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erathene · 6 months

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Safe with You (Part 2)

Summary: Strider turns up unexpectedly at The Pony, wounded and needing help. You're a barmaid, not a doctor, but right now he doesn't have much choice, and emotions are running high from his last visit.

Word count: 2.6k

Pairing: Aragorn x Female!Reader

Warnings: LOTS of swearing and cursing, again. Graphic descriptions of blood/injury, (probably inaccurate) descriptions of medical treatment, sleep deprivation, emotional outbursts, SFW intimacy (again, it's very tame).

AO3 Link: Safe with You

Author's note: Special thanks again to DocFigureskaterM for being my beta reader. This story follows on from my previous Aragorn x F!Reader series called F*ck It; whilst there are references here to that story, both works can be read independently. I am still trying not to swear in front of my toddler so I couldn't resist continuing with the feisty curse-laden reader I developed in F*ck It. Enjoy!

Part 1 is here.

......................

Dawn was breaking. You squinted against the beams of sunlight that were beginning to light your bed chamber, your eyes puffy and purple with exhaustion. A few stray hairs tickled your cheeks, having escaped your hastily tied-up bun. Numbness had crept into your glutes a while ago, but you hardly noticed; it had been so good to finally sit down, even if it was on the hardwood floor, and from here you could easily watch the ranger as he slept.

Strider had caught a fever in the night. It hadn't really come as a surprise, as you had no idea how long he had gone without treatment before he had stumbled through the Pony's doorway the night before. However, you were no medical expert, and you spent the night blindly working with common sense and gut feelings. A damp cloth on the patient's forehead and a blanket to keep them from shivering seemed a good course of action, so this was how you treated him. Tucking the woollen throw back over him when he was thrashing in his sleep. Wringing out the cloth with fresh water when his forehead had burned through all the moisture. Periodically reaching to his neck to feel his temperature. Shushing him and humming lullabies when he spoke aloud during fever dreams. Holding his hand.

Fuck, you were so tired. Your eyes drifted away from Strider, satisfied by the even rise and fall of his chest. Luckily for you, the fever had broken quickly, the unnatural heat in his skin dying down just before dawn. Your gaze fell upon your hands resting in your lap, the reddish-brown colour of dried blood becoming clearer in the morning light. His blood. Having completed the stitches of the large incision on his chest, you had found several rolls of clean bandages in the healing pack. Getting these wrapped around the prone man was another challenge entirely, and you ended up tearing two of the sutures in the process. You had then cleaned his head wound, which fortunately was shallow and looked worse than it actually was. By this time, you had run out of face cloths and started using any spare linen from your cupboard to soak up the ranger's vital fluid. You deliberately ignored the heap of blotchy red laundry that had slowly grown in size as the hours had passed.

Fuck. After the night you've had, you could really use a drink, or even a shot of one of the Gaffer's stronger spirits. You worked around alcohol daily, and for the most part you never felt the need or desire to partake in its consumption. Now, however, you felt differently about that belief. Perhaps if you could persuade your limbs to move, you could sneak down to the bar before the Gaffer would be up.

You were dragged back from this thought by the sound of Strider stirring. The shirtless man on your bed grimaced and clutched his bandaged side as he awoke. You saw his eyes darting about beneath his eyelids, before they cracked open, scanning the room as he remembered his surroundings.

"Did you finish them?" he asked, his voice slightly hoarse from slumber.

Assuming he was talking about the last time he was properly conscious when he was overseeing your initial stitches, you nodded. "I had to fix a few that tore, but yes," you confirmed to him. It felt like such an effort to speak.

Strider nodded but said nothing. Now that he was awake, your thoughts turned once more to how he had ended up with such grave injuries. "What happened to you, Strider? Please," you begged from the edge of the bed. "Tell me."

You watched as he closed his eyes and exhaled at your question, but he offered you no response. You gave him a minute or two, in case he was composing himself against a wave of pain, but the longer you waited the clearer it became that this was not the case.

You sighed loudly and rose to your feet. It seemed he was about as willing to give up details as he was last night. After all you had done for him, you firmly believed you were owed an explanation. "Folk around here don't just rock up looking like they took a spoon to a knife fight."

"I'm not from around here," Strider said through gritted teeth. In your exhausted state, this comment only made you feel more irritated.

"I know that," you snapped back. Fuck, why was he making this so difficult? "Just tell me-"

"It's really nothing for you to concern yourself with," he interrupted your plea.

"Look," you said forcefully, your temper rising further. "I've been up all fucking night, stitching you back together, bringing your fever down, keeping you warm, and generally trying to make sure you were okay. If you continue to shut me out, there's the fucking door." Okay, opening the door and showing him the deserted hallway beyond was perhaps a bit dramatic, but in that moment you couldn't have cared less.

Strider stared directly at you, his grey eyes wide open. "You were.. up all night?"

"Yes," you bit back, slamming your chamber door shut again. "You heard correctly. I was up all fucking night. Want to know what no sleep in twenty four hours looks like? Well, this is it, Strider." Your voice trembled slightly, the lump in your throat had returned with a vengeance.

He continued to stare open-mouthed as you spoke. "But.. why?"

"Because.. Because.." The pitch of your voice peaked as your heart pounded your chest, your bloodied hands balled into fists. The fact of the matter was that you cared a great deal for this ranger. Yes, you were just a tavern girl and there was zero possibility of being anything more to him than that. Yet you couldn't get him out of your head. The thought of his dirt-ridden boots haunted your every step, and his silver-grey eyes looked into yours every time you caught your own reflection. You couldn't enter your own room without recalling the kiss you had both shared here. That kiss. It was replaying in your mind right now. You weren't seeing Strider on your bed; he was standing before you, hands in your hair, lips pressed against your own. You couldn't stop.

The truth left your lips in a strangled scream. "Because I didn't want to lose you!"

An uncomfortable silence hung in the air. Your chest heaved as tears rushed down your cheeks. Fuck fuck fucking fuck. You faced away from him and ungraciously wiped your face and nose with the back of your sleeve. This was it, the end of your friendship. No chance in hell he'd want to know you now, the blubbering tavern girl who lost her fucking mind whenever things got hard.

Strider was first to speak, pushing himself up on his elbow so that he could sit and face you. "I'm sorry, y/n. I put you in a difficult position, turning up here in the manner I did. I beg your forgiveness." His expression showed genuine remorse. "As for the exact cause of my injuries, I'm afraid there is little I can say. Divulging too much information about where I was and what I was doing would put the rest of my company of rangers at risk. I do trust you," he added, seeing how hurt you looked. "But I cannot compromise our mission."

You nodded. That was fair. You wouldn't want four or five rangers turning up at your doorstep the same way he did.

He shifted on the bed before continuing. "What I can tell you is that I took a risk, which as you can see was a slight miscalculation."

You scoffed. "I wouldn't call a eight-inch slash to the chest a miscalculation."

Strider gripped his side once again as your sarcastic comment slipped out. "Nevertheless, as soon as I knew I was in trouble, I came here. I needed to get myself to a place of safety, and I knew that I would be safe with you."

Well, you weren't quite expecting that. He felt safe with you? You were running out of mental capacity to process exactly what he was implying by this statement. The guilt and shame of your outburst still hovered over you, and unable to respond to him you began fussing with the end of your apron. That uncomfortable silence was back again, hovering in the air like the fog of a winter's morning. You wished it would fuck off.

Strider's soft voice cut through your thoughts. "You should get some rest."

"You should get some rest." Coming to your senses, you bent low to gather up the pile of bloodstained cloths. "I have these to sort before the punters start showing up."

"It can wait."

"No, it can't," you sighed. "Gaffer will wring my neck if I'm late."

The ranger suddenly glanced at his left hand in terror, blanching as though his stomach had dropped right through him. Without even hesitating, he swung his long legs off the bed and forced himself upright, his focus unmistakably set on his travelling pack in the corner.

"Don't you dare get up," you dropped the laundry where you stood and rushed to his side. You should have known Strider would be leaping out of bed as soon as he saw the opportunity. Sure enough, his disregard for his injuries resulted in a bout of light-headedness and he faltered, right into your outstretched arms.

"Barahir!" Strider was on the verge of hysteria, his grey eyes wide as tried to blink away his dizziness. The grip he had on your forearms was so strong you thought it might bruise your skin. "It's gone! I need to check-"

"You don't need to do anything, you need to rest! I'll get your pack. Just sit down, sit!" You forced the panic-stricken man back to bed, your stomach surging as you caught sight of how your hand rested on his bare chest as you kept him seated. Not now, fuck not now. The feelings you harboured for Strider had been buried all night under your concerns for his condition, and you really did not need them to be resurfacing at this moment. Shit, keep it together. Once you were certain the ranger was staying put, you crossed the room and retrieved the worn leather satchel, handing it over to him. Strider began frantically searching through the contents of the bag for whatever he had lost; fuck knows what a Barahir was to ordinary people like yourself.

"No, no, no, no.." the ranger whispered to himself as he failed to locate his missing item.

You winced at his desperation. "What are you looking for exactly?"

Strider did not look up as he continued his search. "Only the symbol of my birthright, passed down through countless generations of my bloodline." Seeing your look of total confusion, he added, "Barahir is my ring, I always wear it. If I have lost it in the wilds, my father will be most displeased." He ran a shaking hand through his unkempt hair, the worry creasing his features.

At the sound of Strider's words, you suddenly remembered the emerald-lined silver ring you had retrieved from the floor of the bar the previous evening. It was still in the pocket of your apron. Pulling it out, you noted in the dawn light how the inside of the metal was marked maroon with dried blood; it must have slipped off his finger whilst his hands were wet with his own fluids. You smirked inwardly. Time to fuck with him a little bit.

“So you're telling me," you said, taking a seat next to the ranger and holding the ring up to the light in mock examination, "if I kept this ring, you wouldn't be able to reclaim your throne? The long lost heir to the faraway kingdom would be stuck here with me for the rest of his days? Huh, sounds like an interesting proposition.." You smirked at him, holding out the ring.

Strider looked in awe at the object in your hand, before he laughed aloud heartily, relief washing through his features as he placed the ring back on his finger. "You see, y/n," he gently wrapped his hands around your own and looked straight at you, his silver-grey eyes sparkling with delight. "I am always safe with you."

Your heart practically melted at the ranger's words. The contact of his hands sent you into a reverie, where nothing else in the world mattered except you and him. You delighted in his touch and yet you wanted more; you wanted to replicate what he had shared with you once before, when he had needed to feel something real. The kiss. It might have pulled Strider back from the brink of desperation, but it had left you only desperate, and that moment of intimacy was what you had craved and needed ever since. The pull of your own desires was now absolutely undeniable. Worse still, there was nothing in the world stopping you. No rational thoughts materialised. No resistance.

Slowly, inch by inch, your head leaned inwards towards his, until your lips were almost touching. Your eyes fluttered shut.

All of a sudden, an abrupt knock at the door made you almost jump out of your skin. Gaffer's voice boomed through the key lock. "Y/n! Are you up yet?"

FUCK.

The moment shattered. Hauled back to reality, you quickly pulled away from Strider, stealing a glance at his expression as you did so. Fuck, you had been so utterly blinded by your own infatuations you had never even thought about what he wanted. Not for the first time that morning, you fretted about whether your actions had severed your friendship with him entirely.

To your relief, however, the look on his face betrayed his amusement. "But not safe from interruptions, it would seem."

You snorted. Fucking Strider. Trust him to try and crack a joke at a time like this.

Before the Gaffer could return and hammer on your door a second time, you hurried to make yourself ready for what was likely to be a gruelling day's work on very little rest. You ordered Strider to turn away as soon as he reclined back on the bed, allowing you some privacy to change out of your bloodstained garments. With the little water that remained in your water jug, you did your best to quickly scrub away the blood from your palms. A little remained under your fingernails, but you could tackle that later. You then re-did your hair how you always fashioned it, before catching a glance of the man on your bed who was watching you intently.

"What?" you asked, your fingers weaving through your hair.

The ranger's eyes were lit with a warmth you hadn't really seen before, and a soft smile tugged at the corners of his lips. "Nothing," he whispered. His coy smile did not disappear.

You raised your eyebrows and your eyes rolled slightly as you finished working on your hair. Smoothing out the creases in your fresh apron, you were ready to leave for the tavern downstairs and the many tasks that were demanding your time and attention. You made for the bedroom door, but came to a pause as your hand rested on the door knob, a flutter of courage blooming in your stomach. Turning quickly, you strode over to the bed where the prone ranger lay, and without hesitating, you planted a tender kiss on his forehead.

