#shroud: i stopped listening after you said youre sweet. prove it though | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

thepatricktreestump · 4 years

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whatever you say - peter parker imagine

A/N: I don’t normally write nsfw spidey things but my fingers just wouldn’t stop typing so please do forgive me… not any actual smut, just lots of flirting and implications of sexual favors

It was strange, but for some reason, you found complete comfort in the simplicity that was Peter Parker. He lived in a small apartment with his Aunt May in Forest Hills, went to Midtown High, and at first glance, seemed like your typical teenage boy. May worked as an ER nurse and Peter kept up on his studies, proving to be a straight A student who succeeded not only in school, but in extracurriculars and academic teams as well. He liked science and math, he was really good at building robots, and he thoroughly enjoyed memorizing equations. When he wasn’t acing his tests, he spent his free time building LEGOs and watching Star Wars in his apartment or walking through town and debating between eating pizza or sub sandwiches. He had a messy bedroom cluttered with dirty laundry, an assortment of different computer parts, and countless science textbooks and academic journals. Three months ago, when you first started dating Peter Parker, this is the boy you thought you knew.

Your life, however, felt like the complete opposite. Being the daughter of Tony Stark, your day to day was far from simple. You lived in Stark Tower with Tony, cooped up on a floor with everything you could ever want or need, a master bedroom with a flat screen television, personal jacuzzi, walk in closet, arcade- you name it, Tony had it. School proved to be a breeze, and you had your MIT valedictorian of a father to thank for that, leaving you plenty of time for your own sort of extracurriculars. Rather than hang out at school and build lousy robots with Peter Parker, you’d much rather go to the lab and work on some high tech AI coding, super suit dynamics, or machine prototypes with your dad and the other avengers. He often urged you not to get too involved for your own safety, but you found yourself growing close with Bruce and Sam, bonding over your shared love for innovation. You’d be lying if you said you didn’t take after your father.

However, months passed, and the more time you spent with Peter Parker, the more you caught onto the fact that his life might not have been as normal as you initially thought it was. He kept disappearing randomly, ghosting you on planned dates, or not showing up at school. At first you thought he was just nervous, or maybe he didn’t really like you, but upon further investigation, it was evident. His life was just as crazy as yours. Although you thought it was weird that he never bothered telling you he was Spider-Man, and even weirder he didn’t inform you that he previously knew your dad, you almost liked the fact that you could share your secret world of superhero knowledge with him. You found yourselves relating to each other by joking about Steve’s old fashioned manners or Natasha’s resting bitch face. Although, other times also through confiding secret fears or discussing worst possible outcomes.

Tonight was one of the latter, you and Peter talking on the phone despite the time reading two in the morning, him trying to ease your anxiety. “It’s just been a couple days and Tony’s still not back yet…” you sighed, shrouded by your blankets, the soft glow of your phone illuminating the dark room. “He’s with Sam and he’s probably going to be just fine, but I’m still scared. And I know, I know. I’m not supposed have knowledge about those affiliated with the mission or his location, but sometimes I just can’t help but worry.”

“It must be hard,” Peter hummed in sympathy. “I’m sorry you have to go through that. May feels the same way about me.”

You paused for a moment. “I know it’s a horrible thing to think, and I’m probably just psyching myself out but-” your voice caught, shaking your head, closing your eyes. “Sometimes I wonder what if one day he just doesn’t come back.”

“Hey,” Peter hushed. “Try not to think about that, okay? He’s Iron Man, y/n, he’s fought alien monsters and literal gods, he should be just fine. Mr. Stark never goes down without a fight, he’ll be back. I’m sure of it.”

“I just can’t sleep not knowing,” you confessed, feeling sorry for dragging Peter into your own personal troubles. “I don’t know, I’m sorry… I’m probably keeping you up, and you have a calc test tomorrow-”

“No, no, don’t apologize, you’re okay,” your sweet boyfriend insisted. He paused, listening to your heavy breathing. “Do you want me to come over?”

“W-what?” you asked, confused.

“I know it’s late but if it would make you feel better, I can come over,” Peter offered. “I’ll just come to your window and you can let me in that way. I can keep you company, you can talk to me, or we can watch a movie to get your mind off things, I don’t know. Only if you want to.”

“You’d do that for me?” you wondered, growing soft at his words.

“I just don’t want you to be sad,” he explained. “And I know it’s hard with your dad being gone and all, and sure Pepper’s there, but I know you’ve never really been that close with her, and I just- I don’t know. I feel like you’re lonely, and I want to help.”

“Yeah, thank you,” you gave a soft smile. “I mean, if you want to, I wouldn’t fight you on it.”

“Just be sure to disarm FRIDAY before I come,” he reminded. “I don’t need your dad putting bars on your windows the next time I try to visit you like this.”

“Oh right!” you suddenly came to the realization. “Smart. I’ll go do that now.”

“Cool, I’ll see you in a few. Don’t miss me too much,” he teased.

“Hey, be safe! No texting and swinging!” you reminded playfully as you hung up and instantly got to work, shedding your sheets and grabbing your laptop, sliding back into bed and working out some coding.

Just as Tony had previously set up a baby monitor protocol on Peter’s suit, he had likewise set up parental controls through FRIDAY on all of your tower floor. You learned this when you tried to sneak out to a party Tony specifically forbid you from going to, and when you finally reached the elevator doors, FRIDAY locked you inside and you had to wait for Tony to come and get you. Since then, you’d been smart enough to disarm the system anytime you left your room after curfew or got into any other business Tony would obviously disapprove of. Spider-Man sneaking through your window at two in the morning to give you comfort cuddles? Probably something your father would disapprove of.

Peter tapped twice and waved, you rolling your eyes and laughing, motioning for him to come in before he slid up the glass of your window and crawled through, brushing off his suit and tugging off his mask, smiling once he clearly saw you sitting in bed, wearing one of his hoodies, grinning back at him.

“Hey Spidey,” you beamed, watching as he walked over towards your bed, kissing you softly. He tasted sweet, like candy, and you melted into the kiss, grabbing the back of his head and staying there for a moment before pulling away. He gave the best kisses.

“Heard someone needed some cheering up,” he whispered, tossing his mask on your night stand as you made grabby hands begging him to crawl into bed with you. He chuckled, giving in and situating himself underneath your covers awkwardly. You laughed alongside him, tugging him closer, pulling the sheets up over both of you, initially wincing at how cold his suit was when you went to wrap your arms around him.

“You’re freezing, Peter,” you hissed and he chuckled, rolling his eyes.

“It was windy outside, alright?” he sighed. “Come warm me up.”

“Well come closer, doofus,” you chuckled. He wrapped his arms around your waist and pulled you closer to him, your head resting against his shoulder, arm draped over his chest, fingers playing with locks of his hair. Your voice grew to a soft whisper. “Thanks for coming, baby.”

“Anything for you, love,” he insisted, his hand rubbing soft circles on the small of your back. The room grew quiet, his hands trailing up and down your back, your fingers brushing through his messy brown locks, both of you simply enjoying each other’s company. At some point you both fell asleep, soft snores dissipating throughout the room, holding each other.

In the morning, Peter begrudgingly convinced himself he had to get up and get ready for school, kissing you on the forehead and reassuring he’d see you at lunch later that day. You groaned yourself, realizing you should probably get up and resume FRIDAY’s commands before Pepper or Happy got suspicious as to why she wasn’t giving them any updates on your morning status. You took a shower and threw on some clothes, getting ready for the school day, smiling once you saw Peter waiting for you by your locker, a Starbucks cup in his hand.

“What’s this?” you couldn’t help but laugh in surprise.

“Well I know you were sad last night and again, I just wanted to cheer you up,” he shrugged, and you found it adorable that you had been dating for going on four months now and he still got flustered being around you. “I know you like the pink one with the strawberries and the coconuts, but they were out, so I got you a peach lemonade instead, I hope that’s okay-”

“It’s wonderful, Peter,” you insisted, taking a sip and smiling fondly at your boyfriend. “Thank you. For everything. Really.”

“Damn Peter, you’re buying y/n Starbucks now?” Ned approached both of you. “You never buy me Starbucks.”

“I’m not dating you, Ned,” Peter narrowed his eyes, laughing.

“You don’t have to kiss me to buy me a cold brew,” Ned sighed.

“Anyways,” you rolled your eyes at the two boys quarreling. “You ready for that calculus exam?”

“I studied all night,” Ned smiled. “I’ve got this one down. How about you, Parker? I bet you were up late last night studying too, huh?”

“Up late last night,” you agreed. “I don’t know about studying though.”

Ned’s eyes went wide and both you and Peter laughed, the bell ringing and all of you walking to your classes. As they day went by, you started to find your mind lingering back to your dad. As much of an asshole as he was sometimes, and as overbearing and overprotective as he could get, you really did love him and care about him. Others would probably call you lame, but you really did see Tony as one of your best friends. He helped you build amazing inventions, supported you in all your academic endeavors, and did his best to look out for you. Whenever he was gone on missions for longer than a week, you always started to get worried as far as whether or not he would come back.

Peter could sense your anxiety, trying to lighten your mood with jokes or place a hand on your shoulder as a sign of affection. Afterschool he approached you, clutching onto the straps of his backpack, seeming nervous. “I’m sorry you’ve had such a rough day. I was thinking we could take your mind off of things and you could spend the night at my place tonight?” he offered.

“Really?” your eyes lit up, thinking how you would love more than anything to get out and do something tonight. Nothing was worse than staying at home and wallowing in your feelings.

“Yeah,” he gave a soft smile, thinking about how adorable you looked when you got excited. “Aunt May is working night shift so maybe, if it’s cool with you, we can grab a pizza, play some video games, and then watch a movie?”

“Of course,” he insisted. “And we can stop somewhere on the way home to grab some snacks too.”

“I’ll give Pepper a call and ask if I can stay over tonight, I’ll probably just say I’m with Gwen or something,” you grinned. “She’ll say yes, she usually lets me have free rein whenever Tony’s out of town.”

“Awesome,” Peter beamed.

Sure enough, you found the two of you hours later on the floor of his bedroom, eyes fixated on a television screen, playing Mario Kart and chowing down on some pepperoni pizza and cherry slushies. It was practically a ritual for you to hang out with Peter on weekends. As long as he didn’t have an academic decathlon the next morning, Aunt May let you stay as late as you wanted on Fridays. Saturdays you spent fooling around in the lab working on suit modifications, recalibrating certain machinery, or working on new projects. Sundays were official lazy days, both of you usually sleeping in and meeting up midday to cuddle on the couch and watch a movie, usually wrapping up with finishing your weekend homework over facetime. However, on the weekends in which Tony or May were out of the house, the two of you liked to have sleepovers. Usually at Peter’s for the sake of having to navigate FRIDAY’s complicated algorithms.

It wasn’t like anything particularly steamy happened between the two of you. You had been only dating for a handful of months now, and you were both in high school. Sure, you and Peter liked to cuddle a lot, and hold hands, and play with each other’s hair, but that was simply just affection. And of course, you loved kissing each other, especially when nobody else was around to make fun of you or scold you. Sometimes you found yourself getting into make out sessions, pressed up against each other and finding it hard to catch your breath, hearts racing and desperately clinging onto each other.

Occasionally it would heat up a little bit more than that, some grinding and groping and moaning, and a handful of times Peter’s taken his shirt off, but that was about it. You hadn’t even really reached second base with him yet. And you weren’t complaining, you were glad you were taking things slow. But at this point, you were ready. It just felt like it was time. But you knew this was Peter’s first serious relationship, and you didn’t want to put any pressure on him or rush him into things, so you were complacent with playing Mario Kart and eating pizza in the meantime.

“I am sooo going to kick your ass,” you warned Peter, pressing down hard on your Wii remote and hitting him with a red shell as your character zoomed past him on the race track, and he simply just laughed.

“Yeah? Wait till I break out Rainbow Road,” he insisted.

“Are you actually Satan or do you just hate me?” you narrowed your eyes. “There is no way I’m playing that shit, I think I’d rather forfeit.”

“It’s all about strategy and focus,” he argued, knocking Luigi out from second place, tailing right behind you, eyes glued to the screen.

“Strategy? You sound like Ned,” you snorted, drifting a curve and heading towards a shortcut. “That racetrack is nothing but a holographic highway of death.”

“If we had it your way, we would be playing Moo Moo Meadows on an endless loop,” Peter teased and you gasped playfully.

“What? It has fun music and I like looking at the cows,” you whined and he laughed, passing you at the last minute and scoring first place, making your jaw drop. “What the hell? How?”

“What can I say? You’re dating a winner, baby,” he grinned and you rolled your eyes, shaking your head and taking another bite of your pizza.

“I’m dating a jackass,” you joked. “You can’t let me win just once? Come on, be nice.”

“I used to do that, and you made fun of me for it,” he pointed out. “Remember the first week we started dating?”

“You literally used to go in reverse until I caught up with you,” you replied flatly. “It was ridiculous, Peter. It’s not like you made it subtle that I happened to suck at the game or anything.”

“I just didn’t want you to feel bad,” he reassured, and you chuckled, taking a sip of your slurpee and sighing, leaning your head on his shoulder.

“So another round or are we going to move onto Smash Bros?” you raised an eyebrow.

“Up to you,” he shrugged, taking a bite of his pizza as well.

“How about we play another round of Mario Kart,” you suggested. “But whoever wins gets a prize.”

“Like what?” he crossed his arms over his chest, looking at the mischievous grin on your face, doubtful.

“I don’t know, a hoodie or something,” you perused innocently and he let out a breathy laugh.

“You’ve already stolen all of mine, so I’m not sure I’d have another one to give you quite honestly,” he admitted and you smiled, mind wandering elsewhere.

“What about…” you pouted your lips, trying to think up something good. “What about if I win, I get to do anything I want to you? And if you win, you get to do anything you want to me. All within reasonable boundaries of course.”

“Woah,” Peter’s eyes widened. “Is this the part when you tell me you actually work for Hydra and you gut me like a fish or something?”

“Pshh no that’s ridiculous,” you shook your head.

“What do you mean ‘do whatever you want to me?’ Huh?” he inquired, mischievously raising an eyebrow. “This seems oddly torture-like.”

“It’s not going to be torturing,” you stared at him, unamused. “I could never hurt you.”

“Then what could you possibly want to do to me?” he sighed, looking at you, entertained with your shenanigans, taking a sip of his cherry slushie.

“I dunno,” you shrugged, stirring your straw in your cup a couple times before casually telling him your suggestion. “Suck your dick I guess.”

He instantly spat out his slurpee, eyes widening, shocked. “E-excuse me, what?”

“I said if I win, I’d probably suck your dick I guess,” you shrugged again and he blinked at you, entire face flushed red, stuttering and stunned all at the same time. Your lips curled up in a small smile, thinking of how much you loved to see him like this, a literal blushing virgin. He was adorable, really.

“Well gosh, I uh…” he looked down at the red icee he had spat all over his t-shirt and then up at you, still at a loss for words. “You don’t really have to beat me at Mario Kart to get my permission to do that, you know.”

“Yeah, but this way makes it a lot more fun, yes?” you smirked and he swallowed awkwardly, absolutely frazzled.

“S-sure, I guess you’re right there,” he nodded slowly, still staring blankly at the slushie stains. “How do you know I’m not going to just let you win?”

“Because…” you drew out, looking at him, still smirking. “If you win, then you get to do whatever you want to me.”

He paused, turning towards you, breath hitching. “Anything?”

“Well again, no torture or killing or whatever but-” you clarified and he laughed, rolling his eyes.

“Yeah, of course, but uh…” he got lost staring at you again and you couldn’t help but wonder what he could possibly be thinking of. “Shit, I’m in.”

“Really?” you bit down on your lower lip, almost too excited for this bet.

“Definitely,” he nodded, feeling a bit more confident. “Just give me a second.” He slipped off his t-shirt and you watched intently, noting how built and lean he was. There were certain perks to dating Spider-Man, and it was moments when your boyfriend was sitting in front of you shirtless like this that you were ever most grateful for them.

“Well shit, Parker,” you laughed to yourself and he stared at you, confused.

“What? My shirt had slushie all over it,” he insisted and you looked at him, narrowing your eyes.

“Uh huh…”

“No for real!”

“Totally not trying to tease me or anything over here.”

“Oh whatever! Just start the game.”

“Give me a second,” you insisted, reaching down and deciding to take it one step further, slipping off your own sweatshirt and revealing your bra underneath, looking at him, anticipating his reaction. Seeing him like this, you wanted to take a picture and capture it forever. He looked breathless, staring at you, his eyes dark and fixated, his lips parted, mesmerized. You couldn’t help but smile. “See something you like, Spidey?”

“Yeah,” his eyes flickered up to yours, still blushing. “You.”

Grinning, you leaned over to kiss him, then pulled away, picking up your Wii remote and selecting your favorite racetrack. “Good luck,” you winked.

“Good luck yourself,” he laughed. “Seeing as the only time you ever beat me in Mario Kart is when my controller dies, I think you’re the one who’s going to need it.”

“Fine, to hell with luck,” you rolled your eyes as the countdown started. “Maximum effort.”

Both of you pressed down hard, zooming through the track, eyes fixated on the screen, cursing and screaming and hooting and hollering as you gained power ups and got knocked off the road by each other. By far, the most intense game of Mario Kart you’ve ever played in your life. Each round you seemed to egg each other on more and more, and although you clearly knew how this was going to end, you couldn’t help but at least try your very best. First place trophy spinning on the screen, Peter’s tongue ran over his lower lip, glancing over at you as nervousness flowered in your chest. What did he have in mind?

“I don’t think either of us saw that coming,” he stated sarcastically and you looked at him incredulously.

“Alright then Peter Parker,” you hummed lightheartedly, shutting off the television and setting your controller down, sighing as you leaned back and rest your weight upon your backwards palms. “What do you have planned for me?”

“Well…” he looked at you shyly, almost hesitant, and you began to grow even more curious. “I know you said ‘anything I wanted’ or whatever, but I want to make this enjoyable for you too, and that sure you’re okay with everything I’m doing.”

“By all means, don’t stop for me,” you insisted, small smile tugging on the edge of your lips. “If you say or do anything I don’t like, I’ll speak up. Don’t worry.” He hummed softly in acknowledgment, nodding as he looked towards the floor, still nervous, then cleared his throat.

“I think seeing as your intentions were to seduce me, I guess I have no choice but to go along with the theme,” he rolled his eyes playfully, slowly gaining confidence and crawling closer to you, making your heart beat twice as fast. He kissed you on the lips, soft and sweet and slow, and then pulled away, lowering his face so that his mouth was barely brushing up against your ear, his voice lowering to a whisper. The entire mood of the room shifted, into something more serious. “So, I think you should lay on the bed for me.”

“Whatever you say,” you smiled sweetly, trying to hide your nervousness and doing as told, getting up and making your way to his bed, laying down on your back, watching as he stood at the end, looking you up and down, licking his lips. You could tell something inside of him changed. He didn’t seem so timid anymore, afraid to suggest something or speak up. His shoulders rolled back, his feet planted solid in the ground, his entire stance exuding confidence. It was different, dominant and alluring, and you couldn’t help but be captivated by it. He was entrancing like this, dark eyes gazing over your body, shirtless, hands dipping down into the waistband of his jeans, brows furrowed, pondering what to do with you.

“Hands up. Against the bedframe,” he ordered, and you looked at him, trying to analyze what he had in mind as you tentatively did as instructed, positioning your arms above you, against the wooden frame. In what seemed like an instant, he suddenly flicked his wrists outward, webs springing from his fingers and you gasped as the sticky substance pinned your hands above you, a mess of webs fixating them to the wooden plank. You eyes widened and then narrowed.

“Didn’t know Spidey was into bondage,” you bit down on your lower lip, aroused by his dominance and playfulness all the same.

“Didn’t know you could be so naughty,” he quipped back and you blushed, trying to look away, shy.

“Nuh uh, none of that,” he argued with a chuckle, crawling on top of you and raising your face to look at him with one of his hands, making your eyes meet. “If I do recall correctly, you were offering to suck me off a moment earlier. Seemed pretty eager too.”

“Still am if that’s what you fancy, Peter,” you suggested, eyes twinkling with a glint of naughtiness, but he just shook his head, smiling.

“I think I have other plans for you tonight,” he insisted, kissing you again this time, but rougher, his tongue sliding in between your lips and up against your own, then retreating to have his teeth catch your lower lip, dragging it between them before he pulled away, devilish smirk on his face.

“Mind filling me in on the agenda?” you asked with a breathy voice, fluttering your eyelids and parting your lips, bucking your hips up to meet his.

“It involves your pants off, and my head between your legs, and you moaning my name,” his eyes flickered up to meet yours. “And then me fucking you into this bed until those moans turn into screams.”

“Holy fuck,” you whispered, eyes glazed over, staring at him, practically speechless.

“Sound good to you, sweetheart?” he hummed, fingers tracing over your stomach, playing with the hem of your waistband.

“Shit…” you laughed to yourself quietly, eyes still fixated on him, feeling unbelievably flustered. “I think I ought to up the ante on Mario Kart wins a whole lot more from now on.”

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mimik-u · 4 years

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Flower Child, Ch. 18 (”Abyss”)

LINK

The door that led into Room 11812 was already partially cracked when Blue Diamond arrived in front of it the next morning. Lost, hesitant, adrift, perpetually undone, she simply stared at it for a long while, sized it up, reified it into yet another monolith she would have to confront.

For she was surrounded by monoliths.

All the time.

They towered over her.

Mocked her.

Grief and ghosts and all those other inlaid, ingrained fears, carved deep into the marrow of her bones, muscle memory now. She was scared of everything, really: the continuance of life, the permanence of death, the human capacity for endurance, the inhuman throes of her nightmares. And how these nightmares were sometimes, maybe even oftentimes, waking dreams nowadays, stalking her far beyond the confines of a bed that was much too big for her. She was afraid of forgetting Pink Diamond and replacing her, caring for Steven Universe and losing him. Telling Yellow Diamond that she loved her. Showing it. Proving that she did. Never doing it in the end precisely because she was so afraid. (Of what? She scarcely could articulate in the labyrinthine abyss of her mind, where everything was guttural and murky and raw.) Consigning their marriage to the same grave where their daughter laid, the memory of their once great love dressed in funeral shrouds…. She was afraid of empty halls and empty penthouse suites and empty rooms where dust laid thickly on furniture that would never be touched again. Ratty hoodies, diamond quilts, pink sticky notes reminding dead twenty-one year olds to study for upcoming tests. She was afraid of living and afraid of dying, afraid of happiness and afraid of pain. She feared mornings, and she feared nights. Doorbells, sleeping pills, good days, bad days, her very shadow, her own wasted reflection. (Because fundamentally, Blue Diamond was afraid of herself most of all.)

