#so it's not just me being frail it's the fact that this plant's pot is bigger than my torso

[textile-hospital]

my pothos died </3

[maxblonda]

omg. i think about this all the time and i'm so glad someone else has too. i also wanted to add a few other quotes that support this, sometimes in contrast to other characters

to me the examination quotes different characters have for warly's seasoning salt is one of the most obvious indication that he has some sort of condition that lends itself to high blood pressure, or has primary hypertension if nothing else. funnily enough, his quote is the exact opposite of wilson's.

there's also his quote when the crock pot is in use. with the prior quote, it's clear that a sensitivity to salt is more than just having a particular palate, but also concern for his health:

there are also the multiple character quotes when they're in the encumbered state lifting heavy objects. none of the characters enjoy it, become progressively out of breath and their animation alongside their quotes are evidence enough that they struggle with it, but there are a few characters who speak of their physical struggle likely ending up in soreness or sprain as the worst possible outcome, but maxwell is the only character who mentions that he can feel and hear all of his joints cracking. obviously you can chalk that up to hyperbole and his flair for the dramatic (ie. like mentioning that he used to be the king of this world when he talks to plants) but wickerbottom (who considers herself old enough to call him a boy when looking at the maxwell statue, stating "He's actually quite a sweet boy when you peel away the ego.") is far hardier than he is, arguably breaking less of a sweat than wolfgang when she's encumbered. he is distinctly more frail than all of the cast second only to wes.

and there's his quote for overheating and freezing, which also supports him having poor heart health:

i also think that there's an argument for the shadow duelists (as well as shadow servants) being strong yet frail as a reflection of the person casting them.

i'd say that his attitude towards labor is a result of his general egotism that he has but also, as you said, that he is disabled. a combination of not wanting to get his hands dirty, thinking he's too important for that, and also wanting to hide any potential weakness from any of the other survivors (if he couldn't even let his former assistant into his head, why would be want to be open about disability with survivors that have every reason to hate him for bringing them there, yknow?) but like you said, placing it into further context, there's the added labor of the fact that it's pretty clearly implied that he's disabled.

Something I think a lot of people miss about Maxwell is that like. He is physically disabled. He doesn't look like it, but a lot of stuff points to that being true:

The most obvious being that he's literally described as frail and has equivalent HP to Wes, a character specifically unsuited for survival.

"Maxwell's extended reign on the Nightmare Throne altered him in ways that are not yet fully understood. He continues to rely heavily on his tome, the Codex Umbra, as a result." He's literally using a tool to make up for lack of basic capability.

Almost all of the quotes where he complains about doing work are specifically about work that is very physically taxing, barring some more related to disgust. However, he responds positively to work that isn't as hard on the body:

Cookbook- "Very well. If I can master the dark arts, how hard could cooking be?"

Cartographer's Desk- "Mapmaking is a soothing pastime. Methodical."

It's pretty clear that under the airs he puts on about work meant for servants, it's just that he can't do physical tasks effectively. I'd assume it's a case of chronic pain and a general physical weakness. It may even be in combination with mental symptoms, which he also very obviously has but could have different origins.

It's fun to rag on him for his behavior, but it's important to actually put that into context. He is incapable, he is incompetent, and it's silly that he pretends he's not, but all of that also means that he is disabled and coping with it as best he can.

[eagle-feather-2014]

BakuDeku SFW: “Turned to Stone”

The garden was always quiet. Too quiet really. It used to be loud and full of such life. The garden is as green as ever, make no mistake of that, but the birds and deer that used to visit have forgotten their way, and the butterflies and bees that brought fresh pollen to keep blooms bright have forgotten the pots and ponds, and the fireflies and crickets have forgotten to keep nights magical. Quite frankly, it seemed that everyone and everything had simply forgotten the garden. Forgotten him.

His feet pad softly across the grass, the lush blades caressing his soft skin, thanking him for remembering them. The morning air was crisp and cool, the ocean kissing the mainland and sending it a front of salty breezes. How he missed the sand between his feet when he would take him there. The playful licking of the gentle waves across his ankles. The endless expanse of ocean stretching to the horizon to flirt with the sky. It felt like a lifetime ago. Perhaps it was…

He wanders aimlessly through the garden, following the weaving paths of cracked and crumbling cement. The shin high walls that lined the paths were being encroached upon by the soft, dewy moss that crept higher and higher on their sheer faces, relentless in their attempt to overtake the man-made material with their natural façade. Little warrior plants, they were. Like the Spartans, abandoning creativity and intellect for mindless conquest. The fools. It was no wonder they fell. He smiles at the thought. Humans and their propensity for war… it was tragic, but it was so familiar to him. The rough, bellowing voice that yelled obscenities and declared himself the victor remained so clear in his ears, even after years of their absence. He brushed scarred fingers across the rim of fire blown clay pots, designs carved crudely into their faces with the tips of arrows. Illustrations depicted battles and wars, beasts and battles so grad he could only imagine their reality.

The wind blows by, making the reeds creak and clatter together in a ballad to break the silence he had become so accustomed to. He was very lonely, if he were honest with himself. No one dared enter the Gorgon's garden… Not since the loss of the village hero. A fiery young man with no fear… He charged into the garden, shield and sword in hand, no armor to speak of, confidently asserting that he, this boy, was the land's greatest hero, and that he would put a stop to the monster's reign of the garden that once fed their village. A silly child. He was wholly unprepared to charge up to a mere child like himself. The men were afraid of a young boy with a messy green mop of hair that snakes protruded from, idly busying themselves with their interactions with the boy they called their host. He was so small and frail, draped in plain white garments that fit far too loosely. A gorgon youth, lost and on his own. His wide emerald eyes were kind and frightened. Statues of the men who tended to the garden were strewn across the property.

The child cried out for a mother that he had strayed from, and the warrior stared. The child shrieked at him to avert his gaze and leave him be. A monster so young… They did exist. Like a snake without fangs, he was so pitiful as the boy approached. The shield was raised between them as the brat thrust a hand out at the fallen crybaby. "Get up! Why are you here?"

Gentle fingers took the outstretched hand, mumbling a teary-eyed gratitude. "I got lost… I didn't mean to hurt them… I was hungry…" Sniffled broke up his thoughts as he voiced them.

"Well you can't stay here!"

"Why not?" Why not indeed. What was the harm? Gorgons were great with nature, and the child was lost and owed them a debt for taking their farmers. Perhaps he ought to replace their labor with his own.

"Because you're a monster!"

"A monster?"

"Yeah!"

"What's a monster?"

Oh gods… How silly the whole thing had been. A child warrior marching out after a monster alone, only to meet a lost child who knew no better and meant no harm. How the pair became friends, neither were sure of themselves, but a kinship blossomed, and the gorgon child was tasked with the care of the garden, providing the village with the food he grew. He stayed in the garden, and he only had one visitor, the boy with messy golden hair like the lions of the colosseum and eyes red as the blood that he spilled in battle as he grew older, tougher. He would be at home in Sparta, but he was here, the hero of the little rundown village with a "gorgon problem." The boy was brave, and he only got bolder as years passed. The child had a friend, and the warrior had someone he could pick on without the adults scolding him.

So he came, a cloth tied tight around his head, covering his eyes, learning the lay of the garden like the back of his hand with the child's help. As he got more familiar with the paths and lay, he no longer needed those small, work worn hands to hold his as they walked, but he never spoke up about that fact. In fact, as they grew older, their touches increased in frequency and intimacy. This boy could kill him with a look, but the danger didn't deter him in the slightest. He laughed like honey and his fingertips brushed so gently across his skin that it awakened fire within the warrior.

Now, the garden was empty, and no visitors came, not even the wildlife. He passes the statues of the gardeners every day and his heart bleeds for the families he hurt. Children never saw their fathers again because of him, but he could not bring himself to dwell on it for too long. He had been a child, startled and unfamiliar with the power he possessed. They meant no real emotion in his heart.

Warriors lined the courtyard, stone bodies poised to fight, forever unable to. It had been such a terrible day, and he knew that their statues meant more families without fathers. Again, he could not dwell nor did their stir emotion in his chest.

No, the only statue in this garden that stirred despair and heartbreak sat on the wall overlooking the fields, feet dangling over the ledge several feet above the fields below. A surprised look adorned his perfect face, one that the child had never seen in flesh until the moment it no longer was. The yelling of warriors approaching had made him lift the blindfold… and their gazes met incidentally… Now the only friend the Gorgon had known was just another statue, cracked and beginning to strain to remain whole after years of weather. Tears welled and fell freely when the boy visited the warrior child that he had loved so dearly. He would hug the stone and wish it would warm into flesh… He would patch and fill cracks in the stone to try and keep him whole a while longer… He couldn't bear it if he ended up truly alone again.

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This piece is inspired by onesmoljas’s art:

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[salexectrian-heir]

the 2/2 time travel fic

happy 2/2! here is the first chapter of this fic idea i posted about a little while ago

First chapter below | ao3 link in notes

Akira had been dreading the conversation with Maruki.

Not because he was having second thoughts--no, Akira was steadfast in his resolve that this reality was a mistake. His resolution hadn’t come without a price, of course. His friends were being robbed of their dreams, their happiness no matter how false it was in nature...and Akira would have to bear the burden of knowing he was the one who ultimately was going to destroy it all. And even though the thieves and his rival were on board with its destruction, Akira knew that the decision had taken a piece of them with it. It had required a sacrifice from them all. And that ate Akira alive, knowing that they all had a taste of what could have--

No, Akira couldn't think like that. It would only make everything he had to do that much harder.

Somehow, out of all the betrayals he had experienced this year, Maruki’s was by far the most painful.

Maruki had held space for Akira when Akira had needed it most. Akira rarely entrusted others with his needs, having been burned too many times before this point to forge that kind of fragile, vulnerable, two-way connection with someone else. But Maruki had felt safe enough to confide in, and in turn made Akira feel seen, feel validated. Had respected Akira’s opinions and sought them out instead of admonishing him for sharing his perspective. Against his better judgement, Akira had opened his heart.

No adult in Akira’s life had ever done that for him before. So of course learning that Maruki had taken those secrets spoken in confidence, manipulated them, and thought he knew what would be best not only for him but the world…something snapped in Akira.

And now, sitting across from the former “counselor” turned Self-Appointed Savior, Akira battled his warring emotions into submission. Into the familiar blank mask he wore outside the Metaverse to hide his true disposition. The mask he thought he would never have had to wield against the one adult he thought he would have never needed to hide from.

From the only adult he thought he could finally trust.

The calling card tucked in the inner pocket of his jacket was burning a hole through its thin fabric. Each controlled breath Akira took as he listened to Maruki explain himself pressed the blistering deadweight a little closer to the skin of his chest. The frail, last line of defense he had that separated the world from that bleeding and bruised muscle.

And right now, if he didn’t get rid of the card within the next few seconds he was sure the scent of his burning flesh would suffocate them all.  

Maruki broke the lull that had settled between them first. His voice was gentle when he asked, “Are you sure you don't have any doubts, Kurusu-kun?”

Akira narrowed his eyes at the formality. They were past that. Way past that. “What do you mean, Maruki-sensei?” Akira responded sardonically.

The hand Maruki had wrapped around the mug of coffee Akira had made for him started a complicated beat against its porcelain surface as he studied Akira.  

“ Akira,” he amended and started again, his eyes softening into something almost sorrowful. “More accurately, I should really be be asking 'do you two gentlemen have any doubts',” Maurki paused and glanced over his shoulder towards the cafe entrance.

“You're there, aren't you Ake”--the door to Leblanc nearly shattered on its hinges with the force of which it was thrown open--“chi-kun!?” Maruki stuttered out, his face swiftly morphing from melancholic to bewildered in the span of a second as he openly gawked at the entryway.

Akira blinked once. Did a double take. Then blinked once more.

Because it wasn’t Akechi who had just stormed into Leblanc.

Or, it was but...

“You,” a man who looked like the splitting image of a twenty-something, utterly irate Goro Akechi spat, his face contorting into a feral grimace as he pointed directly at Maruki.

Akira had seen the younger version of Akechi make that exact expression only one time before in the bowels of Shido’s palace. It was not something anyone wanted to be on the receiving end of.

There was a beat of absolute silence.

And then chaos erupted.

This older version of Akechi with murderous intent seething in his eyes launched himself at Maruki, barreling full force into their booth like a bull after the counselor’s throat. Maruki made a very undignified squeak at the sudden assault and tried to put as much space between him and the rampaging Older Akechi by scrambling further into the seat. Kicking wildly at him to try and stop the halestorm of blows reigning down from the furious Akechi-lookalike. It did little to deter the older detective prince. If anything it made him even angrier.

Meanwhile Morgana, who had relocated from sitting next to Akira to perching behind him on top of the booth, was yowling at ear piercing decibels. His fur also was comically puffed up, making him appear two times his normal size as he whipped his head back and forth between the attempted murder happening before them and Akira.

Who was sitting there with his coffee mug halfway to his mouth, watching everything unfold in a sort of detached awe.

A moment later the door was ripped open a second time and everything got a whole lot weirder.

Because it still wasn’t Akechi.

Instead, a very frazzled looking twenty-something version of himself tumbled through the door. He was out of breath, as if he had sprinted all the way here from...where ever the fuck he had come from. This older version of himself took one panicked survey of the room and promptly leapt into the chaos, snagging the Older Akechi around the waist in an attempt to slow his assault.

This older version of Akechi was taller, and had a bit more mass than his older self, but his older doppelganger didn’t let that stop him. He braced one boot against the seat of the booth and dug his other heel in the floor, leveraging the angle and gravity, to yank the Older Akechi off of the therapist’s lower half.

At this point, Akira noted, Maruki had effectively shoved himself so far back that he was half on the table with his back pressed against the window, fingers clumsily looking for the latch that would open it. In his haste to avoid the older Akechi’s swiping gloved fists, he knocked over the potted plant on the window sill. Soil cascaded across the table along with the poor upended plant and broken fragments of its pot.

Sojiro was going to kill him.

I should really be more concerned about all of this, Akira idly thought, flicking away a tiny ceramic shard. But he found it was hard to feel anything right now, as what he was watching seemed so surreal. I wonder if this is what disassociating feels like.

For the third time that evening the door to Leblanc was forced open with an unforgiving smack that sounded off over the cries and screams from the fight. The wall was surely dented at this point from the abuse. Akira vaguely wondered if the door hinges were going to survive the night.

This time it was the Akechi he had been expecting. Eighteen year old Goro Akechi stood in the doorway, gaping in utter shock at the pandemonium unfolding before them. Akira could practically see the formulaic equations running through and swirling around Akechi’s head, as he processed what was happening.

The younger Akechi simply mouthed, “What the fuck.” And continued not to move.

Akira’s attention was drawn back to the weird three sided battle happening literally two feet in front of him when he heard a pained gasp.

“Goro--plea--,” the older version of Akira wheezed, collapsing onto the floor after a sharp elbow connected with his sternum, “p-please--stop.”

The older version of Goro Akechi did not, in fact, stop. He in fact, got worse.

“Get back here you PIECE OF SHIT,” he bellowed, successfully grabbing hold of Maruki’s leg just as the counselor had managed to get his head and shoulders out the window.

Another undignified squeak escaped Maruki as his body was forcefully pulled back into the booth with a very painful looking jerk.

“A-Akechi-ku--” Maruki started to plead, but his voice cut off in a gurgle when the older Akechi managed to get both of his gloved hands around his throat.

It was at that moment his older self resurfaced in the fight. Hooking his arms under the older Akechi’s armpits, he twisted Akechi’s arms back, breaking his hold around the counselor’s throat and heaved the detective off Maruki.

“No!” the pinned Akechi cried, scrambling for purchase on Maruki’s sweater as he was tipped backwards.

The sound of stitches ripping followed the men as they tumbled backwards out of the booth and into a couple of the barstools behind them, which crashed to the ground in their wake. Maruki braced himself with one hand on the table and his other on the back of the booth to prevent himself from tipping into the writhing body pile on the floor. His sweater was stretched out and torn, hanging loosely off his neck.

Akira’s phone, which had also been on the table, lit up and started to incessantly vibrate. A  stream of messages from Futaba were flooding in when Akira checked it. He elected to ignore those for now. Before flipping the screen down, Akira took note of the time.

23:58 PM.

Two more minutes until this shitshow of a day was over and the dawn of February Third would rise. Akira released a weary sigh and set his phone aside in favor of his now lukewarm coffee. God damn he wished he had something a little stronger than the Jamaican Blue Mountain brew he was sipping on to put up with all this bullshit.

Happy fucking Birthday to me, he thought as he raised his mug in mock cheers at the camera Futaba had installed in the corner of Leblanc’s seating area. Where he was one hundred percent certain she was watching in pure horror, given the messages he was still receiving making his phone vibrate and shimmy at his elbow.

Honestly after all this, Akira suspected nothing in this world could ever surprise him anymore.

“Aren’t you going to help?” Morgana’s voice cut through the static he hadn’t realized had been present in his ears.

From the floor, his older self was doing a much better job at dodging the older Akechi’s flying elbows with graceful dexterity, but Maruki somehow had strayed too close. He was now kneeling on the floor with his sweater once again in the older Akechi’s vice grip.

“He kind of deserves it,” Akira said flatly, setting down his mug.

Though Akira quickly changed his mind when Maruki started making gurgling noises again, which could only signify one thing.

The younger Akechi recovered from his stupefaction when he saw Akira move, and stepped in to assist. It required both Akira’s older self and the younger Akechi to hold back the raging older Akechi long enough for Akira to pull Maruki safely away. The older Akechi was then shoved against a wall, getting yelled at quite vehemently by his older self.

“Sorry about your sweater,” Akira said, after he turned away from the arguing dopplegangers.

Maurki plucked at the frayed neckline and chuckled a bit breathlessly. “It’s seen better days.”

Upon closer inspection, Maurki’s glasses were broken and sitting askew on his face. His lip also had been split at some point and was leaking a tiny trail of blood down his chin. Akira grabbed a bunch of napkins off the counter and held them out to Maruki, who accepted and thanked him with a slight bow of his head, pressing them to his mouth.

“Would someone kindly explain just what the fuck is going on,” the younger Akechi demanded in near hysterics (his Akechi, Akira’s mind unhelpfully supplied before Akira buried that thought deep down).

The older versions of themselves fell silent.

There was a deep sigh that sounded almost identical to the one Akira had made a few minutes ago.

“Let’s try this again,” Akira heard his voice say from across the room, “how about we all take a seat. Calmly.” There was a pregnant pause as his older self shot a pointed look at the Akechi who had been the source of the problems, and released him from the wall. “Like civil adults.”

“Fine,” the older Akechi said, adjusting the scarf around his neck and smoothing out the lapels of his rumpled grey peacoat before sliding into the booth, with his older self right behind.

Akira tugged on Maruki’s sleeve, gesturing to follow him into the seat across from their visitors. Akira went in first, sitting directly across from the older Akechi which left Maruki to sit opposite the other Akira.

It was probably safer for everyone this way.

The younger Akechi (his Akechi) elected to remain standing, leaning against the far counter with his arms crossed over his tan coat in an attempt to look imposing, but really he just looked uncomfortable in Akira’s opinion.

Once everyone had settled in, the older Akira turned to Maruki. A sad smile broke across his face as he said, softly, “Hello Takuto.”

Why hearing his voice say Maruki’s first name was the thing that finally made Akira realize just how absurd this whole situation was, that shocked Akira back into his body from the weird detached space he had been floating around in the past few minutes, Akira couldn’t tell you.

Panic clawed its way out of his chest and into his throat, making his breathing erratic and ragged. The calling card in his pocket now felt like molten metal encasing his chest. His mind was reeling, racing, splitting apart as it finally registered that the man sitting adjacent from him across the table looked Just. Like. Himself.

What the fuck? What the FUCK?? WHAT THE FUCK!?

Maruki looked between him and his older self. “Akira…can you please explain yourself?”

“Uhm, I have no idea what’s happening,” Akira managed to get out weakly, before realizing Maruki wasn’t speaking to him, but the older man sharing his face.

“I think it would make it easier if everyone referred to us by our surnames, and our younger selves by their given names, for clarity’s sake,” his older self said, glancing at Akira and then Goro standing by the counter. “Will that be a problem?”

“Yes,” Goro said testily.

“Get over it,” Akechi snapped at his younger self.

Goro’s eyes flared. “Why should I--”

“Because it's a trivial distinction and it doesn’t really matter,” Akechi spoke over him, flicking his eyes over to Maruki briefly, “not when we have more pressing issues to deal with. Stop being difficult.”

That’s kind of rich coming from you, Akira thought but did not say.

Goro huffed but didn’t push it any further, opting to glare balefully at himself. The tension rolling off of Goro was enough to make Akira squirm, even from the otherside of the room. Luckily Akechi remained unphased by the daggers being thrown in his direction.  

“To keep it simple and state the obvious, we are you. We travelled from the future of the reality this idiot,” Akechi gestured at Maruki, “ wants to impose upon the world. We’re here to make sure it never actualizes, as something evidently went very wrong when we attempted to do the same ten years ago.”

Morgana’s exclamation of “Ten years?!” overlapped with Akira’s yelp (Morgana had reflexively dug his claws into Akira) and Goro’s “What do you mean, ‘something went wrong’?”

“Yes ten years Mona, and I mean it exactly how it sounds,” Akechi said in a clipped tone, clearly not willing to explain himself further.

Akira sucked in a breath through his teeth as Morgana retracted the claws he embedded from his shoulder and mumbled an apology in his ear.

“Our memories of what happened on February Third are...not intact,” Kurusu offered, earning a scowl from Akechi. “The last thing I remember is entering the palace...then… waking up in the new reality. Same for him,” Kurusu nodded in the direction of his boothmate, whose scowl deepened.

Maruki cleared his throat. “How did you time tra--”

“We aren’t telling you shit, what we’ve said is all you needed to know,” Akechi snarled, “so shut up, read the damn calling card, and then get out.”

“If you lived in my reality for that long, surely you found it enjoyable Akechi-kun, you--”

“Don’t assume you know anything about me,” he growled, “and don’t make me repeat myself.”

“You are both aware of what will happen if this reality--your reality, is destroyed...,” Maruki said slowly, gaze switching between the older boys emphatically.

“It was never ours,” Akechi was quick to shoot back.

Kurusu nodded. “We are fully aware and...deemed travelling here to end it worth the consequence.”

“Kurusu…” Maruki said, a mortified expression dawning on his face. “I suspected Akechi-kun might have felt this way given the conditions of his existence...but you too?”

“Wait, I don’t follow,” Akira spoke up, unease settling heavily into his gut like lead stone as he watched the varying expressions on the faces before him. They all know something I don’t. “Conditions of his existence…?”

“He hasn’t told me yet,” Kurusu said, suddenly avoiding Akira’s eyes, instead turning to face Akechi. “That...complicates things.”

Both Akechi and Kurusu exchanged a look, then glanced at Goro.

“I take it you haven’t shared anything with Akira either,” Akechi asked Goro--who eyes darted over to Akira before shaking his ‘no’ . “I guess that answers our question if we landed in the right timeline,” Akechi muttered, then sat up straight, leveling a look directly at Akira.

Akira’s heart rate spiked under the weight of the familiar yet so foreign maroon tinted gaze, and he was struck once again by how breathtakingly beautiful Akechi Goro was. Taking the time to look at this older version of his rival, Akira noticed the years had been kind to him. His cheekbones had become more prominent, defining his face with sharper angles that his shorter hair style complimented. Even if it was still a little mussed from the earlier fight.

Akira swallowed thickly. Whatever Akechi was about to say, he had a feeling it wasn’t going to be good.

“What your esteemed counselor was most likely about to tell you before I”--he exhaled sharply--“lost my temper, was that in the true reality, we most likely died,” Akechi explained coolly, gesturing between himself and Goro on his right. “The only reason we’re here presumably is because it was your wish. And Maruki granted it.”

Something in Akira’s chest cracked painfully.

He desperately wanted Goro to meet his eyes, to look at him, to tell him it wasn’t true. That he escaped the night they fought in Shido’s palace . But he was still staring at his older self with an intensity that barred no distractions.

It couldn’t be true.