"Get some rest, you dumb fuck."

It might have sounded like an insult, but behind those words were so many feelings of endearment and affection. There would be no interruptions later.

#aragorn x y/n #aragorn x reader #aragorn x you #aragorn #lord of the rings #lotr fanfic #fanfiction

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sl4sh3rsub · 1 year

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asa emory hcs (nsfw: mdni)

asa emory/ the collector x reader (AFAB, AMAB, FtM, MtF)

warning: all sorts of shit honestly. probably inaccurate bug references. dom/sub + master/pet dynamics, allusions to needles? (potential piercings + tattoos), p in v + allusions to anal (all unprotected - pls stay safe irl), oral sex, various sex toys (butt plugs, dildos, undescribed restraints, vibrator), blood kink (period, knife kink), mention of scarification, musk/scent kink, exhibitionism, slight somnophilia, edging, boot humping, cock worship (asa recieving), power imbalance, overstimulation, cum eating, using cum as lube, mentions of hrt in ftm/mtf section

a/n: first time posting writing. sorta edited. thx to all my friends who helped it come together. does not adhere to the collector movie canon exactly, does reference arkin and hotel argento. NOTE: feel free to read any sections, tried my best to not use gendered terms in agab sections but lmk how i can improve :3

order: general hcs first then amab + afab then ftm + mtf different sections = different content, tried not to repeat much

_ _ _ _ _

general hcs

asa emory loves your body no matter what. stretch marks, freckles, acne, scars and all. you are his precious specimen - his perfection - and anyone who disagrees will have hell to pay

no matter chest size, asa is gonna be head over heels if you have nipple piercings - extra sensitive nipples, shiny, metallic tasting? what's not to love. he may just be tempted to give you some himself, if you'll let him

asa definitely has a dick piercing, a beautiful prince albert to be exact. he loves having the cool metal heating up on your tongue whenever you're on your knees for him

if he lets you wear any underwear once you're his, they're definitely gonna have mysterious cum stains from him 'borrowing' them

asa is a whore for blood play! knives and blades that only just break the skin, not enough to cause serious harm or leave too many scars - as amazing as his plaything is, unfortunately you don't have that much space on your body to mark up permanently. he wants to keep you in the form he came upon originally :(

on that note, the one time he will dig a little deeper with the blade is to place his initials 'A. E.' on you

he definitely wants to scent mark you with pheromones and whatnot - just like his cecropia moths. however, due to human bodies being unable to do so, he may decide to cum on you over and over to drench you in his unique scent - or may just give you his worn, unwashed clothing (especially underwear) that smells like his sweat and heavy musk from throughout the day

in the true entomologist fashion, he adores laying you out and positioning you in very specific, precise ways - he simply wants to worship his precious pet in the best way he knows how. does not matter if you are fragile or not, he will show some rare gentleness and arrange you on the bed as if you are the most delicate being to grace this earth

when asa gives you head as a reward, he'll have to exercise extreme restraint as he tends to get a liiiiittle drunk off your taste, making his head game sloppy and his eyes roll back. he will definitely start humping the mattress and grunting, but don't let him know you notice <3

if he has previously kept you in the hotel or his basement with no escape, asa will eventually get upset that you have lost your glow that he originally admired. he'll drag you out into the outside world and seize the chance to ravish his darling in the sunlight!

asa emory, being a possessive dom, will probably fuck you in front of arkin while said man is trapped in the hotel. forcing the prisoner to watch while he pleasures you, just out of arkin's reach. asa probably has to hold himself back from cumming immediately when you whine and moan on his cock, taunting a heavily turned on and flustered arkin. emory is definitely an exhibitionist

as previously mentioned, asa has a big musk/scent kink. he would much rather lean back, watch you rub your face against his bulge and make out with his half-hard cock through his pants than to properly make out with you. what a romantic. his number one objective of every day is to have you press your cheek against his crotch and make eye contact with him at least once :3

if he ever takes off the mask around you, he would love it more than anything for you to muss up his hair a little and grip his hair at the scalp while humping into his mouth <3

if you let asa design a tattoo for you, he will die a happy man. preferably one on your lower back, with intricate details of insects that remind him of you - dragonfly, moth or butterfly wings, cicada or mantis legs and other various beauties of all types to decorate his perfection's body? god, he cannot wait to fuck you from behind..

asa fuckin adores digging his nails into your hips and it makes his cock throb whenever you bury your face into his neck and moan into his ear

once in a blue moon, emory allows you to tie his wrists together and ride him as hard as you want

asa is the definition of an experimentalist and is also not at all shy about fucking you in open places or in front of others in the hotel, but he definitely prefers a more private setting to properly treat his sweet, little plaything to an experience he curated specifically for you<3

he needs you to cockwarm him however possible after a long day - with your holes preferably (his pet's warmth is his idea of heaven), but if he was a little too rough the night before and it's too painful for you, asa is more than okay to use your wet mouth. shit, he'd even be happy to have you sit naked on his lap and hold you close while fucking your thighs

he'll probably palm himself to the sight of you while you're sleeping in his shirts <3 he'd kiss and nip his way down to your thighs, getting you all needy for him when you do finally wake up, content to listen to your little whimpers and moans in your sleep. however, he'd hate to properly initiate anything - asa wants you fully awake to experience everything he has to give you

_ _ _ _ _

amab hcs

oh lord, asa would be the biggest fan of edging you and teasing you with his mouth - nips at your balls and relentless swirls with his tongue around your cockhead

he impulsively swallows all your cum when giving you head, he can't just let the precious liquid go to waste :( you'd best pretend you don't see him licking his lips and fingers after giving you a handjob

his favourite punishment is to strap a vibrator to the tip of your dick. just watching you squirm and cry, leaking precum everywhere makes him so thankful that he kept you alive

asa prefers to keep your tight ass opened up for him at all hours of the day, so a shiny buttplug does the job. not to mention the amusement he gets from tapping it while you bend over and the heat that stirs in his gut from seeing you go braindead from the vibrations. he loves your eye colour but he much prefers the sight of it rolled back into your skull

he loves the delicious scent of you, so of course he is going to make you wear one of his (clean) shirts while he ruthlessly fucks you from behind. the scent seeping into the material is irreplaceable for him - your sweat, the salt of your tears and the musk of your arousal.. what he'd do to bathe in it permanently

emory will make you get on your knees, humping his grimy and bloody boot and worshipping his clothed cock with your mouth. the laces rub against your shaft so sweetly and his fingers digging into your scalp nearly makes you dirty his boot even further

he much prefers having you naked while he is at least somewhat clothed - the power imbalance makes his head spin and the sadistic thrill he gets from seeing truly how aroused you get while he humiliates you makes him chuckle. you can't hide anything from this man, he enjoys the shame that rips through you far too much

asa will guide you through giving him head and taking him down your throat - especially if you had not had much experience with another man. he's not small in any aspect and he'd hate to ruin you so easily, he still wants to hear all the pretty noises that spill from those lips :(

he is definitely the type to kiss and nip at your lips while he overstimulates you, stretching you to your limits but offering enough comfort to not destroy you - not yet at least. he'll only let up when you whine and beg exactly the way he demands, so be ready to have a hoarse throat tomorrow (not that it's an unusual occurrence)

asa adores fucking you in missionary - he loves when you cum all over both your chests, not to mention the giddy feeling he gets when he pulls out and finishes all over your tummy, mixing your spend together. what can i say, he's a romantic

he's constantly tormented about how to go about prepping your hole - should he work you open with his fingers and tongue after not being filled for a while or should he just keep a plug in you all hours of the day, just for availability and easy access <3

_ _ _ _ _

afab hcs

asa emory is definitely a clit slapper, ten thousand percent. not just for your pleasure - no, he's not that selfless - it's also for the soft sound of your sloppy pussy drenching his firm hand

he would only give you a smaller sized dildo - he wants to keep you wet for easy access and also because nothing and no one except him can have the privilege of filling you up the way he does. a smaller toy would be able to temporarily satiate your need for his dick but it doesn't come near the actual thing, as he still gets the thrill of properly stretching you out

on that note: if you are more into size than most, he doesn't allow to access to any bigger dildos whenever you're alone - asa will let you fuck extremely large dildos but only in front of him. he'll make you cockwarm him to prep your little hole (he has to get something out of it, why not cum in you too? some extra lube would never hurt..)

asa gets pussy drunk so easily :( if asa wants to eat you out, he'll do it. no matter the time of day, he's gonna lap at your cunt until he's had his fill and no one can come between him and his ambrosia

he would carve 'property of asa emory' into the skin directly over your womb. he already marks you from the inside every night, but he'll never allow anyone to have the pleasure of experiencing that firsthand. no, he needed a more visual mark for all to see

when he wants to tease you, asa will make you all wet and sticky just to use your pretty pussy to get off. he's not nice enough to fuck you every time you need, but he'd be more than happy to slide his cock against your wetness. he needs to keep you nice and slicked up though, so of course he'll bump your clit with his tip!

he fuckin loves it when you're on your period. extra slick, blood and sensitivity? is this heaven?? his hands are big and warm enough usually, but when he holds you tight against him with his hot palms against your tummy, the noises that leave your lips make him throb deep inside you. he'll even doodle little bugs on your skin with his finger in the drying crimson

as mentioned earlier, asa is the only person who is able to fill you up. he will do everything in power to bump your cervix with every single thrust, whether it be with his fingers or his thick cock. he's determined to make you breathless, and he is a menace about it, too

_ _ _ _ _

ftm hcs

asa will find a way to procure a breast pump for your thick little cock! he wants it to be just the right size to roll around his tongue and he needs to suckle in such a precise way - he's got it down to an art, truly

he loves to sit you between his legs and jerk you off while his attention is on a new insect study on his desktop. the wetness and quiet breaths coming from his pet in between his thighs.. it makes his dick hard so quickly when you're a good, needy boy for him

if you're taking testosterone, he would help you take it on your schedule. of course, he'd use the needle even if you're afraid - he's right there, so there's nothing to be scared of <3

he loves to document the transition of his handsomest plaything! he'll take intimate polaroids of your cock and hair growth and you can bet he's gonna frame and arrange them in displays in your own little gallery

although he is as sadistic as normal, he also loves flicking your dick lightly and slowly fingering your boycunt until you're tearing up from the gentle stimulation

if asa catches you touching yourself without permission, he's gonna be mean about it! you wanna touch him? hm? after all you've done? too bad, he's gonna make you watch while he strokes his leaking cock in front of your face - just enough to let you smell the pre smeared all over his hand but not close enough to touch. he'll make you kneel there in front of him as he cums loudly. if he's feeling generous, he'll let you desperately lick up the mess he made all over his fingers and tummy

_ _ _ _ _

mtf hcs

if you prefer to wear makeup, asa will keep you in an area where you have access to a mirror and necessary supplies - similar to the room in the collection. he can't have his pretty pet feeling down, what kind of master would that make him?

he has a secret fantasy of bottoming for you - asa has never had the chance to take a girlcock and it's about time he tries something new..

he adores how you sound and feel whenever he's edging you into oblivion, especially when your moans get higher in pitch

asa adores using cum to lube up his prettiest pet's hole! doesn't matter if it's his or yours honestly, he finds it both hot and functional

he loves to take hairs from your pillowcase and display them proudly in chronological order to show how much it's grown (he's a little freak let it slide)

asa definitely has a pink, heart-shaped glass buttplug for his little plaything - a present for his beloved girl, his beautiful specimen

if you're taking estrogen, asa would help you take it on your schedule. of course, he'd use the needle even if you're afraid - he's right there, so there's nothing to be scared of <3

his favourite past time is recording your beautiful moans and whimpers for him to replay whenever he needs to get off quickly. it takes all of his restraint to not grunt loudly or let the sound of his hips smacking your ass get too loud - he doesn't want to ruin your perfection in its most natural state

asa adores cumming all over your body and decorating you with a part of him. seeing your hair mussed and a glistening sweat sheen all over his body.. he truly believes that this is your intended form

_ _ _ _ _

thanks for reading. lmk if you liked it. if i got anything wrong, don't hesitate to tell me.

stay safe.

