#then i remembered i spent my whole childhood on the beach pretty much

[fingertipsmp3]

Born to sit outside in the sun reading, cursed with seasonal allergies

[persephoenie]

So my partner and I finally watched Barbie the other day. I had really wanted to see it in the theater, but money has been tight for a while. I was super excited when Barbie come out on Max.

***SPOILERS BELOW***

...

Okay, Hi Barbie! 👋🏻 So, the whole movie made me cry so much. Literally from the opening scene until the "I'm here to see my gynecologist" both me and my partner were stuck to the screen - like velcro.

My partner had lots of commentary, as he always does. And so did I, ofc. But he immediately loved the opening that was a strong nod to 2001: A Space Odyssey. That's one of his favorite movies, so he was very pleased. He also adored all of the movements of the actors - how you can literally picture kids picking the Barbies and Kens up. He also deeply appreciated Margot Robbie's attention to detail for the Barbie 'doll' movements. He rewinded to watch the first scene where Barbie steps out of her heels because he was so amazed. He really resonated with the reflection of the Kens being treated poorly in the 'perfect feminist utopia' and having the Beach Ken not be taken seriously when he tried to express his hurt feelings. He loved the campiness of the 'manly' scenes. He fully backs the creation of a standalone Ken movie where Beach Ken embraces his horse-boy ways and "just becomes a cowboy" (his words lol).

For me, there was so much that resonated throughout the movie. Some highlights: America Ferrera referencing Sisterhood in her monologue at the end of the movie [I literally gasped and said "good for her" - Sisterhood and America's character in it was a huge part of my childhood]; the transition with Margot Robbie having no makeup on - the visual was stunning and we literally rewinded it to watch it again, so cool; as a Barbie fan, seeing ALL of the Barbie variations getting their own actors was really really cool; the whole feel of the movie reminded me of the Barbie movies I grew up watching [like Swan Lake or Rapunzel] idk if that was just me that felt that way though; how the movie didn't shy away from not only acknowledging mortality but getting really honest and dark about it - everybody has complicated feelings about dying, and it's not talked about nearly enough as it should be; the scene in the kitchen with Barbie and Ruth Handler then the scene with Ruth telling Barbie that she made her like her daughter Barbara [oh how I cried].

Something that stuck with me though? When the movie ended, and the credits rolled - I looked to my partner and he was crying. I asked him what was wrong. This is how the conversation went:

Him: "Is this all there is?"

Me: "You mean our existence?"

H: "Yeah..."

M: "Well, it might be. There's no real way for us to know. We're not advanced enough as a species to know the answer to that."

H: "...how are we supposed to live like that?"

M: [I started crying but smiled] "Well for me...laughing feels really, really nice. When I look outside and it's super pretty and bright, I like to look a little longer. Sometimes I get really sad when I think about how this might be all there is, that's probably why I cry so damn much. But you know what? I'm so lucky to be here. In this vast universe...I get to exist here, right now, with you. And remembering that makes everything better."

* We cuddled for like two hours after that, scrolling through Instagram reels of cute animals. Existential crisis diverted for now!

I have so much more to say honestly, but this post is already long. I also just spent 20 minutes of my hour long therapy session talking about Barbie lol

[harrysmimi]

We'll Deal With It When We've To

Synopsis: One where Harry asks his girlfriend a very serious question.

More of my work

Being able to feel like home was something Harry was in search of. No doubt London will always be home. But it's just a place. The house he lived in London started to feel more like a house than a home when the world was shut down due to the pandemic. Like the walls of his massive house wanted to cave in on him when he's there alone.

But eventually everything started to get back on track. That's when he met his darling.

He was in London to film My Policeman. He'd met her at a cafe in the town where he lived. Starting off as acquaintance, they became really good friends. He got to know she is a professor teaching finance to UG and PG students at the London Business School. She's extremely smart with a masters in her name and now a PhD on it's way. She had accomplished so much just of 22.

She lived alone in London with her cat, Dorothea. A big and hardcore fan of one of his Ex which Harry found adorable that she even named her cat after a song. Her little studio flat near her University which was a new home for Harry for most of the time he was there. Though he slept over, he liked to hang out with her there. Dorothea was pretty welcoming of him as well. Plus YN made some amazing food!

They shared so much things in common, both of them liked going on morning runs, drink black coffee, obsessed — though it would be an understatement — with The Notebook, read books. Though she read memoirs by Business personalities for her classes, and he liked to read novels and novellas. Romantic novels to be exact, especially since he have met her.

For the longest (by longest means till just weeks before he had to leave for Italy) Harry had gotten the courage to ask her on a date and confess his budding crush on her.

It seemed that everything was going too fast when both of them decided to make things official and exclusive.

Well, Harry wanted her know that everything he had with her was just for her, for as long as they're together. He'd fallen in love with her the moment he talked to her at that cafe. But it was on a facetime call that YN had accidentally slipped an I Love You for the first time. Harry was over the moon to hear that.

The long distance till the month of November was the hardest part. Especially because Harry was dreading to say those three words to her in person and hug her and cuddle her and kiss her till his heart feels full. But due to their schedules it was a little hard.

But they spent Christmas and New Years in London when he was back home. That's when YN met his family for the first time in person. Just a quiet dinner at his mum's house with a bunch of Christmas movies. Many childhood embarrassing stories were shared to YN by Anne and Gemma about the boy. The childhood album was taken out on New Year's Eve.

They celebrated both of their birthdays at her flat. And mostly stayed there.

The space was small, intimate. Just enough for two people and a cat. Home which Harry never wanted to leave. YN was his home that he never wanted to leave.

And of course, Dorothea who loved him dearly too.

They have talked about their future together, like every other couple did. But it seemed so legit with YN. Like it wasn't a fever dream that's going to break once he wakes up his slumber when he doesn't remember falling asleep.

He's had everything figured out. Proposing to her after his tour ends this year. And they've talked about getting married for sure.

The month of April, Harry was going to perform at Coachella. And he'd somehow convinced his girlfriend to go with him. He'd rented a whole Airbnb for just two of them, with a beach view and their own swimming pool. Also they've got their thrid anniversary coming up during the second week of Coachella.

......................................................................

A sunny day in LA, a nice day to camp out for a picnic at their backyard. With coffee and bunch of summery fruits. Rehearsals for Coachella were exhausting that he was lied back, relaxing whilst his girlfriend painted his nails (he offered to paint hers but she doesn't like nail polish).

"Do you wanna go on a little vacation after this?" He asked.

"I can't take any more days off," YN said, "plus this is like a little vacation."

"Is it?" He said.

"Yeah, I've never been to America before." She shared, "thank you for bringing me with you."

"You don't have to thank me baby," he smiled looking at her, she was very much concentrated on painting his last pinky nail and blow on it as if it is going to make it dry any quicker. She placed a kiss on the back of his hand. "Come on lay here with me."

"You're going to mess up your nails," she pointed out.

"I won't," he moved to make more space for her on the picnic rug. She lied on her tummy next to him resting her head on his chest.

"Are you coming home after the festival?" She asked.

"Yeah, since we can't go on vacation now." He said, "we can go during your year end break, how does that sound?"

"Yeah that sounds fun." She agreed, "where do you wanna go?"

"Wherever you want." He shrugged.

"I don't know," she chuckled hesitantly. Lifting her head up she propped herself on her elbows.

Yeah she earned more than enough to survive but it was going to take a huge toll on her bank account, plus she still needed to pay for tuitions as she's in midst of getting her Doctorate. Even this festival thing, even though her boyfriend have gotten her free passes she still have to pay for her own things. She'll have to start saving up for this upcoming vacation to wherever from the exact moment.

"Don't you have anywhere to go on your bucket list? We can go there." He suggested.

"I haven't thought about it yet," YN said. Pushing his hair out of his forehead. "London was definitely one of the places now I can't remember the rest."

"You wanted to go roam around the streets of Istanbul in hopes of seeing that actor you gush over." He teased her.

It was a huge thing when they both first met. YN would make him watch these Turkish series and movies with her with her favourite actor, fangirling over every little thing that actor did. Along with Succession, she made him watch that too. And yeah not to forget her favourite Bollywood movies.

"Urgh! If we do, I'll be passing away in peace!" She isn't going to let him get to her this time.

"Don't do that, because I need ny girlfriend with me." He pouted.

"Why are you jealous?" She cooed with her cheeky smirk.

"I'll go walk around on the streets of Mumbai in hopes of bumping into Deepika Padukone." He huffed.

"Oh please, she's so darn gorgeous, tell her that I'm a huge fan." She started fangirling.

"I can never win," he sighed shaking his head in defeat.

"Do you want to at To Be So Lonely on your setlist?" She asked. "'Cause miss the shape of your lips, you'll win, it's just a trick. This is so I'm so not sorry for simping over Deepika Padukone." She sang his song.

"God, I'm never teasing you again now!" He chuckled.

She laughed, "I love you."

"I love you more." He reciprocated.

He loved when his girlfriend wore his clothes. Currently she's wearing his yellow shirt with big white flowers on it, the one he wore in Watermelon Sugar and a pair of loose Nike shorts. She lied down next to him on her back properly as it was would not hurt her back for next two weeks. Though they were in the shade of a tree sun was still getting into her eyes, to block that Harry propped himself up on his elbow next to her. He's got sunscreen on.

"Oh did I tell you about this incident..." And she started ranting about this thing happening at Uni which got slightly in trouble. Walking in on students engaging into sexual activities is something which is not allowed on campus property. Every classroom has got cameras, even the ones which were not often used. YN did settled with the students who begged her to not report them. But she was called in by the principal and she had to tell the truth to keep her job, those students were left on a strict warning and it was all good. That happened right before YN had to get to her's, drop her cat at her friends for two weeks and then head over to Harry's. It was a chaos. Harry carefully listened to her each other, what else he have to do? And what else was better he'd do instead of listening to his pretty girlfriend rant?

When they were staying at hers, he'd listen to her share random and weird and sometimes bizzare stories which happened over her teaching career. Some very gossipy, some very sad, and very funny. He'd have at least one story to hear before they drift off to sleep every night.

"That's what got you late?" He asked.

"Mhmm," she nodded, "now I know why professors show no mercy!"

"Have you been in those kinda situation?"

"Oh hell to the no bro," she exhaled a dramatic puff of air, "the most I've gotten in trouble for at school or college was that I never, I mean never submitted my projects and assignments on time."

"You're smart one, wasn't expecting that from you for sure." He commented.

"I used to procrastinate a lot," she smiled sheepishly. "I dunno I passed even my first semester."

"I never turned in my assignments on time too," he shared, "I still passed highschool though."

"You're Harry Styles!" She rolled her eyes, "of course there isn't a thing you're bad at."

"You're really gonna give me an ego, darling." He chuckled. "Have I told you that you look extra pretty today?"

"Why just because I gave your ego an accidental boost?" She asked.

"Meanie!" He huffed, "but doesn't change the fact that you look extra pretty today." He winked.

It was their own way of communicating. People always thought they're being super mean and rude to each other when in reality both of them are nust joking and very well known where their personal boundaries are.

"I love you!" She laughed, pressing a gentle kiss on his mouth.

Taking the advantage of his position, Harry didn't let pull away. He deserves more kisses. Period.

As on autopilot, his hand went up to cup her jaw. Pad of his thumb drawing soothing circles on apple of her cheek. YN rested her head back, wrapping her arms around his neck. Little slither of the tip of his tongue on her lower lip was enough of a signal for her to open for him. It wasn't to lead to anywhere sexual, especially when Harry felt the tips of her soft fingers massaging soothing circles on the back of his head. Later only to realise she was running out of air and he should probably give her time to breathe and take in a few breaths himself.

"Let me breathe," she chuckled.

Harry just sighed resting his forehead on hers. "Can I ask you something?"

"Yeah?" She nodded.

He finally gathered all the bits of courage he have to ask what he have been wanting to. It was terrifying. Though he was most certain there wasn't even a ounce of a chance for a rejection. He lifted his head to look at her.

"You remember how we always talk about getting married and having kids?" He asked.

"Mhmm," she nodded again.

"Well, let's keep the kids thing out just for now." He cleared his throat to buy himself sometime, "what you still think about us getting married?"

"I still want us to get married," she said. "Why wouldn't I?"

"I just wanted to ask again." He could feel his skin warming up, but not due to sun, "if I were to ask you to marry me, would you say yes? I, I know it's a huge commitment. I understand if you don't feel ready yet."

"Of course I would definitely say yes," she gave her honest answer, "if I can remember I was the one who brought up the topic the first time around. We later joked about it but I was very serious."

"Were you?"

"Yeah!" She was pretty nervous now as to why he was asking this all of sudden. "Do you not want to?"

"Of course I do baby. Just wanted to ask," he cooed softly caressing her worried face, "at least want to ask your brothers for their blessings and respect your culture. Had to make sure you're happy with it, at the end of the day it's you I want to be happy. That should be first priority if we I want to marry you."

"I don't know why I thought you were going to break up with me. But yeah, I want marry you." She laughed sheepishly when her vision blurred out due to tears pooling up in her eyes.

"I didn't mean to make you cry, I'm sorry." He cooed again.

"I'm not," she defended, "I'm not, I promise."

"Haven't got a ring yet but you'll get it soon." He warned her.

"I don't want it. I'm already saying yes," she pouted.

"But you deserve one." He defended with a kiss on her pouty lips. "I love you so much!" And he peppered her face with sloppy kisses.

"I love you so much too!" She squirmed under him feeling ticklish. "Harry?"

"Hmm?"

"You said you wanted to keep having kids out for now, don't you want that now?" She asked.

"I do, but not anytime soon. I don't feel emotionally and mentally ready for a life long commitment to a child, sorry I couldn't communicate that properly." He explained, "but yeah, I do wanna have kids. With you."

YN's always been open about important it that she wants kids of her own, biological or adopted. Harry knew that must have gotten her a little worried.

"It's okay." She shrugged, "we can always get more cats."

"That's always an option, yes." He couldn't help but agree. "Are you still going to that concert on Monday?" He asked as it seemed she's got nothing else to talk about. He loved to hear her talk his ears off.

"I don't know, my friend got me passes. I just don't wanna go alone." She said.

One of her friend works with her favourite band now, she had surprised YN with the passes to their concert in LA on her birthday. Her friend was certain that Harry's going to drag her to LA with him.

"I can go with you," he suggested.

"Then people are gonna know." She pointed out.

"I'm not going to miss out spending time with my girl 'cause of that." He told her. And oh that pet name gave her real butterflies, "and we're just going to a concert."

"Are you sure?" She seemed scared of something.

"Yeah," scooted closer to her, "what's wrong?"

"I don't know," she avoided looking directly at him or she would start crying. "You know people knowing just scares me. Especially the media stuff."

"You don't have to worry about that my love, the best we can do is ignore all of that." He told her. "Hey look at me?" With his hand rested on her cheek he made her look at him, "we don't have to worry about what so far in the future, okay?"

"Yeah, but like almost all of my students are like hardcore fans of you. It just gives me anxiety to even think about that." YN shared, her voice shakh as she tried to hold back her tears.

She have seen the things being said to his ex-lovers. Afterall she listened to him as well, she wasn't just that dedicated of a fan. It scares her to go through the same thing when she's totally unaware of media and online harrasment which comes with being in entertainment industry.

For other reason being her family. She doesn't have the closest and nicest relation with her family. Except for her two elder brothers. She hated to be part of that family, especially because of her step mother who fit into every typical and cliché category of evil step mothers. Her own mum wasn't a saint per se. That was the only reason for her to move to a completely different continent and cut ties with them. Or else she would be living a very luxurious life at her millionaire dad's house and work at a very higher and nicer paying job role at his company.

She didn't wanted her step mother to know or she'll get to witchery shit and get to ruining her life even more. Plus Harry's fans were crazy and she's constantly surrounded by them at her job. But that was the least she was worried about, because her students wouldn't do be brave enough to say anything to her as all their grades for her subject in her hands. They'd be too scared to say a thing.

The thing is, Harry is yet to meet her brothers (who are actually nice to their only baby sister). It would create a whole new whirlpool of mess before that.

"We don't have to go public then," Harry said, "anyway I love going on our secret little rendezvous, and hanging out with Dorothea."

"Okay," she nodded.

"Hey, I promise it'll be okay. I just need you trust me, okay?" He pressed a kiss on her cheek.

"Yeah," she nodded again.

"You still look worried to me baby, come on you can tell me everything you know that." Harry pressed knowing she's probably never going to talk about things bothering her.

"It's nothing, jist worried about my dad and both my mum's finding out." She said, "especially my step mother. You know she's a bitch."

"Yeah, I know that," he nodded.

"Hmm, she's going to make our lives a living hell."

"We'll deal with it when we have to," he smiled, "for now tell me what you wanna do today and what you want for dinner? It's your turn today I believe."

"Yeah, do you want to get pizza?" She asked.

"We're getting pizza," he agreed.

"Let's go for run on the beach now," she suggested already getting just to plopped back down when Harry pulled her back down. She fell flat on he ass, "ouch!"

"I'm sorry, you alright?" He didn't meant to laugh. "I'm sorry," he chuckled holding close. "I've got another thing we can do instead of going on a run?"

"I've got another thing we can do," she mocked his accent jokingly. For some reason she liked to annoy him back for teasing her all the time.

"I do not sound like that," ge gasped.

"Yes you do," she laughed.

He was going to attack her with tickles before she fled the place. Harry was quick to run after her.

"Harry stop!" She said running around the pool.

"Are you going to stop?" He put up a condition.

"No you're going to tickle me!" She tried to dodge him but Harry sped up his steps. Grabbing her he attempted to throw her in the pool but YN was smart enough to pull him down with her.

"Fuck, it's cold!" Harry shivered as he came up on the surface following his girlfriend who was holding onto him tight as she doesn't know how to swim.

"Can you believe it, we don't have a Jacuzzi!" She said making him laugh.

"You're not funny," he joked. He wondered how her brain is weirdly wired that she get out random references to every situation.

"Hmm I can see, now get us out of here." She demanded.

"You can get down, it's not rhat deep." He told her as he was stood there in neck deep water with his feet touching the floor of the pool.

"Dude you're six feet tall! I'm barely five-six and I can't swim," she clung to him as he tried to put her down. He wouldn't let go of her his love like that, he was just joking.

"There's enough room for you, I won't let you drown baby." He started making his way out of the pool.

......................................................................

They spent their weekend and next week being lowkey, at their Airbnb. Just leaving the house as Harry surprised her by taking her to the Warner Bros studio on their anniversary. And it was her first time in LA, she have to go to all these places. He had assigned that job to himself.

As for YN, she was keeping an eye on her very unpredictable boyfriend who can pop the question again with an actual ring next time. But she also made sure to have fun with him.

Harry seemed to not care about anything with people knowing now. He can't stop living his life just for that reason. He's a human at the end of the day. He's going to be very unapologetic for being himself and living his life.

[milkiane]

promise; jj maybank

summary: your love for each other is sealed for forever with a promise.

warnings: mentions of food & beverages, gif credits to @vancssakirby

word count: 1476

the idea of finding the one for you and slowly falling in love with them sounds so… romantic.

ever since you’ve seen disney films as a kid, the concept of finding your prince charming has been implanted in your mind for as long as you could remember.

of course as you grew older, that idea has been pushed to the back of your mind because you’re an independent woman. and you don’t need any man.

but now, rounding off your first anniversary with jj, you realized that you did get a chance to experience your little childhood fairytale.

said movies always had picture-perfect couples in their most enviable clothing, so on your first anniversary together, you realized that you did get a chance to experience your little childhood fairytale.

with your head on his shoulder, images came to mind: the damsel (not in distress) and her hero, the heroine and her love, the princess and her prince…

it was funny how he completed the look, too; with his dreamy blue eyes and soft blonde hair, you were a goner.

“hey, princess,” he smiled, pressing a kiss against your forehead. “bad news, my malibu beach babe, i’ll have to take a shift to work today.”

you pouted jokingly out of habit, and he gave you a quick peck as he couldn’t help himself.

“i promise i’ll make it up to you though,” he said with an encouraging laugh.

it was fine for you, you knew how important his job was. plus, it gave you more time to prepare his gift.

jj 🤍

hi

i’ll pick u up at 6 on the dot

wear something fancy — and i mean kook typa fancy

k?

k. love u bye

as soon as six p.m. striked, clad in the fanciest dress you could find in your closet and some wedges you borrowed from sarah, you were ready.

once the doorbell rang, you clutched your purse and jj’s gift in your hand. you composed yourself for a moment before letting your hand turn the knob.

“oh wow,” you whispered, eyes slowly training up and down as you took in the classy appearance your boyfriend sported. he was wearing a tuxedo, which fitted him perfectly, and the same charming smile you fell in love with.

“on a scale of one to ten, how uncomfortable are you in this tux?” you teased, fixing the lapels of his suit.

jj pretended to think, letting out a thoughtful hum. “broke the scale.”

you laughed at his comment, and his smile grew wider at the sound. then he suddenly remembered the flowers he was holding. “oh! these are for you, m’lady.”

you smiled at the sight of your favorite flowers collected in a beautiful bouquet. it was different from the usual wildflowers he would pick up on the side of the street for you, but you love them just as much. “thank you, jj. they’re pretty.”

“like you,” he winked as he tucked his hands in the pockets of his dress pants. “i worked an extra shift today so i could buy them for you.”

he grabbed your hand and started guiding you towards the car he borrowed from kie.

you furrowed your eyebrows and tilted your head a bit. “jj- what? why would you-“

“c’mon, y/n/n,” jj dragged, opening the car door for you. “just trust me, ‘kay?”

and you did. you spent the whole car ride talking about each other’s day, singing along the blasting music, and exchanging stolen glances.

only your confusion grew as you neared a fancy restaurant at figure 8. jj didn’t answer any more of your questions as he handed the car keys for valet.

kooks of all kinds started turning their heads to look at the both of you. your confusion matching theirs.

“uhh, reservation for two under maybank?” jj said, sending a tight-lip smile to the clerk at the front desk.

“right over here, sir.” he guided the both of you to an outside booth which overviews the beach, fairy lights streamed from corner to corner, and candles lit up.

jj pulled back the seat for you as the gentleman that he is, the soft smile on his lips never leaving his face.

the food was immediately served as you sat down, you guessed that he ordered beforehand. it was your favorite, too.

“wow, jj. i-“ you let out a soft chuckle, looking at him with nothing but just love and adoration. “i don’t know what to say, this is all so amazing.”

“i took up a lot of extra shifts and saved for months just so i could treat you like a princess, even if it’s just for the night.” jj grinned, his cheeks lighting up with a bright red. “well, let’s dig in.”

as time passed by, you and jj were having a lot of fun. you and him finished every dish served on your table while quietly mocking the kooks around you.

your laughters slowly subsided, traces of small smiles gracing both your lips.

your table has been cleared from any more expensive food, the only thing left was the bottle of wine the both of you had been nursing.

“oh! i almost forgot about your gift,” jj exclaimed, he dug through his pocket and pulled out a small box. he opened it and stared at it for a few seconds, a small sigh escaping his lips. though he recovered soon as a grin replaced his momentary sadness.

“i want you to have this.” he pushed the velvet box towards you. “it used to be my mom’s, she told me to keep it before she died — said that i should give it to the girl i love, the girl i know i’d spend the rest of my life with, and well…”

“jj…” you whispered in shock as you stared at the ring. it was a silver band with a small flower that adorned tiny gemstones.

“fits perfectly.” he murmured as he slipped it on the ring finger of your right hand. “this promise ring… is proof that my heart belongs to you, and only you. i’ll love you for as long as i live, and that’s a promise.”

you let out a teary laugh as jj planted a soft kiss on your knuckles. “you should’ve let me give you your gift first. if i had known you’d take me out to a kook resto and give me your mom’s ring, i would’ve gotten you something better.”

you shyly brought out the small paper bag and pushed it towards him. “you brought your walkman, right?”

“yeah,” he unclipped the device from his pants and placed it on top of the table as he opened his gift.

it was a mixtape with your handwriting in front. to the love of my life, 08.13.21

you flashed him a bashful smile as you watched him insert it in his walkman and put on his headphones. your voice was the first thing he heard.

hi, jj. happy anniversary, baby! i know this probably isn’t the best gift that you could ever receive for our first year, but i wanted to give you something special that you could remember us by. so here’s to more love and adventures, i love you!

you watched as a smile tugged at his lips as he continued to listen to the mixtape. you spent quite some time putting together songs that reminded you of him, inside jokes that only the two of you could laugh about, songs that the both of you slow danced to, and every possible song that could summarize your whole relationship.

jj hit pause on the device and abruptly stood up from his seat, earning a few stares from the people around you.

he softly cupped your face and brought your lips to his. “god, i love you so much.”

“i love you, too.” you smiled as you leaned forward to give him another kiss. “i’ll love you forever, and that’s a promise.”

jj grabbed your things on the table as he raced to the door with you, hand-in-hand. “yeah- not a bar of gold can compare to this lovely lady right here, people, ya hear me?”

“nothing!” he finished, laughing with you as he grabbed the keys from the valet.

“sir! sir!” the waiter called out, “you still have to pay!”

you laughed out loud as jj paused. “oh, right…”

he patted around for his wallet, and grabbed three hundred dollars, slipping it through the waiter’s front pocket.

“thanks. where was i?”

with a grin, jj placed his arm around your shoulder.

you hummed thoughtfully, playfully tapping your chin as if in thought. “i think you were saying something about how nothing can compare to me?”

“oh hell yeah!” he whooped. “i’m the luckiest man in the whole world and y’all can suck it!”

general taglist: @tatesimper @bluvclouds @i-love-scott-mccall @miraclesoflove @rosie-posie08

obx taglist: @maybanksslut @angelixcpixies @oldschoolkiddo @iwritesiriusly @natashxromanovfreads @nyxie75 @stylesyourmine @gabiatthedisco @taylathornton @bury-my-love-inthe-moondust @queen-asteria04 @aliyahsutherland @wolfstar-lb @mrs-cameron @golden-hoax @ilyjohnb @diverrdown @malfoylaufeysonweasley @ayleehweasleyobrien @xsamsharons @sweeterthansammy

[someonestolemyshoes]

Yo, saw your post about levihan prompts:

How about Hange discovering Levi’s secret hobby (of your choice)

Feel free to do whatever you feel like

And I love your work! 💕 have a good day

Hello! So sorry for the delay in this one, but thank you so much for your patience 🙏 I got stuck for such a long time in the middle of this ksksks but it is finally done! I also played around a little bit with the whole...discovering a secret aspect, but I hope you'll enjoy it anyway! And I hope you're ready for some sweet sweet childhood friends levihan~

**

Levi likes photography.

This, in itself, is no great secret. Hange can barely remember a time he wasn't following after her with a camera strapped around his neck, or packed into his bag—always within reach, should something striking catch his eye. A little neon plastic toy, at first; each click of the shutter cycled through preloaded images, expert shots of famous landscapes, places they could only dream of seeing. And then, a polaroid—still a toy, in essence, still plastic, still gaudy, but this one took real pictures in real time, and spit them out into their eager, shaking fingers within seconds.

Hange remembers them ruthlessly wafting the little laminate squares and watching with bated breath as black mottled into foggy grey, as the blurred silhouette of the park bench faded slowly into being. It was a fascinating thing, at the time. Magic at their fingertips. The picture turned out fuzzy and overexposed in places, where the sun had glared in over the corner of the park bench, but Levi had settled the little square on his little palms and looked at it like he held the whole world in his hands.

There were innumerable disposable cameras, too. Light little things with reels of film, never enough for Levi's insatiable desire to snap pictures of every single thing he saw. They spent half their childhood in the chemist, sitting in the hard plastic chairs, wriggling anxiously as they waited for the film to develop. Kuchel always handed them the envelope, fat with prints, with a small smile curling the corner of her mouth and a fond twinkle in her eye, and Levi always took it politely, while Hange gave a boisterous thanks, and the pair of them delved greedily into their spoils.

He was older, in his early teens, when he was gifted his first real camera. It was heavy, compared to all the others, a case made of metal with buttons and gadgets and a fancy screen on the back, to preview each picture he took. Levi was wholly enamoured with it. He spent hours adjusting it, figuring out what each button and knob did, how they affected each picture; took countless shots of the same rock in the park until he'd tested every combination of settings he could think of.

He had cycled through more cameras since then. Grown a small collection, each one a little different, a little more suited to particular shots. Hange understood the concept in theory, but the particulars were lost on her, and Levi never took the time to explain. Not that she minded—Levi's pictures were beautiful, breathtaking in the way he could capture even the most mundane details and make them something wondrous. Perhaps for the first and only time in her life, Hange had no desire for the magician to reveal his tricks.

He has an eye for things that Hange simply cannot see. She is observant—to a fault, at times, intensely analytical and endlessly curious. Everything is a question, an opportunity to research, to learn, but she doesn't see the way Levi does.

Wild daffodil. Narcissus pseudonarcissus. Hange sees a perennial flowering plant, native to Western Europe, classified by its pale yellow petals and elongated central trumpet. She sees phylogeny with a rich taxonomic history; subspecies originating all over the globe, some larger, some smaller, some more vibrant and some more muted. She sees anatomy, science.

Levi sees the way the evening sun rusts the buttery petals until they blush; sees the way dew drops hang like pearls from the tips of the leaves in the early morning, when the light is still smoky and thin. He sees a moment to be captured.

It should be impossible for a picture to hold so much detail. Hange can look at Levi's daffodil and feel the way the spring wind blows gently on her skin, the sun warm but the breeze a little biting, a remnant of the fading winter. She can smell the pollen heavy in the air, feel the tickle of short grass on her ankles, hear the trill of songbirds in the branches of distant trees.

His proclivity for photography grows with them. Hange's interests spear out in a thousand different directions, from physics and chemistry to botany, to engineering, to literature and mathematics, to history, languages and landscapes—life is a limitless source of information and Hange chases it every which way, insatiable.

And wherever she goes, Levi dutifully follows, with his camera in hand.

Until now.

Now, they are eighteen. The summer is lazily drawing to a close, and tomorrow, at 8:45am, Hange will be boarding a plane that will take her to the other side of the world to attend the university of her dreams.

