#so cute so round so buoyant

[doomedclockworkdotmp3]

another quick thang. this time its a seal!! yaaayyy!!! i kinda want it as a sticker tbh

[momonyu]

ocean pull

eustass kid x reader

kid accidentally wakes you up

mentions of sex but nothing happens

0.7k words

a/n: yes i wrote another fic that takes place at night because i am in my late night lovey dovey feels oKAY

as if something has called him out of his slumber, kid finds himself awake. he could be convinced that it's a siren who's woken him up, singing a song that blurs the line between infatuation and wonder.

it's a line he's familiar with, for he — and his long list of friends-with-benefits and almost-lovers — have been there countless times before. but kid has always been careful because he knows he could fumble over that line and fall headfirst into the waters.

wouldn't that be the worst?

the rhythm of the tide echoes through the window and, for a second, kid thinks that maybe sirens are real.

because when he rolls on his side, he’s met with your sleeping face — so pretty and coy that even those wicked beauties of the ocean would be jealous.

kid has been drawn to you, like a ship to the waves, since the day you met. lying here in your bed, he reaches out to ghost your hickeys that match his own. he surprises himself with how tender his touch is — far softer than what he’s used to — and, maybe it’s the sleep talking, but he doesn’t hate it.

you stir in your sleep, a minor interruption to your tiny, steady breaths. the action sparks a cascade of curiousity in kid's mind — if you're this enchanting when you're asleep, what are you like in the morning?

are you cranky and adorable, or do you awake with sultry and sleepy eyes? what if you were to wake up next to him, with a small smile and a half-asleep good morning, baby? would you greet him with a kiss that tastes like lingering dreams?

kid would give anything to know — and maybe, in a few hours, he will.

"hey, you okay?"

kid is pulled out his reverie when you drape your arm across him, fingertips resting along his bicep. so lost in his thoughts, he didn't even realize that you've woken up. he falls into your eyes, surprisingly steady for having been sleeping only moments ago.

“‘m fine,” he says but you don't look convinced. you purse your lips and kid thinks,

god, you're cute.

he brushes hair out of your face, and instinctively, you lean into his touch. his heart stirs, buoyant in his chest, as he adds, “i’m happy.”

it’s happiness that he feels, much more profound than anything he's ever felt with his past lovers. actually, he wouldn't even dare to call his previous partners "lovers" anymore.

he realizes now that sex was just sex before you. with you, every intimate moment travels beyond lust. it travels to a place of yearning, a place of longing that doesn’t feel uncomfortable or painful at all.

it feels like home.

as he traces the curves of your face, your half-moon eyes, your beautiful smile that guides him home, he realizes that this is where he was meant to be — what he needed all along.

an emotion that tethers him to something true and sincere, that anchors him beyond the physicality that he's so used to.

you nuzzle into his chest and kid finds his place in your embrace. the sheets tangle further between you, and kid lets himself return to falling — falling back towards slumber, falling deeper into you. he feels the pull of your ocean and, like a true pirate would, he follows the currents.

“good,” you say. you smile against his bare skin, fingers searching for all the places you've marked him. “now let me sleep, or i'll force you into a second round.”

he chuckles, “pretty sure i’d fuck you straight to sleep.”

“always so crass.”

you relax in kid’s arms, sleep seeping into your teasing words, “also, it’s called ‘making love’, ya dumb pirate.”

love, kid repeats to himself.

this could be love, kid thinks. and maybe the idea of it should scare him more, but right now, with you all around him and his heart in your hands, he thinks that love doesn’t seem so bad.

maybe i wouldn’t mind love if it’s with you.

[jerzwriter]

Cute interaction 15: trying to make the other laugh

Might be a good way for you to explore T & C (cop edition) 😃

Hey Ren! Sorry for the LONG delay - but here it goes! :)

Book: Crimes of Passion (Early Book 1)

Pairing: Trystan Thorne x F!MC (Carolina Rose)

Rating: Teen

Words: 1500

Category: One-off / Fluff

Summary: Carolina Rose is not accustomed to working with a partner, especially one like Trystan Thorne. She's not in the best mood when she has to meet him for lunch, but he's determined to change that - and it leads to a wager.

A/N: Thanks to @dr-colossal-pita for this OLD ask... thanks for your patience! Participating in @choicesmonthlychallenge April Challenge - Laughter.

Crimes of Passion Masterlist | Complete Masterlist

The luncheonette was always packed this time of day. Carolina was a regular here and normally grabbed a seat at the counter to whoof down some food. But as she stood at the entrance today, she eyed the counter with a huff. Only single seats were available, so she'd need a table. Dimitri, the luncheonette's owner, noticed her from behind the counter and motioned toward the scattered empty seats.

“Plenty of room for you, my dear!”

“Nah,” she shrugged. “I’m meeting someone. I guess I’ll wait for a table.” 

The older man lifted his chin toward the far corner of the room. “Over there. Johnny is bussing that table now."   

As Carolina squeezed between the tightly placed tables toward the empty booth, Dimitri’s voice rang above the fray once more.

“So, who’s the lucky man,” he winked.

She shot Dimitri a nasty look that required no reply when Trystan appeared... and he heard... of course, he heard. Now, a reply was necessary.

“No lucky man or woman, Dimitri. This is all business!”

The overdressed prince's exuberantly overpriced Italian loafers stopped in their tracks, an irritating grin in place as he raised his hands to his chest in mock horror.

“Really, Carolina? You wound me!”

She lifted her menu to cover her face, but not before rolling her eyes to ensure her annoyance was known. If her intent was to deflate Trystan, she clearly missed her mark, for he was as buoyant and charming as ever when he slid into the booth across from her.

“What’s the matter? Were you hoping for a more handsome partner?” he drawled.

Carolina felt every hair on her body stand at attention. It was because she was so irritated, right? There couldn’t have been any other reason for her reaction. In truth, he was handsome, ridiculously so, and even worse, he knew it. What he didn’t understand was that pretty faces meant nothing to her. Not even when they were attached to such a gorgeous physique covered in a suit that probably cost more than every item in the luncheonette combined. None of that mattered to Carolina Rose. Any partner would have been annoying, but Trystan took the cake.

“You’re late,” she snapped.

“What? You just arrived?”

“I know,” she deadpanned. “But I’m late too, and if I’m stuck with a partner, you should at least keep me on my toes. I’m going to need you to up your game.”

“On your toes,” he simpered, his eyes dancing over her, causing a blush she cursed to settle on her cheeks. “I can certainly keep you on your toes... amongst other things.”

She dropped her menu between them with a sigh. 

“Did they ever learn about the concept of sexual harassment in Drakovia?”

“Of course,” he winked, “but it typically didn’t apply to the crown prince.”

“Well, you’re not the crown prince anymore now, are you?”

Immediately regretting her choice of words, she watched the bright grin wash away from his face.

“Touche,” he replied, attempting to conceal the blow she had just delivered. I’ll give you this round.”

As he studied his menu, Carolina’s discomfort increased. She could have let it go. Perhaps he’d even limit their conversation to the assignment if she did. But while she'd be loathe to admit it, seeing the light diminish in his eyes left her riddled with guilt, and she felt compelled to bring it back.

“I’m sorry,” she barely whispered, but the words rang in his ears.

“Excuse me,” he grinned. “Could you say that again, a little louder? I’m not sure I heard you.”

“You heard my perfectly fine, you ass!” She chuckled, playfully hitting his arm with her menu. “I didn’t mean to be so cross. It’s not your fault. I’m just used to working alone.”

“Then you should be happy,” he insisted.

“Why,” she smirked. “Because I’m partnered with you?”

“No,” he said with near sincerity. “Because you are working with anyone. Alone is nice, but it becomes rather... lonely after a while.”  

She mindlessly stared at her glass as she swirled her ice water with a straw.

“I suppose,” she answered, “but I get by fine on my own.”

“Then you are lucky I’m here, Carolina. Because you shouldn’t be getting by; you should be thriving.”

“Oh really? And how do you suggest I do that?”

“You could start by laughing a little. You’re entirely too serious.”

“What! I am not! I’m fun, a lot of fun, actually. People tell me I’m fun all the time!”

Trystan rolled his eyes with a dramatic flair as he leaned closer to the table. “No one who is fun has to say they’re fun. No one who is fun has to be told they are fun. Carolina... I think you’re lovely but fun... I don’t believe you’re fun.”  

He stifled a chuckle as he took in her appalled expression and jumped back in before she could form words.

“But it’s OK. That’s why I’m here to help you.”

“To help me?”

“Yes,” he nodded curtly. “To help you.”

“You’re going down, mister! I’m funny! Very funny! I could have you cracking up all through lunch if I wanted to. I just don’t... I don’t want to.”

“Because you can’t,” he teased.

“I can!”

“Then a wager... we’ll have a laugh off... whoever makes the other person laugh first wins.”

“Fine!” She agreed. “And what’s the wager?”

Trystan’s eyes lit up as his smile morphed into a salacious grin. “Carolina... do you really want me to choose?”

“No!” she insisted. “Absolutely not! Lunch. Whoever loses has to pay for lunch.”

“That’s it?”

“For starters,” she snapped. “Now, are you in or out?”

“I’m so in!”

They put the contest aside momentarily to place their orders and discuss the next moves on their case. But once their food was set before them and a plan was in action, it was game on.

“So, how do I do this... do I tell you a joke or something?” she asked.

It wasn’t easy, but Trystan stifled a laugh. He wasn’t going to let her win that easily.

“Are you serious? This is going to be easier than I imagined.”

“No, it isn’t!”

She began telling him stories of her exploits. Things that would have had him howling under normal circumstances. But she had never heard of the royal stiff upper lift, which left him with a distinct advantage. When she was through, he attempted the same approach. Carolina laughed inwardly; clearly, he had never dealt with a detective from New York City. She had the advantage.

With lunch almost devoured, neither had cracked so much as a smile when Carolina got a gleam in her eye. Her nearly finished milkshake gave her a brilliant idea. Shunning the straw, she took a big gulp from the glass, leaving a frothy, white mustache coating her upper lip. Trystan pinched himself to remain expressionless because, if he were being honest, he found her utterly enchanting.

“That’s it?” He questioned. “A milkshake mustache is your big move.”

Carolina mumbled a curse under her breath as she grabbed a napkin to wipe her lip. 

“I don’t see you coming up with a grand finale.”

With that, Trystan tilted his head forward, then back, emerging with wild eyes and two French fries stuck in his nostrils. Witnessing the former Crown Prince in such a state normally would have left Carolina in stitches, but she all but yawned as she stared at him.

“Nothing!” He demanded, removing the salty spuds. “Nothing at all?”

“Sorry, Your Highness. You’ll have to do better than that.”

Exasperated but amused, he leaned forward to tickle under her chin. But Carolina lurched back before his fingers made contact and grabbed her steak knife, playfully holding it in the air.

“No physical contact, Trystan!” She said with narrowed eyes. “Obviously, you’ve never dealt with a woman from New York. I will stab you!”

“I nev... I never,” Trytan’s head flipped back, his face turning red as he barrelled with laughter. “Carolina, do you know anything about Drakovia? A Drakovian toddler would gladly stab a random passerby for staring at its teddy bear. I’m not worried about being disemboweled by you!”

“You’re not,” Carolina smirked.

“No. I’m not.”

“Good,” she said, dropping the knife to the table with an air of satisfaction. That will allow you to use your faculties to get your wallet out and pay for lunch. Because, Prince Trystan, I believe I... just... made... you... laugh!”

His jaw went slack when he realized she had bested him, but a smile quickly emerged. He couldn’t lie. Being bested by Carolina only made her more desirable. He cleared his throat as he pulled his wallet out of his pocket.

“There will be other lunches, Carolina... and other bets. Don’t get too comfortable. I will exact my revenge.”

“Really,” she grinned, rising to her feet. “First, you’ll have to get me to agree to the terms. Let’s see if you can do that.”

He slumped back into his seat and watched her walk away. Happily observing every sway of her hips as she triumphantly sashayed toward the exit.

“Don’t worry,” he whispered with a smile. “You will. Trust, you will.”

@choicesficwriterscreations @choicesbookclub

Other tags in reblog

[minisugakoobies]

Prelude | MYG

Pairing: Yoongi x Reader (Gender Neutral)

Genre: angst, fluff, comfort, non-Idol!AU

Rating: T

Warnings: mentions of a break-up, mentions of loneliness

Word Count: 1.9k

Disclaimers: None other than obviously I don’t own BTS - they just inspire me

Summary: You're all alone in your new city, save for the handsome man you keep seeing around your neighborhood, and the mysterious pianist who lives upstairs.

A/N: I wrote this back in November and then just let it sit for a while, thinking I might add more. But now I think I like it as a short one-shot, so here it is, in time for Yoongi's b-day! The inspiration came from this tweet:

Tell me hoooooooooooow I wrote a letter to the pianist upstairs and said how much I love hearing them play and they came downstairs to thank me ONLY TO FIND OUT IT WAS THE CUTE DUDE I KEEP BUMPING INTO?!?!

Unbeta’d as usual. I’d love to know what you think - my inbox is always open! 💕

Masterlist 💜 Find me on AO3 💜

It's your third night in your new apartment when you hear it.

Hushed at first, then gradually growing louder as the song crescendos–someone is playing the piano. The music swirls around you, and you sit up in your bed, the book you were reading resting on your lap as you crane your neck to better hear the enchanting melody drifting down through the ceiling above.

It happens again the next evening. And the one after that. Almost nightly, you find yourself the unwitting audience for a performance from the pianist who lives upstairs. You can't help but wonder if that was the reason the previous tenant was so eager to break their lease, allowing you to move in sooner than you'd originally planned. Most people might not enjoy a near daily private concert.

You aren't most people.

It's never the same song twice. One night, it's a buoyant contemporary piece that you identify as the theme song to a prestigious arthouse film. The next, it's a mournful classical solo that has you nearly weeping into your dinner. Your mystery performer's talent and range astound you, and you feel fortunate to hear every note.

Maybe it's a good omen. A sign that you've made the right decision coming here to the big city, striking a tiny chord of hope within you that there may be more amazing discoveries just waiting to be found.

A month after you've moved in, you are still finding your way around. You've taken to wandering the streets on early morning walks, trying to orient yourself better. Earbuds replace the hustle and bustle of the city with the soothing sounds of classical music, a new interest that you directly link to your unseen neighbor's recitals. Each day, you watch the sun rise over your new hometown to the stirring strings of a symphony, letting the orchestra carry you away.

As much as you like your new place, you're rather lonely. Your coworkers at your new job are nice, but most live outside the city and don't stick around after hours, commuting home to their families as soon as the work day ends. The only person you know here is your boyfriend, but he's so busy that you've only seen him a handful of times. The two of you had been doing the long-distance thing for over a year, and while your job is what lured you here, he is the reason you ultimately decided to accept the position.

A new movement begins, a minuet that has you stepping quickly in time with the music. Humming along under your breath, you round a corner, heading back to your apartment, and promptly collide with something. No, someone. A minty-haired man, not much taller than you, slender, with the loveliest dark eyes you've ever seen.

And the most intimidating scowl that makes you immediately apologize.

"I'm so sorry!" you gasp, as the man releases his tight grip on your arms. One glance at your fretful expression and his face relaxes. He almost looks sleepy now as he peers at you, and you try not to stare, awestruck by how gorgeous he is.

"S'alright," he mumbles, "no worries. Wasn't watching where I was going, sorry." The corner of his mouth twitches as he gives you the tiniest of smiles, but it's enough to ease your mind. "Have a good day, ok?" he calls over his shoulder as he passes by, and you smile too late at his retreating figure before shaking yourself and heading on your way.

You see him again a few weeks later, queuing in line at this little coffee shop you'd discovered a few blocks from your place. It's sandwiched between a dry cleaner and a bank, easily overlooked in a city where the big chains are located on every other corner. He's ahead of you, and when he turns to leave, he spots you and inclines his head, lips curling slightly in recognition. You nod back.

He's at the diner where you eat your lunches on the weekend, sitting in the window, watching the crowds roll by. He's at the basement bookstore where you load your basket with more books than a person could possibly need. You notice him all over your neighborhood, that pretty hair catching your eye like a beacon, reminding you of spring and new beginnings, and every time there is a nod or little smile offered, you accept each one eagerly.

He's technically a stranger, but the gesture still makes you feel seen. A little less alone.

"You're breaking up with me?"

You don't mean to yell the words, but you're caught by surprise. When you'd answered the phone, you’d expected to hear a lame explanation from your boyfriend as to why he was over an hour late to pick you up - traffic was awful (it was always awful in this city), or he had to stay late to close that big sale (he was always working late), or any one of the other million flimsy excuses he seemed to rotate through lately.

But you hadn't expected him to break your heart.

You beg him to reconsider, but he ignores your pleas, telling you that it's been over between you for a long time, that it was so evident to him long before you'd moved here. But it wasn't evident to you. Lying on your bed as you bawl into your phone, you don't notice when the music above you stops, the peppy, upbeat composition breaking off mid-note.

"I just don't understand. I love you! I thought you loved me! But you couldn't even break up with me in person? After all we've been through?" you howl, nearly beside yourself with despair. More words flow from your boyfriend's mouth, but you don't hear any of them as you try and fail to understand. It's several minutes before you realize that he said goodbye one last time.

The room fills with the sound of you sobbing your heart out.

