,

"Isn't it dangerous? Why were you running with bread in your mouth without looking ahead? You--"

They were lines from the script.

"S-so...sorry."

Iori apologized to Riku, but they were positioned much closer to each other than it stated in the script, and although it wasn't a scene where they hugged, it looked like they were hugging.

In a panic, they suddenly let go of their hands. The chain of events reflected the odd innocence of a fastidious youth in the throes of puberty, and all the members watching the filming let out an "oh."

"Cut!! That was a good scene. Yup. You two were also good. It was different from the script, but your ad-lib was definitely effective. Let's go there. One take."

The director, in a good mood, clapped his hands.

[scarletwitching]

(sorry it's about the mcu) It's always interesting to me that in the beginning of the films, the twins were not just eastern european but also heavily coded as romani, but as the movies went on, wanda became less and less "eastern european" and more americanized to the point that her next appearance is slated in a classic staple of american pop culture (a fifties tv show). it's been said before but wanda is like a new character each time she appears, and that's not said in a kind manner.

I feel like the MCU is about to become an unavoidable subject because… well, not to stomp on anyone’s fun, but I heard the Jaws theme song when I saw this. I have stuff to say about this subject that I don’t think anyone else has touched on yet and it’s the middle of the night and my sleep pattern is ruined.

There seems to be two things going on with MCU Wanda’s ever-changing everything: 1) No one was especially on-board with Whedon’s ideas and more broadly, no one can agree on who this character is supposed to be. 2) The post-Ultron movies have tried to mold the character to fit the actress better.

The latter is easy enough to explain. The very dark hair in Ultron didn’t suit her, and red is a better fit for her natural coloring. There’s a reason red hair and green eyes is such an iconique combination. They ditched the accent because, well, she’s no good at it. I think the changing wardrobe is partly this and partly an attempt to show character evolution.

The former reason, though, is where we can get into the weeds. Age of Ultron was a troubled production. One of the sticking points between Whedon and the studio was the dream/nightmare/mind control sequences, which the writer-director was attached to and which executives hated. Not a shock that they haven’t reappeared since. That the telepathic powers as a whole vanished is more curious, but I feel like the Russos, Markus, and McFeely don’t care about Whedon’s version of Wanda. They weren’t involved, and they don’t like it.

There was more back and forth with the accents than people remember. In 2013, The Wrap reiterated an earlier rumor that the twins would have British accents in the MCU. At first glance, that’s jarring, but sometimes, people who aren’t from Britain have British accents. It’s not my favorite choice for these characters, but it happens. Aaron Taylor-Johnson said he was the one who pushed for the Eastern European accents and for Pietro to have his white/silver hair (originally it was supposed to be brown). But he wasn’t sure, even while filming, if they were going to leave the accents in or ADR over all their dialogue. Once he was gone, there was no one to advocate for the inclusion of the accents, so everyone said, “Fuck it. She learned to talk with a US accent.”

There’s also the parts of their backstory that were cut, supposedly for time. Namely their Romani background (which seems to have been in the script) and any specific references to the US military being the ones to bomb their apartment building (something we can figure out from interviews and from context). Both things that were either already causing controversy or could have caused controversy, which were cut “for time” and for no other reason. Totally. Definitely. I suspect the later movies don’t pick up those threads for the same reason they drop the telepathy stuff. They’re not anything M&M and the Russos care about, and their stance is, “We don’t want to get into that.”

And then... there’s the Hydra backstory, which fits into the same category of “a thing that was dropped and it’s not hard to figure out why.” I have no clue what Whedon was thinking when he did that, and I don’t know how any future writer could incorporate it without doing an outright retcon. That wouldn’t be hard since there’s a reason most people thought those characters were held captive. The cinematic language in the Cap 2 end credits scene is at odds with what Whedon was trying to convey. When you have characters in cages looking drugged (complete with injection sites), what am I supposed to think?* “Wow, spooky”?Probably. Whatever he was going for, it didn’t work, and who is surprised that it was ignored? They should have fixed it, but this is another case of the later writers and directors looking at what Whedon did and not even caring enough to either acknowledge or contradict it.

