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weasleylangs · 4 years ago

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secrets i have held in my heart - f.w

Pairing: Fred x Fem!Reader Summary: Everyone in the twins’ lives mix them up once in a while, except for Y/N. Fred is dying to know how. Warnings: Some angst with a happy ending, yes I wrote oblivious Fred again with miscommunication issues, what about it, some swearing, brief mention of the war but obviously this is a FredLives!AU :D, mentions of sex but nothing descriptive it’s like one line, - everyone is 18+ by the way! Word Count: 4k

A/N: For the anon who requested super secret mutual pining with some angst where the reader is the only person who can tell the twins apart! Thank you so much for requesting. This has also been cross-posted on AO3 (frederickweasleys) as per the anon’s request!

Also, I didn’t want to write about a 17 and 15 year old pining after each other, so I made everyone older and it’s postwar, however I was like 2000 words into the fic when I remembered George got his mf ear blasted off in DH so…. U do not see that it’s not canon in this fic thank you

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The sun is blaring down on The Burrow and everyone is starting to wonder the likelihood of getting heatstroke. They’re in the south-west of England and the weather doesn’t usually get above the early 20s in the middle of August, however, mother nature has decided to wreak havoc and today is almost 30°.

Y/N is looking at the pages in her book but she’s not processing anything on the pages. She’s so appreciative of the relaxing life she and all her loved ones finally have. The war ended last year, and while Y/N isn’t family, Molly and Arthur are always insistent she’s welcomed at The Burrow for their Sunday roast dinners.

So she sits under a tree, the muggle fantasy novel in hand as Molly is busy prepping dinner and her friends all play quidditch. Hermione’s been refereeing them despite having no actual knowledge of the rules, and right now, she’s waving Harry’s copy of ‘Quidditch Through The Ages’ at one of the twins trying to prove a point, fully aware she’s going to get nowhere with him. He’s laughing at her and he raises the hand holding the beater’s bat as he threatens to (softly) hit her with it when he looks over her shoulder and spots his favourite girl perched under the tree with his mum’s homemade lemonade.

Before Y/N knows it, the bat’s been thrown in her direction, barely missing her and hitting the tree behind her, and when she looks up, she immediately recognises the twin as Fred. Fred and Y/N are almost two sides of the same coin and their friendship has always been considered unlikely. Fred loves mischief and pranks and he’s extremely exuberant where Y/N is a ‘stickler for the rules’ (Fred’s words, not hers) and she’d much rather spend her day reading than playing quidditch. But their friendship blossomed and eventually for Y/N her feelings evolved into more.

But Y/N is one of Ron’s best friends, and having a crush on her best friend’s older brother is weird, even if they are 19 and 21.

“Hi Freddie,” she says, dog-earing the page and closing her novel, accepting now that Fred’s in her presence, the book isn't getting read again until tonight, “no more quidditch?”

The ginger gives her a shit-eating grin and completely ignores her question, “Darling, I’m George.”

Y/N squints at him for a brief moment, second-guessing herself but the longer she looks at him the more she’s sure it’s Fred, not George in front of her. “No, you’re Fred. I’ve known you for how long? Just accept I can tell you apart.”

Fred mutters a ‘fuck’ under his breath as he sits down. He’s always loved that Y/N is the only person who can tell them apart, his own family struggling sometimes and especially when they’re apart. But no matter what, she somehow gets it right every single time and he’s dying to know how.

“You’re never going to tell me how you do it, are you?” He questions and she replies how she always does when he asks, blaming it on intuition and that she doesn’t know how she does it. As always, he doesn’t believe her. Y/N secretly does have a way of easily telling the twins apart, not rooted in intuition in the slightest but she doesn’t want to tell him.

The truth is, the way her heart races when Fred looks or speaks to her is her way of telling them apart. Fred always has a mischievous glint in his brown eyes and the way he looks at Y/N makes her feel like she’s the only girl in the world. George is sweet, loving and exceptionally kind- he was there as a source of comfort and calmness for Y/N when the trio disappeared during their 7th year to hunt Horcruxes, when she and her family went into hiding. She loves George like she would love a brother, like how she loves Ron and Harry, but the love Y/N has for Fred is different and the catalyst for her ability to tell them apart.

“I’m going to get you one day. One day George and I will swap and you’ll get it wrong and as a reward for finally tricking the oh so wonderful Miss Y/N Y/L/N, you’ll tell me how you tell us apart.”

It’s not even an hour later when Fred and George come down wearing each other’s clothing. Y/N’s well aware Fred prefers to wear warm and bright colours while George likes to wear the dark colours in their coordinated clothing, so seeing Fred walk down the stairs in George’s purple shirt and vice versa is funny, despite the fact they’re identical twins, Y/N thinks they look ridiculous and unfamiliar.

“George put the purple back on. You look weird in orange,” she says, as she goes back to help Molly with the vegetables for dinner and soon after she speaks, she hears someone angrily kick the table. She looks up from her potatoes she’s been peeling to see an entertained George and Fred who looks like he’s going to throw a child-size tantrum.

“How!” He exclaims again, pulling the shirt up over his head, shoving it in George’s hands and stomping back upstairs to change. Y/N is about to follow him, genuine concern for Fred in tow. She knows he’s most likely just being dramatic to cause a ruckus but there’s a small part of her that considers he might be serious.

“He’s fine, Y/N,” George states, changing his shirts and throwing Fred’s orange one over the back of the chair as he sits down, “I think he’s trying to rile you up into telling him how you do it.”

She laughs at this, knowing that while she might not have told him, the look in George’s eye hints that he’s picked up on her feelings for his twin brother. But before she can say anything, Ron comes bounding down the stairs and right into the kitchen, Harry in tow. They’re both looking for food and when Ron’s hand makes his way towards the ham, Y/N smacks him.

“Don’t spoil your dinner,” she scolds which causes Harry to laugh.

“But, mum,” Ron mockingly replies, “All the quidditch got me hungry!” He might be 19 but he’s sulking like a 10-year-old boy and Y/N thinks temper tantrums might run in the Weasley family.

When Molly isn’t looking, however, Y/N sneaks him a piece of ham and Ron jumps up quickly, smacking a kiss to her cheek, “You’re the best!” he whispers as he quickly shoves the piece of ham in his mouth to not be caught by his mother.

Soon enough, everyone’s crammed into the small kitchen and Molly waves them all out except Y/N, who she insists stays. She thinks it’s because she was already helping with the vegetables but when she’s about to ask for her next task, Molly has a rare mischievous glint in her eye.

“How do you tell my sons apart?” She enquires and Y/N groans. She hasn’t been asked how she tells the twins apart this often since she was at Hogwarts and before she can speak, Molly continues, “it’s just no one can besides us, and even then, sometimes I catch myself calling George, Fred sometimes.”

Y/N sighs. She loves Molly like her own mother, but she loves to meddle like every mother.

“I just know, I wish I had some excuse like a mother’s instinct, but I just know,” Y/N pauses and thinks how to word her next statement without spilling too much for potential eavesdroppers and Extendable Ears to hear, “They have different energies. I think I pick up on it easily.”

Y/N hopes that’s enough for Molly to drop the conversation at hand and while Molly hums in agreement, she reads between the lines. She’s known for a while that Y/N carries a flame for the oldest twin, after all the way Y/N looks at Fred is the same way she looks at Arthur, so she’s hoping for the day they both stop dancing around their feelings.

She already loves Y/N like a daughter, and she’d like it to be official one day.

After dinner, the girls are all holed up in Ginny’s room. She loves staying at The Burrow. Y/N never grew up with sisters and her friendship with Hermione and Ginny are the closest she gets to them. They usually gossip, who’s dating who, who’s already getting married, sometimes it gets juicy and someone’s pregnant.

When Ginny and Harry, and Hermione and Ron finally got together, they gushed for hours about how it finally happened and how excited they all were.

Tonight, unfortunately, the topic at hand is Y/N and Fred.

“When are you going to tell him?” Ginny enquires as she smooths out her face mask. Hermione’s braiding Y/N’s hair and when she doesn’t reply, Hermione grasps some hair and gives a hard tug. Y/N yelps and while Hermione mutters an apology, she doesn’t miss the wink she gives Ginny in the mirror.

“Tell Fred what exactly?”

“About your feelings for him,” Ginny replies like it’s the most obvious thing in the world that everyone should have known. Y/N starts to stutter, trying to find words to deny her feelings but these are her two best girl friends, her sisters and she can’t lie to them no matter how much she wants to.

“Okay fine, they exist but he’s never knowing,” she states, a matter of factly as if it’s something to be proud of, “and he’s never finding out. I’m looking at you, Ginevra.” Ginny inherited her love to meddle from her mother, and if Y/N is positive about anything it’s that Ginny is going to meddle to get her best friend and brother together.

“I’m pretty sure he likes you back,” Hermione says. She prides herself on being observant but even she didn’t notice Ron’s feelings for her until he quite literally put his lips on hers.

“I’m just his little siblings’ best friend, Hermione, I doubt it,” she says as she grabs the tiny elastics to secure her hair. “Besides, I think he has a thing with one of the girls from his year at school.”

“You’re choosing now of all days to get the wrong twin? George is dating Angelina. Fred hasn’t even been seen with a girl since he slept with one of Fleur’s cousins at the wedding.” Ginny says and something about this makes Y/N blush, almost happy that Fred’s been single for as long as she has, but the jealousy is in the back of her mind.

“... Shut up,” Y/N laughs as she grabs the nearest pillow and smacks Ginny over the head with it. This causes chaos in Ginny’s tiny bedroom and soon enough all three girls are defending themselves with pillows and jumping around the bedroom.

What none of the girls knew, however, was Fred standing outside of the bedroom, eavesdropping. He’s always been curious about what the girls talk about when the boys aren’t around and Fred reckons if he doesn’t have to hear about his little siblings’ sex life, it doesn’t hurt anybody.

Except it does, and he hurts himself. He arrived just in time for Ginny to question why Y/N doesn’t admit her feelings to someone. At first, Fred was hopeful, especially when the conversation steers in the direction of her liking one of the twins. After all, Bill’s married, Percy’s… Well, he’s Percy and Charlie isn’t in England enough for him to believe Y/N was able to develop feelings for him.

So that leaves himself and George from context clues. He’s always had a crush on her ever since they were in school, but he was always worried about coming off as creepy, pining after someone two years below him.

But then Y/N says ‘I think he has a thing with one of the girls from his year at school’ and he walks off before he even hears the rest of the conversation, hearing the apparent confirmation of Y/N’s feelings for George.

The summer is still sweltering hot when she decides to visit Diagon Alley three days later. She’s shopping for her nephew when she ends up in Weasley’s Wizard Wheezes. Fred was unusually quiet when she said goodbye to him on Monday morning before she floo’d away to her job at the Ministry and she’s hoping to catch him at the shop during quiet hour.

When she walks in, she’s met with a bell ringing and the voice that calls out ‘Hi, how are you today!’ doesn’t make her heart race so she immediately knows she’s caught the wrong twin at the counter.

“Hey, Georgie!” She makes her way over to the counter. It’s a Wednesday morning, so the shop has a lull in customers and he’s doing what Y/N assumes is a stock take of whizbangs. He gives her a nice smile as she potters her way over to him. She stops in front of the love potions, smelling the familiar scent of cinnamon, fireworks and something that can only be described as happiness in the small bottles. She’s so entranced for a moment that she doesn’t even notice George make his way up next to her.

“You don’t need one of these, by the way,” He whispers as he winks, looking behind him and seeing Fred standing on top of the spiral staircase not looking the happiest.

“You’re the second person to tell me that this week,” she mutters, quickly putting the love potion vial down, “I don’t know what any of you mean.”

George chuckles at her obliviousness. It’s been obvious since they were teenagers about the feelings both Fred and Y/N harbour for each other but he can’t help but admit it’s just the tiniest bit funny. Like it’s a joke they’re all in on except the oblivious couple themselves.

“It’s because we’re more observant than you, darling,” George says, absent-mindedly fixing the display so it looks presentable. Y/N’s about to question him when someone clears their throat behind them- an elderly gentleman shopping for some grandkids when George excuses himself with the promise ‘this isn’t over’.

Fred watched the interaction from the staircase and while he didn’t hear anything, he feels like he’s gotten punched in the stomach. He knows he’s never directly told George about his feelings for Y/N, and George is dating Angelina anyway and he’d never betray her, but he can’t ignore the slight feeling of upset he feels when he sees them interact.

“I think Y/N likes you,” Fred says nonchalantly and George almost chokes on his tea. It takes him a moment to fix his breathing before he looks at Fred like he’s got three heads.

“No, she doesn’t?” George questions, like it’s the most obvious thing in the entire world and that upsets Fred slightly. He’s not upset at George, he never has and he never will be upset with George, but it seems like his comment was brushed off without any deeper consideration.

“No, I think she does,” Fred says, twiddling his quill between his fingers as he stares at the tax invoice in front of him. Wednesday night is budget night and Fred knows he’s not going to get any work done if his mind is stuck on Y/N and her feelings for George.

“No, mate, she doesn’t,” George huffs and Fred notices the eye roll George gives him. George only ever gives him eye rolls when he’s being oblivious. Like when Fred spent 20 minutes looking for his wand last week only to find it in his pocket.

Fred’s convinced George is just being oblivious, blinded by his new relationship with Angelina that he hasn’t noticed Y/N’s feelings for him. “Do you wonder how she can tell us apart?”

George huffs in annoyance as a reply and Fred pouts as he attempts to go back to his taxes. He’s reread the same line three times when George finally speaks.

“I think it’s got something to do with her feelings for us. She feels differently about one twin.” George is intentionally being coy, hoping to Godric that Fred caught the pointed stare and the emphasis but Fred wasn’t looking and the longer he dwells on what George has said the more he’s convinced he doesn’t have a chance with Y/N at all.

It’s the weekly Sunday roast again and Fred isn’t expecting to floo into The Burrow and be met almost face to face with Y/N. He’s planned on ignoring her today, purposely volunteering to do any work needed at the shop while George floo’s to The Burrow early in the afternoon.

It teeters on 5 pm when Fred finally arrives and he’s quickly engulfed in a hug by his mother with his father behind him telling him to stop working on Sundays as ‘Sundays are for family’. With a kiss to his mum’s forehead and a promise to his dad that he’ll force George into doing the Sunday work next week, who throws a piece of stale bread at Fred’s head while exclaiming ‘you offered!’ he quickly makes his way away from Y/N.

Molly’s quick to serve up dinner now Fred’s here, complaining he’s starving already. He quickly steals the seat next to Ron and pulls George down next to him- not wanting to allow Y/N to sit either side of him. Usually, she sits between Ron and Fred and when she turns the corner and the only available seat is the furthest from Fred, her heat sinks a little.

Dinner is pleasant, it always is at The Burrow. Hermione and Y/N talk about the ministry while Ginny tells stories of her Holyhead Harpies tryouts she had during the week. Y/N might let slip she works with the coach’s sister-in-law and overheard some high praise for a certain Miss. Weasley and Ginny’s eyes fill with tears when she hears this.

There’s a quick lull in conversation as Molly waves her wand and the now empty plates make their way into the kitchen, children following behind them ready to help wash up but Fred makes his way outside. He likes to watch the sunset, the sun slowly dipping behind the hills where he learnt how to play quidditch as a kid as the sun becomes shades of orange.

He’s sitting under the tree when Y/N follows him out. She’s shouting his name trying to find him. He slipped out without anyone noticing and that’s unusual for Fred so something is wrong. When she spots him, she starts jogging over and she can’t tell if he’s ignoring her or can’t hear her calling his name, so she tries something.

“George?”

Fred turns, a smirk subconsciously forming on his lips and Y/N finally feels seen by him in a week. “It took me calling you your brother’s name to get your attention?” She asks, kicking sticks out of the way before she takes a seat next to him.

“No, love. Just shocked you finally got us mixed up,” he replies, shoving her a little with his elbow. He knows she only did it to get his attention, but he’s Fred Weasley and he’s going to use this to his advantage. “I believe I told you when you get us mixed up, you’re legally required to tell me how you do it. I’m all ears.” He wiggles his eyebrows but deep down, he’s scared George’s assumption is right.

She rolls her eyes, but the love she has for this boy in her heart can’t be kept a secret anymore. This week she’s felt like he’s been ignoring her and while she and Fred are no means ‘best friends’, not like she is with the others, she’s felt a little piece of her universe missing knowing he’s been upset.

“You and George, I… I feel different about you to how I feel about George,” she starts and Fred’s breath hitches. He doesn’t know if he’s going to storm off or throw up so he just sits and stares at a rock. “George makes me feel comfortable. He’s always willing to talk to me about anything, feeds into the fact I can speak for hours on end about any topic if you let me,” she laughs and her nervousness is in her throat. She notices Fred isn’t looking at her and it’s making her want to run away.

“But you, you feel like home, Freddie. The way my heart races when I hear you speak or when you look at me. It’s the biggest indicator of how I tell you guys apart. George and you may be identical but the way you both make me feel is so different.” She’s whispering now and she’s realised Fred is looking at her so intently that the Earth might open up and swallow her whole.

“Like, home?”

She smiles softly and takes his big hand that’s been messing with rocks into her small ones. “Like I can tell you anything and you’ll never judge me. I could be having the worst day of my life and one joke from you can make me smile even if I’ve been crying for hours.” Her thumb starts to rub along the top of his hand and the way he shivers doesn’t miss her.

“I’m trying to say, in a round-about kind of way, that I’m in love with you, Freddie,” her voice is shaky but there’s no backing out now. “I’m in love with you and this past week where it’s felt like you’re mad at me has me so confused because I don’t know what I did.”

Fred feels incredibly guilty now, he was so caught up in his own feelings that he didn’t stop to think how his actions would affect Y/N. “I thought you liked George,” he whispers, and he feels his cheeks heat up in embarrassment. “I thought you liked George and not me and I didn’t want to be near you knowing that.”

She giggles and drops his hands to run her fingers through his hair. It’s still short but she thinks she can convince him to grow it out again. “Me? George? Not even for a second.”

“Why not?” The joking in Fred’s voice is there but so is the genuine curiosity.

“I don’t know. It’s just always been you, ever since I was 11 and you were bullying Ron into performing a spell to turn Scabbers yellow.” She laughs at the memory, watching scrawny Fred bully his small brother on the train platform.

Fred looks down at her, her hands now playing at the hair at the back of his neck and he feels goosebumps rise across his skin. He wants nothing more to lean down and press a kiss to her lips and when he realises he never actually admitted his feelings to Y/N back, he starts to lean down, hoping to convey everything he feels for her through a kiss.

She’s quick to catch on and she leans up so quickly they almost bump noses. It’s messy, like most first kisses are, especially in an awkward sitting down position but the love they have for each other is there and obvious. They pull away when they’re barely kissing anymore, just smiling and laughing into each other’s mouths.

“Does this mean we’re dating now?” Fred asks. It’s a dumb question, they both know it but when Y/N pretends to think he stands up and hauls her over his shoulders and starts swinging her around. The giggles that erupt from her make Fred’s heart swell and he’s about to put her down just to get down on one knee himself and propose right then and there.

“Yes, Freddie, if you want me to be your girlfriend then I’m yours.” Y/N replies and Fred smiles, he loves that. Not Y/N being his, he could never believe she’s an object, but she loves him and he loves her and now he understands why George was rolling his eyes at him.

“As long as you don’t get George and I mixed up in bed, I’m all yours.” He says it jokingly, but the smack he receives from Y/N is no joke and when he starts swinging her around again, he’ll forever make dumb jokes like this if he gets to hear her laugh like that for the rest of his days.

#fred weasley fanfiction #fred weasley x reader #fred weasley imagine #fred weasley one shot #fred weasley

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bluerose5 · 3 years ago

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The Ghost of Paradise (Exile AU)

Chapter 1: Exiled

Rating: M

Word Count: 3,791

Tags: Mass Effect: Andromeda, Reyder, Exiles AU, Pre-Relationship, Drinking, Mentions of Recreational Drug Use

[Read it here on ao3.]

If there was one thing Scott used to his advantage, it was the fact that people always seemed to underestimate him. They thought him to be that sweet, lovable guy that almost everyone got along with. To them, he was simply a normal, everyday soldier who bought the Initiative's pitch like everyone else and took the leap across galaxies on a hunch.

Granted, most of that was somewhat true, but not entirely.

Like the other exiles, Scott didn't exactly wait around for someone else to come swooping in to save the day when the Initiative went to shit. Given that he was part of the original Pathfinder mission team —sent ahead on the Nexus to help prepare for the ark's arrival— he was supposed to have more say, should worse come to worst.

Yeah, because that turned out so well.

It wasn’t for lack of trying. When it was clear that the arks were delayed, it fell to Scott and the others sent ahead by their Pathfinders to call the shots on that end. That was what they had agreed upon per protocol before departing from the Milky Way.

Of course, Nexus leadership had something to say about that. They backtracked hard, citing inexperience and the lack of SAM as reasons to keep the Pathfinders' Nexus representatives from gaining power.

All Tann seemed to worry about was maintaining control over the populace, even when his choices didn't seem to be in everyone's best interests.

One after another, every attempt to establish an outpost failed. Naturally, hope began to dwindle over time, as would be expected after so many failures. It was brutal to watch, especially since Nexus leadership absolutely refused to send any of the Pathfinders' designated representatives. Scott didn't fully understand that decision. Maybe Tann thought that if he gave them an inch, then they would take a mile. Perhaps he was intimidated by the very thought that they might vie for the Pathfinder position yet again.

In the end, it didn't matter.

Scott didn't leave because they refused him the fancy title and its accompanying throne.

No, Scott left because of the utter incompetence. Kesh could handle her own as superintendent, but Tann and Addison were both a piece of work in their own right, making idiotic decisions yet never owning up to their mistakes. Making decisions that affected everyone yet never listening to the opinions of the public.

It was maddening, and Scott's eventual departure was inevitable.

Joining up with the uprising was one thing he couldn’t bring himself to regret. Scott fought to get innocent people off that station and to safety. Not everyone who left was a criminal, and they deserved better than what they got.

By the time they made it to Kadara, Scott was already tiring of Heleus. He helped take down the kett, didn't really get any credit for doing so, and jumped ship as soon as he could.

After Sloane took control of the port, Scott escaped into the badlands every now and then, only returning on occasion. She might have had good intentions in the beginning, but Scott didn’t like the direction her leadership was taking in regards to their future.

Besides, with trouble brewing between the Collective and the Outcasts, it seemed like he took the right step in venturing out on his own.

At first, he kept to himself, but it was impossible to ignore the people in need of help.

Seeds of corruption were already planted in the Outcasts' organization. Not that the Charlatan and their Collective were much better. Everything about the two factions' activities spelled trouble for all of the "little people" getting caught in the crossfire.

Scott had to do something. Ignoring the problem would only make it worse, leaving it to fester and spread like an unwelcome infection.

The gangs could beat each other up as much as they liked, but Scott was determined to make the planet safe for those who merely sought shelter from the madness. It took weeks of scouting out areas with a decent enough bedrock, weeks of surveying the angaran filtration systems, to even have a blueprint for a working water filter.

Of course, being an engineer had its perks.

Eventually, Scott managed to rig his tactical cloak for prolonged use and infiltrated one of the angaran hubs out in the badlands. He made it out with no collateral damage, taking off in the dead of night with scans of their systems. It gave him enough of an understanding to integrate their design into his own plans.

Did he feel bad for stealing as he did? Yes. Could he afford to linger on the guilt, knowing that those angara were denying the Milky Way species access to their plans? No.

Not when survival was on the line.

It was either keep giving them insane amounts of credits and supplies in exchange for a measly cup of water or take it for himself.

Scott was only glad he got in and out undetected. He would fight if he had to, but he wasn't bloodthirsty to the point that he actively sought out confrontation.

Building and perfecting his own filters took time and resources, even more so than usual since he was careful to keep any transactions out of the port under the radar. It was worth it, though. Before long, Scott had a working filtration system under his control.

And on Kadara, where there was fresh water, people soon followed.

Any exiles without gang affiliation were welcome. Most were wary to move to the area at first, understandably so, but Scott didn't force the matter. After all, it was difficult to verify whether or not this new town was a trap or the real thing. How could the exiles guarantee that it wouldn't turn out like all the other towns trying to get a start in the badlands? There one day, and burned to the ground by the next.

Hell, Scott didn't even attach his name to the place . Taking a page out of the Charlatan's book, Scott preferred a more discreet approach to leadership.

However, even Scott knew that, if he was ever going to get the place functioning properly, he would need to win some people over to his side.

Dr. Nakamoto had been the best person to off start with, and Scott didn't regret choosing him for a second. In exchange for retrieving his formula for Oblivion, Dr. Nakamoto promised his services as Scott's resident physician.

Luckily, his patients were more than happy to follow. Some even stayed, and word soon spread.

The rest, as they say, is history.

The locals started calling the place Paradise. A cheesy enough name, but it came down to a vote so Scott allowed it.

Compared to the surrounding cesspool that was the badlands, Scott figured he could understand why they would call it that. It felt like an oasis in an otherwise desolate wasteland, a place where one could go and catch their breath.

As for Paradise's "elusive leader," there was just as much speculation around their identity as there was around the Charlatan's. Although, unlike the Charlatan, all of the residents under Scott's care have met him, and all remained tight-lipped about who he was.

He was grateful for their loyalty. He never asked for it, but he was grateful nonetheless.

It prevented the gangs from painting a target on any one person's back. There were the occasional attacks on the community, but their people were stronger and smarter than the outlaws gave them credit for.

As stories of Scott's ventures spread, infiltrating and sabotaging both the Collective's and the Outcasts' operations to provide for his own people, Kadara Port started to buzz about this mysterious third party that joined in on Kadara's power play.

Truth was, Scott wasn't looking for power or influence.

He was simply looking to protect and provide, no matter the cost.

The Ghost, they called him, known for sneaking in and out without a trace.

And any time he was detected, there were never any witnesses left to tell the tale.

Those at Paradise always got a kick out of the nickname, refusing to let him live it down.

That was fine, though. Scott would rather be the people's boogeyman than to let their opposition think that Paradise will just roll over on their backs and let everyone else fuck them over without retaliation.

On Kadara, it was a dog-eat-dog kind of world. Any sign of weakness will be quickly taken advantage of.

But Scott played his part well.

Nowadays, he lived in the port more often than not, putting up with Sloane's ridiculous protection fees in order to keep the suspicion off himself and those around him.

At the slightest hint of trouble, Paradise had an emergency beacon equipped that would ping Scott's omni-tool at a moment's notice. He had the utmost faith in their capabilities, but he would be there at the drop of a hat, should he be signaled.

For now, it was time he sat back, kicked up his feet, and listened.

Crazy all the things you could find out just from listening to a conversation here or there.

As soon as Scott sat down at the bar in Kralla’s, he asked Umi for his usual.

“Starting a tab?” she asked as she wiped down the bar.

Scott was almost afraid to ask if that was blood or wine staining the rag that she was using. Then again, ignorance was bliss.

Such was the way of life on Kadara.

Scanning the area, Scott eventually nodded.

“Might as well.” He gave a long, drawn-out sigh. “I’m meeting with Reyes soon. Cheap bastard never pays for his drinks.”

“Yet you keep letting him get away with it,” Umi noted.

Scott chuckled.

“Best not to burn bridges over a few drinks,” he said, “especially when this bridge in particular filters a large majority of the goods coming in and out Kadara.”

“Whatever floats your boat, Ryder.”

While Umi continued to mix his drink, Scott tuned into the conversations around him. One caught his attention right off the bat, focused on the latest topic of discussion that was making its rounds throughout the Port.

“I’m tellin’ ya!” the human griped, words slightly slurred. “That damn place is a cult. All exclusive-like. I swear, that lot would rather sacrifice their firstborns than give up the name of their precious leader.”

“Hmph, doesn’t matter,” their salarian companion muttered. “If the outlaws in the badlands don’t take care of that group soon, chances are that Sloane or the Charlatan will, leader or no leader.”

Heh, Scott would like to see them try.

Speaking of the devil himself, Scott tensed the second he felt hands upon his shoulders, only to relax once he heard that familiar voice whisper in his ear.

“You look like you’re waiting for someone,” Reyes breathed, his lips brushing lightly along the shell of his ear.

Without missing a beat, Scott brushed him off with a playful glare.

“You’re late,” he scolded. He tried his best to sound indifferent, unimpressed. His relationship with Reyes has always been complicated at best. “As always.”

Releasing Scott from his hold, Reyes claimed the spot at his side, pretending to look properly chastised.

“I swear, it won’t happen again,” he said. He even made a show of crossing his heart. “I promise.”

“And yet, I don’t believe you.”

“Well, that’s because I was lying.”

Scott snorted, “At least you’re honest about something.”

That’s not even taking into account the whole Charlatan business, something that Reyes seemed to hold extra close to his chest with Scott around. Scott couldn’t tell if it was because Reyes had his own suspicions about him, or if he withheld that information for some other reason unbeknownst to Scott.

Either way, it took Scott a while to put the pieces together himself. Not too long, considering that the majority of the port was still puzzled over the Charlatan’s identity, but it was long enough for Scott to be as certain as humanly possible without having Reyes spell it out for him.

It was simple, really, once Scott knew what to look for. How Reyes slipped up one time about where the Collective’s base was, only to brush it off as mere rumor. How, on any job they took together, Reyes was the first to volunteer to follow up on any Collective leads. Or, better yet, how he seemed so certain whether or not an incident coincided with the Charlatan’s MO if the Charlatan was the one being implicated.

Safe to say, spend enough time with the man, and it became rather obvious over time.

As Keema was all too eager to point out, Reyes liked to think he was so subtle when, in reality, he’s not. Well, not as much as he assumed, at least.

On the other hand, maybe the Charlatan’s secret identity only became apparent to Scott because Reyes wanted him to figure it out.

If that was the case, then Scott would have to open that can of worms another day.

Right now, he needed to focus on why they were here.

Clearing his throat, Scott waited until Umi passed them their drinks and left, moving on to serve her other customers.

Scott grabbed ahold of Reyes’s sleeve and tugged. He waited until Reyes met his eyes, then jerked his chin in the direction of a nice, secluded table.

“Shall we?” he asked.

Reyes hummed, eyes twinkling mischievously.

“Trying to get me alone, Scott?” Resting against the bar, Reyes leaned in close, but Scott refused to move a single muscle, holding his ground. “You need only ask.”

“I’ll keep that in mind then,” Scott said. He gave Reyes a blatant once-over, sparing his lips an appreciative glance. “It’s not every day that I get the great Reyes Vidal all to myself.”

“Keep buttering me up, Scott,” Reyes teased, “and I might just give you that discount after all.”

“Really?”

“No.”

Scott huffed.

Picking up their drinks, they soon settled in at the table that Scott had pointed out. From where they sat, they had a whole view of the bar.

Scott took a swig of his beer, and Reyes instantly followed suit, unable to take their eyes off of each other for even a second.

They sat their glasses back down with a solid thunk.

“Okay,” Scott started, “let’s get down to business.”

“Just like that?” Reyes laughed.

“Just like that.” Shuffling in place, Scott reached into his pocket and removed a small pouch filled with seeds. At Reyes’s curious expression, Scott explained, “My payment. A rather generous one, if I do say so myself.”

After Scott tossed the pouch onto the table, Reyes picked it up. He let its weight rest in the palm of his hand for a moment before loosening the ties to sneak a peek.

His brow furrowed in confusion.

“Seeds?” he questioned, cocking his head to the side.

“Yep,” Scott said, popping the ‘p’ for emphasis. “Seeds for a ‘medicinal herb.’ My scans confirmed it. It develops antibiotic-like properties as it matures, along with some other, more recreational effects.”

And by scans, Scott meant Nakamoto. Their resident doctor was quick to jump at the chance to study the plant’s effects, especially if it could help fight off future infections in Andromeda.

Scott had started off by “borrowing” a few plants from some of their local cultivators, returning the samples to the greenhouse that they had established in Paradise.

Their latest harvest yielded a surplus, so Scott figured that any leftover seeds would be a profitable bargaining chip for trade.

Turns out, he was right.

Reyes tightened his grip upon the pouch and pocketed it, now that he knew what he was getting out of their exchange.

“A valuable product,” Reyes acknowledged, “if what you say is true.”

Smirking, Scott leaned back in his chair, hand over his heart in mock offense.

“Now, Reyes, would I ever lie to my favorite smuggler?”

“True enough. You do have a soft spot for me.”

“You’re that certain, huh?”

“As a betting man, I would say that I’m confident in my chances of being right.”

He even had the gall to throw in a wink for good measure.

Scott’s face warmed, but he ignored the sensation, trying to calm his racing heart.

Of, if only he knew…

Clearing his throat, Scott returned their focus to the topic at hand.

“Also, with that herb, you don’t have to worry about any of those nasty addictive effects like with Oblivion,” Scott continued. “I guess the high you get from it could be considered slightly addictive in more of a mental sense, but it’s relatively harmless on a physiological level.”

Reyes raised an eyebrow at him.

“Sounds like you know from personal experience.”

“I, uh—” Scott stammered, caught red-handed. “Well, what kind of salesman would I be if I didn’t sample the product for myself?”

“A poor one, indeed,” Reyes agreed. “I’m only offended that you didn’t think to invite me to the party.”

“I’ll keep that in mind next time I feel the urge to smoke the space weed,” Scott deadpanned.

“Please, do.”

“Okay, okay.” Scott did his best to hide his laughter. His lip quivered at the corner. “Back to business, mister. You’re not taking my goods and leaving me with nothing again.” Reyes had charmed his way out of one too many deals with him in the past, but not anymore. “Where’s the goods?”

“Scott,” Reyes gasped. “I am offended you would think that I would stoop so low as to steal from my favorite exile.”

When it was clear that Scott wasn’t buying it, Reyes surrendered.

“Alright, here. One long-ranged scanner, ready for use.” Taking out a small package, Reyes pushed it pointedly across the table. Scott took it instantly, unable to express his gratitude in that moment. “Sorry that I didn’t have a chance to giftwrap it. My best only deserves the best, after all.”

Scott felt his heart skip a beat.

“Don’t think anything of it.” Scott shook his head, clutching tightly at the package. “This should be enough.”

“Glad to hear it.” Reyes paused, hesitating before coming out with it. “If you don’t mind me asking, what’s it for?”

“What else would I use a scanner for?” Scott countered. “I wasn’t on the Pathfinder’s mission team for nothing. We have a whole bunch of unexplored ruins scattered all over the surface of this planet, and I plan on getting some readings.”

To be more specific, he wanted a reading on their turrets if he could examine one at a safe distance. Even the beam technology from the Observer bots would be useful in formulating a defensive matrix for the t—

“You what?”

Uh-oh, someone was upset.

Scott grimaced. He carefully avoided Reyes’s gaze, filled with heat and disapproval.

“Reyes, come on,” Scott sighed. It was weird to see him so fiercely protective, to see him act like he cared about anything other than the next job he had lined up. “I’m a big boy. I’ll be careful.”

“Kadara’s most experienced scientists were careful,” Reyes snapped, “yet that didn’t stop the Remnant from butchering them like animals. Scott, there’s a reason why even the angara avoid those areas like the plague. The security measures alone…”

Could be what kept Scott’s people safe.

Sitting up straight, Scott held his head up high with renewed purpose, meeting Reyes’s eyes with a stubborn glare.

“I’m going,” he stated, “whether you like it or not. The information stored there might be vital to our continued survival. We can’t pass up an opportunity to learn the Remnant’s secrets.”

Reyes pursed his lips, but eventually acquiesced.

“Fine, but I’m accompanying you when you go.”

“That’s not your decision!”

“You’re not changing my mind.”

They stared each other down, caught at an impasse.

After a moment of tense silence between them, Reyes grumbled. Since that argument was obviously far from being over, he was more than willing to change the subject.

“I have another exchange for you.”

Now, that got Scott’s attention. Setting the scanner aside, he would make sure to install the upgrade into his omni-tool later, curious about this second trade-off.

They didn’t have anything else planned for today, and Reyes wasn’t usually the type to drop something like this on a client at the last second.

Whatever he found, it had to be huge.

“What is it?” Scott asked, wondering what the Charlatan himself had up his sleeve.

“A little bit of intel,” he offered, keeping his reply as vague as ever.

