#this post turned out oddly more serious than intended

[ominoose]

𝐌𝐢𝐬𝐜 𝐌𝐨𝐨𝐧 𝐊𝐧𝐢𝐠𝐡𝐭 𝐒𝐲𝐬𝐭𝐞𝐦 𝐇𝐂'𝐬

Character(s): Steven Grant, Marc Spector, Jake Lockley Summary: Not x reader, just random silly thoughts about the lads. Kinda summer themed. They're still in London. This came out more British than intended. Warnings: None

𝐒𝐭𝐞𝐯𝐞𝐧 𝐆𝐫𝐚𝐧𝐭

Now that he's not constantly tired and getting two hours of sleep every fifth night if he's lucky, the Brit goes between quiet moments with a book on the couch to hyperactive spiels with no warning.

The newfound energy also takes his sass and mischief to the next level. If Marc or Jake (usually Marc, Jake's too scared) piss him off he will not drop it. For days Steven will slyly bring it up, make offhand remarks or fully kick up the argument again. It's never serious, he's still the one to step in if the other two are at arms, but Steven is no pacifist. "Y'know I just bought all these ingredients to make a lovely homecooked dinner with enough leftovers for Jake's taxi shifts and Marc's workouts... But-" "Steven please, we're starving, come on." "Since my cooking apparently tastes like a grannies garden!" "Por favor, I didn't even say it, Marc did-" "But you didn't disagree bruv!"

Takes Eurovision seriously. He made a point of not watching the BBC broadcast this year, although he's kept tabs on it through other websites. He's still not over last year. Jake tried to look into it and made a small comment about listening to the winner, commenting on Sweden's contestant being good. Steven went on a rant for a good twenty minutes about how it was rigged before Jake learned this was a lot more than a friendly song contest.

Whines when its hot out and forces Marc or Jake to front outside. Then forces them to buy a Mr Whippy for him to front and eat.

𝐌𝐚𝐫𝐜 𝐒𝐩𝐞𝐜𝐭𝐨𝐫

Gets really into British football. It started with hearing chants and noises outside on match days, the comradery and stupid sing-songs from fans in matching team colours bringing him a sense of nostalgia. He's still a diehard cubs fan, but going to the local pub to watch the match, getting a healthy outlet to yell and bang a table amidst others oddly suited him. Steven's just glad he's socializing.

Secretly folds up Stevens more "colourful" shirts and hides them.

Loves British chocolate, hates British crisps. He see's a packet of pickled onion Monster Munch and physically cringes away.

While Steven fronted and browsed through a charity shop, Marc spotted an old ds, just like one he had as a kid. The Brit could physically feel him eye it up from the inside and bought it. Now Marcs post-workout routine includes playing Pokemon.

Marc gets visibly sad and sighs whenever they phone in pizza because its never like the ones back home in Chicago.

Loves a greggs sausage roll.

𝐉𝐚𝐤𝐞 𝐋𝐨𝐜𝐤𝐥𝐞𝐲

Half the reason the other two found out about him was when the old lady that Steven scared off in the elevator to the point she avoided them like the plague suddenly smiled and offered them tea. Turns out Jake had been helping her carry the shopping back to the flat when they bumped into each other. Their odd tea and biscuit afternoons helped Jake keep tabs on the boys.

Naps in front of the telly, usually to some reality tv like Eastenders, snoring away. The moment Steven or Marc slowly try to control the arm holding the remote he jerks away, pulling it to his chest and telling them off because he's still "watching" it.

Knows Marc folds and hides Stevens shirts that he hates. He puts them at the top of the pile just before Steven fronts. Marc has no clue and it drives him nuts.

His favourite passengers to pick up are drunk women. They're always either very funny or tell the most downright devious gossip, never afraid to openly include him in it too.

Made a solemn vow to himself that if he ever drove past Rishi Sunak he'd egg him.

Since he prefers night-shifts, the cat distribution system seemed to give him an 90% chance of meeting kittens on the street. If he has a passenger when he spots the little critter he'll make a mental note to return after drop off, Jake Lockley will not pass a chance at checking up on and cradling a gatita. Marcs learnt to be somewhat present during these shifts to stop Jake sneaking home with several kittens in his coat.

[astranite]

Love is Stored in the Pasta

Scott, John and pasta.

This started off from a tumblr post 'cause somebody needed to cook that guy some pasta!!

Fluff, Hurt/Comfort, really very mild scott is hangrysad, ft john's space issues, Chronic Illness, as thats what im treating it as and its not the focus here he's just living with it, Scott Tracy has ADHD, this is important, Autistic John Tracy, lowkey here but also Important to me, this is fun and fluffy and i love them, i hope this is like a warm comforting bowl of pasta to you too

---

“We need to talk,” John said.

On the other side of the call, Scott’s hologram slumped over his desk, his head landing in his hands. “Oh God.”

“I found your search history…” John began.

Scott peered out sheepishly from behind his fingers. “I can explain!”

“It’s just pages and pages of pasta?” 

John was puzzled, honestly. Five to ten recipe blogs and that was Scott trying to decide what to make for dinner during a meeting or while he was struggling to concentrate on work. During lulls between callouts, he and John would sometimes debate options together. More than forty separate sites visited at 3:12pm on a Tuesday afternoon and Eos had flagged it for John, on suspicion that Scott’s computer had been hacked by a malicious entity or some other AI virus.

Scott went from double facepalm of despair to full on faceplant, his head hitting the desk with an audible thunk.

“Why so much pasta?” John questioned. Now his curiosity was piqued, he couldn’t let it go or he’d be doing EVA work later, still turning over possibilities in his mind, which wasn’t conducive to the constant concentration needed while floating around in the vacuum. Outside, any misstep would be your last.

“I dunno. I just feel like pasta,” Scott mumbled into the wood.

Scott sounded…weird. Like he was about to start laughing, or coming down with a cold.

“Scott? Are you okay?”

It had better not be another flu; corralling Scott to take care of himself was hard enough even if he wasn’t feverish. John wouldn’t be able to come down either, quarantined up in Five unless he already had it. Was the slight tug of a headache at his temples from his sinuses beginning to clog up too?

Scott hadn’t looked up yet; his shoulders were shaking. John wiggled his fingers anxiously.

“Scotty?”

Big brother’s head shot up at the nickname John so rarely used. Had John intended to provoke that reaction? The name had been a slip of the tongue but if he was was honest, he sort of had meant to jar Scott out of his thoughts. He never called Scott, Scotty unless he was scared though. And Scott not answering him did tick tick tick up his system from yellow alert into red.

“I’m fine, it’s okay. Don’t worry about me.” Scott’s words ran over each other in an attempt to come first. His voice sounded oddly wet.

Tears, yes those were indeed tears dulled by holographic format, tumbled down Scott’s cheeks.

As soon as he saw John looking, Scott turned away.

Suddenly, John landed on the spark of insight that he had a hunch would crack the code to his big brother’s distress. “Have you eaten anything all day?”

Scott dug around for tissues in a drawer of the desk and gave a half shrug. “I guess not—not really? I tried to before you say anything. Got a mouthful of breakfast in and then there was a call out. Lunch didn’t happen, there was a meeting, I had to make coffee, I ran out of time. I don’t really feel hungry though…”

That did explain a few things. It was well known family lore that Virgil and Alan got hangry, and Gords went all sad and mopey. Scott and John himself though, they got …really, unstably emotional. 

So yeah, hence the unexpected bursting into tears. John got the whole shit interoception and not even noticing if you needed to eat while you were buried in work thing; Scott was way too used to ignoring his body too. 

John took a deep breath. “Scott, and I’m one-hundred percent serious about this, do you want me to come down there and make you some pasta?”

Thunderbird Five systems whirred around John in the quiet as Scott hesitated.

“Maybe,” he whispered. “Or you don’t have to, I’ll wait, Virge’ll be doing dinner in a bit anyway.”

“Virgil won’t be up until past sunset after the hours Thunderbird Two was out yesterday and into this morning,” John said gently. “You need to eat before then.”

Nor would an overwhelmed Scott and the kitchen be a good combination at this point, and John saw the moment Scott realised this, while fidgeting with the rubix cube on his desk. 

“I want to do this for you,” John told him.

Scott dashed at his eyes, sniffled a few times and finally capitulated. “Okay. Thanks, Jay.”

John smiled and signed off, heading for the space elevator. He was usually so far away, he was right now, but it was in his power to close off that distance when he needed to and today he could use that. 

He farewelled Eos; she so often missed him but the opportunities to run the space station on her own that weren’t emergencies where he was incapacitated excited her. They showed how much he had come to trust and rely on her. Plus she got full reign of their virtual chess set.

On Earth, Scott was waiting for him as the elevator docked, his hands stuck casually in his jeans pockets but looking as pale and wobbly as John felt. His face was still tearstained.

“Hey.”

“Hey to you too.” John took a few heavy steps before throwing himself at Scott, wrapping his arms around his brother tightly, all the while careful not to knock him off balance. Scott stiffened then melted into John. 

Usually that interaction went the other way around. 

Scott used the extra height space gave John to rest his head on him without having to duck down like with everyone else. John hugged him close and comfortingly as his fingers tap tap tapped their rhythm at Scott’s shoulder. All of it meant I love you.

“Pasta time?” John said eventually.

Scott nodded silently, following when John started off towards the kitchen. The raw rock wall of the hanger was rough and vividly solid in its three dimensions, as John ran his hand along it for balance as he walked that initial part. He was touching the Earth, he was in the Earth, he was on Earth.

With cold water from the fridge dispenser and the fizzy, brightly coloured tablets shook out of their tube, John made up lidded cups of electrolyte drink for himself and Scott. John needed to be sculling the stuff perpetually to stay upright down here, and he would not be at all surprised if Scott was dehydrated too. It might to something for John’s headache, could go either way for the nausea coming on.

He put a large pot on the heat. One advantage of having a stove so high powered that it could nuke anything it touched was that any volume of water boiled fast. 

An entire packet of fettuccine got tipped into the enthusiastic cacophony of bubbles. John poked at it with a pasta scoop, regretting that he hadn’t snapped the long pieces to actually fit in better. Ah well. 

He shook in an excessive-to-anyone-not-him amount of salt with a shrug ‘cause he needed it, before having another go at separating the pasta. The pasta scoop was quite an effective implement for that, there were reasons after all it was Gordon’s favourite utensil as John remembered from previous discussions. One could also use it to mash potatoes when held vertically, if one so pleased. His second favourite was the tongs as they could be clicked like crab claws and used to pinch unsuspecting siblings. 

Scott watched from his place slumped over the kitchen bench on a stool, chewing on the ragged skin at the edge of his thumbnail. He was trying to work on a couple of screens pulled up as holomonitors, as unsuccessfully as could be expected. John came over and hopped up to sit on the bench, clipping through the projected email inbox and meeting minutes so Scott dismissed them. It was with a sigh of relief.

They smiled tiredly at each other.

The pasta! John tapped at his uniform comms watch. “Eos, set a timer for the pasta, please?” John shaved the minute that had already passed off of the box time and then another couple to ensure it wouldn’t come out mushy.

“So what sort of stuff on pasta do you feel like? There’s a good lot of options you were looking at earlier.”

“We don’t have the ingredients for most of those, I checked. No eggs and no mushrooms so no carbonara. Technically that wouldn’t be authentic carbonara though. No cream cheese. We missed this week’s supply run so we don’t even have any frozen peas!” Scott threw his hands up in the air.

“Hmmm. You feel like something creamy?”

“Yeah. Honestly at this point I’d eat anything.”

John swung his legs and tapped his fingers on the counter while he thought.

“I believe some bacon is hiding in the bottom of the freezer so that’s something. And…” he trailed of as he moved his head too fast and set off a wave of dizziness as he looked around the kitchen.

“Avocado!” Scott exclaimed.

“Avocado?”

“Funny story, we ended up with several cases of them after that rescue on that farm where we saved the whole village and nearly all their trees from catastrophic flooding. They really need eating too and there’s only so much toast you can stand.”

“I have heard theoretically of putting avo on pasta and it does sound good. Mmmm bacon and avocado, John hummed. “Worth a shot?”

Scott reached towards the fruit bowl in answer, grinning at John. “Soon we will have pasta!”

John peeled off the upper half of his uniform and tied the arms around his waist in preparation. In the subtropical summer down here he was already getting too hot and while the temperature regulation built into his suit would do its best to make up for his own body’s lack thereof, it felt weird to have everything covered up from fingertips to neck down here while he was cooking.

Scott began to giggle.

“Huh?” John said, extremely eloquently.

Scott gestured at him. 

“My suit?” Was something up with his suit? The full gloved hands and sleeves flopping about without John in them had been known to amuse the lot of them on occasion, ever since he’d used the empty suit as a phoney decoy of himself to trick Eos. It was pretty funny now no one was in mortal peril and Eos was his friend.

“Your face!” Scott exclaimed.

“What’s wrong with my face?” 

John frowned. Was it his fringe that never could survive true gravity? He hadn’t gotten freckles while he’d been down all of half an hour and inside, had he? Then he looked down.

His t-shirt had a photograph of his face printed on it, and across the chest, emblazoned in neon orange read the words ‘Space Face’, courtesy of one particular fish brother. Ah yes. That.

John sighed, resting his chin on his hand to hide the smile he couldn’t quite control. “Not exactly subtle, is it? In my defence this was the only one in my closet that was clean and you can’t exactly see it beneath my suit. It’s all Gordon’s fault anyway!”

Scott was still laughing, albeit a touch hysterically and at him, but John took it as a win regardless.

Eventually Scott grabbed himself a cutting board and knife to get to work on the avocados as John carefully slipped off the bench, steadying himself on the counter as his ankles went noodley so he could handle the bacon. 

Bacon, bacon, now where had he seen that bacon? He had the image of it in his head, but that was only one piece of the puzzle, a photograph, humanly imperfect, memory woven out of instinct. Digging about in the deep freeze which the evidence pointed to as best John could tell had his fingers feeling like he’d stuck them out in space with out gloves on. They ached sharply as John cursed his crappy circulation. 

He gladly found the bacon though, lurking at the second darkest depths. He would not be willing to venture into the midnight zone of Unidentified Frozen Objects and charred dinner leftovers put away for ‘later’. He chucked the packet into the microwave and thawed out his hands by running them under lukewarm water, wincing all the while. If he’d thought this through, if he’d been smart enough, he would’ve put his suit gloves back on—his space rated, cold proof, most definitely impervious to domestic appliances gloves— and saved himself the pain.

Scott came over to rinse his avocado green hands. He dried them off then wrapped his arms around John’s waist so he could lean on him, giving in for a moment in face of daunting gravity. With Scott, he could because Scott got him; they both could.

“You alright?” And there was big brother smotherhen coming out.

John flexed his defrosted fingers. “I will be.” He turned and smushed his face into Scott’s neck for a little bit, hugging back, Scott rested his head on John’s, and they stayed there for a while.

They were both fading. The pasta would help with that, Scott really needed to eat and so did John at this point, the half a dry bagel for breakfast and another at lunch hadn’t really been enough. The trick now was finishing the task that felt as if it expanding faster by the second than the Universe, as measured by the Hubble Constant was. They could do this though. Together.

Scott chopped up the bacon roughly and John cooked it, hissing back when it spat hot oil at him. 

When Eos notified them the timer had gone off, and John had very scientifically tested the pasta was done by nomming on a bit, he called Scott over carry the large pot to the colander in the sink to strain. 

“Gravity plus boiling water plus my space noodley arms are probably not a good combo,” he laughed. 

He was getting better at knowing his limits. Scott’s smile was small and proud, he saw John.

Scott stared at the bacon with the intensity of a starved wolf with its mouth watering, then stole some pieces hot from the pan and burnt his mouth. Scoff Tracy strikes again. 

They dumped the pasta in a big mixing bowl with the mashed avocado, a little lemon juice, the bacon, and a whole lot of salt, pepper and parmesan cheese, mixing it together with the big pasta scoop.

John swayed on his feet then, grabbing onto Scott to stay upright for long enough to decide actually the best place for him right now was sitting on the kitchen floor just here. John folded himself down to the ground in a slithering pile of too long, too bendy limbs, Scott wordlessly guiding his descent. 

“You want me to grab some sporks to eat with?”

“They’re splayds, technically,” John remarked. He gave Scott the thumbs up anyway, while he rested his spinning head on his knees.

Scott waved about his ‘sporks’ acquired from the cutlery draw with a victorious grin before he sunk to the ground to join John.

John took one, passing the pasta to Scott once he was settled, lanky legs stretched out for miles, bumping into John’s.

“We forgot plates,” Scott said.

John shrugged. “At this point, who cares. We have pasta.”

“We do.” Scott blinked for a moment. “I didn’t before and I wouldn’t’ve but now we do.”

He hugged the warm pasta bowl to his chest, and when John observed more closely he saw the tears collecting on Scott’s eyelashes, sparkling in the kitchen light as he looked up at John.