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whosjunglejim4322 · 4 years

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Bramosia | J.Seo (m)

Genre: pwp, knight!au, smut, fluff, he is, and I can't stress this enough, madly in love with you

Warnings: loss of virginity, pussy eating, mutual pining and longing, it's forbidden but who's gonna stop u??? Exactly. Inaccurate descriptions of the time period probably, inappropriate use of the word princess, he fucks you to tears, this is so self indulgent I gotta blast

The moons unearthly luminescence bleeds through the windows that sit directly above your wing of the old castles corridor, a reminder of why he bears the heavy sword that hangs off of his hip, of why he's here in the first place.

He rolls his aching neck, blinking his dry eyes a few times in an attempt to dampen them. He's usually not so worn by now.

Perhaps the two of you had gotten too carried away last night, it's too easy when you're with eachother. Effortless, like that of a flowers perianth traveling wistfully through a summers breeze. It's easy to forget.

He's here to protect you, nothing more, as he is was a proffesional in all that he does. He is a knight, after all. One of the best. Your father wouldn't have requested him from a province so far away if he weren't damn good.

Six months ago, it seems like a lifetime away and yet the memory of seeing you for the very first time is so vivid behind his eyelids, tangible as if he could reach out and hover his palms over the warmth the halo around you seemed to emit.

He smiles to himself, the image keeping him sane and distracting him from the ache in the soles of his feet. He knows you're probably not sleeping, he wishes you wouldn't worry about him. He's doing it to himself, really.

He is a warrior but he is only so strong, so resilient. He has never been stricken by such a force as to have his bones feel as weak as they do when he looks into your eyes, when you cup his face in your hands like he is the most delicate thing you have ever seen.

Sure, he hadn't been the most nonchalant. His eyes barely left you even during the brief moments in which his life is not sworn over to do so, and you being you, caught him almost every time. You'd smile, fleeting enough for only him to notice.

You never get the credit you deserve, he had come to find out over the past several months. Being a princess, as fawned over the title may be, it wasn't meant for you.

You'd scowl at the name of every prince your father mentioned might come visit, which he'd take pride in secretly. You wouldn't even scold him whenever he'd been clearly protective in a manner than suggested that it was more than just the job that inclined him to act that way.

Perceptive, and clever you are. And to think, you might feel even a fraction of what he feels, it causes his heart to thunder loudly behind his sturdy ribcage, momentarily reducing his fatigue.

You are the only one in all of his twenty five years of life that has threatened to shake his very foundation, like you've found a way to wind yourself through every ridge of his skeleton like vines of Wisteria.

Sundays are always the hardest, you're still so fresh in his mind, on his skin. It's like every inch of him has been permanently marked, he can still feel the weight of your body against his and the warm puff of air from your lips against his earlobe as you sing his name.

His sigh is quiet in the vast, empty space around him. He shouldn't be thinking of you so late, when he's so tired. It makes him ache for you all the more, make him wish life was anything but what it is now. That he could be with you unabashedly.

That he could be your protector, and not just in a way that could be be permanently devastated if anyone were to find out about the two of you.

He doesn't realize he's closed his eyes, not until he has to peel them open and search for the source of the soft voice he's just heard whisper his name into the dark.

He furrows his brows as a stream of warm candlelight spills through the crack in your door from your room, your form coming into a few just a moment later, as if beckoned from his dreams.

"You're really going to stay out there, John?" He foresees your incredulity, smiling at the hand thats propped up on your hip.

"Those are my orders, princess." He has a hard time not staring at you, even in such poor lighting you are still the most beautiful thing he's ever witnessed.

He's always stubborn about breaking the made up rules you two have put in place, like only meeting in private on Saturdays. Despite his inability to resist you he still needs to keep you safe.

"My father is a whole wing away, don't you know," you emphasize your point by stepping out past your doorframe, tiptoeing at an almost imperceptible pace towards him. "and if danger were to arise, how much more convenient need it be, than for you to be right there with me?"

You're standing right in front of him now, weaking his resolve eith each syllable that passes those pretty lips of yours. It's strange, how he still wonders if your feelings for him are resolute as his are for you, when you're the one always asking for trouble. Eager to have your way.

When you reach out to grab his waist, he breaks.

"Princess, if someone were to see that I'm not outside of your room guarding as I'm supposed to,"

You interrupt him, pressing yourself closer until he can feel your chest against his, the barrier of his clothing suddenly a burden far heavier than before.

"Who? Who might see? Everyone is asleep, you should be."

You stare up at him and he can't seem to resist the pull, meeting your eyes and unclapsing his hands from behind his back to stroke the apple of your cheek with his knuckles.

You heel into his touch, beaming as you realise you've already gotten your way, evident in the way he sighs your name as if the word fills him with oxytocin.

"You really are trouble," he cups your face, calloused fingertips swiping a fallen lash from underneath your eye. "trying to lure me in, like a siren. I'd be willing to go, anyways."

You lift yourself to the tips of your toes, pressing a brief, featherlight, kiss to the surface of his lips. Just enough to bring forth warmth to his cheeks.

"You're silly, I'd be too selfish a siren to do any damage. I'd have to keep you all to myself."

His arms are strong and steady as the encapsulate you, the fears and worries of outside intruders fading with each second spent in eachothers presence. It's like nothing else exists.

"Please, Princess. It's hard enough already, to be away from you," he's on the verge of losing any bit of hope for his sanity, but as anticipated, you won't have it.

"And you don't think it's hard for me? You think that I enjoy knowing that it is prohibited for me to be like this with you? I am many things but I am not selfish, so if you don't want to come with me then I won't force you."

He has to bite back a laugh, or maybe a scream of frustration and agony all at the same time. Here you are, so close he's sure you can hear how his pulse pounds beneath his skin at your presence, actually accusing him of not wanting you. It's preposterous.

You glare up at him when his arms don't loosen their grasp.

"You must be mistaken, sorely mistaken. If you think that any moment spent without you is even the least bit pleasant for me, you're wrong. So wrong it's a bit humorous," he kisses your cheek, and then the other. Your skin tingles where his lips grace.

"You may not be selfish but I am. So selfish that I'd give into my own desires even if it meant that one slip up could ruin it all. Don't you see that?" You sigh blissfully, in spite of his words, when he kisses your nose.

"Well I think that's stupid, I'd never let such a thing happen. I've lived here my whole life, I'd be able to predict the likelihood of someone coming up here during such a late hour."

He doesn't miss the pitch of sadness that comes with talk of the castle, he knows that there is so much you still have yet to experience. So much you'd like to do, so far away from here.

Still, he can't deny the truth in which you speak. You're right, and he knows that you're as careful of these things as he is. He trusts you, as you trust him. And what is he going to do, say no? He'd never have the willpower.

His broad shoulders relax, his hands suddenly engulfing yours.

"Alright, you don't have to pout anymore. You know I'll end up kissing it from that pretty face of yours anyways."

You suppress a giggle of elation, squeezing your fingers around his as you turn to quietly pull him into your room, peering into the the hallway once more to make sure the coast is clear, before you ease your door shut.

And then at once, he is what you taste on your tongue.

His lips always leave you breathless. The way he kisses you, it's as of you are his only source of oxygen and his lungs burn with the need for air. He is fierce, but so very concise. You almost forget that he so ruefully pretended to put up a fight.

Your arms mold around his neck as he slouches the slightest bit in order to make the reach easier for you, knowing how you like to bury your hands in his hair and tug at the strands whenever he does something that you'd like more of.

Your eagerness is a bit more exuberant tonight, normally you'd still be a bit bashful, giggling between pecks and having to turn your face away before kissing him again.

But you haven't pulled away from him yet, not even for a breath and suddenly his skin is sweltering towards what feels like a hundred degrees. He's pretty sure you've just whispered his name.

He's already gone, helplessly lost in the way you're clinging onto him with all your strength.

"John." Just his name falling from your lips in the form of a sweet sigh has his knees buckling.

He's careful, hesitant even, when he cups the back of your knees and allows you to fall atop your bed, the sight almost too much to bear. He can never catch a break.

But he has to look at you, has to see the look in your eyes, the gleam that shines in your blown out pupils as your fingers tug at the clothing hanging loosely on his body. He fights back a groan.

Of course things have gotten intense between the two of you, but nothing more than over the clothes petting. And, even then, that drove him to the brink of insanity. He didn't think he could ever be putty in someone's hands until he met you.

It feels like everything is happening so fast yet not slow enough, it seems as if you're blooming like a lotus before his eyes and he wants to capture every little detail. Just incase one day his memories are all he has of you.

You pull him back down to your mouth, legs suddenly looping around his trim waist, knees locked on either side. You practically purr as his hands, large and tender, grace your thighs only to be met with bare skin where your nightgown has risen up.

He's breathing heavily when your mouths depart momentarily, his doe eyes an onyx pit of desire and emotion as he stares down at you, lips ruby red.

You nod, as if reading his mind and answering the dozens of unanswered questions that sit unmoving at the tip of his tongue. Still, his eyebrows are pulled together in concentration, in tentative restraint.

"You can touch me. Please, touch me."

Your skin is heavenly underneath his trembling touch, from the soft hair atop your thighs to the way you so perfectly mold around his fingers. You're a gift of the most ethereal kind, here in front of him.

You coo at him with a voice of an angel, pulling at his face in an attempt to have him kiss you again. He's been too busy ogling, and repays you with the press of his mouth against the crook of your neck.

You lift your chin to allow him more access, eyes fluttering closed and thighs tightening around his middle when you feel the warmth of his open mouth against your throat.

"You're so sweet, so pretty." He mumbles, practically floating.

He nips at your collarbone, and you can't stop your hips from bucking up against him, your clothed center meeting his hardened length through the material of his bottoms.

The air is thick with tension now, you can feel it buzzing through the both of you like ths thrum of a thunderstorm. He sucks in a breath, lips ghosting over yours.

"I want to make you feel good, If you'd allow me." He tries to control the shake in his voice but he's not sure he's succeeded. What a mess you've made of him.

You kiss him for what seems like the hundredth time but feels like the first, still sending jolts of electricity through your body and causing heat to swirl in your loins. You can barely speak.

"Y-Yes, yes I'll allow you."

Your voice is foreign to your own ears, clouded with desire and a desperation that is as overwhelming as it is strange and new.

But having him here, knowing he's the one whose hands are touching you, it's comforting in a way that leaves no room for doubt that he is nothing but kind. Nothing but adoring.

It's hard to tell with just the luminosity of a single candle on your bedside table, but you're almost certain you can feel him shuffle. At least, his weight seems to have shifted, his arms suddenly caged around your waist, upperhalf between your legs.

And then you feel it, the plushness of his lips just above your knee as he lifts your legs by your calves, placing them over his shoulders. You're not sure you can focus on anything else now, breathing suddenly heavy.

"You're so beautiful, you know that?" His voice is so close, yet far away in an unfamiliar way. It has butterflies swarming your belly.

"I'm so lucky, so so lucky..." He trails off between kisses, shifting from one thigh to the other, slowly but surely making his way towards your center.

It's only now in your bird brain that you're beginning to realize what exactly he's about to do, and it's like some switch inside of you has been flicked on, toes suddenly curling in anticipation, wetness soaking into the fabric of your underwear.

The desire isn't just in your belly now, its everywhere. All consuming, when he pushes your nightgown up and bunches it around your hips, the air cool against your skin. You shiver, and his cheek brushes against the crease of your thigh.

"Have you ever been touched like this, princess?" He's curious but not pushy, just wants to know. When you shake your head, he swallows.

He's slow and steady, pulling your underwear off your hips and down your legs, allowing the garment to fall to the floor. You don't clamp your legs shut, despite the instinct to shield yourself. You've never hidden yourself from him, and you know there's no reason to.

Esepcially not when he's looking at you like he is right now, like a man starved whose just been presented with a meal of his favorite kind. He glances up at you, with eyes that shine with gratitude, and awe alike. You reach out to stroke his hair.

And then, suddenly, his face is gone from your view. You feel it, first, before you register that it's happening. A gasp leaves your lips the moment your back arches ever so slightly off of your mattress, his hands keeping your thighs apart as his tongue licks another flat stripe through your folds.

You feel exposed in a way that only feels as intoxicating as it does, because he's the one with his mouth on your cunt, suckling your bud between his lips and swiveling his head side to side. You tug at his hair.

A guttural groan resonates in his throat and the vibration serves as direct stimulation, a mewl leaving your mouth as you buck you hips up against his skilled tongue.

"Shhh baby, stay quiet for me," you furrow your eyebrows, looking down at him with stars in your eyes. "I know, I know sweetheart." He reads the pleading in your eyes, soothingly rubbing your hips as he delves back in.

It's not easy to stay quiet. Not at all.

