#the only group of adults that seem to be doing fine are the elves

[the-hilda-librarians-wife]

Going buckwild at the way Hilda The Series portrays adulthood and loneliness. Kaisa has no one to go to to ask for help getting the due book back, even though all it would take was someone she could minimally ask to knock on an elderly lady’s door and ask for a favour; she’s in the library after hours, is shown to have no allies aside from the woman who raised her and who she lost contact with. Johanna is only ever seen working or caring for Hilda, and her lack of a life aside from those two activities is pointed out by her own daughter when she thinks that this is going so far as to affect their relationship. The bell keeper lives alone in a small cabin on the edge of town, barely within city limits and away from everyone, a house barely even inhabitable and clearly only a place to sleep and eat. He works a solitary job and he’s the only one in the town still working it, meaning he’s probably overworked and forced to pull inhumanly long shifts. Victoria hyperfocused so hard on her projects that whatever friends she had before - and she must have had some from college time at least - lost contact with her, and she never made any other connections in Trolberg, anything that would tie her to the city and it’s inhabitants and make it so it wasn’t worth it to live by herself at the top of a hill. Even when that was over, she still chose to isolate herself somewhere abandoned and keep what was essentially another machine she’d built as her source of company, something she could understand and control instead of an unpredictable human being. Gerda works a job she likes but is shown to be disregarded by the person she works the most around, her abilities and intellect thrown aside for the good of someone she has to bear because of a hierarchy she was forced to accept in order to keep working. She’s appreciated by the town, but other than the main characters, we don’t see anyone paying her any mind when they don’t need something from her.

Meanwhile no kid has ever been alone in Trolberg. The mean kids are a group, the good kids are a group, even the gloomy teenage girls are a group. One of nightmare inducing entities, but a group nonetheless. All children in that world seem to operate on a ‘no man left behind’ code, looking out for each other even if they aren’t exactly fans of one another, helping even grown ups without asking why and working together. And this logic seems to extend to the adults who work around children too; especially the Raven Leader, who we see that through the children works as a vital part of the community and a way through which it comes together.

This isn’t very articulate but do you see the point? Do you see how clever that is? That a show about growing up has these themes? You can be magical, kind, strong, intelligent, competent, but none of that will make you truly happy if you don’t keep the most important thing from childhood? If you don’t keep your friendships, your bonds, something to tie you down to your reality and your community? The adults in the show all made their choices, and it’s okay to want to be alone, we all need it and some more than others (this is coming from someone who needs it a lot), but isolating yourself completely is the one thing that will make growing pains truly painful. I’m just so emotional over it. It’s so subtle and so clever considering the whole Mountain King plot that Hilda is willing to change species because she feels detached from her main relationships and surroundings. I love this show so much.

[heniareth]

It's really funny to me bc during Inquisition, right after All New, Faded for Her at the very latest, Marelas is going to be a bit concerned about Solas. Because here is this elf who socializes only tentatively, who came from a small village according to what he tells, and who spends his time sleeping and dreaming. The strongest relationship he has with anyone is with this spirit of wisdom, and while Marelas is fine with spirit and having spirit friends is very cool, actually, having only spirit friends seems kinda unhealthy to him. He'd see it similar to Sera not liking elfy elves. That something somewhere went wrong, that Solas felt rejected by the world and thus turned to the Fade and its spirit, and that it's high time Solas makes friends in this world as well.

And he's so close to the truth but misses the point by so far. Because Solas is not a lonely child grown into a lonely adult, he's an immortal being thrust out of his time. But he's also so right because Solas is more attached to the spirit world than the waking world (because the spirits are eternal and know him from before while this new world is weird and strange and wrong and shouldn't exist) and Marelas rightly sees that as a problem, but not for the reason that it is actually a problem. He thinks Solas is a loner whereas Solas is really a man stranded in time (and thus and for other reasons a loner).

Anyways Marelas is out there trying his best to befriend Solas and draw him out and anchor him to this world so to say, make sure he has mortal friends so he doesn't feel the need to abandon this world (which, as far as Marelas knows, is the world Solas was born in). And he talks to him about the dangers of running from reality and how Solas, in his strong relationship to spirits, has a gift that the world sorely needs and how, if Solas will let it, this world has also many gifts that could enrich his life so much. And Solas either sits and nods or sits and stares like "wtf is going on? Does he know??" or tries to weasel out by saying that after seeing what he has seen in the Fade, nobody would want to turn back. Which would ring the mother of all alarm bells for Marelas.

Long story short, Marelas would do all that because poor Solas, look at him, so untethered, until everything comes crashing down on him come Trespasser. Then he understands. And then he will both want to kick himself for having been so wrong and said so many stupid things to bloody FEN'HAREL and also kick Solas because Marelas tried so hard to integrate him in the group and help him find friends and things to do in the waking world that Solas might enjoy and it was all for nothing. Because Solas will destroy the world anyways.

And it's kinda funny but also kinda sad

[eddathegreat]

I looked up at the house in confusion.

"So, right, I was going to warn you ahead of time, but couldn't figure out how to say it, and it seemed like the house might be a good way to broach the topic."

"You can begin your explanation, dearest," I growled.

"So, I didn't lie about anything," he said carefully. "There was just some stuff I had to omit."

"Understood. The explanation will begin now."

He rubbed the back of his neck. It was a surprisingly endearing gesture, drawing attention to a vulnerable part of his body.

"So, humans can have really weird bloodlines. You know how every once in a while two humans have an elf as a kid?"

I nodded. "Our clan has knowledge of elves. Some shamans say they are a 'sub-species' of sorts, genetically distinct but able to reproduce with other members of the wider species without aid of magic."

"Right, so, elves aren't the only distinct sub-species."

"And what sub-species do you belong to?" I asked. I tried not to growl, I knew humans could have complicated relationships with families and larger cultural groups.

The question was answered by the enormous door actually opening. A woman of impossible size gazed down at me, with eyes that gleamed like crystal.

Then she caught sight of Samuel, and they lit up with an unearthly glow.

"Sammy! You're back! Is this your bride?"

"Hey mom. And yeah, this is Aria. We're not technically married yet, though. She needs your approval."

My heart caught in my throat. I was a proud warrior, I had subdued many foes over the years, but I did not like my odds facing the trials a giant clan may place before me.

"Well come on in, then, let's get to know her!" she said.

The giant woman trundled back into her enormous house.

I followed Samuel cautiously. The doorstep required an actual jump to get onto, rather than a step.

I wondered, idly, how many in my clan could make that jump, how many would have to pull themselves up one leg at a time.

Then another thought struck me.

"Is your athleticism a result of your heritage, or just needing to survive here?" I asked in a whisper.

I was surprised when his mother answered instead. "Oh, he practiced lots, our Sammy, but giants are born pretty strong. We have to grow into our strength. Sammy's still young, his strength will even out a bit by the time he's older.

Another thought sent me reeling. "Samuel, are you... of age?"

"Oh, yes!" he said, "Young for a giant, not for a human. Adult human, definitely."

"And he will always be my little boy," his mother said. "Oh, forgive me, I didn't introduce myself! You can call me Aggie."

I nodded, watching Aggie take out enormous pots and pans and begin to cook.

"I apologize for my rudeness, I cannot think of what to say," I admitted.

"My fault," Samuel said. "I should be able to explain more in a bit."

"We can get to that," Aggie said. "Right now, go talk to your brothers, they've missed you!"

"Oh right! Aria, come meet the triplets, they're loads of fun!"

We had scarcely turned the corner when we were met by one not-quite-so-gargantuan man. His skin was a big craggy, but otherwise he might pass for a human who was merely freakishly tall.

"Eh, Little Sammy? What are you doing back? With a girl?"

"Yep!" Samuel said proudly. "We're getting married."

The man stooped to look me in the eye. "Oh, not many orcs we get in the family. Aw, and she's a cutie, too."

I gave him a serious look, and the smirk across his face made me feel young and small again. "Ah, she's got fire! A fine bride, a wife should stand up to their brothers in law and be able to whip them into shape. She's got my approval."

"Aw, lay off, Three," Samuel said.

"Will do, Little Sammy!" he said happily. If he was at all like my own brothers, I counted that as a lie. "Two and Four are in the woods playing games. You've got your old room, should still fit you and the girl."

He winked and went on his way.

"Was there a reason for the triplets to be named this way?" I asked.

"My Dad thought it was funny. I guess it kind of is."

"I shall praise your father's sense of humor when I meet him."

"Oh, right. Um."

I felt a pit in my stomach. Another turn in the terrible rapids this day had become. "I apologize. I should not have assumed. Had I known..."

"Oh wow, wrong idea, wrong idea," Samuel hastily said.

"My dad isn't dead, he's just asleep for a few more months."

I breathed. "So giants hibernate?"

"Essentially, yeah."

"Very well," I said. I could not keep a growl from entering my voice when I asked, "Is there any other relevant information I should know?"

"Not really. I have one more older sister, Vanity, but she's on a long trip. The rest of the clan won't be coming over, so you won't need to worry about meeting them tonight. There's one other thing, but it's not my secret to share."

"Thank you," I said. I quickly added, "Your family seems lovely, and strong. They are welcoming."

"Yeah, they are," he said happily. "I was excited for you to meet them."

I smiled and nipped his cheek. "Shocking as this was, I am excited to get to know them."

He smiled and kissed my arm.

I rolled my eyes. He was far softer in manner and demeanor than the average orc, but maybe that was why I had found him attractive. Someone who was so ready to be silly and soft, unlike most I'd met.

After walking down the exceptionally long hall, we came to Samuel's room.

He was, of course, more orclike than most humans, so it did not shock me how many weapons he had hanging on his wall.

What shocked me was their impracticality.

"This is a terrible sword!" I said in dismay. "What smith would make this with a blade on both ends of the handle? And why were you using it?"

"I just thought it was cool," he admitted shyly.

I laughed. "We will talk about this later. Your mother is cooking."

His face lit up. "Right! Mom's cooking is the best. I traveled so long, at the finest meals, nothing beats her cooking."

The table we were sat at was the 'youth's table.' The chairs were larger than those normally used by humans. The table itself was piled high with assorted meats and vegetables.

"Do you want me to pick out the vegetables for you?" Samuel asked.

I shook my head. "It's not too much, I can handle it for a night."

The food was well-spiced, far better than it should have been given the scale. The meat was evenly cooked, soft and juicy.

"Oh, should we have saved you some rare meat?" Aggie asked.

Samuel put his hand to his face and groaned, "Mom, no."

"Orcs don't eat rare meat that much, we enjoy cooking plenty," I assured.

"Oh, dear, that was an insensitive question then wasn't it? I'm afraid I might be tripping over my own words for a bit."

"It was an honest question, and far nicer than many human towns."

"Oh that's for sure," Two said. "One town ran Four out because he looked like a troll."

"The comparison was hurtful," Four said.

"I agree," I said, "trolls are foul. You share Samuel's features, if a bit rougher."

Four sat up straighter at that. Samuel elbowed me.

I caught an approving look from Aggie as she sat down at the 'adult table' all by herself. She was large enough to break our chairs with one foot.

How long until Samuel was that big?

Aggie lifted an enormous spoonful of her own food to her mouth, and I saw rocks mixed in with meat.

I realized I was staring and averted my eyes, instead focusing on my own meal.

The meal passed with little conversation. I suspected that giants simply needed to eat a lot, and had little time for conversation while doing so. Samuel and his brothers each ate more than a human their size would physically be able to, and I ate until stuffed.

"Thanks for the cooking, mom," Samuel said. "You've gotten really good at getting the pepper mixed in."

She beamed at the compliment, and I added, "Thank you, sincerely, Aggie, for the room and board and company. All have been delightful."

"Aw, she's a flatterer! Such a good young girl, I can see why Sammy fell for you."

I elected not to mention that we had first met fighting a monster and had fucked still covered in its blood.

That probably wouldn't have given her a better impression of orcs, anyway.

"Well, now that we've eaten, there's some important business to get to," she said.

I nodded seriously. Samuel held my hand.

"You don't need my approval," she said gently. "You already have it. Samuel is a fine judge of character, we know that from experience, if he says you're good for him and for the clan, we believe him."

"So, no tests to give you," she continued, with a small smile on her face. "We give favors. Three, actually. We can't work miracles, but our strength and magic are great, and we live a long time. Ask for anything. We take family ties seriously."

The offer caught me off guard, but I had been coached by my parents and brothers, on what the tribe needed, what our priorities were.

I also remembered humility, and the needs and wishes of the clan I would be joining my own to. I did not know them explicitly, but they valued privacy and peace.

"I would ask for a spellbook, so that the children of my clan could be educated in greater magic. We always have need of greater understandings of nature and medicine. Second, I would ask for a pledge of food, should starvation plague our clan. Last, I would ask for maps, of all kinds, as our clan has become disconnected from much of the world, and has lost knowledge of how to physically navigate it."

"Granted!" Aggie said happily, before I could even process any anxiety over the request.

I breathed a sigh of relief, and Aggie smirked.

"I am glad I passed your test," I said warily.

Samuel was confused. "She said there wasn't any test, she just gave you favors!"

"The favors were the test," I said.

Samuel looked in horror at his mother.

"Now that that's settled, it's time to tell you an old secret of giants. It's not a well-kept secret, which is why Samuel didn't even tell you he was a giant at first."

Samuel's shock at his own mother's manipulations turned to a more tender expression.

"Giants don't stop growing. We get bigger and bigger and bigger, and stronger and tougher along with it. We don't age, we just eventually get big enough we just nap all the time, enough of us is rock we seem just like the mountains."

I processed that. "Samuel is going to outlive me," I said.

"Nope! That's the fun thing, that we need to keep secret," she said. "We get to share our growth, with one other person. Slows things down, lets us be awake for longer, act like mortals for longer. And the partner gets to share in that very long life and terrific strength."

Samuel would not outlive me. We would... both be immortal. This was an offer at immortality, and invincibility.

I bowed.

"I was already honored by your son's hand. Now that I know the truth of what he has offered me, I cannot express my gratitude."

"Oh get up off the floor," Aggie said, a twinkle in her crystalline eyes. "You've got the rest of a very long life to show servitude towards overbearing in-laws."

You’re an orc woman. Your human fiancee,somehow, survived the pre-marriage trial of beating three of your brothers in bare handed combat to prove himself as husband and is now being treated by the healers. Now, according to tradition, you’re going to his clan to prove yourself as wife to him.

[ceescedasticity]

In the Third Age, what kind of relationship did Thranduil have with the remaining great Elves (Galadriel, Elrond, Círdan, Glorfindel and Celeborn) who were still in Middle Earth? How do you think they felt about him and vice versa? Also, what kind of presence would Thranduil have at council (such as a meeting of the White Council or the Council of Elrond), in your opinion?

My opinion on this changed (relatively) recently, and it is based on: In the ruins of Eregion and before the gates of Moria, Legolas said the people of Eregion were 'strange', but there was no hostility. No reaction to 'star of the House of Fëanor'. He didn't even try to draw any line between himself and them when their friendship with dwarves was mentioned. (The friendship faded because all the specific elves and dwarves involved DIED, you guys.) And, of course, Legolas shows nothing but respect and admiration for Elrond and Galadriel.

My conclusion: Unless Legolas slept through all his history classes, Thranduil has been deliberately downplaying divisions between different groups of elves. (Possibly this has to do with how his father embracing those divisions was a not-insignificant contributing factor in his death.) And unless Legolas was displaying considerably more diplomacy and restraint than he displayed at any other time, he has a good impression of Elrond and Galadriel.

(Also, Aragorn is clearly reasonably well-respected in Mirkwood, presumably at least partially on Elrond's recommendation.)

So my analysis is: Thranduil is on good terms with the remaining High Elves. There's no evidence regarding his participation or lack thereof in councils, but whatever it was he was evidently satisfied with it.

Moving on to headcanon:

Oropher was Celeborn's cousin (through his mother; Oropher isn't a descendant of Elmo). They knew each other well in Doriath, but their falling-out over Oropher's hatred of Galadriel was severe, though they both remained on good terms with additional cousin Amdír.

So when Thranduil deliberately distances himself from Oropher's hostility, he categorizes Celeborn as an uncle-figure (and Celebrían and Amroth were already his younger cousins).

So basically: Celeborn and Galadriel are Thranduil's 'uncle' and 'aunt'. He respects and cares for them a lot but he does have to push back a bit because they can be overbearing. (And he is a 'nephew' who they care for and support, though they don't agree with all of his decisions.)

Elrond, who married Celebrían, is therefore Thranduil's cousin and more of a peer. No, he doesn't think he's Elrond's equal in loremaster-ness or healing or mystic line-of-Lúthien power, but they're not too far apart in age, they're the same generation if you class Elrond with Celebrían, and at the beginning of the Third Age they were both new-ishly bereft of the leader they'd been following, and ffs they are grown adults. They each think the other can be ridiculously bullheaded.

Glorfindel is A WEIRDO. Thranduil has what he would consider to be a healthy skepticism of the Valar, and thinks their wishy-washy careful interference in the Second/Third Ages was either too much or too little, possibly both. Glorfindel seems… fine, basically, but VERY weird, and Thranduil isn't keen on what he represents. (Glorfindel has seen Thranduil's partying habits in at least one other Lord of Gondolin.)

Círdan is Everyone's Grandpa — lack of blood relationship in many cases is irrelevant — and reserves the right to think they're being ridiculous.

…I'm going to say Thranduil was invited to White Council meetings but only went to one because he really, really didn't like Saruman. (When he found out about Saruman's fall he didn't say 'I told you so', but he did say 'I knew it'. A lot.) He may have sent an observer to take notes.

[refinedbuffoonery]

Mr. & Mrs. Claus

You should know that I wrote this whole thing just for the bad pick-up line Mac uses. And then I got hit with major baby fever while writing the end and....you’ll see.  Merry Christmas, y’all! ❤ 

Established MacRiley AU

*****

Riley’s only warning to Mac’s arrival was the slam of the front door before he yelled, “I’ve got the rings!” His boots clunked on the hardwood floor as he walked down the hall to their bedroom. “Let me get dressed and then we can go—” 

Riley met Mac’s eyes in the bathroom mirror. He stood in the doorway, slack-jawed, taking in the full effect of her costume. Smiling to herself, Riley finished applying her mascara, arching her back and sticking her ass out for his benefit. 

Mac cleared his throat. “Wow. You look incredible.” 

She twirled to give him the full effect. The stretchy, ribbed material of her off-white sweater dress clung to her body, stopping just below her knees and leaving nothing to the imagination. Her favorite black, high-heeled boots gave the outfit just a bit of edge. But the real showstopper was her coat—crimson velvet trimmed with fake fur, swirling gold and silver embroidery, elegant bell sleeves. It even had pockets. 

“This is my favorite part.” Clasping her hands behind her back, Riley swayed back and forth, watching the bottom of the knee-length coat swish like a bell. 

“It’s stunning,” Mac said, still a little stunned himself. He finally closed the gap between them. “You’re the hottest Mrs. Claus in LA.” 

“Literally,” Riley joked. “This outfit is toasty, and in case you didn’t realize, it’s definitely not cold outside.” According to her phone, the high was supposed to be 74 degrees. 

Mac rubbed her arms. “In all seriousness though, you look beautiful.” 

Even after all this time, Riley still blushed. “Thank you,” she murmured against his lips as she pulled him down for a quick kiss. 

She sat on the bed, unashamedly checking her boyfriend out while he changed into his own Santa costume to match hers. He fished around in the pocket of his discarded jeans and pulled out a pair of rings. “Matty said we, and I quote, have to return these to the Phoenix tomorrow, so no using them to build a homing beacon or something.” 

“Got it,” Riley said dryly. “No homing beacon.” She reached for her ring, but Mac seemed to have other ideas. He handed her his ring instead—a white gold band with a thin, but ornate border. 

Mac spoke in a deep, announcer-like voice. “We are gathered here today to celebrate the union of Mr. and Mrs. Claus. Mrs. Claus, you may go first.” 

Riley held his left hand in hers, playing along. “Do you, Santa Claus, take me to be your wife?” She tried to be serious, but her lips curled into a smile without her consent. 

“I do.” Riley slid the ring on. Mac continued, “Do you, Mrs. Claus, take me to be your husband?” 

Riley made a show of thinking it over first. “I do.” He slid the ring—an engagement ring and wedding band fused together—onto her finger. She’d worn it before. Like Mac’s, it was white gold, but the tiny diamonds set into the bands made it glitter in the light. The engagement ring part had a princess cut diamond surrounded by more tiny diamonds, making the whole thing walk the fine line between opulent and gaudy. 

She looked up, and Mac’s soft smile made her want to melt in a puddle. “I’m going to kiss you now,” he announced, lacing their fingers together. 

“Okay.” Riley wrapped her arms around his neck. “You do that.” 

*****

They drove Riley’s Jeep to the hospital, since someone forgot to go to the gas station on his way home, and they were already late. They’d gotten a little distracted after their fake wedding. 

Mac rested his hand on Riley’s thigh while she drove. She leaned away from him, resting her left elbow on the door and holding the top of the steering wheel with her right. When Mac didn’t take the hint and started caressing her thigh instead, Riley batted his hand away. 

“Oh no,” she scolded. “We are not doing this right now.” Mac pouted in the passenger seat. 

They arrived at the hospital, hauling two massive bags of presents with them. The hospital administrator met them in the lobby to escort Riley and Mac to the children’s wing, thanking them and the think tank profusely for the entire duration of the walk.  She and Mac exchanged the same sly look they always did when someone referred to the Phoenix as a think tank.

Meeting the kids went by in a blur. Altogether too many young, bright faces swarmed the waiting room, clamoring to meet Santa and Mrs. Claus. With each kid she met, Riley was in awe of how they were all so positive and happy and full of laughter, even though many of them were so sick and would be spending Christmas in the hospital. 

The kids gravitated to Mac like moths to a flame. He sat and talked to each one, asking how they were doing and what they wanted for Christmas. They asked him ridiculous questions, like what snacks the elves like best and who his favorite reindeer was. In a classic Mac moment, he explained to a wide-eyed group of ten-year-olds that male reindeer lose their antlers every winter, so his reindeer are actually all females. 

Every time Mac walked past—which Riley suspected was far more times than necessary—he squeezed her arm or grazed a hand down her back, and Riley couldn’t help the smile curling her lips each time he did it. 

After a while, Riley gathered the kids and read a picture book version of ‘Twas the Night Before Christmas. Pausing to show her young, captivated audience the pictures, she flicked her gaze to Mac. He stood in the back of the room with his arms crossed in a very un-Santa-like manner, chatting softly with one of the pediatricians. The rainbow lights of the Christmas tree behind him cast him in a warm, pink glow. 

The kid closest to her tugged on her coat, and Riley turned her attention to the girl. She was probably ten or so, with intense, dark eyes that probably never missed a thing. Including Riley’s wandering attention, apparently. “Are you checking out Santa?” she questioned. 

Caught. Riley cleared her throat. “Um—” Giggles erupted throughout her audience. “So what if I am? He’s very handsome.” 

The girl scrunched up her face. “Gross!” Riley joined in on the second wave of giggles before returning to the story. 

Later, after the chaos of opening presents, the adults rounded up all the kids and settled in to watch Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer. The hospital administrator set it up so the movie projected on an empty wall. Mac pulled up a pair of chairs behind the projector and motioned for Riley to sit. Lacing their fingers together, Mac leaned over and kissed her cheek. “Thank you for doing this with me.” His expression was raw and unguarded. 

Riley squeezed his hand twice in response. “Are you kidding me? I wouldn’t miss this for the world.” 

They’d barely made it ten minutes into the movie when the shyest kid—a six-year-old boy wearing Spider-Man pajama pants who looked like a tiny version of Bozer—crawled into Riley’s lap. The boy didn’t say a word; he simply nuzzled his face into Riley’s shoulder and wrapped his tiny arms around her waist. Riley let go of Mac’s hand to pull the boy into her chest, where he fell asleep for the remainder of the movie. 

Afterward, Riley carried the boy back to his room while Mac started to say goodbye to the other kids. They’d been there more than half the day, and for many of the kids, it was time for blood tests or scans or chemo. Or maybe just a nap. 

Riley hugged the last kid goodbye with a bittersweet smile on her face. The little boy in her arms was so young, four or five at the most. Behind him, his mom mouthed, Thank you.

When the boy finally let go, Riley looked him square in the eye. "You be good, okay?" He giggled, nodding furiously before returning to his mom.

