#this is specifically about someone i’ve been following for like a decade that’s only turning 29 btw

[mildmayfoxe]

it’s so crazy finding out how old people are on this website. like haven’t you gotten the memo? we’re all supposed to be in our thirties now

[candiedcoffeedrops]

Mine

Notes: Right so, I haven't written smut in over half a decade so I'm most definitely a bit rusty.😅 I welcome constructive criticism but please be gentle lol I worked really hard on this. Wrote this for the Sexy Ikemen Summer Event! Also, sorry for the word count. I don't know how to not write a lot.

I also had no beta for this, I did what I could.💜

Prompt: At Someone's Summer Wedding.

Pairing: Ring Schwarz x Reader

Word Count: 3,662

Tags: NSFW - Minors DNI!, Jealousy, Biting and a lot of it, Established relationship, Fingering, Vaginal sex, Female/AFAB reader, Likely OOC as the characters in this are not on EN and I only have so much access to them, I didn't know how to end it so I just...did.

The wedding reception was in full swing, the mansion’s grand ballroom alight with laughter, music, and the soft clinking of champagne flutes. You stood near the edge of the crowd, your hand curled around a flute of your own as you surveyed the room. The bride and groom were off somewhere, speaking with friends or family, and the guests were dressed to the nines in their finery. The scent of hot, savory food mingled with various expensive perfumes and colognes, creating a cloying cloud in the air as you slowly walked around.

You spotted Ring and Nica speaking off to the side, both twins dressed in perfectly tailored white suits, the lapels of their blazers adorned with golden Vogel pins. A smile curled your lips. Both of them looked handsome, of course, but your eyes were drawn to Ring specifically. He cleaned up so nicely. The members of Vogel always looked put together, but Ring was something else when he dressed up. Taking a sip, you watched as your sweetheart chatted with his older twin, the latter giving a half shrug to something said, the rings on his fingers glinting in the light.

The three of you had attended this wedding with the intent of gathering intelligence for Darius, who had remained at headquarters to address other matters. Your efforts had been fruitless, and during a brief meeting with Ring, you learned he had also come up empty-handed. Nica, ever the charmer, had been surrounded by a throng of guests, leaving the success of the evening squarely in his hands.

As their eyes met yours, a smirk played on Nica’s lips, while Ring offered a subtle nod. Nica turned, murmuring something to his brother before striding toward you with one of his trademark, easy smiles.

“I’ve uncovered a few minor leads, nothing groundbreaking. I’ll have to debrief Dari later, but for now,” he spread his arms wide before clapping them together, “I’d say we’re officially off duty. Might as well enjoy the festivities, right?”

“Fair enough. I’m unsure how long Ring and I will stick around, though.” You took another sip as you glanced around the room. So many people—and you could already feel the exhaustion from the small talk and mingling. It wouldn’t be long until you’d want to go home and recharge, and you knew Ring would agree.

“Oh, you two should at least dance.” He paused as his eyes darted to the side before a grin spread on his face, “In fact, before you get caught up with each other for the night, how about one for your second-favorite Schwarz twin?” He smoothly plucked the champagne flute from your hand, setting it on the tray of a passing waiter, then slinging an arm around your shoulder as he gently but firmly led you out to the dance floor.

“I…suppose,” you said slowly, watching the waiter carry your champagne flute, along with many others, away with a furrow of confusion on your brow.

“Come on, it’ll be fun.”

As the strains of a new melody filled the air, Nica led you in a dance, his movements fluid and graceful as you followed. He guided you across the dance floor with effortless confidence, his hand resting lightly at your waist, the other gently holding your wrist, careful not to activate his curse. The ballroom was a swirl of color and motion, the other guests dancing around you, but Nica kept your attention with his lighthearted banter and teasing comments.

Just as you began to wonder if the song would ever end, the final notes faded away. Nica released you with a flourish, stepping back and bowing slightly, ever the gentleman. He thanked you politely for indulging him and suggested the two of you go find Ring.

Thankfully, he was in the same place that Nica had left him so it didn’t take long to find him, but when you did, you noticed something was off.

Ring’s gaze was fixed on the two of you, his lips pressed slightly, posture stiff as he fidgeted with the cuff of his sleeve before crossing his arms over his chest, not having his usual longsword to rest his hand on. When he made eye contact with you, he averted his eyes, brilliant blue now turned toward his twin. You frowned. Something was wrong.

“There you are!” Nica greeted jovially with a hand wave, either unaware of or deliberately ignoring Ring’s mood.

“Nica,” Ring spoke softly, his brow furrowed, lips pressed in a slight pout. Before he could say anything else, Nica cut in again. 

“There we go, the two of you are reunited.” He gently nudged you toward his younger twin before turning and walking in the opposite direction. “Enjoy yourselves, yeah? I have a pretty little thing waiting for me. Don’t wait up.” He cast a smile over his shoulder at Ring, and you heard a soft huff from your lover, who was now beside you.

You watched Nica retreat, swallowed by the crowd and not a moment later you turned toward Ring. He continued to avoid eye contact, so you gently brushed your fingers against the back of his hand. His eyes, blue like porcelain painter’s ink, returned to you for a moment, pink dusting across his cheeks as his lips pressed into another small pout, but he did take your hand, fingers loosely lacing with yours.

“Ring? What’s the matter?”

His eyes narrowed slightly and at first, he didn’t answer but after you gently pressed, his lips set in a thin line before he said, “I…would like to spend time with you.” His voice was low, hesitant.

An unsure smile spread across your lips as you gently grabbed his hand, giving a tug toward the dance floor. “Alright then. Why don’t we dance for a bit and then—” He stepped closer to you, his forehead nearly touching yours as he pressed a slender finger to your lips.

You saw his throat move as he swallowed. “Alone.” He added, his tone soft but edged with urgency, his eyes showing their normal determination mixed with need as they locked onto yours. 

You nodded, your heart fluttering as he led you away from the bustling dance floor, through the throngs of guests, and easily past rather lax security. He didn’t speak, his grip tightening slightly as he navigated the grand hallways of the mansion, passing glittering chandeliers and priceless art until he found an empty room, the door slightly ajar.

It was a bedroom, the only light filtering in from the moon outside the tall narrow windows. The large bed was dressed in richly colored fabrics and a thick canopy. The room was decently furnished but sparsely decorated—likely a guest room. Here, the music was much fainter, and the din of conversation from the party dulled, the sounds much easier to ignore from this distance. Ring closed the door behind him with his free hand, the other still holding yours. The sounds from the reception almost completely disappeared with the motion, leaving the two of you in near silence.

As soon as the door softly clicked shut, Ring locked it and tugged on your hand, pulling you into him. His arms slid around your waist in a tight hug, his nose nuzzling the crook of your neck. You returned the hug, your arms circling him. You hummed contentedly as you relaxed with him. Today had been long and socially taxing, so perhaps he had just wanted to get away and be alone for a while. That would be just like him, and very sweet.

He inhaled before softly exhaling through his mouth, his breath warm on your skin. “Ah…mine,” he murmured, his voice low and gruff right below your ear before he nipped at the tender flesh. 

“Ring?” You whispered his name, hoping he'd give some clue for his change in demeanor. You heard a low hum from him in response, his breath hot against the sensitive skin of your neck as he began to kiss and nibble, leaving a trail of heat in his wake. 

“Are you alright?” You asked slowly, gauging his reaction. He said nothing, continuing along the line of your neck.

His lips ghosted over your pulse point before he bit down, sucking hard enough to leave a bruise that would linger for days. You let out a shaky gasp, your grip on him tightening. He ran his tongue over the spot, soothing the sting before doing it again, and again, painting a collection of dark petals along the column of your neck and throat. Your head lolled back, allowing him better access as he drew more gasps and soft moans from your lips. The room spun and your knees felt wobbly, but his arms held onto you, his embrace a steel cage wrapped in white.

Normally he was so shy and reserved, with you taking the lead on many of your romantic entanglements, so the feeling of him being so assertive with you in this moment was heady. That said, you still had no idea where this had come from. Moments ago he had been in an obviously dour mood, and now he was showering your neck with kisses and bruises. You tried to piece together what could’ve caused this while he continued his ministrations on your neck, noting that he didn’t drink during the reception and you had spent plenty of time with him that day.

Was it your dance with Nica? That had to be it, right? It was the only thing you could think of that would’ve dampened his spirits so quickly. If that’s the case, you were seeing your lover jealous for the first time since you’d gotten together. 

“My love,” your voice was breathy, a small moan escaping your lips upon feeling him nip at another particularly sensitive spot as your fingers dug into the smooth fabric of his blazer. Still, you continued, wanting him to confirm your suspicions. “What’s gotten into you?” 

Ring’s hand slid up to the back of your neck, his grip firm but not painful as he lifted his face to meet your gaze. Even in the silvery moonlight, you could tell his cheeks were ablaze. His pupils were dilated, eyes half-lidded. His eyes searched yours for a moment before he leaned in and claimed your mouth in a fiercely passionate kiss. It was as if he were trying to swallow you whole. You moaned into his mouth and he responded in kind, his teeth scraping against your lower lip before his tongue slipped past your lips, sliding against yours. It was the kind of kiss that stole your breath, that left you feeling like you were falling into a bottomless abyss, but you didn’t mind. In fact, you liked it. You liked it a lot.

You lowered your head to return some of the favor to his neck, nipping little gasps and sighs from him as he tugged impatiently at the ties of your dress. The fabric loosened with each pull until it slithered to the floor in a heap around you leaving you in only your underwear. He shrugged off his blazer before bending slightly at the knees to scoop you up.

You wrapped your legs around his waist as his hands hooked under your thighs. He was already hard, his erection pressing against you as he carried you to the bed with only a few strides from his long legs. The anticipation gave you goosebumps, your core already throbbing with need. He set you down on the cool, soft comforter and began quickly removing his clothes, tossing them…somewhere before climbing over you. His weight pushed down on the mattress as he slotted his flushed, sculpted body between your legs.

Ring peered down at you, his expression akin to that of a bird of prey– focused, intense, and so hungry. He leaned in, capturing your mouth in a bruising kiss that left you panting and clutching at his shoulders. His tongue explored your mouth with a fervor that had you arching up against him, eager for more as you felt him roll his body against yours. A groan sounded from his throat, his erection nudging against your clothed folds, and you spread your legs wider, welcoming the pressure.

He broke away from your mouth and began leaving open-mouth kisses down your neck before reaching your breasts, sucking and nipping at the sensitive flesh there before taking a nipple into his mouth, while his hand kneaded the other. His tongue lapped over the hardened flesh before his teeth bit down– gently, but enough for you to cry out his name, your fingers threading through his hair and tugging enough to elicit a moan as he switched his ministrations to the other. You felt him panting through his nose against your heated skin and you whined. 

You still hadn’t gotten your answer from him as to why he had started acting like this, but you found it harder and harder to care as he did what he was doing. Your core continued to throb and you knew you were already soaked. You bucked your hips against him, causing him to hiss a swear in German. “More,” you pleaded, to which he huffed against your skin and hummed affirmatively. 

His lips traveled further downward, delivering the same treatment to your abdomen as he had given to your neck and chest, biting at the sensitive skin below your belly button, his fingers sliding up your thigh to hook his fingers around your panties, yanking them down your legs. He cast another glance up at your face before returning his attention to your body. 

“Mine,” he said again. Despite being deep in a pleasure-induced haze, you still caught it. 

“What do you mea-Ah!” You tried to get him to elaborate but were cut off when you felt him tease your folds with his fingers. His other hand pressed your legs further apart as he left a dark bruise on your inner thigh with his teeth, lapping at the mark with his tongue to soothe the sting. His middle and ring fingers, long and callused like a soldier's, entered you and began moving slowly. 

“Say you’re mine.” His voice was low, his fingers continuing their slow movement as he moved his mouth closer to the apex of your thighs but still keeping them too far away from where you so badly needed him to be. “I…need to hear you say it.” 

The words are torn from your chest, a declaration that echoes through the room. "I'm yours, Ring." It's a surrender, a vow, and a plea all rolled into one as you raised your hips to meet his hand, urging him to go faster and let you feel his mouth on you.

His mouth was on you in an instant, immediately finding your sensitive bud and giving it a long, deliberate lick before setting a steady pace. A strangled, relieved cry of his name left your lips, your fingers once again finding their way to his hair, pressing his face closer to you. That’s when the most sinful growl came from his throat, causing your face to flush even further. His mouth worked on you even faster, alternating between licks and sucks to your clit, his fingers thrusting into you in tandem.

You writhed against him, gripping his hair and the plush comforter beneath you for dear life. The tension in your body grew tauter with every stroke of his tongue, every press of his fingers, and your legs found themselves wrapped around his head earning another groan from him. It felt like you were balancing on the edge of a cliff. His name rolled off your tongue like a mantra as you neared closer and closer to coming undone under his mouth. Just one more little push. Just a bit longer. 

And then you fell.

The orgasm rushed through you like electricity, stealing your breath and sending spasms through your body. Your fingers gripped his hair tighter, your hips jerking against his mouth as a loud uneven cry ripped from your throat. Ring’s eyes gleamed with triumph as he watched your climax, his tongue stroking you through the aftershocks, his fingers still buried deep inside you. He didn’t stop until you were trembling and gasping for air, your legs loosening their hold around his neck.

Ring crawled back over you and kissed you deeply, sharing the taste of your arousal with you before sliding his fingers into his mouth and sucking them clean. His gaze never left yours, his actions sending a thrill through your body, your core still pulsing despite still floating down from the high he had just given you.

“Mine,” he murmured, his voice thick with lust as he positioned himself at your entrance, slicking his cock with your wetness. You nodded, your eyes glazed over with desire as you felt him push inside you with a breathy moan, filling you up in one long, slow stroke. “And I want everyone to know it.”

With that, he began to rock into you. You could feel every inch of him filling you completely as he claimed you over and over again, and it was exquisite. Needy moans from your throat mingled with the sound of his hips snapping against yours and your name falling from his lips between pants and groans. Your arms snaked around his back, grasping onto him for dear life. His back muscles flexed under your hands with every thrust. 

His eyes traveled down to your neck and a pleased smirk spread his lips. “Ah…” He let out a mix between a chuckle and a pant against your neck, “You look so pretty with my marks on your skin.” 

He bent his head down to kiss and lick the marks he’d left behind, his tongue tracing the path of your racing pulse. You clung to him, your nails digging into his shoulders as he pumped into you, his teeth grazing your neck and leaving another bruise in their wake. You could feel familiar tension well up within you again as he moved into you and your legs wrapped around his waist to pull him closer.

The motion made his breath hitch, a loud moan leaving his lips as he locked his eyes with yours again. “Ha…you’re close.” His voice was thick with need. 

You nodded, unable to form coherent words as you felt your body tightening around him. 

“I am too…you feel so good.” 

The words were barely out of his mouth before he buried his face in your neck, his teeth finding purchase as he bit down. You screamed out his name, your body tightening around him as you climaxed. The world spun in a blur of pleasure as you felt your core contract around his length, sending waves of heat through your body. Ring’s hands slid under your back, lifting you closer to him as he picked up the pace, his thrusts becoming more erratic as he chased his own release, his breaths hot and desperate against your skin.

Not long after, Ring’s body tensed, his hips jerking before pressing against yours as he emptied himself inside you with a deep groan. Feeling like your limbs were made of liquid, your legs unwrapped from his waist as he pulled out slowly, his lips leaving tired, sweet kisses on your collarbone and the hollow of your throat as he caught his breath. He stayed on top of you for a moment while you lazily traced patterns over his spine and shoulderblades with your fingertips. 

When he rolled off of you, his arms found their way around your waist, his eyes closed for a moment before he slowly opened them, immediately glancing at the marks on your neck before a blush reddened his cheeks.

“Still shy after that performance?” You teased, tiredness lacing your voice as you reached out and stroked his cheek with your knuckles. He huffed, muttering something in German under his breath while you giggled with a grin. 

A comfortable silence passed over the two of you while you continued to catch your breath. While you had a moment you decided to voice your earlier theory to him.

“Ring?”

He hummed, his hand moving to rest on your ribcage, his thumb gently rubbing over it.

“Was all of this because you got jealous of me dancing with Nica?”

You felt his thumb stop, and his eyebrows raised a touch, his lips tucked around his teeth before he sighed.

“Nica is…charming. He’s intelligent and knows how to read and talk to people. I don’t. He has a lot of things that I am missing.” He paused, his brow furrowing, lips set in a slight pout as he averted his eyes. “When I saw you two, I was afraid that…maybe someday you’d think I’m not enough for you.”

“Oh, Ring,” your brows uplifted in worry as you cupped his cheek. 

He grabbed your wrist with a gentle hold, pressing a kiss to your palm and then each of your fingertips. “Still, I…” his face flushed with a deeper, familiar red as he stuttered, glancing at your neck again before settling back on your face, “I shouldn’t have-have mauled you like that. I got carried away.” 

You chuckled, causing his eyes widening slightly as he blinked at you. “Did you hear me complain even once?”

He pursed his lips trying to fight a bashful smile that threatened to lift his lips, his cheeks and ears darkening as he buried his face in your neck beneath your chin to hide himself. 

“...N-no.” You heard his muffled reply from your neck, causing you to laugh again as you carded your fingers through his hair.

“You will always be enough for me, my love. I’m yours and you’re mine. Never, ever doubt that.”

You felt him nuzzle his face into you before pressing another sweet kiss to the hollow of your throat. “Danke,” he said softly as his arms squeezed you slightly. 

@xxsycamore

mdni divider by @cafekitsune, heart divider by @saradika-graphics

banner was made by myself

[something-tofightfor]

A PSA:

This wasn’t a post that I ever thought I’d make on here, but it’s something that I’m choosing to do because I want to be transparent about it - and about myself. 