If you'd thought him rubbing your clit through your clothes was something to be noisy over, nothing prepared you for this.

He's so good at it, so generous with every lap of his tongue. The sounds are lewd and loud in the shared space, and his tongues pace only increases when you reach down to find his hands. He intertwines your fingers before you give him the hint.

You try to keep your volume low, your whimpers almost inaudible but loud enough to spurr him on, to have his hips rutting against the bed while he kisses your cunt with passion only a lover could have.

Bliss overcomes you faster than you expect, and swallows you whole like a vicious, unmerciful hurricane.

Your thighs tremble against his strength as he keeps them parted when they threaten to close, your fingers twisted in the comforter as tears well in your eyes.

You're not sure if you're making any noise, the light too bright behind your eyes, bones suddenly weightless as his tongue licks you clean. You twitch, aware that you've let out a whine. The feeling is agonizingly pleasant.

You're still throbbing when his hands suddenly grasp your jaw, head lolling in his direction as he presses his lips to yours. He's serene, slipping his tongue into your mouth, humming.

You're certain, now. Certain that you need to have him in every way there is to have someone, for your heart may forever be unsettled if it doesn't get to taste what it's like to love him wholly, completely.

"I want to-" you've got his rapt attention, as you always do, and he stares down at you with a lovesick expression as you struggle to find the strength to say it out loud.

He's grown accustomed to reading your countenance, only time allowing him to grasp the meaning behind every crease and line that forms on your face, he's certain you could give him one look and he'd instantly know what it is that you're trying to say.

One perk to having a secret rendezvous, though he still needs to hear you say it. He'd only take your word for it regarding something like this, something that he's dreamt about more times that he'd like to admit.

He can't hide his surprise, thumbs stroking your face.

"You want me to..." he quirks an inquisitive brow, nearly becoming distracted when your tongue darts out to wet your bottom lip. "you want me to be your first?"

Even the words have you latching onto him tighter, desperate to feel the warmth of his skin against yours.

"Yes, I want that very much...do you...also want that?"

He grins, widely and for a moment you forget he was born to be made of steel, that he's fought all of his life and has bruised his skin for the sake of his kingdom. You want to kiss away every bad memory in his head.

"How could you even think you have to ask? I want nothing more, just you. You're all I'll ever want."

The veracity in his voice, suddenly hoarse, makes your skin feel like it's being tickled by a million, tiny feathers. You never knew anything could feel like this.

A heartbeat later, your hands are slipping underneath his top to make an attempt at pulling it off, your excitment not a good match for your lack of coordination. Of course, he doesn't mind helping.

He slips his sword from his hip while you stare up at him with wide eyes of reverence and desire, so much of him being exposed at once causing a swelter of heat to boil underneath your skin.

Your hands are hesitant, hovering around his lithe hips as he sits back on his haunches, chest rapidly rising and falling as the atmosphere begins to soak into his pores. He can't believe he gets to make love to you.

"You can touch me, princess," he's the one reassuring you now, knowing that beyond your headstrong personality when you're with him, you're still so timid; trembling like a leaf in autumn.

His dexterous fingers gently grasp your wrists, placing your palms over his abdomen, keeping your gaze all the while, head nodding in encouragement.

He's soft, soft on the surface at least. The soft down that covers his honey colored skin is like silk underneath your fingers, a juxtaposition to the rigid muscle underneath that flexes as your fingertips move upwards towards the broad planes of his chest.

You hook your fingers around his shoulders, and pull him down to your mouth, determined as your heart bellows inside of your body.

It's wilder this time, the wet sounds loud in your ears, his tongue waltzing with yours. You rake your nails down his sides, and he damn near growls.

It's a blur, the way he slips the straps of your gown from off of your shoulders, before removing the garment completely and throwing it behind him. Somewhere in between he pulls the covers out from underneath you, sensing the chill that runs through you like a tremor from the exposure.

It's during that brief moment when you're too drunk on adrenaline, that your fingers begin pulling at the buckle of his bottoms, too eager again and not being able to unfasten it correctly. Always the gentlemen, he does it for you, again.

He's careful now, not completely planting himself against you yet when he kisses your neck and takes your breasts in his massive palms, squeezing indulgently.

You pull him up by the ridge of his jaw, wrapping your legs around his middle as you had previously, letting out a small gasp as his hard length suddenly comes to lie heavy between your legs when you beckon him closer by your heels on his back.

"You're sure you want me?" He slips his hand that's not cupping your cheek, down in between your bodies to rub your clit with his middle finger, actually expecting you to be able to speak coherently. He supresses his gasp upon feeling the abundance of your essence.

It's hard to focus, when he's looking down at you like that, when you can feel every ridge and curve of his naked body against yours. Perhaps it's being able to to tell that he's feeling the same way just by the way he speaks, that makes it so intoxicating.

"You're all I'll ever want." You echo his earlier words, and his laughter fills your ears like a lullably. You reach out to push his dark hair out from in front of his eyes, his lips catching your palm and placing a kiss to the center.

"It'll hurt, I'll go as slow as you need me to." You see the worry creased between his brow, and you soothe it away by clenching your thighs around his waist, silently beckoning him.

"Please, please fuck me."

It takes him by surprise, cock twitching against your sex. You sound so sweet, so angelic even when you're requesting something so filthy.

He lifts himself on his forearms, reaching down to grasp his shaft. Your hands are in his hair a the while, fingers tracing shapes across the nape of his neck. You suck in a breath when he rubs the tip against your clit, arousal leaking from your slit.

He rubs his cock against you like this, through your silken folds and back up to your sensitive nub, until your head is thrown back against the pillows, face turned to the side and canorous mewls slipping past your lips.

Your eyes flutter open when he kisses you, finally prodding your entrance, readying you. Your teeth gently sink into the plush surface of his bottom lip, as if urging him to continue.

Your mouth falls open when he begins to push himself inside of you. You have to brace yourself by clinging onto his biceps, reminding yourself to breathe.

If you weren't as wet for him as you are, you're sure it would be more painful. It still stings, even more so as he begins to bottom out, using every bit of self control he has as to make sure he doesn't accidentally rut into you with too much force.

He meets your eyes when he's fully sheathed inside of you, your fingernails leaving crescent moons in his skin. He doesn't mind it one bit.

"Are you alright?" The tenderness in his voice is accompanied by his lips across your cheeks, down your jaw, over your eyelids.

"Mhm. J-Just stay like this, for a second, please." Your walls flutter around him and his eyes fall heavy. He stays as still as he can for the moment, fingers massaging your soft hip.

"I never thought...never dreamed we'd get to do this." He speaks in an irrevocable way, swelling your heart over two times its size with how he talks about you. Like you're truly something magical.

You wiggle your hips, his gaze searching for yours and lighting up with newfound determination when you give him conformation to move. He slowly drags himself out, before pushing himself back in.

"If you only knew...how much I truly think of you." You speak steadily despite the wave of pleasure that ripples through your body, from the pit of your stomach outwards, touching every nerve.

He's big, bigger than you expected, but curved in a way that has you fighting a cry. Your lungs ache with the need to make noise, to express how it feels to have him inside of you like this. You squeeze around him, and he smashes his lips against yours.

You never thought it would feel like this, you'd heard mixed reviews but clearly none of them had ever experienced what it's like to have someone like him demonstrating their skill.

He's precise, a little shaky but only because he's concentrating on not literally cumming after two minutes. You're everything he's ever wanted and more, you're soaked and warm around him, chest pressed flush against his. Your hardened nipples threaten to distract him.

His hair tickles your forehead as he begins to create a steady pace. He's got one hand behind your right thigh, cupping it and hiking it up just the slightest bit while he fucks into you, curling his hips.

He swallows your moans, tasting the sense of surrealness on your tongue. He feels it too, groaning when you tug a tuft of his hair.

"You're mine, all mine, fuck." His voice is hoarse, hips stuttering as he begins to rock into you, not completely pulling himself out of you before nudging your cervix again. His mouth catches the edge of your jaw, then your earlobe.

He buries his face in your shoulder, and you wrap your arms around his neck, pressing your lips against his hair as you keep yourself quiet. He can still feel the way you're shivering, the whispers of cries that are audible when you breathe.

"I'm yours, I'm yours." You're not sure you could ever feel this way about someone else, and not just because he is all that every single one of your senses seemed to be attuned to.

He's deep inside of you, reaching places you never would be able to by yourself, and still holds you like you're the entire world. Despite the need that consumes you both, he takes his time.

You feel him everywhere. On your neck, your throat, down to your clavicle where his hot tongue soothes over the mark he's just made.

You can almost feel him in your belly, the tip of his cock nudging the sweet spot of nerves deep within you causing your body to jerk in his hold. He takes note and is determined to drive you over the edge, knowing he's not going to last much longer.

He's yearned for it too long, and nothing his mind could have conjured up would ever compare again.

He lets go of your leg only to bring his hand to where your bodies are connected as one, your face contorted into a mask of pleasure as he begins to rub at your clit, in circular motions, with the same rythym as his thrusts.

"John, ohhh, you f-feel so good." You're slurring your words, high off of his affection. Your belly feels hot, a pressure just behind your navel leaving you writhing, trying to match his pace.

"Yeah? Feels good to have me inside of you?" He's being cruel now, already knowing the answer by the way tears are swelling in your eyes for the second time tonight, irisises shining back at him.

Your hands roam his sides, settling on his hips as you turn your face to hide it against his bicep. He kisses any expanse of skin that he can reach, till the wet spots leave a trail of chills along your body.

You're close, and he knows it. You're already leaking onto the bed, dripping down his shaft.

"J-John...p-please." You're blubbering now, and his fingers circle your clit faster, just enough to have you breathless and unable to speak as his strokes become inconsistent, cock throbbing.

"Shh, I got you baby, gonna make you cum okay? Want you to let go."

Looking up into his eyes, it's hard to resist. Suddenly it's the first time you've met and you're awestruck by his beauty all over again, by the sharp planes of his face that you'd come to realize are soft underneath your touch.

You're kissing him again for the first time, and his lips are as plush and pillowy as they look, his hands big and wsrm as they hold your face steady against his mouth.

You realize you're in love with him for the first time again, staring into honey colored irises and listening to his velvet voice, aware that when he's gone it feels like a piece of you has been taken along with him.

Your body suddenly stills, save for your back arching and his body, sturdy and whole, there to anchor you while you forget you breathe. Your orgasm is all the more powerful this time, with him inside of you, and it's like once youre unraveling it doesn't stop.

He holds the back of your head and allows you to muffle your cries against his chest, fingers latching onto any part of him you reach first, as if you might fall of the face of the earth. He's still rubbing your clit, whispering sweet encouragements in your ear.

You don't pick up all of it, only vaguely aware of the tremor in his tone as he says your name.

And then he's locked against you, every muscle in his body rigid and hard as a strained, muffled whimper resonates from beside your head. He's biting into a pillow, as warmth fills you to the brim and he sloppily fucks it into you.

You're still reeling, when he kisses you like someone who hasn't seen their lover in years and is finally getting the chance to touch them again, to wordlessly express how enamored they are. Wholeheartedly, and irreversibly.

He says it first, which surprises you, considering in your dreams you're always the one professing it to him, stroking his skin or petting his hair and whispering it in between kisses.

But you're sure this is real, you can feel ache in your bones, the throb of your centers where they're still connected.

"I love you." His voice is even more beautiful when he's speaking in such a simple, yet profound way. There's a quiver, but not because he's not being honest. He'd swear on his life, for his conviction.

"I love you too." You reply, looping your fingers round the nape of his neck, toying with the soft hair there.

Maybe he shouldn't be so shocked, but he is. His face can't hide it, the quirk of his full lips, the furrow of disbelief in his brow. You want to kiss his stupid face a thousand time over.

"I love you." He repeats it, as if the words bring forth sunshine on a day shrouded by the darkness of rain clouds.

He repeats it again, when he's hovering over your lips, breath warm against your skin. He repeats it again when he's placing kisses to your forehead, when you giggle and stroke his cheek.

"And I love you, silly silly man." You remind him, willing him by the longing in your voice, to believe it as you believe him.

He repeats it again, when a tear cascades down your cheek like a diamond shaped declaration of your honesty, and he kisses it away, claiming it for himself.

You love him, and he loves you.

And maybe, no matter what happens, that'll be enough.

786 notes · View notes

ashleybenlove · 3 years

Text

Title: Bellows

Prompt: Hiding An Illness + pneumothorax

Summary: A fall from Toothless causes Hiccup to get a collapsed lung. Eventually, bellows get used.