The boy and his mom walked away, leaving Riley and Mac alone in the waiting room. Riley stared after them. That had to be so hard, watching your kid have seizure after seizure and then spending days in the hospital, waiting for answers the doctors didn't have.

"Riles." Mac's low voice snapped her out of her thoughts. "You okay?"

She blinked. "Yeah, I was just thinking about that kid."

"I know," Mac sighed, rubbing his face. "He asked me if I could stop his seizures for Christmas."

Riley's heart clenched. "What did you say?"

"I told him I'd try my best."

Riley swallowed, trying to dislodge the lump in her throat. Without thinking, she drifted into Mac's embrace, hands finding purchase on his chest and resting her cheek on his shoulder. His arms circled her, pulling her tightly against him.

She couldn't string the right words together to describe how she was feeling. Sorrow, for the kid whose childhood was now destined to be filled with doctors and hospital trips. Empathy, for the single mom trying her best to remain positive for her kid's sake. Admiration, for the way Mac smiled reassuringly at the little boy despite the tears welling in his eyes. Riley settled for, "I love you." She kissed Mac's cheek.

Pressing his lips to the crown of her head, he said, "I love you too."

They stayed like that for a long time, only parting when Riley said, "Let's clean up and go home."

Remnants of wrapping paper and plastic packaging littered the floor—all that was left from the bag of presents they'd brought. Well, that and the glitter. The ungodly amount of glitter that was, to Riley's horror, everywhere.

She picked up a wad of half-crumpled wrapping paper, sending a flurry of gold glitter airborne. Most of it landed on her clothes. Great. She'd be finding those damn gold flecks for months.

Mac chuckled behind her. She whirled on him. "It's not funny!" she said with mock offence, sticking her tongue out at him.

But he wasn't looking at her face. His eyes tracked her every movement, lingering on the places where her off-white sweater dress hugged her curves beneath her long, red coat.

Riley made a show of brushing the glitter off her dress, starting from her knees and working upward, drawing Mac’s attention with her movement. When Mac's gaze finally reached her eyes, she winked before resuming not-so-innocently picking up wrapping paper. Riley kept her back to him, waiting for Mac to make the next move. 

Hands locked on her waist. Mac tugged her closer, his lips grazing her ear as he spoke. "I'd put myself on the naughty list for you."

Smirking, she replied, "Oh really." Riley glanced over her shoulder and had barely even realized Mac's face was still right there when his lips landed on hers, and he spun her to face him fully. The pile of wrapping paper she was holding fell to the ground at their feet, covering their boots in more glitter.

The kiss wasn't very good. Riley couldn't stop smiling, no matter how hard she tried to pull herself together enough to kiss him back instead of bursting out laughing. I'd put myself on the naughty list for you. He said that as if he were on the nice list in the first place. They broke way too many laws on a weekly basis for that to be true. Not to mention, Mac's non-consensual cell phone breaking alone was enough to put him on the naughty list for life.

"Are you just going to keep grinning like an idiot, or are you actually going to kiss me back?" he teased.

It took all of her concentration to pull off even the most chaste kiss. A little too eagerly for being in a hospital waiting room, Mac sucked on her lower lip and slid his tongue into her mouth, his hands sliding under her coat and caressing her sides.

Riley had just gotten it together enough to slip her own tongue in without getting a mouthful of teeth or fake beard when she heard a faint giggle. Her eyes snapped open, and she saw the cutest little girl peeking around a Christmas tree. 

“Santa, we have an audience,” she warned. 

Mac pulled away, blushing faintly, but his hands lingered on Riley’s stomach for an extra second. He gestured for the little girl to come closer. Sheepishly, she rolled out from behind the tree. Tinsel covered every available inch of her wheelchair, and the wheels lit up when she rolled in a way that reminded Riley of the light-up sneakers that were popular when she was a teenager. Not that she'd actually owned a pair, of course.

Mac squatted in front of the girl, whose wild blonde curls were equally unruly as Riley's own hair. "Were you spying on us?"

"Maybe," she said with a shrug.

Mac twisted to look at Riley. I like her. "What do you think, Mrs. Claus?" he asked. "Do spies get put on the naughty list?"

Yes. She winked. "I think this one can stay on the nice list. She managed to sneak up on Santa, after all. Very impressive."

The kid beamed. She had no idea.

"Yes," Mac said slowly, "very impressive." He turned back to the girl. "So, what do you want for Christmas?"

The girl listed a whole bunch of presents, claiming she wanted to give Santa options. Mac listened intently, nodding at all the right points.

Something warm bloomed in Riley's chest as she watched the scene unfolding in front of her. To say Mac was good with kids would be an understatement. When a kid spoke to him, he always gave them his full, undivided attention and took every word very seriously. When a kid was being serious, Mac was serious, and when a kid was acting silly, Mac would be twice as silly. And as a result, he could crack even the shyest and grumpiest of kids, and, more importantly, they would trust him. 

A thought popped into Riley's head. I want to have his babies. As if her body was reiterating what it already knew and her brain had just figured out, her hands unconsciously drifted to her abdomen. 

The same spot Mac's hands hands had lingered a minute ago, she realized with a start. Did...did he want kids with her too?

Riley wanted kids—she wanted kids with Mac—but she also knew that neither of them were ready to give up their job. They couldn’t keep doing what they did with a kid in the world. After growing up with absentee parents, they’d never risk leaving their kid to grow up without one or both parents. 

But when the time finally comes, when she and Mac are ready to trade in getting shot at and making stuff explode for stability and mundane normalcy, she won’t be able to wait any longer to start a family with him. 

She waited until they were in the Jeep before broaching the subject of kids. Tentatively, she began, "What were you thinking about back there when you put your hands on my stomach?" The look on his face then said he was definitely thinking about something, but Riley didn't want to assume what. 

Mac dodged her question. "Sorry, I didn't realize I did it." 

Riley knew that was a white lie, but she didn't call him on it. He'd answer honestly in his own time. Since it was too big a subject to outright ask him, Riley took a more subtle route instead. “Do you see yourself having kids?” 

His eyes widened in response. “You know I want kids.” 

That wasn’t what she meant. Wanting them and actively reshaping your life in order to have them were completely different things. “Yeah, but do you see yourself settling down, getting a safe, normal job, and raising kids?” They’d vaguely talked about this before, long ago, but Riley suddenly needed to ask him again. 

Mac was silent for a long time, staring out the front window. “Yeah, I do,” he finally said. “With the right person.” He glanced over at her, eyes softening. 

Me too, Riley wanted to say, but she choked on the words. It took her a couple tries, and the words came out strangled, but she was pretty sure Mac understood. Neither of them needed to say it directly in order for the other to understand: I want to have kids with you. 

Riley spent the rest of the drive fantasizing about the kid-filled Christmases in her future. She glanced down at the ring on her finger. First step, she thought. Get a real ring. 

[bechloeislegit]

25 Days of BeChloe Christmases - 2020

Day 21 - Santa's Workshop

Prompt from FanFiction User nweeks3: HS AU: Beca and Chloe get holiday temp jobs working as elves for a department store Santa. I kind of did my own thing with this one; I hope you like it.

"Come on, Beca," Chloe said. "I think you look adorable."

"Why did I agree to this?" Beca whined.

"Because you wanted to earn some extra money to buy your mom a nice Christmas gift."

"But an elf? Seriously?" Beca said. "Could my day get any worse?"

"Hey, Mitchell," Stacie said. "Looking hot."

"I just told her the same thing," Chloe said.

"I look stupid," Beca said. "At least Chloe is covered up as Mrs. Claus. These elf costumes make us look like we should be dancing on a pole out front."

"Oh, that sounds great," Stacie said. "I can use the practice for my job when I go to college."

"You're planning to be a pole dancer after graduation?" Beca asked.

"I have to make money some way," Stacie said. "Not all of us have rich parents or a daddy who works at a college and can get you free tuition, plus room and board."

"Sorry, Stacie," Beca said. "I didn't mean anything by it."

"Meh, don't worry about it. It's forgotten," Stacie said. "We'd better hurry. Santa's Workshop opens in like twenty minutes."

"I know," Chloe said. "The kids are already lined up."

"Is Santa here yet?" Aubrey asked.

"I haven't seen him," Beca said.

"Neither have I," Chloe said. "I'll go find Mr. Comstock and see if he knows where Santa is."

"I'll go with you, Mrs. Claus," Aubrey said, as she followed Chloe.

"Dammit," Stacie as she dug through her bag.

"What's wrong?"

"I forgot my tights," Stacie said. "Do you have an extra pair?"

"No, sorry. Check Aubrey's bag," Beca said. "She might have an extra pair in there."

"I'm not just going to go through Brey's stuff," Stacie said. "You know how uptight she is about people messing with her stuff. I'm going to find her and ask her if she has an extra pair."

"Okay," Beca said.

Stacie left and Beca was adjusting her elf costume when the guy playing Santa came staggering in.

"Hey, cutie," Santa said. "Want to sit on Santa's lap."

"Gross," Beca mumbled. "Dude, you're drunk. And you need to sober up. The kids and their parents will know something's up if you stagger out there like that."

"Here, catch," Santa said and threw a candy cane at Beca.

Beca missed it and it fell behind her, breaking when it hit the floor. She turned and bent over to pick it up and, much to Beca's surprise, Santa grabbed her ass.

Beca didn't even think, she just came up swinging. Her fist landed on Santa's cheek, and he fell back, unconscious by the time he hit the floor. Beca ran over and knelt next to him.

That's where Beca was when Mr. Comstock, the store manager, came in.

"What the hell happened in here?" Mr. Comstock asked Beca.

"He came in drunk," Beca said. "And then he grabbed my ass so I punched him."

"Are you okay?" Mr. Comstock asked.

"Um, yeah," Beca said, surprised Mr. Comstock hadn't started yelling at her.

"I'm glad," Mr. Comstock said, bending down to look at Santa. "He's out cold, so I'm going to need you to be Santa."

Beca looked at him and shook her head. "No, uh-uh. No way!"

"You're the one who knocked out Santa," Mr. Comstock said.

"Because he grabbed my ass," Beca said. "You're lucky I don't sue the store for attempted sexual assault by one of your employees."

"If you play Santa, it pays an extra five bucks an hour," Mr. Comstock said. "And he won't be an employee here anymore. Once he wakes up, he's fired. And, until I can find a replacement, I'll need you to take over for today. We have an extra Santa costume that should fit you."

"Ask Stacie to do it," Beca said. "She can use the money."

"No offense," Mr. Comstock said. "But she's too sexy and I'll have bigger problems on my hands if she goes all Stacie on any of the dads or older guys who visit Santa. I really need your help on this, Beca. Please? I'm begging here."

"I'll do it," Beca said. "But you have to give Stacie the extra five bucks an hour and don't tell her why."

"It's done," Mr. Comstock said. "You need to get changed. Santa's Workshop opens in five minutes."

Beca took the Santa costume Mr. Comstock handed to her. She changed and was unrecognizable when Chloe, Aubrey, and Stacie came back in.

"There you are, Santa," Chloe said, looking around as she came in. "Where's Beca?"

Santa smile and shrugged; Chloe frowned. "She must be in the bathroom. We can't wait for her." Chloe grabbed Santa's sleeve. "Come on, it's time for Santa to start meeting all the boys and girls."

Beca didn't say anything. Aubrey and Stacie went out first to announce Santa and Mrs. Claus' arrival. As soon as the kids starting cheering, Beca and Chloe walked out. Chloe took her place next to Santa's chair and Beca sat down.

"Ho, Ho, Ho," Beca said, lowering her voice.

"Beca?" Chloe whispered, looking down at Santa.

Beca put a finger to her lips and smiled at Chloe. Chloe smiled back as Beca said, "Who wants to tell Santa what they want for Christmas?"

The kids started yelling, "Me! Me! Me!"

Chloe looked over at Stacie.

"Elf Stacie," Chloe said. "Could you bring Santa's first guest over to see him?"

Stacie led the first little girl over to Santa. Aubrey got behind the camera to take the photos.

There were so many kids in line to see Santa, that the girls worked continuously until almost one before they could take a short break.

Mrs. Claus announced that there would be a break while Santa fed the reindeer. The kids and adults groaned when Beca stood and said, "Stay where you are in line and I'll be back in no time. Okay?"

"Okay!" several kids called out.

Beca smiled and led Chloe, Stacie, and Aubrey behind Santa's Workshop.

"I'm starving," Beca said. "Do we have time to eat before we have to get back out there?"

"I got you covered, Santa," Chloe said, opening her locker. "Having done this last year, I came prepared."

Chloe pulled out a small cooler-type bag and pulled out some sandwiches and drinks. She handed one to each of the girls and kept one for herself.

"I have to say, Beca," Aubrey said. "I honestly didn't realize you were Santa until about an hour after we started. You're really convincing."

"She's right, Beca," Stacie said. "How did you become Santa in the short time we left you alone?'

Beca told them about Santa being drunk and handsy and her knocking him out.

"Are you okay?" Chloe asked, pulling Beca into a hug.

"I'm fine," Beca said. "I just have to be Santa until they find a decent replacement."

"You're doing great, Becs," Chloe said. "Plus, Santa gets paid more. You should ask if you can keep the job."

"I'll have to think about that," Beca said. "Thanks for the food. We should probably get back out there. We still have like two more hours before the next shift starts."

The next two hours flew by and the next group of Santa and his elves took over Santa's Workshop.

~~ Day 21 of the 25 Days of BeChloe Christmases - 2020 ~~

The following weekend, Beca was driving Chloe home from the mall after their shift as Santa and Mrs. Claus.

"I can't believe you told Mr. Comstock to give Stacie the extra five dollars an hour you get as Santa," Chloe said.

"I consider it an investment in her future," Beca said. "Plus, now that everyone knows, she owes me big. I just need to figure out what she owes me."

"I knew there was an ulterior motive," Chloe said with a laugh.

"Maybe I should ask her to help me find a date for the Winter Dance," Beca said. "She's a cheerleader and knows all the pretty girls."

Chloe stopped laughing and scoffed as she stared out the front window. She started fidgeting and became anxious, and kept stealing glances over at Beca.

"Are you okay, Chlo?" Beca finally asked.

"What?" Chloe asked, somewhat startled. "Oh, yeah. I'm fine."

"Are you sure?" Beca asked, glancing over at Chloe.

"Yeah," Chloe said and sighed. "I want to ask you something, but I'm afraid of how you'll react."

"Chloe," Beca said, glancing over at her. "We've been friends forever. You know you can ask or tell me anything, right?"

"I know," Chloe said, quietly.

Beca continued to drive, waiting for Chloe to tell her what was on Chloe's mind. Beca pulled up to Chloe's house and turned off the car. She unbuckled her seat belt and turned to face Chloe.

"Come on, Chlo, talk to me," Beca said. "What's going on? You seem really anxious and that's so unlike you."

"I'm sorry," Chloe said, reaching for the door handle. "I should probably get inside. I'm already late and my mom probably has dinner ready."

Before Beca can figure out what's happening, Chloe was out of the car and hurrying up the steps to her front door. Beca sighed and started the car. As soon as Chloe disappeared inside, Beca drove off.

~~ Day 21 of the 25 Days of BeChloe Christmases - 2020 ~~

At school on Monday, Beca was talking to Stacie before Homeroom.

"And she just got out of the car and went inside?" Stacie asked.

"Yep," Beca responded.

"What were you talking about just before she got anxious?" Stacie asked, leaning her shoulder against her locker.

"You, actually," Beca said with a chuckle.

"Me?"

"Yes, you," Beca said. "She said something about me having Mr. Comstock give you the extra five dollars an hour that I would have gotten by playing Santa."

"Thank you again for that, by the way," Stacie said.

"You deserve it, Stace," Beca said. "If anyone should go to college, it's you. I consider it an investment. Although, it might only pay for one of your application fees."

"Yeah, maybe," Stacie said. "It's still a nice gesture."

"I would have done the same for Chloe or Aubrey," Beca said. "If they needed it."

"I really do appreciate it," Stacie said. "And I owe you for being so nice. Tell me how I can repay you?"

"Wellllll," Beca said, laughing. "I jokingly told Chloe I was going to ask you to help me get a date for the Winter Formal. Because you know all the pretty girls."

"Did you say that to Chloe before or after she started getting anxious?"

"Before, I think," Beca said, furrowing her brow. "Yeah, it was definitely before."

"It all makes sense now," Stacie said.

"It does?" Beca asked. "How?"

"Chloe wants to be your date to the Winter Formal," Stacie said.

"What?!" Beca practically yelled, causing several students to look at her.

"Everything okay, Beca?" Chloe asked, startling Beca, as she and Aubrey joined Beca and Stacie.

"What?" Beca asked. "Oh, yeah. Everything's fine. Are you okay? I mean you seemed a little off last night."

"Um, yeah, I'm okay," Chloe said. "Can I talk to-"

The first bell rang, cutting off what Chloe was saying.

"Sorry, Chlo," Beca said, slamming her locker. "Maybe we can finish this at lunch. Come on, Aubrey, we don't want to be late for Homeroom."

Beca and Aubrey rushed off, leaving Chloe and Stacie together.

"Sure, Becs," Chloe said, nodding her head just before she banged her forehead against Beca's locker.

"Come on, Chloe," Stacie said. "We're going to be late for Homeroom. And I can help you figure out how to ask Beca to the Winter Formal."

Chloe stared at Stacie. "How did you know I was going to ask her?"

"She told me about your conversation yesterday," Stacie said, grabbing Chloe's arm and leading her to their class. "I put two and two together and it's the only thing that made sense."

"I just hope she says yes," Chloe said, hurrying to Homeroom before the final bell.

Later that day at lunch, Beca went to the library to return a book. Chloe looked for her in the cafeteria but didn't see her.

"Beca did say we could talk at lunch, right?" Chloe asked Stacie and Aubrey.

"Yes," Aubrey said.

"Wait, there she is," Stacie said, pointing toward the cafeteria entrance.

Chloe looked where Stacie was pointing and her face fell. Beca was entering the cafeteria with Jesse Swanson and they looked cozy, too cozy for Chloe's liking. Chloe turned back around and stared down at the table.

"Hey, Beca," Stacie said. "Hey, Jesse."

"Hey," Jesse said as he sat across from Stacie.

"Hey," Beca said, sitting next to Chloe and looking at her. "Hey, Chloe. You said you wanted to talk to me. So, what's up?"

Chloe looked at Beca and saw Jesse looking at her over Beca's head.

"Never mind, it's really nothing," Chloe said.

Beca shrugged and began eating her lunch.

~~ Day 21 of the 25 Days of BeChloe Christmases - 2020 ~~

The rest of the week went the same way and Chloe could never get Beca alone long enough to ask her to the dance. Stacie tried to help but every plan she came up with for Chloe was thwarted. By Friday Chloe was really frustrated and ready to give up on asking Beca.

"Why don't you just call her?" Stacie asked.

"I want to ask her in person," Chloe said. "So I can keep her from running away before answering me. If I call her she'll freak out and go into hiding of something."

"Ask her when we're at work tomorrow," Aubrey suggested.

"Yeah, Chloe," Stacie said. "I know she doesn't have a date to the dance yet."

"I thought Jesse was going to ask her," Chloe said. "He's been hanging around with her a lot more."

"Well, if he did ask her, she turned him down," Stacie said. "I think she's waiting for a certain redhead to ask her. Or she's trying to get up the nerve to ask a certain redhead herself."

"You really think she wants to go with me?" Chloe asked hesitantly.

"Yes!" Aubrey and Stacie answered.

"Alright," Chloe said, smiling. "I'll ask her tomorrow at Santa's Workshop."

That night, Chloe slept better than she had all week. When she woke on Saturday morning, she was feeling confident and ready to ask Beca to be hers, um, her date.

At nine o'clock, Aubrey picked up Chloe and drove to the mall. They were changing into their costumes when Santa walked in.

"Hey, Becs," Chloe said as Beca entered the changing area.

"Hey, Chlo," Beca said. "Um, do you think I can drive you home after our shift? I'd like to talk to you about something."

"Sure, Beca," Chloe said, before turning to Aubrey. "Brey, I'm going to ride home with Beca tonight, okay?"

"Okay," Aubrey said.

"That will be a great opportunity to ask her," Stacie whispered to Chloe.

"That's the plan," Chloe said with a smile.

After their shift, the girls were changed and Beca grabbed her bag.

"You ready to go, Chlo?" Beca asked.

"Yep," Chloe said.

"Let us know how it goes," Aubrey said.

"I will," Chloe responded.

Beca and Choe had been riding in silence for about ten minutes when Chloe looked over at Beca.

"So," Chloe said, breaking the silence and startling Beca. "You wanted to talk to me about something."

"Yeah," Beca said. "Um, I was wondering if you, you know, had a date for the Winter Formal?"

"Nope," Chloe said. "Do you?"

"Well, Jesse asked me," Beca said.

"He did?" Chloe asked, her heart falling into her stomach.

"Yeah," Beca said with a shrug. "But, I told him no."

"You did?" Chloe asked surprised. "Why?"

"Because he's not the one I want to go with," Beca said, looking over at Chloe.

"Who, um," Chloe started and cleared her throat. "Who do you want to go with?"

Beca didn't immediately respond and kept driving. Chloe fidgeted in her seat, her knee bouncing up and down.

Beca pulled up in front of Chloe's house and turned off the car. She unhooked her seatbelt and turned her body toward Chloe.

"To answer your question," Beca said. "You're the one I want to go with. Would you want to go with me?"

Chloe smiled and nodded. "Yes, Beca. I would love to go to the dance with you."

"Really?" Beca asked, smiling at Chloe.

"Of course," Chloe said, unhooking her seatbelt so she could face Beca. "To be honest, I've been trying to ask you all week, but something always got in the way."

"To be honest with you," Beca said. "It took me all week to get up the nerve to ask you. I mean, I've had a crush on you for like forever."

"Me, too," Chloe said. "I mean, I've had a crush on you for forever, too."

Beca laughed. "Aren't we quite the pair?"

"I think we're made for each other," Chloe said, leaning toward Beca. She turned serious as she asked, "Can I kiss you?"

Beca didn't respond. Instead, she closed the distance between them and gently placed her lips on Chloe's, applying slight pressure.

Chloe hummed and brought her hand up to Beca's cheek, holding Beca's head in place.

The kiss broke naturally and Chloe put her forehead to Beca's.

"Best first kiss ever!" Chloe exclaimed with a smile.

"Christmas came early and I am not disappointed," Beca said, leaning in for another kiss.

[luxekook]

trivia love | knj

⇥ pairing: kim namjoon x reader

⇥ genre: non-idol au with fluff and smut

⇥ summary: in which the reader and namjoon become ridiculously attracted to each other over weekly late night trivia sessions

⇥ word count: 5.4k

⇥ warnings: 18+, cursing, dirty talk, terrible trivia team names, namjoon being devastating, low-key exhibitionism, smut in a bar bathroom, oral (f receiving), sub!joon, switch!reader, everyone being nerdy af

Weekly trivia used to be so fun. Your team - The Multiple Scoregasms - used to demolish the competition with ease. You used to be able to think so clearly and answer so correctly. You used to revel in the free drinks earned with your $20 bar credit winnings.

Keywords: used to

For the last two Thursdays, not only had your team lost miserably, you seemed to have lost all recollection past your own name.

The reason? Team Text Us, We're Single.

First of all, their team name was highly deceptive. There was no way that all seven of those beautiful team members were single. It was absolutely ludicrous.

Second of all, only one member of the group seemed to even take trivia seriously. And they still won. Twice.

And last of all, you were high-key attracted to said member. You sighed, thinking back to simpler times before you first saw him two Thursdays ago…

The first thing you saw when you walked into Queenie’s Bar was a squad of middle-aged men debating the merits of Draco Malfoy’s redemption arc.

And the second? Just the cutest smiling boy you’d ever seen in the entirety of your existence. He was tall and deliciously tan, with cute dimples that surfaced suddenly when he smiled at the bartender in thanks.

As you stood in the archway of the bar gaping at this dimpled god, you got jostled from behind by your friend Olivia. “What’s the hold up? Go claim our usual table, (y/n)! I’ll get the drinks.”

You snapped out of your reverie. Cute boy or not, he was likely to be part of tonight’s competition; and, therefore, you needed to annihilate him accordingly.

Nodding inwardly, you stalked past the men who now had moved on from Draco to a heated argument surrounding house-elves and their rights.
 “Hermione just dropped her whole campaign! S.P.E.W. was never mentioned again!” One man thrust his hand through his thinning hair in exasperation, “God, did the campaign buttons mean nothing?”