That’s the theme here. That Markus, McFeely, and the Russos didn’t care about what Whedon did, but that they also didn’t replace it with anything. The stuff they did with Wanda was all plot-essential. Somebody’s gotta cause the superhero civil war, and guess who’s the easy choice. Somebody’s gotta care when Vision dies, and guess who’s the easy choice. You get where they’re coming from. They have 375 characters to worry about, and she’s not one of the popular ones. The end result is a character who isn’t really anything.

Even within his own movies, the characters Whedon was allowed to introduce into the MCU are half-baked. What if Vision was Adam Warlock? What if The Colonel meets Jean Grey? What if Quicksilver only existed to die? It’s a lot of stealing from various sources without thinking through the meaning and significance of what you’re stealing. James Gunn gives zero fucks about adhering to comics canon, but at least, he has concrete notions of who his versions of the characters are. They may not be what I wanted (#JusticeForMantis), but they’re cohesive entities on their own. Can you say that for Ms. “Let’s join Hydra and kill random South Africans and oh no, I’m scared of fighting”?

Lastly, the 1950’s housewife thing is more about the extremes of character interpretation. Whedon focused on Wanda’s past as part of the Brotherhood and used Ultron and – for fuck’s sake – Hydra as stand-ins for that (while ignoring that Wanda’s time in the Brotherhood was defined by the abuse she suffered and not by random murders she committed by mind controlling the Hulk). To quoth the man himself, “They’re interesting to me because they sort of represent the part of the world that wouldn’t necessarily agree with The Avengers.” He envisioned them as the kind of Radicals With a Point that superhero films love, but his execution didn’t match his vision. (Maybe it was better in the script, idk.)

In creating that godforsaken tv show, Feige is leaning on the perception of Wanda as a conservative figure. That idea comes from the fact that so much of her story is wrapped up in family and babies and sexist stereotypes. It feels mismatched with the former. (Not denying the realities of human complexity, just saying you should have a clearer vision for a made up person.) We’ll have to see how it plays out, but it seems like a case of no one agreeing on what this character believes or how she views the world. Or maybe it was Nightmare/Chthon/Mojo all along. Lotta maybes going on.

Anyway, the Americanization issue comes down to treating your own culture and worldview as default and trying to work around miscasting, and the overall issue is that you shouldn’t make characters who only exist to be sites of tragedy.

*They also look drugged at the beginning of Age of Ultron, when they’re with Hydra, and at no other point. Does Whedon associate that aesthetic with menace/villainy? (If so, yikes!!) Additionally, I’m gonna leave this here with the reminder that it is from the same movie.

[witnesstruesorcery]

A VERY IMPORTANT UPDATE!!

I have fixed some pretty obvious mistakes in the text of my book, and in the back of the cover. I have also changed some of the fonts and size in the main title and added a few details here and there in the cover. Some positioning of the titles, logos, images, photos and the text were also very much improved in this upated version of the cover art as a whole. The most important thing I did, is to LOWER THE PRICE substantially. I decreased it from $ 11.00 to $ 8.99 (pretty reasonable I think for such book) and in the UK that would be, £ 6.66 (yes, I know what you’re thinking). The Euro equivalent all around the other Amazon markets in Europe is now about 7.00 Euros. So in other words, it's dirt cheap and super affordable! Can't argue with that, eh? You have no possible excuse now, but to get it for Christmas! :) Oh yeah, and I have also added a few paragraphs and images in the text of the book, and now the pages have increased from 163 to 165. That's all I can give for the moment. My eyes are not detecting any other major mistakes after re-reading the text and checking the cover. If you find any after you read it, please feel free to report them to me so that I can fix them. As I said in my previous comment, I will definitely make a detailed flick through on every single page (from start to finish) and show how the cover looks, the actual binding and all the rest of these things when I receive a copy of my book. I may even read you a bed time story if you like. So thank you all again folks and I do hope you a nice trip with the book! It really, really, really, really means a lot to hear from you. Cheers lads and lasses!

