#this took way longer than intended but I really wanted to thank everyone who sent a message in

[shepscapades]

Seriously, thank you so much everyone for the trick or treats, Happy Halloweens, Boops, and well wishes!!! <3

I edited out all of the request parts of the messages to fit everything in, but It's good to know what everyone's interested in ^w^ (>:3)

[fruitylo0pz]

A New Start pt. 1 (NSFW)

Larissa Weems x fem!Reader

Warnings: Smut (with some aftercare), NSFW, 18+, sub!Larissa, spanking, fingering, cunnilingus, degradation kink

Word count: ~3.7k

A/N: Okay, so this one turned out a lot longer than intended and has a bit of a slow buildup before the smutty part so it might not be for everyone. But I do hope whoever reads it will enjoy it! I actually liked writing it, and I found myself intrigued with Larissa being uptight and upper class and a bit of a prude. I think I just fell in love with the idea of Larissa being very "traditional" in the sense of being married to a man and then BOOM just having some sort of sapphic epiphany. I have proofread it, but as usual I post right before I'm off to bed so apologies for any mistakes.

____

Tall, blonde, beautiful and sophisticated. This must have been the fourth or the fifth time you had seen her at the store, and you had caught her staring each and every time. Whenever you looked back, she blushed and looked away as if she hadn’t just been eyeing you up. You smirked to yourself and this time you decided to pursue it, curious about the outcome. You hadn’t really ever done anything like this, but you had to shoot your shot with her.

“Hi, I’m Y/N. I usually don’t do this, but I’ve noticed you staring every time I’ve been in this store and I had to try. Here’s my address. It’s up to you, but you’re gorgeous and I’d love to have you over for a glass of wine.” You winked and gave her a note with your address and number. This was so out of character for you and it immediately sent a nervous wave down your body.

She hesitantly took it and put it in her pocket, and it almost appeared like she was afraid someone would notice. “I’m involved with someone. Whatever you thought you saw was not the case, but thank you. Flattering.” She blushed and seemed embarrassed by the interaction, and you decided to leave her be. You didn’t want to get her in trouble. You were relatively new in town, and realised that people probably knew who she was pretty well.

You went home and put on a random movie you found on Netflix, trying to forget about her dismissing you at the store. Why did she even take the note if she wasn’t interested? You really had hoped she was different, but why would she be? She seemed classy, and she probably was just as classy as she looked. You decided to pour yourself a glass of wine to wind down when the doorbell rang. It was getting pretty late, and you didn’t really even know anyone in town but you decided to open the door regardless. You had a few colleagues you were getting closer to at work so you figured it could be one of them. 

“Oh, I was not expecting to see you. Come in, please.” You were trying to wipe away your shocked expression when she walked inside, and she did not look happy. 

“What you did was assuming and inappropriate. I am in fact married, and walking around stores giving out your address to strangers is a bold thing to do. Are you always that confident?” She looked at you with a stern look, but there was something else hiding in the back of her eyes that you couldn't quite read. 

“So you went all the way over here to tell me that? You’re married, yet I found you staring and eyeing me up at the store numerous times. Forgive me for assuming anything at all, but if I was married, I wouldn’t do that. It’s a shame, because I could show you a very, very good time.” You winked and moved closer to her so she ended up backed up to the wall. 

“W-well… Yes. You shouldn’t have done it. I wasn’t staring, I was just looking. Pretty cocky, aren’t you? You don’t know what you could give me.” She was clearly nervous and looked at you with furrowed brows, but whatever her eyes were trying to hide was still there.

“You were looking several times. I’m not cocky, but it’s pretty easy to tell when someone gives you a brief glance or they look at you several times. You fit into that last category. But don’t worry. Glad we sorted this out, and I won’t keep you. Go home to your husband. ” You gave her a sarcastic smile while eyeing her up before you opened the door. She hesitated but left. 

You scoffed and shook your head. Why did she even bother showing up if she found herself so deeply offended by it? She could have thrown away the note and forgotten about the whole thing. Suddenly, the doorbell rings again and it’s her. 

“Now, you listen to me. Do you know who I am? I am the headmistress at Nevermore Academy, and I am used to a certain amount of respect around here.” She pointed a finger at you and you moved closer. 

“And I think you came here for a reason. I bet I could make you squirm within minutes. That uptight attitude does something to me.” Your eyes wandered down her perfect curves. She was wearing a cream white dress with matching heels. She looked stunning, but she probably always did. 

“You really have no idea who you’re dealing with. How dare you speak to me this way? I don’t know where you work, but I could have you fired within an hour.” She tried sounding intimidating and threatening, but she was blushing. Your words got to her, but she did not want to admit it. You were however not too happy about the way she spoke to you, like you were inferior. You pulled her inside and pushed her against the wall.

“Okay, headmistress who also seems to be running this town. I told you to forget about it. But you were the one who couldn’t keep your eyes to yourself. Quick advice for the future; control your staring so you don’t give people the wrong impression. Eyeing people up when you’re happily married? That’s pretty unusual too. I’ll leave you alone from now on, and I’ll make sure to leave the store if I see you. Okay? Now, if you’re done berating me, you’re free to leave.” Once again, you open the door but she doesn’t move. Whatever she was hiding in her eyes was becoming more apparent. It swam to the surface in her deep blue eyes. It was lust. You were right all along. 

Her entire demeanour changed. It was as if she let go of something that was holding her back, but she was still nervous. “I came here for a reason. And as for happily married? A man that doesn’t see me or love me? Frankly, I don’t love him either but in my position and him being an important businessman in this town breaking it off will just look bad. I have never been with a woman, and I have never found another female attractive, but there is something about you. Your confidence. The way you carry yourself.” She looked away, and she looked unhappy after talking about her unhappy marriage. Like she was ashamed of being trapped with someone who didn’t even care for her. 

You put a finger under her chin so she was forced to look at you. “I don’t understand how he can ignore someone like you, and not even look at you. You’re a goddess. You’re absolutely stunning. Do you think I go around handing out my address and phone number to strangers? I have never once done that before, but I found myself infatuated with you. I had to take a chance eventually. You should be worshipped.” You wiped a tear that fell from her eye. She wasn’t used to hearing words like that, you could tell that much.

“My name is Larissa. I realised I never told you that. And thank you for your kind words.” She smiled gently and blushed, and she clearly liked your compliments.

“Hi, Larissa. Very nice to meet you, and learn your name! I was just having a glass of wine. I realise I’m pretty much a stranger to you still, but would you care to join me?” You looked at her with a questioning look, hoping she would stay.

“Thank you, Y/N. That sounds lovely. It’s not like he would notice that I’m gone anyway.” She gave you a light chuckle and you helped her with her coat before guiding her to the sofa. You went to the kitchen to fetch a glass and the wine bottle before pouring her a glass.

“So, Larissa. Headmistress, huh? That’s pretty impressive. A colleague of mine told me about Nevermore. Sounds pretty cool! I think it’s great that you have a school for outcasts where they can be themselves. Society is too quick to judge people that deviate from what they think should be the norm.” You shook your head and took a sip of your wine.

She looked shocked at what you just said, like she had never heard anyone talk about outcasts without judgement or resentment. “I… Thank you. I should probably mention that I am a shapeshifter. And I am not used to anyone saying things that aren’t filled with disgust or hatred for us. Especially not a normie.” She gave you a soft look that almost screamed “thank you” and you could tell that she already felt more comfortable.

“A shapeshifter?! That is so cool! So you can shapeshift into anything you want?” You were genuinely excited about her confession, and you truthfully had always found outcasts interesting and fascinating, and you would always defend them if they were brought up in discussions. 

She laughed, and her laugh was so delightfully genuine and the most wonderful laugh you had ever heard “Yes, I can shapeshift into anything I want. It’s not a power I use very often, but it can come in handy at times. But enough about me. What about you? What brought you to Jericho?” She put her elbow up on the back of the sofa and leaned her head on her hand. She looked curious and like she really wanted to know more about you, and not like she had asked as a form of courtesy. 

“My girlfriend cheated on me with my best friend, and I don’t really have any family I talk to. I needed a new start, and I was looking to get as far away as possible and ended up here. I work as a web developer, and I found a job with a company here. And that’s how I ended up in Jericho! I really like it so far.” Thinking about your ex annoyed you, and talking about her made you even more annoyed. 

She looked at you with an almost horrified look on her face. “Y/N, that is terrible. But on the other hand, they both showed you who they really are, and I’m glad you got away from them. But I am sorry to hear that you don’t have any close ones. Aren’t you lonely? Being in a new town all alone?” She moved slightly closer, still with a horrified and almost sad look on her face. 

“I am an introvert so I enjoy my own company. I haven’t been in touch with my family for years and they don’t accept me for who I am. When I came out, they gave me an hour to pack up my things and I never looked back. I’d rather be alone in a new town than with people who can’t accept me for who I am.” You gave her a reassuring look, and noticed that she had moved even closer again. She was looking intently at you, almost as if she wanted to give you all the caring and love she felt like you had been missing.

“You went through more than you deserved. I might not know you that well, but I can tell that you’re a wonderful human being. You should always be able to be yourself, and no one should judge you for that.” She took your hand in hers and you twitched at the touch. Her skin was soft and warm, and it felt like electric shocks pulsated through your body.

“It’s fine now, I feel nothing when I think about them. I am better off without them. But thank you, truly. You’re a beautiful human being yourself.” You felt liberated in her presence, and it was so easy to talk to her. She was so different than she had first seemed, and you thought it might be the wine but mostly it felt like she just let go of the outer shell she so often had to carry.

She moved even closer and her eyes met yours in an intense stare before she gently grabbed your hand again. “Did you really mean those things you said to me? Those… Those nice things?” She blushed and looked down, still holding your hand. 

“I did, Larissa. I think you’re absolutely breathtaking, and I also do believe that you should be worshipped like the goddess you are.” You moved slightly closer and rubbed the back of her hand with your thumb to show her that you meant it. She seemed insecure, even though you had no idea how that was even possible.

“Would you… Uh… Show me?” She looked at you with the most genuinely innocent look you had ever seen and it made your core tense up into a string of heat immediately. 

You leaned forward to kiss her, and she eagerly responded and let out a whimper into your mouth before your tongues started dancing in a slow, intense dance. It felt so right, so warm and so filled to the brim with sparks and emotions. 

“I’ll show you. Just be a good girl and follow my lead, and I’ll make you feel things you have never felt before.” Your lips swept gently down her jaw towards her neck before you left tender kisses and she let out a deep groan. Your hand moved to her back and you were about to pull down the zipper to her dress when she pulled away. 

“I… I don’t think I can do this. What do you want with an older lady like me? You should find someone your own age.” She fiddled with her hands and looked down.

“Larissa, I want you. If I wanted someone else, I wouldn’t have left my address with you. Now, please… Let me take care of you. Let me see you. Let me feel you. Let me taste you.” Your hand gently cupped her chin and she looked you in the eyes.

She blushed and gave you a smirk you didn’t know you had been waiting for, but it was all you needed in that moment “I don’t have any clue what to do, but… Your words make me feel things I have never felt before. If you want to see me… Let me show you. Take me to bed?” She got up and you followed her before grabbing her hand and taking her upstairs to your bedroom.

“I do want to see you, so please… Show me, if you want to. If you don’t, there is no pressure.” You let your hand gently stroke her cheek so she knew that she really didn’t have to do anything she wasn’t comfortable with. 

She pushed you down on the bed and the lust in her eyes filled them entirely. “Tell me what to do. I want you to use me.” She bit her lip and her hand wandered from her neck and down her body. 

“If you’re absolutely sure, I will gladly tell you what to do. Use the word “torch” if you want me to stop or you’re feeling uncomfortable in any way, okay?” You took her hands as a way of showing her that her feeling safe was important to you. 

“I will use the word “torch” if I’m uncomfortable. And I am absolutely sure. Now please… Use me like the dirty whore I am for you.” Her words made your eyelids flutter, and hearing her say something so filthy with her heavenly voice and that accent was almost too overwhelming.

“Strip for me. All of it.” Your voice was firm, and you leaned back on your elbows, following her every move. 

She reached to her back and pulled down the zipper. The way she looked at you with a sweet mixture of innocence and desire drove you absolutely insane. She had been an uptight upper class lady an hour ago, and now she was referring to herself as your dirty whore. She let her dress fall to the floor, and you found yourself in awe, mouth agape with hunger for her. She unclasped her bra and pulled down her panties while gently rolling her hips. 

She moved closer and discreetly spread her legs a bit as an invitation. Your reassurance and compliments had wiped away her insecurity and it thrilled you. She should feel like the goddess she is, and she should feel appreciated. “Please touch me.” The tone of her voice was filled with a lustful desperation, and you couldn’t control yourself any longer.

“On the bed. Spread your legs.” You watched as she crawled onto the bed and laid down before spreading her legs. Her inner thighs were dripping with her arousal and you got on your knees between her legs before leaning down to kiss her chest. Your mouth drew a trail towards her breast before you bit her nipple and she whimpered. Your hand travelled down her stomach before it found her mound and you groaned when you felt how wet she was. Your fingers started drawing lazy circles on her clit and her breathing got heavier. 

You continued kissing down her stomach, and she was already twitching underneath you. Her skin was soft and warm, and you could feel her legs spreading more and more before your lips found her clit and you gently sucked it. “Mhh, Larissa. You taste so fucking good.” She gasped, and you let your tongue trail up her slit before you started circling her clit in slow circles while you shifted position and let your fingers trace her entrance. 

Your tongue picked up the pace a bit and you felt her fingers in your hair. You let two fingers slide slowly inside her and her walls immediately clenched around you as she once again gasped and let out a filthy moan. “Oh, Y/N… I need more, p-please.” You added another finger and she screamed out, meeting you in the thrusts. Your tongue kept working on her clit while your fingers pumped hard and deep. The way she was clenching let you know that she was close and you shifted position a bit so you got closer and your tongue started circling harder on her clit. Her moans became louder and louder until she began squirming and shivering as she exploded in a loud orgasm and released a warm wave of her sweet arousal over your fingers while screaming your name. You let her ride it out and slowly pulled out your fingers when she had calmed down enough. 

Suddenly, she turned over and got up on her knees. “Please. More.” She looked at you and begged you with her eyes.

“Aren’t you a desperate little whore for me, hm? Can’t get enough, can you?” You spanked her and she whimpered.

“No, I can’t get enough. Please fuck me. Make me yours. Use me, use me like I’m your toy.” She spread her legs, and you shoved your fingers inside her soaked cunt. You started thrusting hard and deep right away and it was an exhilarating feeling having her in your complete and utter power and on her knees before you. It didn’t take long before you could sense that she was close again, and you spanked her before fucking her harder. She tipped over the edge and came in a loud orgasm, and you continued fucking her to her delight. 

Her eyelids fluttered and she was panting while her arousal poured down your hand with every thrust, and her orgasms kept coming as her legs spread more and more. She clearly loved being used by you as she cried out in whimpers and moans while coming over and over again, each and every orgasm just as loud and intense. Eventually, you could tell that she was overstimulated and exhausted and you let her ride out her last orgasm before you gently pulled out your fingers and leaned forward to kiss her back. 

You went to the bathroom to get a warm washcloth before gently cleaning her up. She had moved to the side of the bed when you came back and she smiled when you looked at her. “Y/N… That was incredible. I don’t know what else to say. No one has ever… Well… With their tongue…” She blushed and gave you a quick kiss on the cheek.

“How on earth is that possible? Well, I am honoured to have been the first, because you taste like heaven.” You winked and kissed her before stroking her cheek. She blushed at your words and chuckled lightly. 

“Thank you, Y/N. For making me feel the way you made me feel. No one has ever made me feel this desired before. This is the craziest thing I have ever done, but nothing has ever felt so right.” She looked like she was in complete awe, and she stroked your cheek. Her touch was so soft and caring, it almost made you melt. 

“I am so glad I handed you that note, no matter how inappropriate it might have been. Oh, and… Would you like to stay the night? Or do you have to go?” You looked at her with a look that you hoped told her that you were dying for her to stay. 

She looked at the time and sighed. “I’m afraid I have to leave. But if you’re free tomorrow, perhaps you would like to come and keep me company when you finish work? I have a long workday tomorrow, and I have a private flat at the academy for when I have busy days. I know it’s unfair, but I’m afraid this is how things will have to be, at least for now.” She stroked your cheek again, as though she was trying to apologise. 

“I would love to, Larissa. The thought of fucking you in your office is a very thrilling thought.” You gave her a sly wink and she chuckled. 

She got dressed and you followed her downstairs. You took a peek out the window and made sure no one would see her leaving. She leaned down to kiss you again and looked into your eyes before moving towards your ear. “It’s as if I can still feel your fingers inside me, Y/N. I’ll dress up nicely for you tomorrow.” She bit your ear, sending shivers down your spine. You had awakened something in her, and you were the only one who could feed it. 

[eternalwritess]

jjk matchup exchange with @thecurrator

i match you with... 𝓢𝓾𝓰𝓾𝓻𝓾 𝓖𝓮𝓽𝓸 ██ 20% _ ████ 60% _ █████ 80% _ ▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒ 100% ᴄᴏᴍᴘʟᴇᴛᴇ!

♥ You two technically met at Jujutsu Tech, as you went to the same school and passed by each other in classes and sometimes trained together. But you never truly had an exactly proper introduction, you just knew each others names, grades and that was about it

♥ You both got more formally introduced when you were both sent out on a mission together to exorcise a high level curse and on the way there Suguru didn't really like the awkward silence in between you two so he was the first one to speak up, asking you if you had been on any missions like this before

♥ You likely gave him a short answer and he pressed on, talking about how he was sent on missions like these quite a bit. He sort of ignored your 'resting bitch face' as trust him, he's seen worse on Satoru. He's seen even worse on Shoko when Satoru decided to do some dumb shit, so your outward scary demeanor didn't really affect him all that much

♥ Once it was clear that you weren't into talking all that much and didn't seem all that comfortable with him he apologized for talking so much and you two finally arrived at your destination. Turns out a few more curses had ended up spawning and the two of you ended up staying there longer than you originally intended to. Something that you and him were slightly upset about, but he didn't show it on his face

♥ On the way back he tried talking to you some more, you two were communicating during the fighting but it was short and snappy. So instead he ended up complimenting you and your fighting style, then giving you some tips on how to fight better

♥ He even offered to help you train if you were up to it, you thanked him for it and didn't really plan on taking him up on that offer until you both had to train together for an assignment. It wasn't anything with curse techniques but it was hand to hand combat which Suguru excelled at. He ended up beating you most of the time and ended up showing you things that you were messing up on, stance, balance, hand placement

♥ You and him ended up just working on your combat the entire day when he asked you if you planned on doing anything else after this. It wasn't in an 'asking you out' sort of way, more that he was just curious. When you responded no he nodded along and said that everyone was gonna go out later to hang out and was wondering if you wanted to come along with them

♥ You were gonna decline when suddenly you didn't have a choice as Satoru was already there and in both of your faces, dragging the two of you along somewhere. You all ended up going to some fast food place where you felt uncomfortable. You didn't really wanna be here and Suguru noticed that soon later

♥ He apologized for Satoru's behavior and said that he just does whatever he wants sometimes, not really listening to others and their opinions. He then mentioned something about him never growing up under his breath, that got you to laugh a little. The whole time you guys hung out he stayed close to you and slowly you began getting more acquainted with the group as a whole, getting more and more comfortable around them

♥ Hell Suguru even got Satoru to apologize for dragging you out, although it took a while, and a lot of mean comments back and forth. Which was nice to say the least

♥ He found out that you liked poetry once he saw you reading a book about it once and immediately asked you who your favorite poet was, he then explained that he also read a bit of poetry here and there but he's never really had all that much time since he came here, being a special grade and all

♥ For about an hour you two just sat there and talked about poetry rambling on and on about it and about your day, it developed into books and book recommendations and you found out that he read some fiction here and there but most of the books he read were about the mind and peoples thoughts

♥ From there on out you two were both truly friends, whenever he saw you he would walk up to you and just talk to you about anything and everything that he possibly could. You were a nice break from Satoru for him, and while he loved hanging out with Satoru it could be a lot sometimes, you calmed him down

♥ Sometimes you two would talk so long that it would soon turn dark and this you'd both just sit and watch the sunsets, and whenever you two woke up early in the mornings you'd watch the sunrise. It was during once of these moments when you were watching them he found himself watching you. The way your hair framed you face, the suns rays bouncing off of your skin, and thats when he realized that he was in love

♥ He ignored it, he planned on confessing yes but not now. Not until he was at least somewhat sure that you felt the same for him. Mostly because he didn't want to get rejected, and he didn't want to possibly ruin what you two already had, cause he did genuinely like you

♥ It took him a few days to work up the courage to do so and thankfully he did it before Satoru realized that he liked you. He ended up writing you a small poem just about things that he adored about you. He didn't know how else to confess, he also told you that he understood if you didn't feel the same way about him

♥ When he discovered that you did feel the same way about him he was so happy, he hid it though under a small smile and then asked you when you were open for a date. You both established a time and date for it to happen

♥ You ended up going to a small cafe where you both got some food and drinks. He paid for everything and then you guys saw that a good movie was playing and decided to go and watch it

♥ When Shoko heard that you two were dating she was happy, honestly she saw Suguru's crush on you coming from about a mile away

♥ Utahime thought that you two made such a cute couple, she was so excited over it and said that she hopes everything ends up working out between the two of you. She was also happy that Suguru got a significant other before Gojo

♥ Nanami thought that it wouldn't work out, especially with the risk everyone was taking with being a sorcerer and all, and while he briefly expressed it he never did anything to stop you two from dating

♥ Gojo was the last one to know and yes, he was offended. Going on and on about how you stole all of Suguru's affection from him and how'd he never forgive you for it (he was joking ofc)

♥ Your relationship dynamics are: friends to lovers, high school sweet hearts, and star-crossed lovers (maybe)

^_ .̫ _^

♥ You and Suguru talk, a lot. Just about anything really, your latest hyperfixation, a new poem that you both had read. Maybe a movie that the other saw. Maybe some stupid shit you saw one of the others do, you two are always talking though. That's a fact

♥ You observe what the group does quite a bit and watch as they get in trouble with Suguru. He tries to stop it sometimes but when he sees that you're just sitting back and watching it all happen he sits and watches it with you, and then laughs when things don't work out

♥ He does things for you a lot, helping you with your homework (if you need it), giving you small gifts, helping you make something, helping you improve you technique. He's constantly trying to help you, he just wants you to not be burdened by anything

♥ He also compliments your looks a lot and tends to give criticism when needed and he's pretty good at it too. Even then afterwards he'll help you work on anything and everything

♥ He spends a lot of time in your dorm just hanging out with you, it doesn't even matter to him what the two of you are doing. You could literally be saying, and doing nothing and he'd still savor every second of the moment with you

♥ Hidden Inventory arc... remember that star crossed lovers bit? Yeah this is where that maybe comes in so lets talk

♥ After he comes back from the mission you noticed that something was wrong with him, he was constantly spacing out and sometimes forgetting things like due dates, he stopped hanging out with you as much and obviously you were hurt by this. You also wanted to know what happened so you talked to him

♥ When you tried all he told you was the the Star Plasma Vessel, Riko Amanai, had died when it was his and Satoru's mission to protect her. That's all you really ever got out of him, anything else you wished to extract from him was soon impossible as when you'd bring it up he would excuse himself for missions

♥ Until one day you had him cornered, you could tell that he wasn't okay and that this death was still affecting him. So you tried asking him again, and again, and again, and each time it was like listening to a broken record.

"Riko Amanai, the Star Plasma Vessel died"

♥ According to him there was nothing more to it than that and only that. Nothing you ever did for him got through. You tried spending time with him again and he appreciated it, it was fun but it wasn't the same. He was spacing out like you, something that he didn't usually do and soon enough it just felt like he wasn't the same anymore

♥ You soon enough came to Satoru, you knew that he went on that mission with Suguru so you wanted him to tell you what happened, and all you got out of that was just that the death must've been affecting him pretty hard. But to not worry about it because he'll recover 'because he's the strongest, like me' were his exact words

♥ You didn't really get another chance to talk to him about it as the next time you heard anything about him it was that he had killed an entire village on non-sorcerers. Reason? Unknown

♥ Satoru was the one to tell you this, brief and hard. He didn't say much before leaving, you wanted to ask where he was going but it was pretty simple. To talk to Suguru, for a second you wanted to go with him but stuck it back out at your dorm wondering why he would do this

♥ You got your answer when you met him next, he wanted to get rid of curses, and to do that he needed to get rid of the source. Non-sorcerers, humans, people

♥ Maybe the worst part of it all was that he seemed better than he had since the mission, maybe better than he had his entire life. Either way, it was scary, and you were mad. So, what next?

[thegodthief]

Ever since I put my foot down at work about no longer doing work outside of my spec, there has been one person that I set aside time to do just that for. It's not because they are above me in the food chain, it's not because they are well-regarded, and it's not because I need a mental break from my usual grind.

It's because they are actively trying to learn how to do this for themselves.

There is a particular report that my office often needs, but is not readily available from corporate. Corporate prefers that we make a formal purchase of the report from a separate department, but wow, that eats up our budget like water through a sieve because the report is calendar sensitive, so we're pulling it often. And even then, the purchased report has to be refined further to be useful to our needs. (Not to mention, that department always gives us grief because it's so tedious for them to do it that it takes a week to run it, hence the report charge.)

It was one of these refinement requests that put the report in front of me. I recognized where the data in the report came from. It is a refinement of a raw database dump that we are able to get without a purchase order. I obtained permission from my boss to get into trouble and obtained a raw dump for myself to play with.

Wow. That's a lot of data being collected for no reason other than to collect data.

Well, I don't need these twenty columns, or that duplicate column. How obvious can it be that these hidden cells are merged for no other reason than to frustrate someone trying to sift this data for themselves. So when I move these remaining columns to the order we need then that reveals where a refinement needs to happen. And then, and then, and then...

Done.

Took me two hours to figure out the steps, but then once I had the process complete and verified, it only takes me fifteen minutes to do this by hand.

But that's me.

I didn't realize how complicated the process was until I made a technical manual for it. I took nothing for granted and wrote it with the assumption that the most advanced thing the reader had ever done with the necessary program is to open an already existing file. I would complete a step, write down what I did in that step, look at what I wrote, and realize that what was one step to me would be six to fifteen individual actions to my intended audience.

What was a twelve step process to me became a list of forty-five individual instructions. And some of those steps had an explanation about why it needed to be done that way, and what to do if something looked wrong.

I sent the instructions to my boss and everyone that would need the report. It was not well received. Because that meant that no one now had an excuse to bother me to do the report for them when we often had several days notice that a report would need to be pulled on such-and-such day. The only time bothering me to pull the report would be justified is if it was needed in two hours or less. (But they have to explain to our boss why they waited that long.)

