#they met when he was like sixteen!! she was already in her mid twenties!!!

[navree]

i am nowhere near into denis villeneuve's proposed cleopatra movie in any way shape or form (pls for the love of god no more cleopatra movies, especially ones that try to cast her as something other than what she was) but if timmy chalamet brings some of the southern messiah speech energy to octavian then i might allow for a single solitary crumb of optimism.

also i remember that villeneuve said that he wanted daniel craig for caesar so my hope is that we're just gonna focus on caesar and cleopatra's relationship and her time in rome and not go further because that'll turn into horse shit right quick.

[winterscaptain]

players.

Aaron Hotchner x Gender Neutral Reader a joyful future fic

a/n: it's loving haley hotchner hours!! hope you enjoy :) as always, let me know what you think!

words: 1.3k warnings: none

summary: “what is that unforgettable line?” - samuel beckett. au!november 2008

masterlist | a joyful future masterlist | ajf faq | taglist | what do you want to see next?

“Has Aaron ever told you how we met?” 

“I know you two met in high school, but that’s about the extent of it.” 

Haley laughs and puts her drink down. “You’re in for a real treat, then. Come with me.” 

It’s one of those afternoons in which Aaron’s taken Jack to go have some fun for a little while, leaving you and Haley at the house. It’s been nice to rest while your shoulder slowly knits together again, nice to chat and channel surf. Really, it’s been nice to have a friend at all. 

She leads you to the garage, where built-ins support stacked boxes all the way to the rafters. There’s so much stuff. A few boxes are on the floor, packed with a few George Washington University sweatshirts, a law textbook, and a few framed photos of Jack. 

You’d hazard a guess that’s close to the last box Aaron has here. 

Haley bypasses it in favor of a more aged box on the back. She becomes you over and unearths it, opening it. You are by no means prepared for what awaits you. 

The box is full of faded framed photos and stacked scrapbooks, some with Haley’s handwriting on the front and others with typeset. Haley pulls one scrapbook in particular, the pages warped with age and stuffed with various momentos. 

“This is the first one I ever made, starting the spring of my freshman year of high school. Aaron shows up…” She flips through the pages. They crackle under her fingers. “...here.” 

She turns the book and you take it in your hand, balancing the bottom while she bears the weight. As always, her thoughtful conscientiousness almost brings a smile to your face. 

In the scrapbook, little polaroids litter one side, while the other has a playbill cover. A “Players” page is pasted in, with two names left uncovered by doodles. 

Haley Renee Brooks

Aaron Hotchner 

One of the photos catches your eye. “Is that…?” 

“Aaron in tights and a pirate hat? Yes.” 

This is gold. 

You bring the book closer to you and flip through it carefully with Haley’s help, finding more evidence of Aaron’s brief stint as a thespian. He’s undeniably adorable as a teenager. He looks different, of course, but between the hair and the eyes - 

And that smile 

You recognize the man you’ve come to know. 

Haley, of course, is also adorable. The mid-eighties look cute on her. She looks mostly the same as she does now. Her jawline is more defined, the beginnings of smile lines starting to form around her eyes and mouth, but those are only indicators of the twenty-five years between the photo and the woman before you. 

“If you tell him I showed you this, no I didn’t.” 

You laugh, passing the book back to her. “Scout’s Honor. Total silence. I will, however, require copies of these for blackmail purposes.” 

She rolls her eyes. “Over my dead body, darling.” 

You look around for a moment before asking. “So… what exactly does that have to do with how you met?” 

“I prefer the way he tells it,” she says, “because when I tell it I look like I’m padding my ego, but…”

Her blue eyes wander as she tells you about the boy who landed in the wrong classroom on August 20th, 1985 at 2:13pm, as if she’s seeing it as she’s telling the story. Maybe she is. 

The nameless senior was tall, lanky, and looked rather brittle. He hadn’t grown into his limbs yet and there’s a hawkish look in his eye. He met Haley’s curious gaze. She smiled at him. 

It’s only a moment before the boy leaves for the right classroom. 

“He had the building number wrong. It’s no surprise, really. Our schedules were copied by hand, as copy machines were expensive. The guidance counselor’s handwriting was nearly illegible, but it sealed our fates.” 

She goes on to tell you that the boy came back the next day, enrolled in the class for the duration of the semester. 

“He then, bravely, became the worst third pirate in the history of theatre just to impress me.” She pauses, a little pensive. “He told me a couple of years ago that the day came into the wrong classroom was the same day he knew he was going to marry me.” 

The admission brings a flush to her cheeks and a fond smile to her lips. You can see the affection written all over her as she recalls the memory. She shakes her head and puts the scrapbook back, closing the box and leading you out of the garage. 

“We started dating when the show closed. It was silly, of course, and very high school, as relationships went. We only kept going because he was so close for college - just over the bridge into the district.” 

You follow her back into the house. “Did you guys ever break up?” 

She snorts. “All the time.” 

That makes you laugh. You can hardly picture it. 

“I’m sure you can imagine how rational and reasonable I was at sixteen,” she says, her voice full of jest. “I put him through hell, but Aaron was always impossibly patient with me, even and especially when I didn’t deserve it.” 

“Really?”

“Really. I know he’s probably...not that way at work, but even through all of this -” she gestures vaguely to the air around you and you know she means the divorce. “- he’s always been that way with me.” 

You’ve seen Hotch at home now more than a few times and it’s been illuminating to see the changes in him as he crosses the threshold. Reconciling those differences in him, knowing Haley better, it all paints a layered, detailed portrait of someone you already care about. 

Haley catches your attention again when she speaks. “I’m glad he has people watching out for him.” There’s a strange, almost sad, smile on her face. “He gets lonely.” 

+++

When Aaron pulls up in the driveway, you and Haley are stuck watching whatever movie you landed on when you got to talking, too attached to give it up. 

The door opens and Aaron sets Jack on his feet, helping him with the tiny zipper on his coat before attending to his own. 

“How was your day, boys?” Haley gets up and goes to the kitchen, where you know a little tupperware full of cut fruit waits for Jack.

You offer him a little wave as he catches sight of you and processes your presence. Hey. 

“Well,” he says. “How was your day, Jack? Want to tell Mom about it?” 

The pass-off is funny to you, but you suspect Aaron doesn’t want to oversell it. 

“So fun!” He runs and jumps onto the couch as Haley rounds the corner. 

Her eyes are bright, animated, when she asks, “What did you and Daddy do?” She sits next to her son, her feet pulled under her as she leans on the back of the couch. 

As Jack relays the events of the afternoon, there’s an odd moment when Aaron catches himself. He reaches down to ruffle Haley’s hair, but freezes with his hand outstretched. You can see the wheels turning in his head and you almost feel bad for catching him at all. 

HIs hand closes and he shoves it into his pocket before he sits down in the armchair beside your end of the couch with a sigh. You pretend to be completely focused on Jack, so as to not embarrass him. 

“So,” he asks you. You turn. “How was your day?” 

There’s a moment where you share a little look, maybe even a laugh. 

“Good. My day was good.” 

“Good.” 

+++

tagging:  @missdowntonabbey @criminalsmarts @qvid-pro-qvo @hurricanejjareau @prentisswrites @forgottenword @deagibs @ssahotchnerr @unicorn-bitch @capricorngf​ @duchesschameleon​ @mrs-dr-reid @teamhappyme @averyhotchner​ @reidingmelodies @ambicaos @kelstark @genevievedarcygranger​ @mandylove1000​ @starsandasteroids​ @pan-pride-12​ @popped-weasels​ @iconicc​ @mooneylupinblack​ @ssworldofsw​ @abschaffer2​ @ellyhotchner @rousethemouse​ @reidtomestyles​ @dreamsonthewall​ @willlemonheadsupremacy​ @infinity1321​ @itsalwaysb33nyou​ @hqtchner​ @hotch-meeeeeuppppp​ @mac99martin​ @ssahotchner99​ @jhiddles03​ @nuvoleincielo​ @rqgnarok​ @reidyoulikeabook​ @schlooper​ @ssagube​ @lexieshuntingsstuff​ @ohhersheybars​ @marvelousmsmaggie​ @whosscruffylooking​ @teachingpanda​ @panhoeofmanyfandoms​ @anxious-enby​ @yougottalovefandoms​ @saspencereid​ @insideafictionaluniverse​ @lumoshotch​ @chvngbin​ @mxrcury-styles​ @enchantingwastelandexpert​ @hotchsflower​ @hotchslatte​ @joanofarkansass​ @luciilferss​ @quillvine​ @ssaic-jareau​ @ssareidbby​ @writefasttalkevenfaster​ @yougottalovefandoms​ @this-broken-band-girl​ @pinkdiamond1016​ @suranne-doesstuff​ 

[like-a-bag-of-potatoes]

Our Story - Prologue

theA/N: My first Chris Evans series. This is just a fluffy little series that has been floating around in my brain for a while, and because I've recently fallen head first into the Chris trashcan, I figured he’d be the perfect person for this little love story AU. I mean absolutely no disrespect with this, it's just a work of fiction. I also want to give a huge thank you to @percywinchester27​ and @girl-next-door-writes​ for being my betas for this story. You are both amazing and I'm so grateful for your help on this. 

Chapter: One

Pairing: Chris Evans x Reader (unfortunately no Chris in this part) 

Warnings: Absolutely none. 

Wordcount: 1850

Four weeks after my twentieth birthday, I left my childhood home in Savannah, Georgia, and pointed my nose towards New York. It was hard to believe that eight years had passed already, but my twenty-eighth birthday approached in large strides to remind me of how much time had passed, and how much had changed. New York City was a stark contrast to Savannah, the city that never sleeps VS the most charming city in America. When I first moved here, it was my intention to stay for only a year, then I would be back in Savannah with my family and the man that I loved so deeply, Josh. 

However, life never really turns out how you intend it to, no matter how much you plan for your future. Josh and I used to talk at length about our future together, and I honestly couldn't wait to get started on it all, house, careers, and then a family of our own at some point. Then, after eight or so months of long-distance we finally broke and admitted to ourselves that it was just too hard. I know you might think that since we had stuck it out for that long, we surely could manage a few more months, but by then I had been asked to stay on in what was supposed to be a temporary position, and I had fallen in love, not only with the city, but with my work. I asked Josh to come to me, told him we could find ourselves a little apartment in Queens, or the East Village, something we could afford, and we could spend a few years together here before moving back home to start a family. I guess you’ve already figured it didn't turn out that way, and it ended, as long-distance relationships often do, in heartbreak. It was my first real heartbreak- amicable, civil, and soul-crushing. It was also then I realized, as we all, unfortunately, do at some point in our lives, that love does not, in fact, conquer all. 

If I'm being completely honest, I knew within my first month in this magical city that I would never want to leave, and after things ended with Josh, I felt as though I had deceived him in some cruel, unintentional way. Every conversation we had, had after that had been filled with lies and promises I never intended to keep. I had fooled myself as much as I had fooled him. After our break up, although completely heartbroken, I felt free and unburdened, which strangely made me feel even worse about the whole thing. Our love didn't end in some big blowout argument, or because we didn't want to be with one another. It ended because of the thousands of miles that separated us, and because in the months we spent apart, I changed in a way that could not have been foreseen. Never did I imagine myself in a big and busy city, but as I said, New York and me, it was love at first sight. 

You might be wondering what job took me from my safe and comfortable life in Georgia, thinking that it must have been some grand, once in a lifetime thing. It was not. It was a temporary job as a personal assistant. I found it as I sat by my computer one night, daydreaming about what kind of life I would live if I had all the money in the world, what life Josh and I could create for ourselves. That's when I came across the ad. A woman, Mrs. Wallace, needed an assistant. She was a very wealthy woman in need of someone to keep track of her very busy social calendar, amongst other things. I knew she was wealthy because she lived on Fifth Avenue, not that I had ever been to New York and really knew what that entailed, but I had seen movies and read books placed in the city and knew very well that Fifth Avenue was a very expensive street. There was little to no description of the job or what Mrs. Wallace was looking for in an assistant, other than that they had to be organized and were able to juggle multiple things at once. Beyond that it really came down to compatibility. I was nothing if not organized, so before I knew it, I had compiled an application letter and sent to her email. I told no one about this, because it was ridiculous for me to think I'd even get a reply back. In all honesty, it had all been forgotten by the next morning, and I didn't think of it again until three days later when, at dinner with Josh I might add, I got an answer. She would like for us to meet. We sent a couple of emails back and forth where I tried to, as politely as possible, explain that I did not have the means to travel to New York just for an interview. I stated that I appreciated her interest, and apologized profusely for not being able to make it out there. It was then she asked for my details, and about fifteen minutes later I got a confirmation from American Airlines that my ticket had been booked and paid for. Two days later I was sitting opposite Mrs. Wallace at a restaurant that I would never be able to afford, listening to her talk about the job I had applied for and what she expected of me. 

The very first thing that struck me about Mrs. Wallace was her age. For some reason, I had imagined someone in their fifties, full of botox, fillers, and whatever else middle-aged women put into their faces to look younger, but Mrs. Wallace was not that much older than me. At the time we met, she was twenty-seven, so younger than I am now, and strikingly beautiful. Thick, black hair that looked professionally blow-dried and sculpted so that not a single strand was out of place. It draped over her shoulders in loose Hollywood style waves and stood in sharp contrast to the white blazer she wore. Her skin was olive, her eyes deep brown, and her cheekbones could probably cut glass. When you put that together with her long, model-like legs, an hourglass waistline, and a very ample bosom, the woman looked like a greek goddess. To top it all off she had a warm and kind smile, and a kick-ass sense of humor. Kate, as she insisted I call her, was far from the stuck up, nose in the sky, botox filled woman that I had imagined in my head. We hit it off, and before dessert was served, I had a job offer. 

It's hard to explain, but I felt as though I needed to take this opportunity, that this was an experience I was meant to have in some inexplicable way, and I accepted right then and there without a second thought, or even a conversation with my family or boyfriend. Josh was angry with me at first, but supportive, so two weeks later I stood in front of 1040 Fifth Avenue and looked up at the towering building with its limestone and intricate carvings here and there. Kate greeted me at the front door as I stepped out of the car that she had sent to pick me up from the airport. This place even had a porte-cochere to protect the residents from rain as they walked from the door to their private chauffeur-driven vehicles. I would be staying here with the Wallace family, in the staff quarters with the rest of the staff of course, so that I could be available to Kate at all times. And that's how my New York adventure started. 

Eight years later, I am still working for Kate, still living in my little room in the staff quarters, but I love it. I have a little bathroom and everything I need. Food is prepared for us all by the cook, Rosalia. She is a little, plump woman in her mid-fifties, kind and compassionate, not to mention deeply passionate about the food she prepared for the whole household. Along with me and Rosalia, the other staff in our quarters are Magdalena, the housekeeper, and Mitch, who is Mr Wallace’s assistant. There was more staff, of course, like the private chauffeur’s, who didn't live on-site and throughout any given day, people would be in and out of the place like it was a busy office space as opposed to the home that it actually is. 

Now, Mr Wallace was a very busy man, working non-stop whether it be at his office, or at his home office. It seemed as whenever I saw him, he was walking in fast strides, either on the phone, or confirming things with Mitch who half sprinted behind him with his I-pad, trying not to trip over anything as he tried to keep up and take down notes at the same time. Henry, that was Mr Wallace’s first name, was a little older than Kate, not so much that you could accuse her of being a gold digger, but he was approaching his fifties now. He didn't look it though, he was a very handsome man, and kind. Imagine George Clooney, a man that just seems to get more gorgeous with every passing year. Kate and Henry were busy, always had their hands full with whatever it was, but somehow they always found time to share a meal together every day. Even if it meant having Rosalia heat up some leftovers for them at midnight. They were very much in love, and it was clear in the way they looked at one another, and how they always made sure to have that little moment to themselves every day. A couple of years ago, Kate had confided in me that she could not have children of her own, it was something that had weighed on her since she was only sixteen years old, but with Henry, she said, ‘I have all I need with that man, all the love I could ever wish for.’ It was a shame really, because I knew that Kate would have made an amazing mother, and Henry a great dad. ‘I'm alright,’ she had assured me. ‘I've come to peace with it, and learned not to dwell on something that will never be.’ 

So, that's the short version of how I ended up here, doing a job I adored in a city I loved with all my heart, so I think it's about time we move forward. Jump to the part where my real story starts. Spoiler alert; it involves a warm summer day in Central Park, a ruined dress, and an extremely handsome man named Chris. 

******

If you liked what you read, how about slamming that reblog button and help spread my work? If you leave a little comment on top of that, you’ll be in my heart forever. 

Want a tag? I got you!! Just send me an ASK and I'll add you. 

Tags: @thesecretlifeofdaydreamss

[house-of-galathynius]

Only You ~ Rowaelin

A Rowaelin fanfic, set if Aelin’s parents had lived and she had met Rowan under normal circumstances, if Erawan and Maeve weren’t threats. Hope you enjoy! 

Prologue ~ Chapter Two

Chapter One: Meeting 

 Summer had always been Aelin’s favourite time of the year. It was the soft breezes and the long days, the late nights. It was the time of year where she didn’t have to be a princess. There was no need for the formalities or the pretending. 

Summer was the season of freedom. 

And when she had woken up that morning, the sun was still low in the sky, the mist dancing between the trees and the bird song was mellowed, quieter somehow. She had known that summer was over; her Fae senses could feel the shift of the season. Summer giving way to the crispness of autumn. And despite the peacefulness and beauty of autumn, it was also her least favourite time of the year.

Court would begin again. Gone would be the long nights of stargazing, the lazy days lounging in the sun with a book or the trips to the Staghorns; now was the time for her royal duties to start once again. 

A gentle tap of the door had Aelin groaning and shifting in bed. 

“Your Highness? Your father would like to know if you will be eating breakfast with them this morning.” Her maid Elspeth was one of the good ones. She was in her late forties and had been with Aelin for her entire twenty years. She was a short woman, her hair starting to grey at the roots, her cheeks always rosy and plump. But Aelin loved her like a mother.

Elspeth slid into the room and closed the door behind her, she strode over to the towering windows which looked out over the forest beyond the castle. The thick curtains were opened to reveal a grey morning. Elspeth didn’t wait for a response from Aelin as she continued her way around the room to the balcony on the far side. She opened the doors and Fleetfoot, Aelin’s beloved dog perked up and trotted off to the fresh air. 

Elspeth was well versed in the ways of Aelin. Which is why her final task was to perch on the edge of her bed and pull the covers back. 

“Aelin, you have guests arriving today.” 

She shot up in bed, staring at Elspeth. She had forgotten about the guests. If she had, she definitely would have been up earlier. She said as much. 

“The Queen of Doranelle, Sellene Whitethorn is arriving with her family.” 

Of course. There had been turmoil in Doranelle for many years and finally, only a few months ago, they had decided on a new queen. It had been a surprise to her Uncle Orlon when it had been announced, but nonetheless, had extended an invitation to visit once the new queen had settled into her new role. Just as the offer would be extended to me one day- when I became queen. 

“I suppose I cannot get away with my usual attire today?” She said. Elspeth laughed and shook her head. “I’m afraid not. A dress will be required.” 

Elspeth had picked a simple yet regal gown in a deep Terrasen green. Elspeth tried and failed to get Aelin to braid her hair, or at least put it into a simple updo. But Aelin enjoyed her hair free, the long blonde locks were one of her favourite assets, and never understood the need to hide it. 

She surveyed herself in the mirror, despite her late night with Sam, she looked awake and bright eyed. Ready for a day of acting like a princess. 

When Aelin arrived into the breakfast room, her father and mother were already seated, Orlon too. She took up the seat beside her mother and smiled apologetically to the three of them. Tardiness was one of her weaknesses and had frustrated all of them to no end. But with the night she had just had… if only her parents knew. 

“Late night again, Aelin?” Orlon grinned. He had always been privy to Aelin’s whereabouts, where she would sneak off to, who she would meet. 

