#smell is the sense most strongly tied to memory too

[ingravinoveritas]

What I like even more is the thought that maybe Michael has had David in his car--if they've gone for a long drive together, or even just a quick run to Tesco--and Michael having the windows rolled up for weeks afterward just to keep David's scent in the car...

i don't go on twitter but i am almost tempted to because i need michael sheen to see this. knowing him he'd buy 20

[tangiblejournal56]

10/18/11

There it is, like a breath of fresh air, that feeling, that sensation, what has been missing from my experience here these last five months.  That smell the city emits in the fall, that airy, earthy smell, like bare trees & cement, the way the air is chilly but smells warm.  The city aroma versus the country scent of Des Moines, which is a city but always still smells of a field anyway.  I am unsure why this particular scent always makes me feel better.  Perhaps the memories tied so strongly to this city, my first three months in Austin, my first dive into independence.  It evokes cigarette breaks at 7/11, driving around for hours aimlessly with Annie, meeting Ryan & hanging out at the party house where he’d lived at the time.  When everything had the shine & nervous excitement of a new adventure.  Paths never before explored.

Sitting outside on my break from work, the wind whipping the trails of my cigarette smoke into dissipation, I sank back into that old feeling like going back to sleep, giving me a renewed (if false) optimism.  

I told the Italian I was a lost boy, raised to crow, that I believed life is a series of badventures separated by periods of stagnation; I told him this was my philosophy on life (a half-truth), “So go ahead & shred it as I know you will, you pirate.”  This was amid a joking conversation I am having with him, the first one since I told him I wasn’t his “someday girl” he’s been waiting for.  I am curious as to his response, as I know he thinks of me as a flighty, silly girl of little substance, because I tried to keep the mood light between us when we’d hang out.  He is far too consistently serious, even Max has a great deal of silliness within him.

Though I was half-joking with the Italian, it made me realize, how often have I felt like Wendy Darling, elected mother to all lost boys, to take care of them & fill their various vast wants, needs, whims.  Shawn, Bert, Posi Thom, Jacob, Nich, Daryl, JLove, Eric, even Max.  My brothers, their friends, my friends.  So rarely does a boy happen across my path who needs nothing from me.  Ryan, Bryan, Rabbit.  I love or have once loved them all, as my children, & in return these children of mine have time & again devoured me.  I receive affection in return, but so rarely loyalty (Max, my brothers, yes, even Shawn in his own way when you consider how few are in his life whom he makes the effort to keep in touch; from Nich I received the hateful words of a child when I rebelled at saving his ass once again; from JLove an unbending selfishness; Bert’s abdication incited by the Ginger; Ryan’s emotional abandonment).  Even rarer, a reciprocation of this giving of the self, this protection (Max alone).  And yet I step into this role willingly, again & again, setting myself up to be devoured, to be met with other Pans who will take what they wish, their shrill crowing, & then they abscond, ascension into the air.

Sometimes I think there might be something to the pirate’s life for me, growing up & all.  Then I recall what it is that attracts me to these lost boys in the first place.  That wonder, that innocence, idealism, sense of adventure, the possibility of magic.  Childlike but with children you receive purity, guileless & genuine, a love short-lived but sweeter than the distilled, self-loathing, ironic love of an adult, full of suspicion & doubt, so distorted it can hardly be recognized as love.

This is what threw me off guard with the Italian.  He didn’t reveal himself to me as a lost boy.  He seems not to need anything, or most certainly not anything from me.  A sense that he forces himself to be an adult, forcing out any childlike impulses or whims, no sense of adventure (excepting durations of sex, which he sees as a playground for fun & reciprocations of pleasure).  This first intrigued me, but now I’ve come to see it as tedious, his unwillingness to crow because of these restrictions he’s placed on himself.  An ill-fitting suit he is stubborn to remove, though its constriction will leave him unhappy & unfulfilled.  It is no wonder he turns to sex for his relief, his recess from life.  That is the only place I’ve seen him crow, & he is very good at it.  Such potential there for life, for exaltation.  But he will not allow himself to take off that suit.  This is disturbing, disappointing.  Soon he will be all hard, unmalleable.  He is a month older than me but we are centuries apart.  Soon that condescending, “I’ve caught onto you before you will ever know me” act will be a trait & not an error.  Then no one will know him, which perhaps is what he wants.  I hope he does happen upon his someday girl, & isn’t too far gone to realize her significance.

After this short-lived drift into the life of a pirate I am eager & relieved to return to my lost boys.  Though they may hurt & devour me at times, I know at least that it is an innocent act of devouring, they are not intending me harm but have grown too used to my acquiescing to their every endless appetites.  In a way I am only asking to be used, but I cannot bear to deny these children whatever it is they want, the way I cannot bear to leave my niece in her crib to cry when I know she will cease crying the moment I hold her.  I don’t want her to have to toughen her hide to the cold indifference of the world, just as I hate the thought of these boys to lose that innocence & idealism in the overwhelming apathy.  If filling whatever role they need keeps them young for a bit longer, then I will revel in my role of Wendy Darling.

I do have Racha, so I am not alone.  For each other we fill both the mother & child roles, as well as keeping each other from being alone.  Keeping each other from breaking, keeping each other young & idealistic.  I am lucky to have her, my Cherry Valance.

[brattata]

Hi!! I hope your having a great day!! I don’t know how many have submitted these yet but if i’m too late that’s totally okay and just ignore this 🫶🫶

My fandom of choice is hxh, my age range is 18-30. (I’m 20) My preferred pronouns are she/her and i do not have a preference for gender. I have a very all over the place personality, some days i’ll be very bubbly, i’ll be cracking jokes left and right and im known as the funniest one in my friend group. I’m also known for my sense of style, my outfits are always looking different everyday depending on how I feel. But other days I literally shut everybody out and don’t get out of my bed all day. Sometimes I can have random bursts of anger directed towards whoever I’m talking to at the moment. For my hobbies I often foster dogs and cats (so far only kittens) who are in need of a safe home after being abused or abandoned.

For my dislikes and dealbreakers, if the person i’m dating has age-play or chews loudly 😭 That’s all i can think of 💀

For my letters can i please have O and D from the nsfw list and C from the fluff list!!

(bonus) My sun is a pisces, moon in leo, rising sign is aries. Venus is also aries. I’m an INFJ, and my love languages are giving gifts, physical touch (cuddling, holding hands, the little things, etc) However if my partner is not into physical touch that is totally fine.

I think that is all! Thank you so much and I hope you have a great rest of your day!! 🫶

Alright, a HxH request! And a little NSFT too, huehue. 😏 Since there are some spicy headcanons below the cut, any readers under 18 should please skip this post.

Now, back to the matchup! Reading your info, the person who jumped out to me the most was…

Knuckle Bine!

Side note: There were so many GIFs to choose from, holy shit! Look at him, carrying Meleoron all cool…

You’d make for a very fun and flashy couple, imo. Clearly Knuckle is a dude with a very strong personal style, and I think he’d appreciate that in a partner too. He shares your love for animals - tends to be a little more of a dog person, but come on, who can resist a kitten? 😽 He’s not going to be put off or scared away by your occasional outbursts, and though his response might often sometimes be an outburst of his own, he gets over it pretty quickly. He’ll whine and scold you about PDA being embarrassing, but I bet he’s a cuddlebug in private.

C is for Comfort

So…the first time Knuckle witnesses you spending a whole day in bed, he doesn’t handle it very well tbh. When he’s feeling down or angry, being active makes him feel better, so it might take some time for him to get that you’re different. Not being sulky or lazy, just processing your feelings in your own way. He loves you though, so he’ll adjust, although he still just doesn’t feel right leaving you totally alone all day. Might insist you keep a puppy or kitten with you for company - you know, because they whine too much when they miss you. 🙄

D is for Dirty Secret (NSFT)

I don’t know why, but I feel like Knuckle has a scent kink. It initially started as something very innocent - smell is the sensation most strongly tied to memory, so it makes perfect sense that he’d want a piece of your clothing to remember you by when he has to be away from you for a long time. Right? Morel and Shoot tease him pretty hard when they catch him wrapping an old shirt of yours around his pillow one night. So, he would literally rather die than have them find out about the pair of your underwear he keeps stashed for when he’s really “lonely.”

O is for Oral (NSFT)

Knuckle slightly prefers receiving to giving. He’s naturally a bit of a hair puller and head pusher, not because he’s trying to be “dominant” (unless you’re into that 👀) but because he just gets too caught up in how good your mouth feels. He will also eat you out very enthusiastically (though you might need to ask), and may make it a personal challenge to see how fast or how many times he can make you cum with just his tongue. Bonus dirty secret: he likes oral fine, but he really prefers good old missionary sex because he’s a romantic who wants to be able to see, and kiss, your face. 😘

Ngl, it’s been a minute since I watched the Chimera Ant Arc, so I hope I did Kuwabara Knuckle justice! 😉 Thanks again for participating in my matchup event.

[givemestories-givemelife]

Blueberries, Lavender & Hot Matcha Tea  (Part 2)

A SasuHina ficlet

PART 1| Part 2

AN: THANK YOU SO MUCH TO THOSE WHO COMMENTED, OR RE-BLOGGED, OR LIKED THE FIRST PART TO THIS FIC. It truly means more than I can say. Helped a lot with motivation and it’s super cool to know that people are reading the things I write. I hope the follow up chapter doesn’t disappoint <3

Summary: Hinata has a run in with a familiar face.

Warnings: Brief mentions of grief and anxiety (because Hinata’s a nervous butterfly) but nothing remotely heavy. Also there’s alcohol consumption.

Word count: 6167

                                   __________________________

Lavender

Hinata knows that she needs to start putting herself out there. She can’t stay holed up comfortably in her room while years of her life pass on by, listening to cigarettes after sex under the safe warmth of her white fluffy blanket that still smells like her late mothers perfume, and sniffing essential oils like they’re some kind of soft-core drug to distract her spiralling thoughts from every embarrassingly mortifying predicament she’s ever found herself in.

She’s been trying really hard not to think about spilling her extra hot matcha latte all over this potentially handsome stranger a few days ago. She thinks - potentially - because she did not have the courage to look at the man's face after maiming him and probably ruining his expensive suit!

Hinata’s sure she must have ruined his entire morning, which must have ruined his whole day, and now he probably hates her. Oh goodness, Hinata strongly dislikes the thought of people out there in this world walking around hating her.  

Wow, these thoughts are entirely useless, she really needs to stop her brain from going down these awful paths.  

Today Hinata has decided to try really hard not to wallow in the comfort of all her numbing guilty pleasures.  

So, when Sakura Haruno, the loud and outgoing girl with pretty pink hair, who always smells like strawberries and vanilla from her photography course asked if she wanted to hangout and work on their portfolio’s after class; Hinata was thankful for the distraction.

They had spent that afternoon drinking green tea at the kitchen table in Sakura’s little homey apartment, showing each other their favourite pieces and sharing feedback.

“You have to include this one, it’s so cute” Sakura gushes, pointing at a print of children finger painting; a mischievous little boy is smearing bold red paint all over the face of a girl whose expression is twisted in pure terror.

“You have a real talent for capturing the essence of people.” She continues in a dreamy tone, “it’s like you’re able to capture the moment they’re most alive, even if it’s just the little moments, y’know?”  

Hinata blushes at the complement, “th-thank you Sakura.”

“It's kind of ironic that people are your main muse considering how afraid of them you are.” She teases.

“I’m not sca-AhyH!”

Of course, that’s the moment a woman with a giant blond ponytail barges through the door brandishing a bouquet of peonies making Hinata squeal. “Sakura I swear to god if you ate the last of the ice-cream again, I’m gonna- Oh! hello there.” The crazy flower lady stops mid-threat noticing a stranger in her apartment.

“Ino this is Hinata from class, Hinata this is my roommate Ino.” Sakura introduces, failing to constrain her laughter.

Ino’s demeanor does a 180 as she gently rests the flowers on her lacquered kitchen counter and approaches Hinata in a trance like state. “Your hair is so long and gorgeous, it totally reminds me of the violets we have at the flower shop -- you have to let me braid it.” She breathes and Hinata’s eyes are as wide as the sky outside.

“Ino, tone it down you’re going to scare her.” Sakura chides, rolling her eyes, not at all surprised by her roommate's antics. “Do you always have to act like such a spazz?”

“I am but a simple girl who is a slave to all things beautiful.” Ino proudly counters running her fingers through blue strands and Hinata mentally notes that she smells like a garden.

Sakura’s phone vibrates on the kitchen table, “it’s Naruto,” she says glancing at the screen. “Wondering when we’ll be coming over.”

“I don’t know, an hour or two? Tell him we’re bringing Hinata!” Ino adds excitedly and starts to braid blue hair without permission. “You should come out tonight with Sakura and I, meet the rest of the gang.”

“Oh.” In high school Hinata was never able to make friends with girls, and spent most of her time in the photography club’s black room developing pictures. Her introverted nature made it difficult to connect with people, but in this moment, the prospect of meeting Sakura’s friends, and the inclusive enthusiasm from these girls is making Hinata a little emotional. “I-I don’t know.”  

“Hinata, you don’t have to come if you don’t want to, but I think it could be good for you,” Sakura encourages.

“Carpe diem bitch,” is Ino’s convincing addition.

Hinata giggles, absent mindedly sniffing her wrist searching for the comforting sweet scent of the fragrance she’s wearing today, “yeah, okay.”

Ino makes a pleased sound and saunters over to a kitchen drawer to snatch a pair of scissors and clips the head off of one the peonies, then ties it into the base of Hinata’s braid. “You really have no idea how cute you are Hinata,” she coos observing her work in admiration and Hinata feels warm all over.

Hinata likes the rapport between Ino and Sakura, there’s something about their friendship that she finds inspiring.  

When they split what’s left of the chocolate ice-cream and start getting ready for a night out, Hinata can’t help pulling out her camera and snapping shots of Ino with her shades of purple and Sakura’s vibes in red. Hinata feels outshined in her usual high waisted mom jean and oversized grey patterned sweater.  

But that’s okay, she still feels like one of the girls.

~~~

Ino had made a strong case for wanting to get her steps in for the day, (since her fitbit said she had only reached 8243 so far) convincing the girls to walk to Naruto’s apartment instead of taking the bus. On their stroll Sakura and Ino began giving Hinata character profiles of everyone she was going to meet and Hinata found them to be quite amusing.

Ino playfully starts with, “Shikamaru’s like, my best bro. I’ve known him forever, smartest guy I know but a total stoner and he doesn’t give a fuck about anything.

“Choji gives the best hugs and he loves giving them, so if he looks like he’s going in for one - just let it happen - you’ll hurt his feelings if you don’t.”

“Naruto and Kiba are basically the same person and are the biggest loudest dorks on the planet,” Sakura chimes in, “but they’re also super friendly and kinda funny if you can get over their lack of brain cells.”

“Then there’s Sasuke,” Ino says, and hearing that name strikes a familiar chord with Hinata, triggering flashes of fond memories. “He’s really hot, but kind of a dick,” Ino hugs herself smiling at a distant memory, “basically, we all know each other from going to the same high school -”

“Ino and I had the hugest rivalry back then because we both wanted him.”  

“What happened?” Hinata really wanted to ask if they were talking about Sasuke Uchiha, but didn’t want to interrupt the momentum of their story.

“We were so stupid causing all sorts of drama in our little social circle nearly tearing it apart, and Sasuke wasn’t having any of it, one day he told us to grow the fuck up and to leave him alone.” That did kind of sound like something Sasuke would say, but that would just be too big of a coincidence, wouldn’t it?

“We both cried.” Sakura snickers sheepishly.

“Eventually we finally realized that friendships should be forever-”

“And boyfriends are whatever.” Both girls enthusiastically finish the rehearsed line making silly faces at each other.

Hinata giggles at that, whishing she had taken a picture, “awe, that’s so cute.”

“And now he’s one of our good friends, but I just want to warn you that he can be cold and he can be mean and if he says something dickish, please don’t take it personally.”

Hinata hums, only half listening to Ino. Was it possible that when Hinata arrives at this apartment she was going to be face to face with the childhood friend she hasn’t seen in over a decade?  

Guess she’ll just have to wait and see.

~~~

When Hinata enters the apartment, her senses are immediately overstimulated; it smells salty like ramen and sour with beer which clashes with how clean and pristine the space actually is. It’s decorated with blacks, whites and a few splashes of colors, but overall has a very minimalist feel.

Hinata barely has time to kick her shoes off before she’s surrounded by strangers, and can’t stop the heat from suffusing her face from the disorienting barrage of unwanted attention.  

“Hey bitches!” Ino yells at the group, “we’re here! We know you missed us!”

“This is the beautiful Hinata,” Sakura adds, and Hinata really wants to hide under a rock somewhere. “Be nice okay, she’s really shy.”

“Hey I’m Naruto.” A blond man appears beaming at her, outstretching his hand. “I have never seen eyes that look like your eyes before!”

“Oh.” Hinata went to shake his hand but was interrupted by another hand grabbing hers and kissing it, which is so uncalled for.

“And I’m Kiba, don’t listen to that guy, he’s a complete moron.” He says with a wolfish grin and Hinata has no idea what’s going on anymore.

When she tries to turn away, she’s met with the kind face of a stout man in a green Zelda t-shirt with his arms wide open for an inviting hug. She decides to accept her fate by awkwardly stepping forward wearing a confused pout, and lets the arms of a stranger wrap around her in what is surprisingly one of the best hugs she has ever received. He smells nice, Hinata thinks. Savoury and warm like a thanksgiving dinner. For a moment she actually feels safe, like a veil has been thrown over the sudden wave of chaos, giving her a quiet moment for her heartbeat to settle, “I’m Choji, it’s really nice to meet you Hinata, try not to worry so much, everyone here is harmless, I promise.” He says, rubbing gentle circles on her back.

When Choji pulls away, he sends her one last reassuring smile before padding off towards the ponytailed man currently dying of laughter, and joining him on a leather couch. Choji grabs a handful of potato chips from a bowl on the marble coffee table and starts earnestly snacking.

Snacks! Snacks sound really nice right now! Tasting tasty things can sometimes be a good distraction when Hinata is overwhelmed. She self-consciously shuffles forward towards the provisions, drawn towards the colorful array of fresh fruits, grabbing a small handful of blueberries and popping one of them in her mouth. She tries to ignore the pair legs in her periphery... she needs a moment before making another introduction.

Hinata jumps feeling a presence directly behind her, she twirls around to see Naruto pulling back appearing extremely guilty.

What was he doing?  Was he pointing at her hair?

“Hehehe, sorry about that,” he says, smiling sheepishly, and scratches the back of his head, “I was just pointing out to my friend here, how beautiful your hair is, what a wonderful shade of blue,” he made a weird face directed at someone over her head, “are you enjoying those, blueberries?”

Okay.

Hinata hears more laughter coming from ponytail boy on the couch.

Weird.

Hinata turns to see who Naruto is looking at and-

Oh.

Sasuke?

Sasuke was here.  

It was her Sasuke!

She instantly looks away, eyes wide, staring down at the hardwood floors.

Well, not her Sasuke. But an older version of the one she knew as a child. The one she met that one summer years ago and spent nearly every day with him before her mother fell ill and her family moved away in the wake of tragedy.

And he was... Glaring at her? No, he was glaring at Naruto? He kind of looked like he recognized her, but why would he be glaring?

“This is fucking stupid,” Sasuke seethes and takes off towards the kitchen, where Kiba and Ino are talking and drinking.

Ouch.

Sakura approaches Hinata with a glass in hand, Hinata stares at the ice clinking as she offers it, “vodka soda, with lime?”

Well, one drink couldn’t hurt, Hinata thinks.

She glances over at a brooding Sasuke leaning on the kitchen island sipping his beer.

She might need it.

~~~

It’s nearly an hour later and Hinata feels the dread sinking deep into the pit of her stomach. She desperately wishes she could conjure up some courage, approach Sasuke, and see how he’s been after all these years, but he still hasn’t left from his spot in the kitchen.  

She’s starting to believe that maybe he doesn’t recognize her, which is a rather sad thought.

Hinata also appears to be at the butt end of some sort of mean inside joke that she doesn’t understand, ponytail bo- Shikamaru and Naruto joined Sasuke in the kitchen and kept making not-so-subtle glances her way -- but whatever -- she’s a big girl, she’s not going to cry about it even if she wants to.

Currently she’s sitting on the puffy leather couch between Choji and Sakura, Sakura is sharing the memes she’s saved onto her phone this month with Ino and Kiba while Hinata stares down at the melting ice in her drink and Choji attempts to calm her with platitudes.

Hinata doesn’t regret coming tonight despite feeling like the biggest fool in existence.

After all, tonight she actually has the opportunity to reconnect with someone she still thinks about, even after all these years.

She has always wondered what had happened to that bratty boy she met that one summer.

The sinking feeling grows deeper and Hinata feels her heart beating in the drums of her ears.

She takes one last tentative sip before downing the rest of her drink and summons every ounce of bravery she didn’t know she had to strengthen her resolve.

She stands from the couch with shaky determination ignoring Choji’s concerned inquiry, then forces one foot in front of the other strait towards the guiding bright lights of the kitchen.

The easy conversation awkwardly dies down when she arrives beside Naruto and Sasuke. She feels both their gazes land on her, and Hinata spots an ugly orange magnet on the stainless-steel fridge Sasuke is leaning on that has the phrase - believe it! - stamped on it and chooses to direct most of her focus on the positive affirmation.

“Uh, hey Hinata, you doing okay?” Naruto asks, slightly taken aback. Hinata nods still focusing on the magnet, face heating up as the beginning of a buzz tingles in the corners of her mind. “Can I get you another drink?”

She looks down at the empty glass she grips and nods again, muttering a quiet thank you, and handing it over. He takes it and moves further down the island to chat with Shikamaru and starts making her another.

“Hi Sasuke,” she forces passed her chapped lips.

“Hello Hinata.” Sasuke says, sounding about as uncomfortable as she feels and she looks up, hopeful, to meet his burning gaze and quickly looks back at that stupid orange magnet.

“So, you do remember me?” She asks, confused as to why he’s been ignoring her since her arrival.

“I remember how two days ago you ran into me quite rudely, burning me with tea.”

Hinata’s brain short-circuits.  

“Wait what!?-”

No! No no no no no. Impossible. No.

“-That- that was you? oh my god, oh no! I am so sorry about that, I really wasn’t looking where I was going, I-I can’t believe this, I swear you just came out of nowhere though, oh my goodness, I can’t believe that was-”  

“Please just stop before you give yourself an aneurysm.” Sasuke lifts his hands in a placating manner and Hinata snaps her mouth shut. “So that’s not how you seem to know me?” He asks, further rankling as the conversation drags on.

“So you don’t remember me.” She says mostly to herself, completely humiliated by this entire exchange, every time she opens her mouth it’s like falling down a flight of stairs -- Hinata seriously wishes she would reach the bottom already.

“Remember you from... where?”  

“I-I mean I guess it’s not that surprising, we were only nine or ten at the time and it-it was only one summer... over a decade ago... You-you never really did call me by my name either.” Hinata says focusing on her twiddling fingers, her voice barely above a whisper, a pensive smile framing her lips at the memory.

There’s a long drawn out silence before Sasuke slowly asks, “...Tomato face?”  

Hinata feels her face burn red at the old moniker, nodding. “Yeah...”

“Hyuuga, Hinata. Shit. Yeah. I do remember.”

The culminating tension finally releases from the moment and Hinata smiles at the black and white tiles breathing just a little bit easier.

He remembers.

“Wait... Did I hear you call her a tomato?” Naruto returns with a mildly amused Shikamaru in tow, handing Hinata her drink, and looks between the pair completely intrigued.

~~~

It didn’t take long for the word to spread that Hinata and Sasuke were childhood friends and everyone congregated into the small-ish kitchen asking curious questions.

It also didn’t take long for everyone to lose interest when Naruto nudged Hinata and started grilling her for embarrassing details of what a prepubescent Sasuke was like, earning him a surly glare. Hinata shyly shrugged saying, “I-I don’t really remember, it was a long time ago.”  

Safe to say -- Naruto didn’t buy it, but surprisingly didn’t press further, and the group dispersed, leaving them to reacquaint.

The conversation between them after that was unfortunately still quite awkward, thankfully, Hinata wasn’t entirely to blame.

They exchanged small talk, Hinata mentions that she actually works at Heaven’s Little Corner and was just coming off her shift early when she ran into him the other day, and Sasuke talks about going to school and getting a Bachelor's degree in Business and how he focused on E-commerce after graduation. Overall, their -- re-connecting -- consisted of the typical pleasantries involved in catching up, and Hinata couldn’t distinguish if she was disappointed or relieved when their conversation came to a lull and she couldn’t think of anymore pointless verbiage to drag it along.

What she really wanted was to reminisce over hot days on the beach, collecting tiny crabs to occupy the sandcastles they built, and how Hinata had found sand in her hair days after the event. She wanted to talk about ice-cream and food fights and sneaking out to gaze at the stars in the night sky way past their bedtime, and how they pondered if aliens exist.

“I think the universe is too big for there not to be something out there somewhere.”  

She remembers Sasuke saying, thoughtfully looking up.

“I-I think you’re an alien.”

She said back, earning her an indignant huff.  

“Whatever tomato face.”

She wanted to talk about how simple everything was when they were kids, how she misses that naivety and how scary the world had revealed itself to be over the years.

Hinata was never good at making friends, even as a child, but she could still look back and she knew that Sasuke was one. He had been the last mark on her childhood that had made it a good one, the last moments she had to truly be a kid before she lost her mother, the truest love she had ever felt, forcing her to grow up.