Still, if Reyes was offering the information, then it must be important. As shady as he could be at times, information was his forte. When Reyes used it as a bargaining chip, he meant business, and chances were that it was reliable.

Scott simply wondered if he actually wanted the news that Reyes had to offer.

“What’s the catch?” Scott asked, because nothing on Kadara came for free.

Reyes shrugged.

“My shuttle needs some repairs, and I only trust one person to fix her up. Mind coming by tomorrow?”

Scott pretended to consider his offer for a moment, but in the end, he could never say no to working on that old bird.

“Name the time and place.”

“I’ll send you the details later, but don’t make me wait up.”

“And deny you of my presence for even longer? That would just be cruel.”

“Glad we can agree on something.” Reyes’s smile soon twisted into a frown. That solemn expression certainly didn’t do any favors to ease Scott’s nerves. “As for that intel, you’ve heard of Vehn Terev, right?”

“The poor, unfortunate soul whose head is next up on Sloane Kelly’s chopping block?” After all, she couldn’t afford to upset the angara, not after word spread of Vehn's betrayal. That would threaten the balance of power too much, at least in her eyes. “I might have heard a thing or two.”

“Well, you’re about to hear much more in the coming days,” Reyes explained, watching him closely for any sign of change. “I recently received a message from Evfra. Apparently, Vehn has some useful intel of his own, intel that could potentially cripple the kett’s operations in all of Heleus for good. Evfra has arranged for me to meet with one of his contacts about securing Vehn’s release from prison.”

“A difficult feat if Sloane won’t comply,” Scott noted, “but I still don’t see why this information would be of any use to me.”

“Scott—” Reyes hesitated.

For once, he seemed genuinely nervous, which in turn caused Scott to panic a little on the inside.

What he said turned Scott’s entire world upside down.

“The contact is Pathfinder Ryder.”

#mass effect #mass effect andromeda #scott ryder #reyes vidal #reyder #mreyder #exile AU #my writing #my fanfic

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rockscanfly · 3 years ago

Text

the stars are not wanted now

The headline was several days old by the date in the corner. The cheap paper was peeling at the corners from the wall it’d been pasted to when Charles ripped it down. His mind was carefully blank as he hitched Lenny’s canvas-wrapped corpse higher on one shoulder. He stuffed the ripped page into his pants pocket.

It stayed there, smouldering, as he loaded Lenny onto Taima. Sadie was already seated on Bob, Hosea laid carefully behind her. Her eyes caught his, red and shining.

Charles was an hour into digging Lenny’s grave when it hit him: He was never going to see Arthur Morgan again.

Death’s messenger arrived in the form of the front page of The Saint Denis Times. TRAGEDY AT SEA! CARGOSHIP THE OQUENDO SUNK FIVE MILES OFF GUARMA COAST!

or,

Charles Smith, Sadie Adler, and the two deaths of Arthur Morgan.

Read below or at AO3.

----------------------

In the life of Charles Smith, death’s messengers had come in many forms.

The first was in the navy blue uniforms of American soldiers, their ghost pale hands wrapped tight over his mother’s arms as they dragged her from their tent, screaming and kicking.

Ten years later it was in a letter, sent by an old neighbor. It contained his father’s wedding ring, a family photo, and no explanation.

The way the whiskey had wafted off his father’s breath the night Charles left? There was no need for one.

Then it had been the sharp crack of a gunshot—one, two, three. Sean, Hosea, Lenny. There was the frightened whinny of a horse mixed in, and the sick, rotten-fruit plop of Kierran’s head as it fell from his cupped, bloody hands.

This messenger arrived in the form of the front page of The Saint Denis Times. TRAGEDY AT SEA! CARGOSHIP THE OQUENDO SUNK FIVE MILES OFF GUARMA COAST!

It stayed there, smouldering, as he loaded Lenny onto Taima. Sadie was already seated on Bob, Hosea laid carefully behind her. Her eyes caught his, red and shining.

Charles was an hour into digging Lenny’s grave when it hit him: He was never going to see Arthur Morgan again.

For twenty-seven years, careful restraint of his emotions had allowed Charles to survive. He’d never had the luxury of anger, of rage. An outburst from most members of the gang meant getting kicked out of the saloon, a fine, or a night in jail at worst.

For Charles, a length of rope looped over a tree branch was never far. America hated nothing more than a mutt, and to her people Charles was a rabid dog best put down at the first snarl.

So Charles learned control and calm. He learned to bury, to smother, to take everything burning in him and shove it somewhere safe. To put his feelings aside until he was alone and could take them out and look them over with no nervous trigger fingers or hateful eyes waiting for the first excuse—the first bitter word, sharp gesture, first hateful look.

Charles didn’t know what did it, what final burning hurt snuck into the tinderbox of his chest and sparked the blaze. If it was the seventh rock his shovel struck in the soft, sucking dirt, forcing him to fumble in the dark until he could haul it free and cast it out. If it was the heat, the chafe of sticky cotton on his damp skin. Could be it was the flies buzzing in his ears, or the way the sweat from his brow stung his eyes.

Maybe it was the sickly smell of rotting meat already coming from the sacks wrapped around Lenny and Hosea’s corpses, or the way there was no money for coffins to bury them in.

One moment Charles was digging side by side with Sadie, knee deep in the grave that would hold just one body of the second family that fate had torn from him.

And then he was kneeling in the sucking mud, hands fisted uselessly in the torn roots and crawling worms. Anguish tore howling from his throat, muffled against gritted teeth. Charles could taste copper coating the backs of his gums as he hunched in the dirt. His eyes clenched tight as his heart did its level best to tear itself from his chest, to strike out for a life less riddled with bullets, one that didn’t bleed loss like a butchered carcass or burn everything good up to ashes.

Charles was dimly aware, under the pounding of his own pulse in his ears, of Sadie’s soft cursing as she threw down her own shovel and climbed into Lenny’s half-dug grave beside him. The darkness behind his eyes became complete as she shuttered the lamp, plunging them into night. He flinched away as Sadie’s firm hand gripped his shoulder. “Don’t,” he growled. He didn’t want comfort. He wanted exorcism.

Sadie just gripped him tighter, blunt nails digging hard into the hunched muscle of his shoulder. “I know,” she rasped, kneeling before him, sharp knees pressed to his own. A choked cry strangled in Charles’s chest as her skinny, whipcord arms wrapped around him, pressing him to her chest.

“They’re gone,” he managed, gasping through the tightness in his lungs. He couldn’t get any air. “Lenny, Javier, Hosea—Arthur.” Charles made a fist, pounding senselessly at the dirt. “He, we—” Charles cut himself off, dug his nails deep into the flesh of his knee, and tried to claw the pain into his own skin.

A beat passed. One of Sadie’s palms gripped Charles at the back of his neck, cupped the back of his head gently. “Charles,” she said, voice rough and small, gentle. “Charles, I know.”

And it’s possible she did. She was one of the more observant folks in the camp. He and Arthur hadn’t really been very careful. Nothing too blatant, no. But anyone could have read into the casual ease with which Arthur touched his shoulder, the way their knees almost touched as they sat by the fire. The way Charles would return from guard duty with his hair mussed, leaves of grass clinging to the back of his shirt, the trailing ends of his hair. How Arthur would sit on a stump, failing utterly to conceal that he was sketching Charles as he chopped wood or hauled water.

Arthur was not a cautious man by nature. He often made Charles foolish.

More important than any of their thousand tiny, dangerous indiscretions was the fact that Arthur had trusted Sadie. It was possible the big, soft-hearted idiot told her about them. Maybe one day Charles would have it in him to be angry about that, at Arthur for putting them both at risk without asking him first. Reckless, impulsive, trusting.

Gone.

Charles leaned heavily into Sadie’s grip, buried his face in the sweat and dirt streaked cotton of her shoulder. “How did you live through this?” He hissed, breath hitching. It felt like nettles had grown in his chest, wrapping around his lungs, choking like weeds to a garden.

Sadie’s arm tightened over Charles’s shoulder. “Sun hasn’t dawned on a single day I’ve wanted to live through since they killed my Jake.” A filthy hand pet his hair back from his face, streaking dirt through the sweat on his brow. “Two reasons I go on. I gotta put every O'Driscoll on this green earth into a hole in the ground. And ‘cause I got folks as need me, now.”

Charles buried himself tighter against her, hiding from the pain that wracked him. It was ridiculous. Sadie was half his size, if he was being generous. But pressed against her, her clumsy hand in his hair, her skinny arm not even half over his back—he felt safer. Smaller. “They don’t even want me.”

Sadie laughed, a hoarse, half-hearted thing that shook her chest more than it did the air. “You think those boys are lining up to put me in charge? Or, hell, Grimshaw? It don’t matter what anyone wants, Charles. They need us.”

“I needed him,” Charles keened. He sounded like a child. He felt like a child. And he’d never felt so helpless, so lost, since he’d been torn from his mother’s arms. “All of them.” Charles bit back a breath, forced it down. He grasped a handful of Sadie’s shirt, pulling her closer. “I feel like the only part of me that’s good died with them. I don’t. I don’t think I can keep doing this.”

“John ain’t dead yet,” Sadie whispered fiercely. “And neither is Tilly, or Mary-Beth, or me. Even the rest of ‘em. They’re all the family we got, Charles. So cry it out. But then you gotta pull yourself together. I need ya.”

No one had ever needed Charles Smith.

No one who lived.

Charle’s head was going fuzzy, light, in a buzzing, burning way. Maybe he wasn’t getting enough air. Maybe he was choking on his own pathetic sorrow.

Maybe the pain of losing so much was finally going to kill him.

“I should just leave,” he mumbled into Sadie’s filthy, mud spattered shoulder. “Suffering follows me, I think. Maybe if I just go you won’t die, too.”

Sadie’s blunt nails dug hard into Charle’s shoulder. “You leave and you’re yellow or you’re a fool,” she said, shaking him. “The world doesn’t give a shit about any of us, Charles. You know this life we’re livin’ ain’t meant to be a long one.”

Something in that tickled him, in a sideways sort of way. He laughed, a weak, hacking thing that was half-cough. “How the hell is Uncle still kicking?”

Sadie’s shoulder moved under his forehead as she gave a half-hearted chuckle. “Can’t die if you never do shit.”

“You’re right,” Charles admitted. The stupid joke had shaken something loose in his throat. His chest still hurt, but he wasn’t choking on air. “I’m sorry. I just—” Charles sucked down another breath. “I wasn’t ready to live without him.”

Sadie just pulled him tighter, tucked his head up under her chin. Charles wondered, vaguely, what she saw when she looked out into the dark of the Lemoyne night. “I know, honey,” she sighed. “But you will. You have to.”

_________________________

Traditional Kotsoteka mourning is an involved process. Done right, Charles should have burned Arthur’s wagon and killed Peachblossom, Arthur’s white Roan mare, so he would be well equipped in the afterlife.

But there was no body to bury. No grave in which to throw Arthur’s guns, or the bow he’d left strapped to Peachblossom’s saddle on that final, bloody day at the bank. It would have been a shame to snap into pieces, anyway. Charles had made the bow for Arthur, so the other man had always taken excellent care of it.

Fact was, Arthur’s body lay somewhere at the bottom of the sea, and they were too strapped for resources to go burning wagons and wasting supplies for traditions Charles had never been all that good at following. So instead Sadie helped him shave the sides of his head—the left side, to mourn a fellow warrior. The right, because a fellow warrior wasn’t all Charles was mourning.

Together, Charles and Sadie burned one of Arthur’s shirts. There was no wailing, no cutting of arms and chests. As the last few patches of blue cotton caught fire, Charles resolved that, a year from then, he would never again speak the name Arthur Morgan.

______________________________

Six years and too many graves later, Charles was resting on a freshly hammered fence post when a giant, mean-looking mustang rode up the road to Beecher’s Hope. Charles was half-way to drawing his sawed-off when its rider called out to him. “Charles! Charles Smith!”

Charles would know that hoarse drawl anywhere.

Charles jumped the fence, jogging towards the black-clad woman on her suitably terrifying horse. “Sadie? Sadie Adler?”

Sadie swung down from her saddle, running forward. Charles caught her around the middle, swinging her excitedly.

“How are you?” Charles asked as he set her down, hands moving to her shoulders to get a look at her. She’d picked up a few fresh scars, some weather to her skin from sun and wind. But her eyes were just the same as they’d always been, lit with an inner fire.

Sadie smiled, that same bitter half lift of the mouth as six years ago. “Alive,” she shrugged, patting Charles roughly on the shoulder. “You?”

Charles shrugged back. “Better, now. A few months back? Not so well.”

Sadie nodded, walking back to her evil looking mustang and leading it gentle as a kitten to the hitching post. Charles leaned back against the fence, digging around in his jacket pockets for a pack of cigarettes and his lighter. He lit one, settling it in the side of his mouth. Demon-horse secured, Sadie settled beside him, leaning forward over the fence to survey the homestead. Charles passed her a cigarette, holding the lighter out and flickering as she lit a burning ember in the early morning light.

Sadie inhaled, brown eyes sharp and considering as she surveyed the half-built ranch. “So. You’re, uh. Livin’ with the Marston’s?”

Charles nodded, tucking the lighter back in his pocket. “Just John for now.” He caught himself, laughed. “Well, and Uncle.”

“That old fool’s still alive?” Sadie whistled. “Bless his heart.” Silence stretched out between them. Maybe it should have been uncomfortable, the way it would have been between any two other friends who had parted in bloodshed and hadn’t seen one another in six years.

Instead, it was like a well-worn blanket, warm and comforting in the early morning chill. Charles hadn’t shared a peaceful silence in a long while. John and Uncle always seemed to need to fill the air with talk. The folks in Saint Denis too, and theirs had been a lot less friendly.

Their cigarettes burned down to embers before Sadie broke the peace. “Any clue where John’s at?” she asked. “I got a job for him.”

Charles grunted. “Bounty hunting?”

“Only kinda jobs I run. For now, anyway.”

“He’s in town grabbing supplies. Won’t be back until late.”

“Well, shit.” Sadie cursed, scuffing her boot in the dirt. She frowned, kicking up little clouds of dust while she chewed on her lip. Charles turned, tucking his arms up atop the fence, settling against the sun-warmed wood. Sadie leaned in beside him, shoulder to shoulder, so the fringe of her leather duster brushed against his knuckles. They watched the horizon together for a few long moments, the sun slowly rising higher in the sky.

Sadie let out a long breath, shifting restlessly next to him. In the corner of his vision Charles caught brown eyes flicking consideringly over at him, measuring. “You busy?”

Charles let out an inaudible sigh of his own. “I don’t do that anymore, Sadie.”

Sadie laughed, a little bitter, a little sharp, like a sip of bark tea. “You too good for bounty hunting? Well, excuse me.”

Charles groaned, burying his face in his hands. “Isn’t like that. I just. I’m trying something new.”

Sadie rolled her eyes. “Ain't no reason you can't help around Marston’s ranch and earn yourself a little money.” She gestured to the half-built house, the piles of timbers and sacks of plaster. “Hell, how you think John’s paying this place off? I know y’all ain’t making any sort of profit yet.”

Charles massaged his temples, willing away the oncoming tension headache. Sadie wasn’t wrong. Charles loved John, knew he needed to look after him for Arthur—at least until John was settled in with his family. But there would be an after, one day. Charles had learned one thing in his thirty-three years: no one stayed.

He’d be watching his own back again, probably not too long from now. And it's a lot easier to do that when you had money.

Charles sighed, pulling his hands from his face. He hooked his thumbs through his belt. “What’s the job?”

Sadie grinned, bitter and mean. “Man murdered his family, looks like,” she said, pulling away from the fence. “He’s wanted in Strawberry. Not even that far of a ride from here.”

Charles walked over to the little campsite, pulling his rucksack from his tent. It was already packed. He hesitated. “Kids?”

“A little girl, around ten. And a boy, round three.”

Charles pulled his tomahawk from under his bedroll, tucking it into his belt. He grabbed some of the nastier arrows—the poison wouldn’t kill a full grown man, but it’d make him suffer.

Some men deserve to suffer.

Charles stalked over to Falmouth, mounting him in one swift motion. “Lead the way.”

Sadie swung up onto her monster. “Good man,” she said, kicking her boot against Charles’s own as she trotted by. “Let’s see how rusty you’ve got, Mr. Smith.”

As they rode, Sadie interrogated him.

“Talked to John a little, ‘bout you,” she yelled over the thundering of hooves. The earth was hard-packed and dusty in the Texarcana heat. “Heard things weren't going too well down in Saint Denis.”

“They weren’t,” Charles called back. “I’d only been there about a year, anyway. Job was going sour.”

“How so?”

Charles laughed. It wasn’t a pretty sound. “Folks were only going to put up with me beating up white men for a living for so much longer.”

Sadie tossed a grin over her shoulder, knowing and vicious. She and Charles had different struggles in their lives. But there was a baseline understanding between them. Most of the gang had been dangerous for what they did. Of the ones who lived, Charles and Sadie were dangerous because of what they were. “Novelty was about to wear off, huh?”

Charles shook his head, whipping wayward hair from his face. “Yeah.”

Sadie turned back to the road, steering Hera around a sharp bend. “Before that?”

The road widened out. Charles urged Falmouth forward, riding till the two horses were running abreast. “Was up in Canada. Helped relocate the Wapiti after...” Charles paused. He had left with the Wapiti immediately after the attack on the oil refinery. Hadn’t even gone back to camp for the rest of his belongings, just taken what was on Taima’s back and. Left.

Charles had no idea if Sadie even knew why Charles had gone, what Arthur had told her.

“That kid,” Sadie asked, breaking Charles’s train of thought. “He died, didn’t he?”

Charles swallowed, the dust from the road cloyingly sweet in his mouth. “Yes.”

Sadie steered Hera over a wooden bridge, hand on her rifle as she scanned each side for signs of an ambush. “I don’t think I understand what all happened with them,” she said. “There was so much going on, towards the end. Folks leaving, Arthur sick, that damn fool plan with the train—How did Dutch even get those folks wrapped up in our mess?”.

“Same thing that happened to all of us,” Charles offered. “Dutch talked a good game, riled them up over things they were already angry about, got everyone in over their head, and was the only one who didn’t pay for it.”

The rest of their ride continued in contemplative silence, broken only by the necessary shouts and calls needed to wrangle their bounty. The murderer was holed up in an abandoned cabin just a little north of town. Hardly worth hiring bounty hunters for, really. Except that the Strawberry sheriffs had always been corrupt, not to mention lazy. Some things don’t change.

Still, working with Sadie again was worth it. It’d just been them those long months Arthur and the rest were lost in Guarma, presumed dead. Sure, the rest of the girls were still around and they pulled their weight. But none of them were as talented in violence—save Karen, maybe.

But she was too far gone over Sean to hold herself together, let alone anyone else.

It’s when they’d divvied up the bounty and stepped into the Strawberry saloon that Charles remembered why those months had been so damn stressful. Besides the Pinkertons, the hopeless fate of half their family, the deaths, John trapped in prison—

Sadie Adler’s temper had always been on a short fuze.

And Charles, fool that he was, had always had a weakness for brave, impulsive idiots.

A big, mean white man took exception to Charles drinking at the same bar as him. Sadie snapped off a sharp warning, stepping around Charles and squaring up to the man twice her size. Then the mean bastard took exception to Charles traveling with, being familiar with, a white woman.

Sadie took exception to his exception, and her exception took the form of a knife straight through the man’s hand and into the scarred oak of the counter.

They were riding hard out of town, ducking the odd shot from the posse riding too slow behind them, Sadie whooping wildly and shooting flawlessly over her back when Charles realized: he hadn’t had fun like that in six years.

They lost the posse in the hills by turning off on a razor thin trail, stashing the horses under an overhang and laying down in the tall grass.

They lay there, panting, laughing, exhilarated. The stars were bright in the sky, glaring down through the clear West Elizabeth sky.

Eventually Sadie sobered, hoarse laughter falling silent. Charles could see her from the corner of his eye. She was still staring up at the stars, hair limned silver in the moonlight. She chewed on her words before breaking the peace. “You didn’t say goodbye.”

Charles took a breath, held it. “We had to leave before the Army arrived,” he said. He picked absently at the grass, crushing it dry and summer-sweet between his fingers. “The Wapiti. They were mostly women and children, the elderly. The sick.”

Sadie huffed, turning on her side, propping up on her elbow to glare down at him, hair frizzled into a messy halo behind her head, all lit up by moonglow. “Ya could of wrote,” she insisted.

Charles kept his eyes fixed on the night sky, on the stars in their cold, beautiful distance. “To who?” he scoffed. “We all knew the gang was on its last legs. By the time we crossed the border into Canada I’d already seen the papers. Interesting, how they left you out of it.”

Sadie went quiet. She collapsed back beside him, thumping softly in the bent grass. “Is that how you found out?”

A copy of The New Hanover had been pinned to the wooden wall of the trading shack where Charles was selling pelts for food and medicine. He’d left for Beaver Hollow the next day. “Yes.”

Sadie sucked air through her teeth. “I went back, few years later,” she muttered. Her boot knocked against his, a rough comfort. “You uh. You did a good job, Charles,” she said. Her fingers sought his in the tall grass, brushing against his lightly. Like she was scared to spook him, maybe. “We watched the sun come up together. He woulda liked it.”

Charles drew his hand back, pressing it over his heart. The hollow, dull ache that lived in his heart sharpened, brightened. A fresh cut on an old scar. “He’d have liked it better if he’d lived.”

Sadie made a noise, propping back up on her elbow to lean over him. “You know that ain’t his fault,” she frowned at him. “The man was sick, Charles.”

Charles’s head hurt. His whole body did, in a cold, numb way. This wasn’t the burning, searing grief at the bottom of Lenny’s shallow grave. It was older, rooted deeper down. “Don’t,” he rasped. Grit from the road coated the back of his throat. “Just, don’t.”

Sadie charged on, implacable. “You know he wasn’t gonna leave without John.”

The stars were so bright. Charles could feel the headache building, like a creature clawing out through his temples. “They could have left together,” he snapped at her. “We all could have left together, before the bank. All of that mess in Lemoyne—none of it had to happen. Arthur didn’t stay for John—he stayed for Dutch.”

Sadie scrubbed her free over her face. “The man raised him,” she tried. The excuse was hollow, empty. Even she didn’t buy it.

Charles turned on his side, faced Sadie properly through the tall grass and moonlight. “Don’t give me that, Sadie. Not you.”

“Fine, Charles! He was a fool!” She threw her hand up in the air, exasperated. “He was scared, he was foolish, and he loved Dutch because he was an idiot.” Sadie fixed him with a glare. “There, did that make you happy, big man? Speaking ill of the dead?”

It didn’t. “I shouldn’t be speaking of him at all,” Charles said instead. “That’s not how—we’re supposed to let go. It’s been years.”

“You loved him,” she insisted.

“Look at how much that mattered,” Charles said, anger furrowing his brow, burning low in his stomach. Had he ever let himself be angry, with Arthur, with the choices they made? “What did loving him buy me, besides a heart that broke twice?”

Sadie’s eyes softened, understanding dawning warm and terrible. “I know that’s not how you really feel,” she said. Sadie reached out, again, with careful fingers. When Charles didn’t stop her she tucked the hair plastered to Charles sweaty forehead back, away from his eyes.

It was the first gentleness anyone had touched him with since he left the Wapiti for Saint Denis. Charles’s breath caught in his throat, trapped, terrified. Vulnerable.

It would have hurt less if she’d socked him in the stomach.

“You don’t ride back from Canada, on your own, to bury a man who you hated,” Sadie continued. Her calloused hand settled on his jaw, thumb behind his ear. She held him steady, made him look her in the eye. “You don’t spend a year of your life helping his kid brother get his family back.”

“Arthur didn’t need me, at the end,” Charles managed. “Rain Falls needed me—and then they didn’t. No one did.”

“Why Saint Denis, Charles? You hated it there,” Sadie asked, resigned. She already knew the answer. She was being cruel, making him face it out loud.

Charles swallowed. No one had ever accused Sadie Adler of being kind.

“I was waiting to die.”

Sadie nodded. Yes, of course. “And all this with John? What next, once he doesn’t need you?”

Charles glared at her, mouth tight and stubborn.

Sadie laughed in his face. “You and Arthur,” she sighed, shaking her head. “You were made for one another, weren’t ya? No understanding how to live in this world for yourselves.”

“You’re one to talk,” Charles shot back.

“I’m happy with my life,” Sadie said firmly. “I had love, but I never wanted a family. I just wanted Jake. He’s gone. So I’m doing what makes me happy.” She paused, staring down at him, considering. “What makes you happy, Charles? You’re the most competent, most stubborn man I know. What do you really want? You know no one could stop you from getting it.”

Charles shook his head. “I have no idea,” he admitted. He climbed to his feet, offering Sadie a hand. She accepted, pulling herself to her feet. She kept hold of his hand, squeezing tight.

“Don’t stop looking,” she commanded. “What you were doin’ in Saint Denis, waiting to die? You’re better than that, Charles Smith.”

Charles shook his head, pulling Sadie into a one armed hug. Grief, Arthur, his life—they hadn’t solved any of it, laying out in a field and snapping at one another under the stars.

But the wound hurt a little less, like a lanced infection.

“I hope so, Mrs. Adler,” Charles said into the mess of Sadie’s hair. She chuckled into his chest, punched him half-heartedly in the arm. They separated, fetching and mounting their horses.

They separated at the fork in the trail. Sadie headed east, back to her base camp just outside Valentine. She had work to do, bounties to catch. The world may have been more ‘civilized’ in 1907 than it was in 1899, but work was still plentiful for a rider and marksman of Sadie Adler’s skill.

Charles rode west towards Beecher’s Hope, sun rising over his shoulder.

--------------------------------

A/N: Charles and Sadie are my favorites, and they should have spent more time with one another. They're not exactly similar people, but they've been through many of the same trials.

I also think they were both done a disservice by the epilogue. Charles's feelings regarding the gang's collapse are largely unexplored, despite him canonically being the one to have buried Lenny, Hosea, Mrs. Grimshaw, and Arthur.

We also don't get a good explanation for why Charles ended up in Saint Denis as part of a fighting ring. Certain lines from Charles--"It seems like I was put on this Earth to hurt and to suffer myself"--have always led me to believe that he suffers from suicidal ideations. Him ending up in Saint Denis, surrounded by people who wish him harm, reads to me like a sort of 'death by cop' form of suicide.

On the subject of Charles's heritage: Rockstar is a trash fire, so beyond being half-Black and half-Native we have very few clues about Charles's culture and his history. I settled on a particular band (the Kotsoteka, or 'buffalo eaters') of the Comanche who would have had a decent amount of contact with Black Freemen post-Civil war. They live in Oklahoma and Texas, buffalo are a central part of their traditional lifestyle, and one of their mourning traditions involves shaving their heads in a manner similar to Charles's hairstyle change post-Guarma arc.

I'm white and if anyone has constructive comments about my inclusion of Kotsoteka funerary traditions I'm happy to hear and act on them.

The Oquenda was the name of a Cuban trading ship from the 1870's. It was primarily used to transport indentured Chinese workers to the Cuban sugar plantations.

#red dead redemption 2 #rdr2 #charles smith #sadie adler #charthur #arthur morgan #cw: suicidal ideations

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greycappedjester · 3 years ago

Note

"If ATFO isn’t up by the end of the month, feel free to ask me for an already written scene from one-shot from that universe." is the offer still open?

Gotcha! Sorry this is late 😬

Here is young Jason's POV. It's from right after Year 4 so before Tim and right after Jason was formally adopted (still in training to be Robin)

Here's the first eight pages

-------

Year 4.5: The Vacation

Alright, so here’s the thing.

Jason is a city boy. He grew up in a city. It was Gotham so it was a shit city and the part that he lived in even shittier; but, it was, without question, a city. And one where he had lived the entire fourteen years of his somewhat depressing life. Jason was familiar with said city.

So, Jason is decidedly not familiar with the so-called “great” outdoors. Fuck, he’s pretty sure the closest he’s come to nature is fights with Poison Ivy.

All of which is just too fricking bad because Jason also happens to be the recently adopted brother of Dick Grayson, who has for some unimaginable reason decided camping is the best way to spend a vacation.

And Jason is coming along.

Why? Because apparently Dick’s first thought had been this was a great time for brotherly bonding. Okay, actually his first was that it was perfect for Jason’s birthday but Jason had flat out refused and Dick moved it to the week after.

So, now, the newly fourteen year old is watching as Dick somehow crams a tent, sleeping bags, and camping gear into one of the Wayne’s very fancy and very compact sports cars.

Jason looks back wistfully to the manor door.

It’s probably not too late to back out.

But, as lame as it most definitely sounds, this camping trip actually seems really important to Dick. Like important enough to give Donna his Titans duties for a few days and ask Roy to be back up for Barbara in Gotham if she needed it. Plus, more terrifying, getting Barbara to agree to that.

And, as much as he refused to say it aloud, Jason could privately admit that Dick Grayson may have a very large part in why his recently somewhat depressing life is a now a lot less depressing.

Whatever. So, Jason might not actually think it’s too terrible to spend a few days with his older brother. Even with the camping.

That still doesn’t explain the other part.

“Why can’t we bring our uniforms again,” Jason complains, crossing his arms.

Dick doesn’t stop in his work to get the trunk shut. “Because that would mean we’re working and I’ve been informed by both Raquel and Zatanna that working vacations don’t actually count as vacations.” The trunk pops back open and Dick’s head disappears inside. “Besides, we won’t need them where we’re going.”

“Yeah, cause that doesn’t sound ominous,” Jason mutters under his breath.

“What was that?”

“Nothing!”

Dick emerges and the trunk finally closes with only a slight creak of protest. “Ha, there! What did I tell you? Circus performers always know the best packing tips.”

Jason is reluctantly somewhat impressed.

“Come on, get in! We’ve gotta get to the grounds while there’s still light to set up the tent.”

Jason slumps into the passenger seat. “Are you sure this isn’t like you stealthily training me in advanced wilderness survival or something?”

“It’s a vacation, Jason,” Dick insists, starting the car and backing down the drive way. “Believe me, if it was training, I’d pick a lot trickier place than twenty minutes out of Gotham city limits.”

Crap, if it was training, Jason would at least know it sucked for a reason. Doing it for fun makes it even worse.

“You know you’re an heir to like billions of dollars, right?”

“We’re the heirs,” Dick corrects because of course, he does.

Jason rolls his eyes. “I’m just saying if you wanted nature, we could go to like the Bahamas or the Galapagos or even just buy an island if that’s what you really wanted.”

“We don’t need an island.”

“Sure, we do. We could even use it as a secret prison for supervillains when we’re done. It would be great!”

Dick’s grinning, checking briefly before pulling into Gotham traffic. “Secret island prison bases definitely fall a bit too far into the supervillian category, Jay. They'll sue us for trademark infringement.”

“Still beats camping.”

“Camping’s fun!” Dick laughs. “Trust me. Millions of people do it every year. They can’t all be wrong.”

Per usual, Jason is far less trusting of the populace’s intelligence than Dick is.

As if to spite his skepticism, the hour or so drive out to the woods doesn’t go so bad. Jason commandeers the radio so they’re listening to a good classic rock station instead of being subjected to the weird mix of folk songs and pop music that Dick likes. The dark buildings and usual smog of Gotham starts to fade out around the forty minute mark, somewhere between one of Dick’s Titans stories and Jason complaining about a plot thread in the last book he read.

The drive is nice. Peaceful, even.

You know like most horror movies start.

“We’re here!”

Jason eyes the stretch of trees for any kind of sign or even a distinguishing feature. There’s nothing.

“Dick, this is definitely not a campsite.”

“It’s a few miles off,” Dick explains, dropping a bag in Jason’s arms. “I wanted to avoid the usual campgrounds in case the tabloid reporters found us. Don’t worry, I checked with the owner. No one’s used this stretch in years.”

Jason thinks there’s probably a reason for that since there’s not one hint of a trail in sight.

“Where are we even going to set up a tent?”

“Not sure,” Dick says way too cheerfully. “Finding a spot’s part of the fun!”

Jason gives him a look.

Dick rolls his eyes. “Relax, Jay. The owner told me there’s a stream about half a mile in. We’ll set up camp there.”

Jason still gives a token grumble just because.

By the time night rolls around, they do manage to find a camping spot, set up the tent, and Dick even starts up a small fire right in the middle of the campsite.

If pushed, Jason would admit the entire thing is a bit picturesque.

He bites down on his hot dog as Dick digs through the rest of their stuff.

“Oh! I almost forgot to tell you!” Dick pulls something out of the bag. “Look, I brought stuff to make s'mores!”

“Cool, hand them over” Jason grabs for the bag of marshmallows only for Dick to pull them away.

“Not yet, they’re for our last day. Gotta ration out the food.”

Jason rolls his eyes. “You’re ridiculous. Why not bring enough for every night?”

“Cause then it’s less special,” Dick answers sagely. “Think about it like a prize for surviving camping.”

Because Jason is the generous sort, he doesn’t even make a crack about “surviving”.

“So, okay, let’s say I buy that camping is a vacation,” he says instead between bites.

“It is a vacation.”

“Yeah, fine, sure. Real question though, why are we taking a vacation?” He waves a hand. “What ever happened to ‘crime never sleeps’ and everything?”

“I’ve never said that!”

“You said it to Babs last week!”

“That was so she’d help me run the Poison Ivy samples! That doesn’t count! She didn’t even believe me!”

“Definitely counts!”

Dick rolls his eyes. “You know most kids don’t need a reason to go on vacation before school starts.”

“So, that’s what this is,” Jason accuses. “This is for you! You wanted a vacation before college!”

Dick turns his face down to poke at the fire. “I’m not going to college...not this year anyway.”

Jason frowns. “I thought you got accepted to Gotham U. Shit, I know you did. Alfred still has the letter hanging on the fridge.”

Dick shrugs. “I’m going to turn it down. There’s too much going on right now. Gotham. The Titans. I’ve gotta start sitting in at the Wayne Enterprise meetings soon, too. I don’t have time for classes.”

“Pretty sure, the classes would help with the Wayne Enterprise crap,” Jason says. “And you know Roy and Donna can help with the Titans and Babs and I can cover more in Gotham if--”

“Jay, it’s fine,” Dick cuts him off. “I need to choose what to focus on and it just can’t be college right now. It’s okay.”

Jason wants to argue more but then Dick’s continuing

“And, hey, I know camping’s not exactly your thing; but, I’m glad you decided to come anyway.” Dick gives him a blinding grin. “You deserve to do some normal summer stuff after all the Robin training. And I’m glad I get to spend some time with my favorite little brother.

Jason glares, ignoring the way his cheeks have gone warm. “Shut up, I’m your only brother. And you know I hate it when you say stuff like that.”

“No, you don’t,” Dick says, shit eating grin in place.

Jason flings the bag of hot dog buns at him.

He catches it, still grinning. The asshole.

-----

Something that’s always jarring but becomes really fucking obvious once he thinks about it is the fact that Dick gets nightmares.

Of course, he does. How could he not? Jason’s doesn’t know why he never expects it.

It’s not even loud nightmares with like screaming and flailing arms and shit. It’s just these short, sharp little gasps as his body goes entirely too stiff and face twists in pain. Sometimes, Jason thinks that’s worse than screaming.

Jason shifts in his sleeping bag, turning to face the top of the tent. He briefly contemplates waking Dick up; but, he knows from experience, it won’t help much. Better to let him get some rest until the nightmare goes away on its own.

Only problem is that Jason still can’t fall asleep. It’s kind of funny. He’s never really thought of himself as a picky sleeper before. Fuck knows he’s slept on way too many of Gotham’s mold infested roofs back when his dad was on parole. But, there’s something about the cold feeling of hard dirt that he swears he can feel even under the layers of sleeping bag and tent.

Camping sucks.

Screw it. Jason’s not just going to lay here all night. Least he can do is get up and explore around the campsite so he can have a better idea of whatever “fun” activities he’s sure Dick has planned for tomorrow.

He slips out of the tent without waking up Dick--which actually does serve as a fairly good challenge for his new Robin training--and heads into the woods, careful to keep note of how far away he goes from camp. He feels ridiculously like he should have bread crumbs or some other kind of fairy tale stuff to track his way through the forest.