Akira had felt the warmth of Akechi’s body when they brushed shoulders on the subway, had watched as the clouds of his breath faded away into nothing in the cold January air when they loitered outside the Jazz Jin. Witnessed the blood rush to flush his face when Akira teased him over ridiculously sugary, overpriced drinks and soft music. Sensed the raw power in his presence when they would pull off a seamlessly synchronized attack in the metaverse together…

It couldn’t be… he couldn’t be...

Akira’s vision tunneled as he focused on his rival.

Goro brought his hand to his chin, falling into his typical thinking pose which Akira had always found endearing, but now was sending sharp pains through his chest. “I couldn’t find any conclusive evidence to support it, but given the gaps in my memory after my final fight with Akira, and Wakaba Isshiki and President Okumura’s suspicious reappearances…,” he trailed off with a shrug. “Occam’s razor.”

“The simplest explanation is often the correct one,” both Goro and Akechi said in tandem.

“Two of you.” Kurusu pinched the bridge of his nose, pushing his glasses up into his fringe as he did, and muttered under his breath, “I have to deal with two of you for the next twenty-four hours.”

Akechi pinched Kurusu (who flinched) without breaking eye contact with Akira and continued on, “And then Maruki was going to bait you, Akira, into accepting his false paradise by dangling our life before you. Holding us hostage, essentially.”

“I wouldn’t have explained like that!” Maruki said defensively. “I was devastated when I learned what happened to you--err the two of you? That night in December.  I don’t mean to make it seem like I am holding you both hostage--”

“But you are, and you did. ”

“Will, this Maruki hasn’t done it yet,” Kurusu quietly corrected Akechi.

Akechi plowed on, ignoring Kurusu’s comment, voice raising with each word he spoke, “You stripped us of our agency, forced us to play pretend in a world where you erased and repurposed parts of ourselves to fit your mold of perfection!”

Maruki winced.

Akechi trembled, barely able to contain anger, “I’ve spent enough of my life being manipulated by the will of men who think they own me, own the world. I refuse to live a moment longer in a reality concocted by someone else. I refuse.” His gloved fist slammed down on the table, causing the half-full mugs of forgotten coffee to rattle and send little splatters of dark liquid onto its surface.

Kurusu was quick to place his left hand over Akechi’s fist, who recoiled under the touch.

Akira stiffened at the sight of a thin band of silver on Kurusu’s finger, glinting under the soft lights overhead.

He’s married... I’m married?

Akechi started to pull away but then stopped, exhaling sharply. Kurusu ran his thumb over Akechi’s knuckles and his gloved fingers finally relaxed under Kurusu’s palm, splaying onto the table. He let Kurusu pull their hands off and out of sight.

“And.. you agree with this Kurusu?” Maruki asked after a few seconds of silence.

Kurusu took a steadying breath, and answered. “I do. And I understand that it means that I will also cease to exist.” A small smirk played on his lips. “At least this version of me.”

Maruki slumped back in defeat, staring unblinkingly at the droplets of coffee on the table. He swallowed, his jaw working for a moment before he nodded to himself. “Well then, I must accept that those are your decisions.” He looked up. “However, you don’t speak fo--”

“I also refuse to accept this farce of a life,” Goro interrupted, as if he had been waiting for Maruki to call on him. He turned his glare fully onto the former counselor and lifted his chin defiantly, “I’ve made my decision, and nothing you or anyone else says will change my mind.”

“Akira?” Maruki’s voice sounded so small and so far away, despite being right next to him. Akira turned in his seat, meeting Maruki’s pleading eyes. “Do you feel the same?”

Akira’s heart twisted in on itself.

Did he feel the same?

Before he couldn’t feel anything but now… it was as if his body was making up for the lost time. He was feeling too many things all at once.

If he rejected the reality Maruki was offering...it would mean…condemning them all to death.

From the corner of his eye, Akira took in the strange trio’s expressions. They all were mirrors of each other, all displaying their own versions of unwavering resolve and grim determination that Akira had walked into this conversation with--before everything had fallen apart.

A gentle nudge against the back of his head coupled with soothing purrs grounded Akira enough to stop his mind from spiraling any further. It also reminded him that it wasn’t just these lives who had a say in the fate of reality.

“I do,” he echoed his older self, and reached into his jacket pocket. Fire licked at his fingers as he peeled off the calling card that had melded into his skin and tossed it onto the table in front of Maruki.

Finally free of its oppressive, burning weight Akira took his first full breath since he came down the stairs from his room. Its phantom pain lingered, the skin too hot and tender where the card had laid over his heart. Akira flexed his fingers over the spot, hoping the friction would ease the discomfort. It didn’t. So he shoved his hand into his pants pocket and focused on regulating his breathing.

“I thought out of all people, you would understand,” Maruki said in the same small voice. Gently, he picked up the card and turned it over. “I’ve heard your calling. I’ll be waiting in the palace, as promised.”

When he stood up no one moved to stop him.

He met each of their eyes one last time and said, “If you don’t show, I’ll take that to mean you’ve accepted my reality.”

“We’ll be there,” Kurusu said with a conviction Akira had never heard himself use before. “See you tomorrow.”

“Ah, today, actually,” Maruki said, checking his watch. A heartbreaking smile formed on his face. “It’s probably not my place to say it, but Happ--.”

“Don’t you dare. Get. Out,” Akechi hissed venomously.

When the door clicked shut and the chimes ceased their ringing from Maruki’s exit, a collective sigh of relief seemed to ripple through the group. Akira let himself fall back against the booth, and was low key amused when he watched his older self do almost the exact same thing. Akechi gingerly leaned back as well, tension bleeding out from his tense shoulders as he eased himself down aside Kurusu. Kurusu reached out a hand and hesitated before tucking a short lock of hair behind Akechi's ear.

Akechi turned to him and whispered, “I can’t believe...that it worked."

“Believe it,” Kurusu matched his volume, and suddenly Akira felt like he was intruding on a private moment as their gazes lingered a little too long on each other.

“Are you, we...” Akira began uncertainly, “...friends then? In the future?”

Akira watched himself blush in real time.

“Ah. About that,” Kurusu said, fiddling with a piece of fringe as his cheeks continued to darken.

Akechi lifted his left hand and started tugging off his glove, one finger at a time. “In a manner of speaking.”

Akira’s heart kicked into high gear. Oh my god.

On Akechi’s ring finger was a thin silver band. Identical to the one on Kurusu’s hand--that he was now holding up beside Akechi’s.

Goro was the first to react. “You’ve got to be shitting me.”

“Oh get over yourself,” Akechi chided, “you can quit pretending like you never--ouch !”

A sudden violent exchange under the table had Akira heavily suspecting his older self had stomped on Akechi’s foot.

Akechi glared at Kurusu. Kurusu glared right back.

“Would it kill you to be nice to yourself?”

Akechi crossed his arms. “Yes.”

“Uh,” Akira croaked, drawing everyone’s attention, “can we talk about how this happened?”

“You both probably have lots of questions,” Kurusu said, “So let’s start at the beginning. Goro, you might want to sit down for this.”

[teacup-tai]

Top Five of 2020

Rules: It’s time to love yourselves! Choose your 5 (ish) favourite works you created in the past year (fics, art, edits, etc.) and link them below to reflect on the amazing things you brought into the world in 2020. Tag as many writers/artists/etc. as you want (fan or original) so we can spread the love and link each other to awesome works!

My lovely @the-starryknight thanks for the tag!  I’ll tag a few people, but you probably already did it: @ruinsplume @kasjophe @gallifrey1sburning @quicksilvermaid @prolix- @dazedandinked 

Right. This year was insane, I got stuck first half of the year in Ireland with only 2 friends close by, all my family in Brazil or Spain while I was writing my bloody master thesis (that is what I’m proudest of this year, but it’s not published yet, so won’t go in this list). I managed a lot of hard emotions in solitude, by myself, while reading drarry fics to keep afloat (great coping mechanism, actually!). And after handing my thesis and moving to Spain, I was feeling deeply empty. So I went back to fic-writing, after 2 or 3 years of not even looking at my old fics. 

It all started when I saw the posts for prompt claiming on the @hd-hurtfest  blog. To think how that post changed everything in my life is just bizarre. So I am very thankful! It has been a huge pleasure to go back to fic-writing and to re-embrace the HP fandom, mainly the drarry squad! To get to know so many lovely people and I’m forever grateful for that. 

Here is my Top Five:

hear me (with your whole body): (Drarry, E, 9k) this is the fic I wrote for the hd-hurtfest 2020. I saw @quicksilvermaid’s prompt and I shivered. It lured me so much I had the whole plot in my head as soon as I finished sending the claim. It was so hard to write it. Because the topic is very sensitive: open relationships, sexual mismatch, bad communication skills. I brought most of my bad experiences in all these sensitive topics as if I was purging it from my body while writing ‘hear me’. It was a very raw process of looking into my own still bleeding wounds, but very cathartic. And it was hard because it was my very first drarry (I love drarry and I normally only read drarry, but I’ve never felt confident enough to write it), so I was very nervous. And in bloody English xD LOL but I’m bloody proud of it. I wanted to write something real without making a show of blaming one of the parts, at the same time I wanted to use and unreliable POV (Harry’s) and to bring forth all those very uncomfortable realities of jealousy, insecurity of one’s sexuality etc. in a way people could relate to. I’ve never imagined the response to this fic would be so nice, and many of the comments drove me to deep reflection. I’m specially happy about this fic because after writing ‘hear me’ something cracked open inside of me, in my own personal-romantic life and also in writing. Like a small miracle. And then, I couldn’t stop writing anymore.

Rebel Rebel: (Sirius/Remus. E, 5k) heh, Wolfstar is my OTP *-* So writing this tiny fic with ‘there was no war’ prompt for the sirius black fest was a bloody delight. The feeling of exploring their youth, in the early 80s and the whole atmosphere of that time was exhilarating! Bowie’s concerts, HIV+ and Aids, queer community and old school crushes. Giving them a future and professions was fun as fuck. But the best part was making Sirius Black fuck around, wild and free, you know. Because he bloody well deserved it. I love the writing style I explored there, very influenced by Caio Fernando Abreu, one of my favourite Brazilian writers and it was just great great fun!

Dragons Don’t Know Paradise: (Drarry + Wolfstar, E, 40k+ WIP) I need to post 3 more chapters along this next few days.  I’m adding Dragons here because NEVER. IN. MY. LIFE I thought this story would come out of my head into the pages, and I’m so bloody happy, so bloody proud of myself. I cannot believe how much I’ve written in a month, about a plot that had some path in my head but never a shape, and how this all blossomed inside of me and how it’s coming out just brilliantly. I know I’ll think back at some point and think this and that are not great. But I think this fic is one of my best works, it deals with the queer community, with depression and acceptance, with HIV+ folk, and deep emotions. Everything I’ve ever dreamed of writing. And here it is, and writing it made me manage the fact that I wouldn’t be able to spend this xmas with my family, so I spent this last month with this characters and feeling the opposite of lonely. And to be able to write Harry having a family, you know, being raised by Remus and Sirius is just marvellous. I’m over the moon with wolfstar being great gaydads :D

Scorching: (Pansmione, E, 1.5k) first time I translated a Portuguese fic of mine to English. It was fun to do it, as it’s purely smutty smut and well, I love pansmione and it makes me greedy to go back to writing about this ship. I like how it turned out, but it’s not beta-ed so maybe it’s not great. But damn, I really like this Pansy. ^^

The Old Ways: (Voldemort/Walburga, M, 3k). So, I have a whole word document full of snippets on the Black family. As the Black family is my huge guilty pleasure (that’s why Tainara Black has been my pen name since 2005). I don’t like to think Walburga was only a mad pureblood bigoted woman, I like to think of her as being strongly magical and very sure of herself. Someone three-dimensional with knowledge of Dark magic of the old ways and a deep insanity that comes with legacy of pureness, but also with financial influence and  management of old wizarding land. I realised Walburga is only 1 year older than Voldie, she is closest to his age than her husband or brother (if we follow the Balck Family Genealogical Tree), and this sparked a whole idea inside of me. So this fic is a character study of Walburga when Sirius is only 10 and Voldemort is organising a war, and I honestly think is one of my best fics (even though it wasn’t beta-ed). I loved writing about this powerful witch, that got stuck in keeping her bloodline alive, that gave up on great deeds of power and freedom to become a pureblood mother and wife. But it’s the fic no one reads, so I’m adding a bit of it here in hopes it may interest someone:

He climbs the last step of the noisy, rusty, winding stair, his eyes mapping the place in silent wonder. The rooftop is sombre. Rough grey cement floor and dead flower beds in a far corner, big dark clay pots with dead branches and dry bushes scattered around; the only living thing is an imposing carnivorous plant, it’s toothed lips opening and closing sharply around bugs and other insects.

She is right there, in the centre of the chaotic rooftop garden and he thinks the house is in shambles, and so is she. The moon is reflecting its cold brightness over her as if it were a stage light. He takes a second to contemplate her stance. He has never seen her like this before. It is such an incongruous sight it almost feels like he’s intruding. Is not a feeling he’s used to.

She’s perched in a high frail copper chair, her ankles crossed lightly, with pale bare feet against the dirty coarse floor, one white arm falling languidly from the armrest, her elegant fingers holding a thin long smoking pipe. Rings of smoke rising into the night sky. The back of her skull resting on the back of the chair, he can’t see her face from this angle, but he’s stunned by the imagery.

She looks almost mythical; with her long black mane messy and loose, barely touching the ground. He can’t remember when was the last time he’s seen her hair down, but he’s pretty sure it wasn’t that long, nor were there silver strikes colouring it in a mix of salt and pepper.

“How long do you plan to stare?” her voice is as rusty as the whole house and he scoffs.

keep reading

[hardyimagines]

Sick

———

Hey, I don’t mean to pester, but I’m sick today and was wondering if you could write a blurb of reg and ron taking care of a sick!reader please ♥️♥️ Thanks so much

———

“Reg, she’s still running a fever. I don’t think some hot soup is going to cure her.” Ron growled. His fingers curled around the glass bowl on the counter that was still cooling down. The steam that rose from the top of the food was enough to make Ron worry further. It didn’t make much sense to give someone something hot, and impossible to eat, whenever they were already burning up.

Reggie was sat on the sofa beside your hip, fingertips lazily tracing your tummy as he studied you. Sweat coated your forehead so he brushed it away, but it was only moments later when the droplets returned. He lifted his gaze toward the white-painted doorway, inspecting the light that poured from the room. He couldn’t see Ron, but he could hear him clearly. “Mate.” Reggie exhaled heavily, voice tinted with slight annoyance. “Why the fuck would the doctor,” He stood, fingers grazing your hip. “recommend for her to eat soup, yeah, if that was only going to make her sicker than she already is?” Reggie’s brows were drawn together, forehead creased with evident lines. You struggled to turn your head, small hand lifting to wrap around Reggie’s.

“He’s only looking out for me.” You reminded the man before sitting up slowly. The pain in your head seemed to spread throughout the entirety of your body. “You both are, and I appreciate it, but I can make my own soup..” Your hand lifted to your aching head. “I’m alright, really.” Your attempt to prove your words true was a huge fail. Swinging your legs over the side of the sofa to stand up and waltz into the kitchen to retrieve your bowl of food, you made it to your feet, but your body went light and your legs gave out. Reggie was alert, instantly stepping forward in order to lock his arms around your waist and prevent you from crashing against the hardwood floor.

“Alright, yeah, I see that.” He frowned before slowly helping you back into a seated position on the sofa. His hand lifted to your forehead, slowly brushing your strands away from your eyes as he stood beside your bent knees. It was a very comforting gesture and you could feel some of the tension and throbbing fading away beneath the warmth of Reggie Kray’s palm.

Ron made his way into the living room, hands cupped around the base of the oval shaped bowl. He was careful with his movements, footsteps steady so as not to spill any of the meal on the ground as he approached the sofa. Setting the dish on the coffee table, he looked toward you. Your eyes were droopy, bags lining the undersides. Your cheeks looked sunken. He could tell you still didn’t feel any better — not even after receiving some medicine from the doctor. You’d already had as much of it as you could for the day and it didn’t seem to be helping too much. Ron lowered himself down on one side of you and Reggie took it upon himself to drop down on the other. Both men had their gazes fixated on you, scrutinizing you, searching for some way to help you further. You leaned forward and grasped the spoon that was drowning halfway in the bowl. Stirring it around lazily, you inhaled shakily. Your body felt so weak and you didn’t know what to do about it. You just wanted to lay down, but when you did that then you felt nauseous. There was no winning.

Ron placed his hand on your back, fingertips lazily dragging along the length of it. “That’s alright then?” Ron inquired, soft eyes moving along your features as you lifted the spoon to your lips to smell the soup. Your lips twitched, curving upward in the slightest as you blew on the hot liquid, cooling it more so. Reggie wore a frown of concentration, elbow propped up on his knee and cheek buried in his palm. His eyes drifted to his brother and they exchanged a short glance before both looking back to you when you took a bite. The hot liquid soothed your sore throat and your hum of approval was music to their strained ears.

“It’s very good, thank you.” Your voice was breathy, coated in appreciation. Looking toward Ron, your eyes slipped between his shimmering orbs. They glistened with concern. You wanted to kiss him to show him just how grateful you were, but passing your illness onto one, or both, of the Kray’s didn’t seem ideal. You lifted your hand to his cheek, tracing the smooth skin lazily. Ron’s cheeks went red, warm from your words, but burning from your touch. He craned his neck and pressed a firm kiss against your palm. The sofa creaked as he stood.

“I’ll be back, yeah, need to clean up the kitchen.” He fixed the glasses which were beginning to slide down the bridge of his nose. Nudging them back up and into place, he inhaled deeply before rotating and heading back into the kitchen. He made his way to the stove and lifted the hot pot from its place, before cutting on the hot water so he could rinse the dish and rid of any sticky remnants from your food.

You looked toward Reggie as he laid his hand on your lower back. He began to soothingly rub away the little aches that tugged on your muscles and chewed at your bones as you ate. Trembling, you set the bowl down on the table and shakily continued to eat your soup by only focusing on holding the silver spoon opposed to the entire heavy dish. Reggie could see instantly that something was wrong. The little spasms and shakes in your movements told him that you were freezing despite the sweat droplets that lined your skin. Added to the fact that you felt frail and fragile.

The frown on his lips was still in place and remained there until his fingers ran up and along your back to find the base of your neck. “I think a bath would make you feel better, babe.. right, want me to go run you one?” His fingers traced the swollen sides of your jugular, kneading them delicately. You tipped your head to the side before sucking your bottom lip in and giving a gentle nod. Turning down his offer meant that he would only search for some other form of treatment — and a bath actually did sound very nice. Lifting the spoon so that you could finish up with your meal, you smiled beneath Reggie’s lips as he kissed your head before watching him go.

The sound of his boots on the stairs flooded the house, banging in your ears like a stick against a drum. Rising on very shaky and unreliable legs, you scooped up the bowl of devoured soup and made your way back into the kitchen so you could clean up your mess. Ron was oblivious to your entry, back to the doorway as he scrubbed at the filth with the worn and torn sponge. His muscles were barely visible through the white button down he wore, body shaking vigorously with the harsh movements from his arm. Approaching him from behind, your nails traced the length of his spine before you reached around him and set your bowl and spoon under the running water.

“Finished already?” He inspected the bowl. “Jesus, you must’ve been hungry.” He squirted a little bit of soap into the dish to let it soak for a moment before he twisted around to peer down at your very close form.

“Mh, Reggie’s running me a bath, so I guess I got excited.” Staring up at the handsome bloke, the nails you’d had on his back were now lazily caressing the front of his chest. Your fingertips pinched playfully at the buttons on the material before moving to his belly, stroking it absentmindedly.

He grunted in response to your words before reaching behind him in order to turn off the running water. “Well, you’d best get up there before the water gets cold.” He set his hand on your hip and nudged you lightly toward the door. Fisting your hand in his shirt, you tugged him along with you.

“Aren’t you coming?” The question was light, not pressuring in the slightest. Ron almost smiled. The man lifted his hand to his face and rubbed the length of it down, swiftly hiding the almost twitch of his lips. His hand remained in place on your hip before he once more ushered you toward the door, but this time followed along behind you.

Reggie was perched up on the side of the tub. His feet were planted flatly against the cream colored, fluffy rug beneath his shoes. He shuffled his boots lazily as he hunched over the full tub in order to cut off the running water. His black suit jacket was discarded, folded messily on the sink, and the sleeves of his white shirt were rolled up to his forearms. He kept dipping his fingers into the water to ensure that it wasn’t going to burn your sensitive skin and he’d come to the conclusion — three times — that you’d be fine. His enchanting eyes lifted to the creaky wooden door in the corner when it opened noisily. The hinges groaned beneath the soft pressure of your palm. You sent Reggie a warm grin, one that told him you were appreciative for what he’d done.

Ron moved to the sink, leaning against the platform as he let you move toward the bath. The thin fabric of your nightgown didn’t do much keeping you warm so both men knew you were eager to submerge yourself in the water. You laid your hand on Reggie’s shoulder and hunched over in order to test the water. He was wearing an expression of cockiness, one that told you he’d done all the checking necessary. The damp part of your fingers grazed his shoulder before you lowered your hands to the bottom of your attire and swiftly lifted the fabric. Dragging it off of your body, you reminded yourself that being nervous was pointless. Course anyone in their right mind would be frazzled under the stare of one Kray twin, let alone both. You discarded the dress on the floor beside your feet and without hesitation, lifted your leg over the side of the basin and lowered yourself down into the water. A heavenly sigh escaped your lips as soon as the warm bath soothed your aching muscles.

Reggie and Ron were transfixed on your expression. You were glowing, and it wasn’t from the sweat. Your lips were parted in the slightest, eyes drooped closed calmly and head tipped back revealing your neck to them. Reggie had a better view because of where he was sat, but Ron leaned to the side in order to get just as good of a view. Both gazes were curious, raking along your body to familiarize themselves with the skin their fingertips were already acquainted with. You opened one eye when you felt their stares lingering.

The heavy intake a breath that escaped you made them both straighten. “Thank you both for helping me,” You whispered, other eye opening in order to scrutinize the twins that stood before you. Everything they’d done the last few days in order to nurse you back to health could’ve easily been done yourself, but you weren’t complaining. Why would you? Two handsome fellows wanted to look after you and you were expected to turn them down? That was laughable. Leaning up in the tub, you placed your arm on the side of the bath, fingers grazing the outer part of Reggie’s thigh. Ron stepped forward so he could join his brother on the ledge of the tub and when he did, you couldn’t help but smile toward your handsome boy’s. “I’d give you a kiss if I wasn’t contagious.”

“I think that’s a risk, right, that we’re both willing to take, innit?” Reggie was already leaning over and into the tub and your weak attempts to halt him did barely anything. Laying your hand on his chest, you curled your hand in the front of his shirt with a quiet giggle and tried to keep him away, but he managed to dip his head and steal the softest peck.

“Reggie!” The aches in your body were impossible to feel as your laughter overrode all the pain you’d felt earlier. Standing up so the man could no longer take another kiss, you set your hand on his shoulder. “Quit it.. I don’t want to make you ill.”

Ron was fixated on the water droplets that raced along your body. His eyes flashed with amusement before he looked to Reggie. He didn’t blame his brother. Being sick was worth it if that meant they got a kiss. His arms folded when you stuck your lower lip out and looked to him for help. “I’m afraid I’ve got to side with Reg, yeah, it’s a risk I’d take too.” Your lower lip stuck out further.

“You’re both insane.” Leaning over, you splashed the both of them with handfuls of water before settling back down in the tub. Neither of them were too happy with the wet spots that now stained their clothes, but they didn’t verbally complain either. Ron reached into the tub to give you the exact same treatment, splashing you with some water. You gasped sharply before narrowing your eyes toward him. Challenging him would probably make you feel sick again. Rest was recommended and attacking him with water didn’t fall into that category. Slinking forward to retrieve the bar of soap, you grasped ahold of it before beginning to wash your body. The white bar left a trail of white along your skin, sticky and drying the longer it sat. You hummed absentmindedly as you let the bar slide along every inch of your skin. Reggie looked toward Ron, his brows twitching, silently wondering how the pair of them had gotten lucky enough to have someone as beautiful as yourself. Ron shrugged his shoulders before looking back in your direction. The clear water was becoming murky the longer you sat in it and the more soap that filled it. He looked toward your hands. Your skin was becoming pruny.