You cracked a smile as you settled into your usual table in the middle of the crowded bar. You loved Thursday night trivia with everything you had.

Thursdays brought in an eclectic sort of crowd to Queenie’s. The groups scattered throughout the bar represented everyone from middle aged Potterheads to skulking e-boys to nerdy young adults (READ: you) and - apparently - to models (READ: Dimples).

You spotted your roommate Jordan and your friend Marlene hurrying through the door and raised a hand to wave them down. Marlene noticed you first and yelled, “Yo, (y/n)!”

Typically, you would have been embarrassed by this behavior, but it happened each week without fail. So, you just gave a half-assed salute.

The only thing that Marlene, the only extrovert in your circle of friends, loved more than being the center of attention was forcing the rest of you into the spotlight with her.

Her reasoning? Something about comfort zones and shit. Your reasoning? Pure evil.

Jordan rolled his eyes at you and grabbed Marlene, dragging her over to your table. “She needs to be stopped,” Jordan said in lieu of a greeting, “She’s a menace to introverts everywhere.”

“Puh-lease,” Marlene plopped into her seat dramatically, “Y’all love me. Besides, if you got rid of me, who would do speed trivia rounds for you?”

You and Jordan exchanged a panicked look at the mere thought of being put on the spot in front of a large crowd. “You make a convincing argument,” you sighed, “I guess we’ll keep you.”

“Well,” Marlene concentrated on something over your shoulder, “I might leave voluntarily if other teams are out here looking like that.”

You turned, seeking out the team in question, and locked eyes with Dimples. He blushed furiously and ducked his head, blonde hair falling to cover his eyes. His friend to his left, equally as attractive, gave Dimples a weird look and shoved his shoulder. You whipped back around before you got caught staring - again.

“What the fuck?” Jordan whispers-yelled across the table to you, “Do you know that boy, (y/n)?”

“No,” you choked out, already halfway to whipped over someone you’d never even met.

“Well, damn,” Olivia finally arrived, somehow successfully holding four drinks, “What’d I miss?”

“Nothing,” Marlene smirked, “Just a cute boy thirsting over (y/n) from afar.”

“He is not thirsting!” Your disclaimer went by unacknowledged.

“Oooh, we love a thirsty boy,” Olivia slid into her seat next to you and turned around to assess the crowd, “Shit. Which one is he? All the boys at that table are hot.”

“The one with the dimples,” you automatically answered, your mind replaying his squinty-eyed smile in full HD.

“Whoa, hold on a minute,” Marlene whipped out her pen and notepad like she was about to take notes, “Now, how do you know he has dimples?”

“Uh,” you sank low in your seat, “A good guess?”

“Nope, try again,” Jordan cackled, “You twirl your hair when you’re lying, bitch.”

Goddamnit. You released your traitorous hand from your hair immediately. “Fine, because I saw him smiling when I arrived, okay?”

“Interesting,” Marlene scribbled gibberish on her notepad, “And how do you feel about that?”

Now, two long weeks later, you still had no idea how to answer that question. However, you did know that you longed to talk with him for hours and absorb the knowledge he seemed to hold in every crevice of his brain. You did know that a darker part of you wanted to see him kneeling before you, completely at your mercy. You did know that his thighs were distracting, to the point where you accidentally dumped your entire beer down your shirt because you were too gaping at the way he leaned over the bar to order drinks.

And, unfortunately, you did know that he seemed to be equally distracted by you. This bit of knowledge came via your friends; and, therefore, you were in full denial.

“Question nine,” the bartender-turned-announcer cleared her throat, jolting you from your inner thoughts. “Who wrote 1818’s Frankenstein?”

“Mary Shelley!” You whispered across the table to Jordan, who then scrawled the name onto your team’s answer sheet. Satisfied, you shot a furtive glance around the bar and frowned as the surrounding teams all seemed to be confident in their answers as well. Your gaze strategically skipped past the table in the back section of the bar before returning to face your teammates.

From her seat next to Jordan, Marlene spotted something in the very direction you had been avoiding and giggled, “Dimples is staring. Bottoms up, fam.”

“Again?” Olivia rolled her eyes and drank from her dwindling gin and tonic. “He just looked at her, like, thirty seconds ago!”

Your eyes swung to Jordan as he attempted to covertly take a sip of his vodka cranberry.

“Please tell me you all aren’t drinking every time he looks over here,” you groaned, crossing your arms, “How are you even sure that he's looking at me?”

“Maybe because his eyes were glued to your ass when you walked by his table earlier on the way to the bathroom,” Olivia cackled, “I mean, I can’t blame the guy. Those jeans really do make you look thick.”

“And that’s ‘thick’ with at least three C’s and possibly a Q,” Marlene added, shooting you a thumbs up and nod of approval.

Jordan arched an eyebrow slyly, sipped his mixed drink, and drawled,“Well, why do you think she wore them?”

That snake!

“Top ten anime betrayals,” you whispered, eyes wide in the wake of being exposed.

Marlene and Olivia gasped in unison and turned towards you. Olivia hissed, “You bitch. Have you been holding out on us? Have you been seducing him?”

“Question ten,” the announcement blared from the bar’s speakers, saving you briefly from the brewing interrogation you felt was headed your way. “What novel begins with the words 'Call me Ishmael’?”

“Moby Dick,” Marlene answered, “Now, back to the matter at hand. I cannot believe you didn’t tell us this crucial information. We could have been scheming together if we knew you liked him.”

“Like him?!” Your shriek drew the attention of the neighboring table, and you shot them a sheepish smile. When they finally looked away, you immediately reverted back to your murderous state, “I don’t even know his name! And when have you been scheming?”

“Fine,” Jordan acquiesced, stirring his paper straw around his drink, “Maybe you don’t like him yet, but you definitely want to sit on his dick. Am I right or am I right?”

Gleefully, Marlene and Olivia faced you with fierce looks of anticipation.

“Fine,” you sniffed, trying to scrape your shredded dignity off the floor, “Yes, I want to sit on his dick. Is that so wrong?”

“Oh, this is going to be good,” Olivia rubbed her palms together, grinning deviously, "I mean, we already know he's into you. Why can't you just say something to him?"

You looked at her like she had just spoken Latin backwards, "Have you seen him? He’s so sweet. I could ruin him.”

“I don’t think he’d even mind though,” Marlene sighed, gazing over at the boy in question.

Jordan snorted as you buried your head in your hands and audibly prayed for anyone out there to take pity on you.

"We're moving on to our next category, folks," the bar's sound system crackled to life, answering your prayers, "Harry Potter."

"Oh, fuck yeah," You and Marlene - resident Harry Potter dweebs - exchanged high fives. Finally, a category you could probably win with your mind functioning on minimal capacity.

"Question eleven: In the Goblet of Fire, who poses as Mad-Eye Moody, Harry's Defense Against the Dark Arts professor?"

"Barty Crouch," you and Marlene said, pausing for dramatic effect, "Junior."

You cracked up as Jordan and Olivia shook their heads. "I question our friendship every damn day," Olivia joked, gazing off into the metaphorical distance - aka at the wall.

"You love us, bitch-ass," Marlene aimed a kick in Olivia’s direction under the table.

You grinned at their antics and went to take a sip from your beer, only to discover it empty. "Another round?" You ask your friends, standing to head over to the bar.

"Yes, please," Jordan groaned, "Anything to make it through these next four questions."

"Anyone - besides Jordan - want another round?" You revised your original statement aloud.

"Wow, have I mentioned I love Harry Potter lately? Like, yes, ten points to Hogwarts, bitch," Olivia thrust her empty glass in the air.

"That's not even how House Points work, Liv," Marlene sighed, "Solid B- for effort."

You turned to leave. "Wait!" Jordan drew your attention back to your group, "Stick your ass out when you order. He'll be watching." He shot a quick glance in He Who Shall Not Be Named (Because You Don't Know It)'s direction. "Oh, wait. He already is. Go get 'em, Hedwig."

You inwardly screamed at the knowledge that you were being watched by the current focus of your attraction and decided not to comment before leaving.

"Hedwig?" You heard Marlene addressing Jordan as you walked away, "Did you mean Hermione? Hedwig is Harry’s fucking owl. RIP, by the way."

God, you loved your friends.

Arriving at the large wooden bar running the length of the room, you flagged down one of the bartenders and circled a finger in the air to indicate another round. You and your friends came often enough for most of the staff to know your orders by heart. It was awesome.

"Question twelve!" The sound jolted you upright. You hadn't noticed you were standing right next to one of the extra speakers the bar used for trivia. Idiot, you cursed yourself, why must you be like this?

"Why was the Whomping Willow planted?" Cringing again at the volume, you craned your neck and located Marlene, who gave you an affirmative nod of 'I got this, fam.'

"Here you go!" The bartender placed your drinks in front of you, "Same tab?"

"Yes, please," You nodded, attempting to smoothly grab all four drinks, "Thank you!"

"Need some help?" The sweetest voice you had ever heard in your life sounded from your left side. You slowly turned your head to face its source and was equally as stunned by the beautiful boy in front of you.

This was one of Dimples’ teammates - one of the Team Text Us, We're Single boys.

"Um," your brain resembled the scene from Spongebob where he forgot his name. Your eyes darted over the boy's shoulder in a deliberate attempt to avoid his cute scrunched eyes and wide smile. But, you were only faced with something even more devastating.

Six boys openly gaped at you from the back table. When you caught their eyes, three looked away, two grinned shamelessly, and one blushed right to the tips of his ears.

Cute. Your insides turned to mush over how adorable your Dimples was.

"They're the worst, right?” The boy in front of you commanded your attention once more, "So nosy. Now, let me help you. I'm Jimin, by the way, from Team Text--"

"Us, We're Single," you finished, "Yeah, you guys beat us the last two Thursdays. We had such a nice winning streak going, too."

"Well, if it makes you feel any better," Jimin smiled wide, "Most of us don't even care about trivia."

"That makes it even worse," you groaned, sliding two drinks his way, "I'm (y/n), from The Multiple--"

"Scoregasms," Jimin laughed, "Awesome name."

"Thanks!" Your confidence soared at his praise and you smiled genuinely, "It's some of my best work."

"Question thirteen!"

"Oh shit," Jimin muttered, "Let's go before I miss any more questions. Joon will have my ass on a platter."

You nodded, mind whirring to try to determine which team member this 'Joon' was. Maybe the intimidating-looking boy with the bleached blonde hair pushed back in a headband? Or the really muscular one in all black with the doe eyes and long brown hair?

"When Dumbledore and Harry first visit Horace Slughorn, what is he disguised as?"

At the question, you grabbed the two remaining drinks and head back to your table with Jimin following close behind. As soon as you began your journey, you rolled your eyes at the completely obvious way your friends were pretending they hadn’t been watching you and Jimin interact this entire time.

You had never seen them having such an animated conversation about... "Bagels are so good! I love how you can choose from so many different types, like cinnamon raisin, sesame, blueberry, honey wheat--"

"Hi," you forcefully placed the drinks down in front of your friends and succeeded in interrupting Marlene's riveting tirade about bagels, "This is Jimin. He was kind enough to help me."

"Hey, Jimin," Jordan eyed the boy appreciatively, "Decided to scope out the competition, huh?"

"Honestly, sort of," Jimin chuckled. Your eyes narrowed suspiciously, not liking the sly edge his grin took on in the slightest.

"Well, hopefully (y/n) didn't give much away," Olivia giggled, staring up at Jimin with heart eyes, "She's our team leader."

"Damn straight." You plopped back down in your chair, "Want to sit with us? We can grab an extra chair from a nearby table."

"Nah," Jimin glanced over his shoulder at where his teammates were probably still staring, "I should get back. Want to hang out after trivia though? We can merge tables!"

Before you could even answer, Marlene enthused, "Yes! That would be so fun. Don't you think, (y/n)?"

You gave her your most lethal side-eye, catching onto what seemed to be happening here, "Yes... so fun."

"Great!" Jimin ignored your dry tone, "Talk to you later then!"

You all watched as he sauntered away.

"Damn," Olivia sighed, "That boy is fine." You nodded sagely as your eyes stayed glued to Jimin's firm ass as he walked away in those tight jeans.

"So, what's the plan, team?" Jordan clapped, "We have T minus twenty minutes to get 'Operation Get (y/n) Dicked Down' up and running. Let's do this."

God, you hated your friends.

Twenty minutes later, your team had solidly lost. However, unlike the last two weeks, your loss did not come as a surprise or alongside any hard feelings. You four were too busy prepping to hang out with seven intimidatingly hot boys.

You were the only one not excited.

“And that concludes trivia for tonight, folks,” the bartender announced, “Team Text Us, We’re Single wins once again. Please come to the bar to collect your bar credits, lads.”

“Oh my god, okay, it’s happening,” Jordan bounced up and down in his seat as you all watched the bar start to clear out, “Stay calm. Stay fucking calm.”

“I don’t know how you have any room to call (y/n) and I nerds while you straight up quote The Office, Jord,” Marlene laughed.

“The Office is an Emmy award-winning show,” Jordan sniffed, “Come at me when Harry Potter wins a Pulitzer.”

“The Pulitzer is only for American authors,” Marlene cried.

“I rest my case,” Jordan lifted his glass.

“What?” Marlene yelped, “That makes literally no sense.”

“As much as I hate to interrupt this fascinating argument,” Olivia drawled, “We’re being summoned.”

You gulped, glancing behind you. Sure enough, Jimin was flagging you all down from across the bar, while a few of his teammates dragged over an empty table towards their own.

“Shit, I guess this is it,” you sighed.

“Jesus, you’re not going off to war, (y/n),” Jordan rolled his eyes, “You’re literally about to meet the your trivia daddy.”

“Please— and I cannot stress this enough,” you paused, “Never say that again.” With that, you stood, grabbing your drink and sauntering over towards Jimin with all the confidence you could possibly summon.

You heard your friends’ laughter behind you, and you discreetly flashed them the middle finger behind you back.

“Hey, Jimin,” you smiled at the boy as he greeted you and your friends.

“Hi, welcome!” His eyes were completely encompassed by his cheeks, and you internally screeched at his cuteness.

“This is Taehyung,” Jimin gestured to the curly-haired boy to his right. Taehyung greeted you all with a deep ‘Hi’ and a peace sign.

“Yoongi,” Jimin pointed towards the intimidating boy you noticed earlier with the bleached hair and the headband. Yoongi only nodded in your general vicinity as greeting.

“Hi, I’m Jin!” The stunningly handsome boy at the end of the table burst out, evidently unable to wait until he was introduced. Jin blew you all a kiss as his friends groaned.

“Please ignore him,” Jimin rolled his eyes before moving on, “Those two are Hoseok and Jungkook.” Jimin gestures towards the bar where two boys were collecting two pitchers of beer.

“And, last but not least, our trivia leader Namjoon,” Jimin’s grin turned devious as the boy in question raised his hand in greeting and ducked his head back down.

“Please sit,” Jimin gestured towards the scattered empty chairs amongst his group.

“(Y/n)!” Jin called suddenly, his arm flopping frantically in the air, “Come sit next to me!”

Your eyebrows shot all the way up as your heartbeat accelerated. Sitting next to Jin meant sitting next to Namjoon - your Dimples.

Nodding, you made your way over. It would be rude to refuse his request, and you could not help but wonder if Namjoon’s friends were also schemers.

You rounded the corner of the table and plopped down between the two boys. “H-hi,” you offered, eloquent as ever. You sipped your beer to cover up your burning embarrassment.

“Hi,” Jin grinned at you, “Thanks for joining us at the handsome end of the table.”

You choked on your beer, before cracking up, “The handsome end?” You loved this boy already and couldn’t resist the urge to tease him, “Oh, you meant Namjoon.” You shot the boy you just mentioned a sly smile as Jin spluttered.

Namjoon cocked his head slightly as he slowly broke into a shy smile, “Yeah, he definitely did, (y/n).”

Lord Almighty, the way he said your named almost sounded like a confession.

“Oh, this is insane, you fools!” Jin shook with incredulity, “I am worldwide handsome. Not Namjoon. Ugh, I need new friends.”

Jin stood and skulked over to the other side of the table as you all laughed. He was so extra, you could already tell. However, his antics had done wonders for your nerves.

Turning back to Namjoon, you leaned in closer, “Did he just make an Always Sunny reference? Or was that just me?”

Namjoon nodded, eyes glinting in amusement, “He did. You watch that show, too?”

Your conversation delved into your favorite shows, your favorite movies, your favorite meals. You felt like you had known Namjoon forever with how comfortable you already were with each other. Yet, you couldn’t help but notice how his eyes strayed to your lips every so often or how his hands crept closer to your thigh with every parting word.

The boy was into you. You were almost 85% sure of it. So, you decided to test him.

In the middle of Namjoon’s story about the time Jungkook almost burned down his apartment complex, you slid your hand over his. Namjoon paused, and you looked up innocently. He gulped and continued.

You smiled viciously on the inside. Your fingers played with his, intertwining with them, playing with his rings, brushing over his palm.

As Namjoon’s story drew to a close, you tugged his hand onto your thigh and released it. Nonchalantly, you picked up your beer and took a sip.

Shooting the boy a quick glance in your periphery, you found him staring openmouthed at his own hand encompassing your thigh. He gave your thigh a tentative squeeze, and you hummed in content. His eyes shot to yours.

“W-what are you doing?” Namjoon’s pupils were dilated as he blinked at you.

“I just wanted your hand on me, Joon,” you pouted, “You can take it off if you want.”

You moved to shift his hand off you, but his grip tightened. “I like having my hands on you, (y/n),” he said, his voice deeper than ever, “I also like you calling me ‘Joon’.”

“Two more things we can agree on,” you smiled at him, stomach full of butterflies and anticipation. Glancing around you, you realized that your friends were dispersed throughout the bar.

Marlene, Jordan, Hoseok, and Jungkook were dancing wildly in the middle of the bar’s tiny dance-floor. Jimin and Taehyung were bothering the DJ to presumably keep playing an assortment of random songs from the early 2000s. 

Olivia, Yoongi, and Jin sat at the bar, watching the others and laughing as Jungkook kept hitting the whoa no matter what song played. Currently, he was hitting the whoa to Baby Got Back.

Turning back to Namjoon, you find him looking at you with an unreadable expression.

“What?” you questioned, eyes searching his inquisitively.

He shoved a hand through his messy hair. “You’re so intimidating, (y/n). You’re so smart and beautiful, and it messes with my brain.”

“You’re intimidated by me?” You arched an eyebrow before smiling sweetly, “I promise I don’t bite… Unless you want me to.”

“I do,” he answered automatically. You both paused. His eyes widened comically, “F-forget I said that.”

“You want me to bite you, Joonie?” You sighed into his ear, relishing in his shiver, “You want me to mark your pretty skin?”

“Yes,” he breathed out.

“Okay,” your mouth descended to his neck, searching for a weak spot. His breath hitched as your mouth neared his thrumming pulse point. Bingo.

You placed an open-mouthed kiss onto his warm skin before sucking lightly. Namjoon moaned, shifting in his seat. 

You bit down, and his hips bucked instinctively. Pulling back slightly, you licked over the mark that was slowly blooming on his neck.

The clear imprint of your teeth on his neck had you grinning like a fool. You really wanted to own this cute, shy, intelligent boy.

You looked up at Namjoon. He was watching you with his puffy lips parted, his breathing hard. “Can I kiss you?” You asked, eyes focused on his. He nodded frantically, and your lips tugged up in a small smile.

Slowly, you inched your mouth closer towards his. Your breaths mingled. You pressed your lips to his gently and wrapped your arms around his neck.

You kept kissing Namjoon until you finally had to come up for air. Leaning your forehead against his, you locked eyes, breathing each other in.

“Can I sit on your lap, Joon?” You asked in between peppering kisses on his reddened cheeks.

After getting a nod in confirmation, you straddled his lap and returned your lips to his. The small part of your brain still thinking rationally reminded you that you were in a very public bar. The much larger and irrational part of your brain urged you on as your hips shamelessly grind onto Namjoon’s. The hardened cock that you felt through his jeans was too tempting. And, besides, exhibitionism was fun, right?

You bit down on Namjoon’s bottom lip, and he thrust against you.

You broke away and turned your head to the side, needing another moment to breathe. Namjoon began to kiss your neck, and you let out a small laugh as he nipped at your skin. He was marking you right back.

Namjoon lifted his head again as your lips parted. His face was inches away from yours. He stared at you like a starving man.

“Fuck, baby,” Namjoon said lowly, “I’m beginning to think you might be the devil, because you just snatched my soul.”

You stared at him. “That was so goddamned cheesy.” Your giggles made him turn an interesting shade of maroon.

“I knew I shouldn’t have listened to Jin-hyung,” you heard him mutter before you captured his lips once more.

As you kissed, his fingers slowly inched downwards, caressing you. You decided then and there that you would have this boy.

“Undo my jeans,” you commanded after pulling away from his mouth. His eager fingers dropped to your zipper, fumbling in their haste. Once your jeans were undone, you felt him hesitate. You instructed him, “I need your fingers.”

He thrust a finger into you. “Mm, Joon,” you dropped your head into the crevice of his neck as he pumped another one in, stretching you. His fingers curled inside you, as you shifted your hips.

“Rub my clit,” You demanded, and he pulled his fingers out and circled it immediately. You moaned at both the new sensation and at the loss of his fingers inside you. “Keep your fingers in me, use your thumb.” You gripped onto the back of his head, pulling on his hair in punishment.

His fingers thrust back into you without warning as his thumb circled your clit. You felt yourself clenching around him, so close to coming just from his hands. Still, you needed more. You were definitely a greedy bitch.

You pulled his hand from your pants, and he stared at his fingers, which were sticky with you. You watched enraptured as he lifted his wet fingers to his lips and sucked.

His eyes widened, “Fuck, (y/n), you taste so good. You have to let me eat you out. You need to let me put my head between your thighs. Please.”

“Bathroom,” you gasped out, “Now.” You shimmied off of Namjoon’s lap and onto shaky legs.

“Follow me in one minute,” you kissed his cheek and tried your best to casually make your way to the bathroom. However, you were pretty sure you had already blown all efforts to be casual as soon as you sat on Namjoon.

Finally, you entered the empty single-stall bathroom and let out a sigh of relief.

Two seconds later, a knock sounded. You barely opened the door wide enough before Namjoon was all over you. His hands gripped your ass as he backed you against the wall next to the sink.

He gazed down at you with hooded eyes, “You still want this, right?”

“Yes, Joon,” you leaned up to kiss him one more time.

Namjoon sank to his knees before you.

You audibly moaned at the sight. Quickly, you tugged your jeans down your legs and kicked them to the side. Your underwear followed suit.

Namjoon cursed lowly as you lifted a leg onto the ledge of the sink, baring everything to him. “Well,” you smirked, “You wanted to put that smart mouth on me.”

“You are going to kill me,” he muttered. His hot mouth closed over your clit. Parting your lips, he caressed you as he sucked and licked. His fingers thrust into you once more, pulling out slowly then pummeling back in.

“Harder,” you moaned. He fucked you faster, adding another finger, stretching you.

He pulled his mouth away from you, his lips swollen and pink. “How the fuck can you taste this good?” He panted as he carried on fucking you with his fingers, grabbing at your ass with his free hand.

His mouth returned to your pussy, circling your clit with his tongue and moaning against it. His fingers continued to push into you relentlessly.

You felt your toes curl as your orgasm approached at a maddening rate. “J-Joon,” you cried his name, your back arching as the pleasure built up with each stroke of his tongue and movement of his fingers.

Without warning, he sucked on your clit harshly, and you came, clenching around his fingers. Namjoon continued to pump them in and out of you, carrying you through your orgasm. He licked your pussy, lapping up everything you gave him with his tongue. After a bit, your fingers wound into his hair and pulled. “Stop,” you begged, legs shaking with overstimulation.

He pulled back immediately and lifted his head, looking thoroughly fucked-out. His lips were more swollen than ever. His hair was a tangled mess. You had never seen anything better. “God, you look so sexy right now,” you mused, reaching a hand to stroke at his cheek.

“Are you guys finally done in there?” You cringed as Jordan’s amused voice shouted at you through the bathroom door, “You have work tomorrow, (y/n).”

“Jesus H. Christ, Jordan! Go away!” You screamed back at your infuriating roommate.

“…I’m going to take that as a ‘yes’,” he replied, laughing, “See you out there, champ.”