“Thanks. I love you so much, Jay.”

John gave him a gentle smile, ducking to knock his forehead against his brother’s shoulder like a cat. “Love is stored in the pasta.”

Scott smiled back at him and they both dug in.

It was good pasta.

Really good pasta, because he was here with Scott and through everything they had made it, together.

[thereareeyesinsidethetrees]

various aus/fic ideas i've tried writing for, never got very far on, but would absolutely like to try again in the future:

-au wherein caryn finds ford and stan in the woods and brings them home to care for them as her own. there's something ever so slightly off about them, however, and though she would never judge her own children for something as silly as that, filbrick is more than eager to find an excuse as to why they're not good enough

-au that's actually two aus that are heavily involved with each other. one is paranoid ford era, right around the portal incident, the other is about a year into sea grunk stans. in the former, stan manages to pull ford out of the portal with a rope still laying around right before it closes. at the same time, in the other dimension, the sea grunks are escaping some anomalies when ford trips and cracks his skull on some rocks. paranoid ford wakes up sore and oddly comfortable on a soft sandy beach and sea grunk ford wakes up exhausted and jittery on cold, hard concrete

-bio-portal au...hhh...i still love you bio-portal au mwah you're my favorite one

-au wherein the sea grunks end up trapped in the multiverse together. starts off fairly lighthearted but slowly becomes darker and more serious in tone as ford starts to panic more and more and slip back into his old portal habits

-multi-chapter vent fic about ford and mental health with lots of symbolism. probably wouldn't be a vent fic anymore, but it would still be rather personal and i would be writing it just cause i still like the ideas originally proposed

-that damn magic drawbacks fic. no one cares but me, but i swear to fuck i am goING TO WRITE IT

-au wherein everyone still stays petrified after weirdmaggedon and slowly turn back over time. ford wakes up long after everyone else, and long after stan has left gravity falls, still coated in pyrite dust with a blank mind and equally blank view of the world around him

-fic originally intended for a prompt challenge a few years ago. basically, pre-weirdmaggedon/post-portal ford and stan get kidnapped by some sort of cosmic puppeteer that uses them to put on a show for an unseeing, uncaring audience

-the previous concept was later partially reused for a much more story-based fic wherein the entirety of gravity falls falls (pun not intended) asleep and has their minds connected by an entity that slowly feeds on them. the story specifically follows the pines family, after the creature has trapped them in these repeating nightmares of sorts so it never runs out of food. stan is the first to break free, and ford is the first one he finds. ford's nightmare is being strung up with blue puppet strings that periodically sent jolts of electricity through him, while a hungry audience watches him and, inevitably, ends up crawling on stage to tear him apart. it then repeats. stan fails countless times before he's finally able to get ford out of there, and by that point, he's so sick of it all that he just brutally gores his way through the audience to get to ford before any of them can. aaaand that's the only relevant part so oh no it would appear we cannot ramble any further oh who could have foreseen this fate oh noooooo

[marumaruowl]

Good Progress

A short ficlet inspired by that one official Ave/nturine art. You know the one.

Ra/tiorine, light weight gain, belly rubs, domestic fluff, assumed post 2.1

A soft ray of sunlight crept between his eyelids, a gentle nudge and call to the miracle of reality. It was so very, very different from the familiar piercing jolt, demanding immediate preparation and mental fortitude. Only one short year had passed, and yet the changes were immeasurable.

With a delicate stretch of his limbs, Aventurine rose from the nest of his shared bed and rubbed the heaviness from his eyes. The warm, homely smell of breakfast wafted in through the adjoining rooms, and the sound of clacking computer keys pattered out a comforting backdrop. He could almost laugh at how ridiculously picturesque this morning was. So cliché, it couldn't possibly be real. And yet, somehow, it was. A true miracle.

Stepping into the living room, he found Dr. Ratio half-dressed and sitting at a laptop computer, calmly typing out something for work. An early riser, as always, contrary to his preferred owl motif.

With a little smile, Aventurine came up to the side of his desk. “Good morning, Veritas.”

“Ah.” Ratio spared a glance up at him before returning to the screen. “At last, you deign to join the realm of the waking. It is nearly ten o' clock. How much more precious time were you intending on squandering?”

“Aw, cut me some slack, alright? It's my day off.”

“That's no excuse for such sloth.” Finally, the scholar raised his head to get a steady look at him. “And what is even the point of wearing a pajama top if it falls open like that so very often?”

“Oh...” Aventurine hadn't even noticed, but once again, most of the buttons on his pajama top had slipped out, only leaving the one at the center of his chest. It happened quite a bit, given the delicate, slippery material and how much he tended to wriggle about in his sleep. But these silk pajamas were far too valuable to just fold up in a drawer and never actually use! Why, that would be an even greater waste.

He chuckled and looked down at the open flaps. “Well...have you considered that maybe I like it like that?”

Dr. Ratio sighed and returned his attention to his typing. “Fool. Breakfast is on the table—it's probably getting cold by now.”

Aventurine recognized that as a cue to leave, and turned to make his way toward the kitchen. But before he could make more than three steps, the doctor called out again, his voice commanding, but softer.

“Wait. Come here, Kakavasha. I need to check something.”

Aventurine's breath caught. Dr. Ratio only used his true name in matters very serious and intimate. It was always lovely to hear, though he wondered what was possibly so important between them right now. Their relationship, their partnership...it was another miracle, and one that he treasured with all of his heart.

Immediately, he returned to Ratio's side, and the doctor motioned for him to come even closer, until he was standing mere inches away. The office chair turned...and suddenly, strong, warm, gentle fingers were pressing at his exposed stomach.

Looking down at the spot, he noticed the way his own flesh puffed a little under Ratio's soft prodding...how the elastic of his waistband seemed stretched just a little more. Ratio's hands moved to cup around and lightly pinch at his sides, and for the first time, he noticed that there were little pockets of softness there. Aventurine felt a warm flush through his face, and hoped it wasn't showing too much. What a silly thing to be embarrassed over.

“...You've put on some weight,” Ratio plainly assessed, though his hands continued to curiously roam over Aventurine's belly.

“Ahaha! Yeah, looks like it. I'm going to have to go ahead and blame you for that, doc.”

Ratio's thumbs squished into the light softness of his tummy, just above his bellybutton, and it felt wonderfully soothing, almost like a massage. It was...so gentle and almost reverent. This was...an oddly loving touch for such a thing.

“I suppose I'll have to start cutting down from now on, haha.”

“There's no need for such nonsense.” Ratio's voice was low and quiet. “Your weight right now is perfectly healthy. Much healthier than the malnourished state you'd been in previously. I'm...glad to see it.”

The rubbing continued...up, down, around, in slow circles, and Aventurine couldn't help but sigh at how nice it felt. Leave it to the doctor's practiced hands to know just how and where to caress.

“This feels great, this belly rub thing. You should do this more often. You seem to be really good at it.”

At last, Ratio pulled away, and with a little “tch”, turned back to his work. “Quit stalling. You had best not skip that breakfast—I put some of my own time and effort into it, you know.”

“Of course.” Aventurine's smile was glowing, though he already missed the warmth and love of those hands. And he made his way to the kitchen and his caringly prepared breakfast, where he'd be sure to finish every bite.

[darkwinterchild]

Big “Malcolm Merlyn and Oliver Queen are lions and no one can convince me otherwise” trash post bcs I can’t help myself

What It Looks Like versus What’s Really Going On.

Fight me.

Warning: Long post under the cut. Because this is so important.

Both Oliver and Malcolm are big muscly brutes but also stealth ninjas. Plus they’re scary predators and they do most of their hunting at night. Ergo, in the animal world, they’re big cats.

The primary difference between the lion and other cat species is that it’s a social animal. Female lions form prides, male lions form coalitions. Malcolm is always more comfortable working with a group than by his lonesome (even if that group is hostile like Team Arrow). After his return from Nanda Parbat he could have chosen to work alone but didn’t. He looked for partners, created an organisation in order to pursue his goal of saving Starling City. Of course he prefers to be the one calling the shots (as leader of his secret organisation or CEO of Merlyn Global or even Ra’s Al Ghul), but he will bend when necessary (he was Ra’s horseman for years after all). As for Oliver, even if he feels like more of a solo artist, one of the first thing he did coming home is bring Diggle into the fold - just like one of the first thing young solitary male lions do after being kicked out of their pride is find themselves a partner, because they know they have almost no chance of making it out there on their own. Wherever he is, Oliver always ends up joining a group or forming his own. These aren’t just things that happen to him: it’s a choice, or a direct result of his personality. Oliver and Malcolm are both always looking to make alliances with different sorts of people (or groups of people). More than that, they are absolutely ready to ally themselves with somebody they don’t like, with each other, if they need to in order to survive, vanquish a common enemy or protect their family.

Generally, there are two things that matters to a lion (apart from food but that’s like every animal on the planet): family and territory/power. Malcolm Merlyn and Oliver Queen in a nutshell. Also note that while male lions are the only male cats who care about family and have a hand in raising their cubs (mostly by offering protection), their focus is the territory. Which is like the whole theme of Malcolm & Oliver’s story in S1: their unbreakable focus on their respective mission despite the distance and tension it creates between them and their respective family members, motivated by their (delusional?) conviction that they are doing this for their family (to secure a better future for them in a better city in the name of those they have lost). The main difference between them being that Malcolm is way more deranged and mostly doesn’t give a shit about human life if they’re not related to him.

Seriously though these two are mad territorial. Every time there’s a new predator showing up on their turf they just go “who are you and wth are you doing in my city rude i’m gonna beat you up”. Well, in season 1 in Malcolm’s case, because after he was ousted he stopped having a turf. But pretty much all 5 seasons for Oliver? (I think the most “wtf” time was when he decreed that the league couldn’t touch Merlyn in S3 while he was in Starling because he was under his protection or something, like I can’t even?? And every time there’s a new vigilante in town he’s like “nope the only illegal justice in this city is mine get out”)

But yeah ultimately one of the things I find most fascinating about lions is also one of the things I find most fascinating about Oliver and Malcolm. Violent, merciless killers who show a softer, more caring side around their loved ones. For lions, it’s like, how vicious and terrible they are to their enemies or preys has absolutely nothing to do with how affectionate and loving they can be to their companions (think Mr T and Kinky Tail of the Mapogos - bloodthirsty bastards who loved each other like hell). That contrast between the monster and the lover is always at play in Oliver and Malcolm’s characters (ofc with different levels of dominance for each side), and it’s just really interesting to me.

Young male lions leave their pride once they come of age, and spend years in hell as nomads struggling to survive in a hostile environment (between buffalo and crocodiles and most dangerous of all: other lions, pride males often in a coalition, eager to hunt them down and break their spine). They have to learn to fend for themselves for the first time (mommy isn’t here to bring the food home any longer), to hunt and fight and stand up for themselves. Most of them die, but those who survive, those who have managed to become... something else, these ones can hope to conquer their own territory by killing or driving away the older resident kings. If this isn’t Oliver Queen’s story I don’t know what is.

Btw, kicking out their grown-up sons is a very important pride male job. Adolescent males (big, lazy, hungry, aggressive, horny and useless) can become a real weight to the pride if they stay around too long, but if the males are neglectful (Malcolm) or distracted dealing with too many prides (Malcolm), they can be late to the task (Malcolm). But once they do it’s always kinda brutal (Malcolm). No offense to Tommy!

Also, really, if we choose an animal to represent Malcolm or Oliver, you know it has to be some major drama-queen. We-have-literally-evolved-a-mane drama-queen level. And the lions mane has basically three main purposes: 1) protection (practical purpose of the suits), 2) intimidation tactics (actual realest purpose of the suits - the whole Hood and Dark Archer personas), and 3) looking gorgeous and attracting females and I think this really fits Ollie Queen and Malcolm Merlyn (Malcolm doesn’t seem particularly interested in sexual or romantic pursuits but he is vain as hell just look at the guy it’s written all over him).

Male lions’ stories are all about war, just like Oliver and Malcolm’s stories are all about war (particularly S1 Oliver). In terms of evolution, they have sacrificed everything in order to become perfect killing machines. Their role in society is to protect or conquer. It doesn’t matter if they’re tired and just want to settle down with their family (happy little cubs!), if they don’t go looking for war war always comes looking for them - it’s a violent life. For lion fans who follow their shenanigans in real life, it can be kind of like Game of Thrones: you have several coalitions fighting over territory - who will be king? And for how long?

So, just like human warriors, there are two types of successful lions: the fiery ones and the cunning ones, of which I kinda think Oliver and Malcolm are fitting representations. Like Oliver “I fought the Dark Archer and Slade Wilson and won thanks to my mad willpower (also remember when I challenged RA’S AL GHUL to a duel twice)” Queen, some lions never run, are always in the thick of battle, and will fight to the death for their territory even against overwhelming odds (in lion fandom, Kinky Tail and Mr T of the Mapogos are again probably the go-to examples). Others tend to pick their battles, avoid serious injury, can patiently wait for a better opportunity or let go of a territory if outnumbered, and sometimes even let the lionesses do the fighting in their stead (the famous Notch is more this type I think - managed to hold on to his first pride alone for 2 years after the death of his companion with the help of the females, got ousted, came back with his sons and took over half the Masai Mara, and remained healthy and beautiful for all of it).

Lions are bloody resilient creatures. Like, it’s astounding what they can survive, and in battle you can see lions fighting to the end despite terrible injuries (freaking broken backs). Oliver Queen is the Arrowverse’s poster boy for resilience, I am not even going to begin listing the reasons why - it’s all over his body anyway and we viewers are treated to many shirtless scenes. And say what you will about Malcolm Merlyn but he also did go through a lot (poison, an arrow through the chest, torture, a handcut - he also lost everything twice), and he’s still healthy and fighting at like ~52 years old (5 years ago he was already saying that Oliver’s youth was a big advantage). “Every warrior must learn the simple truth: that pain is inevitable and suffering is optional”. They both just never give up.

They are both really intelligent, but unlike Ray, Felicity, Barry, etc. they aren’t scientists or tech geniuses. Oliver and Malcolm’s strength lie in tactic and/or strategy, which is what makes them natural leaders. Lions are often seen as big “all brawn and no brains” animals, but they’re actually pretty calculating. They can’t solve complex logical problems like ravens or crows (that’s Felicity btw - Overwatch), but they can count. They know their stuff when it comes to battle. They can calculate the odds, they have their established tactics when it comes to hunting, and they even make strategic choices all the time. 

Cute little heir is a troublemaker who worships his dad. Dad’s best friend/brother gets rid of both of them in the same trap, forcing Dad to sacrifice himself for son, sentencing son to exile. Son stays in exile for years, ravaged by guilt, and grows into a formidable opponent. When son comes back, Dad’s best friend/brother is forcing his mother to do his bidding. He finds out he’s the one responsible for his father’s death and stops him, but not before the bad guy had a chance to destroy his home. Tell me you don’t see the parallel. They’re lions.

[jamespotterthefirst]

Prelude (Ethan x f!MC)

Book: Open Heart, Book 1 Pairing: Dr. Ethan Ramsey x F!MC (Dr. Lilac Allende) Word count: 1.5 K Premise: Three moments leading up to their fateful meeting.

Author’s Note: In which I try to explain why MC didn’t know what Ethan, her medical hero, looked like. Also, my (late) fic for the book 1 replay. Thank you @aestheticartsx​ for pre-reading!

Three.

Harper frowns down at the file in her hand, her sharp gaze burning into the collated papers as though coercing them to solve their dilemma once and for all. From the end of the table, Cyrus lets out an inpatient sigh.

“It's very simple, Harper,” he drones. Ethan's fists clench reflexively at his sides, urging to remind Cyrus that Harper is the chief now and warrants more respect than his insufferable tone is offering. “The last spot should go to the candidate from Harvard. We are the best hospital on the east coast, after all. It only makes sense.”

Harper looks unconvinced and still, her pensive expression remains fixed in the file.

“An ivy league degree does not a good doctor make,” Naveen adds sagely into the ensuing silence. His smile is placid enough but Ethan knows the older doctor well enough to hear the warning edge in his voice. Evidently, even Naveen disapproves of Cyrus's lack of respect for their new chief.

Cyrus scoffs.

“And if you need further proof of that, Doctor Cyrus,” Ethan begins dryly, eyes boring into him. “Then look no further than your side of the conference table.”

A few attendings—at least the ones who have become increasingly tired of Cyrus's boastful proclamations about his alma mater—laugh quietly at the jab. Cyrus splutters, his face an unpleasant shade of red as he glares daggers at Ethan.

“This candidate,” Harper says at last, unaware or uncaring of what she had just interrupted. Her two lone words are enough to command the room's attention at once, but her hazel eyes are on Ethan. “You're convinced she's the best fit for Edenbrook?”

Ethan meets her eye and pauses.

