#ten years ago that place was literally off the map

[vigilskeep]

Wait but like other than the divine, who did show up for the conclave? Was she just in a room by herself? 💀

theoretically, representatives sent by fiona and the lord seeker (??? whoever these may have been... not known or mentioned characters, apparently...?) and also uh [checks notes] every single influential cleric in the southern chantry. and, uhhhh. that one guy i guess cassandra fucked in the anime movie i haven’t seen

also: the mages and templars you see on screen lining up in their absurd little identical queues. i imagine a lot of the ordinary ones would have tried to make it just for somewhere there seemed to be a semblance of truce and order and someone who could tell them what to do

[ceilidho]

prompt: (loosely based on Brahms from The Boy) you buy a house. you start to suspect you're not alone in it. [PART 1] tw: death of a parent, someone living in your house

-

Lightness; there were cracks in the floorboards and light glittering up from beneath them, which is what you first notice about the house.

It would be poetic if it meant anything. Instead, you are forced to pry the planks of wood out one by one at dawn when your fingers are trembling with exhaustion and your clipped nails throb—and, of course, there’s nothing remarkable beneath where the light shines through.

A piece of glass from a picture frame—all right, so you wonder how a piece of glass the size and width of your hand gets caught beneath the floor with the ashes of the photo once held behind it, but it’s half-six o’clock and you’re still yawning from the long drive the day before—catches a glint of light, and, well, you sigh at the blood welling over your nails from having pried off the floorboards with your bare hands. 

You’ll replace the boards later. Maybe bandage your hand.

It’s so quiet outside this early. Everything smells just as it should.

It had taken years of scrimping and saving, storing every nickel and penny away in your piggybank to buy your first house. The foreclosure process takes about ten months, every second during which your nails bite into your palms when you close your fists. Your entire life savings goes into the downpayment. It quite literally takes your bank account, holds it upside down, and shakes until every coin falls out. 

It’s yours though. A house all to yourself after years of living in apartments—you’ve spent decades living out of a suitcase, your parents changing apartments every year almost, never settling in one place. Buying a house wasn’t a nice-to-have so much as a physical necessity for you. 

It’s an old house—plenty of character, as the real estate lady charmingly describes it when you showed you the place. You don’t have the money quite yet to replace the old windows, repair the drywall, brick up the chimney that you won’t use, or change the flooring, but since it’s just you, you don’t mind taking your time. The previous owners hadn’t really kept the place up; there’s even a panel at the back of the closet in your room leading into the walls that needs to be replaced.

Later, when folding your clothes into new drawers that smell of new wood and old wood, you startle, thinking you’d packed your mother’s underwear along with your own; you thought you’d donated everything after she died. The thought is nauseating (a cold sweat breaks out) until you recognize the pattern on the blue cotton as your own and you crumple the fabric between your fingers for a second, dried blood and all. 

Dawn is rising outside, emptying out the house until it’s just you and the fifteen pairs of underwear you’d packed days ago. Everything else is sitting out on the patio in cardboard boxes. When you finally get the rest out where it can breathe, morning has settled into midday. 

When you finish putting your clothes away, you’re careful not to move for another few minutes until your hands stop shaking and your jaw unclenches. For breakfast, you fix up an omelet with spinach and a glass of cranberry juice. A friend calls not long later, but they mainly speak about their husband and how the living room will look once it was stripped of the gaudy floral wallpaper and repainted. Your friend hasn’t even seen the house yet, only pictures of the house from when you had searched it on Google Maps and tentatively held the idea glass-like in your head for several days. 

Your friend says in a voice molasses thick, “I’ll visit as soon as you’re tucked in down there.” It makes you rub your nose against your sleeve.

The pictures online had been splotchy and dim, barely recognizable when held against the lightness of the house full-formed. Your friend had sent you off with cream and lilac paint swatches, wooden coasters, and a copy of Ulysses before you had packed up the last of your things into the back of your car and the sky had been aglow with sunset. A large sunset that dribbled down the horizon and slid all slippery smooth into twilight. Your friend’s face had been lovingly shadowed in their goodbye, the sort of shadow that cut her jaw just so, and made one seem so private and longing. Like an instance of specific longing. 

It’s a good morning though, and you bite the inside of your cheek through the whole phone call, not stumbling over frequent ‘I love you’s and ‘I already miss you’s, but feeling like maybe you should. Anyway, your friend hangs up long before you know whether to carry those thoughts out. 

Then it’s still again in your unfurnished little bedroom—in one corner, there’s a rolled up carpet and end table that you’d brought in earlier, but they sit there unaltered and you think that maybe later you’ll get around to doing something with them. 

No one else calls while you eat breakfast, cutting the omelet into irregular triangles and putting enough hot sauce to make your eyes water. Which they do, but it’s good. After eating, you grab a mug out of one of the boxes on the patio to make a cup of instant coffee.

You fix the floorboards back after, nailing them back in place while sipping the lukewarm coffee that is still so, so good. So, so good to you because it’s early, so on one hand it’s comforting, habitually speaking, but also because the house is so new and old that sometimes you breathe in and feel lightheaded, or like your heart might tremble so violently that it’ll reduce itself to dust. 

So, coffee is good. Keeps you steady on your feet when you’re climbing back up the stairs to lug more boxes into the bedroom. Boxes of books you didn’t want to unpack, so they sit under a beam of sunlight in front of the one window in the room and you sit yourself down next to it, curling your legs underneath you and resting your head against the box. 

Strange, that the house is so warm when it’s nearly the end of October and it’s not like this city is all that different from the one you left. That the shard of glass you’d found beneath the floorboards could fill you with such a dizzying amount of melancholy (you still have it in the pocket of your sweater, which had deep pockets, deep pockets that apparently you use to carry around pieces of glass); again, though, the house is so warm and your bones are oozing out onto the carpet you unroll. Everything in you feels molten and fluid. 

Your spirit roars into the light of this new town with its new air, its new terrain, its new immediacy. Stepping out into the street outside the house, you feel every nerve in your body tremble in the realization of this new sensory landscape. Your fingertips buzz—you could reach out and touch every surface you pass: the wood-grain of a park bench, the sleek chrome of a chain-link fence. 

The town feels unreal in a sensuous way. When you go out to explore the town after unpacking the majority of your belongings, you can’t help being drawn down streets and up alleyways, eyes trailing over the russet bricked houses and hedges dotting the front lawns. 

On the corner of a street, nearly three blocks from your house, there’s a café with houseplants almost spilling out of the door and windows; you duck inside and order a coffee and a bagel before tucking yourself into a corner by the window. 

On the street across from the café, a woman in a yellow raincoat walks by. 

“Drip coffee?” 

You look up from your seat, startled almost by the voice, at a young man. He has a flare of freckles and an unsure smile.  

“Yes, sorry,” you mumble, taking the mug from him and tucking yourself back against the window in almost the same moment. 

To be sitting in plain daylight without company or a book or your phone out in front of you feels absurdly barren. Anyone might walk by and perceive the desperation that seems to pour off you. Even the few other occupants in the café are occupied with something or other, eyes pulled down to their tables or to someone sitting across from them. 

For a spell, walking home in the daze of the possibility of new peace, you feel light; to be poised on the verge of new possibilities and peering out over the edge, cautiously but with a ray of hope. Even the air feels fresh.

The lightness, of course, cannot last long.

Days before you left, someone told you that it’s common to have nightmares in a new house. You prove them right on the first night. 

In the wake of a bad dream, you pad into the kitchen, illuminated only by the moonlight, for a glass of water, reduced to only the silvering edges of your skin in the dark room. 

Occasionally it happens that you dream of your mom, in her blue jeans and raincoat again, standing outside the old coffee house from back home. She always looks well rested, and that always stings somehow—it makes you feel like you’re unraveling, even in a dream. She never says anything to you or even looks your way, but you know that she knows you’re there, and that dawdling energy, obvious indifference, is all a measured hurt. You dream of your mom staring off into the red-gold distance, honey-gold herself, irreducible in this place. 

Then, you wake up, panting and squeezing your eyes shut. 

You pour yourself a glass of water, but the tears don’t stop, coming out of you like a divine flooding. 

The two of you hadn’t been on speaking terms in the months before her death. In fact, you hadn’t even known she was dying. You remember you had an argument almost a year before, but for the life of you, you can’t remember what it was about. It was that inconsequential. That inconsequential and still she let it simmer and fester and didn’t bother to tell you that she was dying until it was too late. 

You scrub your eyes with the back of your hand, smearing the salty tears across your skin. In the moonlight, your grief seemed inescapable, layered under the lowest level of your flesh. All the loneliness of lonely dwelling catching in your throat, bursting out like the last release of breath of a woman beneath the swell of a cresting wave. The moon is not a comfort; the sky rounded in with its indifference, wholly incapable of putting any sentiment to rest. You feel languid in this old grief. 

Unable to bear being inside, you venture out onto the porch for a bit, closing only the screen door behind you. There’s a single light still on in your bedroom, the house otherwise dark. You sit in the cool breeze until your tears dry. 

There is something entirely relaxing about watching a breeze push all of the trees to one side—like the world moves with one breath, one thought. Back when you lived in the city, you hadn’t lived in such close proximity to nature, used to the concrete landscape. In the city, everything seemed to exist at opposing speeds and modes of existence—everything perpetually at odds.

You stare out into the street and drink your water, leisurely pacing around your front lawn. Just taking in the feeling of being settled for once. It’s a safe neighborhood. It’s an old house, a real fixer upper, but it’s a neighborhood where you can just walk around at night. 

It takes a while to unwind, to shake off the nightmare. You know it finally has when a yawn forces its way out of you and your eyes water again, from exhaustion this time. Draining your glass, you turn around to make your way back inside. You pause. Your foot hovers in place.

Then, in the shadowy depths of your house, you think you see something move again.

[greenerteacups]

Hi! Just wanted to say the latest chapter is lovely & amazing & sweet & had me smiling the whole time! I absolutely love your characterisation of everyone, especially Draco, so it was so so lovely to return to this world & to his thoughts!! with his best friend and crush at malfoy manor no less! All the yearning is already off to a great start hehe I am so excited for the rest of book 5!

Wanted to ask you how has it been for you to write this new book and volume? Has your writing process changed since when you’d first begun taking on a long form project like this?

& also are there any moments or surprises in this book that you’re especially excited about?

sending so much love & gratitude for you and your incredible works 💓

Thank you so much! This is really encouraging, I so appreciate it.

Inasmuch as I can use this metaphor without having kids myself, I sort of see each of the books as a different child. The first one flew out in basically a few weeks of very intensive writing, and it was a total dream — plot, pacing, symbolism, major beats, all fell into place basically without effort. The character stuff was the hardest, as I've written about before, but even then, the glorious part of writing beginnings is it's the most energy you'll ever have for a project, so the lows were pretty soft lows. Book 2, in contrast, I had to drag kicking and screaming by its ankle from under the bottommost mattress of my brain. It's one of my least favorite books (tone problem; COS has killer plot/setting/ingredients for a YA novel, but it's stuck in the doldrums of Harry Potter's well-documented Early-Installment Weirdness, before Cedric Diggory slams the gas and upshifts the whole series into its correct age bracket). More specifically, once I'd gone through and picked out everything in the book that happened because of Lucius, I didn't have a plot — hey alexa how do you rewrite Chamber of Secrets when We Got No Fucking Chamber Of Secrets — and oh by the way, even if you want to do a moody tone/political setup book, remember that your protagonists are still twelve, so if you go too dark or too intense, you'll risk torpedoing your readers' suspension of disbelief. Good luck, Charlie.

Book 3 felt the most like its own novel, if that makes sense? It's the last truly feel-good book of the series; it's a great stand-alone mystery novel with relatively low stakes. Plus you get a bunch of the big series icons: patronuses, dementors, werewolves, Hogsmeade, the Marauders' Map, and time turners arithmancy. It just felt like a good old-fashioned motherfucking romp of a mystery/adventure story, before any of the complex character work and major stakes of the late books come in.

Book 4 was the most fun I've had writing anything maybe ever. I don't even know what it was. Maybe the tournament arc, honestly? Love me a tournament arc. But in any case, I opened every new chapter feeling a tingle of excitement for what I was gonna get to do. Oh, and the romance started, finally, Jesus God (if it feels like a slow burn reading, just imagine what it felt like writing it, when everything takes ten times as long, and you have to figure out how to word the fucker.)

Book 5, in contrast, has felt much less like that tingle of "here we go!" and more like "oh, man, this is gonna be cool." Because this is the arc of the story that composed the original idea for Lionheart, literally years ago, and to be honest, I didn't think I'd get this far! If you'd asked me "do you know that it's going to take you 500,000 words of backstory before you can start writing that concept you're thinking about, and you're going to do it anyway?" I would have said: "absolutely not, strange mind-reader!" But like... I'm here! Finally! And it's... real now? Like, this isn't just a bunch of clips of scenes in my head anymore! That's rad!

That being said, it's definitely been slower than Book 4, because I kept switching back to my outline document to make sure that certain things were set up properly, and that I hadn't lost any of the plot threads or forgotten a minor beat that was vitally important for the story three chapters later. And I had a minor crisis about three months ago when I ripped out about 8 chapters in the first third of the book — basically everything from September to December — because I'd done a readthrough to check pacing (big mistake! never edit while drafting, that's satan talking) and realized I had a missing storyline. Like, there was a whole layer of the story that was just. Missing. Not there. And the existing text really couldn't fit another thread, so instead of taking weeks to pore through and try to sift out what I could save, I needed to factory reset and start over. And I didn't want to! I vividly remember sitting there with my head in my hands, trying not to weep, because I'd decimated 90,000 words of work in a single edit. But it had to be done. Because the story wasn't going to work. And now (hopefully) it will.

And of course, there's still that sense of excitement and exhilaration from before. Always. But whereas Book 4 felt like a delicious chocolate pudding, Book 5 is a medium-rare steak.

(Book 6, so far, is four shots of espresso and a whiskey chaser. FWIW.)

[theplottdump]

ＳＩＤＥ ＰＬＯＴＴ - ＰＵＲＥ ＨＥＤＯＮＩＳＭ - PART 1 🔞 - 𝙶𝚎𝚗 𝟼: 𝚅𝚊𝚕 𝚊𝚗𝚍 𝙲𝚑𝚊𝚍 -

heat level: 🌶🌶🌶🌶🌶 (It's Smut with a Plot) content warnings: simdick, choking, graphic depictions of gay sex, I'm literally warning you now!!

Forward: This scene is something that I wanted to write anyway for the main plott eventually, and the PG-13 parts will end up popping up again in the main storyline - but for Valentines smut sake I thought it would be fun to jump ahead and take way farther than reasonably necessary. Godspeed. Don't say I didn't warn you. PART ONE: ( The One with the Plott, Rating PG ) PART TWO: ( The One with the Smut, Rating R )

[ 𝐅𝐚𝐥𝐥, 𝐘𝐞𝐚𝐫 𝟏𝟎 ] Shortly after finding himself on the receiving end of the beratement of a lifetime, Valerian announced to that perhaps it was time for everyone to get some rest.

And yes, perhaps it was just a hurried excuse to retreat upstairs with his metaphorical tail placed firmly between his legs- but so what? He much preferred the comfort and privacy of his own bedroom anyway.

There, to his relief he found his fiancé finishing up his nightly routine- cut short by both the lack of expensive creams- left in his room upstairs, and an incessant, tired kiss carefully placed in the crook below his jawbone; Val wrapping his stray arm around Chad's torso.

Val let out a frustrated sigh against his neck, his lips refusing to vacate their favorite spot. "That bad?" "You are hereby banned from leaving me alone with that woman ever again." he grumbled as Chad let out a small snort in response.

"Sunny's tucked in?" "All taken care of. Now it's your turn, wash up- it's been a long day." "You are too good to me." "And don't you forget it."

Chad pulled the taller man down to meet his height, rewarding him for the day's bravery with a warm, familiar, and well practiced kiss before pushing him towards the shower.

Valerian conceded to being undressed by his fiancé, layers of expensive wool and tweed crumpling to the ground unceremoniously as he was placed under a running shower head- hot water washing away the pent up stress. Turning, he saw a dark cloud pass over his partner's face.

"Something is bothering you." It wasn't a question. After years together Val could place a meaning to Chad's every tick and glance. If asked, he could chart a map of his face, noting every wrinkle with a time and place of origin. "Is it that easy to tell?" "Distractingly so."

Chad's thoughts flashed back to his conversation earlier in the evening- Poppy was right, per usual. Had it really been 10 years? "I've been thinking-" "A dangerous practice indeed." Val flashed a wry smile as he maneuvered past him towards the main portion of the bedroom.

"Valerian-" "I don't understand how you can tolerate that insidious woman." "Val, she's your sister." "Don't rub it in. Coming in here like she bought and paid for the place, rattling off a list of my flaws and failures. This is my home damn her, I am happy- WE are happy."

Chad skirted around Val as he concluded his rant, silencing him with two hands placed on his partner's bare chest, still damp from the shower.

"That's actually what I wanted to talk to you about." "Please do not tell me you actually agree with that wretched snake of a woman."

"Valerian, how long have we been together?" "Ten years, two seasons, and thirteen days," he replied with no hesitation, as if he had been running a counter to keep track, "Leanne can provide you with a more accurate estimate if required." "No, no, that's fine."

"Val, do you remember the promise you made me in that elevator, 10 years ago? Do you remember what you told me?"

"Ten Years, two seasons, and thirteen days-" he corrected him, in a way that most sane people would find annoying. "But yes, of course." he finished.

Chad drew him in close again, their heartbeats complementing one another as they often did.

"Valerian Plott, will you marry me?"

"Took you long enough."

Before Chad could even attempt to pull the man closer for a kiss to finalize the moment, Val had sprung back with a newfound energy and vigor, addressing the house AI directly.

"HANSEL please inform Leanne that her presence is requested immediately."

"You called?" "FUCKMEwheredidyoucomefrom-" Chad yelled, nearly jumping out of his skin details, as Leanne appeared to instantaneously materialize behind him like some sort of electronic ghost.

"Yes, thank you Leanne." Valerian replied coolly, unfazed by her rapid appearance. "Mr. Chinsley has just informed me that he wishes to resume the nuptial process." "Very good sir, shall we begin with the vows then?" Chad hurriedly cut them both off.

"What!? Not RIGHT NOW!"

Val studied his partner quizzically. "Correct me if I misspeak, but did you not just directly express to me you'd like to finalize our long delayed marriage?"

"But- there's a whole process! Paperwork to file, things to plan!" Chad shot back, visibly confused at how the moment had devolved so rapidly. "Correct. Vexus has kept the documents on retainer until he received final confirmation from Party B- that would be you Mr. Chinsley."