Instead silence overtakes the kitchen and they both stare at their drinks unsure of what to say.

Sasuke isn’t how she remembers him at all. Yeah, he has the same face, just matured, and the same haughtiness, but the spark for life that had once inspired her seemed to be gone.

Which is an unfair thought to have, she admits, but she can’t stop herself from thinking it.

“Well I think it’s time to go on an adventure,” Naruto awkwardly offers.  

“An adventure?”  Hinata repeats, eyes growing wide.

“Naruto’s idea of an adventure is leaving the house and walking around the block.” Sasuke says rolling his eyes.

“Hey anything can be an adventure if you let it!”

~~~

It smells like damp grass and Hinata nearly jumps out of her skin as Naruto’s roar of triumph echo's off the surrounding buildings, catching the glow in the dark frisbee Kiba threw him. Sakura and Ino had joined them in their late-night excursion and Hinata can’t suppress the giddy giggles from watching them stumble about attempting athleticism when they are clearly four or five drinks deep.

She snaps a few photos and decides that she likes Naruto’s philosophy of approaching even the mundane aspects of life as an adventure.

This whole day certainly has felt like one.

Hinata puts her camera away, feels the chill in the October air, and pulls her scarf tighter. She casts a glance over at the park bench where Shikamaru was smoking a joint to see that he’s now casually chatting about... string theory? -- to Choji, who continues to nod his head like he understands.  

Her trailing gaze then lands on Sasuke and-  

Hinata immediately looks back towards the glowing air bound frisbee.  

He was watching her - he looked suspicious - Hinata doesn’t know of what.

“Hey Sakura,” Hinata tries to call out, voice wavering, “it’s getting late, I think I-I should start heading home.”

That seems to put a halt on the physical activity for a moment, she’s then hugged by every frisbee player.

“It was nice meeting you Hinata.”

“Come back any time.”

“Yes please! We need more girls in our group, Sakura and I are severely outnumbered.”  

“Are you sure you don’t want us to walk you?” Sakura slurs slightly, pulling away from the tight embrace.

“I’ll be fine, thank you Sakura,” Hinata smiles at her newest friend and turns to leave but stops at the bench to wave goodbye at Choji and Shikamaru, earning her a warm smile and a lazy nod. She looks at Sasuke’s arms proudly crossed over his broad chest and says, “it was nice seeing you again Sasuke.” And makes her way down the busy street, casting one last glance behind her just in time to see Sakura jump on Ino piggyback style to catch the frisbee in an impressive display of drunken camaraderie.

She smiles wider to herself. Wow. Today was a good day. An Adventure! Even if seeing Sasuke again was really weird and awkward and not at all how she wished it could have gone, she still met a lot of new people – Sakura's friends are so nice! They made her feel right at home and didn’t make her feel too weird about being shy and -

“Hey, Hinata.”

Hinata startles, hearing the sound of her name accompanied by footsteps catching up and her breath hitches when she turns to see Sasuke slowing down next to her.

“S-Sasuke? What are you-”

“I’m going to walk you home,” he snorts like it’s obvious, stuffing his hands into the pockets of his black jacket, “it’s late.”

“Oh,” Hinata hugs herself, suddenly feeling extremely self-conscious and maybe even a little nauseous as they walk in silence, their steps in sync.  

She can feel the heat of his gaze on her and Hinata makes a point to stare at the crispy autumn leaves on the pavement – yeah – Hinata has no idea what to make of this.

“You know it finally makes sense now, why I couldn’t stop thinking about you.”  

Hinata trips over nothing, “you what?”  

Leaves. Look at the leaves. The beautiful burnt orange leaves. Just. Keep. Looking.

“At the coffee shop, there was something about you, I couldn’t get you out of my mind. Guess I thought you were familiar somehow.” Sasuke shrugs, with an air of nonchalance as they cross the street.

“Oh,” Hinata’s starting to feel warm, she doesn’t know if it’s from their quickening pace, the two drinks she’s had or how Sasuke is close enough for their shoulders to brush.

“It’s kind of crazy that we’d run into each other like this, after all these years.”  

Hinata stops walking and Sasuke mirrors her. There’s something in his tone that catches Hinata off guard, something almost fond? Hinata looks back in the direction of his friends, they’re about five blocks away now.  

Sasuke seemed... different than how he’s been all night -- more open somehow. Maybe he feels weird about their earlier interactions too, but didn’t feel comfortable acting this way in front of his friends? Sasuke’s always been a very private person, even as a child.

“Yeah it is,” Hinata bites her lip and throws him a timid fleeting smile, silently wishing she knew what was going through his mind.

“So, why did you come back to Konoha.”  

“I-uh-” Hinata starts playing with the hem of her sweater and reminds herself it’s good to open up, “-wanted to figure out this life thing for myself – be independent - if my dad had his way, I’d never leave home or do anything that wasn’t part of his plan-” she tapers off, distracted by the approaching sound of music, a dumb smile spreads across her face when she sees an old skinny man on a sparkly bicycle riding past them on the road blaring ‘Dancing Queen’ from an oversized speaker he probably installed himself -- he seemed so – in the moment, like all that existed was him and the music filling the streets that he owned – Hinata silently mourns the missed opportunity of capturing that moment forever in a-

“You were saying,” Sasuke pokes her shoulder harder than necessary, bursting her from her reverie, and starts leading her down concrete stairs away from the bustling main road of the city, towards the waterfront.

“Right,” Hinata continues feeling energized from the random encounter and embarrassed from being caught drifting away in a daydream when they were in the middle of a conversation, “it was – uh - hard to leave my sister, but she encouraged me to go, that I should at least attempt to do the dream chasing thing.” Hinata pats her shoulder bag in reference to her camera. “I saved up some money and here I am, making it up as I go.”

“Hm, you always were snapping pictures everywhere you went.”  

Their steps slow to a stop once they reach the cold metal railing where tourists gather during the day overlooking the docks, but it’s mostly quiet at this time of night.

It smells cold from the breeze and salty from the ocean. The lampposts must need changing because the only light is from the half-moon in the cloudless sky, casting them in dark shades of blue.

Hinata takes a deep breath observing the skyline and the colorful lights reflecting in the undulating ocean waves, then asks the question that’s been bothering her since their seemingly kismet reunion. “What do you remember after all this time?”

“I remember...” He trails off, Hinata doesn’t miss the sly edge in his tone. “That I had told you I’d marry you one day,” his voice is deep, almost gravely when he takes a slow playful step closer and Hinata swears her heart skips several beats noticing their breaths mixing in the cold air between them. “And that... you were technically my first kiss.” He says with a sarcastic snort, stepping back, and gesticulates somewhere behind them. “You can’t tell them about it though. Especially Naruto, the idiot would never let me live it down.”

Hinata blushes at the memory and attempts to mask her frown with an indignant pout, trying not to take the jeer personally.

Sasuke always did like to mess with her.

“You were my only kiss.” Hinata then whispers without thinking and regrets it. She immediately hates the implications -- like she’s some inexperienced-love-sick-twenty-something, who’s never gotten over her childhood crush.

Hinata sighs, briefly drowning in her own self-deprecating thoughts, gripping at the railing, eyes a passing ship, and pretends she can’t feel him studying her, surprised by the admission.

“What do you remember?” He asks back, finally breaking the silence.

She bites her lip, thinking, a rush of memories flashing one by one, settling on their goodbye -- her sobbing because she had to move away to a new city thousands of miles away that had special doctors who could treat her mother, how Sasuke was speechless and could only squeeze her tight in the first and only hug they had ever shared.  

She remembers how he always told her she should stand up for herself, even against him, and she remembers how sometimes when she was around, he’d bite his tongue, holding back petulant sneers.

There’s a small quirk to her lips when she softly says, “Looking back, I-I always thought that we brought out the best in each other.”

There’s another long silence and Hinata once again feels the heavy weight of his gaze examining her, he reaches out and she stiffens when he gently grips the base of her braid touching the bright pink flower there.

“Did Ino do this?” He quietly asks, and there something hidden in his voice that shifts the mood of their conversation, and he’s close again, close enough for their visible breaths to once again mix, his fingers trail down towards the tail end of her braid.

“Uh huh.” Hinata breathes, watching his fingers play with the tip of her strands.

“Why can’t you…” he starts to ask, unsure, but curious, “never mind.” He let’s go of the braid, huffing lightly in frustration and leans on the railing, looking out towards the roaring waves.

Hinata’s stunned by his sudden apprehension. "Why can’t I what?”

“I said never mind.”

“But… I- I want to know.”

“Why can’t you look at me?”  

“Oh.”  

Sasuke sighs, “you don’t have to answer.”

Hinata bites her lip hard, internally wincing. “I-it’s not just you it’s most people really.” She starts, racking her brain for the right words “- It’s -it’s embarrassing… Well everything is embarrassing but, I get anxious about nothing all the time? And looking at people. I don’t know. I get paranoid that they can hear my thoughts or something? Not that I’m thinking about anything weird, well sometimes I am… it’s easier when they’re not looking back at me... Anyways... I guess it’s just become a bad habit now…” she sighs and smiles bitterly at the mess that just flew out of her mouth. “So, to summarize, looking at people kind of sometimes really freaks me out?”

“I see,” Sasuke says, Hinata glances at his mouth, he’s smiling a little, it’s almost warm in an amused sort of way, which completely disarms her.  

Hinata’s tongue feels dry, “uhm, do-do you ever feel anxious?”  

“Never. I get annoyed or frustrated with people very easily though, which can be problematic, not that I care”

“I guess some things never change then.” Hinata teases gently.

Sasuke smirks, he seems ready to retort with a quip but retreats and opts for something entirely different, “are there things that help you with your anxiety?”

There’s something about the question that makes Hinata feel warm all over, she never really gets to talk about these kinds of things without it feeling like it would dampen the mood, but there’s surprisingly no judgement in his tone, he seems genuinely curious, which encourages her to open up some more, "I find different scents to be calming, so I wear whatever my current favorite essential oil is on my wrist every day and whenever I feel too overwhelmed,” Hinata begins to explain in a rush pulling her sleeve up to demonstrate and presents Sasuke her wrist, “I close my eyes, count down from ten and-” Hinata’s breath catches in her throat and her eyes fly open when Sasuke gently pulls her forward by the wrist and she feels the softness of his lips brush over her pulse, then draws in a slow breath to scent the fragrance she chose to wear that day, “...and... sniff.”

Oh goodness, is it getting hot out here? Because Hinata’s face feels like it’s about to burst into flames. Hinata debates pulling her arm back but is currently enraptured by the softest look she’s seen on the Uchiha’s face this evening.  

This feels way too intimate, and Hinata thinks she likes it. Hinata thinks that maybe this is what’s been missing in her life. The feeling of being close to someone in more ways than just proximity. Is it possible she’s been physically and emotionally touch starved for years without realizing it?

That’s a thought that petrifies her. How sleeping on your basest human needs can become a habit, and you find yourself going through the trivial motions of existence, not bothering to search for more, for something that makes your heart sing, twist, and turn into itself the way that muscle pumping blood through her circulatory system at a quickening pace is doing right now.

“Lavender,” Sasuke murmurs against her wrist and his breath feels hot on her skin, Hinata struggles for breath when the sensation brings her back to the present moment and she realizes that she’s been staring directly into his darkened obsidian eyes, boring into hers and she finds herself unable to look away. A subtle look of achievement flashes through them when he softly asks, “you okay there?”

Is she dead? Is she imagining this? This whole situation with the soft touches coinciding with depressing epiphanies triggered by Sasuke smelling her suddenly seems completely absurd, and Hinata’s not sure she’ll be able to form a coherent sentence any time soon.

“I uh, uhm.” There’s definitely something wrong with Hinata’s voice when she attempts to speak.

“I think that...” Sasuke smoothly adjusts their hands to interlock their fingers and his hand feels so warm in hers, “you should go out with me.”

What is happening?

“No.”

Hinata kinda meant to say yes, but sure, no works too?

“What?”

“I mean, I don’t think that’s a good idea.” Hinata winces slightly. Gosh what is she even saying? Is this some sort of weird defense mechanism because she’s afraid of getting hurt?  

Sasuke nods slowly, narrowing his eyes, “why not.”

Don’t you have to risk getting hurt to get anywhere in life that’s worth while?

“I-I don’t know.”

“Hn.” Sasuke breaks eye contact and lets their holding hands fall. Hinata reels at the loss of warmth. He turns away from her and crosses his arms over the railing and looks out towards the dark rhythmic waves of the ocean. Hinata worries her bottom lip between her teeth as she studies the man before her. The moonlight is hitting the sharp angles of his face just perfect, and Hinata’s in awe. He’s all grown up now, and by default that means Hinata is too. Yet, here they are, the oldest they’ve been, and still the youngest they will ever be.  

Nostalgia floods through Hinata’s system, deciding to grab the moment instead of letting it pass. She’s not sure when she pulled the camera out of her bag, but the flash went off before she understood that she was taking a picture.

Sasuke jumps slightly at the flash and is pulled from his brooding thoughts, shooting her a puzzled glare.

“Sorry, that was kind of weird of me. I just – I just thought you-you looked erm... nice in the moonlight?”  

A bewildered look flashes across Sasuke’s face before a small smile begins to form and he laughs! He actually, genuinely laughs while shaking his head in what appears to be disbelief.  

The only thing Hinata can do is smile sheepishly distracted by how handsome he looks when he lets go of his composure, the light in his eyes makes him look younger, like the Sasuke she knew all those years ago.  

Hinata wonders if any of his friends get to see him like this.

He looks down at the pavement, shoulders still shaking, smile still present and pinches the bridge of his nose while taking in a slow breath and on his exhale, he reaches into his pocket, pulls out his phone, unlocks it, hands it over and says, “give me your number.”

Hinata tentatively obliges, pulling open the add new contact page, filling in the blanks then handing it back. Sasuke starts typing something in his phone and asks. “Do you work Sunday?”  

“Uhm, yes?”  

Hinata’s phone buzzes, when retrieving it from her bag she sees a text from an unknown number.

>> I’m going to come by after your shift and I'm taking you out. Don’t even bother using your mouth to respond.

Hinata feels her fingers tingling and tries to open her mouth to speak, closes it, bites her lip to try and stifle her giggles and resists the urge to slap herself in the face for acting like a complete airhead.

She pushes her fears aside one more time tonight...

And takes the damn dive.

<< Okay <3

                __________________________

AN2:  Wow, okay. A month later and I have the second part to this little story. This is the first time that I’m posting something I didn’t just throw together in one sitting. I’ve also never posted anything that was longer than 1200 words and it’s unexpectedly a little nerve-wracking??? OKAY SO, I guess there’s going to be one last chapter and it’s going to be like 90% SasuHina interactions? And spoiler alert they’re finally going to make-out. I have this SasuHina headcannon where they’re both private people who generally keep to themselves -- so people think they’re a boring couple, but when they’re alone together it’s like they’re in their own little world, and that’s the dynamic I’m looking forward to exploring in the final part.  I’m not sure when it’s going to be up since I have a bunch of other stuff I need to work on so it depends on how the inspo hits me, but I do have plenty of fun ideas!

[chaoswillfallrpg]

ADAIRIA LINWOOD is THIRTY-EIGHT YEARS OLD and the LANDLADY of THE FOUNTAIN OF FAIR FORTUNE in HORIZONT ALLEY. She looks remarkably like NATALIE DORMER and considers herself aligned with THE ORDER OF THE PHOENIX. She is currently TAKEN.

→ OVERVIEW:

tw: death

A mysterious beauty with a hard exterior she wears like armour, Adairia has been through more than the average woman of her age. The eldest daughter of single mother CHRISSIE LINWOOD, Adairia was born in the throes of her mother’s relationship with a mysterious man. Adairia was too young to remember, but spent the early years of her life in the front rows of her mother and father’s shows as they played lovers in various productions. Her father was celebrated, her mother was adored and his family remained a secret as her grandmother took her home back to Linwood Lodge. It wasn’t until LAUREL was born and Adairia was sent to school that she began to question the nature of her mother and father’s relationship. Their father lived elsewhere, a fact which her school friends found odd but then again her whole life to them was odd. Adairia grew up in a boarding house in Barnet which serviced the strangest members of society, their bohemian lifestyle of accommodating circus performers, singers, fortune tellers and stage actors was disagreeable to most people. At school she was that strange girl with the beautiful long blonde hair inherited from her mother. People didn’t like her because she turned up to school discos in outfits that glittered only when she twirled or because her mum was too busy at work to organise bake sales or her dad went missing for months at a time. 

It hurt not having very many friends growing up but Adairia was strong like the elder women in her life and never needed the approval of others. The only approval she ever sought after was the one of her parents and growing up Adairia wanted to be just like them. Her father came from some sort of money and paid for the best singing and dancing lessons money could buy, she wore beautiful tutus and could remember the smell fondly of tulle and dance floor polish mixed with his cologne as he came to collect her well into her thirties. Unlike her younger sisters, Adairia had a lot of memories of their father before he disappeared. She was nine when one day he went away to work and never came back. That was it. Adairia was that strange girl, the ballerina with the bright eyes who didn’t have a dad. When the realisation hit he was never coming back something snapped in her and strange things began to occur. When she was sad or angry things broke, vases exploded, books moved, lamps flashed. It didn’t make any sense to her, but her mum and grandma simply looked at her with a knowing look. A year later she was issued a letter to Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry and was presented with more questions rather than answers. As she arrived at school and the sorting hat called out the name of her house Adairia got off her stool and walked to a table of children chatting in hushed whispers. 

Despite the strangeness of the world she found herself in, Adairia had hoped that Hogwarts would maybe allow her to form friendships. A few questions about what her mother and father did from her fellow Slytherins made it quite clear Adairia had walked into another situation where she once again sat on the sidelines. A mudblood was what they called her. Not a rarity at Hogwarts but certainly amongst Slytherin. Adairia was the first Muggle-Born to be sorted into Slytherin for almost fifty years and her early days at Hogwarts she spent badly bullied because of it. After Adairia became a prefect and mastered enough spells to become a fierce opponent she found people picked on her far less, frightened to lose points and began using her experience to help those with similar experiences. FENRIR GREYBACK was a young Slytherin student who had a similarly hard experience. Adairia took under her wing, helping to combat the bullying he received from DOLORES UMBRIDGE and making an enemy of her in the process. Otherwise only two people who were intrigued enough by her to befriend her. GAWAIN ROBARDS his best friend RICHARD ELLINGTON. Both Half-Bloods, they came from mixed backgrounds which meant they didn’t hold the same prejudices as their classmates though they held ones of their own which made her scoff. Richard and Garwain only associated with people of immense beauty and despite her plain background in the eyes of the wizarding world, there was no denying that Adairia was easily the most beautiful witch in their year with a fire unlike any other in Slytherin. 

Her beauty and her talent bothered her friends. To them she was too special to simply be a Muggle-Born. After her father had left their family Adairia had lost interest in him until she was fifteen for two reasons. The first because Richard and Gawain wouldn’t stop pushing her to dig into him. The second was because her mother had became pregnant with her younger sister MAREN. After graduating, Adairia moved in with Garwain and began attempting to track down her father. She’d asked her mother and grandma for help but predictably they had remained tight lipped about him. Undeterred the two pressed on, with Adairia working shifts at The Solstice Theatre to pay her rent as they tried to find a fit to their loose end. Two years went by before Adairia had any answers, finding them in the most unlikely of ways. There was her father’s face on a moving poster. FAREWELL: ELIJAH YAXLEY IN THE WARLOCK AND HIS HAIRY HEART! Adairia had found him. He was an actor but that was just the tip of the iceberg. Elijah Yaxley was from a famous Wizarding family, married with two children younger than herself and Laurel but older than Maren. He’d had a string of popular plays in the sixties opposite many beautiful women, but none more so than a veela named Christine May. A woman who was a dead ringer for her mother. Adairia felt sick to her stomach. Her mother and grandmother had lied to her and her sisters. 

Not wanting anything to do with her father or his family and deciding to spare her sisters the heartbreak of finding out, Adairia sat on the information and continued on with the rest of her life. Before finding out who her father was, she’d dreamed of being on the stage. Instead, she found a new dream and began saving to buy a crumbling pub in Horizont Alley she hoped to return to its former glory. Adairia was busking and waiting tables in Paris when she heard the news about her mother, rushing back to Barnet to hold her hand as she died. Adairia wasn’t over how she had lied to her about their lineage, her past and how she had hidden her illness but she loved her mother deeply and found the world to be a much brighter place after she died. With Chrissie gone and her grandmother old and frail, the mountain of debt and running of Linwood Lodge fell to Adairia and Laurel. The pair tried to make it work for a time but quickly drown under the work and debt that came with the Lodge. Faced with collapse, Adairia made a choice, tracked down the address of her father in nearby Radlett and turned up on the doorstep of his wife ISMENA YAXLEY. She took only a moment to look upon Adairia’s face to realise why she was there. The image of her mother Adairia had not caught her off guard, but the news of Maren certainly did. Ismena offered Adairia a sizable amount of the Yaxley family vault to make an unbreakable vow not mention her lineage to anyone else and not return in her doorway again.

Paying the debt, she sold Linwood Lodge, the place which reminded her of secrets, lies and her father and purchased the pub, naming it after her favourite wizarding story. The Fountain of Fair Fortune was where Adairia and Laurel mixed drinks, danced on tables and set shots on fire while David Bowie blared on the speakers. Adairia’s life had always been one of uncertainty and upheaval but finally in her little corner of London she had found where she belonged and had created a safe and welcoming space. Evidently, The Fair Fortune felt too safe for some. Adairia had noticed MARY MACDONALD whispering with Maren but had assumed it to be regular gossiping until Laurel brought them both to the back office. Of all the things Adairia thought would come out of Laurel’s mouth, their baby sister joining an underground revolution wasn’t one of them. A large part of Adairia was proud but a greater part was fearful for her sister. In agreement with Laurel, the two received an audience with ALASTOR MOODY where they offered the pub as the official hub of The Order. Whilst her sisters are very proactive in the group, Adairia is a much more reserved member, helping to plot and plan things where she can and hide people in the confines of the pub who need her protection. Adairia feels very strongly about fighting for what’s right, but being secretly connected to a prominent purist family in The Sacred Twenty-Eight and her silence tied to an unreliable vow, her involvement is far more complex than she’d like, especially with CORBAN YAXLEY watching her every move. 

ADDITIONAL INFORMATION:

Blood Status → Half-Blood Muggle-Born/¼ Veela

Pronouns → She/Her

Identification → Cis Female

Sexuality  → Up to Roleplayer

Relationship Status → Single

Previous Education →  Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry (Slytherin)

Societies  Sorcerers for Equality

Family → Laurel Linwood (sister), Maren Linwood (sister), Victor Yaxley (half-brother), Eleanor Yaxley (half-sister), Corban Yaxley (uncle/unknown adversary)

Connections  → Garwain Robards (best friend), Richard Ellington (best friend), Poppy Pomfrey (close friend), Natasha DuPont (close friend), Giva Patil (close friend), Mary MacDonald (friend/employee), Arabella Smith (friend), Fenrir Greyback (former friend), Dolores Umbridge (adversary)

Future Information → N/A

ADAIRIA LINWOOD IS A LEVEL 6 WITCH/VEELA.

[serrj215]

Moving on

This was it, almost everything else was packed away. Raven still couldn’t believe she was doing this. Her room was completely empty save for the bed, a few boxes and the nightstand. She kept looking around. This was her sanctuary, the place where she once felt the most comfortable, was now alien to her. Stripped of all her furniture, missing the familiar sights of her bookshelves and belongings the place felt cold and almost sterile, nothing left but blank walls and impressions in the carpet.

 Yet it was time, this wasn't home anymore. Things had changed, and she had to change with them. Raven saw no point in procrastinating further. The last thing to pack was the nightstand.  An empty box sat with her on the bed. 

The first drawer was where the "nighttime supplies" were kept. For some reason Beast Boy always felt more comfortable using terms like that. There was nothing too unusual.  There were few scented T-lights candles for when they wanted to set a mood. She remembered nights when the room was alive with their flicker. There was some oil that warmed when rubbed into the skin and  half a box of condoms, a left over from before she went on the pill. 

The memories of their first time rushed in, the awkward fumbling, all passion and no skill, and Beast Boy asking her "Are you ok?" and "how do you feel?" at least a dozen times during the whole thing.  But despite them both being in uncharted waters, and their blood running hot, he was so gentle with her. Like she was made of glass. Afterward he held her like he was afraid that she would disappear into the air like smoke. 

There were also the fur-lined handcuffs.  They were a stupid almost gag gift. They were cheap plastic, and between both their abilities they really had no ability to restrain them. Still it was enjoyable to pretend to take or surrender control.  Raven quickly threw them in the box before the memory of the first time they tried that rose to the surface.  The box would never get filled if she started to remember all that green skin exposed and open to her every whim. 

The second drawer was more personal, sentimental. There was the photo album Beast boy gave to her for their first Anniversary. It was dark blue plastic that flipped open showing a few pictures a page. He wanted photographic proof that She actually enjoyed spending time with him. He understood that Raven didn’t enjoy digital photos as much. Raven disliked the idea that if she wanted to relive a memory she would need something with a battery. It was the same thing with her books, as much as an e-reader made sense she liked feeling the weight of knowledge in her hands, and the texture of paper, and not having to hunt for a charging cord. 

She fought down nostalgia and put the photo album in the box.  Even without opening it the images surfaced in her mind.  The pictures from the beach trip where they took a picture right at sunset. The time they went camping in Colorado where it rained the whole time.  All the times they "borrowed" the T-Car to go stargazing at the national forest. There must have been a dozen pics of just her driving with the stars being seen through the window.  It seemed like every time they went out on there own Beast Boy had his phone in his hand to take a picture.