Fandom: How To Train Your Dragon

Pairing: None

Word Count: 1046

Rating: Teen

Warnings: Tasteless Jokes About Breasts, Swearing, Injuries, Inaccurate Medical Procedures

Disclaimer: I don’t own the source material in this fanfic. That’s to whatever company or person owns it. I would never claim to own it.

Notes: There are probable influences from fandom and whatnot in this story. Written for Bad Things Happen Bingo @badthingshappenbingo for the space “Hiding An Illness” and Whumptober @whumptober-archive Day 8 for the prompt: “pneumothorax”. This takes place during Race to the Edge. This is also on AO3.

And it is below.

Hiccup had fallen off Toothless. Again. He had done this a lot since the age of fifteen. To him, it was no big deal. It was just an occupational hazard of being a Dragon Rider.

From what he remembered of this fall was that he hit the ground with his chest. Yeah, there was a rather large bruise on one side of his chest, but he assumed his pectoral muscle had softened the injury.

So, he went about his business, doing whatever he usually did on the Edge.

But, while he had been doing his normal activities, stuff like metalwork, stable duties, flying dragons, and cooking and cleaning, he found himself with the occasional chest pain, where it would hurt in his chest region.

At one point, Snotlout caught him touching his chest and said, “What’s a matter, Haddock? Your boob hurt?” And then laughed.

He suspected Snotlout was merely making a tasteless joke, so he simply responded with exclaiming out “Snotlout!” like he was scolding him.

But Hiccup also was not about to admit that Snotlout was very close to the truth. Nor was he about to admit he was actually hurt or anything like that. He just hit the ground a little too hard this time. He was fine.

He had shit to do. Dragons to save. Hunters to fight.

And as he sat at the table in the Clubhouse, maybe a day or so after Snotlout’s tasteless joke, while he was having a meal with the Riders, he found himself having trouble breathing.

Breathing should have been something that didn’t cross his mind, period. But he found himself having to stop eating for a few moments so he could attempt to breathe in more air. Frequently.

But something felt off and he couldn’t quite figure it out.

He really hoped no one was noticing.

But, of course, he was friends with the likes of Astrid Hofferson.

“Hiccup, are you okay?” she asked. “You keep having to breathe deeply?”

He could see Fishlegs and Snotlout watching him, and the twins nodding like they also noticed too.

“I’m fine, I’m fine,” Hiccup said. Probably a lie.

And then he had to do the thing he had been doing all meal.

Damnit.

“Quit lying, asshole,” Snotlout said.

“Snotlout!” Astrid said.

“You saw it!” Snotlout exclaimed.

“I did but—” Astrid began.

“Hiccup, are you having trouble breathing?” Fishlegs said, interrupting Astrid.

“And don’t lie!” Snotlout exclaimed.

“I… uh, feel like I can’t get enough air into my lungs?” Hiccup exclaimed.

“Didn’t I see you grab your chest recently?” Snotlout asked.

“Yeah, and you made a boob joke,” Hiccup replied.

“Love a good boob joke,” Tuffnut said.

“Yup!” Ruffnut said.

“Are you having chest pain?” Fishlegs asked.

Hiccup hesitated.

“Just answer him, Hiccup,” Astrid said, impatiently.

“Fine, yes!” Hiccup exclaimed. And then he tried to breathe again. It still felt like not enough.

“Bed, now!” Astrid exclaimed. She said pointing to the door, sharply.

The other Dragon Riders followed Hiccup (who decided to not to walk but rather ride Toothless, who did the walking for him) to his hut, to make sure he did what Astrid yelled at him.

“Make him take his clothes off!” Ruffnut exclaimed.

“You just wanna see Hiccup shirtless,” Tuffnut replied.

“Yeah, and?” Ruffnut retorted.

“You heard her,” Astrid said. “Top clothes go off. We have to get a good look at your chest.”

Once his armor and tunic were off, there was a collective hiss among the Riders at the bruise on his chest.

“May I touch your chest?” Fishlegs asked.

Hiccup nodded, sitting up

Fishlegs carefully started touching Hiccup’s chest, both on areas that were not bruised and areas that were bruised, along the ribs.

Fishlegs placed his hand on Hiccup’s chest and requested that he breathe.

He did so.

Astrid watched this and then saw Fishlegs’ look of alarm. He even looked directly at her with that look of alarm.

“What?” Astrid asked.

“He has a collapsed lung,” Fishlegs said. “Ruff, Tuff, can you take Toothless for a long flight, please?”

“Hey, hey, hey! Why are the twins getting to go on a flight with Toothless?” Hiccup asked.

“Because I don’t want Toothless getting upset for what we’re going to have to do!” Fishlegs whispered back.

“What do we have to do?” Astrid asked, uneasy.

“Toothless, please go with the twins,” Fishlegs requested.

If a dragon could have crossed his arms, Fishlegs believed that Toothless would have done it.

“Hey, Toothless, take us on a flight, huh?” Ruffnut asked.

“Sorry, bud,” Hiccup said.

Toothless hissed at Fishlegs and seconds later, was pressing his face to Hiccup’s affectionately.

Once he was satisfied with this, he left the loft in what could only be described as a huff, the twins hurrying down the steps after him.

“So, what do we have to do?” Snotlout asked.

“We’re gonna have to pierce his chest to get out excess air from his lung cavity,” Fishlegs said.

Snotlout winced.

“Get my bellows,” Hiccup suggested. He struggled with his breath.

“What?” Astrid asked.

“Gobber used bellows to get the Scauldron venom out of Mildew’s butt,” Hiccup reminded them.

Fishlegs nodded, understanding what he meant.

Astrid retrieved Hiccup’s bellows.

“Snotlout, Astrid, hold him down,” Fishlegs said.

Snotlout laid across Hiccup’s legs, Astrid had a firm grip on Hiccup’s shoulders.

Fishlegs took the bellows, found an empty space between some ribs, and then—

Hiccup screamed loudly and repeatedly, hating that there was more pain.

Snotlout whined, hating the sound.

“We’re sorry!” Snotlout exclaimed, unable to take it.

“You’re okay, you’re okay,” Astrid whispered, in an attempt to be comforting to Hiccup.

Hiccup managed to let out a growl at them before sobbing, as Fishlegs gently pulled air from his chest into the bellows.

Occasionally Fishlegs would pull out the bellows, let the air out of it, and then stick it back in the same hole, which by this time would only earn him a soft “ow” from Hiccup, who felt exhausted.

“When we’re done with this, you’re still gonna have to stay in bed,” Fishlegs said. “No flying.”

“Fuck you,” Hiccup said.

“Hiccup,” Astrid chided.

“Sorry,” Hiccup said. He let out a sigh.

His eyes grew wide, and everyone in the room caught it.

“I can breathe better,” Hiccup said.

18 notes · View notes

badchoicesposts · 5 years

Text

Don’t Dream It’s Over Chapter 19

Series Summary: Liam and Ali thought that their relationship was perfect, but their whole world came crashing down when Constantine called him back to Cordonia. Four years later they meet again at Liam’s bachelor party, determined to make things between them work even if it isn’t always easy.

In this AU, Liam and MC (Ali Moonessar) dated for a year in New York while Leo was still crown prince. They broke up when Constantine asked Liam to come back to Cordonia, but they meet again at Liam’s bachelor party before the social season. The story will contain flashbacks, which will be italicized, of their relationship and follow them as they try to navigate the season with Ali as a suitor. I’ve messed around with the timeline a bit so that it fits the story better. I’ve also added in a few OCs of my own.

Pairing: Liam x MC (Ali Moonessar), Platonic!Drake x MC

DISCLAIMER: I’ve changed up the timeline of the social season a bit to fit my story better. I’ve based it off of some research I did on the British Social Season. Some of the dialogue was taken directly from Book 1 of The Royal Romance but was changed a bit to fit my fic.

Also, I’ve never been pregnant so the small amount of information about pregnancy that I stated in this chapter was based purely on my research on the topic. I apologize if any of it it inaccurate.

TRIGGER WARNING: Mentions of a panic attack and abortion.

Taglist: @flowerpowell, @ao719, @kingliam2019, @emceesynonymroll, @hopefulmoonobject, @dcbbw, @qammh-blog, @liamxs-world, @drakesensworld, @i-only-signed-up-for-fanfiction, @lauradowning29, @texaskitten30, @senseofduties, @indiacater, @alexintheskyy, @jared2612

A/N: This is my first time ever posting a fic. Please let me know if you enjoyed it and would like to read more. I thrive on validation, lol. Thanks for reading!

Catch Up: Masterlist, Costumes (Don’t Dream It’s Over One shot)

Ali’s shoulders relaxed under the warm spray of water, and she leaned her head against the shower wall, trying to focus on her breathing. It had been two days since she spoke to Maxwell and Bastien, and she had definitely noticed Charlie hanging around more since then. She was glad it was him and not some random member of the guard that she had never met, but it was still strange to know that she needed security.

She turned off the water and wrapped herself in a towel, before wandering back into her bedroom. Her brown eyes swept over the gold dress that she would be wearing tonight, and she bit her lip nervously in anticipation of what was to come.

Liam had decided that it would be nice to get everyone together for a dinner. He believed that it would be a good chance for all of the noble children to get acquainted with one another. They were the future leaders of the country, and he wanted them all to be on good terms. However, the dinner wasn’t the cause of Ali’s anxiety. Now that they were back at the palace, Liam had taken to spending nights with her again, and she knew that she needed to tell him everything tonight. She couldn’t put it off any longer. He deserved to know. Not to mention, it was dangerous to keep it from him with the looming threat of someone leaking it to the press hanging over her head.

Ali slipped on her dress and shoes, pausing for a moment to look at her reflection in the mirror. The small heart shaped pendant that Liam had given her the night of The Masquerade twinkled as it caught the light, and for some reason it was calming to her. Her eyes travelled down to her stomach, and she placed her hand on top of it. She had been researching pregnancy nonstop for the past few days, and she knew that she probably wasn’t going to be showing anytime soon. By her calculations she was only just barely two months along, and it was by sheer dumb luck that she even found out this early. But, knowing that there was a baby growing inside of her caused her heart to swell with happiness. That is until she remembered who the baby’s father was.

She dropped her hand, straightened her posture, and left to meet Maxwell.

“Hey! You’re early,” he said, opening his bedroom door.

He had expected to meet her right before they went downstairs the way he always did.

“Yeah, I wanted to make sure I was on time,” she said, awkwardly rocking back and forth on her feet.

Maxwell moved aside so she could come in, and she perched herself on the edge of his bed as she watched him tie his shoelaces. She glanced around his room, her eyes going wide at the book she saw on his nightstand.

“Are you reading a pregnancy book?” she asked with a smile as she grabbed it and began flipping through it.

“Yeah! I figured if I wanted to help you I would need to understand what your body is going through,” Maxwell said as he finished tying his shoe. “Not that I could ever fully understand what your body is going through. You know, with me not having a uterus and all.”

Ali smiled at Maxwell’s sweet words.

“That’s really nice of you, Max!”

“I’ve been brushing up on my prenatal yoga too! Not to toot my own horn, but I think I’ll be ready to start teaching classes any day now,” he said, with a smile as he shrugged on his jacket.

“Brushing up? As in you already had prior knowledge of it?” she asked with a playful smile, not really thinking anything of her words.

A blush rose up onto Maxwell’s face, and he sputtered for a moment.

“Pshhhh, what! No! Why would I know anything about prenatal yoga? You’re the only pregnant woman I’ve ever met before in my life. Like ever,” he said nervously.

“Um, okay,” Ali responded confusedly, “Thanks anyway. It’s really sweet of you. You’re gonna be a great uncle!”

“Not just a great uncle,” Maxwell said returning to his usual demeanor, “I’m going to be Maxwell Jr.’s favorite uncle!”

“Maxwell Jr.?” Ali questioned with a smile. “What if it’s a girl?”

“Maxine,” Maxwell responded immediately. He had obviously given the topic a great amount of thought.

Ali watched as he made his way around the room, grabbing his wallet and shoving some dirty clothes into a hamper before making his way back to stand in front of her.

“So, are you excited to tell him?” he asked.

Just like that, the previous fun that they had been having disappeared. She began to fidget nervously again.

“No, I think I’m going to throw up,” she said, running her hand up and down her arms, in attempts to calm herself down.

“Maybe that’s just morning sickness,” Maxwell responded.

“Trust me. It’s not.”