And then the piano begins again. It's not the same bubbly tune from earlier. Softly, tender notes fall like gentle rain, cascading down upon you. Your tears slowly subside, and you inhale a shuddery breath as you focus on the melody. Thanks to your morning walks, you recognize this one. Arabesque No. 1, by Debussy. It's your favorite of his works, even more cherished than the much-loved Clair de Lune.

The pianist upstairs has no way of knowing that it's your favorite, but you can't help but feel like they do. Like they're playing it just for you. Tonight, you're not the audience by default, but by choice. Their choice.

Your breathing begins to even as you lie on top of your blankets, listening intently. You are wrung out, exhausted, but cannot help but lose yourself in rhapsody. The pianist plays so delicately, almost lovingly, and you imagine their fingers dancing lithely over the keys as your eyes flutter shut, the peaceful sonata lulling you to sleep.

Weeks pass. The performances go on. And slowly but surely, you begin to heal.

Hindsight is perfectly clear, of course. Looking back, you see that the distance between you and your ex was more than just physical. And it really was obvious. Just as obvious as the fact that you are now completely alone.

Yet that tiny chord of hope still rings within you, sustained by the music floating from above. Day by day, week by week, you keep moving forward, putting your ex behind you as you truly start anew.

You make friends with another recent hire at work who lives just a subway stop away. A neighbor down the hall introduces herself in the elevator, and by the time you've reached the lobby, you've been invited to her weekly book club. The man with the light green hair is still hanging around your periphery, a few casually exchanged hellos encouraging you enough to ponder asking him to coffee someday-not today, but someday.

The chord swells. It's no longer just a few notes. It becomes a measure, a verse. A song.

And you realize it all started with the first strike of the piano above.

Though you have no idea who lives upstairs, you decide that they should know how much you appreciate them. You need them to know. So, you dig out some old stationery buried deep in your desk, and you write them a letter.

Unsure of what to say at first, you start by thanking them for their captivating performances, stating how lucky you are to have moved in so close to such a talented musician. Before you know it, you've told them how their music has given you hope when you needed it the most. Anonymity emboldens you, allowing you to spill your heart without fear of being too earnest, too vulnerable.

Once it's finished and you've signed it "your neighbor," you trek upstairs and slip it under their door before you can lose your nerve.

The next morning, there is a rap at your door.

You peek through the peephole and draw back in disbelief. It's the handsome minty-haired man from all your favorite neighborhood haunts. Why is he here?

"Can I help you?" you call out.

"Uh, yeah," he replies, his low, rich voice surprising you. "You wrote this letter, right?" He holds up a piece of paper, which you immediately identify as your stationery.

You open the door so quickly, he jumps in alarm.

"You," he breathes, as recognition sweeps over him. "I didn't know you lived here."

"You live upstairs?" you ask timidly. His dark eyes examine you from beneath his shaggy hair. Long fingers clutch your letter, and you can't help but stare at them, thinking about how they must look as they caress the keys of his piano.

"Yeah. Hi. I'm Yoongi," he introduces himself.

You give your name, then pause. "So... how did you know I wrote that?"

"Process of elimination. No one has moved in on my floor in over a year. And little old Ms. Choi above me has told me multiple times that she turns her hearing aids off at night, so she can enjoy some peace and quiet," he informs you, flashing a smile that is all gums and rather endearing. “She says she means that to be encouraging, that I can play as loud as I want.”

Not knowing how to respond, you remain silent.

"I just wanted to thank you," he declares, glancing at the letter. "The things you said about how I play... how it made you feel...." He turns his gaze on you, regarding you carefully before he finishes his thought. "I, uh, don't get a lot of opportunities to perform for any audiences. So to know there's someone listening, and actually enjoying my playing, is amazing." He laughs, a shy chuckle that pleases your ear as much as any sonata he's ever played. "It made me feel seen. Or I guess heard. Damn, I don't know if I'm making any sense. Do you know what I mean?" His expression is so earnest that you feel your heart seize up.

You nod. You absolutely understand.

That gummy smile returns.

"Anyway, I wanted to let you know how much I appreciated it." He rubs the back of his neck, looking down. "Maybe some time, I could play for you? In person, I mean. Not through the walls."

"Okay," you answer, not hesitating, making his head snap up. He grins, and you can't help but do the same. "But do you want to start with coffee first? I know a great little place."

© 2022-23 by sunshinerainbowsbts/minisugakoobies. Crossposted to AO3. Please do not copy or repost.

[sabraeal]

Consider: Obi is green-red color blind

A Color by Any Other Name

Written for @aeroplaneblues for a surprise birthday gift! Many months ago she mentioned wanted to see a colorblind Obi, and I said, WELL WHAT A GOOD EXCUSE TO WRITE THIS PROMPT JOANNA GAVE ME. I hope your birthday is a good one, filled with a lot more nice surprises!

“Are you ever going to introduce me to your guard friends?” Suzu asks around a mouthful of dumpling. “Or are you embarrassed?”

To say Obi is unprepared, would be an understatement; there’s a pork bun lodged between his teeth, his gloves not only coated in pig grease but also far less effective against steam than he’d thought they’d be back when he’d just grabbed a plump little blob off the stall. He’d laughed off Suzu’s concerns about protective equipment; after all, if smiths use leather gloves, they’ve got to be just as good as an oven mitt.

They aren’t. Not to mention the roof of his mouth starting to have a real good think about peeling off and having a vacation. Maybe even with someone who doesn’t eat entire dumplings straight from the basket.

“Wha?” he manages eloquently, nearly drooling spicy meat drippings onto the street.

“I know I’m not cool like they are,” Suzu continues, warming to his new thesis. If his sudden flush of confidence is any measure, he’s spent more of time composing his arguments for this than Obi’s ever seen him work on his actual defense. “And I’m no good with a sword. Or fists. Or really any implement that isn’t a scalpel, and any opponent that isn’t already anesthetized. But I am very smart.”

There’s a thoughtful pause before Suzu adds, “Some people do enjoy that, you know.”

What Obi knows is that this kid tried this conversation on for size in front of Yuzuri, and she didn’t even bother to warn him as a courtesy. See if he buys her any more meat-on-sticks when she’s ‘left her purse in the lab’ now.

“That’s not--” he takes a hurried minute to swallow-- “not what’s happening. I didn’t...”

Even know you knew I didn’t work for the pharmacy. His teeth clamp shut around that winner, and its friend, I didn’t think you lot would want to hang out with a bunch of men without degrees. Not only would that encourage Suzu to make a scene right here, right now, but if it got back to Jirou-- well, if he thought Suzu could turn any day into a disaster, the lieutenant would make that seem like a vacation.

“I didn’t think you wanted to,” he settles on instead. Similar enough in feel, if...creatively edited. “You scholar types tend to flock together.”

“Well, sure,” Suzu murmurs, stymied, “but we’re friends too, aren’t we? If all my friends are your friends, then all your friends should be my friends.”

Only an academic could talk about arithmetic with that amount of confidence, especially the kind that involved transitive properties and letters, and all sorts of things that made Obi’s head spin.

“Well,” he hums, one boot scratching his calf. “You would know.”

Suzu whirls on him, staring down his long fox-snout of a nose. “You mean it? You’ll really...?”

“Sure. If that’s what you want.” He twitches his shoulders, more casual than he feels. “It’s fine if it’s you.”

There’s always been a lazy lilt to Suzu’s eyes, but it disappears now, all the sleepiness gone to surprise. “Me? You wouldn’t want to bring anyone else?”

“Well, definitely not Kazaha.” The glares he’d get bringing that twiggy pedant into the guardhouse might be enough to drop him dead on the spot. “And Yuzuri would be too popular.”

Suzu grimaces. “The number of admirers she’d get from a wink alone...she’d be unlivable.”

He can see it now, her ponytail bobbing with a buoyant glee, giggling through every painstaking penned line from her fan club-- “Think of all the bad poetry.”

“Honestly, that might make it worth it. At least I’ll feel better about not knowing the difference between a quartet and a quatrain.” Suzu takes a thoughtful bite of him bun. “And you couldn’t bring Shirayuki, of course.”

“Right.” Not a one of them could be trusted to keep their lips sealed; she’d hardly have to take a breath and someone would call her Obi’s lady, or ask how they met, or whether she’s still Mistress behind closed doors--

But Suzu wouldn’t know any of that. “Wait, why?”

“Well...” He has the grace to look chagrined about it, whatever it is. “You know. Her hair...?”

“Oh.” Obi shrugs. “Sure, I guess.”

“You guess?” Suzu stares. “Shirayuki has a non-zero amount of stories about being kidnapped for looking like a candied apple, and you guess there might be a fuss about bringing her ‘round to the guardhouse?”

“Well, none of you acted weird about it,” he snips, hiding his annoyance behind a bite of dumpling. “There’s no reason they will.”

“Of course no one at Lilias acted weird, Obi!” he squawks, arms flailing as he talks. “You couldn’t pay them to look at anything but their own project. But when a bunch of normal men with eyes and, uh, other working appendages see a cute girl with red hair and a soft voice, they’re gonna go crazy!”

His palm hooks around his shoulder, thumb digging into the hard knot at his collarbone. “Aw, come on. It’s not that special.”

“Not that--?” Suzu whips around, eyes round as dumplings. “Obi, she’s the only person I’ve ever seen with red hair.”

“You don’t get out much,” Obi deadpans. “No offense.”

“That’s not--” Suzu grunts, throwing up his hands-- “She’s the only person anyone’s ever seen with red hair!”

“Her dad’s is kind of red.” That observation wins him an unimpressed look, one that says you’re missing the point. “And Yuzuri had blue hair when I met her. That’s way more interesting--”

“It was dyed!” Suzu wobbles over to a wall, sitting with his head in his hands. “Shirayuki has a hair color so rare that the birth records in Clarines haven’t noted it in more than fifty years! And you think Yuzuri dying her hair with woad is more impressive.”

“Well, even her natural color is brighter than Miss’s. Not--” he waves a hand between them, quelling-- “that Miss’s hair isn’t nice enough. But I’d think that people would pay more attention to that.”

“...Brighter?” Suzu murmurs after a long moment, stilted. “Obi, could you tell me what color that sign is, right over there?”

“The one for the tea shop?” He wrinkles his nose. “Why--?”

“Just...indulge me for a moment.”

“All right.” He squints up at the moon cresting over a wolf’s head. “Blue.”

“Right, and, um, that coat over there.”

“Yellow.”

“Right.” Suzu’s voice is tight, stressed. “And what I’m wearing?”

Obi squints. This one’s a little harder, but he’s confident when he says, “Green.”

“Ah, right.” Suzu stands, a unsteady on his feet. “That would explain that, then.”

Obi blinks. “Explain what?”

“Obi,” Suzu begins, with all the gravitas of both a grim prognosis and a terrible joke. “You can’t see colors.”

*

It’s not the first time Obi’s played hound to his prey’s fox, but there’s something distinctly unsettling about it being Suzu that leaves him lagging behind, unsure of himself. Especially with the way he scurries through the concourse, bounding toward the mess hall with this idea caught between his teeth like chicken feathers.

“I can see colors just fine,” Obi informs him with far less confidence than he’d like. “Some of them are just hard to tell apart. Weren’t you and Yuzuri arguing yesterday about whether salmon is orange or pink?”

Suzu waves a hand at him, dismissive. “That’s different. Salmon’s both orange and pink, and what color it looks most like has to do with the composition of your eye-- and it’s pink by the way, with orange undertones--”

Between the two of them, Obi knows who he’d trust to know their colors. “Uh-huh.”

“You can’t make out red and green, which is different entirely, and--” the doors to the mess burst open beneath his hands, a noise lost in the din of a hundred scholars trying to share the same table-- “YOU GUYS WON’T BELIEVE WHAT I JUST FOUND.”

The whole of Shidan’s lab-- minus the man himself-- have taken up right by the door, bags and coats piled to save them their places on the bench. Suzu makes short work of the pile on his seat, haphazardly shoving them to the floor as he sits.

Kazaha peers at him and ventures mildly, “A new way to avoid finishing your thesis?”

“No,” Suzu hums between his grit teeth, “but I have found out--”

“I don’t think we need to do this,” Obi murmurs, handing Miss her muffler. “It’s not--”

“Obi,” he intones with far more gravitas than his name has ever strictly deserved, “can’t see colors.”

“Not at all?” Kazaha turns those sharp eyes to him, like he’s a specimen under glass. “Just black and white?”

“I can see just fine,” Obi huffs, tossing Yuzuri her coat before he slides onto the bench, knee knocking into Miss’s in a way that puts his heart through its paces. “Suzu is just making a mountain out of a molehill.”

“Is that so?” he hums with a grin. “Then what color is Shirayuki’s hair?”

He stifles a sigh. It’s best to put all this to bed now, before he’s stuck playing what’s this color for the next two years. “Red.”

“What’s the point of this?” Yuzuri yawns, already bored. Obi shoots her a grateful look, glad that at least one of them isn’t going to play Suzu’s game.

It’s too bad he’s already puffed up with unearned confidence, like an evolutionist at a botany lecture. “And what’s the color of Ryuu’s cloak?”

He knows it by heart-- how could he not, when the two most important people in this city wear matching ones-- but still Obi glances up, anticipating a trick. Ryuu stares back, confused and guileless. “Blue.”

“Great, good.” Suzu’s grin stretches from ear to ear. “Now what color is your scarf?”

Obi’s fingers knot in the fabric, the weft tickling the pads of his fingers. “Well, it’s...sort of reddish, isn’t it?”

This is the wrong answer.

“It makes so much sense,” Yuzuri murmurs in wonder. “You really don’t know how ugly Suzu’s outfits are. That’s why you still hang out with him.”

“Hey!” Suzu pouts. “That’s not very nice.”

“No, that has nothing to do with color, it’s the cut.” Anxiety spikes through him. “But wait, it is red isn’t it? My scarf?”

“No,” Miss murmurs at his side, cheeks flushes. “Obi, it’s...it’s green.”

He stares down at it, trying to imagine what that might look like. “Green.”

“It looks very nice on you!” Her small fingers wrapping in the fur at his elbow. “It’s your color, really.”

“Oh, sure,” he murmurs, faint. “I guess it matches my eyes.”

“Hey, what do you mean ‘it has nothing to do with the color?’“ Suzu’s hands fly to his hips, brows drawn tight over the long line of his nose. “My clothes are just fine.”

“They aren’t.” Obi leans in next to him, grin feeling thinner than it should. “But I hang out with you anyway, which means you know we’re really friends.”

Kazaha rubs at his chin, where his ode to Shidan’s goatee is failing to thrive. “You know what this also explains?”

Obi blinks. “What?”

“All the black.”

It’s not Kazaha that says it, oh no. That would be too merciful for a mortifying moment out of his life. Instead it’s low and feminine, and when Miss Kiki leans out from the other side of Miss, it’s like a siren emerging from the depths, teeth bared to tear a man to shreds. “What an interesting thing I’ve learned today.”

“Miss Kiki! How--?” He gulps. “Why--?”

“I came to deliver a message from Wirant,” she drawls, too pleased. “And it seems I’ve earned myself a fine tip.”

“No,” he breathes. “You can’t-- you’re not going to tell Master, are you? Or Sir?”

“Oh,” she hums, looking particularly hungry for manflesh. “I certainly will.”

*

“Oh, there there.” Miss pats his back, the sensation lost among the dozen layers of clothing between them. “I’m sure Kiki won’t tell them, not until you’re ready! You asked her not to.”

“I think that just means,” Obi mutters, voice muffled by his arms and the wall he’s throwing himself over, “that she’ll just enjoy telling them more.”

“Ah...” He doesn’t need to see her to know her grimace. “Yes, that’s...probably right.”

He lets out a heavy, dramatic sigh. It helps a little. So does a bit of flailing.

“They won’t make a big deal out of it,” Miss says, changing tack. “It hardly changes anything! I’m sure they’ll just forget as soon as she tells them.”

He peeps one eye over his elbow. “That’s easy for you to say, you haven’t spent the last half an hour playing What’s That Color.”

“Well,” she wheedles, “they are scholars.”

Obi groans, loud and long, which doesn’t help; but it echoes out over the rooftops, returning back to him, which does.

“How...?”

Miss hesitates, a gloved finger pressed to her lips. He sighs, already braced for the onslaught-- how didn’t you know? how did you go so long without knowing your colors? how do you find people if you can’t even tell what hair color they have--?

“How did you notice?”

Obi lifts his head, unblinking. “What?”

“How did you notice?” Miss repeats, more firmly this time. “You’ve spent your whole life this way, haven’t you? It must have taken something really special to realize there was more than what you see.”

“Uh.” It’s nice that it’s darker here, that it’s cold. He has perfect legitimate reasons to be flushed. “Well, it was Suzu really. He mentioned that--” his teeth clamp down around his words, not letting them out without a hasty edit-- “that people think your hair’s pretty special, and I said I didn’t get why...”

Miss stiffens beside him, a statue that breathes, and he hastily adds, “Not that you aren’t special, Miss. It’s just, the red...”

“Right.” The words comes out stilted, strange. “You can’t see it. You actually...haven’t ever seen it.”

A silence settles on them like a wool blanket; not one of those nice ones at the castle, or the fleecy ones Miss stockpiles like one day the North might run out of sheep, but the itchy, coarse-woven ones of his childhood. Uncomfortable and smelling faintly of animal.

“So,” he coughs, fixing his gaze out over the city. “What did Kiki want?”

