#still. rediscovering it last year did things to me (plagued by the realization that i am AND am not the person i was 5 years ago)
Explore tagged Tumblr posts
aiburr · 2 years ago
Text
Tumblr media
would you trust a gemini? what about TWO geminis??
138 notes · View notes
scriptaed · 4 years ago
Text
bygones of the sun. 09 (m)
Tumblr media
genre: angst/fluff/(future)smut || dance captain!hoseok, bad boy!au, uni!au
pairing: reader x hoseok;
length: 5.5k;
synopsis: Jung Hoseok was once the sweetheart of the school, the dance captain whom every girl, including you, can’t help but fall head over heels for. But like the force of the ever-glowing sun, everything that rises must also set. A year of inactivity later and he’s now the school’s resident bad boy. You’re a firm believer of allowing the past be the past, and yet you can’t help but wonder where the risen sun has gone into hiding—because perhaps its shadows have out-shined its own radiance.
Moonlight bellows in the background of the warm, golden-lit room—crashing and seceding, crashing and seceding, repeatedly colliding against the jagged rocks by the cliff like tidal waves out at sea in the deep sway of the black night. Under the hypnosis of the jet-black skies absent of the charming twinkling of the stars, you had somehow stumbled through the retreat to your room. You aren’t exactly sure what you had seen—and perhaps, out of consideration for your well-being, you simply don’t want to nor need to comprehend your sightings—but the glutinous image of the broken boy sticks to your chest akin to a dark secret weighing heavy on a sinner’s heart.
And somehow, amidst the long night looming ahead of you, the spur of emotions sweeps you before the door of his room.
Taking a deep breath, you clear your throat and whisper hesitantly next to the wooden frame, “...Hoseok?”
In the red-carpeted hall where dozens of fellow camp attendees rest until the next sunrise, you stand there wondering if Jimin had mistyped the captain’s room number on the emergency flyers. The overwhelming guilt of having pushed Hoseok to his breaking point, albeit unknowingly, had forced the heavy footsteps of yours to this very spot, but now that you’re faced with silence as an answer, you figure perhaps it isn’t in your fate to confront him tonight; it would be the easier way out, at least, for irrationality had bewitched you and plans on what to even say were the last things on your mind… until now.
Subconsciously, your knuckles meet the cold wax finish of his door once again.
One knock, two knocks, and alas, a sigh.
Your hands drop to your sides in defeat, despite regretting your rash decision which had brought you here in the first place. You glimpse around to ensure that the coast was clear, and when the last sigh escapes your lips and the balls of your feet pivot to your left, only then does the door swing wide open.
“What do you want?”
Whirling around, you find Hoseok standing aside where one arm leans against the door frame and the other hides behind the door, clutching the gold handle. As you gaze at him in silence, too taken aback to make your next move, Hoseok stands there, heavy-lidded and jaws clenched, disgruntled by your late night appearance.
The uninviting glare of his elicits the uncomfortable shift in place of your footsteps. It’s a rare moment for goosebumps to rise and chest to constrict when in the presence of someone as playful and flirtatious as Hoseok, but the sudden cold mien of his persona now conveys to you that you’re not welcome here tonight.
“I… I was just…” your eyes dart to the floor as your mind crashes into auto-pilot, searching for any form of excuse other than the truth too unready to be exposed, “I couldn’t fall asleep. So—”
“—you could’ve texted me,” he refutes, brows furrowing, but all your eyes are fixated on are what appears to be beads of sweat dripping from his damp bangs. And when he notices the softening of your wandering eyes, his voice nearly drowns in the waves of sneakers squeaking against the floor and the buzz of the vending machine which shrills in your eardrums to this very second.
From the tee which drapes his upper body and his sweatpants which masks the witnessed scene weighing heavy in your heart, everything about him now would serve as the perfect facade of a normal captain disturbed from his sleep. But at least he's still up, at least he's still trying, at least he answered your call.
You want to believe he’s okay again, that everything you had seen was just a misunderstanding, but something tells you the sun won't be rising again after tonight, and that very thought plagues you of your sleep.
A few seconds pass as you scan him over in a confusing mixture of both disbelief and relief, when Hoseok half scoffs and half chuckles, frowning at your expression, “is something bothering you? You look like you're almost glad to see me for once.”
“...why are you sweating?” you blurt, his words completely missing you as your eyes fixates on the beads of liquid plastered across his temples and trapped in his brows.
“Sweat…?” Hoseok arches a concerned brow before pressing his lips into a thin line. “This isn't sweat… I just got out of the shower. What makes you think that, though?”
Your lips part, but silence ensues when you realize neither you nor him seemed prepared enough to tackle the true reason as to why you're here.
“Nothing… really. It was just the first thing which came to mind.”
Hoseok nods, eyelids weighing heavier and heavier as the conversation comes to an abrupt end. “So…” he drawls, “what do you need?”
“I didn't need anything, per se,” you emphasize, eyes averting to the side and away from his watchful gaze, “I just… wanted to talk. I didn't get to talk to you much today.”
Usually, at a point like this, Hoseok would tease you; “someone's a bit needy today, and I know you're pure and untainted and all, but shouldn't you at least know not to come begging for attention to a guy's room at midnight”—is what he would've said, but tonight, the tidal waves under the wavering moon dictates otherwise.
“Look, Y/N,” he runs a hand through his hair and leans his entire weight against the doorframe, “I'm not in the mood to talk to anyone right now. I want to be alone.”
But does he? Because the gleam in his softened eyes, the windows to his soul, are begging you to accompany him through the long night.
“Are you… okay, Hoseok?” you ask, brows cinching in concern.
He flinches, but his brows immediately lift to mask the initial response. “...yeah,” he finally says after a long pause, taking a deep breath and sighing, eyes never budging from yours, “...I'm fine. Now go sleep if you're done badgering me.”
“Okay… you should sleep, too.”
“Yeah,” he utters under his breath, eyes glued to the ground as he mumbles, “I'll try.”
“Try…?”
“I have a lot of things on my mind and decisions to make tonight,” he explains with a final sigh, the void in his eyes lifting to meet yours once again, and you don't notice until now the purple-blue dark circles which only emphasizes the absence of his usual vigor. “I'll see you tomorrow then.”
And ever so quietly, as if none of the conversation had taken place under the mist of the night perched high up on the mountains, the door closes on you, and the walls between you and Hoseok become thicker than ever.
You can't tell what's on his mind. You can't even tell what's on your own mind. All you can convey is the sheer dejection, the unusual lethargy radiating from Hoseok akin to a captain too prideful to allow his pupils to witness his own cracks and falls.
You're partially responsible for this—no, somehow your mind had convinced you that you're the one completely responsible for this. If you hadn't pushed him to return, maybe things wouldn't have gotten this far. You had reopened a wound like ripping stitches off a gash still in the process of rehabilitation.
And sometimes, wounds of seconds can inflict more pain than its first and leave deeper scars than the past itself.
You're guilty as charged, and you want to fix things now, but the unwelcoming tone of tonight's conversation tells you it might just be too late. If you've acknowledged your mistakes but the other is unwilling to receive your sympathy, what else are you supposed to do?
You had hated the new Hoseok for laying the death of the old, but now that you stand here before his guarded walls and closed door, maybe things would've been better the way they were before.
But that thought finds you as ridiculous, and the very fact that a part of you still wants to aid him in rediscovering your first love at the expense of the person he is now, finds you even more horrendous.
For now, a shower is the only concoction for such a plague.
-
Water beads drip from the ends of your hair to the cottons of the white towel hanging from your neck. A rush of goosebump inducing air envelops you the second your right foot meets the carpet beyond the bathroom tiles. Besides the remaining drip drops of the water draining in the bathtub behind you, all that is left in the sanctuary of your room is what should have been silence.
Because you can still hear the buzz of the vending machine, the familiar squeaks of sneakers, and worst of all, his wincing breaths endowed with despair still echo in the back of your mind—gradually quickening and crescendoing into a chaos of a symphony without its conductor until everything collapses, the squeaks and the huffs replaced by the ominous buzz of the machine.
As you run through your hair and turn your back on the door to further bury yourself in the depths of your sanctuary, a sudden rise of events interrupts the temporary serenity with the strike of fear into your racing heart.
A series of slurred knocks—two loud, quick knocks followed by one hesitant bump of the knuckles—elicits a ring in your ear as you cautiously turn on the balls of your feet to face the door head on.
The numbers 1:15 A.M. blink in red digital font from the desk beside your bed.
Who could possibly be visiting you at this time of the night?
“Y/N?”
The familiar voice strained with lethargy finally announces after a sigh, and as if reciting words to a spell of witch craft, your heart stills and your body freezes… because did you really just hear Hoseok? Outside your room? The one who had just turned you away without a blink of the eye?
Even with the mess of your mental state after finally digging up the answer you had been searching for all along, the only and greatest fear which plagues you now is the thought of whether the victim, Jung Hoseok, had somehow caught onto you preying upon his darkest of secrets.
After half a minute of silence, Hoseok sighs once again with a groan, “I’m not here to mess around with you if that’s what you’re thinking. I’m on duty for patrolling tonight, and I noticed your light was on. Now open up, would you?”
The walk to your door seems to take you centuries, because the second your hand pushes the handle even an inch down, the door swings wide open to reveal the rather irritated, profusely impatient boy standing on the other side.
“Could you be any slower?” he remarks, eyes peering down at you, unamused. “You’re even slower than me and I worked out more than…”
His white tee shifts underneath his crossed arms as he shifts his weight from one leg to the other. The intensity of his eyes with bags and dark circles drooping below elicits a shift in your own body of discomfort. Your own eyes retreat to the ground when his brows cinch and you can tell he’s scanning you over, just seconds away from catching you red-handed.
“...w-what? Can you  stop staring at me like that?” 
“What? I’m not checking you out or anything if that’s what you’re worried about,” Hoseok scoffs for a fleeting second before silence befalls his lips—and suddenly, the warmth of his hands radiate from your cheeks. A lock of your hair lies in the palms of his long, delicate fingers just barely grazing your cheeks, and it doesn’t take you very long to hastily cover your reddening ears and cheeks with your dampened towel. He frowns, not at your sheepish behavior, but for the wet strands of hair which are all that he fixates on, “did you just work out or something?”
Shouldn't you be the one asking him that? It's as if the irony of his actions is his own method of begging to be exposed without having to come out and ask for it himself.
“No,” you retort, scrunching your face at the absurdity of his suggestion.
Just as you’re about to pull away from his touch, Hoseok retracts his hands from the proximity of your cheeks before what would usually be another one of his mischievous acts; and as much as his sneaky pecks and meaningless affection had once infuriated you, it’s hard to admit how empty you now feel in the absence of its wake. His retreat made of his own will is a first for you.
“Then why are you showering at 1 A.M. in the morning?” he cocks his head with a raised brow.
“Says you—”
“—but at least I have an excuse. I was busy cleaning up after practice,” he retorts and shifts his weight to his other leg, musing, “you, on the other hand…”
“B-Because…” you cross your arms and shoot him the most annoyed glare you could muster; while meeting and comforting him were all that shrouded your mind just a few minutes ago, seeing him in a completely fine state like this is enough to put you to peace and shoo him away for now. “...I slept through the entire day and forgot to shower.”
“...okay,” his lips pressed into a frown gradually bursts into a large grin plastered with second hand embarrassment. “While you kept nagging at me to ‘attend dance camp’ and pick up dancing again, which I so dutifully obliged to tonight, you hide yourself in the corner of your room and sleep the day away?”
“Oh, shut up. It's not like I'm an actual dancer like you—” you roll your eyes before stopping mid-sentence; was that too insensitive of you to say considering the struggles Hoseok seemed to be going through? Clearing your throat, you lift your head high and sigh, “so what’re you doing here? I thought you were busy thinking the night away.”
“Like I said, I'm on patrol tonight. Are you even listening to me or are you to busy fantasizing about all the things we could've been doing in my room right now?” he teases and gently knocks his knuckles on your head.
His entire demeanor had reverted to his usual self, and as concerning as it is to wonder whether this is all an act too painful to witness yourself, you're glad to see him joking around again, even if it's forced.
“No, that's the last thing on my mind, but I guess it's not the same case for someone here,” you roll your eyes.
In retaliation to your indifferent attitude, Hoseok leans against the doorframe with a scoff, pulling you back in as you pushed him out. “Like I said, Ms. I Like To Break Rules Because I’m Dating the Captain, you’re supposed to be asleep by now.”
“I’ll turn off my lights after I blow dry my hair, Mr. Ex Dance Captain—” you bite your tongue when you notice the twitch in his darkened eyes and hardened jaw “—I mean, I'm not dating you.”