The cogs started to turn in the back of Chad's cerebral cortex. "You've had the documents… filed." "Yes sir." "For how long exactly?" "Ten Years, Two Seasons, Twelve Days, Sixteen Hours, Thirty-Six minutes, and 12, 13, 14, 15 seconds. We've had to re-file after every patch."

Chad slowly swiveled back to meet Val's steel coated irises once again. "You're psychotic."

"Thank you for noticing Agent." Val raised his eyebrows, amused at the compliment. "Now, shall we continue? Leanne please pull up the vows on file. Draft D6 Please." "Right away sir."

The supervillain readjusted his gaze to that of his partner, confidence dropping slightly as he finally paused to study Chad's reaction.

"You're upset."

"Valerian, tell me truthfully- when I asked you to marry me, did you think I meant right this exact moment?"

"Well obviously," the villain replied plainly, before continuing, "But if you wish to include Helianthus in the process, I can have HANSEL wake her up and send her down-"

Chad cut him off, moving forward slightly to place a hand on either side of the man- steadying him for what he would say next. "Valerian, I want a wedding."

A heavy anticipatory silence that fell over the room, as the Agent waited for a response from his fiancé.

"Oh."

Chad watched on as Val's countenance grew dark- a familiar weather pattern rolling in, his cold eyes growing stormier- as a thundercloud raged behind his glasses.

He slowly released his grip, the look was familiar to him of course- Valerian was not processing this request well.

He readjusted his focus to his assistant, who had been silently observing the interaction with the AI approximation of befuddlement. "Leave us."

A simple order but one that lashed out from his mouth like tropical lightning snapping the branch off an unlucky tree. "Yes sir."

( CONTINUES TO PART 2 🔞 )

[motheatenscarf]

God we are a barely over a fucking week out from Dawntrail but all I want to holler about is my fuckin dumb accidental parallels that I made through making my WoL a Garlean defector and why YEAH, I KNOW, everyone ships their fuckin WoL with Emet-Selch, I KNOW, everyone knows the reasons why everyone ships it, but lemme scream about it anyway because I'm a big dumb idiot.

I've mentioned before that Talia was an ex-Garlean soldier who defected over having her faith in Garlemald and its false promises shattered. She grew up in the heart of the empire in a relatively well-off and marginally respected military family, tenuously upper class. She was protected from seeing a lot of the worst aspects of it and had a similar world-view to Gaius' where she actually believed in the supposed meritocracy and the initial goal of ridding the world of false gods to free the people from being enslaved to them. She missed the memo where the cruelty and the oppression and the caste system of exploitation were the point of a fascist empire, not an accidental byproduct of rapid expansion. She was involved with the Populares who wanted to fix the empire without tearing it down and her naivete got her twin sister killed. She vowed never to be a soldier again after that and fled the empire to become a wandering adventurer, helping people to try and atone for how wrong she'd been about everything and maybe seeking her death in doing so.

Cue the whole ARR storyline and she's given the chance to live out that idealism she had of ridding the world of Primals and risking her wretched life in the process- Win-win! But she has to hide who/what she is from these people, so she doesn't really connect with them, and they're certainly eager to send her into danger carelessly, risking her life on increasingly more petty conflicts when she is the ONLY PERSON who can kill primals, but fine, she'll do it. And then they start militarizing. And she starts getting that sinking feeling like it's all gonna turn out like Garlemald did, rapidly expanding with a grand ambition that'll only sour and turn to poison that drowns the whole world, and she promised on her sister's grave she would never be a soldier again. So she maybe projects some criticisms onto Minfilia similarly to how she projects onto Hydalen what she can't say to her own mother, since, y'know, Minfilia's right there to yell at while the Emperor is dead in the ground on the other side of the world.

Except that he isn't. So, 2 expansions happen and she becomes a Dark Knight and a Reaper to deal with her grief and rage respectively in losing the Scions (twice) and her sense of self as she becomes more fixated on annihilating Garlemald off the fucking map (one finger on the monkey's pawl curls down). Then Shadowbringers happens, and Talia is an ex-Garlean Dark Knight who walked out of Emet's newest empire because the universe keeps playing the same joke on him over and over apparently.

I did not mean for this to happen, it just happened, and I lost my fucking mind at the reveal that Azem was a defector from the Convocation and then literally had to take a walk to calm down at the reveal that yes, Emet was a Dark Knight. He probably founded the fucking discipline. And hey, Fray sure does take an "I only berate you because I want you to be safe and take care of yourself," attitude, and has those gold eyes, and hey, we know that Dark Knights are really rare, maybe this is the same stone that Emet made some ten thousand years ago that holds an echo of why he took up the blade in the first place. COOL.

Anyway, I dismissed the impulse to EmetWol at the time because like, yes, it's tragically compelling, but at the time didn't think Emet would stoop to settling for a shard and was still trying to decide how Talia would feel about everything that was happening. Decided she's a lot of things, but if she learned anything from Garlemald, it's how to admit when she's wrong. For all that she hated Solus zos Galvus, that is one of many facets to him, and the unbearable burden of Emet Selch was something that... kinda resonated with her. Learning more about the ancients, she understood why he did what he did. It was unconscionable and unforgivable, and she still didn't trust him because fool me once, but she didn't have it in her to hate him anymore.

During the Heavensward/Stormblood era, she'd kinda lost sight of herself when all the Scions were taken away. She hadn't been close with most of them to this point, but thought of Alphinaud and Alisaie as the children she'd never have. Finding Alphinaud's empty body left her with a thin, frail thread of sanity that she only clung onto for Alisaie's sake, and then Alisaie was taken right in front of her very eyes, powerless to save her, just like her sister, and Talia kinda lost it. Threw herself into the Ghimlt Dark with the plan to raze a path from Ala Mhigo to Garlemald, no room for survivors, no room for rubble, just blood and cinders, or die trying. All because she was alone, all because the people she loved had been taken from her. So yeah. She... unfortunately understood that better than she wanted to. Even without being tempered and

Tried to think about what a Talia who wasn't a silent protagonist would say to him and how they'd get along. Wasn't sure how Emet would react to a WoL who gives as good as they get in the "Condescending Sarcastic Supervillain" running commentary. Like, he barely seems to tolerate these people as is and has no patience for their questions, no way he's gonna put up with a WoL who will also complain about his bad attitude and make fun of his dumb hair and ask pointed questions about how poorly Garlemald is run and ask if that was his idiot plan, even if they're mostly joking.

AND THEN I GOT TO ENDWALKER. And like. Subject A.) Unburdened Ancient Emet Selch, he's still just. Like That.

Turns out him being exasperated and barely tolerating people is just his personality. That's him showing affection because if he didn't want to be around these people, he'd just leave. He just has to complain at all times or he'll die, that's completely understandable.

And then Subject B.) Hythlodaeus, beautiful ray of sunshine to everyone else but professional Emet wrangler who knows exactly how to give as good as the man dishes out and oh, hey, maybe that's actually why Hades likes him. Maybe it's reassuring to him when people aren't put off by what a miserable grouch he is and kvetch back at him and with him about everything. Waldorf needs his Statler and all that. Maybe it would actually be weirdly comforting to just have somebody to riff off of and actually, her beef with Solus' actions is refreshing because for once it's an incarnation whose issue isn't really about Hades or Emet-Selch. And maybe with the looming threat of her Death, Doom, Gonna Die, all throughout SHB, it's kind of a relief for there to be at least ONE person with whom she shares any kind of cultural touchstone or framework, even if they're both contemptuous of Garlemald and Garleans as a whole.

... oh no!

And then that percolated for like 4 months fretting over like, does this interpretation of the character fit in with canon, is this too self indulgent, how much am I gonna embrace the tragedy of it, there are so many ways to interpret Emet Selch

Cuz the last thing I want is for The Loud Idiot in any lit class to come to my inbox and tell me I missed the point because buh-buh, the text has one rigid interpretation and it's Strictly Mine, that's how art works, durr

and then I realized that imaginary idiot was basically the only thing holding me back, so. WHY NOT! Yes, it's embarrassing and stupid, but so is everything, fuck it, I don't care, WoLEmet be upon ye, more thoughts to follow in the days to come, i'm writing this on break from my D&D game

[terriblepersongreatseamonster]

I’ll be honest, when Kylo first meets Rey the whole thing from him knocking her out to her waking up restrained and having their first face-to-face interaction has always felt a bit rapey to me.  I think it’s one of the big reasons I’ve been staunchly anti-Reylo for so long.  However, having now fallen to the Reylo side and rewatched the movies from that perspective, I have a different take on that first meeting and their subsequent interactions.

First, before I dive into everything, I want to address the age gap.  I wish Rey hadn’t been 19 when they met.  It just makes the whole ten-year age gap a little hard to stomach (even though it is a long, long time ago in a galaxy far away, and Ben has the emotional maturity of a 13-year-old).  I wish she’d been a little older, or that the gap hadn’t been so huge if they were going to insist she be 19.  Plus, how does that whole sharing-a-soul thing work?  Did Ben have a complete soul for the first decade of his life, and then as soon as Rey popped into existence his soul ripped in half and yeeted itself across the galaxy to find her?  (There’s probably an actual official answer to this particular question, but I haven’t really looked into it yet.)

Okay, let’s go back to Ben.  This was the son of Han and Leia, and they are two of the biggest deals in the New Republic.  They love Ben, but they don’t have a lot of time to be parents.  Anyone who’s had parents who were in leadership positions knows how much time is sacrificed to be available to others.  Ben spent the beginning of his life sharing his parents with the entire galaxy.  Plus, roughly around the time he came to be, Leia was off training to be a Jedi.  I’m not sure if she was still training after he was born, but from everything I’ve found, she quit her training sometime around then.  The woman might be a badass, but there are only so many hours in a day and so many places she can be at once.  

There’s no doubt in my mind that Ben was raised to have manners.  He’s the kid of leaders, he was probably in etiquette lessons before he could fully form sentences.  

I have no doubt that Ben witnessed his parents showing each other physical affection, but who knows how often that happened.  I wouldn’t be surprised if Han and Leia spent more time apart than together because of their roles in the New Republic.  On top of that, I’ve always felt that there was a layer of slight aggressiveness to their relationship.  It’s not bad, but it could be very confusing to a little kid.  This is what Ben spends the first decade of his life observing.  

Then, right as he reaches the age of ten, he gets sent off to hang out with his bachelor uncle to learn to be a Jedi.  I know that in the now non-canon material, Luke was married, but in the current canon, it seems that his marriage exists only in his dreams.  Given the Jedi issues with love and attachments, I sincerely doubt that Ben and his fellow padawans were given any kind of sex ed or instruction on how to treat someone they might be attracted to.  

So, Ben becomes Kylo, and while there are women who work with him, none of them are his soulmate.  He has zero dating experience and he only has his memories of his parents’ relationship to give him any idea of how to treat his soulmate.  I think he knew from very early on that the other half of his soul was out there, somewhere in the galaxy.  

By the time we reach The Force Awakens, Kylo is 29, and barely holding it together.  Ben is still in there, fighting hard to break free.  When he reaches Takodana in the search for the map, I would not be surprised if he sensed the missing piece of his soul and that’s how he found Rey so easily.  He was literally drawn to her like a magnet. 

When she starts shooting at him, he flicks away the blaster bolts.  He could easily have bounced them right back at her causing wound or death, or even stopped the blasts as soon as they started (much like how he did with Poe at the beginning of the movie).  He takes a surprisingly long time to actually put a stop to it.  And you get this sense that he’s trying to figure out what to do with her.  He observes her and even paces around her frozen form.  The guy is huge and intimidating, it would be enough to terrify anyone.  And Rey is already on edge from what happened at Maz’s castle.  

When Kylo knocks her out, he doesn’t just let her collapse onto the ground.  He’s right there catching her as she falls and then he sweeps her up in his arms, rather than having his underlings take over.  If he’d thought she was just some random girl, this action wouldn’t make sense.  I think, at that moment, he wanted to be as physically close to his missing piece as possible.

She comes to, restrained in this terrifyingly unfamiliar place, and the big bad of the galaxy is watching her.  He’s not touching her, he’s not even that close, but he is there and he’s still observing.  Still trying to figure her out.  As soon as she makes the comment about the mask, he pulls it off and they’re finally face-to-face.  When you watch, there is almost a subtle Gollum/Smeagol type fight going on inside him.  Ben is there, fighting against Kylo, and you end up with a very tense scene.  

Kylo doesn’t make a great choice using the words, “I can take whatever I want” and then immediately probing her mind.  Yes, this is non-consensual and scary.  But as soon as she tells him to get out of her mind, I think Ben takes over briefly because he doesn’t even question, just obeys.  He’s trying so hard to get a read on her.  And then the Kylo part of him takes over and tries so hard to pull the information from her.  

There’s an episode of Doctor Who where the Doctor is reading Madame de Pompadour’s mind, and she starts reading his.  He’s shocked by this and she tells him, “A door once opened may be stepped through in either direction.”  This is exactly what happens between Rey & Ben/Kylo.  

Also, I just want to point out that there is a big difference between Poe and Rey’s interrogations.  Kylo is aggressive and angry with Poe, but he’s much more restrained with Rey.  In fact, by the time their interaction ends, he’s absolutely shaken by how Rey has responded, and you can see the fear in his eyes as he realizes he’s experiencing something completely new.  Rey can read him almost easier than he can read her.

Throughout the rest of the movie, their interactions are intense.  Kylo throws her against a tree.  And then he fights with Finn.  He screams and rages against the other man,  He beats Finn, and tries to take the lightsaber, but the saber flies past him and into Rey’s hands.  Ben almost manages to surface.  The rage is gone, and you can see how intrigued he is by this new development.  The way he looks at her is a complete shift from the way he looked at Finn.   Their lightsaber duel is not nearly as brutal as it should be considering the fact that he’s far more experienced with the blade.  He could use his powers to disarm her, could break her, and he doesn’t.  He fights with her, and it’s like he’s trying to get a read on just how skilled she really is.  He even tries to convince her to let him teach her.  That’s not something you say to someone you hate or want to kill.    When she wounds him, he just keeps getting back up until the earth splits and physically separates them from each other.  

He lets her go.  As wounded as he is, he’s still a very strong force user, and I think it’s very possible he could’ve pulled her back, could’ve dropped her in the chasm.  He could’ve ended things right there and then, but he doesn’t.  

From the first time he and Rey lock eyes on each other, he never looks at her like he looks at anyone else.  The anger, the hatred, all of it isn’t there when he looks at her.  There’s fascination, annoyance, frustration, and by the time we get into Last Jedi there are the beginnings of love in his gaze.  She’s his missing piece.  His soul is complete when he’s interacting with her.  

Kylo is barely there at all when he interacts with her.  Their first soul bond, he tries to order her to bring him Skywalker, but you can tell the order is half-hearted at best, and he immediately drops his hand and you see the shame in his face.  I suspect he’s been beating himself up about how he interrogated her, and realizes he was just about to pull the same shit again.  

Ben can’t fully break free, but he’s still there.  When he slips the glove off and they touch, that’s all Ben.  Kylo isn’t there at all.  (And then Luke had to break in and ruin a perfect moment.) He never denies her accusations that he’s a monster, and even sits quietly and listens when she pours out the whole story about what happened in the cavern.  His actions and behaviors with her are the closest we get to see Ben Solo for the majority of the trilogy.  

At his heart, Ben wants to be the kind of man he knows Rey deserves and I really do think you see him making a genuine effort to become that, even if the road to get there is rocky.  They share a soul, and I think it’s tearing both of them apart for the majority of the trilogy because they can’t seem to figure out how to get on the same page.  

I think Kylo/Ben was wrong for how he behaved at the beginning, and I'm not trying to make excuses for him. However, I do think he genuinely regretted his behavior and tried to be better.

[kyogre-blue]

SS continues. Seteth is handsome and I think I would be okay with this normally, but I played VW first and Claude was cuter.

Not to be mean, but that's pretty much literally the only difference so far. Off screen Claude even supporting character magics us into getting the same reinforcements in the same place and going to the same next map. (I tell Seteth I want to go to the Kingdom this time. Seteth says no. I feel like at least Claude didn't pretend I had options. Did I just agree with him on everything...? That is also possible.)

It's kind of... even some of Seteth's lines don't seem to be intended for him. I heard from interview that SS was written first, so I figured that playing it would make VW feel like a reskin, but I dunno if it's the order I did them in, but tbh VW so far feels a more "natural" progression, Edelgard stuff aside.

Aside from that, using church units on the church route has some funny effects like that one general going "your army of children," but I'm actually... using almost entirely adults...

Live blogging notes:

Oh, I didn't notice, but the "village" where we wake up is in ruins. There are burnt remnants and half-collapsed brick walls in the background.

Interesting point: I didn't keep track of the months before, but now I see we fell asleep in March 1181 but wake up in December 1185. I kinda thought it would be the same months, but it's not.

Edelgard's tone at the reunion is...... hum. Not very emotive? Don't get me wrong, Claude doesn't exactly get worked up much either, but Edelgard has a lot more personal stakes in all this, and she should really have a deeper investment in regard to Byleth. It was like this when they parted ways in Garreg Mach too.

Edelgard says "friend from our Black Eagle days have chosen to join me in the fight ahead." But that's... hum. First, why is it a fight ahead for her? She's been fighting for 5 years and is winning, according to the info dump. Second, did the students actually join her? I got them all killed, so I won't know either way, but my impression is that this is not actually the case to begin with.

Edelgard is using a wavy sword... Levin Sword?

Kinda meh sword battle scene.

The fact that Edelgard is older than Byleth now... haha. Claude switches to calling you "my friend" but Edelgard is still pushing the teacher angle.

The info dumps about the political situation post timeskip are slightly different all around, but the only real difference seems to be that Lorenz leads the Empire supporter faction in the Alliance, which iirc was not the case in VW. That checks out. Dimitri is still presumed dead and Faerghus is a Dukedom.

Flayn says she forgot something at the Holy Mausoleum, where we meet up with her... Not sure what this is about. (Update: She and Seteth hang around there later too. Really not sure why.)

SS savefile has the banner I presume Claude also makes you use in VW - kinda blue-grey background with a pink Crest of Flames.

Lol, I killed everyone, but the chapter crawl still says students from the Black Eagle house are working with the Church. Instead I recruited all the Church units, so they show up to help in the new month.

War phase SS has the same monastery music and yellow skybox as VW. Kinda disappointed, tbh. I was (vainly) hoping that each route would get something a little different.

I did notice that they have wooden construction equipment type structures in a lot of places, which I didn't realize before. I guess it's supposed to show how the monastery is in a rundown, damaged state, but even seeing it, I don't think it works too well.

Shamir says that Dagda was "destroyed" ten years ago.