She wasn’t particularly afraid of doors—because most of the time, a door was just a door after all—but she was afraid of this particular door on the sixth floor of a hospital. More simply, she was afraid of what was behind it. Simpler still, she was afraid of who laid in that hospital bed. Afraid of all the unspoken things that had simmered quietly in the space between them for years upon distant, aching years...

So, she simply stood there.

Lost.

Hesitant.

Adrift.

Perpetually undone.

She made a monolith out of a door.

Voices seeped from behind the narrow gap, rising and falling together in a conversation that didn’t quite make sense, try though she did to piece the snippets into a context that she could understand. Blue braced both of her hands upon the head of her cane as she leaned forward to listen, a long strand of her silvery hair falling listlessly between her eyes, curling just over her nose.

How terribly her heart beat.

How loud.

Her fingers shivered; they simply ached.

“... ouch, dammit! Don’t poke me so hard,” Yellow Diamond snapped, her abrasive voice loud, clear, unmistakable, ringing.

(She was always so pleasant to be around in the morning.)

“Then you should quit squirming around so much, Mrs. Diamond,” a voice that she recognized as belonging to Dr. Reed replied, as amused as her patient was irate. “It’s just a needle.”

“Yes, well—it’s too early in the morning for me to be especially happy about being prodded like a cow.”

“Mm,” the doctor made a noncommittal noise at the back of her throat as she continued to work, noisily shifting invisible materials around.

“So, when will I get these results back?” Yellow asked, affecting a tone that was passably casual to anyone who didn’t know her, who was unaware that she clipped her consonants more shortly than usual when she was tense, scared, strained.

“A couple of hours if I had to wager. The lab’ll want to be thorough.”

“Naturally.”

“And once we get those results back—if they say what I think they will, of course—then we’ll have to run through the whole gamut of other procedures: urological assessments, medical histories, blood pressure tests, cancer screenings, chest x-rays, EKGs... it’ll be a long process.”

“Sounds like it,” Yellow returned in that same punctuated voice, and then the two women lapsed into silence as the ground revolted beneath Blue’s feet, simply eroded.

And she was suddenly falling at the same time that she was perfectly upright, a swaying pillar tethered only to the facticity of her cane. She clung to it all the more tightly, fingers whitening from the beds of her nails downwards; it was the only bulwark she had against total collapse.

Annihilation.

Ruin.

All these tests?

What were they for?

She furrowed her silvery brow and desperately thought back to her conversation with Dr. Reed just yesterday; nothing about it had suggested that something was seriously wrong with Yellow, except a few fractures and lacerations that would clear up with time and rest... so what reasonable line of logic led from a minor car accident to cancer screenings and chest x-rays? What had happened in the unaccounted for hours when Blue had been away?

She closed her eyes as nausea suddenly rushed up the cylinder of her throat, sickness invading all her delicate senses.

The answer seemed to loom darkly ahead—only a door push away.

“Alright, Mrs. Diamond,” the doctor sighed, “I’m going to get these to the lab. I’ll draw up your discharge papers soon, too...”

Yellow must have made some sort of nonverbal reply because Blue didn’t have time to recover her face as the cracked door suddenly flung open, breaking the final divide between everything she thought she understood and all the awful things that she apparently didn’t.

“Mrs. Diamond, oh, hello! Good mornin’!”

Her wiry eyebrows hoisted high above her thin glasses, Dr. Reed looked equally surprised to see Blue Diamond standing just outside the door. The medical tray she bore in her arms jumped a little as she did, shaking a few test tubes that were filled with dark crimson.

But Blue was impatient, eager, scared most of all. (She was always scared.) Her hooded eyes involuntarily slid from the harried doctor to the test tubes to the impressively cut figure just beyond Dr. Reed’s shoulder.

For Yellow Diamond, wearing her favorite pair of silken pajamas like royal regalia, sat upon the edge of her hospital bed, simply staring at Blue from widened eyes, her cracked lips parted slightly, every line etched across her face a livid, pulsing scar.

It was an expression of contradictions, of paradoxes, of dichotomies: tender at the same time that it was strained, vulnerable and equally forbidding.

Yellow averted her gaze first, a dull flush suffusing her sharply hewn cheeks. When she turned away, the sunlight pouring in from the window eclipsed her features behind the curtain of its flaxen reach.

“Good morning, Dr. Reed,” Blue murmured, painfully wrenching her attention back to the more immediate woman. “I see you have been… busy.”

She glanced questioningly at the tray of test tubes again, but just as the doctor opened her mouth to respond, Yellow got there first, cutting across her with cold precision.

“She was just leaving,” she said pointedly, still not looking their way. She brought her left arm up—the one enmeshed in a brace—to absentmindedly skim the right where her sleeve was meticulously rolled up at the elbow, where a long piece of gauze had been nearly wrapped around the joint. “Right, Doctor?”

It was a clear dismissal, blunt and unsubtle, a maneuver of clear avoidance, of keeping those strange, private words in the dark. Blue imagined it was a tactic that would have worked exceptionally well on Poppy or Livia or one of their various other employees besides whom Yellow had already intimidated into submission, but Dr. Reed didn’t seem to be especially frazzled by Yellow Diamond at all—unbothered by her elevated status, impervious to the harsh way with which spoke, as though every word was a finely calibrated weapon. She only resigned herself with a meaningful sigh that Blue couldn’t quite miss, her wire-rimmed glasses slipping incrementally upon the bridge of her nose.

“I suppose I was,” she smiled grimly, adjusting her tray more securely in her arms. Blue counted the scarlet tubes. There were four in all. “Be sure to eat that. cookie, Mrs. Diamond”—she called over her shoulder, as calculatingly sweet as Yellow was acerbic—“and it was nice to see you again, Mrs. Diamond.”

Blue stepped to the aside to allow the doctor passage. They exchanged a final nod, charged with unspoken significance, and then, just like that, Dr. Reed was gone.

And finally, they were alone.

Blue and Yellow Diamond.

Once upon a time, this had been one of their most treasured sensations in the world.

To be alone.

With one another.

In the confines of a room.

Oh, how Blue’s slender hands had once known Yellow as intimately as they had known her own body. The curvature of her sharp jawbone. The tender column of her pulsing neckline. The feeling of their hands together, gently intertwined. Spiny knuckles. Soft palms. Brushing thumbs.

And now, eight feet stood between them.

Seven once Blue timidly dared to step into the doorway.

Merely six once she made an awkward movement to close the door behind her.

And neither of them especially knew how to breach the space between them.

The distance.

The gulf.

Yellow seemed to have finally noticed that she was massaging the place where the doctor had drawn her blood because she suddenly stopped, self-conscious, wrenching her left hand away from the spot. But the gauze was still there, wrapped around her bony elbow tightly, advertising its unspoken secret like a flag at half-mast.

“You’re having tests done,” Blue stated.

It was as bold as it was quiet.

The loudest accusation in an otherwise silent room.

“They’re nothing,” Yellow replied immediately, trying for a nonchalance that didn’t quite land. “It’s nothing. Just routine stuff.”

The lie landed between them, too, with an odd, dull plunk, and Blue felt the beginnings of something other than fear coil in the pit of her stomach for the first time all morning. A burning sensation—stinging, raw.

She squeezed her cane again tightly and absently thought that it wouldn’t surprise her if her fingers came away with indents from where she gripped the metal.

“You were drunk… you were in an accident, Yellow,” she whispered, her words acquiring an icy edge. They lashed. They lunged. They hurt. They were intended to hurt. “Are you sure there’s something you’re not telling me?”

On the ropes, cornered—she hated being cornered—Yellow’s features suddenly hardened, her nose upturning, mouth calcifying into its trademark sneer. If Blue Diamond’s cane was her defense, then Yellow Diamond’s snarl was her weapon, sharp as any saber or sword.

“You’re being paranoid, Blue—even more so than usual,” she scoffed, fingertips digging into the sheets beneath her hands. “It wasn’t as though I caused the accident. I wasn’t even driving!”

“Then why has Dr. Reed ordered such an extensive battery of tests for you? Can you answer me that at least?” She insisted, now shrill, now angry, now hoarse, now unknotted, soon to be undone—her throat wrenched with its own rage. Tears burned the corners of her eyes, gathering like rushing rivers down the skeletal curves of her cheeks. “I’m your wife, Yellow Diamond, and you—”

“And I should what exactly?” Yellow interrupted, laughing so mirthlessly that the sound was feral, almost inhuman. “Give you yet another reason to fall apart for four years? You barely survived the last time. I barely survived watching you, Blue. I—“

But she stopped short.

She realized that she had said too much.

And six feet became six hundred feet as the two women stared at each other across the empty tiles, as the words that Yellow had growled registered to them both.

Neither of them had barely survived Blue’s total dissolution.

Both of them.

Together.

Alone.

They were both so utterly alone.

“I’m sorry,” Yellow exhaled, the fight in her voice punctured. Leaking. Drained. “I… I’m—“

But what exactly she was, even she didn’t seem to know. Prodigious marshal of words that she was, she was clearly at a loss for words, her mouth quavering with its own forced silence. Yellow abruptly looked away again, and the sunlight threw the stitches across her cheek in sharp relief, the redness of them, the rawness.

Painful to even look at.

How much more painful were they then to bear?

How many other wounds besides had her wife collected in all these awful, unspooling years? Not even simply the visible ones, but all the other sundry hurts, too. The lines beneath her hawklike eyes. Her perpetual coldness, wrapped like impenetrable armor around her skin. The very way that she spoke these days, as though each word was a marionette jerked by some strict taskmaster’s violent strings.

In the night, when she was alone in that master bed that had never been intended for just one, Blue didn’t have to look at these things, didn’t have to acknowledge that there was a reason that the door to the study was perpetually cracked open, didn’t have to wonder about how her utter contempt for life reflected on others because fundamentally, there was no one other than herself; it was her and her alone.

During the day, she didn’t have to care.

Time stretched ad infinitum all around her, slipping, always slipping away.

And she remained in the mire of her own head.

Stuck.

Broken.

Sinking.

Sunken.

Gone.

“So, please, Blue Diamond… please don’t look away, Steven Universe had whispered, indicting her, condemning her entire modus operandi with seven simple words as he laid in that hospital bed, dying for everyone to see.

She had looked away from Pink Diamond, and now Pink Diamond was dead.

She had almost looked away from Steven Universe.

Even still, even after all that they had ever been through together—and they had been through quite a lot—Blue Diamond was looking away from her wife even now.

Fool, masochist, coward.

She was, she was, she was—all of these things and very likely more.

Drowning.

Save me.

Spiraling.

Always.

Sinking, sunken, gone.

But the corrective, Steven Universe implied with every word and kind deed, wasn’t in the recognition of her problem; it wasn’t even in the actual acknowledgment that there needed to be a change.

It was in action and reaction.

It was in change itself.

A sickly boy could extend a flower to her in the cemetery, but she had to be the one to accept its grace.

She had to be the one to not look away.

Six feet, not six hundred feet.

Please, Blue Diamond… please don’t look away.

Swallowing thickly, Blue forced herself to gain perspective in that tiny hospital room, narrowing the world to just the two of them and the few strips of tile which stood between them.

Six feet.

So close and yet so far.

(Their daughter was six feet under the ground.)

“We apologize to each other all the time,” Blue murmured, her voice lilting softly in her accent, “and yet… not at all. How many times have we hurt each other, Yellow? How many times have we had to repent before doing it all over again?”

“So many times,” Yellow returned automatically, and her voice was quiet, laced only with the fading dregs of bitterness. Her knuckles were white where she continued to clench the sheets balled in her fists. “Because I am sorry—every damn time, Blue. I don’t mean to hurt you. I don’t want to hurt you. Hell, but I—”

As her voice rose, it was just as quickly stifled.

Choked.

A single tear glanced down the consummate businesswoman’s sharply angled face, and perhaps it was the most visible sign of her defeat that she didn’t immediately make a move to scrub it away, to pretend as though it had never existed.

And perhaps it was this gesture, or lack of a gesture, that finally did it for Blue Diamond above all.

That taught her what she needed to do.

She moved forward, one halting footstep over another, the hem of her long dress sweeping across the clinically white ground.

Clank.

Five feet.

Clank.

Four feet.

Clank.

Alerted by the telltale clangor of the cane, Yellow Diamond abruptly jerked her chin upwards, her lined eyes wide with horror and disbelief, with fear, with apprehension, with confusion, and something else, too—something almost indefinable because it had been a long time since Blue had recognized the expression in her wife’s chiseled face.

Had seen it.

Had noticed it.

Named it and reciprocated it.

Yearning, that irresistible rush of longing.

It shone painfully in her eyes, a drowning man’s golden flare shot into the dark.

Clank.

Three feet.

Clank.

Two.

“Blue, what are you—”

Clank.

One.

Scarcely twelve inches stood between them now, the air quiet, unnervingly, unnaturally still.

For everything was on a tightrope, the line just ready to snap.

Between them, individually, over twenty years of history were stored in the shared memories of their bodies, and for a moment, if only for a fleeting second, Blue felt as though if she could only reach out and touch Yellow in just the right place, that the world would just as suddenly right itself on its tilted axis, and everything would make sense once again and forevermore. They would be reconciled, reunited, restored, all of their damages undone, and they would know each other intimately, just by touch alone. They would be able to pick up where they last stopped, somewhere in the darkness, on a road that went by the wayside so long ago. Maybe, at long last, they would even join hands.

But, no.

That was simply naïveté.

Childlike belief.

A dream.

Touching Yellow Diamond would not change the fact that their daughter was dead and that four years of grief had nearly destroyed the both of them; touching Yellow Diamond was not an apology; it wouldn’t even be an adequate excuse. The touch, if such a thing were to exist, would only be a gesture, a microscopic movement towards what had heretofore been the impossible.

The beginnings of a bridge.

And one goddamn awful gulf.

But it was a start.

And that was what mattered, right?

Yes, Blue Diamond thought to herself.

Please.

Closing her eyes against the sudden vertigo—the fear, the terror, the rush—she slowly leaned over into the darkness and gently pressed her lips against Yellow Diamond’s forehead, exhaling softly as the stalwart general tensed beneath the touch, deathly still.

“I’m sorry, Blue.”

Her voice shook, a pillar cut off at its foundation, sunken to its knees.

Blue gingerly brought her hands up so that they were encircling her wife’s head, her tousled hair, the tips of her ears, her temples…

“I’m so sorry,” Yellow repeated simply; her voice cleaved itself in two; she was insisting on an apology, as though it was absolutely necessary for them to proceed.

And it was.

But so, too, was this.

“I know,” Blue whispered as Yellow’s shoulders began to silently shake. In response, in return, because she wanted to, because she desperately needed to, she began to absently skim her thumb through the woman’s hair.

“I’m sorry, too.”

Three words still hung—unspoken—in the sterile air.

Suspended.

On the tips of fearful tongues.

ii.

Priyanka brought them all back to the slaughterhouse again because there was nowhere else left to go. There were five of them in total, so they couldn’t very well have their daily harrowing conversation out in the hallway. They were adults, and Steven was a child, Steven was fourteen, so they couldn’t baldly discuss his mortality in his hospital room, where he laid in a bed, hooked up to so many whirring machines. Her office was cramped, and the chapel was somber. The cafeteria was too noisy, the hospital’s atrium just the same.

And so, that left only one option.

The conference room on the fourth floor.

The slaughterhouse.

They all took seats at that long, long table and did their best not to look at each other, at the griefs laid bare in all of their tired faces.

“I’m sorry,” Priyanka said abruptly, “for yesterday. I got your hopes up. I got my own up, and I... I should have been more circumspect.”

She stared at her lined hands, at how they were templed neatly upon the smooth surface of the table. Even sidled up next to each other, brushing, her palms felt bitingly cold.

“I knew better, and that—irrefutably—is on me.”

“Aw, come off it, Doc,” Amethyst shrugged dully from the other side of Greg. “You couldn’t have known.”

“You told us best yourself, Priyanka,” Pearl agreed, her voice an almost passable imitation of prim. She was sitting in the chair opposite to Amethyst, delicately massaging her temples with the tips of her long fingers. “That damage wouldn’t have shown up on the scans... we don’t fault you for that.”

“We won’t,” Garnet added pointedly, never moving her bicolored gaze away from the empty air just above Greg’s shoulder.

“We would never,” Greg finished kindly, and when Priyanka dared to look up at him—he was sitting to her immediate left—she was appalled to see a weak smile quivering on his bearded mouth. Of all the things she didn’t deserve, a smile was high on that list which seemed to grow longer with every passing day that Steven Universe was in her care.

“You’re all being far too nice to me,” she insisted in that same blunt tone, though she knew it was a losing battle, four against one, the weapons of their affection all drawn. “I made that child—I made all of you—a promise. And doctors don’t make promises.”

Take care of my baby for me... please.

You have my word.

“Not unless they’re arrogant,” she concluded coldly, glancing away. “Foolish.”

And she was a fool—assuredly. A jester in a white lab coat. All she needed was the hat. In the slaughterhouse, she half-demanded that the people around her admitted to it, that the victims of her fault had their chance to cleave her apart on the altar, too.

But because they were kind and good and everything that was compassionate in the world, not a single one of them did.

Garnet even reached over and briefly placed a warm hand on Priyanka’s arm.

“It’s a good thing you’re neither then.”

And of course, here was yet another thing she didn’t deserve—a consolatory touch—but the doctor did not have the heart to shake it off, not now—not when there were dark circles beneath Garnet’s eyes that spoke to yet another sleepless night in a long row of likely many.

“Yes, well, at any rate”—she hurried away from the subject, desperate to escape their kindness, goodness, their sympathetic gazes—“I’ve called you here to give a progress report… we potentially have another donor candidate… a live donor this time.”

Priyanka enunciated each word as though she was announcing the presence of a ticking time bomb, and it registered as much in the faces of her captive audience. Garnet withdrew her hand quickly, as though stung, and they all stared at the nephrologist, each and every one of them, with a naked disbelief that was a far cry from the unadulterated joy of yesterday’s declaration. They had been briefly happy, and then they’d been so quickly, so mercilessly burnt; it was no wonder then that they were skeptical.

It was painfully obvious that they were still licking their damn wounds.

“A patient at this very hospital,” she continued haltingly, precise in every word. She had to be careful here not to let something slip up, not to betray a word that would drive the blades sticking into these people’s chests in just one inch more. She wanted to be fastidious this time; she intended to be sure. “Their blood type is likely a match for Steven’s, but we’re checking again just to make sure… and even if that’s a certainty, there are so many other tests besides that we’ll have to do just to make sure their body is healthy enough to undergo a transplant… it could take weeks…”

She spoke into thick silence, excruciating to the last as each word was wrenched free from her teeth in some poor facsimile of her usual brusque fashion.

Pearl and Garnet exchanged a pregnant look across the table, but it was Amethyst who spoke the meaning aloud; she was always the one who seemed to be the best at translating what everyone was secretly thinking into words, what they were all too fearful to say.

“So we shouldn’t get our hopes up yet, huh?” She asked candidly. “That’s what you’re saying… isn’t it?”

“Something to that effect, yes,” Priyanka returned with a slow nod of her head. “I just don’t want to… I would rather not…”

But she struggled to find the right words, to strangle all her emotions into sentences that didn’t complicate the professionalism to which she was called.

Because she couldn’t break down.

She couldn’t flinch.

She was the doctor in the room for goodness’s sake, and that meant something.

But again, Amethyst stepped in so she didn’t have to—blunt, plain, merciful.

“… hurt him again,” she mumbled, her lavender hair forming a curtain around her lowered head. The young woman swiped her arm roughly across her face in a gesture that was lost on precisely no one. “Yeah, I guess that’s for the best…”

The ensuing silence was somehow worse than the last.

It seemed to chafe at them all, rubbing their skins raw.

Greg Universe shifted in his chair.

He looked less man than mountain, carved ruggedly against a bleak, gray sky—hunched in on himself, avalanched, collapsing all over.

(When she’d first met the man some fifteen years ago, he’d still had all of his hair.)

(A kid having a kid.)

“He hasn’t said more than a few words today, Dr. M,” the mountain whispered, his voice eroding in all the right places, crumbling. “He barely even looks at us.”

Priyanka didn’t know what to say.

She wasn’t naturally warm like Maisie Reed.

Wasn’t soft.

Wasn’t encouraging.

Being a doctor didn’t require any of those epithets, even though she knew cerebrally, intimately, that being a human did.

“It’s hard being sick,” she finally said.

It was the easiest way to utter an even harder truth.

(Sometimes, her patients found it unbearable.)

iii.

“And Archimicarus preened his feathers haughtily, all the while keeping one amber eye on Captain Bonham, whose apparent warmth wasn’t enough to stop the falcon from being wary of the witch’s eccentricities: the dual pistols she wore in the holsters on either side of her waist, the long knife handle jutting just above the ribs of her corset, and most ominously of all, the necklace she wore around her neck—a leather cord threaded through the skull of a baby bird,” Connie read aloud, adopting her most suspenseful voice for one of the most tense chapters in the book—Lisa and Archimicarus meeting Valentine Bonham, famed pirate witch of the jewel-bright seas, and her serpentine familiar Scyllane.

Of course, Valentine would prove to be one of Lisa’s most beloved companions by the end of the book, a swashbuckling mentor with a semi-tragic backstory, a kind of mother figure who had a penchant for committing petty theft and tax fraud against the despotic king.

But Steven didn’t know that yet.

