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wrenhyperfixates · 3 years

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Milkshakes

Pairing: Loki x reader Summary: Overwhelmed when Loki saves you, you respond to his kindness with fear. Determined to apologize, you seek Loki out to thank him with a couple of milkshakes and some fries. Warnings: a tad angsty but much fluff A/N: This is actually one of my favorite fics I’ve ever written. Hope you all enjoy :)

Permanent Tag List: @lucywrites02 @frostedgiant @lunarmoon8 @twhiddlestonsstuff @lokistan @lowkeyorlokificrecs @gaitwae @whatafuckingdumbass @castiels-majestic-wings @kozkaboi @cozy-the-overlord @birdgirl90 @myraiswack @mythicalgarlicknot @what-a-flammable-heart @marvelouslovely

Disclaimer: Picture not mine

Of course it had to be during your lunch break that a supervillain attacked the city. Of course today you decided to go out to eat instead of packing something. And, of course you had to be walking by the building right as it crumbled. You started praying to any god that there may be to save you from being crushed. Though, you hadn’t actually expected one to save you.

In the moments before you would have been flattened, Loki put an arm around your waist, pulling you close to him. Raising his free hand, a glimmering green force field appeared around you. The falling matter bounced off of it and landed around you, the shield offering strong protection. Of course you were thankful to be rescued, but did have to be Loki? You knew he was supposedly reformed, but so many news outlets still ran stories about how he was dangerous. A ticking time bomb. You’d never quite formed an opinion on him, and it was causing great conflict in you now. On the one hand, he looked very intimidating from this close, what with his impressive stature and horned helmet and all. But on the other, he was saving you from the actual super villain destroying the city. Perhaps if there wasn’t so much going on, you could think more clearly. Alas, your thoughts were a messy, confused jumble, leaving you fearful of the super-powered god in front of you.

“Are you alright?” he asked in his deep, smooth accent as the shield shimmered away into nothing. The god brought his arm to shield your eyes from the small pieces of debris still falling, the other one still around your waist in a protective manner. “Are you injured at all?

“I, um, uh, I- I,” you stammered, backing up. “Mhm. All good. Uhhh, thanks.”

You were certain you must be the most awkward person in history, but instead of making fun of you, Loki just looked sad. Even with the hurt behind his eyes, his arms shot out to catch you when you stumbled over the wreckage. He guided you away from the obstacles to a place where you could walk unhindered. He moved back from you as soon as he’d finished escorting you.

“You are welcome,” he finally responded. “I am sorry for frightening you. You should get somewhere safe.”

Without waiting for a reply, he left to rejoin the battle. You started retreating from the scene, steering as clear of any large structures as you could, cursing yourself the whole time. Loki had saved you, and you’d been afraid of him. What kind of nonsense was that? And you were certain he got that kind of reaction all the time, based on the way he’d looked at you and realized your bumbling actions were a result of fear. Fear of him after he’d so carefully and gently saved you.

You felt stupid and petty as you joined a throng of people being guided away from the scene. After nearly two years of working to protect the city, Loki should have gotten more praise and love than he did. You realized it now, only moments too late. Someone should tell him he was appreciated, a hero. And if no one else was going to do it, you resolved to do it yourself.

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

The meeting was dreadfully boring, but someone had to go. Seeing as all the other Avengers were busy, that someone was Loki. Besides, Stark had told him it would be good for his image to head up the restoration of the city this time round. The committee and resources were all a part of Stark Industries, of course, so Loki felt there should be some employee to take care of it instead of him. But whatever, he’d been roped into it now, and he figured that there was some merit to what Tony has said about his reputation.

Luckily, with a week having passed since the battle, great headway had been made with the repairs, and the meeting was much shorter than expected. Itching to get outside, Loki headed to the main doors.

“You don’t understand,” Loki heard someone say to the receptionist as he approached the front desk. “He saved me the other day. I have to thank him. Please?”

Loki just rolled his eyes as he pushed through the turnstile. He couldn’t even begin to count how many fans had tried this tactic to meet their favorite Avengers. Granted, no one had ever tried to see him, but he was coming to terms with it. Still, he couldn’t help but wonder which of his colleagues you were trying to get through to see. Perhaps Steve, or maybe even Thor. Loki was so lost in thought it barely even registered when the voice switched from pleading with the receptionist to calling after him.

He turned and stopped, recognizing the person jogging after him as you, who he remembered from the battle. “May I help you?” he asked in the most pleasant tone he could manage.

“Yeah. Uh, hi. I don’t know if you remember, but you saved me the other day,” you explained sheepishly. “You know, during the attack.”

“Yes, I recall.”

“Oh! Good. I just wanted to say thank you for that. For saving me, I mean. And the city.”

“I see,” the god replied, suspiciously raising an eyebrow. “Well then, you are welcome. Really, I was just doing my job, though.”

“Well, I still appreciate it.” There was a lapse in the conversation, as neither of you were really sure what to say next. “Can we go somewhere? Like for coffee or something. Can I buy you a coffee?”

Oddly enough, that made Loki distrust the situation even more. Ok, maybe you were actually a super nice person who had a guilty conscience for making him feel bad, and maybe that prompted you to come thank him properly. But that you wanted to buy him something, presumably to show your newfound appreciation? Absolutely preposterous. The only people who ever did something remotely as kind as that were his fellow Avengers, and not even all of them or particularly often. Any of the other people who openly supported him didn’t show appreciation, per se. It was more that they felt he’d done enough to redeem himself at this point, which wasn’t exactly the most thrilling phrasing either. But here you were, awkwardly shuffling your feet and asking to buy him coffee. Loki supposed he shouldn’t pass such an opportunity up. And yet, he probably was going to.

“No thank you,” he finally replied, shaking himself from the shocked, catatonic state he’d fallen into. “I do not much like coffee.”

As he walked away, he thought that would be the end of it. That perhaps you’d only been talking to him in the hopes he’d invite you to see the other Avengers, too. That maybe you’d go back to trying to wheedle your way inside at the front desk. Much to his surprise, you came hurrying after him.

“Wait,” you called. “Ok, so scratch the coffee. How about ice cream or tea or a milkshake or something? Anything really, you name it.”

Now that you were outside, he observed you again while he thought, as if hoping the sunlight would reveal your true intentions. He couldn’t find anything malicious in your expression, just some sort of anxiety. Loki must have taken too long in coming to a decision, because you started rambling.

“I’m so sorry. I don’t mean to pressure you into it or anything, but I wanted to do something nice to say thank you and-” you cut off and bit your lip. “Is this stupid? It sounds stupid. It’s probably stupid. I’ll go now. Again, I’m really sorry to have bothered you.”

“One moment,” he said before you could make your retreat. “You said anything I want, correct?” You eagerly nodded as Loki got an idea. “Alright then. I would like a five course meal at the nicest restaurant in London, please and thank you.”

“I, um. I know I said anything but, uh...” You noticed his serious expression had turned into a sly grin. “You’re joking, aren’t you?”

“Yes, I am. My apologies, but I simply could not resist,” he chuckled.

You began to laugh, too. Not in a way that made him think it was out of courtesy or pity, but an honest to goodness laugh. Briefly, he thought it one of the most beautiful sounds he’d ever heard, before quickly shaking the idea from his mind. It was ridiculous; he hardly even knew you. But you seemed pretty adamant on showing your gratitude. Plus, you’d apologized to him, which was more than he could say for most of the people in his life.

“You know, I would usually say tea, but a milkshake actually sounds quite lovely right now,” he told you once you’d calmed down. “That is, if the offer is still open.”

“Of course it is!” you happily told him, the smile on your face growing. Not to mention you seemed much more at ease. “I actually know a great diner that’s just a short walk from here, if that works for you.”

“By all means, lead the way.”

It took approximately ten minutes to get to the restaurant. After properly introducing yourselves, you kept up a light dialogue. It wasn’t uncomfortable, exactly; just hesitant, as if both of you were afraid of saying the wrong things and shattering the blissful moment. Loki still couldn’t bring himself to fully trust you. Such a feeling just wasn’t in his nature, especially not when it came to someone he just met and had a considerably rocky start with. Even so, he found himself enjoying your company.

Arriving at the diner, Loki held the door open for you as you walked in. Luckily, you didn’t have to wait for a seat, the classic red stools at the bar free at this time of the afternoon. Loki swiveled the seat back and forth ever so slightly, and found himself chuckling when he caught you doing the same thing. You offered him a shy smile as a waitress handed the both of you a menu.

The God of Mischief had only ever had the pleasure of drinking a milkshake once before, a vanilla one when the team had convinced him to try it on one of their outings. He’d thoroughly enjoyed it and planned on playing it safe by ordering the same thing now. When you asked what he was getting, though, you were having none of that. After nearly five minutes of rousing debate, you’d finally talked him up to chocolate. Part of him was having so much fun with the discussion and how animated you became about the topic that he almost didn’t want to concede. But the waitress came back to take your orders, and he didn’t want to make her leave and come back again.

“Oh, and some French fries too please,” you added after ordering your favorite milkshake.

Loki shot you a perplexed look. “French fries?” he asked after the waitress moved away.

“Yeah. Please tell me you’ve heard of them before.”

“I have. I have even eaten them a few times before, believe it or not,” he answered as you turned to face him, leaning on the counter. “But are you certain they go with a milkshake?”

Your jaw dropped open. “Of course they do. Listen, Loki, you haven’t lived until you’ve dipped French fries in a milkshake. You’ll love it, I promise.”

You continued to help him expand his knowledge of Midgardian cuisine as you waited for your order to come. Once it arrived, you dipped a fry in your shake, just as you had said, trying to convince him just how delicious it truly was. The trickster skeptically picked one up and mimicked your actions, plunging it into the frothy liquid. The second it hit his tongue, his face lit up in pure delight.

“See, I told you,” you laughed.

“Indeed you did,” he said back, the corners of his eyes crinkling from how wide his smile was.

An hour and another order of fries later, the two of you finished your snack. Loki was in a better mood than he’d been all month. Honestly, he was a little sad when the bill came.

“Are you certain you do not want me to pay?” he checked as you fished out a twenty from your wallet to cover the low-cost meal. “Or we could split it, at least.”

“Loki, it’s fine,” you giggled. “This is me thanking you, remember? And, honestly, it’s me apologizing, too. I was just startled the other day and there was a lot going on. I hadn’t ever really thought about what I’d do if I met an Avenger, least of all if it happened while they were saving my life. I was overwhelmed; I didn’t mean to make you feel bad about yourself or anything.” Without really thinking about it, your hand moved to rest on top of his. It was a surprise to Loki, but a welcome one. “Because—and I can say this with absolute certainty—you’re amazing, Loki. You do so much for the city. I hope you know how appreciated you are, at least by me.”

His other large hand came to cover yours. “Thank you, darling.” He didn’t mean to say the pet name, but it just slipped out. “I cannot express how much that means to me.”

Somewhere in his heart, he wanted to tell you everything, make you privy to all his inner turmoil. But that was buried underneath years of pain and rejection, too heavy to move for someone he didn’t know all too well, no matter how connected he felt to you in this moment. So he let the urge pass over him, hoping his thanks would be sufficient enough in expressing how he felt.

“You’re welcome, Loki,” you told him, squeezing his hand. Then you stood up. “So, I guess I’ll be letting you get on with your day then. This was really nice, though. Thanks for agreeing to it.”

“You’re welcome and thank you,” he replied. “It really was.”

After waving goodbye to each other, you exited and Loki stayed where he was, picking at the last few nubs of fries left in the basket. He didn’t know exactly why he didn’t leave, too. Just that something was missing.

“Ah, young love,” the elderly waitress who had been serving you all day said to Loki as she came to collect the empty dishes. “Magical, isn’t it?”

“Love?” Loki choked out. “I am afraid you are quite mistaken. It was not even a date. I hardly even know them. I will probably never even see them again.”

“And you’re just gonna let them walk out?” she tsked. “It’s a right shame, sonny. Let me tell you, you don’t just let something like that walk out on ya.”

He looked at the door for a second in melancholic contemplation before bolting out after you. He shouted his thanks to the waitress as he pushed open the glass door, exiting out into the harsh sunlight. As his eyes adjusted, they scanned for your form before it walked out of his life forever. Spotting you, he jogged in your direction and called your name. Funny, he thought, how just earlier that day the roles had been reversed.

“Loki?” you asked, stopped on the sidewalk as he caught up to you. “Are you ok? Did something happen?”

“Actually, the problem is what did not happen.” He kicked a rock with his shoe, as suddenly the ground became very interesting to him. His insides were a nervous mess. Clearing his throat, he gathered his courage to continue. “See, I do not have any way of contacting you again. And it had been my sincere hope that you would want to do this again, let me take you out somewhere.”

“That sounds amazing,” you agreed, jotting down your number on an old receipt you’d found in your wallet. Smirking, you parroted back his words from earlier. “How about you take me for a five course meal in London?”

“Oh, so you have turned my own jokes against me. How very clever of you,” he laughed. “What if we just went to see a movie, instead?”

“Perfect,” you nodded. “Just text me a time and place, and I’ll see you then.”

“I look forward to it. As soon as I buy the tickets, I shall let you know.”

“Sounds awesome! It’s a date.”

As you parted ways, for real this time, it registered in Loki’s mind what you’d said. He hadn’t particularly been thinking about his phrasing or in what way he was asking you to hang out. But apparently you’d taken it as an invitation for a date. As Loki arrived back at the Tower and flopped onto his bed, already dreaming of your laugh, he found he was quite happy that you had.

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there-must-be-a-lock · 4 years

Text

Play Pretend

Spencer Reid x (gender neutral) Reader

Word Count: ~4170

Warnings: I don’t think there are any? Some language. Egregious amounts of fluff. A blanket fort and a Star Trek onesie. Gratuitous descriptions of Spencer Reid’s bone structure, because apparently I can’t help myself.

A/N: For the “treat yo’ self” square on my @cmbingo card, and also for @railmereid‘s 2k challenge! Prompt for the latter is bolded.

It’s been a godawful case, and in the BAU, that’s saying something. At least nobody ended up in the hospital this time? But as you all troop onto the jet in a straggly line of wrinkled clothes and puffy eyes, that’s about the brightest spot you can find in this whole fucking week.

As you get settled, though, Hotch clears his throat. “Your attention, please. We’re taking a long weekend, Strauss’s orders.”

“Oh thank god,” you mutter under your breath.

“Once we get back and grab our things, you are not to return to the office for a full seventy-two hours.” Hotch looks sternly (well, even more sternly) at Spencer, who’s on the couch next to you, curling up for a nap. “Understood? And you are not allowed to take case files home, Reid. I mean it this time.”

“Understood,” he says grouchily. You can’t help but laugh at the pout on his face.

“Seriously?” you ask.

He shrugs, lips quirking up like he does actually realize what a ridiculous human being he is. “I have many talents, but ‘taking it easy’ is not one of them.” He does the air quotes, even.

“All those PhDs and you never got a degree in relaxation?”

“That’s not—” He realizes you’re teasing and grins. “No. No I did not. I just… never really know what to do with myself, I guess?”

“Shocking.”

“What are you going to do, then?”

“I am going to have a treat yo’ self day,” you declare proudly.

“A what?”

“You know, like in Parks and Rec?” He gives you a blank look. “No, you totally don’t know. Of course you don’t. But there’s this one episode where two of the characters have a ‘treat yo’ self’ day, and they go shopping and get, like, really self-indulgent things that they wouldn’t ordinarily buy themselves.”

He frowns. “You’re going shopping all weekend? You’ve never struck me as a particularly materialistic person.”

“Fuck, no. It’s more about indulging in experiences. Self-care. Things that make me feel relaxed. Just… whatever makes me happy.”

“Like what?” He still has this totally puzzled look on his face, with his nose wrinkled up. It’s so much more endearing than it has any right to be.

“I like painting. I’m not good at it, but I like it, so I’m gonna get some new paints and a big canvas and make a mess, because it makes me happy.”

“Huh.”

“What about you, then? What do you do to relax?”

“That’s… a good question, honestly.”

“Well, what’s your idea of a perfect day?”

Maybe it shouldn’t surprise you that self-care is a foreign concept to him. You wait patiently as he overthinks it.

“Perfect seems unrealistic,” he concludes wryly.

“So, like, remember when you were a kid and you walked into a really awesome toy store?” you prompt. “Just feeling that sort of carefree, giddy kind of happy?”

“Not really.” He shrugs.

“What did make you feel like that, though?” you ask. “When you were younger? There had to be something.”

“I think I just — I didn’t do much normal kid stuff.” He lets out a huff of a laugh and runs his hands through his messy curls, suddenly self-conscious. “Didn’t get to play pretend, or… I don’t know. Didn’t have time.”

“Right,” you say softly. “Sorry.”

“Nothing to be sorry about.”

