#this is the one i made the quilt kit of a while back. i did cave and buy the kit i put together 🥲

[2fiorello]

my second quilt is all pieced and ready to be sewn together n quilted i could cry!!!! all sewn on my treadle machine😭😭🧡🧡 my beautiful fiancee for size reference and also it next to my first quilt :’-)

[ashintheairlikesnow]

I Long to Hear You

Sigh Not So | Secrets Hid Away | Shed Tears Aplenty | Fire Down Below | Rolling Down | Won’t You Go My Way? | The Seas No More | The Nightingale’s Song | Bones in the Ocean | For She Was Afraid | Time for Us to Leave Her | To Unchain Me | A Good Time Coming | I Long to Hear You |

CW: Gender dysphoria, brief magical mind manipulation, referenced mind control

-

There was a candle made with lavender oils in the room they had locked her into.

Kiraya hadn't realized there was anything more to it than wax, and had lit it just for something to do, quickly writing the symbol with her fingers to heat the air around the wick until it caught fire. The shiver of magic felt like a reassurance that she would find her way out of this, somehow, some way. 

Without her kit, she could do only these small magics - and the spell to make her body right, which was tied so firmly to her that no one else could have replicated it the same. She could warm water to wash her face, she could make the drapes shift as if in a breeze... it wasn't much, but at least it was something. 

Once the candle was lit, she had gone to lie on the cozy, comfortable bed.

Then, she had simply wept until her eyes were worn and her head pounded, until the soft quilt beneath her was damp with her tears and she could weep no more. 

She must have slept, though she had no dreams.

She opened her eyes and groaned as she realized she was in the wrong body again, the spell having faded as soon as she fell asleep as it always did. She grimaced as she shifted and her dress no longer fit right, too loose at the chest and hips, fabric wrinkling where it should have been gently curved. The other body, the one she worked so hard to leave behind whenever she could, met her with a flat chest and the wrong… everything. She felt like a snake trapped within skin that should have shed, rubbing wrongly all along her and yet unable to be left behind.

When she ran fingers along her jaw and found it sharper, more angled, she swore and grabbed a throw pillow, tossing it at the wall with a noise of sheer helpless frustration.

Then she wept again.

Was it worth using magic to fix the problem again, or would she need all she had later on, and she should save it up? Maybe best to wait, but she felt uncomfortable in this body, as if someone had switched her with her twin - a twin who didn’t exist. 

Then again, maybe if she kept the wrong body, Guilford Wentworth would not ogle her like meat in a butcher shoppe. Although who knew how a man like him would react? 

She thought of the cold smile on his face as he threatened her so casually… and she slumped, lying still and silent for a while, feeling utterly hopeless. 

At least there seemed to be no mirror in this place, so she didn’t have to stare into the red-rimmed, wrong-shaped eyes, the wrong face with all its hard angles, as if waking up in her brother’s body and not her own. At least there was that. 

She frowned and moved to rise up, weight back on her elbows and forearms. She could smell something like flowers in the air, and that was when she realized the candle she had lit was scented. The wicked man who had locked her in here was the sort of person to make sure his guests had the comfort of a soothing scent while he decided how they might die at his hand, and when.

She’d felt incredulous laughter burst from her, half-hysterical and bubbling with panic, as she stared at the dancing flame. Even when she finally managed to clap both hands over her mouth and muffle herself, it felt like it rang and echoed, bouncing around the room, a sound that was only a few steps below a scream. 

She touched her bottom lip with her fingertips, wincing at the swollen spot, tonguing at it. Those slaps had busted her lip, and she hadn’t even noticed until the lavender scent had broken her from what had felt like some strange stupor. She could see where blood had spotted on the quilt along with her tears, and she pressed at the place with one finger.

If it weren’t for the bars on the windows in this lovely, well-appointed room, she might have been able to forget she was a prisoner. Well, the barred windows, magic woven into every single wall and door, the wild and terrifying threats of the wealthiest and most powerful man she’d ever met, and… also the portraits of strange people that hung on all the walls, staring unblinking at her until she could feel their weight like a hand on her back. 

Rain spattered on the windows as the wind blew it nearly sideways, hitting the glass like it had been thrown by an angry spirit. She turned her head to watch it, bleary and blurred until she blinked away some of the last remaining tears that clung to her lashes. Some of her books on histories and mythologies had said that the moon goddess had a hand in the weather, and she wondered now if the moon hated her - or maybe Guilford Wentworth - and had sent the rain as a punishment, or maybe just a warning.

Give me back my child. Is that what it all was meant to be saying? Had the moon herself pulled the waves from the ocean to dump them on the coastal peoples until her son was sent back home?

Maybe Kira was already losing her mind. The weather had been lovely when she arrived in the city, clearly Wentworth wasn’t being divinely punished by anyone for anything. This was just a storm. 

Lightning flashed so close outside the window that Kira jumped in surprise, fingers tightening on the blanket. Thunder cracked on its heels and rattled the windows, rumbling up from the ground through Kira’s very bones. There was a sound outside, a groaning and cracking and then a crashing as - she thought - a tree must have been split in two and fallen to the ground. She swallowed, heart pounding, and stared outside into the near-total darkness, past the water drops and to the faint shadows of tree branches blowing wildly, throwing their leaves into the wind. 

Somewhere down below, nearly inaudible, she heard the captive siren begin to sing. Somehow the sound traveled out of his own beautiful prison and through the walls, finding her two floors up, and settled over her skin, found its way into the very marrow of her bones. 

His voice was a strong tenor, rising effortlessly high, and she felt her heart twist painfully in an echo of the grief the siren had layered through the notes. He had spent so long, she thought - not recognizing the dizzy spin in her mind for what it was - so long trapped here. He was scared, and lonely, and angry. He needed help. He needed her help.

She caught her breath, realizing only too late that there was a command in the music. It wasn’t strong enough to compel, not yet, but she could tease it from the notes if she concentrated on it. It was meant, she thought, only for her.

Relax, the song whispered into her mind, and she felt herself lay back on the bed, staring up at the canopy above her. Thunder rumbled again, but this time she did not jump, and her heart rate slowed to a peaceful, settled rhythm. 

It felt so nice.

It was so terribly wrong.

“Stop,” She whispered, but it had no weight to it. Fear was there, at the back of her mind, but it couldn’t get past the soft fog of the notes as they ran up her arms and around her neck. As if the siren himself were holding her.

And yet… the command, when it came, wasn't quite what she had expected. All she heard was a simple, infinitely sad, I want to go home. Please…

“Please what?” She whispered, lips barely moving. The creature couldn’t possibly hear her, and yet she had the feeling that he felt her words, through the connection his song made between them. 

Please… His voice felt like lips moving against the sensitive skin on the curve of her ear. He breathed, as if he laid next to her in the bed. Wound around his song, she very nearly felt the weight as he shifted on the mattress. Please help me. Help me…

“Stop trying to force me,” She said in return, and found herself half-smiling, mischief rising irrationally, “And I will.”

Please help me…

“I don’t like you in my head. Stop singing right now, and I swear on my magic and my name that I will do what I can to help you."

There was a pause. 

The siren’s voice wound down into a hushed hum. What is your name? Tell me your name so I may have the power of it.

Kira thought of the way names had power to the creatures of magic in the world, although much less for people, and she smiled. "I will give you the name I was born with. It isn't mine any longer, and you may do with it whatever you want."

What name did your mother speak when first you cried at her breast?

"She called me Olen because she thought I was her son," Kiraya whispered. "Olen Losna. Then she died, before she learned I was never a son at all. Her name was Kyrie, and my grandmother's name was Olenna, and my great-grandmother changed her name every five years or so…”

The tenor of his voice changed, just a little. 

What is your name?

 “Kira.” Her lips seemed to be moving all on their own, without her help at all. “Kiraya Losna…”

Help me, Kiraya Losna-... be so kind to me-

"I want to be kind to you." Her eyes began to flutter shut. Each blink took longer and longer. "But you must stop commanding me to be. I want to help you..."

Kiraya Losna-

She heard a pounding, a shout muffled through wall. "Miss Losna! Don't listen! Miss Losna!"

The song abruptly went silent, and its spell shattered within her, breaking apart. All at once, her mind cleared, and she inhaled sharply and sat up.

“Please!” Came the strange voice from the other side of the door. A woman's voice. “Please, don’t listen to it! Block your ears! Don't let it take you!"

She ran to the door and it finally, finally opened when she turned the knob. On the other side of the door was the serving-girl from earlier. She no longer wore a hazy smile, but instead had a sharp gaze full of panic, wearing her nightclothes and with her hair a loose pile of red curls falling around her shoulders. She still had one hand raised in the act of pounding on the door. 

Kira swallowed. “Thank you, are you-... are you all right? Are you-... are you still-”

“It fades,” The girl whispered, reaching out to grab onto Kira’s hands, clinging to them. The girl’s fingers were as chilled as if they were carved from ice. She squeezed Kira’s fingers until they ached, tears running from her wide blue eyes over freckled cheeks. “Lately, it fades sometimes in the night, but still we cannot leave. You must not let it take you, Miss, you must not let it sing you to madness like it has sung us all! You must not listen to the siren song! You will lose yourself, as we have lost ourselves! It will ruin you!"

Before Kira could respond, a deep voice boomed from down the hall, “Nadette! What are you doing in the residence this late?” 

The two women's heads jerked to the side at once, both of them turning to look. Then Nadette’s eyes seemed to widen even more, if it were possible, and she shook her head, her lower lip trembling. “No, no no no…” She whispered. "No, please... Please, please..."

Then she… blinked, and all her panic and fear was gone.

The serving-girl looked confused, staring down at herself and then giving a little squeak and flushing bright red, freckles disappearing into the rush of blood. Terror replaced by mortified embarrassment. “Oh, no! What am I-... what…”

“Nadette.” The deep voice went slightly softer, kinder, and one of the men who had forced Kiraya up to this room came walking up. His gaze went to Kira, and she felt herself bristle at the flat hostility in his foggy gaze and glared at him right back. Controlled by the siren or not, his grip had been tight enough on her arm to leave bruises. “You. You are to stay in your room, Miss Losna. And you, Nadette, should be asleep in the servants’ quarters by now.”

“I-I should… But I was asleep.” Nadette blinked rapidly, but then only shook her head. “I-I’m sorry, Ellwen, I must have… been walking in my sleep again…” 

“Clearly,” Ellwen murmured, with odd care and concern for Nadette that Kira hadn’t seen in him before. "You've done it so much lately, I worry for you, love."

Nadette patted him on the hand, and Kira tried not to wonder if their romance was their own, or if Wentworth had ordered the siren to make them like this. The horror of the latter option threatened to shatter her completely.

Ellwen gave Kira one more desultory glance, and then leaned over and yanked the door shut in her face as she stood there staring. It slammed before she could even move, and when she jerked forwards, the handle no longer turned.

“Wait! Wait!”

“Be quiet,” Ellwen said, bass voice booming right through the door. “Lord Wentworth will see to you in the morning.” She heard them moving away from her down the hall, Ellwen speaking in a low soft voice to Nadette, Nadette sounding confused and uncertain, but gradually reassured. 

No matter how she called out after that, no one answered her.

No one came.

The siren did not sing again.

-

Taglist:  @grizzlie70 @burtlederp @finder-of-rings  @theelvishcowgirl @whump-for-all-and-all-for-whump @bloodinkandashes @squishablesunbeam @mj-or-say10 @apokolyps @wildfaewhump @shrimpwritings @there-will-always-be-blood @latenightcupsofcoffee

@whumptober, day 29: scented candle

[ganymedesclock]

Thank you for pointing out that it's really implausible for someone not a part of an official Fantasy(tm) government to have access to full plate armor and keep it maintained on their lonesome, I have this character who somehow Wanders The World and yet is also in full plate all the time? At least I can understand how to edit that idea. Shame video games lied to me on how much armor is too much or too little for travel.

Historically speaking, most figures we'd recognize as Knights In Shining Armor were people who could afford to maintain their own armor, sword, horse- usually landed nobles. 'Knight' is a class within a peerage, closer to a lord or lady than a servant. Similar story for historical samurai- they were privileged people who could afford a sword IIRC.

Another thing I try to think about is that armor is... impractical. Uncomfortable. It's not impossible to use or limiting your range of movement massively- they did an experiment where a historical reenactor in full plate ran an obstacle course against a soldier in modern field gear, I don't recall where but I remember seeing the footage, but the knight did favorably- but living in armor is an impractical, though not an impossible, decision.

You can easily lean into that- if your character is a vagrant wanderer in full plate, they had to have either come from or been employed at some point by money, or possibly had a chance to take really good armor off someone else. If they're living in their armor almost all the time, there's still probably parts they shed according to some routine or another, and what isn't regularly taken off and cleaned (or at least, y'know, scrubbed) will probably get stinky. A big oft-overlooked-in-fantasy part of armor is padding- just the metal layer will prevent cuts, but to actually have meaningful impact resistance against stabs, pierces, or bone-shattering impacts, one way or another a would-be knight is usually wearing several layers. While it's not the only option, a gambeson- a thick quilted coat- and over that a harness to attach and support the various armor pieces is very common. Armor is actually very logistics-heavy! Owning, maintaining, and wearing it is a big deal. That's not to say you can't ever depict a character who has armor but can't maintain it- but that could very well be an interesting point.

(I think about this a lot when I draw Prisoner from Dead Cells- he is the last person who can really afford armor, meaningfully, and he's also an emaciated person going through a lot of it- so I tend to draw his armor as dented, scratched up, extremely piecemeal per canon- he really only has one pauldron and maybe a breastplate depending- and literally tied on with strips of spare cloth, because he has no padding both in terms of his deeply unhealthy body weight and the unlikeliness this armor was ever tailored to him)

In the case of rpgverse, few of the core cast has much in the way of armor. Diana literally is an ex-knight; she used to be a marchioness (relatively big cheese; right below a duke), hence why it was a pretty big courtly betrayal when she joined Deimos, who kitted her out accordingly using basically magical artifice.

Diana's armor, when she regains the ability to summon it, is a bit unnaturally fitted to her figure. I designed it off of the articulations of an exoskeleton; you can see this most obviously in where it secures to her neck. Being made of an unnatural, highly flexible quasi-organic material gives it advantages in that regard- these plates can slide over each other to articulate without scratching each other to hell and back. I've also been careful to keep the spikes on her pauldrons short and flared outwards, so she can do things like raise her arms over her head without poking herself.

Even then, she's definitely going to be dispelling it (sometimes, even the left-hand gauntlet that holds her prosthetic shadow-arm in place and forces it to work more like a conventional appendage) when not needed.

Depending on how committed you are to your knight character, anon, there's plenty of fun worldbuilding or lorebuilding options you could use to still capture the image you like. I think that practical concerns and knowledge shouldn't preclude imagination in fantasy writing, but help you hone it down- have a sense of what it means if your character is always wearing armor. Diana's armor symbolizes a lot of things to her- her former status, service she both is and isn't proud of, but also her own ability to face opposition head-on. It means a lot to her, and as the drawing makes pretty clear I think, her mental health drastically improves when she's able to reforge her own connection with darkness and regain its use.

[highqueenofelfhame]

fafs, twenty four

so i was definitely going to wait to post this until tomorrow or the day after but then decided to say fuck it and in the spirit of rowaelin month am just giving it to you now, whatever. who needs rules. or regulations. not me.

follow @highqueenofelfhamewrites and turn on post notifs to receive updates (i don't do taglists anymore, sorry folks!) masterlist//support me with a ko-fi//redbubble

It was nowhere near the worst injury she’d ever had, but it certainly wasn’t pleasant.

The living room floor of one of her smaller sanctuaries had been turned into a makeshift operating room. A trash bag was laid out beneath her, rustling with every move she made. The first aid kit that had been untouched and hidden under the kitchen sink was open with all its pieces scattered around her. A brand new bottle of vodka sat to her right, several shots worth already buzzing through her veins. It would take at least one more swig before she got started, but it was already difficult to slide the thread into the needle, so she was holding off until she was just about ready to begin.

Gods damn the agent that shot her. Aelin would bet money that it was Remelle, the blonde bitch that had been pawing at Rowan for years. Before, when she was Lilian, she’d heard a wide array of stories about the woman and her unwanted advances. Ever since Aelin had been introduced to the FBI as a criminal informant, she had shot daggers at her in every meeting, likely angry Aelin was spending so much time with Rowan. Despite how much of that time was angry banter from Rowan, no matter if Aelin was trying to thaw out his icy inner and exterior.

None of that mattered now. She could have Rowan if she really wanted him. Maybe they were already together and--

Aelin stopped those thoughts in their tracks, eyes focusing on the task at hand. There were bigger things to worry about, like getting out of the city and, most importantly, the bleeding wound on her thigh. She chewed on her lip until the thread finally made it into the curved needle, and she held back a cheer as she sloshed some vodka over the wound on her thigh. Hissing through her teeth, she thanked the gods that it wasn’t any worse.

It wasn’t even that bad, considering everything else she’d experienced. There was the time Arobynn had stabbed a dagger through her palm, and she’d had to stitch up the injury herself. She wasn’t sure how many times she’d been sliced and jabbed in training. Her list of broken bones and scars was a long one. Once she got older and was better at her job than all of the men combined, training had become more of a game of survival. They had been out for blood, shedding hers in red tears on the floor until she managed to incapacitate them enough to claim the victory for herself.

This gunshot wound was minor. It hadn’t nicked anything major, and it had taken a while for Aelin to realize she’d even been shot. The adrenaline from running from the full force of the FBI had been enough to repel the pain until she was nearly to her safehouse. She was four blocks away when she realized her pace was slowing and that there was a sharp, hot pain throbbing in her left thigh. A glance down told her everything she needed to know. She had limped straight through the front door and to the first aid kit, where she now prepared to stitch her own leg up.

At one point, there had been a numbing agent in this bag, but she remembered using it on Sam after a nasty fight with Arobynn one night when she was twenty-one. Since then, she’d seldom been to this safehouse and had neglected to restock her kit. There was barely enough of the nylon thread left over, but she would manage. Aelin made a mental note to have someone, either Nox or herself, replenish the missing items.

With a deep breath and a final swig of vodka, she picked up the forceps and shimmied the tension from her shoulders while she hunched over her leg, ready to begin.

With the first stick and the drag of the thread through her skin, Aelin bit her lip so hard she drew blood. It was a bizarre and uncomfortable feeling accompanied by a slight burning sensation. Several times she groaned while she sewed her skin back together. By the time she was finished, her mouth tasted metallic, and the trash bag beneath her was covered in droplets of blood. Her bare thigh looked grim and would leave behind a jagged, ugly scar, but she doused it once more in vodka before wiping away the blood with a damp piece of gauze. Her hands were mostly steady while she placed a bandage over the top and taped it down.

It was just another painful memory that would soon fade to silvery skin. How many more would it take until she was free?

Shaking her head to pull her from any thoughts too negative to deal with right now, Aelin smiled a bit. She was almost pleased with herself for handling the entire situation so well, but the reality of the situation was soon to crash down on her. It didn’t take long for her to get up, going about the tiny house and jerking all the curtains closed. Hardly any natural light was able to filter in through the gaps in the curtains for how tightly she’d twisted at the blinds until they were sealed completely shut. Thumbtacks were shoved into the walls to keep anyone curious from peering inside. She would move to another place in a day or two, she promised herself, after she had time to dye her hair and her wound wasn’t so fresh.

Every lock on every door was twisted into place-- seven locks on both the front and back doors. Only two of those locks could be opened with a key from the outside. The other five were inside only, a variation of deadbolts and chain locks that made her feel secure.

Only when she was satisfied that she was as safe for the time being did she go to the single bedroom and lock the door behind her. In a handful of heartbeats, she collapsed on the old quilt and drifted into a fitful sleep.

~*~

The news that it would take weeks, maybe months, of physical therapy to have his shoulder back to one-hundred percent was irritating to say the least. Rowan would be out of work for a while, but that wasn’t the most frustrating part of the situation. He would be wearing the restrictive sling for weeks, only to take it off when he changed clothes or showered. They didn’t even allow him to take it off to sleep, for gods’ sake. Rowan would be sleeping sitting up for the foreseeable future, and he was fucking annoyed about it.

The last few nights sleeping in the hospital had been anything but fruitful. Not only was he woken by the nurses coming in to check on him every few hours, every single time he tried to adjust to a more comfortable position, he was reminded of the sling. The pain was nearly suffocating. Rowan had heard from Fenrys about how bad shoulder injuries were, but this was on another level of anything he had ever experienced.

So why he was standing in the abandoned apartment of the woman who had shot the bullet through it in the first place was beyond him at the moment.

It wasn’t the apartment littered with cameras and paid for by the bureau. It was the one she’d lived in privately before her beating and arrest. It was the one decorated with opulence and taste. With artwork that wouldn’t surprise Rowan to find it had been stolen and was priceless. The one with books stacking shelves every which way, those novels bookmarked and annotated, as he had just learned. Like she loved them so much, she couldn’t help but document her favorite and least favorite parts.

The linens closet was filled with the softest blankets and nicest sheets Rowan had ever felt in his life. Silk sheets were currently stretched over the mattress in her bedroom, a thing that Rowan had thought she’d quipped as a joke once.

“Sorry, the sheets aren’t Egyptian cotton for whatever the hell you’re used to,” he’d said, a bite in his tone as he showed her the dump of an apartment the bureau had decided on for her.

“Silk,” she winked. “Feels good against my skin when I sleep naked.”

It hadn’t been a joke. He ran his fingers over the fabric and almost smiled at the memory but forced his lips into a frown instead. As he looked around the room, the nearly ostentatious yet somehow tasteful room, he missed her. He hated himself for it, but he missed her. The woman had shot him through the shoulder, but the pain in his heart was somehow worse. His first thought when he woke in the hospital from surgery had been about if they’d found her and she was safe, gods above. Everything about himself was secondary, and he didn’t really care.

But they hadn’t found her. There was no trace of her after her anklet was cut. Nobody had seen her; traffic cams had stopped picking her up like she had just… vanished. He hated that she was so good at her job, so good at being a criminal.

Deep down, Rowan knew that wasn’t what bothered him. It never really had. There wasn’t a part of her soul that he had seen and didn’t understand or want to love. Nothing she had ever done had pushed him away in the slightest. Her honesty about her life and the vulnerability she had shown him only made him respect and love her more.

He wasn’t mad that she shot him. Was he annoyed that he couldn’t use his arm? Of course. But he understood. Rowan understood that she felt backed into a corner and betrayed, and she went into fight or flight mode. In this case, it had been fight and flight. He had stepped too close and got shot in return. It was fair. She was used to fighting her way out of situations, so of course, it was the route she’d taken.

He just wanted her to slip up for once so he could just find her and talk to her. Figure out whatever the hell was going on when they’d argued before she shot him, then disappeared in the middle of the day in a bustling city. Rowan wasn’t even mad that she hadn’t been caught. In fact, he was glad they hadn’t caught her.

Rowan didn’t want her to be found. The full force of the FBI would rain down on her like a hurricane and she would be shown no mercy. There wasn’t a single part of him that wanted her suffering in an interrogation room, throwing around the word allegedly like she used to throw daggers. For her to be thrown back in that dismal jail cell awaiting a death sentence that almost assuredly awaited her for what happened at the bureau.

But he was still frustrated as all hell that he couldn’t find her now, no matter how much he didn’t want her rotting in prison on the outskirts of the city.

It was while he stood with his fingers running over the silk of her sheets that he heard the jingling of keys at her front door. It was surprising, considering he’d had to pick several locks to get up here in the first place. Rowan flattened his body against the bedroom wall, listening to the front door open and close.

The footsteps that followed weren’t Aelin’s, though. They were a little louder, carrying a larger and heavier body. Rowan moved to stand in the doorway, startling the man in the center of the room. He dropped the bag he was carrying, swearing loudly as he bent to pick it back up.

“Gods above, Suit,” he murmured, dropping the bag on the kitchen counter. “What are you doing here? Getting something for Celaena?”

“Shouldn’t I be asking you that?” Rowan inquired, noting that the bag he carried contained nothing of real importance. If anything, it looked like a combination of garden tools and art supplies.

“I think I stashed something here if we’re being candid and off the record, which I would very much appreciate if we were, by the way. I’ve come to collect.” Haversham -- Rowan still didn’t know the man’s real name -- began digging around Aelin’s bookshelves, looking behind and even inside some of her books that turned out not to be books at all. They looked like books, but when opened in the middle were hidden pockets. Some were empty; some weren’t. Rowan noticed a few that had different bits of identification tucked away. None of that seemed to be what Haversham looked for as he simply closed them and put them back on the shelves.

“Where is she?” Rowan finally asked, a little boldly.

“Can’t you check that fancy anklet you have her wearing and figure it out? I haven’t seen her in a week. She isn’t calling me back, either, so when you do see her, can you tell her that I…” The man trailed off after looking up from his search and seeing Rowan’s face. Rowan’s hard, unyielding face and the concern that was likely etched in his features. The wrinkle between his brow, the stiff way he held his lips. Haversham’s head tilted curiously.

“Holy gods, did she make a run for it?”

“Something happened at the bureau. I can’t find her. Neither can they. But I need to talk to her. I can’t help her otherwise.”

“Do you want to help her?” The sound that came from Rowan was nearly a growl, and Haversham retreated a step with his hands raised defensively. “Look, I’m just saying. She wouldn’t make a run for it unless it was something serious and you’re incapacitated at the moment. Which leads me to believe that she did it; otherwise, you wouldn’t be hurt at all. Celaena wouldn’t let somebody hurt you. So either you really fucked up--”

“I did, but only by not protecting her and defending her when it mattered.”

Haversham twisted his mouth to the side while he gave Rowan a hard once-over. It was like he was assessing everything he knew about his character while deciding if he would help him or not. There was a prolonged silence that made Rowan want to throw something at the man, but he waited it out.