“Skyllane,” Connie continued, “her silvery scales glimmering beneath the midday sun, hissed her amusement at Archimicarus’s obvious discomfort as she coiled herself sinuously around Valentine’s neck. Show off, the falcon thought savagely…”

Her mouth twitched into a reflexive smile at this part, nostalgic at Archimicarus’s occasional petty asides, and she looked up automatically, hoping to see the same amusement reflected in the face of her one-person audience… but Steven… Steven obviously wasn’t feeling it.

He didn’t seem like he was feeling much of anything, really.

When she’d come in with her mother that morning, he had tried to hide it, insisting that she open The Unfamiliar Familiar again, that they could pick up where they had last left off like everything was fine and good and normal and dandy.

But it wasn’t.

And perhaps pretending was only adding insult to injury, salt to an already agonizing wound.

Her mother’s famously steady hands had been shaking all day. They shook around around the leather of her steering wheel; they shook around the circumference of her coffee tumbler; they shook as she fumbled with her keys to lock the sedan’s door. She dropped them. Connie picked them up and didn’t comment on the incident, just as her mother didn’t comment on the event except to proffer a perfunctory thank you. And still, her mother’s hands continued to shake as she ushered Connie through the double doors that led into the Truman Ward, where only the nephrologist’s most dire patients were hospitalized.

On the ride to the hospital that morning, she had laid out the bare bones as best and well as she could to her daughter—Steven had been going to get kidneys, and then he just as suddenly wasn’t.

Steven’s life had miraculously stretched before him, and then the ribbon was abruptly, cruelly cut.

And his heart is tired, Connie, her mom had whispered—very quietly, with evident strain. As though she was scarcely able to comprehend it herself. So tired. And his lungs are doing their best to keep up…

Connie did not think it was necessary to ask what happened to tired hearts.

Staring at Steven, who wasn’t staring at her but rather at a fixed point upon the ceiling, she instinctively understood that there was only one thing tired hearts could do.

And that was shatter.

Break.

“Hey… Steven?” She asked tentatively, replacing the straw wrapper bookmark in the place where she had last left off. (She didn’t quite close the book—not yet. There was a finality in that action, mundane though it was, that suddenly scared her.) “Are you… okay?”

Seconds dripped before anything happened. Surrounded by a nest of tangled wires and tubes, Steven was deathly still in their embrace, less subject than object, less object than tangible ghost. From her vantage point—the chair next to his bed—she couldn’t see his face, the expression in it, perhaps even the lack of one. But she observed the way that his right hand laid feebly on top of his stomach, fingers lightly curled into a ball. And she saw the feeble rise and fall of his chest, how it stuttered every so often with each arrhythmic movement that found its companion in a staccato beat on his heart monitor.

And here was yet another thing that scared the twelve-year old.

She surmised that all these signs and symbols had something to do with finality, too.

Endings.

She hated those.

Sometimes, when she was reading a really good book, she would stop just before the last chapter to steel herself for what was to come.

“Yes,” came a mechanical reply. “Just tired…”

“I can imagine,” Connie said. (She couldn’t imagine it all. She could barely reconcile that this was the same boy she had laughed and laughed with only so many days ago on the first floor of this very hospital. He had smiled at her so kindly, eyes shining with their own paradoxical aliveness. And she’d thought to herself, even then, how miraculous he surely was, how extraordinary.) “We can stop right here for now if you want to take a nap or something…?”

“I don’t like naps,” Steven immediately said in that same colorless tone, and yet, there was a slight edge to his voice that wasn’t exactly anger, but rather defiance, argumentative, defensive, self-directed—as though it was aimed towards himself. His chubby fingers tensed on his stomach, crumpling the paisley-studded fabric there.

Connie did not think it was necessary to ask why he didn’t like naps.

Or, maybe, it was entirely necessary.

Maybe it was one of those very human statements that required an equally human reply: comfort, consolation, concern.

But she lapsed into silence rather than pursue it, the weight of her book pressing heavily upon her knees, the weight of the moment overwhelming her in all of her twelve-year-oldish-ness. She glanced emptily at the page where the spine was cracked open and realized that they hadn’t even reached the halfway point yet.

There were still so many pages to go.

Hundreds.

“… how does it end?”

But now, very suddenly, with all the air of a startled cat, she glanced up, and saw that Steven had painstakingly tilted his head in her direction. And he was simply watching her, the expression in his dark eyes impenetrable and distant, even though he was so close, quite close enough to reach out and actually touch.

Her literary mind worked ahead of her.

There was a metaphor in there somewhere.

“The chapter?” Connie asked, wondering if he was implicitly asking her to keep reading.

“No.” The line of Steven’s pale mouth barely moved. “The book.”

It registered with her immediately—he was asking for an entirely different thing besides.

Cold collapsed down her spine, settling somewhere in her stomach.

Icy.

Hard.

“Don’t be silly,” she returned numbly, as though it was just a game they were still playing. It was not in fact a game. It wasn’t even close to one. “You’ll have to wait for me to read the rest of the book to find out. We haven’t even reached Chapter Eight yet.”

There were twenty-one chapters total.

Epilogue included.

Steven was silent for a long time, but never entirely; the various machines invading him did all of the talking in his place: whirring, beeping, stuttering on.

“I guess we better keep going then.”

“Yeah…”

Connie removed her straw wrapper bookmark again and began to read.

She read very quickly now, as though something depended upon it.

iv.

A little before noon, Dr. Maheswaran briefly came in to disconnect Steven from the portable dialysis machine and send Connie downstairs to be picked up by her father for tennis practice. Garnet watched him as he seemingly watched nothing. He looked away when the nephrologist gently disconnected the machine’s tubing from the central line grafted into his neck. He closed his dark eyes when she replaced the oxygen mask over his mouth for one of those quick albuterol treatments. (Ever since his episode last night, his breathing had been a little too stilted for the doctor’s liking, a little too short.) He barely opened them again when Connie said her tentative goodbye, placing a hand on Steven’s arm as Dr. Maheswaran placed a consoling arm around her daughter’s shoulder.

Through his mask, he couldn’t say anything, so he only blinked slowly, the shadows turning beneath his eyes starkly pronounced. He coughed once. The feeble sound rattled across his chest.

It shivered his whole body.

It shivered the entire room.

When Connie withdrew her hand, fear flashed across her face.

(For she was shivering, too.)

The Maheswarans left, and Garnet and Steven were left alone in that tiny hospital room that was filled with golden sunlight. It leaned through the window with a light, mocking smile, teasing a warmth that the gym trainer couldn’t feel as she continued to watch Steven.

Vigilantly.

With no little obsession.

Afraid to miss something.

(Maybe even more afraid to stay.)

Hunched over in the uncomfortable chair next to his bed, she curled the fingers of her right hand over her clenched left fist, gingerly rubbing her knuckles, and she stared plainly at the punctuated rise and fall of his chest as albuterol vapor leaked beneath his mask, spiraling into the air like fading smoke. The machine hissed pneumatically, nearly overwhelming the sound of Steven’s beating heart, which was measured out in shrill noise, clangorous noise.

Beep…

Beep...

Beep…

Garnet hated this sound and she was simultaneously desperate to keep hearing it.

A nurse came in some ten minutes later to remove the mask and readjust the oxygenated cannulas in their former place, gently threading the tubes around Steven’s ears, maneuvering the tiny nubs into his nose. He kept his eyes closed, but Garnet was almost positive that he wasn’t sleeping.

It was subtle, but she knew the signs, having studied them night after night for almost nine months now—all those times she had curled up beside him in bed, resting her chin on top of his curly, black hair, keeping a vigilant eye out for all the demons she couldn’t exactly see.

The shadows that lurked around and about them never quite materialized into foes she could punch, kick, or destroy, so she memorized all the telltale signs of his aliveness instead, committing each trait to memory as though her own sanity depended on it.

The slight furrow in his dark brow.

The twitch in his nose.

The grim press of his lips.

(When he was truly asleep, he had the tendency to snore, mouth lazily lolled open in unguarded torpor.)

But the nurse didn’t know him, so they only said poor kiddo before leaving too, and the room suddenly felt so much more vacant without the hiss of the albuterol to fill all the empty crevices—the silence, the all-consuming nothingness, the barefaced, omnipresent pain.

Beep…

Steven slowly opened his eyes as the nurse’s footsteps died away from the room.

And Garnet watched him as he seemingly watched nothing, as he stared, very quietly, at the ceiling, without so much as moving a limb. She drank every micro-gesture in, as though every micro-gesture meant something in the wide cosmos of the universe. Every breath became consequential in this barebones theology, a butterfly’s wings rippling through space and time to matter in ways both big and small.

It mattered—fundamentally—that Steven continued to breathe.

Beep…

“Garnet?” He asked quietly. His voice was small, weak—the mewling rasp of an injured animal. She thought fleetingly of Cat Steven, of how they had found that tiny, defenseless kitten shivering in the pouring rain. If only Garnet could scoop his namesake into her strong arms just the same and keep him safe, holding him very quietly, very gently, against her chest.

“… yes, Steven?”

“Was my mom… was she ever scared, too?”

The question was simple enough, and it simply unmoored her.

Skewered her through.

Because they didn’t really talk about Rose.

Not really.

They referenced her obliquely, in passing mention, if they absolutely had to; her portrait loomed above the door leading into the beach house; every year, on her birthday, they laid flowers upon her grave and tried not to think about young she would have been had she never died.

And yet, here Steven was, trespassing that unspoken rule and doubling down upon it.

As little as they ever discussed Rose Quartz, they touched upon her illness even less.

So many memories.

Too painful.

Too raw.

Never healed, buried deep within their skins, buried six feet under the ground.

“…I think she might have been,” Garnet answered slowly, “but I can’t say for sure. She was good at pushing down her feelings for us… for our sakes.”

Which in turn made her an excellent leader.

(And an inscrutable friend.)

Steven seemed to silently grapple with this for a few moments, his expression complex, as though there were cloud shadows roaming across his eyes and mouth, threatening rain but never delivering.

“I dreamt of her last night,” Steven said, an explanatory note in his voice. Justificatory. He wasn’t bringing up his mother for just any random reason. “My mom.”

Garnet’s heart shriveled somewhere inside her throat.

“Mm.” She attempted to be calm anyway. “Tell me about it.”

“We… we were in a pink room full of swirling clouds,” the child whispered. “We played football together. And video games. And she told me that she was proud of me… that she loved me…”

What Steven knew of Rose came from stories and anecdotes, from picture albums and yellowed newspaper clippings, from the few videotapes she had left behind—from the one video she had explicitly recorded for Steven scarcely a month before she had delivered him.

It wasn’t a lot, but still, maybe it was just enough.

Because that sounded like Rose.

Her kindness.

Her warmth.

Her fun.

For she had loved, more than anything, to play.

“And then what happened?” She asked, her voice almost even.

“… I woke up.”

And Garnet watched, helpless, as a single tear wriggled itself loose from the corner of Steven’s eye, slipping gracelessly down his cheek and away.

He was silent after that.

She was almost positive, though, that he wasn’t asleep.

“C’mon, Ste-man,” Amethyst wheedled, wafting the milkshake temptingly just below his nose. She’d walked nearly a block away from the hospital just to get the damn thing—a specialty of Stacey’s, the little retro milkshake bar on the corner of Pin Avenue and 32nd. The staff dressed up like they were from The Jetsons and everything. When Steven hadn’t been… when things hadn’t been so bad… they’d sometimes shlepped over there after his dialysis treatments to slam burgers and milkshakes as the jukebox played the Heaven Beetles’ greatest hits. One time, all five of them went together and sung shitty karaoke ’til Pearl was laughing so hard that strawberry milkshake shot out of her nose. “It’s got Reece’s Pieces in it—your faaaavorite…”

“I’m not thirsty, Amethyst,” he returned dully, turning his face away from her. “Sorry.”

His pale neck exposed to her in the gesture, Amethyst could now clearly see the livid bruises that crept vine-like out of the collar of his hospital gown, blooming blue and purple near the place where his central line was inserted just next to his collarbone.

If she could have, if it would have made sense, Amethyst would have crushed that stupid styrofoam cup between her fingers right then and there and enjoyed the feeling of milkshake pouring all over her shaking fingers.

She would have reveled in the destruction of the act.

The cathartic release.

Very probably, she would have begun to cry.

But Steven didn’t need that.

He didn’t need to see her lose her shit.

So, she only collapsed backwards on her feet and into the chair pulled up next to Steven’s bed. She was ginger, notably careful, as she placed the milkshake on the nearby tray, where it’d melt into itself between the hours and the blazing sun.

For the sun burned today, like golden fire, through the square window.

It scorched.

“You… you haven’t eaten in, like, days, my dude,” Amethyst stated plainly, as if he didn’t know that better than anyone else who cared to know. “Dr. M’s worried ‘bout you. If ya don’t get enough nutrients…”

But Steven cut across her bluntly then, still not looking at her. “… then they’ll have to put a feeding tube in me… I know. I heard Dr. Maheswaran and Pearl talking about it the other day.”

She supposed it should have surprised her that he already knew; maybe if she’d been Pearl, she would have jumped to try to sugarcoat the blow with something soft, something comforting, something consolatory.

But the truth of the matter was that there was nothing soft nor comforting nor consolatory about the ugly reality that reared its head above them, ten feet tall and ready to fucking strike.

He was fourteen, not ten.

He’d long stopped believing in magic.

“Doesn’t that scare you?” She asked him, frustration edging the rims of her scratchy voice, and she knew, even as she spoke, that she was being hella unfair. The poor kid couldn’t help the fact that he was puking his guts up left and right, but he was just laying there, lifeless, like he’d already accepted the inevitability of the stars that had spelled out his fate.

And it maddened Amethyst.

Sickened her.

She really want to pummel that goddamn milkshake cup into smithereens; she clenched her fists tightly on top of her knees to try and stop them from shaking.

She reminded herself—painfully—that it was only yesterday that happiness had been given to the kid before it was so brutally ripped away.

She told herself that even grown ass adults had trouble with that.

The volatility, the utter unpredictability of life.

“Of course it scares me, Amethyst,” Steven replied, his broken voice barely a whisper as he finally turned to look at her, his brown eyes drowning in the black bags which encased them. Grooved them. Hollowed them. “I don’t wanna have another surgery… but what do I… how can I do anything? I… I don’t know if I… I can’t stop this. I can’t.”

He seemed to struggle for the words, each one wrenched from him with a punishing drag of air.

And it struck Amethyst then and precisely there, with all the sharpness of a knife, that she took it for granted.

How easy it was for her to simply breathe.

“Catch your breath,” she implored him wildly, leaning forward in her chair. “Shh, shh, it’s okay, Steven.”

“B-but it’s not okay,” he insisted fiercely, sniffing. A single tear slanted out of the corners of one of his eyes and down the hollow of his face, slipping beneath the oxygenated cannulas, following the gentle curve of his beaten, world-weary face. “Don’t say that it’s okay. Please. I can’t take that anymore.”

“Okay, fine!” The awful words exploded out from her, tumbled and rushed and spilled from her mouth headlong on their hands and knees. Amethyst would say anything to make him calm down, and because she had no filter, because she’d never known how to mince the truth, she would mean every damn syllable. “Everything isn’t okay. Everything isn’t fine. Is that better? Are you happy now?”

But to her utter horror, to her staggering discontent, the answer was apparently—

“Yeah,” Steven sighed, closing his eyes in visible relief. “Yes.”

He laid there quietly for a handful of seconds to take in deep gulps of air.

It looked painful.

Excruciating.

“… I just wanna be on the same page,” he eventually finished, his voice a barely distinguishable mumble, distant and muffled.

Amethyst’s entire chest seized with fear unlike that she’d ever felt in a lifetime full of fear; it gripped her, and it wrestled with her.

Put its hands ‘round her throat and squeezed.

“And what page would that be, buddy?” She tried to keep her voice even anyway, though. Steven had yet to reopen his eyes. “Enlighten me.”

But there was no forthcoming reply.

His outburst had exhausted him, and sleep was merciless.

It stole him away.

vi.

They worked together in tentative silence, Greg and Pearl, taking damp washcloths and running them along the parts of Steven’s body that they could reach beneath all the medical apparatus: the column of his neck, his pale face, his arms, his leaden legs. He was too weak to take a shower in the bathroom attached to his hospital room, and they wouldn’t have been able to get a few of his lines wet anyway for the fear of clogging them up.

So a nurse provided them with a basin of soapy water, and they each picked up a rag, gliding the rough fabric as gently as possible across his skin as he laid beneath them like a doll, limp and lifeless.

Staring up at them from dark, button eyes.

Greg pulled his own cloth around Steven’s left ear, now rubbing the tip of it, now gently scraping behind, and tried not to think about how he’d done the very same when the kid was just a baby, so tiny in his arms, so helpless. He’d been afraid then, desperately so, to make just one wrong move. What if he accidentally hurt the little tyke? Rubbed his head a little too hard? Accidentally got soap in his eyes? What if he fucked up? (He was so good at fucking up.)

He’d miss Rose the most then, in those far too common moments, when he was at his lowest.

He’d miss the way she used to wrap her warm arms around his shoulders and show him, without so much as saying a word, what he looked like in her eyes.

Like he was someone worth loving in spite of everything.

In the face of it all.

Fourteen-years later, Steven was tiny beneath his arms.

Helpless.

And Greg missed Rose.

(He would always miss Rose.)

Pearl’s hands trembled as she gingerly lifted Steven’s left arm, weaving her cloth through the gaps between each of his fingers, swiping its breadth across his sweat-stickied palm. Greg followed his hooded gaze to where it settled somewhere on Pearl’s face, where there were faint circles cradling the spaces beneath her eyes, where there was a recent gauntness in the pointed architecture of her cheeks.

She must have noticed, too, because she blinked quickly, self-consciously, pausing her ministrations.

“Are you okay, Steven? I-I’m not hurting you, am I?”

Because that was the most important thing after all—neither of them wanted to hurt him anymore than he was already irrevocably damaged.

Couldn’t bear to even leave so much as a bruise.

“No,” came his simple reply.

It was the monosyllabism that was somehow the most dreadful above all.

Pearl also caught onto this, swiftly folding her slender fingers over Steven’s knuckles, her rag dangling like a white-sheeted ghost from her fingertips.

“Are you sure? You… you haven’t been yourself all day.”

He was silent at this, and Greg was pretty sure it was because the answer was obvious, painfully so.

(He hadn’t been himself in eight months now.)

The man swallowed thickly and turned away, dipping his rag in the basin on the nearby tray; the lukewarm water slushed around his wrists. He made a meal out of squeezing the cloth out, hoping that when he faced Steven and Pearl again, the moment would have passed, the unspoken things remaining unspoken.

But it was the very absence of a reply that seemed to gall Pearl, spiral her, and Greg could see, when he turned back to them, that she was utterly ruined.

She couldn’t hide it; it shone in the over-bright lights of her eyes.

“A-a kidney is bound to turn up,” she said, speaking in that rapid way she always did when she was upset (and trying not to let people see). “Dr. Maheswaran is looking for one even now, and… and… she thinks she might be able to secure a live donor kidney this time because, y-you know, the numbers and everything. Your numbers. Not that they’re abysmal. I mean, they’re bad, but—”

Greg tried to step in, tried to rescue her, before she got in too deep.

“I know it’s hard, Shtu-ball… but chin up,” he said gently as he maneuvered his washcloth beneath the kid’s neck. He skated around the bruises when he could. (There were so many new bruises, erupting like angry supernovas all across his tender skin.)

“Pearl’s right”—she shot him a grateful glance—“Dr. M’s not gonna give up, and neither are we.”

The silence stretched again.

It absolutely groaned.

And Steven finally moved his gaze away from Pearl and back to the bare ceiling.

Apparently, he’d been staring at the ceiling a lot today, divining something in it that no one else could see.

“Were you guys this scared… when Mom… when she was…”

But before he had ever gotten the words out, before he could finish another word let alone the whole sentence, Pearl abruptly extricated herself from Steven, gently setting his hand back on the bed, gently throwing her white cloth of a flag down.

“Excuse me,” she muttered feverishly. “I’ve got to… I can’t—restroom.”

But rather than flee into the door that led to the ensuite bathroom, she swung through the adjacent door, the one that led out into the hall, and Steven watched the place where her lithe form disappeared with cavernous eyes.

Sunken eyes.

Dull.

His mouth still partially open where he was still forming the words.

“I… I was so scared, buddy,” Greg said quietly, his throat constricting with all the surging memories. Her big, brown eyes. The tubes running through her skin. How he held her hand at the end, when Dr. Howard unplugged the machines, so she didn’t have to be alone.

Pearl, of course, held the other.

And there they were, the three of them.

And then, just the two of them.

Alone.

Steven’s eyes, so much like his mother’s own, turned to capture him now, penetrating his father somewhere deep in the muck and mire of his soul.

“… are you scared now?”

He choked back a sob.

“Yeah, buddy. I am.”

vii.

They sat together on Yellow’s hospital bed for a long time, not exactly talking, but communicating in other ways—in the brush of their nearly touching shoulders, in the painful glances they would occasionally shift each other from the corners of their eyes, in the way that Yellow’s pinky finger rested on top of Blue’s wrist where their hands were placed on top of the sheets in the microscopic space between them.

Now once more armored in a button-down shirt and a pair of slacks, Yellow Diamond almost looked herself—brilliant and impressive, striking to the last.

And then she would look to the side again, revealing the raw cuts now laced into her sculpted cheeks.

And Blue would fantasize about gently touching one, running her fingers across one of those tentatively scabbed lines, capturing the measure of her wife’s face, relearning it all over again.

But in the end, she didn’t dare.

Because for right now, this was simply enough.

To be sitting next to Yellow Diamond.

To simply be.

Together.

For once, not entirely alone, even though so many unvoiced things still remained.

Three words.

Mountains of griefs.

And something else now, too.

I don’t want to commit to claiming anything about these tests, Yellow had explained earlier, her usually gruff voice working itself into something gentle, a little more kind. Not until I know something for sure…

You don’t believe I can take it? Blue’s tone was as gentle as it was accusatory in that devastatingly contradictory way of hers.

Frankly, her wife returned quietly, no.

And somehow, it was the truthfulness in the other’s expression which made Blue stop short of pressing for more, for she could see, in the lines beneath Yellow Diamond’s golden eyes, just what these past four years had done to her.