He swears if he survived living in Crime Alley, Black Mask, and a freaking explosion just to get lost and die in the woods, he’s going to haunt Dick forever. Jason the Unfriendly Ghost.

He gets to the stream that he and Dick found earlier so at least he’s not that lost.

SNAP!

Jason’s head whips around in the direction of the noise.

Nothing.

He lets out a long breath. Dumb, of course, it’s nothing. It’s the forest. Forests make weird noises. It’s reason #357 why they’re terrible.

SNAP!

Okay...that definitely sounded like something big….but, maybe it’s something normal like a tree branch snapping or--

Snap!...Snap!...Snap!

That’s footsteps.

Jason moves back into the tree line, crouching down until he’s covered in the darkness of the bushes. His hands run over the ground, trying to find anything even remotely useful other than a slightly pointy stick.

Snap!...Snap!

Shit, he really is going to die here, isn’t he? In this stupid forest before he even gets to go out as Robin. Of all the dumb fucking--

Snap!...snap!...snap...snap.

The footsteps are getting further away. Echoing deeper and deeper into the forest on the other side of the stream.

snap...snap...snap…

Jason listens, in slight amazement, as the sounds slowly fade off into the distance until they finally disappear. Slowly, Jason counts in his mind to sixty, then a hundred and twenty, then two hundred.

On three hundred, he bolts--tearing through the forest in the direction of the camp until he finally catches sight of the obnoxiously bright yellow of the tent Dick bought, shining in front of him like a heavenly beacon.

He tears through the opening, breathing heavily, just a half a second before there’s an arm jammed hard against his neck.

“Jay?”

The pressure disappears and then Dick’s looking down at him with wide eyes and a slight blush. “Sorry about that. Was surprised. What’s wrong?”

Jason’s heart rate’s finally slowing down. And here in the safety of the tent, in the face of Dick’s patented concerned face, admitting to getting freaked out by noises in the woods seems beyond stupid.

“Nothing,” he mutters. “Just thought I heard something?”

“Heard something?”

“Yeah, like footsteps.”

Dick frowns. “We’re on private camp land. There shouldn’t be anyone around here. You sure?”

Jason shakes his head, face feeling hot, as he sits back down on his sleeping bag. “No. Don’t worry about it. Like I said, it was probably nothing. Maybe it’s just a mountain lion that’s gonna eat us in our sleep.”

Dick pats his shoulder. “Mountain lions don’t really live in this region, Jay.”

Jason rolls his eyes before turning over pointedly to try to get some more sleep.

“It’s bears you need to worry about.”

#atfo

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thecandywrites · 4 years ago

Text

Jewel Of The North Part 3

Aaah, we’re getting closer. Also this is fantasy, let’s pretend pallas cats are thunder cats and that they can be tamed. Also Scottish wild cats are a thing too. They can be thunder cats too.

Again major thanks to @monstersandmaw for sharing ice orcs with me.

Jewel of the North

Part 3

You found yourself getting up at 4:30 and quickly got a shower and got ready as the sun was coming up and by 5 am, you were itching to leave and decided to just go and practically speed walked to Noah’s house in the misty dawn, only to find Sakura and Noah sitting on the front porch, wrapped in blankets as Noah looked particularly tired as he downed his coffee as two snow dogs laid on the porch, trying to get some sleep before they heard your approach and sat up and stared at you before they got up and slowly wagged their tails but didn’t make a sound.

“Paradise!” Sakura squealed when she saw you as she instantly got up and ran to you as you laughed at the name as you caught her and picked her up and kissed her cheek as the dogs came running over to you too.

“Well good morning to you too Munchkin!” You greeted happily before you carried her back to the house and cooed to the dogs who seemed happy and excited to see you too and sniffed at you eagerly and barked and ‘greeted’ you too in their own way.

“What are you doing up so early?” You asked her.

“I didn’t want to miss you coming!” She insisted.

“Aw,” you cooed. “How long have you been up?” You asked her.

“Since 4:30- she woke up bright eyed and bushy tailed.” Noah answered as he slowly got up out of his deck chair and grabbed his daughter’s blanket she left behind in her chair before he put it over her and you.

“Oh that’s better, it’s chilly this morning.” You insisted as you curled into the warmth of the blanket as you followed him into the house, grateful he held the door open for you. Thankfully he had already made breakfast which you happily started eating with them as the dogs instantly put their heads in your lap, wanting pets, acting like they never got pets or any kind of attention ever. Typical.

“So are you going to teach me how to be an heiress today?” Sakura asked eagerly and Noah nearly choked on his coffee.

“Probably not because I wanted to talk to your dad about that first .” You put to her before you turned to Noah.

“First I wanted to reassure you that whatever she tells me or whatever you tell me, I will keep in strict confidence and won’t be repeated to anyone unless I have your express and freely given consent to do so. Because honestly- the only people I would ever want to be telling anything to would be professionals, mostly very experienced lawyers and I will not do so unless I had your express permission to do it and I will not discuss anything of a private or sensitive nature unless it was in your presence as well. Second, I understand how I’m the outsider and honestly and realistically- you don’t know me from anyone and I completely understand if you’re uncomfortable with this and I’m not offended if you don’t want to involve me in anything sensitive, private or especially financial. If all you are comfortable with me doing is being here and watching her and being a babysitter, that’s fine with me, if you just want me to be a friend, I’ll just be a friend, if you want me to be an advisor, I’ll be an advisor. But only if you want me to be. You need to have your own boundaries for me and I’ll do my best to respect any and all boundaries given as long as those boundaries are clearly and expressly stated so there’s no confusion and no gray areas. I can not read your mind so if I cross a line, or if I have already crossed a line, please tell me as quickly as possible.” You insisted.

“Oh, no you haven’t crossed any lines at all, you’re good.” Noah readily assured you.

“Ok, good, I want us to stay on good terms and clear communication is the best way to achieve that.” You offered which earned a nod of agreement from Noah.

“So moving forward- if you do end up wanting my advice, I can be as specific or as generic as you want me to be. But I will not give unwanted advice and I will not involve myself without your permission and I would want to make sure that my involvement is welcome by especially Neena’s parents and perhaps your own since it’s obvious they all still play an active role in her life because moving forward, if you’re going to continue to rely on them for support, it’s best to have everyone on the same page and even though you are her sole parent and guardian and the responsibility for her rests solely on your shoulders- I know I appreciated having more than my own eyes and mind on a problem- the whole- two heads are better than one principle, but at the same time we don’t want to involve anyone who doesn’t need to be involved because of the other principal of having too many cooks in the kitchen as we need to find a balance between the two.” You suggested.

“I completely agree.” Noah nodded again in agreement with a fond smile.

“Well, speaking from experience, I have had unwanted advice crammed down my throat more times than I can count and I hated it and I’m not going to do that to you guys. And if you do want my advice, please know that I will be honest and transparent about it and the only thing I want to gain from any of it- is the assurance and reassurance that you and Sakura are going to be ok and taken care of and if I can pass on the lessons I learned so that you don’t have to go through what I went through to learn them- I’ll be content.” You explained as Noah’s eyebrows knitted closer together for a moment at your choice of words.

“Do you mind if I ask how you became an heiress?” Noah asked carefully.

“I don’t mind at all, so what happened was I befriended about a dozen older couples when I went to massage school a decade ago and at the time they were all retirement age and they never had any kids, or the ones who did, their kids had passed before they did and they didn’t have any other natural heirs, no kids or grandkids or anything like that and they all practically adopted me because I took care of them the way I would take care of my own grandparents and I just tend to adopt grandparents in general and kids obviously.” You gestured to Sakura who was sitting next to you at the kitchen table.

“Anyway, about two to three years before Andy died, most of them lost their partners and, again, none of them had kids to take care of them so I felt it was my responsibility as their friend to care for them because if I didn’t, no one else would and none of them were bad enough that they needed to go into a nursing home and I did all I could to keep them as independent as possible which is what they needed and what was best for them in those circumstances. So when Andy did die, the remaining ones were there for me to help me cope with his loss and how to protect myself and how to protect my kids and how to use what Andy left me in life insurance policies best and I took their advice and used it and benefited and then when they passed a few months later, and they all passed within the span of a week which was unreal - so it was just all one big funeral for me and I found out that all of them individually- left everything to me and none of them used the same lawyers or anything so there was no way for me or any of them to know that the others were doing the same thing since going into that ordeal I had only known that one of them were going to leave me anything and what they were leaving me was very modest in all respects. But within the span of another week after that in settling their final affiars which is when I found out I became inheriter to 15 different estates , it was really weird and I was investigated because the sheer coincidence of it seemed odd to everyone, most of all- me, and because there wasn’t any other parties coming forward trying to claim anything and because the only role I had in their passing was that I helped relieve pain and suffering and didn’t actually murder anyone, I got to keep it all and for a whole week after the deaths, I literally just kept going from each house and just cleaning out the fridges and freezers because I had already taken all their pets home with me, so now I have a freaking menagerie at home because I love and adore all of the pets and didn’t have the heart to take them to a shelter because most of them were old anyways and they should live out the rest of their lives in comfort and peace like their owners, and it’s obvious that your precious babies have picked up on that.” You explained as you turned your adoring attentions back to his dogs who were soaking up your attentions happily.

“So what about the wolves and vultures?” Sakura asked.

“Oh boy, well, that’s figurative, I’ve had to deal with figurative wolves and vultures in that people have tried to take advantage of me and think that because I was a woman who didn’t have any experience with managing estates and money and property that they could come in and take it from me the way a vulture will try to take a carcass from another or how they’ll prey on an injured animal and wait for it to die or how wolves will surround their target and overpower it, the same thing happened to me and it’s awful.” You answered.

“How?” Sakura asked curiously.

“Well, while the rest of my adopted grandparents were dying and I was inheriting all those estates, the company Andy had worked for- sued the manufacturer of the crystal grower that malfunctioned and killed him at work and because I was- and I quote- “the prettiest of the widows” his company paid me a ridiculous sum of money and other benefits to be the public face of the lawsuit even though there were five widows and widowers involved but it was my face that was crying in a courtroom that sold the story in the news and got the jury to sympathize and his company used my sob story, leaving out the fact that I was also an heiress for all these other estates- for their benefit and won the case in court- but because of my adopted grandparents who had amazing lawyers, who then became my lawyers, they made sure I got the lion’s share of the settlement because it was my face and my life that was put in the public eye for a hot minute and because of my own exposure, suddenly I had dozens of organizations and charities contact me too but because the settlement was so big, my biggest priority was making sure the other widows and widowers got a fair share and that they and their families were also taken care of because they didn’t have good lawyers like I did. So I used what little power and control I had in that situation to benefit them too because corportate greed is second to none.” You revealed.

“Oh good grief.” Noah huffed.

“Yeah, it wasn’t fun. The absolute worst part about it were just the figurative vultures and wolves. All these men came out of the woodwork after the court win because it was in the news- all of them thinking I was this ‘poor, inexperienced, stupid widow’ who practically won the lottery because the settlement was the same size as a small lottery and thought that I had gotten all of the settlement which wasn’t true or thought that I didn’t have any sense or propriety and thought that because I was young and inexperienced, they could take advantage of me which backfired on them spectacularly. Especially since I have clients on the local police force, fire department and other first responders who had been friends of mine before all this went down and who saw me through all of it and the moment any guy crossed that line of getting too close to me or especially my kids, who before any of this happened, I was already an overprotective Mama Bear anyway and through this whole ordeal, I just grew bigger claws and fangs and one hell of a bite and swing,” You gestured, making your hand clawed and swiping at the air which got Noah to grin appreciatively.

“Anyway so if they got too close, they got the boot and a restraining order, I currently have over two dozen restraining orders against creepy vulture slash wolf tipes and I have gotten really good at spotting them from a mile away. I was already good at reading people and getting a sense of them because I’m an empath, it’s what I naturally do best, but now it’s basically a super power.” You chuckled before you continued to eat your breakfast.

“And despite all that, you’re still... just a normal, down to earth mom.” Noah praised which made your smile bloom even brighter.

“I try really hard not to let my past experiences change who I am too much because at the end of the day, what you just said is all I want to be. I used to be an easily trusting, very carefree, easy going and down to earth kind of person and I always reserved my judgement of people until I saw by their words and most importantly their actions- what kind of person they were and reacted accordingly I’ve always done my best to be a kind, generous and hospitable and caring person and I don’t want what has happened to me to change those parts of me that I like the most and that I’ve worked hard to cultivate despite how vicious and cold the rest of the world can be and just because I have suffered, doesn’t mean I should add to anyone else’s suffering and I don’t want greed or the love of money to corrupt me, I want to use it as the tool it is to build up instead of a precious finite resource that should be hoarded whenever encountered. A good person is a good person no matter how much money they have, and there’s a saying in the south about ‘acting too big for your britches’ that my parents and my inlaws are really good at calling me out on and at the time, I didn’t like it but after I thought about it, I realized they were right and I’m still humble enough to accept their council and we all need someone in our lives to bring us to our senses and remind us to keep it real.” You revealed as Noah smiled and nodded his approval to those sentiments.

“Which is why I, for better or worse tried dating again, and why the few dates have been really casual. Two of them had no idea about my past with the inheritances or the court case or anything like that. All they knew about me was that I was a widow, a single mom of two, that I own my own massage business that I run out of my house and that’s it and that’s all they needed to know about me. I had two dates at a trampoline park that I take my kids to a lot and we met, sat in side by side massage chairs and chatted while our kids played. That’s literally all that happened and in talking to them, while they were nice and friendly, I just didn’t connect with them. And because of my past, my walls are already pretty high and thick and most guys just assume it’s because my late husband was abusive, which- he wasn’t, but they just assume I’m more trouble than I’m worth and leave me alone in peace which is all I can ask for from them.” You explained.

“Although. There was a third guy that I’m pretty sure he found out about my financial past mid date because we were out to dinner, everything was going ok, the kids are getting along and him and I are having the ‘expectations’ talk about what we’re looking for a in a partner, what we’re not looking for, what our turn offs are and the more I talk I can see it in his eyes that he’s losing interest because he walked into the date thinking he can just move right on in, instant perfect family, his partner would have “a little hobby side business”,” You waived off dismissively, scrunching your nose as your tone grew sarcastically condescending which got Sakura to giggle and Noah to chuckle. “Which I get a lot, people who undervalue or underestimate it and it’s not my job to prove its validity, I let the work speak for itself, anyway- so he thought all he would have to do is go to work and provide and to hear that- that’s not exactly how things were going to work with me- he’s clearly not interested anymore and he withdraws which is fine because the more he talked, the more I didn’t like him either because if he can’t respect me and my profession, I don’t have to respect him in turn but I have manners so I stay pleasant, especially since kids are present and there’s never a reason to be rude or mean to a child. So he gets up to go to the bathroom, and he’s gone for like 30 minutes, like long enough that I start to worry he just dropped his kids off on me and ran and I’m talking to the kids trying to figure out if I need to be calling their mother to come pick them up or cramming them all into my car or what and then he comes back and it’s instantly a whole new version of him that I’m having dinner with- he comes swaggering back to the table with a bottle of the most expensive wine the Olive Gardens had and the difference in attitude, opinions and outlooks were night and day- like he had schizophrenia and I just had dinner with a different version of him and he’s all smiles and charm and talking about how all the ways he can support me in “my calling” and how ‘all he’s wanted is to be a stay at home dad and how “honorable” staying home and taking care of kids really is and taking extra care in raising and educating kids and taking care of animals is his life’s ambition’ when half an hour ago- he admitted that he never even once changed a poopy diaper and all domestic activities were what he got married for so he didn’t have to do them and that he never let his kids have indoor pets because they shed and make a mess and are more trouble than they're worth and at this point all of his kids are looking at him like he’s grown a second and third head and I put two and two together pretty quick that he got wind of my financials and he absolutely insisted he pay for everyone’s dinner when before we had agreed that we’d be paying separately and for the next week he was calling me at least three times a day trying to get another date which I always ignored his calls so he left the most ridiculous voicemails ‘how our kids really “clicked”,’ and ‘how beautiful I was’ and ‘what an amazing and accomplished woman I was’ and how he ‘needed me in his life’ and how ‘we need to hang out and go do stuff’ and even offered to take me and my family to Cedar Points for a whole weekend getaway and get a suite and so with some courage, I finally called him back and I just had to be very honest with him and tell him under no uncertain terms that none of those things were going to happen and to lose my number because I was not interested and I called him out on his behavior and point blank demanded why he had such a sudden change of heart and demanded to know why he was calling me so much and he tried to play it off but when I didn’t buy it and tried to tell him to go take a hike- he pushed back saying I owed him money for him buying me and my ‘ungrateful brats’ dinner that’s when I involved my friends with law enforcement because he got real nasty real quick and after that I took a break and that was a month and a half ago and I’ve just been doing my best to be patient and wait for the right guy with the right circumstances and the right personality and the right morals and values to come along and just...give me kindness, and sympathy, empathy and understanding and just..love me for me for me, with all my flaws and shortcomings without thinking that my bank account makes up for any of them or who won’t look at my bank account and think he’s expected to match it. Honestly I’m more scared that the right guy will take one look at my bank account and get scared off or think he’s not good enough because he’s humble or he came from a humble background like I did or think that all rich people are bad selfish people because that’s not true.” You confessed and realized that Noah wasn’t really talking but he was giving you the most interesting look. Like he was thinking very deeply about what you were saying before his phone started to ring.

“Oh, sorry, you should get going to work, sorry if I kept you.” You apologized but he waived you off as he listened to who was on the other end of the phone and got up from the table.

“Yeah, I’ll see you in a bit.” He bid them before he stopped and kissed Sakura goodbye before he, out of habit- kissed the crown of your head as he passed you before he had to pause after the fact and stood up straight as a board as Sakura giggled gleefully as your cheeks were bright kashmir sapphire blue along with your ears as you couldn’t help but giggle yourself because that was the most precious thing he could have done in that moment.

“Uhh, sorry?” He apologized as his own cheeks were a deep midnight along with the tips of his ears.

“Don’t apologize, it’s ok, I take it you used to do that a lot with Neena, old habits die hard, I don’t mind one bit, if anything I’m very flattered and honored, you’re good, we’re good.” You reassured him with a bright happy smile.

“Thanks,” Noah ducked his head sheepishly before he continued on his way and ran his hand down his face.

“Fuck.” He breathed once he got in his truck and started it and drove away.

“Actually Zara, I wasn’t thinking of Neena at all when I kissed you, I just did it because it felt like the most normal, natural thing to do with you looking like an absolute vision sitting at my table at 5 in the morning eating pancakes with my daughter and I- and the way you are with her is all I could have ever wanted and dreamed of and I’ve also been praying to the gods for patience while I wait for the right woman with the right heart condition and the right values and morals to come along and love her and me and you’re exactly what I’ve been praying for and I’m scared shitless because you are so much more than I could have ever dreamed of and you just radiate warmth and love and Sakura already loves you and I’m hopelessly head over heels, over the moon- crazy about you and I haven’t been sleeping well because every time I close my eyes, I see your face and because of that, I’m just constantly horny with you on my mind and I haven’t had sex with a woman since Neena and burying myself to the hilt in you is now my number 1 fantasy since I met you two days ago and I just want to kiss you every time I see you because I’m attracted to you and I can’t do that because you don’t know me even though it feels like I’ve known you for forever and this is crazy and I don’t know how this is going to work at all and I’m ready to just up and sell everything I own and follow you home like a lost puppy but I don’t know if you’ll let me and I’m stuck and the more you talk, the more I find out about you, the more I find to like and love about you and I’m in way over my head and I’m praying to the gods, every day to reveal to me the best path to take with you but I don’t know where to start.” Noah ranted to himself as he drove down to the airfield.

Meanwhile back at Noah’s house.

“Did your dad used to kiss your mama a lot before he left for work?” You asked Sakura.

“Yup, and every time he left for work, she would pray to all the gods for fair winds and for him to have safe flights and return home to us.” She informed you proudly.

“Could we do that? I feel like we should do the same, it’s a tradition we need to keep going.” You proposed as she eagerly got up and took your hand and brought you to the wall in the living room where a few stone symbols- symbolizing the gods they worshiped- hung on the wall-- you also had the same at your own house, a couple of them you recognized but you didn’t know the others. Then she got her prayer rug out from under the couch and got her mom’s old one and got it out and put in down for you to kneel on too which you did, copying her movements.

“We always prayed in Intuck though.” She sighed.

“Well, I don’t know any Intuck- but if you say the words first, I will do my best to repeat them, could you help me learn? Because the best way to learn something is to teach someone else and I know Intuck is a big part of your heritage and we should honor that and use it as much as we can.” You asked her as she nodded eagerly before she carefully and slowly and deliberately said the words as you did your best to repeat them exactly or as closely as you could and kept looking at her to make sure you were saying these words right.

“You did really good! Not one mistake!” She cheered.

“Thank you, I tried really hard. So what did we just pray for? Can you tell me in Anglo?” You asked her hopefully.

“Yup, we prayed for Daddy to have good flights in good weather, we prayed for generous customers, we prayed for his plane to fly well and we prayed for him to come home safe.” She told you even though she purposefully left off the last thing. The last thing she had you pray for was for her daddy to come home with more love than he left with and for him to come home to find more love than he left knowing was there, it was an extra prayer her mom prayed for when her mama and her dad had disagreements that they needed to reconcile over but Sakura knew when she hugged you the first time that your hugs and her mom’s hugs were the same. She could feel how much you loved her already just from that one hug was enough to convince her that you were her mom and that her wait for one was over and with you already showing respect to her mama and her mama’s memory and her mother’s native language and culture told her that you were a respectful person who wouldn’t try to change her and her culture, that you would be embracing it with her and she knew that the gods sent you all the way from the Great Lakes, just to be with her. She didn’t know if she would be moving in with you or if you and your family would be moving in with her, but she was going to love having siblings. She felt like looking at you was the same as looking at a new story book, one she didn’t know the story in it yet, but could tell from the pictures that it would be her new favorite and that it would be a happy story and one with the best ending where everyone lived happily ever after.

“Will I offend you or the gods if I continued to pray my own prayers but in Anglo?” You asked respectfully.

“Nope, the gods listen to all those who genuinely and honestly pray to them, no matter their language.” She insisted.

“I was taught the same. Ok, do you mind if I pray out loud or should I keep my prayers to myself?” You asked her as she got back on her little prayer mat before you sat down cross legged on yours since your lower legs were killing you sitting on them and you always prayed sitting down cross legged.

“Please pray out loud, I want to hear how you pray.” She answered excitedly.

“Come here Honey,” You invited her before she happily got into your lap and sat in it and settled against you as you wrapped your arms around her and placed your palms together but upturned.

“Why do you have your hands turned up?” She asked.

“So that the gods can take all my troubles and anxieties, all my hurt, all my sorrow and pain and give me instead- happiness, peace, serenity, calm and answers to the problems or they can provide the answers themselves and if I’m lost, they can take my hands and lead me to where I need to go and place me where I need to be. So that I can enjoy the day and every moment in the day without my joy and happiness stolen by worry and anxiety or anger. To love and appreciate the people around me and that friends and family who will love me and care for me as much as I love and care for them.” You answered before she did the same, her little hands upturned between your own as you watched as she closed her eyes with a serene smile on her face which brought a bright, appreciative smile to your own before you closed your eyes and took a cleansing breath and addressed not just your own gods but the ones who you had just been introduced to as well.

“Please oh gods of the heavens above, in the earth with me and in the depths of the sea-, hear my prayer. Please help me to help Sakura and her father Noatak with their troubles, no matter the kind. Help me guide them to the best and most successful path. Help me keep in mind what is best for both Sakura and Noatak and help all my words to be used with grace, kindness, gentleness, wisdom and respect. Please let there be no mistaking my words and intentions. Help me ease their pain and discomfort so that they can embrace the present and enjoy their future while not abandoning the past, but to honor it and those in it. Please grant Sakura, Noatak and my family and myself peace and serenity to accept the things we can not change and should not change, but courage to change the things we can and that need to be changed and to face what we need to face with bravery, perseverance and patience and the wisdom to distinguish between what we can not change and what we can. But to walk with our eyes towards all of you, please direct my steps so that I continue to walk the path you’ve set before me and help me guide others on their paths so that we all can have happiness, peace, meaning, purpose and fulfillment and if at all possible, success. Amen.” You prayed.

“Amen.” Sakura mirrored emphatically as you noticed the dogs were laying down around you as you curled your hands around hers and squeezed them as she squeezed back and smiled adoringly up at you.

“That was a really good prayer. I liked it.” Sakura praised.

“Thank you.” You grinned.

“So, your Daddy told me that you guys have horses,” you began.

“We do! We should go feed them breakfast, Daddy forgot to do that before he left!” Sakura realized before you got up and got your jacket on and got Sakura bundled up before she led you to the back where a barn was and horses were sleeping in their stalls but awoke once you opened the barn door as the dogs came trotting into the barn with you before Sakura walked you through what Noah usually did when he cared for them as you happily followed her instructions and even took extra care to brush them, clean out their feet and check them over the way you did with your own horses before you walked them out to the pasture so you could muck out their stalls and tidy things up a bit before your phone rang.

“Well hello, I take it you’re up in the air.” You mused since you could hear the plane running in the background.

“Yeah, I was just calling to check in.” Noah said, feeling like an idiot, you were a mom, he knew he could trust you to take care of his child but he was more anxious to know how you were faring, if Sakura was behaving for you and he was desperate for reassurance that everything was ok because he couldn’t ignore the urge to call.

“We’re doing great. Here, it’s your Daddy,” you offered the phone to Sakura as you continued to muck out the stalls.

“Daddy! Paradise and I prayed for you in Intuck just like Mama and I used to and the way Nana and I still do and Paradise did so good! She got all the words right and she’s having me teach her Intuck because she says the best way for me to learn and remember it is to teach someone else and it’s true! Then she showed me how she prayed and I got to sit in her lap and pray with her and it was just as nice and now we’re taking care of the horses because you forgot to before you left and she says she has horses too and she’s mucking out their stalls and even cleaned out their feet and brushed them even though it was kind of hard because all they wanted to do was hug her the way they used to hug mom and the dogs are being really good too.” Sakura babbled excitedly as she sat on a bale of hay and talked with her Dad on your phone.

Meanwhile Noah was scrunching his face because he knew he had forgotten something this morning.

“Well tell her I said thank you very much for helping me with the horses, I really appreciate it.” He urged her.

“My Daddy says ‘thank you for helping him and he appreciates it’,” Sakura repeated.

“Tell him it’s no problem at all, I’m happy to do it but tell him that the blue roan will need a trim soon.” You answered.

“She said Kabluey needs a trim.” Sakura repeated as you busted out laughing.

“What’s so funny?” Sakura asked.

“Kabluey is the name of a variety of blueberries. I grow kablueys at home. I think Kabluey is an amazing name for a blue roan.” You explained.

“Well hopefully I’ll be able to do it when I get home.” Noah answered.

“He said he’ll do it when he gets home.” Sakura said.

“I didn’t realize your Daddy was also a ferrier.” You appraised appreciatively as you imagined what Noah would look like on your farm in a tight pair of jeans bent over trimming your own horses feet, preferably with his shirt off and maybe a shimmering sheen of sweat on him that you could help him shower off.

Focus Zara. Horse stall.

“So can Paradise and I go riding later? Please?” She asked hopefully.

“If he trusts me to take you on a ride, then I’ll happily do so but if he’s not comfortable with that, then don’t beg him and try to push him when he’s not ready.” You insisted as Noah just smiled wide into the phone as any stress he was feeling melted away.

“Sweetie, give the phone to Paradise.” He urged her.

“Yes?” you answered.

“You have my permission to do whatever you want to do. I trust you completely.” Noah insisted.

“You sure?” You questioned.

“Absolutely. You girls have fun today, do whatever you want to do.” Noah urged you and you both heard and felt his genuineness and earnestness in that.

“Ok.” You agreed. “Is there anything in particular you want us to do today? Laundry, dishes? Not burn the house down?” You asked and Noah barked an amused laugh.

“Yeah, just that last one.” Noah.

“Dinner?” You asked hopefully.

“Only if you want to, this is your vacation after all.” Noah tried to dissuade you but his tone was incredibly weak because honestly food from you would be food from the gods at this point.

“Oh I definitely want to.” You firmly resolved. Oh you were going to woo him with food damn it.

“Well honestly there’s some grocery shopping I need to do, there should be a list on the fridge, if you go, keep your receipts and I’ll pay you back for whatever.” Noah revealed.

“Is there a budget you want me to try to keep?” You asked thoughtfully.

“Well that’s the thing, grocery shopping is really expensive up here, it’s gonna be about a hundred dollars.” He warned you.

“Yeah that’s not going to be a problem.” You reassured him. Oh you were going to hook him up.

“Any food allergies I should be aware of? Nuts? Dairy?” You asked.

“Nope. Although if you can find a way to make vegetables slightly more appealing to Sakura I’ll be forever grateful.” Noah hinted.

“Awesome, and between what times should we expect you home? Like between 6-7 or 7-8?” You asked.

“Honestly I don’t know at this point, right now it looks like I’ll be home by 5-5:30 but that could change several times between now and then, but I shouldn’t be home any later than 8.” He mused.

“Ok, do you have any preferences or any foods that you’re not allergic to but you’d rather eat cardboard than eat it? Like mushrooms? Peppers? Broccoli?” You began to list off.

“Ok, I’ll level with you, Sakura isn’t the only one who doesn’t like her vegetables, and I feel like the reason for that is because I’m not particularly good at making them.” He confessed which got you to laugh.

“I appreciate your honesty. None of us are perfect. Are we usually meat and potatoes kind of people?” You gently teased.

“Yup.” Noah nodded.

“Ok, I’ll see what I can do, keep me posted Babe.” You offered before you slapped your hand over your mouth as Sakura cackled with glee. Her prayers were working already! And the sound of Noah laughing told you that he was at least amused.

“Habit?” He asked.

“Yup.” You lied because that was easier than fessing up that you were falling helplessly, hopelessly head over heels for him. You were fucked.

“It’s ok, we’re ok, you’re good.” Noah reassured you.

“Thank you, see you at home later. Fly safe.” You urged him.

“Will do, see you later, bye.” Noah bid you and felt twice as high as he was. You called him a pet name. He didn’t care if it was on accident, that was heavenly. Today was going to be a great day.

Once you were done in the barn you had Sakura come back into the house so you could clean up from breakfast and get a look at that grocery list before there was a scratch at the window and you saw a massive thunder cat at the kitchen window before it meowed at you as it looked expectantly at you.

“Is..this cat yours?” You asked before Sakura eagerly rushed to the back porch where a trio of cats were from having gotten out of the house when Noah and Sakura had initially been in the porch waiting for you this morning. One of them was clearly a thunder cat, the others, were two of the biggest tom cats you’ve ever seen in your life and all three eagerly came into the house and rubbed against Sakura before all three came over to check you out before the thunder cat outright climbed you like a tree.

“Claws,” you whimpered as you braced against the counter before it happily got to your shoulder to look you over and sniff you before it started rubbing it’s face on your face.

“Well hello to you too.” You greeted happily before it outright laid down over your shoulders.

“Comfy there?” You gently teased as you scratched his ears as it started to purr very loudly in your ears before you continued to have Sakura go through the cupboards and showed you and told you what they had food wise as you made your own grocery list as you went through the freezer and fridge to see what he had and what he needed as recipes started popping like fireworks in your head of what you wanted to cook as you made notes of what dishes he had and what you wanted in each dish. You wanted to go all out. Not just the classics and tried and true but take a leap of faith on something else as you suddenly realized- your second trunk. YES.

Whenever you traveled you packed one set in one thing and another set in something else. Just in case either the airline, the cruise ship or whatever lost a piece of luggage, you weren’t screwed. You had packed two sets of spices and other staple ingredients. And both cases made it. In fact, not a piece of luggage had gone missing. You were going to try to sneak it in with the clan’s gift of seeds. Now- you were going give it to Noah and you couldn’t imagine a more deserving recipient or a more appreciative one. Then you went though the rest of the house, hunting to see if he needed laundry supplies or other cleaning supplies and jot those down.

Passing by Noah’s bedroom, you practically stopped in your tracks as your nose led you to turn your head as you sniffed in a deep lungful. His scent was so strong and so alluring there and it made your mouth water. You noticed some laundry and got a basket and gathered it before you picked up a pair of socks by the bed and upon picking up both socks- they squished in your hand and you did your best to stifle your laughter and one sniff confirmed your suspicion. It felt really “fresh”, maybe from last night or early this morning and really big loads in both socks. Your ego hoped that it was thanks to you. And even if it wasn’t, maybe tonight it might be.

Normally such a thought would annoy you or even disgust you. But with Noah? Nope. Quite the opposite. Part of you wanted to turn him on and light his fire so to speak and the thought of running him dry was a brand new fantasy for you and felt more like a mission than anything. You weren’t ashamed to admit it. You wanted him. And in this moment, badly.

You had your work cut out for you.

You did your best to tidy as you went through the house. Not that it was terribly dirty or unkempt. Just a little cluttered here and there, some dusting was in order though. You could tell that he was in the middle of his busy season, you knew that sometimes things got forgotten or not done perhaps as often as they should when you were at your busiest. You were going to help him catch up and you had all day to do it.

You noticed he really only had the bare essentials as far as cleaning supplies and you wondered if that was because that was all he could afford.

Honestly, it was because of his patience and good will that you were able to make as much money as you did the day you met him and at this point, it was extra money you had not anticipated making or having in your budget for this trip and you had the very strong urge to pamper and spoil Noah and Sakura with it. All you needed was Taylor and her van. Besides she seemed keen on the match herself and you were sure she would help you and you were making your to do lists and shopping lists by the time she got there at 9.

“Good morning.” You greeted her cheerfully.

“Good morning,” She greeted you back sleepily.

“So, I need the biggest of favors.” You began and your eager eyes and mischievous smile had her mirroring your expression.

“What do you need and why?” She asked as she sidled up next to you.

“Ok so Noah needs a few things from the store and a little bit of housework here and there and he said I could make him dinner for when he gets home tonight.” You began.

“And?” She prodded as her grin grew into a full blown smile.

“Want to get a breath of fresh air?” You hinted as the kids were playing in the living room with the cats and the dogs before you and her stepped out of the sliding glass door in the back so you could keep an eye on the kids but keep some level privacy.

“Ok, so uh, stop me if I sound completely insane, but I really like Noah and Sakura and I don’t know what it is about them but I’m drawn to both of them. Like holding Sakura is like holding my own daughter and it’s like I’ve known them my whole life and we’re just the best and oldest of friends and I have the overwhelming urge to just...take care of them.” You confessed and Taylor was practically vibrating with joy. This was a great start. Things could grow and flourish from here. She just needed to give you the right encouragement.

“You are not crazy or insane for feeling that way, especially about Noah and Sakura. No one is more worthy or deserving of whatever help you can give them. And I know Noah will appreciate even the smallest or simplest of things you can give or even do for him.” Taylor nodded her agreement.

“Well Noah did tell me that he trusted me completely and that I can do whatever I wanted with Sakura today. So, that being said. I need to go back to your house to get my second trunk. Because that first one had all the spices and seeds in it? I had two just in case one didn’t make it. And I wasn’t sure what to do with the second and coming here and seeing how bare Noah’s kitchen really is…” You began.

“Oh definitely. Up here there’s a belief of The Gods’ Will. Sometimes we’re moved to do or say things that may not make a ton of sense to us in the moment. But end up fulfilling the prayers of others. I know Noah and Sakura have been praying for help for a year and a half. And last year Noah and Sakura were ok because Neena’s death was still fresh in everyone’s minds and everyone helped them out but this year- it’s like most of them forgot all about them and poor Noah is grappling with how to fulfill both roles by himself and he’s just plain overwhelmed and this year he’s picking up every job he can just trying to make ends meet and some of his customers that he used to really depend on are trying to cut corners by hiring newer pilots who are less experienced with smaller planes that are cheaper to run and so far the weather has been really good so the other pilots have been able to do his job better and instead of doing several jobs at once, these places can afford to send out five individual pilots with single loads to a single destination quicker, like truckers and these other pilots can afford to all share an apartment together because they’re all single guys with no dependants and can pool resources while Noah is all by himself and has not just his own mouth to feed but Sakura and his animals in addition to his own aging parents and Neena’s aging parents because Neena’s other siblings haven’t moved back to help out Neena’s parents too but he can’t afford to lower his prices to try to compete or else he would actually lose money instead of make it and some of his customers are becoming difficult to deal with and he’s left between a rock and a hard place and in the meantime Sakura needs to go to school this year and that’s a challenge in itself.” Taylor explained.