It was brought to my attention that there are people that used the information they knew about me gained through a private space to seek out my twitter account. They then used the discovery of my twitter to search for a slew of very specific words and phrases in order to drag up things that I may or may not have said throughout the years in order to use what they found against me and to paint me as a variety of things that I am not. Unfortunately, there were tweets that they did find. I’m not proud of the way I spoke and behaved online in my early 20’s. I said hurtful things, and portrayed myself - via these words - as something that I am completely ashamed of now. Of course, looking back, it’s easy to say “I definitely shouldn’t have said these things” - but that’s the truth. I shouldn’t have, and I regret that these things exist under my name, even if only via screenshot in present day.

I’m including some of the examples beneath the cut, because I don’t want to trigger anyone without their consent. But in the spirit of being open about the things I said in the past, I think it’s important to admit to them as an example of the way people can and do change their behaviors over time - and in recognition that these tweets do not reflect me as a person - or my feelings and opinions - any longer. (TW: the following images contain text that includes instances of racism and homophobia).

These tweets as well as others in the same vein I have been able to find have been deleted from my profile - which should have been done sooner - because they are horrifying to me as I look back on them. In reality, they never should have been tweeted in the first place. Many of them, I don’t remember tweeting, but that doesn’t excuse my past behavior - or negate the fact that they were up in the first place. These are not a reflection of me, today, as a person, and if I met younger Rachael, I would call her out on her shit immediately.

But as you can see, the dates show you that the majority are from well over decade ago - and in the time since, I’ve reevaluated a ton of things including the way that I speak, the things that I say, and the phrasing that I choose to use. Using terms like “gay” or “lesbian” in the manner that I used to is unacceptable. Bringing up race or ethnicity as a generalization for a group is also unacceptable. I have no ill will toward people based on their sexual orientation, race, gender etc.

I will also say that - because it is public information - I am a registered Republican voter (as I was encouraged to sign up that way when I turned 18) and have voted for occasional Republican candidates in recent local elections, but have not voted for a Republican presidential candidate since Mitt Romney in 2012. Many of my family members are Republicans as well, and before I really had a chance to be out on my own after college, I unfortnately echoed a lot of their sentiments about R vs D when it came to politics in my late teens and early 20's. I had a lot of issues with Obama's presidency, but NONE of them were based on his skin color. That tweet above absolutely fills me with shame even 13 years later, and I can't put into words how uncomfortable it makes me to know that at some point, I actually typed those words out and then POSTED them, because present-day me cannot reconcile with feeling that way and expressing that type of sentiment.

There is certain context, also, to the 'thanks for not being gay' tweets that wasn't shared - and while it doesn't excuse them, the phrase was used between the friend whose name is blocked and I due to the exact thing being said to HER by a coworker, and both of us thinking it was an absurd thing to thank someone for. And Spangler Park was a running joke in the city that I used to live in, due to the fact that the weekly police blotter was filled with reports of gay men using it as a meeting place for public sexual acts.

Trying to explain myself isn't a valid defense to much of the content here, but it's also important to remember that context matters in many cases - like with the Daniel Tosh (who is a comedian) reply, that was clearly in response to something he said on his own account, but what that was is unknown to me 13 years later since it wasn't a quote tweet.

I am constantly trying to hold myself just as accountable as I hold others in my life for the things they say, do, and believe. I would not tweet or say any of these things today. I do not believe any of these things today. I have grown and learned a lot in the last decade plus, and I hope that that is reflected in my current behavior and with the people and causes I support. I am not the same person at 37 that I was at 22-23 - very few people are.

I will end this with a sincere apology to anyone that I may have hurt with these messages and my behavior - both now and in the past. I regret saying these things. I regret the fact that for a period of time, I "spoke" with very little thought about the impact of my words, or how wrong these things were to say. I have tried to - and hopefully accomplished - make changes in my life throughout the years, and continue to do so every day. 

It's impossible to make meaningful changes overnight, but I hope that you believe me when I say that over the course of the last decade, I have changed a great deal about myself and my behavior, and work hard to keep learning as the world around me changes, too.

Thank you for taking the time to read this. My inbox and DMs are open for questions and conversation, if you have anything to say. If this is where you choose to part ways with me, I wholeheartedly understand that, too, and wish you the best. An additional reply to an ask I received

[kingmagnificoofrosas]

I have a question to ask our majesty, King Magnífico. Before the interview with Asha. Could you tell us more about the previous interviews? How did they go? What were your observations for rejecting those people?

The only thing I heard was a man crying after his last interview with you. I would like to know more details about that 👀

"Oh dear ...." *sighs deeply* "Unpleasant memories ... but since you asked, I'll answer. Please, have a seat." *gestures to a couch with lots of pillows in different sizes* "I didn't think looking for an apprentice or assistant would go ... hmm ... well- end up in a catastrophe to put it nicely."

“An apprentice?” Amaya’s head falls into a surprised tilt.

“Why, yes! With my kingdom constantly growing, my responsibilities and my work grows as well. This is the perfect timing! And I’ve been thinking about this for quite a while now.”

“It’s just … you’re so very specific about your work.”

“Exactly!” Magnifico says with a snap of his fingers. “If I could find someone who shares my ambitions and goals, is eager to learn from me and help me … just imagine!”

Amaya follows the king's energetic pacing. He would always start to pace when he’d become passionate about something. And this went both ways. He could be very convincing if he wanted to.

“I’m sure there are many willing to work for you, mi rey.”

“Yes, but I’ll have to make sure they’re right for this job.” He stops in his tracks, “I’ll give interviews!” And swiftly turns back around to face the queen. “Give the news. One applicant at a time. Starting today!”

“Today?”

“The sooner the better, don’t you think?” Magnifico chimes as he moves away toward the large set of stairs.

“Where do you want me to take the applicants then?” Amaya asks with a gesture of her hand.

“To my study.”

Her face falls slightly, “all the way up your tower?”

“All the way up my tower.” An amused smirk spreads on the king’s lips as he rests his arms behind his back. “See it as the first test. My assistant would have to walk those stairs every day.”

Amaya gives a little agreeing shrug. “Fine. I will bring the news.”

“Splendid!” Magnifico starts to head upstairs and adds, “Oh, and please tell Dahlia to send me my tea, like always.”

“Yes, mi rey.”

Yes, getting an assistant was a good idea. He’d been longing for someone he could share his passions with for years now. It was almost strange to him, why he hadn’t gotten that idea sooner.

Magnifico enters his study, crosses over to a reflective wall and waves his hand. The glass slides to each side and opens. Light of the early morning sun floods the room and makes the colorful liquids in their glass cases throw dancing rainbows on the stone tiled floor.

His gaze immediately lifts to a little sea of blue balls, hovering at the ceiling, and he smiles.

Warmth spreads in his chest as he watches them. His heart swelling with gladness and contentment.

His people.

His subjects.

He’s successfully kept them safe for over a decade now, and he would make sure it would keep staying this way.

Keep them safe. At all costs. Never let the past repeat.

Suddenly his sensitive hearing picks up a quiet chatter and rips him out of his trance. He almost chuckles to himself about how quickly Amaya found an applicant. Straightening his shoulders, he turns swiftly, ready to meet whoever was now in his study.

Magnifico waits until he hears Amaya close the doors and then enters.

Near the doors stands a young man something between eighteen and twenty-three. A gangly and shy looking thing, but that shouldn’t be a criteria.

The boy’s head turns. For a moment he freezes but then his mouth opens and Magnifico flinches at the squeal erupting like a sudden trumpet call.

“It’s you! It’s really you!” The boy cries, flailing his arms.

“Yes, it’s me.” Magnifico strides down towards the boy.

“I can’t believe it! I’m really here! I’m seeing this! Oh my goodness, I’m such a big fan and-”

“Thank you!” The king chuckles, “I appreciate your excitement. Now, you’re here today bec-”

“Because I’m going to be your assistant!”

“Because I’m looking for an assistant!” Magnifico corrects the boy.

“I know! This is incredible! You’re so awesome! I can’t believe that I’m here and that I’m talking to you and-”

Magnifico watches the boy rambling himself into a frenzy, almost hyperventilating. “That is … really nice! But let’s calm down a little, hm?” He rests his hand on the boy’s shoulder with a warm smile but instead of calming down, a high pitched squeal escapes the boy’s throat.

His eyes widen and his face goes pale. “He touched me!” He squeaks before his eyes roll back in their sockets and he slumps to the ground faster than Magnifico can grab him.

“Oh dear! That was unexpected.” The king dives down to shakes the boy’s shoulders gently. “Hey, can you hear me?”

Fluttering, the eyes of the boy open again. He mumbles something, seemingly disorientated.

“Are you alright?”

The boy meets the king’s concerned face and starts losing it entirely. Magnifico withdraws in bewilderment. He’d witnessed many swoon and faint at his mere appearance but he hadn’t anticipated his first applicant to fall into that category.

For a moment, Magnifico can do nothing but stare. To his relief the doors to his study fly open and Amaya bursts in. Rowan, the chief guard, at her heels.

“Alright Kiddo, let’s go!” The broad man effortlessly plucks the squirming boy off the ground and escorts him out as Magnifico adjusts his bangs and exhales through his lips.

“Oh my …” Amaya saunters over to the king. “Are you ok?”

“Yes … that was … What was that, Amaya?”

“I don’t know!” She shakes her head and joins his stare at the doors, as if the boy would burst back in any moment. “He was so calm when he stepped up!”

Magnifico clears his throat. “Anyway … that was enough for today! Maybe I was too quick with this ... I’ll receive the next applicant no sooner than next week. See to it that you won’t let another lunatic into my study!”

“Yes, mi rey!” Amaya dips down into a slight bow.

He nods, turns and moves back towards the glass wall. Back in the laboratory, he stops in front of one of the tall windows.

“Your tea must be ready.” Amaya adds quietly.

“Thank you.” He doesn’t turn around but keeps his gaze fixated on the horizon - over the teal rooftops to the glittering ocean in the distance.

This was only the first applicant. He tells himself. The next will go better.

☆ ~ ☆ ~ ☆

“You’re here today because you want to become my assistant.”

The man, somewhere in his thirties, nods.

“Tell me, why do you think you’re right for the job?”

“Uuuh … I don’t know?”

Magnifico’s smile drops slightly and his brows lift, “You don’t know?”

“My family and friends told me I was just right for the job! And now I’m here.”

“Uh huh.” The king’s brows lift higher, “well then, why does your family and your friends think you’re right for the job?”

The man shrugs his shoulders and Magnifico feels his patience run thin. “Ok, another question!” He pushes himself away from his counter, “what are your strengths? What are you good at?”

“I’m a good listener.”

“Good, what else?”

“I’m nice to people?”

Magnifico inhales, wipes over his face and massages his left temple for a few seconds. “That’s good that you’re nice to others, but there is much more to being my assistant than just being nice and good at listening!”

“Well, I can play flute!”

“You don’t say.” Magnifico’s expression falls into boredom.

“Would you like a demonstration?”

“No, I think we’re done here!”

“Oh, great!” The man chimes, “then I’m back home just ready for lunch! My wife makes wonderful baked potatoes with-”

“Yes, wonderful-” Magnifico quickly guides the man back to the hallway where Amaya waits.

“And her apple pie is outstanding too!”

Amaya’s brows furrow as the man passes her down the stairs without any complaint, happily proceeding to ramble to himself about the meals his wife can cook and if the laundry is already dry. “Uh …” Confused, she lifts her gaze back to the frowning king.

“I asked for an assistant, not a clueless court jester!”

“But he was nice, wasn’t he?”

“How are baked potatoes, apple pies and being able to play flute about to help me with my work?” Magnifico gestures and Amaya snickers.

"You like good meals."

Grumbling, he strides back into his study. “Very funny.”

◇ ~ ◇ ~ ◇

“Oh! Your majesty, it’s such an honor to meet you!”

Magnifico watches the woman in her twenties bow. “Thank you. I assume you know why you’re here?”

“Yes! Of course! Can I see the wishes now?”

“Excuse me?” Magnifico's face falls.

“You do get to see the wishes when you’re brought inside, right?”

“Who told you- One second!” He lifts his hand, “Don’t tell me you only came here in hopes to see the wishes!”

The woman fondles her fingers, “Well, and maybe get one granted too!”

Part of Magnifico aches for the fact this woman only cared for the wishes in the first place, the other is angered. Without another word, he passes the woman and opens the doors to his study, gesturing into the hallway. “You may leave!”

“Do I have the job?” The woman chirps and he has to fight his composure.

“No.” He says monotonously before shutting the doors again.

-

“The audacity!” Magnifico vents while striding up and down, waving his hands. “Can I see the wishes! Is this all they see in me? A source for favors?”

“They trust you, that’s why they ask you.” Amaya says.

“That’s not the point!” He turns, “You don’t understand how it feels! You’re not in my position! I want my assistant to see eye to eye with me! This is important to me!”

“Mi rey, this has only been the third applicant. More will come. A little more patience.”

“Patience! If every single applicant will end up like that then I won’t get an applicant at all!” Magnifico snaps with a flick of his cape. Then he calms and exhales through his gritted teeth. “I’m in my room. I'll see you at dinner!”

Amaya lets him leave and sighs.

The doors to the kings private chambers fall shut with a loud bang that for sure echoes through half the palace. Groaning Magnifico stomps into the middle and keps pacing. Back and forth and in a few tiny circles.

Why didn't anyone seem to really listen to him? Why did no one ever seem to really understand him? Finding an assistant and apprentice wasn't a decission he'd make lightly.

I must protect my people at all costs! Never again ... never again ... I must not let it happen again!

His shaking hands run through his hair and he paces again.

I need to calm down. Everything is fine. Nothing's happened. I'll find a good assistant. It's in my hands.

His eyes lift outside to the glowing horizon. Sighing tiredly, Magnifico drops onto his bed. Was it really that hard to find someone who'd see things like he did and feel the way he did?

~

“I’m a quick learner! I’m very ambitious and highly interested in alchemy!”

“Good! Very good!” Magnifico smiles. So far everything has gone well. “Go on!”

The girl nods. “If I don’t know something, I can learn it. I’m also ready to do smaller tasks!”

“Promising. But if you want to become my assistant, I need to be sure that I’m seeing eye to eye with you. And I need to be able to fully trust you!”

“You can, your majesty. That’s the point in having an assistant, no?”

Magnifico considers, then he nods as well. “Come, I want to show you something.”

Excited, the girl follows him into his laboratory and to the wishes. Her eyes widen as she spots the alchemy items around her. “Woah!”

“Normally I don’t bring anyone in here, but I need you to understand why I’m doing what I’m doing so I can-” He stops, “Don’t touch anything!”

The girl, who stands close to one of the glasses filled by some green liquid, quickly pulls her hand back with a sheepish grin and Magnifico shifts his gaze back up to the hovering balls. “The reason I keep the wishes in here is-” He hears glass clink and turns his head over his shoulder once more with a slightly stern pout, “Don’t touch!”

The girl reaches for another glass.

“No.”

Another glass.

“Don’t touch that! That either! Listen, if I tell you not to touch anything, I mean it! Do not touch anything, that’s an order!”

The girl nods energetically. “Yes sir! King Magnifico, sir!”

Magnifico sighs and rolls his eyes. Patience. He reminds himself. Give her a chance, she’s just curious, curiosity is good. “I was saying … Keeping the people of Rosas safe and sound is my highest priority! Everything I do is to make sure that-”

Amaya, who had been on her way to inform the king of a letter from a neighboring kingdom, almost trips at the last step as a loud explosion erupts behind the closed doors of the king's study. Eyes widened, she dives for the handles. Out of the slit between the doors a bluish smoke leaks into the hallway. As she opens the doors, she’s immediately wrapped in a cloud and stumbles back coughing and waving her hands.

Back inside the laboratory, Magnifico stands still as a pillar. His lips are pressed together firmly and one of his eyes twitches. Upon a twirl of his hand, the smoke flees through the open windows. For a few seconds, he closes his eyes and clenches his fists, biting down the anger that slowly bubbled up in his chest like lava in a volcano. After a deep breath, he turns to look at the girl, who still holds two - now empty - glasses. Her hair all poofed up like the tail of an angry cat, her face and clothes dyed blue.

“I’m sorry,” She chirps, “I couldn’t help myself! This liquid sparkled and I really wanted to know what would happen if I mixed it with this purple one …”

Magnifico doesn’t reply. He examines the wish bubbles to make sure they’re fine and then strides towards the girl, taking the glasses from her and placing them back on the counter.

“Am I in trouble now?”

“I told you not to touch anything!” He snaps, “you disregarded my order, endangered not only the wishes but me and yourself as well!”

“I’m really sorry, your majesty!” The girl bows.

Suddenly his posture relaxes and his gaze softens. “It’s ok.”

“Really?” She looks up at him in surprise.

“When I was young, I caused more than one explosion. Mistakes are there to be learned from, I hope you’ll learn from this one.”

“Oh!” The girl relaxes as well, “So I’m not in trouble?”

“No.” Magnifico sighs, “but I assume you already know that I will not take you as my assistant.”

“Yes, of course.” Again the girl bows, “and I’m truly sorry!”

“Apology accepted. Come, I’ll bring you to the doors.”

“Mi rey?” Amaya carefully slips into the study, “What happ- Oh!” clasping her hand in front of her mouth, she tries not to laugh. Magnifico is just as sprinkled in blue as the young girl next to him. One part of his hair hangs loosely down his forehead, the other resembles a lion struck by lightning.

“Don’t say anything!” He grumbles as he shoves the girl towards her, “bring her back down. No more applicants for today!”

Amaya nods. She almost reaches out for the girl's shoulders but pulls back so as not to get her hands blue as well.

◇◇◇◇◇◇◇◇◇

After the last incident, Magnifico didn’t bring anyone into his laboratory and wishroom anymore. The safety of the wishes was too important.

The king leans against his desk, tiredly rubbing over his face. The last few minutes had cost him not only a few of his nerves. The recent applicant, which he’d sent to get some tea, had flooded him with questions about nearly every item in his study. And how was Magnifico to explain magic items he’s kept for over a decade to a boy who knew nothing about it? Or some of his thickest books he’d spent months studying?