Then there was the collection. In a small box there was the most random scraps of paper one could encounter. Envelopes, receipts, napkins each one covered with barely legible handwriting.  For month's before Raven and Beast Boy had gotten together he had gotten into an odd habit of writing her notes.  All the feelings, and all the things he couldn’t say to her face, every desire explicit and innocent was there.  Of course Beast boy would try to get rid of the notes as quickly as possible so he wouldn’t be found out.  Also of course it was up to Raven to retrieve them. They were just enough, just enough to let her get used to being loved.

 The drawers were empty, it was over.  This wasn't Raven's room anymore. The thought sent a wave of cold though her body.

 "Hey Mama! I got eggrolls!" Beast Boy said proudly holding up the bag of Chinese takeout as he entered the room. "and I called the moving company the truck will be here at 10." 

Raven just looked at him standing there next to the stacks of boxes. Her face was sullen, and she looked like she was on the verge of tears.

Beast Boy could almost smell something was wrong.  "Rae, you okay?"

She said nothing and just walked over and fiercely hugged him nearly knocking him over.

 "Wow, if I knew you liked Chinese that much I would have ordered it more often" He said trying to keep himself and the bag of food in balance.  "What's wrong love?" His free arm wrapped around her.

 "This is just" she squeezed a little tighter

 "Big?"

 "Yes."

 "You say the word, I will open these boxes and start putting your stuff bac-"

 "No!"  Raven said sternly. She raised her head from his shoulder.  "Cyborg is going to need the space for the new recruits." 

 "Cyborg would make them sleep in bunk beds on the roof, if you asked to keep this room."

 A small smile broke across Raven's face.  "We are moving in together." She stated for both Beast Boy and herself.  "It's time to move on."

 "You know we're just moving across town, not Bucharest right?"

 "I am aware."

He kissed her forehead.  "We will be back here a lot,  Cyborg is going to need help keeping the kids in line." 

"He-" That’s when Raven's stomach made a very audible growl.  She had spent the whole day packing neglecting lunch and her regular breakfast of hot tea and toast only took her so far. 

"Let sit down and eat, before your honey garlic chicken gets cold? And you stomach decides to attack us"

 Raven nodded and they walked to the kitchen holding hands.  

The only constant in the universe is change.  Raven knew that this was not going to be the last time they moved, not the last time she would have to say goodbye to a home, friends, family.  But she knew just as strongly that this green, pointed ear, messy haired boy would be there. To love her, care for her, and to make up crazy stuff when he opens fortune cookies. 

"The microfilm is hidden in the fried rice!" He said holding the slip of paper. 

 All to make her smile. Home is where the heart is they say.  Her home was with him.

Well this one has been sitting in my draft folder for 3 1/2 years.  Summer of 2016. Been tinkering with my old stuff lately and trying to get it out there.  Have half a mind to just put everything I got out there and see if you all can do anything with the scraps.  

I tied this story in with another called Notes https://serrj215.tumblr.com/post/156974770179/notes and its sequel Caught https://serrj215.tumblr.com/post/158499596174/caught  If that collection that Raven had rings any bells.  

[kimvvantae]

Umbra; 13

➜  being ruled by an ancient commandment, your sole purpose is to serve. you were born to protect the king with your life, tied by an everlasting oath; you are nothing but a shadow, a silent and insignificant being. he appears to you like the sun, the warmest and brightest star in the sky, and gives you a chance to live. it is then that your entire universe starts to orbit around this sun, and you decide that you are truly willing to die for him.

pairing: King!Taehyung x (f) hybrid!reader

genre: royalty au, fantasy, angst  

warnings: descriptions of violence, blood and death that might be triggering.

word count: 9k

➜  Chapters: check up masterlist in bio!

The little boy hugs his own legs.

Another lightning tears the air outside the cabin, making him jump. He tightens the blanket around his chubby body. He hates storms, he always did.

The small cabin he calls home is dark and cold, damp due to the strong rain that falls nonstop. He also hates darkness, but mommy always told him to be strong. Mommy says he's brave, and because of that, he tries not to be scared of being alone. He tries not to be scared of the forest around him, he tries not to be scared of the wild animals that might be hiding and watching him, he tries not to be scared of another thunder that explodes so strongly he feels it in his bones.

“You're a strong wolf,” his mommy would always say.

Mommy isn't home yet.

She said she would come back before dawn, but the sun has disappeared long ago and she still didn't return.

What could have happened? His mommy never stayed away for so long. Sometimes he's left alone, but never until late at night. Mom always comes back to cook dinner and put him to sleep. Why is she taking so long today? Again, the little boy tries to control his nerves. He holds the tiny fang around his neck - a gift his mom gave him, the symbol of his family. A family of wolves. He has to be brave. He has to be strong-

He hears the sound of horseshoes over the storm.

A smile immediately appears on his lips, as well as a sigh of relief. Finally, mommy is back! He gets up from the bed, still holding the blanket tight, and walks over to the door. He hears steps on the mud. He's ready to jump on mommy's arms and hug her-

The door opens.

All the excitement is gone in one second. Instead, a cold shiver of fear takes place.

A tall man stands in front of him. Too tall, too imposing; his sole presence fills the place. He looks around the small cabin with obvious disgust on his eyes, as if he has just entered a sewer. The little boy knows this man. He comes from time to time, talks to mommy and leaves. He never addressed the little boy, but this man always sends significative stares.

As if… inspecting him.

The little boy doesn't know anything about him, but he knows that mommy doesn't like him. She's always uneasy and nervous whenever he comes over. The kid tightens his small fists.

“Where is mommy?” He asks angrily.

The man finally looks down at him, as if noticing the kid for the first time. The little boy shivers again at his piercing gaze. There is no hint of affection or any bright feeling. His eyes are as cold as ice, authoritarian, strong.

The little boy does not understand it yet, but that gaze means contempt.

“Your mother won't come back,” he simply says, his voice deep and resounding.

The little boy freezes in place.

What…?

“You're lying. Mommy said she would come back soon…” he stutters weakly.

“Your mother is dead, kid.” Is all the man says nonchalantly. As if he's explaining something simple. As if he's not making the world crumble under the boy's feet with that sentence.

Instead of immediate sadness, the boy feels anger. It was that man. Mommy never liked him. He must've done something… but he can't believe she's dead. No. She can't be.

“What did you do to mommy?! What did you do?!” the little boy screams and launches himself over the man, fists tight, hitting everything he can find. But he makes little to no damage. The man looks down at him, again, with pure disgust, and simply pushes him back. Although he did not use much strength, the boy falls back easily.

“You need to be educated,” his deep and cold voice crosses the air. He's still calm, impassive. As if the boy is not a big deal, as if he's just a dog that messed up his carpet. “Take him.”

Two more man enter the cabin and drag the boy by his arms. Even though the kid struggles and screams and even tries to bite them, he's still too small and weak. The men just keep carrying him and throw him into an old carriage.

The door is locked.

The boy doesn't know where they are taking him. Panic, despair, anger - everything explodes inside of him all at once. He screams until his throat hurts, he tries to open the door until his fingertips are bleeding, he cries until there are no tears left to cry.

And then, he stops.

The sobbing ceases.

He breathes.

His mother's voice whispers on his ears. You're a strong wolf.

When the doors opens and he is forced to leave, he does it with no complaints. No crying. Not even a word.

His innocence died right there.

He still carries the little fang around his neck.

Blank.

Everything was blank. My mind, my emotions. Blankness is comforting somehow. I didn't see, I didn't hear, I didn't feel. I don't know how long it lasted.

What yanked me out of the blankness was pain.

As my senses slowly came back to me, I soon found out that my entire body was aching; every member felt heavy in a way it has never been. It felt as if someone had crushed all of my bones and cooked my muscles.

Was I punished?, I thought.

Punishments didn't hurt as much as it hurts now, though. No human could put me under so much pain.

No human…

Oh.

Hoseok's face suddenly popped on my mind.

Nothing is above honor. Not even you.

The memories flowed back to me so quickly it gave me a headache. Everything that happened in a short period of time… obsidian soldiers, the rebellion- my mother. Athena's heiress was murdered and a combat has been claimed for the first time in over a decade. Hoseok.

What… what happened after that?

Perhaps I am dead. Perhaps I'm in such pain because I'm being punished in Helheim.

But… does Helheim has such soft mattresses?

I soon noticed that I was laid in the softest thing I've ever been. My mattress felt like a rock compared to this. It even made the pain bearable somehow. Is this what it feels like to lay on a cloud?

Definitely, not my tiny bedroom.

I opened my eyes slowly.

A beautifully decorated ceiling.

A chandelier made of crystals, gold and diamonds.

It took some time to my vision to adjust clearly, and the light still bothered my sensible eyes. I still stared at that ceiling for many moments, being sure I knew this place, but still not remembering well where it was…

One of the palace's sumptuous rooms, I was sure.

No… more than that. This chandelier was too huge, and the ceiling was too high. This was the most luxurious room from the entire palace…

The King's room.

My eyes widened. My heartbeat increased.

Slowly, I looked around, now fully conscious. This was definitely his room. I never realised how the bed was big - five people could sleep comfortably here, I guessed. Why would someone even need a bed this big? Many fluffy cushions surrounded me, and my head was rested in the softest of the pillows. A white blanket covered me. Sunlight filled the entire room, making all the golden decoration gleam. It still bothered my eyes. The place was silent; I could only hear distant voices coming from far corners of the palace, the sound of the wind, and-

And someone's soft breathing right beside me.

I looked to the left.

My heart nearly stopped.

There he was. Sitting on an armchair in a seemingly uncomfortable position; he was sleeping heavily, his hair a mess. He placed the armchair right beside the bed. I was sure his neck would ache when he'd wake up. But still…

He looked beautiful.

Sunlight hit this profile. Every line of his face was fine and elegant. I noticed bags of tiredness under his eyes, the messy clothes. I have never seen him look so messy in my life - at least not when he was being Vante. King Taehyung is always well composed.

For some strange reason, I felt tears on my eyes.

It was hard to believe he was actually right there; was it an hallucination? I was sure not long passed since the attack, however being away from him hurt me. I remembered that I wondered if I would ever see him again during the combat, when I thought I was about to die. I thought of him. I remembered his thunderous voice…

However touches her will die!

It just seemed too good to be true…

However, more memories came back to me.

My child, he seduced you.

He's just using you. What will you be? His secret prostitute?

A part of me did not like this idea, but I had to be rational. And this sane part took the best of me.

I tried to sit up, but my members still felt too heavy and every move seemed to ache even more. I lifted myself on my elbows very slowly, my face a painful scowl. Have I ever been this injured before? I didn't remember one time that I couldn't get up, not even when they punished me for days and nights. If I couldn't even walk, how was I going to leave? Sitting up in that moment felt like a difficult exercise. Unconsciously, I let a painful grunt pass my lips.

I forgot how Taehyung wakes up easily.

He immediately opened his eyes and looked around, confused. I honestly panicked. I knew that, in the moment our eyes met, I would lose all my will to leave.

That's exactly what happened.

When Taehyung's eyes finally focused on me, he looked surprised and gasped. In one second he was already up on his feet and hurried towards me. “Hey, hey! Don't try to get up yet! You're too injured!”

His hand rested on my back to give me some support; with this simple contact, I felt my body heating up.

I missed his touch.

I missed his smell.

I missed the sight of those dark strands of hair falling over his eyes.

I missed everything about him.

I watched in silence as Taehyung did his best to put me on a comfortable position, adjusting pillows and cushions. It even took me some moments to realize I had bandages all over my arms and my stomach.

“Does it hurt too much?” He asked. God, I missed his deep, velvety voice - which was shadowed by concern at the moment. My throat was too dry, so I just nodded instead of speaking. Taehyung quickly took a glass bottle of a strange blue liquid that I recognized as a potion and poured a little of it on a glass. “Here. It will ease the pain.”

I didn't have enough strength to even take the glass; Taehyung placed it on my lips gently instead, his other hand rested on the back of my neck. Surprisingly, the potion had a sweet taste. I couldn't tell exactly what it tasted like, but it almost felt like a juice and not a potion.

I closed my eyes and rested my head on the pillow again. I could hear Taehyung moving around me. He placed his hand on my forehead for some moments, what made me look at him again.

“You had fever all those nights,” he explained quietly. Everything about his expression and body language told me how tense and concerned he was. “A high fever. But it seems that your temperature is normal now.”

“How many… days?” I managed to ask in a raspy and weak voice. I noticed Taehyung shivering for a moment.

“You've been unconscious for five days.”

Five days since the combat? It never happened to me before. How many things might have happened during these five days?

“Hey.” Taehyung caught my attention again. “Don't think too much right now, okay? Just focus on healing.”

“I'm… not,” again, my voice sounded annoyingly weak. He chuckled lightly.

“Yes, you are. I can see your brain fuming. Right now you should just rest. Nothing else is important.”

I wanted to argue, but I wasn't strong enough to come up with an argument. Instead, I just laid there and watched as Taehyung proceeded to examine me. I have never seen him look so concerned, but Taehyung was still trying to keep a composed demeanor. He couldn't pretend in front of me anymore, though. His aura was a troubling mess.

At the same time, he was deeply relieved.

The potion made me sleep again at some point, and when I woke up again, my body didn't ache as much - of course, the pain didn't go away, but it was more bearable now.

Taehyung was still sitting by my side. He had a serious expression, reading what I supposed to be a letter.

“Another week has passed?” I questioned, surprising Taehyung. The way his face lit up when he looked at me made my heart flutter. He smiled - I missed that smile so much - and placed the letter on the nightstand. “No, just two hours.”

“What is this?” I asked, but Taehyung shook his head slightly. He was already standing by my side.

“It doesn't matter right now. How do you feel?”

“Bad, but better than before.” He was touching my forehead again. And my cheek. And my neck. I knew he was just checking my temperature, but it still made me flustered.

“Your temperature is okay.” He murmured, sounding relieved. Taehyung took many pillows and cushions, placing them behind me, until I could rest my back and still be in a sitting position, and then proceeded to examine me all over again.

Now that I was more conscious, the fact that he had to touch me so much made me even more flustered, as stupid as it sounds.

Once again, I asked myself if Taehyung was a telepath, because I desperately needed to pee (what was embarrassing to ask him) but before I could say anything, he called some maids that helped me to walk to the bathroom. I asked myself how did they deal with my body fluids while I was unconscious, what (once again) made me embarrassed. When they brought me back to bed, there was already a plate full of soup waiting for me on a tray. The idea of having something in my stomach was very unpleasant.

“Don't make this face. You need to eat,” the telepath King said.

“I'm not hungry.”

“Sorry, I'm not hearing. Open your mouth.” And then he was holding a spoonful of soup in front of my face.

“I-I'm not a kid, I can eat by myself…”

“Open your mouth.”

He had that annoying stubborn face. That adorable face. Feeling completely flustered, I opened my mouth. The soup wasn't bad - it was the best soup I have ever tasted, to be honest, what made me think the “soups” I used to eat were nothing but boiled water with some vegetables on it. This soup even had chicken, though. I wasn't used to eat meat at all.

“I still can eat by myself.” I murmured again.

“I'm just making sure you'll eat all this,” he stubbornly said and proceeded to blow a spoonful of soup. I couldn't help but stare at his lips.

He kissed me.

This memory made me reach the peak of embarrassment. I just ate the rest of soup in silence.

The soup actually made me feel better, my thoughts getting clearer. Taehyung put the tray aside and started to examine me again, and at this point I was sure he was just being paranoid.

“I'm fine,” I reassured him.

“You're not,” he simply said.

“Well, I feel fine.” I gazed at him again. “You don't look fine.”

“I'm not important at the moment.”

“You are.” I whispered, but he still didn't stop. “Taehyung,” I called, touching his arm.

This made him stop and look at me. His nervousness and worry was obvious, so intense he was shivering slightly. Taehyung gulped and blinked, some sort of astonishment covering his features, as if he just realized he was actually talking to me.

“I'm sorry,” he whispered weakly. That fragile side of him he didn't show in front of anyone but me. Slowly, he sat down on the armchair again. “It's just that… I didn't know if you would survive. I was… I don't know…”

Kim Taehyung out of words is something rare. He looked tired, drained. I tried to open a comforting smile. “Do you really think I would die so easily? I'm tough, remember?”

Taehyung opened the smallest of the smiles. “You're doing it.”

“What?”

“Trying to take care of me. It's the opposite now, okay? I'm taking care of you.”

It was a strange concept. I was always taking care of him, not the opposite… that's why his words made my heart beat fast. I wasn't used to have anyone taking care of me, both because no one cared and because I was too proud sometimes to ask help for Yoongi or Chuu.

I didn't care that Taehyung was taking care of me, though.

What made me remember of other facts…

“Why am I in your room?” I asked, shifting uncomfortably.

Taehyung frowned. “What's the problem?”

“There are many rooms in this castle. And…” I gulped. “Wouldn't it be strange of a married King to keep a woman in his room?”

Taehyung frowned even more. “What? I'm not married.”

Oh.

“That's what Gilliard told me. He said that the wedding couldn't be delayed…”

“Gilliard,” Taehyung huffed and pronounced the Counselor's name as if it had a horrible taste on his tongue. “He lied, obviously. How could I have a wedding after all that happened? The Capital was a mess, it still is, to be honest. And you disappeared. I had to search for you.”

Just as I suspected - Taehyung would never allow a combat under such circumstances. And how he mentioned my disappearing as if it was just as important as the attack…

“Where were you, Y/N?” He asked quietly, leaning in my direction slightly. His dark eyes were shadowed with concern and fear. “We searched for you through the whole kingdom, I even sent people to check on Niflheim, but we still had no sign of you. When I stopped feeling you through the Royal Ring I-”

Taehyung interrupted himself in the middle of his sentence and gulped. I knew what he was going to say.

I thought you had died.

Because the only way to break the connection between the Royal Ring and the medallion is if one of the two is dead.

However, what surprised me was Taehyung's expression of pure fear.

I have seen him showing many emotions, but nothing came close to this. He avoided my gaze, ruffled his hair. The King suddenly looked small and helpless in front of me, fragile like a little bird with a broken wing. Kim Taehyung, the man that never kept his head down to anyone, the man that was a symbol of power and confidence.

He seemed about to cry.

All that because he thought I had died.

It made my head spin, my heart beat fast and feel tight at the same time, my body feel hot. I wanted to hug him just to remind him that I was right there, I was safe. I wanted to promise him I would never disappear like that again. I almost told him everything - my whereabouts, the things I discovered-

But Ehemerald's voice whispered in my mind again.

He's just using you.

That's what he wanted, don't you see? He made you fall for him to keep you loyal.

I could not ignore her words.

As much as I hated it, as much as I wanted to deny it, Taehyung was always suspicious. After all that happened, I couldn't let my guard down so easily. It wasn't just about us; it was about all the injustice, it was about my ancestors, it was about a war just waiting to explode.

She was right about something. Taehyung had my heart. He had me around his finger, he had since the very beginning. But it was time to be rational and ignore my feelings right now.

I couldn't give my heart to a man that might be my worst enemy. He had to prove me that he deserved it; he had to prove that I didn't defend him against my own people in vain. So, instead of doing what I wanted, I did what needed to be done.

I knew the truth of the world now. Taehyung didn't know I discovered the whole truth, though. I used it in my advantage.

“Taehyung,” again, after hearing me calling his name, he seemed deeply impacted. But he noticed how my voice changed, and it made him straighten his posture. “Do you remember the promise you made? That you would tell me everything?”

He nodded. “Of course I do.”

My eyes locked with his again. “It's time for you to keep the promise.”

Taehyung looked surprised and confused.

The truth. That was all I needed to hear. If Taehyung told me the same thing Ehmerald did, the exact same facts, then I would know he wasn't a liar, that he wasn't bad. If he said anything but the truth…

Please don't.

“Why do you want me to do it now? You're not in good conditions-”

“Why not now? We finally met, we're finally alone. You promised me. I can't wait anymore.”

Please, tell me the truth. Don't lie to me.

Taehyung gulped. He ruffled his hair again, seemed hesitant for some moments.

But then he nodded, placed his elbows over his legs, and took a deep breath.

Prove it to me.

“You're right. As always,” he chuckled humorlessly. “I should have told you everything earlier. I'm sorry that I took so long, it was a mistake of mine.”

Please.

“I don't even know where to begin… Y/N, this involves not only you, not only me, but the whole world. Everything we learn since we're kids. It's something that dynasties have been trying to hide from the population for millennia.”

I almost couldn't breathe.

“All you know about the past is a lie.”

And then, he proceeded to tell me.

He said about the Council, about the four races. He explained to me how the world lived in peace, how elves weren't gods as we were indoctrinated to believe, that dragons weren't evil. He explained about Merlin and Opal, about dragon hybrids, about the fall of the Council and the genocide. He told me about the First War of the Clans, the division of the Five Great Kingdoms, the way rulers of the past distorted the entire history and made the world believe in lies.

Taehyung told me exactly the same story as Ehmerald.

I just listened, imobile, speechless.

“Even when the Second War of the Clans happened and the Kim House, my family, put an end to the Brzenski Dynasty, they chose to keep the truth hidden,” he kept explaining, voice quiet but serious. “Every dynasty decided to do the same. It is such a secret that only royals from the highest branches of the family know about it. The others are ignorant.”

I took a deep breath. My hands were shaking slightly.

“How long… how long do you know about it?” I asked in a weak voice, what Taehyung probably thought was shock.

“I was only supposed to find out after my coronation ceremony,” he said. “It happens when every King and Queen from the Five Kingdoms is crowned. Another secret ceremony happens, only a few members of the council and high royals present, where the facts are told. Then, they must swear to protect this secret with their lives. There is a book… it is called the Book of Merlin, where they have to sign their names with their own blood to settle the oath. This book has hundreds of names signed, King after King and Queen after Queen, from all the Kingdoms.” Taehyung chuckled humorlessly. He sounded bitter. “The only thing the Five Kingdoms keep in common is protecting a terrible lie.”

I had to take some moments before speaking again. “You said you were supposed to find out about it after the crowning. Did you already know…?”

He nodded. “Yes. As I told you, I made a deal with my father and he let me travel the world. That's how I met Petrus, and after I became his apprentice, he told me the truth. This is also why he decided to leave the Royal Mages and break any bond he had with governments. He was horrified. This is why he joined a rebellion as well.”

Again, I felt as if the air was knocked out of my lungs. The rebellion.

“What rebellion?” I was once more taking advantage of his ignorance. What Taehyung's opinion about the rebellion was?

Taehyung straightened his posture. “This rebellion… I think that calling them resistance is more suitable. They started as a group of hybrids that knew about the facts of the past, passing the story from generation to generation. It was - still is - very dangerous because the royal houses hunt the people that spread it. They wanted the whole world to know the truth at first, but as the group got stronger, they started to wish for more. Their goals are to reestablish the Ancient Council and to free all the hybrids. And, to do so… they expect to reunite the Four Races again, or at least what remains of them.”

Taehyung looked at me deeply.

“And that's when you become important.”

I shivered.

Taehyung knew everything.

“As I already said, the Ancient Council had the dragons as members. The rebellion wants to reestablish it the way it used to be, and the only race that remained are dragon hybrids. The dragon chosen used to be the strongest of all… you are this person, Y/N.”

I shivered again.

“Me?” I whispered. Taehyung nodded. He was trying to be delicate at the moment, choosing his words carefully. “H-How long do you know about me?”

Taehyung hesitated before speaking again.

“Around three years ago, the rebellion received the information that a female dragon born during a Red Moon existed. I didn't know it was an important information back then, but then I remembered… I remembered of the ghost princess Seokjin told me about. I remembered of seeing a little girl following my father when I was a kid. I connected the dots and things started to make sense.

“I came back to the palace for some time in order to gather more information. I found out that, yes, the royalty knew about the rebellion very well, and they were worried because they were spreading the story throughout Ëlv'en and the continent. The royals also knew about their intentions of doing a coup d'etat and reuniting the Council again. In fact, they knew about it for some decades… they were always very aware of the dragon hybrids at Niflheim, searching for someone that could be possibly stronger and become the rebellion's leader.”

Taehyung avoided my gaze.

He looked ashamed.

“They knew that a female dragon born during a Red Moon existed. But, instead if getting rid of her… of you… my father had other idea. When you got older enough, Taejun sacrificed his old guardian and chose you as the next one.”

I felt as if someone had just buried a dagger in my heart.

“Why?” My voice was barely a whisper.

Once again, Taehyung hesitated before speaking. “Because he wanted to keep an eye on you. He wanted to make sure you wouldn't represent any danger. He also wanted to make other Kingdoms fear him, because he had the strongest of the dragons with him.”

My fingers tightened around the blanket so much that the knots of my fingers got white. I gathered all of my will not to start crying right there.

They have been using me in deeper ways than I have ever imagined…

It meant that Taejun really never cared about me. Not that it should be a surprise after all, but still - I had lived my whole life with him and for him, putting myself in danger without hesitance, considering him my sun. However, Taejun… I was nothing but his toy. His trophy.

“I also discovered that many counselors and other royals were against his decision. They thought you were too dangerous.” More things made sense now… flashes of the past. Gilliard's voice echoed in my mind: “I always kept your reins very tight, Y/N, but I knew that it wouldn't be enough. I tried to warn Taejun many times. We had so many chances to get rid of you, but he never listened. His stubbornness was what led him to his death after all.”

They wanted to kill me so bad that Gilliard was about to begin a war between Athena and Ëlv'en, just so I couldn't be what the rebellion expected me to be.

“There are more important things to protect than Ëlv'en's supremacy.” That's what Gilliard said.

Taehyung watched me in silence, waiting for my reaction. I honestly didn't know what to say or do. I was just trying not to cry like a kid.

“A-And why did you chose me that day?” My voice was shaking. I hated it. “D-Did you want to keep me submissive, too?”

He widened his eyes, but didn't seem offended. He just looked sad and ashamed.