And then the exec who needed the report the most actually looked at the instructions. They printed them out and literally sat down at their desk and read them, line by line.

"Hey, Keri, I just read your report instructions. Forty-five steps? Really?"

"Yea, once I broke each step apart, it really does come to that."

"So, each step is an individual action, nothing is combined?"

"Copy and Paste pairs are combined, but nothing else."

"I notice that you don't require the user to use keyboard or mouse except for... two steps."

"That's because with exception of those two steps, it's really up to the user how to do those commands. I prefer keyboard, but I know most people here prefer clicking on icons."

"... I could do this. Thank you."

Earlier this week, I was asked to come to their office "only if there's free time". Yea, whatever, here I come. Turns out my instructions were introducing them to commands and features they have never used before and they wanted me to walk them through it because they are in Very Unfamiliar Territory.

"Oh. Cool. You're one of today's Ten Thousand! Sure, let's go."

"Ten Thousand?"

"One day, once we get your geek cred advanced, I'll explain it. But take my word that this is a Good Thing, Tee Emm."

As we went, they asked what each new skill could be used for. Suddenly, this wasn't about getting this one specific report put together, but this was now about how these skills could be used to make other tasks easier for the exec to do themselves.

"I can do this!"

Readers, let me tell you, I rediscovered joy at that moment.

They explained that each time they have asked IT for help and instruction, IT just did it and told them not to worry about the how because that's what they are there for. They had taken my instructions home and asked family members to help them understand the individual steps, only for said family to complete the report process (incorrectly) and tell them not to worry about it because the report was done. They have been wanting to learn how to do more than just open files and prettify reports and my instructions were giving them the opportunity to do just that.

"You probably think I'm an old idiot for not knowing these things."

"No, I think other people have been wrong to you and I am grateful that I got to be here right now."

It took the exec two days to complete what I could do in fifteen minutes. They got some steps wrong, but rather than fixing it for them, I coached them through realizing their error, how the error impacted further steps, and how to recover from the error. Their notes were extensive, mostly about alternative ways to enter each command.

And along the way, I was reminded how good it is to learn something new, the joy of the student and the joy of the teacher. How warm it can be for someone who did something for themselves for the first time.

I didn't realize I had forgotten until then.

[lagingersnapz]

Some Rain Must Fall - (Fallout Fic) Chapter 10: Ancient History

Chapter: 10/?

In the past, the tension between Lucy and the Ghoul comes to a head, or rather a finger, and a good ol' fashion honest exchange... of fingers.

In the present, Lucy and Cooper settle in for a night or two in Vault 4, and Lucy gets a chance to ask about why Cooper didn't want her to know who he was.

Characters: Lucy MacLean/Cooper Howard(The Ghoul), Dogmeat(CX-404), Original Characters

Word Count: 5245

Warnings: Violence, Swearing

Author's Note: Well, we made it to the final chapter that includes a scene from the show at the beginning. After this it'll just all be fanfiction stuff. Thank you again for everyone who has read my little story so far. Hopefully it continues to be a fun read. No end in sight yet, since I still have a lot to cover in my story. I would like to reiterate, though. this is a SLOW BURN. Really... really... agonizingly slow. Though I've read ones that took longer than I intend to take, so maybe it's not really that bad.