Sam was not royal, in fact, he held no title in Terrasen. He had moved when he had been sixteen years old; escaping the grips of an assassin in Rifthold. He had stowed away on a ship, not knowing where it was going, but hoping that anywhere was better than before. He arrived in Terrasen with a few coins and his wits about him. He’d managed to secure work at a library. The owner had been old and frail, unable to lift the books, unable to do much at all. Sam had taken it upon himself to help in any way he could. And six years later he was the proud owner. It’s where Aelin had met him. Since then, she had been sneaking off to see Sam every chance she could; the only person knowing being Orlon. 

She knew it could never be more than it was with Sam, a reason why she had been so quick to shut down his offer the night before. And despite Terrasen being a forward-thinking country— the King was married to a man for Gods sake— they still drew the line at commoners and royalty marrying, or even being involved, the only exception being a mating bond; something so rare and final that no King or God could argue with it. So she tried to enjoy the stolen moments she had with Sam. Avoiding the advances of any foreign royalty that may come her way. The King only allowing it on the condition that when a serious offer of marriage arose, Aelin would accept and take her place as the next heir to the throne. She loved Sam, and on occasion had been angry at the impossibility of it being anything other than what it was now.

There was the other problem of her immortal lifespan. Sam was human and at some point it would have to end anyway.

“Did you forget about the arrival of the Whitethorns today?” Her father asked.

“It may have slipped my mind.” An easy lie. She took a bite of the pastry in front of her, savouring the sweetness. “But I am here now, and ready to be the perfect princess.” Another bite. 

Her mother chuckled to herself, sipping on the herbal tea that she would drink every morning without fail. Orlon cleared his throat, giving her a look. 

“The queen is new to this Aelin. We must ensure she is welcomed and feels comfortable during her stay.” 

A roll of her eyes. “I think I can manage being nice for a few days.” 

“Weeks.”

She stopped mid-chew. 

“The Whitethorns will be here for at least three weeks. Their castle is under renovations, so we offered them a place to stay whilst they were underway.” 

She had never heard of such a thing. A new queen, leaving her territory for weeks? 

“Darling, you are not expected to entertain them alone, nor be present at every minute.” Her mother had always been the diffuser; ensuring the conversations remained civil, if not for her sanity, for the sake of Aelin’s temper that had resulted in a few fires. “But the sneaking off will have to stop. Lysandra will understand.” Lysandra being Aelin’s excuse for when she was actually sneaking off to see Sam. 

She smiled politely and confirmed that she would be well behaved for when the guests arrived.

And that was that. 

She finished breakfast quickly and excused herself before they could make her stay longer. Aelin made her way to the training ground just beyond the walls of the garden. Orlon had had it built when it was evident Aelin needed a place to train with her powers. Fire magic was a rare gift, one that hadn’t been in the royal family since Brannon. She was grateful for the space, even if she no longer needed to train to the same extent. Only meeting with her trainer once every month.

“I thought I might find you here.” Lysandra’s voice echoed across the stones. “Hiding?” Lysandra laughed. 

“Something like that.” 

Lysandra was silent as she perched on the stone bench, watching as Aelin made shields of flame, as she danced the fire through her fingers and flung her powers towards the wall.

“I won’t be available for a while Lys. The Queen of Doranelle and her family are arriving today.” Aelin held the flame in her palm. “I need you to send a message to Sam for me.”

Lysandra had been the daughter of one of her mothers maids. And when her mother had died, Aelin’s mother could not stand the thought of Lysandra going to an orphanage. So she had housed Lysandra and trained her as a lady-in-waiting for Aelin. And even though they hated each other as children, the older they got the more they understood the other. 

“I heard one of the Whitethorn princes is extremely handsome. Do you think he’d be interested?” Aelin snorted. Any person would be insane not to be attracted to Lysandra. 

“Gods help the poor male if you pursue him.” Aelin returned to her flame.

“We all know that you’re going to marry me one day.” 

They both whirled at the sound of the male voice at the archway. Aedion stood there in all his glory. He wore a midnight blue jacket and dark pants, clothes for important people, Aelin thought. It was envy that Aelin was feeling. Aedion may be a prince, but he would never be King; marrying Lysandra would never be a problem, if she ever agreed, that was. 

Lysandra rolled her eyes and flipped her hair to the side. “Aedion, we both know you can’t handle me.” 

“We’ll see, Lysandra.” Mischief glittering in his eyes. 

Aedion took his wandering eyes away from Lysandra and back to Aelin, who had already lost interest in their banter. 

“What do you want Aedion? Aelin and I were busy.” 

“I’m here to tell Aelin that the Whitethorns will be here any moment, and her father wishes for her to be in the great hall to welcome them.” 

No peace. Summer was well and truly over then. Her flame flickered out and she brushed down her dress that was lightly coated in dust. She shook out her hair and let it fall past her shoulders, running her fingers through it to release any tangles. 

“How do I look?” 

“Like your father is going to kill you when he see’s the mess on your clothes.” Aedion held his arm out, she linked hers through it and smiled back at Lysandra who was brushing her own dress down.

“I’ll see you later Aelin.” A smile. “Always a pleasure, Aedion.” And then she was gone. 

Aelin and Aedion strolled down the path that led back into the gardens and then into the tall white palace of Orynth. The guards bowed their heads as she passed, the only acknowledgement that they would give. They continued into the palace, the halls empty of people. 

“Did they have to put out so many flowers? I feel like I’m just going to sneeze the entire time.” Aedion laughed, but didn’t respond as they approached the doors to the great hall. 

The room was only ever used for special occasions, I suppose a new queen included that. The room was large, taking up an entire wing of the castle, it’s ceiling tall, gold chandeliers dropping from it. The walls were painted white, with green and gold accents dotted around— the colours of Terrasen. The room was magnificent, every inch dripping in wealth and splendour. 

When she entered she dropped into a low curtsey. Orlon was sat atop the Antler Throne, his eyes fixed on her and Aedion— who was also bowing low. Her father and mother were sat on two smaller seats to Orlon’s left. A second, smaller throne rested next to Orlon’s; for the consort of the king. Which was unusually empty; Orlon’s husband usually filling the spot. 

As soon as she was in her place and everyone else were in their correct spots the guard at the end of the hall announced the arrival of the first Whitethorn family members. Aelin knew this formality all too well— get the lesser family members out of the way first, and then announce the most important. So she dropped her eyes and fiddled with the hem of her sleeve. She kept her eyes averted as the guard listed off the names of lesser royals and their spouses. A pinch on her shoulder made her look up, she spun to berate Aedion for being an ass, when the guard started to speak once more. 

“Your majesty, I would like to present Rowan Whitethorn, Prince of Doranelle and  Endymion Whitethorn, Prince of Doranelle.” 

The two males stepped through the open doors and she met the eyes of the shorter male. He was handsome, of course; and she smiled politely at him, wishing this would go faster. He smiled back, lowering his head slightly before doing the same to Aedion. Aelin tore her eyes away and looked at the second male stood next to him. Her breath caught in her throat as she beheld what was in front of her. 

It took him a moment to look toward her, and when their eyes met she felt every hair on her body stand up. His pine green eyes met her own and it was like the world was falling around her. She swallowed and forced herself to breathe, her body heating. 

The male in front of her seemed to be doing the same thing. His breathing turned shallow and he couldn’t tear his eyes from hers. 

It was like everything around her was spinning or maybe she was falling, Orlon’s voice faded to the background, all she could hear was the pounding of her heart. 

As she stared into the eyes of her mate.

[chaoticallysapphic]

Oh my heart

Summary: Lin never expected to have a soulmate, in a world where your mark appears whenever your soulmate is born she grew up completely blank. So when she’s thirty and it finally etches itself around her arm, she vows to never be with the one meant only for her. 

A/N: there is an age gap so if that's not your thing, then please don’t read. This will be a two, maybe three parter and the reader is Korra’s older sister who is also a waterbender, besides that I’ve tried to keep any physical descriptions of her as vague as possible.

Word count: 4k

Lin was terrified. Something she had longed for her entire life had finally appeared but at the worst possible time, those strange words etched onto her forearm stared back at her in a taunting manner, making fun of her new attempt at happiness. You wished for me all your life, aren’t you pleased? The voice in the back of her head taunted, but she wasn’t. A moment meant to be filled with joy was one drenched in dread. Lin had finally accepted her feelings for Tenzin, despite him having had his soulmate mark since he was sixteen. Her glances grew longer, her smile seemed reserved only for him, and she finally felt happy, until now of course. Thirty, that’s how old Lin was, which meant she was thirty years older than her soulmate which seemed wrong, disgusting even, so Lin did what she thought best, she burnt it off. She blamed it on a work-related incident when asked, a pesky firebending criminal got a little to close and she paid the price. No one knew she did it to herself in the darkness of her apartment with tears on her face, a hint of regret gnawing at her heart.

Two months later, Tenzin asked Lin out on a date and despite that nagging feeling that this was so wrong, she accepted. After a few months Tenzin made her forget about the burnt skin on her forearm, the shameful secret she’d take to the grave. She felt happy, so happy, she felt loved and accepted, like maybe she had a shot at a happily ever after despite his mark and her own. Lin knew he’d choose her, knew he loved her, and had nothing to worry about, so she laid her head on his chest as they basked in the sun on Air Temple Island.

                                                            -----

“You can’t force me into wanting kids!” Lin shouted, her hands waving around as she glared at Tenzin, his usual calm demeanor seemed to crack, his voice rising as he shouted back “I’m the last air bender there is! I have to keep the line going, I have to repopulate my kind!”

“I would be a terrible mother, I hate kids and I’d have to leave my job for at least nine months, I just made Chief!” Tenzin pinched the bridge of his nose, his pale complexion turning red with frustration, he loved how dedicated she was to her job, but it seemed to be all she cared about since getting promoted.

“I think we need a break from each other, maybe a week or t-”. Her eyes widened in horror at his words, her hand's grip at her hair in frustration as she cuts him off “fine, but I am coming back in a week and we are working this out for good, I’m tired of this argument.” Without letting him say another word, she stormed out and made her way back to republic city.

As the week dragged on, Lin put her colleagues through hell. Slamming doors so hard the glass on them shattered, an even shorter fuse than normal, she even fired two of her best detectives for trying to ask her what was wrong. Her apartment seemed cold, her nights seemed never-ending and an undeniable sense of dread clawed its way into her heart like she knew he was slipping away. Maybe she could have one kid, to make him happy and keep the air benders going. If it was an earth bender then fine, she’d have another, but she wouldn’t quit her job, wouldn’t loosen up on the hours and Tenzin would understand, right? He’d just be so happy to be a father that he wouldn’t care, he’d always respected her work before, what was to stop him after a kid or two?

She caved, she decided to go back to air temple island on the fifth day, a sense of determination to fix their relationship fueled each step and she tried to dismiss any fear she had of becoming a mother as she made her way up the steps to where she’d known Tenzin would be. In her state, she didn’t notice the pitying looks the acolytes sent her way, all she cared about was finding him. When she found him in the courtyard, she thought nothing of the young woman speaking to Tenzin with a wide grin but when she put her hand on his shoulder mid-laugh, Lin paused. Tenzin noticed her then, a million emotions flashed through his eyes before his shoulders sagged and a sorrowful expression settled on his face, and somehow, she knew.

Who could blame her when she wreaked havoc on a place she once called her sanctuary, when she wished misery on him before leaving her destruction behind, her fists clenched tight as the best thing she ever had slipped through her fingers.

                                                           -----

“Korra!” a feminine voice shouted from behind Tenzin, you pushed past him and ran forward to hug the avatar in the interrogation room, murmuring something to her in a furious tone. Lin rolled her eyes as she looked over at Tenzin who said smoothly “Lin, you are looking radiant as usual.”

“Cut the garbage Tenzin” she replied in an annoyed tone “why is the avatar in republic city? I thought you were supposed to be moving down to the south pole to train her.” you, who came in with Tenzin let go of Korra and walked over to stand by him, your arms crossed over your chest.

“It was too cold for his bald head” you answered right as Tenzin opened his mouth to speak “now why is my sister in so much trou-”. Lin tuned the rest of her words out as shock slammed into her like a rock wall. No. This wasn’t meant to happen, she’d scorched off any chance with her soulmate twenty years ago, or so she thought. But this… this twenty? Yes, a twenty-year-old water tribe girl with brows furrowed, and an expectant look on her face was it. You were what sometimes kept her up at night when she was so lonely it felt like the feeling would surely eat her up as Lin imagined some faceless figure who loved Lin with all their heart, someone who would never leave her.

“Lin?” Tenzin asked, putting his hand on her shoulder which successfully pulled her out of the raging ocean that was her thoughts, no not ocean, definitely nothing water-related. Lin looked into Tenzin's eyes, completely ignoring her one chance at happiness.

“Just get her out of my sight and keep her out of trouble” she practically growled out before storming off. Her heart was racing so fast she’d thought it’d surely give up any second now, maybe she should have known that her hasty decisions from her past would one day come back to sucker punch her in the gut.

“Well that was weird” Lin heard you say behind her as she continued to rush away from you before she accidentally said something. Lin vowed then that she would never say a single word to you. It was better this way anyway, who would want her? Bitter, old, scarred Lin who was practically married to her job and hated all things romantic ever since Tenzin crushed her heart beneath his shoe.

                                                           -----

She learned that your name was y/n a few days later, she heard Korra call out to you at the gala and when Lin followed Korra’s excited figure and her eyes landed on her soulmate, the wind was successfully knocked out of her for the second time since meeting y/n. You were wearing a deep blue satin dress that went down to the floor with a blue sheer shoulder shawl that had silver snowflakes embroidered onto it. Your hair was down instead of up, and you had a small amount of makeup on, just a bit of rouge and red lipstick. Lin thought it was the perfect amount, any more and it might distract someone from your beautiful eyes, or your enchanting smile. Her heart began to pound despite her desperate attempt at keeping her emotions in check. A large part of her hated this, hated you, and what this feeling blooming in her chest meant.

When Bolin came up to you and threw an arm over your shoulder, which caused you to laugh, Lin remembered that it would never happen. She shoved her feelings down and turned away from you as her thoughts went from how beautiful you were to how you would never love her.

Later on in the evening, Tarlock calls Lin over and she sees you peek around Korra to eye her curiously, a look of intrigue settles on your features as Lin pushes down any feelings she has at the fact that you’re looking at her and it feels like her whole body is on fire under your stare. “I believe you and avatar Korra have already met” Tarlock looks over at her with that sly look of his that she’s already determined means he’s up to no good.

“Just because the city is throwing you this big to do, don’t think you’re something special. You’ve done absolutely nothing to deserve this” she says to Korra, leaning down a bit to glare at the young avatar. Your curious gaze turns to one of annoyance as you glare at Lin. “Hey! Who gave you the right to be mean to my little sister,” you step in front of Korra almost protectively, as you stare her down. Don’t speak to her, look away, don’t reply, she tells herself. Lin turns on her feet and walks off, trying to seem as if she doesn’t care about what you said. “Why does she always ignore me?” she hears you say in an exasperated tone before she loses your voice over the loud music playing nearby.

                                                           -----

When Tenzin stands next to Lin at the pro-bending arena with you by his side, she’s not surprised. It seems the universe has decided to continuously throw you in her face, dangling you teasingly despite knowing her decision regarding your bond. You're holding a bag of fire flakes as you eagerly watch your sisters match, but soon your once excited expression turns to annoyance once the game starts. The Wolf Bats tipped the referee off. Lin wants to go beat the referee up until he starts being fair, just to see you smile once more.

“C’mon! This is bullshit” you shout as the Wolf Bats gain another point. Lin can’t help but notice the way your nose scrunches up as you continue to shout at the referee or how your hair which originally was pushed behind your ears has come loose and is framing your face so beautifully. Her left hand unconsciously grazes over her armor where her burn mark is as she watches you, completely tuning the game out. As Tenzin goes to shout something alongside you, his eyes catch Lin staring at you with a look of longing, he takes a step closer to Lin causing her to tear her eyes away from you and back to the match.

“Lin....” Tenzin begins but she clears her throat and mutters out a sharp “drop it.” To which Tenzin does, for now. Later on, as the match intensifies, Lin says “I can’t believe your sweet-tempered father was reincarnated into that girl, she’s tough as nails.” Lin doesn’t see it, but you smile at her words before deciding to tune out the rest of the conversation between the two, too focused on your sister to care.

You're practically seething at the outcome of this botched game, fire flakes are flying out of the bag as you shout in anger, not noticing the figure approaching with sinister intentions. By the time you do, it's because you're in excruciating pain as something electrifies you, your vision blurs and you make out Lin dropping onto the floor. The figure who electrocuted you steps over your body, you reach out to the Airbender, trying to warn him but nothing comes out of your mouth as he falls to the floor beside you. Soon your eyes droop closed due to the pain despite trying your hardest to stay awake.

When Lin awakens her muscles feel like they're about to give out and she lets out a weak groan as she slowly goes to stand up. Her eyes land on you the second her vision is no longer a blur and her heart fills with panic as she sees an equalist take you into their arms. She stumbles forward, not fully awake, and catches the attention of your capture. You let out a pained groan, in your unconscious state, the sound tugs at her heart and she’s suddenly filled with boiling rage. The equalist is shaking as he continues to stumble backward, another appears to help him take you away and without a second thought Lin shoots out her wires and wraps them around both of their ankles, she gives them a harsh yank which causes them to fall to the ground with a loud thud, for good measure she cuffs them to the floor, warping the metal of the floor beneath them around their wrists and ankles. You land on top of your capture, your eyes begin to flutter behind your lids and you finally stir awake. Pain wraps around your muscles, in your head you think maybe it's best to just lay still, momentarily forgetting about your situation.

You let out a whimper, knocking Lin out of her frozen state as she had gazed at you. Lin rushes forward and wraps an arm around your waist as she pulls you up onto your feet, you open your eyes, blinking the blurriness out of your eyesight. Lin takes you over to the railing as Tenzin also begins to regain consciousness and she props you up against the metal railing. You stare up at her in confusion, your mind is buzzing a mile a minute, not only at the situation at hand but at how her arms felt wrapped around you. “Uhm… Thanks for that.”

“Amon probably ordered them to kidnap you to hurt Korra” she replies, not realizing what she’s just done. Your eyes widen in shock at her words but before she can even notice your shocked state an explosion sets off behind you, sheets of metal from the bending platform go flying and she wraps her arms around you, forcing you to duck down so she can shield you with her body. You pull up a wave of water to protect you from oncoming flames. The heat of the steam from the water causes you both to begin sweating before the flames from the explosion recede only seconds later. You let go of the water, suddenly the discovery of Lin’s secret doesn’t seem so important as you think of your sister. When you passed out she was in the water below, surely she’s somewhere safe, right?

As if to answer your question, Korra appears as she hurtles herself up into the air with a large twisting waterspout. As it begins to falter and then completely goes out you let out a shout filled with terror “Korra!” Lin quickly gets up and shoots her metal wire out towards the roof to send her flying across the arena towards the avatar, before Korra can hit the fiery platform below, she shoots out a second wire to her waist and with all her might yanks her up into the air.

You stand beside Tenzin with wide eyes and bated breath, suddenly the two most important women in your life, I mean Lin has been ignoring you and you’ll have to figure out why later but she is your soulmate which does make her incredibly important to you, are out of your sight and dangerously fighting above as you uselessly stand there with your water bending abilities that won’t get you up there to help fight off equalists. Not being able to just stand by you summon water from below and create an ice bridge to the platform, if you can’t fight, you can try to put out the raging fire caused by the explosion.

“Y/n, wait!” Tenzin calls after but you're long gone. If you just stand there you’ll go insane and you have powers that can help, even if you don't get to kick some equalist ass.  Up above Lin finally lands on the glass dome and immediately sets out to take down as many people as she can at once, Korra watches in amazement for a moment as she wraps her wire at some guys foot and slams him into the roof before she gets knocked off the rope and lands onto the dome with a loud thud and the crackling of the glass starting to break below her.