“I’m only going to help you because you make her happy. And I don’t mean superficially. I mean that for the first time in the eight years I’ve known her, she’s been happier and more alive than I’ve ever seen her. I know she trusted you more than she’s ever trusted anyone else. More than me, which doesn’t say much considering I think she trusts me as far as she can throw me. But she trusts you more than Sam even.” Finally, he ripped a page from one of the books and began to scrawl across the page until it was nearly full. When he handed it to Rowan, he realized it was a collection of addresses. Some were in the city; some were in other countries. Some were a handful of hours of a drive into nowhere. One was practically around the corner from where they were now.

“What is this?”

“Safehouses. Those are the ones I know about. Celaena has… a lot of secrets. I don’t know even half of them. I have my suspicions about a lot of shit, but I’m letting her come to me with it when she’s ready. So I don’t know all of her safehouses, but I know those ones. Those are the ones she’s let me use in times of trouble. That’s the only help I can really offer you besides calling if I hear from her.”

“Thank you,” Rowan said softly, and he meant it. It was the biggest and only lead that he had on her whereabouts, and even if she wasn’t crashing on a bed in any of these places, it was a start. It was the only hope he had so far that maybe, just maybe… he might find her.

~*~

Rowan had decided to start on the outside and work his way in, and it was wasting a lot of time. Everyone he was friendly with at the bureau was constantly calling and texting to see how he was doing, asking what he was up to. Fenrys told him he’d stopped by his apartment a few times this week, and he hadn’t been home. Rowan replied, saying he was just taking some time to himself, which seemed to satisfy the man, and that had been that.

In reality, Rowan had been in Terrasen trying to find Aelin. She wasn’t in either of the two listed near the border of Adarlan, so now he was slowly working his way back toward Rifthold. It just didn’t seem likely for her to be hiding somewhere in the city, not when she would have to leave for food and other necessities at some point. So he’d gone as far out as he could before making his way back. So far, it had turned up nothing. Both of the cabins he’d visited in the woods had seen better days and likely hadn’t seen Aelin in years.

He was driving toward his fourth destination now, so deep in Oakwald, he wasn’t entirely sure he wasn’t back in Terrasen at this point. The location pinged on the Adarlanian side of the border, but he had little hope of actually finding her. There were only two safehouses left on the list, and both of them were in the city itself. Would he still check them? Of course. But did he think that she was stupid enough to be there? Absolutely not.

The energy of the place was different as soon as he made it up the drive. Halfway up, a gate that covered the driveway, and Rowan had to abandon his car and hop the fence. It was a bit of a feat, as it was taller than him, and he only had one good arm to use, but he managed. Even if it had taken him three times as long as it usually would have. Feet pounding down against the dirt so hard it caused a small cloud, he proceeded up toward the small cottage with a little more confidence than he’d had the rest of the drive.

Smoke was wafting from the chimney, and a dim glow flickered in the window. The window that a lithe body stood in, peering through the curtains and backlit by the fire. He couldn’t see her face, but he knew it was Aelin, knew he’d been spotted, and knew she was watching. How she had known he’d arrived, he wasn’t sure. Being overcautious her entire life likely meant that there were tripwires that alerted her of his presence somewhere on the driveway.

As he got closer, she disappeared, and the curtains slipped back into place. When he got to the door, he reached out but hesitated for a moment. Aelin clearly didn’t want to be found and was clearly mad at him. What if she did worse than she had the last time they’d seen each other? Part of him thought she wouldn’t, but he hadn’t ever thought she would shoot him, either. Rowan wasn’t sure how many times she had told him she hated guns, but desperate times call for desperate measures, after all.

It took more courage than he cared to admit to turn the knob. Much to his surprise, the door opened, and he slipped inside, shutting it behind him quietly. To be frank, Rowan couldn’t believe his luck. He couldn’t believe he’d managed to find her at all, much less on a list of places that Haversham managed to remember.

As his eyes adjusted to the room, he saw Aelin sitting across the room with a bottle of rum in one hand, balanced on her thigh. She was slumped down a bit in the chair; her hair dyed a muddy reddish-brown color. A dagger was in her other hand, being twisted in circles against her bare leg. Rowan wanted to tell her to stop, that she would hurt herself, but faster than he could register, she was moving. He was stunned further into silence by the whistling of the wind and the slight breeze by his ear. A loud thud had him whipping around to the door.

Embedded in the wood, millimeters from where his head had just been, was the dagger she’d been holding, and when he looked back at Aelin, she was smirking.

[dreamescapeswriting]

A Little Time ~ KSJ [Request]

WORD COUNT:1.8K

PAIRING: Dad!Seokjin x Mum!Reader

GENRE: Established relationship, marriage AU, pregnancy, angst, fluffy ending

Rain was hammering down outside and the thunder was making your 8-year-old son jump every time there was a loud burst of noise or a flash of lightning. A clap of thunder sounded and Jae jumped a little, clutching onto your arms as he tried to ignore the thunderstorm, normally when it was this bad you would put on a movie for him and watch it together but tonight he just wanted to go to sleep.

"Hey, it's okay." You promised as you moved closer to him on his small bed in his bedroom, he was shivering from how cold he was so you added another blanket around him trying to bring his warmth back up. Jin was supposed to have picked him up from football practise after school but never should up, instead of ringing you at work your son walked all the way home in the storm almost getting himself sick because of it. Jin was in for it when he came in, he'd been so busy lately he wasn't making time for anybody else which you understood but leaving your son was unacceptable.

"Is dad coming home?" Jae stuttered out as he began to lay down under the thick blankets and quilt covers, you nodded at him not knowing if it was the truth or not. If Jin was too late coming home he would normally stay at the dorms or in the studio instead of coming back to his home, 

"Of course, he'll be home. We have our big breakfast tomorrow," Your stomach churned at the thought of going out to breakfast, the smell of food lately made you want to vomit and nothing sounded good to you anymore but you figured you were just getting a bug and it would pass sooner or later. It was a traditional thing that you and Jin did with Jae, every 1st Saturday of the month you would go out to have breakfast in a fancy restaurant, spending time together as a family but with how busy Jin had been lately you doubted he even remembered what date it was.

"Get some sleep, you're going to need your rest." You whispered to your son, bending down to kiss his forehead softly as his eyes struggled to stay open, you could tell he was fighting the urge to sleep.

"Goodnight mum," He whispered back to you, turning onto his side as he pulled a stuffed animal closer to him, falling asleep almost instantly as you left the room trying to prepare a speech for when Jin would finally show up at him. 

It wouldn't have bothered you so much if Jin just simply told you that he was going to be late or busy but instead, he just went offline and ignored everyone. Shutting people out and turning them away whenever they tried to help him with something even when he was at home he was never really there. It was as if someone had placed him on auto-pilot at home and all he did was eat, sleep and repeat day in and day out.

As you walked down the stairs to go and clean up the living room the front door opened and Jin stood there, rain dripping off him and onto the floor as he shivered. 

"It's a little cold," He laughed loudly but you ignored him, continuing your walk towards the living room instead of making conversation with him, there was nothing you could say to him right now that wouldn't cause a large fight with one another. 

"Did you have a good day babe? I did, the boys and I went out for lunch and then we got some writing done, then we went out to dinner and you should have seen-" Jin stopped talking when you slammed the glass cabinet door where you kept photographs and baby memorabilia inside and stared at him. There was a coldness behind your eyes he couldn't read but it sent a shiver up and down his spine and he knew at that moment that he'd done something wrong.

"What did I do?" He stuttered out, taking off his shoes and making his way over to you with his arms out at the ready, he was going to hug and make it up to you no matter what it took but you pushed his arms away. 

"It's what you didn't do, did you forget someone today?" Your arms folded across your chest as you looked at him, shifting your weight from one foot to the other as you waited for the penny to drop in his head.

"O-Oh shit-"

"Yeah, our son walked home and was so cold I thought he was going to turn into a human ice sculpture!" You yelled out, finally losing your temper as Jin seemed to have time to go to lunch and dinner with the boys but neglected in picking up your child from football or coming home in time for dinner with the two of you. 

"God, it's like you don't even care about us...You're never here anymore," You scoffed, picking up the toys that were on the floor, cleaning up the place would help you get less angry at him for never being there anymore. 

"I am too," Jin argued following you into the kitchen as you began loading the washing machine with dirty clothes, 

"Really? Because I go to bed with a cold space and wake up to an empty space," You couldn't bring yourself to look at him so you focused on the washing that you were trying to do instead of what you really wanted to say to him. 

"Because I'm busy, you knew this was my life when we got married, don't act so shocked now," He grumbled trying to walk away but you stood up, kicking the door to the washing machine closed. 

"I knew what I was getting into, I knew you were busy but lately Jin...It's like you don't even want to be around your own son! He's been waiting for you every night hoping you would read to him," Jin began to walk away not being able to handle the truth so you followed him, no longer shouting since you didn't want to wake Jae up. 

"He's been asking me when you were going to come home, when you were going to make time for him," You whispered as you both walked into your bedroom, the door shutting behind you as you stared at Jin who was calmly stripping out of his clothes and ignoring you as if he couldn't hear you. You continued to rant but he walked into the en-suite bathroom turned on the shower and ignored you once again.

"Do you even know what tomorrow is?" It was a simple question that seemed to make your heart drop when you saw a look of confusion flash across Jin's face. He'd just came out of the bathroom when you decided to remind him about the next morning's breakfast date, 

"Breakfast with me and your son...Like we do once a month," You shook your head, he was unbelievable. 

"It's not-" You threw the calendar onto the bed beside him to prove what date it was and his face dropped as he appeared pale, biting down on his lip he glanced up at you. 

"Babe I've been busy, I forgot...It was one thing," He tried to justify it but you shook your head, 

"It's not one thing...You forgot to pick our son up, you forgot our anniversary last month and you've been pushing us away from a while Jin." Your voice cracked as you tried not to cry in front of him, failing miserably as tears streamed down your cheeks that you weren't able to contain any more, you felt overemotional and just wanted this to end. 

"So I missed a couple of things, it's because I'm busy." The same excuse was used over and over again and you shook your head at him, rubbing your temples as a piercing headache began to build up.

"Whatever helps you sleep at night," You grumbled at him, picking up one of the blankets from the bed and heading for the guest bedroom where most of Jae's baby items were stored. 

"Babe come to bed-"

"I am in bed," You mumbled to him, shutting the door as you climbed onto the guest bed for the night, not being able to be around Jin for much longer, you just needed some space.

Things didn't improve much after the fight with Jin, he was still busy with work and pushing you away but he came home more often to spend time with his son while you got on with everything you had to do around the house and at work. Throwing yourself into a busy schedule, so busy that you'd neglected to notice that you were late for your period by two months and that you were sick almost every other day and highly emotional.

"Mum?" You rolled over on the bed to see Jae walking into the room with a cup of water for you, he'd been looking after you all day since you were too sick to move. 

"Hey pumpkin, what's wrong?" You questioned, sitting up as he climbed onto the bed after putting the glass of water down onto the table beside your bed. 

"I called Daddy, you don't look good." You smiled weakly at the thought of Jin coming home early to you being sick but you knew he would want to know if you were ill. 

"What did he say?" You questioned but right before Jae could answer the door burst open to your bedroom, Jin was standing there panting and sweating heavily. 

"Uncle Jimin and Taehyung are downstairs," He spoke to Jae who dashed off the bed and sprinted down the stairs while Jin poured the contents of a black back onto the bed in front of you. 

"Babe what's-" You were going to ask what everything was when you saw the pregnancy test kit sitting there with water, multivitamins and different tablets. 

"You're late...You're sick...You're barely getting out of bed which is what happened when you were pregnant with Jae," All of a sudden your overprotective and kind husband was right in front of you, getting ready to take a pregnancy test with you as though the fight between you didn't happen and you were perfectly fine. 

"I-I can't have another baby, we're not ready...You're too busy," You panicked as you slid off the bed, taking the tests into the bathroom as Jin followed you, 

"We will make time, I'll start taking days off...You can take some off too...I promise I will never leave you behind." He whispered as he kissed your forehead, watching you as you began to get ready to take the test. 

"Pregnant." You breathed out looking at the stick which was blinking a happy face at both you and Jin, you were happy but worried all at the same time but Jin was reassuring you that things were going to be different, he was going to be there more no matter what he had to do to do it.

Tagline: @lyoongx @mitzwinchester @taestannie @rjsmochii @kneel-begyourpardon @sw33tnight @sweeneyblue1 @innersooya​ @jin-from-the-block​ @acciocriativity​ @mwitsmejk​

[gxilds]

helter skelter | pwrr chapter 1

An: alright alright I've probably redone this a/n 800 times but I planned on finishing this in June and its september… I- lord… the procrastination

warnings: blood, death, usual AIB stuff, niragi is a warning of his own honestly, shitty and comedic-esque writing cause i didn’t wanna write this chapter for some reason plus i didn’t proof read any of this 😒

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There's such a ridiculousness to being familiar with something that was yet still so foreign and far. You had lived in Japan before when really young but when you visited you felt as though you were a tourist. You had such a familiarity to these roads though and it seems as though they had never changed and it felt as though a crashing wave of nostalgia every time you were there though. You had always walked around and recounted the things that at least you remembered from young - It was seven steps to your mom's bedroom door from your room, the 3rd step going up to the second floor always creaked no matter where you stepped, your grandparents house had the most ridiculous tin roof on it and it was so loud every time it rained. Every step you took, every night you slept here, it felt like it formed you…. yet why was everything so horribly unfamiliar.

There was something so loud about the streets of Japan when no one was around but it was so foreign because all of the people that usually filled these streets had disappeared in an instant. Everything could be heard from the sounds of bugs to the empty plastic bags blowing around the streets and you didn’t know whether the sound of nothing or the sound of her thoughts were worse.

you had no idea what a visa in this world was but after last night you didn’t think you wanted to reach the end of it because you didn’t want to end up like what was left of those two men those nights beforehand.

As you searched around what was left of the shops you contemplated your own life expectancy in a world like this. All you knew was there were games that would potentially cost your life and that people who were alive were far and few between. you could put together assumptions but a wrong one might just put you in the way of lasers this wasn’t your life back home where your skills were accepted as somewhat effective and could be made into a job, this was a hellish situation that to you could only be described as the escalator to purgatory.

Each shop held something that was either useful or just absolutely stupid but shops was all you could live off of for awhile until you found other people. you had collected things that would last like canned food and went to a nearby pharmacy to raid them of what you knew you could use like bandaids, saline, basic first aid items and a trauma kit you were lucky to find. All that was left was to be able to find a place to sleep that wasn’t the floor of a restaurant so with finding a hopefully comfortable bed in mind you headed towards apartments because alas there were not any mattress stores around.

With tired legs you worked your way up and around to find an apartment with an open door and as you came to the end of the 2nd floor one of the doors finally opened and allowed you to creak into the small room. A sigh of relief. There was a bed with a quilt and while there were no pillows you could still manage by using your jacket. Finally a place to sleep. And as the night fell you laid down and looked out the window as red beams lit up the sky, wishing the best for all of those who lost the people they knew here. This is how you spent the next day as well - sort of creating a routine for yourself.

The next two days had flown by in an unexpected haste. While you had not wanted to find what was at the end of her visa you also didn’t want to be left to your thoughts and to face the reality of the fact you were practically alone. Your family was gone and all of your friends and the people you did know were strangers. Actually it more or less seemed like you left them. Oh how you wished this was some crazy fever dream where you could just wake up.

The night had come on the last day of your visa and you weren't exactly itching to find out what would happen if you let it reach the end of these two days. You stepped outside of the apartment complex and despite how horrible the situation was it was also bittersweet how beautiful the moonlight was. Your feet moved quickly as you made your way through the streets, looking for the same lights and signs that lit up your first game and after walking for what felt like a century you found a… school? Oh.. okay

The entire school was lit up and much to your own surprise the doors were wide open for you to enter. Signs lit up around the school with arrows that said “this way”, “wrong way” and then finally “enter here”. The sign was posted outside of a gym that seemed to expand for miles on the inside but the hardwood paneling was so reminiscent of her own highschool.

It seemed like everyone inside of the gym had been waiting for so long, proved by their sighs of relief that they now had all the players. Once again it was time for a new game, one where deaths were inevitable.

Game

5 of clubs

Capture the flag

The phone had proceeded to explain the logistics of the game and the goal. There were 2 flags to be hidden and each team had to have a different hiding spot. Once the respective flags have been put in your spots the game will start. Each team will have 2 people to be given weapons, and only 2 - this cannot be the same person who hides the flag. The person who hides the flag remains in charge of the flag and is not to be harmed or else the team that shot loses automatically, both teams will know who these people are. With this your eyes drifted to a small group of people in the corner of her eyes who let out groans of what seemed like dissatisfaction.

After this you were sorted into their respective teams of 10 to discuss who would get what roles. This was a ploy to start chaos, obviously, seeing as no one is going to give up a chance at free immunity. One of the men who had previously been so disappointed decided he would be one of 2 who got a gun and as much as you respected his enthusiasm it was still a bit weird. The rest of the team, who all seemed like they knew each other, all pointedly looked at another person in the group. They all looked relatively familiar with each other but you had no idea who any of them were so the most you could do was make guesses to try and understand who you should avoid.

The two with the guns seemed relatively opposite to each other. One was high strung, loud and his weirdly placed piercings made you pissed with whoever did this to that man - he circled around the group of people spouting off words and ideas that seemed to waste the limited amounts of time they had, they weren’t all stupid but it seemed he was just trying to waste time to mess with everyone and as much as he seemed like a freak it might’ve been best not to get on his bad side. The other was shorter but more burly, he was quiet and left the group to mostly talk among themselves, a follower type per se.

The rest of the group tried to ooze their own intimidating auras that made their fear turn into a look of constipation but another person had stood out amongst the rest of the group. The woman that caught your eye stood tall and above a good portion of the group with what looked to be a cigarette aid in her mouth and stood with such a semblance that made her seem used to the games and confident in her abilities while still being nervous all at the same time. She was someone that could be good to stay by and as much as you hated it you felt you could use this woman’s nerves to your advantage at some point.

“Ah but who’s to take the flag?” The taller man’s voice had finally grasped the attention of everyone around them and in what felt like mere seconds parts of the group started to bicker making it more and more obscenely obvious just who wanted to keep their lives. you understood this very clearly, you wanted to keep her life too but there was also this urge to not stick out and to not seem so inherently selfish that people would have some sort of vendetta against her.

Ideas were not being passed around anymore but just argued and every voice started to merge together but the sound of the man’s shrill laughter which towered over everyone's voices even seemed to capture the other team’s attention.

“What about her?” The man’s voice had piped up as soon as there was room to even breathe through the talking and he basked in the attention as everyone's eyes shot to him, including yours. “You” he pointed to you with a raised eyebrow. At this the man who strutted around the group had stopped behind you and even though he stood 3 feet away he still felt too close for comfort as you turned your head to him. “Ah, yeah. you.” you had been nothing but quiet and rigid as he looked you back in the eyes, “I don't see why not” a few voices started to pipe up in disapproval and mutters that told him to back off but he gave them looks that shot them down immediately. Your eyes never left him and he knew you were constantly looking him over, studying him and he gave you a look that made you aware of that fact but that never changed his decision, you were distracted easily and he took note of that small flaw but he also took notice in how you stood uncomfortably while people argued their own importance. As much as you wish you could say no you cursed your inability to take charge for not letting you and as much as you hated it you stood acquiescent to his plan. With a short breathy chuckle he took one of the large sticks that held a flag and shoved it into your arms harshly. you, in that moment, became his human flesh shield.

The other team seemed put together by the time the game had officially started and a panic had settled in your mind when you realized your team had spent too much time arguing instead of planning the only thing to disrupt your mind was the feeling of someone harshly grabbing your arm as soon as a horn blew over the intercoms. You had found yourself in the back hallways of the school with sounds of yelling and gunshots behind you before you even turned to see who grabbed you and as much as you expected to have to look up and see the man who shoved you into this position you were instead met eye to eye with a familiar man, that of which were familiar to your last game. You shrugged your arm out of his grip and before you could speak to ask what he was doing he turned and gave you a signal to follow after him.

“You don’t seem stupid.” He said bluntly, disrupting your comfort that it was him and not the tall man that had pulled you from the group. You followed him around the dim hall that seemed to only be lit by low flickering lights and a vending machine that lined up next to tables and chairs at the end of the hallway. gunshots seemed distant near the classrooms and it boggled you just how someone could have such a poker face to that kind of stuff but granted you didn't seem so horribly bothered yourself which as soon as realization hit you, you felt a flicker of guilt. You didn't know if it was the years in the states that made you this shock proof to the sounds or maybe you had gotten so used to the sounds of loud music flowing into your ears that loud things just never seemed that way anymore.

It seems as though you were so lost in your thoughts but as soon as it had started to quiet down the man who was introduced to you as Chishiya had dragged you by the upper arm into what seemed to be a really dim sports closet. There was a light but before you could turn it on Chishiya had smacked your hand away which told you enough as it was. The sounds of slow steps and voices passed through the halls near the door and you started to feel less angered by how chishiya had grabbed your arm.

“Does it look clear?” a softer voice that was so hard to hear through the thick door had asked the rest of the group. Your head turned to the door, watching the handle knowing that maybe one of them would try and open it. To your undeniable luck you watched as the door handle softly started to turn.

“Ah” a deeper, more gravelly voice had piped up “there's a good hiding spot for the flag over here” his voice was just loud enough that it seemed as though he forgot there were people in the game who were gunning for him.

You heard the softer voice begin to protest and now that it seemed like they were standing closer to the door you could tell they tried to open it. “He’s right, no one would think of that and we have to keep moving.”

More footsteps and they were getting farther from the door and you let out a breath you didn't know you were holding when you heard the large doors of the gymnasium open and close. It seemed they were doing round trips around the school and with how long it took you to get to the gymnasium alone and considering there was a second level, you had some time. Mentally you thanked whatever atrocity had put you here for the luck you had just been given but chishiya on the other hand seemed adamant on staying in this closet that had what seemed to be like no lock at all.

Without thinking your hand started to reach the door and in your peripherals you could see the man’s hand start to reach for your arm again but dropped and when you looked at him you were only met with an expression that dared you to open the door. As much as you wanted to drop down against the cabinets of the closet and wish for the game to be over, you were still so easily provoked by his gaze. It felt like he wasn’t just calling you stupid but also asking you to do it, even if in his eyes he was just more curious to see the lengths you’d go to get this over with as quick as possible. He really wanted to stop you but at the same time if you didn’t get the team killed and stayed with him then Niragi’s trigger happiness would.

Your hand softly grasped at the doorknob and cracked open the door just enough for you to see no one was there. You could hear Chishiya scoff behind you but you still just kept going. With your heart in your ears you quietly shut the door behind you, leaving the man to do whatever he pleases in the large closet. You made your way down the hall you had just come from and you stopped in front of the gym doors. Your eyes searched around you but there didn’t seem like any discernible hiding spots. You almost panicked, what if they knew you were there and purposely said those things to get you killed? But what person would do that? Your eyes looked over all the places they had before once more but stopped at the vending machine. It was unplugged but just a few minutes ago it seemed to be one of the only things lighting up this dim back hall of the school.

You moved towards it with each step making a tiny little patter as you placed your feet down. You set your own flag down on the wall next to it and moved to pull the vending machine forward. The red flag slid out from behind it and your eyes lit up. As soon as your hand touched the pole you’d have expected some sort of ‘game over’ or ‘congratulations’ to welcome you just like in your first game but there was nothing. Did you miss something? Was the sounds of people bustling and talking more concerning to you than the instructions? You picked up your own flag in a ridiculous manner, shaking the two next to each other and anyone who might have passed you ought to have thought you to be bonkers. You heard the sound of a door clicking, not the louder creaks of the gym doors but the softer shutting of the closet door.

“That’s quite the plan you have.” You stopped shaking the flags and when you turned your head you were met with the veritably smug expression. Chishiya gestured to the large gym doors and as much as you wanted to smack the expression off his face you knew just how stupid you looked, so you followed.

In the gym your eyes were met with the same floors but slick with sheer coats of blood, primarily near the big main doors. The gym didn’t seem taken up by other people except the cadavers sprawled in the blood. Chishiya grabbed your attention and practically dragged your eyes to look up two brackets hung in the corners of the room, high enough out of reach.

your eyes drifted to the main doors as soon as you heard a click. almost instinctively your arm grabbed chishiya’s, pulling the two of you behind mats shoved in his in the corner of the gym. as much as you wanted to avoid the living right now, you also preferred to avoid the dead which wasn’t possible because no one was allowed to be happy here of course. both your eyes and chishiya’s brown eyes widened at the sight behind the mats in the gym, two men had shot each other and their bodies laid across from each other. Chishiya brought you out of your wandering thoughts, moving across you to peek at who had entered. a familiar cackle reached both of your ears and Chishiya's curious gaze hardened once more.

“where ever could they be?” the words came out with a bite and every bit of prevalent sarcasm. “come out, come out.”

There wasn’t much you could see but it seemed like he came back in with 2 other people, a familiar man with a beefy stature, and the woman in a blue bikini top who had her arms crossed at all times. Whether he was calling out for you or for the other team you weren’t exactly sure of but it didn’t seem like it mattered, nor did he care. you softly laid the flags against the ground and moved to peek your head behind chishiya’s. it wasn’t until you felt hands gripping your shoulders that you put your guard back up. the hands pushed you and you were met face to face with the trio that were in your team, and to a gun at your head. Wow, what a tuesday.

“There's the woman of the hour!” The shrill voice came from the tall man and matched with what seemed to be his signature cackle.

“Give me your flags or I'll shoot her!” The young man’s voice came out shaken but the caveat seemed to come across very clearly to everyone else.

The tall man’s brown eyes lit up and his hands brought his rifle down to his sides. “Well, by all means. fire away.” his tongue ran over his teeth as a violent smile joined his expression.

He didn’t pull the trigger but instead froze. How was he supposed to shoot someone? especially someone who had never wronged him?

“As much as I’d enjoy continuing this tete-a-tete I would also like to win” a new voice joined, that of chishiya’s. You felt the pressure of the pistol leave your temple and from the corner of your eye you saw it aimed at chishiya. turning your head to gain a clearer vision he held the flags in his hand and you were almost confused as to how he wasn’t dead but didn’t dwell on it much.