You barely survived the last time. I barely survived watching you, Blue.

It was a miracle that they were even sitting here.

Barely touching, barely talking, but still… it was a start.

It was something simply to be breathing the same air.

Around three, Dr. Reed finally dropped by with Yellow’s discharge papers and another doctor whose name Blue didn’t quite catch; she was a tired-looking lady, though, with a fiercely drawn face. Salt-and-pepper hair. Hands shoved in the pockets of her lab coat. They asked if Yellow would come with them. It’d maybe take an hour or so.

The businesswoman made to get up, but Blue stopped her with a withered hand on her arm.

“Wait,” she murmured. “Your collar is crooked.”

She reached upwards to adjust the crumpled white band, straightening the crease between her delicate fingers.

And Yellow stared at her silently—with open tenderness and rawness and aching disbelief.

And when she swallowed, Blue could see every cord convulse in the smooth column of her throat.

“Would you wait for me, Blue?”

But she must have realized how vulnerable that sounded because she quickly tried to amend herself, always aware of her audience, that there were people watching. She stood up abruptly and a little awkwardly; it was clear that one of her legs was killing her.

“In the town car, I mean?”

“Yes,” Blue returned softly. “Of course.”

Yes.

A complicated expression quivered across Yellow Diamond’s plump lips then; it was hesitant and rich, stiff and almost unbearably visceral in its reluctant vulnerability.

It wasn’t necessarily a smile, but it was something.

It was a start.

viii.

Pearl would have done something, anything, to escape her own body, but it clung to her stubbornly as she half-ran through the hospital’s halls—down Truman Ward and down the glass-encased skywalk, down the elevator, down some forsaken hallway and then another, the turns she took arbitrary and varied.

Anywhere but Room 11037.

Horror clawed its way up her throat—shame and awfulness and terrible, maddening grief—until she could hardly breathe for its presence in her mouth. The nausea was overwhelming. The memories she usually kept carefully tucked away surged forth, frothing like foam on the waves that skimmed the shore near their home.

Just the mention of Rose.

That alone was enough to undo her on any regular day.

But context mattered, too.

Steven had brought up his mother so readily, as though they and their situations were one in the same.

Like they were both—

But she couldn’t complete the thought, even to herself, because fundamentally, Pearl couldn’t accept the inevitable—not when Rose Quartz had once taught her what it was to touch the stars.

Blindly, haphazardly, unintentionally, she found herself in one of the larger hallways in the hospital, and she immediately knew, from experience, that she had made her way down to the first floor. This particular corridor emptied out into the larger atrium and housed many of the administrative offices and various waiting rooms.

It was fairly empty. A few people in olive colored scrubs walked by and paid the woman no attention, her total disintegration invisible to them.

Unseen.

And somehow, the fact of this was soothing to Pearl.

Comforting.

So she swiped a delicate hand across her face and moved forward until a sight towards the end of the hall stopped her short, like a blow to the stomach without being half as neat—so uncomplicated and yet so devastatingly simple.

A silver-haired woman wearing a dark blue dress.

Hands poised on a metallic cane.

Staring inscrutably at a pair of nondescript double doors.

Her heavy braid fell thickly across her shoulder.

ix.

Blue Diamond had been on her way out to the car when she noticed a half-open door in a dyad of two on the first floor of the hospital. Golden light spilled from the room upon the bare, white tiles, submerging them in a brightness, a warmth.

The brass label on the adjacent wall gleamed at her invitingly.

The chapel.

Because naturally, hospitals possessed chapels—sanctified spaces where people could pray to their gods and hope they would intercede on the behalves of their loved ones. There was something psychologically comforting in the gesture, she supposed—to do something in a situation where it felt like nothing else could be done, to speak to the Divine and take comfort in the fact that they were not alone because the Divine was omnipresent, and the Divine was all-encompassing, and the Divine loved them powerfully.

She stood in front of those doors for what seemed like an eternity and remembered painfully when she had once loved God.

She’d grown up with a Rosary woven between her fingers, singing Alleluia every Wednesday, Friday, and Sunday at Mass until her daughter was murdered, and every theological comfort she had ever held dear scattered to the floor like beads.

She supposed it was only nostalgia then, which drove her to lightly press on that already half-opened door.

But as to what made her go in, the former headmistress could hardly articulate.

Her fingers wrapped themselves tightly around the head of her cane.

Clank, she proceeded forward.

Clank.

Above all, Pearl didn’t know what made her do it—it was almost as though a sense of daring reckless gripped her and propelled her forward, step over unthinking step. She approached the spot where Blue Diamond had only recently disappeared, her pale eyes flicking upwards to the label which named the room for what it was, and then back to the double doors again, which hadn’t been completely shuttered to a close since the entrance of its last visitor.

It was a small chapel from what Pearl could tell at a cursory glance, only offering the essential trifecta of artifacts—a couple of pews, a tiny altar, and what appeared to be the portrait of a dove, spreading its elegant wings across the back wall.

And there, sitting in the middle of the front row, was Blue Diamond, her head defiantly lifted.

As though determinedly not in prayer.

Her concentrated gaze seemed to be trained upwards, directed at the beautifully painted mural, upon which the gentle lighting threw its warm, amber glow, casting the bird in molten gold.

That same feeling of daring propitiated her again, and it was with her arms tucked neatly over her chest that Pearl impulsively drew closer, stepping across the boundary of the threshold with tender steps, ballerina movements. Her footfalls were light by nature, and in the thin carpet, they were hushed to the point that the older woman didn’t seem to be aware that she had company at all.

Her cane stood, temporarily abandoned, on the side of the row.

Though her head was high, her shoulders were hunched in on themselves.

Caved.

When Pearl reached the pew directly behind her, she skimmed her knuckles against the grains of the wooden armrest, producing a low, plaintive note as a means of attracting her attention without entirely startling her.

And it was with painful slowness, a certain gracefulness, too, that Blue Diamond finally turned her head to look Pearl’s way, her shadowed eyes wide with surprise and melancholy, with curiosity and well-practiced temperance.

Pearl’s thin brow furrowed.

She bit her lower lip.

xi.

“May I sit?” The Crystal Gem asked, and there was a brusqueness in her otherwise smooth voice that reminded Blue Diamond of yet another encounter with one of Steven’s motley guardians—the one who had stood in front of the door, the muscled woman with bicolored eyes.

She had warned her against hurting Steven.

She, too, had looked at Blue with quiet disdain.

Perhaps loathing was the more fitting word.

“Be my guest…?” Blue returned, allowing a pause by which the woman could introduce herself.

“Pearl,” she curtly supplied as she lowered herself to the end of the pew and sat rather primly, with one ankle crossed daintily over the other.

“Pearl,” Blue echoed gently, trying the name on her tongue. It was a lyrical number, assonant and delicate, much like the person to which it belonged.

For she was slight—as willowy as the other Crystal Gem had been powerfully built. Simply put, she looked as though one puff of wind would blow her over, bending her back like the breeze did stalks of long reeds, rending her, bifurcating her, snapping her in two. And just as Yellow and Blue’s physiognomies told the stories of their griefs, so, too, did the lines beneath Pearl’s eyes announce her own.

There was a boy in the hospital bed.

There was a wasting disease.

“May I assume,” she continued tentatively, “by the expression in your face, that you already know who I am?”

“Yes,” Pearl replied certainly, but then just as immediately said, “No. I don’t know.”

She closed her pale eyes against some inner turmoil as the ambient lighting gently kissed her beaten face, caressing her cheeks in honeyed gold.

“I know your name, and I know what your family’s company has done,” she continued, “but I suppose that isn’t the same thing as knowing you, is it? Understanding why my… why he… why Steven loves you.”

There was it again—that same oblique indictment that the other Crystal Gem had leveled at Diamond Electric, silently condemning her for all sorts of untold flaws, and Blue Diamond frowned, sucking a little on her lip as the charge did what it was intended to do—level a finger directly at her chest, pressing neatly upon her sternum.

Perhaps these activists were not as inconsequential as she had wanted them to be after all.

Perhaps they had something important to say.

Perhaps here was yet another instant in which Blue had looked away, painstakingly ignoring all of the uncouth things in order to more capably realize the vision of her perfect, invulnerable, tableau of an ugly, imperfect, sheltered life.

She accused Yellow of shoving Pink Diamond in a drawer, but perhaps Blue had always made sure to be in another room when all the shoving was being done.

“Because he loves you,” Pearl finished quietly, “and I’m trying to… I can’t quite figure it out.”

She turned to Blue directly then, appealing to her simply with her over-bright eyes and her slightly parted mouth, with the shadows all over her face.

So many premature lines.

And Blue Diamond returned the gaze as steadily as she could.

Perhaps she even mirrored it.

Lines and shadows and lines.

xii.

“I don’t think… I don’t imagine that I’ve been good at love in a very long time,” Blue began, each word slow and precise, maneuvered carefully on her lilting tongue like a hand-rolled cigarette wheeled between expert fingertips. “Giving, receiving it… showing it… even with my daughter… even before she—”

But the woman could not complete the sentence.

And Pearl found that she didn’t want her to.

The unspoken conclusion sat in the space between them—a little girl Pearl imagined her to be, arranged in a pretty pink dress, dangling her Mary-Jane enclosed feet from the crimson pew.

“But Steven Universe,” she continued, and even at his very name, the mere mention of him, the older woman’s expression seemed to subtly transform, the heaviness in it unfurling.

Incrementally lightening.

Surely.

“He extended a flower and smile to me that day in the cemetery. He noticed that I was sad. And that taught me a lesson I had never thought to learn in all of these many staggering years…”

Pearl couldn’t help herself then; a breathless question fell impatiently from her lips.

“And what would that be?”

Blue Diamond arched a dark brow at her that would have been haughty were it not for the tears glistening in her eyes, threatening to exceed their sunken edges.

“That there is such kindness, such… such love, in your troubles being seen, identified, and acted upon. He saw my sadness, and he named it. He gave me that tiny hibiscus and showed me, wordlessly, that I was not alone.”

She glided a skeletal hand across the side of her face, her palm capturing the beginnings of those now falling tears.

“I was being seen, Pearl, for the first time in I cannot tell you when… and it made me realize that this is what I wanted most of all, that perhaps, this is what all humans really want in the end.”

“To be seen,” Pearl repeated, her voice constricted, so many emotions thick.

“Yes,” Blue Diamond whispered with a gracious nod of her head, disturbing the heaviness of her silvery braid, “and to be loved by another.”

“Is that what he wants?” She pressed insistently, but deep down, the answer was already known to her, spelled out to her in the rush of so many memories. How many times alone in the past couple of days had he told them as much, both with words and without them? How many times had he asked them all not to look away? Amethyst opened a window for him so he could hear the words they’d all been too cowardly to utter in his presence. In a hospital room, in the dead of night, he told her to rip the bandaid off, to confirm that which everyone already knew and tiptoed around instead of saying.

You’re very sick, sweetheart.

I know.

And even still, even after all these horrible and unsubtle signs, she’d already done the damn thing and run away from him again anyway.

He asked if she’d been scared when Rose had been in the same place, laying in a hospital bed.

Sick.

Dying.

And yes, the answer so clearly, so blatantly was.

“Yes,” Blue Diamond murmured, her quiet voice tender.

And almost, if not entirely, kind.

“I think that is what he has desired all along.”

Pearl had no other recourse then, no semblance of a facade left by which to cling to, to desperately hold onto in a chapel where two entirely different women sat side by side, utterly undone by the same boy.

She brought both of her hands up to her mouth then and began to weep.

xiii.

Blue allowed the woman her moment of private grief, turning her head away from the sight, even though the sounds weren’t as easily escapable.

The sobs.

The keening.

The primality of it all.

Tears gathered in her own eyes, but she refused to let them fall, she swept them all away—because she understood intimately, viscerally, somehow without really knowing it—that this wasn’t her moment, her child, her bone deep, unbearable, unlivable grief.

Though it had once had been.

And it still was.

But not for this child.

Not for Steven Universe.

She’d lost a child; she wasn’t currently losing one.

And there was a fundamental difference in the fact.

There was primacy.

Five minutes passed, maybe ten, and Pearl gathered herself, collected all her tiny, fragmented pieces into a frame that wasn’t entirely shaking with its own reckoning anymore. And Blue finally looked over to see that the woman was leaned forward on the edge of her pew, the heels of her hands pressed against her eyes.

“He’s not doing well,” she said faintly.

If Blue hadn’t been staring at the movement of her thin mouth, she wouldn’t have known where the words had come from.

Perhaps she wouldn’t have even believed them.

They struck cleanly, like a slap to the face.

“Yesterday’s… disappointment”—disappointment was not the correct word—“hurt him badly, and he’s shutting down. Closing off.”

Each word was painful, razor sharp in clarity, dragged from Pearl’s teeth against her will. She dragged her fingers in lines down her wet face, now reaching the point of her chin, now cupping them into fists on either side of her jaw.

“We can’t get through to him,” she finished quietly. “We’ve all tried.”

And tried and tried and tried—Blue could see every failed attempt scrawled in the lines all over the woman’s tired face. The devastation bruised her black and blue.

“I’m sorry,” she offered simply. “I’m so… sorry.”

But Pearl, with all suddenness, with an aspect of barely repressible contempt, leveled her an incredulous look as though to say, What good will sorry do?

She had an excellent point.

“You should talk to him sometime,” she went on to say, turning away from Blue now. A series of conflicted emotions seemed to be playing out in real time across her pale, sky-colored eyes—disdain warring with grief warring with loathing warring with grudging respect.

It wasn’t quite endearment, though.

And Blue Diamond had a sneaking suspicion that it never would be.

“Maybe not today… he’s tired… hurt… but some day… you should visit him. He would like that.”

It was Blue’s turn to stare at the other woman incredulously now, her mouth slightly open as she awaited a punchline that never quite came. Pearl obstinately refused to meet her gaze, fingertips templed just next to her trembling lips.

“I… I have nothing to offer him,” she whispered, a trembling note in her voice as she tried to convey exactly just how serious she was being. “I’m hardly… I mean, he was the one who saved me. I don’t know what I could ever give him in equal return.”

But somehow, without really knowing why, how, or all the sundry explanatory variables in-between, she knew that this was perfectly untrue.

And Pearl seemed to know it, too, for the corner of her lip slightly lifted in the sliver of a sardonic smile.

“Start with a flower and a smile, perhaps.”

#bellow diamond #blue diamond #yellow diamond #steven universe #pearl #garnet #amethyst #priyanka maheswaran #greg universe #connie maheswaran #rose quartz #pink diamond #flower child #mimiku #oh my god #this chapter is a monster

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ahgaseforeternity · 4 years

Text

Dangerous Woman— Lucas Wong edition

Lucas Wong || Part 5

In honor of Lucas’s birthday, I thought I would finally finish this fic! Enjoy!

A MORNING LIGHT SHIMMERED JUST AT the edge of your eyelids that were closed shut. It felt warm and refreshing. Strange, you hated mornings. The pillow you had your arms wrapped around was so soft and slicky, unlike the pillow you had at home.

The realization had you opening your eyes a tad too fast. You had to blink away the shimmering light from your eyes, and once you did you could hardly believe what was before you. It left you lifting your lips in a lazy smile.

Last night hadn’t been a dream after all. Lucas was lying next to you in the cozy bed, with his fingers gently touching yours where it lied on the pillow. He looked so peaceful, you didn’t want to disturb him, yet your fingers itched to run through his shining black hair that was muffled from the events of last night.

Last night.

You wanted to squeal into the pillow so badly. You had never experienced something so magical before in your life. What Lucas had made you feel last night, in this very bed, you had only ever read about in books. You never thought they might be real, but Lucas had proved they were in many, many different ways.

Thinking about it made you blush anew.

“Now, those blooming cheeks are a great thing to wake up to.”

You yelped softly, turning your face into the pillow before Lucas could really get a good look at your embarrassed face. You could feel his laugh ruffle the bed, and it made your stomach warm in the best way.

His laugh was possibly the best noise you have ever heard.

“Oh, come on Y/N. You weren’t hiding from me last night when I had made those cheeks even redder.”

You huffed. “Don’t remind me.” Yet some part of you didn’t want him to stop talking about what had happened. You wondered if last night was as great for him as if was for you. It sure seemed like it had been with all the moaning he had done. Thinking about it made your toes curl at the edge of the bed.

Lucas just laughed again, running his fingers lightly across your arm that wasn’t beneath the blanket. You couldn’t help it then, you had to turn at met his eyes, which were already staring into yours. Oh, you were melting, you were sure of it.

“Good morning, Y/N” Lucas leaned in and kissed your naked shoulder softly. You could hardly breathe, and Lucas knew. His eyes were shimmering with delighted amusement.

“Morning,” was all you could respond with. You realized then that you were still entirely naked, and so was he. You couldn’t decided if it completely thrilled or terrified you. There was something about the dark. It left things shroud where as in the daylight there was nothing to hide. You clutched the blanket closer to your bare chest.

Lucas scanned your face, seeing your distress. He simply leaned in to give you another kiss, but this time on your temple. It was so tender and sweet that you wanted to dissolve into the comfy bed and never leave, but all too soon, Lucas untangled himself from the sheet.

Which meant he was standing before you in all his naked, delicious glory. You didn’t know why you were acting so shy, it wasn’t anything you hadn’t seen or touched last night. Still, you found yourself yelping again, and turning away, but not before you got an eyeful of his broad shoulders and glorious backside.

“Lucas!”

“What, Y/N, you don’t like what you see?”

Of course you liked what you saw. You liked it far too much.

You heard his feet shuffling across the room, and you decided to slowly open your eyes to see that Lucas was nowhere to be seen. That’s when you heard the shower being turned on. Oh gosh. Lucas was in the shower, naked.

Of course he was naked, you thought. Why wouldn’t he be naked in the shower?

You could feel your face flaming up. You tried to fan yourself with the blankets, but they weren’t helping. If anything--taking a shower would help lessen how hot you felt. But, Lucas was in there. You couldn’t just barge in and slide right up in the steaming shower. The thought alone left you feeling all sorts of butterflies.

You stayed where you were, trying not to think of Lucas dripping with warm water from head to toe. You soon heard the water being shut off, and dove right back into the blankets when Lucas came out in nothing but a towel wrapped around his hips. Did this man want to kill you? At the rate your heart was beating, you were sure of it.

You heard him open a drawer in the room, and timidly pulled the blankets down again to see Lucas pulling on a pair of nice fitting jeans, and a grey pullover. His hair was still wet as he ran his fingers through it. You couldn’t help but wish those were your fingers instead. Gosh, he looked just as good in clothes as he did naked, and it was entirely unfair.

Lucas turned to you then, smiling from ear to ear.

“Do you want to wear some of my clothes?”

You blinked a few times at his question, barely listening as your eyes were distracted by his beautiful smile.

“I have a hoodie you could borrow and some sweats,” you watched Lucas pull some clothes from the same open drawer and bring them over to where you still lied in the nice, warm, safe, bed. He sat just next to where you legs were beneath the sheets. One of your knees was exposed, and Lucas sat the clothes down, gently lifting one of his fingers to trace over your skin.

It was incredible intimate and left you feeling weak.

You hurried to sit up and grabbed for the clothes. The hoodie looked perfect, oversized and comfy. It said something in Chinese and you went to ask Lucas what it meant.

His eyes sparkled.

“Danger.”

The name of his club. You wondered though, if Lucas was thinking of something else by the way he was looking at you. You hurried to slip on the hoodie before he could see any more of your exposing skin.

You needed to find your underwear though, before you set off for the bathroom. You scanned the floor, finding it close to the bedroom door. Lucas was already up and retrieving it though.

“No!”

He froze at your sudden outburst. Your ran from the bed, trying to keep your ass covered with the oversized hoodie as best you could, and then bent down for the lacey thong yourself. Even if Lucas had touched your underwear last night, didn’t mean you wanted him touching it in broad daylight.

You hurried to the bathroom, feeling Lucas’s heady stare on your legs until you closed the door. You pressed yourself against it, allowing yourself to breathe. In and out, in and out.

You had to keep reminding yourself that even when you turned on the hot water and stepped into the luxurious shower. Standing in Lucas’s, it made thinking about him naked beneath the shower head so much harder, but you tried, failing miserably though.

You tried to not get your hair wet and just hurried to wash off your body. It took you less than five minutes and you were already out. Luckily, there was a clean towel set on the counter just for you to use. You smiled thinking Lucas must’ve sat it there for you, while you dried yourself off.

It was amazing to you how thoughtful Lucas truly was. It made you wonder why you had been acting so strange all morning. Lucas had wanted you last night. Needed you, just as much as you needed him. He had told you himself. He wasn’t like your ex. He wasn’t going to hurt you. At least, you hoped.

You brushed your fingers through your hair the best you could, thankful that you still had your hair tie from last night around your wrist. You tied your hair into a pony, and pulled on Lucas’s clothes, having to roll up the sweats a few times to get them to reach your ankles.

Gosh, Lucas was so irresistibly tall. It was absolutely amazing.

You didn’t have a wick of make up on, but you hardly cared. Lucas had already seen your bare face when you showed up at the club in just your jeans and t-shirt.

As you opened the bathroom door, you found Lucas standing before the large windows that showed the snowy city below. You had complete forgot that it had snowed last night. The city looked beautiful, draped in freshly fallen snow. As you drew closer, Lucas looked over at your, smiling softly. It all about melted your core. Did he not know what he did to you? You were sure it showed on your cheeks now, you felt so warm.

“Are you ready to go?” He asked, offering his hand.

“Go where?” You asked, totally taken of guard by his question.

He kept smiling while he handed you a pair of cozy socks and Burk sandals. You were about to protest and say you could just where your own shoes, but then remembered you had worn heels. You smiled softly, “thanks.”

After you pulled them on, Lucas took your hand in his, pulling you through his penthouse until you were out the door. Walking through the quiet club was so strange. You couldn’t decide if you liked the place filled with people more, or empty. Right now, you were grateful that it was just you and Lucas. Well, and his bouncer, Stephan.

“Boss, the cars ready for you out front if you like.” The bouncer motioned out the club’s doors.