“Alright.” He stood. “Time to get out.” The man moved to the corner to retrieve the red towel that was folded neatly on the tall shelf by the door. He pinched the soft cloth before swiftly opening it so he could wrap it around your body. You remained seated in the tub, upper half of you shivering at just the thought of leaving the warm water. You bit your bottom lip hesitantly before beginning to squirm in the slightest. Ron gave you a look before stepping closer, arms extended and towel opened even wider. “Come on, you’ll be warm as soon as you’re in this.” He shook the material.

Reggie grasped your hand, finger gliding along the top of your wet skin. Helping you up and out, his hand fell away from yours only once Ron had trapped you in the towel. He wrapped you up snugly before drawing you into his chest to add even more warmth. His hands slid along the length of your back as he leaned in and pressed his warm, pink lips against your forehead. It wasn’t on fire like he’d expected it to be and that was an immense relief. You didn’t have a fever.. maybe the soup and bath really were helping, and maybe the medicine was kicking in. He began to back up, blindly reaching behind him to open the door and lead you out into the hall.

Reggie halted in the bathroom. Letting the water out of the tub, he withdrew his wet hand and set the stopper on the side. Rising, he wiped his hand on a dry towel and tidied up the dirty clothes and dried the wet floor. He knew when he returned to the bedroom, you’d be curled up on the bed, waiting to be sandwiched between them.

Ron was sat on the left side of the bed, glasses now sitting on the side table as he watched you under a studious stare. You assured him that you could get ready on your own, but that didn’t mean he would take your word for it. He let you dress yourself, but he was ready to jump from his position and help you if you felt too weak to stand. His eyes moved along your form as you rolled the pink fabric of your nightgown over your head and shoulders. The material fell along your body, outlining your curves. He focused briefly on your breasts before they were hidden by the thin cloth.

You inhaled deeply before removing the towel from your hair. Flipping your locks to help quicken the drying process, you tossed the damp towel into the bin in the corner before moving toward the mattress. Your fingers grazed Ron’s shoulder delicately, using him as a sturdy surface to help you climb into bed. “Are you as foolish as Reggie?” You whispered before letting your heavy body collapse against the sheet. Propping your head up on the pillows, you smiled toward him slowly.

Ron wasn’t stupid. Turning his head, he rotated his body completely before taking his time to lower himself down so that he was laid at your side. His hand brushed along your stomach before moving to your hip, thumb grazing the sharp bone that resided there. “Course I am.” He whispered. His eyes, shimmering with so much care and worry, moved from yours to your lips. “A little sickness won’t kill me.”

“You hope.” You piped up before moving your small fingers along his arm. Lifting your head, you gave him the softest kiss possible since Reggie had stolen one from you in the bathroom. Your fingers lifted to the back of his neck, gliding up to run through his dark locks. He inhaled deeply, breaths deepening the second that his mouth touched yours. He leaned in again, ready to close the space between the two of you, but you turned your head to the side. “No, no, no..” You giggled quietly. “Just the one.. I’d feel so guilty if you got sick just because you kissed me. Please, Ron.” Lifting yourself up in the slightest, your nose bumped his before your arms curled around his neck. Drawing him in for a cuddle instead, you trapped him in place against you. His body molded so perfectly against your own and although it may have appeared that he was crushing you, it was comfortable. His hot breaths tickled the side of your neck and the second they did, his mouth found your throat as well. You opened your mouth to argue that he shouldn’t be messing with you in this manner, but each kiss rendered you speechless. “Ron.” The word was broken. Your hand tightened in his hair, fisting in it. You could’ve shoved him back, but instead your neck involuntarily craned to the side, effectively giving him more access.

Reggie’s footsteps elicited a deep groan from the floorboards, a hollow sound that flooded the entirety of the house. You sighed gratefully. Ron pulled away to look toward the door and as he did, it opened. His twin brother made his way inside, forehead lines visible as his eyes fell on the pair of you. He offered a soft smile before moving toward the bed tiredly. His hands fell to his belt, swiftly unhooking it before he withdrew it from the loops. He set the leather on the bedside table before doing as you’d done and collapsing on his back. He settled down on your right side, hands folding beneath his head before he shut his eyes and crossed his ankles. He sleepily kicked his shoes off, toe of one pressing against the heel of the other. He yawned loudly before squirming in the slightest. You smiled fondly at the child.

Ron kissed your neck once more before slowly rolling off of you. He dropped down at your side before letting out a breathy grunt of content. “I hope you’re feeling better.” He told you gruffly. There was a brief pause, one that held so much silence, you wondered if he was on the verge of sleep. His eyes were beginning to close as he spoke. “Love you.” You looked in his direction. Rolling closer to him so you could give him a lingering kiss on the lips, your hand met his cheek, slowly caressing it as you bid him goodnight.

“I love you too..” You felt him smile against your mouth as you spoke into the liplock, but the second the kiss came to an end, he pressed his lips together in a straight line and pretended to be too sleepy to let the smile show. You kissed his nose before rolling back on to your back and listening to their deepening breaths. Your stomach fluttered to life, butterflies flapping their wings seemingly angrily in your tummy — you felt sick because of how much you cared about him.

Ron was the first to fall asleep. His snoring made it clear. The deep rumbles that left his nose and filled the room sounded as if you were sharing your bed with a bear. You inhaled deeply, fingers curling in the duvet to drag it up and over his body. Rolling him on to his back instead of his side, you smiled slowly when the snoring softened in the slightest.

“Doesn’t help much, does it?” Reggie’s deep voice met your ears. You gasped sharply at the suddenness of his words. Looking over your shoulder toward the man, you squinted.

“You scared the hell out of me.” Dropping back down against the pillows, you shrugged before folding your arms. “It helps a little..” you offered. Reggie hummed mockingly before rolling on to his side. It was his turn to cuddle up to you. The man’s arm looped around your waist, hand hooking around your hip so he could drag you into him. He smelled musky and inviting, so your head rolled toward him, nostrils flaring and nose twitching. “What is it with you two? You can’t kiss me for a few days and now.. you’re starved.” Tracing his bottom lip with the tip of your finger, you inhaled deeply, eyes searching his.

His brows twitched. “I don’t know about Ron, but I’m always looking for some kisses from you. You’ve, right, you’ve been drained for the past few days, so neither me nor my,” He looked toward the slumbering bear. “beautiful brother wanted to bother you.” He looked back down at you, breaths deep and long.

You smiled evidently before locking your arm around his neck. “If you get sick, don’t come crying to me.” You whispered before closing the space between the pair of you. Your lips locked with his as perfectly as they locked with Ron’s. It was strange. They were similar, but they had significant differences — and those differences should’ve made one of them mold less perfectly against you, but as Reggie lifted his body so that he could rest on top of you, you found no flaw. Opening your legs, your hands moved to his sides, losing yourself in the kiss he gave you. Both of you knew that Ron was the heaviest sleeper, and even if he did wake, he wouldn’t care about what the two of you were doing. Losing yourself in Reggie’s touch, you seeped further and further into the man’s touch, each one of your shallow breaths growing hotter and heavier.

This would go on until Reggie tried to slyly roll your dress up and get his fingers between your thighs, but just because you were letting him kiss you didn’t mean you were going to sleep with him. You bit his tongue playfully, but hard enough to warn him not to try and go any further. His kisses grew slower, softer, sleepier and they continued on like that until he whispered against your lips.

“I love you.” His confession made your insides burn. You were fully aware of the fact, but it would never fail to make you feel all fuzzy and shy. Kissing him once more, you watched him as he rolled off your body and snuggled into the pillow.

“I love you too.” You reminded him before setting your hand on his chest. Caressing his stomach slowly, your heavily beating heart thumped noisily against your rib cage as you settled down for sleep. Ron’s body molded against your back and your front molded against Reggie’s side. This was your typical sleeping position, and one that left you feeling extremely snug.

—

Morning came quicker than any of you would’ve liked. The sun was high, beaming down on rooftops and shining through windows that had the curtains already drawn. You woke with a clear throat, a fine head, and no pain in your body whatsoever. Grinning like a child on Christmas, you pushed yourself up on to your knees and knelt on the mattress. Shaking both of the men’s arms, your fingers sunk into their soft flesh. “Wake up!” You gleefully whimpered. Feeling better meant not having to be so careful — not having to worry or stay indoors, not having to deprive yourself of the Kray’s.

Ron was first to wake and when he did, he thought he’d been shot. His hand lifted to his head, cradling the aching backside. He wrinkled his nose and brows up in distaste before slowly sitting up. A low moan of pain left his lips before he looked toward you, bleary eyed and half asleep. “What’s the matter?” His rough voice filled the room.

“Nothing, Nothing.” Your hand moved to his leg. “I was just.. saying that I felt better.” You tipped your head to one side. “But it looks like you feel the opposite.” Moving your hand along his thigh and up to his belly, you crawled closer. “What’s the matter?”

Ron shook his head softly. “I’m alright, just a bit of a headache.”

Your brows twitched. “That’s funny. That’s exactly what I said and it turned out to be the very first symptom of..”

Reggie woke with a harsh cough and an ache in his chest. Sitting up hurriedly, he let out a heavy, hoarse utterance of complaint before shielding his eyes. “Fucks sake.” He hissed. Your brows creased then.

It took a moment for it to dawn on you why the both of them were sick, but when it did, you shot up to a standing position on the bed. “See!” You exclaimed. “I told you, didn’t I! I knew you’d both get sick.” Narrowing your eyes toward both blokes, you leapt off the bed and folded your arms. ��I told you so’ simmered in your eyes and the words built in your chest but you bit back the urge to rub it in their faces. Shifting slowly, you shook your no longer aching head and tutted softly. “Looks like I’ll be the one caring for the both of you this time.” Giving a smug grin, you took a small step back before yanking the door open and rushing from the room before either of them could stop you.

Reggie and Ron exchanged a look of distaste. They both would much rather take care of you instead of you taking care of them, but they didn’t voice that. They saw the happiness twinkling in your eyes over the fact that you got to return the favor. They both bit their tongues and slouched against the mountain of pillows.

Both Kray’s were sick, but there was no need to worry. They were in good hands, just as you’d been.

———————————————————————

Tagged: @peakblogbecauseimweak @bsotstory @mollybegger-blog @morphoportis @ghost-of-student-sufferings @drippydownes2002 @ellar21 @sovereigngoth @willowick13 @xxxxxeroxxxxx @wheresthewater @anrm1 @pansexualginger @marvelgirl7 @evilspretty-dead @heyitscam99 @wow-he-cute @haroldpain @justrepostandlove @sparklyreaderx @emerald-bijou @multireality @innerpaperexpertcloud @goodiesintheclosetlove @giftofdreams @ihclipse @meer0rauschen @inkedfandom @thatsamegirl @doct0rstrange @jakechillenhaal @shanty-lol @centerhabit @clevertheoristpainter @jamierdr @favouritereadings @badmaax @thephuonganh @wewillfindourwaythere @uhhhemilyrose @scarrasco1325 @matoki-darkpanda @bignastyfan-nz @97freaknik @captainbuckyboobear @hot-and-spiceyyy @azayamari @shane-isa-shame

[garden-ghoul]

Gerry and Gerty’s funeral home caper lmao

There is something perilously easy about Gertrude’s professional usage of her tools, Gerard included. Let him just say that it’s lucky he never got into the habit of calling Mary ‘Mum,’ or he would have accidentally done the same to Gertrude. As much as he likes Gertrude he is aware of how dangerous it would be to let her know how he feels about her—that he feels, even. Every other person she has ever worked with has been disposable, and Gerard isn’t about to add himself to that list for the crime of being inconveniently emotional.

They’re in Los Angeles at the moment, for once relaxing while they wait for one of their Hunters to break cover. Gerard is generally wary of any place with too many approaches, but it’s pretty funny to see Gertrude trying to blend in with normal people out for a holiday. She’s sitting on a beach towel with her sleeves rolled up as a small concession to the heat. Reading, of course, a war history with the battlers’ miniscule eyes carefully excised from the cover; she rolls a scalpel absently between her fingers, ready for the moment when she turns the page to find another illustration. The towel, pink and orange and bought by Gerard expressly to look ridiculous, is already littered with tiny diamonds of paper. All carefully turned blank-side-up.

For his part Gerard is taking the opportunity to meet the ocean. Just at its edge it holds little of the Vast about it, so he stands watching little waves wash over the eyes that watch over his ankles, slightly hypnotized. It’s a bit kiddish of him, but he has no interest in staying inside Gertrude’s personal space bubble, which today is roughly two meters in diameter. He could be looking for shells, but he wants to not be looking for anything for a little while.

Still, every so often (carefully timed to minimize strain) he looks through the lens of himself at the taquería where their Hunter is lingering over lunch. This is his part, as Gertrude actively avoids using or even receiving gifts from the Eye—Gerard has long learned that beggars can’t be choosers—but his gut burns with the desire to avoid disappointing her. Yes, even though he recognizes that he shouldn’t care, that it’s dangerous for him to care. He tells himself not to and then does anyway, damn her. Damn her for being just slightly more like a proper mother or even a proper friend. Actively cutting out his feelings like paper eyes is exhausting, but at least it’s a convenient reminder to distrust her.

Ah. There. He sloshes out of the shallows and back toward the towel, where he starts rubbing the sand off his feet so he can put his boots back on.

Gertrude looks up over the top of her book. “She’s moving, then?”

“Yeah. Looked like she was just heading up that big street there.”

Gertrude rises like a wading bird, brushing a few stray eyes off her blouse, and snaps her book shut. Gerard hastily does up the laces on his boot and follows. “Leave the towel,” she says as if she knows he was about to pick it up and start folding it. “Heaven knows we have no use for it.”

“That was ten dollars,” he says mildly. Mostly he’s just peeved he won’t get to see her sitting on it again.

“Time is worth far more than money,” she says. Right, he thinks as she starts toward the road with strides as long as her short legs can manage. That’s why we’ve been hanging out at the seaside for two hours. Gertrude is probably never going to admit that she very occasionally enjoys ‘relaxing.’

He catches up to her in a few steps. “Does that mean you’ll pay me back for the towel, then?”

“I paid for your tickets to this country.”

“Fair enough. Oh, hang on, she’s turned. This way.”

They follow the Hunter a little over a mile, by which time both of them are sweating through their shirts. Gerard may slightly regret his pride in refusing to wear anything but black jeans, but he’d no more admit it than Gertrude would admit she regrets wearing long sleeves. There’s something unfortunately kind of charming in the fact that she won’t stop dressing like an Archivist even while on the hunt. It’s integrated into her personality—oh, hang on, that’s not charming, that’s worrying.

Gerard does not like the Archivist anywhere near as much as he likes Gertrude Robinson.

“She’s gone into… a funeral home. Bit odd for a Hunter. But I know what I Saw,” he assures Gertrude.

“Hm,” she says. “We’re going to wash our faces and have some lunch.”

Gerard doesn’t ask any questions. He’ll understand why in a bit, and he is very hungry. They stop in at some kind of health food place a couple buildings down. Gertrude has an unfortunate liking for salads—at least, unfortunate for Gerard, who never quite made it to whatever social class you’ve got to be to actually enjoy eating quinoa. He gets a salad with both chicken and bacon, which is the best he can do, and slowly freezes in the air conditioning in his damp clothing.

“I’m sure you can guess the plan, as this isn’t the first funeral home we’ve infiltrated,” Gertrude tells him. He nods. “Is the Hunter still inside?”

He pauses his chewing and focuses inward. “Difficult to tell. She’s inside a building, at least. In what looks like an office, talking to a man in business formal. He’s not afraid of her.” He hisses through his teeth and lets it go. “That’s it. My head is done with Seeing for today. Would it kill you to learn this too?”

“Possibly,” she says coldly. They don’t speak for the rest of lunch, leaving Gerard to wonder whether she expects it to kill him, or worse. Still disposable, but sturdy at least, he thinks sourly. Gertrude doesn’t speak, in fact, until they enter the funeral home and the director or secretary or something comes and greets them. Then she says, with just enough of an edge of bitter tiredness,

“Comparison shopping. I’m sure you of all people know a funeral has to be perfect.”

The woman’s eyes flick from Gertrude to Gerard. “Your husband?”

“Yes. Heart attack.”

She smiles sympathetically at both of them but especially at Gerard, who’s hanging back looking uncomfortable and glancing around at everything. A pity his head is splitting open, or he’d be able to tell from this distance exactly where the Hunter is. Gertrude asks for a tour so she can wave him around like a lint roller picking up signs of the Hunter’s passing through. And the Hunter has been here, recently. Gerard leans against the walls in a corner between two tall potted plants while Gertrude spins some bullshit about immigrating for a professorship at UCLA. He lets his eyes close and leans his head back tiredly, trying to feel through the walls and through his headache. The Hunter is almost certainly still here.

“Thomas,” snaps Gertrude, and he jolts back to attention. “Don’t lurk in corners.”

He pushes off and slouches toward her. “Would you relax, Mum? He’s not gonna get any deader from me not paying attention. It’s peaceful here. I think he’d like it.” She shoots him a tired, irritated look, and he shoves his hands back in his pockets. “I can just see him being here, is all.” Her eyebrows do the little message-received twitch, and she turns back to the director to start making arrangements. She’ll stall as long as she can; he wanders off to inspect a couple of promising doors.

This turns out to be a mistake, though he doesn’t realize it until halfway through picking a lock he hears a thump in the front room. He pauses just long enough to hear another one before he sprints back out to find Gertrude losing a wrestling match over a baseball bat with the funeral director.

“Hey! What are you doing!” he yells. The director kicks Gertrude in the chest, sending her flying into the wall, and turns toward him. “She’s frail, Mum is!” The director is just confused enough (and small enough) that he can bowl her over and take the bat. He goes for a blow on the back of the neck, harder to misjudge than the temple, and she slumps to the floor.

He pauses a moment, breathing hard before he drags her into the office by the front desk. Then he comes out and crouches by Gertrude, balancing himself with the bat. “You alive?”

Gertrude groans in response and tries to sit up. “I may have a concussion.”

“Anything else?” She shakes her head carefully and accepts his hand up. “But you’re still in no condition to be hunting Hunters, and I’d rather not either. I’m not exactly a martial arts specialist. Or a baseball player.”

“Hmh,” says Gertrude. “This may be our only opportunity.”

“You make opportunities, Gertrude. That’s precisely what you do. So don’t give me that bullshit.”

“We are running out of time. Let me tell you something, Gerard. The way I create opportunities is by not ignoring them when they are dropped in front of me on a silver platter. This is such an opportunity. And with some ingenuity none of this will prevent us from seizing it. We simply need to disguise our presence.”

He lets her boss him into camouflage while she goes to the nearest convenience store for ice. And then he spends the next five hours tailing the Hunter all over the city, gritting his teeth through his steadily worsening headache every time he loses her. He can’t even be that angry at Gertrude, because she’s right: this is invaluable information they couldn’t have gotten at any other time. They have a comprehensive list of allies, and they’ve confirmed that three powers are allied for this ritual.

No, screw that, he can be mad at her when he stumbles into the motel room two hours past dark and she’s freshly showered and reading her history book. “Tell me what you found,” she says.

He kicks off his boots with so little coordination that he falls onto the bed and just lies there.

“Gerard.”

“Yeah, hi,” he says into the bedspread. “I feel like I got repeatedly hit by a truck. You’re very welcome for doing one hundred per cent of the work.” She waits in frosty, expectant silence until he digs his phone out of his pocket and chucks it at her. “It’s all in my notes. I’ll talk t’you about it in the morning, if I’m alive then.”

Despite how much his head hurts he starts to fall asleep almost instantly. So he’s never quite sure whether he dreams her very quiet “Thank you, Gerard.”

NOTES: You know, I thought for a long time that Gerry didn’t actually have any powers from Beholding, until yesterday when I listened to First Aid again and realized he was somehow using the same knowledge-seeking power Elias has to find out passcodes. I just assume he’s not as good at it. And we do know Gertrude never even learned any other languages… unless of course she was just pretending to keep Michael out of her hair. The point is Gertrude has never demonstrated any Archivist powers so I assume she found it distasteful.

[mortaljin]

Meadows Part One

Word Count: 8.2k Warnings: uh there’s a couple curse words, mentions of emotional abuse and attempted physical abuse.(The abuse is very vague and I do not go into detail whatsoever) Genre: Angst and some fluff. Fairy!au Pairing: Hoseok x female reader.

Summary: You plant flowers because there is no consequence to accidentally killing one, that’s why you don’t have a pet. Your life becomes a lot more stressful one day, however, when you barter for an exotic flower seed at your local market place. No matter what you do, it won’t grow. The old woman who gave it to you gave you no instructions, other than adequate water and sunlight, on how to care for the flower. You were about to give up, ready to smash the flower pot to smithereens, when the softest, faintest voice begs you not to. You were just hearing things, right? It’s not like the voice came from the seed, right?

A/N: Hello, I hope you guys like this first installment. There will probably only be two parts, with a potential for an epilogue. I wanted to post something tonight, and the plot idea running through  my brain for this fic wouldn’t allow me to finish it any time soon. Enjoy!! Edit: Reposted this because I made a few changes (Not to plot, just format)

Part One | Part Two | Part Three | Part Four | Part Five | Part Six | Part Seven | Epilogue

Masterlist

March

The smell of your makeshift balcony garden wafted through the open sliding door and filled your entire apartment with the floral scent. When guests came over, they were always pleasantly surprised to see such a well-kept flower garden on an apartment balcony. Granted, your balcony was fairly larger than most apartments, but a garden of this magnitude is rarely seen on one. Today you could be found, once again, trimming the stems and leaves of flowers that needed to be pampered and pruned. As a small child, you were always fascinated with the idea of growing flowers; the dandelions in your front yard always signaled a season of good times, and you wanted to be able to recreate that with more extravagant flowers. People often questioned your love and dedication to something as minute as flowers, and often wondered why you didn't get a pet. You would jokingly answer saying that it's not the end of the world if you kill a flower, but there was always truth behind the playfulness. The idea of taking care of an animal terrified you, and instead of running the risk of being a horrible animal owner, you opted for the simplicity of taking care of the less sentient species of life.

You were on a mission today. Your garden had always been an unorganized array of vivid color, and that has never bothered you until you woke up this morning, itching for the opportunity to organize something, anything. The original plan was just to move the pots around a bit, but you got carried away with the upkeep of taking care of the flowers. As you stood hovered above the foliage-filled trash can, your eyes caught sight of a magnet on your fridge. It was a handmade rainbow magnet that one of your younger cousins had made for you. You admired the bright colors, and your heart began to buzz with warmth in your chest. Looking down at the Sweet Peas in your hand, you noticed that the purple of them matched almost exactly to the purple of the rainbow magnet. Instantly, a new idea formed in your head.

"I'll arrange my porch like a rainbow!" Your overly excited squeal had you face-palm and you laughed at your zeal for gardening. It wasn't that hard to arrange the flowers, and the fact that your balcony was slightly rounded made it look even more like a rainbow. Shifting the pots color by color, you actually had a small section left for a few more flower pots when you were done. Looking over your organized masterpiece, you realized something crucial was missing. I don't have any yellow flowers! The thought screamed through your head and you were slightly annoyed that your rainbow balcony was missing a color, a primary of all things. You looked at the clock and realizing you still had the entirety of your Sunday left, you headed out towards a marketplace to find a damned yellow flower.

Passing by the different flower kiosks, you were quickly greeted by many of their owners. It was no secret in this small town that you adored flowers, and you were probably one of, if not the most, regular customer. Although you were good at keeping flowers healthy and growing, you still had to be mindful of how much work and dedication it would cost you. The large box you had brought with you was already full of a few flowers; you had picked up some premature snapdragons, daffodils, and lugilarias, and was excited to tend to these little babies over the summer. At first, you thought the three would suffice, and so by the time you had scaled the entire marketplace, or so you thought, you were ready to head home. As you crossed diagonally through the area, you noticed out of the corner of your eye a little old woman sitting at a small table. Well she's new to the marketplace, you thought, seeing as you had never seen her, or her kiosk here before. You weren't sure what it was, but something about this mysterious new seller had caught your attention and was almost calling you to her table. Upon approaching the table, you weren't exactly sure what it was she was selling. There were bowls of different sizes, filled with beads of sorts.

"Um what exactly-" but she cut you off with a laugh and a gummy grin that was missing a few teeth.