“I did it that day because I knew how important you are, what you represent, and because I knew that the counselors and the royal family wanted nothing more but to see you dead. They finally had an excuse since my father died. I couldn't let that happen.”

“Why?”

“Because I agree with the rebellion.”

This made me shocked.

I stared at him in silence, mouth ajar.

“But, Taehyung… they want you dead.”

He was looking at his own hands.

“I know.” He said, nodding. “They are aggressive and full of anger. But they have all the rights to be. My family, they… the Kim Dynasty let a trail of blood wherever they went to. How many people died because of us? I just think it's time for it to end.”

I was even more shocked.

For the first time, I finally realized what was that tiredness over Taehyung's shoulders all the time, that rooted sadness, that strange hue of deep blue on his aura.

Taehyung felt guilt for everything his family did.

He has been feeling guilty for years.

He felt the responsibility for the discrimination and misery the hybrids went through, he felt the weight of all those deaths as if he did it himself, as if his hands were dirty with blood.

He was just… tired.

“Taehyung, you can't-”

“Let's not focus on me right now,” he interrupted me, waving his hand dismissively. “I already said, I'm not important at the moment.” He sighed. “Since I had no choice but taking the throne, I decided to do something useful. I have been trying to at least make up for some of the mistakes my family made. And this begins with you.” Taehyung looked at me again. He seemed more drained than ever. “I'll be honest, when I first met you that day at the dungeons, I was horrified. When you said you “didn't intend to avoid your fate”... I swear, I wanted to resurrect my father just to break all his bones. And it just got worse as we spent more time together. You were always so quiet and submissive and…” Taehyung swiped his hand over his face. “God, what did they do to you?”

I felt my eyes filling with tears again; there was a strange mix of sadness and shame inside of me.

“My initial plan of telling you the whole truth couldn't be accomplished. Look, I know I sound very manipulative right now. I also used you somehow and for this I apologize. I hid many things from you.” He did look ashamed. “But I just couldn't tell you everything, because you would never believe me or agree with me, not when you thought so little of yourself.”

Taehyung was right. The “me” from months before would never consider any of this; it was still hard for me to associate everything after all, it was still hard for me to not see myself in a depreciative way and I knew it would take some time until I was completely free from all the old misconceptions. I've been taught like that my whole life, things so deeply rooted don't change so easily. I had made much progress, though.

“So… this is why you've been so kind to me since the first day?” I questioned. Now, I was the one avoiding his gaze.

“I've been kind to you since the first day because that's how everyone deserves to be treated, Y/N.” Taehyung gulped. “Being honest, I was scared when I saw you being so grateful when I did the bare minimum to you. I was just treating you like a person… like that day, when you burned your arm with the cursed rock. How could I not take care of that? You looked so amazed. And all those times when I thanked you or apologized…” Guilt was almost visible around him. “I felt so sad. I still feel. You are so powerful, Y/N. I can feel your power from kilometers of distance. Yet, my father made you believe that you're not worthy of anything good.” He shook his head slightly. “I think that nothing that I do will ever be able to make up for what he did to you. That day when I told you about the work policy and I showed you that you would have a salary? I have never felt so stupid. No amount of money in this world will be able to compensate what they did to you.”

My heart was beating fast again, but this time I didn't know why. So many mixed emotions… how he was being considerate of me, all the sadness and the anger. I was getting dizzy.

“Little by little, I saw that you were beginning to change. I already noticed how you became different after the first time we visited a hybrid village. That's why I took you to more and more, both because I needed information about the rebellion and because, maybe if you started to sympathize with the hybrids, maybe if you could understand about your own strength… you could someday agree in reestablishing the Ancient Council.”

“But what about the cursed rock? It was all an excuse?”

“No,” he said, shaking his head. “It was real. At first, I thought that they were trying to kill me, but then it became obvious that they were aiming you. I had to keep you around all the time. I know it sounds stupid, because I'm not even close to be as strong as you are, but I was trying to protect you from them. If you were in my company all the time, they would not hurt you.”

This made me remember something… that night, when Taehyung had a dinner with Princess Sana and I felt so sad that I couldn't watch anymore. I ran to my room and blocked our connection for the first time. Then, Taehyung showed up on my door looking sweaty and desperate…

Please, don't do that again. I was concerned, he said.

Taehyung thought something bad happened to me that night.

My eyebrows frowned. “They who?”

He crossed his arms. “Who else could it be? Gilliard, other high ranked counselors and royals. They've been wanting to kill you for years, and they also hated me on top of that for all I've been doing. I knew they would want to get rid of me someday, too. They were also who cursed my father with that disease.” I widened my eyes.

“King Taejun was really murdered? Why?”

Taehyung frowned. “That's one of the few things I still don't know. Apparently, Taejun disagreed with them about something, and then they decided he wasn't useful anymore. That's what they do with the people that go against them.”

“And where are they now? Isn't it dangerous to have these people around?” I asked, concerned.

“They're all locked in the dungeons.” He said casually, making me shocked.

“What- how did you do that? You can't arrest people unreasonably.”

“It wasn't unreasonably. They disobeyed an immediate order of mine, that was forbidding the combat to happen. It is against the law. I reunited proof enough about their involvement, so all of the were arrested… this is around 90% of the Council and some relatives of mine.”

That devilish satisfaction of him was somehow scary.

Some moments of deep silence hovered above us. I was staring at my own hands, feeling small and fragile, and Taehyung looked at me with hesitance. I could feel how tense he was.

“This is all I know.” He said quietly. “I still don't know why Petrus was murdered, though. I also don't know who the shapeshifter that has been watching us is.” I saw him scratching the nape of his neck uncomfortably. “I'm sorry for keeping the truth from you for so long. You were angry with me the other night and you were right. I already said… I'm not exactly a good person.” He looked down at his lap, his shoulders falling sadly. His next sentence was almost a shy whisper: “Deep down, I think… I think that I hid all that from you for so long because I was scared that you would hate me.”

I couldn't hate you not even if I wanted, I thought, but my mouth kept shut. I felt as if the walls were getting smaller suddenly, my throat tightening painfully.

More silence.

“Please, say something,” he pleaded, shifting on the chair. He sounded and looked out of place. “Even if you want to curse me and beat me up, please do. Anything is better than this silence.”

That strange feeling in my throat got worse, my vision got blurry. I'm about to cry in front of him, I realized in panic - and I also realized that I couldn't hold back the tears anymore.

I hid my face behind my hands and sobbed.

After the first tear trickled down my cheek, more and more came, and more sobs, and then I was shivering and crying desperately. Not only my body ached at the moment, but also my soul. I've never felt so hurt, small and fragile as in that moment.

I felt Taehyung's arms wrapping around me softly.

I could tell he was hesitant - he wanted to console me, but wasn't sure if I wanted to be consoled by him. However, when I rested my head on his chest almost instinctively, Taehyung understood it as a “permission”. He sat by my side on the bed, pulling me closer to him and hugging me delicately, being careful not to squeeze my injuries. His chin came to rest at the top of my head.

And Taehyung just kept silent the whole time.

No one ever saw me crying like that, and the fact that he was the person witnessing my weakness made me embarrassed to the core - but I had just reached a point where all my emotions boiled and exploded all at once. I didn't even know exactly why I was crying. All those feelings were like a giant rock crushing me.

I've been used my entire life, ever since I was born. I've been humiliated, punished, injured, treated like something less than an animal, like I was barely a maggot or worse. The one I almost sacrificed my life for was never considerate of me. Not only me, but everyone that came before me were treated the same way and died without knowing how much more they could have been. I was also crying because of the hybrids, because I found out my mother was alive, because an invisible weight was thrown over my shoulders suddenly - the weight of responsibility, for everyone expected me to be some type of leader; even Taehyung did. And I was also crying because Taehyung told me the truth, he wasn't the bad person Ehmerald suspected, and because I have missed him so much and it still felt unreal that he was there hugging me in that moment.

It all felt unreal and overwhelmingly real at the same time.

“I-I killed my own f-father,” I stuttered between the sobs, needing to let at least someone know.

I noticed Taehyung's surprise. “What?”

“Jaejoong was my f-father. I fought against him in a combat years ago,” I leaned away slightly so I could wipe the tears away with my fists. “D-Deep down, I always thought something was wrong. How c-could a trained dragon lose to a kid?” I tried to gulp, but the sobs wouldn't go away. “I think he knew I was his daughter. I think… I think he let me win.”

Taehyung looked completely shocked and confused. He clearly didn't know who Jaejoong was and how I discovered he was my father, but I knew my words affected him. He pushed me against his chest again, hugging me a little tighter now.

“I'm so sorry,” he whispered. When I felt his lips kissing the top of my head, my body got warm. “I wish we would have met earlier, Y/N. If I could go back in time, I would have tried to change things. I would have gone after you earlier. I'm so sorry.” His voice sounded weak and terribly sad.

“Why are you apologizing? None of it was your fault.” I tried to convince him.

“But… I feel responsible. All the things my father did to you-”

“You're not your father,” I interrupted. “King Taejun was never even close to be the man you are. You're the only person that shouldn't feel guilty about what happened in my life.”

Silence hovered above us again.

When Taehyung spoke again, his voice was fragile, featherlight.

“I said I was scared that you would hate me, but now that you know the truth… I wish you would hate me.” He gulped. “I wish you would scream at me and say you don't want to see me anymore. I wish you would throw all your anger over me. I am still a Kim after all. I hate the blood that rushes through my veins. I just wish you would hate it, too…”

What he said alarmed me. Did… did Taehyung actually hate himself?

The best person I've ever know hated himself?

“You're being irrational,” I said softly and freed myself from his grip, sitting straight so I could look at him in the eye. I sniffled and wiped my cheeks again. The bags beneath his eyes were really dark. He had been awake for so many hours? “Look… the reason that kept me accepting all that suffering in silence was because I thought I had a debt with the world. I was taught that my ancestors were murderers, I thought that I deserved to suffer because I was one of them. Now I know that that's not true, but… even if it was true, it would still be not my fault. Now I understand. I never did anything wrong to deserve any of what happened to me, even though it's still my race. It is the same with you, Taehyung.” He looked surprised. “You're thinking the same way I used to think, and this is wrong. The Kim Dynasty did many horrible things, that's right, but you didn't take part in any of it. Your family doesn't define you. The fact that you even feel guilty just proves what I'm trying to say; you're good, you're different from them. You don't deserve any hate, Taehyung.”

Taehyung stared at me in shock. He seemed about to say something, but closed his mouth again.

He was looking at me the way he always did, as if he was amazed. I was sure no one had ever looked at me the way he did.

Taehyung raised his hand and put a strand of hair behind my ear. The delicate touch of his fingers made my cheeks flush.

“How can you still be this good after everything you went through?” He asked quietly. “I don't understand. If I were in your place, I… I don't know what I would have done.”

I shrugged (and regretted, because my shoulders ached). “I think I'm just tired of doing nothing at all. I'm trying to be useful.” I said as his hand dropped. “And I didn't finish yet. Taehyung, you are the best King this kingdom has ever saw. The rebellion just wants you dead because they don't know you yet. You deserve Ëlv'en's crown. I already said, you're nothing like your father. When the rebellion realize it, they will change their minds. Many people already changed their minds because of your actions; it's not as if you don't have hybrid's support.”

“They won't listen to me, Y/N,” Taehyung sighed tiredly. “They knew me as Vante, the kind human, but even if I revealed to be who I really am back then, they would have killed me in the blink of an eye. Centuries of repressed hatred aren't forgotten so easily.”

“But they will listen to me.” I exclaimed, remembering how they seemed amazed by me and respected me. Rubra said I could end the war before it even started, and maybe I knew how; I could be the bridge between Taehyung and the rebellion. “We'll find a way out.”

He frowned. “How are you so sure about it?”

For a moment, I forgot that Taehyung didn't know that I've been in Baïkarh and met the rebellion. Instead of explaining, I just opened a small smile. “Just trust me.”

A smile appeared on his lips, too. “You're doing it again.”

“What?”

“Trying to take care of me.”

I shrugged again (and regretted again). “I can't kill old habits.”

He chuckled. Strangely, after crying so much, I felt the invisible weight easing a little; I was light again. It seems that I needed to let it all out for a moment. Being strong all the time hurts.

“What are you going to do now?” I asked after some moments. “We're still not sure of who conjured those obsidian soldiers, and we don't know who the shapeshifter is. I'm sure that King Hugo isn't happy at the moment… and Vanaheim's Council must be impatient, I think they don't want your wedding to be delayed anymore-”

“There won't be wedding.”

I froze.

“W-What?” I stuttered.

Taehyung rested the weight of his body on his hands. His beauty annoyed me. He stared at nothing in particular. “There won't be wedding.” He repeated louder.

My fingertips were trembling, so I gripped the sheets to pretend I wasn't so affected. “But- what about the accord to unite the kingdoms? What about King Satoshi? What about Princess Sana?”

I was just pretending to be rational at the moment, because inside of me I felt as if fireworks were exploding and I wanted to laugh the most maniac laughter the world has ever heard.

Taehyung sighed.

“Me and Sana decided this together. We talked a lot. We're both tired of people trying to control us.” He opened a small smile. “Sana will be a wonderful Queen. She doesn't need anyone by her side… I just hope her father will understand this.”

He went silent, but I knew he hadn't finished yet. So I just stared at him, waiting until he would speak again, trying to hide how happy I was.

When he pushed his hair back, I honestly felt that the air was knocked out of my lungs.

“For a long time, I… I really thought I could do it,” his voice was calmer, sweet like honey and smooth like silk. He wasn't looking at me. “I found out I would have to marry Sana when I was fifteen. All those years, I've been making my mind about it. I thought it wouldn't be difficult. Royal marriages don't involve feelings; my parents never loved each other, and most married royals don't as well. Sana is also an easy person to live with. Until some time ago, I still thought I would be able to do it.”

Taehyung tilted his head slightly and finally looked up at me.

Those dark, beautiful eyes seemed to be seeing the very core of my soul.

“But falling for you wasn't in my plans.”

His words made me confused for some seconds.

Then, I understood.

And I couldn't breathe anymore.

“I- What-” was all I could stupidly stutter.

He smiled - the most sincere smile I ever saw, the smile that seemed to be lightening up the whole world.

“I thought it was obvious by now.”

My lungs really seemed to be failing. I didn't know what to do, I didn't know what to say, I felt as if my soul had disconnected with my body and I was somewhere just watching that scene instead of living it. It didn't feel real.

I gulped and held the sheets even tighter.

“D-Does it mean you like me?” I stuttered again, because it seems that my whole body was malfunctioning. “That type of “like”?”

Taehyung laughed joyfully and leaned his body towards me, searching for my eyes as I avoided his.

“It's a little bit more than just liking you, Y/N,” he said, still smiling, holding my face with both hands. My heart seemed about to explode as he came closer and closer, and my body was stiff and tense because I knew he was going to do it again and I couldn't help but feel nervous and close my eyes tightly and-

When he kissed me, I forgot about anything else.

The tension was gone the moment his lips touched mine, my whole body relaxed. It was different from the first time. It wasn't rushed nor desperate. Taehyung was more delicate than he has ever been, as if scared to break me. Our lips moved slowly, his more confident than mine (I still didn't really know what I was doing after all), until I felt brave enough to place my hands on his neck. His lips tasted like him and everything around me smelled like him and even though my eyes were closed I could only see him and his existence was embracing me and filling me and completing me.

Him, him, him.

Taehyung was all that mattered.

In that exact moment, when we were both broken and fragile and full of scars, when Taehyung showed me his most sensible side, I gave him my heart.

I knew he was a human and I was a dragon. I knew I would live much more than him. I knew that, when Taehyung would be on his elderly years, I would still be very young... his life would pass by my eyes way too fast. Yet, I decided to give him my heart anyway; I would spend my days with him as much as the Universe would let me, I would cherish his life, I would want to be with him to see every smile of his and to wipe away every tear, to help him heal any scar, to be on the happiest moments and on the saddest ones.

I would be with him until his last breath and I would love him until my last breath.

He broke the kiss, but still kept his head very close to mine, analyzing my features. His eyes were so beautifully, overwhelmingly piercing. I felt exposed whenever he looked at me like that, but not in a bad way…

My fingers were still trembling. “I-”

He pecked my lips.

I stared at him with wide eyes. “Why-”

He pecked my lips again.

This time, I frowned. “Won't you let me spe-”

He pecked my lips again. And again, and again, and again, until he was laughing as I tried to push him but not really wanting him to stop.

“Taehyung!” I exclaimed. He tilted his head to the side, smirking in a playful way that made him look the age he actually was.

“If you call my name like that, I won't want to stop.”

I was sure he laughed because I was blushing furiously. “Y-You're always trying to make me flustered, right?”

“Of course. Teasing you is the funniest thing in the world. Both because you look cute when you're shy and you look hot when you're mad at me.”

His last sentence almost made me explode. I had a faint idea of what calling someone “hot” meant. Taehyung laughed at the top of his lungs before putting his arms around me and falling back on bed, making me lay my head atop his chest, what surprised me.

“What are you doing?” I made the stupid question. He sighed deeply, however, now he sounded happy.

“I think we both need to sleep a little bit,” he said. “Pretend we're normal people for a little bit.”

He repeated the sentence he used to tell me when we were traveling, what made me smile. At least, inside his giant bedroom, we could be normal people. We were just… me and him.

Being on his arms like that, resting my head on his chest felt even more comfortable than his soft mattress alone. I remembered that for a long time, I wanted nothing more but be on his company; I just wanted him to look at me or address me. Being like that felt like a dream.

“I will call Yoongi and Chuu to see you later,” Taehyung said, voice deep. I could hear the sleepiness on his voice. “They were very worried.”

“Did you meet Yoongi?” I looked up at him. Taehyung nodded.

“Of course. I thought that your friends might've known where you were. He is a good person. They helped me a lot.”

I nodded and rested my head on his chest again.

Another memory made me widen my eyes.

“What about Hoseok?” I asked myself, concerned. Hoseok disobeyed the King, what was considered high treason. The punishment was death…

“He's here at the palace,” I looked up at him again, surprised that Taehyung even knew who I was talking about. “He asked me to come along. I didn't want to at first… he was the person that put you in this state after all. But I understood the situation. Here he could have some safety.”

As I rested my head on his chest again, I noticed how his voice and expression changed as he talked about Hoseok. Then, I remembered that Taehyung knew that Hoseok was part of my “deal”...

“Are you jealous?” I asked.

Taehyung gasped.

“No.” He was lying.

I bit my bottom lip to hold back a smile. “I was jealous of you with Princess Sana, you know. All the time.”

He gasped again.

“I’m sorry. I never looked at her this way.” I just smiled. Teasing him was funny, too.

“It's alright, Taehyung.”

“Ah, I really like to hear you saying my name,” he sighed. “Can you promise me you'll never call me by “Your Majesty” again? I really hate that.”

“I promise. Taehyung.” I said, giggling. He seemed very satisfied.

Many minutes passed in a peaceful silence. Although I had been asleep for so long, I still felt tired. My eyelids slowly became heavy…

But I remembered another thing.

“You came flying in Alpha,” I said, seeing that incredible scene in my head again.

“Yes,” his voice sounded sleepy.

“How was it?”

“Horrifying,” he admitted, making us both giggle. “ I've never been so scared in my life.”

He went quiet for some time.

“No… the idea of losing you was much more scary than any height.”

He confessed before finally falling asleep.

For some reason, tears were streaming down my cheeks again… due to happiness this time.

Taehyung was there with me.

It was real. We were real.

He was mine.

The deep waters of the Styx River were gleaming in front him.

The man stood there, watching the river flow endlessly in the cold night, the only sounds he could hear were of the wind, the water, and crickets singing around him. He could not even fathom how deep these waters were. The river crossed the whole continent, beginning in the Niflheim mountains and ending in the ocean at Vanaheim. The river that gave life to ancient civilizations, the magic waters capable of enchanting steel until it became almost indestructible. The Cursed River, legends say. It is at West, opposite from the Baïkarh forest at East; dishonored opposed to honored; damned and holy, the entrance to Helheim and the entrance to Alfheim.

What people should be aware of, though, is that many legends are real.

The man lifted his hands and started to chant a song in an unknown language.

All crickets went silent all at once.

Small animals on the riverfront started to run away.

Something started to happen in the water. The man kept chanting, his voice loud and full of intent. He could not fathom the deepness of the river, but he knew what was below it, he knew what laid deeper than it.

It was time to finally finish it all.

He still carried the little fang around his neck.

[whoviandoodler]

Kanej (part 3)

Oop whoop, I finished another part. Hope you like it x

PART 1  |  PART 2

-----

“Excuse me?” Kaz said, barely containing rage simmering below the cool facade he always kept on. He wanted to hit the grim man in front of him badly and wipe the look off of his face that said ‘None of this is my fault, it must be someone else’s’. His gloved hand squeezed the crow head on top of his cane like he desired nothing more than to shatter it to dust.

“His wife saw me, all right? I couldn’t get the information on when the exchange was happening.”

“Not only did you not manage to get the information.” Kaz uttered quietly, almost pleasantly. “But you also alerted him that someone was looking into what his dealings, so now he will insure precautions, if he doesn’t put a stop to his business entirely.”

“He is greedy, he won’t be able to stop so close to achieving his goal.”

There was no point explaining to Roeder that in a man like the one they were hunting cowardice and paranoia took preference even over money. If he sniffed so much as a whiff of trouble, he would temporarily back away from the game, and Roeder’s mistake smelled as strongly as aged whiskey.

And while the respectable Ravkan merch tanned his respectable face in the Southern Colonies, his money will still make ways to the pockets of a certain Derry Pollet. Kaz had put too much of his energy and time into putting a plan to take Mr. Holland down in an unsuspicious manner to let the golden opportunity go down in flames.

“Go and find out what the Fjerdan ambassadors are up to, and try to be more discreet this time.”

He waited for Roeder to disappear, closing the doors behind him, before he raised his hand to massage his temple. The Dregs couldn’t and wouldn’t be tied to this, but yet another error made him as close as he would get to skittish. He was tired, irritable, and was getting so desperate after another week with no news that he was pathetically close to sending out word that he was looking for her.

That would by all means be impossible, stupid and impulsive, of course. If anyone learnt that the feared and respected captain of the Wraith still had the connection to Kaz Brekker she had when she worked with him, it would cause trouble. Some knew she was the same Wraith who had made the Barrel her home, and baring witness to her skills and hearing the hushed, barely spoken rumours she was a part of breaking into the Ice Court only urged them to silence. For now, that is. If and when they thought they could get something out of knowing of the arrangement, a lot of them would gladly sweep caution under the rug and go for it.

So he swallowed the darkening ball of despair in his throat yet again and went out to do the job himself. He already had the plan of the house in his head, the ins and outs, the locks on the doors, which members spent time in which rooms at which point of day.

Holland wasn’t home tonight. Like every Wednesday from ten o’clock to nearly two the following morning, he was stuck in a gambling den with his rich friends, choking on tobacco smoke and putting hands on whichever girl the place put to work at the moment. His wife was sitting in her parlor, gossiping with her sister and neighbors’ wives about her husband, when he was going to be gone, if it seemed like he was to get them even more money, and so foolishly and unknowingly revealed his deals.

If she saw Roeder like he said she had, her first reaction, according to Kaz’s intuition, would be to run to her guests and let them fuss about her. It would be hours before she thought to call her husband, if she did that at all. Her friends would gush about how they too had seen a burglar, or how an acquaintance of theirs had, and how they wished that the city would be rid of those criminal rats. And while they did that, one of them was going to break into their house, do what thieves did best and disappear without leaving a trace.

It was almost pathetically easy to gain access to Holland’s office. The task that took him the longest was leaving the room in the same mess he had found it in. Papers were scattered all over the desk, along with mugs, some still filled with what smelled to Kaz like a dangerous mix of herbal tea and rum. There were even clothes in the corner, a heap of red cloth that was wet with what could be canal water.

He let those pieces of information sizzle in his brain, and he was about to leave with the papers he had come for when he spotted a half opened envelope on the edge of the desk. Something about it pulled at him even from afar and he had no reason at all to resist the temptation.

After he had made sure that no one was approaching the room, he made his way over.

He took the curiousity in his hand, noting the ripples of water in a corner, and let its contents spill into his hand. Then the world swayed sideways and took his heart with it, starting the buzzing in his ears. On his glove sat a neat pile of shiny black hair, a few inches long. Hair was an odd thing to mail to someone, but what choked him up was the piece of cloth that tied it together. The pattern of it was intricate, blue waves with small crows that held cheery purple flowers in their beaks, and unique to the shawl he had gifted Inej two years ago for her twentieth birthday.

He couldn’t think, couldn’t breathe. Everything around him was a blur of colours, a reality painted wrong. He only became aware he was shaking when he nearly dropped the bundle of hair. A switch turned on inside him, the same one that had when he was a child gripping his brother’s corpse to get away, to stay alive, and he put it back the way it was. He practically had to tear his arm away from it, from that piece of her no one had a right to own, but he managed to get to the window, lock it behind him and make his way to the ground.