You nod, throat suddenly tight. “Yeah. Get some sleep, Spencer. Sweet dreams.”

He gives you a tired half-smile and tugs his blanket up to his chin, tucking his hands under his cheek, and the dark hollows under his eyes are hidden by his long lashes as he falls asleep almost immediately. You need to rest too, but it takes you a while; you sneak a glance at him every so often, feeling that twist under your breastbone that happens all too often when you’re around Spencer.

By the time the jet lands, though, you have a plan.

* * * * *

You second-guess your plan approximately a thousand times on your way over to Spencer’s the next morning. When you get to his door, you almost convince yourself to walk away before you manage to knock; is this totally presumptuous? Is Spencer going to think you’re ridiculous? Is the whole thing just plain stupid?

Then again, you were stupid enough to fall for Spencer in the first place, so. What’s another stupid decision on top of that whole mess?

When he opens the door, he’s wearing pajama pants, a t-shirt, and a phenomenally hideous bathrobe, and he’s all messy-haired and sleepy-eyed, and for a moment you’re panicking because oh shit I woke him up. It’s almost noon, to be fair, but he did have some serious sleep to catch up on. Then you notice the coffee mug in his hand, and after a moment of relief, that morphs into more of a oh shit he’s so fucking beautiful type of panic.

You’re used to that, though.

Then you realize he’s staring at you, smiling but puzzled, and you haven’t explained yourself. Oops.

“Um. Trick or treat yourself day?” you blurt out, hoisting your shopping bags and giggling at your own lame joke. “I… brought you something. Sorry, I didn’t mean to surprise you — I should’ve texted, I just—”

“You’re always a good surprise,” Spencer says shyly, and then seems to shake himself. “Come in. Sorry. Coffee?”

“Please.”

You set down your shopping bags and follow him to the kitchen, where he fixes you a mug of your own — exactly how you like it, because of course he remembers. Then he takes a couple deep gulps of his own sugar-sludge and tops it up, and by the time you go back out to the living room, he’s starting to look vaguely awake.

“What’s all this about?” he finally asks, head cocked to look curiously at the bags.

“Well,” you start slowly. Now that you have to say it out loud, it sounds even more stupid. “I was thinking a treat yourself day would be a lot more fun with company, and it seems like… maybe you’re overdue for some of that? For… self-indulgence, and just, like, enjoying yourself without worrying. And you deserve it. So. You wanna?”

His eyes are soft and bright, oddly vulnerable, and a smile spreads slowly across his face, twitchy at the edges like he’s not sure he’s allowed to smile yet.

“Really? I don’t know what to do, though.”

“Well, I have some ideas about that. But first, you gotta make a deal with me.” The way he’s beaming makes you feel a whole lot more confident as you tell him, very seriously, “This is the sacred covenant of treat yourself day. You have to solemnly swear to do whatever you want. Anything you can dream up. Indulge every whim. Take an oath to give in to every one of your silly, random, frivolous desires, without any form of self-denial or doubt. Can you do that, Spencer?”

“I can try,” he says, and his voice cracks. It’s like he can’t shape the words, with the way his smile has taken over his entire face.

“Okay, good enough. And… I have a few ideas.”

“Like what?”

You shrug. “Like… some things I thought maybe you didn’t get to do as a kid? Here, let me—”

You rummage until you find what you were looking for, and then you turn around, holding it out like an offering. Spencer’s mouth drops open.

“Is that a Captain Kirk costume?” he asks squeakily.

“It’s a Captain Kirk onesie,” you correct. “And it’s for you.”

“Holy—”

He shucks the bathrobe and sets down his coffee hastily, and he’s zipping the onesie up before you can say “Beam me up,” looking down at himself with this joy on his face, totally giddy in a way you’ve never seen him before, and holy hell, even if he hates the rest of your ideas, this will be one hundred fifty percent worth it for the memory of that smile on Spencer’s face.

“I have one too,” you admit, and pull your Chewbacca onesie out of your backpack. Once you’re both appropriately attired, you tell him, “Next order of business is cartoons.”

“I don’t actually have TV?” he says apologetically. “I mean, I have a TV, but it’s only for —”

You grin. “I came prepared, though!”

Spencer’s the only person you know who still has a VHS player, but you’ve been holding onto some things you rescued from your parents’ attic a while back; you find your VHS of Tom & Jerry cartoons and wave it at him triumphantly.

“I’ve never watched that before.” He examines the cover, bemused.

“It’s essential viewing.”

“Okay,” he says slowly.

While he performs whatever arcane ritual makes his ancient TV work (there’s like a rain dance and an animal sacrifice involved, you’re pretty sure) you settle on the couch, nesting in all the blankets and sipping your coffee contentedly. Spencer presses play and sits down next to you, but you can feel his uncertainty; he’s holding himself stiffly, and he keeps sneaking glances at you.

“Spit it out,” you tell him, a few minutes in. “If you hate it, you can just say so, Spence. I won’t take it personally.”

He shakes his head. “It’s not that! I just — is this really how you want to spend your Saturday?”

“What do you mean?” You have a Chewbacca onesie, a perfect cup of coffee, and great company; you’re not entirely sure how this could get any better.

“Doing nothing,” he mumbles. “This is… there are so many things you could be doing. Don’t you have a whole list of things you wanted to do? But instead… I don’t know. You’re here. With me.”

Sometimes you want to scream until he realizes how awesome he is, but the screaming is probably not the best way to convey that particular message.

Instead, you keep your voice very quiet as you tell him, “There is absolutely nowhere else I’d rather be right now.”

It’s a little too true. Your cheeks burn as you turn back to the TV, trying not to dwell on the way you can see him watching you in your peripheral vision.

“Okay,” he says hoarsely. He settles himself more comfortably into the blanket nest, and before long, he’s giggling along with you.

You watch in peaceful silence for a little while, but at some point, Spencer’s stomach growls, and you pause the tape to make food — chocolate chip pancakes with whipped cream, as per his verdict on “ultimate treat food.” As it turns out, he knows a lot about the science of cooking, but not a whole lot about the actual practice, so he sits cross-legged in a chair and directs you to various cabinets as you measure and mix and whisk. When you get the batter poured out on the griddle, he’s pattering on about the chemical differences between baking soda and baking powder.

He looks utterly dismayed when the first chocolate chip hits his forehead. Turns out his lack of hand-eye coordination applies to mouth-eye coordination too, and the floor is littered with semi-sweet projectiles before he actually catches one, but he’s laughing, so you really can’t bring yourself to care.

The pancakes are a total success. When you’re both stuffed and sugar-high, you grab the syrupy plates and bring them to the sink for a quick rinse.

“You don’t have to,” Spencer protests. You ignore him. His next words are much softer, scratchy and hoarse: “Thank you. I don’t — just — thank you.”

“Nothing to thank me for,” you say briskly. Then you turn around, and you freeze, because he’s a whole lot closer than you thought he was; he’s right there, close enough that you could reach out and run your fingers through his hair, or trace the sharp line of his jaw.

He has a tiny streak of whipped cream at the corner of his mouth, right where his lips curl up as he smiles, and for a second you can barely breathe with how much you want to stand up on your tiptoes and see if he tastes as sweet as he looks.

For a second he looks like he wants you to. He’s frozen too, for a moment, and you can hear his breath catch, but then he scoops you up in a hug, squeezing tight. And yeah, it’s just friendly, but it’s a hug from Spencer, and that happens rarely enough that it feels like a treat of its own, so you go with it, forehead pressed to his shoulder, heart racing.

When he releases you, you tell yourself you’re not disappointed.

“Right,” you say, bossy to cover how flustered you feel. “Back to business.”

“I think I need more practice sitting still,” Spencer confesses, following you back out to the couch. “It feels weird just… not doing anything.”

You pause, deliberating. “Well, we could keep our hands busy?”

With a quick rummage, you produce paint and an extra large pad of paper, holding them up for Spencer’s inspection. He frowns.

“I don’t have any paintbrushes.”

“They’re finger paints,” you say, grinning, and he laughs.

“Of course they are.”

You set everything up on the coffee table while Spencer presses play, and the two of you sit down on the floor, side by side. Spencer looks down at his onesie, then at the paint, frowning.

“It’s all washable, Spencer.”

“Still,” he mumbles. “I don’t want to take it off, but —”

He unzips the onesie halfway, peeling the arms off and letting the fabric bunch up around his waist.

“There we go, putting that genius brain to work,” you tease, but you’re touched that he cares enough about your present to worry about stains.

It’s hard to ignore how close you’re sitting. You do your best, keeping your eyes on either the TV or your masterpiece of Abstract Expressionism, but Spencer’s knee is pressed to yours, a constant warm pressure, and your hands keep brushing as you both reach for containers of paint, and you can smell him, like vanilla and maybe old books. The whole thing has you feeling flushed.

Other than that, though, it’s comfortable. It’s always been easy to talk to Spencer, which makes sense considering how much he knows about every subject imaginable, but it surprises you sometimes how easy it is not to talk to him, too. Silence isn’t awkward, with him. Neither of you say anything for the next hour or so. You just giggle at the TV and paint, wordless and companionable, and it’s the happiest you’ve felt in… longer than you care to admit.

Life is rarely perfect, especially not in your line of work, but this? This is pretty close.

As the credits start to play, you stretch, and then you look at his paper. It takes you a second to recognize yourself, but the likeness is unmistakable. Spencer’s got the exact angle of your eyebrow when you’re looking at him skeptically — apparently you do that often enough that he’s memorized the expression. He somehow managed to capture your smile, the curve of your lips, all in tiny delicate pinky-strokes of purple and turquoise… trust Dr. Spencer Reid to bring that level of precision to finger-painting, and oh god you are not going to think about his fingers any more.

“Do you like it?”

“Yeah,” you manage. You clear your throat. “Yeah, I really do.”

Then he makes it worse by rubbing the side of his neck, bashful and self-conscious, smearing blue-green paint from his collarbone to the sharp line of his jaw, and he’s so busy smiling at you that he doesn’t seem to notice. He swallows, and his Adam’s apple dips, shifting a streak of color, making it flicker. It’s such a silly thing, but it draws your attention to his skin — makes you want to touch. Worst of all, it reminds you that he’s already art, that the shape of him, the delicate precise way he’s put together, is more beautiful than anything you’ve ever seen in a museum.

It reminds you that you want some things you can never, ever have.

“You’ve got — um,” you say, gesturing helplessly. He blinks at you, slow like he’s coming out of a trance, and tucks his hair behind his ear, smearing more paint there before he remembers. You giggle, sharp and nervous, and it breaks the tension all at once. Spencer laughs too, rolling his eyes at himself. You get up clumsily to go grab a wet paper towel from the kitchen.

The moment is gone, but your heart is still racing.

“What’s next?” Spencer asks softly, once you’re both cleaned up.

He missed a tiny spot; there’s a blue smudge right at the corner of his jaw, and you want to touch it, feel it under your fingertips, see if the skin is as soft as it looks, right there where the bone stretches it thin.

“Blanket fort,” you blurt out, before you can do anything embarrassing.

His eyes light up.

It really shouldn’t surprise you that Spencer and his engineering PhD make quick work of a pile of sheets and clothespins. You’re pretty sure that he could revolutionize the entire field of blanket fort construction, if left to his own devices, but you keep poking him when he gets lost in his head or starts muttering calculations to himself. The point is having fun.

The end result is a lot more Frank Lloyd Wright than any of your childhood creations, but Spencer looks absolutely gleeful, so. It’s the spirit of the thing.

“One more thing,” you say. “Do you have any Christmas lights?”

Spencer frowns. “I don’t — oh! Wait!”

He runs to the closet, and he ends up halfway inside the closet, digging around on his hands and knees. You’re about to make a crack about Narnia when he comes out, holding up a box with a triumphant smile.

You read the label: “Halloween decorations 3 of 4.”

Because of course Spencer Reid has Halloween lights. He pulls out several long ropes of them; a couple are shaped like tiny skulls, one is strung with Jack-o-Lanterns, and two could pass as Christmas lights if they weren’t orange and purple. You help him detangle the knot of them and drape them over and through your fort, and when you turn out the normal lights and draw his heavy curtains, the whole thing glows in patches of orange and purple and white.

“After you,” you tell Spencer, and he crawls in without any more prompting.

There’s more than enough room to sit up, but Spencer is lying down on his back in the nest of blankets and pillows that you’d relocated from the couch. He’s staring up at the “ceiling” in silence, eyes glittering with some unreadable expression where they catch the twinkling shards of light. You make yourself comfortable next to him, looking up and wondering what he’s seeing.

“I always wondered what the appeal was,” he whispers. “Of blanket forts. And… childhood in general, I guess.”

“You grew up pretty fast, huh?” you say quietly.

“Yeah. And I never — I feel like most of the team doesn’t take me seriously sometimes. Like I’m still a kid to them. I always feel like I have to prove myself.”

Your instinct is to deny it automatically, but you know what he means. They laugh him off for his quirks, for the way he gets excited about things and for the things he gets excited about. That’s what’s so incredible about him, though: that dichotomy of knowledge and curiosity, the breathless excitement when he makes a discovery.

“I liked pretending I had my own little world,” you tell him. “Blanket forts. Felt like I could actually shut all the bad things out.”

“Still feels like that,” he says, and you can hear the smile in his voice.

“Nothing wrong with acting like a child, sometimes. We need that. Even if it’s just pretend.”

“I think I get it now.”

“Hmm?”

He’s silent for a long moment before he says, “In here, everything’s perfect.”

“Or we can pretend it is.”

You turn your head to find Spencer looking at you, and he doesn’t look away when your eyes meet. You barely want to blink for fear of breaking whatever spell you’re under.

There’s something raw and earnest and almost scared shining all over his face, like you’re catching a glimpse of the child he used to be, before the world taught him to put on a brave face and keep his most intense feelings to himself. It makes you feel shaky in ways you were really not prepared for.

There’s a heavy moment of silence. You’re painfully aware of how loud your breathing sounds.

It’s a hell of a thing, to have his focus like this. You fell in love with him watching him work; you know how intensely he can devote himself to a task, to a puzzle, to a map… and every so often, when the two of you talk, he focuses all that brilliance on you, and he listens so completely that you feel his attention like a spotlight.

That’s when he usually looks away, dropping his gaze like it’s something to be embarrassed about, because too many people have told him to stop staring.

He’s not looking away now. He turns onto his side to completely face you, curling up in that sweetly childish way with his hands between his cheek and the pillow, and you mirror him.

“Feels like we’re alone.”

He’s right; there are no distractions, no excuses to be made, no interruptions. It’s just the two of you, and it’s terrifying.

“Feels safe,” you whisper, because that’s true too. Your heart is racing, and it’s like you can hear your pulse in your ears, but it’s the quietest sort of panic you’ve ever felt. “I think that was exactly what I wanted, after the last couple weeks. To get away. To feel safe.”

There’s an orange light throwing most of his face into shadow, but you can see the corner of his mouth a little too clearly. You’re maybe a foot apart. It would be so easy —

“We don’t get that often.” His voice is barely more than a breath.

“Safety?”

“That too, but —” His breath hitches, and he clears his throat. “What we want. I don’t usually get what I want, but this was — this was very close to perfect.”

“Yeah, well, when is life ever perfect?” You manage a smile. “What would make it perfect? If you could have anything.”

“It’s not something I can have, though.”

“So pretend. It’s just us, and there are no rules today. What would it be?”

He bites his lip. “I don’t think —”

“For once in your life, Spencer, stop overthinking it,” you half-laugh, and then he’s propping himself up on one elbow, shifting forward, leaning closer, close close close until he’s all you can see, and —

He kisses you.

It’s the most gentle, feather-light brush of a kiss you’ve ever felt, barely more than a graze of his parted lips over yours. It’s there, and then it’s gone again before you can even begin to process the sensation.

As your eyes flutter open you can already see the fear setting in, dark intense gaze fixed on you as he inhales sharply.

You’re still trying to remember how to breathe; you’re too stunned to react beyond blinking at him.

“I’m sorry. Can we just —” He shakes his head, hand over his mouth like he’s trying to hold onto the kiss. “Do you think we could pretend — can we pretend I didn’t do that? I’m so sorry.”

“I don’t want to pretend,” you say shakily.

He stares.

This doesn’t seem real. It’s such a strange moment that you might as well be trapped in a Dali canvas. There’s fingerpaint on his face, and he’s wearing a Captain Kirk command uniform onesie, and there’s a tiny Jack-o-Lantern glowing over his head. If you’d imagined the “perfect” moment, this would not be it.

But you reach out, running your fingertips over the dark smudge of paint on his jaw, and the skin is hot and smooth. He shivers at the touch. It’s real.

“Spencer?” Your throat is tight, but you manage a choked, “I want you to kiss me again.”