"Seeds my dear! Flower seeds to be exact!" Your heart almost gave way to her explanation, and you found yourself inching closer to the bowls. Upon closer inspection, you noticed that she was telling the truth. After having planted enough flowers, you knew that some of them were for some flowers you've already grown. You walked along the little table, eyeing each bowl carefully. At the end of the table were three bowls colored red, blue, and yellow, and inside each one was a singular seed. "Ah, I knew those would catch your eye."

"Well, you do only have one of each. What kind of flower seeds are they? I don't think I've ever seen any like this."

"That's because they're not from here, deary!" You raised a quizzical brow to her statement, and she laughed again at your skepticism. "Don't worry, they will grow here, and just about anywhere. Just don't move to the Antarctic, or to the Sahara Desert for that matter either."

"You won't tell me what kind of flower will grow from them?" She just shook her head, saying something about there being no fun in knowing what they will be. Part of you wanted to leave, but the other part of you, the one with the love for gardening, was intrigued by the idea of having a unique flower in your garden.

You eyed the three bowls carefully, and for a moment it reminded you of when you were younger and had to choose between starter Pokémon. The red bowl contained a dark seed, it was small, and was perfectly round. In the next bowl over was a white seed, shaped like a lopsided heart, and was decently sized. Finally, in the yellow bowl was an extremely large bulb, and you instantly realized you wouldn't choose this one due to the likelihood of it being a common tulip. You pondered between the red and blue bowls for an eternity. The black seed was as mysterious as this random seed seller, and it was almost alluring. The white seed, however, looked so unique and you knew it would bloom into an exotic flower. If these flowers bloom anyways.

"Which one do you think I should choose? I don't have any idea what kind of flower they will bloom into and how to take care of them!" You sounded a little bit more exasperated than you should've been, but the box of flowers still in your arms was starting to grow heavy. She shrugged and held out a coin towards you.

"Flip a coin and let the Fates decide for you!" You had to feign kindness and prevent yourself from rolling your eyes. Setting the box on the ground, you quickly grabbed the coin from her frail hand.

"Okay then," you muttered under your breath, "heads is the black seed I guess?" She continued to stare at you as you flipped the coin in the air, and you held your breath. You caught the coin and slapped it over onto the back of your hand, revealing the head side of the coin. You glanced at the black seed, and for the briefest second a feeling of disappointment washed over you. Shaking your head at the women, you made your choice.

"I want the white seed, I don't think the Fates knew what I wanted."

"Perhaps then that it is part of your fate to choose part of your own path." She gave you a soft smile as she carefully wrapped the seed in wrapping paper and placed it in a little box. It's a seed, a little bag would have sufficed.

"Oh! How much do I owe you for the seed? I hope it's not terribly expensive!" You began reaching for your wallet inside your purse when she stopped you.

"Don't worry dear, I don't sell these for cash. I'm a traveling woman and I like to collect things from places, trading as I go. That's why I've collected these odd seeds."

"Oh, uh I don't think I have anything worth trading for such a special seed, I'm sorry." She lifted a bony finger towards your neck implying she was interested in your necklace. Immediately your hand flew to the pendant hanging from the chain. Your chest swelled, and your throat felt tighter within an instant. This was a gift from your boyfriend, well, now ex-boyfriend. The two of you broke up almost four months ago after catching him cheating on you. The relationship was not healthy, to begin with, and although you are much safer and well off by being apart, you were still clinging to the image of how good he was at the beginning of your two-year relationship.

"Sometimes you have to let go of what hurts to get to what heals you." Her soft whisper of words left you stunned, and for a minute you wondered if she had just read your mind. Your hands began to shake as you reached around your neck to unclasp the necklace. Once removed, your hand hesitated for a second before releasing the burden into her hand. Her eyes twinkled as she gave you that big toothless grin again, and you felt yourself automatically reciprocating it. You bid her farewell and picking up your box of flowers, you made your trek back home, your new possession safely in your purse.

"Wait! How do I take care of-" After a few moments of walking away, you abruptly turned on your heels to ask her how much water and sunlight the flower needed, if she even knew? When you turned around though, the woman was already gone, as well as her makeshift kiosk. It was almost as if she had vanished into thin air. That was certainly a strange experience.

Thankfully the ordeal with the mysterious seed seller in the marketplace only transpired over the course of twenty minutes, so your afternoon of gardening was still open. You made haste in placing your new yellow flowers in their respective section of your floral rainbow and went to find a pot and dirt for the new seed. As you removed the white seed from the box, a little piece a paper fluttered to the ground. You picked it up and turned it over in your hand to read the little note that was written on it: I need lots of sunlight, and an average amount of water, but don't drown me! I can't wait for you to meet me! You weren't exactly sure when the woman had written the note, but it was cute and made you a little bit more excited to grow the flower. You placed it in a pot, and again you cringed. This little pot was one your ex-boyfriend had gotten you for valentine's day last year, and if you had any other pot you would have smashed this one to pieces. I'll have to find a new one later. The seed was packed into the pot, watered, and placed into the sun. You weren't sure how successful your green thumb would prove to be this time, but your heart thumped at the new adventure.

April.

It had been two weeks since you bought the mysterious seed at the marketplace, and there has been no sign that it was blooming. You thought that perhaps it was getting too much sunlight, so you moved it into the shade for a few more hours a day. After nothing else, you decided to experiment with the water. You increased the amount of water, the water intervals, and even the type of water. No change you made seemed to do anything to make life sprout from the pot. Feeling defeated that morning when you woke up, you didn't even bother to water the pot before heading off to start your long day of events, and almost forgot to water it before you went to bed that same night.

It was nearly midnight when you finally stepped out onto your balcony, checking one last time on your other flowers. Standing in front of your lifeless flower pot, a wave of melancholic emotions washed over you. As of an hour ago, it had been exactly four months since you left your cheating ex-boyfriend. Staring at your flowers, you realized your passion for gardening only came from the need to distract yourself. You had poured yourself into two years of a toxic relationship, and you realized that at least flowers could show their appreciation by growing. The tears began to stream down your face as sobs racked through your chest, and you weren't sure how long it was that you had been standing there, tears dripping into the pot of soil. With a hiccup and a wipe of your sleeve, you were able to see through your slightly blurry eyes and you stared down at the pot. Like a child, you stomped your foot in frustration. Anger at the world was being released and you started to pick up the pot. You were ready to hurl it over your balcony, but the faintest, softest whisper entered your left ear and you stopped in your tracks.

"Please don't break the pot, I'm growing I promise!" The voice was quiet and you spun around to see where it was coming from. Nothing or no one could be seen around you. It's just my imagination. I'm exhausted and upset. I'm just hallucinating and hearing things, you thought this to yourself with a laugh. Had you not imagined the pot's plea for help, you still would've felt bad for tossing the pot. You made a mental note to get a new pot so you actually could smash this one. Shutting the sliding door, you gave once last glance to the empty balcony and made your way to your room to attempt a good night's rest.

With the spring sun shining directly onto your balcony, you were able to get work done without feeling the slightest chill. It had been two days since your meltdown over the empty pot, and you were finally getting around to replacing it with a new one. The one you had bought was completely unlike the other plain terra-cotta pots that you had collected over the years; this one was black with a shiny coat. There was a cheesy quote calligraphed on one side that reads "every flower is a soul blossoming in nature," and you found it too cute to not purchase. When you began to re-pot the seed, you almost dropped it in excitement to see that roots actually had started to sprout from it. You quickly switched its home and placed it back into its spot on the balcony. A sense of accomplishment came to you as you realized you had made another conscious effort to heal from your ex, and you picked up the old pot, finally ready to rid yourself of it.

"Oh my god, I was wondering if you were ever going to put me in a new pot!" The voice from two nights ago appeared again, but this time it startled you because you knew you weren't just hearing things. In your fright, you managed to drop the pot, the terra-cotta shards flying all over the balcony. "Well, I didn't think you would actually smash that pot, but good going!"

"What the hell? Who's saying that?" The question came out as an assertive scream, yet you were trembling with fear. You glanced fervently around you, and still, there was no one to be found.

"Uh, I'm right behind you?" The voice said this, and his tone made it seem like it was obvious.

You held your breath as you slowly turned on the spot, and you almost fainted at the sight before you. Standing on your railing was a man. Well not actually a man, he was about six inches tall, but it still looked like a man. Quickly you pinched yourself to wake up from the dream you were having. To no avail, the six-inch man was still there. You stepped forward slightly, and with squinting eyes, you noticed something behind him. Those are wings, you gasped again at the realization, warranting a slap in your face. The winged creature rolled his eyes and jumped from the balcony to fly in front of your face. You blinked slowly for a few seconds before you finally found the ability to speak again.

"What the hell are you?" It came out as a whisper but the creature heard you nonetheless. He fluttered in circles above your head before coming to sit on your shoulder. This caused you to visibly stiffen, and he left again when he noticed your discomfort.

"I'm a fairy, obviously!" You wanted to laugh at him thinking the answer was obvious but you were still in shock. "Specifically, I'm a fairy for that flower right there!" He pointed at the repotted plant, and you noticed that something had started to burst through the soil. "I couldn't grow properly because that pot was filled with too much evil. Thank you for changing it for me!" You just nodded your head as the gears in your brain started turning in overtime.

"I'm dreaming, I have to be dreaming. Fairies aren't real." You repeated this over and over again before you felt something poke your nose. The fairy-thing in front of you seemed to be flicking your nose, but it didn't have much power behind it.

"Of course, they are! Fairy flowers don't grow near human settlements, so I'm confused how you got a hold of that seed. I'm glad you've been watering me properly, although you almost overdid it the other day." At the mention of water, your eyes darted towards the full glass on the table. His eyes met yours, and with realization as to your next move, his face filled with horror. You quickly grabbed the glass and stood by the pot. "Please don't dump that in the pot, you already watered me this morning!"

But you didn't listen. You slowly poured the water into the pot as you kept your gaze on the fairy. As the water landed in the pot, you could see the fairy's wings start to wilt and he had to struggle to keep himself afloat in the air. You dumped the rest of the glass into the pot and the fairy landed on the ground with a silent thud. You walked over to the fairy, and you picked him up, noticing that he looked sick and he was soaking wet. Reality hit you like a freight train and you finally accepted that he was telling the truth and that he was, indeed, a fairy. You began to panic as you looked at his state.

"Oh my god I'm so sorry what do I do? I didn't think you would actually be affected!"

"Sunlight" was all he could croak out, and you rushed to bring both him and the potted plant to the hottest part of the balcony. For ten minutes you stood in silent shock, staring at the fairy in front of you, basking miserably in the sunlight.

"You're awful you know that, right?" You were pulled out of your bubble of thought at the fairy's statement. You sat next at the table and leaned forward slightly to be face to face with the fairy that had sat up from his spot in the sun.

"I'm sorry, okay? Something like you can't show up out of nowhere and not expect me to do something drastic to prove it!" You hung your head in your hands, both in disbelief and in apology as to what had happened. "Are you okay though?"

"Oh, me? Yeah, I'm fine, just don't water me until tomorrow night please." You nodded your head at his request and curiosity began to bubble inside of you.

"What's your name?" The question seemed simple enough, yet he rose his eyebrows at you anyways. "Do fairies even have names?"

"A fairy makes contact with a human for the first time in decades, and your first question is what my name is?" Again, you nodded your head, and the fairy chuckled. "My name is Hoseok, what's yours?"

"I'm Y/N. Next question, why didn't I see you the other night when you told me not to break the pot?"

"Oh, that. Yeah, I wasn't big enough for you to see me." You tilted your head in confusion and he continued. "The more you take care of the flower, the more I grow. Once the flower is fully grown, I'll be normal sized, like you. Or taller, or shorter. I'm not sure where you stand on the average height scale." You felt as though your neck would be sore tomorrow from all the nodding you were doing.

"Okay, sounds legit." The two of you sat in awkward silence for a few seconds as you tried to work through the list of questions you had for him. He broke the silence with a question that caught you off guard.

"Y/N, why was that flower pot filled with so much hate?" You stared at the remains of the shattered pot, and you had to choke down the tears welling up in your eyes.

"Oh well, um." You thought carefully of the words you were going to choose. Not many people knew about the bad side of your relationship with your ex, and you weren't sure how to tell it to a member of the supernatural. "It was a gift from someone. This person became increasingly awful and destructive to me, and I think when I would garden and use that pot, I poured my hatred for this person into it." You sniffled slightly and quickly ran your hand over your eyes to remove any tears that were threatening to fall. "That person is out of my life though, that's why I wanted to smash the pot."

"You were upset because this evil person is gone?" Hoseok looked stunned at his assumption, and you smiled gently and waved it off.

"No, I think I was upset that I let them harm me like that in the first place." A look of sympathy washed over Hoseok's face, and the little fairy hugged your hand in comfort.

"I'm glad that they're not hurting you anymore."

"So, uh, what do you do now?" You quickly changed the subject to ask the real question at hand. "I mean, will you be living on my porch?"

"Well, not necessarily. I can go and fly away and do as I please, but I have to stay in the general vicinity of the flower. Which brings me to ask you. Where did you get that flower?"

"I got it from a random lady selling flower seeds at a street market." The nonchalant shrug made Hoseok furrow his brows, wondering how that would have even been possible.

"Strange. Well, I don't actually know what I'm supposed to do. These flowers are near my village, so I didn't have to worry about going anywhere to do anything. I'm not even sure where I am." You quickly explained what part of the world you were living in, and the two of you discussed the different landscapes and flora found in each other's worlds.

During the conversation, you learned many things about Hoseok, and fairies in general. You had asked the question about what happens when the flower dies, and you wondered if that meant the fairy attached to it would die as well. Initially, Hoseok had told you no, that the fairies don't die when the flower wilts. The fairy flowers still followed the course of nature like normal flowers did, blooming with one season, and dying with the next. They also followed the course of nature when it came to reblooming the following year; the seeds dropped to the ground and waited patiently for the next season to bloom. This confused you, what happens to the fairies while they wait for the next season to bloom? When a flower wilts, the fairy's body disappears with it, the life energy gets put back into the new seed. When the next season's flower blooms, they start over again, starting small and gradually working their way up to normal size.

"Wait, so you guys just keep getting reincarnated forever?" Supernatural things seemed plausible, they had to be, obviously, but immortality did not.

"No, we aren't completely immortal. At some point in the distant future, I will reach my last cycle of reincarnation and be gone forever, the next flower to bloom will contain a newborn fairy ready to repeat the same cycle I did."

"You're the same fairy every time your flower reincarnates?" This was all getting a little too confusing.

"Pretty much, let me put it into simpler terms. A fairy is born, and looks just like a baby, right? Fairies exist almost like humans do, except not having to have human food as substance. The baby fairy lives out its first season, only growing to the size of how a normal nine-month human baby would look." He paused to make sure you were still following along, and you urged him to continue. "Well, when it's time to be reincarnated, the baby comes back as a super tiny version of how he was before his cycle ended. Then the baby grows normally and starts to look like an eighteen-month-old baby. Gets reincarnated as a tiny eighteen-month-old, then grows into a baby who is over a year and a half old. So on and so forth. It's like how humans grow and get older, but with a short break in between. Make sense?" You wrapped the explanation around your mind, and you understood what he had said, but none of this made any sense. How did you manage to find a magic flower?

"Mostly. So what age would you be then?" This was something you weren't sure about. He looked like a miniature adult at the very least.

"Well, this is my twenty-fourth cycle, making me the equivalent of a twenty-four-year-old human. When the flower fully blooms, you won't even be able to tell I'm a fairy! Except for when you see my wings." There was a pause. "You are going to continue growing the flower, right?" His eyes filled with worry for a moment, and you patted him on the head with a few of your fingers.

"Well of course, how stupid would I be to let a magical flower wilt on purpose?" You laughed at your joke, and Hoesok smiled at you. "Anyways, this is kind of a lot to take in and I need a nap. Will you stay out here, or would you want to come inside?"

"I'll stay out here, it's fine." You bid him farewell and went back inside your apartment. The nap waiting for you was calling for you, but not before you stopped for a glass of wine in your kitchen to help you wrap your mind around the newfound knowledge.

Your nap had been going perfectly. You had a dream that you could remember for the first time in weeks; you were in a meadow filled with beautiful spring flowers of all kinds, some you recognized and some you didn't. The sun was shining and people were prancing and galloping through the flora all around you. Suddenly, a horrible high-pitched noise rang through the meadow, causing everyone to run away in terror. You opened your eyes when the dream had ended, rolling over to find that the noise was coming from your cell phone. You glanced at the unknown number for a moment, debating on whether to answer it or not.

"If it's important, they'll leave a voicemail or call again." You sighed heavily and closed your eyes again, wanting to continue the peaceful vision in your head. Your eyes shot open and you grunted heavily as your phone once again began to ring from the unknown number. "Hello?" you groggily asked after you pressed the receive button and held the phone up to your ear.

"Y/N?" It was a man's voice that you heard from the other end of the call, and you didn't think you recognized it.

"This is her. Who am I speaking to?"

"It's me, Jackson, can't you recognize my voice?" You lurched forward into a sitting position as you did begin to realize the familiar voice. "Are you busy today?"

"Why does that matter, Jackson?" The reply came out like a hiss, but you didn't care. He had no right to be questioning your whereabouts.

"Don't be like that, Y/N. I just wanted to catch up with you."

"I don't care, goodbye." You angrily ended the phone-call, and your heart was threatening to beat out of your chest. Without even thinking about it, you stormed off to your balcony in hopes to find something to calm your green thumb. Opening the sliding door, you realized that you had never bothered to clean up the pot that had fallen earlier that morning. You glanced around, but there was no sign of your new fairy friend. Most people didn't think it would be possible to put passion into sweeping, but you certainly were able to.

"Who the hell does he think he is?" You grumbled to yourself. "Wanting to ‘catch up,' more like wanting to kiss ass is what it sounds like to me."

"Who wants to kiss ass?" Hoseok had just flown over the railing to the balcony before he asked you this, and he had sat himself on your shoulder.

"My ex-boyfriend. I haven't had any contact with him in two months, and he wakes me up from my nap, and for what? To tell me he wants to see me?" You scoffed as you swept the last of the terra-cotta shards into the dustpan. With Hoseok still on your shoulder, you made your way to the garbage can in the kitchen to dispose of the broken pot.

"Did you tell him to leave you alone?" Hoseok's tone seemed very serious when he asked you this, and you grabbed him from your shoulder to place him on the counter facing you.

"Yeah, I did, I told him I didn't care about-" Your rant was cut off by a few raps at your front door. You began to walk towards it before you remembered the fairy that showed up this morning. "Uh, Hoseok?"

"I know, I'm hiding." The little fairy flew off down the hallway, seeing as you had shut the sliding door, and you wondered if it would be easy to find him when you were done with your visitor. You brushed down the wrinkles in your shirt and ran a hand through your hair in the hopes of laying down some of the frizz that had sprung up. You gently opened your front door and the person standing on the other side almost made your heart stop in despair.

"Y/N, wait!" Jackson, of all people, had shown up unannounced and was requesting to be let in. "I just need to talk to you!"

"And why would you need to do that, huh?" Your voice was harsh, and you could see him wince at the tone. "Last time I checked, you have another girl to talk to." Once again you tried to push the door closed, but he was too strong. He did not force himself in, however, despite the fact that you knew he was capable of doing so.

"I left her, weeks ago." The seriousness in his voice let you know that he was telling the truth, and finally, you relented on the door and let him step inside, but no further than the little rug in front of it. "Y/N please hear me out. I can't live without you. I don't know what I was thinking when I cheated on you. I wish I could blame it on being under the influence of something, but I can't. I was stupid to think that anyone could love me better than you can." His heartfelt confession had brought you to tears, and for a moment you wanted to run into the warmth of his arms. Instead, you straightened your back and lifted your chin.

"I'm sorry Jackson, but I can't." Your words had come out barely above a whisper despite your attempt at feigning confidence.

"Please forgive me, Y/N, I truly am sorry for what I did." Even he had tears threatening to fall, but still, you held strong despite how badly your heart was aching.

"Jackson," you stepped closer to him and looked him directly in the eye, "I forgave you a while back. You need to forgive yourself too." At this confession, he rushed forward to embrace you, but you held a hand to stop him. "I forgive you, and that's it. We both know we're not meant for each other, nor is our relationship a healthy one. Move on, Jackson, that's what I'm trying to do." The shift in his expression made it seem as though a switch inside of him had been flipped. In one swift movement, Jackson had you pinned against the wall and was screaming obscenities in your face.

"What the fuck do you mean you don't want to be with me? You think there's anyone else who's gonna give a shit about you?" The verbal abuse continued as he made derogatory comments about anything and everything about you. When you refused to make any attempt at a reply, his frustration had reached his peak and reared his hand back to slap you.

"Leave." You had managed to catch his hand before it made contact, and the fact that you stood up him for once had him stunned into silence. "I said leave, and do it right now. I will call the police if you don't." The flames in his eyes continued to dance as he stared at you before he pulled away from you.

"Fine, bitch, but you're gonna regret this when you die alone." That was the last thing you heard from him before he stalked out your front door, slamming it behind him. The momentum from the slam caused one of the small picture frames nearby to fall from its place in the wall. Before it was able to hit the ground, little Hoseok had come flying in to save it. He flew it back up to its place and hung it on the hook before turning to stare at your shaking form. Not knowing what to say, he used all of his strength to pull you by the hand to your couch. You sat there for a few minutes, the tears piling in your eyes, but you refused to sob over that evil man any longer.

"Was that the evil man that left you?" Hoseok was the first one to break the silence and you continued to sit there for a few more beats before he asked another question. "Was he always like that?"

"No, he-" your reply got caught in your throat, so you coughed slightly and restarted. "He wasn't always like this, at one point he was very kind and treated me like a princess. A year into our relationship, he started to change. At first, I thought it was stress causing his mood swings, but then he began to verbally attack me; he made comments on my weight, my looks, and other things that made me insecure." The first tear fell. "There were multiple instances, although not very many, where he would grab me and shake me, or push me around. I always had bruises on my arms." A slight stream began cascading from your eyes. "I never th-thought that h-he would tr-try to h-hit me!" Your stuttering sentence had come out in the form of loud, body shaking sobs. You were a mess, and you were aware of the sight you must have made for your new friend, but you were too shaken up to care. In the midst of your wailing, Hoseok had flown to your side and was making circles in the air above your head. Red flecks of sparkling dust began to rain down on top of you, and within seconds you felt your heart beat calm, and your breathing become steadier. After five minutes, you were completely relaxed although slightly stunned at what had just occurred.

"Do you feel better now?" You nodded your head yes in reply.

"What did you just do? I didn't know you could also do magic!" You felt like a little girl with how excited this thought made you.

"It's not necessarily magic. I can't do many things apart from healing people in various ways. I don't have an unlimited supply of it either, I can only dish out what I'm given." You questioningly raised a brow to him. "The happiness and joy I get from other people are what fuels my ‘magic' as you like to call it. No offense, but you've been fairly gloomy for a while." He smirked as he joked, and you couldn't help but giggle as well. You felt yourself calm down to normal, and you were able to continue on with your housework filled day. Hoseok had made the rounds with you, and you found yourself slipping into easy conversation while you did mundane things like dishes, or mopping, or dusting.

"Hoseok, uh, do you think you could you could take this rag and get the dust off the fan blades?"

"What do I look like, your personal fairy maid?" At first, his tone looked as though you had offended him, but then he broke character and erupted into laughter. You fell into a laughing fit with him. He took the rag from your hand, and flew his way to the ceiling fan, causing dust to rain down.

"Hobi, stop it! I don't want to vacuum again!" You shrieked as he continued to let the piles of dust fall down, and you could have sworn you saw him grow an inch at the use of your new nickname for him.

May.