It’s a collision of fire and electricity with metal wires flying towards the men and from below where you are using all your strength to put out the fire, it looks almost beautiful with the sparks of blue and flashes of red if not for the current circumstances. Tenzin has taken to help you with the fire by trying to use air to snuff it out. Suddenly glass from above sprinkles around them and you look up to see your little sister free falling once more.

“Tenzin can you do something with your air?!” You shout and he goes to try and send a force of air to help slow her down but she's going too fast, she’s flailing and if she doesn’t do something soon she’ll most likely die from the impact. As you run to the edge of the platform to try and save her yourself, Lin appears from above Korra and shoots a small wire to her so she can hold onto it like a rope.

Your shoulders sag in relief as you stumble away from the edge and use everything you’ve got to summon a massive wave to once and for all put out the fire. It works and the force of the water has it crashing into the stands taking with it some of the seats and any trash left behind in the frenzy. When you see Lin and Korra land  you race off towards the now soaking wet stands, using the water below as a set of frozen stairs to reach them. When you do, Lin has her hand on Korra’s shoulder and is saying something but you don’t make it out before you crush them both in a hug. Some sort of strangled sound of relief bubbles up through your throat as your hold on them tightens.

Korra wraps her arms around you, softly saying “thank the spirits you're okay” as Lin stays perfectly still. As her adrenaline slowly leaves her body and she realizes you aren’t in danger, she suddenly can’t be touched by you. She remains frozen until you pull away, you know it's not the time to bombard her so instead you offer Lin a thankful smile, too worried about how she’d react if you did anything else.

                                                           -----

A few days later you finally let Korra out of your sight, letting her run off to deal with her boy problems as you head towards the main police station. You tried to casually ask Tenzin what kind of tea Lin liked best, to which he’d furrowed his brows and said “why?” You simply shrugged and repeated your question. Apparently, it was jasmine, which was a favorite of yours as well so you stopped by your favorite tea shop and grabbed two to-go cups. As you enter the station you square your shoulders and give yourself a little pep talk “You can do this, you just need to march in and figure out why, maybe butter her up with the tea first of course, and then ask why, that’s if she lets you into the office…” you trail off once your eyes land on the door of Lin’s office, the words “Chief Beifong” are written in gold on the glass door which has a blind pulled down so you can’t see inside, which your slightly grateful for.

“Chief Beifong doesn’t want anyone to disturb her” one of the cops called out, but you ignore him and open the door, who cares, you deserve answers.

“I said I wanted to be alone, how brain dead are yo-” her words cut off as you walk in, balancing two cups in one hand so you can shut the door. You swallow, suddenly being in front of her has made most of your bravado slip away, along with your original plan, leaving you speechless. She doesn’t say anything, seeming to forget that she already spoke to you in the arena. You set the cups down and lift your shirt, which causes Lin to blush but you don’t stop until she can see her own words.

“I used to hate them… y’know,” you say quietly before dropping your shirt back down, Lin glares at her desk. “I used to be jealous of Korra and all the attention she got, so imagine growing up with her name etched onto your skin.”

She goes to open her mouth to speak, most likely to spew out some lie so you beat her to it. “I don’t know why, exactly, you kept it to yourself, I asked Tenzin the other day and he said you didn’t have a mark which is odd seeing as you are my soulmate." You pause, your voice softening, "you could have just told me straight away that you didn’t want me, didn’t want this instead of ignoring my existence and leaving me to wonder what I'd done to offend you.” Finally, she looks up from the desk and you make eye contact with her. You're trying so hard not to cry as you try to figure out what's going through her head, will she kick you out? Is your soulmate going to reject you?

“I thought…” Lin begins, she looks away from you, not being able to look you in the eyes anymore. “I thought I was doing you a favor, I’m old, and I’m not the most personable or charismatic person, I thought maybe you’d want someone your own age, maybe someone like your sisters' teammates.”

“So someone who is young and a guy? Did you think that maybe you should let me decide what I wanted instead of just assuming?”

“Look I gave up on the idea of having a soulmate years ago!” Lin shouts and you flinch away in surprise, “thirty years is a long time, do you know how I felt when those words suddenly appeared on me at thirty?”

“Oh, so you do have a mark!” You let out a disbelieving, angry laugh. “So you just went around telling everyone you didn’t have one, pretending the idea of me, of us, didn’t exist.” Tears cloud your vision and you let out a frustrated groan as you quickly gaze up at the ceiling in an attempt to keep them from falling. Lin’s gaze softens and she slowly stands from her desk.

“Y/n… I thought about it every day, but… We can’t be together, I’m far too old and I’ll just hold you back.” You scoff and aggressively wipe at the tears falling down your cheeks, your heart feels like it's beginning to crack.

“Your mark?” You croak out and cringe at how you sound. Lin hesitated before using her bending to take off the armor on her right arm. On her arm is a massive burn scar, you keep staring at it, not knowing what to say. Did someone else do that to her? As if she can read your thoughts, Lin says softly “I did it to myself a few days after it appeared.”

Oh. So this is what it's like to have your heart cleaved into two, what you felt just minutes before seems like nothing compared to the pain wrapping so tightly around you that it seems hard to breathe. She hated the idea of you so much she'd rather hurt herself and lie to everyone in her life. Without another word you turn your back on your soulmate, despite the sound of calling out to you, just like she did to you twenty years ago.

[verfound]

WIP Wednesday: 3/31/21

So over at @lovebugs-and-snakecharmers we're in the mid...end. We're at the END of Fairytale Week. I was only going to do the one sprint fic, but then @fenheart87 said something that had this Rabid Plunny latch on, and bc of Life I've been stewing on this Plunny since yesterday morning with no chance to actually write it until this afternoon (when Life tried its damnedest to derail it again).

I am going to attempt to finish this Friday (bc class tomorrow), but I have officially Failed So Hard. 😂 I am eight sprints and counting into the prompt: "Marinette gets cursed with a sleeping spell that can only be broken by a true love's kiss. Spoiler: it's not the prince.”

Spoiler: it's not Luka, either. 😂

“I can’t marry Prince Adrien.”

The words hung heavy in the air between them. Luka’s brow furrowed as he considered the princess. She sat on a bench against the wall, her back pressed to the stone but her shoulders hunching forward. Her eyes were dark, her teeth worrying her lip as she nervously wrung her hands in her lap. She was picking at the nail on her thumb – a nervous tick she had no doubt picked up from him years ago.

It was exactly where she’d been for nearly twenty minutes, ever since she had first knocked on his chamber door with desperate, panicked eyes and a quiet plea to come in.

…but, as soon as the words were out there, as soon as they had been spoken, she seemed to relax. She sat a bit straighter as she took a deep breath. She looked up at him, her beautiful blue eyes locking on his own, and set her mouth in a grim, determined line.

“Luka,” she said, his heart twisting at the sound of her voice saying his name, “I can’t marry him.”

“Why?” he asked, cursing himself the moment the word had passed his lips. He coughed, clearing his throat, and tried again. “I…I thought you loved the Prince.”

“I’d never met the Prince,” she said, shaking her head. He raised an eyebrow, and she groaned as she slumped back against the wall. Absently, her hand left her lap to stroke along the teal scales of his familiar snake. Sass hissed, turning his yellow eyes up at the princess. “Not before last night. Of course I don’t love him.”

“You were fine with your betrothal,” he said. He tried not to smile at the way she snorted at that. “You agreed with it. You’ve never expressed displeasure at the match before now.”

“Because I hadn’t met him before now,” she groaned again. She crossed her arms over her chest, looking away with a pout that made her look younger than her sixteen years. “Luka, he’s…he’s not awful, but he’s…”

“Awful?” Luka supplied with a chuckle, and Marinette threw out her arms as she cried Yes! She slumped back against the wall and rubbed at her face.

“He’s handsome – I’ll give him that. He’s Prince Adrien Agreste, of course he’s handsome,” Marinette groaned. “But he’s…he’s so…he’s perfectly fine. Cordial. A perfect gentleman – a perfect prince!”

“But…?” Luka pressed, smiling softly at her. She looked back at her lap, one hand dropping to her skirts to pick at a loose thread. The other returned to Sass, once again stroking his scales.

“…he doesn’t want to marry me, either,” she whispered, her fingers twisting in her skirts. Luka’s eyebrows furrowed again. That didn’t sound right: Prince Adrien had been completely charmed by Princess Marinette, as everyone should be. He had seemed perfectly infatuated with his betrothed at her birthday ball the night before. Marinette seemed convinced, though. “Luka, he doesn’t want to marry me. He wants to marry a princess.”

“But…you are a princess,” Luka pointed out. Marinette rolled her eyes. She reached for a ball of twine sitting on the workbench beside her seat and tossed it at him. He caught it easily, grinning at her.

“You know what I mean!” she huffed. He smiled wryly and shook his head.

“I’m afraid I don’t, highness,” he said. He tossed the ball back at her, and she put it back on the workbench. “Please, illuminate me.”

Marinette’s head dipped again, her eyes losing their fiery spark as her gaze returned to her lap. She was worrying her lip again, and it took everything Luka had to keep himself from reaching out and pulling that lip from between her teeth. He had to remind himself that she was his princess, and he was just an apprentice, and they weren’t like that. They could never be like that – she was too far above his station.

That had never stopped him from dreaming, though.

“I am a princess,” Marinette finally said, carefully – as if she was afraid of saying the wrong thing. She was picking at her skirts again. “I love my kingdom, and I will always do what is best for my people. I can’t wait to rule them someday, and I have always agreed to our betrothal because marrying Prince Adrien made sense. A union between our kingdoms makes sense. It is a good match, and he has always seemed like a good prince, and I will gladly do my duty for my kingdom. But…”

She was worrying her lip again. Luka reached out, his hand covering her own and squeezing. When she raised her head to him, she looked terrified.

“I don’t love him, Luka,” she whispered. “I can’t love him. And I am a princess, and I am a good princess, but…is it so wrong that I want my future king to love me? To love me, not Princess Marinette? I am a good princess, but I am not just a princess.”

“You’ve just met, Marinette,” Luka said gently, squeezing her hands again. “You have known each other a handful of hours at best. Give him a chance – give him time. You…you could grow to love each other.”

“No, we can’t,” she said, shaking her head. “He’s not interested in getting to know me, Luka, He’s already convinced himself he loves me, but he only loves the image of me he’s constructed in his head. The Good Princess. He has no idea who I really am. He doesn’t know the me that likes to spend sunny afternoons sketching in the gardens. He doesn’t know the me that likes to sew my own dresses. He doesn’t know the me that bakes cookies for the servants.”

“Those are all things he will come to know, though,” Luka said. He desperately ignored the twisting in his chest, the little voice that pointed out how he already knew and loved those things – how Marinette was perfect, just as she was, and of course once Prince Adrien got to know her he would see it, too. He would love her for her, too. She had nothing to be upset or worried over.

“He has no interest in coming to know them,” she said, twisting her hands to grasp his. “He’s fallen in love with a Princess, and I don’t think I can be that princess.”

“You must give him a chance, highness,” Luka sighed. Marinette squeezed his hand painfully tight.

“Would you?” she bit, and his eyebrows rose in surprise before a startled little laugh left him.

“Give him a chance?” he asked, and she nodded.

“Would you marry Prince Adrien, Luka?” she asked, and he laughed again. “I’m being serious!”

“I’m afraid I couldn’t, my dear princess,” he said with a soft chuckle. He reached up with the hand she wasn’t holding, brushing her bangs back behind her ear. “My heart has already belonged to another for quite some time. I would have no interest in marrying silly princes.”

[kotsuvi]

LIGHTEN UP

suna x f!reader

words: 3.1k

warnings: swearing, drinking, drugs (cocaine), smut

a/n: this was actually a fic i had for another blog, but i changed it to a suna x reader cuz... well... suna. also i have never done crack in my life so this is probably super inaccurate but like oh well. also this is my first time writing smut on this blog so... yep.

You were not having a good fucking night.

You hadn’t wanted to go to the stupid party in the first place, but after a long contemplation in your room, you thought that getting high with a shitload of people was better than getting high alone. You were just frustrated, and you knew you needed to listen to some good music, smoke some good weed, and maybe have some good sex. You would be fine after that.

You had been fighting with your friends. It was nothing big, just the usual relationship banter, but it seemed like they were increasingly driving you crazier and crazier. Everything was always about them, and they needed shit to perfectly follow their little schedules. It was exhausting keeping up with them sometimes, and you just wanted one night where you could be fucking spontaneous without their judgement.

So when you spotted the boys in Kageyama’s den, your eyebrows raised, and you were taken over with curiosity. You knew that they were up to something, and by the looks of it, you guessed drugs. You had already hit a blunt and taken a couple shots, but it was doing nothing to take off the edge of annoyance that you were feeling.

“What’s this?” You asked, kicking the door open wider, your brows coming together as you looked at the boys. You recognized all of them: Atsumu, Kageyama, Tsukishima, Osamu, and then there was... Suna. Your eyes lingered on him for a briefly longer second than the others, and a smirk tugged at the corners of your lips.

Back in your sophomore year you and Suna had a slight thing. You had hooked up one night at some party when you both had had just a little bit too much to drink, and you thought that you were being all bold and scandalous. One time turned into two, and then three, and then five; seven; countless nights. The first time it happened you were sixteen and he had just turned eighteen, and it went on for a solid six months. Now you were the one that was eighteen, and you knew his twentieth was close.

“Y/N?” Atsumu asked, chuckling uncomfortably, one hand coming up to run through his hair. “Can’t you see this is a little… private?”

“Private?” You snorted, making your way over to where they stood, hovered around Kageyama’s dad’s desk. “You shouldn’t have left the door open.”

“Doesn’t mean you’re allowed in here,” Osamu scoffed, lighting up a joint as he watched you, one eyebrow raised.

Your eyes dropped down to the desk, and a look of curiosity took ahold of your features. Coke. Cocaine. It was lined in thin strips along the desk. There were two in front of Atsumu, and one in front of Suna.

You clicked your tongue. “Whatcha boys up to?”

You tilted your head at them as you placed your palms down on the desk. You could feel Suna’s eyes on you as you did so, but you didn’t look up. Instead you glanced at Atsumu, then at Osamu, and then back down at the lines.

“It’s none of your business Y/N,” Atsumu said, narrowing his eyes at you. Typical. You had blown him off the year before, and he still had hard fucking feelings. Too bad.

You gave him an irritated look, and a pair of hands grazed your hips.

“Let her stay Atsumu,” Suna said, taking a seat in the chair behind the desk. His eyes met yours, and he winked, tapping his fingers against the wood beside his lines. “She obviously wants in on the fun.”

“Well she’ll be paying for this shit,” Osamu said, taking a long drag on his blunt. From the rest of the house you could hear the roar of music and laughter, and you could feel the pounding vibrations through your socks. The party was wild out there, but you knew that in that one office, things were just getting started.

“Let me do a line,” you said, taking a card right out of Atsumu’s hands.

“I don’t think so,” Atsumu started, and he tried to reach back for it, but Suna stopped him by stealing it out of your fingers first.

“You sure you want to do this, baby?” He asked, his voice low and taunting. “I think you’re a little young for the big kid games.”

You snatched the card back from his hands. “Funny.”

He swiped his tongue out over his lower lip, and a smirk tugged at the corner of his mouth. Slowly, he brought one hand up to his face, and he pulled at his lower lip with his index finger and thumb. You were already definitely buzzed, and the action made your stomach flip.

He had always been hot, even when he was in his mid-teens, but now that he was creeping up on twenty? No doubt, he was one of the hottest guys you knew; you weren’t denying it. You hadn’t really made it your mission to get laid that night, but you had made it your top priority to have a bloody fucking good time, and if that meant sex with Suna Rintaro, then you were all for it.

“Shit,” Kageyama muttered as he watched you seperate your own line from Suna’s. You then lowered your nose to the table, and in one swift motion, you sucked it up. The coke burned the inside of your nose, and then the back of your throat, but you shook your head, clearing it slightly.

“Fuck!” You hooted, and Atsumu exhaled sharply, rolling his eyes as he turned away from you, hands on his hips. He shared a knowing glance with his twin. He clearly wasn’t impressed, but you knew someone else was.

When you turned back to look at Suna he was watching you carefully, still toying with his lower lip. As he caught you looking he flicked his head, then patted his thigh. You grinned back at him, then slowly you situated yourself on his lap. The rough material of his shorts rubbed against the bare skin of your legs, and you let out a soft sigh. Suna noticed, and his hands made their way to your hips, pulling you in closer to his chest.

“Haven’t seen you in a while,” he mumbled in your ear, and a shiver shot down your spine. His voice was just how you remembered it; low and raspy, and always slightly smug, with a hint of curiosity.

“You haven’t been looking hard enough,” you whispered back, locking eyes with Atsumu. He gave you a disapproving glare, swiping one finger under his nose as he turned in a slow circle.

“So we’re just letting anyone in here then?” He fired at you, and Suna clicked his tongue.

“Atsumu, calm down,” he said, then he gestured to Osamu. “Smoke something, would you?”

Atsumu clenched his jaw, then he glanced over at Osamu, who held out the blunt. Angrily, he snatched the joint from Osamu’s fingers, and he took one long drag before falling into one of the other chairs.

The one that Suna was seated on spun, and he rocked it lightly side to side, his hands still on your hips. They dug lightly into your sides, just to let you know that you weren’t going to be leaving him anytime soon. Tsukishima and Kageyama exchanged glances, and Osamu passed the blunt over to them. Tsukishima rejected it, but then pulled out his own bag of the little white powder. Carefully, he sprinkled it out onto the desk, then made two thin lines, side by side. He glanced behind him, frowned, then pulled open one of the drawers of the desk.

“You need this?” Tsukishima asked Kageyama, holding up a stack of papers.

Kageyama shook his head. “Dad won’t miss it. Just scribbles.”

“Good,” Tsukishima said, then he tore a strip off and rolled it up. He hovered one end of the paper in his nose, then he leaned down and snorted it all up. Suna lifted his hands from your hips to clap at him, long and slow.

“You’re getting better,” he whistled, and then adjusted himself in the chair so that he was sitting more upright. He pulled your body in closer to his, and his chin rested on your shoulder as he reached for his card, which you had left on the desk.

“Lighten up,” Tsukishima said, nudging Atsumu’s leg with his foot.

“He’s just jealous,” Suna whispered, his breath hot against your neck. You leaned back into him further, tilting your head to that your lips were closer to his. You knew that you were playing with fire, but you didn’t care, it was a night to be reckless. You would probably forget about everything in the morning, so it was go big or go home.

“Why’s that?” You mumbled, and Suna’s lips tugged into yet another smirk.

“You’re here,” he said, tapping your thigh with his index finger. “And he’s there.” He looked up at Atsumu, keeping completely still. Atsumu’s jaw flexed, and he let out a heavy breath.

You turned your head away from Suna, and you felt a wisp of air against your neck as he scoffed a laugh. “Well lucky you.”

“What does that mean?”

“You see,” you breathed. “If I wanted to fuck him, I would be on his lap.”

Suna shifted underneath you. You could feel his boner against your ass, and you smirked to yourself.

He cleared his throat softly. “Is that so?”

“Maybe.”

You could feel him getting harder beneath you, and he placed one hand on your hip again, squeezing it tightly. His lips grazed your neck, and his teeth quickly nipped at your ear, which you giggled at, feeling a heat begin to grow in your core.

You could also feel the effects of the crack beginning to take its toll on you. Your heart rate was starting to quicken, and your anger was fading; soon replaced by a surge of confidence. You looked Atsumu right in the eye, and he kept breaking away from your gaze to shake his head. You were making him uncomfortable, and although you were right there on Suna’s lap, you wanted to taunt Atsumu as well.

“You feeling okay?” Suna asked, his voice hoarse.