At this point, you’re not even sure how to address his relationship with dance, if you should even do so at all.
“So, if you’ll excuse me,” you continue, giving him one last pressed smile and stepping back to close the door; but before you could do so, Hoseok swiftly juts a foot out to interevene, and a simple question ensues.
“What? You don’t want me here?”
All efforts to protest dissipate when he turns his head to face you and lets out a scoff in disbelief, eyes completely empty, and you nearly have to lean in to catch his next words.
“You’re always so cold to me,” he lets out a soft laugh and cracks the most reluctant of grins. “Why do I even bother being disappointed at this point?”
A few seconds of tense silence goes by before it occurs to you what he had just said.
For once, he actually cares about what you say? He’s taking your meaningless banters to heart?
“I’m turning off my lights now,” you frown at him, but his attention remains elsewhere, “isn’t that what you came here to do?”
“You really...” he scoffs and lifts his head, eyes piercing yours and opening the window to his souls; shaky, colorless, lost and infuriated by the calamity of the world before him, in the world you present him. “...do you really think I came here just for that? I could care less what time you sleep.”
“O-Okay…” you stutter; you know there isn’t anything to be hurt over, because what he’s saying has made you believe is of the utmost truth, but the unusually blunt implications of his disingenuity comes on all too harsh.
His constant switch in demeanor is all too confusing to keep up with tonight, and quite frankly, you don't know how to read him anymore, as if you ever could.
His lips part, words of apology ready to be uttered, and his eyes soften in worry for a swift second, but when the clock ticks twice, his jaw hardens the invisible wall built between the two of you.
And for the first time in a while, he’s actually acting like the infamous reputation he had been endowed; because he doesn’t apologize, and now your guts begin to twist and turn, wondering whether you had done something wrong.
Was he in a bad mood because of what you had seen just half an hour before? Should you confront him about it? Should you comfort him? Would words of encouragement even help? Is that what he’s asking for?
Is that the true reason as to why he’s here? Is he… asking for help?
“I’m here to check up on your ankle.”
His mumbling interrupts the internal war fared between two hidden motivations; defeat is all that reigns in the realm of tonight—you, unable to decipher his code, and him, unable to send you such codes.
The mention of your momentarily forgotten injury brings a crease between your brows, “my ankles are fine.”
“Don’t make this harder than it already is for me, your highness,” he refutes with a pressed, unamused smile.
“But it really is fine—” you stop mid-sentence when you notice Hoseok taking a deep breath, chest struggling to rise while constricting the impatience and whatever else remains buried from within.
Please let me in, his eyes scream.
Your feet stumbles as they shuffle backwards, and in response, he takes one swift, large stride forward. The door shuts behind him, and suddenly, the room seems significantly more lackluster than before.
“What if someone sees us?” your fear translates into words.
“Should’ve worried about that earlier, don’t you think?” he flatly remarks, cocking his head to the side.
“...but,” you frown and shake your head, “what if they spread rumors about you entering my room?”
He snorts and rolls his eyes before returning the look of impertinence to you, “haven’t they already spread rumors about us? We literally made out at the pool last night. And who cares what they say? I’m tired of giving a shit about them. All it does is burden you.”
“Burden…” your mind subconsciously slips the words into formation when your eyes naturally trail from his gray sweatpants and up to his white tee where beads of water drip from his drenched bangs. “...hey, Hoseok, why haven't you dried your hair yet?”
He couldn't have possibly went out to practice again, could he?
“My hair…?” his brows cinch as his hands find their way to twirl the wet locks in between his fingers and his eyes light up before settling into a frown once again. “Ah… but first, why are you so concerned for me tonight?”
“Maybe because I was kind enough to let you in my room and that's the least you could do…?”
“But I’m the captain. I’m the one in charge,” he quickly quips. You can see the tip of his tongue running across the inner walls of his mouth from the protrusion of his cheeks and his hardened jaw, as if preparing for a fight. “So, technically, I do have the rights to be here, because you broke the rules. If you don’t want to see me, maybe you should turn off your lights next time.”
His sudden defense rubs you the wrong way when you scoff, “captain? Huh, funny, because I seem to recall a certain someone getting all pissed off at me because I begged them to come here in the first place.”
“What?” he asks in disbelief, narrowing his eyes at you.
“It’s really not that big of a deal. Why are you being so aggravated today? Are you scared to tell me the truth? That you’re playing around and checking in on me to pretend and act like you’ve been up hard at work all day? So you can continue playing around with me without having to hear me nag at you?”
You just want him to be honest with himself, and more so with you, and maybe you aren’t approaching it the right way, but you simply don’t understand how to fix the dent in Hoseok’s enclosed heart.
“What?” he repeats, the fury in his boiling blood exuding from his step forward and your step back. “I’m doing my job here, aren’t I? I’m guiding us through the camp, I’m teaching you guys how to dance, I’m even out here past midnight patrolling as a captain should! So how am I anything but a captain?”
Buzz, sneakers, collision, and buzz—the entire sequence washes onto shore once again from the back of your mind, blaring at you as if to tell you to back down.
He continues to take steps forward, forcing you to retreat backwards into the depths of your room.
“I didn't mean it like that…” you mumble, taking another step back until your heels hit the drawer and the back of your head bumps into the TV behind you.
Hoseok steps one intimidating stride forward, arms gripping at the drawer on either side of you and entrapping you in his field of control. He gives you one long, hard stare, and as uncomfortable as it is, something tells you there would be serious repercussions if you looked away.
“No, but it sure does feel like it and it confuses me,” he retorts lowly, “so tell me, Y/N, why are you so concerned for me all of a sudden?”
His watchful eyes and parted lips pray for the hopes that you had seen him, that he had finally found someone who knew the true him, but you don't want to and you can't possibly reopen his wound. You know it would hurt him all too much.
So you keep silent, just as he has all along
“...you’ll wake them if you yell any louder,” you mumble, looking off to the side in dejection.
But his warm hands cup the cold surface of your chin damp from your shower, turning you until your gaze has returned to meet his.
“Stop making excuses. You know they can't hear us,” he lowly utters. “What did you even think I was doing anyways?”
“I-I don't know. I was just asking what you’ve been doing. It’s not that hard of a question,” you mumble. “You can lie to me, even, if you want.”
“No,” he shakes his head, keeping his fingertips grazing against your chin. “I want to hear your guesses.”
You gulp, diverting from his piercing gaze, “I don't know…”
“You seemed to have a pretty good guess just a minute ago,” he narrows his eyes at you. “Just say it. I dare you to.”
I dare you to say it, but I doubt you can, because I doubt you even know, his leer screams.
“...maybe you had a girl over in your room or something…”
You know that's not the case, or at least you hope, but that's the most believable guess you could muster other than outright accusing him of his late night practices sessions.
“You think that I'd let another girl other than you into my room? Who do you take me for?” he scoffs, even chuckles. “Ah, you're too cute.”
He doesn't mean it, you tell yourself, you can't believe him and you can't fall for this specific trick because you know that's exactly what he wants to distract you from the pain hidden beneath that flirtatious crooked smile of his.
You frown, “quit playing and let me go...”
“Just one more question,” he laughs for a brief second, silence failing for a tense minute before finally asking in the lowest of voices, “can I kiss you?”
“W-What?”
“I mean, last time I was so congested and upset with these dark thoughts of mine that I forgot to even ask you for permission before I forced myself on you. Two elements of a great kiss are consent and surprise, remember? I think I got the surprise part down judging by the look on your face,” he smirks, but all you can do is stare at him in silence.
It's not like you're opposed to the idea of kissing him, per se, but you're against sharing such an intimate moment when you know he would just be using you like alcohol as a way to temporarily numb the pain.
But should you go ahead and let him? If something as trifling as this could even relieve him of the pain, should you give him what he wants?
“Are you… lonely? Are you upset over something? Can't I help you?”
Several seconds of silence passes by until you hear him chortle with a sigh, his arms dripping from your sides and releasing you from his grasp as he brushes by your shoulder and heads toward your bed. “I was just joking around with you. Don't look at me like that, it hurts me too, you know? I didn’t come here to argue anyways, ” he remarks, lightening up the mood. “I just forgot to dry my hair, that’s all. Do you have any snacks in your fridge?”
Nonchalantly, Hoseok plops onto your mattress without further permission, but all you could notice is the slight limping in his walk; if anyone else had watched his strides, including you from the past, no one would have suspected a thing, but now that you’ve discovered his secret, the uneven footsteps of his are all too glaring.
With his head against his hand propped by an elbow against one of your two pillows, Hoseok grins at you with an arched brow and a hand tapping on the sweatpants concealing the swelling of his leg.
“...no,” you finally answer, walking a few steps forward into the room to lean against the corner wall next to the lower side of your bed. You cross your arms and continue, “why would I bring food for a three night trip?”
“Ah, I forgot this is only for three nights. I see,” he nods, pursing his lips and turning to lie on his back with his head nestled into your pillow. The fingers of one of his hands drum against his stomach as the other props above his shoulders and under his neck.
The buzzing of your empty fridge stimulates you to memories you don’t want to revisit, but the overwhelming silence seems to be the motif of tonight and you just don’t know how to fix it; yet the longer he stares emptily into the ceiling above, the more curious you become.
“Hoseok?”
“Hm?” he hums without budging his eyes from the ceiling.
“What’re you thinking about?”
A few seconds pass by before he takes a deep breath and sighs loudly, his chest noticeably rising and sinking underneath his water-drenched tee.
“Truthfully, I actually came here after you left because I couldn’t stand the thought of being alone tonight. I was wrong to shut you out,” he confesses; but when you’re left staring at him in utter, shock, Hoseok finally breaks his gaze from the ceiling to meet your gaping expression with a chuckle. “It’s a joke, Y/N. I’m a lonely person, just like you said, remember?”
“Being lonely isn’t a joke…” you grumble, uncrossing your arms and walking over to gently seat yourself beside him in bed.
You’re expecting some teasing remark for supposedly joining him in bed, but what you don’t expect is what slips from his lips instead.
“Have you ever wanted something so bad that it’s all you come to know, but the second you get it, it turns out to be the only thing you can’t have? It just… it doesn’t love you back. I’m the only one trying at this point.”
“Like what…?” you hesitantly ask.
“Like you,” he swiftly answers, turning his head to shoot you a lopsided grin.
Everything comes crashing down into a full circle once it finally clicked for you: dance; dance is the unrequited love for Hoseok, and you were just one of the many replacements to allow him to forget what he had lost.
The thought irks you the wrong way, and as much as you want to console him, the teasing relationship you two have established does not exactly authorize for such a moment.
“But you never got me in the first place,” you snort.
Hoseok blinks blankly at your words before scoffing in disbelief, turning his head and smirking with the shake of his head, “go dry your hair before you get sick, you cold-hearted woman.”
“No, I can’t leave you unattended in my bed!”
“I won’t stay here overnight, alright,” Hoseok rolls his eyes while cracking a smile. “So stop worrying and go or you’ll get a cold.”
“Psh, fine,” you huff, getting up from your bed; but before you could depart to the bathroom, Hoseok’s hands grip onto your hands only to pull you back into bed beside him. You sigh, turning your back to glare at the blank look on his face, “do you want me to stay or not?”
“Y/N,” he ignores you and proceeds with his question, looking you straight in the eye, “what would you do if I said I still wanted to quit dance? If I said this entire trip only reminded me of why I hated it so much in the first place? What would you do?”
Your eyes grow wide; he’s practically asking you upfront about his inner true conundrums, and this time, you’re going to make things right again.
“I would support you no matter what. If dancing isn’t what you want, then I’m fine with it,” you answer. “I kissed you so you would come to camp. That’s all I bargained for, and that’s all I’m asking for.”
Hoseok stares at you for several seconds in silence before scoffing and tossing your hand to the side, “I came here for an answer, but now you’re just confusing me.”
“What?”
“Go dry your hair already. Your hands are cold,” he states, turning his head away from you. “I won’t be able to kiss you anymore if you get sick.”
Glaring at him from his back, you oblige to his demands and retreat to the safety of your washroom. While drying your hair, you spend all your time scrambling for something to say, to fill in the conversation, to keep you from the pounding white noise of sneakers and buzz, but most importantly, to keep him from the ill reminder of his downfall.
Yet, all is in vain, when you return to your room to find him asleep.
Sighing, you tiptoe your way to lie down in the bed right beside him. With your head cupped in your hands propped on the mattress by your elbow, you lean just a bit forward to catch a glimpse of his dozing expression. Only in his slumber is he relinquished of all worries. The crease between his brows has vanished, and the frown he had constantly worn in the corner of his lips had dissipated along with it. Finally, he is at peace and solace.