“Oh...” Miss shifts, mouth pulling into a guilty grimace. “She came to tell me that the Queen Dowager has invited me to dinner. Tomorrow night.”

His brows raise. “Well, well.”

“Don’t,” she murmurs, head giving the barest shake. “It’s not like that.”

“Are you sure?” He shouldn’t press, but if he doesn’t, no one else will. “After you told Master--”

“I told him a list of reasons why I thought I would be a better ally as a friend, and not as a...” Miss loses steam, letting her words sigh into the air. “I’d like to believe this has to do with my work with Phostyrias.”

He watches her, careful. “But do you?”

“I don’t know,” she says, which is as good as any no.

*

Obi’s barely stepped into the Protector’s solar when Master asks, “What color is my jacket?”

His head swivels, delivering a glare so flat carpets would be jealous. Miss Kiki only hums, shoulder lifting in a disinterested shrug. “I said I was going to tell them.”

Fair enough.

“It’s blue,” he deadpans, flopping onto the cushiest divan. He’s too long for it, his boots spilling off one arm a idling over the floor. “Apparently I can see that one just fine.”

According to Miss, at least; she’d unearthed a slip of a book from the university’s library, outlining the limits of his sight. Little Ryuu had pored over it for a day before showing up at his door, flushed faced and nervous.

Garrack always told me I had nice eyes, he’d admitted, lingering at the threshold. I was hoping you could see them.

Cross as he is about the whole thing, Obi can’t regret that. He might not have Miss’s hair, or Suzu’s coat-- thankfully-- but Ryuu’s eyes would always look true to him.

“But not red.” Master’s mouth twitches, far too entertained. “Or green.”

“I do see them,” he protests. “They just...don’t look very different to me.”

Just another shade of yellow and brown, if those books are right. Which they are, since he’d always thought so. Subtly different, like the way Suzu and Yuzuri fought over salmon, or Master and Miss Kiki would dither over chartreuse. Just enough that he’d been able to eke by on keeping his mouth shut and a fondness for black.

Still, there’s nothing worse than finding out something new about yourself this late in the game. Especially when--

“What about the curtains?” Master inquires. “Can you see those?”

--Especially when it’s so endlessly entertaining to everyone else. “I can see them,” he grumbles, sinking further into the cushions. “Just because I can’t see some colors doesn’t mean I’m blind.”

“Then what about the note?”

Obi rolls his gaze to where Sir perches at his desk. “Huh?”

“To our red-haired guest.” Sir coughs, a flush working its way up his neck. “It’s just-- you wrote that.”

“Oh, His Grace told me that one.” A lifetime ago, it seemed. “‘The red-haired girl, you’ll know her when you see her, I’m sure.’“

Master winces. Obi can admit his talent doesn’t lie with impressions, especially ones of dour old men.

“Right,” Sir presses, voice oddly tight. “But you don’t see-- I mean, how could you find a girl that looks just like everyone else?”

“Ah...” He grimaces, scrubbing at the top of his head. “Well, I just looked for the girl who didn’t belong. It--” he hesitates, suddenly aware of Master’s eyes on him-- “didn’t take very long.”

Master’s frown belongs above one of those prie-dieu, to remind penitents that forgiveness isn’t absolute. “What is that supposed to--?”

“So what does she look like?” No one could say that after a decade of dedication, Miss Kiki doesn’t know how to do her job; she deflects Master’s brewing sour mood with the ease of a professional. “What does her hair look like to you?”

“Uh.” He clears his throat, tugging at his collar. “I wasn’t lying when I said I bought my scarf to match...”

There is a stillness to the room that is too much, too pitiful. Much as he hated it, Obi would much rather be a joke than a charity case.

“Huh,” Sir grunts, gaze still fixed to his neck. “Now I wonder what we all look like to you.”

“Well, I sort of wonder what you all look like to yourselves.” Obi let a sigh float wistfully through his lips. “At least I know that me and Miss still have the same eyes.”

There’s silence again, but this one buzzes, filled with words no one dares to say.

“What?” he laughs, nervous, pulling himself upright. “Don’t we?”

Sir grimaces. “Ah, Obi...”

*

Miss is quiet when they walk the walls home that night, the winter stillness making the silence and heavy as any drift. Her mouth is pursed, not with anything like anger, but something closer to consideration. As if there’s words back there she’s sorting through, trying to compose a thought that just won’t come.

Well, she should know: she won’t get anywhere if she doesn’t air a few of them out to look at. “Something wrong, Miss?”

She blinks, shaken out from wherever she gone away. Her mind palace, maybe. Suzu’d told him about those once, with busts and painting and curtained alcoves. What she’d do with a place like that, he couldn’t imagine, but if anyone asked, he’d put his money on hers having apothecary drawers instead, and gardens too. The kind with half crumbled walls, ivies curled around every stone. Cluttered desks piled high with books, and one of them with curtain drawn to let its owner nap the afternoon away.

“Oh,” she breathes, finally. “No, no. Nothing’s, um, wrong. I was just...thinking.”

He lifts a knowing brow. “So something is wrong.”

“That’s not what I said,” she informs him, primly. “I was going over my meeting with Haruto, and...”

Her lips snap shut around the words, distress narrowing her eyes. “And...?”

“She didn’t know about my work,” Miss huffs, arms wrapping tight around her chest. “Or, she did, but only what Zen had told her. Which...”

Was far less than the whole of it. He’d heard that part of her argument that night, try as he might not to. “So she invited you as Zen’s ally?”

“No.” The word is colder than any he’s ever heard fall from her lips. “That I wouldn’t mind-- I’m still trying to be his ally, after all, and if she saw me as an asset...” She shook her head. “No, she wanted to meet his...paramour, even if she didn’t say as much.”

Obi grimaces.

“And even that wouldn’t be so bad if...” Miss took a deep, steeling breath. “When I came in, after all the curtsies and pleasantries, she said, your hair is just as red as he said it was.” Her knuckles are white where they wrap around her elbows. “All those years, all those letters, and the only thing he thinks to tell his mother is that my hair...”

The rest is lost in a sigh, a cloud of mist swirling off the wall.

“It must really be something,” Obi deadpans, gaze following it off the edge. “Since it makes all these people forget how smart you are.”

She’s watching him; he can feel it as she sidles up to where he stands, hands unclenching from her arms and splaying on the crenellations instead. “Obi, you really can’t...?”

Miss hesitates, falls silent. He lets her; she’s put enough words in the air to sort through, and now all she needs is time. Obi’s happy to give it to her.

Especially since there’s a rabbit down there in the dark. A small one, moving slow, hind legs churning like clockwork winding up. It’s nose digs into the snow, snuffling around, searching--

“Can you really see better?” Miss asks, startling him back to the wall. “In the dark, I mean. That book said you could.”

“Well, after the past couple days, I’m a little shaky on what’s normal.” He jerks his chin over the edge. “Can you see the rabbit down there? Right by that sapling?”

She blinks, pressing in close. “The what? It’s just...dark out there.”

“Well,” he says, grin tight on his lips. “There’s your answer.”

Miss settles back on her heels, one hand already cupping her chin. “It makes sense. Without the distraction of color, your movement tracking must be much more acute...”

Obi only half-manages to stifle a laugh. “Seems like it definitely distracts everyone else.”

Miss goes quiet; almost too quiet, enough to make his teeth sit on edge. The seconds tick by, and Obi might play at patience, but it’s not in his nature. He glances down, just from the corners of his eyes, but Miss is already watching him, eyes strangely shuttered.

“Obi,” she says, so clear his name rings in his ears. “You don’t...? My hair, it’s not...” Her mouth works, quiet, before she manages, “It’s not anything to you?”

Anything special, she means. Because that’s what he said so stupidly last night, nothing special.

She’d tied it up tonight, finagling the strange looping knots that were partial to the queen’s court, but already some of it’s worn loose, slipping from its pins. “It is,” he murmurs. “I like it.”

She huffs, unimpressed. “But you can’t see it, not really.”

“Of course I can see it,” he laughs, weary. “Maybe not the color, but that’s fine. I like it because it’s yours.”

She ducks her head, and Obi might not be good at colors, but he can see her cheeks flush in the lamplight.

“Miss.” Her gaze lifts to his, no longer shuttered, just full. “Can I ask you something?”

Her breath catches. “Anything.”

“Be straight with me,” he pleads. “We do have the same eye color right?”

*

“Obi!” Miss‘s laughter bubbles bright with betrayal as she hops down the stairs after him. “Obi, please--”

“Let me grieve, Miss,” he grumbles, hands shoved in his pockets. “I’ve been a real champ about the rest, but let me have this.”

“Obi!” She catches him round the wrist, mouth twitching as she turns to him. “Is it really so bad that they’re gold?”

“No,” he mutters sullenly, shoulders slumped enough that with two stairs between them, they’re nearly the same height. “It’s just...”

Her eyes flutter wide with curiosity. “Just...?”

“It’s fine enough that they’re unique.” He spits the word with more venom than it deserves. “I just I wanted this one thing in common.”

“In common?” Miss blinks. “You mean, me and...?”

Obi would lay down his life for his mistress, but even she can’t ask him to do this, to lay down his pride for her to walk on.

“Oh!” She flusters, limbs fluttering in the air between them. He’s half-tempted to turn away again, but she grabs his face and holds him steady, her cold, slender fingers caught behind his jaw. “Just-- just one moment...”

“Miss?” he wheezes. This is entirely too close, too much--

“Yes!” He breath flutters over his lips, her own parting in a celebration of teeth. “That’s it. I see it. There’s a little, right there.”

He blinks. “A little what, Miss?”

Her teeth flash around the word, “Green.”

It’s cruel to throw a starving dog a bone, but he snaps it up anyway, heart nearly clogging up his throat with hope. “D’you mean it? You’re not just saying that to make me feel better.”

“Really,” she promises, her nod serious and officious as any she might give Little Ryuu. “There’s a thread, right around the middle. Green. Just like mine.”

“Oh.” His own hands raise, leather muting the feel of her skin, but-- Master always told him about the red thread that bound him and Miss together, that drew them toward their fated meeting, but this-- Obi will take this too. “Thank you, Miss.”

She smiles, eyes shining bright in the lamplight. “No, Obi, it’s my pleasure.”

Not much different between green and red to him, anyway.

[spiltscribbles]

Prompt: remus and lily as siblings or half siblings or biological family in any capacity pls 🥺

Oh God!!! Baby!!!🥺🥺😭 This is such a favorite AU of mine!! I’m literally— sorta— writing a To All The Boys I’ve Loved Before AU right now and they are the bestest siblings in that!!!  They share a little sister and they are just so cute!! And Petunia is conveniently off in university oaiwefjoiaswejfiogreghoij And I just love Remus and Lily both so much it hurts!!! And so I wanna spit out a bullet point Ficlet at you! And I’m not even sorry just because I love you so endlessly for tossing this into my inbox foiwaeifmkaeoirfgjieoarujoidkioweajgh 

So like in my head, becs that Voldy bitch doesn’t know how to actually world build, the Muggle born children who get their Hogwarts letters, are also invited to join this like support group for ordinary folks with magical children. It’s like a thing that’s held in the Ministry of magic over in London once a month, and the parents are taught about the Wizarding world while their children kind of go to this separate room to intermingle and read Hogwarts; A History with one another, and just vibe, because pure bloods and those close to that have always sorta known one another and such, so this is a nice way for the Muggle borns not to feel so excluded.

So the thing is, obviously Lyall was a wizard, but also we all know I don’t fuck with him lmfao. So I picture that after he leaves for the final time when Remus is around nine, and finalizes the  divorce with Hope, she— being the bad bitch that she is, just marches to the ministry with her half-blood, werewolf son, and demands to learn everything about the world he’s part of, because she refuses to let him be deprived of anything. 

Eventually she becomes one of the tutors for the adult section because she’s such a quick study— being a professor herself back in Cardiff and just being an all around bombshell tbh. So one day, in February of 1970, there’s this ginger haired, northerner who stumbles in with his daughter who looks so much like him that it’s crazy— dimples and smile and upturned nose. Though she has her mother’s eyes, who had past away when she was only seven from a freak car accident.

And when he first shake’s Hope’s hand, he’s like kind of mind boggled over how beautiful she is, and thinks that maybe all wizards just put on some sort of charm to look unearthly, till he finds out that she’s as Muggle as he is towards the end of his visit. And he is just entirely love struck tbh.

And for the next couple months or so, he kind of just yearns from afar, and then spends the ride home to Cokeworth listening to Lily’s excited chortling about her friend Remus who’s apparently a half blood and who likes the same treats as her and knows how to draw things so amazingly, and it isn’t until like May, when he ambles to the other room and realizes that Remus is actually Hope’s fucking son, and he already knows that she said she began this group after separating from her husband who was a wizard himself. So Lily’s father— Nate— quite literally just shoots his shot and asks if Lily would like to get ice cream with her new friend since Petunia won’t be coming back from there Grams’s house till late, and Hope sorta smirks from over the kids’ heads because she sees exactly what he’s doing and is impressed that he’s finally done something for fuck’s sake.

And like obviously they fall hard for one another, and they probs get married like Lily’s second year at Hogwarts.

Wait, just Lily’s you ask??

Yes my beautiful duckling,  because plot twist!! (We lovee plot twists!!!)

In this AU i picture that McGonagall kind of visits during the summer months leading up to the children’s first year at Hogwarts, just to give them some supplementary readings and answer the questions for their future schooling, and when Dumbledore tells her about Remus’s full situation with his lycanthropy and all, she does some research, and figures out how Beauxbatons is much, MUCH more accommodating to “dark” creatures, and she’s already pretty chummy with Hope and knows that she’s actually a French citizen herself, the daughter of Algerian immigrants. So Remus technically has the possibility to attend Hogwarts or Beauxbatons, and so Hope and Remus talk on it long and hard, and she knows he’s already become fast friends with Lily and their thick as thieves with one another, but it’s also just so much safer for him.

So the week before Lily is set to go off to King’s Cross, they fly over to France and they get Remus settled in his dorm abroad.

I think while they’re away, Lily and Remus actually somehow become closer, because their parents are still dutifully dating and neither of them are all that familiar with their surroundings, so they send one another so many fucking letters through that first term, that the owls of their schools always give them the dirtiest looks lmfao. And they really catch on like a house on fire, like it’s one of those relationships that is just innate? Like you know when you have a best friend you guys kind of just slip into one another lives? Like even when you don’t talk for a while or whatever, it’s just natural<3 <3 

So neither of them ever spend the hols of winter or spring in Hogwarts/Beauxbatons, becs that’s when they really get to vibe.

They tell one another the different cool charms they’ve learned, and hate that they can’t show them with their actual wands yet. And they watch all their favorite films and almost adopt this secret language that’s only the quirk of their brows and twitch of the lips, and Petunia hates how freakily attuned they are with one another and sneers at them for being such freaks in all aspects. Also in this AU Lily fucks off from Snape wayyyy sooner, because instead of having to deal with that nasty, bigoted, slime ball she has the cutest and funniest and most amazing bestie in Remus!

And before Hope and Nate exchange vows in the winter of their second year, the little family of five go to this tiny park that’s all lush grassland and a shiny jungle gym and a pair of swings tucked away by trees, and they sit at this picnic table, and Hope— with her steady, ever buoyant voice, explains to them why she and Remus decided to send him to Beauxbatons instead of Hogwarts, and Petunia is like gawking in fright, and Nate looks sort of distressed, but Lily just cocks her head and shrugs her shoulders, because it’s still Remus— her closest companion Rem— and nothing could change that. So she takes his hand from where it’s fiddling with a splintered piece of wood on the tabletop and she squeezes it tightly, watches him glance up at her with the late summer wind billowing in his tawny curls and the fear in his honey eyes, and she simply tells him that it doesn’t matter. And Lily will never forget the way his features spasm at that, going suddenly loose and bright and thankful, and then Nate probably tousles his hair and kisses Hope’s temple and shyly asks how they should accommodate once they move in with one another.

And that park becomes sorta special tbh.

It’s in that alcove with the swings and trees where Lily and Remus go when things are becoming too much, or they would just like to escape the world by one another’s side.

It’s where they tried their first cigarettes that Remus had gotten from an older bloke in Beauxbaton’s when they were thirteen and feeling adventurous. And where they go to listen to the releases of their favorite albums, and when Remus told Lily that he’s gay for the first time before leaving to both their fourth years and it’s like one of those spots they both think of and feel golden.

Oh God! Imagine how cute of a celebration that Nate and Hope hold for them both becoming prefects!!! Hope and Nate definitely insist on some sort of summer todo! And they invite their friends and all that jazz and OMFG what if Lily’s wearing some sorta powder blue sundress that matches Remus’s oxford shirt and they both are grimacing in all the photos and are just not thriving foieajfoierjgiearfoijsdkgxh But like they would be doted on rotten that whole day! This is so cute! OMFG! And this probs means James became Prefect as well and so Remus gets to tease her when he sends her some sort of congratulations letter and she’s totally blushing and trying to hide her grin, and Lily retaliates by kicking his ankle tbh bahaha 

Okay also now I’m thinking of like Lily’s like fifth year, and her Muggle studies class is doing some sort of seminar to see if these idiots can actually survive in a totally Muggle area without a lick of magic, so like it’s spring hols, and guess who she’s partnered up with??? 

Cookies for you because we all know she had to work with James and Sirius lmfao!!! 