“Has Noah tried to move on romantically since he lost Neena?” You asked thoughtfully.

“No. Neena was practically a saint and most women around here feel they can’t measure up to her which isn’t fair to anyone. She wasn’t perfect but she was a really wonderful person. But I know he’s really lonely and he’s been praying for the right woman with the right heart condition who will recognize his situation and treat him and Sakura with love and kindness. And I’m thinking if you instantly feel like helping them upon meeting them even if you don’t know them very well and especially if you have the means and the drive to- that you’re most likely the answer to their prayers.” Taylor revealed.

“And if I just to happen to uh, coincidentally, find Noah incredibly, irresistably attractive and want to woo him by making him a feast and getting his house in perfect running order? And maybe even run him dry or at least raw?” You asked with a wince but a bright bashful smile none the less.

“Yyeeaass!” Taylor practically screamed in a bright cheer before she accidentally spilled some of her coffee. “Oh shit, can’t spill the coffee, it’s precious coffee.” Taylor murmured before she eagerly sipped more of it before she put it down and hugged you and practically jumped up and down on the porch with you.

“Ok, tell me how I can help.” She beamed.

You had her take you and Sakura back to her house where you grabbed not only your other crate but also a few other things and then once unloaded those things into Noah’s house and you took your lists and she drove you to the best big box club store in the area that would have everything you wanted even if it was a two hour drive away. You got two flatbed carts and Sakura, Jamie and Matt all sat one one that Taylor pushed around as Katie happily helped you with yours as you happily started to strategically loaded up what you wanted and needed, not caring in the least what it would cost because you had a budget of a few grand and it made you so happy and gave you so much satisfaction to be doing this for Noah and Sakura and with some sweet talking to the head butcher, he gave you one hell of a deal on a ton of meat as you also got some junk food for the kids to keep them happy and had lunch there at the place, having got two rotisserie chickens and by a miracle, you managed to squeeze it all back into the van as the kids were happily holding their new junk food in exchange to being a little cramped with other stuff packed in around them before they quickly fell asleep and took a nap on the way back as you spent the whole two hours back working out a schedule of what to do when so that right about 6- the house could be clean and a feast would be ready and once back at the house you put the plan into action and with Taylor keeping the kids busy with a movie, she helped you as much as she could as she also wrote down your recipes as you cooked them since you knew them by heart and showed her what you were doing as you did it so she could replicate it and right at 4:30, she took her kids home to make dinner for her own family since she was going to be using the same recipes you were since all the food you would be making was already in motion which left you to portion out the remainder of the meat.

By 5 you got the call that Noah would be another hour away from coming home and you knew it was then to start cooking the steaks and start the risotto since risotto was a very labor intensive process which would take the remainder of your attention as you and Sakura danced in the kitchen to music on your little portable speaker as you taught her how you danced and you were so caught up in dancing and grooving in the kitchen- you didn’t hear Noah come in the door as his nose practically went nuts. He had never smelled food like this before and it smelled better than anything he had ever smelled before. It made his stomach growl loudly which finally alerted you and Sakura to his presence.

“Daddy!” Sakura cheered as she ran over and leaped into his arms.

“Hey Kiddo, how was your day?” He asked her as he picked her up and carried her over to the kitchen.

“It was awesome! We had so much fun!” Sakura fawned.

“Did you go riding?” He asked.

“We didn’t have time, we went shopping and we did something called “being domestic” which was really just chores but she made it into a game, she bought these really cool cloths that pick up all kinds of dust and she had me dust everything I could reach with my stool so that I can help you keep our castle clean.” Sakura beamed as she showed him the dusting cloth.

“Castle?” Noah repeated, with amusement.

“Castle law- every man’s home is his castle.” You supplied as Noah ‘oh’ed’ in understanding.

“And she agrees that our castle is very grand in it’s own way. It may not be as big as others but it’s ours and we need to take care of it so it can protect us.” Sakura beamed.

“I agree.” Noah nodded. “So...how far over budget did we go?” Noah asked with a bit of a nervous laugh.

“I didn’t go over my budget, don’t worry about it, just sit down and eat. That’s all I want from you right now.” You urged as you took out the steaks from the oven and Noah made a whimpering keen when he saw them.

“Oh I’m in trouble, so much trouble.” Noah murmured in awe as he shook his head as he just watched in awed wonder as you seamed to pull a feast out of his kitchen, he didn’t think his kitchen was big enough for half of this. He was not worthy.

“Trouble of what?” You asked curiously.

‘Of falling in hopelessly in love with you’. Noah’s mind was begging his mouth to say.

“I...I’m in over my head. I have no idea how I’m...gonna pay you back for any of this.” Noah admitted.

“Hey, Noah, look at me.” You reached out and framed his face in your hands and you had the overwhelming urge to kiss him but you knew it would probably be inappropriate and he may not appreciate that, yet anyway.

“Do not cheapen my gifts by trying to put a monetary value to them or feel that you have to repay anything. Everything I’ve done and given was given freely and and with immense pride and joy. Do we owe the gods for when they answer our prayers and bless us? Do you think they keep a tally? No. So don’t start a tally with me, I give to you because I know you’ll be appreciative and you’re more than deserving and worthy. Please do me the honor of accepting these gifts with grace and happiness, that’s all that I ask and all that I want.” You insisted before he just lifted his own hands to hold your own face before he kissed your forehead and hugged you which you happily returned as his words of muffled thanks were music to your ears and this big hug from his was all you could fantasize about as his affection was practically making you love drunk and so unbelievably happy as you once again had that overwhelming sensation that you were at home in his arms. A new home, this one filled with so much more love than your last and it wasn’t until the dogs tried to nose their way between you that you finally let go of each other.

“Now let’s eat before it gets cold.” You urged before you handed him the largest plate as you quickly got Sakura her own plate.

“So what do we have?” Noah asked eagerly.

“Ok, so what we have is bacon sauteed brussel sprouts with maple syrup and goat cheese. We have broccolini with cheddar cheese those are my two- “healthy” vegetable dishes. From there we have loaded twice baked potatoes, liquor yams, but all the alcohol should have baked off so it’s safe for Sakura to eat them, she won’t get drunk or anything. Then we have death by cheese mac and cheese, mushroom risotto with extra sauteed mushrooms to go over your steaks and dinner rolls. The only rule I have is you are not allowed to put ketchup on my steaks. I bought steak sauce and brought homemade hot sauce.” You revealed as you pointed everything out and the only thing Noah wanted to devour more than the food was you but he didn’t have the nerve or the courage just yet as he just stood there and stared at the feast as his eyes just got a little watery.

“Could you um, like pinch me because I am not sure if I’m dreaming or halucinating. Because this is bordering on too good to be true.” He teased you.

“It’s very much real, but if you insist on a pinch...” You playfully reached over and pinched his butt as he recoiled only slightly but started laughing as his sleep deprived brain was about to short circuit because he was on the edge of being overstimulated. Like a pet diving into a pool of new toys, wanting to play with all of them at the same time and can’t decide which one to go for first.

“Eat, eat!” You urged him.

“You slaved for the meal, you go first, women and children first right?” He urged you.

“How chivalrous,” you flattered before you got yourself a good portion and sat down at the table before you opened your little jar of hot sauce for your steak.

“Hot sauce?” You offered as you sucked on the tip of your thumb as Noah seemed to fixate on your mouth before he swallowed hard before he tore his eyes away from your mouth to take the jar and found a tiny spot on his already heaping plate for it.

“It’s best on the mac and cheese though, like buffalo chicken dip but without the chicken.” You hinted.

“Prayer Daddy.” Sakura urged him before he could eat before you happily reached out and took Sakura’s hand and offered your hand to Noah who happily took it and held it as he tried not to let the touch completely blank his mind as he noticed your eyes were closed and the most beautiful, serene smile was on your lips as you held his hand and you were even more of a vision now than you were this morning. He closed his eyes and addressed all of his gods. In his prayer he thanked the gods for the pleasure of your presence and prayed that whatever blessings you gave and whatever you spent to make those blessings happen, returned to you a hundred fold and that whatever you did or would ever do would find success and you did your best to wipe away your tears as quickly as you could once he said amen. Andy had never prayed about you like that and it meant the world to you.

Noah tried his best not to moan, or cry. He tried, and he failed.

“So, I have to say, this is the best food I have ever put in my mouth. It’s like...the gods either prepared this food or this food was prepared for them, and I don’t know if I’m worthy as a mortal to eat it.” Noah teasingly praised and you beamed happily.

“Thank you. Welcome to Zara’s greatest hits food wise.” You gestured to the food. “For all the holidays, it’s always my dad, my brother in law Jake and myself who are in charge of the food. My dad is in charge of the smoker, so he smokes all the wings, the salmon, all the ribs and brisket and pulled pork and stuff. Obviously these are my specialties. Although my turkeys usually make my sisters cry. Jake, believe it or not is the king of casseroles and one pan and one dish dinners, like paella and all things seafood. While Anya and Tasha are on drink duty because Anya’s a professional bartender. And when it’s not holidays it’s superbowl, or it’s championships. Any excuse to get together and eat.” You explained.

“So what did your family think of Andy?” Noah asked.

“They got along really well, Andy was really quiet and shy at first and he was incredibly introverted. But he was also a really big guy, not quite as big as you but close and solid and he had resting…” You paused as you tried to think of the appropriate substitute.

“Jerk face?” Noah supplied.

“Yeah, jerk face. He couldn’t help it, that was just his face. But once he warmed up to you- oh man, you had to have a sharp wit to keep up with him and he could just deliver line after line and he could verbally roast anyone. Which at first is very entertaining and fun and my brother and my dad thought it was awesome because Andy was very much just one of the guys. But being married to that, it’s exhausting and hurtful and he had a really hard time turning the sarcasm off and he forgot to filter himself most of the time and when I would inevitably get my feelings hurt his mother would chastise me for being too thin skinned and that if ‘a Kingsley wasn’t making fun of you- they didn’t like you’ and Andy only ever had brothers. No sisters. But because he was so big and so mean looking, I could go anywhere I wanted with him and no one messed with me because they took one look at Mr. Big Scary Giant and thought twice about trying to spit game and Andy was incredibly strong and he only ever got into one fight when he was a kid and he put the guy into the hospital but Andy used that to his advantage he was a very intimidating person and one lip curl or a crack of his neck and knuckles and low growl and it was enough to unnerve anyone. Otherwise he was a great earner and provider financial and materially, he just had to be reminded often to be kind and nice.”

“But the price of all that was you were married to a sarcastic jerk.” Noah realized in disgust as you nodded.

“Yup, which is why I look at his life insurance policy money as money earned for being married to him so long, I know that sounds incredibly horrible and shallow but it’s the truth. Which is why when and if I get married again- how much money they make means very little to me and I don’t care about what they do as long as they like what they do because life is too short to slave away in a job you hate with people you despise. Personality is everything to me now. I got enough financially so that I’m set for the rest of my life. Now I just want to share my life with someone who makes me happy mentally, emotionally and spiritually, and of course the other kind that shouldn’t be talked about in polite company.” You specified with a mischievous grin which made Noah smile wide as he nodded and forced his mouth shut because he was about to volunteer himself, even though he was sleep deprived and exhausted, he felt he could push himself to really love you right. At least give his tongue a good work out. Because if you have the cooking skills of a goddess, by the gods, he was going to worship you like one.

Then you looked over at Sakura who was shoveling food in her mouth.

“Hey, hey, hey, slow down, the food’s not gonna disappear when you close your eyes, if you eat too much too fast you’ll get a stomach ache, do you want to throw everything up?” You asked her which made her pause.

“I’m not taking any of this food home with me, it’s all staying here. I made enough that you should have two dinners and a couple of lunches. And it all keeps in the fridge and microwaves pretty good.” You reassured her before she finally slowed down.

“It’s hard for me not to inhale it all too Baby,” Noah reassured his daughter with an understanding smile.

Once dinner was eaten, Noah happily helped you put the left overs away and got started on washing the bigger pots and pans that wouldn’t fit in the dishwasher and he was never sexier to you. Just to see this fine specimen of a man standing in front of a sink scrubbing pots. You were ready to suck him dry in the kitchen as you tried to stomp that down because he probably wouldn’t appreciate that or would be keen on letting you around his daughter again. He was a sensible, reasonable man and he may not be ready for that yet and he may not be interested romantically in you either and while you knew you were meant to be here to help. You didn’t feel you were meant to come and stay forever. You wanted him to be sure but you didn’t know how moving forward this could possibly work. You didn’t want to do him the injustice of a one night stand. You wanted more with him than just a night or two of casual sex. So in order for you to hopefully enjoy more in the future, you could deal with enjoying less in the moment. You wanted to build more. You still had a week up here, you had a little bit of time.

“So how long will you need to get your own appointments done?” Noah asked.

“Give me a day, I can get them all done tomorrow then I can be all yours the day after, I take it you’ll need more help with the bigger loads?” You guessed as Noah nodded.

“Honestly more of my most difficult customers.” Noah confessed.

“How are they difficult?” You asked thoughtfully as you helped him dry the dishes and put them away.

“Well only because I have a bigger plane and there’s some things that won’t fit in a normal bush plane. Otherwise they’ve used the newer pilots who are less expensive and don’t have the overhead or dependants I do that can do it cheaper than I can. In fact there’s a few of them who all room together on the other side of town. But I can’t lower my own prices any lower because if I do, I’ll lose money instead of making it.” Noah explained. Normally he wouldn’t be comfortable breathing anything this personal or private to anyone. But he felt comfortable confiding in you.

“How old are the other pilots?” You asked.

“Psh, barely adults, they’re like walking disasters, I’ve seen them try to do flips in the air with cargo on board and they don’t show any respect for anything. They think it’s all fun and games.” Noah griped and you felt rage lick up your spine.

“Well it does make business sense to try to undercut what you can and take chances on the less reliable if it saves your bottom line in the moment. But when you do that- you risk the quick easy fix costing you quite a bit in the future. Especially when the new easy fix isn’t reliable and catastrophic failure is always a thing you have to contend with- with anything. When I have new clients as they look at how much my own fees are and the numbers give them pause. My usual go-to is to remind them that they get what they pay for and it’s my experience and my specialities that recommend me. When we go to the hospital, do we want an inexperienced surgeon operating on us? Who’s trying to get their start in their career by slashing prices to get new clients? No. Hell no. We want the older more experienced surgeon with thousands of operations under their belt, who has kept up with their continuing education and has prided themselves on staying on the cutting edge because it’s our lives on the line. That’s why I used your services at first was because you had the most experience and you were the greatest professional that could be recommended and that’s why you’re worth your fees. Because it’s not just your own livelihood on the line, it’s your family’s and it’s your clients livelihoods too. You��re a serious and respectful professional. They aren’t. I think it’s only a matter of time before your clients get burned by using young and stupid. Because honestly, if they fail, it’s no big deal, they don’t have families that will go hungry, you do. Are these other pilot’s- locals, natives or outlanders?” You asked.

“They’re all outlanders,” Noah answered.

“And your clients?” You inquired as you tilted your head.

“Locals and natives.” Noah answered.

“Can you do me a favor?” You asked.

“Anything.” Noah answered.

“Write down the names of your difficult clients for me. Whenever I have issues especially with clients, especially tight fisted, cheapskate ones or ones that have problems out of my control that they’re somehow making me responsible for, I pray for them to come to their senses or simply have sense and reason. And if you could write down the names of the other pilots, I would also like to pray for them too.”

“You’re not going to curse them are you?” Noah teased as he did as you asked of him after he dried off his hands after finishing the dishes.

“No, I pray for my own competitors, because honestly there are some clients that are more trouble to keep than they’re worth and so I send them to my own competitors to deal with and I pray that those clients stay with them instead of coming back to me when they find out that I’m better than they are. Some clients are always about getting as much out of you as they can for as cheap as they can and I put as much distance between me and them as I can so that I will have the free space for the clients who will appreciate my quality and feel that I’m worth the investment. Instead of a “stupid splurge” that others think I am. So maybe these other clients that you’ve lost, you’re better off without them and now you’re free to take on new clients, clients who will appreciate you and not undercut you but build you up and hopefully pay better than the ones you lost ever paid you. Besides, if push comes to shove and your business goes belly up, I mean heaven forbid and knock on wood...” You quickly knocked on the countertops as he did too. “I have all kinds of connections with the air force base that’s half an hour away from me and there’s a local international airport that’s forty minutes away and there’s air fields all over, I’m sure there’s still all kinds of opportunities for you as a pilot anywhere you go, you could even be a private jet pilot if you really wanted to.” You mused as Noah considered those options.

“But that’s neither here nor there and that’s puting like...7, 8, maybe even 9 carriages before our horses so don’t worry about it. Sometimes all we can do is pray and leave things in the god’s hands and trust that it’ll be ok.” You reassured him. “And I have a feeling everything will be just fine.” You added with a serene smile before you just enveloped him in a hug which he happily returned and he could have died happily right there in his kitchen and holding you, he felt the rest of his stress and anxiety completely leave him and if you were a goddess in the kitchen, you were an ethereal deity in his arms. Your touch was grounding yet uplifting all the same and you smelled amazing and he just wanted to lose himself in you.

“Paradise? Could you give me a bath please?” Sakura asked which reluctantly pulled you out of Noah’s arms.

“Sure thing Kiddo.” You agreed as you went to her and took her hand and together you went upstairs to where a large clawfoot tub was as you got her a bath, letting her use one of the bath bombs you had packed. You had again packed two sets of bath bombs and with one set with Taylor’s kids, the other set would be here for Sakura and Sakura picked one of your absolute favorites as you both watched as it dissolved, turning the water a kaleidoscope of colors as you used your special body wash to gently clean her skin as you sat on the floor next to the tub so that you could wash and rinse her hair as well as she played with her toys in the tub and once her hair was done, you got some leave in hair conditioner and detangler for her hair as you lovingly and patiently combed it all out. Sakura had such long and delicate fine white hair, like strands of silk by the time you were done with it and didn’t even notice how Noah was watching from the doorway.

He had taken the moment of peace to finish up his paperwork for the day and just watching you be the mother you were with his daughter was practically bringing him to tears again. It was such a beautiful, heartwarming sight and if he had thought he was head over heels in love with you this morning, he was a goner for sure now. He felt incredibly whole and full after feeling so broken and hollow for so long. Something he thought impossible three days ago. But he was not about to question it. He was just grateful for it.

Once she was cleaned up and the water was turning cold, you drained the tub and wrapped her up in a towel and helped her get ready for bed before she had you read her a story as Noah got a shower himself after rinsing out the tub of the remains of the bath bomb and since Sakura’s room was right across the hall, you got the glorious gift of seeing Noah in nothing but a towel around his waist as he walked from the bathroom to his room and seeing that big strong muscled back dripping with water, oh gods, you nearly fainted and the words out of your mouth trailed off as you realized Noah had one the best deriers you had probably ever seen in your life. He had curves that would put a back road to shame and once his door was shut that pulled you from admiring him back to Sakura’s story book but thankfully once you looked back to see if Sakura had noticed, she was thankfully out like a light.

You closed the book and kneeled next to the bed and prayed to all the gods that she would sleep well and sleep in tomorrow to give Noah a chance to recover and you prayed for guidance in helping her and Noah and for the way to help to become evident to you and for you to recognize the opportunities and to have courage to take them when they presented themselves.

When you were done you got up just to see Noah coming out of his room, dressed in pajamas and while you would love nothing more than to peel them off, the thought of bed and sleep did sound amazing and you were so tired, you had worked a miracle today, in cleaning the house and making a feast fit for a king and cleaning up after it too, although the cleaning up part was easy thanks to Noah’s help.

“Well, today was awesome, thank you for welcoming me into your home, it’s beautiful.” You praised as you leaned against the wall after closing the door behind you and leaning against it.

“It’s small and falling apart.” He admitted as he leaned against the wall across from you. Just taking in the vision of you in his hallway.

“But it has a thousand times the love inside it than there is any mansion. A house is just a house until you put people in it, then it’s a home. And because of who is in this home means this is one of the finest ones I’ve ever been in.” You praised as you bashfully ducked your head as Noah looked like he was about to eat you alive in a very carnal way as he pushed off the wall and took a step forward before your phone rang and it was Taylor.

“Hey, could you come get me? I’m ready to go and I’m so tired, I could fall over, please don’t make me walk back to your house.” You whined sarcastically as you couldn’t help but giggle a little and Noah reluctantly took a step back and knew that the door for him to prove to you just how much love was in his home, let alone himself, the door had closed as quickly as it opened and he missed his opportunity to prove it. All he could do is hope that it would open again the day after tomorrow. Maybe it was for the best, it would give him time to rest up and be fully energized. But he was determined. He was going to make you his one way or another before you left, if it was the last thing he would do and so begrudgingly he watched you leave as once again, the emptiness and hollow feeling crept back into him and he felt like warm light left the house once you did.

Hell he would find a way to build you whatever kind of house you wanted, with his own two hands if he had to.

“Why the fuck did you have me come get you when Noah is looking at you like a damn feast and he’s starving, I thought you wanted to raw him? What the fuck? Your opportunity to do that is behind you.” Taylor chastised you once you got in her minivan.

“It’s not the right time. Noah deserves better than a one night stand or even a two nighter.” You argued.

“Uh by my calculations it could have been a seven nighter if you got started tonight.” Taylor argued.

“And then what? Have the best week of my life and then just...what? Walk away? No. I’m too invested emotionally with Sakura to do anything like that. I feel like if I rush the intimacy with Noah, I’ll lose the prize of having Sakura in the long run and they both deserve more attention and effort and time. And Noah and especially Sakura are a prize worth waiting for, worth fighting for worth doing whatever I can to help them and worth doing right. I don’t want to hit it and quit it.” You explained.

“Look, I get it and that makes sense but I am telling you now, Noah looks like he’s about to hump that beam he’s leaning against and if you gave him half a chance I’m pretty sure he would have rocked the northern lights into your eyes tonight and every night from here on out, I know him, he’s not a hit and quit it person either and he’s as loyal as the summer days are long up here and when he does anything, he goes whole hog and he’s in it till the end, he’s a ride or die kind of guy. You said you were flexible and could go anywhere.” Taylor reminded you.

“...true. But again, I’ve only known him two days, would you drop everything and sell everything you own to move in with a stranger you’ve only known for two days?” You posed to her. “That’s putting a few carts ahead of the horse don’t you think?” You posed back to her.

“Well ok, get to know him a tiny bit more and then bang his lights out and we can figure the rest out later.” Taylor compromised.

“Ok, that’s a little more fair.” You laughed as she drove you back to her house where you promptly crashed.

#Jewel Of The North #Jewel Of The North Part 3 #modern orc love story #ice orcs #jewel orcs #orcs #modern orcs #@monstersandmaw #thank her for inventing this and sharing this with me #She's amazing #orc boyfriend #monster boyfriend #this is about to be a #monster bone

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bytheangell · 4 years ago

Text

Grow as We Go

Flufftober Day 26: Garden (Read on AO3)

“I’ll kill whoever did this to you,” Raphael says, walking out of the small tarp-covered area of his yard by the fence along the property line. He’s holding a long section of vine he had to cut from one of the tomato plants inside, now dying and riddled with holes from being eaten through. “I’m going to kill them for you, don’t worry. I’m going to find every son of a bitch who ever hurt you, and their parents, and their children, and I’m going to end each of their lives individually until--”

“Oh thank god,” comes a relieved voice from the fence. Raphael startles, looking up to see the figure of his next-door neighbor peering over the top of the fence. “Sorry, I just, uh, overheard your increasingly horrifying threats and thought you might secretly be a mob boss someone crossed or something. But you’re just talking to a plant.”

Raphael glares down at the tomato plant again, buying himself enough time to neutralize whatever expression he might have on his face over his mortification of the first encounter with the guy next door (outside of exchanging names and a few courteous ‘good morning’s in passing) being this.

“Sorry,” Raphael says, but in a ‘sorry you overheard’ and not a ‘sorry I said it’ way. He has to vent his frustrations in some way that isn’t snapping and ripping up the tomato plant entirely, after all. He’ll be the first to say he never gets embarrassed, but if he did this would come pretty damn close.

“It’s all good. I’m just glad you aren’t trying to wipe out generations of human beings over there,” Jace says. “Bug problem?”

“Yes,” Raphael grumbles. “I don’t even like tomatoes, but Simon loves them, and I’m trying to grow him a garden for his birthday and failing miserably.”

“I’m actually really good with plants, and I had a little greenhouse at my last place. I could come over and see if I can help?” Jace offers.

Raphael immediately shakes his head. Not only does he not want to take advantage of his neighbor’s kindness, but he also very vividly recalls the conversations with Simon about how Simon may have … other interests regarding Jace for them. Once they all get to know each other a little better, of course. Raphael doesn’t want to ruin that potential by abusing Jace’s kindness now… and he was actually hoping Simon would be the first of them to make any actual connection with Jace. Raphael is, to say the least, not great at winning people over.

“No. That’s way too much work, I couldn’t-” Raphael starts, but Jace is already waving his refusal off.

“Don’t worry about it. I’m sure one day I’ll need help with something and you can pay me back, isn’t that how neighbors work?” Jace smiles. “Anyway, I actually kinda miss it, it’d be nice to make sure I haven’t lost my touch.”

“Alright,” Raphael agrees finally, hoping Simon will forgive him for taking a chance on this, and praying he doesn’t mess it up. “Maybe you can start by figuring out what keeps eating the goddamn tomato plant?”

---

Jace wasn’t just lying to get invited over, he’s actually very good at gardens and plants in general. He starts to go over in the early mornings while Simon is sleeping in to help Raphael with natural bug repellant tips, homemade fertilizer tricks, and even pruning and general upkeep techniques that Raphael never saw on any of the websites he looked into.

And yeah, okay, maybe Jace is helping in large part because of his ridiculous crush on Simon. And yeah, okay, maybe this is an increasingly terrible idea, because the more time he spends around Raphael and his particular dark, sarcastic humor, the more he realizes that he and Raphael get along really well. Like, really well - they’re similar in a lot of ways, which normally doesn’t work out for him, but in this case, Jace finds himself completely enamored with the guy who can match his sarcasm with dry wit and clever comebacks without missing a beat.

This is extra unfortunate because this all started because Jace wanted to help do something nice for Simon, who seems like a really nice guy from the few times he met him, one of those ‘you just want to see him happy because he deserves it’ sort of people. Now Jace has to admit his crushes on his neighbors have now quickly evened out from Simon-heavy to a solid 50/50 split between them… not that it matters.

Because Simon and Raphael are very much in love, that much is obvious from everything Raphael says about them, and Jace is not a homewrecker.

Jace is, however, apparently a gardener now. He settles for being happy to help with a gift for Simon and ease Raphael’s frustrations in the process, even if his relationship with his neighbors will never be anything more than casual, neighborly friendship.

Going over once a day (“Just to keep an eye on things, look out for signs of other invasive bugs before they get out of hand, you know.”) is absolutely not necessary, but Raphael doesn’t call him out on it. In fact, Raphael’s been giving him a lot of compliments lately, from the new set of suits he’s been wearing to work to the piano playing he heard through Jace’s open window the other night. There’s also the fact that Raphael is often already there waiting for him in the morning, and if Jace didn’t know any better he’d think Raphael almost seemed eager for their daily interactions. Jace just chalks it up to being eager for the garden to work out - for Simon and all.

Speaking of Simon - it doesn’t take long for Simon to figure out when Jace is normally outside, either to meet with Raphael or to go to and from work. At first, it’s just casual greetings and small talk, but soon he’s prying for information, and Jace smirks.

“Oh no you don’t. If you think a little eyelash batting and puppy dog eyes is going to get me to spill Raphael’s secrets, you’re sorely mistaken,” Jace says, shaking his head.

Simon pouts, and it’s infuriatingly adorable. Jace has to admit to himself that under any other circumstance the look would be more than enough to get Jace to tell Simon anything. Then Jace catches his eyes lingering a bit too long on those pouting lips - and he’s pretty sure Simon does, too.

“I have to go,” he says, tearing his gaze away quickly and turning to go back inside without another word.

The next day Jace catches Simon trying to sneak around to Jace’s side of the fence in the hopes that he could see anything inside the tarp-covered area of Raphael’s makeshift greenhouse. Jace goes outside quietly, moving silently up behind him.

“Isn’t this trespassing?” Jace asks, causing Simon to jump a foot into the air.

“It, uh, isn’t what it-” Simon starts guiltily.

Jace shakes his head. “Your birthday isn’t too far away. I promise the surprise is going to be well worth the wait. Also, I think Raphael might actually murder you if you peek now, and then murder me if he finds out I let you.”

Simon laughs at that, but to his credit, he also backs away from the fence and towards Jace. “Wow, you already know him so well,” Simon jokes, but Jace can’t tell if the hint of jealousy he thinks he hears there is real or imagined.

“Not really,” Jace is quick to insist, and now he can’t read the expression on Simon’s face at all. In a moment of panic, Jace decides the best course of action is to try and spend more time getting to know Simon, too, instead of just spending less time with Raphael. “Hey, do you want to come in and grab a drink?”

Simon looks surprised by the sudden turn in the conversation, but he nods finally, a small smile spreading across his face as he accepts the offer.

---

The inside of Jace’s house has a sort of classic elegance to it that Simon hadn’t been expecting - but maybe it was influenced by the baby grand piano in the living area that Simon knows, even if it looks older and probably refurbished, had to run Jace a couple grand at least.

“May I?” Simon asks, motioning to it, and Jace nods.

“Go ahead,” Jace says as Simon takes a seat, and messes around with a few simple chord progressions just to test it out. “Raphael told me you play - that and guitar, right?”

Simon nods, playing a small portion of a song he knows from memory. “Yeah. Nothing like what you can do, though,” Simon admits, glancing at the sheet music in front of him that he can only barely begin to process.

Jace shrugs, wandering off to the kitchen to make drinks, raising his voice to continue talking as he does. “My dad was kind of a hardass about learning. I almost gave it up a little while back, actually. But I decided to pick it back up recently.”

Simon can tell there’s a story there, but he doesn’t pry when Jace keeps the details vague.

“Well, for the sake of my frequent dinner serenades, I for one am glad you did,” Simon says, getting off the piano bench and joining Jace in the kitchen.

They talk for a while, and Simon doesn’t tell him that Raphael’s already told him a lot of this, not sure how Jace would react to the idea of the two of them talking about him as much as they do sometimes. They talk about new things, too, like music and how they both came from growing up in cities, and Simon’s pop culture references often go right over Jace’s head but by the end of the night Jace has a small notepad page filled with bands and movies to check out.

“Seriously, I have so many DVDs, if you ever want to borrow something just come over and ask,” Simon insists for the 3rd time as he leaves. “We can even have movie nights!”

“I will,” Jace promises, and Simon sincerely hopes he’ll follow through on that.

It isn’t the last time they have drinks together. In fact, ever since that first invitation Simon has been strategically placing himself outside when he knows Jace is around at night, striking up a casual conversation, and getting an invitation to come in for a drink if he wants that’s turned into just a standard nightly nightcap. Each time he sits closer to Jace on the sofa as they talk, each time his lingering touches on Jace’s back, or arm, or somewhere more or less harmless, linger a little bit longer.

Two nights before his birthday, Simon practically sat in Jace’s lap while they talked, and he’s pretty sure his hand rested on Jace’s thigh for a solid 20 minutes without either of them acknowledging it around their easy conversation about the first Star Wars movie which Jace just watched, at Simon’s insistence.

“Raphael, he’s wonderful,” Simon whines, throwing himself down on the bed dramatically after he gets home. “He watched Star Wars for me,” Simon adds as if that fact alone proves his point.

“I know, Si. And we haven’t exactly been subtle, but every time I think he’s finally leaning into the idea he pulls back twice as far. But I’m positive he feels something there, you should see how red his ears get when I compliment him,” Raphael says, laughing a little.

“Raph! Be nice!” Simon says, smiling.

“I’m just afraid asking him now will make him double-down on pulling away,” Raphael admits. Simon sighs and the conversation drops for the night.

When Simon’s birthday rolls around the reveal of the thriving garden is better than he ever expected. It’s beautiful, he’s already excited to get to help take care of it now, and he’s wanted to grow his own cooking ingredients for ages! It’s perfect, not that he expected his gift from Raphael to be anything but perfect, but the garden really is above and beyond.

But there’s one thing that would set the night over the top, and Simon decides to risk everything for the chance of it. He heads over to Jace’s house to knock on his door.

---

The last person Jace expects at his door is Simon. He’d resigned himself to a night in alone, perhaps flicking through Tinder for a hookup to distract himself from the fact he’s missing his daily interactions with Raphael and Simon way more than he should be now that it’s Simon’s birthday and the gardening project is over.

“Simon? What are you doing here?” Jace asks, surprised. “It’s your-- I mean, Happy Birthday! But also shouldn’t you be celebrating?”

Simon nods. “I should. I am! But we wanted to know if you’d like to come over and celebrate with us?” Simon asks. “We’re cooking with veggies from the garden, and you can stay for drinks… or the night if you wanted.”

The night? There’s absolutely no way that means what he thinks it means, but they live next door to each other, why would Jace spend the night otherwise?

Jace shakes his head. They probably just feel bad for him being over here alone again, but he’d been alone plenty before they became friends, he’s used to it.

“I couldn’t impose-”

“You aren’t. We want you there. Both of us,” Simon emphasizes, glancing to where Raphael leans against the front door of his own house, waiting. Simon appears to brace himself before reaching out and taking Jace’s hand in his, giving it a small squeeze, and then very quickly shifting up onto his toes to give Jace a quick kiss.

Dozens of moments replay in Jace’s head during the split-second of that kiss - casually flirty comments and lingering touches he wrote off as just being overly-friendly as they happened because he’d mentally tossed Simon and Raphael in an ‘unavailable’ box. But now…

“Oh,” Jace says, the realization dawning on him. He can feel his heartbeat quicken in his chest. Chancing a quick glance over at Raphael Jace sees him unmoved, watching expectantly and entirely unbothered by the fact that Simon just kissed him.

“You don’t have to, obviously. You could just come for dinner? Or-” Simon is starting to ramble in Jace’s prolonged silence.

“I could,” Jace starts, his brain still racing to process everything that just clicked into place but not wanting Simon to think his silence is a ‘no’ because it definitely isn’t. “Sorry, I just wasn’t expecting… yeah, that sounds good. That sounds great, actually,” Jace finally manages and watches Simon practically melt with relief.

“See, I knew asking you now wouldn’t scare you away!” Simon says victoriously. Jace is still too shocked to do anything other than laugh at that before Simon continues. “You can come over now if you want! We picked so many great things from the garden, and Raphael picked up some things from the market, and...”

Jace closes his door and follows an eagerly chatting Simon across their lawns to where Raphael waits, excited for whatever tonight - and hopefully the days that follow - might bring for the three of them.

#raphael santiago #simon lewis #jace herondale #rjs #shadowhunters #raphael x jace x simon #a requested pairing but let's be real i was going to write them anyway #RJS WHY YOU ALWAYS GOTTA GET THE BEST OF ME I WANTED TO KEEP THIS SHORT #2.5k later fjdskljfdskl #flufftober 2020 #elle writes a few deadbeat lines #long post

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kkintle · 4 years ago

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Map: Collected and Last Poems by Wisława Szymborska; Quotes

Dreams flickered on white canvas.

The future—who can guess it. The past—who’s got it right.

Trite Rhymes A great joy: flower upon flower, the branches stretch in pristine blue, but there’s a greater: today’s Tuesday, tomorrow will bring mail from you, and still greater: the letter trembles, strange reading it in spots of sun, and still greater: just a week now, now just four days, now it’s begun, and still greater: I kneel on top and make the suitcase lid shut tight, and still greater: the train at seven, just one ticket, thanks, that’s right, and still greater: rushing windows, with view on view on view on view, and still greater: dark and darker, by nighttime I will be with you, and still greater: the door opens, and still greater: past the door, and still greater: flower on flower. —Ohhh, who are all these roses for?

