#there’s an ice storm and everything outside is covered in a thick layer of ice

[neondiamond]

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[valeriianz]

Here’s another half-formed dreamling fic with them stuck in a snow storm while flurries currently whistle past my windows (and cover my screens in white).

Dream, sitting on the floor of his kitchen, surrounded by candles because the power is out, and sipping a glass of red wine. He’s bundled in a blanket and desperately failing to conserve battery on his phone, by texting Hob, who’s also lost power.

Dream slouches back against his oven, of which the burners are on to give off some blessed heat (thank God his oven is gas), while he reads the latest message from Hob, lamenting how bleeding cold it is in his own apartment, a newly renovated chrome building on the edge of the city, where everything, including the heat, was electric.

Dream mourns for him, even though Hob makes light of the situation with his witty texts and flirtatious hints of how Dream could warm him up.

They’d only been on a handful of dates, not yet fallen into bed together… Dream awkwardly explaining to Hob that it took a while, if at all, for sexual attraction to form within a new relationship. Hob had, surprisingly, taken it in stride. Becoming patient and thoughtful, always communicating, and never pushing Dream’s limits. 

It was refreshing, and– to Dream’s complete surprise– he’d found himself falling hard for the other man. Who knew a simple acknowledgment to boundaries would get him so wound up? His pulse quickened with every smile Hob gave him, his stomach tying itself in knots whenever Hob would take his hand, and his brain completely shutting off when Hob would kiss him. Chaste things that had progressively turned more and more heated with every encounter. Promising something more and more each time they met.

Currently, the sounds of his windows rattling from the flurries outside fill his dark apartment, along with the flutter of the open flames on his stove, and the quiet drip, drip, drip of the kitchen tap (to prevent frozen pipes, Dream had learned that lesson the hard way last winter).

After about an hour of texting Hob, Dream nearly halfway done with the bottle of wine, he receives a text that makes his heart jump.

So, what if i told you im actually outside your building?

Dream stood up so suddenly the candles around him nearly snuffed themselves out.

He yanked on his boots and pulled on his oversized winter coat, stumbling to his front door and marching down the stairs of the apartment complex he resided in, the age of which you could smell in its walls, see in the cracks and warps in the wooden floors. He made it down to the entrance and pulled open the door, the ice cold wind smacking Dream in the face immediately.

But then he saw a smudge of brown in the whiteness approaching. Dream kicked down the snow that had piled up at the door and waded forward in knee deep snow to meet Hob halfway and help him past the threshold.

Once the door slammed shut behind them, Dream took a proper look at Hob.

“You look like the abominable snowman.”

Hob laughed. He was absolutely covered in snow, piled high on his shoulders, his boots, even on his eyelashes.

“I feel like one.” Hob said, his voice cracked and breathless.

Once they’re back inside Dream’s apartment, and Hob’s outer layers have been stripped off and hung in the shower to drip dry, Dream sets off to boil water on the stove top for tea.

They sit on Dream’s couch, sharing a blanket and sipping tea while Dream admonishes Hob for coming out in the middle of a storm. What was he thinking?? To which Hob just shrugs and curls his nearly numb fingers around the hot mug, snuggling even further into Dream’s side and sighing.

“Worth it, to see you.”

“You’re insane,” Dream says, but smiles through it. 

Hob’s skin glows with the orange and yellow flickering of the candles, his features softening and barely noticeable in the limited light. But Dream knows them by now. Knows the curve of Hob’s thick, dark eyebrows, down to the scruff of his jaw, and back up to the prominent shape of his nose. He’s always handsome, but right now, shadowed in soft light and his cheeks still pink from the cold, he’s lovely. And Dream can’t help but set his mug down, taking Hob’s as well, and kissing him.

His lips arm warm from the tea, and he tastes of lavender and honey, and it makes Dream want. Want to climb onto Hob’s lap and crawl inside him. Make a nest for himself– warm and safe and cared for under Hob’s breast bone. There he could listen to the rhythmic beat of his heart, how it thunders now, under Dream’s hand as he caresses down Hob’s sweater and gets teasing fingers under the hem, touching the soft flesh of his hips and stomach.

Hob moans into his mouth, making Dream’s skull vibrate and he nearly gives in, something dark and unknown swirling in his lower belly that drives his fingers to press harder, feel the texture of Hob’s skin, the smattering of hairs at his stomach, but he forces himself to slow down, to take it easy, to enjoy and luxuriate in what they have now. 

Hob, miraculously, follows along. His own hands cupping each side of Dream’s head and only getting his fingers in his hair, matching Dream’s pace, kissing back with no intention of more unless Dream initiated. Moving his mouth at Dream’s pace, breaking apart and nudging his nose and lips under his jaw and nuzzling behind Dream’s ear and making him shudder pleasantly.

“Dream, Dream…” Hob mumbles, seemingly content in just kissing, just holding one another. “I could do this for hours.”

Dream grips the hem of Hob’s sweater, holding tightly as to prevent himself from ripping it off Hob. Another time, very soon, he knows. Dream has every intention to give into the temptation that is Hob Gadling, but the waiting is so much more fun. The anticipation, the slow understanding of his own feelings brimming up to the surface, will be that much more satisfying when he’s certain Hob will reciprocate them.

Hob just might love him back, right now. But Dream waits. Though, he does allow himself a confession:

“I could do this forever.”

[foreveralwaysanauthor]

The Stories That Shaped Us

March 13, 2024

Notes - When I said I would be done by the end of the week, I genuinely thought it would take that long to work through everything, but here we are! I finished it all late last night, and it's finally here!

Our history is a beautiful medley of memories that has been perfected over time.

Warm, tan hands ran up and down arms covered in goosebumps, encouraging the flesh to warm as emerald eyes peered through a frost-covered window. A disgruntled sigh breathed heat against the glass, creating fog in the space that a thin sleeve had once cleared. Those same emerald eyes rolled behind rounded glasses as a hand reached up and cleared a spot on the window once more. Why she even bothered to look outside was beyond her - she would only see the same thick blanket of snow she had minutes prior. Despite this knowledge, however, tired eyes scoured for any semblance of the street underneath the nor’easter’s grip on the state the young brunette called home.

Nor’easters weren’t unheard of for February as it was still winter, but nobody in a snowy region liked to hear the word tossed around so close to the turn of spring. Two days earlier, most of the northeastern states and parts of Canada had experienced what they would all call a “winter heatwave.” However, those clear skies, temperatures just grazing sixty degrees, and people donning their favorite pair of shorts as they walked through town were long gone as thick, gray clouds kept the area cold with snow.

They had known the storm was coming days before it arrived. California had gotten nailed by not only rain but a rather ungodly amount of snow for the typically toasty state. Rain had battered the unsuspecting state, producing a layer of black ice on more than one city as the temperatures dropped and snow began flurrying to the ground. Not long after the snow had begun in her home state, Mick had called to laugh about the awful drivers who chose to brave the unusual storm, resulting in a many-miles-long traffic jam on many of the state’s biggest highways. Now, Vivien wasn’t laughing.

Typically, a nor’easter wasn’t a huge deal in many New England states. Those living in Connecticut would open their front doors hoping to see a dusting, only to find out they had at least eight inches on their hands; Rhode Islanders would laugh as they brushed off their cars and headed to work; Massachusetts residents - or Massholes as they so proudly called themselves - would start cussing at the sky before slipping on a coat and hoping the roads to the nearest Dunkin’s were open as they shoveled out their cars; people from Vermont and New Hampshire would just be grateful they hadn’t gotten as much as Massachusetts or the Maine seaboard; and those living in Maine would simply put on a thicker coat and go about their day as though nothing had happened. Small nor’easters bringing five to ten inches of snow were common, and despite everyone hating them equally as much as the next person, those living in the affected states had learned to adapt over the years.

This storm, on the other hand, was different.

The day before, while working on a quiz for her robotics class, Vivien saw the shadow of snowflakes flurrying down across her desk. She soon regretted looking up from her papers as she saw thick white flakes sailing through the air, an inch or so already blanketing the flimsy branches of the seasonally dead shrubs outside the window. By the time the bell rang and signaled her release from the prison named Winnisquam Regional, the air had turned frigid, and a few inches of thick, slushy snow had begun to coat the ground. As her father had to work late to ensure everything was locked away before they took the next week off, Vivien got a ride home from Riven. Her stay at home didn’t last long as she bagged up some clothes and said a quick farewell to her siblings before dashing back out to the Miata she relentlessly teased Riven for buying a year prior. 

After grabbing snacks at Cumberland Farms and picking up his order from the pizza place across from the end of his street, Riven drove them halfway down Whipple Avenue and pulled into the driveway, parking his car in the garage with a relieved sigh. After gathering their belongings and making sure Vivien sent a text to her family’s group chat to remind them that she was spending the weekend at Riven’s house to work on some new song ideas, they made their way inside and set up camp on the living room couch.

By the time Riven’s father returned home from his job at the police station, half of their respective pizzas were gone, and both Vivien and Riven were singing along to Hamilton as it blared over the speakers. They talked for a while about the torrent of snow that had begun to attack the area before the man snagged some pizza and headed for his office to touch base with the local plow companies. After playing video games for a few hours, Riven and Vivien made their way to Riven’s bedroom, closing the door so they wouldn’t bother the auburn-haired nineteen-year-old’s father as they worked on writing songs.

A few hours went by with little to no progress - as had been the norm for their writing once the school year and winter season took control of their lives - but they found it impossible to beat themselves up over it as they had spent the majority of their time together goofing off and listening to other bands for inspiration. Around seven, a knock on the door encouraged them to leave the room in favor of joining Riven’s father for ice cream and a movie. Anthony - or Tony, as he preferred to be called - had set up a makeshift ice cream sundae bar on the kitchen counter and handed the kids each a bowl as they followed him into the room.

After watching an old Pixar movie and suffering through the ten o’clock news, Riven pulled Vivien off the living room couch and wished his dad a good night before dragging his best friend down the hall to his room, hoping to escape before the eleven o’clock news started. If they had stuck around much longer, they would have been stuck listening to the same reports for another half-hour. After a while of mindlessly playing Minecraft and taking turns annihilating each other at Mario Kart, the two fell asleep while watching YouTube videos together.

It wasn’t the first - and, frankly, wouldn’t be the last - time Vivien fell asleep in Riven’s cushy, king-sized, memory foam mattress with her head pillowed above his heartbeat. She had found peace in his presence for as long as she could remember. More than once, she had claimed Riven’s oversized mattress as her own after long, tiring practices and only left when Riven or his father dared to wake her in the morning. The pale blue house on Whipple Avenue was a place of refuge from her chaotic life - an escape from her siblings, school drama, and, well, pretty much anything. If she needed a break, she knew she could find it within the cream and teal walls.

Riven’s bedroom was his sanctuary, and as she spent more and more time there after school or practice, it became Vivien’s sanctuary as well. The pair had spent hours together there, working on school projects, writing songs for their band to work on, creating fantasy worlds for Dungeons and Dragons, and playing video games until the sun began to peer through the curtains. She had many fond memories of the Hewlett home from over the years - game nights, Nerf gun fights, late-night movie marathons, and impromptu band practices in the basement. However, it didn’t matter how old they got; their nights would still end the same - the pair passed out in bed without either one having the forethought to set an alarm for the morning.

The first thing Vivien had done when she woke up in the frigid abyss that was Riven’s bedroom was check how the outside world looked. Needless to say, she regretted bothering to look. Ice frosted the window shut, but she didn’t need to open it to see just how badly the storm had settled over their small town. Deciding to go on Riven’s computer while he slept, Vivien found the internet to be dreadfully slow, so as she used her cell phone’s hotspot as WiFi, she looked up outages in the area. Comcast, the only internet provider for their area, was down, as was most of the electricity in several states. By the time Riven had awoken, she had gone back to playing Minecraft to distract herself from the possibility of being trapped inside due to the storm.

Upon making their way to the living room to grab something for breakfast, they overheard the news reporter talking about mass power outages and the absurd amount of snow that had fallen overnight. Six inches had fallen overnight alone, bringing the total snowfall to a whopping ten inches. Closings lined the bottom of the screen, and even though her school wasn’t open that particular Friday - something about closing grades for report cards - Vivien smiled as she watched Winnisquam Regional appear alongside its elementary and middle school companions. 

Swiping the fog from the living room window once again while Riven and his dad made breakfast in the other room, she snickered to herself and watched some of the neighborhood children run outside in their Michelin-Man-esque snow gear. All too soon, they would be shoving each other into the snow, building forts, or pelting each other with slushy, ice-filled snowballs. It felt like forever since Vivien had done anything like that. Sure, when Mick lived in the area during the winters, they spent afternoons in the snow at the older girl’s house with the whole extended family, and when they both had the chance, Riven would take her to the park, where they would spend hours sledding and just enjoying each other’s company. Still, nothing could beat the feeling of having a snow day and having the chance to mess around with the other kids. Nowadays, even her siblings couldn’t find the time to hang out like they used to.

Vivien sighed. In a way, she sort of missed them being practically up her ass all the time.

“Over five hundred thousand residents have been left without power as town, county, and state workers struggle to clear the streets for emergency personnel and recovery crews,” the monotonous Jack Wu - the only news reporter on their local station who seemed to never smile despite the cameras - said for what felt like the thousandth time since they had turned the television on that morning. If it had been up to her or Riven, they would be watching something else; however, it was Riven’s dad who had control of the remote as he had beaten them to the living room that morning. 

Turning her attention to the television, Vivien watched as the ever-smiling Ciara Knight gestured to map behind her while she read off the teleprompter, “Parts of the coast observed wind gusts of sixty miles an hour or more. Parts of Cheshire, Hillsborough, and Rockingham Counties have the most accumulation thus far. Still, as the storm moves further north, those in the middle counties - Sullivan, Merrimack, Belknap, and Strafford - should expect to be inside for a while.”

“How much are they looking at, Ciara?” Jack Wu asked.

“Anywhere from eighteen to twenty-four inches by tonight, Jack,” Ciara answered.

Vivien rolled her eyes at the thought and forced herself to tune out the television as a clang followed by a deep scraping noise drew her attention back to the window. The thick blanket of snow would have been blinding if it weren’t for the gray clouds overhead, and Vivien sighed as she watched a plow truck shove a load of thick powder onto the end of Riven’s driveway as it drove down the dead-end street. With a frustrated huff, she mused, “Why do they always feel the need to make other people shovel up their mess?”

“Because, unless it’s their house, they don’t really give a shit,” Riven claimed as he handed his brunette friend a cup of steaming chocolate.

“Actually,” Riven’s father, Anthony, began as he entered the room with plates balanced precariously on his arms, “the head of the parks department offers to come by and clear us out every year, but I turn them down.”

“How come?” Vivien asked as she and Riven found their way to the dining table. “You always complain about the snow.”

“I clear our driveway as an excuse to help the elderly in the neighborhood,” Anthony claimed. “If I don’t help them out, they’ll try to do it themselves.”

“Plus,” Riven started with a smirk, “it gives him a reason to talk to his girlfriend.”

“Girlfriend?” Vivien echoed as a grin tugged at her lips. Anthony sighed, an exasperated look on his face as Vivien turned her attention toward him and asked, “You’re cheating on my dad?”

Riven’s father chuckled, a fond shake of his head coming with it as he recalled the age-old joke that ran between their families. What had started years prior as a misunderstanding when the two men attended a “Mommy and Me” class together to make sure they both knew how to fix Vivien’s unruly hair for performances had evolved into a running joke about the two men being in a years-long relationship. The situation was only made worse when Vivien and Riven found out that common-law marriages were a thing, and the pair subsequently resorted to teasing their respective parents on the matter.

“No, I’m not,” Anthony said before taking a sip of his coffee and leveling his gaze on his son. “And, for the record, Diana isn’t my girlfriend. She’s just Miss Patsy’s caretaker.”

“But you can’t say you don’t like talking to her when you’re over there,” Riven said as he placed his cup of hot chocolate on the table. 

“I don’t have much of a choice, son,” Anthony sighed. “She practically lives with the Warrens.”

Figuring he was getting nowhere with his father, Riven turned to Vivien and said, “She comes out onto the porch and flirts with Dad while he shovels the walkway.”

“Oh yeah?”

Despite the hint of a smile beneath the man’s salt-and-pepper, Tony-Stark-esque facial hair, Anthony groaned, “Don’t encourage him, Vivien.”

Riven nodded, decidedly ignoring his father as he smiled at his closest friend, “Sometimes, she’ll invite him in for cocoa or cookies, even if the Warrens aren’t home from the senior center yet.”

“Ooh,” Vivien vocalized, turning her glittering green eyes on the older man across the table. “Get some, Uncle Tony.”

“I don’t ‘get’ anything other than what she offers,” Anthony claimed, ignoring his son’s laugh at his choice of words. “I don’t have any plans to start another relationship.”

“Because you’re still married to my dad?” Vivien asked somewhat rhetorically.

Instead of letting his father answer, Riven spoke, “No, he just turns every woman down because they’re not my mom.”

“Really?” Vivien wondered as she tossed a french fry into her mouth.

Anthony shrugged, “What can I say? I made a vow.”

“To a woman who’s been dead since I was six,” Riven tacked on. When his father sighed, Riven leaned forward and said, “Come on, Dad. We both know she would have wanted you to move on and be happy again.”

“Riven, we’ve been over this before,” Anthony said as he reached across the table to take his son’s hand. “I am happy, bud. I have you, and that’s more than enough for me.”

“But don’t you miss having a relationship like that?” Riven pressed as he squeezed his dad’s fingers.

“Not particularly, no,” Anthony chuckled. “What your mother and I had was the best I could ever hope to have, and whilst I appreciate you giving me your blessing to move on, I loved your mother far more than I will ever be able to love another woman. It wouldn’t be right for me to move on with someone I couldn’t give my heart to.”

As Anthony released his son’s hand and returned to the food before him, Vivien observed him for a moment before muttering, “I want a love that deep.”

“And I’m sure you’ll find it, if you haven’t already,” Anthony claimed with an encouraging smile. 

“Speaking of,” Riven began, finally removing his gaze from his father as he turned to Vivien and asked, “how’s your boyfriend doing?”

“He’s good,” Vivien said. “We talked a bit when Mick called the other day. He said he was worried about us, but that he wouldn’t be able to Facetime until tomorrow.”

“Why couldn’t he do it today?” Anthony asked.

Vivien’s gaze flickered to her plate before lifting again as she admitted, “He got his phone taken away until tomorrow.”

Riven’s eyebrows lifted, “Are you sure we’re talking about the same Royce here?”

“Sadly, we are.”

“Since when does that boy get grounded?” Anthony questioned. “I’ve met him only a handful of times, and even I can tell that’s a rare occurrence.”

Vivien sighed, leaning back in her chair as she recalled, “Some dickheads at their school were harassing Bentley for his dyslexia, calling him names and all that bullshit. Royce overheard them and took things into his own hands.”

“What did he do?” Riven asked with a disbelieving laugh.

“One of them ‘tripped’ down the stairs, and the other one was sent to the nurse’s office with a black eye,” Vivien claimed.

Anthony hummed approvingly, nodding as he gathered his dishes and said, “Good for him.”

“I would’ve done worse,” Riven admitted.

“I’ll pretend I didn’t hear that,” Anthony stated as he made his way to the kitchen.

Chuckling at the older man’s statement as he disappeared around the corner, Vivien said, “I would have too, but Bentley said he saw it happen and that Royce scared a bunch of kids.”

“Good!” Riven said. “I hope someone recorded it or something because, damn, I would pay big bucks to see Royce lose his shit.”

“You and me both,” Vivien snickered. “But, anyway, even though Royce didn’t start the fight, Miles took his phone because he knew that, if Royce wanted to, he could’ve torn those kids apart verbally and sent them to the principal’s office for what they did.”

“I mean, yeah,” Riven agreed, “but what’s the fun in that?”

Raising his voice enough to be heard over the rushing water of the kitchen sink, Anthony asked, “How are they both? Royce didn’t break his hand, did he?”

“No,” Vivien said, shaking her head despite knowing the older man couldn’t see her. “He has some badly bruised knuckles, but that’s all. And Bentley says things have calmed down a bit. I guess the kids got in-school suspension or something.”

“Good,” the man stated.

Vivien chuckled, lowering her voice as she nudged Riven with her elbow, “Reminds me of the time you went nuts on Levi for me.”

Riven sent her a look begging her to shut up as he muttered, “First of all, I didn’t ‘go nuts’ on anybody, and, second, shut the fuck up.”

With a roll of her eyes, Vivien smiled and said, “Yeah, sure, whatever you say, dipshit.”

“Half-pint,” Riven shot back.

A look of disgust flashed across Vivien’s face as she squinted at him from the corner of her eyes. “Wrong name.”

“I know.”

“Dick.”

Riven snorted as he picked up his drink, brushing off the girl’s comment as he asked, “Why do you always react like that when I call you anything other than Pipsqueak?”

“Because Pipsqueak has an emotional attatchment to it,” Vivien explained with a shrug as she pushed out her chair and grabbed her plate. “Everything else is just you teasing me or calling me short, which, by the way, I’m really not.”

“Are too,” Riven argued as he placed his plate atop hers with a grin. “What are you again; four-eleven?”

“I’m five-eight, and you know it, dickhead. You’re just freakishly tall.”

“And you’re freakishly small, Pipsqueak.”

With a beaming smile she didn’t bother fighting off, Vivien chirped, “There it is.”

Anthony chuckled, patting the young girl on the shoulder as they crossed paths in the doorway of the kitchen, “I’m surprised you’re not sick of him calling you that, nugget.”

Glancing over her shoulder as she began spraying down the plates she had brought from the table, Vivien said, “It’s pretty much the only thing I let him call me apart from my name.”

Allowing the girl to finish the dishes he used to insist she never needed to do at their home, Anthony directed his attention to his son as he leaned against the archway between the rooms and asked, “Why do you call her that? She’s not even that much shorter than you.”

“He’s been calling me that since we were little,” Vivien answered.

“Actually,” Riven began, “I first called you that on the day we met.”

“Really?” Vivien asked as she turned off the water and dried her hands on the tea towel dangling from the oven door handle.

“You don’t remember?” Riven asked in astonishment.

“I had just turned four!”

“This from the girl who remembers watching her parents get married when she was three,” Anthony chimed in.

“Not helping, Uncle Tony,” Vivien groaned.

“Wasn’t trying to,” Anthony chuckled, placing a hand on the girl’s head as he pushed off of the archway and headed back to the living room to watch the news.

Riven stood, following Vivien as she wordlessly headed toward the hallway, and asked, “Do you seriously not remember the day we met?”

Vivien shrugged as she pushed open the door to Riven’s room, the noncommittal act forcing a disbelieving noise out of Riven’s throat. Turning back toward her friend, the brunette admitted, “I can piece together some bits and pieces here and there, but not everything. I don’t have your Doctor-Spencer-Reid type of brain, Riven. I can’t just pull memories out of my ass.”

Riven rolled his eyes as he kicked a shoe in front of the door to keep it open. His ability to recall things at the drop of a hat had been a source of entertainment in recent days due to Jade explaining that his nearly photographic memory wasn’t as normal as he thought it was, but he wouldn’t go nearly as far as saying he could compare to the doctor from Criminal Minds. Dropping into the office chair his dad had helped him buy years prior, Riven questioned, “Well, what do you remember?”

With a chuckle, Vivien said, “Punching some kid in the dick.”

Riven snickered, the fond memory surfacing in his mind as he asked, “Anything else?”

A smile tugged at Vivien’s lips as he perched herself on the end of Riven’s bed, “Meeting Coach Barlow and dragging you around with me all day.”

Smiling at his long-time best friend, Riven said, “Okay, yeah, I remember that too, but there was a lot more to it than that.”

“Well, in that case,” Vivien began, shifting so that she sat cross-legged on Riven’s bed, “enlighten me, all-knowing one.” 

Hazel eyes rolled as Riven shook his head, sure the girl’s quip was meant to get a rise out of him and divert his attention elsewhere. However, as he took in the genuine intrigue in Vivien’s pine-colored gaze, Riven’s teasing remark about her height died on his lips. Allowing a fond smile to tug at the corner of his lips, Riven relaxed in his spinning chair and said, “Maybe I will.”

The Purple Finch Ice and Arts Center had not been easy to find. The fifty-minute drive from the O’Brian home to the middle of nowhere four towns over had been… entertaining, to say the least. With a practically bouncing four-year-old and two squealing two-year-olds in the backseat of their rust-speckled, in-desperate-need-of-repair 2001 Ford Explorer, the ride felt as though it took twice as long. However, as they pulled into the parking lot of the center and the children in the backseat got a good look at the large building, the car became relatively quiet, and Damien and Chelsea let out sighs of relief. After breaking the wagon stroller out of the trunk and buckling their twins into the seats, Damien hoisted their eldest daughter onto his hip and followed his wife toward the door as she wheeled the twins onward.

The car locked behind them as Damien tucked his keys into his pocket, his attention drawn to the excited child in his arms. Vivien had been begging to take figure skating lessons ever since the neighbors’ daughter, Makana, showed her a movie called Ice Princess, and now that the oldest of their children was finally old enough to be signed up for figure skating lessons, Damien drank in her starstruck expression with fervor. As though his little girl knew she was being watched, Vivien turned to her father with a brilliant smile and brought her arms around his neck before pressing a kiss to his cheek and thanking him for what could have easily been the millionth time since they told her where they were going that day.

As Damien took the door from his wife and stepped into the lobby, he watched as Vivien’s sea-green eyes flickered around the large lobby from behind her purple, sparkly glasses, scanning for every minuscule bit of information they could find. She was always fascinated by new places, something she shared with her father, and Damien couldn’t bring it upon himself to avert his gaze as Vivien’s wide, glittering eyes darted from one object to the next. As the girl’s gaze locked on a raised platform where a group of teenage girls were observing a figure skating lesson through a wall of windows, she turned to her dad with a pleading expression, a hushed question tumbling out of her mouth in a quick, nonsensical jumble.

Chuckling at his daughter’s enthusiasm, Damien nodded, lowering himself and his daughter to the ground before taking her by the hands and informing her to stay where her parents could see her. Vivien quickly agreed to the terms, wrapping her arms around her father in a quick, grateful embrace before darting off to watch the skaters. With a chuckle, Damien watched the older girls quickly accept Vivien into their watch party, a short blonde helping the small child balance on the bottom rail of the metal guardrail many of them were leaning against. With Vivien contently distracted, Damien turned his attention to the front desk, where his wife was discussing their options with the twenty-something worker behind the counter.

Meanwhile, Vivien’s eyes glowed a honeydew green as she took in the performance before her. Leaning as far over the railing as the bar against her chest would allow, her mouth fell open as a tall, raven-haired boy tossed his red-headed partner into the air, catching her in his arms only moments later. A stunned noise of surprise left Vivien’s lips, making the blonde girl behind her laugh, “They’re good, aren’t they?”

“Uh-huh!” Vivien vocalized. “Who are they?”

“Kirsten and Ryan Matthews,” another skater answered. Vivien peered up at the boy, his fluffy, onyx hair falling close to his eyes as he met Vivien’s gaze with his own dark, nearly black irises. “They’re siblings and they’re training for sectionals.”

“Like in Ice Princess!” Vivien squealed. “Are they gonna go to the Olympics?”

The blonde keeping Vivien from falling - Cleo or Chloe, Vivien already couldn’t remember - laughed, “Only if they’re really good.”

“They still need a lot of work to make the Olympics,” the boy said dismissively. “After Kirsten’s fall last year, she’s been struggling to land her jumps properly.”

Vivien looked up at the boy on her right, her nose wrinkled in frustration as she snipped, “What are you talking about? They both looked great.”

The blonde behind her snorted, patting Vivien’s bony shoulder as she smiled, “Jake’s just talking about what the judges will say. When you try out for the Olympics, you need to be perfect - the judges will see every little misstep they make and take points away for them.”

“That’s not nice,” Vivien muttered as she watched the skaters on the ice converse with their coach.

“Sadly,” the brunette skater standing on Vivien’s left began, “the judges aren’t paid to be nice to us, half-pint.”

The blonde quickly jumped in, finding Vivien’s gaze with a smile as she spoke, “Don’t let that stop you from trying, though. If you put in the effort and find that you love skating, it won’t matter to you what everyone else has to say.”

“Says you, Chlo,” the brunette said. “How many trophies in that case have your name on them, again?”

“That doesn’t matter, Ava,” Chloe sighed. “All that matters is that we love what we do and we put our hearts into our performances.”

Vivien glanced between the three skaters, taking in Jake’s resigned shake of his head and Ava’s teasing grin before tipping her head back to look at Chloe as she asked, “Can I see your trophies?”

“They’re not all mine, Vivien,” Chloe said with a grin, “but yeah, knock yourself out. They’re over there by the dance studio.”

Following the girl’s manicured fingers toward a glowing case filled with various trophies and medals, Vivien thanked the blonde before jumping down from the railing and slipping away from the group. Glancing down the hallway to ensure nobody would run her over, Vivien bolted across the hall to the trophy case, keeping her fingers away from the glass as she looked over the awards from various competitions. Despite only being able to make out a few of the words on each award due to her father teaching her how to read early, Vivien found herself enamored with the display. As her emerald eyes scanned over pictures of large groups of hockey players and figure skaters alike, a pair of barking laughs drew her attention away from the display case and onto a door labeled Studio 2.

Vivien took a curious step toward the door before glancing back over her shoulder at her parents. Finding them occupied with boring adult conversation as her dad talked with some people she couldn’t see beyond the counter and her mom dealt with her younger siblings, Vivien figured she would only poke her head into the room before returning to their sights once again. Making her way to the room, Vivien slowly opened the door and poked her head inside, finding a small room filled with mirrors and ballet barres. The room was nearly empty, apart from the three boys still lingering inside, and Vivien figured they were just messing around, but just as she was about to close the door once more, she heard one of the boys laugh again, drawing her attention back to them.

The youngest of the group, an auburn-haired boy who looked to be around the same age as Vivien’s friend and neighbor, Mickie, jumped, grabbing for something in the tallest boy’s hands, “It’s not funny, Gabe! I need those!”

The elder two boys - a brunet and a blond who had to have been at least ten or eleven - laughed as the tall blond stretched his arm as high as it could go and taunted, “Then, why don’t you grab them yourself?”

“Or get your mommy to buy you a new pair?” the brunet boy teased, laughing as his friend tossed him the item. “Oh, wait,” the boy began mockingly, “nevermind.”

The smaller boy looked up at them with wide eyes, hurt flooding his face as he took in the boy’s words. However, he didn’t get the chance to argue as the blond boy cackled, “It would be kind of hard for her to send you anything from heaven, wouldn’t it?”

The brunet tossed the object to his friend as the younger boy jumped with a gasp, allowing Vivien to catch a glimpse of the item. Her eyes widened as she realized they were tossing around the younger boy’s glasses. As the auburn-haired boy jumped once more, scrambling hopelessly for his glasses as the older boys threw them back and forth out of his grasp, Vivien shoved the door to the dance studio open and marched inside, pushing her glittery glasses further up her nose bridge and pushing the sleeves of her Care Bear sweater up to her elbows. She had already been ready to step in when she heard them teasing the boy about his mom, but she couldn’t just stand by while they were throwing around his glasses. She knew how upset her mom had been when she broke her glasses on the playground months prior; she didn’t want the boy’s parents to be upset with him if they broke, and it hadn’t been his fault.

Just as the blond tossed the younger boy’s glasses to his friend, Vivien swung her leg around and sent a swift kick directly into the older boy’s shin, forcing him to bend over and grab his leg with a howl of pain. As the brunet caught the glasses, his taunting smile quickly disappeared as Vivien’s rage-filled, emerald irises turned on him, and her tightly wound fist came into contact with her target. As the boy’s moment of shock and confusion culminated in a high-pitched,  pain-riddled shriek, Vivien snatched the glasses from his hand and grabbed the auburn-haired boy’s hand, pulling him behind her as she scurried toward the door. Once she was sure the boy had left the room behind her, she tugged him toward where her parents and siblings were sitting around a table, signing paperwork. 

Pushing him under the lip of the table, behind the cover of the wagon her twin siblings were playing in, Vivien met the boy’s wide, hazel eyes with a grin as she scooted into the gap between him and her dad’s chair. After giving his glasses a thorough inspection for cracks or scratches and wiping the lenses on the fabric of her shirt, Vivien placed the boy’s glasses on his face and pushed his hair away from his eyes before saying, “There you go. All better now.”

Bewildered, the boy glanced between the girl’s eyes before softly stammering, “Thank you… I-I think.”

“You’re welcome,” Vivien chirped before settling back into place beside the older boy. Realizing she never properly introduced herself, Vivien held out a hand, her handmade friendship bracelet from Mickie glistening in the fluorescent lights above as she spoke, “My name is Vivien. I’m four.”

“I’m Riven,” the boy admitted, hesitantly latching onto the girl’s tiny hand and allowing her to shake it. “I’ll be seven next month.”

“That’s cool,” Vivien mused. As the toes of her shoes tapped together, sending flashes of pink and purple across the soles of her sneakers, Vivien looked up at her newly acquired friend, “Why were those boys being mean to you?”

Riven’s eyes fell to the floor, minutely following the lights of Vivien’s shoes as he said, “’Cause I don’t have a momma anymore.”

Vivien’s head tipped to the side, “How come?”

“She went to heaven,” Riven claimed. “She was hurt in a car crash.”

“Oh,” Vivien said with a nod. Though she wasn’t entirely sure what that meant, she took his hand in hers and smiled reassuringly as she said, “I have two mommies. Now that we’re friends, you can borrow one if you want.”

Riven found Vivien’s eyes before leaning forward to look between the girl’s parents in confusion. “Wait, are they not your parents?”

“They are,” Vivien said, “but my mommy couldn’t have me, so my auntie had me and gave me to her as a present.”

Finding himself smiling despite his confusion, Riven asked, “Like, for Christmas?”

“No, silly! For my birthday,” Vivien giggled. Then, after a moment of thought, she said, “But my daddy says I’m a gift from God, so I guess it’s kind of like Christmas.”

“Does that make you baby Jesus?” Riven asked with a snicker. 

Appearing thoroughly miffed at the suggestion, Vivien’s nose scrunched as she argued, “I am not a baby!”

“No, but if it’s like Christmas, and you were the baby,” Riven began, “that makes you baby Jesus.”

Riven watched in amusement as Vivien’s face contorted, shifting from confusion to astonishment at the revelation to thoughtful. Then, he fought the urge to laugh as Vivien grumbled, “I hope they didn’t put me in a horse’s feed box like they did to baby Jesus.”

Vivien watched as the boy beside her snorted, a laugh forcing its way through his lips before he quickly smothered it with a hand. Glad she had been able to make him laugh, Vivien joined him briefly before he asked, “So, Vivien, what are you here for?”

With a shrug, Vivien claimed, “I’m gonna be a figure skater like Casey Carlyle.”

“Who’s Casey Carlyle?” Riven wondered aloud.

“She’s the Ice Princess,” Vivien claimed as though the boy should have known better. “I want to dance on ice in pretty dresses like she does.”

Although the girl’s response hadn’t actually answered his question, Riven found himself nodding, “I’m a figure skater, but I don’t wear dresses.”

Vivien looked the boy up and down before meeting his gaze with a blank stare, “Good.”

“What; you don’t think I’d look good in a dress?” Riven joked, nudging the girl’s arm with his elbow.

“No,” Vivien shook her head adamantly. “It’s just that you don’t sit like a lady, so you’d have to wear shorts under your dresses all the time.”

Riven glanced down at his criss-crossed legs and the brunette’s before saying, “You’re not sitting like a lady either.”

Vivien’s legs quickly straightened, one ankle placed over the other as she looked up at her friend with a cocky smirk, “Now I am.”

Chuckling at the younger girl, Riven stuck his tongue out at her, watching as her eyes widened, and she followed suit, blowing raspberries his way. The pair stopped as Vivien’s father peered under the table curiously, but as the man smiled and briefly joined them, the pair lit up, sharing wide-eyed smiles as they realized the adult didn’t mind their antics. However, as Vivien’s parents pushed out their chairs and stood, the young duo put their conversation aside and crawled out from under the table, Vivien dusting off her pants before taking Riven’s hand and tugging him along behind her parents as they followed a tall man through the lobby.

Riven didn’t miss the way the girl’s eyes flitted around the room, scanning for any sign of the two boys from earlier, but he was quick to reassure her in a hushed voice, “They won’t bug us anymore.”

Vivien’s gaze shifted away from the hallway and onto her new friend, a look of concern evident in her eyes, “How do you know?”

“We’re with grown-ups,” Riven said, brushing off her concern with ease. “They won’t mess with us if we’re with grown-ups, or else they’ll get in trouble. Plus, you’re here. You’ll protect me, right?”

“Yeah, I promise,” Vivien nodded, taking in the boy’s words as she began swinging their joined hands between them. “I’ll stay with you forever.”

The pair followed the adults down a long hallway of doors with various labels, Riven pointing out different rooms to Vivien in a hushed voice as the brunette looked around with genuine interest. After passing a set of locker rooms at the end of the hallway, Vivien’s father ushered his daughter and her new companion into the chilled skating arena before closing the door behind them. As Vivien looked around in wonder, Riven smiled, lightly guiding her toward where his dad was talking amiably with his coach. Taking his father’s hand in his free one, Riven introduced his new friend, smiling as his dad crouched before them and held out a hand to the small girl.

His coach was quick to follow suit, kneeling on the padded floor with a smile as he shook Vivien’s hand, “It’s nice to meet you, Miss Vivien. My name is Coach Barlow; I’m Riven’s teacher.”

Vivien smiled as the man released her significantly smaller hand, “Are you gonna be my teacher too?”

Riven’s dad spoke up, “You’ll probably be with the younger kids, sweetheart.”

Riven was quick to shake his head as he argued, “No, she’s staying with me, Papa.”

Coach Barlow chuckled as he found Riven’s hazel eyes, “Oh yeah? Is this your new skating partner, Riven?”

Riven dutifully nodded, “Yup.”

The two adults shared a look before Coach Barlow glanced up at Vivien’s parents and spoke once more, “I’m sorry, kiddo, but you’ll have to start out in the beginner class. I teach the six-to-nine-year-olds.”

“But I know how to skate already,” Vivien argued, “my Mickie taught me how. Besides, I promised I’d stay with Riven forever.”

“You did, did you?” Riven’s father asked with a grin tugging at his lips.

Vivien nodded, but before her parents could step in to steer their daughter from the idea, Coach Barlow looked between the children and smiled as he said, “We’ll have to see how much you know, but Riven, are you sure you’d like her as a partner in the future? She’s just a pipsqueak compared to you.”

“Yeah,” Riven said with a shrug, glancing between his coach and his new friend with a proud smile, “but she’s my pipsqueak now.”

A smile tugged at Vivien’s lips as she took in Riven’s peaceful smile from her sprawled-out position on his bed. After adding her limited recollection of that day, she had allowed Riven to tell the story as he remembered it, letting him drift back and forth between the faithful storyteller and the boy who couldn’t help but add his thoughts on different things as he spoke. Though she couldn’t recall their little origin story in its entirety, snippets of memories came to her as her best friend retold their first meeting. Meeting her friend’s hazel eyes, Vivien said, “I remember that.”

“You do?” he questioned in return. 

Vivien nodded as she hummed, “That’s the only reason I still let you call me ‘pipsqueak.’ If it hadn’t been for that day, I would have told you off years ago.”

“Really?” Riven asked.

Again, Vivien nodded, “Yeah. For a little while, I couldn’t stand it.”

Riven sighed, standing from his chair and maneuvering so that he sat beside Vivien’s head. As the girl rolled onto her back and smiled up at him, he brushed a few stray hairs away from her face and said, “You could have told me it bugged you. I would’ve stopped.”

“I know,” Vivien breathed, “but I didn’t want you to stop altogether, I was just sick of the rest of the older kids picking on me for being short.”

“They picked on you because of me?” Vivien shrugged, brushing off the question, but before she could say anything, Riven asked, “Who?”

“It doesn’t matter now, Riv,” Vivien chuckled as she pushed herself onto her elbows. “It was years ago, and they gave up when they saw it didn’t bother me. Besides, most of them don’t even skate anymore.”

“Why didn’t you tell me about it?” Riven pressed. “I could have made them stop sooner.”

“Again, I didn’t want you to stop calling me your pipsqueak just because of a few assholes,” Vivien admitted. “I mean, we’ve been through so much shit together since then that I can’t imagine you calling me anything else.” 

Riven sighed, but as Vivien reached up, pushing the corners of his mouth up with her fingers, he allowed himself to smile. He shook his head and chuckled, “We have been through a lot, haven’t we?”

Vivien hummed, nodding with a smile, “Concerts, break-ups, competitions.”

“DnD campaigns, summer camp, exploring abandoned places,” Riven added.

With a breath of a laugh, Vivien added, “Don’t forget the operations, surgeries, and car accidents.”

Letting out a heavy sigh, Riven rubbed subconsciously at his left side. Though it had been years since he and Vivien had been thrown from his moped on their way home from band practice, the memory of that day still bothered him. It wasn’t often that he found himself unable to protect Vivien - something he liked to pride himself on - but when those rare moments occurred, he found it impossible to let go. Warm fingers pried Riven’s hand from his shirt, dragging his attention away from his thoughts as Vivien tucked her fingers into Riven’s hand.

“I’m sor-”

Vivien’s empty hand landed over Riven’s mouth as she shot him a knowing look, “No.” Riven gave a muffled apology through her fingers, and Vivien shook her head. “You’re not allowed to be sorry; it wasn’t your fault.”

With his free hand, Riven took Vivien’s wrist and brought it away from his mouth so he could say, “It was, and I’m allowed to feel bad about it.”

“No,” Vivien said in return. “I mean, yeah, you can feel bad all you want. I can’t tell you how to feel, but you’re not allowed to apologize for someone else’s poor judgment. The only time - and I mean the only time - I’ve ever let you apologize for something that wasn’t your fault was when I broke my wrist, and that was because you wouldn’t let me stop you.”

Taking in a breath as the memory of Vivien’s fractured wrist came to the forefront of his mind, Riven released her wrist with a wince, “I’ll never forget that day.”

“I’m sure you won’t, Doctor Hewlett,” Vivien said as her arm fell back to the blankets, hoping the remark would steer her longtime friend away from any lingering regrets he might have held from that day. Despite Riven’s minuscule grin, Vivien found herself frowning. “You know,” she began, “I think I was more upset that you kept your distance from me afterward than I was about the broken wrist.”

Riven’s brows lifted as he peered down at his friend, “You were?”

With a scoffed laugh and a roll of her eyes, Vivien nodded, “I wouldn’t have showed up in the middle of a thunderstorm if I wasn’t.”

Edwin Barlow wasn’t an easy coach by anyone’s definition. He pushed his skaters harder than most because he knew they had potential, knew they had it in them to do great things. Many skaters had come through the doors of the Purple Finch arena looking for him, but few stuck around through his grueling hours of training. Though he was great with children and helped shape them into adequate skaters for other coaches, it wasn’t often he found ones that he felt confident enough in to push toward greatness. Students came and went over his twenty-three years of teaching, but very few had Olympian-level potential.

That was until he found Riven Hewlett and his young partner, Vivien O’Brian. 

From his first few weeks of one-on-one training with the boy, Edwin knew Riven could become something worth gold medals. The six-year-old had practiced with his parents since he could walk, skating on homemade rinks in their backyard or down at the frozen pond behind the playground at the elementary school, and his years of amateur practices had paid off. By the time Riven’s mother and father had signed him up for lessons with Coach Barlow, he was already capable of a handful of novice jumps and spins. For the first time in a long time, Edwin found himself wondering if there was a chance he was training a future Olympian.

Riven had been the coach’s pupil for just shy of a year before Vivien and her family came into the arena looking for a trainer. Initially brushing off the thought of adding the four-year-old to his ranks, Edwin found himself surprised by not only Riven’s immediate attachment to the child but also the girl’s skill on the ice. Riven pushed him to give the girl a chance, and while he was glad that he had, he hadn’t expected to see half of the talent he had. Vivien’s parents told him about how the girl had learned from an older child who lived down the street from them, but his attention was solely on the small girl who glided over the ice as though she owned it. Glancing down at the boy who had brought Vivien to him, Edwin knew then and there that he had a match made in heaven.

Truthfully, he hadn’t quite anticipated just how well the two would work together. As time progressed and the pair grew from nervous little children too hesitant to push outside of the routine that had been ingrained in their minds to pre-teens with creative choreographic ideas of their own, Edwin found himself bragging about them to anyone who would listen. The pair were still young, yes, but their skills on the ice far surpassed many others in their age bracket.

Just a week after Vivien’s tenth birthday, the duo approached their coach with an idea - switching their discipline from ice dancing to pair skating. Upon questioning their reasoning, Riven excitedly told their coach that they had found videos of the Sochi Olympics on YouTube and wanted to learn how to do lifts and throws like Russian gold medalists, Volosozhar and Trankov. Initially, Edwin was reluctant to allow the children he had grown to see as his own try anything more than the jumps and spins they had already worked so hard to perfect, but as Vivien’s pleading, puppy-dog eyes teamed up with Riven’s soft, hopeful smile, the coach found himself agreeing. 

He started them off small, training them off the ice in simple, Group 1 lifts where Riven would lift Vivien with one hand under her armpit and the other holding her hand while she braced herself on his shoulder for balance. It didn’t take long for the pair to move onto the ice, perfecting the movement with ease before a half-hour had passed. Though they worked their way through different variations of the lift over the next couple of weeks, it became evident that Vivien and Riven could easily make their way onto the next type of lift. 

By the next month, they had moved onto Group 2, where Riven would lift Vivien by her waist and hold her as high as he could while she held onto his wrists for support. Though Riven made it obvious that the lift was incredibly easy - their at-home efforts behind their coach’s back making it exceedingly easy for him to lift her above his head on the mats surrounding the rink - Edwin was wary about putting them on the ice. It was one thing for them to perform the lift on dry ground, but adding the harsh ice and the potential for other skaters to get in their way gave Edwin pause. The ten-year-old and her loyal, twelve-year-old companion were capable; they had proven that time and time again, but he just wasn’t quite sure if they should advance so quickly.

However, on the sunny afternoon that was the eleventh of October, he found he wasn’t given a choice in the matter. Edwin had left the children on a bench just outside of the rink to take a call in his office, telling them to practice a segment of their newest routine while he was out. There were plenty of others around - coaches, students, observant parents, people he knew he could trust to watch the children if need be. What he hadn’t accounted for, though, was the determination of two children who had been left to their own devices.

Once the door closed behind their coach, Vivien turned to Riven and tugged him to his feet, “Come on, let’s go!”

Grateful he had finished lacing his skates before his friend began yanking him toward the ice, Riven laughed, “Why are you in such a rush? We don’t even have our music ready yet.”

“Megalovania can wait,” Vivien brushed off with a wave of her hand, the video game music turned orchestral suite the pair had picked for their next competition being pushed aside for something far more entertaining. Turning to her friend as she stepped onto the ice, the brunette grinned mischievously, her braces gleaming in the fluorescent lighting surrounding the arena as she spoke, “Now that Coach is busy, we can finally practice our lifts on the ice.”