“I’m going to murder him,” you seethed, accepting your jeans from Namjoon who held them silently out to you.

You scanned the floor of the bathroom, “Wait, where’s my underwear?”

Namjoon’s cheeks flooded with color as he lifted a hand to rub at the back of his neck, “I needed some form of reminder of tonight.”

You shrugged, giggling as you tugged on your jeans, “Let’s make a trade.”

“I’m listening,” he grinned, goddamned dimples popping out and making you want to kiss him forever.

“You keep my panties; I keep you,” you grinned back at him.

He blinked rapidly, “Keep me?” You nodded, nerves erupting. Had you misread the situation? Did he just want this to be a one-time thing? Shit, had you royally fucked this up already?

He kissed you suddenly, and you relaxed.

“Please keep me,” he mumbled, “I’m a mess, but I can be your mess if you’d let me.”

“We can be messy together,” you gripped his hand in yours, “Now, come on. We have to go face our friends.”

Namjoon gulped, looking rightfully terrified at that prospect. “Or we could sneak out the back?”

A smirk wound its way onto your face, “I really do like the way you think, Joonie. Let’s go.”

With that, the two of you snuck out of the bathroom and out the backdoor of the bar.

“I knew it!” Marlene and Jimin greeted the two of you with triumphant fists thrust high in the air. Jimin whipped his phone out before you or Namjoon could even say a word. “Hey, hyung? Yeah. They’re out here.”

Ignoring the gloating pair, you turned to Namjoon, “We could still make a run for it?”

He met your eyes; and, without a word, you both took off.

Shouts of your names followed you down the dark alley as you both cracked up. This was definitely not how you had pictured your typical Thursday trivia night to go down, but you were not disappointed. No, you shot the boy running beside you an affectionate look, you weren’t disappointed at all.

© luxekook. please do not repost, modify, edit or translate.

[hillnerd]

Hi :) ! Ron is my favourite character ever, and I think he's a very empathetic and sensitive person, but one moment in the books has always bugged me : why didn't Ron react as strongly as Harry and Hermione when they met Rita Skeeter in GoF (who had just written that Hagridwas a half-giant), why didn't he say anything to Hagrid ? Do you have an explanation ? I need your help 🥺 !

Ron and Hermione reacted exactly the same to the initial news: 

He didn’t react as strongly as Harry, as Harry is very sentimental for Hagrid. Hermione was a bit hemming and hawing about his teaching abilities, and Ron just silently supported Harry and went to go help the trio find Hagrid, who was missing.

Later at the pub, it’s a very short confrontation- but Ron IS more subdued that the other two. I think this is for a few reasons. 1) JKR doesn’t want Ron getting attention, so even if this moment seems OOC it’s worth it to her so that he continues to be ignored. He would be on Skeeter’s radar if he made a stink. 2) Ron is aware of the clout Skeeter has compared to Harry and Hermione. He is more aware of the danger of the reporter - he’s aware on a much more visceral level what Skeeter is capable of, and how famous she is, and how people (like his mother) believe what she says.

3) Ron houses some internal biases about Giants. Much like with elves and werewolves, he starts off with some slight biases that he was introduced to societally. He learns and changes on things. ‘It doesn’t matter if you’re half-giant’ means nothing to Ron. It DOES matter, like it or not. It doesn’t change his opinion on Hagrid- Ron implies right there he doesn’t care -but it IS a thing and he’s not about to deny it. 

The problem here, bookwise, is JKR does NOTHING to make Giants seems ‘safe’ in these books. It’s the same with almost ALL the creatures. She has them preach ‘elves should be treated as equal, goblins too, giants are mistreated, werewolves are innocent victims!’ but then goes around and has elves show little mind of their own outside of Dobby the outlier (Kreacher might not be ‘evil’ later on, but he’s still very much an ‘uncle tom’-type who just looooves being enslaved, goblins DO betray Harry and are cruel to dragons, giants are dumb and dangerous (Grawp scenes are funny, but again he’s the ONE OUTLIER while the other giants have all joined you-know-who), and werewolves have Lupin as the ONE example of ‘good werewolf’ with FENRIR  as the only other example who is basically a deranged canibalistic? evil pedophilic? murdering rapey? monster.

The books have TOKEN characters to prove SOME of the biases are wrong or ignorant, but eh. That’s where it falls flat.   

4) Harry and Hermione are ignorant of what ‘being half-giant’ means in their society. 

They are quick to say ‘IT DOESN’T MATTER.’ But it DOES matter. ‘I don’t care if you’re half-giant’- yeah great- BUT HE IS. And he WILL face ‘creaturism’ for it. This heavily impacts Hagrid’s life and they aren’t able/willing to admit ‘oh, this will impact your life and you will be facing prejudice.’ They are YELLING about how ‘this doesn’t matter!!!’ And hey, good on them- but it’s a LOT easier to do that when you know NOTHING of the bigotry those people face, what they will be facing, what society is. Hermione says ‘Hagrid shouldn’t care.’ Uh, ok hermione. 

 For a VERY VERY sloppy metaphor that people might slap me for- If someone outs someone as being bi in a rural mostly homophobic school - and they get people screaming IT DOESN’T MATTER- on some level that feels good and is a good thing- but for the bi person in that situation it’s not necessarily going to help them? It doesn’t recognize that identity of being bi, or that ‘yeah, it DOES matter- because I am in a society that has horrible biases, stereotypes and bigotry surrounding my identity. Now that I am out, I am going to have to face that bigotry HEAD ON, while before I’ve been able to avoid it. It’s MY background and one I wasn’t comfortable with sharing.’ Ron, in this scenario, would be someone who grew up in a ‘liberal/tolerant family, that still lives in the sticks and is rural and has moments where they aren’t as instinctually woke as they could be. Ron is a good ally to a lot of groups- and is SUPER woke in some ways (blood purity- AMAZINGLY WOKE!), but has to work on his woke-ness with other groups (elves, werewolves, giants) and isn’t comfortable being a loud and proud ally like Hermione and Harry are at that point. Dean is another muggleborn who in book 5 is very pro-Lupin very vocally to Umbridge- I think JKR sort of uses muggleborns/muggleraised as ‘the most WOKE’ ones a lot- and hey it’s fine- but it can be a bit overdone at times.

5) Ron keeps his head down with adults a LOT. Ron is a good bean who keeps his head down more than Hermione and Harry a LOT in the series, actually. He may be the tough fighter/talker at times, but around adults Ron rarely talks back much beyond Snape (when snape is hurting his friends), villains outright trying to kill people (Lockhart, Sirius in the shack, Bellatrix, Voldemort) and a bit with his Mum about chores. Harry talks back to everyone ever, and Hermione is also very ‘AUGH! SOCIAL JUSTICE WARRIOR- I’M RIGHT YOU’RE WRONG’ but Ron is not like that.

[moon-forest-princess]

An In-depth Elven perspective on Mind Power Subliminals (p1)

I felt lead to talk about the controversial subliminal creator known as Mind Power. This is a post to address anyone who may have been curious about the Elven Light Path but was turned off to it by Mind Power herself. Even if this post just helps one, that is a great thing. I also have suggestions for alterative Elven subs you can use and other resources! If you want them, just lemme know!

(sorry for the length of this, it ended up being WAAAAAY longer than I wanted it to be, so I split it in two parts! I wanted to fully address her actions that I've seen, from my perspective as an Elven soul).

TL;DR -- Mind Power seems to be a shady person who speaks with self-assumed authority about a people she is not a part of, because (as far as I can tell) she wants a bunch of devoted followers at her whim. But she does NOT speak for the collective.

-- If you are unfamiliar with what subliminals are, they are essentially a psychological tool to help you achieve goals for yourself. They are videos with silent or quiet affirmations covered by music. Creators of these videos typically post their subliminals to Youtube. I wrote about them a bit more in my last post here, but there is also another explanation here.

-- If you are unfamiliar with the Elven Light Path.... this is living as an Elven Soul. It's more than just a physical/fashion aesthetic. It is taking on the thoughts, lifestyle, mindsets, and wisdom of the Elves. It is NOT a religion or cult. It is appreciating the beauty of this world through the visions of the next. While most who follow this Path are spiritually awakened to their Elven higher selves, non-Elf identified souls may freely follow this path as well.

SO....I've been using subs actively for about 2 months, but have been using them on and off for the past yearish. In this time, I had heard of two controversial sub creators who have since left the community: Rose Subliminals and Mind Power.

I had never "researched" much about them but had been hearing more news about Rose and her actions since there were some more recent developments this year with her. There's a gaggle of YouTube videos meant to 'expose' both these channels, but I take them with a grain of salt. While I don't necessarily doubt the allegations, many of the videos seem to lean on common conspiracy theories (eg, illuminati) and mystical suggestions for entertainment, based on some serious claims vs just looking at the situation for what it might be at its bare bones. I just go by screenshot conversations from the actual accused and whatnot. Regardless, a number of people claimed to have had a bad experience with Mind Power's videos (from general discomfort to claims of hospital visits) and also claimed that she was "not a good person" and also that she "wanted to control everyone" (in her own words).

--

As I was looking through Google images for the thumbnail pic that I used in that previous post I linked above, I came across THIS image:

And it piqued my interest. I had missed the entire Mind Power saga. I was not really active and paying attention in the subliminal community until very recently so I wasn't actively around when Mind Power had her videos still up.

Clicking the image link here, it led to a blog post. Originally when I read the post I thought the best possible thing: that maybe she was working with someone and knew they were putting negative things in their affirmations and was trying a tactic to scare away people from using them. Then I read more of her posts and realized she was being serious. So then I thought, the next 'best' thing: There are kids/young teens in the sub community and maybe a lot of the comments on her videos her these younger users who just didn't quite understand the Elven Light Path and she was fussing about it. But no.. the truth is much worse.

--

So, I had no idea that (a lot of) her channel focus was apparently on the Elven Light Path--the path I walk--until I came across this blog post...but right away I could tell her perception of this spiritual and lifestyle path was severely skewed.

From what I can gather from her blog, Mind Power (AKA Asherah Aphrodite) is what some on this site might call godkin (Idk if she'd identify that way... probably not). She claims to have been offering the traits and powers of the Elves through her videos to help "turn humans into elves". With secret powers and gifts FROM the Elves.

To quote her directly, here is a small paragraph about using Elven subliminals from the article that Legolas meme image accompanies:

"This is completely changing from human to Elf. This is Elven immortality. This is being part of the Elven family. This is giving up your humanity. Do not use the Elf series unless you are serious about the Elven path. We would much rather have less people using the Elf series. It would be fine if only a few of you used it because we would be a more solid and dedicated tribe. Don't mess with them. They are not tolerant and forgiving towards humans who disrespect them. Have you read the folklore stories of what they do to humans they don't like?"

After reading this, I realized she was simply outside trying to define a group she doesn't even understand.

Yes, the Elven Light Path is a real lifestyle that goes beyond just dressing elven and being obsessed with LotR, but for many, that is how it starts. And that is more than okay! All journeys must start somewhere. If someone DESIRES to be elven and actively seeks out these sort of videos, it is a sign that they already have a connection to the Elven and Fae.

In truth, we elves would ALWAYS rather have MORE people walking the Elven path, than LESS. Even those who do not identify as elven themselves. We are not a closed club or sorority group that has to audition only the "best of the best" to be accepted in our little exclusive "tribe" as she calls it.

The Elven Path is a path for every and anyone, all who wish to explore it. It is simply about living and seeing life through the eyes of the Elven and connecting with your Elven self. The more you follow this path, the more you become aligned with Elven energy. Being Elven is NOT "giving up your humanity". It is heightening it. Elevating it. Elves are humans. Humans are Elves. There is an innate connection that only differs in frequencies, spiritual maturity levels, and physical form. Those of us who have become awakened to our higher Elven selves and claim to be Elven Souls only recognize this truth and strive to live it. But we are still human and recognize this as well. Regarding her point in the first quote about Elves not being "tolerant and forgiving toward humans who disrespect them" while, this is certainly not an exaggeration, it is not the only truth. Yes, many people have had contact with dark or demonic energies that show their wrath toward humanity, and these people record this experience through fear and lack of understanding, often as a Fae or Elven encounter. I mean, it's like when you're a kid experiencing your first thunderstorms. You may be terribly frightened of them and hate them.. but once you learn what thunderstorms are, what their purpose is, how they work, and the actual threat level.. you realize that, while the fear is valid, it is not needed. Once you understand, you are no longer afraid. Or at least, you know you don't have to be as afraid as you were. The same goes for adults who have experiences with the supernatural and no way to explain or interpret it. Human nature has the flight or fight instinct and this is grounded in fear to maintain survival. But with wisdom and understanding, we combat this instinct. Also.. I gotta point out that many stories about Fae and Elves in history are simply just... works of fiction meant to scare children or entertain adults (but often inspired by Elven/Fae energies).

////

PART 2 HERE

[maryjanewrites]

Story Time Part 1

Rating: G

Fandom: The Avengers

Characters: Tony Stark, Loki, Thor, Steve Rogers, Natasha Romanoff, Vision, Wanda Maximoff, Bucky Barnes, Sam Wilson.

__________

Present time

Flashbacks

—————

The world had seem to stop, everyone was inside their homes, only reason why people were outside was to do groceries.

Everything was done, there’s was nothing else, and everyone was just laying down the common area of the compound.

“Hey sweets” Tony asked the newest member of the avengers “why do you call Thor your brother? Since the moment he brought you, you two have been referring to the other one as sibling.”

“Oh, that’s cause he might as well be” she just replied nonchalantly “we did grew up together”

“Did you?” Now was Steve’s turn to ask.

“Yeah,” she nodded “when we were little Thor, Loki, and I were always together” she looked around and could see that now the whole team was paying attention. “If you are willing to wait for them to get here, I’ll tell the whole story” she added.

“Oh c’mon doll” groaned Bucky “this is probably the only story I actually want to hear”

“And I will tell you, I just want Thor and Loki here so they can fill in on whatever I might’ve forgotten” she insisted.

“They’ll be here in a second” said Peter “I just texted Thor”

She smiled and got some water while she waited for the 2 people she considered family to get to the room, as she did that, the rest of the team settled the chairs, sofas, and puffs into a circle. Finally both gods arrived.

“My friends” said Thor gleefully “why are we gathering here?”

“Cause Sabrina over there wouldn’t tell us a story unless both of you were here” answered Tony.

“If you’re gonna give me a nickname after a witch, can it please be an adult?” She muttered

“Ok then, Bellatrix” to giggled

“I walked, right into that one” she said and Tony nodded.

“So what story are you telling us today darling?” Asked Loki as he sat down next to his best friend.

“Why how we met, and our childhood together, of course” she winked at him. “I think they should know everything”

“I don’t think that’s wise” Loki stated

“I for once agree with my sister” said Thor “I think it’s time for them to know”

“Okay now I really want to know” said Sam.

Loki sighed and made popcorn appeared on the middle of the circle, alongside some drinks, and various ships, this was going to be a long story.

“As all of you know, I’ve known these 2 my whole life. It all started when we were kids” she said smiling “when I was the princess of Vanaheim”

“Vanaheim?” Asked Wanda

“Yes, there are 9 realms; Elfheim, that’s where the light elves live, Muspelheim beings made of fire, and I believe Thor defeated its king” Thor nodded very proudly “Svartalheim, dwarves, Nifelheim, not much there just ice and a dragon, Helheim, the dead, Midgard that’s here Earth, there’s Jotunheim where Loki is from originally,” Loki rolled his eyes at the name of the place “Asgard home of the Aesir just like Thor, and where we grew up, and lastly Vanaheim, home of the Vanir, that’d be me”

“What’s the difference from people of Asgard to the people of Vanaheim?” Asked Peter.

“Not much” Loki replied this time “we live about the same amount of time, and have the same advances in technology and magic, clothes are slightly similar as well, but the Vanir value Magic and Mind more than fighting and force”

“So culture is the main difference then” stated more to herself than to the group.

“Yup” the goddess responded “but since I was royalty, I was sent to Asgard to study there with the princes.” She smiled “and eventually, marry one of them” she added.

“Wait, hold on” coughed Sam as he almost chocked on his drink “marry?”

“Yeah, it was like an arrangement, I was to marry either Thor or Loki when we were of age, to completely unify the realms” she nodded “but stuff happened and that was put on hold and well, no one really knows anymore” she looked at her cup “anyways, our childhood was fun, we would get in a lot of trouble, all the time”

The day was bright and the girl, and two boys were running alongside the halls of the Asgardian palace.

“Thor! Stop!!” Yelled a very tired Loki “we can’t keep up”

“My room is right there, and we gotta hide before they see the vase is broken” he said as he took his brother and best friend hands and pulled them with him to his room”

“Thor we’re gonna get in trouble” complained the girl.

“Not if we stay here” he said giving his best puppy eyes.

“Fine, but just because you’re my brother”

[kitkatopinions]

To be fair heroes overcoming great odds isn't unheard of and I don't expect Salem to literally win outright and end the show this volume (now THAT would be unexpected). However, that doesn't mean they can build up Salem like this and then have her fail while causing minimal no name casualties. I really wanted her to kill off at least 1/4 of the named cast. That would show the survivors though she might have been defeated, there were serious consequences to their screw ups and Salem is dangerous.

I absolutely agree with this.

Let’s look at the Fall of Beacon as an example of how the heroes overcame great odds and the bad guys didn’t win outright, but there were still plenty of casualties, the losses were significant, and the main characters had things they needed to learn from. Not only were the main cast dealing with hordes of Grimm and all the villains that have been established so far at once, the city was also overrun with Grimm, the White Fang was attacking, and the Atlas robots that were meant to protect everyone got hacked and turned against people, and then a massive and clearly very powerful Grimm got released as well, while Cinder claimed the second half of the Fall Maiden powers. These were massively hard to beat odds. And funnily enough, many of the problems got taken out without much victory from the main characters. Roman was eaten by a bird and the crashing ship cut off the signal to the Atlas robots, Blake was running from Adam and he just didn’t chase her, Cinder and the dragon Grimm were both taken out by Ruby discovering her silver eyes, which were a suddenly introduced magic power.

There are two things that made the Fall of Beacon still much more significant than the battle at Atlas. Number one is effort. Everyone was desperate and scrambling to help, everyone was seen fighting off Grimm and the Atlas robots throughout the whole of the Fall, everyone ended the battle exhausted or wounded. The only people who were making quips were the longtime hunters and inner circle members who had seen all kinds of battle before like Qrow, and only in moments of temporary reprieve. Before Roman got swallowed by a bird, Ruby had spent time fighting him and Neo in an effort to stop him from shooting down other ships. It doesn’t feel like she did nothing to earn a victory, because she was distracting Roman and trying to save people and clearly was fighting as hard as she could. Roman even being out of the cockpit in order to be eaten was a direct result of Ruby’s actions. Blake escaping didn’t feel like Adam just let her go without a fight because they did have a fight, Blake put in a lot of work for it. When Blake ran away and Adam didn’t go after her, it didn’t feel like Blake did nothing to earn it because she fought him for a time despite her trauma, pushed down the pain of her injury, and used cleverness to get some distance between them. The second thing that made the Fall of Beacon still feel more significant than Atlas was loss. They were in a situation where it was impossible to save everything and everyone, and the writing reflected that. Ironwood lost a lot of resources, the school had to shut down, there was a ton of property damage, but those are all smaller stakes. What really hit was the injuries and the deaths. Penny’s death started the whole thing, and whether or not she’s back now, she literally was dismembered on screen, leading the audience to be shocked, emotional, sad, and to know this is serious. In the fight against Adam, Yang lost her arm, which was something that her character dealt with the fallout of for the next three seasons. Roman was a villain, but Roman died as a causality to the Grimm despite being on Cinder’s side, which proved just how dangerous the Grimm were to everyone and that no character was safe. We didn’t see many civilians die, but it was obvious that they had to have died.

And then there was Cinder and the dragon Grimm. Ruby triggered her silver eyes for the first time accidentally and took out Cinder and the dragon Grimm at once without even meaning to or fighting Cinder at all. But it still felt earned and significant. Partly because Ruby didn’t know she could do this, so it wasn’t a ‘why didn’t you just use this earlier?’ moment, it wasn’t a ‘so you’ve been sitting on this power for what reason?’ moment. Partly because it came at a cost and directly after the loss of Pyrrha, another emotional loss for both the characters and the fanbase - and a main character. When I was watching this scene, I wasn’t worried about small details because a main character had just had an on-screen death! And Ruby’s emotional reaction, freezing for a second and then screaming Pyrrha’s name was impactful. The cost of Ruby acquiring this new sudden power was Pyrrha’s death, so it didn’t feel unearned for Ruby to use it. And then it clearly took a lot of her, the consequence of acquiring her power was passing out for at least days, likely weeks. The other reason why this scene in particular didn’t feel like a deus ex machina was because it didn’t solve the problems before they could start. They already lost Penny, they already lost Pyrrha, they already lost Ozpin, Yang already lost her arm, Blake already had her trauma reignited and felt like she had to run, the city had already been over-run, civilians had died, the school had already fallen. Ruby’s silver eyes stopped Cinder from continuing and stopped the largest and most dangerous Grimm in its tracks, but it wasn’t a fix. They triumphed, technically. They had stopped Cinder for the moment, taken out the largest Grimm, saved a lot of people, stopped the Atlas robots... But there was still massive cost.

Of course, it doesn’t have to even be that big. Although I’d have preferred it, the kingdom doesn’t have to fall, the school doesn’t have to go down, no main characters need to die. I can’t think of a good example in RWBY, but let’s talk about a part in the Lord of the Rings movies, Helms Deep. The people of Rohan holed up in a fortress to try and outlast the armies of orcs attacking them, but they had already lost a strong number of (nameless, characterless) fighters. So they started pulling mostly nameless and characterless children and elderly men from the civilians to fight to save their people (yes, it’s incredibly stupid that there were able bodied adult women literally asking to fight that aren’t allowed, but we’re not talking about that.) Our hero, Aragorn got in a fight with Legolas where they made it very clear that they both knew that all of these kids and elderly people would die and that if they fought, they’d likely die too. A group of elves came to join in their desperate last stand, and during the large fight, a side character elf from the last movie died brutally, on screen, while Aragorn yelled and fought to try to get to him and held him in his arms as he passed away. Later on, we saw very few live soldiers trying to barricade what seemed to be the last door between the Orcs and the civilians hiding in the caves. The king, Théoden, seemed to have lost all hope, but Aragorn talked him into trying to make one last stand to give the civilians a chance to escape and Theoden clearly thought they were riding to their deaths. Gandalf arrived conveniently just in time with an army of more Rohan soldiers (previously exiled) and turned the tide of the battle. The people of Rohan survived, Rohan itself survived and could start recovering, none of the (very capable of fighting) women or children younger than seemingly thirteen were lost, none of our main characters died or even seemed to obtain severe injuries, and not too long after that, Rohan threw a party. The only named character we know we lost was a side character who we didn’t have a lot of time to get attached to. But this still seemed like a well earned and hard fought victory, where the stakes had been incredibly high.

The Battle at Atlas is completely empty. We didn’t lose anyone other than Hazel, who was killed by his own boss (iirc.) Three of our four main protagonists spent episodes sitting around doing nothing. JRY interjected quips and fun times into even serious moments (like Oscar being kidnapped by the Hound.) The only losses we received were nameless and characterless soldiers that the writing clearly doesn’t want us to really feel for. Ruby’s silver eyes haven’t come at a cost for seasons and have just been an easy way to get rid of Grimm before they can do much damage, which is exactly what happens with the Hound. Ironwood, a villain, is the one who keeps Salem back for episodes, and then Oz just pulls a sudden power out of nowhere to get rid of the whale and temporarily remove Salem from the picture with very little effort and zero consequences. No civilians die, no main characters die, everyone is fine, only Nora is even injured and she still seems mostly fine and like she’s already well on her way to recovery. It’s so disappointing, really. They gave us endless stakes and then had next to nothing come of it. I honestly don’t know if their writing could get any sloppier.

[starship-squidlet]

Twelfth Night: Chapter Eleven, Pipers Piping

Summary: Back to work after Christmas! Things are a little tense, but everyone is just ready for the show to end...

Word count: 1,722

Disclaimer: Twelfth Night Preface

Tag list: @the-cowbi @prettyinlimegreenboots @fifty-for-the-racer @aggressive-bucky-barnes-stan (ask to be added/removed!)