Do you open each human fate like a book, seeking feelings not in fonts or formats? Are you sure you decipher people completely?

Are people really so simple as far as people go?

Lovers In this quiet we can still hear what they were singing yesterday about the high road and the low road . . . We hear—but we don’t believe it. Our smile doesn’t mask our sorrow, and goodness needs no sacrifice. The pity we give to nonlovers is even more than they deserve. We’re so astonished at ourselves, what’s left to astonish us? Not a rainbow in the night. Not a butterfly in snow. And when we sleep we dream of parting. But it’s a good dream, it’s a good dream, since we wake up from it.

Nothing can ever happen twice. In consequence, the sorry fact is that we arrive here improvised and leave without the chance to practice.

One day, perhaps, some idle tongue mentions your name by accident: I feel as if a rose were flung into the room, all hue and scent.

Why do we treat the fleeting day with so much needless fear and sorrow? It’s in its nature not to stay: today is always gone tomorrow. With smiles and kisses, we prefer to seek accord beneath our star, although we’re different (we concur) just as two drops of water are.

If we haven’t had enough of despair, grief, all that stuff, lofty words will kill us off. Then we’ll stand up, take our bows: hope that you’ve enjoyed our show. Every patron with his spouse will applaud, get up, and go. They’ll reenter their lives’ cages, where love’s tiger sometimes rages, but the beast’s too tame to bite.

I TEACH silence in all languages

FOR PROMISES made by my spouse, who’s tricked so many with his sweet colors and fragrances and sounds— dogs barking, guitars in the street— into believing that they still might conquer loneliness and fright, I cannot be responsible. Mr. Day’s widow, Mrs. Night.

We know ourselves only as far as we’ve been tested. I tell you this from my unknown heart

An Effort Alack and woe, oh song: you’re mocking me; try as I may, I’ll never be your red, red rose. A rose is a rose is a rose. And you know it. I worked to sprout leaves. I tried to take root. I held my breath to speed things up, and waited for the petals to enclose me. Merciless song, you leave me with my lone, nonconvertible, unmetamorphic body: I’m one-time-only to the marrow of my bones.

Leave me, leave, but not by land. Swim off, swim, but not by sea. Fly off, fly away, my dear, but don’t go near the air. Let’s see each other through closed eyes. Let’s talk together through closed mouths. Let’s hold each other through a thick wall.

Since eternity was out of stock, ten thousand aging things have been amassed instead.

Everything’s mine but just on loan, nothing for the memory to hold, though mine as long as I look.

One day the answer came before the question. Another night they guessed their eyes’ expression by the type of silence in the dark. Gender fades, mysteries molder, distinctions meet in all-resemblance just as all colors coincide in white.

Sunny. Green. A forest close at hand, with wood to chew on, drops beneath the bark to drink— a view served round the clock, until you go blind.

Parable Some fishermen pulled a bottle from the deep. It held a piece of paper, with these words: “Somebody save me! I’m here. The ocean cast me on this desert island. I am standing on the shore waiting for help. Hurry! I’m here!” “There’s no date. I bet it’s already too late anyway. It could have been floating for years,” the first fisherman said. “And he doesn’t say where. It’s not even clear which ocean,” the second fisherman said. “It’s not too late, or too far. The island Here is everywhere,” the third fisherman said. They all felt awkward. No one spoke. That’s how it goes with universal truths

Ballad Hear the ballad “Murdered Woman Suddenly Gets Up from Chair.” It’s an honest ballad, penned neither to shock nor to offend. The thing happened fair and square, with curtains open, lamps all lit: passersby could stop and stare. When the door had shut behind him and the killer ran downstairs, she stood up, just like the living startled by the sudden silence. She gets up, she moves her head, and she looks around with eyes harder than they were before. No, she doesn’t float through air: she steps on the ordinary, wooden, slightly creaky floor. In the oven she burns traces that the killer’s left behind: here a picture, there shoelaces, everything that she can find. It’s obvious that she’s not strangled. It’s obvious that she’s not shot. She’s been killed invisibly. She may still show signs of life, cry for sundry silly reasons, shriek in horror at the sight of a mouse. Ridiculous traits are so predictable that they aren’t hard to fake. She got up like you and me. She walks just as people do. And she sings and combs her hair, which still grows.

I let myself be invented, modeled on my own reflection in his eyes. I dance, dance, dance in the stir of sudden wings.

Exiled by style. Only their ribs stood out. With birdlike feet and palms, they strove to take wing on their jutting shoulder blades. The thirteenth century would have given them golden halos. The twentieth, silver screens. The seventeenth, alas, holds nothing for the unvoluptuous. For even the sky bulges here with pudgy angels and a chubby god— thick-whiskered Phoebus, on a sweaty steed, riding straight into the seething bedchamber

He grew rozes with a “z.

(...) the rest of your life? Old age is a precipice, (...)

I am too close for him to dream of me.

Silence—this word also rustles across the page and parts the boughs that have sprouted from the word “woods.”

Funny little thing How could she know that even despair can work for you if you’re lucky enough to outlive it.

The Railroad Station My nonarrival in the city of N. took place on the dot. You’d been alerted in my unmailed letter. You were able not to be there at the agreed-upon time. The train pulled up at Platform 3. A lot of people got out. My absence joined the throng as it made its way toward the exit. Several women rushed to take my place in all that rush. Somebody ran up to one of them. I didn’t know him, but she recognized him immediately. While they kissed with not our lips, a suitcase disappeared, not mine. The railroad station in the city of N. passed its exam in objective existence with flying colors. The whole remained in place. Particulars scurried along the designated tracks. Even a rendezvous took place as planned. Beyond the reach of our presence. In the paradise lost of probability. Somewhere else. Somewhere else. How these little words ring. Alive These days we just hold him

But this is ancient history. I can’t dwell on it forever or keep asking endlessly, what’s next, what’s next. Day to day I trust in permanence, in history’s prospects. I can’t gnaw apples in a constant state of terror.

Arduous ease, watchful agility, and calculated inspiration.

Old Folks’ Home Here comes Her Highness—well, you know who I mean, our Helen the snooty—now who made her queen! With her lipstick and wig on, as if we could care, like her three sons in heaven can see her from there! “I wouldn’t be here if they’d lived through the war. I’d spend winter with one son, summer with another.” What makes her so sure? I’d be dead too now, with her for a mother. And she keeps on asking (“I don’t mean to pry”) why from your sons and daughters there’s never a word even though they weren’t killed. “If my boys were alive, I’d spend all my holidays home with the third.” Right, and in his gold carriage he’d come and get her, drawn by a swan or a lily-white dove, to show all of us that he’ll never forget her and how much he owes to her motherly love. Even Jane herself, the nurse, can’t help but grin when our Helen starts singing this old song again— even though Jane’s job is commiseration Monday through Friday, with two weeks’ vacation.

Sell me your soul. There are no other takers. There is no other devil anymore.

I’m bound to pass by all these poppies and pansies. What a loss when you think how much effort was spent perfecting this petal, this pistil, this scent for the one-time appearance, which is all they’re allowed, so aloofly precise and so fragilely proud.

The abyss doesn’t divide us. The abyss surrounds us.

In Praise of Dreams In my dreams I paint like Vermeer van Delft. I speak fluent Greek and not just with the living. I drive a car that does what I want it to. I am gifted and write mighty epics. I hear voices as clearly as any venerable saint. My brilliance as a pianist would stun you. I fly the way we ought to, i.e., on my own. Falling from the roof, I tumble gently to the grass. I’ve got no problem breathing under water. I can’t complain: I’ve been able to locate Atlantis. It’s gratifying that I can always wake up before dying. As soon as war breaks out, I roll over on my other side. I’m a child of my age, but I don’t have to be. A few years ago I saw two suns. And the night before last a penguin, clear as day.

True love. Is it normal, is it serious, is it practical? What does the world get from two people who exist in a world of their own?

Let the people who never find true love keep saying that there’s no such thing. Their faith will make it easier for them to live and die.

And it so happened that I’m here with you. And I really see nothing usual in that.

Under One Small Star My apologies to chance for calling it necessity. My apologies to necessity if I’m mistaken, after all. Please, don’t be angry, happiness, that I take you as my due. May my dead be patient with the way my memories fade. My apologies to time for all the world I overlook each second. My apologies to past loves for thinking that the latest is the first. Forgive me, distant wars, for bringing flowers home. Forgive me, open wounds, for pricking my finger. I apologize for my record of minuets to those who cry from the depths. I apologize to those who wait in railway stations for being asleep today at five A.M. Pardon me, hounded hope, for laughing from time to time. Pardon me, deserts, that I don’t rush to you bearing a spoonful of water. And you, falcon, unchanging year after year, always in the same cage, your gaze always fixed on the same point in space, forgive me, even if it turns out you were stuffed. My apologies to the felled tree for the table’s four legs. My apologies to great questions for small answers. Truth, please don’t pay me much attention. Dignity, please be magnanimous. Bear with me, O mystery of existence, as I pluck the occasional thread from your train. Soul, don’t take offense that I’ve only got you now and then. My apologies to everything that I can’t be everywhere at once. My apologies to everyone that I can’t be each woman and each man. I know I won’t be justified as long as I live, since I myself stand in my own way. Don’t bear me ill will, speech, that I borrow weighty words, then labor heavily so that they may seem light.

Non omnis moriar—a premature worry.

Thank-You Note I owe so much to those I don’t love. The relief as I agree that someone else needs them more. The happiness that I’m not the wolf to their sheep. The peace I feel with them, the freedom— love can neither give nor take that. I don’t wait for them, as in window-to-door-and-back. Almost as patient as a sundial, I understand what love can’t, and forgive as love never would. From a rendezvous to a letter is just a few days or weeks, not an eternity. Trips with them always go smoothly, concerts are heard, cathedrals visited, scenery is seen. And when seven hills and rivers come between us, the hills and rivers can be found on any map. They deserve the credit if I live in three dimensions, in nonlyrical and nonrhetorical space with a genuine, shifting horizon. They themselves don’t realize how much they hold in their empty hands. “I don’t owe them a thing” would be love’s answer to this open question.

Dentistry turned to diplomatic skill promises us a Golden Age tomorrow. The going’s rough, and so we need the laugh of bright incisors, molars of goodwill. Our times are still not safe and sane enough for faces to show ordinary sorrow.

Our solitary existence exacerbates our sense of obligation, and raises the inevitable question, How are we to live et cetera? since “we can’t avoid the void.

No way out? But what about the door? No prospects? The window had other views.

You think at least the note must tell us something. But what if I say there was no note— and he had so many friends, but all of us fit neatly inside the empty envelope propped up against a cup.

(...) to linger longer, not to go home again. Since only prisoners want to go home.

In Praise of Feeling Bad about Yourself The buzzard never says it is to blame. The panther wouldn’t know what scruples mean. When the piranha strikes, it feels no shame. If snakes had hands, they’d claim their hands were clean. A jackal doesn’t understand remorse. Lions and lice don’t waver in their course. Why should they, when they know they’re right? Though hearts of killer whales may weigh a ton, in every other way they’re light. On this third planet of the sun among the signs of bestiality a clear conscience is number one.

I know nothing of the role I play. I only know it’s mine, I can’t exchange it. I have to guess on the spot just what this play’s all about

The star is large and distant, so distant that it’s small, even smaller than others much smaller than it.

Small wonder, then, if we were struck with wonder; as we would be if only we had the time.

God was finally going to believe in a man both good and strong, but good and strong are still two different men.

“How should we live?” someone asked me in a letter. I had meant to ask him the same question. Again, and as ever, as may be seen above, the most pressing questions are naïve ones.

Whatever you say reverberates, whatever you don’t say speaks for itself. So either way you’re talking politics.

Who knows you matters more than whom you know. Trips only if taken abroad. Memberships in what but without why. Honors, but not how they were earned. (...) Price, not worth, and title, not what’s inside. His shoe size, not where he’s off to, that one you pass off as yourself.

Nothing’s sacred for those who think. Calling things brazenly by name, risqué analyses, salacious syntheses, frenzied, rakish chases after the bare facts, the filthy fingering of touchy subjects, discussion in heat—it’s music to their ears.

During these trysts of theirs, the only thing that’s steamy is the tea.

May delivery be easy, may our child grow and be well. Let him be happy from time to time and leap over abysses. Let his heart have strength to endure and his mind be awake and reach far. But not so far that it sees into the future. Spare him that one gift, O heavenly powers.

For the sake of the children that we still are, fairy tales have happy endings. That’s the only finale that will do here, too. The rain will stop, the waves will subside, the clouds will part in the cleared-up sky, and they’ll be once more what clouds overhead ought to be: lofty and rather lighthearted in their likeness to things drying in the sun— isles of bliss, lambs, cauliflowers, diapers.

I prefer, where love’s concerned, nonspecific anniversaries that can be celebrated every day.

A miracle, just take a look around: the inescapable earth. An extra miracle, extra and ordinary: the unthinkable can be thought.

When I see such things, I’m no longer sure that what’s important is more important than what’s not.

Hatred is a master of contrast— between explosions and dead quiet, red blood and white snow.

Perhaps all fields are battlefields, those we remember and those that are forgotten: (...)

Without us dreams couldn’t exist. The one on whom the real world depends is still unknown, and the products of his insomnia are available to anyone who wakes up.

Every beginning is only a sequel, after all, and the book of events is always open halfway through.

We agreed to death, but not to every kind. Love attracted us, of course, but only love that keeps its word.

We were besieged by doubts. Does knowing everything beforehand really mean knowing everything. Is a decision made in advance really any kind of choice.

We’re extremely fortunate not to know precisely the kind of world we live in.

I am who I am. A coincidence no less unthinkable than any other.

They aren’t obliged to vanish when we’re gone. They don’t have to be seen while sailing on.

The Three Oddest Words When I pronounce the word Future, the first syllable already belongs to the past. When I pronounce the word Silence, I destroy it. When I pronounce the word Nothing, I make something no nonbeing can hold.

But how to answer unasked questions, while being furthermore a being so totally a nobody to you.

Talking with you is essential and impossible. Urgent in this hurried life and postponed to never.

Understanding came only later: not all misadventures fit within the world’s laws and even if they wanted to, they couldn’t happen.

And what can you say about one day of life, a minute, a second: darkness, a lightbulb’s flash, then dark again? KOSMOS MAKROS CHRONOS PARADOKSOS Only stony Greek has words for that.

There must be an exit somewhere, that’s more than certain. But you don’t look for it, it looks for you, it’s been stalking you from the start, and this labyrinth is none other than than your, for the duration, your, until not your, flight, flight— (...)

Life on Earth is quite a bargain. Dreams, for one, don’t charge admission. Illusions are costly only when lost. The body has its own installment plan. And as an extra, added feature, you spin on the planets’ carousel for free, and with it you hitch a ride on the intergalactic blizzard, with times so dizzying that nothing here on Earth can even tremble.

At times I get fed up with her. I suggest a separation. From now to eternity. Then she smiles at me with pity, since she knows it would be the end of me too.

Assassins They think for days on end, how to kill so as to kill, and how many killed will be many. Apart from this they eat their meals with gusto, pray, wash their feet, feed the birds, make phone calls while scratching their armpits, stanch blood when they cut a finger, if they’re women they buy sanitary napkins, eye shadow, flowers for vases, they make jokes on their good days, drink citrus juice from the fridge, watch the moon and stars at night, place headphones with soft music on their ears and sleep sweetly till the crack of dawn —unless what they’re thinking needs doing at night.

It’s good you came. Sit here beside me. He really was supposed to get back Thursday. But we’ve got so many Thursdays left this year.

Page after page at a snail’s pace. But we’re still going in fifth gear and, knock on wood, never better.

We eat another life so as to live. A corpse of pork with departed cabbage. Every menu is an obituary. Even the kindest of souls must consume, digest something killed so that their warm hearts won’t stop beating.

In the end I stopped knowing what I’d been looking for so long. I woke up. Looked at my watch. The dream took not quite two and a half minutes. Such are the tricks to which time resorts ever since it started stumbling on sleeping heads.

#poems #poetry #Wislawa Szymborska #literature #quotes

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nomimits7 · 5 years ago

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Dance with me | JJK

Title: Dance with me

Pairing: Jungkook x Reader

Rating: Mature

Genre: Yandere-ish? I honestly have no clue. Collage AU? Dance Major Reader, dance reader Jungkook

Warnings: Fainting is kind of described. A bit of cursing. Jungkook being a switch between personalities. Slight Yandere themed. My first attempt at smut, be nice. Unprotected sex, fingering. It sounds forced but its not. It starts one way, takes a turn south and ends up north… idk it’s a mess

Summary: You never told him, and probably never will, but you idolized him. He was the perfect dancer. The top dog in all categories. You wanted his approval or acknowledgement for your had work, instead you only received playful remarks and not the good kind. He constantly teased you about your dancing skills and background. This did not help your toxic addiction one bit. Instead it only worsened it.

A/N: This is trash and a bad attempt at writing. FIRST SMUT ATTEMPT so be nice... There yah go @toanimeornot as promised ... enjoy <3

***

Being a dance major has its challenges. First challenge that quickly got you a reputation among your peers, was the fact that you had little to no background in the field of dancing. As weird as it sounds, you still managed to slide your way into the academy of arts.

Your second challenge came in the form of one particular senior named Jungkook. Even if he was only one year older than you, he made it his life’s mission to make your life a living hell. And of course, the bitch karma had it in for you and had to make him look like a living Greek god. This little fact and the fact that he was one of the top dancers did NOT count in your favour at all.

At first, you welcomed the challenge of proofing to everyone your worth. It made you work extra hard and the reward was always sweet. But the energy you use to drive yourself soon turned toxic. You began losing sight of yourself. You began pushing the limits of your own body. Your normal, or rather recommended 5 hours of dance practice a day, turned into 9 hours. Your recommended 6 meals a day quickly turned into just 2 forced meals. You became obsessed with the idea of proofing yourself to everyone around you. Especially Jungkook for reasons unbeknownst to you.

You never told him, and probably never will, but you idolized him. He was the perfect dancer. The top dog in all categories. You wanted his approval or acknowledgement for your had work, instead you only received playful remarks and not the good kind. He constantly teased you about your dancing skills and background. This did not help your toxic addiction one bit. Instead it only worsened it.

“Well if it isn’t the ‘wanna be’ dancer Y/N!” his voice came flying across the studio, almost making your ears bleed with the amount of confidence his voice possessed. For such angelic boyish voice, it sure as hell wasn’t your favourite thing to hear as of late.

Normally you would have a string of comebacks lined up, carefully picked out just for him. But your whole body has turned against you, and it didn’t help that you suffered from fatigue due to your abnormal and ridiculous practice schedule. You weren’t sleeping like you use to, and you recently acquired a fever of some sorts. You couldn’t even get out of bed this morning and you have been living on caffeine for the past 3 hours just to remain awake.

“Not today Jeon.” You gritted out through a clenched jaw, to tired to even turn around and face your predator head on.

“Aw, are we in a bad mood?” He asked slowly walking towards you. Even though his voice was dripping with sarcasm, his eyes slowly took in your form, immediately noticing the weakness that seem to drip off you. His eyes quickly went from ‘playful predator stalking its toy/meal’ to concern. He could see the dark circles under your eyes which you had carefully hidden with foundation. He saw the slow steps your feet took. He saw the way your body was hunched over, clearly warn out. But what made his blood run cold was the lack of colour to your skin. Your beautifully tanned skin he always sneaked glances at before you started wearing long sleeves, now took on a porcelain white.

Even though he was concerned he knew better than to ask you about it. He loved seeing you mad, but only at his teasing and not at him directly. That fire in your eyes he loved dearly and that only he could light wasn’t present, so he decided to try and relight your spirit with the only way he knew. Teasing.

“Jungkook please. I’m not in the mood for you today.” You said placing your practice bag down. As you did so, your legs gave out momentarily. Jungkook quickly moved to catch you and before you knew it you were safely in his arms as his doe eyes stared down at you. Those same eyes you adored from afar, held a message you couldn’t comprehend.

His eyes went wide as he looked at you from a closer perspective. Your one glass blue eyes were truly lifeless, your skin, your beautiful skin nearly grey from lack of nutrients. Before you could see his facial expression, your instructor came into the studio. You quickly pushed Jungkook’s chest, desperately trying to get out of his supporting hands and away from his burning skin, and surprisingly, he backed off.

You quickly took of your jacket and tied your hair. You could feel his eyes on you, yet you chose to ignore it. Rather you tried to ignore it, until you turned around and was meet with his doe-like eyes filled with concern, which was a first for Jungkook. You were just about to say something, like a big old ‘What’ when your instructors voice drew your attention away from Jungkook and towards the centre of the studio.

Not to long after, you lost yourself in the world of dancing. Your body moving on pure instinct as you followed the moves the instructor gave. The choreography was supposedly next level shit, yet you quickly fell into step with the instructor, making it seem effortless. Everyone noticed the way you moved. The way you could do moves they couldn’t. How you, the one with no dancing background, could do something they couldn’t. Of course, Jungkook was part of the few that could keep up, yet his eyes were solely on you. Naturally he followed along with he moves even more easily that you, but he to couldn’t take his eyes off you. Not because you moved like a pro, but he watched your body for any sign of danger, you know, just in case. The fact that you moved so fluently was an added bonus, a bonus he surely wouldn’t forget.

You were a good 2 hours into practice when your body decided it had enough. Everything around you became blurry as your world began to spin at full speed. Your body swaying as your consciousness slowly slipped from your grasp and your energy left your limbs. Black spots formed in your vision as you heard someone call out your name, was that concern in their voice? The music stopped abruptly just as you began falling, falling, failing toward the ground.

Jungkook, who has been watching you like a hawk, saw the exact moment your body gave up. In second he had called out your name as he nearly printed towards you to catch you before you hit the ground. He swiftly gripped your waist just before you could hit the hard and waiting dance floor. He quickly lifted you of your feet, bridal style, and took you to an isolated part of the studio, close to his bag. Slowly and carefully, as if you were indeed a fragile porcelain doll, he laid you down with your head resting on his bag.

You looked as soft as ever lying there before him. He felt the sudden need to protect you at all costs, even if it meant from yourself. Hoseok, a.k.a. your instructor and a very good friend of Jungkook, quickly made his way over to you. Carefully, he double checked your pulse while Jungkook made work of taking your temperature.

“Hoseok, can we look at the log times? I think she might have gone to far.” Hoseok nodded as he went to fetch the requested documents and dismissing the rest of the student to an early lunch. Jungkook quickly took out his towel and water bottle, dampening the cloth and placing it on your forehead in an effort to break your fever.

After making sure you were indeed okay, he started searching for anything of nutrient value. You needed to get food into your body. Finding an energy bar along with one of those energy booster thingies people who gym uses, not that he uses them often, he settled besides you.

Hoseok came back soon after. His face was serious as he handed the papers to Jungkook. Jungkook took the papers from him and began scanning through them. His face soon took on the exact same seriousness as Hoseok.

“She practiced up to 9 hours a day. 9-fucking-hours-a-day. I know that it sounds fantastic and all, but the human body isn’t built to handle so much consecutive practise daily. She took no breaks in those extra 3 hours of practise. I want to see her food logbook as soon as possible.” Hoseok said. His voice firm yet filled with concern.

“Yes sir. I’ll have a look in her bag just now.” Jungkook said, giving Hoseok a small salute. Hoseok nodded and left after making sure Jungkook knew what to do, and if he was okay with taking care of you until you came to.

After Hoseok left, Jungkook made quick work of finding you logbook. Even if he knew he shouldn’t, he couldn’t help but sneak a peek at the contents of the cursed book. What he found nearly made him faint as well. For the entire week, you managed to fill one and a half pages worth of writing, not sentences but short lists of food you have consumed. You even had a few days missing and that concerned him the most.

You needed to regain consciousness as soon as possible. He slowly took the energy sachet thingie and emptied it into your mouth. He then proceeded to dab your face with the damp towel. He gently repeated this process until you started to stir.

Your eyes slowly fluttered open. The first thing you noticed was the lack of music playing. Which was odd considering you were still in the studio. The second thing you noticed was the doe eyed boy sitting next to you, dabbing your face with something cool. Your first instinct was to sit up but a firm hand on your shoulder stopped you as soon as Jungkook noticed your intend.

“There is no way in hell you’re going anywhere before we haven’t clarified a few things. Here, eat up.” Jungkook said shoving the energy bar into your hands. His demanding tone something you weren’t quiet used to, but you sure wouldn’t mind hearing it more. You where just about to protest when the door opened and Hoseok came into view.

“Y/N? Hey, you with us?” Hoseok asked as he made his way over to where you were till lying. You simply groaned in response, somehow knowing what was coming. Hoseok sat down next to Jungkook as both their faces were unreadable. The two males patiently waited for you to finish your energy bar. Once you were done, their faces changed to disappointment. You shrunk back into yourself as their gazes grew in intensity as the seconds ticked by. This was the exact opposite of what you were so desperately trying to achieve.

“Y/N” Hoseok sighed. “Why do you train so hard? You of all people should know that the human body has limits. Yours especially because you have a limited background on dancing.”

“The better question would be why your food log is so empty. I hope you just forgot to enter your meals.” Jungkook asked. His voice was laced with a little bit more venom than usual. It made you flinch slightly as you felt Hoseok’s disapproving eyes on you. Yet, all you could do was stare at the ground. How do you explain why you did it? They’ll never understand, how could they? They had it easy from the start.

A sigh left Hoseok’s mouth as he stood up. “You’re sitting the rest of the practice out. I also want a weekly report on your food intake. Oh, and I forbid you from practicing longer than 6 hours a day. Jungkook will monitor you. I do believe the both of you stay in the same apartment building?” Hoseok asked as he looked down on you.

You could only shake your head in confirmation as the weight of his words sank in. This was bad. How are you going to prove yourself with less time to practice? You needed those hours. Hoseok returned to the front of the class as the rest of the students re-entered the studio. Tears slowly made their way down your cheeks as you felt like the world biggest failure.

“Hey, don’t be upset with him, he cares for you. We both do actually, we only want to help you. We both see what you’re doing to yourself and its not healthy Y/N. You’re a good dancer, I don’t know if you noticed but your one of the best female dancers here! No one else could keep up and that says a lot. Come sit in front of the class and watch. I’ll help you later to practice. How does that sound?” Jungkook said.

You kind of forgot he was there. But you were more surprised at what he said to you. His words were filled with sincerity and for some reason it made you happy. What caught you off guard was the little confession that he cares about you, and the fact that he’s willing to help you practise.

So that’s how you found yourself in front of the class, eyes big and mouth slightly open. They have been dancing for about 30 minutes and with your luck, Jungkook was right in front of you. It all started out simple and somewhat normal, but Jungkook soon noticed your eyes not leaving his form and boy, did he take advantage of that. His body moved with purpose as he hit every trust with such power it made you scared for his limbs. His movements were sin reincarnated, his facial expressions even more so. But his little tongue licks he occasionally did and the fact that his eyes held you captive was the cherry on the cupcake.

You knew he was doing this on purpose. The smirk that grazed his lips as he made eye contact was a clear indication that he knew what he was doing. Hopefully he couldn’t see what he actually did to you. Your body has immediately reacted to his. As tired as you are, you where just as horny.

Let’s face it, you obviously had a crush on the one person in the studio who always gave you beef about your skills. The one person who always made sure to let you know he’s watching your every move. You’re now more convinced than ever that he in fact didn’t watch you for mistakes, but he watched you for, well you.

Jungkook’s a smart boy, he knew what he was doing and clearly, he knows what he’s doing know. He wants you to see him, and he’s enjoying every second of this.

Practise ended not to long after and Jungkook made quick work of packing his bags to help you stand, taking your bag in the process. To your surprise no comment was made on what had just happened in that practise room only moments ago, but the smirk was ever present.

“You know, you don’t have to take care of me. I can do that on my own. Besides, Hoseok isn’t watching anymore so you can stop pretending.” You said as you slowly made your way out of the building and headed towards your apartment building.

“Pretending? Wait you think I’m pretending?” Jungkook said as he suddenly stopped making you lose your balance for a few seconds. Of course, he was right there next to you to catch you.

“Whoa, easy tiger. I’m not pretending Y/N. Yes, I might have acted like a jerk, but I only did that because I witnessed first-hand what you do with criticism. It pushed you to become better, but clearly I went to far.” Jungkook said as he looked down. “Besides, I hate competition and guess who’s my biggest rival at the moment” He said as his eyes met yours.

“No, no. Don’t feel ashamed Jungkook. You didn’t push me to neglect myself… wait, what?” You said as his word caught up to you. He saw you as competition. You? The one with no dance background whatsoever?

Before you could properly respond, Jungkook grabbed your hand and pulled you towards your apartment building. And just as sudden as he grabbed you, his whole demeanour changed. Right in front of your eyes the doe-eyed boy changed into the dance major you saw that one faithful day. The exact day you decided to enrol into the dance academy.

His eyes were calculating and confident, they held a certain message you didn’t quiet catch. His body radiated with dominance as his hand tightened around yours. Before long, you reached your apartment building. To say you were slightly scared would be a lie, you were terrified. This is not the same boy you saw day in and day out, laughing and being all shy around girls, well all girls except you. This person was someone you have only seen once. And that scared you. Deep down you knew that this boy, rather man, in front of you were unpredictable. That much you could tell purely by the way he switched between personalities.

Perhaps you should be clearer on that statement. Jungkook had three personalities you knew of. The cute, shy, doe-eyed boy every girl wished to have. The confident dance major that knew exactly what movements to emphasize to make even men swoon over him. And lastly the overconfident senior with a way to big ego for his own good. The last one being the most prominent personality you saw.

But this, this was something different. Like a sick mix of all three of his personalities. Jungkook’s hand tugging on your wrist pulled you back to reality as you soon realized you’ve made it to your apartment door. With hesitant fingers you unlock your door to let the two of you in.

“Why don’t you go take a shower or a long bath and I’ll order us some food.” Jungkook said as he placed your bag next to your door.

“That won’t be necessary Jeon. Besides, don’t you also want to shower and relax rather than looking after me were I can clearly do it by myself.” You said as you made to push him towards your door, but the look he was giving you made you stop dead in your track.

“Y/N, my apartment is literally right across from yours. Of course, I’m going to take a shower, but I’m going to make sure you aren’t going to pull that ‘No-eating’ crap again. So, you have two options here. Either you take a shower here and relax and I come to you, or you come over as soon as you are done. BUT we are going to eat together. Got it?” Jungkook said, punctuating his last two words with two steps towards you.

With a simple nod of your head he left, leaving you alone to let his words sink in.

One shower and three pep-talks later, you found yourself outside his apartment door. When you came out of the bathroom after a well needed 30-minute shower you found, to your surprise that Jungkook hasn’t returned yet. So, you decided to go over to his apartment, bonus being you won’t be stuck with any dirty dishes.

Deciding against knocking you silently entered his apartment. His layout was similar to your apartment, but his taste was the polar opposite of yours. Jungkook’s apartment was darker themed. Come to think about it, his apartment was the polar opposite of him, if you were honest. His furniture was black his carpets dark brown. Everything just looked so expensive it left you feeling cheap just standing there.

“Well, looks who finally decided to be obedient for a change. The food will be here shortly, please make yourself at home.” Jungkook said as he dried his hair. His dripping wet hair. How soft would they be? Maybe he likes it when someone pulls- wait what?

Startled by your own thoughts you took a seat on the farthest end of one of his couches. It was silent for a while as Jungkook observed you. He couldn’t help but smile at the thought of you in his arms. He knew you saw him as a soft doe-eyed boy and perhaps as a jerk to, but he was determined to change your mind. He became obsessed with the girl who had a point to prove. He can’t really say there was a specific time or place his obsession became toxic he just woke up one day and yearned for your touch. He was consumed by the idea of your skin on his.

He knew he was screwed when you did in fact touch him one day. It wasn’t a friendly touch, more of a not-so-friendly shove with your shoulder as you passed him, but it was more than enough to encourage his need to grow. So, from there on he did anything he could to provoke a touch out of you.

But today things changed. You fell, not for him but you fell, and he was the one to catch you.

It made his heart swell with pride and greed as he held you close to his body. The icing on the cake was when Hoseok requested that he take care of you, and he wasn’t going to let this opportunity go by. He’s been waiting far to long to claim you to screw this up. He was aware his obsession over you was toxic, but no one needs to know that.

Jungkook was always the master of masks. He always played the innocent boy when it came to upholding his image. The only time he would let that mask slip was during his dancing. He knew exactly what he was doing after all. He didn’t mean to become obsessed with you. He was supposed to be the soft boy everyone knew.

Looking over to you, he decided to approach this as ‘normal’ as possible. Tonight, he’ll make you his, no matter what.

“I don’t know what type of movies you’re into, but I do have some pretty good horror films. I thought we might watch a movie or two to help us relax. Besides we don’t have practise tomorrow so we can stay up a bit later than normal.” Jungkook said as he went over to his small movie collection.

“Oh, I haven’t watched a horror film in so long. But I do warn you, I don’t get scared easily. These days horror movies are so bad they make me laugh.” You said as n giggle escaped you. Maybe this is exactly what you need.

Soon after Jungkook chose a film you haven’t seen, or heard of before, the food arrived. Jungkook insisted on eating before the movie began, claiming you’ll thank him later. To your surprise you finished all your food, sweat and sour chicken with noodles and dumplings, fried veggies and you even had a bite or two from Jungkook’s hotpot and fried rice. Jungkook went all out in buying your favourite foods, which kind off surprised you considering you never ate together. Must have been a coincidence.

Settling on the couch, you gratefully except the coffee Jungkook has made you. With one last glance, Jungkook smiles and hit play on the screen.

At first the movie isn’t that bad. One or two jump scares here and there, a lot of screaming and some blood. You’re a good 20 minutes into the movie when the real horror began. The movie took a complete 180-degree turn, demons and paranormal activity can’t even compare to what you were seeing. The movie was shot in a home video style, and suddenly the screams didn’t seem so fake.

“J-Jungkook, can I plea- AAHH” You were just about to ask to go home when another jump scare popped out of nowhere. Without thinking you grabbed Jungkook’s arm for some sort of stability. Jungkook immediately tensed at the sudden contact making you realize the mistake you just made.

Just when you wanted to let go, Jungkook grabbed both your arms, spun you around and pinned you to the couch. Hovering above you, he stared straight into your eyes as one of his hands made its way up to your throat, squeezing slightly.

“You know, I would rather prefer to hear you scream like that when you’re underneath me, and when it’s me making you scream.” He said in a very serious tone. Slowly he started closing the gap between your lips until his were barely touching yours. Again, without thinking you leaned into the kiss, deepening it.

Smiling, Jungkook trailed kissed along your jaw toward your ear.

“I’m going to fucking ruin you.” He whispered as he bit your ear, earning a desperate whine from you. You had no idea what was happening, all you knew was that you didn’t want this to stop. Even if Jungkook wasn’t the same shy boy you though he was, you somehow felt a sense of security in his arms. Your whining turned desperate as Jungkook continued to assault your ear with his teeth.

Smirking, Jungkook started trailing kisses down your neck. Increasing the pressure of his lips, he soon found the spot that had you squirming and making all kinds of noises as he began to harshly attack your neck, repeatedly. He became desperate to leave his mark all over you, to finally claim you as his.

“J-Jungkook, what are you doing? Don’t leave- Aahh- Don’t leave m-marks” You said as your squirming increased with every new attack. These words made Jungkook stop. Slowly lifting his head, he once again pinned you with his eyes. The same doe-eyes that now held a possessiveness that had your heartrate slightly increasing.

“I’m sorry darling, but you have no say in what I can and cannot do. Tonight, I’m taking what’s mine” crashing his lips to yours, his hands started rooming your body. Without much hesitation, Jungkook took the seam of your shirt and started pulling it up and over your head. Disposing the piece of clothing as if it was trash, Jungkook was pleased to find your chest bare before him.

“Ooh, naughty girl. Walking around without so much as a bra on, and that to in another man’s home. It’s like you wanted this to happen. No worries baby, I’ll make it happen.” He said taking one of your breasts into his mouth. Sucking and biting your nipple, he couldn’t help but groan at the obscure noises you were making. He continued his ministrations, alternating between each breast, until both were dripping with his saliva and your nipples were standing erected.