It's the first time they look at each other directly since he ended their relationship two weeks prior. Despite the brief time apart and an unshakeable resolve to be professional, his stomach sinks heavy, like a stone.

Harper looks as graceful and dignified as ever, keeping every emotion in check. Yet, as she holds his gaze, Ethan can see a small flicker or sadness and his stomach twists with guilt.

“I'm positive, Chief Emery,” Ethan responds. “This candidate exhibits the type of potential we look for at Edenbrook.”

The use of her new title seems to snap Harper out of a reverie.

“She graduated top of her class and ranked in the top percent among our chosen cohort of interns,” Ethan continues. “I've also looked into her research and it's among the most promising I've seen. I recommend her without reservations.”

With a single nod and a sense of finality, Harper closes the file.

“Then it's settled. We have our last intern.”

“You're joking, Harper,” Cyrus blurts out, incensed. “We're giving a coveted spot to the candidate from UCLA?”

He says the name of the school with so much derision, Ethan feels his ears flare up.

“That Doctor Ayala?” Cyrus continues.

“Doctor Allende,” Ethan corrects, jaw clenched.

“Don't we have enough charity cases in the cohort already? This is token—”

But the vitriol is quickly interrupted by several things happening at once: Ethan darting forward, fists ready; a startled, collective gasp from the other attendings; Naveen, quietly intercepting Ethan and halting his steps with a steady hand, a feat that is impressive for a man much older and shorter; and Harper, also on her feet, directing a disgusted look at Cyrus she doesn’t bother to disguise behind professionalism.

“I would think very carefully about finishing that sentence if I were you, Doctor Cyrus,” she says, her voice low but with the impact of a clashing gavel. “And I ask that you address me as Chief Emery moving forward.”

Two.

“If you end up marrying someone with a Boston accent,” Laurel is saying with a devilish grin. “I will never be able to keep a straight face when they talk. Pahk the cah in Hahvahd Yahd.”

Her older sister peers at Lilac over the flaps of an open cardboard box, the glint in her eye growing wickeder still. “Imagine what they’d sound like in bed. You're so fucking gawgeous, dawctaw—”

Before her sister can escalate that impression into disturbing territory, Lilac silences her with a well-aimed pillow. It succeeds in hitting Laurel straight in the face but also in turning her laughter into a cackle.

“Are you going to help me pack or not?” Lilac says sternly, though the effect is entirely ruined by the smile that manages to break through.

Laurel raises her hands in defeat and returns to packing Lilac's books neatly. They work in companionable silence for a few minutes with nothing but their favorite music blaring from the speakers of Lilac's phone.

“Is this the book?” her sister asks suddenly, turning a worn textbook in her hands and studying it closely. “The one written by your medical crush?”

For some inexplicable reason, Lilac feels her face flare with heat. “He's not my crush.”

“You just worship the ground he walks on,” her sister returns, flipping through Diagnostic Principles. “Though, you're right. In order to have a crush you'd need to know what he looks like.”

Laurel reaches the back cover, frowning. “Why wouldn't he add an author picture?”

Lilac says nothing, biting the inside of her cheek. She can't blame her sister for being curious and a bit disappointed at the lack of visual representation. After all, Lilac had felt crestfallen when all she found in the author's information section was the green and blue Edenbrook logo.

“Maybe he's a private man and doesn't like his picture out in the world? Maybe he wants aspiring doctors to focus on his research and not his looks?”

“So he's either really hot or really ugly,” Laurel returns, unmoved by Lilac's impassioned speech. “Have you ever tried looking him up online?”

Lilac had been tempted many times, but she was fiercely adamant about keeping her medical hero a mystery outside of his work. It already felt invasive enough to track down his undergrad research and every other minor paper he'd ever written. When it came to Ethan Ramsey, Lilac had searched every corner of scholarly journals and databases, absorbing every piece of his work with an adoration that was already embarrassing enough.

Plus, she would never admit it out loud, but she was also afraid that knowing what the brilliant doctor looked like would somehow ruin him for her. Or at least, alter the image of him she had constructed in her head for so many years. It felt right to continue seeing Dr. Ramsey as the brilliant force that pushed her into her dream career and not as a definitive set of features.

“It doesn't matter what he looks like. He's the best and I'm going there to learn from him, not to judge his appearance.”

“I'm Googling him,” Laurel announces, already typing furiously into her phone. After a few seconds, her phone returns results and her eyebrows shoot up, staying suspended for longer than normal.

“What?” Lilac asks despite herself.

“Wow.”

“Wow what?”

“Just… wow.” Laurel stares down at the screen with such awestruck amazement that Lilac feels a powerful wave of curiosity. “He’s shirtless in some of these.”

“What?” Lilac yelps, feeling her face flare up at once. 

“Yeah, apparently you’re not his only fan. Tons of people have taken his picture.” Her sister seems to blink out of a trance, turning the screen toward Lilac. “Here, see for your—”

But Lilac turns her gaze away almost out of reflex.

“No!” 

The word comes out far more impassioned than Lilac intended. Still, she resolutely turns her head. “That feels...invasive, somehow?”

“Come on—”

“I'm serious, Lau. I don't want to see. I'm already nervous enough about this whole thing without having to worry about this wow-worthy revelation. And besides, taking someone’s shirtless picture without their consent and posting it online is already bad enough. It feels wrong supporting that.”

Laurel rolls her eyes.

“I'm going to see him in less than a week anyway. With clothes. In a professional setting. As I should. If I waited all these years, I can wait that long.”

A knowing, devious sort of smile pulls at her sister's face. She mumbles something over the music and Lilac can swear it sounds oddly like: “...worth the wait.”

One.

Ethan should have taken the broken and sputtering coffee machine in his apartment as an omen. His morning definitely declined from then on, starting with gridlock traffic and ending with an infuriatingly long line at his favorite coffee place.

The ultimate lack of coffee is probably his fault because Ethan had spent too much time deliberating whether or not he wanted to go with store bought coffee on what promised to be a grueling day. When he had finally made up his mind, however, the line was already out the door.

Irritated and caffeine deprived, he drives back to Edenbrook.

“You're earlier than we agreed,” Naveen says as soon as Ethan accepts his incoming call. “What was the point of rearranging the whole schedule if you were going to come in when you pleased anyway?”

“I'm not even through the gates yet. What are you spying on me?”

“No need. You forget how predictable you are.”

Naveen chuckles as he says this which eases some of Ethan's irritation. The older doctor had purposely scheduled him later in the day to give him some peace on the first day of the new intern cohort.

Naturally, Ethan arrived several hours early, as per his custom.

“Or maybe you know me too well by now.”

Naveen's benevolent laughter turns into a dry but lingering cough on the other end of the line. Instantly, Ethan's insides freeze over, his stomach sinking unpleasantly.

He opens his mouth to question his mentor about this persisting symptom, when sheer reflex prompts him to stomp on the breaks so suddenly, his body jerks forward then slams against his seat.

“Shit.”

Something—or rather someone— had crossed the parking lot road right in front of his car, standing mere inches away from his front bumper.

“Ethan?” Naveen asks through the speaker.

When Ethan recovers and regains movement of his arms and legs, he feels the spike of adrenaline give way to pure annoyance.

The offending pedestrian is a young brunette clad in blue scrubs, a medical intern by the looks of it. She stands there in the middle of the road, her mouth hanging open in a way that would have been comical to Ethan if he wasn't so irritated.

They stare at one another, though Ethan is convinced she can't see much through the tinted glass.

Then, right before his eyes, she seems to recover from the shock. Drawing herself to her full height, she glares at Ethan. At least, he thinks she's glaring through the dark lenses of her sunglasses.

Ethan almost scoffs.

She has the audacity to be angry when she was the one who made the rookie mistake of aimlessly crossing in front of him?

Who the hell does she think she is?

“Asshole,” she mutters, the word quite audible through his windows.

Before a stunned Ethan can respond, she turns on her heel and rushes toward the hospital, a curtain of dark hair dancing behind her.

“What was that?” Naveen asks, still on the call.

“I hate interns,” Ethan responds much to the older doctor's amusement.

Bonus:

Author’s Note: In other words, my MC was late to her orientation because of Ethan and that’s how she met him in the waiting room lol. Thank you so much for reading! 

*Tagging Separately 

[hiccanna-tidbits]

The RotBTD+ Gang Plays DnD! (Feat. my ships, sorry not sorry XD)

So highkey I’ve actually been wanting to do a “The Gang Plays DnD” type post for AGES now, but then I saw @hobie-brown and @ohlooksheswriting-wips do DnD AU posts for RotBTD, and then I was like “Ah shit, I really should finish mine, eh?” So thank you to both of you for inspiring me to get off my ass and actually write the post!!!

Hiccup DMs. He comes up with this super complex plot revolving around dragons (because of course) where the party has to dismantle this society ruled by evil knights who want to genocide all of the dragons. Imagine his chagrin when the party wants to do nothing but fuck around in towns and aggravate NPCs 90% of the time.

They usually end up playing at Jack’s apartment, mainly because Hiccup’s dad doesn’t really want a bunch of loud nerds yelling about 20-sided dice in his household while he’s trying to work, if he can at all help it. Jack’s sister regularly barges into their living room and roasts the fuck out of Jack and his friends for being such damn nerds and eats all of their DnD snacks they’ve set out. If they’re in the middle of a combat session, she always gleefully proclaims that they’re all going to die. While Jack is annoyed by this, the rest of the party finds it deeply hilarious.

Jack Overland plays the absolute mayhem warlock Jack Frost, who got his powers through making a deal with the archfey Prince of Frost and has absolutely no qualms about being an evil god’s mortal Sower of Chaos. He spends the vast majority of the campaign doing such useful things as creating ice slicks under annoying NPCs and freezing people’s drinks. He also plays a Tiefling because absolutely no one can talk this boy out of playing the creepy demon race.

Rapunzel plays a woodland nymph druid who is also the party healer (because of course she is). Her name is probably Sunlily or something else suitably hippie-esque. Whenever there’s downtime (or whenever the rest of the party is also dicking around, and she can get away with it), Rapunzel likes to go into the nearest forest and pick the best berries and nuts for the rest of the party. She also loves baking fruit pies and cooking the best nymph food for her companions when given the chance. Definitely the party Cinnamon Roll (every party has one!). She often will turn into cute animals to distract the guards while the party infiltrates a building.

Merida’s character is the party archer and general ranged weapon master, as well as a raging lesbian. Hiccup learns very quickly that any male NPC who tries to flirt with her will very quickly get impaled with an arrow. She can’t ever decide if she wants to be a ranger or a rogue, so she multiclasses in both for flare. She also plays a Tiefling, and continually insists that her character is both scarier and sexier than Jack’s. In combat, she either Leeroy Jenkins her way in with a sword and just starts slashing every which way, or just shoots 90% of the enemies with arrows before the fight even starts. There’s really no in between. She can get away with this because she’s highkey one of the party tanks, and consistently deals a shitton of damage.

Anna plays a human bard, basically having read over the class options and going “Wait, in this one I get to make stylish medieval music??? And wear dramatic and garish outfits and a dumb hat??? And cast wacky illusion spells??? And do silly little magic tricks??? And INSPIRE EVERYONE??? Hell yeah, I’m in!!!” She mostly uses magic attacks in combat (definitely favors Tasha’s Hideous Laughter), but occasionally when she’s out of spell slots she’ll just take to slamming enemies in the face with her lute. She also has WAY too much fun with Vicious Mockery, let’s be real.

Elsa, upon hearing Jack’s character concept, rolls her eyes so far up in her head she can see her damn brain, and vows to play his concept, but serious–solely out of spite. She rolls up a super OP elf Chaos Sorcerer, filled with lots of brooding angst about how uncontrollable her winter powers can get if she isn’t careful. She combines it a bit with Storm Sorcerer so she can create literal blizzards, and Hiccup ends up allowing it just because he thinks it’s cool. Although Elsa’s character is undoubtedly aggravated by the rest of the party’s antics, she starts becoming grudgingly protective of these idiots and can deal some pretty crazy damage when her companions are threatened. She also contains one of the party’s only brain cells.

Eugene of course plays dashing rogue master thief Flynn Rider. Although his high deception and lockpicking skills certainly come in handy, he’s the most chaotic neutral fucker you’ve ever met and will take any excuse to rob NPCs blind or cheat them out of every cent they have in a tavern card game. It’s nigh impossible to get him to cooperate with the rest of the party much of the time, and often Elsa’s character has to either bribe him with some of her family’s gold or threaten to freeze him to stop him backstabbing one or more party members. Eugene’s character forces Hiccup to add in many more heist plotlines than he originally intended. This delights Eugene immensely, and sometimes he goes a bit crazy planning elaborate heists.

Moana plays a sorcerer water genasi. She can control any body of water, but she has a special affinity for controlling saltwater (i.e. the ocean lol). She also requests an animal handling bonus, but only with marine animals, solely because she thought it would be funny. She’s also an ex-pirate who robbed a lot of wealthy merchant ships and freed their slaves back in the day, which Merida thinks is incredibly badass. Moana tends to get bored and unengaged when there are no bodies of water to play around with, so Hiccup ends up having to add a lot more lakes, rivers, and oceans to the campaign than he originally planned on. Moana also takes a sailing skill, and thus the party often ends up traveling by boat. Typically Eugene and Rapunzel will infiltrate and hijack it, and Moana will sail it. Moana probably contains the party’s only other brain cell.

Astrid plays a gigantic berserker orc barbarian who is never without his trusty axe. Astrid is hands down the party’s top tank, and unquestionably deals the most damage every combat session. Much like Merida’s character, Astrid’s character is absolutely a shameless power fantasy. Hiccup pretty easily picks up on this, but is too polite to say anything about it. Jack also picks up on this, but is hardly as courteous as their DM, and teases Astrid mercilessly. Astrid is not amused.

Rapunzel requests that her weapon of choice be a frying pan, her justification being that her character found a discarded one at the edge of a human village outside her woods and mistaked it for a highly-dangerous human weapon. Hiccup is like “…you know what? Fuck it” and rolls up stats for a goddamn frying pan. Jack has nigh-endless admiration for Rapunzel for choosing such a goddamn memey, absurd, yet oddly effective weapon and it definitely makes the poor boy even more smitten with her than he already is.

Eugene and Merida have a bet going on who can sleep with more sexy barmaids. Merida is currently winning, much to Eugene’s chagrin. She’s not even inherently better at seducing NPCs, she and Eugene have the same charisma stat–she just consistently rolls better than Eugene. Eugene is incredibly salty about this.

Anna and Elsa want to be sisters in-game as well, but neither want to change their race–so Anna decides her character was adopted. Hiccup and the rest of the party go along with it, mainly because there’s something deeply hilarious about a regular human bard being adopted and raised by a family of high-powered elf ice mages.

Astrid is absolutely the sort of player who tends to get bored and restless outside of fights, and tends to fidget and twiddle her thumbs waiting for the next combat session. Jack picks up on this, and purposely does more roleplay for longer just to piss her off. He’s also just a very dramatic fucker and highkey loves roleplay.

When she’s not causing mayhem around the town or sleeping with hot women, Merida tries to entertain Astrid between combat sessions by offering to spar with her. Unfortunately, this does not usually end well for poor Merida, as even the most hardcore and badass of tieflings is prone to getting dumpstered by an 8-foot-tall barbarian orc with an axe. Astrid is, nonetheless, grateful to have someone to fight.

Rapunzel, Elsa, and Moana will humor Hiccup and attempt to actually play the main plot. Meanwhile, Jack, Merida, and Eugene are a DM’s worst nightmare. They constantly derail the damn campaign to fuck around, cause mayhem, and do inane shenanigans in every. Damn. Town. They go to. Anna is kind of a wildcard–she’ll typically go with whatever group looks like they’re going to be doing something more interesting. Astrid will go along with whichever group is more likely to get into a fight–which, often as not, is Jack and his posse of terrible Chaotic Neutrals (who have definitely pissed off a number of NPCs into attacking them).

As the campaign goes on, Elsa and Eugene become the beleaguered Party Mom and Dad. Both are quite aggravated by this–especially poor Eugene, who just wanted to play a morally-gray charming rogue who stole everything and got away with it and then accidentally ended up caring about these idiots he got stuck with.

Anna initially joins the campaign because she has a planet-size crush on Hiccup, and inevitably is the one who dragged Elsa into it too. Being the hopeless romantic that she is, Anna writes a love interest into her backstory. Hiccup eventually has the party run into said love interest, and Anna is overjoyed. He starts flirting with her as the love interest, and it’s easily the best 30 minutes of Anna’s life.

Moana and Elsa also give Hiccup pretty detailed backstories, and he works in little subplots for them. Moana gets to bring water back to a dying part of the jungle in the middle of a draught, while Elsa gets to go on a whole sidequest to explore her family history and how they came to be sorcerers.