He does, with a careful hand cupped to your cheek and a smile curling his lips when they meet yours. You run your fingers through his hair, and you both laugh when they catch on dried paint.

“Perfect,” he whispers.

It really is.

#renswritingchallenge #cmbingo21 #criminal minds fic #spencer reid x reader #spencer reid fluff #cm fic #criminal minds #spencer reid

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colossal-fallout · 3 years

Text

Hange Zoe Relationship

Aesthetic, Vibe & Various

🤪

👽

🤎

💦

🖖

🤝

🫀

👩‍🏫

🦸‍♀️

🧗‍♀️

🦉

🪶

🐬

🦠

🪴

🌰

🎢

☄

♟

🎭

Hange is an extremely focused, dedicated and loyal person to her job. It's pretty rare you'd get some one on one time - but she always makes sure she does indeed get that special quality time with you, now and again.

That's not to say she won't squeeze in little visits here and there; because she will. Just... don't expect her to stay too long, most of the time.

Hidden under her distracted and "crazy" persona, is a caring and very thoughtful individual. Expect her to think of you when she sees something she'd know you'll like. She'll probably buy it for you too, for next time she sees you.

It's the little things like that and the effort she puts in to make you feel loved and wanted, that makes up for the lack of her presence.

Ideal dates:

When Hange does have some spare time, her most favourite thing to do with you is either snuggle up in bed with a book, just reading in a peaceful, comfortable silence OR she's quite partial to a nice long walk to clear her head, relax and just talk to you about whatever flies through that fast-flowing mind of hers.

She's pretty fond of the theatre, she likes critiquing the structure of the script and stage directions. ...And she loves the ice-cream there. Not to mention she's a thrill seeker. Rock climbing, roller coasters and skydiving all get her to her happy place.

She's not huge on PDA, but she doesn't mind if you initiate it. Hold her hand or peck her on the cheek as much as you'd like. Just dont expect full on make out sessions in the movies. She has a reputation and a sense of professionalism to keep. She's a soldier. And a damn good one, too.

Modern AU

Modern AU probably wont surprise you that she's probably working in a lab of sorts. Medical or testing, even teaching. Whatever it may be - anything that arouses the mind, that's what she'll be doing.

I could also see her working as a CSI, cleaning up and figuring out crime scenes. She's good at it too.

Hange loves all gadgets and widgets. Always has the latest phone/tablet/software and owns a drone too.

Likes to take her gopro out for adventures. Probably has a youtube channel (she doesn't really show her face) and talks over her footage.

"So, here I am scaling that little doozy of a ledge. I was around 300 ft up by that point and - wait for it... Haa! There's goes my foot! Almost got me there, nature huh?" *laughing*

NSFW

Hange is a dom/sub switch. She's also pan. She owns strap ons, vibrators, cock rings... you name it she's got it.

Very sexual. She's pretty loud too. Her genitals are extremely sensitive and she can cum pretty easily and it won't be long until she's calling out your name again soon after.

Can be a pretty rough dom, if she's horny enough.

Sex with her gets messy. She squirts and gushes.

Gets hysteric too. Pulls her own hair if you tease her too much, writhing on the bed.

Kinks

One of her Kinks is being as full as possible. So that's toys in every hole. As well as you if you're male bodied.

She has a love/hate relationship with teasing. God she'll absolutely loathe you for it, but it'll give her the best, earth shattering orgasm of her life when you finally allow her to.

One of her more dominant kinks is praising you while having you tied up, totally at your mercy while she has her way with you. She'll be rough too.

Aftercare

Aftercare with the section commander is one of the best, without a doubt. She'll hold you, cuddle you and kiss you. Especially if she's on a hormonal come down from being a rough dom. She'll kiss and nurse and markings she's left.

As we know, Hange isn't the cleanest of people. She doesn't mind falling asleep in cum soaked sheets.

Will massage you if you had done a lot of work in that sex session. She'll praise you too. You fucked her so good.

Dates 10/10

Thoughtfulness 9/10

Affection 7/10

Sex 10/10

Aftercare 8.5/10

Anyone would be lucky to have this queen as their so. She's mind blowing in so many ways. ❤

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iridescenceoflove · 3 years

Text

Okay, I know I said I'll take what I got and still love the show—and I still really, really do—but the more I dwell on it and stew in my turmoil of feelings, the more...depressed I get about the ending. Honestly, it was just all kind of messy and underwhelming after so many good, fast-paced and resourceful episodes.

1. We already know everything wrong about Han Seo's end, I don't even need to hash it out. If you don't understand what was wrong with that... 🤷🏻‍♀️

2. I was okay with Cha Young getting shot for the protection of Vincenzo; cliched as it was, they still kept her pretty in character with the way she stood up against Han Seok while being held at gunpoint. However, they took it too far by having her get shot, just to simply stay in a hospital bed until the very end. No action for her, no behind the scenes work, no second party (what the hell was the point in that anyways?), just—reduced to an invalid in bed for saving the love of her life. After all she's done, after always wanting to be right up in the front lines. I know one of the issues with her getting shot was the overused setup for Vincenzo to reveal his feelings, and honestly, I didn't mind that. But that doesn't even work, because he doesn't. He clearly is worried for her and we know he loves her, yet it doesn't spur him to make any further move. Han Seok already killed his mother, it doesn't even add to the narrative of him having a loved one get hurt to do something. He would've still killed Han Seok brutally regardless if Cha Young had gotten hurt or not. She deserved to be a part of it all. And I don't mean the killing. She didn't have to hit the button. But she deserved a final line to Myung Hee at least since she's her father's murderer. I'm pretty sure the Geumga men got more action than she did.

3. Han Seok gathering a bunch of mercenaries seemed filler. It makes sense for the purpose of hiring people to kill Seung Hyuk, but they literally added nothing to the very mediocre face-off with the Geumga men. In fact, the face-off at the beginning of episode 19 with the whole Cassano family was way cooler and more dynamic than whatever you call that. How the hell did they even know specifically where to find Han Seok and his men? Vincenzo and Cho were the only ones aware of the tracking device anyways. I mean, I could've lived with that, except, why have them come fight? We know they can stand on their own, it's been very much established multiple times. The stabbing wasn't even done by one of the hired men, it was done by Han Seok. Just seemed really messy and unnecessary; simply there for the purpose of having some of the Geumga tenants have one last moment.

4. The whole Guillotine File thing had such a great setup. It seemed very anticlimactic just for Vincenzo to whip it out and tell Gi Seok to take it. Like, they made a huge deal of using it to take down everyone, he even says nobody but himself knows where it is, then whips it out to hand it over like nothing when he could've used it for, oh, I don't know, being pardoned so he doesn't have to leave for a whole year. Which—

5. A whole year? Come on, you just can't have me fall for the fact that this guy, whom even the Director pardoned for a bit of time, has to leave for a whole year with no way or alternative reason to come back for more than just one day because he has to sneak in with Italian delegates? I'm calling bullshit.

6. I love Vincenzo and Cha Young. They truly do love and deserve each other. But the ending for them? Nah. I hate the fact they pulled a CLOY, I really do. You're telling me Cha Young has to be content with spontaneous year to year visits or has to go visit an island in Malta to be with the one she loves? FUCK NO. I'm manifesting a completely different end for that, same with Han Seo, don't @ me.

7. Where the fuck was Inzaghi? He didn't even get to say goodbye in episode 18, seriously, what the fuck.

8. The gold storyline was okay. I'm glad they didn't leave loose ends, but it once again just didn't sit right after all the buildup. They moved it all to her house and she sleeps on a hard ass gold bar bed. Queen behavior, but still.

9. Bye Bye Balloon. We all wanted it. We didn't get it.

As you can see, the more I ramble, the less eloquent and structured my points become. All in all, did they tie most of the loose ends up? Yes. I'm glad they didn't kill Mr. Lee off, I would've been too pissed for words if that had happened along with Han Seo. In my opinion, they didn't leave an open ending, which would've made things ten times worse. And it really isn't the worst finale I've seen. Far from it, contrary to my points. It's just after so much anticipation, building, excitement, and truly amazing episodes, it fell very flat for a finale. Way more bittersweet than needed.

However, I will end on some good points because I don't want to ignore them either.

1. I love Han Seok's and Myung Hee's deaths. Absolutely love it, so much that somebody would probably deem me crazy for how much I enjoyed it. Myung Hee fire dancing to her zumba music was so poetically beautiful. Han Seok and all the references to Greek mythology or whatever as he's left for the birds was stunning. Both of them being cocky until they realize how miserable their deaths really are going to be was pure enjoyment for me. Nothing says satisfaction like watching the pure horror take place on their faces as they beg for Vincenzo to just end it instead. They really and truly did deliver with their deaths, and I am still shocked and pleasantly delighted with how they didn't shy away one bit with the brutality of it.

2. I'm glad they at least gave Cha Young her moment somewhat in the end. She got to take down the Tae ho lover and his mom in retribution for both Vincenzo's mom and her dad. Her sass and savagery in the end gave me the hint of original Cha Young I'd been craving for the whole episode. And the fact that she got to lead the Cassano Geumga family was great too (despite how cheesy that walk up and taunting of Kingmaker and his guys was).

3. I'm glad Gi Seok was promoted, and I'm especially glad he and Mr. Cho get to work together. Those two are the best and deserve everything.

4. As much as they could've really polished it, I'm glad Vincenzo and Cha Young got their moment. At that point, I think my standards and expectations were so low that I was blown away by their kiss. I didn't expect it at that point and thought we were going to be left with them walking off together. It was still a pleasant surprise, nonetheless.

5. I really do like what the monk said to Vincenzo. Wrapped up his feelings regarding his lifestyle very well, and I thought it was the perfect balance of philosophical and realistic as you could get. He needed to hear that, and I'm so glad he got some form of content and peace with who he is in the end.

6. I really love that they didn't stray away from Vincenzo truly being an anti-hero. He even refers to himself as a villain, and I'm glad they didn't try to gloss over that in the end just so it could look good morally. His take on justice is very...Vincenzo Cassano. Befitting.

I love this show still, would still recommend it, and would still do it all over again. I'm so glad I was able to be active in this fandom and see so many wonderful discussions, people, and analyses. I'm going to miss these weekends so badly.

#vincenzo #tvn vincenzo #kdrama #vincenzo cassano #hong cha young #my post

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kaimelia · 3 years

Text

heartbeats (ch 6)

a/n: this took a super long time, but here’s the next chapter! I can’t make any promises as to when the next one will be out, but I hope you enjoy this in the meantime! <3

here's chapter 5 if you need a quick refresh CHAPTER 5

and the other chapters are linked on my masterpost

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

"Amelia? Could you bring me my computer?" Amelia groaned and rolled her eyes, picking the laptop off the coffee table and entering the bedroom. She smiled at her husband, handing him the computer and adjusting the pillows behind him. "Thank you." She sat down next to his legs and fixed the blanket over him.

"Scout and I are going out with Mer and Ellis for lunch, will you be fine here?" He nodded. "And if you need anything, you'll call me, right?"

"I'll be fine, Amelia. I'm a week post-op with no complications; you can leave me alone for more than an hour." She sighed, squeezing his leg softly.

"I know. I'm just worried that you'll disappear on me. You'd think that as a doctor, I'd be less scared all of the time." Link placed his hand over hers, cringing as he moved too quickly, and a sharp pain spread across his abdomen. "What, what happened? Are you okay?"

"Just sore, Amelia. I'll be fine here; you go spend the afternoon with Meredith."

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

"I just need everything to get better, you know? I mean, I knew surgery wasn't going to fix everything, but I thought it would be some sort of relief, but he's not feeling better yet." Amelia reached to her side, picking up a leftover fry from her son's plate and glancing over at him. He and Ellis had eaten quickly and scurried off to the playscape at the park, chasing each other up and down the structure.

"I thought they got a good amount of the cancer out?" The neurosurgeon shrugged, sighing heavily as she watched her son go down the slide, meeting his cousin at the bottom.

"They did. I just want Link to get better; being a good wife and mother while my husband is dying in front of me is getting pretty difficult," she muttered, taking the last fry from the plate. "Scout just has so many questions about everything that I can't answer. He doesn't understand that we just don't know some things, and that doesn't mean that it's bad; it just means that we don't have answers. And, I just want my husband back."

"Things still aren't going well between you two?"

"It's better since his surgery, but he's just not the same person anymore." She looked off to her side, where Scout was screaming happily as Ellis pushed him on the swing. "Link doesn't chase Scout around the house anymore, he doesn't hold me as we fall asleep, he doesn't wake up early to make waffles anymore, it's just all of these little things that I never appreciated, but now I miss them so much. It's like, even though he's still there, the person he was is gone." Meredith reached out, placing her hand over Amelia's folded ones in comfort as the neurosurgeon sniffled softly. "I want my husband back, Mer."

"I know. And I'm so sorry, Amelia, and I'm always here for whatever I can do." Amelia sat up as Scout came running towards the table after a gust of wind, his hair messy and his cheeks red from the cold.

"You want your coat?" He nodded, sitting down at the picnic table as she pulled it out of her purse.

"Momma?"

"Mhm?"

"Can we go to Disney for my birthday?" Amelia's eyes widened, her mouth falling open as she realized.

"Your mom will have to talk to your dad," Meredith stood up, helping Scout to pull on his coat. "Go play again; you can't leave Ellis out there by herself!" He jumped off of the bench, running back over to the playscape.

"Oh my god," Amelia muttered, dropping her head into her hands. "His birthday is next week; I totally forgot." Meredith sat down next to her sister, wrapping an arm around her shoulder.

"Hey, you have a week. I'll help you get him presents or plan a party, whatever you need. And, you can give him an IOU on Disney; I'm sure he'll understand."

"I'm a terrible mother. I can't keep doing this, Meredith." She jolted up once her phone rang beside her, Link's name appearing on screen. "Link? What's up?" Meredith watched as Amelia listened, her face falling as she stood quickly, grabbing her purse and shoving her phone down.

"Is everything okay?"

"Link's in a lot of pain; he said he's calling an ambulance, and I have to go meet him at the hospital," she breathed heavily, calling for Scout. "I shouldn't have left him alone, he was in pain this morning, and he said it was just sore, but I thought it was something more, but he told me to go, and I listened, but I should've trusted my gut and stayed, and I-" Meredith placed her hands on Amelia's shoulders, shaking her back and forth lightly.

"Okay. Breathe, Amelia. You go to the hospital; I'll bring Elle and Scout to daycare and come find you, okay?"

"Okay."

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

"What the hell happened?" Amelia rushed into the trauma room, taking her place at Link's side and instinctively grabbing his hand, her free hand resting on his head, brushing his thin hair down. Richard turned towards them.

"It appears that you have an infection from surgery, and it's become severe. We're going to start you on a round of antibiotics and hope that the infection gets wiped out."

"And if it doesn't?"

"Then we'll decide treatment as needed. A nurse will come in soon to get you started on antibiotics, okay?" Link nodded, thanking their coworker as he exited the room.

"You should've called me sooner, Link." He looked over at her and sighed.

"I didn't want you to freak out, and I didn't think it was a big deal. I've been in pain since surgery; it comes and goes." Her chin quivered as she wheeled a stool over, sitting down beside him. "Amelia, I'm going to be okay." She shook her head as her eyes welled up with tears, dropping his hand and folding hers in her lap.

"Link, I can't lose you; I need you to tell me when something's wrong." He reached out for her arm as her voice cracked and tears began to fall from her eyes, but pulled it away as she flinched at his touch. They both froze when the doors opened, and a nurse walked through, making polite small talk as she put the antibiotics into his I.V. and started the medication. The room was quiet once she left.

"Amelia," he started, stopping once she held out her hand.

"No, I just need a minute." She pushed herself up, quickly leaving the trauma room, running her hand through her hair as she hurried out.

"Hey, what are you doing here?" Jo stopped her, and Amelia's chest sank at her friend's joyful voice.

"Link's in the E.R., maybe you can go stay with him; I just can't right now," Amelia muttered, continuing her path down the hallway as Jo hurried in the opposite direction. "Mer!"

"Hey, they're checked into daycare; what's happening?"

"He's got some sort of infection, and I need to go puke right now." Meredith followed her into the bathroom, quickly grabbing the neurosurgeon's hair back as she heaved into the toilet, her shoulders shaking as the silence of the bathroom was filled by her sobs and the sound of her head banging against the wall of the bathroom stall.

"Amelia," Meredith sighed in desperation, pulling Amelia's head against her chest, embracing her tightly.

"I think he's gonna die, Mer; I really think he might die."

"Shh," she hushed, running her hands down Amelia's hair. "Can I help you get into an on-call room? I think you need a minute to relax." She hesitantly stood, using Meredith's arm for balance as they walked down the hall. Meredith pushed open a door, scanning the room to make sure that it was empty before leading Amelia inside. "Alright, just come lay down for a little while, okay?"