A pressure you haven’t felt in a very long time started building in your lower abdomen. It was a somewhat foreign feeling, the way it increased like a speeding bullet, yet still not fast enough. Being the pure flower you were, you only ever knew the feeling by the works of your own hands. This time the feeling was stronger, faster and to a certain extend even painful.

Moving back up to your neck, Jungkook made sure to press his prominent bulge to your pelvis, making you groan as the feeling increased. Once again, he attacked your neck, biting and sucking at the same time until your one side was almost completely covered in red marks.

“Take these off, now” he growled as he bunched up your shorts. Jungkook sat up as he took his own shirt of, watching you as you sat still, frozen in place.

“Darling, don’t make me repeat myself.” He said as his gaze landed on your bare chest.

“I- I haven’t d-done this before” you shakily whispered, shrinking in on yourself as his face fell slightly. Realization dawned onto his face as his eyes found yours. The same doe-eyed boy from before sat across from you as his eyes lit up slightly.

“You haven’t been touched by a man? Intimately, I mean?” he asked. At your confirmation, Jungkook slowly crept towards you. Once again, he was pinning you to the couch, a sly smile present on his face as he gazed down at you.

“Good girl. I will make sure I’m your first and last. No other man is worthy of you, baby. I’ll try to be gentle, but I can guarantee you, this won’t be our last round tonight.” Jungkook said as his head lowered back to your neck.

Nodding, you felt his hands descending down your body towards your front. Painfully slow he pulled your pants down your legs, leaving it forgotten somewhere on the floor. As light as a feather his hands trailed back up your legs, stopping at your knees.

“Let’s claim what’s mine, shall we?” Jungkook said as he parted your legs.

“I want to hear every single sound baby? You won’t keep quiet, I want everyone to know that your mine” He said as he lowered his head to your clothed pelvis. Slowly he trailed kisses along the seems of your panties, until finally kissing right on top of your clit.

You couldn’t stop the moan that escaped your mouth as the pressure in your abdomen increased again. Jungkook continued to kiss you gently over your panties until you couldn’t take it anymore.

“Jeon, please. I n-need more” You said as your hands fisted his hair. This gentleness he was showing you was soon forgotten as Jungkook sat up and, literally ripped your panties of off your body. before you could even think of protesting his mouth was back on your mound. This time there were no kisses, he flat out went straight to sucking and nibbling on your sensitive bud.

The most erotic feeling entered your limbs at this new feeling Jungkook has caused. Your body wasn’t yours to control anymore as your legs moved on their own at every single nip or suck, he would administer. You could get addicted to this feeling. Another set of moans left your throat as he added his tongue to the mix.

Yes, addicted you could get.

Without much warning, Jungkook inserted a finger into you. The feeling was foreign and sudden, leading you to gasp as he moved it without warning. Smiling Jungkook came back up to your lips. Drowning you in his lips as he slowly added a second digit. The stretch burned as he pumped his fingers in and out of you, smirking at the noises you were making.

Soon the burn was replaced with the same pressure from earlier, building at a steady pace until your walls started contracting around Jungkook’s fingers.

“Let’s see that pretty face as you come undone sweetheart” he said as he increased the pace at which his fingers were going. Not long after that your vision went white as the pressure finally exploded within you. You felt like you were floating as pure bliss entered your system.

“There’s the beautiful dancer that intoxicated me” Jungkook said with triumph. Adding a third finger to your sensitive body had reality crashing down around you.

“P-please, n-no more.” You whined. The all to familiar pressure resurfacing as Jungkook ignored your request.

“I don’t think so. I want to see that face again when you come undone when I’m inside you” Jungkook said as he removed his fingers. Pulling down his sweatpants he slowly stroked himself as he looked at you. With big eyes you watched his hand work up and down his shaft.

“This is going to hurt love, but I know you can take it” He said as he aligned himself with your entrance. Without waiting for a response, he pushed himself into you. Successfully stretching you around him as he bottoms out. The feeling of being full consumes you as Jungkook waits for you to open your eyes.

“Look at me darling, tell me you don’t want this. Stop me from going further, once I start there’s no turning back. You’ll be mine and mine alone. Y/N, please tell me to stop” Jungkook pleaded as he held onto the last bit of his resolve he had.

“Make me yours” This was all he needed to hear out of your mouth to begin thrusting. He didn’t start slow, he wasn’t gentle, but he was possessive.

With each thrust he gave his grip on you tightened. His eyes never left yours as tears streamed down your face. He made no move to wipe them away, he wanted to see you cry.

Jungkook soon realized his thrusting wasn’t making you cry as he longed for. Picking up his pace he pushed your legs up to your chest, going even deep than before. This seem to do the trick, your moans turned into screams as his pace became brutal.

“That’s it baby, scream for me. Let everyone know who owns you. You’re mine now” Jungkook said. His one hand moving down towards your clit and the other finding its way to your throat. The added stimulation on your clit and slight pressure around your neck was enough to send you over the edge once more.

“J-Jungkook!” this was all word that you managed to say as your orgasm hit you. This one being stronger than the previous one. Soon after your walls started contracting around him, Jungkook’s own walls broke. With a growl of your name he painted your walls in white as his thrusts slowed down.

“You’re mine now Y/N, Mine” Jungkook whispered as he came down from his high.

After Jungkook helped you clean up, the end credits off the movie came into view. A light chuckle escaped you as you realized that you missed the last half of the movie.

“Seems like I’ll have to watch the movie another time” You said as you made ready to leave, only to be stopped as a hand pulled you back into a hard chest.

“Hang on, I’m not done with you yet. Besides, I have a lot of other movies I would like to show you Baby” Jungkook said as his hands dipped underneath your shirt. Turning in his arms, his hands slipped down to your waist. Slowly he started swaying you side-to-side.

“Before we do that” Jungkook said as he brought his lips closer.

“Dance with me, Y/N” He whispered before kissing you.

***

AGAIN THIS IS UNEDITED! I hope you enjoyed it though....

#nomimits stuff #Dance with me #bts #Jeon Jungkook #jungkook x reader #is this a drabble?#I honestly dont know

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gra-sonas · 5 years ago

Photo

A Kiss a Decade in the Making

Pairing: Malex, Alex Manes/Michael Guerin

Words: 4.8K | Rating: T | On AO3

"Is Jenna going to schedule snogging rehearsals for us?”

Alex smiles at him.

“It’s a fair question to ask. How do we, two people who’ve only just met, play two men who’ve been in love for a decade?"

Initially, the story stems from the question how the actors - who hadn't met before filming the pilot - may have worked out the 'logistics' of the Malex kiss in 1x01, and whether there was something like a snogging rehearsal. Any similarities between the characters and the actual actors are - of course - purely coincidental. ;)

A couple of dialogue snippets from the original Roswell New Mexico 1x01 script have made their way into the fic, they are displayed in a 𝚍𝚒𝚏𝚏𝚎𝚛𝚎𝚗𝚝 𝚏𝚘𝚗𝚝.

This fic has been sitting in my WIP folder for months and initially I had no plans to ever post it, but thanks to the wonderful encouragement and helpful beta works of @i-never-look-away & @cosmiceverafter, here it is. Love you, guys! ♥

~*~

When they get up to leave showrunner Jenna Cameron’s office, there’s a moment of hesitation as they arrive at the door at the same time. Michael takes the initiative and opens the door. He can’t help himself and bends his knee in a ridiculous half curtsy while he gestures at Alex to walk out first. Alex looks slightly bewildered for a moment but then he smiles.

“Thank you, Michael.”

Michael perks up. Not many people call him Michael, there are way too many Michaels in the world, that’s why he goes by Guerin everywhere.

“You can call me Guerin, it’s what everyone does.”

Alex nods.

“I’ll think about it. I like it though. Michael. It’s a good name. Suits you.”

He walks off and leaves a stunned Michael behind. What does that even mean, he’ll think about it? Michael’s just a name. Not a bad name, he also considers it a lucky name, after all it has landed him a role that could very well be his first leading role in a major network TV show. At least that’s what he likes to think.

For that to happen, the show just needs to get picked up to series. After reading the script and hearing Jenna talk about what she envisions, he’s even more confident that the show has great potential. If they are going to do this right, they will be picked up.

Doing it right is the thing though. He already loves Mikel Rath, sees a lot of himself in him, and a lot of things he can at least relate to. The quick wit, the anger issues, the sarcastic and funny side of him.

There’s just one thing he’s unsure about. The thing with Alistair. The Alistair & Mikel thing. He wonders what their moniker would be? Milistair? Or Alikel? Do they have to come up with one themselves, or will they leave that to the fans? He makes a mental note to ask Jenna about it.

Michael has a bunch of LGBTQ friends, he’s even part of the community himself (although he’s never acted on it, which sometimes makes him feel like he’s not allowed to claim membership), and he’s lived in LA long enough to be aware of the significance of LGBTQ representation on screen. He knows how important this relationship is going to be to many people. How important it is to get it right. From what Jenna’s just told them, she has a lot in mind for these two characters, but only if there’s going to be a show Aliens of New Mexico .

The pilot only gives them one shot at selling it. It won’t just be on their shoulders alone, of course, Liz and Max will have to do most of the heavy lifting with their characters, but he has a feeling that this Alistair and Mikel thing will still play a vital role in TV executives making a decision that could change his life forever.

Michael takes a deep breath and slowly walks back to his trailer. On the way he recalls the meeting he had with Jenna and Alex. Jenna’s awesome, he’s met her before back in LA, and she’s also responsible for hiring him. He met Alex for the first time in Jenna’s office just now, though. He hasn’t had much time to get to know the man yet.

Alex had been earnest during their meeting, notes written in the margins of his script and post-its marking some pages. He’d asked Jenna a lot of questions during their read through of the Alistair & Mikel scenes.

It had been interesting to listen to an experienced TV actor asking all these questions. Michael had never been an avid watcher of Charming Young Deceivers, but even he had heard about Gemma & Mic’s popularity. Referred to as Gemic by fans, they’d been crowned Best TV Couple in almost every online poll for several years, and Alex Manes had won three Teen Choice Awards for his portrayal of Mic, plus two others with his co-star for Best Couple. They’d also won three awards for Best Kiss. So, no pressure.

When Michael had found out that Alex Manes would play Alistair, he’d almost felt a bit giddy because he instantly knew what face went with the name.

He’d then done what he imagined most people would've done in his position: he’d gone and looked up Alex Manes in news and on social media. Since Instagram seemed to be his personal favorite, he went there first. Impressive follower count, very curated content (gorgeous photos though), cute dog (a beagle called Buffy, Alex had tagged her ‘Love of my Life’ in several photos). Alex seemed like an interesting guy who was not only very photogenic, but also had great taste in interior design, music, and he loved to travel. Michael had been looking forward to meeting him.

Then he’d read Alex’s Wikipedia entry. Like the character he was about to play, he came from a military family, his parents got divorced when Alex was in middle school and he’d grown up with his mom, while his three older brothers had stayed with their dad. He’d filmed a couple of indie movies and to Michael’s surprise, had released a number of singles. Michael’d listened to all of them and really liked them. One song had stood out to him in particular, a duet with Rosa Ortecho, a household name in the LA indie music scene. Michael was impressed.

Reading about the incident in Afghanistan, where Alex had been visiting US troops and lost part of his leg when their convoy had been attacked, had made Michael swallow hard. He’d then gone back to Alex’s Instagram account and looked through some of his more recent pictures. Now that Michael was aware of what had happened, he’d noticed a crutch in the background of some of the pictures. And there was a photo of Alex in a German military hospital, a beautiful dark-haired woman (probably his mom) by his side.

Now that they’ve met, Michael is not sure what to think of Alex, who seems to be so much more than the handful of “facts” Michael had gathered from the internet. Alex had been nothing but friendly during their meeting with Jenna, he’d often looked at Michael, had tried to include him in the conversation (it had seemed like he’d been aware that Michael didn’t come with the same kind of TV experience under his belt as he did), had asked him questions, had listened with great attention when Michael spoke.

All things considered it had been a great meeting. It had given Michael much needed input to get a better idea of the Alistair & Mikel dynamic. And yet her he is, still feeling somewhat insecure about it.

There’s one line in the pilot script that stood out to him in particular when he read the script for the first time, and it’s been nagging him ever since.

𝚆𝚒𝚝𝚑 𝚗𝚘 𝚒𝚗𝚍𝚒𝚌𝚊𝚝𝚒𝚘𝚗 𝚘𝚏 𝚠𝚑𝚘 𝚖𝚊𝚔𝚎𝚜 𝚝𝚑𝚎 𝚏𝚒𝚛𝚜𝚝 𝚖𝚘𝚟𝚎, 𝚓𝚞𝚜𝚝 𝚖𝚞𝚜𝚌𝚕𝚎 𝚖𝚎𝚖𝚘𝚛𝚢 𝚜𝚙𝚛𝚒𝚗𝚐𝚒𝚗𝚐 𝚝𝚘 𝚕𝚒𝚏𝚎 -- 𝚝𝚑𝚎𝚢’𝚛𝚎 𝙺𝙸𝚂𝚂𝙸𝙽𝙶

Muscle memory springing to life? How are they going to pull that off when they barely know each other?

When Michael reaches his trailer, he looks around. Max’s trailer is to his left, Isobel’s trailer is to his right, Liz is right across from him. Valenti’s trailer’s right to Liz’s, and if memory serves him right, Alex’s trailer is to Liz’s left.

With just an idea in his mind, Michael crosses the short distance and knocks on the door of Alex’s trailer.

“Come in.”

Michael opens the door and is hit by a waft of warm air that smells rather nice. He quickly enters the trailer and closes the door behind him. He looks around and although they’ve all arrived in Albuquerque just 48 hours ago, Alex’s trailer already looks very cozy and lived in.

A set of what must be scented candles is burning, set on a wooden plate on the sideboard in front of the big mirror. Something slow and jazz-y is playing over two small speakers, and Alex, clad in gray sweat pants and a soft looking baby blue hoodie, lounges on the recliner, a beautifully patterned quilt in earthy colors draped over his lower legs.

He’s looking up at Michael, carefully placing a bookmark in the pilot episode script he'd been reading when Michael entered the trailer, before he places it on the table in front of him.

“Michael, good to see you. Can I offer you some tea?”

Michael is not much of a tea drinker, but it’s cold in Albuquerque this time of the year, and if Alex’s already offering to make tea, this could be a much-needed bonding experience. He smiles.

“That would be great, thanks. Can I help?”

His mom Mara has raised him right, he never expects people to just serve him, but Alex is already up and heads over to the small kitchen area. He busies himself with boiling water and placing cookies in a ceramic bowl. He looks over at Michael.

“Sit down and make yourself comfortable. Are you warm enough? I can turn up the heating some more if you’re cold?”

Michael plops down on the comfy chair offered to him and shakes his head.

“Thanks, I’m naturally running hot, I’m good.”

That remark earns him a raised brow from Alex. No kidding, Alex Manes is capable of raising just one brow. It gives his face something almost diabolic for a second, until one corner of his mouth twitches and he smirks.

“You’re running hot, huh? Good to know.”

Michael blushes. He honest to god blushes. Holy shit. Is Alex Manes flirting with him? He’s not sure. Alex is so different from his group of friends and the people he’s worked with in the past. They are usually just taking the shit out of him (and vice versa). With Alex it's all new and unknown terrain.

He’s being pulled out of his thoughts when Alex returns to the table and puts a mug of steaming tea in front of him. And of course, he doesn’t just place it on the wooden table, he’s putting a coaster underneath. Because Alex Manes is a cultivated man who brings his own quilt, scented candles and fucking coasters to a 3-week-shoot in the desert.

Michal is impressed, but also intimidated. His usual crowd is loud and rambunctious, and it suits his outgoing personality perfectly. Alex is only three months older than him, but he almost feels like an insecure kid meeting a man of the world. He shakes off that mental image and waits until Alex is snuggled up under his quilt again before he takes a cookie. It’s chocolate chip, and it tastes divine .

“Holy shit, these are amazing. Where did you get them? I have to buy three boxes.”

Alex chuckles.

“I don’t usually do orders, but I can give you the recipe, they’re quite easy to make.”

Michael is in awe. He loves food more than almost anything in the world, and he knows his way around a stove or oven. He’ll figure out a way to make these cookies.

“Didn’t take you for a baker, but you sure know what you did with these. They are incredible. I’d love the recipe. I’ll send it to my mom. She’ll be so excited.”

He must’ve said the right thing, because Alex’s smile turns warm and genuine for the first time since they’ve met.

“Moms, right?”

Michael couldn’t agree more and nods enthusiastically. He picks up his mug.

“To amazing moms.”

Alex picks up his mug and toasts back.

“To amazing moms.”

They both sip some tea and for a moment the music in the background is the only sound in the trailer. Michael is careful to place his mug on its coaster before he picks up the conversation again.

“Okay, now that we’ve established that we’re both momma’s boys, I hope we can take it from there and get to know each other better and maybe build something for our Alistair and Mikel dynamic. What do you think?”

He’s nervous all of a sudden. Alex is an experienced actor, he’s been doing this professionally for more than a decade. When Michael sees Alex’s face soften, he’s feeling better immediately.

“I think that’s a great idea. There’s this one sentence in the script that shows how close they are, or at least how close they must've been at some point, and I think it would be good to find that closeness somehow. And then we’re going to show the execs what a kiss a decade in the making looks like.”

Michael laughs.

“You won’t believe it, but that’s been my thought process on my way from Jenna’s office to your trailer. I mean, Liz and Max still have the biggest responsibility to convince the higher ups, but in my opinion, Alistair and Mikel are just as important and as much of a selling point.”

Encouraged by Alex nodding in agreement, Michael continues.

"The scene you mentioned, is our springboard, that’s the moment where the audience has to realize that this isn’t just a spur of the moment thing. These two men have history. We may not know about that history yet, but it has to be clear that they know each other. It’s really helpful for me that Jenna wrote that bit about muscle memory into the script. The question is, how do we get to a point where we look like we’ve done this before? Is Jenna going to schedule snogging rehearsals for us?”

Alex bursts out laughing. On the one hand Michael’s delighted that he’s managed to make Alex laugh, on the other hand that he’s worried he’s made a stupid suggestion.

“Uhm, sorry if that was dumb. I’m just a very hands-on guy. I often approach my roles from as much of a physical perspective as I do from the emotional perspective of my character.”

Alex smiles at him.

“You didn’t say anything dumb. It’s a fair question to ask. How do we, two people who’ve only just met, play two men who’ve been in love for a decade? I want this to be every bit of convincing and true to these characters as you. In all honesty, I might have an even bigger interest in it, given that I’m part of the community who will watch this part of the show very closely.”

Michael knows that Alex is gay, in his research he’s found articles and an interview that had been released after Charming Young Deceivers ended. Media and fans alike had been in a frenzy over the coming out, especially after Alex had been part of one of the most beloved straight couples in TV history.

Michael looks at Alex as open and honest as he feels.

“I’m bi myself, so this story means a lot to me, too. I want to do it justice, and I want to do right by a community I know is marginalized in many, many ways. They - we - deserve me giving it my all. And that’s what I want to do. That’s what the script demands. And I think Alistair and Mikel have the potential to be as important and relevant as Liz and Max’s characters. Maybe even more so.”

Michael’s run out of breath at this point, something that barely ever happens, but this is important to him, and he hopes Alex understands what he means. Going by the look on Alex’s face, he does. His eyes seem to glisten, but maybe it’s just a trick of light.

Alex clears his throat and takes another sip from his mug.

“You know, I’ve had the hardest time making the decision whether to take on this role. After seven years on my previous show and coming out after we wrapped, I took a year off. I just needed a break from pretending to be someone I’m not for way too long. The media just always assumed I had to be straight because I played a straight guy on TV. I knew it was risky to come out when the show ended, it could’ve ended my career as well, but I couldn’t live the lie by omission my life had become any longer. I did a lot of soul searching and focused on myself. I was at a point where I didn’t know if I should continue to work in this business, when the accident happened. After that, I didn't know if I could continue to work in this business. I’m sure you know enough about the industry to understand how hard it is as an able-bodied, assumed-straight, assumed white male actor.”

Michael nods, he knows all too well how hard it is. He’s been driving Uber and Lyft for more than a year to make ends meet, and as a talented mechanic, he’d also done the odd car repair job for friends or people recommended to him for extra cash, he’d spent on more acting classes.

Alex puts his mug down and rubs at his eyes with the palms of his hands before he looks at Michael again, his gaze intense.

“Well, after playing a straight white guy for years, people now know that Alex Manes is actually a gay man, who’s half Native American, and also disabled. I’ve worked my way up in LA for years, until my name was one casting people and show execs would recognize. Expectations were always high, but the longer Deceivers went on, the pressure to replicate the success got bigger every year, and the media wanted to be fed with the same narrative over and over again. Especially in regards to my personal life.”

Alex shakes his head, probably thinking about gossip magazine headlines questioning whether his female co-star of seven years and him were banging in real life. Michael shudders in sympathy.

“When the show ended, I just couldn’t continue and pretend to be the guy they wanted to write about. If someone had asked me one more time what my dream girl would have to be like, I can’t guarantee I wouldn’t have committed a murder. And now they know that I’m really not that guy."

Alex points at the script on the table.

“When I got this, I’d more or less made my peace with the idea of never being able to act again, while simultaneously worrying about what to do with my life instead. This role, this story, came at the right time. I read the script and I knew immediately that I wanted to play Alistair. That – to a degree – I am Alistair.”

Alex takes a steadying breath.

“I’m not going to make this about me all the time, don’t worry, but I wanted you to know where I’m coming from, and that there’s the potential that some part of my story will bleed into Alistair’s story. Mentally I’m still a bit ‘all over the place’ right now, I’m more emotional than usual, and I still struggle with the decision of having signed up for a project that could turn into yet another commitment of several years. But I think the show has the potential to be really good. For myself, and for many people like me.”

Michael gets up from his chair and walks over to the recliner. He reaches out to Alex with both arms.

“Man, would it be ok if I offer you a hug? I know I could use a hug right now. It’s ok if you don’t want, of course, but I thought I’d ask?”

Alex looks at him with big eyes, but then he untangles himself from the quilt, gets up and steps into Michael’s open arms. Michael wraps his arms around Alex’s upper body, while Alex’s arms slowly wind around Michael’s mid-section. It’s only awkward for a second, then both men give in and melt into a comforting embrace. They just stand there in the middle of Alex’s trailer for a long time, holding each other, breathing in and out in perfect sync.

They lose track of time, but eventually Alex bends back a little to look at Michael’s face from close up.

“Momma’s boys and suckers for hugs, I have a feeling, things between us are going to be just fine.”

Michael snickers.

“I’m warning you, I’m a cuddle slut. I can fall asleep on people’s shoulders, or I will sloth-hug them from behind when I’m tired. Feel free to tell me no at any time though, I know not everybody’s comfortable with that kind of invasion of their personal space.”

Alex smiles.

“Thanks, I’m trying to listen to my needs more closely. In general, I do enjoy a good hug, but sometimes it can be too much. Boundaries are hard.”

Michael nods.

“Don’t I know it. I mean, I’m not having a hard time to accept or notice other people’s boundaries, it’s more like that I often ignore my own boundaries in an effort to please everyone. Leaves me drained and exhausted, but then life demands that I’m being me again, and I never seem to have enough time and space to recharge.”

They end the hug, but when they sit down again, they do so on the recliner side by side, their knees touching. Michael’s right leg bounces.

“So, after we’ve bonded over some emotional stuff, how do we get to the muscle memory part of our characters’ connection? Kissing boot camp? I’ll admit, although I know I’m bi, I’ve never kissed a dude before. I don’t expect it to be that different from kissing a girl, but I can’t be sure. I’ve looked up your filmography and saw that you did this cool musical film where you played a seemingly gay man. How did you and your co-star approach that thing between your characters?”

Alex laughs.

“Did you see the movie?”

Michael shakes his head.

“I didn’t have the time to watch it, but I saw the trailer, and, uhm, there’s a making of clip of one rather steamy scene on YouTube, I watched that.”

Alex smirks at him.

“Did you now? Interesting. Well, in general we talked with the director of course, how they wanted the scene to go, stuff like that. We did a screen test where we kissed before the shoot. Colton’s also gay, so we both had no trouble with the ‘kissing a dude’ part. But as it is with any kiss on screen, kissing a stranger is never easy.”

Michael nods.

“Okay, that makes sense. Maybe they’re going to do a screen test with us, too? To make sure we’re compatible? Jenna didn’t mention anything, right?”

Alex shakes his head.

“No, she didn’t. I don’t think there will be a screen test. This is just a pilot, and they’re on a tight budget. They’ll expect us to knock it out of the park as soon as the cameras roll.”

Michael swallows around a lump in his throat that wasn’t there a minute ago.

“Good, that’s cool. I mean, looking at you, it’s not exactly a hardship to imagine how great it must be to kiss you. I’ll do my best to make it not awkward.”

Alex smiles at him, but the smile doesn't quite reach his eyes. He’s careful with his next words.

“If it makes you feel better, we can do a screen test without cameras? Figure out how to embrace without colliding? I mean, we don’t have to kiss, obviously, if it makes you uncomfortable or you think it’s not necessary. But we could work out some kind of choreography and develop the ‘muscle memory’ for the kissing scene?”

Alex doesn’t look straight at Michael when he makes his proposal, only when he ends, his eyes are back on Michael with full focus. Michael feels like he’s blushing furiously, although he really hopes that isn’t the case.

“Uhm, okay, that’s a great idea actually. A choreography. I like that. I’d rather not knock you unconscious with my thick skull just because we both go for the same side.”

Alex laughs and stands up again. He holds his hand out to Michael.

“Come on then, let’s try.”

Michael takes Alex’s hand and lets himself get pulled up into a standing position. Alex doesn’t release his hand, so Michael follows him to the middle of the trailer where they have enough space to move around without bumping into furniture. Alex takes one more step until they stand opposite from each other.

“Is there anything off limits with what you’re comfortable with? Like, do I have to know about any particularly ticklish spots, is it ok to touch your hair? That kind of stuff.”

Michael thinks about it for a second, then he shakes his head.

“I can’t think of anything. How about you?”

Alex shakes his head.

“I’m pretty ticklish, but I don’t think you’re going to tickle me. Should we just act out the scene like it’s in the script and see how it goes?”

Michael nods. He picks up his script from where he’d placed it on the table earlier and quickly reads through the instructions for the scene’s set-up.

“Okay, why don’t you take the chair from over there, and I enter from the kitchen area?”

Alex nods in agreement. He pulls out the chair from under the desk and props up his right leg on the seat. He pulls up the leg of is sweatpants and pretends to adjust something on his prosthesis.

Michael’s stepped back into the kitchen area and looks at Alex. His hair is tousled and he looks warm and slightly flushed. For a moment, Michael glances at the metal of Alex’s leg reflecting the light, but then he takes a deep breath and closes his eyes. He’s Mikel Rath now. An alien who’s lived in this town for ten years while the love of his life went to war. They are not on good terms, but there’s still love.

A love that’s been tested over and over again, but never went away. Michael opens his eyes and looks at Alex. Alex, who’s Alistair Jessup now, a decorated war veteran. Not the same person Mikel fell in love with a decade ago. Not a boy anymore. Alistair is a man now. But the love, oh the love, it's burning just as bright as the first day he’d laid eyes on him.

Mikel takes a step forward into the room, as per description “belt buckle first”.

"𝙽𝚘𝚜𝚝𝚊𝚕𝚐𝚒𝚊’𝚜 𝚊 𝚋𝚒𝚝𝚌𝚑, 𝚑𝚞𝚑."

Alistair adjusts the leg of his pants and puts his foot back on the ground. He looks at Mikel, his eyes dark and questioning. He sighs.

"𝙸 𝚝𝚑𝚘𝚞𝚐𝚑𝚝 𝚏𝚘𝚛 𝚜𝚞𝚛𝚎 𝚝𝚑𝚊𝚝 𝚠𝚑𝚎𝚗 𝙸 𝚐𝚘𝚝 𝚋𝚊𝚌𝚔 𝚏𝚛𝚘𝚖 ��𝚛𝚊𝚚, 𝚢𝚘𝚞’𝚍 𝚋𝚎 𝚕𝚘𝚗𝚐 𝚐𝚘𝚗𝚎."

Mikel feels embarrassed all of a sudden. Alistair is right, it’s been ten years and he’s still stuck in the same place, wasting his life, just like Alistair said earlier. But then Alistair doesn’t know why he never left, what kept him in their hometown, or rather who. Mikel is tired, and his shoulders drop. He sounds resigned.

"𝙸’𝚟𝚎 𝚋𝚎𝚎𝚗 𝚠𝚘𝚛𝚔𝚒𝚗𝚐 𝚘𝚗 𝚊 𝚠𝚊𝚢 𝚘𝚞𝚝 𝚘𝚏 𝚑𝚎𝚛𝚎 𝚏𝚘𝚛 𝚊 𝚠𝚑𝚒𝚕𝚎. 𝙸𝚝’𝚜 𝚜𝚕𝚘𝚠 𝚐𝚘𝚒𝚗𝚐. 𝚃𝚑𝚊𝚝 𝚠𝚑𝚊𝚝 𝚢𝚘𝚞 𝚠𝚊𝚗𝚝? 𝙵𝚘𝚛 𝚖𝚎 𝚝𝚘 𝚐𝚘?"

Alistair shakes his head, he also looks tired, his eyes are hollow.

"𝚆𝚎’𝚛𝚎 𝚗𝚘𝚝 𝚔𝚒𝚍𝚜 𝚊𝚗𝚢𝚖𝚘𝚛𝚎. 𝚆𝚑𝚊𝚝 𝙸 𝚠𝚊𝚗𝚝 𝚍𝚘𝚎𝚜𝚗’𝚝 𝚖𝚊𝚝𝚝𝚎𝚛."

The ‘what I want never mattered’ is hanging like an unspoken truth between them. Mikel takes a step forward, his eyes on Alistair. Alistair in return, takes one step in Mikel’s direction. They are close now. Very close. They look at each other, their eyes telling an entire story while they remain quiet.

When they both start moving at the same time, there’s no need to figure out a choreography. Mikel’s arms reach for Alistair’s head, his fingers slotting around his neck just so, while Alistair’s hands go underneath Mikel’s arms and wrap around Mikel’s torso. They both pull the other in until there’s no space left between them. Mikel takes another breath before he closes the last inch of distance between them and their lips meet in a searing kiss.

They are swaying back and forth, their lips pressing firmly against each other. They are Alistair and Mikel for a long moment, until Mikel Rath slowly turns back into Michael Guerin and Alistair fades back into Alex Manes, and now it’s them kissing all of a sudden, and no longer the characters they are supposed to play.

Michael doesn’t know how to stop. He doesn’t want to. He’s holding onto Alex’s face and looks at him like he’s searching for something. When he sees what he’s been hoping to find, he closes his eyes and lets his lips go soft, his mouth turning into a pliant invitation

When he feels Alex’s tongue nudging at his lower lip, he opens his mouth and lets him in.

#malex fic #malex #alex manes #michael guerin #roswell new mexico #my fic #rnm 1x01 #rnm fic

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hellzyeahwebwieldingreviews · 4 years ago

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Untold Tales of Spider-Man 08: The Liar – by Ann Nocenti

I enjoyed this story a lot but objectively it’s very mixed.

Peter Parker watches off and on as a spider spends the day making a web. Later he watches as she waits patiently for a moth to be trapped, feeding on it. "How could I have anything in common with her?" Peter thinks. He both admires and shudders at the spider's "round-the-clock surveillance." And the web itself: "Her beautifully constructed home is also a death trap...The spider's elegantly poised web is a lie." Peter jumps up and destroys the web, then feels guilt about it, knowing the spider will just create another. "She can't help it. Lie or die."As Peter starts to leave, he receives a visit from Aunt May. She tells him that Empire State University contacted her because he missed several days of classes. She also asks if he washed something red at her house. Peter was gone for three days, confronting the Red Skull in Algiers and he washed his mask at May's place but he lies to her, telling her the school made a mistake and that the red came from a nosebleed.

At ESU, Ms. O'Grady, Peter's advisor, tells him that she talked to Aunt May about his absences and that May didn't seem to know about that. Peter tells her that May's memory isn't what it used to be. Ms. O'Grady tells him she's sorry to hear that. Peter thinks, "A big one. The two this morning to Aunt May were little enough, but this lie is a big one." Ann elaborates, "The little fibs are like annoying black moths, fluttering at the edges of his consciousness; shadows that flit about and dog his heels, they haunt him when he least expects it. The big ones are like rocks tied to his feet, that he has to drag with him wherever he goes."

Through the course of the day, Peter promises May he'll join her at 4PM to help with groceries and makes a date with Mary Jane over a fudge sundae at 6PM. Now he tells Gwen he'll join her for a 5PM revival showing of her favorite film, "Casablanca." "How," asks Ann, "will he pull this off?"

Not long after lying to his history prof to explain being late for the class, Peter is at the market with May. It is a warm day but he sees a man in the parking lot in a wool cap. Lying to Aunt May about needing to make a phone call, he leaves her in the market and changes to Spider-Man. He re-enters the market just as the thief pulls a gun and tries to rob the place. Spidey easily takes care of him. The store manager gratefully offers him "a cart of food, on the house." Spidey takes a look at May and says, "Hey, I just ate. But it looks like this poor woman got the worst fright. Maybe you could take care of her?" Which makes him look like an altruist when he's actually just helping out his relative. Back home, Aunt May tells the story to Peter for the third time. Peter notes that the story never changes. She tells it straight, never embellishing. She is grateful to Spider-Man but notes that his manners are terrible. "I just wanted to thank him properly. But he just turned his back on me!" When Peter tells her he has to meet Gwen at the movies, she comments that she thought he was meeting Mary Jane. "Oh yeah. Did I say Gwen? I meant Mary Jane," says Pete as the lies mount up.

At Casablanca, Pete enjoys sitting next to Gwen. "She's like a warm bed you don't want to get out of in the morning," he thinks. But he still needs to meet Mary Jane. So, telling Gwen he has to go to the bathroom, he slips away. He joins MJ for ice cream during which she almost lets her "party mask" slip when she refers to her repressive father. Peter notices a large bird in the sky and realizes it is the Vulture. Coming up with yet another ridiculous lie ("I promised this guy, I'd help him move his birds...he's got a pet shop, and he's got a big delivery of birds.") Peter promises MJ he'll be back in 20 minutes. MJ doesn't seem to mind. In fact, Peter thinks that she is acting as if she expected this. But he doesn't think about it long. He has to change into his Spidey duds and tackle the Vulture.

Unfortunately, the Vulture has recruited four partners and provided them with wings. The five Vultures beat him up, carry him into the air and drop him over the river, too far away from any buildings on which Spidey can web-swing. As he falls, he realizes his identity will be revealed after his death. "They'll all know what a liar I was. A lowlife fibster with a devil's tongue. A mendacious arachnid. A lousy deceitful cock-and-bull jerk. A two-faced stinker." Then he passes out.

While unconscious, he dreams about his Mom and Dad, telling him conflicting stories about their impending trip; the trip that leads to their deaths. "I was three years old when I noticed the first little lies," he thinks, "By the time I was six, nothing quite added up...All those lies. I guess they thought they were protecting me. Benevolent lying. I know all about it."He awakens seventeen feet above the water. There is a tug boat right below him and he webs the smokestack, saving himself, ending up in the river, then climbing up onto the tug. The tug's captain, Gallager, tells him he saw him falling and swung around to help. As they sail back to port, Spidey notices how capable Gallager is and he envies his straightforward life. "What do you think of liars?" Spidey asks him. Gallager replies that it depends on what kind of lying, adding that he lies all day. "Every time I give an order," he says, "it's to save the ship but risk the man. ..They trust me and I send them to risk death with every command...Well then, a few lies along the way aren't really lies, are they? Not if you bring all your men home alive." Spidey thinks about this as Gallager docks his tug.