“Thank you Stephan, but we won’t be needing it today.”

You felt your brows grow close together. Where were you going that you wouldn’t need to drive? Lucas just smiled at the bouncer, pulling you after him as he walked through the front doors. The snow had let up, and the sidewalks had been shuffled enough that you prayed you wouldn’t slip and fall straight on your ass.

Lucas still gripped your hand tightly. His hand was so overpowering it left you feeling incredibly warm. You nuzzled closer to him. It earned you another stunning smile. “So, can I ask where you are taking me?”

Lucas turned to look ahead of you. “It’s a small Café just around the corner. It’s been there for awhile, and the breakfast is by far the best I’ve had. I thought it would be nice to go,” he nuzzled into you this time, “with you.”

You had to tighten your lips to keep some squealing. This man was just too perfect.

The sound of the city seemed to fall away as Lucas spoke to you about everything. He told you about his home life, about his other job being in kpop groups NCT and WayV.

“Wait, wait,” you had to stop him at that. “You sing?”

Lucas just smiled.

“Of course you do. Is there anything you don’t do?”

“Loads of stuff.”

“Uh huh, sure.”

You both laughed.

As you walked around a street corner, Lucas stopped you bluntly, and you had to grip onto his arm to keep from slipping in the snow. He helped you steady yourself. “Sorry, Y/N. I should’ve told you we are here.”

You turned to look at the quaint Cafe that sat smashed between two newer buildings. It did look rather old, but something about it spoke to you. The aesthetic of it was rather pleasing. Lucas opened the door, ushering you inside. The smell of fresh coffee brewing and brown sugar filled your senses. It left your mouth watering.

“Mr. Wong! I see your back again.”

A short man came to stand before both of you, smiling brightly.

“Hello, Mr. Ahn. Today doesn’t look too busy. Is my usual open?”

“Yes, of course! Right this way.”

The man now known as Mr. Ahn, who you learned was the owner, showed you to a table tucked away in the far back of the cafe. It was next to another window that looked out to a courtyard that was filled with a small gazebo. With the fresh snow surrounding it, it looked like some winter wonderland.

“This is your usual table huh? How often do you come here?” You asked Lucas after Mr. Ahn left to grab you your menus.

“Whenever my schedule allows me. You’ll see why. Mr. Ahn and his wife, Mrs. Ahn make some of the best French toast you’ll ever have. It’s drizzled with this coconut syrup that is just--,”

“Mouth watering?”

Lucas stopped talking and looked straight at you. You watched his eyes travel from yours down to your lips and back again. Your heart was pounding wildly.

“Very.”

You learned quickly that Lucas was right. The French toast was truly amazing, and unlike any you had ever tasted.

“I told you.”

You smiled at his remark, taking one last bite.

You had tried to prolong the meal by eating slow. You didn’t want the day to end. You dreaded having to leave Lucas’s side. You weren’t sure what was going to happen now. Just because you slept together--it didn’t mean you were dating. Even if you couldn’t imagine dating anyone else after what had transpired between you and Lucas.

The thought alone left you feeling terrible.

Lucas could see the shift in your mood, and didn’t say a word as he paid for the meal, and followed you out the door, not before thanking Mr. Ahn and his wife for the delicious meal.

As you stepped out the door, a snowflake fell onto your eyelash. You blinked it away, lifting your eyes to the sky to see snow started to fall again. It was beautiful against the tree lined streets that were covered in the white powder. Cars drove by but you could hardly hear them as Lucas took your hand in his, turning you to face him.

“Y/N.”

The sound of your name coming off his tongue left you wanting to cry. It was the way he said it, as if he was saying goodbye almost. You didn’t want to hear what else he had to say, and hurried to turn away from him, but Lucas wouldn’t let you.

“Y/N, wait.”

You swallowed the lump in your throat and kept your eyes on your snow covered socks and sweats. Well, they were Lucas’s really. You had forgotten you were still wearing his clothes. That’s probably what he wanted, was his clothes back.

“I’ll clean them for you, and return them. I promise,” you said tugging on the hoodie.

“You better.”

You stilled at his words.

“I expect to see you again.”

You lifted your eyes to his then, seeing them shimmering with something you had completely forgotten about. Love. He lifted one of his fingers and tugged a stray hair behind you ear, leaving his thumb there to trace your lower cheek. His touch was so warm and inviting, that you found yourself stepping closer.

“You do?”

“Of course. Besides, it’s my birthday today.”

You stilled. “It’s your birthday? Why didn’t you say something?!” You swatted his arm, not hard enough to hurt but enough to get him to laugh.

“Because I don’t have any expectations for my birthday, and I knew once I told you, you would think I did.”

You were about to protest, but stopped when you realized that Lucas was right. You would’ve totally said something like that, only because when came to someone’s birthday, they didn’t usually spend it with a complete stranger they had just slept with.

“If we hadn’t come here today, I would’ve spent my birthday the way I always do. Alone.” The way he said it made your heart hurt. No one deserved to be alone on their birthday, not even those who did deserve it. You gripped his hand tighter.

“Well, I’m thankful you brought me here and allowed me to spend your birthday with you.” You exclaimed. Lucas just stared at you, as if he was searching for something. It left you blushing.

“You know what I really want for my birthday?” Lucas asked, leaning in closer.

Snowflakes gently fell onto his hair and eyelashes, making him look unreal. You could hardly breathe as your eyes fell to his mouth if only for a second.

“For you to spend it with me, every year.”

You widened your eyes, meeting his. You thought he was joking, but from the seriousness in his eyes, you knew he was being completely honest. He cupped your face then, bringing your face even closer to his.

“Stay with me, Y/N. Stay and spend time with me. Let me get to know you, to see you at work amongst all those books. Let me make love to you slowly, not like last night where everything had been so rushed. Just—stay and be with me.”

You couldn’t believe the words that had stumbled out of his mouth, but your heart was pounding uncontrollably, so you knew Lucas had said them, and that they were true. Lucas wanted to be with you, just as much as you wanted to be with him.

And it left you breathless.

All you could think to do was bring his lips to you. It was soft and tender, unlike the heated kisses you had only shared thus far, and it left you feeling light and warm against the snowy scenery.

Lucas wrapped his arms around you, pulling you closer until your feet lifted off the ground and pressed you against his chest. You had your own arms wrapped around his shoulders, loving the feel of his embrace all around you.

You broke away from his lips, pressing your forehead to his. He slowly brought you back down to the ground, but didn’t release his arms from around you. He kept his forehead pressed to yours, as you touched his beautiful face with your chilled fingers. Lucas didn’t seem to mind though, as he just stared at you.

“Happy Birthday, Lucas.” You smirked. It was the only answer he needed, as he leaned in to kiss you again. You both ignored the people walking by, the cars rushing in the white flecks, and focused on each other.

You were so grateful for that night weeks ago. If you hadn’t entered the club that night, you wouldn’t be holding the precious miracle you were now. Were grateful that you had taken a chance, and allowed Lucas to sweep you off your feet.

You weren’t planning on ever letting go.

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#Lucas Wong #Lucas Wong edit #Lucas wong fanfic #kpop #my work #my fanfic writing #wayv #nct #lucas wayv #lucas nct #kpop fluff #wayv fluff #nct fluff #wayv fanfic

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hotpinkhoshi · 5 years

Text

delicate | jaebeom drabble

pairing: jaebeom x reader

genre: fluff, suggestive

word count: 1.3k

prompt: “you’re so pretty.” asked by me myself and i, because i couldn’t resist.

a/n: i can’t even write a summary about this because it’s really nothing... just cute new relationship feels! i wrote it in like an hour this morning and decided to post it in time for jaebeom’s birthday. barely edited but i do think it’s really cute so enjoy! also listen to “delicate” by taylor swift for the ultimate fluffy experience.

God, this movie was boring.

It was Jaebeom’s choice, though, and you’d kept your mouth shut. It was his birthday and the rule was that he got to pick the movie. Your relationship was still very new, and you couldn’t bring yourself to fight him on it.

The movie, one of those quiet pretentious indie films, was about halfway through before you started getting jittery. You couldn’t help it. The theater was dark, and there was nothing for you to look at to distract yourself. Except Jaebeom.

You found yourself turning your head, your eyes traveling up from his neck to his jaw, flexing as he chewed on some of the popcorn you’d bought him—not without a fight, of course, he was old fashioned in that way. But you won in the end. Your eyes followed the curve of his jaw to his cheekbones, sharp and prominent, to the twin moles adorning his eyelids. Even shrouded in darkness, he was breathtaking.

“You’re so pretty,” you whispered, before you could stop yourself.

“Eh?” he asked, turning just a fraction towards you as his eyes flicked from the screen to your face.

So you repeated yourself, leaning in to kiss his cheek. “You’re so pretty,” you whispered against his skin, your breath fanning over his face. “I just wanted you to know.”

You half expected him to shush you, to tell you to watch the movie, but you were starting to think Jaebeom would let you get away with murder. No matter how you annoyed him or playfully nagged him, he took it in stride and sometimes managed to dish it back twice as bad.

“I’m pretty?” His brows raised and he turned, all the way this time, until his nose brushed against yours. “Not handsome? Rugged? Sexy?”

“Nuh uh.” You shook your head, rubbing your lips together to hide a smile. He coaxed it out of you eventually, though, when he nudged his nose into yours in an eskimo kiss. “My boyfriend is prettier than me.”

Boyfriend. You loved to say it out loud.

Jaebeom let out a breathy laugh. “A lie, if I ever heard one.”

Another kiss to his cheek. “It’s your birthday, I would never lie to you on your birthday.”

He turned his head, catching your lips with his, soft and sweet. “What do you think of the movie?” he asked, his hand reaching up to brush the hair out of your face.

You cleared your throat. “It’s good. It’s… yeah, it’s not bad.”

When he kissed you again, he was smiling. “Liar,” he spoke against your skin as his lips drifted across your cheek. “You hate it.”

You sort of despised the way he made you stutter as he pressed featherlight kisses into your skin, making a path of goosebumps from your cheek to your jaw. “I don’t- no, I don’t hate it,” you protested weakly.

His chuckle against your skin made you shiver. “It’s okay, I hate it too,” he assured you, pulling away and cupping your cheeks in his warm hands. “In fact, I was going to ask if you wanted to get out of here. I can’t imagine it’s going to get any better…”

“Oh, thank God,” you whispered, surging forward to press a firm kiss to his lips. “I was so worried you liked it and I was going to have to break up with you because you have shit taste in movies.”

It took less than a minute for the two of you to gather your things before you were practically running out of the theater, both holding in your laughter as the few other people in the theater glared at you for making so much nose.

By the time you got to the car, you were both breathless and panting, having continued running from the theater out of the building, though you had no reason to do so. Though you were both well into adulthood, he made you feel like a teenager again. Your heart pounded as he pressed you into the side of his car and stared down at you, still half smiling.

It was freezing, not even halfway through the frigid winter, but you felt hot inside. Jaebeom had a way of filling you with liquid heat with just his gaze, so intense and overwhelming at times.

“Thank you for this,” he told you, hands trailing down your arms until his fingers laced through yours. “Even if the movie sucked. It was worth it.”

You pressed your teeth into your lower lip as you tilted your chin to meet his eyes. “You’re welcome. Next year, maybe we should just find something on Netflix.”

Jaebeom chuckled and brought one of your hands up, pressing his lips into your cold knuckles. “Well, the night is still young. Want to grab some food, take it back to my house, and find something better to watch?”

Leaning up on your toes, you placed a chaste kiss to his lips and squeezed his hands. “Absolutely.”

Later that night, as Jaebeom held you on the couch while one of his favorite films played on his TV and you surrounded yourself with plates upon plates of takeout, he whispered that it was the best birthday he’d ever had.

The words filled you with a certain warmth you couldn’t quite identify. All you knew was that you wanted to be by his side next year, the year after that, and the year after that.

“Jae?” you whispered, shifting so that you could see him more clearly.

“Hm?” His eyes stared down into yours as he gave you a squeeze. All of your limbs were intertwined, but you’d never been more comfortable.

“I really like you,” you admitted. It wasn’t what you wanted to say, but it was close. “Really really like you.”

There was an amused smile on Jaebeom’s lips. “I like you too, sweetheart.” A kiss to your forehead. “More than like, actually.”

You pulled back, eyes shooting up to his face. Had you heard him right? Maybe you misunderstood.

“What do you mean?” you asked, carefully.

“Ah…” Jaebeom’s cheeks flushed, shaking his head as he played with the bottom hem of your sweater. “I don’t usually… well, I’ve never-” he paused to take in your features, eyes wide and half hopeful, half terrified. “I love you. You have to know that.”

It felt like your heart soared out of your chest in that moment. “I…” you swallowed. He’d been in love before, you knew, although he never said it explicitly. He had alluded to it a few times in quiet, late night conversations. But you’d never gotten this close to someone before. It always ended before it got this deep.

“I’m not just saying this because it’s your birthday,” you started. You found it hard to look him in the eyes but you needed to. You needed him to see the truth in them. “I love you. I love every second that I’m with you, I love your laugh and your dreams, your… questionable taste in movies. Your pretty face.”

He laughed at the last one, rolling his eyes as he poked your side. You squirmed in his grip and held back your giggles.

“I’m being serious here! I know, maybe it’s too early to say it, but I love you.” The more you said it, the more real it became and the more you got used to the idea.

As the night went on, Jaebeom made sure you knew how loved you were. He let you pick the next movie, even allowed you to eat the last bite of his black bean noodles. He didn’t even say a word as you quoted every line alongside the main female lead in your favorite romantic film.

He proved his love, over and over that night, especially after he carried you to bed and the layers of clothes between your bodies seemed to disappear. The room filled with passionate moans, whispers of love and pleasure. It wasn’t the first time, but he made you feel like it was.

Just before the two of you drifted off to sleep, sweaty and exhausted, Jaebeom whispered to you once more that this was the best birthday he’d ever had.

#writing #got7 #jaebeom #lim jaebeom #jb #jb fluff #jb drabble #jaebeom drabble #jaebeom fluff #jb fanfic #got7 fanfic #got7 fluff #got7 drabble #got7 scenario #got7 imagine

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missjosie27 · 5 years

Text

Year 2 Part 6- Bill Weasley

Hey, guys! Sorry about the late chapter. Being in self quarantine has actually caused a degree of 'apathy' so to speak and it's tough trying not to let that infest your creativity.

But in any case I am back with a new installment and I'd like to say a few words beforehand.

For the first three years of this series, Slytherin isn't going to look good. But there's a reason for that (not the least of which includes shipping my MC with Merula xD) and it will reveal itself in good time. To all my Slytherin readers, portraying your house as the 'bad guy' is not my endgame. Not even close.

Anyway on the with the story!

The party following the triumphant victory over Slytherin could only be described as pandemonium. In one fell swoop the Gryffindors had opened up a huge lead in the standings and were already being favored to win the entirety of the Quidditch season. Hufflepuff was no serious obstacle and only the Ravenclaws stood as the last major threat to their title chances. It was also the first time in three years the lions had beaten the snakes in a major match such as this and dancing on their misery tasted almost as sweet as the butterbeer.

David and company could hardly keep track of anything during the celebration, but they didn’t care. He had never seen such a spectacle and though listening to Quidditch was always a popular pastime, to actually witness it in person in addition to crushing your biggest rival went far beyond expectations. Though he didn’t say it openly, he privately imagined Merula and the rest of the Slytherins sulking in their cold, black dungeon.

Let them. It’s no less than they deserve

He made his way through the crowd in search of Charlie, seeing as he was the hero of the day (seekers usually were) and also a roommate in need of basic congratulations. Along the way he passed Adolphus Blishwick and Henry McLaggen who were engaged in a chugging contest of sorts though the substance did not look like butterbeer. In addition, he encountered the fearless chaser herself, Skye Parkin.

“Great game, Skye!” he yelled out to her.

Looking around, she spotted her admirer and gave a cool thumbs up before resuming conversation with a crowd of Gryffindor boys and girls who sought her attention.

She’s going to be the talk of the whole school for a week after this. Let her have the moment.

Resuming his search, it didn’t take long to spot Charlie. The second eldest Weasley brother was being hoisted up in the air by several older Gryffindors, broom still in hand, chanting his name repeatedly.

“CHARLIE! CHARLIE! CHARLIE!”

“Come on, mates! I’m going to get bloody sick!” he laughed, clutching his stomach.

David could only watch in amusement as the crowd finally let him down onto his feet, breathing heavily from the day’s excitement.

“Butterbeer for the rookie of the day?” he offered.

“Ha, no thanks, Dave. If I have another one of those things, I think I might actually vomit.”

“Mate, you didn’t just win today. You crushed Slytherin into the dirt. No one will let you buy another drink again.”

Charlie laughed good naturedly.

“Wasn’t just me, Dave. Team effort won the day. In case you haven’t noticed, we have a pretty good chaser over there,” he said, indicating Skye.

“She’s as confident as they come,” David observed. “Didn’t seem to know who I was, though or anyone else besides her Quidditch mates.”

“She has to be,” Charlie shrugged. “With the family she hails from nothing less than winning is acceptable. As for the second part, don’t take it personally, she keeps to her own crowd. Likes the attention but not really a people’s person if you catch my drift.”

A glance back and David saw Skye flick the blue colored braid back almost as if it were an act of God himself. Several of her ogling fans ate it up, whilst the Parkin girl gave a small smirk but no audible reply.

“Yeah, you don’t say.”

The second born Weasley chuckled before turning serious for a split second.

“Listen,” he said in a low voice which was just audible above the noise of the ongoing party. “I heard about what happened on Halloween.”

David’s eyebrows became sharp.

“What did you hear?”

“Relax, Dave,” Charlie reassured him. “No one told me anything, just rumors. But from what I gathered you and Rowan are still searching for that cursed vault? The one with the cursed ice that’s been entrapping people.”

“And if I were to say ‘yes’?”

“Mate, it’s not exactly a well-kept secret. There was no sign of you or Rowan at the feast. Many people around here still remember when your brother was chasing the vaults, they expect the same from you.”

Memories and headlines flooded David’s brain, ones he did not want to think about at the moment.

‘Aw, but Jacob why won’t you tell me?’

The older boy shuffled a vast assortment of papers into his drawer, his appearance slightly disheveled.

‘Pip, what I’m working on is top secret and cannot be revealed to anyone. You have to trust me on that.’

‘But-’

‘You’ll understand someday when you’re older.’

“I’m not my brother,” David responded quietly. He did not want to discuss the matter further as he pushed the guilt ridden feelings into the darkest recesses of his mind.

“I know you’re not, that’s why I want to help. Or make a suggestion rather,” Charlie responded, no malice or ulterior motive in his hazel eyes. It was then that David realized he may have spoken too harshly.

“Fire away,” he said, the light, jovial tone returning. “Better be good or I’ll have those blokes lift you up and down in the air again.”

“If you want some assistance in your search, talk to my brother.”

That gave David some pause.

“Bill? Why would he want anything to do with this?”

“Are you kidding? He’s almost as obsessed with breaking curses as I am with dragons…well maybe not quite that obsessed but it’s a goal of his and make no mistake,” Charlie explained.

“You’re sure? I can’t exactly go around telling everyone what I’m doing, lest I get expelled,” David spoke candidly.

“He’d never rat on you, that’s one thing I am certain of. I’ve known him my whole life. He’s caught me doing loads of things I shouldn’t have, and he’s always had my back. Believe me, there’s no one better.”

“Well I’ll consider it. Thanks, Charlie.”

“Anytime.”

The new star Gryffindor seeker was led back over to the center of the party leaving David to ponder in the middle of the celebration. He did not want to risk trying to bust down that door again at least not without help. Two second years weren’t strong enough but adding Bill to the team might prove to be the deciding factor.

He would have to ask Rowan what he thought of the idea.

Xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

“Are you kidding? That’s a great idea!” Rowan exclaimed at lunch the following Monday. “Why didn’t I think of it?”

“A good question considering you talk about him more than you do about your tree farm.”

Rowan lightly swiped at him with his book (and missed) before continuing.

“In all seriousness, think of the possibilities. He’s older, he knows more spells than we do, not to mention he has an interest in what we’re doing according to Charlie. What’s there to lose?”

In truth, not much. But that didn’t mean it was a sure thing.

“I plan on asking him today,” David shrugged. “Just don’t get your hopes up, okay?”

“Why not? He likes you, already. He taught you a few spells last year.”

The twelve year old Gryffindor took a massive bite of shepherd’s pie.

“Dat was ifferent,” he said before swallowing. “Merula was terrorizing the entire first year class. This is ten times as risky.”

“Since when has that ever stopped, you?”

“It never does, and it never will,” David proclaimed. “That also doesn’t mean I go looking for trouble. It just happens to find me most of the time.”

“Well we could save a lot of trouble if we could get him on board. I can read an entire book about potential curses in this school but if we don’t have the know how or power, then this ice could spread even further by year’s end.”

Rowan was never short on logic and he couldn’t fault him this particular time either. The worst Bill could do was say ‘no’ and that would be the end of it. As if to confirm his own intentions, Charlie suddenly came up behind him.

“Hey, David. Bill is waiting for you at the training grounds. Says he has an hour before his next class if you want to talk.”

“Wait, he’s already waiting for me?”

“I put in a good word for you,” Charlie said with a sly grin. “I think you’ll find he’ll be very interested in what you have to say.”

Rowan gave him a look as if to shout ‘what are you waiting for?’ before returning to his grilled cheese sandwich.

“Suppose now is as good a time as any,” he muttered getting up from the table. “Make sure Charlie doesn’t steal my pie, Rowan.”

“Wouldn’t dream of it,” the red head called back, digging his fork into the pie and shoving it into his mouth.

Xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

The route to the training grounds was simple enough, one simply had to traverse two stories and past the dungeons to reach the outside door that led to the cold, autumn outdoors. David was hardly giving much attention to his surroundings as he adjusted his hat and scarf, very eager to see what Bill had to say.

Suddenly, he stopped in the middle of the dungeon corridor, instincts going haywire. Though this part of Hogwarts was always dark and gloomy, he couldn’t shake the feeling he was being watched.

“Hello?” he called out into the empty nothingness.