The doors to the study open and the young man comes back with a little tray and the highly anticipated tea. A relieved smile spreads on Magnifico’s lips. Oh, how he needed this strong herbal tea now. Nice and hot.

The boy puts the tray down and hands the cup to the king, who eagerly takes it.

“Thank you!” Magnifico replies before taking a sip. Instead of a pleased sigh however, his eyes widen and he spits the liquid back into the cup just as quickly as it had entered his mouth. “This is cold!”

The boy fumbles his fingers nervously, “Really? B-but it was hot when I took it from the kitchen!”

“Are you saying Dahlia gave me cold tea? She’s never once, in the past six years, served me cold tea!”

“Uh … who’s Dahlia?” The boy frowns.

“What?” Magnifico's brows draw together in confusion, “I told you to go and get me tea. And that tea comes from the kitchen and Dahlia Lee is my royal baker! She’s responsible for making my tea, so if she didn’t give you the tea, who did?”

“I did?” The boy scratches his neck, “I thought I was supposed to make the tea myself.”

Now the whole situation makes sense to Magnifico and he sighs, putting the cup back onto the tray. No wonder this tea was ice cold. But, he could throw this little mistake over his shoulder. After all, he knew he was specific with his tea, and it had taken a little bit of trial and error for Dahlia as well to get behind how the king loved his drinks and food.

“I’m sorry the tea wasn’t to your liking, your majesty.” The boy says and Magnifico snickers.

“Oh, don’t worry. Just bring me a new one. And please,” He hands the boy the tray, “go and ask Dahlia to make it. Herbal blend number three. She’ll know.”

The boy nods and hurries to the doors.

“And if you’re at it, let her give you some lemon tarts. The ones with whipped cream!”

“Yes, sir!” The boy disappears.

Inhaling deeply, Magnifico makes one of the books from his shelf float to him. He opens it and starts reading mindlessly. Once in a while, he twirls his index finger and the feather pen starts writing some notes simultaneously.

After a while, the doors open again and Magnifico turns his attention from the book to the applicant, who carries the tray with cake and tea across the room.

“Finally!” With a graceful movement of his hand, the book floats back into the shelf.

The boy gasps in wonder and surprise. One second of his attention moved from watching his steps was enough to make him stumble over his own feet and trip. The tray flies out of his hands and tea and cake land right on the king's chest, rather than on the desk next to him.

Magnifico flinches, and the boy's face falls in horror.

“Oh my goodness, I’m so sorry! I didn’t mean to- I’m really ... I didn’t-”

“Yes … obviously!” Magnifico does his best to swipe off some of the cake from his clothes.

Too clumsy. He couldn’t allow someone like that to become his assistant. The job was too important and if someone became careless the moment he saw magic, he had the potential to be a danger.

“May I help you …” The young man takes a few steps closer but Magnifico lifts his hand.

“No. You may leave!”

“But-”

“I do have another applicant waiting.” Magnifico walks to the doors and opens them.

Amaya, who already stands ready at the railing cringes at the soaked, cake smeared chest of the king.

“Bring Asha to my study and tell her to wait a little. I’m ready in a few minutes.”

“Yes, mi rey.” Amaya sighs and beckons the young man to follow her. “Alright, come on. All is well! Don’t worry about it! It happens to the best of us”

Amaya gives one last look over her shoulder as she nears the kitchen and finds the young man has stumbled.

“Ay … are you alright?”

The boy whimpers but rises to his feet again.

Shaking her head, she straightens her shoulders and enters the kitchen, where she is greeted by a cloud of flour. Amused, she watches how the group of teenagers that had, by now, gathered in Dahlia's space, hurry in a line to bow.

“Asha, the king is ready for you.”

“Now? Am I late?”

“You’re fine!” Amaya says calmingly. “The last interview-”

“It was a disaster!” The last applicant wails as he hurries past the kitchen. Apparently he’d managed to get down the stairs without falling another time.

“Finished early ...”

"You see now? And Noah O'Nail has always been melodramatic." *takes a sip of tea* "What? Yes, of course I know all the names!" ....

"Honestly, the saddest thing about his failed interview was that Dahlia's wonderful tea and cake was wasted ... she puts so much effort in everything she makes and it's truly a shame that I didn't get to eat the lemon tarts." ....

"You never had them before? Oh, that should change! You're not allergic to lemons, are you? Or milk? Anyway .... I hope this answered you questions." *leans back*

[bad-fucking-omens]

The Witch Twin (Alec V. x OC) - Chapter 15 - Power

Summary: When I thought about my future, I was sure that I had the rest of my life vaguely planned out.

Then, my older sister moved up from Arizona to stay with us — and turned my entire life upside down.

I had no idea just how bad it had gotten until I was standing in a castle in Italy, convinced that I was about to die.

Length: 2.9K words (Complete fic 71.8K words)

Fic warnings: Graphic depictions of violence, death, explicit smut (M/F), referenced/implied past child abuse, emotional manipulation by sibling

Chapter warnings: References to sex/a sexual situation, graphic description of violence/death (unnamed characters)

Read on AO3 or read below

15. POWER

Alec nuzzled his nose into my long, dark hair as I cuddled closer to him, his arms wrapped around me. I hummed quietly and rubbed my cheek against his chest as I wrapped my arm just a bit tighter around his waist. My foot slid up along his shin as I hiked my leg higher over his thigh. Alec gently scratched my back.

I had no idea how we would ever get used to not being curled up together all the time once we returned to Volterra. We had been tangled together for practically the entire week since we arrived at the little cottage — when we weren’t making love for hours and hours.

It was almost as if we were trying to make up for all the years, decades, centuries that we hadn’t been able to be together.

“I wish we never have to leave here,” I whispered. “It’s so beautiful, and I love being all alone with you, with no one else around for miles.”

“I don’t want to leave either, sweet girl,” Alec murmured against my hair. “But we must, eventually. . . . Don’t think about it now, my love. We still have seven entire weeks left to do whatever we wish.”

I nodded slowly as my eyes fluttered open.

The golden light of the setting sun was making our crystalline skin shimmer faintly, making us look as if we were covered in very fine glitter. The lavender flowers that grew wildly around the field behind the cottage swayed in the slight, warm summer breeze all around us. We were laying on a blanket that we had taken from the cottage and spread on the ground.

“Surprising that the scent of the flowers isn’t overwhelming,” Alec murmured.

“As long as I don’t focus on the smell too much, it’s not too hard,” I replied.

“You heard me?”

“Of course I did,” I replied, lifting my head up from his chest to look at him in confusion. Alec sucked in a shocked breath and my throat tightened. “What is it?”

“Eve . . . those were my thoughts,” he told me. “I was thinking those things, not saying them aloud.”

I sat up quickly and Alec followed me, gently laying his hand on my own. I relaxed at his touch, though only slightly. My eyes flickered around quickly as my mind raced with questions.

How could I hear Alec’s thoughts? Why could I only now just hear his thoughts? Why couldn’t I hear him all the time? Did something specific have to happen before I heard someone’s thoughts, like how Aro needed to touch someone to hear their thoughts? Would I be able to hear other people’s thoughts, or only Alec’s?

“I-I can hear your thoughts?”

“It certainly seems like you can,” he murmured softly. “Are you alright?”

“I . . . I’m not sure.”

Alec nodded. He asked kindly, “Are you overwhelmed? Confused? Or something else?”

“Overwhelmed and confused, I think. More confused than anything. . . .” I looked up at Alec. “Why did it only show up now? I thought you said that powers appeared as soon as we wake up from the transformation.”

“Most abilities do, but some do require some time and training to develop,” he explained. “Typically, the stronger a power is, the faster it appears, but that’s not always the case. . . . Although, I don’t think I’ve ever heard of a power appearing weeks after someone wakes.”

“Did your power appear right away?”

“Yes.”

I nodded slowly, looking back at the ground. I rolled my bottom lip into my mouth nervously. A moment later, I asked, “Will I be like Edward? Or Aro? Or . . . or something else?”

“Unfortunately, there is no way to truly know that yet, my love,” Alec said softly. “We will have to wait and see, I’m afraid. . . . But I will be right here by your side for it all. You will not deal with this alone.”

I leaned into him and he instantly wrapped his arms around me and pulled me onto his lap. I nuzzled into the crook of his neck as my arms curled around his waist. My mate rubbed his hand along my back, trying to comfort me.

“I love you, Eve. We will deal with this together, okay? You don’t have to be afraid, sweet girl.”

“I just don’t want to hear everyone all the time,” I whispered. My words were muffled against his soft skin. “Bella said that it’s hell for Edward. . . . He never has a moment of peace.”

“Don’t get ahead of yourself, love,” he murmured. “It is very likely that your power will be nothing like Edward’s power, or Aro’s, or anyone else’s. It is extremely rare that there are two vampires with the exact same ability. It may even be impossible. The Volturi certainly hasn’t seen any two exact same abilities before. . . . Just try to relax, my love. We don’t have to focus on it right now, while we’re entirely alone with no one else around us for miles . The only thoughts you will hear while we are here are mine and yours.”

I let out a long, steady breath and let my body relax in his arms. Alec pressed a kiss to the top of my head, then suggested, “Let’s spend the night outside. We can lay back down and just look at the stars all night.”

I smiled and said, “Only if you point out the constellations to me and tell me the myths they got their names from.”

Alec laughed and agreed, “Deal.”

I lifted my head from his shoulder and he leaned close to kiss me. When we broke apart, we simply stared at each other for a while. He lifted his hand and cupped my cheek gently, brushing his thumb along my cheekbone. My eyes fluttered shut as I leaned into his touch. He brushed his lips lightly across my cheeks, then my nose, until he finally kissed my lips.

“Lay down with me, my beautiful, sweet, little mate.”

I let him pull me down with him as he laid back on the blanket. Alec pulled another blanket over us just enough to cover our naked bodies up to our waists. I curled up against his side again, hooking my leg around his as I laid my head on his chest. Alec tangled his hand in my soft curls again as he nuzzled into my hair and took a deep breath. He hummed and pressed one more kiss to the top of my head.

I looked up at the sky, which was finally beginning to darken as the sun drifted below the horizon. The various constellations were becoming more visible by the millisecond. I recognized some of them, but others were entirely lost on me.

Alec’s voice was soft as he began to speak.

“Most constellations are named after prominent figures in Greek and Roman mythology. . . .”

The flames that burned through my throat were getting more and more intense the longer we stayed secluded in our little cottage. Sometimes, it was easy to ignore, but other times, soothing the burn was all I could think about. Venom flooded my mouth every time I even thought about sinking my teeth into the soft flesh of someone’s neck and letting their sweet blood burst into my mouth and pour down my throat to soothe the burn.

“Alec?”

We were laying in bed again, the sheets tangled around our bare bodies, which were wrapped around each other.

“Yes, love?”

“I . . . I think I need to feed again,” I murmured.

He hummed. “I assumed that you would need to feed soon. Shall we get dressed and go hunt now?”

“I don’t think I can wait much longer,” I admitted, reaching up to rub my throat as if that could help.

“Then we should go,” Alec replied. He kissed me before we untangled our limbs to get out of bed.

I walked over to my suitcase and pulled out a pair of black skinny jeans and a burgundy long-sleeve shirt. I put on my clothes, then brushed the tangles out of my hair that Alec’s hands had created. Once we were both dressed and freshened up, we went downstairs. We put on our shoes and Alec grabbed the keys to the car.

“Where are we going to hunt?” I asked as we walked out to the car.

“Aro mentioned that there is a small village nearby,” Alec said, opening the door for me. I smiled softly at him before I climbed in and he shut the door. He got into the driver’s side and continued to speak as he started the car, “He said that it is fairly secluded and would likely be a good place for your first hunt. We should be able to find a couple people that are walking around alone.”

I nodded slowly, my eyes staring blankly out of the window as he drove. I had never hunted before and I was nervous that I would somehow mess up and break one of the rules the Volturi enforced. I knew that Alec would clean up any mess that I made, but I didn’t want him to have to clean up after me.

Alec laid his hand on mine, easily drawing me out of my thoughts. He said, “I know you are nervous, Eve, but I promise you that everything will be okay. We’ve all made mistakes before. It happens, sweet girl.”

“But I’ve already made mistakes,” I replied. I looked down. “Aro sent us here so that I could learn how to control myself. I can’t mess up again.”

“You are far too hard on yourself, Eve,” Alec said gently. He rubbed his thumb along my own. “You have more control than most newborns, my love. You don’t think so because you did make a mistake and you have never seen another newborn, but you do.”

I nodded. The rest of the drive to the nearby village was spent in silence. Alec found a place to park on one of the narrow streets. He moved to get out of the car, but I grabbed his arm and pulled him back.

“Alec, are you sure that I am ready for this?” I asked. Anxiety thrummed through my veins, my fingers tight with tension as they gripped his arm. “What . . . what if I lose control?”

“I trust that you will be able to control yourself enough for this, but if you can’t, then I will stop you. I won’t let you go feral, my love. . . . Eve, you have been doing so well, and there aren’t too many humans out here right now.”

When I didn’t say anything, Alec offered, “Sweet girl, if you are truly so worried about losing control, then I can hunt for us and bring one back for you.”

I shook my head and finally released his arm.

“No. I should learn how to hunt.”

“Are you sure?”

“I am. . . . Is it awful that I’m relieved we don’t have to hunt in Volterra?”

Alec smiled understandably. “Of course not. I much prefer to let Heidi bring us our meals, too. In the castle, we don’t have to control our instincts or worry about losing control surrounded by humans. There is no risk.”

I leaned over the center console and kissed him.

“Thank you, Alec,” I murmured against his lips.

“Of course, sweet girl.”

He reached up and tucked my hair behind my ear. He murmured, “We cannot use the most common rouse for hunting, I don’t think.”

“Why not?”

Alec smirked and replied, “To learn, you have to watch. And although you are very level-headed for a newborn vampire, I don’t think you will be able to control yourself if you see me flirting with another woman.”

A deep growl rumbled through my chest and Alec said, “She would only be my meal, Eve. You know that you are the only one I want.”

I closed my eyes and shook my head, trying to get over the jealousy that had taken control of my body. Alec took my hand in his and squeezed my hand gently.

“I love you, Eve.”

His words were the push I needed to gain control of myself again. I let out a breath, then put my face in my hands and groaned in embarrassment. “God, I feel like I’m fucking fourteen years old again with the way I can’t control my fucking emotions.”

I heard Alec stile a laugh and my hand shot out to slap his chest. He grunted painfully and I quickly lifted my head to glance at him, an apology tumbling from my lips before I hid my face again.

“My love, it’s perfectly fine,” he assured me. Alec gently pried my hands away from my face, but I kept my eyes on my lap and just listened to him. “Do you see what I mean when I say that we cannot hunt with that method? I trust your control to an extent, but I am not naive enough to believe that you can handle that. . . . I am not sure that I would be able to handle you flirting with your own meal.”

I looked up at him. His hand came up to cup my cheek, his thumb swiping along my cheekbone. His eyes, which were very nearly black from not feeding in three weeks, stared into mine.

“Are you ready to do this, sweet girl?”

I hesitated for a moment before I nodded. Alec smiled warmly and kissed my cheek. But this time, when I went to get out of the car, he stopped me.

“If you can handle this hunt, I think we should visit Paris,” he suggested. “Your control has improved enough that you can handle going to the city, as long as you can control yourself during this hunt.”

“Really?” I asked excitedly.

Alec grinned and nodded. “Good deal?”

“Yes!”

He laughed and squeezed my hand gently. We got out of the car and began to walk down the streets. He took my hand in his, keeping a gentle but firm grip on me.

“Do you have a plan?” I asked.

“Loosely,” he said. “I thought that we could walk around the village and look for two people who are in as secluded a space as we can find. We are quick enough that they won’t be able to scream or run before we drain them.”

I nodded. Alec’s grip on my hand tightened slightly as we approached a few humans. They were on the other side of the street, but they were still close enough that I could feel the venom flood my mouth when the scent of their blood reached me. White-hot flames shot through my throat and I reached up, rubbing my hand along my neck.

“Eve?” Alec murmured worriedly.

I swallowed down the venom and dropped my hand back to my side. “I’m okay. Just really thirsty.”

“Hold on just a little longer, love. It shouldn’t take long to find what we need.”

We discreetly checked every side street and alley as we walked past them. Luckily, it didn’t take us long to spot two men talking quietly in a dark alley behind a pub.

I glanced at Alec. He nodded slightly, but whispered, “Wait just a moment, sweet girl.”

I took a small step closer to his side and turned my head towards his shoulder. I took a deep breath and let his sweet scent of chamomile and lavender and candied lemon dull the scorching flames that the men’s blood was sending through my throat. It was a small relief, but it helped me keep myself from running into the alley and ripping into their necks.

“Are you ready?” Alec asked after a few seconds.

“Yes,” I said, lifting my head up. My eyes flicked over to the men again, who were smoking. My nose wrinkled — I hated the smell of cigarettes even as a human, and now it was exponentially worse. “I’ll take the one on the left.”

“Okay. . . . Now.”

We ran towards the men, reaching them before they could even finish blinking. I grabbed the man who was leaning against the building to the left of us. I pressed my hand over his mouth before my teeth tore into the flesh of his neck. He tried to fight me off, but I was far too strong for him to move me even a millimeter. I let my hand fall from his mouth as he fell limp in my grasp.

His warm blood instantly soothed the inferno in my throat. It wasn’t as sweet as the blood of the tourists that Heidi found for us — it was slightly bitter and tasted faintly of cigarettes — but it was enough to fill my stomach.

When his veins ran dry, I let the man fall to the ground. I stared down at his body as I wiped the blood from my mouth with the back of my hand.

The man had to be in his mid-thirties, with a bald head and a slight beer gut. I noticed there was no wedding ring on his finger. That was good — perhaps no one would miss him now that Alec had also drained his friend.