Riven seemed to hesitate as he glided toward his beaming friend, his eyes flickering toward the doorway through which their coach had disappeared. He knew deep down that if they were caught doing the one thing he asked them specifically not to do, they would be in his office quicker than they could utter an explanation. However, as his attention was drawn back to the girl before him, Riven found himself drawn to her excited smile and her piercing, emerald eyes, making it nearly impossible for him to argue. Instead, as Vivien reached out a hand, he found himself latching on with a smile, “Alright, but only once. I don’t feel like getting reamed by him or our parents.”

“Deal,” Vivien giggled, eagerly tugging her best friend further out on the ice and away from the group of four-to-five-year-olds who were training for a group performance they were going to be doing for the Christmas showcase.

The pair glided with ease across the ice, evading areas that the maintenance crew would be repairing at the end of the day as they found an area large enough to practice. After receiving a nod from her best friend, Vivien began skating backward toward him until Riven’s hands came to her waist. As Vivien pushed into his grasp, Riven began the loop lift they had practiced, bringing Vivien off of the ice and into the air as he extended his arms. Once he was sure of his grip, he pushed into the spins they needed to perform in order for the lift to qualify in a competition. 

Entering into the second turn, Riven’s eyes caught a glimpse of a small child skating far too quickly in their direction. Letting out a noise of surprise, Riven stumbled as he tried to come to a halt, nearly tripping over the child as Vivien let out a shriek of surprise, her nails digging into Riven’s wrists. As one of the coaches yelled for the kid to stop, Riven stepped around them, his toe pick catching on a sharp divot in the ice that had been left by the high school’s hockey team. With a shout, Riven released his hold on Vivien’s waist as gravity claimed him, hoping the girl would be able to catch herself faster than he could. However, as he slammed to the ice, a dull thump followed by a groan echoed nearby, and Riven knew that his efforts had been in vain.

Pushing himself back up, Riven checked on the child, who had already taken off to their teacher, before sliding across the ice to Vivien, who had silently pushed herself onto her knees. Vivien stared blankly at the ice, seemingly unbothered by the patches of snow on her clothes and in her hair, and Riven frowned as he took in how her right hand gripped her left wrist as her left hand pushed against her shakily rising chest. Apart from her panicked breathing, reddened cheeks, and a faint, pink scratch on her forehead, Vivien appeared to be fine. Placing a hand on her shoulder as he knelt before her, Riven said, “I’m sorry, Pip. I would have run that kid over if I kept going, but I thought you would’ve landed if I let go.” Vivien shrugged minutely, more of a twitch than anything, as she sucked in a shuddering breath. Riven’s eyebrows knitted together as he leaned into the girl’s line of sight and asked, “Are you alright?”

Finally lifting her gaze from the ice, Vivien shook her head as she met Riven’s gaze. As Vivien removed her right hand from where it gripped her left wrist, Riven felt mildly relieved to see no gaping wounds or pooling blood, but his relief quickly dissipated as the ten-year-old breathed, “I can’t move my fingers.”

“What?” Riven breathed.

Vivien’s eyes flickered between her best friend and her limp wrist as she explained, “I tried to catch myself instead of just letting myself hit the ice, and when I fell, I heard a crunch.”

“A crunch?” Riven repeated slowly, a weight settling in his chest as realization sank into his skin. 

Vivien’s ponytail bobbed as she nodded, “And now I can’t move my fingers.”

Riven instinctively reached for her arm, but stopped himself before his fingers graced her arm, taking her free hand instead, “Do you think your wrist is broken?”

Vivien shrugged, her mouth opening and closing a few times before she finally settled on shakily whispering, “I don’t know.”

The weight in Riven’s chest dropped to his stomach like an anchor, and as he looked around for an adult, a coach, someone more capable of handling both Vivien’s injury and his own rising panic, he found himself swallowing the thick lump that had begun to settle in his throat. Spotting Coach Cheryl Knight - a formal professional skater turned one-on-one coach for Vivien’s friend, Alexis Warren - Riven yelled out for the woman, stumbling over his words as he explained the situation and pleaded for her to find their coach as Vivien might have broken her wrist.

As the young coach took off, others began to swarm them, and Alexis was the first to take up the empty space beside Vivien as the young brunette held herself together far better than anyone seemed to think possible. It didn’t take long for Coach Barlow to rush into the arena, Coach Knight and both Riven and Vivien’s fathers close on his heels. Time seemed to fly as the growing crowd was pushed aside to make room for those in charge, but Riven refused to move as Vivien’s right hand clenched around his fingers, keeping him as close as their coach and fathers would allow.

Before long, Vivien’s arm was stabilized in an elastic bandage, and she was ushered out to the O’Brian family’s minivan. Riven, who had carried the girl’s belongings along with his own, helped her change out of her skates in the backseat, trying to listen to both their fathers’ hushed worries and Vivien’s soft singing as the radio played One Direction’s You & I. While he wanted nothing more than to listen to Vivien’s calm singing throughout the duration of the ride to the hospital, he couldn’t fight the urge to hear everything being divulged in the front seats. However, as they neared the hospital and Vivien softly asked him to stay with her, Riven found himself focused on helping his best friend as much as she would allow him to.

The emergency room was, thankfully, fairly empty, but they were still forced to sit in the waiting room until a nurse in kitten-covered scrubs called for Vivien to follow her. Riven pushed himself to his feet, ready to follow closely behind his friend and her father, but was stopped by his dad before he could get too far from the hard, plastic chairs. Vivien glanced over her shoulder at her friend, disappointment evident in her gaze, but it was quickly replaced by joy as her father asked the nurse if her brother could join them.

The nurse spared a quick glance toward Riven, her quick response dying on her tongue as she took in the boy’s expression, forcing her lips into a small smile. After receiving a nod, Riven dumped his belongings into the chair beside his dad and propelled himself toward the door, latching onto Vivien’s awaiting hand as she pulled him through the hallways of the hospital. Despite Vivien’s attempts to get something other than a nod or shaken head from her best friend, Riven remained silent as hospital staff came and went from the room they were brought to. When Vivien was taken to have some x-rays done, her father tried to reassure the boy that all would be fine and that Vivien was a tough girl, but Riven could only give short answers as he took in all that had happened.

Throughout the process of Vivien’s wrist being set and wrapped in a cast, Riven was silent yet allowed his best friend to keep his hand hostage as the nurse wrapped her arm in violet. Not long after, they were back in the parking lot, Vivien digging through the glove box of her parents’ minivan while Riven silently slid into the back seat, his eyes glued to the back of the driver’s seat headrest where he and Vivien had signed their names in Sharpie during a road trip to a competition. Vivien’s mom had tried for a week to get the writing out of the upholstery, but despite her best efforts, the childlike handwriting remained. Staring at the tiny stars replacing the dots in Vivien’s signature, Riven couldn’t help but feel like the worst best friend in the history of friendships.

Friends don’t break each other’s arms.

As the adults climbed into the car and Vivien settled into the bench seat beside Riven with a huff, muttering something about her cast under her breath, Riven felt his chest clench. For the next six or so weeks, Vivien would be stuck in a cast, and it was all his fault. As the car started, Vivien’s head slumped onto Riven’s shoulder, the girl’s chocolate hair pushed into Riven’s cheek as she asked her dad to play the One Direction CD she knew he kept in the car’s radio just for her. Riven peered down at Vivien in surprise as the girl began singing along to the music - how was she so calm?! 

As the car pulled onto the street Riven and his father lived on, Vivien lifted her head from Riven’s shoulder and smiled, chirping excitedly about how many signatures she was going to get on her cast during the following weeks. The brunette’s voice faded into nothingness as Riven watched her ramble. It wasn’t until they pulled into the Hewlett family’s driveway that Riven realized, to his surprise and mild frustration, that Vivien seemed far from upset with him. If anything, she seemed almost happy to have fractured her wrist. Why was it that he was more upset about it than she was? She was the one with the broken wrist, yet she was smiling away while the person who hurt her sat beside her, fearing the possibility of hurting her more than he already had.

As his father pulled the sliding door open, Riven said a hasty goodbye to his skating partner and her father before hefting his bag of belongings onto his shoulder and practically running toward the front door of his home. He dug the spare key out of the mail slot by the front door and pushed his way into the house, closing the door behind him as his father stopped to talk to the people Riven left in the van. Stumbling through the house toward his room, Riven tossed his bag on the floor by the couch and sucked in a shuddering breath. 

Throwing the door to his room open, Riven all but collapsed onto his mattress, running his hands through his hair until the icy digits came to rest against the back of his neck. He wasn’t sure how Vivien could be so calm; he was barely holding himself together, and he wasn’t even the one injured. If anything, Vivien should be wary of him, but instead, she was just as blasé about the injury as she had been when she attacked his bullies on the day they met.

It wasn’t long before Riven’s father came in with his son’s bag, depositing the duffel on the floor by Riven’s closet before sitting beside his son and placing a hand on his back. “She doesn’t blame you, y’know,” Anthony reassured his son, rubbing light circles on Riven’s back as he watched for some kind of reaction.

“She should,” Riven muttered, refusing to lift his gaze from the wooden floorboards he hoped would open up and swallow him whole. “I broke her arm.”

“It’s nobody’s fault that her arm broke,” Anthony contested softly. “You tripped trying to avoid hitting a kid, and both of you went down; there’s nothing to blame you for.”

“If I had seen the kid before-”

“Riven,” Anthony interrupted with a sigh as he knelt before his son, taking the twelve-year-old’s hands in one of his before placing his empty hand on his son’s cheek. “There was nothing you could have done to stop it. You are not to blame for this, and I am not about to let you beat yourself up for it.”

Riven searched his dad’s sea-green eyes before silently asking, “Why not?”

Anthony smiled, leaning over and pressing a kiss to his son’s forehead before saying, “When your mom passed, did you let me beat myself up for it?” 

Slowly shaking his head, Riven breathed, “No. You didn’t kill her.” 

“Exactly,” Anthony stated, cupping his son’s face in his hands. “Vivien knows you aren’t to blame - we all know it. You just need to take the time to figure that out for yourself.”

Riven tried not to scoff as he asked, “How long will that take?”

Without missing a beat, Anthony chuckled, “Knowing Vivien, not long.”

A part of Riven knew his dad was right, but as the man stood and made his way to the kitchen to put together something for dinner, he couldn’t help but feel the knot in his stomach grow bigger as his eyes landed on a picture on his wall of himself and Vivien at a nearby go-kart track. Would he ever be able to allow himself to be that comfortable around her again? Was he ever going to able to make up for hurting her? Could he truly be considered a good skating partner after this? Would she ditch him? Would they remain friends even if she did?

It took all of a week for Riven to get his answer.

A week of radio silence, a week of solitude, and a week of pent-up frustration boiled beneath Vivien’s tan skin. She understood that they were unable to talk during school hours as neither of them had cell phones, and they went to separate schools, but they normally talked after school until either Vivien’s dad needed his phone for something or its battery died. Vivien had tried calling more than once a day after being let out of school, but had always reached either Riven’s father or the home phone’s voicemail.

Although she didn’t appreciate being stone-walled by her best friend, Vivien knew to give him space. Riven was the type to take things to heart and think things through to the point he physically couldn’t think of anything else, whereas Vivien liked to talk things out immediately and clear the air so there was no tension. She wasn’t good with silence, while Riven needed silence to process things. As much as it ticked her off, she gave him space. 

Well… for as long as she could handle it.

When Monday rolled around, and she still hadn’t heard anything from Riven, Vivien began to concoct a plan that would make it impossible for him to avoid her any longer. Her first idea came to her in Homeroom while Mr. Alderman was busy trying to help a group of kids from her science class with their homework, but it was quickly brushed off as publicly dragging the chief of police’s son from the school to her dad’s minivan probably wouldn’t go over too well. Vivien’s next plan of action spiraled from a conversation on the track with Alexis, her friend from the arena. However, the thought of pretending to be injured to gain Riven’s attention was quickly pushed aside in favor of what became her master plan.

As soon as the bell rang that afternoon, Vivien made a mad dash across the parking lot and into the high school, bursting into the principal’s office while the poor secretary at the main desk hastily tried calling her father to let him know of his daughter’s arrival. Upon filling her bewildered father in on a portion of her after-school and borrowing a couple of dollars from him for the bus fare to the next town over, Vivien headed out to the parking lot and ran across the street to the bus stop by the gas station. While she waited for the bus to arrive, it began to rain, and one of her classmate’s parents pulled up beside the bus stop, asking if she needed a ride home. Vivien was quick to graciously decline, explaining she was going to Laconia to visit a friend and had gotten permission from her father to take the bus.

Once they left to pick their son up from school, Vivien only waited a few minutes before the local bus pulled up to the stop, its rusty brakes screeching as it slowed. After stepping aboard and handing the driver some of the money her dad had given her, Vivien collapsed into the closest seat to the front, digging into her backpack to inspect the homework she had been given as the bus pulled away from the stop. It didn’t take long for her to finish the math homework she’d been given, but as she struggled to read through her history assignment on colonial times, the words jumbled on the page like a bowl of alphabet soup, the driver slowed to another stop.

Looking up from her migraine-inducing history book, Vivien quickly pulled her rain poncho out of the front pocket of her bag before shoving the rest of her belongings into her backpack and hauling it onto her shoulders before rising from her seat. As the bus stopped at the covered bench outside of the Laconia police department, Vivien made her way out of the bus, thanking the driver for the ride before pulling her poncho on over herself and her backpack and stepping out into the rain. As the people waiting at the bus stop rushed onto the bus, Vivien scanned the police station parking lot for the black Silverado she knew Riven’s dad would have taken to work. There were a few trucks in the lot, but the sticker of the local high school’s mascot on the tailgate of one told Vivien all she needed to know.

With a grin, she waited for traffic to clear before dashing across the street. Not wanting to deal with the cracked, uneven sidewalks that she almost always rolled an ankle on during the summer, Vivien walked up the length of Cross Street on the side of the road. Avoiding the occasional pothole as she jogged across the intersection of Cross and Fenton Ave, Vivien used her uncasted hand to swipe water from her glasses and push them further up her nose before tugging the hood of her poncho back into place.

The walk from the police department to Riven’s house was maybe five minutes on a good day, three if they ran, and potentially ten if it had snowed, but Vivien hated walking in the rain most. Her soggy sneakers squelched as she jogged up the porch steps, reaching for the key she knew they hid in the mailbox, yet Vivien found she couldn’t care less about the circumstances as she pushed the slightly curved key into the lock. Opening the door, Vivien silently made her way inside, discarding her sneakers by the heater vent and hanging her poncho on the coat rack before pulling her backpack from her shoulders and dropping it onto the nearest couch cushion.

She knew from the damp hoodie by the door that Riven was home, but he wasn’t in the living room or kitchen, and as she peered into his bedroom, Vivien frowned as she realized he wasn’t there either. As she glanced into Riven’s dad’s office, unsure where her best friend could have gone, the sound of steady drum beats drew her attention to a door by the end of the hall. The typically locked basement door was unlatched, and as Vivien nudged open the door, she could see that a light had been turned on. Making her way down the stairs, Vivien found the sound becoming more clear with every step. As she turned toward the music with a smile, Vivien found her best friend messing around on his father’s old drum set.

“You know,” she began after watching him play for a moment, making him jump as he realized he wasn’t alone, “I thought with your dad being the chief of police, he would have found a better spot to hide the spare key.”

Riven’s eyes widened as he found Vivien leaning against the railing at the bottom of the stairs. As his eyes flickered between hers, the purple cast on her arm, and the drum set before him, Riven asked, “What are you doing here?”

“Watching you rock out, apparently,” Vivien claimed as she inched further into the room. Taking a look around, she smiled and said, “This place would be great for a band to play in, but it kind of reminds me of that new show I’ve been begging you to watch with me.”

“Stanger Things?” Riven asked as he set down his drumsticks.

“Mhm,” Vivien hummed. “They play this game called DnD in the basement. If you put up some decorations and move the boxes and stuff around a bit, this would be a cool place to start a campaign.”

Against his better judgment, Riven grinned as he nodded, “I’m hoping to join the DnD club at school next month.”

“You should suggest having a meeting here or something,” Vivien suggested as she pulled a folding chair open and sat down. “It would be cool.”

Riven hummed thoughtfully before his gaze fell on her arm once more. Quickly averting his gaze, Riven asked again, “So, what are you actually doing here?”

Sucking in a breath, Vivien sighed, “I miss my best friend. He’s been ignoring me for a week now and I can’t take it any longer.”

Riven’s gaze lifted from the drum set before him as he asked, “How can you still call me your best friend after what I did to you?”

Vivien shrugged, “You ignored me for a week, that’s not a dealbreaker here, Riv.”

“That’s not what I meant and you know it,” Riven stated with a shake of his head.

Vivien looked down at her cast and sighed, “I know.”

“I’m sor-”

“It was super rude of you to not sign my cast, but I still forgive you.”

Riven’s eyebrows knitted together in confusion as followed Vivien’s eyes to the purple wrapped around her hand and forearm. Scanning over the material, Riven realized nothing had been written on the girl’s arm. “What happened to getting everyone in your class to sign that?”

With a smile, Vivien said, “You’re my best friend, Riven; you get the first signature. Everyone else can wait their turn.”

Confused and exasperated by Vivien’s avoidance of the topic at hand, he asked, “I’m the reason your arm is broken in the first place; why on earth would you want me to sign it?”

“First of all, no, you aren’t,” Vivien said, “and, second, I already said it’s because you’re my best friend.”

“If I hadn’t dropped you-”

“You didn’t drop me.”

“Vivien,” Riven huffed, “you can deny it all you want, but if I didn’t drop you, your arm wouldn’t be in a cast.”

“It wouldn’t have happened at all if I hadn’t insisted we practice lifts while Coach Barlow wasn’t around,” Vivien insisted. “We could play the blame game for hours, but none of this is anyone’s fault.”

Riven held Vivien’s gaze for a while before heaving a sigh, “I don’t know how you can see it that way, but I don’t think I can ever forgive myself.”

“Even though I don’t blame you for it,” Vivien began slowly as she stood from her chair and moved closer to Riven, “saying that I forgive you doesn’t change that, does it?” 

With a small smile and a shake of his head, Riven said, “I’m sorry.”

“You don’t have a reason to be,” Vivien stated with a roll of her eyes, wrapping her arms around Riven’s shoulders and tucking her face into his shoulder, “but I forgive you.”

As though a weight had been taken from his shoulders, Riven sucked in a deep breath and closed his eyes as his arms came to close around Vivien, tugging the girl impossibly close as he muttered, “I’m never dropping you again, I promise.”

“And you haven’t since,” Vivien said with a proud smile. "At least, not on accident."

Riven chuckled as he rose from his seat and grabbed his songbook from his desk, “I wouldn’t break a promise like that.”

As her friend grabbed his acoustic guitar from its stand by his window, Vivien pushed herself up into a seated position and asked, “What’re you doing?”

Riven sent her his usual, lopsided grin as he tossed his songbook toward her and made himself comfortable on the mattress once more, “Practicing the music we said we were working on this weekend.”

Vivien was quick to examine the book, following her auburn-haired friend in sitting cross-legged as she looked over the lyrics they had worked on the weekend before. Riven’s chicken-scratch writing filled the page with hastily written notes and potential lyrics for their band, but of their band’s four members, Vivien was the only one who was able to decipher his atrocious handwriting. Smiling as Riven began strumming random chords on his guitar, Vivien held up the notebook and said, “Your handwriting is still just as shitty as it was when I met you.”

“Well, you’re the only one who reads it anymore, so it doesn’t really matter, does it?” Riven asked with a chuckle. 

Vivien rolled her eyes, but laughed, “Remember when Erica and Jade joined us for the first time and I just handed this to them?”

Riven snorted, “Poor JJ looked ready to cry when she couldn’t read it.”

“And Erica bought you a kid’s handwriting practice book for Christmas because she was sick of your shit,” Vivien added. As Riven laughed and began softly humming the lyrics to the song he was working on, Vivien wondered, “I still can’t believe that those two got together. They were so polar opposite when they first became friends.”

“Yeah, but they work well together,” Riven commented. “Do you remember when we first got them to join the band?”

Vivien smiled as she nodded, “Yeah. Erica joined us the same week I started dating Lexi.”

“And what a trainwreck that was,” Riven huffed. With a smirk, he added, “Both our first practice and the whole Lexi thing.”

“Yeah,” Vivien sighed. “Middle school me really should have thought things through first before jumping into a relationship.”

“Not to mention what a manipulative, emotionally abusive piece of shit she was,” Riven grumbled as his grip tightened on the neck of his guitar, the mere memory of Lexi’s treatment of Vivien igniting something in him that begged to throw hands with the girl who now lived a few hours away.

“She wasn’t always like that and you know it,” Vivien stated. “She was my friend.”

Riven’s gaze lifted from his guitar once more, finding Vivien’s eyes with a look of incredulity, “She threw a skate at your head. If that qualifies her as your friend, what does that make me?”

Vivien’s answer was quick, “My brother and faithful companion.” At Riven’s serious expression, she sighed, “Okay, I get it. My relationship with Lexi wasn’t great and I learned a lot from it, but I moved on a long time ago. Regardless, I love the relationship I have with Royce even though it’s only been a couple of months. I don’t see us breaking up any time soon.”

“Good,” Riven said with a nod. “You two seem really good for each other.”

“I think so too,” Vivien admitted, a fond smile tugging at her lips as she wondered just what her boyfriend was up to at that moment. Looking back up at Riven as she absentmindedly flipped through his book of songs, Vivien said, “You have to admit, though, the song Erica helped me write about Lexi was a banger.”

“Only because you two bashed the shit out of her,” Riven snorted. Reaching across the space between them to take Vivien’s hand, Riven pleaded, “Look, I know you say that you and Royce are in it for the long haul, but please, promise me you’ll never get into a stupid relationship like that again. I don’t think any of us would be able to handle it if you clammed up on us again.”

Squeezing Riven’s hand, Vivien took in a breath and smiled as she said, “Only if you promise to listen to me when I tell you something is off about the girls you go out with.”

Riven chuckled, nodding as he agreed, “Touché. How about we just promise not to date anymore shitty people? I think we’ve been through enough of those.”

Vivien laughed, “Tell me about it!”

Vivien had always been the type to have a few close friends but be friendly toward everyone around her. Many people at her school knew her as the social butterfly who flitted around the cafeteria and hallways, making sure everyone was doing well and that, if they weren’t, they knew she was there for them. She was an outgoing, enthusiastic girl who had a variety of interests so vast that everyone she came across seemed to have something in common with her.

Even at a young age, Vivien had a way of making those around her feel welcome in her presence. It didn’t matter if the people she interacted with were older or younger than her; she just liked making people feel loved the way her grandparents had taught her to. Spending time at her grandparents’ summer camp over the years had encouraged Vivien to welcome all she came across with a smile and an eagerness to befriend them.

If her bubbly yet calm personality wasn’t a magnet to random strangers, her passionate support of her friends and family members was. Vivien had never been one to silently show her love. Not only did she wear her heart on her sleeve more often than not, but she had a fierce sense of loyalty and love for the people she kept near and dear. Whether it was hurling harsh words at those who emotionally or physically hurt those she loved or the way she showed up to every game, recital, and performance, those around her knew they were cared for and loved by the warmhearted brunette.

Perhaps that was what attracted Alexis Warren to her in the first place. 

They had become friends when Lexi began skating at the same ice rink Vivien and her siblings attended. Offhanded compliments about the younger girl’s hair or outfits being accepted with brilliant smiles as they passed each other in the locker room. Over the course of her first year at the rink, Lexi found herself being inexplicably drawn in as seven-year-old Vivien stood up to one of the pre-teen girls who chose to pick on one of Lexi’s friends. Vivien didn’t even know the kid, but the rage in her emerald eyes glowed like hellfire as she verbally ripped the older girl a new asshole. Once the threat was gone and Vivien was alone with Lexi and her friend, Dakota, Lexi found the gravitational pull surrounding the younger brunette too strong to ignore.

Maybe it was her smile, her friendly reassurance, or her protective tendencies, but frankly, Lexi didn’t care what it was; all that mattered was that there was something there. Something now linked the two of them together - a string tied loosely around their wrists that tugged them closer than they had been before. From then on, Vivien was a part of Lexi’s life whether she liked it or not. Despite her initial eye rolls at the girl’s questions about her well-being and how her family was, Lexi found herself genuinely smiling at the younger brunette every time she sidled up beside her to pester her before practice. It only seemed to get worse when Lexi’s adoptive parents moved to Sanbornton for work before the next school year, forcing Lexi into the same school as Vivien since the older girl had been held back a year before being adopted.

Now that Vivien considered her a friend of sorts, Lexi found it to be damn near impossible not to see the brunette. Every morning, as their buses rounded the loop by the front door of their school, Vivien would run up to her new friend and take her by the arm, excitedly gabbing with Lexi as much as she could before entering the building and turning off at the library where Lexi continued onward. For longer than she cared to admit, Lexi would find herself thinking about Vivien every morning, wondering why the younger girl had taken such an interest in her. It wasn’t like she was special or anything. 

Before summer vacation that year, Vivien cornered Lexi on her way out of the gym, dragging her to the nearby bathroom before asking the older girl if she had any plans for the break. When Lexi hesitantly admitted that she wasn’t sure what they would be up to, Vivien reached into the pocket of her overalls and pulled out a clearly hastily folded paper, unfolding it before handing it to her friend. The page had clearly been printed from the school’s library computer - half of the ink was colorless while smudges of greens and blues streaked down the paper. However, Lexi could still make out the writing. Vivien quickly explained that her grandparents ran a local summer camp and that she wanted to extend the invitation to the camp to only her closest friends. Before Lexi could press her for more information, though, Vivien let her know the website was written on the back of the paper before pushing a glittering object into the pocket of Lexi’s hoodie and scurrying back into the hall to find the rest of her classmates.

Bewildered, Lexi stood in the bathroom for a while, looking between the paper in her hand and the handmade, beaded bracelet Vivien had given her. After a few minutes, the bell rang, and Lexi hurried to her next class, tucking the paper into her hoodie and pulling the bracelet onto her wrist just as she reached the door to her classroom. Later that day, when her family’s minivan pulled into the parking lot to pick her up after school, she handed her parents the paper and asked if she could go to spend the summer with her friends. By the end of the week, Lexi had her answer and had begun packing her belongings.

She had been welcomed into the camp’s makeshift family relatively quickly - Vivien’s grandparents and aunt making the transition feel like visiting family in another town instead of a summer-long stay away from home. Being in the same cabin as Vivien for the summer meant the pair grew closer than Lexi thought was possible, but neither seemed to complain as they spent their days attached at the hip, wandering around camp with their hands intertwined. For most, it was obvious that the two girls had become inseparable, but for others, the bond they shared was a bit more… blurred.

It wasn’t until the ending performance of The Wizard of Oz that anyone dared to voice their thoughts. Sitting together behind the scenes of the show, watching Vivien’s aunt, Hayley, and the woman’s girlfriend, Charlotte, keep everyone in line behind the stage, Lexi and Vivien laughed quietly among themselves as their friends from over the summer ran around like chickens with their heads cut off. Then, all at once, the laughter stopped as their cabin’s counselor, Ashley, and her two friends, Bella and Sarah, sauntered over. Thinking they were about to be reprimanded for laughing, the eleven-year-old and thirteen-year-old quieted, sending wary looks to each other before focusing their attention on the girls before them. 

Then, without hesitation, Ashley asked, “Are you two dating or something?”

“You’re always together,” Bella chimed in. “If you guys were just close or something, we wouldn’t ask, but where you two are practically inseparable and only ever spend time with the rest of the cabin if you have to, it sort of makes it seem like you’re dating.”

“Which is totally cool and all,” Sarah said with a gentle smile. “We just wanted to know if it was okay if we ship you two or not.”

Bella hummed, “It would be totally awkward if we shipped you two and you weren’t dating.”

Ashley nodded, her barely contained ponytail of curls bouncing precariously as she asked, “So, are you two a couple or what?”

Confused by the question, Vivien’s head tipped to the side like a confused pup, and Lexi watched with surprised eyes as time slowed around them before the younger girl turned toward her and asked, “Are we?”

As she took in Vivien’s genuine curiosity, Lexi felt as though a puzzle piece that had gone missing years ago finally slid into place, slotting itself right into the only spot left open in her mind. At that moment, she realized that the answer had been right in front of her for a long time. Hoping to appear as nonchalant as possible despite the blood rushing to her cheeks, Lexi shrugged as she replied, “We can be if you’d like to be.”

Vivien giggled - the magical sound that occasionally drove Lexi up a wall - and smiled up at the counselors before replying, “In that case, yeah, we’re dating!”

Then, as the lights from the stage flickered toward their spot backstage, Vivien’s metal-filled smile shone, and Lexi felt her resolve disappear altogether. She knew, right then and there, that she would do anything Vivien asked her to. That day - August 25th, 2017 - would be ingrained in her memory for years to come. That was the day she knew she’d been permanently changed by one Vivien Harley O’Brian.

People in Lexi’s immediate circles took the information far better than she initially expected them to. Liana and Nathan - she still wasn’t entirely ready to call them Mom and Dad - adoptive parents were accepting and supportive, telling her that they were simply glad she was happy. Her adoptive older siblings - Sean and Isla - showed their approval in their own ways; Isla took her out to the movies and on a girl’s day to make sure Lexi knew she had someone to turn to if she ever needed it, whereas Sean joked about being grateful he could finally talk about girls with someone relatively close to his own age before letting her know he was genuinely happy for her. Even the new foster kids in their family - the biologically orphaned siblings, Ian and Tessa - had taken the news well after Liana and Nathan explained the situation.

Vivien’s family, on the other hand, had only one problem - her mother, Chelsea. Despite the woman’s sister and Vivien’s biological mother being a proud lesbian who was dating a bisexual woman, it seemed that the idea of one of Chelsea’s children being anything other than straight was world-ending. Vivien’s dad, Damien, on the other hand, took his daughter out for ice cream to hear all about the girl’s relationship away from her mother’s influence, making sure his eldest child knew how loved she was before bringing her and her siblings to their grandparents’ home for the weekend.

Her father had returned to their home to gather some clothing for the weekend to find the house empty, but he brushed it off as her blowing off steam and returned to the cabin after calling Riven’s father to explain the situation and phoning his sister-in-law to see if she could stop by her parents’ house if she had the time. Of course, Hayley and her girlfriend took time off to spend the weekend with family at the Hill House, spending the majority of their time spoiling the crap out of the eleven-year-old girl who suddenly found herself having more in common with her aunt’s girlfriend than she thought would be possible.

That weekend, Lexi found herself on the phone with Vivien more often than ever before, using what little time they had left before the start of the next school year to spend conversing with each other as, for the next school year, Vivien would be in the middle school, and Lexi would be up in the junior high. They would be on different bus schedules, different class schedules, and lunches together would be nonexistent, making their time together slim to none. However, when school started a few days later, Lexi still fought to call Vivien after school, resulting in more than one uncomfortable talk with the girl’s mother until Vivien picked up the call in another room.

One thing that remained a constant in their otherwise frenzied lives was their time at Purple Finch. Despite Vivien’s training time with Riven and Lexi’s drill instructor coach keeping them on the ice at different times, there was still time in between lessons where they could talk to their hearts’ content. Whether their meetings were in the locker room or in the hallways or during ballet training with the old lady teacher who, according to some of the older skaters, looked like she had been using the line between life and death as a jump rope for the entirety of their time at the rink, Lexi and Vivien found time to sit around and talk.

Over the course of the next year, they hardly ever went on anything Lexi’s older siblings said could be considered dates. They would hang out at the local arcade, go see movies, or go out to eat at the diner with at least one of their parents present, but that was usually the extent of their time together outside of practice and hanging out at each other’s houses. Though Lexi knew by then that what her siblings were saying was true, she really didn’t want to believe them. Sure, her relationship with Vivien wasn’t anything like her brother’s flings with girls on the high school’s various sports teams or her sister’s relationship with the captain of the debate team, but whoever said that their relationship had to be like anyone else’s, clearly didn’t know them well.

So long as they enjoyed being together, that was all that mattered, right?

As the school year came and went, the chilly winter and early spring were soon replaced by the warmth of the summer sun, and Lexi found herself in the presence of Vivien’s close family once again. Despite being in a separate cabin from Vivien that year due to their relationship, Lexi enjoyed her stay. The pair ate meals together at a table in the far corner that always got a glaringly bright amount of sunlight every morning, and, despite their polar opposite thoughts on seeing the sun so early in the morning, Lexi put up with having to squint in order to see her plate every day to appease the excited girl she sat across from.

Her fourteenth birthday came and went, and as the camp season came to a close shortly after Vivien’s twelfth birthday, Lexi found herself actively dreading the upcoming school year. Although Vivien was now in seventh grade and would be joining her at the junior high, Lexi was conflicted. She had been reasonably overwhelmed by the amount of people flooding the halls of the regional junior-senior high school but liked to keep to herself and the small handful of people she knew from the previous year. Vivien, on the other hand, was a social butterfly whose mere presence attracted strangers like moths to the flame. Initially, she worried whether or not Vivien would still be able to find time for her with the younger girl’s influx of new friends from the surrounding towns. Not long into the school year, however, Lexi realized she didn’t have much to worry about as Vivien made sure she had enough gaps between classes to meet Lexi somewhere in the building.

However, good things seemed to only last so long in Lexi’s life, and it didn’t take long for her to realize just that. On a chilly afternoon in late November, her parents sat Lexi and her siblings down, telling them that they had recently received a call from her dad’s parents about his mother’s health failing. At first, Lexi was as worried about the woman she had only met a handful of times, but as Nathan explained that they would need to move to Maine to help take care of the elderly woman, a high-pitched buzzing filled her ears, and the rest of the conversation was drowned out. Her older siblings seemed to have issues with the idea of leaving behind their jobs, and their newly adopted siblings were upset about having to move only months after finally feeling like they had found a permanent home, but they all seemed to calm down significantly once their mother explained that it wouldn’t be for a couple of months and that the chances of them staying in the northern state for long were slim to none.

Lexi’s first instinct once she reached her bedroom was to call Vivien and tell her what had happened, but when the girl answered the phone, excitedly telling her girlfriend all about the Titanic project she had finally finished with the help of her biological mother, Lexi found herself sitting silently, unable to string together a simple sentence. Although she didn’t want to ruin Vivien’s excitement with the news of her family’s move, she knew the girl would have to find out eventually. Swallowing her emotions and plastering a smile on her face, she piped into Vivien’s excited ramble, asking her to tell her all about her project.

As December crept into the picture and stacks of zip-tied moving boxes began to take up space in the coat closet by the Warren family’s front door, Lexi tried multiple times to bring the topic of their move into a conversation with Vivien. However, her attempts were in vain. Whether it was just that she had no time to get the news out or if she couldn’t bring herself to drag Vivien’s mood down in the midst of her parents’ marital issues, Lexi just couldn’t find a way to bring the topic to light. It wasn’t until after Christmas, when her family had begun pushing her and her siblings to pack their belongings, that Lexi felt the urgency of the situation hit her like a brick wall.

Winter break had extended into the second week of January due to a particularly nasty blizzard, and with school out until the roads could be sufficiently cleared, Lexi found herself swimming in her thoughts. Despite her reluctance to pack, her parents had set a move-out date for the end of the month, forcing her to rip the bandage off far quicker than she had hoped. Her younger siblings had gotten over their initial upset about the move, raving to their friends about the new school they would be attending and making sure to share phone numbers before the end of the month. Even her older sister, Isla, had a boyfriend who was willing to wait for her - the same boy on the debate team that she’d gone out with since Lexi was ten.

On the other hand, her older brother failed in his mission of maintaining his relationship through the move. Sean’s girlfriend, Olivia, admitted she wasn’t up for the long-distance thing, and as she would be moving out of her parent’s place for college soon anyway, she had planned on letting him go gently. Although Lexi knew they had broken it off civilly, she had seen her brother sulking for long periods of time. Watching him trudge around the house had only made Lexi’s already high levels of stress skyrocket.

That Friday afternoon, Lexi managed to find time between her after-school dance practice and Vivien’s meeting with her coach to pull the younger brunette aside. Upon dragging her girlfriend into the locker room by the showers, Lexi urged her to sit on one of the wooden benches across from her and watched as Vivien’s leg bounced against the seat. As though the situation wasn’t already hard for her, Lexi could see the faraway look in Vivien’s eyes and watched as the girl’s brows furrowed, the inside of her cheek tugging into the gap between her teeth - all telltale signs that Vivien was already deep in thought about something that had begun worrying her.

Lexi tipped her head to the side and asked, “Are you alright?”

Vivien shrugged, her shoulders shuddering as she took in a breath. Her concerned, emerald gaze found Lexi as she sighed, “I’m just worried about Riven; that’s all.”

Riven? Lexi internally rolled her eyes. What could possibly be wrong with the daddy’s boy Vivien often referred to as her older brother? He had a nearly perfect life; why would Vivien need to be worried about him? Forcing herself to push her intentions aside and understand that Vivien had looked up to the boy - in more ways than just physically - for far longer than she, herself, had known either of them. Taking in a breath, she asked, “Why, what’s wrong with him?”

As though Lexi had just cursed her entire family, a wounded expression glazed over Vivien’s eyes as she asked, “Have you been listening at all when we talk at night?”

To be honest, Lexi hadn’t truly been paying attention since her parents sat her and her siblings down on Thanksgiving break. Everything since then had been a blurred mess consisting of her half-assed attempts to tell Vivien all that was going on in her mind, the whirlwind that was clearing her room of all her belongings, and the emotional rollercoaster she had been riding for the last month and a half. As much as she hated to admit it, Lexi found her gaze drifting to the floor as she realized she hadn’t exactly been the most attentive person in recent days.

“I’m sorry, Vivi,” Lexi apologized. “It’s been a rough few months.”

“For all of us,” Vivien huffed under her breath. Lexi glanced up, catching the tail end of Vivien’s eye roll as the girl continued, “Brooke is trying to get Riven away from me and the band. I mean, I get that she’s Riven’s girlfriend and deserves to have some of his attention, but it’s like no matter how hard we try to accept her or get her to hang out with us as a group, she throws a fit and won’t stop until he goes to spend time with her alone. I just don’t get what her deal is.”

Since when had Riven gotten a girlfriend? Lexi had honestly thought the guy was gay for quite some time since he never had a girl around, but Vivien’s statement made it pretty obvious that the older boy just had incredibly poor taste in women. With a nod, Lexi offered, “Maybe she’s just worried about him spending so much tim with a bunch of girls.”

“Maybe, but I doubt it,” Vivien sighed. “She was friends with Jade and Erica before she even started dating Riven, so I can’t help but feel like I’m somehow the issue here.” Vivien found Lexi’s eyes, a frown taking over her face before she looked away with another shake of her head. Lowering her voice to nothing more than a whisper, she added, “I just feel like there’s something more to this that I’m not seeing.”

Lexi waited for a moment, watching Vivien’s eyes flicker around the room as her mind raced with thoughts Lexi would never be able to follow. After a while of silence, she spoke, “Speaking of something more…”

Vivien sighed, sucking in a breath before finding Lexi’s eyes with a smile the older girl could tell wasn’t entirely genuine, “Right. You wanted to tell me something?”

Nodding, Lexi slowly spoke, “I’ve been struggling with this for a while, but I’m running out of time, so I figured now would be a good time to get it out in the open.”

“Alright,” Vivien breathed. “Shoot.”

Vivien’s quick response gave Lexi pause. Couldn’t she tell from Lexi’s tone that something was wrong? Clearing her throat, Lexi said, “My dad’s mom - you know, the one from Maine? - well, I guess she’s pretty sick.”

“Oh no,” Vivien muttered. “Do they have any idea what’s wrong?”

Lexi shrugged. Despite the multiple times her parents had discussed the issue, she hadn’t been fully paying attention, having been more caught up in her thoughts than anything. “I’m not sure, but I think my mom said it was MS or something.”

“That sucks,” Vivien said with a thoughtful nod. “My Nonna’s friend, Miss Cathy, has MS. Her daughter and son-in-law take care of her.”

Lexi nodded, “Well, my grandma’s health has gotten worse in the last couple of months, and her husband isn’t able to take care of her on his own, so my parents are planning on moving up there to take care of her.”

“Oh,” Vivien let out, realization flooding across her features.

“Yeah,” Lexi sighed. Vivien’s eyes drifted as she began to get lost in her thoughts once more, and in a desperate attempt to keep the girl’s attention on the topic at hand, Lexi began rambling, “Look, I’ve tried to tell you since I found out back in November, but you were always busy with school or family stuff or dealing with your parents being on the edge of divorce, and I didn’t want to make it worse, so I kept it to myself until I could find the right time to tell you.”

Vivien remained silent for far longer than Lexi would have liked. At first, she thought it was due to the girl’s need to process everything in her own time, but then, as Vivien’s gaze met her own, she realized the younger brunette was simply seething in her own emotions. Piercing jade eyes sent incredulous daggers at Lexi as Vivien huffed, “And you chose today, of all days?”

Lexi scanned through her mental calendar, making sure it wasn’t anyone’s birthday or a holiday before slowly asking, “What’s wrong about today?”

“I told you three weeks ago, Lex!” Vivien exclaimed, disbelief evident on her face. “It’s all I’ve been talking about since then!” When Lexi’s confusion refused to melt away, Vivien huffed a sigh, rolling her eyes as she explained, “Riven and I qualified to be in the Big Apple Skating Exhibition in New York this weekend. We’re leaving in a little bit to catch our seven o’clock flight.”

Realization and dread settled in Lexi’s stomach like lead. She could recall fragments of their late-night conversations, offhandedly listening to Vivien jabber on and on about some routine she and Riven had been perfecting. Hoping Vivien wouldn’t pick up on how little she actually knew about the event, Lexi plastered a small smile on her face and said, “I forgot that was today. You guys are doing Rolling in the Deep, right?”

Vivien’s head shook as her eyes scrunched shut, and a heavy sigh left her, “We talked about it last night, and no, we’re doing Skyfall.”

“Oh,” Lexi said, praying her uncomfortable cringe wasn’t as noticeable as it felt. 

Never one to mince words, Vivien met Lexi’s eyes once more and said, “You know, I’ve been talking with my dad a lot lately and I sort of came to realize that, since we left camp last summer, our communication has been in the toilet.”

“What does that even mean?” Lexi wondered aloud.

“You barely talk to me anymore, Lex,” Vivien acknowledged, pushing herself up from the bench and taking a step away. “And, when you do, you redirect all the questions onto me so that I do all the talking, but you hardly ever listen.”

“I listen!” Lexi argued.

“Do you?” Vivien pressed as she leaned against her locker. When Lexi nodded, Vivien crossed her arms tightly over her chest and asked, “Why did I call you last night?”

Lexi weighed her options before slowly offering, “You wanted to talk about the skating exhibit?” Vivien snorted, shaking her head faintly as she looked away, and Lexi felt something deep in her chest clench. If it had been so obvious that Lexi was hardly paying attention to their conversation the night before, why did Vivien bother asking? Did she want to be disappointed? “I’m sorry, okay? I’ve been really worked up about telling you about the move recently, so I wasn’t listening. What happened; did your puppy learn a new trick or something?”

Despite the mention of her new Saint Bernard, Loki, Vivien swallowed thickly, staring up at the fluorescent lights in a vain attempt at forcing her emotions down as she said, “My parents got into a nasty fight last night, I tried to break it up, and my mom screamed at me for intervening in ‘an adult conversation’ because I’m just a kid.”

As though she’d been slapped, Lexi winced before standing, “Sorry, Vivi. So, what happened?”

Vivien shrugged, her already crossed arms tightening around her middle in a sort of self-embrace, “My dad made her leave for the night to cool off, but she’s talking about divorce again. I think she’s staying with Nonna and Grandpa George until things blow over, but I know they aren’t happy with her either.”

“Well, shit,” Lexi breathed. 

“Yeah,” Vivien sighed.

The door to the locker room creaked open, and with a hand covering his eyes, Riven’s head poked in as he said, “I’m not looking, but is Vivien in here?”

“Yeah, Riv, I’m here,” Vivien replied. “What’s up?”

“Coach wants us to do a quick run of our routine before we leave,” Riven stated. “I tried pushing it further back, but we’ve only got the ice for the next fifteen minutes before Coach Knight needs it.”

Vivien sighed, glancing down at her outfit before bringing her gaze back to her teammate, “Alright. Tell him I’m getting dressed and I’ll be down in a few.”

Giving a mock salute to the girl, Riven ducked out of the room as he spoke, “Aye, aye, Captain.”

Once the door was closed once more, Vivien took in a deep breath before meeting Lexi’s gaze and sighing, “Lexi, I know this whole conversation has been a bit much to unpack before I leave but this whole lack of communication thing has been bugging me for the last two weeks.”

“I know, and I’m sorry,” Lexi tried, resting a hand on Vivien’s tightly crossed arms. “I was just trying to find a way to talk about the move. It’s a shitty excuse, I know, but it’s the truth. We can work on getting better once you get back.”

“That’s just it,” Vivien began, her eyes flitting back to the floor before lifting once again. “We had time to talk it over and figure things out, but you weren’t talking and I felt like I was getting stonewalled every time I tried to figure things out.”

“Yeah,” Lexi mumbled as she looked down at the rink’s logo on Vivien’s jacket. “Sorry.”

“Like I said earlier,” Vivien started, “I’ve been talking this over with my dad, my aunt, and Riven, and, while I know this probably isn’t what you want me to say right now, with everything that’s going on, I think it would be for the best if we go back to being just friends until everything settles and we can focus on our communication more.”

Almost as though she had been pushed into the nearest shower and blasted with cold water, ice flooded Lexi’s veins as the world slowed around her. Her head spun dizzily, swirling nonsense around her as her hands shook. Not trusting her voice, Lexi took a step back and softly asked, “What?” 

Vivien’s arms slowly uncrossed, her hands landing on her waist as she spoke, “Between your move and my parents fighting almost every either day now, I don’t think either one of us is in the right headspace to keep this going. We’re not focused on this relationship at all and, while I understand both of our reasonings, it’s not fair for either of us to keep this going if we’re not happy.”

“I am happy,” Lexi contested, placing her hands on Vivien’s shoulders. When Vivien refused to meet her gaze, Lexi felt her heart drop into her stomach. “Is this- are you not happy?”

Vivien was always direct and to the point, never one to hold back. Lexi had always liked that about her. However, as Vivien’s eyes met hers and she realized just how upset the girl before her was, she found herself hating Vivien’s blatant honesty. “No,” was the brunette’s simple reply.

Buzzing filled Lexi’s ears as Vivien continued speaking, and while she only found herself able to make out a few words, the ice flooding her system spread until it had blocked her emotions from taking control. Leveling her gaze on the emerald-eyed girl before her, Lexi removed her hands from Vivien’s shoulders, took a step back, and nodded. “If you want a break, then fine, we’ll take one, but there’s never a guarantee that we’ll get back together afterward.”

Vivien sighed, reaching a hand out to comfort her friend, “Lexi.”

“It’s fine,” Lexi spoke, stepping out of the girl’s reach and forcing herself to appear calm as hurt-fueled anger slipped through the cracks of her icy exterior. “With the move and everything, it’s only natural that we break up. Long-distance relationships don’t really work, right?”

“That’s not what I’m saying,” Vivien declared, a poorly concealed roll of her eyes joining her words in ripping a hole in Lexi’s chest. “I just think we need to work on our communication for a while.”

“So, instead of talking it over and working things through as a couple, you want to do it as, what?” Lexi asked rhetorically. “Friends? That will never work.”