And Levi will be staying here.

Despite Levi's perpetual scowling and indiscriminate grunting, their last evening together had overall been a pleasant one. Levi and Kuchel had worked hard on their meal, and it had been nice in a warm, filling kind of way, to spend her last night at home with the two of them.

Now, she and Levi are holed up in his bedroom, while Kuchel had insisted on doing the clean up herself. Hange's mind has been churning non-stop for weeks now, ramping up with each passing day, and tonight, her thoughts are unstoppable, and they spill from her with giddy, jittery excitement.

"The university is huge, but my course is pretty small—only like, 30 places. It'll be easy to get to know everybody."

"Nn."

"And did I tell you? There's a museum right on campus? They've got a huge collection, and I heard students can access it after the first semester."

"Hm."

"And there's a flower garden, too—they've got species from all over the world, Levi. They'll have plants I've never even heard of."

"You said."

"Oh! And—my accommodation isn't all that far from the coast. The water looks beautiful in all the pictures I've seen—look, see?"

"I know. You showed me already."

Hange looks up from her phone, where the screen is lit with a bright, sunny beach, tan sand and a stark blue ocean. Levi flicks his gaze over it and offers a noncommittal shrug of his shoulder. Hange frowns at him.

"You could at least pretend to be excited, you know."

Levi gives her a deadpan stare.

"It looks...warm."

Hange sits back with a thump, and kicks weakly at Levi's shin. She pouts over at him. "Better than nothing, I guess."

They sit at opposite ends of the window bench in Levi's bedroom, legs tangled haphazardly together in the space between them. The window was thrown open in some vain hope of tempting in a breeze, but the air is thick, and the soft wind that does blow is still stiflingly warm. It sways Levi's fringe against his brow, but does little to stave off the oppressive heat.

The sky outside is dark, but it is alive with stars. They cast bright sparks on an inky black canvas, and there is no moon in sight. Already, Levi has snapped pictures of it, twisted dials and pushed buttons and switched lenses until he was satisfied.

It is a beautiful sight. Infinite.

Hange lets one leg dangle out the open window. Levi gives her a sour look and wordlessly closes one hand around her other ankle. She has a long history of behaving carelessly—Levi has borne witness to one too many slips and stumbles to trust her entirely. It would be just like Hange, to miss her flight in favour of a trip to the emergency room.

His thumb strokes back and forth absently. There is a callus there, rough and catching, that scratches against her sensitive skin.

Her predominant feeling is one of excitement. Studying abroad had been a dream of hers for almost as long as Levi had owned a camera—to travel beyond the bounds of their small rural town, to see more, learn more, fuel the relentless hunger in her. But there is an undercurrent of something else, some squirming discomfort that refuses to settle. It intensifies with every sweep of Levi's thumb against her skin until it sits heavy in her gut.

She looks over at him. His gaze is trained out the window, a small frown furrowing the skin between his brows, but his eyes are glassy, with none of their usual sharp, unwavering focus. Whatever he is looking at, he is not really seeing it.

It would be a lie to say that his silence had not troubled her. He had been quiet throughout dinner, opting instead to listen to Hange and Kuchel's companionable chatter as he pushed his food around his plate, and he had barely said a word since they had cleared the table and retreated to his room. He had hardly even looked her way.

Irritation bubbles within her. Levi is always more subdued than she is, content to sit quietly while Hange babbles endlessly, about anything and everything. But he usually has something to say. His silence, today of all days, makes her angry. They have one night left like this—one more night to talk, face to face, before they will be separated for who knows how long, and Levi is offering her nothing.

"Levi," she says, before she can think. Something in her tone must startle him, for he blinks rapidly, as though pulled out of a daydream, and rolls his eyes to look in her direction. His gaze settles somewhere near her shoulder. She bristles. "Can you at least—"

"Levi?" Kuchel's voice is distant, floating up from the bottom of the stairs. Levi looks at the door instead. "Can you come give me a hand for a minute?"

Hange clamps her jaw shut. Levi casts her another sidelong glance, and ticks his tongue against the back of his teeth. He squeezes her ankle once, then pushes himself to his feet. "Don't fall, idiot. I won't be long."

Hange feels distinctly like a child on the verge of throwing a tantrum. It's immature, and perhaps it's unfair of her, but she had assumed that Levi's invitation for dinner might, at the very least, come with a little conversation.

She takes a deep, steadying breath. They never fight, not really—they bicker endlessly, poke each other's cheeks and pull each other's hair, childish rough housing that they never grew out of. But they don't fight and as grumpy as Hange feels about Levi's near silence, she doesn't want to start now. She runs a hand back through her hair and sweeps her eyes about the room, counting long, even breaths as she does.

Levi's room is immaculately neat and tidy. Everything has its place, on clean, dusted shelves, or stacked in straight, neat piles atop his desk. It is a level of organisation Hange has little energy for; she herself is a hurricane, picking up and dropping off detritus everywhere she goes.

But Levi's borderline obsessive cleanliness makes it easy to spot something that is out of place.

Hange's gaze falls on a drawer in the desk.  The drawer itself is as immaculate as everything else, gleaming wood and a reflectively polished brass handle. What catches her eye is the corner of a glossy piece of paper, caught when the drawer had been closed.

Hange is a curious creature. Rarely can she hold herself back from exploring an unknown, and now is no different. She unfolds herself from the bench and stretches to stand, then crosses the room on light, tip-toed feet.

Levi is, by and large, a rather private person. He does not share much of himself openly, hides behind an impassive mask, guards what is dear to him close to his chest. Hange is an exception to this rule, whether Levi wanted her to be or not.

As such, she has no real issue prying the drawer open, and is unsurprised by the predictable contents within.

Photographs.

Of course it was photographs.

Her lips tug up in a fond smile and her eyes roll, but it is as she is reaching in to flatten out the rumpled picture that had been poking out of the drawer, that she notices what they are photographs of.

Her.

Hange picks out a stack and sits cross-legged in the desk chair. She flips through them, eyes growing wider with each new picture she uncovers. Every single one is of her. Some recent, some not so recent—some must be from the very first real camera, for she is still in her braces, all thin, gangly limbs and scruffy hair and taped up glasses.

There are pictures of her in the winter, mitten-clad hands wrapped around a paper cup of hot chocolate, blowing steam into the chill air. She can see in stark clarity, the red tip of her nose and the chill bitten over her cheeks; she can almost feel the cold, taste the cocoa on her tongue.

She finds a picture of her from an autumn years gone by. She remembers it as though it were yesterday—they had spent the whole afternoon raking fallen leaves in the courtyard behind Kuchel's cafe, scooping them into a terribly tempting mound beneath the shedding tree. Hange had been unable to resist. Levi had captured her moments after her dive into the pile, sitting up with her weight propped back on her hands, dry leaves clinging to her messy hair and sticking to the fibres of her cardigan. The sun was low, and it cast her in a golden glow, highlighting the vibrant red and orange of the fall foliage around her, drawing out the auburn undertone in her hair and the amber of her eyes. Her smile is almost blinding.

Another shows her in the spring, laying on her belly in the long grass beside a row of blooming daffodils. There is a book spread open before her and she is, as expected, engrossed in it; Levi has snapped the shutter as she was turning the page, the thin edge of the paper caught between the delicate tips of her fingers.

Hange has never considered herself to be particularly pretty. She is just...Hange, a little bit of wild, a little bit of manic, a lot of clumsy and dirty. Being attractive has never been of much concern.

But there is something in the way Levi has photographed her, time and time again, in the way the light catches her, the candid ease of each new picture, that looks....beautiful, in its own way. Somehow, he has made her mess into a masterpiece.

Levi likes taking pictures of things. Plants, rocks, rivers, landscapes and skylines—he likes capturing the mundanity of everyday life and turning it into something spectacular, but he has never done the same thing with people. As far as Hange was aware, Levi had taken very few pictures of anybody at all.

And yet, she holds this pile in her hands, and there are plenty more pictures littering the drawer before her.

There is a strange feeling brewing on her as she stares at them. She had been so excited about moving away to study, so eager to explore the world beyond their quiet countryside home, that the reality of leaving had never truly sunk in. She feels it now though, acutely; a hollow ache in her chest that grows with each picture she flicks through.

Levi has been her shadow for as long as she can remember. There are few memories that he is not a part of, few moments that she can recall in which Levi was not by her side—he has been a constant for her. Something certain and dependable.

And from tomorrow, he will no longer be there.

Hange had known this. She had known it from the moment she had accepted her offer, and she had known it as they looked through her options for accommodation together, as they explored the local area through pictures and videos and maps online. She had known it as they had prepared her visa, organised her finances. Booked her flights. Every step of the way she had understood, logically, rationally, that studying abroad meant leaving Levi behind.

But the weight of it is only hitting her now. The reality of it is like a slap in the face, a punch in the gut—it leaves her shaken and breathless in the worst way.

From tomorrow, Levi won't be with her at all.

Her grip tightens on the photographs hard enough to wrinkle the glossy paper.

She had done a pretty good job of not getting too emotional about the whole thing. For the most part, Hange had been overwhelmed by her own excitement—there had been no time for sadness between all the loose ends she’d had to tie up in order to make the move a possibility. Now though, all that is left is to head to the airport and board her plane. No more distractions.

Hange doesn’t realise she is crying until the bedroom door opens again, and Levi steps into the room, coming to a sudden halt halfway over the threshold.

Hange can't tell if Levi's look of shock is because of the open drawer and the pictures still clutched in her hands, or the tear tracks on her cheeks. He stops dead in the open doorway, fingers still curled around the handle, and for a moment he stares at her with eyes wider than Hange has ever seen them, but then his brow dips low and his lip curls, and his grip tightens around the door handle. Hange holds the pile of photographs close to her chest.

She is expecting anger. She doesn't suppose she could blame him if he lost his temper with her, then. She has a terrible habit of bulldozing into everything, after all, and perhaps this was the one thing Levi had longed to keep secret from her. Her snooping, on top of his already sullen mood—perhaps this is the final straw.

But instead, he turns his face away, staring resolutely into the corner of the room. Starlight spills through the open window. Even in the thin, muted light, Hange can see a vibrant flush colouring the skin high on Levi's cheeks.

Hange sniffles, and wipes clumsily at her cheeks.

"I didn't have you pegged as a closet pervert, Levi," she says, waving the handful of pictures at him. Her voice comes cracked, and weaker than she'd hoped. Levi's knuckles turn white.

It's a funny thing, seeing Levi embarrassed. His emotional expression is usually limited to small twitches, here and there—a slight furrow of his brow, a wrinkle of his nose, a soft twitch of his lip. Hange can count on one hand the number of times she has seen his feelings show so completely. It's almost painful to witness.

"I don't mind," she says. Levi doesn't look at her. Hange looks down at the pile again. "They're nice."

Levi finally releases his death grip on the handle and pushes the door closed. His eyes are still downcast and his cheek is still cherry red, but he hasn't run away and he hasn't snapped at her (yet). Hange takes these things as good signs.

"I didn't know you took pictures of people," Hange says.

"I don't."

"Are you saying I'm not people, Levi?"

Levi lets out a disgruntled sigh. He crosses the room, and plucks the pile of pictures from Hange's hands. His cheeks are still pink, and his brows are still furrowed, but he has composed himself some.

“No, you’re not,” he says. “You’re a creature. You’ve got snot all over your face.”

Hange laughs wetly, wiping her nose with the back of her hand and rubbing the mess on her pants. Levi gives her a look of pure disgust, parking his hip against the edge of the desk beside her and skimming through a few of the pictures. There’s a curious expression on his face, a softness in his eyes that Hange isn’t used to seeing.

“Stalker,” she says. Levi kicks at the desk chair without looking up. “If you wanted a photoshoot, you could have asked.”

Levi scowls. He straightens the edges of the pictures with care, and sets them carefully on the desk. “If I wanted to take pictures of you posing, I would have asked.”

“Wanted to capture me in all my natural glory, huh?” Hange braces her elbows on the desk and rests her chin in both hands, grinning cheekily up at Levi. It must look ridiculous, with her watery eyes and the red point of her nose, but Levi isn't even looking at her to notice.

Levi says nothing. His gaze lingers on the pictures for a little longer, and the colour in his cheeks deepens. Hange nudges him with her elbow, smiling. The pictures are...sweet, in a way. There's something flattering about it. She slumps back in the chair, her smile wavering where a fresh wave of melancholy tugs at the edges of her lips.

“I’ll miss you, you know.” Hange’s voice cracks humiliatingly as she speaks. Levi looks over at her. Hange curses the wobble of her bottom lip and wipes at her eyes beneath her glasses. She isn’t expecting much; Levi is terrible at expressing feelings at the best of times, and so it’s more than surprising when, after a moment of consideration, he nods at her.

“Same.”

Fresh tears spill down her cheeks. Hange presses her fingers into her eyes, trying to stem the flow, ease the sting there. She doesn’t want to spend their last evening together crying, but now that the tears have begun, Hange can’t seem to stop them. A lump builds in her throat, aching beneath her tongue and she can feel her chin wobbling, lips pulling down at the corners. She sniffles pitifully, draws a shuddering breath.

“Oi…” Levi says, though he doesn’t sound angry, or even uncomfortable like she had expected. His tone is gentle. It rips a sob from her.

Hange feels him move closer. He jostles the front of the chair, and when she opens her eyes to look at him she finds him standing right in front of her, between chair and desk, looking at her with a furrowed brow. It’s different to his usual scowl—his brows are a little upturned in the middle, exposing some kinder emotion; something like worry, or concern.

Hange tilts forward until her forehead presses into his chest. Levi’s hand comes up quickly to the back of her head. His touch is familiar, comforting, and Hange cries a little harder when his fingers tunnel into her messy hair, cradling her against him.

She cries until she feels spent, sniffling and gulping empty air. Her fingers twist into the hem of Levi’s shirt as she composes herself, mumbling, “you’ll keep in touch, right? You won’t forget about me?”

Levi clicks his tongue at her. “Stupid,” he says. “As if you’d let me.”

“I’m serious.” She sits back and looks up at her. Her eyes are burning, raw and wet, and the skin of her cheeks stings from crying, but she looks at him with as much determination as ever and says, “call me. Every day.”

“That’s ridiculous.”

“It’s not! Just once, every day. Even if it’s only five minutes.”

Levi flicks her between her brows. “You won’t have the time, dumbass.”

“I’ll make time.”

Levi scrutinizes her for a moment, then says, “I’ll text.”

“Well, yeah, obviously.”

Levi curls his lip and pulls at a lock of her fringe, muttering, “brat. Why don’t you call me?”

“I will,” Hange says plainly. Levi’s eyes widen a fraction. “I’ll call as much as I can. But you need to call me too, okay? I wanna hear from you a lot.”

There is a long pause, and then Levi turns his eyes away. The light in the room is pale and muted, but it is just enough to highlight the pale flush gathering anew on his cheeks and across the bridge of his nose. It’s almost cute.

“Fine. I’ll call. Happy?”

Hange grins at him. “Very. And I’ll send you photos of everything, all the time.”

Levi leans down towards her, pinching her nose between his thumb and forefinger and giving her head a little shake. “On your shitty phone camera?”

Hange nods. She bats his hand away and cranes herself up into his space, smiling something wicked. “You’ll hate it. They’ll be all blurry and I’ll have my thumb in the corner of every picture.”

“Pest.”

“Lots of selfies, too. So you won’t forget what I look like.” Hange blindly swipes up a picture from the desk, holding it up between them in front of her mouth and nose. Between Levi dipping down into her space and Hange stretching up into his, they are so close that Levi has to cross his eyes to get a look at it. “Not that I think it’ll be a problem.”

He rolls his gaze up to look at her over the top of the photograph. Up close, Hange can see just how bright the blue of his eyes is, how dark his lashes are; she can see the shadows they cast on his cheeks, the deepening flush bruising the skin red. Levi has always been a pale thing, but now, Hange can see the smattering of light freckles across his nose, barely visible in the low light. He looks pretty. Her heart stutters in her chest at the sight.

Hange has never fully understood Levi’s drive to photograph everything. To preserve any given moment, bottle up every minute detail. She sort of understands it, then—it’d be nice, she thinks absently, to save this particular view for forever. The thought makes her face grow warm.

“I won’t forget.” Levi’s voice is quiet, caught somewhere between embarrassment and uncertainty. He sways closer, rocks back, hesitates. And then he leans down and lets his forehead drop against hers. Hange can feel the press of his nose against her own, separated only by the picture between them.

Hange is used to being close to him. She’s a clingy person by nature, always grabbing him and hugging him, smooshing her cheek against his or shoving her face into his hair, but she is always the one to initiate such contact. Levi is tactile, in his own way—small, non-invasive touches, his fingers on her wrist or his palm at her back, always delicate, understated.

To have Levi enter so wholly into her space like this is new. It’s nice. Hange finds herself feeling very, very thankful for the paper between them, for the urge to lean forward and kiss him comes unbidden, so suddenly she isn’t sure she’d be able to resist the impulse if there hadn’t been a barrier in her way.

“Is it my dazzling good looks?” she says, acutely embarrassed by how breathless she sounds. Levi makes a small, noncommittal noise. His fingers find hers where she’s holding the picture, gripping it and pulling it until it slips out from between them. For the smallest moment, Hange feels the skin of Levi’s nose against hers, and the warm puff of breath on her lips, and then Levi straightens up, flipping the picture for her to see it.

“I’ve looked at your ugly mug every day for long enough. Don’t think I’d forget it so easily.”

It’s a truly unflattering photograph. Hange has her head tipped back, laughing boisterously at some thing or another, with her eyes pinched closed and chocolate sauce smeared over her lips, a drop of cream stuck to the end of her nose. Hange is sure she has looked better, but the thing is—despite her state, the picture still isn’t bad. Hange can hear the lilt of her own laughter and feel the tacky syrup, savour the sweetness of the cream on her tongue. There’s something so...animated about it, about the way the light dances over her skin and in her hair, and the way the background blurs around her, drawing her into sharp focus.

It’s nice, in a strange, unreserved kind of way.

But she’s still a mess. Hange snatches it and slams it down on the desk, glowering up at Levi.

“Why would you take that,” she whines, petulant. “You’re supposed to take pictures of nice things!”

“Because it’s very...you,” He says, neatly slotting the pictures back into the drawer, and moving back to sit on the window. Hange follows, drops herself onto the ledge opposite him with a pout.

“What, disgusting?”

Levi shrugs. “Messy. But...not bad.”

“I’m supposed to take that as a compliment, I guess? That’s almost sweet coming from you, Levi.”

Levi scowls over at her. She dangles one leg back out the open window, dropping the other heavily into Levi’s lap. He adjusts it until he is more comfortable, his hand wrapping again around her ankle, but does not let go once he has settled. He keeps a hold of her, his fingers tracing thoughtless patterns on her skin. The space between them is warm, comfortable. Hange leans her head back and breathes it in—the peace, the quiet, the simple pleasure of spending a tender evening with her favourite person in the whole world.

It’s nice. A small, frightened part of her doesn’t want it to ever end.

**

Hange has been set up in her student apartment for three weeks when the package arrives.

Moving had been harder than she had anticipated. She’d accounted for common issues—problems with her visa, her plane tickets, and had checked multiple transport options from the airport to her accommodation in case problems arose—but she hadn’t put all that much thought into what would happen once she settled at her apartment.

Unpacking had been boring. Her roommates were nice enough, the studious, bookworm-y type, but unlike Hange they weren’t overly sociable. They kept mostly to themselves in their rooms, perfectly content with brief conversations in the kitchen before retiring again, and with classes still two weeks away, Hange was finding the lack of social interaction difficult. She had explored some, but the city was vast in a cluttered, claustrophobic way. Hange had always enjoyed travelling, and had talked relentlessly of every adventure she could take herself on in a whole new country and all the new places she could explore, so much so that it was almost embarrassing, the way she had found herself so unwilling to stray too far from her accommodation without a companion by her side.

She’d felt a little homesick in the first couple of days, lonely and isolated. She missed the small comforts of the country, things she hadn’t even realised she had taken for granted. Quiet nights. Star studded skies. Long grass and trees and the fresh, earthy smell on the breeze. The city was unbearably loud at times, and even when the wail of sirens or the beep of car horns quieted, there was an unidentifiable hum beneath it all that never ceased even for a moment.

She felt Levi’s absence most acutely. Hange had known she would, but she hadn’t been prepared for how much it would hurt to be apart. She felt silly for it—it was ridiculous, to miss her friend more than she missed her own family, even. But Levi’s presence had been more constant than anything else, back home, and without him, she felt like a small part of herself was missing.

He called, as promised. Once a day, though oftentimes it was very late in the night for him, and he sounded tired. If Hange were less selfish, she might tell him to get some sleep instead—but she missed him. Hearing from him was the best part of her day.

It was about an hour before their designated call time when the post came. Hange answers the bell with a frown, which only deepens when the delivery driver hands her the package.

She takes it into her room, settling cross legged on the bed and inspecting the mystery item. It's a decent size, like a large shoe box, wrapped neatly in brown paper with her address lettered in tidy, familiar handwriting in one corner. Hange’s stomach lurches—she’d have recognised the writing anywhere, but her suspicions are confirmed by the return address. Levi’s.

She rips into the paper quickly, snatching up her keys to tear through the tape on the top of the box. It is stuffed full with packing paper, an envelope with her name on it sitting on the top. Hange picks it up and with trembling fingers, she opens it and unfolds the short note inside.

Hange,

Sorry things have been kind of shitty. This stuff might help or it might make things worse, but I figure you can just throw it out if it’s no good. Or give it away. Whatever. I don’t even know if all of this shit will make it through customs, so if you get an empty box it’s not my fault.

I don’t get how you eat half this junk, but I hope it makes you feel better, anyway.

Look after yourself. Eat real food.

Levi

Hange presses the note to her chest, grinning. Her heart aches, but having Levi go to this much trouble for her...it feels nice. Knowing he is still thinking of her. She’d never have admitted it out loud, but Hange had been concerned that perhaps Levi would forget about her after all, without her there to pester him all the time.

She pulls out some of the packing paper, and smiles widely at the rest of the contents.

Levi had put together what Hange can only call a care package. There are packs of her favourite snacks and sweets, things she’d complained she hadn’t been able to find in stores here; crisps, chocolate, hard candy, little mini boxes of sickeningly sugary cereal. There are tea bags with blends Levi knows she likes, each neatly labelled with instructions on what temperature to brew at and how long for. Levi had also packed some of the soaps Hange likes, the ones he uses but she refuses to buy for herself. The lavender scent drifts up out of the box and Hange’s heart squeezes tight in her chest. There’s a shirt in there, too—Hange recognises it at once, as one of Levi’s old, worn tees, thin grey cotton that feels impossibly soft in her hands. It’s far too big for either of them, and had always been the go-to item Levi would chuck at her when she decided she was staying over for the night and had nothing to wear to bed. Hange pulls it on quickly, savouring the soft feel and the smell of it.

In the bottom of the box, there is another envelope. This one is thicker than the first, and Hange knows what it contains before she even opens it.

Photographs. A small pile of them, depicting places she and Levi had frequented from when they were children right up until this last year—her favourite part of the forest, where the trees thin out and the river pools at the foot of a small waterfall. The great, open fields, sometimes full of long grass, sometimes clipped short and striped with windrows. Kuchel’s cafe, with umbrellas raised to block the sun on the tables outside, or else warm and low-lit and cosy in the cold winter. Hange settles back on her pillows as she flicks through each picture, a soft smile on her face. Looking at the images of home hurts, but it isn’t a terrible pain—she longs for these old times and these familiar places, but each recovered memory makes her happy.

In Levi’s pictures she can vividly recall moments in each and every location. He works some kind of magic with a camera, to trigger so many sensory memories—the scent of freshly cut grass, the feel of hay, dry and sharp, poking into her back through her clothing, and the gentle trickle of the river water, the splash of it as it runs over the falls, the feel of it cool on her skin. The tangy zest of fresh-pressed orange juice in the cafe, peach fuzz on her lips and the soft flesh of ripe fruit bursting between her teeth, sticky nectar coating her fingers.

Hange looks at each picture in turn, until she reaches the bottom of the pile, and there she stops abruptly, eyes widening at the last photograph Levi has packed for her.

It is one of Hange, taken in the window of Levi’s bedroom. She was looking out at the night sky, her elbow braced on her bent  knee, chin in her palm, a small smile lifting the corner of her mouth. The starlight haloed her, shining from her hair and illuminating the jut of her chin, the curve of her nose and the slope of her brow. Behind her, Levi had captured the bright glow of the stars like jewels on a deep velvet canvas. She looked peaceful. Happy. For lack of a better word, beautiful.

Hange grins widely. Her eyes sting and her throat aches, but the picture—the whole box, really—makes her happier than she's felt in weeks. She brews her favourite cup of tea from the blends Levi had sent her and settles into the corner of her bed, lifting her phone to snap a quick selfie. She sends it to Levi, complete with a caption: thank you for my presents 😊 all ready for your call!

Levi responds almost immediately, first with a simple you're welcome. And then, after a minute, you look good. Speak to you soon.

Hange sinks deeper into the cushions, cradling her tea close to her face, masking the pleased flush on her cheeks with the heat from the steam.

**

Hange keeps him longer than usual, today.

There is a simmering warmth in her stomach as she listens to Levi's voice over the line. It comes tinny through the speakers, low and rough in the late hour, and his dark, grainy image looks tired, lamp light casting him half in shadow. They talk of everything and nothing, same as always—Levi tells her about his day, about the cafe and Kuchel, and Hange pouts as she tells him how little progress she is making in befriending her new housemates. Levi never voices any concern for her aloud, but Hange can sense it in the dip of his brows as she talks. She gives him a genuine smile when she reassures him that classes will start soon, and she's confident she will settle better after that.

Levi seems reluctant to leave, but after a little over an hour of aimless, comfortable chatter, he is yawning and blinking heavily, the lower half of his face nuzzled into his pillow. In the end, Hange makes up some watery excuse about visiting the coast while the sun is still high, if only to let him get some sleep.

"Sure. Have fun."

"I will! Sleep well, Levi."

Levi hums. The view shifts, blurry and indistinct, the mic muffled by the rustle of sheets, and when everything settles he is laying on his side, fringe mussed and falling over his eyes. He covers another long yawn with his fist. "I will."

"You'll call tomorrow?"

Levi rolls his tired eyes, but the corner of his mouth pulls up in a fraction of a smile. "Sure."

"Promise?"

"Promise."

Hange grins. Levi watches her for a long moment, eyes scanning over her face. Then he holds up a hand in a tired wave. "Night, Hange."

"Night."

Hange stares at the screen for too long when the call ends. That terribly selfish part of her would have loved to keep his company for the rest of the day. Maybe, with a little travel sized Levi in the palm of her hand, she'd have been brave enough to explore some more, enthused about all the new things to see with somebody to share them with.

Sighing, Hange drops her phone to the desk and stands from the bed, stretching. There are still things she can do—she has plenty of recommended reading to get through, a small mountain of books at her disposal, and she has mapped the route to her campus often enough that she isn't feeling too overwhelmed by the prospect of the journey.

As she heads for the door, Hange notices something on the floor beside the bed. A neat, rectangular piece of paper; one of the photographs Levi had sent her, laying face down on the ground.

She picks it up again and brings the paper close to her face. Levi had written something on the back of it in small, quick letters, less tidy than his usual practiced script, as though he’d scribbled it as an afterthought, or else that he wasn’t sure he really wanted her to read it.

There is a date, the same night she had found Levi’s secret photo stash, followed by Hange’s name, and the location of the shot. And beneath that Levi had scrawled a few words. Hange squints to read them, and then her eyes grow wide, blinking owlishly down at the note. Her heart swells almost painfully and something solid balloons within her chest, squeezing the air from her lungs. Her lips tremble into a smile as she props the picture carefully on the bedside table.

The day is still young. Hange brews herself another cup of Levi’s tea and settles on the bed with one of her books, content to spend the next few hours reading—though she finds it strangely difficult to focus, with the words Levi had written on the back of the photograph swirling round and round in her head. Hange doubts they will leave her any time soon. They left her feeling more homesick than ever, but there is a soft, giddy kind of comfort in them all the same. It's a feeling that Hange will savour for as long as she possibly can.

It's weird here without you. Come home again soon x

[boldlyvoid]

Amoreena | Chapter Eight

Chapter Eight

main summary: Heaven is a real place and it's located exactly 14.6 miles away from the FBI, Quantico Headquarters. Off behind a small park, under a fantastical willow tree surrounded by wildflowers, in every colour young minds can imagine.

Don't forget, heaven also comes with angels.

Chapter Warnings: fluffiest fluff ever, jealous amoreena, jealous spencer, the LaMontagne family is in this too !!

word count: 3.8K

from the beginning <3

He went to work with Y/N on Tuesday to fill out all the paperwork and officially become an employee at the D.C Public Library. He signed a contract, he was switched over to a different government healthcare, answering a million calls and emails all morning, he was officially not an FBI agent.

They had lunch together in the park, buying some sandwiches and walking across the street to a picnic table to talk about their days while they ate. He liked her co-workers, they all were shocked to find out she was “married” to him after being single the whole time she’s worked there.

They had plans to go get Amoreena from school a few minutes early, before heading to meet his mother, not telling her about the plans unless Diana had a bad day last minute and couldn’t see them. So far, according to the nurses, she was lucid and having a great day waiting for them.

“So about yesterday morning,” Y/N changed the subject, biting her lip like she was avoiding this.

“What about it?”

“Amoreena really wants us to have a wedding, I was thinking we could go up to New York for fathers day and have another fake wedding?” Y/N hypothesized her plan, hoping for Spencer’s approval.

He couldn’t help but smile, about to answer when he got an email on his phone. “I’d love to do that, it would be nice to go on a vacation with just as the three of us.”

“You can check that,” she said, noticing he looked at his phone as it buzzed.

It was an email. Not from anyone he knew, it wasn’t about work or healthcare, it wasn’t his mom or Penelope sending him funny things from the internet…

No, it was from Taylor Swift. He tried his best to calm his facial reactions and micro-expressions so she’d think it was just something work-related. An emailed contract, updated health forms, nothing too serious.