I looked up from the dead man at my feet and met Alec’s crimson eyes. He was grinning proudly at me, his teeth stained red from the blood of the man that had been his meal. He stepped over the dead man at his feet and kissed me, licking the blood from my lips. He pulled back and brushed my hair behind my ear with a smile.

“Looks like we’re going to Paris, my love.”

[indecentpause]

in celebration of hitting page 100 on my second draft, here is a little fic thing I wrote about Meara's life with his boyfriend before The Most Beautiful Puzzle starts! No spoilers for the story, you learn about Drake right away.

cw: violence, intimate partner abuse (verbal, physical, psychological)

Your band was never that big, was it, Meara? You have your own little cult following, but nobody outside of the city knows of you. That’s okay, though! You and your friends are in it because you love making music, not because you thought you’d be famous one day. Because, let’s face it, you were a couple decades late when you started a ska band.

You get to be someone else onstage: someone bright, someone beautiful, someone who wasn’t constantly fucking things up, because you’ve been playing guitar since you were tiny, and it comes to you like breathing, now.

It‘s nice when Drake comes to your shows, at first. Not many of your band have partners, and seeing someone who’s there just for you, just for your guitar and your voice, specifically to cheer you on--it eases the sting from all those years with your shitty family who always treated you and your hobbies like garbage.

At first, Drake gets along pretty well with your bandmates. Danny, being his friendly self, often makes the time to talk to him in between sets if you‘re getting some water or washing your face, so he won’t feel alone or awkward, and he always steps back to give Drake space with you. He’s the perfect best friend for a lot of reasons, but that’s one of many, one that everyone sees, not just you and him.

Then the first accusation comes.

“You’re sleeping with him, aren’t you?”

You just home from band practice, a little late because of traffic, and those are the first words Drake says to you. Not “Welcome home” or “Was traffic bad?”

He skips right to accusations. Who else would you even be sleeping with?

When you ask just that, his face darkens, and he takes a step into your space, and for the first time you realize how much bigger than you he really is.

“What are you talking about?” You try asking again, softer.

“Danny. You’re sleeping with him.”

It’s so absurd you can’t stop the laugh from bubbling up, but it dries on your lips, heavy, like salt.

“You think it’s funny?” Drake demands. You shrink back against the door.

“No, it’s not--” you start, stumble, like your words are always stumbling because of your stammer. “It’s not funny.” You try again. “I just… Danny? Of all the people in the world you could accuse me of cheating with, you pick Danny?”

Danny’s your best friend and has been since you were five and he was six. You’ve heard about childhood sweethearts, mostly in movies, but he’s so much like your brother that dating him would almost feel like incest.

Drake opens his mouth, but you’re so tired, and you’re covered in sticky, dry sweat from jumping around in Danny’s garage at practice, so you duck under his arm and say, softly,

“I’ve never cheated on a partner in my life. There’s no reason I would start now.”

You go back to work at 6:00 the next morning, and it’s hard, and it’s exhausting, and you don’t have enough masks for all the crews because of the shortage, and so some of you have to go without. So you only use them when you’re in the hospital or dealing directly with Covid positive patients, and pray that they aren’t lying to you when they say they’re not.

When you get home after one of your roughest shifts in ages  twenty-eight hours later, you pull out your old sewing tote and get to making some cloth masks. It’s not ideal, but it’s better than nothing. You’re three and a half in when you start to fall asleep over your work, but then the bedroom door slams and you jerk back awake.

“What--?”

“Why are you home so late?”

You rub your eyes and turn toward Drake and his quiet demand. At least he’s not yelling this time.

“We got held over and then I took a nap in the break room because I didn’t think I could drive yet,” you say. You put the half sewn mask to the side and stretch. “Chill, Drake. It happens.”

“But you didn’t call me,” he presses.

You finally turn to look at him. “I never do?” you half-ask, confused. “Why would I have to now? Do you want me to start calling when I’m going to be home late? I can start sending you a text or something--”

But Drake storms through the living room and into the kitchen, where he very loudly bangs around while making a pot of coffee.

You don’t have the energy for this. You’re going to bed.

And it keeps going like that, and going, and going, on and on.

He starts accusing you of stealing money, even though he never keeps cash around and you don’t know any of his bank information. He tells you what and when you can eat, like a child who can’t feed himself on his own. And always, after every band practice, he accuses you of sleeping with Danny.

Five months later, you can’t handle the stress of Drake and working in unsafe conditions and band practice. And your band is the only thing keeping you sane, and you have a fair amount of savings, so you quit your job.

And the next month gets worse and worse. The only time you have to yourself is band practice and when Drake is at work. He hovers and accuses and sneaks around, tries to get into your phone and email, constantly asks you where you are and what you’re doing even though you told him five times already.

It’s six months later when he barges into your band practice at Danny’s house, like he’s going to catch you doing something other than tuning your guitar. There’s yelling, and pushing, and crying, and Danny tries to get between you and Drake but Drake is too quick. He grabs your arm and throws in you the car, and he speeds off back to your apartment.

When you finally regain your senses, you shout, “Drake, what the fuck?”

“I don’t want you hanging out with them anymore.”

“You don’t--Drake, I’ve known them a hell of a lot longer than I’ve known you, and we’re in a band, I can’t just not see them. I--”

But then he turns on his shitty ‘80s music and blasts it so high you can’t hear anything else, and you slump back in the seat with your arms crossed over your chest, glaring out the window.

When you get back to the apartment, you storm up the stairs. You’re done. No more.

You throw everything you can manage into a duffel bag, grab your emergency cash from the back of your closet, and storm out. You don’t know to where. Danny’s, probably.

Drake chases you down and reaches over your head to push the door closed again. You turn around, with everything you have willing your voice not to shake.

“Back off. I’m leaving. This controlling bullshit has gotten out of hand. We’re done.”

You force the door open and he stumbles back a step, then grabs your wrist as you start down the first step. He jerks you back and your ankle twists and you cry out hoarsely, pulling your wrist out of his grip. You stumble, you fall, you struggle to push yourself up because now your wrist and ankle are throbbing. Your ankle collapses underneath you when you first try to get up, but the second time you manage it, crawling up the handrail.

Drake is staring at you, wide eyed and terrified.

“We’re done,” you repeat, and you stumble down the stairs and to your car. For a moment, Drake just stands there, but then he takes the stairs two at a time to try to reach you before you get to the parking lot.

It’s the hardest thing you’ve ever done, but even with your sprained ankle, you jog to your car, throw your bag in the passenger’s seat, and slam the doors closed and lock them.

Thankfully your gas foot is still fine. You speed out of the parking lot, whirling down alleyways and one way side streets for a good ten blocks, just in case he tries to follow you.

But he’ll know you’re going to Danny’s. Where else would you go? And you can’t, you can put Danny in harm’s way like that. So you make a U-turn and head away from the suburbs and into Chicago. There are so many people and so many motels, it would take him months to track you down.

Danny still has your guitar, and he’ll keep it safe. He has your furniture because Drake had his own when you moved in.

You tell your phone to call Danny, who has already called you and left five messages and countless texts. He answers in a panic.

“Meara, what the fuck was that? Are you okay? Did he hurt you? What’s going on?”

“I’m leaving,” you say vaguely.

“What? Where?”

“I don’t know. Into the city.”

“Meara, don’t be stupid, come to my place and--”

“No, Danny, he knows I’d do that. I don’t want you to get hurt, too--”

“Too?”

You interrupt “Just. Just hang onto my stuff until I can get settled somewhere else. I’ll keep in touch and let you know where I end up. But. I’m gonna have to disappear for a while. That means I can’t stay with the band, not right now. I’m so sorry. Tell everyone I’m so sorry. Maybe sometime in the future we can--”

“Meara, it’s fine, we all know you have to be safe first and foremost. Just. Just be careful, okay?”

“Yeah,” you say softly, and you take a right onto the highway.

General taglist:  @ohsugarfoot @abalonetea @only-book-lovers-left-alive @poore-choice-of-words @leadhelmetcosmonaut @jasperygrace @drippingmoon @athenswrites @kaiusvnoir @magic-is-something-we-create @idreamonpaper

Puzzle taglist: @winterandwords

[independence1776]

@gellalaer From the comments on this post (because I’d run out of space in the comment box and also this is a lot of tangential navel-gazing):

It was nice to read your viewpoint on things. I'm so saddened to hear you feel the way you do. I know how you feel with not wanting to engage anymore. I'm barely holding on by a thread here, myself. I would miss you and arizonapoppy, if I left tomorrow. All my usual fandom friends I've grown apart from, since my Mum died, as I'm not on the sites they're on, anymore. Thanks again for the asks.

It’s a tough place to be in. I’m sorry you’re feeling this way, too.

I can’t participate with fandom like I used to for numerous reasons. Part of it is serious offline life stressors; part of it is that grad school got me out of the habit of fandom because I was too busy to participate. (Like, it took me weeks to read a fic over lunch/dinner that I would normally be able to read in an evening type of busy.) I relied on rec lists then and haven’t gotten back into the habit of looking for fics on my own; also, I’ve been reading mostly original fiction this year. Part of it is that it’s very hard to maintain a squee/positive mindset in most places because random strangers will come onto your posts to debate, argue, or insult you when all you wanted to do was love something in public. And part of it is that I’ve lost my joy and enthusiasm and I don’t know how to regain it. (And in my worst moments, I ask myself if anyone would even care if I left fandom entirely.)

For Tolkien fandom in specific, I know a good chunk of my desire to not engage is anxiety brain. I said in the original post that “I can’t even read Tolkien right now without my anxiety ramping up because I feel like I’ll be forced to take sides in whatever arguments are ongoing and because I’ve been only tiptoeing in the very shallow end of the fandom for years now, I feel like I have no right to participate because I haven’t been reading Tolkien fic.”

Fault lines exist in this fandom. Some of them have changed over the years; some have gone dormant; others are newly created. I’ve been so quiet in Tolkien fandom I don’t even know where most of them are nowadays. And heaven forbid you don’t ship the popular ships or dislike the popular fanon or prefer Silm-version over HoME-version. 

It’s stuff like: I said in an answer to a question in a previous meme that I tend to see characters as either straight or ace. I lost followers for that. Well, when I ship, I’m primarily a het shipper with side jaunts into m/f/f or m/f/m poly or femslash and I flatly prefer canon ships over noncanon ships. I can only assume those people didn’t know that. And I’m ace enough that I primarily write gen and that if someone isn’t explicitly said in-canon to be in a relationship, I will likely see them as ace. Yet because that’s an unpopular opinion in an area of fandom dominated by m/m shippers who sometimes act as though their ships are canon, it’s a fault line I’m on the wrong side of.

There is something very wrong when I can’t even read books I love without feeling afraid I’ll be questioned about my opinions of them. It’s anxiety brain. No one online knows if I’m rereading Tolkien if I don’t mention it! But I can’t shut up the fear I’ll be dragged into debates that I don’t care about, think are a waste of time, and are utterly unimportant in the grand scheme of things but that people treat as matters of life and death.

As for the “no right to participate” part: I know it’s fixed by asking for recs for currently formative or popular fics from the past five years or decade. But I have no guarantee I’d read any of them, remember enough of canon to understand them (the amount of Tolkien lore I’ve forgotten is ridiculous), or that people will respect my reading preferences. (I have asked for gen recs before and been recced mostly slash.) It seems like an awful lot of work for something that’s supposed to be fun; it turns fandom into an obligation.

But that is what I feel like right now: that people know me because I haven’t left the SWG spaces but I’m not reading Silmfic but people probably assume I am so I don’t dare act like I have no idea what’s going but sometimes I do and many times I don’t and I don’t participate in Tolkien fandom on Tumblr at all but people often act as though this is where the fandom is and everyone knows everything that’s going on. So how dare I roll in here acting as though I haven’t been participating in the fandom for years even though I really haven’t been active outside of chatting on the SWG Discord and making things for TRSB. (And wow that’s a run-on.)

Add in the constant, underlying pressure that people want more and more content (never stories, always content and few seem to care about the difference between content and creations/art) and that you’re irrelevent if you aren’t constantly writing and posting new things. There is far less a sense of a community of readers and writers in this together these days. But it also seems that it’s events events events and what’s wrong with you if you don’t participate in them? (And this even though I love some events.) There’s a constant pressure to fit in and be like everyone else, that everyone is in fandom for the same reasons and writes fic for the same reasons (which often means either shippy fic or “must fix canon because canon sucks” fic). The assumptions that everyone in fandom loves and prioritizes shipfic, that genfic is inherently less valuable or worthy of attention, and that shipping the only reason people are in fandom really gets on my nerves.

Well, I’m not exactly prolific. I don’t post WIPs; I can’t talk about what I’m currently writing to drum up interest. I can’t talk about what I want to write in the future. Because some of my fics contain darker subject matters, I’m worried that I’ll be jumped on by people who think those types of stories shouldn’t exist. Participating in events means I don’t work on my own ideas; I didn’t finish a story I really wanted to this year because I signed up for a couple of things in the back half of the year so my attention shifted to those stories. (I don’t regret writing them at all but it’s a matter of prioritization.) I don’t feel like I fit in with modern fandom.

I don’t want to leave and don’t plan to, but I’m not sure anymore there’s a place for me in much of fandom.

[celestefem]

a coworker i’ve grown fairly close to (let’s call her “k”) suddenly just walked out on wednesday. thinking back on some of our conversations, not only is it not a surprise, i’m going to quit, too. i can’t live like this anymore.

context: i work in the kitchen of a residential facility for people with disabilities.

today, another coworker (“s”) said, “i hate to say it, but good riddance. it’s bad for the company to have someone so flaky.” that was my breaking point: s, you can rot in hell. k was the best thing to ever happen to this place, the only one who gave a damn, and you alienated and put her down every step of the way. you couldn’t even bother to remember her name! (she kept calling k my name, even though she’s literally been there for a year.)

another coworker (“d”) was training me how to do the after dinner dishes (because k had always done them up to this point). “yeah, some people wear gloves. those are, uh… what’s-her-name’s down there,” d said, gesturing to k’s gloves. again, she was there a year!! they went on multiple road trips together, apparently, even! d continued to say, “the only thing that matters is speed. what are you doing, scrubbing each dish? just do it as fast as you can!”

d also constantly criticized everything i did, even if i literally was just doing what i was told. for example, one of my jobs was to sort out pops to give to people, based on a list. i followed the list. “what the hell is this?” she asked. “we never give this guy a pop at snack time.” i pointed to where it said on the list she gave me to give him a pop at snack time. “oh, i never noticed that,” she said and crossed it off.

meanwhile, when one guy didn’t want to eat his dinner and asked for an alternate, she was about to give him a cheeseburger. he’s both gluten and lactose intolerant. she’s worked there for over a decade — she should know better.

also, today, one resident’s mom brought her ice cream and wanted me to give her some as a snack. i went to grab a scoop, but s told me to use a different scoop that’s apparently for people with arthritis? you have to shake it up and it scoops easily. but it left a weird black residue on the ice cream. she didn’t notice. i told her and she put it through the dishwasher. the scoop specifically says on it: “warning: do not put in dish washer or expose to heat.” it seemed to be leaking some sort of chemical…

sometimes you’re blamed for other people’s mistakes. a few times, a residential assistant has come down to say, “oh, hey, we didn’t get a plate for so-and-so.” but we definitely did send it down! i specifically remember preparing it! sometimes it turns out they dropped it. sometimes, a different resident ate it. we’re still the one’s who get in trouble.

there was another point where i wanted to quit, but the difference is my mindset then was, “i’m such a horrible worker, i do everything so slowly. i’m so useless and such a bother, they’d be better off if i quit.” looking back at that: what the fuck!! i was made to feel like absolute garbage and for what!?

today, i left for a second to dump the mop water and d said: “where’d she go? i was worried she got upset and walked out, too. seems to happen to a lot of new people.” gee, i wonder why?!

none of my (former) coworkers care. management doesn’t care. nothing is ever going to change. i feel so bad for the residents.

[bafflement]

Ozqrow Week - Day 7 - Alternate Prompt - Bachelor Party

Qrow stared around at the ridiculously ostentatious display of power and wealth around him in very real disgust. Trust Jimmy of all people to decide that his wedding had to happen here. Yes, Jimmy was from Atlas, but surely there were some limits if only on good taste? The colors clashed in ways he sincerely doubted Glynda would have been okay with had she known about it in advance, and dearest Brothers, was that an actual champagne fountain? Most of the guests seemed to be halfway to drunk already, the lightweights. He scanned the room, looking for a specific person amongst all the politically well connected invitees. Trust Jimmy to use even his own bachelor party as a means of drumming up support. The entire party felt slimy to Qrow, who was very well aware that he was here on sufferance. Jimmy didn’t actually have enough friends to afford to turn him away though, despite appearances. How many people were here just so they could say they had attended the party of the decade, after all?

All this schmoozing was making him vaguely nauseous. He was pretty certain he’d spotted at least five people tonight that he was highly aware that Jimmy casually despised. Oh, no… make that six. A red faced Jacques Schnee seemed to be screaming at another guest. He blinked but the image didn’t change. That was Oz, why was he in blue, had he actually followed the ridiculous dress code? Jacques was still going, gesticulating wildly as a seemingly unruffled Ozpin just looked down at him. He hadn’t fully realised how short the man really was until he saw the contrast between the two. Brothers, but Oz must be easily a foot taller than him. Why was Schnee so disgusted, anyway? He was one step up from pond scum, in all the worst ways and everybody knew it. He sighed internally, time to play the good friend and get Oz out of whatever the hells that situation was meant to be.

“Oh, hey, Oz, been looking for you. Are you done talking yet?” If anything, Jacques got even more red faced at the interruption, before seeming to hear something and come back to himself slightly. Oz, saint that he was, just looked at him patiently as though waiting for something to happen. Qrow had never really been quite sure why Oz hated the other man so much, although it was a sentiment widely shared on Remnant as a whole Oz had never really seemed to hate anyone before like he did Jacques Schnee. Except Salem, and wasn’t that a horrific thought. The idea of Jacques, or any Schnee really, with magical powers wasn’t something he really wanted to think about too closely.