He gets back to MJ who asks him if he had a nice swim. "What swim?" he asks, then he notices that his bookbag, containing his costume, has created a puddle on the ground. MJ, playing along, kicks at the puddle and says, "Rained while you were gone."From there, Pete returns to the movies, tells Gwen he couldn't find their seats in the dark and watched the rest of the movie from the back. "What a perfect ending," Gwen says. "Yeah," Peter replies, "I love happy endings." "Gwen looks at him queerly, then smiles. They walk on silently for a while. Soon, it begins to rain."

Let me say up top, this is the best Spider-Man story of Ann Nocenti’s career.

This is owed to the prose, dialogue and over all narrative being fairly straightforward and not told as through you’d skipped a beat. Everyone sounds like a normal person ( for a super hero story) and there are no weird lines making you ask ‘who talks like this?’

I should also point out the subject matter of this story is something Nocenti has explored in her other Spider work as well as her famous Daredevil run, chiefly through her most enduring creation, Typhoid Mary.

The theme of the story, as the title implies, is lying. Lying is practically systemic in super hero stories as characters maintain their secret identities.

It’s an interesting idea to expand upon that idea and examine the psychological ramifications of lying upon the individual and the impact it might have on their interpersonal relationships. For example could lying about your identity cause you to become a habitual liar about other things? Could this seep into that age old human story of the unfaithful lover?

That’s what Nocenti explored in her Daredevil run when she had Matt Murdock (ironically, or appropriately depending upon your POV, a lawyer and Catholic) cheat on Karen page with Typhoid’s alter ego; she was in fact lying to him at the same time and having an affair with the Kingpin at the same time.

In her ‘Return to Mad Dog Ward’ storyline in the 1990s Peter lied to MJ and Aunt May in such a way that MJ mistakenly believed he was cheating on him and considered running off with someone else.

In an even earlier story she did, a back-up from Web of Spider-Man Annual #2, she had Peter endure a nightmare where he was haunted by the fact he lied all the time.

Personally I think her focus upon the subject, especially in regards to cheating, raises some uncomfortable questions about her personal life, but I’m not interested in that right now.

The problem with all those stories and this one as far as Spidey is concerned is that she…goes way too far.

The fact is lying can and does take a toll on Spidey but it doesn’t open him up to lying as second nature about anything. He lies to protect his identity and anything else he lies about is just what any of us might lie about in the course of our lives. He hasn’t got ‘a problem’. And the idea it’s rooted in his parents being spies is pretty ridiculous and a massive reach.

I think what’s most problematic about this story in regards to the theme is that Peter would absolutely NEVER knowingly cheat on a woman. He’s just not that kind of person and yet here he is on 2 dates with MJ and Gwen at once like it’s a sitcom or Superman IV: the Quest for Peace.

In terms of Spider-Man’s personality and characterization this is just more evidence that Nocenti simply never grasped the character. Which is a shame given how she has written more Spider-Man stories than any female author ever; though Houser might’ve overtaken her by this point.

Her idea that Peter’s ‘problem with lying’ stems from his parents is also kind of contradicted by various stories that establish Peter was just too young to even remember his parents. This in particular includes ASM Annual #5 which she references in this story. I’m not going to hold that against this story too much because honestly no one keeps Peter’s parents consistent.*

Other continuity hiccups include when the annual happens in relation to Peter meeting Captain Stacy and MJ’s job as a go-go dancer.

However, this book has by now long established that these stories are not meant to fit into 616 canon but more a generalized idea of Spidey’s canon. If you try putting this story into strict continuity Peter was firmly interested in Gwen over MJ and the Betty/Veronica choice he had had been resolved for a good while.

This story though is meant more to touch upon the Betty/Veronica aspect of the Romita era and admittedly 2 dates at once seems like a typical Archie story. If you accept this as just a general AU version of Peter and don’t try to compare him to his canon characterization this is a perfectly legitimate idea. By extension the psychological complexity of this story works if you treat take this story in isolation or in isolation of the anthology as a whole.

Nocenti DOES to her credit explore the theme very well, the scenes with his parents and their lies resonates very well and speaks honestly to childhood hurts.

The hints that MJ knows Peter’s identity and her own family history are done very well. They are subtle, romantic and in fact so good I WISH there was a story that played with the idea. Although it does contradict later stories because Peter clearly suspects MJ is aware of his secret but ignores it.

It’s ironic actually that those scenes ultimately make this more an MJ story than a Gwen/MJ story in spite of that being the point of the narrative. Nocenti just charcaterizees her very well and even does Gwen a service. She is very much the early days Romita Gwen and there is a wonderful passage comparing the two and likening MJ to the sun and Gwen to the moon. I never thought of that kind of dichotomy but (before she became a water works) it’s a brilliant observation of the two women. She also does a great job of capturing the flirtatious nature of Silver Age MJ.

However, where this story falters (evene when taken unto itself) is in Noenti likening spider webs to ‘lies’ and the scenes on the boat.

For the former she is just over reaching. ‘What a tangled web we weave when we first choose to lie and deceive’. It’s a famous phrase but it isn’t actually saying a spiders web is akin to a lie. It’s saying the ACT of lying is like the ACT of spinning a tangled web. An insect isn’t metaphorically ‘caught in a lie’ when it’s ensnared in a spider’s web. Yet that’s what Nocenti goes for at the start of the story.

And the stuff on the boat is just…I don’t know what it means. The lies Peter engages in in are simply not comparable to the lies the boat captain engages in. Even if you lean hard on the idea of Peter lying about his identity for the greater good, what has that got to do with lying to MJ and Gwen?

Regardless, I think this story is mostly well told for what it is and I very much enjoyed it in spite of the mischaracterization.

*Personally though I defer to Stan’s stories that state he was too young to remember them.

#Ann Nocenti #Gwen Stacy #mjwatsonedit #mary jane watson #Mary Jane Watson Parker #MJ Watson #Spider-Man #Peter Parker #Untold Tales Of Spider-Man #vulture #the vulture #adrian toomes #Richard Parker #Mary parker

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mollymauk-teafleak · 5 years ago

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Black Coffee

Vax'ildan needs a way to make money. Life got pretty rough after Syldor cut him off and he and his sister found themselves living in a tiny apartment in the city.

He needs a quick way to make some money. What he finds is Percival de Polo.

We’re calling it the sugar daddy au and we’re unapologetic, folks. Will be multi chapter if people like it.

Please consider reblogging, leaving a comment on Ao3 or donating to my ko-fi page!

Thanks to @minky-for-short and @spiky-lesbian

Always meet them in a public place.

That had been the prevailing advice when he’d looked on the Internet, when he’d asked Molly’s mother, when he’d finally decided to do this slightly crazy thing.

So Vax had messaged back, after stewing over those handful of words for nearly half a day, after they’d popped up with a unusually cheery message chime that honestly was a bit of a weird choice for an online sex forum. Though Vax didn’t know what else he’d expected. A moan of lust maybe, every time a message from his anonymous friend came in?

I’d like to meet you and talk about this face to face.

He’d replied, sat cross legged in his underwear on the bed that took up the majority of the space. He’d have called his bedroom the box room of the apartment, if his sister’s hadn’t been equally as claustrophobic.

1pm tomorrow at the Blooming Grove café? It’s on fifth street.

Vax thought it was a good choice. Nice, airy and Caduceus made the best coffee he’d ever had in the whole city. Also it wouldn’t hurt to be in a place where there would always be a stronger-than-he-seemed, seven foot tall friend within earshot.

He’d frowned than, tugging at a loose strand of ink black hair that had come loose from his bun. He’d told himself he was overthinking this. Catastrophizing, that’s what the CBT book his sister had lent him called it. Odds were this guy was just a nice enough, probably lonely middle-aged man. If anything seemed off, Vax could easily just politely decline and get out of there. He’d escaped from far worse.

Besides, maybe the offer would scare him off. Maybe Orthax- obviously not his real name but his username on the website- would lose his nerve and shut down and that would just be the end of it.

But then the reply came, less than five minutes after Vax’s offer when he’d taken five hours.

I know it, good choice. See you there. I’ll have a red carnation.

Vax had smiled at that, maybe even snorted a little. How romance novel. How Gone with the Wind.

It was a little sweet.

His estimation of the guy’s age had shot up but the amount he feared for his life went down.

And now he was sat here, at the comfy table for two right in the window, the one with the black iron seats and the mosaic table top. Dark eyes flicking to his watch, he noted it was now five minutes past one and there wasn’t a single flash of red to be found amongst the dinner crowd.

What if he never showed up? Maybe Orthax had lost his nerve at the last minute.

Vax frowned and leaned back in his chair, trying to figure out how that made him feel.

It wasn’t like he was dying to be someone’s sugar baby. After all, if he felt completely, 110% okay with it, he wouldn’t have lied about where he was going to his sister when she’d asked, dashing back to grab her forgotten lunch and seeing him half in, half out of his leather jacket, chasing Trinket around for his second shoe. He’d told her he was going to meet another art director, once she’d wrenched his now dripping shoe from her hairball of a dog.

And instantly regretted that lie, when he’d seen how her face lit up with hope for him.

Truth was, he thought as he took another sip of his black coffee to match how bitter he felt inside, the auditions had been very thin on the ground lately and even the few he did get didn’t go very far. Most directors wouldn’t even see him dance, not once he told them he was trans.

No auditions meant no jobs. No jobs meant no money coming in. And he and Vex would rather lose the apartment than ask Syldor for money, after he’d made it so acidly plain they wouldn’t be seeing another penny as long as Vax lived as himself.

The old man could rot as far as Vax was concerned.

He sighed, screwing up his face, fingers tight on his own arms. He was getting angry again, he could feel it, the kind of anger that could so easily make him say and do stupid things. But it was so much simpler to get mad at his bigoted ass of a father than at the whole world, the world that just didn’t seem to want to let him be happy, the world that had always been so unfair to him, the world that had left him sat here, messaging random people on the internet, offering to sell himself, hoping for one last chance to not fuck his whole life up.

“Are you…sorry, this is going to sound insane if I’m wrong but are you Raven?”

Vax opened his eyes, startled.

Well, he was a hell of a lot younger than he’d been expecting. Wasn’t half bad on the eyes either.

“I am. You’re Orthax?”

Tall, very tall. Human. White hair but it had to be the result of dye rather than age, no one with naturally white hair would wear it in such a neat, subtle undercut. Shockingly blue, tired looking eyes behind a pair of circular, gold rimmed glasses. Stubble creeping up his jaw. Looked like he needed a good night’s sleep.

And he actually did have the red carnation in his pocket.

The guy’s face wrinkled in gentle embarrassment, “Yeah. Sorry, it’s a rather stupid username. I didn’t think how bad it would sound out loud.”

His voice was prim, sculpted, a borderline ridiculously high society accent. But it was the only thing about him that gave any hint of the wealth Vax assumed he’d have; his clothes were dark and simple, no logos or brands, just dark blue jeans and a pain grey collared shirt that was a little oversized. Wait, no, there was a ring on his finger. The gleam of real gold, a crest too small to make out from his distance.

Vax cracked a smile, “It’s fine. Doesn’t have a reference to the size of your genitals so it’s better than most I see on there.”

The guy laughed, a short, bark of a laugh like he didn’t do it very often, “Even so. Now we’ve met face to face, can I be Percy?”

“Sure,” he nodded, “Then I’m Vax’ildan. Vax for short.”

“Lovely. Can I get you a drink, Vax?”

He tipped his mug, judging that he had maybe two swallows left. Having two drinks at a café was rank extravagance on Vax’s budget, even with Caduceus’ heavy friends discount, and all of a sudden the idea of having one bought for him seemed strange. But he was going to have to get used to that if this was going to work.

“Sure. Black coffee please and an amount of sugar I’m not comfortable telling you right now. The guy behind the counter knows.”

That made Percy laugh again, “Sure. A gentleman after my own heart.”

Vax paused as he watched Percy move through the maze of mismatched tables to the counter (Caduceus didn’t have the best eye for organisation). Being called a gentleman had gave him a happy little tightness in his stomach and it was probably good that he’d been able to make the guy laugh twice. So far so good.

Vax had always been very good at reading people in a short space of time. It was partly good intuition, partly a strong sense of empathy inherited from his mother, partly survival instinct from his years with Syldor, trying to work out how much he could trust people, how much he could be himself versus how much he’d need to lie.

It was serving him well as it ever had in trying to set up this delicate arrangement, helping him reject a handful of people and decide Percy was the only one he was going to agree to meet. And it was telling him a lot about Percy right now.

He seemed sad. There was no other word for it. There were too many lines around his eyes for someone as young as he was, down turned ones that clearly didn’t come from smiling. That shirt wasn’t doing a good job of concealing how slender he was, his nails were bitten uncomfortably close, there were old burns and scars on his hands and he’d missed part of his hair when he’d brushed it. And of course there was the fact that he looked like he hadn’t slept in days. It didn’t take a lot of Vax’s intuition to see that.

In short, he looked a bit bedraggled. At first Vax had been stunned that someone with such good looks and, presumably, a lot of money needed to inquire after a sugar baby. But as he watched him fumble for change, exchange a few pleasantries with Caduceus and pick his way back over to their table with two mugs, he was starting to piece it together.

Percy was just a little bit lost. He needed someone to hold his hand.

Vax mentally shrugged. He could do that.

“Here…” Percy sat the two coffees down, one in front of Vax, “I promise I didn’t look when he put the sugar in.”

Vax smiled wanly, “I’m pretty sure he stints me every time. It’s for my own good.”

Percy slid into the chair opposite him, muffling a cough, “Sorry…and I’m sorry for being late too. Time got away from me when I was working.”

“Oh? What do you do?” It was as good a place as any to make a start.

The tips of Percy’s ears reddened, “Well. Not work as in for my job. It’s…well, tinkering? Just messing around with machinery for my own amusement. I have a little work shop in my apartment.”

“Sounds interesting,” Vax smiled, wondering if he could be paid for his company in putting up all that flatpack furniture that was still sitting around in his own place.

“Well…” that seemed to please him, “I’ve made a few things. Odds and ends, patented a few things actually…”

Vax filed that away for something to return to later, something to do a little research on, “So what’s your day job?”

The discomfort returned a little, though it seemed a well-worn kind, something he was used to, “I, uh…I run my family’s company. Whitestone Industries.”

Vax nearly choked on his coffee, “Wait, what? Seriously?”

It was one of those ubiquitous household names, a little silver stamp on everything from electronics to massive civil engineering projects and charity initiatives. So huge and all encompassing, it was hard to imagine it as a family business.

Fuck, he’d suspected anyone with a kink for having a kept partner would have a fair amount of spending money but he hadn’t expected an oligarch.

“Yeah…” Percy looked down awkwardly, tracing his finger between the pretty glass tiles on the table top, “I don’t do that much, the board just puts stuff in front of me and I sign it. It’s the surname really…they let me mess around in the aerospace engineering department sometimes.”

Vax paused, his dismay fading. While he wasn’t about to feel sorry for someone who earned more money by the hour than his mother had ever seen in her life, he could see how that would be lonely. Having the pressures of your family bend and twist you into a position you couldn’t hold long before your muscles began to burn and your head swam.

He could understand that.

“Well…” Vax gave a friendly smile, soft and gentle as he could manage, “You’ve always got your work shop to come home to?”

“Yeah,” Percy looked up, like he really appreciated those words, “I do…so what do you like to do, Vax’ildan?”

“You can call me Vax,” he reminded him, leaning forward on his elbows.

“I like saying it,” he said it like it was something he was admitting, “It’s beautiful.”

Charming as well, huh? Vax was starting to think this whole thing was his very first good idea.

“I’m a dancer,” he stirred his coffee idly, spoon ringing against the china, “Aspiring, really. It’s been a while since I had a gig. I do teach a class down at the community centre and my friend Mollymauk lets me choreograph for his shows. They do Shakespeare mostly so there’s not a lot of call for it but…”

He trailed off limply. He felt like he was in front of someone who remembered him from Syldor’s, meeting him in the street and asking politely how he was getting on, all the while both of them painfully aware that he’d been disowned and this entire conversation had been an unadulterated mess.

But Percy had a smile in his voice, Vax heard it even when he didn’t lift his eyes to see, “That sounds lovely. I really admire anyone who has a creative job, especially people who teach others, I could never do that.”

Vax’s eyes darted up, too stunned to worry that he was looking a bit of a fool, “Really?”

Percy blinked, even tilting his head a little like a puppy would, “Forgive me but…have you ever had a compliment before?”

Vax opened his mouth…and had to close it again, smiling sheepishly. After a moment, the two of them found themselves laughing quietly under the chatter contained within the café. What else was there to do?

“Glad I could be your first, anyway,” Percy’s laugh ended in a cough he muffled into the back of his hand, “I’ll make sure I throw in as many as I can in the future.”

Vax lifted an eyebrow, “Does that mean…this is going to be a thing? You and me?”

Percy smiled playfully, eyes flashing a little, something Vax hadn’t even thought he would be capable of doing, “Well…I’d certainly be up for it though I think we should talk ground rules?”

Vax’s smile softened around the edges and any lingering worry that had survived in his chest died away at that moment. He was approaching this like a blueprint, of course, but there was comfort in that, reliability.

“Why don’t you tell me what you were thinking, then?” He’d finished his second coffee at that point, a pleasant buzz starting up in his veins.

Percy nodded, ticking them off on his fingers as he went, suddenly becoming very business-like and formal, “I’d pay your rent, I understand that’s the main monetary concern for people. I’d also send you a number of gifts every month once I get a better idea of things you like though some would be sexual in nature. I’d send these to your apartment or you could keep a separate P.O box if you prefer to keep that information private.”

Vax tried not to look too eager, though his heart was hammering in his chest, “And in exchange?”

“A…we’ll call it a date for want of a better word though we’d be by no means exclusive, you could pursue any other relationships though I’d prefer to be the only one with whom you had this kind of…arrangement. But one date every fortnight at least. You can suggest activities but so can I, we’ll reach a compromise. If you need to cancel any, that’s fine, though I’d like it to be rearranged if possible.”

Vax was fighting a bemused smile at how much like a meeting this felt, “And how many of these dates would end in sex? All of them?”

Percy looked taken aback, “I’d…I’d never force sex on you, Vax’ildan, never. I’d like to be intimate with you but if there’s ever any night you’re not feeling it or you’re not in the mood that’s fine. You just have to tell me.”

Vax’s amusement was replaced by surprise for a moment, surprise at the sincerity in Percy’s voice. He really did seem to care about Vax’s consent and comfort. Something that really shouldn’t come as a shock, he realised, but still…

“Understood. Same to you, of course,” he nodded.

Percy looked relieved, apparently genuinely hating being thought of as a person who would demand sex simply because he was paying for it, “I’d also appreciate pictures, whenever the mood takes you. And…” he stopped suddenly, finally seeming shy and even a little embarrassed, “I’d just…I’d like a friend. Tell me how your day is going. Tell me what you thought of whatever was on TV last night. Stuff like that.”

The expression on his face, which so clearly screamed that Percy hadn’t had that kind of friendliness in a very long time, that was what made Vax reach out and put his hand over Percy’s where it lay on the table. It hadn’t been a deliberate action, something he’d thought about, but he was glad he’d done it after Percy’s shame turned to relief and gratitude.

“That sounds perfectly reasonable,” Vax smiled, feeling Percy’s fingers turn under his to hold, knotting them together, “Got a contract you want me to sign or something?”

Percy smiled, blushing lightly under his gentle teasing, “No…sorry, a force of habit, I guess. Whenever you don’t know what to say at board meetings, if you use that kind of tone I’ve found they’ll leave you alone. Even if what you said was complete bullshit. So I guess I do it when I’m nervous?”

“Don’t be,” Vax grinned, “I think this is going to work out fine.”

Percy was full of polite apologies that they couldn’t start things right away but he had work to get back to. Actual work, he promised, not his tinkering.

But they exchanged numbers and Vax stood outside the café, watching his white haired saviour disappear into the crowds, clutching a fresh coffee to see him through the afternoon. It was getting cold but he lingered, waiting until he lost sight of Percy. Percy of the tired eyes and burned hands and family money he seemed so awkward about. Percy who smiled sweetly most of the time and darkly when he wanted to and asked for a friend.

Vax smiled wryly to himself and turned himself back towards home.

At least it wasn’t going to be boring.

#perc'ildan #percildan #percy/vax #percy de rolo #vax'ildan #critical role #sugar daddy au #modern au #it will get spicy later #cr: vax #cr: percy #caduceus clay #vex'ahlia #vex and vax #please consider reblogging!

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damianfitz · 5 years ago

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MEET DAMIAN

1. Full Name?

Damian Elliot Fitzgerald.

2. Preferred Names or Nicknames?

Damian doesn’t have any nicknames and he’s not really the type to go by one.

3. What does their name mean? Does it have any significance in their family? Do they like their name?

Damian means “to tame”, chosen by his father who took inspiration from St. Cosmas and Damian -- the patron saints of pharmacy and medicine. Context: the Fitzgeralds are a hoity toity family full of doctors, at least on his dad’s side. Elliot is his father’s name. Damian very much enjoys his name and likes to think that he’s very special and great things are meant for him because he carries his father’s name. (Unlike his ridiculously perfect older brother who is only named after their grandfathers, ha!)

4. Age and Date of Birth?

He is 18 years old and his date of birth is April 19, 2001.

5. Gender and Pronouns?

Cis Male. He/him.

6. Hometown?

Boston, MA.

7. Does your character fit into any well known archetypes or tropes?

The Chief? The Gentleman? I’m bad at archetypes. He’s also a very stereotypical Aries dude. (Me, pretending I know anything about zodiacs.)

8. How long have they been at Broadripple?

Damian has been enrolled at Broadripple since Freshman year.

9. What led them to apply to Broadripple? Was it a decision made by them or by their parents/guardians or somewhere in between?

Before his father even graduated from Broadripple, he planned that his children would attend the academy. They’re a staple there; it’s tradition and the Fitzgeralds are all about that.

10. Whether they’ve been at Broadripple four days or four years, do they enjoy it? Do they like Broadripple?

Damian absolutely adores Broadripple. He’s been fed stories about house Fenwick and the academy since he was old enough to understand words. Growing up, he fantasized about Broadripple the way some kids fantasize about attending Harvard or Yale. Every school he’s attended prior to Broadripple was just a stepping stone as far as he’s concerned.

11. What house are they in? Do they care very much about their house?

Fenwick. And abso-freakin’-lutely. He treats the house like he’s their dad and often refers to its members as his ‘Fenwick family’. He tends to go out of his way to befriend and develop close bonds with them, whether or not it seems like they’ll get along. Damian fully believes that the best kind of leadership is respect-based, so he’s relentlessly proactive -- always trying to take care of and encourage his Fenwickians with the hope that all of his hard work and toil will pay off in the long run. He 100% intends on winning the Clary Cup and getting his name engraved on the Clary shield before graduation so it’s important to him that his ship is always tight and out of trouble. #fenwickpride

12. Who do they share a dorm with, or are they on their own for the moment? What are they like to live with? Are they clean or messy? Early risers or night owls?

Damian shares a dorm with Connor Roberts, who he decided he quite likes so he’s been making an effort to develop a friendship with him. Damian likes to consider himself a very good roommate -- an ideal roommate even. He’s always mindful that his side of the room is tidy, with everything in its place and that his bed is always made when he’s not sleeping in it. He sleeps early and rises early. Since the start of November, he’s been a little restless for obvious reasons so he’s gotten a bit... nitpicky. If he sees something of Conny’s that’s on the floor or seems out of place and Conny’s not there, he’ll pick it up and put it where he thinks it belongs. He’ll also like, fluff a pillow if he thinks it looks a little flat, smoothens out the sheets if it looks a lil creased. You could leave your books open to random pages all over your bed and leave, and when you come back, they’re all neatly stacked on your desk and bookmarked and Damian’s just like :) I hope you don’t mind. You might have wanted to rest on your bed upon return so I took the liberty of tidying up for you. He’s just a little more intense than usual since Izzy’s disappearance.

13. How is your character’s dorm decorated? Is it bare or bursting at the seems with personality? Any particular sentimental items from home?

It’s very classic and masculine. All of his desk accessories are matching and made of tan leather and accented with brass. His mattress is fitted with fancy white Hotel™ bedding but his duvet is deep red because #fenwickpride. There’s a large monthly planner that adorns the wall that his bed is pushed against so he can review what’s in store for him tomorrow/for the week before he falls asleep. A bi-fold picture frame sits on his desk. One half holds a photo of him, his sister, and their parents. (Where is Joseph? We just don’t know.) The other half holds a photo of the 3 Fitzgerald beagles looking cute as hell bc obvi. Everything clearly has its place except these 3 photos that are stuck to the wall in front of Damian’s desk with tape (gasp!). One of the God Squad being pure having a picnic somewhere, one of Alpha being cute just because, and one of him and Eliza that he took that she doesn’t like because her face is in it and she’s laughing and that obviously isn’t allowed but like it’s Damian’s favorite so sucks 2 suck.

14. What is their favourite subject at school? Do they even have a favourite? Why?

Of all of the classes he’s taking right now, Damian’s favorite is World Culture. He likes learning about other cultures and ways of life; he thinks it’s interesting.

15. Are they involved in any clubs? Which ones?

He’s been a member of the Buddy Club since his second half of his Freshman year. He’s Vice President of the Student Weekend Activities Team. He’s also the secretary for the Student Council.

16. How does your character feel about Broadripple’s Unofficial Clubs? Do they know about them? Are they a part of any of them?

Damian thinks the Broadripple Boys Club is childish and in poor taste. He avoids associating with them if he can help it but he’s civil with them for the most part even if he thinks they need new hobbies other than destroying property, lives, and their livers.

He’s a member of the Unofficial Chastity Club because celibacy is important and you should always leave room for Jesus. 👀 (It's also a very good reminder that he shouldn’t listen to his hormonal teen body no matter how incessant.)

He doesn’t know about Broadripple Unsolved but if he did, he’d think it was a waste of time.

17. Does your character participate in any sports? If so, what made them join the team?

Damian is Swim captain and a member of the Cross Country team.

The Fitzgeralds think it’s important that their children grow up involved in at least one sport because the physical/social/mental benefits are far too great. Swimming just happened to be what Damian naturally gravitated toward and was best at, so it was no-brainer that it’s the team that he wanted to join upon arrival four years ago. (It may have also been about wanting to assert dominance since he’s been swimming competitively and kicking ass since the age of 8.)

As for Cross Country, Damian’s parents have always encouraged a healthy lifestyle. They’re the type of parents that jog in the morning and make the family run a 5K every year. It was familiar. He also just wanted to be able to workout and not worry about becoming a prune.

18. What afternoon activities does your character do? Do they just do the one mandatory one or are they involved in multiple? Why?

Damian is an animal shelter volunteer. He’s a big dog lover and he cares a lot about the city’s furry friends so it was the obvious choice. He’d honestly do more than one if he had the time -- he was a nursing home volunteer during his Junior year and he loved it -- but considering his involvement in literally everything else, he decided to stick with just one.

19. Do they miss their home when they’re at Broadripple? Do they often go home for the weekends or do they only go home during holiday breaks?

Funnily enough, not really. Damian isn’t the type of person to miss places. The person he would miss the most from home is his sister, Eliza, and since she attends Broadripple with him so he doesn’t really ‘miss home’. He does go home every weekend though unless there’s a SWAT outing planned because he misses his dogs and his parents think it’s nice if the family sits and has a meal together at least once a week. Also often, there’s a schmancy event the Fitzgerald kids need to show up at so their parents can boast of their achievements and show off what good parents they are, so :)))

20. Did your character know Izzy De Santis or Maggie Monroe?

Yes. They were all part of the same Bible-loving group of buddies that the Weekend Warriors cleverly dubbed the God Squad. Izzy was also Damian’s best friend and right-hand man, so he’s terribly saddened by the sudden hole the Melleray Senior left in his life. And while he wasn’t as close with Maggie, Damian does feel quite disturbed by her sudden departure as well. He just finds it rather difficult to keep in mind that her disappearance is just as important as Izzy’s when Maggie wasn’t the one who spotted Damian at the gym every other day.

21. Has your character heard of Edith Lynch? Do they know the story?

Yes and yes. It was a topic of conversation at the dinner table once and never again because his parents think it’s that ridiculous that people have made it some ~haunting tale. His parents, having both attended Broadripple, described it as a ‘terrible mishap that people have blown out of proportion’ and that’s exactly how Damian chooses to describe it if he hears anyone speak of it and need his two cents on the matter.

22. How does your character feel about Nighmore? Have they noticed the recently closed shops yet?

To Damian, Nighmore is just your everyday quaint little town. He doesn’t see anything wrong with the fact that they’re all very friendly and always willing to engage in a bit of conversation. He just thinks it’s good manners. He would even go as far as to say the rest of America needs to be a little more like Nighmore.

Yes, he’s noticed they’ve closed down. Though, he’s more bothered by The Kettle being closed than Hill’s Wholefoods. He was a really big fan of their lattes so it’s a bit disappointing to him that he can’t enjoy that product anymore. He quickly got over it though and hasn’t paid much of a visit to Nighmore since then.

23. Have you made any aesthetic Pinterest boards/WeHeartIt collections for this character? Or playlists? Anything you would like to share!

Pinterest / Playlist / Musings / Schedule

#listen i've been meaning to do this for 2342 years but things get away from you when you have one brain cell ok #smack that like button and i'll boop you for plots 🎉#bahq:task1 #damian ; musings #bahq:task

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icequeenjules26 · 5 years ago

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The Butterfly Effect - Part I: If a butterfly flaps its wings...

Summary: It is said that if a Butterfly Flaps its wings it can cause a tsunami at the other end of the world... When nature photographer Dan and god of the forests Phil get caught up in the flap of a butterfly's wings, everything could change forever.

Word Count: 2,6k

Tags: Strangers to lovers, God!Phil, Photographer!Dan

A/n: The first chapter of my third fic for this @phandomreversebang. The second part will be up as soon as I can, I promise. Art will be included in the second part and is done by the AMAZINGLY talented @anotherweirdblog (really guys. holy crap.) and beta'd by my Angel @succubusphan.

Read on AO3

Dan never really called himself a horse-boy. He was someone that loved beauty, elegance and aesthetics before anything else, so he told whoever was willing to listen that loving horses just came along with it. If you loved those things, you’d come across horses sooner rather than later. They were majestic in the purest kind of way, and they could take everyone’s breath away with their stunning beauty if the person would just let them. A horse in action would put everything else to shame.

As a photographer his first ambition was to capture the beautiful essence of real moments and make people see the world like he did. The downside of working with horses was you never truly knew what they would do, but the upside was no pictures with them ever were truly staged. You couldn’t ask them to smile for the camera, and even if you could, there was no guarantee they would truly do it.

Theoretically, Dan was also a nature photographer, taking pictures for magazines and blogs, but he tended to combine the job with the hobby and made the journey to his photography destination on horseback. Mostly so he could take pictures of his horse as well to post on his personal horse blog and social media pages.

This particular day he had been commissioned to take forest aesthetic pictures with wildflowers - Dan’s specialty. There was a beautiful landscape made for that commission just a few hours over on horseback, so he decided to take his horse and get some beautiful pictures of her as an added bonus. He also brought his lady dog around to keep his mare in check if anything unforeseeable would happen while taking pictures of her running and playing freely.

They had been on the way for almost an hour. Diana was running around at their feet, barking at flowers and trees. Athena, the love of his life and best friend through everything, was used to her antics at this point and just huffed from time to time to keep Diana’s excitement in check.

They were a good trio like that. Dan adored them both with all his heart, his black ladies, and they just worked.

So they made their way towards their destination, unaware of the fact that they’d never get there.

___

Phil was a god.

And no, that wasn’t said with arrogance, or hubris. It was an actual fact.

He wasn’t what christians would call god, the one, all-knowing entity - not that it existed - but he was still a god. The god of forests.

Which had a sense of irony, undoubtedly, since he wasn’t allowed to leave his forest. He was forever cursed to stay in his little part, to take care of its animals and plants. And it was nice, he supposed, to have a connection to his particular stretch of forest, to know all the animals by name, being able to communicate with them; nice and exciting - it was just that it had been like this for millennials. Literal millennials. Phil was about as old as the earth itself, and he had been here all his life.

He was getting tired of it.

Saying that might have made him sound ungrateful or selfish, but that didn’t make it less true. It wasn’t only the fact that he felt like a bird locked in a cage with no way to get out; but also that things in his forest had been the same - or around the same - forever, basically. Nothing new or exciting happened - or at least very rarely. The forest was fairly secluded, hardly anyone ever passed through, and Phil meeting those people happened even less. Even his animals stayed the same - a strong enchantment kept them from growing old, and if they got hurt Phil had the magical ability to nurse them back to health.

The only exciting thing was animal babies getting born from time to time, but even those were rare.

What brought him the most joy in life were his best friends. Sure, they weren’t typical friends, not human or at least human-like as he was - save for his pointy fairy ears - but they were real friends nonetheless.

He loved all of his animals, whoever was living in his forrest, even if he was envious that they could leave whenever they wanted to, but the ones he loved the most were his best friends. Shikamaru, nicknamed Shika, and Temari, sometimes called Tema (but only by Shika if he wanted to piss her off), were deer that had lived with him for millennials. They had been with him through a lot, and somehow, they’d always managed to make him laugh.

They shared stories of the outside world with him - they were bound to his forest as well but where allowed to leave from time to time, even if they weren’t able to stay away for long - and just overall kept him upright. Shika was too smart for his own good and the laziest creature you could find, often getting chastised for it by Temari, who was fierce and strong and brave. Even though they fought a lot, they both had the biggest crush on the other and watching them dance around without making a move tended to make Phil’s grey days a lot brighter.

As every morning, they had started this one with breakfast. Phil was a god, so thankfully, he was able to get whatever food he wanted, even though he could just as easily live from grass, tree barks and bugs.

That morning, he had decided on a ridiculously sweet stack of pancakes basically drowning in syrup, and his fingers were sticky just from touching the plate. He brought it outside to eat while Shika and Temari started grazing in what he’d consider his front yard. They said good morning without many words, just casually nodding at each other, and started eating in comfortable silence, just a few birds chirping in the distance.

When they were done, Phil brought his dishes inside to take care of them later, and when he came back out, Temari and Shika had started the first fight of the day. It was never anything too serious, mainly just Shika using the word bothersome too often. Phil laughed as he stepped outside.

Temari groaned in frustration. “Please, don’t encourage him!”

Phil chuckled again. “Sorry, deer.”

This time, both Temari and Shika groaned about the bad pun and just started walking, not even checking if Phil came after them or not.

Something in the air was different this morning, Phil mused as they strolled through the forest. He couldn’t lay his finger on it, but it was there, hiding steep below the surface. The two deer sensed it as well, stepping closer towards Phil, who laid his hands on their necks and started tickling them to calm them down a bit. He could’ve easily just send them a sense of calm mentally, but he didn’t like dictating what they had to feel. They were their own beings with their own personalities and if they felt anxious or nervous they had the right to do so.

That’s how they walked on, deeper into the darker parts of the forest, neither of them having any clue that their lives were about to change forever.

____

No matter what you call it, be it coincidence, faith, destiny - it is a funny thing, isn’t it? This fickle, irrational thing that sometimes jumps in and changes the direction of everything. That thing that out of nowhere takes ahold of a situation, flips it around, reverses it just to put it back in order, just to mess it right back up again. We call it Butterfly Effect - this bizarre set of motions that just all cause the next thing to happen - this abstract phenomenon where a butterfly flaps its wings and sets off a multitude of occurrences that end in the apocalypse. It’s like a line of dominos, positioned in increasingly complicated twists and turns, getting just a tiny bit taller with every stone that falls, until a domino the size of a fingernail causes one to fall that’s easily the size of a door.

Sometimes, usually, moments, occasions, go by unrecognized, unnoticed, like a tiny pebble lying harmlessly on a concrete floor, multitude of people passing by without ever touching it, until one comes by, driving over it with their bike and ending up literally crashing into the love of their life.

In this case, it’s fairly similar - just a lot more complicated.

How does this relate to our two heroes? You may ask. Well - in retrospect, it is what caused the entirety of what comes next.

Looking at Dan, for example, him and his mare were fairly experienced. They’d made it through several hairy situations, sometimes barely pulling through, and yes, she lost her head sometimes, stormed off and left Dan sitting in the dust, but usually, his lady dog managed to have her calm down within just a few canter strides; and the mare never, ever, ever ran too far from her point of takeoff.