Seteth has been refusing Hanneman's requests for 21 years. So even though Flayn came to the monastery very recently, Seteth has been around for long enough that his physical age is going to start looking weird lol (his info on Serenes Forest says he's physically 27). Notably though, he and Jeralt didn't know each other (iirc), so based on the timeline, Seteth came pretty much immediately after Jeralt faked Byleth's death and disappeared. I wonder if it was because Rhea would have been "in a state" about Byleth's supposed death (and the loss of Sothis's crest stone).

There are no records of anyone except Seteth having a Major Crest of Cichol. In fact, it seems like there's probably no one who has a crest of Cichol at all. Seteth says he is a commoner and has no idea how he ended up with a crest. Hanneman when Byleth says the exact same thing, while being just as sus:

There's some cliff rubble on the monastery defense map... looks like there was a rockslide during the Imperial attack.

The fact that I've forgotten half of VW already is making this a little more tolerable, but looking at the chapter list for VW, we did have a monastery defense map before going to get Judith's troops, and in SS we are...... also going to get Judith's troops.

There's some snippets about how Judith and Daphnel have mostly remained out of Imperial attention and how Judith is a devout follower of the Seiros faith, but tbh it feels out of place here compared to VW.

Oh, there's a spy. Man, was this in VW? I remember nothing.

I've seen this mentioned in fic, but the quest for the Almyran merchant in disguise mentions a Nader bear (which is an Armored Bear Stuffy in your inventory). The thing you give him is "Zoltan's Beast Idol" that mentions the famous craftsman Zoltan who was believed to have made only weapons. I wonder if there's some weapon in the game that was made by him?

Seteth repeats the legend about Ailell being caused by the goddess's wrath after a battle there long ago. Which... is a weird thing, given that he should theoretically know the actual cause -- Agarthan missiles getting deflected from the monastery by the protections on the Holy Tomb.

Oh, Judith suggests she's helping because Claude asked her to. My sus man <3

Reiterating that the Oghma mountains are to the south of the monastery and between it and the Empire. You can't enter the monastery from the Empire directly. You have to go through the Kingdom or the Alliance.

Why do they give you the choice between east and west approaches?? I picked west because I already saw the Alliance stuff, but Seteth just directly shoots you down...

Claude continues to be a proper side character by giving us a way to get into the Empire through the Alliance. "I don't know exactly why, but I feel that I can trust you," my dude, it's because you are a side character who exists to fill the needs of the plot. It's the damn bridge again. SIGH

Also, I was worried for a moment when I couldn't talk to Ashe, but apparently you don't need to. Just kill him and he magically survives. There isn't even a little scene about him coming back or anything...?

[yellowmagicalgirl]

The Distance of Worlds (Makes A Heart Grow Fonder)

It's been ten years since Thora was in Eberron, and she never expected to see a familiar face ever again.

Happy holidays, @pirate-melody! Remember when you told me about your friend isekai-ing Marianne into his campaign as his character's mediocre mentor? Well, despite knowing nothing about the campaign, I decided to add some Pink Lightning to its premise as a gift for you. I hope you like this!

To literally anyone else: please go read the Shardrunners series. IDK how much sense this will make without prior knowledge.

AO3

It had been ten years, but there were still mornings where Thora expected to wake up in her room in the Tarkanan manor in Sharn, with the morning color change of the everbright lanterlight streaming through her window and highlighting the white orchids on her windowsill. The room she woke up in didn't get morning light, outside lanterns or otherwise. Its primary decoration was a detailed map of an ocean one would never find in all of Eberron or even its planes.

She missed her old room. She missed House Tarkanan, and everyone in it except for Lucien and his most loyal supporters. She even supposed she missed that frustrating tiefling who had gifted those orchids, even though Thora had never intended to grow sentimental about the people she was using to do her dirty work. She had mostly rebuilt her life in a slightly different line of criminal work, but she couldn't replace the people.

Thora blinked away her infelicity, crawled out of bed, and began to get ready. Hard work had gotten her to her precarious position, and she didn't have time to grieve what she had lost.

She took out the loose braids she slept in. After she had bathed, she would tightly braid the right half of her hair against her skull. It was the best way of mimicking the hairstyle she had worn in Sharn without having someone take a razor to her head as they questioned her judgement aloud.

When she had first come to this world, her breastplate had been ruined by a crossbow bolt to the chest. No one understood the meaning of an aberrant dragonmark, which meant that it was useless for intimidation purposes. People were intimidated by the scar on her chest, though. It should have killed her instantly.

It probably had, but no one in this world knew that. Thora could use it to her advantage, leave it on display and let them think she could walk off mortal wounds.

Thora pulled on her current armor, a corset made of dragonhide that covered her midriff but not her chest. Dragons were more common in this world than Eberron, patrolling the seas, raiding ships, and feasting on sailors. One had recently cost Thora one of the ships in her sector of the smuggling network. She had rivals who were eager to take her place if she slipped up. Most of them were more willing to knock her down a peg and become her superior than they were to put a knife in her back or unleash a death curse on the city, but Thora wasn't going to take any chances.

It was late afternoon when a messenger knocked on her door. He was human, young, fifteen at the latest? Then again, it wouldn't have been the first time Thora would have underestimated someone's age.

"Missus Tarkanan?"

"Yes?" Thora answered, terseness creeping into her voice. She wasn't married. The last time she had been close enough to even consider marrying someone had been before the mark had manifested, and that was several lifetimes ago. After that, she had had painfully few suitors. Plus, there was frustrating something about the way this world assumed she had to be married or at least a widow at her age.

"Torth Whiteforce used his one message to contact you." The messanger handed over a piece of parchment, folded in thirds and sealed with a wax stamp bearing the symbol of the local lord. Thora took the parchment, sparing a glance to the letterhead bearing the address of the sheriff's office. Dammit.

Torth worked for her, technically. Or more specifically, he took jobs for the smuggling network, and as the leader of this branch she was his handler. Recently he had gotten himself mixed up with an adventuring party, and now he was in jail with the rest of them. Thora really needed to find a way to get an informant within the sheriff's office, so that she could get them to do her work for her. It hadn't been as difficult back in Sharn, but in Sharn the Watch had been working for criminals for centuries. The port city of Keelster was younger and answered more directly to the local lord. It was harder to find someone to corrupt. Likewise, it had been easy for Thora to put herself in the good graces of Watch Commander Silaena Cazal because Silaena's mother bore an aberrant mark. Here, Thora was an outsider. There were no Dark Lanterns or dragonmarked houses after her. Even though this world had its own vigilante called the Phoenix, the Phoenix wasn't after Thora like the one in Sharn had been.

Here, Thora was an outsider, and there were no immediate enemies or easy alliances to be made.

Thora had been working all day, and she needed to stretch her legs. Maybe she would pay off Torth's bail in exchange for a favor. Maybe she would let him rot there because he was no longer useful. She hoped that Torth would choose to be useful, for both of their sakes.

He didn't, because Thora hadn't been able to offer the choice. Torth's party's bail had been paid already by someone else, according to the clerk. Lovely. She had just wasted her time walking here.

"You're better than this," said a voice that made Thora stop in her tracks.

"Yeah, but we needed that information," said a second voice, sounding like a young man from the neighboring province.

"And yet you still got caught picking the lock. Even I wouldn't have gotten caught breaking and entering until after I had entered," the first voice argued. It was the accent that drew Thora in. Maybe Thora just didn't know every accent there was in this world, but she could've sworn the woman's accent was that of a Thrane.

A very specific Thrane.

As Thora drew closer, she was able to confirm her suspicions. She was older, and a Lichtenburg figure peaked out from under her collar, but the sight of her was unmistakable. "Marianne?"

The tiefling jumped as she finally registered Thora's presence. Her eyes widened in shock as she looked Thora up and down, eyes lingering on the scar on Thora's chest before her face flushed and she looked elsewhere. "Thora? You, I saw, you... you changed your hair."

Suddenly self-conscious, Thora raised her hand to touch the braids on the side of her head. "Well, so did you."

Marianne had grown her hair out. Soft curls framed her face quite nicely. "Yeah, well, I bet you haven't met anyone in the past ten years who know what an undercut is, either."

Ten years. She had been here for ten years, too, and from the sound of it Marianne had also spent the last ten years convinced that she was the only one who had come to this world from Eberron. It was just the two of them.

The two of them, and perhaps the Phoenix, who had managed to avoid crossing paths with either of them. Thora didn't know how many Lucien and Krootag had killed after she and Marianne had died. But that was an issue for later.

For now, though...

"You. You got caught picking a lock?"

Torth rolled his eyes. "No, I wasn't picking the lock. Linace was."

Thora fixed her subordinate with a look that he began to squirm under. "You were still caught. I wonder what else you would get caught doing."

Even Marianne had made her way through a manor full of assassins, thieves, and former spies before being caught snooping. Kids these days just didn't know how to sneak around.

"How long have you been dealing with them?" Marianne asked, vaguely gesturing with the group.

"Torth has been doing jobs for me for a couple years. You?"

"I've been trying to mentor Linace for the past ten."

Thora shot Marianne a commiserating grimace. "Let me buy you a drink." And then, so no one would get the wrong idea, "Do not read into that."

What was she thinking? It had been ten years. Surely even Marianne knew how to get over a crush over the course of a decade. The child with a crush had died in Eberron.

But that didn't mean that Thora wasn't interested in getting to know the new Marianne. She just hoped that Torth wouldn't go starting any rumors.

~

A/N: Yes I did just flip the switch and make Thora the pining one, even if she refuses to admit it. She's lonely, and she thinks too highly of Marianne's ability to get over a crush.

Thora has one of those viking braided fake undercut hairstyles after the timeskip. Marianne has the hairstyle I imagined her having before I saw the reddit post that showed her true appearance.

[noonaishere]

Hey! I know you’re neck deep in MotH and Online/Offline rn (which both are amazing btw) but I was wondering if you would ever consider doing a Hongjoong fake texts story? Out of curiosity ❤️❤️

(I actually finished writing both fics near the end of last year, lol. I discovered a long time ago that I couldn't come back to a project once a week to write, and my one unfinished fic is still unfinished because of it. I am neck deep in other things though lol)

So I had to think about this a little bit. Currently my projects are:

Getting ready to self-publish an original novella (or attempt, I'm still looking for an editor and I have to contact someone about cover art and there's so much more to do after that 😭)

Working on an original erotica book for a different pen name (still in the writing process)

And then I wanted to do some mini-fic prequels for a side character each from Online/Offline and Music of the Heart (since I already had ideas for them as I was writing and other people saying they liked them makes me want to actually write them lol)

I was also planning on doing a kind of text-only visual novel kind of story (like… a romantic choose your own adventure but only in text since making the art would take up so much time and I can't really see paying someone to do it since it's a fan thing and wouldn't make money), where each of the eight Ateez members inhabit one of the popular manhwa tropes I've seen (like… "duke of the north who seems cold but isn't," that kind of thing) and the reader is a princess trying not to be married off to a man she doesn't love and they get to choose which of the eight they want to fall in love with and each has their own stuff going on. I had started trying to map out the choices, but I kind of hit a wall on how to map them out (I literally could not find any resources on outlining visual novels) and I should really be working on a writing career first since we live in a capitalist hellscape and I need to write to make money since 9-5 jobs don't really agree with me (in a… mental health sense. They might if I got paid more. At least then I could delude myself into thinking I'm happy because the exchange for my sanity and the finite time I have on this planet would be greater 😀).

Also, I normally end up writing fics about whatever fictional/kpop man I'm interested in at the time (which, if you look at my old fics, is why I'm so all over the place, lol) and while Hongjoong is a fashion inspiration, he's not my bias*, and that's normally where my desire to write a romance about them comes from (I'm a simple gal lol). *(Yunho sort of was my second bias when I started writing the fics in 2021, but he's really not anymore. I've been a steady San, Mingi/Hwa girl, with San as my OG Ateez bias and forever #1, and Mingi and Hwa occasionally switching in the 2 and 3 spot)

So idk, unless I come up with a really good idea for Hongjoong that just tucks me under its arm and runs away with me in tow, I don't really see me making a smau for him? I think that right now all my ideas are probably going to go to the erotica series (which is based around a fictional kpop boygroup and [hopefully] each member will be getting 1-3 books), so I think all my ideas that could be used for kpop aus are probably going to go there, at least for the time being. There's going to be a s.coups/hongjoong-ish leader/producer (who might get the enemies to lovers trope), but that'll also be a while (I think his book is like eight or nine in the series lol 😅 there's ten members in the group)

So, in short: probably not 🤷‍♀️? Sorry. I also don't know what the future holds, but don't get your hopes up, just in case.

[jungshookz]

smitten: y/n's note is in jungkook's bag and she needs to get it back like, right now

➺ pairing; jeon jungkook x reader

➺ genre; smitten!miniseries!! bff!kook & smitten!y/n!! university!au!! honk honk humour!! the boo hoo angsty wattpad-energy fic of your dreams!! unrequited love!! it hurts so bad but that's what makes it so good!!

➺ wordcount; 7.1k

➺ summary; y/n realizes her meticulously written i love you note is burning a hole at the bottom of jungkook's bag and the mere thought of him finding it is enough to make her feel sick to her stomach.

➺ what to expect; "well, maybe the reason why you're just friends is because the two of you won't allow yourselves to be more than that."

➺ smitten: part one [the almost confession]

»»————- 🖤 ————-««

[previously, on smitten...]

what?

where the hell is it?

you reach into the side pockets and you're disappointed when you end up pulling out old tissues and empty gum wrappers

it's not in the front pocket either — just your keys, a pack of bubblegum, and a small bottle of hand sanitizer

your brows knit together in deep thought as you settle back against your seat, your eyes flickering to the side as you-

you immediately pale

oh my god.

you're positive that your heart stops beating for three whole seconds the moment you realize where exactly the note is — because no, you idiot, you didn't shove it into your own bag earlier-

the note is in jungkook's bag.

»»————- 🖤 ————-««

the next thirty or so minutes of class seem to drag on at a snail's pace and you find yourself checking the time on your phone every five seconds to see when you can finally dart out those doors

your first instinct was to immediately get up and leave because of course you wanted to immediately get up and leave, but with only twenty-ish people in the class and the fact that you're seated near the front... well, it would be a little awkward to just pack up your things and trek up towards the doors without a legitimate excuse (you were tempted to tell your professor that your stomach wasn't feeling very good but the thought of your peers associating you with explosive diarrhea quickly changed your mind)

so, you decided to be a good student and wait it out — but, being perfectly honest, you haven't really been paying much attention to the professor since the thought of you shoving your hi bestie, i'm head-over-heels in love with you note into jungkook's bag instead of yours contaminated your mind five minutes ago

...

you let out a little huff before shaking your head to yourself

how could you be so careless?!

you don't even know how it happened

your bag was sitting on your right thigh, jungkook's bag was sitting on your left thigh... so how the hell did you manage to shove it into his bag??

on the bright side, at least you know where it is, right?

it's in the right side pocket of the bag, so all you have to do is unzip it and stick your hand in and out really quickly without jungkook noticing you rummaging around in his belongings

...but what if he's already read the note?

your foot taps impatiently against the carpeted ground and you reach up and start tugging at your earlobe anxiously, your eyes flickering up towards the dusty analog clock hanging on the wall

c'mon... c'mon...

your grip tightens around your pencil as you continue to trace circles aimlessly on the page, the paper crinkling slightly from the amount of pressure you're putting on it

the stress that's currently eating away at you is probably going to take ten years off your life

"-so, that's pretty much it from me for the day!"

you don't think you've ever been so happy for a class to end as soon as the screen goes black at the front and you waste absolutely no time in packing up

you probably look insane trying to shove your laptop and your notebook into your bag at the same time but you couldn't care less at this point because you need to get the hell out of here

"-please remember to contribute to the discussion threads online... at least four responses, please, and none of those bullshit 'yes, i agree!' responses. i'm definitely not going to count those as participation marks-"

you close your bag with a sharp ziiiip! and you hurry to fold the squeaky desk back into place, a couple of people turning to glance at you for the sudden abundance of clattering and knocking coming from your direction

"excuse me, pardon me-" you pull your backpack on as you step over multiple sets of legs, trying your best not to trample on any feet or knock anyone's tooth out with your bag, "sorry! excuse me-"

you can feel the adrenaline pumping through your veins as you jog up the steps two at a time, your brain immediately mapping out the route to the library jungkook said he'd be at

best case scenario: he hasn't found the note and your friendship with him is still very much in tact

worst case scenario: he found the note and is currently reading it at this point in time and your friendship with him is starting to crumble but you still have a chance to swoop in and pick up the pieces

the absolutely worst case ever in the entire world scenario: he's found the note, he's read the note, he's processed the note, and your friendship with him has been completely annihilated and now he's planning to change his name and leave the country so that he doesn't have to confront you about it

you use your shoulder to shove the doors open before bursting out into the open air, ignoring the concerned glances you're starting to receive from your obviously frazzled state

"oh god, oh god, oh god-!" your backpack flops wildly against your back as you rush down the narrow brick steps leading towards the main boulevard

realistically, jungkook's probably found and read the note, so all you have to do is come up with a short monologue about how all of it was fake and that the note was just a sick, twisted prank of some kind

i know that the note makes it seem like i'm telling you that i'm in love with you, but that's not the truth at all!

"woah, watch it-!"

you accidentally knock into someone's shoulder while sprinting down the lane and you turn around for a second just to hold a hand out while flashing the stranger a sheepish smile

"sorry! so sorry-" you turn back around, reaching up to keep your glasses secured on the top of your head as you continue to sprint, your sneakers slapping down against the pavement

as you read in the note, i made a point about how since we're friends, we should be honest with each other... and honestly, there are nothing but lies in the note! and there's a lesson in that, you know? words can be full of lies but we, as human beings, should be full of truths-

"nope, hate that-" you shake your head and immediately scrunch up that mental piece of paper before tossing it into your brain's garbage bin

you'd sound like an obnoxious philosophy student if you hit him with that explanation

it was a prank! i want to start a prank war with you and this is how i'm kicking things off!

that... that could work, right?

that's not bad!

just tell him that you wanted to start a prank war with him so you decided to go big or go home with an i love you, best friend note to see how he would react!

"so stupid-" you mutter to yourself, slowing down to a jog as you approach the doors to the library, "so, so stupid-"

the Super Epic Prank War ROFL XD™ explanation isn't the greatest excuse but it's the best you can do on such short notice

thankfully, it doesn't take you very long to track down jungkook considering the fact he always sits in the same area every time the two of you come here

your feet come to a screeching halt the moment you spot him and you quickly step to the side to hide behind the wall

you slowly lean over a little to peek at him

he has his headphones on and he's busy typing away at his laptop and you can tell he's concentrating really hard because he has that cute frown on his face and occasionally he'll mutter something to himself

jungkook in intense focus mode is something you find to be very endearing :-)

...

you quickly shake your head to snap yourself out of your daze before focusing on jungkook's face again

he certainly doesn't look like he just read an explosive love letter...

hm

you could still be safe!