And she’s totally still trying to hide her crush on James— who’s nearly always leering and winking her way— and she might actually punch Sirius’s face simply because he’s such a smug bastard, and being from a working class family like herself, she’s like always ready to fight preppy rich boys tbh

So James and Sirius decide to plan out the simulation in her house that’s right outside Cardiff and Remus is cackling the entire morning before they’re set to arrive because she’s so pissy about it lmfao

Okay so like obviously the boys end up taking the port key and land in front of her place and it’s Remus who answers the door, still painted with humor because Lily was just screaming about “if Potter brings that insufferable snitch here I’ll bloody shove it up his arse” and James is immediately on the defense because Lily’s only ever talked about her sister and brother who live with her at home, and this dude is golden where she’s pale and has curls over her straight hair and just, obviously they’re not related by blood at all. And for his part, Sirius is like *Oh! Oh! Oh! Pretty!!! Pretty boy!! Muggle boy? Pretty Muggle boy!* 

But Remus obviously knows who they are straight away, so he like waves them inside before rounding to the stairs and calling for her to stop clogging the toilet or something else mortifyingly embarrassing, and Lily promises to put like pickles in the next set of face masks that they do because she knows how fucking allergic he is to them, and she wants her chuckles damn it!!  

“Potter— Black,” is how she greets them with a derisive sort of glower that Remus can completely see through, so he has to excuse himself while laughing over to the kitchen. “You’ve met my delightful brother I see.”

And James’s entire posture relaxes and he’s back to grinning like a dope, and the only weird part is that Sirius has got on the very same face, *Pretty Muggle boy is Evan’s brother* So like they are both scary levels of elated, rip.

But sucks to be Sirius because Remus leaves after that to meet up with a friend from town who’s also the best dealer tbh, and  so he has to deal with James’s awful levels of flirting with Lily while they scrounge up their itinerary to send their professor for the seminar type thing, and he doesn’t even have a pretty distraction XS

But Lily does force Remus to come along with her on the trip to London because “On God, if I spend a day alone with those bellends by myself I will punch a wall” 

And it is literally the worst, but best double date/first date that’s full of Sirius and James fucking up with everything— including asking some poor Tesco employee where are their fudgeflies and giving a homeless man a hand full of galleons and James’s snitch somehow ending up in the meaty hands of some kid at the tube. But also tbh it’s hella cute when Lily lets James give her his jacket when they’re walking along the Thames and it’s getting chilly, and when Remus lets Sirius share his stick of cotton candy and they both sorta stare at the sugar on each of their lips.

But then they go to some tiny museum, and while they’re looking at a impressionist piece, Sirius is totally trying to show off to Remus and is explaining how he could turn the bench their sitting on into a really nice bouquet of Lupins, and in the middle of his stupid showboating, Remus lightly corrects him on some facet of Gamp’s law, and Sirius freezes— shocked still— and he’ sort of gaping like an idiot, before Lily stops his blustering with a scoff “He’s a damn wizard also you arse.”

And Sirius is floundering for the rest of the evening, and he has so many questions, but they all die on his lips every time he glances over at Remus and he’s just smirking at him with this electric glint in his golden eyes

So obviously when they’re back at Hogwarts he pesters Lily every second of every day about Remus, and why he’s not at Hogwarts. “None of your fucking business.” And asking where Remus goes instead. “Beauxbatons, thankfully far away from you.” and he asks her about a thousand other questions that Lily either scoffs at or simply cuffs him around the head for daring to even try getting his address.

And she pokes fun about the situation to Remus and tells him how much more of an idiot he’s acting like, and how hilarious it all is. And she’s shocked when he responds to her letter merely by saying, “Hah- he’s cute.”

And so obviously she shoots back a reply that’s a letter of all his worst traits, mainly that he’s an arrogant toerag, and that he’s a posh idiot who could probably live off his inheritance for three lifetimes without blinking, and about how he doesn’t date anyone for longer than a couple months, and how he’s practically brothers with James bloody Potter, and yet again, Remus just tells her, Hah- he’s cute, before mildly moving to talking about his latest charms paper and how he’s been asked to be their DADA’s professors TA next year, and how Andrew keeps trying to try again with him but Remus would rather poke his eyes out with a spork.

So Lily is totally fuming when she recognizes that she’s lost and begrudgingly gives Sirius Remus’s info, after telling him lowly and with her most menacing glower, “IF you fuck around with my brother I will murder you without a flinch.” And she’s quite literally five feet nothing to Sirius’s broad, six-foot frame, but he knows that she could do it with a snap of the finger, and he promises that it’s not just a gag on his end. And Lily actually believes him.

So Remus and Sirius begin writing to one another a sickening amount, like so steadfastly that it gives Lily a complex whenever she finds Sirius waiting at the Owlry every Wednesday morning for the bird that arrives with two letters tied to it’s leg, one for each of them.

And God, one time, right before they let out for summer hols, Lily accidentally takes the one marked for Sirius— and holy christ!!!, She did not need to know just what exactly her brother has been getting up to in the sex department of things— like she legit contemplated using a memory charm on herself JFC

And Sirius probably ends up on their doorstep again in late July, with James at toe, and somehow their is a small harmony painted between the four of them, and it’s by Christmas of sixth year when James and Sirius begin talking about how amazing it’ll be when they’re actually in-law brothers, and Lily blames Remus for everything when she’s pretending to be cross over it, but then James puts his arm around her shoulders, and she sees how gentle Sirius is when he twines his fingers into Remus’s own, and it feels good, feels right. 

It feels like something that can be forever.

Send Me A Prompt/Chat With Me💜  |  My Wolfstar FIC Masterlist

[egg-emperor]

Personally I think Eggman's cutest design was his Classic Robotnik self. He's chonk, but he's also so bouncy and buoyant! A rubber ball in human form! What's not to love?

I absolutely adore his classic design, he's a beautiful quality chonky boy 💖💜💕💗💘💜💗 He's just as handsome as modern and the way he's more like a perfectly round ball than an egg is so fucking cute. He has a brilliant outfit with his funny little cape and the way the yellow triangles at the front are reminiscent of walrus tusks, while his stache looks like the whiskers is clever. His design is timeless so I'm really happy they've been keeping him relevant as they should!

The way he's goofy, jolly, and cute despite being a true evil bastard right from the first game is fantastic. I've always loved how it's his actions and personality that shows his evil instead of his design, it adds more impact and surprise to his villainy. I wish it hadn't been so common for redesigns in western art/animation to remove the cute aspects to try to make him look more typically evil, it takes away the charm and appeal that makes him such a lovable and unique villain.

I totally agree that he's the cutest version of all eggs! I find aspects of modern cute too depending on the situation but overall I'd describe him as handsome and sexy more often than cute because they really dialed up the daddy energy with the modern redesign sjfjsngkdmgkfk Classic more commonly has the cuteness while modern has the sexiness but they're both totally capable of being vice versa to me as well heheh. Both are big bear husband material designs and he deserves lots of love with many hugs and kisses 💕

Classic and modern are equally the peak of his design and the only two that I think needed to exist. I always say modern is my favorite for being the first design I saw and fell in love with but classic was also a part of the process as I got the Mega Collection early on too, so in reality, I love the two designs equally. They're the two specific designs that have a very special place in my heart and the only ones where I feel just as much love and joy for both whenever I see them!

His classic self really deserves more love and appreciation just like modern. Round eggs are the best eggs and classic is a precious spherical boy to be deeply treasured and loved!

Just look at this cuddly and adorable but also evil mischievous bastard. I love him so much :'D 💖

A troublemaker out to steal my heart, even though he knows very well that I'll give it to him willingly hfjdngjdmgkfkg

[snatcher-no-snatching]

Had another dream in which hk and bk were my little siblings, though mainly involving hk (and also Empress?)

The three of us lived in a lil house in a city that I can only describe as Venice-like? As in, there were no roadways but lots of canals for people to get around in boats. The city was very colourful and lively, lots of art and music on display for all to enjoy. Strangely, we seemed to be the only human inhabitants. The earliest part of the dream I can remember involved us arriving home after grocery shopping to prepare dinner, but Hat Kid saying she wanted to go out exploring a little more. So she went out while Bow and I cooked, but rather than a boat of her own she had... some sort of friendly buoyant animal? It basically looked like a big, round, inflatable pool toy, yellow, and vaguely whale shaped but with lil cat ears. Strange but cute.

Anyway, Hat Kid rode around the canals on this thing, eventually arriving at a restaurant of some sort. The guy behind the counter was apparently familiar with her, 'cause he offered her some pancakes like she was a regular (There was also a sequence here where another server made the mistake of offering her a caffeinated beverage, but I'm skipping that for brevity's sake). So like, after eating n stuff she went outside and saw her buoyant lil friend had apparently floated away, leaving her effectively stranded. She asked around the restaurant if anyone had seen her friend, and eventually ended up in the bar next door. No one there had seen her lil buddy either, but the tall, sly looking cat behind the counter said her shift was over soon, so she wouldn't mind giving her a lift back home. Hat Kid accepted, and the cat introduced herself as "The Empress".

They got on Empress'.... "boat", which was really more of a floating cube? Anyway, it was dark as they travelled the waterways, mostly illuminated by the many art installations they passed by along the way. This is the part of the dream I remember most vividly, and it was very strange. The lighting cast dark shadows on the walls, and tall statues of bronze and stone surrounded them, depicting great battles and graceful dancing figures. Maybe it was a trick of the light and the clashing colours, but I could swear I saw some of them moving. Really, it's hard to describe just how surreal and beautiful it was, grotesque and amazing.

Regardless, Hat Kid was so entranced that it took a while before she noticed they weren't going in the direction of her house. When questioned, the Empress only replied with "....I have something I want to show you". Only a little apprehensive, Hat Kid didn't have much of a choice but to see where she was being taken, and was surprised to see they'd arrived at a grand museum. She was childishly excited, like "ooh, I know this museum! I come here with my siblings sometimes!" but went back to being confused as they went around back to a secret entrance. Empress said something to the effect of "My lab is down here", to which Hat Kid was once again naively excited, like "That's so cool, I have a lab too! I love science!" But as they disembarked and made their way under the building she was like "...So why was your lab built under the museum?" Empress only laughed: "More like the museum was built on top of my lab!" And said nothing else on the matter

They made it to a dark room, whith only some chairs and a mysterious drawn curtain. Empress took a seat and gestured for Hat Kid to open the curtains. I remember feeling kind of scared at this point, but still so curious, and also as if I didn't have any choice in the matter anyway. So Hat Kid opened them, and was very shocked to see a man, skinny and ill-looking, lying in a bed, hooked up to multiple machines that appeared to be either pumping or extracting a pink fluid to/from him. Not sure which. The fluid glowed brightly, basically illuminating the room, and the man had his eyes open, but didn't seem conscious. Despite all this, the thing that stuck out most was that he was human.

Horrified for reasons unknown, Hat kid turned to look at Empress for answers. "This man is like you," She said. I can't remember what she called it, but she gestured to the tanks of the pink liquid and said that he needed it to live, and so will Hat kid, eventually. She said she needed help gathering more of it, and that she's willing to employ HK's to do so. Before the conversation could continue any further, Bow and myself burst through the doors in a very dramatic "get away from her!" sort of moment. Empress whispered something to Hat Kid, then backed away as instructed. I picked both my little siblings up and the three of us made our getaway (I had a motorcycle, but like, a water motorcycle. Yes, it was very cool.)

It was around here that I gradually woke up, so it gets a lil foggy. Some days pass completely normally, except I notice Hat Kid getting gradually more and more tired during the day, and suspect she's been sneaking out at night. As a narrative, it'd make sense that she's going to see Empress, but I wouldn't know, 'cause like I said I was waking up at that point. Aaand... yep that's pretty much it thank you for your time

[charincharge]

Cruel Summer, Part 4

cruel summer masterlist

AN: Sorry about last chapter’s tag list! It seems like only half of you got notified, so, if you did not read Part 3 (it was posted Sunday), go back and read that one first, and apologies for my lack of Tumblr tech skills. I think it is fixed. FINGERS CROSSED. Okay, onward. 

Aelin sips her coffee and silences her phone as it buzzes continually on the kitchen table. It’s been going off for the last two days with texts from Dorian. She lied and told him she wasn’t feeling well to give herself some space. But she knows she can only fend him off for maybe one more day or so.

Park today?

His latest text reads. It’s not that she doesn’t want to spend time with Dorian. She does. She really does. But, she’s just not feeling up to going to the park yet. She knows he’ll want to spend all day there, and she’s feeling less than enthused about that. And she’s sure that has absolutely nothing to do with a tall silver-haired employee she spent the better part of Monday avoiding. Nope. Nothing at all.  She replies quickly.

Still sick. In bed with a fever :(

“Liar!” Dorian calls, rounding the corner to the kitchen.

Aelin grumbles as she takes a large bite of her toaster waffle. “How’d you get in here?”

Dorian slides into the kitchen chair next to her and lays his head down on the table, looking up at her with the saddest, biggest puppy dog eyes he can manage, and innocently holds up the small gold key that usually resides under the flowerpot next to the front door. Aelin grabs it back and lays her head on the table next to him. They stare at each other, their faces a few inches apart, Dorian’s eyes wide with wondering at Aelin’s frowning.

Dorian smirks and brings his hand up to boop her nose softly. Aelin scrunches her nose, but she can’t help but crack the smallest of smiles at her best friend’s efforts.

“You’ve been in a mood since Monday. What’s the deal?” he asks. “It wouldn’t happen to have to do with the red lipstick fiasco? Don’t think I didn’t notice you went back upstairs to put it on.”

“No,” Aelin scoffs, her false bravado kicking in as she pushes herself upright. “Of course not. I just remembered I had a matte stay all day lipstick, and it went better with my outfit.”

Dorian lifts himself up and stares at Aelin, his brow furrowing as he goads her, “So not wanting to go to the park has absolutely nothing to do with the hot hot silver-haired staff member you were making eyes at all day?” Dorian sighs. “Come on, Aelin. Tell meee,” he pleads. “I already know.”

Aelin flips her hair over her shoulder as she places her mug into the sink. “I’m sorry, Dor.”

“You’re the one who’s going to be sorry,” he says. “Because if we’re not going to the park, I’m going to need full details on your hot piece. And the side dish he brought with him.”

It suddenly clicks for Dorian. “Ohhhh, you’re disappointed he brought a date?” Dorian smirks. “Aelin. Not everyone can be single at your behest.”

She crosses her arms, annoyed. This is why she wanted one more day to herself. She didn’t want to talk about Rowan and his stupid rude girlfriend with her dark hipster makeup and beautifully inked skin and brightly dyed hair. If that was Rowan’s type, she had no shot of getting his attention. Not that she hadn’t tried. With the white bathing suit, and playing rough with the boys in the deep end and overzealously clinging onto Dorian’s back. Still, he hadn’t said a damn thing to her until the party ended, and only by accident.

“No,” Aelin lies. Dorian looks at her, unblinking. “Stop that.”

“You can’t let one little staff member prevent you from going to the park. It’s Ashryver Playland, and you’re Aelin fucking Ashryer. It’s your park. Let’s go reclaim our stomping grounds. Please?” he begs again, his sapphire eyes looking up at her through his thick fringe of lashes. “I promise I’ll shield you if we see him.”

“Fine.”

Dorian’s blinding smile is almost worth it. She tells him she’ll be right back and runs upstairs to get dressed for the day. She might put a little more effort into it than she would for just Dorian, but there’s no harm in looking cute. She braids her hair into two French braids and wiggles into a hot pink crop top and her overall shorts. She dons a full face of makeup, finishing with a pink lipstick, and finally makes her way down to where an impatient Dorian is waiting.

He holds out his arm for her, smartly not commenting on her outfit, and Aelin slips her arm through, linking them together for the fifteen minute walk down the beach to the Playland.

They’re greeted at the ticket booth by Fenrys, who is working behind the counter. He blushes upon seeing the approaching pair, and it makes Aelin smile. He hasn’t been quiet about his crush on both her and Dorian, which she thinks they would both be all over if he weren’t four years their junior. He’s shockingly good-looking with deep tanned skin and shoulder-length golden hair. He flashes them a toothy smile and Aelin can’t help but grin back, her mood lightening.

“Ah, the king and queen of Playland.” He pulls out unlimited wristbands for them. “Happy Summer.”

“Hey, handsome, happy summer,” Aelin says with a wink as he tapes on her wristband.

“Aelin, when are you going to let me take you out and make me the happiest man in Terrasen?” Fenrys asks, and Dorian snorts.

“Man? You’re not even old enough to grow facial hair,” Dorian teases, rubbing his thumb against Fenry’s bare cheek. It blooms with a rare blush under Dorian’s touch.

“I just turned twenty-one, so, who knows? Maybe this year is the year,” Fenrys says as he puffs out his chest. He bursts into laughter. “Yeah, yeah. I know you’d never date a staff member anyway. No shitting where you eat and all that.”

“Sure,” Dorian smirks. “That’s the reason.”

Aelin grabs at Dorian’s hand, pulling him away and waves goodbye to Fenrys, ready for the day.  Aelin leans her head on her friend’s shoulder, her heart feeling ten times lighter. She’s buoyant, actually. She skips into the park, pulling Dorian along as she makes her way toward their first ride.

They make their way toward the biggest ride in the park – the Firecoaster, a rickety wooden rollercoaster built nearly a century ago. It’s Aelin’s absolute favorite ride in the park, so they do it first every single time, despite Dorian’s constant criticism of it (it’s too shaky, it’s too old, why haven’t they replaced the cars in a literal hundred years?).