Jack, Merida, and Eugene also give Hiccup fairly elaborate backstories, but Jack’s and Merida’s are like 99% memes and Dumb Shit. Hiccup tries to give all of them backstory-related plot hooks, but inevitably any hooks he provides are either stabbed, robbed, or frozen. Honestly any plot hook offered to these 3 will be all but spat in the face of and tossed off a cliff.

The one relevant part of Eugene’s backstory is that he and Rapunzel decide they used to be partners in crime before the campaign started. Rapunzel would infiltrate and scout out places he wanted to rob as small, unobtrusive animals (her preferred Wild Shape is a chameleon) and later distract the guards as a bunny or kitten while he went in and took every gold coin in sight. In return, Flynn Rider would bribe builders to not develop into Sunlily’s forest. Rapunzel and Eugene partly came up with this For Funsies, but also it was Rapunzel’s sneaky way of tricking Eugene into having prior connections in the party so he’d be less likely to betray them. It works pretty well–although the entire party is protective of Cinnamon Roll Sunlily, Flynn is certainly especially protective of her.

Astrid does the absolute bare minimum as far as backstories go. She is literally just here to smash stuff, slice people, and beat some fuckers up.

Rapunzel has a backstory, but she’s typically so invested in the main plot and the other party members that Hiccup rarely needs to bring it in to keep her engaged. She’s highkey the party emotional rock, and probably the only one keeping them all together.

On that note, Rapunzel’s character is the ONLY one who can get Jack’s character to take the plot even REMOTELY seriously. Like he’ll be dicking around in the nearest tavern challenging the nearest orc to a drinking game, and Rapunzel will come in and ask him to help them on a Main Plot Quest. And he’ll be like “come onnnnn I’m having funnn” and she’ll be like “Jack pleeeeeease?” and you just. Can’t resist Sunlily’s puppy dog eyes. At all. Also, whenever Sunlily is genuinely threatened, any silliness immediately goes out the window and Jack Frost is OUT FOR BLOOD.

For better or for worse, Rapunzel is not immune to being looped into Jack’s shenanigans. Occasionally if either Merida or Eugene have a particularly hare-brained scheme she’ll go along with it, but by and large Jack is the most successful in convincing her to temporarily abandon the plot and cause mild mischief with him. They once wasted half a session creating an elaborate “ice theme park” for some squirrels in the forest.

Hiccup tries to get Merida to play the main plot by eventually having there be no more sexy female NPCs to seduce in the towns they go to. Unfortunately, this backfires–Merida just hooks up with Moana’s character instead. When asked to roll for how good the lay is, Merida gets a nat 20–and thus her character and Moana’s character end up hooking up regularly throughout the rest of the campaign.

Hiccup introduces a few Wise Old Mentor-type NPCs to guide the party throughout the campaign. While Rapunzel, Elsa, Moana, and Anna actually try to listen to them and take their advice, Merida, Jack, and Eugene absolutely refuse to take them seriously and mercilessly play pranks on them.

At one point, Hiccup gives the party the option to attempt to tame a group of wild dragons and use them as mounts. They all have to make animal handling checks. Anna, Rapunzel, Elsa, and Moana pass. The rest of the party fails, with Jack and Eugene crit-failing. Hilarity ensues.

Hiccup ends up bringing back Anna’s backstory love interest as an NPC regular. Anna thinks he’s just being a good friend and a good DM and trying to incorporate her backstory as much as he can, but really, he just wants an excuse to regularly flirt with her. He hardly has the balls to out-of-game.

Merida comes out as gay toward the end of the campaign. Everyone in the group is extremely supportive, of course, but everyone is also like “Merida…with the amount of barmaids you’ve banged…and the amount of times you and Moana’s character hooked up…this isn’t exactly surprising.”

Hiccup actually finds a way to use Jack and Elsa’s same-concept-opposite-execution characters to the plot’s advantage. He decides one of the main villains will have a prophecy saying he’ll be taken down by a powerful ice mage. The party manages to fool this guy into thinking this ice mage is Jack, and sends Jack to fight him. As soon as the villain sees Jack, he’s like “WHAT??? THIS clown???” (word has absolutely spread throughout the land of Jack not using his ice powers for anything besides mildly annoying trolling). Naturally, the bad guy lets his guard down after thinking he’s going to fight this literal joke, and then Elsa crashes in from the side and absolutely dumpsters him.

Jack tries to defeat the final boss by just annoying him so much that he leaves. Unfortunately, he just annoys him so much that he attacks Rapunzel’s character. Jack’s just like “oh HELL no” and attacks with absolutely nothing held back. Turns out he’s pretty terrifying when he’s not using his magic for Dumb Antics.

During the final boss of the campaign, the Big Bad tries to one-shot Moana’s character, and Merida’s character super theatrically jumps in front of her to take the blow instead. Rapunzel just barely manages to heal Merida’s character, but it’s a really close call. During all this, Merida is like “ah shit...maybe I’m NOT just in this to get fantasy-laid.” After the fight’s over, her and Moana’s characters have a big dramatic love confession and share a Big Damn Kiss in front of everyone. It’s pretty epic.

After the final session of the campaign, Merida drags Moana outside Jack’s apartment and sputters and trips over her words for a solid minute before she finally gets out that through all this nonsense...well...maybe it’s not just in the game that she thinks Moana is hot. Moana just gets this HUGE grin on her face and says “c’mere, Leeroy Jenkins” and just pulls Merida in and kisses her. Cue the rest of the party barging in on them. Merida and Moana freeze, and there’s a moment of terrified silence...and then the entire party starts cheering them on like “took you long enough!”

The entire rest of the party could detect the sexual tension. Literally all of them.

But Eugene is like “HA, THIS MEANS IF WE DO A SEQUEL CAMPAIGN I’M WINNING THAT BET! BECAUSE YOU’RE GONNA BE DATING MO’S CHAR AND THUS NOT ABLE TO SLEEP WITH ANY MORE BARMAIDS!”

By the epilogue session, Jack and Rapunzel are dating. Merida and Moana are also dating. Hiccup and Anna STILL haven’t figured out why they’re so prone to spending half the session flirting when Anna’s love interest shows up, and Hiccup STILL hasn’t figured out why he likes to have Anna’s love interest show up so often. Bless their souls. Maybe they’ll figure it out next campaign...?

Damn I actually really like this...maybe if people like it I’ll do some incorrect quotes or a drabble or something??? Or maybe some HCs from next campaign???

[imo-chan-imagines]

『 As your boyfriend | BNHA Headcanons 』

From the good, to the bad, to the downright adorable.

Characters: female!reader, Aizawa Shouta

Tags/warnings: Boku No Hero Academia (anime), 18+, explicit descriptions of sex, smut, fluff, soft dom Aizawa, relationship, headcanons

⚠️ 18+ CONTENT! MINORS: PLEASE DO NOT INTERACT ⚠️

A/N: Right, so I'm simping for this man biG TIME, but I'm only on season 3, so no spoilers or anything, please. This is my first BNHA post (and it turned out way longer than I was intending 😅) Please let me know if you want more in the future!

Also, I have a repetitive strain injury, so typing stuff is taking a while at the moment. Sorry about that. Thanks for reading! Please enjoy ♡ ~Imo

☆ Aizawa Shouta ☆

I'm not going to lie. Shouta can be a big ol' grouchy pants sometimes, and it's basically impossible to win an argument against him makes you want to tear your hair out, sometimes

But most of the time, he's just tired and in pain, and he doesn't mean to be so crotchety

He's not the type to make excuses, though. That's childish. He means his apologies, even if they're simple

He'll normally initiate an apology by gently wrapping his arms around you from behind and resting his forehead on your shoulder 🥺

Physical contact is incredibly personal and intimate for him. He doesn't just touch anyone, or allow them to touch him

You're special 💞💫

Soft, gentle touches, like his fingers interlacing with yours, or his leg brushing up against you, are basically his way of saying 'I love you'

Catch me crying in the corner, a'ight? 😔

He rarely ever raises his voice. Like, ever he doesn't need to, and is aware that it can be scary

He's definitely the kind of guy to forget to tell people that you're dating, simply because he doesn't see how it's relevant or anyone else's business 🤦‍♀️

I mean, he ain't wrong, but–

And his mood switches between 'antisocial' and 'clingy' like a mechanical metronome did someone say 'cat'?

Sometimes, you'll be lucky if he speaks more than three words to you together in a whole day nothing personal 🤷‍♀️

But on other days, he literally won't let you out of his arms for the world he's complicated, okay?

You have missed many a parcel delivery because he wouldn't let you get up from his lap to answer the door 🙄😂

Boundaries and responsibilities are key and highly respected by Shouta, and he would NEVER erase your quirk without your permission, unless he literally had no other choice like someone's going to get hurt, or something

Is generally quite serious so what's new? but you're one of the few people he can relax around when he feels like it

9/10 of his jokes are dad jokes 😎 hell yeah

Takes a hard stance in financial debates, but is constantly broke af 😶 says he'll buy you dinner and presents you with some instant noodles with a 'Reduced To Clear' sticker on them

Will take a bite of your food/steal some off your plate without asking, and literally say nothing to defend himself #gremlin

Is incredibly shy and uncomfortable about being ~le horny~ until you've been together for literally forever

Even then, he's still shy about it when he has to bring it up and it's pretty cute, let me tell ya

It took him forever to admit to you that he gets turned on when you eat ice lollies

Guess what you do whenever you want to mess with him like a little brat 😛

But if he's in the mood, he will 100% whisper something dirty in your ear, even if you're completely alone and probably well past third base

He does it because he knows your pussy will clamp around him at the sound of his voice 😳🥵

*fans self profusely*

Genuine, unadulterated smiles are rare with Aizawa, but when he does 🙌 Heaven hath opened its gates and allowed an angel walk amongst mere mortals 🥺🤧

If he lays his head on your chest, he will fall asleep like that *snaps fingers*

Surprise nose and forehead kisses to show he loves you ❤

Calls you 'Kitten' this is basically already canon at this point

And he's all about those deep talks with you at 3 am when he can't sleep

Speaking of insomnia!

It's cheesy, but you're like a soothing balm. The warmth of your body makes him feel safe, your touch helps him relax, and your voice soothes him to sleep

He's never slept as well as when you're beside him 😭🤧

When cuddling, he likes to be the big spoon but will accept being the little spoon if you if you press your boobs against his back and ask really nicely 🤭

And he loves you stroking his hair and running your fingers through it 🥺

Netlix nights and pillow/blanket forts!!

Rainy days are a godsend. Staying inside all day under the blankets, with the soft sound of the rain falling outside and no-one to interrupt you – literal paradise

He makes mean hot cocoas and Irish coffees 😋 I feel like this man lives off Irish coffees 😂🤣

Wears a lot of black and grey sweatpants at home 😗 which highlight the outline of his dick just right, if ya know what I'm sayin' 👀

Doesn't like going out for dates and prefers staying inside and doing stuff together same, honeyy

But if you really like going out, he will somewhat begrudgingly agree to it and get all dressed up for you, just so long as he gets his fair share of home-dates, too 🤗

But if you also don't like going out... the two of you will basically never leave the house, except to get groceries in your pyjamas from the 24-hour convenience store down the road at one in the morning oddly specific, I know, but you get me

And sorry, but I don't make the rules

Well, actually, I do. But shush

We all know that Shouta cleans up *chef's kiss* So when you go somewhere ~fancy~ he always looks so damn fine 😩

But he has very little idea that he's hot he sees himself as a tired, walking dumpster fire🚶‍♂️🔥

Shouta will 100% turn into a crazy cat dude with 15+ cats if you don't stop him I never said you should, though 🙃

And is a 'minimalist texter' – basically, if he can't answer a text with 'yes', 'no,' 'maybe', or 'OK', then he probably won't answer it at all 😭😂

Especially if you try and sext him or send him your nudes while he's at work. He'll probably lecture you when he gets home and depending on just how much you turned him on, he might proceed to teach you a lesson...

But wear his shirt, and just his shirt or his hoodie and he's yours

Heart eyes, motherfucker 😍

And, depending on how you two are feeling that day, you may or may not end up getting dicked down on the nearest semi-flat surface right then and there 👀

But don't misunderstand. This is an incredibly tired man you have here, and his libido actually isn't through the roof sorry, ladies so this kind of thing isn't an everyday occurrence

But when he dicks you down, he dicks you down goooood

Shouta's not big on PDA, but makes up for it in private. We're talking hands and kisses all over your body he leaves nothing unloved 😏

And while he's not big on PDA, he is big on sneaky displays of affection or 'SDA', as I like to call it

Like subtly grabbing your butt for a second, or his hand on your thigh under the table at a dinner etc. especially around other people

But what really gets him going is slowly removing your clothes and taking you fully naked, spreading your legs wide and holding them open he likes the view 😍

He lowkey highkey worships your body 🙏 and will literally not shut up about how fucking pretty you are, and how fucking good it feels inside you his words, not mine 😳

Groans and growls a little when he's getting close/cumming especially when he's being a little rough and likes to cum together, but knows it's not always practical

He tends to be a gentle dom, but can get just a teensy bit 🤏 rough if he's too into it – but nothing outrageous

We're talking rough thrusts and a brutal pace, maybe holding onto you a little too hard and, waaahh, he gets so embarrassed if he leaves bruises

Is also into a little bondage, but again, only light stuff – restraining your wrists with his hands or his tie or his Capturing Weapon 👀 maybe blinding-folding you if you're okay with it

If you're not blindfolded, then I'm afraid he's all about that eye contact

Eating out your pussy? Eye contact. Pounding you into the mattress? Blazing eye contact. Rearranging your guts in front of the mirror? Fucking eye contact

And CONSENT, BABY. THAT'S WHAT HE'S FUCKING INTO 😌🙌💞

But all jokes aside – he's too used to taking without consent with his quirk, that he's kind of paranoid about it comes to sex but it's adorable and sweet, and honestly, still kind of hot

And speaking of eating pussy – goddamn does he like to please you. Like cream to a kitty 😛

Oh, and he just loves it when you suck on his fingers as he's pounding into you 🤤

And he likes to leave love bites in personal, inconspicuous places and sometimes on your neck

He's marking his woman 😌

When he gets suuuper horny, he likes to fuck you from behind, standing upright in front of the mirror. It's a specific kink he has of watching himself stretch you out as the length of his cock disappears inside you...

I can get behind that, lemme tell yaaa

I said he tends to be dominant, but female doms – fear not!

Shouta is quite flexible when it comes down to it and is kind of lazy, lmfao so he definitely has time for laying back, having the control taken away, and having his dick ridden

For him, it's really all about communication and what you're both comfortable with

I will say this, though: sometimes, his cat watches you while you're banging 😅😂

The first time it happened, you freaked out and refused to continue because – how could you??? But eventually, you just kind of got used to it 🤷‍♀️

The same way you've got used to it following you to the bathroom every time you go to take a shit 😭

So now, you just kind of laugh about it, which helps keep things a little lighter 🤗

After sex, he does like to snuggle, but you'll be lucky if he stays awake for more than 30 seconds it's one of the few times he actually can sleep well

If you're ever out and about, or even inside, and cold, he'll wrap you up in his clothes/scarf/blanket like a sushi roll like Eren wrapping up Mikasa in his scarf, all deadpan and everything 😐

It's not that often, but when he gets drunk, he gets all soft and emotional, and starts babbling about how he can't believe he got so lucky to be dating you, and that he's sure he hasn't done anything to deserve it mah heart

He's pretty sure he wants kids, but he doesn't feel like now is the right time, and is lowkey afraid that it's never going to feel like the right time

He also constantly doubts himself, wondering if he'd actually able to look after them and protect them the way a father should class 1-A got him second-guessing himself 🥺

Besides, it's not all about him. You clearly have a say in it too, and he doesn't want to force you into anything

Again: communication and comfort zones

Dating Aizawa definitely has its ups and downs, and it's not smooth sailing, but he's prepared to work for a life with you because he's found a connection with you that he hasn't feel with anyone else

He knows that you're both far from perfect, but hopes that, for once, you might just make something good, and make it last 🥰😇

© imo-chan-imagines 2020

[sunnyrosewritesstuff]

The Halfling from the Mountains Cont’d

Hey all! So I wanted to write something for Fanfic Writers’ Day, and even though it’s coming in a bit late, I decided to write a small continuation of the Mulan AU. It is almost a year exactly since I posted this little drabble, and it’s by FAR the most popular drabble I have on tumblr. Also, I really needed Kili to ask Bilbo if he “would like to stay forever.”  😆 Please enjoy.

Thorin and Bilbo had barely hobbled their way to the base of the hill before they were swarmed by allies. Healers ushered them to one of the many tents being erected on the cleanest part of the battlefield. While Bilbo only had a few bumps and bruises of little concern, Thorin was all but thrown into a cot as they tended to his foot. Bilbo was able to get one more glance at the protesting king before he was shoved down on a makeshift bench with a bowl of stew in his hands.