...for now, that is.

"okay, y/n-" you stand up straight and let out a breath, giving yourself a mental pat on the head in an effort to calm your nerves, "better sooner than later, right? just- you just have to rip it off like a bandaid-"

your anxiety seems to build with every step that brings you closer to jungkook and you can almost hear the jaws theme song playing all around you

da-dum

jungkook, i swear i have a perfectly logical explanation for this...

da-dum

i know the note does a very convincing job of making it seem like i'm in love with you, but that couldn't be farther from the truth!

da-dum, da-dum

consider this your initiation into our very serious prank war, my friend!

dadumdadumdumdumbdumbdumbthisissuchadumbdumbidea-

"hi!" you greet a little too enthusiastically, trying your best not to make it seem like you just sprinted across campus to get to him even though you very clearly did

"sorry, seat's reserv- y/n?" jungkook looks up from his laptop before frowning, quickly glancing back down at his screen to check the time as he pulls his headphones off to hang around his neck, "aren't you- didn't your class end, like, literally a minute ago? why are you so- did you run here??" he asks incredulously, getting up from his seat as his brows knit together in concern

"no, no! of course i didn't run here, silly- oh, god, give me a sec-" you wheeze, bending down and gripping onto the back of the wooden chair in front of you as you try to catch your breath, your chest still falling and rising at a concerning pace from the physical stress of sprinting and the mental stress of the current situation, "it was more of a- of a brisk walk, if you think about it- jesus, i think i'm gonna throw up-"

"okay, you need to drink some water- come and sit next to me-" jungkook reaches out to help lead you around the table towards him, "god, i don't know why you thought you had to run over, it's not like i was planning on going anywhere-"

"i'm fine, kook, it's fine-"

"you're, like, literally radiating heat," jungkook turns you around and pulls your bag off your back before pulling out a chair and helping you into it, "and your face is all red!" he frowns, setting your bag down on the table and unzipping it to pull out your water bottle

"my face is always this red!" you force out a casual laugh, waving your hand to dismiss him as you lean back against the seat, "i'm fine, it's fine-"

"shut up and take a sip-" jungkook untwists the cap of your water bottle before shoving it into your hands and gently lifting it up towards your mouth, his head tilting up a little so he can check and see if you're actually drinking anything, "c'mon, hydrate yourself-"

you swallow a couple gulps of water before pulling the bottle away and reaching up to wipe your mouth with the back of your hand, "god, i love water-"

"yeah, i bet." jungkook chuckles, visibly more relieved now that he knows you won't be passing out from exhaustion anytime soon

as you put your water bottle away, your eyes lower towards jungkook's backpack slouching against the leg of his chair and almost immediately the anxiety that you thought you'd just swallowed down bubbles right back up

"so, are you going to tell me why you're acting like the cops are after you?" jungkook jokes, taking his seat before pulling his headphones off and setting them down next to his laptop

"i just, um-" you press your lips together as you slowly start to lean down, stretching your arm out towards the pocket, "i just wanted to see you, buddy!"

"i don't believe that for a second." jungkook snorts, turning to look at you

you shoot straight back up and pull your arm up and behind your head as if you're in the middle of a good stretch, "hey, what's with that tone? it's not a crime for me to want to see you-"

"you saw me at lunch! and that was only like an hour and a half ago-" jungkook turns his head to look back at his screen and you quickly revert back to your mission impossible secret agent mode

the forced smile drops from your face and you lean back down, your fingers blindly feeling for the cool metal of the zipper

"you know, you actually came at just the right time-" jungkook speaks up again and you pause just in case you need to pull away from his bag, but he makes no move to turn and look at you, "ji-eun was about to leave for her class but now you can meet her before she goes off!"

"uh-huh..." your tongue pokes out in concentration as you unzip the pocket in one swift movement, immediately sticking your hand in and feeling around for the balled-up piece of paper, "sounds gre-"

hold on, what did he just say?

you shoot back up

"did you just-" you choke and reach up to pat your chest gently, "i'm sorry, did you just say that ji-eun was here?"

"uh-huh!" jungkook nods, "i didn't know she had a spare at the same time as i did so i was surprised when she came over to say hi- it turns out our schedules are, like, sort of similar which oddly makes me kind of happy-"

it's at that moment that you notice the cherry-patterned tote bag slumped in the chair sitting across from you and you let out a nervous chuckle as you shift in your seat, "great! great, that's so- great, it's great that i'm meeting ji-eun today, out of all days..." you trail off, glancing around warily as you try to come up with some kind of an exit strategy

you're just really not in the mood to meet the love of jungkook's life today

you've already been hit with so many blows and it's only two in the afternoon-

"sorry that took so long! i couldn't find a bin but i bumped into my friends and they said they'd throw it out for me-"

oh, you have got to be kidding me.

your eyes widen in mild panic upon immediately recognizing ji-eun to be the girl who had overheard your entire monologue in the bathroom earlier today — and from the way her eyes flicker, it seems as though she remembers exactly who you are as well

"oh, no worries!" jungkook beams at ji-eun before pointing to you with his thumb, "this is my friend, by the way. the one i was talking about earlier! y/n, this is ji-eun."

you stay quiet as you continue staring up at ji-eun, your mind racing a mile a minute as you consider your current options

you can pretend like you've never met her before or you can make things awkward by telling jungkook that you met her today after she'd emptied her bladder

"...y/n?" jungkook lowers his voice, nudging you with his elbow before letting out a nervous chuckle, "please say something."

"i- yes, hello!" you blurt out, the feet of your chair scraping against the rough carpet as you get up from your seat to stick your hand out towards ji-eun, "it's- ah- it's- it's so nice to meet you! i'm y/n."

ji-eun stays quiet for a second before her lips turn up in a polite smile and she reaches towards you, gently taking your outstretched hand in hers (for the record, her hands are shockingly soft and supple), "it's lovely to meet you... as well, y/n. i love your glasses!"

you can't help but notice the immediate warmth that seems to surround ji-eun and suddenly it makes a lot more sense as to why jungkook's attracted to her

you're about as comforting as stepping into a puddle of water while wearing socks

you feel a slight sense of relief seeing that ji-eun is playing along but your new concern is whether or not she's connected the dots that your monologue in the bathroom was dedicated to jungkook

you didn't actually say his name when you were talking out loud, so you might be able to get away with this...

"oh, these old things?" you reach up to feel the glasses sitting on top of your head before flicking your hand at her, "i bought them on amazon. they're blue-light glasses- i can totally send you the link if you want."

"that would actually be great!" she gasps, nodding enthusiastically, "i desperately need a pair of blue-light glasses- seriously, i stared at my laptop screen for, like, ten hours straight today and i really feel like they're about to roll out of my head-"

"oh my god, don't even get me started. at this point it'd probably feel better to rip them right out of their sockets-"

"ji-eun, you ready?"

"let's gooo, i wanna get an iced coffee before we head off to class."

you and ji-eun don't get a chance to continue bonding over the pain of sore eyes when you're suddenly interrupted by two new voices

you look up to see two guys approaching the table and you subtly push your seat back a bit as you prepare yourself to say hello again

"oh! yeah, i'm ready, sorry-" ji-eun gestures towards you with a smile, "this is- this is jungkook's friend, by the way. y/n, these are my friends."

"hi, hello-" you get up from your seat again to stick your hand out, offering the two (very handsome, might you add) strangers a friendly smile, "i'm y/n, jungkook's friend- but you- you already knew that because that's what ji-eun just said-"

"i'm taehyung! you can call me tae-" the corners of taehyung's mouth immediately raise in a bright grin and he gives your hand a firm shake before nodding next to him, "and this is jimin!"

"hi..." you trail off, turning to give jimin a handshake as well, "so nice to meet you!"

"oh, i just- i actually just washed my hands, so-" jimin chuckles, looking down at your hand before taking a small step back, "but it's nice to meet you... jungkook's friend."

ooh

is it just you or did it suddenly get a little icy in here?

"oh, no problem! um, yeah, you too." you pull your hand back before swallowing nervously and forcing the polite smile back on your face, "i like your jacket, by the way! it looks really cool."

maybe it's because he's wearing giant sunglasses indoors but you can't help but feel slightly intimidated by jimin

you can't see his eyes but you can certainly feel them on you and you're definitely getting the vibe that jimin is already not the biggest fan of you for some weird reason

"thank you." he responds curtly, smoothing a hand over the leather before looking down at ji-eun, "so can we go now?"

"mhm!" ji-eun gets up from her chair before pushing it back into place, pulling her tote back up onto her shoulder before flashing a sweet smile at jungkook, "see you later, alligator."

"in a while, crocodile!" jungkook responds enthusiastically, watching with twinkly eyes as she turns and heads off towards the exit with jimin and taehyung glued at either side of her

god

she even walks prettily

and you were literally clomping down the boulevard like a feral caveman a second ago

you wait until they've disappeared to turn and face jungkook with a raised eyebrow, "...jimin was kind of a bitch."

"hey, play nice!" jungkook frowns, reaching over to give your arm a gentle whack, "he's a fashion major! ji-eun says being snooty is part of the degree requirements-" he grins, shaking his head slightly before leaning back against his chair, "she's, like, super funny."

"mm." you hum, still feeling a little uneasy about your interaction with jimin

you just hate it when first meetings don't go well and that first meeting definitely wasn't super great

but it wasn't like you did anything wrong, right?

you were great!

snooty jimin was the one who was being rude

whatever

hopefully you won't have to hang out with him too often if jungkook and ji-eun become an item

maybe you can just stick with taehyung!

he seems to be a lot friendlier

"oh, by the way, i-" you're suddenly reminded of your main mission and you turn to point down at jungkook's bag, "it's not a big deal, but i- i accidentally shoved something in your bag earlier and- could i just get it back from you?"

"you did?" jungkook frowns, leaning down to pick his bag up before unzipping it all the way and pulling both flaps open, "what was it?"

"it was- uh- just some notes on a scrap piece of paper!" you immediately feel the weight lift from your shoulders at jungkook's cluelessness to the situation, "i put it in the right side pocket-"

"wait, are you talking about, like, a balled up thing of paper?" jungkook pauses before looking up at you with wide eyes, "oh, shit- was it important??"

"um, i wouldn't call it important-" you snort, shaking your head, "is it not there? i swore it was in the right side pocket-"

"no, no, it was there! it was there, i just- ji-eun needed to spit her gum out and i thought it was one of my scrap pieces of paper-" jungkook winces, grabbing his phone and unlocking it with fumbling fingers, "i'm so sorry, y/n- let me text ji-eun and ask her which garbage can she threw it into and i can go dig it out-"

"no, no, it's okay!" you nearly let out a screech of delight knowing that your note now has a slobbery wad of gum in it and is living at the bottom of a trash can, "it's fine, i just- they were just boring notes for something. i just wanted to see if i had really shoved it into your bag or not."

"oh, okay-" jungkook's shoulders immediately slump and he sets his phone down on the table, "you're sure it wasn't important?"

"100%." you hold both hands out with a chuckle, "i needed to throw it out anyway so i guess ji-eun actually did me a favour-"

"okay, phew." jungkook sighs, zipping his bag back up and plopping it back down on the ground next to his feet, "anyways- i'm actually glad you're here because now you can help me plan out my date! i was working on it but then ji-eun came and obviously i couldn't have that google doc open in front of her-" he turns his laptop to show you all of his hard work with a grin, "check it out! i have a list of things i need to buy, i have outfit ideas, i even went on pinterest for inspiration-"

"wow, kook-" your eyes bulge out for a second at the sight of the extensive and shockingly organized google doc before you reach over to pull his laptop closer towards you, "i... i really don't think i've ever seen you... even make a google doc before-"

he even has the sunset time written down for the date

why would he need to know what time the sun is setting??

"i have everything planned for next week." jungkook pulls his laptop back to him as you settle back against your seat, "i already emailed my landlord to ask if i would even be allowed to hang out on the rooftop and he said it would be fine! he also reminded me to keep a brick wedged between the door so that i don't lock us up on the rooftop-"

"so you're definitely going with the rooftop picnic, then?"

"oh, i'm actually changing it to a rooftop dinner instead of a picnic." jungkook shakes his head before giving you a half-hearted shrug, "i think a picnic is cute but i really wanna try to impress her, y'know? i ordered this thing on amazon just now- basically, it's a medium-sized inflatable bubble tent! the description says it's perfect for two people and- i'm gonna, like-" he pauses and looks away from his screen towards you with a smile, "well, you know, i'm gonna do what you said and i'm gonna stuff it full of blankets and pillows and... hopefully i can string up fairy lights and stuff on the inside... so that after the date we can go in there and just talk and not have to worry about getting attacked by mosquitos!"

"wow, that's-" you cross your arms over your chest before leaning back and looking up towards the ceiling, "huh. that's actually a cute idea, kook. i wouldn't have been able to come up with something like that. i didn't even know transparent tents existed."

"i know." jungkook gives you a smug little smile before bursting into a grin, "but yeah, that's it! all we have to do is go and pick up all the supplies and stuff."

"we?" you frown, looking back down at jungkook, "i... wasn't aware i was part of this plan..."

"what? of course you are!" jungkook snorts, looking at you as if a third eye just sprouted from your forehead, "obviously you have to help me-"

"well, i just don't know if that's-" you chuckle uneasily as you rub the back of your neck, "i really- i don't wanna get in your way, you know? maybe you should- maybe you should just take care of all of this yourself! i mean, you basically planned everything already-"

"what? but- but you're my-" jungkook deflates and you instantly feel bad upon seeing his eyes suddenly turn sad, "okay..."

you press your lips together and wait for him to say something else but the next few seconds are filled with nothing but awkward silence and the faint buzzing of the fluorescent lights hanging above you

you'd jump off a cliff if jungkook asked you to but helping him prepare and set up his date is something that you,.., definitely would not enjoy.,.,

but then again, this isn't about you, is it?

this is about jungkook, your friend, and he needs your help to set up this very important date that-

oh, damnit.

"i'm-" you clear your throat as you sit up in your seat, reaching over to give jungkook's hand a pat, "no, of course i'll help, kook. i just thought that- well, this date seems so important to you that i thought you wanted to take care of all the details yourself!"

the bright smile immediately returns to jungkook's face and you resist the urge to call him out on so blatantly guilt-tripping you like that-

"yes! you're the best!"

"i know."

»»————- 🖤 ————-««

although you and jungkook are practically inseparable on campus (and some would say it might be healthy for the two of you to give each other a little bit of space) — you don't think you'll ever say no to hanging out with him downtown

of course, hanging out with jungkook downtown would be a lot more fun if it weren't for the fact that the two of you have basically spent the entire day shopping for all the things he needs for his date

and if it weren't for the fact that he paid for lunch and treated you to a cake pop and a venti-sized iced coffee, you would probably be livid about having to carry everything for him because you really feel like your arms are about to pop right off in about two seconds

fancy cutlery, porcelain plates, fluffy throw pillows, a giant blanket, fairy lights... at this point he might as well buy an entire house for ji-eun

and look, you know you probably sound bitter and that-should-be-me about this whole situation, but that couldn't be farther from the truth!

it's just that listening to someone you like gushing about the person that they like for an entire day while you're carrying bags full of things for their date can get a little mentally and physically exhausting so if you're grouchy right now it's really not your fault

"i think we might have to call an uber back to your place, jungkook-" you mutter, adjusting the hefty tote bag over your shoulder with a grunt as you trail behind him on the sidewalk, "bringing all of this on the bus is going to piss people off-"

you stumble over your feet a little when the bag in your right hand knocks into a garbage can and you curse to yourself while resisting the urge to kick the damn thing over

"okay, grumpy, we'll call an uber home-" jungkook spins around with a smile before raising the notepad in his hand and tapping against it with his pen, "i just have one more thing i have to take care of and then we can go!"

"okay, well-" you set the bags down onto the ground with a fwump! before rubbing your sore palms together, "what else do you have to get?"

jungkook offered to help carry a couple of things but you insisted that you'd take it all and that he should just focus on ticking off all of the items on his list

you wince at the sight of the pinkish-red imprints now embedded into your palms from the straps of the bags

obviously you've now come to regret your generous offer

"flowers!" jungkook chirps, using his pen to point to the flower shop a couple of shops down, "i have to greet ji-eun with a bouquet of flowers as pretty as she is-"

"yeah, i understand-" you adjust the two bags on both shoulders before bending down to pick up the other two on the ground, "also, i'm not a genius or anything but i'm pretty sure the flowers aren't going to survive until the date if you buy them now-"

"duh, obviously not- i'm going to place an order now and then pick them up on the day of the date!" jungkook tsks, waiting for you to join his side before he begins walking towards the flower shop, "thanks for doing all of this for me, by the way. you really are the best." he hums, hurrying over to open the door for you

"i... yeah, of course, kook." you feel yourself soften slightly as soon as you see the sweet little smile on his face and you quickly scold yourself in your head for being so curt with him all day, "that's what friends are for, right?"

"mhm!" jungkook slaps his hands down on your shoulders from behind before giving them a squeeze, "and i am so letting you choose whatever you want for dinner tonight-"

"hello!"

"oh, jesus-" you and jungkook are immediately greeted by an overenthusiastic employee as soon as you step into the shop and you honestly probably would've knocked him out with one of your shopping bags if they weren't so heavy-

"are you two looking for anything in particular?" he smiles kindly before gesturing towards the large selection of flowers all around you, "we have flowers of all kinds! roses, tulips, lilies- i can even show you flowers from our new tropical selection-"

"actually-" jungkook nudges you aside before glancing down at the employee's nametag, "seokjin, i'd like to place an order for a custom bouquet, if that's okay."

"ah, a custom bouquet!" seokjin claps his hands and rubs them together enticingly, "what are you celebrating? i need to know so that i can help pick out the perfect flowers for your bouquet."

"well, i don't know if it's a celebration-" jungkook chuckles, his cheeks pinking slightly as he reaches up to rub the back of his neck, "it's for a first date."

"a first date!!" seokjin gasps excitedly before turning his head to look at you, "you must be so-"

"-oh, not for me!" you let out a laugh before shaking your head quickly, "it's- it's definitely not for me. i'm just here to provide moral support and-" you lift one of the bags to show him, "muscular support."

"ah, i see... okay, well- why don't i take you around and introduce you to the different candidates you could consider for your bouquet?" seokjin turns back to look at jungkook, "each flower you choose will be very important in showing your future lover how much you care about them-" he pauses when he notices you hovering behind jungkook and he leans over a little with a bright smile, "why don't you go and wait by the front counter, darling? you can put everything down there and take a little break. there's some cucumber water and fresh puff pastry apple roses up at the front if you're interested!"