His natural reflexes kicked in as he just barely ducked a sickly-looking purple jet of light that created sparks on the stone walls.

“Goddamn it, what the hell?!”

Out of the shadows stepped a pale, black haired girl, one eye shrouded by the perpetual greasy mass of mop that never seemed to move. David immediately recognized her as Ismelda Murk, the same girl who had given him that creepy smile the previous week.

“So, you are going to see that blood traitor, Bill Weasley,” she said in a quiet, but deadly tone. “No doubt to discuss the cursed vaults.”

Her wand was trained on him, but David did not reach for his. At least, not yet. Any sudden movement would likely trigger another curse being sent his way.

“And how did you know that?” he stalled.

Ismelda rolled her visible eye.

“Please, your voice is loud enough. It’s not hard to overhear you.”

She took a step forward wand still pointed directly at his chest.

“But it makes no difference. You Gryffindors are all the same- cocky, arrogant, always hogging the spotlight for yourself.”

“Hey, Izzy, if this is about kicking your ass in Quidditch don’t take it out on me. I’m sure there’s a small, defenseless animal somewhere around here you can torture.”

Another jet of purple light barely missed his head.

“I didn’t have to miss,” Ismelda spoke with quiet fury. “Now here’s what’s going to happen. You’re going to tell me everything you know about the vaults and I won’t have to hurt you…much.”

At this point, David had had enough. It was already irritating to constantly deal with one crazy Slytherin girl, two went beyond his patience.

“Yeah, okay let me tell you what’s actually going to happen. I’m going to hex you and I’m going to walk out that door.”

Without another second’s hesitation he whipped out his wand and fired the same spell Merula had used on him last year.

‘ Petrificus Totalus! ’

He caught her square in the chest, sending her toppling over like a four by four to the ground. However, she managed to fire off one more curse before it did, and this time he wasn’t quick enough to avoid it.

“GAH!” he winced as he felt his shoulder catch part of the blast. Still, he didn’t waste any more time waiting for Ismelda to regain use of her limbs and ran as fast he could out into the nippy, November air.

Xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

So fast did he run that he barely noticed that after a minute or so, Bill Weasley was right in front of him. When he finally did, the older boy was already looking down on him with an eyebrow raised.

“Whoa, there David Grant. You look out of breath. What happened?”

Still panting from his recent escapade, it took a moment for the 12 year old Gryffindor to form sentences.

“Slytherin girl attacked me. Threatened me over the vaults. Managed to get away though.”

Bill leaned and took a glance at David’s shoulder.

“Not completely. Let me take a look at that wound.”

David saw for the first time the extent of the damage Ismelda had wrought. The top of his robes were cut open to reveal a nasty looking purple and black bruise which had the look of something that had festered for days.

“Ew,” he remarked dryly.

“Let me see if this helps,” Bill said as he pointed his wand at the injury. “ Episkey. ”

Much of the swelling went down and the size was reduced though there remained a remnant of the blackish/blue color in the center.

“Madam Pomfrey probably could have gotten rid of that in an instant. But I’m pretty rubbish when it comes to medicine, that’s the only healing spell I know.”

“It’s fine,” David shrugged. “No lasting damage. What was that curse anyway?”

“Only seen it a few times but it’s a nasty one, especially if a powerful dark wizard uses it. Bone bruise curse. Can cause severe internal bleeding in the hands of a real psycho. Sometimes kids at Hogwarts will use them in duels, but it’s generally taboo.”

“That explains a lot,” he muttered.

“It sounds like you were waylaid on your way down here,” Bill surmised. “Who was it?”

“Ismelda Murk. She’s my year. Makes Merula Snyde look like a flower girl by comparison.”

“I’ve heard of her,” Bill said darkly. “She apparently attacked Charlie on the train this year simply for bumping into her by accident. You were there for that if I recall correctly.”

“Indeed, I was.”

“Well in any case this might be the perfect opening into what you really came down here for. Charlie told me you needed some help with these cursed vaults.”

David nodded in the affirmative.

“I do. Rowan and I actually found the entrance, but there was some sort of enchantment on it. I don’t think we can break it, just the two of us. Charlie said you might be interested.”

“Interested? Hell, David I wish you had come to me sooner. I’m in.”

David didn’t know what to expect, but the fact that Bill accepted his request so readily was a tad surprising.

“Huh, well that didn’t take much persuasion.”

“You didn’t need to,” Bill said seriously. “This ice is becoming more and more dangerous by the week and doesn’t appear to be dissipating any time soon. If we can get through that door you spoke of earlier there’s a strong chance we can break this curse.”

His face broke into a reluctant smile.

“I’d also be lying if I said I wasn’t a bit excited too. This is my first curse breaking adventure and I’m honored to be a part of it.”

“The honor is all mine,” David grinned. “Seriously, I can’t thank you enough.”

“Don’t thank me yet,” the eldest Weasley warned. “It’s going to take a lot of preparation and even a little pain to break into a cursed vault. We’ll need to do a lot of research and spellwork if this is going to be successful. It’ll also give us the opportunity to learn a few more jinxes for dueling, especially considering you were just attacked.”

“Rowan will eagerly take care of the research. He’ll also be pretty happy to know you’re in on this little quest of ours.”

“Somehow that doesn’t surprise me,” Bill laughed. “Come on, let’s get started.”

And so they did. For the next few weeks, the trio met once a week to either study in the library or go to the training grounds to learn new spells and practice them on the wooden target dummies. This became steadily more difficult as time went on as the weather became colder the first snowfall hit but it was still good practice and it also provided an opportunity for Rowan to progress in his own dueling prowess, which steadily improved over time. Now and then they were also joined by Penny and Ben, who were eager to help in any way they could. For Penny that meant assistance in brewing certain potions that they would need in a tight spot- fire breathing and pepperup potions came to mind. For Ben, it meant assistance in some of the research and moral support…and the occasional training session.

“Remind me why I have to learn the fire making spell again?” he asked one cold December morning between the crunch of white powder on the ground.

The snow was also a good outlet to begin practicing a spell that would be quite useful in keeping warm and potentially knocking down the giant snowflake that fired concentrated freezing spells at those who tried to enter its domain (Bill did a double take when he was told that story). Incendio would create large blasts of red and blue fire, though it was still somewhat difficult to control, especially for second years, and so Bill supervised their progress.

“A freezing day in December is almost as bad as the sensation you’ll feel inside the vault,” David told him as he shifted his scarf to reveal his pink, rosy nose, clearly whipped by the slight wind. “What better way to practice?”

“No offense, David, but I’m not sure I’m the right person to go inside the vault with you,” Ben said glumly.

“We will cross that bridge when we get to it,” Bill interjected. “For now, being prepared to break the protective enchantments is the best way to go. We’ll need a full arsenal to do so.”

Penny beamed underneath her hat, coat, and mittens.

“I’m just glad we’re finally learning something that could be considered proper defense. This year’s Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher is complete rubbish.”

“Yeah, well I’d be lying if that also didn’t factor into it,” the red head muttered. “I also figured the fire making spell would be a top priority based off what Dave and Rowan told me about this vault.”

“Speaking of curse breaking, I actually brought you something,” David said, remembering suddenly his gift. “I bought this through mail order a week ago.”

He stuck his mittens into the bag and presented it to his friend.

“ Patricia Rakepick: A Guide to Cursebreaking,” Bill read aloud his eyes lighting up. “Wow, David this is amazing. You didn’t have to get me this. Madam Rakepick is one of the best in the world.”

“Good practice for when you become a cursebreaker yourself,” he replied with a wink. “Not to mention it’ll be good for all of us when we enter the vault. Rakepick has been around the globe and back again. Seen and done it all.”

“We’ll pour through it once we get back inside. In the meantime, let me see your fire one more time.”

David point his wand in the air.

“ Incendio! ”

A large stream of flames issued forth, crackling the air before ceasing altogether.

“You really have a talent for this stuff, don’t you?” Bill chuckled. “Took me a lot longer to learn that spell. Penny, you next.”

The blonde obliged, sending a lesser but still decent amount of flames into the frigid December day.

“Not bad. You need a little bit more power but otherwise you’re coming along fine,” Bill encouraged.

“I know,” Penny said a bit sheepishly. “I’m just afraid I’ll burn one of you guys.”

“You can burn me any time you want. Feels like my ass is about to freeze off,” David quipped.

“Well we certainly wouldn’t want that,” Bill responded dryly but with a cheeky grin. “One more from Ben and then we’ll grab some hot cocoa.”

Shaking heavily from the cold, Ben nevertheless loudly proclaimed the incantation.

“ I-Incendio !”

The amount of fire that issued from his wand was so vast that David actually had to grab Penny and duck to avoid minor injury. Even Bill took a step back, a look of shock plastered on his face.

“Well that’s one way to do it,” he offered in his gentlest tone. “Maybe say it a little less loudly next time.”

David began laughing as he picked himself up from the frost bitten ground, putting an arm around his friend.

“That could have melted the entire door down. And you say you’re not worthy of going into the vault,” he ribbed him.

Ben only offered a weak grin.

“Heh.”

The rest of the month continued like this, with spell learning sessions occurring inside rather than the increasingly frigid outdoors of Scotland. As they continued to meet together outside of class, at lunch, and in the library the group also took extra pains to ensure the Slytherins were not following or attempting to sabotage them. After the embarrassing loss to their rival, Merula and her ilk were becoming more vocal again and more than a few times, David caught her messing with his potions again. She constantly whispered about how she was closing in on key information on the vaults to distract him, which he did his best to ignore. Merula loved to exaggerate her own achievements so it wasn’t particularly concerning. Nevertheless, he made a point to keep an eye on her and her prime lacky, Ismelda Murk.

As December wore on and the holidays grew closer, David grew more anxious to revisit the vault, especially with all the planning and preparation they were doing. Bill, however, aired on the side of caution. He too was eager to visit the first cursed vault but opined it would be more prudent to wait until after they returned from Christmas break. It gave them all time to practice their spellwork and would throw off the scent of anyone on their trail, namely Filch, who was always scouring the 13th corridor at night with Mrs. Norris. In the end, the group largely concurred with such thinking.

It wasn’t until the last day before the holidays that the pressure to enter the vault ramped up a notch. The three boys were on their way back from their final class of the day, a potions extravaganza that featured pre-Christmas goodwill from the Gryffindors and Slytherins tossing acid pops into each other’s cauldrons, until they noticed a crowd stood outside the 9th corridor. Though no one was panicking as of yet the murmuring became louder as David, Rowan, and Ben approached.

“What’s going on?” David asked aloud. “It’s not supposed to be this busy. Not until the train leaves Hogsmeade station anyway.”

“No idea,” Rowan shrugged.

“Can we find out what this is later?” Ben said nervously. “Ismelda threw an acid pop in my cauldron and I think some of it burned through my robes.”

But curiosity overrode the other two Gryffindor boys as they slowly weaved their way through the crowd and towards the front.

“You guys! It happened again!” Tonks said to them. But there was no need to expound further. Reaching the front, they witnessed a fourth year Ravenclaw covered nearly head to toe in the cursed ice, face dangerously blue, eyes barely open. It was quite a revelation and also quite disturbing. No student, not even Ben had been entrapped so thoroughly. The only part of his body that remained free was his head and neck, everything else remained submerged.

It didn’t take long for the whispering to turn to proclamations.

“The ice won’t stop until it gets us all!” a random girl shouted.

Thankfully, any mass hysteria was quelled by the sudden arrival of Professors McGonagall, Flitwick, and Snape.

“Students, remain calm!” the deputy Headmistress shouted over the low hum of gossip. “Please be on your way to prepare for the train. Those who are staying at Hogwarts over Christmas break, return to your dormitories until further notice. Prefects, see that everyone is accounted for.”

“You heard her!” Snape barked. “Away with you!”

The intimidating leer of Severus Snape was more than enough to disperse the crowd, but not before David overheard the professors commenting on the situation.

“The ice has never spread this far before,” Flitwick said with a note of anxiety in his voice. “Should we not alert the Headmaster to return?”

“Dumbledore has enough on his plate,” Snape replied. “He will not come back to Hogwarts until after Christmas. We can handle things until then. If the ice is getting stronger, we should not allow that information to spread beyond these walls.”

“I will letter Albus. But for now, let us focus on unfreezing Mr. Isaacs. Madam Pomfrey will need to attend to him for quite a while,” Professor McGonagall spoke, taking out her wand.

David, Rowan, and Ben looked at each other as Tonks and the Hufflepuffs headed towards the kitchen. All of a sudden, containing the ice was looking more and more impossible. If all of Hogwarts was threatened to be consumed by it, they had less time than originally thought.

“Happy Christmas, everyone,” David said ironically as they approached the Fat Lady to pack.

Though most holidays were spent opening presents, eating pie, and retelling school stories, this was once incident he planned to keep away from the ears of his mother and father, knowing both of them would panic if they found out he was attempting to break into the vaults himself.

Rubbing the back of his neck, David couldn’t help but wish for a quick end to December.

There was much more work to be done, yet.

#hogwarts mystery #hphm #hphm fanfiction #fanfiction #david grant #rowan khanna #charlie weasley #bill weasley #penny haywood #ben copper #nymphadora tonks #ismelda murk #gryffindor #slytherin #hufflepuff #minerva mcgonagall

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efrmellifer · 4 years

Text

Sweet Song

Aymeric heard the music before he could see who was playing it. His heart leapt because of it, but he brushed the thought away just as quickly.

One of Etien’s virtues was that when she said she would do something, she followed through to the best of her ability. So it wasn’t her song on the wind.

It wouldn't have been, anyway. Her songs were different. Slower, usually. This one was frantic, a desperate letter penned with musical notation below it as the singer cried out, begging whomever they were addressing not to steal away the singer’s lover.

Aymeric stopped, leaning against the brick wall before him and looking out into Coerthas, straining to hear the words.

Maybe he just had Etien on his mind now, but the description the singer gave of the woman who was stealing this lover away was familiar-- the ivory skin, the green eyes. Even the comparison of this woman to springtime was spot on.

He squinted into the cool, misty air. If this little warbler was worried about Etien (since he couldn’t think of anyone else in Ishgard who fit this description that well) luring away some head-over-heels admirer, then someone must have been highly interested in her.

Aymeric was not an especially jealous man. He knew Etien loved him, besides. He had the letters (and the paperwork) to prove it. Still, he could only imagine how much it must hurt to be so taken with someone that other people who loved you were starting to feel like they’d been out in second place. And then, on top of that, the one you’ve become so besot with was married (and not on this world, currently, but that was beside the point).

So, with as much charity in his heart as he could muster, he murmured out a sympathetic, “Poor sop.”

Etien had left Il Mheg with a bit of a spring in her step, despite being run off her feet helping the pixies gather sap for paint, pluck blossoms, hunt down Psammead and Rosebears, and find some very specific spots housing Leafmen near Longmirror Lake.

Still, she had slept well, and had arrived in the Crystarium with a song itching in her fingers and on her tongue.

Giving a short greeting to everyone who tossed her a wave on her way through, she made a beeline for a very specific spot in the Quadrivium, plopping down in a copse of trees. She was fairly well-hidden, pressed up against the fence of a garden (at least, she figured that was what it was) that felt oddly familiar.

Here, people could hear her singing, but weren’t likely to find her, either to give her a new task (not that she minded terribly) or to make requests.

They could just enjoy the song that wanted out of her.

She stretched out her fingers, listening to the joints crack, then got out her lyre and got to it.

It was a song she had been working on for a long time, since after the Dragonsong War at least—if not during it—and for some reason, today, the words for it that she had been searching for had started piling up.

She wondered if comparing lips to roses was overdone, but thought better of it as she strummed; it wouldn’t be used so much if it wasn’t an apt comparison.

She sighed a little into the first word of the phrase as she kept singing. “I love my love, and well he knows I love the ground whereon he goes,” she could only think of kneeling to kiss the stones paving the pathways of Ishgard, the cold gray rock against her lips.

Neither entirely on purpose nor by mistake, she poured her heart into her next line. “And how I wish the day would come, that he and I can be as one.”

She repeated the first part of what she’d been singing, words she’d had already, then started taking down the new words before she forgot.

Still sitting amongst the trees, Etien strummed her lyre absently, still thinking about Aymeric. This place reminded her just a little of the garden in the Vault. Or, she thought it did. All she knew was it was a nice spot, and somewhere she definitely would have brought Aymeric, if she had a way to.

But… she didn’t. At least there was still that pretty spot just near the Blue Badger Gate. She had, like she’d told Feo Ul, intended to take him there before she had come back here. All of the Black Shroud couldn’t be explored in a day, but it was only about a day’s travel from Alder Springs to Gridania (she’d made the journey a lot when she was younger), so they could have definitely made a trip through the North Shroud.

She sat against a tree now, digging in her bag for the sandwiches G’raha made for her. He kept making them, actually, and now that he knew (she didn’t know who he had asked) her favorite kinds, every time he handed her a dish of them, it was only the sandwiches she liked best.

She bit into one now, honey and pixieberry jam. It was just odd, she thought. Not that it was a bad thing, but she seemed to be lavished with more gifts and praise now than when she had been a kit.

Though, she supposed it made sense, in a way. As a kit, she’d done her daily chores and then scampered off to practice archery or read books, away from others. Kind of a lonely routine. Now, she was making friends and working her tail off to make sure things stayed fixed. So she supposed she’d earned a few sandwiches and a little purse of assorted coins every so often.

Mostly, she wanted to have it all—she was tired of trading companionship with the Scions or otherwise (like the days of fun with the pixies) for the comfort and peace of spending time with Aymeric. Especially when no matter where she went, her heart was weighed down with either a secret sort of guilt, or a longing she tried her best to tamp down (thought she never really succeeded).

She decided it was better to write all this out, instead of letting it stew, and included the lyrics she’d just written, packing them all up into a letter, sealed and scented.

She called for Feo Ul, handing over the letter.

“Another one?” they asked, tipping their head. “Did he not just reply to you last night?”

Etien’s ears flattened, but she tried to brush the embarrassment off, giving the pixie a sunny smile. “Our time, yes. I have no way of knowing how long it’s been since he heard from me over there, though.”

Feo Ul cocked a hip, laying their hand on it. “I suppose.”

“If you don’t want to take it to him yet, that’s fine,” Etien said, sliding it into her bag. She took out an apple. “It can wait.”

Feo Ul blinked, eyeing the apple with a clear desire to have a bite. Etien cut off a piece, biting into it, fangs scraping the sides of the slice. She looked over at Feo Ul as she chewed, then swallowed.

“Oh, did you want some?”

They nodded, and Etien cut them a slice, too, handing it over. They landed on her shoulder, biting into their piece of apple as Etien bit into the whole apple’s flesh, now that Feo Ul had their portion.

“You know, I was going to take that letter anyway. But I have to have some fun still.”

Etien sighed. “Of course, your majesty.”

“I watched him as he read your last letter, too. It took a while, because he took it with him to that building I usually go to. But he sat at his desk and read it like it was the most interesting report ever. Maybe it was!”

Etien laughed. “It probably was; he says the knights write some dry reports.”

“Well, I could never starve him of the entertainment! Nor could I disappoint my precious sapling. Let me have the new letter.”

Etien handed it over. “Thank you, Feo, you fruitful little branch.”

Feo Ul waved as they looped the loop and took off, letter in hand.

Etien picked up her lyre again, going back to strumming a few notes.