He still had enough sense to keep to the shadows and avoid the street lamps that would reveal him to passerbys and inquisitive inhabitants of the district, but he stumbled on a bridge near the Slat and almost fell into the dark water. Thoughts easily slipped by his shaken defenses and brought on old memories, terrifying him to the core. He had to grip the unsteady railing to get back the feeling of ownership over his own body.

He imagined Inej’s voice so words she had said at one moment or another spilled over each other, leaving them all devoid of meaning. It didn’t matter, however, as the sole tone of it calmed his wildly beating heart and trembling hands. Kaz, she would say comfortingly. Just his name, just a reminder he was here and now and alive and something more than a drowning child whose name there was no one left to remember.

Come on, come on, he urged himself as he stood back up and turned to the Slat.

He rushed into his office expecting the room to be empty and ready for him to sit down and think, only to find Jesper pacing in the limited space with his long strides, hands behind his back, usually bright face creased with worry and gloom. His eyes widened with short-termed relief when Kaz barged in.

“Oh, thank Ghezen, I thought you would stay out there forever. There’s a huge problem.” He hesitated just a second, as if he was debating if telling Kaz what he had waited there over an hour to inform him of was a good idea. “It’s about Inej.”

Dark hands clenched his gut, dripping with malice and fury. Kaz was glad for it, for that familiar and often blinding, but always distracting accomplice that made him want to burn the world around him. That raw rage that now made him push Jesper against the wall by his collar was something that woke discomfort in him on a normal occasion, an anomaly that made him miss important details that he couldn’t afford to miss, a phantom that threatened to drive sense and whatever scraps of humanity he had left from him.

“Where is she?”

Jepser gripped Kaz’s wrist, trying to push him back, but he didn’t reach for his guns. “Calm down, Kaz. Choking me to death isn’t going to help anything.” He wheezed out, hoping he won’t have to take a swing at his friend.

As if it finally dawned on him, Kaz let him go and took a step back. “What do you know?”

“Loe and Oliander are at the mansion. Oliander is out of it and half dead. Loe is beaten up pretty bad, but she’s conscious and talking. She said... she said they caught trace of some guy they were chasing, and made a pass at him, but he surprised them and almost killed them all and destroyed the ship. Inej covered everyone’s back until they could get away. She was captured.”

Jesper’s shoulders sank even further. His hands came to rest on his guns, as if seeking comfort from the cold, valuable metal.

“When?” Kaz asked with all the calm he could gather. To think he would need to be cool, calm and collected, and to plan he would need to think.

“I don’t know, I didn’t stay long enough to find out. I came here as soon as she said they got Inej.”

“We’re going, now.”

They walked out at an unnervingly slow pace. Jesper said nothing until they were out of the rowdy and loud building, though he almost skipped instead of striding, like most of his nervousness concentrated in his feet.

“Wylan called the doctor, one of those discreet, hush-hush medics that don’t gossip to anyone about their patients. He’s keeping an eye on both of them and trying to help them as much as he can. You know he took an interest in medicine as of late, so I have to read to him for hours about the most boring of things, but as usual he’s catching on pretty quickly.”

Kaz ignored Jesper’s rambling and instead made way to the Van Eck mansion. The scenery quickly changed from the ruin, despair and impropriety of the Barrel to fancy houses that hid all those same, core, human sins behind pretty walls and expensive clothes. That was Ketterdam for you, so small that all of that was packed next to each other, like a piece of work made by an ironic artist. Cheap and extra practically on top of one another, both worlds pretending the other is a mile away rather than an inch.

He got through the unlocked front door and headed for the living room. There on the couch half-lied, half-sat Loe Ji Kien, Inej’s first mate. Her brown hair was a tangled, soaked mess, pulled back carelessly to reveal her bloodshot light brown eyes. An ugly bruise made home on one side of her strong, square chin, but the fading mix of sour colours was nothing compared to the pattern of healing wounds and blemishes on her revealed arms, stomach and calves.

Kaz felt sorry for her state. He had known her for a while now, though they only met a dozen or so times over the years she worked with Inej. She was born and raised in Shu Han, in some faraway village that probably counted no more than a few hundred residents, and when her parents died she found a job on one of the ships, dressing as a boy, until she earned enough trust and trusted enough to give her identity to a captain who accepted her and helped her make a name for herself.

Or so she told him.

There was more to that story, Kaz didn’t doubt, but there was always more to everyone’s tales.

Still, what she looked like now couldn’t matter as much as the pressing questions in his throat. He wished selfishly that it was Inej there. He would rather have her injured and at arm’s reach, than somewhere across the damned ocean that had taken her.

“Ji Kien.” He called out.

Her head whipped around and she sat up fully despite the protests of her red-haired host seated on the arm of the sofa. “Brekker.” Her raspy voice replied.

Kaz dragged one of the parlor chairs and sat right in front of her, so their eyes were level with each other. He laid his cane over his knees, wishing in some far corner of his mind he could stretch his leg and rest it after all the heatless strain he had put it under the past few weeks.

“Who has her?” he asked, though something inside him already told him he knew the answer.

“Pollet.”

The dark pit in his stomach opened up and swallowed him whole. He had this feeling for months, this sense of inexplicable dread that would wash over him at oddest of moments, like something was terribly off. Inej had told him that fear meant something was coming, and now he understood that perfectly.

He dug his fingers into the wall of that pit, dragged himself up by his nails until he could gulp air again. He oiled his brain up and leaned back, squashing whichever emotions might’ve seeped through his indifferent mask, still not taking his eyes away from Loe’s.

“Tell me everything, from the beginning.”

[thegizka]

Her Gift (fic.)

He knew what she was thinking without her saying it. He knew every nuance of her expressions, every movement of her body. He knew Sakura more deeply than he had ever known anyone. How had he never learned when her birthday was?

Written for Sakura Haruno's birthday (March 28).

Read it on Ao3.

Sasuke momentarily panicked when he awoke and couldn’t sense Sakura nearby.  His eyes flew open, sharingan already spinning into hyper-focus, only to notice how neatly her bedding had been rolled beside her pack.  She hadn’t been abducted; she had just risen before him.  Just to be sure, he stretched his senses.  There she was, chakra tickling the edge of his awareness from the direction of the river.  It wasn’t agitated.  She was safe.

He lay his head back for a moment and closed his eyes, urging his beating heart to let go of the momentary panic.  It was amazing she had managed to leave camp without him noticing.  Usually he slept lightly, ever on alert, always subconsciously aware of the minutest changes around him.  But since Sakura had joined him on his travels, everything had become confused.  She put him at his ease somehow, even though he felt so much more tense with her around.  In their genin days, he was almost always the first to wake up.  These days, it was a toss up.

Sasuke wasn’t used to such deep sleep.  It made him uneasy.  He felt less in control when he woke up second, realizing he had been at her mercy for an unknown period of time.  It wasn’t that he didn’t trust Sakura.  Perhaps it was that he trusted her too much.  She was one of the people who knew him best and who didn’t want anything from him--revenge, proof of his change of heart, his power…  It was refreshing to be with someone who demanded none of those things.  She brought him relief in that way.  He was so used to being on constant alert that this new ease made him a little uncomfortable.

And yet it felt natural.  He had found himself wanting more and more to spend time with her during his brief returns to the village.  Even if he was only stopping over for the night to make a brief report to the Hokage, his path always drifted by her apartment.  It became harder and harder to say goodbye to her.  So when she met him at the village gate early one morning with her pack and a determined look on her face, he couldn’t say no.  It felt fitting, the natural progression of their time spent together.

He sighed and forced himself to rise.  He had already spent hours trying to work out the nature of their relationship.  Even before she joined him on his wanderings, he found her drifting through his mind.  He had reconciled himself to his destiny being entangled with Naruto’s, but it had taken longer to realize it was united with hers, too.  As he contemplated who he was and who he wanted to be--not what everyone tried to make him, not what they expected him to be--he found her in his mind and memories.  She had believed in him despite every twist and turn he took.  But he couldn’t work out why, or how, or what exactly that meant to him.  It was important.  It was confusing.  It made him feel conflicted, just like Naruto’s unbending friendship.  But she was different from Naruto, and her trust meant something else.

She had given him her heart, and no matter how many times he had kicked it back to her or tried throwing it in the dirt, she still gave it to him.  It was a burden, but it was also a gift.  He had ignored it for years, had hoped she would forget her schoolgirl crush and let him be, let him pursue his vengeance in peace.  But like Naruto, he just couldn’t shake her.  It both saved him and nearly drove him away again.

He began rolling up his bedding.  He used to simply sleep in his cloak propped against a tree or the entrance of a cave, but Sakura joining him somehow required a more formal style of camping.  He was glad he currently had the campsite to himself so she wouldn’t watch him fumbling to roll up his bedding with one arm.  He was less self-conscious about his lack of limb than he used to be, having adapted to its absence, but there was still awkwardness at times.  He always felt more awkward with Sakura around.  He sometimes caught the look on her face when she thought he couldn’t see (though there were few things that could hide from his eyes), the lingering gaze on where his arm used to be, the twist of pity and the pain of love and something else--guilt? Though she had nothing to be guilty of.  Yet she refrained from offering him help, respecting his pride, hiding her feelings behind a glowing smile when he looked at her fully.

Travelling together was a study of each other and themselves.  They had gotten re-acquainted the few years after the war when he drifted into her orbit between his wanderings.  She had surprised him with her maturity, her emotional perceptiveness, her intuitive understanding and respect for his boundaries.  She was so different from the annoying fangirl she used to be.  But she was definitely the same Sakura, with the same determination and temper and strength and beauty.

He could forget how beautiful she was when all he had was his memory, but it would pounce on him in the strangest moments.  He would notice how smooth the skin on the back of her hands looked as she tied her pack.  He would wonder at the color of her eyes--the green of spring grass in the sunlight, the teal of sea waves in the rain, the dapple of deep forest leaves reflecting the moon…  Her hair tangled his thoughts, the way it brushed her cheek as she rested her chin on her knees, how it darkened to a terra cotta color when wet, the inexplicable urge it brewed in him to run it between his fingers.  He had never felt this before, the strange desire to touch another human, to feel the warmth beneath her soft skin and smell the scent of life in her neck.  These strange impulses alarmed him.  It was another way she challenged his control.

He satisfied himself with memorizing her chakra.  It was comforting to feel it swirling strongly beside him as they walked.  She had always had better control than him.  Even when she was angry, it only spiked a little.  She was a steadiness he had never found in himself.  There were times when she would use her medical ninjutsu to help in the villages they passed through, to bring comfort and to repair the broken in ways Sasuke couldn’t for all his desire to atone.  He caught glimpses of her power then as she healed one after another tirelessly, endlessly, never turning away until everyone who sought care received it, no matter how tired she became or how low her chakra must be.  She endured and sustained, just as her love had endured.

He had finished with his pack and was contemplating breakfast when he felt her chakra coming nearer.  She was humming to herself.  It made him smile.  He was used to silence, but her absent-minded singing was welcome.  It was a reminder that she was here with him, and that was a comfort.

“Good morning Sasuke-kun,” she greeted, towelling her hair dry.  She must have bathed this morning.  He wanted to help her comb through her tangles, but she was fully capable of doing it herself.

“Good morning,” he greeted instead.  “You seem in a good mood.”

“I am,” she hummed, searching for her comb in her bag.  He knew it was in the outside right pocket.  She had a habit of putting it away somewhere new each time, so it always took her a moment to find it.  It was a strange quirk for someone normally so organized.

“The water in the river is beautiful,” she continued.  “It’s clear and not unbearably cold.  I found it very refreshing.”  She stood and stretched appreciatively before beginning to comb out the snarls.  “You can bathe if you want.  I don’t mind taking it slow this morning.  Unless, of course, there’s some place you need to be today.”

“I’m not expected in the next stop for another two days.  We have time.”

“Great.”  She smiled, and it was so genuine and happy that it tickled his heart.  “I’ll prepare breakfast while you bathe.  Any requests?”

“Whatever you think best.”  He hadn’t actually confirmed that he wanted to bathe, but she was already poking through their food supplies, humming to herself again. A bath in the river would be refreshing.  He gathered a clean change of clothes and a towel before heading down to the water.

He was more self-conscious bathing when he knew Sakura was in the area.  He knew she would never try and sneak a peek at him, just as he would never violate her trust that way.  That was more Naruto’s and Kakashi’s vice.  But just knowing she was near made him hyper-aware of himself and his surroundings.  And he was finding more and more that being away from her made him miss...something.

She was right; the river was refreshing and clean.  It felt good to scrub away the days of travel in the waves and morning sunlight.  But he did not allow himself to take the time to soak in the freshness of the day.  Sakura was making breakfast.  He did not like the idea of her waiting for him.

When he returned, damp hair cascading across his face in tendrils, she had prepared a pair of buns, some cheese, thin slices of cured meat, and tomatoes.  It was simple travel food.  Sasuke had noticed their meals included tomatoes a lot lately.  He wasn’t complaining.

But Sakura wasn’t alone.  She was gently stroking the head of a large messenger hawk as it picked at some of the meat she offered it.  The scrolls--there were two--were still attached to its back, so it must have just arrived.  He could see the Konoha emblem on the seal, and his heart sank.  He hadn’t realized he was looking forward to a relaxing morning with Sakura, but news from the village almost always meant an urgent mission.

“It’s Jinsoku, one of Naruto’s hawks,” she explained.  This allayed some of his worry.  If that idiot was using his personal hawk, the news was less likely to be life-or-death urgent.  Still, neither he nor Sakura had replied to their teammate’s most recent letter yet.  He must have something important to share if he couldn’t wait for their normal correspondence.

Sakura, however, seemed completely unperturbed.

“You’ve got a leaf in your hair,” she giggled, reaching for it.  Normally Sasuke would instinctively flinch away, but he held still as she casually dragged it from his hair.  “Your bangs are getting long.”

He shrugged.  He didn’t mind his hair long.  It hid his rinnegan better.  People were less scared--and less confrontational--when they couldn’t see his left eye.

She took the scrolls from the bird and whispered something to it.  It flew to a branch in a nearby tree and perched there, watching them with intelligent, dark eyes.

“Here.”  Sakura tossed him one of the scrolls.  Teme was scrawled in Naruto’s messy hand on the outside.  He rolled his eyes.  His friend was probably never going to grow up.

He sat down beside Sakura, who was digging into her breakfast.  Her hair was already dry, the ends flipping outward slightly.  Hers was getting long, too.  He decided he liked it.  She looked good in any hairstyle she wore.

“So if we’re not needed at the next destination for another two days, what are we going to do today?” she asked.

“Well, it’ll probably depend on whatever’s in these scrolls.”

“Oh, I don’t think it’s anything important, Sasuke-kun,” she hummed.  He shot her a questioning look, but she was too busy choosing another slice of cheese to notice.  She seemed to have an idea of the scrolls’ contents already.

“There’s supposed to be a willow grove around here somewhere,” she continued.  “I could use some more willow bark for my medical supplies, if you wouldn’t mind helping me find it.”

“Sure, that sounds fine.”

She shot him a bright smile in thanks.  It was brief, but Sasuke felt the corner of his own mouth curve upward in response.  He liked seeing her happy.  This would also be a great opportunity to watch her work.  He was fascinated by her medical ninjutsu and endless knowledge of remedies.  She was so sure of herself when she explained how certain plants affected human bodies.  Her confidence was beautiful.

They wrapped up what they didn’t eat of the cheese and meat, but Sasuke finished the last slices of tomato while Sakura unfurled the first portion of her scroll.  He could see it was covered in dense writing even without his sharingan.

“Is that a jutsu formula?” he asked, noticing the careful diagram at the forefront of the writing.  She nodded.

“Tenten’s work, by the look of it.  It’s too neat for Naruto and not stylistic enough for Sai.”

“Supplies?”

She shrugged and lay the paper on the ground in front of her, smoothing its surface.  Making the required hand signs and channeling her chakra, she summoned whatever had been locked behind the brushstrokes.  It was a strange assortment of items, some supplies--fresh fruit and tea, a few vials of medicine, a knife that was something between a kunai and a scalpel--and some random things--a bouquet of pink and white flowers, a bar of soap, a painted clay bird, and a paper fan.  There were a few small boxes, too, some wrapped in ribbons, most with Sakura’s name written in different hands.

“Sasuke-kun, look!  Aw, they didn’t have to…”  She smiled delightedly, face diffused with joy and love as she looked at the odd pile of things.  He was still a bit confused as to the purpose of the scroll and its contents, but she looked so pleased as she inspected the goods that he didn’t want to ask and change her expression.  Instead he read his own scroll.

It’s Sakura-chan’s birthday today so you’d better not make her upset.  We both know she’s endured enough of that.  But you don’t need to worry too much about making her happy, either.  She’s been happier since travelling with you than she has been in a while.  Just..don’t be too careful.  You’ve both done enough waiting, and I’m getting tired of waiting for both of you!  Don’t mess it up, teme.

He usually read through Naruto’s correspondences twice, once to acclimate to his friend’s ill-formed handwriting, and another to confirm the contents of the message.  He read this scroll through a third time for good measure, but the brief bit of clarity was still followed by unsurety.  It was her birthday, which helped to explain her cheerfulness and the assortment of what must be gifts from her friends and family in Konoha.  But what was Naruto trying to say in his note?  And why did it make him feel so nervous?

He studied her as she investigate the little boxes, smiling and giggling and gasping at each surprise.  It was her birthday.  How had he not known it was her birthday?  He was normally hyper-observant of every nuance in her expression and body language.  He could chart the miniscule changes in her eyes as her thoughts transitioned.  He knew who she was and how she would move every moment they were together, but it seemed there was a lot of the truth of Sakura Haruno that he did not know.  He felt at once ashamed--he should have known when her birthday was, surely--and intrigued--how much more was there to learn?

He cleaned up their campsite while she arranged her new belongings in her pack.  Her loved ones in Konoha had been conscious of the circumstances of their travels, only giving her small trinkets or practical items.  But the number of gifts was evidence of the love she had left behind.  So many people had sent her something, had wanted to make her day special even though they were separated by miles.  She could have been home in Konoha with them, yet she had chosen to be in the middle of nowhere with him.  And he hadn’t known about her birthday at all.  He felt guilty for being the cause of the distance between her and the others, but he remembered that she had chosen to be here with him, and that was humbling.

“Sasuke-kun,” she said, and he felt strange and warm when she said his name, “I don’t think I’ll be able to fit everything in my pack.  Would you mind carrying a few things for me?”

She looked at him sheepishly, embarrassed.  She did not understand how this was a gift, to have her trust and be entrusted with something of hers.  It was a light burden compared to the weight of her love.  He would carry both willingly.

They set out to look for the willow grove, following close to the river.  She read her scroll as they walked and shared news from their friends and the village with him.

“Hinata’s making sure Naruto eats more vegetables, but they still go out for ramen at least twice a week.”

“That’s an improvement for him.”

She laughed.  He felt good when she laughed, especially when it was in reaction to him.

“Kakashi-sensei wants me to remind you to relax once in a while.  Shikamaru says Sensei’s relaxing too much and wishes he would take his paperwork more seriously, which is rich coming from such a lazy guy.”

“Kakashi’s always been late with things.”

“Yes, but one would think becoming Hokage would’ve helped his task management.  I guess some things just never change.’

“Hn.”

“Tenten sent some new smoke bombs she’s been developing and wants feedback when we use them.  And Lee has a girlfriend!  Aw, she sounds really sweet.  And he sounds serious about her.  I bet they’re really cute together.”

Sasuke thought of the gangly shinobi with his thick eyebrows and green body suit.  The word “cute” did not come to mind.

“Lady Tsunade is pouting about me not being around to help at the hospital, but Shizune says everything is running smoothly.  And look, Tonton even signed the scroll,” she giggled.  To him, it looked like the pig had merely walked across the paper before the ink had dried, smudging some of the characters and leaving ill-formed hoofprints in her wake.

“Captain Yamato says hi.  He’s been working with some of the neighboring lands to figure out a plan to help regrow some of the forests and habitats that were destroyed during the war, but it’s slow going.”

“Trees do take years to grow.”

“I think it’s more the diplomacy that’s tying things up.”

She read the next bit in silence, eyebrows drawing low over her eyes.  From the slant of the writing, he guessed this portion was from her mother.  He had caught glimpses of her previous letters when Sakura pulled them out in camp to write her replies.  He had gotten the impression that she didn’t altogether approve of her daughter’s decision to roam the country with an ex-rogue shinobi, but for the most part she trusted Sakura to make her own decisions.  Sasuke wondered what it was like to shoulder a mother’s disapproval.  His own had died before she could witness his wrong decisions.  He often wondered what she would think of him now.

Suddenly Sakura shrieked, breaking the relative peace of the morning.  Without thinking, Sasuke’s body moved, hand reaching for the sword concealed beneath his cloak, pivoting so he could watch Sakura’s back while his shoulder shielded her front.  His sharingan and rinnegan scanned their surroundings for the threat, whole body tense and on alert.

“Ino’s pregnant!” she shrieked, not yet aware of his reaction.  When she looked up to share her excitement, her breath brushed against his cheek.  “Oh,” she said softly, and the joy on her face changed to surprise.  Her enthusiasm softened.  “Sasuke-kun,” she breathed, and suddenly they were much too close and his senses were much too heightened.  Without a word, he turned away so he could not see her, yet he knew her so well that he could picture what she looked like standing behind him, eyes wide, totally still.  He could feel her understanding, her shame at having worried him, her desire to reach out and know that he was okay.  Even when he wanted her to, she did not, always respecting his boundaries, always waiting.  Waiting.  Was this what Naruto had meant?  They were always stopping before they broke any boundaries, before they moved out of the well-worn circles of friendship into...what?

“I’m sorry, Sasuke-kun.”

He turned to look at her over his shoulder.  She was standing where she had been, but she was relaxed.  She looked at him with a softness that scared him.  It wasn’t pity--never pity--but something deeper and more dangerous.  Understanding.  She could read his very soul, and regardless of the dark there that shadowed him, she loved it.

“It’s fine,” he said, turning away, unable to bear that gaze.  He wanted to tell her not to feel bad, that he was the broken one, always quick to believe in danger, and it was not her responsibility to fix him.  But she already knew, and she wanted to help if she could.  It was another gift she gave him.

“So Ino is pregnant?” he repeated, taking a step forward, ready to move on.  He was reassured when she moved forward with him, walking by his side again and inspecting her scroll.

“Yes!”  The excitement was back in her voice.  “It’s pretty early still, but she’s sure, and Shizune says everything looks right.  She and Sai have only been married a couple of months.  I would’ve thought they’d take more time to settle into marriage, but I probably shouldn’t be surprised.  When Ino wants something, she gets it.  Except you, of course.”

He raised an eyebrow at her.  She was teasing him for his hordes of fangirls in his youth.  He was kind enough not to remind her that she had been one of those fangirls.  He was curious to know who she thought had won in the race to claim him, but she was already talking again.

“I would’ve expected Naruto and Hinata to have a baby on the way by now, since they can’t seem to keep away from each other.  Hinata isn’t one to rush things, though, and Naruto is totally at her mercy.  Oh!  I just realized, that’s all of Team Ten who are expecting.  I bet Ino’s happy about that.”

Sakura continued musing about their friends while Sasuke tried to process the fact that they were starting their own families.  His classmates and comrades were going to be parents.  The idea of his own family, the next generation of Uchiha, worried him.  He was always at war with himself whether to be ashamed or proud of his name.  There were times when he felt the responsibility of defining it and the legacy he wanted to build for the future.  There were days when he thought it might be better to let the name die, but his love for his brother and the love of his friends wouldn’t let him.  Still, he pitied the children he would bring into this world who would bear the burden of his name.

He glanced at Sakura beside him.  She had gone back to reading the scroll to herself, humming absentmindedly.  He wondered how often she thought about her future family and whether she recognized what a burden his name might be for her.  He found himself with a monopoly on her love, but did she understand what a life with him would mean for their children?

Did he dare think of sharing his future family with Sakura?

“Sasuke-kun look!”  Her happy voice broke into his thoughts.  “I bet that’s the willow grove we’re looking for.”

It was a large cluster of trees around a small cove.  The tendrils of leaves brushed along the ground like the hair of giants buried to their shoulders in the earth.  The water swirled quietly in the cove, kissing the roots of a few trees exposed in the riverbank.  It was a peaceful place.

“Come on,” Sakura invited, rolling up her scroll and jogging towards the trees.  He allowed himself to be caught in her wake, following as she disappeared into the curtains of leaves, eager to keep her pink hair in his sight.

There were seven large willows whose branches and trunks were bent and thick with age.  A scattering of younger trees filled in the rest of the grove, though patches of lush grass carpeted the areas where sufficient sunlight managed to dodge their trailing branches.  He watched as Sakura inspected some of the younger trees, ducking between light and shadow to run her fingertips along their trunks and press her nose to the bark.

“Sometimes the bark on the older trees is too tough,” she explained, “but you also have to be careful that the tree you’re harvesting from isn’t underdeveloped.  It has to be able to recover from the shock of losing some of its protective skin.”

He listened attentively, studying her movement as though he were one of her students.  He noted the way she delicately sliced off strips of bark, learning what to look for as she explained how to gauge its medicinal worth.  He studied her technique for applying a type of organic glue and protective mesh to the tree afterwards so it could heal and be protected from infection.  Then he tried his own hand at it, following her instructions with care, attempting to channel her desire to heal and help through his own fingers.  He wanted to do a good job because it would help her.  It would be a tiny way to repay her for all she did to help him.