“I literally just said we could stay friends for a while!” Vivien snapped, gesturing behind herself as though their relationship was already something she had put in the past. “It’s not like I’m saying we can’t come back to this at some point down the road. I just think we should work on ourselves for now and try again later.”

“And leave our relationship behind,” Lexi scoffed.

“For now, yeah,” Vivien nodded. “We’re just kids; who says that, when we’re older, we can’t come back and try again?”

Lexi shook her head, her disbelief apparent as her fierce brown eyes glared into Vivien’s soul, and she said, “We’re kids, yeah, but we’re in a long-term relationship. I’ve had nothing but love for you since we got together.”

“I know, but-”

“Did you ever even love me, Vivien?”

Vivien stilled, her aggravation dissipating ever so slightly as she breathed, “That’s not fair.”

“You never said it,” Lexi claimed. “Even when I told you time and time again that I loved you, you never once said it back.”

“I’ve told you that I don’t like to throw that around,” Vivien explained with a hurt look in her eyes. 

“We’ve been together for almost two years!” Lexi exclaimed. “If you can’t honestly tell me whether or not you’ve ever loved me, why were we even together in the first place?”

“It’s not easy for me to tell people that I love them and you know that,” Vivien said coldly. 

“Your commitment issues aren’t my fault,” Lexi barked, a scoff escaping her as she watched Vivien’s expression shift between disbelief, hurt, and anger. Good. Maybe she’d finally feel the way she made Lexi feel. “You should have outgrown them by now.” 

“My grandma died of a literal heart attack just two minutes after I told her I loved her!” Vivien hissed, shock and disbelief filling her tone. “How do you grow out of that, Lexi?”

“That happened years ago,” Lexi said with a roll of her eyes. “It’s not something you can use as an excuse to push love out of the picture.”

Vivien’s eyes narrowed as she glared at the older girl, strained silence filling the air like a cloud of thick smoke. Finally, Vivien swallowed thickly, shaking her head as she looked away and said, “I can’t believe I ever dated you.”

“Vivien-”

“No,” Vivien said simply. “I’m done.”

“Done?” Lexi repeated. “What do you mean, ‘done’?”

Vivien sucked in a slow breath and allowed herself to settle before speaking, “I’m done fighting about this.” Allowing her gaze to land on Lexi once more, she said, “You’re right. Us being friends in the meantime would never work.”

Lexi stilled, her gaze flicking between Vivien’s startlingly emotionless eyes as she hesitantly asked, “What do you mean?”

“You deserve someone who can actually love you the way that you need them to, and I deserve someone who is willing to work things through with me without barking down my ideas just because that’s not what they want,” Vivien stated calmly, her voice unnaturally cold as she stepped back. “We can stay friends, but I don’t think I’ll ever want to go back into a relationship with you.”

“Vivi,” Lexi began, taking a step forward that Vivien matched with another step back, “that’s not what I wanted. I want us to stay together.”

“And I already told you that I don’t,” Vivien replied sharply, her quick statement making Lexi’s outstretched hand flinch back. “We’re not good for each other and haven’t been for a few months. Like I said, I’m alright with us going back to being friends, but that’s as far as I’m willing to go.” Silence stilled the air briefly, and once she was sure Lexi wouldn’t speak again, Vivien said, “Now, I’m all for talking this through more once I get back, but I have to get going.”

Lexi took in a quick breath and schooled her expression before meeting Vivien’s eyes and nodding, “Okay.”

Vivien nodded, confirming to herself that the issue was over for now as she began making her way to the door. Turning back as she pushed the door to the hallway open, Vivien said, “I’ll see you when I get back on Monday.”

“Yeah,” Lexi muttered. “Good luck.”

“Thanks,” Vivien replied before leaving the room.

The door shut, and once she was sure Vivien had gotten far enough from the room, Lexi slouched onto the bench behind her. Just like that, the fire that had kept her pushing through life had been blown out. Her fingers trembled as she realized that her bond with Vivien had crumbled like a stale cookie in her hands. Numbly reaching into her duffel bag and pulling out her skates, Lexi began to get ready for her private lesson. It wasn’t until she had pulled off her ballet shoes and set them aside that she realized her eyes had begun filling with tears.

Wiping the hot, salty tears from her face and forcing herself to swallow the thick lump of emotions in her throat, Lexi felt her anger building as she began unlacing her skates. The first one had come out with ease, but the laces on the other had knotted together at some point between her last practice and that morning, making Lexi’s frustration only build. As the thought of simply cutting the laces and asking for replacements crossed her mind, something within her snapped. With a screech of frustration, Lexi gripped the skate and stood, throwing it at the wall with as much force as she could muster.

It wasn’t until after the skate had begun its flight that she realized with a sickening jolt that she wasn’t alone in the room. As though fate was out to get her that day, the skate sailed into the wall, narrowly avoiding Vivien’s head as the girl jumped back with a shrill shriek, tripping over the trash can near the wall and slamming to the floor. Lexi moved as though she competed on the track team, kneeling beside Vivien and asking her if she was alright. However, Vivien was quick to push her away, her eyes glazed over with fear as she scrambled to her feet and rushed back to the rink without another word.

Lexi sat still for a while, staring at the door Vivien had left through with wide eyes, but she soon grabbed her skates and tugged them on before following Vivien to the rink. However, by the time she arrived, Vivien was in the middle of her routine with Riven, and her coach tugged her away before she could pull the younger brunette aside. By the time Lexi had a break, Vivien was being piled into the bus that was taking a handful of their skaters to the airport. With her time to talk now gone, Lexi tried texting the cellphone Vivien had gotten for Christmas from her aunt, explaining that it was an accident and that she thought Vivien wasn’t in the room when she threw her skate.

For the rest of the evening, Lexi’s messages went unanswered, something she had attributed to the flight and Vivien having to get settled into her hotel room, but when Vivien refused to reply for the rest of the weekend, she knew the girl wouldn’t be forgiving her anytime soon. When Monday came, Vivien refused to talk in person, making sure to keep a distance between herself and Lexi. After talking it over with her older brother, who had gone through a similar situation not long before, Lexi decided to give the younger girl space. A week went by with no conversation, then two. Then, before she could find the chance to talk to Vivien face-to-face, her family was packing their belongings into the back of the biggest U-Haul truck they could rent. Stepping aside after helping her younger brother carry his bureau outside, Lexi tried to call Vivien one last time, and although Vivien refused to answer, Lexi left her a voicemail, letting her know that she would be leaving that day and apologizing once more.

A few hours later, as her brother pulled into the first gas station they had come across since entering the state of Maine, their mother’s SUV and the moving truck pulled up to the pumps while he parked on the side of the building, Lexi’s phone dinged. Pulling the device from her pocket as her brother climbed out of the car to get some snacks, Lexi’s eyes widened. Unlocking her phone and eagerly opening her messages, she found a short paragraph from Vivien in her unread messages.

‘I hope you enjoy your new home. It’ll be hard at first, but you’ll be fine. You always are. I hope you make friends at your new arena. Try not to throw skates at anyone this time and you’ll have no problems! Thank you for the apologies, btw. I get it was an accident, but it’ll take me a while to work through everything before I can fully forgive you. Sorry.’

Lexi took in a breath, glancing up from her phone as she took in Vivien’s message. While most of Vivien’s message had been nothing but kind words, encouraging her to find something to be happy about, she couldn’t tear her mind away from the last few sentences. She had hoped that, after a few weeks of keeping quiet, Vivien would have worked through her issues and been ready to move on, but now she knew that wasn’t the case. With a roll of her eyes, Lexi huffed, slumping further in her seat as she tossed her phone onto the backpack by her feet. If Vivien wanted to be stubborn about things and go back to radio silence, fine! She’d find out sooner or later that Lexi could be just as bad, if not worse.

Meanwhile, in the basement of a small, two-bedroom house on a dead-end street in Laconia, Vivien’s eyebrows scrunched together in focus as her knuckles whitened over the drumsticks in her hands. Over the last year, Riven had been teaching her everything he knew about the drums his father had allowed them to use for their makeshift basement band. She was a quick learner, thankfully, and Riven had quickly shifted their lessons away from the basics and onto popular songs Vivien picked up relatively quickly. With the addition of Riven’s friends, Erica and Jade, their band had begun to improve and create songs of their own. 

Erica, their songwriter and bassist, had given them a couple of her samples to work on, encouraging them to try to find a good rhythm for their instruments before she began working on the sheet music she would be sending to Jade. Riven and Vivien had gotten through only two of the songs in the last hour, struggling to find a good beat that worked for both of them. Riven blamed himself in between breaks, stating that his lack of sleep the night before was dragging his attention span into the dirt. Vivien played along, of course, but the only thing was that her mind wasn’t entirely focused on the drum set before her either, something she knew Riven would pick up on far quicker than she could come up with an excuse.

Riven began strumming his guitar with a smile, and, without much hesitation, Vivien began thumping along on the drums, her anxiously bouncing foot pressing on the pedal for the bass drum and sending an unintentional thump bouncing around the basement walls. Vivien fought to keep her frustration to herself and quickly lowered her eyes to her drums as Riven glanced her way, a questioning look in his eyes as an eyebrow lifted toward his hair. She knew he was worried about her - he had been since she told him about her breakup with Lexi near the start of the month before - and while she was sure that if he knew what had happened that day, he’d be even more worried, she couldn’t bring herself to tell him.

Riven began singing the lyrics to keep himself in time, the fifteen-year-old’s voice sending a wave of serenity through Vivien as she hummed along. She had always found peace in Riven’s calm demeanor, but his voice had a way of making all the darkness in her mind disappear. She could be drowning in the middle of the Atlantic, and his voice would be her life preserver, keeping her afloat even in the roughest of conditions. Though she would never admit it to him, Vivien knew that Riven knew how much he had helped her over the years. After all, it went both ways.

Riven had admitted to her in one of their half-asleep confession sessions when they found themselves on the brink of sleep, muttering their deepest thoughts to each other until they passed out, that he had found her to be a sort of grounding force who kept him anchored to the earth. In the morning, when she had asked him what he meant, he sheepishly explained that, apart from his dad, she had been the only constant in his life since his mother’s passing and that he considered her to be a constant reminder that everything would be fine. Then, after a few minutes had passed, they went right back to teasing each other, with Riven threatening to annihilate Vivien on Rainbow Road as he opened Mario Kart on his Wii.

Despite the pair constantly picking on each other, messing around, and occasionally acting as though they couldn’t stand the other person, they were inseparable, and everyone close to them knew it. The two years and nine months between them in age did little to split them as they found many of their interests to be similar over the years. Over time, they told each other nearly everything, keeping very few secrets for the duration of their relationship. Maybe that was why it was so hard for Vivien to admit that she had withheld the truth about how her relationship with Lexi had ended.

Riven’s strumming stalled midway through the song, dragging Vivien out of her thoughts as she followed suit, allowing her cymbals to clash their way to silence as she lowered her sticks. Meeting his gaze, Vivien asked, “What’s up?”

Wary hazel eyes lifted from the frets on Riven’s guitar as he sucked in a breath and admitted, “I can’t take it anymore.”

Swallowing thickly, Vivien struggled to remain calm as her mind raced. Had he found out? Had someone told him? Maybe Lexi had texted him, asking him to get Vivien to forgive her. Pushing her frantic thoughts to the back of her mind, Vivien cleared her throat and asked, “What can’t you take?”

“I hate to admit it, but,” he cut himself off with a heavy sigh, shaking his head as he continued, “I’ve been keeping something from you for the last week or so.”

Grateful he wasn’t talking about her, Vivien let out the breath she’d held. Then, as his tone and the weight of his words hit her, she asked, “You have?”

Riven nodded as he pulled a folding chair over and dropped into the seat. “I know,” he huffed, “I’m sorry. We never keep secrets from each other - especially ones like this - but with the whole Lexi situation, I didn’t want to make you feel worse.”

“Worse?” Vivien echoed. When Riven nodded, she rhetorically asked, “What could possibly be worse than having a skate thrown at your head after a breakup?”

“Well, I mean, I didn’t want to add onto your stress or anything,” Riven began rambling, “especially when it’s not directly about you, but I-” Riven froze, Vivien’s admission echoing in his mind. Hazel eyes slowly widened as Riven finally found himself able to meet Vivien’s gaze, rage saturating his words as he asked, “I’m sorry, what?”

Finding herself unable to tear her eyes away from Riven’s piercing stare, Vivien asked, “What?”

“Back up a sec. She threw a skate at you?!” Riven bellowed, rising from his seat in shock. When Vivien silently nodded, her eyes wide as she swallowed thickly, Riven brought his hands into his hair, his mind racing as he began to pace the concrete floor. Sounding more hurt than angry, Riven asked, “Why didn’t you tell me?”

Vivien allowed herself to shrug anxiously as she watched Riven walk back and forth in front of her drum set, “It wasn’t on purpose, and I didn’t want you to get upset while she was still here, so...”

Riven stilled, taking in a thoughtful breath as he found Vivien’s tentative yet observant eyes and finished her sentence, “So you waited until she was on the road.”

“She should be in Maine by now,” Vivien admitted softly, her voice little more than a whisper.

Watching with a frown as Vivien’s gaze faltered, Riven rounded the side of the drums and knelt on the floor beside her, placing her drumsticks on the top of her snare drum before taking her hands in his as he said, “I get it, Pip, I really do. You were just trying to protect your friend. But at the same time, that keeps me from being able to protect you. If she had actually meant to hurt you or tried to come at you again, it could have ended really badly.”

“I know,” Vivien sighed, squeezing Riven’s hands. “I just didn’t want you to get all pissy toward her when she would only be here until the end of the month.”

Riven let out a snort, bringing a smile to Vivien’s face as he admitted, “Alright, you got me there.” As Vivien let out a giggle, Riven smiled and said, “It’s almost like you know me.”

“I sure hope I do,” Vivien snickered.

“Oh, yeah?” Riven asked rhetorically. “And why would that be?”

“You’re my brother, you ass,” Vivien retorted, pulling a hand from Riven’s and shoving his shoulder with a smirk. “If I don’t know you well enough by now, some rando will take my place, and we can’t have that.”

Riven shook his head and smiled, “We both know that nobody could take your place.”

“Not even Brooke?” Vivien teased, a hint of genuine curiosity in her tone despite her attempt to play her question off as a joke.

With a sigh, Riven’s face fell as he admitted, “Actually, that’s sort of what I wanted to talk to you about.”

Curiously, Vivien’s eyebrow lifted toward her bangs as she nudged her glasses further up her nose bridge and asked, “Okay, what’s up?”

“We broke up.”

Vivien stalled for a moment as her brain struggled to process the simple sentence her best friend laid out before her. Then, as her expression settled into one of confusion, she shook her head, believing she had misheard him as she asked, “I’m sorry, what?”

Riven let out a breath of a laugh and began, “You know how you told me that I should do whatever it takes to make things work because I was happy with her?”

“Yeah,” Vivien agreed slowly, nodding as she recalled their conversation. “I told you to make sure your communication was good and that you should give her what she wants if you want to make her happy.”

“Well, while that was good advice, and I thank you for it,” Riven started, earning a nod of gratitude from Vivien, “what she wanted, was for me to stop hanging out with you. She was jealous that I was spending so much time with you between band practices, skating, and hanging out after school.”

Again, Vivien felt as though her brain had short-circuited as she let out a laugh, “Seriously?” Riven nodded. “That’s ridiculous; you’re my brother!”

“I know.”

Warily, Vivien asked, “What did you tell her?”

“Exactly that,” Riven stated. “I told her that we’re longtime friends - which she didn’t exactly take kindly to - and after trying to talk it over and getting nowhere with her, I told her that she wasn’t worth leaving my little sister over.”

Vivien thought for a moment before slowly saying, “But I thought you were happy with her.”

With a shrug, Riven claimed, “And I’ll be happier with someone else. I don’t need to be with someone who can’t stand the fact that I like spending time with other people.”

Sensing Riven had already moved on a bit from the relationship, Vivien let out a soft chuckle and said, “I can’t believe she saw me as a threat.”

“I know, right!” Riven laughed. “You’re about as threatening as a bunny, half-pint.”

“Wrong name,” Vivien scolded lightly, a frown tugging her brows together. “And, for the record, I am very threatening.”

With a roll of his eyes, Riven pushed himself from the floor and snickered, “Sure you are, pip.”

“I am!”

As he folded his chair back up and returned to his guitar with a smirk, Riven teased, “You and your noodle arms are about as fearsome as that girl from Sky High who turns into a hamster.”

“First of all, she was a guinea pig, not a hamster,” Vivien fired back as she picked up her drumsticks and pointed one at Riven accusatorily. “And, second, I may have noodle arms, but I’d still kick your ass.”

Riven let out a bark of laughter as he adjusted his guitar strap over his shoulder, “I’ll believe that when I see it.”

Vivien snorted as Riven’s fingers stilled, allowing the gentle acoustics to settle into a comfortable silence, “You know, I could still beat your ass.”

“You could, but you won’t,” Riven stated knowingly as he wrote out a few notes for Erica. Despite having moved on from the song they were supposed to have been practicing and allowing his fingers to drift between songs he knew well enough to play without notes, he had a short stack of mental notes he wanted to scribble out. Looking up from his notebook, Riven grinned as Vivien huffed, blowing her bangs away from her eyes. “You love me too much for that.”

“Sometimes I wonder why,” Vivien muttered. Riven nudged her with his foot, and with a roll of her eyes, Vivien relented with a smile, “Yeah, okay, you’re right, but that doesn’t change the fact that I could potentially kick your ass if I needed to.”

Amused yet bewildered, Riven laughed as he asked, “When on earth would you need to kick my ass?”

“If you did something stupid,” Vivien shrugged. “Y’know, like jump off a bridge, join a cult, shave off your eyebrows, or, I don’t know, try to find another skating partner, or something.”

Riven scoffed, setting his guitar against one of his pillows as he said, “That’ll never happen.”

“Never say never.”

“Don’t quote Just A Beaver.”

Appearing mockingly scandalized, Vivien pressed a hand to her heart and gasped, “Don’t disrespect Justin Beiber in this house.”

“It’s my house!” Riven retorted. Taking the overstuffed, patchwork pillow Vivien had made for him years prior during her embroidery and sewing phase, Riven half-heartedly tossed it toward her head and quickly pushed himself off his bed while Vivien attempted to look offended by his attack. With a snort, Riven shoved her shoulder and said, “But, seriously, you don’t have to worry about me ever finding another partner.”

“I know,” she replied with a grin.

“Good,” Riven spoke, pressing a kiss to Vivien’s forehead on his way toward the disorganized chaos that was his bookshelf. “You’re my one and only, Pippi Longstocking.”

Vivien snorted, shaking her head at the play on his nickname for her as she pulled her cell phone from her pocket. Meanwhile, Riven scanned over the shelf with keen eyes, his hazel irises flicking past his collection of books and video games that littered the IKEA stand he and Vivien had painted one summer. Searching through his stacks of movies, his eyes scanned over some that he had recently bought from the discount tech and entertainment shop his dad frequented.

Peering over his shoulder at his friend, who was smiling giddily at her phone, Riven abandoned his initial question and asked, “What’re you so happy about?”

Glancing up from her phone, Vivien turned the device’s screen toward Riven and said, “Miles just sent me a bunch of pictures of Royce and Bentley. I guess their school was let out early, so they’re spending the day on the beach with some friends.”

Riven looked over the photo, scanning through vaguely familiar faces before pointing toward one and asking, “Who’s the guy who looks blitzed out of his mind?”

Vivien turned the phone back and laughed, “That’s Ethan Dombrowski; he’s Miles’ resident stoner friend.”

With a chuckle, Riven said, “He looks like he sounds like either Shaggy from Scooby Doo or Fillmore from Cars.”

Snorting, Vivien laughed, “Sadly, although Mick says he’s always on her last nerve, she said he sounds like any other guy, but more stoned.”

“For some reason, I don’t doubt that, but he looks like the classic hippie,” Riven claimed with a smile. Preparing his best impression of the aforementioned hippie bus, Riven cleared his throat and quoted, “‘Respect the classics, man!’” When Vivien began laughing at her friend’s poor attempt at mimicking not only Fillmore but also Ethan, Riven teased, “See, you’re laughing, so I must be right!”

Fighting to catch her breath in order to argue, Vivien coughed and shook her head adamantly, “No, no, no!”

“Yes, yes, yes,” Riven beamed. Allowing Vivien to catch her breath, Riven let the topic go and instead turned back to his DVD collection and offered, “Now, while we’re on the topic of hippies, I just got a stack of old movies from Tom’s, if you’d like to watch something with me. There was a huge stack of them for twenty-five cents apiece, so I got a few hippie classics and some of those beach movies that elderly people go crazy over.”

Riven could practically see the excitement on Vivien’s face as she replied, “I love those old beach movies.”

Never one to back down when he saw the possibility of teasing his pseudo-sister, Riven smirked, “That’s understandable since you’re old and crazy.”

The bed creaked as Vivien rose from it, “What does that make you, then? An antique?”

“Precisely,” Riven agreed, turning back to Vivien as he pulled some movies down. “Where are you off to?”

Turning back to her friend as she neared the doorway of his room, Vivien gestured to the hall and said, “Making popcorn, moron. Heh, that rhymed!”

With a fond shake of his head, Riven gestured to his collection and said, “Well, I’ve got Beach Party, Ride the Wild Surf, Pajama Party, and then some. Is there anything in particular you’d like to see?”

“Not really,” Vivien shrugged. “Surprise me, I guess.”

“Alright,” Riven shrugged. “Could you please add-”

“Enough butter to sink the Titanic and so much nacho cheese flavored seasoning that the whole bucket turns a radioactive shade of orange?” Vivien cut in with a proud grin. “When don’t I?”

As Vivien turned on her heel and left the room, Riven called out a thanks before chuckling and turning back toward his movies. Vivien had known his popcorn methods for years, and though he knew she would still make it the same way they always did when they had movie marathons, he still liked to ask as it would be rude of him not to. Smiling to himself, Riven pulled his new collection from its shelf and brought them over to his TV, his dad’s old Blu-Ray player perched on the edge of his dresser beside the Atari console he had rescued from a tag sale over the summer. Flipping through the cases, he discovered a blank case with a sleeve of white paper tucked inside. Written on the front was the title of the movie, the year it came out, and a small flower that had, from the look of it, been hand-drawn.

The DVD on the inside of the case was white and had the name written on it in the same handwriting from the paper tucked into the plastic on the outside of the case, but after a quick search on his phone, Riven found himself scrolling through the cast list for the old movie. Despite most, if not all, of the actors’ pictures appearing more recent and elderly, the names of the characters still sent a wave of deja vu through Riven. He couldn’t quite place where he had heard the names before, as some of them were bizarre, but others were fairly common, and he brushed those off with ease. Switching tabs, he found the trailer and began watching it, his smile from the initial moments of the video beginning to fade as he took in the familiar faces on his screen.

Pausing the video midway, Riven glanced at the cell phone Vivien had left on his bed before looking toward the hallway. He was never one to look at other people’s phones - an invasion of privacy he felt was a breach of trust in any kind of relationship - but as he turned Vivien’s screen on, he realized the face on his phone matched the girl’s lock screen. Riven stared between the images until Vivien’s phone screen turned black once more, taking in the pictures before him with scrutiny.

How was that possible? Could the boy Vivien was so fond of actually be the same person as the character in the beach movie? While it wasn’t likely, Riven went back to his Google search and found Royce’s name in the character list above the actor’s name. Scanning through the list once more, he found the names of Royce’s brothers, Mick’s fiancé, and a few vaguely familiar names he had heard from Vivien over time. He quickly selected the tab with Royce’s name and was brought to a screen dedicated to the actor, letting Riven see just how the man over his time in the spotlight. Sure enough, a photograph of the same young, curly-haired, freckle-faced teenager he knew appeared. Though the actor could have been a distant relative of the boy, a quick search through the actor’s page told him that the man had passed away at only twenty-two while serving his country. The chances of him being a grandparent or great-grandparent to the boy Riven knew were practically nonexistent.

Riven jolted, nearly dropping his phone as Vivien called out to him from the entrance of the hallway, “Do you want a drink?”

Hoping his voice didn’t sound nearly as started as he felt, Riven rose from his seat and called back, “Yeah, please.”

As Riven scrambled to close his searches and send his tabs to his desktop, Vivien responded with another question, “Dr Pepper or Sunkist?” 

“Dr Pepper, please!” he called back quickly. Hoping to hide his discovery until he could find solid evidence one way or another, Riven closed the DVD case and brought it over to his desk, tucking it between the notebooks he had left out before hastily slipping them into his dresser underneath some of his T-shirts. Wanting to appear as normal as possible before Vivien returned, he pulled a random disk from the pile of DVDs and slipped it into his Blu-Ray player before setting the rest aside. 

Moving his guitar back onto its stand by the window, Riven tossed his songwriting notebook onto his nightstand and snatched his remote before climbing back onto his bed and laying on his stomach with a huff. He knew he would have a lot of research to do once Vivien clocked out that night, but for now, he had to push his thoughts aside and focus on spending time with his best friend. Vivien was the closest thing he had to a little sister, and he didn’t want her to know that he was looking into something that she might not have known herself. He trusted that she would tell him if her boyfriend was, in fact, some time-traveling teenager from a sixties beach movie, but at the same time, if it was true and she knew about it, would he have believed her if she told him? It would be quite a bizarre claim, and she knew that Riven liked to know as much about a topic as possible, getting all of the facts he could find before coming to a conclusion on his own time. 

Would he have believed her initially if she had come right out and told him the truth? Riven thought for a moment before mentally shaking his head. Sadly, he probably wouldn’t have believed her initially, but he would have wanted to. He had a deep trust and belief in Vivien, trusting her to tell him what she believed was truth, regardless of facts. But, if she had come to him with something so outlandishly wild as time travel or alternate realities, he probably would have had to fend off a bark of laughter before diving into it with willing curiosity.

Screeching his train of thought to a halt as Vivien entered the room with a few bags of popcorn and some bottles of soda, Riven plastered a smile on his face and took his things from her with a quick thanks. As Vivien climbed onto the bed, mindlessly blabbering about how his dad should invest in a microwave that wasn’t some dial-operated, Panasonic nightmare from the 80s, Riven chuckled. Just like that, he was back to worrying about burnt popcorn and shaken sodas as Vivien clicked the play button on the DVD’s main screen, the sixteen-year-old teasing him for picking Elvis Presley’s 1967 movie, Clambake, when Frankie Avalon was clearly the “It Man” of 60s beach movies.

However, as the movie started and Vivien quickly grew absorbed in the film, Riven found himself lost in thought. The plot of the movie was lost on him as his mind dragged him back to the information on his phone. How would he find out whether or not they were the same people without telling Vivien? It wasn’t like he could confront the boy or his brothers; the whole family was in Florida, and he didn’t have their numbers. Besides, even if they were time-traveling people from the sixties, would they tell him the truth or just brush him off? It wasn’t like he knew them all that well. He had only met Bentley a handful of times since he and Vivien met the boy on Halloween, Royce had become a constant topic in his conversations with Vivien since around the same time, and Riven sort of knew Miles from the summers he would spend at the Birch family’s house over the last few years, but they weren’t exactly close. The chances of them honestly telling him whether or not his findings were true, were slim.

What would he even do if he found out it was true? It wasn’t like he could bring himself to prevent Vivien from dating Royce. After all, the boy made her happier than he had seen in years, and it seemed as though they had a bond nobody could break. She adored not only Royce but also his brothers and friends, and she had been invited to spend her upcoming vacation in April with them in Florida. It was all she could talk about since the invitation had been extended to her, and Riven had heard all about the things she wanted to do and see over the nine days she had in the tropical state. Riven couldn’t ruin any of that for Vivien - not when he knew it would break her heart if she didn’t already know.

Sparing a glance at the brunette as she tossed a handful of popcorn into her mouth and leaned her head against his shoulder, Riven found himself pushing aside his thoughts of time travel and sci-fi-esque, otherworldly exploration and allowing himself to focus on the movie once more, hoping the old movie would keep his curiosity at bay until he had the time to think things over. After all, she didn’t need to know until he was sure he had figured everything out. If her boyfriend and his family were from an old film, so be it, but he was going to make sure he did his research. So long as Vivien was happy, he didn’t care what the outcome was, but for now, he was content with relaxing and watching the movie alongside his best friend.

[whyisntwatersour]

Snow Day

donna beneviento x reader

A/N: I LOVE HER!! there was a snow storm and we had a snow day and i wanted to write something about her :’))) it’s short and sweet!!

-

when you wake up, it’s cold. unusually cold. the warm spot donna usually

occupies on the bed has long gone cold, while the hearth weakly crackles across the room. it’s barely pushing out any heat. despite donna’s absence, you reach across the bed, trying to feel for you love. when you don’t find her, you decide on heaving your way out of bed. your feet connect with cold wood, and despite the fuzzy socks you have on the cold almost makes you climb back into bed. but you don’t, pulling the blanket around you as you exit your shared bedroom in search of donna.

you first decide to check the workshop. the door is closed, and the room feels like ice when you walk inside. the lights are on, and although sometimes donna works in the dark you can see no sign of her. you give up looking downstairs, instead heading towards the elevator. you hope she’s upstairs.

when the elevator reaches the top floor, it’s completely different from the basement. it’s warm up here, the yellow lights overhead basking everything in a calming glow. you walk to the front door, peeking out the windows. outside, there’s a thick covering of snow all across the path to the garden. there’s still snow falling gently across the valley. you’re glad you’re inside.

you can hear some sort of record playing, but you struggle to make out the lyrics. there’s the smell of warm food in the air. you follow it, ending up in the kitchen. donna stands with her back to you at the stove, angie sat next to her as one of donna’s favorite italian records plays across the room. you step across the floor, huffing as you lean your head agains donna’s back. she jumps at the contact, but relaxes when you wrap your arms around her.

“hello, donna.”

“ah, mia stella.”

you smile at the nickname. donna isn’t one for nicknames, but she always seems to come back to that one. you move your head to her right shoulder, resting your chin there as you peek at what she’s making. the oven is on, and you think it’s some kind of pastry. you rest your head against donna’s, just enjoying the moment of closeness. the heat from the oven and the blanket has you comfortably warm, lulling you into a deep calm. angie is playing with some sort of puzzle on the counter, flinging it around as if that will help her solve it any faster.

“whatcha making?”

donna jumps at your voice. you squeeze her gently and press a small kiss against the base of her neck in apology. one of her hands comes to meet yours, holding them close to her.

“it’s a surprise.”

you smile, nuzzling her cheek. she’s warm, and you can feel it against her despite all the layers of clothing she’s wearing. she turns her head, kissing the top of your head.

“come lay with me.”

you separate from her, pulling her hand holding yours towards you. she seems hesitant, glancing between you and the oven. the timer is on the counter next to the oven. it still has well over an hour left on it- plenty of time for a quick nap. donna gives up, letting you pull her out of the kitchen and into the foyer where the fire is blazing. you pull her towards the couch, removing the blanket from around you and motioning for her to lie down. you follow suite easily, pulling the blanket over you both.

you settle against her, resting your head right against her chest. you can hear her heartbeat- it’s sort of fast for the moment, but you pay it no mind. donna wraps her arms around you, one hand coming up to play with the edges of your hair. you can hear donna’s heartbeat slow, and so do her fingers. her hand rests on your neck, her breaths fawning over your hair.

it’s not often you get moments like this with donna. she’s usually busy, between her meetings with miranda and her craft, she has no time to spare. but she’s here with you now. you smile. you can feel yourself drifting off to sleep, in the warm embrace of your love.

[kakusu-shipping]

It’s been snowing and storming where I’m from. Can I request Leshy and his challenger having a snow day? His challenger telling him to bundle up more or Leshy accidentally spooky his challenger because he’s basically a tree with some snow on it?

I'm in a very winter wonderland mood today because it rained the other day and coated everything in a thick layer of ice, and then today it was sunny and all the ice melted so if you went outside you had a 97% change of getting an icicle straight to the head.

I stood outside for like 2 hours getting pelted with sky ice for this fic.

btw while not directly mentioned in my dumb writer brain this is connected to the Save State trilogy, and is the same reader from those.

Winter Weather

Leshy X GN!Reader

In which you may or may not get beamed in the head with a snowball.

You'd realized, after a while, an interesting fact about the world of Inscryption; It didn't have seasons.

The weather cycled, sure. Some days it would rain, other's it would be sunny. Some hot, some chill. But what was interesting was how it varied from island to island.

Grimora's crypt was always at a pleasant Autumn overcast, with the occasional thunderstorm in the dead of night, always dim even during mid day and ever so slightly windy.

P03's factory was the same, overcast most days, as too much sun made the machines too hot, usually cold and smoggy. Occasionally he'd get lighting and thunder, but never rain. The air was always thicker there, more charged, as if a storm was always on the horizon.

Magnificus' tower, then, was their counter. There was rarely a day without sunshine on Magnificus' islands. He adored natural light, his entire top floor of his tower was bathed in warm sun every day. His nighttime skies were just as clear, with near constant meteor showers and stunning star clusters. He always seemed rather proud of his lands.

Leshy's forest was the outlier. Every day you'd cross his bridge, you'd find a new forecast awaiting you on the other side.

Most days were clear, though the thick grove of trees kept the sunlight from ever reaching the forest floor. The same would go for rain, keeping you dry and your walk from the bridge to the cabin.

Some days were colder, some were warmer. Once you'd entered the forest and saw, at the docks, the Angeler enjoying a wild storm, blowing the sea into a raging mass. They caught a massive fish that day, with your help of course.

So, you weren't too surprised as you entered Leshy's land once again, to find the crunch of leaves replaced with a soft crack of ice.

The forest was coated in a thick layer of ice and snow, one that would clearly have needed to build up over a few days of freezing and thawing and refreezing, which clearly hadn't happened, as just yesterday you'd spent a pleasant Spring evening with the Trapper by a fire.

You were not dressed for the sudden weather, and while a smarter person would turn back and await the sudden winter's end, you were to preoccupied by the beauty of the snow, and pressed onward.

Nothing but the crunch of your steps in the snow echoed though the forest, it was rare to find a quiet moment in Leshy's forest. Plenty of Beasts called these woods their home, and they kept the place surprisingly lively.

The silence put you on edge.

A snow ball whizzing past your head at the speed of a fucking bullet Did Not Help.

The wad of snow hit a tree with a hard crack as you spun to see your assailant, and found a pair of anxious orange eyes buried in frost covered foliage and snow.

"Leshy." You spoke in a deeply panic inducing tone that made the great scrybe flinch and drop his next snow ball. His back arched as he folded in on himself under your gaze, his hands raptoring before his chest as he avoided eye contact.

The motion of being a scared little rabbit did not make the hulking beast any shorter, but it did make him more pathetic looking. You sighed and dropped you annoyed gaze.

"Snow?" You kicked the loose snow by your feet, and Leshy nodded, still looking anxious.

"Wolves... Requested hibernation.... Thought it'd be... a good excuse..." He rung his hands together, thinking on his words in a slower pace than usual. He scratched at his chin and lost a few leaves.

"And the snowball?"

He shifted, he hated your interrogations. He always felt like he was in trouble for something. You made him anxious. He'd decided it was because you, a pitiful little human thing, were simply intimidating to him, the Great Scrybe of Beasts, and refused to look further into his feelings about it.

"...Prospectors idea..." He finally muttered, shifting in place.

"Snowball fight..." You put the thought together and scanned the area, noticing the Prospector's distinct footprints in the snow a little ways away, followed closely by the Angeler's. Seems they were a team.

Bending down you scooped the powdery snow into your bare hand, it didn't feel cold anymore, and you chose to believe that was because of the magic of the game, rather than steadily worsening frostbite.

"Well then," you shaped your weapon easily enough, the snow just the perfect mix of powder and wet to stick together, "shall we?"

Leshy perked out of self folded state at the slightest inclination you'd want to engage in combat with him, by his side. The cold felt like nothing as excitement warmed his entire body. Quickly, he started making more ammo than either of you could carry.

Achoo-

You sniffed, feet bare and soaking in a hot basin of water as you sat before a fireplace in Leshy's cabin, a quilt over your shoulders.

"WHAT is Frostbite???" Leshy poured freshly boiled water from a bucket into the basin, making you flinch, "I didn't see anything bite you!"

The panic in his voice was obvious, he never was good with new information, especially about humans and their weakness.

"It just means my skin froze-" You started, and were quickly stopped.

"YOUR SKIN???????? FROZE???????"

"It's not that big a deal." Well, it was. But you could still feel your fingers, so it probably wasn't the biggest big deal. And even if it was, it was well worth getting a chance to nail the Prospector square in the face with a snowball.

Leshy paced around the room, the floor board creaking with his every move, leaves shedding and falling from him as he scratched at himself.

"Leshy." You touched him, gently, on the arm.

He stopped dead in his tracks and collapsed into your contact, resting his head on his lap as he pooled onto the floor, staring at you like a dog looking at their sick owner. You smiled and ran your fingers though his hair.

"You're shedding." You giggled, brushing loose leaves between your fingers.

"It happens..." His voice still shook with concern, though he clearly tried to swallow it.

"So does this," You kicked your foot from the basin, splashing hot water into the fire before you, "and you don't see me freaking out over you suddenly loosing so much foliage. That's freaky."

"It is not." He sat up to be level with you, "It's very normal to shed dying foliage, it just all happens to die at once in the cold. It'll grow back just fine."

You chuckled, and kissed his raised forehead, and act that shut the scrybe up instantly, turning his cheeks a bright shade of red. He collapsed back onto your lap, no more complaints or worries to be said, as he buried his face into your thighs.

You continued to pet him, leaning back into your chair, the fire flickering, it's warmth lulling you into a comfortable rest.

[tojigasm]

You're Rich And I'm Wishing You Could Be My Master, Yum

Authors Note: This is the first part of my collab series with @tsundere-cherry-girl I'm sorry this took me so long to get out as I really was excited for this piece and wanted to ensure it was perfect before sharing it with you all! I will now be working on requests! enjoy our dilf king Toji, blessup.

* cw : 18+ minors dni, Daddy kink, age gap, and anxiety attacks

Word count: 14.7k

College wasn't something you enjoyed, in fact you loathed it. There was something about autumn winds and winter snow storms that no longer brought along the warm fuzzy feeling that they would have when you were younger. Now, the snow storm that had passed through overnight only reminded you of how far you were going to have to walk to your next class in the freezing cold.

You pulled your coat closer to your body, the cream corduroy acting as a soft barrier against the freezing air. Boots shuffling through the layered snow as you made your way through the peninsula of covered sidewalk, dead leaves that had fallen to the snow being kicked up; rising to the air quickly before falling onto the ice again.

Despite the fact that throughout your childhood you dreamed of college - a way to escape the bouts of teenage immaturity and transition to adulthood - a couple of years to have to yourself. But you couldn't help but be fucking irritated by the constant parties and think-with-their-dick boys who approached you after class, pawing at you and calling you sweet names with their whiny voices that pricked your ears like an icepick.

Outside of the constant nagging from boys, you did have your friends: friends that would call you in the middle of the night to ask if you wanted to go to the dorm next to yours and go party, friends that slipped you the answers to your History teacher’s exam because Mr. Yaga was a fucker who didn’t care if you passed or failed.

Outside of school ruining your life, you had your friends and your friend group was interesting to say the least: there was Megumi, your best friend, who would approach every situation with the least amount of worry - no matter how unprepared he might be and always end up fine in the end. Then there was Itadori, who was late to every single class, a head full of dishelved hair that would shake in shame as your professor scolded him for the upteenth time that week. And then there was Nobara, who was your roommate but spent more time out with at parties than actually in the dorm. Thankfully, all four of you had become close throughout the first hellish year of college, being there for one another when need be.

It was finals week, your schedule was filled to the brim with studying and back to back classes that would determine your grades for the end of the semester. Long nights in the main library and in your dorm resulted in early coffees and shaking fingers as you worked out the answers to your exams.

You hurried to your last class, holding your textbooks and folders closer to your chest, boots skipping up the steps to the door, black letters on the textured glass read ‘Professor Nanami’.

Once inside, you hurried to your seat next to Megumi who was rereading some of his notes, his head turning to you when you sat down and began to pull out your notes randomly.

“Are you serious?” Megumi asked, deadpanning at your mess of scrambled notes and chicken scratched papers.

You gave him a sheepish smile before pointing a finger at him, “Hey! I made it before Itadori, and that’s saying something!”

Megumi chuckled lightly and went back to his notes, highlighting a few things “So… have you decided whether or not you're gonna stay at my place for winter break?”

Your eyes widened. Shit! you forgot about that!

“Uhm… are you sure you’re okay with me coming, I don’t wanna feel like I’m intruding on your break, let alone your family.” You clicked your pen nervously and bit the plush of your bottom lip.

Megumi gave a fake look of shock “No, you’re all good, I want you to come!” he reassured and then went back to writing.

You thought it over for a second, eyes dashing from the scattered and scribbled papers on the table and back to Megumi “Then I’ll go, it sounds exciting!” You smiled widely and Megumi nodded, opening his mouth to say something when he was interrupted by your professor, clapping loudly from the desk at the bottom of the auditorium.

“Alright, as you all know this is your final for the semester, determining whether or not you’ll pass my class.” he took a moment to shuffle the stack of papers, collecting them together. “Do your best, and once you’re finished, you’re free to go.”

You took a deep breath, calming your nerves.

Your professor walked up and down the carpeted steps, placing blank tests down and continuing down the aisle to the next row of students.

Your palms were clammy and your skin pricked with beads of sweat, your turtleneck began to stick to your soft skin.

The atmosphere of the classroom did nothing to relieve your stress, the humming of the heater causing a persistent ache in your head, pulling at the strings of your mind as you tried to think over all the information you had spent the past week and full 12 hours reviewing. A blank test was placed on your desk and you inhaled deeply, looking over the first question and picking up your pencil before circling ‘A’.

Walking out the door and into the snow, books held to your chest, you turned to Megumi before heading in the direction of your dorm.

“So what time are you planning on leaving?” You asked, jutting your hip out to stand more comfortably, snow crunching under your heavy fur boots.

Megumi always stood so perfectly still, even when talking - when you had first became friends it was off putting, making you think he was uncomfortable in your presence, only when the two of you became closer - basically best friends, did u realize that Megumi did some pretty odd things, that being one of them.

“I was gonna head up around like eightish maybe?” Megumi looked up to the sky as though he were in deep thought,” I can drive us both if you want.” He offered, hand gesturing to you.

You shook your head and placed a mittened hand out to stop him, “No, it’s okay, you can just drop by my dorm once you’re ready and I can follow you.” You smiled.

Megumi nodded and then looked away towards his dorm.

“Alright, well, make sure you pack for at least a week and half’s stay, wouldn’t want you to not have something to wear.” he joked, kicking the ground a bit, dragging his shoes through the snow aimlessly as if he were drawing something.

You shook your head and laughed, “I will,” you sighed deeply and clicked your tongue, your shoulders falling gently, “well, I gotta get going, I’ll see you at eight then?” you began to walk backwards, the snow squealing under your boots.

“On the dot.” Megumi concluded and turned, walking through the deep snow on his way back to his dorm.

The next morning when you woke you felt refreshed, your face felt soft and your muscles were relaxed, little to no cramps as the contrast to how the week of finals had treated your body - the overwhelming stress not giving you a minute to relax.

You took a shower and got dressed, putting on your favorite fur jacket over a hoodie along with a pair of baggy jeans. You took one final look in the mirror before checking your suitcase once more, making sure you had everything packed.

Toothbrush, check. Hairbrush, check. Tampons, check. Phone charger, check…

You continued down the checklist of items, failing to hear Nobara enter the room. She had a coffee and muffin in one hand and her purple-bubble thick cased phone in the other.

“Oh, you’re leaving?” she quirked an eyebrow, clearly wanting you to elaborate on where you were going. Nobara was always like that, she felt like more of an aunt at times than an actual friend.

You turned your head to look at her, “Don’t get too excited now, I’ll be back when school starts up again.” You smiled and turned back to your open bag.

Nobara didn't say anything, opting to take a small bite out of the muffin and a sip from the straw of her drink before swallowing loudly.

“A-are you going to your parents place?” She still stood in the hallway, leaned against the wall, she bent over a tad as she continued to look at you, eyebrow pulled into a tight arch.

You stopped zipping your suitcase up to take a deep breath, voice becoming stuck in your throat and tears building up in your downcast eyes.

“N-no, uhm actually,” You cleared your throat, shaking your head slightly, “I’m actually going out of town to stay with Megumi, he invited me to stay with his family for break.” you grabbed the handle of your suitcase and placed it onto the ground, pulling the handle all the way up.

“Hey, you okay?” Nobara asked, walking up to you and chucking her phone onto her bed, the case causing the phone to bounce in the process.

You nodded and smiled, you knew she was looking out for you, aware of the issues you’d had with your father in the past, but that didn’t make the mere thought of your relationship with your father any easier to think about.

“Yeah, I’m okay, just nervous.” You gave a weak smile and grabbed your phone from your nightstand, slipping it into your coat pocket.

“Awh, you’ll have tons of fun, I’m sure Megumi will do a great job making you feel right at home!” She smiled and her hair shook as her head lifted in excitement.

You nodded again and smiled at her warmly, reaching to grab the handle of your bag, “Alright, well, I’m off - I’ll see you again soon.”

Nobara nodded and followed you out of the doorway. The two of you said your goodbyes and you made your way down the hall, fur boots clumping on the carpeted ground.

“Wait!” Nobara’s voice stopped you, making you turn to look at her, one hand in your coat pocket.

“What’s up?” You asked.

“You got everything? Like, all your girl stuff and everything?” she kept a hand on the door handle, the other on the wall.

You smiled at her and nodded, “Yeah, I've got everything.” You then waved to her and continued to make your way to the elevator.

Once outside you shivered as the wind hit your face, biting your skin as you made your way down the snow covered steps and onto the pavement. Megumi was waiting at the curb, leaning against his black Mercedes, dressed in a Louis Vuitton coat, arms crossed and looking to the side.

You always wondered where he got the money for all of the expensive things he bought: his cars, his shoes - being his best friend, you didn't feel comfortable asking, but now that you were being introduced to his family, you realized that the possibility of his family being just that rich never actually occurred to you.

“Hey Gumi!” You waved, pulling your suitcase through the snow behind you.

“Hey,” He turned to you and smiled, “You need help taking that to your car?” he asked, flipping his keys absentmindedly

“No, I'm all good, you wanna just meet me in the parking lot?” you gestured to the lot at the side of your dorm.

“Yeah sure.”

The ride to the cabin was fairly smooth, most of it being a fast trip on the freeway until you followed Megumi’s black Mercedes down an off ramp and into a new town.

You took the time at each stop light to look around, making note of the winter decorations parading the streets. The clouds covering the sky gave the town’s look a picturesque holiday aura to it.

Music played through your speakers as you followed Megumi throughout the town, the road soon became flat and desolate for a few miles before his car came to the start of a small trail.

The tires of your car grumbled over the gravel, rocking your car side to side as you drove down the pine covered road. The trees created an atmosphere that felt almost - in no other words to describe it - home.

You could see mountains to the left of you, sun glittering against the snow, you could smell the pine wafting through the ventilation of your car, relaxing your nerves and washing over your senses greedily.