"You'll wake me up if something happens with Link, right?"

"Of course." Her eyes followed Amelia as she laid down on the bed, settling into the firm mattress, and her eyes quickly shutting as she fell asleep. Meredith stood and left, closing the door softly, pulling her phone out of her pocket, and dialing a number she rarely called. "Hey, Carolyn, it's Meredith. Amelia needs you."

#amelia shepherd #amelink #amelia x link #amelink fanfiction #atticus lincoln #grey's anatomy #amelink fanfic #greys abc #greys fanfic #scout lincoln #meredith grey #my fics

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subtlereferencetomyinterests · 4 years

Text

Hypothetically,

Ao3, MasterPost

Relationships: Romantic Intrulogical, Platonic Logince

It is about! Damn! Time! That I wrote some Intrulogical! Also, y’all already know my stance on platonic logince,,,, guys they ARE best friends i’m sorry I don’t make the rules.

Warnings: Angst (with a happy ending). mentions of stuff like autopsies and nuclear explosions in the context of like experiments- they do stuff in The Imagination, basically. Panic attack (?). Hurt/comfort. Pretty heated kissing; It’s more intense makin’ out than I usually write but it isn’t anything explicit at all, don’t worry! ADHD Remus and Autistic Logan. Cursing- like So Much Cursing. Mentions of space, deep sea, etc. Food mention.

Word count: 6,769

There was a conundrum.

A., Logan needed to use the Imagination. B., He could not use it on his own, considering that he was Logic. C., Roman was nowhere to be found. The answer to what was frustrating Logan at that moment would be all of the above.

To be clear, he didn’t like going into the Imagination. It was simply the only suitable place to perform his ‘experiments’. His very necessary, very distracting experiments. But, as stated, Roman was God-knows-where doing God-knows-what.

Logan sighed at the door, as though it was the inanimate structure’s fault. The cracks gleamed obnoxiously bright, golden light pouring out from behind the door in a somewhat eerie manner. It was a nonsensical, unrealistic, completely insignificant place, and he wanted in.

Logan was contemplating asking Janus for help (lies took imagination, right?) when, out of nowhere, an arm was thrown around his shoulders. Literally an arm, disembodied and oozing sick-smelling blood onto the carpet. Ah. Wonderful.

“Hello, Remus,” he pulled the appendage from around him, holding it at arm’s length (no pun intended, dammit).

“Hi!” Remus took his arm back and reattached it with a disturbing crunch, a grin stretching his face. He sidled up to Logan, imitating the side’s stance in front of the door.

“Can I help you with something?” the logical trait tilted his shoulder away from where Remus had pressed against him.

“Not unless you’re willing to get really messy- but I can help you!”

“I’m afraid I don’t know what you’re implying.”

The Duke rolled his eyes, promptly flinging the door to The Imagination open. An encompassing energy radiated into the common room, corrupting the usual neutrality of the space. It didn't last long before Remus grabbed Logan’s wrist and dragged him along through the entryway, movements as sporadic and fast-paced as everything else about the creative.

“It’s not very logical to just stand there staring at the door all day, in my opinion. I dunno what you need Imagination for, but whatever it is, I can help! My half is much more interesting, anyway.”

“Oh,” Logan blinked, narrowly ducking his head under a branch as he was pulled forward, “Thank you, I suppose.”

He politely didn’t mention that he doubted Remus’ capacity for helpfulness. Beggars can’t be choosers, after all.

The door from the commons was quite a walk from the darker half of The Imagination, but at the pace its owner had them going they were there in minutes. The border was marked with tangles of densely thorned shrubbery, which parted for them, as if they sensed the approach. Logan just barely avoided snagging his shoe on one as they passed.

There was forest, twisted and shadowy, for only a minute. After that, they were in a city, with tall buildings and winding streets and dark alleys. Another switch, they came into what seemed like an amusement park. Nothing was consistent in theme, and none of the scenes held up for more than a minute or two. Remus shook his head and tisked. With a snap, a good portion of the ever-changing scenery was erased, leaving blank white space. The Duke turned to look at Logan with a satisfied smile.

“Ta-da! What do you need?”

Logan blanched for a moment, surprised at Remus’ willingness to completely delete Imaginings without a second thought. It usually took Roman ages to find a spot that he was okay with giving up on for Logan’s “projects”- which he always had thought was a little silly, seeing as he could bring it back when they were done. The change of pace was a pleasant one, though, so there was no need to dawdle for long.

“I need a miniature fully-functioning model of our solar system. If it’s not too much trouble.”

“Oh, totally,” Remus waved his hand and the request appeared suspended in the air, spread out to be the size of a dining table. All was accounted for- sun, moons, eight planets plus pluto- orbiting and spinning around each other. Imagination, by nature, had no real limits, but the detail was still a sight to behold every time. Logic smiled, surveying the set-up, before gesturing to the edge of their blank section.

“Thank you for the help, you may go.”

“May I now?” Remus conjured a seat for himself, staring at Logan with his chin resting on his hands, “You’re not even going to tell me what this is for? That’s just rude.”

Logan glanced up from the tiny earth he was inspecting, tilting his head to the side in confusion.

“You are welcome to stay, if you wish, but your brother usually leaves at this point. He says my experiments are-” he summons his notebook, “‘Bore-ifying’, which I assume is a portmanteau for ‘boring’ and ‘horrifying’.”

“Roman’s a big baby!”

Logan shrugged, not disagreeing, and resumed his careful observation of the tiny model earth. Remus made no move to go, wheeling his chair even closer. The scientific side carried on before his new audience of one, hovering a hand over the little planet. Abruptly, it stopped spinning. Logan made a gesture with his hand that magnified the model significantly.

The results were immediately catastrophic. Logan jotted a few observations down in his notebook, watching closely at the ways torrents of wind ripped up trees and buildings. In the back of his mind, he was faintly impressed by just how well-rendered ‘Dark’ Creativity’s earth was, down to the individual humans, brutalized by the storms.

“Whoah, what the fuck?!”

Logan looked up briefly to see Remus craning his head over the destruction of the stilled planet. His eyes were wide and bright with curiosity.

“Oh- I should probably explain. I come here, usually, to run some improbable scenarios as a sort of stress-reliever. Specifically, this one is what would happen if earth stopped spinning on its axis. As you can see, due to the earth no longer rotating at its usual speed, the wind would continue on at-” he cut himself off abruptly, sensing the beginnings of a ramble, “I’m sorry, I’ve been told that I have a tendency to ‘go off’ when a subject particularly interests me.”

Remus rolled his chair even closer, looking much like an excited animal (more so than usual, anyway).

“Well then, go off! Don’t leave me hanging! Is that really what would happen, just if it stopped?” He gestured enthusiastically to the way that the oceans had begun to crash against and consume shorelines. He looked interested- genuinely interested.

Logan bit back a smile. He didn’t have to be told twice.

It was one of those particularly restless nights. For no foreseeable goddamn reason, Logic’s mind had become alight with enough half-formed thoughts and barely sensible ideas to fill a very, very weird book. The Imagination did wonders when he got like this, but it usually wasn’t two in the morning when he needed to use it. That wasn’t to say the circumstance was unheard of, but all times prior he could push the urge to investigate away with the reasoning that he could just ask Roman in the morning, and that the Creative side needed his ‘beauty sleep’, as he called it. There wasn’t anything he could do about that, was there?

Tonight was different. Logan could hear the occasional snap or tear or cackle from the room across from his. Remus’ room.

It had been less than a week since The Duke let him use the darker half of the Mindpalace, and that was pretty much the only meaningful interaction they’d had in as many days. They weren’t close, Logan wasn’t even sure if they were friends (not that he was a good judge of that, given the first time Roman referred to them as ‘besties’ he had all but cried), but Remus was at the very least an option. He was also unlikely to mind, given that he was already awake and had exhibited excitement previously.

Logan made up his mind after yet again failing to fall asleep. Quietly, he opened his door and took the few short steps across the hall, raising his fist. Remus’ door was open before his second knock.

“Oh, hey! What are you doing, coming knocking at this hour?” he didn’t even try to whisper, accompanying his statement with an over-exaggerated wink. Logan didn’t waste his time trying to shush the side.

“Good evening, I hope I’m not interrupting anything-”

“You know I don’t mind your ‘interruptions’, Twunk-y Megamind!”

“-But I was wondering if you would… Help me, again. I seem to be having a hard time getting to sleep, and I think that getting out some of my ideas could help.”

Remus’ face lit up dramatically.

“Oh hell yes! Are we gonna blow up more planets?”

“Something like that,” he kept his voice monotone, disguising the relief and hint of pride at such a positive reaction.

“Well, come on!”

Logan let himself be dragged into Remus’ room, barely having time to make note of the surprisingly organized layout before he was pulled through a sleek black door.

“But you have to tell me about it,” he ordered, twisting them through narrow paths in his half of The Imagination. Logan suppressed a smile.

“If you want to hear it, then I’m happy to.”

Without warning, they stopped the breakneck pace that Remus moved at. The trait seemed appeased with their surroundings, though as far as Logan could tell it was just another piece of ever-shifting ominous landscape.

Remus snapped his fingers. The scene remained intact.

“Sorry,” he glanced around nervously, “Things get stuck in my head sometimes. Can’t get ‘em out. I’ll get it, I just-”

“It’s no trouble.”

Logan rolled up his sleeves. He didn’t like using his ‘abilities’ much, as every side had some set of special skills, and all of them were much too ostentatious. But they were helpful, at times. He waved a hand, gesturing carefully so that he didn’t dismantle any more of The Imagination than was absolutely necessary. With a small stutter, the landscape shifted to a blank slate.

When he looked back up, Remus’ expression was not unlike that of a Cheshire cat.

“What was that?”

“I am Logic, therefore it follows that I am the antithesis to any Imagination creations. It’s very easy to erase them with just a bit of rationality.”

“No clue what a lot of those words meant, but it’s still cool that you can destroy shit.”

Laughing was unbecoming, to say the least, and so the logical trait tended to avoid it at all costs. The snort that escaped him was entirely involuntary.

If Remus noticed the noise, he said nothing about it. He was too busy bouncing from foot to foot, expectantly waiting for instructions. Logan cleared his throat of the outburst and clapped his hands together.

“Alright, let’s start with something simple…”

At his request, Remus would construct immaculately detailed creatures, settings, and models, watching gleefully at the ordeals Logan put each one through. They tested various and progressively elaborate ways to sink populated cruise liners, they simulated the effects of falling from the Empire State Building, dissected approximations of obscure marine animals (a shared special interest of theirs, apparently), and any of the other unrealistic questions that occurred to the typically rational Logic.

The only way to get such questions from his mind, he’d found out a long time ago, was deconstructing them one step at a time, to see them in their full ridiculousness.

It was also, he was coming to realize, incredibly fun.

Before the two knew it, the already late hour had turned unreasonable. Logan blinked owlishly at his watch, distracted from the tiny supernova that he’d created.

“Oh, I must have lost track of time,” four in the morning. Four in the morning!

“Aw, does that mean we’re done?” Remus whined, yet he still began unmaking his small star system.

Logan was suddenly very aware of the heaviness of his eyelids and a rubbery feeling in his limbs. God, was he tired.

“I’m afraid so. I really should’ve gone to sleep hours ago.”

“Fine,” Remus dragged the word out with a groan, “But let me know next time you wanna fuck with space, or deep sea stuff, or anything like that.”

Next time.

As much as Logan adored Roman, there was something very nice about having the more grim brother help him out with these experiments. For one, his creations were often much more accurate to the real world- likely because gore and destruction were that much more impactful when they were realistic. For two, he actually seemed to enjoy the work.

Logan’s deliberation was brief.

“I will.”

As it happened, the night spent delving into dozens of ideas had purged Logan’s need to use The Imagination, for the time being. Clearly, Remus was not patient enough to wait for him.

He popped up, unannounced, in Logic’s room.

“Lo!!!”

The trait in question fell out of his office chair in a very undignified way. Not that there’s a particularly dignified way to fall out of a chair, but if there was, this definitely wouldn’t have been it. He ‘ate shit’, as the saying goes.

Out of pure embarrassment, Logan made no move to get off the floor.

“Hello, Remus,” he greeted, “How may I help you?”

The Duke laughed raucously, sprawling into the now-unoccupied chair and leaning over him.

“You’re a riot, Dork,” then, added with glittering eyes, “Did you break anything?”

“No. Given that I am metaphysical, I’m not sure that I have bones.”

“I have bones!”

“Are they your bones?”

“They are bones and they are in my possession, yes.”

Logan let the subject drop and repeated his first question.

“Right, I forgot! I have an idea for an experiment!”

Logan thought that, despite his mild humiliation, it would probably benefit the conversation if he wasn’t lying on the ground, so he stopped doing that. Brushing mostly imaginary dust from his clothes, he shot Remus a bemused look.

“That’s nice. But I was asking you why you were here.”

The Duke’s face fell, almost imperceptibly.

“I thought you’d wanna know, because of what you said last time. Isn’t this, like, a thing we do now? You know how shit works, and I know how to make that shit, and then you can tell me about it!”

Oh.

“Remember when you were talking about radiation the other day? You can’t just say stuff like that and then not expect me to want to try it out, so really this is on you. It’d be dumb not to let you in on it.”

Oh.

He’d been listening to that rant? Moreover, he’d remembered it, and now had his own ideas and follow-up questions about it?

Logan felt light-headed.

“You’re probably too busy with work, huh? I guess my explosions don't have to be accurate, if you’re set on being boring,” Remus’ tone was nonchalant, but he was obviously lingering for attention. Logan then remembered that words are a thing, and people use them to communicate.

“No! I mean, yes- I mean, I’m not busy. I can join you, I- I’d like to, even,” the intelligent side heard a small voice in his head, his own miniature Virgil, screaming- what the fuck was that, get it together, Jesus, because he, despite what his fellow sides insisted, was absolutely nonfunctional when trying to form a friendship.

Remus didn’t seem to notice or care much past his own cheer.

“Cool!” he, yet again, wasted no time in seizing Logan’s arm and yanking him away, “I wanted to see what would happen to animals and plants and stuff bunches of years after lots of radiation! Do you think they’d mutate? Get all twisted and fucked up so that they aren’t even recognizable as, say, a dog?”

Logan considered the question as he was led through the Mindpalace.

“Well, nothing would be able to live there at all. Additionally, anything within a little under a mile of the nuclear fallout- depending on a few variables- would be completely incinerated upon impact.”

“Like, flesh-melting incinerated?”

“More like vaporized. The fireball would burn 10,000 times the heat of the sun.”

Remus went starry eyed, bringing them to a halt a mere five feet from the door.

“I wanna see that,” he waved his hands around at their surroundings, “Can you do the white-out thing?”

Logan, much less hesitant than last time, obliged. A small smile escaped him at the wondrous look on The Duke’s face. It was another form of expression he didn’t particularly care for, but containing his emoting was more trouble than it was worth by now. He couldn’t find it in him to care much either, for once.

“Where do we start?” Remus prompted.

“You tell me. I will help you make it as accurate as possible, and provide any insight that you want, but it is your idea,” and he wanted to hear more about those ideas. Odd and violent, mesmerizing and clever. There was so much that he wanted to hear about, to talk about, to puzzle out together.

Logan couldn’t remember the last time he’d had someone to share such interests with. Maybe, despite how deeply he cared for his ‘family’, as Patton called them- maybe it was never.

Remus chattered as he worked, disrupting the train of thought. Logan almost tuned it out- after all, everyone had grown perfectly used to The Duke’s rambling- but he caught himself. That was hardly how he should treat the side that was so strangely considerate to him, wasn’t it?

Logan listened from then on. He began to add on to the conversation, corrections and elaborations and actual questions, because he actually didn’t know some of it. He didn’t regret the choice.

By the end, Remus and Logan were sitting together in the smoldering ruins of their make-believe test town, exchanging notes for different variables they could use in the next trial. They only stopped when Logan was abruptly summoned away by Thomas. He excused himself, a bit apologetic, promising to visit again soon.

As he helped Thomas (with what really should have been a simple task, honestly), Logic wondered briefly about the origins of the hollow feeling that grew in his chest. Something distracted, longing, and unfamiliar.

And then the oven caught fire, and the only thing he felt was annoyance with the man that he was somehow a component of.

So, that was that- Logan and Remus were friends, now spent regular time together, and shared interests. By all accounts, it was a simple and obviously positive development.

But then there was Roman.

“What’s wrong with my work? You’d really prefer whatever edgy 12-year-old DeviantArt account nonsense that he thinks up?”

Logan set his book down with a sigh and looked over to his doorway, where Roman stood with his hands on his hips.

“Come in, Roman, and thank you for knocking,” he snarked. The Creative side made a vaguely sassy noise, trotting right in and flopping backwards onto the bed. Without closing the door, the monster.