To: Spencer Reid From: Taylor Swift Subject: Amoreena

Hey Spencer!

Portia reached out and said that your wife and daughter are huge fans and you were interested in some summer tickets in Virginia… I was thinking if you guys ever found yourself in Rhode Island you’d all want to come to my place, my doors always open for friends 💛 Love Taylor xx

“What?” Y/n asked, trying to read over his shoulder as he turned the phone away.

“It’s a surprise,” he said, locking his phone and putting it in his pocket to reply to her later. “Have you ever thought about a beach wedding? Rhode Island is pretty nice in June.”

She tilted her head as she bit back a smile, wondering what he was planning, “Amoreena will have us reenact the little mermaid 2 instead of Enchanted then, just fyi, but yeah that sounds fun, we should get a beach house on Airbnb for the weekend.”

“Okay, let me handle it all, you don’t need to plan a single thing, just show up with a dress?” Spencer offered, knowing how scared weddings made her now.

She kissed his cheek softly, resting her chin on his shoulder as she leaned over on him, “nothing fancy or crazy okay?”

“Define crazy?” He teased her… she really had no idea what was coming.

To: Taylor Swift From: Spencer Reid Subject: RE: Amoreena

Thank you so much for the quick response and generous offer, we were thinking of having a small elopement in Rhode Island with just the three of us over Father’s Day weekend if that works for you? Seven is the song we danced to at our intimate personal wedding, however, Amoreena’s pretty sad she didn’t get to witness it, that’s why we’re having another one with her. (And hopefully you!) Thank you for making my girls so happy over all the years that I didn’t know them yet, you’re probably their favourite person in the world, even more so than me! It would mean everything to them to meet you or see you in any way, you’re incredibly kind for this.

Thanks again, Spencer Reid x

He tried his best to be as calm and nice as possible in his response, still managing to rant a little even in text format. It was just how he communicated, either not at all or all at once. He was so excited for Y/N and Amoreena.

“So you said your mom has a scrapbook,” Y/N changed the subject after Spencer spent 5 minutes in silence, turned away from her as he answered an email.

“She does, she’s going to show you a lot of photos of me today,” he smiled at the fact she remembered.

“I know you want to tell her about Amoreena alone before we come in, so I made her something for her scrapbook, it’s back on my desk drying,” Y/N was so precious as she got excited, that same giddiness he see’s in Amoreena bursting through her.

“Okay, let’s go see it,” he put his phone in his pocket and followed her back across the street towards the library.

On some beautiful floral scrapbook paper, Y/N glued an array of photos of Amoreena from the beginning all the way to the museum trip last week.

A photo of her first round of IVF, dated February 19th, 2013. Exactly 1 month after he donated, she must have chosen his sample as soon as it entered the system, even a photo of the sample jar reading “sample 2319”, A photo of her crying in the garden with her grandma when she found it she was pregnant, wrapped in a big coat and surrounded by snow. Her pregnancy announcement being a baby sock on a stuffed toy Sully from Monsters Inc, "new door opening November 2013!" Amoreena has been surrounded by references to books and movies since the beginning.

There was a photo from the moment Amoreena was born, crying and brand-new, resting on Y/N’s chest as she sobbed, more beautiful than he’s ever seen her before, completely in love with the child she made.

Amoreena Margery Y/L/N - November 13th, 2013, 9:53 pm 7lbs 12oz, 21 inches of perfection

“Her middle name is Margery?”

“Yeah,” she smiled back at his ever glowing face, wondering why it was so important to him. “Like Margery Kempe, my grandma’s favourite.”

“She’s my mom’s favourite too,” Spencer couldn’t help but laugh, it was such a strange turn of events. He saw so much of his mother in Amoreena just for her to have a middle name related to her.

Y/N couldn’t believe it, “I’m so excited to meet her!”

“I just hope she’s okay today, truly,” Spencer worried. “She is my best friend and a great mother, don’t get me wrong. But some of the things she did to me on her bad days were scary, and I never want Amoreena to experience that.”

Y/N pulled him into a hug, “it’s hereditary isn’t it?” He nodded against her shoulder as she tried to soothe all the impending anxiety out of his body. “I’m not going anywhere, she won't have to raise herself and care for you, that’ll never happen to her.”

She guessed, and she was right. Reading his mind like she’s already been in there and watched all his trauma, she knew all the right words and how exactly to push his feelings away. She was sunshine clearing his grey skies once more, about to cause a drought so he’d no longer rain on his own parade. Marching beside him, hand in hand into the future.

—

They waited at the gate of Amoreena’s school, none of the other parents were waiting yet, giving Y/N a chance to show Spencer around the yard and tell him about her school. “She’s in senior kindergarten, she has a November birthday so I opted to send her in when she was 6 instead of 5, giving me an extra year of home pre-school.”

“That’s why she’s so smart, not my genes,” Spencer smiled, walking around the edge of the gate with her hand still in his.

“They want her to jump right into grade 5 next year, I said no, she deserves a childhood with children she doesn’t have to compete with or see her as a threat,” Y/N voice was stern even in the recounting like she knew from experience. “Because she’ll be 8 in November she’s going into grade 2 instead, then she’ll be in the same age range and mental level, but all her friends she knows in grade 1 will be in the same recess yard as her.”

“I went from kindergarten to grade 4, then I jumped to grade 6 when I was 9 and I graduated high school at 13, it was terrible,” Spencer agreed, not knowing if he had a place in the decision but wanting her to know he agreed with it.

“Let’s go inside and get her,” Y/N smiled at him, understanding his meaning perfectly and dragging him into the school.

“Hello miss Ludlough,” Y/N beamed as she entered the main office with her arm tucked under Spencers, showing him off slightly.

“Y/N, good afternoon! Do you need me to call that little angel down early?” The secretary was a lovely older woman, wrinkled and happy as she smiled back.

“No, I just need to get some paperwork to put her dad in the files?” Y/N surprised Spencer with that and he almost stopped breathing.

“Really?” He whispered, capturing her attention as her eyes twinkled up at him.

“I’d like you on her emergency contacts, if they can’t get ahold of me I’d like you to be with her,” Y/N confirmed, patting his shoulder softly as Miss Ludlough handed her a few forms.

Spencer signed everywhere he needed to, handing them his licence to be photocopied into her file for proof when he picked her up in the future. He was glad to see there was a system, that they cared for his little girl and she wasn’t going to be going home with anyone who wasn’t in that file. And if she did he had no problem hunting them down and getting her back in whatever way he had to…

He shook the thought out of his head as it arises, reminding himself that that isn’t who he is now and she would be fine. They lived in a happy world where bad things didn’t happen.

Y/N’s hand rubbing his lower back helped, he stood straight again and pushed the papers over the desk, smiling as he officially became her father on 3 different sheets of paper. That was as real as it could get.

“Spence?” He heard an all to familiar voice from behind him.

Turning to see JJ and Will smiling with wide arms, waiting for his embrace. “What are you doing here?” She asked him, voice high as she was clearly shocked.

He walked into her arms and held her quickly, “I’m here with my wife,” breaking the news to her in the most casual way possible. “Picking up our kid.”

“Y/N?” Will noticed her then, “holy shit, you’re the wife?”

She nodded with a smile, hugging will quickly like she has known him for years, “how are you, cowboy?”

Spencer and JJ looked at each other incredibly confused, JJ clearly didn’t know her so how did Will?

“Will and I have been on what, 6 school trips together? Michael and Amoreena are buddies,” Y/N explained with a soft smile, “I knew Henry and Michaels's names sounded familiar…”

“Nini thinks I’m a cowboy,” Will laughed lightly, smiling at Y/N the way he did at JJ and something in Spencer almost snapped thinking about Will being the one person between him and the girl he liked, once again.

Only this time she was his wife and not the cute media liaison who had no interest in him until he came out of prison.

“She was very upset when she found out that Will was already married, she wanted us to be Woody and Jessie from toy story,” Y/N had no problem ranting about how their kids got along and how good of friends they had become over the last 2 years of school trips.

Y/N noticed the anxiety in Spencer’s eyes as he pulled away from JJ and made sure no one was touching him, “luckily, our little girl’s got the best daddy in the whole world now and all her dreams came true.”

“She sure does,” JJ agreed, “Hey, I gave your mom all those books you gave me for the boys, when you were away, so she had something to keep remembering you with, you should give them to Amoreena.”

“I will, we’re going to see her tonight,” he was able to push past the feelings and enjoy the moment of his friends meeting his wife, even if the title was just pretend.

“I’m so excited,” Y/N shook her hands the same way Amoreena did, stepping into Spencer's space and wrapping her arm around him. “Can we pick her up from the room Miss Ludlough?”

“Sure thing, do you want me to call down and say Mikey’s parents are here too?”

“Yes, please,” JJ smiled over the counter.

With the four of them walking down the hall together to get their kids, Spencer felt like he was sleepwalking. Too many emotions were running through his veins to feel real, but then Y/N took his hand in hers and rested her cheek against his arm as they walked and he was fine.

She tugged on his arm and waited in the hallway while JJ and Will entered the classroom first, “what’s wrong, she’ll know you’re upset?”

He sighs, shaking the stupidity out of his mind. “I had a huge crush on JJ before they got pregnant with Henry, and when I came back from prison she told me she had always loved me and it got weird for a bit and I’m still kinda mad when I see Will bond with the people I love.”

“I was wondering when you’d get possessive,” she teased him, “I’m yours and I wouldn’t have your ring on if I wasn’t, no matter how another man looks at me, I only love you.”

“I’m sorry, I know.”

“It’s okay, you’re not used to this are you?” She saw right through it. “Am I your first real girlfriend?”

“Kinda, Maeve and I never even really met until she was kidnapped,” he admits and it sounds so childish in his mind.

“Okay we’ll talk about this later cause that sounds like a good story I should know,” she tried to smile, standing on her tiptoes to peck his lips softly before smiling more. “Let’s go get your kid?”

“Let's,” his smile returned.

They turned the corner into the vibrant room, Amoreena was talking to Will when she noticed Spencer at the door, running towards him and almost pushing Will over to do so, “Dad!”

He picked her up and snuggled right into the crook of her little neck, giving her the biggest hug he’s ever given and not realizing just how much he missed her until she was back in his arms again. His baby, the littlest life he’s ever held this close to his heart.

When he put her down he noticed all the women’s eyes were on him, hands over their hearts at the pure display of affection between father and daughter. They all saw him as her dad, they had no reason not to, giving him all the attention he’s never received before.

“What are you doing here?” Her tiny voice asked as she beamed at him with wonder.

He kneeled in front of her to get on her eye level when Michael came running over, “Hi uncle Spencer!” He tackled him into a hug.

“Uncle Spencer?” Amoreena’s brow furrowed as she scowled at the boy taking her dad’s attention, she pulled Michael back by his shirt. “That’s my dad!”

“Amoreena, honey,” Spencer tried not to laugh, she was definitely his kid, “Michels mom, JJ, is my best friend from work and I’m his older brother Henry’s godfather, they’re your cousins.”

She looked at him like he was insane, “what’s a godfather?”

“If anything bad happens to his mommy or daddy and they can’t take care of them, they’ll come live with us,” it was the simplest answer, “I’m not their father, I’m yours.”

She nodded and hugged him again, sticking her tongue out at Michael in the process, “why are you here?” She repeated the question.

Y/N was standing over him with a hand on his shoulder then, “we’re taking you to meet your other grandma.”

Amoreena started to shake with excitement, moving her hands and grinding her teeth as she smiles, shrieking with excitement, “I have another grandma!?”

JJ was watching from the corner of the room, secretly filming it on her phone for the rest of the team to see Spencer with his baby. A sight many of them never thought they’d ever see as he slowly lost hope, losing himself somewhere along the way and no longer wanting to accept their help. This was a big moment for the team too, their little brother was finally happy.

—

In the car, Spencer sat with Amoreena in the back seat so he could tell her everything about her new grandma. Or as Amoreena wanted to call her, Princess Diana, “I can’t believe you’re actually royalty!”

They all laugh at how her fantastic little brain works, “you can’t tell anyone that Princess Diana is in DC okay? It’s a government secret!” Y/N teased from the driver's seat.

“I’m like Princess Mia!” She screamed at the top of her lungs and Spencer was astounded she could be that loud.

“Okay, okay, not that loud! we can't scare any of the people who live here. They like it to be calm and quiet so the patients can be happy,” Y/N settled her down, “Dad is going to go in and tell grandma all about us for a little while and then we’ll go meet her okay? He wants to make sure she’s happy today before we go in.”

With that, they were pulling into his mother's care facility and he felt like he was going to be sick with excitement. He used to visit his mother with the fear of rage and disappointment in her eyes, he was too proud to let his anxiety take that from him today.

He kissed her forehead before getting out, Y/N handed him the scrapbook pages through the window and he leaned inside to give her a kiss too. Receiving a disgusted groan from Amoreena, he pulled away and walked into the building while they found a place to park.

She was waiting for him in the garden, sitting at a picnic table with her scrapbook and gifts for Amoreena. “Spencer!”

“Hey mom,” he smiled as he hugged her, “how are you feeling?”

“Fantastic, where is this family you made?” She was so ready to meet them, truly there inside her mind and willing to learn more about this life he was making.

“Sit down first,” he said softly, taking a seat beside her at the table and placing the scrapbook page on the table. “This is my Amoreena.”

Her fingers glided over the words, “Margery,” she repeated her middle name with a smile. “She has a sperm donor for a father?”

“I’m a sperm donor, mom,” he smiled softly as he broke the news.

She turned to him with shock, “she’s yours?”

“We think so, so that’s what we’re telling people, she’s mine regardless.”

Diana wrapped him up in another hug, “I’m so happy for you Spencer. You always deserved a perfect family, I’m sorry I couldn’t do that for you. I hope your dreams come true with her.”

Just like that Amoreena and Y/N were rounding the corner and walking over towards their table. She had a huge smile on her face and a card in her hand, walking right up to Diana and handing it to her.

“Hi, grandma, I’m Amoreena,” she introduced herself politely before stretching her arms out for a hug.

Diana wrapped her up in the softest little hug, trying not to cry in front of her brand new granddaughter, which was fine because Spencer was the one crying. Turning away from them so Amoreena wouldn’t see as Y/N patted his arm with a smile.

They were fast friends, Y/N and Diana bonding over Margery Kempe and while Amoreena opened the two gifts Diana got for her, a simple colouring book and Spencer's original copy of Matilda from when he was a child. She sat down in the grass and read it while they all caught up, lost in her own little world.

It was the most perfect afternoon, just him and his family, happier than he’s ever dreamed he could be.

—

He checked his phone one last time before bed, Y/N was sitting against the headboard reading a book and so deep in the story, he knew she wouldn’t be able to read over his shoulder.

Scrolling through everything from the day to see that yes, there was a response from Taylor Swift. It felt insane, but he opened it and started to read her plans.

Spencer!! You’re so sweet, I’m sure you make them incredibly happy! I’d love to have you stay in the guest house here, and I’m ordained if you need someone to make it real and official ♥︎ let me know what I can do, I’d love to help in any way to make some fairytale dreams come true! Taylor xx

Smiling like an idiot, he closed his phone. He’d reply tomorrow, till then he was going to snuggle into his wife and appreciate their time together.

She lifted an arm to let him lay against her chest, “today she woke up and decided to be an explorer, the little girl with the wildest imagination stormed out of her home and towards the unknown part of her land. It was her destiny to travel across the bridge and unite the people beyond the field, towards the pond that was swallowed by willow trees,” Y/N read the grandmother's thoughts from the page.

“With her wooden sword, she sliced and diced on the ivy that surrounded the gate. Freeing the hinges and allowing the entrance to swing open, unlocking a new area of the world for her mind to wander.

“For what the regular human eye saw, Amoreena saw it times a million. Every colour and then some, new colours appearing in the morning glow as she stared at the dew on the leaves she just chopped through. She saw the world in a way that made everything exciting, there was never a bad thing, only good things with interesting quirks.

“She passed every mushroom and toadstool, every strange-looking tree and human-shaped moss ball, greeting them with a good morning as she strolled through the once-forbidden forest. Her adventure only beginning, the objective not yet known.”

“Your grandma could see the future,” Spencer whispered as she turned the page, “that’s our wonderful little girl’s mind in words.”

Y/N kissed the top of his head, “our wonderful little girl.” She repeated the words, loving the way they sounded on his tongue as much as he loved how she said it.

Taglist: @shemarmooresfedora @spookyspence @spencers-dria @reidsfish @manuosorioh @mochionly @samuel-de-champagne-problems @jswessie187

[awrestlinggirlwholoves80sbands]

Laid out cold, now we're both alone (part 2)

A/N: Hello, this fic is very important to me because I tried my best to give justice to such a cool idea and I hope I did a good job. Plus I don't do multichapter ofter, so this was a challenge. 

I wanna thank the lovely @livdonna for proofreading my work, you're literally the best <3. 

P.S. If you want to get tagged in the next chapters, let me know.

Summary: Nikki visits Mick to give him a very important task.

Warnings: Major Character Death,Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Drug Use, Angst, Overdose.

Pairing: Nikki Sixx x Tommy Lee

Chapter 1

Taglist: @slashscowboyboots @witchytombstonesmile @arnold-layne @emometalhead​ @i-dont-like-rice​ @nikki-sexx​ @smokeandmirrorz​

Mick was supposed to not give a shit about Nikki. He and the stupid drummer had tormented him and his wife for months on ends, making the whole tour a living hell and he didn’t need to have even more things to worry about. So what if his bassist decided to get addicted to heroin? He was a fucking dumbass but it wasn’t his problem.  He would end up killing himself and it wasn’t like Mick could have done something, not when his whole body was torturing him.

The only problem was that he cared, deep down. He cared about the fucker and hearing the news that he was gone forever hit him.  He lost one of his friends and the band all together in a day, what would have happened? He hated to admit he was scared about the future, it was hard to imagine Motley Crue without Nikki.

He sighed, turning off yet another discussion about his death. They didn’t call him yet but something was telling him that they had to release a statement soon.  Doc was probably freaking out somewhere crying for all his millions of dollars lost.

“Fucking Nikki, you had to die at the worst moment, didn’t you?”

“Yeah… sorry about that, man” A voice incredibly similar to Nikki said, making Mick jump up.

Nikki didn’t feel anything, one moment they were in the ambulance and the other they were on the beach.  He was confused for a moment before he remembered that Mick had a beach house, and stared at it for a bit. He didn’t know much about the guitarist, maybe almost nothing but he respected him so much.  He was one of the strongest dudes he had ever met.

The weirdest thing about all of this was probably how he was only able to feel certain things, no cravings or sand under his feet as he was walking, yet he would still feel guilt, fear, love, worry… it didn’t make sense but he wasn’t in the mood to question the universe’s rules.

People can’t see you until you decide to show yourself. You have to remember or otherwise they can’t hear or see you.

The voice still freaked him out, but at the same time he was grateful for it to be there… it made him feel less alone, which was great considering how he felt lonely for his entire life.

“You’re not alone Nikki, I’ll always be there with you, through highs and lows”

“God it sounds like a marriage vow, T-Bone”

“Well if I could I’d marry now…”

He shook his head, trying to get the memory out.  It wasn’t the time to be sentimental and risk fucking everything up, so he walked ( more like flew) through the front door and found Mick sitting on the couch.

“Fucking Nikki, you had to die at the worst moment, didn’t you?”

“Yeah… sorry about that, man”. The bassist hoped that he was heard, otherwise it would have been pretty embarrassing.

Mick visibly jumped at hearing Nikki’s voice and quickly turned around to look at him.  From his widened eyes and confused expression, he knew he probably looked fucking transparent.

“Okay first of all why the hell are you here talking to me if you’re dead? Then why the fuck can I see myself through you ?”

The black haired man just realized that he had no idea how to explain everything and be believed, he just went along with whatever the voice in his head was saying, but now it was different. He fumbled with his hand and realized he couldn’t feel them, while he tried to come up with the best way to explain to his friend how he was a ghost and why he was there.

“I died… I have no idea how I came back but I have unfinished business and I need to talk to you!”

The guitarist looked at him up and down, clearly skeptical.  However, there wasn’t much arguing… Nikki’s ghost was literally standing in front of him.

“Okay I have no idea if this is a dream, I’m dead or in a coma, or simply I drank too much but now I’ll grab some vodka and you’ll spill your little secrets as you like”.

Nikki smiled a bit… He honestly felt normal for the first time since he was brought back.  Having Mick joking was so familiar, usually Tommy was the aim of his jokes and they all laughed because they were all so unexpected…

Tommy. Thinking about him still hurt, again he wondered if he was okay and how much he missed him… but it wasn’t his time now.  He had other things to talk about as Mick came back into the living room with his glass.

“Mick… you gotta promise me that you won’t let Motley Crue die, that you will fight to keep the band’s legacy.”

The older man looked at him surprised, rolling his eyes.

“Well that’s a bit hard when our bassist and songwriter died!”

Rage and resentment were heavy in his voice but there was more : fear and sadness. Nikki felt guilty and he fucking hated it, it was so unlike him but he couldn’t help it… Mick cared about the band as much as he did.  He always said the band was his life, before heroin came into the picture, but it was also Mick’s and he probably destroyed everything.

“You will find another one, another bassist who is also a songwriter…” The words felt so foreign coming from his mouth.  They even hurt a bit but they were necessary.

“I know you care about this band as much as I do, Mick. I know how much you’ve worked your ass off in shitty bands, trying to find the one that was going to break… I might be dead but Crue can’t have the same fate”.

Mick scoffed, taking a long sip of his vodka.

“It’s not easy, it’s not like we can find the perfect match like we did. Plus, everyone will probably hate him for replacing you!”

The frustration was almost tangible, but there was something else… Mick was scared, he knew everything was about to fade away because of Nikki’s actions, he was already looking at the boat sinking. Nikki started to panic because his band had to live, even in his death! It was pointless and selfish but that was the only thing people could remind him of.

“If you give up, then Vince and Tommy will do the same! I know that you think no one will take you, but the truth is they will. Crue is what it is because of our vision, you are part of it and I’m asking you to keep it going. Think of this as my dying man’s wish… even if I’m already dead”

The older man’s grip on his glass got tighter, his eyes lost in thought as he was pondering Nikki’s words. It was hard to take in, hell that was an understatement, it was fucking insane and probably wouldn’t work but the bassist needed to have this false hope.

“It’s so fucking weird, you know? To realize you’re fucking dead yet here talking to me.”

He was deflecting, Nikki knew it, but didn’t want to push it too far. He learned to know Mick, he kept his promises and he was a hard worker and with a good dose of luck and jokes, you got him to your side.

“Yeah, do you remember how I said you weren’t going to make it in that interview? Well, karma hits like a bitch!”

“Mick might not make it , he drinks a little too much and it looks rough” Mick quoted, trying to imitate Nikki’s voice.

“Yeah and then you said something like I heard what you said and you’re dead, fuck I guess you were right” He laughed but Mick didn’t.

Oh c’mon so what if he was joking about his death? It’s not like anyone really cared about him.  They just saw him as a burden, which he was. Not his mom, nor his band or his Tommy would have really missed him… they would eventually move on.

“You’re a fucking idiot.” He said annoyed but his lips formed a small smile.

“I know, I know. Mick… please promise me that. If Crue is going to end, then my whole life didn’t mean anything! Ple…” He stopped himself, he was so fucking close to begging but he couldn’t. Nikki Sixx didn’t fucking beg, not in life or death.

“I’m thinking about it!”

He really meant the first part. He spent all his teenage and adult years creating the band of his dreams and making sure they conquered the world.  This band was his escape; his attempt at redemption after his shitty childhood. Nobody loved Frank Feranna but he didn’t care, he would become Nikki Sixx and be super fucking famous!

He didn’t need anyone’s love, except that he did.

“ I love you, Nikki.”

“ No you don’t, nobody does, T-Bone”

“Well I fucking do. You gotta pass on my dead body before you’ll hear me not saying it over and over”

His heart might have stopped, but he still felt the big wave of nostalgia hitting him. He couldn’t do it, he would have never been ready to see him again.

“Okay, I will. But listen to me, it won’t be easy and I’m an old man with a fucked up back, so don’t send demons against me if I fail!” The little spark of determination in his eyes relaxed Nikki, he was on board.

“I fucking knew you were the best, Mars! If I wasn’t dead I’d probably tattoo your face on me as a thank you!”

“Oh gross, never say that again!” He pretended to be disgusted but his eyes betrayed him, the small softness in them told Nikki he felt touched.

“Who knows, maybe in hell they have tattoos for the ghosts. God we used to hate each other and now we are two peas in a pod.”

“I still hate you.”

“Ugh, you crushed my heart Mick”

The guitarist flipped him off, rolling his eyes. Nikki desperately wanted to keep talking, if he did then he could have pretended nothing changed, right? He didn’t have to face Vince and Tommy and go through the light… everything would have stayed the same or he could fool himself that it would.

I think it’s time to go to the next person.

The voice was demanding yet still calm. Nikki knew that he couldn’t stay forever, they had to prevent spirits from just lingering into the real world like that, it made him a bit angry but he understood it. It wasn’t like he could have done much anyway…He was just a shell of what he used to be.

“I gotta go Mick…” He wanted to punch himself because he sounded so fucking pathetic, but the other man gave him a compassionate smile.

What he fuck are you, a little small puppy? Oh look Frankie is scared to leave his illusion of a family.

Mick walked him to the other without saying anything, but before turning the handle, which was pointless because Nikki could have just passed through the door, he broke the silence.

“Try to give us some signs, okay? Show us that you’re there… but don’t you fucking dare spill my vodka or I’ll make you two times dead!”

“Oh that’s exactly what I’ll do, thanks for the suggestion!”

He stepped outside and looked at Mick one last time.

“You promised, alien. You gotta do it!”

“Yeah yeah, you better repay me when I come to join you there…” And with one last look, Mick closed the door.

Nikki felt all of the weight crushing down on his body, even if it was made of air. He simply stood still, his mind racing like a freight train, trying to take everything in but also getting ready for his next move… being overwhelmed was an understatement, he felt peeled down like an orange and this was only the beginning. He felt like a fucking coward but he just wanted to get over it, was it that bad to accept his fate and disappear without facing anyone?

You are going to abandon him again? You know why you need to talk to Vince, and you know this will be your last chance to see him, asshole!

He went to kick the sand, but he couldn’t touch it. God, how frustrating was that!

So where are we going next?

Nikki would have wanted to scream at him, give him the middle finger and just run away but it wouldn’t have been helpful, would it? So he forced himself to be as neutral as possible.

“Vince Neil. Take me to his house.”

[arrivisting]

I’d love author commentary on basically the whole scene at Ekkaia in all my war is done (or any individual part of that scene, if your prefer). Taken together, it’s one of the most beautiful and emotionally complex and heartrending things you’ve written, from the description of the sea itself, to the difficulties of Fingon and Alqualondë, to Gil and the ocean and his ‘mother’, to Fingon and Gil beginning to tackle the thorny subect of Maedhros.

I should admit something about all my war is done: it's the most fugue-like my writing has ever been. I jotted down a few notes on my commute into work - I was deeply underwater with my PhD at the time, three months away from submitting - and then the idea of writing a sequel to scion seized me so profoundly that I sat down in the Starbucks where my bus stops, took out my laptop, and wrote instead of just collecting my coffee and walking down to my office. I wrote 15k. In one day. In about five or six hours. I've never achieved anything like that before or since - I do have good days where I can knock 2-4k out easily, but not 15k. (You might note that the posted part of all my war is done is only 12k, but I wrote all the way up into the next bit with Fingon in Tirion that you've read, up until Turgon at the dinner table). I didn't sit down or plan events; I didn't actually know much about what would happen: but I knew they were going to Ekkaia and they'd have some kind of resolution there. These are my phone-notes, from that morning:

You can see, I think, something of the way an idea hits me. I note down a few snatches of plot, not necessarily in any order, some lines I think people should say at some point, although I might not use them, sketch out some things (Formenos's ruins were going to feature more heavily, but they're waiting for a later story).

(It makes me laugh, the words my phone doesn't accept - Gil-galad, for one - and the ones it automatically capitalises from where I've yelled enthusiastically about elf things at people. I never stop long enough to correct spelling etc when I'm trying to get something down).

I clearly knew from inception that I wanted Fingon's place to be called the hill of waiting, and had tried out the name in Sindarin; because my verbs are not good, I came up with Amon Dartha. It was when I was redrafting that I realised Amon Darthir had existed actually in Dor-lomin(!!!) and the name was even more perfect symbolically than I'd meant it to be! Did I know that, unconsciously? I don't know.

You can see, too, that the Sea of Ekkaia was almost the very first point to hit me, and that I knew it and the scene there would be important, and that I knew that the story was about Fingon finding a way to tell Gil-galad that he had been loved, and wanted, and that meant talking about Maedhros; and that at the end I wanted Gil-galad to be gently, impersonally, firmly clear that he would not, could not, be staying to wait with Fingon.

Okay, DVD commentary proper - I'm sorry, I remember awfully little about writing this, given the fugue state and my thesis and everything, so I'm not sure how useful this will be!

“Oh,” said Gil-galad when they broke out of the woods and began to ride down over the dune-lands to the rocky shore. “Oh!”

The Sea of Ekkaia was beautiful, in its own way, but that way that was like no other place in Arda, in either Aman or Middle Earth.

It was a dark-blue that was almost black, even in the late afternoon, and the shore was less sand than gravel, a strange inconsistent rubble of rock and broken sea-shells that had been dashed to pieces by the constant fury of the waves. Staring out to sea, one did not see the far-away horizon the way one did on the gentler coast of Belegaer: there was no gentle faraway blue haze through which one might, perhaps, on a clear day, imagine that Middle Earth could be glimpsed, or at least the Straight Path.

No: instead along the horizon there was a seam of silver light, and then a great blackness, where the Sea of Ekkaia met the Uttermost West that was not quite the Doors of Night, but was certainly the end of Aman itself. If you stood on the shore watching, the seam would ripple with a pulse of light, sometimes green and sometimes white.