Synopsis:

In his book, HERESY & METAPHYSICS, Borislav Vakinov explores and discusses; philosophical, anthropological, occult, existential, mythological and polytheistic themes and concepts. Thematically, the core of the book deals with pre-Christian, Pagan practices and beliefs and also delves into Fortean topics such as; the paranormal, the super natural, ritual magic and mysticism which roots and foundations are firmly based in prehistory, classical antiquity, as well as in more current times. HERESY & METAPHYSICS rides on the towering wave of probability, chaos magic and high weirdness. With these tools in hand, the author aims at the highest target in order to unravel and “excavate” the mystical, the paranormal and the super natural, and to present them in a quite different perspective. A more down-to-earth snap shot, free of “new age” or materialist types of dogma and sugar-coated in mainstream and academic phraseology; in other words—THE HYPER UPDATE OF THE DECADE! HERESY & METAPHYSICS taps into archetypes, metaphors and subconscious models that hadn’t been properly discussed, developed and explored since the so-called “truth movement” began in Europe and North America in the early part of the decade after the events of 9/11. The book fuels the engine of creativity and peels off layer after layer of lies, deceit and fake promises of a better tomorrow, in a world where the mass media, the politicians, the world governments (the so-called “elites” behind the curtains), and the global corporations dictate how or whether we should have an authentic experience. Whether we should look for answers beyond the five-sense reality, or express ourselves as normal human beings. The time has come to embark on a solo magical journey through the fields, forests, mountains, suburban alleys and dark corners of our towns and native lands and put on the Wizard cloak of invisibility and grip in both hands the staff and the mighty sword of power in order to achieve highly concentrated and well-structured models for improving our lives.With the writing and the publication of Heresy & Metaphysics, the author’s inner most wish and desire is to take the reader on that lone ship in the middle of the ocean, where the captain strives to pull up the anchor and lift it up towards the unknown. In a completely unpretentious and unapologetic way, the book tries to push further ahead into new territories and break the thick blocks of stagnation and outdated spiritual and secular ideals, while steering the ship back into well-established grounds and visit old and familiar places. At the same time, the main quest of HERESY & METAPHYSICS is to deliver something deeply profound, practical, weird and authentic. Much of Borislav’s work concentrates on the world that is ignored by the mainstream and pop culture. Sometimes forgotten, obsolete or simply marginalized, it is a world of the unseen, of the hidden and of the unknown, that doesn’t fit into a thirty-second news media bite or a Facebook and Twitter feed.Borislav has spent the last ten years traveling across Europe and his native land, taking notes and documenting this world and now has a story to share. This is the beginning of his quest into the world of mystery & magic. THIS IS HIS FIRST PUBLISHED BOOK.

AmazonUS:

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B08NF1RD3W

AmazonUK:

https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B08NF1RD3W/ref=ox_sc_act_title_4?smid=A3P5ROKL5A1OLE&psc=1

AmazonEU

https://www.amazon.de/dp/B08NF1RD3W

[peterparkerstarker]

ok ok ok so i very recently found out RDJ was trained in ballet, and we all know Tom was. so what about a starker au where peter and tony are in the same ballet company, tony is a Principal dancer and peter is a freshly promoted soloist. peter gets to work directly with tony and he's so excited and starstruck because tony is so talented and hot and tony thinks he's so fucking cute and they fall in love fdjkhfjshfs sorry for rambling i just have a lot of feelings about ballerinas

Ahhh thanks for this prompt! I know basically nothing about dance or ballet, and such a fun time researching for this. I completely fell in love with this story as I wrote it. I would absolutely love more prompts!

The song I reference is Billie Eilish and Khalid’s “Lovely”

@thotticusmaxximus  @readysetstarker

Fluffy Starker Ballet AU: 1,831 words

Peter’s hands shook a little as he went through his regular warm up stretches. 

Mr. Stark hadn’t arrived yet, though apparently that wasn’t uncommon for him.

The Shield Ballet Company was incredibly strict about being ready and on time, but they seemed to make an exception for Tony Stark. After all, he was their principal dancer and they were lucky to have such a talented soloist in their group, people would whisper reverently.

Peter was pretty sure Mr. Stark could get away with murdering half the company if he wanted to. 