A/N: Second to last chapter! This story has flown by so fast... I’m going to post the preface to the next story (The Green Fields of France, which will start posting 1/14 probably) I’m working on either tonight or tomorrow, so if you’re interested in being tagged in that please let me know!!! The sequel to Twelfth Night, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, will becoming at some point towards the end of February/early March, so keep an eye out for that as well!!! (Also coming soon: Space Pirates AU, and the New Music spinoff #2 and sequel!) Feel free to reach out and chat if you’re interested in knowing more about any of those, or if you want to be tagged when they’re posted!!!

Anyways, I hope this chapter isn’t too boring! It’s a lot of exposition and internal monologue because... at this point in a show... that’s about all you feel like doing 😂

Joke of the Day: What’s black and white and black and white and black and white and black and white and black and white? A penguin rolling down a hil!!!

Previous chapter: Lords A-Leaping

Next chapter: Drummers Drumming

No-one wanted to go to work on the twenty-sixth. Since Christmas Day had been so drowsy, they’d all had a hard time sleeping that night, so dragging themselves out of bed to get ready for work had been challenging. There was no lack of envy for Will, Alden, and Alan, who didn’t have to be in until two hours later than the others, although they still got up at the same time in a show of solidarity. Jack, Crutchie, and Elaine had to drag themselves down the block to the parking lot, almost completely silent save for the odd yawn or wordless grumble that escaped as they drove to the theatre. Inside, everyone else was just as still and quiet as they were—a “Christmas hangover”, as Race put it.

Jack moved through his pre-show preparations like he was moving through soup. Everything seemed more difficult than it should be, even simple things like rolling the cart-mounted carousel horses across the wagon house or rigging the carnival games. Elaine trudged through the wagon house, dragging the z-rack full of freshly-pressed dress shirts and scowling as the first performers began to arrive and fill the wagon house with their chatter—although even they weren’t as loud as normal. Not that anyone on the crew was complaining about that.

The only group that had even close to its normal level of energy was the child and teenage performers, who burst through the door in small packs, each one its own explosion of noise and color and force. Behind one of the little groups—the one containing one Leslie Jacobs—Jack had to hide a grin at the sight of an utterly exhausted-looking Davey Jacobs. When Davey caught sight of Jack, he perked up and smiled, giving the other man a small wave, before vanishing into the stairwell. A few minutes later, he was back, and sat down next to Jack on the bench by the stage right door with a sigh.

“How was your break?” Jack laughed.

“Well, we kind of crammed everything about Hanukkah—besides the candles; we did those during Hanukkah, but didn’t have time for anything else between working and finals and everything—into the past three days, and spent a lot of time on video chat with our parents. They wanted to come home, but decided it was probably best to just wait until the show closed because a lot of the time a second round of sick goes through in the last week just because everyone’s exhausted.”

“Great,” Jack groaned.

They watched Albert and Elaine walk past and pointedly ignore each other. Both of them arched their eyebrows at the odd interaction—or, rather, lack thereof—and watched the two head their separate directions.

“That was weird,” Davey observed.

“Yeah… I’m not really sure what it’s about. They were fine earlier.” Jack looked around and waved JoJo over. “Hey, what’s up with Albert and Elaine.”

JoJo shrugged. “Who knows. We’re all exhausted. They always fight when they’re tired. It’s probably nothing.”

Before the break, Jack had thought that the final Sunday’s show had been the slowest of the run. He had been wrong. The first show back was the slowest one—literally and figuratively; not only did it feel like it was dragging on, but, upon checking the time on his phone (repeatedly) he realized that was actually taking longer than normal to get through the show.

“Does the music sound slower to you?” he asked Race and Albert at one point as they moved the stage right house into place for a scene.

“Definitely,” Race grumbled.

“Even the band is out of patience with the show,” said Albert.

The second act, despite the high-energy start with the dancing and singing elves, things seemed to get even slower. From Race’s headset, Jack could hear the stage manager complaining about the lack of energy and speed—very loudly—and had to laugh. There was nothing to be done about it, after all.

The second show wasn’t much better, although the tempo picked up a little bit. They were still a few minutes longer than their normal run time, but had halved the amount of time that the day’s first show ran over.

For the rest of the week, things slowly moved closer and closer to normal. Everyone was still quiet and a bit lackluster, but the onstage energy picked up considerably the more shows they did—and the closer to closing they got. No-one ever figured out why Elaine and Albert were mad at each other, and Jack had a sneaking suspicion even the two of them wouldn’t have been able to answer if asked, but they were back to their normal scheming selves in a few days. Jack and Race decided to thank Mike, Ike, and JoJo for that, as another snowball war had been started—although this one was a stealth version that involved sneaking up on people before, after, and between shows; during intermissions; and even during lulls in the shows themselves and snipe-shotting one’s opponent with one of the little stuffed snowballs. Elaine always had a snow-puff in one of her apron pockets, and Albert kept at least one in the cargo pockets of his pants at all times. Jack guessed that Mike, Ike, JoJo, and Romeo—who was drawn into the war a little later—kept them on their persons most of the time as well. He never quite got used to the sight of fist-sized balls of fluff flying past his face in the middle of carrying props across the wagon house, usually followed by a startled yelp.

To everyone’s surprise, Elaine was the best participant in the war, and, when they were scolded by Weisel and called the competition off, she was declared MVP. Despite self-professed bad aim and poor depth perception—which the others could confirm, as other accuracy-based games that were played amongst the crew had illustrated her poor performance in these categories over the past months—she was scarily accurate with the light snow-puffs. It became common for her opponents to be in the middle of a conversation only to have a small ball of fiberfill and faux fur hit them in the back or head and to see a giggling, grinning Elaine dart around a corner or into a stairwell on the far side of the wagon house.

As they counted down to their final show, it was almost like everyone’s breath was held at the same time. The shows started to get faster now, and the protests by the stage manager over headset became pleas to slow down rather than speed up. Even the dancers commented on the increase in tempo, coming off from the tap number and elf sections breathless, sweaty, and laughing. A new energy seemed to be building up amongst both cast and crew, and Jack felt himself getting caught up in it without even noticing, the sort of energy that came with a storm on the horizon, with a wave about to crest in the ocean—with any sort of impending change.

Yet, with that nervous energy came an odd undercurrent of sorrow. As awful as so many of the parts of the show and its run had felt, as draining as the experience had been, as much as Jack wanted to be able to take a few days and just sleep—even though he knew that half of January was packed full of concerts and tours so he wouldn’t be able to do so for long—he was sad to see the show ending. Les Mis hadn’t felt like this, at least not that he could remember. He had felt ambivalent to tear that set apart after the final show, and happy to run his track for the final time. He wasn’t sure if it was because he had spent more time and energy working on the Christmas build, or just because he had grown so much more attached to the people he worked (and lived) with during this run, but he was truly sorry to see it go.

December 29th, 2019 was the second-to-last night of shows. Most of the performers spent more time than usual in the dressing rooms after the show, collecting personal belongings to take home with them. Many of them would be leaving the city or even state the next day, after the final show, heading for jobs at other theatres, as most of them weren’t permanent residents—the exceptions being two of the male singers, along with Alan, Alden, Will, and the show captain—of Santa Fe. One of the kid casts had had their final show the day before and had said tearful goodbyes to the adult cast members, each other, and even some of the crew. Some of them had returned tonight to see some of their friends on the other cast, and another round of tears went through the wagon house. Tonight’s kids cast had laid out their show t-shirts on the wagon house carpet and asked everyone to sign them. To his surprise, even Jack had been asked to sign several, and had reluctantly given in and done so.

Another reason that the ending of the show was particularly bittersweet, for Jack and his roommates, was that Will had told them, a few weeks earlier, that he would be moving back home to London in January, after accepting a job there. Despite jokes about having more space in the apartment and one less person to share the bathroom with, everyone was sad to see him leave, even Jack and Crutchie, despite only having known him for a few months. As the penultimate show drew to a close, Jack couldn’t help but notice Alan, Alden, and Elaine’s misty eyes as they prepared to say goodbye to their long-time friend and partner. He swallowed a lump in his own throat. It would certainly be strange to not hear Will’s accent somehow always discernible through the chatter of the entire cast, or run into him heading for the bathroom in the middle of the night at home. He’d be around for another week before leaving—it wasn’t like he was flying out after the last show, like most of the others, but quite suddenly it felt very much like he was going to be gone before they knew it. Maybe, Jack thought, that the show they had almost felt would go on forever was finally coming to an end…

[theartofbeinganeldar]

The Art of Being an Eldar: Legolas x Reader Prologue

Summary: You're a fantasy-loving, LARPing human from this world, who's the black sheep of society because of your obsession for the unreal and alienation of what's real. When you're in the middle of a LARP battle with some pretty phony boars, you fall out of a tree and bust your head. You wake up, alone, and are suddenly attacked by some very pissed-off, very real wargs. Without any idea of how you got there, you got dropped into Middle-Earth, with only bits and pieces of memories of Tolkien's masterpiece, though your recollection of everything else is perfectly clear. And of all places in Middle-Earth, you got dropped into Mirkwood, with some suspicious, potentially hostile, Woodland Elves...

Chapter No.: Prologue

Key: [Y/N]=Your Name [F/N]= Friend's Name [B/N]= Bro's Name [S/N]= Sis's Name [M/N]= Mom's Name [e/c]= eye color [h/c]= hair color [s/c]= skin color

Notes: So, this is my first fanfiction on tumblr, and I'd thought I'd try it since I have very little time for DeviantArt's chaos. It's much different from my Legolas x Reader on there. I added a small loving family to make the emotions relatable-- even if you don't have siblings, or have more than what I added, it's just fanfiction! Also, I tried to make my pronouns for said reader gender-nuetral so that everybody can enjoy it! The reason your character is so wild is for the sake of not fitting in to this world, yet you're used to it, so that later points in the plot can become more... Well, you'll see. And yes, I made Elves pansexual because I don't think they'd care much about gender or age at that point. LARPing plays a big role in the prologue, because your character is really into it for personal reasons. If this isn't your cup of tea, don't drink it. I hope you like it! Feedback, likes, and reblogs are greatly appreciated!

Warnings: Fluff, angst, graphic depictions of gore and violence (Cuz of orc battles y'know?), more angst, slow burn, some light depression in the first few chapters, some amnesia about Middle-Earth because the Valar say you're not supposed to have foresight, hard-core language, feels, lots and lots of feels, mentions of NSFW content, maybe some eventual NSFW content, LGTBQ+ characters, Thranduil being a jackass at first because he's fabulous, Legolas being a hot edgy prince that nobody can handle, Kili being an innocent bean, Hobbits being smol innocent beans, except for Bilbo 'cause he's been through some tough shit, Bard being dad of the year, Thorin being one dumbass boi, awesome dragons, awesome Nazgul, awesome scenery, awesome stuff in general, Elrond isn't listened to by anybody, confused Aragorn is confused,  Denethor's a bitch as always, brace yourself for creepy as fuck Cream of Wormtongue Grima Wormtongue, Boromir lives, Gandalf. (yes these are all legit warnings don't judge me.)

Pairings/Ships: Legolas x Reader, Legolas x you, Aragorn x Arwen, Faramir x Eowyn, Thranduil x Elvenqueen, Galadriel x Celery Celeborn, Boromir x OC, Thorin x OC, Fili x OC, etc. general LoTR standard shippings plus some of my own cuz I can't stand my boys being lonely

Word Count: I try to keep my chapters short, under 2000 words.

Rating: Teen (14+) for now

You'd never been considered normal by anyone. You enjoyed LARP instead of reality. Your "job" was just staying at home and captioning videos all day every day you weren't LARPing instead of interacting with society at a normal job. Your home? A tiny studio apartment that only cost $450 a month without bills, and you did without cell phone, car, and electric for the sake of being your weird self. You hadn't been to college yet, despite the fact that everyone told you to go once your gap year was over, and it almost was. What would you even study? Acting was all that got you close to who you were, so, ok, guess that's fine, but nobody else thought of that as a career. Maybe you could write fiction-- you were good at that much.

You weren't always like this. There was a time when you were just a normal kid, living a normal life. But somewhere around ten, you started to change, and by sixteen you'd become who you were today. If the Old You could see the New You, you weren't sure if they'd think you were weird too, or if they'd stare up at you in awe.

Hopefully it was the latter, which made you feel good.

I mean, come on, were you born in the wrong timeframe or what?! That's what you thought, anyway. There's no way that this world was for you. The fact that nearly all people were heartless jackasses that enjoyed destroying the planet, the fact that everybody had to be the same or were considered freaks, prejudice and injustice were key factors of life and the rich got handed everything on a silver platter while the poor had to scavenge... Just, everything of this reality made you hate it. If only you'd been born five hundred years earlier, or, y'know, in Game of Thrones or Lord of the Rings...

You'd really liked to have been born in Middle-Earth. You had so many books about it, you knew practically everything there was to know, even the confusing shit about Faramir being in the Fall of Gondolin. You'd practically memorized Elvish, and dwarvish, and you knew the whole six movies by heart, every line. And of course, like most Lord of the Rings fans, you had a massive crush on a certain Elvish princeling who was too pretty for his own good. In fact, Legolas was who inspired you to learn archery; maybe one day you'd be as good as he was.

Despite your wishes, you were stuck in reality, however much you hated it

. Even amongst your LARP groups, you were considered outlandish.

Everybody else had normal lives outside of their games, whereas you pretended this was your life. You didn't have any job aside from the small caption jobs you did when you weren't LARPing, no social life, nothing. The only people you had was your mother, brother, sister, and your only friend, [F/N]. They accepted you and your strange fantasies, even if they thought you'd one day regret acting in a way when you could've been beginning a normal life and being productive.

So excuse you if you decided to invite them to a LARP event and let them borrow some of your costumes. It wasn't the end of the world. But your LARP group apparently didn't get that memo.

"You invited your mom?!" A royal asshole sneered, yet you took satisfaction in the fact that his knight costume looked like it was made of cardboard painted silver, whereas your sci-fi Elf getup was actual leather and cloth. His name was Jacob Brent; you'd never really liked him. He'd always had it out for you because your costumes were so much more fabulous than his. Plus you may or may not have actually known swordplay and archery and dagger throwing and martial arts... Kinda. You were still in the process of learning kickboxing.

You cocked a sky blue-- yes, sky blue-- eyebrow to your equally bright blue hairline, spiked up in a short faux hawk. This was your first sci-fi Elf, and you'd wanted to go all out. A cocky grin split its way across your face. "Yeah, so? It doesn't effect you on any level, Tin Can."

He sniggered with his cronies. "I can't believe you don't have anyone else to come with you." He mimicked rubbing his eyes like he was four. "'Oh Mommy, I need somebody to come with me!'" His whole group burst into laughter.

You surprised them by joining in, actually appluading. "Oh, wow! Wonderful, just wonderful! Hey, should I tell Mindy that I seen you feeling up Roxie behind your fort last week?" He paled, and almost everybody in his group of crappy cosplay got 'o' faces. You put your hands on your hips. "Guess what, asshole, just 'cause I'm close with my family and you're not with yours doesn't make it a crime to hang out with them. It's my life, my decision, and I enjoy spending time with them." You hefted up a disappointingly fake spear, turning to walk away. "Oh, and by the way, your paint's chippin' off."

Reason for Hating Reality Number 6, 965: Immaturity levels are almost incomprehensibly high.

Your mom glared daggers at Jacob's Immaturity Harem. She'd always been a tough gal, always sticking up for you when you got bullied when you were younger, but now that you were an adult, she had to let you kick ass yourself; you were pretty good at it. "I don't like him." She stated casually, and you chuckled.

"'Course you don't. He looks like a cheesy robot costume you'd get from Wal-Mart with a too-big crotch protector that's not impressing anyone but himself, and he has the face of a roasting pig. Too tanned, too grubby, and always with something in his mouth."

She smiled slightly. "Has he always been giving you trouble?"

You swung your gear pack off of your shoulder, letting it yank itself down to earth. "Since the day he tried kissing my ass 'cause he didn't know me." [F/N] must've overheard that last sentence, because he burst into laughter when he approached with your brother, [B/N], and your sister, [S/N]. "You talking about Jacob?"

"Sure as hell."

You'd first met [F/N] a year ago, when you'd joined extra-curricular activites for your last year of high school. He thought your personality was incredibly brave, especially in this modern world, but even still... He was just a friend, not a best friend. You'd never had that luxury outside of your tiny family. You just didn't trust him after the life you'd had.

Unfortunately, it seems they didn't like the getups. "Do I have to wear this?" [B/N] asked dramatically, slumping over. He didn't look right in the pauldrons and leather breastplate.

"It's too heavy!" [S/N] complained.

You sighed theatrically. "My piteous children, deal with thy armor, for it must be worn despite thou complaints."

[B/N] pressed his palms together and bowed down. "Screweth thou, false companion."

You mimicked his bow. "Off to hell with thee."

"Hey! You guys! It's starting!" [F/N] cried, and ran off, his pack of weapons and magic bags trembling dangerously on his back. The rest of you followed more slowly, as you explained to your family how exactly LARPing worked. Battles weren't actually bloody, magic was just colored powder, you get points for a hit, and so on and so forth. [B/N] and [S/N] got it immediately, but your poor mom, who hadn't even ever played Skyrim, had no idea how the point system and leveling up worked. You had to explain it six times over before you'd reached the massive gathering of LARPing cosplayers. [F/N] returned to you as you reached it, carrying a map. "We were in Larsgyushter Prairie last, right?"

"Duh," You shrugged, at the same time [S/N] asked with a grimace, "Luckyestire Prairie?"

[F/N] inclined his head. "Well, I made some arrangements because your family joined us. We made for Glewnburg, where we picked up their characters, and then headed into the Elder Woods."

You took the map. "Sounds fair enough."

[S/N] frowned. "What exactly were you guys doing last time?"

[F/N] blushed; he must've liked her, which made you feel proud and like pummeling him all at once. "A quest to defeat a horde of wildebors in order to get a good amount of gold."

"How much?"

"Four hundred."

Your mom seemed confused. "Is that a lot?"

"For the land of Sisgremor," You retorted, "Not much. But it's enough for us. We hunt for food, and sleep in the woods. It's summertime, so we don't have much need for shelter unless it storms, and we know where to find caves. The coin is for some new bits of armor, and some weapon upgrades and a couple of magic books for [F/N]."

"Oh," Your mom said, and you took the lead, getting into your Elven character with a huge grin on your face.

"Come, my children! We must meet the bors by midday!" You ran off, but you didn't miss the looks over half of the LARP community gave you.

~le time skip~

The one thing you didn't like about LARPing was the enemies. They weren't believable and were crappily dressed, at least in your community. They were crappy actors and their dying acts were unrealistic. Unless they were orcs that had good makeup skills and good cosplay, they weren't worth fighting, but you had an imagination to kick them up a notch.

As always, the wildebors were just some guys in black outfits decorated with needles, and wearing pig masks with an underbite bearing tusks. Your imagination knocked them to eight-feet long beasts with bloodstained tusks, wild red eyes, and porcupine-like needles that shot out of their near-impenetrable hides if provoked.

You'd only fought these beasts once. They had three separate healthbars, each a different strength: eight hundred, four hundred, and one hundred. Your spear-- the only weapon you could afford after your bow snapped (Poor prop craftsmanship.), had a damage rate of ten health per hit, thirty if you could make a three-combo move (The highest combo move allowed.).  [F/N]'s magic bombs, bolts of energy, and other magic stuff only varied from ten to fifty health damage per hit, except for his Fyrering, which was a once-a-day power that was ninety health damage, plus a three minute window of burning which took ten damage every thirty seconds.

The boars were also viscious; one hit from them took around fifty health, and at level nine, you and [F/N]'s health bars were only at two hundred and fifty, plus your armor rating of fifty and his of twenty. Your family, however, were only at level one, with a one hundred strength health bar each and armor ratings varying between ten and fifteen.

In short: that meant a hell of a lot of hits, very little openings, and there were always numbers to consider. There were six of them, and five of you. If you had your bow, this would be easy. You'd climb a tree, avoid their needles, and fire your twenty-five damage arrows relentlessly (With the thirty plus bonus from your actual bow.) while [F/N] pelted them with magic. You could take down two, maybe three that way before retreating, waiting for your strength to regenerate and your undamaged arrows to "respawn" before coming back for more battling (The arrows don't actually exist, for safety reasons. You had to wait for ten minutes before an approximated number of arrows, determined previously by the quest-giver, "reappeared" in your "inventory.").

But you had to think of a new plan. A brand new plan. You had three level one novices, two level nine intermediates, and six angry-as-hell wildebors that were level twenty. This was an impossible quest. You should never have accepted it knowing your family was coming.

You were hiding behind a huge oak, and glanced around it; for a split moment, you saw the crappy actors, but your mind quickly fixed that. Above and to your immediate right, [F/N] hid behind a mound of boulders up on a hill, and you'd positioned your family similarly. You just couldn't see them. [F/N]'s hand waving caught your attention. Frantically, he pointed above you. You whipped your head up, but saw nothing out of the ordinary. You gave him a look like WTF dude, and he rolled his eyes. He picked up a rock as an example and pointed back up into the branches, but still, you didn't see anything. He gestured again, almost forcefully, and this time, you seen it: brightnuts, a specialized kind of walnut bred specifically to explode into a bright white light on impact, with dangerous shrapnel and poisonous fumes that had one hundred and fifty health damage.

Of course, in reality, they were just blue and white beanbags hanging in nets rigged all over the branches, but you pretended they weren't.

But still, perfect.

You'd start calling out orders as soon as you started throwing them. [F/N] knew how to improvise to a plan already, but your family didn't. You propped your spear up on the tree, and started climbing, wincing when the bark scraped your palms; you were wearing what'd used to be white bridal gloves, but you'd tinkered with them to match your costume, sewing sky blue patterns into the gloves.

You personally didn't make a sound, but a couple of leaf-covered branches fell; luckily, wildebors were mostly deaf and blind, so you should make it to the top of the tree without any consequences.

You flashed [F/N] a triumphant smile when you reached the topmost branches, snatching a bag of brightnuts and holding them high above your head. He shot you a double thumbs-up, then made a wheel-like gesture to get you to move on. You stuck your tongue out at him, then readjusted yourself on the branch to get a good aim.

A few seconds of struggling against the knot, and you'd gotten the net open. With barely a minute of hesitation, you drew your arm back, and fired. Your aim was almost perfect. You hit one of the wildebors in the side, and you seen the actor as he started the most over-acted reaction you'd seen yet: a violent jump, then what sounded like a deranged "Guuuugh!" You rolled your eyes. So dramatic.

Either way, [F/N] whooped behind you. "Hit! A hit!"

Before you could give any orders whatsoever, [B/N] charged down the hill with his realistic-looking wooden battleaxe bellowing a war cry. You slumped over. "Aw, shit."

In the blink of an eye, [B/N] was officially dead but still pummeling the poor actors, your mom didn't know what to do, [F/N] didn't realize what was happening from behind his rock, and [S/N] was dodging air like a boss. You waited on the branch until the coach of the actors stood, took off his mask, and blew his whistle.

"Whoa, whoa, whoa! You with the axe! You died already! Come on everybody, regroup, come on..." Your mom and [S/N] were laughing it off with a couple of the actors, but [B/N] was having a heated argument with the rest of them, and they were starting to shove each other around; he'd always been a sore loser. The coach separated them, and [F/N] called to you from below. "Guess we failed this quest, huh?"

You shrugged. "It's all good. There are other, less dangerous quests."

He perked up. "Yeah, so hurry up and get down here! We've gotta get back to Glewnburg!"

You tossed the beanbag you'd had in your hand back into the net. "Comin'." Unfortunately for you, you were a bit of a show-off. You stood, stretching your arms out for balance, walking quickly and carefully across the bough. A loud snap that echoed through the forest silenced everyone: your sudden movements had weakened the branch down the middle, where a split was slowly cracking open.

"Oh shit." Did I have to choose the top branch?

Everything seemed to be in slow motion as you fell. Your ribs exploded with pain as you slammed into a slightly lower branch full-force. Your ankle snapped. Your arms were whipped and bruised. Your head cracked painfully across the thick, unmoveable base of one branch, and white and yellow dots burst in your vision. Your sight started to fade, as did the pain, until you met the ground with a dull thud.

I should've went to college.

~time skip~

When you woke up, the first thing you realized was, Hey, I woke up! I'm alive! which was immediately followed by, Holy fucking shit what the fucking hell did I break, then a much more painful thought of Why the fuck am I still in the goddamn forest? 