#Aytien #fic

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starryikesen-blog · 6 years

Text

boyfriend! hideyoshi

CONFESSION

- honestly, when hideyoshi first met you, he didn’t trust you at all - that is, until you proved him wrong through and through - you thought he was pretty quick to jump to conclusions about everything, following his heart more than his mind, but his kindness made it up for that - when he realised that he wronged you, he apologised so sincerely and profusely that one would’ve thought he killed your pet or something along those lines - oh, and he spends forever trying to make it up to you and spoiling you whenever he can - be it using his “free time” (he doesn’t have any, really) to go into town and get you some sweet dumplings, or to try and convince you to get the newest roll of fabric - he tries again and again, and fails again and again - “you’re really a stubborn one, eh?” - but there’s a sweet smile on his face and he means absolutely no harm - still, however adamant you were about him not spearing money on you, he gives you little accessories that caught your eye from time to time - and you liked hideyoshi. you really, really, liked him. - no one has ever treated you so nicely as hideyoshi did, but here’s the problem: he treats everyone as nicely - liking hideyoshi means two things— one, it’s inevitable, and two, you will never know if you’re sibling-zoned or not - “anything for my little sibling!” says he, while your insides collapse just a little - you’re angry for a moment, because how can he do such heart-fluttering things without feeling anything? does he do it so much to others that he doesn’t feel anything? - hideyoshi himself is confused, mainly because he’s never felt anything more towards the women he’s friends with - but with you, he finds you so adorable, and he even finds himself itching to go out with you just to see you stuffing yourself with those sweet dumplings, your cheeks bulging like a chipmunk - even the mere sight and scent of you makes him flustered - but hideyoshi tells himself to continue treating you like a sibling, although he knows full well that he can’t anymore - he thinks he’s not good enough for you; he thinks his flaws will drive you away if you knew what they were - but you’re strong and accepting, yet he clearly doesn’t know that - “why are you looking so glum?” - “oh- sasuke.” - you filled him in, when he next appeared in the ceiling of your room while checking on you - “hmm. sources tell me that hideyoshi is a lightweight.” - “how do you know that?” - “top secret ninja infiltration files.” - “sasuke-“ - “okay, i’m joking. google said so.” - but thanks to sasuke, you have a plan now, and the next banquet comes by in a blur - you feel half guilty for even thinking and trying this, but you’re desperate - you’ve seen the look in his eyes when he stares at you, and he does not look like a man who’s not in love - but he won’t say it, and you’re running short on options here - “god, i’m awful. mitsuhide will be proud of me though.” - he indeed is when you whisper your plan to him, all while hideyoshi goes against his golden rule of not drinking at banquets - simply because you came up to him, shyly offered to pour him sake and he just can’t say no to that face of yours he loves so much - “you might want to escort him out, princess. he’ll be brazenly saying everything from the depths of his heart.” - the mischievous smirk from mitsuhide was all you needed to gently drag hideyoshi away - his face was flushed red as you lead him to the gardens for some cool and fresh night air - it was a gorgeous night, for the lack of better words, a cloudless one that allowed the moon to be in full display and shed its silver veil across the castle grounds - hideyoshi stopped in his tracks, staring at you, and you found yourself unable to look away from those golden orbs - he places a single hand on your cheek, warm to the touch, his eyes still focused on you - “did you know that i like you? is that why you tried that?” - a non-drunken sounding laugh escaped from his lips, as he squished your cheeks softly - “it’ll take more than a cup and a half to make me drunk. although i should say, three cups are really few too.” - now it was your turn to be red as a tomato - “yeah.” - “well then, you’re right. i do like you, but i was scared that you wouldn’t accept my flaws. my past.” - your hand covered his in yours, feeling the heat that radiated off his palm - “hideyoshi, you know i would never do that. i love you for who you are. and your past has to do with that.” - silence shrouded the both of you, before hideyoshi finally found the right words to say - “i’m sorry. i made you wait too long.” - “don’t apologise. you’re always telling me to say ‘thank you’ instead.” - “in that case, thank you for loving me.” - and his lips, velvety yet a little rough at the edges, lands on yours, moulding together as one, and it sends a spark of bliss down your spine - your plan may have failed, but nevertheless it brought the both of you together, from the not-so-smooth starting to being lovers

CUDDLES + KISSES

- if hideyoshi was spoiling you whenever he can, be sure that he will spoil you with kisses - cuddles, not so much, but only because he’s too much of a busy man to spare time for cuddling - cuddling happens at night, when you’re awake or even if you’re asleep, hideyoshi will wrap you up in a burrito and bear hug you - occasionally he would laugh and go, “you’re so soft~!” - “hideyoshi, that’s because of the futon.” - kisses near the areas of your head are definitely his thing - for one, he’s a giant, and he will take this advantage to kiss the top of your head, your temple, your hair - also when he has the time, he’ll bring you to a garden nearby and sit with you between his legs on the grass and rest his chin on your head - when this happens, you two won’t usually talk much; just relax in each other’s presence, the fresh air, and the scenery - he doesn’t fall asleep, from the many nights of staying awake throughout, and you fall asleep a number of times instead - rest assured, you’ll find yourself comfortably tucked in in his room, or if you’re asleep for a shorter time, you’ll either wake up with your head resting in his lap, his hand running through your hair, or on his back when he piggybacks you home - hideyoshi’s theory behind this is that he tries his best to indulge in your adorable sleeping form, because he misses you way too much whenever he’s out - kisses are definitely gentle with hideyoshi - he will treat you like a princess, like it or not, and your wish is basically his command - unless you’re both in for something more, then maybe kisses wouldn’t be so gentle - a little rough, a little hair and nape grabbing here and there - that being said, his favourite places to kiss you is your lips - uh that’s obvious xuan?? he just loves the softness of your lips so much, he can’t stop kissing them over and over again until he feels that his heart is going to explode any moment - and while he treats you like a princess, you make sure to make him relaxed whenever you manage to stay up late enough to greet him when he returns - hideyoshi will say things like he isn’t tired but you’re not buying it from his eyebags - you’ll give him a massage, and sort of just push him down onto the futon and make him sleep - it’s alright if you don’t get any late night cuddling, because his health is the most important thing

EMOTIONAL

- honestly, hideyoshi’s the type of person that doesn’t get too emotional about his own problems - no, he worries about others, and their well-being rather than his own - maybe because he’s used to settling matters by himself, it doesn’t weigh much emotionally on him - so when he sits down and starts confiding in you about something, it’s always about other warlords or his vassals or his worry for them - “mitsuhide’s doing something again, god it hurts my head.” - you try to reassure him that it’s alright and that whoever he’s worried about will be fine - but this also means that he’s going to do extra work to make sure they’re completely, 100% safe and sound - and you pitch in by helping him do the necessary but simple things; writing letters, arranging his things, checking up with mitsunari on updates and whatnot - it’s things like this that keep hideyoshi going through the hardest times, your silent support and love that never fail to give him strength - and when he’s down, you make sure to give him even more love and reassurance - “hideyoshi, you’re a great person. don’t ever doubt yourself, it’s just not something you deserve.” - “you think so?” - “yes. i think you deserve all the love in this world.” - he’s tied himself to this fate of uniting japan, but even so, he’ll hesitate sometimes - he still has you, he can’t let you get hurt, but you already have because of him, and he’s scared, scared that you’ll leave him one day - hideyoshi is extremely fragile at times like this, you’ll have to hold him in your arms and rest your head against his chest, allowing him to calm down with you holding onto him - you’re there, always there by his side, and you’ll never leave - you promised that much to him, and you swore to never break it - when you’re sad, i do feel that hideyoshi is a man who talks with you in his arms - he’ll have something nice and light to munch on, while you two sit outside on the corridor at night, the cool breeze teasing your skin, and hideyoshi wrapping you up warmly - the atmosphere makes it impossible not to spill everything— be it your homesickness, how much you missed someone, or whether it was just you being sad for no good reason - he’ll listen, and he have a small conversation with you before you go on - it never does make you cry, these talks, and that’s the strange part, but his words and his arms around you just makes your tears disappear - if it’s something, or someone to do with the sengoku period, be prepared for him to exterminate the root cause of your sadness the very next day - hideyoshi will act if he can, but only after your consent - he won’t do anything if it wasn’t what you wanted, so he’s careful not to get his emotions too riled up

DOMESTIC

- as mentioned above, hideyoshi is a busy man - which means that you’ll try to tackle everything in the manor without him worrying (even though he’s told you countless times that there are helpers) - you’ll deliver letters, visit another warlord’s manor to retrieve things, clean his room, take care of uri the little monkey - and all while being chatelaine - hideyoshi’s always worried that you might fall sick from the amount of work you do for him, but he knows that he won’t make you change your mind - he even feels bad about it, seeing you sprawled on the futon, fast asleep when he returns, and he finishes all his things before joining you - and he’ll say that he’s finished everything, just so you could rest up a little - even if that means him staying up well over midnight - or when he comes back from battle with scars on his body and face and you treat them with utmost care - initially, you weren’t used to seeing them and the mere sight broke your heart, but hideyoshi couldn’t help it - it’s war, after all, and people were bound to be hurt - still, it gives him immense comfort from your gentle and soft hands just dabbing medicine on his wounds and such - the both of you are just too pure hearted; you both will do anything to make sure the other’s less tired, even if it’s just a little

FINAL VERDICT

- hideyoshi as a boyfriend is somewhere between chill and passionate, but i would say more on the chill side. talking is very important in this relationship, and so is kindness. with these two things combined, the relationship will bloom.

#ikemen sengoku #ikemen sengoku scenarios #ikemen sengoku imagines #ikesen hideyoshi #hideyoshi

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lilacmoon83 · 5 years

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Dreaming Out Loud

Also on Fanfiction.net and A03

Chapter 96: There's a Land That I Heard Of

As King of the Southern Isles, the first born son, Arawn, had long sought to expand his Kingdom by any means necessary. Already the Southern Isles had conquered much of the land in the vast ocean basin where their Kingdom stood majestically. His brothers had done their part to marry into other Kingdoms where they could. The youngest, Hans, had aspirations of infiltrating the mysterious Kingdom of Arendelle and had set off very recently to do so. But he had urged caution there, as the Kingdom was so shrouded in mystery and closed off from the rest of the world that it made it a risky venture. He hoped his little brother was successful and awaited word from him.

The Northern Kingdom had long been a conquest on his radar since he had succeeded his father almost twenty-five years ago. In fact, he would have dethroned King Eli long ago and had Ravenna rule it once he assimilated it with the rest of his growing Empire. But one thing had long held him back and that was the fact that King Eli had a child with the Goddess Persephone. And that child had her protection, as well as that of Hades and many other powerful Gods. It irked him to no end that some child had kept him from acquiring the jewel that was the Northern Kingdom.

Arawn had always viewed magic and sorcery as a dangerous disease that infected the lands. If he could, he would have destroyed it all. Which of course would make his conquests of the lands much easier. A few years ago, he had even found an ally that shared his distaste for sorcery. He had been forced to flee his home country for trying to cleanse his city of sorcery by eliminating such unsavory people. He was thought to have fallen to his death in a fight against those that had corrupted his home, but he managed to escape a fiery death and survive. After that, he fled to the Southern Isles where he knew sorcery and magic was expressly outlawed. Arawn couldn't really enforce such completely, but he did make examples of practitioners of witchcraft where he could.

Claude Frollo appreciated these efforts greatly and had appealed to the King's sense for justice when he suggested that he could become a very useful adviser. The King agreed and made Frollo his Royal Vizier. Frollo's connections to many other heads of churches and state in other Kingdoms proved quite valuable. He wasn't sure how Frollo managed to get information so fast, but it was the reason that he held the position that he did.

"Sire...I am afraid I have some devastating news from the Northern Kingdom," Frollo mentioned, as he entered the King's Throne room.

"Ravenna's Kingdom?" Arawn asked. Frollo nodded.

"I am afraid your sister is dead…" he reported.

"What?!" Arawn exclaimed.

"Word has just come in. She was murdered, Your Majesty…" he continued.

"By who? Who has murdered my sister?!" he roared.

"King Eli denies it possible, but the Duke is positive that it was King Eli's daughter...Snow White," Frollo added.

"Daughter of Persephone…" the King growled.

"Yes...spawn of the Underworld," he agreed.

"And where is Snow White now?" he questioned.

"The Duke ordered her arrest...but the King maintains her innocence and has seen to it that his demon child has escaped," Frollo reported.

"Not for long…" the King growled, as he rose from his Throne.

"Ready my Galleon...we are leaving for the Northern Kingdom at once," he ordered.

~*~

Snow sniffed, as her father hurried her into the garden and she saw Stardust waiting for her. She felt him hug her fiercely and then help her shoulder the satchel he had Margaret pack for her. But there was one more thing he had in his hand and Snow was curious, as the peculiar corked vial was attached to a lanyard and he put it around her neck.

"Listen to me very carefully, Snow," he said, as he showed her the vial.

"This is dark fairy dust. You must be very careful with it and use it on someone that is trying to cause you harm," he instructed.

"Where did you get dark fairy dust?" She asked curiously.

"That's not important right now. What is important is that you leave this place. Go far and hide when you can. Your mother and Hades will find you," he promised.

"What about you?" Snow asked in concern. He smiled and kissed her forehead.

"I'll find you when I can, snowdrop," he promised, though realistically, he knew the chances of him ever seeing her again were slim. He knew what was coming. He knew Ravenna's brothers would soon invade this Kingdom and he knew they would arrest him when he refused to give Snow up. He knew there was likely prison, torture, and even execution ahead for him, but he didn't care. As long as Snow got away and she was safe, that was all that mattered to him. He was ready to give his life to make sure she had one. All his bitterness and anger would now be channeled into protecting his greatest pride and joy.

Tears fell down Snow's cheeks again.

"I don't want to leave you here, Daddy," she sniffed. He hugged her gently.

"I know...none of this is fair, sweet pea," he agreed.

"Then you still believe me?" She asked. He smiled at her.

"Of course I do...I know you didn't do this, Snow and I'm going to find out who did. But I need to know you are safe. Go…" he urged.

"Hide until your mother and Hades find you," he added, as they heard footsteps. Eli quickly lifted her onto the Unicorn and put a hand on the animal's mane.

"Take her away from here...protect her…" he urged. And with that, he watched the majestic beast carry the most precious thing to him in the world away into the vast woods.

"Please protect her…" he pleaded to the Gods, as many members of his court hurried into the gardens, but only found the King there and the Princess was no where in sight.

~*~

Being the powerful Goddess that she was, there were only a few times in her life that she had known true fear. But any of those moments were suddenly paling in comparison to this moment right now. While Snow was almost eighteen now, Persephone still checked on her all the time, especially at night. It wasn't uncommon for her to use her husband's crystal viewing globe in their chambers to check on her. She smiled, seeing that her daughter was sleeping peacefully. But there was sudden alarm, as she saw Deimos poof himself into her daughter's room. She cried out in fright, as she also saw that he was carrying the body of a dead Queen Ravenna.

"HADES!" she cried out and wasn't surprised when her husband rushed into their chambers.

"What's going on?" he asked in alarm.

"Deimos…" she uttered, as she could only watch in horror, as he staged a crime scene and spattered the Queen's blood on her daughter's nightgown.

"By the Gods…" Hades uttered, as he watched his evil nephew frame their daughter for murder.

"Why...why is this happening?!" Persephone cried.

"He's going to start a war…" Hades realized, as his jaw clenched.

"Deimos is evil...but he never acts without orders," Persephone responded.

"No...which is why I'm almost certain that Zeus is behind this," he growled.

"Because of us…" Persephone realized.

"He's going to cause an all our war among the Kingdoms. Thousands will die, ensuring that we will be very busy down here," Hades surmised, as they watched Snow awaken and let out a blood curdling scream.

"No…" Persephone cried for her daughter, as she was forced to watch her be traumatized. Eli rushed in at that point and they watched the Duke call for her execution, while Eli defended their baby. By the time he had Stardust escaping the Kingdom with Snow on his back, Persephone and Hades were broken and shell shocked. The mortal danger to their beloved daughter was imminent and they had to find her, before it was too late. They knew Eli was counting on them to do so and when the Southern Isles invaded, they knew he would be arrested.

"We have to go...we have to find Snow!" Persephone cried. Hades whistled and the loyal Cerberus came at his call. They got onto his back and the loyal giant dog carried them to the surface world.

~*~

A Few Days Later

The last few days had been very rough for Snow. She knew her mother and Papa Hades were probably scouring the Kingdoms for her, but she had been so afraid of being found by the wrong people, that she had been too afraid to emerge from the hovel she had managed to make out of a hollow tree. She had gone hungry on the first night and gotten sick on the second night after eating some berries that didn't agree with her. Honestly, she was positive that it was her Demi-Goddess blood that was probably the only reason that the berries didn't kill her. By the third day, she had gotten lucky and trapped a rabbit. Papa Hades had been wise to teach her to make traps.

She remembered those lessons as a child behind their summer cottage. She hated them, for she insisted that she would never betray the little creatures she loved so much and use them for food. Snow never thought she'd be that hungry. But she was wrong. She had trapped a rabbit and remembered her lessons. She cried the entire time she killed, skinned, cooked, and ate the animal. But it stopped the pain in her stomach and gave her some much needed energy. And today, she knew she had stayed in this hovel too long. It was time to move on and hopefully find her mother or grandmother.

She knew there were many complications in finding her now. It had not taken her long to realize that Ravenna's death had brought war to her Kingdom. The forest was literally littered with wanted posters, depicting her likeness and she had seen droves of soldiers marching along the forest pathways. She had to be extremely careful, but it was time to move on. She was desperate to find her mother and eager with news about her father. She was worried about him now that King Arawn was rumored to be arriving soon.

She had met her step-mother's eldest brother only once and she barely remembered, for she was very young. He had come for her father's wedding to Ravenna when she was barely two. She shouldn't even have had a memory from that early, but she did, because she remembered how frightening and imposing this King was.

He was a very large man, nearly seven-feet tall, with shoulders probably wider than she was tall. She remembered his glare upon her, clearly disapproving of her existence. She remembered burying her face in her father's leg and whimpering. At that point, she had been quickly whisked away by her mother, who had her own intimidating look for the King. That was the end of the vague and fuzzy memory, but she remembered him, because he was very scary. And now, he had ordered all the Kingdoms to find her alive, so he could bring her to be executed for a crime she had been framed for.

At this point, she was certain that the Underworld was quite possibly the only safe place for her and was certain that Papa Hades would want to take her there. She didn't mind that. The Underworld wasn't a place of fire and brimstone like most thought. That part did exist, but the Underworld was so much more than that. Papa Hades told her that she often brought hope to the souls with unfinished business and her mere presence brought peace. She hoped that was true and if she could do something good for others, she was always willing. They didn't bring her there often though, as they both agreed that there was no future in the Underworld. It was stagnant and time did not move. Thus, it wasn't what they wanted for her. Mama and Papa Hades insisted that she had some greater destiny that she must find in the living world. But Snow wasn't so sure about that now. What kind of future could a now bandit like her have?

Those were questions in her mind, as she managed to clean up somewhat in a nearby creek, before mounting Stardust and moving on. She didn't know what grand destiny she could possibly have now when she was doubting she'd even live to see her twenties. Unfortunately, she was unaware that she was being followed...

~*~

Cora watched Zelena storm around the palace courtyard, frightening and scaring the staff with her magic amid a tantrum. She didn't even remember what had upset her spoiled daughter this time, but it didn't matter. Zelena commanded fear and obedience from her subjects.

"You're all worthless...I should turn you all into flying monkeys!" she shouted.

"Well...congratulations dearie. She's every bit the monster you hoped for," Rumple commented. Cora smirked.

"Thank you Rumple...I just wish the same could be said for Regina. She will not be a strong Queen like Zelena," she commented.

"If you say so," Rumple replied, as he watched her terrorize the servants. She was too unpredictable to cast his curse. He had a certain design that he needed for his curse and wanted to retain a modicum of power, even if he wouldn't have all his memories. He needed evil, which Zelena obviously was. But she was also psychotic and possessed an unhealthy amount of envy when she perceived others that might have more than she did. It did not bode well at all and he needed to devise a way to neutralize this particular monster and focus on molding a new candidate. But it would not be easy to cultivate exactly what he needed. He had ten years until the Savior would be born if his visions were accurate and that was not much time at all. There was Regina though and loss could mold her into exactly what he needed. He could make evil out of that and use her to get rid of Zelena at the same time. He just needed to plant the right seeds.

"If you want to toughen Regina up...you'll need to get rid of the stable boy," he suggested.

"Yes, I know...he's truly a hindrance," she agreed.

"Zelena is loathed and Regina is loved. Does she know about her sister's romance?" he questioned.

"No," Cora responded.

"Perhaps it is time she finds out," he said.

"Hmm...Zelena. I need you to go to the stables and summon Regina for me," Cora stated. Zelena huffed.

"Why can't you send her man-servant to do that?" the redhead snapped.

"Because I asked you to do it, dear," Cora responded in a cool tone. Her daughter stormed off in a huff and Rumple smirked. If everything went as planned, Zelena would ruin Regina's happiness and then the younger sister would rid him of the older one. Yes...with the right seeds planted in her, Regina would be the perfect one to cast his curse.

~*~

King Arawn stormed into Eli's palace that afternoon, while Eli sat calmly in his Throne with a stoic expression. He knew what was coming, but he refused to show fear to this man. Snow had escaped and that was all that mattered, no matter what happened to him.

"Where is the little retch?" the King demanded to know.

"I'm not sure who you mean. There are no retches here, Your Majesty," Eli said in a patronizing tone.

"You know who I mean," he growled.

"That little demon you call a daughter killed my sister," he hissed.

"My Snow isn't capable of killing anyone," Eli refuted.

"The evidence suggests otherwise, Your Majesty," Frollo interjected.

"The evidence has been staged to frame my daughter. By whom and to what end, I do not know. But my sweet, precious Snow isn't capable of something like this," he refuted.

"Says the loving, doting father who has seen to her escape," Arawn countered.

"I will ask you once more nicely, Eli. Where is she?" he demanded to know.

"Even if I knew...I'd never tell you," Eli responded. Arawn smirked.

"We shall see. Arrest him," Arawn ordered to his guards. Eli was promptly shackled and led to his own dungeon, while Arawn took his Throne.

"Find Snow White...I want her alive," Arawn ordered.

"We will find her, Sire and we will deal with her in the only way that you can with witches and gypsies. We shall burn her at the stake," Frollo promised.

~*~

David woke up that morning and packed up for his last leg of his journey home. He fed Wilby and ate himself, after washing up in the nearby creek.

"Well...if we start out now, we should be home by supper," he said to his dog that nuzzled his hand. He remembered how excited he had been when he was eleven and Wilby was presented to him for his birthday from his mothers. And they had been inseparable since. Wilby's attention was caught though, as a twig snapped and he went running off after the noise.

"Hey Wilby…" he called, but the dog kept going. He sighed.

"Wilby!" he called again, as he hurried after him.

~*~

Snow sobbed and tried to scream, but the man's hand was over her mouth.

"Scream if you want to, Princess...but no one is going to help you. There's too much money on your head," the frightening man hissed.

"I'm the Woodcutter...and I'm very good at collecting bounties and this one is probably going to be my biggest yet. King Arawn is going to set me for life," he said, as she shoved the young girl into his prison carriage.

"Please...I didn't do it. I didn't kill my step-mother!" Snow cried.

"I don't care," he responded coldly.

"If you know who I am...then you know who my mother and step-father are," she pleaded.

"Yes...and word has it that Zeus is backing King Arawn in this and the war you've started. It would seem that Uncle Zeus is no fan of yours, so I'll take my chances," the Woodcutter responded, stunning Snow. She knew Zeus had never liked that her mother and step-father brought her with them to Olympus from time to time. She also knew how much he hated Papa Hades. She had overheard him and her mother talking about it before. If her mother was correct, Zeus did not like it at all that her mother had restarted Papa Hades heart with true love's kiss, thus allowing him to leave the Underworld from time to time when his duties allowed. But she didn't know why he would choose to back a war against her father's Kingdom and want to see her put to death, unless it was the jealousy he had for Papa Hades that she had heard her mother speak of.

"We'll be moving out now and should be back at the palace by dusk, just in time for them to burn you at the stake," he announced and fear settled in her. She had hoped Stardust would get away to find her mother, but this man had been ready for her Unicorn and knocked it out with a sleeping powder. And now, she was certain she would never see another sunrise. She was ready to give up and another tear made its way down her cheek. But barking roused her and she peered through the bars, only to see a dog barking insistently at her captor.

"Get out of here, mutt," he growled, as he doused his fire and prepared to move out. But it was then that Snow saw a young man hurrying after the dog and felt a spark of hope ignite somewhere deep inside her. She didn't know why, for there was no guarantee that this man would help her. But something inside her told her that he would.

"Help!" she called in desperation.

"Get out of here, mutt," he growled, as he doused the fire and prepared to move out, just as a young man came running after said mutt.