“Absolutely,” you said, and then you twisted your body around to face him. He took his hand off of your waist, and when you got settled he placed it on your thigh. You were still on his lap, but your legs dangled to the side. You swung them lightly, and you hadn’t realized that Suna had his beer sitting right there; it clinked to the ground, and then you heard a slow guzzle as it leaked from the neck.

“Shit,” you muttered, furrowing your brows.

“Jesus,” you heard Atsumu mumble, but you ignored him as you picked the bottle back up. You set it on the desk, and then a quiet giggle escaped you.

Suna licked his lips.

“I’ll get you another one.” You were trying to fight back your laughter as he watched you.

“I think I’ll take you instead,” he replied smoothly, the words rolling off of his tongue like silk.

Your stomach twisted. He knew exactly what he was doing, and so did you.

“Jesus fucking Christ,” Atsumu hissed from the across the room, and you looked back over at him. “Just get a fucking room.”

Suna snorted. “As a matter of fact.” He nudged you lightly, and you stood up, pulling your skirt down slightly. “We will.”

At his words you reached up, wrapping your arms around his neck as you pulled him down to you, connecting your lips in a long, passionate kiss. It was fiery and hungry, and you let out a soft moan as Suna’s tongue swiped along your lower lip.

Atsumu let out a groan of frustration, but you didn’t care. You had forgotten all about Kageyama and Tsukishima and Osamu. You just wanted Suna.

He broke the kiss, and you stepped back, a smirk toying at your face as you watched him stoop over the desk. Before you even could process it Suna had snorted two lines, and then his hand was in yours, and he was dragging you out the door.

As soon as you were out of the room he slammed you against the wall, his lips finding yours hungrily. He placed one hand to the right of your head, and the other slid down your side, tracing your chest, then your stomach, and then settling on your hip again.

Your breathing was heavy as Suna pulled his lips away, but only to graze them over your jaw. His hand moved up your shirt as he kissed down your neck, and you dropped your head to the side.

Down the hall you could partially see into the living room, where teens laughed and shouted and threw things across the room. The music pounded in your ears, and you could feel the vibrations of the bass against the wall at your back.

You let out a low moan as Suna sucked on the skin just above your collarbone, and you could feel him smirk against you.

“Suna,” you whispered, and you brought your arms over his shoulders to play with his hair. You pulled lightly on it, and he grumbled something that you couldn’t quite make out. “Suna, we should-” You cut yourself off as he sucked on the skin just above your right breast. It pinched slightly, and you let out a raspy breath, tugging harder at his hair.

“C’mon,” he breathed into your neck, then he pulled you away from the wall, walking backwards. He brought his lips back up to yours, and you kissed him long and hard before he broke away to open one of the other doors. It was to a guest room, and Suna shook his head smugly as he kicked the door open, then closed it quickly behind the two of you.

He walked you over to the bed, then shoved you down, instantly lowering his body over yours. You let out a giggle as he pulled your shirt over your head, pressing a kiss to your stomach. He placed one, then two, then three, each one getting lower and lower.

You felt a warmth at your core, and you dropped your head back, your fingers finding their way into his hair once again.

“Jesus Suna,” you mumbled, and your whole body tingled. You were definitely beginning to feel the effects of your high, and it was fucking amazing. Your whole body felt warm, and the little light that was in the room seemed exceptionally bright.

“It’s been a while Y/N,” Suna rasped as he brought his lips back up to yours again. Your arms instantly wrapped around his neck, and you pulled him closer. His tongue slipped into your mouth, and you brought your legs up around his torso. Slowly he began to rock his hips against yours, and you could feel the hardness of his dick against your tender folds.

His hands roamed your torso as you continued to deepen the kiss; he only broke it for a moment to pull off his shirt. You helped him yank it over his head, and he let out a raspy moan. Your fingers trailed along his chest, which heaved heavily, and you let out another giggle.

Your whole body tingled, and you knew you couldn’t resist him much longer. You were undeniably turned on, and that mixed with your high was damn fucking close to an orgasm.

“Suna,” you whispered hoarsely in his ear.

“Mm?” He hummed back, sucking another hickey on your neck.

“Fuck me.” It slipped out before you had any other chance to think, and he pulled back, hovering above you. His brows raised up smugly, and then he swiped his tongue along his teeth, looking you up and down.

“You sure about that princess?”

“Now,” you urged, and you didn’t have to tell him again. He wasted no time in ripping off your skirt, and then pulling down your panties. His fingers situated themselves between your legs, and you dropped your head back as he rubbed them in slow circles. Your breath hitched as you heard the distinct sound of a belt clanking, and then you saw as his shorts and boxers fell to the floor.

With the hand that wasn’t touching you, he spread your legs, your knees dropping down to the bed. His fingers were calloused and rough, and you could feel the neediness of his touch as he dragged his skin along yours.

You gasped when he slid himself inside of you, the pressure making your stomach twist. He filled you up so nicely.

Your hands grabbed his shoulders instinctively, and you let out a quiet moan, your breathing beginning to quicken yet again.

You had been waiting for that moment, and suddenly it seemed as if all your worries just faded away. You and Suna had made out before, and you had even given multiple blowjobs, but that was nothing compared to the way that you were feeling in that moment.

Suna’s hands were placed at either side of your head, and he thrusted in and out of you slowly, but then his pace began to get quicker and quicker. His hair fell into his eyes as he pumped, and you pressed your legs down further, attempting to shift his cock slightly deeper. You wanted more. You needed more.

“Fuck,” he muttered, and you dug your nails into his shoulders, pulling him closer to you. “Fucking hell.”

The tension in your core was building, and your breathing was getting harder and harder to steady. Everything tickled and tingled and itched, and you let Suna’s name slip through yours lips again and again and again.

“Oh god,” you breathed, and you slid your nails down Suna’s back, then dragged them up again, trying desperately to grab ahold of something.

You were almost there. Almost there. Fucking almost there.

Suna dropped his head slightly, and his hair tickled your cheek and neck, causing you to let out yet another whimper.

“Fuck Y/N,” Suna whispered once more. “I-”

With that he released, and you followed soon after. It was the most euphoric experience you had ever had, and you knew it wasn’t just because of the drugs. You had waited ages for that. Waited ages for him. Every inch of your body ached, and you let Suna collapse on top of you, his breath hot against your skin.

“Holy,” you whispered, dropping your neck to the side. Suna panted lightly in your ear, and then he shifted off of you, turning to face the ceiling.

“Holy is right,” Suna mumbled back, and you heard as he swallowed tightly. “I’ve missed you.”

general taglist: @amberalisa

[tinfoil-jones]

The last chapter of RBBR

It’s not necessarily the end-end, in an unknown amount of time I’m going to write a sequel but it requires structure... And time. 

Thanks to everyone who was along with me for this weird journey. Namely @sharkface-daydreams and the rvb fanfiction legend Yin, both commenting on literally every chapter. Even back when I had the energy to update twice a week and threw constant curveballs in the story up until I had a a job training that sucked out all of my creative energy.

Uhh, I can give you some interesting tidbits in the meantime;

-This whole thing was a really, really late jump into the rvb fake season meme.

- @sharkface-daydreams was technically right.

-The original title was going to be ‘Worst Duty Station’ and even now the chapter documents in my googledocs is labeled that.

-Sergeant Major * (Walla L. Walla, or Walla L. Major) doesn’t know what the L. in her name stands for. All she knows is that her original name started with that letter. She, and by extension the rest of Humble Team, were mentally conditioned to forget their original names. 

-If Lupus gave himself a combined name like O'Malley and Gary did, he would choose "Lobo" (Loco and Caboose) to fit in with the whole wolf theme. I didn’t put it in because he already has two names he’s constantly jumping between in the narration.

-Flash cloning brains is still illegal in the UEG, however Chorus is no longer under the jurisdiction of the UEG/UNSC. Even so, in season 17 episode “Schrodingin” Dr. Grey shows that she has no qualms about committing major fraud as long as she can help a patient.

-Major Washington’s command partnership with Simmons is severely stunted because Wash is still dealing with his current condition, and he’s having a hard time coping with his memory loss and mood swings. This has caused him to lash out constantly at Simmons helping him, even though listening to Simmons plan would probably improve the quality of his life when dealing with his current disability.

-Dr. Grey didn’t adopt just Detective Apollo, she’s stated she  “taken a few wards”. Mathews is one of those wards, as Dr. Grey is one of the few people left on Chorus who knows sign language. The Rebel Medic is another one, granted she’s a little bit older than Mathews and Detective Apollo (both are sixteen, Rebel Medic is close to 18).

-On the same vein, Palomo is President Kimball’s ward. She was going to take in Jensen as well, but Jensen refused because of the ‘foster sibling’ implications.

-Volleyball, McCallister, and Ghanoush are all between 18-21.

-Bitters, Andersmith, and Randy are actually pretty close in age to the Reds and Blues, only being in their mid-twenties. (Kaikaina is the youngest, but she’sin her early-to-mid twenties while the main group of the Reds and Blues are in their late twenties to early thirties except for Sarge and the Freelancers)

-There’s context clues throughout the entire story hinting at some weird shit that hasn’t been said yet and that’s all I’m saying about it.

-Sergeant Major has only been banned from Fort Drum. Don’t get me wrong, she does have an extensive record of Article 15′s and Court Martials, and a lot of stuff that would get a regular soldier either kicked out or thrown in jail, but Detective Apollo was definitely embellishing when she first met her and “praised” her “accomplishments”.

-Sergeant Major is definitely a potential physical threat to most of the Reds and Blues because she is a Spartan-III, but always remember that Caboose absolutely could crush her like an empty soda can and chuck her all the way across the canyon, and she knows that. 

-Lupus/Loco and Caboose have a very emotionally and mentally intimate relationship, but they are not romantically involved. 

-While Detective Apollo’s brain damage condition is very similar to Caboose’s just worse, her relationship/reliance on her A.I is a little... Different. 

[lennoxstone]

maggie lindemann & she/her / female ‷ watch out , lennox stone has crash-landed into roswell !! they look twenty-four years old and celebrate their birthday on october 30th . they are from dallas, texas, reside in tripp’s trailer park and are currently working as a photographer. one thing you should know about them is she can be very stubborn and intense. 

tw: death, foster care, mental illness, drugs, child abandonment, neglect, suicide, self harm, blood

Full Name: Eleanor ‘Lennox’ Stone

Age: 24

Birthday: October 30, 1996

Sexual Orientation: Pansexual

Pronouns: She/her

Zodiac Sign: Scorpio

Siblings: Two brothers; 12 years old and 1 year old, from the family that wants to adopt her

Mental Illnesses: Bipolar II Disorder

Occupation: Bassist for Graveyard, freelance boudoir photographer

x

Eleanor Stone, who later renamed herself Lennox Stone, was born in Dallas, Texas to a drug addict. She was very clingy with her mother and had intense separation anxiety, likely due to her mother leaving her alone as early as five years old for one, sometimes two nights, in a row. When she was alone, she’d play the little keyboard in her bedroom, familiarizing herself with the notes eventually and teaching herself, later, to play keyboard. Ellie, her mother called her at that age, slept in her bed with her at night, and her mother believed that Ellie played the card really well of being ‘scared’ to do things by herself, when in actuality, Eleanor was scared. Did she sometimes manipulate because of that? Yes. But at her core was deeply ingrained fear that her mother would leave her forever. The only thing she knew about her father was that he was dead. She only found out in her young teenage years that he took his life, and was an alcoholic, after looking him up and meeting up with a living relative. 

One night, Eleanor’s mother had an accidental overdose and showed up with Eleanor at her side at the neighbor’s doorstep. Her mother proceeded to have a seizure right there, with the seven year old girl looking on. The neighbors called an ambulance and they arrived, a social worker meeting them at the hospital. Several calls to CPS had already been made due to strange behavior going on with Eleanor’s mother, and she’d seen people come in and question her mother. Nothing came of it then, but this was the final call. 

She believed for a long time that she was wrongly ripped from her mother at a young age, but it was only later that she came to have feelings of hate for her biological mother. Seven years old and withdrawn, she was mute for a year at her foster home. She said nothing to her foster mom, but would talk at school and to the therapists and to her foster dad. She manipulated him often, and ignored her new mom completely. Truthfully it was too painful to have a new mom. She told the therapist everything was fine. Nonetheless, her foster parents gave her up, and she went on to her second home at eight and a half years old. She stayed with them for three years. At nine, she would cut her wrists just to feel something. Her foster parents believed it was an act of manipulation, but it wasn’t at all. This time, she responded to therapy and stopped cutting her wrists for the most part, though she sometimes does even to this day when things are really bad. At ten, she had night terrors and would wake up screaming horrifically. She had moments where she would stare emptily, or just stop talking mid-sentence, and it scared both of her foster parents. Again, manipulation or acting--’faking’-- was suspected. She was later diagnosed with depression and reactive attachment disorder. 

At eleven, she got into her parents’ liquor cabinet and in a fit of rage smashed all the bottles, cutting her feet accidentally as she tried to leave the kitchen, and her parents found her, horrified, blood and glass all over the floor. She, luckily, didn’t have an infection when they rushed her to the hospital with nasty cuts and open wounds all over her feet and knees. 

She would scream out for her mom at night, and when her foster mom came to her side, Eleanor pushed her aside and screamed in her face. She said, “Fuck you! You aren’t my real mom!” They frequently cried at night, at wits end with this child who they had welcomed in their home who wouldn’t bond with them. They finally came to think that they weren’t suited to be her parents, and it was with a heavy heart that they stopped being her parents and she went on to the next home. 

Eleven and a half, she found a permanent home--well, permanent until she aged out of the foster system at sixteen, and decided instead of staying with them, she’d start her life somewhere else, and picked a random place. While the time lasted, anyway, it was for the first time that Eleanor was able to bond with a foster family. They had a cat that she loved and a baby boy. So, why, did they want her? Well, they told her---because they had lost a child a few years ago, and they felt something when they first saw Eleanor. They felt that they intensely wanted to give her a good home. 

She thrived with them for the first couple of years, getting involved in music, fine tuning her skills on the keyboard, and branching out to other instruments, feeling like she was finally good at something, even had a natural talent for it. 

She began getting into alcohol and smoking marijuana at fourteen. They found it in her room and questioned her about it, not upset at all, very gentle. It was due to their gentle parenting that she decided to quit what she herself even believed was acting out. At least in that way. She still went out at night a lot without telling anybody, just needing to escape. She would mostly walk by herself, but she had one good guy friend, Matthew, who would be awake whenever she called. Eleanor fell in love with him and he fell in love with her. They were together for two years. During that time span she had found out the truth about her father, that he had been an alcoholic and had ended his life. She had enough of Texas. Her parents assured her she had a place with them for as long as and whenever she wanted it, but she left without a proper goodbye. She called them a month later to let them know where she was. She was staying at a friend’s house (someone she’d met and partied with upon landing in Roswell--they knew each other a week before she moved from her motel into their apartment.) She and the other female quickly began a romance, full of drama. She began questioning a lot about herself. Playing around with her identity. Who she was. What she liked. What she believed. But mostly, she was reckless, restless, and impulsive. 

Seventeen, she changed her name unofficially from Eleanor to Lennox, left her girlfriend, and became apart of a group who were forming a band, moving back and forth from place to place. She’d become even more musical, and it had become a discipline for her, even; it was the one thing she felt like she was good at, and she took it seriously. It was and is really the only way she can express herself. And she loves the bass guitar, and can also play drums and piano. She felt like it was a good release for her anger. It was then that she found Cyrus, and the two formed a toxic relationship, almost always fighting. She had genuine feelings for him and probably still does, but the relationship wasn’t healthy in nearly any sort of way, and she didn’t feel she could handle that kind of thing anyway. Even though inside she hated being alone, felt this gaping hole in her heart when she was, that gaping hole didn’t take long--that emptiness didn’t take long--before it swallowed her whole again, even when she was right there in someone’s arms. Maybe the echoes of her childhood catching up with her?

She’s a tortured soul, feels like she’s lived way longer than her twenty-four years, and the “accidental deaths” that happened when the band was hanging around in mosh pits utterly ruined her. She beats herself up for it everyday, even if it couldn’t have been her fault. She still asks herself, is it my fault in someway, indirectly? She misses Cyrus. Now using music to get to him, even going off on her own and creating a hauntingly angry solo song that was leaked accidentally, showcasing her talent in a way that no one had quite seen before--who knew she could sing, or play the piano so well. And just when they’re working on creating their fifth album. But she was always known, even in childhood, to cause problems. And she did so in Graveyard. Frequently. Acting out, not showing up to meetings, or showing up late, or high. Lennox spends a lot of her days doing drugs and drinking alcohol, finds difficulty in getting through most days without them in some form, and she’s definitely rebellious, even aggressive at times. But underneath all of that is a scared inner child that actually feels things very deeply and loves intensely. In the past year she’s gotten into boudoir photography, and has found she’s decently good at it. She’s managed to accumulate clients, enough that she can afford living at the trailer park. Her foster family moved to Roswell a year ago, after their son was born (a happy surprise), after communicating with Lennox through phone calls and webcam for several years. They’ve just asked her if she’d be okay with them adopting her, even though it seems to her that it’s pointless at her age. Her sleep schedule is shit, as she often finds herself wandering around at night, not able to shut off her mind, thinking about running away and starting her life over someplace else. But she never does it. At least, not yet. The urge to run away in every area of her life is always so strong. 

[blackswaneuroparedux]

Isabelle Huppert: The Most Dangerous Actress in European Cinema

Etre actrice, c’est avant tout faire l’apprentissage de sa liberté.

- Isabelle Huppert

At 66 years old, Isabelle Huppert has had a long, celebrated career and is regarded in the highest echelon of French actors. Among actresses, Isabelle Huppert holds the record for César Award nominations (France’s Oscar award), with a whopping sixteen. She has also had twenty of her films in competition at Cannes, more than any other actress. And she is among just four actresses who have won the Best Actress prize at Cannes twice.

Not a bad track record.

Though she has appeared in a few American productions over the years, including “Heaven’s Gate” (1980), “The Bedroom Window” (1987) and “I Heart Huckabees” (2004), her best films have all been European.

Extraordinary women marked by tragedy and surrounded by mystery — these are Huppert's trademark cinematic roles. The films of Isabelle Huppert tend to be filled with sociopaths, self-mutilators, and murderers.

There was the jealous postmaster in “La Cérémonie,” the gun-toting young bride in “Coup de Torchon,” and the prostitute who poisons her family in “Violette Nozière. “The Piano Teacher,” “Elle” and “Greta” would make a crazy triple feature. Overall Isabelle Huppert, one of the iconic dames of French cinema, has garnered a reputation for being cold and steely. The French actress, now in her mid-60s, consistently chooses roles that are morally complex and sometimes hard to watch. And yet we can’t bring ourselves to look away.

Susan Sontag, who once called Huppert “a total artist,” said she had never met “an actor more intelligent, or a person more intelligent among actors.”

Huppert has been called France’s Meryl Streep for her technical skill, but for all her shape-shifting, Streep’s strongest women have never gone so dark as the roles Huppert has played.

Huppert expresses the moods and mental state of her characters with precision and great sensitivity. Her seemingly expressionless face and sparing facial expressions have become something of a trademark.

Fiction has a tendency to inflate things, she said once in an interview with The Financial Times in July 2017. "But when I look at people on the street, I find that most of them are pretty empty in their eyes. I have to do even less." To observe, she has been taught, you have to take away, not add something.

Isabelle was the youngest of five children, born in Paris to an engineer father and a mother who taught English. Her mother is credited with spotting her talent early on, and encouraging her to develop it. She was already well on her way as a teenager, getting acting jobs while studying at the National Conservatory of Dramatic Art in Paris.

Huppert’s résumé is remarkable over five decades: Just over 140 films since her debut in 1972, for many of cinema’s most audacious visionaries, including Claude Chabrol, Claire Denis, Curtis Hanson, Hal Hartley and François Ozon.