“Thank you Sasuke-kun, these will be great.”  She smiled warmly as he handed her the bark, carefully rolled and tied into small packets for easy storage and use.  He felt pleased that she approved of his work and slightly relieved that he had managed to not disappoint her.

They had lunch in the willow grove.  They shared some of the fruit Hinata had sent and some dumplings from her parents.  They were quiet as they ate.  Distant birdsong drifted on the breeze, nearly drowned by the quiet whispers of the willow leaves and the hum of the river.

“It’s so peaceful here,” she sighed, weaving together strands of her pink hair so it formed a sort of crown.  He watched her dexterous fingers, amazed at how deftly they worked through her hair, gathering and tucking it neatly.  Then she began pulling apart he bouquet and incorporating the flowers into her crown.  They had been a gift from Ino.  He thought a gift that would fade and die in a few days was in poor taste, but Sakura seemed quite happy with the blooms.  He knew kunoichi often communicated with flowers, but he had never bothered to learn their meanings.

She wasn’t as adept at weaving the flowers through her hair.  He suspected that not being able to see what she was doing posed a challenge for her.  Her eyebrows knit in concentration as she tried to visualize her hair and her hands and the flowers.

“May I?” he asked before he could think it all the way through.  He reached timidly for the flower in her hand, and though she looked surprised, she let him take it.  He wasn’t sure what he thought he could accomplish with only one hand and next to no knowledge of hairstyling.  He was glad she had to sit with her back to him so she wouldn’t see the perplexity shaping his face.

He set to work, trying to be careful not to bruise the delicate petals or undo her hair.  It was tricky to work with his calloused fingers, thicker than her own, but he was committed.  He didn’t want to disappoint her in this, either.  When he finished with one flower, he moved on to the next, incorporating pink orchids, white daisies, and huge pink peonies into the crown.  Her hair was smooth under his fingertips, soft and sleek and beautiful.  He wondered if it was her hair that smelled so sweet or merely the bouquet tangling with his senses.

“I think that’s all I can do,” he admitted after several minutes of diligent work.  She reached her hands up to gently pat at her head, trying to visualize the halo of flowers now framing her face.

“Thank you Sasuke-kun,” she said, turning to him with a bright smile.  Her cheeks were a little pink, probably from excitement.  They matched the flowers.  He wasn’t sure why, but he was struck again by her beauty--sparkling green eyes, sunset pink hair, and soft skin.  She was a flower among flowers, a treasured bloom.

“There are a few left over,” he observed, incapable of holding her gaze, eyes unable to handle the sight of something so special.

“Hm.”  She picked up the two orchids and large white chrysanthemum, twirling the stems thoughtfully in her hands.  Then she reached towards him, and her hands were in his hair.  Sasuke froze, watching her face as she focused on what she was doing, the seriousness of her expression.  It was strange, having someone else messing with her hair.  Strange, but not uncomfortable, because it was Sakura.

“There.”  She sat back on her heels, hands now free of both his hair and the flowers.  He raised his hand to feel the blooms now tucked into his hair.  He couldn’t picture it, but Sakura looked pleased.

“Thanks.”

She hummed happily in reply.

“Now that you’ve got more willow bark, what do you want to do?”

“Can we stay here for the rest of the day?  It’s just so nice here.”

He smiled a little to himself.

“That would be fine.”

It would mean an early day tomorrow to get to their destination on time, but they could afford to relax today.  It was her birthday, after all.

“Thank you, Sasuke-kun,” she said softly.  She leaned back on her arms, closing her eyes and leaning her head back to drink in the early afternoon atmosphere.  There was a wisp of pink hair loose, tickling her cheekbone.  He wondered if he had knocked it loose lacing her updo with flowers, or if it was one of those stubborn bits that didn’t like to cooperate.  He had a cowlick near the back of his head that didn’t like to lay flat.  It was one of the reasons he wore his hair as he did.

He touched the flowers in his hair again.  For the longest time no one had dared touch him without his permission.  And now he was wearing flowers in his hair.  He didn’t even mind.  She had a strange sort of magic over him.  Sakura tended to take his world and dismantle all of its boundaries, and she did it so innocently that it didn’t matter.

“Would you like fish for dinner?”

“Hm?”  She cracked open an eye to look at him.  He gestured to the river.

“I could catch some for dinner tonight.”

“Sure, that’d be nice.  But before you go fishing, I’ll race you to the top of that tree.”

In a blink, she was up and racing to the tallest willow.  Sasuke was a step behind her, grinning.  They had raced to climb trees before, many years ago when they had been younger and more carefree.  She had been way ahead of him and Naruto in chakra control, and he had been much too proud to tell her how impressed he was.  But he had improved a lot since then.

The race soon became a game of tag instead.  They wove between the tree branches, trusting their agility and balance to keep from falling.  Laughter followed them between the trees, along with shrieks and shouts as they dodged some close calls.  They easily could have caught one another if they used some of their jutsus, but they kept it strictly to chakra control and flexibility.  It was like that time when they were genin all over again.  For one afternoon, they had nothing to worry about.  It was merely the sun and the trees and their breaths and each other.  It was marvelous.

And it came to an end with Sakura laughing and gasping for breath, sitting down on the highest safe branch of the tree.

“Truce,” she gasped, straddling the branch and leaning against the trunk.  He nodded and sat near her on the branch, panting and chuckling.  This had been fun, exerting his energy for something other than retribution and missions.  It was refreshing.

They sat there in the treetop, catching their breaths and looking at each other.  A few more tendrils of pink hair had escaped Sakura’s updo, but it had weathered the excitement well.  He wondered if his own flowers had survived.  They simply looked at each other in this moment where the world was stripped away and their worries cast aside.  It was an honest moment between them, no pretences, just the joy of life and each other’s company.

They spent the rest of the afternoon relaxing together.  Sasuke fished, and Sakura wrote letters to their friends back home.  He snuck glances at her lying in the grass on her stomach beside him.  He noted the contours of her back, the curve of her lips, the way she held the brush, the unique way she wrote the characters…  These were the myriad details of Sakura Haruno, and he wanted to know them all intimately.  It was a wonder he had enough focus after studying her to catch fish.

Dinner was pleasant.  He managed to snag a few fish which they grilled over their fire.  They also had some rice leftover from their travel supply, and Sakura gathered a few wild vegetables in the area to round out their meal.  They finished with some sake that Tsunade had sent for her pupil’s birthday.

“Anything else you want to tell Naruto before I send this off?” she asked, completing the final character on her letter to their friend.  He took the brush from her and scrawled a note.  His handwriting looked so much less refined next to hers.  At least it was legible.

“Sasuke,” she groaned when she read what he’d put down.  “‘Stop worrying about me and get your own love life together.’  What do you mean?  He’s already happily married.”

“But they don’t have any kids yet.  You even said how unexpected that was.”

She rolled her eyes and wrapped up the scroll, signaling to Jinsoku.  The hawk had followed them all day and been relaxing in the trees while they went about their business.  She strapped the scrolls she had written into the carrier on its back, stroking its neck and whispering instructions in its ear.   With a mighty flap of its wings, it rose again and flew off into the evening.

Sasuke took another sip of sake.  The grove was as peaceful now as it had been earlier, the crackling of the fire in front of them the only addition to the soft sounds of the leaves and the river.  It really was a lovely place.  He had started noticing and appreciating the landscapes he travelled through when Sakura joined him.  She was always eager to point out some interesting flowers or an awe-inspiring rock formation.  He wondered how much of his new appreciation for their surroundings was due to the new company he was keeping.

He looked at her, skin glowing from the fire, flowers starting to wilt in her hair.  She had made everything better when she decided to join him.  Some things were more challenging, of course, and there were times he was afraid of the love and understanding she held for him.  But everything, everything was better with her around.  And he suddenly, desperately needed her to know that.

“Sakura,” he said softly, and when she turned, he was there, nose mere inches from hers, his hand on her cheek.  It was warm from the fire and the blush creeping onto her face.  He wanted to freeze time here, to take in every detail of her wide eyes and lips parted in surprise, to count every hair that had fallen out of place.  Part of him was also panicking, telling him to pull back, overwhelmed by their proximity.  He could feel her breath on his lips.  He could smell the flowers in her hair.

But Naruto was right.  She had waited long enough.  And Sasuke didn’t want to wait anymore, either.

The kiss was simple and chaste.  It was the press of warm lips, her quick intake of surprised breath through her nose, and the tingle of his fingertips on her skin.  But it was also fire and flood, something new and long-anticipated, the mingling of their worlds and feelings and the intertwining of their souls.  It was natural and frightening.  It was right.

They broke apart after a moment that felt simultaneously like eternity and a mere second.  And suddenly Sasuke felt too close to her again, consumed by the rising panic of having walked to the edge of their usual dynamic and suddenly realizing he had left the habitual boundary far behind.  He had overstepped.  He had ruined what they had.  He turned away.

But he couldn’t, because her hand was on his cheek now, too.

“Sasuke-kun,” she whispered, and he saw her very soul in her eyes.  All of the love she had held in for years, the depth of her understanding, everything that he was to her looked back at him.  She demanded nothing but the truth, and he felt the truth in the contact of their skin and the memory of her lips.  She had broken the boundaries of his world again, and it was okay because she was walking with him towards the new horizon, moving forward at his side.

And Sasuke knew that they would walk together for the rest of their lives.

“Happy birthday, Sakura.”

[musicalmukebox]

Let’s Get (Back) Together | l.h. (8)

Ctto of the gif!

AU: Parent Trap Dad!Luke

Summary: A strong love which led to a strong marriage and twin daughters. Yet in the end, it didn’t turn out so well. You strongly refuse to encounter him ever again. But what happens when both of you coincidentally send your twin daughters to the same summer camp in Florida after 10 years?

Word Count: 5.7k

Warnings: swearing, mentions of alcohol and usage

A/N: Almost there!! 

I don’t own Parent Trap and its ideas. It’s only used as inspiration.

1 / 2A / 2B / 2C / 3 / 4 / 5 / 6 / 7 / 8 / 9 / 10 / 11 / 12 / 13 / 14 / 15

Feedback/Questions/Others? Here.

-

2020, Sydney

“Don’t think that way, babe. They are going to love you.” Luke reassures you, driving to his parents’ home and placing his hand on your thigh so you’d lessen your freaking out session.

Ever since you and Luke have been planning this trip so you could relaxation from working at the set for your upcoming film “Constant” and meet his parents, it was nerve-wracking. Oh, and yes you’re finally making your debut in the movie industry!

You really wanted to show to them that you were just as empowered, determined and loving as their son and not a social climber of some sort, especially since you are a struggling actress. Happily, they loved him and how he made you happy. You get now what Luke felt when he met your parents last month, all the nerves going crazy and overthinking too. Now you wished the same for yourself, especially since this trip will involve staying over at the Hemmings residence.

“But Luke, in case you forgot, I am the same girl from the Valentine music video who got really fucking frisky with you! Not a good impression honestly.” You blurt out, pressing the button to slide the car window open so you could use your e-cigarette and let the strawberry scented smoke out your lungs. You let your head out a bit to feel some of that cool breeze, just letting yourself go.

“You don’t have to use that thing all the time when you’re stressed, you know?” Luke pointed out, taking a short glance at you then back at the long road. You let a slight chuckle while taking a swift smell of that sweet aroma before facing yourself to Luke. “That’s pretty hypocritical of you, love because you also brought yours. But you are right, truly there are other ways get some stress relief.” You purr, trailing your fingers up his thigh near his hardened crotch, twitching more as you keep going. His grip on the handle tightened, more at the sight of your lips puckering up that e-cigarette and exhaling with a “pop”. Note also that he’s other hand was gripping your thigh, squeezing it repeatedly.

“Fuck, Luke.” You moaned, letting your body lie further on the chair whilst smoking.

“Babe, as much as you look fucking good in that dress and desirable to fuck right now, we’re almost at the house.” He says, controlling himself before he lets his dominance take over and lets his hand go from your thigh and putting them back on the wheel. “Tease.”

It took another 10 minutes before Luke’s car parked by the driveway of his family home, excited to be reunited with his loved ones after a while. Exiting the car, he ran up to his front door and knocked, being a man of good manners. You, on the other hand, followed right behind him, hands sweaty and overthinking everything.

 “They’re going to find a flaw on you, and hate you.”

“You’re not good enough.”

“You still have time to back out and run!”

 Luke easily notices your droopy eyes, slowed walking and quickened breathing, which were all too familiar. As you reached his side, hands on your pocket, his hands held your waist, moving your bodily position from facing the door to facing him. You were still looking down until his finger lift your chin, your eyes locked with his.

“You calmed me when I was nervous to meet your parents, and to our happiness, they liked me. My parents will adore you because you are amazing, okay?” He reminds, sealing it with a short peck which matched the timing of the door being opened by a splitting image of Luke, yet he was much taller and scruffier, also his hair was tied back.

“Luke, mate!” He smiled, pulling your boyfriend in for a heartfelt hug. “Getting buffer now, I see?”

“Maybe more than you now since I’ve quit drinking, Jack. Well sort of.” Luke half jokes, holding his laughter. The man, whose name happens to be Jack, rolls his eyes in annoyance and jokingly, laughing along. “You wish, Luke. Oh, and hello to you.” His focus changed to you, looking up and down.

“(Y/N), this is my older brother Jack. Jack, my girlfriend, (Y/N).” Luke introduces you both, further making you both acquainted to each other. You were already preparing yourself to what’s going to occur, whether they will act fake or nice to you. Expecting the worst, you were surprised when Jack brought you in for a friendly hug.

“Nice to finally meet you! Come on in!” He invites you inside, slowly entering the open and big house they have. You could smell the aroma of vanilla spread all throughout, reminding of Luke’s house in LA. You also noticed the different pictures hung on the walls, like family, individual and scenery shots, in which the latter are taken by his mother, Liz. Oh, meeting her in person got you the most wrapped up, especially she is the main woman of the household which is male dominated. Despite this, there was one photo that stood out the most was a young and chubby looking school photo of Luke.

“Aww, baby boy.” You cooed, trailing the glass frame and acting affectionate. Luke “You looked so cute and innocent here, love. What happened?”

“Oh haha, real funny. It’s not as worse as your photo as a devil for Halloween circa 2004.” He strikes back jokingly, mentioning an embarrassing memory from your childhood because your costume got dirtied by mud when you accidentally tripped on some excess cloth from your pants since the costume was too long.

“We don’t speak of that humiliating memory, loser!” You spanked him on the shoulder, the memories of that playing in your mind. “Oh, c’mon it was funny! Also, you were being mean!” He retaliated by grabbing your wrists in defense.

“Ooh, you are so smitten, mate!” Jack teases, giving him a pat on the back. “Oh, he is huh?” You give him a smirk, flattered. Luke blushes pink, shy to express his admiration and love towards you sometimes because he likes to keep it to himself. But with you, you’re an exception.

After looking and teasing Luke about his old pictures, Jack led you and Luke to the living room, where a young woman and little boy were playing with trucks and action figures on the floor.

“You’ll never get away, Loki!” The young boy holds up a Spiderman figure, playing his character. “Try me!” The young woman plays back, holding up a Loki figure, striking it at the Spiderman. They begin “fighting”, only ending in a fit of giggles wherein also the woman carried the young boy up in the air.

“Mommy, I’m flying!!” He bubbled, his toothy smile melting your heart due to the cuteness.  “Woah there, little Max has grown a bit!” Luke says as he makes his way to the woman, putting down the little boy still holding his action figure and then lightens up at the sight of his tall uncle. “Uncle Pukey!” He exclaims, his tiny legs running over to the tall man who picks him up high in the air. As he brought him down, Luke kneels down to reach his height.

“How you been, Max?” He asks, messing his hair a bit. “I’m happy now you’re here! Also, I just turned 4!” He puts up four fingers, giving him a toothy smile that lightened up your mood before running back to his toys. Yet it kind of gutted Luke because he’s missing out on his nephew’s life. Hopefully, he’ll never be like that to his future kids.

Welp.

“He’s getting a bit tall now, I see.” Luke adds, his attention to the woman lying on the couch in tiredness. “Turning into a handful too.” She says, regaining her strength and stood up again. “Missed you,   you Jack wannabe.”

Luke chuckles, his arms opening for her for a hug. “Missed you too, Celeste.” As their hug ends, Celeste beams at the sight of you, her energy boosted. 

“Oh my, you must be (Y/N)!” 

“Hi, you must be Cel-” You prepared your hand to shake, yet instead, she gave you a warm hug which you didn’t expect. “Love, shaking hands is so formal. Besides, I can tell that you’re really nervous by the way your eyes crinkle and breaths quicken.”

“Is it that obvious?” 

“I can read people pretty easily, not to brag or anything. Oh and yes, I’m Celeste, Jack’s wife. ” She introduces, looking from top to bottom. Much to your cluelessness, she likes you and your reservedness.

“Wow, it’s about time you’re here and didn’t greet me first!” A much older-looking and shorter woman enters the scene, crossing her arms at Luke, who is stationed at the floor with Max and playing with him. 

“Sorry, mum. Couldn’t resist playing my favorite nephew.” He jokes before standing up and giving her a hug and a kiss on the cheek. 

“Do you mean your only nephew?” Jack says, showing off his common sense. “Shut up, Jack.” Luke responds, getting everyone annoyed because Max was in the room, wherein there is zero tolerance for swearing.

“Clean that dirty mouth of yours, mate.” Jack reminds, covering little Max’s ears, making him squirm a lot. “There is a child here.” 

“Some things don’t change with you, hun.”   The older woman comments, before changing her attention on him to you. You couldn’t decipher what she was thinking at that moment nor if she sensed bad or good vibes with you.

“Ah, you must be (Y/N)!” She smiles as she approached you. You did the same thing with Celeste and reached out your hand shake for formality. “It’s nice to meet you, Mrs. Hemmings.”

“Call me Liz, love. You are as beautiful as Luke described.” She declined the handshake to give you a hug. This family is very affectionate, you noticed. Unlike yours, wherein they were pretty strict with Luke at first, yet they warmed up to him in the end.

“Oh, thank you. You are just as lovely, Liz.” You didn’t know to reply at first yet you couldn’t help blush while remaining humble. 

“Liz, is Lewi here?” An older and much shorter man joins the scene, right behind Liz.

“Yup! And brought a special someone.” She answers, giving a kind and genuine grin, which is a sign of acceptance. Well, so far.

“Oh, (Y/N)! I’m Andy, by the way, great to finally meet you!” He introduces himself, wherein based on everyone you’ve met so far, he must be his dad. “Hi, dad.” Luke gives Andy a hug before standing right beside you, his arm on your waist. 

“Luke has told us so much things about you.”

“Really like what?” You asked, curious as to what your boyfriend must’ve shared. Were they bad? Good? Funny?

“How about we eat first then let’s talk.” Liz instructs, her arms inviting us to the dining room where various food and beverages are served. “Come one, everyone, let’s eat!” 

Nodding, everyone gathered at the long dining table, satisfying their hunger and thirst through Liz’s cooking and catching up, especially on Luke because he’s the only one living in LA aside from you. Also, his other brother Ben caught up to you guys for dinner, along with his family. His wife’s name is Kara and has two kids: Jacob, who’s 6 years old, and Lily, who’s 3. Happily for you, Ben had a liking for you like everyone else, which made dinner much more enjoyable.

It was as if your worries have gone away whilst eating dinner, especially when everyone asked you different questions, which you answered truthfully. Celeste pointed out how odd it was how you met but quoting her, “a great result because you make Luke really happy.” 

 Andy admired how you managed to still graduate even if you changed career paths. “Being able to speak a different language is an advantage whether you’re acting or not.” 

 As for Ben and Jack, they find it incredible that you’re there to “keep him grounded and help him get through media” especially since you are a rising star. 

“I like (Y/N), uncle Pukey. She makes you happy.” Max says at the table as he drinks his orange juice from a sippie cup. Everyone aww’d, and your heart has never been happier. 

As dessert, which was cake, was being eaten and wine was drank by everyone still at the dining table, Liz began getting dirty plates for her to clean. Seeing how many they were, you offered to help her out. “Yes sure, love. Thank you.” She thanked, strengthening the grip on the plates on her hands so they don’t fall. 

Getting the remaining plates, you stayed beside her whilst washing quietly in order to have a fast pace and still catch up with the others at the table. 

”He really loves you, you know?” Liz began, capturing your attention away from the plates and facing her. 

“I do, and I love him just as much, Liz.” You say, your nerves creeping up back to you, tilting you head to where Luke was at the dining room. The chandelier light shined at him, wherein his eyes crinkled and smile widened, laughing afterwards. 

“It warms my heart for him to find someone like you, who doesn’t let others like the media define him for you and keeps him grounded. Just the way he talks about you in the past, just wow you got him smitten.” She shares, lovingly and with relief. “As his mother, all I want is the best for him always. Don’t ever hurt him, alright?” 

“I won’t ever, Liz. Your son is the best thing I’ve ever had in this tough life, and he makes me really happy.”

-

2034, Los Angeles

 “She looked like an angel.”

“Luke, stop. She ended things and hurt you.”

“It was like she never aged a bit.”

“Shut up, Luke! You’ve moved on right?”

 Those were some of the many rivaling thoughts running through Luke’s mind as he was washing his face repeatedly in the restroom, trying to forget that strong connection from earlier. He felt nervous, most especially at the fact you are living and breathing in the same area. Some 10 year separation, huh? Things get weirder when he recalls Rebecca, well actually Stella, back in Sydney asked him what he would do if he sees you again. He said he’d say hi and talk, but as of now, he can’t think straight. Now, he kept pondering on other things to distract himself, like what shirt will be changing to for the afterparty, whether to do a note change in the band’s performance of Valentine later, and if Sierra saw her earlier.

For the latter, if she did, things will most likely not go well.

Wiping his face on some paper towels, he ran fast to the band’s dressing room, aware that he will be stepping on stage in a little while. His phone started ringing and vibrating with numerous texts and calls. At last, he found the door labeled “5SOS” and opening it, he sees his fellow band members practicing on their respective instruments and having conversations with their kids and wives. “Finally, you’re here!” Sierra cheered, reaching over to him for a peck on the lips. “You got everyone worried! And your shirt’s a bit wet too.”

“Don’t scare us off like that, mate. You’re our frontman, we will fail without you!” Calum says, concerned. “Fuck, did someone get your blazer or something?” Michael cusses, shocking Crystal. “Michael!” She protested, covering the ears of Beatrix, who was beside her and talking to Scarlett about . “There are children in the room.”

“Mom, let go!” Beatrix groans, removing her hands and carries on with Scarlett. Rebecca, the real one, was busy talking to Alex, “catching up”, and as she saw Luke, she was ecstatic. “Dad!” Running to his side, she gives him a tight hug, a hug almost a month overdue.

“So peppy over there, poppet? I just saw you a while ago.” He comments as he kneels a bit and wrapped his arms around her. “Honestly, it felt longer, dad.” Rebecca says satisfied, finally feeling more at home and contented to talk with her accent too.

“Becks love.” Sierra called out, disrupting the moment much to Rebecca’s dismay. As an aunt, she was okay but now after what’s been happening, she’s not having it. She discreetly observes her body language and facial expression. She kept tapping her feet and her smile was crooked as she held her phone out. Impatience, like she wanted something and didn’t wanted you in it. “Oh yes? Sorry, Sierra.” Rebecca answers, giving her an innocent grin and still hugging Luke from the side.

“Well, Becks, do you mind if you take a photo of your dad and me? You know, more photos for the wedding, the better.” She asks politely, handing the phone to Rebecca and going over to one side of Luke, putting her arm on his waist and vice versa. “Oh okay, sure.” As the device was in her hands, she discreetly smirked as she had an idea. How fast or slow can Sierra crack? Upon doing this, it was so she knows what she was in for if Sierra was her step-mom.

Mare.

Round 1: It was dropping her phone “accidentally” on the floor while Luke and Sierra were fixing themselves a bit for the photo. “Oh shiz, sorry Aunt Sierra.” She frantically picks it up to sell the character, sliding left on the phone to access the camera. From afar, she can see her annoyance in her eyes, rolling them, and the hand on her waist crumpling a bit.

“I-It’s fine, Becks. Just take the picture since your dad is almost going on stage, yeah?” Stammering, Rebecca captures the moment, putting down the phone camera. “Yay, thanks Becks!” Sierra runs over to Becks’ side, opening her phone to check the photo. “This is amazing! What do you think, Lukey?” She says in approval, handing her phone to Luke. For a second, Rebecca grimaced over that nickname of her dad.

“I-It l-looks great. Nice one, poppet.” He compliments, walking to the other side of the room to get ahold of his guitar. He was still out of focus, searching for any distraction because the picture taking didn’t really help and with Rebecca in the room, he couldn’t stop thinking about you because she’s half of you.

“Dad, are you okay?” Rebecca cuts him off from his thoughts, her blue eyes identical to his looking fretful. “You’ve been acting weird since you got here, like you saw a ghost or something.” Does a ghost of marriage past count?

“I just needed my guitar.” Luckily, his guitar was just at fingers touch, gripping on it and putting on the strap around his figure. “Smooth move over there.” She jested, nodding her head up and down. Luke continues his gaze at her, the nodding of head reminding him of something you would do.

“Shut up, Luke! You’ve moved on right?” One thought repeated.

“5 minutes until performance, boys!” A man, probably one of the organizers, announced in the room upon opening the door, instigating the boys to gather what they need before heading out. Luke grabbed one of the many picks he had and took a gulp of water to refresh him before the performance. Surely he’s used to it, but the tables have now turned since he saw you, and also that you will be watching him. If only he had a drink, but he’ll get to that later at the afterparty.

Lord, help him.

-

“Why did I choose to wear heels again?” You complained right after you stepped out of the vehicle with Timmy, facing once more the familiar flashing lights of different cameras and the paparazzi screaming your name and blurting out of context questions. Timmy was right with you to get through that horde and enter the after-party venue, where there will still some photographers, but consensual ones. The lights were dim, numerous private booths and tables near the dance floor, different artists performing, all sorts of alcohol and food being served. Tempting as it was, you just recovered from your previous indulge from a while ago and taking a rest.