Previous Next

Ao3

~~~

The sounds of the Wasteland had faded away, replaced by the pounding of blood in Lucy’s ear. There was nowhere to go, but she was going to try anyway. Ahead of her was a car. There was no time to go around, she needed every second she could get out of this head start. Rather than running around it, she slid over the hood, almost catching herself on a piece of jagged metal.

Rounding a corner, Lucy ran a few more steps and then stumbled to a stop in shock at the sight in front of her. Their surroundings had been a fairly standard broken down city, but suddenly all of it gave way to a massive crater, the likes of which Lucy had never seen before. It could only have been from one thing: a bomb.

Before she could finish processing what she was seeing, let alone figure out a way to get around it, something wrapped around her torso. Lucy had just enough time to look down and see that it was a rope, a lasso, before it pulled taught and she was sent flying backwards, butt over tea kettle through the dirt, her neck bending painfully. Thrashing, she tried to gain some traction on the ground, but the lasso stayed tight, and she was being pulled back in the direction she had just come running from. It didn’t take much to realize the Ghoul must have caught up with her. Where the heck had he even been keeping enough rope to make a lasso with?!

“Where d’you think you’re goin’? The pulling stopped and he threw down the rope, moving to stand over her. “You ain’t goin’ nowhere.” The Ghoul reached down for her, one hand grabbing the lasso still wrapped around her chest, and the other reached for the front of her jumpsuit, trying to get a hold of it to stop her squirming. Lucy became more frantic, and the hand came up to her face. She felt fingers trying to grab her jaw, and knew he was probably trying to make her look at him so he could threaten her some more and tell her how futile her escape attempt had been.

As Lucy felt the fingers brush over her lips, an instinctual reaction took hold and she bit down, feeling something crunch between her teeth. She swung her head, ripping, and felt something come loose, and as blood dripped into her mouth and over her chin, realization of what she had just done set in. Lucy had just bitten off the Ghoul’s finger﹘it was still in her mouth﹘and the two of them locked eyes.

“There you are,” the Ghoul said, more calmly than she expected. “You little killer.”

Lucy turned her head, spitting the finger as far away as she could manage, hoping he would never find it again. It didn’t seem likely that medicine up on the surface would be able to reattach a finger, but in this case she was hoping to make sure of it.

Hands closed on the fabric of her jumpsuit and the Ghoul pushed himself to his feet again, hauling her up with him, bracing her legs against his to make sure she stayed upright. With one hand he held hers, pointer finger extended, and with the other he drew a knife. Lucy realized what was about to happen, shrieking as she tried to get away, but his grip was like steel and she was stuck fast. The knife slid in a circle around her finger, slicing cleanly, though not painlessly, and Lucy screamed again in shock before the finger finally fell away into the Ghoul’s hand.

Holding the finger up in front of her, he twisted it around a little, driving home what had just happened. She had taken his finger, and in return he had taken hers. Ma June’s voice echoed in her recent memory, commenting on how telling it was that Lucy still had all ten of her fingers. Well, that certainly wasn’t the case anymore.

“Now, that right there is the closest thing we’ve had to an honest exchange so far,” he said.

Lucy was shaking, breath trembling in shock as she looked between him and the finger he held in his hand. The smile she hated so much, his self-satisfied, smug smile, returned to his face and Lucy hated that he felt like he was coming out on top in this situation. Even worse, she hated that she felt he had as well. She was right back where she started, in his custody. The Ghoul shifted his grip and took the finger back out of her field of vision, grabbing the lasso wrapped around her and pulling her back in the direction of the puddle they had been drinking from. On the ground next to it was his saddlebags, which he must have left there when he came after her.

“Sit down, Vaultie,” he drawled when they got closer, and he pushed her down so she was sitting next to a rusted out car. Her mind was still reeling, and the stump of her finger burned and ached in equal measure. While she sat, he pulled the rope off of her, coiling it back up and stuffing it into one of the bags. Then he pulled out a roll of cloth, and unrolled it enough to store her finger in there before returning it to the bag.

“Now, I feel it’s only fair to warn you that if you try anythin’ like that again, I’ll be obliged to cut off more fingers.” The Ghoul spoke as he pulled his gloves back on over his hands, covering his freshly missing finger from sight. Lucy still felt his blood around her mouth, and tasted the tang of it on her tongue. Rather than answer, she glared at him. She wanted to spit some of his blood at him, but considering her state of dehydration she didn’t think she could even work up that amount of saliva.

“Come on, now. We’re almost there.” Reaching down, he pulled her back to her feet and pushed Lucy in front of him, and their march continued the same as it had been before, minus a finger or two.

The Ghoul had been telling the truth, and after only another hour or so of walking, he steered her in the direction of a massive building behind a half collapsed chain link fence. The pair stepped through a hole in the fence, and Lucy looked back at him with uncertainty, feeling her stomach start tossing with nerves again. A sign on the side of the building proclaimed it to be an old Super Duper Mart, though what purpose it served now she couldn’t have guessed, and that inability to guess was terrifying.

Every step seemed more difficult than the last, and Lucy could feel herself stumbling more often than stepping. The Ghoul grabbed her by the arm, tugging her along, half guiding and half keeping her upright. Finally the pair came to a stop in front of an intercom, and the Ghoul pressed a button, holding it down to speak.

“Transaction,” he said. Lucy felt the world tilt violently on its axis. A transaction? What kind of transaction?

A voice crackled at them from the speaker. “Yes?”

The Ghoul pressed the button again. “Two month supply of vials. Exchange one female. Mint condition.” He glanced over at her, his eyes landing on her maimed hand, which she had tucked against her chest. “Near mint condition,” he amended.

“Condition grading requires physical evaluation. Please send her in.” The voice on the intercom was startlingly cheerful, considering they were discussing trading her like livestock. A door nearby buzzed, and she heard the sound of a lock disengaging. The Ghoul heaved a sigh, running his tongue over his lower lip as he turned to face her. Lucy’s mind was slow from fatigue and a lack of water, but she still realized what was happening. The Ghoul drew a knife and stepped towards her, but Lucy was suddenly more afraid of what was in the building than she was of him.

“What’s in there?” she asked as he cut the ties on her wrists with the same blade he had used to cut her finger off.

“You’re ‘bout to find out.” His voice was flat as he looked at her, sheathing the knife, eyes squinting at her from under the brim of his hat.

“You’re selling me?” Lucy didn’t know why she was so surprised. Nothing he had done up until this point had indicated he was capable of kindness. If he was willing to eat another person, what was selling someone into slavery by comparison?

The Ghoul drew one of his guns, only half pointing it at her. “You got problems out here, too, Sweetheart. Best you try your luck behind that door.” He nodded his head in the direction of the opening. Lucy met his eyes again, searching for any sign of humanity. Any sign that he might change his mind. She found nothing, and shook her head at him, wondering why she continued to be surprised at how much cruelty he was capable of.

He indicated to the door with his head again. “Go on.” His voice sounded tired. When Lucy still didn’t move he reached out, grabbing her by the arm and half pushing and half shoving her towards the doorway. Lucy started to shuffle forward, head spinning. Stopping just outside the open door, she gave him a last glance over her shoulder. She watched the Ghoul gesture her forward with his gun, the threat lazy, like he knew she didn’t have enough left in her to fight him on it. Then, steeling herself, Lucy trudged forward into the waiting gloom while the door slid shut behind her.

The next time the door opened, Lucy was coming back out, though she didn’t feel quite like herself anymore. In her head she heard the words ‘My name is Martha.’ repeating over and over. In one hand she held a gun, and in the other a handful of little glass vials filled with amber liquid. On her way out of the store, after witnessing the carnage of the feral ghouls, Lucy had been debating which hand she was going to need if she found her Ghoul still waiting outside. Her new finger, helpfully attached by the Mr. Handy that had met her inside the store on arrival, tapped the side of the gun. It still felt a little numb, and she wasn’t used to it quite yet, but at least she had a finger again.

The sunlight outside was nearly blinding after the darkness of the store, but the ground under her newly boot clad feet felt more sturdy now. The Ghoul was still waiting outside, though in a vastly different state than she had last seen him in. Rather than standing, gun in hand, he was laying in the dirt, with a growing puddle of drool around his mouth. As Lucy approached, she saw his eyes flicker up to her, but he apparently lacked the strength for anything else, and continued to wheeze from where he was.

Lucy stood above him, feeling the weight of each item in her hands, still deciding which one she wanted to use. The events of the store were telling. She was smart enough to put two and two together. Roger, the ghoul they had met in the gutted clinic, had been in the process of going feral, and the Ghoul had put a stop to it when he killed him, saving him from losing his humanity slowly. The process could apparently be prevented by the little vials she now carried. The same ones that had been destroyed by the gulper when she had thrown his saddlebags into its mouth to save herself. The same ones the Ghoul had just tried to sell her for to save himself from the same fate.

It wasn’t clear to Lucy what stage of the process drooling in the dirt was, but it didn’t seem like a good sign. The Ghoul, who had been her tormentor, was reduced to this. He was pitiful. Pathetic. Weak. Lucy sighed.

“You don’t get these, you turn into one of those?” She gestured vaguely back at the store, knowing she didn’t have to elaborate on what ‘those’ were. He was clearly familiar with this place. He knew what it was they did here, and what was going to happen to her once she had gone inside. “That how it works?” It was obvious he wouldn’t be answering her, but Lucy didn’t need him to.

Crouching down, she looked at the gun in her hand again, making sure he could see her doing so. She had made up her mind on what she was going to do. She had thought she made it up the moment she saw him, but maybe she had already known from the start, because Lucy knew who she was, and she knew what was important to her. Still, she tapped her new, grey finger against the trigger guard.

“I may end up looking like you,” she said, making sure to look him in the eyes as she spoke, “but I’ll never be like you.” Reaching down, Lucy placed the vials right next to his gloved hand where it twitched in the dirt, before rising back to her feet, looking out over the Wasteland and back to him. “Golden Rule, motherfucker.” Then she turned her back on him and strode across the parking lot, away from him, and away from the Super Duper Mart.

***

Despite herself, Lucy felt her body relax a little moving through the halls of the Vault. Even when their group was herded into the quarantine rooms to wait for doctors to come and look over them. Cooper, on the other hand, looked like he was ready to jump out of his skin. His hand hovered over a weapon the entire time, gaining him wary looks from the Vault-dwellers, though none of them tried to disarm him. After Lucy’s last visit to this place, she couldn’t fault them. She and Max hadn’t set the best example.

Their wounds were treated, and a few were recommended IVs for dehydration, but overall their physical health could have been much worse. Their mental state, on the other hand, was abysmal. Although everyone felt a sense of relief at being inside the Vault and supposedly safe, nobody had had time to mourn and it was all starting to catch up to them.

Once they were all cleared by the doctors to be placed in housing units, the main group of survivors was placed in a large housing unit so they could be kept together. Lucy and Cooper, however, were placed in a separate unit close by, as they would not be staying long term. Kelly begged to be allowed to stay the night with them in their unit, and eventually Lucy relented.

The children had never experienced life in a Vault, and so much of it was like magic to them. Lucy showed them the bathtub and let them play in the warm water with soap and toys graciously provided by the Vault until they were all cleaned up, while Cooper sat stiff-backed in a chair against one of the metal walls of the living room, looking around like he saw ghosts wandering the halls and refused to let any of them sneak up on him.

Afterwards, the kids sat huddled in clean clothes on a couch, watching the Atomic King television and snacking and passing bits of food off to Dogmeat, who alternated between gobbling up every morsel and snuggling with a small stuffed bear she had managed to find, while Lucy put together something resembling a meal for them. It felt hauntingly domestic. None of them had had good sleep yet, and before the food was even finished the children had fallen asleep.

Lucy heaved a sigh and clicked off the stove top burner, leaving the pot of Blam-Co mac and cheese to cool before she could put it in a container for the refrigerator. “Cooper, can you help me?” Their unit had two bedrooms, and she gathered up Nate, leaving Kelly for Cooper to handle, bringing the little boy into the kids’ bedroom and tucking him into bed. Cooper was right behind her, and settled Kelly into the same bed as her brother. Dogmeat watched, teddy bear in her mouth, then jumped up in the bed with the kids, settling at the foot of the bed, putting the bear down between her front paws, nose turned towards the door like she would be keeping guard over them all night. Lucy brushed some hair out of Kelly’s face, tucked the blanket further around Nate, gave Dogmeat a thorough scratch on the ears and muzzle, then moved out of the room, clicking on a nightlight on her way out.

Back in the living room, Cooper looked around and shook his head, rubbing at his eyes. Lucy felt like her body was about to give out on her, and she debated whether she had the energy for a shower or not. Cooper’s hands clenched and unclenched until Lucy finally walked over to his side and stood, trying to think of what to say to him. There was so much that needed to be addressed. His name, for one thing, and his hatred towards the Vaults, but Lucy had no idea how to bring up any of them.

“I’m going to go shower,” she finally said. Cooper grunted in response, and went back to his chair by the wall. Water had never felt so good, and Lucy let herself stand in it for far longer than it took to get clean. It wasn’t until she started to sway on her feet and was afraid that she might actually fall asleep standing up that she made herself get out, dry off, and get dressed. She chose not to put on a vault-suit, instead putting on a pair of pajama pants and a tank top.

Cooper was right where she had left him in the living room, sitting in his chair, staring off into space. His hat rested on the table next to him, and the food remained untouched on the stove. Lucy ran her fingers through her uncombed hair, feeling them hit a snag as she chewed uncertainly at her lip. Eventually, she went and settled herself on the couch, facing Cooper where he sat in his chair.

“You’re Cooper Howard, right?”

***

Cooper almost laughed at the way Lucy ripped the band-aid off of the questions surrounding his name. It would have been funny if he wasn’t dreading it so much. The fact that she had figured out who he was shouldn’t have surprised him. He knew Lucy was smart, and maybe he hadn’t been as secretive about himself as he should have been. There was definitely a part of him that was happy she had figured it out. It felt good that there was someone who knew who he was again. But then he reminded himself that he wasn’t Cooper Howard anymore.

“Don’t call me that here,” he said, keeping his voice as even as he could manage. Lucy cocked her head to the side, her still damp hair falling over her shoulder.

“Why not?”

It was hard to say for sure why Cooper felt so on edge. Not that he had no reasons, but that he had far too many. The lack of sleep usually wouldn’t have been so difficult for him, but between the stress of getting the survivors here, the difficulties of losing people, and the discomfort of being inside a Vault, and not just any Vault, but one he had been in before, Cooper knew his nerves were completely shot.

“Because that’s not who I am anymore, so I don’t need anybody comin’ up to me asking questions about ancient history.”

Lucy continued to look at him with her big, hazel eyes, and Cooper squirmed a little in his chair until finally he couldn’t take being still any longer and rose to his feet to start pacing around the room.

“Why didn’t you just tell me that? Why didn’t you want me to know who you were?” Her voice was so soft and non-judgemental. Whether it was because she was truly not passing judgement on him, or because she was just too tired to be angry in that moment wasn’t totally clear, and Cooper realized he didn’t have a good answer for her, either. Why didn’t he want her to know who he was? His full identity of Cooper Howard wasn’t one he handed out often, but he had introduced himself as Cooper to people in the last 200 years.

“How many of my… How many Cooper Howard movies did you watch growing up?” he finally asked. He couldn’t bring himself to refer to them as his movies.

Lucy shrugged. “All of them, probably. My dad was a huge fan. Still is, I guess.”

Her answer stung a little bit. She knew what he had been before all of this. Before the ruined face and the harshness of the end of the world had changed him. Not just in a physical sense, but in every way. Cooper didn’t doubt that Henry would have talked about who Cooper had been if he was still enough of a fan to watch all of his movies with his kids. Had he told Lucy that Cooper was a good man? That he had been kind and generous and other bullshit from the time before?

“And how about you, Lucy MacLean? Were you a Cooper Howard fan?” In his life, Cooper had heard people say not to ask questions you didn’t really want the answer to, and as soon as this one left his mouth he knew he didn’t wanna hear what she was going to say to him. Rather than answer right away, Lucy continued to look at him with her searching eyes, taking in every detail of him as he stopped his pacing, waiting for her answer.

“Yeah, I was a fan,” she finally said, and the word ‘was’ was surprisingly painful.

Swallowing hard, Cooper pushed himself on. “And how about now? How do I compare to the man your daddy told you about growing up, huh? Am I everything you dreamed I’d be?” Cooper couldn’t keep the bitterness out of his voice. He spread his arms wide so she could take in the full effect of him. Skin scarred, practically hairless, nose rotted away, and clothes tattered and filthy. Every cruel thing he had done to her and everyone else in the last 200 years passed through his mind. It wasn’t that all he had done was bad, but she hadn’t exactly seen him at his best since they met. He could almost taste the coppery tang of Roger’s blood on his tongue.

“You helped save these people,” Lucy said. Cooper fell back a step like she had struck him physically. Nothing she could have said would have startled him more.

“I ain’t done it outta the goodness o’ my heart, Sweetie.” Cooper’s voice was taking on the thicker drawl that he used when he wanted to get mean. The further he got from himself and the more he tried to be like one of the characters from his films, the thicker the accent. He wasn’t about to let Lucy see him as anything but what he was.

Lucy stood up and took a step closer to him. “Those kids,” she pointed off towards the bedroom they had laid Kelly and Nate down in, “are alive because of you.” Cooper opened his mouth to interrupt, but Lucy cut him off and continued, taking another step closer. “Whatever your reasons were, you stayed. Nobody tied you up or forced you. You made that choice yourself. If you hadn’t stayed with us, those Raiders might have killed all of us.”

She took another step. “I’m not going to sit here and tell you that everything you did over the last couple hundred years was good or justified, because I’m sure not all of them were. I’ll bet there’s plenty of things you would take back if you could, and even more things you wouldn’t take back. But whatever has happened, it brought you here, and because you were here, these people are alive.”

Now she was toe to toe with him, and Cooper’s throat felt swollen and thick as he tried to think of what to say to her. Lucy didn’t give him the chance. “It’s not just about the bad you’ve done that makes you who you are. It’s about the good, too. I told you before I wasn’t familiar with your circumstances. That’s true. I don’t know what keeps you going through it all. But I know there has to be something, and I hope when you’re ready you’ll tell me.”

The two of them stood in silence, the only sound the background hum of the Vault, almost too quiet to hear. Lucy was seemingly unwilling to back down, and Cooper felt about two feet tall under the scrutiny of her gaze, even as he was looking down to meet her eyes. Her soft breath puffed over his face, and he smelled the mint of toothpaste. Her newest wound was visible on her chest above the neckline of the tank top from when the Raider had been trying to kill her, cleaned and with a butterfly stitch applied. When she had screamed out his name for help, he’d been terrified. When he found them he thought he’d been too late.

“You…” He started to speak and then didn’t know what he had been about to say. His eyes flickered down to her lips, which were set in a tantalizingly stubborn line. With a start, Cooper realized he was wondering if they were as soft as they looked, and if she would taste like toothpaste. So he said the first thing he could think of to make her take a step back before he did something they would both regret. “You’re a terrible judge of character. You don’t know me, Miss MacLean, so don’t pretend you do. I ain’t the men from my movies.”

Rather than be offended, a slight smile broke out over Lucy’s face and she crossed her arms over her chest. “Maybe. Now go shower. You could use it. I already put some clean clothes in the bathroom.” She held up her hand to silence him when he started to protest. “It’s not a Vault suit, so don’t worry.”

Was he really about to let this young woman tell him what to do? Apparently so, because Cooper grunted at her, half in annoyance and half in amusement at her willingness to boss him around, then he turned and stalked off towards the bathroom.  He wasn’t sure what the name of this little battle they were fighting was, but mentally he knew this was another tally in Lucy’s favor.

Cooper’s clothes were practically a part of his skin by this point. They were the same clothes he had been wearing the day the world ended, other than the duster, and he hadn’t bothered with washing them often, if at all. The hot water of the shower felt like stepping back in time, and for a moment Cooper closed his eyes and imagined it rinsing away the scarring on his skin, returning him to the handsome Hollywood man he had been. If he still looked like that, would he have let himself kiss her?

Snapping himself out of his thoughts, Cooper turned the temperature of the water down and hurried to finish. When he stepped out of the shower, he found his clothes had vanished. How the hell had he not heard her sneak in to take them? Growling in the back of his throat, Cooper dressed in the clothes that Lucy had said she left for him and hated when he looked in the mirror. He looked fucking ridiculous. In fact he might just have to kill her over this. Clothes was not the right word for the shirt and pants he was wearing. These were god damn pajamas. And there were actual slippers left out as well. Hell would freeze over before he put on a pair of slippers. Cooper stalked past them and out of the bathroom barefoot.

“Where the hell are my clothes?” he demanded as soon as he saw Lucy. She was putting away the food that the kids had fallen asleep before they could eat.

“In the washer. Don’t worry. I set it to gentle. Otherwise they looked like they might disintegrate.” She wiped her hands on a towel hanging from the oven. “Hungry? Or ready for bed?”

Maybe he was in Hell. Cooper had actually died in the swamp, and every moment after was Hell. That was the only explanation for how he was standing in a Vault dressed like this. “I sure as shit ain’t hungry, Sweetheart,” he snapped.

Lucy shrugged off his comment. “Alright. Let’s go to bed then. I want you to sleep in the bed with me.”

Cooper just blinked at her for a second. “I ain’t sleeping in the same bed as you.”

Now she was rolling her eyes at him, and Cooper felt his jaw tense. “How is it any different from me sleeping next to you on the ground? Besides… I have a very practical reason for it.”

“And what would that be?”

Shuffling her feet, Lucy held his eyes, though he got the distinct feeling she wanted to look at the floor. “After everything that happened… I’m afraid I’ll have nightmares. I don’t want to be alone if I do.”

“And you think my presence is gonna help if you have a bad dream?”

Lucy nodded. “You make me feel safe, Cooper.”

That took the wind right out of his sails. Cooper wanted to argue that safe was the last thing he should make her feel, but the look on her face made him bite his tongue. Rolling words around in his mouth for a little bit, he let them out as a long, put-upon sigh. “Fine. But I better not end up with kids piled on top of me again.”

Neither of them said anything as Lucy led the way to the bedroom and crawled under the blankets. Cooper looked at it like another swamp monster was going to come bursting out from between the sheets, before resigning himself to another sleepless night. He’d felt more at ease in his coffin than he did between the covers of the soft queen sized bed. Rather than keeping her distance, as Cooper had assumed she would, Lucy immediately tucked herself up against his side again, and this time there was nowhere for him to rest his arm but around her.

“How the fuck did I end up here?” he whispered quietly to himself.

“Go to sleep, Cooper.” Lucy’s voice was soft, and he could tell she was already starting to drift off.

The silence lasted long enough that he thought she had fallen asleep, but then she started talking again. “Hey, remember how you said you didn’t want anyone asking you questions about ancient history?”

“Yep.”

“Know what I did for work in my Vault?”

“What?”

“I was a history teacher.”

“Well… shit.”

[heretic-altias]

I'm about to start writing for ffxivwrite but since I am bad at posting about my OCs they might hit some people out of left field. The characters page on my blog has more in depth backstory details (even if it's a little outdated, Altais's pictures still have her old glam and hair and I'm sure there's new stuff I haven't added) but for a quick and easy reference I'm going to put a short bullet point style write up on my main three OCs here and link it before every fic I post this month. Under the cut so it stays nice and short looking lol.

An important distinction to be aware of right away is not all these characters exist in the same universe!!! Altais and Akku are written in Solarverse, a group WoL universe with my friends and so you'll see references to more than one WoL. Any character you don't recognize mentioned in their stories that isn't canon is more than likely another friend's WoL. A'kito is written in his own solo universe though, anything written about him has him as the only WoL. There are a couple side character OCs of mine I've introduced in his universe, so characters you don't recognize written in his stories are probably those. Ok now the basic really fast character bullet points:

Altais Narluu

GNB and MCH are canon classes with a little bit of SMN (researched and incorporated into her weapon designs)

Genius weapons engineer, current research focuses on combining magitek with magic in a way Garleans can't since she can use magic. Summoning magic is of particular interest.

Accidentally corrupted by a new primal thanks to said summoning research, it's a new incarnation of Bahamut but with her own Issues mixed into the summoning so he doesn't look quite the same as the original.

Grew up with terrible no good mother who left her to care for herself very young, not very trusting and quick to fight when threatened.

Essentially had a found family type arc with Solar and they're the people she really trusts now

Akku Ephos

Just a little guy really. Super friendly, quick to trust, and tries really hard to befriend everyone.

Started out as a NIN under Zelda's (the leader of Solar) training, but was never a very good fighter. Found his purpose as a healer WHM later on.

His echo also comes with the ability to see dynamis on people. So he can literally see emotions as an aura around everyone.

Tries to be Everyone's Therapist bc of this, while hiding his own feelings bc he doesn't want to upset them and see their sadness when he's struggling.

Grew up in Gridania with his brother, an incident when his brother was drunk ended up with him fleeing home and ending up in Limsa where the rogues took care of him until he met Solar

A'kito Noro

Grew up in Bozja, adopted by a Hrothgar father as a baby. Has an adoptive Viera brother named Kotah.

Goes by Kito usually even though A'kito is his full name since he never knew the tribe the prefix came from.

DRK was his class until the end of EW using a sword/soulstone inherited from his father. At the end of EW he hung up his father's sword and now uses a RPR/DRG combo essentially.

Accidentally bound his soul to Twintania freeing her from allagan control after the binding coils. Think Inheritance Cycle dragon rider type bond between them.

Loves botany. Studied it until the Bozja Incident sent him into a DRK depression spiral. Talk to him about plants pls he will love you.

His brother was evil for awhile but got better in ShB

Ok yeah this is longer than I intended but shouldn't be long if you're just referencing the character you're reading about. Feel free to ask me anything about any of them though! I haven't really done OC tags in the past, but I'll start tagging their names from now on so you can quickly find fics about each one as xivwrite goes on if you want to.

[softpshycopath]

Summary: when the eternals split up; you realise this is your last chance with Druig. (Reader has telekinesis).

Warnings: some mild violence and mentions of mass slaughter.

Word count: 2232-ish

Prompt: ‘Well? Say something. Scream, yell, anything!’

Authors note: sorry this is so much later than I wanted to but here we are! Also, I don't know shit about Tumblr so if someone could tell me how to get rid of the line on the left, it would be great! Also also, I can't for the life of me figure out how to add the 'continue reading' thingie, so um if someone could help me w that as well that would be great :)

1521

When the attack on the city had begun, all of you split up to fight the deviants, and it was just your luck that a bunch of Spanish conquistadores decided now was the best time to attack as well. To say it was chaos was an understatement, a severe understatement. People were running and screaming while left and right you heard gunshots go off and roars seemed to surround you.

Admits the chaos you had lost Makkari and Thena, with who you were sent to kill this group of deviants. God knows what could happen to them in this mix of blood, metal and bloodcurdling screams but you tried your hardest to think of something else. Like the deviant running headfirst towards you.

You jumped to the side and before it managed to take a sharp turn and jump at you again, you threw a large piece of stone at it, remains of buildings were scattered everywhere so you doubted anyone would mind. The deviant broke the rock in two with its tail like it was nothing and the sheer whiplash of it made part of it come back to you. Before you had properly registered it, it knocked you down and upon hitting the ground a stab of pain echoed through your spine.

Thank God you were an eternal because otherwise your spine would've been broken into a million pieces. You got up as well as you could and readied yourself for another attack. The fight was far from over and the longer it went on the more you wished you had Ajak's healing powers. Despite the continuous pain in your tailbone, you hit the monster with loose pieces of anything within reach and very unceremoniously dodged its attacks.

Every time it was a close call, and you were beginning to feel the energy seep away. You had had a long day pining for someone who didn't think of you as more than a friend and even though it was a feeling you were used to; it didn't fail to cost a massive amount of energy. The pain seemed to spread, both from your heart and from your tailbone it slowly crept through your body. When you thought they would finally meet in the middle, an orange spear pierced the deviant from behind and as it sank to the floor dead; you sank to the floor exhausted.

“Come on, we must find the others.” Thena offered her hand, and you gladly took it, half walking half being carried by her you managed to find a way forward. “I thought you were with Makkari,” you groaned upon noticing the speedster's absence. “We killed our deviants and were on our way to look for you when she noticed some more on the other side of the city.” Thena started carrying more and more of your weight until you were hanging on her for dear life. “She went to deal with them.”

Before long Makkari returned and you caught up with her, she inquired about your injuries and you explained, “It's nothing really, I got hit by a boulder and landed on my tailbone.” You smiled at her in reassurance, but it was far too obvious that, had Thena not found you, you might not have seen her again.

When the three of you made it to where Ajak was, you noticed that the others who had been sent to fight the deviants, hadn't returned yet. Thena put you down a little further away from the eternals who were there so you could regain your strength without being bombarded by questions and concerns, as well-intended as they would be. You couldn't see everyone because of the dark, the distance between you and your eyes not being able to focus properly, but as far as you knew Druig was still out there.

You felt bad for him, he'd always confided in you about how horrible he felt about having to let the humans die at their own hands, how they suffered daily, yet he couldn't do anything. You figured he must be having a hard time now; the screams of mass slaughter could be heard from miles away.

Despite the searing pain in practically your entire body, you felt a cloud of worry begin to form in your mind and you hoped that as soon as Druig came back, he would come to see you. Before your thoughts were able to spiral though, a distresses Ajak knelt beside you, “Oh my, what happened to you?” “Just a typical day.” You turned to look at her properly, “but it does hurt quite a bit so, my dearest Ajak, please fix it.” She laughed a bit and started using her magic on you. The sharp edge of the pain disappeared almost instantly, and you knew that when Ajak had finished you would be just fine.

Before she was able to do so however, a commotion amongst the other eternals caught your attention. You couldn't really see what was going on but suddenly Thena started to attack, and Ajak ran off to help. You tried your best to help and occasionally knocked some weapons out of Thena's had with lose rock you could see, but from this distance and with your still not fully healed body, you could only do so much.