“You see, Hoseok, the thing about life is that it constantly challenges us to new obstacles… kind of like what you’re doing to me right now,” you chuckle to yourself and brush the fallen streaks of hair off his forehead and to his temples, “but you’re strong enough to overcome it, and as long as you have someone beside you the entire time, everything will turn out just right. You are loved, you just don’t know it.”
And with that, you lean in to place a chaste kiss on his forehead.
It’s the first time he ever failed to smirk after a kiss shared between the two of you.
With the official set of the sun ironically at the rise of dawn, an epiphany strikes you at 2 AM in the depths of your room where Hoseok lies asleep beside you.
Some secrets are meant to be kept hidden, some wounds are never meant to be revived; and so, instead of hurting and turning him away, you’ve agreed to be his sanctuary for just tonight.
Jimin [2:23 A.M.] Hoseok? No... he’s not supposed to be on patrol. I am.
317 notes · View notes
ashintheairlikesnow · 3 years ago
Text
Guns Ain’t a Plague
I wrote some version of this story over and over. This is the version I apparently emailed to a friend in 2013 and just rediscovered in my inbox. I am staring at this and realizing how long ago 2013 was now. Oh my gosh.
Background: I was already very much all about post-apocalyptic stuff, but this takes place in a world entirely unlike - and yet strikingly like - our own. In a world where war and disease once tore the land apart, an isolated, caged city of children struggles to survive.
Until one decides to leave.
Oh man somewhere in my stuff I have all my old maps and descriptions of the different countries and the war and... I wrote so much stuff for this universe/storyline...
-
The young woman crouched where the last of the road crumbled into broken stone. It had been crushed when they exited the city, taking their horses and carriages, doctors and soldiers and history, with them. Her feet were bare and she dug her toes into the warm red earth between the cracked rock. The muscles in her legs tensed, she placed one hand for balance on the ground.
She would have to run like wind if she was going to survive this.
“Don’t,” came Tor’s familiar voice behind her. She jumped up, wondering why she was even surprised he had followed her. She had, after all, been the one to teach him how to do it. She turned around, to look him in the eye, heart aching at the idea that if she didn’t time this just right, she would never see him again.
“Ed,” The boy said in the same pleading tone, hands held out to grab her, “don’t. You can’t even think it. You’ll die, same as they all do!”
Ed rolled her eyes and shot him a baleful glare, but she was bluffing and they both knew it. The toughness fell off of her face almost immediately, and she grabbed the much younger boy, pulling him into a fierce hug.
The two of them looked so alike that they seemed mirrored, almost, the teenager and the adult just barely ten years older than him. Ed’s skin was the same dusky red-brown as Tor’s, their hair the same rich black. It even hung in the same small twists, cut short and close to their heads, although Tor’s was cut a little longer. The only difference was in their ages and in their eyes. Ed’s eyes were a deep, rich pure brown, but Tor’s were green.
Ed thought she was somewhere near twenty-five; no one was completely sure on ages here. She knew Tor had been something like two when she’d found him; herself a ragged orphan, hearing him crying from two buildings over and simply taking him home. It was better than letting him die.
“I should’ve known you’d follow me,” She said, shaking her head. “And if you’re here… Jedder came too, didn’t he?”
“I run faster’n Jedder,” Tor said, clinging to her even harder. His arms around her waist felt like they were crushing her organs and she attempted to try and loosen his grip, with no luck. “Don’t die, Ed!”
“Won’t die, Tor,” she replied. “Don’t think I will anyway. How long they been standin’ there, those towers? Ten years now? Every gun’s got to run out of bullets sometime, right?”
“Not those guns.” Torrin gestured at the small turret towers stationed every twenty feet or so as far as they both could see around the place designated as the ‘edge’ of the city. Wherever roads had gone any farther, they had been smashed to bits until the towers were up. It felt like a river of grass, weeds, broken rock and bone surrounded them, surrounded this whole ruined city, a city that no living person had ever seen before it was a pile of ghosts and disease.
Ed, for a moment, allowed her grip on Tor to be as tight as his grip on her.
“Besides,” he continued with his face still pushed against her shoulder, head still tucked just under her chin. “who’s gonna feed us if you’re dead? Who’s gonna take care of us? You always take care of us, Eddi! Always. Since everybody died you take care of us. You can’t just stop ‘cause your feet got itchy.”
“Tor, you know damn well that ain’t why I want to try this time. We can’t stay here forever. This place is full of us, we can’t keep enough food to go on livin’ like this.  It’s been over a hundred years since this city fell, by my parents’ reckoning, since they just left everyone to die. Left a city full of kids with a bunch of dead bodies and bullets, fat lot of good it’s doin’ us now. The Oracle and her folk may like this place, an’ the Keepers may think we’re stuck here carin’ for the dead, but I think… I think somebody needs to get out and prove we still exist.”
There were footsteps behind them and they turned, almost as one, with Tor’s hand still twisted in Ed’s shirt.
The sweaty, fast-breathing young man who came running up to them was not like them in the slightest. His skin and hair were the same flat and dull gray-white. Compared to Tor and Ed, his arms seemed too long, he was too skinny, his hands and feet just a mite too big to be human. His eyes were unsettling to everyone but his little chosen family; wide and far apart, set on a diagonal line in his face, they were black. He broke into a relieved smile at seeing them both standing there. “Eddi! Tor caught up with you then. He runs faster’n me!”
“That’s what I said!” Tor was entirely too proud of himself. Ed bit her lip to stop from chiding him for it.
Jedder stopped, leaning over to lean his hands flat on his thighs to try and stop gasping quite so much.
“’Course he does. Plesalka never could run to save your lives,” Ed said with a responding smile and managed to extricate her shirt from Tor’s grasp. She turned back to survey the turrets again. Old and rusting over time, evidence of Plesalka scientific genius, the kind of machines and creations that neither Letenje like Ed and Tor or the Teci had ever been able to match. Their last apology for their part in this before the Exile began.
She knew about the reason those turrets existed only her parents had hoarded the scribble writings of their own ancestors; her great-great grandmother had been alive to witness the Plague and the death, had survived long enough to make sure her children were as protected as possible.
In the end, there was only so much protection to give; scarcity of food and resources meant that no one had a very long life span here.
It was one of the reasons she was so aware of her need to leave.
“I’m going to try whether you two like it or not. I’m going to try on my own, got it? And if I make it over that rise to the other side, I will shut those turrets down somehow. I’ll bash ‘em in with one of those twisted hunks of metal lyin’ all over the damn place. Once they’re broken, you two can get over and we can leave together. We’re not gonna die here where they left all of us, thinkin’ we’d be gone eventually.” Old grief twisted in her heart; she’d lost both her parents when she was 12, when they had gone out scavenging and been caught in the middle of a battle between the old Oracle’s gang and other Scavs like them. It had been a long, lonely, horrible year before she’d found Jedder.
She crouched down again, curling her fingers around one of the broken pieces of the road here at the edge. It was heavier than it looked, warm from the constant rays of the sun. Even with the lean muscle she’d picked up in ten years of scavenging everything she ate she left out a small grunt of effort as she threw it straight at the closest turret. She missed by a long arc. The gun did not respond or move to follow the stone’s movement. “They’re gettin’ worse. They used to shoot the rocks, too.”
Jedder and Tor shared a look behind her back, unsure of what to do. Jedder, at fifteen, was still nine years Ed’s junior and Tor at twelve was a full twelve years younger. She had been as much a mother to them as a teenage girl could be when she’d found them. Jedder had been found first, a little Scav just barely staying alive by stealing from the gangs, unwelcome like all Plesalka were… Tor just two years old, crying inside a makeshift nursery, his parents dead on the floor and all their food stores stolen. She had taken them in, even knowing Jedder being Plesalka would make it harder on them.        
No one ever stopped being angry, especially since in a century the stories to explain what had happened had gotten weirder and more elaborate as told by the remaining survivors. Even the truth made it hard to forgive either the Plesalka or the Teci for what they had created, what they had done in their war on each other… even if kids like Jedder were so far removed from those events as to be a whole separate people by now.
“Eddi,” Tor said, and now his voice was starting to take on a edge of nagging worry, “Eddi, what if this doesn’t work and you die?”
“Then you and Jedder go on livin’,” Ed replied without looking back at them.
She was surveying all possible obstacles between her and the turrets. Rocks. Weeds.
Bodies.
The last made her shudder, made the already roiling pit of nervousness that was her stomach threaten to riot up her meager lunch. Some of the bodies out here weren’t even bodies anymore. It was mostly bones left for her to look at, though now and then she could see evidence of newer deaths. Some kids still went crazy and made a run for it. She herself probably counted as crazy, just to be thinking about it. Still. There was a lot of bone out here. A lot of dead people dumped here at the edge to warn away anyone who might see them, to keep visitors out, to keep the descendents of Pohroma citizens in.
Barefoot, you want to run through a burial ground, she thought, wondering if it would be the last thing she did. “I’ve taught you both how to live if you lost me. If you think you can’t stick it out just the two of you, well, the other Plesalka that’re still alive would take Jedder in, if he went to them. Tor, you know the Oracle or the Keepers would have you. They could keep you safe. Don’t you dare join up with any of the Scav gangs, though.”
“We want you,” Jedder said stubbornly. “Besides, even if you died we’d just stick together. We don’t know any other way to be but the three of us.”
“Then you better be prayin’ to somebody’s god I don’t die now, because I’m going to do this.” She didn’t wait for their response but just launched herself forward with all the speed her legs could give her.  Not being able to crouch down and prepare first had only cost her half a second, but nonetheless she felt a rush of fear that it would be a half-second too many.
She felt Tor’s fingers clutch the back of her shirt, but he couldn’t get a grip and she twisted away from him easily, running like the devil was at her heels.
There was a rusty shrieking coming from turrets that had been left abandoned, not repaired or even touched in almost twenty years. The sound filled the air, coming from nearly ten turrets who were all slowly, inexorably pointing in her direction as she ran. Birds, having made nests in the openings, took to the air in a sudden frenzy of wings and shrieking birdcalls. For a moment, the sky was dark with them.
Ed ran.
She dodged larger rocks and the corpses of both people and animals shot dead by the turrets. Dogs, rats, foxes, cats, people… all just empty bones, she told herself, trying not to let her feet even brush them as she went past.
She ran.
She caught a glint and looked up, realizing that she could see the sun shining off all the metal casing on the ground for every bullet these huge guns had ever fired. She was caught by the shine of them just long enough to distract her.
And she tripped.
She had to have tripped on a rock, she could feel the rough of it scrape all the way down from mid-calf to her ankle as she fell and went rolling, coming to a halt only when she hit another big chunk of rock a few feet away. The breath was knocked out of her and she could only gasp, frozen, realizing that the horrible groaning of the moving metal had finally come to an end.
She looked up, and was looking directly up the barrel of one of the turrets, and it was aiming at her. She could not move. She thought of her parents, long dead from the violence in this city. She thought of finding Tor at two years old, Jedder at the time the only one who keep the little toddler from crying all the time. She thought of how they had lived the last ten years as a family, kept each other safe. She thought of every time she had ever seen a wild animal gunned down by these turrets, ripped to absolute shreds by the bullets.
She flinched at the sudden click of the gun.
Click?
It echoed, bouncing off against the walls and back again and at least twenty of the turrets were clicking in a chorus and Ed began, despite the aftermath of adrenaline still pumping, to laugh.
The sound of her laughter was something just below a scream, hysterical and echoing, bouncing off against the old stone walls behind Tor and Jedder, making them jump.
It took some effort and her ankle ached in a way that told her this victory wasn’t coming to her without some price to pay, but she began to hobble back to Jedder and Tor, arms out to them, spread as wide as her smile.
“They’re empty!” She called out above the noise. “Every single one!”
Only a moment of hesitation, a look of pure relief shared between the two boys, and then they came pounding across the earth until they could throw their arms around her, the both of them at once.
“They’re empty,” she whispered, pressing a kiss to the top of Tor’s head, to the fuzzy twists of his hair, before turning to lean her forehead against Jedder’s cheek. “I knew it. They never did come back to replace ‘em, not since before I was born, at least my da said. They had to run out sooner or later.” She squeezed the two of them even tighter, then finally let them go. Reluctantly, they let go of her as well.
“Empty,” she said one more time, savoring the taste of the word.
“So we can go,” Jedder breathed out. “We can leave. I don’t. I’ve never been outside the city. No one has. We don’t even know if there’s other people out there or if everyone died in the Plague, if it hit other places, too.”