Chishiya's eyes bore into yours and it was the first time in a long time you couldn’t tell what someone was feeling which pained you with confusion. his eyes floated down to the man's stomach and before you could question the expression in his eyes you understood what he was trying to tell you. oh. you lifted your arm, bringing your hand grasping up from around the one around your neck, and pushed back your elbow into the man behind you.

Everything happened so quickly from that point onwards. You felt the man push back but heard a fluster of gunshots that seemed to pound into your ears as you stumbled forward. When you finally stood you hardly had any time to grasp the state of everyone else before the phones had all gone off in a collective celebration. The phone’s rang with the usual “game clear” and finally the room fell into a blurred silence. Your ears rang and your vision filled with spots as you rubbed at the pressure on your collar. Feet patterned against the pooled blood on the floor as

the remaining people started to file out of the gym. Briefly your eyes met with the likes of the blond’s and you almost sensed a pang of concern before he crossed out the door.

You don’t know why you followed them but the sense of a group seemed to allure you. as much of a motley crew as they were, their familiarity with each other attracted you, it’s not that you wanted to exploit their ever present “friendship” but you really could use the people. Afterall, your social health does of course matter.

Your feet shuffled behind the group as they made their ways back out the school, your existence hardly lingering in their minds. when you were met with the car you were confused, where do you go now? did you ask to go with them for the chance at safety in numbers or would you be there to be met with the sputtering of the engine? it seems as though since you couldn’t choose the overlord of this world would choose for you.

I digress from the evil overlord comment. There were no sputtering engines but there were cries of frustration from the tall skinny man. you held back light laughter as this whole situation reminded you of all the times this happened to your family when driving around and you had to push your car to get it started as though you were recreating karate kid.

The rest of the group stood with their arms crossed and the same look that said not to interrupt the mini tantrum the tallest was having, as though they would sit there for what could be hours just so they didn’t have to be on the back end of it. between all the cries of frustration you found that the keys were almost nowhere to be found and “i don’t wanna go dig through all that bloody bullshit” was an issue that seemed to prevail. One of the others, the tall woman, offered to go back and find the keys saying that it really wouldn’t have been that hard since there’s not many places they could be but the man was still so persistent.

Then there were even louder cries of frustration and for the first time you heard the lean man speak loudly, “will you calm down before we have to walk-” and he was cut off once more.

“does anyone know how to hotwire a car?” it seems he had already half started himself and was frustrated in the fact that he himself didn’t know how to finish.

you on the other hand weren’t unfamiliar with hot wiring. you aren't macgyver or a really cool criminal but after awhile you picked up how from years of curiosity and wikihow. you never understood why you would need the random facts you stored in the back of your mind - like how a platypus doesn’t have a stomach, or the unicorn is the national animal of scotland or in this case how to hotwire a car and that you’re not exactly gonna have a fun time hot wiring a 2007 toyota camry - because you weren’t some cool macgyver and you weren’t steve harvey or even artist, but just a criminology student.

“if you don’t mind my intrusion,” they didn’t, and that became obvious as they openly welcomed you as you wrapped around the car, coming face to face with the tall man, “trying to hotwire a car from the 2007’s isn’t gonna be fun, per say. there’s a lot of security precautions and just going in would only work on cars older than the mid 90’s.” and that's where his expression changed from frustration to… even more frustration.

He paused before reacting, like someone who was processing if they should cry or not. you dealt with this a lot, having watched your mentors and people you work with dealing with relatively volatile people. Helooked over his shoulder at the group and once again let out a wine, “I knew this car was useless” and he began his walk of shame, emphasizing his tantrum by smashing one of the rear windows.

As he went about, pacing back and forth, your expression shifted to that of nonplussed bemusement, how does one act like such a manchild. it seems like you weren’t the only one that thought this as the other 3 that stood, or now were sitting, along the steps matched your expression but were relaxed as this was relatively normal.

“We can just walk back, it’s not so far.” the tall woman offered. she was met with a glare and her head shifted, “it’s one of our only options.”

the tall man moved back towards you, “you! yeah, you! Do you know how to hotwire this thing?”

“I wish I could say yes” you paused, “although I don't see why you can’t just go back in there and retrace your steps.” he stood frozen, as though trying to come up with a reason to not be throwing this tantrum.

“Do you wanna go and look for the keys?” he responded immaturely, a childishly competitive glare aiming back at you.

“not exactly my keys to deal with, are they?” truthfully, you might have just been willing to find the keys that were probably in plain sight if it meant some sort of solace for yourself.

That's how you found yourself being practically dragged by the ear, walking with the group, having to listen to mutterings of “this bitch” “nOt My KeYs TO dEAl WiTh” followed with motions of frustration that reminded you just how uptight some adults could really be.

“Don’t mind him.” a soft voice whispered in your ear, it was the woman. “Kuina,” she introduced, “nice to meet you”

“(y/n)”, your face letting go of the tight expression you didn't quite realize it was holding, “so, where exactly are we going right now?”

“There.” She gestured to a building that lit up in the night sky. As far as you could tell this was the only place you’ve seen that has power at all which leads to many questions. Why did this, what you could at least recall as, hotel have power and all of the game areas have power but not places like hospitals that would be expected to have backup generators?

“Do you guys have that entire place to yourselves?”

[notyetneedcoffee]

Can’t Run

Steve Rogers is a wanted man. He broke the Accords, broke the law, and is still trying to do what’s right. . . even if it may get him killed.

Pairing: Steve Rogers x Reader

Warnings: Cannon level violence in this chapter, NSFW in future

New series. Others can be found on my Steve Masterlist

 Enough of the cold night air seeped into your old house to prompt you to pull on a heavy sweatshirt and wool socks. It’s not that you couldn’t turn the heater up, you just did see the need. If you could live in a cold tent through an Afghanistan winter, an east Cascade Mountain cold snap wouldn’t kill you.

Gary, your Belgium Malinois, curled up in front of the wood stove on his dog bed. You gave him a quick scratch on your way to the kitchen. The lights were low. All the devices were off. You just needed some quiet time. Maybe a beer would be good, too.

Before you could pull open the refrigerator, your dog moved past you to the rear door. He moved silently, hackles up. Unusual. Your training kicked in and you pushed further back into the shadows. Moving closer to the door, you tried to look through the sliver between your blinds out into the darkness of your carport. Something moved, something man height.

You swore internally as you slipped back to you living room and pulled the P320 from the hidden gun case in your console table by the front entry. Slipping your feet into the muck boots by the door, you quietly stepped out into the cold through the front door. You left Gary in the house, knowing that if you yelled for him he would go through the flimsy dog door. Hopefully, it was just a prowler. No need to be sued for a dog bite by someone who was trying to steal your chainsaw.

Peeking around the corner you saw your car door open and the hood up. ‘Good luck, asshole,’ you thought. ‘That thing isn’t going to turn over until the new starter comes by FedEx tomorrow.’

You stayed back far enough that he couldn’t easily turn on you, but close enough to see well. “Don’t want to shoot you…”

He moved so fast, a blur of dark movement rushed toward your face. You fired twice before a hard hit sent your gun flying. Instinct took over. Your foot made contact. You went low and inside, catching a glancing swing on the shoulder. Your elbow smashed into his gut, knocking him back.

His face came into focus. Holy shit, Steve Rogers.

You jumped back, putting your hands up.

He frowned, hard, before a groan of pain escaped his lips and he slipped to ground.

Blood seeped from his torso, from his thigh, and his shoulder. He was already wounded. You stepped a little closer to the man desperately trying to stay sitting up. “What the hell?”

“Dammit.” He muttered just as his eyes rolled back and he collapsed to the ground.

Shit. You looked around. There was nothing but darkness. Where the hell did Captain Frickin’ America come from and why was he bleeding out in your carport? Shit. You couldn’t let that happen. Rushing inside, you went for the medical go-bag you kept in the closet.

“Gary, get back.” The dog had slipped out when you came inside, he was sniffing over Rogers. At your order, he sat. “I wish you could help me with this.” You spoke to the dog as you began to cut the material away from his wounds.

With well-practiced precision, you cleaned the wounds and applied trauma dressings. It took effort, but you rolled him over to look for any through and throughs or rear entry wounds. He had one more on his left shoulder.

After stopping that leak, you pulled out an old green canvas tent. There was no way you could carry him, but you couldn’t leave him where he was either. Folding the single person tent into a quick litter you tucked it under his side before rolling him over onto his back.

“Okay, Cap.” You stood up, panting a little. “What to do with you?”

But you already knew the answer. It took a lot of tugging, a lot of swearing, but you finally got him moved into the spare bedroom. At least, to the floor of the spare room. The hardwood floors made it a little easier, but you were sweating by the time you were done.

Going back to get your bag, you were thankful for the supplies. The Captain looked ashen and extremely hypotensive. Cutting open the right sleeve of his uniform, you opened an IV kit and pulled out a bag of saline. Even bleeding out the man had great veins. You hung the bag off the bedpost over his head. He would do better with plasma, but you could at least help a little to get his volume up while you figured out what to do.

Your dog whined from the door. “What do I do, Gary? I shot Cap. It’s not like I can call 911. He’s a fugitive. I’m not going to be the one to turn him in.”

“N’hospital.” He murmured.

“Captain?” You leaned over him. “Can you hear me?”

“No.” His eye opened but didn’t focus. “N’hospitals.”

“Okay. No hospitals. Got it.”

Suddenly Gary bolted for the front window. Someone was coming down the drive.

Remembering your gun, you shut the guest room door and dashed to the back of the house. Cold rain had started pelting down, practically sideways. At least it began to wash away the blood. You grabbed your Sig from the driveway and the bandage wrappers. Stuffing the paper in the trash, you heard the car pull up.

Tucking the cold weapon in to your jeans, you took a deep breath and looked at yourself. The ratty black sweat shirt hid any blood and you’d wiped your hands clean. A knock came at the door. Gary barked, aggressively. He didn’t like whomever was at the door.

Three men in uniforms stood at the door. They looked military, but had no visible insignia. You only opened the door a few inches, but enough to let them see you holding back the big dog.

“What is it?” You asked, not bothering to be friendly.

“Ma’am,” One tipped his head. “We’re going door to door looking for a suspect. Male, six foot one, blond or possibly brown hair.”

“Haven’t seen anyone, but something set my dog off like crazy about an hour ago. I thought it was elk.” Living in the woods, you saw them all the time. “He took off, barking like mad, but came back a few minutes later.”

“So, you haven’t seen anyone?”

“Nope.” Gary gave a growl and you tugged on his collar. “This guy would let me know if anyone were around. He’s not fond of men, as you can see.”

He stared at you a moment longer, before nodding. “Alright, ma’am. If you see anything, do not approach. Just dial 911.”

“Got it. Goodnight.”

As you shut the door, Gary instantly settled down and trotted off down the hall. You watched the men get in the car and leave down your drive. They didn’t stop even when they turned onto the main road at the end of your long drive.

You went back to check on your patient, opening the door slowly. The Captain had slid himself up against the wall and was half sitting up. Looking panicked, cornered, and dangerous, somehow his strength was coming back frightening fast.

“Hey there, Captain.” You said softly. “You okay? I mean, I know you’re hurt, but you’re not going to try and kill me, are you?”

“Who’s here?” His voice cracked.

“Just me.” You opened the door all the way and your dog laid down in the hall.

“No.” He frowned. “I heard, heard you talking to a man.”

“Some men came to the door. I lied and sent them away. It’s just me here.”

He shook his head. “Earlier.”

“I was just talking to my dog, Gary.”

“What?” He focused on you fully, face incredulous. “Who names a dog Gary?”

“An asshat brother with the intent to torment me for the rest of my life.” You knelt down, to be eye to eye with him. He huffed a half laugh. “Did I add to your wounds?”

“Um, don’t think so.” He swallowed and lifted his right arm. “You patch me up?”

“Yeah. It was either that or have you bleed out on my drive. Shitty job trying to steal my car, by the way.”

“Sorry.” His eye drooped. “Why didn’t you call me in?”

“We’re soldiers. You’re THE soldier. There’s no way in hell I’m going to do that.” You moved a little closer. “Any chance you’ve got enough strength to help me get you on the bed?”

“Soldier, huh?”

“Army medic, was anyway.” You came a little close and rearranged his IV line. “Good thing, too. You were banged up. I can’t believe you’re talking to me, actually.”

“I shake it off pretty quick.” He groaned as he tried to sit up. “What’s your name?”

“Y/N.” You carefully helped him up an onto the bed. “I’m gonna take your boots off and cut these bloody clothes away. That okay?”

He laid back, panting, and gave a little nod. As you worked on his boots, he got the pain back under control and watched you. “You’re not going to ask what happened?”

“Near as I can figure I’m harboring a wanted man.” You grinned. “Best to have plausible deniability.”

“Fair enough.” Steve stiffened as you cut your way up his pant leg, getting close to his hip.

“Captain,” You paused. “I’m going to do my best to respect your modesty, but I’ve got to get these off.”

He frowned again, but nodded. You figured casual conversation would set him at ease.

“So,” you started. “Gary seems to like you. He doesn’t like most strangers. Are you a dog person?”

“I love dogs.” His lip curved up. “Never had one of my own, but yeah.”

He groaned as you pulled the remnants of his pants from beneath him. He wore black boxer briefs and you did your very best not admire his muscular thighs as you tucked a quilt around him. “It’s pretty amazing you’re even conscious. Is healing part of the whole super soldier thing?”

“Most times,” He ground his teeth together as you got the pieces of his uniform top off. “Doesn’t mean it isn’t painful, though.”

“I can only imagine. I don’t have anything very strong, but I might have one or two painkillers left from rehab after my last surgery. You’re welcome to them. Or a stiff drink?”

“Won’t help,” he huffed a pained laugh. “It would take more than you have, and I could down a bottle and not get drunk. More of that super soldier stuff.”

“Well, that sucks. Did they hide that disclaimer in the fine print or something?”

He laughed, and winced. “Oh, stop that. It hurts to laugh.”

“Sorry.” You grinned and bundled up his ruined clothes. “Any friendlies going to be looking for you?”

“Not for a couple days.”  

You could see him fading fast. “Okay then, you rest. I’m going to get rid of this and bring you something to drink, something to eat too.”

By the time you returned with a large bottle of water, a turkey sandwich, and a pair of pajama bottoms your ex-boyfriend left at your house, the Captain was out cold.

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[themilky-way]

on a foreign planet

gif credit: santigarcia

pairing: din djarin/the mandalorian x reader

summary: din isn’t too fond of touch, but after a particularly cold mission, he realizes just how important it might be. 

warnings: uh is me being touch starved a warning bc if so oh boy

author’s note: got the cot inspiration from 1) the literal fucking cot scene-you know what i’m talking about and 2) miss birbs’ lovely fic @whirlybirbs​ 

-----------

from what you saw, it had been a faulty mission on tatooine. the minute he stepped off the lift of the crest and set out to look for something was the minute your gut tightened in an all too familiar feeling. you came to know it like the back of your hand-living and occasionally partaking in conversation with the mandalorian the leading cause. you learned to trust that ache and never questioned it despite many efforts to do so; desperate attempts to urge him to not leave the safety of his ship were made, and sometimes a laugh threatened to escape because of how silly you must’ve sounded. the mandalorian never listened and never would, so all you could do was prepare the emergency kit stationed within the cabinets of the cockpit. 

he’d bust in whenever you’d least expect it. a weary hand clutching the side of his abdomen or a limped gait indicated he needed some form of assistance, and the responsibility was almost always yours. most of the time he never said a word, as was his usual demeanor, and just situated himself on the floor near your bed, his back leaning into the mattress. he knew you’d do it-care for him and restore his health-and now it’d be no different. 

“i’ll be back before sundown,” din informed. his armor seemed to glisten more in the early morning rays than it did in the evening, an odd comparison you made when he entered the cabin. he stood proudly at the door, as he definitely should, wiping his pistol with a small rag and inspecting its crevices and compartments to ensure its performance. then he looked up. 

you were sitting-cuddled, more like-in his pilot’s chair with the baby pulling on the strings of din’s blanket from the ground. short, high-pitched sounds came from him to gain attention. this isn’t yours, he wanted to say, but was stuck with the only language he knew: gibberish. “feel free to keep my blanket by the way,” the mandalorian assured, “you’ll need it for the blizzard tonight.”

“what blizzard? i thought it was just desert here,” you inquired, sitting up a bit in bewilderment. the blanket slid over your legs at the sudden motion, falling over the child still tugging at it. it covered his tiny head all the way to his tiny toes, outlining his (rather large) ears and torso. “maker,” you huffed after hearing a muffled, yet complaining coo, “what’s up with you today?” lifting the sheet with one hand, you brought the baby along with you and positioned it on top of your leg. “there. take a nap, will you?”

when you finally got the opportunity to look away, you captured a glance of din exiting the craft with his equipment in hand. you didn’t expect anything less; his attitude was meant to be cold and harsh. he didn’t have to say good-bye every time he left for a mission or tell you good morning whenever he woke up, yet you’d be lying if you said that the absence of these aspects didn’t take a toll on you. hell, a friendship would've been nice considering all the time you’ve spent with one another, but what you received would have to suffice.

it wasn’t often that you were left alone. somehow, and for some strange reason, the man who so earnestly follows his creed never lets the child or you out of his sight. it was fun at times; you bought the weekly groceries while din scavenged for an alien for its monetary value. a win-win. 

“i’m gonna go in that room...” you pointed to the small door of the cot, “...and i’m gonna sleep for a while, okay?”

the child looked at you and gurgled a reply. it began pointing its ears forward as a cat would if it were content. his stubby hands, which were hard to differentiate between that or paws, reached upward to indicate his wish to be hoisted. “you wanna come with?” you asked quietly, and a set of miniature teeth that were barely there flashed in a wide grin. 

the plan wasn’t to doze off for more than two hours. the siesta wasn’t meant to last through the whole evening either. 

the quilt (that wasn’t rightfully yours) was too warm for you not to fall asleep. the baby cozied up in the junction of your arm and elbow with its fuzzed head against your shoulder. your legs and torso were contorted to accommodate the limited capacity of the bunk; it wasn’t the best position per se, but it did the trick. 

on his way back from an assigned trade, the mandalorian’s field of vision turned foggy. a gloved hand that was possibly blue with the frost clung to his belongings in the same manner as when he’d left. to discard the items and shield himself from the falling snowflakes was what he wanted to do, but each slow, deep tread of his boots promised a closer distance to the comfort of his plane. snow developed into sleet as he neared the engine, with the droplets of water trickling down the “T” of his visor serving as a fun game of ‘which drop will reach the bottom first?’ it was childish in itself and not in the slightest bit appropriate for his current conditions. 

when the sleeve of white beneath his shoes became metal, his back straightened with a few cracks (one of his perks, he liked to say). his brain was running automatically, directing his steps and turns to where he could find one fragment of peace: the cot. 

he knew you were inside. the visibility his helmet equipped him with was astonishing; a single click of a button and the steps you took during his leave would be all his to analyze and detail. the same trembling hands from before reached for the latch and opened the door of the compact room. he tried to speak as clearly as he could without arousing a scare in the child or you, a free palm gently grasping and shaking your ankle. 

“hey,” he whispered. “canyouwakeupplease?” it came out rushed and scrambled, his teeth chattering in between syllables. 

“din’ika?” you slurred, voice heavy with sleep. “what time is-okay, why are you holding my feet?”

“needed s-something to wake y-you up,” din shivered. he took a step back, and for the first time that day, you fully saw him. there wasn’t much light in the space besides the one light coming from the cockpit but the shape of his beskar helped diminish your fatigue. 

“maker, din, you’re freezing. get inside.” 

he didn’t hesitate or fight your suggestion as he typically did. instead, with some trouble, he gradually squeezed himself inside the little space as you slid up the mattress. you swallowed a giggle when the top of his head hit the ceiling because, well, it’s funny.  

“don’t l-laugh at me, i’m c-cold,” he said. 

“i know you’re cold,” you smiled. 

din made the choice to sleep on his back, while your option was to lay on your side and the baby in the middle. it wasn’t horrible. the three of you could live with it.

a few minutes followed before you felt the cold leather of his fingers encircle the tips of yours. the sensation was new; an experience that wasn’t in the script for him. he was afraid of how you’d react. is this too tight? too clammy? i’m wearing gloves, it doesn’t even matter. no wait, yes it does. 

the thoughts stopped as abruptly as they came. he felt the air surrounding the room span across the skin of his wrist, and then the top of his hand. it flowed beyond that to the beginning of his fingers until his covering was completely off. 

your hand was warm and it fit so perfectly in his when you melded it together. a sharp breath hitched in his throat, unaware of how to speak and how to act. in this moment, din’s instinct demanded him to turn away and be who he was presumed to be, but that was nearly absurd now with his hand wrapped in yours.

“is this okay?” you spoke softly. 

he squeezed his eyes shut as if it would dissipate him from existence, trying to overlook your breath fanning into the opening of his suit. “yes. is this alright with you, too?”

“yeah. it is.”

[hargrove-mayfields]

Harringrove April Day 16- Nostalgia

On just about every flat surface in their mansion, Steve’s mother had put out some fancy Tiffany light fixture.

Steve’s room was the only place in the whole house he got to have any day in the interior design, and his lamp, well it didn’t quite have a stained glass shade, or ornate detailing to fancy up the mansion, his happens to be an old nursery lamp from when he was six and still had a themed bedroom.

At the peak of his too cool for school teenager bullshit, he’d attempted to throw it out, sent it away to the curb with a bag of stuffed animals he claimed he didn’t need anymore, but the very same night he started having nightmares again, so he scrambled to get it back before the raccoons found it first.

That dusty old lamp had saved him from countless nights spent awake and terrified, and he wasn’t one to say he was ashamed of that.

Except, now Billy Hargrove, the pinnacle of badass, is in his room, and there it is, still plugged in on the nightstand.

Of all things too, it couldn’t have just been a generic race car lamp or something he could play off as not really being for kids, it had to be stupid Bambi.

There’s a story behind it, that when he was a toddler, his first venture out of Indiana was to go see his gramma over in Maryland, and, after one look at his big brown eyes and his fluffy brown hair, she immediately nicknamed him Bambi.

After that the name just sort of stuck with him, his parents using it when they wanted on his good side, to make up for forgetting his birthday, or as an apology for leaving him alone so long the babysitter left, so of course his mom thought it would be adorable if his bedroom was themed around it.

Somewhere in a dusty corner of the attic, he still had the curtains and the quilt and the wall hangings, and under his bed was a pillow embroidered with his name and a picture of the clumsy cartoon deer made by his gramma. And of course, there was the brightly shining lamp.

He would never admit that he kept them there for when he was at his most frightened, clutching the pillow to his chest during a nightmare, or wrapping the soft material of the tiny old quilt around his shoulders when he felt an imaginary pair of eyes watching him.

Because Steve had seen some shit, he felt that after witnessing a ten-foot tall faceless monster come through the ceiling and try to kill him, and having a herd of baby versions of that same monster charge at him with nothing but a baseball bat to protect himself and a group of defenseless children, he had earned the right to use a damn nursery lamp in his bedroom.

But, that ass-backwards swell of pride at still using his childhood comfort items at 19 years old is definitely crushed by the fact that, after being in his room for a grand total of five minutes, that’s immediately what Billy drifts to.

A drunken apology at a New Year’s party might have made up for the concussion and proved he was probably not going to beat his face in again, but it didn’t change the fact that he was in Steve’s bedroom with the edge of the printed lampshade pinched between his fingers, and a contemplative look on his face.

It was a little while after their truce was reached, that Billy just started showing up at the Harringtons’ door unannounced. Sometimes it was to borrow Steve’s first aid kit. Sometimes he’d steal some of his weed. Once he’d come over just to watch something on Steve’s TV. Whatever his reason, Steve had let him in every time.

In this particular instance, it had been Steve who had called Billy, because he had a math project and an essay due first thing tomorrow morning, and Nancy was too busy to help him.

At first he’d considered just not getting the work done, but he decided Billy would do. He was smart enough that the co-ed teacher in the math class they shared had begged him to switch to the advanced classes, so Steve figured his help wouldn’t be so bad.

But his desk where all of his school stuff is is upstairs in his bedroom, where he’s left out the dumb baby lamp, and of course that would be exactly what Billy goes straight for. Steve feels himself start to panic a little, unsure if he could trust Billy’s reaction, and convincing himself that Billy might beat his ass for being a fragile little fairy or something.

It never comes, Billy just sits down all casual on the bed next to Steve, pulling one of his legs up so he could cross it over his knee, and nods over at the lamp again. “Wish I still had something from when I was little.”

The weight of the entire universe is lifted from Steve’s chest, knowing that Billy isn’t going to tear his head off. He lets out a sharp breath he didn’t know he was holding in. “Yeah?”

Billy nods and looks down, fidgeting with the pendant he always wore around his neck. “My dad threw everything out. All I have is one little picture of my mom.”

Steve knew he lived with his step-mom, but had never even thought about what happened to Billy’s real mother. He realizes the pendant was probably a locket, the very one that holds the aforementioned picture, and asks “Can I see it?”

It looks like Billy has to think about it, as he keeps twisting the locket between his fingers, before he nods and opens it. Steve leans towards him, putting his hand up under it and holding it in his palm, straining to see the tiny, aged picture.

Even though he’s never seen this woman, it makes Steve incredibly sad, seeing her little face all worn out in that locket around her son's neck. He wonders if she was dead, or if maybe she’d lost custody for some reason, or if maybe she had just left, but whatever happened, when his eyes flicker back up to Billy’s face, the tears shining in his eyes and the way he avoids his gaze, he knows better than to ask.

Steve lets the locket fall and watches Billy snap it shut quickly, and he realizes he has no idea what the right thing to say is.

What he wants to say is that he’s sorry, for him losing his mother and having nothing but one yellowed and tear stained picture to remember her by, but that seems too much like prying, somehow not really appropriate.