There was a flash of something almost like hurt in Oz’s eyes as the other man turned away, probably to go scream at someone else. If this had been Qrow’s party, he would have been tossed out long before now. But then again, had this been Qrow’s party, he’d rather have drunk poison than let that man anywhere near it.

He glanced at Oz again, almost consideringly. He wasn’t really the type to settle down, but if ever there was someone that could tempt him into matrimony, it was certainly Oz. He hadn’t exactly been looking for love, but then that was always the way, wasn’t it? He’d fallen into it like a crow into shiny objects, and he couldn’t give it up now that he had it in his grasp.

“Oz? What was all that about, anyway?” He asked, hope over certainty that he wasn’t going to get a straight answer. Oz’s face worked briefly before the other man let out a deep, aggrieved sigh.

“Jacques Schnee remains himself, dismally so. He saw the colors I was sporting and decided to make a big deal out of things. It’s like he didn’t even read the dress code, not that you seem to have followed it, my dearest, dusty old Qrow.”

Qrow rolled his eyes. “Rather more surprised that you did, to be completely honest. I get the temptation to turn Jacques Schnee inside out, hell, I’ve had it a time or two myself… but seriously, what even was that? Why would he take offence to the way you dressed?”

“We had an agreement Qrow, not to pry too far into each others pasts. Put it like this, Mister Schnee seems to be of the erroneous assumption that he can control me in any way, shape or form. I do believe he has not himself truly gotten over past events. That and I fear he may have mistaken me for someone who is long dead, though I cannot be sure on the last issue.” Oz sighed again, stopping speaking. Qrow stared at him, narrowly. Had Oz been drinking? That was rather more information than the immortal ever tended to reveal after all. Then again, the provocation HAD been rather intolerable. He was reluctantly impressed, in a way, that Oz hadn’t taken the opportunity to turn Jacques inside out, though if he had actually raised a hand to the Headmaster then all bets would be off.

Just who did Jacques think Oz was, then, to react the way he had in public, around what passed for the great and the good of Atlasean society? Who would have been worth the risks, considering that enough people must have heard the one way screaming match to seriously tarnish the older man’ reputation? He glanced at Oz again, but his face had closed, eyes going distant in a way that meant he wasn’t going to get anything more out of his friend tonight. No matter what else might happen, they’d been hovering [heh] around the edges of a more than friends relationship for awhile now. He glanced back at the furious, red faced form of Jacques Schnee, For a second he’d almost seen Oz in his features. Nah, he couldn’t have. Maybe it was the company, everything was making him paranoid tonight.

[applegothic]

Writing Journal 7/1

So *Taps Notes* I have some work to just place on the table. I have Three Stories I have yet to finish, but I’m really liking their ideas, and now don’t want to lose track of them.

Story 1: “Reapers” So this is a Story I have writing for a while. I want to turn this into a Video Game, or any form of Visual Media is what I’m looking to turn it into, because it’s very Color themed with the characters. The Main Character is [Blue], and like all of the characters in this Story, their names are censored because knowing someone’s real name is a Powerful tool. The idea is that he and his Partner [C.C.] are traveling up a Tower where each entity is Powered a Given Element. Their names are pertaining to which element it is. The closer to the Pure Color it is, the higher up on the Hierarchy of Elemental they are. [Blue] is the Last Ice Elemental, and he works under Commander [White] who runs the Third Largest Army in this world, filled with refugees from the conquered lands from [Red] and [Black], giving her Wind Element to as many as can hold it. [Blue] stops when he meets [Maroon], who doesn’t know why he’s there, or what’s going on, and [Blue] is forced to take on a Mentor role for him. Except, [Maroon] is a rare Blood elemental, and he’s trying to keep his distance in case he finds out how to properly use his powers. Very cool idea for a world, and I want to fully flesh this out. Story 2: “Ink-Hearted” This one I have a bit of crossover from my Sister’s Writing project. They idea is, when someone is born with powers, they hold onto it forever, and their kids and potentially get powers, too. The only problem is that, in death, their powers Flow into another power user who is nearby. The recipient doesn’t just get Power A + Power B... the Power mutates into Power AB, having the aspects of Both Powers at once. One of the characters grew up with the ability to Walk through Walls (Self Teleportation), but after his Father (Distance Reading) was killed, his power became to Teleport to wherever he’s looking at, meaning as long as he can see it, he can move there, so he ends up falling backwards through portals to get somewhere. A lot of the characters have odd powers, but a lot of the Plot of not fully there. Story 3: Words are Not Enough This is a Sonic Fanfiction I’ve been writing while I have some spare time. Shadow starts following Tails around because he found him sneaking around in Gerald’s Research files, and he wants to make sure he’s not going “Mad Science” in his garage. Tails, instead, takes him around to show him aspects of his childhood to explain with out saying why the idea of Genetic Research is appealing to him. The First chapter explains the reveal, so I’m not saying it here, but I have this whole lore about Foxes and Why his family in this story (Not fully pulling from the Comics, but just his parents’ designs) didn’t like him tooling around with mechanical stuff when he was little. The First Chapter is going up on my AO3 later today or tomorrow after I get it proofread. But yeah, I’m still doing Writing, but just not the same type as before, and not on the same sites. I tried going back to those ones, and they are basically dead after not being there for a decade, and I wanted to put them up in a place that I feel people might see. Let me know if you want specifics on the Stories I write, or you want to talk shop about them. I’m (not really) always available to talk on discord at the Same name. ~AG~

[daydreamerdrew]

Comics read this past week:

Marvel Comics:

The Incredible Hulk (1968) #208-211 and The Rampaging Hulk (1977) #1

Within the main The Incredible Hulk book I went from November 1976 to February 1977. All of these issues were, as expected, written by Len Wein and penciled by Sal Buscema. However, Joe Station, who as been the inker on this book for a good while now, was replaced by Ernie Chan starting with issue #210. So far I'm actually enjoying the change as I like how Ernie Chan's inking style adds a bit more detail to the art than Joe Station's did.

The cover of issue #208 proclaims “This is it! The dramatic turning point in the life of Bruce Banner!” The subsequent issues focus on him (though not, of course, to the complete exclusion of the Hulk) and set up a new status quo that allows for Bruce to appear more than he has in the past. For over a decade now the Hulk has been the main focus these comics, sometimes to the complete exclusion of Bruce. I have found that whenever Bruce does become more prominent and takes on a more active role in the stories, it doesn't last and that eventually the status quo of the Hulk as the star is returned to. This isn't exactly a problem for me because I love the Hulk and so have been enjoying him comics a lot, but because of the disparity in how much they're actually portrayed on the page the Hulk is significantly more fleshed out as a character then Bruce is, which isn't ideal. Also, I'm aware that The Incredible Hulk TV show starring Bill Bixby and Lou Ferrigno began airing around the time I've reached in the comics and I believe that it focused more on Bruce David Banner than it did on the Hulk so I have been wondering if the comics may change a bit to reflect that. It seems that they are changing, but I don't know yet how it'll actually last.

Early on in these issues Bruce briefly contemplates suicide, before deciding to not give up, and then rents an apartment which he's never managed to stay himself and stay stable long enough on his own to do before. In his elation at having a place to live he declares that "the Hulk is dead" and "long live Bruce Banner!" Of course, it's not that simple. Bruce also gets a job at a construction site, which he is similarly very happy about, but it's quickly ruined when a villain attacks him and forces him to transform and the construction site is destroyed in the subsequent battle. This is followed up with Bruce being contacted by someone who says that they need the Hulk’s help specifically and Bruce telling them that he won’t ever transform again, not even to save the entire world. Of course, it’s still not that simple (and it never will be). In the process of trying to help them as himself, Bruce is, you’ll never guess, forcibly transformed into the Hulk. But throughout this Bruce comes to the conclusion that there is, in fact, a right time and place for the Hulk. The inherent flaw in this is that it can’t possibly be maintained. Bruce isn’t going to just be ok with the Hulk from here on out and try to work with him instead of against him. The status quo of them having conflict with each other will inevitably be returned to, so any attempt to focus on Bruce more in stories ideally won’t try to make him grow in that way and will instead try to have him develop in some other not-story-premise-breaking way.

Talbot has been written out of the book by having him take an extended leave of absence from the military in order to cope with his many, many ordeals and marital problems, which I'm fine with because I was never invested in him as an individual character. However, Betty has also gone on the journey to figure out who she is, which I have mixed feelings about. She acknowledged how she's been defined by her relationships to her father, Bruce, and Talbot, and is motivated to change that, but I suspect that this too will only serve to write her out of the book, meaning that we won't actually get to see her figure things out on the page, meaning that when she does eventually return to the book she's not actually going to be any more developed as a character.

And the issue of The Rampaging Hulk was written by Doug Moench, penciled by Walk Simonson, and inked by Alfredo P. Alcala. This book is a very cool new addition to the Hulk’s comics. It's drawn in a detailed black-and-white style reminiscent to me of old-fashioned monster movies and is very well-suited for the Hulk. It takes place back in the very beginning of Hulk comics, beginning with a retelling of his origin story in 1962, and tells new stories set back when it wasn't known that Bruce was the Hulk, he still had his job as a civilian scientist in the army, and he was still hanging around with Rick Jones.

The Defenders (1972) #46-50

The writing credits for The Defenders book were a bit messy in this batch. Issue #46 was written by Roger Slifer and David Kraft, issue #47 was plotted by them but scripted by John Warner, and issue #48-50 were just written by David Kraft. All of these issues were penciled by Keith Giffen (with a variety of different inkers). Keith Giffen first started with this book in issue #41, replacing Sal Buscmena who had been on the book for awhile, and at first I wasn't happy with the change because I was so used to Sal Buscema's style for these characters, but I really did grow to like Keith Giffen's style in this batch.

There was a big change in the status quo of The Defenders in this batch of issues. It began with quite a few of the members leaving the team, most notably Dr. Strange who was one of the founding members and had been serving as the leader. What's left behind are, thankfully, the characters that I'm personally invested in- the Hulk, Valkyrie, and Nighthawk- who've all moved from Dr. Strange's home to their previously-rarely-used 'non-headquarters' which is a riding academy that Kyle bought ages ago so that Valkyrie would have a place to keep her pegasus. Kyle has taken over as team leader and I'm curious to see how that'll go in upcoming issues considering that he can be a bit of a disaster. Also, in these issues Hell-Cat and Moon Knight have teamed up with the Defenders but it's unclear at this point whether they'll being staying in the book or not.

I really enjoyed how the Hulk was characterized in this batch of issues. He said that he was tired of fighting all the time and decided he was just going to have fun for a day and when the Defenders came to ask him for help he told them that “Hulk does not want to be bothered today, not even by friends” and that “this time Hulk doesn’t care!” I think that this is actually a remarkable display of maturity for him. He’s had conflicts with the other Defenders before where he’s doubted that they’re really his friends, it’s a new thing for him to recognize that they are his friends but try to set the boundary that he doesn’t want to fight with them for a day. Unfortunately, because they needed his help, the Defenders purposefully antagonizes the Hulk and got him to chase them to where the villains were. I can understand why they would feel the need to do this rather than try to convince the Hulk, but I felt like he deserves more respect from his friends then that. And I’m sad his day of fun and not fighting was ruined. But I didn’t actually dislike his role in the subsequent fight because he and Kyle and a few cute moments.

Things may be looking up for the Hulk though because the promo teaser at the end of the last issue promises that next issue "Hulk eats a hot dog!" Once, there was a teaser that said "Hulk goes to the movies!" which ended up being him being mind-controlled to rampage through a movie theater, and not him actually watching a movie which would have been fun. But I don't think there could be any trickery to saying that the Hulk's going to eat a hot dog...

Harvey Comics:

the Mars Mason of the Inter Planet Mail Service stories in Speed Comics (1939) #7-11

I chose to read this because the name stood out to me. These 6-page stories, which I believe were all done by Munson Paddock just under different pen names, went from April 1940 to August 1940. This is the entirety of Mars Mason’s existence which is unfortunate because he was conceptually a really cool character that I found to be pretty well executed. Mars Mason was a mail delivery man between planets during a time of a lot of inter-planet conflict. I thought that the art style for the aliens and the space ships was really unique and I legitimately really enjoyed Mars Mason’s mail-delivery-in-space adventures.

[9tzuyu]

dark red

request: hii i’m not sure if you’re accepting requests rn,,, if you aren’t i’m sorry please ignore this djfjdhd could you write a nat x reader based off the song dark red by steve lacy — specifically the lines “don’t you give me up / please don’t give up / only you, my girl / only you, babe” — kind of like the tiktok trend going on right now

note: anon im so sorry i really hope this was okay. i can try and rewrite it if you want though 😭 i kinda hate it but i hope its good enough for you :[

aLSO SORRY THIS IS SO LATE.

i proofread this as quick as i could so all mistakes are mine.

warnings: none, a little angsty, terrible writing.

🏷: @c-is-writing @wandaromanova @nermalina

. . .

everyone knew natasha to be a very self-assured woman. she knew everything about herself; what she liked and what she didn’t like, who she tolerated and who she trusted. her history with just about everyone she’s close with dates back years, sometimes decades. it was very rare that she met someone knew whom she gave her complete trust to. 

meeting you caught her by surprise, something that doesn’t happen to natasha very often. your presence was refreshing, authentic, new. it was the very thing natasha didn’t know she needed in her life.

natasha watched your every little movement any time you were around. you intrigued her, held her attention by the very strand of your hair. something about you was special and she couldn’t seem to get enough.

so she allowed herself to have you, to enjoy you, to be with you. over a year into the friendship, you suggested the idea of becoming something more than just platonic. you wanted a relationship with the woman.

natasha accepted your proposal with a bright smile and a gentle kiss on the lips. she’d been more than relieved you asked her because the false belief that she was undeserving trampled any courage she had. 

it was hard to know when something was truly bothering natasha, but sometimes you were able to see the light dull in her eyes, or the uncontrollable fidgeting she’d accidentally let slip. 

which is exactly what you were dealing with now. for the past few months you’d begun to notice a slight change in natasha’s demeanor. little by little she began to distance herself in ways she knew would be looked over, at least for a short amount of time. 

natasha started out small. rather than having her face meet yours, she’d turn her back against your front while you slept. she couldn’t bear to look at someone who deserved so much better than what she could ever offer. 

you meant the entire world to natasha, she would quite literally do anything to protect you. that being said, natasha felt the need to protect you from her. 

a couple of weeks after her initial push back, you noticed the way she’d flinch when you tried to hold her. it was almost invisible, but you knew natasha more intimately than anyone else ever had, which made it easier to recognize all the small things everyone else missed.

then you caught onto the fact that she started leaving the bed early in the morning, as if she was promising herself not to see you. natasha also started to work more. longer hours, nights she had to be away, and minimal effort to keep in touch kickstarted the fighting. 

just as everything else did, it started off on a smaller scale. you’d send texts clearly stating how upset you were by her choice of actions. natasha would always have some stupid excuse on hand as a response though.

things began to escalate when natasha willingly booked her days off into cheap motels that reeked of cigarettes. the redhead would often find herself sitting on the floor beside her bed, breath saturated in store-bought vodka. the russian felt cheap and disposable, just as she did when she was a kid being used by the hands of a man with no morals.

when natasha chose to go home she’d return with her hair knotted, tied loosely in a bun with an apology already made.

this went on for nearly two months before you’d finally decided enough was enough. you’d given her time, space, everything you thought might help, but she never made any attempt to reciprocate your efforts. 

so now you stood leaning against the wall across the living room, natasha anxiously settled on the couch directly in your line of view. your focus was solely on the spy. and despite her best efforts at trying to hide it, you could tell she was uncomfortable.

“i’m sorry...” she croaked, voice hoarse from her night full of crying. 

“i know you are.” 

natasha’s fingertips met the edges of her teeth, followed by the familiar sound of a snap. 

disgusting. natasha felt incredibly disgusting, which in turn made her own self-hatred rise to a level she’d never met before. because how could she? how could she sit here and make you suffer through her own self destruction? natasha knew she was causing you pain, a kind of pain you didn’t deserve.

“i wish you would talk to me and tell me what’s going on, nat. i can’t keep doing this with you and you know that.” you watched as she clenched her jaw, swallowing a breath as her leg bounced sporadically against the wooden floor. 

“i don’t deserve you. i don’t deserve you at all.” her eyes faltered.  

you bit your lip, not understanding where this was coming from. “what makes you say that?” 

“because it’s true.”

“there’s nothing true about that statement, natasha.”

“but there is!” she practically begged, “i’ve done so much wrong, damaged so many people, ruined so many lives. there’s nothing good about me, and there’s so much good in you.” 

you moved closer to her, words ready to fall from you lips about how wrong she was. noticing this, natasha began to trip and stumble upon her sentences as you enclosed your proximity. you frowned having not been used to seeing her in such distress. 

“it sucks because i love you. i love you so fucking much—” her lip began to quiver,  “—and i’m sorry. i’m so fucking sorry that i still selfishly need you. just please, please don’t you give me up. please don’t give up. i’ll be better, i’ll do better.”

you didn’t bother listening to the rest of what natahsa was saying because just as you’d previously stated, none of it was true. there was nothing that natasha could say that would change your mind. you knew her as the person she is, not the person she was. 

“nat? nat look at me.” you tried. 

it was only then when natasha noticed how close you were. she tried to pull away, but you were quick to stop her by by a small, fragile grasp of the wrist. 

“natasha.” 

the redhead stopped midway through her movement, green eyes trailing from your hand all the way up to meet your own. 

“yes?” her voice cracked. 

“i would never consider giving up on you, natasha. ever. don’t you know? it’s only you, my girl. i love you — only you, babe.” 

“yes, but-”

“but nothing. your past doesn’t define you. that’s what you’ve told me hundreds and hundreds of times, right? i need you to hear me out on this.” her hum was the only response you got, but you chose not to fight it.