That’s just how good he was.

Peter knew this was an incredible opportunity. He’d not only made it into his dream job by the age of 20, but now he was being offered a solo in their biggest fall production. 

Which meant he had to spend extra time practicing with Mr. Stark as his teacher to make sure he was ready for it.

He fell into the monotony of the stretches. Peter let his hips shift, opening them wide as he put pressure on his knees and toes with his bent wrists, noting how the burn of his muscles settled into a dull ache. 

You can do this, he told himself. Just go through the warm up routine until he shows up.

He eased his loosened body up, standing and grasping onto the barre, rolling his feet and neck, shifting his hips back and forth. This was easy. The same stretches he did everyday.

The only difference was pretty soon he’d be dancing for Mr. Stark, and the thought of trying to impress him left Peter with an uneasy feeling in his gut.

He glanced at the clock mounted high on the wall across from him. 4:47 pm. 

He’d been here for nearly an hour. 

Maybe Tony got the time wrong?

Peter knew he was supposed to be here because Natasha had shown him in to the practice space, assuring him Mr. Stark would be arriving shortly.

It was becoming more and more clear that he wouldn’t be coming.

Oh well, Peter sighed. 

Might as well make use of the private practice space since he had it for a couple more hours. He still needed to hone his routine for Prokofiev’s Cinderella, but it didn’t mean he couldn’t have a little fun first. A little extended warm-up, he told himself.

He grabbed his phone from his bag, selecting his song of choice, and cranking up the volume. 

Thank God for soundproof practice rooms. I doubt Director Fury would approve, he smiled broadly as the song started up.

The dulcet tones echoed in the empty space and Peter found himself getting caught up in the music.

“Thought I found a way, thought I found a way, yeah.”

Peter took a deep breath and began moving, focusing on the gentle piano notes to guide his rhythm.

“Oh, I hope someday I’ll make it out of here, even if it takes all night or a hundred years.” 

The two voices wove in and out of each other, building and building. 

He knew the words by heart, had spent hours listening to it on the floor of MJ’s bedroom, eyes closed and imagining how he’d dance to it. He’d spent so long thinking about it but hadn’t worked up the courage to try it out until now.

But there was no one here to judge him, and the space was so large. Much larger than the little area of his tiny studio apartment that he’d cleared for home practice. This was the perfect time to bring his ideas to fruition. His eyes fluttered closed and he leaned into the sensation of it, felt it in his bones.

“Tear me to pieces, skin and bone, hello, welcome home.” 

The words were so sad, only made more so by the soft but driving piano and gorgeous harmonies.

He squeezed his eyes closed even tighter and listened, really listened as he experimented with the steps, making adjustments, spreading his arms wider, bringing his knee in a little tighter. 

The words washed over him, enveloping him like a hug goodbye. 

“Isn’t it lovely, all alone?”

He danced harder, increasing his speed as the strings soared, the harmonies coursing through his veins, it felt like.

He landed a perfect jump on the last note, and stood there, panting for a moment. 

Clapping. 

Someone behind him was clapping.

There was someone else here.

His eyes darted open, and he turned to find Tony Stark standing there, sunglasses on and gym bag draped over his shoulder, clapping and grinning.

Holy fuck.

How long had he been there?

How much of Peter’s improvised routine had he seen?

Peter knew he’d started out like he’d planned. But halfway through it felt forced and stiff, so he’d let himself make changes, adjusting to what felt right. 

And Tony Stark had been standing there long enough to know that, he was sure.

His face went hot, flushing red with embarrassment. Tony Stark had seen him dancing when he didn’t know anyone was watching. 

It made his stomach do little flips of anxiety and hope all tangled up.

He tried to say hello but his words stuttered out into broken syllables, and Tony cocked an eyebrow in response. He looked good when he did that. Sexy as hell, in fact.

“That was excellent, kid. A little stiff and trite in the beginning, but once you let yourself get into it you really had something there. Me, I’m a classics guy. Give me Giselle or La Sylphide and I’m a happy camper. But that was breathtaking at the end, kiddo. How long you been working on that?” Tony spoke with an easy grace, a sincere smile on his handsome face as he set his bag down and began unpacking.