Instead, he remembers what Billy said about his dad throwing his stuff out and says, “Your dad must be a real asshole, huh?”

Billy scoffs and blinks away the last of the tears in his eyes. “You’ve got no idea, Harrington.” There’s a long awkward pause, until Billy asks, “You know how I’m always coming over here with like, all kinds of shit wrong with me?”

Steve thinks he knows where this was going. “Sure.”

Chewing on the corner of his nail, Billy takes a moment to get his thoughts together, his eyes flitting nervously across the room, focusing on pretty much anything but Steve, mostly the picture frame behind him. “I lied. It’s not, like, fights or whatever I say. At least not with other kids.”

Steve himself was no stranger to conversations like these, he himself had to confess something of a similar calibre to Nancy, when they were still dating, because his father had come home from a business trip pissed off about something, and slapped him across the face just a little too hard. The sturdy silver ring that he wore on his middle finger had split the skin on Steve’s cheek, and he couldn’t come up with a good enough excuse to cover his tracks.

Admitting to it out loud was one of the hardest things he’s ever had to do, so he decides he won’t make Billy say it. Maybe they weren’t on the best of terms, only here to do homework or whatever, but if he was going to open up about this, he definitely wasn’t going to make him experience that same humiliation he had.

“Is it your dad? That does that to you?” Nancy hadn’t been kind enough to spare him, forcing him to tell her once that the scar he so proudly sported wasn’t actually from a fist fight with Tommy like he said, and he wouldn’t do the same to Billy.

In lieu of a response though, Billy sucks in a sharp breath through his teeth, his hands starting to shake ever so subtly, and Steve knows he’s got to keep pressing. “Do you need help? I can call the chief-“

“No.” Billy shakes his head and makes eye contact with Steve for the first time since he started talking. “Cops only make it worse.”

Steve could understand that, had tried once when he was about eight or so, with the assistance of one of the housekeepers, to call the police when his father twisted his arm so far behind his back his shoulder popped out of place, but they wouldn’t dare arrest a public figure like his father, especially not for a little corporal punishment. The first thing they’d asked was what Steve had done wrong, not why his father had felt it fitting to beat on his eight year old for a tiny mistake. He never asked for help again.

“Well is there anything I can do?” Despite their differences and the fact that he only called him here to cheat on his homework, he truly did want to help Billy. Something about repeatedly surviving horrific monster attacks made him a lot more protective of those around him, and now that they were over their dumb pissing contest, Billy was included in that too.

“Think you’ve done enough letting me into your mansion, unless that’s not good enough for your hero complex.” It was a pathetic jab, there was no bite behind his broken tone, and Steve would almost rather have him at his worst than see him so vulnerable and sad.

Steve tries to reason with him softly, “You know it’s not like that, Billy.”

“Do I?” Walls had been put up as Billy made his last ditch efforts to protect himself from being weak in front of Steve. “Cause where I’m sitting, it seems like you get off on charity cases like mine. You tryin to swoop in and save me, King Steve? Feed your ego so you can feel like the savior you were always meant to be?”

He was baiting him, trying to pick a fight so he’d push him away, Steve had seen it all before in himself and wouldn’t fall for it. “Listen. I just want to help you.”

Everything about Billy suddenly seemed to make a whole lot more sense. That whole part animal, tough guy thing was just an act, and Steve knew because he had done essentially the same thing.

Before Nancy Wheeler had taught him to be better, he and Billy really weren’t so different. He’d let high school bullshit bother him, beat up the nerds and fucked all the cheerleaders and mocked anyone lower than him on the social ladder like he was supposed to, but it always made him feel off.

In the end, it had been so easy to get him to the other side, to show him what to do instead, he supposed all he needed was a little push to help him actualize what he already believed.

And then it hits him, in that moment, that this was Billy’s push in the right direction. That he was Billy’s Nancy.

“I don’t expect you to tell me everything and I’m not doing this for me, just,” It became extremely important to him to not set Billy off, to say just the right thing to keep him on the right track. “my door is always open, Billy.”

At first, it seemed to have worked, Billy sat staring at the floor, his lip quivering as he mulled over Steve’s words, but, when he stood abruptly and snatched his leather jacket from where it was draped over the back of Steve’s desk chair, Steve knows he messed up.

“Where are you going?” He stands up fast enough to give himself a head rush while Billy shrugs his jacket back on and yanks the door open.

“Need a smoke.” That’s all he gets before the door slammed in his face, and he hears Billy's heavy boots stomping down the stairs and the sound of him slamming his front door.

He waits with bated breath and tears pricking the corners of his eyes for the sound of Billy’s car starting and tearing out of his driveway, but it never comes.

Still, he feels immensely guilty and selfish and stupid as all hell for not just biting his tongue. He should’ve just fought back, argued with him like was expecting him to instead of trying to be comforting like he was his fucking therapist or something.

Because this was Billy fucking Hargrove, stereotypical meat head bully. Why he even felt the need to help him, other than their similar upbringings and coping mechanisms, or the fact that Billy had obviously been reaching out, hoping for someone to care, was beyond him. Or maybe it really wasn’t, he knew exactly why, he just felt weak and stupid for trying, and especially so for failing.

Apparently he’d been so caught up in his little pity party that he missed the sound of the door opening back up, and didn’t notice Billy had come back until his bedroom door was open.

Steve was so relieved that Billy came back, that he hadn’t pushed him too far or fucked everything up, even if he reeked of too strong cigarettes, and growled at him when he came in, “Don’t we got fucking work to do, Harrington?”

They don’t end up finishing the essay. Steve was hopeless with numbers, and they were too busy goofing off, so the math project didn't get done very quickly. It was okay though, Billy wasn’t much help at all when it came to English anyways.

Steve walks him outside when he has to go, beating a curfew of midnight. He stops on the porch, immediately crossing his arms against the frigid cold of the night air. Billy stops too at his car, his fingers through the handle, and turns around, calling across the yard. “Hey Harrington?”

He hardly waits for Steve’s response, a quick “Yeah?” to tell him, “Thank you.”

There isn’t time for Steve to respond before Billy’s yanking open the door of his Camaro and backing out of the driveway, but he knows he’d still made astronomical progress tonight.

It makes him feel incredibly dumb, laying in his bed that night, illuminated by the warm light of that very same Bambi lamp and trying to put his thoughts of Billy to rest like he was some cheesy teenage girl, but he’s just happy to have found a friend, to have made a difference in somebody’s life, and he knows that on the other side of town, laying in own bed with his locket left open on the pillow beside him, Billy feels the same way.

[orlissa]

Okay, I have finished season 2, and here are my first impressions. Beware of spoilers.

What I have ambigious feelings about:

Changes in the timeline. On the one hand, streamlining the timeline this way, making their spatial journey more linear, makes sense, and it definitely translates better to the screen than the original book timeline would have. But on the other hand, it did break the chain of cause and effect a couple of times, which I didn’t like. E.g. Diana manifested that baby chick in the book, because she was thinking about her own baby. The very same scene taking part in the series before she is pregnant makes it senseless.

Weaving. On the one hand, I loved the visual representation of weaving. On the other hand, I detect a big fail in logic there: the only weavers are Goody and Diana. Only weavers can see the strands. Yet three other witches, who are not weavers, are handing Diana the strands. So... What? The same goes for Corra. From simply an aesthetic point of you, I liked how she looked, but she resembled more of a phoenix than a firedrake.

Phillippe. I really enjoyed James Purefoy’s portrayal of the character, but I felt like the narrative stripped much of Phillippe’s genius. Series Phillippe is a smart, powerful man, but he’s nowhere near book Phillippe, who is two steps ahead of everybody.

Steven. His scenes with Diana were really touching, but the actor always looked somewhat uncomfortable, and the whole role was just simply missing Steven liveiness from the book.

The witch’s kiss/heart vein scene. I loved its intimacy, but the actual act was overdone, and overall it seemed painful--not even the bite, but the kiss.

Marcus thinking about handing over the Grandmaster title to Baldwin. On the one hand, this subplot works really well in fleshing out Marcus’ character, but on the other hand, nope, he’d never do that.

The miniatures. It felt a bit strange that it was Matthew and Diana who commissioned the portraits (and to be honest, Diana’s looked a bit off), but at the same time the pictures served as great reason to include Jack in the present-day plot.

What I liked

All the little moments between Matthew and Diana. Especially those teasing scenes in ep 1 and when he gives her the pants for riding.

The wedding night.

Kit. I actually really liked Kit. He was a bit less of an asshole here, so it made more sense that Diana forgave him, while on the other hand the way he tried to manipulate Matthew was great.

Okay, Louisa too.

And the way Kit lured Diana away! Yeah, Matthew being in danger would definitely work better than “hey, let’s have a stroll together.”

Having Aisling Loftus play both Sophie and Susanna.

Jack. Especially his scenes with Matthew.

Jack’s presence in the background in the present.

Elizabeth. It was one of my favorite portrayals of her.

All the little details, like the pockmarks on Elizabeth’s face, the ouriborus on the saddles, and the names of the alchemical stages on the walls of the Hart and Crown.

The wardrobe. You know I’m a historical costume nut. And Diana wore quilted bodices (I want to say jumps, but based on what I’m reading that’s a bit anachronistic and they should be laced on the front) over a chemise. There was not one unbound head of hair that was not contextually appropiate (e.g. braind coming apart during travelling, hair let down in the bedchamber). The men wore hats.

Phoebe and Marcus. We know so little of their courtship, I liked how the series filled out the blanks. (Also, any guesses what the bunch of sixes on the wall in Marcus’ kitchen might signify?)

Also seeing what’s happening to those who were left behind in the present.

The narrative tension in the second to last ep. It was a good idea to bring in that conflict with Elizabeth. The last part of the book is kind of sedate, so this addition worked really well on the screen.

It’s not like a like-like, but I’m mostly content with what they cut? I mean, they streamlined the plot and the cast of characters in a pretty nifty way. Do I like Annie, Tom, George, Alain, and Chef? Yeah, sure I do. Were they absolutely necessary for the plot? Apparently, no.

What I didn’t like

How they learn that Diana is pregnant. Since the series refused to entertain the thought of them having a baby before the fact, sure, it hits big (in a way), but they’re not given the space/time to properly investigate what it means to them. Beyond fleeting remarks that “I’m sorry we cannot have children together” it’s never addressed whether it’s something they want or not. So, yeah, the very least they would have needed one longer scene there.

Rudolf. Since much of the Prague section was cut (although I applaud the whole “hunting lodge” idea to cut production expenses), but Rudolf needed to be behaving in a certain way in certain scenes, he came off a bit inconsistent. “I hate you get out of my sight!” and then in the next scene “Just kidding, come back, please?”

How the wardrobe was used sometimes. Like, as I said before, I like the production design, but the directoral choice was a bit off sometimes. For example, especially when Diana is presented to Rudolf with her jacket undone and her shirt hanging out. That’s a big etiquette no-no.

Henry Percy barely got any screentime! He is a sweetheart! He deserved more!

[hopeisour4letteredword]

personal furnace, ch1

Summary: Winter renovations at the inn in Zaphias leave Yuri in need of a warm bunk for the night. Good thing he can always count on his good buddy Flynn.

Read it below or at the AO3 link in the notes.

"It's freezing out there," Yuri complains, when he pushes in through Flynn's window. Flynn grimaces at the gust of cold wind through his room. It rustles through the papers on his desk threateningly.

"I'm quite aware, so if you could please get the rest of the way inside and close—thank you." He sighs with relief as Yuri slams the window closed behind himself. "I hope you realize that I was making a sacrifice for you by leaving that unlocked."

"You're indoors, you run hot and you have a fireplace, I don't feel sorry for you," Yuri says. He's shivering quite badly when Flynn looks up from his desk. Flynn frowns at him. When he rises from his chair, he scoops a blanket off the bed on his way past, and approaches to wrap it around Yuri's shoulders. Yuri makes a grateful noise. "Oh, fuck, thank you."

"You aren't in nearly enough layers," Flynn says. He fusses with the drape of the blanket and scowls down at Yuri's clothes. He's not so foolish as to be wearing his usual garb, but a full-fronted tunic and loose jacket are hardly a full winter kit. Yuri huddles into the blanket with a tight shrug.

"Wasn't so bad when I left Halure."

"Halure's always warmer," Flynn says, absentmindedly. He tucks the blanket all the way up against Yuri's throat. Yuri leans into it, eyelashes dipping against his cheeks when he sighs with relief, and Flynn has to swallow to stop himself from saying something stupid about how long they are or how soft the tender skin of Yuri's throat is against Flynn's knuckles. Gods, but he's always at his easiest to knock off kilter when they've been apart for a while. Sometimes he thinks if Yuri went away for long enough, Flynn would blurt out a confession just from seeing him again, because he'd forget how to cope with how beautiful Yuri can be.

"Sometimes by a great deal."

"Yes, well, I don't think about that when I travel."

"Have you got better jackets in your bag?"

Yuri grimaces. "Yeah, but I dropped those off at the inn. Speaking of..."

...Ah. The inn in Zaphias is undergoing renovations to improve their insulation right now. It had happened that furnace blastia had been compensating for more structural deficiencies than anyone had realized, and now the whole city is scrambling to prepare for the worst of winter. The Knights are helping wherever unskilled but professionally directed labor is of use, and Flynn had made certain that some of the Flynn Brigade was stationed in the Lower Quarter, but... renovating an entire building with the proper amount of care can't be done instantaneously, no matter how many spare hands you provide.

"The renovations," Flynn says, sympathetically. "They didn't get enough rooms ready?"

"I got the impression they'd already done an absurd amount for how much time they had," Yuri says, which is probably very generous of him. "But no. Seems like it's a little cramped. Mariam's sorting by priority right now, so the elderly and those who really need it are first..."

"You don't have to run through the list for me," Flynn says. "You wouldn't take a finished room now if Mariam told you to. I know you. You're waiting for everyone else to get their space first."

"Yeah," Yuri says. He rolls his shoulders back and straightens a bit to stare Flynn down, defiantly. "Of course. Who's going to handle sleeping out in the cold better than me? I mean, really. I've slept in the Drifts before."

"Right," Flynn says. He knows that, objectively, but he hates the thought of Yuri having to sleep in the snow and freezing winds of Zoephir. He can't begin to fathom what task brought Brave Vesperia there that was worth sleeping that way. It must have paid quite handsomely, or been quite important. "Well, that's very noble of you and all that. Yes, you can sleep here instead."

"That's not—" Yuri splutters. His cheeks are red, but Flynn can't be certain that's not just the flush of the cold air yet to fade. "I wasn't going to ask for that! Just if I could take any spare blankets off your hands until the renovations are complete!"

"I suppose you can if you insist," Flynn says, doubtfully. He still doesn't really enjoy the mental image of Yuri shivering under a pile of quilts in a room so drafty as to be frosty when Flynn is perfectly content to share his space. Not that he would have any problem donating some spare blankets to Mariam in the morning, for others who didn't have a warm space yet, but for Yuri... And anyway, Yuri has never slept well when he has to share his space with strangers. He has enough trouble getting to sleep without further complications. "But really, you can just sleep here. There's no reason for you to be cold."

"Mariam said it would build character," Yuri says, presumably just to be a shit, because that's pretty much the only reason Yuri has uttered the words Hanks said or Mariam said since they were seven.

"I don't think anybody would accuse you of lacking character."

Yuri grins, sharp and proud. "Why thank you."

"I didn't hear any real objections, so I assume you're sleeping here," Flynn adds.

"I mean, yeah, if you're serious," Yuri says. He finally reaches up and takes the edges of the blanket into his own hands, adjusting it around himself. "Like you said. No reason to make myself suffer as some weird exercise in stupid pride."

"Good," Flynn says, satisfied. "I can lend you some clothes to sleep in tonight, so you don't have to go back for your bags."

"Alright," Yuri says, easily enough. He shuffles along behind Flynn when Flynn heads for the dresser and retrieves some soft pajamas. He takes the clothes, and Flynn excuses himself to the desk again to let Yuri change. They used to share clothes more when they were children, which is to say that they treated most of their things as interchangeable when they were children. Flynn tries to remember that so he doesn't feel so embarrassingly warm and fuzzy about Yuri wearing his clothes. Yuri promptly sabotages this by saying, "We are the same fucking size, how do you stretch the shoulders out so much?"

"My shoulders are broader than yours," Flynn says. He stubbornly doesn't turn to look, because he knows the warm, fuzzy feeling will only get worse when he sees the shoulders of his shirt hanging loose on Yuri's leaner frame. Good grief. He has no right to feel any kind of way about Yuri wearing his clothes. "Stop whining. At least it's not the other way around, and you stretch all my shirts out when you borrow them. I'd never let you borrow anything otherwise."

"Sure you would. You'd just whine about it."

"My uniforms are actually meant to look crisp and fit properly, you know."

"Not your pajamas, smart-ass. Since when have I ever borrowed one of your uniforms?"

"When you were in the Knights with me as a rookie," Flynn says. He risks a glance back. Yuri has finished pulling the pajamas on, and wrapped the blanket back around himself as a cloak. "You stole my spare uniform a few times, remember?"

"Aside from that. You weren't that much bigger than me then, anyway. I didn't fuck them up that much." Yuri gives him a sour look. "And you certainly chewed me out for it enough at the time."

"Well, you knew better than to be stealing my clothes."

"Not my fault we shared a drawer. I didn't even realize I was taking yours half the time."

"I'm not going to argue with you about idiotic things we did when we were eighteen," Flynn says. Yuri could have just paid attention to which side of the damn drawer he was reaching into, but this debate is pointless. "You can go ahead and get in bed. I need to finish reading this."

"Don't stay up all night," Yuri teases, climbing into bed with the blanket still wrapped around him. Flynn wonders, with some amusement, whether he gave up the right to share that blanket with Yuri later by handing it to him now. But no. Once he's snuggled down under the covers, Yuri wriggles until he frees himself and can haphazardly yank the cloak-blanket out. It spreads mostly-evenly over the rest of the quilts.

That's one way to do it.

It doesn't take too much longer for Flynn to finish looking over his document, but it does take longer than it should. He keeps catching himself peeking over at Yuri, a glimpse of dark hair settled cozy and comfortable against Flynn's pillows, the quilt-softened shape of him under Flynn's covers. Flynn has to force himself to be responsible and complete his task rather than just following him to bed.

Yuri doesn't react when Flynn finally joins him. His eyelashes are a dark curve against his cheekbones, and his breathing is steady and even. Asleep already, it seems. Good. Flynn is glad he feels safe enough in Flynn's space to rest easily. He slides under the blankets as carefully as he can and settles down with his back to Yuri. For all that Yuri always says Flynn runs hot, he's putting off no shortage of body heat himself. It's nice and toasty under the covers as a result. Flynn has no trouble falling asleep.

---

He wakes up and smells citrus.

In the time it takes his newly-conscious brain to begin processing that that's confusing and unexpected, he realizes that his nose is buried in someone's hair. Silky, dark, soft hair, which smells faintly of citrus—

—Oh. Yuri must be buying new soaps in Dahngrest these days. He used to just use whatever plain soaps could be bought for cheap in the Lower Quarter. Flynn supposes that nicer, interesting-smelling soaps are the kind of luxury that a person might consider if they recently gained a consistent source of income. Somehow he still smells, in some unidentifiable way, like Yuri.

Because it is Yuri, of course. Yuri still huddled almost up to his own nose under the blankets. Yuri bundled tightly in Flynn's arms, his chest pressed to Flynn's chest as Flynn wraps around him like a clinging octopus. He's warm, very warm. Flynn can take comfort in the secure knowledge that he made sure Yuri was warm at night. Which isn't to say that this embrace was an intentional move to get him there. No, Flynn is just guilty of sleep cuddling, and now he has to try to undo that without waking his friend. There are several associated problems with this; the first is that Flynn doesn't actually want to stop cuddling Yuri, both because he's soppily in love and because Yuri is warm and Flynn can already tell the rest of the room is distinctly not. The second is the actual logistics of the maneuver. Flynn can't move him too much or he'll wake, but if he just moves himself without moving Yuri at all, Yuri might flop around enough to wake anyway. And even if he can avoid both of those, the frigid air that will sneak into the blanket roll when Flynn leaves it might be enough to wake Yuri on its own.

The third problem is that as soon as Flynn leaves the bed he's going to be haunted by every faint citrus perfume he encounters for the rest of the winter, remembering this moment of Yuri safe and vulnerable and content in his arms, but perhaps that's more of a new extension to Flynn's general in love with Yuri problem than an issue with leaving the bed.

Alas. He must attempt the thing anyway. He uses gentle, soft touches to Yuri's person and little shifts in tiny increments of his own. When he's finally extricated himself, he watches Yuri for a second longer just to be sure his stealth operation was successful. Yuri huddles down into the warm spot Flynn left behind, blankets still tucked up around his shoulders and tousled hair concealing his face from view. His breathing is still slow and even, the mountain of blankets falling and rising with every sleeping breath. Flynn sighs with silent relief and heads for the bathroom.

When he emerges, fresh-faced and dressed in his under-armor uniform, he walks as softly as he can over to his armor stand. Metal is still metal, but he tries to be quiet as he begins to assemble it.

The blankets rustle. Yuri says, hoarsely, "Oh, what the fuck, are you really getting up already? I thought maybe you just had to pee or something." Flynn looks sharply over his shoulder. Yuri has pushed himself up onto one elbow, and peers back, looking crabby and half-asleep. "I'm sorry. I was trying not to wake you—"

"You've gotta be joking. It's not even fucking light outside yet, Flynn. What's wrong with you? At least wait until dawn."

"It's the dead of winter," Flynn says. He snaps on the wrist-piece of his gauntlet that he was already holding and turns to face Yuri. "Dawn's still a while off. I have to get started on my day. I meant to let you keep sleeping, though." "I know you were still awake when I got here, and you haven't slept any more than I have. Seriously? You do this every night?"

"I think it's later than you realize," Flynn says, miffed to be lectured on his sleep habits by a known insomniac. To be fair, Yuri has the excuse that his sleep problems are involuntary, but still. "I don't—hang on. What did you mean, you thought I just had to pee?"

"What does it sound like?" Yuri groans, a rough, exasperated growl of a sound, and pushes himself the rest of the way into a sitting position. Ah, no. Flynn had been hoping Yuri wouldn't follow his example, and he would rest some more. It is difficult for Yuri to find peaceful sleep, after all, and he had been traveling yesterday, too. If he came through Halure, he couldn't have taken a shortcut by sea, either, nor been dropped off by Ba'ul. He has to be exhausted. "I thought you got out of bed to use the bathroom or something, not because you were getting up for real. I'd have stopped you before you got out of the blanket nest if I'd realized."

Flynn smacks down the tender, flowery ache that blooms in his heart at the conjured image of Yuri sleepily grabbing after him to keep him in a shared bed. "Since when were you awake?"

Yuri scrubs a hand through his hair with a grimace. "I don't know, whenever you started moving around? I'm a light sleeper."

"I know that," Flynn says, tightly. He tries to wrestle his voice back under control. "I—my apologies. For—"

For the cuddling. He can't quite force the words out, though, in a moment of spiked mortification and shame. Yuri squints at him for a few seconds in confusion before his expression clears, realization dawning on his face.

"What, for the cuddling? You don't need to apologize for that. It's fine. Is that why you got up? Good grief, you're an idiot. I don't care. You could have stayed."

"It's not why I got up, the clock says—never mind. Even if you don't care, I care, since apparently you refuse to do so for yourself." Yuri gives him an outraged look for that one, which makes sense, but which is also a point Flynn is willing to start real shit over, so good luck, Yuri. "If I'm going to offer to share my bed, I should be able to control myself enough not to invade your space and your boundaries. So—"

"I said it's fine," Yuri snaps. Flynn prepares to argue more before Yuri, red in the face and avoiding eye contact, adds, "You're really warm."

Flynn stops and stares at him. "I beg your pardon?"

"You're warm," Yuri repeats, sounding frustrated. "I've told you, you run hot. Hotter than me, anyway. Human furnace. You always have been. It's—it was helping."

Flynn has to stare for a few more seconds, stupefied, before Yuri rallies himself enough to glare back. Yes, Yuri had been a comfortable heat source in his own arms, but... Flynn finally shakes his head, slowly. "Well, I... Alright. Fine, then. If you're sure."

Yuri rolls his eyes and shakes his own head. He climbs out of the bed and begins gathering his clothes from around the room. "We've slept in beds together before, Flynn. I knew what I was getting into. I wouldn't have agreed to share the bed if I had a problem with it."

Flynn feels heat rush to his face. Yes, they've shared beds a few hundred times if they've shared them once, but the vast majority of those times were as small children. That is to say, young enough that cuddling was seen as cute and friendly and permissible, not invasive and creepy. Flynn knew before last night that he'd never lost his unfortunate sleep habits, had mortified himself on several past occasions bed-sharing as young adults by waking up to discover he'd wrapped his body around Yuri's as they slept. He had hoped that Yuri had slept through the disentanglement process, but if what Yuri is saying is true, Flynn failed at that particular task miserably.

"So I... every time...?"

Yuri stops with his arms full of his own clothes to stare at Flynn incredulously. Flynn can only imagine he's comfortable being dramatic instead of dressing because he's standing directly beside the fireplace. "You did know you do that, right? Hey. You did know? I need you to confirm that now, actually."

"Of course I—"

"Because you've been doing that since you were six, every single time, and if nobody else has bothered to tell you—" Yuri shakes his head again. "No, hang on, you're the one who always wakes up first. Did you honestly think I was the one who—?"

"No! I know it's—me, I know I'm the one who does that," Flynn bursts out, freshly embarrassed. "But I thought you slept through it when I woke up and tried to give you some space. You really woke up every time? Or did you just assume—"

Yuri looks amused now. "You think I sleep on the road where monsters might try to eat me and I don't have the survival instincts to wake up when someone is manhandling my body?"

Flynn doesn't know what to say to that.

"Yes, it's true. You aren't the stealth master you thought you were and I still knew you cuddle in your sleep. Sorry to be the one to break it to you."