“Eat up, laddie. I’m afraid the hard work isn’t over just yet.” Oin instructed before leaving to tend to others.

Bilbo allowed himself the moment of peace as all the adrenaline seeped out with each bite of the bland, but very welcome food. Perhaps, truly this time, the worst was behind them.

“WHAT A MESS! WHERE IS HE?! WHERE IS THE ARKENSTONE THIEF?”

Then again, perhaps not. Bilbo’s head whipped up to see a furious Dain stroll into the camp. He jumped to his feet, the stew regrettably spilling to the ground only to invite the irate dwarf’s attention. Dain immediately stalked into his direction, and for every step forward, Bilbo took one back until he bumped into someone behind him. He startled and turned to apologize only for the person to put a hand on his shoulder and gently push him behind them. Bilbo’s shoulders sagged in relief at the sight of Dwalin. Dain, on the other hand, was flummoxed.

“Stand aside.” Dain ordered. “That creature isn’t worth protecting.”

Bilbo flinched at the sheer acid in his tone. Before Dwalin could respond, his brother appeared on his other side completely blocking Bilbo from view now.

“He’s a hero.” Balin argued.

“He’s a Halfling and a thief.” Dain scoffed.

Bilbo’s jaw nearly dropped as he was suddenly surrounded by his entire company minus the Durins. Each of them with a hard glint in their eyes.

“Listen here you pompous windbag.” Bofur growled. It was the only time Bilbo ever recalled him truly angry. “I think we know our Burglar better than any here. You owe the life of your King to him.”

Dain looked about ready to spit fire as his face changed to match the color of his hair.

“HE BETRAYED MY KING AND ANY THAT DEFEND HIM ARE JUST AS BAD!”

Well that seemed to set everyone off as the Company started to yell loudly in defense of their honor, and Dain and his men continued to besmirch the hobbit’s name. Bilbo, having quite enough of such nonsense, was about ready to find some way to shut them all up when a strong voice broke through the clearing.

“SHARZA!”

Silence rang through the camp as all eyes be they man, elf, dwarf, and hobbit, turned to regard Thorin. The king’s foot was wrapped tightly yet blood still managed to seep through the bandages. Because of this, he was being supported by his two nephews, but all three managed to look regal and proud in their grimy states. Thorin’s cold eyes bore into Dain until the other dwarf dropped his head. At that point, Thorin regarded the Company and silently demanded they stand aside. Bilbo was once more exposed to the glares and curious stares of the surrounding crowd. He could kill Thorin.

“This is Bilbo Baggins.” Thorin announced in a clear voice that somehow seemed to ring for miles without being too loud.

“He was contracted by my Company of thirteen dwarves to leave his home in the Shire and burgle from a dragon. He thinks of nothing but creature comforts of good homes and good food. He was inexperienced with a blade prior to joining us, and knew nothing of how to survive in the wild and yet…”

Bilbo blinked in shock at the warm smile that split Thorin’s face.

“He has saved us all. As King, I pardon any and all crimes against his person. Master Baggins shall only ever be treated with respect on behalf of all Durin’s folk.”

If Bilbo was caught off-guard before, the sight of Thorin bowing to him nearly had him flat on his back. What made it worse was it started a domino effect as next the Company was bowing, then the rest of the dwarves, and finally the remainder of the entire Free People’s army. Even Dain, who looked like he tasted something foul, bowed in deference to his king. Bilbo wanted to scream that he wasn’t a hero! He was just a simple hobbit from the Shire, but faced with the truly humbling sight, he couldn’t find the words. Almost as if realizing his newfound conundrum, Thorin rose with a hidden twinkle in his eye before he turned to return to his tent using his sister sons as his crutch, satisfied that Bilbo would have no more difficulties. The Company patted his back or ruffled his hair. Dori even offered to stay with him if he felt unsafe, but Dain’s hasty retreat spoke volumes about any remaining troubles Bilbo would had. In a matter of seconds, he was alone once again.

“There’s seems to be an awful lot of excitement this side of the Misty Mountains.”

Almost alone. Bilbo looked up at Gandalf whose smirk somehow managed to reflect amusement and pride all at the same time.

“He didn’t have to do that.” Bilbo finally found his voice, regardless of how awe-filled it was.

“I would think Thorin has a differing opinion on the subject. You’ve done well, Bilbo. You can go home now knowing you have gone above and beyond the call of duty.”

“Hmm?” Bilbo mused, not registering Gandalf’s words.

“Why back to the Shire! You do still plan to return to Bag End, don’t you?”

“Of course!” Bilbo snapped reflexively only to flinch at the harshness of his own words. “I mean, yes, I do...I just...”

“Well,” Gandalf offered. “We have a few days. Think about it, and let me know, whatever you decide.”

***

Bilbo thought about it, but he was no closer to an answer. He had to go back to Bag End. He was a Baggins after all, but the idea of leaving his dwarves. Leaving Thorin...it left a hole in his chest that refused to be closed. He finally decided it was just the freshness of leaving his friends. A few months back in the Shire, and the pain would leave him once he was back where he belonged. Therefore, despite how much it hurt, he told Gandalf he did still intend to go home.

His dwarves did not take the news well.

Bilbo ignored the pleading eyes of the Durin princes as he finished putting away his new clothes from Dori into his pack along with trinkets from the whole Company. Well, all but Thorin. Even Dain had come by to apologize for the way he had reacted after he got the full story and left Bilbo with a rather large and impractical shield. Remarkably, Bilbo had seen neither hide nor hair of the new King Under the Mountain since his declaration to return home. 

“You could build a new home here! You don’t have to go, Mister Boggins.” Kili pleaded.

Bilbo couldn’t help smirking as he patted the dwarf on the shoulder.

“As I have said before Kili, the Shire is where I belong."

“You also belong here.” Fili added, looking oddly serious and melancholy.

Bilbo’s smile fell as he turned his back to hide how effected he was by the prince’s words.

“Me? I’m just a silly hobbit. I no more belong in a mountain than an acorn in a window garden. Now, are you going to walk me to the gate or expect me to carry all of this myself?”

Fili and Kili had many more protests for him, but in the end gathered the ornate shield and the chest bearing his company’s treasures to be loaded on Bilbo’s pony. The rest of the Company, minus their king, was gathered just as somber as Bilbo’s companions. The wizard was ready to go, and waited for Bilbo to make his goodbyes.

“Well...” He started. “T-Thank you. Thank you all for...the most amazing adventure. If you’re ever in the Shire, tea is at four...don’t bother to knock.”

That earned a weak chuckle from his friends.

“And I suppose tell Thorin that...”

His throat closed, and Bilbo had to look down at his toes to gather his courage.

“Tell Thorin...”

“Yes?”

Bilbo’s head shot up as his heart thrummed in his chest.

“Thorin!” He breathed in delight.

The king was looking much healthier if but for the dark circles under his eyes and the saddened expression.

“You’re here.” Bilbo remarked in awe.

Thorin ducked his head with a small smile. 

“I was getting your going-away gifts together.”

“Oh.”

Bilbo should have been delighted much like he was with the other Company members’ gifts. However, he had been hoping for...well, he wasn’t quite sure what. Without further ado, Thorin pulled out Bilbo’s small sword he had been rather fond of but sacrificed in desperation to rid them of the monster orc. Sting.

“I asked Prince Legolas and Captain Tauriel to try and find it. They were more than happy to assist. I hope that it reminds you of all that you’ve done for Erebor.”

He presented it to Bilbo with a small bow, and Bilbo repeated the motion happy to place the blade back in the scabbard on his hip. Even with his limited experience, it certainly made him feel better having it on his person.

“Also,” Thorin added almost eagerly. “I want you to have this.”

Letting his braid flutter lose, Thorin tugged one of the hair beads from his own raven locks and presented it to Bilbo.

“So all of Arda will know what you have done for me, a grateful and indebted king.”

Bilbo was practically trembling.

“Thorin.” He croaked. “I-I can’t...”

“Please.” The king whispered as he carefully closed Bilbo’s fingers over the bead sitting innocently on his palm. “For me.”

It was too much. Thorin looking at him like that. His too large hands still softly cradling his hand. There was only so much a respectable hobbit like Bilbo could take. Before he could stop himself, he closed his eyes and surged up onto his tiptoes as he planted a kiss on the handsome king. It was quick and chaste and breath-taking all at once. Thorin seemed equally befuddled but hopeful. Bilbo tried his hardest to ignore the cheers of the Company and the heat in his own cheeks as he gave Thorin a single nod.

“Well then...good evening.”

He turned to saddle the pony when his actions seemed to catch up to him. What exactly was he doing?! He loved Thorin. How could he leave him now? His mind struggled to process the influx of emotional information while he remained halfway on his pony, staring into the setting sun.

“Perhaps...” Gandalf finally offered, far too amused. “We got too late a start.”

Thorin picking up on the cues rushed to Bilbo’s side.

“Would you...? Would you like to stay for dinner?” He blurted much to the annoyance of their friends.

“WHAT HE MEANS IS WOULD YOU LIKE TO STAY FOREVER?!” Kili corrected.

Everyone couldn’t help but laugh including Bilbo and Thorin. The hobbit finally returned to the present turning to Thorin with a large grin.

“I think dinner would be a lovely start.”

And Bilbo enjoyed dinner in Erebor for many years to come.

[svnflowervol666]

I Want Your Belly (Harry Styles x fem!Reader)

Word Count: 2.2k

Author’s Note: Oddly specific, kinda weird, sappy sweet. Got a good handful of asks for this one so here you go! Harry asks Y/N to join him in the Watermelon Sugar music video. It was a bit hard to write due to the nature of the scenario, but I hope you find it just as cute as I did. Take care and TPWK.

Even in January, the California heat is brutal and unforgiving. Sure, being by the ocean where the momentum of the cool waves cast a light breeze does something to midigate the miserable feeling of feeling like the sun’s rays are going to burn you alive, but it’s only a crumb of salvation really. We’re talking sweat running down the backs of your kneecaps, legs painfully sticking to the seat of whatever chair you’re sitting in, not enough water in the world to keep you from being dehydrated hot. But she wanted to be there.

She’d been oggling him from her sand chair for the past forty-five minutes. I mean, who isn’t oggling him when they see him tracing his fingers coyly over the flesh of a sweet, ripe watermelon. He’d been glancing in her direction in between nearly every take, smirking at her through his aqua-tinted sunnies and wondering if what she was seeing made her reconsider the offer he’d been begging her to take him up on for weeks. All she would give him back was her iconic side-eye before she’d go back to reading the novel in her lap and occasionally picking at the bowl of freshly-cut fruit she’d swiped from the prop table.

“And that’s a wrap on scene one!” one of the directors called out over the crashing waves.

Harry did what was proper - shaking hands and bowing heads and saying his ‘thank you’s before all but jogging over to where she was sat underneath the oversized pale-blue gingham printed umbrella.

“Change yeh mind yet?”

He had his hands on his hips, fingers resting on hem of the crochet-knit tank top he’d chosen himself for the occasion. She waited until she finished the page she was on before even daring to peer up at him through her sunglasses.

“How are you not dying in those pants?” was all that Y/N gave in response before going back to her book.

“‘M absolutely wretched down there if that’s what you’re askin. But yeh didn’t answer my question, lovie.”

She sighed heavily, dog-earring her place in her novel and casting it aside it in the sand before leaning up to rest her elbows on her knees.

“I just don’t know why you want me to be in it so badly. This is your video. If I’m in it, everyone’s gonna go crazy and it’ll be an even bigger shit show in the press than it’s already going to be.”

This made Harry crouch down to her level, his white loafers digging even deeper into the sand as he leaned on his haunches.

“That’s exactly why I want yeh t’ be in it. ‘S my video and that’s what I want. Want this t’ be fun and it would be even more fun if I had m’ girl with me.”

She stared at him, silently giving him her please drop it look, but it only spurred him on further.

“If it’ll make yeh feel any better, I’ll make sure you’re not in it a bunch when it comes ‘round t’ editing. Barely put yeh up close too.”

That was enticing,Y/N could admit. He’d surely let her have the final say in how much she was involved, but there was still a lot of stress that came with being on camera. Especially in her state. She knew she wasn’t exactly hiding anything, as they’d been spotted countless times in public and their friends had posted photos to their stories with her body clearly visible in them, but some things she’d rather not shine a direct spotlight on. Doing something like this would most definitely be putting her business on display for the world to see, and she wasn’t sure if she was ready for that. 

“Please, baby? I won’t ask yeh again, but I’d really love it if you were beside me.”

She wet her lips with her tongue, eyes darting up to the underside of the umbrella as she really, truly contemplating giving in to Harry’s pleads. On her life, she can barely recall a time when she hadn’t given Harry anything that he wanted. He just had a way with people that wasn’t manipulative or conniving in any way - he was magnetic. Everything about him was so charismatic and mesmerizing and anyone that met him found themselves gravitating towards him and going along with whatever he was saying or suggesting. I mean, she let him put a baby in her for christ’s sake.

“Help me up out of this thing and find me something to wear,” she huffed, to which Harry dramatically punched the air with his fist in celebration.

“One condition,” she interjected his boast and Harry tilted his ear in her direction and tapped his earlobe with his finger to show her that he was listening.

“You have to go down on me when we get home. It was torture watching you finger that watermelon, but I’m pretty sure you already knew that.”

“Yeh talkin’ like yeh think I wasn’t gonna try t’ squeeze in a quickie during lunch anyway.”

He pulled her up to her feet, making sure to keep a steady hand on her back as he led her away from the ocean and towards the beach entrance where the trailers were parked.

//

“Wha’ about this one?” Harry asked as he pulled a strapless swimsuit with a palm tree print littered about the fabric and presented it to her.

“One wrong step and my tits will fall right outta that thing,” she quipped.

Harry held it at arm’s reach so he get a better look at the garment himself.

“Yeah. You’re right. They are gettin’ pretty big, aren’t they?”

There was no malice laced within his comment, but when he felt a harsh backhand graze his shoulder, he realized what he’d just said.

“Jesus, Y/N. I’m sorry. Didn’t mean it like tha’. Yeh know I love your boobs. Especially now.”

He tried to make up for it by reaching his hand out to playfully grab at Y/N’s chest, but she slapped his fingers away and continued thumbing through the racks filled with dozens if not hundreds of swimsuits for something she could manage to squeeze herself into.

“Ohh, wait! This one’s nice.”

Harry’s fingers got tangled in the lacy straps of the neighboring article of clothing beside the one he was trying to pull out, making a few hangers crash to the ground with a harsh sound against the linoleum. When she saw what he had found, she didn’t hate it. It was a sherbet-orange colored bikini that seemed as if it would cover everything she was concerned about showing, and the bottoms looked like they’d be somewhat decent at keeping her ass contained and wouldn’t ride up and make her constantly have to readjust it every five minutes. 

“Alright, Styles,” she squinted her eyes and nodded in approval.

“I’ll bite.”

He watched her as she peeled her romper that perfectly cradled her small yet still mighty bump, lingering for just a bit too long when she unhooked the back of her bra and dropped it to the floor.

“You gonna give me the swimsuit or are you gonna keep staring at me? It’s fucking hot in here, Harry.”

She was stark naked and had her hands on her hips, a sticky veil of sweat still shining on her skin from the mugginess of the wardrobe trailer. Harry couldn’t help but chuckle at her state, his heart full of nothing but admiration for the girl standing in front of him.

“Here, I’ll help yeh into it.”

Harry kneeled down to the floor and guided her legs through the bikini bottoms. Just as he pulled them up around her thighs and onto her hips, he gave her bump a quick kiss. 

“We’re kinda matchin’ yeh know,” Harry babbled as he fastened the straps on her top.

“‘S the same color as m’ nails,” he stuck a leg out in front of her to wiggle his toes and show off the bright orange pedicure he’d gotten that morning.

“That’s disgustingly cute actually. Maybe I should change,” she joked.

“No way,” he dismissed her.

“Yeh ass looks too good in this one.”

Harry clapped both hands against her bum with gentle force, the two of them erupting into a fit of giggles. He spun her around by the shoulders to get a good look at her body, protruding belly and all, in the clementine orange swimsuit.

“M’ pretty, pretty girl,” he whispered as his lips met hers in a kiss.

“You’re lucky I love you enough to do this.”

“I know I am,” Harry muttered against her mouth.

“Alright,” he continued.

“Just gotta change into m’ shorts and then I’ll be good t’ go. Meet yeh at the umbrella?”

“Oh hell no,” she jested.

“If you got to see me naked, I get to see you naked. Now get to stripping.”

//

The day went by in a blur.

What was supposed to be a brief cameo turned into Harry dragging Y/N into every scene he possibly could. When the directors instructed the models to gather in a pile around the pop star, he found his head perched in her lap, nestled perfectly atop her thighs with his temples pressed against her belly. When they’d wanted clips of everyone romping about the shoreline, he’d ended up carrying her around the beach after she’d gotten winded from doing one-too-many takes.