“you are not the finished product they made you to be.” although hesitant, she nodded. “you’re good, natasha, you are. i know you’ve spent the last decade it seems, trying to make up for all the wrong that you’ve done, but at some point you have to forgive yourself. you were never at fault. i know you know that, but i need you to believe it.” 

you leaned closer, connecting your forehead with hers knowing how intimate that felt for natasha. “i don’t want anyone else. i only want you— only you, darling.”

natasha nudged her nose against yours as if she was asking for permission to kiss you, but you let her take the lead, let her take the time she needed to before she pressed her lips against yours. 

 “i love you more than you will ever know.”

you giggled into the kiss, “you’re wrong about that, natty. you know you are.” she rolled her eyes, pulling away from you to push you on your back.  

“shut up and let me appreciate you.”

you smirked, looking up at the redhead. “oh yeah? and how are you going to do that?”

“you’ll see.” 

“oh i’m sure i will.”

“yeah. you will.” 

[bitsandbobsofwriting]

Magic is legal, Arthur knows The Truth and Merlin is... shit at explaining things:

Arthur demands a trip to visit the Druids, who are far more qualified than Merlin, so they can explain this whole... destiny thing.

I’ve written a lot of angst and Hurt!Merlin recently, so I just wanted to write something short and sweet and fluffy :)

SO.

Magic has been legalised, Merlin is Court Sorcerer, all the knights are alive and happy, Morgana is good, and the only thing Arthur has to worry about right now is what the hell to do about the rapidly growing crush he has on his BestFriend™.

After the dust had settled, Merlin had tried to sit Arthur down and tell him the whole story; all about Emrys, and the prophecies, and destiny. The King already knew about Merlin’s magic, and roughly how powerful he is, but that’s it.

But Merlin went so long barely mentioning it at all, not even to Gaius or Morgana or Lancelot, that he’s still not entirely sure what to say. Years of hiding and lying and trying desperately not to think about it, mean his brain now blanks when he tries to explain it.

After far too long of Arthur looking on confusedly whilst Merlin rambled on about dragons and coins and mental links and names, The Court Sorcerer gave up, and decided to just not bother.

Arthur, of course, decided that giving up was stupid, and made the executive decision that they would just go to the Druids, and someone who actual knew what they were talking about could explain it thoroughly. Maybe even allow Arthur to read the original prophecies.

Plus, it turned out that Initiating a Golden Age took quite a lot of work, so neither of them had had a chance to leave the city for weeks. They could do with the fresh air. And if Arthur saw it as a good chance to be properly alone with Merlin for more than half a candle mark? No one else needed to know, least of all Merlin.

~

It was a pleasant journey through the woods. The silences comfortable, and the conversations easy and filled with smiles.

Magic had only been legalised for about a fortnight, and after over twenty years of fear, magic users were still understandably cautious, meaning the closest Druid camp was still a two days ride away.

But that wasn’t a problem. With Merlin now able to use his magic openly, and therefor more able to defend his King, he found he was far less anxious about the trip outside the city than he would’ve been before. And if his good mood bled into the environment around them? Well... it was spring... surely no one would notice the extra flowers and abundance of butterflies?

(Arthur definitely noticed. But Merlin was still... wary, of performing sorcery openly, in fear of scaring the people who had been sucked in by two decades of propaganda and fear-mongering. Meaning Arthur sure as shit wasn’t going to point it out, in case Merlin stopped.)

It was around noon, and the sun was shining down on them when Merlin pulled his horse to a stop. He dismounts effortlessly, and hands a confused Arthur his reins. At Arthur’s raised eyebrow, Merlin sighs and speaks quietly:

“The camp is about two minutes further on but... the change in the law was only recent, and...-”

He bites his lip and looks away, worrying Arthur slightly, before continuing:

“-well, chainmail and red capes still make them a little nervous. I’ve already warned their leader that we’re coming-”

He taps his temple briefly:

“-but I should go ahead and explain properly.”

Arthur nods in understanding, and gives Merlin a comforting smile:

“I completely understand, Merlin. How long do you want me to wait, or will you come back to get me?”

Merlin returns his smile, before saying:

“Just wait ten minutes then follow me, straight down the path. Bring the horses, there’ll be somewhere to tie them there. You shouldn’t run into any trouble this close to a camp, but you do have a track-record so-”

Merlin laughs at Arthur’s indignant expression, but continues before he can interrupt him:

“-if you do, just yell. We won’t be too far away, we’ll hear you.”

Arthur rolls his eyes fondly and shoos Merlin away. The Warlock laughs as he turns and continues down the path on foot. Just before he disappears behind a large bush, he turns around again, a slightly concerned expression on his face:

“I might look a bit... different? But don’t mention it, they’re quite fond of me... uh... dressing the part.”

Arthur huffs out a laugh before saying:

“I’m sure I won’t forget what you look like in ten minutes, Merlin. Go.”

Merlin hums thoughtfully, and turns back around, disappearing into the trees and leaving Arthur to his thoughts.

After a few moments, he removes his cloak, tucking it into a saddlebag. He also, after only a little hesitation, removes his sword, strapping it to his saddle. It was still visible and easily within reach, but not so threateningly on display at his hip.

He was entering these people’s home, after personally wielding the sharp edge of their persecution for almost a decade; the least he could do was make them as comfortable as possible.

He hadn’t mentioned it to anyone, not even Merlin, but he had a feeling that this meet was going to end up being about more than the prophecies. Peace had been harboured, magic had been legalised, but like Merlin had pointed out, things were still a little tense. This meeting was a way to show the Druids that Arthur meant it, that his whole heart was behind this change. The he was not his father.

Arthur was a little nervous (not that he’d ever admit that), this was important. Not just to him and the kingdom, but to Merlin personally. He had to get this right. One of the only things that Arthur had managed to get out of Merlin, to do with the whole destiny thing, was that it was finished. It was done.

If Arthur messes this up, not only will it ruin the peace they had been working so hard for... then Merlin might leave. He has no reason to stay after-all, he’s done his job. So Arthur has to get this right, has to impress everyone, now more than ever, because if he fails and the Druids all leave Camelot, then Merlin would leave with them.

And that thought was... unbearable.

He counts down the minutes, getting more and more tense. He tried to distract himself by thinking about what Merlin had said, “dressing the part” what does that even mean?

But it doesn’t work. Soon enough his brain is throwing thought after paranoid thought at him, about all the possible ways Merlin could tell Arthur he hated him, and leave forever and ever.

Arthur rubbed his eyes harshly, muttering to himself about how he really should’ve accepted the “relaxing tea” Gaius had offered him before they left. Other than Merlin, the old physician is the only one who ever seems to know what he needs in the moment, Arthur should definitely learn to listen to him more.

He finally reaches zero in his mental countdown, and sighs before standing from where he’d sat on a fallen log. He’d allowed the horses to wander a bit but they were trained to stay close by, so he has no problem gathering their reins again and leading them slowly down the path Merlin had followed.

All Druid camps were different. Some moved around constantly, some stayed fairly still. Some were huge, acres large with hundreds of people, others were small, only ten people or so. Some were occupied by mostly the sick and elderly, others were full of the young and adventurous, and others were family orientated.

And of course it was rare, according to Gaius, that someone would stay in the same camp their whole life. The Druids were a nomadic people, always shifting, drifting, wandering. Following a constantly tugging thread in their hearts, going where nature beckoned them.

According to Merlin, this specific camp was pretty small (around twenty adults) but it was also a fairly familial group, meaning lots of children. And if that didn’t make Arthur nervous (it definitely did) then nothing would.

Arthur didn’t have much experience with children, and definitely had no concept of how to act around them, especially Druid children.

After about a minute of walking, Arthur could hear loud laughter and quiet conversations floating through the trees. He slowed his pace; trying to appear unthreatening and friendly, or to delay the inevitable, he’s not quite sure.

He finally breaks through the treeline to see that... no one is even looking in his direction.

It was the middle of the day, so the camp was busy, people milling about everywhere, most of the tents open, various jobs getting done throughout the clearing.

But what immediately drew Arthur’s eye, was the source of the laughter.

The King looked across the clearing to see Merlin, in a whole new wardrobe, and a whole new light.

The man had changed from his simple travellers clothes (basically the clothes he’d worn as a manservant, just a bit newer and cleaner.) into a loose, white, lace up shirt (sleeves rolled up, which Arthur absolutely did NOT find himself staring at, thank you very much.) paired with slim black trousers.

But what was most striking, was the deep blue cloak billowing behind him, and the silver crown on his head. It was delicate, as if forged with vines and leaves and feathers, but it was oh so Merlin.

Arthur stayed at the edge of the clearing, glad that no one had noticed him; allowing him to stare in reverence at his best friend.

He was surrounded by young children, all laughing joyously as his eyes glowed golden and he waved his hands around. He needn’t mutter spells as he smiled widely, willing butterflies and bees to manifest in the air around him.

One of the younger children held his arms in the air and made grabbing motions with his hands. Merlin bent over and pulled him up into the air without a moment of hesitation, spinning him around on the spot (much to the kid’s enjoyment, who giggled outrageously), before settling him on his hip.

He used one hand to support the kid’s weight (when did Merlin get so strong??), and used the other to summon flowers around the feet of the rest of the children.

A fond smile spread across Arthur’s face as he saw them run around exuberantly, gathering the flowers in chubby hands to present to parents and siblings and friends.

Arthur laughed softly as he saw Merlin reply enthusiastically to something that the boy on his hip had said, and a second later, the child had a butterfly perched on the end of his nose. 

Arthur is broken from his concentration, jumping a foot in the air when a soft hand lands on his shoulder from behind.

He whips his head around, just about managing to stop himself from yelping and reaching for where his sword usually is at his hip.

He calms his breathing as his eyes find the friendly face of a Druid, an amused smile on his face. Arthur returns his smile, a tad shakily, suddenly feeling the nerves again, and nods his head respectfully.

The man keeps his hand on Arthur’s shoulder, but looks towards Merlin in the clearing, before softly saying:

“He’s quite something, your Emrys, isn’t he?”

Arthur gulps, also looking back at Merlin as he replies with a chuckle that was only slightly forced:

“He’s more yours than mine, especially like this, but yes, he is something special.”

The Druid laughs disbelievingly, and Arthur turns to look, a confused expression on his face as he listens to his reply:

“Definitely not. He’s always belonged to you more than he’s belonged to us-”

He stops laughing to look at Arthur, eyes sparkling with friendly mirth as he continues:

“-prophecy or no, he had a... well... a pre-carved place among the Druids, but he still chose to carve his own space by your side. I think that speaks volumes about where he truly belongs, or at least where he wants to belong, don’t you?”

Arthur doesn’t really have a response to that as he stares at the man with barely concealed bafflement, but luckily, before the silence stretches too long, the Druid gestures to the clearing:

“Come. Everyone is excited to meet you, though I warn you, the children in this camp can be rather energetic, as you’ve already seen.”

Arthur gulps and nods, following him into the centre of the camp.

Everyone’s attention is quickly caught by The King’s presence, and someone comes over to wordlessly take the horse’s reins from him.

The adults bow their heads slightly in respect, giving him soft smiles, and the children fidget on the spot, wide grins on their faces as they whisper conspiratorially to each other.

The boy in Merlin’s arms wiggles, and he gets put down. He rushes over to Arthur, grabbing his hand with a toothy grin and dragging him over to Merlin and the other children.

Merlin hides a laugh behind his hand as Arthur’s eyes widen, and his face goes pale. He thought this was going to be meetings and serious discussions and apologies, not playing with children!! What do children even like?! Swords?? Can he talk to them about swords??! Druids are pacifists right? So probably not??

He gets pulled down to crouch, and the children crowd him, all babbling at once, wildly showing him flowers and butterflies.

Merlin laughs at his bewildered fear for a few moments, before he crouches next to Arthur and holds his hands up, saying loudly:

“Alright, alright, you lot. Remember what I said?”

The children still, and a chorus of “Yes Lord Emrys” resounds from the group. With that, they stay silent, but still grin widely and bounce on the spot in excitement.

Arthur gives Merlin a stressed, but grateful smile, before looking back to the children. He takes a deep breath, before smiling at them, and saying:

“My name’s Arthur. Thank you for having me, I appreciate your hospitality.”

Merlin snorts at his overly formal tone, and has to stop himself laughing at the shock and fear on Arthur’s face when one of the younger ones loudly asks:

“What’s hosp-ee-tal-it-ee?”

Arthur furrows his brows, but luckily one of the teenagers steps in, quietly saying:

“It’s when someone comes into your home, and you’re nice to them.”

Arthur smiles and nods, and Merlin chuckles in amusement.

Thankfully (for Arthur) Merlin then stands and announces to the children that it’s lunch time, and to get washed up. They all rush off, and Arthur lets out a breath as he stands.

Merlin holds in yet another laugh, but tilts his head in confusion as Arthur’s gaze is once again drawn to the crown that rests on Merlin’s unruly hair.

Merlin flushes slightly when he realises what Arthur is looking at, looking to the floor and mumbling:

“You have no idea how long I’ve been trying to get them to just call me Merlin, but then they presented me with this a few months ago and I could hardly say no, could I?”

Arthur nods as Merlin looks up again, meeting his gaze. There’s a soft smile on his face, one that Merlin isn’t quite sure what to make of as he quietly replies:

“Hmm. Looks good on you.”

Merlin makes a surprised noise and his eyes go wide, the flush on his cheeks deepening as Arthur laughs gently at him.

Arthur puts his hand on Merlin’s shoulder, his thumb brushing against the skin of his neck in a way that was slightly more than friendly, but Merlin doesn’t pull away, so Arthur leaves his hand there as he looks around the bustling camp.

His smile falls into something more sad, and Merlin frowns at him curiously:

“Arthur? What is it?”

Arthur shakes his head slightly, not looking back at Merlin as he replies, almost whispering:

“Nothing. It’s just, last time I was this far into a Druid camp... I did terrible things. Look at this place, how could I ever have believed that magic was evil? It’s beautiful here.”

Merlin’s frown deepens, but before he can reply, a small hand tugs at Arthur’s sleeve, and the two of them look down suddenly to see one of the boys from before. He wore a confused expression, and whispered, as if he knew this was meant to be a secret conversation:

“What terrible things did you do, Mr King Sir?”

Merlin takes in a quiet gasp and widens his eyes, but before he can tell him off or lie, Arthur squeezes his shoulder, and crouches down in front of the child.

Arthur gives the boy a smile, and takes his hands, quietly saying:

“Well. When I was young, I was taught some things that are wrong, I didn’t question them, and because of that I did some really bad things. I thought I was being a good person, but actually I was being a bad person because I didn’t do my own research, and I didn’t know any better. But then I started learning how to be better, and now I do everything in my power to be an actual good person.-”

Arthur looks up at Merlin with a small smile on his face, before looking back down to the boy, who is hanging on to his every word:

“-Your Emrys is helping me with that. You see, he’s the best person I’ve ever met, and he’s helping me be more like him.”

Arthur resists the urge to look back at Merlin as he feels a firm, but shaky hand on his back, and instead looks at the child as he thinks over Arthur’s words. His face breaks into a grin, and Arthur returns the smile as the boy says:

“He’s the best isn’t he? I wanna be like him when I grow up!”

Arthur ruffles his hair, and replies quietly:

“Yeah kid, me too.”

The boy gives him a toothy grin, before running off once again, and Arthur lets out yet another breath he had been holding before standing up.

Merlin’s hand remains on his shoulder, and Arthur regrets meeting his gaze the moment he turns his head. But he also can’t rip his eyes away from the teary expression of awe and bewildered happiness on his face.

Merlin lets out a gentle laugh at Arthur’s apprehensive face before shaking his head, and looking back at him once again, this time amusement on his face:

“The best person you’ve ever met, huh?”

Arthur rolls his eyes and blushes deeply, pushing Merlin’s hand off his shoulder as he mumbles a flustered:

“Shut up, Merlin. I could hardly tell him the truth, could I?”

Merlin hums thoughtfully and replies with laughter in his voice:

“Hmm. That makes more sense, of course.”

Without waiting for Arthur’s reply, he grabs the King’s wrist and drags him towards a large tent in the corner of the clearing. Inside were two tables, one large, and one smaller and lower, both surrounded by benches.

Merlin directed them to bowls in the corner so they could wash their hands, before they sit at the larger of the two tables. Everyone over the ages of about fourteen joins them, the younger ones going to the smaller table.

Food appears, covering the surface, summoned from the cooking pots outside and the various food stores around the camp. Arthur tries to keep the wonderment off his face, but knows he failed miserably when he hears Merlin chuckle beside him. He punches Merlin’s leg under the table playfully, but that only makes him laugh harder.

He quietens when the man sat opposite Arthur stands:

“Today we have two honoured guests, our Lord Emrys, and the Once and Future King Arthur. We share our home, our food, and our welcome, for as long as they wish to stay. We raise our goblets to you, My Lords.”

At that, he raises his cup in the air, everyone else in the tent following him. Merlin smiles and nods at him, raising his own cup, and Arthur nervously copies his movements, comforted by Merlin’s reassuring hand on his knee.

With that, the Druid sits down, and conversation breaks out around the tent as everyone begins to eat.

Merlin handles most of the discussions, talking to everyone as if they were life long friends. Arthur is grateful for that, he answers any questions sent his way, asking a few polite ones in return, but Druid culture is so different to life in the city and Arthur doesn’t really know what he should be talking about.

Thankfully, the meal passes quickly, and after another announcement from the man Arthur now presumed was the leader here, the crowd dispersed, everything being cleared away with magic.

Not every Druid practiced sorcery, but they were clearly in a magic-heavy camp; Arthur could see it plain as day, everywhere he looked.

Merlin once again took Arthur’s wrist, leading him out into the sun. Usually, Arthur hated being led places, especially by the hand, but he found he didn’t quite mind it today. Whether it was because they were in Merlin’s domain, and Merlin was King here, or because of how nervous he was, or because of some other reason entirely, Arthur wasn’t sure, and frankly, he didn’t want to think too deeply about it.