Or Phil, centuries, no, millennials old - about as old as the earth as we know it - and omniscient, at least concerning his forrest. He hadn’t been surprised by much in ages, especially not hugely surprised, surprised enough to cause his animals to loose their heads and go riot - in fact, that might not have happened in more than a thousand years.

Yet, both happenings were set off by two completely different and unrelated occurrences causing everything the boys had planned for their futures, good and bad, to shatter, crumble into dust. Two incidents at roughly the same time, how is that even possible? Might some of you ask now, and, by all means, you have the right to question, it’s just that - this… This thing, this coincidence, faith, destiny, whatever - it works in mysterious ways, so that at this certain point in time, there is no correct way to answer this particular question. It just happened, and it will have consequences reaching deeply, deeply into the future.

Because it caused them to meet each other.

On Dan’s end, it was merely a gust of wind and old, slightly broken electrical wires that, over several different stations, caused Athena to flip and forget all the education she had experienced in her life, all the trust she had in Dan, her best friend.

It was a gust of wind that has a tiny, innocent little spider falling into the open window of the powerhouse closest to Dan’s estimated destination. It managed to take a hold of one of the fuses, where it just sat for a while, stunned. When the electricians came in for the daily check-up - just to see if everything was still in order - it moved, startling the electrician, causing him to stumble backwards, just one, two steps… Where his foot landed exactly on a weak point in the wiring on the ground. That weak point had been there for years, proverbial ages, yet nothing had ever happened - just now, when the electricians weight causes the wiring to bent just a little bit further… The wiring broke. The breakpoint stopped the electricity to flow, causing a significant area to be without power.

Usually, that was not much of a problem. There were just a few houses that far away from everything, barns and cottages that were mostly void of humans at this time of the year, and especially midday hardly anyone even noticed the power was out. Just one cow, a brown steer named Lory, was trying to get to the other side of her electrical fencing - as we all know, the grass on the other side is always greener - and touched the fencing in the progress… Realizing there is no electric shock keeping her back. So she strained the two laces, stepping through between them, easily getting on the other side. The fencing snapped back into place afterwards and none of her friends followed her.

For a momentwhile, nothing happened. Lory kept grazing, the herd kept doing the same on the other side of the fence, all was well. Until she wanted to get back, back to her herd, her friends, touched the fencing and got a small electric shock, just a slight pinch, that had her stepping back and realize - her one way back was blocked. She was isolated from her herd.

Like every cow in her situation, she flipped, trotted back and forth on her side of the fencing, calling loudly, almost violently for her friends. Her herd came by and panics as well -

And that was the point where Athena, Diana and Dan came across the herd. The mare was usually okay with cows, even though she’s always found them creepy, but this - this was simply too much for her.

She freaked, storming off, Dan barely hanging on to her, so fast Diana was barely able to follow, let alone trying to calm her down.

She ran, almost headless, just trying to get away - unintentionally crossing the border into Phil’s territory.

On Phil’s end, it’s not that complicated. It’s just that usually, storms didn’t reach his forrest. The magical barriers he had put up to defend it kept them away. But his wards were wearing off, and this midday, as he strolled along the familiar paths, he discovered a tree almost burned down by a bolt of lightning. Admittedly, not a big deal, but for Phil, who’s life hadn’t held new and unknown happenings for millennials, it was a shock.

He didn’t have himself in check, and both Shika and Tema reacted to his sudden mood swing, jumping around violently.

And this is where their parts crossed. Where Dan and Phil, literal worlds apart and under normal circumstances further away from meeting than the sun and the moon, suddenly clashed, with a tremor so severe nothing would ever be the same again.

___

If Athena wouldn’t have flipped, if Levy wouldn’t have left her herd, if the electricity hadn’t been cut off - all the way back to if the gust of wind hadn’t knocked that spider in through the window - they never even would’ve gotten to Phil’s forest. And if the tree wouldn’t have been hit by that lightning bolt, if Phil’s wards wouldn’t have started to wear off exactly the night before and if Phil wouldn’t have freaked, Shika never would’ve jumped around so mindlessly. But both, no, all of those things did happen exactly that way, and that was the only reason everything was about to change.

Instead of running straight through the forest, not even realizing what they’d set foot in, they passed Phil and his deer, who were going wild. Shka, not paying attention to where he was jumping at all, managed to somehow step exactly on Athena’s path, and that’s how it happened - the still panicked mare only became aware of the equally freaked deer at the last second, had nowhere to go… And by some miracle, instead of crushing straight into him, she managed to somehow step around him, completely losing her footing in the process, crashing onto the ground mercilessly. Being the smart mare that she was, she managed to keep both Diana and Dan relatively unharmed as she went down.

Just for one blink of an eye, it seemed as though time was standing still, nothing moving. Blue eyes met brown ones and with a feeling of severity for both boys, the world started moving again like a long dormant suddenly springing back to life, spitting out lava and burning everything around it in the process.

#phan #phanfiction #phanfic au #my writing #go follow pia guys she makes the most beautiful art in history

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weaverlings · 6 years ago

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in the dining room, with the ring

so for @cecilos-week‘s “proposal” prompt... in which Cecil and Carlos are, theatrically speaking, huge hams.

listen I don’t know that I can communicate to you how foolish this is?? just ridiculous. but in a fun way? I had fun with it anyway and also it’s extremely gay, promise. check it out.

Cecil stood at the front of Old Woman Josie's dining room in an outfit of clean lines and matching colors. The outfit was, in the strictest sense, a costume. He raised his arms to throw back his cloak, and grinned.

"Welcome back," he proclaimed, "to tonight's mystery dinner theater!"

He clasped his hands back over his chest, a gesture that was all fluttering red silk and black velvet settling around him.

"Unfortunately, trying to hold a murder mystery dinner theater would have led to a severe fine and jail time for misusing emergency services, so it was just a regular mystery dinner theater." He opened his hands, peacemaking, apologetic, and soothed, "But as you have learned tonight.... There are other crimes. Arson. Fraud… oh, and of course, theft."

He allowed himself another moment of silence, both for the pacing and to luxuriate in the stir that passed through the players.

Josie Ortiz tapped the arms of her chair, grinning a challenge back at him from under her deerstalker hat. No detective was pluckier, but perhaps she had claimed a prize beyond a puzzle that night.

Abby Palmer, one half of the ominous housekeeper couple, folded her arms over her chest. Did the pastel iridescence of her tuxedo hide beneath it a different kind of shine?

Dana Cardinal in a double-breasted coat, medals gleaming, did her best to maintain governmental solemnity. It was a good effort, but she could not quite stop smiling. Maybe it was because she had not had such a good time in quite a long one, or maybe she was eager to share a secret which would, ultimately, harm no one.

And the beautiful heiress, strung with pearls and draped with feathers over the simple silhouette of a black dress. Carlos' eyes were bright, attentive; his teeth pressed into his lower lip with anticipation. What did he know? So much. Maybe because he had never lost his family heirloom, after all.

All eyes were on their host, who offered his most decorous smile. "Yes, something terrible has happened tonight. No, not merely happened - it was an act of willful malice. A crime, indeed, has been committed-" He ducked down to whisper quickly into a nearby potted plant, "But not for real, guys, okay? We're totally just pretending - Ahem. Yes, a crime! The prized jewel of a noble family has been stolen!"

"Oh, darling, no!" Carlos exclaimed, and swooned in his seat. He sobbed desperately, "It's just too terrible!"

Maggie Pennebaker fanned him with the book she was carrying. Tamika Flynn leaned over the table, and offered, "Ooh, hey, I've got real smelling salts in my emergency kit! You wanna try some?"

"...Honey? Are you okay?" Cecil started around the table, unable to curb an instinctual response to his boyfriend's distress.

Carlos lifted his head just enough to wink at him, and then fell against the chair again, this time pressing the back of his hand to his forehead. Tamika smirked, and sat back down. Maggie fanned harder, and nudged a glass of wine toward Carlos with her free hand.

Cecil reclaimed his place at the front, and gathered their attention by spinning into place and swirling his cloak around him. He went on, "Yes! And it happened tonight! Right. Under. Your. Noses. No one has come or gone from this house since the jewel vanished. Even now, the criminal… is among you! Among us! They must be, and their ill-gotten gains must be, as well.

"Now, the time has come." He pushed back his sleeve, and made a show of fiddling with his watch. "You have had two hours to sniff them out. And I have here what exists nowhere else in Night Vale. The truth of two hours." He smiled at Carlos. "Have any of you solved this mystery, or will the criminal and their treasure escape justice, as well?"

Carlos' faint gasping caught, and then he was laughing, still with his head thrown back. A high, dramatic sound; intentional, delighted syllables. When he deigned to sit up, everyone was staring at him. He set his chin in in one hand, and twirled the end of his feather boa slowly in the other.

"Oh? What's so funny, зайчик?"

"Why, darling… Of course, I've solved it. I know who the thief!"

"Oh, my. Did you all hear that?" Cecil placed his fingertips just so over his heart. "Does anyone have anything they wish to say before, perhaps, their true nature is revealed?"

He let silence settle again, as complete as it could be in a crowded room.

"No? Well, alright." He offered Carlos an exaggerated bow, beckoning him to continue. "Go ahead, зайчик."

Carlos stood up, but his movements were deceptively demure. He batted his eyelashes, and crossed the ends of the feather boa over his chest. He began to pace around the table, stopping by each seat as he spoke.

"It could have been any of us. At first, I thought it must be… the housekeepers! Between the two of them, and their access to the house, well, who else could it be?"

Steve clapped his hands to his face, the very picture of indignation, nowhere near the reality. "Oh, but we've served this family for generations!"

"Mhm. We would never," Abby agreed. She tipped her head onto the shoulder of Steve's matching tuxedo, and smiled easily up at Carlos.

"But did they?" Cecil suggested in a stage whisper. "Maybe… they did."

Carlos held up a hand. "No. You wouldn't. I didn't want to believe it, so… I didn't. And I started thinking about other possibilities. Once I had opened my mind to them, it seemed so obvious… My little cousin! Ever since she arrived last night, she's been so sweet. Opening doors, fixing things, laughing at everyone's jokes - even those which were not scientifically accurate. So, maybe a little too sweet. Very suspicious, darling."

Cecil mused, "And even the sweetest faces can hide dark secrets…"

Tamika fluttered her eyelids right back at Carlos. "What? Me? But I was going to have a share of the estate, anyway. Unless you think I wanted more? Oh, how could you ever suggest that?"

Carlos stopped, once again teasing the end of the boa between in his fingertips. "I didn't. Actually, I was really confused about what your motivation would have been until just now - it didn't make sense. So, I mean, I know it's not you. But that's really useful information, thank you, darling. I'll keep it in mind."

Tamika folded her arms, and settled back into her chair with a firm nod. "Oh. Good. Glad we're on the same page."

Carlos moved on. "Professor Pennebaker… I thought you might be interested in studying the gem. Then I remembered that you're a professor of geology, rock-based divination which is not a real science at all, as opposed geonomy, which is legitimate earth science. Major Cardinal might have wanted the gem to decorate her pocketwatch, so that she could at least have one that was pretty, even if it was still completely useless..."

"Oh, um. But I-" Dana coughed, and tried again, lowering her voice and speaking gruffly. "I forgot the pocketwatch that went with the costume. Sorry."

"Aww, it's alright, darling. These things happen. And it means you couldn't have done it. Neither could Josie, because she has a dog, and everyone knows dog owners are morally infallible, because dogs are so precious that their inherent goodness rubs off onto their owners, a little more with each pet. Mhm. Scientific fact, darlings."

Erika, standing beside Josie's chair in a dog-ear headband, said, "Woof."

"And that leaves…" Carlos whirled, and pointed across the table to a dour figure in an eye patch and rain slicker. No one knew her relationship to the family, only that one Janice Palmer had shown up late last night, storm-drenched, with the appropriate invitation and enthusiastic glower for everyone involved. "The mysterious stranger!"

Janice glowered harder, but this resulted in a strained expression that was more like a pout. She said, "Aye! It was me!"

"Oh! A confession!" Cecil exclaimed. "But why did you do it?"

"Yes, darling, you must tell us why! None of us have any idea who you are!" Carlos insisted.

Janice pulled a card from the pocket of her slicker, scanned it, and proclaimed, "It's because I am the descendant of your long-lost cousin, Reginald, who your parents left stranded on a desert island! But over the years, the island became a popular vacation resort and got its own airport! I just flew in last night for my revenge and… boy, are my arms tired…?"

She looked down at the card again, then gave Cecil a dubious look. He nodded encouragingly behind Carlos' back. Tamika caught Janice's gaze, and rolled her eyes in solidarity.

"Oh, no! My dear mamà and papà!" Carlos gasped. "And that explains the greatest mystery of all - why you arrived storm-drenched when we live in a desert that averages less than twenty-five centimeters of rain per year!"

Cecil pressed a hand to his chest, and declared, "Ooh, what a twist!"

"Yes! But you know what? If I can't have the jewel, no one can! I'll never tell you where I hid it!" Janice cleared her throat, and cackled distinctly, "Mua-ha-ha!"

"Hmm. I wouldn't be too sure, darling." Carlos smiled slyly, and waved away any concerns with a flick of his wrist. "I solved that mystery, too. I know exactly where the jewel is!"

Janice huffed. "Impossible! My hiding spot was perfect!"

"Oh, but of course, it's possible. In fact, not only is the jewel here, in this house, it is in this very room!"

Cecil pivoted, and threw out one arm, holding the cloak so that the lush, crimson lining spilled forth as an invitation. "Then reveal it to us, зайчик."

"I will. Just you watch, darling."

Carlos crossed the dining room. No one else made a sound; the click of his heels echoed and died as he swung aside a framed landscape on the wall. Behind it, Josie kept her fine porcelain, as was typical, and under the gravy boat on the bottom was a panel, the usual storage space for the dining-room beehive. Josie's, however, did not contain a beehive, nor even a few final segments of honeycomb. Instead, Carlos pulled out a plain, wooden box with a gilded latch. He spun to show them.

"Behold! The stolen jewel is inside of this box! My stolen jewel. It's been in my family for all eleven years of recorded history!"

This time, it was Carlos who paused to absorb the reactions. Gasps, a collective shift forward in seats, even polite applause from Maggie.

"You're right," said Cecil, once everyone had settled again. He had to wait. He spoke much more quietly than before, as though he would cry out if he did not keep his voice low. He held out a hand. "It is yours, зайчик. Come here, and let's have a look, shall we?"

Carlos, however, had been waiting all night. Perhaps the heiress, languid even in triumph, could have waited a moment longer, but the heiress was not real and Carlos was, and he was a scientist. Curiosity was deep in his nature. He opened the box, and looked inside.

And then he looked up.

"Cecil." He said, and then he thought he should say something else, but nothing came to mind by the time his voice came out. He just repeated, "Cecil!"

"Oh, Carlos, wait! You- Well." Cecil took a breath. "Well, you can open it. If you want to. It is yours."

Over Cecil's shoulder, Steve was already crying. Abby dabbed under his eyes with a handkerchief, and Dana leaned forward to see around her. Josie gave Carlos a thumbs-up.

Carlos wore an odd expression. At once reserved and bursting, and he, too, spoke gently. "No. No, I was thinking. I mean, I've been wondering. You were the one who got everything ready. Even when I wanted to help, you were very insistent, and normally you are so eager to do things together, so. I mean. Scientifically speaking, so."

He passed the box back to Cecil, and looped the feather bow over his elbows, hands clasped over his stomach. "I want to hear you say it."

Cecil accepted the box, and pulled another, smaller box from inside of it. He set the former down on the table, and held the latter clasped in both hands, and already there were tears in his eyes but he wanted to say it as much as Carlos wanted to hear it. He pushed the cloak out of the way, so he could get down on one knee without stomping on the fabric.

He offered up the little box on his palm, his eyes squeezed shut as his fingers found the seam. His heart was hot in his throat and his throat itself was tight around it so he didn't know if he would be able to speak, after all. But he flipped open the box, and he looked up in the same instant into Carlos' dark and delighted eyes, and Carlos was bouncing at the knee because he could not rock up and down on his heels, Cecil's зайчик for the evening and his bunny always.

Cecil said, "Carlos. Clever, beautiful, imperfect, oh, I had so much I wanted to say, but it's all running out of my ears, but, but you said you wanted to hear something and I know what you meant! Carlos, will you marry me?"

"Yes! I absolutely will!" Carlos shrilled. "I will do this because, personally speaking, I love you!"

"Oh…" Cecil nodded back, almost unable to express himself beyond a thrilled grin. "Neat!"

"It is! It is neat! It is the most neat, oh, honey-voiced honey!"

Cecil slipped the ring out of the box, and Carlos offered his hand to his fiancé. Cecil slid the ring on, and then just held Carlos' hand, and they both stayed there, breathless, until finally Cecil kissed the ring and then up to Carlos' knuckles. Then Carlos dropped to his knees and threw his arms around Cecil, catching him in a kiss. Cecil rested his hands on Carlos' hips, wrapped in silky fabric, and Carlos slid his arms down to hold Cecil under his cloak.

The moment broke when they separated, but beyond its crystalline fragments waited the rest of their lives, which would be one life, joined where they chose. In that beyond, their family and friends congratulated them. Cheers and hugs in a confetti-shower of noise and contact. Erika trumpeted, and Josie nudged them with her elbow, as everyone had to wait for their ears to stop ringing. And then there were decorations to take down, false mustaches to remove. Carlos finally reclaimed the wine Maggie had offered him, and Cecil found some, too, as she shared a small toast with her friend and his fiancé.

At the end of the evening, Cecil held Carlos' feather boa as he slid into his lab coat. Cecil tugged the lapels straight over the silky black dress, and murmured giddily, "Oh, you look just so… so scientific. Beautifully scientific. Scientifically beautiful. Hey."

Carlos beamed. "Yes... darling?"

Cecil offered him the boa. "Have I told you that I love you recently? Because I do. I really do."

Carlos took the boa back, and ran it through his hands. He spun one end thoughtfully. Then, he swished it up and over Cecil's neck, and tugged downward. A suggestion, absent any real force, but Cecil bent so quickly that their lips smashed together. Neither one of them had any complaints about this. Carlos felt the cloak slide heavily around his shoulders, and lifted his arms around Cecil inside of it.

"Mmm! Oh..." Cecil broke off the kiss without pulling away.

"Thank you, Ceec. Tonight was… Oh, it was wonderful! I had such a good time!" Carlos said, his breath soft on Cecil's lips. "I could not have asked for anything more, which means…"

"What does it mean, Carlos?"

"It means it was perfect, scientifically speaking. Nothing to be added, or taken away. People can't be perfect," Carlos whispered, running his hands through Cecil's hair. "It's just not scientifically possible. But maybe some things can be. Some nights."

"Then, every night I spend with you." Cecil leaned his forehead against Carlos'. "Every one. Good, or bad. Because I wouldn't change any of them."

#cecilosweek2019 #cecilos week 2019 #welcome to night vale #wtnv #cecilos #my fanfic #sorry everything is formatted differently this week #trying to figure out what i like going forward #i think i got it

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blackberrywidow · 6 years ago

Text

The Death of Me

Pairing: Peter Parker x reader

Word Count: 3.8k

Warnings: Angst. Violence. Death. Blood. Hurt/Comfort. Nothing too explicit, but it’s all there.

Summary: You left Peter because of the danger. You weren’t the kind of girl that could be with a superhero, no matter how much you wanted to be. You thought you were protecting both of you. You just never imagined that death would still find you.

A/N: This is my submission for @spxderbarnes‘s writing challenge. This really isn’t TOO dark, but it’s still more than I thought it would be. Also, I don’t usually write violence, so I really hope this isn’t complete trash.

You were a runner. Always had been, always would be.

It was how you were made—with a predetermined fight or flight response that always lead to flight. You simply weren’t the kind of person that stood your ground and fought. You were the kind of person who ran from your problems.

Run to run another day. Self-preservation at its finest.

Except that your predilection to run is what put you in this position.

You ran three years ago, when your abusive boyfriend had threatened to kill you if you ever left him. Ran all the way to New York, where you found a job at Stark Industries and a means to support yourself.

You had been content, being single and self-sufficient after a year of living under someone else’s thumb. You had a job, a sense of purpose, a home. A safe place.

But then you met Peter Parker, and suddenly you were running again. This time, directly to him.

After that, you were better than content. You were ridiculously, insanely happy. The happiest you could remember being.

Peter was amazing. He was handsome, funny, intelligent, clever, kind—everything you had ever wanted. And he gave himself to you willingly, selflessly. With sweet words and hidden smiles and shared jokes.

It hadn’t been long before you fell in love, something that you knew should scare you after your past relationship. But this was different, because this time it was with Peter. Peter, who you trusted inexplicably.

You were right to, in a way. Peter would never hurt you. But therein lie the problem. he wasn’t just Peter. He was Spider-man, as you found out one rainy night in the heart of Midtown.

You had laid in the rubble of a destroyed restaurant, bleeding and disoriented as you watched your boyfriend—Spider-man—fend off a man with crazy eyes and electrified gauntlets on his hands.

You were terrified and injured and confused. And you didn’t know what to do. So you ran. This time away from the one thing you had ever considered fighting for.

It was only natural.

—

Two weeks later, and you were spending what was a normal night at home—well, as normal as any night had been since you left. Which meant that you were crying into a tub of ice cream while watching reruns of Friends.

After the first week, you had given up on any forced sense of normalcy and decided to just accept that this was your life now.

Not much had really changed in your life since the night you ran out of the destroyed restaurant and straight to a hospital. A few stitches in your forehead, a busted upper lip, and bruises that covered various other parts of your body are all that you had as evidence that that night had even happened.

You still went to work. Still smiled at your coworkers and made plans that you intended to cancel later. Still went home to your dog and Netflix. There was just a huge absence in your life.

Namely, Peter. Who you hadn’t heard from in nearly two weeks either.

You had seen him only once since the incident at the restaurant. The next morning, he had shown up with flowers and an apology. He had tried to explain everything to you then—Spider-man, the Shocker, his other various enemies and his life as an Avenger. But you had decided quickly that you didn’t need his explanations or apologies.

Peter was a superhero. He was someone made of much stronger stuff than you. He needed someone who could stand beside him and face the dangers that came with life as an Avenger. Not someone who only knew how to run awayfrom conflict.

It was almost laughable, that someone like you fell in love with someone who dedicated their life to running towards danger rather than away from it.

He hadn’t approached you again, leaving your apartment with understanding but heartbroken eyes and an assurance that you wouldn’t hear from him again.

Your heart had broken too, because despite the fact that he was giving you what you asked for, you knew it wasn’t what you really wanted.

So yeah. You were lonely and depressed, but you knew that it was for the best. Hence the crying and general self-loathing. But it was something that you knew you would have to move past eventually.

A crash sounded down the hallway, drawing your attention and bringing you back into the present.. Tessa—your dog—jumped to her feet and started growling, which should have been your second clue that something was going on.

“What is it girl?” you asked, placing your ice cream down on the coffee table to stand up and join her at the door. “Do you need to go out?”

She had no time to respond, even if she were capable, as your front door was kicked in just a fraction of a second later, and suddenly you were diving to the floor as Tessa leapt forward.

You heard a yelp and looked up from where you were covering your face to see your dog fly across the room and land in a heap against the wall in your living room. Your head whipped around, and your blood ran cold.

“Remember me?” The Shocker asked, lowering the blue hood of his jacket to smile down at you from your doorway. “I sure remember you. Spider-man’s girl, right?”

You frantically backed up, still on the ground, as you shook your head. “I have no idea what you’re talking about,” you said with a confidence you didn’t feel, with only the slightest of tremors in your voice. “Why are you here?”

“Why am I here?” he mocked, slamming a metal covered fist against your wall, leaving a sizable dent in its wake. “Why do you think I’m here? Your boy has been a pain in my ass for a long time now. Came real close to putting me away again the other day, as I’m sure you noticed. But I’ve managed to stay one step ahead of him. Thing is… that’s just not good enough anymore. So, I’m gonna take you, and then we’ll see how the spiderling feels about leavin’ me alone. Sound good baby?”

“It won’t matter,” you said, mouth dry and hands clammy as you slowly stood on shaking legs. You had analyzed the situation during his little speech, looking for any possible escape routes or opportunities to run. There were none. So for once, you really had no choice but to make a stand. And if you had to do it, you would do it with a fearlessness that belied the terror clouding your mind and a calmness that hid the way your hands trembled. If you were going to be brave, you would do it right. If not for yourself, for Peter. “I’m not his girlfriend, and he won’t let you get away with murder just to save me. He’s a hero—stopping assholes like you is kind of what he does.”

There was a beat of stunned silence where the villain just stared at you with wide, disbelieving eyes. It didn’t last long.

“Ha!” he cackled, doubling over to grip his knees as his amusement overcame him. The moment his eyes left you, your hand shot out to snatch the first thing you touched on the kitchen counter to your right without much of a thought. You supposed you were operating on survival instincts you didn’t know you had. Whatever it was that you had landed on, you clutched it tightly and dropped your hand back down to your side as he raised his head to grin at you. “Man, you really are something sweetheart. I can see why he likes you.”

You shook your head mutely, taking an involuntary step back as he started walking toward you. His grin only widened, the overhead lighting reflecting off his eyes manically. You swallowed as your back hit a wall, nowhere left to run.

“Too bad he won’t get the chance to appreciate you for much longer,” he mused, reaching out with a sparking hand.

In the seconds before his fist approached your face, you strengthened your resolve. You clutched the make-shift weapon in your hand tightly—the hilt of the steak knife you had carelessly left out after your dinner the night before. You steadied yourself, forcing the shaking in your arm to subside. You saw him draw back, preparing to deliver you a blow that would knock you out, and you waited.

He drove his fist forward.

Now.

You dove to the right, felt a slight breeze as his heavy fist sailed over your head, and shot up, right hand raising instinctively.

You wanted to close your eyes, to block this all out and just hope for the best, but you forced yourself to watch as you drove the knife into his jugular. Had to make sure that you made your one shot count. Fortunately, it did.

He didn’t expect it, to say the least. You couldn’t really say for certain that you did either. One moment he was attacking you, your situation hopeless, and the other you were defending yourself with random cutlery.

And it happened so quickly. It didn’t register until his body hit the ground, blood pooling under him as gasps ripped from his throat and the life left his eyes that you had killed him. You had just killed a man, and it had taken mere seconds. A life lost to an inexperienced hand in the time it takes to turn the page of a newspaper.

Terrible, horrible, bloody and wrong. But necessary.

You weren’t sure if that made it better.

You weren’t sure of anything really.

You dropped the knife with a sob, bloody hands flying to cover your mouth without a thought. You stood frozen, staring down at his body in mute horror for what felt like hours. You couldn’t say for certain how long it really was.

Eventually, movement drew your eye from across the room, and you were relieved to see Tessa standing up to slowly walk over to you, seemingly fine. You dropped to your knees, checking her over for any injuries as a way to reassure yourself that she was really unharmed as well as buy time.

It didn’t last long though, and a moment later you were stumbling over to pick up your phone from where it was laying on your coffee table. You hesitated as you pulled up your contacts, but it was useless. You knew there was only one person you wanted—needed to talk to.

It only rang once before clicking over, and his voice instantly soothed your nerves. “(Y/N)? Are you alright? I—”

You closed your eyes, taking in the concern and hope in his voice before cutting him off with a broken sigh. It was best to just cut to the chase. “I just killed a man. I need your help.”

A beat of silence, and you worried that he hung up. You should have known better, of course, because in the next second he’s answering, his voice now steady and commanding as he said, “Don’t leave. I’ll be right there.”

—

You didn’t wait long. You weren’t sure if that meant he was simply nearby or if he had put on the suit and swung all the way from Queens, but you didn’t really care. The only thing you felt when you saw him stumble his was into the broken doorframe of your apartment was relief.

“(Y/N)!” Peter called the moment his wide eyes took in your destroyed door, panic and fear both expressed so clearly in that single word.

“Here,” you said, voice quiet in the stillness of your apartment. You rose from your seat on your couch, taking a single step in his direction before hesitating. You couldn’t imagine what you looked like right now, covered in a dead man’s blood without a hint of guilt on your face. What would he even say?

“Oh thank God,” he breathed the second his eyes met yours, and suddenly he was crossing the room and crushing you against his chest. “Are you okay?”

“I think so,” you answered numbly, hands slowly moving up to grip the back of his sweater in your bloody fists. “I—I’m so sorry.”

The words tumbled from your mouth unbidden and slightly hysterical as sobs fought to wrack your body. Your shoulders shook as you tried to suppress them, and Peter tightened his grip on you, burying your head into his chest. You went willingly, seeking out the comfort he provided.

Why had you ever tried to run away from this?

“You need to tell me what happened, (Y/N). Please.”

Your eyes snapped open and you saw the blood out of the corner of your eye.

Right. That was why.

You sucked in a deep breath, steadying yourself, before recanting the events of the past thirty minutes in a lifeless monotone. It was easier to pretend that you were just telling a story, one that you had no personal attachment to or investment in. An unhealthy coping mechanism, one that you couldn’t use forever, but one that would get you through the night.

After you were done, feeling a little more relieved to have shared your burden with another, Peter left you long enough to call the police and report the crime. You spent the time alone—well, as alone as one can be when only ten feet apart in a small apartment—thinking. About Peter and Spider-man and near-death experiences and the way a knife wet with blood felt in your hand. You weren’t sure what sort of conclusions you were supposed to be coming to, if any, but you considered them.

“Here’s what we’re gonna do, (Y/N),” Peter said, taking your hands as he crouched down in front of you, breaking you out of your trance. “It’s clearly self-defense. Plenty of evidence that he broke in here and tried to hurt you. Only thing is… technically you should have called the police first. It’s gonna seem suspicious that you called me. So we’re just going to say that I was on my way here and came in as it happened, okay? And that we called them right after to report it. Can you do that for me?”

You nodded, eyes never leaving his. Peter was calm, something of a rarity for the high energy, almost constantly nervous man. But he ha always had a strength about him, that drew you in and made you want to be better. To be strong and sure like he was. You had never thought that you could be, but…

“I’m sorry,” you said again, because it seemed right and you weren’t sure what else youcould say. “I… I’m just so sorry, Peter.”

His brow furrowed and he squeezed your hands, shaking his head. “Why are you sorry? God (Y/N), I’m the one who should be sorry. And I am! I mean… because of me, that guy came in here and he—he tried to hurt you. He tried to take you and do who knows what to you because of me! Because I was careless and put you in danger.”

He stopped suddenly, biting his lip and lowering his eyes as tears welled in them. You wanted to say something, deny that it was true, but it was. And you got the sense that he wasn’t quite finished yet either. So you sat in silence, holding each other’s hands like it was your lifeline to sanity and waited until he finally raised his head, eyes resolute.

“I should have never let this happen. I should have protected you. I—I should have never even dragged you into this, and I’m sorry that I did. (Y/N)… I just need you to know that I never wanted this to happen. I love you. I never want you to be in danger. So after this is all taken care of… I’ll do whatever I can to make sure that you’re safe from afar. I promise.”

Peter’s conviction had always drawn you in, made you feel comforted by his honesty and earnestness. Now it made you feel cold and desperate, even as your heart swelled with the reminder of why you weren’t completely freaking out.

“No,” you said, voice firm and unwavering. “I think that if this has taught us anything, it’s that ‘from afar’ doesn’t really work.”

Peter shook his head, guilt flickering through his eyes. “I know, I’ll work on i—”

“Wait,” you cut him off, shaking your head and giving him a look. “Let me finish. I love you too Peter.” You saw confusion and hope flash across his face, but he heeded your request and waited for you to continue. You took it as a good sign. “I never stopped loving you. I just—I didn’t think that I would ever be enough for you. I mean… you’re this amazing person without all of the superhero stuff taken into consideration. So with it? I just can’t compare. And I don’t mean that in an envious way. I just don’t compare to that at all. I don’t stand and fight for myself, let alone others. What business do I have being in love with Spider-man?”

You hesitated, stopping suddenly as you considered what it was you were telling him. It was all true, of course. But it was probably more than you should have said. It had been weeks, Peter didn’t need to be hearing excuses—

“That’s ridiculous,” Peter scoffed, seeming to take your inner debate as permission to cut in. You were grateful. “You, not enough for me? Insane. I’m the one who doesn’t deserve you, (Y/N). I put you in danger just by being at your side. And you were right about one thing—you don’t have any superpowers or enhancements. My mere existence puts the people I care about most in danger, and that just isn’t fair. Especially when said people can’t defend themselves. It was wrong of me and I—”

“Okay,” you cut in fiercely, shaking your head and meeting Peter’s eyes sternly. “That’s the thing Peter. I did defend myself. Maybe it was just a fluke. Maybe he was just a really shitty villain. I don’t know and I don’t care. The point is for the first time in my life, I didn’t run away. I stood up and defended myself and… it felt good.”

Peter blinked in shock at this revelation and raised a brow at you in question. You hastened to correct yourself. “Not like that! I mean, I didn’t like killing the guy, or being in danger for that matter. But it was… okay. I survived, and I stood my ground. That’s what matters. That I can do it. I left you because I didn’t think I could, and because I thought you deserved someone that can. Well… now I know that I can, and if this—being in semi-regular danger and fighting off bad guys—is what it takes to be with you… then it’s a price willing to pay.”

Peter was still silent, and you would be more concerned about how he was taking it if his eyes weren’t wide and full of love the way they always are when you talk too much. You smiled, just a small, discreet twist of your lips, and reached forward to grasp his face in your hands, ignoring the blood that you smeared on his cheek. “I knew the day I met you that you would be the death of me, Peter Parker. Obviously, I didn’t know how literally that could be, but it doesn’t change anything. So if I’m running anywhere, it’ll be with you. If you’ll have me, of course.”

You waited with bated breath, face only a few inches away from Peter’s now as you let him absorb what you said. His face was serious, and his eyes seemed to be searching yours for some kind of sign. It only took him a moment to find it.

“You know,” he said, sighing as his eyes flickered down to your lips, “I won’t let you die, right?”

Your smile broadened. “I will hope for the best, I suppose.”

“Fine,” Peter finally relented, rolling his eyes at you before closing the distance between you.

It was a soft kiss, just the faintest of contact for the briefest of seconds before he drew away. But you understood. The police were on their way, there was a dead man only ten feet away from you, you had literally just gotten back together after breaking up, and you had gotten blood on both his face and his sweater. The situation was far from ideal. But you were together again, and as you sat there, smiling serenely at each other, you knew that you would be together for a long time.

You also knew that you would have a lot to deal with to make it through, and that you should probably not be smiling like a lovesick fool when the police showed up to investigate the homicide, but that could wait at least another minute or so.

“I love you,” you reminded him, reaching out to pet Tessa when she came up to nuzzle against Peter’s side. “And Tessa missed you. So… I’m glad you’re back.”

“Yeah,” Peter laughed, stroking Tessa’s side and smiling down at her. “Me too.”

Only a few more moments passed before the police arrived, and then it was more of the same. Describe what happened. Do you know this man? Why was he here? Blah, blah, blah.

You answered all of their questions to the best of your ability with a rapidly depleting patience. You were happy when they finally released you, but your apartment was officially a crime scene, so you and Tessa packed your bags and headed to Peter’s. You were relieved, to be honest.

You held onto Peter’s hand with your right and Tessa’s leash with your left as you walked down the sidewalk, happily listening to him fill you in on what had happened in the past two weeks. You were disappointed that you had missed so much of his life, but you were also glad that you had the opportunity to grow from your separation.

Before, you had been so sure that you were incapable of fighting for Peter. Now… you knew that you could. That you were more than a terrified girl who ran away from all of her problems. You had just discovered that you had a back bone, and you were going to figure out how to use it. Preferably without having to stab any more men in the neck.

But you would, you thought, smiling up at Peter as he continued to ramble. If you had to, you wouldn’t hesitate. You had him now, and you weren’t going to run away from him again. Even if it was the death of you.

Taglist: @desir-ae, @foggys, @tina8009, @littlebookbengal, @youclickedthislink, @spideypeach

#mcu fanfiction #Peter parker #spider-man #Peter Parker x reader #Spider-man x reader #Peter Parker imagine #spider-man imagine #Peter Parker oneshot #spider-man oneshot #ems21st #my writing

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