"well, i can't say no to free food." you snort, nodding before turning to head towards the front counter, "i'll just wait for you over there, then..."

you nearly let out a moan of relief as soon as you set all the bags down and you twist your upper body to the right and to the left until you feel the a satisfying pop! of your spine cracking back in place

your body was not made to carry heavy things

in fact, you'd like to argue that your body was made to lie down and do nothing

you take a seat on the wooden stool before turning to look at the apple roses sitting prettily in the display case and you almost feel like you shouldn't touch them even though seokjin offered them to you

even the pitcher of cucumber water looks too nice to touch

this place is awfully fancy

you didn't even know flower shops could be this fancy

you prop both elbows up on the counter before leaning back comfortably, your eyes lazily scanning around the store

"$15 for a single rose?" you gawk at the little wooden sign poking out from a large bouquet of neatly wrapped long-stem roses before making a face, "god."

you can't even imagine how much a custom bouquet is going to cost if a single rose is fifteen bucks

"-also write a note for you and attach it to the bouquet, if you're interested in that. it'll be an additional five dollars, but we handwrite it on the highest quality card stock with the most beautiful calligraphy and we even spray it with perfume-"

you perk up when you hear seokjin's voice and you look to see him and jungkook coming over to you

you have to admit that seokjin is great at his job because he's doing a good job at milking every dollar out of jungkook-

"yeah, that would be great!" jungkook nods enthusiastically, pulling his backpack off before unzipping it to grab his wallet, "i think a small note might be cute-"

"oh, that reminds me!" seokjin stops in his tracks right as he's about to lift the wooden slab to get behind the counter, "would you be interested in purchasing a teddy bear as well? if you add a teddy bear to your order, i'll give you a slight discount on the flowers."

"ooh, a discount!" jungkook gasps and you turn your head slightly so seokjin won't see you rolling your eyes at how much he's forcing jungkook to buy

you respect the hustle but this is too much

"where are the teddy bears?"

"right by the flowers!" seokjin smiles, wrapping an arm around jungkook's shoulders and spinning him around, "we can round back and take a look-"

"okay, i think i have to cut in here-" you chuckle, reaching out and grabbing the back of jungkook's elbow, "you don't- you don't think a bouquet of flowers and a teddy bear is a little too much for a first date?" you clear your throat quietly before offering a shrug, "i feel like that's just... a lot, kook. i mean, i would be overwhelmed if-"

"well, i guess it's a good thing i'm not taking you out on a date then, right?" jungkook teases, wiggling his arm out of your grip before turning back to look at seokjin, "onward to the bears, my good man!"

ouch

"yeah." you can't help but frown as jungkook and seokjin head back towards the flowers, "thanks for the reminder."

"that's gotta hurt."

"god-" you jump at the sudden appearance of an employee standing behind the counter and you place a hand over your chest before letting out a breath, "you scared me!"

"sorry." he shrugs, "we polished the floors this morning so my shoes are making, like, no noise."

"oh."

a moment of silence passes while you turn to face away from him again, but all of a sudden-

"so he really can't tell that you like him, huh?"

"you-" you immediately straighten up and your head spins around so fast that you're surprised you didn't complete decapitate yourself, "excuse me??"

"what? it's obvious." the employee snorts, spraying cleaner onto the counter before reaching up to yank the tattered rag off his shoulder, "it's painfully obvious, actually-"

you can feel your entire face starting to go red as this complete stranger continues to rip you a new one and you hold a hand out to shut him up, "no offense, but i-i don't think this is any of your business, sir-"

"it's yoongi." yoongi looks down at his apron for a second before frowning, "huh. i forgot to put my dumb name tag on again-"

"well, yoongi-" you place emphasis on his name in an effort to intimidate him and make him go away, "you don't know what you're talking about and i suggest you mind your own business-"

"you should tell him before it's too late." yoongi doesn't seem to be all that affected by your biting tone and you roll your eyes at the way he rounds back to the topic

"what are you even talking about?"

"well, i assume you're going to be his best man at his wedding. from the way it's looking, you're certainly not going to be the bride," yoongi purses his lips as he folds up the rag into a neat little square, "you don't wanna wait until you're fixing his tie at the wedding to tell him that you love him."

"what makes you think i lo-" you cut yourself off quickly before that word slips out of your mouth, "like him?"

"if you didn't, you wouldn't be here right now." yoongi points out with a tilt of his head, "and from how smudgy your eyeliner is, it looks like you've been working hard all day."

your jaw drops slightly and you can't help but scoff

the nerve of this guy!

"who do you think you are?!"

"i'm yoongi." yoongi raises a brow, "i told you that like a second ago- wow, you are not a good listener-"

"do you usually do this with all of the customers who come here?" you interrupt, crossing your arms defensively before leaning in slightly, "you're awfully nosy-"

"i only do this with the ones that seem to have something juicy going on." yoongi hums, leaning down to put the spray bottle of cleaner under the counter, "this is a flower shop. the most exciting part of my day is watching a bumblebee choose which flower to land on."

"well, nothing juicy is going on here so-" you twist back around before sticking your nose up in the air slightly, "sorry to disappoint."

"alright, fair enough." yoongi nods to himself, letting out a sigh as he slowly backs away from the counter, "i guess i'll just leave you to... wallow in self-pity... and continue staring at your friend with cartoon hearts floating around your head-"

"'you should tell him before it's too late-'" you swivel around and slap both your palms down on the counter, "why would you- why would even say something like that?! i can't tell him. are you insane?!"

a smirk twitches at the corner of yoongi's mouth at your sudden confession and he lets out a sigh before stepping back up towards you, "and why can't you tell him?"

"because- i just can't! he's-" you clear your throat before leaning in and lowering your voice, "he's literally taking someone else out on a date- we're here to buy flowers for his date-"

"so what?" yoongi interrupts, "it's just a date. it's not like you're stopping his wedding."

"so what? because he doesn't like me back, so what's the point?" you hiss, resisting the urge to reach over and smack some common sense into this very nosy and very stubborn stranger, "this isn't a romantic comedy- and even if it was, i'm very obviously not the main character-"

"you don't know that he doesn't like you back."

...

well now he's just toying with you

"i... i can't tell if you're kidding or not-"

"do i look like i'm kidding?" yoongi asks, pointing to his poker face before shaking his head, "you don't know that he doesn't like you back. you've obviously never asked him."

"oh, please." you scoff, turning around to lean back against the counter again, "trust me, i know it."

"well, did he ever explicitly say that he didn't like you?" yoongi leans over to peek at jungkook over your shoulder, "do you have a definitive answer to this particular question?"

"no, but he doesn't have to... we're just friends." you frown, your eyes wandering over to the back of jungkook's head, "he doesn't like me. i know he doesn't. we're just friends."

we're just friends.

(saying it out loud is a lot more depressing than you thought it'd be.)

"well, maybe the reason why you're just friends is because the two of you won't allow yourselves to be more than that," yoongi suggests, your head tilting to the side slightly as you force yourself to consider his surprisingly wise words, "it's obvious that you have a solid friendship so it would suck if a relationship ruined that- so maybe he does like you and is only asking someone else out to try to force himself not to like you..."

you feel your heart skip a beat when jungkook turns to glance at you over his shoulder with a soft smile while seokjin continues rattling off about the vast choice of teddy bears available for purchase

you bite back a giggle when he mouths a desperate 'help' at you before raising his hand and twirling his finger next to his head to tell you that seokjin is fully crazy

"...so i guess what i'm trying to say is that you're never really going to know how he feels about you if you don't ask him," you tune back in to the end of yoongi's little speech and you turn your head slightly to glance back at him, "but what do i know, right? i just polish counters at high-end flower shops."

🎙️tell jungkook he's being an idiot or tell y/n to get a backbone (send in an ask!)

✨why don’t you explore the rest of the library while you’re here? (full fics!)

💫or perhaps you want something shorter to read? (drabbles and mini series like smitten!)

🌟or something even shorter? (teeny tidbits!)

[leiawritesstories]

Speak To My Heart

Rowaelin Month, Day 15: A bad day

Word count: 3422

Warnings: language, bit of depression, fighting. In short, there is angst in this fic. Hope the ending makes up for the rest.

Linguistics and foreign languages are two of my personal passions, so please bear with the bits of language talk that I couldn’t resist including. Brief word of clarification: a lot of expressions we use in English either translate into something extremely rude or don’t make sense in other languages. Translation companies have been trying for quite some time to make sure they don’t accidentally send a client a translated instruction manual that reads “fuck your mother” instead of “for questions, contact your local energy department.” All right I’ll get off my soapbox. :)

The phrases in foreign languages, marked with *, are translated into English at the end. Enjoy!

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Rowan’s day had been shit. The second he walked through the door, he’d been bombarded with an endless slew of crash reports, malfunctioning equipment, faulty passwords, and best of all, having to rewrite half the security firewalls because one of the rash young idiots in his department couldn’t be bothered to check his work for errors before sending it to management. And management thought it was the department boss’s job to fix all of his employees’ fuckups.

He hated IT.

Even more so since being promoted to department chair. 

All he wanted to do was the fun stuff--program design and development, fixing the flaws in his own designs, and of course making those who tried to break into his company’s systems regret their pitiful existence. But Cadre Tech’s bitch of a CEO refused to let the best software engineer on her staff actually do his job. 

Most days, he could cope with the pile of useless shit she directed to his desk. Most days. Today was not one of those days. Probably because on top of all the meaningless tasks he’d had to field, he was also forced to sit through one of Maeve’s bullshit “department head strategy sessions,” where every department chair had to pretend they gave a single shit about any word coming from their CEO’s garishly red, pinched mouth. 

As if she knew anything her staff actually did. 

Thanks to the compulsory meeting, Rowan was stuck in his office at nearly ten o’clock, painstakingly combing through the final draft of the update to CT’s translation program. This program had shot the company to fame and fortune, or at least insane stock value. “A Google Translate that actually translates,” their marketing department called it, and by the gods, that stupid slogan worked. And made sense. Rowan knew the program was just as good as it claimed to be.

He’d put in the hours, alongside a team of linguists, software engineers, designers, and people fluent in at least one other language. Frequent were the sessions where the project whiteboard turned into a jumble of words in twenty or more languages, Spanish alongside Arabic next to a column of simplified Japanese characters spilling over into a row of Cyrillic lettering. Rowan himself spoke German and some Spanish, but even he was lost amid the cacophony of eighteen different people switching from language to language, trying to figure out how idiomatic expressions translated from one language to another and what words should never, ever be placed together. 

It took the team well over a year of bickering, or as they called it, friendly linguistic disagreements, to make it from loosely mapped concept to functioning program. By the time it hit the market three years ago, the software had been so well promoted that companies all over the world snapped up their chance to finally communicate properly with the client they’d offended years ago with a bad translation. 

At launch, of course, Maeve stood in front of a sea of shouting reporters brandishing microphones, smiling her serpentine smile, and proceeded to thank the creative team for all their “contributions” before taking all the credit herself. 

Said creative team went to the bar that had become their usual gathering spot that night to get drunk and shit-talk their horrible boss, not necessarily in that order. 

His favorite memory of that night was hearing the chief linguist, an outside contract with multiple advanced degrees who spoke eight separate languages besides English fluently, refer to Maeve as “quella puttana rugosa che non riusciva a convincere un cazzo a venire a dieci metri da lei se si vestiva da figa.*” The Italian speakers on the team were crying with laughter, and so was everyone else, once she translated it.

And then she downed another shot of vodka and hissed something that sounded like “sukya bliyad, no puedo mich betrinken con esta ordures.**” When everyone blinked in confusion, she sighed and relayed the sentiment in English. 

Nobody had laughed as hard as Rowan. Aelin Galathynius just had that effect on him.

She brightened his darkest days.

But she couldn’t ease the strain of today.

And it was all his fault.

~

Aelin glanced up at the clock on her wall and cursed in three different languages when she saw that it was nearly eleven. Without meaning to, she’d spent all afternoon and evening writing lesson notes on idiomatic expressions. She really couldn’t help herself once she got into the topic; it was her pet project.

And the subject of one of her dissertations. Yes, she had multiple. 

She’d worked her ass off for years to get through college, then through graduate and doctoral work while teaching at universities to offset costs, then earned a full-time teaching position at one of the top-ranked universities in the world. She got to teach linguistics, her lifetime love, and give guest lectures at other universities and at conferences, teaching people all over the world about the complexities and interrelatedness of language. Hell, she spoke ten; she’d be qualified to speak on linguistic relationships by virtue of that alone.

Gods, she was the chief linguist behind the most successful translation software ever produced. Even if the bitch who owned the rights to said software had literally threatened to sue over ownership rights if any of the people who’d poured their figurative blood and sweat and literal tears into building the program tried to claim a small piece of the credit each of them so richly deserved. 

That software and her role in its creation--even though Maeve Ond had claimed the public credit, the creative team spoke at interviews and made news features for their work in Cadre Tech’s massive success--had solidified her credentials as a professor of linguistics, had boosted her into her lecturer spot.

Last year, her university granted her tenure. 

She should have been overjoyed, and she was, but not as much as earning tenure deserved. 

Because there was nobody to share her joy.

Three years ago, in the wake of CT’s overnight jump to worldwide fame, Aelin fled a love she did not and never would deserve. 

She told herself she would never look back. But she did. Almost every day, she looked back at the life she’d shared with Rowan and tried to convince herself that she did the right thing.

Try as she might, she could never silence the whisper that echoed always in her mind. 

“You broke both of your hearts” 

Someday, she told herself, someday she would be back in Doranelle. Someday, she would have a chance to apologize. Someday, maybe she could fix the Rowan-shaped chasm that gaped wide in her heart. 

Yet here she was, sitting in a very nicely appointed hotel room in the university district of Doranelle, typing furiously away as if burying herself in notes and prep for tomorrow’s lecture could make the urge to contact Rowan disappear.

~

Three years earlier. Doranelle.

“Knock, knock.”

Rowan’s head jerked up from where it had most definitely not been slumped on his desk. “Wha--Oh. Hi, Aelin.”

“You’re falling asleep, buzzard, let’s go home.” He heard laughter in her soft voice. 

“As if you won’t just get home and start cross-checking every single one of the phrases on your ‘potential problem’ list.”

She chuckled, walking over to him. “Fine. We’re both perfectionist work whores. Doesn’t mean we don’t need sleep.”

“I know you too well to believe you’re actually going to sleep.”

“All right, you win. Come home now, I’ll make some food, and you can put me to bed.” She winked saucily at him, leaving very little doubt what putting her to bed would entail, and he was up out of his chair in seconds. 

“Hand over your computer, Fireheart,” he grinned as they walked into the small house they shared on the outskirts of the city. 

“What?”

“Your computer, love. I’m leaving both of our work bags on the shelf by the front door so we can actually catch some rest tonight.” He pressed a finger to her mouth to silence her protests. “Uh-uh, Ae, we have interviews tomorrow and I won’t let the genius behind this program’s flawless word-to-word be anything but well-rested.”

She sighed, but he saw the love in her eyes. “Here, then, my dear brilliant software engineer. Leave your notebook, too, because I know if it’s anywhere near you, you’ll be up at three in the morning scribbling blocks of gibberish and picking apart your faultless code until you go insane.”

Both of their work satisfactorily put aside, Aelin made good on her promise to cook Rowan dinner. 

And then he made very good on his promise to put her to bed. 

The next morning, they were both awake with the sunrise, content to lay curled in each other’s arms as the morning light spread across their room.

Rowan drifted back into sleep, waking for good when he caught a whiff of coffee from the kitchen’s direction. 

“Morning, you sleepy buzzard,” Aelin grinned, sipping from her mug.

Rowan dropped a kiss on her head as he reached for his mug. He took a long drink, sighing as the milky, sweetened caffeine hit his mouth. 

“I will never understand how you drink your coffee black, Fireheart.”

“Not all of us need to sweeten the hell out of coffee to drink it, Ro. Maybe if you can’t handle the real thing, you should go back to your pretty little cups of crappy cafe tea.”

“Mention my pretty little teacups again, Ae…”

She giggled. “You be quiet and drink your coffee-flavored milk, my love.  We both know you’re impossibly grumpy until you have caffeine in your veins.”

He grumbled something unintelligible as he drank his coffee.

They were nearly late to work that morning, even having planned an extra half hour to arrive, thanks to Aelin wearing what Rowan dubbed her “sexy professor suit.” She fixed the pins in her French twist in the car, making herself once again a portrait of professionalism, and slipped Rowan’s hand from her leg.

“Two hands on the wheel, Whitethorn.”

He pouted. “But I’m a safe driver and I want to hold your hand.”

“My hands are over here, love, not down by my skirt.”

When he pulled into his spot, Aelin closed her eyes and took a deep, slow breath. 

“You good, Fireheart?”

Gods, she loved hearing him call her that. “Yeah. I just…needed a moment to settle myself. To tell myself the cameras aren’t here to tear apart what I say.”

Rowan wrapped his hands around hers. “Dr. Aelin Ashryver Galathynius, the bland reporters are here to stand in awe of your expertise. Not a single word you say will come across as anything but brilliant and beautifully said.”

She squeezed his hands, her usual confidence returning. “I love you, buzzard.”

“I love you too, Fireheart. Let’s go talk about our amazing achievement.”

The day sped by in a blur of reporters, interviewers, teleprompters, practiced speeches, lights, cameras, and crew. When the last bleached-blonde anchor of the last interview of the day cut her crew’s cameras, Aelin flopped against her second-in-linguistic-command, Dr. Nehemia Ytger, the expert on ethnic African languages. 

“If I never see a news crew again, it’ll be too soon,” she sighed. “I’m beat.”

Nehemia snickered. “But we’re done talking about how proud we are that Maeve and her marvelous company have done such a grand service to the world.”

Aelin snorted softly. “Right. And now we servicepeople want to go home and take off our heels.”

“Amen to that.”

As the team filed out of the studio, Rowan made his way over to Aelin. “Holding up?”

“Not anymore,” she said, leaning casually into his side. “My heels are killing me, there’s a hairpin stabbing into my scalp, and I really, really need to pee.”

Rowan laughed, deep and husky. “Let’s get you home, then.”

“I’m stopping in the bathroom first.”

Just before she left the ladies’ room, Aelin heard voices in the break area. Familiar voices--Rowan’s, Maeve’s, and the snippy, borderline whiny tones of Remelle Frelau, who worked in the marketing department and had a hell of a boner for Rowan. 

“--looking at revenue over--” Maeve’s voice cut out, but from the gasps of the other two, the revenue was through the roof. 