“I believe we have found our table, babe.” Timmy says, his finger pointing to a table with the label “Cast of Take Me or Leave Me” by the right side of the stage. You just wanted to hold his hand, but it cannot be so you settled on interlacing your arm on his, which is a sign of respect and chivalry that would not be easily suspected. As you both directed your steps to that spot, you then recalled that you were to meet up with Rebecca, or Stella now, and Gina as soon as you entered the venue of the after-party. “Sorry babe, wait.” You pause your movement, bringing your phone out and dialing Gina’s number. Placing the device by your ear and letting it ring, you then hear shuffling and soft voices in the background. “Hi, Miss (Y/N). How may I help you?”

“Hey, Gina. Where are you two? I figured that we would meet up here at the after-party to, you know, discuss.” Your voice softened, most especially on your emphasis on the word discuss, looking around the venue in hopes of finding them yet the lighting was too minimal and only neon lights were dominant. “Oh, we’re at one of the lounges near the bar, the third nearest. Rebecca almost passed out because she’s dehydrated.” Gina professes on the other line.

“Shit, I’m on my way there.” You panic before hanging up and turning your back on Timmy. “Babe, wait up!” He stopped you, his hand gripping on your shoulder. “Are you okay?”

“Y-Yeah. Got some old friends here and I’ll just say hi if that’s okay.” You lied, ready to run and get some water at the bar. You weren’t much of a secret keeper towards him, but this one is just not too easy to tell at the time. For Timmy, he was thinking to accompany you, yet he is reminded of your relationship which is very private so he shrugs the request. “Oh, okay. I’ll be with Cami and Miles over there. Be back soon, alright?”

“No problem, babe.” You give him a kiss on the cheek before heading your way to the busy bar. Different people with different requests who cannot control their impatience. Yet when you made your appearance, one bartender instantly was available for you.

“Miss (Y/N) (Y/L/N)! What would you like for this evening?”

“Not to sound like a bummer, but I’d like water please. It’s for my daughter.” He nods at your request and gives you cold bottled water from the cooler below the table. “Here you go, miss. Enjoy your night.” As you thanked and tipped him with a 10 because you were feeling friendly, you searched for that third lounge nearest to the bar, which happens to be the most isolated too. When you did, which was a burden for your feet, you knocked first out of courtesy.

“Miss Rebecca Hemmings!” You called out, just wanting to get everything over and done, mainly that just hours ago, you were eye to eye with your ex-husband, fully speechless. This was someone whom you’ve loved yet damaged you. You needed him out for good because it was too much.

The door slowly opens to reveal two identical girls by the door. Duh, you have twins, but it’s not likely to already see each other this fast, right? “Hold up, I’m beginning to see double.” You blinked numerously.

“Well mom, you are.” The girl in the dotted dress confirms, smiling as she looked at her other sister for a second and using her Australian accent to remind you that it was Rebecca. As for the girl in the leather-like dress, it was Stella, whom you’ve mistaken earlier as Rebecca, thinking she was just wearing a jacket. You were ecstatic, they were together at last and you weren’t tipsy anymore

“Oh my God! You both have found each other, and are so beautiful.” You gushed, bringing in them for a hug. That last time they were together were when they were a year old, in separate baby baskets in which afterwards, Luke took Rebecca and you took Stella. They were so unaware of what they were going to face, or rather miss out. But now, time to snap back to reality.

“Now, you two have explaining to do!” Out of the blue, a woman with red hair and light brown eyes pops out from the door. Familiar looking you thought of her. “Hold on, loves. Maybe it’s best that we head inside so no one gets suspicious.” She reminds, her arms directing the twins to go inside which they easily follow. Afterwards, she focuses on you. “Hi miss (Y/N), I don’t know if you remember me, but..”  Her voice and face were very familiar, and then memories of the past played in your head of this woman and how she once took care of Stella for over a year.

“Oh my, Felicia! It’s been so long.” You give her a short hug before you entered inside the cold lounge. Felicia grins at your kind action. “I knew I always liked her.” She tells herself, checking around the vicinity if anyone was watching then closing the door gently.

-

“First off, I already just saw your dad when he was going backstage with your aunt Sierra, taking these cutesy photos like best-friend style kinda. He was very dumbfounded, like he had no clue that “Stella” and I were going to be both here. And between the both of you, you didn’t tell him that I was going to be here, huh?” You confronted in frustration while stood in front of the two girls seated at the couch, her palm on her forehead and pacing the room back and forth.

“You saw him already?” Stella gasped, concerned that everything was bound to fail already before the meeting. It would be too soon. “Surprisingly yes, like we locked eyes so deeply, and I can sense that he viewed me like a ghost, like the ghost of marriage past. Well true.” You coincidentally matched your analogy as you explained what happened. As you were about to add on, Gina barges in the room holding water bottles.

“Here guys, the water bot – Oh hello everyone, hi Miss (Y/N).” She awkwardly greets, placing the bottles on the table beside her. Short background, it was just her and the twins a while in the room before she left to get water for Rebecca, then Felicia followed afterwards because she had to give Luke’s extra shirt for the after-party. As Gina waves at every single person in the room, yet paid more attention on the eyes of the unfamiliar red-haired, snow white-skinned woman in the room. The eyes of Felicia.

“Hi! I’m afraid we haven’t met personally, but I’m Gina. Nice to finally meet the woman Rebecca speaks highly of.” Gina approaches Felicia, shaking her hand. “Hello! Likewise, love. I’m Felicia.” She shakes back, making a bold move by kissing her hand. “Lovely to meet you.”

Unconsciously, their grasps prolonged as well as their staring at each other. You caught from the moment that they were slightly interested in each other, but this wasn’t the right time to pursue it.

“Ahem.” You coughed, waking the girls from their mini moment and back to your talk towards the twins. “Sorry, miss. Continue on.” Gina apologizes, putting some strand of her brown hair behind her ear, still flattered by Felicia’s action and not to mention that she is right beside her feeling just as giddy.

“Let us now change the topic. You are going to tell me right now why we’re here and also without telling your father.” You say with conviction, in dire need of answers and no more secrecy.

Yet Gina interrupts the talk again. “Excuse me, miss (Y/N), now since this is a family topic, Felicia and I will be heading out.”

“I agree, miss (Y/N). Now shall we, Gina?” The two take small steps towards the exit. Suspicious as it is, you figured that those two maybe hiding some information too.

“Wait!”

Everyone froze. You took in some deep breaths because you were mentally preparing for what you are about to ask and the answers that will roll along with it, which will just bring you more overwhelm and stress. “Is there something I don’t know that you all do?”

Silence, Stella was looking at Rebecca, pestering her indirectly through her hand movements to say something. Rebecca sighed, her heartbeat racing fast. “Mom, Dad’s getting married.”

“What? To who?”

“Aunt Sierra.” Stella admits, frowning at the name without hesitation.

You couldn’t believe your ears. You prayed hard hoping that it wasn’t true yet no joking nor smiley expressions came from your girls to back it up, which just confirms the fact.

“That bitch.” You yell, clenching your fists and ready to punch the wall. Your adrenaline was rushing through veins without any pauses and willing to snap at anyone who tries to stop.

Here’s the thing. Sierra has always been mean to you behind doors since the day Luke introduced you to her back in the day, saying that you weren’t good enough for him and that you should leave him for someone else. Although you never hide anything from Luke, this was something you just can’t tell him. This was because Sierra has established close friendships with the boys for years, which is also good for the music industry and you wouldn’t want that to be ruined over the fact that she didn’t like you. Besides whatever she said, you could care less. But now to marry Luke? This is different, and you felt betrayed.

“I never told anyone about this, but Sierra and I never liked each other because she says I’m never good enough for your father and that he deserves better.” You hissed, tightly gripping on one of the pillow from the couch. Rebecca and Stella are beyond scared as they have never seen you this enraged about anyone, making their way to you with water.

“Mom, are you jealous?” Stella questions, directing you to sit down and just relax by the softness of the couch, even for just a little bit.

“No, love. I-It’s just that if your father was to find someone else after me, it would just not be her.” You elaborated, desiring your e-cigarette so badly yet it is in the possession of Mark because Rebecca told him to keep it away from you. Oh great.

Funny enough, it was like you switched roles: the twins were asking the questions and you were answering them. “Since you and aunt Sierra were never ever in good terms, why didn’t you tell dad?”

Taking a breather, “Sierra’s a singer like your dad and has been friends with him too for years, longer than my and your dad’s past relationship. Also it was good for business he says.”

“Well mom, this is terrible, and she is quite awful, and this can’t push through! The only way he won’t marry her is if – you tell her Stella, you both know each other more.” Rebecca switches positions with Stella who was seated beside you. “Is if he sees you again.” She finishes her twin’s sentences, with a hint of hope things could get better.

“You’re not setting us up now, are you?” You implied, raising one brow.

“Actually, we are. You both are perfect for each other.” Rebecca stated frankly, defending her stand just so you can get more of an idea. As you were to counteract her point, you could see at the corner of your eye Gina and Felicia tiptoeing to the door so they can leave.

“Hold up.” You halt, facing them. “Do you guys know this too?”

“What no, this is outrageous!”

“No no no, I’m clueless about this!”

Their voices were a pitch higher, kept shaking their head and raising their brows. You could easily read people, and based on that, you undoubtedly knew they were lying. “I smell lies from you both.”

Defeated, they gave in. “Technically, yes.”

“Yes, and it was so sweet.”

“Stella told me this and I’m a die-hard romantic.” Gina gushed, her brown eyes lighting up and heart so warm despite the situation they were in. “Omg really? So am I!” Felicia replies at her, astonished and feeling giddy as she gazed at the brown-eyed girl again.

As much you appreciated at how close those two were getting, you needed to get through the reality of this situation, to get through unfinished business once and for all. Standing up much stronger and taller, you spoke up once with more conviction and discipline.

“Let me say this loud and clear, girls. Luke Hemmings and I have nothing in common, well anymore. He said that I held him back, and I agreed with him. Besides, if he’s liked Sierra when we were together, then so be it. I’m already happy with your uncle Timmy, more than your father made me feel. Your father and I, our relationship just happened so fast, and ended the same way too.”

Drained, Stella gives her input. “Mom, I love uncle Timmy and all, but you and dad had something special, which led you to having us.”

She was right without a doubt, but sadly, that something has ended and neither of you are interested with mending that ever. The only thing you want to settle with him would be the bonding time of the twins. “I know my loves, but unfortunately, times are different. When we finally get to talk later, I will explain to him that I am here for one reason only, which is to switch you back. Understood?”

“Yes, mom.” They agreed, bowing their heads and laid on the couch, unhappy with the result. This was a huge setback for their plan, but hey, setbacks lead to a big comeback! That’s what’s keeping them positive.

“Alright, now excuse me, I will be looking for Timmy and get another drink, maybe the photographers and some of my other friends need pictures too.” You say in relief before leaving the room to do such. At least that’s settled, right?

Having clever twins would think otherwise.

[p-aralian]

Men Without Women by Haruki Murakami

Men Without Women is a collection of short stories so I feel like I should review this both by their individual stories and as a whole.

(1) Drive My Car

Okay so let me first just tell you that I read these short stories while I was actually in Japan. Prior to my trip, I didn’t exactly have much knowledge on Japan’s affairs, except pretty much for the Meiji Restoration, which I studied in IB History. But I digress; basically what I’m trying to say is that I had no idea just how bad the gender inequality is in Japan. Like literally, women are still seen as the traditional caregiver, not really meant to be in the workforce but rather fulfil the role of a respectful wife and mother. So I guess I shouldn’t really have been surprised at the sexism in this novel, but it was really eye-opening because I guess Murakami’s expression of people’s lives in the book must be an accurate reflection or depiction of how Japanese people actually live.

The story literally starts with the blatant stereotype that women are bad drivers. Apparently we just don’t know how or aren’t built to operate such heavy machinery? Jesus. Sorry, but it’s actually ridiculous how some men think or rather are brought up to think. Must be the whole Confucianism thing. Also, the woman driver he hired was like what, my age, and he was SEXUALISING her. Okay he was kinda doing the opposite of that, ie, saying that she had no breasts and looked like a man but STILL – why do those things even matter!!! Why are you, a like 50+ year old man, evaluating the looks of a girl, WHO COULD BE YOUR DAUGHTER’S AGE. Please. Just. Stop.

Anyways, that aside. I also didn’t really like the story because it was very strange – the guy knew his wife was having an affair and didn’t call her out on it? And befriended his wife’s lover after she died? Dude, you cray. Who does that? Also, story 1 – man without woman because woman died. But woman was a cheating bitch. So again, not the best impression of women.

- In every situation, knowledge was better than ignorance. However agonizing, it was necessary to confront the facts. Only through knowing could a person become strong. - The proposition that we can look into another person’s heart with perfect clarity strikes me as a fool’s game. I don’t care how well we think we should understand them, or how much we love them. All it can do is cause us pain. Examining your own heart, however, is another matter. I think it’s possible to see what’s in there if you work hard enough at it. So in the end maybe that’s the challenge: to look inside your own heart as perceptively and seriously as you can, and to make peace with what you find there. If we hope to truly see another person, we have to start by looking within ourselves.

(2) Yesterday

I liked this one. I don’t really get how this falls into place with regard to the underlying thread that is supposed to bind all the stories together – “men without women”. Honestly, I don’t want to go too deep into this story. Essentially it’s about two people that the narrator knew who could have been together, probably wanted to or were meant to, but didn’t. (Note: there’s a touch of a woman’s unfaithfulness in this one too). Anyways, I feel like it’d be better if I just shared my favourite quotes from it:

- I wonder if life should really be that easy, that comfortable. It might be better to go our separate ways for a while, and if we find out that we really can’t get along without each other, then we get back together. - Maybe going through that kind of tough, lonely experience is necessary when you’re young? Part of the process of growing up? … The way surviving hard winters makes a tree grow stronger, the growth rings inside it tighter. - I truly love Aki-kun, and I don’t think I could ever feel the same way about anybody else. Whenever I’m away from him I get this terrible ache in my chest, always in the same spot. It’s true. There’s a place in my heart reserved just for him. But at the same time I have this strong urge inside me to try something else, to come into contact with all kinds of people. Call it curiosity, a thirst to know more. More possibilities. It’s a natural emotion and I can’t suppress it, no matter how much I try. - Music has that power to revive memories, sometimes so intensely that they hurt.

(3) An Independent Organ

This one was my favourite. It really got to me. Like really got to me. Like I was crying for quite a while after I was done with it. The narrator was again talking about someone else’s life, a plastic surgeon and bachelor who had never been in a long-term relationship with a woman but rather preferred to have good conversations, good sex and no commitment. (Fair enough, I get that). So most of his women tend to be married because apparently a lot of women want the committed part of a relationship with their husbands but ALSO the company of another man who can remind them what it’s like to date and flirt and whatever, I don’t know. Anyways, this doctor falls in love, with a married woman. Surprise surprise. But no. He then has an existential crisis and then dies. He dies because he is lovesick and heartbroken and he dies at his own hands, condemning himself to a slow death by anorexia. He becomes but a shadow of his former self and just dies. Because of the bitch, who not only abandons her husband but also the doctor for, get this, a THIRD lover. Ok so, unfaithfulness again. But that’s not the point.

I feel it was a little melodramatic and unrealistic that he just gave up on life after this woman broke his heart (or maybe it isn’t, maybe because he was so set in his ways of non-commitment that falling in love with a woman and then being betrayed by her could be so heart-breaking that he wanted to reduce himself to nothing? I still think it’s a bit much but it’s not my place to comment on these things after all.) Nonetheless, it broke my heart. I can’t even begin to imagine what betrayal feels like – like he said, if she had told him that she couldn’t be with him because she wanted to keep her family together, he would have been fine, but it was solely the very act of betrayal that drove him to non-existence. Fuck.

My favourite quotes are as follows:

- I’ve been out with lots of women who are much prettier than her, better built, with better taste, and more intelligent. But those comparisons are meaningless. Because to me she is someone special. A ‘complete presence,’ I guess you could call it. All of her qualities are tightly bound into one core. You cant separate each individual quality to measure and analyse it, to say it’s better or worse than the same quality in someone else. It’s what’s in her core that attracts me so strongly. Like a powerful magnet. It’s beyond logic. - ‘Having seen my love now / and said farewell / I know how very shallow my heart was of old / as if I had never before known love – Gonchunagon Atsutada ... I’ve finally experienced what the poet felt. The deep sense of loss after you’ve met the woman you love, have made love, then said goodbye. Like you’re suffocating. The same emotion hasn't changed at all in a thousand years. I’ve never had this feeling up till now, and it makes me realise how incomplete I’ve been, as a person. - The more I get to know her, the more I love her. We’ve gone out for a year and a half, but right now I’m even more entranced than I was at the beginning. It feels like our hearts have become intertwined. Like when she feels something, my heart moves in tandem. Like we’re two boats tied together with rope. Even if you want to cut the rope, there’s no knife sharp enough to do it. - As long as it makes sense, no matter how deep you fall, you should be able to pull yourself together again. - Women are all born with a special independent organ that allows them to lie. It depends on the person, about the kind of lies they tell, what situation they tell them in, and how the lies are told. But at a certain point in their lives, all women tell lies, and they lie about important things. They lie about unimportant things, too, but they also don’t hesitate to lie about the most important things. And when they do, most women’s expressions and voices don’t change at all, since it’s not them lying, but this independent organ they’re equipped with that’s acting on its own. That’s why – except in a few special cases – they can still have a clear conscience and never lose sleep over anything they say. - Just as that woman likely lied to him with her independent organ, Dr. Tokai – in a somewhat different sense – used this independent organ to fall in love. A function beyond his will. With hindsight it’s easy for someone else to sadly shake his head and smugly criticize another’s actions. But without the intervention of that kind of organ – the kind that elevates us to new heights, thrusts us down to the depths, throws our minds into chaos, reveals beautiful illusions, and sometimes even drives us to death – our lives would indeed be indifferent and brusque. Or simply end up as a series of contrivances.

The paragraph on women born with the ability to lie really got to me. 

(4) Scheherazade

Lol. I had a friend called Scheherazade so this was very difficult to read without imagining her. Also because it’s a pseudonym for a Japanese woman, but I just wasn’t able to picture it that way?!!! Okay. I’m going to call her Schez for short. Schez is weird. She talks about her past, in which she describes having a crush on a guy in high school and sneaking out of school to break into his house and smell his things and god knows what else – not cool at all, in fact really creepy. Another thing is, she’s a caretaker who has sex with the dude. Is that a thing? I wish they’d say a little bit more about who the narrator was and why he needed such caretaking to begin with? It all just felt really misplaced. Also don’t get how this fits the whole men without women theme again. Oh and also, Schez was married and I really don’t think the sex can just be dismissed or classified as simply being part of her job – that’s total unfaithfulness as well. Please.

- Life is strange, isn’t it? You can be totally entranced by the glow of something one minute, be willing to sacrifice everything to make it yours, but then a little time passes, or your perspective changes a bit, and all of a sudden you’re shocked at how faded it appears. What was I looking at? you wonder.

(5) Kino

I like this one. Since I’ve been consistent in highlighting this fact, let me just start by saying – there’s unfaithfulness by a woman in this, AGAIN. But other than that, it was really mysterious which was a welcome change. Were the supernatural occurrences real or were they just manifestations of the narrator’s subconscious, forcing him to come to terms with how he truly felt about his wife’s infidelity? This felt like proper Murakami. The snakes, the vanishing cat, the rain, the knocking, I loved it.

(6) Samsa in Love

I have Franz Kafka’s The Metamorphosis somewhere. I think it’s in London in my brother’s house. I wish I’d read it before this. Maybe then I would’ve had a little more context for this story. But alas it’s not hard to figure. Metamorphosis. That’s pretty self-explanatory. Reviewers online say it’s an interesting take on Gregor Samsa. I don’t know, I don’t really have too much to say about it really. Also, don’t really see how it fits in with the theme again. You know what, that’s it. I got nothing.

(7) Men Without Women

“Men Without Women”. Repeated way too many times in one story. Okay so the narrator receives a phone call from his ex-lover’s husband to be told that she is dead. He thinks about her and their time together and also of how he imagines meeting her earlier in high school and stuff like that. I dunno. I just liked how she played a certain song when they had sex. In fact, you know what I love all of Murakami’s allusions to music and the power it has on people, on memories, on emotions. If I can relate to anything, hell it’s that.  

So I read in an interview with Murakami that he doesn’t analyse the images or thoughts derived from his subconscious which form the content of his stories, instead he merely records them. Honestly, I don’t want to over-analyse it either. These stories took me on a journey, gave me a peek into different worlds, some of which I could relate to more than others. I am glad to have read them and that’s that! 

[erictmason]

An Incredible Conundrum: “The Incredibles 2″ Review

“The Incredibles 2″ is maybe one of the single most unusual experiences I’ve had with a movie in recent memory.  It is simultaneously a fantastically enjoyable movie with excellent humor, thrilling action sequences, great character beats, and some really gorgeous animation...and it is also profoundly disappointing.  Ordinarily, that kind of contradiction is easy enough to reconcile; I can generally tell what side of the Enjoyment VS. Disappointment scale I ultimately favor in my feelings.  But nearly a full day after seeing it, I’m still not sure where exactly I stand on “The Incredibles 2″ overall.

SPOILERS BELOW THE CUT

SPOILERS BELOW THE CUT

SPOILERS BELOW THE CUT

On the one hand, it is a really fun movie.  All of these characters bounce off of each other so enjoyably, and combined with the razor-sharp sense of humor, it leads to so many wonderfully hilarious moments.  From Bob’s disastrous attempt to hook his daughter up with her schoolmate crush to Dash’s overblown bravado about wanting to be a hero to especially the many, many delightful new powers we get to see baby Jack-Jack show off (including maybe the single best sequence of the movie in which he does battle with a raccoon in the yard that feels like it lays out a beautiful blueprint for a whole series of superhero-styled “Looney Tunes” shorts with just how inventive and hysterical it is), there are some great laughs to be had here.  And, with their strongly-defined personalities still intact, the characters themselves remain exceptionally enjoyable to just...hang out with.  It’s especially nice when we get to see the movie poke at new aspects of those characters too (though poking is sadly as far as it ever really goes, but we’ll get to that), in particular what it means for Helen to have a chance to shine as a super hero in her own right again and perhaps my single favorite character element of the whole movie, the new relationship that forms between Jack-Jack and Edna Mode (the way he immediately starts mimicking her behaviors after their first night together is equal parts hilarious and adorable).  Plus, the movie’s action sequences are genuinely spectacular, sharply directed and making great inventive use of the many super powers at their disposal (newcomer Voyd gets an especially strong work-out in this regard, though I’m also super into how Helen uses her powers in concert with her new Elasticycle); combined with Pixar’s always-exceptional animation (the technical quality of which feels once again envelope-pushing here; even as it recreates the original’s aesthetics, it is much more playful with visual stylization, and combines that aspect with the incredibly detailed rendering in some really neat ways), it makes the movie just a constant treat to watch (though I will point out for completeness’ sake, people are not kidding about how strong the strobe effects in this movie are), an electrifying and enjoyable experience that more or less never runs out of new ways to amuse up until the very end.

The flip-side to all of this, however, is that the actual narrative is very shallow.  Especially in contrast to the original, which tied together notions of Exceptionalism, what it means to raise a family, and confronting a mid-life crisis all together coherently and compelling, “Incredibles 2″ lays down a lot of interesting ideas, but leaves them all on different ends of the table.  Flipping the script on Bob and Helen’s roles in the main story, with Bob staying home with the family and thus learning how to deal with his kids’ emerging independence while Helen goes off on a new life of adventure that rejuvenates her original heroic spirit (while also being quite obviously a trap, and while I’m willing to let it slide more so than the more substantive failings I’m talking about, it does irk me, especially since we really are picking up RIGHT from where we left off, that NOBODY smells something funky when they are offered what sure sounds like a repackaged version of Syndrome’s scheme), feels like it could work, but neither of its most interesting aspects-Bob’s encroaching sense of emasculation and Helen’s renewed sense of independence mixing with her concern about how to balance this new job with her love of her family-wind up feeling especially well explored, or even properly resolved; Bob in particular just kind of...stops being worried about his envy over Helen being chosen, and it doesn’t really play any meaningful role in his story arc past a certain point.  Instead, we’re left with a lot of weirdly disconnected character beats that all feel like thinner retreads of stuff from the first movie; this feels especially frustrating for Violet, whose own need to walk through a much less engaging version of the stuff she went through before is staked on a lot of pretty annoying contrivances and feels like it robs her of the chance for some real meaningful character growth.  There’s a vague sense of letting a New Generation step into things, not only with Dash and Violet wanting to be more involved in their family’s superhero work but a whole bunch of new supers introduced mid-way through.  But only Voyd receives any real character among them, and while I LIKE that character, we don’t get nearly enough of it, and she and the other new supers just wind up being so much fodder for the big Act Three Fight Scenes.  Our new villain has some intriguing monologues that speak to a potentially-interesting motive (though I am not especially fond of either the fact that we have ANOTHER tech-savvy human as our villain, nor the fact that her identity feels woefully easy to guess despite the movie treating it as a big twist, but I also feel like Disney as a whole could stand to seriously ease up on all the Twist Villains anyway at this point), but it just feels like so much window dressing that doesn’t really wind up informing her character, her actions, or the overall story of the movie.  Which is really the over-riding problem here: there isn’t really a meaningful spine to any of this stuff.  The new supers, the twists in the family dynamics, the kids’ growing pains, Evelyn’s schemes (and for that matter Winston’s plan too)...there’s good, meaty material to work with here, but the movie just never ever engages with it or tries to connect it together coherently, so instead it all just kind of floats around and evaporates. 