In “Things to Come,” a wistful, funny drama by the French director Mia Hansen-Love. She plays Nathalie, a Parisian philosophy teacher whose husband leaves her for a younger woman, whose mother dies, whose publisher won’t reissue her book — and yet, who finds unexpected freedom in all of these losses. Nathalie heads toward the light and Michèle toward the dark, but both roles showcase Huppert’s great ability to derive power from vulnerability.

What directors loved about Huppert — and she prides herself on being an auteur’s actor — was her ability to convey moral complexity in the most unique ways.

Working with such auteur directors, Huppert can inhabit extreme characters — "survivors who can be victims and rebels simultaneously," says the actress. "My films give these women a voice. Because even though they live on the edges of society, they are there: women who live brutal lives. It's a brutality that they themselves never sought out," Huppert told Zeit Magazine.

Paul Verhoeven who directed her in “Elle” described Huppert as a “pure Brechtian actor,” in that she puts distance between herself and the audience, without trying to seduce it or seek its sympathy. 

The actress is notorious for her illegibility - her almost Bressonian lack of expression, and the profound unrest she’s able to convey from behind the stillness of her freckled resting face. Pauline Kael, the famous film critic, once complained that “when [Huppert] has an orgasm, it barely ruffles her blank surface.” If Kael had lived to see “Abuse of Weakness,” “Elle,” or “I Heart Huckabees,” perhaps she would have come to appreciate how the stillness of Huppert’s unbeatable poker face allows her to normalize even the strangest and most perverse of characters; to make it seem as though any of their behaviors, no matter how unusual or demented, are as natural to them as we are to ourselves.

It’s a quality that European directors and audiences have embraced, but which can seem more foreign to Americans. Huppert loves American cinema, but she also knows her sensibility is distinctly French.

Huppert is known for her privacy and reserve - she generally doesn’t talk to the press about anything other than her films - and if there’s a connection between her autobiography and the roles she chooses, that’s something that only she knows.

Aware of her own enigmatic appeal, she has no qualms about exploiting it. She has even less desire to charm, although her formidable impassivity sometimes betrays a hint of vulnerability. Not that she will let the viewer get too close, however, as she is forever intent on remaining “more like a question mark than a statement”.

Isabelle Huppert is not just courageous when it comes to choosing film roles and artistic collaborators. She is fearless, and such is her integrity that we trust her instincts and follow wherever she leads. That’s what makes her the most dangerous actress of our time.

Below is a top ten list of Isabelle Huppert films. They are not in order nor are they her very best. There are simply too many films in her body of work that would deserve equal consideration. Instead the list is made up of films that given an introduction to her wide ranging talents.

1. The Lace Maker 1977

Isabelle Huppert won the most promising newcomer award for her graceful, guileless performance as Pomme in Claude Goretta’s masterly adaptation of a Pascal Lainé novel, which took its title from a Vermeer painting. Whether doing her chores at a Parisian beauty salon, playing blindman’s buff on a Cabourg clifftop with dashing Sorbonne student Yves Beneyton, trying to eat an apple without disturbing his reading or choking over dinner with his snooty parents, Huppert is mesmerising.

2. Violette Nozière 1978

The first of her seven collaborations with Claude Chabrol earned Huppert the best actress prize at Cannes. She was 25 when she played the demure schoolgirl who shocked 1930s Paris when details of her double life as a prostitute emerged following the poisoning of her father. Violette claimed he had abused her, but Chabrol thinks otherwise and exploits Huppert’s genius for switching between fragility and cruelty to counter the surrealist myth that the teenage parricide was an anti-bourgeois icon.

Huppert embodies this character that’s chiefly concerned with finding love. She walks the streets at night, characteristically promiscuous, but don’t call her a prostitute. She’d refute. Throughout the film, she gives more money to the men then vice versa. At night, when she leaves her quiet bourgeois home, and finds a man to accompany her, she looks unusually bothered. The film is sometimes maddeningly ambiguous but perhaps that’s the point - Chabrol and Huppert want us to feel mixed about her.

Violette is a woman with an air of mystery around her. She’s precocious but not as clever as she thinks. Huppert gazes and kisses her own mirror reflection. She writes fictional love letters to herself as well. Huppert quietly stresses the motivation behind the character: desperate to find someone to love, or else she’ll have to love herself. Except, she can’t even love herself because she feels stifled by her home life. And as ever with narcissism, there are dangerous consequences.

3. La Cérémonie 1995

“Chabrol only ever cast me as fairly ordinary characters,” Huppert once revealed. “They just have rather particular destinies.” While she would go on to embody Chabrolian womanhood (“not victims, not fighters, somewhere in between”) in Rien ne va plus (1997), Merci pour le chocolat (2000) and Comedy of Power (2006), she gave her finest performance for him in this seething adaptation of Ruth Rendell’s A Judgement in Stone.

An upper-class family warns their meek maid (Sandrine Bonnaire) about the local mail lady, Jeanne (Isabelle Huppert). They become friends regardless. Huppert plays Jeanne as kooky, comic, and rebellious. We gradually find out more cryptic background on her character, which gives her spirited attitude a darker edge. She’s either heartbroken or heartless. Huppert portrays a character with so many contradictory traits without ever making it feel false.

Huppert performs the role cunningly. Jeanne is energised like a child, but she’s smart enough to know how to win over the maid. She’s a little silly - when she enters the family’s home while they’re away, she touches everything. Huppert balances all of this next to the near-mute Bonnaire, both slowly exacting their revenge against the upper class. Chabrol’s trademark: clash of the classes.

Huppert thoroughly deserved her first César.

In 2014, Huppert performed Jean Genet’s play The Maids with Cate Blanchett. The play was inspired, as was La Cérémonie, on the same true-story about the Papin sisters.

4. The Piano Teacher 2001

The Piano Teacher is an elegantly made film about the deranged endeavors of love. Huppert plays a buttoned-up music instructor, Erika, who attracts the eyes of an unassuming man half her age. She still lives with her mother and there’s a danger that lurks behind her carefully placed gaze. She’s been sexually repressed for such a long time; her repression and self-hatred has slowly evolved into masochism. It drives her to haunt peep shows, spy on copulating couples and mutilate her own genitals. This disturbing film really made an impact world wide. 

Nobody said this film was an easy watch!

Haneke gives the spectator all the intricacies of the concept of perversion inserted in Huppert’s character of Erika, a successful piano teacher and an apparently impeccable social life. Well, that’s what Erika keeps on the surface.

Huppert declared the second of her four collaborations with Haneke to be the film she had long been searching for.

5. 8 Women 2002

There’s no validity in the truism that Huppert doesn’t do comedy. In fact she proved she could both dance and sing (the plaintive ‘Message personnel’ is a career highlight) in François Ozon’s chic 1950s musical whodunit. Sporting a tight bun, a buttoned-up twin-set, pursed red lips and butterfly spectacles, Huppert invokes the spirit of legendary farceur Louis de Funès as Catherine Deneuve’s argumentative sister. She gives an indelible display of neurotic, spinsterly bitchiness that is simultaneously piteous and hilarious.

6. Elle 2016

A successful woman enters a real ordeal after being raped by a stranger in her home. Powerful, ‘Elle’ unravels all the nuances of a character’s life inserted into a completely incongruous personal, social and psychological reality. Here, the character will demonstrate how her attitude towards the world follows a sociopathic pattern of acting, despising any form of emotional attachment and using other individuals solely to satisfy her most primitive instincts. The film earned her an Oscar nod for Best Actress, which was fabulous but also made me wonder what took so long. Certainly she’s turned out enough superb performances over her nearly five decade career to have earned this recognition sooner.

7. Coup de Torchon 1981

Having survived a seven-month stint in Montana for Michael Cimino’s Heaven’s Gate(1980), Huppert ventured to Saint-Louis in Senegal for Bertrand Tavernier’s Oscar-nominated transposition of Jim Thompson’s pulp novel, Pop. 1280, from a small Texan town in the 1910s to west Africa on the eve of the Second World War. Although Pierre-William Glenn’s sun-scorched Steadicam imagery seems antithetical, this is a darkly droll noir that sees Huppert in an unusually skittish mood, as the abused colonial wife who forges an unlikely alliance with Philippe Noiret’s pathetic rogue police chief, who is humiliated by everyone around him, and suddenly wants a clean slate in life - but resorts to drastic means to do so.

8. Merci pour le chocolat 2000

The film follows the nuances of a French upper class family, exploring the destructive ways in which each member acts on the world. Directed by Claude Chabrol, ‘Merci pour le Chocolat’ is an interesting film, bringing a more cadenced plot that values studying each meander of the behavior of its central characters.

The movie is set in Lausanne, and that Swiss location, having an ambient sense of buttoned-up severity and menace, is an appropriate setting with a Nabokovian mien for this horrid tale of sociopathy.

Huppert dominates the film with the slightly frigid poise of a great dancer who has retired to become an exacting teacher. She plays Mika, a woman who presides wearily and almost negligently over the prosperous chocolate business built up by her late father. But however disengaged she is in the boardroom, in the kitchen she loves chocolate with a passion - concocting various types of drinking chocolate, using subtly differing recipes, with fanatical and murderous care.

There is something fascinating about Huppert's face here. In repose, it has a kind of unsettling serenity, the serenity of a cunning and covert predator who has already decided on an unspeakable course of action.

9. La Séparation 1994

Isabelle Huppert and Daniel Auteuil play a couple on the verge of a separation. The relationship’s mainstay is their child, one-year-old Loulou. Autueil gets most of the film’s focus, but he’s essentially a sitting duck, nervously shifting between passive-aggressive contempt and hopeful endearment, as he prepares for the outcome of his girlfriend’s infidelity. He says, “Never two without three.” This could be the quote-totem of the film.

The director smartly leaves the interloping lover out of the film (he’s never seen or even named). Instead, we study Auteuil’s growing impatience and Huppert’s pivotal decision. She adds a lot of depth to a character that could’ve just been the unsympathetic partner of the cuckold.

Huppert gives her character integrity and even though she’s ostensibly guilty, she never comes off as purely selfish. She’s troubled, as well, by their situation - we sense her detachment not due to ego but because she’s boggled in trying to assess the right mode of conduct. Huppert and Auteuil have great chemistry, changing gears effortlessly between vitriol and affection.

Huppert’s distinctive talent for suppressing suffering is readily evident in her slowly disintegrating relationship with Daniel Auteuil, as Huppert imparts chilling intimacy to a withdrawn hand, an unanswering gaze, a treacherous silence and a careless word in conveying the pain of falling out of love.

10. Madame Bovary 1991

Not her greatest film but certainly one of the most accessible for anyone not familiar with the talents of Huppert. Based on Gustave Flaubert’s fabulous novel, the film brings the exacerbated trajectory of a young girl who has a highly romanticised view of the world and craves beauty, wealth, passion, as well as high society. It is the disparity between these romantic ideals and the realities of her country life that drive most of the novel, leading her into two affairs and to accrue an insurmountable amount of debt that eventually leads to her suicide.

This adaptation of ‘Madame Bovary’ is perhaps the best of any adaptation to date. Claude Chabrol manages to capture even the most emblematic nuances of Flaubert’s book, elevating a unique atmosphere for the unfolding of scenes. 

However, the main point of distinction between this work and the others is the presence of Isabelle Huppert as protagonist, delivering a powerful and visceral performance from the first to the last scene.

[hournites]

still turn the switches on, just to see if it’s still gone

Stargirl fic

Warning: Blindness, Anxiety, Panic Attack 

Summary: Being blind never really slowed Beth down after her accident. She had Chuck, who guided her through hallways and used the words her friends failed to find to describe what she was missing. And her voice, well that wasn’t gone. She could still talk and she could still listen and in fact, she never read social cues very well in the first place, so really when it came to talking people’s ears off things haven’t much changed.

~.~

Being blind never really slowed Beth down after her accident. She had Chuck, who guided her through hallways and used the words her friends failed to find to describe what she was missing. And her voice, well that wasn’t gone. She could still talk and she could still listen and in fact, she never read social cues very well in the first place, so really when it came to talking people’s ears off things haven’t much changed.

Her mother doted over her more, which was weird because before she was found in her own emergency room Beth swore she was trying to pull away. Her dad bought her a bookcase full of her favourite novels in braille, which was very thoughtful. Pat gifted her with Dr. Mcnider’s owl for companionship and defence during missions. Most kids at school seemed to at least try to help her out. There was no use denying the need for extra assistance. Trying to explain that her artificial intelligence sufficed well enough to adapt to a handicapped life thanks to her superheroing pursuits was hard to explain, not to mention dangerous (and owls were strictly prohibited therapy animals in the Blue Valley High handbook—She checked). So Beth often found herself smiling at those who brushed against her arm or told her what time a teacher’s office hours were, even so far as helping her pack her bag.

Unnecessary, maybe. But it was nice.

This was why when she reached into her backpack during lunch on her way from the test accommodations room, her heart dropped to her gut. Beth only felt crumpled papers, her two binders, and her pencil case. Struck with alarm, she called out his name but was met with silence. Awful, sickening silence and a draft from the half-opened window in the staircase.

Her goggles weren’t there.

“Chuck?”

Her fingers flexed against the line of her inner zipper hard enough to get a paper cut. Her phone was also missing. Her phone had Chuck programmed into its assistance system. Her phone and Chuck. Gone.

Someone stole him while she took her test. Someone who would know she was dependent on him. Someone who knew she was Dr. Mid-Nite. Someone who went to this school.

Shiv? Tigress?

Beth’s mind raced as she jutted out her hand towards the cold railing. It was so silent. Too silent. She needed to hear Chuck’s voice in her ear. That reassurance was the backbone of her strength and confidence and her eyes.

She never had to deal with quiet like this. She’d have her own thoughts probing the back of her mind while she daydreamed or took her tests. She’d have Chuck’s constant chattering and Hootie’s feather rustlings, Yolanda’s giggles, Court’s cheers, Pat’s comforting words. And maybe there’d be that part of herself that mourned what it was like not to need that: True friendship and belonging, the assurance of who and what made up her definition of home.

That chilling loneliness from those days before JSA was miserable in a matter of fact way, but Beth was used to it then, independent and resilient and unknowing anything better.

Abandoned here was reminiscent of that time exemplified. Back when she was loser Beth. Not blind Beth.

She loved JSA, she loved her friends, but sometimes she preferred the crippling isolation that came with that. The safety of before. But she had to remind herself it wasn’t safe. It wasn’t safe and it wasn’t healthy. Whether she had her sight or not, all of Blue Valley was in danger and would be brainwashed now if she hadn’t stepped up to help.

But not like this.

Her breathing grew ragged as she clutched the side of the wall, mind spiralling. She knew Blue Valley High. She knew this school. This was her school, this was her year’s wing and this was the C block stairwell. She had the entire building memorized before she ever needed to.

She couldn’t remember the number of steps. The number locked itself in the haze of her anxiety. It could be twelve or fifteen or sixteen or twenty-six. Or, there could be chocolate milk spilt in the middle for her to slip on and break her neck and Beth wouldn’t even know.  If this was Cindy’s attempt at psychological warfare, it was working. She was immobilized, alone, afraid, and for the first time in too long, completely blind.

“Chuck?”

Why was she still calling out for him like a helpless child? He couldn’t help her. He wasn’t there.

Beth’s fingers shook as she felt along the dirty metal railing. She slid herself down, her back touching the wall. If Cindy was going to ambush her, she’d at least won’t make it too easy.

Two minutes morphed into five, then ten. Beth stayed in a fragile panic with her backpack clutched to her chest. Courtney was going to find her here dead because she was too afraid to walk down a flight of stairs. This was going to be by far the lamest death in JSA history and here she was, suppressing her hand over her mouth, still bawling her eyes out regardless of it.

The door from the bottom creaked open and Beth’s breathing ceased. The footsteps were slower but sounded heavy like the person was going up two at a time. Soon, two hands were on hers and she was throwing her arms around their neck, clinging tightly because she knew who they belonged to.

“Rick!”

“Beth? You weren’t answering your phone, Yolanda sent me out to find you. What happened?”

“Someone stole Chuck.”

He stilled, and she could feel through his thin shirt the way his heart sped against her ear.

“What?” His hand went straight to her hair, stroking it as his voice went harder. “Who the fuck would do that to you?”

She didn’t answer, sure that a handful of possible answers came to his mind.

“Why didn’t you come to find us?” he asked her a lot more softly.

It was hard to explain why Beth was paralyzed.

“I can’t,” she whimpered. “They took my phone. I got scared.”

Rick moved her back, pushing her from the edge of the top step. “I’ll carry you.”

“No!”

Rick paused just as the flat of his palms touched the underneath of her knees. He was going to carry her all the way to the cafeteria and everyone in the hall would stop and stare and whisper and Beth never cared about what people thought of her (she already knew—Chuck informed her weekly) but being carried around the school while clinging to Rick Tyler because she got disoriented would be the most mortifying experience of her existence.

The confusion in his voice was evident. And if she didn’t know better, she might’ve thought he felt hurt. “You don’t want me to—?”

Beth turned her head away. Of course, she wanted him to hold her again. Like she hadn’t dreamed of Hourman catching her over and over since that very first week over a year ago. She realized her fondness and interest in Rick’s friendship was less that of strong will and more of a swelling crush. That didn’t make it any less difficult to manage. She took a breath, chest still tight like half of the oxygen in her lungs had been swapped with something more noxious. This was starting to be too much.

The problem with Chuck was that she’d never really accepted being blind.

When her eyesight deteriorated after the accident, Beth had been in such deep denial she smiled and lied to her mother when asked if she felt okay enough to return to school, only to walk right into oncoming traffic. An older man yanked her by the arm of her backpack as two cars flew by fast enough to bring the rush of wind to her face. Rattled, Beth felt into her bag for Chuck, ignoring the swimming black spots in her vision. She’d rub her eyes with her fists too hard when she woke up that morning, she kept telling herself and refused to put Chuck away.

And then, when she had to confess those black spots weren’t going away, that they were only narrowing into her focal points and she tricked up her phone to get Chuck there too...That was it. She told the JSA that she was going blind after her doctor visit confirmed she was going to lose it all. They all burst into tears for her, but Beth didn’t, stuck in an accepting kind of numb.

The darkness snuck up on her like a shadow behind her back. Every blink and she wondered if it was the last one. It dragged on and her world got a little darker with every new day. Anxiety cracked at her spirit and broke her down, and she’d stay awake at night, staring up at her ceiling, practising for the familiarity of it without Chuck. Soon, she wished for it, begging the wait to be over.

Misery would not leave her until it did.

Beth could see in X-ray, infrared and pitch black when nobody else could. She used to tell herself that made her different. That she didn’t have it so bad. She knew everything there was to see, and with Hootie on her shoulder and the blackout bombs she deployed in battle, Chuck levelled the playing field. Maybe even tipped odds of success in her favour.

So really, maybe Beth had been living a disillusioned lie for the last few months.

She couldn’t be Dr. Mid-Nite all the time.

“I’ll do it myself,” she said, pushing a light hand against his chest. It was possible that her voice was trembling, and she didn’t sound all too sure, but that didn’t mean it wasn’t true. “I need to.”

Rick hesitated. “Beth, you’re shaking. I don’t think—”

“Please, Rick. They can take…” Her hands went to her face, wiping away her hot tears. He was right, she was shaking. “They can take my sight and my security and Chuck. But they can’t make me any less of who I am. I’ve walked down these stairs hundreds of times with sight and blindness. I can do this.” Her voice petered off, and she felt worried again at his silence. “Do you believe me?”

“I’m not the one that needs to believe it, Beth.”

Rick wasn’t the one doubting her. Her insecurities and self-doubt came from within. The words were harsh like a slap to her face, no matter how soft he uttered them. A cold reality check, but coming from his mouth, it was meaningful and not meant in any way to hurt her. Coming from Rick, it was different. And it was true.