The road seemed to go on forever, not that you were complaining, the surrounding forest made you feel as though you were stuck in a perfect place in time, nature in its purest form, no city lights, no roads, no cars, just the soothing smell of pine and the occasional cry from a bird.

Megumi’s car took a right and suddenly the ground became smoother, the rocks becoming a makeshift driveway where a Black Ford F150 was parked next to a tan Rolls Royce in front of cobblestone steps that lead up to the chestnut red door of the prodigious house you assumed was the “cabin” Megumi had told you about. The two of you obviously had different ideas of what a “cabin” was. This was a multi million dollar house at least, you wouldn't be surprised if his parents owned the place...scratch that. They definitely owned it.

Megumi parked his car next to the tan Rolls Royce and stepped out, walking over to your car. You rolled your window down to which he bent over and leaned his crossed arms against it, ducking his head to look at you.

“You can park next to my dad’s truck if you want.” He tilted his head and threw his thumb back to point at the giant F150.

“Okay, thankyou.” you let Megumi step back and rolled up your window before pulling into the parking spot.

You stepped out and went to the backseat of your car, pulling out your bag and your blanket before rounding the car to where Megumi was still removing his bags, two Louis Vuitton duffle bags were sat on the sanded down gravel, dirt already seeping into the leather and fabric.

“Your family knows I'm coming… right?” You chuckled nervously, watching Megumi continue to sift through the many expensive bags in his trunk.

“Of course, I’ve told them all about you. Trust me, they’ll adore you.”

You almost cried at that. What had Megumi told them? what if he was lying and they actually were just allowing you to stay out of pity, what if Megumi had actually told them something terrible about you and you weren’t even there to defend yourself.

You felt bad, knowing Megumi would never talk so horibily about you; The two of you were best friends. You just still couldn't help the metaphorical vomit that filled your brain to it’s brim, threatening to spill from your lips until you convinced Megumi you wanted to go home, spilled over until the words became tears because you couldn’t even fathom the idea of Megumi’s family not liking you.

“Are you ready to go?” Megumi stood with two duffle bags in one hand and another thrown over his shoulder.

Nodding, you let Megumi pass you and followed him up to the front of the red painted door. The wood had been furnished and was well kept, obviously polished regularly.

Megumi raised his fist and knocked on the peppermint red wood, a soft rapping filling your ears.

The door opened to reveal a young woman in red bottom snake heels and a cream sweater, her hair pulled into a loose ponytail.

“Hi ‘Gumi!” She smiled happily, her eyes squeezing shut as her arms crushed him in a tight hug before parting and looking him up and down. “My goodness, you’re so much taller than last time I saw you.” Megumi grumbled and she giggled, petting his shoulder lightly.

Suddenly she turned to you, “Oh hi! You must be y/n, Megumi has told me all about you.” She went to grab your mitten covered hands in her own, “Please come in, you must be freezing.” She stepped to the side and placed a hand on your back to guide you inside.

The three of you walked down the wood paneled hall, the walls were decorated with wreaths and cute accessories for the holidays.

“My name is Tsumiki by the way.” She smiled at you again, leading you into the living room, her heels clicking against the floor.

Once you entered the living room you immediately felt out of place - well, more than you felt already, if even possible; a flat screen TV sat was built into the flat wooden wall, a huge leather couch was placed in the middle of the room, double doors leading to a balcony were opened, the sound of birds and creaking wood echoing throughout the home.

The smell of sugar made you turn your head in the direction of what you assumed was the kitchen, the heaviness of it making you close your eyes and hum.

Tsumiki giggled, “I’m making a pie, it should be done before dinner if you two wanna go get settled down and unpack.”

Megumi nodded and took your arm in his hand, pulling you down the next hallway as you said a quick “Thankyou!” before you were out of range.

Megumi pulled you along to a crème covered carpet staircase, climbing the steps with one hand on the rail and the other still on your arm.

Once you made it upstairs, you came into another hallway; a chandelier illuminating the white thicket walls. Four doors were on either side of the hall leading to two large pearl French doors that sat at the very end.

“My dad’s room is the room at the end, Tsumiki sleeps in the room closest to the bathroom ‘cus she always has to pee, I usually take the room farthest from my dad’s just ‘cus.” Megumi informed you. You nodded at his words before it dawned on you that you would be the one sleeping closest to his dad - someone who you had yet to meet and someone who quite frankly, intimidated you.

“You can take the room I usually sleep in if you want.” Megumi tilted his head to see your nervous expression.

“No!” You cleared your throat, “It’s- it’s just, it doesn’t really matter to me, I’m fine either way.”

“M’kay.” Megumi walked to his door and opened it, standing outside until you entered your own, “I’ll get you when dinner’s ready.”

You nodded and walked into the bedroom, met with a king sized bed and glass panel door that led to a balcony. The walls were a grey color, decorated with simple objects and pictures of the surrounding mountains. The room smelled of lavender and vanilla, painting a clear picture of the woodland surrounding you.

Placing your suitcase onto the bed you began unpack; putting your folded clothes into the auburn dresser and closet, placing your shoes at the bottom of the wardrobe. Deciding to keep your toiletries in your room, you put them on the vanity seat beside the glass sliding door.

Once you had everything put away you grabbed your phone and sent a quick text to Nobara, informing her you’d made it, to which she replied with a ‘Good to hear, can’t wait for you to come back, miss you already! xoxo’

You smiled and put your phone down, getting ready to move some things around when a knock came from your door. You opened the heavy door to come face to face with Megumi who had changed into a navy sweatshirt.

“Dinner’s ready.” he informed you and you smiled, nodding as you followed him down the staircase and back through the hallways into the dining room. The walls were plastered with gold and black trim, decorating the thicket walls; a candled chandelier illuminated the room in a calm light.

“Hi there!” Tsumiki waved as she placed a basket of bread rolls onto the table, “you can sit wherever you’d like.” You took a seat next to Megumi, the cushioned chairs adding a soft touch to your nervousness.

As Tsumiki sat down she opened her mouth to ask a question when the sound of a door shutting made you jump, looking towards the hallway to see a tall raven haired man round the corner, dressed in tightly fit black shirt and baggy jeans, his timbs pounding the polished floors.

“What’s for dinner?” His gruff voice immediately made your legs tense. It screamed authority and discipline - the voice of a parent, a father who was stern but rewarded good behavior. The man took a seat at the end of the table and looked at you, his eyebrow raising.

“Who’s this?” he didn't speak to you, opting to talk to his son.

Megumi took a bite of his food and looked at his father, rolling his eyes, “Her name is y/n, I told you she was coming.”

You felt almost helpless not being able to speak for yourself in front of the man of the house. You couldn't deny Megumi’s father was attractive, a part of you embarrassed that you couldn't even make eye contact with the man, afraid that if you did, he’d surely know you were crushing like a schoolgirl on the father of your best friend.

“Oh yeah, nice to meet you, y/n.” He nodded in acknowledgment and began eating.

Tsumiki made small talk, making sure to involve you in all the conversations: asking about your school work, which major you were studying, your plans for the future.

You answered each honestly, explaining why you were interested in your major, why you chose the same college Megumi attended and how you planned to succeed in the workplace you were working towards being in.

Toji had leaned back in his chair at some point, his arms folded beneath his head as he listened to you ramble on about how important school was and your eagerness to be introduced into an industry such as the one you were interested in. It was cute.

Tsumiki listened attentively, asking questions and nodding her head in agreeance whenever you said something. “That's really cool, y/n, I believe you’d be a good addition to any team that hired you, you’re a smart girl and a hardworking one at that.” Tsumiki interrupted herself to gasp lightly, turning to her father. “Come to think of it, dad, didn’t you do some work in that major?” she swallowed, “I could’ve sworn I remember you talking about it.”

You looked to Toji, only to meet his eyes and immediately look at your lap; he looked almost bored - eyes lidded and plump lips resting against each other, the pinkness of them only becoming a darker color, your eyes traced of the scar that was ingrained in his skin.

Toji laughed at your quick shift of focus, taking a hand out from behind his head to scratch at his chest, the fabric of his shirt sliding over his pecs as he did so. “It’s okay, kid. You can look at me - I don't bite.” you gulped at that, if there was any questioning of your attraction to the man, the way his biceps bulged at his shirt as he spoke assured that you were swooning for the older man.

“But, Yeah, I did.” He said flatley, watching you with squinted eyes. There was a moment of silence before Toji stuck his tongue into his cheek and looked down at his finished plate before moving his hands back down to the table resting his elbows against the cotton of the tablecloth.

“Gojou still working there?” He asked, reaching towards the glass cup of toothpicks and inserting one between his teeth.

You gulped sighly and nodded “Y-yeah, he is.” You felt as though you needed to speak with your head down - a primal dominance encouraging you to not make eye contact out of respect, his blue eyes pierced your own as he brought his tongue out to lick the scar on his lip.

You could’ve sworn you died right there and then; something about the oh-so-innocent yet so aware action he pulled by simply flicking his soft tongue along the line of the dark scar made your knees weak, your thighs squeezing together, your shoes toeing at each other nervously.

“He’s a dick.” Toji stated.

“Yeah-” you laughed a bit. “Yeah, he is.”

Once dinner was finished and you and Tsumiki had cleaned the china plates until your fingers pruned, scrubbing the soft sponge across the glass plates gently. When the plates were all put away, you fled to your room.

You had spent what had been at least thirty minutes with your soft hand between your legs, rubbing furiously at your clit, replaying the image of Toji sliding his tongue over the dark line of his scar - pretending it was your plush legs he was kissing instead.

A part of you wished he could hear you through the smokey colored walls, entertaining the idea that he was just as perverted as you, jacking himself off to your soft moans and imagining that he too wished he was with you too. The thoughts themselves brought you to an orgasm; pushing a satin pillow onto your face, you moaned, deep and shaikly, feeling your stomach tighten.

“Oh fuck, I’m cumming.” You wined, rubbing circles around the small bundle of nerves until your legs tensed and chills ran down your spine when your orgasm washed over you.

You pulled the pillow off your face to inhale deeply, pulling your fingers from between your legs, looking at your soaked fingers, embarrassment flooding your body as you stared at the proof of how long you had been jacking it to your best friend's dad.

A wash of realization hit your brain when you remembered where you were, whose house you were in and who was sleeping in the rooms on either side of you.

Oh god. You slapped your hand to your forehead, immiedialtey praying to god that your wishes for Toji to hear your soft moans and supple sighs hadn’t been answered.

Getting out of the tall bed, your feet hit the cold floor and you shivered, padding your way to the door of your room, you stepped out and made your way into the bathroom across the hall.

Once inside, you washed your hands, lathering a generous amount of foamed soap that read ‘Winter Candy Apple’ and was wrapped in a sparkly red plastic that slid against your fingers as you sat the bottle back down onto the granite countertop.

Toji was laid back against the expensive furs of his queen bed, fisting his cock furiously to the sound of your moans, sweat beading in small drops on his firm chest.

“Gah -fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck.” he threw his head back, his hair sprawling behind his head and he hissed, cum spurting onto his hand and abdomen.

“Ohhhh shiiit.” he groaned, voice shaky.

Toji pnated in the mess of blankets and crumpled satin sheets, staring up at the cream colored ceiling, chest heaving.

His blue eyes tracing the iron lines of the gray barn liam chandelier, Toji felt dirty, jerking his dick to his son's best friend. He scoffed, “what the hell?” Toji took another shaky breath and ran his hands over his face before sitting up and pulling his boxers up over his waist and walking into his adjoined bathroom.

The fluorescent lights created a flaxen glow against the white walls and black mineral countertop. Grabbing a small towel from beneath the counter he placed it under the sink’s faucet and wiped down his abdomen, sighing as he chucked the soiled towel into the hamper and walking back into his bedroom.

Toji walked to his dresser and pulled out a white tshirt before heading to the door that connected his bedroom to the hallway.

Walking out into the hall Toji scratched the back of his neck, looking down at the carpeted floor, his eyes tired and adjusting to the dark of the hallway when suddenly something - someone bumped into his chest making him reach his hands out to steady the person he hit.

“Oh, I’m sorry!” You whisper yelled and gripped onto his forearms.

Toji squinted to see your features outlined in the dark, “Oh, hey kid, what’re you doin’ up?” He took his hands off your shoulders and yawned dramatically, bringing a hand to cover his mouth.

“Sorry, I just needed to use the restroom.” you told him, eyes meeting his sapphire ones.

He nodded, “You wanna come downstairs? I’m gonna get some coffee.” Toji walked past you.

You listened to the stairs creak as he made his way down the steps, “yes!” you whispered yelled again, being met with a light chuckle from the bottom of the steps.

Following Toji throughout the massive cabin you reached the kitchen where Toji had you sit at the bar. He stood at the opposite side of the island, pouring a pot that had been put out by Tsumiki earlier than night, aware of her father’s habit to wake up and come to the kitchen searching for something to drink and calm his nerves.

Your eyes followed Toji’s movements, his arms flexing as he placed the pot down and pulled out a packet of sugar, ripping the paper and pouring the bag into the cup before grabbing a spoon and mixing the drink together.

“You want something sweetie?” Toji placed the spoon into his mouth and looked up to meet your eyes.

Your face felt warm as you watched him gently suck on the spoon, “u-uhm, no, I’m okay, thank you.” You pull your knees up to your chest, resting your chin and stopping your knees.

Toji offered a slight ‘tch’ and walked towards the sliding glass door, pulling it open and stepping out onto the balcony, letting snow-chilled air fill the room.

You didn't know what to do, too nervous to ask if you could follow but too shy to stay behind and sit awkwardly until Megumi’s father decided to come back into the warmth of the cabin. Stepping off the bar stool you slipped on a pair of slippers you had left at the door and walked out onto the patio, making your way over to where Toji stood.

He was bent over the wooden terrace, leg crossed over another as he looked out at the moonlit forest. You walked up beside him and mimicked his position. He side eyed you and chuckled lightly, noticing the repeated movements of his own. He turned around and leaned his back against the terrace, wondering if you’d follow.

You stayed in Toji’s original position.

“It’s pretty right?” Toji stated, nodding his head towards the pine trees and snow covered ground.

You nodded and began to pick at the wood of the terrace, sniffling as the wind tickled goosebumps up your arms and legs. “It really is.”

Toji huffed in aggreence and turned back to lean on his forearms again, taking a sip of his coffee, the steam from the cup swirling in the air like a growing cloud of fire, eating away at the air in a grey mass.

Toji sensed your nervousness and laughed a bit before scooting closer to you and pointing towards a small tire swing, nearly covered completely by the snow, only a sliver of rusted rubber still visible. “When I was younger, around ten or eleven, I used to swing on that thing everytime my parents drove me up here, and broke my arm on it once too.” He laughed at the memory and took another sip.

You laughed and leaned over the ledge a tad as you tried to imagine Megumi’s father as anything but a father at sometime in his life. Fully believing that he’d been born a father and stayed that way for the past thirty-five years if he had told you that. Maybe he looked like Megumi… possibly Tsumiki, she has his nose-

“Megumi broke his arm on it too, I think it’s cursed.” He joked and you looked at him in question.

“Really? He never told me that.” you sounded disappointed, almost as if Megumi had hid something from you - logically, you knew he hadn’t but in the past thirty minutes, Toji had shared more memories of his own childhood with you than Megumi ever had in your three years of knowing him.

“Are you ready for ice skating tomorrow? There's a lake in the woods that we go down to every year.” he asked

You did remember Megumi mentioning a lake… now that you thought about it, you didn't have any skates.

“I don’t have any skates…”

“You can have a pair of Tsumiki’s, she’s got like six different colors.” He rolled his eyes at his daughter’s adoration for fancy colors and need for fashion.

You giggled at that to which Toji smiled. ‘I don't know how to skate either, haha.” you ran your hands up and down your arms trying to stay warm.

Toji lifted an eyebrow at that, adjusting to lean on his elbow that held the cup of now-cooled-down coffee. “You serious?” He took another sip.

You met his eyes for a split second before looking at the balcony terrace again, “Yeah.”

Toji gave a ‘hmph’ in surprise, tilting his head as he downed the rest of his coffee. “I’ll teach you.” he stated, giving you no room to refuse his offer.

“Okay.” you smiled.

The two of you entered the cabin a few minutes later and Toji sent you up to bed with a hug, following behind you as you made your way back up the stairs and into your room.

“Night, Mr. Fushiguro.” You stood in the doorway of your bedroom.

“Night, brat.” He smirked and waited for you to enter your room and shut the door before retreating to his own room and falling back onto the bed, eyes searching for something to focus on as he forced himself to sleep. His eyes decided on the iron of the chandelier again, tracing the intricate lines and candle holders as he fell asleep, the smell of your shampoo and memory of your moans filling his senses.

As you lay in bed, you stared at the ceiling; thinking of how you’d ask Tsumiki to borrow a pair of skis, what you’d wear, and how you’d have Megumi teach you how to ice skate without embarrassing yourself. Wait no. Toji was going to teach you. Your eyes slowly begin to close, your body sleep deprived and too exhausted from the long drive and late talk with Toji to question why he offered to teach you rather than have his son.

The next morning was far more relaxed than the evening before, you helped Tsumiki make breakfast, whisking eggs as Toji made his way into the kitchen.

“Well aren’t you two cute.” he teased and tousled his hair a bit.

You felt your cheeks heat up at his words, “It’s almost done if you wanna get Megumi.” You said, choosing to watch the basking of the eggs rather than make eye contact with the taller man.

Toji laughed and walking over to the coffee pot you had refilled, pouring himself a cup of it and adding a packet of sugar. He made his way over to the bar and sat on one of the stools, his chin resting in his palms as we watched the two of you work.

He felt like he had a family back. It was a horrible thing, truly, to seek comfort in the young girl who Megumi had introduced as his friend. But Toji wanted you, and whatever Toji wanted, Toji fucking got.

A plate was placed in front of him by a pair of small hands, he looked at you and smiled, placing a hand on your head and scratching your scalp as he tousled your hair “Thanks.”

You nodded and went back to the other pre-made plates. You placed another next to Toji for Megumi.

Toji internally groaned, he wanted you to sit next to him.

“I’ll go get Megumi.” You left the kitchen and Tsumiki siad a quick ‘Okay!’ before turning to her father who was devouring the food you’d cooked.

Toji could feel his daughter’s eyes on him, looking up from his meal to stare blankly “What?”

Tsumiki rolled her eyes and turned back to her own plate of sugar covered pancakes, decorated with strawberries and whip cream. “I see the way you look at her dad. She’s in college and you’ve barely known her for a whole day!” She exclaimed.

Toji simply shrugged his shoulders at her input and continued to eat, taking another bite of eggs, “You’re gonna give her a pair of skates for when we go to the lake today.”

Tsumiki nodded and picked up her plate, walking past him to sit at the table, placing a hand on his shoulder “Dad.” she pleaded

Toji lifted an eyebrow “I’m not gonna do anything.” He put his hands in mock defense to which Tsumiki gave a ‘really?’ look at and sighed, walking over to the table and taking a seat.

Only a minute later you came down with a sleepy Megumi following behind, rubbing his eyes and tripping over his feet. “Morning.” he said groggily, taking the seat next to his dad and digging into his breakfast.

Toji ruffled his pointed hair and laughed as the raven strands bent for half a second and then bounced back up into their original place.

You sat at the table with Tsumiki, watching the quiet scene unfold, smiling warmly at the interaction. The father-son interaction brought you to think of your own father, your thoughts scrambling to find a moment in your life where he was as soft with you as Toji was with his own children.

“You guys excited to go skating later?” Toji turned in his chair, looking at you Tsumiki.

You nodded, mouth full. Wiping your mouth you nodded again, “I am, Mr. Fushiguro. I’m very excited.”

Toji’s heart warmed at your tired voice, feeling a little guilty for keeping you up outside in the cold for as long as he did. He crossed his arms over the back of the stool and watched you eat, “I can take y/n in my truck if you two wanna take the Royce.” Toji stated more than asked.

Megumi shrugged at that, not really caring who he went with but still concerned about how you’d feel being all alone with his father, He was fine with driving with his sister but Megumi knew his dad’s truck had enough seats for all of you. “y/n are you okay with that?” Megumi turned to you.

You felt embarrassed as all eyes were on you, “I’m okay with that.” you smiled at Megumi, slowly turning your head towards Toji, reassuring him with a smile.

He smirked and stepped off the stool, stretching his arms over his shoulders, his shirt riding up past his navel. “Alright, I’m gonna go get dressed.” he made his way through the kitchen and into the hall before turning back and looking at you “y/n, wear something warm ‘mkay?” He said and walked off.

Tsumiki rolled her eyes at his request “Don’t mind him, it’s just his dad shit telling him to be all parental, wear whatever you want.” She said.

You smiled at her before dragging your finger through the leftover whip cream on your plate, bringing your finger to your lips and sucking on it gently. It felt nice to be dotted on, to be worried about, to be worried about by a father. As you made your way to your room and got dressed, pulling on a hooded mink fur jacket, like Toji told you to do; You twirled in your mirror, picking up one foot cutely, watching the strings of your furry moon boots dangle.

A knock came from your door before Megumi entered the room, dressed in a luxury white fur coat, the hem running to his jean clad knees. “You almost ready? Tsumiki put your skis in my dad’s truck already, she guessed your size.” you laughed at that.

“I’m sure they’ll fit.” you picked up your phone and slipped it into your pocket and followed Megumi down the carpet steps. Once outside you stepped onto the gravel and over to Toji’s truck where he stood, resting against the tailgate with his arms crossed; the denim of his jacket stretching over the bulkiness of his arms - drool pooling in your mouth at the sight.

“You ready kid?” Toji stepped out, timbs crunching the gravel beneath him.

You nodded and watched Megumi walk past you and open the door to Royce, “We’ll meet you there right?” he said, hand on the door. Toji gave a thumbs up before walking up to your side of the truck; Tsumiki pulled out beside him as he did so.

“Be careful on the road, dad, she doesn't need to be subjected to your psychopathic driving skills.” She narrowed her eyes only to soften them when she saw you, “Don’t worry, baby, I’m sure he’ll keep you safe - something about Tsumiki’s insignificant promise that her father would protect you made your knees weak - It’s only about a thirty minute drive, we can get lunch after too.” She then left, wheels rumbling over the gravel as the car rounded the corner; Leaving you and Toji alone.

“C’mere baby,” He motioned for you. You walked up to the passenger side, Toji standing with the door open, hand on his hip. “You ready?” you nodded and he placed his hands on your hips, your smaller ones grasping his forearms in shock, placing you in the seat he then squeezed your thigh gently, “Good girl.” he shut the door.

You were gonna die right then and there. Jesus Christ you were going to die and Toji-Fucking-Fushiguro and his deep voice and big hands were going to be the reason Megumi would find you dead in the passanger seat of his father’s car.

The sound of the driver’s side door opening made you turn your head, watching Toji step into the truck with ease and push the start button, the car rumbling as it turned on and warm air ran over your skin. The contrast between the cold air and the heated car made you shiver.

The ride was silent as the truck rocked back and forth over larger rocks in the road, Toji had some music playing at you watched the mountain range, making note of how it must've snowed last night as there was visibily more white frosted trees and the mountain seemed to hide all the dark toothpick looking trees from across the valley.

“When I was younger, my dad took me up here with my friends,” he paused as you turned to him, waiting for him to continue in complex adoreness. Toji felt his hands grip the leather wheel with his left hand, his right folding into a fist on the compartment piece in between the two of you; his mind begging him, demanding him to reach out to you and hold you, hold your thigh, your hands, anything to touch you.

He cleared his throat and continued “I took his pickup out to go get drinks with my friends and slid on black ice, we jumped out in time but the truck went down this lil’ valley, thought I was gonna die.”

You felt your shoulders release - aware that Toji had survived since he was literally driving you down the same road he nearly died on before you were even born. But a part of you made you relieved to know that he hadn’t slipped down the icy mountain and met an evil demise brought to him by the reigns of teenage boy stupidity.

“You were okay though right?” your eyes wide with worry

Toji laughed at your shocked expression, the thought that you asked if he was okay, the thought that you were worried about him made his heart swell. He loved the way you made him feel and simuloutansley hated it. Knowing you’d almost never reciprocate the same feelings he had.

“Yeah honey, I was okay.” He ruffled your hair teasingly before grabbing the back of your hood and pulling it up and over your head, covering your eyes.

“Hey!” You moved the hood from your head and hit his arm, he jumped back and put his hands up in mock defense, laughing heartily.

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry!” He laughed and turned back to the road.

You gave a ‘Hmph’, crossing your arms dramatically.

A hand was placed on your thigh gently, squeezing at the plush of your thigh through your pants. Turning your head you met his eyes, the car slowing down, his focus now on you. Toji shifted a small bit, moving closer to you, his grip on your thigh growing tighter.

The air suddenly seemed thinner, your lungs scrambling to find breath in such a quiet and intimate moment. Your best friend's father had his hand holding your thigh, your best friend’s hot, older dad had his giant, rough hand holding your thigh - holding you.

You exhaled shakily, almost embarrassed to meet his eyes.

“Hey” placing the hand that was on your thigh to your cheek, stroking your cheek gently.

“Hi” you whispered, toji smiled at your voice, god he was whipped and he’d only known you for seventeen hours.

Leaning in, he watched your plump lips part, his face was so close you could feel his breath on your skin. “You’re so pretty, baby.” he whispered, thumb coming up to rest on your bottom lip and pulling it downwards.

Heat went straight to your pussy, your thighs clenching together as toji brought his lips to your own. His hand went to the back of your neck, holding you in place as he ran his tongue over your teeth. You moaned into the kiss and brought a hand to his arm, rubbing his skin softly.

Toji groaned, pulling away from you and shifting the gear of the truck into park and reaching over you with both hands, cupping your face to his. Toji inhaled deeply through his nose, pulling apart to see a line of spit attaching your lips together.

“Fuck.” his eyes were lided and his lips were swollen and red “C’mere” he brought you into his lap himself, pushing the seat back so you’d have more room. Looking out the window you could see you were still on the trail, no other cars in sight. Your head was turned by Toji, grabbing your chin and leading you back to his lips.

Your lips met again, Toji’s hands coming to squeeze the flesh of your ass appreciatively. Moaning into the kiss you lowered your pelvis down to his prominent bulge, rutting against it gently. He hissed at the movement, breaking apart from you to look down between the two of you.

“Shiiit,” he sighed and went to run a hand through his hair, “can’t do that to me, I’m gotta fuck you, needa be inside you so bad baby.” placing his hand on the cup of your sex making you shiver.

“Toji please.” you closed your eyes, head tilting downwards slightly.

“Please what? C’mon use your words.” he smirked and ran his hands down the sides of your body, battered and roughed fingers caressing the soft-textured fur of your mink coat.

“Mhmm'' you whimpered, suddenly very aware of where you were and who you were with. Shying away, you backed away from him to rest on your thighs - still straddling Toji’s waist - you brought a finger to your lips, biting your soft skin and looking through the windows as if you were being watched. As if the trees and the birds and the deers and the clouds knew you were about to lose your virginity to your bestfriend’s fucking father.

“Hey, hey, what’s up munchkin?” Toji sat up, bringing you to his chest comfortingly - a parental instinct to protect - “m’ I movin’ too fast?” he asked, petting your head softly as you softly nodded into his chest.

“M’ sorry sweet girl'' Toji rubbed your back gently, letting you snuggle into his hold and hide yourself in the neck of his turtleneck, sniffling quietly. “Shh, no more tears, baby m sorry.” he cooed. The two of you sat in the car for a good while, the soft humming of the engine and Toji’s warm arms wrapped around your small body mixed with his soft words slowly lead you to sleep.

When you finally woke up you were met with a bright light, bringing a hand over your eyes to shield the sun away you saw Toji leaning over you slightly, working to unbuckle our seatbelt. “Hey sunshine.” he smiled.

“Hey…” you rubbed your eyes gently making him chuckle, “are we at the lake already?” you asked, looking from your seat in the truck, noticing you were in a small parking lot surrounded by forest.

“Sure are sweetcheeks, you wanna get out?” he backed away from the door and let you stumble out, knees still wobbly from being asleep. Toji steadied you and pressed a kiss to your forehead to which you hummed at and tilted your head back, puckering your lips for him. Toji chuckled and pressed a small peck to your lips.

He took your hand in his and walked you to the bed of the truck, picking you up and placing you onto the rubber mat of the bed and grabbing your (Tsumiki’s) pink skates.

Toji pulled off your moon boots and helped lace up your skates before putting you down, patting your head gently. Yawning, you watched him go back to the passenger seat of the truck and put your shoes underneath the seat before coming back to you.

“You ready lil lady?” he looked at you once and took your gloved hand in his, leading you to the rink where Megumi was skating backwards and talking to Tsumiki as she twirled lightly. Megumi saw you and waved, making you giggle and wave back with your free hand.

Toji walked you over to the entrance of the rink, stepping in and holding a hand out for you to aid you in walking to the frozen lake bed. You hesitated, watching Megumi and Tsumiki, they made it look so easy - but to someone who had never skated in their life, you were sure this was how you were to meet your end.

“C’mon baby, I’m not gonna letcha’ fall.” Toji urged, stepping a tad closer to you as reassurement.

“You promise?” you looked down at the ice and back to his face and then his hand.

“Yes, honey, I promise.” Toji’s face turned serious, eyebrows furrowing as you took his hand, helping you step down and grabbing your hip when your leg slipped a tad. You held onto him for dear life, the hood of your coat rubbing against his shoulder.

“It’s okay, kid” he laughed a little and stepped backwards, holding his other hand out for you to take, letting you follow him as he took small swerves backwards. “Easy, just like that - ooh, careful! Good girl.” Toji praised, allowing you to grow more confident as he only held one of your hands now, still skating backwards as he watched your footing. Praising you when you made a turn or caught yourself.

Tsumiki had stopped skating and was standing by the edge of the lake, watching her father and you skate together. It wouldn't take a rocket scientist to figure out that her father was pinning you and that you were returning, said pinning with the intensity of a school girl crush.

Megumi made his way past her and slowed to watch the two of you, turning to her as his chest heaved slightly. “Why are you watching them?”

Tsumiki was taken aback by his question, taking her hands out and gesturing to the two of you - you had slipped and Toji had caught you, bringing you up to his chest to hold you, letting you rest against his body as he continued to skate backwards, allowing you to hold onto him as he did the work for both of you.

“They look like they’ve been dating for four years for christ’s sake!” She exclaimed, her ponytail swaying. Megumi looked between her and the two of you shrugging lightly before preparing himself to continue skating. “How can you just sit here and not be bothered by that?” she laughed airily.

Megumi sighed and tilted his head towards her, “If i’m being honest, i don't really care - she’s still my best friend, and like, yeah” he shrugged again, “It’s weird, but this is the happiest i’ve seen dad in years, not to mention, she seems happy too.” Megumi then looked down at his gloves, restrapping them before taking off to skate again.

Toji held you to his chest, skating slowly as you listened to his heartbeat through his shirt. The rhythmic sway of his movements slowly lulling you into a sleep again. “You still with me baby?” his voice startled you slightly, vibrating through his chest and tickling the side of your cheek making you giggle.

“Yeah,” you slurred and moved to get closer to him, legs still moving in sync with his to help him as the two of you skated around the lake. “You’re warm.” you snuzzled him.

“Oh yeah?” he pulled your face away from his chest to tilt your head upwards, “Well, you’re pretty.” he watched you turn away from him bashfully, earning a deep laugh from him. “Awh c’mere stinker,” he grabbed your face and turned you back to him, slowly stopping the two of you in the middle of the lake. “You really are pretty.” he said and you nodded, leaning up to kiss him.

Megumi watched the two of you holding each other, completely unaware of his presence in staring at the two of you. An odd feeling filled his chest, not one of anger or sadness but one of almost relief, relief he could see his father being happy. Relief for you, someone who always seemed to sell themselves short, someone who put others before themselves. It was interesting to see you and his father somehow grow closer in less than a full day than he had managed in twenty-two years of living in the same home as the gruff man.

He was pulled out of his thoughts by Tsumiki grabbing her brother by the arm, dragging him off the lake and onto the snow covered ground. “We’re gonna head into town and get some takeout, you guys wanna come?” She yelled.

Toji pulled away from your gaze to give her a thumbs up, “We’ll probably get something on the way back, don’t wait on us.”

You watched Tsumiki nod and return the thumbs up, walking with Megumi to the Royce and pulling out of the lot, gravel crumbling under the tires.

Toji sighed as he watched them get into the car, “Finally, gotcha’ all to myself.” He tucked his head to nuzzle your neck making you squeal and wiggle around in his arms. The two of you sat in silence for a small while, listening to the soft air and snapping of tree branches, the occasional bird crying. It was heavenly - you and Toji’s own little space among the battered and destroyed world.

Feeling yourself move forward, you open your eyes slowly to see Toji skating backwards gently, moving so quietly that he skates hardly made any noise against the frozen water. “Hey, you ready to go, baby?” there was that pet name again. That damn name that made your knees weak, an insignificant title that made you want to sink to your soft knees and devour his cock.

“Mhm” you hummed, following him as he made his way to the snow covered ground and pulled you up, helping you stand as he watched you sway tiredly - worn out from skating and probably talking the night before did not help any.

Once in the car, Toji had buckled you in and removed your skates, letting you sit cross legged on the heated leather seats. You watched Toji remove his own skates and put on his shoes before stepping into the car and reaching his hand out towards you. Heat rushed to your cheeks when your hands met, it was a simple act of love - one might even say domestic, and for a minute, yeah, you entertained the idea of being domestic with him. Of having a family with him. Of being his.

“You okay?” He asked and rubbed the skin of your knuckle with his thumb gently, putting the car in reverse with his other. Toji held your hand the rest of the drive, squeezing occasionally when you pointed something out.

“Okay, baby,” Toji parked in a shopping center and let you look around at the sea of snow covered cars and neon labeled writing that covered the illuminated buildings, “What’re you feelin’?”

Sitting up a tad straighter you scanned the buildings, looking for any place you could recognize before falling back against the heated seat. “M’ not really sure, I don’t recognize anything here Toji.” you yawned and leaned over the compartment to wrap your arm around his bicep, snuggling into him.

Toji cooed at your tenderness, patting your head and making the decision himself, pulling into a drive through and ordering something for himself and for you, deciding to get you two different things in case you favored the other.

You woke up to the smell of something spicy, rubbing your eyes before letting them focus on the ma sitting in the seat beside you. “Mornin’ to” you yawned, jumping lightly when he laughed through the mouthful of food.

“It’s seven P.M, baby cakes” Toji took another bite of food and then reached into the backseat to grab the separate bag of fruit and hand it to you gently. “I got you two things so you can choose which one you want.” he brought his hand to your head, pulling you towards him and placing a kiss on your temple and then went back to eating.

“Thankyou Toji.” you whispered, leaning against him as you ate and looked up through the windscreen of the car, watching the stars quietly. The soft hum of the engine mixed with the soft song playing on the radio built a warm feeling up in your belly. The feeling of home. Although you had only known Toji for a day, somehow you knew he was everything you needed. The perfect mix of dominance and parental guidance that made you look up at him like he was the only man in the entire world who mattered (scratch that) the only person who’s ever mattered.

“What’s up, baby?” he met your soft gaze. You smiled and leaned up to kiss him. Toji filled the gap between the two of you and pressed his lips to yours. The kiss was gentle, short and sweet, nothing forced and nothing fake. It was reassuring.

The two of you went back to eating when you paused after your third bite, “Toji?” you asked and turned to him. “Yeah, baby?” he leaned back to rest his hands behind his head, watching you lovingly. You had him whipped and he knew it. He knew as soon as he heard your cries and soft meals for him through the thicket walls that he would do anything and everything to ensure you were happy and healthy and his.

“I want you to be my first.” so nonchalauntly said it almost made him blush, you spoke as if you were talking about the weather.

“You sure?” He querched an eyebrow at you to which your submissive nature returned, making you shrink away and lower your head.

“Yeah I’m sure.” you said and played with your food nervously. Toji smiled at you.

“Okay.”

The rest of the ride home was filled with soft comments and the soft sound of your knees bouncing nervously. At one point Toji had reached over to hold your thigh, slowing the rhythmic bouncing. “Calm down” he chuckled and rubbed your leg with his hand, “Don’t stress yourself out, I’m gonna take care of you.” he reassured you. Toji looked between you and the road, your face illuminated with a cherry light from the car lights surrounding you, “Hey, I’d rather have you do it with me than some dipshit who’s gonna fuck you and get you pregnant without caring about you.”

Your head turned to his, a worried expression painted your pretty features. “D-do boys actually do that?”

“Do what, baby?” he squeezed your hand and made a left turn, turning the wheel with his left hand smoothly.

“Try to get girls pregnant and then run away?” your bottom lip jutted out into a pout. Toji would have laughed at your naive nature, so easily bought by scary lines of abandonment. He knew you had abandonment issues; if the small tugs on his arms and adoring looks you gave him were any indication that you had trouble believing people (Toji) weren't going to leave you, stemming from some evil plant that had been rooted by most definitely someone you called a “father”.

“No, not all. But boys are idiots, I don’t want you hanging around any boys when you go back to school. They just wanna get their dicks wet.” Toji said, no room up to argue, as if you were going to.

“I won’t, I promise.” you were serious and Toji could tell. His precious baby, you were all his and he’d do whatever he could to protect you from the terrible monster spewed from the selfishness of teenage boy hormones and immaturity.

“I know baby, you’re my good girl, you’re daddy’s good girl.” the title made your legs quiver immediately, panties becoming soaked and thighs rubbing against each other, desperate for friction to ease the assault on your brain. The truck came to a stop at another intersection and Toji took the opportunity to press a kiss to your soft lips, pulling away and running his thumb across the bottom. He hummed at you and kissed you again, “Mhm, my sweet baby.”

“You’re so pretty” Toji praised, looking at you from between your spread thighs, your legs thrown over his shoulder as he pressed kisses to your panties, sucking on the damp spot of the fabric.

“Mmm, daddy, please.” you whined and reached a hand down to slip beneath your panties, your actions serving as pointless when Toji smacked your hand away.

“Please what?” he bit the inside of your thigh, sucking off your soft skin. You mewled at his touch, small fingers twisting the satin sheets generously. “Please touch me, I need you.”

Toji smiled at your neediness, sitting up a tad to pull your panties off and throw them behind him aimlessly. Bringing his mouth to your cunt he inhaled deeply and groaned, cupping your hips with his rough hands and bringing your body closer to him.

You exhaled shakily as he kissed your clit gently then moved down to lick a wide stripe up your core. You rushed to grab his head to steady yourself, thighs quivering as he groaned again when he inserted a finger.

“Fuuuck, you’re so fucking tight, baby.” he sucked your clit, his finger curling inside of you and stoking your gummy walls. “God, can’t wait to feel your tight little pussy on my cock, Jesus.” he exhaled deeply. “Gonna add another finger, kay, baby, you tell me if it's too much.” you looked up from your cunt, your juices coating his plush lips.

You nodded gently, spreading your legs a tad wider to accommodate toji’s new position. He pulled himself to sit on his knees, resting your cunt over his thighs. “Words for me, use your words for daddy.” he kissed your folds and you shivered.

“Yes daddy-”

“Promise me you’ll tell me if it hurts.” his eyes grew soft at your affectionate gaze.

“I promise, daddy.” you nodded and decided to act boldly, scooting yourself higher into his hold. Toji smirked through a chuckle before leaning down and inserting two fingers into you slowly. Wincing at the stretch Toji caressed your thigh with his hand holding you to him.

“I know, so good for daddy, just a little bit more baby.” he continued to praise you until both fingers were stuffed inside your tight cunt, threatening to split you if he tried to stretch them. “Oh honey, you’re so tight, that hurt?” he looked at you, concerned about his features.

You thought it over for a second, “Mm, a little bit, just a lil’ uncomfortable” hissing when he went to remove a finger, walls clenching emptily after benign stretched lightly.

“M’ sorry baby, daddy’s sorry, jus’ wanna make sure you're okay.” he rubbed the inside of your thigh and reentered his finger, sliding the two of them in and out of you with a squelch of your wet cunt. Toji watched as you squirm slightly, his fingers separating gently to stretch you. “So good for me baby, so good.”

Tears welled in your eyes at the praise, bringing your hand down to wrap around Toji’s wrist, he softened his movements. The two of you met each other's eyes and Toji smirked at your expression, eyes lidded hair stuck to your forehead. The way you looked at him with such trust made his heart swell, your swollen lips and rising chest, and the meteophicral hearts swimming in your vision could bring him to his knees.

He needed you and he fucking needed you now.

Toji grabbed a pillow and placed your hips over it, moving back to lean between your legs and press small kisses to your folds. “M’ you taste so good.” he wrapped his hands around your hips, caging you to the bed. His scarred lip tickling your skin when he sucked on your clit and reached his hand up towards you to hold yours in his own. He could tell you were close. Your legs twitched and he could feel your folds pulse and pump in his mouth.

“You’re okay.” he mumbled as your legs clenched as you came, nails digging into the rough flesh of his knuckle. His gruff voice muffled between your legs. Toji continued to lap at your soft cunt, his tongue flicking over your clit as he brought you closer to the edge.

A tight heat coiled in your belly, you tensed again and pulled your legs closer to your chest, toji following you as you moved, keeping a hand wrapped around your waist. He pulled off of you to smile, the scar on his lip splitting - the sight was almost painful to look at. Toji’s fingers pinched your clit while he watched you moan.

Throwing your head back against the fur pillow and tightening your grip around Toji’s wrist you came. “Oh- oh, please I’m cumming.” your walls pulsed around his digits, pussy soaking his mouth.

“Such a good fuckin’ girl for daddy huh” Toji smirked against your cunt, licking your wet folds before moving away to kiss up the inside of your thighs and up your leg that sat on his shoulder. He sat up onto his knees to kiss your ankle, rubbing your calf as you panted. “So pretty, baby.” he kissed your ankle again then moved to rest his hands on either side of your shoulders.

Toji brought his head down to snuzzle your neck, kissing the junction between your collarbone and neck, pressing short and small kisses all the way up your jaw until he met your parted lips. He pressed his lips to yours, cupping your head with one of his hands while the other moved down to part your folds again.

“Think you’re ready for daddy?” he pecked your lips. You nodded and whined lightly as he moved back to cup the bulge in his sweatpants. You moaned at the sight, you pushed yourself onto your elbows and crawled over to him.

He watched you eye his bulge, his cock twitching as your head tilted upwards, eyes meeting his own. You looked so innocent - so easy to ruin. You looked between him and his bulge, jaw opening and closing like a gaping fish. “C-can I touch..” you whispered, embarrassed at your own insinuation that you most definitely wanted this man’s cock inside of you.

Toji chuckled and leaned down to pet your head, he kissed your forehead and nodded when your expression grew into one of frustration at the lack of answer. “Yeah, baby, you wanna touch daddy’s cock?” he tilted his head to watch you turn bashfully making him laugh, pulling down the hem of his sweatpants through his chuckle.

His cock sprung up to tap his abdomen and drool pooled in your mouth, you moved to take him into your mouth, Toji’s hand coming up to press against your forehead, stopping you in the process. You looked up to him, eyebrows furrowed in confusion.

“Daddy’s okay, I’ll teach you how to suck dick another day, kay baby?” he stroked the back of your head. His words were almost condescending, treating you as though you didn’t know any better, as though you were too incapable of doing things on your own. Toji didn't think so though, Toji saw this as his way to own you completely, riot your brain of everything you knew and mold you into a submissive little puppy - mold you into something entirely perfect and special, hidden from the sinful acts of civilization.

“Daddy,” you whined, pawing at his thigh, staring at his cock had begun tortures; memorizing the thin veins that ran up the underside and his pretty pink tip. Daddy’s cock is pretty you thought to yourself.

He hadn't even noticed he’d begun to stare off.

Toji blinked and made a smile at you, holding your jaw in his hand and kissing you roughly, “Daddy’s here.” he pulled off to look behind you at the bed, pushing you back till you were laying on your back, arms reaching up for him.

Positioning himself between your legs, he hiked one thigh over his arm, pressing your knee to your chest. You placed your hands on his biceps, rubbing his skin as a means to comfort yourself as you watched him tug on his cock, precum leaking from the tip.

You made a nervous whimper at the feeling of his tip pressing against your folds. Toji kissed you and stroked the skin of your hip gently. “Shh… kiss daddy’s gonna go slow kay?” he waited for you to nod before slowly pushing his tip in.

You cried out and pushed against his belly, trying to slow him down, “Too much daddy!” tears already fell down your soft cheeks making Toji’s eyes soften. He brought himself down to rest on his forearms, bringing his hands to either side of your face and cupping it as you sobbed.

“Honey, calm down,” he spoke gently, thumbing your tears away “it’s only just the tip, baby”

You closed your mouth and screwed your eyes shut, trying to get used to the stretch only to shake your head when it wasn’t working. “Too big, daddy,” you wailed and brought your hands up to cup his wrists.

“Baby.” he cooed “focus on daddy for me baby” he pulled out a small bit to let you calm down. You slowly opened your eyes, vision blurred with salty tears as you tried to make out his face.

“Daddy you have to go slow.” you cried, bringing a hand up to wipe at your eyes which Toji pulled away, leaning down to kiss your eyelids gently and pulling back to place a peck on your swollen lips.

He cooed again, “I know baby, daddy’s sorry, he was going too fast.” you nodded at his words and he nodded back, smiling when you began to breathe normally again, taking deep inhales through your lips. “That’s my girl, deep breaths, kay?” you continued to breathe until you squirmed a bit underneath him. “Where you goin baby?” Toji asked, head tucked into your neck where he’d been pressing gentle kisses.

“Wanna try again.” you met his eyes when he came back up, “I can do it daddy, just go slow.” you reassured him when his eyebrow quirked.

“Okay, daddy’s gonna so slow, you tell him if it gets to be too much okay?” he kissed both of your cheeks and you nodded, your features filling with excitement in hopes of making your daddy proud. Toji noticed your excitement, of course, and laughed lightly, “Calm down, squirt, we still gotta take it slow. Daddy doesn’t wanna hurt you.”

You nodded enthusiastically and grabbed his biceps again, bracing yourself for the stretch and wincing when he pushed in again. Toji watched your soft expression grow screwed and stopped, “Take a breath, baby.”

You gasped loudly, showing Toji that you were in fact breathing which earned you a smile at your exaggerated breaths. Toji took your moment of distraction to push himself in a bit more, making your smile break into a gasp, nails gripping his skin roughly.

“So good, for me, see almost done” he tucked your head to look between the two of you; the sight of his girth splitting you open making your walls flutter and soak hsi cock, pulling him into you more.

Toji’s jaw dropped at the clench of you walls, you were so fucking tight - and he wasn’t even all the way in - “Oh, fuuuck,” he chuckled breathlessly, readjusting himself to support his weight on one of his hands, “easy, kid, god.”

“M’ sorry” your eyes welled up, thinking you were hurting him you went to move only to be stopped by him keeping you in place.

“No,” he chuckled “No- just- just god, haha” he took a few breaths, bringing a hand down to massage your clit, hoping you’d loosen up because at the rate you were going right now, he was gonna cum right when he was fully inside you. “Jesus, kid, you’re gonna be the death of me.” he said through gritted teeth.

Toji continued to push himself in, your body shivering and leg quivering over his arm as he met your hymen, tapping it lightly with the tip of his cock making you wince. “There she is.” Toji looked down between your bodies, seeing how much more you had to take he gulped and turned his head back up to see your worried expression.