“And it’s all thanks to this genius here,” drawled Remelle, who if Aelin had her guess was probably clinging onto Rowan like a platinum-blonde leech. 

“Ms. Frelau, this was the product of a team. No single person could possibly have made it happen alone.”

“Oh, call me Remelle, or even better Remy. And you’re the team leader, so you practically did create it by yourself.”

Aelin snickered to herself. Vapid bitch had no idea what she was saying. 

“That’s not how teams work, Ms. Frelau. We wouldn’t be here without Dr. Galathynius and Dr. Ytger’s language expertise, not to mention the creative genius of the engineers, graphic designers, linguists, and programmers.”

“Ms. Frelau, though her judgment is clearly biased, has a point, Mr. Whitethorn,” Mave said. “You demonstrated remarkable collaborative leadership qualities throughout this project, and I fully expect that you will continue to do so.” Maeve’s heels clicked away. Rowan’s voice followed her.

“Thank you, Ms. Ond, but I have to credit Dr. Galathynius--”

“Will you stop kissing that woman’s ass?” snorted Remelle. “Gods, she’s not worth your time or your praise; all she does is translate words into different languages and you idiots drool over that like it means anything.”

Aelin jerked like she’d been slapped. She knew Remelle was a self-centered, shallow, spiteful bitch, but she hadn’t known she would do this.

“--did more for this project than you and your useless whiteboard of catchphrases,” growled Rowan. 

“I don’t care what she ‘did for the project,’ Rowan, she’s never going to be good enough for you.”

“Thank you for caring about my welfare, Frelau, now please kindly fuck off.”

Aelin chose that moment to saunter out of the bathroom and head straight for Rowan, her face showing no hint of having heard that conversation. She did note with satisfaction Remelle’s vain attempt to march out of the room with some semblance of dignity. Too bad her heel caught on the seam of the hallway carpet and the break room’s tile flooring and she had to grab the doorframe to keep from collapsing. 

“You’re awfully quiet, Aelin.”

“Just thinking. Processing, really. It’s been a hell of a day.”

Rowan nodded. “I bet.”

“And hearing fucking Remelle rip into me for being useless…didn’t make it better.”

“Shit, you heard that?”

“Yeah. I heard that.” Her voice was hollow. 

Rowan pulled into their driveway and shut off the engine. Reaching across the console, he cupped Aelin’s face in his hands. “Aelin. You are brilliant. You are terrifyingly smart. You are a force of nature. Nothing, nothing you will ever do is useless. Don’t let that jealous bitch make you think you are less than the perfect woman.”

She smiled tentatively at him. “She…she told me before that last interview that I could never be enough for you. Because you--because of Lyria.”

Rowan raked a hand through his hair. “Ae, can we talk about this inside?”

That night, he told her about his former fiancé, Lyria. He told her about their whirlwind romance, their youthful dreams. He told her about the horrific crash that stole away Lyria’s life. A drunk trucker, a narrow pass in the mountains. He showed her the box in which he kept all the memories of that life. He cried. Aelin cried. He curled against her, let her comfort him.

“Sometimes, I wish she was still here. She’d understand everything. She always did.”

Aelin had no response. She let Rowan fall asleep, his weight shifting off her and into his bed, and looked through the box. Everything she saw served as another reminder that this was the first woman he loved, the woman who understood everything. 

She was worthy of him. 

But was Aelin?

The more she looked at Rowan and Lyria’s happiness, the more the answer solidified. 

No.

When Rowan woke up the next morning, Lyria’s box sat on Aelin’s side of the bed, a side that had not held Aelin.

He glanced out the window.

Her car was gone.

He got up and frantically paced through the house.

Everything she’d brought into his home was gone.

As was she.

~

Present day. 

Rowan opened his front door mechanically, pulled off his shoes, dropped his work backpack on its shelf, and was halfway to his bedroom before he realized he’d just opened his front door. His front door that was always locked. 

Someone was in his house.

Someone who either had a duplicate key or insanely good lockpicking skills.

Exactly one person owned a duplicate key to his house.

Aelin.

That’s impossible, she lives in Orynth, she can’t be here, he told the traitorous part of his brain that leapt with joy at seeing Aelin’s face again.

He turned around and made his way through the kitchen--nobody there--to the living room. He flicked on a lamp, casting a soft light around the room.

And nearly had a heart attack.

Aelin Galathynius sat on his couch. 

For a moment, he just gawked at her. She looked so…different. Older. Gone was the infectious smile that had captured his heart. Dark shadows smeared under her eyes, testament both to the long hours she devoted to her work and to recent sleepless nights. She was twisting a ring on her right hand, a familiar sign of her nerves. From his angle, Rowan could see a hint of dark script on her wrist. A tattoo. The Aelin he knew didn’t have tattoos.

“I’m not a ghost.” Her voice, weary and hollow, broke the tense silence.

Rowan crossed the room, propped an arm on the fireplace. “Why?”

“Why am I here? Why did I leave? Why did I cut you out of my life?”

“Everything.” He couldn’t keep the waver from his voice, but his eyes burned into hers.

She took a steadying breath. “I’m here to apologize, first of all. I’m here to face what I ruined and to try and start mending it. I’m here to come to terms with everything I broke when I left three years ago.”

Whatever he’d expected her to say, it certainly wasn’t that.

“I’m sorry, Rowan. I’m sorry I left like that. I was…I was scared.”

“You can’t just run away from your fears, Aelin!” He couldn’t keep the frustration from his tone. “You can’t just abandon someone when you have a bad day!”

“I’m sorry! I know I shouldn’t have left! I know I can’t run from my fears; I’ve spent the last three years trying and fucking failing to do that! But I don’t know what else to do.”

“Saying something about it would have been a good first step.” 

“I’m bad at emotions, Rowan. I tried. It wasn’t enough.”

“That’s not a good enough excuse.”

Aelin flicked a tear from her face. “I know.” Her shoulders slumped. “I’m so sorry, Rowan. I should never have left. I let some stupid comment root into my head and make me doubt myself. I made myself believe I would never be good enough for you. I left you. I loved you, and I still left you. I still love you, even though I’ve tried to suppress it. I can never make up for that. I…I just wanted to tell you how much I’ve regretted that horrible decision all these years. I want you to be happy, Rowan, I--”

“How am I supposed to be happy without a source?” He’d dropped onto the couch, close enough to touch her but still keeping his distance.

“What?”

“You didn’t just take yourself away, Aelin. You were my happiness. I’ve spent three fucking years trying to make myself believe I’m better without you in my life, and I can’t.”

She was unabashedly crying by that point. “What do you want me to do? How can I make up for abandoning you?”

“Stay.”

Her gaze locked onto his, both of their eyes pooling with tears.

“Stay with me, Fireheart.”

“But--”

“I never stopped loving you either.”

A choked sob ripped out of Aelin. Rowan couldn’t hold himself in check any longer; he reached out and tugged her gently into his arms. To his shock, she didn’t resist, burying her face into his chest as sobs shook her shoulders. When she calmed, he tilted her chin up.

“Will you stay, Aelin?”

“Yes. Even though I will never deserve your forgiveness, yes.”

~

Translations:

* = “that pinched old whore who couldn’t convince a dick to come within ten metres of her if she dressed up provocatively” (Italian)

** = loosely translated as “Fucking hell, I can’t get drunk off this garbage.” (in order, Russian (badly phonetically spelled out because Rowan POV), Spanish, German, Spanish again, French) (the Russian doesn’t directly translate, so it could mean several different variations of expletive)

~

Might there be a second part? Perhaps......

[gumnut-logic]

Callisto (Part Eleven - Them)

Prologue 1. Incident - Bit 1 | Bit 2 2. Fallout - Bit 1 | Bit 2 | Bit 3 3. Voyage - Bit 1 | Bit 2 | Bit 3 4. Arrival - Bit 1 | Bit 2 5. Orientation 6. Rescue Site 7. Investigation 8. Recovery 9. Retreat 10. Capture 11. Them

Some reveal in this one, lots of worry and some discovery. John is not a happy boy.

As always, many thanks to @scribbles97​​ @janetm74​​ @vegetacide​​ and @tsarinatorment​​ for all their amazing support. you guys rock ::hugs you to bits::

Tonight is a bit of a posting night. I will be posting the last chapter of The Cane shortly as soon as I finish proofing it :D Yay, for finishing things :D Callisto is currently at 45,000 words.

In the meantime, I hope you enjoy this one.

-o-o-o-

Alan was out of his pod, screaming Scott’s name, but his brother was gone. The water as still as before.

“Alan! Status!” John’s voice was as panicked as Alan had ever heard it.

“Scott’s gone.” He dashed over to Virgil. His big brother was crumpled in a heap. In the low gravity, Scott’s shove had been enough to throw him up against the rock wall. “John, I need you.”

“FAB.”

Virgil was unconscious.

Again.

A quick scan and his vitals were good. There would be bruising ...as if his brother needed more. But there was nothing broken, thank god.

A scan of the still unconscious director proved her to be stable as well.

He shifted Virgil into a safer recovery position.

“Eos, can we scan the lake?” He eyed where his big brother had vanished.

“No. I can get no data beyond approximately ten metres below the surface. It is very frustrating.”

Alan continued to stare at the surface and its glass stillness. “Can you locate Scott?”

“John has already pinpointed the Commander. He has joined the other life form below the lake’s surface. There is no comms response from the Commander.” The AI managed to sound both worried and frustrated.

“Are there any other life signs in the area?”

“No.”

“Are you sure?”

There was a pause. “There is no life as defined by the search parameters programmed into Thunderbird Five’s sensors on the moon beyond what has already been accounted for by International Rescue and Callisto Base personnel. Did you wish me to change those parameters?”

Alan swallowed as the third dragonfly buzzed into the cave. “ I think we’re going to have to. There is something down here.”

-o-o-o-

“We can’t leave him!”

“We’re not leaving him, Alan. We need to get the director and Virgil back to base.”

“But Scott-“

“He’s alive. We will do everything we can, but first we need medical attention for Virgil and the Director and to gather more information to better understand what we are dealing with.”

Virgil groaned and dragged a hand to his face. There was an oxygen mask in all its cold and moist glory and he shoved it off.

The elastic caught in his hair.

“Virgil!”

The pounding in his head was so loud, he could barely hear above it. There were hurried footsteps and someone ...Alan, it had to be Alan...touched his arm.

“Virgil, are you with us?” John’s melodious voice appeared on his other side and echoed through his aching head.

“You gonna open your eyes for us?” Alan sounded worried.

Open his eyes? Oh, yeah. A flicker and suddenly his retinas were assailed by the red of Three’s tiny infirmary.

A sigh. What the hell had happened now?

God, his head hurt.

“Alan, get us back to Base.” John’s voice was calm and quiet but had that tone of command.

There was quiet for a moment as the infirmary walls faded in and out of focus, roiling Virgil’s stomach.

A sigh and his little brother acknowledged John with an exhaled FAB before leaving Virgil’s bedside with soft footfalls.

Hands strapped him into the bed, fingers brushing gently across the surface of his uniform before landing ever so softly on his temple. “Rest, Virgil.” His hair was brushed off his forehead, the fine grip on John’s glove catching strands. “You’re safe.”

Virgil let out a sigh and closed his eyes, willing his head to stop pounding.

Perhaps it was a sign of the severity of whatever had happened to him, that he didn’t realise there was a voice and a touch missing until he was caught in the spiral of pain-induced exhaustion.

The question of a missing big brother followed him into an uneasy sleep.

-o-o-o-

Berry for his eldest son.

It was an exchange Jeff wasn’t sure he was willing to make.

But the thought was arrested before he could consider it further, knowing that Scott would admonish him for even thinking it.

But in the depths of his soul, the father in him was screaming.

Berry was off loaded from Three and onto the gantry, quickly followed by an equally prone Virgil. His engineer son was only asleep according to John, but with Scott missing, Jeff found himself clinging to his second eldest regardless.

The automatic cams on the Dragonflies had picked up what had happened. It was blatantly obvious there was something with purpose at work, something not human, possibly sentient.

The word ‘aliens’ bounced back and forth in his head.

Virgil was returned to the spot in the infirmary he had left barely an hour ago. Gordon sitting on the bed Jeff had restricted him to, stared at his co-pilot with worried eyes. Alan, equally as worried, sat down beside his fish brother and Gords wrapped his good arm around him.

Virgil was ever so quiet.

Berry was surrounded by the Base doctors, a curtain pulled around her bed, hiding her from the rest of them.

Jeff had the urge to shove it all aside and demand answers.

John had an IR medscanner out and was scanning his brother again. He spoke up without Jeff having to ask. “He’s sleeping.” It was a repetition of the earlier diagnosis, but it was welcome anyway.

A frown and the astronaut narrowed the scanner’s beam, prodding its controls and bringing it closer to Virgil’s head.

“What is it?”

John’s voice was calm, but distracted. “Director Berrenger has some ear damage. Virgil...” Another prod of the device. “Damn.”

“What?” Jeff took a step closer.

But John stopped scanning his brother, adjusted the controls and then ran the medscanner over his own head. Frowning at the readings, he activated his wrist ‘projector and swiped the results to that display.

The two scans bobbed up side by side, close up details of Virgil and John’s auditory systems.

“Virgil has had a headache since he arrived. We thought it was related to the T-Drive. But it appears that he has been subjected to some kind ear injury.”

Gordon spoke up. “He got dizzy.”

John frowned and poked at the hologram, spinning it. The frown deepened a moment before the astronaut suddenly darted around the bed and aimed the scanner at Gordon’s head.

“What? What the hell are you doing?”

“Hold still.”

A flicker of yellow and John obviously got what he was looking for. A breath and he aimed the scanner at Alan’s head as well.

His sigh was a frustrated one. “We are all exhibiting signs of ear irritation, but Virgil’s is by far the worst. Dad?”

Jeff blinked as John waved the device over his head. His son’s glare at the scanner was almost enough to incinerate it.

John slapped his comms. “Eos, land the probe closest to the Crystal Cavern. I need physical contact with the rock. Activate mic input, scan the spectrum.”

“FAB.”

It took a few moments and Jeff found himself absently stroking Virgil’s hair.

“Contact made. Scanning...oh, my!”

“Let me hear it.” John was wired ever so tight, eyes on fire.

“Input is being received at a very high volume, but at a very high frequency far above the human ability to hear. Translating.”

The sound that emitted from John’s comms was a very loud discordant screeching. Everyone in the room clapped their hands to their ears. A nurse attending to Berry shoved aside a curtain and shouted at them, as John yelled at Eos to stop.

“What the hell is that?!” Gordon, as always, voiced what everyone was thinking.

John was already bouncing program variables over his wrist. “That is what we need to find out.”

-o-o-o-

It turned out it was the moon itself.

Jeff sat with Virgil as his son slept, unable to relax himself. Alan intermittently gnashed his teeth fretting out loud what all of them were thinking. Scott was missing and it tore at all of them.

Virgil slept on.

John could only be described as frantic. The space monitor swore a blue streak that had Jeff snapping at him at one point. The man’s response was throw up a hologram on his tablet that mapped out the sounds being emitted by Callisto.

It was like a nest of spiderweb laced around and through the rock of the Jovian satellite. Pockets of density existed in places along with patches of less. John reached up and poked a spot that was slightly different from the rest, but still drenched in lines.

“This is Callisto Base.”

“And what is that?” Jeff pointed at the fine lines darting all over the moon.

John sighed. “My guess is that we are looking at a communications network.”

Jeff’s eyes widened. “Who is communicating?”

“Unknown. There are no unaccounted life forms on this moon. Not life as we know it.”

“What about life as we don’t know it?”

“We’re working on it.”

Next question. “How did we miss it?” The moon was literally shouting loud enough to injure.

John deflated on the spot, obviously considering the lapse a failure on his part. “Sound requires matter to travel through. Thunderbird Five is not equipped to detect it unless we have something in contact with the atmosphere or a mic in play.”

“We have mics in our comms.” But Jeff knew the answer before his son supplied it.

“The frequencies are beyond usual pick up range. Far too high.”

“What about Virgil?”

John wilted. “I don’t know, Dad. Why is he affected more than the rest of us? Hell, why aren’t the colonists showing symptoms?”

Jeff frowned at that. “Why aren’t they? They’ve been here for years.”

“I can’t see how they could not be affected. We’ve only been here a short time and we are showing the effects.”

Something cold curdled in Jeff’s gut. A sudden suspicion roiled to the surface. “Leave that one to me.” He threw himself to his feet.

“Dad?” Aquamarine frowned at him.

“I’ll get some answers.”

-o-o-o-

His head was hammering both in dream and, as he rose to consciousness, in reality. “Oh god.” Virgil rolled over clutching his head and curled into a ball.

“Virgil?”

Alan? He clenched his eyes shut, hands gripping his hair.

“Virgil?” The softer more melodious voice of his older space brother. “Hold on.”

There were words not directed at him and Virgil must have faded out again because next he knew he was flat on his back and the pain had been reduced to a pale echo of itself, replaced with a light fog.

Someone was holding his hand.

“Scott?” It came out hoarse and barely there.

“Virgil, you with us?”

Alan. It was Alan. His little brother.

Rocket boy.

God, his head was sluggish.

“Alan? Where’s Scott?” He forced his eyes open and blinked against the light. Another groan and he moved on the bed, his body aching and stiff as if he had been in the same position for an eon. “What happened?”

Another slow blink and his memory landed in Crystal Cave and rescuing Director Berrenger, and then…pain and nothing.

“Ummm…Scott’s not here. Lemme get John.” There was the sound of an active comm and Alan calling for his big brother.

Huh?

“Where’s Gordon?”

“Asleep.” Alan pointed at the blue curtain beside them. “Dad had a go at him for not resting. Threatened to send him up to Five if he didn’t try to sleep.”

Oh, just fantastic. “What about you? Have you slept?” How long had Virgil been down for the count?

“I’m good. Been helping John detect aliens.”

“Aliens? What aliens?” Frowning shouldn’t hurt like this.

“Virgil, you’re awake.” John’s melodious voice was a welcome balm despite the fact it was stating the obvious.

“John.” Virgil tried to sit up, but a gentle hand halted him. A pair of aquamarine eyes telling him more than any words. “What happened? Where’s Scott?” Scott should be here. He was always here.

John sat down beside Virgil’s bed deliberately and quietly.

Oh god. “What happened?” Virgil pushed himself into a seated position despite his brother, determined to face whatever had happened…not lying down.

“Scott is okay, as far as we can tell.”

“As far as you can tell?”

John’s lips thinned and his eyes screamed apology before he activated his wrist comm and showed Virgil footage from the dragonfly cam that caught exactly what happened.

Virgil stared as his brother sacrificed himself to save him.