This time, Merlin led them to another, smaller tent.

It had several comfortable looking chairs around a smallish circular table, which was covered in scrolls and parchments and old-looking books.

A few seconds later, they were joined by the Druid leader; he smiled softly at them and gestured for them to sit at the table. Merlin and Arthur sat next to each other, and the Druid kindly pretended not to notice them shuffling the chairs closer together.

The rest of the afternoon passed in a blur, Arthur having lost his nerves fairly early in the conversation. Maybe that had something to do with the fact that official meetings were his specialty, or maybe it was because Merlin’s hand once again found his knee, but stayed there this time. Who knows.

The Druid had introduced himself, and once more welcomed Arthur to the camp, before launching into explanations of the prophecies and destinies, and everyone’s roles in them.

Merlin knew most if it, and looked especially proud of himself when the Druid described in wonder how Merlin had changed the very fates of the Lady Morgana, Sir Mordred, and Arthur himself.

Arthur was definitely taken aback at that. Whilst Merlin had prattled on, making no sense, about his and Arthur’s destinies, he had never mentioned anyone else, and Arthur becomes increasingly glad he came here to sort it all out.

There were some bits that not even Merlin knew though. He wasn’t aware that the other knights, Guinevere, and Gaius featured in a few of the newer prophecies, and the Druid had an amused smile on his face when he admitted that he’d thought Merlin would have figured that out.

Arthur did laugh at him at that, and Merlin flushed before telling him:

“Shut up, or I’ll tell the others you said I was the best person you’ve ever met, and they’ll never let you live it down.”

Arthur narrows his eyes, and the Druid continues look at them in amusement as they bicker.

The meeting comes to an end just before dark, and Arthur thanks the Druid profusely, for welcoming him, and taking the time to go through everything thoroughly.

Another meal is had in the large tent, but when they leave this time, the clearing has been completely emptied. A large bonfire roars in the middle, and logs surround it, providing seating for everyone.

The evening is full of stories and music and magic, and Arthur once again finds himself wondering just how he thought any of this could be evil.

Even Merlin stands to lead a song. He moves around the clearing with yet another child sat sat on his hip, giggling as Merlin spins her around.

Arthur is surprised to learn that Merlin has a good voice, and stares in wonderment as he leads the melody as if it was what he was born to do. The rest of the Druids clap along, joining in loudly and harmonising and playing instruments in time with the tune.

When the song comes to a close, the crowd burst into cheers as Merlin looks back to Arthur, breathing deeply and cheeks flushed. The Warlock smiles widely as he settles the child back in her mother’s lap before walking back over to his seat, next to Arthur.

Arthur returns his wide grin with a soft smile of his own, and as the music continues around them, Merlin tilts his face in happy confusion:

“Why are you looking at me like that?”

Arthur just shakes his head slightly, smiling slightly wider as he responds without missing a beat:

“You’re beautiful like this. And you have an exceptional voice.”

Merlin flushes in surprise and looks to his lap, quietly muttering:

“I wouldn’t know about that...”

Arthur doesn’t look away, huffing out a laugh before replying:

“I mean it, Merlin. You just look... happy. Like you belong here.-”

He does look away here, staring into the fire with a thoughtful, but slightly mournful look on his face as Merlin peers up at him, curious. Arthur continues, even quieter, before Merlin can question him:

“-You know, I wouldn’t be angry if you wanted to stay. Here, I mean. I know magic is legal in Camelot now, but you belong somewhere like this. I would never begrudge you a home like this Merlin.”

Merlin laughs quietly, and takes Arthur’s hand, holding it in his lap like it’s something precious (it is, at least it is to Merlin). Arthur looks back at him in surprise, but doesn’t pull away as Merlin replies, still smiling:

“Home isn’t a place, Arthur, and the Druids know that better than anyone. Home is... home is wherever the people you love are. You are my people, Arthur, you and the knights and Gwen and Morgana and Gaius. My home is wherever you are. No matter my magic or title or destiny; my home will always be where you are.”

Arthur doesn’t let the tears in his eyes fall, but he does squeeze Merlin’s hand, giving him a tender smile that's returned without hesitation.

With the exchanging of smiles that any onlooker would describe as loving, the conversation comes to an easy close, and they spend the rest of the evening hand in hand, smiling fondly at the antics around them.

It’s late when the festivities come to an end, and Arthur and Merlin are exhausted, struggling to hold back yawns as they’re shown to a tent that had been set up for them.

Their bags had been removed from the horses and left in there, and the floor was covered in various blankets and pillows. There was a small trunk, for them to store anything they wished to unpack, and a few candles were lit, filling the room with a soft golden light and pleasant smells.

Merlin charms the tent to be soundproof so they don’t have to worry about noise (he may be openly able to use magic, but the idiot was still rather clumsy, and prone to accidental bangs and crashes), before removing his crown carefully. His cloak and boots follow shortly, and they all go neatly into the trunk, before he starts organising a spot to sleep.

After a few minutes, he realises that Arthur hasn’t moved from his space by the entrance, and Merlin turns around to look at him questioningly. Arthur’s eyebrows are furrowed, and he looks deep in thought as he stares at the floor, fiddling with the hem of his tunic.

Merlin walks over, concerned, and takes one of Arthur’s hands into his own. Arthur looks up at him suddenly, broken free of his thoughts, and Merlin raises an eyebrow at him as he strokes his thumb across The King’s knuckles:

“What’s wrong, Arthur?”

Arthur looks into Merlin’s eyes searchingly, but seems to find what he’s looking for after only a moment, and smiles. Merlin tilts his head to prompt him, and Arthur takes his other hand, before softly speaking:

“You know, I used to find the idea of falling in love frightening.-”

Merlin takes in a subtle deep breath, but Arthur doesn’t notice as he shakes his head, huffing out a gentle laugh before continuing, looking somewhere over Merlin’s shoulder:

“-The possibility that someone could have that much control over me; that I would willingly give another person dominion over my heart, my soul, my... everything, was terrifying to me. But I find I’m not scared anymore.-”

He looks back at Merlin’s shocked face. Arthur looks an odd mix of disbelieving, and happy beyond words as he continues, confident that what he’s saying is right, for the first time in a long time:

“-Because it’s you, Merlin. It’s always been you. And how could I possibly find falling in love with you anything other than beautiful?”

Merlin gulps, seemingly searching Arthur’s face for any hint of a lie. When he finds nothing but sincerity, he launches himself forward, almost knocking Arthur to the floor.

He wraps his arms around the blonde’s shoulders tightly, burying a hand in his hair, and his face in the crook of his neck. Arthur huffs out a laugh as he wraps his arms around Merlin’s waist, running a soft hand up and down his back.

At Merlin’s muttered:

“I love you, Arthur, more than anything is this world. My magic, my everything, belongs to you.”

Arthur pulls back, smiling. He leans forward pressing his forehead against Merlin’s, and cups his cheek softly with his hand. They stare into the blue of each other’s eyes for a moment, not in any hurry to move the moment along, Arthur running his thumb over Merlin’s cheekbone, and Merlin carding his fingers through Arthur’s hair.

Arthur takes a deep breath, before whispering, so quietly it’s a miracle Merlin hears him:

“Can I kiss you?”

Merlin nods infinitesimally, and the two of them lean forward, meeting in the middle in a soft kiss that could only be described as tender, and full of love.

If the stars shine brighter, and the wind blows warmer, and the animals of the dark seem happier that night... well... it was spring... surely no one would notice (Arthur definitely noticed, but he sure as shit wasn’t going to point it out, in case Merlin stopped).

~

THE END!!

This is the first one I’ve written in aaaaages that didn’t involve a dizzy/exhausted/sick Merlin so... yay me?

I just really wanted to write something fluffy, where there were no high stakes. No huge battles, or angsty confessions or anything like that, just a soft love story.

I genuinely got no clue what I’ll write next. I do have a few drafts and ideas floating around, but let me know if you’re after anything specific, I live to please :)

Like always, you wanna write this up properly with paragraphs and fleshed out stuff, go for it, credit and tag me :)

[voiceless-terror]

I mean, I don’t believe in the predictive power of dreams, obviously, but still, it’s a deeply unsettling thing to find. I had Tim look into it, as I don’t entirely trust the others not to have written it as a practical joke and slipped it into the archives. - Episode 11, Dreamer

Jon stares down at the paper in his hands.

He’s had many an unkind thought towards Gertrude, his predecessor, the woman responsible for this mess and the current bane of his existence. She’s been the topic of most of his grumbling as he sorts through piles of nonsense and decaying cardboard boxes. He’s got no love lost for her, but that doesn’t mean he’s happy she’s dead. Or, specifically, to have a statement apparently predicting it through the medium of some prophetic dream. Ridiculous. He wants to feel detached, unaffected, but he can’t help the sickly sense of dread that creeps up his spine and lingers in his throat. 

It was your face and the expression upon it was far more fearful than any I had seen in eight years of wandering this twilight city.

Jon doesn’t know Antonio Blake and has no reason to believe him. But he’s known something’s wrong for a long time now.

He’s never admitted it aloud, never within his assistant’s hearing range, but he can feel it, as foolish as that sounds. This miasma of wrong, of being watched, of becoming...something else, that happens every time he records a statement. Despite the academic detachment he aspires to, he does attempt to empathize with each statement-giver and get into their mindset. But what he’s doing here...it’s different. He can visualize it so perfectly, the terror in their words sticking in his throat and setting his own heart pounding, as if he were the one experiencing it and not just regurgitating it to an ancient recorder. He’s always had an ‘overactive imagination,’ as his grandmother would say, but this is relentless in its manifestation. The fear is real, not imagined. Each statement draws him further and further away from the safety he used to cling to, where the only real cases were few and far between and the most sinister things lurking out there in the world were books and the monsters within them.

And as much as he wants to linger on the false accounts and take comfort in tearing them apart, his hands automatically seek the real ones, the right ones. It’s frightening, the ease with which he finds them nowadays. Perhaps he’s a better archivist than he thinks. 

She died and you’ll be next, something whispers to him. He’s being dramatic, as he’s wont to do, but it feels true. Every statement that doesn’t record correctly, every follow-up he has to qualify with an ‘I would dismiss this, but-’ is starting to add up. His nights have become restless. He often lies awake regretting that he ever took this job, that he left the relative safety of research for a position he’s not sure how to fill, his only reassurance Elias’s occasional emails that he’s ‘moving in the right direction,’ whatever that means.

Jon assumed he’d be more removed from the dangerous aspects of the job that research entailed- following up, going to locations, field work. And it’s true, he has assistants to do that for him now. Dependable, for the most part. And while he should feel safe in his tiny office with nothing but dust and paper and cobwebs (good lord, the cobwebs) he feels more unsettled and exposed than ever. He once joked he’d die of old age before getting the archives in order. But now a stroke sounds much more pleasant than whatever happened to Gertrude. If it’s true.

Perhaps it’s a joke, he thinks. Planted by one of the others, designed specifically to unsettle him. Well, it worked. 

It wouldn’t be surprising. He’s...not had the best start. The promotion was a surprise, but not wholly unexpected; he knew he’d been on Elias’s radar, though he wasn’t expecting it quite so soon. He’s young and unfortunately, it shows. The way he stutters through department meetings, talking about digitization while the others, all of whom have at least a decade on him, shoot pitying looks. He stays later and later, the desire to show some sort of progress even as he discovers more mess by the day. The permanent scowl that now graces his features becomes his armor as he walks the halls and feels himself becoming the uptight, unlikable curmudgeon everyone believes him to be. The one time I measure up to expectations, he can’t help thinking.

A joke. There’s a comfort in that. At least it’s familiar.

But it didn’t record to the laptop, his traitorous mind supplies. It's a bit sad he would prefer it to be a mundane attempt at bullying rather than a real expression of the supernatural, but he supposes it’s par for the course. There were many nights as a child he wished for the same thing, for that boy to go back to taking his lunch money and the occasional beating or two instead of…still, he dismisses it from his mind. You don’t know there’s a correlation. Follow up. Disprove it. 

He’s interrupted from his musings by a knock on the door and the vague outline of Martin through the frosted glass. “Come in,” he calls, attempting to inject some irritation in his voice to cover up the shakiness. “Did you need something?”

“Ah, I finished my write up for the Herbert case, was wondering if you had anything else for me?”

His hand hovers over the statement on his desk. He opens his mouth but then closes it, thinking better.

“Can you send Tim in, actually?”

______

“Sorry boss, I couldn’t find anything on this Antonio Blake fellow- well, at least with the details he provided, which were next to none. Proper spooky, though.”

Of his assistants, he trusts Tim the most with this sort of thing. 

On a surface level, it wouldn’t make sense to some. Tim can be loud and gregarious: the typical, charming extrovert. But he’s not unkind and he’s a hell of a researcher, especially when something grabs his interest. He digs into statements and doesn’t let go- not unlike Sasha, though he’s a bit better at empathizing and handling things...sensitively. Easily attuned to Jon’s moods, Tim’s always been willing to lend an ear whenever he gets too in his head about cases, helping him talk things through or on several memorable occasions, go down the rabbit hole with him. He’d taken the statement from his hands with an easy smile, though his face grew serious with the nervous look Jon shot him.

And if Tim couldn’t find anything, well. Maybe it was a prank after all.

He sort of wanted it to be true, frightening as the implications were. Because then it would mean this terrible, heavy feeling on his shoulders was real, and not just the byproduct of his own mediocrity. He doesn’t want to be scared, he doesn’t want to be in danger, but at least it would provide a real reason for panic, and not just his own inability to measure up.  He doesn’t want to prove them all right, collapsing under the stress of a job poorly done and so easily crumbling at a stupid, made-up statement, targeted as it may be. 

“A joke, then.” Jon says, rubbing a hand at his temples, trying not to let the hurt seep into his voice. Tim makes a commiserating noise.

“You know how people are, the institute isn’t exactly popular. You remember last Halloween, when-”

“Yes, I don’t need a reminder.” Jon sighs. He’d rather not relive that day, stressful as it was. “But that wasn’t quite what I was thinking.”

Tim stares at him for a moment, uncomprehending. Jon continues, attempting to make his hands busy as he pointlessly shuffles papers.

“It’s rather pointed, isn’t it? I doubt someone off the street would create such a detailed account of the death of an...archivist as opposed to the usual ghostly drivel.”

A look of pity flickers in Tim’s eyes and Jon has to turn away. “I don’t really think anyone here would-”

“Really? You don’t?” Jon lets out a mirthless laugh, rubbing a hand across his face as he stares down at his desk. “I’m not blind. Or deaf.” The derisive snorts if he goes off on ‘needless tangents,’ how Rosie pretends to be busy whenever he approaches Elias’s office, the way his name badge still reads ‘researcher’ after months of asking for a new one. He’s basically become a pariah.

“Jon, did someone say something to you?” The words are carefully chosen and he’s leaning forward now, making as if to stand up and god forbid, do something comforting. It’s not that Jon doesn’t want the comfort; he craves it more than anything. But he’s gone without for so long he doesn’t trust himself not to break at the gentlest of touches. Being on the receiving end of Tim’s protective streak is nothing new, but he shouldn’t need his assistant looking out for him like he’s some sort of helpless infant. 

He snorts derisively instead, covering up the insecurity and hurt with a sardonic, self-effacing smile. The kind he knows Tim hates. “They don’t need to. I’ve walked in on conversations, I’ve seen the way people go quiet, the looks they give me-”

“Hey,” Tim’s voice is low, like he’s dealing with a frightened animal. Jon wonders how he looks, if Tim’s going this soft. “Don’t listen to them, alright? You inherited a mess, we all did- but we’re doing our best, yeah? Study and record, like Elias said.” Jon doesn’t dodge the hand that finally lands on shoulder, and he’ll deny to anyone that he leaned into it. 

“Study and record.” He repeats listlessly, slumping back down into his seat. He’s let himself get too worked up, acting like a child instead of a boss. He’s not sure when he started wearing his heart on his sleeve, but Tim’s always been good at reading him. Though he’d rather people think him an arrogant ass than the seething mess of insecurity he truly is. 

“Atta boy.” The pat to his shoulder is purposefully light, devoid of Tim’s usually friendly force that sends him stumbling forward. “Now get out of here at a normal time, alright? We can grab lunch tomorrow. Just the two of us, if you like.”

Jon makes a noncommittal grunt, though the thought is nice.  He entertains the idea for just a moment, remembering their occasional outings back in research. Tomorrow he’ll make his excuses. He hasn’t been much of a friend as of late, and he’s not sure he deserves the kindness of company.

“And if there’s anyone that needs a stern talking to from me, I-” Tim wags a finger and Jon rolls his eyes, ignoring the pang of warmth the words send through his chest.

“Don’t, please. It’s fine.” It isn’t. “But...thank you, Tim.”

“Course.” A wink and a sloppy salute to lighten the mood, and Jon feels the tension in his posture ease minutely as Tim shuts the door behind him. 

He lets out a breath and reaches for the tape recorder. He’s wasted too much time already.  

Be careful. There is something coming for you and I don’t know what it is, but it is so much worse than anything I can imagine. At the very least, you should look into appointing a successor.

Good luck.

He fights a shiver as the man’s voice leaves him and the last vestiges of that twilight world fade back to his dimly-lit office. In his follow up, he tries to play it off as a joke. A bit of hazing for the new boss. And yet the uneasiness still creeps into his voice, and he ends another tape on a stilted, half-believed note.

If this is genuine…

Jon prays that it isn’t. 