 “I don’t think it did,” Tor said, thoughtfully. “Cause otherwise why would they have had to send people to keep us locked in by replacin’ bullets, ever?” Curling his fingers in Ed’s patched and worn shirt, he shook his head. “Bet there’s a whole world full of people out there. Maybe they don’t even know about us.”
Ed smiled, but it was a smile entirely without humor.
“Let’s go show the bastards we’re still alive.”
18 notes · View notes
heroesofhyrule · 5 years ago
Note
Okay since seeing the trailer for the new Zelda game, I’ve been really wanting to read some more really good BOTW fanfic. Do you have any suggestions where they have some length to them? Also fics where link and Zelda are raising a family??
Truth be told, I haven’t read many BotW fics, if any, but I’ll compile some here after some searching! There are quite a few here that seem interesting to me or had plenty of kudos.
Please check all of the tags and heed the warnings before starting a fic! 
Super long fics (wc: 200k+)
The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild 
T | Novelization | Slow Burn | wc: 473k | Complete
“But courage need not be remembered… for it is never forgotten.”Though struggling with both the loss of memory and the incredible weight of past failure, Link must find a way to recover what has been lost and bring hope back to the land of Hyrule.An epic fantasy-style novelization of Breath of the Wild.Complete, with afterword and deleted scenes!
Champions and Beasts
T | Series | 2 works | Slow Burn | Post-canon | wc: 311k | complete
Hyrule is a strange place, is it not? It has no history, only legends. It has no true heroes, only colossi who have wielded its fate in their hands. The Champions, and the Beasts; the wise, the strong, and the brave. And yet, we are always either recovering from war or preparing for it. How much longer can we endure, I wonder? How much longer can we step through this dance?
In a world this vast, being a hero isn’t always easy.
Champions and Beasts is a Breath of the Wild series that takes a darker and more political look at the world of Hyrule, both before and after the Calamity. Legends are long past, history is mostly lost, the wilds are dangerous but perhaps not as dangerous as the ambitions of its inhabitants; and with Calamity either just over the horizon or still a lingering nightmare, the Hyruleans must fight to attain peace.
This work is centered around Link and Zelda, and their evolving relationship both before and after the Calamity.
Currently there are only two Parts planned (From the Ground Up and The Ballad’s Beginning) but I am considering a third installment!
One Last Year
T | Post-canon | wc: 215k | Complete
Zelda vows to help Link remember the events that lead them to their hard-won victory. In doing so, they must delve together into a shared past and seek to untangle their feelings, their grief and their youthful frustrations to find the things they could control… and the things they couldn’t.
“I don’t know how to remember. Time passes, but nothing comes to my mind… Except you. You’re the key,” Link said, softly. “You have to be.”
A Breath of the Wild fic about Link, Zelda, and the memories that bind them.
Ironic Technology
Rating varies | Series | Contains both gen/romance | Canon/Post-canon | wc: 242k | Complete
Ironic Technology is a series where Link loses an arm after a tricky situation with two Guardians, luckily, he is able to receive a prosthesis made of Ancient Technology from his Sheikah allies. He continues on to complete all of the Shrines, meeting his friends from the four nations along the way, before he’s finally ready to take on Ganon with his tech upgrade. Moves into slice of life events with Link and Zelda living together working through their issues with each others support. Very little angst, mostly positive fluff and humour with Zelink throughout.
(A/N Originally I wasn’t going to have DLC2 content but it was a good ancient tech expansion, so expect that in ‘Trial and Error’ which will be rated ’M’ folks!)
The Destiny Collection
T | Series | Slow burn | Pre/Post-canon | wc: 225k | Complete
A collection for the little BotW universe I’ve created.
Not all stories directly follow one another! At least one spin-off is to be expected.
Long Fics (wc: 100k-200k)
Adrift in Time and Skyward Bound
E | Explicit language and sexual content | wc: 132k | Last updated 11/10/18
Link is her appointed knight. He will do anything and everything to protect her. Always. All ways. BotW. ZeLink. Loosely based on the original storyline.
Love in a Time of Calamity
M | Slow burn | Canon divergence | Post-canon | wc: 125k | Last updated 03/04/19
Zelda awakens her powers in time to defeat Ganon, but there are still major losses. With Central Hyrule in pieces, two champions dead, a king out of commission, and half a metropolitan city turned refugees, Zelda and Link struggle to come to grips with the aftermath of the Calamity. Though neither are prepared, they must nonetheless learn to navigate a turbulent political landscape while a snooping journalist, an overzealous artist, and a power-hungry nobleman’s machinations turn their already topsy-turvy world on its head. Though the Calamity has been defeated, recovery proves a battle all its own; and that’s not even considering the battle raging in both their hearts. BoTW ZeLink AU.
Trouble the Water
Rating varies | Series | Pre/During/Post-canon | wc: 156k | complete
Excerpt from the first entry:
An expansion of canon: a look at why the memories might have happened where and when they occurred (with one slight change in order) and an attempt to fill-in the events and conversations alluded to by diary entries and conversations in-game.“You were a comfort to her,” in particular, needed to be expanded upon, I thought.Begins shortly before the first journal entry in Zelda’s diary, and continues to the immediate aftermath of the last memory.First person: Zelda’s perspective
Still a bit long fics (wc: 50k-100k)
I’ll Walk With You
T | Post-canon | wc: 94k | Complete
‘The battle is over, the Calamity has ended, and everything you knew and loved is gone for good. And yeah, you can’t ever get it back, but… maybe we don’t have to. The path in front of us may be long and uncertain, but it leads to something new, and… Zelda, no matter how hard it gets, I’ll be right here. And I’ll walk with you.’
A collection of moments involving our favorite Hero and Princess as they struggle to adapt. Post-BotW.
It All Must Start With Us
M | Post-canon | Sexual tension/Implied sexual content | wc: 76k | last updated 09/06/19
Set immediately after BotW, this story explores Link and Zelda’s journey together to restore Hyrule. Along the way, a mysterious voice give them the task of reliving memories of a century before: some painful, but all necessary before they can fully move into the next step of their lives.
Since the DLC did not give us a post-Calamity world with Link and Zelda, I’m writing one for myself and anyone else wanting to know what might have happened after! ♪ UPDATES ON SUNDAYS!! ♪
The Golden Age
T | Slow burn | Post-canon | wc: 66k | Last updated 03/05/19
After a century of undisturbed silence, a forgotten princess emerges from the famous ruins of Hyrule Castle. Princess Zelda has returned, and an even greater task than containing Calamity Ganon arises before her; balancing a complex love life while rising her kingdom up from the ashes and restoring it to glory in an age of peace and prosperity.
Post Botw.
A Hundred Years in the Making
M | Pre-canon | Slow burn | wc: 65k | Last updated 05/20/19
The story before the story began. A hundred and one years before, to be exact.
star fragments
G | Post-canon | wc: 61k | Last updated 01/21/18
Being a princess is a life of sacrifice. After beginning their new journey to find their places and rediscover Hyrule after Calamity Ganon, Zelda begins to realize she’s missed out on several experiences her land has to offer. Fortunately for her, Link knows everything.
Rise
T | Canon compliant | Sexual tension | wc: 58k | Last updated 01/10/19
The chosen hero appears. The princess deals with it.
One way it all could have happened.
A Hylian Romance
T | Court poet | wc: 55k | Complete
As are many, I was intrigued by the Sheikah court poet and what his perspective on Link and Zelda’s relationship might be.
Fade to Black
E | Series | Pre-canon | wc: 55k | Complete
A collection of smutty “what could have happened after the memory faded” ficlets each tagged to a different BoTW memory. Every story contains varying degrees of canon alteration and canon divergence, but are for the most part in line with the BoTW universe as we know it.
General disclaimer:I do not advocate for underage drinking, unprotected or unsafe sex, or generally poor decision making. Be smart and safe in real life, y'all!
Okay fics (wc: 20k-50k)
Zelda’s Log
T | Post-canon | Domestic fluff | wc: 43k | Last updated 03/24/19
After defeating the Calamity, Zelda and Link embark on a journey: she wants to get acquainted with the new Hyrule, and find her place again in the world.
The World That We Lost
T | Post-canon | wc: 41k | Complete
After defeating Ganon, princess Zelda goes back to Hyrule, resolved to rebuild her kingdom and make it even greater than it was one hundred years ago. While she feels confident enough to face any challenge and confront any foe that stays on her way, a reality breaks her heart: Link remembers her, but not quite, and his new life has made changes in his personality that even the total recovery of his memories may not be able to revert.
Unconventional
T | Post-canon | Slow burn | Implied sexual content | wc: 40k | Last updated 06/12/19
In the wake of the victory over Calamity Ganon, Link and Zelda need time to heal and adjust. Unfortunately, with rising pressure for Zelda to rise into the role of Queen of Hyrule, they aren’t given much time. Couple that pressure with confusing feelings for the Champion of Hyrule, well, her life has never been simple.
A New Normal
M | Post-canon | Memory loss | wc: 30k | Complete
About two years after sealing away Calamity Ganon, Zelda comes down with the same mysterious illness that took her mother away. Purah and the other Sheikah work on revamping the Shrine of Resurrection, and manage to heal her in two years; but she is plagued by the same memory loss that Link went through. The two struggle in their relationship and responsibilities as they try to recover her memory and thrive in Hyrule as they know it.
What wouldn’t I do?
T | Pre-canon | Slow burn | wc: 30k | Last updated 03/10/19
Link is appointed Hylian Champion for saving princess Zelda’s life. She doesn’t seem very fond of him though. Despite his struggle to cope with carrying the weight of the world on his shoulders, Link can’t help but wonder if he really is ready to give his life in order to save someone who doesn’t trust him.
Link’s Journal
T | Canon compliant | wc: 30k | Complete
Day 1
I’ve had a bit of a rough day. I don’t remember who I am, a girl keeps talking in my head, I’m supposed to slay Calamity Ganon, a blue bokoblin nearly beat me to death with a stick, and the old man still won’t give me his paraglider.
But, well, I’m still here, breathing and thinking and eating baked apples, so it could be worse. The old man (who is annoyingly enigmatic – I don’t know who I am, the least you could do is tell me who you are) showed me how to write in the Sheikah Slate. I want to keep a record of who I am, right now, because, well, I can’t remember who I was before. If I lose my memory again, this time I will be ready.
[What’s Happening: The author journaled her BotW play through. Every in-game night “Link” stops to write an entry in his journal.]
Observation Methods in Data Collection
No ranting | Pre-canon | First person pov | Diary/journal | wc: 27k | Complete
I read somewhere that it was obvious that Zelda was falling for Link because she treated him like a science experiment, which allowed her to talk and think about him without really acknowledging that she had feelings for him. I loved this interpretation SO MUCH! So, here is my attempt at filling in some of those details.
On Propriety and Unconventional Avenues of Communication
T | Post- canon| wc: 21k | Complete
(Post BOTW.) In which Link develops a very curious habit and Zelda is confused.
Short fics / oneshots ( - 20k)
Forgotten Knight
M | Post-canon | Sexual Tension | wc: 15k | Complete
Zelda and Link have defeated the Calamity but Link did not regain his memory. They return to Hateno Village to heal and recover, and to not only get to know each other again, but to learn how to love each other again as well.
Risk of Burn
E | Post-canon | Explicit sexual content | wc: 15k | Complete
Three weeks after the fall of the Calamity, Zelda changes her mind.
The Joys of Photography
G | Post-canon | wc: 14k | Complete
The Sheikah Slate has the remarkable ability to capture and archive true to life images. Such a remarkable piece of ancient technology is not something that should be taken for granted. But that doesn’t mean that the Princess of Hyrule and her appointed Knight have to be so serious about every image they capture. The story of five pictures taken on the Sheikah slate.
Son of The Wild
T | Post-canon | Family fluff | wc: 13k | 05/16/19
Link and Zelda’s son reflects on his unusual upbringing.
practical anatomy
E | Post-canon | Explicit sexual content | wc: 12k | Complete
Is the Goddess still testing him? Has he not suffered enough in this lifetime? Was killing the Calamity not enough—now he has to explain morning wood to the Princess of Hyrule?
(in which Zelda discovers an unsavoury image on the Sheikah Slate and Link must face the consequences)
Soldier’s Log
T | Pre/post-canon | wc: 11k | Complete
The events leading up to the return of Calamity Ganon as well as life after his defeat as recorded in the pages of a journal belonging to a knight who would be king.
By the fire
T | Ficlet collection | wc: 11k | Complete
A collection of Zelink ficlets in the BOTW universe. Some ideas were developed for my main fic, “The World That We Lost”, but had to be scrapped because they didn’t fit anymore. Others are explorations of different canon formulas and timelines that said fic doesn’t touch, and some more could come from prompts (send me one, if you want!)