But as they arrive at the ride she sees a short crop of silver hair at the entrance, letting people onto the coaster. Naturally.

“Maybe we should come back to the coaster later,” Aelin suggests, and Dorian’s eyebrow lifts in question.

“You know I won’t go on this ride in the dark,” Dorian replies, and Aelin nods. She really wants to go on this coaster. But with Rowan letting people on, there’s absolutely no way to avoid him.  “Is he up there?” Dorian whispers and tugs at one of Aelin’s pigtails.

Aelin doesn’t answer, still unsure of how she’s going to handle the whole situation. Dorian grabs her hand and pulls her into the line. With people piling in behind them, they’re immediately stuck.

“What the hell?” Aelin hisses, but Dorian simply shrugs.

“You’re taking back your ground!” he says exuberantly.

Aelin knows he’s right, but her stomach still feels like she ate a box of rocks with how heavy it is suddenly. She watches intently as Rowan performs his job, dutifully ushering everyone into the wooden coaster cars and making sure they’re safely secured before they take off. He’s not particularly friendly, Aelin notices. He's not the kind of staff member who smiles at each person with a customer service grin, but she does take note that at he makes sure to help the smaller kids in and out with one of his steadying hands.

The line moves far too quickly, and within minutes they’re at the top of the line. Aelin knows she should look away, but as she makes her way onto the platform, she keeps her eyes trained on Rowan. When he finally turns and meets her gaze, his dark green eyes widen slightly with surprise. Aelin swallows, her mouth suddenly feeling completely parched as they share a charged, wordless stare.

It’s interrupted by the last coaster coming to a stop suddenly on the tracks before them, and Rowan scrambles to attention to help the group exit the car. Dorian pushes Aelin into the first row of the empty car, and she stumbles forward, throwing her best friend a dirty glare.

Aelin straps herself into the cart, pulling the seatbelt across her lap and clicking it securely in place.

“Everyone, hands up,” Rowan says, and he starts from the back of the car, tugging at the seatbelts to ensure the passengers’ safety.  

By the time Rowan reaches the front row, Aelin’s heart is pounding in her chest, and it has absolutely nothing to do with her excitement to ride the rollercoaster.

Rowan squats down and leans his torso across Aelin, his arm lightly brushing against the front of her overalls as he reaches over her to tug on Dorian’s seatbelt. Satisfied that it’s in place, Rowan pulls back slightly, his brows furrowed and his lips twisted into a thin straight line. His head is so close to hers, she can feel his breath fan across her neck as he exhales. Despite the hot sun overhead, goosebumps break out across her arms. What the hell?

“Hey, you’re Rowan, right?” Dorian pipes up, and Aelin sends him a murderous glare as the silver-haired man looks up with a suspicious frown on his face.

“Uh, yeah. I am,” Rowan says, turning his attention to Aelin’s lap.

“Aelin’s told me so much about you,” Dorian continues, ignoring his best friend’s death stare. “Maybe we could all go out soon? Since we didn’t get to meet at the party.”

Rowan looks perplexed as he adjusts his position again to check Aelin’s seatbelt. “Um, maybe? I’m kinda busy… with work.”

Aelin is going to kill Dorian. She shifts in her seat to question him, right as Rowan reaches down to tug at her seatbelt, and she accidentally throws him off balance. Rowan falls forward a tiny bit and his hand darts out to brace himself. It comes to rest on Aelin’s knee, the rough pads of his fingers clutching against her bare skin, and if Aelin weren’t restrained, she thinks she may have jumped out of the car in shock.  

“Sorry!” Rowan apologizes, snatching his hand back in pain, as if she were on fire and he’d just burned himself.

“It’s fine,” Aelin says, her voice sounding breathy to her own ears. She’s positive she’s blushing all the way down to her chest, but she refuses to look.

“Sorry,” he says again, his voice filled with apology.

She’s about to reassure him again, but he’s already walking back to the controls. Aelin looks over her shoulder to get one more look at the man who literally took her breath away with a single touch, but she can’t think about it for long.

Because soon she’s flying forward. The wind rushes across Aelin’s face, swirling around her with each twist and turn of the coaster. Laughter bubbles up from her chest, and she squeals loudly as they hit the first drop. She closes her eyes and lets the ride take her up, up and away, making her heart race.

Just as quickly as it took off does it come to a halt. Aelin unclips herself quickly and runs as fast as she can on her unsteady legs, away from Rowan’s prying gaze. As soon as she’s far enough away from the ride, she whirls around and socks Dorian in the arm. Hard.

“OW!” He clutches at his shoulder.

“Maybe we could all go out soon?” Aelin parrots his words back at him. “What the fuck, Dor?! What happened to being my shield?”

Dorian rubs his arm, slowly stoking the pain out of his dead arm. “I was doing recon. Notice he didn’t say he had a girlfriend.”

“I hate you,” Aelin says, going to punch his other arm, and Dorian runs, cowering from her absurd superhuman ability to find the most painful spot to punch.

“You love me!” he shouts as he sprints toward the log flume.

The pair chase each other from ride to ride, making the most of their day in the park. Aelin only spots Rowan once more, after his shift change, taking tickets at the Skyflyer – a ride she and Dorian have sworn never to go back on after they both tried it in high school and puked their guts out afterwards. So, conveniently, she doesn’t have to deal with that whole situation again. Which is good, because it’s starting to stress Aelin out. She’s never this strung out about a guy. Ever. Especially one that isn’t single and is definitely uninterested.

By the time the sun is setting, Aelin is more than ready to go home. She could use a long soak in the bath and a good night’s sleep. But Dorian insists on one more ride. Aelin agrees, but only if Dorian promises to buy her fried dough with Nutella on it for dessert after.

Dorian’s smile lights up his face as he pulls her towards the bumper cars. Aelin might have a little too much fun crashing into his car over and over again.

With a scoop of Nutella in her mouth, Aelin sees a shock of silver hair, finally coming in for the end of his day. She watches as he crosses the field and makes his way into the employee break room, her eyes following the motion of his lithe body. God, now that she knows what he looks like without a shirt on, she can’t stop imagining the way his tattoo crept up his taut abs, over his wide shoulders, and trailing down the side of his muscular back. It’s not fair. Why did he have to be in a relationship already? She licks her lips, tasting the warm chocolatey hazelnut spread and hums in pleasure as she imagines licking it off other places…

“Elide!” Dorian shouts, calling over their friend and breaking Aelin out of her hormone-induced trance. Elide runs over with a smile on her face for the pair.

“I’m sorry I barely saw you both at the party,” Elide apologizes immediately, but Aelin and Dorian wave her off.

“You were celebrating. With Lorcan, right? Please say yes,” Aelin says with a cheerful smile and offers a bite of her dough to Elide.

“I actually spent most of the time with a friend of mine I hadn’t seen in a few years,” Elide admits as she takes the piece from Aelin. “She used to be my RA. She’s the best. I hope you met her.”

“Really?” Dorian asks. “That’s so much fun. Who?”

“Manon Blackbeak?” Elide continues, oblivious to Aelin stiffening next to her at the table. “She came with a new guy, Rowan. She’s his roommate. Isn’t that such a crazy coincidence?” Elide rambles.

Dorian looks to Aelin and mouths “roommates” with a smirk.

“Roommates?” Aelin asks, her voice tight. “Is that all they are? Because I got kind of a datey vibe from them.” Aelin tries to keep her face impassive, but can’t when Dorian snorts at her. Aelin has forgone subtlety today, apparently.

“No, that’s impossible,” Elide says resolutely with a shake of her head.

“Because roommates have never gotten together before?” Aelin asks, her voice haughty with ridicule.

“No. Because they both like women,” Elide says with a laugh. “Or at least Manon does.”

Dorian bites his lip and looks at Aelin. His eyes frantically connect with hers before looking back at Elide, who is completely unaware of the bomb she’s just dropped.

“Is that so?” Dorian asks, and Elide nods.

“Oh yeah. Manon is a gold star and proud of it.” Elide looks at her watch. “Shit, I have to clock out. But I want to catch up with both of you later, okay? Find me next time you’re in the park?”

“Yuppp,” Aelin drawls. “Bye, babe!” Aelin waves as Dorian practically drags Aelin out to the parking lot, his torso doubled over in laugher.

Aelin frowns. “It’s not that funny.”

“It’s hilarious,” he says, wiping a tear from the corner of his eye. “Here you were all worked up about your prince Charming having a girlfriend and she’s gay. What gave you the impression they were dating?”

“I don’t know. He brought a hot blonde to my house?” Aelin sighs. Rowan did introduce Manon as his friend. “Oh my god, I get it,” she squeaks.

“What?”

“She said this thing about keeping two of her nails short, and… I’m am so stupid.”

Dorian laughs at her, hard, and wraps his arms around her shoulders. “So, what now? Want help reeling in your man?”

Aelin smiles as she sees Rowan climbing into a beat up truck halfway down the parking lot.  “No,” Aelin shakes her head as she links arms with Dorian again. “I think I’ve got it.”

~*~*~*~*~

let me know if you’d like to be tagged in future chapters – ask me HERE

tag list:

@thewayshedreamed

@b00kworm

@alifletcher2012

@aknymph

@the-third-me

@mymultiversee

@superspiritfestival

@empress-ofbloodshed

@http-itsrebecca

@queen-of-glass

@but-she-was-aelin-galathynius

@westofmoon

@rowaelinforeverworld

@iliketoasterstrudels

@bamchickawowow

@hizqueen4life

@faerie-queen-fireheart

@giorgia-the-trashpanda

@acourtofmoonlight

@m-like-magic1

@rolltide7

@wordsafterhours

@amren-courtofdreams

@alserath​

[opalescent-cheetah]

I Don’t Know What To Do (About This Dream And You), 1/5 - Methydoll

Summary: Baseball players and mythical beings are a potent combination. After Crystal catches her eye on the baseball field, Nicky makes a decision that turns her entire world upside down. Meanwhile, Crystal is caught in a mysterious dreamscape, chasing a creature with eyes like liquid gold.

Inspired by these songs: “She’s So High” - Tal Bachman; “Digital Love” - Daft Punk; “Baby” - Francesca Blanchard

A/N: Here is my songfic exchange story, for the lovely @cobblestaubrey ! I’d like to say thank you to @a-tresia for hosting the exchange, and to cobblestaubrey for choosing such wonderful songs! I had a great time planning and writing this, and I hope you'll enjoy it too <3

Updates daily (and this time, I'll stick to my schedule!)

Ao3

Chapter 1 - Nicky

Nicky does not like baseball.

Even in the shade of the bleachers, the air is stifling, thick with the midsummer heat. She feels like she’s already been sitting here for a lifetime and a half, and the game hasn’t even started yet.

She’s only here because she’s a good friend - or, at the very least, she tries to be. It’s tempting to just up and leave, but she knows she’d hurt Jackie (worse, she’d hurt Jan, who has an unreasonable amount of pride when it comes to baseball). 

Jackie, who is sitting beside her, seems to sense her discomfort and lightly pats her knee. 

“I’m sure it won’t be much longer,” she says reassuringly. “Thanks for coming along, by the way. I know baseball’s not really your thing, so… I appreciate it. And so does Jan.”

“You’d better,” Nicky says wryly, but she smiles despite herself.

Soon enough, the speakers crackle to life, and Nicky sees Jackie lean forward ever so slightly, her eyes sparkling as she looks for Jan. Her adoration for her girlfriend is so sweet it’s almost sickening, but Nicky would be lying if she said she isn’t just a little bit endeared. 

Jackie whoops with excitement and Nicky finally returns her focus to the field. There’s Jan, her ponytail swinging behind her, and--

Holy fuck.

Who’s that?

Nicky may not like baseball, but she loves cute girls, and the girl behind Jan might just be one of the prettiest human beings Nicky has ever laid eyes upon. Her baseball cap is nestled in buoyant curls, her smile so bright Nicky feels like she might well be looking into the sun. She walks with a spring in her step, so full of energy she could even rival Jan. 

Nicky has never seen someone more captivating.

The game becomes infinitely more interesting now that she’s seen the players. Nicky tries to watch Jan as much as she can - she’s the reason Nicky’s here in the first place, after all - but her gaze keeps drifting to the player with the radiant smile and gorgeous tan skin. Some wretched part of her starts asking Jackie about the game, and before she knows it, she’s whooping and hollering along with the rest of the crowd.

“I didn’t think you’d be so into it,” Jackie comments between innings. “I’ll be honest, I’m impressed.”

“Yeah, I guess it’s slightly more interesting than it looks,” Nicky replies nonchalantly. 

“Ah, yes.” Jackie quirks a knowing eyebrow. “Slightly.”

“Shut up, you,” Nicky laughs, elbowing her. She returns her attention to the game - Jan is batting now, and her curly-haired teammate is on second base, her body tensed, ready to sprint at a moment’s notice. 

CRACK!

The bat makes contact with the ball, and the players fly into action. The fielders close in on the ball, throwing it to each other with a practiced dexterity; meanwhile, Jan’s teammate has rounded third base and is running full-tilt towards home. Nicky watches with bated breath as she gets closer and closer, until she’s only a few strides away, but the fielders are still passing the ball and she’s not going to make it in time--

She lunges forward, throwing herself at the base, and sprawls into the dirt a mere second before the ball lands in the catcher’s mitt. 

“SAFE!” the referee shouts, and the crowd erupts into cheers. Nicky is prepared to scream so loud her throat goes hoarse, but she falters - there’s something wrong. The girl is wincing as she stands, one arm held close to her chest and the other wrapping itself around her ribcage. Another member of her team rushes to her side and helps her into the dugout. 

“Is she okay?” Nicky asks Jackie, hoping she won’t notice the worry permeating her voice. 

Jackie bites her lip. “I hope so. That was a great slide into home, though.” 

“Yeah.”

They watch quietly as the girl is given an ice pack, which she seems to mull over for a moment before applying it to her wrist. Her teammate takes a seat beside her, grinning widely as she speaks to her, and soon enough, the injured girl is smiling again too. 

She remains in the dugout for the rest of the game. Nicky tries not to stare at her by keeping her eyes on Jan who, like the rest of her team, seems to be brimming with energy despite the oppressive heat. Perhaps they’re more determined to win on behalf of their injured teammate. 

Nicky finally lets her gaze return to the curly-haired girl when Jan dashes into home and immediately leaps into the dugout to give her a hug. The girl winces at first, but her sunny smile returns a moment later as she and Jan rejoice over something. Nicky can’t help but wonder what they’re saying to each other. 

After the game, Jackie and Nicky wait outside the locker rooms for Jan. They don’t have to wait long until she emerges - with her captivating teammate beside her.

She’s even more beautiful up close.

Now, Nicky can count the freckles on her nose and see every glimmer of light in her earthen eyes. Nicky’s breath catches in her throat, and she forces herself not to stare.

“I’m going to give Crystal a ride home, if that’s okay,” Jan says. 

Crystal.

It’s a beautiful name - and it’s fitting, for someone who seems to radiate light like Crystal does. Nicky nods, a little too quickly.

She falls into step beside Crystal as they walk to Jan’s car, and when Jackie takes shotgun, Nicky and Crystal pile into the back together. 

“You doing alright?” Nicky asks, as casually as she can.

“Oh, me?” Crystal says, and wow, Nicky thinks, her voice is weirdly alluring too. She laughs nervously, glancing down at her bandaged arm. “Yeah, I’m good, I just sprained my wrist. And probably bruised a couple ribs. But I guess you saw how that slide ended up, huh.” 

“Hey, it was really good!” Jan interrupts to reassure her. “Honestly, it was epic. You made it with a second to spare.”

Crystal grins. “I know, right? I didn’t think I’d get there in time. It just sucks that I can’t play next week.”

“Yeah.” Jan grimaces. “We’ll work around it, though. Oh my god, do you remember that time Jaida had to go back to Milwaukee?”

“That game was a disaster!”

Nicky leans back in her seat, content to just listen as Jan and Crystal discuss games past. Crystal is as lively and exciting to sit next to as she was to watch on the field, and Nicky fights the urge to watch her lips move as she speaks. Instead, she focuses on the blurring treeline, pretending not to notice the strange bubbling feeling in her chest. 

As they pull up to Crystal’s house and Crystal bids them farewell, Nicky feels the first threads of a plan formulating in her mind.

She’ll be back tonight.

~

Next Chapter

[the-goddess-of-mischief-writing]

On buoyant feet  {2}

Description; Thor struggles to learn how to dance, but with some help from Nat he figures it and when the day comes he joins you.

Pairing: Thor x reader

Rating: Teen/Mature

CHAPTER NO/ONESHOT: Chapter 2/2

Word count; 3.507

Warnings; Thor learning ballet, fluff, cuteness overload, feelings

Author; @the-goddess-of-mischief-writing

A/N: EEIHHH, god I love the idea of Thor dancing ballet, but I tell you guys I had as hard of a time knowing how to write this chapter as Thor had learning ballet.

Chapter 1

He knew ballet was hard, but he hadn't anticipated it to be this hard.

He'd gotten the video from Tony an hour or so after they parted ways, which was four days ago.

Since then, he'd proceeded to work with the idea he was so eager about in the beginning. Now, however, the smile which spread when he originally watched your dancing was more strained and instead of bowing up, his lips more times than not formed a straight line. The enjoyable tune playing in the video had become despising enough for him to want to throw his phone into the closest wall every time he listened to it. Mostly because its mockery kept reminding him of how painfully aware of his stature he'd become.