And you were. You were laying on your side, in a couple of very small but still immensely terrifying pools of drying blood, one of which came from the corner of your mouth. Your entire body throbbed painfully. Every breath you took caused sharp, white-hot pains to spiderweb across your entire torso. Your ankle was burning up, and you couldn't move it or your left arm. Your head felt like you'd been hit by a truck. A truck made of solid wood...

Why were you still in the forest? You knew your mother well enough to know that she've panicked. She'd've screamed your name and ran to you and called 911 immediately. [F/N] would've done the same. In fact, there was no reason why they wouldn't have called for a medic. You fell from the equivalent of a three-story building with poles sticking out of it.

By all accounts, you should be near death.

So why were you still in the forest, exactly where you'd fell?

With immense effort, you rolled onto your back, panting heavily and wincing against the pain. Your vision swam, and things were blurry. The trees were different; the tree where you'd fallen from was tall and branchless for most of the way up, and definitely not an oak. To boot, there weren't any nets full of beanbags, and your spear was gone. Behind you was  a cliff with an outcropping of rock that looked similar-- but not the same-- to the one [F/N] had been behind. There were roots and underbrush and bushes and walls of thorny branches surrounding you, and in between the ground was filled of orange and gold fallen leaves; up in the canopy, which hadn't been as thick before, the leaves were all dressed for Fall. You stared at it in confusion. "What the hell?" Shit. Even that hurt.

Where were you? Why weren't you in an ambulance with the sirens blaring? You were pretty positive you'd broken quite a few bones, and from that fall, you couldn't not have internal bleeding. So where were you?

You waited, but no one came. When the sky started to darken and the pain began to worsen, you were forced to move, slowly getting up, inch by inch, until you'd managed to be in a sitting position. It felt like all the blood rushed from your head and torso, making you cold in the evening chill. You hugged your right arm to your chest, really wishing you'd've worn arm cuffs or something; your short, high-collared, sleeveless, sky-blue leather jacket over a thin white crop top and a black corset-style belt really weren't meant for chilly weather.

"Hello?" You called out. Your voice carried on, but you got no return call. Blood trickled down your chin from where your lips had rebusted; you were lucky you hadn't bit your tongue off or shattered teeth. "Hey! Help!" Still, nothing. "Hey!"

After a twenty-minute bout of screaming for help, you gave up. You were confused-- so, so, confused. Where were you and why were you here? Where was your family? Where was [F/N]? Where was the coach, and those shitty actors? Hell, where was the rest of the LARP group? You'd even be relieved if Jacob appeared out of nowhere.

The moon had risen by the time you’d made it to your feet. Your ankle wasn't as bad as it was earlier; you could put some weight on it now, even if it wasn't a lot. You must've only sprained it. You tried calling for help a few more times, but only the crickets replied.

Then, they went silent.

You frowned. In books and movies, that was usually a bad sign. What'd caused them to shut up so abruptly? Not aliens, you hoped, like in Signs.

A low growl from behind you-- behind you, dammit-- made your skin crawl. A chill ran down your spine. You turned, slowly, hoping you wouldn't aggravate the wolf or coywolf or whatever it was; it wasn't either of those.

It stood on top of the small cliff, and it was at least the size of a horse. A boar-like coat, dull brown, covered its entire body, spotted in places. Its head was broad and massive, bearing an underbite of fangs and small beady eyes. Drool fell from its jaws as it snarled at you. You were half tempted to try the "Nice doggie" before you seen the rider.

Damn, it was ugly as hell. Small, malformed, with dark green skin and a crooked nose. Greasy, thin hair hung from its wrinkled scalp. Nasty claws protruded from its wart-covered fingers and dug into the horn of some kind of saddle. It sneered with an evil grin, and a mouthful of sharp teeth.

You didn't know what else to do; you took off running at full speed, ignoring the pains shooting up your leg from your sprained ankle. Branches and weeds whipped your skin, trailing blood. You glanced back once. The monster-- which you knew was an orc-- and the giant dog that you couldn't place the name of watched you for a couple of moments more before the orc gave a sharp order in a language you didn't understand, but it felt familiar. Two more of the giant dogs burst from the bushes on either side of the first, and they did give chase. Shit, were they what'd happened to your family? Some whackjob dressed as an orc riding a pitbull on steroids mauled everybody?!

You pushed yourself to run faster. Your heart pounded in your ears. Adrenaline rushed through your veins. Each step jarred your aching body, but you couldn't stop. The dogs were enjoying the chase, keeping their strides slow enough to still be on your heels, but not close enough to get you yet. A new sound-- a river, maybe-- gave you hope, and you tried to move even faster, your lungs burning from the strain.

It was a river you'd heard, but it was down a steep hill filled of arching roots and thorny bushes. You didn't have time to stop; you barreled forward, tripped, and rolled the rest of the way, hurting your body even further. By the time you reached the pebbly shore (With all of the sharp edges of the rocks jabbing into you unnecessarily.), the dogs were halfway down, the orcs riding them laughing like hyenas.

You couldn't swim, but you'd rather take your chances with the river than with the giant pitbulls. You waded in, and were immediately swept off your feet by the strong current. It dragged you under, and you were bashed into some boulders, getting cut up badly. One slammed into your hip, nearly causing you to suck in. Another rammed into your already-broken ribs, and this time, you did scream, getting a huge gulp of water. A crimson cloud engulfed you as something long and sharp burst through your calf. You were pushed up against another boulder, and you grabbed on, hauling yourself out of the water and hanging on for dear life, hacking and coughing out the water that'd filled your lungs.

The dogs had chased you up the shoreline, and the orcs carried shortbows with arrows of dark wood. A glance down and, sure as fuck, they'd hit you with one in the calf, dammit. You looked ahead of you: rapids, a slow and drawn-out death. Ahead of you, probably a very painful death, but hopefully it'd go faster than drowning while being battered to a lifeless corpse.

I should've gone to college.

You squeezed your eyes shut tight and braced yourself for the next arrow, but you were pretty much forced to open them again when you heard the sound of dogs yelping and orcs wailing. One of the dogs was dead, neck slashed open and pouring blood onto the rocks. It had landed on its rider, who struggled beneath its weight. The other dog had taken off, but its rider had an arrow jutting out of its face.

A troop of warriors, clad in forest-colored tunics of dark browns, greens, and grays had appeared in the second you'd closed your eyes. Every one of them had long, straight hair, braided away from their faces. Most had a quiver of arrows and a longbow, but some, like the one who'd killed the dog, had a curved longsword. Others still had long knives. Compared to the dark orcs, these people seemed to almost be made of light...

Oh shit.

Elves. These were Elves.You could see it clearly now, in the way they carried themselves: regal, majestic, every move perfectly balanced and smooth. Their ears were pointed, but not drastically like the ones from Zelda, and they were taller than most average men. You were in awe.

These were some damn good actors.

No, they couldn't be actors. That clicked, finally. Especially when you were able to see the one that'd killed the dog slice off the struggling orc's head cleanly and deftly before kicking it into the river. Thankfully, it didn't come near you.

Shit. These were real orcs, real giant bloodthirsty dogs, real Elves... This was all real. But how...?

You heard the sound of a bowstring being pulled taut, much closer to you. You couldn't exactly whip around in your current state, but you still moved as fast as you could. Another Elf, standing on the flat rocks halfway across the river, no less than thirty feet away. How the hell did he get there?!

After the initial shock passed, you realized there was an arrow nocked in the bow. You'd already felt one once in the last ten minutes, you didn't need to feel it again, so you stayed still. He watched you with eyes so blue you could see them from where you were. He was illuminated from the side by the moon, giving him an almost ethereal appearance. His hair was somewhere between platinum and very light blonde, and a quiver of orange-feathered arrows hung over two identical sheaths for ivory-handled long knives. His bow was almost as gorgeous as he was: dark wood engraved with golden leaf designs. His tunic was dark green, and you admired his fancy Elven belts and buckles and bracers for a second before your eyes were drawn back to his face, the profile of which was almost... Dished, in a way, like an Arabian horse's. Your eyes locked, and you felt as if you'd seen him somewhere before...

An Elf on the shoreline spoke, breaking the trance. You couldn't understand what exactly he said; you could've swore you knew some Elvish...

The Elf staring you down watched you for a minute longer, then jerked his bow toward you in gesture, shouting an order to one of his comrades. His voice sounded so familiar... It was on the tip of your brain... It was deep and soft and gentle and commanding all at once. You couldn't explain it. Two Elves followed his order, nimbly leaping from tiny rock to tiny rock to get to where he was, then past him, coming to you. Their weapons were sheathed, so you hoped they were going to help you instead of kicking you into the water or something.

Carefully, noticing how banged up you were, they grabbed you underneath of the arms and lifted you onto the flat rocks the blue-eyed Elf stood on, still ready to fire, and stepped back as you coughed up some water in a delayed reaction to nearly drowning.

When you finished, your eyes felt like they wanted to close on their own. You felt too tired, too weak, too pained... Despite that, you sat up, shivering in the chilly evening air. "Th-thank you..." With a start, you realized they might not even understand English.

"Who are you?" The blue-eyed Elf demanded. "Answer me quickly; do not think we cannot throw you back to the river."

Shit. Pressure. Suddenly you forgot your name for a split second. "I-I'm [Y/N]."

"What are you doing in these lands?"

"I was chased," You looked pointedly at the dog and orc.

The Elf watched you for a minute, judging you... He signaled. "Throw them back into the river." Suddenly, you were being dragged.

Aw, fuck. You struggled against the Elf's strong grips. "W-wait! I don't even know where I am! The last thing I knew I was playing a game with my family and I fell out of a tree! All of a sudden I'm being chased by giant dogs and being manhandled by a couple of Elvish pri--!" You were cut off by a bought of coughing that wracked your body so hard that you doubled in on yourself, pulling the Elves down with you. Your eyes widened when blood trickled out of your mouth, leaving crimson droplets on the rocks. Shit.

The blue-eyed Elf ordered something in their tongue, and the two dragging you halted on a dime. He finally decided to lower his bow a little, inspecting you. "Are there more of you?"

You shook your head; you were getting dizzy, and your vision was blacking out. "I-I don't know... I was alone when I woke up."

The Elves conversed in their own language for a few minutes, and the blue-eyed Elf finally came to the conclusion that you weren't much of a threat in your current state. He looked to the Elves on the shoreline, and gestured at one of the ones holding you, who then scooped you up bridal style, but like you were the ugliest bride he'd ever seen. "Und win'doheim!" Shouted the blue-eyed Elf, obviously the one in charge, and lead the progression back to the forest.

I should never have gotten out of bed today...

Despite the crazy situation, you managed to doze off a few times on the Elf that carried you, until a coughing fit or pain would wake you up. A fever spiked up as you crossed a bridge, and you were half out of it as you entered some kind of woody building surrounded by trees and rivers that you couldn't comprehend very well in your feverish state. You were panting and wheezing, and couldn't see straight. It all seemed so surreal, like you were viewing this from somebody else's perspective. This had to be a dream... A very vivid, very painful dream...

The last thing you remembered was Elvish chanting, golden and white lights surrounding you, and the silhouettes of the Elves. Your pain faded, and you fell into a forced sleep.

When you woke up, a breath of relief whooshed out of your lungs. It was a dream! It was all a dream! It was night, and your nighlight had gone out, but your hall light was still on. You turned over to see what time it was, but your nightstand was gone. So was your window, and shelves and desk and computer and all of your things. Your bed was different. Your relief dissipated to terror.

Fuck. It wasn't a dream.

You were in a small room. An orange-hued light came through the low doorway, and the dark walls were ridged, as if carved from the earth itself. You felt the remains of your injuries from earlier-- or days ago, you couldn't tell how much time had passed-- as throbbing remains. Your clothes were still ripped and bloodstained, and as you stood up, it felt like you were just coming off of the flu.

Wobbly, you staggered over to the doorway, hoping to find somebody that definitely wasn't an orc or Elf.

You slammed face-first into elaborately crafted iron bars.

Outside of them, fully-armored Elves patrolled on small ledges beside the spiraling rows upon rows of cells like yours. This was a dungeon.

...Well shit.

Tag List: @tesserphantom​ @thedragonghostofmordor​ @taurlel @hauntedsiriel

[itsomgitsgreenblogging]

Labor of Love Chapter 5: A Critical Role Fanfic

I really can’t believe that this is the penultimate chapter of this fic, just one more chapter after this! It’s crazy. Again, the amount of support I’ve gotten over this AU is something I really appreciate, especially in these weird times. Thanks so much and I hope this chapter delivers what you need! 

Enjoy!

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Preview:

Somehow or another, Essek found himself at the gym. 

Essek hated the gym...well, it was more the idea of the gym that he hated. He didn't like working out, nor did he enjoy being sweaty or sore. He had never achieved that post workout glow that so many claimed to get. Instead, when he finished working out he tended to look and feel like someone had run him over and then scraped him off the side of the road. His distaste for the gym had never been a problem before. He had a membership because...well, he felt that as a functioning adult he ought to have one and it was no more than that. 

But Essek had to face the facts...he had gained some weight. It wasn't that he wasn't active or taking the stairs...but he was simply eating more than he had ever eaten in his whole life. And frequently. That was the real kicker. Three meals a day would have been some insurmountable hurdle before. He hadn't ever been hungry and when he did eat...it all tasted bland. But now? Well, Caleb had certainly changed a few things in his life. Essek was slender as most elves were, but he felt that if he were eating sweets he ought to at least commit to the gym for minimal activity. 

Essek was on the treadmill, having plugged into to listen to a forty minute podcast as he walked at a brisk pace to get his heart rate up. Though, the way that the podcast was analyzing one of his favorite movies was enough to do that in spades. Regardless, Essek was about thirty minutes in when he noticed someone familiar on the other side of the room. 

Yasha was impossible to miss, after all she was a veritable mountain of a woman. Tall and broad and muscular in the way that was mostly left to bodybuilders. The fact she was at a gym wasn’t what was surprising to Essek...the fact that she was at his gym was what was really throwing him off. Why was she there? That was a stupid question, obviously she was there to work out like he was. What were you supposed to do when you saw someone you knew in a public place? Essek didn’t know Yasha well...she was an acquaintance, but unlike most of his other acquaintances he actually didn’t despise her so his usual plan of attack to escape as quickly as possible didn’t seem appropriate. What did people usually do in this situation? Should he walk by and see if she saw him and reacted? No, then it would seem unnatural. Better to just finish up what he was doing and hope that she just left and didn’t notice him. That seemed like the most prudent course of action. 

Essek spent the last ten minutes of his power walk trying not to crawl out of his own skin with anxiety. Essek had just finished his walk and was taking a drink from his water bottle when the sensation of being watched washed over him. Essek looked over and met Yasha’s gaze. They stared at each other awkwardly for a few moments...Yasha had just settled down from pull ups and was stretching her arms. She really was impressive, she could probably snap Essek’s spine in half by just flexing her arm. She waved at him awkwardly, and Essek...knowing he had to go through the door beside her to leave walked over in her direction. 

“Good morning,” he greeted, hoping his voice sounded normal. His smile was plastered on his face like it was duct-taped and hanging by a thread, because there was little else he could do. “I didn’t know you came here.” 

“Only recently,” Yasha confirmed, shifting on her feet as if ascertaining the best way to become smaller and less threatening...as if she were concerned that Essek was a prey animal who could be spooked at the sigh of her. “Fjord’s swimming...and I like to work out here because it’s not busy.” 

“I understand that,” Essek admitted. If there was anything worse than being sweaty and sore and uncomfortable...it was being all of those things while also around people who could judge you for it. “Well...I’m done, and I was going to grab a smoothie at the bar...so…”

Essek tried not to cringe at his blatant awkwardness. Yasha nodded seriously, and then to his surprise placed back the dumbells and looked at him expectantly. Oh. She thought it had been an invitation to join him and not a hasty retreat. Well it would be rude to correct her, Essek thought at himself. Essek couldn’t be rude to her, even if he wanted to. She was Caleb’s friend. It was strategically important to him to be nice to Caleb’s friends. And also...he didn’t want to be rude to her, which was a new development in his life because he normally liked being rude to people but the thought of being mean to Yasha made him feel like he was going to choke on his own tongue for some reason. Was this what people felt all the time? He wasn’t sure this was a positive change anymore. 

Essek meandered over to the place where a perky half-orc who looked like she could run ten miles a day and probably did hot yoga to unwind took his order. Essek got some kind of healthy smoothie monstrosity and sat down to drink in the noticeably uncomfortable chairs. It was as if they wanted to make you feel bad for sitting, another reason why Essek hated the gym. Yasha joined him, drinking her own smoothie. For the most uncomfortable minute of his life, Essek wondered if Yasha was expecting him to say something. The problem was that Essek was horrible at saying something. Or, he was at least horrible at saying something when it wasn’t one of the things that he was being paid to say. Essek still didn’t understand how people went around just...starting conversations and not seeming disingenuous. And worst of all, he was sure this would get back to Caleb and he didn’t stand a chance of escaping this conversation without fucking that up somehow.  Thankfully, Yasha took pity on him and spoke first. 

“So...Caleb,” Yasha noted. 

“Yes. Quite,” Essek said.

 And then neither of them were talking again, and Essek could feel his panic twisting at his gut. The quiet went on for at least a solid 30 seconds, with Essek squirming in that gods-awful seat and just wishing someone would just take him out with the nearest barbell. And then, Essek came to a sudden epiphany. 

“Oh...was there something you wanted to ask?” Essek offered, and Yasha nodded. 

“Yes.” 

“I see...alright?” Essek asked, hoping that Yasha wasn’t planning on being the one taking him out. 

“You like Caleb?” Yasha asked, and it wasn’t a question that was really a statement. It was a genuine curious question. 

“I do,” Essek asked, not willing to commit to the other “l” word out loud. He could only get into trouble by doing that. Yasha nodded, her expression thoughtful as she regarded him. She met his eyes briefly and then ducked back down to look at her smoothie. 

“And Caleb?” Yasha asked. 

“...you’ll have to ask Caleb about that I suspect,” Essek said. Yasha nodded seriously but didn’t lift her gaze again, instead, she seemed content with swirling the straw of her smoothie. Essek didn’t know if he could say for sure...their relationship was in a bit of a hazy spot right now. What did you call someone you went on a date with and kissed once? Who texted you saying they wanted to do it again sometime. It wasn’t like they were together.  And they certainly hadn’t had sex, so Essek wouldn’t call Caleb his lover or friend with benefits. But Essek had met his friends and been over to his house before. It was all very confusing to Essek in a way that it probably wasn’t confusing to anyone else on the planet. What would he call Caleb? His almost-boyfriend? That felt so juvenile, and yet that was the best description he could think of. 

“You make him happy,” Yasha said, looking back up at Essek. 

“...I’m glad, he makes me happy too,” Essek admitted. “All of you do...I wasn’t very happy before I met all of you, but I think I might be getting there.” 

“That’s good,” Yasha said, her quiet voice sure and firm in her conviction. Essek was about to agree with her, when he spotted Fjord ducking out from the hallway. Though Essek wouldn’t say that Fjord was his type, it was hard to deny that the man was attractive. Especially as his hair dripped and droplets traced the column of his neck and his shirt clung to his chest. He felt like to preserve Fjord’s dignity and Essek’s own honor he ought to look away. 

“Oh, hello Essek,” Fjord greeted kindly. “I didn’t expect to see you.” 

“That makes two of us,” Essek noted, trying to find Fjord’s eyes more interesting then his see-through shirt...which he was having a hard time with. 

“I...uh, heard your date with Caleb went well,” Fjord said, looking somewhat awkward for the one in the group who tended to do the talking. Essek wondered if it was because he was talking about his friend, or if it was just the topic of romance that was somewhat daunting for him. Essek nodded, only because he was bereft of any substantial answer. Fjord seemed to accept this. “Well, I’m glad. It’s good for Caleb...to, you know, have someone he likes spending time with.” 

Essek was about to say something...to agree perhaps, when Fjord’s phone buzzed. He looked at it, did a double take, and then immediately looked at Yasha. 

“Yasha, we’re gonna need to go,” Fjord said, calmly but firmly. “Issue at the bakery.” 

Yasha nodded and stood up from her seat as she did. 

“Essek, it was nice seeing you,” Fjord promised, holding out his hand. Essek took it, and was surprised but the assured grip. “Have a nice day now. We’ll see you in...three days right?”

“Thank you...you as well. I hope that everything is fine at the bakery,” Essek wished, thinking suddenly of the vow renewal. “See you then.” 

Fjord smiled and then him and Yasha were off, leaving Essek behind. Essek threw away his drink, his stomach flipping like he had just been in a car crash. 

“Stupid, stupid, stupid,” Essek grumbled to himself under his breath as he rushed out to his car. He turned on the radio in an effort to drown his own twisting and agonizing thoughts but found himself still extremely unsettled. “Why are you so stupid?” 

“Welcome back, you are listening to 836 KRN, Rosohna Hit Music, back with more of our top ten countdown. Number 1 again for the second week in a row is “Best Laid Plans” by Kaylie-”

Essek growled, and turned the radio off.    

------

By the time that Essek arrived to the party, it was in full swing at the Theylss ancestral home. Cars lined the streets, not that Essek minded parking further away. He personally always enjoyed having a moment or two to breath in the fresh night air and cool his head before interacting with his relatives. It never did him well to come into a viper den at full throttle. Essek made a subdued entrance to the party, handing off his overcoat to be hung in the closet and then finding the closest server carrying drinks. Even from the first moments, he attempted to stick to the outer fray of the party, but as always his mother sniffed him out within five minutes of arrival. 

"Essek," Deirta called, waving him over. Essek obliged her. "A wonderful suit. Did you get it at the family's tailor, darling?" 

"As always, mother," Essek sighed. He did look rather fetching that night, but then again he always did. He had opted for a black suit, but with some touches of gold as opposed to his usual silver to spice things up. He had wondered what Caleb would have thought of him tonight, and then had immediately stopped thinking about it for danger of getting an aneurism. 

 The entire den was here, half-siblings and distant cousins, “uncles” and “aunts” and relatives of every sort and enough spouses and lovers and children that it made his head spin. Usually he would find a dark corner after he got his drink (or drinks) and fade into the background after his round of greetings. Unfortunately his mother had hooked him like a fish before he could do so, and was probably planning on subjecting him to another round of introductions. The event was being held at the ancestral home, as most important den events were. Really, this was just a family reunion but with other causes. Namely, all of the relatives were here for the Vow Renewal that they were all invited to as members of Den Theylss. Essek would have to play a balancing act between den member and employee, and would have to find a way to make everyone happy. But then again, he was good at performing miracles for an atheist. 

“I am happy you made it tonight,” Deirta said as she smiled at a passing great-uncle. “I thought you might have been too busy.” 

“Too busy?” Essek asked. “For the den? Never. But what did you think I would be too busy with?”  

“Preparations, dear, that’s why we are all here, isn’t it?” Deirta pointed out. “Our Queen’s most glorious Vow Renewal, I hear it will be quite the event and that you have had a lot to do with that.”

“Don’t gloat around family, Mother, it’s a tad gauche isn’t it?” Essek said with a pointed smile. “I have done only what my employer asked of me, and little else.” 

“The only thing that is gauche is being too humble,” Deirta said. “In this fast paced time, it is important to continue to uphold the good name of Theylss in this city, and the world, Essek. And you do that, and you are almost faultless in that regard. In fact, if the rest of the relatives could follow your example I dare say our influence would be felt all the way to Tal’dorei.” 

“I am sensing a but, Mother,” Essek said. 

“Oh no caveats, I’d rather not politics right now dear.”

“I’ll pretend like you're not the one who told me that everything is politics. Well then if the den’s influence in Tal’dorei isn’t on your mind, what would you like to talk about?” 

“I should like to know about the maiden who stole my boy’s heart, enough that he should see fit to mention her to me,” Deirta said with a light disingenuous laugh. 

“Mother,” Essek said warningly. Deirta looked unimpressed...in fact, she seemed charmed at Essek’s annoyance. 

“I am aware of your private nature, Essek, and I respect that.”

“Are you?” Essek asked sarcastically.

“I am. In fact, I think it’s a good thing to keep certain things private. You have never caused a mess that I have needed to clean up, a standard that not many of your siblings or cousins have met before you nor have they after. I do have certain expectations, but I also trust that you will choose a partner befitting of your station and of our family’s reputation.”

“And if I haven’t?” Essek asked. 