“I think he’ll be happy,” he said, trying to make her feel better.

Ali looked up into Maxwell’s eyes and saw genuine hope there. It almost made her feel bad for being so cynical. But then she remembered that Maxwell wasn’t the one carrying the future king’s illegitimate child.

“I guess we’ll see,” she said, wanting to just drop the topic. “So who’s going to be at this dinner?”

“All of the suitors, Ben, Bertrand, Drake, Tariq, me, and two other noblemen I don’t think you’ve met. Neville and Rashad,” Maxwell responded.

She had been briefly introduced to Tariq already, but neither of them had ever gone out of their way to speak to each other, and he had seemed rather dull if she was being honest.

“Is there anything I need to know about these other noblemen?” she asked, as they began to make their way down to the dining room.

“Well, Rashad is pretty laid back. His only issue is that he doesn’t mind spending time with Neville,” Maxwell continued.

“Wow, Neville’s that bad?”

“Just be prepared to hear him insult Drake for being a commoner all night.”

“But, I’m a commoner,” she said as they walked through the palace halls.

“Yes, but he can’t insult one of Liam’s suitors right in front of him.”

They lined up with some of the other guests outside of the dining room, and Ali quietly observed the two men that she hadn’t previously met.

“I better not have to sit next to the commoner,” said one of them as the dining room doors opened.

“I’ll take a guess and say that’s Neville,” Ali mumbled to Maxwell under her breath.

He nodded wordlessly, and they found their seats.

“Of course she’s seated right next to the prince,” Kiara said to Penelope in an undertone as Ali sat down.

She took a deep breath and psyched herself up for what was sure to be a long night as everyone took their seats as well.

“Thank you all for joining me this evening,” Liam began once they were all seated. “As we are the new generation of leaders I thought it would be nice for us to spend an evening getting to know each other.”

“I think that’s a wonderful idea, Liam. However, many of us are already acquainted with each other,” Olivia spoke from her place on Liam’s other side.

There was a brief pause in conversation as the first course was served, and everyone began eating.

“Well, it’s been some time since we’ve all been together like this, and I do believe there are a few new faces here as well,” Liam said with a quick glance in Ali’s direction. “Lady Alison, I believe this is your first time meeting Lord Neville and Rashad.”

“Yes, it is,” she said, placing a kind smile on her face. “It’s very nice to meet you both.”

“It’s nice to meet you as well, my lady,” Rashad responded politely.

“Rashad spends most of his time on business trips. He’s often away from Cordonia for long periods of time,” Liam explained.

“I do enjoy my travelling, but Cordonia is my home,” Rashad elaborated.

“I completely understand. You can build a new home anywhere in the world, but there’s always a special attachment to the first,” Ali said.

“Exactly,” Rashad said, a small smile on his face.

“And where was your first home, Lady Alison?” Neville asked.

“I was born and raised in New York.”

“Oh,” he said.

“You seem surprised, Lord Neville,” she said, an amused smile on her face.

“It’s just that you look…” he trailed off, nodding in her direction as if that was supposed to make his point clearer.

“I’m sorry. How do I look?” she asked.

“Exotic,” he finished.

Ali had to stop herself from gagging.

“Yes, well my parents were first generation immigrants. They moved from the Caribbean to The States before I was born, so I was born and raised in New York,” she said, the displeasure evident in her voice.

“Good to see you’re as charming as ever, Neville,” Lizzie said sarcastically, causing the man to narrow his eyes at her.

Liam nudged her foot gently under the table, and when she looked over at him she could see him holding back a laugh. She narrowed her eyes at him and kicked him back harder, biting back her own smile. He let out a small cough to mask his laughter, but this did not go unnoticed by Olivia who was watching their interaction closely.

“Liam, it was so nice of you to set up this lovely dinner. Although, I have to admit I’m not completely sure why Drake’s here,” she said, smirking over at the other man.

“It’s because I’m a joy to be around, Olivia,” Drake shot back sarcastically.

“Yes, the man who never smiles is such a joy to be around,” the redhead responded.

“Drake has been a fixture at court since he was a child. He has also served as my trusted counsel more times than I can count. It seemed inappropriate to do this without him present,” Liam responded, ending the conversation with a hint of amusement in his own voice, obviously entertained by the interaction.

“I think Drake’s great!” Maxwell said happily from his spot on Ali’s other side.

“Yes, I’m sure Ali does too,” Madeleine mumbled as she brought her wine glass up to her lips.

Ali narrowed her eyes.

“I’m sorry I didn’t quite catch that,” she said, smiling sweetly.

Well, this night was going just about as well as she had assumed.

“I just said that I’m sure you agree with Maxwell’s sentiment. We all know that the two of you are quite fond of each other, but I was wondering when you planned on telling Prince Liam just how fond,” she said, a venomous smile on her lips.

“I’m sorry. I’m not sure what you’re referring to,” Ali said, bringing her own water glass to her lips and taking a sip of the cool liquid in attempts to calm the butterflies that had just erupted in her stomach.

“I’m referring to the fact that you’re pregnant with Drake Walker’s child,” Madeleine said, getting straight to the point and looking extremely proud of herself.

Ali, who had still been drinking her water, choked on the liquid and brought the glass back down to the table, attempting to clear her throat as several gasps were heard throughout the room. Maxwell patted her back in a way that was well meaning, but still unhelpful when you were choking on water.

“I’m sorry, but I’m still not sure what you’re referring to,” Ali said, her voice hard now and her shoulders tense.

“Oh, aren’t you?” Madeleine said, placing her phone on the table.

Ali and Drake’s voices filled the room from the speaker, and it felt like all the air had been sucked out of it as everyone heard their conversation from the first day of the Apple Blossom Festival.

“You’ve been avoiding me.”

“Yeah, I have.”

“You can’t ask me to get you a pregnancy test and then pretend like it didn’t happen.”

There was a momentary pause as neither of them spoke.

“Damn, what are you going to do?” he asked.

“I don’t know. I’m scared, Drake.”

“We’ll figure it out. I promise,” he said.

“I can’t have a baby! I’m still a baby!”

“Eh, I think you’re more of an angsty teen than you are a baby.”

“Sorry,” Drake said. “Look, I know you’re scared, but everything’s going to be okay. You’re not alone in this.”

Another moment of silence followed.

“You have to tell him,” he continued.

“I can’t. I don’t know how.”

The recording cut off after that point, but that didn't matter. It had already confirmed that she was pregnant.

Ali couldn’t breathe. Her initial reaction was to believe that this was all her fault. If she had just told Liam when she first found out then they wouldn’t be in this situation in the first place. He wouldn’t be finding out like this. The room seemed to be closing in on her. She was having a panic attack.

“Ali,” Liam said her name as he gently touched her arm.

He was sitting right next to her, but it sounded as if he were a million miles away. Kiara was muttering rapidly in French, and Olivia looked as if she had just been slapped in the face. She refused to even look at Bertrand. Then, a thought occurred to her.

“You didn’t hear the entire conversation,” she said, her voice hoarse as she tried to breathe normally.

“What?” Madeleine asked, the smile on her lips wavering the slightest bit.

“The entire conversation. That wasn’t the entire conversation,” she continued, trying to ignore the tightness in her chest.

“Y-yes, it was,” Madeleine responded, defensively.

“Actually, it wasn’t. You only heard what the person you had following us bothered to listen to,” Drake finally spoke up. “If you had heard the entire conversation you wouldn’t be making careless accusations.”

“What are you talking about?” Madeleine asked, her anger now evident.

“It’s not his baby, you idiot!” Olivia spoke up, quickly realizing what was going on.

Ali looked over to Liam for the first time since this conversation began. He hadn’t taken his eyes off of her the entire time, and his mouth was still hanging open in shock.

“I’m sorry you found out like this. I was going to tell you tonight,” she said, rising from her seat and walking to stand next to him.

Ali grabbed Liam’s hand and placed it on her stomach, still holding onto his wrist tightly. Liam was looking down at both of their hands intently. He didn’t speak for a few moments, but there were tears shining in his eyes when he looked back up to her.

“Are you sure?”

Ali nodded, and she was surprised at the large smile that crossed his face. Liam shot out of his seat and pulled her into his arms. He effortlessly lifted her off the floor and spun her in a circle. She wrapped her arms tightly around his neck in surprise and didn’t bother to stop the laugh that fell from her lips. In that moment they both forgot where they were. They forgot that they were in a room full of people, of women that were supposed to be vying for Liam’s hand in marriage.

“We’re going to be parents?” he asked, pressing his forehead to hers.

“Yeah, we are,” she said, gripping onto the lapels of his jacket tightly.

Happy tears were streaming down his face as he pressed kiss all over her face. His lips brushed against her forehead, her nose, her chin, and both of her cheeks before he finally pulled her into a sweet kiss. Both of them getting lost in each other.

“Well, this is awkward!” Lizzie said loudly, in attempts to draw them back to their current setting.

The two of them looked back over to the table to find a mixture of both shocked and confused expressions. Maxwell, Ben, and Lizzie were beaming at them excitedly. Olivia and Madeleine both looked furious but neither of them said anything, while Penelope and Kiara both looked upset, but resigned to the fact that they were never going to be chosen anyway.

Ali nervously glanced at Liam, but even though they were in an uncomfortable and unconventional situation, the man couldn’t keep the smile off of his face. He kept one hand on the small of her back, and she was interested to see how he would diffuse this situation.

“Prince Liam, Lady Alison, please come with me,” Bastien said, opening the dining room door and striding purposefully into the room.

Ali shot Liam another nervous look and followed Bastien out the room without a second thought, listening as Liam remained behind for a moment to address the dinner party.

“This wasn’t exactly what I had in mind when I told you to tell him,” Bastien mumbled to her under his breath.

“Yeah, it wasn’t what I had in mind either. But, at least we know who was following me,” she said back as Liam joined them.

“This is bad isn’t it?” Ali said, as he placed his hand on the small of her back.

“It is. But, I can’t seem to care right now,” Liam said, smiling down at her with love in his eyes.

“I’m sure your father will,” Bastien stated, breaking up their conversation and beginning to lead them up to Constantine’s office. “I already have someone up there explaining everything to him.”

They stopped outside of Constantine’s office just in time to see another member of the guard emerging from the room. The man looked shaken up, and he glanced nervously in their direction before continuing down the hall. Liam squeezed Ali’s hand reassuringly before entering the room with Bastien following behind them.

Constantine was leaning back in his office chair, his hand resting on the desk in front of him. The only light in the room was coming from a lit fireplace in the corner, and it was casting menacing shadows across his face. It almost made him look like a Disney villain.

“Please, sit down,” he said, gesturing to the chairs in front of the desk.

Liam pulled one of them out for her and allowed her to get situated before sitting down on a chair next to her. He rested a hand on her knee protectively and looked over at his father, an unreadable expression on both of their faces.

Ali was doing her best to refrain from showing her nervousness, but it was still obvious by the death grip she had on the wrist of Liam’s hand.

“So, it seems that the two of you have had an… eventful evening,” Constantine said, his voice filled with controlled anger.

She wasn’t sure what she was supposed to say. If he was looking for an apology he wasn’t going to get one. Her initial reaction was to blame herself, and she still did. She felt terrible for how Liam found out, but Madeleine was the one who had caused a scene.

“Yes, we have. I should be congratulating you. You’re going to be a grandfather,” Liam said, a smirk on his face.

Ali could tell he was trying to keep the mood light, but it seemed to have the opposite effect on the king.

“How long have you known?” Constantine asked, his gaze hard as he looked her over.

“A few days, sir,” she answered, her voice cracking slightly.

Her grip on Liam’s wrist tightened even further, and he reached over to place his other hand on top of hers, gently rubbing circles on her skin.

“And how long did you plan on keeping this information to yourself?” he asked, grabbing a bottle of bourbon from the side of his desk and refilling the glass next to it.

Liam’s eyes narrowed at his father’s accusatory tone, but he said nothing, his jaw clenched tightly shut.

“I was going to tell Liam after dinner tonight. I didn’t know that Madeleine knew or that she was planning to announce it,” she responded, her voice quiet but stronger this time.

Constantine looked at her appraisingly as he sipped from his glass.

“You were reckless,” he said, turning in his seat to meet Liam’s eye.

He laughed humorlessly before continuing.

“Leo has been reckless since the day he was born. He’s caused countless scandals that we’ve all had to help cover up and do damage control for, but never once has he gotten anyone pregnant!”

“That we know of,” Ali mumbled sarcastically under her breath.