"I've trained since I was a kid". The answer to one of his first questions had been a persistent thought lowering his spirit while he unsuccessfully trained every spare hour he had. "A session usually last a couple of hours" He didn't want anyone to see his failed attempts, primarily after the first time he tried doing a spin in the gym and lost his footing. He remembers clearly how he by instinct had flailed after the closest thing to keep himself up-straight and when nothing was within reach he'd crashed to the floor, a second or so later Steve had walked in with a confused look. After that incident, he always trained in his room, devoting many hours trying to succeed, but it always amended the same. He slumped against the end of his bed, head leaning backwards to be supported by the mattress.

He didn't know what he did wrong, re-watching the video many times didn't help him figure out how to achieve the graceful way you walked over the floor, neither the way your arms cut the air with an undulant edge. He simply felt like a fool when even tough trying to move as gently as possible made it looked mechanical. The continues failure started to sour his mood, something his teammates noticed as he nowadays only greeted them with a nod.

"What is it with you?" He had been occupied with his own thoughts, not noticing the meeting room had been emptied, aside from Nat who sat opposite him.

"Nothing", he shook his head, both punctuating his answer and clear his nagging thoughts.

"You've been a rarer sight then Bruce the past days and with the meeting counted, I should inform you he has only abandoned the lab three four times", she huffed while crossing her arms. Staring at him, she continued. "So speak up".

"I can admit something is on my mind", he sighed.

"That much I've figured out", she mumbled as she now leaned on the table. "What is it?" Thor clenched his jaw, lowering his eyes to his hands which was clasped together.

"It is something with Y/N".

"Don't say you ended it with her, I like her", he chuckled at the redhead's response, Nat had indeed always liked you since he introduced you to everyone. But even though he foresaw her thought, it surprised him she spoke it out loud.

"No, I have not. So no need to worry Lady Natasha", he smiled when she contentedly nodded her head.

"So what's the problem with our dear Y/N?"

"It is not about her", he said slowly, waiting to continue. He didn't know how he should word it, mainly because he didn't want anyone threatening to tell you. Feeling the heavy eyes of Nat on him, he decided, that even though the two of you were close friends, she wouldn't say anything.

"It is so that I want to learn something, for her", he explained.

"Which is?"

"Dancing", instead of only her eyebrow raising, which was her usual gesture of surprised, her mouth dropped open as well.

"Dancing", she said to herself while nodding. "And I guess it isn't just any dance?" Thor responded with a simple shake of his head, a silence following his action. However, even though Nat looked away, with eyebrows nit tightly together, he continued watching her. He respected that she hadn't laughed when he told her, something he believed the others wouldn't have kept themselves from doing. Her eyes moved, as if scanning trough something he couldn't see and as soon they stopped, she looked up at him again.

"How is it going?" She questioned, to which he shrugged while answering.

"I will say it is the reason for my foul behaviour".

"Not so god then", she stated more to herself than him. "What are you learning from?" Thor unclasped his hands and reached for the phone in his back pocket, quickly opening it and clicking in on the video. He handed it to Nat, who didn’t need to watch more then a few seconds until noticing it was the same routine you’d showed her.

"Well, I understand why it goes bad for you. You can't follow this", she said in an amused tone and Thor reached forward to snatch his phone back, but she pulled it out of his reach. "Let me explain why", she continued with a scolding tone, making him sit back, although now with crossed arms.

"Go on then".

"You can't learn the basics from this video because her dancing is too advanced", she pointed out while standing up and rounding the table to come to his side. "A good start is to search for the basics stances and moves of ballet, without those you can't go anywhere, especially if you want to dance with her", his eyes widen in surprise.

"How did you...?"

"If you specifically got the video of this routine, one which isn't going to be used in a show, I just assumed", she shrugged, handing back the phone.

"Thank you".

"Don't mention it, but remember to keep it simple, you don't have years to learn".

"How can I repay you?" He asked while standing up, although the redhead only shook her head.

"It's enough knowing she'll get one of her wishes fulfilled", she smirked and bid him goodbye and good luck before exiting the conference room. Looking down on the phone, he felt how he started smiling from the new hope he gotten.

In first position, hands in front of the body. In second position, hands are out to the sides. But in third position, one hand is outstretched, the other is in front of the body. In fourth position, one hand above the head the other in front of the body. In fifth position, both hand's are above the head. "That’s Port de Bras", Thor repeated in a low mumble, recalling the first positions he learned. "Plié, bend your knees. Chassé, a small moving jump. Tendus, extend one foot across the floor", he continued going over the more recent moves.

"Good", he looked up from the bench he sat on, watching the redheaded who's smile praised him more than her words. "Now we just need to see if you're able to do them properly", standing up he walked to stand in the open space before Nat.

"And begin with the first", he moved his body to mimic the position he remembered as well had practised to do. "To the second".

It began about a month ago, after he had sought her out again. Thor had knocked on Nat's door, quickly explaining the situation for her when she got surprised, less so than before, by his visit and the topic he wanted to speak about.  

He'd followed her advice and searched for the basic movements, now mastering them to a degree which was an improvement compared to earlier, but in comparison to he tutorial he followed, far from being executed correctly. What he came to ask, almost as bashfully as you'd done when you wanted her opinion on your routine, was if she could teach him or at least point out what he could do better. Nat had been surprised at how seriously the god was about this and perhaps it was the soft spot for you which made here open the door wider, a sign for him to enter.

They discussed what he'd done and what he wanted to learn, in the end agreeing that Nat would tutor him once a week. For the days in between, he would get tasked to learn new things. Nat also stated that it would be more beneficial to actually practise in the gym, however she let Thor choose when so no one could disturb them, mostly for his comfort.

Now though, when Nat watched the god perform the stances she called out, she felt like he didn't need to be fearful of someone walking in. He was far from being one of the best, but he was good for someone who had trained for less than two months. She knew he'd worked hard, something she could see noticed by his flexibility, but also that the soreness after these sessions wasn't as bad as in the beginning.

"Remember to turn out form the hip", she called out and immediately she saw how he corrected himself. "End with a simple plié", he bent his knees slightly, however as Nat was in such close range to him, she took the few steps forward and with her toe, she poked his heel while saying "heels should stay firmly planted on the ground". Again he adjusted himself, before ending the movement and standing straight.

"You're getting good, I almost don't need to correct things anymore", Nat started when he turned around. "You sure you don't want to try out jumps?"

"You said it yourself, I should keep it simple", he huffed out in laugh, imagining the horror he if tried jumps like you did, most likely would he end up in a heap on the floor.

"I know, it's just interesting to see this", she motioned to him, both chuckling at the inclination.

"I can imagine", Thor said. On one of the first lessons he'd gotten it quite simply explained that he didn't fit the general mould of male dancers.

"Have you found anything to the Pas de Deux?" He nodded his head and retrieved his phone. Even though he still wasn't comfortable with the terminology, he'd understood what she meant.

"Since we started I have searched for inspiration, finding some", he intended on ending the sentence there, but since he’d gotten to know that a pair in a ballet duet mainly perform the same movements, he voiced his worries. "But do you believe she will be able to follow?"

"Unknowingly she made it easy to change her routine to a grand pas de deux, something which is in your favour", she began and Thor felt his uncertainty disappear, even more so when the redhead continued. "If you create a choreography after her routine, I'm sure she'll be able to adapt her parts to fit with yours, she's the professional after all".

"I am aware", Thor answered amusedly, a heavy weight lifting off his chest.

"So what's your idea?" During the following minutes, he showed the pictures and videos he'd saved as inspiration, explaining how he thought they could fit your routine. Once he was done, Nat gave him some pointers of what he should think about. The last one being don’t stress and just enjoy it.

When the day came, it felt like he forgot everything Nat had told him. He was stressed and thought about everything that could go wrong.

"What's making you so tense?" Your voice surprised him, so he looked down at you walking beside him. The two of you had decided to walk to the studio you trained at, mostly because it wasn't far away from the tower.

"Nothing you need to worry about, my love", he smiled, but he saw your lips purse.

"Thor, you know what I've said", he knew, that if something bothered him, he should say it. You'd established that early, knowing you were together with a man whose work was near impossible to understand if he didn't tell you.

"We had a meeting before I came down, unfortunately confidential", he told a white lie, but you didn't seem to notice it as an understanding look decorate your features.

"I'm always here if it suddenly becomes un-confidential", you said and went up on your toe in the following step to kiss his cheek. A warmth bloomed in his stomach at the display and he pulled you close. You walked like that the rest of the way, until started climbing the stairs to head up to the studio.

He'd been here before, so while you changed, he sat down on his usual spot in the floor, back leaning against the wall behind him. He looked around the big space, thankful that like always it was empty when he came along, something he only guessed you played a part in.

"I'm only going to warm up a bit before I start", you entered the room and he noticed you'd tied your hair back so it wouldn't irritate you.

"Can I perhaps join you?" It wasn't odd for him to ask, thus your reaction.

"Want to show your masculinity again?" You mused with a smile, although he only shook his head at the memory. In the beginning, he always had said your warmups didn't look hard, but after trying, he took back what he'd said. Although now when he knew he would have an easier time, since he hadn't gone with you since starting his training, he was careful of how much he showed you while following your lead for the next forty minutes.

"You've earned some of your manliness back now", you praised when done with the warmup, impressed that he this time could keep up with you fairly well.

"Thank you, my lady", he grinned, knowing that you distasted the phrase he, in your case compared to others, used teasingly. The slap on his abdomen didn't come as a surprise, but he heard that his arms pulling you against him did by the squeak that left you.

"Well this lady needs to start training, so...", you tried shooing him away within the small space he gave you to move in, but he only tightened his grip while a chuckle left him.

"As she should", he leaned down and placed a chaste kiss on your lips. You relished the warmth of his lips and the way his beard tickled your face before he pulled away. Having a hard time releasing his gaze, you needed to turn around when starting the music on your phone to not run after him.

While Thor watched you ready yourself, he thought through the choreography one last time. He felt his heartbeat speed up, so he tried taking deep breaths to stable it and when the song began, it helped him to do so. Observing you as you began moving, he waited until you slowly made a pirouette before taking a last deep breath. Enjoy it.

If you could’ve sen yourself like Thor did when you stopped your pirouette, you would've noticed how your eyes were on fire and smile kissed the threshold of liberty. Instead you only noticed blue eyes looking back at you. He threw you off for a second, but knowing you would need to restart if you didn’t continue, you didn’t think to much why Thor suddenly had come so close.

Papa, are you near me?

Your moved your foot backwards, letting it slide across the floor. But then he did something surprising, he chased your retreating foot in a smooth motion.

Papa, can you hear me?

You turned your back to him, closing your eyes as you stretched out one arm. Immediately you felt the lightest of touches travel down your exposed skin, but once reaching your fingers, it fell under your arm and supported it.

Papa, can you help me not be frightened?

An arm encircled your waist, hands splayed over the opposite side of which it reaches and lifted you up. You curved your leg to hook behind his hip, only instinc making you do so before feeling the sensation of spinning. You momentarily tipped your head backwards, something which only lasted for a couple of seconds before you raised it once more when he let you down. It was a simple move, but the confusion of how he managed to do it almost made you forget to continue.

You elbows gracefully tore through the air, in perfect rhyme with your feet, which traced a curve that no menace ever could outdo. When you leapted of ground, a surprise awaited you when you landed. On a knee with the other leg outstretched, holding one arm behind his back and the other towards you, Thor was. A smile started spreading when you saw the seriousness on his face, because it was then you understood what he did. He was going to dance with you.

Dipping forward lightly touching his hand made him grasped yours as he stood up, releasing it when standing. You continued on your own, arching your back, one arm stretching out as the other followed the opposite way. Then you felt his touch again. Taking a step back you rotated a full circle and he managed to manoeuvre so his hand always held yours. When you stopped, leg bent backwards and up, it was by leaning on his shoulder and his hand helping you that made it possible to hold the position.

Hearing the music reaching its crescendo, you let go and took a step back to pick up speed before you spun. You concentrated on standing on your toes when his hands came to support you, making it possible for you to continue longer then on your own.  

It wasn't from the spin, but rather the music slowing down, your eyes locking with his heated gaze and his lips threatened to brush yours as you stopped, toe to toe, that made you lose yourself in the moment.

Your feet explored the room in a familiar pattern and he followed you with poise. You'd never seen him move like this, which such an un-brutal grace that it looked like he almost flew without his hammer. It was a new side to him. Strong, graceful and controlled. Everything which usually had a rough edge had been smoothed over. You didn't know for how long the two of you twirled around, but you noticed how the dance became slower and slower.

He was before you on his knees, had just held your waist while supporting you doing a pointe, but now his strong hands slowly lowered you towards him. Bringing your hands down you let them lightly cradle his face, the scruff of his beard being the only roughness in the moment as his breaths, short and trembling, brushed your face like a sigh into a silk pillow. While you only saw the shimmer on his forehead and his crystal eyes enhanced by his rosy cheeks when observing him, he saw the euphoria glitter in your eyes.

"I love you", you mumbled against his lips before kissing him. It felt fevered, but the movements were slow and were uninterrupted before he pulled away. He lowered you to stand on your knees, similar to him, before his hand came up to your face.

"Do not cry my love", he said softly, while his thumb brushed away one of the tears you don’t even knew you shed. While letting out a small laugh, your arms automatically fell from his neck to cover his hands with your own.

"How can I not?" You smiled up at him, leaning into his touch as he stroked your cheek. "When did you learn this?"

"Past two months".

"My god", you gasped, eyes widening when you heard for how long he trained.

"Yes I am yours", he snickered at his joke, kissing your forehead, while you afterwards shook your head with a small smile. However, he continued more seriously. "But it was worth it".

"Why?" You couldn’t understand why he spent so much time, becaus he couldn’t have done anything else, to become this good.

"I have always admired you. At first it was your dancing, but after we spoke for the first time, it was you. Every time we met after that I felt a happiness I did not recognise and when you agreed on courting me I thought, as you midguardiens say, my heart would explode", halting he watched you bow your head trying to silence a laugh. But he made you raise it, seeing the wrinkles in the corner of your eyes when it hadn't died down just yet. "It was the following months, when I saw how strong of a fighter you were, that I only could describe my feelings for you in one way, love", you smiled up at him, feeling the tears threatening to fall again.

"What can I say?"

"Do not say anything, my love. You are always there for me, showing and telling me how much you love me, this is my time", he leaned down and kissed your nose. "I love you, Y/N", you smiled up at him, your god of thunder, perhaps even your very own danseur.

Forever taglist: @flowerchild1216​ @haven-in-writing​ @krystallynx​ @thejamesoldier​

Special taglist: @saiyanprincessswanie​

[queenmylovely]

Save Me

Summary: Ben hardy x fem!reader. A misunderstanding leads to an interesting day with your neighbor, Ben. 

Word Count: 3.8k

Warnings: cussing, only really fluff though 

A/N: Just a little thing I wrote about Ben when I was inspired by swimming this summer. It may or may not be a little miniseries, so if that sounds cool, let me know! I hope you guys enjoy this cute little fic, and any feedback including likes, replies, and reblog are greatly appreciated!

Masterlist 

☆☆☆

Summer was always your favorite. There was the benefit of no school, a perk that stayed with you until this year, as it was your last summer before your last year of college. You were enjoying it as much as possible; road trips with friends, shopping at open air markets, going to concerts, and your favorite, swimming in your parent’s pool.

Ever since you were a kid, you loved the water. Whether it be a pool, lake, river, or ocean (which was your absolute favorite), you loved it. You had spent the past 10 years in and out of the pool at your house once your parents had installed it when you were 11.

As a little kid you had taken swimming lessons at the local pool, but had only gotten far enough to learn freestyle. While you weren’t technically trained, you had spent enough years swimming for hours in your pool that you were a strong enough swimmer to be confident in most any river or ocean. (You still had respect for the water, but knew how to work with it for your benefit.)

As such, you had built up a large capacity for holding your breath. Underwater, you could manage just under a minute if you were holding still. You had built up the tolerance on purpose. Your favorite thing to do while swimming was to sit or lay down at the bottom of the pool and look up to the surface. You loved seeing the rays of the sun shining through the water and how the world was changed by it. Everything was quieter and more peaceful under the surface and the weightless feeling of floating relaxed you more than anything else could.

It was on another of these gorgeous, sunny, summer days that you were planning on swimming once again. You were wearing a polka dot bikini and high waisted black bottoms. Carrying your phone, portable speaker, a glass of water, a summer sweatshirt, your towel, and sunscreen, you walked out of your house and onto the deck. Walking down to the pool, you placed your things on a lawn chair and started applying the sunblock. It was then that you felt his eyes on you.

This past year, someone had moved into the house next door after your elderly neighbors had moved closer to their adult children. He was older than you, but still young; you guessed 28 or 29. Since you were at college during most of the year, you had only caught glimpses of him during your visits home and had only actually met him at the beginning of the summer when he had offered to help you and your parents carry your things inside.

His name was Ben and he was hot, and British. That’s really all you knew about him. Your parents didn’t seem to know much more, other than that he travelled at least once a month, and if they did, you didn’t ask. He was tall enough, blonde, and had beautiful green eyes and from what you could tell, was very muscular.