It was so far from anywhere the Eldar of Valinor lived. While they clustered around the Belegaer like moths to flame, this shore seemed instead to repel them. Was it the sight of the world’s end itself? It might be; yet Fingon thought there was more to why this wilderness was so little visited, this howling black sea lashing itself against a grey shore. It was beautiful, but not in the way Elves liked things to be beautiful: it was too raw, too unfinished, too savage.

It was too close to where Mandos kept his Halls, which were not only a thing of spirit but also matter, at least in the way that things in Aman were both. Too close to where Nienna’s tower looked out into the Void and where she wept, and wept, and wept. It was too close to death and to rebirth, to judgment and to pity.

There's a little Dawn Treader, I think, in this idea of the uttermost West. I don't know why I thought the seam of the world should pulse with strange light, but it's an uncanny kind of geography, so near Mandos and Nienna, and I like the sense that this is the end of the world, but not the end of the universe.

A lot of this came together serendipitously. I knew some kind of memorialisation of the river that bore Gil-galad needed to be part of his story; that meant going to the sea; and it's clear from the notes that I had already decided that couldn't mean Alqualonde because of kinslaying reasons and memories. (And that that too would need to be confronted). Therefore: roadtrip to Ekkaia. Therefore, the question: what would Ekkaia be like? We don't really know anything about it - only the good qualities of Belegaer. This was really written by a process of inversion, a way of pulling what we know about Belegaer inside-out, and imagining a place at the world's edge, a place that was empty, a place that was uncannily close to difficult things, to Mandos and Nienna; a place that seemed to repel the Eldar as surely as Belegaer drew them like iron filings.

I was thinking visually about New Zealand, too. I spent my childhood summers on the beaches up north, mostly around Tūtūkākā, which are bright and lovely, with golden or white or tawny sand, with gnarled pohutukawa and blue-green water. Like this:

That's what beach and sea meant to me, and it was a shock the first time I went to one of the black sand beaches where the wind howled and the colours weren't blue, green, gold, but iron, grey, navy, black. I loved it, but it felt so other, so passionate, so strange. That shock and that wild beauty and desolation were things I wanted to get at, though Ekkaia would be far more wild and desolate still.

They left the horses in the thin sea-grass, and their shoes, too, and walked down to the water. “I missed it,” Gil-galad said, and closed his eyes, breathing in the brine. “I missed it badly, all the long years besieging Mordor before I died.”

I think Gil-galad would be very marked by his upbringing first in the Falas and then on Balar; you don't lose that, if you grew up by the sea.

The wind took up his long dark hair and made a banner of it as they walked along the rough crescent of rocky ground where the waves met the shore, and around their bare ankles small stones tumbled back and forth in the lace-edge of the water.

When I was young I used to stand in the water and let the waves bury me up to my ankles, watching the water move in, out, spreading skirts of lace overlapping as new waves came in. I could do it for hours. There's something very liminal about the water's edge, between the solid land and the sea, which is why I put this conversation in it, I think. They're in a liminal space and at a liminal moment. It's the scene the whole story has been inexorably building toward, the point where all Fingon's painful scraping-away of his barriers finally reaches his skin.

“Sometimes in Middle Earth it became very difficult to believe in the Valar,” Gil-galad said, his eyes still closed, “in the blood, and the mud, and the filth. There were so many great and small unfairnesses, day upon day, year upon year.” He opened his eyes and looked towards the Uttermost West where the world ended. “And here it is impossible not to. Look at it!"

This is a little more hopeful than the original version, which I don't have anymore, but went pretty much:

"Sometimes in Middle Earth it was very difficult to believe in the Valar,” Gil-galad said. "In the blood, and the mud, and the filth. There were so many great and small unfairnesses, day upon day, year upon year.”

It was a comment more about Gil-galad's rueful scepticism than wonder - because he fought the Dagorlad before he died, because he spent the last ten years of his life in mud and blood and filth and horror. I work on the First World War - its literary legacy and traces in the decades after, more than its immediate experience or actuality, because there was a ten-year period after 1918 where it was more latent than overt, a traumatic lacuna of silence, a Nachträglichkeit- and I thought in the blood, and the mud, and the filth was a little too on the nose.

I kept it, though, because Tolkien was drawing on his own memories of the trenches with the Dagorlad and the Dead Marshes, with those blurred lines of solid land and mud/bog, the living mixed up with the remains of with the dead, all the themes you see again and again in the war poetry and the officer war-books. (Santanu Das is very good on this, as is Eric Leed). Paul Fussell is a bit old-hat now, but his argument that WWI altered the sensibility of its survivors because of their close, consanguinous co-existence with the dead is something I still find valuable. I think there's a lot of WWI survivor in the way I think of Gil-galad, actually, I'm just realising - not that he survived the Last Alliance. He's detached in a different way from Fingon. Fingon's built himself a thick layer of repression/denial, a kind of callous to protect himself from confronting or thinking about what Maedhros did, and what that means for him and to him; Gil-galad is entirely present, but somewhat detached in some ways, the way people who came back from war could be. Not that Fingon and Finrod aren't also separated from the Amanyar by their time in Beleriand and experience of war and death, but Gil-galad lived there for millennia, and he fought a longer, harder, more total kind of war than they did.

But he's at the Sea of Ekkaia, as west as you can get. So much of Tolkien is about that endless longing glance west, that movement: why is this very westernmost edge so under-explored?

I wanted Gil-galad to be softened by this encounter with the sea, so I went back and let his wonder be as much at the spectacle itself as the sea, like the greater hand at work he had sometimes doubted being visible was something wonderful rather than something to be bitter about. I wanted to position him to be potentially open to, perhaps, the Valar; perhaps, to Fingon. I hope he doesn't come off as closed-minded: I think of him as having a fair mind, and good judgment, but - despite placing him here between the sea and the shore - very clear personal lines between what he thinks is just, and what is not. Certainly, it helps a lot, never having known the Feanorians when they had not fallen.

The seam of the universe pulsed with light, and beyond it was – what?

Unutterable nothingness, something worse than death.

Perhaps Maedhros.

This is an important line for Fingon. He hasn't though the name of his own accord for much of the story, flinching away from it; it's only come in when Finrod and then Gil-galad speak the name. This is the first time he's thought it clearly of his own free will, and this is I think the first signal that he's brought Gil-galad here to be as honest and earnest with him as he can be, however much it hurts, or however much it might drive him away. Because if he isn't, and doesn't, Gil-galad will be driven away anyway, and Fingon wants to be connected with him, the first time he's wanted that kind of bond with anyone since he returned.

(I think of Finrod as someone who just kept turning up, regularly, and forcing Fingon to associate with him; and then bringing Amarie; and then his children; and not taking no for an answer. It bothers Turgon rather terribly that they seem to be friends now, when they were never that close Before: that Fingon pushes him away, but allows Finrod to keep pushing; that Finrod does push. He doesn't know about Gil-galad, of course).

He's brought Gil-galad here to show him if possible that he was wanted, to conjure up lost Ringwil where she might be felt if not found; and to do the same for Maedhros. This is a signal that this journey to the sea is as much about Gil-galad's missing father as his missing mother.

The almost-forgotten tang of salt in the air always mingled with the smell of blood in Fingon’s worst memories, and he was not the only one who remembered. The waves were gentle around Gil-galad’s feet, but they boiled furiously around Fingon’s, delivering small spiteful slaps at his calves.

Spiteful was probably the wrong word here. I don't necessarily mean a dramatic boiling or bubbling; but the water is harsh where it touches him, the kind of slapping roughness you get when the tide is coming in rough.

It took Gil-galad longer to mark the difference, engrossed in the joy of the sea and spectacle as he was, and when he did, his face changed. There was something terribly sad in his eyes when he lifted them from the water to look at Fingon.

It wasn’t why he had brought Gil-galad here; but Fingon didn’t want to imagine the look he would receive if he brushed aside the silent question. “No,” he said. “I am not forgiven.”

“So I see.”

They could probably leave it there.

But Fingon won't, because he's trying. He's really trying to connect after all the time flinching away from it, and he's remembering what Gil-galad said about talking, and what Finrod said about mistakes and silences in their first life.

He said, “You said you loathed the thought of being the son of – a murderer. But my own hands have not been clean since Alqualondë, and death didn’t unstain them. All the time you thought I might be your father, you must have known I was a Kinslayer, too.”

I tried to signal this in their earlier tower conversation with Finrod, and Gil-galad's changing of the topic, but I feel like it's a little abrupt here.

“Yes,” Gil-galad said, and his expression didn’t change. “And when the knights that had served you came to me, they told me that you killed that day in ignorance, that you came upon a battle already being fought; that you took up your sword to save those you loved and didn’t question whether it was just. I heard that from others, too, those who had less reason to bend facts to a flattering pattern; survivors of Gondolin and of Nargothrond. I did ask."

“Ignorance wasn’t an excuse. I died ashamed of it, and I live again with the shame.”

"Good!” said Gil-galad, and there was no forgiveness in his voice, even when Fingon jerked his head up in shock. Instead there was the stern ring of a king used to weighing the ideals of justice against the world as it was, the king who had walked arm in arm with Eonwë the Maia, led his people through many full-fledged wars, and held court and meted justice to them for an Age. “That gives me a far better opinion of you than any of the stories did! I’m glad.”

I remember talking to you about this in the comments, about what it meant that Gil-galad wasn't forgiving him. I think I really meant condone, but I also don't think it's Gil-galad's place to absolve Fingon - he wasn't the one wronged! - and that it's important to me that, because Fingon does truly regret it, he doesn't wish to be absolved, to slide away from it. I don't mean he ought to wallow in it or flog himself with it daily, but I think it would be important to him to shoulder and own that guilt rather than ever allowing himself to put it behind him or have someone else tell him it’s quite all right.

I think this is a moment where I show that they're quite similar, too, because even if Fingon wasn't aware that a bracing, clear assessment was just what he wanted, it was what he needed, rather than people being kind (which he's had a lot of, since he returned; and which hasn't touched that central guilt he's hidden from them, that he loved Maedhros, who had done such terrible things. It's prevented him from accepting kindness made him block people reaching out to him. Gil-galad is not being kind, but just, and still reaching out).

It felt like Fingon had been struggling to take a full lungful of air for a long time, and now something constricting in his chest had loosened, as it hadn’t even after the Valar themselves had judged him. It was only now that he realised that he hadn’t wanted Gil-galad to forgive or absolve him. He had wanted – needed – Gil-galad to be better than him, to withhold forgiveness when it was unmerited; and Gil-galad had. He had become the shining legacy they had all hoped he would be, the thing they had all somehow done right.

The water slapped at his ankles again, in impatient reminder.

This is too brief a transition. I should have fleshed the join out more.

“I think Ulmo would come to you here, if you called. You were a king by the sea in Middle Earth, and you may not remember it, but it was a river who gave you life.”

Gil-galad looked at him as if he’d grown an extra head. “What?”

“I brought you here for a reason,” Fingon said. “Where did they go, the drowned and poisoned rivers of Beleriand? I don’t know; but Ulmo might.”

I've really personified the rivers, but I think it's a clear and easy extrapolation from the Withywindle and the River-daughter in The Fellowship of the Ring that I don't need to justify in order to argue that every river might have had its own attendant Maia-spirit. It does make what happened to the Rivers of Beleriand much worse, though, and I wanted to look at the way a character that was a throwaway mechanism in scion ended up being sickened and dying as horribly as Beleriand did; this story was really about following all those lighter bits in scion home, to the end of the line, and looking at the long-term impacts of something that began more lightly. In this verse, Ringwil was a river, but also a person; and I think of her and Finrod as sharing a strange human-river friendship and overlapping enthusiasms.

He clapped Gil-galad on the shoulder, hoping it said all the things he meant it to say. Affection had been so easy for him once, in the life that had been taken from him by the fiery flails of the Balrogs, but now it came hard, and the sea-smell was in his nose, the terrible memories too close to the surface.

He had surely outstayed Ulmo’s tolerance by now. Fingon left Gil-galad there in the water, and didn’t dare glance back until there was thin sandy soil under his feet again.

Only then did he look once more towards the sea.

Gil-galad was standing in the shallows. His broad shoulders were bunched tight, as if he was readying himself for something very difficult, a confrontation with one of the Valar he had long doubted.

Then he spread his arms out, empty-handed, and tipped his head back, and the light on the horizon grew unbearably bright, whiter than white, more silver than silver; and a face began to move upon the water.

I really like this, honestly. Which I can't/don't say often! The temptation to overwrite this was strong, to show this encounter, to describe the Vala: but I think it's often stronger not to show something numinous, to pull away, to let the mind fill it in.

Again, this is Gil-galad as I imagine him: still somewhat distanced from the Valar by the Dagorlad and the things that happened there (and I think perhaps doubly unhappy in that he lived through the end of an Age once before, and that time, at least, the Valar came: they did not come in the Second, nor send so much as a messenger, and such obscenities as the fall of Ost-in-Edhil and the drowning of Numenor had been allowed to happen, and Men and Elves were left alone to come together and break Sauron's grip). Doubting, but not angry; doubting, but still curious. Open to listening.

a face began to move upon the water is of course a deliberate sideways reference to

And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters.

-

It took a very long time. Fingon could not watch; his eyes dazzled.

Can you tell I was teaching The Duchess of Malfi at this time? Cover her face; mine eyes dazzle; she died young. That sense of a light too bright and white to look upon; that sense of guilt; that faint reference to life lost untimely. This wasn't meant to be a direct intertextual reference, but that net of meaning was there, lightly. Again, I wanted to under-write rather than over-write. I know I have a tendency to over-write.

And of course - there's a sense here that Fingon is refusing the kind of close enoucnter with Ulmo he could/might have. There's water in his eyes. From the wind?

-

“Thank you,” Gil-galad said when he rejoined him at last. His eyes were glowing, and he whistled Ceredir to him from where he was tearing ropey roots of sea-grass from the dunes with great relish. “Thank you for bringing me here;” and he didn’t say it the way he’d thanked Fingon for the horse, or the armour, or the sword, or even the lance.

Because this is a real gift, something that means something to both of them, something more honest/painful. Fingon's been trying to connect through gifts but not serious conversation or sharing, like some estranged parents do, throwing money at the problem rather than giving of their time or their selves, and however well-meant, it hasn't worked.

“I didn’t truly do anything."

“You brought me to the Sea. I know – I could see – how difficult it was for you."

"Well,” Fingon said lamely. He cleared his throat. “What did Lord Ulmo say about – oh, I can’t call her your dam! – the Maia who bore you? Did she – was she there?”

The dam pun is Finrod's. Don't blame me.

A little of the light dimmed, but it didn’t quite fade away. “No, she’s gone. Back to the Timeless Halls, he says; but one with him again, Ulmo, at the same time.” Gil-galad made a noise. “I don’t pretend to understand any of it, all the metaphysical nonsense of the Ainur! But he was kind to me, and he told me something of her – that she delighted in the making of me.” The corner of his mouth turned up. “I left the flowers we gathered earlier in the waves for her and the sea didn’t dash them back onto the shore. I’m sure Ulmo broke a few laws of Arda there.”

I like this image of the flowers suspended in the water. I had it clearly in mind from before I began to write.

"You were wanted.”

“I’m beginning to believe it,” Gil-galad said.

“You should,” Fingon said. He took a breath. Talking is how you sort things out; and a long time ago, Fingon had been known for his valour. Gil-galad deserved to know how much he had been wanted, who had called himself a political compromise given birth. The truth of that had stung.

And it was less than the truth. Fingon could still remember the first time he had opened his mind to Maedhros over the leagues between them and let him see Gil’s small face through his own eyes, holding nothing back. He had shown Maedhros the dark long lashes and the squashed baby nose, the milk-blister on the bow of Gil’s upper lip, the way his whole head turned an alarming red when he wailed; shared with Maedhros Gil’s fondness for being tossed in the air, his splashing joy in his bath.

This is is me trying to describe a baby without being too sentimental about it, because Fingon wasn't all, oh look at the toesie-woesies, or my son, my son: his eye was more detached, and you see him in scion thinking of Gil-galad as it.

I've been thinking about why Fingon in no way allowed himself to consciously dote on the baby, why that streak of denial that's so strong in his second life was there in his first light, and really: it would have been dangerous to let himself love him, to see Gil as his son and Maedhros's. He was born at a time of terrible loss, after the Flame, when they all expected they could die themselves. He was moved around Beleriand like a game-piece. Fingon was always going to lose him: he wasn't going to get to raise him, after all, until and unless Morgoth was defeated. Maedhros wasn't going to meet him, until and unless &c. It was easier not to let oneself get attached than it was to confront those hard facts and let oneself be hurt by them. Easier to think of him as a baby Finwean prince, and that only: a political pawn, not a son.

Conversely, Maedhros maintains a physical distance, but not an emotional one. Here's a bit from Maedhros's perspective:

Finrod had told him that. They had written, back and forth, in the long months as Ringwil’s belly swelled, as the child formed, as it began to move and stretch and turn frog-like inside her. They had corresponded constantly during the first months of the child’s life in Nargothrond, and during the first months of his life, Finrod had sent long scrolls detailing every change in Artanaro’s weight, his length, his hair colour, his eye colour, how much milk he’d consumed each day: screeds winging forth to Himring until the child was old enough to survive the secret trip north.

Fingon’s letters had been infuriatingly spare of useful information while the child was fostered at Barad Eithel. Beloved, ineloquent Fingon: Fingon, who had nevertheless shown him the child as no reams of paper could.

Fingon had given him forever the rounded bloom of his full cheeks, and the pursed mouth, sullen in sleep: the feathery, rather cross-looking eyebrows, and the small hands with their deep dimples and smaller fingernails, curled into the edge of Fingon’s furred mantle.

Maedhros had felt the way Fingon hovered between wonder and confusion at what they’d wrought: the way he couldn’t quite manage to think of the child as his own, this thing spun out of air and calculation and freshwater into heavy, solid life. He could have loved him so desperately, Maedhros knew that. He was halfway there, hovering in terror on the edge, afraid of falling. If the baby had stayed in Barad Eithel longer; if Fingon had watched him begin to creep around on fat little knees, to pull himself up on the furniture and to take his first steps – to hear the baby babble turn into words and speech – his heart would have opened to him like a flower, and the child would have become the centre of his universe, the sun in his sky.

Fingon had never known what to do with Idril as an infant, either, but he’d easily become an adored uncle as she grew up. If they’d had more time – if the child had been permitted to stay with Fingon even a month longer before being sent for safety to Cirdan –

Well, they’d never had enough time.

There had been few walls between them then, so he had felt Maedhros’s bright joy, the painful love, in its moment of birth: swelling and swelling like a cloud with rain, as though his heart was growing and his blood was leaking out of him at the same time, transmuting into pure tenderness and iron purpose.

I like this because I think of the Ekkaia scene as a cloudburst, full of emotion that has been swelling and swelling and now released. This is one bit of the breaking-through.

He had never needed to ask whether Maedhros considered Gil-galad a son.

“I don’t want to talk about – him,” Fingon said with difficulty, and the salt breeze stung his face, his eyes. “I know you loathe him, and rightly; and I do, too. I do hate him; or I hate what he did. I do! But you should know – you deserve to – that he wanted you, badly, although he never met you; he never wanted the shadow on him to touch you or to taint you.

And this. You can see here where I spun off into cliffs of fall, which isn't a scion story, but sprung out of this speech. It was already there in those sketchy notes, too, a lot of what Fingon's saying here: this important line about hating Maedhros, or what he did (that movement from clear certainty to trying to separate the deeds from the loved one; to urgent reptition - I do! I mean it, I really do! - which means he doesn't, can't: this is the heart of Fingon's guilt, because he wants to hate Maedhros utterly, but he can't, and he is profoundly in denial about that).

“He always wanted children; I took that from him even before the Oath did, but I gave it back to him with you. I loved you first of all for that, but he loved you for yourself. Because you existed, against all hope and possibility and fate and chance; and because you were ours.”

Gil-galad said nothing. There was still a wildflower tucked behind his ear, but the brilliance had quite left his eyes.

“Well,” Fingon said at last. “I needed to tell you that. You should know that you were never – not only – you were wanted very much."

Beloved ineloquent Fingon, &c.

-

They were some miles from the beach when Gil-galad said, “‘Ours’?”

“Yes."

-

I was trying to let the gaps and breaks talk for me in the text. Under-writing.

The beginning was full of these little breaks, too, because they didn't yet know how to talk to each other; now at the end, that connection, and their conversations, are breaking down again. It's echoing that ride together at the beginning very strongly, but now it's not Gil-galad trying to become acquainted and Fingon giving light, unsatisfying answers. These are the real questions/answers at last, and the whole story has really been about getting to the point of Fingon and Gil-galad in Aman where they actually could have the kind of conversation Gil-galad was trying to have at the start.

-

Some miles further, Fingon said, “Did you ever meet him in Beleriand? After I died. I always wondered.”

“No,” Gil-galad said.

It didn’t seem like he was going to speak again, and Fingon had begun to assimilate that knowledge, that pain – that Maedhros had never seen him, had only ever known him through Fingon’s own eyes – when he added,

“But I saw what he did. Have you ever seen a whole city ruined, and known the ruiners to be Elves? It wasn’t even a city, poor Sirion! It was a refuge, a place for the desperate, as far to the West as they could get, as close to the safety of the Sea. They had so very little. No great stone palaces, no towers, no spires. Little enough fresh food. They were able to grow so little, and they lived on fish, and sea-weed, and what brave hunting parties would bring back; and hope. They lived on hope, and they thought Elwing wore it around her throat, but the Valar didn’t come for them: Maedhros Fëanorion and his brothers did instead, and they burned and killed and ravaged. I’d say they salted the earth, but it was salt already. To fall on any innocent Elven city would be a horror: on poor Sirion it was the greatest cruelty I ever saw, and entirely pointless."

They said nothing more.

I like this, too, actually. You see a little here of why Gil-galad might be healthily sceptical of the Valar - they didn't come for them: Maedhros Feanorion and his brothers did instead - and that very post-war experience of seeing a descrated, destroyed town. Worse when you had seen it when it was whole, when you knew the dead and fled.

Sirion is, I think, the worst thing the Feanorions did. I find it worse than even Doriath or Alqualonde (though they're all awful!). These were desperate survivors, huddled together at the edge of the sea for protection. So many of their leaders had been killed or lost. Idril and Tuor had disappeared; Earendil was away; Maedhros and the others struck while only Elwing was there, and she was so young, and so alone, and so damaged already by what they'd done in Doriath. And now they’d come again. There's something about the revictimisation that gets me. It's awful.

I wanted it to be weight and counter-weight - that soft, painful, remembered moment of Maedhros seeing baby Gil-galad through Fingon's eyes, something Fingon has clearly not deliberately thought about since he was reborn, but dredges up now for Gil-galad, because he should know: and which is echoed in the beginning by Fingon's question to Finrod. But Maedhros is still the person who did the things he did, and I wanted to set that soft moment of truth against his deeds at Sirion, another truth, to point out clearly why Gil-galad would recoil so hard from this offering, this honesty Fingon wants to be able to give him. This is the dichotomy at the heart of the story: reconciling Maedhros and how one felt for him with what he did, and how one feels about that. It is irresolvable, at least for Fingon, at least at the moment I've ended it at for now.

I don't know if this is quite what you wanted, @warrioreowynofrohan, especially because like I said, I wrote this story in a frantic fog, but I hope this in some way suffices!

[moonlights-inkwell]

Why Don’t You Just Tell Them All to Fuck Off Love, And Be Mine

Jaskier x Reader  

Word Count: 5,670

Summary: You and Jaskier partake in a game of pretend, with some unexpected consequences.  

AN: The sequel to Oh Can’t You Hear The Scratching that no one asked for. Oops.  

Warnings: Smut. Oral (female receiving). Dirty Talk. Feelings.  

“You know,” Jaskier says lightly, cutting through the silence of the empty tavern, making you look up to meet his eyes. “You wore that dress the first night I met you.”  

You had almost forgotten Jaskier was still in the tavern. He was being strangely quiet before speaking up, so quiet you could have sworn he had gone home when the drinkers had, yet there he is. Sat there, still holding his Lute on his knee and watching you like a hawk. He’s taken to performing on nights when you work. Locals love him, bards seldom come through your village, and those who do don’t stay for long, so Jaskier's songs have been well received, even if your employer has been shooting your lover death glares every night he has performed. You don’t know if he recalls that it was Jaskier that swept you out of your life in the village so long ago, or if he’s just jealous of how you allow Jaskier affection so freely, but the older man scowls and jabs and jibes, and with him going through the coins earned tonight upstairs, there has been silence. Just you and the rag and a silent Jaskier. 

It’s true though, you did wear this dress the first night you met him. It’s a white and wine-coloured affair, pretty enough to flatter your frame but easy enough to move in during your hours working. It’s nice, flares out when you turn too quickly and dips to a respectable if a little coquettish square neckline that makes your chest more obvious. The dress is usually enough to encourage men to be more generous with their coin without hearing any comments about your being some sort of whore, and your hands leave the rag you had been using to clean to smooth the fabric about your hips. You hadn’t paid that much mind when you tugged it on this morning, but under his watchful eyes right now, you flush as though it had been deliberate. Clothing has never been something you pay much mind to but, with how Jaskier is eyeing you, you can tell that he has paid attention to it, and you realise something you hadn’t noticed earlier. He too is wearing the exact same thing he wore the night the two of you met, deep violet and sky-blue doublet and trousers, pretty and attention grabbing- but somewhat toned down compared to his usual garb.

“it was clean.” You say shyly, tucking a few stray curls behind your ear to hear him chuckle quietly.  

“It’s beautiful. You're beautiful.” Jaskier says things like that as if they’re obvious, unintentionally making you feel foolish for any insecurity. A pathetic laugh comes from you and he tilts his head like a pup, the island of the bar between the two of you makes you feel safe; he'd never hurt you, that much you can stand your life on, but the distance between you keeps you from doing something foolish. Like kissing him.  

He’s been distant since the first night he returned to you, never letting his touch linger longer than would be considered chaste, his kisses never turning passionate, never finding his usual respite between your thighs as he once did. He sleeps beside you, presses kisses to the space beneath the corner of your lips, still sings and leans into you but doesn’t... touch as he once did. It’s as though you've fallen into some sort of time warp to before the first time you were intimate, when he was so concerned about making you uncomfortable that progressing seldom seemed like an option at all. You have no clue how to fix this rift that has developed, unsure if this distance is simply because of the time you spent apart or because he’s no longer interested in you as you’re interested in him.

“It’s just a dress.”  

“It’s a dress that makes you look beautiful, Little Miss.” The bard insists, settling his Lute down on the newly cleaned surface of the table before walking around it to approach you. Be it nerves or something more embarrassing than that, you turn from him to continue your cleaning. “...The moment I saw you wearing it, I knew I’d laid my eyes on the most divine creature the lands have ever known.”  

“The moment you saw me you had a woman hanging off each arm.” You retort. It’s intended to be playful, but comes out colder than expected, and you cringe at the sound of your own voice. Petty. Absolutely fucking petty, because you know as well as him that once you smiled his way and brushed past him to serve drinks to a group of patrons his lady-friends were gone, and Jaskier had sat at the bar and spent the night talking to you as if you were the only person in the world. You aren’t jealous, truly you aren't, the person your Dandelion had been before you had even known him has never been your concern, and now you sound like an envious adolescent. It’s enough to make your flesh crawl with shame. Were you paying more attention to anything but your own words you might have heard Jaskier say your name firmly, but no, you remain in your own head until your stomach is pressed gently against the counter, kept in place by his warm, firm body behind you. “Jask?” Stupid question. Who else would it be?  

“I thought you were the most beautiful woman I could ever lay eyes on.” He breathes into your ear, sending shivers down your back. “A muse, a godsend, beautiful and intoxicating and...” His voice trails away to nothing at all while his hands rest on your hips. “Gods above and below, Missy. The sight of you alone had me willing to spend a whole night ignoring everyone else, content to spend my night obsessed with the Beauty before me and fisting at my cock until i slept to the thought of you rather than try to find someone else to spend my night with.” His voice is little more than a growl, and breathing is growing harder with every honeyed word that drips from his lips. “You, beautiful you, who didn’t care about my songs or my reputation- just so kind and perfect and fucking beautiful.” Cold hands slide upward from your hips to rest in the dips of your waist. “So perfect I asked you to come with me. So perfect I feared telling you how I felt. Skilled with a sword and with your tongue and so much better than I will ever deserve.”  

“Julian.” You start, but no other words will follow his real name. You could worry that he's going to do something foolish, or give in and push his hands up to your breasts, but instead you simply sigh and relax into his touch. His lips press to the expanse of your throat and you feel him smile against your skin.  

“Even before I asked you to be mine, I wanted you. Needed you. Came with my fist in my mouth to the thought of you so I wouldn’t wake you. So, do not question when I tell you how I feel about you.” His growl is enough to send a rush of heat to your cunt with each word, and a painful sort of warmth to your heart. “Even without being with you, my heart has been yours since the moment I met you.”  

Logical thought dies an honourless death at the suggestion of Jaskier's want for you. Weeks of nothing at all and he decides that he ought to break that run by informing you that the first night he had even met you he had worked himself to climax to the thought of you. That the thought of you alone was enough to have him spilling onto his hand even before he had so much as kissed you. You swear you could choke at the thought, but there’s something more you want to choke on. Still, he pulls back from you, the world is off kilter and you swear you’re going to fall to your knees until you turn about to press your back to the counter, it takes less than a second for him to all but throw himself onto you- mouth over yours, tongue dipping into your mouth as though he's some adventurer trying to map out uncharted land.  

Eyes shut, his mouth on yours, you feel the tavern around you fall away, the wind gusting through your hair and along your décolletage. There is no tavern, no employer, no cleaning, no childhood home that will almost definitely be cold as death by the time you get home. None of that exists, none of it matters at all. All that exists is his mouth, his tongue, how he manages to somehow be everywhere and nowhere at once, intoxicating and intangible. You could be anywhere, everywhere, with your eyes clamped shut as they are. With no effort at all, you could imagine yourself anywhere, the hidden spot behind a curtain while a ball happens less than a foot away from you, the sandy alcove of some far-off beach, but the place your mind settles on is somewhere you don’t know at all, making you fill in the gaps to create something out of your own memories. Oak coloured, and warm, furnished all with deeply coloured leather, books and instruments, like Oxenfurt, but cast half in shadows by flickering lights and scented like smoke and molasses, like Yen's home. In spite of all of that, or maybe because, it feels like home: especially when Jaskier's lips dip down from your lips to the corner of your mouth once more to kiss at the space he calls Your Kiss.  