His mortification must show on his face, because Yuri laughs at him. He turns away from Flynn at long last and starts stripping out of his borrowed pajamas to put on his clothes. "I guess I'll give you a little credit for the effort. It's kind of my bad for not making it obvious I'd woken up."

"Why didn't you?"

"Why do you think? I wanted to go back to sleep. And steal your warm spot, usually."

Flynn gives him an offended look. It's wasted on the back of Yuri's head. "You really have been using me as a human furnace for twenty years, then."

"Using you is such strong language. Appreciating you, maybe."

"You don't even run that much colder than me!"

"C'mere for a second," Yuri says, muffled as he finishes pulling a thick, woolen second tunic on over the first. That's definitely Flynn's, and Flynn's not sure when he stole it but he won't call Yuri out on it. He'd rather Yuri was warm on his way back to his bags than raise a pointless fuss. Yuri holds a hand out to Flynn and wiggles his fingers. "I wanna show you something."

"Absolutely not," says Flynn, who has known Yuri long enough to know when he's being threatened with cold fingers on his neck. Yuri grins wolfishly.

"No? It's for science."

Flynn watches warily as Yuri strides across the room, towards where Flynn's sitting at his desk. "It's not for science, you big bully."

"Aww. Don't be such a baby—" Yuri comes within an arms-breadth and reaches for him. Flynn bats him away, and Yuri cackles and climbs half-over the armrest of the chair, fighting against Flynn's protective arm.

"Yuri, I swear, don't you dare—"

Which is, of course, the moment Flynn's maid knocks and opens the door, Yuri balanced perilously on one knee and wrestling with Flynn to regain the advantage on the assault.

"Good—morning. Sir," Cecelia says. "Uh. Mr. Yuri?"

"Good morning," Yuri says, cheerfully. He yanks a wrist out of Flynn's grip and tries to shove it against Flynn's neck again. Flynn smacks him away again with a low growl. "What can we do for you?"

"Um."

"Ignore him," Flynn says. He finally gets a hold on both of Yuri's wrists at once, and after a brief struggle of pure brute strength, manages to shove him back so that he stumbles the step off the armrest and trips backwards onto Flynn's bed, laughing the whole way. Flynn strongly suspects he was only launched so far because he let himself be. Good grief. He tries to fight down his answering smile as he turns back to the door. "I'm sorry about all that, Cecelia. Good morning. Have you brought breakfast?"

"Yes, sir," Cecelia says. She dutifully presents him with a tray of food, which he accepts gratefully and moves to his desk. Tentatively, she adds, "I can... fetch more, if...?"

"Ah, don't bother," Yuri says. He sits up on the bed, stretching. "I should get a move on, see who needs an extra pair of hands in the renovations today. I'm sure someone will feed me when I get there."

"Come back for lunch if they don't," Flynn says, absentmindedly. Yuri makes an affirmative noise and shuffles around behind Flynn, locating his boots. "Is there anything else you need me to address at this time, Cecelia?"

"Why..." Cecelia starts, then turns pink. "Not anything I need you to address, sir, but why is Mr. Yuri here at this hour?"

"To be a pain in the neck," Yuri says. Flynn rolls his eyes.

"Literally, if you had your way."

"Ha! Maybe."

"The inn in the Lower Quarter is among those having emergency renovations," Flynn tells Cecelia. She nods. "They need re-insulation and fireplaces for all of the rooms. They were able to renovate enough rooms with urgent speed to house most of the people who need shelter there, but things are still cramped, and there wasn't a spare room for Yuri. So I offered to let him sleep here until the inn is sorted out."

"That was kind, sir," Cecelia says, slowly, giving Flynn a confused, almost studying look.

A thought occurs to Flynn. He tilts his head back towards Yuri, who appears to be putting on boots somewhere in the vicinity of the bed. "Now that Cecelia is here with breakfast, will you believe I didn't wake us up absurdly early?"

"No," Yuri says, without hesitation. "I'll believe you trained the poor girl to deal with you waking up absurdly early. Sorry about him, Cece."

"I think it's the standard time for the Knights, Mr. Yuri," Cecelia says, doubtfully. "I've seen other people about, and the kitchens have started, of course. I don't need to cook breakfast myself if I bring it now."

Flynn cranes his neck enough to be gratified by the comically horrified look on Yuri's face. He snorts fondly and turns away again. "You had to get up at this time for your stint in the Knights, too. Or have you repressed that?"

"I must have. I don't remember Niren inflicting this kind of suffering on me."

"Maybe you're simply cranky because of the dawn being late."

"The dawn's even later in winter in Dahngrest, too, they just handle it like sensible people and sleep in until it's light out." Yuri's heels thump against the floor, one-two, presumably as he stretches out after he finishes assembling his attire. "It's funny, up there, it's almost like the whole city's hibernating—I'll tell you some other time. You've got your stupid early Commandant stuff, I've gotta go convince Mariam I'm still worth feeding. Thanks for letting me crash here."

"It was the least I could do," Flynn says, sincerely. "Keep warm out there. Are you still interested in taking those extra blankets to Mariam?"

"Hm. Yeah, actually."

"Cecelia, would you mind terribly—"

"No, sir. Here, Mr. Yuri."

At the very least, Yuri's arms loaded with blankets force him to leave out the door rather than making an escape out the window. He bids Flynn and Cecelia goodbye and heads out.

"Sir," Cecelia says, after she finishes making Flynn's bed. "Will you be requiring two sets of breakfast tomorrow?"

"No thank you," Flynn says, after a brief moment of consideration. "We've no timeline for when Yuri will be able to return to the inn, so let's not waste the food in case he doesn't come."

"Alright, sir," Cecelia says, but she looks dubious. She takes her leave.

[tsarisfanfiction]

I spun and got ‘wound care’ and ‘back of a vehicle’. You know who I would love, but I will leave it up to you ::hugs::

Unstable Waters

Fandom: Thunderbirds Rating: Teen Genre: Hurt/Comfort Characters: Scott, Virgil, Gordon

I do know who you would love, and if you’re lucky my muse might actually go in that direction!  It’s definitely considering it, although there is of course a certain big brother sneaking his way in because it’s me.  And maybe a little bro wants to join in, too?  Just piped up out of nowhere, so let’s see what this bizarre concoction in my heads comes out looking like...

Spin the wheel of whump and give me a character!

“Scott, that’s the wrong size.”

There was another lurch, and Scott grabbed at the stretcher to keep his feet as he frowned down at his brother.

“You have an entire oxygen tank in shards buried in your leg and you’re worried about me using the wrong size dressing?” he demanded.

“It’s too small,” Virgil argued.  “You know-”

“It’s the largest one in the kit,” Scott snapped back, because he knew Virgil was right, but he also had to do something to stop all the bleeding between their current location and the hospital.

Another lurch and he staggered, one hand hitting the wall above the stretcher to stop him face-planting his brother.  “Gordon!”

“Sorry, bro, but the currents aren’t our friends today,” the aquanaut called back from the cockpit.  “This is as smooth as it’s getting.”

Thunderbird Four proved his point by jolting again, and Scott grit his teeth in frustration.  Virgil, at least, was strapped in tight.  He’d protested, of course, saying it was only his leg and he didn’t need to be lying down, but the combined efforts of Scott and Gordon had overridden him.  Scott just needed to make sure he didn’t end up falling over and hurting himself while doing the first aid.

It wasn’t often any of them went with Gordon underwater, and even rarer that they both did, but this rescue had needed as many hands as possible, and John was more than capable of remote piloting both their ‘birds if helping cables were needed, so they’d joined him in the deep.  From a rescue standpoint, it was a good thing they had done.

From his personal standpoint, Scott hated that it had resulted in Virgil getting injured when an oxygen tank’s pressurisation settings had malfunctioned and turned it into flying shrapnel right next to his leg.  The saltwater swim back to Thunderbird Four with multiple open wounds and invasive objects had him worried.

“Scott.”

“I’m using more than one,” he promised, tearing open the sealed wrapping on the gauze and taping them together with medical tape as best he could with the Thunderbird bucking and rolling beneath his braced feet.  He stumbled backwards at a particularly vigorous lurch, only for a strong hand to wrap around his wrist and yank him forwards, against the stretcher.

Brown eyes, filled with pain despite the local anaesthetic Scott had already jabbed into the leg, regarded him.

He ignored them, barring a muttered thanks that slipped out as he extracted his wrist and returned to the task at hand.

With Thunderbird Four tossed about by currents despite Gordon’s best efforts as they headed for the surface, there was little more Scott could do beyond covering the wounds.  Virgil could, but Virgil was their medic.  Scott was trained, but not to that level, and didn’t trust himself in the unstable environment not to make things worse.  He couldn’t remove the shrapnel - that would invite even more blood loss - and without removing the shrapnel he couldn’t properly wash and close the wounds.  All he could do was cover them with a hasty quilt of gauze - not perfectly taped together when he was being tossed around like a rag doll - and hope they made it to Thunderbird Two soon.

“Scott.”

“How long until we surface, Gordon?” he asked, ignoring his other brother.  He knew what Virgil was trying to say, trying to do, and he didn’t want it.

“Scott.”

“Another six minutes, Scott.  Once you’re done patching Virgil up, strap yourself in.  It’ll only get rougher as we get closer.”

“F.A.B.”

He was done, could do no more despite desperately wishing otherwise, but he couldn’t bring himself to take those two short steps to the fold down seat.

A warm hand grabbed his wrist again, tight enough to be restraining.  Too tight to be ignored.

“Scott, it’s fine,” Virgil insisted.

“Weren’t you the one telling me it was too small?” he asked, focusing on the bloodied shin as it slowly dyed the gauze.  “Now it’s fine?”

“It’s the best you can do,” his brother assured him, as though he was the one injured and bleeding.  “It’ll do what it needs to do.”

Another particularly aggressive lurch had him bracing his hand on the wall above the stretcher again, his other wrist still firmly ensconced in his brother’s grip.

The locker door swung, reminding him it was still open.  Medical supplies taunted him, reminded him that no matter what he did it wouldn’t be good enough, and he reached out to slam it shut.

“That had better not have been you falling over!” Gordon called back as the noise reverberated around the submarine.  “Scott, are you done yet?”

Scott swallowed, his gaze drawn back to the loosely-wrapped leg.  He didn’t want to admit there was nothing else he could do, but Virgil’s hand was warm on his wrist and it was the truth.

“Yeah, I’ve done what I can,” he replied.  “He needs more help than I can do here.”

“Copy that,” his brother acknowledged.  “Strap in tight, Scott.  We’re going for a ride.”

They’d already been going for a ride, the Thunderbird jolting and lurching awkwardly against the currents, but Scott recognised the saying all the same.

Virgil recognised it too, because he let go in a clear silent message, reinforced with a single word.

“Sit.”

Scott didn’t want to leave his side, but Gordon’s warning meant they’d be going faster, which meant a rougher ride, and if he wasn’t strapped in he’d be joining Virgil in Two’s medical bay as a patient with a concussion, no doubt.

Begrudgingly, he double-checked the straps holding Virgil safely in place before crossing to the other side of the small space and perching in one of the fold-down seats.  The harness engaged, and a moment later he felt Thunderbird Four’s turbines kick into a higher gear as Gordon registered the alert on his dashboard, jolting them forwards suddenly enough that if it wasn’t for the harness, Scott would have been thrown out of the seat.

White-knuckled fingers gripped the harness for something to do, the firm material digging in through his gloves, and he could do nothing but wait as Gordon raced them towards the surface.

[tobesobri]

𝓦elcome to a brand new story from me that I never thought I would be posting but here we are! This chapter is very much introductory, which is like obvious being the first chapter but tbh I don’t really do a lot of introducing characters right off the bat in a descriptive way often so this was new for me! Also, I have an old taglist from a while ago when I was originally going to post this, but I don’t want to randomly tag people who may no longer be interested SO if you’d like to be included on a taglist for upcoming chapters please let me know! Thank you! 

huge massive thank you to the incredible @youresogolden-h​ for editing ���️

Chapter One: Where Happiness Begins (5.4k)

Harry and Y/N are friends…. with benefits, but not the kinds you’re thinking of.

🥥MASTERLIST 🌃INSPO TAG 🌻ASK TAG 💃PLAYLIST 🛌

There was something very different when she woke that Saturday morning. Maybe her breath smelled a little worse than normal. Maybe the sun shined a little brighter through her curtains than it was supposed to...

Maybe there was someone in her bed who didn’t belong there. 

“Oh my god.”

Friday night was not unlike every other night that week. There was an endless bag of chips she dug her Hot Cheeto dust covered fingers into and an over-watched series on Netflix open on her laptop in front of her. And when she wasn’t distracted by Sam and Dean Winchester, she was bawling her eyes out under the comfort of her thrifted quilt, staining her poor mismatched pillowcases.

Just like any given night.

And this Friday was no different. At least not until there was a knock on her door.

By the time she dried her face, it was almost completely unnoticeable she’d just been buried in hysterics only seconds ago.

“Harry’s coming over. You want anything from the store?” Will asked, the same Will who stuck them all together in the very beginning of splitting rent on an apartment four different ways.

He was the roommate who paid the most in rent and got the biggest room with his own private bathroom. One of the two roommates who constantly had his significant other over every night to make Y/N’s miserable time even worse. Between Will and Violet’s incessant need to take over the entire living room every weekend, Y/N was bound to end up in her own room alone crying her eyes out for no apparent reason.

Then there was her third roommate, James, who never bothered her because she was lucky to catch a fleeting glimpse of him every other week.

Y/N glanced at the phone he had pressed to his cheek, assuming Harry was on the other end of the line, on hold. Just the mention of his name sucked every sad little tear back into her skull. She didn’t know why, but having Harry around always seemed to do the trick.

Even though she barely spoke a word to him over the course of the last eighteen months she’d known him.

She buried her excitement about Harry coming over and frowned, answering as if she was she couldn’t care less even though... she cared way more than she should. “No.”

And before Will could protest, she shut the door in his face and retreated back to her bed.

Not every night was spent in agonizing spirals of self-pity and dread, but it came and went. Some days were fine. She was happy by the time she went to bed at night and didn’t have nightmares or anxiety that kept her up past her self-proclaimed bedtime. Most days, she ate regularly and went about her nightly routine with a genuine smile on her face. But recently, it had all gone to shit.

And there was no explanation. There never was. She didn’t just break up with a long-term boyfriend. No one called her an ugly bitch on the train home. Her boss didn’t yell at her for the umpteenth time about her inadequacies at work.

She was just... alone. Painfully and tragically alone.

She hated how black and white it was. That she was either happy to be alive or praying for a very large rock to fall on her and end it all. There was never an in-between and it made her feel like all her emotions were made up, like she wasn’t ever truly happy or she was sad over really stupid things.

It was a fucking nightmare.

Another agonizing thirty minutes went by before she heard from Will again. Before she heard more than just her roommate's voice through the thin walls. Before she could literally feel her

brain swell with more serotonin than she’d had in a long time when it was Harry’s voice she heard.

He was like an unusual ray of sunshine. Every time he was over at their apartment, it was like he was some kind of ancient sun god warding off all the evil spirits sitting on her shoulders. Which...she knew was quite strange, but she really couldn’t--nor did she want to--fight off how he made her feel.

Even if he wasn’t an internationally famous pop-sensation, she still couldn’t put her finger on why he made her feel like sunshine and butterflies whenever he was around. Which had been quite often recently on account of his upcoming album needing desperate help from Will.

Okay. She hadn’t heard a damn thing from the album, but the conversations they had about it weren’t always good. It was delayed, apparently, and Harry was in the middle of a massive writing block that led him to an impromptu trip to Barcelona the previous week.

And so now he was back. To work on the album, and, upon Y/N’s quiet arrival into the kitchen of her shared apartment, to pig out on junk food. Will hovered over the kitchen island while they figured out which movie, among a small stack of romantic comedies, to watch first.

Once Harry noticed her, he instantly stood up straight, shoving the last bit of a Kit-Kat bar into his mouth quickly to hide it from her; as if she cared about the Harry Styles munching on chocolate and sweets.

“What’re you doing?” Y/N asked Will, even though Harry was the only one paying her any attention. She didn’t often make eye contact with him, or even speak to him at all for that matter. But Harry was used to it. He was used to her mumbling and her short phrases. The way whenever he looked at her, she always looked away.

“Pretty Woman or Notting Hill?” Will turned to her finally, holding up both DVD boxes in his hands for Y/N to choose from, completely ignoring her previous question.

“Um... I’ve never seen them.”

Will rolled his eyes and placed the Blu-Ray boxes back down on the granite countertop, “Should’ve known that. You only watch scary shit.”

It was quiet after that for a moment. A long moment of Harry awkwardly glancing between Will and Y/N. Though his glances towards her did not come easily. Just the thought of looking at her was like his body went into fight or flight mode. Fight through the nerves and the butterflies in his stomach or fly the hell out of there.

She was like an unfriendly cat who didn’t seem to like him one bit, and it drove him insane. All his attempts to have a normal conversation with her had been fruitless. She never said more than one word to him at a time. Maybe two, if she was feeling generous. He didn’t get it at all, but he got used to it. Maybe she just didn’t have any room in her life for another person and certainly not for a person like him.

“Well, I vote for Pretty Woman,” Will said, making up everyone’s minds for them, and when he glanced at the other two, they didn’t seem to care. “Pretty Woman it is then. Y/N,” Will glanced at her exclusively while he began gathering snacks and the movie, “are you watching it too?”

“Uh.. no.” She continued into the kitchen, walking behind Harry toward the fridge and making every single nerve in his body light up. He had no idea why she, of all people on the planet he’d come into contact with, made him as nervous as she did. But, here he was. Stepping out of her way and swallowing the pit in his throat when he got a whiff of her all-too-familiar coconut scented shampoo.

And that scent just about made his head spin. It took him right back to the night he’d gotten drunk off his ass after a long day of work. She’d offered her bed to him since he was too tall for their couches, and she had been up late working herself anyways. Most of the night had been forgotten, but he very distinctly remembered stuffing his face into her pillowcases and letting the scent of her shampoo completely engulf his nostrils as he fell asleep. And it took him back to the following morning where he wobbled his hungover ass to the shower and accidentally (on purpose) used her coconut scented shampoo.

And then the entire rest of the day he smelled exactly like her and hadn’t gone a single minute without thinking of her. Thinking of her soft voice and what it would feel like to hear her saying his name just once. Thinking about the way she sometimes smiled at him like maybe she didn’t hate him as much as he thought. Thinking about her hair spread over her pillowcase and tucking loose strands behind her ear while she slept peacefully beside him...

Harry was also, very, very alone.

So alone that he spent more nights at other people’s homes, particularly Will’s, than his own. Even though he had an insanely expensive house all to himself up in the gated hills of Los Angeles, it was nothing compared to being surrounded by people he cared about instead of lifeless appliances.

He blamed it on the city. It always had a way of making him feel alienated. Even if it was the city that recognized him most often, it almost made him feel even more alone than he already was. Because none of the people he met along the way really knew him. They weren’t with him at the end of the day when he broke down on the floor in his bathroom. They didn’t see the dark parts of his life where he often wished he could take it all back just to be normal again. To have normal conversations and normal relationships with people he wasn’t constantly paranoid were trying to get something out of him.

So, in a way, he understood Y/N’s unwillingness to let him in, because he did it all the time. The thing he didn’t understand was why she had any reason to worry about the people in her life. No one was out to get her money or make themselves famous off of her. But there was a reason for it anyways, and it just about killed the curious cat in his mind every time he was at her apartment and she continued to not peep a single unnecessary word to him.

By the time he and Will had settled onto their respective spots in the living room, Harry tucked back into the cushions of their armchair and Will spread out on the loveseat opposite him, Y/N had already retreated back into her bedroom with her glass of ice water.

“Think that’s the most I’ve ever heard her talk.” Harry said, while Will skipped through the outdated commercials on the DVD.

Will’s lips turned up into a very knowing grin and he nodded, “She’s always been quiet, man. I told you not to take it personally.”

“How did you get her to talk?”

That was a question Harry had never asked before out of the countless stupid ones he had in the past. The stupidest was probably when he’d first met her and then proceeded to ask Will shortly after if Y/N was mute.

Will shrugged, “I’ve known her for a long time. It’s not like she goes on and on around me either though. That’s just how she is. And she probably just doesn’t like you that much.”

Harry huffed and sat back into his chair, giving up on it. He couldn’t force her to be his friend, as much as he wanted her to be.

The movie went on without Harry because he was completely lost in his own mind, however, Will seemed to be completely enthralled with Julia Roberts. Harry just couldn’t bring himself to focus on the television screen for more than a minute at a time.

It wasn’t until he heard a door down the hall click open that he brought himself back to reality and let his eyes wander to the sound behind him as Y/N stepped quietly out from her bedroom again. He knew she was the only other roommate home tonight and, yet, he still made the mistake of looking in her direction and, fucking finally, locking eyes with her. It was brief, but it was enough to stir up the enormous pot of butterflies in his stomach again.

Without a single word, she sat on the last unoccupied piece of furniture between the both of them, Harry still in a bit of shock and Will grinning with his eyes glued to the screen.

“Changed your mind, did you?” Will asked cheekily.

“Shut up,” she mumbled back at him before reaching toward the opened bag of untouched Hershey kisses. “Can I have one of these?”

Will finally peered over at her from his spot and then glanced at Harry across the coffee table, “You’ll have to ask Harry. He brought them.”

Her hand froze and she reluctantly turned her attention toward Harry, which had been the first time since he arrived that she voluntarily looked at him. She had no fucking clue how she was going to sit there and ask Harry for one of his Hershey kisses. Or if she even wanted them desperately enough.

The question went unasked, but the look on her face said more than enough. She was already waiting for his answer. And upon seeing the look on her face, Harry couldn’t possibly find it in himself to force her to say a damn thing. So he just cleared his throat instead, “Uh, it’s alright. You can have as many as you want.”

He watched as she grabbed a couple foil sealed chocolates and settled back into the corner of her own loveseat again, never willing to admit that he’d bought them especially for her. Because it had somehow managed to become common knowledge that they were her favorite candy and while wandering the local corner market, he spotted them and thought of her. His brain at the time thought there might be some minuscule possibility that if he brought one of her favorite foods over she might eventually start to like him.

Even if that didn’t happen though, he was still reeling from that one brief moment of interaction for the entire rest of the night. Splurging on an overpriced package of cavities had been well worth it.

It wasn’t until the movie ended that both Harry and Y/N realized Will was dead asleep. That he was no longer conscious enough to use the remote resting on his chest and turn the movie off. So, after a little while of staring at the credits, Y/N stood and grabbed it, flipping the controls until she brought up regular TV channels and then eventually settled for a horror movie Harry had never seen and had no intentions to. But, if it meant he got more time with Y/N, he’d sit through just about anything she wanted to watch.

And then finally, the sugar he’d consumed got to his head.

“Do you always watch scary movies before bed?” He asked, completely lost in his daydreams and not fully realizing he’d asked her a full-blown question until it was out of his mouth. Once he came to his senses, he wanted to shove every last word back into his mouth and pretend he never said anything.

That was, until a couple silent moments went by and she finally said something. “Makes the nightmares more interesting.”

He didn’t expect her to say anything at all, and so for her to say that, he had no idea how to respond to her. Was she being... sarcastic? He didn’t even know she was capable of being funny.

So he laughed, not too loudly in case she wasn’t joking. But all his worries were relieved when she glanced at him and giggled too.

He didn’t dare bring up any of the questions floating around in his mind in fear that she’d never speak another word to him ever again once he’d finally managed to break through the walls somehow. Now that he’d made groundbreaking progress with her, there was no way he was asking her why she never talked to him or why she was so quiet. So he kept a fine-tuned filter over what words came out of his mouth.

“Does that mean you have uninteresting nightmares then?” Harry really did try his damndest to think of anything to say that would get her to keep talking, because he wasn’t done listening to her voice or hearing bits of her brain spill out. He wanted to know everything about her, from her mouth only, but he also didn’t want to get too ahead of himself.

“Only on Sundays.”

“Why Sundays?” He asked through a muffled laugh, curious as to what she was on about.

“Because then the nightmares are about showing up at work naked on Monday morning... and that’s not very interesting.”

He couldn’t help the widespread grin on his face, or the way his eyebrows furrowed at how fucking weird she actually was. And she wasn’t even that weird. She was kind of normal, but this entire time he thought she wasn’t like him at all, so seeing her say things like a normal person was... weird.

“So what kind of nightmares does watching Annabelle at...” Harry checked his watch, and went into momentary shock at the time, but also couldn’t care less because he wasn’t leaving now, “two in the morning get you?”

She smiled, and refusing to look at him, settled for planting her eyes on the television instead. “Walking into work naked on Monday morning but,” she held up a finger in anticipation and Harry smiled wider, “all my coworkers are creepy dolls.”

“Guess at that point it doesn't matter if you’re naked then.”

She thought about for a moment before giggling at what he said, “No, I guess it doesn’t.”

There was silence between them again, but it was different this time. It was peaceful. It wasn’t full of awkward tension and things Harry wished she would say. It felt like two friends hanging out and enjoying each other’s company.

“Are you sleeping here or...” She finally asked him and he wasn’t sure if that was her way of asking him to leave or not. But something about it made him feel like she was building her walls back up again.

“Oh, uh... if that’s okay. Think I’m too tired to drive.”

“Yeah, it’s fine. I just wanted to know because I can sleep in Violet’s room and you can have my bed like before. If you want.”

“Oh, um, are you sure?” Under any other circumstances, he would have said no, that the short, uncomfortable couch would be fine. That he would get over the pain in his legs and back in the morning because he didn’t want to invade her space, again. Unfortunately for him, he already had the knowledge of what her pillows smelled like and how soft her sheets were and he desperately wanted to invade her space again.

She nodded. “It’s no problem. I’ll go clean up a little. Just let yourself in.”

She was gone before he could get another word out. And while he listened to her footsteps as she walked away from him, he stared blankly up at the ceiling, resting his neck back on the chair. It felt like he’d just been through a fever dream, like none of it was real. Not only did he have a normal conversation with her, but now she was offering her bed to him again as well.