Three weeks. All it took was three weeks of proper water, plenty of sunlight, and all the love that you could put into your green thumbs. Three weeks since Hoseok's first appearance and the flower had completely bloomed. Every morning up to this moment, you would wake up to a slightly taller Hoseok rapping softly on your window to let you know that he was thirsty. This morning, however, there was no knock against your window, and you were concerned that something might've happened. Upon further inspection into your apartment, you found Hoseok in the guest bathroom. Once he had become tall enough to reach the door handle, you opted to leave it unlocked so that he could come and go as he pleased. It was almost scary how human he could seem. As you stood in the doorway of the bathroom, you could tell Hoseok hadn't noticed your presence yet and so you silently admired him. He was most definitely checking himself out in the mirror; he was turning his head every which way, and he was pressing his fingers into every part of his body. His beautiful red hair was full of volume and rested perfectly against his forehead. Cheeks were aglow with life, and you couldn't help but trail your eyes down to his lips. They looked soft and plump, not a single dry spot to be seen in them. His eyes were sparkling, and your heart began to thud in your chest as you saw the way they shined. You took in his height; he seemed to be quite a bit taller this morning than he was last night, and you gulped when you saw how lean and fit he looked. To top off the heart problems you were gradually gaining, Hoseok had shifted his clothes, the ones you gave him once he was tall enough to fit them, and revealed a portion of his alarmingly toned abdomen. You quickly darted back to your room and the sigh that came from your lips was extremely vulgar. With a few pats on your cheeks, you felt as though you were closer to being calm enough to face him.

"Y/N?" a voice came from the bathroom you had just passed, and your heart thudded once more when you heard it sounded just a pitch deeper today. You backtracked your steps and met Hoseok in the bathroom.

"Y-yes?" Good one. He's so going to know that you're nervous.

"Look!" He held up his arms and twirled around in a circle. "I'm fully grown!" The heart palpitations you experienced this morning made sense now that you knew Hoseok was in all of his whimsical beauty.

"That's wonderful!" You couldn't help but grin at his excitement. "Wait, does this mean the flower is fully bloomed?" He nodded his head to you, and without a second thought, you were running to the balcony. An audible gasp filled the air as you took in the beauty of the singular flower in the middle of the black pot. The flower was every bit of exotic that you had imagined it to be; with twenty-four petals of a brilliant fire red and perfectly petite leaves, there was no doubt in your mind that this was a flower that could only be found in dreams.

"Huh, that's strange." Hoseok had snuck up behind you, and it seemed as though he was contemplating something. "Twenty-four petals seem weird. I liked it best when it only had twenty."

"Do you get another petal after each reincarnation?" You had turned to face him when you spoke, and the sight of him staring intently you at you made you want to run and hide in embarrassment.

"Yeah, can you imagine what this bad boy will look like when I turned eighty?" You stifled a laugh as Hoseok made a wide gesture with arms to show how massive the flower will be in the future. Suddenly you started laughing, for no reason, and he looked at you as if you had lost your mind. "Why are you laughing like a maniac?"

"I just, this is surreal you know? I managed to grow the prettiest flower I've ever seen on a balcony, and I grew a fairy along with it. This is insane, are you sure you're real and I haven't been hallucinating for the past few weeks?"

Hobi stared at you intently again, a furrow forming between his brows. His eyes darted downward slightly, and it felt as though time had begun to slow as he stepped forward to close the gap between the two of you. He ducked his head down and placed a kiss on your lips. The only explanation for the sensation it gave you was the magic that made up the essence of Hoseok's soul. Stepping back to look at you, his expression was much softer now and he was looking at you fondly.

"What?" You blinked in surprise, and you knew you were probably standing there like an idiot with your mouth agape.

"I've been wanting to do that since, like, the first time I saw you but I couldn't really do much until I was full grown." You stared in amazement again at his confession. "I've begun growing, no pun intended, quite fond of you, if you didn't know."

"I'm glad the feeling is mutual then," you sighed in contentment after learning that you were not the only one who had budding feelings inside them.

July.

The summer began to pass by in a blissful haze filled with sunshine and warmth. Hoseok was no doubt the mythical representation of the sun and all that was good and joyous in the world. He taught you everything there was to know about his mythical land of fairies; his words sounded like velvet coated children's stories, and every night before bed you asked him to tell you more. Once Hoseok had grown full size, you thought it best for him to actually stay in the house with you, despite his insistence that he could shroud himself from onlookers outside. It wasn't until a few weeks ago that the two of you had grown close enough to share a bed, a nice change from the couch in the living room he had been using. It was another night of having the tv playing softly in the background as the two of you laid entwined with one another under the sheets. Every day you fell deeper and deeper in love with the man who was born from a flower, and every day you yearned to tell him so. Do fairies even say, ‘I love you'? Is it even normal for fairies to have romantic relationships?

"Hobi?" You lifted your head from his chest to look him in the eyes.

"Yes, love?" The fluttering in your chest never seemed to cease no matter how often he called you that.

"Do fairies have relationships like humans do?" You paused, and he looked at you confused. "Like, do fairies date other fairies, get married, and live happily ever after?"

"Why do you ask this?"

"Well, I don't know. I just don't know if this kind of relationship stuff is what you fairy people would normally do." He pulled you a little closer to his chest and you could feel his laughter rumble through him.

"Well pretty much yeah. I can't stress enough that fairies are like 88% like humans, save for obvious details. We love the same, we hurt the same, we feel the same, we just don't live the same is all it really is."

"So, you do date other fairies?" You were trying to get down to the question of asking whether he had a girlfriend before he reincarnated on your balcony, but you weren't sure you wanted to hear the answer.

"Sort of yes, sort of no. After reaching full growth during our twenty-fifth cycle, we are now able to form a bond with our life mate." He looked down at you to find that you were soaking in every word he was saying. "Some fairies choose to date before their twenty-fifth cycle, just to get a feel for interacting with someone in a romantic sense, but others choose to wait until they come of age. There's a fanciful ceremony, like how humans have weddings, but the meaning of the bond goes much deeper. Once this bond is created, the two people are connected through their souls for eternity. It is the closest relationship we can form as fairies."

"Well, what happens when the bonded fairies reach old age and officially die? Is that the end of the bond forever, then?" Hoseok looked at the ceiling in deep contemplation.

"Not exactly. When we reincarnate each cycle, we keep our memories, emotions, personality, etc. from the previous cycle. That's why we don't change drastically each time. When a fairy reaches its final cycle and ‘dies,' as you would put it, the soul itself remains and embeds itself into a new fairy. This fairy starts as a blank slate, with no recollection of his past life. That being said, the new fairy souls still share the previous fairy bonds to an extent, and more often than not, the new reincarnated fairies find their way back to each other." He shrugged his shoulders, "that's what they say anyway, it's not like we can remember who our past selves loved."

It was your turn for deep thoughts as Hoseok went back to laying under you in silence, his gentle fingers traced patterns on your back, and wove themselves through your hair. You hadn't realized that you had been repeatedly sighing until Hoseok said something.

"Y/N, love, is something wrong? You only sigh that often when you're thinking too much." His face was full of concern and worry, and you didn't want to bother him with such trivial things.

"Were there any pretty fairies that you pined for in your previous cycles?" This seemed to have warranted a deep laugh from him, and you hid your face in his chest in embarrassment.

"Ah, so that's what these questions were about, huh?" He kissed the top of your forehead and grabbed your chin to bring you to face him. "Don't worry, Y/N. I don't have another lover that is missing me from my village right now. I chose not to fall for anyone before I come of age." You grinned sheepishly when he told you this, and you could feel your worries start to melt away. His village. When will he be going home?

"Hobi?" You began to ask him about when he would be returning to where he belongs.

"Yes, love?" But, you thought better of it.

"I'm glad you're here in my life" His departure was an answer you wanted to put off for as long as you could.

"As am I glad that you are in mine." You fell asleep to the sound of Hoseok whispering sweet nothings into your ear, and for the moment, everything was as it should be. You dreamt of that perfect meadow full of flowers and fairies again.

[cowchopimagine]

You’re Trembling - Asher x Reader

"24 w/ Asher" "yoo is it a possibility for you to write a part 2 for the fic about asher??"

Requested by: @bananakid42 Word count: 2,002 TW:abuse ——

The sun had disappeared from the sky by the time you finally made it home on Sunday. A cold darkness had spread over your neighbourhood and a gnawing feeling made home in the centre of your chest. You almost wished that you had let Asher walk you home like he wanted to, just so you'd have some sort of distraction for the time being. There'd be a little less time for thinking if he'd come along. You couldn't do that to him, though. Not because he'd have to walk back home in the dark or because you wanted him to get some rest for school tomorrow, but because you already knew that nothing good could be waiting for you when you came home.

You slowly peeled back the flimsy piece of scratched up and dented metal that was the screen door and pulled your keys out of your pocket. Once you found the right one and managed to quietly unlock your front door, you gently slipped into the front room, barely making any noise at all, save for the slight jingling of your keys.

All the lights were still on in the house, which meant that your mother was still up and wandering the house, scowling at anything out of place and bitching at everything that wasn't spotlessly cleaned. You flinched when you heard the sound of deep screaming from the living room, but nevertheless let out the breath that you didn't even realise you had been holding. If your parents were arguing again then that meant that they were sure to not notice your presence. You took this opportunity to walk straight into the hallway and into your room as fast as you could without the floor creaking.

Once inside your room, you threw your bag onto your bed and curled into a ball beside it. You used to do this all the time when you were younger, because you didn't have anywhere else to go. Back then your mother still hit you and your father was still useless, but you didn't realise that that wasn't all there was to life. You didn't know that there was more out there for you than getting beat and yelled at because when you were younger nobody cared that you were hurting and you didn't care for anyone either. In fact, you only started believing that things could be better when Asher came around. He was gentle and helpful and caring. No man had ever been that way towards you, and Asher didn't even do it because he wanted something in return.

You curled yourself tighter thinking about him. Asher was so good to you. You weren't even sure that he tried to be that way, either. That was just the way that he was and you were glad for it. Your eyelashes fluttered closed and you let your muscles relax. The heart that had been beating rapidly in your chest had slowed down significantly.

"(Y/N)!"

You jolted when you heard your mother's scream from the kitchen. You quickly straightened yourself out and slid off your bed, blood cold and feet suddenly wobbly. With slightly shaking hands, you threw open your door in fear of your mother becoming impatient and coming to your room to fish you out herself. It didn't even occur to you that you didn't know how she heard you at all. Part of you must have already known that you'd get caught.

"Y-yes m'am." You managed to stutter out when you got to the end of the hallway.

As you turned the corner into the kitchen, you saw your mother, red faced and holding a dirty pot in one hand. Her upper lip was curled under her teeth in an act of rage and her eyes held the stare of a woman who could not keep herself contained a moment longer. You knew not to be scared — this had only happened a thousand other times — but something inside of you couldn't help but scream for you to turn and dash to the front door. You remained with your feet planted heavy on the carpet.

"What the fuck do you think you're doing, huh?" She snarls. "You thought I wouldn't notice you were here?"

"No, m'am-"

"Don't you know what I told you? I said get out of my fucking house! Who raised you not to listen to what you're told?"

You stayed quiet, eyes flickering between your mother's face and the pot she held. You figured that, at this point, talking would only make things worse.

"Speak to me when I talk to you, child!" Her hand rose and the three pounds of iron in her hand came crashing down onto your shoulder. You gasped in pain, at a loss for any other emotion than shock, despite knowing fully well what was to come. When you collapsed to the floor you were met with another blunt force, this time to your back and again to your shoulder.

"I'm sorry, miss!" You said between her hits. The pot hit the ground by your ear and her hand instead focused its attention to your hair.

She pulled you upward so that your arms couldn't help but reach out to touch the floor in a last ditch attempt at trying to steady yourself. With possibly even more force than she had been using with the pot, her hand came down on your face. Not once and not twice, but repeatedly she pounded your face with her closed palm. Blood from your nose squirted into your mouth and at times all you could see were flashes of light.

Soon enough, you were on your knees on the kitchen floor, slumped into your monster of a mother's hold. Your face felt busted and your body felt exhausted. The blood from your forehead was seeping down into your vision. Although you gasped for breath and begged for relief, you knew what was to come. She let go of  your hair so that you collapsed to the floor and got up to walk out of the kitchen and, finally, you closed your eyes one last time.

With clammy hands and a heart nearly hammering it's way from your chest, you stared into the darkness of Asher's room. The world was still, both outside of the house and inside of the house. The things that you had dreamt were nothing but a fiction of the past.

The sound of the covers close by brought you out of your thoughts of fear as Asher stirred from only about a foot away. Even without the lights on, you could see the outline of his face. His eyes were open and he was facing you with a worried look. You noticed his messy bed head, although you couldn't bring yourself to laugh with the dreadful feeling of anxiety sitting heavy on your shoulders.

"What's wrong?" He asked, voice deep and thick with sleep.

You couldn't seem to catch your voice. "N-noth-thing."

You shifted to lie down against the futon once again, pulling the covers over yourself high enough to reach just under your nose. With your eyes closed, you tried your best to control your shaking body and tight chest. You didn't want to bother Asher with this, especially not so early in the morning, anyway. It wasn't that you didn't trust him with your secret, it was just that you didn't know if he'd want to associate with you afterwards. He could always think that you wanted attention. He could have gotten bored with you and slowly drifted away. You couldn't bear the thought of losing the only person who meant anything to you.

"You're trembling."

Asher sat all the way up and turned towards you. You could tell in his voice that he was concerned, so you opened your eyes and tilted your head his way.

"How c-can you tell in the dark?"

"I can feel you." He said. "What's wrong? Bad dream?"

You nodded and mumbled a small "mhm."

"Do you want to tell me about it?"

This time you sat up, blankets pulled around your shoulders. Asher thought you looked smaller like that. You had always been shorter than him, but fear made you especially tiny and frail. You studied his face for a moment.

"You can tell me." He said when you had been silent so long that he thought you were lost in thought. "I'm not going to judge you."

Your fingers tightened around the blanket as you slowly nodded. Asher was bound to figure it out someday, anyway.

You didn't know how to begin. Would it be from the beginning? Or from the start of yesterday? Asher was sure to piece things together once you started telling him about the dream. He'd seen the bruises peaking out of your shirt and the cuts that sometimes popped up near your face. Not to mention, he had bandaged the "mysterious" cut on your cheek himself. You weren't afraid of your mother, though. You were afraid of what she could do to you. There would be one day when she would push it too far. You probably wouldn't even make it to the end of senior year.

"I-I had a dream that someone killed me."

Asher's eyebrows furrow. "What happened?"

"I walked home tomorrow and..." You paused and tried to catch the breath that was stuck in your throat. Hot tears formed at the corners of your eyes. Ashamed of looking like a fool, you dropped your head down and covered your mouth with your hand.

Asher scooted himself to your side and pulled you towards him. You gave in and buried your face into his chest.

"Is it someone we know?" He asked as he gently stroked your hair. "Do you want me to take care of them for you?"

"You can't," you told him through tears, "there's nothing we can do."

"You don't know that. Who is it?"

You did know that, but you also knew that he was stubborn. If you didn't tell him, he would find a way to figure things out for himself.

"My mom."

The words were so quiet that you almost didn't think he could hear them. Asher's grip around you tightened, though, and you could feel him grow tenser.

"She did this to you? The cut on your face? How long has this been happening?"

You nodded. "A long time."

"(Y/N), you should have told me sooner."

Asher let go of you, but didn't back away. Instead he smoothed some of your hair behind your ear.

"Don't go back there."

"Asher, I don't have anywhere else to go!" You protested. He wasn't seeing the whole reality of the situation.

"Stay here. My parents won't care — they love you. What if you go back and something worse happens to you? I'm your friend, I can't let you get hurt."

You shook your head as you wiped away your tears.

"Just until you can live on your own?" He pleaded, sensing that you weren't going to be reeled into the idea that easily.

You stared at him for a moment before finally agreeing. "Thank you-"

"Don't thank me, you deserve better than her."

With a sniffle, you nodded and let Asher back away again. You laid down on the futon, face pressed into the pillow that Asher had given you before you had gone to sleep, and you pulled the blanket up to your chin. Asher was still partially visible now that your eyes had adjusted to the lack of light. He was lying on his back, eyes fixed to the ceiling and bottom lip pressed between teeth.

"Goodnight, (Y/N)." He said softly.

You reached your hand out from the warm material and slid it over Asher's, which up until this point had been folded over his chest. He gave you a reassuring squeeze in return.

Finally closing your red and puffy eyes, you gave him an even softer, but ever thankful "goodnight." —— I had to take a break for a while because I lost motivation to update but here's something I wrote this week that I felt like posting. Number 24 on the prompt list is "you're trembling."

[hookedonapirate]

Wild at Heart (Chapter 9/?)

Read: Prologue Ch 1 Ch 2 Ch 3 Ch 4 Ch 5 Ch 6 Ch 7 Ch 8

Graphic Art credit to the lovely and wonderful @jell-obeans Thank you so much!

Summary: Born and raised by rich parents, Emma Nolan has always done what’s expected of her, from what clothes to wear to what school to attend, what career to pursue and even who to marry. After graduating from Harvard and going back home to Storybrooke, South Carolina, she agrees to marry Oz Walsh by the wishes of her parents. With a year of engagement behind her, she goes to Boston for business and has to fly back home to get to her wedding. What happens when she has a run-in at the airport with a dashing, blue-eyed thief who is apparently bound and determined to throw a wrench in all of her plans? Will she make it back to Storybrooke on time for her wedding or will she find her home along the way?

Notes:

I decided to divide the final chapter into two parts because it ended up being too long. I don't know why I thought I could cram it all into one chapter. The other part is almost finished, I just have to add a couple of scenes, and will be posted soon.

Thank You, @rouhn, for being wonderful and looking it over and pointing out my mistakes and giving your amazing advice!!!

Hope you all have a happy thanksgiving!

Rating: M

AO3 FFN

Emma was still fuming with anger when she reached Storybrooke; she had actually trusted Killian and thought he was a good guy at heart, but she had been so wrong. Her eyes were swelling up with tears as she pulled off of a highway. She couldn’t believe that he had already known everything about her when they met. It wasn’t a chance meeting; he had tracked her down, watched her the whole time she was in Boston and followed her to the airport. She had been correct before when she had accused him of stalking her!

Maybe she’d given Walsh a reason to be suspicious and maybe she had been wrong to sneak around behind his back; for him to hire someone to spy on her was completely absurd, but maybe it was more difficult for her to be upset with Walsh because she was not emotionally attached to him. She was in love with Killian , and he turned out to be a fraud! She didn’t even know if the money was for Sophie and her family; he probably made the whole thing up!

Emma expelled a long, heavy sigh as she turned down her street. She tried to breathe and cool down before she got home; she wasn’t mad at her parents, in fact she felt completely horrible for lying and tricking them.

Reaching the house and pulling into the long, winding driveway, she took in another deep breath. Emma swallowed thickly and put the car into the park before turning off the engine. She wasn’t sure what exactly she was going to say to them, but at least now she was home.

Taking a few more moments to compose herself, she got out of the bug and made her way to the front door. Her stomach was in knots as she walked up the steps. She stared blankly at the familiar door; her hands were unsteady as she reached for the knob and gently turned it, slowly pushing the door open.

As she looked around the foyer, everything was all too strange to her, even after being gone for only a week and a half, but she missed being home. She didn’t even realize exactly how much until she saw the paintings and photos on the wall, the shiny white floor, and the tables with beautiful potted plants that had been there since she was a child. Everything she saw brought back so many memories, and suddenly the idea of having to leave again made her stomach twist.

“Emma?” The sound of her mother’s voice was comforting; it magically soothed the muscles in her body which had been so tense the entire drive there. “You’re home?”

Turning around, a wide smile took over Emma’s lips. She had never been so happy to see her until that moment. However, when she saw the concerned features on her mother’s face, her stomach instantly plummeted, strings pulling at her heart. She hated herself for causing her parents misery. She hated causing them pain. “Don’t be too happy to see me, Mama,” Emma managed to tease as playfully as her timid voice would allow.

“Of course I am.” Mary Margaret grinned brightly, her eyes wet with tears as she hurried over to her daughter. They met half way; the brunette opened her arms, drawing Emma in for a hug.

Returning it, she sighed in relief against her mother’s soft, white sweater, getting caught up in her familiar scent of cinnamon and vanilla. Her embrace was warm, expressing everything her mother felt – she could tell by the weight of her body and how she slumped into Emma’s.

“I’m so happy to see you,” Mary Margaret assured, and Emma didn’t know how much she needed to hear those words. “I just meant… I was expecting a phone call first.”

Emma squeezed her mother a little tighter before she had to let her go. “I know, but there was a change in plans.”

Mary Margaret pulled back a little, her brows wrinkling in confusion as she looked at her daughter questionably. “What do you mean? I thought David was supposed to meet you and your captor to drop off the money.”

Emma gnawed on her bottom lip, her hands still clutching onto her mother's forearms. She wasn't sure how much she wanted to divulge to her, but she had to tell her something. It must have been strange for Mary Margaret to think that her daughter was being held for ransom and then suddenly have Emma show up her doorstep without so much as a scratch on her (at least, on the outside). “He was, but I was able to escape.” It wasn’t exactly the truth, but it wasn’t a lie either.

Mary Margaret’s features were still etched with worry. “But Emma, what if he comes after you? What if-?”

“He won’t,” Emma interrupted, taking her mother’s hands in her own to reassure her.

“But how can you be sure?” her mother asked, panic laced in her words.

“Darling, why didn’t you tell me we had a vis-?” David’s words were cut off when he entered the room and saw Emma standing there with his wife. She looked over at him, her lips curving up into a smile. She had never been so relieved to see him.

David’s face lit up as he strode over to Emma, and scooped her up in his arms, lifting her off the ground and spinning her around. She couldn’t stop a laugh from escaping her mouth as he set her back on her feet and pulled her her into a hug, moving his hand through her hair and cradling the back of her head. Emma buried her face in the crook of his neck, closing her eyes and breathing him in. For a moment, she forgot she had been wronged by Killian. She forgot about everything that was weighing her down.

David kissed her temple as he released the tight hold, resting his hands on both of her arms. He appeared to be wearing the same expressions as his wife; concern and worry. “Emma, I’m so glad you’re alright, but what happened to the arrangement we had with that bastard who kidnapped you?”

Emma flinched after hearing her father’s words and the sudden harshness in his tone; her reaction made her wonder how she could still be attached to Killian after what he had done to her.

Looking between both of her parents, she realized they were still awaiting an answer. She didn’t know what she should tell them, though; the truth would make them angry at Killian and Walsh. “The money wasn’t for him,” she confessed warily. Her parents glanced at each other and then at Emma again, both of them surprised and confused, but she somehow gathered the courage to continue.  “It was for a family who lost their home; they’re currently in a shelter,” she attempted to explain, but there were two pairs of eyes burning into hers; the pressure made her forget what she was going to say for a moment. She swallowed the lump in her throat, trying to get back on track. “He- he held me for ransom to get the money for them… and I couldn’t let him go to jail for that, so I escaped. But I promised him that the family would still get the money.”

Her father’s mouth was hung open when she finished, and he didn’t speak for a whole minute; he and Mary Margaret were still perplexed by this information, trying to process it all. “But… I don’t understand - why would he go through all that trouble for this family?” he finally asked her.

“Because, he’s…” Emma paused, trying to hide the despair from her expression; she didn't want to end up releasing all of her anger on them or end up crying in front of them. When she came up with an answer to her father’s question, she tried to keep her voice steady, her words unaffected and her tone from cracking. “He’s a good man… just severely misguided,” she found herself answering truthfully. Wait - did she really think that about him? Emma trembled with vexation; how was it possible that this man and his story so easily crawled under her skin in so little time? She needed to get a grip.

David looked at his wife again and then back to Emma, his features finally relaxing. “Well, if he is… then I think you did the right thing. I will donate the money to this family. Just tell me where to send it.”

Emma nodded, relieved that he was willing to accept her answer without questioning any further. “Thank you.”

Her mother, however, didn't appear to be convinced. “Are you sure that you can trust him though, Emma?” she asked; the anxiety Emma knew her mother felt was evident in her tone.

“Yeah, I’m sure,” Emma assured, and at the same time, she was hoping she wasn’t wrong in doing so, but she was still angry for what Killian had done. It somehow felt like a betrayal, and thinking about it again made her blood seethe with rage all over again. It made her so mad, and she felt like she needed to do something just to spite him.

“Emma, you should call Oscar. He’s been worried sick about you,” Mary Margaret suggested.

“Of course.” Emma flashed a frail smile as she went over to the rotary phone that was sitting on one of the end tables across the foyer. She picked up the handset, peering down at the old-fashioned device as she started rotating the dial to call Walsh.

“Emma?”