Over the course of the summer you had slyly watched each other as you listened to podcasts in the sun or swam and he took care of his yard or read in a lawn chair. He usually wore well-fitting t-shirts or muscle tanks and shorts, while you wore jean shorts and tank tops if you weren’t in a swimsuit. The summer clothing brought both of your eyes to each other’s bodies and that was how you knew he was watching you now.

You applied the sunscreen slowly, making sure to get every part of your body. After the sunburn you got last year, you weren’t taking any chances. Refusing to look at him, you did keep your body angled towards his yard so he could easily see you. It was difficult to keep the smirk off of your face as you did. When you were done, you put the light sweatshirt on so your sunscreen could soak in for a second before you got in the water and to be a little covered up.

Still feeling his eyes on you, you looked across the yard and over the little fence to where he was standing on his raised deck and gave him a little wave. You could tell he was a little embarrassed that you had caught him as his cheeks reddened, but he waved back nonetheless.

Grabbing your phone and putting on your most current playlist, you turned the music up and walked over to the pool. Fiddling with the cover, you unclipped it and went to the other side so you could roll it back completely. Once that was done, you hooked it into place so it wouldn’t fall in while you swam. You walked back over to the other side, throwing your sweatshirt onto a chair, electing to walk down the steps instead of diving in.

Once you got to where the water hit your waist, you dunked your head and submerged yourself. You started by just paddling around for a little bit keeping your head above the water just to get used to it. After a few minutes, you grabbed a pair of goggles and started doing laps. You did about five each of freestyle and backstroke (because you didn’t know breaststroke or butterfly) before taking a rest to stand by the edge and look at your phone.

You answered a couple snapchats, sending pictures of you with the pool in the background to let your friends know what you were up to. Once you did that, you changed the music to a playlist you had of 70’s and 80’s rock and did another round of laps. This time when you wanted a rest you just floated on your back, closing your eyes and letting the wind and water move you around. You were close to dozing off when you heard the clatter of metal and stood up.

In the next yard over, Ben had dropped something as he carried it out of his garage. You tilted your neck trying to see what it was but couldn’t.

“You okay?” you slightly yelled over to him.

Looking up quickly at your voice, his eyes found you in the pool and he answered while awkwardly holding what he had dropped, “Yeah, just dropped my croquet set.”

You giggled at what he said and asked, “Do British people actually play croquet?”

“Well, um, yeah I guess we do sometimes. I have some American friends coming over this weekend that wanted to play though, so I guess Americans do too,” he answered.

“Huh. Well, have fun,” you called back with a smile.

“Thanks, have fun with your swim- with your swimming,” he replied, smiling back, albeit a little nervously.

You went back to swimming and he went back to setting up his game.

Deciding to start going to the bottom you grabbed your goggles again. Taking a deep breath you dove to the bottom, turning around quickly so you could watch the surface. It was like a flip in reality. Being completely submerged and looking through the water to the air made it seem like the world was reversed. As soon as you hit the bottom, you started floating back towards the top. As human bodies are buoyant, it was always a struggle to stay at the bottom.

The best way to do so was to go along the side and use that as leverage to keep yourself under longer. Giving yourself a chance to catch your breath, and to appreciate the song that had just came on, you took a deep breath and went back down as soon as the first chorus started.

In his yard, Ben had been setting up the croquet set and humming along with the music you were playing. For a girl as young as you were, he was surprised to hear that you seemed to like classic rock as much as the current pop you had been playing earlier.

When the Queen song, “Save Me,” came on he started singing under his breath and when the chorus started he lifted his head slightly and called out, “Hey, I love this song!”

He waited for a reply, looking over to the pool but not seeing you. Assuming you had just dove down for a second he waited, but when the song got well into the second verse he got worried. Jumping over the little fence that separated the properties, he took a closer look in the pool. He could see you on the bottom, along the side, seemingly motionless and faced away from him. Fearing that you had hit your head on the side, he cursed to himself and pulled his shirt off, kicking his shoes to the side.

Unbeknownst to Ben, you were looking at one of the trees visible in your yard and only about ⅔ of the way through your ability to hold your breath.

Ben dove in quickly, swimming straight for you. As you were focused on the tree, you hadn’t seen him so when he dove in, disrupting the water, you didn’t know quite what you were seeing. Before you could really react, he had reached you and grabbed you into his arms, pulling you to his body and making his way back to the surface.

As soon as the two of you breached the top, you pulled off your goggles and turned yourself in his arms so you were facing him.

“What the hell are you doing?” you asked in shock.

“Y/N, are you okay?” he asked with concern.

“What do you mean ‘am I okay?’ I’m fine,” you replied, confused.

“I thought you were drowning or something,” he answered.

“Drowning? I’m probably a better swimmer you,” you said defensively.

“Well, you were motionless and on the bottom of the pool. Plus, even the best swimmer can have an accident,” he pointed out, sounding a little annoyed at your reaction.

You took his words into consideration and thought about what you had looked like, “I guess you’re right, and I can see how it might’ve looked from above the water... Thank you for trying to save my life, even if it wasn’t actually in danger,” you conceded with a slight smile.

“You’re welcome,” he responded with a small smile of his own, his frustration washed away.

It was only then, after all of the explanations were given and after all of the adrenaline had dissipated that the two of you realized how close you still were. Although you were in water that Ben could stand in, he was still holding you to him with his left arm around your waist and right arm under your arm on your upper back so you were at his same height with both of your shoulders out of the water. You had been gesturing with your arms while arguing, but they had naturally rested on his shoulders when you stopped talking.  

“I’ll, um, put you down now,” he said, staring into your eyes and not yet moving.

“Okay,” you replied, returning his gaze. Your faces were level and his still semi-heavy breath was washing over your face, making you a little dizzy. Slowly, he lowered you to the floor of the pool and you stood on your own, standing on your tip-toes so your chin stayed out of the water.

He started walking towards the steps and you followed, stopping him before he got too far.

“Ben, wait. You’re all wet already, do you wanna just stay and swim?” you asked hopefully.

“Really?” Ben questioned, unsure.

“Yeah, I can show you what I was doing at the bottom of the pool,” you replied with a smile.

“Okay, I guess I am curious about that,” he said, walking back to where you were in waist-deep water.

“Wait here,” you said as you got out quickly and walked over to a big bin full of pool toys and stuff you used when you were younger. You had been looking for another pair of goggles, but upon seeing the pool noodles, you grabbed them too. Knocking the dust off of them before throwing them in the pool, you walked back over to the edge and tossed Ben the goggles.

You leaned down a second to check on your phone and asked, “Are you cool with this music?”

“Yeah, I was actually going to tell you that I liked what you were playing before I interrupted whatever it was that you were doing,” he said sheepishly, but still with a smirk.

You laughed and said, “Thanks,” before moving your phone under your chair where it would be protected. Protected, that is, from water as you suddenly jumped into the pool with a yell of “Cannonball!” splashing water all over the side, and your target, Ben.

As you came back to the top, you wiped the water from your eyes, already laughing as you took in Ben. He was already thoroughly wet from “rescuing” you, but his torso had began to dry off in the summer heat as he stood waiting for you and he was now dripping. He was looking at you in shock, but couldn’t stop his own laughter and he pushed the hair that had been disturbed away from his face and swiped away water from his eyes.

“I can’t believe you did that!” he exclaimed, still laughing.

“Consider it a ‘thanks’ for saving me,” you joked.

“If that’s how you thank someone, I’d hate to see how you get revenge,” he said with a smile as you shrugged. Squinting at you for a second, his eyes got a mischievous glint as he said, “Well, I’ll show you how I get revenge.”

You didn’t have time to react as he used his arms to push a wall of water at you, that forced you back a couple steps and that half of hit your face. You spluttered as you yelled, “Ben! How could you?”

He smirked back but that was quickly washed away with splashes coming from you. Soon enough, the two of you were engaged in an all-out splash war. It wasn’t really fair, though, as his arms were much bigger and stronger than yours which made his splashes and waves bigger than yours.

“Stop! Stop! This isn’t fair!” you shrieked as you laughed.

“All’s fair in love and war,” Ben reasoned, not letting up.

Deciding that you would never win this way, you rushed him, surprising him enough that you could get behind him and jump on his back before he realized what you were doing.

“A-ha! Now you can’t get me!” you said triumphantly, ignoring how strong his body felt pressed against your legs and arms.

Ben just laughed and said, “I don’t think you realize how vulnerable you’ve made yourself.”

“What do you mean, vulner- aahh!” your question turned into a scream as Ben let himself fall backward into the water, forcing you to fall with him.

“Okay, okay,” you said, emerging from the water. “We have to call a truce or this is never gonna end.”

“You’re just saying that ‘cause you know you’re losing,” Ben taunted.

“Possibly. Truce anyway?” you asked sticking out your hand.

Ben grabbed it and pulled, making you stumble forward until you had to look up at him to see his face. “Truce.”

Again, the two of you just stared at each other for a moment before you were able to tear your eyes from his and dropped your hand and walked over to the edge to grab your goggles.

“Do you still have your goggles?” you asked him.

“Yeah,” he said, looking around for a second before seeing them in the water and grabbing them.

“Okay, come over here to the edge and then we’ll swim along it to the deep end,” you instructed. He did as you said and then looked to you for more explanation.

“How long can you hold your breath?” you questioned.

“Umm, I don’t know,” he responded.

“Well, I guess we’ll find out. We’re gonna swim down, and then hold on to the wall to keep ourselves at the bottom. When we get there, look up. Look through the surface and the sun in the water. That’s what I was doing,” you told him.

He nodded to indicate his understanding, you pulled on your goggles and he did the same. Once they were on and comfortable, you took a deep breath and pushed yourself down into the water, him following half a second after. You guys got to the bottom and were able to keep yourselves down there with the wall. He looked at you for a second and you gestured outwards, reminding him what he was supposed to do.

Doing what you had told him, he looked around and saw why you had brought him down there. Even though it was just a pool, there was something otherworldly about being under for so long, like you belonged to the water instead of the air.

Before too long, Ben had to go up to the surface and you followed. As you surfaced, you heard him breathing heavily to catch his breath. As you probably could have been down there twice as long, you were pretty much fine with a couple deep breaths.

“How can you hold your breath so long?” he asked with disbelief.

“I do that a lot. It just takes practice,” you said simply.

“Well, I can see why. It’s… kinda amazing down there,” Ben admitted.

“Isn’t it?” you said, a dreamy look coming into your eyes and a smile to your face. “I love the water. That’s probably pretty evident.”

He laughed brightly and smiled back.

“Ready to go again?” you asked and he nodded.

Taking another breath, you both went down again. This time, as you were looking up, you saw a hummingbird fly above the surface and hover there for a second. You reached out and grabbed Ben’s hand for his attention, pointing with your other one to show him the bird. He looked at it in awe and as you both continued to look, your hands stayed clasped together. It was only when you went back up that they broke apart.

After a couple more trips down, the two of you floated using the pool noodles to relax but before long you suggested sitting in the sun to dry off while it was still out. Having him wait in the pool for a second, you got out and wrapped your towel around your shoulders before dashing inside to grab him a towel too. You held it for him as he got out of the pool.

He walked up to you, and instead of handing it to him, you lifted it around him and draped it over his shoulders, pulling the edges towards the center of his chest and keeping your hands there.

“There you go,” you said in a soft voice, looking more at his dripping chest and neck than his face.

“Thank you,” he replied, causing your eyes to flick to his. He was smiling down at you with something in his eyes that you couldn’t quite place.

“Mhm. Let’s go lie down in the grass,” you said as you picked up your glass of water and phone. “Could you grab my speaker?”

He did, and followed you over to the patch of grass that you chose. You took the towel off of your shoulders and laid it in front of you; Ben followed suit. You stretched yourself out on the towel, laying on your stomach and using your arms to prop your head up. Ben did the same, although he tilted his body so that he was facing you more.

Grabbing your water, you took a drink and then held it out to him, “Want some water? It’s important to stay hydrated while swimming. Most people forget that since they’re surrounded by water.”

“We’re not swimming,” he pointed out.

“It’s still important to stay hydrated,” you countered.

“True,” he said, accepting the glass and drinking some. “Thanks.”

“No problem.”

You grabbed your phone from where it was next to you and handed it to him. “Why don’t you show me what kind of music you listen to. I never really hear anything coming from your yard or house.”

“Oh yeah, I guess I’m usually wearing headphones. Side effect of living with roommates for years,” he explained.

“Must be nice to live on your own then,” you reasoned.

“Yeah it is. Lots of freedom,” he agreed, brows furrowed in thought as he was deciding what to play for you. He thought it was probably an important judge of character for you and didn’t want to pick something you would hate.

Finally, he thought of something and used your phone to search for it, pressing play with a slight wince as he looked to see your reaction. He had chosen Pet Sounds by The Beach Boys.

You recognized the first song, “Wouldn’t It Be Nice,” immediately, bobbing your head along with the tune.

“The Beach Boys. Appropriate for the season,” you acknowledged. “A little more American than what I was expecting.”

“You were playing Queen earlier; they’re a British band. Anyway, good music is universal,” he countered, a little relieved that you seemed to enjoy the song.

“You’re right about that,” you said. The two of you lapsed into silence for a bit, enjoying the music and the feeling of the sun warming up and drying off your bodies. After about 10 minutes, you flipped onto your back so the rest of you could dry off and Ben did the same.

After the two of you got settled, you asked without turning to him, “Why did you leave England?”

He took a second to respond, and you hoped that you hadn’t crossed a line or brought up a sensitive subject. More casually than you were expecting, he answered, “I wanted change. I wanted to see more of the world and America was all I ever heard about growing up. I figured I’d see what it was like for myself.”

“And you liked it enough to buy a house?” you asked incredulously. The U.S. had always seemed so mundane to you growing up. Europe seemed like a dreamy, far-off place that might not even exist, but that you were desperate to see.

“I didn’t actually buy the house, I’m just renting it,” he explained, laughing at your disbelief.

“Oh,” you said, trying to mask the sudden disappointment you felt. It seemed this blonde neighbor boy was already making much more of an impact on you than you expected. “How long are you planning to stay?”

“I’m not sure. Through the summer at least, but I’m not sure after that. I’m waiting to see how some things pan out,” he said, his vague words convincing you not to ask what.

“Well, that’s good,” you said, and he could hear the smile in your voice.

“Why’s that?” he asked, finding himself excited to hear your answer.

“Because,” you replied in a teasing tone. “I’ll have my own personal lifeguard around all summer if I need somebody to save me.”

★★★

Taglist: @somekindof-cheese @gwilyoubemine @deacytits @supersonicfreddie @siriuslovesmarlene @bowiequeen @acdeaky @deakysgirl @sunflower-borhap-boys @deakyfordays @queensilveryrog @happy-at-home @ceruleanrainblues @briarrose26

I just kinda created this taglist so if you would like to be taken off or added, just send me a message or ask!

Reminder that my requests are open! If you would like something in a sort of one shot format/length or blurb, etc. send it in! I’ll write for any of the Borhap or Queen boys (Freddie only platonically), Lucy, Patrick Murray, Gardner Langway and adult!Tim Murphy or possibly any of the other characters these people have played if I know enough about them!

[bullet-farmer]

Dear journalists who write about summer SAD: 1. Stop mentioning the “summertime blues.” Or any song about summer that is slightly less than buoyant. It wasn’t clever the first 97070607802334 times, and now it’s just flat-out insulting.

2. Please stop talking about how FOMO is part of SAD. I had constant anxiety attacks during the summer long before LiveJournal was a thing, thx. That isn’t to say that fear of missing out can’t exacerbate summer SAD, or that it can’t be a cause. But the assumption that it universally is, really hurts people like me who don’t experience FOMO. And, you know, chalking it up mostly to FOMO makes it easy for people to dismiss--especially if they don’t realize that SAD can hit in any season. “Oh, you’re just down because your cousin and his wife are going camping and you have to work! LOL summer depression? That’s funny!” Like, fuck off with that shit.

3. No, cold showers aren’t a solution. Unless you think we can somehow stay in one for five hours? 4. No, cranking up the AC so our houses are permanently fifty degrees is not a solution. It’s horrible for the environment and, you know, people who live with us may not want to freeze just so we can (maybe) feel better. Plus, you know, not all houses have ACs. 5. No, it’s not about what vacations we can’t take or feel obligated to take. No, it’s not about money we may not have to take them. No, it’s not about having to be too active, or having kids home from school, or how noisy the neighborhood is with elementary schoolers running down the sidewalks (also, way to be both classist and clueless by assuming all neighborhoods are like this afafafjafj). Please, I am begging you, learn the words “stressor” and “contributing factor” and use them. 

6. PLEASE fucking stop conflating summer SAD with “feeling bad about not having a bikini body.” The words you’re looking for there are “internalized fatphobia,” “eating disorder,” “body dysmorphia,” or “misogyny” (or, for guys with eating disorders, perhaps “toxic masculine self-image” or something like that. Use them. Particularly in conjunction with “stressor” and “contributing factor.” An eating disorder or distorted thoughts about body image will not give someone SAD. They can make summer hell, especially for people who need to go to the beach often, but they are not the same damn thing. (Also, please learn the word “comorbidity” while you’re at it. I know it’s big and would be accompanied by an “omg I’m thinking so hard I’m gonna shit myself” emoji if it appeared in a Merriam-Webster vocabulary quiz, but I promise you. You’re all adults. You can learn it, or one of its synonyms.)