On the Life of Queen and Consort
T | Memoir | Post-canon | First person pov | wc: 11k | Complete
Few know me. I was the Queen’s left hand and the Consort’s right. I was their first, best and last friend. But above all, I was their advisor, and now that my tenure has ended, it is time to write their story.
After 100 years apart, Link and Zelda finally unite to rebuild their Kingdom. Their reign together is long, with triumphs and heartbreaks as they navigate Royal life, raising children, conquering fears and growing old in a Kingdom beset by peace. Now at its end, their Chief Advisor Larella sits down to write the history of their reign, having beared witness to much of their lives.
Part of Zelink Week 2017 - this is a ten part series that looks into the partnership and later life of Link and Zelda as Queen and Consort of Hyrule.
270 notes · View notes
erin-gilberts · 4 years ago
Note
Bc It’s such a good post will you answer all the cafe asks?
Yessss totally! 
Vanilla Chai Latte : Are you in love?
Yes, wholeheartedly and unapologetically, I am. 
My girlfriend and I have only been together for two months, but it’s one of those things where when you know, you know. I’ve been in relationships lasting upwards of a year where I still didn’t know at the end of them whether or not I was in love. Early on in the year, I was actually even having conversations with my mom about how I wasn’t sure I’d ever been in love; I had no concept of what that felt like. I didn’t feel like I was feeling what I was supposed to be in relationships. I wondered if I was aromantic and if I wasn’t meant to experience romantic love.
With her, I’ve realized everything love IS supposed to feel like, and I’ve realized I AM capable of feeling those feelings - I just hadn’t met the right person yet. My heart was waiting for her. 
We daydream of the life we intend to build together, and it delights me to be able to wake up every day and choose her, again and again, as we run boldly and breathlessly into the future we now share. We totally u-hauled but we’re both so committed to blooming and becoming together; it’s unlike anything I’ve ever experienced before despite having quite a bit of experience in relationships. 
Flat White : Coffee or Tea?
Coffee. It feels more substantial to me with more ways to customize it exactly how you like it. I also just have a lot of really positive memories being in coffee shops! I’m currently obsessing over Starbucks’s seasonal salted caramel mocha. 
Cappuccino : What’s your middle name?
Elizabeth! I was named after my mother and grandmother, so it’s the only part of my birth name I kept when I changed my name. 
Mocha : Dream Job?
A famous professional organizer on the same level as Marie Kondo and Dorothy Breininger! They’re my inspiration and the reason I went into this kind of work. Also, the executive director of my own LGBT-focused nonprofit (which I have been, and I intend to be again!). 
Pumpkin Spice : Dream car?
The super fancy bike I’ll use the day I ride in the AIDS LifeCycle? Haha, I don’t drive and I don’t intend to! 
Jasmine Tea : If you could go anywhere in the world, where would it be and why?
Ugh, if I could visit any place in the world right this moment, I’d choose to go back to Toronto in a heartbeat. I went there in 2015 for the Inside Out LGBT Film Festival and I LOVED that city. It was so fun and the people were so welcoming. Other than that? Moscow, because it’s where @googoogojob lives, or New York City, because I just learned Hook & Ladder 8 (the Ghostbusters firehouse) is a real place and I want to see it! 
Old English : You’re stranded on an island, who do you bring with you?
Do I have a limit?? If I have a choice, I’m definitely bringing my mom, brother, maternal grandparents, best friend, best friend’s family, cat, and girlfriend! That’s like the minimum amount of people in my life I couldn’t go without. 
Iced Chocolate : Do you have a crush on someone?
My girlfriend, who I continually redevelop a big gay crush on every day! But I feel like that’s not quite the spirit of what this question is asking, so - I also have a big gay crush on Kristen Wiig, which my girlfriend endlessly makes fun of me for! Like, to the point I named my cat Erin Gilbert. 
Caramel Frappe : Favorite video game?
It’s a tie between Minecraft and Undertale. I swing wildly between playing Minecraft daily to not playing for months, but it never gets old. The sandbox nature of the game enables infinite creativity, and the low stakes make it both accessible to me (not a gamer) and relaxing. And Undertale with its story and unique mechanics remains to this day the game to inspire the biggest emotional response in me. I’ve thought about having, “Despite everything, it’s still you” tattooed. 
Iced Lemon Tea : Favorite song/band?
My favorite songs of all time are “The Greatest” by Sia and “I Know a Place” by MUNA, both of which were written in the aftermath of the Pulse shooting and can be interpreted as the process of rediscovering queer joy at the same time your community is constantly faced with tragedy and pain. They hit hard in a beautiful way as a hate crime survivor. 
Iced Cafe Mocha : Favorite thing to do on rainy days?
I like to go out as soon as the storm passes and just walk downtown in the rain. The air always smells and feels so good; it clarifies me and I feel renewed. Walking in the light rain or before / after the storm always feels like breathing, really breathing, for the first time. It reminds me I exist and it reminds me that’s neat. 
Hot Chocolate : Are you an affectionate person?
Yessssss oh my god. I live and breathe being affectionate and not even in a strictly romantic sense. I’m naturally an exuberant person and I delight in making people happy. My girlfriend would also say I engage in “cat behavior” with my demands to be held or touching constantly. XD 
Caramel Macchiato : You’re travelling the entire world but you can only take one person with you. Who do you take?
My girlfriend @sweetmckinnon. Not only would we have the unprecedented opportunity to be gay in every country and continent, but we’re both writers, and we’d write an excellent book about these adventures! 
Green Tea : How tall are you?
5’7. 
Early Grey Tea : The inevitable Zombie Apocalypse is upon us! What’s your plan of action?
I’m rounding up everyone I care about and taking us to the nearest commune of marginalized people. We’ll be avoiding those uber-macho survivalist types like the plague, because their arrogance will 100% get everyone killed. At least marginalized communities would be more likely to understand working together and looking out for the community, not just yourself. 
Mint Tea : How do you relax?
Indoor cycling is my drug of choice. It’s HARD to be mad or stressed when you’re exerting that intensely. I might also write self-indulgent fanfics or indulge in a little controlled chaos (I’m an acrylic pour and collage artist). And talking to my girlfriend, best friend, or mom always makes me feel better, too. 
Vanilla Latte : Board games or drinking games?
I genuinely love board games and wish I had more people to play them with. 
Iced Coffee : Do you like reading? If so, what’s your favorite book?
I like reading, but having ADHD has made it extremely hard to read entire books in recent years. My favorite book is probably The Radium Girls by Kate Moore. The author takes what’s already a horrific story and a dark chapter in American history and with her devastating writing style, humanizes each woman involved to the point it makes you ache to read knowing the inevitability of their fate. Anytime anyone asks me for a book recommendation, this is the book I suggest. 
Italian Soda : Describe your dream date
My dream date would be after we’ve been together for a while - maybe on a date that’s special to us, like our anniversary, or maybe just on a random night because we feel like it, we have one of those super romantic dates like you see in the movies. We dress up super cute, go out to dinner and come home to a bedroom full of candles and rose petals on the floor, and every moment is spent just enjoying each other and what we have together in every way we can. <3 
Sparkling Water : Describe what qualities you look for in a person
Passion - I’m an activist who became the executive director of their own nonprofit at the age of 16. I’m not going to mesh with someone who’s just going through the motions of life without any aspirations. 
Flexibility - It’s a turnoff for me when someone is EXTREMELY committed to a very specific view of how their life is going to be. It tells me right away I’m going to have to continually contort myself to fit into their unbending path, because I accept I can’t predict the direction of my life with any degree of precision and I’m not rigid about it as a result. 
Creative - I’m currently dating another writer and it’s the most fun I’ve ever had in a relationship. The quickest way to get us to pop off into a spirited debate is to get us started about story structure and characterization. We. Go. OFF. And could go off for days. Our shared creative passion gives us endless ground to connect and bond on. 
Those are just a few, but definitely a few important ones for me! 
Orange Juice : Have you ever had a valentine?
My first girlfriend, who I dated from 12-17, is the only valentine I’ve ever had. The timing of my relationships as an adult has never worked out for me to be partnered on Valentine’s Day. We weren’t super out about our relationship at the time and didn’t spend Valentine’s Day together, but I still have the love letters she sent me copied into my 7th grade diary, and I still have the antique gold heart necklace with enamel roses she gave me one year, too! Lots of lovely memories from that relationship. 
Rose Hip Tea : Describe your first kiss
My first girlfriend and I were 12-13, cutting class in the bathroom because she was often bullied for her sexuality. She was having an especially rough day that day and I knew exactly where to find her. She kissed me out of the blue while I was comforting her and in all of my baby gay naivety, I hadn’t fully realized I was gay or that she liked me that way prior to that. Turns out I was and she did. We dated for five years. 
Herbal Tea : You’re at a candle shop, what scented candle do you buy?
Oh, I’m going right to the bakery scent section. I’m not a huge fan of chocolate-scented candles, but vanilla? Christmas cookies? Gingerbread? Sign me the FUCK up. 
Sandalwood is also one of my favorite scents, but depending on what it’s blended with, it can be hit or miss for me in candles. 
1 note · View note
Text
I have something to share with you, and I would really appreciate it if you'd listen. I recently (like, very very recently) forced myself out of over a decade of self denial about my sexuality. And I know y'all don't care, but it's really important to me that I get this all out there, and if you read this whole thing you'll understand why.
Okay, so for the past ten years I've been telling myself and everyone else that I'm bisexual. But the truth is I'm not, I'm actually 100% lesbian. But. I don't know, I guess I was so ashamed of my truth that I needed to pretend to be something I'm not. So for the past decade, while calling myself bisexual, I dated and fucked around with several people, all dudes (hello, that bitch heteronormative-societal-pressure is calling) and well, not a single instance of those relationships was ever satisfying, sexually or emotionally. I remember when I was, what 10? 11? And watched Once Upon a Time for the first time. Seeing Lana Parrilla as Regina Mills - that was the moment I recognized that I was interested in girls. And I'd like to blame some external source for why I decided that must mean I'm bisexual and not gay... but in reality I think it had more to do with my own fear, my own insecurities.
After being thrust into the knowledge that I liked women, I spent a few months trying out labels (bi, pan, etc) but never really let myself consider lesbian as an option. Because up until that point, it had always been a given that I liked guys, you know? Like, straight is the default setting for sexuality (which, don't even get me started) and even though my family is and always has been very accepting and liberal minded, straight was still what they believed me to be as I had never indicated differently.
But now I was armed with my queer self knowledge, right? And the summer before high school I actually did come out to my best female friend at the time as a lesbian, and she was all "that's cool whatever" and part of me felt like I needed, I don't know, more acknowledgment? It was really difficult for me to come out to her, really difficult to even let myself say that I was a lesbian, and she basically didn't give a fuck. Which, don't get me wrong - I don't blame her for at all. We were 13 yrs old ffs! But it made me feel like maybe I was wrong, and I wasn't actually gay. Put on top of that all the adults in my life telling me that I couldn't possibly know who I was, that I was still growing up and therefore everything about me would change...and yeah, I began to doubt myself. Began to doubt if I knew myself at all, I was like "I'm 13, I used to hate bananas and now I like them...how can I know for sure I'm even gay?"
Anyways, so I'd just come out to my bff but then high school started - and I'm not sure if y'all know this but high school in 2012 was extremely heteronormative. My school wasn't anti gay or anything, but there's a lot of unconscious pressure from your peers to be in relationships, and when you're one of what, three gay people? you kinda can't be in a relationship ya know? So me, who was already questioning my self knowledge, decided that I must be bisexual instead of gay. And I dated like 3 people just in my first year lmao (all dudes of course).
Well, at the end of grade nine some really bad shit happened to me. Someone older than me who I trusted and considered a friend decided it would be cool to drug me and then try to get me to have sex with them in the "secret hallway" at our school. ANYWAYS not the point!!! The point is that after that, I labelled myself asexual and basically swore off sex forever.
The thing was, I kept on developing crushes on the girls in my classes. And every time that happened, I would force myself to ignore it and then I would go and flirt with some guy instead, because I might have been interested in both but who wants to be that one weird girl who flirts with girls that don't want to be flirted with? I certainly didn't. But guys we're always so easy, idk, they were all pretty desperate back then. Lmao that sounds harsh but I stg it's true. 15/16 yr old boys are like a whole nother level of thirsty.
I continued to develop crushes on girls, and have meaningless relationships with guys. I even briefly had a flirtationship with a girl in grade 10 (I went to a different high school for like a semester) which lasted a whole week lol. And then in 11th grade I had a relationship with my best friend at the time, who was a guy I'd been really good friends with since 5th grade. And it was both super easy and super hard, if that makes sense? I knew him well and we were really comfortable with each other - but I was also a lesbian pretending to be bisexual, so every time we did anything remotely sexual it was like totally ew.