He was a lot more clever than he let on.

She stared down where the grips on the bottom of her shoes teetered over the edge of the first step. Rick might’ve not been as close to her anymore but she knew he was hovering. It felt like a cliff or a massive waterfall. Her heart pounded like she was at the ledge of the world. She had to tell her brain to stop imagining those things. It only made it scarier. It’s like she said before. These were stairs. This was her cell block, the wing that led to the locker area. This was her school. It was familiar ground. She bit her lip, reining in the courage before it went away and held out her hand.

“Keep me steady?” Because the world could still turn at her anxiety’s whim. Or maybe she just wasn’t ready to let him go. Rick grasped her hand tight.

“How many stairs are there?”

“Twenty-three.”

Beth exhaled. Twenty-three. She could do that. Her other hand went to the railing, and she took her first blind step down. Her stomach swooped like the drop in an elevator. But then her foot hit solid ground.

That was it?

She stepped down again, and it was fine.

It was fine.

“There you go,” Rick encouraged her, squeezing her hand to let her know he was still there. “You don’t need me.”

She actually didn’t. Muscle memory and confidence guided her through, and eventually, on step thirteen, she let go.

When she reached the floor, a rush of pride flooded through her. She was perfectly fine. More than fine, she was great and not crying anymore. Whoever thought stealing Chuck would render her useless was in for a surprise because—

Beth spun around, realizing she had walked right on, pushed the door and made an angry beeline through the mercifully empty hall to get to the cafeteria, leaving Rick behind.

He grabbed her hand again after jogging after her.

“Hey!” he said, with a smile in his tone. “I didn’t mean that literally.”

Beth’s face heated up, mostly because she was acutely aware she was now clinging to his hand, deliberately locking their fingers together. “Sorry.” She wasn’t sure what she was apologizing for. 

He brushed his thumb against her knuckles. He didn’t seem to mind. “It’s my fault. So who am I killing tonight?”

Beth scoffed. “You won’t kill anybody.”

“I might,” Rick muttered, tugging her quickly to the side, presumably so she wouldn’t step on something. She stumbled a bit, but only ended up bumping into Rick. Beth flushed and reoriented herself.

“Thanks,” she murmured, slowing her pace to be more careful. Then returned to the conversation. “You said you couldn’t.”

“Yeah,” Rick said. “...Well. Whoever the hell thought they could get away with stealing Chuck—”

“Someone stole Chuck?” Yolanda cried over the chattering of everyone else on lunch break.

Her shins hit the bench of the table. Beth put her hands out on the surface to climb in and Courtney immediately ended up at her side. Beth wrinkled her nose as bouncy curls flew into her face.

“Are you okay?”

“She is now,” Rick said, now sitting beside her. He touched her arm. “You are, right?”

“Yeah, I guess,” she answered quietly, indulging in leaning against him because he was using a soft, gentle voice that made her want to hug him forever. “I’m not freaking out anymore.” Beth lifted a reluctant shoulder and wiped at her wet face. “He’s still missing though.”

“It’s Cindy,” Courtney said, narrowing her eyes across the room.

“We don’t know that for sure.”

“No, I do,” said Court. “She’s staring at us right now.”

Rick’s warmth was gone in an instant.

“Wait—” Beth called after him just knowing he now had his hourglass. Her hand reached out to empty space.

“I’m knocking the bitch out. Court, let’s go.”

“On it!”

“You’re gonna beat her up in the middle of the caf?” Yolanda hissed at them to sit back down. “You can’t do that!”

But then Yolanda muttered something under her breath.

“What?” Beth asked when the rest went quiet, but she could sense the way all of her friends tensed up.

“She has the goggles Beth,” Court said. “She’s taunting us with them right now.”

“Really?”

“Yeah,” Yolanda said tersely. It was obvious she also was exhausted by Cindy.

“Okay.” Beth stood up. “Bring me over so I don’t trip on a wet brown napkin or something.”

“You want to go over there?!?”

“Yes,” Beth snapped with a hard glare. It probably wasn’t aimed at the right spot but that didn’t mean it wasn’t fierce. “She wanted to scare me? She did. But Cindy has been cruel for so long and I’m not giving her the satisfaction of—” She balled her hands into fists and took a long slow breath to calm down.  She hadn’t realized she was almost yelling.

She released them after a moment and dropped her hands back to her sides. Beth was seething mad, that was for sure, but if she didn’t get her anger in check her plan would be no better than Courtney and Rick’s. “—I’m getting Chuck back so hurry up and get me there before I lose my nerve.”

Nobody said anything.

“Now,” she clipped.

“I—”

They realized she meant business and they all scrambled to catch up with her, realizing she wasn’t going to wait.

The three surrounded her like bodyguards. Her arm linked with Rick’s and Yolanda’s hand was on her back, guiding her to the popular table.

Beth touched her hair briefly and stiffened her spine. She didn’t know what she was going to say, but trusted herself enough to improv once she got there.

When Yolanda removed her hand, Beth knew they were in front of Cindy, Jenny and her other group of mean girls. She let go of Rick, choosing to fold her arms over her chest instead.

“What are you staring at, Beth?” Cindy drawled at her. There was a pause and she tittered. “Oh wait—”

The table straight up laughed.

“Burman!” Rick barked.

Courtney stepped up too, but both Yolanda and Beth blocked her with a warning hand.

“Hey,” Beth said coolly, with an eerie collectedness she didn’t even know she had. “I came to have a chat with you.”

“Oh, she wants to talk? That’s cute.”

“Thank you,” she said sarcastically, sailing over the condescension.

“Clearly you’re too naive and didn’t get the hint. I don’t want to talk to you. Get lost.”

Beth leaned in so close, she could hear the clinging of Shiv’s earrings. She felt movement, but she picked up on her intuition and honestly shocked herself by snatching Cindy’s bare wrist.

Cindy went still.

The worst part is that Beth knew what was underneath the soft skin and thousand dollar bangle bracelet. Cindy could so easily eject her knife and blade. She could stab Beth right through if she wanted. She’d done so to her dad in the basement of the tunnels.

But Beth wasn’t afraid.

“I don’t need to see you to know you’re smirking at me like this is the funniest thing you’ve ever done. I don’t need my eyes to know the way you were just leaning against your hand, wearing your Ralph Lauren polo shirt with one of your ridiculous berets and my visual aid dangling off the other hand like some next-season must-have accessory that you want because it’s something you can’t have.”

Beth dug her nails into Cindy’s skin. It’s not like it would scar. She continued, acutely aware of the way so much of the room seemed to have gone silent. If half the school hears her go off on Cindy Burman, maybe a few of the kids too terrified to stand up to anyone bullying them could learn a thing or two as well.

“But let me tell you something, Cindy. You can’t have it. I can’t see without them. I’m blind.”

“I know,” Cindy gritted out through her teeth.

“Yeah, I’m blind,” Beth raised her voice, just a little. “And so are you. Except you and I? We’re nothing alike. I lost my sight because of an accident, but you are blind and ignorant and grossly egocentric. And you did that to yourself. So take my phone out of your purse before I let Rick rip it from you, give me my goggles, and leave me the hell alone.”

Cindy dropped the goggles onto the floor, expecting the lenses to shatter.

They don’t.

~.~

“Rick?”

After Cindy dropped Chuck, Rick took her phone back as Yolanda ripped her a new one about being creepy with her phone theft habit, emboldened by Beth’s speech. The four left the cafeteria after, all wanting to leave, wishing the lunch period to be over with.  

“Yeah?”

“Thanks for holding my hand.”

He stopped walking, so Beth stopped walking. His hand in hers gave a light squeeze. Which was nice, because it meant he hadn’t let go since she put Chuck back on and blinked back at him after a shy glance, so relieved to see the outlines of his face again in any way she’s given.

“Whatever you need.”

She believed him, sure enough. Beth sighed as they walked through the hall. Courtney and Yolanda were behind them, talking about something Beth couldn’t care enough to listen to.

“Then...I need a cane. My dad bought one a while ago but I’ve left it in my room because I didn’t want it.”

“But…” He frowned at her, sounding confused. “You got Chuck back. You don’t need the cane now.”

Beth sighed. “Except, I do. I’m legally blind, Rick.”

“Yeah, but Beth—”

She shrugged her shoulders and bit her lower lip. “It’s true. I need to learn to live as I am. Not what I wish I could be.”

“You are Dr. Mid-Nite.”

“I know that,” she promised softly, patting his arm. “But I’m Beth Chapel, too. I can’t be afraid of being me.”

[luci-in-trenchcoats]

Love Her (Part 1)

Summary: When the reader and her younger brother and sister are moved to a new foster home after discovering some news about their father, she is convinced their new foster dad is only interested in adopting her sister. But he has a few secrets of his own he’ll have to work through as the reader starts to learn what family really means...

Masterlist

Pairing: Doctor!Dean x foster daughter!reader

Word Count: 2,600ish

Warnings: language, mentions of death

______

“Y/N-” 

“Over my dead body,” you scoffed, crossing your arms as you sat back in your seat in her office. Paula stared at you and you gave it right back. “I’m serious.”

“A man is interested in adopting Rae, Y/N. He will foster-”

“We have a dad in case you forgot,” you said.

“He will foster her for the time being. You know how this works,” she said.

“What about Ryan? What about her fucking twin, hm?” you shot back.

“Language,” said Paula.

“They are almost five years old. They are twins and you want to rip them apart? Rip us apart?” you said.

“You are fifteen, almost sixteen. You understand the likelihood of your biological father regaining full custody,” she said.

“So you’re going to auction us off like cattle in the meantime? Sure, give the kids a new dad, different dads. Who gives a shit?” you said, glaring at her.

“I do, Y/N. I have kept you three together from the time you entered foster care five years ago,” she said. “My job is to look after the best interest of the child. This man will be able to do that for Rae, much more so than your other foster homes have.”

“Let me guess. He’s some rich guy,” you said.

“He’s a doctor.”

“Shocker,” you said as you stood up. “The second you come down to our house and try to take her away from Ry and me, you’re gonna have problems.”

“Y/N-”

“You can’t take her,” you said as the door opened, the receptionist standing there with a man.

“Your three o’ clock is here, Paula,” she said. 

“One more minute,” she said. The receptionist pulled the door shut and you took a deep breath, Paula standing up. “Y/N. We always try to keep the family together if we can. You know that.”

“Then why are you splitting us up? Dad gets out soon. A few more months and then he’s out on probation. It was an accident. They’re gonna give him probation,” you said. She sighed and walked around the desk, resting her hands on your arms.

“Y/N...there’s been some developments over the past few months,” she said. “Your father gave up custody-”

“No,” you said. “He wouldn’t.”

“He decided to give up custody two months ago. It’s in process. He’s become violent and committed a few crimes on the inside. He’s admitted to doing a few things. His sentencing is changing. He likely won’t be leaving prison. Not for a very long time, if ever,” she said.

“Excuse me?” you said.

“Y/N. I asked you to stop down after school so I could tell you. I know you’ve been waiting years for your dad to get out but I’m so sorry, sweetie. It’s not going to happen. Not anytime soon,” she said.

“So you’re telling me that in addition to the fact someone is trying to take Rae away from us, dad’s not getting out of prison and apparently he’s no longer my dad?” you said.

“We do what’s in the best interest of the child. In the long run, this is better for all three of you,” she said. You scoffed and shrugged away.

“Rae and Ryan are going to get split up and I’m...like you said, I’m almost sixteen. My shot of being adopted is zero. So basically I’m going to be in foster care until I age out, the twins will get new and different families and we’re all fucked,” you said.

“Y/N-”

“Forget it,” you said. “You’ll do whatever you want anyways.”

You left her office quickly and bumped into the man outside, a pair of scrubs on him. Of course he was the freaking doctor that was taking Rae away.

“Asshole,” you said, bumping his arm as you went.

“Y/N,” said Paula as you stormed down the hall. “Y/N!”

“Leave us alone.”

The Next Day

You couldn’t help but be extra clingy with Rae since you left the office. You didn’t want her to go. She could drive you insane sometimes but you loved her more than the world. It would upset Ryan if she left and you’d have to be strong for him and you were just plain tired of doing that all the time. 

You were playing dolls when the doorbell rang and you saw Rob, your current foster dad, give you a long look.

“What?” you said.

“Just try and behave for once,” he said as he got up from his chair and went to the door.

“I do behave, jerk,” you mumbled. He returned after a moment with Paula, Rae’s moving duffel and backpack being set down. You wrapped your arms around your sister and brother, giving Paula a glare.

“She’s not ready to go?” asked Paula.

“No,” you said. Paula sighed and glanced at Rob.

“Did you not tell her?” she asked.

“I thought you were going to,” he said.

“We’re going to discuss this, Rob. Y/N, go pack your bags and Ryan’s,” she said.

“No,” you said.

“Well you guys are going with Rae to her new home so unless you-” she said as you broke into a smile. “Yeah. I figured you’d like that. Pack up your stuff.”

You gave the twins both a hug before you were off and heading for the bedroom you shared with them. Rae’s part of the dresser was already empty and you’d packed up your own and Ryan’s things often enough that it didn’t take long.

You were fully aware that this doctor guy had intentions of adopting Rae but maybe he’d be interested in Ryan too once he met him. There was still a chance they’d end up staying together and that was more than enough for today. Your odds...you knew your odds but at least the twins might have had a chance to be okay.

“Whoa,” said Ryan as Paula parked in the driveway of your new foster home an hour later. “Their house is so big!”

“Your new foster dad is a doctor, Ryan. He’s single,” she said and you raised an eyebrow. The guy was probably a workaholic and a nanny would be watching the kids. Or maybe that’s why you had gotten to come along, so you could watch them for him.

“Y/N,” said Paula when you started to frown. “You were excited not twenty minutes ago.”

“I was excited for…” you said, nodding backwards at the twins. “Pretty sure this guy isn’t going to be dad of the year though.”

“Give him a chance. You three are his first fosters,” she said. You sighed and got out of the car, Paula following after. “Y/N. Please give him a chance. This guy is looking to adopt. It’s not just another way station.”

“He’s looking to adopt a little kid, not me,” you said. She didn’t say anything and you knew you were right. You sighed and opened the back door for Rae, handing her the pink backpack she owned, Paula helping Ryan on the other side. You slung your own over your shoulder and grabbed your duffel from the trunk, Ryan’s on top of yours while Paula got the other one. The kids ran up the front path with Paula and rang the doorbell as you trudged behind, standing at the back.

“Hi,” said the man when he opened the door, a nervous smile on his face. You hadn’t paid him much attention in Paula’s office but he was probably only mid or late thirties if you had to guess. “I’m Dean. Come on in.”

“You guys know the drill,” said Paula, ushering them inside, Dean holding open the door for you as you stepped into a foyer. It was a nice house, way nicer than anything you’d stayed in before. But being a doctor you figured this guy was knocking down a pretty decent sized salary. “Guys, this is Dean Winchester and he’s going to be taking care of you for quite a while we hope. Dean, this is Rae, her twin Ryan and this is Y/N.”

“Hi!” said the twins. Dean gave them a smile and looked at you, swallowing when you just stared back at him. 

“Why don’t we find your new rooms?” asked Paula. Dean took the lead and you followed them upstairs, Ryan and Rae each getting their own rooms with a bathroom in the hallway to share. You headed towards the other bedroom up there but Dean chuckled.

“Oh, your room is downstairs,” he said. “I’ll show you.”

You looked back at Paula and she waved you to go with him. Back down on the first floor, he showed you a small hallway and opened the door.

“It was the guest suite but there’s a bigger bedroom, closet, your own bathroom. I thought you might like the privacy from the little kids,” he said.

“Why?” you asked.

“Paula mentioned you’ve always had to share a room with them. I thought you might like it. You’re free to take the bedroom upstairs if you’d like that better. This one is a bit nicer is all,” he said.

“It’s fine,” you said, dumping the duffel and your backpack on the bed. “So I heard you want to adopt my sister.”

“I was interested in it,” he said. “I hadn’t realized there were other kids in the family at the time though.”

“So now you don’t want to?” you asked, crossing your arms.

“I didn’t say that. I’m sorry if I offended you in some way but I’m not sure what I did to-”

“Are you some kind of weirdo? Or workaholic?” you asked.

“Excuse me?”

“I’ve met my share of foster dads and you’re different. So what is it. You work too much and couldn’t find a girl? Are you just super weird? You’re like, old enough to have found someone and made your own kids at this point,” you said.

“I’m thirty seven and life doesn’t happen on a schedule,” he said, his face a little harder than before. “I’m simply at a point where I don’t want to have to wait for the right person in order to have a family.”

“I see you avoided the workaholic question,” you said.

“I’m a pediatrician. I work in a family practice. 8-4:30, five days a week. That is all. I have some flexibility so I’ll take you guys to school and pick you up,” he said. You hummed and rolled your eyes, Dean lifting his chin. “If you have a problem with me, I’d rather we address it now.”

“I have a problem with you stealing my siblings away from me,” you said.

“Stealing your siblings? I’m sorry but I have no idea what you’re talking about,” he said.

“You wanted to adopt a child, Rae, right? Maybe you’ll reconsider Ryan too since they’re twins and all but me? I know how this ends up,” you said.

“You do, do you,” he said, crossing his arms in return.

“Yeah, I do. I don’t care if you end up adopting them,” you said, stepping in front of him and getting in his face. “They are my siblings, no matter what.”

“Kid. I don’t know what you think I’m going to do but all I am going to do is be a foster dad to them and to you,” he said. 

“Save the bullshit,” you said. “I’m not a little kid, Dean.”

“No, you’re not. But you’re wrong about me,” he said. “It would have been far simpler to just take Rae in. But I’m not someone who’s going to breakup a family. Ever. So maybe I didn’t expect you but that doesn’t mean you’re not going to be welcomed here.”

“I’m sure you mean that too,” you said. “But I know given everything that happened with my dad, Rae and Ryan, they’re getting adopted, whether it’s by you or someone else. I know what happens to me so why don’t you leave me the fuck alone.”

“I do know what happens to you,” he said. “You have a permanent home now. Someday I hope you realize that.”

“I thought I said to leave me alone,” you shot back.

“I think you’ve been alone enough in your life,” he said. “Good luck getting me to stop caring.”

“Challenge accepted,” you said. “Now leave.”

“Y/N, oh and look!” said Ryan, showing you the playroom again that night, Rae still running around in circles in there before jumping on the big stuffed animal bear and giggling.

“Hey guys, you like the playroom?” asked Dean when he poked his head in the room, both of them nodding their heads. “Maybe this weekend we can pick out a few toys? I heard two someone’s are turning five soon...”

“Yeah!” they both said. You rolled your eyes when you back was to him.

“Alright. We’ll check it out then. I think it’s getting to be bedtime for you two though,” he said. They whined and looked at you.

“Come on. Put on your pajamas and then we’ll do story time,” you said, ushering them back towards the door. You walked past Dean and followed Rae into her room, quickly getting her changed, grabbing a book from the shelf and following her into Ryan’s room. Dean followed quietly and hung out by the door while you spent the next ten or so minutes reading over their shoulders to them. Rae started to lean on you and you shut the book, giving Ryan a hug goodnight before you carried her back into her room. You sighed after you pulled her door shut, Dean back out in the hallway area. You gave him a glance before heading downstairs and making a beeline for your room.

“Y/N. You don’t have to go to bed,” he said. “It’s only a little after eight.”

“I know,” you said, opening the door.

“Can we talk?” he asked. 

“About?” you said, turning around to face him.

“Anything? You haven’t spoken a word since Paula left,” he said.

“I don’t really want to talk to you, Dean,” you said. You saw him move but you stepped inside the room and shut the door in his face. 

“Y/N,” he said, knocking on the door. “Can I come in?”

“No,” you said.

“...Don’t forget to set your alarm for school,” he said quietly.