“Harry, I cannot fucking do this anymore,” she panted.

“I can practically feel my cankles growing.”

“Fine then,” he replied, hooking his forearm around the underside of her knees and scooping her up so that she was cradled against his burly chest.

“I’ll just carry yeh.”

He’d made her feed him raspberries as he sang the lyrics into the camera, even going so far as to suck on her fingers seductively when she went to drop one into his mouth. It wasn’t intended to be a serious attempt at filming the video, only him messing around and trying to get a rise out of her as he always did, but everyone ultimately decided that that the take they were going to use. She’d cursed him out under his breath, but they both knew it was for making her practically soak her knickers rather than getting dragged into more than she bargained for during the shoot.

Constantly, his hands always found themselves gravitating towards her belly. Whether it was rubbing her taught skin like a crystal ball as he sang the chorus instead of gesturing to the large watermelon that he was supposed to be holding, he couldn’t keep his hands off of her.

She’d known it was bound to happen at one point, but sometime throughout the afternoon he’d called for her and when she turned around, he was had shoved a watermelon up under his sheer, yellow blouse.

“Y/N!” Harry shouted at her from a few yards away, interrupting a lovely conversation she was having with one of the models.

“I’m you!”

He gestured to the fruit stuffed inside of his shirt, toyfully stroking the exterior in the manner that she always found herself doing even she wasn’t realizing. 

It made everyone, and I mean everyone, explode in laughter. It only made her hide her face in her hands after promptly shoving her middle finger in his direction.

But she’d gotten him back. When the director wanted shots of each of the girls taking bites out of a slice of watermelon, she’d made sure to take the messiest bite she could manage so that the juice ran down her chin and down the valley of her breasts. Y/N threw her head back as if were the greatest thing she’d ever tasted, exposing the column of her neck that Harry loved to mark up and bruise with his skillful tongue and lips.

“Yeh tryin’ t’ make me hard right now?” he all but growled in her ear when she’d joined him behind the camera so the next model could have their turn.

She simply cocked her head to one side and smirked up at him.

“Payback’s a bitch, isn’t it? I’m going to the bathroom. All of this watermelon’s making me have to pee.”

When it came time for the portrait and everyone was being distributed their designated slice of fruit, Y/N found herself confused when Harry pulled her out of line.

“What are you doing, H?”

Harry held up a hand to signal that he’d be right back, to which he returned with an uncut watermelon. Quite possibly the biggest watermelon that she’d ever seen at that.

“Yeh don’t get a slice, yeh get the whole damn watermelon.”

They’d all piled up on the bench and stared stoically into the camera, only instead of raising the wedge to their lips to take a bite, Y/N sat on the grass at Harry’s knees, a whole watermelon resting in between her legs in front of her bump.

//

Y/N’s day ended up being far more fun than she’d ever imagined it could have been despite her constant nagging and jabs at Harry’s expense. While she’d initially only agreed to be a part of Harry’s music video under the condition that her role would be minimum, she was secretly hoping that all of their side conversations and what would be considered “outtakes” would actually make in into the final cut. 

In fact, she’d had so much fun that at the end of the day when filming had wrapped and her and Harry were on the way home, the gentle hum of his convertible and the cool breeze that followed a blistering day on Malibu beach had slowly began willing her eyes shut. 

“Baby,” Harry beckoned her from the driver’s seat.

“Hmm?” Y/N picked her head up from where it was leaning against the window to look over at him.

“Don’t go t’ sleep on me now.”

He reached over to grab her left hand that had settled itself on top of her round stomach. Before lacing his fingers with hers, he kissed her knuckles tenderly.

“Still got t’ go down on yeh when we get home. Bet yeh gonna taste like strawberries.”

[plaid-shirtsandvibranium-arms]

Those Linked by Destiny (2)

Summary: Bucky, Sam, and Natasha are on a mission to once again defeat Hydra who this time had opened a time portal that unleashed monsters and beasts that were extinct for centuries for good reason. On the way, they try to recruit the only remaining person who had any knowledge on how to defeat these creatures. Her kind also almost extinct. A Witcher.

Fandoms: Avengers, The Witcher

Pairings: Bucky Barnes x Witcher!OFC (Female)

Warnings: Angst (coz this is me), Dry Dark Humour, Violence, Gore, Lots of Blood, Burning Sarcasm, Lots of Cussing

A/N: Hello, beautiful creatures! I’m back with a new hurricane of a crossover. This continues on from my completed series There’s More Than One Way To Start An Apocalypse (AvengersxSupernatural) but this can be read by itself. I made this an OFC instead of an xReader since I needed to be specific with how the Witcher character looked. I hope you enjoy and I welcome all kinds of feedback.

No permission is granted to repost my work. Tumblr is the only place I post my writing. If you see it anywhere else please report it.

Masterlist

2: Terms of Payment

Sam woke with a start taking loud deep breaths, his lungs feeling like they were burning. His hands began patting his naked torso urgently as he remembered that he had been severely injured. He found no traces of injury though aside from the dried blood that should have accompanied open wounds.

What sorcery was this?

His companions were alerted by the sudden noise that broke the peaceful silence. Bucky quickly jumped to his feet off of the sofa he had been sleeping on and knelt at his friend's side to carefully check him. Natasha almost fell off the arm chair she had folded herself into, choosing to forego the comfortable king size bed upstairs in favor of being nearer to her team. Prima slowly straightened her back in her corner, not even bothering to open her eyes.

"Sam! How are you feeling?" Bucky said gripping his shoulder and staring at him intently.

His eyes snapped to Bucky. He had been so disoriented and out of it that he hadn't even checked his surroundings first. He mentally scolded himself for that.

"I feel fine. I think," he answered still feeling confused as to how exactly he was fine. He was feeling better than fine as if his injuries had not happened at all. His attention was stolen when a small vial landed softly on his blanketed lap.

"Drink it."

He blinked at the complete stranger comfortably stretched out six feet from him that he hadn't even noticed until she spoke. There was something about the commanding tone that made him follow her instruction without question. He choked and spluttered on the liquid when she opened her eyes and met his.

"What the damn hell?"

Natasha swatted the back of his head making him flinch. "Don't be rude. That's Prima. She saved your sorry ass."

"Wait. You're Prima?"

She smirked, a gesture that oddly made a shiver run down Sam's spine. There was such a sharp disturbing contrast between her playfully colorful outer appearance and the cold almost malicious expression she wore.

"Sorry to disappoint," she drawled.

"Disappoint isn't exactly the word I would use."

She chuckled lightly before eyeing Natasha. "I have fulfilled my end of the agreement. Your friend is alive and well and this should consider us even. You may leave in the morning."

She pulled herself to her feet causing the cat to jump off her lap. She intended to make her way up to her bedroom to sleep off the rest of the night, but was halted by three sets of serious eyes boring into her. She read Natasha's expression and sighed in defeat.

"What?"

"We need your help, Prima," Natasha said, a soft plea in her tone.

"I was under the impression that I had already helped," she grunted. "What is this really about?"

"Hydra," Bucky said simply, the disgust in his voice apparent.

Prima rolled her eyes. "No. Hydra is your problem. Hydra is an Avengers problem, not mine."

Natasha shook her head and stared at her in worry. "This time is different, Prima."

Prima held her finger up to stop the conversation urgently as her ears picked up a sound that she had not heard for over two centuries now. It was a low rumbling malicious growl followed by a howl that pierced the night.

"What the hell was that?" Bucky whispered under his breath, his sensitive hearing picking up what the Witcher had.

Two more howls interrupted the night. Distinct. Angry. Out for blood. There was more than one.

"Werewolves," Prima said picking up her axe nonchalantly and making her way to her potions. "At least three."

She picked up a bottle and a rag from the shelf. Bucky looked on curiously as she soaked the rag with the contents of the bottle and began casually wiping it on the blades of her axe. The roar grew close enough that Sam and Natasha were able to hear it. They were closing in.

All three Avengers sat ram rod straight, their bodies automatically tense and at attention at the impending threat. Bucky scowled at how unbothered and unrushed Prima appeared.

What the hell was she doing polishing her weapon now of all times?

The Winter Soldier grunted as he stood up and made his way out of the backdoor. Sam and Natasha were following close behind with their own weapons at the ready by their sides.

"Sera taught us how to deal with werewolves. We got this," Sam affirmed to the team as they stepped out into the chill of the late night.

The growls grew louder and out from the thicket of trees emerged three towering werewolves like they've never seen before. Much taller than humans even in their hunched stance, bulky and all muscle, long sharp claws, and topped off by a snarling wolf head. It was a disturbing twisted blend of human and wolf. It was nothing like the werewolves that they had seen. These were more monstrous, more vicious, more detached from their humanity. They were also fast approaching.

"What the fuck?" Natasha breathed taking a step back.

The three of them were so preoccupied trying to process the scene in front of them that they didn't register Prima coming from behind them until she stood a few steps in front with her axe comfortably hooked over her shoulder out of habit.

The three werewolves let out a threatening collective roar before charging as a unit toward the house. The Avengers were on high alert at the movement, but Prima remained unbothered in her stance.

"Prima, watch out!" Sam yelled over the heavy thumping of wolf feet. He gripped his shield and got ready to toss it straight through their necks.

Prima answered by turning her head to show them her profile which had a chilling smirk on it. She lifted her arm out with her fingers in a peculiar formation as the monsters rushed forward. A single word escaped her lips.

"Ignis."

Jesus fuck!

Bucky stared wide eyed and open mouthed as a wide angry stream of blazing fire blasted from her outstretched hand and burned through the werewolves. They were in the middle of screaming in pain when she launched herself at them swinging her axe over her head and efficiently slicing through one clear through its neck.

She gripped her axe this time with both hands and pulled it apart to transform it to two separate axes held comfortably in each hand. She swung both in a deadly dance of glinting metal that quickly sliced through the remaining werewolves. Prima turned around to face them with her alabaster face and sunny dress splattered with blood, her pupils narrowed, her lips curved in a smug smile, and her dripping axes hung by her sides. The soft glow of the moon only served to highlight the maniacal glint in her eyes.

Bucky thought she looked hauntingly beautiful.

She sauntered back to them as she clicked the axes back together and hooked it as usual over her shoulder. She wiped the blood from her free hand on her dress which served to only smear the carnage already on there.

"Grab the shovels from the greenhouse. This area is private property but we must burn and bury the bodies in case the townspeople happen upon them."

Sam and Bucky nodded before ducking back to retrieve the shovels. Natasha went back inside as well and returned shortly to hand a towel to Prima who was now cleaning up as best she can with the garden hose. They both made their way to the men who had now begun to dig near the dead werewolves. The cat had exited the house and followed closely behind its master sensing that it was now safe.

There was a long moment with no words exchanged as they all focused on the task at hand. It went by much faster with all four of them working together. The men were rolling the werewolves into the pit when Natasha decided to break the tension.

"Didn't take you for a cat person."

Prima snorted but smiled as she stroked the cat's head that had decided to perch on her shoulders. "The eyes not give it away?"

Sam dumped some gasoline in the hole and threw a lit lighter in with it. The fire caught immediately but Bucky thought to himself that the flames weren't as magnificent as those from Prima. Natasha shifted from one foot to another trying to decide how to start the conversation she needed to have. Her target this time had already rejected her initial request for help. She would have to reconsider her approach. Prima decided to make the choice for her.

"Would you like to discuss inside or would you like us to roast marshmallows over the fire first?"

Natasha frowned at the joke made in poor taste, but the Witcher seemed to be further amused by her reaction. She tilted her head toward the cabin signalling them all to go inside leaving behind them the raging bonfire.

The Avengers and the Witcher sat around the dining table with each of them clutching a fresh cup of coffee in their hands. It was their second cup already as they debriefed her on what had been happening. Sera had undone the Snap. The Hunters together with the Avengers had defeated a divine threat. Now Hydra had somehow been able to open a time portal and unleashed all the monsters from her time.

"Fuck," Prima growled and pinched the bridge of her nose as she felt the migraine creeping in. "I spent 400 fucking years by myself driving every single one of those things into extinction. Enough to take it down to a level that Hunters would be sufficient to handle them."

"Excuse me? 400 years?" Sam asked, his disbelieving expression matching that of Bucky's beside him.

"How bad is this?" Natasha asked ignoring the other two, her own frown prevalent on her lips. Prima sighed.

"There is a reason why at one point Witcher was a flourishing profession. Witchers were made to go against these beasts and there was a demand that needed to be serviced. I'm the only remaining Witcher. How bad do you think it is?"

"That's exactly why we need your help. You're the only one who knows how to deal with any of these things," Natasha began to plead her case but Prima had a look of immediate revulsion. At that moment, she realized what could potentially convince her.

"We're offering you a contract."

Natasha's words stilled Prima and caused her to raise a curious eyebrow up at her. Witchers traditionally took on contracts most often for eliminating a monster that was terrorizing a village. It was their primary means of making a living and ensured that they would be compensated after the task. Prima can't remember the last time she has been offered a contract. The familiarity was oddly comforting to her.

"Terms of payment?"

"However much you want. Stark will pay it."

The Witcher scoffed, the movement disturbing the cat on her lap. "I've been around for over 700 years, child. I have more money than I have use for."

"Hold on. What??" Sam said his eyes practically bugging out of their sockets.

"Weapons?"

"No. I am partial to my axe."

"A quinjet? Could come in handy since you move around so much," Natasha countered.

"No."

There was a devilish smirk on both the women's faces, enjoying to some extent this back and forth negotiation. Natasha racked her brain for what else she can use to convince Prima to take the contract. She was close to offering up Tony and throw in all of his suits just to get her onboard. Maybe include an Avenger or two in to spice it up.

"Private island? You'll never need to move again."

"No."

"A fuckton of vibranium?"

"Throw in his arm and we got a deal," Prima said cocking her head in the direction of a now very uncomfortable Winter Soldier.

"Why?" Natasha asked completely ignoring the outraged expressions on her teammates face in favor of her curiosity.

The Witcher shrugged. "My porch could use a new wind chime."

Natasha turned to Bucky with a look in her eye that seemed very much like she was willing him to consider it. He fumed and pointed a finger at her in warning.

"Don't you fucking dare, Nat."

Natasha rolled her eyes and threw her hands in the air in defeat. "Fine. What do you want, Prima? Name your price."

"I have neither need nor want for anything. I must decline, Natasha. I'm sorry."

The modern style wall clock began to chime softly as it struck twelve midnight as if punctuating the finality of the Witcher's decision. The cat suddenly began to struggle out of her grasp with a discontent hiss. It leaped from her lap but what landed on the hardwood floors were not fuzzy paws but a set of bare feet that were unmistakably human.

Chairs clattered to the floor as the Avengers sprung from their seats and drew their weapons at the sight of this new man who looked to have morphed from being the house cat. Grey eyes and a wide beaming smile accompanied the floppy short brown hair of the newcomer.

He stretched his limbs and groaned at the cracking of his bones bringing him some relief, the V-neck shirt and tight jeans straining at the movements. The bell tied around his neck was the only real indication to the Avengers that this was indeed the cat and that they weren't hallucinating.

"Gods! I thought it would never strike midnight. Do you know how infuriating it is to not be able to comment? A meow can only convey so much."

"Who the fuck are you?" Sam asked raising his shield higher.

Prima had barely moved in her seat at the disturbance, only casually sipping her remaining coffee and waving dismissively at the transformed man.

"Avengers, meet Jaskier. Jaskier, the Avengers."

Jaskier made a low formal bow with all the flair that was standard for his personality. Once straightened, he clapped his hands together and looked excitedly around the room.

"Now that we're introduced, I am pleased to inform you all that we will happily accept this contract."

He slapped a hand across the Witcher's mouth just as she was about to protest. He flashed a cheeky grin at the still confused superheroes while his hand held firmly in place silencing a now sulky Prima.

"What's the plan?"

[baby-bearie]

carving cuts

cedric diggory x reader a/n: ok screw u tumblr let me post. this is for brick’s writing challenge, and i wrote it in like 30 minutes because i realized the deadline is today. i haven’t written in forever, so it’s not great. please excuse the lack of plot and enjoy the fluff. 

The tree just behind the second window on the right wall of the infirmary is the best place for thinking. Sitting under it, leaves twirling down around you from the fiery orange canopy above, the only sounds to be heard are the rustling of the tree leaves as they snap and tumble down. This is the only corner of Hogwarts you can think of not swamped with excitement - as autumn usually brings.

The season creates a stir in Hogwarts. Quidditch games are packed, the stands completely filled. Students bustle down the hallways eagerly whispering to their friends. Bets are already being placed on how far into his fourth year of school Harry Potter will get before someone tries to kill him. 