We tried to have sex, but my vagina was like "ahaha bitch you thought" so that never happened. I actually tried to have sex two other times with two other guys after that, and each time my vagina was not having it. It was an instance of my body knowing me better than my mind, but I didn't want to listen.
Then this past fall, I decided to go out with this guy I worked with. It had been uh, wow, 2 years since my last relationship, and tbh even though I wasn't interested in dating him at all I felt like it might as well happen. Basically that John Mulaney joke about how adult life is already so goddamn weird. Also, after being single for that long my fam was getting pretty annoying with all the "when are you going to get a bf" shit so yeah, basically I caved to the pressure and went out with this guy Richard.
We went on maybe four dates, and it was so incredibly underwhelming that after not seeing or hearing from him for a month after the job ended, he called me and I was like "Richard who?"
Guys. I had legit forgotten about him. Completely, like he'd been erased from my mind, that was how insignificant he was. But it made me start to wonder; how can this guy, who I'd tried to have sex with, be so meaningless to me? Why am I so indifferent?
I sat down with myself, and took the time to have a long look at the parts of me I'd always kept hidden away. I came to the realization that I wasn't bisexual, that I'd never been bisexual, and that I am actually gay as fuck. Part of this realization was me letting myself rediscover my super gay love for Lily Tomlin. She is one of my fav actresses and her movie All Of Me was my favourite film for half my life. But because I was so busy forcing myself to be Not Gay™, I'd made myself ignore her, and a lot of other female actresses and celebrities who I adore in exchange for male celebrities.
But even after I made the realization that I'm gay and not bi, a part of my brain was like "but what if you're not tho". There was still a big part of me that was trying to force me back into denial, force me into hiding from myself. A part of me thought "if I'm gay, wouldn't someone have noticed? Wouldn't my family have known?" In hindsight it was actually super obvious, but I guess I did a good job of hiding it from myself and everyone around me.
It took me three weeks to actually say the words "I'm a lesbian" out loud to somebody other than myself, and when I did it was the scariest fucking thing I've ever done. My sister was really amazing about it though, and I'm so grateful to her for that. And after telling her, after forcing myself to say it to another human being, the part of my brain that was trying to get me to lie to myself got a little smaller.
When I told my mom a few days later, it was slightly easier to say out loud, and when I changed my bios on my social media (which I'd been avoiding like the plague) my need for self denial shrunk again. But it's still there, in a corner of my mind. The little voice of self doubt, trying to convince me that I'm wrong, that I can't be gay, that I should keep hiding.
That's why I needed to tell y'all this. Because the more people I tell, the more times I say it out loud, the more I make it known - the smaller that voice gets. The less power it holds over me. The more real the truth, my truth, becomes.
My name is Mara, I am 20 years old and I am a lesbian. Now you know my truth.
13 notes · View notes
jordan202 · 7 years ago
Text
Maybe This Time - Chapter 7
Thanks for the support to everyone who's asked for an update for this story!
this is most likely the penultimate chapter so I am very excited to share what happens in this one and the one to follow (which I will start planning soon). 
HERE is a link for the masterpost with previous chapters. 
happy reading, guys!
Maybe This Time – Part 7
 Amelia opened the front door with a loud thud, trying to ignore how sore her muscles felt. Earlier that week, she’d come to think that her emotions being apparently out of control again could indicate a recurrence of her brain tumor, but the main concern on her mind at the moment was making sure that nasty cold she’d obviously gotten didn’t get much worse than it already was.
During the entire day, Amelia had pushed through and she had to be honest and admit she looked forward to having a free weekend. A comfortable bed was the only thing she craved at that moment. The neurosurgeon was absolutely sure that after a good night of sleep, she would be restored, which meant there was no point worrying anyone. So when Owen had called her earlier that afternoon to inform her he’d be working late to cover the ER, he’d invariably provided her with a reason not to go to his place that evening, but rather to Meredith’s.
“Amelia, are you okay?”
Maggie’s voice distracted Amelia from her thoughts, making her realize she’d just spent the past few seconds unable to gather enough force even to lock the front door.
“Yeah,” she lied.
The hoarseness in her voice added to the dark circles around her eyes gave away her lie. But it wasn’t until she coughed that Meredith stepped into the conversation, looking at the neurosurgeon as if Amelia was a contagious threat.
“You really shouldn’t be standing there, Amelia, you look like you’re going to faint. Go to bed. And please, just make sure you don’t get anywhere near the children,” the general surgeon added with her typical lack of sympathy. “The last thing we need is for them to catch whatever plague you have.”
“Thanks,” Amelia replied, more bitterly than she would have liked. The neurosurgeon then glanced over at Maggie, seeing she was dressed in her work clothes and looked ready to leave the house.
“Maybe I can get someone to cover for me so I can stay with you,” Maggie suggested. Amelia really did not look fine and she was growing worried.
“Don’t worry about it, Maggie, I am fine,” Amelia insisted, making an extra effort to keep her confidence as she walked to the stairs but a sudden fit of lightheadedness nearly made her nearly lose balance. “You go to work, I will be fine. I just need some rest.”
“You sure?” Maggie squinted, visibly uncomfortable to leave Amelia in those circumstances in the company only of Meredith and three young children.
“Yeah, I will go take some aspirin and lie down,” Amelia forced herself to smile and made a herculean effort to climb the stairs.
Her legs felt as if they weighed twice their usual load and her head was bursting with a throbbing headache. Amelia didn’t know how, but she still managed to get a quick, hot shower before finally collapsing in bed with an empty stomach.
.
Owen got out of the attending’s lounge bathroom feeling reinvigorated. After a nasty trauma case in which a ruptured artery had soaked him in patient’s blood, he had finally had the time to go clean up and change.
He was still finishing drying his head with a towel, feeling readier than ever to go home when a short woman ran into him.
“Hey, Maggie.”
“Owen,” Pierce’s voice sounded distressed. There was no one else in the room, so she had obviously gone inside with the intention of finding him. Owen found the notion rather puzzling, considering he and Maggie hardly ever had any topic in common. Unless she wanted to talk to him about a patient. “Is everything okay?”
“Yeah, are you going home?” she asked and the trace of insecurity in her voice didn’t go unnoticed to Owen.
“I am, but I can stick around for a while if you need me for a consult or…”
“No, this is actually about Amelia,” Maggie explained, enlightening Owen about the reason for her restlessness.
“What’s wrong?” Owen asked with a heavy frown, immediately concerned. “What happened?”
“I left the house a while ago just as she arrived from work a couple of hours ago,” Maggie explained. “She didn’t look so fine to me, I think she has a cold or something,” the thoracic surgeon added, seeing the relief on Owen’s face when she explained it wasn’t anything serious. “But she isn’t picking up her phone or replying my messages and I am not sure she is fit to take care of herself. You know Amelia…” Maggie hesitated. “I was just wondering if you could…”
“I’ll stop by to check on her,” Owen answered before Maggie could even ask.
Both surgeons exchange a head nod of gratitude and mutual understanding. Satisfied with herself and relieved that her stubborn friend was now probably not going to escape properly taking care of herself, Maggie left the room, ready to resume work. Determined to make sure Amelia was fine, or at least as fine as it could be, Owen hung the wet towel back on the bathroom rack, not bothering changing back to his street clothes before he left the hospital.
.
Amelia was still oscillating between sleep and conscience when three gentle knocks made her open her eyes. Assuming it was Meredith, she rolled over with her back opposite to the door and mumbled, irritated:
“Go away.”
Amelia had already closed her eyes again, oblivious to the tall figure that had entered the room engulfed in darkness. It wasn’t until Owen gently lay next to her making Amelia’s body shift with his weight on the mattress that she finally took notice of his presence.
“I have to say, that’s not the welcome I expected,” his deep voice sounded like music to her ears. “But if you want me to, I can leave.”
“No!” Amelia growled, immediately regretting having said such unwelcoming words. She made the effort to turn around in his direction and pull his shirt, stopping Owen from getting up, but that only served to cause another fit of heavy coughing. Too embarrassed, both by her pitiful state and by the nasty way she’d retorted when she yet didn’t know it was him, Amelia buried her face on the crook of his neck, unconsciously seeking comfort. “I didn’t mean you,” she explained as soon as she was able to breathe properly again.
Her skin felt hot to his touch, even a little feverish, Owen noticed. He pulled apart just enough to look at her. At this point, Owen’s eyes had already adjusted to the nearly total darkness, so he could identify the indisposed expression on her face. Amelia looked drained. Her voice was merely a whisper, her eyes were swollen and puffy and even her nose looked like it had suffered enough with a lot of itching and sneezing.
“Did you take something to alleviate the symptoms?” he asked, kissing her forehead before gently pulling a few loose locks of hair from her face and smoothing them on the back of her shoulders. There was no magical cure for a common cold but bed rest, hydration and a couple of pills would probably help her feel better a lot faster.
Amelia nodded her head positively but Owen had a feeling she was lying.
“I swear you’re worse than a kid when you’re sick,” he commented, trying to come off strict but the trace of amusement was clear in his voice. “Come on,” Owen added with as much kindness as determination. “Let’s get you home.”
Amelia wasn’t feeling strong enough to refute him, but even if she were, she probably wouldn’t. The way Owen had deliberately implied he was taking her home had made her feel looked after, taken care of. At this point, she knew there was no one better than him at that, but it still made Amelia feel uneasy to let go completely and surrender to the very inviting idea of jumping in with both feet in their newly rediscovered relationship, considering they still had a lot to talk about regarding what they wanted and expected moving forward.
Amelia loved him. She had no doubt about that. Just as she knew Owen loved her back the same. But even though they had been clear about their mutual feelings, she had no idea if he was still willing to be a family with her. In fact, she had no idea where she stood on the matter.
Amelia could very well close her eyes and picture herself and Owen surrounded by children of their own in a few years time. On the long run, the idea seemed amazing, idyllic even. But truth was, in order to get there, she knew there was a lot she needed to deal with and Amelia just wasn’t sure when exactly she would be able to work on that.
And it was exactly her incapability of providing Owen – and herself – with an answer for those lingering questions that set her off the most.
Because if they decided to be together for real and pick up where they’d left off, it wasn’t fair to Owen that he stayed in a marriage where she knew she wanted to give him kids, but had no idea if she’d ever be able to. Just as it wasn’t fair to her to live with that lingering pressure hovering over her head. That was definitely something they would have to talk about at some point and Amelia had a feeling they couldn’t keep delaying it much longer.
“Hey, what’s wrong?” Owen asked as he helped Amelia get up. He’d noticed the subtle changes in her expression as her eyebrows furrowed as if she was having a hard time making up her mind about something.
“It’s nothing, it’s just… My throat is a little sore, that’s all,” Amelia smiled at him at the same time she placed a hand on his cheek and affectionately rubbed it, touched by his concern.
Owen looked into her eyes at the same time he grabbed her slim wrist, giving her a kiss on the palm of her hand before pulling away.
“Stay right there, I will get an overnight bag for you. I think there are some of your clothes back at the house but we are yet to wash them.”
Amelia drew an excessively steadying breath, clearly mocking him.
“I really have to go for the whole weekend, don’t I?” she joked, sending him a flirtatious glance even though she felt awful. “You can barely manage to do your own laundry.”
“You’ve always been better at it than me,” Owen joked, turning on the lights in the bedroom to then grab a small duffel bag and opened Amelia’s closet.
“Why are you wearing scrubs?” Amelia asked with a puzzled expression, for the first time noticing it.
Owen suddenly remembered about the literal bloodbath he’d taken.
“Don’t ask,” he chuckled. “I will tell you that story later,” he settled for saying, focusing back on the shelves.
Owen gazed at the many pieces and frowned, wondering why on Earth had he ever thought of himself fit for the task of preparing an overnight bag, considering how little he knew about women’s clothes. With a shrug of shoulders, he grabbed a handful of the items on top, sorting out the ones he assumed were most comfortable.
Did people really fit in that size of clothes, he pondered, after grabbing what he discovered was a dark green low cut women’s tank top. Judging by the label, Amelia dressed a size S, but was that really an adult size? Owen was surprised at himself that he wasn’t sure. From now on, he was probably going to have to start paying more attention to these things.
After he’d covered tops, Owen moved onto bottoms, grabbing a few pajama pants and leggings from the hangers inside the closet. At last, he aimed for the small sliding drawers, figuring she’d probably need underwear too.