“I got it,” you said, walking into your bedroom and laying down. You stared at the ceiling for a while before taking a quick shower and changing into your pajamas. You climbed into bed and reached to turn off the light, spotting a piece of paper on the ground by the door. 

You got up and went over to pick it up, sighing when you read it.

I know you don’t like me but if you ever want to talk, I’m here. 

“Yeah. Sure you are.”

_____

A/N: Read Part 2 here!

[tomhiddlestonfanfic]

Post Apocalyptic Love Chapter Three

Chapter 1 - Chapter 2 - Chapter 3  - Chapter 4 - Chapter 5 - Chapter 6 - Chapter 7

NUMBER OF CHAPTERS/ONE SHOT: 3/?  WHICH TOM CHARACTER: Doctor Thomas Hiddleston   PAIRING: Tom/OFC   GENRE: Drama, Romance

SUMMARY After three generations of living inside of vault 181, the era of expeditions into the wasteland has finally come. Young scientist Rory Waters is more than eager to join in on the fun together with her colleague and boss, Doctor Thomas Hiddleston. There is only one problem, Rory is a fertile and childless woman in her mid-twenties. In order to be able to go out on an expedition, she has to promise the research board that she will provide them with a child afterwards. There is only one man in the entire vault that Rory can imagine having children with…  

Taglist: @twhiddlestonsstuff​

CHAPTER THREE Collecting Samples

It was a simple expedition, really. It was seven o'clock in the morning and they were just going to head out into the wastelands of former London, collect some samples and then get back inside vault 181. It would only take a few hours. Tom had a hard time understanding why Rory would trade something as brief as a couple of hours outside the vault for a lifetime of responsibility for a child she didn’t seem interested in having. Maybe it was because she had come to realise that she couldn’t go on like she had before, that she decided to try to have one last chance of deciding one major thing in her life. To Tom, it was just another job, but to Rory, it was apparently so much more. One last chance at freedom before the shackles of parenthood got her.

No, it wasn’t quite as dramatic as that to have children in the vault. Not anymore. Most children were in fact raised collectively, and the bond between parents and child had become weaker for every generation. It was a sad development, Tom thought. He had been raised by his mother and had an unusually close bond to her. He had always fantasised about being close to his own children if he should ever have any. He had to talk to Rory about that, he thought with a sigh. He had to tell her about his wish of raising his children of his own, and not collectively, which was the most common option nowadays. Considering Rory’s unwillingness to have children up until now, Tom assumed that she wanted their child to be raised collectively, like she had been herself.

Rory smiled at Tom as they put on the protective suits along with the other people who were heading out for the expedition. He returned the smile before they put their masks on. They had eight hours before they absolutely needed to head back to the vault. They were at risk for radiation sickness and had to keep a close watch on each other and be wary of the signs.

Once they got out of the vault, Rory ran out into the unknown with Tom in tow.

“Damn it, Rory! Wait up!” he called firmly after her as he carried all of their equipment. “I’m never taking you out with me again if you do that again,” he told her sternly as he finally caught up with her after she had come to a stop. The sky was covered with dark clouds and there was no sight of the sun shining through them. They were simply too thick. Tom felt bad for Rory, the poor girl had probably expected the world outside the vault to be beautiful and full of sunlight, but was met by this sad sight of destruction and wasteland.

“I can’t believe we’re outside!” Rory told him excitedly. She didn’t seem all that bothered by the lack of sun and beauty. “I suppose we can’t see the ocean?” she asked with a naïve hopefulness.

“No,” Tom told her firmly and handed her one of the bags. Had she never seen a map of London and England? “It’s much too far away and we’ve got work to do, remember?” he reminded her.

“Right,” Rory replied somewhat disappointedly, but seemed to accept her role in all this. She was there to do her work, not sight-see the world outside the vault.

“Look for any sign of vegetation and collect every sample you can get,” Tom instructed. “We should also look for soil and water.” Rory nodded eagerly and walked off with the research bag in her hand.

The two of them walked a dozen metres away from each other, trying to find samples. It was hardly a stimulating job for restless brains such as Rory’s, Tom thought and threw glances over at her every now and then to see if she showed any signs of radiation sickness.

“I found some grass!” Rory called out excitedly after a while and took out a test tube from her bag to put the grass in.

“Grab a soil sample as well,” Tom reminded her and made sure to watch as she took out a second test tube from the bag. He himself had only found dry, infertile looking soil, and was happy about her contribution. Perhaps it wasn’t a mistake of bringing her along after all? She did have an eye for details, which he had told the research board, and it proved to be valuable in this rather uneventful sample collecting expedition.

“How much time do we have left?” Rory asked after a few hours of uneventful searching for samples that may prove useful in their research on how to make the world liveable again.

“We have five hours left until we have to be back at the absolute latest,” Tom informed her after glancing at the watch that had been attached to his arm outside of the protective suit. “Are you getting bored yet?” he asked, suspecting that was the case.

“Not at all!” Rory replied with the same enthusiasm as she had had at the beginning of their field trip. “I don’t want to get back until we absolutely have to,” she told him.

“It’s your first time, we really should get back in an hour. That’s the recommended time limit for a first timer,” he informed her. “You already know this, Rory, because I’ve gone through this with you before we headed out.”

“I know,” Rory replied and sighed heavily. “But this may be my only time outside the vault and I want to make the most of it. I think I deserve eight hours if I’m going to raise a child for the next sixteen years, don’t you think?”

Tom looked at her with surprise. “Did you just say that you’re going to raise the child yourself?”

“Yes, of course. I wouldn’t want it any other way,” Rory told him as if it was obvious. “That’s why I wanted to wait, because I wanted to be ready to take on the responsibility. I know what it’s like to be raised collectively, and it’s not fun. It can be pretty lonely, you know. I want to make sure my child has someone to talk to whenever it needs it. And I won’t ever lay a hand on my child when it does something bad, I will talk to it instead. Corporal punishment is a horrible way to correct someone’s behaviour. It just makes them better at hiding their mischief, not teaching them to stop it.”

“I suppose you should know all about that,” Tom told her with a sad smile. She was still full of mischief despite being raised so harshly. “Would you like to raise the child together with me?” he asked her hopefully.

“If you want to, Tom. I would love for the child to have both a mother and a father if possible. It’s so unusual these days,” Rory replied with a smile.

“Then it’s decided,” Tom said cheerfully. He felt so relieved and happy that they had come to an understanding. He wouldn’t have to be a single father, but the child would have two parents.

“Would you like to go monogamous with me?” Rory then asked him. Tom raised an eyebrow at her in surprise. He had never even thought about it.

“You mean you want to get married?” Tom questioned unsurely.

“If you want to,” Rory replied with a shrug. “It’s not like I’m much for sleeping around anyhow, at least not with men.”

“Do you sleep around with women?” Tom asked curiously.

“It happens,” Rory told him unabashedly. “But if we were to get married I would stop that, of course. That’s the whole point of monogamy, isn’t it?”

“Of course,” Tom agreed, smiling sheepishly as he found himself briefly imagining himself together with Rory and another woman.

“Or if you like to be with more than one woman, we could still get married and have a polyamourous relationship. I’d be up for that,” Rory told him unabashedly. Tom smiled embarrassedly in response.

“Let’s take first things first, we still need to collect some samples,” he told her.

“Right,” Rory replied and got up from the rock she had been sitting on during their break.

Previous Chapter - Next Chapter

[burntwingsandwarpaint]

randomly generated drabbles characters: 8. daryl, aaron, & jesus tropes: 98. Curses & 84. Married to the Job

So this is a loose interpretation of the prompts, more like a general inspo. Also, warnings that this is 1) definitely not a drabble, and 2) definitely not completed. might pop back in with a part two if i’m feeling inspired, but the point of this exercise is to get myself writing again, not to get myself stuck trying to force something, so i’m just gonna post what I have so far. hope you all enjoy nonetheless 😘

In the span of a whisper the blade sank through skin, and the world shattered for all of them.

.-

Paul Rovia was a whirlwind of revelations in Daryl Dixon’s life. Infuriating, frustrating, fucking intoxicating in the span of the first few hours. Daryl’d been hooked in the second their eyes met and Paul had known it. (Hell, Rick had probably known it.) Daryl hadn’t been ready to know it then, though, and so Paul (goddamn Jesus, his salvation and damnation all at once, felt like) had twisted through Daryl in those early days like a thorn in his damn side.

Aaron’d crept up on him slower. Where Jesus had been fire, danger, frustration, Aaron’d always been comfort. From Daryl’s first days at Alexandria Aaron’d melted his way into Daryl’s life, slipping past his walls and filling all the cold empty spaces inside him with endless patience and easy acceptance. Where Jesus had lit him up, Aaron’d soothed him down, a safe space for Daryl to fall into.

If Daryl’d ever thought of himself as someone deserving good things, he’d have thought it was inevitable they’d all find their way to each other. As it was, even if he couldn’t quite wrap his head around what they were getting out of it, he was just grateful they did.

It happened slow, in the aftermath of the war. The years after. They took their time with it. Toeing their way toward each other. Skirting in and back over old wounds. And when they finally did, all three of them for the first time together, it’d felt so damn much like inevitable that Daryl halfway hated every second they’d wasted finding it.

He hated them more the instant that blade slid in, and the fire faded from Paul’s eyes.

.-

There were things you learned, spending years living out in the wild. There were things in the wild that learned you. Daryl’d seen glimpses of Her in flutters and lingering shadows, in shapes of trees warped into the semblance of faces, there and gone the next time he went through. He knew the swamps were Her territory, but he’d never bothered Her much and the things that did seemed to go quiet soon after. So they’d spent the years in a comfortable sort of coexistence. Understanding, distant respect.

Until She came to him in the lonely dark of Paul’s grave.

One hundred dead each day, she’d offered, voice a rustle of leaves through winter forests, a groan of branches in the wind. One hundred dead souls each day for a hundred days, in exchange for your lover’s life.

She’d held it out to him, tempting, like a needle for a vein. A sweetness and a promise of salvation that’d kill him slow in the quest for it. 

And that night, curled against Aaron on their too-empty bed, feeling his lover’s already battered soul breaking a bit more on the pressure of choked, brittle sobs, Daryl knew his answer.

Outside the window, the leaves burst into a rush of laughter, and Daryl curled Aaron closer.

And the next morning, he set to work.

.-

Aaron wouldn’t understand, was the thing. Couldn’t. People who hadn’t lived in the wild, who didn’t have it singing through their veins, they didn’t get shit like Old Ones and Bargains and the things that were possible if you were willing to risk worse things than your soul dealing with Them. Daryl slipped out in the morning after Paul’s death and started tracking fresh Walkers. Found a trickle of them, then a herd, and by mid-afternoon he’d reached his kill count. Felt the caress of a twig nicking the back of his hand –– a deal struck, marked in blood –– and made his way home to Hilltop.

Aaron hadn’t said anything, but there’d been a glint of pain in his tired eyes when Daryl’d found him. A hesitation. And then he’d brought Daryl some food and wiped the blood and filth off him, and dragged him back to bed where they’d tried and failed to learn the shape of the world with just the two of them living in it.

.-

On the fifth day, Aaron parted his lips to talk about it. Said “I know you’re hurting, I get it, but––” And Daryl’d shaken his head, a little frantic, and caught Aaron in a too-rough kiss.

He wouldn’t understand, and Daryl couldn’t stand to hear him say the words on the edge of his tongue.

.-

Sixteen days, and Daryl didn’t make it home that night. The sea of dead around them felt endless sometimes, but even they had their limits. Every day he needed to venture further out to find them. Try new paths, weaving deeper into the wild. Every day he had to work harder to find fifty, then eighty, and by the time he’d hit a hundred he’d been scrabbling frantic, tossing himself too deep into danger, close to midnight.

He’d kept working straight through, fighting his way through the night and past dawn. Found his way back to Alexandria halfway through the next day in a daze of bloodied exhaustion.

“We need to talk about this,” Aaron’d told him, eyes stern and voice achingly soft. And Daryl’d nodded, grunted “in the mornin’” and passed out between that and the next breath. In the morning there’d been no words to begin to explain it and Daryl’d left a still-sleeping Aaron with a back soon scrawled on a strip of paper and a kiss cooling his brow.

.-

Twenty days, and She tripped Daryl with the subtle shift of a root as he dodged back from a Walker’s grasp. Twenty-six and She caught at the dead’s flesh with thorny fingers as a horde chased close on his tail. Her whims shifted with the weather, but as far as Daryl could tell he was paying his way by entertaining Her.

He did his best to give her a show.

Thirty-one days and he killed a mass of dead in an explosion. Felt like a hundred-fifty, easy, ‘til a rush of doubt set in and he spent the rest of the day killing another sixty in a panic and praying to whatever blessed damn Old One might be listening that there’d at least been forty in that first blast.

Midnight came and went, and She didn’t appear to tell him he’d failed his task. After that, though, Daryl killed them by ones.

.-

Two months and Daryl was spending more nights away than with Aaron, tracking herds and then hordes for miles. Picking them off slow where he could, counting kills under his breath like a mantra. And when he couldn’t get ‘em slow... hell.

Then he fought.

He collapsed onto Aaron’s couch (their couch, still didn’t feel like theirs) after eight nights gone. Nearly dozed off ‘til he felt a shadow standing over him.

“We need to talk about this.” Aaron’s tone was all stern this time, that soft understanding of the past weeks scorched out of him. Daryl thought about pretending to be asleep. His aching body begged him to.

He slitted his eyes open.

“I know you’re grieving,” Aaron said, and Daryl’s throat choked on a growl, denial tightening it to something painful. Grief was an aftermath. Grief was acceptance. Daryl hadn’t been grieving.

“I know this is what you do, how you process, but––”

“What I do?” rolled out, and it was clipped, aggressive. Exhausted. Daryl’s body was a wreck of bruises and strained muscle and every inch of it wanted to crawl against Aaron for comfort. But there was a chasm in their chests keeping them separated and Daryl hadn’t even noticed himself digging it.

Aaron didn’t flinch.

“Hide. Run.” He answered plainly. “Cut yourself off, like you did after Rick––”

“This ain’t that.” It wasn’t. Rick had been a hunt. This was a quest. This was different. Rick was blind hope, but this? There was a clear end in sight. Forty-two more days –– not two months, even –– and the whisper of the wind would hand Jesus back to them.

Aaron was riling, though. Tensed tight, his infinite patience worn to rags as he stalked in a step and hissed, “So what is it like, then? You looking to die? Looking to go out like he did?”

It hit like a blade sinking through. That notion. ‘Cause Jesus wasn’t. Wouldn’t be. Not unless Daryl fucked up here.

But... hell. To Aaron he was.

The thought stalled Daryl’s righteous rage in its tracks. To Aaron, he was. Daryl hadn’t been grieving all this time, couldn’t be, but Aaron had been. Alone.

Daryl pushed to his feet, ignoring the protests of his wrecked body. For the first time in weeks or longer, he took in the worn lines of Aaron’s face. How much older he looked now. Exhausted. And that’s how the gulf had gotten there. All these weeks Daryl’d spent chasing the lover they’d lost, he’d lost track of the one standing next to him.

“Hey...” His hand lifted to catch Aaron’s cheek, but Aaron wasn’t ready to be calmed. He catted out of the contact, caught Daryl’s shirt. Held him for an aching beat, then shoved back.

“Paul’s gone, Daryl. He was reckless and restless and went out looking for a fight and it got him killed.” The words were blades. They were wrong. But... they weren’t. Jesus’s soul had been born for the wild, same as Daryl’s. Maybe that was why She’d been willing to deal for him in the first place. But Aaron didn’t know that. And he was all balled up exhaustion and anger and still-bleeding wounds as he snapped: “I can’t deal with you doing that too.”

It was an ultimatum. A wall building. In or out, and Daryl could feel the pressure of it hitting him straight through the middle as he dug for some loophole, some door.

“Ain’t what this is,” he managed, and Aaron looked at him, every bit as wrecked as Daryl felt as he asked plainly: “Then what is it?”

But what could he say?

A second dragged past, then another, in frozen quiet, broken finally by Aaron’s tired sigh.

“I can’t do this again, Daryl. Eric, then Paul... we lose people in this world, I get that. But I can’t just wait around watching you chase it. So you either give up whatever the hell this is, whatever revenge mission you think you’re on out there... You either stay here and figure this out with me... grieve with me... or you go.”

A branch rustled the side of the building. Daryl’s lips parted and shut. Forty-two days left, and Aaron would understand.

Daryl went.

.-

Seventy-six days and Daryl was sitting on the edge of the hospital bed, wrapping gauze along his stitched arm. He’d been slow, stupid. Clumsy. Running on fumes. Tripped straight into the edge of a rusted car door and split his skin open.

He’d thought about going to Hilltop. Getting stitched up by Enid, safe and far from the still-bleeding wounds left behind here.

But Alexandria’d been closer. And gods knew he didn’t have time for damn detours.

A lanky shadow fell over him.

“Heard you were here.” The voice was soft. Soft enough Daryl almost forgot the last, brutal words he’d heard from it. When he looked up, Aaron’s eyes were carefully cold.

“Got cut,” Daryl said, like that was any kind of an answer. He watched those eyes shift to the wound, caught the flicker of something in them. Pain, frustration, aching want.

Or maybe that was Daryl, projecting.

“Still fighting, then,” Aaron said, and Daryl wondered when they’d become the kind of people who’d communicated in two and three words. Seventy-seven days ago, whispered through him like the slice of a blade, but he wasn’t sure that was right. The estrangement, the coldness, the endless gulf and the wall Aaron’d built to ward it... all that’d come after.

Daryl wondered for the first time, vague and distant, if this wasn’t the true price he was paying. Not a hundred a day to win Jesus back. Just one. Lover for a lover. Gain one back, but lose another along the way.

It had Their kind of sick humor in it.

And Daryl’d never thought of himself as someone deserving good things. Lived a lifetime of bloodied teeth and hope ground out under cruel, careless heels. He’d dealt with it all ‘cause he could. ‘Cause what the hell else could he do but take his losses and keep moving forward? But now, watching that worn, resigned look in Aaron’s eyes, feeling the gulf stretching seemingly endless between them... that didn’t feel like an acceptable loss anymore.

“He ain’t dead.” It fell out on a breath, barely a rasp of sound. But it was enough to break through Aaron’s apathy. He froze, his furrowed brows pinching deeper. Confusion bleeding past the cold. His lips pursed, a shape of a what rising and fading. And Daryl sighed, pressed his eyes shut, and spoke.

.-

Aaron couldn’t understand.

They were back in their house now. (His house... or was it?) Stood at opposite ends of a too-long couch, squared off. Daryl could see the panicked spin behind Aaron’s eyes the second he’d started explaining. Slow swirl of confusion speeding to something else. Concern. Doubt. He said “Daryl,” just that, and the careful pitch of that tone nearly broke him.

Daryl flinched.

“Don’t say it ain’t real.”

A careful pause. The coldness was gone like it’d never been there, but the thing in Aaron’s eyes now was so much worse.

“I... know you want it to be real.”

“Don’t.”

“Daryl, you just told me the wind whispered to you.”

“Ain’t the damn wind.” Aaron couldn’t understand. Daryl couldn’t explain it. How could a person explain the kind of shapes Old Things took, the subtle ways they let you glimpse them? Daryl’d had a sense of them his whole life, seen shadows and signs since he’d stepped into his first forest. Learned lessons on his mama’s lap back before he’d been old enough to have the rules of real and fantasy drilled into him. Daryl knew, deep in his bones, but there was no way of describing it.

Aaron’s eyes were the eyes of a rational man faced with the notion of a loved one’s madness. Worried. Heartbroken. Eyes of someone debating calling the loony bin on him, if there’d been a loony bin left to call.

“Month left,” Daryl tried, grit and a ragged plea laced through the words all at once. “Twenty-four days, that’s it. Then call me crazy.”