She saw Bastien hold back a smirk at her comment, but Constantine didn’t seem too pleased with it.

“Get out! Both of you, get out of my sight!” he yelled, motioning for Ali and Liam to head to the door. “Bastien, stay behind.”

The two of them didn’t need to be told twice. They both scrambled out of their seats like scolded children and were out of his office in a heartbeat. They stopped once the door had closed behind them, exchanging nervous looks.

“Maybe I shouldn’t have said that,” Ali whispered.

Liam broke out into a grin and went to pull her into his arms, when they heard Constantine’s voice through the door. She brought a finger up to her lips in a shushing motion and pressed her ear to the door, pulling him to do the same.

“You’ve known this for a week, and you still didn’t come to me with it?” Constantine questioned, the same controlled anger in his voice as when they had first entered the room.

“I’ve only found out for sure a few days ago, sir. I’ve already set Lady Alison up with a guard, and I’ve been keeping her safe since,” the other man responded.

“That’s not the point! I told you to come to me with anything you found out about her, anything that could stop her from becoming queen. But, you kept this information to yourself and now look at what’s happened!”

Ali’s jaw dropped at his words, and Liam had a similar reaction. However, his shock was quickly replaced with anger, and she was forced to grab onto his arm to keep him from storming back into the office.

“I’m sorry, sir. I believed that due to the… sensitivity of the situation, Alison should have had time to come to terms with things before it was brought to anyone’s attention,” Bastien responded.

They didn’t stick around for the rest of the conversation. Ali pulled Liam away from the door, and led him back to her room. She shut the door behind him and turned to look to him. They were truly alone together for the first time since he found out about the pregnancy, and she wasn’t sure what to do now. There was a mix of anger and sadness on his face, and she wasn’t sure which topic she should address first: the pregnancy or his father’s intention to keep them apart.

She opened her mouth and closed it a few times, trying to figure out what to say. She kept searching for an articulate and neat way to tell him everything that was going through her mind, but when she couldn’t she just let the words spill out of her mouth. She told him about the Drake and the pregnancy test, about how someone (apparently Madeleine) wanted to make the press believe that Drake was the father. She told him about the guilt she had been feeling for keeping the pregnancy from him and how sorry she was for not doing it sooner. She let out all of her fears about what was going to happen now that everyone knew, but reminded him that she loved him and wanted this baby more than anything in the world.

Liam listened intently as she rambled on. She was about to start talking about what Constantine said when Liam stopped her.

“That was a lot of information to get in thirty seconds,” he joked, pulling her down to lay on her bed beside him.

She cuddled into his side, her face burning with embarrassment.

“Are you mad?”

“About what?” he asked, furrowing his brows in confusion and running his hand up and down her back.

“That I’m pregnant. That I didn’t tell you sooner,” she said.

He sighed and pulled her closer into him.

“I understand why you needed some time, but I do wish I hadn’t come out the way that it did,” he said.

“I’m so sorry. I was so scared, and I wanted to tell you, but I just kept picturing the worst case scenario, and every time I decided to tell you I would remember that your father didn’t think I would be a good queen, and-” she began rambling once again, her words coming out in a nervous jumble before Liam quieted her.

“I know that it wasn’t your intention for this to happen. I’m more upset with the situation than I am with you. If I wasn’t crown prince, if we didn’t have to worry about the press or the people, if I was just a normal man, then we could be celebrating instead of worrying right now,” he said more to himself than to her. “I still can’t believe we’re going to be parents.”

His voice was more cheerful when he said this than it had been a moment ago.

“Are you okay with everything?” she asked.

“I should be the one asking you that,” Liam chuckled.

“Well, you just found out that you’re going to dad and that your dad is a snake, so I just figured you may need more comforting than me right now,” she tried to say nonchalantly, but the bitterness was still evident in her voice.

“I can’t believe he was looking for ways to discredit you,” Liam said, running his hand down his face.

“I’m just glad he never found anything. I’ve never been more thankful for my boring ass life,” she said with a laugh.

“Your life isn’t boring,” Liam said, leaning down to press a kiss to the top of her head.

“It was! Before I came here my time consisted of me going to work, class, and then going home to binge watch Criminal Minds,” she said, pulling herself out of his arms and sitting up. “But, look at me now. I moved to a different country, and got knocked up by the future king.”

Ali looked into Liam’s eyes and smiled softly as his hand came up to cup the side of her face.

“We’re really having a baby,” he murmured, sitting up and pulling her into a gentle kiss.

Ali sunk into his embrace, her body falling on top of his as he lay back on the bed once again. He kissed her softly, not willing to pull away from her until they were both desperate for air.

“I love you,” he mumbled, before flipping them over and moving down to lay his head against her stomach where he repeated the words once again.

Ali smiled and began running her fingers through his hair. Liam’s arms wrapped around her hips as she did this, and it was just a matter of minutes before he was lulled to sleep by her gentle touch and soft breathing.

Ali woke the next morning to find Liam sleeping soundly beside her. She was still in her dress from the previous night, but he had woken up at some point in the night and pulled her blankets over their bodies. She sat up in bed and raised her arms above her head, stretching her muscles. Two arms snaked around her waist, pulling her back into the bed. Liam rested his head against her shoulder and pressed a few soft kisses to the exposed skin of her neck as his hand lovingly caressed her stomach.

“Good morning, my love,” he mumbled sleepily against her skin.

Ali turned to rest on her side so she could face him.

“Good morning,” she said, tracing the stubble on his jaw with the tips of her fingers.

He turned his head and pressed a gentle kiss to her palm, opening his eyes fully for the first time that morning and taking in the expression of the woman lying next to him.

“You look upset,” he observed, his voice still gravelly from sleep.

“I’m not upset. Just a little anxious,” she admitted. “What do you think your father’s going to do?”

Liam sighed and pulled Ali into him. She buried her face into the crook of his neck and closed her eyes.

“I’m not sure,” he began, his mind already reeling with ideas of how to proceed from here. “By now the news has probably made its way around. He can’t deny the pregnancy because a room full of people heard it confirmed.”

“I still can’t believe you found out like that,” Ali groaned, pushing her body closer into his. “I always imagined telling the father of my child that I was pregnant in a cutesy way. Not by being outed at a formal dinner party.”

The sound of Liam’s laughter filled her ears, and she pulled herself up so that she could glare at him.

“It’s not funny!”

Liam tried to suppress chuckles and sat up next to her when he failed.

“I don’t know how we ended up here, but I wouldn’t trade it for the world,” he said, pressing a gentle kiss on her forehead when his laughter finally subsided.

A loud knock interrupted their moment and they exchanged looks of disdain.

“So, time to face this, huh?” she asked, getting up and trying to straighten the dress she had fallen asleep in.

“We’ll do it together,” Liam reassured her, getting to his feet and grabbing his jacket from where he had carelessly thrown it on the floor the night before.

Ali took a deep breath and opened her room door. A pair of blue eyes were looking back at her with sympathy.

“The queen wants to see you and the king wants to see Liam,” Charlie said, taking in their disheveled appearance.

“What are they trying to do by separating us?” she narrowed her eyes and looked back at Liam.

“I don’t know, but you should change before you meet with Regina,” he said, stepping forward and giving her a gentle kiss. “Don’t worry, I promise everything will be okay. And, don’t let her intimidate you.”

“That’s a lot easier said than done!” Ali called after his retreating frame.

“Everything will be okay!” he called back.

Ali looked over at Charlie incredulously, but the man simply shrugged in response. She rolled her eyes and let out a sigh.

“Give me a second to get changed.”

She dressed quickly, not wanting to keep the other woman waiting, but also not at all looking forward to their meeting. The fact that Constantine and Regina wanted to meet with them separately didn’t sit well with her. Why couldn’t they speak to them together?

“How bad do you think this is going to be?” she asked Charlie as he trailed alongside her on their way to meet the queen.

“I don’t know, but remember she can smell fear,” he joked in attempts to cheer her up.

Ali glared at him and he shrunk away from her gaze, shooting her a sheepish smile in apology.

“Okay, I can do this,” she said to herself, straightening her spine and knocking on the door to Regina’s study.

“Come in,” the queen called through the door.

“Good morning, ma’am,” Ali said as she entered the room .

“Lady Alison, please join me,” she said, motioning to the small sitting area of the room.

Ali awkwardly perched herself on the edge of the chair next to Regina’s.

“Tea?” the woman asked, already pouring hot tea into a small teacup and handing it to her.

Ali accepted the cup and took a small sip of the liquid. She had always been a coffee person and didn’t really care for tea, but she thought it would be inappropriate to refuse it.

“So, it seems that we have run into a spot of trouble,” Regina began, leaning back comfortably in her chair.

Ali mustered up a small smile, but remained silent.

“Of course, we can’t deny the rumors that have already begun to spread. Not when an entire dinner party heard it confirmed.”

“I’m sorry that happened. It was my intention to tell Liam in private, but Madeleine announced it before I had the chance to speak with him,” Ali said, bringing the teacup back to her lips again.

“Yes, well Madeleine’s actions were unfortunate for all of us,” Regina responded, a hint of anger in her voice.

Ali nervously glanced out the window, unsure who Regina was more angry with, her or Madeleine.

“But, that being said, we can still take care of this before it gets out of hand. So, how much?”

Ali furrowed her brows in confusion.

“I’m sorry, how much what?” she asked, placing the teacup back onto its saucer and putting it down on the small table in front of them.

“How much do you want to make our little problem go away,” Regina said casually.

Ali’s jaw dropped, and she made no attempt to regain her posture, her mind moving a million miles a minute.

“M-make our problem go away!” she said incredulously. “You mean to get rid of it?”

“Yes,” Regina replied calmly.

“Oh, my god!” she said, shooting out of her chair and pacing up and down in front of the queen. “I- I can’t believe… I don’t want money!”

She continued her meltdown, the queen relaxing in her chair, watching her reaction with a look of amusement. Ali felt sick to her stomach at the proposition. Even more so to the fact that Regina seemed to find her reaction entertaining.

“Come now, you can’t possibly believe that you and Liam are just going to have this child and live happily ever after can you? The fact that you’re carrying an illegitimate heir to the throne is bad enough, but that can still be remedied. However, Cordonia would be doomed if you became queen,” Regina said with a laugh.

Ali opened and closed her mouth repeatedly in a way that resembled a fish. She had no idea what to say to that.

“Yeah, cause I’m sure the people would just love the thought of me aborting Liam’s baby,” she finally said sarcastically.

“Oh, no, not an abortion. You lose the baby and run home to New York overcome with grief. Liam mourns for a day or two and then chooses another one of the suitors and moves on with his life,” Regina states, a feigned look of sympathy on her face.

Ali let out a humorless laugh and gripped the sides of her head in her hands.

“So you would just lie to everyone?”

“Yes.”

“Wow, you really have it all figured out, don’t you?”

“Yes.”

“Well, sorry, but that’s NOT going to happen,” she said, turning without another word and walking out the door.

She ran straight into the Charlie in the hallway, tears welling up in her eyes as the weight of Regina’s words fully came down on her.

“Where’s Liam?” she asked him through gritted teeth.

“I think he’s back in his office. I take it the meeting didn’t go well,” he said, looking over her red rimmed eyes.

She turned and walked into the direction of Liam’s office without another word, barely aware of the man trailing behind her. Already overcome with emotion, she threw his door open without even bothering to knock.

“You’re stepmother just offered to pay me off to have an abortion and leave the country!” she shrieked.

“What?” Liam asked, caught off guard because of her sudden appearance and not fully processing her words.

“I’ll make a terrible queen anyway, so you can just tell everyone that I lost the baby and decided to leave, and then you can just move on with your life!” she continued, beginning to pace the length of his office now instead.

“My love, please calm down,” Liam tried to say in a soothing voice.

However, this only served to agitate Ali even more.

“Don’t tell me to calm down!” she yelled hysterically. “I’ve never been more insulted or disgusted in my life! And that’s saying something considering I’ve spent the past three years as a waitress for drunk frat guys!”

“Bastien, Drake, please give us a minute,” Liam spoke into the corner of the room behind her.

Ali turned and noticed the two men standing there for the first time since she entered. They both looked extremely uncomfortable and wasted no time in heading to the door.

Liam’s heart broke as he looked back at the woman he loved. He had seen Ali upset on several occasions. He had seen her break down and have panic attacks. He knew what her bad depression days looked like, and he knew what she was like when she was feeling insecure. But, the man had never seen her look this distraught. There were tears streaming freely down her face, and her entire body was shaking.