After Gilgamesh knocked Thena out, he picked her up and, along with the others, started walking towards the highest temple. You tried to stand up, barely succeeding and limped towards the group, turns out Druig had been with them all along and your worry had been for nothing. Ajak's healing had made a significant difference because you were able to catch up to them before they reached the stairs. You looked up and sighed audibly.

“Everything alright?” Druig asked, he had turned around to look at you when he heard you and noticed your crooked stance. “Yeah, yeah, no worries just thinking about how standing up was such fun and now these stairs,” you waved your hand in their general direction, “they're gonna be a hoot,” you chuckled sarcastically.

Druig stepped down and wrapped an arm around your waist, “wouldn't wanna miss out on the fun.” He helped you and slowly but surely you made your way up the seemingly endless flight of stairs. “So, are you going to tell me what happened?” He asked while looking to where he was holding you. “Have you ever been hit with the whiplash of a deviant's tail?” He shook his head. “Well, that and half a boulder threw me to the ground.” He looked at you with sympathy and together you continued in silence.

Your mind was racing with thoughts, how ironic it was that your heart had longed for him so much this morning and how close he was holding you now. How it was so very kind of him to help you and, how glad you were to know he wasn't dead. But mostly about how close he was holding you.

And close it was. Druig knew that he would be able to help you up the stairs with more distance between you, but he liked holding you like this, and you didn't seem to mind. He felt guilty for not going to you when he first saw you were injured but his mind was too preoccupied with what was going on around you. He told you so and you made sure he knew it was fine. “You're helping me now and that more than makes up for it.” You smiled in reassurance.

“What happened to Thena?”, you asked when your thoughts had stopped consuming all your attention and you noticed the silence. “I don't know, one minute we were talking.” He looked away a little and you knew why. Even the dark and the distance couldn't hide that fact that, had Thena not attacked them, your friends would've started fighting amongst themselves anyway. “The next she had a spear in hand and a distant look in her eyes,” Druig continued, “she seemed almost possessed.”

You didn't really know what to say, so you remained silent. The closer you got to the top the better you could overlook the city. It was a horror site, everything seemed to be on fire and the atmosphere was filled with never-ending screams and gunshots. You could see the pain in Druig's eyes, the guilt he felt for not helping and the internal fight he had every time something like this happened.

In the little chamber on the top of the temple, Druig helped you to a wall near the opening and you leaned against it. Thena was still unconscious, but she began to stir, and your friends took a step back. All but Ajak and Gilgamesh, Thena and him had always had a special relationship, they seemed to understand each other without saying a word, even more so than Sersi and Ikaris. You had always dreamed that one day you and Druig might be like that.

After Thena had awoken, it all went very fast. You had barely grasped what Ajak had meant when she told Thena she had to erase her mind when Druig rebelled. It seemed that for the first time, his internal fight had been won by his sense of morality rather than his sense of duty.

If you had had the strength, you would've thrown Ikaris from the top of the temple the second pushed Druig against the wall, “you're gonna have to make me.” And for a second it looked like he would, luckily Ajak was there to calm him down. Unfortunately, Druig's mind was made up.

When he started walking down you thought he would still bid you all farewell or at least tell you where he was going. He didn't. Then, for just a second, you thought he would come back. He didn't. You hoped at least someone would run after him. No one did.

So, you took matters into your own hands and, slowly but surely began to make your way down the stairs. None of your friends made any effort to stop you, something which, you would only realise later, was actually quite a bitch-move.

“Druig stop,” you groaned, the combination of smoke in your lungs, pain in your ribs and having to walk down a flight of stairs made you feel like passing out. “Stop please, where are you going?” You grabbed him by the shoulders. When you got to the step he was on, you had to take a second to catch your breath. “Where are you going?” you asked again. Around you people had stopped their fighting and, despite his eyes not glowing, you knew they were under Durig's control.

“It's gone on for long enough, their suffering.” He glanced at the humans as he spoke, “I'm leaving, and you can't change my mind.” He looked at you with sadness in his eyes, but you knew this was what was best for him, he couldn't take it anymore. “Well, when will I see you again?” Your breath was still shallow but at least your eyes were able to focus again. “I don't know.” You knew what he meant. Maybe never.

Your mind was still going crazy, Druig was leaving. Druig, he was leaving. And he might never come back. You thought about your feelings, your hopes for the future and eventually you decided it was now or never.

“In that case,” you looked him in the eye and grabbed his hands, “I am utterly and irrevocably in love with you.” You noticed something shift in his eyes but didn’t wait for his response, “I have been since we were in Babylon and I figured, since you're leaving never to return, it would be best you knew. Now, I don't expect you to feel the same, but I just had to tell you, or I would be cursing myself forever.” When you were finished you, once again, found yourself short of breath.

Druig didn't know what was happening, he had felt so sure about his plan 5 minutes ago but now, not so much. He knew you had some feelings for him, it was obvious, not to mention his feelings for you. But love? It wrecked his plans and his mind.

“Well? Say something. Scream, yell, anything!” Apparently, he had been silent for too long because there was definitely some desperation present in your voice. He didn't know what to say so he did the only thing he could think of. He kissed you.

You didn´t see it coming and your mind didn't register it for a good 5 seconds, but when it did, it felt like heaven. The kiss was soft, gentle and so full of desperation. It seemed as if thousands of years of untold feelings and longing stares were poured into it, to some extent that was true.

“Come with me,” Druig said when he finally broke the kiss. You were sad to put distance between your lips, but this proposition made it worth it. “I don't know where we'll go, but at least you don't have to leave.” He was right, you didn't know where you were going, or what was waiting for you in the wild world. But you knew that you had Druig by your side and that made it all better. “Yes, yes I will come with you.”

[flightless-rising]

Made a new Flight Rising iceberg and also wrote an explanation.. man, this took way longer than it should have.

Anyways, I hope you enjoy :D

Iceberg explanation

( If there are any mistakes please let me know and I’ll edit this asap. Also, English isn't my first language so please forgive me for any grammatical errors)

EDIT 28/06: Added some new info! Thanks to everyone who tagged and responded with new stuff to add, I really appreciate it!

The Sky

Naomi

Back in the day, whenever you bought or sold something on the auction house a message would show up in your inbox confirming the transaction. These messages were sent by one of the dragon couriers: Pearl, Spitfire or Edgar.

On January 2016, a strange glitch occurred that replaced the images and names of couriers with the ones of a female fae named “Naomi”.

It goes deeper than that, though: if you looked up her name in the user search menu, a clan would pop up with over 15 million dragons.

It was quickly discovered that all exalted dragons had somehow become part of her clan. Naomi herself apparently didn’t exist, and clicking on her page redirected to an error page. This was later fixed and the original Naomi page can be now visited.

What exactly caused this glitch is still a mystery and today Naomi is still a well-known piece of Flight Rising history.

Missing Tidelord

In the official lore, the deity of the water flight disappeared in early 2018, as described in the short story “Hear Today, Gone Tomorrow”.

In the follow up story (Mixed Elements) posted in April of the next year it is confirmed that the Tidelord is still missing, but alive. This coincides with the fact that the Tidelord account hasn’t made any forum posts aside from festival announcements.

Emperors

Emperors are a type of unobtainable dragon that are formed when several Imperial corpses are left in close proximity to each other, which then fuse forming a multi-headed chimera.

Emperors are described in the lore as having an animal-like behavior and destroying everything in sight. They are extremely difficult to kill, which is the reason why in-universe Imperials have such strange burial rites.

An emperor named Luminax is first described in the Raising a Family short story, and their sprite can be seen walking around on the world map.

The Surface

Old color wheel

Originally, there were only 67 available colors for dragons. On June 8th 2016, 110 more colors were added, meaning that currently there are a total of 177 colors available.

When making a custom progenitor dragon, it is only possible to choose among the 67 original colors because it would be otherwise unfair for those who made their account before the new colors were added.

Imperial breed scrolls

Imperial breed change scrolls are one of, if not the most, rare type of item on the site. They were given only to those who pledged 30 dollars or more on the original Flight Rising kickstarter.

At the time, this was the only way of obtaining an Imperial dragon, which meant that the breed as a whole was pretty valuable. Now that Imperials are abundant this is no longer the case, but First generation Imperials are still extremely sought and probably the most expensive type of dragon on the site.

There were also other items that were only given to Kickstarted backers, namely Skycats, Bonefiend, Golden Idol and Cogfrog familiars, and those are also pretty much impossible to obtain.

Baldwin breed change

When Baldwin was introduced in 2015 he was originally a Pearlcatcher. On September 14th of 2016 however his site art started to gradually change, until his transformation was completed five days later.

In-universe, Baldwin started to change after a lightning strike hit his cauldron during an experiment, which made him slowly mutate into the breed we now know as Bogsneaks.

Trans Fiona

When Fiona was added as a trading post dragon people speculated that she was trans, because the female pose for Skydancers only displays two antennae, while the male one has four.

Since Fiona has four antennae in her site art, many wondered whether it was an oversight or actually intended. Aequorin later confirmed in a forum thread that Fiona is indeed trans.

Boolean

Speaking of rare items, the Boolean familiar was only given to a handful of Flight rising beta testers and as such is extremely rare and valuable.

Plaguebringer coli team

On the Plaguebringer’s page she is listed as being part of a coliseum team.

As of now we have no clue as to why this is, and even more strangely she is the only deity that does this.

Boston & Hope

This story is a bit complicated. I’ve scoured the forums in search of info but it seems like there are still some pieces missing. I’ll try my best to explain anyway.

So, for a long while the Lightweaver was the only deity that had other dragons aside from herself in her lair: these dragons were a Spiral named Boston and a Tundra named Hope. Strangely, they were both Earth dragons and apparently have been there since the beginning (?). When asked why (this happened back when deities would interact on the forums) the Lightweaver responded that they were having a dinner party together.

In August 2014 during a pretty heated dominance battle between Shadow and Light Boston and Hope disappeared from the Lightweaver’s lair.

The Shadowbinder now had them, and both their elements were alsochanged to Shadow. The two deities acknowledged this and changed their broadcast messages accordingly.

If I had to guess this was some kind of inside joke that the admins had, although some people got angry that the Shadowbinder now had both Hope and Boston. Some time later(?) Boston was returned to the Lightweaver and for some reason his element was changed to wind.

I don’t have any more info on the matter but if some of you do I would appreciate it if you tell me.

Shallow Waters

Eyepocalypse

On June 8th 2018 eye type variants were introduced. This update was pretty controversial for a bunch of reasons, and the topic is still discussed today. The majority of people(?) seemed to be upset by the fact the “best” eye types (primarily goat, primal and multi-gaze) could only be displayed on dragons that were born with them, and the fact that every dragon born prior to the update couldn’t have these eye types at all displeased a lot of users.

Another problem was the fact that most of the non-special eye types (i.e the only ones that could be applied to already existing dragons using a vial of Scattersight) were not clearly visible on the grand majority of adult dragons.

A smaller(?) complaint was that two of the primal eye types, Shadow and Plague, were seen as kind of disturbing by some people.

Three years later staff attempted to fix this issue by adding Eye type vials for every available eye type. This resulted in a market crash for special eye typed dragons, as now these eye types could be applied to any dragon. The value of Scattersights also tanked, and the people bought them and hadn’t used them yet lost money as now they were infinitely less useful.

EDIT 28/06: Goat isn’t actually obtainable via breeding, faceted is. Bad mistake on my part.

Also, Scattersights were given away freely by Galore on Flight Rising’s fifth anniversary in 2018 and could not be bought afterwards. I admit that I thought people could be able to buy Scattersights due to how upset people were that the value went down, but whatever.

Courier Breed

The courier dragons (Edgar, Spitfire, and Pearl) are part of an exclusive dragon breed that is currently unobtainable. Even though their eye color still reflects the flight they were born in, in-universe they are considered to be “neutral” and they are granted free access to all domains. This raises the question as to which deity created them, as every other dragon breed (Bogsneaks being the only exception) has been created by one of The Eleven.

Multiaccounting

According to the site’s terms of service, no one is allowed to have more than one account. This is pretty standard for pet sites, as having multiple accounts grants unfair advantages and can mess up the site economy. This doesn’t completely stop people for having more than one account, and the practice as a whole is called “Multiaccounting” or “having multis”.

Some people only do this to have multiple clans or reboot their account without deleting their old one. They mostly do no harm but it is reasonable that the site wouldn’t allow this because of how easy it is exploit.

The real harm of multis comes from a practice called “funneling” which is when someone creates multiple accounts only for the purpose of giving items to their main account. This practice violates the game’s rules and can result in a ban. Funneling is not limited to multiaccounting though, and having an account only to feed another is against the site’s rules whether or not the account in question belongs to another person or not.

Some people fear of being banned for multiaccounting even if they haven’t done so, especially if they share a computer with other people.

Purble

“he purble” is probably among the most famous Flight Rising memes.

In 2016(?) a rant was submitted to the original Dramarising blog by a very angry user that wanted to buy an XXX Purple Ridgeback back when triples were pretty expensive, but got beat by someone else.

I’m not going to copy paste it here because in my opinion it’s one of the funniest Flight Rising related posts ever and I don’t want to spoil the experience of reading it for the first time. You can find it pretty easily by searching it up.

Tert Picking

This is something that refaced recently, even though I’ve seen people talking about this for a while. Some people vividly remember being able to pick their custom progenitor’s tertiary color, even though the developers have made it clear that such thing would be impossible. This is without a doubt just one of those weird situations where a lot of people somehow remember the same thing wrong.

Still, it’s fascinating just how many people claim to remember doing picking their tert.

Swiftwings

Swiftwings were a dragon breed that was scrapped in development. The design was rejected because it didn’t fit the 2 arms 2 legs 2 wings format that every dragon design had to follow before the introduction of ancient breeds.

The reason for this rule is that otherwise it would mess up apparel placement. Although the concept was scrapped, echoes of the design were scattered throughout the site: for example, the empty dragon slots that were present prior to 2019 had the silhouette of a Swiftwings dragon. They are also mentioned in the April Fool’s update of 2018.

“Real” Lore dragons

Most people don’t know that some of the dragons featured on the lore stories are actually real, and you can visit their pages. This is the case for Tetra, Cracklinne, Velya, Liefa, Garote and Mirth, which are currently chilling in Aequorin’s lair.

All of the other dragons in the developers’ lairs are not canon and are used to test bugs and features on the site.

The Middle ground

True deity names

When the site first started the deities used to have actual names instead of titles. Some of these names were based off of the site founders’s usernames on other sites.

The names are the following:

Amogayvhi - Gladekeeper Xhaztol - Arcanist Rhenik - Tidelord Akiri - Flamecaller Thrage - Stormcatcher Undel - Shadowbinder Jhortanas - Plaguebringer Ghurab - Windsinger Artaios - Earthshaker Rhiow – Lightweaver

As you can tell, Xhaztol, Akiri, Thrage and Undel are the usernames of some of the admins of the site, and the flight they are a part of corresponds with the previous name of their deity.

No leg coatls

On January 16, 2015 an iconic thread was posted in the flight rising discussion forum, which displayed a photoshopped image of a coatl with its legs removed. Quickly the thread devolved into a general photoshop thread were people took official site art of dragons and modified it.

The thread was eventually locked due to spam and quote pyramids, but spiritual successors of the original “phoatlshop” thread still exist today.

Dress slot unlocking

A thing that a surprising amount of people don’t know is the fact that when buy an additional apparel slot, the slot opens for every dragon in your lair and not just the one you bought it on.

This is something I also discovered very recently and it’s kind of funny that so many people that have been on the site for very long don’t know this.

Clanbound scatterscrolls

I think the wiki explains it best, so I’ll just copy paste this here:

“Tri-Color Scatterscrolls suffered from an issue where they would only scatter a random range from colors 1-47 (white through sunshine) rather than 1-67 (white through rose). They have been fixed and are now functioning correctly with a random range within the 67 color set. The affected timeframe was from August 15th, 2013 until September 22nd, 2013. The admins allowed users who were unsatisfied with their bugged Tri-Color Scatterscrolls to receive the same amount of them back in the form of Clanbound Scatterscrolls to try scattering their own dragons again with the full color range.”

Beta Mirrors

Ever wondered why they’re called Mirrors?

According to Undel, the main artist of Flight Rising, mirrors originally were supposed to have every part of their body “mirrored”, meaning they had two sets of eyes, two pairs of wings, two tails, and so on.

This design ended up being too cluttered and looked weird shrunken down. The name was kept the same, even though the only mirrored part of the design are the eyes.

Dragons are evil

If you read the “Beastclans on the rise” lore bit, the dragons come across as… very evil, stealing territory from the beastclans when they have been living on Sornieth way longer than the dragons have and killing them for loot.

Furthermore, in the Bounty of the Elements lore bit the Beastclan rebellion guided by Talona is seen by the dragons as unreasonable and wrong even when in canon Beastclans are framed as the innocent party.

The Depths

Scroll of Divorce

In the alpha stage dragons were supposed to be monogamous and could only breed with the dragon they were “paired” with. To break their bond you had to use an item called “Scroll of Divorce” which even featured broken marriage rings in the art.

If I had to guess, this item and the concept as a whole were scrapped because the idea of dragons having “weddings” and needing to divorce before breeding with another dragon felt kind of weird, especially in a game targeted towards teens.

First Festival

The first Holiday festival in Flight rising history was the 2013 Brightshine Jubilee. The items that were available for this festival only are incredibly rare, particularily the Light Sprite which is one of the most valuable items on the site. Apart from that and the fact that the skincent contest only had 6 winners, not much is notable about it.

Offsite drama

Flight Rising has had its fair share of drama both on and off site, but due to the fact that it’s against the site’s rule to discuss user drama on the forums most of the notable drama happened off site (mainly tumblr).

Egg rot

Egg rot was a very early mechanic that was pretty quickly removed from the site. If you forgot to incubate your eggs, they would “rot” and no longer hatch.

It’s the reason why in the nesting grounds the text reads “Eggs healthy” and also the reason why on the stats section of the Account settings it says “Eggs discarded”. The mechanic was removed because it heavily punished casual players and the frequent downtimes of the site meant that even if someone logged in every day they could still have their eggs die.

Also, the images of egg rot look extremely cursed.

Pablo

From what I could gather, Pablo is a dragon which became somewhat popular after user “Desmondtiny” wrote a very long and detailed backstory of them being the Arcanist’s lost boyfriend.

I’m pretty sure it gues deeper than that but I couldn’t find any further information. As usual, if you know something more let me know.

Latest News

On November 12, 2014, a glitch(?) occurred that let anyone post in the Announcements thread. Anything that was posted went directly to the front page, which resulted in quite a bit of chaos.

This was fixed only half an hour later, but the screenshots people have from that time are extremely funny.

Lameforger

On the 2014 Flameforger’s festival announcement Undel accidentally misspelled “Flameforger” as “Lameforger”, which prompted the official account of the Flamecaller to respond aggressively. Lameforger is still jokingly used by users, even after the typo was fixed.

Festival of one (1)

On the first day of the 2014 Greenskeeper Gathering a glitch occurred which switched the site banner for the Starfall celebration banner instead of the Greenskeeper one.

It didn’t end there, in the coliseum Magical shards dropped instead of Bladed Flatleaves, even though skin chests dropped as normal(?).

The weirdest thing about it all was Joxar’s Space inventory, which didn’t display any items at all and had glitched dialogue.

The event was nicknamed by the fanbase “Festival of 1” and even the deity’s official accounts acknowledged the incident.

Vape Juice

As far as I know the original forum thread as been lost, but the vape juice fiasco will always remain cemented in Flight Rising History.

A company called Vape Daugz was making vape juice with Flight Rising dragons plastered on their packaging, completely violating the site’s policy.

The company’s site still exists, and browsing through their products I found that the products that previously had Flight Rising dragons on them still exist, but now feature completely different packaging.

I have no idea whether they changed the packaging spontaneously or staff did something about it.

I think there’s a potentially interesting story buried down there, but we’ll likely never the truth behind the Flight Rising vape juice.

The Abyss

Humans

There’s been some speculation over the years as to whether or not humans are canon in the Flight Rising universe. Some people believe that the “Mages” of the second age in the official lore are actually humans, but we can’t be sure because they are depicted with long robes that cover their whole bodies.

The idea of humans existing in canon has spawned a couple of memes, most infamously Thomas.

Plague healers

Again, I think the wiki explains this one better:

“According to Aequorin, Plague healers are an interesting bunch because rather than administer treatments that counter illness, they use a mixture of magic and contagion that stress the affected dragon further, allowing them to reach a stronger, healed, and resistant state faster than other elements. Plague healers will treat physical injuries with sutures, bandages, and braces, but they won't clean the wounds or apply ointments."

Akitla

As described in the original thread, Akitla was a dragon that user “qunii” saw on the front page, but noticed that she wasn’t accompanied by the username of the person owning them.

After clicking on her, an error page loaded. It was discovered that putting her color combination or ID in the search bar would result in an error page. This was later fixed, and both Akitla and her mate were now displayed as being exalted to the Arcanist. T

here are some theories as to what happened to the Akitla’s user, some think that she belonged to a deleted account, others that it was the result of an incomplete account creation.

As with a lot of things on this iceberg, it will likely remain a mystery forever.

Arcane sprite book

“what is the arcane sprite reading??” is probably one of the oldest still active threads on the forums.

On September 25, 2013 user “Kaadashi” started a joke thread were they wondered what exactly is the arcane sprite reading, and playfully suggested that it could be erotic fanfiction. People went crazy of course, and started to wonder what kind of juicy secrets were hidden within the pages of that book.

I don’t want to say too much because I really don’t want to spoil the experience of reading through this very cursed tread.

Sunshine

Sunshine is one of the most… interesting lairs on the site, and certainly one of the most well-known.

They(?) have a lair (almost) completely full of triple basic sunshine dragons, most of which are Tundras. So far they have collected about 320 triple hundred Sunshine dragons, almost all of which are also named “Sunshine”. They’re not all the same, some of them have apparel, some of them are gened and some have unique art and descriptions.

They’re dedicated and I respect that.

EDIT 28/06: Apparently some people seem to think that the sunshine-dedicated lair is based on a meme concerning the announcement of the color wheel expansion, which became so discussed that the itself site broke. The two things are unrelated however, as the Sunshine lair has been around for much longer.

The announcement of the color wheel expansion was cryptic, with only a few post showing off differently colored coatls and then 3 pages of reserved posts, with no explanation whatsoever.

Simple Farmer

Another very famous thread is the “I am but a simple farmer” thread started by user “someKindOfGenius”. It’s not really about anything specific, it’s just a rather silly thread were people photoshop flight rising dragons onto various crops.

Still, this thread is iconic so I had to include it.

Dragon Deaths

Way back in 2014 former flight rising programmer Thrage revealed on a forum thread that way back before the beta, dragons could actually starve to death if left unfed.

Yep.

Obviously they had to remove this mechanic because it would have been extremely harsh to casual players and make people frustrated with the game.

Zalvador

User “manojalpa” became fairly well-known for the extremely dark lore they(?) had written for their Clan, it was so dark in fact that every single one of their dragon’s bios had to moved to their tumblr where they couldn’t be easily seen by the site’s mainly underage usebase.

Their lore centered around their progen dragon, a tundra named Zalvador, which behaved and had the same powers as a flight rising user: buying dragons off of the action house, having “breeding projects”, exalting dragons, etc.

These things seem pretty normal when done by a player, but when taking them as actual real things that happen in universe… yeah, it was way too morbid for the site.

The Pit

Black linen neck wraps

For some weird reason, the apparel piece “Black linen neck wrap” when put on a male pose Coatl wraps around the dragon’s throat instead of it’s neck. It’s kind of subtle and hard to see, but if you compare it with the female pose the difference is clear. This is probably just an art error, although it’s weird that it hasn’t been fixed yet, since linen wraps are a very old piece of apparel.

Another weird thing about linen wraps in general is that the wing wraps just sort of… go through the membrane? This is not possible. These dragons are in pain.

Icewarden ears

Another very remarkably popular thread is the Icewarden ears thread.

In 2014 user “Llanai” simply makes note of the fact that the Icewarden has teeny tiny ears.

As we have come to expect from these threads, it quickly devolved into nonsense.

Forbidden Snapper lore

Snappers used to have a way different lore section that was changed because it deemed too similar to the lore of another petsite.

This is what the original section read:

"Snapper dragons do not sleep, but exist in a constant state of reverie. They receive and catalogue all experiences and stories told within their dreams. This persistent state of awakened dreaming awards them the longest memory of any dragon species. They are living encyclopedias, and any dragon who is seeking difficult-to-obtain information will have the most luck unearthing it from a Snapper clan - provided they have the patience for it. If you want two dozen quick answers, talk to a spiral. If you want a fully developed answer, camp out around a Snapper. These dreamers move at their own pace, which varies from dragon to dragon. For some, the awakened dream can prove to be more interesting than their surroundings. This leads to a focus upon the dream, and the waking world as filtered background noise. Interacting with these sleepwalkers can be a trying and repetitive task. Other Snappers may be fairly lucid, with a focus upon their surroundings and the constant hum of the dream pushed aside."

Bee movie script

I’ve seen this story around the forums a few times but I’ve never been able to learn the details.

From what I’ve heard someone copy pasted the entire bee movie script into their clan bio in a drop down text format, which completely broke the page for anyone who visited it. This was fixed, apparently, although I have no clue as to who this user is.

EDIT 28/06: Zeus

Zeus is an XXX gold g1 permababy imperial that used to belong to user "happywing".

Their account is now locked because Zeus was created with the use of a duplication glitch on an imperial breed change scroll, which is obviously not allowed (although I've heard some people say that the dragon was hacked in altogether). Before the account was locked, people speculated that Zeus was the most valuable dragon on the site, because an XXX g1 imperial is impossibly rare.

Wegg shaming

On July 2017 user “Dreamnorn” made a thread were they(?) claimed to have a dream where everything was the same except people used the term “wegged” when two dragons would lay only one egg in a nest.

Ex. Aw man! I’ve been wegged again! = Aw man! I bred two dragons and they only had one egg!

The dream ended up being prophetic, as the term catched on and people started to use it unironically.

The practice of “Wegg shaming” I think refers to the trend of people posting pictures of the dragons that “wegged” them in order to “shame” them.

Plague nest skull

The site art of the plague nest features an unique dragon skull that doesn’t match with any currently existing dragon breed or creature: It appears to have two sets of eyes, like a mirror, but also long and curled horns.

It’s probably just for decoration and it likely doesn’t have any significance whatsoever, but personally I believe it would be pretty cool if when they eventually release plague ancient it at least somewhat resembled this skull.

EDIT 28/06: On second thought, the skull doesn’t seem to have two pairs of eyes, It just has the generic shape of a carnivore.

Rock bottom

CAPTAINPLANET

…this is CAPTAINPLANET. Somehow, user “Decres”' managed to overlay a Fae skin on top of a Tundra, creating this horrifyingly fascinating abomination.

I have no idea how she did this, and she seems pretty adamant to tell.

EDIT 28/06: People have pointed out that this skin overlay glitch was actually somewhat common (although I still haven't found another dragon like CAPTAINPLANET). What you had to do was breed change a dragon while attaching a skin to them in another tab.

This glitch has been patched and such thing is no longer possible.

Lair 46264

A cursed lair.

Dreams

I’ve seen a lot of people, both on forums and on Tumblr, sharing dreams they had about Flight Rising.

A lot of people dream of just being on the site, while occasionally weird things happen.

I’ve read of people who dreamed the distribution of a new breed, buying an exclusive item, a new Fiona feat or Swipp trade, or just browsing the forums.

The most common type of Flight rising-associated dream I’ve seen however is being caught multiaccounting and having their account banned.

I’m no psychoanalyst, but I think it’s pretty clear that these nightmares stem from the paranoia of being banned from their beloved petsite instead of showing any actual intention of doing the “crime” in question.

Anyways, I think it’s fascinating how so many people dream about this site, and it reminds me of the dreams people claimed to have about Mario 64 where completely new levels were added or a scary monster appeared.

Dragon Slime

Dragon Slime was an infamous thread which was supposed to be start off point for an ARG.

It was deleted because it was considered too “spammy” and also because ARGs are banned from the forums. The thread has been lost, unfortunately.

EDIT 28/06: Thanks to @randompurple-fr for providing screenshots of the dragon slime tutorial! You can find them here

Cucumber

Cucumber is the only dragon ever to have been exalted with a skin, which is something that should not be possible. This raises some questions as to what exactly did the person that exalted them do to achieve this, but we have no way of knowing who Cucumber belonged to.

EDIT 28/06: Actually, we do know who used to Cucumber belonged to! Its owner was Osiem: an official flight rising artist. I couldn’t find the thread where they(?) acknowledged the glitch though, if someone has it please let me know!

[emmyhem]

stormy fears & feelings (l.r.h)

a/n: hey everyone! here’s “stormy fears & feelings”, this is a nonfamous au with roommate!luke. (unedited as usual) this was really fun to write, i intended for it to be short and sweet but i ended up writing for longer than i had originally planned. anyway, i hope you enjoy and are having a great day/night/whatever. i appreciate any and all feedback, and as always my messages are always if you want to chat or anything :) thank youuuu - emmy <33

pairing: roommate!luke hemmings x fem!reader 

summary: a thunderstorm leaves you awake and scared, and going to your standoffish roommate, who you happen to have an extremely inconvenient crush on for comfort may be your only option to get a good night of sleep. 

warning(s): cursing, extremely minor injury, minor angst if you squint

word count: 5k

It really was an awful idea. In any other case it wouldn’t have even crossed your mind, but you had been on edge all week for no specific reason and thunderstorms had always spooked you. 