"Wilby!" David scolded, as he saw the man and the prison carriage, causing a cold chill to go down his spine.

"Help!" he heard from inside the carriage. David looked at the man in alarm.

"This ain't any of your business, boy," he snapped, trying to intimidate the young man.

"Who do you have in there?" David demanded to know.

"A wanted murderer," he answered, as he showed the wanted flier to him, which read: Snow White. Wanted for Murder, Treason, and Crimes Against the Crown. Snow's heart sank at that, but she didn't give up.

"I didn't do it!" she insisted.

"She says she didn't do it," David parroted to the man, who scoffed.

"She's worth more gold than you can imagine, boy. I don't care if she did it or not," the Woodcutter responded, as he surprised David by hitting him with the butt of his axe and knocking him down. Wilby barked angrily and then licked David's face, as he groaned in pain and sat up. Something inside him compelled him to get up and charge the man. He punched him and wrestled the keys from his hand, as he rushed to unlock the carriage.

"Look out!" she cried, as he ducked the man's axe, as he brought it down. It hit the carriage instead and became stuck. He abandoned the weapon and tacked David to the ground again, pummeling his fists into the young man. But David had managed to unlock the carriage and Snow escaped. She began picking up rocks and pelted the Woodcutter with them. He growled and turned to her, intending to tackle her, but David scrambled to his feet. Snow backed away from him and found another large rock. She swung it, but accidentally hit David in the chin with it. She cried out, as he held his face in pain and dropped it, as the Woodcutter laughed.

"Nice of you to do my job for me, girl," he snarled, as he turned back to David, intending to kick him. She looked around and picked up a large stick, as she began hitting the Woodcutter with it.

"Woman," she corrected, as he caught the stick and tossed it away, preparing to tackle her again.

"You want to get rough, Princess...that can be arranged," he hissed, as he advanced on her and she fell back onto the ground, tripping as she tried to get away. But there was an angry neighing heard, as Stardust charged him and trampled him to death. Snow and David looked at the scene, stunned and then at each other. David got to his feet and extended his hand to her, as their eyes locked. She took his hand and let him help her to her feet. As they did this, they could only watch, as there was a peculiar spark between them. Neither of them really knew what to make of it, as they watched the spark fall to the ground and from it, a baby sapling sprouted. But they didn't have time to discuss this, as they heard voices in the distance.

"Soldiers...we can't stay here," she said.

"Mind if we hitch a ride?" he asked, referring to her Unicorn. She nodded, as she mounted the beast. David picked Wilby up and placed him in her lap, as he mounted the animal behind her. With that, they rode off before the soldiers and mercenaries in King Arawn's employ arrived.

~*~

Frollo entered the Throne Room and bowed deeply to his King, before being motioned to rise.

"Has he told us anything?" Arawn asked.

"I'm afraid not, Sire. Despite the beatings and whippings, the pain has not loosened his tongue. He will not betray a word against Princess Snow White," Frollo reported, clearly irritated by Eli's resistance.

"She is his daughter...only the life of a child can allow him to endure such pain without falter. You will not get any answers from him," Arawn stated.

"Sire...I have received disturbing news from the forest," the Duke interjected, as he rushed in.

"Our soldiers found a man dead in the woods. It has been confirmed that he is known as the Woodcutter," the man reported.

"And of what significance is this?" Frollo demanded to know.

"He is a highly skilled bounty hunter and was likely hunting Snow White. Soldiers in the area reported seeing a Unicorn and have said it appears that the Woodcutter was trampled to death," the Duke reported.

"Then Snow White has killed again, this time with her loyal beast. We must up our efforts to bring her to justice," King Arawn stated.

"And I believe I can help with that, Your Majesty," Deimos interjected, as he made his way into the Throne room.

"Who are you?" Frollo demanded.

"I am Deimos...God of Terror and loyal right hand to Zeus. If you allow it, Your Majesty, I can lead your army in its efforts to assimilate all the Kingdoms in this realm under your rule and unite them all," Deimos claimed.

"And what is it that you have to offer me as a General?" Arawn questioned. Deimos smirked and demonstrated his strength on a poor, unsuspecting guard at the King's side. He caught the man's blade with his bare hand, as he swung it and snapped it effortlessly. He then picked the poor man up and snapped his neck with barely the twitch of a muscle, before tossing him away like trash.

"That is just a small sample of what I can do for you, King Arawn...that is if you swear your allegiance to Zeus," he prompted. Arawn looked intrigued.

"Sire...this could lead us to finding the creature and power you have sought for years," Frollo whispered to him.

"You can help me topple all the Kingdoms in this realm...even Midas?" he questioned. Deimos smirked.

"When I am done...this realm will have one supreme King and it will be you. And it will have one supreme God as well and that will be Zeus," he added.

"Then you will lead my army, Deimos and help me not only topple every Kingdom in this realm, but also bring Snow White to justice for my sister's murder," Arawn agreed. Deimos smirked and the deal was struck...

#Snowing #SnowxCharming #Charming family #AU #HadesxPersephone #Greek Mythology meets fairy tales #Regina #Zelena #Rumbelle #romance #adventure #family #dreaming out loud

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annalisacoppolino · 7 years

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Another ACOTAR fanfiction

Here's the first episode of my ACOTAR fanfiction!

I got this idea and simply started writing, falling in love with the characters.

It is a spin off centered on the lives of Rhysand and Feyre's adult children—Suri and Aksel.

They are twins but completely different under every aspect: Suri is a great warrior who has struggled to prove her worth and become a respected and feared leader, battling against those who claimed that a woman would never be part of the Illyrian army; Aksel is an introvert person, more inclined toward the privacy of libraries than crowded training camps, though his powers are as strong as his sister's.

The siblings get involved in a troublesome situation and start investigating a series of distressing crimes against human people. They are compelled to cooperate, and to accomplish that they must overcome their differences and prejudices about each other. The peace and the future of Prythian rest in their hands as an old enemy schemes to destroy everything they've built.

As the mysterious threat comes laid open, Suri and Aksel can count on the help of friends, family and unexpected allies in other Courts; but they also have to learn the cost of being heirs to the High Lord and High Lady of the Night Court; they discover the importance of love and how far they're willing to go for that feeling; most importantly, they finally start actually seeing each other and themselves for what they are, and not what they're meant to be.

I don't wanna reveal too much, so just enjoy the first episode featuring Tamlin as special guest star! Of course other characters from @sjmaas‘s series will be featured in the next episodes... and a lot of new characters too. These are the ones I’m most thrilled about.

P.S. Forgive my grammar please, English is not my mother tongue.

Suri wiped the sweat clinging to her forehead with the back of her hand, silently cursing the heat of the day. She had been agonizing for the past hours, her skin sizzling under her Illyrian leathers. She would never get used to this weather. Or the constant chirping of birds which seemed to be the natural muzak of the Spring Court. Suri had grown up in the forests of the north, surrounded by the lively stillness that such places always managed to accomplish. This woods were something out of a nightmare for her poor ears. Suri finally entered the room assigned to her, escorted by a silent servant girl. She unceremoniously sprawled on the bed kicking off her boots, and savored the feeling of smooth silk under her palms. The journey had been excruciatingly long and tedious. All those people chanting and clapping hands in an off-kilter rhythm as their wagons trudged wearily through the woods. As if the heat and the humming of birds weren’t enough. Her mother had insisted though, so Suri and her brother had offered to escort the acting company of thirty or so humans during the travel from the Summer Court to the Spring Court. Suri and Aksel were done with their visit in Summer anyway. Not that they could simply dismiss the High Lady of the Night Court. She needed a bath. A long one. For once Suri was glad to be staying at the manor, though she would usually seek a more intimate accommodation. On official visits to the Spring Court her family used to take lodgings at the manor of the High Lord. Since all of Prythian’s High Lords were supposedly at peace with each other it would have been offensive to decline such hospitality. Even when relations between her parents and the High Lord Tamlin were cordial but strictly formal, and they generally avoided being too long in the same room. As soon as the servant was out, Suri turned on her side propping her head on a fist. There was a flower perched on the edge of the nightstand beside her bed. A wild orchid. A sign of welcome. He always left one for her to find at her arrival. Maybe not so long a bath after all. Suri hastened the proceedings to make herself look more desirable, though she knew perfectly well that he would have her even covered in filth from head to toe. Rapidly searching her light packings, Suri fished out a dress she had stuffed in for the occasion. It was a flimsy thing dyed a deep hue of pink that left much of her torso in sight. She would not indulge him so easily with such concessions, but it had been so long since they’d last seen each other. She wanted to surprise him. Suri also had to admit she actually enjoyed when she caught him goggling at her. A brief look at the mirror on the vanity told her she would get just that. Her body was gloriously shrouded in a soft cloud, in perfect contrast with her firm cerulean eyes and the jet-black of her long straight hair contouring her smooth face. Now that she had changed into lighter clothes, Suri could relish the feel of the soft breeze wheezing through the hedges of the garden; a fresh balm for her flushed skin. Suri strolled to the fountain, content to find her favorite spot deserted. She sat on the edge and placidly stroked the glinting surface of the water. Suri had sort of lost track of time, when she heard her name spoken. She slowly turned her head, feeling suddenly a little guilty—and ashamed. As if being caught with her hand in the cookie jar. “Brother,” she mockingly drawled. Being the first to attack sometimes worked with him, deflecting his attention. Rarely though. Aksel was always so alert and focused. That was why she considered a victory every time she got to unnerve the unflinching smartass. He was her twin brother, and yet couldn’t be more different from Suri. They looked differently, thought differently, and sometimes it was like they even spoke different languages. Where Suri was fierce and reckless, Aksel showed composure and practicality. She fed on the adrenaline of a good fight, while he nursed from his books and scrolls. Suri lived to feel alive, and her brother knew only the comfort of shadows. “I see you’ve discarded your gear. You look nice—though not yourself at all.” Definitely not misled. She had to try, even if it was against the odds that he might miss her attire. And guess at the reason behind it. “Just thought to fit in. Manners are important, as you would point out to me. I’m trying to please our host,” Suri retorted with a pantomimed chirp, not taking the bait. Aksel decided to stop the charade and went straight to the point—apparently as much proved from the journey as Suri, and not willing to play along. “I think father wouldn’t be pleased to know who your companies are these days. And—if you allow me—you are ridiculous squeezed in that dress. Is he worth your pride?” “You dare judge me!” spat Suri, abruptly standing up. “You, who ogle that Dawn Court girl like a dement.” A dry laugh came out of her mouth. “Ah! Looks like your awkward little ears are getting pinker, brother. Stroke a cord?” Aksel kept his mouth shut, reining back himself. Only the dangerous spark in his hazel eyes betrayed his annoyance. “You’re my sister—that it pleases me, or not—and I won’t stand back much longer as you play this insidious game. I thought you’d know better than to get infatuated with—” Suri lost every last remnant of her already scarce forbearance, and hissed, “It’s none of your business whom I let into my bed. Never was—never mattered! You just fear father’s scolding if you don’t tell him, don’t you?” Something passed in Aksel’s eyes, though Suri doubted it was hurt. He never bothered with her feelings and her wellbeing; he just wanted to be fine with his conscience. And please their father. “Well,” Aksel said, his voice as unaccented as usual. “You are the deadliest warrior of the Illyrian army. You certainly should be able to fend for yourself. My brotherly concern is not necessary—nor wanted.” Then he just walked away. Suri let her fuming temper cool down with the soothing spring breeze. She would not let him ruin her day. Why did Aksel always had to criticize her? As a girl Suri would have let him plant the seed of doubt as he was so thoughtful and diligent, and mother always smiled at him in a way that made her heart clench. Only father would come to her secret nest—somehow knowing something was wrong—and gently stroke away her tears, cocooning her small body in his enormous black wings, telling her not to let anyone make her feel unworthy. She was heir to the High Lord of the Night Court—the most powerful High Lord in history indeed. She would make mistakes of course—and had to listen to her mother’s words. “But sometimes it is right to follow the heart, even if it gets you in trouble,” had once said her father winking. She was well beyond questioning herself now. Right hand of Commander Cassian. Most skilled soldier of the Illyrian army—both on the ground and in the skies. Suri knew the difference between discipline and blind obedience. Her assessments needed no further inspection. Suri and Aksel would soon depart to go back to their respective duties, and she would be rid of him and his stern demeanor. Suri sensed a shift in the air, something alike the smell of sweet pollen, or the aftertaste of dew. It wasn’t specific. Not exactly something her senses could catch—more a perception. “You can come out now. He’s gone,” said Suri toward the presence lingering at her back. The man closed the distance between their bodies in a few easy steps. Suri felt his arms wrapping around her waist as his breath caressed her neck. They were almost the same height, and she became vividly aware of the hard parts of him perfectly aligned with the soft parts of herself. “You sure he would not winnow back here?” Suri let out a sigh. “He won’t.” Then she turned to face him, placing her hands on his broad chest. His heart beat at a maddening rhythm. She liked having that effect on him. Suri tried for the hundredth time to memorize the peculiar color of his hair, though she knew it’d be as useless as ever. Every time the light struck his head, a subtly chatoyant effect would apply to the reddish strands—glinting as fiercely as fire now, and flickering as golden distant stars then; they were pale and translucent in the morning, but turned a lovely deep burgundy in the evening. Suri could have been staring at the myriad shifts in his locks for hours and never catch their workings. “And if he does, you can kick him out. This is your home Keran, after all.” Keran breathed a laugh on her lips. They were closer now. Too close to miss the harbinger of hungry instincts in his jade eyes. His hands drifted down her sides, greedily grasping the folds of gossamer around her hips, and then palming the firm curve of her butt. The deep growl in Keran’s throat reverberated through Suri as her heavy breasts pressed into his chest, her arms already closing around his shoulders. She couldn’t wait anymore, and kissed him roughly. Suri was vaguely aware of his hands roaming every part of her body as their mouths, their tongues, their teeth, collided in a blind, urgent rush. Keran had to put a valiant effort to forcibly detach himself from her hold, gasping for breath. She tried to lure him back then, fumbling with the hem of his shirt. “Cauldron, can’t you keep your hands to yourself, woman?” Suri laughed at the strain in his voice, but didn’t probe further. Keran grabbed her shoulders keeping her at a safe distance—as if that had ever stopped her. He studied the front of her dress, the vertiginous plunge of her neckline. His nostrils flared. Suri knew he was staring at her exposed navel—for some reason it aroused him. “Turn,” Keran said. “Why?” teased Suri. “Let me have a look at you.” Suri totally failed to fake an innocent smile as she deliberately started to spin, revealing the nakedness of her entire back. Keran stopped dead, a strangled sound halfway to awe pushing past his parted lips. “You look like a goddess.” “Then you should be begging at my feet,” Suri said with languid but steely voice. “Get on your knees—now.” A low, rumbling chuckle escaped his lips. “Believe me, I would. But my father’s coming this way.” Suri turned just in time to see Tamlin, High Lord of the Spring Court, rounding the corner and heading straight for them. He looked just the same as the last time she’d seen him months ago: tall, bulky, and glowering. The High Lord, dressed in his fine practical clothes, halted but kept some distance. His long golden hair was bound in a tight tale at the back of his nape which brought out the stark lines of his face. He didn’t so much as acknowledge Suri before he addressed her with a mild salute. “I see Keran is already doing the honors. I hope you’ll join us at dinner tonight—and your brother of course.” Suri would have liked otherwise, but she said, “Surely, we’ll both be there.” “Well, we got matters to discuss.” Suri didn’t know Tamlin very well, though she heard the veiled urgent note in his voice. Now that she saw him up close she noticed that the gold in his hair had gone dull and hollow, his unyielding green eyes circled with shadows. He looked tired. “I have things to deal with, now. I’ll leave my son in charge of your every need.” Tamlin’s strong jaw flexed as he said, “If you’ll excuse me.” Then he stalked away toward the stables. Suri let out a heavy sigh and muttered, “He knows, doesn’t he?” Keran lifted a shoulder. “You really thought he wouldn’t notice his son seeking excuses to be in the Night Court, or the prized second of the Illyrian Commander showing up at his door for mundane errands?” No, she hadn’t really thought their affair to pass as inconspicuous. Suri was actually surprised her own father hadn’t taken notice of it. Her mother surely had detected the longing glances Suri and Keran exchanged from their opposite seats at official dinners. Sometimes the High Lady would even go so far as to dispatch her somewhere near the Spring Court. Suri didn’t know why her mother accepted what was between her and the son of her former lover, but now that she had seen the High Lord Suri started to think there was more behind her mother’s efforts to send her here this time. “Dinner,” she stated. “We still have a few hours before then—how shall we spend them is up to you.” A wild grin split Keran’s beautiful face. He drew near, offering one arm. “This way my lady,” he said gesturing toward the manor. “I assure you won’t regret a minute.”

Keran kissed the spot at the base of her spine. A soft moan escaped Suri's lips as she stretched, arching her back. He took that hint of encouragement, and traced with his mouth his way up till her nape. Suri felt the hair on her body straighten up, the endless caress of his warm fingers rendering her addicted to his touch—insatiable. The need was like a phoenix. It could burn through her again and again, and still, it would return. Suri kept her eyes shut, face buried into the pillow, savoring the shivers that went through her skin, to her very core. She could conjure up the look of him right now: his short auburn hair slightly curled with sweat flaming with the late afternoon light streaming in from the window; the hard planes of his muscles shifting with his lazy movements; the reddish fuzz that covered his legs and backside. Keran ran his fingers through the raven strands of her damp hair and gripped hard as he brushed her exposed neck with his tongue, flattening her body under himself. Suri reached between their bodies for the hardness pressed against her lower back. He foresaw that move though, and snatched her hand before she could get a hold. Keran clutched both of her wrists and pinned her arms higher, then rested his forehead on the spot between her shoulder blades, inhaling deeply before releasing a shuddering groan. Suri took advantage of his momentary weakness to flip their bodies and get a dominant position. Now she had him scissored between her thighs, crushing his calloused palms against her breasts. Suri was tall and lean, with strong, long limbs but not much curves, and she loved the way Keran’s cupped hands fully enveloped her round parts. Famished growls and a cold prickling announced to her the appearance of Keran’s elongated claws. He trailed them on her peaked breasts, coaxing. Her nipples stood out even more with intense ache, ripping a rich sound off Suri’s throat as she threw her head back, arching against the gentle caress of those deadly instruments. Keran didn’t give her pause and grabbed the swell of her hips pushing Suri on her back again. Then he stooped, sucking away the pain from her full breasts—and went for her throat with his bared teeth. Suri seized his matted hair in her hands to detain him, and breathed, “Not in plain sight—lower.” She could have healed the bruises of course, but wanted to keep them. It gave her a secret thrill—knowing she was marked, his. Keran gurgled his approval and started skimming her abdomen with his pointed canines. Finally, he sank his teeth in the soft skin between thigh and pubis. Suri gasped frantically, reaching for the last shred of control in those blind moments of euphoria. But he entered her then—a fluid, powerful thrust and she got rapt in the spiral of her senses. It was a savage coupling. Suri could hardly think when he took her like that. She lost track of her own limbs, only conscious of where their bodies joined—the swing of their embedded hips molding her will like a hammer on pliable metal. And just like that she was slave to the rhythm. After a while, both of them were left spent and thoroughly filled with bliss. The flesh between Suri’s legs felt satisfyingly sore and swollen. Nothing a hot bath couldn’t fix. Keran’s mouth found her skin again, nipping her jaw—tenderly this time. Suri twisted to face him, and kissed his high cheekbone. Then the spot near his slightly upturned nose where tiny freckles had been drawn out by days spent in the open. “How long will you stay?” Keran asked in her ear. Suri kept nuzzling the shaved skin of his cheek and neck while she played with the cherry tufts of his hair. She heard the hope in his low voice. “I don’t know yet. Depends on your father, I guess.” He exhaled and just murmured, “Mmm.” Suri hadn’t anything urgent to attend to in the Night Court, so she could spare a little time for a well-earned rest—if this could be called rest. At least till uncle Cassian called her back to join him in the north. But voicing the possibility felt like jinxing. Keran clasped her chin in his fingers fixing his stare on her face, and smiling mischievously said, “Then we’ll have to optimize what time we’re given.” Suri intercepted a spark of amusement in those green eyes. The eyes of his father. When she looked at Keran, though, she didn’t see any trace of the austere demeanor and restrained violence of the High Lord of the Spring Court. The man in front of her now was the bravest and kindest person Suri had ever met. Sometimes he could be a cocky bastard, yes—but gentle and caring in a way that never diminished her as a warrior, augmenting her somehow as a woman. Mother, how she loved him. Suri would not admit it to him though, or she would never hear the end of it. The sun had almost set already, leaving them shrouded in the penumbra, the whiteness of the linens their limbs were entangled with stark against the advancing shadows. It was time to get ready for supper. Suri pressed her lips on Keran’s briefly, and groaned with little will to move. She squinted in the gloom, deciding where to start. Her dress laid on the floor—shredded into bits and pieces. She would have to find something different to wear at dinner. Good.

TO BE CONTINUED...

Keep reading EPISODE 2

Notes

* When I had to choose a name for Feyre’s daughter I thought it would be cute to pay tribute to the Suriel, but then it also turned out the name I was considering was the Hebrew variation of Sarah, and it became also an homage to the writer who inspired my story.

Suri, a once obscure exotic name, hit the headlines when chosen by Katie Holmes and Tom Cruise for their daughter in 2007. It means “princess”. Multi-cultural, it also means "the sun" in Sanskrit, "rose" in Persian, and is the name of the Andean Alpaca's wool, as well as a Yiddish form of Sarah, a title used for Jain monks, and a Japanese word for pickpocket.

https://nameberry.com/babyname/Suri

* About hair and beards... High Fae, and usually faeries in other stories too, are often described as perfect, not even the hint of unaesthetic hair on their bodies. I thought that since they’re human-like under many aspects it wouldn’t be odd if they had hair. Of course powerful Fae would use their abilities to stop the growth, but some could choose not to.

Since Keran, as Tamlin, has an animal form and he’s a fierce warrior disregarding aesthetic trivialities, I wanted his beast side to show in physical features of his Fae form too.

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