Lettenhove, your mind supplies the name for the place it has created, faster than you can remember where you know it from. Jaskier's home.  

He’s mentioned it to you once, maybe twice, in all the years you’ve known him, only ever to complain and insist how he hated it and would never return, but here you are, creating it in your mind. It seems only right, that he has kissed you in your childhood home that you can at least imagine his. It feels wrong though, even if the thought remains, like a sick secret.  

“Darling?” He asks softly, drawing your attention back to him.  

“Yes?” You ask gently while his fingers trace circles into your waist.  

“You look sad, Dear Heart. I know I’ve been distant but please tell me that look is not disappointment as I assume.”  

“No, no. Just thinking.”  

“A dangerous past-time.” Jaskier says solemnly with a shake of his head which you ignore.  

“Why have you been so distant of late?”  

“I. I've had a deal to think about since. Well, since.”  

“Since the mountain.” You finish the sentence for him. He nods and you nod in return. He hasn’t told you what happened, except that Geralt and himself had parted ways on less than amicable terms. Why that has meant the two of you haven’t been intimate is beyond you though, and you feel awkward to ask such a question.  

“I didn’t want to do anything while my mind was not entirely focused on you, My Muse.” He admits, tracing fingers across the details of your face. “I spent months without you, trying to remember just how your skin turns pink as you climax, the delicate arch of your back, the contortion of your lips. Months of cumming to a memory, and months of cumming to fantasies of you before I had you. I wanted the real thing, and to appreciate it. And that meant not being distracted.”

“I could have put my mouth on you. That always relaxed you.”  

“A sweet offer, truly. Probably would have taken you up on it too.” He admits, “But I want to pay attention to you.” Traitors that the mind and mouth are, you can’t find a single word to say, but your lips turn up in a subtle smirk and you pull away from him, slipping from his grasp.  

“Darling-" he argues at your sudden movement, but you press your fingers to his lips with a soft shushing sound.  

“Play a game with me a while, Dandy?” You ask intently, which catches him off guard, his hand wrapping around your wrist. Pet names are his forte, wordplay his bread and butter, so it doesn’t take a hair out of you when he calls you by one, but you use them fairly infrequently and they always have him blinking like a startled doe.  

“Name the game.”  

“First impressions.”  

“Can’t pretend I know that one, Dear Heart. If it’s anything like Gwent I can’t see my being any good either.” He chuckles and you pull back from him with a laugh of your own.  

“Not like Gwent. More of a playing pretend sort of game.” You clarify, though saying it makes you feel childish. “We... we pretend this is the first time we have met.” He smiles at that, head tilting to the side.  

“A pretend game.” He repeats, smile growing as he mulls over the idea. “I like it.”  

“I’m glad.”  

“Are there any rules to this game?” He asks and you blink. Rules had not even entered your mind, but he was right. A game should have rules.  

“...We can’t acknowledge anything we’ve been through.” You say easily and he nods. “And we can do whatever we wish we could have done when we first met.”  

“Sounds good to me. But one thing before we start?” He asks gently, leaning in and loosening your hair and pressing a kiss to the crook of your neck. “Perfect. Now I can pretend not to have known you.”

“I... think we ought wait for Kacper to leave for the night.” You whisper meekly, and though Jaskier lets out a pained little groan he nods slowly, pulling your hand to his lips to kiss the heel of your palm.  

“Fine. Can’t have that vile little man watching as I have my way with you.” That makes you choke, staring at him, wide eyed and gaping like a fish out of water while he smiles down at you like he’s simply commented on the weather.

“You. You say that like I would have let you- “ You falter and snap out a quiet, “That vile little man is the reason we can afford food and clothes!”  

“Little Miss, please.” He interrupts you flippantly before bringing his lips down on your own once more, albeit only for a second or so. “I have eyes. I’ve seen how the bastard looks at you. I’ve seen how every bastard looks at you.” You dont know what he means. Kacper, yes, the man is uncomfortable and not someone you want to spend any time about, but everyone? He’s a fool, and a paranoid one ay that.  

“Be that as it may!” You say, hoping he doesn’t realise that you’ve essentially agreed with him. “You’re acting as ifi would have let you bed me having known me less than a night.”  

“We'll be playing at having just met, not completely forgetting everything. And besides, you said we could do anything we wished we had when we first met, no?”  

“I. I did.”  

“And, from the moment I met you, I’ve wanted to taste you. And I have every intention of creating a first meeting between us where I was not such a coward as to not even attempt it.”  

“I never thought you a coward, Jaskier.” You argue but he shakes his head.  

“I know that, Dear Heart, and I wouldn’t change our time together. But it’s just a game of pretend.”  

“Just a game of pretend.” You agree.  

...

“I’ll be off now, Missy.” Kacper says tiredly, holding onto the door for purchase. “No bard?”

“He's home and asleep by now.”

“You should go home yourself. I can walk you if you-"  

“No, no. I'll finish cleaning, it oughtn't take too long. Go rest.” You reply easily, pushing the hair that’s escaped your bun away from your eyes. “I'll be fine. I’m a big girl. I can cope.”  

“You can stay in my house if you want to avoid the walk.” He says insistently. Your flesh crawls at his lecherous smile but you fake a smile all the same.  

“I’ll be fine, Kacper. But thank you. Sleep well." The response is sharp and firm, and the older man ducks his head in a suddenly sober nod. “Good Night.”  

“Goodnight Child.”  

Child. The looks he gives you should not be given to a child.

The tavern is empty, and you wipe at the counter in front of you out of boredom until you hear it. The click of the latch lifting followed by the soft squeal that tells you the door is opening. Your eyes stay focused on the wet surface. In this pretence of a night too long ago, you consider pretending to serve drinks to patrons that don't exist, but decide that to be a step too far and instead drop the rag to toy with your hair, leaning against the counter as if watching people that are no longer there.  

Try hard enough, and you can make out the people who had been there that night; the table of drunken older men playing Gwent who had always been especially generous in tipping you in the hopes that you might stay a while and bring luck with a smile, your own friends gathered about a table and shouting old pet names to lure you back to their table with ale, the gaggle of older women cawing and cursing about how wrong it is for a girl of your age to be working in a pub, tempting their husbands and sons. It’s familiar and alien and nostalgic all at once, making your heart ache. It was like that not four hours before, and you hadn’t had any such feelings then, but now that it is empty it feels like watching ghosts lingering at empty tables, phantoms sat in empty chairs.  

“Is it always so busy?” A voice asks from beside you, making you let out a squeak of surprise. You take in the bard as if you’ve ne’er seen him before, and it’s strange. Gods, he’s beautiful, that you already knew, but the way he’s swept his hair to one side has you convinced he’s testing your patience on purpose. He deliberately loosened your hair so you looked closer to how you had, but his hair is swept to the other side entirely. Bastard. You know he’s done it to see if you will immediately try and sort it out. You’re tempted.  

“Oh? It’s early in the morning on Freya's day at a tavern. It’s always busy.” You’re surprised how level your voice is, tinged with sarcasm. “You aren’t from here.”  

“Beautiful and Observant. Are all women in this town like you?” He smirks and leans on his elbow, not realising how wet the counter was until it slides along the surface, making you cackle unexpectedly.  

“Only in that lines like those won’t work on them, stranger.” You struggle out between laughs. “Ale? Wine? Food?”  

“Wine, please.” He grumbles out, pushing himself off of the counter. Any mortal man would be ashamed of having almost knocked out their front teeth on the bar, but not the bard, his lips turn up in a smirk. “And the name of the radiant being in front of me.”  

“Wine it is, Stranger.”  

“Not a stranger. Stranger has some awful implications, Pretty Thing, and a stranger is only a stranger when you know not their name.” A pale, calloused hand is thrust towards you. “Dandelion. Well, Jaskier, famed bard. Surely you've heard of me.” His voice is overcome with confidence, and you can’t help but lean on the driest part of the counter to observe him closely before breathing out your name, which he repeats.  

“That’s my name.” You say simply, leaning back to seek out a bottle of wine and pouring out a glass for the bard in front of him. “And I can’t pretend I know who you are, Bard. But if you’re famed then I presume that you can pay for your drinks.”

His face falls at that, and he begins to ooh and awe, looking through his pockets which you already know to be empty.  

“Now, Angel of the Ale, famed doesn’t necessarily mean rich-"  

“And, Bard, pretty eyes and notoriety doesn’t necessarily mean you'll get a free drink from me.” Your hand covers the brim of the glass and begin to slide it backwards toward you. “This is an establishment, not a charity.”  

“Now, Missy. Let us not be too hasty.” He argues, with a small smile. “surely a song is enough payment for a single glass of wine?” This elicits an unamused sigh from you, and you lift your hand from the cup.  

“Fine, Bard. Have it. But not a word of this to anyone. The owner will have my head if he finds out.”  

“No song, Missy?” He asks and you laugh and shake your head.  

“No, no. I’m. I’m hardly one for a song. You would just be wasting a song.”  

“A shame." Jaskier drawls out, taking a sip of wine before settling you with a smile that is just on the right side of leering. “I like to believe my songs are good enough even for those who don't know much of music. I hear I have a very clever mouth, and a talented tongue."  

He has a bastard of a tongue. The sort that has you flushing without obscene words, and with them? Oh, Melitele's tits you feel like you'll fall apart. The shock written across your face is true, and he chuckles like it’s a funny joke between just you two. It is, you suppose, or would be, were it not for the vile looks that your employer sends your way when he thinks your eyes away from his.

“Excuse me-?”  

“Come, Pretty Thing, play at a role that suits you. Shocked virgin might be believable at your age were you not the most beautiful woman I could ever lay eyes upon.” Jaskier says dismissively, eyes unblinking and following you as you escape from behind the bar. It’s easy to feel like prey under his watchful gaze.  

“Not that my sexual activity is any of your business, but I am.” You respond, shakily; watching as Jaskier saunters to you, holding his chalice in one hand. “A. A virgin, I mean.” You all but whisper the last sentence, and he grins; terrible and beautiful, all teeth and gums, and he reminds you of the wolves that lived in the woods during your childhood. But then he slinks closer still, the comparison between Jaskier and wolves are not quite right. No. Geralt, wherever in the world he is, is a wolf; built to survive hardship. Close enough to resemble a person who could be kept, but far too large and dangerous for that. No. Jaskier is no wolf.  

Jaskier is a fox. Slim and small and ready to rip out your throat. Easily mistaken for a pet, even willing to play at the role, but as soon as you stop eyeing him, he returns to a state that is closer to feral than kept. You feel like a chick, eyed like a feast, waiting for him to just. Strike. And he does, just not in the way you expected- he cups your cheek gently and swipes his thumb across your cheek.  

“Then everyone in this village must be blind, if they aren’t willing to fight to the death to Kiss you, never mind bed you.” His voice is smoke and molasses and you feel like you could drown on dry land.  

“They’ve wanted to.”  

“But you haven’t?”  

“Never met someone who I had any interest in.”  

“Is your... employer here?”  

“N-no.”  

“Then, at the risk of pushing, darling-maid, I’d rather show you what pleasures the flesh can hold.”

“Push. Please.”  

.....

Games of pretend as an adult are much different than they were when you were a child. As a child you toyed at being a princess, a dragon, a knight; now, you’re pretending not to know the love of your life as he buries his face between your thighs, shoved over a table that you cleaned while his clever tongue works it’s way inside of you from behind.  

The wood under you is so, so cold, but his mouth is intoxicatingly warm. Having his mouth on you is nothing new, not at all, but it has you feeling drunk: like having gulped down a tavern's worth of wine, giddy and all appendages tingling. It’s right and comfortable and new all at once. This position especially, face down on a table with him down on his knees before you, the Bard insists on seeing your face- be it so he can kiss you or see the minute changes in your face that tell him that you’re close, but tonight all you can see is the floor and not the mop of brunet locks and wide, blue eyes. The change is fine, welcome, but not enjoyed as much as the alternative.  

He’s made a romantic out of you, you don’t know if you should like or despise that fact. Women in the pub ask often about your musical lover and his talented tongue and fine fingers, asking if the length of them extends to other more personal parts of his anatomy, which you always laugh off. Small villages such as this thrive on gossip and you couldn’t bear it were your intimate goings on to become the talk of the town, but really, you’ve other reasons to be silent on the matter. How do you explain to someone that it’s not about the fingers that crook within you as it is the fact he always knows exactly where to do so? Could you ever find the words to describe that talented though his tongue may be, it’s the fact that you feel him use it to trace the words I love you against your most personal flesh, as he is right now? Can there be a means of saying that large as your lover's cock might be, and that he is well aware how to use it and that he uses it well, your pleasure comes more from the softness in storm-coloured eyes that bore deep into your soul all while that thick length fills you to the point of no return? Never mind a romantic, he's made some poet out of you. You never knew poetry and syphilis were transmitted the same way but you'd rather the former than the latter.

Missing his eyes on you, you whimper and reach back for his hair only to have it pinned to the table beneath you. With a long lick from your clit down to your entrance Jaskier pulls back, only to stare at your sex while panting- the warm air passing along your soaked cunt and making you quake .  

“I was right, Pretty Thing. People should fight to the death to Kiss you. Especially kiss these lips you so cruelly hide.” He sounds as drunk as you feel, words slurring over themselves.  

“Bard. Bard please.” You whine, digging your nails into the table. There's a breathless chuckle behind you, followed by a wet kiss to the meat of your thigh, where leg meets arse.  

“Do you want something, Angel of the Ale?” He chuckles, nipping at the skin.  

“Julian~” You whine loudly and Jaskier lets out a whisper of something that sounds suspiciously like finally, followed by a sharp swat to your cunt, wet slap echoing through the empty air. You'll never be able to work comfortably again, instead you'll be haunted by the memory of Jaskier's most triumphant performance to date: being able to bring you to the brink of orgasm without talking. No compliments, no whispered coos of Little Miss or Dear Heart to encourage you. Just his tongue.  

“So much for your game of pretend, Little Miss.” Jaskier sighs, but there's nothing but amusement in his voice. “I thought we were strangers?”  

“Changed my mind.” You choke out while his fingers spread the lips of your entrance wide open. “If I wanted to fuck a stranger, I would. I want my Buttercup to make love to me.”  

“Make love to you, eh?” Words fan across wet flesh and you could swear you have reached nirvana.  

“I want the love of my life to stop playing silly buggers and fuck me until I sob, yes.”  

He moans at that, weak and wanton as he bucks his hips into your calf, the proof of his want dragged against your skin like a dog rutting. Ever since he called you that in Oxenfurt, it’s been a secret sort of weapon for you. Losing an argument? Tell him he’s the love of your life. See him glaring across the tavern at a man whose eyes have been on you a second too long? Love of your life. It might be cruel were it not true.  

“Gods, Dear Heart, you're a cruel mistress.” You feel him smile as he bucks against you once more, thick and hard under layers of fabric. “Play pretend, Jaskier. Make love to me, Jaskier. You're the love of my life, Jaskier. What next? I simply won’t rest until your cock is in my mouth, Jaskier? You're going to be the death of me.” He smiles, you can feel soft lips as he kisses up from beneath the crease of your arse to the thickest point. “I’m half convinced you’re trying to kill me.”  

“Never.” Comes the earnest reply. “I can hardly spend forever with you if you’re dead.”  

There’s a beat of silence, and you’re half convinced you’ve gone too far but a thought creeps unbidden into your mind to fill the gaps. Something he said in Oxenfurt, which slips from your mouth with honest ease.  

“I'd marry you this second if I could.”  

Eyes slip closed as if waiting for some inevitable fallout, but none comes. Instead, you’re rolled onto your back and tugged up with such an intensity you worry the table might capsize.  

“... A hell of a place to propose, Little Miss.” He returns your own words back to you, eyes soft while his hand comes up to frame your face, fingers ghosting across the scar on your eye. The wound that kept you apart so long. The other rests on the crook of your neck, where if you cast your mind back far enough, you recall a wound being once, from some sort of vampire. He’s held your life inside you with trembling hands more often than you would like to think about, and you reach up to rest a hand over the space on his chemise where you know his heart ought be. It thunders along at a pace too fast for you to know it as you normally would, reminds you of how your own feels after fighting, fucking, but your own heart is beating slowly, pumping along at a relaxed pace under the touch of his fingers.  

“Well. I’m no poet.”  

“No. No, you aren’t.” He agrees. “I. I recall someone else saying that once before too.”  

“Well.” You reply melodiously, fingers straying from the fabric to the thatch of hair across his chest. Downy, dark hair, always keeping you a layer away from him- thick enough to keep you from seeing the flesh beneath but fine enough to feel his warmth seeping through. “He never got about to proposing, so I assumed I could take the line for myself.”  

“Excuse you, Dear Heart!” He sounds scandalized, like some rich old bat who asked for petunias and was gifted peonies by mistake. “I think you will find one of us refused to propose in his old place of education and spent every day afterwards trying to earn coin enough to buy you a proper ring, and as soon as I did you near died- oh. Oh shit. I didn’t mean to say that.”  

“You. You bought me a ring?” You ask incredulously. It doesn’t sound real. Jaskier bought a ring. For you.  

“Of course.”

“You. You, Jaskier, bought me a ring?” You ask again, mind unable to fully understand what it is he's said.  

“I told you I wanted to marry you!” He replies sharply, eyes narrowed a little as if anticipating a fight about it, but all you can do is grin up at him.  

“You want to marry me.”  

“I do.” He confirms, softening from the annoyance as easily as he hardened into it. “Not where I wanted to propose-"  

“Then don’t. Not here.” You insist. “Melitele's tits, I like to think I'm quite free and easy about these sorts of things but I’d rather you not propose in the tavern I work in.”  

“Good. Especially as I don’t have the ring to hand.”  

“As long as you plan on marrying me, I don’t mind when it happens.”  

You mean it too, but he shakes his head, leaning down to kiss you softly on the tip of your nose.  

“You commandeer my proposal, destroy the element of surprise, make me tell you my plans. What am I to do with you?”  

“Keep me forever?” You prompt and he smiles and kisses you gently, hands sliding down to your hips, tugging your skirts up once more to eye your quim. “Jaskier?”  

“I need to get you home right now.” He whispers softly, eyes moving from your sex to your eyes. “So that I can make up for lost time.”  

“...Why not start here?”  

“It’s hardly romantic after admitting I want to marry you.”

“Bath and Bed?” You offer but he chuckles.  

“I think some things may need to go in the middle and the end.”

[brelione]

The Short Film (Rafe Cameron X Reader?)

I dont really know what this is but its what my brain wanted me to write so here it is

He loves watching his childhood favorite movies with you and hearing what you have to say

And he picked up so much knowledge from you that he cant help but to watch the behind the scenes and interviews with directors everytime he watches a movie now

He doesnt always understand what youre saying but he nods his head in agreement anyways

And he pretends to hate when you force him to watch the movies that you deemed the best movies of all time

You being disgusted when you learn that he’s never watched Avatar

And pausing to explain things every two seconds

“I feel like this is the only alien movie in existence where the human are more advanced than the aliens.”He said as the final battle began. You paused the television, turning to him. “Well when you think of it the humans are an alien species to Pandora since the protagonists are the Navi themselves. So youre wrong.”You answered.

He has to keep up with all of your fan accounts, making sure to like and share every edit that you make.

And then Topper and Kelce start wondering why hes sending them horror movie edits

Ward was trying to figure out what was going on in Rafe’s head nowadays. He had suspected drugs when he’d stare at the tv, hunched over and squinting randomly.

And then he met you and it all made sense

You had explained half your life story, how you had been listening to college lectures on screenwriting since you were fifteen and produced, wrote and acted in a short film during your junior year.

And then Sarah and Wheezie wanted to watch the short film

And it was really difficult to explain all of your thoughts that you had had while making it and why it had been filmed at night in their house

And Rafe was laughing his ass off the whole time, remembering the two of you sneaking into different rooms with the camera and props and microphones. 

And then they were trying to figure out why they didnt remember being in the background of two shots at the beach

“How did we not notice the camera and the fake bottles and a silicone mermaid tail?”She asked. “You were busy making sandcastles.”You replied.

You still had polaroids of the sandcastles on your wall

This lead to them wanting to help you make a new short film to upload to youtube

And they offered a bigger budget and new filming sights and Sarah got the pogues involved

Pope wanted to help with the script and Kie wanted there to be a message about the dangers of microplastics and excessive use of electricity

So you spent an entire summer all working on a film that had to keep having little rewrites because Topper and Kelce wanted cameos

And then The Carreras wanted The Wreck to be involved in a few scenes for advertising

Practically everyone on the island knew about the film, coming to you with ideas and wanting to be involved in one way or another

It united the kooks and the pogues temporarily for the little project, Sarah, Wheezie and JJ all posting behind the scenes on their instagram

Some people were bitter about it, calling the police talking about how a few kids were using a camera on the beach and being weird

But eventually the police just ignored them after Ward pulled a few strings

The project ended up being a lot bigger than originally planned, the whole film adding up to be 56 minutes of chaos and cameos with good editing and a pretty cool plot

And as soon as it was finished everyone wanted to see the final project, someone anonymously renting out the drive in theater and playing the film on a large screen, everyone invited to come see it free of charge.

Thats when you started getting messages about a possible part two to the film 

This opened up a whole new world for you, receiving messages from actors and directors after posting the film, even earning a spot on the list of the best short films of the year.

@sexytholland @28cnn  @popcrone818 @fttayla @cherryobx @n1ghtsh4d3-67 @drewstarkeyobx @poguestyleskye @judayyyw @jjtheangel @jj-iz-bae@sunwardsss @meaganjm  @sarcasticsagittarius1998 @natalie-kate-98 @nxsmss @broken-jj @joshy-obx @prejudic3 @annmariek8 @imagines-07 @pink-meringues @ibookofstars   @lostaurorax @cheshirecat107 @shannonsandfor5  @ flamelssecret @ @quxxnxfhxll @starkeyxmaybank @lowke-y @blleuu  @outerbongs  @copper-boom  @httpstarkey @teenwaywardasgardian @deionswannabegirl@simonsbluee   @jiaraendgame  @khiaraaa-in-spacee  @on-socks-off  @abbiesthings @kindahavefeelingskindaheartless  @lostaurorax @batcat46  @pqrkerr  @xgracexlathamx  @izjustafaze 

[storiesbymads]

HOT SUMMER NIGHTS ( haydn fleury . )

Haydn and Y/N are childhood friends that take their families tradition of summers at their cabin into their own hands when their parents decide they aren’t going this year

warnings: sexual references, alcohol

wc: 4.1k

add yourself to my taglist!

Summer was your favorite time of the year. It’s been your favorite since you were six when your parents decided that you and the Fleurys were going to spend every summer from then on at a cabin they’d purchased together. It was situated on a small lake—that could really be considered a very large pond—and it had enough yard to let your golden retriever run five miles before it had to turn around and come back.

John had enlisted both sons to build some semblance of a fire pit when you turned fifteen. Haydn and Cale finally had a good and functioning pit… two summers later. That started the tradition of the three of you sitting down by the pit when both sets of parents had tucked in for the night and sharing stories into the early hours of the morning. And you may or may not have snuck into your dad’s supply of Natty Light while you did so.

Your days at that cabin were filled with probably the happiest memories you’d ever made. Haydn always forced you to go paddle boarding with him or canoeing during the day—you preferred the canoeing since he would just let you tan near the front while he did… whatever he did. Your parents pretty much left you to your own devices until dinner where all of you would gather around the enormous dining room table and spend an hour or two just talking. There was also the occasional game of Monopoly that totally didn’t end in Cale flipping the board that one time when Haydn gave you too much money as banker for six rounds in a row. You thought you were being really sneaky.

All of that being until your parents decided that they weren’t going up to the cabin this year. And neither were the Fleurys.

“Can you believe this,” you groaned into the phone. Haydn chuckled at your response to his phone call. You’d been on the call approximately 3 seconds at this point.

“I know but did you really expect us to go up there for the rest of our lives,” he replied.

“Uh, yeah,” you said. “We’re going to continue the tradition forever and before you know it we’ll be bringing our own kids up there. They’ll be best friends just like us.”

You really only included that last part to keep Haydn from knowing that you didn’t picture the tradition going on as it was right now. You did imagine the two of you going up to that cabin for the rest of your lives but you only pictured one family being involved in the whole ordeal.

“You know we could always just go by ourselves,” he said.

And the idea sparked joy into your heart. Until he picked you up from your house and you realized that you’d be spending all summer with him. Alone.

“You ready for this?” he asked as he helped you put your two duffel bags into the trunk of his car. His right hand found your thigh as he started up the engine. “Time for the summer of our lives.”

“Hell yeah,” you said as you hooked your phone up the aux in his car. That was one of your undisputed rules. On road trips, whoever wasn’t driving picked the music.

The ride down to the cabin felt shorter than usual. You liked to chalk it up to the fact that you were just older now and car rides didn’t feel as interminably long as they did when you were eight but it was probably due to Haydn making you laugh harder than you’ve laughed in six months the entire time. It seemed like you’d just pulled out of your driveway when you pulled into the gravel one of your cabin.

“Do you remember when Cale jumped over the bonfire and almost lit his ass on fire,” you giggled as you lugged your luggage up the wooden steps to the front door.

“Yeah, yeah I do,” Haydn said as he found the key under the welcome mat. He remembered exactly the moment you were talking about. The two of you were sixteen and testing out the unfinished fire pit and he was seconds away from spilling all the feelings he’d had for six years when his brother decided to test fate.

You inhaled deeply the second you stepped into the living room—out of habit of course. It was exactly like you remembered seeing as you’d been there just last year. It was odd not having your mom there to shove you the rest of the way through the door and forcing you to help put up the groceries before you got a chance to put your stuff in your room. Now that you thought about it, you could totally take your parents bedroom for your own and sleep in a California King for the next two months.

You hadn’t even noticed Haydn had gone back to the car until he lugged the yeti cooler in behind you and dropped it by the kitchen island. The two of you would definitely have to go to the grocery store in town for the rest of your food but you could push that off until tomorrow.

“You wanna head down to the dock?” you asked, readjusting the duffel bags on your shoulders. There was a side compartment in one of them full of nothing but bikinis and you were just itching to start using them.

“You’re ready to go down already? Don’t you usually ward off going outside for the first 24 hours of the trip?” he asked, grabbing his own bags and following you up the stairs that led to the small second level that housed three of the four bedrooms.

“Let me get changed and I’ll go down all by myself if I have to,” you scoffed, pushing open the door to your parents usual bedroom and dropping the duffels on the bed. It seemed that Haydn had the same idea as you had because he was currently dropping all his luggage onto his parents bed. You’d be lying if you said you didn’t sneak a peak at him taking his shirt off before reminding him his door was wide open for the world to see. Of course, all he said in response was that it was just you before shutting the door quietly and changing into his swim shorts.

You tried to shake the thought of Haydn seeing you in the same position. You tried to shake the thought of Haydn being the one taking your shirt off. It didn’t work.

You shut your own door before grabbing a red set out of your bikini compartment. It made your ass look great, not that that was your whole goal in wearing it, but it couldn’t hurt.

A soft knock at your door alerted you to the fact that Haydn was already done. You let him know he could come in while you pulled your hair up into a ponytail. You eyed him in the body length mirror that faced the door and, man, did you wish his mom still dressed him. The 5.5 inch inseam shorts did wonders for his thighs and he had on a canes snapback on that you were determined to steal from him later.

You weren’t doing Haydn any favors either. The thong bikini had to be his new favorite shade of red and you had your hair pulled up to reveal the small tattoo the two of you shared at the base of your shoulder blade.

“You ready?” he asked.

“Did you bring claws?” You walked past him to the hallway closet that held all of your bath and beach towels. You grabbed one for both of you, tossing him one, before making your way down the stairs.

“The mango ones,” he replied as he followed you, only about a step or two behind. You gasped in delight as you skipped the bottom step, rushing to the cooler and grabbing said mango white claw out of it. You grabbed Haydn one of his beers while you were in there, too. You weren’t heartless.

The dock was probably your favorite part of the cabin. Your mom had had it installed two summers ago and it was big enough to hold about six lawn chairs and a few beach towels across—which, by the way, was way too big for the lake but you did tan every single day while you were there.

The water was fully up to the dock when you got down there. You definitely could submerge like half your leg if you sat on the edge.

Haydn hooked up his phone to the speaker he’d mounted to the singular wall the dock had. He’d made sure the small roofed area kept the weather from dealing too much damage to it over the time you were gone.

“What music do you want?” he asked, squinting as he scrolled through his various playlists on spotify. A good ⅔ of them had been made by you and forced into his library but that didn’t matter to him. He listened to all of them.

“Do last year’s. I haven’t gotten around to making one for us this year yet,” you said as you laid out your towel. “Hey, do you think you could sunscreen my back for me?”

“Yeah, yeah, hold on,” he said before MKTO started flowing through the speakers. He grabbed the SPF out of your beach bag of sorts before sitting himself down on your thighs.

“Undo the strings, I don’t want lines,” you hummed, already enjoying the feel of the sun on your skin, and the feel of Hayden’s weight on top of you.

His breathing stuttered slightly, not enough for even you to notice, when he undid the thin tie that held up the cherry red bikini top. Squirting the lotion straight into your back, he rubbed it in. God, he could’ve spent the rest of his vacation right here.

“There you go,” he whispered once he was finished, pushing himself up from you and walking back over to where the rest of his stuff was. He grabbed his own towel, laying it out beside yours.

“Do you want sunscreen?” you asked him, opening your eyes slightly only to see him starting to lay down.

“No, I’m not staying here for long,” he replied. “The lake is calling to me.”

“You can still burn in the lake, Hay. You should know, we go over this every time.”