“I’m not calling you crazy,” Aaron said, soft. His eyes begged to differ. He took a step, then another, to close the gulf between them. His hand lifted to brush Daryl’s cheek. “I’m... Daryl. That’s two thousand, four hundred Walkers. That’s over two thousand risks you’re taking.”

Daryl’d never bothered doing the math. What the hell’d math ever done for him but try to stick him up, thinking on it. He pressed his eyes shut, leaned into the achingly sweet warmth of Aaron’s hand. Said, clear as he could manage: “S’one shot to get him back.”

Aaron didn’t answer, but when Daryl opened his eyes again he saw a sickly understanding in Aaron’s own. Lips parted, an argument rising and dying as Daryl watched, and then Aaron was leaning in to press his forehead to Daryl’s.

For the first time in seventy-six days, it felt like coming home. They lingered in the contact for a few seconds, savoring. And then, soft, comforting, Aaron kissed him.

“Your life’s worth something too,” Aaron murmured, and Daryl felt some fractured piece of his soul mending. A smile ghosted his lips. He pressed it into Aaron’s bushy jaw.

“Ain’t gonna get myself killed. Can’t finish savin’ his ass then.”

It was half a joke, reflexive brush-off of those heartfelt words, but he felt Aaron’s body unclench at them. Like he’d really been terrified, all this time, all these kills... really were just a suicide mission.

Daryl led Aaron to bed and kissed him soundly ‘til the last one of those notions left his head.

.-

In the dawn light, as Daryl dragged himself out of bed and dug around for his scattered boots, Aaron offered: “I could come with you.”

“Couldn’t,” Daryl answered, not glancing up from the knot in his lace. “S’my deal. My kills. You takin’ some’s just gonna make it harder.” He could feel an argument building, sleep-fogged but passionate, in the way Aaron shifted against the sheets. And Daryl half-wanted to let him. Wanted to be talked into it. Into the company, at least, or the sensible head on Aaron’s shoulders. Into having someone to watch his back when a herd caught his scent, or flash a grin at after a narrow escape.

God, the loneliness had seeped so deep inside him these past months. He just wanted something to lean on.

He set a hand on Aaron’s knee. Dragged it down his shin, soothing. “And you got Gracie to think of.”

That settled it. Daryl felt the fight go out of him, the tired sigh. Winning didn’t mean Aaron liked it. When Daryl looked over, he saw a helpless war fighting through him. Ache of an almost-plea in those eyes. Stay.

It wasn’t anything to do with Jesus. Aaron still couldn’t believe that, even if he was trying. He was too rational. Too solidly set in what the world was supposed to be like, not what it was. He was looking at Daryl, saw someone grieving. Saw someone sick in the head, probably. Was just trying to figure out what Daryl needed to keep him from snapping harder.

Your life’s worth something too, he’d said the night before.

Daryl let his boot drop, turned to lean over Aaron.

“Hey... You trust I ain’t gonna get myself killed, out there?”

There was a heavy pause. Aaron sighed.

“No one plans on getting themselves killed, Daryl.”

And there was truth in that. Painful, bitter, and too familiar on the back of both of their tongues. If planning to live meant any damn thing at all, the world’d be full right now and Daryl’d have no walking corpses to fill his deal with. Hell, Jesus would be here, wrapped up safe in this bed, and Daryl’d have no need to fill it.

His gaze softened. He leaned down, kissed Aaron. Raw and quiet against the brush of his lips, offered: “Trust I love you?”

Eight years, probably, of that being true, and Daryl’d never managed to utter it. Sure as hell never braved those words to Jesus, before he fell. Aaron stared up at him, eyes a watery gleam in the dawn light. He wet his lips, bobbed a nod.

“I trust that.”

“Good. Hold that, ‘til I come back and say it again.”

.-

[let-me-love-you-loki]

Worrying Too Late

A/N: Inspired by @not-that-kinda-gurl08​

Sitting backstage in front of a television, I did my best to wrangle RJ and Ty. They might enjoy watching their Dad and Papa wrestle, but it was hard to keep their attention on other matches. So I traveled with a bag of toys to keep them occupied, and just now it was almost impossible to find something they were interested in. Mattie, Nicole, and Lee were up in the production area with Kenny and QT Marshall.

           At just past sixteen, Mattie was already in training to follow in her fathers’ footsteps. Matt and Nick had bought another enclosed garage and set it back on the property behind Matt’s house. Inside, the old PWG ring was permanently set up. They’d worked with Matt Sr. to put in some wall air conditioners and ceiling fans. The Jackson Brothers School of Wrestling was open.

           She had the best trainers anyone could ask for. Besides her fathers, Kenny and Adam came by every other month or so and spent a week at a time working with her. Cody worked with her at shows, so did QT and Dustin and even Jericho. The only kind of training she didn’t have was lucha libre, and it wouldn’t surprise me if Matt and Nick were working on Pentagon and Fenix to do the honors.

           After the fiasco at her school, Mattie had been homeschooled… taking classes at a local co-op and traveling with Matt and Nick whenever they went to shows or other events. God knew, I was sure that being able to be with her fathers was the only thing that kept Mattie with us.

           “Look, Mama,” Ty said, pointing to the monitors. I looked up to see Matt and Nick coming out of the tunnel, Anna Jay already waiting at the top of the ramp. The three of them were in a six-person mixed tag match with Butcher, Blade, and Bunny.

           Even in her late thirties, Anna Jay looked as if she hadn’t changed. She was fit and fast and still amazingly talented. Her early years with AEW had included a strong run as the first female member of Dark Order, and she’d continued gaining momentum through the years since. She’d competed all over the world, and she’d won a good number of titles.

           As I watched, she hooked her arms around their shoulders and sauntered to the ring between them. The boys climbed up on the apron, reached down one arm and easily lifted Anna up beside them. Then they sat on the middle rope and lifted the top one to create a clear opening for her to climb into the ring. She stepped through, bending at the waist, and slipped through. The smile she cast them was beautiful and dazzling. They smiled back. Matt even winked.

           “Watch Dad and Papa,” I said to my sons, putting them on the sofa in front of the TV in the dressing room we’d been given.

           I walked over to the mirror over the vanity counter and took a long look at my reflection. When I’d met Matt and Nick, I’d been in my mid-twenties—settled age wise just between the two of them. While I had never thought of myself as a beauty, I’d been pretty. Now… I didn’t know what to think.

           Seventeen years had brought lines around my mouth. Crows feet at the corner of my eyes. Five children had added weight around my waist, hips, and thighs. My hair wasn’t quite as lustrous as it had been when we’d met. Whatever I’d been when I’d first set eyes on Matt and Nick Jackson, I certainly was less than that now.

           I could hear the boys shouting and carrying on watching the match. Their excitement let me know that the Bucks were doing well. I had to rely on them for the result. For some reason, I couldn’t make myself watch the two of them fighting alongside Anna Jay.

***

           The whooping and hollering from my sons was a clear indication that their fathers had won the match, something for which I was happy. I hardly saw my husbands after the match was over since they had to manage multiple parts of the show. In the meantime, I packed up everything I’d brought for the boys and tried not to dwell on the thoughts that swirled in my head. My eyes skimmed over the mirror every time I walked by it, not wanting to see my own reflection.

           It was almost eleven when they finally showed up in the dressing room, Mattie, Nicole, and Lee right on their heels. The five of them bore a mix of adrenaline and exhaustion. RJ and TY had fallen asleep on the sofa not long after Matt and Nick’s match finished.

           “Sorry, Mama,” Matt said as he leaned in to press a kiss to my cheek. “Tony grabbed us on the way back.”

           I forced a smile. “It’s okay. Can you and Nick get the boys?”

           Nick nodded in response, but there was something worried in his gaze. It wouldn’t surprise me if he figured out that something was wrong, but I didn’t have it in me to talk about it just then. Honestly, I didn’t want to talk about it at all.

***

           We settled into the hotel half an hour later. Mattie and Nicole shared a room next to our suite. The boys were tucked together on the pullout sofa, although they wouldn’t go to sleep until Matt and Nick told them a story or two. They were growing up so fast, but they were still our sweet little boys. I changed into my sleep clothes and crawled into bed, praying I’d be asleep before my husbands came to bed.

           Matt slipped into bed first, curling up behind me and tucking his arm around my waist. His lips ghosted over the back of my neck. I waited for the sound of his even breathing, but it didn’t come. Instead, he whispered softly into the darkness.

           “What’s bugging you, Y/N?”

           I sighed and turned my head into the pillow. “Nothing,” I murmured, trying to force a yawn. I didn’t want to talk. Not about this.

           For a moment, I thought he was going to let it go, but instead he sat up and leaned over me. “I know that’s not true. We could see it in your eyes.”

           “So Nick sent you in here to do the intervention?” My heart skipped a beat, and I felt like I was going to be sick.

           Matt stroked my hair away from my face. “No, that’s not how it went,” he assured me. “You look so sad, and we hate seeing you unhappy.”

           Tears slipped down my face without my permission. I couldn’t look at him. I hugged the pillow against my chest and whimpered. How could I say what I was thinking? I felt stupid and useless.

           “Anna looked great tonight,” I said at last. It was as close as I could get to actually saying what was on my mind.

           “She’s good in the ring. QT trained her well, but what—” His head dropped, and he sighed, recognition clear on his face. He climbed out of bed and walked to the door, opening it and leaning out. I heard his voice and knew he was calling for Nick.

           A moment later, the two of them sank onto the bed. “Y/N, sit up and talk to us.”

           When I didn’t respond, they let out a huff and stretched out on each side of me. Matt curled his arm around my waist, and Nick brushed his fingers against my cheek. He kissed my forehead just as Matt nuzzled against the back of my neck again.

           “You are everything we could ever want,” Matt murmured. “There’s nothing about you that we would change.”

           The tears rushed out, slipping down my cheeks and onto the pillow. Nick swept his thumbs beneath my eyes to wipe them away. “Being with you is the best thing that’s ever happened to us. You are the most wonderful woman, and we are beyond lucky to have you as our wife, as the mother of our children.”

           I tried to hide my face. Shame swept over me. “I’m not the same as I was that first day. So much has changed.”

           Matt’s lips curved against my skin. “None of us are the same as we were then, Mama. But that doesn’t change how we feel about you.”

           “I’m not…” I squeezed my eyes shut and tried to curl in on myself. “You two look almost exactly the same as you did sixteen years ago.”

           Nick sighed and kissed my forehead. “And you’re still as beautiful as you were the first time we saw you. More even.”

           “I’ve gained weight.”

           “You’ve carried and given birth to five children,” Matt said firmly. “And there’s not an ounce on you that we’d change. Have you forgotten how much we loved seeing you pregnant? How much we love touching you? Holding you?”

           Nick moved closer, nuzzling his nose against mine as he trapped me between them. “No one is ever going to match you, Y/N. You are it for us. The most beautiful, the most kind, the most amazing woman to ever walk into our lives.”

           My heart slowed, soothed by their words. “You aren’t disappointed with me? I’m almost forty. I’m the mother of teenagers.”

           They laughed together, snuggling closer. “We’re almost forty, too, Sunshine,” Nick said playfully. “Matt’s gonna get there before the both of us.”

           “I got you by four years, little brother. And when our wife turns forty,” Matt murmured playfully, “we’ll celebrate how she’s still beautiful, still vibrant, still smart and wonderful.”

           “And way too good for us.”

           I took a deep breath, feeling my tears dry up slowly. My hands reached for them, one for Nick and the other for Matt. They cuddled me between them. “I love you both,” I whispered in the darkness. “I love you both so much.”

           “We love you too, Sunshine,” Nick reassured.

           Quiet settled in and soon, I was lulled to sleep by the sound of their even breathing and the warmth of their arms.

Tag List

@mox-made-me-do-it​ @not-that-kinda-gurl08​ @lilred91​ @imagineall-the-fandoms​ @maelleoute​ @librathepheonix13

[okayohay]

I Just Wanted To Be Edgy Too (Chapter 2)

I wanted to post the second chapter of my fic here, because not everyone uses Wattpad. Please let me know if you would like me to keep posting it! If you want to read ahead - you can find the story on Wattpad here

Hope you guys enjoy!

I Just Wanted To Be Edgy Too

Chapter Two

Van

I needed a change...

We ended our soundcheck with Overlap because I was sick of playing the same song every night. I was sick of singing about things that mattered when I was sixteen but didn't matter to me anymore. I wanted to do something different, so I did what I do best, jump into things unannounced. There was no warning to it. Bondy slid into the opening chords like usual and I cut him off with a riff.

He raised his eyebrows at me as I played the chorus of Overlap instead of Tyrants. Steve crossed his arms over his chest from the lighting platform in the middle of the floor and narrowed his eyes at me, a smug look on his face.

"I want to end with something else." I didn't wait for anyone's response, I just started singing the first verse, forgetting half of the words.

"Whoa, whoa, why Overlap? Why not something else?" Benji scratched the side of his face.

I kept playing the riff on a shrug. "What else?"

"I don't know man...something off of two? Something the fans already love?"

I strummed my guitar again and hummed the words. Overlap meant something to me, that's why I wanted to play it, but I didn't want to tell them that. I zoned out the questions and continued playing, even when the rest of them stopped.

Steve crossed the floor and stood in front of the barricade by the stage. "I like that you're ready to retire Tyrants, but you're going to play something people connect with."

"They'll connect with this if you give them the chance." I heard the edge in my voice.

Bondy cleared his throat and shook his head at me. I knew he was silently telling me it wasn't worth it. Overlap wasn't worth pushing Steve and I into another fight.

"You'll end with Cocoon." Steve said bluntly before he walked off with a flick of his wrist. My jaw locked into place as I ground my teeth together.

"Van, leave it." Bondy whispered.

I shook my head and flicked my hair from my face. "We'll play it now for good measure. I want to hear it live." I spun my finger around signaling the start of the song. Bob struck his drumsticks together and Benji and Bondy exchanged glances I pretended not to notice.

The song started slowly, just as it did on the album, and by the chorus, Bondy's smile returned and he was clearly enjoying playing something new. Even Bob's snare sounded different, a little bit more life to it, perhaps. Steve paid us no mind as he continued to fiddle with the lights and the soundboards, but the few roadies watching in the back seemed to enjoy the change to the set.

I sang the last lines out quickly, adding a few more words in here and there, and dragging out the last sentence rather than cutting it off. We finished and were met with a round of applause from the back. Steve looked up then, taking notice of the compliments and then pausing as he shook his head at me.

A few people walked toward the stage, a mix of roadies and local radio station DJs who couldn't wait to nab another piece of us during an interview. I rolled my eyes, noticing one girl holding a camera and scratching down words on a small black book. She stepped into the blue glow of the lights Steve had been working on, and I froze as she neared the stage. I was in no state of mind to do an interview right now, and I definitely wouldn't be having an interview with a girl looking like that. Her long hair wasn't blonde or brown, but somewhere lost in between the two, and it hung in loose waves over her shoulders. Her eyes were dark, maybe even a little too intense. I glanced at Steve for backup. He hadn't told me anything about a scheduled interview today, and I surely didn't want to go into one prior to a gig.

She said nothing as she stood by the barricade and jotted a few more sentences into her notebook. Bondy glanced at her a few times but shrugged his shoulders when I motioned to her. She looked young, mid to late twenties maybe, and she never said a word to any of us, just kept scribbling quickly into her book. I frowned. If she had something to write about me, I'd like to be the one giving her the information.

She looked up and locked eyes with me then, a shudder rippled through me. She was dead gorgeous, but I've learned to never trust a writer, despite their looks. Never trust a writer at all; trust me.

I jutted my chin at her as I sat my guitar down. "Can we do ya a favor or somet?" My accent was thick, spewing out half word phrases from back home, something that only happened when I was mad, or full of feelings I couldn't get out.

Benji looked up instantly, recognizing my tone and how many times it preceded an argument or a shitty interview. He glanced from me, to the girl, and back to me.

"Van..." he raised his free hand at me but I shrugged it off.

"No, no, no I want to know what she wants from us. She's bloody good at jottin' it down in her book, I just want to know what she's gettin’ on at before I read about it in some magazine or on the internet later."

The nameless girl's face reddened, and she closed the black book and shoved it behind her into her camera bag. She didn't leave though, she just kind of stood there keeping her sites on me, like I was a ghost on the stage and she was looking right through me.

"Van, lad...ease up a bit. It's not what you think. That's her; Barns' girlfriend."

My gaze shifted back to the girl, leaning into a roadie and speaking in his ear. Well fuck.

I bit down on my lip, jumped off the stage and stood next to the barricade. "Sorry love, who did you say you were?"

She pressed herself into the barricade and began pulling her hair into a pony tail. "I didn't. I think you were too worried about me being a journalist to care."

I said nothing, which was a rarity for me. She picked up on my hesitation and sighed. "I'm Ellie." The redness returning to her cheeks.

"You're not a journalist?"

"Legally no, but in her free time she writes damn good articles for a blog." Barns stepped beside her and wrapped her in his arms, kissing her hard. She flinched at first, until she realized it was him and relaxed. I turned away and raked a hand through my hair.

Barns Courtney had been opening for us on and off for months. At first, it was all fun and games, whiskey and beers after shows, sitting around after gigs getting high on shitty weed he'd pull from his pocket. But it escalated into moments of him shattering the glass of a hotel window, or getting in a fight with Larry. It was shortly after that when Steve caught him with more than just weed. He dug him out of several moments of chaos and kept him out of jail in Dallas, but none of that calmed him down. He started bringing more girls around, and that's when I found out he had a girlfriend. I kind of shut down the friendship at that point. The drugs, the girls, all of it...I'd already lived that life and let it ruin me. I didn't need it to happen again. There was enough of me that liked the wild side too much. I'd spent too much time dabbling in hard liquor and cocaine, and it cost me my better judgment. That cost me a relationship, and my anger from the relationship ending cost me any chance at a friendship. I'd lost my way a bit, lost a lot of things, and I swore I'd never do that again.

Barns made me nervous. He had too much of an edge for me to want to be around. His words were stale and full of poison when he tossed them at me or any one of the lads. Watching him kiss the girl he'd been cheating on for weeks felt wrong. It all felt wrong. My stomach churned.

When he finished with her, he shifted his weight to his other leg and smirked. His signature red leather jacket was hanging loosely off him, no shirt underneath. "This is my girlfriend, Ellie." His tone harassed me, the corners of his lips pulling upwards. "She writes for a music blog, I told her to use whatever she wants from the tour."

I shifted my gaze back to the woman who was now biting at her fingernails nervously. "You're staying for the rest of the tour then?"

She nodded and looked back at Barns casually. Barns smiled at her before nodding at me. "I'll catch up with you in a bit babe, I need to talk to Van."

She smiled and stepped away quickly, turning back once to gaze at us both. She hesitated for a moment before opening her mouth. "You should play that song. Maybe don't end with it, but it's a real barn burner. It'd be good in your set." I blinked a few times as I contemplated what she was saying before she turned around again. When she was out of earshot Barns leaned in and pressed his hand into my shoulder. "Remember our deal, McCann. She doesn't need to know about the shit from last week, or the ones before that. I love her, I don't want to hurt her like that."

I laughed and shook my head. "Some deep love you got there, mate." I removed his hand from my shoulder and climbed back onto the stage.

"Come on, man. Be cool." Barns flashed his perfectly straight teeth at me, but there was no authenticity in his smile. It was forced, he was the big bad wolf and he was in sheep's clothing. This was a threat.

I nodded at him. "Yeah, man whatever."

Barns patted the top of the barricade with his hands and spun around quickly, leaving the four of us to our instruments and the last few minutes of soundcheck.

"What was that all about?" Bondy asked as he wiped down the neck of his guitar and motioned to Barns.

I shrugged as Barns disappeared from site. "Get rid of Rango and play Overlap in its spot. Don't tell Steve, just have Larry change the list."

"You wanna cut Rango?" Bob chimed in from the background, disbelief hanging off the vowels of his words.

I nodded once and picked my guitar up again, the first chords in the song echoed through the empty venue.