“You know the answer to that, Essek,” Deirta said. “I will do everything in my power to make you see reason and try to convince you of a partnership that will equally benefit you and your chosen mate.” 

“Mate,” Essek said, nose scrunching with distaste.

“I know, I know, call me old fashioned,” Deirta sighed. “You know, your brother brought his girlfriend with him tonight. You ought to have brought yours.” 

“We aren’t together like that,” Essek told her. 

“Oh?” Deirta asked, though she didn’t sound too surprised. 

“We’ve...hung out a fair bit, but only gone on one date. That night that you called me was our first one,” Essek informed her. 

“I’m sure we could have impressed her as your second outing.”

“Mother, I’m not sure that meeting the den is the best second date idea.” 

“But you expect the arrangement to continue, as it were?”

“I should hope so...it seems like it.” 

“Oh Essek, won’t you tell me something about her? You know I could just get on the phone and find out.” 

“Yes, but you won’t.”  If you know what’s good for you, is what Essek didn’t say but his mother surely heard. 

“You know that it is only because I worry for you,” Deirta said before stopping and smoothing the lapels of his already immaculate jacket. “Only the best for my boy.”

“Of course, Mother,” Essek promised, and his mother gave him a smile that didn’t reach her eyes and seemed to dismiss him. Essek couldn’t help his sigh of relief as he turned around, and then suddenly realized that he had been deposited right in front of Verin and his girlfriend...who for the life of him he couldn’t remember what her name was. She was half-orc and wore her hair in braids and an understated but appropriate little black dress. However, despite her orcish features, she was relatively delicate in her frame...which led him to believe the other half was drow, though he wouldn’t ask her for fear of being rude. What was her name? Sanemi? Sa...something-or-other? 

“I see Mother’s done taking you for a walk,” Verin noted, raising his glass. 

“I suppose she’s waiting for me to demonstrate my knowledge of sitting and staying,” Essek said, taking the free seat with a sigh. 

“You remember Samezi?” Verin said, motioning to his girlfriend.  

“Hello,” Essek greeted as he inclined his head to her. 

“It’s been a bit,” Samezi said, lifting her glass to her lips and taking a sip. “Still up to the usual business then?”

“As always,” Essek said. “I tend to stay busy with my job being what it is...especially now. I imagine that you are also busy, aren’t you Verin?” 

“Oh come off it,” Verin said with a roll of his eyes. “My job is just as important as yours.” 

“Of course, of course,” Essek said idly. 

“But then again, not all of us get to have a hand in the Bright Queen’s Vow Renewal,” Samezi pointed out before leaning forward and looking extremely interested. “There has to be something that you can tell us.”

“What, so you can write about it in your paper?” Verin laughed. 

“I’m an investigative journalist,” Samezi scoffed before giving Essek a shrewd look. “Though of course my colleagues in the Culture section may like to hear a rumor or two...to drum up excitement and interest of course.”  

“All I can say is, that Leylas Kryn intends for this ceremony to not only demonstrate the Xhorhassian cultural boom, but to celebrate the influx of peoples and cultures that define our country on the world stage.” 

“What a perfectly formulated answer, almost exactly word for word from the XCI press release,” Samezi sighed, almost pouting but not quite. Essek wasn’t particularly moved, though he imagined that Verin was a sucker for it. 

“Actually, exactly word for word. I was the one who wrote it,” Essek reminded her. 

“...what exactly do you do for Leylas Kryn?” Verin asked, and Essek normally would be annoyed considering he had literally been working this job for five years and had probably explained this to Verin at least a dozen times before, but he was feeling charitable today and didn’t feel like embarrassing his brother in front of his girlfriend. He probably embarrassed himself in front of her enough without his help.  

“Anything that she requires of course,” Essek said simply. 

“Like a mob enforcer,” Verin said. 

“Wouldn’t you like to know, badge-boy?” 

“You really are the most insufferable person I know,” Verin scoffed. 

“I know,” Essek said smugly. “But you make it so much fun, you know?”

There was more that Verin seemingly wanted to say, when there was the sound of a bell ringing. Essek resisted the urge to roll his eyes. Could their Mother do anything without the artifice of drama? But of course she probably got off on asserting her power and dominance over all the relatives. Like beckoned dogs, conversations stuttered and they were all directed to the long and elaborate set up dinner table. Deirta sat at the head of the table, and everyone sat at their assigned seats...though there were no names everyone knew the order in which they were expected to sit. 

“Before we sit to eat, the prayer?” Deirta said as they all stood at their seats. Essek duck his head like he was expected to. “Bless us, O Light, and these Thy gifts, which we are about to receive from Thy radiance, through the Luxon our Lord.” 

“Blessed be,” Essek murmured along with everyone else. At that point only after Deirta took her seat, were they permitted to sit alongside her. 

The dinner itself was the usual fair afforded to them. There were about six courses, soup, salad, appetizer, entree, dessert, cheese and fruit course, and then after dinner drinks. Essek managed about two bites of each, and resisted pushing food around on his plate like a teenager. There was just nothing appetizing to hearing a distant cousin talk for the fourth time about their job in the stock exchange, or an uncle complaining about things with a vaguely racist undertone. Really the act of dinner was a performance for everyone involved. They were all supposed to hem and haw at his mother’s beautiful silverware and ancient passed-down porcelain that probably belonged in a museum somewhere, and then admire a small four bite piece of fish with an inedible garnish that the caterer had made that was so in vogue right now. 

The food wasn’t even good, Essek thought frustratedly. It just looked pretty. What was the point of eating something that looked pretty if it wasn’t sumptuous? He thought of all the simple things that Caleb and his friends had prepared, all the delicious and heartfelt food that put this celebrity caterer to shame. He hadn’t thought himself a food snob before...but it appeared that he had become one with Caleb’s help. He wondered what Caleb would do at this stifling display, food besides the point. He had the sense that Caleb could be a social chameleon when he wanted to be, not unlike him really. Essek was sure Caleb would do well amongst the den of vipers and hold his own, if his family could even get past the fact that he was a human. 

If his family could get past the fact that Essek was gay. 

Now, to the credit of his society, gay relationships were normal. After all, Leylas and Quana were their spiritual leaders of the nation...and actual leaders in the most important arena which was the public consciousness. He wouldn’t even be the first Theylss kid to have a significant other of the same sex. But it was always who you were dating that was the issue. Essek had never cared enough before to put any significant other through his family. As he watched the candles burn and fat globs of white wax drip to the antique candle holders...he wondered idly what the reaction to Caleb would be. 

Did he want that? Did he want Caleb to go through the scrutiny? Did Essek love Caleb enough to subject him to this? Or maybe it was the other way...maybe he was selfish enough to consider it. Would Caleb even like him...if he knew who Essek really was? He liked to pretend he was different...but at the end of the day would he just be a Theylss? Would he ruin everything he had with his intentions? 

Essek was sipping a dessert wine and idly checking his phone under the table, sneaking it like he was a teenager in school again. Really, he was mostly trying to distract himself from his spiralling thoughts. His mother shot him a few disapproving looks, but wouldn’t say anything unless someone else said something first. His mother was dependable like that, she never cared unless it would hurt her reputation. His phone buzzed in his hand, and it made him jump. 

Essek stared at his phone. Caleb? 

“Excuse me,” Essek said, shrugging off the looks and slipping into the hallway outside the dining room. No one really noticed him leaving, or if they did they didn’t care enough to stop him from going. After all they had just entered into the retell stories they had heard a thousand times part of the dinner, and Essek was scarcely involved enough in any of those stories to even be considered a background character they needed to call on. 

“Hello, Essek?” Caleb’s voice rang in his ear. 

“Hello?” Essek asked, confused albeit slightly delighted that Caleb was actually calling him and giving him such a clean out. 

“Are you busy at the moment?” 

The tone in Caleb’s voice took the delight right out of Essek’s mind. Essek prided himself on being able to read the mood in a room...growing up with the mother he did certainly made such a skill invaluable. It didn’t take a genius like him to figure out that Caleb sounded stressed. 

“What’s wrong?” Essek asked, ducking out into the sitting room away from prying eyes and listening ears. His back was against the wall, so that if anyone came around the corner he would be able to see them. There were plenty of things he needed, but the Theylss family inserting themselves into this situation somehow was not one of them. 

“Accident with the cake,” Caleb said. “A shelf broke and fell on it along with everything on the shelf, and basically completely smashed it. We’re going to have to remake the cake in a day.” 

“Is it possible?” Essek asked, calculating in his mind all the things that could go wrong. What would he have to do to make up for this? How could he make this situation work for his and everyone else’s advantage?

“It’s possible, we’re going to have to close the bakery and spend all night today, all day tomorrow, and maybe even the next night working on it. We hadn’t put on some of the most intricate designs so those are safe, but the flowers and the cake itself is ruined.” 

“I see,” Essek said, taking a deep breath. Okay, it was a rescue operation then. That was something Essek could certainly handle. 

"I wanted to call you first to ask...should we tell the Bright Queen?" 

"Under no circumstances. If we can fix it, it's better not to worry her," Essek said firmly before he surprised himself. "Are you in need of any extra hands?"

"Extra hands?"

"I offer my assistance of course," Essek clarified. 

"Yes, if you don't mind. We could definitely use some more help on this,” Caleb said, sounding relieved. “Danke-thank you, Essek. I can’t tell you how much that makes me feel better.”

“I’ve hardly done anything yet,” Essek said. “I’ll be there in fifteen minutes.” 

“I’ll see you then.” 

Caleb hung up the phone and Essek immediately exited the room to where the rest of the family was seated. 

“Forgive me, but I’m going to have to leave,” Essek said, scooping up his jacket. “Work emergency.” 

“Really?” Deirta asked, eyebrows flying into her hairline. “Anything I should be concerned about?” 

“Not at all, Mother. As always, you know I can handle it,” Essek said, moving over to give her expectant turned cheek a kiss. “Have a wonderful evening, and I’ll see you all at the Vow Renewal.” 

Essek walked quickly out the door before anyone else could get a word in edgewise. He started up the car, and broke probably five different speed limits on his way to the bakery. When he arrived, the bakery seemed dark and quiet, but he had been told the back door was open. With a bit of hesitation, he opened the back door into complete chaos. 

“Essek!” Jester said, rushing to embrace him. Her smile was full of frosting and glitter...literally. She looked like she had gotten into an argument with powdered sugar and a tinsel. Her arms were soft and strong and wrapped around his middle like he was the person she had most wanted to see in this world, and Essek felt so oddly close to tears that he half wanted to run back out the door. “Oh Essek, I’m so glad you are here! Oh wow, you look so nice! I’m sorry I think I got stuff on your jacket.” 

“It is no problem,” Essek said, shucking off his jacket. He draped it over his arm with care...after all it was an expensive jacket. “I pay for dry-cleaning anyways.” 

“Is Essek here?” Caleb said, appearing from around the corner. He looked frazzled, utterly fried and blanched by stress. His hair was half-falling out of his bun, and his clothing was in general disarray...more than usual.  “Essek…” 

“Give us a moment?” Essek asked Jester, who saluted and then skipped back to the back of the shop looking pleased with herself. “Thank you for calling me.” 

“I am very glad you are here,” Caleb said breathlessly, managing a fragile smile. 

“Of course, whatever you need,” Essek said, reaching out automatically and then his hand froze. Caleb didn’t move away, and so bolstering his courage he tucked a stray lock of copper hair behind Caleb’s ear. “Everything will be fine. We’ll get what we need to get done, done.” 

“I wish I had your confidence,” Caleb said before suddenly his face flushed as he seemingly took in Essek’s outfit. Oh. Well, Essek thought. It seems like his efforts would go appreciated. It was a rather unexpected but appreciated gift during the sudden stress. 

“I never disappoint my employer, I doubt this will be the first time it happens,” Essek said. “What’s the status with everything?” 

“We remade the cakes this morning. Yasha and Fjord were just pulling them out of the freezer now,” Caleb said as they walked behind the counter. “The sugar flowers were a total loss, so Nott, Jester, and Caduceus are working on that. Still need a fresh batch of the filling and we still have an extra batch of the frosting so we’re using that to start...though we’ll probably need to make another too.” 

“And the enchantments?”

“We had extra of the syrups we were using to soak into the cake that contained the main enchantment. We have stock of the illusion enchantment, but we’ll have to redo the custom starlight enchantment though,” Caleb said as they entered the chaotic workplace. It was the part of the bakery that Essek hadn’t yet seen. There were long work tables, walk-in fridges, large industrial ovens and stoves and sinks as well. The sinks were a catastrophe of pots and pans and Essek could see the attempts to clean out the fridge where the shelf had given way.

“This,” Essek said, pointing to the mess. He rolled up his sleeves as he assessed the disaster in front of him, formulating a plan of attack. “This I can handle, as well as any assistance you may need on the enchantment. Cleaning up this will help everything flow smoother and more efficient, as well as keep things sanitary.” 

“Essek I couldn’t-”

“You can and you did, you already asked,” Essek informed him as he put his foot down. 

“But you are wearing a suit that probably costs more than all of my clothes put together,” Caleb argued. 

“And I’ll buy a new suit and I’ll buy you one too while I’m at it,” Essek said shortly, as he placed his hands on his hips. “Go mitigate your own disaster, I’ve got this handled.” 

“Thank you,” Caleb said, full of gratitude. And for a moment Essek was sure Caleb was going to kiss him, but then Fjord’s yelp drew him away with another look. Essek surveyed the damage in front of him, just as something was thrown at his head and obscured his vision. Essek yanked the offending cloth off and realized he was holding an apron. 

“You might need that,” Beauregard pointed out. Essek looped it over his head and tied it securely to his waist, thankfully it was grey. Grey was a color that Essek could work with.  

“Now he looks like one of the team,” Jester said happily as she delicately rolled sugar into beautiful petals. 

“It suits you,” Caduceus said, walking by with a tray full of decorations and sparkles and jars of glittering orbs. 

“Where are the gloves?” Essek asked, yanking open the dishwasher which...thank all the gods in the merciful plains was empty. 

“Second drawer to the left!” Veth shouted back shrilly. Essek opened the drawer and found a pair of bright pink rubber gloves. It almost hurt him physically to put them on...but oh, the things he would do for love. Essek immediately set about separating out the hand-wash-only utensils from the machine-washables, after which he did a cursory soak to the hardest hit items bowls with dried-on batter or fillings or any other number of things that may occur during the baking process that was still a mystery to Essek. The rest of it was power-washed and then loaded up into the two industrial grade dishwashers efficiently. Even with both full and running, there was still a large amount of things to clean, though it was already much neater and more organized. Not knowing where things were supposed to be placed, and not willing to break the concentration of those who needed it to ask, he set about laying out the rest of the hand-washed things by category so it would be easy to find as they dried and then scrubbing down the counters that had been marred by the dirty dishes. 

Essek was just hand-drying some of the wooden spoons when he felt a tap on his shoulder. He turned around to see Caduceus standing in front of him with a tea-cup 

“Want to give this a try?” Caduceus asked Essek. Essek looked to see the table of decorators all holding their own cups, and a tea-set placed on the work-bench. 

“We are taking a fiver,” Beau answered the question that had just popped into Essek’s brain. 

“Oh,” Essek said, as Caduceus pressed a cup into his hands. “Thank you.” 

“Of course,” Caduceus said. “It’s important to take a deep breath and a minute, especially during creative pursuits.” 

“I haven’t done anything particularly creative,” Essek pointed out, looking upon the work table that was overflowing with beautiful white sugar roses, and beautiful dark purple sugar calla lilies, and silver hydrangeas. Yasha was admiring some of them and gave Essek a shy wave that Essek returned. 

“Come over here,” Jester said as she waved him over. Essek walked over and saw what Jester had been furiously working at. He nearly went breathless at the picture perfect miniature statues of both Leylas and Quana together. They were both dressed in the outfits that they would wear to the Vow Renewal, on Jester’s tome-pad was the references and pictures she had been given. The amount of detail that had gone into the recreation was stunning, from the diamond drops of the earrings Leylas would be wearing, to Quana’s wedding band on her tiny little finger. 

“Jester, this is absolutely beautiful,” Essek said, in awe. 

“I was working on it before everything went to shit so mini-L and mini-Q were safe from the Shelves of Doom,” Jester explained. “They are actually made of modeling chocolate, so they are completely edible.” 

“That’s incredible,” Essek said, continuing to look on with longing. He didn’t understand how a person discovered such a talent for art and gave it such an interesting application. 

“Thank you,” Jester said, nearly glowing with praise. Essek felt his mouth attempting to twist up into a smile...and he wondered if he was actually doing it right. Jester didn’t correct him, so he assumed he was doing it alright. It was then that he noticed that Caleb wasn’t in the kitchen proper, he was sitting by the door with Frumpkin nearly spilling out of his lap. 

The cake itself was on the stand, yet to be decorated besides a base of white frosting. It was sitting in the walk in fridge, which Fjord closed before accepting his own cup of tea from Caduceus. Essek felt a sense of relief, that at least the cake itself was done, though he knew the decorating would be just as tiring and time-consuming as the making.  

“Caleb?” Essek asked, walking over to where he was leaned against the wall. When Essek approached, Caleb immediately startled and then nearly fell off his stool. He looked around for a moment, like he had lost track of where he was, before his gaze settled on Essek. Frumpkin stood up and nudged his head beneath Caleb’s chin, purring so loudly that even Essek heard him. Caleb spent a moment or two stroking along Frumpkin’s flank. For a moment Caleb met Frumpkin’s eyes, and then with a pleased soft meow Frumpkin jumped down dutifully. He immediately trotted over to Essek and rubbed his body against his legs, his tail flicking with pleasure. Essek scooped up the cat, its wide eyes looking into Essek’s with a force that just Essek want to squeeze this cute little creature and never let it go. For a moment Essek stared at the cat before he came to a sudden realization.

“Your cat’s a familiar!” Essek said, feeling a bit betrayed. He settled Frumpkin down carefully, and then propped his hands on his hips. 

“Guilty as charged,” Caleb said apologetically. 

“And here I thought you liked me,” Essek said to the cat, who had sat and gave Essek a plaintive meow, like Frumpkin expected Essek to bend over backwards to pick him up again. 

“He does like you,” Caleb laughed. “He also perhaps did get some direction to be extra cute in your company.” 

“A scoundrel, just like his owner,” Essek said with a haughty sniff. Caleb got up from his stool stiffly and stretched, raising his arms above his head. His shirt came up with it, and Essek felt the burning need to look away. It was too late though. Happy trail. Caleb had a happy trail, and Essek was probably emitting a scream that only dogs could hear as his brains nearly boiled over. 

He had never thought like this in whole life, not even when he had been in mutually beneficial relationships. Essek had never felt the whip-crack of desire smack him across the face and do funny things to his heart before. Was this what normal people felt about strangers and celebrities and people they liked all the time? What a totally disconcerting sensation but more importantly...oh Gods, he needed to get laid. 

“We have some more work to get done tonight,” Caleb explained, forcing Essek to refocus. He hoped Caleb didn’t think he had been staring at him like he was a piece of meat. “I would like to at least get the buttercream frosting done so that way we can just focus on the decorating tomorrow.” 

“You’re going to want to see him do that,” Fjord said. “Caleb’s really good at that.”

“Don’t talk me up too much,” Caleb said as he grabbed the cup of tea that Caduceus had set down on the workbench for him. Essek finally took a sip of his own tea. It was a fragrant blend, blueberry and blackcurrant and elderberry came on the tongue first but with the steam came the smooth notes of bold black tea and the sweet floral notes of hibiscus and some kind of flower. 

“This tea is lovely,” Essek told Caduceus. 

“Thank you, I get most of the ingredients from my family back home,” Caduceus said. 

“Here,” Caleb said, sliding Essek a plate full of cookies that Veth and Fjord were skimping from in turn. “That should go nicely with that.” 

“Have you ever had a macaron, Essek?” Jester asked excitedly, motioning to a certain kind of cookie on the plate. When Essek shook his head, she smiled even broader. “You’ve got to try one.” 

Essek picked up the small cookie. It looked like a sandwich, and was much lighter than he had expected. He popped it into his mouth. The crust, if Essek could even call it a crust, shattered and melted away as if it had never existed to begin with. The cookie itself was soft and utterly toothsome with just a little bit of chew, while flavors of vanilla, almond, and pistachio perfectly melted together and leaving Essek sighing with pleasure. Essek looked up to see Jester looking at him intently from where she was basically laying on the table. 

“Essek, did you realize that you are pretty sexy when you eat?” Jester asked very seriously. 

“What does that even mean?” Essek asked, feeling his ear twitch with annoyance. 

“Oh nothing man, you look like you are really enjoying putting that in your mouth,” Beau snickered.  

“I don’t appreciate that innuendo,” Essek said with a roll of his eyes. He did his absolute best to sneak a glimpse at Caleb, who had half-sunk into the seat he was in and was looking very flushed. Weirdly, Essek wanted to shake Jester’s hand for this unexpected gift. Well then. He grabbed another cookie. This one was much plainer and Essek took a bite. Who knew that a shortbread cookie could become a revelation. It was light, buttery and crumbling and deceptively simple enough that it made Essek wonder if even he could make something like that. But also dipped into Caduceus’s tea? A perfect match, Essek could imagine eating these cookies every day for the rest of his life. “This might be up there with the Radler cupcake, Caleb.”

“I could add lemon zest to them,” Caleb offered. 

“Don’t you dare,” Essek warned. “I’ll force you to make them all the time.”  

“I wouldn’t mind, if it made you happy,” Caleb said with a shy smile. Essek caught his smile and met it with a smile of his own...an actual smile, that felt a little strange blossoming on his face. He wasn’t sure he had the muscles developed to actually smile genuinely, but if Caleb kept looking at him like he had just hung the moon from the sky he was sure he would get into practice. 

“You two are flirting again,” Beauregard groaned. Fjord flicked some crumbs at Beau, and her annoyance immediately evaporated and she flicked it back. Essek realized that she was most likely joking. 

“They are cute,” Yasha said, chiding Beau with a soft almost-smile that looked somewhat bittersweet. 

“I’m not cute, I’m devastatingly attractive,” Essek noted. 

“Do you always have to be patronizing?” Beau asked. 

“Yes, I do,” Essek said with a smug smile. 

“I’m going to do some frosting,” Caleb said, patting Essek’s shoulder. He didn’t move closer to kiss him or hug him...as much as he might have liked that in theory, Essek wasn’t sure yet how he felt about overt displays of affection. But Essek did catch his fingers for just a moment, and met Caleb’s gaze. He felt it warm him all the way from the tips of his ears to his toes, settling comfortably in his belly like the cookies and the warm tea. 

“Alright, back to work folks!” Veth said, clapping her hands. 

“I’ll help you put away the utensils,” Fjord offered to Essek. “I’ll show you where everything goes.” 

“Ah, thank you,” Essek said as he went to join Fjord. He opened the drawers and cabinets and demonstrated where everything went and in what order, and Essek did his best to commit those things to memory. Not that he assumed he would ever have to help in the back of the bakery ever again, but it was always good to be prepared for the unexpected. Essek quite liked organizing anyways, it was the reason that all of his clothing was organized by color in his closet. He spent a while doing that, before going over to help Yasha and Beauregard clean up the floors and counters. He got the sense that the frantic energy of the hours before was winding down, and the Mighty Nein seems to feel relieved that they would make it for the Vow Renewal. Essek had just finished when he looked over at what Caleb was up to. 

He was spinning the cake, which was terrifying to Essek but apparently no one else found it unusual. With practiced flicks of wrists and inhumanly steady hands, ivory buttercream became drapes and flowers and embellishments. All of them perfectly spaced apart and nearly sewed together with militaristic accuracy. The similarity between this and the precarious act of copying spells into a spellbook was almost eerie. He was on the second tier of the cake out of the tower of six, and then just as easily transitioned up to the third tier. 

“Caleb’s in the zone right now,” Fjord translated, and Essek realized that most of the others were gathering their bags. They all looked absolutely exhausted, and Essek checked his watch. Two in the morning...he was used to being awake at odd hours, after all, he only needed to trance for four hours a day. But for all of them? This must be torture. “I hate to ask, but Veth called Yeza and he’s going to help me get everyone home. I know Caleb will refuse until he’s done so do you think…?”