The storm had started unexpectedly. If you had known earlier you would have ran to the store to buy Nyquil before going to bed, but with it sneaking up on you, you were huddled under your blankets, eyes squeezed impossibly tight in hopes to drown out the loud crashes and blinding flares of light flooding your bedroom window. 

When the thought originally passed through your head it was more of an internal sarcastic remark than a possible solution. 

 I mean, you had been living with your roommate, Luke for over 4 months now, but you weren’t really friends. You would occasionally chat with him if you were both up and about around the apartment, which was pretty rare seeing as Luke seemed to avoid you for the most part. Hurrying out of a room when you entered, ending conversations quickly, and always being conveniently busy when you had attempted to make plans to get to know each other better. Your living arrangement had only come to be because you had heard through a friend he was looking for a roommate at the same time that you had happened to be on the lookout for a new place. Your relationship consisted mainly of half-hearted greetings and subtle avoidances of each other. So, going to him for comfort wasn’t a viable option to soothe your nerves. 

Even if you did, what would you expect him to do? 

Sit up with you? No, not when you knew he had to wake up early for work. 

Talk you down? He wouldn’t even know what to say in the first place, your typical conversations were made up of checking if there was still coffee, or deciding whose turn it was to do the dishes. 

Offer up a space in his bed? Absolutely not. That was the most unthinkable of them all. If it wasn’t for the fact that Luke had always seemed pretty adamant with his personal space, sometimes tensing up if you even sat too close to him on the couch. Your annoying and inconvenient crush that had started the day you moved in, just wouldn’t allow the two of you to be in such close quarters without your heart racing and your head dizzying.  

It was out of the question, end of discussion. 

With that being said it only took one more boom of thunder to have you shoot up from your bed and pad quietly into the hallway, with fuzzy sock clad feet and a large quilt wrapped tightly around your shoulders. 

You stared at his bedroom door hesitantly until the next strike, during which you knocked ever so lightly and muttered a soft,

 “Luke,”

After a minute and no reply you resorted to giving up on your plan and heading to the kitchen to drink a cup of tea, in hopes it may help. The idea was good enough, but you had failed to consider the noise that comes along with it. And as if the whistling of the kettle and clattering of the mugs wasn’t enough, the next roar of thunder sent you into a shock causing you to stub your toe on the corner of the cabinet and let out a pained yelp. You quickly slapped a hand over your mouth and sunk to the floor to assess the damage as you heard rustling and a door opening from the hall. 

Luke was in the kitchen in a matter of seconds, his long legs carrying him there within just a few steps. He hit a light switch, causing the kitchen to glow a dim yellow. 

“Y/n, you alright?” he grumbled, rubbing sleep from his eyes as he approached your crouched position on the floor. 

“Yea, yea I’m okay. Sorry, I woke you up.” you responded, mentally kicking yourself for causing such a disruption. 

“S’alright. What’s goin’ on? Why are you up?” he spoke, offering you a hand to pull yourself up. 

You accepted it, trying your hardest to ignore how warm it felt, and how easily it enveloped your own as you returned to your feet. 

“Uh, I just had a hankering for chamomile.” you lied. You really should’ve thought this through. Now that he was standing in front of you, admitting your fear of thunderstorms seemed daunting. You were an adult for chrissakes, an adult that was left shaking at the mere thought of a considerably common weather phenomenon.  

His eyebrows tugged in confusion as he glanced between you and the kettle. 

“Did you knock at my door a couple minutes ago?” he questioned as you watched the window over the sink nervously. 

Your eyebrows raised a bit at the inquiry.

“Thought I heard something, but then I figured I must’ve just imagined it. Y’know, woken myself up.” he continued. 

“Um, yep that was me.” you admitted, turning your back to him in hopes to hide your embarrassment. 

“So, was there a reason, or?” 

“Right, yea a reason.” you paused, searching for an excuse in your drowsy and distracted brain. “I wondered if you wanted a cup.” 

“In the middle of the night?” your subconscious deadpanned as your face scrunched in displeasure. 

You turned back around to face him, holding a mug out for him. 

Confusion and a glint of amusement was painted across his features as he spoke, 

“You wanted to know if I wanted a cup of tea,” he peeked at the clock behind you. “at 2:30 in the morning?” 

As you opened your mouth to defend your admittedly bad excuse another crash of thunder rumbled from the sky, causing your body to jump in fear and your hand to release its grip on the ceramic mug. Luke took a step back just in time as it shattered to pieces on the floor. 

You brought two shaky hands to your face and pressed yourself against the cabinet, cowering as far back as possible. 

“Hey, s’okay. It’s just thunder.” Luke said, placing a hand on your shoulder. 

You peeked out through your hands before dropping them from your face all together. 

Realization sparked on his face as your eyes met his. 

“Are you afraid of thunderstorms?” Despite his tone being soft, sweet even, you were sure he was making fun of you. 

“I-uh, no. No I’m not.” you rushed out, attempting to push past him and scurry into your bedroom. 

“Y/n, the glass.” he warned, his grip on your shoulder tightened, not allowing you to move. 

“Was that why you knocked earlier?” 

You nodded, hesitantly your eyes dropping to the floor. 

“I don’t know why, I just- thunderstorms have freaked me out since I was little and I normally would take something to help me fall asleep, but I didn’t have anything and...I shouldn’t even have tried to wake you up in the first place, there’s nothing you could do and we aren’t even friends or anything. Probably don’t even like me, I mean you can hardly even stand to be in the same room as me. Anyways I’ll be fine, lemme clean this up and then i’ll just head to my ro-” you rambled, not even pausing to take a breath. 

“You think I don’t like you?” he interrupted. 

Fuck. Was the scare so intense oxygen had been cut off from your brain? Why would you say all that? He didn’t need to know that you took notice of the fact that he avoided your company like the plague. 

Instead of responding you opted for grabbing the dustpan, the sooner the floor was clean the sooner you could get back to your room. Where you would sit awake in fear, by yourself for the rest of the night, no doubt replaying this embarrassing interaction over and over again. 

Luke stood seemingly frozen as you kneeled down beside him attempting to gather the broken shards, which was proving to be difficult with such shaky hands. 

With another bolt of lightening your hand shuddered and slipped from the brush, hitting a shard and slicing a thin cut on the pad of your pointer finger. 

“Shit” you hissed, dropping the dustpan to examine the tiny gash. 

Luke’s head snapped in your direction, eyes immediately filling with concern. 

“Ow” you whined quietly. 

He dropped down next to you and took the finger into his hands. 

“You should clean this out, I’ll finish this up.” he nodded to the remaining glass. 

“I can get it.” you protested. “You should get to bed, you have to work tomorrow.” you continued, making your way to the sink. 

“So do you.” he responded flatly, already finishing up cleaning as you looked around for a band aid. When you finally located the box of bandages Luke was behind you. 

“Lemme see.” he said, taking one from the box while he examined your finger. 

You watched his face intently as he carefully wrapped your cut with squinted eyes and a small pout. 

You had never seen Luke during the night. There was a certain softness to him that was completely foreign to you, one that made the thought of cuddling into him seem far too appealing for your liking. 

“I do like you, y/n.” he broke you out of your thoughts, uttering it so quietly you thought you may have imagined it. 

You nodded in acknowledgement, not knowing how to respond without further embarrassing yourself. 

“I’m sorry I made you think I didn’t” 

At this point he had finished bandaging you up which made the fact that he was still standing a mere inches apart from you with his hand wrapped around yours, all the more affecting. 

“M’sorry I even brought it up, I’m just tired cause of the storm, and apparently I lose a filter with no sleep.”

His hand lightly squeezed yours as you spoke, and the butterflies that erupted in your stomach as he did so told you it was time to go back to your room. You gingerly tugged your hand away, ignoring the way Luke’s expression faltered when you did. 

“I’m sorry again, about all of this. You should get some sleep.” 

“Will you be able to?”

“I’ll be fine, one night of lost sleep is hardly the end of the world.” you responded, taking a step towards the hallway. Luke caught your arm before you got far. 

“Yea, but you lose your filter when you're tired, you said it yourself.” A small grin grew on his face as he continued. “Can’t have you spilling all your secrets tomorrow.” 

Was he joking around with you? 

Before you could stop it, a pleased smile appeared on your face. This was new. You didn’t even know he had a sense of humor, he had never attempted to share it with you before. 

“I’m sure I can control myself.” you returned, attempting to go once more. Of course, his voice stopped your movements within a second. 

“Y/n, let me help. How can I help?” 

The plausible reasoning for his sudden generosity was that he was feeling guilty or maybe even embarrassed that you were under the impression he didn’t like you. But that didn’t stop your entire body to warm at the offer. 

“There’s really not much to do.” you started. “I think the only reason I knocked in the first place is because I’m used to having some company when I get scared. Big family, y’know there was never a shortage of beds I could crawl into.” 

“Company!” he repeated, eyes lit up. “I can do that. I have it on very good authority that I’m an excellent cuddler.” 

Your body froze at his words. He couldn’t be serious, right? There’s no way he had any interest in that, even if it was just for your sake. 

He must’ve noticed your tenseness at the proposition because before you got a chance to respond, a bright red blush overtook his cheeks and he squeaked out, 

“Or the floor, I could always take the floor. I mean company can be just my presence in the room, I guess. If you want.” 

“No. I mean-um, I could go for a cuddle.” you heart answered before your brain got the chance to interfere. 

He smiled at you warmly. 

“Alright then.” 

You had never been into Luke’s room before, I mean not really. Sometimes you would sit his laptop in there if he had left it out or lay a sweatshirt of his on the foot of the bed but you had never actually been inside. It was slightly messy, there was a pile of clean, unfolded laundry on a desk chair, and a few empty water bottles scattered around but for the most part it was clean. On his bed the blankets were strewn about from where he must’ve been sleeping earlier, a pile of pillows stacked high on the right side, and it could’ve just been how tired you were but you had never wanted to crawl into a bed more. 

“I like your room.” you whispered, as he spread the pillows out more evenly across the top of the mattress. 

“Why’re we whispering?” 

“It’s nighttime.” 

“Y/n, we’re the only people who live here and we’re both awake.” he teased, laughing while shaking his head. 

“Oh, right.”

He gestured a hand to the bed, “Ladies first.” 

Hesitantly you sat, your back pressed against the mound of pillows Luke had compiled for you, shortly after he took a seat next to you, leaving a few inches of space between your legs. You looked down to your lap, aware of how awkward of a position the two of you were in, neither knowing how to go about this. Luke spoke first, 

“Are you warm enough?” 

“Yea, thanks.” 

“Mhm,” he hummed in response. “Do you wanna watch something?” 

“M’pretty tired.” you replied. “We should probably just go to sleep.” 

“Yeah, right.” he nodded, watching you. 

It seemed he was waiting for you to get comfortable, like he didn’t want to push any boundaries that you weren’t ready to cross. 

Unsurely you scooted your body down in the bed till you were fully horizontal, took one more glance at Luke and then turned your back to him, pulling the duvet up over your shoulders. With his blanket pulled up just under your nose you subtly breathed in the pine and vanilla aroma that you recognized as his body wash. You’d never admit to it but occasionally you’d spend a little extra time in the shower inhaling the fresh scent. 

A dip in the mattress told you that Luke had laid down and within a few minutes you were sure he was sleeping again. You were feeling a bit more calm, trying your hardest to ignore every loud crash of thunder and instead focus on counting the seconds between each soft breath Luke exhaled. 

Just as a drowsy haze began to come over you, straining your eyelids and fogging up your brain a particularly alarming rumble broke the silence causing your body to jerk and your breath to catch. Luke grumbled quietly beside you and you could feel him rolling around. As you opened your mouth to apologize for waking him a warm hand slipped just under the hem of your shirt, rubbing soothing circles onto the bare skin of your hip. Your body tightened at the unexpected contact and you strained your neck to look at him over your shoulder. 

“Luke,”

“Go to sleep, m’right here.” he mumbled without even opening his eyes. 

You faced back around but placed a hand over his and removed it from your body. This must’ve worried Luke because he pushed himself up on his elbow, eyes blinking open as you turned to face him. 

“Was that not good? I’m sorry, I’ll keep my hands to myself.” he rambled through a defense. 

“No,” you shushed, pressing a hand to his chest to lightly push him back down. “s’good.” you assured while pulling his arm over your body as you tucked yourself into his chest. Your bodies were completely flush in this new position. “This is better.” you murmured, your nose bumping his chest as you made yourself comfortable. 

He hummed softly in agreement, his hand finding its way to your hair, cupping the back of your head. 

Sleep was sweeping over you fast like this, the sound of Luke’s heartbeat drowning out any daunting noise coming from outside. Not to mention that anytime your body so much as twitched Luke’s arms would tighten around you ever so slightly as if to assure he was still there with you. 

When the sun had risen you woke up to the sound of soft snores, and the feeling of tiny puffs of air on your forehead. As you tried to roll over and stretch your limbs you found your legs were tangled with someone else’s and your cheek was practically glued to the faded grey cotton that adorned your roommate’s chest. 

“Luke.” you called, using your hand to shake him awake.

“Shh” he whined, repositioning you both so your back was snug against his chest. 

“We have work.” you mumbled, trying to squirm out of his hold. It proved ineffective as he just tightened his arms around your stomach. 

He grumbled something incoherently that sounded an awful lot like “No, stay with me please. So warm.” but that couldn’t have been it. Right? 

Afraid he would dig himself further into this hole of sleepy deliriousness, you began to rouse him, prying yourself out of his arms and promising him a hot cup of coffee if he met you in the kitchen within ten minutes. 

You quickly washed your face, brushed your hair and teeth and made your way to the kitchen to fix two cups of coffee. Luke stumbled out of his bedroom just a few minutes later, his eyes squinted under the natural light flooding the windows and he seemed to almost glide across the tile until you and his coffee were in arm’s reach. 

“Good morning, sleeping beauty.” you greeted in a teasing tone, pushing the mug across the counter to him. 

He hummed and took two large sips before turning his attention fully to you. 

“G’morning, did you sleep okay?” 

“Yeah, I actually did.” you affirmed. “Thank you for everything last night, Luke.” you rested your hand over his on the countertop, squeezing it once lightly to express your gratitude. 

When you pulled it away Luke’s eyes lingered over where your hand had previously been before he dragged his gaze up to meet your eyes. 

He released a deep sigh before speaking, “Happy to help, I’m honestly glad the storm happened.” 

“Happy to see me scared shitless, are we Hemmings?” 

He laughed through a denial, leaning forward to press his forehead on your shoulder where your loose fitting shirt had slipped. 

Your posture straightened as your stomach tied itself in knots, each one tightening with every exhale that brushed your bare skin. 

“No, I’m just glad that we can finally y’know, be-” 

“Friends.” you cut off. Because that’s what you would be, you had to remind yourself. You wouldn’t have Luke’s bed to crawl into every night. You wouldn’t have his firm chest under your palms each morning, or his hands tangled in your hair. Especially not in the way you really wanted them. 

Luke pulled off of you like he had been electrically shocked. 

“Friends” he repeated, and if you weren’t so busy pitying yourself you may have heard the subtle lilt in his voice that caused the word to come out as more of a question than a statement. 

An uncomfortable silence hung in the air, and as the minutes passed this interaction was starting to feel more like the ones you typically had with Luke. 

“We should get ready for work, you have to go soon.” he spoke up, already walking away. 

“We should do something tonight.” you suggested. This is what you were afraid of, you had grown attached already. “Maybe watch something or, I don’t know.” Anything to be near you again. 

“I won’t be home.” he clipped, closing his bedroom door behind him. 

It really was an awful idea.

You hurried through your morning routine, carefully selecting any time you had to leave your bedroom to avoid bumping into Luke. What had gone wrong? Had the word friends spooked him? If that was the case, what would he have done if he found out what you really wanted to say? 

Either way you left feeling confused and rejected, so quickly you didn’t even realise you had forgotten your car keys until you were on the sidewalk outside your complex. 

“Shit.” you cursed, turning on your heel and storming back in the building. 

Once you had expertly made your way back inside the apartment and retrieved your keys, being as quiet as humanly possible to not alert Luke to the fact that you had re-entered, you were halfway out the door when the utterance of your name froze your movements. 

“She just left for work.” 

Luke must’ve been on the phone, but why was he talking about you? Curiosity got the best of you and you quietly shut the door with you on the inside, work could wait. 

“Because, Cal that’s not what she wants.” he sighed.

He was talking to Calum? The only friend you shared, and the connection through which you got a room here in the first place. 

“She wants to be my friend and I can’t do that. Not with her.” 

“Why not?” you whispered to yourself, taking a step further inside to hear him better. 

“No, it’s not better than nothing at all. I can’t be her friend ‘cause anytime she’s near me all I can think about is kissing her.” 

Your stomach dropped at his words and a small gasp escaped your mouth. All the dots began adding up in your head. The avoiding? Well he had just explained that, and honestly it was the best excuse you’d ever heard. His behavior last night? You had caught him with his guard down, he was forced to let you in. His sudden annoyance at the word friends this morning? You had shot him down and you hadn’t even realized it. You liked Luke, and he actually liked you back.

“Actually, avoiding does work.” he continued, breaking you from your thoughts. 

You could hear the mumble of Calum’s response but unfortunately couldn’t make out any of the words. 

“Last night was an exception, she was all cute and scared. There’s no way I could’ve turned her away. I’ll go right back to avoiding, and things’ll go back to normal. Suffer in silence, I’m telling you it works.” 

That’s not what you wanted, not at all. The creak of floorboards alerted you to Luke’s approaching and you hastily snuck out the front door, your mind running through possible solutions the whole way to your car. 

Luke hadn’t lied when he said he wouldn’t be home, which meant he was taking this whole avoiding thing seriously. It was 1:30 am and you were still up waiting for him, your seat at the dining room table was losing its appeal as your back cramped in pain. The original plan you had concocted in the hours you spent daydreaming about him at work was to wait up for him, lure him into a movie night and make a move while the two of you were cuddled up on the couch. You hadn’t planned for him to be out this late though, and in all honesty you were starting to worry. You hoped he was just crashing at a friend’s, you hoped he wasn’t alone, you really hoped he wasn’t with another girl. 

Discouraged, you moved your pity party into your bedroom, flopping onto your bed and groaning loudly into a pillow. You rolled onto your back, wasting time by counting the blades of the ceiling fan in each slow rotation. 

You were at 231 in your counting when you heard the front door open followed by the clambering of footsteps. You perked up and angled your ear towards the hall. 

“Please be alone. Please be alone. Please be alone.” you repeated quietly to yourself as the steps got closer. From the light protruding the crack under your bedroom door, you saw the shadow of a figure approach. You held your breath in anticipation of the knock you figured was coming. A few minutes passed, nothing came, and soon enough the shadow disappeared and Luke retreated to his bedroom. 

You stared out your window and for the first time in your life found yourself hoping for a storm. The sky was clear, hardly a cloud in sight, and the moonlight was warm and prominent. It would look so pretty on Luke’s face right now, all soft eyes and drowsy expressions. 

It seemed a shame to sleep by yourself, he was just across the hall, the promise of his warm embrace taunting you. 

You huffed in exasperation and jumped to your feet, “Here goes nothing.” 

You didn’t bother being quiet as you advanced to his door, leaving three heavy knocks on the worn oak. 

You could hear him shuffling inside and then the intimidating creak of the hinges, revealing him to you. 

“Are you okay?” he questioned sluggishly, his body slumping against the door frame.

“Can I sleep in here?” you asked instead of answering. No time to waste here. 

“Um, it’s not storming?” 

“I know. Can I?”

“Is there a reason?” he breathed, his heavy eyes drifting down your face to land unabashedly on your lips, which you were chewing in anxiousness.

“I have a crush on you.” you blurted, causing him to shoot up from his languid lean. 

“What?” 

“I have this big stupid crush on you. I have ever since I moved in but I thought you hated me because you always avoided me, but now I know that you like me too and I don’t see the point in us sleeping in separate beds anymore.” you continued, your eyes glued to a dip in the hardwood floor. 

“How did you ev-” 

“I heard you on the phone with Calum earlier.” you interrupted to explain, still refusing to meet his eyes. “I swear I wasn’t spying or anything, I forgot my keys.” 

Without saying a word Luke stepped to the side allowing you entrance. You shuffled past him but didn’t make it far before his hand caught your forearm and smoothly tugged you a mere inches from him. 

He spoke through heavy breaths, eyes flitting to your own as you faced him for the first time since your declaration. 

“You like me?” 

You could only nod, your brain completely fogged by the close proximity. 

His eyes fell from your eyes to your now bitten lips, “Can I?” he sighed as his hand found your chin, thumb brushing the skin timidly. 

“Y-yea” you agreed, leaning into his touch. 

He closed the gap between you with a gentle press of his lips, his hand slowly dragging up your arm leaving goosebumps in its wake until it was tangled in your hair. As you relaxed into his hold his movements became more fervent, his tongue begging for entrance which you allowed when your mouth fell open with a flustered sigh. 

Luke stumbled backward dragging you along with him until the back of his calves met the foot of the bed and he dropped to sit on the edge, you standing between his legs. You pulled apart to breath and he spoke raggedly, 

“My heart…” he trailed off catching his breath. 

“What?” you muttered. 

“Feel it.” he continued, taking your hand and pressing it to his heart which you could feel thumping rapidly through the warmth of his skin. 

You laid your forehead against the top of his head, moving both of your hands to your own chest. 

“Me too.”

He tugged on your sweatshirt until you were seated securely on his knee, his hands grasping at your waist. 

“You have no idea how long I’ve been wanting to do that.” he drawled before he began alternating pecks, and light nibbles down your neck until he reached the spot he could feel your pulse thrumming from. He lets his lips rest there for a while and reveled in the fact that you were just as affected as him. He pulled away when you spoke up.

“Where were you tonight?”

“Moped around Calum’s place until he kicked me out, told me I needed to deal with my shit.” he answered, the hand he was resting on your upper thigh caressing the skin through your pajama pants.

“I heard you outside my door earlier.” you admitted leaning into his side. 

“I came home with every intention of telling you but I chickened out.”

“What would you have told me?” you wondered aloud. 

“That I like you, and that last night was amazing. That I don’t want to sleep without you again if I don’t have to.” 

Luke took notice of the fact that your eyelids were drooping as he talked and began to scoot you both back in the bed as he continued.

He watched in awe as you curled into his side. 

“Up for a breakfast date tomorrow, love?” he asked, pulling the blanket over you both. 

“Yes, please.” you agreed, laying your palm flat against the warmth radiating from his stomach. 

“So what should we do with your room?” Luke said drowsily, sleep beginning to creep up on him as well.

“What do you mean?” 

“Well, you won’t be needing it anymore since you’re moving in here.” he comments casually, pushing your hair out of your face with soft movements.

You laugh lightly but it’s drowned by the yawn that slips out when you respond. 

“In your dreams, Hemmings.” 

“If I’m lucky.” he replied, allowing his eyes to flutter shut. “Goodnight y/n.” 

“Night, Lu.” 

[apricotgojo]

Could I please request Felix x reader please? Maybe where she’s friends with Adrien and meets Felix and he’s really soft with her and everyone’s really confused lol. Super fluffy please😌🙈

Hi! Sorry for the long wait i was super busy hh :(( but here it is! It’s not as fluffy as intended but i think that’s because i’m not good at writing fluff but nonetheless i hope you enjoy it. I love felix with all my heart so this was a treat to write <3

Pairing: Felix Graham de Vanily X Reader.

Warnings: Mentions of alcohol and swearing !

Tags: Fluff, Pls felix deserves the world thku very much.

Luka’s boat party at the Seine, something you’ve been looking forward for the past week.

Well, It’s not really a party.

A small get together with great people, good music and drinks.

This is the first time you’ve been invited to one of these parties and Marinette has told you many times that it’s going to be one to remember, even if it is lowkey.

Plus, you could warm up to more people other than the small circle of friends you have at college.

“Woah.” You say without even realising as you look around at the balloons and fairy lights all over the place.

As soon as you enter you see the place peppered with a few people, some people you’ve never seen in your entire life and some familiar faces from college.

Marinette and Alya were by your side, you walked to the boat with them.

“Juleka and Luka live here?” You ask.

“Yeah but Luka’s trying to find a new apartment right now.” Marinette says.

As if on cue, the blue haired boy makes his way over to you guys.

“Welcome ladies.” He says and smiles at all of you. “As usual, make yourselves comfortable, get some drinks and enjoy yourselves.”

“Hey look there’s Adrien!” You say and you were about to go greet him until you felt someone grab your hand, stopping you.

“Thanks Luka, the party looks amazing.” You compliment.

Your eyes fall onto a familiar blond and you smile.

You turn around and see Marinette, shaking her head. “That’s not Adrien, that’s Felix.”

“What the fuck is he doing here?” Alya asks, gasping.

Marinette shrugs. “I have no clue, Adrien probably invited him.”

“I swear to god if that little blond bitch tries me again I won’t hesitate to kick him in the balls this time.”

“I think Alya needs a drink.” Luka chuckles and Alya nods angrily.

“Who’s Felix?” You ask and the three turn to look at you.

You look at them confused as to what they were talking about.

You could’ve sworn that he was Adrien, he looks exactly like him except his hair was straighter and neater. He reminded you of Draco Malfoy from Harry potter.

“The spawn of satan.” Alya mutters, rolling her eyes and sipping on her drink.

Marinette sighs and steals Alya’s drink from her hand.

“Hey!”

“That’s Felix, Adriens cousin. He’s kind of the complete opposite of Adrien.” Marinette explains.

“Meaning…?” You trail off.

“Meaning he’s a douchebag.” Alya states.

“Alya come on.” Marinette groans.

“Nope, she has a point.” Luka intervenes.

“Listen girl, when we were in middle school he sent us a video of him pretending to be Adrien and telling us how much he hates us.” Alya tells you and crosses her arms over her chest. “And last summer Adrien invited him to the beach with us and he didn’t even talk to us or swim because he’s worried that his pretty porcelain skin will get burnt. Trust me, the last thing you want to do is talk to him.” Alya says and snatches her drink back from Marinette before walking off.

“What Alya is trying to say is that yeah, he’s rude and yeah, kind of a douche too but don’t worry about him too much, he doesn’t really talk to any of us.”

He honestly sounded horrible.

I mean, not talking to them is one thing but almost ruining Adriens friendship with everyone is something else.

“Yeah because he hates us.” Luka says and Marinette glares at him which causes Luka to chuckle.

“Hey guys!” finally, the actual Adrien Agreste has come to talk to you guys.

“Hey Adrien.” You say and smile at him before giving him a friendly kiss on the cheek.

Marinette does the same to him and before quirking her eyebrow up. “Kagami isn’t here?” She asks.

“No she has to study for her exam tomorrow.” Adrien says and rubs the back of his neck awkwardly.

“Uh-huh.” Marinette narrows her eyes at him suspiciously but doesn’t say anything more.

“Oh yeah, guys, Felix is here.” Adrien laughs nervously.

“Adrien.” A voice chimes in.

It belonged to the notorious Felix who was now standing behind Adrien.

“Hey Felix.” Marinette says, smiling at him.

The blond furrows his eyebrows at her and rolls his eyes. “Adrien can we-“ He stops when he looks at you.

“Hi.” You say your name and hold your hand out. “It’s nice to meet you.” You say and he walks closer to you.

You gulp and chuckle awkwardly.

Knowing this guys attitude, you were scared about what he would say about you.

He takes you hand and shakes it. “I’m Felix, it’s nice to meet you too.” He says, a small smile on his face.

Everyone around you widens their eyes at the sight before them.

You look down and notice that he was still shaking your hand, looking at you, dazed.

Maybe he had too much to drink?

He removes his hand from yours quickly and you notice his cheeks tinting red. “Nothing.” He says and walks away.

Adrien clears his throat and pats him on the shoulder, snapping him out of it.

“What did you want to tell me Felix?”

“What. The. Fuck.” Marinette gapes. “I swear, when I met him for the first time he didn’t even shake my hand let alone smile at me.”

You felt like you were on the spot and ultimately it made you feel uncomfortable.

“Maybe he’s drunk or something?” You say and shrug.

“Felix doesn’t drink.” Adrien states.

You gulp. “Well I do.” You chuckle nervously and walk away from them to get a drink for yourself.

You move past people, muttering ‘excuse me’ as you walk to the little table where the drinks were. You pour yourself a drink.

“I’m not Adrien you brat.” You hear someone say and you instantly turn around.

“Ohhhhhhh…” A girl slurs. She was laughing against Felix, who looked incredibly uncomfortable with her presence. “doesn’t matter, we can still have a good time together.”

You watch Felix look around him and sigh, he didn’t even know what to say to her.

“I don’t want to.” He states.

“Why you got a girl or something?” She asks, sipping on her drink and hopping to the beat of the music.

You didn’t even realise that your body moved on it’s own.

“Yeah he does.” You say and walk over to Felix, kissing him on the cheek. “Here’s your drink babe.” You say and wink at him.

The colour of his face matched that of a tomato right now and he slowly took the drink from you, laughing nervously. “T-thank you.” He stutters out.

“I’m sorry I didn’t know.” The girl apologises.

“Are you okay?” You ask him, slightly smiling. “I could tell you were uncomfortable.”

“You’re good.” You shrug and grab Felix’s hand, “Au revoir!” You wave before dragging Felix elsewhere.

You found a secluded area on the boat near the railings. You figured he needed some air.

“Yes, I appreciate it.” He says, looking at the sea. “Thank you.”

You stare at him.

Since you’re getting a closer look at him you realise that he actually has different features from Adrien which you don’t notice at first.

His nose was a little longer with a few freckles peppered across it.

His skin was fairer, in fact it was so fair that every time he blushes you can see it evident on his cheeks and the tip of his nose.

His eyes were more narrowed but still held the same beautiful green, maybe felixs’ was more vibrant.

“What the hell did you put in this?” He asks.

You watch his long fingers curl against the cup tighter before sipping the drink.

His face contorts after.

“Liquor.” You state, chuckling. “What you can’t take the alcohol Felix?” You tease.

He scoffs, “Of course I can. Watch me.” He says and downs the rest of what was in the cup.

He looked really cute when he’s laughing.

He starts coughing after he finishes and cusses under his breath.

“That was strong shit.” He says and wipes his mouth with the back of his hand.

You start laughing, clutching your stomach as you do so.

You hear him slowly join in on your laughter soon after and you slightly open your eyes to see him.

“you know…” He says, wiping some lose tears from his eyes from the laughter “I don’t have many friends so I’m not really used to laughing like this.”

“Why don’t you try making more friends?” You asked him.

“Why am I any different?” You ask. “I mean, you barely talk to Marinette or any of Adriens friends.”

He shrugged at you and leaned against the railings.

“I don’t particularly like being around a lot of people, nor do I really enjoy people in general.” He mumbles, looking down. “But that’s just how I was brought up I guess.”

He stares at the floor boards and sighs. “When I saw you, my first thought wasn’t “oh she’s just one of Adriens friends” or “she’s probably going to talk to me because has to because ‘hey I’m known as Adriens spoiled rich cousin’” my first thought was ‘wow, she’s absolutely beautiful and she’s new around here, she doesn’t know of who I am so maybe I actually have a chance with someone. Even if it’s just a friend.”

You cut him of by getting on your tip toes and giving him a small kiss on the lips.

His comment made your cheeks heat up and a small smile twitch on your lips.

“Sorry if it makes you uncomfortable, it’s probably the damn alcohol, I have no idea what shit im spurring out let alone-“

His mouth parts and his eyes were wide. “Maybe it’s the alcohol too or maybe I just wanted you to stop talking.” You whisper.