Amelia had just finished finally getting out of bed and was changing from her pajamas to a pair of dark fleece pants when she spotted Owen with the silliest look on his face.
“What are you doing?” she chuckled, watching as he grabbed a couple of her panties and added them to a bag.
“How come I never saw this before?” he picked out a red lacy piece of lingerie from the top drawer and exposed it to her, looking at Amelia as if he was personally offended for not having seen it.
Once again, Amelia’s delightful laughter mixed with a fit of coughing and sneezing.
“Maybe you just haven’t been paying enough attention,” she teased him.
“I very much doubt I’d miss this,” he said, pointing to the seductive object with his eyes. Owen could vividly imagine Amelia dressed in nothing but the sexy red lingerie, her white porcelain skin fiercely contrasting with the vibrant color as she moved on top of him, driving him crazy as… Well, he doubted he’d ever overlooked that. “When you’re feeling better, you owe it to me to put this on.”
“I’ll think about,” Amelia tried to keep a serious face but couldn’t hold her laughter. “What are you doing?” she repeated her question after noticing he had no intention of returning the piece of lingerie back to the drawer.
“Let’s take this with us, just in case,” Owen decided, adding the item to the overnight bag. Amelia smiled at him as she nodded her head in playful disapproval. The neurosurgeon was still busy changing her clothes, enough that she missed the exact moment when Owen finally closed her drawer.
But as he did so, something golden and shiny glimpsed with the movement, catching his attention. Intrigued by it, Owen pulled back the drawer just enough so he could see what it was.
There amidst Amelia’s most intimate belongings, he found the wedding band that had once been on his finger. Owen couldn’t quite figure out why, but the unexpected finding caught him completely off guard, giving him a mix of emotions he struggled to identify.
“Are you done playing with my panties or have you made a new stop at the bras?” Amelia joked, distracting him from his thoughts.
Owen turned his head over his shoulder, gazing at her with newfound affection and tenderness.
“I had totally forgotten about the bras,” he admitted, taking a step in her direction, unable to resist the urge to plant a kiss on the top of her head. “You women have way too many different pieces of clothes.”
“So, you’re saying you think I should wear fewer clothes?” Amelia laughed, raising her eyebrows in indication she felt otherwise.
“That’s exactly what I am saying,” Owen played along, touching his forehead to hers. “But only when it’s you and me, of course.”
“Of course,” Amelia rolled her eyes. “So it’s a private show?” she embarked on his silly game.
“The leads are you and that little red thingie,” Owen smiled shamelessly.
“Classy,” Amelia couldn’t contain her smile. “You don’t even know what it’s called.”
“I don’t need to know what it’s called,” Owen pointed out, his eyes sparkling with desire and affection. “I only need to see you in it,” he informed her with a mischievous grin. “You’re ready to go?” he asked, grabbing the duffel bag and helping her put on a jacket.
“Yes, I am ready,” Amelia smiled at him. It was nearly eleven pm on a Friday night and she was sick. Her body was sore, her throat was hurting and her head was throbbing but after being confronted with the prospect of not spending the evening alone in that bed anymore, but rather with Owen, enjoying his care and his company, she suddenly felt her disposition vastly improve.
“Let’s go, then,” he decided, opening the door before linking their hands as he led the way for them.
.
“Open up for a happy pill.”
Amelia unburied her face from the pillow, which was a sacrifice in itself, and opened her eyes to glare at Owen just as she did that.
“Back in the day,  happy pill meant something else entirely.”
Owen chose to ignore her wicked smile and the obvious reference to her addiction, but when their eyes met, he couldn't help smiling at how unbelievable she was. Once again handing over the ibuprofen tablet, he made another attempt:
“Don’t bite me,” Owen tilted his head slightly to the left, obviously making fun of her. “Take this.”
“I should bite you,” Amelia whispered because at this point it hurt too much to speak.
“You can barely form a sentence,” Owen reminded her, seeing that after the short drive from Meredith’s to his house, she seemed in even worse shape. “Take your medicine so your throat will feel better and you can eat something.”
“Are you going to stop giving me orders at any point?” Amelia rolled her eyes but did as told, reaching out for the pill and the glass of water he held.
“I will think about it,” Owen replied in a lighthearted tone, waiting until she was done with the medication to get back the empty glass of water. Amelia leaned back on the bed again, too tired to remain sitting up. “What do you want to eat? A sandwich or a-?”
“I am good, I think I am just going to go to sleep,” Amelia said, feeling drowsy.
“Not on an empty stomach,” Owen said, again with authority.
Amelia was too exhausted to fight him, so she settled for eating a sandwich he quickly prepared. At that moment, she didn’t know any better, so she simply assumed her nausea had everything to do with the annoying cold she had on.
Throughout the weekend, Amelia did nothing other than to enjoy Owen’s company. He spent the entire Saturday at home with her and most of Sunday too, leaving only for a couple of hours to go cover a colleague at work. When he returned, Owen came back with takeout from her favorite restaurant.
At this point, Amelia’s throat was feeling a lot better, same as her respiratory symptoms, but for some reason, her stomach was still struggling to hold anything down. At that particular moment, it didn’t feel weird to Amelia that she didn’t feel too excited about eating seafood, her usual favorite dish. Supposing her bothered stomach was probably a lingering trace of her viral infection, the neurosurgeon pushed through, eating a small portion mostly to please Owen than because she really felt like it.
Amelia didn’t let him know that she wasn’t feeling exactly hungry, just as she was trying her best to conceal the confusion she felt regarding her own emotions. For a few punctual moments throughout the weekend, she thought about talking to him and exposing her fears about that growing sentiment she had and wouldn’t pass. Something just felt different and even though rationally she knew it was unlikely and even absurd that her tumor might be growing back, Amelia just couldn’t convince herself that things were okay.
“What do you have there?” Owen asked when he came back from the kitchen after doing their dinner dishes.
Amelia was sitting on the couch in the living room with her feet propped up and crossed at the ankles. Her forehead had a heavy frown as she studied something on an iPad. As he came nearer, Owen noticed she was looking at a patient’s scans.
“Anything interesting?” he asked with curiosity. Amelia had spent the whole weekend without mentioning work once. Unless someone had contacted her about a case while he’d been busy in the kitchen, it didn’t make sense that she would randomly choose a Sunday night to study a file.
The neurosurgeon stopped looking at the screen when Owen sat beside her. She seemed to struggle for a while, but when Owen finally made himself comfortable, she finally took a long breath before saying.
“These are my scans.”
Owen assimilated the information, pondering what he should do with it. He looked at the files in her hands and checked the dates, frowning harder. According to the small letters on the screen, those scans were dated six weeks after Amelia’s surgery. Neuro wasn’t his field of study, but they looked alright to him.
“Hmm, these are your control scans, right?” he raised an eyebrow conspicuously as he gazed back and forth from the small screen to his wife, seeing she was nodding in agreement. “What is so interesting about them?”
Amelia made eye contact with him and Owen noticed how deeply she was staring at him. The realization alarmed him.
“I am trying to see if they are as clear as I thought.”
After a few seconds of carefully processing the meaning of her words, Owen scowled as if she was saying nonsense.
“If they’re as clear as…? What are you saying, of course they are.”
Then, as if Amelia needed factual proof, Owen took the iPad from her hands and zoomed in on the image, focusing on her frontal lobe. Weeks after the surgery, all the swelling had gone down. The only thing visible was the bone and soft tissue scars from the craniotomy, but her brain mass looked absolutely normal.
“Amelia, you had an encapsulated benign tumor which was completely removed,” he reminded her, frowning hard. Owen was sure she knew that better than he did. “You made a full recovery. Why would you for a second have any doubt that your scans aren’t as clear as you and your surgeon saw they were back then?”
Amelia felt tears building up on the back of her eyes at that exact moment. Damn it, why did she have to feel such an emotional mess all the time? That was it, she thought. She couldn’t hide it anymore. She couldn’t keep that to herself. It was consuming her too much and she had to share it with someone she knew wouldn’t judge or call her crazy for it.
“I don’t know what’s happening to me,” she confessed, biting her lower lip to prevent herself from breaking down in tears. “In one moment, when I am happy, I feel like I am the happiest. And then on the next, when I am sad, even if it’s for a silly reason, sometimes I feel like I could cry. But it’s not this black and white, you see, it’s subtler than that, I can’t explain it…” she sniffed, leaning over him seeking comfort. Owen wrapped his arms around her and kissed the top of her head, encouraging her to talk more. “I feel like I don’t have as much control of my emotions as I did when I started recovering from my surgery. Even though I was confused, I knew I got a hold of myself. And now… I don’t know… I can’t explain it,” she felt the first tear rolling down her cheek.
“Try,” Owen suggested, gently wiping it from her cheek with his forefinger.
“It isn’t like when I had the tumor, I think,” she said with sincerity. “Back then, I was completely out of control and couldn’t understand why I acted so impulsively. It was like I just did things and then I felt guilty that I’d done them but couldn’t understand why I’d felt the urge to do them…” Amelia took a long breath, trying to process her own emotions. “Now, I feel like I can control my impulses, so that is not the issue, but I just feel like things that wouldn’t normally make me want to cry now kind of do… And the closest thing I’ve ever experienced that feels like that is that goddamn brain tumor… so I freaked out and I just got this insane idea in my head that somehow it could have grown back, even though I know that medically speaking it makes no sense. Does that make any sense?”
Owen blinked repeatedly, trying to keep up with her fast speech. He settled for tightening his grip around her and planting a kiss on her temple.
“You’re fine, Amelia. I can tell you, you’re fine,” he assured her. “You know, for the past year when you were sick, you weren’t acting like yourself,” Owen informed her with a sad smile. He didn’t want to reminisce about that because it was painful, but luckily, it was in the past. They had already gone through those feelings and apologize for the harm they’d invariably caused, even though none of them had meant to. “We’ve been together for weeks now and not once you’ve given me any reason to believe you’re slightly different.”
Amelia closed her eyes, taking a deep breath as she fully absorbed the meaning of his words. It felt like they had just taken a huge load off her back.
“God…” she sighed, feeling more relieved than she’d felt in days. Amelia laughed a little nervously, but only because she had never imagined how good it would do her to have that conversation with Owen. “You have no idea how happy I am to hear this…”
“How long have you been keeping this to yourself?” Owen asked with a censoring look at the same time his eyes were loaded with warmth.
“Too long,” Amelia confessed. “I know it’s probably crazy but… Do you think it would be too much if I got a new scan tomorrow, just in case?” she bit her lower lip, desperately in need of comprehension. “I know the new one isn’t scheduled for another few months but I just…”
“You probably won’t find anything in it but if it’s going to help you end this agonizing doubt once for all, then do it,” Owen said with an understanding smile.
 Amelia let out the breath she didn’t know she’d been holding and hugged him again, settling for spending the rest of the evening in his arms. There was something too comfortable and too secure about the way Owen held her that made Amelia think she wouldn’t be safer anywhere else. She should have gone to him sooner, she realized. The first moment that doubt had arisen, Amelia should have gone to him and shared her concerns. It was incredibly helpful to talk to someone who understood her because it really put things in a whole new perspective.
Feeling much calmer now, Amelia slowly dozed off, thankful not only for the heavy burden that had been taken off her shoulders and the cold symptoms that were almost gone now but mostly for the amazing man holding her in his arms.
.
On Monday, before she went to her department to start her activities at work, Amelia took the elevator straight to radiology. Owen had wanted to come with her but she had to repeatedly assure him there was absolutely no need to, considering they were both sure the scan would turn out to be negative.
After filling out a request for her own test, Amelia waited to be squeezed in the electives of the day and then she sat outside the MRI waiting area. A few minutes later, the neurosurgeon was given the standard form that every patient needed to fill out before being submitted to the exam, one that she’d filled out too many times before.
Amelia knew that unlike a CT, which contained radiation, an MRI machine worked with high magnetic fields, which could be hazardous for some kind of implantable devices, hence why everyone had to answer questions before it. As she crossed off the checkboxes with multiple questions about pacemakers, surgical history and medical diseases, her eyes distractedly scanned the familiar questions, automatically filling each one of them.
But it wasn’t until Amelia reached half the page that she suddenly furrowed her brows.
For female patients.
13. Date of last menstrual period.
14. Are you pregnant or is there any chance you could be pregnant?
15. Are you experiencing a late menstrual period?
More questions followed, but those were enough to make Amelia stop at her tracks and really feel her heart racing in a response that had nothing to do with the possibility of having a brain tumor.
Date of last menstrual period.
God, she couldn’t remember. It had probably been a couple of months ago? Amelia’s cycle was usually very reliable but ever since her tumor and the response her body had had to the trauma of surgery that had temporarily changed and she’d lost track. So she really didn’t remember.