All of which feels really hard to be all that bothered by when you’re watching the movie and having so much fun.  I don’t want to harsh anyone’s buzz here; if you loved this movie, it’s really not all that hard for me to see why.  But especially given just how much time has passed since the original it really can’t help but ding my enthusiasm to see that they have nothing new or interesting to say or do with these characters.  “The Incredibles 2″ is a good time but I struggle to call it a good movie.                

[quirkyasfok]

Nothing But Duct Tape and Hope

Relationship: Bichie (Bill x Richie)

Tags: Alpha/Beta/Omega Dynamics, Omega Bill, Alpha Richie, Mpreg Bill

Summary: It takes three chance meetings, and the presence of a beat up rusted-red Ford for Richie to realize who the omega is.

This is part 1. Part 2 can be found here

Read on AO3

The first time Richie sees the omega he doesn’t think much about him. He’s out with some of his buddies, minding his own business when a familiar scent passes by. It triggers odd images of rickety old bikes, cliffs overlooking a sparkling water hole, and a pair of the most intensive blue eyes he’s ever seen. He turns trying to catch a look at who producing the scent by all he sees is tail end of a tall figure in jeans, and a grey hoodie disappearing behind the corner.

The next time he sees the omega he still doesn’t think much about him. He’s out buying himself a sandwich for dinner on his way home from work. They’d gotten several boxes of new records in today that he had to put away, and he finds himself too tired to bother making himself a meal. It’s the same grey hoodie that catches his eyes this time. A figure sitting outside the deli, their head bent low as they scribble away at a well-used notebook. Their hair is a lovely shade of red and long enough to hide their face from his view. The scent hits him next, but it’s off, different. He briefly wonders what a pregnant omega is doing by themselves sitting in a sidewalk when his order gets called, and for the time forgets all about it.

The third time he sees the omega is when it all finally comes back. He’s walking back to his car when he hears the loud ding as someone’s keys hit the pavement followed by someone cursing loudly. He turns to find the same grey hoodie wearing omega clutching to the side of a beat of red ford pickup as they go to pick up their keys.

And then the memories come flooding back.

He’s sixteen again. His glasses are too large for his face, his socks don’t match, and his jeans are honestly more holes than fabric at this point. Next to him Eddie stares in horror at the rusted-up machine in front of them. On the other side Stan stands looking very unimpressed. Bill is the only one who looks happy. He’s smiling like a loon, gesturing to the beat up old truck like it’s the greatest thing in the entire world.

“Is it safe,” Eddie asks. “I feel like just being around that thing will give me tetanus.” Bill doesn’t let this bother him, he shakes his head and keeps smiling.

“It’s s-ssafe E-eddie. I promise. I even had a mechanic l-look it over before I drove it home. E-everything works.”

“That doesn’t mean it’s safe,” Eddie mutters.

“Who’d you get to look at it? Derry mechanics, or Larry’s auto,” Stan asks. Bill pats the hood, bits of rust fall from the underbelly.

“Larry’s auto.”

Bill’s answer doesn’t seem to make Stan happy. Richie doesn’t blame him. The truck literally looks like it’s on its last wheel… if that.

“I thought for certain you’d go for something a little more silver,” he finally pipes in. Bill laughs and gestures for them to follow him to the back. They do, but all three continue to keep their distance. It hits him the second he sees the only new and good-looking thing on the truck as to how much this vehicle means to Bill. On the back, surrounded by rust is a brand-new license’s plate with the words ‘SILVER2’ written in blocky letters. Bill looks so proud of this that Richie can’t even bring himself to comment on how the truck isn’t even silver, can’t bring himself to make side remarks when it takes a few tries for Bill to get the driver side door open, and can’t bring himself to say no when Bill offers to give all three a ride. 

Somehow all four boys manage to squeeze themselves into the bench seat of the old Ford. It’s a tight squeeze that’s made even more awkward by the fact the trucks a manual, and Bill has to be able to access the clutch as he drives. The truck still smells like whoever Bill’s dad bought the truck from, and lemon cleaning spray that instead of masking the scent seems to just makes things worse.

But none of that bothers him. Not the fact that he’s uncomfortable pressed against Eddie and Bill. Not that the Ford smells like old man and lemons. Not the fact that he’s pretty certain the truck is held together by nothing but hope and duct tape.

No.

 All he cares about is the look Bill gets when he turns the key and SILVER2 somehow roars to life with only a few loud clangs. He decides that as long as this truck keeps Bill smiling like that than it’s the best damn truck he’s ever had the privilege of sitting in.

He comes back to reality feeling like somebody has punched him right in the face. Memory after forgotten memory filling his brain. Pleasant memories of summer filled nights with seven losers laid out in the bed of the old Ford laughing together until the early hour of the morning. Sad memories of saying goodbye, watching the rusted red Ford piled high with junk drive off in the direction opposite of his own.

He’d forgotten. They’d promised to stay in touch. They’d promised to always be friends. Somehow, he’d forgotten them, and it took a rusted red truck to get him to remember.

He walks over to the omega, who’s now fiddling with his key ring to get the key he needs to unlock the vehicle. He thinks for a second that the person before him may not be who he thinks it is, but then a familiar pair of blue eyes peek up seeming to sense someone is watching them. Brown meets blue and Richie swears the whole world stops spinning for a second.

Bill seems lost for a few seconds as he stares Richie. His face blank as he stares uncertainly as some unknown alpha steps into his space, but then Richie can see the moment Bill seems to remember. His eyes light up, and he smiles just like on the day he showed off his “brand new” truck to the rest of the losers. He meets Richie halfway and the two embraces in the middle of the parking lot without a single care in the world.

Bill is still slightly taller and the small swell from his baby bump presses awkwardly into Richie’s stomach, but Richie decides then and there that this is the best hug he’s ever had. He thinks he could hug Bill forever, but a car honks at them to move so he sadly has to let go.

They move to go stand by the old Ford. It’s the same as Richie remember it. Seats made mostly of duct tape, more rust than red, and the radio antenna dented slightly in the middle from the time he tried to slide across the hood.

He laughs at this and runs his hands along the hood of the vehicle.

“How in the hell have you managed to keep this thing running?” Bill laughs.

“The same as when we were younger. S-ssshear hope and duct tape.”

Man, did Richie miss that stutter.

The talk for over two hours. Richie tells Bill about his job at the local record store, the band he’s in, and the weird friends he’s made since leaving for college. Bill talks about graduating college, some of the things he’s written, and one wild story involving him having to seduce someone into getting some free stuff for his buddies (“like B-bev did for us”). He shares the story sounding like he’s surprised it actually worked, which just reminds Richie how cute Bill is. He learns that Bill is exactly six months pregnant. Bill never says anything about another Alpha in his life. Richie never asks. They agree to meet up again in a few days then they go their separate ways.

The next time Richie sees Bill it’s for their intentional meet up. They meet up at Richie’s favorite dinner. They talk mainly about the past, and all the fun times they’ve both started to remember. They even discuss the weirdness of forgetting everything. They never discuss the real cause of what could be behind the amnesia. Even though Richie dreamed of claws and red balloons the night before, and Bill’s stutter seems to be just a degree worse than the last time they met (he also swears it had been completely cured until a few days ago) neither seem up to being the first to bring up the forbidden topic.

He also learns the baby’s a boy. Still nothing about the father.

Throughout the next month they continue to meet. They talk about the past. They talk about the present. They talk about the things they love, the things they hate, and everything in between. The weather gets colder, the seasons change from Fall to Winter. Somehow Bill’s baby bump grows larger.

He learns on their seventh meet up about Bill’s relationship status. He makes an off comment about making Bill’s baby daddy jealous with how much time Bill’s been hanging out with him. Bill gives him a sad smile and shrugs. He explains there is no ‘baby daddy’ in his life.

“It’s just m-me and my truck.”

Richie’s almost annoyed with himself by how happy that makes him.

The fourteenth … or maybe it’s fifteenth time they meet isn’t planned. Richie’s out with his buddies again. Their walking down the sidewalk late on a cold winter night. Their all a bit drunk. It’s been a pretty fun evening so far.

But then he spots a familiar red truck parked near a street lamp. It’s sitting alone in an empty parking lot. He waves for his buddies to keep going and makes his way over to the beat up old Ford. Something about this entire situation feels off, and he’s determined to figure out what’s up. He looks over the truck first. The tarp Bill keeps tied over the bed of the truck is untied in one corner, but other than that there appears to be nothing wrong. There’s a large mound of blankets piled up in the bench of the truck, and when he knocks on the driver side window the lump shifts just slightly before Bill’s head appears from the mound. They blink owlishly at each for a few minutes before Bill seems to snap out of his surprise, and unlocks the passenger door for Richie to climb on in. The inside of the truck is just as cold as the outside air, but the blankets Bill offers him are nice and warm and the inside smells strongly of Bill so he can’t complain too much.

“Bill, why are you sleeping outside in your truck?” His own voice surprises him. It sounds a little too gravely. He feels oddly sober now too.

Bill fiddles with the edge if his blanket. He looks embarrassed. He shrugs.

“It’s like I told you R-richie… it’s just me and my truck.” He gestures for Bill to elaborate. Bill sighs and continues. “A few months ago,… when I found out I was p-p-pregnant… my boyfriend at the time was-sssn’t happy about it. He s-sss-said I should get rid of the baby. That he d-doesn’t want to b-be a father. I refused, so he kicked me out.” Bill pauses to sniffle and wipe at his eyes. Richie scoot closer. “My writing makes decent money b-but not enough for me to live on my o-own, so since getting kicked out I’ve just been driving around. I was honestly just passing through, but then you showed up and….” He shrugs and gestures to space around them. “Here we are….”

“Why didn’t you tell me.”

Bill shrugs again.

“I didn’t want to be a b-b-bother.”

“You’re never a bother Big Bill.” He pulls Bill close and hugs him tight. It’s a bit awkward with the space and Bill’s belly but they make it work.

“God Bill your fucking freezing. Why the hell don’t you at least have the heat on.”

“H-heat doesn’t work.”

He lets go of Bill to take the keys off the dash, and puts them in the ignition. The truck sputters a bit before finally roaring to life just as Richie remembered. Bill seems surprised when Richie messes with the radio and it comes to life too.

“The radio hasn’t worked in years.”

Richie just smirks and winks at him.

“Guess it just missed me.”

Bill snorts and rolls his eyes. Even in the dim light Richie can see the tear marks on his cheeks, but he’s smiling softly.

The heat doesn’t magically work, but Richie figures that’s a problem for another day. He convinces Bill to drive them out of the parking lot, and directs him towards the apartment he shares with his roommate.

“Are you sure your roommate won’t mind me spending the night.”

“Yes Bill, and even if he did I wouldn’t give a shit.”

He leads Bill up the stairway. Bill seems a bit uncertain, but Richie fills the silence with shitty jokes that gets Bill giggling. He apologies for the messy state of the apartment, Bill says he doesn’t mind, Richie make sure to keep a hand on Bill’s back as the fumble around in the dark to make sure he doesn’t trip over anything. He leads Bill into his room and shuts the door. He tugs Bill into his bed, and rubs the omega all over trying to breath warmth back into frozen limbs. Bill giggles and squirms when Richie ‘accidently’ rubs at his sides. He feels the baby kick against his palm. Bill flushes a bit. Richie stares at him amazed. They fall asleep in each other’s arms.

Another month passes. Richie can’t believe how time has flown. Bill is eighth months, and looks ready to pop. Currently he’s asleep on the couch, cuddled up close against Riche’s side. The grey hoodie is long gone, and now Bill is wearing a lovely blue sweater. There’s a notebook resting on his belly, and a pencil loosely held in his slack grip. Richie leans over to give him a kiss on the cheek, and takes the pencil and notebook away.

Things aren’t easy. The baby’s due date is coming up, and neither are as prepared as they want to be. Bill still seems upset about dragging Richie into his baby drama, but Richie continues to tell him that it’s all okay. It’s odd how much he doesn’t seem to mind that the baby isn’t his by blood. The idea of helping Bill raise a child pleases him in a way he doesn’t fully understand, but has come to embrace with open arms.

They still don’t talk about the dark parts of their pasts either. They don’t talk about the months Bill spent living alone in his truck, or the images of bright red balloons that seem to fill both their nightmares.

They’ll probably have to talk about it someday, but not yet.

No, for now Richie has more important things to focus on. He looks back down to the newspaper in his lap, and continues to read the ad for the house for sale off Fillmore Street. It’s a bit above their price range, but he figures is he takes a few extra shifts at the record store they just be able to pull that one off. He smiles and circles the ad with a bright red marker. Next to him Bill smiles pleased in his sleep.

Richie wouldn’t have things any other way.

[junker-town]

The Nets will regret firing Kenny Atkinson

Will the Nets really be better without Kenny Atkinson?

The Nets didn’t fire Kenny Atkinson for basketball reasons

All things considered, the Brooklyn Nets have exceeded expectations. The team’s best available player, Kyrie Irving, only appeared in 20 games before a lingering shoulder injury led to season-ending surgery. Caris LeVert has missed 25 games and in 14 of them he came off the bench (after returning from thumb surgery). Those two plus Spencer Dinwiddie (Brooklyn’s leader in total points by nearly 400) shared the court for a grand total of 67 minutes.

Elsewhere, Brooklyn’s roster had inconvenient hindrances. At least one of Jarrett Allen and DeAndre Jordan were always on the floor, two gravity-killing bigs in a league that increasingly requires spacing at all five positions. Wilson Chandler’s 25-game suspension compelled Taurean Prince to be Brooklyn’s only full-time power forward. There was positional overlap, mixed with too much transience.

Making the playoffs in the Eastern Conference is not the most difficult task, but such grueling circumstances — significant injuries to key contributors, under the aura of anticipated progress — typically precede a total meltdown. These Nets could easily be where the Chicago Bulls or Detroit Pistons are, caving in to an uphill battle during one of the stranger gap years in recent NBA memory.

Before the season even began, Kevin Durant’s Achilles injury placed the Nets in an uncomfortable grey area, like a trustee who can’t access their looming fortune. But Kenny Atkinson, Brooklyn’s head coach of nearly four years who was let go over the weekend, did not let them beat themselves.

Atkinson has been romanticized as a cultural trend-setting figure who habitually squeezed more from Brooklyn’s sum than its individual parts seemingly could. His vigor enhanced a brand of basketball soaked in sound judgement and analytically-influenced decisions. Players who weren’t always talented enough for the roles they had to fill still saw Atkinson’s vision and executed it within a system that played the percentages on both ends.

He will be a candidate for several job openings this summer — be it in Houston, Washington, New York, Atlanta, Chicago, New Orleans, Cleveland, Minnesota, Philadelphia, or somewhere else. He’s accomplished, with respect among players who made undeniable leaps under his eye. D’Angelo Russell, Joe Harris, Dinwiddie, and LeVert are just a few who benefited from Atkinson’s leadership. No coach will please every player, but there’s sweat equity in his style most respond to. On Saturday, the Nets robbed us from ever knowing how it would’ve worked with superstars who, before the season began, were vocally supportive of the culture and system Atkinson helped instill.

“He’s gotten us to this place right now,” Brooklyn’s general manager Sean Marks said during a press conference on Saturday afternoon. “With mutual discussions between the two of us, we both decided it’s time that we should move on.”

The Nets have suffered bad losses since the All-Star break, including a 141-118 blowout in Atlanta and a 118-79 defeat at home against Memphis. But to maintain that Atkinson wasn’t the right voice for Brooklyn’s locker room (as Marks has) does not justify letting him go when you consider who is actually in said locker room, and how many of them will still be around when the Nets are good enough to contend for a championship.

If the disgruntled figures were Durant and/or Irving, though, that’s a different story. Those two, Marks, and, most importantly, new owner Joe Tsai, are the four most influential opinions driving this franchise forward right now, and obviously none of them strongly felt like Atkinson was the right man for the job.

Coaching is complicated, but from most of what we saw about Brooklyn’s product, Atkinson was hardly the problem. On the court, Brooklyn took good shots and forced bad ones. On the day Atkinson was fired, they had the eighth-best defense in the league despite never having a single plus wing defender on the roster. (Iman Shumpert’s cup of coffee was the closest facsimile of this critical type of player.)

On Saturday, I asked Marks if Brooklyn’s playing style and on-court aesthetic had any impact on the decision to part ways with Atkinson. “No. I think the way they’re playing, we’re very supportive of the system that Kenny and his coaching staff have put out there. It’s about how they were implementing that system, you know, were the right pieces in the right places. I mean, that takes all of us there, so that didn’t factor in.”

Taken at face value, this passes the smell test. The Nets don’t post up. They don’t take mid-range jumpers. Their offense is third in location effective field goal percentage and their defense is second. This doesn’t mean their approach to basketball is the only one worth pursuing, or even the smartest way to accentuate Irving and, eventually, Durant’s skill sets, but what those numbers do say is Brooklyn was sensible and organized with Atkinson at the helm.

There were issues with the rotation, and Atkinson struggled to find balance among his best players, being that their strengths overlapped so harshly on the offensive end. On one hand, staggering Dinwiddie and LeVert kept one offensive creator on the floor at all times. On the other, there must also be some forward-thinking incentives at play, and an urgency to cultivate as much on-court familiarity as possible before Irving and Durant join them next season.

Atkinson is of the player development mold, which puts other areas of coaching under a microscope. During last year’s playoffs he didn’t entirely acquit himself as a tactical magician, but adapted to an environment where match-ups dictate results. He swerved towards iso-ball — the only playoff team that isolated at a higher frequency was Houston — and unleashed his guards on a Philadelphia 76ers defense that couldn’t contain all of them. (It was a strategy which forced JJ Redick to the bench for longer stretches than Brett Brown would’ve liked.)

Brooklyn’s crunch-time offense was generally fine under Atkinson, but there were hiccups here and there over the past couple seasons. In late December the Nets lost to the Karl-Anthony Towns-less Minnesota Timberwolves in overtime. It was just one game jumbled into the regular-season grind, but I can’t help but remember the last few minutes of regulation, when Brooklyn kept running the same stack pick-and-roll action down the stretch, even after it became clear the Timberwolves knew what was going to happen.

A few seconds after Ryan Saunders lets his defense know what’s about to happen, Atkinson jumps out of his seat and gives the exact same hand signal when his players screw up the execution:

One player later they ran the exact same thing. Again, it was off-beat. Again, they scored zero points.

This doesn’t look good, but one could argue that Atkinson was a victim of the talent (or lack thereof) Brooklyn had on the floor. That same action with Durant and Irving has a different result, whether the defense knows what’s coming or not.

Long before those two hyper-accelerated Brooklyn’s timeline, rumors about Atkinson’s job being in jeopardy started to percolate. Last December, when the Nets won two out of 14 games, including eight losses in a row, veterans in that locker room could sense a change on the horizon. They were 8-18 when they snapped their losing streak with an overtime win over the eventual champion Toronto Raptors. The Nets saved their season by winning nine of their next 10 games. It was the type of turnaround players who don’t believe in their head coach never make (including a three-point win in Philadelphia against the healthy Sixers).

Whether this year’s roster was sick of Atkinson or not, a firing of this magnitude necessitates a look back at what led the Nets to where they are. The decision to sign Durant, Irving, and DeAndre Jordan is one just about every general manager would make if in the same spot Brooklyn was last year. It’s a no-brainer, in almost every sense. But it’s worth wondering how things would’ve shaken out under less stressful, more patient circumstances.

The NBA is all about taking advantage of opportunity when it’s presented by fortuitous timing. The Nets had enough cap space to sign two stars with championship experience who were ready to win right now.

The alternative would’ve likely been to re-sign Russell, keep Dinwiddie, and ink Levert to an extension. Develop continuity with that core, hope Allen develops three-point range and becomes a legitimate franchise center, and stay as financially lean as possible without falling off their upward trajectory to attract free agents in 2021.

Again, no general manager would prefer Door B if Kevin Durant is walking through Door A, but that parallel universe is a fascinating one to consider, especially if the next couple years end in disappointment and Marks is the one looking for a new job.

What comes next is anybody’s guess. During his press conference, Marks sidestepped a couple questions about what type of coach the team will pursue this summer. Brooklyn’s opening is the most high risk, high reward opening in quite some time. And the question now becomes who can pick up where Atkinson left off and lead a team that hasn’t won two straight playoff series in 17 years to the NBA Finals?

Any serious candidate must command immediate respect from Irving and Durant and be familiar with world-class pressure. Is that Ty Lue or Jason Kidd? Mike D’Antoni or Brown (assuming Houston and Philly let them go)? Is it a Van Gundy brother or Mark Jackson? Is it Mike Krzyzewski, who recruited Irving to Duke and coached Durant on Team USA? This last option sounds impractical, but given Marks’ ties to the San Antonio Spurs and the downward trend the organization appears to be on … what about Gregg Popovich?

It’s probably too dramatic to describe Brooklyn’s situation as “a mess,” given that Durant is theoretically talented enough by himself to overcome just about any level of organizational dysfunction. But to achieve their goals the Nets can’t afford to be dysfunctional. As if there wasn’t already enough pressure, whoever they hire as their next head coach will walk in with sky-high expectations despite the absence of any runway to forge chemistry or build culture.

The decision to march ahead without Atkinson at the helm speaks to deeper, unknown issues that have little to actually do with the game of basketball and could not be resolved. We always knew the Nets would look very different next year. It’s a shame we’ll never get to see what that could’ve been with the same coach who helped get them where they are.

[ernmark]

Scent is what I’d call one of the secondary senses-- by which I mean, it isn’t one that most people rely on to navigate their world, and it doesn’t come across in description nearly as frequently as sight, sound and touch. Partly because of that, though, it’s pretty firmly tied to emotion and memory. 

This smell reminds me of...

Dark red light fell on everything like wet velvet; the floor was corrugated iron so thin your pulse made it shake; the whole place smelled like the kind of chewing tobacco a diesel engine might buy. Over all it reminded me of the house I grew up in. A little cleaner, maybe. (PoM)

Something about that place pulled on Nureyev’s heartstrings. The music, the smells, the people going about their lives… it all felt like home. (AoB)

Some memories just get clearer the further they get, though. And as soon as I heard the first bird chirping in the park’s palms it all came rushing back. The smell of dew. The blue-green grass. The smooth bark of the trees and the stones shimmering like beetles in the dirt. (KCC)

In a lot of ways it reminded me of my old wedding gown: it was dusty, smelled like a lot of dreams had probably died in it, and pushed off into a dark corner somewhere in hopes that everyone would just forget the damn thing had ever happened. (LL)

Oh hi Peter!

Seriously, though, Peter’s cologne is one of his defining characteristics.

JUNO: Hey, anybody ever tell you you gotta nice smell? What’s a guy gotta eat to smell like that? REX: It’s… cologne, Detective.(MM)

REX: Oh, well, a name would make things simpler, of course. A signifier to your senses, a sound that means a smell, a feeling, a taste… (MM)

JUNO (NARRATOR): He was gone. His smell still lingered in the air – that cologne I could never place. A scent from some other planet, like nothing I’d ever smelled before. It’d take weeks to get that stink out. (MM)

JUNO: And in the meantime, sleep; sleep, and the smell of Peter Nureyev in the air. It’d take weeks for that smell to fade. I’ve missed it ever since. (MM)

JUNO (NARRATOR): That smell. I knew I’d smelled it before. A cologne that had once lingered in my apartment for weeks – a smell like another world... And then, a shadow in the red light of the left hall: a man. Long legs, arms, fingers. I couldn’t see his face, but I could imagine it. The sweet smile. The cutting teeth. (PoM)

I swore I heard running footsteps ahead of me – swore I could smell that cologne, could hear his voice. But I couldn’t know. Over the echo of my own feet, over the smell of my own desperation… I couldn’t tell. [...]The smell was gone. The footsteps were gone. I was alone. (PoM)

I couldn’t tell if he was leaning in or if my tight little car had finally gotten the best of me, but that smell… suddenly I was wrapped up in the smell of his cologne all over again, a smell like the spices of some faraway planet. He had that same old smirk on, too, like he’d just thought of some private joke he didn’t feel the need to share. Damn it, Steel. Not again. Not this time. (TtN)

Nureyev falls asleep in minutes. I watch him in the dark for hours. Smell his cologne. See those sharp teeth peek past his lips as he snores. (FRP)

Smells strongly associated with the past

I heard twisting metal fibers, gearteeth snapping and clicking, smelled gasoline smoke and week-old vomit. Then… I saw its face. My face. (DtwD)

It was dark in there. Smelled, too. Like machine oil and diesel fumes left to linger for a century. (DtwD)

There are actually a whole bunch in Day That Wouldn’t Die, so I stopped including them. Considering that the entire episode was about reliving the past, I figure that was appropriate.

After a falling-out of my own I’d spent a few hard months with the Vixens just like that. It was a whiff at Paradise – until the money ran out, and I had to meet Valles Vicky herself. (MF)

INGRID: Don’t try to tell me otherwise. I’ll smell the lie on your breath. (MF) 

And... Mick?

Apparently Mick has a strong odor? I guess that’s to be expected, considering Juno has a lot of emotion tied to Mick, and a lot of it is centered in the past.

Here’s the thing: catastrophe stuck to Mick like a bad smell, and if you hung around him long enough you’d start to stink like it, too. (LL)

JUNO: That stinks worse than Mick, Sasha. (DtwD)

[idontevenwannaknow]

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