“I’ll get Caleb home, don’t worry,” Essek promised. Fjord gave Essek a clap on the shoulder and a grateful smile, before herding the obviously extremely sleepy Mighty Nein out the door, sans Caleb. Essek perched himself on a stool and watched Caleb work, steady and sure for at least another hour. Essek committed to memorizing the way his wrists flicked and his hands moved and the delicious profile he cut, and though he really should have felt bad ogling at Caleb like that he didn’t want to pass up the opportunity. Caleb finished up the third tier of the basic frosting decorations before pulling back and taking stock of his work. It was at that time, he looked around and realized that they were alone. 

“Oh…” Caleb said, obviously putting things together. 

“Put the cake away, I’ll get you home now,” Essek said, not necessarily an order but not not an order either. “You’ll do well with fresh eyes tomorrow.”

“I don’t know if I can get it done,” Caleb said, voice weighted with stress. “Sheisse, this is such a big opportunity and-” 

“You’ll get it done,” Essek said calmly. “I have absolute faith in your ability.” 

“I wish I could be as certain as you, my friend,” Caleb said with a fragile smile that filled Essek’s heart up with sweetness he never thought he could feel. Gods, he loved him. 

“Essek Theylss never fails, it’s my personal policy,” Essek said firmly. “Now come along.” 

Essek helped Caleb wheel the cake into the walk-in freezer, pointedly away from the remaining shelves. Essek waited as Caleb locked up his shop and started his car, making sure the heat was on and the car warmed up for Caleb as he slid into the passenger seat. He was carrying Frumpkin, who was now curled up in his lap and probably getting cat fur all over Essek’s car...did familiars shed? Essek, strangely, found he didn’t care as he watched Caleb so tenderly stroking his familiar back to soothe them both. 

“We’ll still have to close the bakery tomorrow most likely,” Caleb said, expression dark with worry. “We didn’t do any of our usual preparations and we don’t have any stock...it’s not that sort of business.”

“If you have a daily profit average, I can see your business is compensated,” Essek offered as he put the car in drive. 

“No, no. It’s not necessary. One day does not a failed business make,” Caleb said as he ran his fingers through his hair, and then pulled his hair out of the tie and began to redo it. “I don’t think I really and truly expressed...how much you being here means to me.” 

“I have to admit, I imagined our second date going a bit differently,” Essek jokes, pulling out of the parking lot. 

“Ah…” Caleb said, sounding lost for words. 

“I’m sorry,” Essek apologized, feeling the prick of panic at the back of his neck. He turned left, and calculated how long this would take. Only five minutes, it seemed so minute...just five minutes with Caleb when Essek wanted to fill his time with Caleb unabashedly. Though he supposed he was grateful for the opportunity afforded to him...and he shouldn’t ask for more. He couldn’t get too greedy after all, he didn’t even know what Caleb wanted. Almost-boyfriend or not, that was really the issue here. It was something he felt he couldn’t breach...he couldn’t pick it without bruising it. What if he went too fast and ruined it completely?  His worries caught in his throat and stayed there, slowly screaming away. 

“No, no,” Caleb said with a weak laugh. “I was about to agree with you...but let me just say? I’m grateful for it. I...”  

“Your job is important to you,” Essek said, trying to focus on what he could actually work with and salvage in this situation. “And I respect that, I hope you know that. I want you and your friends to succeed.” 

“...I hope you understand that I appreciate everything you’ve done for us,” Caleb said, voice deep with feeling. 

“I hope you understand that I’m certainly not a white knight,” Essek laughed bitterly. “I’m just a little bit selfish is all.” 

“Selfish?”

“I want you to be happy,” Essek admitted, the admission feeling oddly intimate. He cautiously glanced at Caleb, only to see him smiling at him in return. “Regardless of anything else. I...I want you to feel like you are able to rely on me, just a little bit. I have to admit, I’m a bit jealous about how you are with your friends...so it makes me happy for you to depend on me and that you called me to help you. Even with circumstances being what they are...I was happy. I am sorry it came at your expense however...”

I would do just about anything as long as I got to spend time with you, Essek didn’t say. He would wear stupid pink rubber gloves and clean a kitchen and go to the gym and do things outside of eat, sleep and work, and weirdly enjoy all of it. He felt useful and appreciated, and just that was enough to satisfy him when he had never been satisfied with anything before in his whole life. That was the magic of love, he supposed. It made even the most boring and normal things into something significant.   

“I’m not as perfect as you seem to think I am,” Caleb admitted suddenly. “As you can see...I’m obsessive. I get anxious and I just escalate situations that don’t need to be escalated because I can’t let things go.” 

“Ha, you are talking to the king of obsessive behavior over here,” Essek snorted very unattractively. He was horrified with himself but Caleb didn’t seem to mind, in fact he looked at Essek clearly...like he was really seeing him. How did he just do that? No one else had ever seen him and liked him before in his whole life, and yet Caleb acted like knowing Essek was as easy as breathing. 

“I should have just called you just to update you but...I wanted to see you too,” Caleb admitted with a wry grin. “You have no idea how happy it made me...for you to be there. I hope we can have something less dramatic...for our third date.” 

“Oh,” Essek said dumbly, mostly because he felt like his brain was now operating at 25% capacity. The rest of it was screaming at him to pull the car over and just kiss this man silly. Thankfully he didn’t need to drive much further because he was just pulling into Caleb’s driveway and not putting them in any danger for a car accident. 

“Unless you are opposed?” Caleb asked cautiously, propping open the door so Frumpkin could hop out. And yet, Caleb made no move to leave. 

“No!” Essek said forcefully. “No, I mean yes, a third date. Yes. I want to have a third date.” 

 “Do you have any ideas?” Caleb asked. “Something that you want to do, since our second date was for my benefit mostly.” 

“There is an event coming up,” Essek said slyly. “How would you like to be my date?” 

“I would be honored,” Caleb said looking at Essek for a moment before leaning over the seat. Essek met him with momentum, and finally they kissed again. Caleb’s lips earnest and gentle, and Essek nearly sighed with comfort against him. Essek felt more real than he had ever had in his whole life, grounded instead of just floating through. How odd it was, to become a protagonist in your own life. How strange, that everything could feel new with a kiss. Unfortunately, his lungs were his own enemy. He pulled away to catch his breath, and to his surprise Caleb pressed another kiss to Essek’s forehead. “Thank you, Essek. Guten nacht.”  

“...good night,” Essek said when he remembered how to speak. Caleb slipped out of his car and went into the house. Essek’s face was burning, his forehead was suddenly the epicenter of his heartbeat. Essek pressed his hand to his mouth, to cover his own smile but then decided against it. 

If the stars saw him be happy, what should he care?

[madamebaggio]

Notes: SMUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUT!!!!

This is the next chapter on my Gretel x Nuada modern AU. Previous chapter is here, and you can find everything on my AO3 account.

Seriously, guys, this is pure smut. Not safe to read around other people.

I hope you enjoy it.

****

Chapter 3

This time around, Gretel was feeling even more confused. She wished she knew what was wrong with her. 

She wouldn’t even consider Nuada’s motive. He might be an immortal elf or whatever, but he still had a cock. She wasn’t shocked he was going around looking for hookups, but she was shocked at herself for falling for it, not once, but twice!

Where was her self respect? 

Was he a great fuck? Yeah. 

Did it justify all of this? Hell no.

It was really appalling that she was acting like this.

Gretel enjoyed sex as much as the next person, but there were some lines that shouldn’t be crossed. Fucking a -supposedly- former megalomaniac who’d planned on world destruction was a huge fucking line! And she didn’t just cross it. Oh no! She skipped happily across it.

This was so problematic.

And she couldn’t even blame it on a tendency to like bad boys because of lingering daddy issues. Exactly because she’d spent years believing her father had plain abandoned her and her brother, she only got involved with the sweetest men she could meet. Sure, they bored the hell out of her eventually, but at least they didn’t break her heart.

She had no idea what she was doing.

So she did what any normal, mature adult would; she pretended everything was alright and worked.

Which meant going to meetings.

If there was one thing that made her truly believe that hell existed, it was the existence of meetings. Only the Devil could be so cruel as to create something like this.

However, today… There was something extra.

Gretel mused at it while she sat there, pretending she was listening to Agent Something. It wasn’t Nuada; he was as cool as cucumber, and he didn’t even make eye contact with her.

Hansel was fine, sitting between Mina and Abe. There was Nuala...

Nuala, who was making a real effort to avoid Gretel’s eyes. And, taking in consideration how polite and friendly the princess was most of the time, Gretel was instantly in alert.

Then Nuada said something and Nuala focused even harder on the floor, making Gretel understand exactly what was going on.

She’d waited until the meeting was over then dragged Nuala to the closest restroom. “You know!” She hissed.

To her credit, Nuala didn’t even try to deny it. Although, with her expression, it was useless to even try. “It’s not as if I’ve sought the knowledge.” Nuala replied on that overly formal and prim way she had.

Gretel hadn’t thought Nuala wanted to know what her brother was up to, but anyway… “It makes no fucking difference.” She covered her face with her hands. “Oh my god.”

“I am sorry.” Nuala cringed.

Gretel sighed. “It’s not your fault, but…” She groaned. “It’s still uncomfortable.”

Nuala gave her a sympathetic smile.

“Does he know you know?”

“Of course he does. We just act like we don’t.” Nuala told her. “It’s the same he does for me and Abe.”

Gretel cringed in sympathy. She couldn’t imagine having that kind of intimate knowledge regarding her brother.

“Are you alright?” Nuala asked her carefully.

“Sure. Why wouldn’t I be?”

Nuala sighed. “I don’t know what to say.”

“Let’s go with your policy with your brother and pretend we never discussed this.” Gretel asked.

“We can do that.” Nuala agreed quickly, then paused “It’s just…”

“No.”

“I’m not supposed to say that, but…”

“Then, please, don’t say it!” Gretel hurried to press. “Please.”

Nuala sighed. “You’re right. It wouldn’t be right.”

Was there anything right in this situation?

***

Gretel had had horrible nights before, but this…

She knew their work was essential. Normal people couldn’t handle the supernatural; they thought they could and that they wanted to… But they didn’t, not really.

Some things were meant to be handled by the right people, and that was them. This was why she and Hansel had chosen to stick around the Bureau. They did what they could alone, but with more resources they could do more.

Tonight, it didn’t feel like they could’ve done anything.

Gretel already feared human terrorists, but those that came from the other side…

It must be even harder for Nuada, because until recently, he was their symbol; the spark that fired a desire for revolution.

And that was why today it had been so cruel to them all.

Nuada had to kill the leader of a terrorist group led by elves that -as he had once- wanted to make humans pay for how they destroyed their world. The elf that called him a traitor, claiming he was fighting the battle the prince had abandoned.

It couldn’t be pleasant to hear that, especially since Nuada wasn’t a part of the Bureau because he wanted to.

The mood of the whole team had been dark as they came back, and Nuada had left before the debriefing.

Nobody went after him to make him participate.

Gretel was going to take a hot shower and forget this night had ever existed.

She’d just kicked her shoes off when someone knocked on her door. She sighed but went to answer it. Nuada was on the other side. 

“What are you doing here?” She asked quite rudely, but her surprise made her forget her manners.

Nuada sighed. “I wish I knew the answer to that.”

Gretel gave him a flat look. “Go rest.” She didn’t have the energy for this fuckery.

She pushed the door, intending to close it, but Nuada held it open with his hand.

She glared at him, ready to tell him to fuck off, when he shocked the hell out of her. “I yield.”

“What?” Not the smartest reply but she was truly shocked.

“I’m yielding to you.” He explained unnecessarily.

“We aren’t fighting.” She pointed out.

He gave a meaningful look to the door between them, the one she was trying to close and he was holding open. She refused to accept that as fighting and her look made it quite clear.

Nuada mumbled something on his language. “I’m giving control over to you anyway.” A pause. “Only for now.”

Of course he’d put a limit to that. “What should I do with it?” She asked honestly, because this whole situation was bizarre.

“Whatever you want.”

There was this moment when they stared at each other, Gretel trying to understand his motives better and Nuada just letting her try it.

The more she looked at him the crazier this seemed, and she could probably fill up a notebook with all the reasons this was a very bad idea.

She stepped to the side. “Get in.”

He did and she closed the door behind him. “I’m taking a shower.” She gave him a look. “And so are you.”

He didn’t comment, just nodded and followed her from the small bedroom to the tiny bathroom.

They took off their clothes in a practical way, no seduction to it at all.

Gretel fiddled with the shower handle, more to distract herself and have time to think what the fuck she was doing.

The water was the only good feature of the Bureau compound. It had excellent pressure and it was piping hot, just the way she liked it.

Gretel stepped under the water, let it beat down on her. She felt the moment Nuada stepped in behind her.

“Wash my hair.” She ordered him, pointing at her shampoo. “No funny business.” She warned.

She was shocked to see him complying without any complaints, but he did exactly as she asked.

They didn’t exchange any words as he lathered her long hair, his long fingers massaging her scalp until she felt her shoulders sagging. She didn’t even need to point the conditioner to him.

Once he finished her hair, she told him to wash.For a while they were both two people sharing the same shower, just washing the day away.

Nuada was rinsing under the water when she stepped up to him and kissed him. His hands were -for the first time- hesitant, as he put them on her waist. She bit into his lower lip and he pushed her against the wall, his tongue pushing into her mouth.

Gretel pushed him a but. “Slow.” She ordered. “This time, slow.”

He growled at her, but when he kissed her, it was slower. Their kisses seemed deeper this way, with a punishing edge to it, even as their tongues tangled.

Her hand slipped down his torso, until she found his cock and closed her fingers around him, pumping slowly. Nuada’s fingers weren’t idle and found her cunt, working her until he could slip two fingers in.

Shower sex was always a bit of a challenge, but if there was one thing in which Gretel trusted was Nuada’s raw strength.

She hooked her left leg on his hip, encouraging him to just fuck her already. It took some maneuvering before he was able to slip in with a single thrust. Gretel was very satisfied with her non slip shower mat, now more than ever.

Their mouths remained fused as Nuada fucked her against the wall. She did have to stand on one leg and on her tiptoes for it, but she wasn’t complaining -maybe she would later.

At some point Nuada grabbed her other leg, bringing it to his waist as well, and Gretel groaned as both her feet left the ground. She squeezed him tight between her legs, her arms around his neck, his mouth to her throat. She felt as if he was hitting her so deep he might never find his way back out.

She let one of her arms slip from around his neck so she could play with her clit. Nuada watched the progress of her hand, then started fucking her harder. It didn’t take long for her to come, biting her lips so she wouldn’t call his name. He followed right after.

Nuada lowered her to the ground with a gentleness she didn’t think he had. Gretel once again stepped under the water, this time to clean up.

She stepped out of the shower and picked up a towel while Nuada washed himself, then passed another towel to him once he was also out.

Her legs were shaking, so she went to sit on her bed. She watched through the open door as he toweled himself dry, then dressed quickly and in silence.

Should she say something?

“You should get Mina to teach you the arts.” He said as he came into the room fully dressed.

She definitely wasn’t expecting that. “What?”

“You have talent; it’s raw and untapped.” He informed her, barely looking at him. Was he really telling her to study magic? “If you learn how to harness it, you’ll become a great asset.”

“Is that a compliment?” She asked him dryly.

He finally looked at her. “No. You haven’t done anything to deserve one yet.”

She scoffed. “Thank you for the advice.”

He opened his mouth, like he intended to say something else, before changing his mind. He gave her a stiff nod and left the room.

Gretel fell back on the bed. “What the hell?”

Should she talk to Mina?

[alchemist-shizun]

About that Carry On Prinxiety AU

For now I laid out a bit of the plot, if you want to share some ideas just hit me up~

This is going to be a LOT to take on my shoulders but I will try and probably fail BUT TRYING IS KEYWORD (i really do believe in myself don't I? Everything under the cut!)

Since they all have their peculiarities, I'm gonna say that yes Virgil might be the Baz and Roman could be the Simon of this story, but I think either would fit for different reasons so they just have the same energy and will keep their own characterization. (If I'm able to not go ooc on this one wish me luck)

If I'm creative enough I'll try making an American school that is located in Florida, so that the characters know nothing much about what's happening in Watford and I can still make references without chronological contradictions.

Thomas could probably be the head mage too. I'm imagining him being very interested in the Normal culture and dressing like a Normal adult instead of the head of a great magical school, his "obsession" (kind of like Arthur Weasley's, if you will) is not really well-liked by most of the mages (especially the Old Fams), some believe that the students should have a better example instead of a man that always seems on the verge of leaving the magic world behind. The students, on the other hand, love him very much thank you. (yes even the ones whose parents insult him)

Oh my god I just had an epiphany: imagine Thomas obviously being in love with Disney and maybe Roman is very close to him so like he's talking about Virgil and Thomas just STRAIGHT UP STARTS SINGING SMTH LIKE THE MUSES' PARTS IN WON'T SAY IM IN LOVE OR LIKE THAT LION KING ONE AAAAAAAA and Roman is like ssss t o p but in the end joins in because he's w e a k (same)

Anyway for the main bois what I was thinking was that, with the prophecies about the Chosen One being there for a long time and them not knowing about Simon or anything, (this is becoming like Skam, there are many Snowbaz in the world) they just so happen to find in Roman an extraordinary amount of magic

Everybody is convinced Roman might be the Greatest Mage, the info flies out into the magical world of America but they decide to not share the info with other states. Roman gets very excited about this and works hard and trains himself in preparation for the big moment where he was going to have his big fight.

Virgil is his roommate (oh my god they were roommates), and of course, they can't stand each other at all. Virgil is definitely fed up with this story about the Chosen One, which Roman brings out in any possible conversation, so he uses it against him to tease him. Just imagine Roman bragging about something and Virgil being like "yeah but for a Greatest Mage you still haven't done anything so Great", or like Roman is having trouble with a spell or a subject? "Aren't you the chosen one?", Virgil only brings it up to make him mad and loves his flustered face. (keyword "loves" *wink*)

As much as I'm hopelessly in love with the idea of Vamp!Virgil (which would fit if he had Baz's role), I just had an angsty idea so I'm saving it for later c:

Hey how about a half-elf Virgil??? Anyone? Sorry I love elves

As for the time they spend together, they do the same thing as Simon and Baz, they avoid each other, spend time out of their room if the other's in there, make up different routines so they don't have to share anything and only really stay in the same room if they have to sleep. (idk why i said "if" like they don't need sleep)

Let me remind you that the beds are very close.

One time Roman woke up in the middle of the night and screamed in fear upon seeing a figure on the window.

It was just Virgil and he almost fell out, he would have probably smacked his head if it wasn't for the roommates' anathema or whatever it is called in english.

Virgil said he just couldn't sleep but he will never admit it was because of a pretty violent nightmare.

Roman does really think that he doesn't sleep at all and just uses his magic to stay awake judging by the dark circles under his eyes.

idk about you but I like the idea of Logan being something similar to Penelope, so Logan is Roman's best friend, they had met in the first year and Logan seemed one of the only ones who didn't approach Roman only because of his fame about being the Chosen One. Logan is simply amazing and brilliant at all subjects and surprises everyone since he's said to come from a family with weak powers.

Roman finds in him a very valid studying companion and he has to admit a lot of his best spells come from practicing/learning them from Logan. Also Logan loves explaining the stuff he's learnt, while Roman has this insatiable will to know everything to be able to defeat whatever bad guy will present in front of him. They basically become inseparable, despite having some friendly fights that are always solved with a snack break.

They !! deeply !! care !! for !! each other !!

Out of the other characters idk if Patton would fit anybody entirely, but I'm going to keep the 3v3 groups, so Pat will most likely be hanging out with Roman and Logan, he's actually very good friends with Virgil (none can escape Patton's friendliness) and tries to reason with Roman when he's mad about something Virge might have said. He's probably the reason why he hasn't killed Virgil yet. Patton doesn't come from a big family and lives with his grandmother when he's out of school. (I still have to develop this)

Forget about Dev and Niall and get ready for Deceit and Remus. I don't wanna give a headcanon name to Deceit bc I don't have one so he's gonna be a mysterious boy and everyone will call him Dee since it's the nickname I use for him. Both of them are two chaotic messes in their own ways. Dee, despite still being composed most of the times, is VERY fixated on his society discourses and arguments, he could come up to you one day out of the blue being like "so about the plan to overthrow the government" and you probably never even heard of it in the first place

JUST GIVE ME PASSIONATE DECEIT

Remus, on the other hand, messes a LOT with spells and you can see him traveling to the weirdest places. One day he was found trying to make the water creatures do a circus bit for him. People don't know how he's able to make his way through tests, but it's actually because he loves bugging Dee since he doesn't give the slightest shit about the weird things he suggests and they often end up studying together.

(I had the wildest thought thinking about Remus as Trixie)

Virgil, Deceit and Remus are what people call the "Untouchable trio", only because they come from the highest and oldest of the Old Families. They had been friends ever since kids since their Families met quite often, they never really fell apart despite being very different from one another. They're actually pretty chill people, it is only their surnames that make some people wary of them. They're not generally approached by anyone.

Idk if I wanna bring Emile and Remy in this, but I am tempted™, I'll think about it

So, Roman, am I right? Forgot to say he comes from a pretty big fam of hunters, they're the types of people that are lovable but won't hesitate to kill a bitch if needed.

But Purp, where's our creativitwins content? Thing is, yes they're actually brothers, but they were separated ever since kids for reasons none really knows? They never talk about it, even if asked to. They were given to two different families. They're aware of each other, but none has ever seen them interact. (I might find some angsty backstory on this just you wait)

Up until here Roman has always believed himself to be destined to the greater good, he's the chosen one, his destiny is the one to be the protagonist of the magic world and its hero.

At least that's what he thought until the fifth year.

One day during the fifth year, Virgil was doing homework on his room's table when Roman bursts in, louder than usual, and throws himself face-first on the bed, uncaring about ruining his hair or his clothes. That was an unusual sight since he never came into the room before evening or even before dinner. Virgil immediately knew something was wrong, but he didn't realize how serious the thing was.

So of course, he teases him a bit trying to get some info from him but only makes the situation worse. When Virgil calls him Greatest Mage as a joke, that's when Roman finally snaps at him in a way that Virge would have never expected. Roman really is enraged, yells at him and throws his pillow across the room since he can't hit him. He storms out of the room when he feels tears forming in his eyes, but can't really hide his sobbing as he goes away.

Virgil is just standing there, aware that he had just made Roman cry for the first time in his life and hated the sight with his whole being.

Roman had just learnt that he wasn't, in fact, the Chosen One, nor the Greatest Mage. Just an ordinary mage, like anybody else, who, in his opinion, had no other destiny than to finish school, find a job and just ... live?

So he's destroyed, all those dreams revealed themselves to be castles built in the air.

School is ending and Roman is just a bit numb, he's not really failing his classes but he's not as bright as ever. He barely leaves his room and doesn't talk to his friends as often, who are very concerned. Even Virgil tries to talk to him at some point. Thomas visits him when he has time and tries to work through the issue with him, but for the rest of the fifth year, there's nothing much to do to cheer him up.

Things seem to go back to normal as years pass and he's not in the spotlight anymore, none really talks about the Greatest Mage anymore and mages just carry on with their studies as they've always done. Everything's fine and normal.

And Roman hates it. But he's working in the shadow, so none notices his discomfort.

It only happens when he reaches the eighth year. It's impossible for Virgil to not recognize that Roman is slipping away at night and only comes back after some hours, either with dirty clothes or things tangled in his hair, he always came back different from when he left, meaning he definitely was wandering off outside.

One night he really can't stop thinking about how worried he is that Roman might get in trouble by himself, while he could probably prevent that, so he decides to follow him. Apparently, Roman is trying to find some kind of important and scary adventure to prove to himself that he's not as useless as he thinks himself to be, but Virgil still doesn't know this.

Virgil doesn't know what to do about the situation and decides to talk to Patton about it, in the end, the two of them decide to make a plan to talk to Roman with Logan, too.

On the other hand, Roman had been seen hanging out with Deceit or Remus, or both at the same time, trying to pry out information from them about how to get to certain forbidden spots of the school if he ever needed to. Surprisingly they don't ask many questions.

Chaos ensues when one night everything goes horribly wrong.

SO YEAH these are a bunch of things that I got right off the bat, I still have to think about the entire plot but don't want to spoil anything, basically the story would begin on the eighth year, just like Carry On, when Roman starts sneaking out. There might be things I need to fix but still I repeat that this is just a draft or a bunch of ideas that I got together somehow.

Tags: @soul-of-a-vixen & @flowersheep who wanted to know more about it~ (I'll write it as soon as I can!!)