“This time’ll be different,” he said and he sounded so sure of himself.

If only it had worked out like that.

“Oh my god I can’t move,” he groaned into the leather of the living room couch. Your eyes were glued to the incredibly red skin of his back that you’d already lathered in aloe vera. You’d already commented on the fact that he matched your bathing suit. “The sun fucking hates me.”

“I’m sure he does.” You patted his calf twice before grabbing one of the seven remote controls on the coffee table in front of you and turned on the small box tv situated in the corner of the room. If the two of you kept this up, you’d need to do some serious renovations in the coming years.

It took two whole weeks for Haydn’s sunburn to heal enough for him to spend time outside without a shirt on. And seeing as he was your only company, the two of you had spent a hell of a lot of time inside. One thing Haydn’s lack of sun protection didn’t affect, though, was the nightly bonfire you had out back in the fire pit. You’d be surprised if you had enough firewood to last you through July with your evening antics as they were.

Haydn crumpled his Bud Light box and set it at the base of the fire pit before stacking the night’s supply of wood on top of it. He had the fire going strong in a solid ten minutes.

“I honestly don’t know how you do it. If i was stuck in the wild without you I’m pretty sure I’d just not survive,” you said when he took his spot in the fold out chair beside yours. He was close enough to you that you could smell his cologne and you could practically feel his body heat.

“Fire God,” he said, waving the extra long stick he always used as a poker. You were sure he’d had that stick for close to ten years at this point.

His eyes stayed glued to you as you told him about one of the bonfire’s you’d had when you were still back in high school. The two of you had gone to different schools then and it was probably why you’d looked forward to these trips so much.

About an hour later, the fire had diminished down to embers but neither of you cared. The two of you were so lost in conversation, you could care less about the dwindling flames. Or, at least, Haydn didn’t care.

“Oh, shit. I think it’s time to head inside,” you chuckled as you gestured to the pit. He nodded, getting up from his spot and pouring the rest of the water he’d switched to for the night before you guys came outside over the embers. He held out his free hand when he was done for you to take, helping you out of your chair. You were thankful for the lack of light or you’re sure Haydn would’ve seen the way your cheeks were burning red.

The next few days passed like clockwork. You woke up half past nine, Haydn at ten, and you made breakfast together. He was, surprisingly, not half bad at making an omelet or really anything that primarily involved eggs so you gave him most of the reigns in the kitchen. When the two of you finished eating, it was straight out to the dock until Haydn got bored and either forced you to swim with him or to get into the canoe tied off to your right.

“Y/N/N, I am begging you,” he whined. He was completely covered in sunscreen this time, you’d made sure of that, but at least he’d ditched the t-shirts. You’d chosen a white bikini today. They had full coverage bottoms and Haydn didn’t know whether to rejoice and silently hate the manufacturers.

“Hay, I just need five more minutes,” you sighed, turning your head so that you could face him from where you were laid out on your stomach. You’d already done your other side and you just wanted it to be even.

“Fine,” he said. You smiled at him in thanks, thinking that’d be the end of it and he’d make you paddle board with him when you were finished. Then, you felt his hands push underneath you and suddenly you were off the towel and pressed into his chest, bridal style.

“What the fuck!” you shrieked in the midst of the havoc. Haydn laughed briefly and before you knew it he’d jumped off the dock with you helplessly in tow.

The water was warmer than you expected but it still jolted you awake. The lake was just deep enough that you had to wade to stay afloat but not much deeper than that.

“I was almost done,” you whined, smacking him lightly on the chest when you resurfaced. You’d separated underwater but you were still incredibly close to him.

“I told you, I was bored,” he said, moving your wet hair with his fingers and tucking it behind your ear. Your breath caught in your throat at the contact. His eyes have never looked bluer than they have in that moment with the water reflecting in them.

Haydn’s fingers were still tingling, electrified with the skin to skin contact and he was desperate that you felt it too. His eyes flickered down to your lips. He wondered if he’d be able to taste the banana chapstick you’d applied before breakfast this morning.

Without even thinking about it, you‘d shifted closer to him. You contemplated wrapping your legs around his torso, seeing as it was growing more difficult to tread water with how close you were. Your body acted before you’d even made up your mind, but his hands found your thighs faster than your brain could function and your arms were already tucked behind his head.

The two of you were seemingly locked in a daze. No words passed between you but your whole world was screaming excitement. Every nerve ending in your body was shooting off as you held him close, allowing yourself to admire him in a way you’d previously held yourself back from.

Your fingers traced the deck of cards on his left arm. You knew the tattoo meant a lot to him, he’d told you what it meant when he’d forced you to come along with him when he’d gotten it done.

“I think we should head in for lunch,” Haydn said after a minute or two, mentally cursing himself for ruining the moment but he had a bigger problem at hand. Particularly the one below the belt.

He allowed you to climb the ladder to the dock before him, claiming it to be a ladies first ordeal, and watched as you made it halfway to the house before following you out himself. You were already inside making sandwiches when he shuffled inside and into the half-bath downstairs without so much as a word. He knew it was risky but you couldn’t potentially walk in the way you could if he took care of things in his bedroom. He had already contemplated just trekking upstairs to take another cold shower but he’d taken enough of those in the past week to last him a lifetime.

You hadn’t been able to get the moment from the lake out of your mind since it happened. You caught yourself wondering if Haydn had wanted to kiss you the way you’d wanted to kiss him more than a time or two.

June was drawing to a close but you felt like your summer with Haydn was just beginning.

You’d had two too many white claws—plus one of Haydn’s beers—for the evening and you were really starting to feel it when you struggled to sit upright near the fire pit. You’d been trying to finish off the box before your weekly grocery run in the morning but you were starting to regret your decision.

“We’ll get some more firewood in the morning, too,” Haydn said, throwing the last big piece of wood from the pile onto the top of the blazing fire.

You stared at him in your drunken haze when he sat back down next to you. The stories were coming out slower tonight but the silence was not completely unwelcome. It was hard to have an awkward silence between the two of you after all the years you’d spent being friends.

“Why didn’t you kiss me?” you whispered just loud enough for him to hear. His heart skipped a beat at the insinuation.

“What?” he asked. He’d heard you perfectly.

“That day in the lake. Why didn’t you kiss me?” you asked again, though a tad slurred. And in that moment he wished he could travel back in time and kiss you the way he’d dreamed about so many times. Maybe he’d be able to show you how in love with you he’d been since he was ten years old. Maybe you’d actually feel the same.

It was oddly reminiscent of when you were fourteen and you’d been in the same predicament with a boy named John. John had taken you out to the movies—or, at least, his mom had. He’d been the first boy to ever really ask you out and you thought if you prettied yourself up enough you might be able to finagle a first kiss out of it.

Of course, later that night you’d been in the same predicament on the phone with Haydn asking why this stupid freshman boy couldn’t man up and kiss you.

Had it been because of you? Had you misread both situations in your life. Had you seriously misjudged where you stood with both boys to the point that you thought you were getting a kiss only to be left high and dry and wondering why.

Maybe all of this was just the alcohol in your system talking. Or, maybe it was just because both boys had been scared.

“We should go inside,” he said as he repeated his fire ending ritual. It sizzled and sparked before erupting in a cloud of smoke. Then it was silent.

“Haydn,” you mumbled as he helped you up from your chair. You staggered when you fully reached your feet partially from the heartbreak of Haydn not responding to your question and partly from being drunk off your ass.

He helped you up the stairs and into your bedroom without another word. There were too many thoughts running through his brain right now for him to get a coherent sentence out, anyway.

The only problem was that you started stripping down to your underwear the second you stepped into the room.

“Woah, uhm,” Haydn said, wide eyed, before he clamped his hand over his eyes. He figured it shouldn’t matter that much, he saw you in a bikini just about every day, but this just felt so much dirtier.

“I’m decent,” you hummed as you threw yourself face first onto the duvet.

“Well, I’m just gonna-“

“Stay,” you said. “Please.”

“Alright,” he sighed before helping you both under the covers of the California King bed. You were asleep almost instantly and he just smiled fondly as he watched you curl up into his side. Maybe he’d be able to really explain everything in the morning. When you were sober.

The light pouring in from the open curtains caused a string of profanities to ungracefully fall from your lips as you smacked at your bedside table in an attempt to find your phone. You opened your eyes, barely, and squinted when you couldn’t find it in a few slaps only for your eyes to be met with a small glass of water and two gel caps of Advil with a note in Haydn’s scrawl.

I figured this would help the hangover. xx

You popped them in your mouth quickly, downing the water in about two gulps before grabbing the first piece of clothing you saw on your floor and heading into the en-suite to get somewhat presentable. You could hear the stove being used when you made your way down the stairs for breakfast.

“Thanks for the pills,” you said, making yourself somewhat comfortable at one of the island stools as Haydn hunched over the stove. You could smell the bacon but not much else. You eyed the clock over the fridge and noticed you’d slept way past your usual nine am wake up call.

“I went to the store already so we don’t have to worry about that,” Haydn chimed in when he saw you eyeing the new loaf of bread next to the fruit bowl.

“Do you remember what I asked you last night?” you asked, your heart dropping into the pit of your stomach as you vaguely recalled your own question.

“Yeah,” he said. He moved the pan of eggs to the eye that was shut off before turning to face where you were seated at the island.

“Why didn’t you say anything,” you continued.

“You were drunk-“

“Then, why didn’t you kiss me?” you asked again. It was already out there. You couldn’t take anything back you’d said last night so all you could do from here was push forward.

“I should’ve,” he said finally. “I should’ve kissed you.”

You got up from where you were sitting, moving around so that you were practically chest to chest with him again. You were right before. His eyes were definitely bluer in the water.

“Kiss me now,” you whispered. The dull aching your head was replaced with the intense feeling of his lips on yours. His lips were chapped, expectedly so, but they felt incredible against your own. He tasted like crest toothpaste and coffee and the combination was intoxicating.

His hands were on your hips in a second, lifting you to set you on the countertop so you were fully level. They were moving quickly, up your sides and back down again, digging into the flesh of your waist.

“Nice sweatshirt,” he said after pulling back slowly. You looked down to see you’d grabbed his from the night before rather than your own.

“I love you,” you whispered. And it was true. You’d loved him since you were fourteen when he comforted you after your first date with John. You’d loved him every day of the past ten years and you weren’t afraid of it anymore.

“I love you,” he said. “I’ve loved you since I was ten.”

tags @ptersparkers @annedub @corebore123 @damndunner @kiedhara @watermelon05 @sidscrosbyy

[lightwithinthedarknessu]

A Crown to Adorn

Starting off #sokaiweek2021 with a fluffy one-shot! 

Wrote a little fluffy one-shot for Day 1 of @sokaiweek Prompt: King and Queen. Childhood memories for #sokai and a cute flower date! A time of healing and reminiscence, adorned with flowers fit for a King and Queen.

A03:   https://archiveofourown.org/works/32511775 

Fanfiction. net: https://www.fanfiction.net/s/13918369/1/A-Crown-to-Adorn

A Crown to Adorn

*.*.*.*

“Wear a crown of flowers on your head, let its roots reach your heart.” – Kabir

*.*.*.*

The smell of the grass, the warmth of the sun on their faces, and the slight scent of honeysuckle wafting through the canopy above was the perfect complement to an otherwise ordinary day. Ordinary, that word seemed to slip into her mind with a lithe bump, nestling into her heart but leaving behind a tinge of anxiety. Was it good to cherish something even if you knew it wouldn’t last? Those words danced within her mind as warm rays of light kissed her cheeks.

Living in the moment. Cherishing those small moments of reprieve-sometimes Kairi had to keep reminding herself to do that. Whether it be taking in deep breaths of the salty air or cherishing the soft sensation of sand squished between her toes- those small insignificant moments she needed to hold close. The way the wind hit her face as Sora and Riku rushed past her in one of their many races or the sensation of cold droplets hitting her face during one of their many water fights. Those moments, they would rush back at her all at once during those times she was alone, listless, and longing for their company.

Somehow, Kairi knew that today would be one of those many moments she held close to her heart. She took in a deep breath, savoring the crisp air hitting her lungs.

The Kingdom of Corona was as beautiful as Sora had claimed it would be. Filled with flora and fauna, clean air, and warm bathes in sunshine. Even the few heartless around were, she had to admit, cute in their own way. Made her almost sad to pummel them, but once she found herself attacking in unison alongside Sora- every thought she had just melted away. He always seemed to do that, make her feel as if she could do anything, be anything. It sounded silly but- his light made hers stronger somehow. It radiated within her a warmth that felt so comforting she never wanted it to leave.  

After clearing the area, they had decided to take a quick swim in the spring nearby and were now sunning themselves like a couple of lizards on the forest floor. They had taken off their shoes and fully let themselves relax for what felt like an eternity. Peaceful, it was so peaceful that Kairi felt she could fall into a sleep here without a care in the world.  

“I’m glad you brought me here. It’s so pretty.” Kairi turned to Sora, her eyes welling with shimmering light. After hours of training, Sora had dropped by unannounced, unattended by the other two little half-pints, to whisk her away for a “well-deserved break” as he put it. At the time he had a shy grin on his face, letting her know that really, he had just wanted to see her. Not that she minded. She wanted to see him too.

“I had to! I mean you love flowers and well the beach back home isn’t as green as this. Heck, I hadn’t even seen some of the plants here before. It’s really something- all those worlds we wanted to see- just there’s always something new.” Sora blurted out, his excitement burgeoning behind an uncontrollable grin. He rubbed the back of his neck and leaned forward. “Sorry, I’m getting a bit too excited. I’ve been wanting to show you all these new things for so long. Every time I see something I think, “Kairi and Riku need to see this!”

Kairi giggled. Sora did seem to be holding in boundless energy every time she saw him. “I want to see it all with you. I mean, we always wanted to travel and learn everything we could. Even just seeing this world makes me want to go to all kinds of places with you- and Riku too…” Kairi tucked a stray piece of hair from her face. She felt almost embarrassed to say anything more- to tell him that really, she wanted to just run away with him right now. Leave it all behind. But that would be selfish, wouldn’t it? They had to face Xehanort. Even if that meant risking their lives. Still, that incredible wanderlust creaked within her bones. Even now her heart began to beat faster at the thought of Sora whisking her away to world after world. She could just picture it-brisk walks on stardust touched beaches, huddling close in frigid snow-kissed air, or dancing on the tips of their toes across warm cobblestones-

Everything. Just experience it all-together- hand in hand in a world all their own.

Kairi felt something lightly fall on her head. A light gasp escaped her lips at the sensation. It tickled her eyelashes as she looked up to greet Sora’s impish grin. Her hand reached up to touch the delicate petals of a ring of flowers he had placed on her head. Her eyes widened. “When did you…”

“Oh just while you were humming to yourself earlier. Did I do a good job? I mean I’m not as good at connecting them together as you…but I did have a good teacher.” Sora winked.

Tears pricked the edges of her eyes. When they were children, Kairi often spent her time near the shore picking small wildflowers and clover. One of the few things she remembered about her grandmother was her love of flowers and the way she used to weave together flower crowns. It used to make her feel like she was almost home again, weaving the flowers together, creating something from nothing. It was cathartic. For hours she would lose herself in the action- maybe that was why piecing shells together also soon became second nature. Once, Sora sat down next to her, and watched intently as she connected each stem of clover flower without asking any questions. When she was done, he told her how pretty it was and how “he wanted one too.”

For a few days after school, they would go down to the shore, make flower crowns, and pretend they were a King and Queen of the flower people. Well, the last part was entirely Sora’s idea. When she thought back on it- Kairi wondered if Sora did that to help her feel better about being homesick. She had missed her grandmother so badly back then. Every day she felt so alone. But then…Sora was there. And Riku…and the three of them found new things to do together.

Back then, Kairi hadn’t paid a second thought to the idea that most boys wouldn’t find what she was doing that interesting. Thinking about it now, Sora probably only said he wanted one too so she wouldn’t feel lonely- after all…she wasn’t the fastest runner or could hold her own at the time in a mock sword fight. What she was good at was making things, connecting flowers, shells, and bits of shattered sea glass into stars shapes or crowns. Her room back home was filled with makeshift stars, unfinished and marred imitations of the charm Sora now held close as an oath to her. Her childish fantasies of an unbreakable connection, made real and whole through a brush of their fingers as she passed the charm to him. Her fingertips warmed as she recalled his touch.

Now, with the newly coronated flower crown atop her reddened locks-Kairi felt that same bubbling joy well up inside her.

Kairi couldn’t believe Sora had still remembered that time or well had even retained his “flower-tying skills” as he used to call it. Sora had remembered a time that even she had pushed back deep into the depths of her heart. “I think that you retained some skill.” Kairi puffed out her chest. “But I think I’m still the master. So, I’m going to work my magic! It’s only fair that you have one to match.”

Sora chuckled and placed both hands behind his head. “Well, I guess we’re off flower picking then huh?” His hips swayed from side to side, his legs acting listless as if they hadn’t moved in hours.

Kairi bounced up on her heels, feeling a renewed vigor in her veins. “Yep! Lead the way, King!”

“King?” Sora’s jaw slacked. “Gosh, when you say it like that it only reminds me of “the King.”

Kairi lightly patted Sora on the shoulder. “Now, now.” Kairi chided. “There can be more than one King and Kings of different things. He may be “the King” but you- you’re my Flower King right?” An impish grin filled her cheeks. Sora blinked a few times before averting his eyes. She could swear a tinge of red was on the tips of his ears.

“Geez flower King? Don’t tell Riku, or Donald or Goofy- I’ll never live that down.”

“But I’m the flower Queen- we have to match!”  Kairi pointed an accusatory finger at him. Sora jumped back a beat, his deep blue eyes tinged with uncertainty. Soon, his eyes swirled with glimmering sunshine, his smile so subtle she found herself itching to gently brush her fingers across his lips. Her cheeks heated at the thought.

“Okay, I mean if you are I have to be then.” Sora put a hand over his mouth to muffle a laugh. Though clearly uncomfortable, there was a hint of joy in those words. Poking fun at him like this was almost too nostalgic. With ease, she slid her hand into his and gave it a tight squeeze. He recoiled slightly before sheepishly squeezing her hand back. His eyes wouldn’t meet hers, but she knew- he was just a tad shy still.

Hand in hand they traversed the woods searching for violet, azure, and fuchsia hues. Their still bare feet brushing against rough patches of dirt and slick grass, staining their toes a light green as they went. The morning dew, still kissing the tips of their hair, kept them cool against the ever-rising sun. Every flower they came across seemed more beautiful than the rest- they gathered until they were spilling out onto the ground beneath them. Sora sneezed a few times, sending them flying much more than he would have liked. The air filled with laughter as they collected them all again, each time regretting having over-prepared their bounty.

They returned to the clearing in no time at all-and she set about her work. Connecting the flowers together wasn’t hard- but choosing which flowers suited Sora best- well that took some thinking. Baby’s breath, delicate and kind, hydrangeas as blue and calming as the sea, red carnations brandishing the passionate courage in his heart, and yellow calla lilies to represent his happy disposition. When she was done- it was a crown only befitting him. When she held it up against the light, the shadows cast across her face danced- truly she could think of it as her best work yet. Smirking and a bit too proud, Kairi stood up and delicately laid the crown atop her “King’s” head.

“I, Flower Queen Kairi dub thee- Sora- Flower King.” In a grand bow, Kairi placed a hand over her heart, glancing up at him with mischief and mirth.

Sora’s wide toothy grin greeted her. “It’s an honor!” He paused, searching his mind before snapping his fingers in the realization of something important. “Does it look Kingly?”

“I think it suits you, just as mine suits me.” Kairi spun on her heels, dancing as she delicately brushed the petals she adorned. She gave Sora a taunting wink as she thrust out her hand. “I’d say a dance is in order, sire.”

A deep laugh escaped his chest as Sora jumped up to grab her hand and pull her close. Their eyes connected as if a thread between them became taught, sure, and certain that the entire world around them could just melt away into nothing, and it would all be alright. One step, then two, a sway and a swish, he even threw in a twirl or two as they danced to the bubbling brook and twilling birds. The melody in their hearts flowed and swirled at a tempo that pulled her into a sense of weightlessness. The countless times she dreamed of the two of them, blissfully dancing, suddenly made it real.

It was real, him, her, this moment. It was a sensation, a scent, a feeling she wanted to bottle up and keep close- like an herbarium filled with preserved flowers. Bright, opulent, and ever so warm. As their dance slowed, and her heart settled, Kairi leaned her head on Sora’s shoulder, letting herself melt into his rising chest. It was then Kairi knew that home wasn’t ever far anymore. That homesickness had long flitted away like petals in the wind once she let Sora into her heart. Now, every time she thought of their memories, these moments, the rise and fall of his chest, his heartbeat…Kairi knew somehow she was always closer to home.

 Years Before

*.*.*.*

The bluff at the edge of town was filled with clover flowers. Though she had been warned with a stern shake of the mayor’s finger, and a disapproving huff or two from the town elders, Kairi always found herself foraging for flowers here. The wind blowing through her hair, and the misty salt air gently caressing her chubby cheeks made her feel more at home here than anywhere else on the island.  In the afternoon quiet, only the rumbling low roar of the waves had been keeping her company. Lightly and carefully, she hummed a melody as she worked, losing herself in knot after knot.

*.*.*.*

“What do you think she’s doing?” Sora muttered in a hushed tone, trying to keep his usually loud voice as quiet as possible. He was huddled on his haunches behind a large hedge, practically wiggling to keep himself from falling over. He and Riku had followed Kairi from a distance like two ducks up the winding hillside. When they had seen her leaving the Mayor’s house she had been stomping and letting out a long-winded sigh or two. Riku had said that she was “probably angry” and that it mostly had to do with her going off alone. Sora, being extremely curious about Kairi ever since she had arrived on the beach, had never not kept watch over her. So, Riku being Riku had suggested they follow her, knowing well that Sora would have found himself trailing after her absentmindedly.

Riku let out a sigh and shook his head. “She’s going to make something again. The last time she came back down from here she had a crown of flowers in her hands. That’s probably what she plans on doing.”

“Hmm, that seems more lonely than fun. She’s all by herself.” Sora pursed his lips, his nose scrunching up. He crossed his arms and readjusted his drooping bum with a light hop. “Seems like it’d be better to do with more people.”

Riku raised a brow, then smirked as he realized something important. “You know, if you want to join her nothing’s stopping you. We can go back to the play island any old time.”

“But it feels like if I go over now, I’d be like- I don’t know- I’d um make her mad…”

“Mad?”

“You always say I talk too much. Kairi seems a bit scared when I do that.” Sora looked down at his fidgeting toes. “Still, I think she’s lonely.”

“She just doesn’t know much about us yet. And well you do talk a lot. My dad says sometimes though that just being near someone without saying anything is enough.” Riku crossed his arms, and nodded, certain his father’s words were true.

“Really Riku?”

“Yeah, Really.” Riku put a hand on Sora’s head and gave his hair a quick ruffle. “Now, no more waiting!” Riku placed both hands on Sora’s back and pushed him forward- not even worried if he would fall over on his face. Usually, he did, and Sora had to brace himself for a fall that didn’t come. Instead, he found himself balancing on one foot and staring into the wide cerulean eyes of a frightened girl.

*.*.*.*

When a rustling bounded behind her Kairi gasped and found herself on her feet, her hands clutched close to her chest. A familiar head of spikes was what first caught her eyes, then the twigs and leaves sticking out every-which-way, followed by the shy grin of a boy caught doing something he shouldn’t.

“Geez, Sora! You scared me!” Kairi tucked her hair behind her ear as if she were suddenly aware of her own messy mop.

“Sorry, Kairi! Me and Riku were just…” Sora paused to look behind him. Not a soul was in sight. “Aw man, where’d he go? We were just talking about…ugh never mind.” Sora stood up straight and puffed out his chest as he shook the stray twigs and leaves from his head. Once he was done, he placed both hands behind his head. “So…what-cha doing?”

“Making flower crowns…” Kairi mumbled under her breath, feeling herself carefully enunciate each word. Sora was nice, after all, he was the one who found her on the beach that day. But a part of her felt scared, nervous, and a bit rumbly in her tummy when she talked to him. He was always so bright, and his grin was wider than his face. Kairi didn’t know how to be around him. Kairi turned her back to him and smoothed the ends of her dress.

“Okay.” Sora uttered. He continued to stare at her, unmoved until she decided to sit back down among her work. As she picked more flowers, she began to take more glances over at Sora. He watched her intently, swaying from side to side on the edges of his sandals. He stayed that way for a beat then promptly plopped down next to her. Kairi’s breath hitched in her throat at the sudden invasion in her little bubble. But Sora didn’t say anything, although his face was twisted into an unnatural frown, alerting her he really did want to say something.

Kairi tried her best to get back to her crown, but she fumbled with shaky fingers as she tied the tiny stems together. Her lips moved into a fine line, her teeth biting down into the corners of her cheeks. Again, soon she became lost in the motions, not even noticing Sora get up and go look around. Moments later he dropped back down next to her, this time, with a handful of clovers.

“It’s really pretty.” Sora blurted out. His eyes were wide, expectant.

A shivering jolt went through her back, and Kairi shyly looked back down at her completed crown. He said it was pretty, what she made. A slight hint of pride wafted through her chest. “Thanks…”

“I-I want one too!” Sora’s voice was louder than he intended, for Kairi almost fell back at the sudden noise. She made sure to quickly put on a smile for the boy looked almost as if he would cry if he knew she was scared.

“Okay, I’ll teach you.” Kairi found a new strength in her voice. She was more confident now. A voice inside her heart, but from where she didn’t know, whispered caressing words.

Whenever you feel lonely, look to the flowers. Surround yourself with them, let them take root in your heart. Every moment may seem small, but you can make them bigger and more beautiful. For those moments when you’re alone, the flowers will remind you of me and of those who love you. That light in your heart will continue to bloom and grow, as long as you let it. Adorn your head with a crown of flowers, my dear. Adorn the head of the one you love. Find that light, never lose sight of it.

  Notes:

Thank you for reading! This fic was inspired by the prompt King and Queen for SoKai Week 2021. Visiting Sora and Kairi's childhood and what they meant to each other during that time was pure joy. I hope that this little bundle of fluff reminds you of the wonder of picking flowers as a child, and how even the smallest acts of kindness can mean the world to someone else. I tried to add in some of Sora's flowers from his herbarium by super groupies as well as flowers that spoke to his personality. Fun fact: Clover flowers were something that I would gather when I was a child, and luckily they do grow at least in Hawaii at high elevations, so it's possible they could be on the mainland in Destiny Islands!

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[wizardofahz]

High School Reunion

A/N: Midvale is coincidentally set around the time Alex’s 10-year high school reunion would’ve been, so that’s when this is set.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Alex heads down to the beach.

Spending the night in her childhood bed and the emotional release of her conversation with Kara had been nice, but leftover pent up energy is making her restless. A difficult run in the sand should help.

It does at first. It’s been a while since she’s run on a beach. All her energy is spent on reacquainting herself with the lack of solid footing, the way the sand deforms under her feet, how much harder her muscles have to work to extract her feet and carry them forward.

Not long after she falls into a steady rhythm, Alex spots two women walking ahead of her. They’re going in the same direction as her, but she passes them easily.

The monotony of her physical movements allows her mind to wander. Inevitably her thoughts return to Maggie. Actually, no, not Maggie but the coming out journey she had helped along. Alex’s self-realization may have come in National City, but the signs had started here in Midvale.

Vicki hadn’t been her only crush, she’s sure. Over the past year, other memories have come back to Alex, puzzle pieces falling into place with a startling new clarity. Alex wonders how many she’s forgotten. Her mother hadn’t been surprised when Alex came out to her. Maybe she remembers more.

Eventually Alex decides to head back. At this point, she can run half the way and use the last half as a cool down walk.

The two women from before are still walking in the same direction. Alex glances at them, prepared to give a courtesy nod, but recognition stops that plan in its tracks.

It’s Josie.

And Vicki.

Crap.

After Kenny’s death, the friend bubble that had shattered so quickly around Alex hadn’t lasted much longer for Josie.

Except Vicki.

Vicki had been so unfailingly kind to and well-liked by everyone that she had the unique ability to stand up for anyone regardless of social status. And so she did for Kenny, Josie, and Alex.

Until Alex had screwed that up.

Alex hopes they won’t recognize her. She really doesn’t need this reunion now of all times.

No such luck.

“Alex?” Josie says as Alex nears.

Alex skids to a stop, momentum carrying her past Josie and Vicki, so they all have to turn to see one another.

“I didn’t think you’d come,” Josie continues.

Feeling more off-kilter than just her sudden stop can explain, Alex says, “I-- Josie, hi. Come to what?”

“The reunion.”

Josie’s words ring a distant bell though Alex doesn’t know how. She doesn’t really keep in touch with anyone from high school, though she sees the occasional update on social media. Maybe her mom mentioned it on a phone call. Either way, Alex has a vague recollection of hearing that her 10-year high school reunion is being held sometime around now. Apparently exactly now.

That also explains Vicki. From a brief moment of weakness when Alex googled her, she knows Vicki hasn’t lived in Midvale since she left for college either.

Vicki alternates between averting her gaze and shooting Alex odd looks. Once upon a time, Alex would’ve known what those looks meant.

“Oh, that’s this weekend?” Alex says. “Umm, I’m actually not here for that, just coincidence really.”

“Well, even if you hadn’t planned on going, since you're here, why don’t you drop by the reunion anyway?" Josie offers. “I’m sure we’ll be well-stocked with booze if nothing else.”

“I’ll think about it,” Alex says, her version of ‘thanks but no thanks.'

Josie seems to understand. “Either way, I’m glad we ran into each other. I wanted to say thank you and I’m sorry. The whole thing with Mr. Bernard...” She grimaces and shudders. “The more time passes, the grosser it feels. Thanks for ending it.”

“Just glad I could help,” Alex says. Maybe if Vicki wasn’t here, she’d ask how Josie is doing. But Vicki is here, which means Alex would very much like to be anywhere else. “I should finish my run before I cool down. See you around?”

Josie nods, looking a little lighter. “See you.”

Alex takes one last glance at Vicki.