7. When someone has SAD, in any season, it means their brain chemistry is doing something it shouldn’t, and environmental triggers are largely to blame. Not holiday obligations. Not going to the beach. Not worrying about overeating. Not having body-image issues. AGAIN: S T R E S S O R and C O N T R I B U T I N G  F A C T O R. I mean, fuck. I’m not a psychiatrist OR a journalist specializing in health issues, and I know this shit. There’s no excuse for you not to.  8. Please take this seriously and don’t write it off as “the blues” (I never want to hear that fucking song again, fuck.). It’s a mental illness. It can and does hurt and kill people. It’s not funny, or cute, and it does exist. And is poorly researched because 1) more people have the winter version, so understandably more time gets devoted to winter SAD. 2) More women have SAD than men, so of course society doesn’t prioritize research and treatment.  Bonus round: Please stop calling it “reverse seasonal affective disorder” and winter seasonal affective disorder “seasonal affective disorder.” This erases those of us with less common forms of the illness and makes people think we’re being clever or twee when we mention that we have it. Just call it “winter SAD” or “summer SAD.” See? Easy! And shorter Which your editors will thank you for if column space is at a premium. Signed, Bullet Farmer. Who would just love a day between both equinoxes where she could eat normally, sleep normally, and wasn’t an anxious, shaking, incapacitated mess. :)  (Every time a journalist disobeys any of these guidelines, they owe me and everyone else with summer SAD $50 and a blackout curtain.)

[janmorrill]

Many of you don’t know that Steve is a beautiful writer. When he read the following journal entry to me last night, I asked him if I could post it on my blog.

He also looks pretty cute in an Autopia little red sports car.

May 27, 2019

After a long day strolling through  Disneyland, we arrived back at Adam’s and Emily’s hotel on the shuttle bus. We walked them to the entrance and stepped just inside the double doors into a narrow foyer. Jan and I would be flying back to Dallas in the morning. It was late. We were all tired, though Allie had slept through most of the fireworks show at Frontierland and seemed to have a second wind.

“Give Grandma and Pops hugs,” Emily suggested. “They’re going home tomorrow so we won’t see them again.”

Tommy and Allie walked to each of us and hugged our legs somewhat dutifully. Tommy whispered “Bye,” and coiled inward sleepily. We’d been out together for over 13 hours and had walked a good twelve miles. Both Jan and I were still suffering from bad chest colds. We were exhausted.

The day was over and the suddenness of the ending felt almost unfair.  We had no time to surmise and savor the thousand beautiful things we’d shared, a procession of buoyant activities sprinkled with obstacles and challenges that needed to be solved. There was plenty of magic, but it rarely arose from the obvious planned experiences.

The magic wasn’t in the reservation at the Blue Bayou, but in Allie’s face just before she blew out her one birthday candle. Nor was it the Pirates of the Caribbean ride but in Tommy’s tumbling physicality, let loose as we waited in line for our turn to strap into the boat.

  There was Tommy’s joy in the anticipation of a new toy which lingered and bubbled up throughout the day until he finally, proudly, clasped a bubble wand. (In that moment, it was the greatest toy ever)

Allie discovered Minnie Mouse on a dance floor near the plaza where we ate dinner. She ran past a human barrier and tugged at Minnie’s skirt as if to say “I’ve been looking for you.” She danced and danced, her little hands held by Minnie’s huge white-gloved hands.

Dreams do come true.

There were small joys in requests to “Hold me,” in songs sung spontaneously, in hands that were suddenly unheld to scurry ahead,  fights that arose and ended quickly, popcorn that couldn’t (or wouldn’t) be shared, and moments where the sidewalk became a place to swim, or a shiny metal barrier became a bed for a baby Minnie Mouse.

To suggest the central themes  weren’t central would be an error. The context was happiness, always happiness, forced perhaps, but forced in a way that left space for  shifts of feeling and mood, for a smile to come round, and come round quickly with a laugh.

Joy was the agenda. It hovered in potential excesses, in a sudden parade, in the plaster cast purple leaves covered with white spirals, in the rumble of roller coaster rails, in the green fake rounded hills, in the drum corps quick footed snares, and in Goofy’s sudden appearance. Centralized we’ll say, all pulsing out from the Magic Kingdom castle.

On our way out, as we were leaving, I walked behind Adam and Emily and the kids, Allie had fallen asleep  during the fireworks show in Frontierland.  She was  flopped to a side her head almost dangling over the edge of the rented stroller. Tommy bounced along switching modes on his bubble wand.

Watching them, I had the rare sense I’ve had a few times in my life, when everything and everyone feels connected, that our distinctions exist within a greater whole, that there is so much more beyond what I can describe, or see or conceive.

Later, recalling that moment, I remembered something my cousin Frank said to me at my father’s funeral. He recalled how once, when he’d been struggling with all the responsibilities and demands of his children and family, he called his father who was sick and nearing the end of this life. He asked for advice.

His father said, “I don’t  have any advice, but I want you to know something. I’d do anything to go back to those days. They were a struggle but they were the best days of my life.”

Jan and I stepped towards the door after we’d said our goodbyes. We watched Emily, Adam and Tommy walk toward the elevator but Allie stopped and swung herself around to look at us after she’d taken a few steps. She stood still, bent towards us in a slight bow and smiled, as if to pose for a moment in the rapturous uncluttered joy of her three-year old self.

We both stood there, staring at her for a few seconds before she turned and hurried off to join her mom, her dad and her brother.

Though Jan and I are  both writers, neither of us seem to be able to find the words to describe the feelings we had in the closing moments of the day. Ineffable comes to mind.

Maybe it’s okay that not everything can be described in words.

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

The Happiest Place Many of you don't know that Steve is a beautiful writer. When he read the following journal entry to me last night, I asked him if I could post it on my blog.

[bluewonderer]

Coldflash, #48, "You make me want things I can't have?" please?

A (Somewhat) 1920s AU

Len hears Barry’s voice before he even steps into Joe’s Club, echoing and muffled by the brick walls of the dim passage that led from Joe’s legitimate storefront to the less-than-legitimate speakeasy. Still, the sound ebbs into his bones, makes them feel as hollow and light as a bird’s. He feels his shoulders relax. And that’s a weakness, he knows. He shouldn’t even be here, fresh from a clash with Scudder’s outfit, and more and more near-misses with Central’s finest now that it’s new face, a David Singh, wouldn’t be bought off like his predecessors. It was stupid to show his face at Joe’s, a known haunt, he would be the first one to say.

Barry would be the second.  

Mick walks behind him, a solid wall at his shoulder. He hums softly, an idle half-tune, indicating how happy he is with rising tension. Mick had only laughed at him when Len said he wanted to go to Joe’s. “Didn’t Red give ya the icy mitt?” But that hadn’t been a protest, just fun at his partner’s expense. After all, Len showing his face at Joe’s was practically inviting a showdown with either Scudder or the fuzz and Mick never much minded a good fight.  

He enters into Joe’s, which is almost as dark as the passageway he just came from except for the bar lights and the oil lamps burning low on the tables. Barry’s voice is louder now, permeating every corner until the club seems so buoyant with it that Len feels lightheaded.  

He doesn’t look for Barry right away. It’s been weeks since he’s been to Joe's—weeks since their last stolen kiss, and weeks before that their… relationship had been perforated by heavy expectations, guilt, and a healthy dose of obstinacy. So, he doesn’t look, not right away, not when his hollow bones resonate with Barry’s song. He supposes it’s delayed gratification, or a challenge to himself.  

He supposes that his presence here is evidence enough that he’s already lost. 

Len places his hat on the bar top and asks for whiskey. He brings it to his lips as he turns and leans against the bar, his gaze sweeping the crowd and dark corners of the club before finally moving to the stage. 

To conserve on the already limited space the small stage was crammed amidst the tables, creating an illusion of intimacy between the spectators and performers. Barry sways gently with the music, hand loosely curled around the microphone stand, his cuff link glimmering as he moves. In his tuxedo jacket and stark white shirt and waistcoat, Barry looks like he wandered straight out of the silver screen and into Joe’s Club. The spotlight casts an unreal play of shadows on Barry’s face, making him appear as unreachable as his voice. The lighting blends his accompaniment into the dimness behind him, but Len knows that it’s Ramon on the piano, rounding out the number. Later there will be a bigger band with Barry, a raucous frenzy of jazz and dancing flappers and flowing liquor. Already more patrons are trickling in. Len would be long gone before all of that.

Len wonders if he’s supposed to regret dragging Barry into everything, but he can’t bring himself to. As the star of Joe’s Club, everyone talked to Barry. Rivals, businessmen, the police, the wait staff, and other entertainers. He performed at other clubs throughout Central and in neighboring cities, meeting even more people. So, when Len absorbed Joe’s in his bootlegging operation, he immediately identified Barry as a wealth of needful information. Barry didn’t even have to actively seek out the information, he just had to be. And all Len had to do was flirt a little with the cute singer, ask the right questions, and Barry would unthinkingly give him all he needed.  

Of course, when Barry found out who Len was, what he sometimes used Barry’s information for, it wasn’t like the younger man was outright opposed. Barry’s friends all worked with or benefited from Len and his Rogues. And it wasn’t like there was no love lost between Barry and the police, not after the law wrongfully imprisoned his father.

The song wanders toward a close and somewhere in between “In my heart it will remain” and “My stardust melody”, Barry’s eyes find his. It should be impossible with the stage lighting and the crowd. Besides, Barry shouldn’t have known Len would be here—Len didn’t know he’d be here until he made the snap decision just an hour ago. But Barry finds him anyway and when he sings “The memory of love’s refrain” something falters behind his gaze then, and it’s not that Len can’t read the emotions so much as there are too many all at once to keep track of and untangle. And then Barry hides it away, sweeping his attention over the crowd with a crooked smile as he cradles the mic closer to him like it might be the lover in his song. His stage persona was always somehow better at acting than the man himself.  

Barry’s eyes meet his again. He raises an eyebrow. Len smirks and raises his glass.

-

They’re kissing before the closet door safely closes. Barry lets out an oomph when Len shoves him against the wall. Len fumbles blindly for the buttons of Barry’s jacket, tucks his hands under the hem of his waistcoat, fingertips rasping against the silk of Barry’s shirt.  

“Len,” Barry says and it sounds more like a curse than an exultation but Barry pulls him, kissing him roughly, causing Len’s hat to tip off and fall into the dark abyss of the closet. He leans into the long line of Barry’s body, searing from his performance and the stage lighting and Len soaks it in like he’s never been warm in his life. They come up for air, panting against each other’s lips. Len’s hands rise from Barry’s shoulder to grip his face, to lightly scrape his fingernails against Barry’s scalp in a way that makes him shudder and gasp. Len feels Barry stiffen beneath him and wonders if this is the moment Barry comes back to himself, the moment he inevitably decides to fight Len—to fight this and warn Len off with a, “I told you we aren’t doing this again. I’m not doing this again”.  

Barry just blows out a strained laugh and Len wishes he could see him, wishes they were anywhere but this closet so he could see the color of his eyes and trace patterns between his freckles. He needs to see Barry healthy and whole, unharmed by any of the past few weeks’ unpleasantries. Len had heard the reports, knew that both Scudder and the police were circling Joe’s like vultures.  

“Jesus,” Barry says and Len could not possibly measure the tremble in his hushed voice. “I’m glad you’re okay.“  

And then Barry kisses him again, slides his hands down Len’s sides, grips his waist and tugs him forward until his thigh is between Barry’s. Only then does Barry wrap his arms around Len’s neck and shoulders and the pace of the kiss turns to something slower but no less consuming.  

"You can’t be here,” Barry reprimands when they part again. “You raging idiot, you can’t be here.”  

“I’m aware,” Len says dryly into Barry’s skin. Barry shudders again and Len knows, despite the dark, that he’s biting his lip and squeezing his eyes shut even as he tilts his head back and gives Len’s lips unmitigated access to the long column of his throat.  

Barry’s fingers grip into the back of his neck hard enough to leave bruises as Len sucks on his skin. Making out in the club, leaving behind marks… they’d never been so careless before.  

“Singh was here just last week, Len,” Barry continues doggedly. “You know he has men on the building still. And I can’t believe I’m saying this but he’s good, Len. A good man. I’d almost root for him if you—if I wouldn’t be taken down too when he blows everything open.”  

Deciding that Barry is too prolific for them to have been apart for so long and that it was unfair that Len was almost too far gone for words and not Barry (my how the tables can turn), Len licks up the shell of Barry’s ear just as he moves his thigh against Barry in a slow rhythm.  

“You won’t go down with this, Barry,” Len whispers into his ear. “I won’t lose, but even if I do, you won’t. I told you.”  

Barry scoffs disbelievingly but dives in for another kiss. “And Scudder, the damn nuisance has been sniffing ‘round here more and more. Shawna—she works at one of his clubs—Shawna told me that Scudder thinks something important is here, something about your operation.”  

Len’s hands drop to rest on Barry’s hips, cheek against Barry’s cheek, the movement of their bodies stilling as he thinks. Joe’s is important to Len’s operation, sure. It’s one of the most popular speakeasies in the city, and therefore the most lucrative. It’s a stop on one of the smuggle routes. Plus, Len has fostered countless negotiations and deals here. Joe’s draws in the rich and the powerful, businessmen and criminals alike. It’s a money and information source that Len needs now more than ever.  

And Barry is here.  

“He’s drawing even more attention on me,” Len sighs.  

“Yeah,” Barry agrees, arms tightening around him. He tilts his head, brushes his lips against Len’s temple.

“Barry,” Len says softly but hesitates, all the words he wants to say crashing against his clenched jaw. Barry places another kiss against his brow, caresses his skin with his fingers. It’s profoundly tender, an intimacy Len didn’t know he wanted before he met Barry.  

“It hasn’t changed,” Barry says, wistfully. “About… before. My mind hasn’t changed.” He still doesn’t think he and Len can keep doing what they’re doing. The bootlegging and gambling and money laundering was all fine if he got to snub the police, but Barry was still drawing the line at hurting people, even if those people were Scudder’s goons. 

Still, Barry doesn’t let go of him.    

Len shifts in Barry’s arms, breathes in the smell of soap and sweat and clothes. “I swear, Barry,” he says and swallows thickly, the plea tasting less bitter than he expected. “I swear you’ll be protected. Your name will be protected. You can go into legitimate work. Be a gumshoe like you talked about. Whatever you decide on.”

“Maybe before, but Singh knows this place now. Knows my face.”  

“Don’t mean nothin’ if he can’t prove a thing against you and me,” Len says, kissing the corner of Barry’s mouth. “Keep singin’, then.”  

“What?” Barry chuckles. “For you?”  

“That on the table?”

Len’s eyes have adjusted somewhat to the dark, a modicum of light seeping between the cracks in the door. Only able to see the barest impression of Barry’s face, Len reaches out, tracing those features and hiding a smile in the dark when Barry so easily leans into the touch.  

“Len,” Barry murmurs. “Len, I think the FBI is in your organization.”  

“What?” He says sharply. “Who? Where?”  

“Don’t know who, Len,” Barry says, voice weary. And it’s a testament to how much Barry missed him, or was worried about him, or both, because he doesn’t add anything like, “and I wouldn’t tell you, he’s doing his job, he’s doing the right thing” with the “unlike me, unlike us” staying unspoken but no less pointed. But he doesn’t say those things. Maybe because he knows Len can hear it anyway. Maybe because he doesn’t want to start a fight.  

There were times when Len would revel in their fights, even when it drove him mad. Times when he would be thrilled by the challenge Barry presented, how unmoving he was, how utterly fearless despite all that Len was, all that he could rain down on Barry. Now just holding Barry again is a thrill on its own. 

“What’s your source? Are you sure?”

“As sure as I can be without going to look myself. Trust me.”  

Len really shouldn’t, but he thought that if there was anyone he could trust besides Lisa and Mick, it’d probably be Barry.  

“You have to go,” Barry says. “Singh’s men are watching. You can’t go out the way you came. Iris should be on her way to get you and Mick out through the cellar.”  

Silence stretches between them. Len can hear the crowd get louder and louder. Horns start to play.   

“Thought you weren’t going to come back,” Barry finally says, muffling the words into his shoulder.  

“Thought you didn’t want me to come back.”  

Barry presses his mouth against his, not to kiss, but so Len can feel his small smile. “That’s not what I meant. Or said. You have to go now.” He pushes a little against Len’s shoulders, but it’s weak at best.

Len runs his hands through Barry’s hair. They are so close that Len thinks Barry’s heart might be beating in his own chest. He kisses Barry again, one last time, long and slow. They part and Barry rests his forehead against Len’s.  

“You make me want things I can’t have,” Len murmurs. He thumbs Barry’s cheek, wonders if the hint of moisture he feels there is sweat or tears.  

Barry exhales. This time when he pushes against Len it’s stronger and Len concedes, taking a step back and giving Barry space. A shadow flickers on the other side of the door. Someone is standing outside it. Len hears the rumble of Mick’s voice.  

“It’s not because you can’t,” Barry whispers. He trails his hands down Len’s arms, briefly lacing their fingers together. “You’ve made your choice and I’ve made mine.” He kisses Len’s knuckles, brief and warm, and lets him go. “Be careful, Len.” 

The door opens and light spills in like a reverie. Len catches a glimpse of Iris West standing with Mick, her glittering dress and tightly curled bob ready for the stage later tonight. He sees Barry’s form sliding between them before the door closes again and he’s left in the dark.  

Song: Stardust by Hoagy Carmichael