“I thought that building your Weird Science contraptions was our thing.”

Logan made a show of standing up and manually shutting his door before responding.

“You don’t like my ‘contraptions’, as you call them.”

“Yeah, but I still made them for you! Because we’re friends, but I suppose you’ve forgotten all about that!”

He really should have expected the melodrama. And yet, Logan had lived in a delusional world where he didn’t care about the most Extra being on earth.

With an eye roll, Logic dropped down beside Roman on the bed- though he wasn’t half as flamboyant about it.

“I can have more than one friend.”

“Yeah, but I’m supposed to be your favorite! We’re supposed to hang out together! Do the friendship bracelets I made mean nothing to you?”

He flung his arm across Logan’s chest, a ‘friendship bracelet’ clearly visible on his wrist (a loose usage of the term, given that it was a solid gold band with inlaid sapphires, because of course it was).

Logan held up his arm as well, showing that his (silver with inlaid rubies) was still very much in use, despite his distaste for jewelry.

“We hang out plenty. It wasn’t my intention to hurt your feelings by spending time with your brother. My reason for doing so is that he seems to take active enjoyment in building and learning about these things with me. He also makes very good conversation, in regards to the more, ah, eccentric experiments.”

Roman tossed his head to the side to watch Logan with narrowed eyes. After a pause, he linked their arms at the elbow.

“Yeah, you would think that. You’re secretly just as much of a weirdo as him.”

“I wouldn’t go that far.”

“Oh please, I can barely keep up with a word that either of you say,” Roman headbutted Logan’s shoulder in what was likely another of his odd displays of affection. He let his head rest there for a minute, a rare instance of peace before he inevitably resumed talking.

“Anyways-”

“Anyway,” Logan corrected.

“Anyways, if you nerds wanna talk about your weird, creepy experiments, then I guess that’s fine. But he isn’t allowed to co-opt anything else that we do together that we both actually like- no making fun of movies together, no Crofters jams, and no poetry-slash-rap battles.”

“Of course not, Roman. You will always be my favorite person to disagree with.”

“Love you, too,” Creativity bumped him again, then sat up to stretch. Logan snorted a laugh and considered shoving Roman off the bed, watching as he raised his arms up and straightened his back. Before the trait had the chance, unfortunately, his friend was already standing.

“Leaving already? Weren’t you just going on about spending time together?”

“Nah, that was all I wanted to yell at you about for now. I’ve gotta go help Pat with dinner.”

“Well, don’t let me keep you.”

“Thanks, I won’t.”

“I hate you.”

“Ditto.”

Halfway out the door, Roman threw a glance over his shoulder.

“Oh, and whatever you two end up doing, do not give me the details. Please.”

Okay, finally, that really was that. Friendship established, blessings given, the end. A simple symbiosis.

Logan was thinking about the practical uses of medieval torture devices? Remus. He wanted to see exactly how long it would take your average healthy adult to succumb to drowning? Remus. Logan wanted to just rant, about anything and everything, his brain moving a mile a minute? Remus. They spent an inordinate amount of time together.

Occasionally, when he didn’t even have the energy to converse, he would sit down with a book in the commons when he knew Remus was there and let the trait’s never ending word-vomit wash over him. It was an odd sort of intimacy, but that fit within the theme of their dynamic. Like he said, simple symbiosis.

And that was when the not-very-platonic fondness grew. And Logan, to his own surprise, allowed it to.

After deep consideration he had seen no reason not to; Remus wouldn’t judge him, not ever. It put a name to the hollow longing that occurred whenever he, eventually, had to get back to work and part from their talks.

He hadn’t sorted out what to do about the feeling yet, but he felt no urgency.

Logan’s book lay forgotten in his lap, that morning being one of the quiet ones as he reflected on his unfamiliar emotions. It was almost nice, letting such affection curl up in his chest and settle there.

His contemplation was broken by a sharp jab to his shoulder.

“Are you listening to me?”

He tilted his head at Remus.

“Sorry, I got distracted.”

“What were you thinking about?” his eyes lit up, very obviously hoping for it to be something disgusting. Logan glanced away, given that he didn’t even like eye-contact in the best of circumstances.

“Nothing important. You have my attention now.”

Remus rolled his eyes with a huff, apparently genuinely irritated.

“Well now I forgot what I was saying.”

“Let’s backtrack: what were you talking about before?”

“I don’t know.”

“That’s fine, we can talk about something else.”

The irritation had grown to something unrecognizable to Logan- frustrating, given how closely he tried to study body language. He felt a stab of guilt as Remus stood up from his spot.

“It probably didn’t matter. I’m gonna go annoy Janus.”

“Oh,” Logan’s voice was small, “Alright, then.”

He was already gone.

That was… concerning. Not to mention bewildering; Remus didn’t just pass up opportunities to talk! He didn’t just leave, not even when he wasn’t wanted! Logan really hadn’t thought his zoning out would earn such a reaction.

But he was far from perceptive about emotional problems. There was no way to know if it was anything to throw a fit over. For all he knew, it was just an off-day. He couldn’t always expect his friend to be rambunctious and energetic, even if that was a big part of his personality.

The issue would likely resolve itself.

The issue did not do that. It did the polar opposite, speeding from mildly concerning to downright frightening at a whiplash-inducing pace.

Remus barely asked questions and almost never offered insight, as he usually did when they spent time together. In fact, his contributions had become rare and unenthusiastic enough that he could have passed as neurotypical, however disturbing the thought was. And that was when they did end up spending time together, which was becoming less and less often, much to the dismay of one significantly smitten smart side.

Something was very clearly wrong with Remus. Not the demented, destructive, mildly endearing and unhinged sort of wrong. It was the wrong sort of wrong.

Logan was hesitant to confront him outright. After a couple weeks of careful consideration, a more subtle solution occurred to him, as he idly flipped through a very graphic murder-mystery late into the night. Something bloody, and awful, and very much Remus’ taste. He set the novel down, knowing full well that his friend would be wide awake as he made his way across the hall.

“Remus?” he knocked at the side’s door, wearing a smile much wider than he usually liked. He was more than willing to express exuberance, if there was even the slightest chance that it would be infectious.

The door decidedly did not fly open. Rather, after a good deal of wrapping at it, Remus slowly pulled it back and poked his head out.

“Oh. Hey.”

Logan didn't dwell on the concern that reaction brought. He had something that would cheer Creativity up, of that he was sure.

“I have a test tonight- it’s going to be very messy,” he began, searching the impulsive trait’s eyes for any signs of interest. There was the slightest glint, but not much more.

“So, you want me to make stuff for you?” His speech was monotonous.

“Yes, that was the idea. It’s going to be gory.”

Hardly a reaction. All Remus did was open the door the rest of the way to allow Logan inside. Clearly, he had underestimated just how poorly his friend felt.

“Alright, I’ll set it up for you. Just don’t take too long, I was actually hoping to use my part of the Mindscape today.”

Logan nodded, very taken aback. He couldn’t ignore the slight hurt at the cold, dismissive tone (the irony of that wasn’t lost on him).

They stepped foot into The Imagination and immediately Remus stopped, destroying whatever had been in front of them- which was usually fine, it was just how he operated, but normally out of enthusiasm, not apathy. Maybe this was more than could be fixed with some blood and guts.

“What do you need?”

Logan conjured a tiny notebook, giving a tentative smile. Still, he was giving this plan a shot.

“Operating table,” one appeared before him, sleek metal with rolly legs, “A standard set of surgical tools,” he looked up to gauge Remus’ interest, but his expression still hadn’t changed as he continued to create, “A human corpse, and then we can get started.”

With a wave, a perfectly generic body fell onto the table, but Logan’s attention remained on The Duke.

“Great, have fun, let me know when you’re finished.”

Logan faltered, watching him turn to leave.

“You- you aren’t going to stay and do this with me?”

“You want me to?” Remus crossed his arms over his chest and fixed Logan with a gaze that could (figuratively) wilt flowers.

“I- Yes? If you aren’t at all interested right now, then I can save this experiment for another day?” Yeah, this wasn’t working, but Logan had no backup.

“No, no, don’t wait for me, you’ve already got everything you need, right?”

“I mean- technically, yes, but it- it wouldn’t be the same.”

Remus cackled, sounding quite like the cartoonish villain that he often acted as. It hurt to listen to.

“So that’s what this is about! Let me just fix you up, then!”

He snapped, and a blank humanoid form appeared at his side. It tilted its faceless head curiously at Logan, who recoiled.

“Not good enough? Is a hunk of nothing too unrealistic for you?” he snapped again, and the being suddenly transformed to match its creator exactly.

Nearly exactly: it wore an enthusiastic grin, eyes wide and sparkling, rather than the steadily building fire that raged in real-Remus’ eyes. It spoke in a disgustingly cheery tone.

“Wow, tell me more! Show me that again? What happens when you do that? You’re just so interesting, Lo!”

Remus watched the creation, a look of one part pride and a million parts resentment.

“Is that what you want? It’s just like me, but without any of the hassle of being another person that you have to deal with! And this one, you really can get rid of whenever you want, isn’t that great?”

Logan looked between the two, a fearful understanding creeping up his spine. There was something he was missing here, wasn’t there?

“No,” he muttered, half to the fake-Duke and half to the real one.

“No?” Remus spat, circling his mirror, “No, of course, you’re so right. This isn’t nearly enough.”

He made an elaborate gesture, and about a dozen more Creativities appeared, surrounding them. Logan stumbled back from them, nearly tripping on the operating table that they’d previously made. When he looked up, the real Remus was approaching him with an expression that fought its way between guilt and indignation. It was all at once heart-wrenching and frightening.

Logan tried to right himself, tried to look unaffected and certain of himself, as he raised his voice. He would not let this go a step farther, despite his confusion.

“Stop,” and with that, a wave rocked across The Imagination, and all was erased. In the aftermath he stood before a teary-eyed Remus (just the one, though), uncharacteristically looking like a stiff wind would knock him right over.

“What’s wrong? I gave you what you wanted!”

Logan reeled.

“Why would you think I wanted any of that?”

“You wanted an experiment, I gave you one! You wanted a willing audience, I gave you twelve! But I guess I just get everything wrong, right?”

“You know that isn’t true,” Logan felt choked, his words clumsy. It was foreign and horrible and disgusting, but he’d trudge through it all if it meant fixing whatever he’d done wrong. It couldn’t have just been him losing focus once? Could it?

“Oh, of course, I do just enough to be useful. So I’ve got that right; I’m a good utensil. Is it so much to ask that people would care about me, not just what I can do?” he posed a rhetorical oozing with vitriol, but it quickly evaporated into something much more desperate, “What if it’s my fault? It was my idea, I wanted to help. I don’t know why I thought you’d care past all that, did I give you a reason to? I can’t remember. It might make more sense that way, if I were the problem, wouldn’t it?”

Logan was running out of time to fix this, watching Remus curl in on himself, barely keeping from falling to the floor. He had no clue how The Duke had reached the conclusion that he didn’t care about him! They spent nearly all their free time together: sitting next to each other just to have the company, throwing each other tricky and often troubling questions to answer, constantly toiling away at things in The Imagination. Sometimes, they didn’t even need to talk, they just worked together in rapt silence; Remus did the creating and Logan arranged his work just so, and- Wait. Wait. Wait.

Logan didn’t need to talk, or touch, for that matter. Perhaps it was a mistake to presume the same for such a needy, affectionate, boisterous side?

No, not perhaps, it was a huge mistake. A major fuck-up, if you will.

He’d thought, if the blunt side had needed such comforts, surely he would initiate it? He hardly shied away from anything, except, well.

Except. Feelings.

God, he was the dumbest smart person in the world.

“Oh, Remus…”

The Duke’s head jerked up, continuing his back-and-forth of desperation and rage.

“I don't need your pity!”

Logan sighed, twisting the end of his tie in frustration.

“That isn't what I'm offering,” he took a breath before continuing, linking the words together so it would come out right. “I'm so sorry, I didn't take into account how you would interpret our interactions. I thought it was obvious that I cared for you, that I didn't need to say it outright. Clearly… I was wrong. So, if you need more than what I previously expressed- which I'm now realizing was very little in the eyes of someone who is not me- then I am happy to provide that for you.”

Remus was shaken, a good deal of his ire slipping away. Whether that was good or bad remained unclear.

Before it could be overthought, Logan crossed the remaining few feet between them and brought his arms around The Duke in his loose approximation of a hug. The trait froze, but he didn't pull away.

Physical affection, check.

“I value your companionship more than I'm entirely sure how to verbalize. You understand me in a way that most others don’t seem to. While your ability to make detailed creations is very helpful, it is hardly the only thing I appreciate about you.

“For one, you make me laugh. A lot. More than I'm used to. Additionally, you can easily match the pace with which I speak, or change topics! And, you are so much smarter than you make yourself out to be,” Logan finished the spiel with a smile, genuinely proud at his ability to articulate such… sentimental things, with relative ease. Words of affirmation, check.

He snapped back to attention when Remus brought shaking hands up to Logan's chest. For a moment, he worried that Remus would shove him away. The fears dissipated when all he did was bunch the front of Logan's shirt in his hands and hold on tight.

“Do you mean that,” his volume was low, “Or do you just want me to calm down?”

Logan tightened his grip around him and, following a motion that he'd seen Patton employ many times to great success, he rubbed up and down his back.

“I understand that it might be hard for you to trust me, but I promise I'm not lying to you. I would have to be pretty awful to do something like that, wouldn't I?”

Hesitantly, Remus nodded against his collar. A good sign, but there was one thing left he had to say.

“And- If you need further convincing- then you should know. I love you.”

Remus stilled. He then unfisted his hands from Logan's shirt. It was an anticipatory second before he threw his arms around the logical trait and finally returned the hug. His hold was crushing, and it was the most comforting thing that Logan had ever felt.

They were okay.

“I'm sorry I-”

Logan didn’t let him finish the apology.

“Don't be. You didn't know how I felt, because I hadn't communicated it in a way you understood. That is hardly your fault.”

Remus nodded again, remaining much quieter than he’d probably ever been in his entire existence.

They held each other for longer than either would like to admit, speaking softly.

“Thanks,” was muttered against Logan’s shoulder.

“Of course. Just so you know, I'm more than willing to do this again whenever you need reassurance.”

“It might be a lot,” his tone was turning more mischievous, more him, “Are you sure you can handle that?”

“Absolutely.”

Logan hardly minded having an opportunity to gush about Remus to Remus. Not to mention, the physical affection was even nicer than he'd imagined it being. And oh, had he imagined it.

Remus' face returned to his usual ever-present zeal, and he ended their hug to bounce in place.

“Great! I'm good now! We can get on with that autopsy you wanted to show me- there better be buckets of blood!”

Logan shifted his weight.

“Maybe we should save that for another day.”

“Oh,” Remus' face fell the smallest bit, “Okay.”

Logan was quick to amend:

“By that I mean, I have something better in mind.”

Remus curled himself up in Logan’s lap, his eyes barely focused on the TV as the side carded his hands through his tangled mop of hair. Final Destination 3 played on the television (he had assured Logan that they didn't need to see the first two, and he was mostly right), serving as an excuse for the two to drink in each other's company.

It was right in the middle of a particularly graphic rollercoaster scene that Remus took Logan's hands from his hair to hold them, twisting around to face him.

“Is something wrong, Remus?”

“You told me you loved me,” he stated blankly.

“Yes, I did.”

“I didn't say it back!”

“No, you didn't,” it hadn't been the most important matter at the time, really. “You don't have to say it. It's perfectly okay if you don't feel the s- Mmph!”

Remus smashed their lips together, holding the sides of Logan's face (disrupting his glasses in the process) and pulling him forward harshly.

Logan, for less than a second, was floored. And then Remus tilted his head to deepen the already heated kiss, and the situation properly clicked. Logan reciprocated, slightly uncertain in his movements, wrapping his arms around the other’s waist.

Remus smiled against him. He nipped at Logan's lower lip with sharpened teeth, eliciting a very embarrassing yelp. Logic let his lips part in response as his thoughts grew fuzzier by the second.

The (somewhat clumsy) open-mouthed kiss lasted right until they absolutely had to break, separating for air. Neither moved very far, letting their foreheads rest against each other and all but panting for breath.

“I love you so fuckin' much, nerd,” when Remus spoke, their lips brushed ever so slightly, “Just so you know.”

“I picked up on that, yes.”

“A little clarity never hurts, right?”

Logan chuckled at the reference to his own sentiments, but the sound was abruptly cut off when Remus kissed him properly again.

When they broke apart, he explained how 'stupid-cute' that laugh was. And Logan, only half-joking (since when did he joke at all?), said that he’d have to do it more often.

Banter came easily to them, despite the raw undercurrent that still laced their conversation. Although, neither of them had ever found it difficult to talk; talk about the first thing that came to mind and the last thing that would come to anyone’s mind, talk about exceedingly simple nonsense and topics so intricate that they wound up sounding like nonsense, just talk.