The odd expression now looks like jealousy.

... 

Alex watches the waves crash into the rocks below.

As the water recedes, she hears the shuffle of someone approaching.

There are very few people who know about her hideout. It’s not the sort of place people find by chance. The rocky cliff face is sloped but occasionally steep. Getting to her particular little hole in the wall requires knowing that sometimes the best way across is going down then up.

Her father is MIA. Her mom wouldn’t know to come looking for her now. This area is remote enough that Kara typically flies, which only leaves--

Alex sighs.

“I’m not in the mood to fight,” she says.

“Me neither,” comes Vicki’s voice moments before she appears. “I thought you’d be here.”

“Shouldn’t you be with Josie?” Alex wishes she could sound calmer, neutral at least, but her voice comes out reeking of resentment. “Doing... whatever, walking? Something?”

“I’ll see her tonight,” Vicki says evenly, and Alex’s resentment grows. “I wanted to talk to you.”

Vicki tilts her head towards the empty space beside Alex, asking if she can sit. The cave can probably fit three or four people, but given the giant elephant in the room, the prospect of two seems cramped.

Alex nods anyway.

An uncomfortable silence settles between them until Vicki clears her throat.

“I wish I knew what to say sorry for,” Vicki says.

Confusion proves a preferable alternative to discomfort. “Why would you be sorry?” Alex asks.

“You know, when we were kids, I remember hearing a lot about heartbreak,” Vicki says, and Alex’s own heart convulses in her chest. “No one ever told me you could feel it as deeply with friends.”

Friends. Right.

“I missed you, you know?” Vicki continues. “In college and even now, whenever I learn something interesting but super nerdy, I think, ‘Alex would love this.’”

“Ouch?” Alex says--she's a nerd but is she that nerdy--but she knows what Vicki means. When reading feel-good stories on the internet, she often thinks that Vicki would do something like that.

Vicki smiles, a subtle quirk of the mouth. “Watching you with Josie just now... it seemed so easy. I wish I could remember why we fought. If I said something stupid or insensitive... I remember it was after your dad died and then Kenny.”

“What? No!” Alex says immediately. “At least I don’t think so. To be honest, I also have no idea what we were fighting about.” Then because she feels guilty about Vicki’s guilt, she adds, “I did sort of have an epiphany last year about why though.”

“Last year? That’s random.”

“Not really.” Alex's face is burning now. She wishes the cave was bigger, provided at least a facade of an escape. But then again, maybe with an escape, she wouldn’t be bringing herself to having this conversation. “I, umm, I came out last year. I guess I’m coming out again now. To you. But I-- last year I came out for the first time, and it sort of made me think about things, and I didn’t realize it at the time, but I think I had a crush on you, and I didn’t know how to deal with it.”

Vicki looks stunned, and Alex immediately regrets saying anything. All of her coming out experiences until now had been positive, but now Maggie’s story about her and Elisa is rattling around her head. Alex racks her brains, trying to remember if Vicki said anything in high school that even hinted at homophobia.

An even more panicked thought runs through her head. Alex is pretty sure she’s the stronger of the two of them. If someone is getting pushed out of this cave, it’s not her.

“You know what,” Alex says quickly, desperately retreating from that terrible thought. “We can forget I said anything.”

“No, I… Thanks for sharing. I’m glad you felt comfortable enough to,” Vicki says.

Relief floods through Alex’s body. It’s not enough to calm her pounding heart and twisting stomach, but it provides a moment of clarity. She’d been talking a mile a minute and given Vicki less than half a second to respond before she went into panic mode.

“To be honest, I think I’m more surprised that you had a crush on me specifically,” Vicki continues. “You’re such a perfectionist. That you of all people could think that I was worth crushing on... It’s kind of flattering.” She’s quick to clarify, “Not in a weird way!”

Alex laughs, shaky but sincere. “Well if it helps, I don’t have a crush on you anymore.”

Vicki nudges her leg against Alex’s. “My turn to say, ‘Ouch.’”

Silence settles between them again. Alex wishes she could say this one is less awkward than the previous, but they still have ten years of distance between them.

Again, Vicki is the one to break the silence. “So what brings you to Midvale since it’s not the reunion?”

“I’ve been going through--” Alex lets out a weary sigh “--something. I don’t want to talk about it, but Kara thought it’d be a good idea to get away from National City for the weekend.”

Vicki respects Alex’s wishes and pivots. “And how is Kara? Seemed like Supergirl also had it rough for a while.”

Alex thinks she could rival Kara’s super speed with how quickly she turns to Vicki. “What? Why would you--”

“I’ve never said anything to anyone,” Vicki says with her hands up, “but I grew up with you. It’s kind of obvious.”

“No.” Alex sinks her head into her hands. “You can’t know.”

“I think it’s kind of amazing,” Vicki continues, oblivious to the panic once again coursing through Alex’s veins, “you two saving the world together.”

“You don’t understand,” Alex chokes out. “Do you remember Rick Malverne?”

Alex knows she’s breaking confidentiality by saying this, but she needs Vicki to understand the scope of the problem. If Alex missteps, it won’t be a great solution, but J’onn can wipe Vicki too.

Vicki’s brow furrows in thought before saying, “He liked you, right? Used to carry your backpack or something?”

“He also figured out that Kara is Supergirl, so if he knew, and you know, then how many other people in this town know?”

“Okay, uhh, even if other people do, no one is going to--”

“Earlier this year, he kidnapped me.” 

“Oh my God.”

“He wanted his father freed from prison, so he went after me, said that if Kara didn’t break him free, he’d kill me. Nearly did too. But the point is that I can’t do that to Kara again.”

“What about you though? Are you okay?”

Alex looks down at the water below. The tide is rising much like the water in the tank. Alex shakes her head to wash the memories away.

“I’m fine.”

Vicki looks at her skeptically.

“I’m fine enough.”

“Well, if it helps, when I said it’s obvious, I meant to me.”

Alex shakes her head. “He knew because of that day on the beach. You know, when Kara saved that woman and her baby from the car? Our whole class was out there.”

“Yeah, but Rick moved away not long after, right? That’s one of his last memories of Kara, and it left an impression. No, hear me out. Everyone else who was there remembers her as that weird kid they picked on or avoided for years afterward. I’m pretty sure at this point the ‘weird kid Kara’ reputation is not the good kind of weird you’d expect to find in a superhero--no offense to her. It’s obvious to me because I know you, and especially in senior year after everything with Kenny, Sheriff Collins, and Josie, spending time with you meant spending time with Kara. I got to see her for the good kind of special that she is.”

“I don’t know.” Alex rubs her temples. She wishes it was that simple, but she doesn’t think it is.

“You know,” Vicki says playfully, sending off alarm bells in Alex’s head, “one way you can make sure is to come to the reunion tonight.”

Alex rolls her eyes. “I’d rather be kidnapped again.”

“Want me to sleuth around?” Vicki offers. “I may not be a super spy or whatever it is you do, but I’ve got skills.”

“No, we have other ways of dealing with this.” Alex makes a mental note to talk to J’onn. “And I was serious about the ‘you can’t know’ part. At the very least, you’re going to have to sign a lot of confidentiality documents.”

“Fair enough. Do I go to your office or something? Does that mean we’ll get to spend time together again? This has been nice.”

“We have another field office closer to where you live, not that I know where you live,” Alex adds quickly, but to her relief Vicki just laughs. “So, umm, maybe we could do something non-business related sometime?”

“I’d like that.”

[just-jordie-things]

Pesky Feelings - John B Routledge

word count: 4238 warnings: swearing, two oblivious lovesick idiots summary: thornton!reader and John B are your typical childhood best friends, which comes along with your typical angst of secretly being in love and not knowing how to admit it :) request: @killerwasteland​: I'm here with another idea for a John b : avoiding him like the plague after confessing your feelings and him tryna get you to talk to him because you didn't even give him the chance to say whether he reciprocated the feelings (+ bonus points if they're childhood best friends + extra bonus points if she's topper's sister) (a/n): ok I love this, and also john b is a major dork of a bf ___

“Can we talk?” (y/n) had asked quietly, grabbing onto her friend’s wrist softly, hoping he wouldn’t freak out at those three dreaded words.

John B didn’t freak out, he simply nodded, and followed her away from the party, so that they could have some privacy.  There was nothing that (y/n) could ever say to him that would freak him out.

She was his best friend, he loved her, and he trusted her with his life.  So he remained calm as they found a decent spot to talk privately, where the music wasn’t loud, and no one could really see them and make judgmental assumptions.

(y/n) sucked in a deep breath, letting go of his wrist as her hands tangled together.  It was a nervous tic of hers, one that John B recognized, but even still, he was calm as he placed his hands over hers soothingly.

“What’s up?” He asked, ever so laid back.

She was thankful that he was such an easy going guy, it definitely made what she was about to say next a little easier.

“I just… um I wanted to tell you that… that I…” She licks her lips as she trails off, anxiety bubbling up inside of her like water that was about to boil over a pot.

John B doesn’t say anything, he doesn’t want to rush her and make her more nervous than she clearly already was.  But he couldn’t deny that he was on the edge of his seat, dying on the inside of curiosity.  He does his best not to show it, though.

“Look you don’t have to say anything, or- or feel the same way I just wanted you to know how I feel and that I… I really like you,” Her eyes flicker up to his, glossy and apprehensive.  “I like you as more than a friend” She said more clearly.

John B opened his mouth to reply, and it should have been an easy response, but it wasn’t.  He froze up completely, his hands stiffening over her own and his eyes blowing wide as he stood their speechlessly.

But while he was too bashful to know what to say, the pit in (y/n’s) stomach was trying to swallow her whole, and suddenly she wished a hole would open up below her and just suck her into the earth, out of this situation.

“Oh my god,” She mumbled, realizing what she’d just done.  “Oh my god, I- I’m so sorry-”

She started to back away, pulling her hands out of John B’s, eyes scanning over the party in hopes to find someone that she could flock to.

“Wait, (y/n)-”

“I’m gonna go- yeah- I’m gonna head out”

She’s speed walking away from him before he can find the lick of sense to grab her hand and pull her back towards him, hold onto her and never ever let go.

“(y/n)!” He called after her, but she just waved goodbye, and went into the crowd to tell her brother she was going home, with or without him.

He was the one with the car, but she would run all the way to the Figure Eight if she had to right now. ___

(y/n) rolled over in her bed, pushing her face into her pillow and letting out a frustrated cry.  No words came out, it’s just that when she thought about that night, the amount of cringe she felt took over her whole body.

“Okay, calm down,” Kiara said through the speaker of her phone.

They’d been Facetiming for the last half hour or so, but it was difficult for (y/n) to focus on any of the topics they tried to talk about when her mind was constantly reminding her of the biggest failure she’s ever experienced.

“It’s not that bad, (y/n)” Kie added.

“Not that bad?” (y/n) repeated, lifting her head to look at the screen.  “It’s terrible. He was my best friend- what the fuck was I thinking?”

“You had a bit to drink, alcohol is liquid courage you know,” Kiara said, only half-joking.  “And he’d been holding your hand all night, (y/n/n), that’s reasonable evidence that he liked you back-”

“Not reasonable enough apparently!” (y/n) shrieked.  “I can’t believe I actually thought he would ever like me-”

“Hey,” Topper came into the room without bothering to knock, an annoyed look on his face.  “Could you keep it down? Rafe and I are trying to-”

“Get the fuck out,” (y/n) grumbled, chucking a stuffed animal from her at him.  “I’m going through something” She added.

Topper rolled his eyes at her.

“Really? He was just a Pogue (y/n), I don’t get why you hang out with them”

They’d had this argument pretty much every day their whole lives.  Topper could be a good brother sometimes, he’d pick up dinner for her, drive her to the keggers on the beach, and he was definitely protective of her.  But that didn’t mean his personality had a gold star next to it.

He was definitely your average Kook, if not a little worse.  It could really get under (y/n’s) skin at times, but recently she’d just decided to ignore it.  It was much easier to ignore it anyways, because then it would go away.

“Get out” She repeated, throwing a pillow at him this time.

He didn’t say anything, just shook his head and left.

“Wow,” Kiara groaned through the phone.  “He sucks”

“I know,” (y/n) agreed.  “But he just doesn’t get it.  He doesn’t know John B like I do.  He doesn’t know any of you guys like I do”

Kiara understood that the Thornton siblings had a major disconnect when it came to who they spent their time with.  Anyone with eyes could see the difference in character between (y/n) and Topper.

In fact, when people met (y/n), they expected the whole family to be as sweet and charismatic as her.  But they were almost always left disappointed.

“You should just come talk to him,” Kiara said, getting back on topic.  “No matter what happens, or what he says, you know that he’ll be understanding.  He doesn’t want you to feel hurt or left out”

“I know,” (y/n) huffed.  “I know I just.. I don’t think I can see him yet.  It won’t feel the same for me like it does for him.  He’ll say that nothing has to change but… it will.  It will for me”

Kiara frowned, but she understood where her friend was coming from.

She just also knew that John B had to feel the same way.  There was no way that he’d been sweet on her all this time and didn’t have feelings.  She’d known the pair all their lives, and for as long as she’d known them, John B had a soft spot for the Kook girl.  It was the one constant in the group.

“I should have just listened to the rule, and kept my mouth shut.  No Pogue on Pogue macking.  It’s there for a reason.  This is the exact fucking reason- hold on I’m getting a call”

“From who?”

(y/n) stared at the screen for a moment, her heart melting at the picture that she’d set for John B’s contact.  It was them when they were in middle school, they looked dorky and very out of style, but it was sweet.  They were going to their first school dance, and their parents had begged them to take a picture before they went, this picture.

John B had eagerly thrown his arms around her, hugging her tightly like he always did.  He had a big cheesy and toothy grin on his face, which was adorable when you looked at the rest of the picture, seeing his crooked bowtie.

(y/n) had hugged him back, a bit more warily, and the smile on her face was softer.  You could see the blush on her cheeks when you really studied the picture.

“John B,” (y/n) answered after snapping out of her daze, and hit the decline call option.  “Sorry, I’m back”

“What? Girl, why didn’t you answer?”

“Because, like I said, it’s weird now-”

“He was probably calling you to invite you to a late night ride on the boat,” Kiara said, always the voice of reason to everyone in the group.

Sometimes she was convinced she was the only one with any brain cells.

“You should call him back” She stated.

“No way, I’m gonna wait,” (y/n) replied.  “I can’t talk to him right now, I’ll clam up, or stutter, and it’ll be embarrassing”

“Who cares?” Kiara half-shouted.  “He obviously wants to talk to you”

“But what if its about-”

“Does it matter what it’s about?” Kiara cut her off, “Him wanting to talk to you is a good sign either way”

“Well, he’s been calling me all week” (y/n) admitted, looking away from the screen.

“All week? Jesus (y/n/n), you’re probably freaking the boy out-”

“I know!” (y/n) cried, shoving her face back into her pillow.  “This is all so stupid.  This is like- high school drama stupid.  I feel like an idiot”

“No offense babe, but you are an idiot,” Kie giggled.  “I love you, but you're so oblivious”

“Am I?” (y/n) muttered, voice muffled by the pillow.

“Yes, without a doubt,” Kiara said, still laughing light heartedly.  “Do you even remember when I met you guys?”

Kiara had been a new student at Kildare Elementary in the second grade.  The first day was always the worst, but luckily by recess, she met a nice boy with messy hair and a friendly smile.

They had been playing on the swingset together for a little while, asking the ridiculous questions you ask other seven year olds when you’re becoming friends.  Most of their conversation had been about the Power Rangers, until another girl came up to the swings.

John B hopped off his immediately so the short (y/h/c) haired girl could swing.  She’d thanked him with an equally friendly smile as she sat on the swing, and waited for him to push her because she hadn’t been very good at swinging up high like he was.

“This is Kiara, she’s new,” John B introduced.  “And this is (y/n),” He told Kiara.  “You can be friends with her too, but she’s my best friend, so you can’t have her”

(y/n) had giggled at that, but hopped off the swing so that she could hug the new girl.

“We can all be best friends,” She’d announced.  “There’s nothing wrong with having two best friends”

John B had pouted for a bit, but as their playdates turned into the three of them, and eventually they met two other boys, he was okay with having other friends around.  

As long as (y/n) always picked him to be partners in hide and seek, and as long as she always laid her sleeping bag next to his, then he wouldn’t complain.

The girls were Kooks, and the boys were Pogues, but all their lives, it hadn’t mattered.  (y/n) had never really thought twice about it, even when her brother would be kind of a jerk, or when other Kooks would pick on the group in high school, she never second guessed her friendship with them, her love for them.  They were all her best friends, John B had just always been something more than that.  Something beyond best.  He was priority number one, and looking back on it, she’d always loved him.

“Don’t you remember?” Kiara asked again, bringing (y/n) back from the memories of their early childhood together.  “You’ve been attached at the hip since like, kindergarden,” She reminded with a laugh.  “He didn’t even want to share you with anyone, and honestly, he still doesn’t.  That night of the party? He dragged you with him everywhere”

“He just doesn’t like when girls hit on him” (y/n) shrugged nonchalantly.

“Yeah, but he can probably go to the bathroom on his own”

All night, John B had been filling up cups at the keg with one hand, and the other had been tangled in (y/n’s).  He’d had a bit to drink, and it wasn’t uncommon for him to get more affectionate after three beets, so (y/n) hadn’t thought much of it.

And she wasn’t about to complain about a boy she liked holding her hand.

But even when Kiara took over running the keg, and the other Pogues hung out, dancing around and smoking together, his hand hadn’t let go of hers.  He always had a good excuse.  

He didn’t like when Touron girls hit on him, he didn’t want to lose her in the crowd, he wanted to make sure she was safe by his side, no matter what he’d say, (y/n) would go along with it.  But that night had been different.

He started to take her with him towards the Chateau, and she’d stopped him once she realized where he was heading.

“John B, I wanna keep partying” She said with a pout.

“Yeah, I just have to pee” He’d replied, rather honest.  Five drink John B was a pretty honest dude.

“Pee by yourself” (y/n) giggled as a cringe crossed her features.  She started to take her hand out of his, but he was quick to grab hold of it again.

“Wait- no, I don’t wanna go alone” He whined, pulling her against his chest.

(y/n’s) pout remained, but she followed him anyways with a reluctant ‘fine’.

“I don’t wanna hold your hand while you pee though,” She’d told him once they got to the house.  “That’s weird, and kinda gross”

“Fine” John B muttered like it bothered him, making her laugh.

“You’re such a weirdo John B,” She said, and stood outside the bathroom door as he went in.  She quickly shut the door when he unzipped his pants, a shriek leaving her throat.  “Close the fucking door you dork!” She yelled, slamming the door shut for him, bursting into a fit of giggles at how weird he was at five drinks.

He usually didn’t drink much at these things, he liked to keep an eye on the party, and man the keg to make sure everyone was being safe with their underage drinking.

But for some reason tonight was different.

JJ stumbled past (y/n), a girl on his arm, and he almost kept walking to the guest room before he realized it was (y/n) standing there.

“What are you doin’ inside?” He asked, while the pretty brunette Touron was macking on his neck.

“John B had to pee” (y/n) shrugged back at him, trying her best to keep eye contact with him, and not look at the girl who was furiously sucking on his neck.

“You guys are weird,” JJ said, shaking his head before continuing to lead his hookup to his designated room.  

But he said one last thing to her before shutting the door behind him.

“Maybe you should tell him you’re in love with him”

(y/n) had laughed it off, just as John B came out of the bathroom, but the words sat at the front of her mind all night, until eventually, she thought ‘why not?’ and just went for it.

Huge mistake.

“I don’t know why I listened to JJ,” (y/n) muttered in irritation.  “Idiotic”

(y/n’s) phone buzzed, and she clicked on the notification.

[ John Booker ] : please call me back?

She typed back some bullshit excuse that she was busy right now, but she’d try to call him later.  It was a lie, she knew damn well she wasn’t going to call him.

“You’re looking at this all wrong” Kiara told her.  “You’re only seeing things from your point of view, you need to think of it from John B’s”

“I did, it made me feel worse”

“Not really though.  Did you ever wonder why he clung to you all night? Even when he went to the bathroom? Or why he doesn’t like other girls flirting with him?”

She brought up good points, and (y/n’s) heart skipped a beat as she listened, but she’d learned not to have too much hope when it came to other people’s feelings, because you never really know.

“I think you should call him back.  Or go over, he’s home now I think”

“Kie, you have way too much faith in me,” She mumbled, picking at the blankets on her bed.  “I think I’ve been scarred for life, I don’t think I’ll ever-”

She was cut off by a tapping on her window, but when she turned to see what it was, there was nothing there, so she ignored it and went back to Facetime.

“-I don’t think I’ll ever make a move again-” She finished, but there was another tap on the window.

Still nothing.

It was strange that it happened twice, but she didn’t feel like getting out of bed, so she pretended it was nothing.

“That’s kind of ridiculous, don’t you think?” Kiara teased.  “Besides, who else would you make a move on anyways?”

“Hey” (y/n) mumbled, offended by the comment.

“Come on, there’s no one for you but John B, you can admit it,” Her friend laughed.  “And there’s still a chance…”

Whatever she started to say, (y/n) couldn’t hear, because her phone lit up with a bunch of texts at once.

[ John Booker ] : i know you’re holed up in your room, would you come to the window already?

[ John Booker ] : i’m outside

[ John Booker ] : hurry up juliet

(y/n’s) heart nearly stopped in her chest.

“... and who knows? Maybe you just have to give him some time-”

“Oh my god, Kie-” (y/n) cut her off, scrambling off her bed.

“What? What’s wrong?”

“He’s here”

“Who?”

“John B, he’s here” (y/n) stated, and hurried over to her window.

Sure enough, standing outside two stories down, was John B, still throwing pebbles at her window like he was in some teen rom-com.

“Oh shit,” Kiara giggled.  “Go talk to him!”

When John B reared back to throw another rock, he noticed (y/n) was there this time, and his whole face broke out into a grin.

“Finally!” He hollered, throwing his arms up in the air.

“Oh my god” (y/n) mumbled.

Kiara was still laughing through the phone while (y/n) unlocked her window and slid it open, leaning out of it as she looked down at him.

“What the hell are you doing here?” She asked, making him bark out a laugh.

“You weren’t answering me! Now are you coming down or not?”

“I-” She started to say something, but he spoke up again.

“Don’t make me climb up there, Juliet” He said with a laugh.

“Stop calling me that,” (y/n) replied, but she couldn’t help the laugh she let out.  “I’ll be down in just a second”

With that, she retreated into her room, staring at her phone, hoping Kiara would give her literally any advice right now.

“Just go talk to him, you dork,” Kiara said.  “And call me later.  Love you! Bye-!”

“Wait, Kie-!”

But her phone beeped as Kiara hung up, and she was left staring at her Facetime call log.

She stuffed her phone in her pocket as she went out the front door, and rounded the corner to the side of the house, where John B was sitting in her yard, waiting patiently for her arrival.

“Oh good,” He smiled as he saw her, standing up and brushing the grass off his shorts.  “I thought I was gonna have to scale two stories, and last time I came over and did that I fell”

“Yeah, I remember,” (y/n) said with a soft chuckle.  “I thought you died or something, you laid there for so long-”

“Why have you been avoiding me?” He said suddenly, cutting right to the reason he came over.

(y/n) froze up, anxiety flooding over her like a tidal wave.

“Did you… did you not mean it?” He asked in a quieter voice.

“Not mean it?” (y/n) mumbled back, her heart sinking in her chest as she thought about it.  “Why would I say something like that and not mean it?”

“I don’t know, I don’t know what to think I mean- you say something like that and then you ran off and I haven’t seen you for a week”

“I- I’ve been busy” She mumbled uselessly.  

It was pointless to lie to him, she’s known him her whole life, he could read her like a book.  Any emotion she felt was like a headline on her forehead, easy for him to see and respond to.

“That’s bullshit,” He called her out, but he let out a small laugh after, letting her know he didn’t mean it to be hurtful.  “But… don’t you want to know how I feel? About you?” He asked her, stepping closer.

“Um, not really” She answered, her hands beginning to wring together.

“Not really?” He laughed again in surprise.

(y/n) shook her head, her eyes meeting his, even though she felt small and bashful under his gaze.  She knew it would be weird now, different, this is exactly how she expected to feel when she saw him again.

“No, I- I don’t want you to reject me, or pity me- we can just ignore it completely-” She started to explain herself, but John B laughed again, so she stopped.  “Why are you laughing?”

“Because, for being my best friend, I really don’t understand you sometimes,” John B answered.  “Why did you think I was going to reject you?”

(y/n’s) brows furrowed, and she gained some confidence from the annoyance she was currently feeling towards him.  How dare he be a cheeky asshole right now? Couldn’t he see how terrible she felt? How anxious she felt?

“Because,” She argued.  “I told you how I felt about you, and you didn’t say anything! Hell, you didn’t react at all”

“That doesn’t mean-”

“John B, that sucked,” She continued.  

Might as well be honest with him now.  If it was the answer he wanted, then fine.  She had nothing left to lose right? She’d thrown all dignity out the window last weekend at the kegger.  Why not her pride too?

“Do you know how embarrassing that was? I still want to be your friend, of course I do, but it was a mistake, I shouldn’t have-”

“You worry too much” John B said, and before she could react, probably by yelling some more, he crossed the space between them and kissed her.

She instantly swallowed her words and melted into his touch.  All anxieties and worries that she’d ruined their friendship washed away, and all that mattered was him.

Her arms practically flew around his neck as she reached up on the tips of her toes to reach him properly.  John B lost his balance at the sudden movements, stumbling for a moment, but he quickly stabilized them.

His hands cupped around her cheeks, keeping her close as their lips met again and again, and in all honestly, they both planned on standing outside all night and macking on each other.  They’d waited this long.

John B’s lips were just so warm and welcoming, they were easy for her to get attached to, and probably addicted to.

“Hey! No macking on Pogues!”

Unfortunately, Topper ruined the good mood.

(y/n) whirled around, catching sight of her brother as he was heading to his car.  She flipped him off, and stuck her tongue out for good measure.  It made John B laugh, despite Topper’s usual asshole-ness.

Topper just returned the gesture, but got in his car and left anyway.  (y/n) just hoped he was getting tired of keeping up the bad blood between the Figure Eight and The Cut.

When he left, she turned back to John B, a smile playing on her lips as she wrapped her small hands around his wrists.

“Now that he’s gone… wanna go inside and finish what we started?” She asked, only half teasing.

John B eagerly nodded, stealing another kiss from her.

“Abso-fuckin-lutely,” He said, and followed her out of the yard.  “But later we have to go back to mine, I told JJ and Pope that we’d hang out later tonight after we settled… this” He explained, gesturing between them.

“Wow, you were that certain you were gonna get the girl, huh?” (y/n) joked.

As they went inside, he shut the door behind him, and immediately grabbed her by the hips, pulling her flush against his chest.  The action made her cheeks flush red, and she bit her lip shyly.

“I mean, the girl did admit that she was hopelessly in love with me-”

“That’s not what I said-”

“And that she would just die if she couldn’t be with me, and she’s probably been waiting to kiss me for like, what has it been ten whole years?”

“John B,” (y/n) scolded, swatting half-heartedly at his chest.  “I didn’t say any of that”

“Out loud,” He corrected.  “You were definitely thinking it.  I could tell”

She rolled her eyes as her hands took hold of the collar of his shirt.

“Just shut up and kiss me, dork” ___

xoxo ~ jordie

[lolokiquit]

Without Me I

Word Count: 4.4k

Pairing: Jung Hoseok x F!Reader

Genre: Angst, fluff, smut (future chapters) I CEO au(?) idk what this should be catagorized as lol

“Tell me, how's it feel sittin' up there? Feelin' so high, but too far away to hold me.”

Without Me (Halsey)

“One day I’ll give you the world I promise.” You only allow yourself to think of him when you're drinking, only when you're drinking. In those nights where your mind is hazed with alcohol, and the guilt of everything begins to eat you alive slowly. You remember the way he used to look at you with the twinkle of the night sky or the way his eyes would crinkle whenever he laughed. You remember the nights where you whispered nothing into his ear and the days when he was your whole world. Then slowly, as those memories start to fade, you begin to recall the screaming, the way he always seemed to come home drunk with blood on his fingers, and the way you begged for him to quit. By the time the memories finished making their rounds, you couldn't stop the bitter taste from crawling back into your mouth. The morning glow outside your small apartment window has started to peek through the night sky, and you realized that you've spent yet another night lost in the man that you lost so many years ago.

"Hoseok, stop that tickles," you giggled as your boyfriend wrapped his arms around your waist. You're in the kitchen of your new home that you had just moved into, an apron on, and smiles as wide as the morning sun. It's been hard coming up with the money to finally move from your small hometown in Busan all the way to Seoul. But through all of your shifts in the convenience store to the restaurant down the street from your childhood home, the two of you had made it.

"You look like the perfect housewife," He giggles into your ear, "I promise one day when I finally make enough money to buy you that diamond ring, I'll ask you to marry me, and we'll live happily ever after," You think that this must be what heaven feels like.

Being at the fresh age of 23, you couldn't have been more naive. Everything that the world had to offer seemed too innocent, and your future with Hoseok seemed so bright. You saw a big house with a picket fence, children running in the backyard, and a loving husband in your arms.

"Yes," you think to yourself, "This is what my future is going to look like." Running your soft hands through his hair Hoseok's eyes glitter as he slowly whispers, "let's never change," mirroring his lovestruck eyes, you slowly whisper back, "ok."

Love is a strange thing. Growing up in a family where the sound of screaming and breaking glass was as expected as the sun rising, could anyone blame you for jumping at the first sign of affection you were shown? It was no surprise that the boy in a leather jacket and tattoos on his arms who promised you all of his love had you wrapped around his coarse fingers in record speed. Meeting him at seventeen, you began to think that maybe life didn't hate you so much after all. It wasn't like you had a choice. After all, his advances towards you swarmed your everyday life like cockroaches and cancer cells that infested every single part of your being. You found yourself unable to stop your doom. He became your reason for everything. You breathed into him almost as if he was the oxygen that ran through your bloodstream. You couldn't live without him.