She froze at the sound of Walsh’s voice as he entered through the front door, shutting it behind him. Looking up, Emma could practically see the relief swarming through him as he approached.

“Baby, are you alright?” he asked her out of genuine concern as she set the phone down. He took her hands in his, appearing to be completely wrecked.

“Yeah, I’m fine.”

“Honey, we’ll talk more later. We’ll give you some time alone together,” Emma’s mother said before she and David turned around, heading out of the foyer towards the family room.

She watched them leave before looking at her fiancé again; she narrowed her eyes, observing him closely and searching for any evidence that Killian was being truthful about Walsh hiring him as a spy - he could have just as easily made it all up. “I escaped, and that’s all that matters,” she reassured him, her voice flat and even, hiding all of the anger and all of the hurt she she felt.

Walsh’s features instantly became hard, his brows wrinkling in confusion. “Where is that bastard? I’ll find and kill him,” he spat out, grabbing Emma’s arms.

She rolled her eyes internally. Walsh trying to play hero seemed so fake. He was afraid of tiny spiders, so how in the world would he face a thief who had been roughened up on the streets?

“It’s okay, I’m fine. He didn’t hurt me.”

Walsh stared at her in shock; he seemed to be taken off guard from thinking she was actually defending him. “Emma, he kidnapped you…”

"He was doing it for a family who needed the money.” Emma explained the situation, filling him in on the details that she told her parents, and she could see his resolve weakening a bit. “Please, just let it go… I’m home now and I just want to forget that all of this happened.”

Walsh let out a long, sufferable sigh. “Emma I can’t just...”

“What if I told you I wanted to get married tomorrow?” she offered with a pleading smile, hoping it would distract him.

He was taken aback by the question, arching a brow in disbelief. “You know I would love that… but are you sure you want to right after you got home?”

Emma nodded. “Yes, I want to get married tomorrow.”

His smile grew wider. “Okay, Emma.” He pulled her in for a hug, and her body stiffened as she lightly patted his back. There was nothing about him that made her feel the way she had felt with Killian. He certainly could never make heart ache like Killian could; that was for certain. “I missed you, babe, you have no idea,” he whispered in her ear, stroking her hair. “I love you so much.” Emma cringed at the words and forced herself to say them back, although there was no sincerity behind them whatsoever.

“I love you too, Walsh,” she muttered; her voice was strained, and it felt like she had swallowed razor blades down her throat.

~*~

The next morning, Emma was trudging downstairs to the kitchen in pajamas to fuel herself with coffee before she had to get into her wedding gown, when the doorbell rang. “I’ll get it,” she called out before going to the door to answer it. She had stayed the night at her parents’ house after she and Walsh had shared the news about wanting to get married right away. They seemed surprised at first, but they came around to the idea. Since the wedding was short notice, it wouldn't be as fancy as originally planned, but no one seemed to mind at this point.

Emma opened the door, and her eyes blew wide when she saw who was on the doorstep. She looked behind her to make sure there was no one around and stepped outside, closing the door behind her. “Killian, what are you doing here? If my father finds out-”

“Then let him have me arrested. I deserve it.” His eyes were full of wreckage as she saw his adam’s apple bob. Her stomach tightened at how damaged he looked. She had a feeling he hadn’t slept all night. “What do you want? Did you come here to make sure that the Sheldons got their money, because my father has already begun the process of building them a new home?" David verified their existence by calling around and finding out that they were indeed living in a homeless shelter.

Killian managed a smile. “Thank you, love. And please express to him my gratitude.”

Emma’s expression softened as she regarded him warily. “I will.” She was still mad at him, but she couldn't help but think that he seemed so lost - so torn . She had to shake those thoughts from her mind though. He was the one who wasn't honest with her, so why should she feel pity for his sorry ass. “Now tell me why you are here.” She demanded, crossing her arms as she waited for an explanation.

Killian scratched behind his ear as he spoke. “Emma, I came here to tell you that I’m sorry. I should’ve told you-“

“Yeah, you should’ve,” she interrupted curtly.

There was guilt flashing in his eyes as he peered down at the ground between them. “I know, and I don’t expect your forgiveness,” his eyes came back up to meet hers, making her breath hitch, “but I wanted to let you know that I’m leaving for England at five o’clock.”

Emma arched a brow in surprise, and her heart jumped into her throat. “You are?”

He nodded, never breaking his gaze. “I figured since you called off the wedding, I wanted to hold up my end of the bargain.”

“I didn’t,” she said flatly.

Kilian’s features fell, his blue eyes growing dark and hooded. “But I thought… I was sure that after I told you-“

Emma became irritated. “You thought what? That it would make me think differently about Walsh? That whatever reasons I had for wanting to go through with the wedding would instantly vanish into thin air? That I would bow down at your feet for being so fucking noble and exposing your secret after I confessed that I was in love with you?!”

Killian managed a soft shrug. “Perhaps… but perhaps I’ve made some mistakes. If I would’ve known that you would have turned out to be such an incredible woman I’d have never taken the job, Emma,” he breathed, his voice wrecked.

Emma wanted to believe him, but she just couldn't. She was unwilling to make this easy for him. She had trusted him and professed her feelings, and he went and crushed her world - her heart . “But you didn’t tell me,” she shrieked a little louder than she had intended, and then lowered her voice so as not to attract attention to the neighbors or anyone inside the house, “until it was too late.”

Killian looked at her with pleading eyes, his words shattered as he spoke, “I know, Emma. I should've told you sooner, and I would give anything to-“

“It’s too late, Killian” she murmured quietly, shaking her head. “I’m getting married today, and that is that.”

Killian nodded in defeat, swallowing thickly. “Well, nevertheless, I’m still going to England to see my brother. I suppose I should get going.” He started to turn around when she called after him.

“Wait.”

He stopped and turned around to face her again. “Yes, love?” he asked, a gleam of hope in his eyes.

“Before you go… just tell me one thing.”

A small smile pulled at his lips. “Anything.”

Emma took a deep breath. She needed to know the whole truth. She needed to know why he wanted to meet her in the first place. “If Walsh paid you to spy on me while I was in Boston, then why did you follow me to the airport? Why did you steal my bag?”

Killian shrugged. “My original intention was not to steal it. I only wanted to meet the lovely lass I was looking after for a week. Truthfully I had only planned on snapping a few photos when you went to your conferences to prove to Walsh that I was doing what he hired me to do, but I was so drawn to you, I couldn’t help but want to look out for you in case you needed it. And when I looked into your eyes up close for the first time, I knew that you didn’t want to get on that plane. So I took your bag hoping that I was doing you a favor.” Killian flashed an apologetic smile as he gazed into her eyes. “I never meant to hurt you, Emma, but I’m sorry I did.” Killian took her hand and lifted it to his lips, pressing a parting kiss to her skin. She shivered at the contact, recalling the first time he kissed her hand. It didn't have any less of an effect. “I hope that you get everything you want, Nolan,” his words were full of sincerity as he released her hand and started walking away, still facing her. “Goodbye, Emma. I will never stop thinking of you.”

“Goodbye, Killian,” she answered back, trying to hide the sorrow she felt.

“Take care of my bug will you?” Emma nodded, her expression stale as she watched Killian turn and walk down the porch steps. He looked at her once again before proceeding to the cab that was waiting for him. Emma just stood there, glued to her spot as she stared off in the direction the cab was driving in, even after it disappeared from her view. She opened the door, lingering a bit longer until she heard her mother approach.

“Emma? Who was at the door, Sweetie?”

“Nobody, Mommy,” Emma mumbled before walking to the kitchen, thinking about the conversation and the upcoming wedding, and not even listening to a word her mother was saying. Mary Margaret though her daughter was just nervous about the wedding after all she had been through, but Emma was feeling something entirely different gnawing away at her insides.

~*~

The morning went by in a blur as she got ready for her wedding.  Her parents had pulled out all of the stops to have it in their back yard with only a day’s notice.

She was now in her off-white, puffy gown, and although she didn’t care for it much, she was a teary-eyed mess when she saw how torn up her mother was. Mary Margaret was on the verge of crying and soon Emma was too. Other than that, she had really no feelings about the wedding. She just wanted to get it over with, honestly.

When it was finally time, Emma’s stomach was coiling with nerves as her eyes roamed over the guests. There were so many people; David and Mary Margaret must have invited the entire town.

Emma's parents got on either side, suffocating the large skirt of her dress as they extended their arms to her. She looked between the two of them, looping her arms in theirs. They both kissed her on the cheek before the three of them started down the aisle; Walsh was on the other end with a big, happy grin on his face. She tried to smile as well. She tried to be hopeful and positive. She tried to convince herself that everything was going to be okay. She was getting married to a man who loved her and who has never done any wrong to her. He has always been a loyal and faithful man and that was all that mattered, wasn’t it?

The closer Emma got to her fiancé, the more unsure she felt about it. If he were such a great guy then why did she feel nothing for him after an entire year of being engaged to him? Why did he make her skin crawl when she looked at him? Why did he never bring her pleasure in bed, when, after knowing him for three days, Killian easily brought her pleasure by only being in her presence - of course after she could eventually stand to be around him? Why did her heart flutter when they first met and why was he all she had thought about since she watched him walk away?

“We love you, sweetheart.” Emma’s parents both gave her a parting kiss on either cheek before they went to take their seats.

Emma turned and stepped forward to stand in front of Walsh, offering a big smile for the guests as the ceremony began.

Not even listening to a word the minister, Archie, spoke, she repeatedly went over the last few days in her head, unable to stop thinking about Killian – and she was literally getting married at that very moment! But she was marrying someone who was unable to give her the things she needed and wanted from a husband. Walsh didn’t bring her joy, he couldn’t make her smile when she was sad and she didn’t get butterflies in her stomach. She thought about all the things Killian had said to her - she didn’t have to marry someone she didn’t love, it was okay to take what she wanted and she didn’t have to be miserable. She wasn’t exactly sure that he’d said the last part, but that’s how she knew she would feel if she married Walsh - miserable .

Suddenly, she began to panic.

She didn’t want to marry Walsh; she wanted to be with Killian . He may have withheld the truth, but Walsh didn’t really trust her - she could see it in his eyes. And he had no reason to, she would admit that, but what was the point of having a relationship and getting married to someone if that person did not trust her and if she could cheat on him so easily without feeling guilty about it?

Perhaps Emma overreacted and perhaps she was a bit hasty when she left Killian to rot on the side of the road and then didn't accept his apology on her doorstep, but she was angry. And she hated that she was angry at him. She hated that she felt so strongly for him and that she had been so blinded and full of rage. She hated that she loved him. But holy hell, she did love him! She wanted to be with him; she wanted to go to art school and she wanted to be with the man she loved! She wanted to wake up every morning with butterflies in her stomach when she looked over and saw him lying next to her. And she would do anything to have that. She would give anything to have what her parents had.

Emma looked over at them, seeing that they were smiling at each other before averting their eyes to her. There was so much love and pride in their eyes, but Emma knew in that moment that Killian was correct again - her parents would not want her to be with someone who made her unhappy. They most likely wouldn't want her to be with her captor either, but that was a bridge she was willing to cross when she got there.

As Archie continued speaking, Emma looked around at all of the guests who were watching them. She knew she needed to escape before it was too late, but how? - when they were asked to say their vows?

Even if she did leave, where would she go? She wasn't even sure where Killian was now; she didn't know where he was staying. She’d have to wait until she was sure he would be at the airport and go there. He had told her his plane was leaving at five o’clock.

“Oscar, you may begin your vows.”

Walsh took her left hand in his, placing the ring on her finger as he began his vows. Emma started to panic, swallowing the large lump in her throat as she recalled the conversations she and Killian had on her porch. She had rejected him when he tried to apologize, and made it clear that she never wanted to see him again. What if he took her words to heart and realized there was no point in coming back? What if he thought that Emma would never forgive him, so he had decided he may as well leave her life for good?

“Killian.” The word came out of her mouth before she even knew she was speaking.

Oh shit.

@iejimi @kmomof4 @katie-dub @resident-of-storybrooke@ijenny16 @onceuponaprincessworld@lovepurplepumpkins@jennjenn615 @piratesbooty63fan @galadriel26 @ladyciaramiggles @andiirivera @queen-of-dancing-stars @galadriel26 @juliakaze @nfbagelperson @hey-it-is-jess @mcakers @kobe116 @phoenixsxul @winterbaby89 @allie-jimenez123-blog @lindseythompsonxoxo @ultraluckycatnd @its-about-bloody-time-cs @acaptainswaneternity @fleurreads @love-with-you-i-have-everything

[pixichi]

Stealth and Witchcraft Cp.12

SIMMONS FAMILY MANOR ONE WEEK AGO: The enraged footfalls of metal-clad guards overwhelmed Gwenevere, sending her quaking body into a frozen state of panic. The resounding echo within that claustrophobic hallway boomed within her skull, as gooseflesh began to erupt across her chilled flesh. The girl released a small whimper, at the very notion of these men finding her. A wrinkled, yet warm hand graced her cheek, coaxing the fretful girl back to the peril at hand. Gwenevere's eyes eased open, the visage of her most cherished handmaiden settling her chaotic nerves. "Child. I understand how very frightened you must be," the old woman crooned. Then, her weathered features grew firm. "But you must control yourself far better than this. Once you're out there, no one will be able to safeguard you as I have. You, will be responsible for your own survival." Gwenevere's eyes widened, before flooding with cold, bitter tears. She reached out for, and clutched Olaura's hands tightly. "Oh Nana," the girl creature whispered, "Are you sure I'm ready?" The kindly beldam smiled, sympathy lacing her lips and soft periwinkle eyes. Gwenevere's tears continued to flow, trickling down her cheeks and dripping onto both their hands. Olaura frowned, surprised by just how reluctant this child was to obtain true freedom. "Darling girl, I have taught you what little magic I know. How you choose to use these powers, will inevitably decide your fate." Gwenevere shook her head, causing the deep blue curtains shrouding them to flutter. "B-but Nan, I don't even know where to go once I'm out there!" she protested. Olaura clasped one of her young mistresses' frail shoulders, and squeezed. The adamant gesture prompted Gwenevere to settle again, and with all the hesitation of a timid child, she faced her guardian. There was now a faint hint of reluctance and trepidation within the old woman's expression, though it was apparent that Olaura was struggling to conceal it. As much as she did indeed desire to keep Gwenevere with her, realistically, the maid knew this was impossible. Simmons would eventually kill the girl if she stayed, and whatever weak spells the old crone still possessed would only delay this wicked desire for so long. No, the fact of the matter was clear: Gwenevere, did not belong in captivity. She needed, to be free. Her bloodline demanded it. Wild beasts, did not make good pets. But, they could be invaluable friends. "Listen to me, my dear," the elder began, her voice cracking as she handed Gwenevere a small indigo knapsack. "You may not understand right now, but you will. Goodbye, is just another hello, my dear. We will meet again one day, and on that glorious day, you will demonstrate all the strength and heart which I have always known you to possess." The withered maid pulled the trembling young girl into a warm, gentle embrace. A single greasy tear slid down her bedraggled, sagging cheek. Gwenevere hugged her tighter, her eyes squeezed shut as though to hide her innermost personal doubt. "But what if I can't do it, Nan?" she squeaked, "What if all I am--all I've ever been--is some tool to be used by one who possesses far greater power?" Olaura's fading eyes shimmered, stricken with pain by the innocent girl creature's wonderings. Simmons, had been far from the first wicked soul to believe such filth. To try and mold this wondrous being of infinite potential and spirit, into little more than a puppet with a singular purpose. Prying the girl tenderly away from her chest, the tired old woman stared Gwenevere dead in the eyes. "You, are nobody's tool, child," Olaura declared solemnly. "Only you, can decide your place in this world. There exists a myriad of possibilities for you beyond these manor gates, but if you choose to remain here with me--with Lord Simmons--then the only fate awaiting you, is death." Gwenevere's eyes grew wide, and she sniffled a bit. Her guardian was right, and she knew it. Even though the very notion of fleeing terrified her, deep down, staying here with Simmons terrified her even more. She knew the time was drawing near. She could not risk another sacrifice attempt. This time, there would be no interruption from a pair of misfortunate thieves. This time, the horrible ritual would be successful. Simmons and the Baron would get what they so coveted, and Gwenevere's short, miserable life would be snuffed out. Giving her handmaiden an accepting--albeit hesitant--dip of her head, Gwenevere wiped away her tears. "I...understand..." she whispered, her voice scratchy and timid, like the soft warble of a fretful dove. Olaura nodded, a look of pride replacing the fretful tears upon her weathered face. "I am pleased to hear that, my dear," she complimented, leaning forward. "Now, listen very carefully to what I am about to tell you: Go down into the lowest reaches of the City, where only those who have truly lost all hope reside. There, you must seek out a man named Basso. He'll be able to help you obtain the vengeance that you seek..." The old woman reached into the knapsack she'd handed to Gwenevere, and opened it. Inside, were packs of kept leaves and herbs, a pouch of unknown contents, and a rolled up parchment. Olaura grabbed the last item, and unfurled it for Gwenevere. "This map, should help you get there. But you will need to do some legwork in order to find Basso himself. He is a fence you see. A criminal. Ergo, he will not have his whereabouts posted somewhere for all the City to see," she explained. "Then how will I find him?" Gwenevere cocked her head, taking the map from Olaura's extended hand. "Ask around when you get there. I'm sure someone down in the slums knows exactly where you can find the man." Gwenevere listened intently, absorbing each word into her memory like a thirsty plant. Then, she began to frown. "How do you know all of this, Nan? How do you know that this Basso will help me?" she inquired. Olaura's eyes gleamed with a mysterious hint of power. "Because, you have something he desperately wants. Something men have been both curious and cautious about since the dawn of time." "And that is?" "Magic," Olaura winked. Without hesitation, the elderly servant pulled Gwenevere back into a long hug. She squeezed tighter than before, restoring the seepage from the emotional child's brilliant green eyes. Pulling back, Olaura's smile began to falter ever so slightly. "Now go," she ushered, her voice cracking as she reached the last word. The last syllables she would be speaking to the young maiden for a very long while. Wordlessly, Gwenevere did as she was bade. Opening the large window behind them, she looked downward into the dark foyer  below. Long, thick vines shot forth from all corners of her body, temporarily giving the demure girl the appearance of something frightful. Using these newly-sprouted appendages, Gwenevere exited through the open window, and proceeded to shimmy down the side of the manor. Once on the ground, she rushed over to the towering sandstone walls surrounding Simmons' stately home. She repeated the process, climbing up rather than down this time. Once she reached the top, Gwenevere hesitated before descending back down the other side. She looked up at Olaura, tears still twinkling in her celadon eyes like starlight. She watched as her trusted guardian gave her a slow, reassuring nod, before disappearing down the opposite side. The City, and all the freedom and possibilities within, were waiting for her. *** THE CLOCKTOWER PRESENT DAY: Gwenevere was jostled from deep slumber by a pair of nimble hands giving her shoulders a rough shake. Still locked within a dreary stupor, the girl's eyes eased open to identify the source of the commotion. Immediately, she wished she hadn't. Her entire world appeared hazy, and even though Gwenevere knew she'd gotten a full night of rest, she still felt incredibly tired. Her body hurt, her head was throbbing, and there was a constant, vile churning of fluids within her gut. "Good. You're awake," a familiar voice grumbled, "took ya long enough..." Gwenevere rubbed her sore eye sockets, and squinted up at Garrett. The thief had his back to her, still draped in that long ebony cloak of his. Looking around her, the young woman realized that they weren't upstairs in the clock room, but rather further below in the old Hammerite dormitories. She recognized the piercing red tapestries forthwith. For some bizarre reason, they always filled the girl creature with unspeakable tenacity, and animosity. This sudden surge of emotions and recollection, brought forth an overpowering need to vomit. Scrambling for the chamber pot concealed beneath the bed, she held the rancid thing just below her chin, and emptied the fermenting contents of her stomach. Wiping her mouth upon her sleeve, she heard Garrett muttering to himself. Although she couldn't quite be certain, it almost sounded like, 'yep. Such a lady indeed...' When the thief did eventually turn around, he was holding something in each of his hands. Steaming mugs of what Gwenevere could only presume to be either coffee or tea. "Here. Drink this. There's a reason why the bluecoats are always so damn jumpy on night patrol..." Garrett smirked, handing her one of the beverage containers. Gwenevere took it graciously, her icy fingers soothed by the new source of warmth. As she began to sip, Garrett sat down on the cot across from hers. He began to drink his own brew, surveying the strange, hungover lass with pondering eyes. Basso was quite possibly one of the dumbest taffers Garrett had ever had the misfortune of knowing. But by some ludicrous jest--likely conjured up by a god or goddess with far too much time on their hands--the old boxman always grew incredibly cognizant--even downright insightful--when he was pickled. For as long as he'd known the man, Basso had always been an intellectual drunk. And for once, Garrett was adamant to make that work for him. If Gwenevere was going to be staying with him long term, the reluctant thief decided that he should at the very least figure out why she'd come into his world in the first place. In that respect--and that respect alone--Basso did in fact have a good point. "Uhhh...why do I smell like pee?" Gwenevere mumbled in a soft, tired voice. The girl sounded as though she hadn't slept in several days. "I'm sure Basso's hovel smells a lot worse..." Garrett answered. Gwenevere faced him with a worried expression. "W-what do you mean?" "Forget about it," the thief groused. It didn't concern him, and truth be told, Basso's home had never exactly smelled like a basket of roses. Garrett doubted his fence would even notice. Gwenevere paused for a bit, looking around the room they were in with dazed confusion in her eyes. "Garrett? Why are we in the Hammerite sleeping place again?" she at last inquired. "The dormitories?" he corrected, his cynicism at its pique after a sleepless night. "Look. I know you said that you like sleeping on the stairs for whatever reason, but I need my space. And so do you." Gwenevere's face contorted in disapproval. "But Garrett!" the girl started to protest, before her own outcry prompted the pounding in her skull to intensify. She flopped backwards onto the bed with a low moan of great discomfort. The sides of Garrett's mouth twitched upwards a little, as he watched his young apprentice clutch at her forehead and eyes. "Don't try to fight me on this, Gwenevere," the thief spoke, before taking another drink of his coffee. Then, with a reluctant smile, he added, "after all, you're pretty hungover." "No, I'm not," Gwenevere grumbled. "I'm laying on my back over here, not upside down!" "Uh-huh," Garrett mused, shaking his head at her ridiculous response. Sometimes, the thief genuinely couldn't tell if the girl was just that naïve, or if she really was making some terrible attempt at a joke. This, was one such time. He looked around him, the scent of dry rot and wood oil permeating his nostrils within the forgotten bowels of that place. Old and forgotten though it was, the clocktower was nevertheless looking much nicer. Gwenevere's cleaning had returned the upper levels of the clock room to at least some semblance of tidiness. Something the creaky old husk hadn't been privy to ever since the Hammerite's forced departure. But even still, certain factors caused the thief to wonder. Queries and thoughts kept secret behind his stalwart glare. His hideaway seemed...somehow brighter in the recent weeks. Warmer even. The two figures sat in silence for a time, as a grand stare-down commenced between the jaded cynic, and the passionate idealist. But surprisingly, it was the former who would inevitably break this stalemate. "You uh...were mumbling something in your sleep last night, Gwenevere," Garrett cleared his throat. The girl sat back upright and blinked. She reached for her coffee cup again, and wisps of steam began tickling her sensitive nose. She sneezed, sending her messy bangs tumbling forward into her face. Garrett compressed his lips together, concealing a nearly inaudible scoff. Flushed, Gwenevere looked back up at him, brushing the strands of unkempt crimson from one of her wide, green eyes. "Sorry...it's so musty down here," she smirked. The thief, was unamused. When she realized that he wasn't about to participate in her attempted conversation, Gwenevere's face reddened even more. "Ummm...so, what exactly was I saying?" "Something about doing your best, or making someone proud. I don't know, something like that," the thief answered her, taking another sip from his cup. "Oh..." Gwenevere looked down at her teacup in deep shame, watching as the dark liquid reflected the tragedy and deep unrest looming within her eyes. "What's your deal anyway?" Garrett inquired, in a crude, almost mocking tone. "Why are you so obsessed with what other's think of you? Is it a superficial noble's thing, or?" "No," Gwenevere released an annoyed sigh, leering up at him. "I'm not some attention-seeking brat, Garrett. I just want to help people. That's all." "That's all, huh?" the thief chuckled, before abruptly rolling his eyes. "Riiight...So tell me, what sort of game are you playing here, Gwenevere? What makes you want to devote your life to crime anyway? You looking to get revenge on your old man?" Gwenevere hastened to finish the last of her coffee. It tasted horribly bitter, given that her host hadn't added any cream or sugar. But it was doing an excellent job or banishing her first hangover. "Not entirely, no," she replied. "And if I am in any case, it's not because of what he's done to me..." "It's a yes or a no question. Do you want revenge on Simmons or not?" Garrett demanded, growing irritated with her cryptic nonsense. He'd gotten enough of that from the Keepers to last him a lifetime. Hence, it never ceased to personally irk him whenever anyone spoke in riddles, or offered vague responses. Gwenevere set her cup back down upon the large wooden chest beside her new bed, and stood. She began to pace around the dormitory, running her thin fingers through the dust and cobwebs. "Simmons has very little to do with any of this. I had to get away from him to live my life. That's all. I want to become a thief in order to help the poor. If I steal money or food, or anything of substance really, I can make their lives just a little bit better," the young woman faced him, passion and virtue glistening within her unassuming little face. "That, is my goal. I want to be the vigilante and protector of this city!" Garrett nearly dropped his coffee cup when she relinquished that information. Gwenevere, wasn't some mere noble's brat thirsty for the taste of danger and defiance. No, it was far, far worse than that. The starry-eyed youth before him, was dead serious. But she'd built all of her plans on the foundation of a dreamer's mentality, without any thought or foresight for what this would realistically entail. Memories of Erin's death, her fall upon that horrible night one year ago, came flooding back to him, as Garrett glowered back at the innocent redhead. "Are you serious?! That's what this is all about?!" "Yes," Gwenevere responded, as casually as though the thief had just asked if she'd like some more coffee. Garrett stared at her, his face darkening and dumbstruck by her sheer naivety. "But you have no idea what you're even doing!!" he finally exclaimed, slamming his half-full coffee cup onto the chest beside hers. Gwenevere startled at his sudden outrage, her emerald eyes awash with bitter upset. "Then maybe instead of pointing out all my mistakes, why don't you just teach me so I can improve!" she countered. Garrett swallowed his frothing rage, and began to massage his aching temples. "Gwenevere. Do you even know what being a vigilante entails?! You'd have to be leagues ahead of where you are now, and that would require years of training on my part. And if you think I'm gonna house your sorry hide for that long, you are out of your mind." The girl's lips grew taut, and for a moment, Garrett was sure she was about to cry again. But somehow, Gwenevere gulped down her tears, and collected herself before answering him. "But I thought you were the best," she countered. "Surly, it wouldn't take nearly that long for you to train me..." Garrett frowned. Oh, she was good. Using his own pride against him like that. He stood, staring down at the curious girl, still baffled by what to make of her. At times, Gwenevere seemed downright stupid. But then, there were moments such as this one, where she would spout something quite clever and poignant. Such instances, never ceased to surprise him. "I may be the best, but you're the absolute worst. I can't train what isn't there to begin with, Gwenevere," he spoke coldly. "If you possessed some semblance of talent, then maybe. But I'm a thief, not a priest. I can't work miracles." "But you told me just the other day that you wanted me to be able to pickpocket someone by the end of the month. You said that was a reachable goal for me. If you can teach me something like that so fast, then I can't be all that hopeless, now can I?!" Gwenevere argued, once again demonstrating the quick wit she was more than capable of. "So what's the real reason you won't train me to do so much more? Why won't you help me reach my goals, Garrett?" "Because you don't belong here," he muttered. "That's what you keep saying, but I think--" "--Listen to me. For all of your idiocy and clumsiness...you're actually a pretty nice girl. I don't know your situation with Lord Simmons, but I do know one thing: This city will eat away at your soul real quick if you continue to stay here." His honest words, prompted the girl to shiver. Gwenevere watched as a look of great disturbance registered upon Garrett's face. The rusty-haired runaway narrowed her eyes, as the pieces of this macabre and depressing puzzle gradually began falling into place. The moonlighter quickly turned away when he realized she was now staring directly at him. The realization of what he'd just divulged to her--albeit unwittingly--was harrowing indeed. "Is that what happened to you? Is that...why you're so mean?" Gwenevere asked, half assertive, and half compassionate. Garrett still refused to look at her. He resisted the urge to shout, or otherwise flay her with his cruel tongue and biting words. Instead, he grimaced, and stared upward at the cobweb-coated ceiling above them. Knave. Charlatan. Murderer. All accusations he'd been saddled with over the years, and all more or less true. Others, saw more in him. They saw a hero, a chosen one who could deliver this foul world from the brink of disaster. These portrayals too, held grains of truth--however small. But in truth, the Master Thief, acted of his own accord. He did as he pleased, and damn the consequences. Killing Karras, the Trickster. Saving the City, nay, the world, from their madness. It had all been done, for personal reasons. Garrett, was a survivor. And if the rest of the city survived along with him, that was acceptable. But it didn't make him a hero. Nor did it make him a malevolent demon of the night to be feared. He, was what he chose to be. Nothing more. "No. I've been like this for as long as I can remember," Garrett finally spoke. "I'm nothing like you. And you're nothing like me." "Be that as it may, I DO want to change an unjust world, Garrett! I can't stand all the pain and injustice that pollutes this place!" Gwenevere proclaimed, her face twisted in emotional anguish. She'd seen more suffering and death than any girl of eighteen should ever be privy to, and it was silently killing her from the inside. Garrett sneered at her. "It's the City. Get used to it or leave," he snapped coldly, masking his growing interest and to a lesser extent, concern for her. Like a beautiful flower struggling to grow within this place, the thief knew this girl too would be trampled if she remained much longer. Gwenevere's eyes widened in response to his bitter statement. "What?! But I can't go! I'm your student now! I made a commitment." "You didn't commit yourself kid. You begged. Basso bought your doe-eyed charms and paid me to train you, even though you clearly have no promise or motivation to become a thief," Garrett barked. "And just so you know, you're probably gonna get yourself killed." He turned away, leaving her stunned into silence. For a time. As the thief began  to exit the dormitories, Gwenevere's soft voice reached his ears. "We're all gonna die one day." Her unexpected words caused Garrett to halt outright. He turned slowly, and glared down at the girl through his venin green prosthetic. "What did you just say?" he hissed. Gwenevere, didn't even flinch this time. Whatever remained unsaid, it far outweighed her uncertainty. "Death finds us all eventually," she croaked. "But it's what we choose to do before we die that matters. If I go out trying to help people, trying to steal bread for a mother and her children who can't eat...then that will be enough for me. I'll know I lived a good life." Garrett stared transfixed upon her, hardly believing how noble this girl truly was. When he'd first encountered this precarious, genial young lady, she'd been jumping at her own shadow. The thief thought he had her pegged as just another pampered snob. But for some inexplicable reason, he'd gotten everything wrong about her. He stared down at Gwenevere, wordlessly watching as that ineffable thirst for purpose and justice shimmered like diamonds within her eyes. Garrett did not feel his lips move, as a grumbling modicum of decision eked its way off his tongue. "Gwenevere. You don't have to die," he stated, in a low, hesitant voice. "What?" Gwenevere blinked, her face contorted into a half-stunned stupor at his proclamation. "Look. It seems as though you've got your mind set on this. Not that I approve, but..." "But?" Gwenevere stepped closer, her body trembling in anticipation. A part of Garrett wondered still, how he'd allowed a simple sack of gold to effectivly control him to this extent. But something was beginning to tease and irritate the far reaches of his subconscious. Was this even about his arrangement with Basso anymore, or the gold? Was there perhaps another reason why the stubborn criminal continued to endure the exasperating chatter of this skinny little imp child? Such wonderings, troubled him greatly. But Garrett did his best to ignore them. For now, he had a new apprentice to teach. "If you listen to me, if you learn to do this right, I can keep you alive." 