So things would stay mostly the same. They would ramble to each other when no one else could stand to hear such disturbing things. They would sit, working side by side, running through plans and ideas and results at rapid-paced speech. They’d speak, and they would listen, when even their closest friends couldn’t manage such patience.

Only now, sometimes the rushed words might turn soft. Now, all that ranting might be more substantial than anyone would at first see. Now, they’d still listen, but leaned close together, gazes impossibly fond.

But then, on occasion, they would find that there were things far more fun than talking to do together.

@shrimp-crockpot

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pynkhues · 3 years

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[purple heart] [ring] [baby]

(This is coming so late, I’m sorrrry, haha)

💜- top 3 favorite lines

In Weird News, my book went to print last week (!) and so basically everything in my head at the moment has been related to that and not to fic, so I suddenly can’t remember a single thing I’ve written in this fandom, haha.

Soooo, I’m going to share an excerpt of my novel I really love instead. It’s actually a scene that wasn’t in the earlier drafts and was something I wrote during the last round of edits as my editor thought that I needed to feed a little more context to a particular dynamic. She thought there was enough on the page to get by, but with the way the story is structured, the timeline starts late in both of these relationships, and she said that she was hungry to know more of the history of them as both an editor and a reader.

I wrote this scene pretty quickly (it just sort of tumbled out of me), and it’s since become one of both my editor’s and my favourite scenes in the whole thing. I’m not sure if it’ll stand so well on its own here without the rest of the story, but what the hell.

It happens like this:

Ed leaves and Delia throws herself into work.

Ed leaves and Delia picks up more classes at the college and loses herself in study plans and marking and guiding the work of her students – the vulnerable new talent and the amateur egos and the kids who want the aesthetic but not the grind, who want awe not help, praise not critique, the ones who aren’t up for the challenge and the ones who are, and it works for those first six months.

It works because Delia’s been a lot of things, but she’s never been the sort to languish for days unoccupied, and it’s easy to forget Ed’s not at home when she’s working or managing the school run or fighting her mother’s memories and her own at Saint Anne’s, and the nights she can’t forget are so few that she doesn’t need anything but her own hand or her showerhead or her vibrator to find a peak she can tumble over, and it works.

For six months.

Because Ed left before he leaves, and they hadn’t made love in months anyway, and when they had it hadn’t felt like them, and he hadn’t touched her like she’d wanted him to, and she hadn’t kissed him because of that. Because it hadn’t felt right.

Because, because, because.

But then it’s six months later and Ed has left her, and her daughter feels like somebody else’s and her sons are growing up too fast and Ed’s cagey about coming over now that he’s shacked up with his girlfriend, as if the kids might find out he was fucking her before he stopped fucking Delia, and so Delia works more, and she’s helping Griff – a tender talent, not one of those students fantasising about futures that’ll never happen – and he’s in her office one night and she’s just helping him with his second-year folio, and it’s not – it’s nothing like—

But he kisses her.

He kisses her and oh.

Maybe she’d been lonely after all.

💍- your most underrated story

I talked about On a Balcony with Champagne Lips here, but I’m actually always a bit surprised Get Your Kicks Driving Me Down isn’t more popular than it is? It’s not that it’s unpopular at all, but it’s definitely one of my least popular Brio one-shots, which is always a little bit of a bummer because it was a story I put a lot of work into. I hadn’t really written many fight scenes before, and writing Rio trying to teach Beth self-defense after 2.07 and it ending in messy sexy times was something that was both challenging and a lot of fun to write, haha.

👶- advice for new writers

I’m a very firm believer that you have to know the rules of writing before you can decide to break them.

I think when writers start out (me included!), they tend to jump in with both feet and can passionately fall into this idea of writing, more so than the writing itself. The process becomes a sort of aesthetic one where the goal isn’t creating a story, but of creating a transcendent work that connects with people far and wide, but that’s not really how it works.

Writing’s a trade.

I think a natural affinity is definitely a part of it, sure, but only so much as it is for any trade. I swim a lot, for example, and as a result am a pretty strong swimmer, but I’m not fast and I’m never going to win any prizes for it. I don’t have a natural affinity for it, but the hard work got me pretty good. At the same time though, no naturally good swimmer gets in a pool with no training and wins gold at the Olympics.

They work and learn and train.

Understanding things like building setting, cause and effect, character motivations + arcs, beginnings, middles and ends, hell, even sentence and paragraph structure, might all seem like things you inherently know (and I think we do, to an extent. I think people are natural storytellers), but writing is a craft and like any other craft, you still need to study up on the basics before you can start playing with those things in a way that’s effective and compelling.

You need to learn how to swim before you can start inventing your own strokes.

Learn the rules of storytelling, then do whatever the hell you want with them, but I can guarantee you that if you decide to jump in and immediately decide you’re going to write a story with no setting or no ending, you’re going to look like you’re splashing around in the shallows.

I know I did! I read some of my first short stories where I obviously knew next to nothing about story structure, and they are. Um. Not good, haha.

Natural talent gets you nowhere if you don’t put the work in to learn what came before you and besides, breaking the rules is a lot more fun when you know what it is you’re breaking. ;-)

Writer Ask Game

#writer ask game #writing advice #a uniquely portable magic #welcome to my ama #mego42

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red-the-dragon-writes · 3 years

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Treasure Hunting

Context: I agreed to write a few "explores" for an art game I play on DeviantArt, Fields of Valhalla. Doe is an intrepid treasure-hunting deer who has recently figured out how to break into dragons' homes and rob them blind go looking for treasure in dragons' lairs. There wound up being several thousand words of this, and three separate stories. As well as an art piece!

Listed here are three stories in one series.

Doe delicately stepped into the cave and ducked her head to avoid banging it on the ceiling. This close she could already tell that there was a dragon in here. Or, something, at the very least- but she figured it was most likely a dragon. She’d never seen a troll leave deep scratches in the wall and carve a fireplace out in the same space, at the very least, and trolls usually at least bothered with doors. And didn’t live in caves. No, this was definitely a dragon lair.

She’d come to see if she could steal away with an egg. It’d make for a spectacular prize, for sure; and to be honest she mostly just wanted to see if she could find one. What bragging rights that would make for; how fitting it would be. After all, if anyone were to return triumphant with a dragon egg from a trip, it should be her.

She made her quiet way into the darkness of the recessed cave and marveled at how neatly laid out it was. She hadn’t been in terribly many dragon caves before, but enough to know that most of their hidey-holes were kind of a… mess, really. Muddy or dirty, full of dust, for sure. Treasures scattered about on the ground, ripe for the taking, as though they were just haphazardly dropped trash and not spectacular jewels or pieces of gold. They were kind of sloppy. Doe always thought that it seemed kind of like a shame, that they kept their lairs in such disrepair, but it really wasn’t her problem at the end of the day. And the mess made it easier to slip a handful of precious treasures into her sack and be on her way, even if she found a dud hole and there weren’t any eggs in it.

She tiptoed deeper, the cave getting darker and darker as she went. There were little side passages clotted with stalactites, wet and dripping, but it looked like the main body of the cave had been cleared away. The floor was smooth and easy to walk on, and the ceiling was free of any dripping spikes though she could see that water was still running down the sides in little rivulets in places. It must have been an awfully uncomfortable, damp place to live. She still saw no treasures, but far off in the distance, dancing upon the walls, she could see firelight.

Well that was bad news.

Doe crept closer to the chamber that the firelight was coming from and then nearly flattened herself into the wall, getting dust and cave water all smudged into the pretty white fur along the ridge of her back and her sides. It was a massive central area. Smelled like someone was cooking something, spicy, almost like human foods. Maybe she was in the wrong place after all. And above the crackling of whatever massive cooking fire had been in there someone was humming.

Carefully, very nervously, Doe stuck her head around the corner to look into the chamber.

Hunched over what looked like a pot of stew, back to her, was a massive dragon. Its lizardlike body was perched upon a long stool, and it was standing up on its back legs, stirring a pot nearly twice Doe’s size and sprinkling leaves into it from what looked like the largest salt shaker Doe had ever seen in her life. The dragon itself was dark blue, with lighter blue feet; but where the firelight touched it it shone a brilliant red, almost brighter than the fire itself.

Tucked away into the corner, behind it, sitting in their own cheerily burning fire, was a large clutch of what looked to be nearly fifteen eggs. Each one was leathery, almost soft-looking, with a strange moving shape visibly shining through from the fire underneath. As she watched, one of them twitched and shook as the—what must have been the baby dragon inside rolled around in the egg, stretching out softly like a sleeping creature.

Doe took a step forward, to get a better look— and there. At this angle she could see the treasure hoard of the dragon as well, a neatly organized shelf filled with trinkets and pieces of gold and jewels taking up nearly a third of the room. Doe had never seen a neatly organized dragons’ hoard before, but it was neat. Still, with the dragon awake and active, she didn’t think it would be wise to sneak in there and try to grab anything—

Sitting on the shelf was what looked like nearly twenty Odin’s Eye tokens. With that many— she could have riches she never dreamed of. Gifts and items she could never have even heard of. That would be a prize worth having, for absolute sure.

She took another step into the room, as quietly as she could, and attempted to tiptoe her way across to the shelf; but she stepped on a discarded bone halfway over to the shelf and the dragon abruptly stopped humming to turn around. Up close, its face was scaly and reptilian, and its luminous eyes struck terror into her heart as they fixed directly onto her. The dragon roared, and Doe panicked.

She grabbed whatever was in reach and hightailed it the hell out of the cave, sprinting as fast as she could as the dragon came hot on her heels, scurrying across the ceiling and bellowing in fury the entire time. She got the fur on her back singed when it spat fire and fury at her, but her luck was great, and she made it out without dying. Once outside, she hid in a copse of trees, struggling not to shake, and the dragon looked around for her fruitlessly, squinting its big eyes against the burning sun, before eventually giving up and shaking its head and walking back into its lair.

That was terrifying.

Doe glanced into her heavy bag, laden with treasures. Well. She was probably never coming back here again, but the trip hadn’t been a total bust. Not by a long shot.

Story 2: Close Encounters of the Reptilian Kind

Doe tightened up her sack and headed out to the newest dragons’ den she’d scouted out. She was still on the hunt for an egg, of course; but this one was settled on the shores of one of the deepest, fastest rivers, and it was rumored that gold could be found there like common stones. Doe hoped this meant she could find jewelry, or pieces of precious metals, in the dragons’ lair. They were known for keeping large, messy hoards of gold and treasures, after all; and what greater treasure could there be than delicate pieces of jewelry? And what would suit her better, of course, than elegantly crafted, sparkling jewelry?

As such, Doe packed a nice, big, sturdy bag, something she could take heavy items without much difficulty in. She was hoping to walk out with it laden so full she could hardly even walk. That would be only fair, after all the work she’d put in to get the location of the lair.

The dragon that lived in this lair was a water creature, long and lanky. In the hopes of avoiding the same situation she’d run into last time, she’d sat herself outside and waited for the long black dragon to carefully emerge from its lair, straighten up, and then take a breath and dive into the river for a good swim. It should be out all day; or at least she would hope it would be. The creature was ugly and sharp-scaled, narrow in the face and the body, serpentine aside from the wickedly curved long legs that ended in talons almost like that of a hawk. It was a thoroughly alarming monster. She’d rarely seen a dragon that looked nearly as… predatory, as designed to hurt and cause harm. But it looked like an eel that had been turned into a dragon; and Doe was not a fan of eels either. So perhaps she was just biased. Maybe it just looked like a perfectly normal sea creature with jagged, jutting teeth and massive jaws and tiny, beady eyes that never blinked.

No, Doe had not wanted to find herself stuck in the half-collapsed structure with that thing inside it. She waited for it to leave. And once it had left, she slipped inside.

This lair was some half-sunken ruin, the remnant of some building that the ancient humans who had lived in this area had once made. It was, in its prime at least, a castle, white stone reaching up into the sky. Now the spiralling towers had collapsed, and weather had worn the once-bright stones, nearly the same color and sheen as Doe’s fur, down to a dull gray-green and brown. There was water all coating the uneven stone brick floor, and her hooves splashed and echoed loudly down the hall. Plants were growing through the broken windows, and vines hung lowly from the damaged ceiling. In places, Doe could still see faded paintings on the walls; but in others the paint had flaked off, or been peeled off. Here there was a mural of a knight, sitting astride a massive rukaan; the knight was battling with a massive creature. It was too faded and damaged for Doe to really make out the details, but the face of the knight had clearly been intentionally scratched off and defaced.

Doe figured that if she were a horrible gross monster, and she were living alongside a painting of some human killing a horrible gross monster like her, she might try and deface that painting, too. That was kind of sad, actually. She took an experimental swing at the painting with one hoof, and a big sheet of the paint fractured and fell to the ground, splashing into the muddy water.

Oh, okay. That was going to be noticed. Uh, hm. That wasn’t smart.

Doe decided to hurry up and go get her treasure instead of standing around looking at the scenery, after that. Everywhere there was the clear, crystal evidence of this being a dragon’s lair, of course. There were scratches on anything tall enough and sturdy enough to serve as a scratching post, and discarded scales sat in the shallow water. Finally she made it into what must’ve been the primary cavern of the dragon’s lair, a once-resplendent banquet hall that had clearly fallen into disrepair. Rotting wooden tables were stacked along one wall, and looked to have been made into a sort of rough bed, fur pelts and straw and fallen leaves stacked atop the cracked top of the highest one. Piled in one corner was a massive, shimmering hoard of old coins and precious stones, and perched on the very top of the pile was a spectacular set of golden armor, and a crown fit for a king. The armor was a bit big for her, but clearly made for a rukaan; the crown was far too small and probably meant for a human. Doe shoved it into her bag regardless, struggling to pull the armor onto her back; it was fortunately tied together in a bundle but unfortunately rotten and nearly falling apart at the seams regardless of the fact that the metal wasn’t even tarnished. It might have been ceremonial. Gold didn’t make great armor, did it? But she would look good in it, and everyone else would be jealous. And that was good enough for her, really.

Doe filled her bag with riches and went looking around for a nest or clutch of eggs, just in case, but she found none; and then she made her way out. While she was walking back through the watery halls she heard a loud, echoing splash, and then what sounded like massive footsteps; and in a panic Doe flattened herself into an alcove. There was no place to go, after all, and her hoofsteps were loud and obviously wrong. She found herself frozen, rooted to the spot, after realizing that. Oh, no, oh, no, she was doomed.

She realized abruptly she was right across from the mural she’d kicked, too. Even better. Oh no. It was going to know she was in there.

Before long the lanky creature pulled itself into the room, half swimming, half crawling on its belly. It didn’t see her, or at least it didn’t seem to; it came to pull itself up to its full height, looking at the mural quizzically. Doe held her breath in true, real panic. She could feel her body starting to shake. It was so close, and so big, its talons hooked and nearly as long as her head, and its teeth were even more jagged and dangerous up close, and it clearly could snap her up in one bite—

The dragon turned around to fix Doe with a clear, surprisingly intelligent look. She made terrified eye contact with it.

It nodded once, and went on its way.

Minutes after it left Doe finally relaxed enough to let out the breath she’d been holding and stumbled her way back out to freedom. She— she’d clearly taken some of its treasure. Did it just not care? Did it not notice? It definitely saw her. What did any of this mean?

Doe decided to leave that part out when she told this story. Because really. What on earth.

Story 3: Cooperation

This latest lair was an abandoned building again, once the cavernous hall of a giant and now the half-collapsed hidey-hole of a small dragon. Doe wasn’t sure if it was just young or if it was only about the size of a large ruk, but either way was cool by her. Maybe its hoard would be small, but she was confident that it had giants’ treasures in that building of its.

Besides, she’d seen it a few times, and it was a pretty thing, bright blue spangled with gold and silver like the sky. It reminded her of a kingfisher, really, the few times she’d seen it, skittish and delicate with broad wings and a narrow, delicate body. It was currently sitting perched atop the intact part of the roof, staring off into the sky as though it could see something more interesting than she could, something more than just the full moon and the stars sparkling brightly. Its eyes were fixed straight up. It had been doing this for nearly three hours. Doe had expected it to take off, but it hadn’t.

She waited a few more long moments, and then abruptly out of nowhere the sparkling creature sat bolt upright, glancing around nervously. It let out a loud caw, almost like that of a crow, and then a high pitched roar that sounded like it were mimicking the calls of larger dragons. Then it spread its wings, shuffled about a bit, and took off into the air. It made a loop in the sky, around the moon; and then it was gone, blending into the night sky as though its shimmering scales were made for this. It probably was, Doe realized after a second, watching what she thought were its wings flap into the distance. It sure looked like just a cluster of shooting stars.