Under this tree, Hogwarts does not exist. You sit facing away from the school, back pressed up against the far side of the tree. The book clutched in your hands is tarnished every once in a while with a stray golden leaf, landing between the pages. No matter. It does not disturb you. 

What does disturb you is an unfairly taller than you asshole who snatches the book out of your hands. 

“Good lord, Y/l/n, I’ve been searching for you everywhere. You were supposed to meet me in the courtyard 30 minutes ago!” 

  You snap around quickly, up on your feet to glare at Cedric who takes no notice of your sour expression, instead leaning against the tree and opening your book. 

“You and your muggle books. What is this one?” He turns it over to see the cover. 

“Pride and Prejudice. And they’re really very good. Stop beating on them because you can’t figure out how to read, Diggory.”

Cedric loudly clears his throat before beginning in a oddly stiff voice, “It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife.” He grins, one hand digging into his pocket. “Got a few sickles in’ere somewhere, I swear.” He mutters. 

“Aha!” Cedric pulls out 3 knuts and offers them to you. “Sweetheart,” he begins, grinning. 

“Oh, no,” You attempt to condemn him but you can’t help but laugh. 

“As I am a single man,” he continues anyways, even more pleased with your laughter. 

“A single man?” “Yes, a single man.” He dismisses your comment. 

“And I am,” He opens the book again and reads, “in possession of a good fortune.”

Cedric tucks the book under his arm and grabs your hand, holding it open so he can dispense the handful of currency into it. 

“Then I must be in want of a wife, correct?” He looks so proud of his handful of knuts and his understanding of Pride and Prejudice that you agree. 

“Absolutely, Mr. Diggory. And if I may ask, who do you intend to make your wife?” Your eyes are dancing with glee, sure of his answer. 

He purses his lips in thought before slinging an arm over your shoulder, the both of you beginning the trek back to the castle. 

“I’m not sure, all of the girls I know are quite boring.” He tries to shrug, but finds it quite difficult to do so with his arm still around you. 

“Boring?” “Yes, boring. Such boring names, like Y/n. Such boring books they read. Some of these girls are quite like you.” He nods at you, as if he pities your likeness to such boring girls. 

“Really? Do their boyfriends plan horribly boring dates, too?” “No, they plan amazingly exciting dates. The boring girlfriends are too boring to show up on time. They keep reading boring books instead.” He turns to face you, cheeks flushed red as you come to a stop. 

“Say boring one more time and you’ll really be a single man with a small fortune, Diggory.” 

“Well, how uninteresting does pumpkin carving at Hagrid’s patch sound?’ “It sounds like I don’t trust you anywhere near a knife.” “Thoughts on a picnic?” “We don’t have any food?” “Apple picking?” “You ruined your boots last week, Cedric.” “Jesus Christ woman, what do you want to do?”

You hook your arm in his again. 

“Pumpkin carving sounds fine.” 

Pumpkin carving was not fine. 

It started completely safe, until Cedric got his hands on a blade. You made the fatal mistake of not watching him and looked up from your masterpiece just in time to see him angle his hand next to the knife the wrong way. 

“Ced, wait-” you reached out to stop him, but you heard his knife drop to the ground and the sharp hiss and it was too late. 

“Oh, what did you do?” You set down your knife, picking up his hand to inspect the wound. He had a clean cut across his palm, and it was already seeping blood. 

“How did you even do this? By all accounts, being this dangerous to yourself should not be possible.”

Cedric dropped his forehead to your shoulder, wincing when your fingertips got too near the cut. “Yeah, that’s me. Making the impossible possible. Honey, could you not keep pulling- ow, enough!” He whines. 

“We gotta get you to the infirmary, Ced. That needs to be cleaned and then Pomfrey can fix you up.” You begin to gather your things, as Cedric stops you. 

“Wait, wait, wait. Maybe I shouldn’t get it fixed up. Maybe I should just let it scar.” He grins. 

You stare at him in disbelief momentarily. “Are you being serious?” 

Cedric nods, “A scarred palm would be absolutely brilliant, seriously, Y/n.” 

“Cedric Diggory, you are a bloody idiot. Come on, let’s go.” 

taglist: @bricksatanakinswindow @sunflowermotel @maraseavey @outerbanqs @tinylatina01 @obx-direction-sos 

[dfcfanfics]

Self-Improvement In One Easy Step Miraculous Prompt of the Day

Adrien sat at his piano bench, fighting the urge to slam his head down upon the keys.

It had been one of those days where _everything_ had gone wrong.  An awkward post-battle conversation with Ladybug as Chat left her feelings hurt and him apologizing, Marinette had seemed oddly distant at school, his father was being his father... and this tricky piece of Stravinsky continued to elude him.  Demonstrating his ineptitude at the latter would certainly send his father into another round of disappointment and criticism, and that might be more than Adrien could handle at this point.

"I wish that I could just... Cataclysm all the things that I don't like about myself.  All my personality faults, all my fears, all my worries... just remove them from the world and be done with them," Adrien muttered

"I'm kind of glad that you haven't yet," Plagg consoled him.  

He realized his error when Adrien turned to him with a calculating expression on his face.

"What do you mean... yet?"

~----~

“Hoo, boy.  This is a conversation I really didn’t plan on having today...” lamented Plagg, as Adrien dragged him to the sofa and glared at him intently.

“But we’re having it.  What did you mean by that?” Adrien insisted.  “Look, I’m talking with you about this instead of just transforming and trying to do it.  I am capable of some self-restraint.”

“Which is a good thing.  Because, uh, technically... you could remove that from yourself.  But I really really really really don’t recommend trying!” worried Plagg.  

Adrien listened to Plagg’s explanation with a profound sense of wonder.  

“Tinkering with your own self like this... or something bigger... it’s dangerous.  It’s tricky and easy to screw up.  And you don’t get takebacks when it goes wrong... and it will.”  

“You’re sure that it would,” ventured Adrien.

“Absolutely.  It’s like performing brain surgery on yourself, while looking in a mirror to know where to cut.  Except without the cutting-your-head-open part,” Plagg retorted.  “So many things can go wrong.  Like, imagine that you hate that you’re hesitant to do something or say something, right?  So you Cataclysm ‘hesitation and doubt.’  Then you go to cross the street the next day, and there’s no little voice telling you, ‘I don’t know if I can make it across without getting hit by a car.’“

“And... splat,” Adrien concurred.  

“The other thing is that the way Cataclysm usually works... on objects... that’s kind of self-contained,” noted Plagg.  “It draws a lot of energy from the thing that you’re Cataclysming as it breaks it down.  But if you’re destroying something conceptual... that power comes straight from you.”

“I could destroy an entire concept?” marveled Adrien.

“You could try,” smirked Plagg.  “It’s all based on willpower.  Like, you could Cataclysm a chicken.  You can’t just declare, ’No more chickens,’ and blow them all away at once because chickens are creatures, objects, right?  You’d have to do them one by one.  But if you said, ‘I Cataclysm evil,’ that’s where it gets nasty.”

“How so?” 

“For one, it would take out whatever you perceived as evil.  That’s a judgment call, based on your own morals and beliefs.  For another... where would it stop?” Plagg worried. “Imagine a wave coming out of you and passing over Paris, erasing any ‘evil’ it touches.”  

“Would it stop at a city block?  At the city limits?  Over all of France?” wondered Adrien.

“It would stop when you intended it to.  Or when it drained the last drop of life energy out of your body, and the spell ran out of juice and just fizzled right there.“

Plagg gave him the most serious look Adrien had ever seen from him.  “There’s a reason that all we tell hosts about are the basics of our powers,” Plagg admitted.  “That we tend to be given to young people who have built-in limitations.  A person with a will of absolute iron, using me... they could alter the entire human race in one shot.  Or pick one victim and just... mind-warp them into something unrecognizable, by destroying their capabilities to act or think otherwise.”

Adrien frowned.  “I don’t like the sound of that.  At all,” he agreed.

“You shouldn’t.  That’s epic villain stuff, right there,” insisted Plagg.

“But... in the right circumstances, with me limiting the effect as much as I can... it might be good to know that I have this in my toolbox,” ruminated Adrien.  

“You have to understand, there’s no ‘temporary’.  You can’t Cataclysm away your doubt for the next thirty minutes.  Once something’s gone, it’s gone,” Plagg emphasized.  “Unless it’s something that could grow back naturally.”

“Or, unless... someone with the power of Creation helped it grow?” 

Plagg covered his face with his hands.  “You don’t want to go there.  Don’t even tell Ladybug that that’s an option,” he wailed.  “Tikki would tear me apart.” 

“Seriously, though,” Adrien continued.  “If I break down something with the power of Cataclysm... something theoretical, something conceptual... and Ladybug uses that energy to reshape it into something better, to create a new and improved version...”

“I’m going to say three things,” Plagg shouted.  “One: don’t.  Two: don’t! And three, I’m going back to bed now before I get myself and the world in more trouble.”

As the tiny cat floated away, wobbling over to one of his favorite perches, all tht was running through his head was a single sentence:

I have a really bad feeling about this.

[missyart123]

To Be Forgiven - Tommy & Technoblade

Based off of This Post by @savvyart101

The night was cold.

Even with the colossal trees that grew high into the sky, shielding the little light provided by the moon, the figure’s breath was visible in the air, illuminated by the faint purple glow that permeated the forest.

The man sighed, watching the steam curl. It was quiet – unnaturally quiet. Not even the sounds of the forest breached the silence, but it didn’t strike the man as odd. He was used to it. The forest would often fall silent in his presence; the rush of wind through the leaves stilling, the chirps of crickets fading out, the bustle of nature coming to a halt. It was as though the forest itself froze at the sight of him. It wouldn’t surprise the man. Not even the night beasts neared him anymore.

The thought didn’t bother him. He’d learned long ago that it wasn’t worth the hassle of caring – nothing stuck around for long. Impermanence was the nature of life and when one lived as long as he, one quickly realised that hanging on to things only made their inevitable end all the more tragic.

Why then, the man wondered, was he here. Following that note offered him no benefit, no relief. He had followed it on a whim and now, as he stood at the entrance to the clearing, he wasn’t sure what had compelled him to in the first place. Perhaps it had been curiosity, but even that seemed false. Perhaps he knew it to be.

In all reality, it didn’t really matter. He was here now and he’d see it through. The hybrid had never been the type to lie down; never put down his weapon in the face of battle.

Steeling himself, he stepped forward, pushing a stray vine from his vision.

The clearing opened wider than he’d been expecting.

In the centre of the glade a rustic campfire sat, presumably lit in preparation of his arrival. The flickering flame cast a vivid orange glow that licked at its surroundings, biting at the boots of the shadows which danced desperately out of its way.

Around the central pit five wooden stools had been fashioned haphazardly of a few spare logs. They sat clustered close together in a ring; buckets and other such equipment scattered in between and hidden amongst the wild grass. Each item bore a thick layer of rust, telling of a long period lain untouched.

The area practically stunk of nostalgia. It was almost as though he could see the ghostlike figures that once sat around the edges; laughing into the night as they told tales and sung songs, backed by the battered guitar leaning abandoned against one of the stumps.

Whoever they had been they were long gone now. All that was left behind were the imprints of once happy memories; ghostly figures trapped by the magic of the forest.

He wondered who the group had been. Only one person sat there now.

Hunched over and staring into the flames sat Tommy.

From where the man stood the boy’s face was bathed in darkness, shadowed by the blackness of the night. Even so, the boy looked deep in thought, not even seeming to register his presence.

It was odd seeing such a look on his face. It was an expression too old for his face, too quiet for one so loud. It felt wrong seeing the boy that burned so bright so subdued, as though the fire itself had sucked all of the fight from his soul.

The figure felt like he was staring at a shell of a boy; a boy who had been forced into the role of a man. Something about it left something deep within him twisting with discomfort. It was a feeling not unlike staring at a corpse.

The hybrid found himself dropping his gaze soon after, the feeling of intrusion so strong that it quickly became unbearable.

Breaking the still, the man stepped into the light.

“You wanted to talk,” Techno began, eyes trained on his brother.

His voice came out louder than he had intended. What with the lack of previous reaction, Techno almost expected the other to flinch, and yet Tommy didn’t move an inch.

Perhaps he’d underestimated him.

Still, it was quiet.

He reached the log next to the blond and crouched down, falling back into the low-set seat. Not sparing the other a glance, Techno spread himself out, getting comfortable in the chair that was not his own. Relaxing his shoulders, he reached up and pulled his sword from its sheath, carelessly throwing it to the ground. He unbuckled his sheath from his shoulder next, dragging it off of his back and placing it down on the ground next to his sword with a soft thump.

Hand running through his hair, he stretched out and leaned forwards, eyes landing on the fire. He wondered what his brother saw in it; what shapes haunted him too.

“It was you that sent the message then,” He started, as though he hadn’t known. As though it hadn’t been obvious from the hand writing alone, never mind the inky smudges the teen always left along the margins or the crinkled edges of the paper from the way Tommy pinned the sheet to the desk, attempting to stop his quill from catching on the page.

Following a similar vein of thought, Tommy gave him a sharp look, eyes narrowed in disbelief.

Pleased, Techno caught the younger’s eyes. Not being able to read people’s faces was a pain.

Tommy let out a deep sigh, turning fully to face his elder brother. Gaze sharp, Techno scoured his face, taking in as much as he could. All at once everything that had felt so wrong about it all hit him like a slap to the face.

Tommy looked old. Unlike what he’d thought, the boy’s eyes no longer shone a youthful blue, now a muted grey – the joyful crinkles that always lined his eyes smoothed out, fading into non-existence.

He looked tired, his whole pallor taking on a rather dull shade. The overall effect was horrifying, his waxy skin exaggerating the emaciated jut of his bones.

It was wrong. He didn’t look like his brother anymore.

“Well,” Tommy began, throat dry with disuse, “like you said, I came to talk.”

The boy paused for a moment as though weighing his words, skinny fingers fiddling anxiously with the – definitely new – lock of grey hair tucked behind his ear. “I- I want to open a dialogue; to apologise for some things; to hear your side.” With that the younger breathed out, looking nervous as to his next words, as though he were unsure of how Techno would react. “And for you to hear mine; to listen to what I have to say too.”

Techno said nothing. Legs shaking, Tommy stood up, figure illuminated as he paced restlessly along the edge of the pit. “We’ve only really spoken in screaming matches where neither of us were really listening other. It was wrong. I want that to change. I’m making it change. If no one else is going to take the step to move things forward, then someone has to.” Tommy stilled, voice hard with conviction. “I guess it has to be me.”

Techno watched his younger brother, unsure as what to feel. If he was completely honest, this almost felt like a chastisement; as though the words were an accusation, not a fact. He looked away, struggling to remain impassive.

“Fine.” Despite the discomfort it caused, Techno tried to remain serious, not allowing himself to fall into the habit of breaking the tension with humour. If his brother was going to make the effort to be mature, then he’d at least give him the respect to match him. “I’m listening.”

Tommy nodded, face pulled into a forced smile. It didn’t last long, the look quickly dropping from his face as he looked away.

In the following moments, an awkward silence filled the air. Neither was sure how to begin. Getting to this point had been a battle in and of itself and now they’d finally reached it, both found the words that usually came leaping to their tongues like poison had fallen silent, docile in their amicable still.

Tommy shuffled, picking absently at his jumper.

Looking at the younger, Techno steeled himself. As much as it pained him to admit it, Tommy was right. He shouldn’t be the one having to do this.

“Where do you want to begin?” He asked quietly, tone matching the solemnness the question deserved. Tommy shrugged, looking away.

It was as though all the fight had drained from the boy the minute he’d broken eye contact, closing in on himself along with his body, which was now wrapped tightly around itself. It was concerning how quickly the boy could switch, fire dying like a match blown out.

Perhaps it really had been curiosity after all that had brought him here; wonder at the little brother that had changed so much. Nostalgia for a time that was gone.

“Why did you leave me behind?” The words poured from his mouth without his consent, drenched in the pain he hadn’t meant to voice. Tommy’s head lifted quickly, eyes wide with surprise.

Techno met his gaze with equal confusion, tense at his own unprompted confession.

He hadn’t meant to say that.

He leaned away, a familiar smile pulling across his face, light and jokey and false.

“Don’t worry about it; it was nothing. What did you want to say?”

Tommy’s face dropped into a frown. His eyes trained over Techno’s face, watching his older brother with a look too knowing for one so young. Techno shifted, uncomfortable under his gaze.

“Say it. Say what you want to say.” The words were oddly reminiscent of the ones Phil would say to them as children; kindly encouraging, yet firm. It brought that deep seated discomfort back, the wrongness of their flipped dynamic tilting the ground under his feet.

Techno grit his teeth, nails digging into his arms. Fine. He’d told himself he’d act mature so he was going to do it.

“At the community house. Why did you leave me?” He clarified, voice tight.

“Oh.” Tommy answered. Silence fell.

Neither bothered to break the tension; staring at each other with eyes more challenging than anything else.