“I will kiss you again, only if you stop thinking that Adriens friends talk to you because they have to. You’re a sweet guy and you shouldn’t feel left out.” You tilt your head and place a hand on his cheek.

He was frozen. It was a cute sight but you were scared that you terrified the poor guy.

Suddenly he leans in for another kiss but you place a finger on his lips to stop him.

He stares into your eyes for a moment, as if trying to look for something other than the truth.

You could see the green properly, his eyes were glistening, like he had stars in them.

Felix cups your face with both hands and pulls you into a kiss, a deep one.

You may not know him very well but this moment with him felt right, you didn’t see him as just Adriens cousin. He was more than that.

He was Felix and right now with every movement of his lips against yours, you felt butterflies fluttering around your stomach.

“Hey guys.” You wave awkwardly to them and chuckle.

You hear someone clear their throat which makes you pull away from the kiss. You turn around and see your group of friends staring at you.

Alya had her hand clasped over her mouth.

Nino was wide eyed.

Marinette was smirking at you.

Adrien was smiling awkwardly.

“We’ve been looking for you everywhere girl! We didn’t know you were sharing spit with Felix.” Alya exclaims walking up to you.  “Is he forcing you into doing something because I swear to god I will-“

“no no Alya, I’m the one who kissed him.” You say, smiling sheepishly.

“Why?” She deadpans, looking at you confused.

“Cesaire.” Felix says walking up to Alya. He clears his throat. “Are you still running that little blog of yours?”

Alya narrows her eyes at him, crossing her arms over her chest. “Yes.”

“It’s…” He stops and looks at you, as if for a moment, he’s remembering what you were talking about before. “It’s great. Even people In England are talking about it.”

Alya’s jaw drops. “Holy shit, really?”

Felix nods and you smile at him, knowing that he’s really trying.

“Nino! The ladyblog went international!” She exclaims and goes to hug her boyfriend.

You mentally thank him and he sends you a small wink before holding your hand.

Maybe you were the key to him finally being himself in front of others.

Maybe you could even become his everything.

[the-iceni-bitch]

A Birthday Gift

Pairing: Nomad!Steve x fem-Reader

Word Count: 5665 (I know, I know)

Summary:  The nomad crew have been holed up with you for months and tensions are high. Nat, being an unrepentant pot stirrer, decides to arrange a pleasant birthday surprise for you.

Warnings: Explicit language, explicit sexual content, explicit descriptions of consensual violence, SMUT! PORN! 18+!

A/N: Hello my fellow hoes and sluts! My birthday is today and it has me in some kind of mood, so I hunkered down and blasted out this fic. @stargazingfangirl18​‘s lovely Tree Trimming fic has my holes quivering for some hot Nomad sex, so please sit back and enjoy my birthday present to all of you!

You had always hated your birthday.

Fortunately, Nat was completely willing to take your mind off it with a good sparring match. The snow was falling heavy outside of the large windows on the side of the gym, but the minor exertion was keeping you pleasantly warm. You’d been on the mat for almost an hour, but you still couldn’t seem to get your mind to focus.

Of course, it didn’t help when Rogers came in, glowering, to work the bags, giving you a wary look before he settled into his routine.

Nat and the rest of the team had been with you for almost 3 months now. When she had called you after the events in Berlin, to arrange a potential safehouse for her and her compatriots, you of course offered to have them join you at your isolated lodge on the Snæfellsnes peninsula. You were as off the grid as they come, and with the help of your Wakandan friends, still able to provide the modern creature comforts you were sure they had become accustomed to at the Avengers compound.

You had missed Nat, after all. It had been almost 7 years since you last saw her, but the grin she gave you when they landed in the early Autumn made it seem like she’d never left. You got to know everyone else over the months as well. Sam and you bonded quickly after you introduced him to Aquavit and spent the next 2 days helping him slowly move back to solid foods. Vision of course took everything that happened in stride, and while you couldn’t say you were friends, you had developed a mutual respect for each other. Wanda took longer to warm up (understandable after everything she had been through) but when you told her about the time you had spent in Sokovia, she quickly came out of her shell, and the two of you would often stay up through the night reminiscing about your homes. Even Barnes had softened once he got a look at your weapons room and you took it out to the Fjord to test out some next gen tech Shuri had sent you.

The only problem was Rogers.

No matter what you tried, it seemed that every time you got near him his hackles went up. You could feel him watching you constantly, and whenever you met his gaze, he would simply clench his jaw and stalk off like a cat.

“He’s just overprotective.” Nat always said. “He’s a big papa bear protecting his cubs. He’ll warm up.”

You snapped back to the present as Vis and Wanda wandered into the gym chatting idly. She had convinced him to join her out in the snow for a brisk hike, and was now laughing lightly as she brushed a dusting of soft flakes off his shoulders. Bucky was working his way down from the weights level, patting his neck dry with a towel. You heard the pounding on the bags stop, and glanced over to see Rogers unwrapping his hands as he stared at you, but this time he didn’t break eye contact when you met his gaze.

Those deep blue eyes disarmed you, and you lost your concentration for a split second. Nat seized her opportunity and crawled up your back, wrapping he legs around your neck and shoulders to try to get you into a submissive position. You tried to regain your composure, but your instincts kicked in for just a moment, and when you drove yourself back into the mat to break her hold, you landed quite a bit harder than you intended and thought you heard a snap as she gasped out in pain.

“Shit, Nat you good?” You scrambled onto your knees and looked at your friend with concern. Out of the corner of your eye, you saw Rogers striding over, jaw clenched and brow furrowed. Vis and Wanda stopped their conversation to glance over and Bucky moved quickly to intercept his best friend with a hand on his chest.

Nat broke the tension with a laugh, and everyone in the room relaxed. “God, Y/N, guess you’re still an aggro bitch. I though I might’ve had you for once.”

“Jesus, Nat. I’m sorry, lemme grab you some ice. Anything broken?”

“Don’t think so, just a bruised ego. Look at you, you haven’t even broken a sweat.”

You tossed a pack to her from the freezer, along with her typical post spar electrolyte drink. She gave you a wink as she pressed the pack to her ribs, and you could only shake your head at her.

“Steve, you wanna take over for me?” She said to the large man who was now leaning against one of the windows, only half listening as Barnes tried to distract him, while glaring at you.

You both snapped your heads around to stare at her and started protesting over each other while she grinned back and forth between you.

“That’s probably not a great idea…”

“Don’t want to hurt her…”

“Oh my god, you two are ridiculous. Y/N, you obviously still have to work out your birthday issues, and Steve, you’ve been complaining for the past 3 weeks that me and Buck are getting too predictable.”

“Y/N, it’s your birthday? We should bake you a cake!” Wanda exclaimed, always the little ray of sunshine.

“That’s ok Wand, please don’t.”

“Should we perhaps sing?” Vision was now adding his two cents to the discussion.

“No singing. Thank you, so much, for that, Nat.”

“She’s right Rogers, you’ve been looking pretty bored during our sessions, change of pace might be good for you.”

While you were eternally grateful to Bucky for getting the topic off of your birthday, you really didn’t think Rogers was going to go for this.

“Fine, we’ll give it a shot.”

You looked at him with surprise, but gave a shrug and nodded. You definitely still needed something to take your mind off the day. You loved Nat, but always felt the need to hold back during your sessions, and it might be nice to take the safety off.

Nat looked like the cat that ate the canary for some unknown reason, as she giggled and clapped her hands before setting down onto one of the stools to observe. Bucky looked relieved as he leaned back against the wall, chugging the contents of his water bottle. Wanda and Vis went back to their flirty conversation, content to let you two do your own thing.

You unzipped your hoody and threw it to the side, stretching your neck and bouncing on the balls of your feet to loosen up. Rogers looked you over, eyes lingering over your tattoos that you realized he’d never seen since most of them were easily covered by a long sleeve shirt. He pulled his own sweatshirt over his head, and you had a hard time not taking a second to appreciate just how good his torso looked in a simple grey tee.

“Jesus, you two, just get to it.”

The look you shot Nat was pure poison. You weren’t sure what her game was, but you’d be sure to break out the vodka later tonight and get it out of her.

You squared up with the captain, keeping a loose stance on the balls of your feet while he brought up his fists and shrugged his shoulders.

His first strike seemed sluggish, and you slapped it aside easily, frowning at him. He shuffled forward, throwing a few more jabs that you also dodged. Was he holding back on you?

The next few shots he tried to take all but confirmed it; he was pulling his punches. You ducked around them easily, starting to get frustrated. You stepped inside his reach and delivered three quick strikes to his abdomen, followed by an open-handed push to the center of his chest, causing him to take two steps backwards.

His eyes narrowed at you. He was just hoping to get Nat and Buck off his back. Nat had been trying to get him to interact with you for months, but there was something about you that set off warning bells in his head. He trusted Nat and Nat trusted you, which should have been good enough, but he couldn’t get over the thought that there was something dangerous about you that he couldn’t figure out. He’d hoped that a quick spar would appease Nat and get whatever was bugging him about you out of his system, but he had expected you to be on Nat’s level of physicality. The contemptuous way you slapped his blows aside, and the way you got under his guard fast, only made him more wary.

You saw him adjust his stance and tucked in his arms, and gave him a small smirk as you stepped back and raised your fists again.

He moved forward quickly this time, throwing a quick combo of punches aimed at your head and torso and trying to get his arms around you for a hold. You still dodged his strikes easily and when he tried to put you in a hold, you delivered a swift knee to the juncture of his waist on his left side, dancing back again.

His long hair had fallen into is eyes at this point, and when he straightened back up, the look of appraisal he gave was laced with frustration.

Your breathing was still even and relaxed, and Nat had been right, you hadn’t broken a sweat at all in the past 45 minutes. You loosely rolled one tattooed shoulder and gave him a grin, practically begging him to try again.

He clenched his jaw and rushed you. You kept dodging his blows or batting them aside but when he brought his foot around suddenly you moved a little too slow and felt it glance off your cheekbone. He took advantage of your brief surprise and moved behind you whip fast, wrapping one arm around your neck as he braced the other around your right shoulder and he tried to force you to the ground. You sprung your legs off the mat, raising them above your waist before swinging them back down as you got your left hand behind his head and grabbed the back of his tee, then used your momentum to fling him over your shoulders and toss him 15 feet across the room.

He shot up fast and turned back to with a look of complete shock on his face as he crouched into a protective stance. He stared at you like that for a beat before clenching his jaw and straightening up, rolling his head to right.

You followed his line of sight, perplexed. Bucky had jolted off of the wall and looked ready for a fight, flicking his gaze between you and Rogers. Wanda was staring at you with surprise, but was still relaxed. Vis looked at everyone around the room in confusion, trying to understand where the sudden tension had come from. The only person who seemed unfazed by what happened was Nat, all doe eyed innocence as she sipped her drink, not making eye contact with you or Rogers.

Poor Sam chose this moment to wander in. “Hey, Y/N, I heard it’s your b-day. You ready for me to drink you under… What happened?”

“Fuck’s sake Nat, you didn’t tell them.” You hissed at her.

“It didn’t really seem important, Y/N. Besides, it’s your secret.”

“Not a secret Nat. Jesus.”

“Someone want to tell me what the fuck I missed?” Sam was still flicking his gaze around the room, trying to figure out what was happening.

“Y/N just threw Steve across the room like a ragdoll.” Bucky said.

“Oh, word? Interesting.” Sam said.

“Someone want to explain this situation to me, slowly?” Rogers was looking murderously between you and Nat, and you honestly could have killed her yourself.

“Oh, did everyone not know about Y/N’s brain implants?”

All of you looked at Vision when he piped up, and he got a grin on his face like he had just solved an especially difficult puzzle.

“Baby, I think it’s safe to say only you and Nat knew.” Wanda whispered to him.

“But wasn’t that why we came here? Y/N has been hiding from multiple governments for years and her expertise has been very helpful in shielding us from both the United Nations and Stark industries.”

“Yeah, honey, just assume that you’re the only one who knows what you’re talking about.” Wanda said exasperatedly.

“Oh, well then, Y/N was part of an experimental program run by HYDRA under the guise of SHIELD during the 1990s where adolescents received brain implants designed by Dr. Emil Zola to increase sensory perception, decrease pain receptors, and specifically, maximize the efficiency of fast twitch muscle fibers via the phosphagen system, allowing use of these muscles for longer periods of time without negative effects. This was of course after multiple failed trials with a new super soldier serum.

“The program’s graduates were deployed at the beginning of the second Gulf War, purportedly to hunt terrorists, but were also used as HYDRA’s own assassination squad in the eastern hemisphere. The program was discontinued at the end of 2007 and it was thought that all the graduates were culled, but Y/N simply disappeared on mission at the Wakandan border. I admit, I was a bit surprised when she greeted us as she’s presumed dead by most intelligence agencies, but I thought her history was the reason we chose this location. Did I miss anything?” Vis looked at you with genuine interest.

“No that’s pretty much it, thanks.” You said flatly, running a hand over your face.

“See, not that big of a deal.” Nat shrugged.

“Well, Vis and I are going to head to bed.” Wanda chirped up, looking nervously between you, Nat, and the two super soldiers who were now staring at you again. She ushered Vision out of the room quickly and shushed him as he tried to ask if he had done something wrong.

“You really didn’t think this is something I might have wanted to know Nat?” Steve had now turned his attention back to your friend, murder written all over his face.

“No, Steve. Like I said, this is Y/N’s business and it changes literally nothing about how much I trust her. I can’t help it that you got your panties in a bunch over some perceived threat when I told you over and over again that I would willingly put my life in her hands in any situation.”

“You should have told them Nat.” You shook your head at her. She was still playing some sort of game, you could tell, but you didn’t know what.

“Ok, fine, I’m sorry. I just didn’t think you wanted the drama, or to have Barnes look at you like some little lost lamb.”

“Aw geez, Buck, stop looking at me like that or I’m going to punch you. I’m fine.”

“Ahm, sorry.” Bucky’s look of overwhelming sympathy would have been heartbreaking if it had been directed at anybody but you, and you really couldn’t handle that right now. “I’m here to talk if you ever need it.”

“Thanks, Barnes.”

“Besides, you and Steve are both in desperate need of a good fuck, and I thought an impromptu discovery like this would give you the push you need.”

And there it was.

“Well, I’m going to have to make it a rain check on those birthday drinks Y/N, look at the time, it’s… 6 PM. Let’s go Barnes.” Sam was now looking everywhere except at you and Rogers as he did his best to drag Bucky, who was doubled over crying with laughter, out of the gym.

You and Steve glared at Nat as she just sat there grinning, looking overly pleased with herself. A flush was creeping up Rogers neck as his fists tightened and loosened. You could see his jaw clenching under his beard and the tendons on his neck stand out in a look of absolute fury.

“You are such a meddling bitch, Romanoff.” You growled at her. Sure, it had been a while, but you were plenty capable of taking care of yourself, which you had told her after she plied you with three bottles of good Russian vodka.

“Yep.” She hopped off her stool and tossed her ice pack into the freezer. “I’m gonna leave you two to it. Talk, fight, fuck, do something. Your sexual tension is bringing down the vibe.”

She easily dodged the kettle bell you lobbed at her head with a laugh as she scurried out of the gym, closing the door behind her.

After about a minute of uncomfortable silence, you and Rogers turned back to each other. His face was no longer bright red as he looked at you, but you noticed something new in his gaze. His pupils were dilated as he peered at you through the hair that had fallen into his eyes. His breathing was deeper as he stepped closer and looked down at you. You were quite a bit taller than Nat, but still only came up to his eyes. He had moved his gaze to your chest, which was rising and falling in a slightly faster rhythm as he took you in, before moving it to your lips, then back up to your eyes.

“Wanna talk?” he asked.

“Nope.”

“Fight?”

“OK.”

You both took several steps back, retreating to your corners. Some unspoken agreement passed between you and Steve ripped off his t-shirt and sweatpants, until he was down to only his boxer briefs. You removed your sweats as well until you stood there in your sports bra and boy shorts. Neither of you examined whether you were doing this to increase your range of motion or for some other, hungrier reason.

You gazed at each other for a beat, drinking each other in. Steve rolled his broad shoulders and neck, bending from side to side briefly as you watched the muscles in his abdomen tighten and relax as he stretched. You reached your arms over your head before folding yourself over to wrap your arms around the backs of your thighs, twisting yourself to loosen your back muscles and feeling his eyes on you the whole time.

After straightening back up, you each gave each other a swift nod then rushed forward wordlessly.

You managed to gain the upper hand first when you vaulted over him as he dove at you, wrapping one arm around his throat as you carried your momentum and brought him to the ground, coiling your legs around his torso like a snake and stretching his right arm out with yours, pinning it in place.

He reached his left arm over his shoulder and punched you in the face.

You let go of him with a grunt and rolled up quickly, but he was able to get behind you and grabbed your left wrist with his right hand, hauling you over his shoulder while his left arm wrapped around your thigh and he drove you backwards into the mat, knocking the air out of your lungs before rolling over to try to pin you.

You got one leg between the two of you and drove your foot into the center of his chest, sending him flying across the room to crash into the free weights. You didn’t give him a chance to recover before charging back into him driving a fist into first his ribs, then his hip and causing him to buckle over before you wrapped one knee around his chest and rolled forward, slamming him into the ground so hard the floor cracked as you went to straddle him.

He caught your knee and carried you into a kneeling position before throwing you into the sandbags with enough force to knock one loose. You landed heavily and grabbed a kettle bell, whipping at him. He barely dodged it as he covered his head and it glanced off his forearm, giving you enough time to rush forward.

He caught you in the center of the mat and twisted you over him until you were pinned; one of your wrists in each of his hands above your head, legs wrapped around your thighs forcing them apart as he pressed his whole body weight into you.

You stopped struggling finally and stared up at him. You both were breathing heavily and covered in sweat. Steve’s hair was falling into his eyes, which were now lust blown as he stared at your lips. You could feel the muscles in his torso twitching against you as he held you in place.

He suddenly released your wrists without a word, and brought one hand behind your head to pull your mouth to his hungrily. His tongue ran along your lower lip and you opened yourself up to him, sighing into his mouth.

His other hand worked its way down your back as his legs loosened their hold on yours and he pressed your hips into his. You felt him start to grind his hardened cock into your mound and let out a low moan. He growled into your lips before releasing your head and started to kiss and bite his way down your neck, drawing soft whimpers from you as he did.

When he reached the tops of your breasts he pulled away from you suddenly to skim one hand up your abdomen before hooking three fingers under the edge of your sports bra and slowly drawing it over your head, eyes boring into yours as he did so. Once his obstacle had been removed, he nuzzled his face into the valley between your tits before gently sucking a bruise there as his beard scratched against your skin. He then moved his mouth to first your right nipple, then your left; rolling them between his teeth and tongue as you pressed your chest further into his face with a gasp.

He continued his downward journey, dipping his tongue into your navel before he reached the top of your shorts. He slowly drew them down your thighs and off until you were laying underneath him, fully bare and wanton, your cunt clenching around nothing as he stared up at you, resting his chin on your lower abdomen as his eyes asked you a silent question and you nodded, almost imperceptibly.

He drew your knees over his shoulders and pulled you down until his beard was flush against your mound. He nuzzled into the soft hair there before kissing the inside of your thighs slowly, his beard scratching the soft skin there as he gently ran the edge of his teeth up to your juncture then back down at an agonizingly slow pace. When you felt him breathe against your entrance, you wrapped one hand in his hair and moaned, and when his tongue found your clit you screamed and arched your back into him.

His tongue slowly circled your clit as he brought up his right hand and brushed his pointer and middle fingers through your arousal slowly, before inserting one finger into your pussy at a deliciously slow pace. You felt him smile against you as you moaned, wrapping your thighs around his neck as he moved in and out, curling his finger against that soft, spongy spot over and over again before adding another finger.

His tongue had stopped drawing it’s slow circles and was now pressing and releasing against you at faster intervals, causing your breath to hitch in your chest as you writhed against his face. He held a third finger at the edge of your entrance and when you pressed yourself into it, he inserted it into your canal, stretching you so good you let out a thin whine. He shook his head back and forth quickly but gently, adding a brand new sensation before he began to suck on your clit.

All the breath rushed out of you at once as you brought your second hand to press his head further into you. His fingers were fucking into you fast now and you felt the tension in your abdomen building as he alternated between sucking and licking at the small bundle of nerves. When he finally latched on, at the same time he curled all three fingers against your g-spot, you came apart around him, screaming his name as your thighs wrapped around his head like a vise as every muscle in your back tightened, thrusting your torso off the mat violently before you sank back down, relaxing as Steve helped you ride it out.

His name was the first thing either of you had said in almost 15 minutes, and he didn’t want to break the silence now. He was afraid if either of you spoke, you’d break the spell that seemed to have settled over you. Instead of saying anything, he gently pulled you down until you were straddling his waist, then nuzzled his face into the juncture between your neck and shoulder before resting his forehead on yours and staring into your eyes.

You looked back at him, blinking slowly as you moved your hands down to his hips and slipping your fingers under the edge of his boxer briefs. You slipped them over his hips slowly, and you felt his legs shifting in between yours as he moved himself to help you remove them, never breaking eye contact with you. You matched each other’s breathing as he shifted his hips and lined himself up at your entrance, his eyes giving you a pleading look. You shifted your hips closer to him, and he slowly breached you with his tip, closing his eyes as he did so and letting out a low moan from the back of his throat. He started thrusting into you slowly, trying not to collapse on top of you as he held himself back.

You brought your face up to his and slowly kissed him, gently drawing your tongue along the outside of his lips. The hand you didn’t have buried in his hair moved to his lower back and pressed him into you further, and you softly whispered against his mouth “Please…”

He let out a feral growl and settled his full weight on top of you as his hands moved from their supportive positions. One moved underneath you to hold you against him as he fucked into you fast, the other buried itself in your hair as he wrenched your head back and ran his teeth over your throat, nipping at the small hollow at its base. His hand on your back tilted your hips so each drive of his brought him flush against your clit, and you started breathlessly whimpering as he drove into you at a punishing speed.

Your second orgasm came almost without warning. You felt yourself flutter around him one moment when he suddenly tilted your hips just right and you were seeing stars, your body spasming as an uncontrollable wave of pleasure crashed over you repeatedly.

Steve still wasn’t finished though. He gave you a kiss like a starving man before pulling out of you suddenly. You groaned at the loss before he flipped you over fast and slammed back into you, causing you to let out a cry as his tip kissed your cervix.

He maneuvered you into the position he wanted quickly; one knee hooked over his leg and brought up close to your side with your other leg stretched behind you. He brought one arm underneath you to wrap a massive hand around your throat while the other tangled itself in your hair and drew your head back enough for him to kiss you hard, shoving his tongue down your throat as he continued to drive into you.

You had another orgasm almost immediately. Your pussy was fluttering and clenching like crazy as your body almost vibrated with pleasure. Steve still wasn’t slowing down and you were having so much trouble catching your breath you were worried you were going to pass out. You couldn’t stop driving your hips back into him though, matching his pace and feeling the tension in your core begin to gather again. You rolled your eyes back in your head and let out a thin whimper as you moved a hand between your thighs, trying to gain some sort of control over your own pleasure before your brain short-circuited.

Steve ripped your fingers from your throbbing clit with a growl and replaced them with his own, drawing harsh circles around the overstimulated bundle as you gasped and whimpered. He moved the hand he had at your throat to cup your chin, and tugged at your bottom lip with his thumb. You opened your mouth to gently nip at the rough pad as you felt his hips start to stutter, and he when he bit into your shoulder harshly you let out a scream and came apart violently, shaking underneath him uncontrollably.

His own release was right behind yours, and you felt his hot spend coating your insides as you fluttered around him and he wordlessly roared into your ear. He collapsed on top of you, burying his face in your neck and breathing deeply as he moved his hand from your face to softly cup your breast, lazily rolling one nipple in between his fingers and you came down from your respective highs.

You felt him softening inside you as you started to untangle yourselves. He slowly pulled out and you let out a small sigh at the loss of him. You heard him groan as he caught the sight of his cum slowly leaking out of your swollen cunt, and he left a slow trail of kisses down your spine before gently turning you over.

You wrapped one hand around the back of his neck and pulled your face up to his, kissing him deeply as your other hand trailed through the hair on his chest before coming to rest on his abdomen. He rested his forehead against yours again as you both got your breathing under control, before he broke out in an absolutely sinful grin.

You both started laughing then, the previous tension completely broken as you buried your face in his neck and he held you close to him, shaking with laughter.

“Oh my god, I really did need a good fuck.” You said breathlessly, tears leaking down your cheeks.

“Yeah, well I’d say we shouldn’t give Nat the satisfaction of knowing she’s right but I doubt she wasn’t listening in this whole time.”

“Jesus, of course she was. She’ll never stop meddling now.”

He grunted in agreement before giving you a brief kiss to the top of your head, then you separated yourselves to stumble around and locate your clothes.

The gym was an absolute wreck. Aside from the crack in the floor, the weight racks had fallen over in a domino effect after you had kicked Steve into one and two of the sandbags were leaking everywhere.

You were both covered in bruises from the sparring session and the stiffness you always felt after overexertion seemed to have multiplied tenfold as you struggled to pull your sweats back on, groaning at how tight your muscles were. Steve seemed to be feeling it as well as he let out a hiss through his teeth when he pulled his sweatshirt back over his head.

Once you were both dressed, he stalked over to you like a cat and wrapped his arms around your waist and pulling you in for one more kiss.

“Guess we should go face the rest of them.” He said, resigned.

You groaned as he dragged you out of the gym, hand in hand, to endure what you were sure was going to be a chorus of cat calls and innuendos, but when the two of you arrived in the living area, it was just Nat curled up on the sofa, giving the two of you a satisfied smirk.

“Where is everyone?” You asked her, looking around to see if maybe they had moved into the kitchen.

Nat threw back her head and laughed. “Oh they all ran out into the snow once you two really got started. I don’t think I’ve ever seen anyone look as embarrassed as Bucky did in my entire life. He forgot his shoes.” She was crying with laughter.

“Outside, Nat, it’s freezing out there!” The sun had already gone down with how late in the year it was and once that happened, the temperature would drop severely.

“I told them but they couldn’t handle it. Bunch of prudes.”

“Yeah, while you sat here and listened, you pervert.” You and Steve started pulling on boots and coats to head out after them.

“I’m the pervert! While you two had the world’s loudest fuckfest less than 20 feet away from the rest of your housemates, hey!” You had thrown her coat at her face and she caught it to shrug around her shoulders. “They probably had to go out five miles before they weren’t able to hear you.”

Steve growled at her as he ripped the front door open and headed out with you on his heels.

“Oh, you’re welcome by the way! It sure would be nice to get some appreciation for your birthday gift, Y/N… shit.”

Steve had lobbed a snowball the size of a golden retriever at her that she barely dodged at the last minute, cursing under her breath.

Steve wrapped an arm around you as you headed out into the fields to find your poor housemates and apologize, nuzzling himself into your hair with a grin. “Happy birthday.” He murmured to you, giving you a quick kiss before ruining the moment by bellowing “Barnes, get your dumbass back here, you forgot your boots!”

You grinned at him, looking up at the sky where the borealis had started and thinking that maybe birthdays weren’t so bad after all.

[emiewritesthings]

doctor, doctor - jay halstead

jay halstead x fem!reader

summary: in which y/n takes it into her own hands to look after a sick jay 

a/n: i’m not gonna lie i think this is one of my fav things i’ve ever written, i would really appreciate some feedback and p.s the beginning of it is based on that scene from brooklyn 99 :)

masterlist

“okay, it’s 10 o’clock, meaning halstead is officially an hour late to work,” y/n announced as she appeared from the break room with a mug of poorly made coffee. looking around, she had immediately distracted everyone in the room with her playful smile. “okay let’s do this, theories!” she encouraged, taking a sip with excitement, but immediately regretting it as s he spat it back in the mug and abandoned it on adam’s desk as she leant against it.

“uh, he forgot to set his alarm?” antonio suggested, willing to play along with the little game that y/n had created. however clearly his answer didn’t suffice as y/n scrunched up her nose and shook her head in disappointment.

“you are a detective in a unit that just last week rescued 5 people kidnapped and used as chess pieces in a human sized version of the game and the best you could come up with is he forgot to set his alarm? pfft, disappointing, dawson. who’s willing to take this seriously?” she scoffed, brushing his idea off with a simple roll of the eyes as the group laughed at her ridiculousness. 

“maybe he has been murdered by a gang looking for revenge.” adam piped up, earning a sudden and rather forceful slap on the back as y/n cheered. her eyes looking over at antonio as she gestured towards the less experienced detective.

“yes, that’s what i’m talking about. bit dark, ruzek, but better than dawson’s,” y/n hummed, adam clearly pleased with the praise he had received by the pretty detective. “any one else wanna shot?” she offered it out into the room, suddenly the sound of rolling wheels on the chair had everyone turn to face al who was munching on a ham sandwich.

“he walked into the middle of a drug ring, slept with the kingpins daughter and is now having limbs removed, one by the hour.” suddenly an eery silence fell in the bullpen as al suddenly disappeared back to his desk and everyone was left with an image that she was sure was burned on the inside of everyones mind.

“uh, okay, someone might want to arrange a psych check for olinsky asap,” y/n mumbled, pointing in the direction where he had once been and looking around as if checking that she hadn’t been the only one to hear al’s suggestion. “anyways, all of you are wrong. clearly he has joined a motorbike gang and now makes his money on the road striking off names on the government’s hit list.” 

just as the room erupted into discussion about how idiotic this conversation was, as well as their ideas, the sound of footsteps caught y/n’s attention as she arrived at her desk. however as he reached the floor, the reason for his absence was clear.

“woah, you look like death.” adam chuckled, it immediately being silenced as jay sent a deadly glare his way. with his skin paler than normal with undertones of green, a layer of sweat draped over his forehead. jay flashed as smile at y/n as he passed, reaching his desk and collapsing on his chair with a wince. 

as everyone went back to what they were doing, y/n found herself straying her eyes away from her computer screen for longer and longer periods of time until she found herself by his side with a sickly sweet grin, pun intended. 