“Since now,” Peter said frantically. “Uhm I mean, that’s the first time I’ve danced to it. Not that it’s the first time I thought about dancing to it. No, I spent a lot of time planning it out, but when the time came, none of it was quite right. So I uhm, I improvised.” He could feel the heat practically steaming off his ears. 

He was mortified that Mr. Stark had caught him dancing a modern routine that he hadn’t even practiced before. 

Tony nodded, beginning his own stretches as he replied. “That bit at the end, do you remember what you did?”

Peter thought for a moment, then nodded shyly.

“Good, Think you can teach it to me?” Tony asked, popping his neck and giving Peter a confident grin. 

“I can try,” Peter mumbled, still in awe at this gorgeous, talented man.

-----------

7 weeks later they were waiting for their cue.

The concert hall had been dimmed to near darkness, and Peter could only just make out the lines of Tony’s muscular body. They’d start out in near darkness, across the massive stage from each other.

As the song went on, the lights would grow brighter and brighter, and they’d work their way towards each other. The closer and closer they came, the more they were pulled back, fighting against invisible forces with all their might to meet in the middle.

The stage lights would brighten to the point of being uncomfortable, heat radiating down on their exposed skin, the blinding glare so intense that the audience could hardly stand it.

And the moment they met in the center of the stage, hands finally touching for the first time at the very last note of the song, the lights would turn off, descending them back into darkness, the contrast leaving the audience, as well as Tony and Peter near-blinded by the sudden pitch black.

It was Tony who had first suggested it.

They’d spent nearly every day since that first day developing it, honing each graceful move until Peter could do it blindfolded, or without the music, or sometimes both, and hit every step perfectly.

And Tony had insisted they do it that way for some rehearsals.

He was relentless in his quest for absolute perfection. It was exhausting and infuriating. But it had been worth every frustrating moment, because Peter had never loved a routine so much. 

Had never loved a dance partner quite so much.

Tony had asked Peter to show him what he remembered that very first day, and they’d built off of it, refining the awkward beginning, letting themselves loosen as the song continued. Their movements shifted from tight and calculated at the start of the routine into something wild and passionate, needy even, by the end.

Tony had asked for Peter’s input, and it was still kind of dazzling to Peter that he cared so much about his ideas and opinions. 

“Well of course, kiddo,” Tony had replied with a half-cocked grin. “You’re the one who started this. I’m just helping you finish it.”

Peter had learned to not stutter when Tony looked at him like that, but he couldn’t help the way his heart would clench, hanging onto every word the older man said.

And now here they were, standing on stage for the first truly modern performance Tony Stark had ever done in his professional career. 

It had been advertised like crazy. 

Tony was right when he said he was a classical-only kind of guy. Tonight’s performance was a huge deal for both of them.

As the orchestra cued up, Peter stilled his breathing, focusing on the vague outline of Tony he could make out across the stage.

And as the lights grew more brilliant, he kept his focus on Tony, reaching out for him, never quite close enough to touch, letting himself imagine he really was getting yanked back, away from the love of his life. 

Well, the unseen hands were the only thing he had to imagine.

The love part was real.

He hadn’t told Tony, had been so careful in all their practices to keep it professional even when Tony teased him and cuddled close to him while they rested in between sets.

But tonight, Peter couldn’t hold it back, couldn’t deny what he’d been feeling for quite some time.

He loved Tony. 

Loved the gentle curls of his dark hair, loved his lean muscles that were earned from years of hard work and dedication. Loved the way he ruffled Peter’s hair when he made a bad joke, and loved the encouragement Tony gave him even through the worst of their rehearsals. 

He loved Tony.

And as they drew nearer and nearer, finally beginning to break free of the unseen bonds keeping them apart, a thought flashed through his mind.

What should have been a fleeting one, but it took root in his mind and heart.

And as they finally met in the center, stage lights blaring to a dazzling haze, he grasped onto Tony’s calloused hands and kissed him as the world around them went dark and the roar of the crowd’s applause enveloped them.