Are you pregnant or is there any chance you could be pregnant?
No. There wasn’t, right? Or… Well…
Amelia felt her heart racing even faster.  Before their marriage, she and Owen had never really worried much about contraception because she’d had an IUD, which she’d gotten removed right after they’d decided to start trying for a baby. So basically, throughout their entire relationship, they had gotten used to having sex without having to worry about consequences. Right when the possibility of conception had become their goal, their marriage had collapsed, causing them to stop trying at all. But later, when they’d rekindled their romance, none of them had really stopped to reconsider that small detail, Amelia realized.
Oh God, she breathed out heavily. How could she have been so blind? She, who had always been so absolutely careful about contraception, especially after her first pregnancy?
Her palms were sweaty, her mouth dry and her vision became slightly blurry but Amelia forced herself to concentrate.
Could it be that, deep down, Amelia had sabotaged herself, she pondered? It was really hard to fathom that she would simply obliterate such an important detail like avoiding a pregnancy. And yet it had been exactly what had happened.
Perhaps if it had been anyone else, Amelia wouldn’t have done it. But Owen had his own special way of making Amelia feel so safe and looked after that maybe she had involuntarily risked it? Because deep down, she wanted it just as much as she knew he did and knew that if she’d simply waited for the right moment it might never come?
No, that didn’t make any sense, she thought.
Amelia dropped the form on the empty chair beside her and propped her elbows on her knees, burying her face in her hands. Her mind was boiling with a million thoughts per second. Her emotions were mixing and she only managed to get up and get herself together when she realized that she didn’t know if she was pregnant. The fact she had had unprotected sex did not mean she was pregnant.
Sure, she was experiencing some symptoms. But to go and say that a pregnancy was causing them was nearly as crazy as to say that a tumor was causing them… right?
But between and tumor and pregnancy…
Amelia was just getting cured of a cold. Surely that explained why she’d been relatively nauseous for the past week. It still didn’t explain why her emotions seemed to be shifting with more ease than ever, but still, that could be just an impression.
With a heavy sigh, Amelia cast those thoughts aside. She had to be practical. She had gone there to get a brain MRI to exclude the unlikely possibility of a brain tumor recurrence. She would get it. First things first.
But as she processed the situation and finished filling out her forms, proceeding to change her clothes to a patient gown to then be escorted to the exam room later, Amelia’s mind couldn’t help reminiscing.
Are you experiencing a late menstrual period?
As she lay on the table having her head positioned for the exam, Amelia tried not to panic thinking about the answer to that question.
Yes. Yes, she was experiencing a late menstrual period. In fact, considering all the craziness of post-surgical mayhem added to the effects the stress had had on her body, after a quick math she could assume her period was a couple of weeks late.
Even though the exam didn’t take more than fifteen minutes, for Amelia, it felt like two hours. Her palms were still sweaty and her heart rate accelerated when she went behind the computer screen to check the images. They were clear, as expected, but they weren’t the ones causing her fit of anxiety. Not anymore.
As she strode through the halls as if her own feet were guiding her, Amelia suddenly found herself in the ER floor, instead of the surgical wing. The neurosurgeon swallowed hard, trying to concentrate on what she had to do.
A tall, blonde man with broad shoulders and the most dazzling masculine smile was just laughing at something one of the residents had said when she took a few steps in his direction. But the lightheartedness quickly vanished from Owen’s face when he noticed the serious look on Amelia’s face as she walked in his direction.
Suddenly connecting her sudden appearance in the ER and mysterious expression to the result of the MRI he assumed she’d just had, Owen couldn’t help himself.
“What is it?” he asked, interrupting the residents, who all stopped talking all at once. “What happened?”
Amelia stopped at her feet, uncomfortable by the presence of the three virtual strangers who looked from Owen to her with a mix of apprehension and expectancy in their eyes. It was obvious her husband had just been teaching them something, but at that moment, she was too alarmed to care about the interruption.
“Can you come with me?”
Owen didn’t answer with words, instead, he followed her to the nearest empty exam room and closed the door after them. Amelia noticed the alarm on his face and instantly picked up on his assumption.
“My MRI is clean. It’s all good.”
The relief was visible on his face but only for a moment, since it was instantly replaced by a confused expression. Amelia kept staring at him, wanting to explain, but she had no idea where to start.
She needed to find out the truth soon. And this time around, for this particular exam, Amelia definitely needed Owen beside her as she waited for the results.
“Owen…” she took a step forward and reached out for his hands, squeezing them both to give and get reassurance. There was a big chance they might be in for the wildest ride of their lives and Amelia had feared that moment for far too long because she knew better than anybody just how wrong it could go. And that was exactly why she needed so much to know she could rely on him for whatever might come next. “I think I might be pregnant.”
71 notes · View notes
nilboxes · 8 years ago
Text
And the Stars Had Them Reunited
Macen Barro pulls through impossible injuries and circumstances and reunites with his lover Avitus Rix.
Read it at AO3
The cold burned through his lungs like fire, making breathing under the snowy conditions difficult, but Macen plodded on through the white expanse with a sense of exhausted fervor. The winds numbed him, his senses ebbed and surged like the tides, but if he stopped now either the weather would kill him, or the aliens that might still be after him if he did not find shelter.
The emptiness stretched out in front of him, and with no other thoughts to occupy his mind, he thought of the first moment of consciousness since he thought he had been done for. Macen had wondered why the afterlife had him surrounded by oppressive, green metal walls, only to realize he had, somehow, not died.
Impossible, yet it came to be, and in the days that followed, sliced and prodded by scalpels, blood drained from him to be put on their machines.
He had not been alone, there were other aliens there, but he, the only turian. A curiosity for them to study, curious enough that they somehow dragged his body from one planet to another.
The SAM implant in his head had been deactivated, an effect from transferring his protocols and nearly dying afterwards. With his omnitool also gone, he could not understand a thing they were saying.
He did understand though, the circumstances of an escape. As the strange aliens released him from his cell to transport him to another facility, he mustered up enough strength and quick wits to escape. Get a weapon, dodge, kill them all faster than they can kill you. Biotics only when necessary to conserve energy.
Several shots to the heads, quick, not neatly calculated but enough. He cut the other aliens loose—can't leave the others behind to a fate he was escaping—before bolting on his own, snatching every weapon he could possibly carry as he ran.
They didn't come shooting at least, as if they wanted the other aliens alive. But him, he was lower on their priority list.
Spirits, but that had been close. Shotgun shells on one side of his face blasting most of his faceplate on that region off, a deep gash on the other, topped off by one busted arm. And that was just the injuries from the encounter. Wounds, like burns, covered most of his left side where his suit got shredded. The aliens had gotten rid of his suit when they sliced him up, but the replacements he had been provided could almost withstand the cold.
He fell to his knees on the snow, and all at once the fatigue set in. He looked up at the sky, the beautiful lights and the clear stars above a soothing sight against the endless white. He couldn't move a muscle, his limbs seizing from overuse, but the small welcome comfort of the sight above distracted them. To think that among those stars, Avi was alive and that one day, surely, they would see each other again.
He got on his feet again, taking in a deep breath despite how it raked through his lungs. A few more steps forward, and then a few more, wherever his feet took him, the thought that wherever it was would take him one step closer to Avi kept him going.
-
A low thrum of anxiety that never went away plagued Avitus' days and nights. Playing—no—being the pathfinder hadn't been a job he had been gunning for. An ex-SPECTRE, with his list of skills better at subterfuge and infiltration, did not fit the needs of leadership. He didn't want the job, but Ryder had been right, refusing it wouldn't make the fact that Macen had died untrue.
Macen. It wasn't supposed to be this way. They came here to Andromeda for a new life together, leaving behind everything for a new start.
Go on for the both of them, Macen's last words rattled through him, a little bell chiming in a big empty space. Of course, he had to, but it didn't make it any easier. Being alone had never been part of this deal.
He sat alone in the Pathfinder's quarters which still didn't feel officially quite his, skimming through emails.
One in particular stood out.
>To: Avitus Rix, Turian Pathfinder >From: Ryder, Human Pathfinder
>Heard you were gathering up your people. I remember some turians were passing through Techiix, a settlement in Voeld, when I was there. Could be smugglers, but could also be some of your missing people. Might want to take a look.
Voeld. He thought it had been bad in Havarl, but the cold and the kett would down people faster than the threat of wildlife and raiders.
Avitus rose from his seat, and looked across the expansive windows to the millions of bright stars in the distance.
To Voeld it was.
-
How much time had passed since his he had been taken to this planet, since he had escaped, Macen hadn't a clue, but what he did know was that he was in a place called Voeld, among a people called angara. He had managed to stumble through to a daar called Techiix.
Stumble had been the right word. He had seen it from a distance, but had been far long into exhaustion to take another step. The angara found him. Some of the angara he had freed must have made it, as they looked beside themselves when they saw him. There were also other turians, kind enough to spare him the dextro-amino rations, but went on their way for business. It was clear things really hadn't turned out the way the Initiative thought it would.
At least the angara had been able to figure out his anatomy enough to help him with his face and the rest of him. The burns from what they called the scourge had been attended to by his captors, the kett, in some manner, but they healed wrong and his skin there had become a mangled mess, not that he minded. His arm had been dislocated, also fractured, coupled with dehydration and malnutrition, he was not in any state to go around anywhere just yet.
On a request, they had sent a message to the Nexus outpost, but one lone turian against the potential dangers of a kett ambush and no doubt several bureaucratic fences had left him in the care of the angara, who at least seemed hospitable enough after his deeds.
Macen lay still on his cot, in a small room that had been provided to him, absently fingering his omni-tool as his thoughts wandered to Avi, as they always did now that he had survived immediate dangers.
"Be safe," he had bidden Avi, asleep and safe, encased in his pod when he ejected him and the others, spacing himself in the process.
He closed his eyes, trying to remember his face, the feel of their hands clasped together.
He must have fallen asleep and dreamed, because when he opened his eyes it was Avi's face he saw, kneeling by his cot, his face a mix of surprise and disbelief.
"Macen," Avi said, his voice catching as he took in shuddering breath. "Macen, it's you."
"Avi," Macen murmured through the haze of sleep, sitting up and wrapping his good arm around him and pulling him close, the smell and feel of him engulfing his senses so vivid that it couldn't just be a fever dream. "Oh, Avi."
Avi's hands, free from his gauntlets, cupped his face, his features contorting in concern as he touched the smashed faceplate on one side and the gashed one on the other. "Macen, what happened? These wounds..."
"You'll be the more handsome out of the two of us now," Macen chuckled.
Avi pressed their foreheads together, tears falling from his eyes as he squeezed Macen's hand. "You'll always be a sight for sore eyes to me."
Macen laughed as Avi pressed in for a kiss, long and full of love and the relief of finding it after it had most certainly been lost.
"I didn't know what I would do without you," Avi whispered, looking into Macen's eyes.
"I've survived against all the odds to be together again with you," Macen said, smiling, his heart bursting with happiness as he pulled Avi down for another kiss.
-
They lay in an entangled mess at the Pathfinder's quarters of the ship, the light of the stars beyond the windows streaming and providing the only source of light in the room.
The only one they needed, as despite Macen's injuries and the doctor's orders, clothes had flown off of their bodies the moment they could finally be alone. Hands sought to map each other's skin in fervent caresses, eager to rediscover the paths to pleasure six-hundred years of sleep and months of separation had blurred the memories of. Kisses traced those paths and marked those planes. And when neither of them could resist, found themselves joined as one to each other, and repeated these motions again and again, as it always was meant to be, until they collapsed in each other's arms, spent but also sated.
"I almost didn't want to take up being Pathfinder," Avi murmured sleepily as he thumbed Macen's ruined cheek. "I didn't want to believe you were gone."
Macen pulled Avi into a tighter embrace, as tight as his good arm could let him. "I was gone for sure. The scourge hit me badly, and all I could think of was you, how to do my best to make sure you could make it."
"And the kett found you."
"Somehow. I think they saw me through that, found it interesting. They must have wanted to do experiments on me alive, because they revived me and started taking sections of my skin and treating the burns with different kinds of treatment. A lot happened and I couldn't even remember most of it," Macen said, awake, suddenly, as he recounted those memories. They had him drugged through those experiments, though he could recall the pain, but not once did he wish it would end. Pain meant he was alive, that he could still yet find his way back here in his lover's arms.
Avi closed his eyes, winding his arms around Macen, saying nothing more.
Macen smiled, smoothing back the crests on Avi's head. Cradled there amongst the bright, and beautiful stars, they made it, and never again would they be separated.
82 notes · View notes