“i don’t wanna hear it, y/l/n.” jay mumbled, massaging his temples with his fingers hoping it would somehow sooth his pounding skull. whilst usually he had every minute of his day just to hear the woman chat away about whatever crossed her mind, he had found himself in quite the state since last night, leaving him restless and irritable.

“believe it or not, i just wanted to make sure you were alright,” y/n’s entire demeanour crumbled as she melted at the soft features of his face that came with being so vulnerable. but from the look in jay’s eyes, it was clear he didn’t 100% believe her excuse. “and to ask what the hell you think you are doing here? you are sick jay, you need to rest.” 

it was very rare that jay found himself ill. in the years that y/n had been working by the man’s side, she could count on one hand the times she had seen him with so much as a cough. in fact she had called him captain immune system for a period of time when she realised he was pretty much indestructible. y/n couldn’t deny the concern bubbling in her gut seeing him so weak.

“i’m fine,” with her eyes slitted in a look that practically shouted ‘bullshit’, jay continued. “i promise, it’s just a little cold. nothing serious, i think i’ll survive.” he joked dryly, finding it incredibly hard to look away from y/n for her eyes were filled with a warmth that he knew was an expression usually saved for those she cared deeply about. 

“yeah well, you need to take care of yourself, jay, i’m being serious. chicago can cope if you just have one day off, get your energy back.” 

y/n was reminded of the times she had the exact same words spoken to her by the exact person that didn’t seem to want to take them onboard. every time she had so much as a sniffle he would be straight over with some soup that his mother used to swear by and the name of a box set that he would put on for the two of them to watch as he sat stroking her hair in order to try and convince her body to rest. neither of them had anyone else to take care of them, so had taken it upon themselves to be that person for the other. 

“now, i’m gonna go tell voight that i’m taking you home before you infect this whole office.” before he could object, she had already ran (not literally but jay was impressed by her speed walking) to her boss’ office. knocking on the door, with a sweet smile and a sea of words running off her tongue so quickly that voight had to agree just to shut her up, y/n returned by his side. “come on, germ face, your carriage awaits.” 

“you know i love it when you talk dirty to me, y/l/n.” winking at her, y/n giggled as she supported him back down the stairs and out of the station. the two chatted away, y/n explaining how she thought al was secretly a sociopath and jay filing her in on the newest instalment of his apartment block drama until they pulled up in front of jay’s apartment building. 

as they walked through the door, jay’s arm resting around y/n’s shoulders as he struggled to find strength, they managed to reach the sofa before y/n’s body gave up. both of them letting out large breathes before looking at each other and falling into laughter. 

“you hungry, i could try making your mom’s soup?” y/n asked, as she pushed herself up to look down at the man. her hair falling down around her face and tickling jay’s skin. “i’m sure it won’t be as good as her’s but i’m willing to give it a try.” 

the way she was sat with the large window gleaming light behind her, y/n almost looked like an angel. her eyes and smile were wide, with her beauty wrapping its hands around jay’s neck squeezing until his head felt light and he nearly reached up to touch her porcelain skin. but jay had noticed the sensation way before he was blocked up with a cold.

“yeah, uh, that sounds nice.” jay agreed with a minimal amount of sass, but y/n didn’t seem to notice as she moved off the cushions and towards the kitchen. she had pretty much memorised the recipe when jay had finally given it to her on her birthday after offering to pay for it multiple times. whizzing around the kitchen, she was too busy to notice the tired eyes admiring her from afar. 

jay wished his mom was alive to see the woman that she would have loved. all the times he had brought girls back to his family when he was younger didn’t add up to an ounce of the beauty and power that y/n held in her middle finger. the way she bit back at his wit, but also had the ability to spot when he was upset from the other side of the city. she was everything her mother wanted in a daughter in law, everything she wanted for her little boy. 

“okay, give me your honest opinion. i can take it i promise.” y/n sudden appeared with a tray that held a large bowl of the semi-thick orange liquid, a glass of water and a couple pills. approaching jay, she carefully helped him up from where he laid and placed it onto his lap. “actually that was a complete lie, do not tell me the truth. i may just cry.” 

“why thank you, nurse y/l/n.” he teased.

“it’s doctor actually.” she quipped back.

jay chuckled lowly, as he grabbed the spoon and took a large spoonful to his mouth. feeling the slight sting of his tongue at the heat, it was only when the flavours hit that he was suddenly transported to an earlier time in his life. a simpler time. only this time there was y/n by his side. 

“the verdict?” she prompted, taking a seat besides him, pulling her knees up to her chest. 

“not sure whether i want to tell you, don’t think you’ll fit in this room if your ego grows any bigger.” y/n grinned as she leaned over to press a kiss against his shoulder. jay closed his eyes at the contact, feeling the ache in his body freeze for a moment as it registered the tingling sensation. “all jokes aside, it really is good.” 

“i’m glad, your mother was a smart woman.” she nodded, leaning forward to turn tv on. jay continued to spoon the soup into his mouth, as y/n chose a show that they both had started together and had refused to watch another minute without the other. y/n leaned back making herself comfortable, having already texted voight telling him that she would most likely need the entire day off, and getting the go ahead, she had no plans other than being by jay’s side for the next however many hours. 

it was sometime in the early evening and the tv continued to emit light, but neither jay nor y/n was paying any attention to the drama. jay, with his head on y/n lap, was leaning into her touch as her short, thin fingers ran through the dark strands that sprouted from his scalp. his body wrapped in a blanket that y/n had grabbed from his room, he felt completely at peace. 

“you know what, i think you are more bearable when you are at death’s door.” y/n joked quietly, as the forest green eyes were exposed back to her own. jay groaned in annoyance, realising that there was no sweet y/n without the sharped tongue y/n. a trait he adored, but at his own expense. 

“and to think i was starting to think you had gone soft on me, y/l/n.” he hummed, wishing he could forever have her giggle on repeat wherever he went, for the sound made goosebumps run down his neck and down his arms, like some kind of magic that only y/n possessed. 

“as much as i love you, i can’t risk my bad ass reputation for you.” 

although jay was sure it was just part of her banter, the moment the ‘i love you’ fell off her tongue, he found himself wide awake, unable to push past the feeling in his gut as it looped over again and again in his mind. y/n could see the conflict in his face, as he glanced up at her with something she had never noticed before. 

“you mean it?” he asked. 

“mean what?” confused, her fingers fell from his hair, making jay regret ever opening his mouth.

“do you really, you know, love me?” he knew he had committed too far to try and retreat. maybe he could blame it on the fact he couldn’t think straight, although she was like a lie detector that wouldn’t let such a bogus excuse pass. y/n blinked down at him, watching as he sat up to look at her with a hunger that needed to be addressed. swallowing the lump in her throat, y/n nodded.

“of course, you are one of my best friends, jay.” it was true, but it wasn’t the full truth, both of them knew that.

“i didn’t realise we had started lying to one another,” jay’s eyes were soft, as he reached to place his hand against her cheek, smiling as she slowly leaned into it. closing her eyes, she tried to find what direction she was looking for, but didn’t dare take the first step. without even thinking, jay jutted forward and captured her lips before they could form a single syllable. 

gently, but passionately, jay and y/n moved their lips against the others. the feeling was ever-growing as the kiss deepened and deepened until they had no choice to pull back, deprived of their ability to breath. as jay’s eyes came back into view, y/n, for the first time in her life, had lost the ability to form a sentence. 

“we just...” she began but it ran off quickly. jay chuckled.

“we did.”

the two sat in silence, examining the other one’s face until y/n found herself moving forward until she was sat in his lap, legs wrapped around his waist as she pressed her lips against his. just like before their bodies and minds were set ablaze with desire and what had remained unspoken for what felt like forever. jay had nearly completely forgotten about the illness that had put him in the care of the woman that he craved more than anything else the world had to offer. 

as their lips parted ways, suddenly the air had thinned and everything felt... normal. jay’s lips were unable to break out of the large grin mould that y/n had put them in, which was soon mirrored by the young woman. a small giggle escaping her lips.

“if i get whatever it is you have, i expect the exact same treatment.” 

“only for you, doctor y/l/n.”

[live-the-fangirl-life]

It’s the Thought that Counts

Aelin Galathynius x Rowan Whitethorn - Birthday Oneshot

All Rowan wants to do is throw a surprise party for his girlfriend, but that becomes increasingly difficult as every possible thing that could go wrong—goes wrong.

I wrote this for my birthday on the fifth, but I couldn't wait until then to post it, Enjoy!

Masterlist | Read on Ao3

Warnings: Language, Light NSFW

4476 words

*******

“Are you serious?”

If Rowan’s hair wasn’t already silver, it would’ve been by the end of the day from all the stress this was putting him through.

Looking into the open cake box in Fenrys’ hands, he just stared at the inscription atop what was supposed to be a birthday cake for Aelin.

“What? What’s wrong?” Fenrys tried to lean over the lid of the box but it was tall enough to block his view.

“Did you even look at it before you left the store? Before you paid for it?” It took all of Rowan’s self-control not to scream. How many more things could go wrong today?

Fenrys shifted uneasily, noticing Rowan’s slipping control. “Uh, no. I was already running late, and you said to get back here as soon as possible to help finish setting up.”

All Rowan could do was let out a long, slow breath.

“This. Says. Alien.”

The blonde man holding the cake snorted, “what?”

“The cake says ‘Happy Birthday, Alien’”

“Seriously?” Fenrys was quick to put the box down on a nearby table so he could stand next to Rowan and look at it. “Shit. They even put little green Martians on it.”

All Rowan wanted to do was throw a surprise party for his girlfriend.

Was that really too much to ask? Apparently, so.

A couple of months ago Aelin had mentioned how she’d always wanted a surprise party, but of course, you cant ask for a surprise party because then it’s no longer a surprise.

Rowan took the hint and decided to plan something special for her birthday. He even got all their friends to help, and if everything had gone to plan then it would have been a perfect day.

Too bad he couldn’t catch a break.

Rowan had made a list of everything they needed to do, buy, and plan. It was an extensive list because he knew that a party for Aelin had to be perfect. Not because she had impossibly high standards—well, she did, but that wasn’t why it had to be perfect—it was because he loved her and wanted to show her how much he appreciated her on her birthday.

And he thought it would be the icing on the cake—pun intended—to have all their friends involved too. That’s why he was making calls to all of them about what they each needed to do for the party.

First, he got Lorcan and Elide to pick up the golden balloon arch that was going to be at the entrance of the park he’d reserved for the day. By the time he got on the phone with Lorcan, Rowan was already exasperated from having to deal with the city planning office in order to reserve the particular park and gazebo.

“Lorcan, I need you in charge of the—” Rowan broke off, hearing a loud crackling from the other end of the phone.

“You’re cutting off, wha— you say?” Lorcan’s voice was halting as the call cut in-and-out

“I was saying, I need you to cover the balloons.”

“Ba—”

“The balloon canopy.”

“The bo—, ca—”

“Yeah, we need a golden balloon canopy.”

“Okay, fine. I— got the— boun— ca—”

“Shit. Can you hear me?” Rowan pulled his phone away to check his service. It was fine from his end, it must be Lorcan’s phone being spotty.

When Rowan put the phone back to his ear, he could hear rustling and the sound of a car door opening and closing, and then the connection cleared.

“Yeah, man. I heard you. But, are you sure Aelin wants that?” Lorcan sounded skeptical.

“What? Yeah, of course, it’ll be great.” Rowan was already getting impatient, knowing he had a few more errands to run before he could relax.

“Whatever. She’s your girlfriend, and it’s your credit card.”

Rolling his eyes, Rowan muttered, “Thank you for your generous help, Lorcan.” then heard someone scolding Lorcan and grinned before saying loud enough for the other person to hear, “Thank you, Elide!”

Rowan hung up and mentally checked off the balloons. What was next?

***

“Aedion, please, I need you to keep Aelin busy for the day.”

Aedion and Lysandra had come over to Rowan and Aelin’s apartment for dinner, and Rowan had dragged Aedion into the kitchen to talk about that weekend’s plan.

Taking a sip of his beer, Aedion raised an eyebrow at him, “Won’t she wonder why her boyfriend is avoiding her on her birthday?”

Rowan rolled his eyes. “I won’t be avoiding her. You will very adamantly request to take your cousin to lunch for her birthday, and who am I to get in the way of family?”

Aedion snorted but nodded. “Yeah, okay. Lys and I can take her out.”

“No, Lys can’t be there.”

“What?” Aedion looked at him bewildered. “Why not?”

Rowan sighed. “Because if Lysandra is there with you, then Aelin will wonder why I’m not there with her. If it’s just you and Aelin, then she won’t think it’s weird that I’m gone. Besides,” Rowan took another sip of beer, “I’ll need Lys’ help during the day to set up that slideshow.”

“Right.”

The slideshow Rowan had asked Aedion and Lysandra to make using pictures of Aelin that would play during the party. The one that Aedion wasn’t going to tell Rowan hadn’t been started yet. “Yeah, okay. I’ll invite Aelin to come get lunch with me.”

“Perfect.”

One more thing off Rowan’s list.

***

The morning of the party Rowan asked Fenrys to go pick up Aelin’s cake. It was supposed to be a chocolate and hazelnut cake with the top decorated with kingsflame blossoms and say, “Happy Birthday Aelin.”

Rowan was distracted with setting up decorations and directing their friends to put away the things they brought. Dorian and Manon were in charge of getting the alcohol. Chaol and Yrene were bringing deserts because when it came to Aelin there could never be enough sweets. Fenrys helped Rowan bring out the rest of the food, before being sent off to pick up the cake.

Rowan did a quick scan, mentally checking off everyone. Besides the people he could see, he knew Lysandra was in the gazebo finishing up the slideshow, Aedion was out distracting Aelin, and Elide and Lorcan would be here any minute with the balloons.

Letting out a breath, Rowan smiled. Things seemed to be coming together.

Busy showing Dorian where the coolers for the drinks were, he was too distracted to do more than wave a ‘hello’ to Lorcan and Elide as Lorcan’s truck pulled up to the park. Rowan decided they were smart enough to figure out how to set up a balloon arch—or at least Elide could read the directions to a grumbling Lorcan, so Rowan spent the next half hour with other parts of the setup.

After he finished hanging up the screen they were going to use for the picture slideshow, Rowan went to check on the balloons.

He made it two steps out of the large gazebo and stopped in his tracks.

“What the fuck is this?” Rowan exclaimed, gaping at the large monstrosity in front of him.

Instead of looking at a beautiful, arched balloon canopy, he was looking at a massive, inflatable, child’s bouncy castle.

“What do you mean ‘what the fuck is this?’” Lorcan asked, wiping a bit of sweat from his forehead and stepping around the side of the castle. “This is what you asked for.”

“This is not what I asked for.” Rowan could feel his mouth still hanging open and quickly shut it.

Elide looked at Rowan in confusion. “Rowan, you did ask for this. I mean, I definitely thought it was weird that Aelin would want a blow-up bounce house for her birthday, but when Lor asked if you were sure, you insisted it was right.”

Rowan tried to remember that particular conversation. He had so many details in his head and too many people in charge of different things.

“Shit.” The phone call was coming back to Rowan to now. “We kept getting cut off. Shit,” He ran an exasperated hand through his hair making it all stand up on end. He swung around towards Lorcan who looked at him with raised brows. “What did you think I was asking you to get?”

Lorcan slowly looked between the bouncy house and Rowan. “You asked me to get a Bounce Castle.”

For fucks sake.

“I asked you to get a Balloon Canopy.”

Elide’s mouth opened in an ‘O’ and Lorcan said nothing until a moment later he was laughing, bent over at the waist.

“You wanted balloons, and now Galathynius has a bounce castle.” He managed between breaths, ignoring Rowan’s fuming look. It took Elide elbowing him in the side to get him to stop laughing.

“I don’t have time for this. Fix this.” Rowan waved his arms around at the massive blow-up castle, and then he turned around to find something he could actually focus on, trying his best to ignore the increasingly greying clouds in the sky.

“You still paying?” Lorcan called after him.

He let out a string of curses. “Yes.”

Rowan just barely heard the sound of air being let out of the castle as he walked away.

***

A shriek drew Rowan’s attention away from the chairs he was unfolding. He turned towards the gazebo to see Lysandra throw a small ice bucket, mostly filled with water at this point, at the screen Rowan had set up earlier.

The screen that was on fire.

Running in to help, Rowan saw that the candles placed around it had been lit—why the hell would someone already light them? The wind must’ve blown the screen too close causing it to catch fire.

He reached Lysandra just as she threw another bucket of icy water on the screen, dousing the rest of the flames.

“Are you okay?” He looked over Lysandra, but she just seemed shocked and irritated.

“I’m fine.” She gave him a reassuring nod before scowling at the destroyed screen. “This, though, is pretty much dead.” she sighed and closed her laptop she was using to work on the slideshow. “It doesn’t look like we’ll be showing pictures today, Rowan.”

He rubbed at his face. Fine. Okay. He could deal with this. They had a children’s bounce house and no slideshow. That was fine. As long as nothing else went wrong, he could deal with it.

As if in response to his thought, the day began to dim as clouds moved to cover the sun. If Rowan didn’t look at the heavy clouds, they would disappear.

That was when Fenrys came back with the cake.

***

“Alien?! I can’t give my girlfriend a birthday cake that’s calling her an Alien!”

Fenrys almost wanted to laugh at how ridiculous Rowan looked with his hair sticking up and face all red, but he knew this was just the latest in a list of ‘things gone wrong’ and was worried that if he laughed then he wouldn’t live to see the birthday girl.

“Maybe she’ll find it funny,” Fenrys suggested.

Rowan slowly turned toward him with an almost crazed look in his eye. “Funny? You think Aelin will find all this,” he waved his hands at the deflating bounce house, charred hanging screen, and the horribly incorrect cake, “Funny?”

“...Maybe?” Honestly, Fenrys thought Aelin would find it all hilarious but decided to keep his mouth shut. He knew how much work and energy Rowan put into this party, and he worried for his friend’s mental state as he counted all the things that had already gone wrong.

Rowan just dropped his head in his hands and groaned.

***

As soon as Rowan unpacked the last of the food, he heard a boom of thunder.

“This is not happening.” He muttered to himself, refusing to look at what was surely the worst thing that could happen that day.

A moment later he heard the unmistakable sound of hard, fast rain. The yelps from his friends broke him out of his haze and he turned to see everyone rush into the covered gazebo, careful to keep close to the center where they could stay dry.

Everyone besides Yrene, who had been helping Rowan with the food, were varying levels of soaked. And all the decorations they’d been holding were either stuck outside taking the worst of the rain or dragged inside to drip water onto the floor.

Rowan didn’t say anything, he just grabbed the beer bottle out of Aedion’s hand and took a long swig.

***

Looking around, Rowan surveyed the damage. Where a nice balloon canopy should’ve been positioned, a large, deflated, child’s bounce castle stood in its place; the screen he was going to use to show a slideshow of Aelin was burnt to a crisp; the rain pouring down was soaking the park and wrecking everything brought in from the cars, and the perfect cake for his girlfriend was ruined by calling her Alien.

But at least all their friends showed up.

That was the one good thing to come out of this disaster of a party. Even if they were all dripping wet and shivering from their walks from their cars to the covered gazebo in the middle of the park.

Dorian walked up to where Rowan and Aedion were talking about the cousin’s lunch. He took a sip of his drink and asked them, “So, what time is Aelin is getting here?”

Rowan and Aedion both turned towards each other.

“What time did you—”

“When did you say—”

They both froze.

Rowan slowly blinked. “Aedion, you did tell Aelin what time to come tonight, right?”

Aedion shook his head, wincing, “No, man. I was taking her out to lunch. You were supposed to find a reason to get her to the park.”

A dull roaring started in Rowan’s head. He thought over everything he had on his list.

Rent out gazebo: Check.

Delegate decorations: unsuccessful, but Check.

Order cake: again, unsuccessful, but Check.

Get friends to show up: Check.

Buy Aelin’s present: Check

Invite Aelin…

“Fuck. Shit. Fuck me. No, no, no, no, no… Gods damn it!”

Before anyone could another word, Rowan pulled his keys from his pocket and sprinted into the rain towards his car.

***

Aelin loved her birthday.

Usually.

She loved celebrating with her friends and laughing about the stupid gag gift they bought her. She loved making a wish on her candles and she even loved the awkward minute of listening to people sing happy birthday.

Last year, Rowan had woken her up to a particularly amazing round of birthday sex. Which turned into another round in the kitchen and then another one in the shower. He had also spent the day last year doing her favorite things and ending the night with a wonderful dinner at her favorite restaurant.

Which was why she had been so excited to see what this birthday would bring.

Her morning began exactly how she hoped: with Rowan’s tongue between her legs. He’d woken her up slowly, lazily, until she was squirming on the sheets with her hand fisted in his hair.

She’d hoped their morning tumble was the start of a very satisfying day, but soon afterward Rowan left saying he had to make a work call and she should get ready for her lunch with Aedion.

As much as she loved her cousin, all Aelin really wanted to do was stay inside with Rowan all day, clothing-optional. Actually, clothing-nonexistent.

But she did want to see Aedion, and apparently, Rowan’s work call was pressing enough that he practically ran out the door.

Lunch was nice. She hadn’t had one-on-one time with Aedion in a while, but she couldn’t help but notice how antsy he seemed.

“What aren’t you telling me?” She asked him after the waiter took their set down their drinks.

Her cousin choked on the sip he’d taken, and she raised an eyebrow at him.

“What?” He sputtered. “I’m not not telling you anything.”

“Uh huh.”

He rolled his eyes. “There’s nothing Ae, don’t sweat it.”

“It looks like you’re the one sweating Aedion.” Leaning back in her chair she smirked and crossed her arms. “Did you get me something you’re worried I won’t like?” she joked.

“Hm? Oh, yeah, exactly! Lysandra picked it out but I don’t know if you’ll like it.”

Aelin rolled her eyes at her cousin. “Please, if Lys picked out whatever it is, then I’m sure I’ll love it.” Her smirk turned into a genuine smile. “But, it’s from you so I know I’ll like it.”

He laughed but she thought he still looked a bit anxious. Deciding not to worry about whatever else had him fidgety, she let it go.

When she got back to her and Rowan’s apartment, she expected he would be there. He wasn’t.

Aelin didn’t think a work call would take the two hours she’d been out with Aedion, so she hoped Rowan would be back soon. She hadn’t talked about plans today because last year he had been so eager to take the lead.

So she waited.

And waited.

And waited.

Three hours later she was irate, hurt, and confused. How could he just up and disappear on her birthday? If he was busy—if something came up that he needed to deal with—he should’ve just told her. She still would be upset, but she’d have understood.

But he hadn’t said anything. He hadn’t called or texted. Rowan hadn’t given her any explanation as to why she was alone now on her birthday.

Aelin walked into the kitchen and was about to pour herself a glass of wine when she heard loud noises from the hall outside her apartment door. It sounded like heavy, stampeding footsteps.

And then Rowan was bursting into their apartment.

He was breathing heavily, soaking wet, and looking at her with such an apologetic expression that she momentarily forgot why she was angry.

“Aelin,” he panted, trying to get a breath, “I am so sorry.”

Right. That was why she was angry.

She crossed her arms over her chest and took in his disheveled appearance, trying desperately to understand why he was so out of sorts.

“What happened to you?”

Rowan loosed a long, heavy breath and stepped closer to her. “Aelin, gods, I’m an idiot.”

“Yes, you are.” She agreed. “But, explain to me why.”

Rowan took another step towards her and she let him.

“I had a whole thing planned— I still do, kind of, but it’s basically ruined at this point—” Rowan started talking faster and Aelin struggled to keep up. “I planned an amazing surprise party for you, I spent weeks getting things organized. I had all our friends come out to help, they’re all still out at the park—I rented out the park—they’d better all still be there, anyway.”

He took a breath and Aelin’s anger slowly started to fade, but then she remembered sitting alone in her apartment for three hours and stared at him until he continued his explanation.

“There were supposed to be balloons, golden ones! And photos of you, and a cake, but all of it got ruined.” Rowan ran an angry hand through his hair. “Lorcan thought I asked him for a bounce castle— a bounce castle! Then the screen caught on fire, and then there was a mess up with the cake that you don’t even want to know about.”

He finally looked back at her, pleadingly, hoping she could understand how sorry he was. “But the worst part, which was one-hundred-percent my fault, was that I forgot to invite you to your own party.”

Aelin was wide-eyed by the end of his speech. She opened her mouth, but nothing came out.

Rowan grabbed her hand and looked down at her with sorry eyes. “Please, forgive me.”

“Forgive you?”

His face crumpled and he leaned to press it into her shoulder. She heard him grumble, “Fuck. I ruined your birthday, I’m so sorry.”

Aelin pulled away to hold his face between her hands. She waited until his eyes opened to say, “Rowan, you planned that whole thing? For me?”

His brow furrowed as if he couldn’t understand why she would ask that. “Of course, I did. I know how much you wanted a surprise party, but—”

“But nothing.” She cut him off pressing her mouth firmly against his. Rowan was too surprised at her reaction to reciprocate, but she pulled back just as fast.

“Okay, yes, not inviting me to my own party was a bad move,” He winced. “But, everything else you did was amazing.” When he still looked skeptically at her she continued, “the rest of that stuff; the weather, the cake, the fire, Lorcan’s bad judgment—none of that was your fault.”

Rowan finally cracked a smile at the last bit.

“So,” he searched her face for any clues, “you’re not upset?”

Aelin laughed at pulled Rowan down for another kiss. This time, he eagerly returned it and wrapped one arm around her waist and the other moved so his hand could hold the back of her head. They stood wrapped up in each other for a minute, deepening the kiss before they both pulled back for air.

“I’m not mad. I was, before when I thought you’d ditched me on my birthday. But I’m not anymore now that I know you spent the day trying to make me happy."

Aelin pulled back further to give him a stern look. “But I will be angry if you don’t bring me to this party right now.”

He pulled her back into him and let out a relieved laugh.

“Let’s get the birthday girl to her party.”

***

The drive from their apartment to the park was filled with Rowan telling Aelin about everything that had gone wrong. His fingers intertwined with her over the middle console and she listened as he told her about the crazy day.

“Why someone would light the candles so early in the day is beyond me.” He grumbled and Aelin chuckled at the bitterness in his tone.

“I’m sure the slideshow would’ve been great.” She perked up. “Oh my gods, that was why Aedion was so weird at lunch.”

Rowan glanced side longed at her. “He was weird?”

“Yeah, real fidgety, wouldn’t always look me in the eye. He said it was because he was worried I wouldn’t like my present, but I knew that was a load of bullshit.” She laughed, remembering how relived his face had been when she offered that excuse.

Rowan rolled his eyes but watched as the sky began to clear.

“Good, the rains finally stopping. I told the others to finish putting up decorations if the weather cleared.”

“There’s more?” Aelin questioned, thinking of everything he’d already told her about.

“A bit. I gave Fen a list of stuff to buy, but knowing him, he picked up some things that I didn’t tell him to. So, who knows what we’ll see when we get there.” He groaned thinking about it, but Aelin just laughed.

“It’s a couple of decorations, Ro. I’m sure they’ve got it handled.”

When they finally pulled into the parking lot nearest the gazebo, Aelin and Rowan didn’t get out of the cart immediately. They watched the scene in front of them in bewilderment

Lorcan was throwing a rope over a tree branch—Aelin assumed it was because he was the tallest—tying one end to the trunk and the other end was attached to a large pinata.

“Is that…?” She was so confused about what was happening.

“Are you fucking kidding me, Fen?” Rowan seethed.

“Fen did that? Why would Fenrys buy an Alien pinata?” Aelin suddenly had more questions than answers.

Rowan rubbed his hands down his face, muffling his curses.

“Don’t ask.”

Aelin watched as Aedion picked up the stick and took a couple of practice swings.

“What? They’re gonna start without us?” Aelin pulled Rowan’s hand off his face and made him look at her. “Hey. I know this didn’t go like you’d planned, but it's still pretty great, and everyone is here and having a good time. And there’s cake, right?”

“There’s cake.”

Rowan refrained from reminding her that all the guests had trekked in and out of the rain that afternoon setting up and half the supplies were ruined or nonexistent. Apparently, she could see all that in his face though so Aelin leaned over and kissed him.

“Let’s go, come on.”

At some point during their conversation, Lysandra had found the blindfold and tied it around Aedion’s head. The rest of the group, minus Manon and Dorian who had snuck off somewhere she didn’t want to think about too much, stood around as Fenrys cheered and Aedion swung.

He missed the first time, but as he prepped himself to swing again, Aelin and Rowan climbed out of the car and walked toward the group.

“Aelin!” Fenrys called, eyes going wide as he called her name.

Everyone else whipped around to face her and Rowan and yell “Surprise!”

Unfortunately, Aedion still had a stick in his hands; and he quickly turned, it nailed Fenrys in the head.

Rowan stood there gaping as Fenrys let out a loud sound between a yelp and a groan, before falling to the ground, knocked out.

“Shit! Who’d I hit?” Aedion asked as he ripped off the blindfold, and tuned to see what—or, who—exactly he had swung at.

Mostly in shock, a little bit in amusement, everyone watched as Fenrys slowly groaned, lifted his head only to wince and bring his hand up to hold it, and opened his eyes.

“…Surprise”

***

“You know, this may be my most memorable birthday.” Aelin was perched on Rowan’s lap, eating a piece of the outer space-themed cake.

Her boyfriend groaned and pressed his face into her shoulder.

“I’ll take it. Memorable is better than disastrous.”

She threw her head back and laughed.

After Fenrys woke up, Yrene came over to check on him and make sure he was going to be alright. She didn’t think he had a concussion, but she put Aedion in charge of watching him. His punishment, apparently. They were currently at another table with Lysandra, Lorcan, and Elide.

Aelin looked over to the other end of the gazebo and watched as Chaol and Yrene sat with Dorian and Manon, the latter was trying her best to pretend she was interested in the conversation. By the heated looks she and Dorian were giving each other, Aelin didn’t think those two would be sticking around too long.

Turning back to Rowan, Aelin smiled.

“Thank you, Buzzard. I love it.” She grinned as he rolled his eyes, but he tightened his grip on her and pulled her face down to his.

“Happy Birthday, Fireheart.”

*****

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[islesnucks]

BACKUP BABYSITTERS - MAT BARZAL X READER

It's here! once again thank u @softbarzal for inspiring this

Word Count: 3.5 k

Warning: none

Summary: your date with Mat is cut short when a friend asks you to look after her daughter, but then he tags along

Masterlist

Add yourself to the taglist!

“Please, please, please. I have to stay here for like 3 more hours and I already called the babysitter and she can’t stay longer. Just put on a movie and I promise she won’t cause any trouble.” your friend basically begged you from the other side of the phone.

“It’s not that I’m worried about taking care of her, I love spending time with her, but I’m in the middle of a date Lili.” you told her, turning your head to look at Mat who was sitting back on your table. He sent a small smirk your way, probably because he saw your furrowed brows.

“Shit I forgot that was today.” There was a long silence but you knew what was coming next. “Can’t you leave early? I know I’m asking a lot and I promise I’ll make it up to you.” You could sense the desperation in her tone and you knew she wouldn’t be asking this if it wasn’t really the only option, so there wasn’t much to think about. Even if it meant leaving Mat not even halfway into the date, you had to do it.

“Ok, sure tell the nanny I’ll be there in 15.” you said and heard Lili let out a deep sigh making you smile. Being a single mom wasn’t easy and if you could help your friend in any way you most surely would.

“You are the best. Seriously. Best human being in existence.”

“I know, I know. Now get back to work before they fire you.”

“Love you, bye.”

“Love you too.”

Mat watched you talk on the phone, intrigued but trying not to be noisy. It was clear to see you were in distress and that caused him to worry. Soon you were making you way back to the table. He felt a bit of deja vu seeing you walk to the table like you had done earlier that night when you arrived at the restaurant, gorgeous as ever, taking his breath away. Only that now instead of that beautiful smiled that would appear whenever you looked at him, you had a concerned look on your face, which only made him worry more. You were just trying to come up with a way of telling him you had to leave right now without it sounding like a lame excuse to dip.