Nonetheless, with the beautiful creature gone, she was free and clear to go break into its home and steal from it. Er. Explore. Explore its home. And steal from it.

Doe stood up, shaking herself, and went to walk through the long stretch of dark, craggy forest to make it to the dragon’s lair. She kept an eye turned to the skies to make sure it wasn’t coming back, and fortunately it didn’t, and she made her way up to the half-collapsed building with little issue. Up close it stank of mildew and rust, strong and disgusting, and it was cold and icy atop the peaks like it was. The wind blew so much more strongly it was unreasonable. Doe ducked inside the uncovered doorway and into the building, and then quickly realized she’d made a mistake as she looked at the blocked path in front of her. There was a little hollow arch, something she could maybe get through, but it was nearly flat to the ground. Evidently the dragon used that on the regular, but Doe’s legs weren’t designed to bend that way, and she didn’t see a way through. She stuck her head through it, struggling to push herself through, but eventually had to admit defeat after nearly getting herself stuck and hearing the whole of the partially-collapsed roof, leaning on the ground and above her, creak and groan as she struggled to free herself. If that came down, she would be dead, her spine broken. It wasn’t worth it.

She went back outside and let herself in from one of the broken windows instead, neatly making it in without having to worry about the broken segment. It wasn’t great, and she scraped herself up on the sides on the broken glass- evidently there was a reason that the dragon didn’t use that method of entry- but they weren’t serious wounds, and she would be just fine. Finally she made it to the central hall, freezing and shaking from cold, dripping little droplets of blood onto the stained and half-frozen floor. Not so triumphant. But surely the treasures would warm her heart, even if they wouldn’t warm her poor frozen ears or her poor freezing hooves.

But when she made it to the central room, fire cheerily burning in the cracked hearth, there was no treasure. The room was almost totally bare. There was clearly a little nest in the corner, built up with sticks and twigs and what looked like scraps of fur it had collected from somewhere, and there was a dead wolf lying in front of the fire. There was maybe twelve kroner lying in the center of the room on the floor. Probably the beginnings of this dragon’s hoard. It really must have been very young after all.

Doe sighed, and went to dig around in the halls. Maybe she could find some treasures the dragon had failed to turn up.

It turned out she was right. After nearly hours of searching, occasionally returning to the center room to warm herself up a bit more, she finally stumbled across what must have been a weapons cache that hadn’t been cleared underneath a rotten section of collapsed ceiling. She could see the glimmering red-gold and steel, still bright after all the exposure to the weather; but the debris was heavy and hard for her to get a grip on. She couldn’t free it, and she was starting to get seriously concerned about really hurting herself if she tried. Every time she shoved a piece of the rotting wood or collapsed brick over, the entire structure groaned and twisted, and the more she moved, the more unstable it seemed.

Then, horrifyingly, while she was tugging at a board with her teeth, she heard flapping overhead; and looked up at the gaps in the ceiling to see the eyes of the sparkling sky-dragon looking down at her curiously.

“Oh no,” Doe mumbled.

The dragon glanced at her, and then looked at the room she was digging at, and then fluttered down to the ground alongside her and struggled to grab the other end of the board Doe was pulling at. Doe registered that after a second and renewed her efforts.

Between the two of them, they were able to much more easily clear the path, though there was a scary moment when half the bricks behind them came down. Fortunately, they didn’t block the hall; but Doe jumped and pranced nervously, and the dragon took off and fluttered back to the ground after a couple seconds. It made a quiet coo at Doe after it landed, and she ducked her head and snorted reassuringly. On that note they went back to work, by mutual agreement.

The giant weapons, once they were cleared out, were far too big for Doe to even try to carry them out. There were flails and axes, heavy swords and massive knives, and even the smallest of them was too big to fit into Doe’s pack. The dragon watched in mild consternation while she struggled to take them, before eventually lifting one of the massive heavy tools and dragging it back to the central room without much of a care. Doe went to help with that, because even if she wasn’t walking out with the treasure the dragon sure seemed to want her help with getting it; and there, lo and behold, on the ground below the sword she’d picked up, was one small heap of gold coins sitting in the rotted remains of what had probably been a massive money-pouch. Doe scooped it into her bag, hoping the dragon wouldn’t notice, and then went back to dragging the weapons in to sit near the hearth.

When they had all been dragged in, the dragon chirped happily, sounding for all the world like a bird. Then it ducked its head to its chest, and carefully plucked one of the golden shimmering scales from its breast with both hands. It held it out to Doe shakily in what was clearly a demonstration of thanks.

Doe took it carefully and set it in its pouch, and she could’ve sworn the dragon smiled at her before curling up atop its new pile of weapons.

When she got home and could see it in better light, the dragon’s scale wasn’t gold at all. It glimmered, iridescent, in the light, and sparkled as though it held the entirety of the night sky in it. It looked gold on first impression, or maybe silver, but if she looked closer, she could see spots of pure black shining through, and bright gold and white and blue, and if she looked any closer than that she started getting dizzy, as though she were going to fall into it. Truly, she’d never seen anything like it.

And this is a model of the dragon's scale, made in Blender!

#my writing #red writes #doe #dragons #fields of valhalla

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darkpoisonouslove · 4 years

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Ranking the Winx Club Finales

I recently finished my rewatch (and first watch of a season and a half) of Winx Club and wrote out my thoughts on all of it. However, to send off a year that was in experience a lot like watching this series - meaning, generally frustrating and downright disappointing whenever I got excited over a thing with a few highlights that actually stuck the landing - and to get out any remaining feelings over the series, I have decided to rank the finales from least to most favorite. I just have a lot of rage to spare over season 8′s finale and needed an excuse to do so. Plus, I am being thematic here goddammit! Here we go:

8. Season 8

Yeah, I really spoiled that already. To sum it up:

But let me elaborate. Like I already said, this finale enraged the living fuck out of me. I just cannot comprehend whatever possessed them to write a finale so, so... excruciatingly devastating... to a season that started out with a lot of promise and had some extremely solid decisions (except for the art style, which is just NOT IT). This finale is an absolute disaster in every way. First, there is a new plot point introduced mere minutes before the finale and it is never tied into the overall narrative of the season which doesn’t do it any favors, especially after the two halves of the season already have trouble connecting together into one overarching story. The reason they brought in the creatures from the Dark Dimension was to distract Valtor while Winx make their attempt at stealing the stars which could have very well been a role filled by Arken confronting Valtor in an opportunity to clear up all the muddy details around their partnership and bring together the two halves of the season. The Winx’ plan had potential that was completely wasted by their own interruption instead of seeing each girl (provided Layla was playing Icy, Stella - Darcy and Musa/Tecna - Stormy) doing her best to pretend to be the Trix she’s posing as to give the Trix the due role they should have had in this finale. Instead, we get an Icy that is a complete opposite of the character we’ve known her to be for seven seasons all for the sake of a wish she doesn’t even get fulfilled despite her decision to help. Her motivation is a direct contradiction to the original plan of the Trix and disrespects her character from all previous instances of her being on the show for absolutely no reason as she is left with nothing in the end and the whole backstory they invented for her out of nowhere and couldn’t fit in any way with anything previously known about her was in vain because it was never resolved. Winx essentially manage to defeat Valtor once they wish for their own power-up and are gifted powers they haven’t really earned only to be pronounced great heroes who even get their own constellation in the sky. Come again? There was no narrative tension in this episode, no big climax to resolve what is supposedly the biggest threat in the universe at the moment, and no actual emotional conclusion to the season. It can’t even be called a messy wrap when so many threads were left hanging in there. A true disaster on every front.

7. Season 6

Even if you count both 6x25 and 6x26 as the finale of season 6, the structure is still lacking big time. Acheron who is the main drive of the entire season is defeated before the end of 6x25 and the Trix who are the other main villains were also more or less neutralized at that point to leave absolutely no stakes for the last episode so they had to pull some bullshit to fill it. The Winx are useless for the entire episode, including Bloom whose battle with the Trix is an absolute joke. Like, they can’t even think of syncing their attacks so that she can’t protect herself from all three of them with her ridiculously small shield and Bloom couldn’t even bother to actually buy herself enough time to leave the Legendarium. The only saving grace of that fight is the little emotional moment it causes for Bloom but that was also not really set up at any point of the season so it was just out of the blue. Selina changing her affiliations permanently even after the imminent threat for her life was neutralized made about as much sense as her turning evil in the first place and the fact that they needed her to lock the Legendarium made everything 1000% shittier because of how convenient it was that she just decided to turn good again without any justification for her course of actions. That coupled with the lack of consequences for any of her actions (she nearly killed Flora for heaven’s sake and no one even brought that up?) plus the dreadful info dump monologue they gave her just brought the whole thing down. The wrap-up of the season was also underwhelming after they had an entire episode that was mainly free of villains in order to close the other storylines... but, of course, there were no other storylines. Pretty disastrous.

6. Season 7

Just like in season 6, Winx were pretty useless here as they really didn’t do all that much for the plot. Luckily, the fact that the Trix were brought in allowed for the villains to have a battle that was more intriguing and provided some action as for a finale. The other key elements of the season (fairy animals, Trix, wild magic, Kalshara and Brafilius and the time travel) were actually woven together pretty well to make for a pretty satisfying finish to a season that really lacked any solid plot. The mini worlds and the Tynix transformation did not have use in the last episode but that wasn’t too catastrophic. There was actually a pretty emotional moment between the fairy animals and Winx that would have been even better if their relationships had been better developed throughout the season... You’d really think that since fairy animals were the main point of the season and there was no solid plot to account for, they would have taken the time to pay attention to Winx bonding with their fairy animals but nah. I am still impressed with how touching their goodbye was given the fact that they didn’t really have all that much time to actually become close so bonus points for that. The very last scene is a little generic but what else to expect from a season that has sung all its songs already (thank god that there were no musical numbers in this because I have a feeling it would have been even worse)?

5. Season 5

Season 5 could at least pat itself on the back for dealing with the main villain of the season even if there were a couple iffy things about the whole deal. I’m taking away consistency points for a) the fact that the Throne was supposed to be activated with the seals from the Pillars of the Infinite Ocean, yet suddenly stealing a random Sirenix would do, b) Tritannus being defeated by simply having his trident taken away even though he literally grew in body mass implying that the power of the Emperor’s Throne had seeped inside of him (also confirmed by Mystery of the Abyss) and c) the mutants inexplicably turning back into people once Tritannus lost his powers even though they never turned back during his times of relapsing back into a human thanks to running out of pollution. His defeat was just ridiculously easy and Bloom got to do it even though Layla was the one with the personal connection to Tritannus and the one most directly impacted by his actions as her family fell prey to him. Instead of getting to shine in a season that focused heavily not just on her home world but on the environment from which her powers come, she got benched in favor of Bloom getting to do everything again with only mild assist from Layla’s cousin. They should have kept it in the family and left Layla and Nereus deal with Tritannus. The Trix were blasted out of the narrative extremely conveniently and the rest of Winx were saved twice by the mutants just turning their back on them instead of destroying them right then and there and then being turned back into their original form as well. There wasn’t the usual teamwork of the whole Winx unit which I am still salty about despite being sick of all the time they reached for convergence in that season. Theredor fighting alongside Winx (different from his own daughter) was a nice touch but the king and queen of Andros coming off as so helpless (and apparently the only people in the castle unless you admit that everyone else drowned) was frustrating. Where was the Andros army? We only got Tressa, Roy, four of Winx and a handful of mermaids. Is that the whole population of the Heart of All Oceans? Additionally, the finale left no time for any emotional resolution of the season’s events, especially considering the big deal that Daphne’s revival was. Instead they opted for a musical number at the end. Not the best form.

4. Season 3

Season 3 had a finale and then another finale. Granted, better than season 6 that had a finale and then filler but there was not a lot of glory to the ending of a story with such a strong opening and emotional moments that send you bursting into tears. The spell of the four elements was pretty decent in its first appearance in 3x25 but the way Valtor lost it all was a real let down after the climatic confrontations between him and the Winx girls throughout the rest of the season. His return was more or less a desperate last attempt at personal revenge against Winx as his goal was mostly out of reach at this point. The spell of the elements was brought down in both its use to create clones of Winx’ boyfriends and in its power as it was much easier to undo in its reappearance. The saving graces of this season’s finale are the couple emotional moments sprinkled through both 3x25 and 3x26. Bloom’s willingness to sacrifice herself for her friends and the world was the thread that the finale hangs on as she is mostly the one resolving the whole conflict which was a bit dissatisfying after the emotional damage Valtor inflicted on all of them directly or indirectly. There is a few moments left to recover from the emotional intensity of their battles against Valtor but nothing that really addresses the seriousness of the trauma they had to survive because of him. The Trix didn’t even get to have a last stand of their own in either of the last two episodes despite the position in which they started the season but that was more or less unnecessary anyway since we’d already seen they can’t hold their ground against Enchantix Winx even with a boost from Valtor. Overall, the finale is pretty weak, especially as a follow-up of the dynamic and strong experiences that the season put them all through. It was the first finale that was confined to a single episode (or rather two separate battles spanning over an episode to end the season) and there wasn’t enough tension building in the confined storyline an episode told.

3. Season 4

The season 4 finale is overall a solid conclusion that delivers both a final battle with the Wizards and enough time left to address all the other storylines left unfinished. The final battle was pretty short but there was enough intensity in the previous couple episodes to have covered the action demand that the season had already set up and it also provided the opportunity to have Winx come back together as a team after Layla split up. Not only that, but Nebula and Roxy also get to play their part while the Wizards make their last desperate attempt to regain the upper hand. It’s pretty climatic for something that length that also left about 15 minutes of the episode still to fill. Everything that had to do with the closure of the Earth fairies storyline was emotional beyond belief and gave more depth to all of them and Layla’s decision to join them. Winx had to face all of the separate responsibilities they have on their shoulders and find a way to balance them all so that they can pursue their dreams. There was a plethora of emotional moments and a deserved spotlight shined on Layla’s situation and how she’s dealing with it, plus the others’ feelings. It was a really touching finale and also an inspiring one to see Winx stand behind their dreams while still balancing their responsibilities. It seemed to achieve the initial goal of the season to have them adapting to the adult life they were shifting into.

2. Season 2

I’m gonna be honest, I had a very hard time deciding whether this would be number one or two because the season 2 finale had a lot more character moments that were very moving. It really corresponds to the season since it was more character driven than the first one and the finale suited that. However, ultimately I decided that it would take silver because of a couple minor things that bring it down. To get that out of the way, the second portal to Realix that led Winx there was imo a copout that destroyed pretty much all of the tension that the entire season spent building around the search for the Codex. It just felt so wrong for there to be another way to enter that dimension and to me it was a big disappointment. Especially since the key to activating the copy of the Codex was the color riddle that was a ridiculous panicked attempt on the writers’ part to show that Stella isn’t useless and has what to give the team but it only made her look worse in my eyes. Also, minor gripe for the fact that there wasn’t that much of a final battle since everything ended with a single convergence. Of course, there were several battles across the episode between different sides that made for good action and tension and there was magic involved in more ways than simply the convergence in order to defeat Darkar but it was still a bit of a letdown to never truly see him put his everything in battle. And the fact that Griffin and Faragonda held him off for as long as they did on their own actually hurt his credibility as a threat as well. But hey, on the plus side, remember when the teachers actually helped and did not leave the fate of the whole universe in the hands of 16-year-olds? Good times! The MegaTrix and her? their? battle with Darkar was epic. 20/10 on that concept alone, plus it really brought a great feeling of vindication after the number Darkar did on them and felt so satisfying even if they were also part of the villain team of the season. They were portrayed as three-dimensional and weren’t cast out of the narrative without care just because they were villains and that was actually probably the most solid moment that the Trix have ever had on the show (just minor gripe for the fact that they were supposed to be trapped in Realix when the dimension was sealed forever but they were later somehow brought out of there which was never explained). Sky’s speech to Bloom was actually a pretty emotional moment and the payoff from it felt earned and allowed for Bloom’s victory against the darkness to feel natural and in place. It was probably one of their best moments as a couple. Plus, the cute little interactions that we got during the celebration party to send off the season on its merry way made for a great finale. (And a shoutout to the Musa x Riven scenes both in 2x25 and 2x26 because that was some good shit and some cute shit and it was exactly what we deserved).