Tommy finally sighed, arms folding across his chest. “You want to know why a joined the other side? Or why I specifically left you there.” Techno shrugged noncommittally, eyes unmoving from the younger.

“Right, okay.” Tommy’s eyes flicked between Techno’s and the seats that surrounded them before launching in, presumably seeing something that Techno didn’t. When he spoke his voice was quiet, diplomatically neutral. “For the former, I think you know the answer. We’ve always principally disagreed. L’manburg was my home, democracy or not, and I’d defend it no matter who I had to go against. I knew that and you knew that no matter how hard we both tried to pretend otherwise. I was never going to sit back and watch. I won’t apologise for that and despite it all I know you don’t expect me too. It was just a difference in opinions.”

Techno inclined his head, ignoring the distaste the answer brought, and waited for the rest.

“But I won’t defend my leaving you behind. I shouldn’t have done it then – I – I put you in danger. No matter how much I tried to convince myself that you’d be fine, I didn’t know for certain and I knowingly left you to fend for yourself amongst thirty enemies. That was wrong.”

Tommy paused for a moment, eyes catching in the fire.

“You know what?”

Techno started as Tommy abruptly turned to face him head on. With trembling hands, the younger knelt down before him, staring up at him with startlingly dark eyes.

Face blank, Techno watched as the younger reached out, pulling Techno’s hands into his own. He allowed the movement, heart pulling at the familiarity of it all. “This is still too impersonal. We’re right next to each other and we’re not even looking at each other.”

Techno said nothing but, knowing what the younger was doing, he entwined his hands around his brother’s wrist in wordless agreement, allowing him to do the same. It was Phil’s special thing. It showed that what they were saying meant something, that they were fully invested in the other.

From the position, Techno could feel the rapid beating of Tommy’s heart, the tremors in his fingers. Despite this, the younger held his gaze, grey irises unmoving from his own. “I’m sorry, Techno. You didn’t deserve that. I shouldn’t have left you there. I don’t regret siding with Tubbo, but I do regret leaving you behind. You’re my brother Techno, not ‘The Blade’. You’ve always meant more than that to me than that. And yet, still, I left you behind.” He paused, squeezing his brother’s wrists. “I’m sorry.”

Tommy’s voice cracked as he finished, nervous eyes flicking anxiously between Techno’s own.

Techno stared at his younger brother, heart beating in his chest. He wasn’t sure how to take that, how to process any of that.

“Well that was something,” Techno laughed shakily. Against his will, a smile began to pull at the corner of his lips, struggling to make itself known. He tightened his hands around his brother’s wrists instead, squeezing lightly.

Feeling that, Tommy sagged. His eyes shone as he looked up as his older brother, taking the acceptance of his apology for what it was.

Techno looked away, uncomfortable with the adoration in his gaze. It was reminiscent of the hero-worship Tommy held for him in his youth, the unconditional awe. Techno was no hero; Tommy knew that more than anyone.

“What did you want to ask me?” He demanded, tone l sharp as he forcefully broke through the calm that had settled between them.

That was a mistake.

Tommy’s face fell, eyes darkening even as he continued to hold eye contact.

Techno watched, stricken, as the younger’s gaze began to drift away; mind pulled far beyond him or even this time. Watched, unable to do anything, as his brother faded away from him, stomach heavy in the knowledge that it was his fault. Always his fault.

He squeezed his wrist lightly again, frantically attempting to ground the younger to the present. He had had to do it often when they lived together in the cottage. Back then, the bad days had far outnumbered the good and Techno had spent enough time trying to pull the younger back from the depths of his mind that the movement was familiar.

There was no response. Tommy’s eyes were empty, no sign of recognition lighting up their dead gaze.

He needed to do something.

Desperately, he scoured his mind for anything that would help. He recalled that physical contact would often help, alongside talking; something about the words and feelings contrasting the horrifying images in his mind. Techno had spent many hours in the past talking himself hoarse, trying bring his brother back to him.

Pushing against the discomfort the prolonged contact would cause him, he pulled the younger forward into his lap, threading his hands into his hair.

“I’m sorry Tommy. I’d probably never say this to your face, but – I’m sorry.” He closes his eyes, trying to focus on the words and forget his anxiety; stop the way his words stumbled. This was for Tommy; he owed it to him to tell him the truth at least once.

He clenched his teeth, pushing past the fear the words brought him. How terrifying it was to hear the words aloud. “I failed you.”

He faltered, hand stuttering in its ministrations. It was hard to ignore the truth of the words when he was the one saying them aloud, not hearing them as he usually did – whispered from the recesses of his mind. “I failed you as a brother. I tried to save you and yet all I did was make you hate me. All I did was lose you more.”

His hands tightened in his unresponsive brother’s hair, hiding the way they shook. “I promised myself I would always protect you both and look how that turned out.” One dead and one ruined. What a brother he was.

“I don’t know why I’m even bothering to apologise. How could I expect you to forgive me? You shouldn’t.” He stares into the fire, wishing he knew what his brother saw; wishing he knew what had compelled him to want to make amends.

Perhaps that had been it then. Perhaps he had come not out of curiosity or boredom or any other lie he told himself, but to see if it was worth it. If he was worth it.

“Still, I hope you do.”

In the following hours, Techno continued to sit in that same spot, whispering sweet nothings into the younger’s hair with the promise to himself that he wouldn’t stop until the moment his little brother returned to him. Maybe he’d remember his words, maybe he wouldn’t, but he hoped that this wasn’t the last time they’d speak. That even if he couldn’t be forgiven, he’d at least have him back one more time.

---

The rays of the rising sun flickered between the branches, the golden light basking the forest in a warm glow.

Under the cover of the brush, the fae prepared for their beds, giggling amongst themselves. How silly the humans were! The youngling wasn’t even asleep anymore!

[cowboypossume]

At This Moment

so! this is inspired by this post by @theunmappedstar which means we need some credit baby !! so Bon Appetit

Summary: Fitz is a model, Keefe is his makeup artist, and after a big fight Keefe still has do his makeup because it’s too late to reschedule. 

Pairing: “platonic” keefitz 

Trigger Warnings: cursing, and let me know if there’s anything else

AO3 Link: here <3

Fitz had been a world famous model for years now. He could have gotten anybody to do his makeup, but he always insisted that Keefe did it. Keefe knew his work was good, sure, but he never understood why the world famous Fitz Vacker insisted that he did the the makeup for all of his shoots. Of course, Keefe would never turn down the chance to get Very Close to the model’s face and notice all of the little details on it. Like the splash of green hidden in the deep blue in his eyes, the tiny freckles right below his checks, the scar hidden on the boy’s hairline from acne, and Keefe’s favorite, the tiny smile that would appear when Fitz looked in the mirror when he finished the makeup look. Obviously he knew these things because it was his job to.

At this moment however, Keefe wished nothing more than the Fitz to not have assigned him to this shoot. He wished he didn’t have to stand in front of the door that he’d just closed and face the model he’d gotten into a huge fight with. Both of them were angry and said things they didn’t mean, which only fueled that anger. He wished that he didn’t have those few minutes alone to regret everything that he said. And now, his pride didn’t want to be alone with the model and apologize, although so much of him wanted to. He wished that he could just leave, but they couldn’t reschedule this shoot. They’d been planning this one for far too long and there were far too many other people involved. Besides, they’re both legally adults, so they can put aside their personal problems for a bit and just work, right?

“What the hell are you doing here?” Fitz angrily snapped.

Keefe gestured to the bag in his hands. “I have to do your makeup, remember?”

“Is there anyone else who can do it?”

“Look I don’t want to be here either but everyone who can is on set working and it’s too last minute for us to call in someone new. Besides, they already paid me.”

“Fine just do it quick.”

Keefe walked over to the dressing room mirror and started setting up. He’d done this before, a million times before, but at this moment it felt wrong. This didn’t feel like the warm environment the two of them normally created. They didn’t create the summer day kind of warm, though. The two of them seemed to share the kind of warm that resembles a hug from the person that you’ve hugged countless times before but gets better every time you’re together. Their warm environment felt comforting to the other with the stressful environment of a set. At this moment, there was no warmth or comfort. There was only the silence that filled the air between them with anticipation.

“Well, you know the drill.” Keefe said pulling out the final set of brushes. As Fitz sat in the chair, Keefe was reminded why he absolutely despised the model in front of him: he was the definition of the media’s version of perfect. He didn’t have bags, or acne, or anything that wasn’t good enough to go on a magazine cover. It made Keefe’s his job a hell of a lot easier, but it made Keefe despise him. How did someone manage look like royalty without any help? If Keefe was honest, the boy in front of him didn’t need anything to make him look like a movie star, but Fitz always wanted to cover up the freckles, so Keefe followed the request with concealer. Also, he needed to add some designs to fit the theme of this photoshoot, floral.

Wanting to avoid Fitz’s eye for as long as possible, Keefe started to sketch the outline carnations and gladioluses across his cheeks. As he gently held the model’s chin and cheek underneath his fingers, the stiffness of Fitz’s body reminded him of their first set. When they first met, it was one of Keefe’s first sets. He tried to break the silence with a joke, which lead to conversation. By the time Keefe finished the makeup, the two boys separated, finding themselves oddly excited for the next time they’d see each other. This moment, however, felt more irksome than that first meeting. Now the two of them were, well the two of them had grown up with each other. That first set they were both so young, and as they grew into themselves, the other person was there. They felt like they had a relationship, whether it was best friends, friends, or good colleagues, they trusted each other. They felt like they knew each other inside and out. Keefe got to see the man under the model, and Fitz got to see the makeup artist without the cover up.

Fitz slightly moved his head which lead to Keefe focusing on where the flowers sat on his face. Fitz had worked as a model long enough to move without messing up the makeup despite it still being a work in progress, and it still amazed Keefe every time. Keefe grabbed the paint that wouldn’t cause Fitz’s stupidly perfect face to break out and started to fill the carnations with a coffee cream white and the gladioluses with a shades of red and orange that would make a romantic movie’s sunset look dull in comparison.

Normally Keefe and Fitz would talk about nothing and everything during this time, but they weren’t. At this moment, Keefe was left alone with his thoughts which were just screaming ‘This Was Wrong’, and they weren’t lying. This wasn’t their normal, but Keefe didn’t know how to fix it. Could he? He wanted to. He wanted to fix the relationship with the only friend he had, but words typically failed him. He wasn’t good at words. He was charming with them, but he couldn’t say what he needed to. He couldn’t make his words serious, so relationships would normally fizzle out because of that.

Keefe’s negative thought spiral went to a screeching haunt when the nearly finished gladiolus in his hand was had a streak of a tear on it. A tear from crying? Wait it was a tear from crying. Why was Fitz crying?

“Wait, why the fuck are you crying?” The fear in Keefe’s voice made that question way more concerned than the angry tone he intended.

“This feels wrong.”

Keefe handed him a tissue. “Push this under your eyes and make the tears stop while we talk through this. Bloodshot eyes will ruin the photoshoot and you better not ruin the makeup. What feels wrong?”

“This” Fitz gestured between the two of them. “Us. Being mad with you feels wrong. Because I’m not mad at you. Or maybe I am? I just-. Right now my life is completely changing and not talking you just,,, feels wrong. Not just because it feels different, it,” Fitz paused to find a way to describe the way he felt. “Do you not feel it?”

Keefe walked over and kneeled next to Fitz and looked directly into the eyes that still looked amazing despite the fact they were full of tears but not yet covered with a layer of pink. He gently took the hand that Fitz wasn’t pressing away the tears with. “Of course I feel it, but now’s really not the time Fitzy. Come find me after the shoot, ok? I need to finish the flowers and start on the eyeliner and we only have 20 minutes until the other people need you.”

Fitz looked at himself in the mirror and the stupid tiny smile -that Keefe knew would ruin the lipstick Fitz would be wearing if this shoot needed it- appeared a little wider this time. 

“These are my favorite flowers.” He said, clearly wanting to touch all of them. There was a small gleam in his eyes that only showed up when he felt extremely happy. Keefe was the world famous Fitz Vacker’s makeup artist, it was his job to know the model’s face. They were friends, and Keefe didn’t need to ruin another friendship with something stupid.

So, Keefe grabbed a paintbrush as he said “I told you before Fitz, I have a really good memory, and I wouldn’t forget something about a friend.” He restarted the flowers and didn’t catch the disappointment in the model’s eyes at the lack of a nickname and the word ‘friend’.

[kpopisthereasonihavenolife]

hey, my alien \ 16. Do you remember when... \ Index 

genre:  drabble (series), alien au, alien!taehyung, human!reader, angst, hurt/comfort, taehyung is running from people, y/n is gullible and unwise, tae is kinda mean (at first), will graduate into fluff, yes there will be plot lol

warning(s)!!: [Rated: T]

w.count: 800+

a/n: not officially back from it’s hiatus, but it’s something bc i haven’t been posting bc my monkey sucks lol 

“Y/n, what kind of stuff do human’s learn about in your school?” Taehyung, who had just clambered from his attic, plopped himself down beside you as you sat on the couch studying for a change.  A textbook cracked open on your lap as a notebook- that was previous on the couch cushion- was now on Taehyung’s lap.  

“What do we learn?” You question, getting a nod in return. “Well, all sorts of things I guess. A lot of people spend a good third of their life in school.” 

“Can you teach me what you’re taught?” 

You bounced your head around, contemplating.  You wouldn’t consider yourself the best teacher in the world, hence why you prefer the side of students.  You're far more interested in learning than teaching, but maybe? For Taehyung, maybe you’d be willing to at least try. 

You take your notebook off his lap and scootch closer to him as you shared the textbook on your lap with him.  You tried your best to try and explain the topics you were currently grueling over, and he seemed to be understanding you to some extent. Or, if he wasn’t, he wasn’t telling you that he wasn’t getting it to spare your feelings.  A noble sentiment if there were any. 

Along the time of your rambling teachings, Taehyung clocked out when he was suddenly reminded of the first time he met Alex and the topic she had brought up. He wasn’t sure why the memory sprung up, but now that it had it wouldn’t let him rest.  He rolled his lips over his teeth as he attempted to keep his curiosity to himself, but ultimately- the curious alien failed to keep his mouth shut.

“Do you remember when I met Alex for the first time here?” He sprung on you as you stopped mid-sentence.  

“Yes,” you chuckled, “I was there.” 

“So, do you remember what she was talking about before you stopped her?” He cautiously asked. “Towards the end of evening?” Your teaching came to a slow halt as you became silent.  You didn’t even show any physical response to his question and he feared he had over stepped a boundary.  Though it is true he had gotten more open and closer with you and wasn’t nearly as cold and distant as before, had he been too cocky in thinking he could open a conversation that clearly wasn’t as shallow as he was originally suspecting? 

“You mean about me not letting guys live with me?” Your voice was shushed and tense. You gently shut your textbook and set it aside and Taehyung felt like he was starting to choke. “Have you ever met another alien that seemed kind when you met them, but they were really something terrible?” Taehyung never really wanted to open this conversation and the way your energy waves around you started dipping made him regret doing it on impulse.  “I used to be with someone who I thought was going to be the best for me, but he turned out to be a terrible person.” 

“Was this person a romantic partner?” Taehyung’s chest squeezed oddly when he asked.  

“Pathetically enough, yeah.” You picked at your nails, as the alien watched your energy dip and dip until he couldn’t watch it drop anymore. He grabbed your shoulders and pushed you back up against the couch to sit straight.  He then dropped his chest onto your lap where your book used to lay and wrapped his arms around your stomach. 

“Don’t talk about it anymore,” he whined. “I’m sorry I brought it up if all it was going to do is make your energy drop.” You had taken to an inkling of learning about what his alien terms meant to some degree.  Your energy was, put simply, your mood or health. When you were sick, it was unstable and when it’s normal you're healthy enough.  When it comes to your moods, that’s harder to identify according to his phrases.  In other words, he never intended to make you upset. 

You put your hand on his back as he stays against your stomach as you sighed.  The air was stuffy, and the suggestion of Taehyung telling you not to keep talking made it all too tempting to do just that. Drop the topic and never come back to it.  You were sure he was still itching to know- he seemed more and more like a knowledge nut as each day passed. He was just sparing his own wants for your sake. 

You smiled, touched at the heart this alien took so long to show to you.  

“We’ll talk about it some other time, okay?” He just nodded, not speaking up as he buried himself further into your shirt.  “I promise not to keep you in the dark forever. Just, not today.” If Taehyung had it within his own heart to say it, he’d tell you to never bring it up again and act like he hadn’t said anything. 

But, he and you both knew that his inquisitive nature wouldn’t let it rest until he had answers.  He could,however, suppress the urge to know everything until you could speak without such low emotional energy.

t.list:  @queen-pharaoh-hatshepsut​​​ @forvever-ddaeng​​ @eltrain80​​ @bitchynightmarepost​​ @goodnightbug @serious-addiction​