He needed a moment to process things.

When she got done tidying up her room and replacing her blanket with a clean one for Harry, he appeared cautiously in the doorway, yawning as he watched her gather some of her things to take to Violet’s room directly across the hall.

“I turned the TV off and the lights. Will’s still quite dead out there.”

She smiled to herself and gave him a very fleeting glance before picking the last item she needed up off her side table and then finally facing him. “It’s all yours.”

Ushering him in, he stepped into her room like he wasn’t actually allowed to. Like he had never been there before. Like he hadn’t nearly puked all over her poor white bed sheets that one night.

She replaced his spot in the doorway as he sat down on the edge of her bed. He stared at her back as she walked away, not getting his hopes up about her saying anything else to him. So, when she did turn to face him again, it just about knocked the air out of him.

“Oh and Harry?”

“Yeah?”

“Could you try to not drool on my pillows this time?”

He glanced at the top of her bed where all her pillows were neatly stacked and cringed at the horrible memories he had and at the fact that he’d actually drooled on her pillows. Like a fucking animal. Like a dog who couldn’t control himself.

“Sorry ‘bout that...” He looked at her again, genuinely apologetic and completely embarrassed by his past, drunken self.

“It’s okay.” She smiled reassuringly, “Night.”

“G’night.” Harry mumbled just before she left and closed the door behind her.

And in all the talk about drool, it wasn’t until he was cuddled under her blanket and up against her mound of pillows that he realized something. She’d said his name, out loud, to his face, where he could hear it and obsess over it and never get sick of it. He repeated it over and over in his head and kept himself awake just thinking about the way it had sounded and if he’d ever get to hear her say his name again.

The faint hum of voices right outside the door woke him slightly. His entire body was still asleep except for about half of his brain and one eye that peeked open to investigate the noise. He could tell it was early, though, his eyes stung and his body ached to go fully back to sleep.

He could make out Violet’s voice, which confused his foggy brain because he swore Will had mentioned she’d be gone all weekend, and yet here she was yelling in the hallway and interrupting his sleep.

“Please just sleep on the couch then, I need to be alone right now.” Harry furrowed his eyebrows at how distressed she sounded and flinched when the door across the hall just about slammed shut.

He heard an exasperated sigh and then squeezed his eyes shut when he saw movement under the door to Y/N’s bedroom just moments before it opened. He pretended to be asleep for as long as he could, listening to the footsteps as they carefully wandered into the room.

And then a hushed, but very exclamatory, “Ow!” got him to roll onto his back and knuckle his eyes open.

She looked at him apologetically while grasping the big toe of her right foot. “Sorry.”

“S’okay.” His voice was a lot groggier and a lot more raspy than she expected it to be. And she kind of hated herself for enjoying the view, a little too much, of Harry waking up in her bed. While she got her thoughts under control, he continued. “Did Violet just kick you out?”

She simply nodded and went back to digging into her cabinets for spare pillows.

“What time is it?” He asked.

“Four-thirty.”

Then he slowly pulled her blanket off, still dressed in his shirt and joggers from last night but without his socks and rings he’d removed before bed.

She immediately turned to him, however. “You don’t have to get up. I’m fine on the couch.” “No, I would feel bad.”

“It’s okay, really. Don’t worry about it.” She got him to stop what he was doing and lay back into the bed again while she opened up more cabinet doors to find her extra bed sets.

He cleared his throat after a little while of watching her, and gathered up the largest bundle of courage he ever had, to say what he was about to say next. With nervous, shaking fingers and a cold sweat on the back of his neck, he voiced the stupidest idea he’d ever had in his life.

“We can just both sleep here... if that’s fine.”

She froze and he knew he’d made a mistake. Why in the actual fuck did he just suggest that? Maybe he was sleep deprived. Maybe he was still reeling from last night. Maybe he had some false sense of security with her and completely forgot about the fact that last night had been the first time she’d said that many words to him. Of course she wasn’t about to climb in bed with him.

“Oh, um...” She finally found a couple pillows and pulled them from the cabinet while turning her attention back to Harry. She could not deny how desperately she wanted to crawl back into her own bed. And have a warm body next to her, which she had literally never had. No one had ever slept in her bed besides Harry, and definitely not with her. Sure, she’d slept in friends’ beds before on occasion, but this was different. It was her own bed and this was Harry, not her college friends.

So maybe it was the sleep-deprivation talking. 

“Okay.”

In all forms but physical, his jaw had just hit the floor. Never in a million years or in any other infinite alternate realities would he have thought they’d end up here, with Harry sliding over to one side of the bed to make room for her while she crawled in beside him. Her queen size gave lots of room in between them, so it wasn’t as weird as it sounded. It was just two, very tired loose-knit friends sharing a bed for a few hours.

“Goodnight, again.” Harry mumbled, realizing too late that it was technically morning now.

“Mhm,” was the only response he got out of her when she curled up under the blanket they shared and went straight back to sleep with her back to him.

And once his nerves settled, he did the same.

It was a lot easier than either of them thought possible. And for a long while, they stayed on their respective sides of the bed. But once she was lost in dreamland and he was already letting out soft snores, there was no control over what happened next. She turned and cuddled right up to his side as if her unconscious mind thought he was some kind of pillow to cradle. She wasn’t all to blame, though, as his arm wrapped around her shoulders and pulled her even closer. Closer than either of them had been to another living being in a long time. As close as her forearm spread across his chest and her head nestled into his neck. Close enough to smell his cologne but not realize why or stop any of it from happening. Not that she would have wanted to if she had any clue what she was doing. Not that he would have wanted to either.

With his hand digging into her waist, they both were mildly aware of what was going on, but both were also still too lost in their exhaustion. So, it just happened. And they held each other tighter as the minutes passed and the dreams took over once again. Because they both needed it. To hold and to be held. To feel the pressure of another person and the heartbeat on their skin. And all the loneliness in their bones melting away with each other’s touch as if they’d never been alone in the first place.

The only thing that could ever separate them was the knock on her door at nine a.m. Everything was a little fuzzy at first before she blinked a few times and realized that what she’d been using as a pillow wasn’t exactly stuffed with cotton and lined in silk. With a gasp, she pulled away from him abruptly. Ceasing all contact. Not because she wanted to necessarily, but because she would rather Harry not find out she was all over him like she had just been.

“Oh my god,” she whispered quietly in disbelief, mentally punching herself in the face for what she’d just woken up to.

But her embarrassment only skyrocketed when she dragged her eyes up his neck to his chin, then his nose and finally saw him staring right back at her with furrowed brows like he was just as confused as she was. When he glanced at the door is when she moved to do something about it.

Quickly, she pulled the covers off of herself and opened her door only the smallest amount possible. Just enough to peak her head out, but not enough for Will to see Harry in her bed. Where she’d just been sleeping right next to him. Or... right on top of him, as it seemed.

“Did Harry go home last night?”

With absolutely no plan to go along with her lie, she still figured it was the better option than to admit to Will she’d been in the same bed as Harry. That she’d been all fucking over him for who knows how long.

“Um, yeah. After you fell asleep.”

From behind her, Harry quietly smacked his hands over his face and fell back dramatically into her fluffy pillows.

“Oh, ok. Vi won’t come out of her room, but I’m going to go get breakfast from Jade’s. You want anything?”

“No, I’m alright, thanks.” Her words fused together in a flash, just trying to get the least amount of information out as quickly as possible so she didn't accidentally say something suspicious.

She shut the door on him with a smile before Will could even offer her a pastry from their most loved local cafe. Once that was dealt with, and she had a moment to gather her thoughts as she stared at her door, she slowly turned around to face Harry.

Her cheeks were probably bright red and full of embarrassment seeing him there amongst her sheets; as if once she had turned around he wouldn’t actually be there, like maybe she’d dreamt the whole thing.

But no.

He was there. And he was very real. And very much looking at her like they were both insane.

“I’m sorry,” they said it at the exact same time, cutting each other off from saying anything else.

“No, I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have, um...” Harry started once he found an opportunity to speak again, but he didn’t exactly know what he was apologizing for. He wasn’t sorry for how they’d ended up. He had the best four and a half hours of sleep he’d ever had.

“I shouldn’t have been like... all on you like that.” She averted her eyes when she spoke, not able to look him straight on and admit it. And she knew she was only apologizing because she felt embarrassed and like she had to. She felt like she’d invaded Harry’s space and took advantage of him.

“You don’t have to apologize.”

She just shrugged. Nothing he said at this point could make her feel any less horrible about it. And even so, some part deep down inside of her, when she finally looked at him again, wanted to get right back into that spot with him for another few hours.

It just felt... right. And even though she couldn’t remember what she dreamed about, she knew it wasn’t her usual nightmare. She had felt safe and secure, and not so alone anymore, sleeping beside him like that and she felt stupid knowing it would never happen again.

“I should get going then. Before Will comes back and realizes I didn’t actually leave.” Harry let out an exasperated laugh as he began getting up, sitting himself on the edge of her bed with his back facing her as he stretched. The fabric of his shirt tugged along his muscles as he flexed them awake, and she grew far too overwhelmed thinking about the fact that those fucking arms of his had been around her for the better half of the morning. She could still feel him holding onto her and his grip at her side.

She needed a very cold shower and some fresh air.

[wafflefries13]

A Wolf in Wolf’s Clothing

Hey there, it’s your girl, back at it with another story that probably took way too long to finish. 

Warnings: Fighting, cursing, threat of violence. 

~~~

It was fine. This was fine. Staying in a small cabin in the middle of the woods, getting back to nature, away from the city, away from those yakuza who were tracking you down because your dad had skipped out on the massive amounts of gambiling debt he had, and seriously, Dad, you knew he had a problem, not that he would ever listen to you, but did he really have to go and play mahjong, freaking mahjong, with some super sketchy people and really think everything was just going to be fine that he was going to be okay when he already had a massive pile of debt from that pyramid scheme that you told him was a pyramid scheme or the loss from that horse race last month, and seriously, Dad, this is why mom left-!

But it was fine. You were fine. 

The cabin was small, a one room structure that gave you flashbacks to ‘Little House on the Prairie.’ Thankfully, the owners had attached the outhouse to the actual house a few years back, installing a slim standing shower. Electricity came from either solar power or a gas generator hook-up out back, but there was no way you would ever get an internet connection all the way out here.  But it had a fireplace! That was pretty cool, right? 

You weren’t exactly sure how long you’d be out here. The detective from vice told you to stay off the grid as much as possible, that they’d get in touch with you, not the other way around. The police officer had dropped you off about an hour ago after bumping over an unpaved road tangled by tree roots and overgrown underbrush. You would never have been able to find this place by yourself. But you supposed that that was the whole point. 

You’d spent your first few hours there getting the cabin to an actual livable condition. Vice had told you that this place wasn’t used a lot, and you could immediately see it. Every surface was coated in a thick layer of dust. The windows were covered in who knows how many years of grime. Cobwebs littered with tiny insect carcases huddled in every corner and crevice. You were lucky you hadn’t found a racoon nest in the chimney flue. 

Finally, as the sun set, your muscles aching from the work, you decided that your temporary home was livable enough. You summoned all your knowledge from watching ‘Man vs Wild’ and lit a fire. You heated up a can of chicken noodle soup on the gas stove. The cabin didn’t have a bed, so you stacked several thick quilts stored in a cupboard, rolling out your sleeping bag on top. 

You sat on your makeshift bed, back pressed against the wall, slurping your soup. Outside the window, you watched as the light slowly faded away. Wow, you didn’t realize how dark it could really get out here. You put way too much stock in the light you could get from the moon and stars, apparently. There was no accounting for the noise, though. It sounded like a million different insects were screaming from the woods outside. You thought cricket noises were supposed to be comforting, like listening to the ocean to try and fall asleep. But this just made you itch and wish for another can of bug spray.  Man, vice really sent you out here with nothing, didn’t they? 

Sitting back and contemplating your possible execution via yakuza boss in the near future, it took you a while before you recognized the change. Every noise outside your four walls had fallen silent. The popping of logs in the fireplace was tantamount to gun fire. 

Slowly, you set down your half-finished can of soup, dragging a wooden bat out that you had snagged before the vice police shoved you in the car to bring you here. Staying as low to the floor as possible, you crawled to the front window. You pressed your back against the wall, like you had seen spies do in movies, and slowly lifted one corner of the thick curtains. You tried to crane your head to look out, but it hurt more than you thought it would and your visibility was cut by way more than half. 

Why hadn’t vice at least given you a gun or something? 

Taking a deep breath, you stood, holding the bat in front of you like a sword. Before you could convince yourself that this was a bad idea (too late) you burst open the front door, ready to swing at whatever you saw first. 

Noise exploded back into existence as soon as you stepped into the small clearing around the cabin. Panting heavily and breaking out in a cold sweat from the adrenaline, you whipped your head back and forth to look for intruders. Left? Clear. Right? Clear. Front? Clear. Behind-?! Wait, that was the cabin, you were just there. 

You felt all the energy leave you at once. The bat suddenly felt like it weighed a hundred pounds. You slumped forward, bracing your head on the backs of your hands settled on the pommel of the bat. 

You heard something from the other side of the cabin. A low groan, the result of footsteps. Gulping hard, you raised the bat again, silently making your way to the corner of the house. You whipped around the corner. 

A giant furry shape was slumped in a pile in front of you. It let out a low whine. You could see the powerful muscles under its thick fur coat ripple and stretch as the thing tried to get comfortable. Sensing your presents, it reared its large head, pinning you down with ruby red eyes. 

A wolf. There was a wolf in front of you. You had always assumed wolves would sort of look like giant dogs, but this close you could see how different they really were. This thing was huge, first of all. Its head would come up to your shoulder when it stood. It also had long thin legs, built for fast running and careening over obstacles. The wolf snared at you, its lips pulling back as a deep growl emanate from its throat. You could almost swear it was glaring at you. 

Its threat was cut short, however, by a pained yip. As it tried to stand, it faltered and fell over, back into a furry heap. You could see a patch of mismatched fur coating its back leg up along its haunch. The fur was matted, dark with something wet. 

You dropped the bat, holding your hands in front of you in what you hoped was a non-threatening pose. “Hey, hey, it’s okay,” You said softly. “I’m just gonna… I’ll be right back.” You ducked back around the corner, heading into the cabin. You threw open the cabinet doors, rummaging for a first aid kit you could have sworn you saw somewhere while cleaning. You found the small white box, hoping that whatever was inside was as suitable for giant wolves as it was for people. 

You headed back out. Going around the cabin, you saw the wolf trying to stand and limp away again. He didn’t make it two steps before collapsing. Instead of a pained noise, this time he just left out a frustrated humph. You giggled despite yourself. The wolf’s head reared back around, locking eyes with you again. It growled at you. 

“I don’t think you look as menacing as you think you do right now,” You said. You tried to talk calmly in a low voice. That’s what you were supposed to do with frightened and injured animals, right? Well, you also were supposed to leave them alone and call animal control or something, but you didn’t really have the option of doing that right now. And you didn’t think you could sleep, much less live with yourself, if you knowingly just let this wolf suffer right outside your door. 

You took another step closer. The wolf snapped his jaws at you but didn’t move from his heap. “Hey, easy, big guy. I just want to help.” You held up the first aid kit, as if that was supposed to mean anything to a wild animal. The wolf glared at you, but didn’t make any movement as you took another cautious step forward. As you knelt down beside his injured back leg, he huffed again, turning his head away and resting it on his massive paws, resigned to accept you unasked for help. This close up, you could see his fur was an unusual blond. It reminded you of wheat fields just before harvest (not that you had ever seen that, being such a city kid, but pictures and imagination counted for something, right?). 

You opened the kit and pulled on a pair of gloves. Parting his fur, you hissed in sympathy at his wound. There was a gash slicing through his entire haunch, more wide than it was deep, but still bleeding profusely. You could see smaller cuts and bite marks, punchers in his flesh, littering the rest of his leg and up his back. Some of these wounds had already half-healed, but had reopened again, oozing and clotted. 

You threaded a hand comfortingly through his fur, speaking softly as you dabbed an antiseptic wipe along the largest gash. The wolf winced and barked at you in annoyance at the sting, but after a glare (you didn’t even know wolves could glare with such intensity before this), he resigned himself and plopped his head back down. There were some butterfly sutures that you hoped would stick on with his fur. You pushed them down, pulling the edges so the flesh closed. You tried your best to clean the other injuries, but you didn’t have a lot of butterfly sutures, and bandaids certainly weren’t going to stay down. 

As you were contemplating this, a chorus of howls erupted from the woods around you. The blond wolf sprung into action immediately, jumping up and circling himself around you. You probably would have thought that was amazing or cute or something if a sense of panic hadn’t seized you. The wolf was still limping, trying to keep his back leg off the ground. His head jerked from side to side, ears constantly twitching. Whatever was out there, you could only imagine that it was closing in, and it was out for blood. 

“Oh, this is going to be a bad idea,” You said to yourself. The wolf cocked his head at you. “But, hey, I’m not making any good choices tonight, I guess. Come on.” You picked up your abandoned bat, standing to guard the wolf from the tree line. You started backing up, genteling nudging the wolf with your hip in the direction of the cabin door. He seemed to get your meaning, limping along, but trying to maintain his sense of canine bravado by making threatening growls and fangs bared. 

Backing your way into the cabin, you quickly locked and barred the door. You had no idea if conventional locks would keep out blood-thirsty wolves, but you figured it wouldn’t do much against determined yakuza members either, so maybe you should just cut your losses. 

You heard a loud slurping and turned around. The blond wolf had his muzzle buried in your reheated soup, lapping it up and spilling everything that didn’t immediately make it into his mouth. 

“Hey!” You chastised. You could have sworn he rolled his eyes at you. Could wolves do that? Like, physically? His long tongue licked his chops when he was done. He took a few stumbling steps then collapsed by the fire. 

“Alright,” You said to yourself. “I guess this is happening, huh?” You could have sworn the wolf made a sound of agreement. 

~~~

You woke up to the sound of bird song and a mouth full of fur. 

Sputtering, you pieced together the events of last night in your head. The wolf had you pinned against the wall of your makeshift bed, his back pressed against your stomach and chest. You had a fleeting thought that he was putting himself between you and any danger that might break in. You had heard stories of mother wolves protecting human babies, maybe this was something like that? Or were you thinking of The Jungle Book? The founding of Rome? Whatever. 

Either way, it made you smile a bit, petting his fur. Wow, you had no idea wolf fur was so thick! Your hand just seemed to drop forever through his soft coat. Your action was enough to rouse the wolf from his sleep just a bit. He cast a tired glance over his shoulder at you. You could have sworn you could read his expression. “Really? You’re waking me up for this?” 

“Hey there, sunshine,” You said. “I should probably take another look at that leg, huh?” 

The wolf huffed, rolling over. You thought for a second he was giving you room to get up, but when you started to move he rolled back over, landing heavily across you and pinning you down. “That’s, uh, that’s a no then, huh?” The wolf just shuffled to a more comfortable position (on top of you) and closed his eyes. 

You sighed, reaching up and rubbing the fur between his ears. “This is my life now, huh?” 

He blinked open his eyes, staring right into yours. They were a deep red, almost like uncut garnets. You had no idea animals could have eyes like that. Not just that, but something about them looked almost too… human to you. The proportion of iris to whites just sort of off from what you would expect from your average dog. Before you could put your finger on it, the wolf closed his eyes and rested his head again. 

His heat radiated through you like a miniature sun. You pet through his fur, deciding to narrate your thoughts out loud. You told him about how you came to be in these woods, in this cabin, your struggles with dealing with your father's gambeling addiction for so many years, the fall festival you had gone to last year, how you wanted to start hiking now that you were trapped out here, this song you couldn’t remember the words to, summarizing the plot from some book you had to read for English class. 

After the sun had already started to rise high in the sky, the wolf (you really needed a name for him, huh?) slinked off of you. You let out an exaggerated breath, thumbing your chest a few times. He flicked his tail at you. 

You opened up the cooler you brought with you. Take two slices for yourself, you handed the wolf the rest of the sliced turkey you had bought for sandwiches. He ate the entire pack in one massive bite, looking at you expectantly for more. Huffing in mock annoyance, you tossed him the other two slices. He caught them in the air, flicking his tongue to get the juice from his canine maw. 

He tested his weight on his back leg. You could tell it still hurt him, but he still tried to walk with his other three legs. He stretched out, arching his back. “Oooh, big stretch!” You said. There was that glare again. 

He limped over to the door, scratching it. You opened it for him, assuming he had to do his doggy business or something (wait, was he trained to go outside? That would explain some things). But when you tried to close the door again, he barked at you. He scratched the door frame until you followed him outside. He would walk several feet ahead then sit, looking over at you and barking. You went back inside and tugged on your hiking shoes, spraying yourself down with a healthy dose of bug spray. 

The wolf was still pretty unsteady on his feet. He would stumble occasionally, but when you would put out a hand to help him, he would snap back at you. Whatever the case, he at least seemed to know where he was going. Even in his injured state, he could keep a good distance ahead of you. 

You heard water rushing as the wolf dropped out of sight. Thinking he might have fallen, you rushed to where you last saw him. The trees broke away, revealing a rippling river with cool pools stretching through the forest. You took in the beautiful scenery, the ice blue water cascading down tiny waterfalls, when sudden movement caught your eye. You focused where you saw it and gasped. A salmon jumped from the water, swimming upstream. That one was joined by another, then two more, until the whole river seemed to burst with fish. 

You laughed in shock and amusement at the sight, but were cut off short by something cold and slimy hitting your face. You sputtered against it, swiping it away from you. Looking down, you saw your assailant was flopping on the sandy river bank. A giant salmon, mouth gapping and scales shimmering in the sunlight. 

You heard a huff that you could have sworn sounded amused. Looking up, you saw the wolf at the edge of the bank, dipping his paw in the water. He looked deeply into the river, still as a rock, before striking all at once and bringing his paw up. He batted another fish out of the water. You put your hands up, catching it in a slimy, uncertain grip. The fish thrashed around and you ended up dropping him on his friend. 

“You know all the best places, huh?” You said. The wolf shook water off of his fur and went back to focusing on the river. “I’m going to run back and get the cooler! We’ll be able to carry a lot more that way!” You weren’t sure why you were telling a wolf this, as if he could understand you, but it felt right somehow. 

You carefully followed your footsteps back to the cabin, breaking a twig or making a mark on a tree as you went to make a path. Back at the cabin, you quickly pulled the food you had brought with you out of the cooler, shoving it in the mini-fridge. You didn’t have an ice maker in the cabin, so you hoped the already half-thawed cold packs would work. Almost as an afterthought, you grabbed the first aid kit, tossing it in the cooler. Luging the cooler over your shoulder, you followed your improvised markers back to the river. 

You set the bulky cooler down heavily on the bank, looking up with a wide grin for your new companion. Scanning the banks and treeline, your face gradually fell as your search turned fruitless. Your new wolf buddy was nowhere to be seen. 

At first, you felt sad that he had just up and left, then scared for his injury. He was still having trouble walking. What if whatever was prowling around your cabin last night came back and tried to take a bite of him? 

“Wolf?” You called out, almost immediately feeling like an idiot for doing so. You knew you should have named him. Although, it wasn’t like he was trained to respond to your call. You had to remind yourself that this was a wild animal and not a trained dog from the pound, despite his reluctant friendliness. “Wolf? Where’d you go, big guy? Hello?” 

“If you keep yelling like that, a whole pack is going to come and tear you apart.” 

You nearly jumped out of your skin at the very human response. Bracing your hands on your knees, you looked down the drop away from the bank to the river. There was a tiny beach there. Leaving against the sandy drop was a boy, head tilted back and face bathed in the sunlight. Despite his relaxed body posture, one leg spread out in front of him, the other bent to his chest, arms loosely crossed, he had an annoyed if not pained expression across his face. His hair was the color of fresh cut wheat, but as spiky as a porcupine. Lolling his head in your direction, he opened his eyes under furrowed brows. You thought it was a trick of the light, but you could swear they were a deep red. ‘Like garnets…’ You thought, memory jumping back to your missing wolf friend. 

“Uh, sorry,” You said. “I was just looking for-” 

And then your heart stopped as you suddenly remembered why you were out in the middle of the woods. The whole reason you had come here, why the police had dragged you away from your everyday life for your own protection. 

You tripped over your own feet flinging yourself backwards. You landed heavy on your butt. Scrambling back, your head whipped from side to side looking for something to defend yourself with. Damn it! You should have grabbed your bat when you got the cooler! 

“Hey!” He yelled up at you. “You going to keep spazzing out or give me a hand here?” 

“Depends,” You said. “What are you doing out here? We’re in the middle of nowhere.” 

“The hell do you think I’m doing? I work out here.” You saw his hand come up and grip the edge of the bank. He pulled himself up, but winced in pain. Bracing his arms against the bank, he said, “I’m a forest ranger, kind of. Tag some of the animals, make sure no one’s starting forest fires, keep poachers away, that sort of thing. I kind of got banged up here, though, can’t put a lot of weight on my ankle.” He rolled his eyes, leaving the statement hanging in the air for your response. 

“Oh!” Of course, you thought to yourself, you had no real reason to trust what he was saying. He didn’t look like a ranger, dressed in a black muscle shirt and dark green cargo pants. But you could tell he was having trouble standing. But then, that could be an act too… 

“Sure,” You finally decided. “Hang on.” You looked through the brush until you found a fallen tree branch. You lugged it over, dropping half down the bank and keeping it ancored under your foot. You held out your hand to him. He grasped just beyond your wrist, pulling up and using the branch and a foothold to push himself up. Once he was up on the upper bank, he tried to take a step. You could immediately see his ankle give out, crumbling like wet paper. He fell to his knees with an annoyed sound, catching himself on his palms. 

“You okay?” You said, retrieving the branch and not so subtly holding it in front of you. 

“Yeah, fine. Whatever.” He tried to brush you off. You could see his entire calf was wrapped in bandages. It looked like some wound had reopened and was bleeding through. 