Your friends had warned you about the boy that had magic in his eyes and sweet words on his lips telling you that you couldn't change a person like him, but you were too young and reckless to care. Maybe it was the glint of the galaxy and freedom in his eyes, or perhaps it was the lingering sense of loneliness that you felt as if the two of you shared. But at that moment, you knew you would risk it all for him.

It was an uneventful Tuesday afternoon. You stood in your local supermarket staring at the little amounts of money you had left in your hands. Your father had stopped sending his child support months ago. With your mother constantly drunk out of her mind, you and your siblings were now only surviving on the part-time job you worked at the coffee shop down the street. You slowly started adding up all the necessities you needed. Milk, eggs, toilet paper….Your brooding was cut short as the loud hooting and screaming of teenage boys filled your ears. Before you knew it, the whole store had turned into utter chaos. The group of, from what you could tell, 7 boys with guns and knives had started running around the store, looting whatever was in sight. The store manager had come out staring at the whole scenario playing out in front of him in shock. He started yelling as well, threatening to call the police as the boys simply laughed in response.

Soon, police sirens began to ring from a distance. You stood frozen solid to your spot by the tomatoes, and your shock slowly melted into fear. Were you going to die today? You didn't have much time to think when suddenly someone grabbed your hand and screamed "RUN" and started dragging you right along with him. You weren't sure if it was a pure reflex or the adventurous inner side of yourself finally showing. But you found your legs starting to move to their own accord as you began to zooming off with the random stranger.

You ran and ran like your life depended on it. The cold winter air ran through your hair, and for a moment, you finally felt like you could breathe again. As if some sort of craze has taken over you, you began to laugh maniacally like there was no tomorrow. You laughed and screamed along with the others as you continued to run. You went on without stopping until you reached the shores of a nearby beach.

The stranger finally let go of your hand, and for a moment, the world around you went still. You stood there staring at each other for what felt like forever before he finally spoke up with a grin. "Well, that was a good one, wasn't it?" He laughed as the boys that were with him also started to chuckle. You continued to stare, looking like a lost deer caught in headlights. "I'm sorry," the boy continued on. "You just looked like you needed something to spice up your life; you looked quite bored up there."

The realization that he was actually speaking to you and that you needed to form some sort of response hit you. You started fumbling for words, the shock from the previous events only now beginning to set in. "I-I yea I mean I.." you trailed off, being at a loss of words.

"It's ok, you can find the right words later. Now how about we continue on this adventure. It would be pretty pointless for you to stop now, wouldn't it be?" He replied before you had the chance to actually come up with a coherent sentence.

After a couple seconds, you came to the final conclusion that he was right. You pondered your options. You could either go home to your most likely drunk mother, who wouldn't have noticed that you had already missed your curfew, or you could take a chance for once in your life. You really didn't have much to lose, so you might as well finish what had already been started, right?

So off you went with him, getting on the back of his bike, you set off.

Riding across abandoned highways, you screamed at the top of your lungs and laughed as you've never done before. At that moment, you felt so free. The stranger promised to show you the brightest sky of stars you've ever seen in your life, and with a smile, you agreed.

You finished the night learning that the boy's name was Jung Hoseok. You memorized the stars in his eyes over the stars in the night sky. You'll never know what it was exactly that drove Jung Hoseok to grab you that day, perhaps fate? Or maybe he just needed a new play toy on that specific night. But at that moment, Jung Hoseok had become your own personal savior, a beam of light that shined down into your dying world. Whether he was an angel sent from above or the devil himself, you weren't sure, but one thing was for sure, you were in love.

But that was in the past. Now, you're stuck in a small apartment in the middle of Seoul alone, working an ok job, eating, sleeping, surviving. But Jung Hoseok, however, Jung Hoseok had become a living god. Even that in itself seemed to be an understatement. His power ran through the streets of Seoul and all the way around the world. Owning Seoul's most prominent and most influential company. No matter how you think about it, you can't seem to shake off the bubbling sense of anger. How you had abandoned your whole family, your whole life back in Busan to follow him here, to a foreign city that you didn't know. How you had stood by his side through all the questionable things he did and all the pain that he caused, only to be left on the curb when he finally decided that you were no longer good enough for him.

The truth was the fact that you had never really gotten over him. How could you? He was your world, your life, your everything. And the moment he walked out of your life, he took a part of you with him.

Sometimes you would reminisce on the old times. The days where the two of you were still trapped in that little town and had nothing else to hold but each other. Hoseok had always been the bigger dreamer out of the two of you. With his miniature gang activities within the town, he had always believed that there was something more. He wanted to see the world, to soar above the clouds, and to experience life. In fact, he was the one that had brought up the topic of Seoul first.

It was four in the morning, and the sun was about to rise as you and Hoseok lay at that beach where you had first met when he finally brought it up.

"Let's go to Seoul" the offer was so sudden, so out of the blue, that you laughed, thinking he was joking.

"I'm not joking," he starts again. "Let's go to Seoul. Let's get out of here."

"Hoseok," you say, slowly starting to sit up, "You can't be serious, can you? We're both dead broke. There's no way we can just spontaneously decide that we're going to Seoul."

You had just graduated high school a year ago and had immediately taken up several part-time shifts at places all across town to try to provide for your family. For people like you, the idea of college was merely a luxury that you couldn't afford.

“Jien-ah listen to me ok? Staying here is a dead-end road. We'll never be able to amount to anything" Hoseok stood up and started to shake the sand off of him. "You KNOW that we have to leave at one point or another. Didn't you want to go to college? We have futures. There are things out there for you to see, places to visit. We can't stay here. You know that"

You sat there, not knowing what to think. You knew deep down that Hoseok was right. You couldn't stay holed up in this good-for-nothing town forever. You had to leave. But you were scared, scared of change. The future seemed so terrifying you didn't know if you wanted to jeopardize your future more than needed.

It wasn't until weeks later did Hoseok bring up the topic of Seoul again. It was after another screaming match with your mother about her drinking habits. This time the two of you were sitting on the roof of your old high school. Your eyes were poofy after having cried out probably all of the water that was in your body when he asked the same question again, "let's run away to Seoul." This time, without hesitation, you answered, "ok."

The decision to move to Seoul with him was both the hardest and easiest one in your life. You knew you had to leave the town that trapped you. Still, the watering eyes of your siblings and the familiarity of everything around you made it so hard to leave. The hurt and betrayal that your siblings had felt the second you walked out of your run down house was enough to have you on your knees. But for once, you wanted to be selfish, to finally chase what you had wanted in life. So after much pondering and hundreds of shifts at your several part-time jobs, you finally packed all of your things in one suitcase, and you left. You walked out of that door, got on Hoseok's bike, and off the two of you drove. From that moment on, you never looked back because you knew that you couldn't. There was no longer a home that you could go to, no matter how crappy, no, Hoseok was all you had now.

Hoseok had told you before you moved that he had connections from old friends in Seoul that had gotten him a job. Apparently, this job had come with an apartment which meant that housing wouldn't be a problem. You, being the naive girl you were, never really questioned this said job and its description. Instead, you busied your first couple of weeks in Seoul, settling into your new apartment. Though it was small, it was still something that you and Hoseok could call your own. You found a job as a barista at the cafe down the street, and life began to fall into a comfortable routine.

For the first two years, the two of you were happy. Hoseok was doing well in his job, so well that two of you were able to enroll you in your nearby college, and you began to study literature. Hoseok never really discussed his job with you, claiming that he didn't like to bring work home. You never really asked either, accepting that his work was the only part of him that he likes to keep to himself. You busied yourself with work and school, you were finally able to live the life you had spent years being envious of. You went to college, made friends, had nights out, and had an amazing boyfriend that loved you. There was simply nothing that could bring you down from the high you were from. Little did you know that it was only the beginning

You set your steaming mug of hot tea on your nightstand, thinking fondly back to the years where your future had seemed so bright. Everything you could've imagined and more. You were finally on the right track, a college degree, hopefully, a good job, a stable income, and maybe children in the near future with a man that you loved. You had slowly begun to lose your edge, you no longer felt sorry for yourself, and slowly, you were starting to believe in the statement that as long as you work hard, you'll be able to reach the goal you had always been so desperately longing for.

But like most good things in your life, they don't last.

It's your fourth year in Seoul and your third year in college when you start noticing the shift in Hoseok's behavior. He left for work so early in the morning and came back so late that you almost never saw him. He seemed to come home later and later each day. The two of you no longer ate dinner together, or baked cookies, or watched your favorite movies, hell, you had barely had a proper conversation in weeks. He wouldn't reply to your messages, once again using work as an excuse, and never picked up your calls. It almost seemed as if you were dating a ghost.

Even though the whole situation made you feel uneasy and as if you were put on the back burner, you never brought it up to him. You were a coward. You were petrified because a part of you deep down knew what this meant, that he had lost interest. You don't blame him though, the two of you had been together for so long there was no longer anything new or exciting. He didn't take you on motorcycle rides anymore. Being in a large city like Seoul, there were no beaches to explore and no abandoned highways to see the stars from. He no longer had the time for you, and you knew it.

Hoseok's job had gotten even more important as time had passed by. He had been promoted and had been making more money than you could have ever imagined. Your little apartment had been traded in for a penthouse that was too big for you and no longer felt like home. Your wardrobe was filled with designer that you weren't used to. Hoseok had gotten rid of his leather jacket and motorcycle and traded them in for a Mercedes and expensive suits. He no longer smiled at you like the sun, and whenever he did smile, it almost seemed forced.

But you never bought any of this up; you simply greeted him with a smile and kiss whenever he had the time. Your mind would often wander off to places it shouldn't go; perhaps he was cheating on you? It wouldn't be hard for a man like him to find women that fancy him. He probably had millions lining up wanting and wishing for some of his attention. He was no longer the scruffy boy that took you on adventures and swore to protect you from the rest of the world.

There were days where you would lie on the king-sized bed you shared with your close to nonexistent boyfriend, thinking of the better days. The days where the two of you were cramped in that small apartment, the days where he would help you with dinner and almost burned down the house, the nights where you talked about everything and nothing at the same time. You ran your hands around the ring attached to the necklace that rests perfectly on your collarbones.

You were slowly stirring the boiling stew in your kitchen while anxiously stared at the clock. Hoseok should've been back hours ago. He hadn't called saying he would be late, and in the years you had been together, Jung Hoseok had never been late without calling. You were worried. It had been close to a year since you've moved to the big city, and life was going pretty well. Granted, there were still days where you and Hoseok struggled with the bills and had arguments like any other couple. But the two of you were living your dream lives, and it couldn't have been any better.

Right as you were about to get lost in your own daydream, Hoseok came bounding in like a kid on Christmas day.

"Hey, why didn't you call? I was so worried-" before you could finish, you scolding Hoseok had already folded you in his arms with a bear hug.

"I love you," He mumbled into your hair. "You know that, right? That I love you?"

"Of course I know. Jung Hoseok, is this your way of trying to get out of trouble? I swear-" But before you could finish the cut, you off again by whipping a small red box out of his pocket, and you gasped.

"Don't worry, I'm not about to propose to you in the middle of our kitchen," He laughed "that would be kind of lame. But this is for you" He opened the box and in it was a beautiful diamond ring. "I've been saving up for months. This isn't an engagement ring. It's only a man-made diamond. But one day-" He pointed outside your window, "I'll buy us a penthouse in one of those buildings in, and I'll really get down on one knee, then I'll ask you to marry me. But for now, this is just a promise ring. I promise one day I'll marry you." He looked up at you expectantly after his long speech. You were staring back at him with tears in your eyes as you choked out a simple "ok."

The two of you held each other for what felt like forever until you smelled something burning in the air, and you realized that the stew you had on the stove was now burnt.

You can't help but smile as you think back to those bittersweet memories. It's been over 4 years since Jung Hoseok has made that decisive step out of your life. But you still wore that necklace as a reminder of the better days. The days where the naive little girl in you still believed in love. When you still believed that as long as you gave in a relationship, you would surely receive.

You're smarter now; you've grown up. You no longer believed in the sweet words of others, and you no longer fell for sparkling eyes. Jung Hoseok had ruined that for you. You were rougher around the corners, and deep down, you knew that perhaps your story with him wasn't as special as you put it out to be because, in the end, you were just another one of his chapters to his never-ending story or girls. But sometimes, you liked to try to convince yourself that you had been something more. You can't help but think that maybe, you could've been something more.

It's midnight, and you've already had an entire bottle of champagne to yourself. Hoseok wasn't home, but that was no surprise. He never was. You laughed quietly at how pathetic you had become. Since when were you one to not speak your mind? But now, here you were terrified out of your mind at the notion of bringing up fears to your boyfriend, who, keep in mind, was supposed to be the one that you were to trust the most, he was supposed to be your home, he was all you had left. But no, you were a coward that was terrified of being alone, so you never brought it up in fear that he would leave you.

The front door creaked, then opened, and in walked Jung Hoseok in all of his broken glory. An expensive Armani suit `bedazzled with gold cuffs adorned his toned figure, paired with Louis Vuitton slippers and his newly acquired stoic expression. If you hadn't known any better, you would've mistaken him to be one of the born elites that the two of you used to despise. But you knew, you hoped and prayed that deep down, somewhere where light could still reach, the boy with shaggy brown hair that looked at you instead of the night sky still existed. That perhaps he was just a little lost and needed some coaxing to come back. Those were the thoughts that kept you sane as the past couple of months had unraveled.

Slowly you stood from your stool and made your way towards the front door. Hoseok was in the process of hanging up his trench coat when he noticed your presence, almost immediately freezing after the realization. There was an unexplainable tension in the air, a silence so thick it could've drowned you both. The two of you stood in front of each other. Either of you dared to utter a word. It was almost as if you both knew that once the conversation started, you would no longer be able to go back to pretending that everything was ok again. After what seemed like hours, you were the one that made the first move, maybe it was the alcohol in your veins that prompted your next words, but at that moment, with all the pent-up anxiety and hurt, you no longer cared. Mustering up all your courage, you finally asked him the question that you had been dying to know. "Do you still love me?"

Deep down, you both knew that the end was inevitable. You both wanted different things now. While you were still envisioning white picket fences and running children, Hoseok had started to see more. He wanted power and control, he wanted to be known, to be respected, and he knew that all of that would have to come at a price. He was selfish, he didn't want to have to choose, no he wanted to have both.

It's three in the morning, and Jung Hoseok stood on the roof of his million-dollar penthouse. The wind was blowing, the skies dark, signaling the arrival of a storm. As Hoseok starred up into the seemingly endless sky, his own storm brewing inside his head. The world underneath him seemed so distant and small, almost ant-like. Compared to his inner hurricane, all the Honks and raging cars of the rush hour seemed practically serene.

 As expected, he started hearing her calling out to him from a distance. She whispered his name, soft and gentle, like the waves by the beach she used to love so much. Hoseok would often hear the voice in the distant winds. It was as if she was so close, just in hand's reach. But whenever he reached out to grab her, she would disappear again.

She was the air he breathed, the drug that he couldn't cut, and if her love were the ocean, he would willingly drown in it. He would do anything just to escape this endless wondering and meaningless life of counting off the days. He would do anything to be able to breathe again. Without her, he was colorblind; his world became a black and white movie that he couldn't quite wrap his head around. Because if we were honest, what was the point of a prince charming without his princess, and what's so heroic about the knight in shining armor without his damsel in distress. Without her, he meant nothing, and his life was meaningless.

Perhaps that was what it was meant to be all along, a tragedy, another pair of star-crossed lovers that bit the dust.

[novantinuum]

Intake (SUF one-shot)

Fandom: Steven Universe

Rating: Teen Audiences (TW: brief discussion of mental illness related topics like suicide ideation and intrusive thoughts.)

Words: 2800

Summary: Steven fills out an important form.

This is set multiple months pre The Future, and is a small glimpse into Steven’s journey to find a therapist.

If you read this and enjoy, I’d greatly appreciate your support through reblogs here, or kudos/comments on AO3 as well. AO3 link will be provided in the reblogs. Thank you! <3

____

His leg bounces with a restless fervor as he slumps in the waiting room chair, clutching the clipboard and pencil the receptionist gave him with a white knuckled grip. Gaze hardened, he takes a good long look at the other patients spread across the room, a few of them appearing equally as spent and fidgety as him, and hunches over the intake form so his answers will be conclusively obscured from their view.

He grimaces. Ugh. Why would a place like this lay out their chairs so close, anyways? Why even give people the option of being nosey? He may be stuck seeing this therapist Connie’s mom recommended because he’s all messed up in the head, but it’s not like he wants the whole planet to know about it. Goodness knows all of Beach City and Little Homeworld already does thanks to his little ‘incident’ a month back. That’s bad enough.

His chest almost feeling hollow as he sighs, he scrawls in his name, his birthday, his cell number, address, and an emergency contact (Dad, who left for the car to give him privacy after signing a few forms he can’t fill out as a minor) on the lines indicated. He leaves out his many middle names for once, all of them leaving a bitter taste in his mouth at this present moment. Briefly, he wonders if this will be a problem, as these past few weeks Dr. Maheswaran assisted his dad in finally acquiring legal documentation and health insurance for him, and per those records he’s officially ‘Steven Quartz Universe’ in the eyes of the law.

Eventually he shrugs, figuring the likelihood of there being another sixteen-year-old ‘Steven Universe’ here today to confuse him with is nearing zero.

Okay, what’s next?

He briefly skims over the next few passages— a bunch of legalese about the terms of counselor-patient confidentiality and when they might have to breach that for safety reasons— and signs where indicated so they know he looked over it.

Someone sitting two chairs away coughs. He can’t help but flinch at the sudden noise, and folds himself tighter in his own seat as he flips over the first page of the form and continues to read.

In a few words, explain why you’ve chosen to reach out to us today. How can we help you?

Steven frowns, fingers twitching around the shaft of the pencil as he contemplates how to respond. For whatever reason, the question “explain why you’re here” feels very blunt and antagonistic to him in a way he can’t quite ascertain. Like... in a “give the wrong answer, get booted right out the door” sorta way. He lifts his head, peering at all the humans spread across the room, each and every one with their own story, the central character of their own worlds. Some are texting on their phones as they wait for the receptionist to call their names, others are filling out forms as well. What brought these people here, he wonders? Surely there’s plenty of people having a worse time than him right now. Surely there’s people with real problems, people who are literally struggling just to stay alive from day-to-day. He’s not like that, right? Besides that one little wobble a month back, he’s been handling his problems on his own fairly okay. Hasn’t he? So what makes him selfish enough to think that he’s worth anyone’s time?

In his pocket his phone vibrates, knocking him back into reality. He yanks it out and switches it on to look at the new text splashed across the lock screen:

Dad: Hey Schtu-ball, just wanna let you know that I’m proud of you and love you very much. You’ve got this!

He stares at these words for a good minute, the kind sentiment— despite reading as a little hopelessly over-encouraging— filling the hollow space in his chest partway. Even if his dad’s been a bit overbearing in his affections this past month, it’s clear he means well.

So. Why am I here today, he thinks, reading the question over again. He folds his fingers up into a stiff fist, pulling his thumb across his knuckles. After licking his chapped lips and shoving his phone back in his pocket, he scribbles a hasty reply.

I feel really angry and empty and tense and just want to be better.

The teen pauses, allowing those words to echo over and over in his mind, to truly sink in. It’s such a succinct and to-the-point admission that he suddenly wonders why he ever doubted he was less deserving of aid than anyone else in this waiting room.

His countenance a little lighter now and his shoulders growing less stiff, he moves on to the next section.

To aid our counselors in providing you the best possible care, please rate the following statements on a scale from zero to four, zero meaning “not at all like me,” and four meaning “extremely like me.”

Steven’s eyes dart across the length of the massive table below these instructions, his previous anxiety rushing back into his brittle bones as if it’d never left. Each row is host to a short sentence and five blank boxes, numbered zero to four. Read it and rate yourself, right? Should be simple enough. But as his glance flits over these statements and he understands the sort of personal, probing questions they’re asking through them, he begins to mistrust his previous burst of optimism. Dread floods his system, making his cheeks flush bright pink. Heart pounding at the mere thought of people staring, he drops his head lower, successfully hiding most of his face behind the clipboard until he can coax that betraying glow into fading away.

In the end, this goes to prove that it doesn’t matter if everyone says therapy will be ‘helpful’ for him; reflecting on all this junk is still gonna suck.

Quietly, he takes a steadying breath and forces himself to read on, to crack open the hornet’s nest that is the depths of his crap brain.

1. I am shy around others.

He considers this for a moment. Shy. Historically, this has never been a word people would use to describe him. For years he reveled in the thrill of meeting new people, new Gems. His childhood eagerness to engage in fellowship with those around is half the reason Era 3 even exists. And he’s fine around people he knows. Like, on a rare good day he has no problem playing board games or watching cheesy soap operas with his friends. But to be fair... as of late, his eagerness to meet anyone new feels like it’s all but vanished. Is that being shy? Or is that just him failing to care for anyone beyond his inner circle?

With a small shrug he checks the box for one, and moves on.

2. I don’t enjoy being around people as much as I used to.

Hmm. Probably a three. People are unintentionally exhausting these days. He used to be energized by social interaction, and now it just leaves him sucked dry. Most days he’d rather stick to his room.

3. I feel isolated and alone.

The weight of the diamond embedded in his belly— something he normally barely notices— grows ever more apparent as he marks off a four.

4. My heart often races for no good reason.

Uh, yeah. What happened just a minute ago is a pretty good tell. Four.

5. I have spells of terror or panic.

Another four.

6. I am anxious that I might have a panic attack while in public.

Four once more. He holds his pencil tighter, squirming in his seat as he tries (and fails) not to think about the pale scars spread across his back, hidden in his hairline, and on the underside of his arms, indentations that once marked the base of the crystalline spines that jut out from between his scales.

7. I think about food more than I’d like to.

Steven pauses at this one. For once, he’s not sure he can say this statement applies to him. Truth be told, he only started caring about what he put in his mouth earlier this year, when he cut meat and fish out of his diet. And that’s not... a bad thing? It’s not bad to want to consider the impact your food choices have on the environment? He definitely didn’t choose to do so for self-denying reasons, and that’s probably what they’re asking about. He checks zero, and moves on.

8. I feel out of control when I eat.

He almost checks another zero, but then he remembers that day after the proposal... and the week after his incident. And he decides that even if he doesn’t consciously obsess over the food he eats, there’s still a few occasions where once he starts snacking he finds it difficult to stop. A one it is, then.

9. I have sleep difficulties.

This statement nearly makes him laugh. Does he have sleep difficulties. Hah. He doesn’t think he’s gotten a truly restful night of sleep since he sacrificed himself to Homeworld at fourteen.

A solid four. No question.

10. My thoughts are racing.

Four.

11. I feel uncomfortable around people I don’t know.

Hmm. Two.

12. I drink alcohol frequently.

The only alcohol he’s ever had is a tiny sip of his dad’s with permission at Garnet’s wedding reception, and it tasted terrible. He has no interest in drinking again. Zero.

13. When I drink alcohol I can’t remember what happened.

Zero.

14. I drink more than I should.

Zero again.

15. I have done something I have regretted because of drinking.

Another zero. It almost makes him feel better, just knowing there’s a decent number of lines on this paper that aren’t a carbon copy of his lived experience.

16. I feel sad all the time.

Aaaand back to “the story of his life.” Briefly, he wonders if ‘feeling sad’ is the same thing as feeling nothing at all. But then again, does the difference really matter? He checks the box for three.

17. I am concerned that other people don’t like me.

Three. Although honestly, he’s even more concerned that people continue to like him after everything he’s done.

18. I feel worthless.

Steven nibbles at the inside of his cheek as he reads this statement, memories automatically flashing through the pathetic events of the last few weeks, through all the days he barely crawled out from under his covers, all the days he didn’t even manage to brush his teeth or run his fingers through his greasy, knotted hair, all those awful days he couldn’t so much as play one of his video games without growing tired of it in minutes and taking a restless nap for the rest of the afternoon instead.

Four.

19. I feel helpless.

Two. Everyday affairs are a drag, but at the very least he knows he can fight his way out of danger in a pinch. He wouldn’t call that helpless.

20. I have thoughts of ending my life.

He freezes. Goes back, reads this line again. Reads it a third time to make sure he’s not horrendously misconstruing the prompt he’s been given.

(Tries not to think too deeply about the graphic images that flood his imagination some nights. It’s just stray thoughts, though. He’s fine.)

One, he marks, although his muscles can’t help but twitch as he shifts his wrist, as if deep down he knows he’s underplaying his answer.

21. I feel tense.

Steven gives a small snort under his breath. Yeah, he outright admitted as much earlier in this form. Four.

22. I get angry easily.

His grip tightens.

Four.

23. I have difficulty controlling my temper.

He swallows hard, his mouth feeling abnormally dry. He’s not sure he likes how blunt and probing this questionnaire is becoming.

Four...

24. I sometimes feel like breaking or smashing things.

His knuckles go white around his pencil, and he only barely resists the temptation to snap it in half as he feels a rush of hard light flow the distance from his gem through the veins of his arm. Geeze, it’s not like he means to break things! It’s just that all of his stupid powers are linked with his emotions, and whenever he gets even marginally upset now things start to splinter, crack in half, and inevitably end up broken. Just another sign he’s fated to ruin everything around him forever, and that his intent doesn’t matter. Why do they have to pry into this? He already feels terrible enough for thinking these things.

Three, he checks, his eyes damp, but mostly because he’s too scared what their response will be otherwise.

25. I am not able to concentrate as well as usual.

He takes a deep breath, coaxing his body to return to a baseline state. Eh. He’ll give this a two.

26. I feel self-conscious around others.

His glance skirts over the edge of the clipboard to monitor the four others currently spread out across the room. One’s rhythmically swinging their legs, another is still filling out a form like him, but sitting criss-cross on the chair, and the other two are quietly typing on their phones. Thankfully none of them are pressing an ounce of attention his way, (at least, not right now), but that doesn’t stop him from feeling like an exposed nerve. Three.

27. I am afraid I may lose control and act violently.

The raw memories hit like lightning before he can even think to prepare.

Flashes of Pink. Orange fragments, cold and slick in his palms. Thunder splits the skies overhead, each cacophonous sound manifesting in perfect synchronicity with his erratic heartbeat, with each tidal wave of thoughts gushing like a maelstrom through his head: SHATTERER, I’m a shatterer, I’m—

Feeling almost dizzy from the intensity of his heart’s pulse, he knows with full certainty that his cheeks are glowing bright pink again. All he can do is clench his fists, suck down whatever amount of fresh air his lungs will allow, and pray to the very stars themselves that it’ll fade away before it garners the attention of every last human in this place.

He checks the box for four, pencil marking so hard that slivers of graphite splinter off onto the page, and moves on before he can be cowardly enough to change his answer.

28. I have thoughts of hurting others.

His fingernails claw into the thin denim at his knee, limbs outright quivering as he stews in his seat, as he’s forced to reflect upon all the ugly, ugly thoughts that have flit across his awareness over the past weeks. Thoughts about one Gem specifically. He’s... always been angry, always harbored deep resentment... but ever since his most recent trip to visit Her, he hasn’t been able to shake this awful idea: a vision of him standing over the remnants of her gemstone, shattered, fragments spilled across the otherwise pristine floors of Homeworld. He... he didn’t do it when he had the chance. He wouldn’t do it, would he?

(Orange fragments, cold and slick...)

Would he??

And yet nevertheless, the thought tortures him with its frequency, makes him feel downright nauseous at every turn. He doesn’t want it. He doesn’t want to feel this way at all.

Four.

29. I am unable to keep up with my schoolwork.

Stop. Sharp inhale. Staccato, shaky exhale. Repeat, deeper this time. Repeat.

(He can no longer see neon pink reflecting in the smooth metal clasp at the top of his clipboard.)

Okay. Schoolwork.

N/A, he writes in one of the boxes, arm still trembling from the last two questions despite his attempt at cool-down exercises. Not applicable. He hasn’t even been to school, and dreads the inevitability of this therapist asking about that mess.

30. It’s hard to stay motivated for my classes.

N/A.

31. I feel confident that I can succeed academically.

N/A, once more.

And like that, the questionnaire is over. Steven is quick to hide his answers behind the front page, and slides the pencil through the length of the metal clip. He glances around him, drinking in his surroundings with pinpoint precision. Despite his earlier concerns, no one is maliciously staring. No one’s whispering. He internally wrestled with a few challenging subjects and what do you know, it didn’t end in an embarrassingly public meltdown. He— he wipes a stray tear from his eye with the butt of his palm— he took a solid step forward today.

Coercing his body to move, he pulls himself out of the cushioned chair and crosses the room.

“I finished,” he says softly, proudly, as he hands the clipboard and pencil to the receptionist. She smiles and accepts his hard-fought offering.

For the first time in a while, the smile he instinctively flashes back almost feels genuine.

I want to be better, he thinks. I will be better.

____

Notes:

This fic is loosely based on my own experience of the intake process, and the questionnaire I had to fill out. No two intake experiences are the same though, of course. This is merely one possibility. I also take personal liberties on the way I depict Steven’s struggle with mental health, and acknowledge and respect that no two fans’ interpretation will be the same.

Additional notes: -Steven’s still a minor, so he can’t actually sign contracts. I figure Greg signed a handful of forms beforehand as his guardian, and then left to allow his son a bit of privacy with filling out the questionnaire stuff. Since he's a teen, they're still giving him the full confidentiality clauses to look over so he's wholly aware how that works, though.

-To expand on a brief comment made in the midst of this, I headcanon that Steven cut both meat and fish out of his diet, and thus actually slipped up on his vegetarian diet when he was training with Jasper. I interpret this as further showcasing how the poor kid— due to being mentally vulnerable at the time and thus liable to coercion/unwise decisions— began to take actions that went against much of his established morality. He ended up sacrificing his dietary choices during those days, just like he briefly sacrificed his pacifistic views to fight Jasper.

-I also headcanon that the therapist Steven is going in to see after this isn’t the one he eventually sticks with and mentions as “my new therapist” in The Future. It’s totally normal and okay to try a few different people to find someone who you click with, after all.

Thank you for reading!