The expletive that fell from his lips was sharp and vulgar.

He pushed the fog in his head to one side and forced himself to focus. “I need details.” He shoved the covers off his legs.

A blink.

“And clothes.”

-o-o-o-

Jeff stared the Commander of Callisto Base down, every ounce of his height, every piece of history they held together. “What haven’t you told us?”

“Have you located Ju yet?” The shorter man set his shoulders and glared up at Jeff.

“We have discovered that there is likely another form of life on this moon. Were you aware of this?”

Graeme blinked. “Life? What?”

“My eldest son was captured by the same mechanism that likely caught your wife. My second eldest has taken ill with the effects of strong ultra-frequency sound. These sounds appear to envelope this moon. Are you trying to tell me, that with all your scientific staff and equipment, supplied by Tracy Industries, no less, you have yet to encounter this problem after inhabiting this base for over five years?” Jeff inched closer. “Think before you answer.” The threat was clear.

Graeme swallowed. “There was Jeremiah, but we thought that was an isolated case.”

“Jeremiah?”

“One of our geologists. Took ill, nausea, headaches, nothing we did helped. Are you telling me he died of exposure to sound?”

Jeff’s eyes narrowed as his heart lurched. “He died?”

Graeme’s eyes grew frantic as the dots connected. “Stroke. The doctors said it was stroke. I was going to ask you to take his body home to his family when you left.”

Jeff’s lips thinned ever so much more. “Anyone else?”

“Uh.” The man was obviously floundering and cursing himself at the same time. “There have been instances of nausea, dizziness and headache, but nothing as bad as Jeremiah. We put it down to long term low gravity and the environment. We are living on the edge of human experience out here. You know what that is like.” He stared up at Jeff. “What kind of life? Have you seen it?” A swallow. “What about Ju?”

What about, Scott? “We’re working on it. We hope to have more information once Berry wakes up.” They needed so many answers.

-o-o-o-

John glared at Virgil, but his idiot brother was as determined as any of them would be in the same situation. John dreaded what would happen when their father returned.

There was going to be hell to pay.

Virgil was given his uniform and Alan was scooted out of the closed curtained area. John refused to move and earned a glare for his efforts, but there was no way he was leaving Virgil on his own in this state, stupid determination or not.

Dad was going to kill all of them.

The rainbow of bruises across Virgil’s back as he threw off the hospital gown their father had so painstakingly helped the nurses dress him in hours earlier only served to impress on John the fact that this was ever so wrong.

“Virgil, please give yourself more time.”

“Scott doesn’t have time.”

“How do you know that?”

“He’s been kidnapped by goddamned aliens, John. I’ve seen enough sci-fi flicks to know where that leads.”

“I don’t think we need a Ripley in this case, Virgil.”

His brother yanked spacesuit onto his legs. “How do you know that? You haven’t even located the bugs yet.”

“I doubt they are bugs, Virgil.” With a sigh, he reached in and helped his brother pull his spacesuit up over his shoulders, not missing any of the multiple winces at the action. “In fact, I think they might be the crystals.”

Virgil turned to look at him. “The quartz?”

“Yes.”

“How? It reads as silicon dioxide.”

“I know. Thunderbird Five is not the USS Enterprise. We’re doing our best here.” John lowered Virgil’s red and green baldric over his shoulders, ever so gently letting it rest on what he knew were bruises.

This was madness. “You should stay in bed. You’ve been affected more than any of us. Long term exposure to ultrasound can be life threatening. Please, Virgil.”

His brother turned around, ever the rescue operative, the uniform wearing him rather than the other way around. “And what about Scott?”

“Let me, Virgil, please. We have Dad and Lee. You need rest.”

Dark eyes met his. “With Scott down, I’m in command. It is my duty to lead.”

“Virgil, this is not a military organisation and you are not a soldier.”

“No, I’m a Tracy.” With that, he threw aside the curtain and strode out.

John sighed. First Dad, and then Scott, when they found him.

Yes, there was going to be hell to pay.

-o-o-o-

The woman on the bed was an echo of the team mate he used to know. So much time had passed between them and, as it was always with time, it took as it left.

Berry’s hair was fading to white. Her skin had been kept relatively young by the lack of sun in her life. After all, it was a six to nine hundred odd million further kilometres away out here. But there was a frailness, nonetheless.

She seemed so small against the white of the pillow and bedsheets. Lacking the vivacity he knew she possessed.

“Kate?” He swallowed. She couldn’t hear him. Two broken ear drums would do that. He reached out a hand and gently nudged her shoulder.

He was relieved to see those familiar green eyes open and look up at him.

“Hey.” His voice broke just a little.

“Jeff?” Those eyes widened. And suddenly, before he could react, he was wrapped in eager arms holding him ever so tight. “Oh, Jeff. You came.”

“Could I do anything else?” But her arms were still around him. She couldn’t see his face. Couldn’t hear his words.

He found himself hugging her ever so tight back.

But he had to break it off. He needed information.

A gentle nudge and she relaxed back onto the bed, frowning up at him in worry.

Grabbing a tablet, he typed in the question and held it up for her to see. What happened?

“They caught us. The water kept us trapped. Couldn’t get out. Nga and Steve and then Chrisoula. They killed them. Trying to do something.” Her breathing elevated and for a moment there, Jeff feared he had lost her to whatever she was remembering.

He shook her shoulder gently, bringing her eyes back to him. Fingers on the tablet. Sound. They use sound.

She nodded and then closed her eyes as if in pain, a hand going to her head.

He squeezed her shoulder again. “Take it easy.”

A blink and he realised she knew he had said something but not what. He hastily tapped the words into the tablet.

She sighed as she read them, melting a little into the bed. “Where’s Ju?”

I was hoping you would be able to help us with that.

Realising what he meant, her lips thinned and her shoulders straightened a little on the bed.

“She’s still out there?”

He nodded.

“Damn.”

There’s a possibility your release was either an attempt at communication or a ruse to trap one of our operatives.

“Operatives?”

International Rescue.

“Your sons are here? To rescue us?”

That’s the plan.

She blinked a lot at that, moisture in her eyes, her lips twisting a little. “Thank you, Jeff.”

It’s what they do.

They. His own words struck home as he looked at the tablet.

A hand scratched gently at his arm, drawing his attention back to Berry.

“They kept us in a room made of water. The walls were continually moving, like a waterfall that never stopped. But with our lights we could see through it.” She blinked, eyes again focussing away from him, seeing something he couldn’t. “In the room, the floor was bare rock except for one of those crystal formations. Just one. But in the water outside, there was crystal everywhere.” She looked at him. “It’s the crystals, you know? They’re alive.”

-o-o-o-

TBC

[marcherarrant]

"On this day, March 1st 2021, Marcher Arrant sets off for his biggest walk yet...a thru-hike of the Appalachian Trail."Here we go!!! This is so surreal,  I can't believe this is happening! I'm excited and nervous! This is so much more than a walk. Every walk I do is. It is my way of life, my art, my therapy,  my source of meaning, ect. But this walk in particular is something even more. This walk is the crossing over of a threshold. It is a self created rite of passage, a new beginning. As a Walker my I embrace a philosophy of becoming, of constant movement, of no beginning or ending, constant flux. That being said, there are moments of being, moments when flowers bloom. I'm in love with shows and movies in which you see people become their destiny. It's perhaps a banal example but the first show that comes to mind is Better Call Saul. I watched that with such joy seeing him become the sleazy lawyer he was meant to become. I was destined to become this person I have always dreamt myself to be, Marcher Arrant. This walk is where I become him fully.  I made a real life flag as a symbol of that. I was born a Walker. I began walking more than those around me when I was in 6th or 7th grade. And my love for it has continually grown through the years and there have been countless thresholds I've crossed that have been pivotal in marking me for my destiny. It was around middle school or early high school that I walked from my house to downtown Columbus,  a 4 hour walk. I later walked there and back. Years later I walked the tracks from Boulder, Colorado to Denver, a twelve hour walk. I ended up doing that walk a lot. Eventually I walked to Denver and back, walking for more than 24 hours without stopping. Then I started doing aimless 24 hour walks all the time. I moved to Paris. From there I did my first long distance walk, a month-long  trip from Paris to Rocessvelles, Spain. That opened up a whole new door. I then walked the entire length of every street in Paris. And on and on and on... so many walks. In Paris,  maybe 10 years ago now, thanks to my homie Curve (@thecurvazoid, forever grateful) I began toying with graff, came up with my character and name. I later moved to Spain and did many more walks.  For most of my life my walking was something personal that I did not share with anyone. I thought it romantic, beautiful and pure that my art was just for me.  But then I had a health scare and it was then I got the urge to share what I do online. I felt I had something unique to offer the world and I did not want to die without sharing it.  I am glad I did because doing so gave my life so much more meaning.  I then got into making art and books and fell in love with that.  2 years ago I decided that before I did another big walk that I would catch my art up to my life and make books and art from all my previous walks so that when I did the next walk I could focus for the first time on making art and a book while I was doing the walk instead of going back and doing it after the fact. I finished all the art and books for my past walks. This is the first walk where everything comes together for the first time, the walk, the art, the book, the graffiti. Also over the last two years I decided to set up for myself work so that I will always have a job no matter where in the world I am so that I can walk with no pause. I began an online English teaching business. It was a long road to be able to get enough students so that I could make a living from it.  I have finally gotten to the point where I am fully booked. I begin my dream life now, a sustainable life where through art and teaching English I can walk forever and take care of myself.  My dream is to spend my life walking the world, alternating from long distance walks to living in new cities and fully exploring those, walking every street and painting and making art.  This is a dream come true, my idiosyncratic idea of the perfect life, a life I will never tire of, one that suits who I am in the most perfect way.  I am in love with the writer Nietzsche who philosophy was about making your life a work of art, living in a way that ties together all the aspects of you into a beautiful whole. The work I have done over the past few years with the walking, the graffiti, the English teaching, the art and books, the travel and how they have all tied together at this moment, with this walk, I have accomplished this goal of making my life a work of art and tying all the aspects of my life into a harmony. No matter what happens in my life now, I can die happy having accomplished this. For me, it is a sort of intangible form of art, my greatest accomplishment.  It is so hard to figure out who you are and what you want when there is no precursor to it. I am so fucking proud of myself for believing in my strange vision despite the fact that until very recently it never gave me a cent, never did anything to advance my life or do anything for me besides the meaning it gave to me. It is so hard to keep doing something that seems to everyone around you, to society, to be utterly useless. You have to be brave and trust your vision. 

The hardest part of any walk for me is getting to the starting point.  I grew up pretty poor.  When you grow up poor, at least for me, everything seems so out of reach.  You have this unconscious feeling that you would never be able to do so many things.  This is great because when you do those things your mind is just blown and you  are so amazed and in disbelief and you don’t take it for granted in the slightest.  I never in a million years thought I would be able to live in another country.  I thought that was something rich people do which is totally untrue but that is just the kind of mentality you have when you grow up poor.  When I moved to Europe it was surreal. Every single day, for the ten years I lived there, I was in total awe that I was there. I did not have a single boring day. Every single day I could not believe I lived there and that did not lessen a single minute bit the entire time I lived there.  It is the same way I feel about doing long distance walks. I was so amazed by the idea of the Appalachian Trail when I was a kid. But I thought only rich people could do it.  The fact that I am setting out to do it today is absolutely surreal. I am in total disbelief that I am doing it. I keep getting scared that somehow something is going to happen so that I can’t do it. I don’t take it for granted in the slightest that I get to do it.  It literally feels like a miracle to me. And there are so many to thank for it.  First I want to thank my mom and step dad who let me live at their house rent free while I worked on starting my online English teaching business and making barely any money.  I never could have started my business without them and saved the money I have.  I thank my grandma, my dad and step mom, my sisters, my brother and all my family who have helped me so much. Thank you so so so much to the people who have bought art, books, stickers from me over the past couple years, people who have given me donations, people who bought shirts, pins ect. I never could have done this walk without that support and I am eternally grateful and forever in your debt. I take none of that for granted. Thank you for all the kind words, messages and comments, you have no idea how much that has helped me to keep on. You have no idea. No fucking idea. I could kiss every last one of you. These past two years have been two of the hardest years of my life. For the past year I worked 7 days a week, waking up at 4:30am. For various reasons I went through some horrendous depression, so many suicidal thoughts. So many times I wanted to take the money I saved for this walk and check myself into a mental hospital. All the positive words from people really helped me to keep on. Thank you so much.  Thank you to my crew, the Abe Lincoln Brigade, Impeach, Hank, and Alamo. I’m so grateful and honored to be in a crew with such legends, people who I’ve always idolized. Thanks again to Curve (@thecurvazoid) for giving me one of the greatest gifts I’ve ever been given, the gift of getting me creating art.  And thank you to Art Primo (@artprimo ) for sponsoring this walk with art supplies. Not only does this help financially but the fact that such a legendary company believes in what I do enough to give me supplies is such an honor and so fucking encouraging. 

There are two new things that I am doing with this walk. One, is that I will be making art with the guidebook pages as I do the walk. I have already made art with maps from my walks, but I did it after I did the walk. This is the first time I will be making art as I am actually doing the walk. I am so in love with this idea. And I love that when I send the art it will be from whatever town I am in along the walk. I think that makes the envelope itself kinda a piece of art. Selling art along the way will also make it so I spend the money for my trip at a slower rate and hopefully not end totally broke like I usually do. The second new thing I will be doing is making it so people can follow my walk online. I have a gps device that also tracks me and sends that information to a website. I think that’s kinda fun and cool. It also makes it so if you want to meet up and you see I’m near you you can reach out. A lot of people have offered me a place to stay or just meet up and I am so disorganized that It makes it hard to remember all the people and where they live. Hopefully this helps to make meeting up possible. You can follow my walk at share.garmin.com/marcherarrant. Again, thank you all for everything!

[inkandpen22]

Young Hearts Divided (1/?)

Pairing: Sirius x reader / James x Female!Reader (this comes later- the tea)

Warnings: none

Word Count: 1.6k (she short~think of it as an introduction)

Part Summary: Y/N is a fellow Gryffindor Fifth Year with the Marauders. She has always been close with the boys, especially Sirius, but sometimes they can be bad influences... 

A/N: as always, thank you for reading! If you guys have any suggestions or requests you’d like to see, let me know! I’m down for anything rn :) 

Masterlist

Late! Late! Late! I’m late! I hurry down the steps of the tower into the Common Room. I suppose this is what I get for staying up late listening to muggle music with Marlene. How kind it would’ve been of her to wake me up too when she probably rose like a peaceful princess this morning. I at least would expect Lily to help a friend out! Nope, instead, I’m sprinting through the halls of Hogwarts with one shoe on, my hair disheveled, and my books hardly staying in my hands. I completely missed breakfast and now have to run straight to DADA across the bloody castle! 

Professor Flitwick stops writing on the board and peers over his shoulder when I stumble into the room. My peers whip their heads back and stare at me like a fish in a bowl. Sirius and James are sitting right in front of me with childish grins across their faces. Sirius starts giggling and Remus leans across the aisle to swat him on the arm. 

Professor Flitwick clasps his hands together with a deep exhale. “Miss Y/L/N, it’s on you to join us. Take your seat,” he instructs, gesturing to your empty seat next to Marlene toward the back of the room. 

“Sorry Professor,” I mutter, swiftly sliding into my seat directly in front of Sirius. 

As I pull out a roll of parchment and get settled, Marlene begins to bombard me with her questions. “Where have you been?!” 

“Sleeping!” I snap in a whisper. “No thanks to you!” 

“Dreaming about Bowie?” Marlene giggles, nudging me with her elbow. “Told you he’s stellar! We should listen to him again tonight!” 

“And keep me up all night?” I snicker, looking ahead to scribble down Flitwick’s notes. 

“You still haven’t heard this one group! My cousin sent me-” 

Marlene is cut off as a crumpled piece of paper hits the back of my head. Knowing exactly who it’s from, I ignore the wrinkled ball on the floor by my ankle to catch up on my notes. Marlene picks up the paper, much to my annoyance. Out of the corner of my eye, I see her glance back at Sirius as she unravels the ball. I continue to listen to Flitwick, hoping he doesn’t write me up for being tardy. 

“Want me to read it to you?” Marlene asks, all gushy with enthusiasm. 

“Does what I say matter?” I sass in a grumble, knowing she’ll read it anyway. 

“He wants you to meet him at the tree by the lake after class,” she informs as she scans the sheet. 

“Can’t,” I answer plainly. “I have potions.” 

Marlene sighs in disappointment, glancing back at Sirius with a frown. On my behalf, she writes down my answer and hands back the note. Turning back toward the front, she fiddles with her quill not even attempting to take notes. I, however, am writing like a lunatic struggling to make up for lost time. 

“Oh come on Y/N,” Marlene whines quietly. Her silence lasted about ten seconds. She tugs on the sleeve of my shirt while glancing upfront every so often to make sure Flitwick isn’t looking.  “You haven’t missed a day of class yet this term! Skipping one class won’t kill you!” 

“You’re right,” I mumble, keeping my attention ahead. “But what if McGonagall sees us or literally anyone else? I can’t get written up again! I’ve been to detention twice now this year because of the Marauders. Friends don’t get friends in trouble.” 

She huffs, dismissing my reason as not good enough. “You’re only young once Y/N! It could be fun!” 

“Why don’t you meet him then?” You suggest sarcastically. 

Suddenly, I feel another tap of a ball of parchment this time hitting my back. I take a deep breath to compose myself. If we anywhere else, even the library, I would probably smack the boy. Taking note of my frustration, Marlene cautiously reaches for the ball resting between the back of my chair and my back. She raffles the paper and skims the sheet. 

“Do you want-” 

“Ugh, just read it!” I bark under my breath, but loud enough for Lily and Alice to turn around in front of me. I mutter an apology and they face forward again. It takes every bit of me to ignore the stifling laughter of Sirius and James behind us. 

Marlene clears her throat, making the duo quiet down. Then, she recites Sirius’s note. “We will not be seen. James gave me the cloak.” 

I snicker, shaking my head at the words. “Ha, yeah okay! How does he plan on making Slughorn not mark me inexcusably absent?” 

“He… um…” Marlene stutters. “Good point.” On that note, she scribbles down my answer and leans back to hand the paperback. 

Sirius won’t have a valuable answer, thus will leave the matter alone. He will enjoy his free period doing who knows what with James while I go to potions. Shall I recall the two times I got put into detention because of Sirius Black? Okay, here it goes...

The first time was really for all of the Marauders. I suppose it’s my fault I’m friends with them. They were out late sneaking around with their stupid map to jot down a hidden tunnel Remus had discovered that day. I played watch and distracted Filch long enough for them to run into the Common Room. What that got me was detention from Filch. The boys felt remorseful and thankful that I didn’t throw them to the wolves, especially Remus and Peter. Sirius bought me chocolates and placed a rose on my bed every day for twelve days until I had a full bouquet. 