“What happened?” You ask, nodding to his leg. 

He looked down, growling at the red soaking through the bandages. “I have to get pretty close to some animals for my job. Checking tags or making sure they’re not hurting themselves. I thought I’d tranquilized a bear, but I guess he wasn’t all the way under.” 

“A bear?! You fought a bear?” 

He waved a hand at you. “I didn’t ‘fight a bear.’ I was just trying to get a blood sample and must have spooked him. He took a swipe at me. I’ll be fine.” 

“That sure doesn’t look fine.” You pointed to his bandage. 

He clicked his tongue. “Damn it.” 

You rung your hands around the branch. “I have a first aid kit. I’m pretty good at it. I could take a look if you want.” 

He practically snarled at you, trying to stand up again. “I don’t need some-” As he tried to put weight on his ankle, he let out a choked yelp, cutting into that tough guy persona he obviously was trying very hard to portray. He lost his balance, wheeling his arms. You dropped your branch, lunging forward just as he fell. You caught him under his arms, throwing your balance off. You both fell, you landing on your back. You groaned, rubbing the back of your head. Opening your eyes, you squeaked seeing his face so close to yours, bright red eyes locked on to yours. Your mouth suddenly went dry and your face went hot. He was practically pinning you down. 

His face burst into a blush as he threw himself off of you. He crossed his arms stubbornly.  Looking away, he said, “Yeah, fine. Maybe I need a new bandage.” 

“C-cool! Yeah! Great!” Well, at least you were pretty sure he wasn’t here to kill you. That would have been a pretty good opportunity. Unless he wanted to slay you with embarrassment, which seemed like a possibility. 

You silently checked out his ankle, spraying it out with antibacterial and put a fresh bandage on it. At this rate, you were going to run out of medical supplies before the week was over. 

“Hey,” You said in an effort to break the tension. You noticed the tips of his ears were still a blushed red. “I don’t suppose you know anything about the wolves around here?” 

His eyes snapped back to you, suddenly suspicious. “There haven’t been wild wolves in this area for over a hundred years.” 

You blinked. “Wait, no, that can’t be. There was a wolf at my cabin last night. It sounded like he was being attacked by another pack or something.” 

He looked at you hard. “There haven’t been wolves here in a long time. If you think you saw one, you didn’t.” 

You huffed. “I’m pretty sure I know what I saw, not to mention felt. He spent the night in my cabin.” 

“What kind of idiot lets a wolf spend the night in their cabin with them?” 

“Ha! So you admit it could have been a wolf!” 

“I didn’t say that!” 

You smiled, leaning back on your hands and looking out over the river. “It was fine though. He seemed trained or something. A little prickly, but he was hurt so I didn’t mind.” You heard him mutter something that sounded like “not prickly.” You continued, “He disappeared this morning, though. Around here. I’m kinda disappointed. It’s kind of lonely out here. But hey! I guess I have a new friend now!” You good naturally punched his shoulder. He winced and you just now noticed the fading bruise. “Oops. Sorry.” 

“Sure you are. And who said we were friends, anyway? You don’t even know my name.” 

Putting on your most welcoming smile (and trying not to grimace at his tone), you held out your hand. “(Y/N) (L/N), trapped out in the middle of nowhere for the foreseeable future for reasons I cannot currently disclose. Very nice to meet you.” 

He looked from your hand to your face a few times. He looked like he was turning something over in his head. Flexing his hand, he lifted it up and gripped yours strongly. You could feel the heat radiating from it, like he was a living space heater. “Bakugo. And that’s all you’re getting.” 

You fake pouted. “We will be friends, mark my words.” 

He scoffed, rolling his eyes. “What were you doing out here anyway?” 

“I told you, I cannot currently discloses that information.” 

He huffed a laugh. “What, are you a spy or something? Lost princess?” 

If only, you thought. “Something like that.” 

“Hmm. You don’t have a fishing rod.” 

“Uh, yeah. I was kind of counting on my wolf friend to help me out. He did this thing where he just sort of whacked them out of the water.” You mimicked the motion in the air. 

“For the last time, there aren’t any wolves around here. Just drop it.” 

“Fine, fine. There wasn’t a wolf even though there definitely was. And I don’t know what I’ll do, exactly. I suppose I can survive on canned soup, saltines, and beans for however long I’m stuck out here.” 

“That’s disgusting.” He leaned back, crossing his arms behind his head and looking up at the clouds. “Alright, here’s what you do. You at least have a knife, right? Good. I’m going to teach you how to make a fish weir.” 

For the next hour, Bakugo talked you through cutting reeds and shaping them into a W-shaped trap in the river. According to Bakugo, the V-like entrance made it easy for fish to get in, while the indented center made it hard or impossible to get out. After some (a lot) of trial and error,  you successfully trapped a huge salmon. 

“I got one!” You yelled in excitement. “I got it!” 

“Good for you,” Bakugo said. “Now take your knife and stab it.” 

“Yeah, what?” 

“Right behind the gills.” 

“Uh, right, okay.” For a few blissful seconds there, you forgot you had to kill a fish to be able to eat it. Using another reed you cut for an unsuccessful weir, you pinned the fish to the side. Wincing, you stabbed the fish’s gills, trying to ignore how it flopped around the trap. Spearing it on your knife, you hoisted it out of the water, flicking it onto the bank. 

“Oh, gross, gross, gross, gross, gross!”  You flapped your hands. Bakugo laughed at your distress. You tried to ignore how much you liked the sound. “Oh, shut up. It’s my first time.” 

He smirked and raised an eyebrow. “Your first time, huh? Glad I could walk you through it.” 

You felt yourself flush. “Oh my god!” Without thinking too much about it, you speared another fish in the trap, using your knife to fling it. The half alive fish landed smack on his chest, flopping around in a mess of falling scales and fish slime. 

He sputtered, slapping it away. He snarled, “Hey!” 

You laughed, hands resting on your thighs. “What? Now we both have dinner.” 

Catching a few more and storing them in your cooler, Bakugo taught you how to make a box-like campfire. Creating a grill with your reeds, you roasted some of the fish over the fire, picking it off with your fingers. You both sat by the river and watched the sun set. 

Not wanting your time together to end, but becoming too aware of the late hour, you said, “I should probably get back to the cabin. Not sure I could find it in the dark.” 

Bakugo shrugged. He struggled to stand up, waving you off when you tried to help him. Taking a few separate steps, he gripped a low hanging branch from a tree. With a thunderous crack, he ripped the branch off. Pulling off a few twigs, he held it under his arm as a makeshift crutch. 

“Hey,” He said, not looking at you. It sounded like he was deliberating something. “If you ever need help, I’m usually at the fire watchtower. See? You can see the roof from here. It’s about two miles that way.” He pointed over the tree line. You could just make out the top of a brown corrugated roof. 

“Sure you don’t want to take any of these back?” You asked, motioning to the cooler of fish. 

“Naw. You need all the help you can get.” 

“Hey!” As he wandered off, you yelled to him, “Watch out for the wolves!”

“There aren’t any wolves!” 

“You’ll believe me eventually!” 

~~~ 

You methodically tapped your fingers against the mug you held, letting the heat of your hot chocolate seep into your fingers. You were sitting in a folding chair just outside the cabin, bat leaning against the chair’s arm. You were snuggled up in a heavy blanket, watching the fireflies dance through the heavy trees, trying to remember consolations. 

But really, if you were being honest with yourself, you were waiting for the wolf. 

It didn’t matter if Bakugo said he wasn’t real. You knew what you saw. Maybe he had escaped from some conservation area or zoo? And he seemed used to people, so maybe he was trained? But that didn’t explain the howls you heard as you tended to the wolf’s wounds. It definitely sounded like some rival pack was hunting him down. 

It broke your heart to think of him all alone and injured out there. 

As if called by your thoughts, a round of howling rose from the depths of the forest. You jumped to your feet. The hot chocolate sloshed from your mug, burning your hand. Frantically waving your hand to ease the burn, you didn’t notice the heavy foot falls until it was too late. You turned as the thumping was right behind you. 

It felt like you were hit by a train. Your breath left you with a ‘woomp.’ Falling hard, your arms came up to wrap around what had just barrelled into you, catching it like a football. You would like to say that you were more surprised than you actually were  when your fingers dug into thick fur and bursts of dog breath panted in your face. 

“Hey there, Golden Boy,” You said, rubbing between his ears. You had decided on his name, Golden Boy, while trying to convince Bakugo of his existence. It seemed apt given his brilliant coat.  Your wolf friend yipped at you. Scrambling off, he crouched down in an attack position, growling at the trees. “Come on, bud.” You juggled your folding chair, blanket, bat, and (now empty) mug, pushing open the cabin door with your hip. The wolf backed into the cabin, eyes never leaving the tree line, lips curled into a snarl, until you closed and locked the door again. 

You took out a bowl from the cabinets. Opening a bottle of water, you filled up the bowl, placing it near the tired wolf. Crawling over on his stomach, he didn’t even lift his head as he started to lap at the water. 

“Yikes,” You said. “Rough night, huh?” You ran a hand along his back. He managed a half-hearted glare at you before deciding it wasn’t worth it and going back to his water. 

“So, you’re a wolf, right?” He ignored you, which is what you expected. But you always had a habit of talking to animals like they could talk back. “Because I met a guy today, yeah, I’m not the only person stranded out here, can you imagine, and he said there aren’t any wolves in this area. I mean, I guess you could just be a really big dog. You ever seen an Irish wolfhound? Probably taller than me. Or a Caucasian shepherd dog? I hear they used to breed those in Russia to hunt bears.

“I guess it’s kind of nice to have someone else around. Not that you’re not great company.” Could wolves roll their eyes? “Just… It can get kind of scary out here, you know? Well, probably not, you live in the woods and all. No offence and all, but this isn’t really my idea of a vacation.” 

You leaned against the wall, sitting cross-legged on your bed pallet. Golden Boy shuffled to you, resting his massive head in your lap while you checked his wound and changed the dressing. It seemed to be healing rapidly, way faster than you would have expected. 

“The truth is,” You continued. “I’m actually in hiding. There are some people who, uh, I’m pretty sure they want me dead. Maybe not me specifically. My dad made some bad choices, hey, that can be the title of my autobiography, and now I’m paying for it.” 

You felt your throat tighten up as a wave of emotion snuck up and crashed over you. You hiccuped, pressing your lips together as you tried not to cry in front of your canine audience. He looked up at you, wide, deep red eyes. Your eyes burned as tears threatened to spill out. 

Without warning, Golden Boy jerked his head up, wiping his long, wet tongue across your cheek, ineffectively wiping away your tears. You sputtered at the dog drool, breaking out into a giggle fit as he kept licking your face. 

“Okay, okay, I get it, stop already! I have a big, strong protector here to take care of me, huh?” He buried his head in your lap again. You  rubbed his ear between your fingers. “And I’ll take care of you, too. You know that, right? We’re in this together.” 

~~~

“Bakugo! I’ve come to pester you!” 

The next day, you awoke to find your wolf friend missing. You weren’t exactly sure how he managed to get out of the cabin since all the doors and windows were still securely closed, but you’d seen videos of pets doing weirder things. Maybe you should have named him Houdini. After cleaning up the cabin a little and finding a more stable storage space for the salmon you caught yesterday, a deep loneliness started gnawing at you. Stowing a tin of shortbread cookies under your arm, you set out in the direction of the river to find the watchtower Bakugo had pointed out to you yesterday. 

You finally found it about midday, only being scared to death at the possibility of getting hopelessly lost twice. You climbed up the high stairs to the box structure on top. The sides were made up of mesh screens, covered from the inside by thick curtains, you guessed so that he could keep an eye out for possible forest fires. 

“Hello? I brought an offering!” 

You heard some grumbling and banging around from inside the box. You heard a heavy lock slide open as the door cracked open. Bakugo’s ruby eyes met yours and you felt a pang of worry for your Golden Boy. 

“An offering, huh?” Smiling, you held up the tin. “Fine. I guess that’s a good enough reason to bug me.” 

You practically skipped inside. Bakugo pulled at the curtains causing them to zip up and spin on their rollers. The room was cluttered, which you mostly expected from going over to your bachelor friend’s houses. What you didn’t expect was exactly how it was cluttered. It wasn’t like clothes had been dropped on the floor and forgotten, a pile of dirty dishes and overflowing trash. The reality was more chaotic, like someone had turned over the place robbing it. Papers about the geography, flora, and fauna of the forest were strewn on every flat surface. The cot bed was stripped bare, looking like it hadn’t been slept in in days. There was a tall stack of books stacked on a table next to a wooden folding chair half pushed under a desk. A cork board was above the desk, red string connecting bits of cut-out newspaper articles, Polaroid photos, sticky notes with chicken-scratch handwriting, and marked-up calandras. 

Bakugo half-heartedly picked up a shirt from the ground. “Wasn’t really expecting company.” 

You shrugged. “You a big reader?” 

You set the cookie tin down, picking up one of the books. Its pages were marked with various colored tabs. Flipping through the pages, you saw blocks of text that had been highlighted. The book fell open to reveal a copy of a wood-cut illustration of a large man with a wolf head. His snout was pointed to the sky, jaw open in mid-howl. In his meaty hands, tipped with razor sharp claws, he cradled a woman in some medieval German peasant dress. Her head was fallen back, eyes rolled back in her head, a blood stain spreading across her neck and chest. In the background, a mass of angry villagers marched forward, armed with the standard torches and pitchforks. A bone white full moon hung overhead. 

Bakugo snapped the book closed in your hands. “Didn’t your parents teach you not to snoop through people's stuff?” 

“I wasn’t snooping,” You said defensively. “And just so you know, no, they didn’t. My folks weren’t exactly the etiquette type.” 

“Clearly.” 

“Hey!” 

He smirked at you, prying open the cookie tin and munching on a piece of shortbread. You sat down in the folding chair, looking down dubiously when it creaked under you. 

“So, how does a guy get a gig hanging out in the middle of the woods, anyway?” 

“How do you?” 

You pressed your lips, trying not to let Bakugo feel the sudden drop in your mood. You blinded him with a smile. “Maybe I just really like bird-watching.” 

“Sure. Bird-watching.” 

You swallowed a lump in your throat. Standing, you turned away and looked out the messy windows, taking in the acres upon acres of unspoiled wilderness. “Wow, you can see for forever up here.” Squinting, you saw the dip in trees around your cabin, the red roof just barely visible. “Hey, that’s my place!” You looked over your shoulder at him and winked. “You’re not spying on me, are you?” 

He popped in another cookie, wolfing it down in one bite. “You wish.” 

You hummed, looking back out over the trees. “Can you..” You trailed off. “Can you see if people come into the woods?” 

He came over to stand next to you, hiding the tin in the crook of his arm. “I don’t get records of who comes in or out, if that’s what you mean. That’s for the rangers at the front gates. I see campfires, sometimes. Need to make sure they don’t get out of control.” 

“And if someone, or, like, a group, maybe, was trying to sneak in? Like, not going through the front gates so there was no record of them being here?” 

He paused mid-bite and looked at you sideways. “You’re hiding.” 

You mock-laughed. “What? No, no. Of course I’m not hiding. Why would I be hiding?” 

“(Y/N),” He cut you off. He moved his head so you were forced to look directly into his ruby-red eyes. 

You crossed your arms and looked away. “I’m not supposed to talk about it.” 

He leaned back. “That’s okay. But, hey, we can look out for each other, yeah?” He curled his biceps, flexing his muscles. “Besides, you got a big, strong protector here, don’t ya? You don’t have anything to worry about.” 

“Big, strong protector, huh?” You echoed. 

He leaned closer, eyes half lidded. His tongue darted out to wet his lips. “Yeah.” 

You suddenly became away of how close you two were standing, how you could smell the remnants of the sweet cookies on his breath, about how soft his hair looked and thinking about what it might be like to run your hand through it, about how his muscles looked when he flexed them. 

You blinked hard, jerking yourself out of this impromptu daydream. You felt the tips of your ears burn as your face flushed. 

“The wolf came back last night,” You blurted. 

His eyebrows furrowed, mouth falling from a sultry smirk to a frustrated frown. “He did, huh?” 

“Yup! I named him, even. Golden Boy. Cause his fur is this really pretty yellow, you know? Kind of like your hair, but less shaggy.” Before you could stop yourself, you reached up and messed his bed-head. Good god, it was just as soft as you thought. 

He pulled away, scrunching his nose and fixing his hair. “Th-that’s stupid. Why would I look like some dog?” 

“So you admit he’s real?” 

“I said dog, not wolf. His owner probably just dropped him off in the woods somewhere. It’s sad, but it happens. Sounds like he’s doing alright for himself.” 

“I wouldn’t say that exactly.” You leaned on your elbows. “Every night he’s come to my cabin he’s been pretty beat up. Could another animal be targeting him? A bear or another wolf - sorry, abandoned dog?” 

Bakugo looked away, scratching the back of his neck. “I mean, maybe. There’s a lot of dangerous creatures out in those woods.” His voice dropped low. “A lot of dangerous creatures.” 

You looked over at the stack of books, the one with the werewolf illustration placed haphazardly on the top. “Like werewolves?” You joked. 

He didn’t answer you. 

~~~

“Buckle up, Golden Boy, we are going on a field trip.” 

It was night again a few days later. You’d spent almost two weeks in the woods by this point. Your days were mostly spent hanging out with Bakugo in the fire watch tower or hiking through the forest with him. He’d given you a blank mole-skin notebook. You’d started sketching and labeling plants and animals you saw on your hikes with him. He’d ramble off information he’d learned from preparing for this job. While your drawing skills needed some improvement, you liked the calm, methodical motions and scratch of pen on paper, taking note of the tiny details that made one plant safe to eat and different from the poisonous one. 

Your nights were spent with Golden Boy. His wound had long since cleared up, surprisingly fast, but don’t look a gift horse in the mouth and all. You weren’t exactly sure why he kept coming to you at night. He obviously didn’t need any help finding food. Maybe he felt safer with you behind protective walls? A few times, you thought you saw reflective eyes in the depths of the trees, watching as you let Golden Boy inside the cabin as the moon rose. Or maybe he really did used to be someone’s pet and just felt lonely abandoned out here. He’d always be gone by the time you woke up, no matter how many times you’d fallen asleep leaning against him or curled under your arm. 

You’d also  kept arguing his existence to your hot-headed friend. Tonight, you finally decided to prove yourself right. You were going to bring your proof right to his front door. 

“Come on,” You said, clapping your hands at the wolf lounging by the fire. “You’re going to help me rub some sweet ‘I told you so’ in a cute guy’s face.” He raised his head at you, giving you a look you had come to read from his doggy face. “What? He is. Or maybe I’ve just been stranded in the woods for too long.” You shrugged. Golden Boy let out his ‘you’re ridiculous’ puff of air noise and flopped over so the fire could warm his belly. You took two quick steps forward and rubbed your hand over his belly, it sinking into the thick fur. He let out a surprised yip and curled up, nipping at your hand before licking it and resigning himself to your attention. 

You laughed, heading back to the door. “Come on! I haven’t gone hiking at night before. Think of all the cool nocturnal animals I can record in my journal. And I need my bodyguard, right? It’ll be fun-“ 

You cut yourself off. You opened the door, freezing as you came face-to-face with a fist, poised to knock. Looking past the fist, your throat went dry, heart dropping into your stomach, head going fuzzy. A man stood there in an expensive looking suit. He looked a little surprised, then flashed a wide used-car-salesman smile. One of his teeth was golden. You could see scars criss-crossing his knuckles and up one of his cheeks. His hair was practically a helmet with all the pomade in it. 

“Well, hello there!” He said, chipper. That somehow made it worse. “I don’t suppose you’re (Y/N) (L/N), are you?” 

The door blurred as you slammed it shut. Just before it closed, the man stopped it with his hands, which now seemed way too large and strong. You tried pushing it closed, but your muscles, even flooded with the adrenaline shooting through your veins, were no match for his. 

You stumbled backward as he threw the door open. You saw several more equally if not more menacing men behind him. One was rolling up his sleeves, one checking the knuckle-dusters shining on his hands, one methodically fiddling with the safety on a gun. 

You backed away, stopping when the back of your calves nudged into Golden Boy, who was now standing, a low growl emanating from his throat. 

“Hey there, pup,” The smiling man said. He leaned down, rubbing his fingers together to encourage Golden Boy to come forward. Your wolf just snapped his fangs. “Aw, well. You hate hurting animals, but sometimes it’s just a hazard of the job.” He drew out a long hunting knife from a sheath shoved in his belt loop. It glistened in the fire light. 

You were going to throw up. 

“I don’t know anything,” You said, hating the waver in your voice. How could you have become so comfortable, so careless? Where the hell was your bat? “I don’t know where my dad is, I don’t know where your money is. I don’t know anything, I promise.” Tears were blurring your vision, stinging the back of your eyes. 

“I’m sure you don’t, sweetheart,” He said. The other men crowded in through the door. The cabin suddenly felt ten times smaller. “But, you know, loose ends.” 

Yellow blurred in your vision. Golden Boy flashed in front of you, powerful jaws clamping down on the man’s knife hand. He yowled in pain and shock, the knife clattering to the floor. The other men were stunned for a moment before lunging forward. One hit Golden Boy hard on the back of his head, another grabbing his back legs and yanking hard. Golden Boy kept his death-grip, red oozing from his mouth. 

You scrambled backward, head whipping around to look for your bat. It now felt woefully useless. There, cast off in a corner. You’d been using it to dry dish towels. 

It felt like 100 pounds in your hands. 

You heard an unsettling thump followed by a yelp. Whipping around, you saw the man had managed to dislodge Golden Boy, throwing him against the wall. You cried a broken noise. You felt a hand grab the scruff of your neck. You jammed the bat behind you, connecting with the soft bulge of the man’s stomach. He “oof”ed and his grip loosened. You flung yourself forward, landing hard on your knees, and scrambled up. The door was wide open, the men temporarily distracted. You didn’t think twice. 

You shot up, sliding like a baseball player going to home plate in front of Golden Boy. You held your bat in front of you like Excalibur itself. 

“Don’t you fucking touch my dog!” You’d never said anything with such venom in your voice, but you still didn’t feel like it was enough to appropriately express your rage. Golden Boy shook his head, getting back to his feet. He stood by your side, head lowered between his shoulders, baring his teeth stained with blood. 

The smiling man, who was now scowling in disgust, wrapped his bleeding hand with a way too expensive handkerchief. “God, typical. I hate dogs. Let’s hurry up and finish this.” 

The one with the gun raised it, pointing it right between your eyes. You stood fast, gripping the bat so hard your hands were turning white. 

You wanted to see Bakugo. It hit you like lightening that that was who was coming to your mind. You wanted to say something to him, an explanation of why you wouldn’t wake him up tomorrow morning. You wanted to make him promise he would take care of Golden Boy, after making him admit that you were right about the wolves. You wanted to hug him, to go on a walk someplace other than the woods, you wanted to cook a real meal in a real kitchen with him, you wanted to wake up in the morning with him at your side, Golden Boy at your feet. 

You wanted so many things you knew you wouldn’t be getting. So you had to focus on what you could get. You wanted Golden Boy to get out of here, to be safe. And by hell or high water, you were going to do that. 

You swung the bat back, aiming for the gunman’s wrist. You would knock the gun out of his hand, grab Golden Boy, kick him if you had to, get him out the door to get a head start. You’d probably get shot in the back doing it, but maybe the loud noise would startle him into running away. As long as he was safe, what else mattered? 

One second you were staring down the barrel of a loaded gun, making peace with yourself. The next, the gun was gone, and so was the man. Blinking, you looked around to see where he had disappeared to. The other men, equally baffled, didn’t have time to react as they were tackled to the ground along with their firearm friend. 

Golden Boy was in front of you, pushing you back by leaning his weight against your legs. You watched as your tiny cabin filled with giant wolves, gray, red, black, brown, all with flashing fangs and claws. One man with a knife reared up, pulling his arm back to throw the knife at you. Materializing out of thin air, a new man, one you hadn’t seen before, appeared behind him, catching the first in a headlock and pulling him down until he went limp in a choked-out sleep. 

The new man snarled, whipping his head around to stare right into your soul. And he was naked. How did you not notice that? The man looked like he threw full grown trees around for fun, and cut them down for work. Every inch of skin, and there was a lot of skin, had some scar tissue or mark indicating a life of hard-scraps. 

His eyes snapped down to Golden Boy, still setting himself firmly between you and the raucous crowd. The man jerked his head to the open door. “Wait outside,” He said, voice unbelievably gruff and low. “We’ll take care of this.” 

“Okay?” You said, voice loose. You felt like you were going to faint. You grounded yourself with a tug on your sleeve. Looking down, you saw Golden Boy, his teeth gently closed around your sleeve. He somehow managed to avoid looking at you, pulling you on unsteady feet out in the cool night air. He kicked the door shut with his hide leg as soon as you were out. 

All of your energy left you at once. You slumped against a tree, forehead leaning on your knees and blood rushing back into your hands as you dropped your bat. You sat there, still save for the involuntary tremors that racked your body, for who knows how long. 

You heard a quiet whimper. Peeking your eyes through your fingers, you saw Golden Boy. He was pacing, eyes downcast and tail tucked between his legs. He was limping a little, his old wound bothered in no small part due to being bodily thrown against the wall. 

“Hey,” You said softly. He jerked to a stop and looked up at you, bringing his eyes back down in a guilty expression. “It’s okay. Come here.” You held your hands out, palms up and fingers splayed. He trotted over to you, resting his enormous head in your hands and laying down, his chest pressing on your legs. You buried your face in the thick fur on the back of his neck. “It’s okay. We’re okay.” 

When the cabin door creaked open, panic seized your adrenaline abandoned muscles. Your hand shot to the bat, its strange weight now frighteningly familiar. Golden Boy barely stirred in your lap, only lazily opening his eyes and shifting closer to you as if hiding from some sort of punishment. 

The burly man stepped out first, still naked, you (unfortunately) noticed. He had two yakuza members with him, one slung over each shoulder, limp and unmoving. Next came three huge wolves, one of them walking backward while pulling along another gang member by the cuff of his pants. A woman came out with him, also naked, with the longest hair you had ever seen, similarly scuffed and scraped as the first man. She was followed by two more wolves. The strange group dumped the bodies of your attackers in a haphazard pile near the tree line. Were they dead? You couldn’t tell. God, which option was better? 

The man stretched, thick cords of muscle rippling under his skin. He sighed, like a tired parent, and turned to you. You cut your gaze away quickly, making sure to keep your eyes above a certain level. 

“Are you badly hurt?” His voice was the same low rumble of an earthquake. 

“Um, no. I-I think we’re okay. Thank you.” 

He hummed, rolling his shoulders. “No thanks necessary. We stand for our own, no matter the pack.” 

“I’m sorry, pack?” You asked, voice squeaking. Your brain was working overtime to process everything. 

“Hmph.” The man looked disappointed but not surprised. He nudged Golden Boy with his foot. The wolf whined again, turning his head away. “You still can’t shift on command? How are you meant to lead your pack when you can’t do the most basic things?” Golden Boy whined and grumbled. 

“I-what? What does any of this have to do with my dog?” You wrapped your arms protectively around him. 

The man quirked an eyebrow. “A wolf without a pack is a dangerous thing. A lone creature who can’t even control his own body needs to be culled. Now that he has found a pack, he has a greater responsibility. He’s part of a whole, not only himself.” 

“Hang on-” You tried to stand up only for Golden Boy to shove his weight down on you harder. “Were you the ones hurting Golden Boy? What’s the matter with you? Why would you hurt an animal? And, sorry, but why are you naked? I tried not to say anything but it’s kind of bothering me a lot.” 

The man stared you down, looking back to your wolf. “You didn’t tell her anything?” Golden Boy whined. The man sighed. “This will be more difficult than I thought. Our pack must move. We’ve completed our duty.We’ll deal with this… refuse.” He looked at the unconscious yakuza. He nudged Golden Boy again. “Take care of this one. He has a lot to learn.” 

The man turned, a yell building in your throat. In front of your eyes, he shifted, skin sprouting silver gray hair. You heard the pop of bones as the man seemed to fall over, but you quickly realized his entire body structure had changed. Where a person had once stood, a wolf walked. The woman from before was also gone, now just the group of wolves. The gray wolf looked back at you, nodding once, before raising up a howl with the rest of his pack. 

When you finally managed to feel your heartbeat slow to a non-life-threatening level, you looked down. “Alright, we have a lot to talk about, because apparently you can do that?” Golden Boy turned away from you. “Yeah, alright, nap first. Nap sounds good.” 

You passed out. 