1. Season 1

Season 1 reigns supreme with its finale. There is just no other finale that can rise to the level of the first one that was built for about one third of the season so that the last episode could dive right into the action without wasting time on setup. This is also the only place where we truly and fully get to see each of the Winx and the Trix (well, minus Layla who hasn’t been introduced yet) showcase their powers but especially Bloom and Icy. It is the longest battle we have seen and it builds a lot of tension on top of what was already there to leave you on the edge of your seat. The exploration of magic in this episode makes it so iconic and such a great watch even on the 300th time. There isn’t really much more to say than simply “It is epic”. What makes it even better though is the fact that there is enough time left in the episode to wrap up everything else and not in a rushed way. The battleground is extended to the locations that have already suffered the previous battles to show the full extension of the action and to setup the wrap-up that comes at the end. They even find the time to let some of the minor characters have distinct and touching moments as well and thus expand the universe of Winx further than just the main characters. Speaking off, they all get their moments, too, and the Specialists aren’t left out of that (you will never catch me not fangirling over Sky and Riven fighting back to back). The finale also doesn’t forget about the overarching story about Bloom’s origin which is commendable considering the constant lack of consistency the show suffers. This is really the only finale that isn’t lacking in any of the departments and manages to provide a truly fascinating story that keeps you entertained and in suspense while at the same time does not discard the emotional payoff or the logical continuation of events. It just excels in every way.

Well, this is my analysis on the finales of Winx Club. What started out as a bitch fest actually left on on a positive and uplifting note to make for a great ending to a harsh year. Let’s see what beginnings 2021 will bring! ;)

#winx club #winx club meta #winx meta #winx analysis #analysis #winx club season 1 #winx club season 2 #winx club season 3 #winx club season 4 #winx club season 5 #winx club season 6 #winx club season 7 #winx club season 8

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frostsinth · 4 years

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Of Sand & Sea - Prequel

@thava commissioned a prequel of my one-shot HERE, curious about the first meeting between Guppy and Gull. This was a great time for me, I had a lot of fun! I hope it’s everything you were looking for! It ran a little longer than planned, but I don’t think you’ll mind :D

Enjoy my work? Consider going to BuyMeACoffee to show your support. You can find the link in my MASTERLIST. Feel free to check out my other ramblings while you are there. DM me if you are interested in a commission of your own!

Enjoy, and Happy New Year!

The beach seemed a pleasant place. The crash of the waves, steady and rhythmic against the shore, filled her ears. The briny scent filled her lungs and washed away the stinging behind her eyes, though she still gave sad little sniffles every now and then. The girl walked along the sand, sweeping an abandoned bit of driftwood back and forth in front of her as she did. Far too young to be left alone to wander, but far too forgotten by the world for anyone to notice. She was dressed simply; an off-white tunic dress, old and over sized, that fell past her knees. The sleeves had been roughly shorn away, leaving her tawny kissed skin bare to the warm sun. She wiped the back of a sandy hand at her eye, blinking away the last of her tears.

This was her mother’s lands, she had been told. The islands of her forefathers. Whatever that meant. This particular island, small and entirely empty, had been her family’s for many generations. Though it had fallen into neglect after her grandmother had passed. Forgotten by the younger generation like some old heirloom left in the attic to gather cobwebs and mothballs. Far removed from the main islands and certainly off the map for tourists and greedy moguls. It was maybe only a few miles across in each direction, with a small grove of trees at the center which crowned the raised hillock where the house had been built. Though ‘house’ was a generous word, as the structure only had a few rooms and was set high on stilts. Like something out of a picture book, she had decided upon first seeing it.

This was her first time here, and as soon as she had buried her bare feet in the soft, warm sands, she had felt... different. More at home than she had in a long time. Not since…

The girl sighed, far too heavily for someone of her age, looking out across the stony beach to the ocean beyond. A weight in the corners of her large brown eyes that the waves could not so easily wash away. Her uncle thought it would be nice to bring her here. To get away from the city and have some quiet. Though he was always working... He knew nothing about children; had no concept of what she needed. He tried, to some extent. Bought her clothes, asked her what foods she liked. But more often than not, he would be in his own world, and forget she even existed. Spending his time lost in his writing, or his books.

She found she didn’t particularly mind. He was awkward, and a little strange. They were still trying to establish their relationship, so suddenly forced together. And he was older, with rickety knees and greying hair. He couldn’t keep up with her, and seemed to quickly tire of her lack of understanding and occasional emotional outbursts. As had happened this morning. They had been on the island for nearly a week now, and she had stayed in the house on the hill for the most part. Timid and frightened of the rest of the seemingly wild place. But she had nervously lingered too close to him for too long. Had gotten in his way one too many times.

His harsh words still rang in her ears as she wandered along the beach. The little patch of trees she had bolted to hadn’t been nearly so scary as the volume of his voice. And he hadn’t followed her. Hadn’t chased after her to make sure she was ok, or to apologize for losing his temper with her. So she wandered farther away, first down toward the rickety old dock where their small little boat was tethered. Then further, along the sands and stones, to the far side of the island. Clambering over rocks where she needed to, swinging her stick back and forth.

No, she decided. The island was not nearly so scary as she had first thought. And there was lots to look at. Sea birds who cawed overhead and gathered on the rocks to look at her with curious, beady eyes. Crabs that scuttled out of her way, or raised their claws at her stick when she poked gently at them. Lots and lots of shells too. Some half buried in the sands, some laying on top. As the last of her tears dried in the warm sun, leaving tracks down her dirty face, she began to collect them. Gathering them up in her dress. Tossing her stick to the side in favor of sandy shells and shiny stones.

A particularly large and gleaming shell caught her eye a little while later, tucked between some large rocks right at the edge of the water. She could see the foam from the waves splash up just beyond them, and eyed them nervously. She had never been taught to swim, and her uncle told such frightening stories of little girls being washed out to sea. But the temptation of the shell was far too great to be belittled by her fear of the water.

She piled her bounty on the sand, then carefully clambered over the damp rocks. They were quite slippery in places, and more than once her balance was challenged by their shifting and sliding. But she found a little burst of pride in herself as she managed to reach the top of one particularly large rock in front of her prize, and stood there a moment to peer at the little cove around her.

The little girl suddenly became distinctly aware of a soft sound, echoing above the crash of the waves. It sounded like a warble, a keening. Sad, and melancholy. It made her heart quicken and her fear rise again. Her large eyes darted about nervously, wondering if ghosts could come out during the day. Her curly dark auburn locks bounced about her eyes as she searched. Something moved near the head of the semicircle of rocks that formed this corner of beach, and her heart jumped. But then the keening wail came again, chirping now. Sad, but also… frightened.

She clutched her prize shell close to her chest as she cautiously ventured closer. Climbing timidly over the rocks, careful to avoid the little pools of water gathered in between where the waves crested the taller boulders to splash bits of ocean into the crevices.

The rocks clicked and shifted ahead of her, and she was distinctly aware of the movement seeming more frantic as she drew closer. Something sploshed, and slapped. Sounding like wet cloth smacking against the stones. She could finally see it more clearly now, and the girl ducked behind a rock in fright at what she saw.

At first, she had thought it was another child, naked and laying half in a shallow little puddle of water amid the stones. It certainly looked like a fat child, but with greenish-teal skin and a mop of seaweed colored locks on the top of its bulbous head. She braved another peek around the rock, easing a little closer. There wasn’t supposed to be anyone else living on this island. Her uncle had told her as much, and she hadn’t any reason to disbelieve him. Curiosity overtook her fear, and she snuck closer. Perhaps a little more lonely than she would ever admit, and hoping for someone other than her uncle to talk to.

The rocks shifted and clacked beneath her feet as she moved a little closer. And the teal-skinned child’s head snapped around at the noise. Fixing her with large, bright yellow eyes.

She froze, shocked. She had never seen such eyes before! They had no whites, and it seemed like the boy had no eyebrows above them. Instead, his brow bowed out, like he had been stung by a bee. Lots of bees, she guessed, because it was very big. It was a boy, or at least, she thought it might be a boy. He had chubby cheeks and messy green hair, narrow little shoulders and spindly arms. The shape of his head and the color of his skin was distracting, but she was pretty sure it was a boy.

When he saw her, his eyes seemed to get larger. He wriggled, and kicked, as if trying to move closer. She jumped at that, skittering a few steps backwards. Her feet slipped on the stones and she gave a soft yelp as she fell. Landing hard on her bottom on the wet stones, her ragged dress becoming quickly soaked at the hem with the intermittent little puddles of water. Her shell went flying, landing a few feet away from them both, but closer to him than her. He froze at that, and stared back at her. Suddenly frightened of the strange looking boy, she crawled backwards, until her back hit a large boulder.

But he didn’t move to follow her. Though she saw him wriggle and scramble again. He gave a huff at his efforts, then the soft, keening wail came from his mouth. She had never heard such a sound before. She blinked at him, watching him collapse on his stomach in the puddle, splashing about. Yanking at his lower half, which appeared to be half under a rock.

A year ago, she had found a rabbit, stuck in a fence. Its back legs unable to fit through the opening its head and shoulders had managed to wriggle through. She remembered the way it had thrashed and kicked, its eyes wide. It had even squeaked, as if in pain, and had seemed even more frantic when she had approached.

The boy with the strange eyes and skin moved the same way as that rabbit. She watched him for a moment, until he lay still once more. After a little while, he craned his neck back. As if to see if she was still there.

“... Are you stuck?” She asked him, her voice a little soft for its timid-ness.

He blinked at her slowly, as if surprised to hear words coming from her mouth. Slowly, she eased herself back to her feet. Then carefully skirted her way over, giving him as wide a berth as she was able. His eyes followed her as she moved. They were a little eerie, but she squared her jaw stubbornly, and turned her own attention to the rock on his legs. It was big, not nearly so large as her, but it looked heavy. With a final glance at the strange boy, she put her shoulder against it and shoved with all her might. It shifted, and she heard the crunch of other rocks around them. But it didn’t move much. After a moment, she had to relent, and stepped back.

A check on the boy found him still watching her, and she noticed now that she could see him properly he didn’t seem to have ears. Instead, there were fins protruding from beneath his hair, and what she thought looked like little pink slashes on his fat neck. He looked strange… but not that scary anymore, now that she was closer. She could see specks of yellow across his nose and cheeks, and over his shoulders, arms, and chest. Like freckles, she decided. She had a few freckles, though hers were brown, not yellow. But the color seemed fitting on him, since he was a greenish-blue, and she paid it no further mind. Turning her attention back to the rock.

“It’s heavy,” She admitted, then glanced back at him, “But I can try again… pull your legs out, ok?”

He watched her silently, and for a second she wondered if he could understand her. There were some people who couldn’t, she knew. Some people on the main island spoke with different sounds and words that she didn’t understand. Her uncle had said they spoke a different language, though he hadn’t fully explained what that meant. But after a moment, the green boy nodded slightly and she gave him a small smile. So he could understand her then. Good!

“Ok, on three,” She instructed, leveling her boney shoulder against the rock again, “One, two, THREE!”

She shoved with all the might her little five year old body could manage, though her feet slid in the wet pebbles at her feet with the effort. Still, the rock lifted, just a little, and with a SHLUP, the boy scuttled backwards. Just in time too, as she lost her balance and dropped the rock back down moments later.

She slipped the rest of the way, falling onto her bottom again. The rock shifted, and both of them gasped nervously. But then it fell still, and after a moment, her face split into a broad grin. She even laughed a little, looking over at the boy to see if he shared in her mirth.

It was only then she realized it was not legs he had pulled out from under the stone. She wasn’t sure what they were, but there was more than two of them. They wriggled and twitched under her scrutiny, curling and uncurling. They were the same color as his body, but the undersides were pink with little suckers every few inches in matching pairs. As she watched, frozen in surprise, the boy inched a little closer. Seeming to snake his way over the rocks. The strange appendages carried him like legs, with his upper body propped straight up as hers was when she stood. But they didn’t move like her legs, more like fingers. Or like a spider perhaps, though they looked squishy like spaghetti. She was so surprised by the sight of him, she hadn’t realized the little boy had crawled right up to her, and was now peering at her nose to nose.

“... Who are you?” He asked her after another moment, and his voice sounded like he was speaking through a mouthful of water. His breath was salty, and he smelled like the ocean.

She blinked at him stupidly for a moment. “Me?”

He nodded, then reached out one stubby teal finger, poking her shoulder curiously. “... You’re all tan and pink. Like a gull without feathers.”

She pushed his head away. “Well, you’re all green! Like seaweed!” She shot back.

He scoffed, and she jumped as one of his weird feet fell on her ankle. “I look how I’m supposed to look. You’re the weird one.”

She shook her head. “You’re the weird one! And you smell like fish!”

His head cocked to the side, and she watched his nose flare as he sniffed at her. “You smell like sand, I think.” He seemed to consider this, looking her over. “What’s wrong with your tentacles? Why do you only have two?”

“Tentacles?” She echoed the strange word, and he grinned at her. Baring stubby little white teeth.

“Yeah, these.” He held one up, wriggling it in front of her face. Then poked her nose with its tip.

She cried out softly in surprise, covering her nose with both her hands. That made him laugh quietly. “I don’t have those!” She exclaimed through her fingers. “I have legs!”

She lifted one up slightly in illustration. He looked at it, then wrapped two of his tentacles around it. She giggled, kicking slightly.

“That tickles!”

“You’re weird, little Gull.” He told her, uncurling from around her leg and sitting back slightly to appraise her again. Then his grin returned. “I like you.”

“Do you live here?” She asked curiously, shifting into a better seat and wrapping her arms around her knees.

He shook his head, then pointed out to the sea. “I live there, of course.”

“In the ocean?”

He nodded. “Yeah, don’t you?”

She laughed. “Of course not! I can’t swim.” She turned and pointed over her shoulder to the small hillock behind them above the copse of trees. “I live up there. Well, right now anyway.”

“How can you live so far from the water?” He sounded surprised. “How do you stay wet?”

“I don’t want to stay wet!” She argued. “I want to get dry!”

“You’ve got it all backwards, silly Gull!” He shook his head, exasperated. “Getting too dry will make you sick!”

“But my bed would feel really gross if it was wet all the time.” She reasoned, thinking it over. “And I’m usually dry, and I’m not sick.”

“Maybe that’s why you’re sand colored all over.” He mused, reaching out with his tentacles as he leaned back on his hands, running them appraisingly over her arms. “You dried out too much.”

She thought that over for a moment, watching his tentacles skim over her arms. “No, I think I’m supposed to be like this. Everyone else I know looks like this too. I’ve never seen anyone who looks like you...” She reached out, touching the thicker body of one tentacle currently wrapping around her opposite wrist curiously. “Maybe you stayed in the water too long, and that’s why your legs and skin look funny.”

He unwrapped his tentacle, pulling it back and leaning forward to take up her hand with his. His skin was cool to the touch, and had a weird quality to it. Like a slug’s skin, but not so gross as that. She didn’t mind him touching her, turning her hand about and rubbing his thumbs along its length curiously. He lifted it up, looking at the underside of her arm, then sighed and let it drop back down.

“I’ve never seen anyone like you, little Gull. Are you sure you’re supposed to look like this?” He curled and uncurled his tentacles beneath him, inching in a half circle around her as he looked her over again. “Maybe you’re under some spell.”

“A spell?” She echoed, spinning to watch him circle her. Fascinated by the way he moved. As he completed his circuit, he slunk over to the pool of water, easing slowly down into it before laying flat on his belly so the water lapped over his back. Propping his head on his hands to look over at her again. “What kind of spell?”

He shrugged his knubby little shoulders. “Oh, I don’t know. I used to hear stories about people under spells. They have to walk the land alone forever and never return to the sea.” He twirled his tentacles back and forth behind him. “Maybe that’s what happened to you.”

She paused, falling silent and suddenly remembering her sadness. Resting her chin on her knees. “Maybe…”

They fell silent for a minute, and he seemed a bit puzzled at this. At her sudden switch. He chewed on his cheek, then shifted, rolling back out of the puddle. Water dripping from his teal skin.

“The stories say you can break the spell though.” He offered tentatively, scooching closer. One long tentacle reached out, plucking the large shell from where it had fallen. Bringing it back over and holding it out to her.

She took it with a soft sniffle. “... Yeah?”

He nodded. “Yeah. Maybe you just need to come back to the sea.” He poked her shoulder again. “Then you’ll get the ocean back in your blood.”

“I don’t know how to swim.” She reminded him.

“I can teach you!” He replied eagerly. But she quickly shook her head. “Come on, it’s easy!”

“For you, maybe.” She scoffed, running her hands over the shell in her lap. “You’re a fish!”

He scowled at her. “I am not a fish!”

“Oh yeah? Then what are you?”

He paused, thinking this over for a moment. “Well… I’m… I’m just…” He straightened, puffing up his chest. “I’m Gupslessiano.”

“... Glupses-”

“Gupslessiano.”

“Gupplessan-”

“GUPSLESSIANO!”

She shook her head. “That’s too hard to say…. How about Guppy?”

The boy chewed that over, leaning back. “... Hmmm… I suppose it’s ok if you call me Guppy.” His bright yellow eyes darted to her. “But only if I can call you Gull!”

She grinned at him. “Deal!”

“So then, Gull,” He keened, skittering back a few steps, “... Wanna play a game?”

... The End

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