“Hey, hey, hey, I’m still gonna go slow, baby, daddy’s gonna make you feel so good.” the two of you waited for a moment, his cock pulsing inside your tight cunt as you took deep breaths, trying to prepare yourself. Toji took the time to appreciate your features; your furrowed brows as you concentrated on the size of him, your long eyelashes stuck together by tears, your soft skin and plump cheeks that made him want to wrap you up in his arms and snuggle you. “You okay, baby?” you nodded “You want daddy to try moving?” he asked and kissed you.

“Yes daddy, I just- I need help.” you looked to him for guidance and guidance he provided. Toji thought for a second before taking your smaller hand in his large one and pulling it down to his cock, letting you wrap your small hand around the girth that hadn’t entered you yet.

“Good girl,” Toji muttered, watching you feel around his cock, exploring the touch and texture of it, “Now, daddy’s gonna push in and if it gets to be too much for you I want you to press against me.” he informed you and you nodded, heart speeding up at the pulse under the skin of his cock. “You ready?” nodding you moved your arm to his neck, pulling him closer to you and kissing him.

Toji pushed in gently, your hymen splitting, a broken cry muffled by Toji’s mouth, your hand made no move of stopping him but he slowed to a near stop for your sake, stroking your wrist with his hand and pressing kisses over your tears.

“You okay, sweetie?” he pulled back, stroking the back of your head.

“Yeah, m’okay, jus’ hurts a bit.” you sniffled

“I know, kid, you’re being’ so good for me, so good for daddy.” he kisses your nose and lets you relax, running his hands over any part of your body he could reach, slowly kissing you and allowing you to grow accustomed to his size.

“I’m okay now daddy, c-can you move, but be gentle please, like- like slow?” you said softly, taking your hand off his length to hold his forearm.

“Of course, baby.” Toji nodded and pulled out a bit before slowly pushing himself back in. He watched your expression clench up, having difficulty in taking his length; he tried a few more practice thrusts before realizing your body was tense and making it difficult for you to fully let him move without hurting you. “Baby, relax.” he sat up onto his haunches and pulled you closer to him. Your legs were placed over his shoulders as he pressed your body into a mating press, forcing your body to relax in surprise of all of his cock sinking into your tight cunt making him groan.

“Oh jesus, you’re so fucking tight, baby - haha, god, you’re all mine, god you feel so good.” he praised, head coming to tuck into your neck. He pressed small kisses to your skin while he groaned.

“Mm daddy, please,” your legs tensed when his cock twitched slightly. There was hardly any room for him, his cock was pressed against your cervix, your squirming not helping to ease the cramped feeling.

“I gotcha’, kid.” he pulled out and thrusted back in, this time you moaned and threw your head back against the fur pillows. You felt so fucking full. “Fuck, daddy.” you cried, turning your head upwards to watch him to see his focused yet blissed expression.

“Yeah, sweetie?” he chuckled, thrusting deeply inside you, his balls slapped your skin, the sound was damn near pornographic, the weight of his cock made you moan. “Oh, that feels good, does my baby feel good?” he teased at your expression, drool trailing from your mouth.

You nodded enthusiastically and moved to hold him closer, your legs bending against his shoulders to press him further inside you. “Daddy - whine - daddy, please all the way inside.” you pleaded and Toji looked at you worriedly.

“Okay, sweetie, relax for me.” he readjusted your legs higher on his shoulders and sank all the way into you, two of you gasping when his balls met your folds. “Jesus.” Toji shivered and pulled back to thrust into you again.

Toji continued to thrust into you, hitting your cervix and making you moan and clench around him, the heat and tightness of your pussy making him groan. He needed to get you to come. “C’mon sweetie, you’re so pretty for me, so. thrust. damn. Thrust. Good.” he brought a hand down to your clit and began to circle it gently, the rough pad of his finger bringing you closer.

“Oh fuck, daddy!” you moaned, “Daddy, m’ gonna cum, m’ gonna cum.” you cried.

Toji groaned and leaned down to kiss you, “cum for me sweet girl, want daddy to fill you up? Give you a baby?” he smirked at your expression, fucked coompletely stupid.

“Daddy please, please fill me up.” you moaned, the need to be bred was making your head spin. Thoughts of being swollen with his child and carrying his baby for him made your knees weak.

“Okay, kid, daddy’s cummin’ c’mon.” he said through clenched teeth, pressing your legs deeper against your chest causing you to cum. Your jaw dropped and you gasped, pulling yourself closer to Toji as you came.

Toji leaned into your hold, shivering as he bucked his hips into you, your gummy walls pulsed around him, milking his cock as cum painted your walls. He swore you were going to kill him. “God, you’re all mine, kid, all fucking mine. He finished thrusting and pushed himself all the way into the hilt, assuring his seed took before pulling out and falling beside you.

You sat staring at the ceiling, looking for something to ground yourself with as your body shook. Eyes coming to focus on the iron chandelier you felt tears well up in your eyes and pour down your cheeks. Suddenly everything was too much and not enough, you needed more of him, you needed him to tell you everything was okay, to tell you he wasn’t going to leave his multi-million dollar cabin after fucking you ti’ll you were braindead, your mind scrambled to find some logical thought, grasping at the scariest one it could find until you could feel the anxiety rotting in your stomach.

Toji heard you sniffle and turned over to see you covering your face with your hands, chest heaving as tears ran down your cheeks. “Baby, baby, baby, what’s wrong?” he moved to pull you into his arms, spooning you and grounding you with his weight. “Are you hurt, honey, what’s going on?” he kissed the back of your head. Hsi touch made you cry harder, “c’mon, kid, talk to me.” he pleaded and brought his hand over your body to cup your face.

“Please -” you choked, turning over to meet his eyes, “Please don’t leave me, don’t - I can’t, I wan’t-” you were panicking, unable to get the words out as word vomit spilled form your swollen lips aimlessly.

Toji tried to make sense of your rambling, ‘shushing’ you and pulling you against his chest. “M’ not leaving a sweet thing.” he kissed the top of your head. “Remember how I told you I didn’t want you hanging around those boys? Is that what this is about?” he pulled your head back from his chest to look at you, stroking your cheek gently.

You thought for a moment and considered that those scary stories Toji told you about the mean boys and their inability to be mature probably put you on edge. “Maybe” you sniffled.

Toji chuckled lightly, “Baby, I’m not gonna leave you.” he tucked you back against his chest before rolling over and letting you lay against him. “Shh, sweetie, relax.” he cooed as he felt your back heave with heavy sniffles.

Trying to slow your breathing you snuggled against his body, relaxing to the touch of him running his hand up and down your back comfortingly. You turned to him as you felt your eyes get heavy, “Toji?” you sniffled.

“Yeah, kid?” he asked, eyes closed yet his hand continued to run up and down your skin.

“Thankyou.” you said softly.

Toji peaked one eye open, “C’mere.” he brought his arm up to make room for you, letting you lay down next to him before wrapping you in his hold under the heavy fur blanket. “You’re a good kid y/n.” he kissed your forehead.

You hummed to yourself, relaxing into his hold and falling asleep to the sound of his heart.

The next morning Toji sent you to shower, letting you have your own privacy as you scrubbed the blood from between your thighs and watched the clear water that ran over the pearly white tiles turn a pink hue.

Once you were finished and dressed yourself in a pair of pj’s, you made your way downstairs, lured into the kitchen by the smell of bacon and syrup much like the morning before. Toji was sitting at the bar with a coffee cup in his hand and his phone in the other.

Noticing you enter the room he motioned for you to come over to him, letting you stand between his legs as he sat on the stool. “How’d you sleep, baby?” you stroked your head gently.

“Mm, good.” you yawned and rubbed your eyes to which Toji pulled your hand away from your face again.

“How many times I gotta tell you to stop doing’ that shit with your eyes?” You smiled sheepishly before wrapping your arms around him in a hug to which he returned, resting his chin atop your head.

“Forever.” you joked and Toji laughed, you smiled as you felt it vibrate through his body.

“Breakfast is ready.” Tsumiki said through a smile and placed two plates down at the bar, one for you and one for Toji before going back to make her own plate.

“C’mere, sweet thing.” Toji spread his legs and helped you up into his lap. Letting you rest against his chest as he brought your plate over next to his and began to feed you. It was a simple thing, the act of feeding someone you love, but it was a small act of domesticity that warms your heart. It made you and Toji’s relationship seem years old, as he kissed your temple and took a bite of his own food you smiled to yourself.

“What are you thinking about?” Toji teased and flicked your forehead.

“You.” you answered honestly, snuggling into him.

Toji smiled and placed a hand on your head before bringing another fork of food to your mouth, “Yeah, I’m thinkin’ about you too.”

Toji fed you another bite as Megumi made his way into the kitchen. You waved to him and smiled with a mouthful of food, Megumi chuckled at you, his shoulders bouncing.

He made his own plate and went to sit down with Tsumiki. The four of you ate in silence, save for snide comments made here and there by Toji or soft pet names he would whisper to you as you took another bite.

"Are we gonna go to the gondola today?" He pulled the string off his hoodie mindlessly and he munched on a piece of bacon.

Toji looked back at his son before turning to you and stroking the back of your head softly, "How's that sound, baby?"

You nodded your head and brought a hand up to cover your mouth, "sounds fun to me, I wanna see the mountains and play in the snow."

Toji smiled at your excitement and kissed your temple. The rest of the breakfast was filled with far more normalcy rather than tension, son and father making jokes while Tsumiki and you spoke about silly little things.

"You ready to go, kid?" Toji yelled from the bottom of the steps. He wore a black jacket made of PU leather and cotton fabric, snow pants, a pair of leather snow boots.

Bouncing down the steps in your moon boots you squealed happily, "Yes, I'm so excited!"

Toji chuckled and ruffled your hair once you made it to the bottom of the steps, "Careful, baby." He scolded lightly and you shook your head, removing his large hand from your hair.

"I wanna go!" You said gleefully and ran to the door and out into the icy air, Toji following behind, his bag in one hand and truck keys in the other.

You crouched down in the small amount of piled snow that had built up over night, grabbing a stick and poking at it happily as Toji started the F150 and placed his bags in the back.

Suddenly two hand grabbed your waist making you squeal and thrash around, "Toji!'' You giggled and he laughed, kissing your neck playfully. Toji carried you to the passanger seat of the truck and placed you in the seat, helping strap you in and then kissing your nose.

Toji made his way to the driver's seat and sat down, heated up the seats and started the engine before typing in the directions to the gondola. "You ready to go see some mountains, sweet cheeks?" He laid his hand out across the compartment signaling he wanted you to take his hand.

Placing your hand in his, you looped your fingers together and leaned forward to kiss him on his lips. "Yes!" You chirped and grabbed his phone to turn on some music.

Toji smiled at your music choice and rubbed the faux fur of your glove gently as he drove down the trail. He was happy.

[muffindaddystyles]

𝐑𝐎𝐋𝐄𝐒 𝐑𝐄𝐕𝐄𝐑𝐒𝐄𝐃

Author note: Mention of drugs, sickness and blood (if you're not comfortable with it don't read it) . It mighty be heart warming fluffyyyyyy.

You're his kitten. No matter the consequences you're. Cause even in his anger sometimes (which's rare and it's on the silly go-to's) he still sticks to that pet name because he met you like that under the bus stop's shelter in a heavy rain offered you an umbrella (while you were huffing and puffing like a kitten annoyed with the weather), walked you home, had a tea with you and some chocolate chip cookies. Been bestfriends from that year and there isn't a red light to your guys wild adventures—but he's been having a rough time recently. Had a cruel heart shattering breakup from a relationship that he thought was a never ending dream (she brought him happiness in a weird way he couldn't put into words) indeed it tightened your chest but his happiness's most important to you. To overcome it he's been scribbling notebooks over notebooks with lyrics that screams he miss her and the sex for the most part of it. It breaks your heart.

He's usually the one to melt all over you, give you forehead kisses, cuddles you when your periods are the bitchiest, makes you brekkie if he stays a night, runs you a bath and sometimes brings you pomegranate berried candles (he lies that he got them as a gift, he's one hell of a liar). He takes care of you with so much gentleness and helps you with study after wiping your tears and reassuring you telling you how proud he's of you. It made you guilty sometimes 'cos if you'd be in camille's place. . .you'd never be able not to get jealous. She was cool with it. Fills you with another curiosity that maybe she treated it like a fling.

He was devastated. Knocking on your door feebly. Then the moment your small confused body was under his weary gaze, boom!! It crashed upon him like a pitch storm and he fell to his knees tucking his head in your armpit crying his heart out. At that moment you felt his pain radiating to you and twisting your own stomach with a dagger, it was insufferable. He gave out no-deep scrapes but not to freak your bones muttered that he lost her. Eventually his bottled up emotions seeped into hues infront of you by passing week and to your littlest of information you got to know that they didn't ended up well in some perspectives so their relationship turned out to be a downfall. So As, you do with your girlie best-friend when she have a breakup you did it with Harry too. It didn't included feral clubbing (you left that part to his mates) but watching sappy movies that could fill your ice-cream bucket once you eat it whole, doing homemade face masks, playing drunk uno and knocking on your neighbours door to run way at last, dragging his arse to museum and in all of this you ended up convincing him to adopt a kitty (she lives with you thou).

The roles have been reversed completely!

He's been living at your flat for five weeks now. It's fading his usual cheekiness and the itch to annoy you every second he gets. Instead, it's just eating, spending bits of hours with you, going out with his mates and coming back to crash at your couch padding in your room in the wee of night demanding a warm coddle from you and that his back hurts from the cruelty of that single spring popping from the leather, staying with him when he'd wrench his stomach out in the morning. He's sensitive. His heart's soft that's one of the reason he gets hurt real quick, you admire that about him and reminds him that it's one of his qualities you're totally in love with. You're gentle with him. Giving him space and time to recover. Going with him at his friend's birthday little get together not drinking at all knowing one would have to stay sober as he chugged red wine staining his hawain shirt and when he clumsily poked his pink tongue out lazily to reach for the cigarette in her hand you tugged him back into you before he'd burn his tongue with sparkles announcing it's time to head back home and he'd be a pain in arse (a beautiful one though because his antics makes you all mushy) when he pretended to steal sandwiches from the table hiding them under his shirt saying that "'m pregnant with twins and it's hard to carry them" while you dragged him outside making him wear his coat like a stubborn toddler. Making him cupcakes sometimes, playing with his fluff of curls while he reads the book she gave him. It hurts. But, it subsides down with his single amiable glance that tells you he needs you. He always had. He always will. You give him extra forehead kisses and pecks on cheek while leaving for UNI, because it's irresistible to give dust to his pouty sulk.

It's seven in the morning when he tumbled through your door (has a key, you even brought his clothes and toothbrush from his house—he even uses your strawberry scented shampoo and body wash) his nose tip blushed matching his cheeks, eyes pooling with haze and hair poking in every direction. You were studying for a class you've in an hour. When you saw his irirses blown out you arched your brow putting the cup down beside your thick book, to mingle his sadness he's experimenting different fun wild things (told you bout it and you even called Mitch to take care of him).

"How many am I, pet?" You asked walking towards him seeing him struggle to get out of his vans and your giggles echoed into coldness when he peers down at your crouched state with his gold fish-y eyes, "dunno. . . but ye'r seem like. .like a-a sunflower floatin' in me head." His lips molding around his each word agonisingly slow drawl and his voice hoarse and scratchy. "You need rest, bambi." You got him out of his jeans and socks knowing he despises to sleep with layers on. "I'll be back with you in some hours. Hmm? Then we'll snuggle into blankets, you me and. . .salsa the pussy cat." You have to control your laugh everytime you take the kitty's name (Harry's worst at giving names you were horrified when he once joked that he loves chelsea boots so much he could name his daughter Chelsea) He whines at that nodding his head but not loosening his grip from around your wrist while you tucked him under your baby green patch work quilt. It's like his brain and heart can't decide how to choose.

On your way back you got Jeff's call asking why Harry isn't picking his phone his own voice resembling that of Harry's and you know he'd be looking shit at the time. Harry was still snoring out like a bulb in bright day on his tummy and you shook him gently at first but when he didn't woke up you had to be a bit harsher. "Harry wake up pet. . . Jeff's been calling ye for since." But, not even a hum in response so you placed your finger under his nose checking if he's even alive. Gratefully he was just sleeping like a literal corpse (he argues that he isn't that bad of a sleeper but in fact he is. Everything around him would burn down and he wouldn't even change a side).

It was seven in the evening when you were preparing for dinner when he woke up grumpy. His nose scrunched up, lips quirked up as if he tasted something yucky and his gait jello. You eyed him quietly even when he came in kitchen to drink water.

"Jeff was callin'. . ." You quipped stirring the veggies before pouring soup into a bowl and sliding it his way on the counter, "I know bombarded me phone with calls—" He gruffed spooning a mouthful and you flinched when he tried to cool it inside his mouth with "hawahhoohaha" little sounds (he knew it was hot, he's just an impatient leech).

"Stop being a gremlin. He told me ye' aren't writing, leaving everything like a cliffhanger neither you're attending the meetings he calls you at. . . I think you're done with your mourning it's time to do what you actually love and is there for you. Your music." You frown seriously trying to put some senses into his forever high brain. He drops the spoon back and dips his brows frustratedly, pinching his eyes shut.

"Fuckin' hell. Stop being my mama!" It's not the first time you guys are arguing and you're not gonna take it to heart. You stood up towering him and jabbing your finger to his chest, "you better stop filling your system with drugs before eighteen year olds come to you thinking you're a drug dealer—" He snickers at that a total mocking one (you know he's doing nothing hard it's just shrooms in the safe environment otherwise you'd have never never allowed him) but still you had to bring him back to his line so it was necessary. "Piss off." He mutters still slurping on his soup and you left him there with a loud smack on his head, "Wanker."

You care about him. Always did. Always will. He's the love of your life. Even your love has nourishment of just water and lacks sunshine from your sun it's still there into existence, how could you see him like this? Wasting his precious time and energy. It's impossible.

All you heard before going to deep slumber was the tinsy creak of your main door after that it was silent and darkness until now your phone buzzed under your pillow resonating Niall's tired words. You were a wreck havoc fumbling for your coat and wallet, covering pathway to tube with shivering legs hallucinating that everyone's eyeing your fiddly self with judgemental stare even though there're few.

You rushed to Niall's doorsteps knocking like a maniac, "where's he? Is he okay? told ye—" You pushed him aside marching inside to look for him. "He looked fine, he's a strong guy y/n they took him to hospital." You snaps your neck raising your brows.

"What the fuck, d'ya mean hospital!?" Your heart hammering in her ribcage overthinking the worst scenarios. "Take me there. right. fuckin' now." You tell him firmly not caring even if he's high too. Niall leads you to his car heating it up in the first beat taking glances of your petite body leaning against the glass with lips sucked in, eyes watered and legs constantly on bounce so placed his hand atop your knee giving you reassuring squeeze and a genial smile.

Your pink cheeks warming up with the heat of hospital radiating your way and loud growl left your chest when your blurry vision cleared to the sight of dishelved Harry sitting on the bench outside of ER, his irirses weary, mouth stuffed with cotton and has few scratches of rashes on his elbows otherwise he's fine. With each step of yours towards him something kept breaking inside you like you're walking on the nails and it's ripping you raw. He raised his head timidly hearing footsteps and when his eyes fell over your worried state panic flashed over his features and his only gaze turned you a puddling emitting heavy sobs within you before reaching towards him. The reality of situation dawning upon you because from what Niall told you in the car that they were high trying to have some fun, drove around neighbour hood and Harry jumped out of the window and bit his tongue between his teeth resulting in heavy bleeding a deep gnash (the fuckin' dumbstick he is).

"I hate you. I hate you so fuckin' much! you bastard." You tried to shout at him but the voice that came out of your mouth was that of mice as you threw harsh blows at his chest, bottom lip jutting wet and salty tears tricking down. He wraps his hand around your wrists ushering you closer down to his chest speaking muffled, "'orry." causing you to grunt angrily into the crook of his neck.

"Sorry my ass!" When you tried to pull back he tightened his hold round your neck snuggling you warmly to him with a hum. Jeff came back with medicines and when he parted his lips to speak in his defence you ignored him wiping your tears with the heel of your palms muttering a, "I hate you guys." The drive back was silent and the walk to your flat too, you passed by him to lock yourself into your room (you wouldn't because of the fact you wouldn't be able to sleep if not sure he's okay few feets away from you). When Harry attempted to roll his tongue to make some words nothing came out but a hiss making you spin, "'s okay we'll speak in the mornin'." Saying this you headed to bed and when you were bout to turn the lamp off he was lurking at the foot of your bed with a pillow in his arms smushing his face into it and squeezing it close to his chest gesticulating you that he wants a cuddle.

"Only 'cos y're adorable." You muttered moving your bum to make space for him suppressing your cooe when he grinned showing nothing but snow cotton, fuckin' hell being this cute should be illegal! He snapped his finger to call Salsa and she instantly galloped to shrink into his side while you spooned him. You woke up to the running tap and the time you were stretching under your quilt with yawns he padded out looking healed than last night.

He got a little lisp as he spoke, "can we talk?" You nodded knuckling at your sticky eyes criss-crossing your legs. "'Forgive me kitten." He continues, "sorry fo' mistreatin' ye' last night." You shake your head not realizing tears are dropping down your collarbones.

"Please. . .I don't wanna be a party-pooper in your life. you can live your life to finest but not at the sake of your life Harry– and. . . and if you're trying to invade the feelin' of sadness with all of this I don't approve it. What bout me? dunno what'll do if somethin' will happen to you, pet. S'not fair to me. is it? Just. . . love y—" your confessions cameflouging with sobs.

"Oh baby. ." He immediately cradled you in his embrace trying to soothe you with 'sorrys' and 'I'll never do somethin' like that again, promise'. Smooching slobery kisses all over your face and when you gazed up at him attracting him closer to your clean warm features all he did was peck the corner of your lips tenderly pulling away to pat your hair with a sigh.

"So. . .ye' love me." He teased you and you rolled your eyes grabbing his chin with your fingers, "show me your tongue." biting down your laugh when he retorted misheviously, "hmm. Wanna kiss it better?" Blowing him off with a remark that he's an utter pervert hiding the fact it splashed crimson to your neck.

"Mind makin' me poor self some brekkie?" He pouts and you giggled pecking the corner of his burgundy lips getting a timid smile in return, "in trade of?" He hip-checked you straddling Salsa over his shoulder and grabbing her little paws to expertise her in some dancey-dance moves.

"Mind bloggin' orgasm–ique dinner." He cackled loudly at the end when you shook your head in fake disappointment at him and he clinged by your side helping you to make some breakfast.

Think so you guys will figure it out.

[mimiplaysgames]

Terraqua Week Day 2 (Rivalry)

Summary: Growing up with your best friend is the greatest joy, the greatest nuisance, the greatest heartache. (The one where they kiss after their fight in Radiant Garden). || Word Count: 6,705

Read on AO3

A/N: My submission for the second day of @terraquaweek !! Title is from a quote from Eraqus from BBS. It’s pretty much the only line in the game that sums up Terra and Aqua, and it’s partly the reason why they’re so amazing. This whole rivals to lovers thing is so much like enemies to lovers and I WANT TO EAT IT ALL. I’m especially proud of this one - I had so much writing it!!

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

for when equal powers clash, their nature is revealed

CHILDHOOD

 It was a strange dream but she doesn’t remember it when she wakes up, just that it left her with a coppery taste in her mouth and a fog blanketing her thoughts. Something is coming, and she can’t prepare for it. 

Aqua decides to tell her best friend about it. 

Terra is waiting for her in the woods. They like to hike to the lake, to listen to the birds in the summer. They like to spar away from the training grounds of the castle sometimes, away from the Master’s eyes so they could practice without any scrutiny. She’s grateful to have Terra—he’s just as crazy as her when it comes to their studies. Books past midnight? Sign me up. Spar for five hours? Your ass is grass. Forgo an entire night of sleep to talk about outside worlds, about their worries, their pride, finally being a Master? We won’t be efficient for training tomorrow, but here’s what I’m thinking. 

She finds him at the mouth of the forest, a trail down from the waterfall. Terra is lobbing balls of fire, an excited grin on his face, itching to get moving. Too much energy for a fourteen-year-old in the morning. 

“What does that mean?” Terra asks her when she describes the dream.

Well, she can’t really describe it. Nothing happened. Darkness. Questions spoken in her head, worries that there was a darker darkness moving around in the shadows stalking her. A nagging suspicion that inside its mouth was something she should have pulled out. 

“Nothing’s going to get you here. You’re safe,” Terra says, though she doesn’t need reassurance. “Should we go back?” 

“No, please.” Aqua keeps her nose high. “The lake is a good place to rest.”

But they wouldn’t rest. They both love the thrill: training their magic, the thought of an upcoming exam two weeks from now, essays. They can’t help themselves. 

Terra punches the air, an energy blast shooting out from his arm. Another fire spell, his favorite. When he gets too involved though, too much, he becomes obsessive—obsessed with winning, obsessed with tripping her up, obsessed with outlasting her. The fury in how he builds his attacks is what makes Terra a dangerous opponent.

He’s perfect.

Aqua dodges and summons an ice spell to repel him, sweeping her kick so it spreads out. That’s the best strategy—tire him out, make him run after her, evade and exhaust, evade and exhaust, strike him when he’s almost done. 

Pull. She hears. Pull from it.

One of his attacks breaks her barrier, and she grins, twirling while she heals herself. Every moment she stumbles is another opportunity to learn how to beat him. They’ll talk about their duel after they finish. They’ll gloss over technique and how to improve. Every time they spar, their bond is reforged, connected, strengthened, unbreakable. 

Terra throws another blow. 

Pull.

This one catches her off guard. 

Aqua gasps and shields herself with her arm without a spell to protect her. Terra chokes on her name, too late to warn her.

A light explodes in her face, a flash of flower petals, a spell so instinctual she can’t articulate where it comes from. Her hand wraps around metal, as though an invisible hand has shoved it to her, strong but as light as her feet, a thrum deep underneath, a heartbeat. Its arrival blocks the attack with a barrier.

“A-Aqua?”

She holds her Keyblade in her hand. 

“Huh.” Terra grimaces, stepping back. 

The Keyblade is curved, striking at the tips, like a slice of movement. Blue and silver, a cool brush of a touch as chilling as snow on her fingertips but warm all the same, the feeling of a beloved embracing her. Aqua jumps in excitement, squealing. She had drawn images in her journal for what it would look like. This is better, much more beautiful.

“I don’t have a name for it, yet,” she says, laughing.

Terra doesn’t laugh with her. “Congrats,” he says, his enthusiasm on a chokehold, his hand rubbing his hip because it can’t find his pocket. 

Oh. He’s two years older than her, the first child to come to the Land of Departure, and he can’t conjure his Keyblade yet.

“Terra?”

“I’m fine.” He’s not.

“Wait.” She follows him into the thicket. He’s speedwalking, trying to get away from her. “Don’t be sad. Yours will come soon.” He doesn’t slow down. “Maybe I can help.”

Terra scoffs, scorched. At least he stops. “Or maybe not.”

Aqua fiddles with the tip of her wonderful Keyblade, rolling it onto her palm. “I was thinking how happy I was sparring with you. We’re best friends and I was thinking that…” Heat pools into her cheeks. “I was thinking we’d be best friends forever. Then she came to me. I don’t know how to explain it.”

A muscle twitches in his jaw. “That’s nice.”

“I summoned mine in the middle of danger,” she offers. “Maybe you need the same.”

He arches a brow. But he softens, blinking back tears. “You think that would work?”

“Why wouldn’t it?”

“I don’t know.”

“We could tie you down. I can cover you in ice.”

Terra’s face contorts, as if stopping a snort. “That’s the best you can offer?”

“Should I hang you by your toes and put leeches in your shirt?”

Terra cracks a smirk and she sighs, relieved. 

Once he’s able to summon his own Keyblade, they could go home and declare the semester over. The Master will be so impressed. 

Aqua calls for an ice spell to stay near. With the Keyblade, it’s much more natural, as if the chasm she normally has to pray through is now a step away. “I won’t hold back,” she warns.

Terra brings his fists together, heat simmering off his skin as a fire spell starts to build. “Good.”

He is the first to strike. Aqua dodges as the flames lick under her shoes, swinging her Keyblade forward. Ice sparks out from its tip and shoots forward in a straight line. It’s so much easier to aim now. Terra sways his hands into a cupping motion, as if picking up dirt into a bowl. Flames burst out of the ground, creating a wall that melts the ice before it hits him.

But Terra has a huge disadvantage: because she’s faster at summoning spells with the Keyblade, she can race around him, dodging everything he comes up with. He’s stuck in one spot, forced to place all his focus on bringing his magic to him in order to pull from it, the worst kind of exposure in a battlefield imaginable.

He wants this, doesn’t he? To be pushed into summoning it?

“Don’t hold back,” he says when she hesitates. He throws a burst of thunder at her. 

“Terra, I don’t like this.”

“You promised,” Terra says, closing a fist. He takes several moments to meditate on a spell, and Aqua stops. He’s trying to summon ice, a weaker command for him. But Terra is smart and Terra is capable. He pushes what he’s conjured with a force strong enough to crush her into a tree. 

She clicks her tongue when he follows that immediately with a fire spell. It nearly singes her hair, and she retaliates in kind—ten fold. Her fire hits him directly on the shoulder, sputtering onto the bush behind him, spreading like wings on the greenery, blackening the tree nearby and jumping to others. 

“Aqua!” Terra grips his shoulder and gapes at the collateral, which is moving too fast to seem real.

“Terra, we have to—”

“Come on!”

Ignoring his injury, he scrambles towards the lake, Aqua following close behind. The forest fire beats heavy behind them, a nasty gray suffocating the sky. The heat molts onto them, the smoke thick and invasive, visibility covered by a layer of graininess. Terra throws himself into the lake and draws a circle on the surface with his good hand. The smoke is now black.

“You need to heal first,” Aqua says, coming up behind him and placing her hand on his shoulder, whispering a spell. Green petals kiss his charred shirt, and he can move his arm better, gathering the water into an invisible bowl to carry back. 

Aqua does the same. She tries sealing the fire with her Keyblade so it stops spreading so far. So much work that seems like it’s doing nothing. So much earth that Terra is throwing onto the fire when the water sizzles away. Aqua almost collapses from the adrenaline keeping her standing, from the sweat and soot filling her eyes, from coughing but no matter how much, she can’t clear her throat. 

The Master finally arrives and points his Keyblade into the sky. A storm cloud gathers, a wave of water to hush everything. Aqua doesn’t know what comes next, only that Terra is picking her up in his arms.

It isn’t until after she wakes up in the infirmary that she realizes what a shithole they’ve dug themselves into.

It’s raining, trickling down the small window that sits above the bed, behind the pillow. Wooden shelves line the walls, filled with potions that she can pronounce and ones that she can’t. Some are so expired the Master has never opened them. Flasks, beakers, needles, syringes, scalpels, gloves spread across the table. Medical books about the nervous system and the heart are plenty here. There should be two about herbal remedies, but they’re gone.

She hears the Master and Terra bickering on the other side of the door.

“Am I to believe,” the Master says, icy and sharp, “the day she summons her Keyblade for the first time and a sudden, devastating forest fire is to be simply spooned together as a coincidence?”

Terra is quiet at first. “No, Master.”

“Of course not,” he bites.

“I was angry, sir.” This shocks Aqua. “I couldn’t control my magic for a moment.”

That’s not true. He needs to say it was her fault. She didn’t know her own strength and she tried too hard—

The Master scoffs. “I am so disappointed,” he says, his voice shaking in a way she’s never heard before. “I do not have the words. I can’t bear to look at you.”

Her heart sinks. She can’t imagine. She can’t imagine how awful Terra must feel. 

The door opens, and Terra slips inside with a gathering of fresh herbs in his hand. His face is ashen and pale. “How are you feeling?” he asks, his voice brittle. He’s about to sob.

Aqua moves and flinches. Her arm. “Ugh.”

“Don’t move.” He rips the leaves off and stuffs them into a mortar. “Your arm is badly burnt. The Master already healed you, but you need longer term care.” Somehow, he doesn’t cry.

Aqua pulls the sheet over her down. Red splotches trail from the shoulder down to the elbow. The Master took care of the severe scarring, but it hurts like she’s still in a pyre. “The fire?”

Terra sniffs and mixes the herbs with the pestle. “The Master took care of it. He hasn’t given me my punishment yet.” Briskly, he approaches her, spreading the concoction over her skin. “This should work better than a potion.”

“Our herb master,” she says, hoping it would make him smile. It doesn’t. Terra has dedicated himself to potion making and teas, considering that healing spells are hardest for him. When he finishes balming her in the mix, he reaches for bandages, holding her by the wrist so he can wrap the entire arm. “You shouldn’t move this for a while.”

“Terra?”

He doesn’t look at her, pinning the bandages in place. 

“Thank you,” she says.

“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean for you to get hurt.”

Terra climbs into the bed with her. It’s a narrow cot, the mattress thin and overused, the sheets washed too many times that its threads fray. Terra holds her good hand, bringing it up between their faces. Tears roll down his cheeks and pool on the pillow. “You’re going to be okay,” he says, “right?”

“Yeah.” She smiles. The mix soothes the superficial burns but it takes its time relieving the stabbing pain that comes with such an intense injury. “Why didn’t you tell him the truth?”

Terra frowns, staring at the folds of the pillow under his face. “I didn’t want him yelling at you.”

“I’ll tell him tomorrow—”

“Nah.” He wills a smirk and it looks fake. “We should… celebrate your accomplishment, you know?”

For some reason, it makes her guilty. “Are you really that mad at me?”

“What? No.” He bites his lip. “No, I just… I’m stupid.”

Aqua stares at him. “You’re not.” 

He scoffs. “If I wasn’t, I wouldn’t fail at the most basic part of being a wielder.”

“Your Keyblade?”

He shakes his head. It’s not fair.

“Why didn’t it come?”

“I don’t know.” He sighs.

Aqua gives his hand a light squeeze. “Maybe I was wrong.”

“Pssh. Maybe?” He grins.

She would hit him on the shoulder, but she hurts too much. “Maybe my approach isn’t your approach.”

“Meaning what?”

“Maybe your Light needs something different.”

His smile falls, like that of a lost and abandoned child. “But I don’t know what it wants from me.”

“Hmmm.” Aqua thinks hard, staring at the way his eyebrows furrow as he thinks with her. “You like to protect.”

“Okay?”

“Maybe your Keyblade isn’t about connecting with others or making friends like mine is. Maybe you’re happiest protecting and taking care of them.”

Terra purses his lips, blushing. “I guess.”

“Look.” She lifts her bandaged elbow, wincing. “You took care of me.”

“I took care of a sap.”

“Who was the one crying over me?”

“My secret evil twin. He wants to make me look bad.”

“What kind of a joke is that?” She sticks her tongue out. “Sometimes, I hate your face.”

Terra laughs for real this time.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

BEFORE THE EXAM

 The books she needs are not where they’re supposed to be on the shelf.

“Terra!” she calls. 

“Shhh,” she hears from the other side. Terra is sitting on one of the numerous tables in the library, a long, five-story ballroom with windows for walls, the ceiling a skylight. It allows for the sun to beam on them from all directions, on ornate gold-plated shelves with ladders on wheels for the books out of reach. Of all the desks he could have chosen, figures he’d be right here where she’s frantically searching, just to spite her. “We’re in a library,” he says, voice low.

Aqua refuses to whisper. “We’re the only ones here.”

“How rude.”

“To who?”

Terra gestures to the open book splayed under his hand. “I’m reading.”

He has seven other books stacked next to his parchment and pen. Preliminaries start tomorrow—the preliminaries that would determine their eligibility for the Mark of Mastery next year—and essays are due. 

On top of the stack is Darkness and the War for Light, right above The Stars As Your Guides and the ever-necessary Affairs of the Heart.

“I need those,” she says.

“You know the rules—”

“They’re arbitrary.”

“—first dibs, first reads.”

“You can’t read them all at once.”

“Watch me, I’m impressive.” Terra bites his lip to restrain a snort, those deep eyes waiting for her reaction, his strong cheekbones suspended in a smirk. She wants to punch him in the face. 

Aqua exhales. Without saying a word, she snatches the book at the top of the stack before he could stop her, bolting for the other side of the table. Terra scrambles out of his chair, tackling her from her behind so he could yank it out of her arms. She’s laughing under the weight of his chest, heat rising to her cheeks.

“You’ll have to fight me for it,” she warns. 

Terra snorts, his breath brushing her shoulder. “Really?” He grips the book and pulls. He’s stronger than her and they both know it.

The trick to defeating an opponent so much larger than you is to hit them at their most exposed. Aqua elbows him in the gut, and leaves Terra clutching his side so she could take a seat at the table, where her own unfinished essay awaits. 

“I guess that’s fair,” he groans.

“You sought a challenge, so accept your defeat.”

Aqua flips pages of Darkness—this year, it was especially important that they recognize signs of Darkness lurking near. Rage, scheming, impure intentions, greed, selfishness, fear. They’re present in subtle ways. Sometimes people act without realizing. Sometimes people are fully aware. Both are dangerous.

She grunts when she’s shoved over. 

Terra brings his parchment with him when he fills her seat, his hips so wide that she’s left with the corner. 

“It could be more comfortable,” he complains. His body is warm.

“What are you doing?”

“Writing my essay, but you took my book.”

The one he wasn’t using. Aqua inhales. “Terra—”

“I had first dibs. You broke the honor code, so you left me with no choice.” He smirks. His face is nose to nose with hers, and she imagines closing the gap. “We can share.”

“Fine,” she musters, averting her gaze. It’s awkward staring at him when his eyes look like they’re about to swallow hers.

They work. The book sits between their respective essays, the scratch of pen on paper the only noise filling the room, especially when he strikes long lines across words he no longer wants. He leans over her shoulder to read, his breath heavy on her cheek. If they were in different places, if he had her in an embrace, she could probably feel for his heartbeat. 

Though this isn’t something she should be thinking about right now, not when she’s trying to read the three tenants in combating the Darkness. Vow Number One: Do not give yourself to Temptation. 

“You’re very distracting,” he says, his voice so close to her ear that it sounds like yelling. 

She jumps. He took the words right out of her mouth. “Speak for yourself. You’re too big for this chair.”

“There’s one right next to you.” She could hear how much he loves this.

“I sat here first.”

He leans back and wraps his arm around the backrest. “I have to defend my space.”

“Then you can squirm.”

He huffs, and it suspiciously sounds like he’s pleased with that. Aqua reads a sentence, scans the current page, and flips to the next one.

Terra swats her hand and turns it back. “I wasn’t finished with that one.”

Aqua would scream if she already didn’t enjoy this. She’ll never admit that out loud. “So you’re just,” she starts slowly, “going to police how fast I read this book?”

“Depends on where I am.” 

“You’re slowing me down.”

“You’re not being considerate.”

“I can do the same thing.” She flips the page back to her spot. 

“Aqua,” he warns.

“Oh, you didn’t like that?” Aqua smirks at him. 

He eyes her and smiles. “You make me want to scream.”

Like a mind reader. “Don’t forget—we’re in a library.”

“Okay.” He pulls the book closer to him.

“Okay.” She pulls it back. 

Terra strengthens his grip on the book, leaning forward and wrapping his other arm around her waist. To use her as a counter-weight, to push off of her so he can claim the prize, Aqua knows this, but her heart jumps at the touch. He drives her crazy in the most delicious way. He’s addictive.

“Nice to see my students finding some time for leisure,” the Master’s voice says, approaching them from the entrance. “A healthy activity during such a time of stress, if I do say so myself. I commend the both of you.”

Aqua doesn’t know about healthy when she’s thinking about all manners of touching. Terra slips away from her. Is the Master being facetious? Should they move to different chairs? Or would that make them look more guilty?

“Terra is deliberately sabotaging my essay,” Aqua says, voice shaky, her sleeve coming up to cover her blush. Terra has his elbows on the table, both of his fists hiding the lower half of his face.

Eraqus tucks a binder under his arm, glancing over their work. Aqua isn’t sure if she’s seeing things, but she swears that’s a smirk underneath his moustache.

“Well,” he says. “These will be the last essays you will write, if everything runs smoothly tomorrow. Quite a reward for all these years of hard work, yes?”

Terra and Aqua nod. 

Eraqus nods along with them, as awkward as the collapse of clothes leaving you naked. “Don’t work too hard,” he advises, and Aqua wants to melt under the table. “Tomorrow will come regardless. Enjoy the time when it is good.”

The Master leaves the library with a different atmosphere. 

“Last essay ever,” Terra repeats, mumbling to himself. He’s frowning. They don’t make a move to a different chair, as if doing so would have admitted some secret neither of them even know but nevertheless, they don’t want anyone else to find out. “Then there’s next year.”

Next year.

Some of Terra’s pages have whole paragraphs crossed out. Maybe that’s why he’s better than her at essay-writing. He goes beyond. He’ll scrub out parts he’s already written when he realizes they no longer serve him, drenched in ink blots when he notices small errors. Even with a complete essay, Terra will rewrite it from scratch, to prepare clean pages with no mistakes. Aqua doesn’t consider herself lazy with essays. She just never had a difficult time writing something the Master will want to read.

But all the effort Terra puts into his work means that he considers angles she’s never thought of before. On the subject of Darkness and Temptation, Terra writes: The Master of Masters writes of Temptation: “To tempt a snake for its loyalty reaps safety in the future,” (Affairs of the Heart, pg. 236). Giving in to Temptation when a Light is about to expire harbors selfishness, and that beacons the Darkness to cloud our minds. If we are doubtful, we too welcome the Darkness. However, if we deny the very thing our Hearts want, when we should be following Them as our closest allies, then we are unable to persevere. I question whether Temptation can only have negative connotations. Our duty is to make sure the Light is in balance, and perseverance is key. How are we supposed to keep the Light bright if ours are too dim? Should we not enjoy our own lives as we see fit, follow our Hearts to bring us fulfillment? Should we not make love, or enjoy the dessert we bake? These trivialities are the very thing people hold dear and protect. It is not our calling to enjoy them, but if we are, then our Hearts are at peace. If happiness is shared, then it is Light worth protecting, even our own. It feeds our strength.

Aqua can’t write like that.

Tomorrow, they’ll spar under the Master’s scrutiny. If they pass, they’ll do it again next year and finish their studies once and for all. Ever since Terra conjured his Keyblade, he’s treated his fights like he’s a bulldozer. Tricky to outmaneuver, keeping her on her toes. 

He’s still the best sparring partner she could ask for, the best teacher when it comes to outlasting opponents. Her only equal.

“I’m nowhere near finished,” Aqua says. 

“Looks like we’re both pulling all-nighters tonight.”

Aqua sighs, and this prompts Terra to hold her hand under the table, interlacing their fingers together. She wants to curl into him, feel what it’s like to really hold him close. 

“We’re going to do fine.” Terra says, his voice soft, but he’s so close he fills her mind and every sensation in her body. He rubs her thumb with his. 

“All-nighters aren’t pleasant,” she says, thinking ahead to a yard of headaches and yawns. “We’ll need energy.” This is the first opportunity to stand up. “I can make coffee and tea for us.”

“And lots of food.” Terra stands with her. “Protein. Nuts are good for energy boosts. I can make us enough meals to sustain us for the rest of the night.”

They’re speaking with the intention to leave something behind that they don’t want to address, packaging their words away from the obvious. Aqua fiddles with her fingers.

Terra moves his essay over. “Maybe we should work on opposite ends of the table,” he says, clearing his throat. His voice is shy. 

“So we can focus.”

“Yeah.” He sounds desperate to agree but also…disappointed? “You can take the book. For now. Consider it my peace offering.” 

“It wasn’t an honorable battle to begin with.” She moves hers over too, measuring in her mind how big of a feast they’d fill the table with. They’ll need more, enough for Ven to pig out every once in a while.

“Says the cheater.”

“You were the one stealing my book!”

“You broke the rules.”

“It wasn’t a fair setup.”

“Aqua, I’m shocked.” Terra feigns displeasure, holding his hand over his heart. “I thought I knew you better.” 

She groans. She hates his beautiful, impeccable face sometimes. 

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

THEN...

 The conversation is a combustion she can’t prevent from happening. It isn’t supposed to be this way.

“And what is this dangerous task, Terra?” she asks, refusing to believe he’d test the teachings they both held so dear. After all these years. That he’d squander his chances at convincing Eraqus to give him the Mark of Mastery. “It doesn’t sound like what the Master told you to do.”

“It might be a different route, but I’m fighting the Darkness.”

“I’m not so sure. I’ve been to the same worlds as you and I’ve seen what you’ve done. You shouldn’t put yourself so close to the Darkness.”

Ven interjects. “Listen to yourself, Aqua. Terra would never—”

“You mean you’ve been spying on me?” Terra says, his eyes narrowing. To see his beautiful face this hurt—stars, she doesn’t know what she’s doing. She should shut up. “Is that what he said to do? The Master’s orders?”

What is she to do? What else does he expect? “He was only…”

Quietly, he says, “I get it,” like the silence in a coffin. 

“Terra—”

“Just stay put! I’m on my own now, all right?”

“Terra, please! Listen! The Master has no reason to distrust you, really! He was just worried.”

Her words fall on deaf ears. Terra is not like this, he’s never like this, turning his back, walking away, leaving her to stand and watch him go. 

“Why?” Ven asks her. “Why would you do this? You’re letting this whole Master thing get to your head.”

Terra has never said that about her, even when pushed. They’ve been pushed and pushed, how is she supposed to mend the tear now? 

“I’ll be right back.”

“He’s really pissed.”

“Stay here.”

“I won’t.” 

Aqua stops. A lot is changing and she can’t keep up. “But Ven—”

Ven purses his lips. “I’ll give you guys some time alone. Then I’m going after him.”

Oh, so that’s how it’s going to be. She is the odd one out, the one that shouldn’t follow Terra, the one that broke some sort of code by choosing to side with the Master. They should be on the same side. 

“Be safe, please?”

Ven nods, but he isn’t happy about it.

Aqua crosses the alleyway, opening an ornate gate that leads into the town square. Radiant Garden is pretty; they arrived just in time for spring, where the dandelions are yellow and the town is painted in herbal colors. But Aqua can’t get herself to enjoy the view. She can’t appreciate the architecture, the castle, the clock tower, the townsfolk selling their wares, the gentle sunset, not when her heart is collapsing into a growing, weighted pit. Nothing else and no one else exists in the seconds she dashes down the streets.

“Terra!” 

He’s heading towards the city gates, where she assumes he’ll summon his glider and fly away. 

Aqua speeds up as fast as she can, feeling she’s still too slow. He’s about to disappear if she can’t break her bones and fly. She grabs him by the shoulder. “Terra, please. I don’t want the conversation to end the way it did.” 

“Aqua,” he grunts, stepping out of her touch and crossing his arms. “Not now, okay?”

He’s about to turn on her. Don’t let this be the last image she sees.

She hugs him by his waist and buries her face into his shoulder. “Please don’t leave.”

He tenses.

“Please?” 

She doesn’t know what to say. Apologize? For doing what’s expected of her? Shouldn’t he know this?

Shouldn’t she understand on some level, after all these years, that sometimes Terra is way more important than her duties? That she should stand up for him when it’s called for?

When Terra finally wraps his arms around her, she squeezes him tighter, hoping the loss of words would translate. How many minutes does she have left before she has to let go?