~~~ 

You woke up with a headache knocking at your temples. Your mouth felt thick with cotton. You felt warm, gradually taking note of the blanket that had been carefully draped over you. Blearily opening your eyes, you watched dust motes float through shafts of light that filtered through the curtains on your cabin windows. You must have forgotten to dose the fire before you went to bed. It was still crackling in the fireplace. 

“Golden Boy?” You said, voice craggy. Why were you still wearing your day clothes? “Yout there, bud?” 

A knuckle rapped gently on your forehead. “Exactly how hard did you hit your head?” 

You shot up, immediately regretting it as pain flared up your spine to bloom in your skull. “Whoa, hey, take it easy.” A pair of hands steadied your shoulders, helping you sit up. 

You blinked hard, looking up into now familiar red eyes. “Bakugo?” 

He looked away, rubbing the back of his neck. “You can call me Katsuki now, you know. I think we’re close enough, after everything.” 

“Everything-? Oh. Oh! Oh my god!” You tried to jump up, knees giving out underneath you. Your limbs felt like they were encased in lead. 

“I told you to take it easy, dumbass,” Bakugo, Katsuki, said. He caught you before you fell, helping you sit back down. He stood up, going to the stove and sliding a pancake on top of a stack, still steaming. Pulling half onto a separate plate, he came back, handing one to you.

Numbly, you took it, tearing a piece off and shoving it in your mouth. “You have pecans in here.” 

“We didn’t have any syrup, so I thought this would be a good substitute. Having pancakes on their own is kind of boring.” 

“Sure. Yeah. So.” You let it hang there, watching him avoid your eyes and much on pancakes. 

He swallowed. “So.” He ate half of another one before continuing. “I’m a werewolf.” 

You blinked. “Okay.” 

He scowled. ‘There it is,’ You thought. “‘Okay’? That’s all you have to say?” 

You shrugged. “I mean, what else am I supposed to say? I’m pretty sure a group of werewolves saved my life last night. I literally saw a guy turn into a wolf, so that checks out. I might still be in shock a little bit, to be honest. So, uh, werewolf, huh?” He scoffed, rolling his eyes and shoving another pancake in his mouth. You cracked a smile and joked, “Well, you sure eat like a dog.” He punched your shoulder. You both laughed anyway. 

“I didn’t mean for it to happen,” He said eventually. “I don’t think anyone does. I got bit by a rogue wolf. Turned pretty soon after. I’m not going to lie, I did some pretty bad stuff. I was freaked out, half out of my mind, those wolf instincts kicking in. It’s not an excuse, but… I got a job out here, thought I could isolate myself, research to see if I could find a cure or something. The pack found me almost immediately. I mean, I practically waltzed right in to their territory, so I can’t blame them. That rule they have, it’s true. A lone werewolf, someone without a pack, they’re dangerous. Unpredictable. They tried to… put me down. I usually managed to get away, but one night I made a stupid mistake. I should have died.” He looked up at you. “And then I ran in to you.” 

“And then you ran in to me.” You reached out, petting your hand through his hair. It was still soft, whether as a golden wolf or a human. “So, I’m your pack now? That’s what that guy said, the other werewolf. What does that mean, exactly?” 

He blushed, pulling apart his remaining pancakes. “A pack is like a family. They look out for each other, stand with each other. I didn’t tell them we were a pack or anything. I guess they just sort of inferred. Since, like, we’ve been spending a lot of time together, no matter what form.” 

You grinned. “They think you’re my boyfriend?”  He punched you again, with less malice this time. “Hey, I didn’t say I minded.” 

“It’s a lot,” Katsuki continued quickly, the words all rushing out as if he was afraid he wouldn’t be able to say it all. “I still don’t know a lot about all this. I always shift at night. I’m trying to get better at controlling it, but it’s hard. And it’s hard to go through all the history and stuff and pull out fact from fiction. I feel like I can’t control anything and I’m so fucking useless and I-“ 

You pressed your lips against his. Finally. His lips were chapped, and your teeth clacked together at first, but the warmth that spread through your chest made it all worth it. A plate clattered against the floor as he shifted closer to you. His hand came up to cradle the back of your head, bringing you closer. Your fingers clenched the fabric of his shirt, pulling. 

He pulled back, your breath mixing together. 

“I think I like the woods, now,” You said, softly. “It’s nice out here. Good company.” He chuckled, lowley. “And I like you. A lot. And I love dogs.”

He laughed loudly, once, before pulling you back in for another kiss.

[homestuck-headcanonymous]

dinosaurs eating people (they didn’t get to say goodbye)

a/n: this is a whole lot of angst. tw for suicide.

the moment of silence after you die, dave strider thinks, must be the loneliest moment in the world. dread has always been woven into his bones, his blood, polluting every second he had- but not like this. nothing was like this.

he remembers the day they pulled apart from the alpha timeline like it was yesterday- maybe it was. he does not know when or where or what he is in this strange too-dark-to-be-darkness, and maybe he is nothing at all. It was the littlest thing- a gear was fixed from where it had broken, something to do with a door mechanism nobody ever used- and then it was gone. shattered. like a dead butterfly’s wings in the palm of a child’s hand grasping too tight. it *hurt*, almost, the knowledge of it- like a recoil from the shotgun bro had tried to teach him to use, the one that was stuffed inside of the hall closet in the apartment he hadn’t seen in years. terezi and rose felt it too, he could tell. he’d never seen grief-and-guilt-and-pain and pure, exhausted, aching resignation mix on his sister’s face like that, and it almost made his chest tighten and sting all over again as he saw her feel the string holding them to a future draw taut and snap back on her, like the lash of a too-tight violin string breaking.

it was so quiet that day. it felt wrong, but what could he do? it was grief, in a way, but it never felt like it. it felt like the second after you drop something important on the ground and it shatters. the moment you realize that you have done something irreparable. karkat came into his room that night while he stared at the ceiling. the scent of sopor was thick around him, and he didn’t have to say why. dave knew. he understood. after all, if you’re doomed, why not try and do whatever you can to ease that pain? karkat’s shoulders were shaking, and his expression was softened and blurred with tears as red as the stained glass window of the cathedral he saw once on a bus ride. it was a portrait of jesus on the cross, bloodied and red but still resolute, still willing to die for the future of those around him. dave held karkat that night, but neither of them slept very much. karkat still smelled like home to dave, underneath the saccharine-sticky scent of slime, and when he dozed off in the irregular moments of what he thought would have been almost dawn, he thought christ was a fitting metaphor for karkat. born to die, in a way, but to save others. who was this saving? in a moment of bravery, he left the lightest of feather-soft kisses on karkat’s forehead. the troll didn’t stir from his fitful slumber. he could never understand, dave thought, what karkat was going through, but it could have never been easy.

it was so easy to fall in love like that- the space when there is nothing but you and those you care about. karkat woke late the next morning, messy-haired and sleepy-eyed in the soft light of the alchemized fairy lights, and dave strider wished that he could take a million photos, just to see the scene forever, because karkat vantas was the most beautiful sight in all of time and space like that.

“thank you, dave. for letting me stay. you know. last night. i...i think i just needed to not be alone for a little bit.”

his voice is bleary and soft, and it feels like soft rain during a houston summer. dave could listen forever.

“and i know that you’ll just say that it wasn’t a big deal, or that it was nothing, or that it didn’t matter, but it did. it meant a lot to me. so...thanks. i’m.. glad you’re here.”

karkat’s hand is cupping his cheek now, soft and gentle and so warm that he wants to lean into it like a cat being pet, and it is the kindest way anyone had ever touched him. he realizes that his shades are off, set aside to sleep. he realizes that he doesn’t care.

when dave strider kisses karkat vantas for the first time, it is knowing that the world has ended, and seeing the wild, bright unknown of whatever comes after. neither of them quite knows how, and it is awkward and new, and utterly, wonderfully, perfect.

dave’s never considered himself a romantic, but maybe, he thinks, one day, that could be changing. he knows karkat loves that stuff, and when he tries to set up a picnic for the two of them in a room without much in it, the alternian fruit salad bites him, and the candles are smoky and burn stutteringly, but seeing the way karkat’s eyes light up the room and his quiet laugh of gentle disbelief makes his heart melt in relieved affection.

dave strider is completely, utterly, head over heels in love, and he knows it.

here, now, in this space of nothing he is becoming, he wished that he had said it a million times.

they never talked about it, that much. the world ending. everything ending. *them* ending. dave wishes that they would have. it just hurt too much, in the late nights when he thought of it, karkat’s head rested on his chest and neither of them sleeping. it burned too much, to gaze into the blazing sun and face it. he knew that they were out of time, but somehow, he always thought they’d get just a little longer.

the day he died was a little like that. rose stayed in her room alone, that morning. he heard kanaya knocking at her door softly, and he saw the wine-red blood and the blood-red wine spilling across the metal floor when kanaya entered, soaking into the rug that rose had spent weeks crocheting, the colours of lavenders and sunshine and stormy skies in soft woolen doily-patterns. he heard quiet whispers of “no no no no please no” filling his ears and it was only as he fell to his knees, his sister’s blood smudging his face, that he realized that they were coming from him. kanaya was curling into herself shaking like a leaf in the breeze, and dave wanted to too. it was like a gnawing hollowness, the denial of something right in front of you, of watching a chunk of your sliced-off heart bleed to empty on the ground. it was the beginning of the end. or maybe it was the end of it. when he saw karkat coming out of the winding hall where terezi’s room was, teal soaking his skin up to the elbows, he knew too. the instant dave touched karkat’s shoulder, all the comfort he could think to give, it was like the troll shattered, falling to the ground.

“’rezi...i..i tried so hard to save her....but i was too late....the blood....there was so much blood...”

dave doesn’t know what to say, really. what to do. how do you comfort someone when the world is ending? he drops to his knees and wraps his arms around karkat’s shoulders, as though he can hold him tight enough to turn back time. he wishes he could. just to stay like this for a few more moments.

they hold each other like that for a while. neither of them have the energy to spare for tears, but they grieve together. it is quiet. and for a moment, it feels like someday, everything will be okay. when dave looks out the window, he sees the collision course they follow. cleanup for heroes doomed to die. he knows that there will not be a someday. not for them. when he goes back up to rose’s room to invite kanaya down for coffee of a late breakfast, or anything to not make her stay alone, the door is just ajar, and her sewing kit- the one she always kept in her pocket, the one she loved so much- with the ivy-patterned canvas and the vintage scissors and the tiny little star sketchbook for design ideas- is strewn across the hall, pins and needles and spools of thread scattered and thrown everywhere. the scissors are gone- he remembers, distantly, how they had been a present to her from rose- how he’d walk out of his room in the middle of the night and find her still trying to alchemize what she wanted. how relieved rose had looked behind her tired eyes on kanaya’s wriggling day party, when her eyes lit up at the delicate embroidery scissors, with their little brass handles carved like lace with tiny roses. it had been a happy day. a few months before the split. he does not need to look, now, to know where the scissors have gone. he notices the jade-green blood, half-iridescent, soaking into his shoe far too late, and it makes him feel sick to his stomach.

dave goes back to his room. he grabs one of the jugs of bleach from the cleaning supplies cabinet they never really ended up using. idly, he wonders what they could have used all the time they wasted on them for. how many days could he have spent with the people he loved? what could have happened in those days falling from the timeline? he wants to hit something with the injustice of it all, punch and kick and scream and cry, because how could he have been so stupid? to have wasted the hours he doesn’t get anymore because he lost them?

it’s his turn, now. he knows it.

karkat is waiting inside his room, the quilt kanaya made for him as a christmas present reddened and damp where his tears have fallen. in a moment, karkat wraps his arms around dave’s neck, clinging onto him. dave wraps his arms around him too, and buries his head in karkat’s shoulder. he still smells like home to dave, and it makes dave feel like his chest is collapsing in on itself, concaved to less than a hollow space. the jug of bleach is set on the ground for a moment. it is not forgotten.

karkat sees it when he lets go. dave knows he knows in a split second.

“dave, you...this is some sick joke, right? some sick fucking joke? you can’t be..not you too, right?”

karkat sounds desperate, devastated- and dave strider has never hated himself for doing something more in his life.

but he still cannot stay.

he steels himself with the same determination, the same icy chill he was raised to have. a strider man hurts people for their own good, a million times those words were blazed into his ears while he lay bloody on a rooftop ringing again.

“go away, vantas. i need to do this. it doesn’t concern you.”

he sounds like *him*- like bro- and it almost makes dave flinch back on instinct- reach for a sword and glance around and brace for the impact of a sword against his skin.

karkat’s eyes are filling with tears again, and the impact of it hurts more than any strife ever could have.

“doesn’t *concern* me? dave, what the fuck are you talking about? i *love* you! you don’t need to do this. please,- god, just....*please*, don’t leave me alone here. please, don’t leave me *alone*.”

dave freezes for a second. karkat stares back. the last card has been played. it is a second too long.

“god, y’know what! *fine*!! i guess i *can’t* fucking stop you! because *apparently* wanting the guy you thought was your fucking *soulmate* to not spend his last fucking moments alive with you chugging off-brand human clorox is an unreasonable fucking request! maybe....maybe you just didn’t give as much of a shit about me as i did about you! maybe i was a braindead fucking dumbass to think that you ever even loved me enough to give a shit about what i think!!”

karkat slams the door behind him when he leaves. dave slides to the ground, his back against it. he can hear karkat crying, now- his momentary desperate anger flickered out to nothing but loss and loneliness. dave’s guilt feels almost physical, now- like hot wax melted onto his skin that won’t let go. his hands are shaking. he realizes that his shades have fallen off, and that he must have stepped on them without noticing. one lens is cracked, the other shattered- the frame is twisted beyond repair. the jug is heavy- but not too much. his arms shaking, he slowly lifts it to his mouth. time is running out.

in the end, dave strider doesn’t need to kill himself. in the moment the bleach touches his tongue, searing it, the meteor crashes into another, shattering apart. the impact kills them all. there are no survivors. there is nobody left to remember them.

and now, dave strider is here. there is nothing. it is dark. *he* is nothing. the last thought he has before all he was is no more is that he just wishes that the people he loved did not die thinking that they were alone. that karkat did not die thinking he was alone. that he could have gotten just one last chance to say goodbye. it is what he has been thinking all along. it never comes true.

[roodllle]

Year in Review - Animal Crossing New Horizons

I started writing this review/criticism in May of 2020 but decided to update it as the year went along and post it on the anniversary of NH’s release. I would like to preface that this is mostly going to be full of questions of criticisms, I love this game. I have not been able to put it down since I got it on March 20th. My first AC game was NL and then I played HHD. I was ecstatic when they announced NH at E3 2019 and kept trying to find other games to fit in my AC shaped hole in my heart but I wasn’t able to fill it till this game came out. I feel like the pace of the game is great with how you build up to unlocking terraforming and 5 stars, and I feel like the updates are well timed especially with how crazy 2020 was for everybody. That being said there were some things that irked me. 

Some of the points I will bring up came from other people/commenters I have seen on here, Discord, Reddit, and Twitter that I also agree with. Some other points are from Youtubers such as ShayMay and ChuyPlays. And others are from me. 

With that out of the way, let’s get on with the review. Warning, I guess, don’t expect this to be an essay, this is just a patchwork quilt made up of thoughts.

Terraforming

I wish cliffs/tiers had a smaller level? Like how we’re able to make stepping stones for our rivers if we don’t want to put a bridge down/use our vaulting pole. I just wish there was a cliff alternative. 

Another cliff alternative would be if we could put bridges between cliffs. I think we’ve all been there where we see this picture 

          thought ‘we can do that!!” then realized it was photoshopped

When we go into terraforming, I wish a grid showed up on our island. It would make it much easier to avoid hitting the wrong square when I’m trying to change a river. 

Having us be able to “close” a waterfall from a lower level but not create a new on at the same spot. 

Also the fact we can add a 4th tier but can’t put anything on it is just strange to me. I know we have to have a limit to how high we can go, but at least let me put nature stuff, such as trees/flowers/bushes, on top of it instead of just a flat piece of land. 

Houses

Why no ceiling items? Find it odd they added a bunch of stuff in HHD and didn’t add that to the new mainline game

There’s no reason I can think of to why we can’t access our storage when we’re crafting inside our house. 

Buildings

Dodo Airlines

The Dodo Islands right now are very boring and barely use them. I have enough money and materials to not go farming and save up all my NMTs for when I go villager hunting, which has also become a rarity. I think it would be a good idea to make some islands seasoned themed. Have them be all rare, but have an island where it’s fall and has maple leaves falling, a cherry blossom one, one with snowflakes. I wouldn’t recommend they make Holiday themed ones, but having seasonal ones would be nice.

When I mess up a dodo code or accidentally hit ‘make a bridge’ instead of incline, etc. why do I have to restart the ENTIRE conversation instead of the characters just being “oh? did you mean “x” or “would you like to retype it?” like is it that hard??  

Resident Services

As much as I love Isabelle this game has made me very indifferent towards her. I think they gave her a role that didn’t need to exist. They could have either let us roam around without any warnings to who was roaming around our island, in the campsite, or any weather updates. Just have us rely on our villagers, the TV, and our eyeballs. OR they could have given us a social media like app and/or a weather app. Instead, they gave us Isabelle that only announces something once a month.

Nook’s Cranny

This might just be me but can they add a little DIY area in the store? Maybe just make to where you can only customize things?? This is more out of convenience than an actual problem  

Speaking of customization, since you can make medicine but also buy can we do the same for the custom kits and bait. Like make it where we can buy bait and also make our own custom kits? I just think it’s weird that they give us either/or for medicine but not for the other 2 that I honestly use way more than medicine.

Why do the Able Sisters get to have all of the colors of an item in their shop but Nook’s Cranny can’t? And why can’t we just be able to customize all items that have multiple looks/colors? Example, why can’t I just be able to change the wood type for the antique set instead of having to buy each one? I get that the furniture catalog is already small, but that’s not my fault. They’ve decided to not add past furniture sets into NH. 

Able Sisters

Let us multi select clothes instead of it just being how much we can wear. idc if it’ll just put those clothes in our personal storage and then we’ll have to run home and put it in that storage, I just hate having to walk back in and out every time I want a dress in multi colors. ALSO tell us if we already bought it, like a little storage icon or something

Why can’t we hang any article of clothing on the back wall, why do we have to either make it or have the OG qr designer come to our island? 

Why can’t we have the transparent option when designing clothes? I think it would make many designer’s lives easier instead of having to make 8 versions of the same outfit.

NPCs

I have played this game almost every day since it came out, minus 2 days. I have also been able to make friends on discord that help with trading/cataloging/etc. I have all of Saharah’s, Kicks’, Label’s, and Redd’s items. I have all of the fish/bug models I want and have no desire to “catch them all”. I haven’t talked to Wisp in months because I have most of the items and his idea of “expensive” is 10k bells. The only NPC I actively look forward to is Celeste because even though I now have all of her DIYs, she still gives out star fragments, regular large or horoscope, when I talk to her. 

What I’m wondering is if they’re planning on doing anything else with these characters. Before I speak further I’m going to weed out characters that I am actually fine with. CJ and Flick will always be there if I want a bug/fish model, I understand that Saharah/Kicks/Redd have a ton of stuff to get and w/o the help of my discord friends, I probably wouldn’t have gotten everything till late 2021. 

So that leaves Label and Wisp. I understand Wisp is there for beginners, but now that I’m at a point where I am a bell millionaire and have most of the Nook’s items cataloged, there is no reason for me to talk to him. I wish Nintendo had put in a system where depending on the person who Wisp is talking to, it determines how much money you have in your bank account/looks at your catalog, Wisp’s item’s worth goes up.

As for Label...I never saw her as viable. I also thought the tickets were dumb and you don’t even have to talk to her to have her items show up in the shop the next day. I think it would be great if when you bought all of her items, she decided to join the Able’s sisters in their shop like in NL and then have Gracie show up in her place for the weekly NPC. 

Where is Blanca? Or Brewster? Or Shrunk, Katrina, Gracie, or Kapp’n and his family? I understand we will probably never see characters like Harriet or Pete because they have been replaced by a new system, but what is the excuse for these other characters? I’m hoping they show up in year 2 of NH but...we’ll see.

Villagers

I think having your first villagers living in basic homes is a good idea but one that quickly gets annoying. I found Sherb while villager hunting for the 1st time and have had him ever since, but his house is stuck at basic lazy setup. Instead of me going back and forth on whether or not i should trust somebody enough to hold Sherb, get somebody else out, then get him to move back to my island, You can have it to where you let them leave, then just wait till he comes to the campsite to visit and reinvite him. You get his actual house and he still remembers you. This could also go for you accidentally letting somebody go or letting somebody go then regretting it. Also it’d be fun to see some old villagers again.

I was curious and looked back on past games to see how many new villagers were released each game and NH has been the least amount. NL released 112 new villagers in total while NH has released 8. I’m hoping they might release more down the line but, hella disappointing imo. Along with the Sanrio update and adding those characters to the game, I am more hopeful that they’ll be adding new characters!

Having an “event” of sorts where you visit a villager’s house and they’re looking inside their closet. They look at you in surprise when you walk in and sheepishly explain that they were going through their clothes/items. They then decide to ask you for help since they can’t decide what to get rid of/what to keep and think you have a good eye for that sort of thing. Basically, a way to get rid of any clothes/items your villager somehow received bc I guess Isabelle scolding them isn’t enough.

A big problem I feel like everybody has is the villager dialogue. Yes they added sub personality types for each personality but they are not perfectly cut in half, ex. are the Sisterly types where there are 4 B types and 20 A types, like?? How I have “fixed” this problem is by having one of each personality type on my island so I always have different conversations with my villagers, but I understand not a lot of people do that. Some people just want normal/peppy types on their island bc they’re cute as hell, I get it. I know it would be...difficult to come up with unique dialogue for all 399 villagers, including Sanrio, but....you could at least for the “gimmicky” villagers. Some examples of these villagers are Ribbot and Sprocket, Lucky and Ankha, the super hero squad, and Kabuki. 

Quality Life stuff

Why cant we sit AND wish on stars? And I don’t mean the sit emote; why can’t I sit on a bench and wish on stars?

It sucks when I’m about to hit my rocks or just do a lot of dig work and then my shovel breaks in the middle of it. To show the tool is about to break, cracks should start to form on the handle and get deeper/longer as you keep using it, starting when you have 5 uses left. You can also add an auditory element by making the tool sound like its struggling when you are using it. Net/Shovel/Axe/Fishing Pole can have cracks show up on the handle, Slingshot can have crack show up at the bottom of the 2 spokes while having 1 at the top of the handle. And the watering can have cracks at the base of the can.

If our inventory is full when I dig up a flower, why can’t I replace it with another flower to bury? And if I can dig up an item at an diagonal item, I should be able to bury it again at the same angle.

Other

Having more...liveliness?? on the island, idk how else to say it. Example is whenever you travel by plane there's a chemtrail in the sky afterwards, maybe just seeing other planes go by throughout the day. Maybe you can get a hint Redd or Gulliver will be visiting you tomorrow if you see their boats beyond the horizon, Redd’s just crusin’ and the Gulls’ boats looking messed up. On a week where you don't have a new camper, maybe have an old villager visit. That leads me too

I wish villager’s doors could count as “exterior decorating” and we can just put any ornamental on there instead having to hope that your villager will put the wreath on their own door. 

Conclusion

If you read this whole thing holy shit, thanks!! Go treat yourself on my part lol If you disagreed with me or whatever feel free to chat with me about it!