[shiirakis]

Royally Spellbound (1/2) || KageTsuki

Lmao it’s been a hot minute since I posted anything, 7 months to be exact lol rip me. This was supposed to be for the HQ Writer Zine but I dropped it when I realised it was getting too long lmao and now after months of not writing, I’m forcing my procrastinating ass to finish it.

AO3

The crown sits heavy upon his head, weighing him down but he knows not to slouch, to keep his gaze up and ahead, to continue his father’s legacy with the same fervour and determination.

Kageyama Tobio is fifteen when his father passes on.

The funeral is far too grandeur for his tastes, almost to the point of disrespectful to him at least. He finds that he can’t properly mourn over the loss of his father but he supposes it is all part and parcel of being in the public eye. There’ll always be time alone later.

Kageyama Tobio is fifteen when he succeeds the throne.

The intense scrutiny he is under does not faze him for he knows he’ll have to work for their respect. There are expectations to meet and responsibilities to fulfil so he steels his shoulders and stands tall just like his father would. There’s no time for weakness now.

Kageyama Tobio is fifteen when he realises it’s the end of his childhood with the weight of the kingdom resting on frail shoulders.

His trips to the stables becomes far more infrequent, his classes growing more intense under the tutelage of his father’s most trusted advisor. He hates it. It hurts his head to study politics and diplomacy but it’s not a choice he can make and his advisor knows that.

“Your Majesty, please return your attention to the text in question.” Sugawara is patient, more so when it comes to Tobio. He has watched the young king grow and he’ll continue to do so for as long as he can. “Tobio… I know it has been a long day but do bear with me for another hour at least.”

“Hinata’s taking good care of the horses…” Tobio doesn’t turn his gaze away from the window, watching the stable boy prance around with the horses and he wishes he could be there too. He could be there, practicing horseback archery just like how his father taught him. He could be there, messing around with Hinata who’s all smiles and joy.

But he can’t.

Sugawara ruffles Tobio’s dark hair, smiling at the sparkle in his eyes. His passion for horse-riding hasn’t diminished the least and it pains Sugawara to take it away from him, even if he shakes his head and tells Sugawara that it’s fine. “I doubt you’re in the mood for more studying so come on, there’s something important I need to show you… It has something to do with your father.”

Tobio whips his head round so fast at the mentioning of his father that it draws out a chuckle from Sugawara but he immediately sobers up and softly exhales. He thinks it’s too early for Tobio to know but there’s no telling when trouble could arise that might catch them unaware.

“What is it? Is it a secret?” Tobio curiously tilts his head, puzzled by the apprehensiveness in his tutor’s features. He doesn’t pry further when Sugawara responds with a quiet sigh and turns to leave, beckoning for Tobio to follow close.

They head to a part of the castle where Tobio hasn’t explored before. The hallways are darker, shadowed by the overhanging trees and he wonders if the chill he’s feeling is attributed to it. He has always been advised to avoid that particular section of the castle because of the dense forest that looms beyond the grounds. Past the flight of stairs, they finally arrive at a door that seemed like any other. It was nothing out of the ordinary; just a wooden door that’s aged with time and hanging on creaky hinges, but past it laid nothing like what Tobio expected.

He’s transfixed by the soft glow of the room, rows of potted herbs and flowers neatly lining the windowsills and the floor, shelves filled with books from edge to edge. While the forest behind blocked out most of the much needed sunlight, there were strange orbs of light floating round and it was enough to brighten the room.

“Kei,” Sugawara places a gentle hand on Tobio’s back for him to take a step forward. “This is—”

“Kageyama Tobio, the new king. Yeah, I got the message.”

Tobio’s never felt quite so irked by anyone before. Perhaps just the slightest in the beginning by Hinata but the mocking tone and the awful smug smirk the other boy had was grating on his nerves. “Who is he?”

“Your father…” Sugawara trails off for a moment, collecting his thoughts and the appropriate words to use. He needed to convey this delicately. No matter the status, Tobio is still a child after all—

“Your father uses my services to indirectly get rid of people he doesn’t like.”

“Kei!” Sugawara is aghast by the frankness that Kei exhibits in front of the young king, though he’s not surprised. Kei was never one to sugarcoat his words.

“I don’t see the point of fluffing it up just to make his father’s actions sound more appealing.” Kei gives a shrug and resumes trimming his plants. Those words did not sit well with Tobio though, who had no qualms in reaching for Kei and yanking him by the front of his shirt.

“My father was a good man! You don’t know anything!”

“Hah, isn’t it you that’s in the dark about everything?—”

“Silence!”

“Well your ‘good’ father hired me to plant curses on people!” Kei braces himself when Tobio raises his fist but a stern voice stops him in his tracks.

“Tobio, that’s enough.”

“Is it true? Did my father really do all that?” Tobio’s unyielding gaze bores right through Sugawara who only nods and he hopes that Tobio will eventually understand the turmoil his father had to go through in keeping their kingdom together. “Get this witch out of this castle!”

“We can’t do that Tobio.” Sugawara stops Tobio before he can protest. “We vowed to keep his family safe here for as long as we are around. You know our gardener, Akiteru? You’ve met him many times before haven’t you? He’s Kei’s older brother.”

“I have no intentions of using his services, can’t we just send them away?” His father will always be a good man to Tobio, and that is what will remain as a firm memory, regardless of the things he may have done.

Though as adamant as Tobio was, Sugawara only shakes his head with a solemn sigh. “We can’t just do that, Tobio… I suppose both of you got off to a bad start so perhaps you can start over? Both of you are of the same age! I could let you have a day off from your studies to show Kei your horse-riding skills?”

The counter offer was certainly tempting, and despite his immense dislike for the witch, he wanted no more than to spend time outside than in a stifling environment of a classroom. “As long as he doesn’t get in my way.”

“Lovely! I’ll block out half the day out of your schedule for tomorrow then! But for now, you still need to finish up classes for today so let’s head back, shall we?” Sugawara smiles at the quiet groaning Tobio lets out and discretely hands over a letter to Kei once the young king has stepped out of the room. “He did not forget about you and your family… You have nothing to worry about Kei.”

Kei waits till the door is shut before he breaks off the wax seal on the envelope. The penmanship in the letter is of the old King’s, shaky from illness and old age but nevertheless, written with a confident hand. The letter spoke of things the King had never told Kei in person but Kei had always understood the reasons for the decisions that had to be made and he had always been grateful for the fact that the King took him and his brother in and treated them like regular people.

“My job isn’t over yet I guess.” Kei muses before getting back to work.

-

Tobio wakes up more refreshed than ever in anticipation of the day ahead, hastily putting on his riding gear before heading down to the stables where Hinata had just finished grooming the horses. “Kageyama!—Uh. I mean uh!… Your Highness? Wait no, your Majesty!”

Tobio flicks Hinata’s forehead when he starts to bow. “Drop the formalities, dumbass. We’re not strangers.”

“Would be great if you were nicer to me now that you’re the king!” Hinata grins as he brings out Tobio’s mare. “Milk misses you a lot!”

“I miss her too—”

“You named your horse, Milk? Wow, that’s some creativity right there. Were you thirsty when you named her?” Tobio has barely begun to brush Milk’s snow white coat when Sugawara arrives with the witch, that condescending smirk still plastered across his face.

Tobio bristles, slowly brushing his horse’s coat as he glares at Kei. Rude, had he no respect? “What I name my horse is none of your business.” Strapping on the saddle, Tobio hops on and gallops off across the field, leaving the others far behind.

“And who might you be huh?! Do you know who you were talking to? He’s the king mind you! The king!!!” Hinata had no idea who the new guy was that came with the advisor but he was already starting to dislike him already.

“Oh my, I barely noticed you standing there, shrimpy. Whoops.”

Perhaps dislike was an understatement.

“Kei… Please control yourself.” Sugawara wonders for a brief moment if he was more of a babysitter rather than an advisor, remembering how he had to step in when Tobio and Hinata used to fight all the time. “Shouyou, this is Kei, one of our… Librarians. He’ll be helping Tobio in his studies so I’m hoping they’ll try and at least get along.”

“I will?”

“You will be helping Tobio, yes.” Sugawara shoots Kei a sharp glare that has him flinching and nodding stiffly. Once Tobio was back and more visibly relaxed, Sugawara clasps his hands with a gasp. “Tobio! Teach Kei how to ride a horse!”

Now this was not Kei’s domain, and while he knew it very well, so did Tobio.

The devious grin did not go unseen to which Kei immediately took a step back, protesting as much as he could but apparently the young king was having none of it. “What? Too scared of getting on a horse?”

“I’m just not interested in getting thrown off by an animal I’ve never been in contact with before.” Kei keeps his arms folded, unyielding even when Sugawara tries to tug him over to Tobio’s horse. “You can’t make me.”

“As your king, I order you to get your ass over here on the horse. Can’t go against that now can you?”

The pleading looks Kei directs to Sugawara is blatantly ignored with a shrug of his shoulders, forcing Kei to comply as he reluctantly trudges over to where the huge beast was. He gently strokes Milk, feeling more relieved when the horse doesn’t seem to react too badly but of course, he really should have known Tobio was up to something.

Barely giving Kei any time to adjust on the saddle, Tobio grins as he pats the horse’s rear. “Go!”

There Kei was, clinging on for his dear life as Milk gallops off, the others watching with dropped jaws and it wasn’t long before Kei’s shrieks grew softer with distance.

“…Tobio.” Exasperation was evident in Sugawara’s tone which Tobio was all too familiar with.

“Yes?”

“Please go get Kei.”

-

The rush of wind against Kei has him clinging even more desperately than ever until the horse slows to a trot. It takes a moment for Kei to release his grip, only to land on the muddy ground with a muted thud and a drawn out groan.

Tobio is hardly concerned as he makes his way to them and wordlessly leans over Kei who finally opens his eyes when he’s overcasted by a shadow. Even with his glasses askew, the shit-eating grin was crystal clear to Kei. Smug bastard.

“Didn’t realise you weren’t ready. Whoops.” The tone Tobio takes is hardly apologetic and the hand he holds out is nothing but a patronising gesture that Kei wants to swat away, but a better idea comes to mind.

He mutters something too quiet for Tobio to catch and it takes a second for Tobio to find himself yanked face first into the mud by a mysterious vine coiled round his ankle.

The petty revenge is sweet to Kei and he doesn’t hesitate in biting back. “Didn’t think you were this light on your feet. Whoops.”

[racingtoaredlight]

Why I Stopped Shopping At Yard Sales

Ever since my Grampa retired, he’s been an out-of-control yard sale fiend. He LIVES for the rush of dickering some poor jamoke down from five dollars to three on an ancient, greasy cookbook, or getting an unsuspecting lady to throw in a free bag of wire clothes hangers along with his purchase of an old Bo Diddley record. 

He even has different yard sale personas at his disposal. He chooses which one to deploy after he gets a read on the proprietor of a particular junk collection. When he sees fit, he’ll exaggerate the Irish brogue he normally speaks with ever so slightly, instantly transforming himself into Gregarious Man of the World, or maybe he’ll slump his posture just a bit, and lower his speaking volume to make himself into the Frail Old Man. He’s absolutely diabolical, I love it. 

Ordinarily, my grandmother is his partner-in-crime for the yard sale sprees, but every once in awhile, she needs a break from the knick-knacks and lightly-used exercise equipment. When that happens, Grampa likes to seek out a substitute co-pilot. One Saturday in June, I was that substitute co-pilot. 

As my grandfather would tell you, one of the keys to finding a major yard sale score is to get there before the bulk of the vultures show up to pick at the carcass of obsolescence. With that in mind, I threw on my best bargain-hunting outfit and my hagglin’ cap, and scooted over to my grandparents’ house at 7 AM sharp. 

When I walked into their house, I was struck by two things. The first was that it was a solid 85 degrees in there. Every time I visit I’m amazed at how unbelievably warm they keep things. My grandfather will be sitting there in his overstuffed chair wearing a light sweater, just as comfy as you please, while I’m standing there in a t-shirt wondering if I’ve accidentally wandered into a giant kiln. The second thing I was struck by, was the smell created by the gloriously huge breakfast my gram was cooking up. Eggs over-easy, homemade sausage, scratch-made pancakes, toasted bread from the bakery up the street, coffee, and OJ--my grandmother wasn’t messing around. She didn’t want us rummaging on an empty stomach, evidently. My grandmother is the best. 

After stuffing our faces and catching up on all of the (not remotely) salacious family gossip, it was time to go. My Grampa dramatically bid adieu to his bride, planted an extra-theatrical kiss on her, and the two of us piled into the Toyota Tacoma that he most definitely purchased for the explicit purpose of hauling yard sale plunder around in. 

I’m not sure what was more fun, shooting the breeze with my Grampa in between stops, or watching The Master in action as he used techniques and instincts honed through decades spent negotiating deals in the cut-throat realm of the textile business in order to pay slightly less money for an extremely beat-up end table that will almost certainly spend the rest of eternity tucked away in the corner of a barn.

My grandfather and I are extremely similar personality-wise, but one area where we diverge is when it comes to “stuff.” What I mean is, I cannot STAND clutter, and frequently get rid of things the second they no longer provide enough utility to justify their existence. Obviously, Grampa doesn’t feel the same way, given his addiction to acquisition. So, while he came away from most sales with at least something to show for it that Saturday, I couldn’t bring myself to pull the trigger on anything. I came close a few times, there was a decent-looking Dutch oven at one place, a hilariously ugly Red Sox-themed lamp at another, and an Atari complete with a couple dozen games called to me from a box under a table at one point. But, I resisted. 

We were headed home and in the middle of discussing how to go about fixing up the Victrola he’d miraculously found at an estate sale when I spotted a sign nailed to a tree indicating there was a sale 7 miles down a dirt road just ahead on the right. I suggested that we hit it up, and shockingly my grandfather was hesitant. He said the only house down that road was a huge, odd-looking farmhouse, with no electricity or running water. The family who lived there hardly ever came into town, and they had a reputation for being a little strange. In addition to that, the entire family had vanished without a trace over the previous winter. The whole thing gave him the creeps.

Here was another area where our two personalities diverged: whereas this unsettling information made my grandfather want to avoid this place like the plague, it made me want to check it out even more. Plus, I was feeling a little bad about the fact that I hadn’t bought anything all day. I didn’t want my grandfather to think for a second that I’d view the day spent with him as a waste of my time just because I didn’t get anything material out of the experience. I don’t THINK that thought would’ve crossed his mind, but I didn’t want to leave even the possibility of it. I wanted to head to this place, and I was determined to come away with something for my troubles. He threw his hands up and said “Alright, if you really want to I guess we can scope it out,” so I tore off down the dusty road. 

The house was definitely “off” looking. I’m not really sure how else to describe it. The whole structure leaned to one side, but instead of giving the impression of a building on the verge of collapse, it evoked thoughts of a dangerous animal crouching in wait. You’d think such a large house that had an entire family living in it would have boatloads of junk to get rid of, but the entire yard sale consisted of a single table covered with odds and ends. The items included but were not limited to: some silverware, a cast-iron pot, a few tobacco pipes, an ancient-looking bassinet, and a bunch of little figurines. Some of the figurines were the typical mass-produced porcelain-type things, others looked to be hand-carved wood. I frankly didn’t want any of these things, and the whole scene really was pretty creepy. The only people around for miles were my grandfather, myself, and the pale young woman sitting behind the table. But, I’d insisted on coming out here, and I wasn’t coming away empty-handed. I decided to buy a cat figurine, for no particular reason other than I own a cat. The figurine didn’t look like my cat at all. In fact, I’m quite sure it didn’t look like ANYONE’S cat.

Much like the house it came from, this kitty looked “off.” The part of me that was creeped out by it was overwhelmed by the part of me that found it hilarious in it’s abject weirdness. I picked it up and asked the young lady how much it cost. In a voice barely more than a whisper, she said “one dollar.” The smallest bill I had on me was a five, so I handed it to her and waited for my change. She opened the metal box in front of her and I peeked inside and noticed that it was totally empty. It appeared to me that we were the first/only customers of the day. She stared at the inside of the box for a good fifteen seconds, and then slowly looked up at me, saying nothing. I told her to keep the change and started off toward the truck. My grandfather was already halfway there. 

We rode quietly for a few minutes before my grandfather broke the silence by saying “It’s bugging me that there were no other vehicles at that place. How’d that girl get out there?” It was a good question. 

The vibe in the truck returned to normal after we’d been riding on pavement for a bit, and the only other time the world’s worst yard sale was brought up was when I was about to leave my grandparents’ house and my grandfather told me I oughta pitch that little cat figure into the lake down the street. 