Terra splayes his hand on her back, as if to prompt her to loosen up. “I need to go.”

“There’s so much we need to talk about.” Why is her heart pounding this hard?

“I don’t want to talk about anything.”

“I feel so awful for what I’ve said.”

Terra doesn’t reply.

Aqua doesn’t know what’s gotten into her, why she can’t trust in anything, let alone the faith that their bond is unbreakable when she is witnessing how it’s cracking under the pressure. She grabs his face and kisses him, the taste of his mouth unique, warm, sweet, more than she hoped for. 

Terra seizes her when he kisses back. He wants another. And another. He grunts. 

They part for breath, too exposed and in public. Terra takes her aside, into a shadowed alley between a house and the city wall, pushing her against the brick to kiss her harder. She locks his neck in her arms and pulls him in. He’s so enveloped in her lips and he’s so angry, his teeth sliding and nipping barely on her skin like he’s fighting to win, his pelvis on hers, his chest pressing her, squeezing her breath away. She doesn’t want him to let her go. 

He pulls away, his touch slacked. Heavy in breath, lips swollen, eyes watery, he trembles as if he’s done something awful. Aqua has her hand on his chest right over his heart, where it thrums quick and strong. He’s strong, he’s always been. She has to believe that.

“I don’t compare to you,” he croaks. 

Fear churns in Aqua’s stomach, and she reaches for his wrist. “You do. You—” She doesn’t know what to say. “You shouldn’t think that way.”

Terra pulls from her, snapping their connection, leaving it cold where he was warm. It hurts. “I have to do this alone.”

“Terra—”

“Master Aqua,” he says, and her heart drops. “Please, respect my wishes. This is something I need to do if I’m ever going to—” He doesn’t finish. Instead, he turns over his shoulder, the crown of his dark hair glistening in the light of the sun where he disappears past the city gates. He doesn’t come back.

Aqua wraps her arms around herself, caressing the warmth he left behind for as long as possible before it inevitably leaves her too. She wonders if there is meaning in what just happened, wonders what he’s telling himself that would set him down this path. She’s scared of what will happen if she follows him.

She has to follow him. She has to make sure he’s alright. She prays he makes the right decisions, that they won’t have to fight. 

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

NOW

At night, the library is surrounded by stars. Twelve years in the Realm of Darkness and Aqua has forgotten that the library is all windows, bookshelves suspended in a birdcage on the side of the castle. It’s drizzling, droplets appearing at random, with none of the weight to drip down the glass. The lights are off, a glow polluting in from the hallway.

Terra is here, lying on a gold and white couch, the stand ornate and the cushions embroidered. 

“Welcome to the insomnia party,” he says. 

Aqua sits by his ankles. Terra rests his head on his arms, and lets go of the stars above the storm clouds to watch her. He leans up on one elbow and offers her a smile, but it’s a mimic of one. Who knows the reason why he can’t sleep. She won’t ask.

“Can we,” she starts, bringing her knees to her chin. “Talk?”

“We are.”

On the spot, Aqua blanks. “I don’t know where to start.”

He scoffs and unhooks his elbow, plopping back on the cushion. “Pick a place. We’ll get lost together and have to backtrack anyway.” He sighs, rolling his head towards the floor. “I can’t look at any of these books the same way again.” 

Five stories of them, and not a single explanation for what happened. 

“When it got tough and I needed to rely on my knowledge,” Aqua says, counting words on her essays over the years: 20,000. “I found that none of it could help us.”

“I’ve had questions ever since I started my apprenticeship,” Terra says, staring at the glass ceiling. “Many of them are still unanswered. What was the point?”

“None of it was relevant in the Realm of Darkness.”

Terra rolls over into a fetal position, burrowing his face into his arms. “So what did help?”

“Thinking of you and Ven.” The thought right now makes her smile, a little thing, a blink in the darkness. 

“I thought of you every day,” he says, morosely, shyly, with a speck of hope and a mix of self-awareness. After twelve years, Aqua still knows him so well and she’s grateful he’s (almost) the same Terra she came home to.

The thought of that chokes her. “I didn’t want it to be this way,” she says. “Any of it.”

“None of us did.”

“I meant…” She pauses, watching closely. The outline of his shoulders, the shape of his brow. They’re furrowed. “Our dream was to become Masters together.”

His shoulders tick. “I should have congratulated you.”

“What?”

“When you were titled Master. I didn’t congratulate you. I’m sorry for being self-centered.”

After twelve years, that’s the last thing in her mind. “I was thinking of withdrawing the title.”

Terra shoots up, face to face with her. “Why?”

“Like I said,” Aqua whispers, now that he’s so close. “Our dream was to be Masters together.” 

“No way.”

“You’re quite passionate about this.” Aqua rubs her knee. A nervous habit, something for her body to do. It used to be natural to hold his hand. 

Terra slaps his forehead. “I can’t let you do that. Not after all the work you’ve done.”

“You’ve worked hard, too.”

“And everything you’ve survived.”

“What you did was not survival?”

Terra gapes. “I don’t know, but I need to own my mistakes. I should have accepted my setbacks and my weaknesses…I wasn’t a good friend to you.”

Aqua sighs. “Don’t tell me you don’t deserve it.” 

“I don’t want to think about what I deserve. I only know that you deserve better.”

Deserving and not deserving sound like arbitrary definitions, markers of work ethic and integrity when everyone deserves peace of mind. “Then it sounds like you need to work really hard in the next couple of weeks.”

He blinks at her sudden change of tone. “Doing what?”

“Passing the Mark of Mastery.” She looks at her knee. “If you want me to keep my title, you have to pass.”

“You’re keeping your title regardless.”

“Pass and become Master with me.” 

“Aqua,” he warns. 

“That is the only condition.”

Terra leans his elbow on the backrest, and laughs into his hand. Laughs. It’s a weak and unpracticed song. She forgot what it sounded like. “You drive me crazy,” he says, “but it makes me so happy.”

She swallows. “I’ll contact Yen Sid to schedule the date.”

“Don’t get cheeky. You haven’t won this conversation.”

“Yes, I have.”

When the chuckles shared between them fade out, Terra studies her face, starting at the tip of her forehead, running his eyes down her nose and lips. The quiet is unwelcome.

“Do I look different?” Aqua asks.

“Not really.” He blinks, and it’s too dark to tell if he’s staring into her eyes. “You don’t smile like you used to. It’s like you’ve dimmed the lantern.”

“I can say the same about you,” she says. He’s tired, leaning on the couch like he can’t sit up on his own. He needs effort to speak. When he smiles, they’re delayed, as though he’s lost and needs to be reminded that he lives in reality now. He’s still beautiful. Terra doesn’t ask her to elaborate, but she supposes he understands exactly what she means. She supposes it’s the same for her.

Terra takes her hand and pulls it closer to him. “I do feel better with you around.”

Aqua grips the fabric of her stocking. “The last real conversation we had shouldn’t have been a fight.”

“It’s nothing to be sorry for.”

“Oh.” She holds her breath. “Wait, I shouldn’t be sorry for the fight or…” The kiss? She can’t bring herself to ask.

Terra smiles into his knuckles, and a spark of flame ignites his eyes. That’s what it is. Their hearts are tired. No book in the library can teach them how to bring them back to life. How to give it an ounce of oxygen to fan the warmth. Or how to provide a touch of oil, a passionate something to make it burst and remind them what it’s like to really want to hold a Keyblade. Aqua wonders if Terra’s essay on the subject is somewhere in the Master’s old office. 

“You know what, I’m sorry,” Terra says, stroking his thumb on the back of her hand. “For that stupid fight. For being stupid enough to have issues with you being Master and for leaving. For being incredibly stupid for not staying in Radiant Garden with you and Ven.” He giggles again.

“Why is that funny?”

“I should have stayed and kissed you longer.” He blinks back tears, inhaling sharply in shock of what he just said. “I guess I needed to get that off my chest.”

Aqua snorts and brings a hand to her cheek. “Yeah, you should have stayed and kissed me longer.”

They say nothing else. Terra takes her face into his large hands and brings her to him, lips to lips, warmth on warmth, chest to chest, heart to heart. He breathes into her, pulling her waist in so she could lie next to him, his heartbeat loud and clear, eager and anxious. A fire grows inside her stomach—she’s forgotten she’s ever felt like this before, years ago when they’ve touched and never went further. It’s invigorating, it’s relaxing. Not a blaze born out of excitement but a gentle hearth, something more than a flicker of the flame in a lantern. Alive.

He mumbles into her ear. “By the way, I have every intention of being the better kisser.”

“Excuse me?”

“Just so you know.”

“We’re really going to be doing this with the kissing?”

“Doing what?”

“What we’ve always done.”

“There’s no contest here.”

“But you want to be the best kisser.”

“I will be the best kisser.” He smiles, digging his nose into her hair. “I must be good enough for you to enjoy it. Therefore, naturally, I have to aspire to be really damn good. That’s all.” 

Aqua giggles into his chin, soft and careful and excited when his arm curls around her waist, squeezing her into him. She loves that he laughs with her. She loves his beautiful, cocky face.

They exchange small words in between, a gasp of surprises, whispers about old memories, requests for what she wants, for what he wants. Two wicks to a single candle, held gently between their hands.

[magnoliapip]

The Storm Inside

Title : The Storm Inside

Book : Open Heart series (Choices - Pixelberry)

Description : Casey has been pushing everyone away and spiraling since the attack on the hospital and her loved ones are concerned.

Pairing : none established  / ambiguous

Characters : Open Heart FMC (Casey Valentine), Sienna Trinh, Bryce Lahela, Jackie Varma, Rafael Aviero, Elijah Greene, Aurora Emery, Kyra Santana, Danny (mentioned), Bobby (mentioned)

Warnings : mention of death, mental health

Prompt : “What’s the weather outside your window doing right now?...”

Casey stared vacantly out the floor length windows into the night sky above Boston from her seat against them on the living room floor. The sky was as clear as could be, a rarity for the area, but in a city as populous as Boston seeing the stars was a gift they were never granted. She stretched out her cramping legs to a different position as she leaned her head and left shoulder against the cool glass.

She looked out of windows with alarming frequency now. She had never really done so before, preferring to always be doing other things. She’d always thought of herself as a social person who enjoyed others company, though she could be either out dancing in a packed club or relaxing away a quiet night in with the same level of enjoyment. Friends and loved ones was all she really needed.

The attack on Edenbrook had changed everything, down to her very bones.

Some days her mood was somber but calm, like a cloudy day. Those were her best days and the ones she liked best. The cloudy days could be darker with threat of rain or lighter with the sun just missing the opportunity to come out. It was the closest to her old self she could feel. Unfortunately for her, those days were not only fleeting and the least common, they were becoming a rarity.

More often, her moods were a range of levels of sadness. All the way from a misting drizzle, enough to coat everything in water and make the air humid, to a torrentially pouring rain. Buckets from heavens and flash floods. The only thing those floods never seemed to leave clean was herself.

Other times she was cold. So, so cold. The best of those days were accompanied with a blizzard. Cold, but manageable with a shovel. On the days  where she left her heart covered in an inch thick layer of ice and brandished her words like weaponized icicles, frigid and sharp, the people around her knew to steer clear. She was getting a little too good and stabbing them where it hurt.

Her worst moods felt like she should alert the National Weather Service. Tornado warnings and hurricane evacuations were a courtesy she never felt up to extending, adding to her already astronomical guilt. Like a twister, she could feel so angry and out of control she would tear through everyone in her path with no regard for who or what was in it. She had hurt people, especially the ones she loved, deeply but couldn’t bring herself to stop. It was like watching her body act with someone else at the controls.

It was just one more thing about herself to hate lately, and it had a long line to stand in.

The weather in reality never matched what she felt inside. It fascinated and disgusted her in equal measure. It had been sunny (mostly) since the funeral. It was repulsive.

Bobby was dead. Danny was dead. Raf had almost died and would have god knew how many long term problems ahead because of the illness. She had nearly died. And the world just kept spinning.

Couldn’t they see? Couldn’t any of them see that she was stuck there in that room. That she had never recovered. That she couldn’t recover.

At first, when her friends had noticed her strange new affinity for gazing outside for hours every night, they tried to pull her away. Distract her with things like herbal teas, chocolate ice cream and support. They tried to shower her with her favorite pastimes from before. They tried dancing around the apartment to silly pop songs and playing video games with her. But they didn’t understand. And they didn’t stop.

So she bit them. Hard.

Now they left her alone.

She was an awful person. She shouldn’t have been allowed to live. Someone should have realized it at the hospital and just let her die.

She could feel the tears well up again, stinging her eyes as her inner clouds started to rain again. The night sky outside stayed perfectly cloudy.

It was going to be a long night.

Sienna stood around the corner, watching her best friend shatter silently, as she had done every night for over a month. She whispered to those behind her, “Don’t you all see? Nothing is helping and she’s getting worse. After the last time she panicked when I reached out, I thought I’d give her space. We all did. But it’s not working. Does anyone have any suggestions?”

The gathered assembly of those in the cramped penthouse hallway who loved a young doctor named Casey watched her crumble, weeping without making a sound...and no one said anything. Some of the smartest doctors in the nation, and no one had an answer.

Not Bryce, who stood off to the side watching the pain on the face of the first true friend he’d made while at Edenbrook. Someone who had looked past the brash, self-confidence he used as a shield. The first person he hadn’t been afraid of discovering his past.

Not Rafael, who stood at the back of the crowd, down the hall, not able to stand to look at the person who made him believe he was worth as much to her as these intelligent, talented and more well off friends of hers. Not as she could no longer see how much she was worth.

Not Jackie, who was used to facing her problems by cackling at them until they scurried off with tails between legs or tearing them out with her teeth. But this was a problem that required delicacy, the type she had been shown by the very woman who now needed it.

Not Ethan, who leaned against the wall as he saw his protégé, the first person he’d ever believed in this much, destroy herself. She had forced herself, her goodness, into his life and helped fix his hurt self. Now it was his turn and he, for the first time, found himself at a loss.

Not Aurora, her rival turned friend who showed her at her loneliest that having friend was worth something after all. Not Elijah, a beacon of positivity who felt entirely inadequate with this situation that left her emotionally impaired. Not Kyra, desperate to find some way to give Casey the support she had given. Not Sienna, whose heart broke as she watched her very best friend, her dolphin, her rock in many ways fall further and further into herself.

Each one of them loved her. Each one of them cared for her. Each of them had a purpose and a reason to be at Edenbrook, but Casey was the glue that had held them all together. That glue, their foundation, was compromised. This time, they needed to find a way to save her. This time, she couldn’t waltz her way into a miracle seemingly handed down by the divines themselves to fix the situation.

Giving voice to their silent thoughts, Bryce whispered softer than before, “She needs us. She has to know it. She has to know we’re here somewhere inside, but can’t ask. Won’t ask.”

“We’ve already lost so much because of the attack,” Sienna said quietly. “We can’t lose her now. I can’t.”

“None of us can,” Rafael replied softly.

There was practically a flashing beacon over Casey’s head, screaming help me please. It was long overdue for them to stop ignoring it. For a few pregnant minutes, they all looked around at each other and back to her. This mismatched band of misfits and nerds, bound this night by their affection for one single woman. They stared at each other, desperate for answers…

Until the one who loved her most went rigid. Then stepped toward the rest, speaking slowly.

“I...may have an idea.”

[BREAK]

Notes : I left the ending open for interpretation on purpose. This story is not intended to be expanded on or have a second part. Y’all can decide who the person who loves her most is (and if that person isn’t presently named in my story, you can put them there yourself :D)

Also, I want to extend a heartfelt thank you to the amazing writers I’ve talking to lately. Due to some truly awful comments and the way they were affecting me mentally, I recently purged all of my works but a few from fanfiction.net, AO3, and here on tumblr. Talking to, interacting with, and just seeing you lovelies in action has led me to believe I should start to do this again. 

Huge shout out to @jerzwriter​ and @lovealexhunt​ for being the lovely souls they are. You may have no idea who I am, especially on this blog rather than my main, but I will never stop being grateful for the positivity you put into the world. Thank you.

[writings-of-a-hufflepuff]

Snow Storms and Winter Winds

Fandom: Original Character

Collection/Series:  and bluebells gleamed on mountain wild

Pairing: James Tobias Moore (Original Character) x Female Teacher Reader

Writer: @writings-of-a-hufflepuff​ aka @hufflepuffing-all-day-long​

Rating: G

Warnings: Mentions of hunting because this is 1896 and he’s an outdoorsman

Summary: When James goes to check on his horse, Brandy, during a snow storm the last person he expects to see is you nearly collapsed in the deep snow. 

Notes: This is probably going to be one in a collection of stories because the idea of you being stuck now with James because of a snow storm presents an amazing opportunity for ideas.

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It is the height of winter in the woods, a whirling snowstorm has hit. So hard and so fast that each step he took felt like he was walking through a fast flowing river, the snow high on his legs, dragging at his steps. The snow could be vicious out here in the winter months, his cabin often got so much that he sometimes could not even leave the wood cabin to check on Brandy, his horse, he made sure to keep enough food and water out in case that ever happened. Being snowed in was a common occurrence during these months and every year he prepared ahead of schedule for the inevitable. He had gotten used to the inhospitable nature of the winter, the weather that sought to freeze him to death if he so much as lost his way. 

James would call it beautiful if he could actually see the world around him. The storm was so bad that he could barely see two feet in front of him, let alone admire the powdery snow glistening on the branches of trees or the way the light gleamed. There was, at this point, little light, the storm was so heavy that the sun was blocked out by thick grey clouds and howling winds. The lantern he carried did little to illuminate his way. A warm glow that could barely penetrate the thick white snowfall. 

He is bundled up warm. Heavy, thick fur coat, over layers of woollen jumpers. A knitted scarf wrapped tight around his neck and chin, hat pulled over his ears. It feels like it does little to keep him warm, but he’s only going to check on Brandy. One hand on the rope he’d attached the day previous from his front porch to the small stable he’d made for her. He knew better than to trust himself not to get turned around or lost in the short journey at the height of winter. Storms like this could be deadly. So he carefully follows the rope, letting it guide him to her. The doors are heavy in the cold, the hinges freezing over slowly, the metal detesting his request to move. But he makes his way inside and for a moment he can breathe, the snow is no longer whipping at his face and he can see his large shire shifting in her stall, unhappy with the noises outside. 

He makes sure she has warm blankets, enough hay, water and feed to last her a few days in case he can’t get out again. He gives the hefty shire a gentle pat on the neck and a soothing word, knowing she wasn’t a fan of the howling winds. He knows she dislikes being left alone, but he cannot stay out here, the weather too cold, he’d freeze overnight. As he leaves the stable, locking the door up tight to make sure Brandy doesn’t wander off in the storm or worse a wolf or bear finds its way in, he doesn’t expect to see a figure shivering and hunching in on itself on the road nearby. They look half dead already, barely able to lift a foot to move forward. 

Anyone out in this storm has a death wish and he grumbles to himself knowing that he can’t just leave them there, it would weigh heavy on his conscience, so he leaves the rope, the path he’d made for himself and trudges through the snow. Knowing that he could easily get turned around trying to help them and lose his own way. End up dead from exposure right outside his own front door. He lifts one arm up above his eyes to shield them from the snow. He decides that if he does die out here with this stranger then he’ll make their afterlife a living hell for being such an idiot and wandering about in a snowstorm during winter’s height. 

His burning annoyance and grumbling fades to rampant concern and worry when he realises it’s not just some fool out in the storm, but you. He’d recognise your hair piled high on your head, the shape of your cheeks, the blue coat you favoured so much, anywhere. It chills him more than the storm to see you begin to collapse to your knees, legs no longer able to hold you up in the storm. You’re frozen to the bone and he feels a strike of fear hit him so strong he almost collapses himself. He knows the winter is deadly, he knows your coat is not fit for a winter storm and he has no idea how long you’ve been wandering out here for. 

He picks up the pace, forcing his legs to move faster as he all but jumps through the high snow towards you. He doesn’t know why you’d be out this far from town, especially in this weather but suddenly it doesn’t matter so much as getting you inside his cabin and warm. He can ask you later, when you’re safe and well, it matters little when you’re barely moving in the high snow drifts. 

“Miss Y/N! Darlin’, what the hell are you doin’ out here?” His voice has taken on an urgency he isn’t used to as he crouches next to you, taking in the way you shiver. Your eyes are barely open. You can’t seem to answer him, your teeth chattering so harshly that he’s worried you might break your teeth. You’re ice cold when he takes a glove off to touch it to your cheek and snow clings to your hair and eyelashes like little icicles. James makes a quick decision and pushes through the weariness that his own body feels at the cold and reaches down, an arm underneath your legs as he lifts you into his arms. It is hard enough walking on his own through the high snow, but you can barely walk and he knows you need to get inside and slowly begin to warm back up. You are not light, especially not in your many layers and with the added difficulty of fighting through the snow, but he doesn’t care much for the burn in his arms or the strain in his legs, it’s not his main focus as he keeps his eyes ahead, in the direction he came from. 

He finds the rope again and follows it to his front door, the snow is getting higher and he knows once you’re inside and the door is closed, you’re likely to be stuck that way. The snow is laying thick and high and he wouldn’t be surprised if the two of you found yourselves snowed in, but that he can deal with. The involuntary shivers that shake your body so hard he instinctively pulls you tighter against his broad chest are more of a concern for him and something that makes him feel in over his head. He is not a doctor, nor is he experienced in tending to others. He hasn’t ever really had to. He’s lived a lonely existence after all.

He practically barrels through the front door, shoulder first, it bangs shut after him, but he’s not concerned about the possible dent in his wall as he sets you on the sofa in front of the fire that’s still going. Your clothes are soaked from the strength of the snow outside and he fights against everything his mother ever taught him about politeness, knowing that you needed dry clothes and not your soaked skirt and coat. All your layers are heavy with water, cold and damp, and entirely unhealthy for you to stay in.

He hunts through his wardrobe for a spare undershirt and a comfortable union suit that he knows will be much too long for you, but that is dry and comfortable and will keep your modesty intact once changed. He tries to remind himself that he isn’t being lecherous or improper, you’re freezing, most likely hypothermic and if he doesn’t get you warmed up slowly you might not wake back up. He still feels the tell tale warmth that flushes his cheeks, ears, and neck as he carefully peels your clothes off, placing the sopping wet ones on the floor by the fire. He does his best not to look at the exposed skin, but simply look at your face or over your shoulder at the fabric of the settee as he gets you redressed as quickly as possible in the dry clothes he has found. They’re much too long on your arms and legs and he has to look to get you in them at points, but despite the discomfort he feels at doing something that feels too intimate for mere acquaintances, potentially friends, he is relieved to get you in something dry and warm. Your skin is far too cold for his liking and the sooner some warmth returns to you the sooner he’ll be able to breathe. 

He tries not to think too hard about the corset on his floor or the various clothing pieces, or the skin that he’d been privy to. It’s not appropriate and he can almost hear his late mother’s voice berating him, at the same time he knows he has to do it. For your health, your safety. He pushes the discomfort aside, hanging the wet clothes over a rack near the hearth to dry, before searching through a chest for his spare blankets. 

He wraps you in them carefully, making sure each finger and toe is covered. He doesn’t want to place you in a warm bath or too close to the fire, he’s worried about warming you too quickly, your body going into shock at the temperature change, so blankets will have to do. He presses the back of a freckled hand to your forehead, chilly still, but warming. The fact you’re beginning to make noise reassures him that you’re getting better and not in fact getting worse. 

He knows only time will tell, so he leaves you there as he shrugs off his heavy coat, scarf and hat, hanging them on the hook by the door before working on dinner. He’s freezing himself, but now he’s inside the toasty air of his cabin he knows he’ll stop feeling the chill soon. Soup sounds nice, he thinks. He still has some fresh vegetables from before the weather suddenly turned and if you wake up later he can reheat some on the wood burning stove, enough to warm you inside and fill your stomach. Soup sounds nice. He thinks he might have some of the loaf that he made a few days past still, not quite as nice as when it was first made, but better. He decides he’ll save it for you, you’ll need the little pleasure more than him if you come to. 

He looks back over at you every few minutes as he chops carrots, potatoes, leeks, squash. Making sure your chest is still rising, that you’re still breathing. He is still feeling that same panic deep in his chest, you’re not out of the proverbial woods and he is petrified that you might not make it out. He likes you. He doesn’t know you as well as he could after 2 years, but he likes you. You’re one of the few reasons he ever still goes into town. He enjoys your smile, your soft gentle nature, telling your students his stories while you watch with a raised eyebrow and a soft smile. He enjoys your company when he gets it and he enjoys you. It would be...it would be less than ideal for you to be bested by the weather and he would...he struggles to admit it to even himself but he would be devastated if you died. 

The soup is boiling over the stove by the time you begin to truly move, you shift on his sofa, amongst the blankets. Little groans leave your throat and he’s hovering over you unsure what to do. Your face is scrunched, brow furrowed deeply and lips turned down, but you don’t open your eyes or speak, you just lie there clearly in discomfort. He tucks the blankets around you, making sure you’re still fully covered despite your shifting and with a sigh James sits on the floor, back against the foot of the sofa as he waits. 

He was generally a loner, James didn’t tend to have visitors or enjoy the company of others. He preferred the company of animals, especially his horse Brandy, but there were a couple of exceptions to that rule. 

One was children. Their curious nature, their bluntness, the innocent way they viewed the world, the curiosity they had of him rather than fear. He had a soft spot for them, they made him smile and he never felt out of place around them. Had he not been so nervous around others, he’d have liked his own brood by now...but women were generally intimidated by him. His scars, his stature, being so tall and so broad he knew he looked scary to most and his quiet nature and permanent frown did nothing to quell the fears of women in town, no matter how many times he was helpful or kind. He just seemed to scare them off. 

Another exception to his rule was you. You had never been intimidated by him. The first time you’d met, he’d been lugging a whole stag over his shoulder to the butcher, a whole 200 kilos and you’d simply smiled at him and asked him if he’d been out hunting. He’d grunted something at you, unsure how to talk to someone so pretty because you were pretty. You’d seemed not to mind and your smile had widened when one of your students had latched onto his leg recognising him as ‘Uncle James’ even though he was most definitely not her uncle, rather he simply helped the family with firewood a few times a year. You had always been kind and gentle with him, over time the grunts turned into words and from words to full sentences and he found himself opening up to someone for the first time since his parents had passed on. He never realised how lonely he was until he regularly talked to you. He went from going into town maybe once every few weeks, to going multiple times a week, just to see you, always with an excuse. That he was fetching something from the general store or had a hide to deliver or some other errand to run. In truth he went to catch even a glimpse of you, of your soft smile and glowing nature. 

“Ugh..” Everything hurts. That’s your first conscious thought, that every part of your body aches in a unique sort of way that’s hard to describe. Your skin feels like it’s covered in cold pins and needles. You feel both warm and cold at the same time, the sort of burning on your skin that only comes from sticking your hand in a pile of snow. 

You're greeted by warm light when you finally blink your eyes open, trying to ease yourself up into a sitting position. A large warm pair of hands come to your shoulders and back, easing you up to prop you against some pillows. Your surroundings are cosy, wooden cabin walls, dark wood furniture, blankets, pillows. It’s homey and it eases some of your anxiety, even more so when the figure helping you to sit comes into view.

James Moore is knelt beside the sofa where you’re sitting, worried brown eyes flitting over your features. You feel instantly safe and secure, James has always made you feel that way. He is a unique sort of man, one who appears physically imposing, intimidating. Between his broad frame, the scars on his skin, over his eye, and the sheer size of him, he cuts an impressive figure. Always easy to spot in a crowd and often parting a crowd simply because people find him scary. You know better. He’s so incredibly gentle that it’s almost contradictory, that a man so gentle could be so large, that a man so intimidating could be so soft. 

“Mr Moore?” There’s a blank in your memory. You remember leaving town, deciding to make the long walk out to see one of your students who had been sick. You wanted to make sure they were doing okay, especially as the weather was beginning to turn for the worst. Then you remember the snow coming down hard, by this point you were ages out from town and in the woods, little in the way of houses or shelter. You’d kept going, but changed direction knowing you were near James’ house, nearer to his than to your students, you’d made for his instead. Your memory is hazy after that, cold snow up to your knees, frozen toes in your shoes and a shiver so strong that it nearly knocked you over. 

A warm freckled hand is pressed to your brow and James seems displeased with whatever he finds, pulling the blankets tighter over your shoulders. 

“Nice to see you awake, Miss...I thought...well, it didn’t look so good there for a while.” It had been hours. He’d eaten his own dinner. The soup was cold on the stove top, the fire had been tended to, the sun had set, and the snow had piled so high that there was no way he was going to be able to open the door. You were officially snowed in. After the first few hours he’d worried you wouldn’t ever wake up. A deep relief fills him at the sight of your open eyes and the sound of your voice, he almost felt like he could cry. He wanted to hold you tight, but pulled the blankets around you instead. It wasn’t appropriate. You weren’t family or husband and wife. So he stopped himself. 

“What...what happened?” 

“I found ya out by the road, frozen to the bone. What the hell were you thinkin’ comin’ out in a snowstorm like this?” His voice raises just a fraction and the panic rings clear. You reach a shaky, tingling hand and grasp his shoulder, squeezing gently. 

“...I was...I wanted to check on a student and I didn’t...I didn’t realise that a storm was going to hit. I...thank you, James.”

If it’s possible he feels himself tense more from the sound of his given name coming from your lips. You have always been supremely proper with him, you had never called him James. You always called him Mr Moore, always treated him with the perfect level of propriety and distance despite the warm smiles. Always so aware of where you stood as an unmarried woman and where he stood as an unmarried man. He likes the sound of his name on your lips, the way your voice seems to curl around each syllable. 

“I...I was worried...Y/N.” He does you the courtesy of using your own name, the familiarity is unfamiliar to him and he can feel a flush high on his cheeks, coursing over his neck and rising to the tips of his ears at using your name. It shouldn’t spark a reaction in him, but it does because it’s you. Because there is no doubt in his mind that he has a great deal of affection, perhaps even love for you, after these 2 years of knowing you. Because your name is something sweet and soft in his mouth, because it feels like some sort of guilty pleasure to speak it. “You were near hypothermic, you...you could’a died, darlin’.” 

You watch him quietly, knowing that he’s right. You had made a terribly stupid decision. You knew that winter storms always hit around this time of year, you knew how bad they could get and still you’d gone out on your own, ill equipped and unprepared. What made you feel guilty wasn’t that you’d done something potentially dangerous to yourself, but rather that you’d caused him to worry. James was a private person, his feelings were kept under lock and key, yet right now they were so plain to see and that they pulled at your heart. You had caused him unnecessary amounts of worry. 

“You must be hungry, I’ll heat up some soup for you. I saved you some bread.” He’s lighting a match and setting the stove alight before you can protest, big cast iron pot of soup on top left to boil and heat as he finds out the loaf of bread, unwraps it from it’s coverings and slices it. He doesn’t scrimp on the bread, he doesn’t offer you one slice for your soup but damn near half a loaf and it is heart warming, the kindness, as he plates up your food on a wooden tray and gently places it in your lap. You don’t know this, but he has even picked out his nicest soup spoon, the one that just seems to make soup taste ten times better. 

It is tasty and warms you from the inside. It should be uncomfortable having him watch you eat, but it’s not. You know he’s simply concerned for you, worried about your wellbeing, worried that you might keel over at any moment. He watches you to make sure you eat, that you are well, that you are truly getting better. You eat the soup and even the majority of the bread, he’d found a slab of butter, and there had never been anything more wonderful than buttery bread dipped into homemade soup. It’s domestic and you could get used to it, to James making you dinner and wrapping you in warm blankets, but it’s not that simple. You shouldn’t even be alone together, but you are. Everything about this is breaking the rules your mother always taught you, the rules you’re sure his mother taught him. 

“James...I...how did I…” You gesture to the change of clothing, you had only noticed once the tray was removed from your lap and put aside to be tidied, that you were in fact not in your own clothes. You felt warmth fill your body, your cheeks felt like they were on fire. James’ own blushed a  deep bright red, his freckles almost blending in. He rubs a hand over the back of his neck, biting into his bottom lip anxiously. His eyes don’t meet your own.

“I didn’t...I didn’t look, I just...you were freezin’ and I had...I had to change yer clothes. I’m...I’m sorry.”

“James…” Despite protest from your body, you rise onto stumbling and unsteady feet. He’s there in an instant, hands around your waist to hold you steady, your own fall onto those wide shoulders. “You don’t have to apologise. You’re probably the only reason I'm not dead right now...I trust you. I know you’d never do anything untoward. You’re a good man.”

“Still...it ain’t right. I’m not yer husband.” You wish he was. In that moment, you wish he was your husband because you know he’d be good to you. He would look after you, care for you, share the burdens of life with you. He’d never raise his voice at you, he’d never raise a hand. You know you’d have a good life with him, a happy life. You can see yourself falling in love with him. But, he’s right. He’s not your husband. 

“No, you’re not. But I'd much rather you do the improper thing and save my life then leave me out in the snow to die. You have nothing to be sorry for. You have nothing to be guilty for. Do you understand me?” Your hands are cupping the sides of his face, thumbs brushing through the red of his beard as you tilt his face down to look at you. He is so much taller than you, that it would be easy for him to avoid looking at you, but you won’t have it. You force him to look upon you, to understand the sincerity of your words. That you hold nothing against him, that you don’t want him to feel guilty for helping you, for doing what had to be done. 

“...Yes...I...I understand.” His voice is so quiet, like he’s talking in some reverent place, some holy space where raising his voice would be disrespectful. He can’t bring himself to talk louder, there is something about the way your eyes capture him, the awe which he feels filling his chest at your understanding, your touch. He...no one has touched him tenderly and with any sort of affection since his parents passed, it was something he didn’t realise he missed or needed until now. This moment where he’s leaning into your touch without realising, hoping you never pull away but knowing that at some point you will.

You don’t pull away. Not right away. Not even after a minute. You hold his face in your palms and stroke your thumbs over his skin, noting where it’s rough, the scratch of his beard, the scars, the many freckles that cover every inch of his skin. You know you should pull away, that would be polite, but you don’t want to. He is warm, human and so starved of touch that the way his eyes flutter closed has your heart aching in your chest. 

“I...I should let you rest, Y/N…” His large palms encircle your wrists, enclosing them completely as he gently pulls your hands from his face. James hates that he has to, but you are a temptation to his morals, his own code of propriety and he needs to remove your touch from his skin before he does something truly improper. 

“You're probably right…” You are truly exhausted. There is a shake in your bones that only comes from physical weakness after an ordeal. James is careful as he leads you by the arm towards the cabin’s bedroom. 

He only has one bed and he will gladly give it up for you, knowing that you need it more than him and knowing that it is only polite to let you, his guest, take the bed. It is covered in knitted blankets and furs, so many layers that he’d prepared for the turning coldness. There’s a homeliness about this room too, something gentle, soft. Photographs line the walls, you presume they are of his parents and a younger version of himself. 

“You can take the bed. I’ll sleep out on the sofa.” He doesn’t think twice about offering it up, he knows he’d toss and turn all night in his own bed if you didn’t take it. You are still unwell, still recovering from exposure to the elements and the thought of you on an old settee with just a few blankets sits uneasily with him. 

“James…”

“Please. Ya need the bed more than me and I...I ain’t...I wouldn’t be able to rest if you were out on that settee.” You want to argue with him, but you’re exhausted and the bed looks warm and inviting. So you concede with a nod of your head and let him help you under the covers. Like some sort of mother hen, he tucks you in and makes sure you’re comfortable and places a glass of water by your bedside, turning down the oil lamp. You wonder if he’d do the same if you were married. Would he help you to bed and make sure you’re comfortable before locking up the house? Would he sit beside you and read his book into the late hours? 

He fills the doorway, a dark silhouette, the light of the living area from behind him shrouding him in shadow. The bed is warm and cosy, each blanket weighs down on you, makes you feel secure, and your eyes are already beginning to blink closed. 

“Goodnight, James…”

“G’night, Sweetheart.” He leaves you in darkness, pulling the door closed behind him and providing you with privacy. It’s that consideration, that desire to follow the rules, that endears you even more towards him. There are many men in the world, you know, who would take advantage of this opportunity. An isolated cabin, an unmarried woman alone and unchaperoned, a storm outside stopping anyone from venturing out. But, James is a good man. He is so utterly good that even the necessary acts, the things he does to help you, he is reluctant to do out of respect for you.

It’s the lingering drawl of his voice, the woodsy smell on his bed sheets, the ghost of a gentle but respectful touch that lulls you to sleep. You are safe here, with him. You know that without a doubt.

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

                                                    All Works Taglist

@charradelange​ @belfry-bat

[artificialqueens]

From The Ground Up, Chapter One (Rosnali) - Tanawrites

A/N: I’m so happy to be back in the swing of writing again and especially for this ship! I’m not sure how long a ride we’re in for here but I do know none of it would be possible without @chaoticnachokitten who is always the best brainstorming partner.

Summary: It wasn’t ever a choice between figure skating or Rosé; Denali knew she belonged on the ice and Rosé knew it too. So she left and didn’t ever look back. Five years passed and as medals, sponsorships, the Olympics all slipped from her grasp, Denali wasn’t sure of anything anymore.

or, what happens when an ex-professional figure skater returns to her hometown and navigates her way through the grief and uncertainty of her career and considers the road not taken.

read on ao3 here!

-

The first thing she noticed was the snow.

It had been years since Denali had been home to see the town square covered in a thick layer of white and the sight brought a sour taste to her mouth.

It used to be her favourite time of year when she was younger, before she knew any better. As well as hot cocoa and snowball fights, the first time she ever skated was wearing blue mittens, a knit beanie and watching her breath puff out in front of her in a white cloud of condensation.

For a long time, winter and skating went hand-in-hand for Denali. Every year it was a countdown for snow, waiting until the lake behind her house froze over and became her own personal rink.

It wasn’t until much later when the local ice arena took precedence as classes and daily training moulded her into a professional skate, that Denali realized snow didn’t count for much at all. Hot cocoa didn’t particularly fit into her strict macro-diet and regardless of the weather outside, it was always cold at the rink. The cold lost its magic and the holidays soon followed suit, when Denali prioritised training and competitions over flying home.

That only made it more ironic to her that it was snowing for her reluctant homecoming; the picturesque winterscape of a town that greeted her more mocking than nostalgic.

It wasn’t as comforting as Denali thought it would be, how familiar the town was. The main street was as if nothing had changed, if for a few new storefronts. She knew from her few visits home that if she didn’t look too closely, it looked exactly as it did when she left, further cementing that she was the only factor that had changed. That she was the piece that didn’t fit anymore, not the other way around.

The reminder of why she was home for her first Christmas in years was too much to unpack on the day she moved back to the small town she’d left behind, Denali shied away from any intrusive thoughts and took a detour from the main road.

Following the instructions from her speaker, Denali eventually pulled her car into an unfamiliar driveway, to a house she’d only seen before in pictures and cut the engine.

The front yard was unrecognisable under the snow but the driveway and small path had been shovelled recently, a silent sign her father had been by. The ‘welcome' mat was definitely all her mom though and Denali exhaled a sigh of relief.

She wasn’t sure if her parents were going to respect her request to arrive alone and without fuss so she was grateful to see they’d left her to her own devices, in their own way.

As excited as they were to have their only child back home, a few streets away was a vast improvement than a two-hour drive to the city, Denali couldn’t bring herself to match their enthusiasm. It was less of a joyous homecoming as it was striking out and crawling home, with no need for fanfare.

Her parents had been great but after months of doctors appointments and rehab, Denali felt stifled.

And no doubt, that wasn’t going to change any time soon.

Her parents and her coach had shielded her from the worst of the media while she recovered but the tabloids had nothing on small town gossip, as ruthless as it was rapid. Everyone would know she had moved back by the afternoon, if they didn’t already from when she’d signed her name on the lease and mailed it back weeks ago.

The house was nothing remarkable externally. It was in a newer part of town, an expansion of mostly apartment blocks and small houses, that took place after she’d already moved to the city. It was more modern than her parent’s house but still older compared to the studio loft she’d left behind.

But it was new and entirely her own and held no reminders of the life she’d had to leave behind, which is exactly what Denali needed.

There was a flyer from the moving company who had already been and gone, and she found the key under the mat as well to let herself in.

It was strange, seeing all her furniture in a house she’d never set foot in before but she shook the feeling and wandered between the boxes that were left haphazardly in the rooms that corresponded with her scrawled handwriting.

You’ll feel better when you can see your things, she told herself and set in to unpacking.

-

Despite the mountains of boxes, Denali got through the kitchen and the living room with ease.

Plates, mugs and cutlery were easy, methodical to find a place for. It was mindless but it kept her hands busy to stretch up on her tiptoes to reach the tallest cupboards and sort tupperware.  

Putting away her books and photos required a little more attention, alphabetizing by author and lingering a little too long on the frames of her with her face pressed up against her coach or with the team of skaters she had trained with.

She stubbornly left the pictures on display, to prove a point to herself mostly, adjusting their positions on the side table more than necessary before she moved on. At least they were happy memories.

By the time she was tossing a throw blanket and cushions on the couch, she’d almost forgotten the vague reminder of where she was supposed to be right now. She’d gotten into a groove of unpacking, leaving traces of herself through the house, more than just furniture or decor.

Music played through her headphones as she pushed open the door to the only bedroom in the house, ignoring how tempting her bed looked even unmade.

She was more exhausted than she cared to admit to even herself.

Her knee felt stiff from kneeling in front of boxes for hours and leaving the key behind to her apartment felt a lot less like saying goodbye to the city and a lot like giving up on something she wasn’t ready to, something that was beyond her control. She was pushing through the exhaustion and discomfort, motivated that the more her the new house felt, the easier it would be.

She was eager to get through the brute of the unpacking anyway, knowing she was expected at dinner with her parents that night as a trade-off for her seclusion today and if she admitted to not having much done, tomorrow she’d have both her mom and dad knocking on her door to help.

She reached for the closest box, slicing through the tape and ripping it open. It had only been labeled with her name in somebody else’s neat handwriting and as her eyes caught the glint of the blades dance as it caught the overhead light, she realized why.

Her hands froze over the box, hovering uselessly for a few moments before she flinched back, like she’d been burned.

In her haste, she dropped the pair of scissors she’d used to open the box and bent to pick them up, mumbling a curse to herself under her breath.

Her skates.

Packed neatly on top of her collection of trophies and medallions and even a few sports magazines she’d been featured in, were her current pair of skates. The laces of both skates were tied in a neat bow, guards covering the silver blades.

Somebody else had packed this box, that much she knew. She’d merely shrugged when her mom asked her what she wanted to do with all this stuff and hadn’t waited around to see how that was interpreted.

As she looked at the flawless white leather, she couldn’t help but be bitter. They looked exactly as she remembered, they were perfect and she was pissed. There was no indication that anything had ever happened, completely untarnished. Nothing like the uneven scar across her knee that she’d been promised would fade with time.

Before she could stop herself, Denali reached for the box again, idly toying with the laces.

It had been nearly a year now since the last time she’d worn them.

She’d been a favourite going into the competition and aside from a few pre-competition jitters, Denali was quietly confident.

She knew her routine like the back of her hand and even though it was the qualifying competition, she hadn’t been worried.

She felt that way right up until it happened. She’d been landing her jumps, she was completely on beat with the music, everything was happening the way it was supposed to.

Until it wasn’t.

The last thing anybody was expecting, least of all Denali, was her skate to skim across the ice erratically, beyond her control, her misplaced landing ending with an ear-splitting pop.

Everything had gone silent after that.

She could feel her chest heaving, struggling to catch the breath that was knocked out of her from the impact of hitting the ice but she couldn’t hear a thing.

Not her own sobs, not the all too familiar song she’d practised to for months still playing over the speakers or the gasps of the crowd. Not even the EMTs as they spoke to her while carefully lifting her onto a stretcher, her knee bent awkwardly and swollen through her tights.

In the days following, when doctors approached her with “irreversible damage” and “career-ending injury” which was endlessly repeated by her parents, her coach and worst of all, the media, Denali wished for the silence again.

Now fully recovered, or as recovered as she could ever be, her dreams of gold medals and the Olympics nothing but a faint memory, Denali wanted to scream. She settled for throwing the box into the closet with a loud thump and an even louder slam of the bedroom door as she stormed out.

She grabbed her keys from the kitchen counter and was pulling out of the driveway again a few minutes later.

She didn’t know where she was going, definitely not to see her parents but anywhere but here sounded like a good option so she drove.

She drove around town twice before pulling up in the parking lot of the one place she’d purposely avoided on her drive in this morning.

The rink.

-

The first time Denali skated at the ice arena, she was seven.

After spending years skating on the lake, she begged for proper lessons at the ice rink.

Her eager hands pushed away her father’s helpful grip, demanding to tie the laces of the rental skates herself. They were scuffed and very obviously well-worn before she had insisted on them, instead of her own skates from home.

She’d bounced in excitement waiting by the boards for her turn, the skates feeling comfortable and familiar on her feet which couldn’t be said about the rest of the group in the beginners class.

She had stepped out with shaky balance as she adjusted to the shift onto the ice, shoulders squared in a silent dare that anybody attempt to steady her, her parents or an overly eager instructor who was a few feet away.

It took her two laps around the rink and a near fall before she let go of the barrier, unused to the ice being quite so smooth.

For a few moments, her hand had hovered over the rail, uncertain. When she didn’t falter, she started to laugh. Whole-hearted giggles as she gained speed, her confidence grew when she drifted further away from the perimeter of the rink, arms spread out beside her to keep her balance.

It felt like flying.

At the time, she didn’t notice all the eyes on her. The instructor watched on dubiously, her parents equally as surprised but mostly proud and the group of kids her own age an equal mix of jealousy and wide-eyed awe.

She was seven and she had no idea that this was how she would spend the next fifteen years of her life.

Or, that it would eventually become her downfall.

-

The outside of the arena, while it remained unchanged since Denali was there last, wasn’t as inviting as she remembered.

In fact, the dull brick building was lacking…something.

Maybe it was just her, and she knew exactly what she was lacking.

She passed by a bored teenager at the front counter who merely waved Denali through, without offering her any rental skates or asking for an admission fee. It was midday in the middle of the week so she hadn’t expected anybody to be on the ice but she didn’t expect it to be that easy.

It initially struck her as odd but she continued through regardless, tightening her thin jacket across her torso. In her haste she’d forgotten her coat and she was already feeling the cold from the ice before she could even see it.

She continued down the hallway, familiar signs and posters lining the way. In the years since she’d trained here, she swore none of them had been updated. The pricing signs, the motivational posters all remained, fraying at the edges the same way they had for a decade.

That was why her own smiling face brought her to a complete stop.

At the end of the hallway, were two side-by-side framed images of her. One was as a child, in her first ever competition in this very rink with a small gold trophy in her hands. The other was more recent, only a few years ago, from the other side of the country. She held a bouquet and stood on the top of the podium, a gold medallion around her neck. There was a plaque that Denali didn’t bother to read but she got the gist.

And now she understood why she’d been let in so easily.

She knew her mom would have definitely provided both photos and before her accident, Denali had no problem being a hometown hero. Being in the limelight whenever she managed a trip home had been welcome, it was a lot easier to be known as a nationally acclaimed athlete who couldn’t get home for the holidays than someone who’d had everything, then lost it all.

Denali breathed out a sigh as she rounded the corner to the rink, comforted at least by the fact that she was alone.