“Is everything okay?” he asked as soon as you were next to him.

“Yeah, just a little change of plans.” you started to say, without taking your seat and grabbing your coat from behind it. “I have to leave, like right now.”

“What happened?” He was genuinely preoccupied which warmed your heart. 

“Remember my friend Lili? The one that has a daughter of 5?” you asked and he nodded. You had told him about her on one of your first dates some weeks ago. “There was some problem at her office, she has to stay longer and the girl that babysits for her can’t stay the extra hours so she called me to see if I could go take care of little Amy...”

“And you said yes.” he finished the sentence for you. 

“Yes. I’m sorry. I promise I’m not making this up.” you were quick to add making him chuckle. “I really was enjoying this but she’s my best friend and Amy is like a niece. I can’t not help her.”

“Don’t worry I totally get it. We can raincheck, no big deal.” he said grabbing your hand in a reassuring manner. “Do you have a ride?”

“No, but I’ll order an uber-”

“Don’t. I’ll give you a ride.” he quickly said standing up, not letting go of your hand.

“You really don’t have to-”

“I’ll take every extra bit of time I can get with you miss.” Your cheeks turned red at his comment and he smiled down at you, loving the effect he had on you.

After making your way to the counter and failing to convince Mat to split the check for the food you weren’t even able to finish, you walked to his car hand in hand.

On the ride low music played in the background as you made conversation and Mat took advantage of every single red light to sneak a kiss or two. However the ride was shorter than you would have wanted it, in a couple minutes you were in front of Lili’s house.

“I’ll walk you to the door.” he said taking off his seat belt. You open your mouth ready to tell him he didn’t have to, but before you could Mat added: “Don’t even try to stop me, every minute counts, remember?” He leaned in to give you a final peck on the lips and then rapidly left the car to go around and open the door for you.

“Such a gentleman.” you joked taking the hand he was offering.

“I try my best.”

He closed the door behind you and gently moved your hand so it would be wrapped around his arm as you walked up to the door. Once there you rang the bell and within the second the door was opening showing you a really stressed teenager.

“Hi you must be Y/N, right?” she asked, already putting on her coat and grabbing her backpack. You nodded. “Thank you for rushing here. I really wish I could stay but I have another kid I have to babysit. Please tell Lili I’m so sorry-”

“Don’t worry she gets it.” you tried to calm her down.

“Amy is in the living room-” she started to say only to be interrupted by the 5 year old suddenly appearing down the hallway. Her eyes went wide and she smiled as she ran down the hall screaming your name.

“Aunty Y/N!” she screamed before jumping into your arms. You couldn’t help but laugh, wrapping your arms around her and positioning her on your side, resting her weight on your hip. Mat was beaming beside you, eyes full of adoration as he watched the sweet exchange.

“How’s my favorite niece doing?”

“I’m your only niece.” she remarked making you and Mat laugh once again.

“You’re getting too smart.” you joked poking her side to make her giggle.

“She already ate but there’s some food on the fridge if you get hungry, and we were about to watch Frozen 2.” the babysitter said as she crossed the door, clearly on a rush to leave.

“Wait do you have a ride or something to get to your next house? It’s already too late to be walking outside alone. I can give you a ride if you need.” Mat said before the girl could leave. You looked at him, a bit surprised by his words but at the same time not at all since you knew how gentlemanly he could get. How he could go from behaving like a kid to an adult within a second still amazed you. 

“Oh don’t worry I have my car, but thanks!” she replied, pulling out the keys to the car. “Bye Amy, see you tomorrow.” she added waving to the little girl.

“Bye!” Amy replied waving back to her. The three of you watched making sure the girl got back to get her car safely and once she was gone you closed the door and turned to look at Mat.

“That was such a dad thing to do considering she’s probably not that much younger than us” you teased him.

“I was being polite.”

“I know. I loved it.” you said giving him a wink and made your way to the living room before he could respond.

He watched you walk down the hall with the little girl in your arms and had to tell himself it was way too early in your relationship to start fantasizing about what your kids would look like, but that wasn’t enough to stop him from doing it.

“So we’re watching Frozen 2?” you asked Amy as you placed her on the couch and sat beside her.

“Who is he?” she asked referring to Mat, completely ignoring your question. You surely weren’t about to explain to a 5 year old the concept of dating and boyfriends. Plus you and Mat hadn’t talked about where your relationship stood, so you actually had to discover that yourself before telling the little girl. But as you looked for the right words Mat appeared on the living room and answered.

“I’m Mat. I’m a friend of your aunt.” he said followed by his best smile, but you could tell he was a bit nervous meeting the kid. Especially because he knew kids had no filter whatsoever so she was gonna say whatever came to her mind. He just hoped it was something good.

Amy looked him up and down, sword of examining him and Mat could have sworn he hadn’t felt that judged ever since his fitness test at the scouting years ago. You tried to hold in the giggles as you watched the grown man standing a bit awkwardly in front of you, being extremely intimidated by a 5 year old. Amy then scooted close to you and lifted herself on her knees putting her hands around her mouth and reaching your year to tell you a secret. Nevertheless she was still a loud young kid so what intended to sound like a whisper ended up being loud enough for anyone to hear.

“Is he the cute hockey player you and mom talked about?” she asked and your eyes went wide and face red. You looked at Amy surprised she had just said that and then looked at Mat, who was looking away pretending not to have heard that but the wicked smile on his face said he had.

“We really have to start being more careful with what we say around you.” you jokingly reprimanded her making her giggle. “But yes he is.” 

Your eyes went to Mat after saying that, wanting to see his reaction. Proud smile and puffed out chest, it was clear to see he liked hearing that. Mat was a man that thrived on praise, everyone knew that, but he was happy just hearing that you talked about him with your friend. It made him feel important, like he was part of your life and he loved it. He had talked about you to everyone who was willing to hear really, he actually couldn’t shut up about you sometimes and that resulted in his friends teasing him constantly, but he didn’t care. All he cared about was that apparently you were as into the relationship as he was, that couldn’t make him happier.

Amy nodded and then seemed to think about something serious for a moment before turning back to Mat.

“Are you going to watch Frozen 2 with us?” she simply asked like it was the most casual thing ever. You started panicking a bit, heart raising on your chest. This was the first time Mat met someone from your life, it didn’t matter if it was a 5 year old girl who didn’t really understand what was going on. You didn’t want to rush things only to end up scaring him away like it had happened with other guys you’d dated.

“Well Amy, Mat has other things-” you started to explain to her, trying to get out of what could turn out to be a really awkward moment.

“If you aunty is okay with it, then sure I’d love to watch Frozen 2 with you.” he replied with the sweetest grin in his face, but you still feared he just felt some kind of obligation to stay because Amy was the one asking.

“That’s sweet Mat but you really don’t have to. I’m sure there are thousand things you’d like to do rather than watching a kids movie.”

“First of all, Frozen 2 rocks, I wanna watch it. Secondly for the third time tonight, everything I’m doing is because I want to not because I feel like I have to.” he reassured you, washing away once and for all any insecurity left in you. You smiled at him, biting your bottom lips in disbelief, wondering how you had gotten so lucky. 

“Then I guess Mat is staying for movie night.” you told Amy and she stood on the couch and started clapping. “But I have to warn you, Mat eats all the popcorn.”

“That’s not true!” he replied, taking his hand to his chest in pretended offense.

“Ok Mat and I will go make some popcorn and you Amy go get your stuffed animals because we can’t watch a movie without them, right?” you said and Amy was instantly rushed to her room making both of you chuckle.

You stood up and grabbed Mats hand, dragging him across the house to the kitchen.

“Is Lili going to be fine with this? You know, she doesn’t know me and I’m hanging around her daughter, I don’t want you to get in any trouble.” Mat said leaning against the isle as you walked around the kitchen grabbing everything you needed for the popcorn.

“I’m like her second mother, Lili trusts me and I trust you to be around Amy so there won’t be any problem.” you told him as you put the bag on the microwave. Those words meant more to Mat that you would have guessed, you didn’t noticed but his cheeks went a bit red and he couldn't contain his smile. He couldn’t understand why you letting him into your life had such and effect on him, and he couldn’t quite put a name yet to the bubbling feeling you caused on him, but he would later realize it was love.

Soon you felt a pair of arms wrapping around your waist and his chest pressing against your back as he rested his chin in your shoulder.

“Thank you, it really means a lot.” he whispered into your ear, squeezing you a little. You knew the action was supposed to be cute, but his hot breath against your skin sent shivers down your spine.

“Could you be any more perfect?” you said turning around in his embrace to face him after turning on the microwave, being met with his all too familiar smug smile that made you roll your eyes and chuckle at the same time. He was about to reply something cocky surely, but you decided to erase that smile of his with a kiss.

You placed your arms around his neck, bringing him closer, as his hands stayed firmly in your waist. His lips fitted with yours in perfect rhythm, like it was meant to be. You wanted to deepen the kiss so badly but a voice inside your head kept on reminding you there was a really energetic, curious little girl around the house that run into the kitchen any second from now. And just as you were thinking that you heard her.

“I’m ready!” her voice traveled around the house from the living room to the kitchen, making you and Mat instantly stop kissing. There was a moment of silence and you looked at each other before you broke out in laughter. 

“That’s our cue.” you said freeing yourself from Mat’s embrace. Then you opened the microwave to get the popcorn out as Mat handed you the bowl you had set aside earlier. As soon as you put the popcorn in said bowl Mat’s hand was reaching to grab some.

“Don’t.” You jokingly slapped his hand which made him look at you with furrowed brows. “It’s still hot, you’ll burn yourself.”

“I already kissed you and I’m fine so...” he said with the cheekiest smile, making you roll your eyes at the cheesy comment. Then grabbed some quickly taking it to his mouth, only to start groaning in pain one second later.

“I told you it was hot Mathew. I thought I’d be babysitting one 5-year-old today, not two.”

“I didn’t think it would be that hot-” he started to defend himself but was cut off.

“When are you coming?!” Amy shouted again.

“We’re going! We’re going!” you replied between giggles, grabbing the bowl with one hand and Mat with the other and making you way back to the living room.

When you made it to the room you found 2 stuffed animals carefully placed in the couch facing the tv and Amy next to them wrapped around the Frozen blanket you had gifted her not too long ago.

“I see you have everything ready.” you said placing the bowl on the coffee table.

“Mat sits next Sammy and Eddie.” she pointed out signaling Mat to sit between a stuffed dolphin and a cat, which he instantly did. “And aunty sits with Eddie and me.”

You bit your lip trying to hold in your laughter as you took your seat between your niece and the stuffed cat she had obviously placed there intentionally so you wouldn’t be next to Mat. But the moment he looked at you lifting his eyebrows in amusement a giggle escaped your lips. 

“What’s funny?” Amy asked watching as the two of you exchanged looks.

“Nothing, nothing. Let’s watch the movie.” you replied, grabbing the control and starting the movie. Amy snuggled to your side and you could feel Mat’s arm behind your head as he stretched it on the back of the couch.

Within 20 minutes Amy was already asleep with her head in your chest and your left arm wrapped around her holding her close. That’s when you decided to put away the stuffed cat that served as a barrier. Mat looked at you confused, not wanting to do anything that could make the little girl dislike him.

“She’s asleep.” you whispered to him, he had been too focused on the movie to notice. “Sorry about Eddie the cat, she can be a little territorial.” you explained making Mat smile.

You tapped the new empty seat next to you signaling him to move closer and Mat scooted over to your side, placing his arm around you as you gently nestled into his side, trying not to wake Amy up. 

“And sorry about tonight, I know this isn’t what you had planed.” you said turning you head to face him.

“Stop apologizing Y/N. I have you by my side, that’s all I need.” he told you and even though his face was barely visible, poorly lit only by the light emitted by the tv, you could see a certain spark in his eyes that showed you how honest he was being. “Also this movie is actually great.” he added, making you laugh.

“You’re earning a lot of points tonight Barzal.” you said stretching your neck to kiss him briefly before cuddling back to his side. He then placed a kiss on the top of your head and went back to watch the movie, which he was clearly enjoying.

Lili arrived at her house over an hour later. She wasn’t surprised when she opened the door to a completely silent house, expecting you to have put Amy to bed by then. However she was surprised when she walked into her living room only to find the three of you asleep on the couch.

Amy had changed position and now was laying on the couch, still wrapped in her blanket, with her head laying on your lap as your arm was placed over her. Mat and you hadn’t moved that much, his arm still wrapped around your shoulders and your head on his chest, but now his head was resting on top of yours, moving your hair a bit with every deep breath he took.

Lili smiled to herself as he took in the scene. This was actually the first time she had seen Mat in person, but she was not mad at all, she actually found it quite cute. 

She carefully lifted her daughter in her arms, trying not to wake neither of you up. Amy’s arms instantly wrapped around her neck as she watched you unconsciously snuggle further into Mat’s chest now that Amy had left your side.

Needless to say you and Mat woke up the next morning really confused, not even remembering falling asleep the night before, and with terrible neck pain, but you woke up next to each other which was enough to make it a good morning.

-

hope you liked it! likes and reblogs are always appreciated!

Tagging those who asked to or seemed interested:

@spencereidbasis @2manytabsopen @spencereidbasis @bbbbruins @softbarzal @dreamer1430 @matsbarzals @hockeyandsht @barzysandmarnersbitch @shawnsreputation @glassdanse @tazeboes @barbienoturbby

Also here you can add yourself to my taglist for barzy or the other players i write for

[whumpurr]

Adrien and Sawdust part 1

cw: pet whump (and everything that comes with that), whump recovery, past whump, emeto, disordered eating, unreliable narrator, 'it' as a pronoun

part 2

--

Adrien didn’t know what possessed him to show up to that sale. Maybe his house was finally too big for him, with it’s cold, empty, dark corridors and uninhabited bedrooms. He knew that he wasn’t looking for any sort of uncouth company, and he wasn’t searching for something to keep his bed warm. The days had blurred together enough that he’d decided to find something to space them apart, to mark each day from the next and to make life interesting again.

And he wanted to help someone.

So he wound up getting in his truck and driving away from his house, the skyscrapers of his fencing fading off into the rest of the woods that surrounded it as he put the wheels to the dirt and headed out.

Adrien was shocked to see that there were only a handful of cars and trucks pulled up to the sale. It was a lot less formal than he had expected as well. He had anticipated more of an auction type setting, in a building with rows of chairs and someone bringing the pets up to the stage to parade them around. He wasn’t too experienced in the matter, but he wasn’t thinking that it would just be the equivalent of a yard sale. The pets are mostly in cages, arranged haphazardly in the mud and grass. Some of the pets are curious, scarred fingers picking at fallen leaves or pebbles that they can reach through the bars of their dog cages. The pets that were not left in cages were either standing or kneeling down in the dirt. There were maybe eight pets, give or take. Adrien couldn’t account for ones he might not be able to see past people’s cars, boxes, and empty crate kennels.

The air had a little bite to it. Adrien was in a heavier jacket- not a full on winter coat- but the majority of the pets were dressed in tattered t-shirts and shorts, kneeling on the hard cage floor or on the cold ground. Adrien couldn’t help but feel his gut wrench as he looked on while people did their deals, talking to some of the ones Adrien could only assume were the sellers. People in simple black polo shirts, scattered about the scene, talking to customers who came in their casual clothes. It really was no big event to many of these people, but for Adrien, this was something he would likely only see this one time.

Welp.

Time to pick one.

Adrien shoved his fists into his jacket’s pockets, trying to look comfortable and blend in with the other patrons. He had been stuck at the entrance just staring for long enough to see a good number of the pets get snatched up by other customers. Adopters? Future owners? He didn’t know what the right word for it was. As dirty as this all felt, leaving a bad taste in Adrien’s mouth, he had only found the event through an ad on his social media. The fact that it would be pushed so casually made him feel even worse about being here.

He approached a cage that had a seller standing near it. The cage had been looked over and passed by a good number of times by the other patrons, and that piqued Adrien’s curiosity, as uncomfortable as he was.

“So,” He cleared his throat, glancing at the opaque plastic dog crate and the worker, “What’s wrong with this one?” He pointed his chin to the crate, trying to sound as gruff and uncaring as he thinks everyone in this event does. The worker looked down at a small clipboard they were carrying.

“This one was a rescue from a previous owner.” The worker stated. Right, rescue. Adrien remembered that the people running this whole even claimed they were ‘rescuers’ of pets. That being said, Adrien still recalled having seen a couple articles exposing them for being viciously cruel to pets while they were in their care.

“Right… And that’s an issue because?” Adrien pushed. The seller looked at him, first like he was stupid, but then with a sense of respect.

“That could mean the previous owner could want them back, at some point.” They put a hand on their hip, “Either you’re dumb or you’ve got a maximum security prison for a house. Speaking of, the old owner was arrested. Something about a dog fighting ring, and the pet’s here now. Got surrendered to us by the cops, they even gave us all it’s shit.” With that, they pointed a finger to a dirty blue duffel bag set next to the crate. “You want it or not?”

A quick look around the venue let Adrien know that most of the pets had been bought already. He hadn’t even gotten to look at this one, but he knew that if he waited much longer, it’d be snatched out from under him.

“Yeah, yeah I’ll take it.” He extended a hand and the paperwork was shoved into it. Listed were places to sign his name, and fill out his information, legally putting the pet under his name. He got to work on signing it. “How- how much is it?”

“Forty five bucks.” The worker said, nonchalant. Adrien’s seen dogs sell for more, much more. He pulled out his wallet and took out forty five in cash, putting it on top of the clipboard as he handed it back. “Thanks. Need someone to help put it in your ride?” The seller must have been asking as a courtesy, they looked like they already knew the answer as they looked up and down Adrien’s muscular body.

“No, thanks.” Adrien picked up the duffel bag first, putting it in the car before returning to grab the pet. Warily, he held onto the handle at the top with two hands, preparing to heave it up. With one solid pull, he almost sent himself flying backwards as the crate weighed maybe a third of what he was expecting. As he stumbled, he heard a small gasp from inside the crate.

Hurriedly walking over to his truck with long, striding steps, he put the crate down on the back seats, pressed against the back of the passenger seat. The metal grate of the front door was facing him as he peered into the dark cavern behind it.

In the cage was a small person, a pet, as he had expected. It had long, matted, brown hair, and deep brown eyes that stared wide at Adrien before diverting. The pet had on at least a shirt, from what Adrien could see. It was cramped in the crate, but even so, the pet pressed itself against the back wall to get away from Adrien.

“Okay,” Adrien sighed out, “I can see that this is all scary for you.” He shut the side door as softly as he could and got in the driver’s seat, turning the car on and turning the heat up. “I’m gonna take you home now. Might be a bit of a rough drive over the dirt, road’s not paved.” He didn’t know if he was talking to himself or to the pet. He didn’t know if the pet could even understand him, or if his voice was possibly freaking it out even more. He drove with the radio off, not wanting to spook the pet.

The drive home felt like it stretched on for ages, but Adrien was eventually greeted by the metal of the gate that surrounded his house, rising up like a series of spears from the earth, glinting in the sunlight that cut through the tree canopy. The worker wasn’t wrong when she assumed he must have some pretty extreme security around his house. He’d had an issue with a stalker before, and with the help of some heavy fencing, a handful of cameras, and some other measures, he intended not to repeat that experience.

The truck came to a stop in front of the house, having cleared the long driveway. Adrien shut off the car, hopped out, unlocked and propped open the front door of the home. He once again brought in the pet’s duffle bag first, then returning for the massive- but light- plastic crate. As he moved it, he could feel the pet trembling so hard that it rattled the cage.

“Shh, shh, you’re okay. I’m just taking you inside. It’s nice and warm in there.”

The cage was put down with a soft thud, Adrien leaving it in the entrance hallway, just before the hall opened out to the kitchen and living room. He undid the latch on the cage’s door, swinging it open.

“You can come out now. You’re safe.” He said in a soft voice. The pet simply trembled, eyes squeezing shut and backing up more against the back of the cage. Adrien took a few steps back, sitting cross legged a little ways away from the pet’s cage. The creature inside it shivered, keeping itself as far into the kennel as it could. Adrien couldn’t even get a good look at it.

“You must be hungry.” He sighed, standing up and taking the few steps he needed to to get into the kitchen. “I’ve got something, here.” He pulled out a box of colorful, fruity, sugary cereal, pouring some out into a bowl and sticking a spoon in it. Next, he went to the fridge,

“Do you drink m- ah.” He quickly came to realize that the pet probably wasn’t going to speak. Rather than risk it, he shut the fridge and set the bowl of dry cereal down in front of the cage, backing up again. A few minutes of frustrating stillness later, Adrien chose to give the pet some space, standing and moving out of the foyer and going into the living room.

“You can come out. That cereal is for you, I hope you like it.” He sat himself down on the sofa. ‘Would it- they? Would they be more comfortable with some background noise?’ Adrien wondered. He took up the television remote from the coffee table and put on a random channel, some kind of reality show. The volume was low, but it was enough for a soft chatting to fill the quiet. Adrien tried to keep himself busy with his phone, scrolling through social media, but he couldn’t stop himself from glancing back at the cage every now and again.

Slowly, gradually, Adrien managed to keep his attention focused on his little device, knowing that if the pet finally did decide to look out of the cage and caught him looking back, it would most certainly panic and retreat again. The room was relatively quiet, save for the sound of the television.

The pair of people on the show were speaking to one another. One man and one woman, and at their feet was a black dog. Adrien wasn’t really listening to what they were saying, but the dog barked. The only reason that that sound suddenly caught Adrien’s attention is because he heard it be repeated.

From behind him.

A dog’s bark came from behind him in the house, from the direction of the foyer. It was almost identical to the one on the television, and as soon as Adrien heard it, the very next thing he heard was a thunk and a rattling from the cage as he assumed that the pet must have moved too quickly or lurched back and hit its back or its head on the ceiling of the crate. Adrien spun around, throwing an arm over the back of the sofa to look back at the crate.

Back in the foyer, Adrien tried to not look too obvious as he stared as the pet inched out of the crate. It kept it’s head low, ever so slowly creeping out of the crate. He watched as he saw pale skin littered with marks and bruises, and light brown eyes, and long, matted brown hair that’d gone too long without care. Around its neck was a bright red collar with a golden tag. The pet’s skin was stretched tight over his body, the raised ridges of bones showing easily.

The pet was dirty, old mud caked on its body, smears of something all over its body, Adrien didn’t know if it was blood or more dirt. Despite that, there was something strange. Sat atop its head in pristine condition was a pair of fake dog ears on a hairband. They looked awfully realistic, but Adrien could see the black band that they were attached to. As the pet fully left the cage to investigate the food, Adrien could see something else, too. Its shorts were filthy and ill fitting, but around its waist through the beltloops of the shorts was a long piece of string. Hanging from it, over the pet’s rear, was a short, fake dog tail, again in perfectly clean condition.

Looking down to the pet’s hands, he saw that they were balled up. Over the small fists was layer after layer of duct tape, dirty and loose from sweat. If the pet wanted them off, Adrien’s certain it could easily pull them off with its teeth, but it makes no move to do so.

The pet lowered its- his, Adrien could see that now- head to the small ceramic bowl filled with colorful cereal. He sniffed it, then quickly pulled away, making a repulsed face. Immediately after his rejection of the food, his eyes went wide and he looked at Adrien, then instantly looked down, trembling.

“Hey, hey,” Adrien lowered the volume on the television and got up, going to the pet and kneeling down. The pet drew back, lowering his head down to the floor, forehead pressing against the wood. “You’re, ah, do you speak?”

“Wruf!” The pet let out another eerily realistic dog bark, though he kept his head on the floor.

“No, no, like… Words? English?” Adrien was kind of at the end of his rope, not quite sure what he should do. “And uh, you can sit up.”

The pet sat back on his legs. Adrien caught sight of the golden tag hanging from the red collar. ‘Sawdust’, it read.

“Sawdust? Is that your name?” Adrien asked. He wanted to reach out and hold the dangling tag so he could make sure he read that right, but he was certain that if he tried that, the pet would get even more scared. The pet glanced over to the side, nodding its head. “Okay, you understand me at least. Can you speak with words?”

--

“Y- Saw- Uh…” Sawdust stammered out, voice rough and looking as though he was on the verge of tears. “Sawd- dust can speak, sir.” He wanted to know why his new master would want his pet speaking to him, but he knew better than to question his owner.

“Okay, good, good. That’s good.” Master sighed, dragging a hand down his face. “Is there something wrong with the food?”

What little color was in Sawdust’s face immediately drained as he went pale. He couldn’t let his master think that he was ungrateful, lest he took away the food altogether. Sawdust looked down at the bowl of rainbow colored cereal.

“N-no, no, Master, thank you for the food.” Sawdust dropped back down onto his paws and knees, lowering his head and chest to the floor. He sniffed at the bowl again. It smelled sickly sweet, sugary unlike any dog food he’d been given, but the sound it made when it was poured and moved did sound like dog food. Hard. Crunchy. That was familiar at least. Maybe it was dog food after all?

“There’s a spoon in there,” Master spoke, his deep voice rattling Sawdust’s bones. “You can use that if you want.”

Sawdust’s breath caught in his throat. Was Master mocking him? Pets can’t use things like that, especially Sawdust with his paws. Was Master testing him? Sawdust hiccupped and swallowed down a whine, not wanting Master to see how upset he was. Instead, he buried his face in the bowl of dry, colorful dog food. He squeezed his eyes shut and tried to ignore how fruity it smelled, it smelled like things dogs weren’t allowed to have. He took some into his mouth. It crunched, but it was far easier to eat than dog food. It wasn’t as hard, it didn’t hurt his wounded mouth to chew.

Sawdust trembled. Did Master want him to be sick? That must be it. He hiccupped, tears threatening to roll down his cheeks as his stomach turned. He chewed and swallowed as quickly as he could, resorting to panting and breathing through his mouth to try to not taste the cereal as much. He took another bite.

He gagged.

“Buddy? Sawdust?” Master called. Master’s voice was soft, but Sawdust knew that he was faking it. Sawdust swallowed the bite in his mouth. This wasn’t dog food. He couldn’t eat this. Dogs can’t eat people food. His mouth was filling with saliva that he tried to swallow down, but his body wouldn’t let him. He panted, drool dripping down onto the floor as he pulled away from his Master. Goosebumps erupted across his body and he shivered, body rejecting the people food. With a heavy heave, he turned away from his master and threw up onto the hardwood floor.

[for-the-ninth]

Thanks for the tag @musetta3! This is an excerpt from a draft of chapter 14, in which Shielan comes to check on Cullen (at Cassandra's behest) after he has a PTSD flashback in the kitchen. Sarcasm and fighting words ensue, per usual.

***

Cullen nodded and, knowing her next words would be some version of, “You’re fired,” he did not wish to delay the inevitable with idle chatter. “As you’ve already made clear, there are more pressing matters deserving of your attention, Inquisitor. Tomorrow morning, I’ll deliver a formal apology to the kitchen staff and speak with Gatsi—perhaps he could use some assistance with repairs. Regardless, you needn’t concern yourself with my reassignment again.”

With one hand clutching the bedpost, Cullen stood and gestured toward the exit. He made it clear he’d neither be resting on his laurels nor wasting Shielan’s time, and with that weight off her shoulders, she could fulfill the rest of her duties in relative peace. Perhaps they’d see one another in passing and exchange glares, when the bolts in her doorknob came loose and Gatsi sent him to fix it. Barring that, she’d be free of him. 

But she did not hurry out the door to better things, and if she intended to exchange pleasantries before leaving, she was being uncharacteristically slow about it. While Cullen stood waiting, one awkward, trembling arm hanging in midair, Shielan stared at him with one brow cocked and a budding smile twitching in the corners of her mouth. The longer he stood, the bigger her cheeky grin grew. 

“Is this the bit where you make fun of me for something I’m not even aware I’m doing?” 

“No, but the night is young.” 

Cullen sighed. “With all due respect, Inquisitor, I’m not in the mood for—”

She held one hand up to silence him and used the other to dig through her cloak pockets until she found a cigarette, then rolled it between her thumb and forefinger until it caught flame. “I never said there were matters more pressing than”—she took a drag and waved her cigarette in his direction—“whatever this is. Even if there were, it may shock you to know I’m capable of managing my own priorities.” 

“I erm…” Shit. “Forgive me, Lady Inquisitor. I only meant to convey that you needn’t worry yourself over my misdeeds.” 

Shielan snorted. “Your misdeeds are last on my list. Hell, they’re not even on the list.” She kneeled at the fire and pulled back the screen to squint at the logs. “Anyway, Diedre wants you back in the kitchen tomorrow, and before you thank me—don’t. Cahir did all the convincing.” 

“Did he really?” 

“Indeed, he did.” 

Her voice carried an edge, like Cahir’s fondness for him plucked at her in some way, and it sparked a fresh wave of rage in Cullen’s chest. “I expect no compassion from you, but what is it about someone else caring for me that gets under your skin?”

“As if I’ve enough time to worry over who takes pity on you.” She spoke through a sigh, not bothering to make eye contact. “Your personal life is not my concern.” 

“Is that why you sent your own apprentice to the dungeon each day to check on me? And the food—I can’t imagine Cahir kept me fed of his own accord.”

“Everyone in Skyhold gets fed and Elspeth needed the experience,” she said. “You’re not special.” 

Cullen scoffed. “Does everyone in Skyhold have their life saved by the famed Inquisitor only for her to threaten them a moment later?” 

Shielan froze, but did not face him, and kept her voice low. “I could’ve left you to die—or better yet, thrown you in a pit with those who survived the Annulment and let nature take its course.” 

“Maybe you should have!” Cullen shouted, and he knew he shouldn’t but couldn’t stop himself. “You hate me—you’ve always hated me.”

“Hatred would imply a level of concern for you that I do not possess.” 

“Then why keep me alive?” He marched toward her, hands balled to fists at his sides. “Do you get off on watching people suffer?” 

“You think far too highly of yourself if you believe that to be true.” 

Don’t say it. “I believe you’re not the fucking angel everyone makes you out to be. You came here alone and you’ll leave alone because you’re cold and bitter and those who’ve put you on a pedestal ought to knock you right off it.”  

Shielan stood and faced him with a slow deliberation that sent shivers down his spine. He steeled himself in preparation for her outrage, but her eyes did not burn with anger, nor did she puff her chest in defense. Rather, her face and slumped posture held a deep sadness, one that made Cullen’s soul wither in his chest.

“Inquisitor, I—”

“You’re right,” she said. “I’m ill-equipped to be anyone’s savior, I’m bitter as the bottom of an ale barrel—for good damn reason—and, like you, I’ve hurt people who never deserved it. But while you’re content to wallow in the hole of regret you dug for yourself, I clawed my way out with a vengeance long ago.” She stepped toward him and raised her chin, hands clasped behind her back. “You’ll have to try a fuck of a lot harder if you wish to push me back in.”

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