And like most of his prayers, it goes unheard and unanswered.

ao3: https://archiveofourown.org/works/32165071

reblogs > likes

[parkerslatte]

Years Passed [Chapter One]

Spencer Reid x Fem!Reader

Word Count: 1.6k

Part Summary: After a decade of living in England, Y/N finally moves back to America to be closer to her family.

prologue / next chapter

Years Passed Masterlist

Main Masterlist

Taglist

***

CHAPTER ONE: FAMILIAR FACES

Y/N was always one to follow her dreams. Originally her dream was to become an astronaut but she soon found that she wasn’t smart enough for that. That’s when she found herself falling down the route of art. Y/N had always been a gifted artist since she was a child. While everyone in her class was drawing stick figures and calling it a day, Y/N would take time to get the proportions of the body right. People would always say she was trying too hard or just trying to get attention. Y/N didn’t care - she was doing what she loved.

It wasn’t until high school where she began to take art more seriously, people would come to her to do art commissions. At first Y/N refused, she didn’t want to charge people for her art but once she realised how much she could make from it, doing art commissions became her job. Throughout high school it was her main source of income. However, it wasn’t until the end of high school where Y/N decided that art was the thing she definitely wanted to go down. 

Opening up her own gallery became her dream. A couple of years after breaking up with Spencer Reid, Y/N moved to England. She didn’t exactly know why, all she knew was that she wanted a fresh start. Y/N moved into a small flat in Cornwall. It was perfect for what Y/N needed. She spent just over ten years of her life living in Cornwall and Y/N couldn’t be happier, however there were many instances where she missed her family. Y/N could never afford to constantly go between England and America and neither could her family. A lot of her time was spent on phone calls and video calls with her family. 

It was only recently that Y/N moved back to America. Six months to be exact. After nearly eleven years of being away from her family constantly, Y/N decided to move back to America. She didn’t make the decision lightly, it took her many months to come to the conclusion. Y/N had many friends in England. She had her small art gallery. Most importantly, her daughter had her friends in England and her school - everything she had ever known. 

Y/N’s daughter, Harper, was seven and she was the light of Y/N’s life. Everything she did was for Harper. Y/N didn’t want to pry Harper away from her home, but she wanted her to get to know her family. When Y/N told Harper the news, Harper was excited, she had always been a curious girl and moving to a new country was exciting for her. 

“Mummy!” Harper yelled, running out of her room to Y/N who was sitting on the couch. Her daughter’s accent was a little messed up. Some words would come out in an American accent and some in a British accent - more specifically the Cornish dialect. 

Y/N smiled upon seeing her daughter. As she ran, the wild curls on top of her head bounced up and down. Harper approached Y/N and climbed onto the couch next to her. Y/N wrapped her arm around her daughter and pulled her in close to her side.

“What’s got you so energetic?” Y/N questioned. 

“Can we go to the park?” Harper asked, “You said that we could go today.”

Y/N checked the time on the clock on the wall, “You really want to go at ten in the morning? You don’t want to wait until midday then we can go out for lunch?”

“Can we go now? I’m bored.” Harper draped herself over Y/N’s lap dramatically.

Y/N shook her head, a smile on her face. Harper was definitely one for dramatics, something she inherited from her father.

“Okay, how about this?” Y/N started, “We wait until eleven and we can invite Melanie and Toby and we can go and get lunch with them?”

Harper nodded her head vigorously causing Y/N to chuckle slightly. The only reason as to why Y/N wanted to wait longer to go out was because she was waiting for Harper’s birthday present to turn up. It wasn’t her birthday for another three weeks but Y/N always wanted to leave time in case the package never turned up in case she needed to buy something else. 

“Why don’t you go and play in your room and I’ll come and get you when it’s time to go?”

Harper nodded before running off to her bedroom down the hall. Checking the clock again, Y/N realised the package wouldn’t be here for another half hour. Deciding she had time to kill, Y/N made her way to her bedroom to get changed. If she was going to be out for most of the day, she decided that being in sweatpants and an old shirt wasn’t going to look so good. 

Picking out a simple sundress, Y/N got changed in a flash before she found herself seated on the couch again. Over the last few days, Y/N had found herself being more tired than usual. Everything she did drained the life out of her, obviously she wanted to run around and play with Harper but she would tire out quickly. Harper would try not to get sad about it as she understood why Y/N got like this once a year. Y/N wasn’t going to explain it until Harper got a little older but she understood perfectly. 

Grabbing her phone off of the coffee table, Y/N pressed on Melanie’s contact. Melanie had been Y/N’s friend for a while. They met a year before Y/N had moved to England, due to their long distance friendship, Y/N had expected that they would fall out of contact but they never did. Melanie was godmother to Harper and Y/N was godmother to Melanie’s son Toby. 

The phone rang a few times before Melanie picked up. 

“Hello?” Melanie’s voice came through the phone.

“Hey Mel!” Y/N greeted.

“Hey, what’s up?”

“Well Harper and I are going to the park in an hour and I was wondering if you and Toby would like to join us?” 

“We’d love to,” Melanie answered, “Toby’s been pulling my leg asking when he would see Harper next.”

Y/N chuckled, “We’ll meet you at the park if that’s alright.”

“That’s more than fine, we’ll see you then.” Melanie responded before hanging up the phone. 

Y/N tossed her phone back on the couch and slumped back down. She could easily turn on the television and watch something but she didn’t feel up to it. Getting back up from the couch, Y/N headed over to Harper’s room and pushed it open. Her daughter was hunched over her small desk, scribbling away on a piece of paper. Y/N smiled at the sight. Her daughter had taken after her in artistic skill, always having the dream that one day she would be as good as her mother. 

“Hey Harp.” Y/N said, entering her room. 

“Mummy, look I’ve done a drawing!” Harper said excitedly holding up the picture, “It’s the same one you painted.”

Y/N took the drawing out of Harper’s hands and held it up. Y/N had painted a landscape of a forest a few weeks ago and Harper had copied it almost exactly. Every time Y/N would do a commission or a painting for fun, there would always be smaller versions of the same painting but made with colour pencil. Sometimes Harper would sit next to Y/N while she was painting and they would do it together. 

Y/N always enjoyed doing art with Harper by her side. She would constantly ask questions about it and Y/N was always more than happy to answer. From sitting next to her and watching her paint, Harper had been teaching herself how to paint. Y/N would always offer to help her but Harper always refused the help, letting Y/N only watch from a distance. Their whole house was filled with paintings from both Y/N and Harper. 

“It’s incredible, Harp.” Y/N said crouching down, “Even better than mine.”

“No it isn't, your one is better.” Harper said, “Yours are always better. I want to be like you when I grow up.”

Y/N pressed a kiss to the side of Harper’s head, “I don’t want you to be like me, I want you to be like you. You are going to grow up and be an extraordinary person, like you already are.”

Harper hugged Y/N tightly, “I love you mummy.”

“I love you too, sweet girl.” Y/N pressed a kiss to the side of her head once more before she heard the doorbell ring. 

“Is that Melanie and Toby?” Harper questioned.

“No, it’s someone else, Mel and Toby are meeting us at the park,” Y/N explained, “Now why don’t you clean up in here before we head out.”

Harper nodded before she began clearing everything away. Y/N headed out of her room and opened the front door. Y/N expected it to be Harper’s present however she was greeted by two people - more specifically FBI agents. Y/N looked between the two, very obviously confused. 

When Y/N looked up at the male agent, her eyes widened the slightest amount. His hair was curlier and he had a slight stubble. He looked as if he filled out his clothes more as well. Even if it had been more than a decade, she could recognise him anywhere. 

Spencer Reid.

PERMANENT SPENCER REID TAGLIST

@spenxerslut  @averyhotchner @drayshadow @moviequeen51 @spencer-reid-am-i-right @ssavanessa22 @amurderofcrowsinatrenchcoat @mbjackie @jklemps @reformedmoneyshovel @nomajdetective @jesuisbenny @jooniehomie @spencerreid-187 @onyourfingertips @uhuhuh @rubyhi208-42 @archer561 @c0rpsecore @sweetandsunny @zoeygraygubler @algonsa @jswessie187 @shemarmooresfedora @kaz-2y567 @alfonsais @aikrus @nani-2305 @death-becomes-her @sarejane @isabelle-558 @measure-in-pain @the-nerd-gang @manuosorioh @luredwithpretzels @ceeellewrites @totallyclearwitch @jekkles @this-is-doctor-and-its-calm @sarahpaulsonlov3r @periwinklemax @kuolonsyoja @heartmira @hoodpankow @parahmur

SERIES TAGLIST

​@its-9pm @nani-2305 @reidsfish @mochionly @spencerswildestdreams1 @magnetas @matthewscumslut @madsgraygubler @bakugouswh0r3 @rexit-mo @shinshankai

[donald4spiderman]

Sweating, And A Lesson On Self-Worth

masterlist

Summary: Spencer finds himself falling for his NAT (new agent training) defensive tactics coach.

Pairing: SR x Fem!Reader *described as petite to give the illusion of assumed vulnerability when IRL she’s a badass— no other specific physical details are mentioned*

Category: Fluff

TW: Mentions of body image, general CM talk, mentions of fighting/grappling/wrestling, small age gap (reader is 28 & reid is 22)

concept inspired by @sierraraeck’s fic “Bad Liar” about Morgan training Spencer. I love wrestling so I wanted to do one about a badass female combat coach/agent.

REBLOG!

-

When Spencer and the rest of the trainees are ushered into the fitness center on their second day at the academy, he almost shits himself. He’s well aware of the physical demands being in the FBI requires, and he’s been dreading the PFT (Physical Fitness Test) since he applied.

There are hundreds of men and women huddled in the middle of the room, anticipating the orientation, and Spencer feels his palms sweat before he’s even started working out. The majority of the trainees are football players, wrestling’s, and weight lifters— he can tell by their muscular build and general atmosphere of strength and confidence.

SSA Jesse Fallon introduces their defensive tactics coach for the next twenty weeks— a petite but athletic woman. She’s dressed in a gray t-shirt and flexible khaki pants— Spencer would be lying if he said she didn’t look gorgeous, even in the bland attire.

“I’m SSA and defensive tactics coach (Y/N) (Y/L/N).” She introduces herself, giving a warm smile to the crowd. “I’ve been an SSA for five years and the head coach of this portion of the academy for two. This is my third official wave of trainees— and believe me— I won’t be going easy on any of you.”

Light laughter disperses through the crowd, and Spencer wears an uneasy look on his face.

“Today, I’ve prepped stations for each of you to cycle through for the next three hours. Agent Rivera is monitoring the weapon defense; Agent Glover is in charge of the takedowns; And I’ll be handling hand-to-hand combat and grappling. You’ll spend an hour at each station, run a mile at the end, and then you’re done for the day. Sound good?”

“Yes, Ma’am.” Choruses through the crowd.

SSA (Y/N) clasps her hands together, “Alright, you know your groups. Split up!”

-

Spencer’s assigned to the takedown station first. Agent Glover’s criticisms are primarily nonconstructive, and Spencer struggles with apprehending and cuffing his more robust and much more muscular partner on the floor. He’s never trained this hard for anything in his life, physically, speaking. He’s half-dead within the first hour, and he dreads having to do this two more times.

His next stop is with Agent Rivera, who’s much kinder to Spencer than his prior. Reid is better at disarming his opponent, but his long limbs flail wildly due to his incoordination— he’s trying his best, but he sees the way everyone else giggles at him. It’s a blow to the chest that leaves him defeated more than any gunshot could.

The last hour is spent working at SSA (Y/N) (Y/L/N)’s station. She commands the attention of the entire group so naturally, despite being considered a rookie, she has an intimidating amount of knowledge.

“How many of you are wrestlers or judokas?” About sixty percent of the group raises their hand, and Spencer scans around for who might have the strength to kill him with one blow.

“Good,” She smiles. “This will come naturally to you, then. Now, a head-and-arm throw most likely won’t work in the field— so, sorry, judokas. However, double legs, body locks, and blast-doubles are constantly used to take down an unsub with minimal injury to the agent. Even someone as short as me can use leverage to grapple and control a much taller person.” (Y/N) scans the crowd of trainees for a moment before pointing directly at Spencer.

“You, come here.” She commands, and Spencer waddles nervously up next to her on the mat. “This is...”

He’s confused for a moment before realizing she’s asking for his name. “S-Spencer Reid.”

“Hi, Spencer.” She smiles. “How tall are you?”

“Six foot two.”

“Spencer has the advantage of almost a whole foot of height against me. But, I can use his higher center of gravity to tip him over more easily. We do this a lot in wrestling— being low to the ground and agile is important.”

(Y/N) firmly plants her hands on Spencer’s shoulder, moving him so that he’s turned to the side. “This move is called a modified blast double— it prioritizes attacking the ankles and knees rather than the knees and abdomen.”

She leans in closer to Spencer, “Don’t post your wrist out when you fall.” She whispers in his ear, sending chills down his spine. “Keep your neck tucked too.” Her breath is warm and minty, and Spencer almost forgets that he has 30 other people watching him.

“I’m going to simulate an active attack with Spencer. Doing this move in a wrestling match is much more controlled than against a rogue criminal playing by their own rules. They might have a melee or close-range weapon like a knife or hammer on them, so it’s important to make this move when the best opportunity strikes.”

“Spencer’s going to run at me and attempt to land a punch to my face.” She gives him a nod, and he chambers over to her.

Swiftly crouching lower to the ground, she launches herself towards him, gripping the back of his ankles and pushing her shoulder into his knees, and suddenly he’s flying back onto the mat. She follows through, straddling Spencer’s hips and covering his movements with an arm under his neck.

He’s out of breath as he watches the beautiful SSA leaning above him. His head is slightly sore from the impact, but overall he feels... invigorated.

“You never let your opponent fall onto the ground without covering them. Straddling your opponent allows you to keep them down while having full use of your fists.” She swings her leg off of Spencer, standing up. She reaches a hand out and quickly yanks him up.

“Find someone and drill that move. I’m coming around to help all of you.”

She gives Spencer a firm pat on his back, to which he blushes furiously, pulling his lower lip in between his teeth.

-

Spencer spent the rest of the hour getting slammed onto the mat over and over by various men and women. His entire shirt is soaked, and his breathing is so labored he thinks he’s going to faint. SSA (Y/N) (Y/L/N) might have appeared at ease earlier in the day, but she wasn’t kidding when she promised she would work them to no end. Everyone was at the brink of death when they approached the last lap of their mile— Spencer at risk of passing out more than others.

The relief he feels after completing his tenth lap around the gym is euphoric. Trainees collapse onto the ground with exhaustion all around him.

“Great job today.” SSA (Y/N) compliments happily. “I appreciate all the effort you guys showed today. It better still be here in four months.” And with that, she excuses them, along with the agents monitoring each station.

Spencer’s one of the last agents to trickle out of the gym. His legs feel like jello when he walks, and his lungs burn.

He almost makes it past the threshold of the door before his name is called.

“Dr. Reid.” She beckons him over with a finger. “May I talk to you for a moment.”

Spencer nervously shuffles over. “Yes, SSA (Y/L/N)?”

“I applaud your effort at training today. I can tell you were working hard.” He blushes. “But I’ve been informed that the board is willing to wave all physical training requirements for your acceptance into the FBI.”

“Yeah... I-I uh figured they’d want me for my IQ only.” He jokes nervously, shrugging his shoulders. He knows it’s disrespectful not to look her in the eye, but she intimidates him too much.

She laughs, and it’s a sweet, joyful sound that Spencer can’t get enough of. She’s powerful and radiant— stealing attention from everyone else. “You’re charming, and your reputation precedes you.”

Charming? Since when has little Spencer Reid ever been charming? He smiles awkwardly, looking off to the side to hide his blush.

“You know, the forensics department wants their hands on the trainee with the chemistry doctorate, and the surveillance department wants the kid with eidetic memory, and word has it that you speak more than four languages, so everyone wants their fair share.”

“W-why are you telling me this?” Spencer asks, voice shy and barely above a whisper.

“Because,” she places a tender hand on his shoulder, “You need to carry yourself with more confidence, Spencer. I saw you— surrounded by all those athletes— it made you feel out of place. I get it.”

“How d-do you get it?”

“I was 23 years old when I became an SSA, surrounded by people two decades older than me. I felt like the office secretary— constantly getting pushed around by people I was afraid to upset. But the thing is, Spencer, you need to demand respect from other people. I’m not saying you need to be arrogant or be a bully, but you are one of— if not the most promising agent trainee— and you need to realize your self-worth.”

“I’m smart, I-I know that. But I’m not strong or athletic by any means.” He sighs, gripping the duffle bag slung across his shoulder tightly.

“That’s alright. You’re not going to be Kyle Dake overnight. But you can’t beat yourself up about it.” (Y/N) chuckles lightly.

Spencer thinks for a moment, “T-thank you... for uh saying all those nice things about me.”

“They're true.” She nods.

“I think I’ll continue with the defensive tactics training. I could um use it.” Its partially true, but he’s most inclined to stick around because of the kind and beautiful SSA that’ll be training him.

“Yay! That’s great, Spencer.” She cheers, wrapping him in a hug that’s a little too friendly to be professional. He accepts despite being drenched in sweat.

Her arms are wrapped tightly around Spencer, and she pats him on the back twice before pulling away like a proud mentor would. He can’t decide if (Y/N) would be a better girlfriend or a better teacher. If she would, he’d prefer for her to be both. He’d give her all he had to offer if she’d allow him.

He doesn’t recognize the smile that plays on her lips, and it’s a foreign feeling for the aggressive and focused SSA. She hasn’t felt something like this in a while, especially not for a nerdy trainee named Dr. Spencer Reid.

“Hit the showers.” She teases. “You stink.”

Spencer nods furiously, “Y-yeah, of course. Thank you, again, SSA—“

“Just call me (Y/N).”

“T-thank you, (Y/N).” He smiles, scurrying out of the gym and into the hallway as giddy as ever.

(Y/N) knows she can’t pursue this— at least, not right now. She’ll give it a few years to let him settle in the FBI (his acceptance is inevitable) if she can be patient for that long. All she knows is that eventually, she wants the awkwardly adorable boy to be hers— and she wants to be his.

i’m so proud of this fic but sry i got carried away talking about wrestling i love it sm