The ice was smooth, like it had been resurfaced only recently and Denali could do nothing but stare as she rested her arms on the boards and leaned forward.

The gleaming white ice wasn’t just pristine. It was tempting.

She’d been cleared for weeks now. Her surgery was considered a success, she had officially made a full recovery. A long, painstaking recovery of regaining the confidence to even stand with any weight on the leg that had collapsed under her and months of rest before that. It was a full recovery nonetheless, unfortunately “full recovery” from a torn ACL didn’t allow for the demands of a professional figure skater.

Laps around the ice didn’t entertain her nearly as much as they did when she was younger so Denali had resigned herself to the fact that she hadn’t just retired from her career, she had retired from the rink completely.

She didn’t know if she’d ever be able to bring herself to put a pair of skates on again, even if she tried.

The ice called to her, it always had but it was more than that.

The competition did too. The more she skated, the more she loved it. The better she got, the harder she worked.

Denali knew early on that she had it. The drive, the ability and the talent but more than any of that, she had the want. She wanted to be the best and to do that, she had to beat the best.

It hadn’t come without sacrifices as well. She never went to her high school prom, she didn’t even walk at her own graduation. She’d given up the majority of her freedom for the entirety of her high school years for the benefit of her sport. She kissed her family goodbye a week after receiving her diploma in the mail, the city closer to her coaches and the airport.

But she didn’t look back.

It was never even a choice for her, never an option between A and B. By the time conversations shifted to Worlds and the Grand Prix and sponsorship deals, Denali knew she wanted to take the gold.

Returning to this rink, knowing that none of that was hers anymore, felt like a cruel twist of fate. She could practically taste the win, and could almost feel the cool touch of the medal against her chest before it disappeared in the blink of an eye.

Her initial rage had faded, re-learning how to walk had forced it, simmered down to a heavy grief.

It wasn’t as easy to bear, the blind rage at least had a release. The shatter of her phone against the brick wall of the hospital, the endurance she pushed herself to test during rehab, a guttural scream when she was finally able to straighten her leg again amongst the happy cheers of her nurses.

The grief crept in slowly, mourning not only her career but her entire life. Skating had woven its way into every crevice of Denali’s everyday and its missing presence was distinct. It wasn’t just about figuring out what she was going to do now, it was figuring out who she was without skating.

Before she did something stupid, like rent a pair of skates or tear the picture of herself down off the wall, Denali turned to leave, figuring it had been enough reminiscing (torture) for one day.

Without even taking a step forward, Denali froze. The sight of someone a few feet in front of her drew her out of her thoughts, apparently too deep in her head to have heard any footsteps behind her.

She didn’t need to do a double-take, she knew who was standing in front of her.

All long legs, a wide smile and auburn hair that Denali had helped dye a pale pink too many times to count, she knew exactly who it was.

“Rosie?”

-

[foreveralwaysanauthor]

The Forbidden Film

December 21, 2022

Prompt - Eggnog

Notes - I love giving little nods to past things I’ve written, but this one has to be one of my favorites!

A thick layer of heavy snow blanketed the sleepy town of Sanbornton, New Hampshire, adding at least another seven inches to the already mounting piles that had been shoveled out of walkways and driveways alike. Temperatures overnight dipped from freezing to subzero as snow pounded the area, icicles formed on the edges of roofs, and the nearby lake glazed over with ice thick enough to support a semi-truck. School had been canceled for the surrounding area as frigid winds turned what little snow had melted in the last few days into ice on the roads. Many businesses announced their closure due to the storm long before it had even started, the local weather advisories too big to ignore. The threats of power outages, downed trees, and disrupted phone lines were enough to make even the most experienced New Englander refuse to leave the house. People who had places to be or things to do would simply have to wait until the roads were cleared - whether it be by the town’s rather lazy fleet of plow truck drivers or by a select few individuals with plows strapped to their pickup trucks who were sick of waiting for the town to get their asses in gear and decided to clean it themselves.

A handful of residents had already chosen to start the day by clearing their driveways of snow and acting as though nothing had happened, yet many hadn’t bothered to move an inch out of their cozy, warm blankets to turn up the thermostat or ignite the logs in their fireplaces. Some wished for nothing more than a peaceful day inside whereas others desired to be outside and away from the entrapment of staying home when there was so much to do elsewhere. Among the few who desired to venture outside were children who took the chance to ignore their parents' wishes to stay in bed and covered themselves in their finest winter gear, determined to play in the snow until they were dragged back inside by the straps of their snow-overalls.

Despite the myriad of activities presenting themselves upon one glance outside of the curtains next to his bed, Royce softly groaned at how bright the outside world had become and dropped the thick fabric that shielded his eyes from the blinding white that glared back at him from the ground. Dropping his head back onto his pillow with a quiet sigh, Royce couldn’t help feeling grateful that their family had nothing to do that day. After arriving back home from their trip to Myrtle Beach the night before, he was positive that the only thing he wanted to do was lounge in bed and never once look outside at the mess the clouds had left behind. 

Glancing at the clock on his nightstand, Royce wasn’t too surprised to find it already a lot later than when he normally would wake up. With the jetlag and the overall exhaustion of the trip they had just arrived home from, he was sure that it would take a lot longer for everyone else to get up as well, especially his brothers. Out of habit, Royce pushed himself to the top of his mattress and grabbed his trusty journal and the pen he kept telling himself he needed to replace, yet never did. The faint light that came through the heavy curtains was enough for him to see as he flipped to the first empty page he could find and began mindlessly scrawling out his thoughts about everything that had happened the day before.

The last day they had spent in Myrtle Beach was a day to explore for those who were already packed up and felt like venturing outside the hotel. Royce had enjoyed spending the day with Vivien, bringing her around on a little tour of the area he had grown up in. She had taken an interest in everything he had to say and he was sure she’d get bored of his rambling at some point, but she continuously reassured him that she was content just being with him, regardless of what they were doing, and allowed him to continue blabbering about different places and how much they had changed over time. When they stopped to pick up lunch at a restaurant on the boardwalk and Vivien told him that she loved him once again - her emerald eyes glimmering with adoration and the dimples he loved so much on full display - his brain short-circuited and he was sure she would have to clean his melted body from the floor with a mop and bucket as he tried to find the words to say it back. 

Throughout their relationship, Royce had never once failed to make an absolute fool out of himself with Vivien around, but ever since they had confessed their love, it seemed to have gotten worse. It was bad enough that she made his brain turn to a pile of mush just by smiling at him, but those three words were enough to send his heart skyrocketing into outer space. Every little detail about Vivien was special to him now. Her heart was much like the oceans she loved to learn so much about - deep and filled to the brim with life and color. Her mind was like a kaleidoscope of knowledge and her interests were so vastly varied that he could spend a lifetime trying to understand her and never even scratch the surface. She was a mystery he would devote his whole life trying to figure out, even though he knew he’d never get anywhere close to an answer. 

Just the thought of spending a whole day with Vivien brought a smile to Royce’s face, but the idea of spending a lifetime with her made a warmth that could’ve easily started a fire spread throughout his chest as his hand stilled against the paper and his head thumped back against the wall. Royce took in a sharp, deep breath, hoping his brain would absorb some oxygen and allow some thoughts that didn’t involve his girlfriend to float around. With a sigh, Royce realized that maybe Butchy was right to invite him to the “Whipped Boys Committee” the other day. He was a goner when it came to Vivien and it was blatantly obvious to anyone who so much as looked his way when she was around. Hoping Bentley hadn’t been disturbed by the solid clunk his head had made when it hit the wall, Royce spared a glance at his little brother, thankful to find him still curled up in his blankets with a hand tightly wrapped around the stuffed whale shark that Miles had gotten him at a shop back in Myrtle Beach. Royce grinned; despite Bentley’s claims that he was “getting too old” for stuffed animals, he certainly didn’t seem to mind adding another one to his collection.

As Royce took a deep breath and tried to return to his habitual journaling, a series of soft taps on the glass next to him made him freeze. Caramel eyes flickered to the curtains on his left as he listened for a moment, yet nothing more came. Assuming it was just the branches of a nearby tree flicking against the glass due to the wind, Royce shrugged and turned back to his journal. Bringing pen to paper, Royce began writing once again. Only a few words in, the tapping returned - this time, with a vengeance. The ticking on the glass seemed to have a pattern and, once Royce realized whatever it was, was tapping in time to the chorus of Last Christmas, he set his journal and pen aside and opened the curtain separating him and the outside world. As the curtains moved aside, a set of fingernails moved away from the window and Royce chuckled as he found his girlfriend’s face smiling back at him. She raised a hand and waved as she said hello, but Royce put a finger to his lips, telling her to keep her voice down, before opening the window. 

“What on earth are you doing here?” he asked softly, eyeing the ladder Vivien had precariously propped against the house. “It’s freezing out.”

“Well, the front door was locked,” Vivien whispered her breath turning as white as the snow on the ground, “so I was hoping you’d let me in.”

Royce shook his head, a chuckle falling from his lips as he reached out to his girlfriend, “Get in before you get sick.”

With Royce’s help, Vivien clambered through the window, attempting to keep as much snow off of Royce’s blankets as possible as she entered the warm bedroom. While Royce worked on forcing the window closed again, Vivien pulled her gloves and boots off, leaving them by the heater as she worked on tugging her ski pants off. Vivien’s coat and ski pants were hung on the back of the door by the time Royce turned back to her, watching her tie her hair into a floppy knot with a scrunchie as she stalked back toward him and sat on the edge of his bed. 

Once she was done tying her hair up, Vivien turned to Royce with a smile, taking in his appearance with a grin that only grew wider the longer she looked at him. The absolute bird’s nest his hair had warped into was enough to show Vivien that he was barely awake, but the green pajama pants with tiny, scarf-wearing snowmen on them just sealed the deal. “Love the snowmen.”

Royce’s head cocked to the side as a confused expression claimed his face, but it didn’t take long for realization to sink in. Wide eyes flickered down to the fleece-lined pajama pants Royce had taken from Miles not long ago before finding an amused Vivien smirking back at him. He was quick to spring off of his mattress, nearly tumbling to the ground when a blanket snared his foot. Vivien’s outstretched hands quickly slapped over her mouth as she took in Royce’s bewildered expression, hoping to keep her muffled laughter from Bentley’s sleeping ears.

Once Royce found his balance again and righted himself, he turned to Vivien and quietly muttered, “I’ll go change.”

Before Royce could go far, Vivien took his wrist in her grasp and shook her head, “Today is a day to rest, Rolls. Stay comfortable.”

Her gentle smile sealed the deal and, as Royce ran a hand through his tangled curls, he nodded, “Alright.”

Vivien chuckled as she stood, reaching for a coil of Royce’s hair that stood nearly straight above his head and twirling it around her finger before letting it fall back into place. “If you feel like doing something, though, you could try to pry the baby birds out of this nest you’ve got going on while I steal one of your hoodies.”

“Deal,” Royce chuckled. “I’ll be back in a few.”

“I’ll be here.”

Quietly clicking the door shut on his way out, Royce left his bedroom and effortlessly avoided the creaky floorboards on his way across the hall to the bathroom. He took one look in the mirror above the sink and closed his eyes, a heavy sigh replacing the groan of frustration he wanted to release. His hair looked as though it hadn’t been touched in weeks, curls tangled into knots stuck out in every which direction and he was sure if he brought a comb anywhere near it, he would look as though he’d stuck his finger inside the nearest electrical socket. But, if he wanted to look halfway decent for his girlfriend, he was going to try everything Carrie had tried teaching him about maintaining the mane of curls they both possessed.

Meanwhile, in the other room, Vivien had already scoured through Royce and Bentley’s extensive collection of shared hoodies they kept in their closet and hefted Royce’s backpack back onto the top shelf after it tumbled into her arms when she opened the door. After selecting a hoodie he had gotten during their trip to a museum and pulling it over her head, Vivien made her way back to Royce’s bed. She fixed his blankets so his bed looked almost well-made, picking up a pen that had clattered to the floor before climbing under the layers of fabric and making herself comfortable. As she adjusted the blankets over her lap, Vivien found a hardcover book that had been covered by a folded section of fabric. After flipping through the book from the back to the front, Vivien found a long, handwritten page with the day’s date scrawled near the top. Realizing she must have caught Royce in the middle of a journaling session, Vivien smiled and moved to close the book, but after spotting her name written multiple times across the paper, she glanced at the door and decided to sneak a peek at what he had written about her.

Scanning briefly over the page, Vivien’s smile broadened so much that her face began hurting, but as soon as she heard footsteps creeping back across the hall, she snapped the book shut and set it on the nightstand with the pen before moving closer to the wall, attempting to act normal, and waiting for her boyfriend to return. His words about her raced through her head like a toy train on an endless loop, making her smile like a lovesick fool as Royce opened the door and crept over to her. Royce slipped under the side of the blankets Vivien held open for him and let her use his arm as a pillow as they laid back against his mattress and brought the blankets up. Royce took a look at the smile on Vivien’s face and allowed a confused grin to form on his as he softly asked, “What’s up?”

Vivien carded her fingers through Royce’s curls and softly said, “Just thinking about how lucky I am to have you.”

Royce chuckled, “I’ve been thinking the same thing all morning.”

“I know,” Vivien breathed, a knowing grin tugging at her lips. As Royce’s confused smile returned, she quoted, “‘Her heart is like the ocean. Her mind is like a kaleidoscope.’” Vivien watched in amusement as confusion turned into understanding and flooded into embarrassment as Royce quickly sat up and began scanning his blankets for the journal he had forgotten to put away. As she sat up, Vivien put a stop to Royce’s frantic searching by quietly telling him, “It’s on the nightstand.”

Royce’s head whipped around and, upon discovering his journal was placed beside his cell phone with the pen resting atop it, he let out a long breath. Turning to his girlfriend, he asked, “You read my journal?”

“Only that little bit,” she replied. “I saw my name and wanted to see what it said, but that was all I read.”

With a nod and a sigh, Royce relaxed and leaned back until his head hit the pillow he had been resting on. As Vivien joined him, he glanced over the stars on the ceiling and softly said, “Sorry for freaking out.”

“Don’t be,” Vivien replied, her eyes searching for plastic constellations the boys had plastered to their ceiling. “I’d be a little freaked out if someone read my journals.”

“At least your journals are full of potential novels,” Royce claimed, turning to his girlfriend and watching her scan the ceiling’s stars. “Mine are just to get my thoughts out before I start the day… Recently, though, they all seem to be about you and how much I love you.”

Vivien smiled as she turned to Royce, yet as she opened her mouth to speak, a metallic creak on the other side of the room stopped her. As Bentley slowly turned to the side, using his left arm as a brace as he glared across the room at his brother’s bed. “Royce, you better wake the hell up,” the fifteen-year-old grumbled, his voice still thick with sleep. “You’re flirting with Vivien in your sleep again and, I swear, if I have to listen to you telling her how much you love her for another night, I’m going to move in with Lela.”

Royce rolled onto his right side, sending Bentley a smile as he said, “I’m not flirting with her in my sleep.”

Vivien sat up just enough to be seen as she added, “Yeah, he’s flirting with me while he’s awake. There's a difference.”

Bentley rubbed at his eyes as a yawn pushed the chance of him going back to sleep even further away. “Did you sneak in and stay the night or something?” he asked once he was able to form words again.

“Nope, I got here a little while ago, but the front door was locked,” Vivien answered. “I used the window.”

Bentley wasn’t too surprised that was the girl’s answer. Ever since the first time she clambered into their bedroom window, it seemed as though an open-ended invitation had been tucked into Vivien’s back pocket. Neither of the brothers minded her just popping in whenever she felt like it, especially since they had all been close for what felt like forever and had formed close bonds between them, but it was the first time Bentley had woken up to her already sitting in the room he shared with Royce. After stretching himself out and releasing another yawn, Bentley ran a hand through his hair as a makeshift comb and pulled his top blanket around his shoulders before standing from his bed and asking, “Well, if you two are done being all lovey-dovey and shit, do you wanna go play Mario Kart?”

Vivien spared a glance at Royce who shrugged. Deciding they had nothing better to do, the pair got themselves out of the blankets, Royce grabbing two of them while Vivien picked up her things, and followed Bentley downstairs to the living room where they lit the fireplace and attempted to play video games as quietly as possible. Even with their earbuds plugged into their controllers and tightly tucked into their ears, the trio heard when the others in the house began to rise from their blanket cocoons and make their way to the main area of the house. Mick and Butchy were quick to start making breakfast while Brady went back to his and his wife’s shared room to get dressed, leaving Mack to watch the TV as the teenagers battled for the top spot on Rainbow Road. 

Lela and Carrie were next to make an appearance, talking about something on Carrie’s phone that got them both laughing as they found their way to some of the empty spots on the couch. “Yeah,” Carrie chuckled as she took her phone back from Lela, “Mick showed it to me on the plane yesterday.”

“I can’t believe I forgot about that night,” Lela laughed. “I remember those two came back wearing the darkest sunglasses possible and their hangovers were so bad we had to whisper for two days straight.”

The idea of hearing about someone’s drunken escapades piqued Vivien’s attention as she set aside her controller and turned to the two girls on the couch. “Who was hungover?”

“Miles and Butchy,” Lela explained.

Royce and Bentley shared a look as they turned toward Carrie and Lela. Bentley quickly shook his head, “Miles wouldn’t get drunk. He doesn’t even like alcohol.” 

“It wasn’t on purpose,” Carrie said. “We were at a Christmas party in California and they got into the eggnog without knowing it had a shit-ton of alcohol in it.”

A groaned sigh came from the doorway of the kitchen as Butchy stepped into the living room with a mug of coffee in hand, “I never want to see another bottle of tequila in my life.”

“Wait,” Royce began, “you mean that actually happened?”

“Happened?” Mick repeated, a laugh leaving her as she entered the room behind Butchy. “Tweedle Dee and Tweedle Dum got wasted on eggnog, took a whole bottle of Jose Cuervo from the host’s liquor cabinet, traded clothes, and started singing along to the karaoke in the other room.”

While the younger Murphy brothers tried to imagine their oldest sibling and his best friend getting drunk to the extent Mick had described, Vivien laughed, “Tell me you got that on video!”

Carrie waved her phone from one side to the other, a proud smile on her face as she claimed, “Mick sent it to me last night.”

“Can we watch it?” Vivien asked.

“I don’t see why not,” Mick shrugged. “I cut out the parts where they changed clothes before I posted it online.”

A burst of coffee splattered onto the wood floors from Butchy’s cup as he choked on the mouthful he had been sipping. Once he had the chance to speak without wearing more of the hot liquid, Butchy pressed, “You did what?!”

“Nothing!” Mick quickly dodged Butchy’s wide-eyed gaze as she scurried toward the couch, chanting, “Put it on! Put it on! Put it on!”

Mario Kart was quickly dismissed as Carrie connected her cell phone to the TV, pressing play on the video Mick had sent her the night before. The screen was quickly filled with an image of what looked like a dining room, Butchy and Miles sitting across from each other, making a pyramid of red plastic cups between them as they giggled nonsensically at each other. Butchy watched in confusion - he had never seen the video himself, nor did he remember half of the things he and Miles had done that night, but if the bottle of alcohol on the table was anything to go by, they had gotten thoroughly wasted. Quickly ditching some paper towels on the floor to absorb the coffee he had spilled, Butchy set his coffee mug down and headed for the stairs, bounding up them a few at a time until he reached the floor they all slept on. He made a quick stop in the room he and Mick shared, ditching his coffee-stained shirt in the hamper and grabbing a new one to pull on before marching next door to Miles’ room. 

Miles was just barely conscious when Butchy found him, the slamming of his door hitting the wall probably the only reason he was conscious in the first place. Miles’ tired eyes found Butchy and an eyebrow raised as he sluggishly muttered, “Good morning to you too.”

Instead of returning the greeting, Butchy declared, “Your girlfriend and my wife are showing everyone a video of what we did at that party a few years ago.”

It took Miles’ exhausted, decaffeinated brain a while to catch up with his best friend’s words, but once he caught on, alarm bells began blaring in his head. “They recorded us?!”

“Mickie did,” Butchy explained with a sigh. “Now she and Carrie have it on the TV for everyone to watch.”

Miles unwillingly began prying himself out of the blankets he had found comfort in and pushed himself to the closet to throw on a sweatshirt as he commented, “It can’t be that bad if they’re showing it to the rest of the family, right?”

“We shared a bottle of tequila and traded clothes in the middle of a Christmas party,” Butchy stated as Miles pulled a shirt over his head. “There’s no telling what else we did that night.”

“At least we didn’t kiss or anything stupid like that,” Miles chuckled as he closed his closet door. As soon as it registered that the only one laughing was him, Miles turned to Butchy with horrified eyes. His friend was staring into space, trying to recall what had happened that night after his fourth cup of eggnog, but his silence did nothing to quell Miles' rising panic. “We didn’t, did we?”

Instead of answering, Butchy met Miles' gaze and asked, “I don’t remember much of anything from that night, do you?”

Miles thought for a moment, hoping to bring back any of his memories from that night, before letting out a meek, “No.”

“Then we better get downstairs and hope they haven’t seen anything we don’t know about,” Butchy said before stepping outside the room and making his way to the stairs, not bothering to wait for Miles as he made his way to the living room.

Miles was quick to follow, throwing himself into a run and practically tumbling his way down the stairs, missing many steps on the way and nearly colliding with the floor as he jumped the last four. By the time Miles reached the living room, Butchy was chasing Lela around in an attempt to grab the remote from her - the hilarious height difference between them proving that, even with Butchy’s long limbs and overall muscle, he was no match for his wiry younger sister’s speed. Miles spared a glance at the television, finding a video of him and Butchy drunkenly singing along to some song he couldn’t make out, the two of them taking turns drinking from a large bottle of Jose Cuervo. Cringing at the sight of his younger self looking like an absolute moron, Miles made his way over to where his girlfriend was sitting, reaching over her from behind and latching onto the cell phone clasped in her surprisingly tight grasp.

Carrie’s head tipped back, mirthful eyes glimmering up at Miles as she teasingly asked, “And just what do you think you’re doing, mister?”

“I think you know exactly what I’m doing,” he quipped, tugging lightly on the phone in an attempt to pry it away.

“Do I?” she replied coyly as she yanked the device back to her chest.

“You absolutely do.”

Carrie hummed, a small nod bouncing her golden curls against the couch cushions, “But, just like in chess, I’m three steps ahead of you.”

Miles chuckled, “Oh yeah?”

“Yeah.” The grin that settled on Carrie’s face just proved her point and, just like that, Miles knew he had already lost. Before he knew it, a hand threaded into his hair and pulled him down to the blonde as she turned sideways, locking their lips together. Miles’ muffled noise of surprise gained the attention of the trio sitting on the floor, but the only one to not make a noise of disgust just so happened to be the one to notice the phone the couple was still fighting over. As Royce and Bentley turned back to the TV to watch their brother and Butchy make complete fools of themselves, Vivien took it upon herself to creep closer to the couple and tap Carrie on the leg. One of the blonde’s brilliantly blue eyes peeled open and she glanced down at the smirking teenager, watching the brunette wiggle her eyebrows mischievously and cup her hands like she was waiting for Carrie to throw something her way.

Carrie attempted a wink at the girl and, as Vivien backed away enough that Miles would have to jump over the couch to snatch the phone from her, Carrie closed her eyes once again and decided to use her boyfriend’s love for her against him. She made sure to keep the love-drunk Miles occupied as she moved once again, kneeling on the couch and dragging her nails against his scalp. It didn’t take much for Miles’ resolve to evaporate and for his hands to move to his girlfriend’s waist, pulling her as close as he could with the couch in the way. However, as soon as the phone was out of her boyfriend’s grasp, Carrie backed away from Miles and tossed it to Vivien who caught the phone and dropped it down the front of the hoodie she had borrowed from Royce. Nobody would be getting the phone back from her until the video was done playing.

Miles was slow to catch on to what had happened, but the matching grins on the girls' faces sobered him up faster than a bucket of ice water dumped on his head. He glanced over at Butchy and Lela, the latter of whom had ditched the remote’s batteries somewhere during their multiple laps around the main floor of the house and had given Butchy an empty, useless remote. Miles’ gaze landed on Vivien who only looked innocent if you could ignore the proud gleam of mischief in her eyes. After searching for someone, anyone, in the house who would take his and Butchy’s side in the argument, yet finding nobody willing to do so, Miles let out a sigh of defeat and moved to take a seat next to his girlfriend. As Miles rounded the end of the couch, Carrie sat back down and leaned forward, high-fiving Vivien as the brunette moved past her to the spot she had been in between Royce and Bentley. Miles dropped into the cushion next to Carrie and tried his best to ignore the blonde’s proud smile that shone up at him.

“Like I said,” Carrie taunted, proud to have bested her boyfriend, “three steps ahead.”

[angst-fairygodmother]

Break My Heart Right: Kiss Me Jack Frost (Luba x Reader)

A/N: The gif isn’t super important, but visually it is? Or maybe I just like it. Prompts: Blizzard/Snowed in, “Your hands are like ice!” Word Count: 1692 Content Warnings: Spoilers for Mute, alcohol consumption, implied smut Taglist: @sean-falco​ (let me know if you want to be added) Cross-posted to AO3

The wind howled on the other side of the glass store-front as you and your studio partner, Alexi, rushed to finish everything you needed to do, anticipating a shut down at least several days long. Storms like the one brewing outside weren’t frequent in the city, but when they struck, there was no denying Mother Nature’s will, and the weather predicted that this one was going to be particularly powerful. You fully believed that, glancing at the thick white haze. It was already fierce and picking up further, and at this rate you were just hoping to make it home. Alexi was lovely and a dear friend, but you didn’t fancy spending several days locked up with them at work, especially when the other option was shacking up with Luba for a while with absolutely zero interruptions.

The thought had just barely crossed your mind when there was a loud click, a fading hum, and the studio plunged into darkness. 

“Shit,” you heard Alexi shout. 

“Are you alright?” you called back, unsure where exactly they were and concerned that the sudden blackout had resulted in them hurting themselves with some sort of equipment.

“Yeah, fine. Just...not a fan of the dark to be honest.” 

You couldn’t really blame them. After all, until this moment you couldn’t remember the last time you had known true darkness. There was always at least a distant, muffled glow of streetlights and neon, cars and advertisements and screens everywhere. You weren’t exactly thrilled with it either.

“Do we have a generator or any battery lights in the back?” you asked, cautiously hopeful. Alexi was big on photoshoots of new pieces, and not everything could be captured with the overheads. 

“We might have a few blacklights? But I can’t even see to find them.” 

~

By the time you scrounged up the lamps, the temperature inside the studio was already starting to drop, your fingers feeling numb as you shrugged on your jacket while you kept working.

“Alright, I’m headed out, Y/N. You should too, before all the taxies stop,” Alexi said finally, wrapping their scarf around their neck as they talked. 

“I will, I will,” you said, brushing off their concern. “I just want to make sure this is braced so the mold doesn’t seize while we’re gone and then I’m out.”

They gave you a disbelieving look, knowing you had a tendency to be forever coming up with ‘one more thing’ to do. 

“I promise. I don’t want to get stuck here.”

“Especially not with that gorgeous partner of yours waiting at home for you,” they wiggled your eyebrows at you and you blushed hotly. “I still don’t know how you managed to get that to yourself but I’m insanely jealous.”

You rolled your eyes, waving at them to get going. 

~

As promised, you were only a few minutes behind Alexi, leaving the last dying blacklight by the door in case you needed to go back for something. You were daydreaming as you trudged down the street about what might be waiting at home: warmth and cuddles, and if you were very lucky, several days to just enjoy spending time with...

“Luba?!” you called, spotting the object of your mundane little fantasy through the swirling snow, hunched in his thick coat, pale hair stained blue by the one remaining sign lit on the street (you felt a little jealous of whoever owned the shop for being able to afford to waste a generator on powering it). “What are you doing out here?”

You rushed over to him as best you could through the nearly knee-deep snow. He shivered violently beneath your touch as you wrapped your arms around him, and you fearfully suspected that the blue tinge of his lips wasn’t makeup. 

“I came to find you,” he said sheepishly through chattering teeth. “When you didn’t come home or pick up when I tried to call...I got worried.”

Your heart twisted painfully as you read between the lines, the words written in his sad, mossy eyes, currently framed by lashes coated in so much snow that they matched his signature work look without artificial assistance: ‘I was scared. That you left. That you were gone forever. Like Naadirah. Don’t leave me. Please.’ 

Unsure what else to do, you squeezed tighter, hugging him closer. 

“Can we go home now?” his voice was soft, pleading, before taking on a clearly faked lilt. “This weather is a nightmare on my skin.”

“Actually…” you looked around at the barren streets. “I don’t think we can. Unless you want to walk the whole way…”

His shoulders slumped. “I won’t make it, I’ll freeze to death.”

“Luckily, my studio is right back down the street. It’s got no heat for now, but at least we’ll be out of the snow. Actually, you know that, so I’m not sure why you didn’t just come inside to begin with.”

He shrugged, mumbling something that was lost in the wind. You decided not to push it, more interested in getting inside than arguing over details. 

~

Stomping snow off your boots, you flicked the little lamp back on, it’s purple bulb flickering and popping in protest. Despite the instinct to stay in as many layers as possible, you knew the melting snow would only make you colder, so you reluctantly peeled off your coat and made Luba do the same. 

“There must be something around here we can use to keep warm,” you muttered, rubbing at your shoulders and watching as your breath misted unpleasantly in the air.

“We’re going to die here,” Luba’s tone was matter-of-fact, and you couldn’t help but roll your eyes.  

“The battery on that light isn’t going to last long, so can you please help me look around before you accept popsicle-y fate?”

“Slave driver,” he muttered, glaring slightly, though the effect was defeated by his chattering teeth. 

Still, he moved to the opposite side of the studio and began looking around. Eventually, but not before you were both shivering and close to giving up hope, you found a stack of drop cloths. The stiff, paint-caked canvases wouldn’t be the most ideal substitute for blankets but they’d do a little something, or at least you prayed they would. 

“I think we can use these,” you said, “and if we huddle together, it might be enough. We’ll be okay.” You grimaced, your voice sounding decidedly unconvincing. 

“Mightn’t these work better?” he asked, pulling out some worn and ragged towels from one of the cupboards. 

“I don’t know about better, but we could just pile it on. It’s so cold I’ll take everything we can get.”

Luba continued to look around as you started building a nest for the pair of you dragging over the rough mats on the floor to insulate you from the concrete and arranging the makeshift blankets to be easily pulled up. 

“Well well, what do we have here?” he said, pulling something out of one of Alexi’s drawers. “This will certainly keep us warmer.”

You looked up, raising an eyebrow as he shook the bottle at you. 

“I feel bad taking Alexi’s whiskey…” you said, biting your lip.

“I think they’ll understand an emergency situation.”

You sighed, relenting to his logic, and more importantly his big, puppy dog eyes. “Fine, bring it over here. But we should really bundle up now-ish before one of us starts really feeling the effects of the cold.”

If you were being honest, you were already feeling a dangerous and sudden kind of sleepy, and you noticed that he was shivering less than he was initially, even though the temperature had, if anything, dropped.

“You don’t have to make up excuses for a cuddle you know, Y/N,” he teased, sauntering over and draping himself dramatically around you.

You tugged him down to the floor, wrapping the layers of cloth around you. It was heavy and awkward but you already felt a little bit warmer. He took a swig of alcohol and then held it up to your lips to sip while you arranged the covers better. Setting the bottle behind you where it was in easy reach, he shifted you onto his lap, long elegant fingers holding onto your waist.

“Jesus Luba,” you shrieked, jumping as you felt his skin on yours when he slipped them under your shirt. “Your hands are like ice!”

“Hm, I wonder why.” He rolled his eyes at you, frowning when you didn’t laugh along. “Don’t worry about it, I’m sure I’ll warm up in no time.”

The implication in his tone was obvious, but in case you somehow missed it, his lips began to wander along your neck, leaving hot, teasing kisses across your skin at the same time his chilled fingers continued to travel upward beneath your clothes.

“No. Absolutely not,” you protested, trying to squirm away from him without losing the protective warmth of the piles of fabric. 

He pouted at you. “Please, darling? You know how much I need you…”

You knew that he knew exactly what buttons to press to get you to surrender to him, and you were close to doing just that. You scowled half-heartedly, trying to remain strong.

“No. I love you, but it’s too cold. I’m not taking my sweater off no matter how much you look at me like that.” 

“That particular article of clothing isn’t in the way, darling.” 

He winked and you felt your resolve shatter. Lightly, giving you every opportunity to pull away if you wanted, he drew you back in, kissing you tenderly, tongue slowly exploring every inch of your mouth as you melted, putty in his hands. You slid your hands up over his shoulders and neck to tangle your fingers in his gentle curls, pulling him closer.

“So is that a yes?” he teased, eyebrows raised and warm breath ghosting over your face. “Or do I still need to convince you?”

You laughed, nodding and pulling him down into another kiss. The weather might be terrible and the situation a mess, but the company was good, and it was shaping up to be a pretty splendid night after all. 

[maria-scribbles]

glitter + crimson (let’s start a riot)//part three

summary: while mother nature isn’t very kind to the obx, jj’s dad is even worse to him. sailor sees the aftermath, relives a day that changed her life forever, and realizes she’d be down with murder if she could get away with it. between nutella sandwiches, story time, and a shared bed, an unspoken thing slowly starts to become a little more real.

word count: 6.9k+ (oops 😅)

ship: jj maybank x oc (sailor flynn)

warnings: abuse/neglect, blood, mentions of parental abandonment/gambling addiction, swearing, whump, hurt/comfort, fluff, blatant references to hocus pocus, the little mermaid, percy jackson and the olympians, and mean girls (and a teeny, subtle reference to stranger things, see if y’all can catch it! 😉)

a/n: i was so excited to write this part, not gonna lie (if you couldn’t tell, just look at that word count). hurt/comfort is my shittt and i’m a pretty big slut for physical comfort/touches so i kinda went ham with it lol. i’m also very happy to finally introduce everyone to peyton, who’s a character i really love and enjoy writing, especially her relationship with her gf alison. both of them will get some time to shine in this part, peyton in the present and alison in the past! as usual, this is unbetaed so all mistakes belong to me. enjoy!

gif credit to @sci-fi​

~Masterlist~

part one | part two | part four | playlist 

part three: storm surge

It rains the entire week. Scratch that -it storms: the whole island buffeted by howling winds and blanketed by a thick layer of dark and angry clouds that make life just shy of miserable. For someone who spends 99% of her time outside like Sailor, miserable doesn’t begin to cover it. And to think, it’s only the beginning of hurricane season.

The redhead props her chin in one tan hand as she leans against the cool marble counter of The Butterscotch Bonnet Ice Cream Parlor, watching the rain pound against the shop’s bay windows. Across the street she can just make out the rough, gray surf of the Atlantic through a tiny gap in between two buildings and she sighs wistfully, thinking about all the beautiful shells getting tossed onto the beach by the waves. She’s half tempted to just throw off her apron, hop the counter, and make a break for the sand, storm be damned.

She’s almost positive she wouldn’t even be missed. There isn’t a customer in sight and there hasn’t been one since she started her shift three hours ago. Peyton was still in the back kitchen, messing around with whatever convoluted ice cream flavor she thought up for this week; her boss definitely has a knack for concocting weird combinations that somehow work together, at least most of the time. Sailor thinks back to a few weeks ago when they debuted that delicious blackberry balsamic that sold out every day without fail, then followed it with a cilantro lime that was hit-or-miss (a definite miss in her opinion, as cilantro just tastes like soap to her; Peyton had just smiled her infectious smile, shrugged her tiny shoulders, and said, “Can’t win ‘em all, I guess.”) This week’s flavor involves mascarpone and peaches and she can’t wait to steal a sample because if the wonderful smell coming from the kitchen is any indication, it’s gonna be bomb, even though it probably won’t upset the shop’s namesake flavor from the top of her list.

Thinking about ice cream makes her kind of hungry, on top of the fact that she has a terrible habit of eating when she’s bored, so she dishes out a small scoop of Butterscotch Bonnet and grabs a spoon before leaning back against the counter, digging through the cup to find the best part: salted caramel-filled chocolate sea shells, made in house. The days Sailor gets to help make them are her favorite days to come to work, when she and Peyton commandeer the kitchen and have the time of their lives, blasting music and dancing as they slave away. Of course, the little bag of chocolates she gets to take home is a pretty big plus, too.

“That’s coming out of your paycheck, Sail.”

Spoon halfway to her mouth, she sheepishly glances up from her snack as Peyton emerges from the kitchen, fondly shaking her head and sending her inky black braids dancing across her shoulders.

“What am I gonna do with you?” She continues with a wink before starting to make herself a milkshake, dropping two scoops of their tiramisu flavor into a malt cup.

“Sorry, you know I can’t help myself!” Sailor knows the other girl was joking but she apologizes anyway and opens the cabinet to grab a cup and straw for her, setting them on the counter beside the old-fashioned milkshake machine. As far as bosses go, Peyton is one of the all-around best to have and the redhead loves working at her shop. While the Buckleys are rich as shit and total kooks, the family’s youngest daughter is down to earth, kind, and prefers to work hard for what she wants instead of flaunting her parents’ wealth and The Butterscotch Bonnet is proof that, despite her last name and penchant for the finer things, she’s a pogue at heart. It’s no wonder Alison’s head over heels for her.

“I also know you’re bored as shit.” Peyton calls over the sound of the blender, sending a knowing smirk toward the younger girl, who rolls her eyes and shovels another spoonful of ice cream in her mouth as she replies, “Obviously. This weather fucking sucks.”

A loud clap of thunder seems to shake the very glass in the windows and she gestures toward the storm outside, her point proven. Peyton glances around the deserted shop, still bright and cheery despite its lack of movement and life, then back to the relentless downpour, before shrugging and turning back to finish blending her milkshake. “Wanna go home early?”

“Seriously?”

“Why not? You’ve already cleaned this whole place from top to bottom and I don’t think we’re gonna be getting customers any time soon.” Ignoring the paper cup, she plops the straw straight into her drink and takes a big sip, then nods in satisfaction before adding a huge swirl of whipped cream on top.

“Have I ever told you that you’re the best?” Sailor asks, smiling excitedly as she grabs her bag from under the counter and tosses her empty cup into the trash.

“Only every day,” the older girl replies cheekily, smiling as she’s pulled into a one-armed hug of thanks by her employee.

“Well, you’re gonna hear it again: you’re the best.”

“Yeah, yeah,” Peyton pats the redhead’s shoulder with one deep brown hand and then gently pushes her toward the kitchen. “Now get out of here, brat. I’ll see you tomorrow.”

“Yes, ma’am!” Sailor throws a peace sign over her shoulder as she heads out the door, cackling at her boss’s offended call of “don’t call me ma’am!” After clocking out, she fishes her keys out of her bag and dashes through the downpour to her beat-up clunker of a truck. A hand-me-down from Alison, Flounder’s nothing to look at with all the dents and chips in his blue paint, but he gets her where she needs to go and has room for surfboards in the back and two other pogues up front on the bench seat -and the other two unlucky ones riding in the bed, hiding under the boards- so she’s not complaining, even though she wishes his radio worked more than half the time.

(Two reasons why John B’s almost always the group chauffeur: the fact that he can legally drive all five of them around without breaking the law -not that they’ve ever gotten caught in Sailor’s truck but anyone with a brain knows that where one pogue goes, the other four aren’t far behind- and good music flowing from a perfectly working stereo.)

Unfortunately, it’s on the fritz today so her drive home is spent listening to the sounds of Flounder’s windshield wipers and the pounding of rain against his roof. She heads inland from the beach, away from Peyton’s shop in the outskirts of affluent Figure 8 and its kook mansions to the more homey, laid-back Cut, passing by the turnoff to the Chateau and through the woods before pulling into the empty driveway of her tiny house. The fact that her mother’s car is no where to be found doesn’t surprise her in the slightest. Waiting for her on the porch is Binx, the stray black cat she’s taken to feeding and more or less adopted, stretching on the blanket she left out for him.

“Hey, handsome,” The redhead says, kneeling down to give him a loving scratch behind the ears; he meows in response and rubs his fuzzy face against her ankles, weaving between her legs as she slides her key into the lock. “Come on in.”

The front door closes behind them with a hollow bang that echoes through the empty house like the thunder outside. Sailor hangs up her keys and follows Binx down the hall toward her room, ignoring the closed door that leads to her mom’s room and a bed that she assumes hasn’t been slept in in months. Not that she would know: she’s made it a habit to spend as few nights as possible alone in the house, instead crashing at the Chateau or Kiara’s place and hoping her mom’s comfortable in her makeshift room at The Sandbar where Carmen doesn’t have to deal with the teenager she’s supposed to be caring for (Sailor’s always been an independent girl and has no trouble getting by alone but fuck, that doesn’t mean she wants to.).

Her father’s green eyes, the same color as her own, stare back at her from a picture hanging on the wall of a better time, when everything was alright and her family wasn’t so broken; the three of them on the beach with a twelve year old Sailor in the middle and surfboards in hand. Carmen looks like the mother she remembers and misses so bad it hurts, and while Ryan wasn’t always the most caring of fathers and only acted like a dad when it was convenient, she’d still do anything to have him back, terrible parenting skills and all. She turns away from the picture and the complicated mess her heart becomes when she thinks about him, continuing down the hall to her room.

Complicated doesn’t even begin to cover her feelings about her dad, though. She’s always believed she was an afterthought to him, never first on his list but still good enough to tag along for company when he was doing something he wanted to do. He was a man who liked the idea of having a kid but never wanted to actually step up and parent when things weren’t all fun and games, instead deciding to take off to Atlantic City for a month or two at a time to gamble away whatever money they earned at the surf shop.

She wants to hate him. She should loathe him and in a way, she does. She hates the way he still makes her feel like everything’s her fault, even when he’s not around. She hates the person her mother becomes when he disappears, someone distant and cold and so unlike the good, caring mother Sailor remembers. She hates that home doesn’t feel like home anymore and it’s all his fault, and she hates that despite everything he’s put her through, all the hurt he’s caused, she still can’t find it in her big, bleeding heart to truly detest her father. After all, he could’ve been worse. So, so much worse.

The only place she can get away from everything is her room, her own little sanctuary from the cold emptiness of the rest of the house and constant reminders of Ryan’s absence. It’s warm and bright, the walls painted a sunny yellow that reminds her of lazy days relaxing on the beach. Her first surfboard hangs on the wall above her bed, tucked away in a corner, doubling as a shelf for her massive shell collection while pictures of her and her friends dangle underneath, pinned to a long piece of twine. Her current boards stand propped in another corner, leaning against a wall plastered with all types of movie and music posters. Through the windows covered with curtains as light as sea foam, the rain steadily pours but in here, she’s safe. In here, she can breathe.

Sailor strips off her uniform, tossing it along with her bag onto the chair by the door and slips out of her worn red high-tops before pulling on a pair of sleep shorts and the first long-sleeve shirt her fingers find in the closet, then flops onto her bed and pulls the soft blue blanket around her shoulders, reading glasses and well-loved copy of The Lightning Thief in hand while Binx curls up at her feet. Every summer without fail she rereads the series (why, she’s not exactly sure: maybe its nostalgia, maybe its because she lowkey relates to water-loving, steadfastly loyal Percy) and she’s fallen behind this year, so she fully intends on reading as much as she can tonight before bed. The storm provides perfect background noise and soon she’s five chapters in before a sudden loud knock on her window causes her head to snap up in alarm.

Oh no. Without bothering to save her place, she tosses the book and her glasses aside and scrambles from the bed to the window, tearing open the curtains to reveal a sight she always dreads seeing. Her best friend stands outside in the rain, soaked to the bone, hand pressed against his side, and the sight of bright red blood trailing down his face and staining the collar of his gray shirt makes her heart drop to her stomach. Wordlessly, she opens the window and helps him climb inside before closing it firmly and drawing the curtains, once again blocking the world from her -now their- sanctuary, then grabs her blanket from the bed and wraps it tightly around JJ’s shaking shoulders after he kicks off his sodden boots.

Her hand slowly moves to cup his face and her heart breaks a little more when he tenses, blue eyes carefully tracking its movement until he seems to remember who it belongs to and lets himself lean into her touch, cheek resting against her palm. Sailor runs her thumb under his split lip and and wipes at the crimson staining his tan skin, her mouth curving into a small frown when she only succeeds in smearing it further.

“Come on,” She breaks the silence with her gentle voice, barely above a whisper, and reaches her other hand out to take his, “Let’s get you cleaned up.”

His fingers hold so, so tight as she leads him down the hall to the bathroom and she’s so laser-focused on the way they tremble against hers that she doesn’t notice the blood left behind on the handle when she opens the door. After flicking on the light she turns to face him and gently pushes the blanket from his shoulders with her free hand, letting it fall to the floor in a damp heap, then blindly reaches behind her to turn on the shower, cranking the heat as high as it’ll go.

“Sorry about your blanket.” JJ says at last, his voice quiet, and Sailor shakes her head, running her thumb in circles on the back of his cold hand.

“I don’t care about that, J.” She replies just as quiet and before she can stop herself, before she can think about what exactly she’s about to admit, she adds, “I care about you.”

The corner of his mouth lifts in a barely-there smile and while it may be tiny, it’s a smile nonetheless and she feels the tight knot in her chest begin to loosen as she lets go of his hand, reaching for the hem of his shirt. “Can you lift your arms for me?”

He does as she asks but his pained wince doesn’t go unnoticed by the redhead when she pulls his shirt over his head and tosses it on top of the discarded blanket, and her jaw clenches at the sight of deep purple bruises in the shape of his father’s fists marring the skin over his ribs.

“Let me know if this hurts.” Oh so carefully she reaches out with one hand and gently touches the darkest mark, where she’d seen him clutching at outside her window, her fingers delicately feeling for any damages.

“A little.” He admits, shaky breath warm against her forehead and she does her best to keep her hand steady as she checks over the rest of him, then feathers her fingers back over that first bruise.

“It doesn’t feel like anything’s broken or cracked, so that’s good.” She says, allowing her hand to linger for a second before letting it fall from his side. “A rib or two might be a little bruised, though, so we’ll put some ice on them later, just in case. Sound good?”

JJ nods and watches her with those ocean blue eyes as she pulls her own shirt over her head, leaving her in a plain black cami and shorts, before grabbing his hand once again and pulling him into the shower with her. The water’s just a tad too hot and it instantly starts turning her skin red but Sailor doesn’t mind, instead choosing to embrace the heat and the way it burns everything away, leaving behind brand new skin that’s ready for a new day, new adventures. She reaches up and gingerly wipes the blood from her best friend’s face; in a mirror of earlier, he leans his cheek into her palm, eyes slowly closing while both arms wrap around her waist and pull her close.

“Sail,” He whispers her nickname into the humid air between them and she barely registers the tremble in his voice before his knees buckle, sinking them both to the shower floor until they’re face to face, sitting in between each other’s legs. He clings to her, arms even tighter around her waist and face buried against her neck, and she feels the shake of his shoulders when she winds her own arms around them. One hand moves to steadily run through wet blond hair, over and over, comforting in the best way she knows how, the fingers of her other hand tracing circles on the bare skin of his back as water continues to rain down on them like the downpour outside.

She’s eerily reminded of another time they sat like this, sobbing in each other’s arms five years ago, the first time she saw just how cruel his father could be, the first time she realized she’d do absolutely everything and anything to keep him safe, and it was both one of the best and worst days of her life.