The second time was after the Gryffindor v. Slytherin quidditch game a few weeks ago. There was a party in the Gryffindor Common Room after the win as per usual. Sirius was drunk and wanted to go for a swim in the lake. I had been rather intoxicated myself, but not enough to jump into a lake filled with all sorts of creatures! Alas, Sirius dragged me from Gryffindor tower and we snuck around the castle to get to the lake. Filch and some of the Prefects were on their rounds, so we had to hide around corners. Sirius would slowly turn the corners first, holding onto my hand to keep me close, just in case. Then, he would glance back at me with a mischievous smirk before booking it down the clear halls. Jump ahead half an hour and we get caught in the Black Lake in nothing other than our underwear by a very disappointed McGonagall, not one of my proudest moments. 

I remember her words exactly. “Mr. Black, why must you pull Miss Y/L/N into your shenanigans? Two weeks’ detention, both of you! You’ll be cleaning classrooms until they’re spotless!” 

The two longest weeks of my Hogwarts career. Well… at some points. Sirius had his moments when he made the hours slip by. There was the time we were cleaning Slughorn’s classroom and had a water fight. We got all of the textbooks wet that Slughorn left out on the desks. Sprout heard us from the hall and walked in on us dripping wet head to toe. Sirius was standing behind me, holding a now-empty bucket over my head. Her face was priceless! 

“Y/N? Y/N!” Marlene pokes my side, snapping me out of my daydreaming. “I’ve been saying your name!” She huffs, holding a new note from Sirius. “What do you want to say?” 

I frown, “what does it say?” 

She rolls her eyes, “I just read it to you... I guess somebody wasn’t paying attention.” 

I mumble an apology and look up at the chalkboard to see that Flitwick has jotted down at least ten more points. I check out for two minutes tops and he does all that?! Forget it, I’ll just copy Lily’s notes later. We all know she’ll have them perfect. James copies her every day during lunch anyway. I sit back in my seat with a sigh of defeat and contentment. I accept my defeat and call it a day. Looking over at Marlene, waiting for her to read me the note again. Impatient, I take the paper for myself and look over it. 

Have Lily tell Slughorn you’re not feeling well. I have something I want to show you…” 

Thinking it over for a moment, I consider the pros and cons. Cons: I could get caught and three strikes don’t look great on my transcripts. I want a career at the ministry, I can’t risk ruining that. Pros: it could be fun. Whenever I allow myself to have free time, Sirius and I have the best time. I mean, even in detention we had fun. He’s one of my best friends here. In fact, he was one of the first friends I made, after Marlene. Leaning forward in my chair, I pick up my quill and scribble down my answer. Marlene peaks over my shoulder, eager to see. 

Okay. 

Keeping a close eye on Flitwick to make sure he isn’t looking, I fold up the paper neatly in my lap. When the professor turns toward the board, I reach my arm behind me, handing the note back to Sirius. While I keep my attention, I feel Sirius’s warm hand glide over mine to take the folded parchment. It lingers there for a mere second, his fingertips grazing as far as my wrist unnecessarily. A faint, uncontrollable smile forms across my lips at the feeling of his touch. Marlene is right, we’re young, I should be living more. I think Sirius can help with that. 

[luci-in-trenchcoats]

Somebody I Used To Know

Summary: Months into the end of the world, the reader helps out a mysterious man she’s never seen before. He asks her to meet up with him where she learns she used to know him better than anyone...

Pairing: Endverse!Dean x reader

Square: Endverse!Dean

Word Count: 2,800ish

Warnings: language, slight danger, angst, eventual fluff

A/N: Written for @spndeanbingo​​

_______

The Croat hit the pavement hard, the guy on the ground looking back at you as he got to his feet. You turned your gun on him, the man staring as you both heard the echoes of running in the distance.

“Either shoot me and get it over with or let’s go,” he said. You lowered your gun and took off running, the man catching up quickly. He went with you down the street before he started to veer off to the left.

“You won’t make it,” you said, going to the other side of the street and opening your jeep door. You spotted the truck in the distance that was probably his. He looked at it and then you and you sighed. You drove over and he hopped on the step up, grabbing onto the top rack. You drove over to the truck and he climbed off, quickly getting in as you both saw a swarm of Croats fill the street.

“Highway 12. Mile marker 108. One hour,” he called out through his window before he took off the other direction. You headed West and drove out of town, finding a quiet parking lot to sit and think in.

Going to meet a stranger by yourself was fifteen kinds of stupid. Even if you were packing. It could have been a trap for your gear or your jeep. Or you. You reached into your glovebox and took out a map, finding the spot the guy had wanted to meet. It wasn’t a very good ambush point, not much cover around on an open stretch of highway.

He was the first person you’d seen in months that didn’t want to actively kill you though which was something. At the very least, if it went bad, you could take his belongings. There was bound to be something useful in there.

One Hour Later

“I didn’t know if you’d come,” said the man as you stepped out of your jeep. You were the only two vehicles around and the swampy fields on either side didn’t make for a good hiding spot. 

“Wasn’t so sure myself,” you said, your hand resting on your thigh holster, his matching you as he straightened up from where he leaned on his truck.

“You had my back,” he said.

“You looked like you were in trouble,” you said.

“I was. Still am,” he said with a shrug. He moved his hand away from his gun and crossed his arms. “Judging by your ride and the gear I saw in there, you’re on your own too.”

“Who says I’m on my own?”

He looked around and smirked, kicking at the ground.

“I’m Dean. Dean Winchester.”

“Y/N Y/L/N,” you said, giving him a nod. “What do you want Dean Winchester?”

“A blueberry pie with a dollop of whip cream on top,” he said, chuckling to himself. “Shit, I miss pie.”

“I’m going now,” you said, a hand on your door already before he started to walk over. He was slow when he approached your jeep, holding up his hands. “I saved you. It’s no big deal.”

“Do you...do you want to come with me?” he asked. 

“Where?”

“It’s kinda far,” he said. You undid the clip on the top of your holster, Dean taking a step back. “I’m not going to hurt you. It’d be a bit hypocritical of me considering you saved my life an hour ago.”

“You don’t trust strangers. Didn’t you learn that in apocalypse 101?” you said.

“You are as sarcastic as ever,” he said, a dry laugh escaping him. Your gun was out and by your side now. “There was a time when you would have died for me.”

“You going Croat on me?” you asked, cocking your gun and raising it up. He shook his head but dropped his hands down. “Up if you don’t want a hole in your shoulder.”

“Y/N…” he sighed but he did hold his hands up again.

“Turn around.”

“January 30th you woke up in Phoenix, Arizona in hospital room 45A at Mercy General with a burn on your lower right back, selective memory loss of the previous ten years and a tattoo on your hip of a star in a ring of fire.”

You swallowed and reached around your back, feeling the scar there. He slowly moved his right hand down and grabbed the back of his jacket and shirt, yanking them up to show his back.

“I got one too, sweetheart,” he said, dropping the clothes over his scar.

“Who the fuck are you?” you said as turned back to face you.

“I was your husband. Soulmate too. It’s not a burn scar. Our bond was literally physically there once after something happened and it left a lasting impression. It’s a long story,” he said as you raised your eyebrows. “Yeah. I know I sound nuts. But how else would I know that crap?”

“Prove that-” you said before he tugged his shirt collar aside and revealed a tattoo just like your own. “Who are you?”

“Dean Winchester. You’re Y/N Winchester. It’s been a while since you’ve been called that is all,” he said.

“I’m not married. I work at Starbucks and I tend bar. I-”

“Your father died when you were thirteen. Everyone told you it was a burglary gone wrong but that never sat right with you. When you were eighteen, you confronted your mom about it. She walked out and called you to meet later on that night. She never showed. Three days later, you got a story she was attacked by a rogue grizzly while hiking. Any of this ringing a bell?”

“I never told anyone I thought my dad didn’t die in that house,” you said. 

“You told me about five years ago.”

“What’s something else I’ve never told anyone?”

“You know your mom killed your dad but you don’t remember why.”

“It’s creepy that you know that,” you said, looking him up and down.

“Your amnesia was related to something...specific. It’s more like memories were wiped clean of certain things. You can remember the past few years. They feel bland is all, right?”

“Are you like this too?” you asked.

“No. I’m the one that had your memory wiped,” he said. Your eyes narrowed and he tilted his head back. “I’m not going to answer why and I’m not telling you what’s gone. If shit weren’t bad, I’d never have come back.”

“What do you mean come back?” you asked.

“Well, when the shit hit the fan and the literal end of the world started, I went looking for you.”

“Why?”

“Cause I’m your husband, dumbass,” he said with a roll of his eyes.

“Well if I’m not insane and what you said is true, I think the relationship ended when you wiped my memory, don’t you think?” you said. “I was out screwing a guy two months after I got out of the hospital.”

He dropped his gaze down, taking a deep breath before he forced his head up.

“Shit. You really do love me,” you said.

“Yeah. I do,” he said.

“I was kinda lying about the screwing thing. I wanted to see your reaction,” you said.

“Don’t do that again,” he said but you saw the flash of relief on his face. “I know it sounds crazier than Croat crazy.”

“Yeah. All evidence points to you telling the truth though,” you said.

“Will you come with me? We can go someplace safe. Take your own ride if it makes you feel more comfortable,” he said.

“Fine. But I don’t care if you do love me. You do something shady, I’m gonna shoot you,” you said.

“Funny. You shot me the night we met. Just like old times,” he said. You blinked a few times and he shrugged. “Good on gas?”

“Half a tank,” you said.

“Top off,” he said, walking over to the back of his truck. He opened the trunk and grabbed a gas can. He set it down on the road and walked back to his driver’s side door. “If we head out now we can get there by night.”

“Alright. Lead the way.”

Eight Hours Later

“Where the fuck am I…” you said to yourself as you drove up a dirt road. You saw Dean stop ahead of you and get out of his truck. He opened up a garage door and hopped back in before he pulled inside. He stepped out and waved you to park behind him. You were hesitant to but part of you trusted him somewhere deep down. You took a breath and pulled in. He locked up the garage as you got out and looked around. “What is this place?”

“It’s where I live. You used to live here too,” he said. You turned your head around and spotted a nice muscle car parked in the corner. “Baby’s not much for an all terrain vehicle unfortunately.”

“I like it,” you said.

“You always did,” he said. “I haven’t been here in a while so hopeful it’s not too much of a mess.”

“Lead the way,” you said. 

“You want me to get your bag for you?” he asked. You shook your head and crossed your arms.

“Let’s see how this goes first,” you said. He nodded and went down a short flight of stairs, opening a door. You followed after, finding yourself in a set of hallways.

“Y/N?” said a voice behind you. You spun around with your gun out, aiming straight at a giant of a man, his hands up. “Shit, it’s Sam. Don’t shoot me.”

“She doesn’t know who you are,” said Dean. “Y/N, this is Sam. He’s my little brother.”

“Anybody else live here I should know about?” you said, lowering your gun, not yet returning it to it’s holster.

“Our friends, Cas and Jack, do sometimes but they’re not in. They’re out working on something,” said Dean. “Just us here.”

“Fine,” you said. You put your gun away, Sam dropping his hands to his sides. 

“I’ll uh, show you around,” said Dean. “Sammy, maybe you can get my stuff from my truck for me?”

“Sure. Y/N, good to see you,” said Sam as he headed up into the garage. 

“Y/N,” said Dean when you stared after him. “Let’s check out where you can keep your stuff, okay?”

“After you.”

“How you doing?” you heard Sam ask Dean later on in the night as you roamed the halls. You paused around a corner and heard a sigh from the other side. 

“Surprised you’re not telling me I told you so,” said Dean. “You told me how wiping her memories was one of the lowest things I’ve ever done.”

“It wasn’t your choice to make. But I understand why you did it. I should never have said that,” said Sam.

“You were right. I’m lucky she’s even alive. If I hadn’t done that, she would have been so much safer when the world went to shit.”

“You can’t predict the future, Dean,” said Sam. “You were trying to protect her.”

“It all still went bad,” said Dean. “All I did was make her more vulnerable. I don’t know what to do.”

“You could tell her the truth.”

“She’ll think I’m nuts.”

“She seems to believe the you wiping her memories part. If she can believe that, she can probably handle the rest. Think about it. Croats are real. A year ago people would have thought this was insane. The way I see it, you’ve been out there a long, long time looking for her. If you want her to stay, you have got to tell her everything,” said Sam.

“What if she wants to leave then? It’s safe here,” said Dean.

“You have to respect her right to choose. You took that from her last time. Let her have it now,” said Sam.

“I know,” said Dean quietly. “It’s just...I know I hurt her when I did that. I could live with it though because she didn’t know. She was starting to have a good normal life. Then this happened and I hurt her for nothing. I made it worse. When I tell her, all I’m going to end up doing is hurt her again. She doesn’t deserve that. She never did.”

“Dean. The only problem you ever had when it came to Y/N was you loved her. It’s fine to want to protect her. But sometimes, you have to let people you love get hurt. You can’t protect them from everything. When that happens, they want you there to help them heal. You owe her the truth, De...and to cut yourself a break. You wanted better for her. There’s nothing wrong with that. Let her pick what better is though. It’s her life, not yours.”

“I’ll talk to her in the morning. We had a long day,” said Dean. “Thanks.”

“Night,” said Sam. You quickly headed back towards the room you were staying in. You heard Dean go past in the hall outside and round the corner, a door shutting in the distance. A few minutes later you wandered over to his room and knocked on the wood.

“Yeah?” he said. You pushed it open and saw him sitting on the edge of the bed in a shirt and pair of boxers. “Do you need something, Y/N?”

“I sort of heard you and Sam just now,” you said. He nodded and looked down to his lap. “I don’t know you anymore. I don’t know what we used to talk about or how we used to. I don’t know why you did what you did. But I do know I felt something the second I saw you. I know that you made a mistake and I know you did it to protect me. I know I’ll forgive you for it too.”

“Why?” he asked.

“Because you tried to help me. I won’t be mad at you for that,” you said.

“I took away your memories and I don’t think I can get them back,” he said.

“I guess you’re just gonna have to get me to fall in love with you a second time then,” you said. He stared at you and you stepped inside, sitting beside him. “You did it once. It shouldn’t be too hard the second.”

“You don’t even know me and you’re still...you,” he said. “I’m sorry.”

“I forgive you.”

“You shouldn’t.”

“I think it’s my choice, Dean.”

“But why? I thought you didn’t trust me.”

“You love me. You went looking all that way for me to make sure I was safe, in the middle of the end of the world. You don’t do that for people you don’t care about,” you said.

“If you change your mind, it’s okay. I understand,” he said.

“Okay,” you said. You took one of the hands in his lap and held it, Dean turning his head. “Don’t count on it though.”

“Alright,” he said as he ran his thumb over your skin. “It’s late. You should head to bed. I’m sure you haven’t slept on a mattress in a long time.”

“I haven’t,” you said. You leaned back and shut your eyes. “Feels good.”

“You don’t have to stay if you don’t want to,” he said. “I know I’m a stranger.”

“I know. I want to if that’s alright,” you said. He hummed and lay back himself. “I like that picture over there. On your dresser.”

He was quiet and you opened your eyelids, glancing over at him as he looked at you.

“We look happy,” you said.

“We were,” he said.

“Maybe someday we can get back to that,” you said. You smiled and he returned it. “Thanks for coming to make sure I was okay.”

“Always, sweetheart. Always.”

_______

[crackinglamb]

WIP Wednesday

Tagged by @noire-pandora, thank you! 🥰

Tagging @ranaspkillnarieth, @rosebud1773, @serial-chillr, @mogwaei, @ir0n-angel, @rosella-writes, @doomhippy83, @pikapeppa and @about2dance. No pressure!

I just finished writing Lark and Co. in Crestwood. I love this questline and map. There are so many layers to it. Like, c'mon, you literally open a dam to unveil a village destroyed by Blight and one man's decision for the greater good (or his own neck, take your pick). *gets hit with a microcosm of Dread Wolf symbolism like a brick to the small of the back*

Ahem...right...moving on. Have some Lark and Iron Bull.

---

She drew on her pipe and found the bowl empty. Enough heat remained from the last ember to taste scorched. With a muttered curse and twisted expression, she set about clearing it out. The rain had stopped for now, and in the light of the moons the village appeared merely sleeping rather than destroyed. Every now and then the glow of a spirit showed between the waterlogged and decaying beams of the houses, but otherwise it was still and dark.

Well, save the rift, glowing up through fissures in the ground. Without the water to amplify its light, it was more diffuse and pale, but it couldn't be ignored. In the morning, she and her team would venture under the village to the caves and hopefully seal it.

A large shadow fell over her and she glanced up to see the Iron Bull come to stand next to her. From her angle she couldn't see his good eye, but his expression was grave as he stared out across the ruined village.

“It was a tough choice to make,” he murmured. “Flooding the place.”

“It was both cowardly and tactical,” she replied. She laid her pouch of pipe leaves on the low stone of the railing and finished scraping her bowl clean. She selected a sweet blend to pack and for a while there was only the sound of tamping between them. He offered her a sulfur match from somewhere and she was reminded for an instant of the day in the Hinterlands when Solas had lit her pipe from his finger. It was almost sad to reflect on the simplicity of those days compared to now. She looked back out at the view while she lit the bowl, a frown creasing her brow. “It was no different than Orzammar cutting itself off from the rest during the fall of our empire. It saved lives at the cost of others.”

“That's the nature of war.”

A hint of summer cherries coated her tongue as she let the smoke wreathe around her head as she cocked it at him. She took in his bleak look and clenched jaw. “The Blight is worse than war. It's the ceaseless battle against an entropy that can think. You've never had to face it, have you? Your people have never been overrun by it.”

“I was in Orlais ten years ago. I heard tales.”

“Not the same,” she scoffed. “For us, dwarva, I mean, it never ends. It is a part of my makeup just as much as my name. Darkspawn are kith and kin.” He looked down at her then, his eye wide and questioning. She offered him a bitter smile. “The majority of the hoards that rise are made up of genlocks. There were once many thaigs spanning the Deep Roads, great and small. My own clan's included. Now there are two.”

She let the statement stand without further explanation. She knew he could do the math himself; he was an intelligent man behind his cavalier attitude and soft belly. She'd watched him fight. She knew what strength lay beneath the surface. On many levels.

She finished her pipe and emptied it against her palm with hollow sounding slaps. When she looked back into camp, she found Solas's eyes on her, gleaming in the dark like a cat's. She didn't linger on him and instead put away all her things, drawing their pouch closed tight. “Get some rest, Bull. You'll need it.”