I really should’ve listened to my grandfather. The ancient evil dwelling within the cat figurine wasted no time sinking it’s claws into me. Ever since I brought that God-forsaken thing into my home, I haven’t had the urge to do anything other than drink beer, have sex, eat decadent treats of all kinds, and binge-watch things on Netflix. It’s all because of the cat. Within weeks of purchasing the Hell-forged abomination, I was doing things like taking days off to blow through a season of a TV show, and eating dessert on a weeknight. The cat is wrecking my life and I’m powerless to resist it’s commands. I signed up for TWO fantasy football leagues! I looked at porn in a non-incognito window! I forgot to pick my girlfriend up at work! ALL BECAUSE OF THE DEMON ATTACHED TO THE CAT STATUE! 

I’m sharing this story in the hope that nobody will repeat my mistake and find themselves showing up hungover to their nephew’s birthday party through no fault of their own. Please, trust your gut when yard-saling. If something feels like it might be harboring a demonic presence that will compel you to drunkenly smoke half a pack of cigarettes even though you quit years ago, it probably is. 

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[codename-bewareofthefangirl]

Dazai finds a kid the way home and bring the child with him and tells chuuya he want to adopt the kid cos he/she so cute? But Chuuya is more responsible and tells him its not that easy but he starts to like the kiddo too? And its just happens?

THIS ASK WASSO GOOD?! THANK YOU! Really, I’ve definitely exaggerated with the fluff but comeon, those two need a happiness in their lives alright? Don’t judge me, I’m asucker for fluff. I hope you’re going to enjoy this, because I’m pretty happyabout the result!

Have a niceday!

Soukoku(DazaixChuuya), Tooth-Rotting Fluff, Daily Life, Child Involved

Blue Eyes

Chuuya would have liked to go back in time and slaphimself. Hard. Because he had made two unforgivable mistakes in his life: first,falling for the idiot Dazai was; second, deciding to share an apartment withhim.

In any other occasion, he would have already been outside,searching for a bar where drinking Dazai and his stupidity away until the hispartner would come to pick him up; unfortunately, now it was definitely not anacceptable solution.

“Dazai, no,” he stated firmly, crossing hi arms. Hewas seated at the table of their small dining room, with his partner on theother side. He was drenched with rain and the floor was already a reduced to apuddle.

“Come on, Chuuya-kun!” he whined like a kicked puppy, “Lookhow cute she is!” he chirped raising by the waist the small kid he was keepingon his lap.

Chuuya took a deep breath to not curse in front of achild.

“I can see she’s cute and all BUT IT’S NOT OURS!” Hescreamed running his hands through the hair, exasperated.

“I know it’s not ours, I picked her up from thestreet,” Dazai shrugged hugging the little girl. She was wearing ragged clothesand her brown hair where styled in two messy piggy tails. She seemed happy tobe with Dazai and was looking around quietly, without uttering a single wordeven if she was probably three or four.

Chuuya felt like hitting him. Hard enough to make him unconsciousfor the next month.

“Did you want me to leave her there, alone under therain? It’s November!” Dazai asked narrowing his eyes and a disapproving pout onhis lips.

“No, I wanted to bring her to the police and searchfor her real parents,” Chuuya hissed through gritted teeth, “That’s exactly whatwe are going to do tomorrow morning.”

“I refuse!”

“Dazai!”

“I. Refuse,” the other insisted, protectively shieldingthe little girl into his arms.

“We can’t adopt her!” Chuuya grunted in disbelief,raising his hands to the ceiling.

“Why not?” Dazai batted his eyelashes, while he absentmindedlylet the girl play with his bandages.

That…was cute. But not enough to make Chuuya give in.

“Because first, we’re not sure her parents have reallyabandoned her and we need to try and search for them,” He started gesturingwith his hand; Dazai gave him a pointed look, but he ignored it. “Second, a memberof Port Mafia and one of The Detective Agency being good parents? Really?”

Dazai chuckled, covering his mouth with a hand.

“You’d be an awesome mom, since you’re so good atnagging,” he mocked him with a wink and Chuuya groaned. Maybe a little embarrassedat his words. Maybe.

“In fact, I’m worried about your influence on her, notmine,” he rebutted rolling his eyes.

“See? We’re already bickering like real parents.”

Chuuya covered his face with a hand and sighed deeply.

“Come on, babe.” Chuuya blushed a little at the petname. “She was alone in a card box, under the rain. Her parents have abandonedher and you know it. And, lately we’ve not had that much work to do, haven’twe? The city is calm and the new generations are doing a pretty good job,” theman cooed trying to persuade him.

He looked at Dazai’ still damp hair and the frail girlthat was starting to doze off in his arms, grabbing his coat with her littlefingers. And maybe, just maybe, something moved in him.

“That Atsushi and Akutagawa spend half of their timequarreling and destructing the city, the other half pining around each other.How’s that a “good job”?” Chuuya grumbled averting his eyes before the mancould see his crack, but it was too late.

“They’re just slow at accepting their feelings. I findit funny,” he shrugged innocently, “Just like me and you,” then he added in asultry voice and Chuuya felt heating up.

“Don’t change the topic.” He glared, but regretted hiswords immediately. Dazai was waiting for that opening.

“Alright!” he chirped bouncing up and reaching hisboyfriend, who vainly tried to escape. “Take the girl and bath her while I takea shower, dear,” he said putting in Chuuya’s hands the girl.

“Oi Daz-” he burst, but the little girl interruptedhim with a giggle.

He froze, while she planted her hands on his face andsmiled brightly.

“Hi!” she chirped.

“H-hi…” He greeted back, softening his awkwardexpression.

Dazai gave them a fond glance and disappeared in the bathroomhumming happily.

Chuuya and the girl stared at each other, until theman sighed.

“Come on, let’s change those wet clothes,” he mumbledtoo sweet for someone who should have been the voice of reason.

While he undressed her and softly washed her body, hecouldn’t do nothing but thinking. It was the most foolish idea Dazai had evercame up with and that said it all. Yet, when he watched how the girl splashedhappily in the water or the way she smiled at him while he brushed her softhair, he found part of him thinking “Why not?”

At some point, when he was dressing her with one ofhis older t-shirt, which he had cut so that it was a sort of mini dress, thelittle girl tugged his shirt and he instinctively smiled at her.

“Yes?” he asked, crouching to be on the same level asher.

She watched him with her big blue eyes and smiledwidely, pointing at her own chest.

“Hana!” she bubbled excitedly and then waited for hisresponse.

Chuuya let out a small chuckle and patted her head.

“What a beautiful name, Hana-chan!” complimented her,who beamed, and then gestured at himself, “Chuuya.”

“Chuua?”

“Chuuya.”

“Chuu…ya!”

“Good girl!” he shined picking her in his arms andleaving a kiss on her chubby cheek.

“I see you’re getting along,” Dazai laughed warmly.Chuuya turned horrified and found him leaning against the frame of the shower, wearinghis bathrobe, slightly loose, and with a knowing smile on his lips.

Damn. He had heard everything.

“Please, dress properly, there’s a child,” he scowledcovering the eyes of the innocent girl and storming out of the bathroom.

“Then keep your thoughts pure, Chuuya-kun!” Dazaichirped amused, combing back his dark hair, making his boyfriend’s ears growingred.

 Half an hour later, Chuuya was in the dining room withthe girl asleep in his arms and he was looking at Dazai, cooking in their smallkitchen with a stupid frilly apron on. The man was humming cheerfully, asalways not worried about his partner’s internal conflicts.

“Dazai,” Chuuya called him exasperated, looking downat Hana, “Why do you always pick up strays? You should stop with this habit ofyours,” he grumbled upset. The entire new generation of the Detective Agencywas made of strays he had picked up. Why he had always to-

“Should I?” he turned to look at him with an unexpectedbittersweet smile on his face, “But every time I see a stray I think about youand me and I can’t let they be. Where would we be now if no one had picked usup back then?” asked softly staring straight in his eyes.

Whatever witty comeback Chuuya was coming up with, itdied in his throat. He blushed and averted his eyes.

“This was unfair,” he murmured, hiding his red cheeks withan arm.

“But it’s true,” Dazai shrugged, paying attentionagain at the pot, “And, if I have to be honest, she had your blue eyes.”

This was the last drop.

Chuuya slammed his head against the table mumbling unintelligiblethings.

“Tomorrow,” he blurted with his heart pumping loudly, “We’llgo to the police. If no one claims her back, she’ll stay with us.”

Dazai put down everything, turned and, bouncing,reached Chuuya with a delighted, childish smile.

“Thanks, Chuuya-kun!” he leaned and pressed a kiss onhis lips.

“I hate you,” the other replied pouting.

“Yeah, I hate you too.”

[webarebears-imagines]

What if one day when the bears were out in the woods, they find a scary mutated human? They have like shark teeth and weird claws coming out from their hands. But they're like really shy and gentle, and always carry around a small potted daisy and they risk their life for the daisy.

Now to answer this question, I’ve decided to do a little ficlet for it. It’s Nebulous’ very first answer so I hope you all enjoy. If not, then give me all the criticism you wanna give so that I can improve!…

I imagine Pandafinding it first (because Panda always has to meet weird wildlifebefore anybody else for comedic effect) and he screams and thecreature just runs into their tool shed, and Panda bars the door andtrapping it inside. He doesn’t notice the daisy being heldprotectively the sharkman’s arms or the look of terror on its face.In the swiftness of the moment all Panda had seen were pointed teethand razor sharp claws.

After convincing anannoyed Ice to grab his ax, and then after pulling Grizz away fromrecording himself doing the Cinnamon challenge for online fame, Pandaleads them all to the shed, trailing nervously behind hisbrothers.“Guys, be careful.” Panda said withapprehension. “That thing is evil! I swear I saw it try to rip meto shreds with its razor sharp claws!”In the face ofhis little brother’s frazzled nerves, Grizz simply answered withcasual ease. He figured it was just another wild beaver. “It’sokay, PanPan. We’re here now. Nothin’ to worry your cute littlehead about, trust me.” “Ice Bear will clip itsnails.”Panda gave a distressed whimper. “You guys,I’m serious! You shouldn’t be taking this lightly! Ohhh, maybe weshould call animal control or something…”

Smirking, Grizzshrugged. “What for? We’ve chased wild animals away before.Remember the time that wild turkey jumped through the open window andattacked us?” He looked at the polar bear on his right. “Youremember that, right bro?”

“Ice Bear stillhas flashbacks.” Panda grabbed tufts of his own hair.“ARGH, you guys! This isn’t some dumb turkey, it’s a… aTHING! I don’t even know what to call it! And it’s fast! I’mlucky I trapped it in there. What if it attacks one of you and youget hurt real badly? Or worse?”

The despair in hisbrother’s voice was enough to get Grizz to take his littlebrother’s fears more seriously. Even when there were times hecouldn’t understand how Panda had such sensitive stress triggers,Grizz was always ready to accommodate his little PanPan. He loved hissweet little brother too much to dismiss him so callously, even ifhis fears weren’t all that bad.

“Hey.” Grizzsaid, his voice taking a more serious tone. He put both paws on hislittle brother’s shoulders to assure him. “Nothing bad is goingto happen, PanPan, I promise. Just stay behind us, we got this!”

Ice Bearkicked the door down before Panda could object. From within the shedthey heard a bloodcurdling scream. The creature washuddled in the corner, staring at the bears with glassy wide eyes.Its mouth contained sharp teeth that barely poked out of its closedlips. What made its appearance so nerve wracking was the fact thatalthough it was clearly abnormal, its face held just enoughsimilarities to a human face that it unnerved them. It had two eyes,a mouth, and a nose, all in proportionate areas. It even had littleears in the right places, although those looked rather small and moreelfish.

All the boastingspirit within Grizz had completely died at the sight of it. Itsappearance was even worse than how Panda had described it. Thegrizzly was expecting a tiny beaver, not this mutant-looking…human.

It appeared to bemore lizard than anything, with its green scaled body. But it hadlimbs that were reminiscent of a human. It was alien but all toofamiliar. Its savage looking stance appeared ready to pounce. Grizzreflexively held his arms wide apart, trying to shield his brothers.

Ice Bear initiallyjumped when he saw it. Its razor sharp teeth and claws mixed withhuman flesh looked what he could only describe as monstrous. If ithadn’t shrieked the way it did he would’ve believed it to be anactor in poor makeup…

But his curiositypiqued when he noticed something in its eyes… He knew fear in acreature’s eyes when he saw it. He recognized how it was huddledover. Like it was protecting something.

He slowly loweredhis ax, listening to the beasts’ whimpers.

The polar bear’sheart jumped up his throat when he was suddenly shoved forward andalmost fell. He whipped around and shot Grizz the angriest glare hehad made in a while.

Grizz gulped,sheepishly rubbing the back of his head and glancing away. “Uh…You’re the one with a weapon, bro… Go get it!”

Ice rolled his eyesand took careful steps towards the creature, gripping his ax.

As the polar bearapproached, he noticed how the creature looked away from Ice’sapproaching eyes, almost shyly.

When Ice had finallyreached the shark man, he saw just how frail it was, how weak itsarms and legs appeared up close. Like thin plastic bags coveringbone. And its “claws”, if you could call them that, were simplyuncut nails. Hardly a threat. Moreover, it didn’t seem all thathostile. It just looked hungry, and from this close proximity thepolar bear could smell its fear. Ice had an exceptional talent forsmelling fear, let alone seeing it. Hell, with his instincts kickingin he could practically feel its fear too. It looked pitiful.

“Not worthkilling.”

He stood there for afull minute just assessing what he should do when a sudden highpitched voice squeaked across the shed, startling the polar bear.

“L-Littlebrooooo!?” Panda called from the doorway. Ice glanced back at himand rolled his eyes. “Are you okay? Uhm… Maybe just chase itaway, or something? It doesn’t look all that dangerous now that Isee it like this, but…”

The atmosphere inthe shed was losing most of its earlier tension. Grizz’ shouldersslumped down and he breathed out a small breath.

“… Yeah,actually…” The grizzly began. “It just looks… scared.”

Grizz moved forward,loud footsteps echoing in the dusty shed. Upon seeing the creaturecurl into itself in fear, Grizz slowed down and took lighter steps,raising his own paws up to chest level in a show of peace. “Hey,hey, it’s okay buddy. I’m not gonna hurt you…”

Once he stood beforeit, the creature looked up and trembled at the bear’s sheer size.The big fuzzy monster was going to eat him, he believed.

Grizz loweredhimself to his knees to meet the shark creature at eye level, sendinghim a gentle gaze.

“See? It’s okay.I’m not gonna bite.” Grizz said with tender care, as thoughtalking to a toddler. “How are you?”

The creature was tooembarrassed and didn’t know how to respond. It quickly looked away,still using its arms to cover something.

Something about itsshy nature had reminded Grizz of someone. Who that person was hecouldn’t say exactly. Regardless, he knew how to deal with shytypes. All it took to break the tension was a little gentlepersistence.

“I’m Grizz. Andthat’s my little brother. Introduce yourself, little bro.”

Ice Bear pointed tohimself and said, “Ice Bear.”

“And that there isPanPan.”

Panda, stillstanding by the door frame, swallowed his own apprehension, or atleast he tried to. “Uh, I-I’m Panda… Uhm… It’s nice to meetyou?”

“See? We’refriendly!” Grizz exclaimed with an excited arm flail which causedthe creature to flinch. The grizzly quickly pulled down his own armsand apologized for the sudden outburst.

“Say, what do yougot there?” The grizzly gently inquired. Grizz could see what hebelieved to be a red  rock or something poking through the sharkman’slanky arms.

The creature kepthis glance aimed at the floor.

Ice Bear gave a fewsniffs, “Ice Bear smells daisy.”

“Huh?” Grizzsaid. “What does that mean?”

“I think he meanshe smells a daisy.” Panda said, finally joining his brothers insidethe shed. “Look, he’s holding like a plant pot orsomething.”Grizz did a double take. “Hey, yeah,you’re right! He totally is! Is that what it is? Are you carrying asmall daisy?” Grizz asked, raising his voice in uncheckedexcitement. He wanted to learn more about this scaled little creaturenow that he thought it could be friendly.

The scaled man stolequick glances at all three of them, appearing more frightened thanbefore.

“Uh…” Grizztried to amend.

“Grizz,” Pandascolded. “stop freaking out the poor guy.”

“Hey, I’m nottrying to freak him out or anything. I just wanna be friends.”

“Well you’recoming off too strong man. You gotta relax.”

“Right. Sorry,sorry.” He turned back to the creature with a smile. “So, uh…You got a daisy there or what?” He yelped when he got bonked on thehead by the stick of Ice Bear’s ax. “Ow!”

“Still too strong,dude!”

“Ah, I’m sorry,I’m sorry, bros! My bad.”

Before they couldsay anything, the sharkman shifted his body to face them. He sat onhis rump and presented to them what he was so defensive over theentire time.

“Ha! I knew it! Itotally called it!”

“Bro, our littlebrother called it, not you.”

“Ice Bear likeshow you take care of daisy.”

The sharkpersonsmiled for the first time, which wasn’t frightening to the bearsanymore. In fact, it looked kinda cute, in a godzilla kinda way. Atleast in Grizz’ opinion.

“Hey, Godzilla canbe cute!” Neither of the bros agreed, although neither did theydisagree, so that’s an agreement in Grizz’ book.

A few hours laterand the bears invited the creature to dinner. It was a vegetarianlike Panda. Grizz took to calling him “Sharky.” It seemed to likethat name.

[lisabelkin-yahoonews]

Buying Weed for Grandpa

Photo illustration: Yahoo News; photos; Getty Images.

Somewhere in a suburban New York basement there is a small, unused bag of marijuana, a last attempt to help an elderly father in his final days.

Always a muscular construction worker, the man had been fit and hearty even into his early 90s. Then, seemingly overnight, came a rush of ailments, turning him into a frail shell of his former self.

One day last spring, in one of his series of hospital rooms, his family — a wife and four grown children — argued over what straws they might grasp to build his strength.

If only he had an appetite, his wife said.

Pot could help with that, said his son.

The wife objected for a while, refusing the more straightforward route of asking for a prescription card. Yes, he qualified under several of the illness categories in New York State, but that would mean talking about cannabis with a doctor, which the 85-year-old woman refused to do. Eventually she agreed to the more hush-hush route, on two conditions — that her son never tell her where he procured the weed and that he hide it in the basement where the police could never find it.

“It might be a changing world, but not for my mother,” her daughter says now. “She’s still living in the one where it’s a crime.”

Medical marijuana may be bought and used legally in 29 states and the District of Columbia at the moment, by Grandpa or anyone else with a qualifying condition, and it is often used illegally in other states by those who believe it helps them with a variety of ailments. But that doesn’t mean Grandpa is ready to buy it.

An exclusive Yahoo News/Marist Poll found that the Silent and Greatest generations — those over age 69 — are least likely to support the legalization of medical marijuana (65 percent favor it, compared with 83 percent of Americans overall) and even less likely to say they themselves would use it, even if it were legal. Only six percent of Americans over 69 say they would use it if it were legal; 13 percent say they would “self-prescribe” for pain; and just 40 percent say they would use it if it were prescribed by their doctor. This compares with 28 percent, 38 percent and 66 percent, respectively, for adults overall. The over 69-age group is also most likely to think the use of marijuana is a health risk (73 percent), compared with baby boomers (59 percent), Gen X (52 percent) and millennials (35 percent).

Yet people who are over 69 are also most likely to suffer from many of the conditions for which marijuana can be prescribed — cancer, terminal illness, chronic pain, Parkinson’s disease — a dynamic that leads to many in younger generations suggesting, cajoling and smoothing the way for members of older generations to use pot.

Of course, there are older patients who use it without reservation. Last month, for instance, 76-year-old actor Patrick Stewart credited the use of cannabis-based sprays, ointments and edibles for relieving his severe arthritis. And the AARP, after years of shying away from discussion of medical marijuana, now runs articles in its magazine about its growing use in assisted living communities.

But as in any moment of change, there is a spectrum of opinion.

Jason Good, a Minnesota writer, did not have to persuade his father to use weed medically as much as keep him company while he did. Diagnosed with leukemia four years ago, 69-year-old Michael Good, a political science professor in Oakland, Calif., was no stranger to weed — he had smoked some as a “hippie” in the 1960s but not much since then. He then turned “a blind eye” to his son’s use as a teenager, but now, 20 years later, he insisted that Jason come along for his first visit to a dispensary. When one location would not allow the son inside with the father, they found another that would. Once inside, Jason says, “It was a fun experience for us. There was something subversive about it. He was sort of giddy.”

After a consultation about how Michael would like the weed to make him feel (he chose “up and creative” over “mellow down on the couch,” Jason says), they bought two different blends and a vaporizer, then headed home to use it together. “He had a tremendous time; I was a nervous wreck,” Jason says, adding that while pot lightened his mood back in high school, it had begun to make him jittery in the years since.

Some parents are even more insistent that their children play go-between. One elderly man in L.A. whose appetite was diminished by kidney disease had all but stopped eating, so his grown children urged him to try medical marijuana.

No, he said. If his name were on record anywhere, word could leak out in his former industry, where he had been well known. So his daughter got herself a card, instead — a relatively simple process in California, which has the broadest list of qualifying conditions in the country.

“I went to a little clinic called 420 Doc and sat in the waiting room with a combo of young stoners and people in their 60s who looked like they had arthritis,” she says. When it was her turn, she told the doctor her father’s symptoms, identifying them as her own.

“I have no appetite. I need something to relax at night and give me the munchies,” she said.

“He looked at me, at my very, very curvy frame, and said ‘Really, dear? The munchies?’” she remembers. “I said, ‘Call it anxiety?’ and he said, ‘OK, we’re going with anxiety.’”

He wrote her an order for an 8:1 ratio of tetrahydrocannabinol (THC) and cannabidiol (CBD), the two major chemical components of the cannabis plant, one of which does, in fact, increase appetite. But when she got to the dispensary, having learned from her clinic experience, she played things the opposite way.

“How hungry does this make you?” she asked the clerks about each product, acting as if increased appetite was a problem. Then she bought the ones that would make her (and presumably her father) the hungriest.

Did it work?

When her father knew the cannabis drops were being added to his food, he insisted he was not hungry, but when he didn’t know, he seemed to eat more, his daughter says, though “not in a way that can be proved by scientific measurement.” It’s been about a year “and he’s still alive, so something’s working,” she says. His weight has remained steady, albeit at a near-skeletal 118 pounds.

In other families, though, no amount of suggestions or offers of assistance will persuade an aging parent to try something they still call by names that went out decades ago.

“I tried so hard to talk my Dad into ‘the reefer’ in his dying days,” says Amy Cohen, who runs the SteamPunk Coffeebar in the Los Angeles area. “It came to the point where whatever I gave him to eat, he would ask ‘Does this have Mary Jane in it?’ I would answer: ‘Dad, I’m not going to dose you. You’ll have to ask me for it.’”

She herself is a daily user, both to treat her multiple sclerosis and because she enjoys it, and she regularly asked her father to partake. She’d bring candies and cookies from a dispensary and leave them out for him to see, hoping they would be tempting. But “he was from a different generation; he was not open to change,” Amy says. “The pain pills they were pumping him full of, and that weren’t working, were OK, but not weed.”

Then, one day she came home from work and found him nibbling a cookie.

“Where did you find that?” she asked.

“In a container in the freezer,” he said.

“The one that says ‘Do not eat’? The one where I drew a skull and crossbones so no one would eat it by accident? Dad, that’s marijuana,” she said.

“I guess it’s too late now,” she remembers him saying, as he finished the cookie. She adds, “He had a great night’s sleep after a bout of really, really bad nights.”

Amy’s father never tried weed again. He died soon afterward, in 2014, and she still keeps the container that held those cookies, in his memory.

Jason Good’s father died in the same year. What remained of his father’s marijuana supply is now in a cabinet above Jason’s refrigerator, “way in the back,” Jason says, in a container made for Williams-Sonoma peppermint bark.

And in that New York suburb, the son who kept his promise, and never told his family where he’d gotten a small bag of pot, also never got to give it to his father, because, in the end, the patient’s wife ordered it to disappear.

The man died just under a year ago, and the marijuana is still hidden somewhere in his wife’s basement.