Eleven year old Sailor shoved her math textbook into her cluttered locker and kicked it shut with a scowl. She hated math, her math teacher, and especially whoever made her schedule- who in their right mind would put math in eighth-period? She swung her backpack onto her shoulder and grunted softly at the extra weight it carried. JJ hadn’t come to school that day and Sailor had volunteered to take his missed work to him; it made sense, considering she lived closest out of the pogues and it’d make her feel better if she got to check on him herself -there was a reason the rest of the group called her the mom friend, after all.

She’d already collected assignments from the classes he shared with Pope and Kiara as well as herself, so now she was just waiting for John B to drop off his own. As if summoned by her thoughts, the brunet boy rounded the corner and waved, weaving his way to her through their fellow middle-schoolers. “Sorry, you know how Mr. Jefferson likes to go on and on and on...” He said, pulling some papers from his backpack and handing them to the redhead. “Do you remember where J’s house is?”

Sailor rolled her eyes and carefully slid the homework into her own bag. “Considering I live, like, five streets away, I sure hope so.” She fired back, ignoring his cackle of laughter as they joined the rush of students, excited for the weekend, flooding out through the double doors of Kildare County Middle School. She lingered by her friend as he unlocked his bike from the rack and then climbed on, asking, “You’re helping out at the shop on Saturday, right?”

She nodded, scanning the sea of waiting cars and waving when she spotted her ride. “Yeah, why?”

“My dad and I are gonna hang out at the beach that day so we’ll stop by and say hi.” With a casual salute in her direction he slowly started pedaling down the road, calling back over his shoulder, “Tell JJ he can come too if he’s feeling better!”

“Tell him yourself!” She yelled after his retreating back, not surprised in the slightest when he didn’t turn around and disappeared into the trees. Alison’s beat up blue truck pulled up to the curb seconds later and the older redhead leaned out the open window, a shit-eating grin on her face as she joked, “Get in loser, we’re going shopping!”

Sailor laughed and climbed into the passenger seat, dropping her backpack on the floor with a loud thump. Alison winced at the sound, raising her eyebrow as she waited for the younger girl to put her seatbelt on. “What the hell do you have in there, rocks?”

“One of my friends missed school today so I have his homework. Do you mind driving by so I can drop it off? He only lives a few streets away.”

“Sure,” Alison replied, flicking on her turn signal and merging into the stream of cars leaving the school’s parking lot. “So who skipped: Smarty Pants, Bandana Boy, or Surfer Bro?”

The eleven year old giggled at the nicknames -she’d never admit it, but they were honestly pretty accurate- and replied, “Surfer Bro. And his name is JJ, Ali.”

“Rightttt, JJ. What do you think it stands for, huh? Jesse James? John Jacob?”

“Oh my Godddddd!”

The high school senior continued to come up with names, each more ridiculous than the last until Sailor exclaimed “There!” and directed her to park near a small, run-down house on a quiet road. She pulled a folder from her backpack and was out the door before the older girl could blink, calling over her shoulder, “I’ll be right back!”

The redhead slammed the truck door behind her and made her way toward the porch and what she assumed was the front door; she’d never been inside JJ’s house but he always came out to meet them through there so she figured it was a safe bet. The smile fell from her face, ears registering the sound of horrible, angry yelling just as she brought her fist down to knock and she anxiously fidgeted back and forth on the step, her heart starting to beat fast in her chest. What the hell was going on?

"Fucking hell!” An enraged shout came clear as day from inside and as she heard the person’s stomping approach, something in her, a feeling, urged her to hide the folder in her hand behind her back. She jumped in surprise when the door was suddenly ripped open, revealing a fuming, red-faced man who glared down at her with heavily lidded eyes and one hand clenched in a fist at his side, the other holding the threshold in a white-knuckled grip. “What the hell do you want?”

“H-hi, I’m Sailor, one of JJ’s friends? He wasn’t at school today so I came by to check on him.” She said, proud of herself for keeping most of the tremble out of her voice while she studiously avoided his cruel gaze, instead subtly trying to peer behind him and hopefully catch a glimpse of her friend. The man, who she realized with sheer horror had to be JJ’s dad, was absolutely terrifying, with breath reeking of booze and mouth curled into a vicious snarl as he moved to block her view into the house and snapped, “Kid’s fine. Now get the fuck outta here.”

“Can I just see-”

She was cut off when he slammed the door in her face with the hand that had been by his side and her eyes widened, stomach sinking with dread as she caught sight of the splotch of bright crimson left behind on the wood. Oh, God. This could not be happening. She remembered John B’s warning about JJ’s dad, saying he wasn’t a very nice man when she became friends with them last year but she didn’t recall him ever saying anything about this and it hits her like a freight train: he probably didn’t know. Her heart pounded against her ribcage. If JB didn’t know then Pope and Kiara definitely didn’t and a sickening feeling started to churn her belly, both at the thought of JJ facing all of this by himself and the fact that she alone had the power to help.

Inside the house, she heard his dad resume his screaming, every other word accompanied by a sickening thumping noise she’d only heard in person once before, a few years ago on the beach with her parents when two drunk tourons started wailing on each other over a spilled beer: the sound of a fist hitting flesh. Sailor started to panic, both hands flying to cover her mouth in terror. Underneath the screaming and punching, she couldn’t hear anything, any cry or yelp or whimper from her friend and, mind racing with million terrible, awful thoughts, she turned and ran back to the truck, flinging open the door and scrambling inside to grab Alison’s arm, folder in her hands falling to the floor.

“Ali, please, we’ve got to help him-”

“Whoa, where’s the fire?” The older girl joked as she looked up from her phone, smile falling from her lips when she caught sight of the eleven year old’s pale face and wide eyes. She reached over and placed her hands on Sailor’s slight, trembling shoulders. “What’s going on?”

Her lip quivered terribly as she told Alison everything she saw and heard, watching her expression slowly twist into outright dismay, the fingers on her shoulders tightening their grip when she finished, “Ali, what’re we gonna do? We have to help him right now!”

“Fuck, okay, first off let’s calm down- don’t give me that look, kid! We can’t just burst in there like Wonder Woman or something, let me- oh, look!” Alison pointed through windshield, where JJ’s dad furiously stalked from the house to his truck, climbing inside and violently slamming the door before taking off in a cloud of dust. Sailor quickly ducked when he drove by and stayed down until the older redhead gave her the all clear, “He’s gone. That was perfect timing, huh?”

She didn’t reply or even wait for her to unbuckle her seatbelt, taking off at a sprint and bounding onto the porch in no time, furiously knocking against the door. “Hey, J, are you there? It’s Sailor.”

There was no reply and her heart dropped to her stomach. Alison joined her on the front step, her face blanching when her eyes landed on the blood stain on the corner of the door. One of her hands reached out to grab the handle while the other found Sailor’s smaller one and gave it a reassuring squeeze.

“Come on,” With no hesitation and the bravery Sailor wished she had, the eighteen year old pushed the door open and pulled them both into the dusky house. The younger redhead wrinkled her nose at the sight of beer cans and pill bottles littering a circle around the couch but she pressed on, calling his name as the girls moved room to room.

“Sail?” The sound of JJ’s pained voice coming from the room at the end of the hall made her heart skip a beat and she dropped Alison’s hand, running forward and bursting through the door in a rush, not even thinking about what state her friend might’ve been in. Feeling like she’d just been sucker punched right in the gut at the sight of him lying face down on the floor with a small puddle of blood forming under his mouth, she dropped to her knees beside him and delicately took his hand in both of hers, nearly crying in relief when his fingers gripped tight to her palm. Behind her, she heard Alison’s sharp intake of breath as she entered the room, darting over to kneel on JJ’s other side and place a gentle hand on his shoulder, and together they carefully helped him roll onto his back, then up into a sitting position with the older girl’s arm behind him as a brace.

Her jaw trembled as she tried and tried to say something, anything; her head was filled with so many questions -what happened, how could he do this, when did this start?- but the only thing she managed to ask was a simple, “Why?”

“It’s just what he does.” He replied with a shrug, wincing at the movement, “I’m sorry, Sail.”

“What the hell are you apologizing for?” She asked incredulously, then followed his finger as he pointed at a pile of jagged yellowish-brown pieces on the floor by his bed.

“He broke the shell you gave me.” He looked so upset, so distraught over the broken whelk and she felt her heart swell with waves of affection for her friend, who was more concerned about her broken gift than he was about himself.

“Hey,” She said softly, turning away from the mess to look him in the eye with a small smile, her hand reaching out on its own accord to brush a lock of fine blond hair away from a cut near his temple. “It’s just a shell, okay? I’ll find you another one.”

The sight of blood on his teeth when he returned her smile reminded her of the task at hand and she shook her head, wrapping her thin arm around his waist. “Let’s get you out of here. Think you can stand?” At his nod, both girls put one of his arms around their shoulders and slowly stood, shuffling out the door with all the grace and speed of an old man with two bad knees, but hey, they were moving and getting JJ out of that terrible place, so she’d go as slow as they needed to, even if her anxiety was getting worse and worse with each passing second they spent in the house.

After loading the kids onto the bench seat of the truck, Alison quickly drove them to the empty Flynn residence -Carmen and Ryan still working at the shop- and helped Sailor move JJ into the bathroom. “I’ll go grab you some towels and dry clothes, okay? I think some of your dad’s old stuff might fit him.” She said, watching as the young girl kneeled beside her friend and started untying his shoes.

The eleven year old nodded at her older friend and sent her a small smile. “Thanks, Ali.”

“No problem, kiddos.” With a quick smile that didn’t quite reach her eyes she was gone, heading down the hall toward the laundry room.

Sailor reached over and turned the shower on as hot as possible. “Okay, um, take as long as you need, I guess. I’ll wait outside.” She jerked her thumb toward the hall but before she could even take a step, his hand darted out and grabbed her wrist.

“Stay.” It was more of a demand than a question and JJ seemed embarrassed to even be saying it, the uninjured parts of his face turning an endearing shade of pink. “Please?”

She just nodded and reached a leg out to gently kick the door shut, her mind racing. She stayed but what the hell should she do now, keep her back turned? Get in the shower with him? From the way he was fidgeting back and forth and avoiding her eyes, he was probably thinking the same thing.

“Oh, come on.” She finally said after a minute or two of decidedly not looking at each other and kicked off her sandals, darting forward on impulse to grab his hand and pull them both under the spray. The water uncomfortably soaked into their clothes and made their movements sluggish as they clumsily shuffled around -stepping on each other’s toes and mumbling identical apologies- before finding a position that was only a little bit awkward in the confined space, his arms on either side of her waist and bracing against the wall, her hands tentatively resting on his shoulders.

“This okay?” She asked, feeling her cheeks reddening from more than just the steam curling around them and frizzing her hair, and JJ nodded, swallowing thickly and blinking away a droplet of red-tinged condensation that slid down his forehead. Her hand, moving on its own accord, slowly reached for his face until her palm gently came to rest against his flushed cheek, the tip of her pointer finger just brushing a small cut that sliced through one eyebrow.

“How...” Sailor shook her head, taking a deep breath before finally asking the question that’d been on her mind since this whole thing started, “How long has this been happening?”

Once again he avoided her wide-eyed gaze, eyelids fluttering shut as he answered hesitantly, quietly, “I...I don’t remember a time when it didn’t.”

His answer chipped away the last brick in the dam and the floodgates broke. She flung herself into his chest, arms wrapping around his shoulders and fingers twisting in the sodden fabric of his shirt, sobbing into the warm skin of his neck. He froze in her embrace, whole body stock-still until something in him seemed to break too, and his own arms encircled her waist, bit by bit, pulling her close as he buried his face into her shoulder and two sixth graders slowly slumped to the shower floor in a tangled mess of limbs.

“J, why didn’t you say anything?”

His body trembled in her arms and she inhaled sharply at his reply of, “Because I’m not worth it.”

Pulling away from his neck to rest her forehead against his, she cupped his face in both hands and forced him to look her in the eyes, her voice quiet but adamant, insistent as she said, “Don’t you dare say that again, got it? You are worth it. So, so worth it.”

The look behind his red-rimmed, ocean blue gaze was made of pure, unadulterated disbelief and Sailor, at a loss, wracked her brain for something, anything she could do to make him see himself the way she did: loyal, adventurous, funny, and oh so brave, already a beloved, dear friend to her in the short time she’d known him. How could she help him realize he was so much more than his father’s abuse?

‘What can I do to make you believe me?’

An epiphany came to her like a bolt of lightning straight to the heart. It was more than a little crazy and the thought of actually doing it was lowkey terrifying but she’d seen it work beautifully for Alison and her girlfriend Peyton that one time and hell, she was so desperate to help her friend that she’d do just about anything. And so before her anxious mind could start to overthink she surged forward, both hands still holding his face in a gentle grip, and firmly pressed her lips to his.

JJ’s eyes were almost comically wide while he stared, frozen still at her touch, and her own eyes were just as huge as she held the kiss for a few seconds and then abruptly pulled back, her face slowly changing into a shade very similar to her hair.

“Y-you, I-” He stuttered, mouth opening and closing like a fish out of water as a deep pink flush started to color the tan skin of his neck. “Wh-why-”

“Because you are worthy, J. Promise me you won’t forget that.” Her words were as fierce as the hug she pulled him into, only letting the tension bleed out of her when she felt him gradually return her embrace and nod against her shoulder.

“I promise, Sail.”

“Good.”

And with that they fell silent, holding each other tight until the shower ran cold.

Sailor didn’t know it at the time but that hadn’t been just her first kiss but JJ’s too, as they never talked about it until two years later, during a game of truth or dare with the rest of the pogues. Neither actually told the truth, both giving a vague answer about a bet that seemed to placate their friends enough to let the matter drop, never to be brought up again.

The only kiss that happens today is the light brush of her lips against his forehead as she holds him close, even as the water slowly begins to lose its warmth. His embrace is tight, their limbs intertwined so fully that it’s hard to discern where one ends and the other begins and when he speaks, she has to strain to hear the words mumbled against her neck over the pounding spray of the shower.

“I don’t know how much more I can take.”

His confession cuts her deep. Hearing him admit something so utterly heartbreaking and vulnerable, coming from the side of him Sailor alone gets to see, ignites a fury that simmers under her skin and burns her from the inside out, thoughts turning venomous and, dare she say, downright homicidal. Fuck his dad. Fuck his dad and everything he’s ever done to hurt her best friend, both with and without fists.

“If I could get away with murder, I would.”

It’s true. For JJ, she’d do anything and everything to keep him safe without hesitation, up to and including maiming his dad so he could never touch him again (and if she happened to take it a little too far and straight up kill the bastard, she’d most definitely be fine with it.). He laughs, but it’s empty, hollow, and sorely lacking the joy, the carefreeness, the pure life that it normally radiates.

“You’re not the only one.”

Some time later, after the water raining down on them turns ice cold and their tears have dried, they reluctantly disentangle themselves from each other and towel off before making a quick detour to the kitchen to grab an ice pack for his ribs and have a meager dinner of sandwiches made with the last of her bread and a near empty jar of Nutella. He laughs, for real this time, when he reads the note she writes herself on the fridge future sailor, as much as you want to, you can’t live off just nutella and sheer spite, okay? please go shopping. love, past sailor <3 and grabs the marker out of her hand, adding +past jj and a little smiley face that makes her smile brightly.

They return to her room where they change, back to back, into dry clothes -one of her dresser drawers is full of his things she’s stolen acquired over the years- and, after throwing everything wet, including their discarded shirts and blanket retrieved from the bathroom, into the washing machine to be dealt with some other time, they lie on her bed side by side, shoulder to shoulder, wrapped up together in a spare throw stashed at the bottom of her closet. Binx slinks up from his spot at their feet and lazily drapes himself across their laps, purring like a motorboat when Sailor starts running her hand along his back.

“I almost sat on those,” JJ says, handing over her glasses, “and this.” He holds her forgotten book in his hands, casually flipping through the pages before turning it over and scanning the back cover.

“Have you read it before?”

He shrugs, a barely-there grimace briefly twisting his features as the motion jostles his sore ribs. “Started it, never finished.”

“Well,” She starts, slipping her glasses on and snatching the book out of his grasp, “how about we fix that? I’ll read, you pet the cat.”

Sailor’s voice is soft and steady as she starts to read aloud, a content smile on her face that’s echoed by the boy lying beside her when she settles against his side, head pillowed on the arm he curls around her shoulders without a thought. JJ’s the near perfect listener, only snickering once or twice at her total butchering of some of the more difficult Greek names (how come she can say Hephaestus just fine but gets tripped up on Dionysus?) but otherwise hanging off her every word and the relaxed ease with which he runs his hand through the ends of her damp hair fills her with a warmth, a happiness that she can’t describe but never wants to stop.

Hidden away from the rest of the world, curled up together on her bed, they forget the day’s past horrors and replace them with bright hopes for the future, exchanging comforting touches, deliberate yet played off as unintentional, in the soft glow of the bedside lamp -a caress of knuckles here, a brush of a palm there- as she reads into the night, until the cloudy sky darkens to black and they’re both fighting off the languid pull of sleep.

“I think that’s enough for today.” He plucks the book from her hands without waiting for a response and marks their place with a gas station receipt she was using as a makeshift placeholder, and setting it on the beside drawer.

“It’s your turn to read tomorrow,” He takes her glasses off with gentle fingers as she speaks into what little space still exists between them (that’s not otherwise occupied by Binx), smiling at the slow graze of his thumb along her cheek and nestles further against his side. “I’m done botching the names of deities for a while.”

“Yes, ma’am.” Damn it, Sailor kind of hates it when he says that cause it makes her feel things that she’s not quite ready to think about yet. Thankfully, her blush is swallowed by the darkness as he turns off the light and settles down beside her, arm slung low over her waist; her hand carefully brushes against his bruised ribs over the old shirt he wears, ice pack long ago thawed and thrown somewhere onto the hardwood floor.

“How do these feel? Better?”

She feels JJ nod, his chin brushing the top of her head. “Much.” There’s a pause, long enough that she starts to feel like she’s about to nod off, then he whispers, “Thank you, Sail. I know I don’t say it enough.”

She takes a deep breath, fingers stilling on his side, “Because you don’t need to, J. Remember what I said earlier, in the bathroom?”  

He nods again but doesn’t reply, instead drawing circles on the small of her back, so she takes it as a cue to continue, “I care about you, okay? You don’t have to thank me for that. I’m just...doing what feels right.”

After a beat, the arm she’s using as a pillow curls and pulls her tighter against him as he says quietly, almost shyly, “I care about you, too.”

The rain outside had slowed to a drizzle without either teenager noticing and the gentle pitter-patter against the roof casts a somnolent spell into the air, dazed and dreamy. It wraps around the pair, not unlike the way they wrap around each other, and slowly, easily, safely, they drift off as one.

-

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[mikkomacko]

Christmas Magic 1

It was still crisp and bright outside the day the form came home. The balcony outside their apartment was littered with crunchy leaves of browns and yellows and reds, all different shades even if they all fell from the same cottonwood tree growing right outside. The one Kevin The Tenant swears needs to be cut down before it falls on the complex or its strong roots ruin the foundations. Every spring he swears it's coming down, and every spring Ophelia's pretty green eyes well with tears at the thought of her tree coming down, and yet every spring it's still there, the thick branches and leaves casting shadows on the tiny hall of their home.

They sat in the window ledge by the balcony where the tree had shaken leaves off, Harry humming quietly as he unlaced Ophelia's little brown boots, tossing them into the doorway of her room to trip over later.

"It's a carnival daddy," Ophelia spoke, voice always so soft and feathery, even when she was so unbearably excited about this carnival that her toes wiggled in her socks. "a Christmas one. Mrs. Frank said Mr. Clause might be there!"

"Mr. Clause, huh?" Harry hummed, pretending to be very thoughtful over this class trip. It really wasn't much of a big deal. The carnival was in the city, set up in the park with ice skating and music and games and lights and a Christmas parade. Mrs. Frank picked a weekday to attend so the crowd wouldn't be too rowdy for a group of four and five year olds. Harry himself was even invited to attend, like all the other class trips, because Ophelia is quite awful at going anywhere without her dad.

Ophelia nodded, her brown curls bouncing and a begging smile splitting her face. Harry smiled too, falling onto his butt on the wood floor, and admiring the beautiful girl sitting before him. He had no reason to say no and even if he did, how could he? He'd bestowed an unfathomably huge love for Christmas time in his daughter as well as a good heart and kind soul. There was nothing Ophelia could've possibly done in her whole life that would constitute a no from Harry.

"Tell you what," He climbed up from the floor, helping her down from the windowsill and leading her to the little dining table that's sat in the corner of the kitchen, right next to the bulletin that's always overflowing with pictures and doodles of their family. "I'll sign this for ya but you gotta promise me you won't have a cry if I can't go with ya, ok?"

Harry's sure he'll be able to go but he'd hate for his girl to get her hopes up and then have them cut down.

Ophelia eyed the form apprehensively, pink lips pursed to the right as she mulled over the idea of Harry not going to the carnival with her. He sighed softly and lifted Ophelia up onto the table top, hands cupping her little face.

"Ya know that whether I'm there or not you'll be perfectly safe." He whispered as if sharing the most illuminating secret ever spoken. "I'd never send ya anywhere that I wouldn't go myself and I'd never expose ya to people that would purposely hurt ya, ok?"

Ophelia blinked at him nervously, fiddling the little fingers that barely fit around Harry's thumb. "What if they accidentally hurt me?"

"Accidents happen, but I promise I'll send your card with ya and I'll always go save ya."

Her fingers stilled, one hand reaching out to fist the edge of his shirt. "Really promise?"

"Really promise."

"Okay daddy."

"Ya still wanna go?"

"Yes please."

He grinned. "Then you got it baby. I'll sign it and send it with ya Monday."

Ophelia beamed and Harry removed his hands so he could see the dimples sinking into her soft cheeks. Her hand tugged on his shirt, and her head tilted up, long eyelashes kissing her cheeks and Harry knew what was she requesting. He always knows.

"Love ya nipper." He murmured, hunching over to kiss her forehead even though it makes his back ache.

"Love ya daddy."

~

The leaves blew away days ago, the balcony outside their little home now weighed down with piles of snow that have Ophelia giddily smiling every time Harry carries her past the window. The hand turkeys on the fridge, one the size of Harry's palm and one the size of Ophelia's have been replaced by drawings of reindeers and Santa Claus, and Ophelia's ever growing Christmas list that will be mailed to the North Pole by the end of the week. Multicolored lights wrapped around false green garland have been tacked around all the windows of the apartment with a matching set on the mantel above the electric fireplace. A little pink stocking with her name stitched in cursive letters hangs next to the bigger blue one that's labeled with Harry's name, both of them swaying as the vent above releases warm air. The holiday advent calendar on the coffee table has six of its doors open, each one containing a different piece of SpongeBob themed candy. Yesterday Harry had gotten one of those gummy patties that only tastes good if you eat it one layer at a time. The toy nativity set that usually goes on the coffee table is missing the donkey but Harry doesn't have much time to worry about it before he's stepping on it, the donkeys pointy ears prickling the bottom of his foot.

"Bloody f-"

"Daddy!" Ophelia squeaks, eyes wide as Harry hops on one foot and rubs the bottom of the other, glaring down at the offender. He can't blame the donkey too much, after all Ophelia is the one that left him on the floor.

He huffs, returning to two feet and bending over to pick up the little barn animal. He holds it out to Ophelia, eyebrows raised expectantly and her little eyes widen, chin tucking down to hide behind the scarf around her neck. "Sorry daddy," she says shamefully, twisting her sock clad toes into the wooden floor.

Harry nods, shoulders sagging as he places the donkey among the other toy creatures. "S'ok pet just try to remember next time. Don't need ya killing daddy, huh?"

She grins, relieved that Harry's not upset with her, and skips to him, leaping up with just enough time for Harry to hook his arms around her before she goes crashing at his feet. "Don't want that 'cause then I'd have no daddy to make dinner or go on class trips with."

He chuckles, setting her on his hip and adjusting her scarf. "Speaking of class trip, let's get going. Don't want to be late." Ophelia nods eagerly, wiggling to be set down. Harry tugs his waterproof boots on, helping Ophelia tie hers because she still struggles with it no matter how many times she practices bunny ears.

Harry got Ophelia tucked into her wool coat, zipping it up to her neck and pulling her scarf out so she's not suffocating. She requests her earmuffs, watching him with stars in her eyes as he kneels down to adjust them on her head, the pink fabric getting lost in her wild mane of curls.

"Gloves daddy?"

Harry grins, nodding proudly. They've had this routine for years but it's still nice being reminded that she pays attention to him. He pulls yellow mittens over her little hands, kissing both of her fabric covered palms when he's finished. Ophelia tugs her backpack over her shoulders while Harry pulls on his own coat, buttoning it up to his chin since he hasn't got a scarf. He puts on a beanie of the same shade of pink as Ophelia’s earmuffs and some black gloves.

He unlocks the front door, peering down at Ophelia and asking, "Ready to go bubba?" She nods eagerly, latching get fingers around his gloved thumb. Harry grabs his keys off the hook, double checking that the fireplace hadn't been left on or the fridge open. When he's sure everything is settled, he pulls open the door, allowing Ophelia to hop over the edging of the door, a habit she's had ever since she started walking. He shuts and locks the door behind them, dropping his keys to his pocket.

"Right then," Ophelia bounces on her toes. "let's go have us some fun."

~

The entire park, covered in snow from the storm last week, has been turned into a winter wonderland. Paths lined by candy cane lights lead to all the different areas: Santa's Shopping Center lined with Christmas stores, Character Circle where you can meet Santa and other winter holiday icons, the ice skating rink, the North Pole, and Wonder Park which is basically a little pavilion that always has live music surrounded by a frosty wishing moat.

The rest of Ophelia's class really enjoys Character Circle, all of them happily sitting with Santa for photos or building a toy with the elves. Ophelia, however, was insistent on staying in Wonder Park, forcing Harry to sign her out early so she doesn't have to go to the other areas with her class. She managed to pull Harry to the front of the crowd, right next to the wishing moat and within ten feet of the band currently playing.

Harry sits her on his hip, swaying them back and forth as a girl dressed as Mrs. Clause sings a bouncy version of Jingle Bells. She follows a simple dance routine with backup dancers dressed as candy canes and Ophelia is looking at her with such fond eyes Harry wonders what she sees in the girl.

Yeah, she's got a lovely voice, soft and smooth with just a bit of rasp on drawn out notes. And she's quite a cute dancer, tripping over her black heels a couple of times, never actually falling but flushing pink with embarrassment. Also, well, she's cute. She's really cute. The kind of girl that draws more attention with her personality rather than her looks but, is still breath-taking due to the aura around her.

Harry may or may not have the same loving look in his eyes as Ophelia, only looking away to give his girl a quarter for a wish. When her set ends, Harry and Ophelia holler as if she were a Grammy winner, both of them deflating when she leaves the stage.

"Alright nipper," he puffs, bouncing Ophelia to his front so he can look at her. "what do ya say to a photo with Santa? Need to send one to Nana for her fridge."

Ophelia shrugs but the droop of her smile and shoulders tells Harry all he needs to know. He wipes under her red nose with his sleeve. "If ya take a photo we'll come back to hear more music?"

"I only want to come back if she's singing daddy."

"The girl that just sang?"

Ophelia nods, wrapping a lock of his hair around her finger. "I want to see her again. She feels magic."

"Magic?" Harry murmurs, confused as to what Ophelia means by that.

She just nods, laying her head on Harry's shoulder. He decides to just let it be, pushing his way through the crowd and towards Character Circle. His head feels a bit swirly as he walks and his stomach so full it almost hurts, and Harry wonders if that girl really was magic.

~

Running the pads of her pointer fingers under her eyes, y/n shakes her head in disappoinment. Every year the radio station puts on this carnival and every year she swears she'll buy waterproof mascara to keep her makeup from running down her cheeks after the snows got caught in her eyelashes. Yet every year she ends up in the restroom after every little performance, wiping mascara clumps off her frost bitten cheeks.

Y/n throws her bag over her shoulder, the bells attached to her Mrs. Clause outfit jingling. No matter how many different ways she tries to fold that darn costume, the bells always break free. Jingling with each step, she exits the restroom, ready to find her car and get home. Not that she doesn't love Christmas, it's her favorite time of year, and working the carnival was one of the best things about her job, but after hours of standing on a stage in a dress and tights (that don't do much to keep out the cold) and singing Christmas carols, she's ready to get home.

"'Scuse me?"

Y/n jumps when something taps on her arm, the scared voice immediately rising panic in her chest. And standing by her leg, shivering in the cold with tear tracks on her red cheeks stands a little girl. Y/n notices her big green eyes full of unshed tears and the way her bottom lip trembles and she realizes that something is wrong and the girl is absolutely terrified. Something hot, like a fire in her belly, stirs up and y/n ushers the girl to the side of the snow covered path, standing between her and the crowd of people.

She crouches down, not caring that the knees of her jeans are getting wet. "What's the matter sweets?"

The girls little lip trembles even more, a few tears trickling down her cheeks. Without thinking y/n reaches out to wipe her face, soaking up the tears in her gloves. "I lost my d-daddy."

Y/n coos, pushing the messy baby hairs off her face and smiling encouragingly. "Don't worry sweets, we'll find your daddy. Can you tell me the last place you saw him so we can go look for him?"

The girl blinks her doe eyes, a tear running down her cheek. She sniffles, lifting her hands up to hand y/n something. Y/n takes it from her, realizing it's a homemade identification card. She reads it over, smiling at all the little hearts on the card obviously drawn on by whoever made the card for her.

Hello! My name is Ophelia Styles and if you have this card it's because I misplaced my daddy (or he misplaced me). I tend to be very scared without my daddy because I love him so much and I know he'll be scared without me too. Please call the number below and tell my daddy that I'm found and safe and not crying too much (even if I am) so that he doesn't worry. Thanks for your help!

Listed below is a phone number, one that y/n punches into her phone as fast as she can with her cold fingers. She hits call, holding the phone up to her ear as it rings. Not even two rings later does a man answer, a rushed "'ello!" coming through the speaker.

"Hi, is this Ophelia's father?"

Something like a gasp and sob leave the man's mouth, and y/n notices Ophelia inching closer to her. Her Bambi eyes are searching y/n's face for any sign of comfort so she smiles.

"You've got her? Is she ok? She hurt?" The man asks hurriedly, obviously still panicking from the disappearance of his daughter.

"She's just fine," y/n soothes. "She's found, safe, and not crying too much."

A relieved sigh comes from the other side and y/n takes that as her chance to let him know where they are. "We're over by the shops and cafe's, right next to the restrooms and concert pavilion."

"That's on the other bloody side of the park!" He squawks. "Lost her over by the Christmas characters!"

Y/n gawks, looking at Ophelia curiously. Somehow she managed to cross the whole park without getting hurt, finding solace in what's probably the busiest area of the carnival. "Oh, would you like me to take her over there or wait here?"

It's a silly question to ask because she can already hear him pushing through the crowd, definitely trying to get to Ophelia as quickly as possible.

"Could you just stay there for me? M'already on my way."

Y/n nods, forgetting that he can't see her. "Absolutely," she agrees, looking over Ophelia as she trembles and tucks her red nose into her scarf. The poor thing is freezing. "Actually would it be okay if I took her into the Cocoa Cafe? She just looks like she's freezing and it might take you a bit to get over here."

He hums, seeming to contemplate the idea. Y/n hopes he agrees because Ophelia really looks like she could use a warm drink. "May I speak with her real quick?"

Y/n hands the phone over to Ophelia, finding it funny that he even asked. Of course he can speak to his daughter, she's his baby after all. Ophelia clutches the phone in her mitten covered hand, bringing it up to her ear and murmuring a little "hi Daddy."

Y/n waits patiently for a few minutes, trying not to look like she's prying as Ophelia seems to be answering random questions about food. It's not until her green eyes meet y/n's and she says firmly, "I really like carrots daddy," that she realizes her father must have set up a series of coded questions that'll let him know if she's ok and comfortable. Y/n wonders if he's lost her a few too many times or if he's just a protective dad.

"Ok. Bye daddy."

The phone gets handed back to y/n. "We okay, sir?"

"The Cocoa Cafe you say?"

Y/n hums an affirmation.

"That sounds good. Thank you for all your help."

Warmth swirls in her gut, a lot more peaceful and welcome then the burning heat from before, and she can't help but grin at how genuinely grateful the man sounds.

They exchange good byes, y/n promising to call him if Ophelia needs anything before hanging up. She tucks her phone in her bag, looking up to be met with a warm gaze and a dimpled smile that makes her heart ache. "What do ya say we go warm up while we wait for your daddy, huh?"

Ophelia nods, reaching for y/n's hand when she climbs to her feet. She doesn't hesitate to hold her little hand in hers, swearing to keep her next to her and safe until her father gets here.

~

Y/n can't help but fawn over Ophelia. The girl is just so cute, especially when y/n asks if she wants extra whipped cream on her cocoa and she just looks up through her eyelashes, nodding gently with her little dimples sinking into her cheeks.

They receive their mugs of cocoa, y/n having ordered one for Ophelia's dad that has extra marshmallows because "daddy loves marshies," and she finds a booth that's fairly close to the entrance, offering to let Ophelia sit facing the door so she'll be able to see when her dad gets here. She nods at that, tip toeing in her boots to place her mug on the table next to the other two.

"Can you help me with my coat please?" She asks, holding her arms out wide to expose the zip of her jacket.

"Sure thing sweets." Y/n unzips her coat, hanging it by the hood on the edge of the booth so it can dry and won't be wrinkled. Ophelia tugs off her earmuffs, shaking out her frizzy head of curls like a lion waking up from a nap. She hands them to y/n without a word, only giving her enough time to place them on the table before she's asking for help pulling off her mittens.

The fabric is soggy and cold, making her wince as she peels them off to reveal Ophelia's angry red fingers. Y/n lies them on the table to dry, taking both of Ophelia's hands in hers and gently rubbing them back and forth. She even goes as far as blowing hot air on her little digits, smiling when she notices the smiley faces drawn on her yellow polished nails.

"My daddy does that before bed," Ophelia says, removing her hands to do the same to y/n's. "He warms my hands because they're always cold and then he presses kisses," she pecks her chapped lips against the back of y/n's hand. "like that."

Y/n, glowing from how endearing she finds Ophelia, squeezes her little hand just once and nods towards the booth. "Why don't we drink our cocoa and you can tell me more about your daddy, if you'd like?"

Ophelia nods excitedly, clambering into the booth across from y/n. She sips her hot cocoa, whipped cream sticking to her upper lip. Before y/n can suggest she wipe it off, Ophelia's launching into a story of her father stepping on a donkey every morning and that he almost uses a no-no word but she manages to stop him. And for some reason unknown to y/n, he always has Ophelia apologize for the donkey leading her to believe this is some kind of toy.

"Ophelia!"

In the blink of an eye Ophelia is standing on the booth seat, beaming the happiest smile y/n's ever seen in her life and waving towards a man that's rushing (and stumbling) to their booth.

"Daddy!" Ophelia squeals, launching herself into the air. The man leaps forward, yelping as he manages to catch her against his chest. Y/n, feeling like she's intruding on a personal moment, turns her attention to her hot chocolate, stirring the cinnamon stick around until it's blending brown into the whipped cream. She tries not to listen to the two talk, but it's hard when she can hear how utterly relieved they are to be reunited and it warms her chest more than the drink ever could. Especially when her father's voice, deep and raspy croaks out, "missed ya so much. Ya scared the life out of me Babycakes," and she can hear him sniffle when Ophelia whimpers a quiet little, "missed you daddy. Sorry for scaring you."

The people in the cafe are watching the scene with an air of confusion, one lady seeming to pick up on the fact that the man had lost his child because she's shaking her head at them. Y/n catches her eye, glaring at her until she returns to her drink.

"We got you cocoa daddy," Ophelia squirms in his arms until he sets her on the booth. "with extra marshies!"

He chuckles, a nice raspy laugh that makes y/n's stomach stir. It flips upside down when he finally looks at her, bright green eyes and dimples that he clearly passed onto his daughter. And if y/n thought the features were cute on Ophelia, she can't even describe how good they look on him (even if his eyes are a little red and puffy as if he'd been crying).

"You must be our hero!" He greets, looking between her starstruck gaze with such intensity she wants to giggle but also cry a little.

"I wouldn't say hero," y/n shrugs, trying to keep her smile from growing too big.

"No?" The man hums, sitting in the booth next to his daughter. She attaches herself to his bicep, rubbing her cheek against the fabric of his coat and y/n can't stop the little coo that leaves her lips. "Just a super star singer with pretty sweet dance moves?"

Her cheeks flush, eyes widening a bit because she'd seen them! They watched her perform, they were the ones that had cheered stupidly at the end. Despite her shyness, she shrugs and says teasingly, "I'd say a super star dancer with a pretty sweet voice."

"Think ya mixed them up," he laughs. "spent too much time out in the cold in stockings and a dress."

Y/n laughs, maybe a bit too much considering it was a mediocre joke but he's awful charming, she just can't help it. "It was a bit cold. Still trying to get feeling to my toes."

"I warmed her hands daddy." Ophelia pipes up, smiling proudly at y/n.

"You did?" He gasps excitedly.

She nods. "Just like you do! And she did it to me too because you got me gloves that stay wet daddy."

He frowns a bit guilty, pecking the top of her head in apology. "S'good thing we were lucky enough to stumble upon-" he looks at her expectingly.

"y/n,"

"y/n." She likes the way he says her name. "She saved the day, huh?"

"I came to find her daddy."

They both freeze at her words, his eyebrows furrowing in confusion. "What's tha' love?"

"I got scared. You were going to the Grinch and my fingers were cold so I ran back here to find her. She can make the Grinch nice."

Y/n flushes at Ophelia's words. She left her father because she wanted y/n to make the Grinch a better person in her eyes. She ran away from man that's probably protected her her whole life to come back to y/n? Someone she didn't know?

Y/n sips her hot cocoa, trying not to appear too concerned as he firmly scolds Ophelia for doing such a dangerous thing. He makes a point of reminding her that it terrifies him to think he's lost her because he loves her more than anything (y/n almost tears up at that) and to just tell him next time she's scared. Ophelia, pouting, nods shamefully in a way that has y/n feeling a little guilty. She wonders how he ever manages to scold her.

"M'sorry for all the trouble." He apologizes to y/n, rubbing Ophelia's arm as if trying to tell her he's not mad just upset. "Can't thank ya enough for taking care of her and being so sweet, 'specially on the phone. Don't think it's very fun speaking with a hysterical father."

Y/n shrugs, blushing under his thanks. "It was no problem. She's really sweet and adorable. I enjoyed chatting with her."

He seems a bit surprised at her words but doesn't common on it. Instead he chuckles, shaking his head embarrassedly. "I just realized I never introduced myself. M'Harry, Ophelia's dad."

Harry. Such a simple and common name but something about it being tacked onto him feels special, unique. Y/n smiles, endeared by the feeling radiating off of him. Harry.

"Nice to meet you."

Harry returns the sentiment, thanking her for the warm drink and asking if it's alright for them to stay and warm up a bit. Y/n agrees, not able to hide her excitement. She can't help but love Ophelia and Harry, both of them creating this comforting giddiness in her chest. She can't stop blushing every time tells her something remotely sweet and complimentary, dimples sinking into his cheeks as if trying to pull her into them. Harry's handsome, so handsome it's almost unbearable, and he's charming. Enough to have her giggling like a school girl. So when he thanks her for everything again, offering to make up for it with a date on Saturday, she happily agrees, and well, who can really blame her.

[stormxpadme]

@jaz-the-bard asked #4 for the kidnap family? i love your writing 💙 We’ve got some straightening out to do.

(Send me numbers and (a) character(s), bonus points for OTP. )

“We’ve got some straightening out to do.”

After the third knock, Macalaurë just enters. In the last years, he’s lost patience with going easy on Nelyo more and more. The younglings are finally - finally - asleep, and with a storm like that, there for once isn’t much to take care of or to guard in the last intact ruins of their fortress. There won’t be a better chance anytime soon to try and talk some sense into that bitter bastard, his brother has turned into.

“Now is really not the best time, Kano.”

If possible, Nelyo withdraws just further into his dusty corner, with his knees drawn up and the covers wrapped around his haggard body. He’s having the hated brace on, which means, his shoulder is giving him more trouble than usual again. There’s not a single candle lit in the whole room. Only the lights outside the window are mirrored ghostly in the silver of Nelyo‘s eyes. Storm nights are always bad, Macalaurë knows that. They’re too much like Angband.

Distraction is the best remedy against fears like that. It has to be now; in the morning, Nelyo will be gone again before the sun comes up, for hours and hours, disappearing into the surroundings of the hill without anyone knowing what he's up to, and if and when he will be back.

Macalaurë is getting sick of being left alone with the responsibility for their lands, their people, their legacy. Their oath.

“It never is a good time for you. Not all of us have the luxury to run away and hide. We need to talk about this, Nelyo. Everyone else in the fortress certainly is. The twins are old enough to start hearing everything. Do you really want them to learn about our deeds from rumors?”

“How is that my problem again? You wanted this. I told you to leave them to their fate.” The last of Nelyo’s venom is mercifully drowned out by the roar of thunder outside, too close, too loud; even Macalaurë startles for a moment.

When he looks back to the bed, Nelyo has pulled the old wool cover up to the tip of his nose.

The thick layer of ice covering the part in Macalaurë‘s heart, reserved for the last of his brothers still alive, gets at least a few cracks. Yes, hey have both done unspeakable things, and with Findekáno, the last of Nelyo’s impulse control and most of his sociability skills has died. But Nelyo’s distance and hostility towards the twins doesn’t spring from hatred.

“I’m just as afraid as you are to lose them. That’s why I don’t want them to learn it from others, what we did. They will hate us either way, but if we find the right words, there’s a chance, they won't be running away. Do you want them alone out there, is that it? To be caught by the next best orc patrol? You could have had that much easier.”

When Nelyo keeps up his aggressive silence but at least doesn’t try to throw him out, Macalaurë dares to sit down by his bedside. He doesn’t know what to do with his hands. For a moment, he feels just as helpless as all those years back when he’s learned, his brother survived his torture and came to see him for the first time. Today, it’s not the fear of breaking something that keeps him from even touching Nelyo‘s shoulder. Touching Nelyo has become too much like falling through a hole in the ice.

“We both know, you could have killed them on the spot or just refused to take them in. This is still very much your fortress. They’re both our responsibility. I’m not asking you to love them as your own, Nelyo, but I need you on this.”

“For what? I think we’ve had our share of kinslayings, and they’ve charmed the rest of our people too much to send them away now. Everything else is your job.” From the way, Nelyo shifts his arm under his little nest, Macalaurë knows, he’s rubbing over the scars of his stump, another aggrieving reminder in nights like this, of everything they’ve lost since they left their true home behind.

Macalaurë is lucky enough to still be able to enjoy the memory of the good, and not only grieve it. “It used to be yours. And you did very well, as I recall.”

“Truly, marvelous, if you count the number of our dead siblings a win.” The harsh laugh on Nelyo‘s lips turns into a wince as the next bolt outside flashes in his eyes, glowing on the faint scar almost splitting his face in half.

“I’m still here, am I not?” Macalaurë doesn’t wait for an answer that he’s not sure he could deal with anyway. He’s seen enough. Ignoring Nelyo’s weak resistance, he lifts the covers and slips into the bed with his older brother, for the first time since they were elflings.

With Nelyo’s head buried against his chest, Macalaurë‘s slightly clumsy fingertips threading through the too short, too stringy hair that was once a glorious fiery fleece, it’s easier to pretend not knowing.

It’s not enough, he never was enough for Nelyo, but now there’s no one else. Now they only have each other, and if they lose that too ... Then Macalaurë doesn’t know where that damn oath will take him, that seems to be the only thing still binding them together.

He doesn’t want that to be their legacy.

“Just help me with this,” he murmurs when Nelyo’s trembling has gone down a little, and at least this time, there’s no vigorous head-shaking answering. “Afterwards, you can right go back to pretending you hate them, I promise.”

“I don’t hate them.” Nelyo starts to sound tired, much to Macalaurë’s relief. “They’re everything we never had, that’s all. Everything we can never be again.”

“We can, though. Through them. If we make sure, they don’t become like us. Just try, Nelyo, that’s all I’m asking.”

“I can’t lose anyone else. My heart is hanging on by a string.” Nelyo wipes the tear away before it can fall. It’s the first and only time that they almost talk about his late husband, and even now, he refuses to cry in Macalaurë’s presence.

That’s alright, that’s one of the few things they can still agree about. They’re far beyond tears at this point.

“What difference does it make? Do you really think there is any way for us still that doesn’t lead into doom?”

“That’s not fair. I’m the cynical bastard here.” It’s a bad excuse of a joke, but it's better than tears, at least.

Then, Nelyo stiffens against him though, because the quiet scurrying of four swift, naked feet, outside on the bare rocky ground of their halls, is approaching. So much for the twins sleeping.

“Come,” Macalaurë’s softly shouts outside before Nelyo can protest. No time like the present for change.

The twins visibly don’t know what to make out of the sight of the two of them when they enter. It’s once again Elros leading the way, raven hair sleep-mussed and eyes wide-awake.

He’s had a growth spurt in the last weeks, and Elrond makes use of that to hide behind him, as usual in situations that unsettle them. Always watching, estimating and more than once judging from the background before speaking up.

Today it’s Elrond though, who speaks first for a change, his brother too embarrassed by the reason for their late visit. “The storm is too loud, ada Macalaurë. It’s so close! What if it hits us?”

“Not in here. Come here. It’s alright.”

But it’s not alright. The twins are just as clever as perceptive, especially for their young age, and Nelyo has become hard as a rock next to him, expression motionless, as if that whole conversation a minute ago had only been a bad dream.

Macalaurë sighs and gets up, after another encouraging squeeze of Nelyo‘s shoulder. Another time maybe. Some things can’t be forced.

Taking one twin on each hand, he almost has them out the door, when Elrond takes a shy look back over his shoulder. Something in the way, Nelyo has gone back to his former curled up, defensive position, eyes fixed, wide-open, at the window, seems to move something in the elfling, Macalaurë doesn’t see for the first time, and it’s definitely not something, he’s learned from him.

Before Macalaurë really understands what’s going on, Elrond has pulled away from him and hurried to the bed to put something on the mattress next to his much-feared uncle. It’s the stuffed seagull he usually never leaves out of his sight.

“Heleth-mŷl can sleep with you tonight, Nelyo. He’s not afraid of the storm. He’ll take care of you.”

Nelyo is visibly overwhelmed from the sudden change of mood and at a loss for words, but luckily, he doesn’t need to say anything.

Elrond is already running back to them to get back in his warm bed, tired enough hopefully, just like his brother, to fall back asleep soon. They’re both yawning openly as it is.

When Macalaurë closes the door behind them, the last he sees is the stuffed animal sitting on Nelyo‘s pillow. It’s not exactly a replacement for the elf he’s shared his bed with for way too short a time, but maybe it’s a reminder that in spite of everything the two of them did wrong, they are still capable of giving and receiving love. That the oath hasn’t turned every inch of their hearts to mithril just yet.

If that’s all Nelyo will take away from the surely preciously short time they’ll have with their forster sons, that’s more than Macalaurë could have hoped for.