“My love, look at me,” he said, walking over to her and taking her face into his hands. “That is not going to happen.”

He leaned down and pressed a gentle kiss on her forehead, keeping his mouth against her skin for a few moments longer, in attempts to calm her down. His thumbs unconsciously stroked her cheeks, wiping away her tears. Ali wrapped her hands around Liam’s wrists, desperate to keep him close to her after the things that Regina said. As they stood there, the sound of Ali’s sobs the only noise filling the room, neither of them knew what to say, only that they needed to be near each other.

After her breathing had finally returned to normal, Ali released Liam’s wrists. She was about to move away from him when he pulled her back into him, their chests pressed together and his forehead resting against hers.

“Marry me,” he whispered softly.

#the royal romance #trr #the royal heir #trh #liam x mc #liam #king liam #my fics #drake walker #drake x mc #trr fic #playchoices #playchoices fic #liam x mc fanfic

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okimargarvez · 5 years

Text

FEW HOURS IN LUKE ALVEZ’S MIND - 1

Original title: Few hours in Luke Alvez’s mind.

Prompt: Luke’ POV, memory of war.

Warning: quote of 12x1.

Genre: comedy, family, angst, friendship.

Characters: Luke Alvez, Penelope Garcia, BAU team.

Pairing: Garvez.

Note: oneshot.

Legend: 🔦🐶.

Song mentioned: none.

Few hours in Luke Alvez’s mind- Masterlist

GARVEZ STORIES

Part 1-

I spend the whole evening thinking about what Rossi has told me. I was happy to receive that call. Being among the first to know that Daniel Cullen, aka the Crimson King, had participated in the great escape, was very positive. From that cursed day I couldn't take the image out of my head of that monster while was quartering my partner, and, what I never say when I tell the story of his capture, even my best friend. It's something that will haunt me for a lifetime. And of bad things, with the work I do, it's not that I have no way of seeing them.

Is not even to be discussed if I'll collaborate with the BAU, the answer is obviously yes. I want to capture Cullen as much as, but what I’m saying, far more than them. The only thing that kept me going in this period was knowing him right behind bars. But I don't want to definitively join the Behavioral Analysis Unit. I'm not a profiler. I don't see myself trying to penetrate the perverse minds of people like Cullen, or worse. And what I do now, I like it. I can't say I adore it, no, but I feel good and in the end, it's not that you can always expect the best.

Roxy enters the room, in all her splendor. As usual, she manages to make me stop thinking about work and tear me a smile. -Come here.- I say, making a sign her to sit on the couch next to me. And she does it, in a rather stormy way. A pillow falls on her head. I stroke her, and she reciprocates me with a kiss.

-What do you say, let's go to bed?- she seems to nod and so we get up, heading towards the bedroom, one next to the other. Another of the things for which I didn't completely lose my mind is her. She stayed near me, during this period. I love her more than my life.

I don't think I will be able to rest seriously, but I must at least try. Tomorrow will be a long day. Wake up early and go to Washington. Roxy certainly will not like the idea of moving. She adores the landscapes of this area, the long tree-lined avenues, the fragrant bushes. But at least until Daniel Cullen goes back where he has to stay permanently (on the other side of the bars), I'll have to go to Quantico very often, so I think it's better that we have a place to stay, so we don't have to come back and forth. And surely, I couldn't leave her here alone, I miss her terribly.

The alarm rings while I'm finishing to get dress. I anticipated it for a full fifteen minutes. As I had imagined, I could hardly close my eyes. I've traveled through several mini dreams, I don't even know if I can define them, I don't remember most of them, but I seem to remember the atmosphere, dark, absurd, properly dreamlike. Some of those were vaguely related about a sort of interview to be hired as a profiler, although it isn't something I want, in reality. Some people all the same, both as clothes and as a physical appearance, indistinguishable between men and women, they asked me quickfire questions, not even I was under questioning or they were making me the test of polygraph. And my answers were always wrong or inaccurate. Only the fact of returning to the real world, panting, sweating and with an extra weight on my heart, convinced me that I had slept at least one or two hours altogether.

Fortunately, the plane lands without a minute's delay, ignoring the fact that, predicting the worst, I booked to get to Quantico an hour earlier. Here I am in front of the headquarters of the Bureau: immense, very high, reminds me of certain buildings filmed in the poetic documentaries of the avant-garde (the influence of my brother is felt). It certainly helps to instill in those who are about to enter, a certain sense of authority and smallness by contrast. But I'm only here as a collaborator, what tormented me is just a dream and it doesn't come close to reality.

As soon as I set foot inside, I am shocked by the number of stairs that branch out in every direction and the counters with beautiful secretaries, apparently available. But I don't need to ask for any information, Rossi has already told me what I needed to know. And so, I take the elevator (normally I wouldn't do it, but I don't want to get sweaty right the day I get to know the other members of the unit, with whom I'll have to spend some time anyway...). I arrive in a flash, too quickly, and I'm immediately punished for this lazy choice: my head is now turning, and a certain sense of nausea is rising... Reminder for the future: don't take the elevator any more.

I risk of bumping into a blonde woman, busy carrying a lot of cards. It'll be my gaze, which despite my efforts is still disoriented, or it'll be her precarious position, the fact is that she raises her eyes to mine a moment before our bodies are likely to collide and this is enough to recognize me as the newcomer, the exterior.

-Hey, you are Luke Alvez, the man of the task force?- her voice isn't exactly as I guessed, it's decided and transmits a great determination. Apparently, she looks like a pretty, sweet woman, but I think she'll reserve more surprises. I nod.

-Exactly, I must have right a lost air, for being caught on the first shot...- I throw one of my friendly smiles. She gives me her right hand, I squeeze it. From the corner of my eye I notice a beautiful wedding ring in the ring finger of the other hand.

-Jennifer Jareau, but you can call me JJ.- it sounds good, it sounds good for her. -I imagine you're here for the case of the Crimson King...- just hearing that nickname make me nervous, but if her notice it, she doesn't seem to give it much weight. -Wait that I place these folder, then I'll show you the way.- she starts heading to a door, I follow her. -We were just about to make a meeting to talk about the progress made so far. Thanks to you, less than half of the escapees came back inside.- in saying the last sentence, she turns to me and gives me a very warm and sincere smile.

-I only did my job...- a lines that seems extrapolated from a classic Hollywood police film. JJ giggles anyway. She opens a locker, throws inside everything she has in her hands, then she closes it.

-Well, we can go.- I nod, without saying anything and I follow her, looking around intrigued, hoping that at least it won't be notice, everything: it is very different from the place where I work, is full of desks, each "decked out" personal way, higher up there must be the offices of the "big bosses". We arrive at the door, this is transparent but so that those on the other side can see us, but not us him. It turns out to be a fairly small room, in the center a round table, chairs, a screen, a blackboard directly attached to one of the glass walls. Sitting on one of them there is just Rossi, next to him a dark-haired man, completely focused on the documents he is reading, but even so it seems to convey a shady air. The Italian-American looks up at the sound of someone entering and realizes that besides JJ there is also someone new, me.

-Luke!- he stands up and reaches us. -I'm glad you managed to get there on time. I see you've met JJ...- we both nod. Even the other man, who should be the boss, is approaching. -Hotch, this is the boy- this term makes me feel extremely young -that helped us to take those criminals...- I feel a certain embarrassment or perhaps it is more awe, when I meet the gaze of the boss.

-Well, it's a pleasure to meet you. Aaron Hotcher.- the tone in this case fits perfectly to his person, but also reveals that behind that armor in one piece there is a man loyal to duty but that puts the whole heart in everything he does. Maybe I should really do the profiler, I do nothing but shoot judgments on anyone starting from nuances of the voice and ways of doing, as I have set foot in Quantico. He holds out his hand and for the umpteenth time, certainly not the last, I find myself doing this formal ritual.

-Luke Alvez.- at the same time a tall, slender, professional-looking brunette woman comes.

-Excuse the delay, the damn coffee machine has decided not to cooperate...- she notices me early enough, not that it is a very complex operation. Probably they didn’t explain to all members of the team the possibility of a collaboration on my part, because she appears confusing. I don’t know whether to resolve the problem directly or if I have to wait for the boss to introduce me. In the end, luckily, Rossi thinks about it.

-Tara, remember that we asked for someone who could help us to capture the escapees?- after a few seconds, she nods. For a moment she seems lost in who knows what memory. -Here, he is our trump card- if he continues like this, he will make me blush -Luke Alvez , task force.- I approach her, shake her hand, her is a very delicate hold, perfectly matched with the tone of her velvety voice.

-Tara Lewis.- I hope that for now the pleasantries are over, but it is a rather utopian desire. I seemed to remember that they were more, of course, a few months ago they lost one of their member, some voices have come in my house, he was kidnapped him and then someone had shot his pregnant wife... logical that he decided to move on. However, they still seem to me too few.

-Unfortunately we can’t begin, we must wait for our computer technician.- Hotchner explains, probably turning more to me than to others. I nod, everyone sits down, so I do too. A few minutes later the door opens (apparently for the last time) and, stumbling, hidden by a pile of yellow folders that remind me of the years in the police, and a computer, enters a woman, a spot of various shades of pink and yellow, the color of her hair. Of course, when the boss told "our computer technician", I thought he was referring to a man, but it was a masculine thought, the result of a legacy still present in our society, however much we would deny it and affirm the opposite. Resting the material on the table, finally she reveals her figure, even if for a few seconds. She quickly distributes the folders, one in front of me and I can’t help but notice the amount of bracelets and the variety of shapes that adorn her arm, as well as the colored nails in a very creative way. OK, the nerds are pretty eccentric, but I could never have expected a similar computer scientist. Rossi tries to get her attention, but she clearly ignores him, preferring to dedicate herself to the screen, which suddenly comes on.

-We can start.- Hotchner says solemnly. Nobody replies anything, only the blond woman, the only one left standing, who nods and handling what looks like a common remote control, starts the presentation of the case.

-As you all know, not the all evaded have yet been captured. Last night, in Durham, a man was sighted whose description corresponded exactly to that of the wanted number one: Peter Lewis, aka Mister Scratch.- first a map appears to locate exactly the detection area, next to a picture that I remember, one of the worst serial killers that America has known. Yet a part of me is distracted by the thought of how much the analyst's voice is sweet. Sweet, I can’t think of another adjective that can describe it well. -...unfortunately there are no cameras in that area, so we have only the testimony of a woman who was walking with her dog.- I try to go back to concentrating on serious things, even if it is a complex matter, because the gaze is attracted , willy-nilly, towards those bright colors that completely contrast with the things we are talking about in this room, with the photographs projected on the screen behind her (many victims of Scratch, almost used as a reminder to have one more reason to find him) and with the atmosphere in general.

-We have any kind of identikit?- Tara asks, sitting next to me. The woman, of whom I don’t even know the name, nods and here appears what is required. There is no doubt that there are significant similarities with the killer who enjoys not killing, preferring to push others to do so, prey to nightmares and dark visions.

-Unfortunately the situation remains virtually unchanged.- the comment seems to close the question, it’s the oldest in the room who has talking.

-Dave is right.- the boss is in agreement. -We can move on to the second topic of the day, the main reason why agent Alvez is among us.- I feel the lights of the spotlight on me. Without having to add anything else, every data about Lewis disappears and in its place, peeks out the seemingly normal face, perhaps even more frightening, of the criminal that I more hate, of the man who has ruined Phil's life and by reflex also mine, ripping off whole nights of sleep and serenity, that I will not get back...

-Daniel Cullen, also known as the Crimson King.- I realize after a few seconds that my hand is tigh in a fist. I try to relax, with poor results. -There is no news from the escape, but an anonymous source, a call from a telephone booth, to be exact. He told Durham police he had seen Cullen with Mister Scratch. This is the only thread we can follow to get out of the maze.- the joke rips out a few laughs to the colleagues, but not to Hotcher, who remains serious.

-If there are no other comments- he even says, almost scolding the blonde, who raises her eyes to the sky (probably they are used to it, among them will be a kind of game or ritual) -I would say that for today we can conclude. Agent Alvez, do you feel like joining us in the search?- is the simplest question someone could ask me. -We do not know exactly when the track on Cullen will open again.- he adds, but I have already made a decision.

-Sure.- he nods, satisfied.

-Ok, then if there isn’t other news, we will update tomorrow morning.- and repeated what looks like a formula now standardized, the meeting is dissolved, all stand up, JJ reaches the other blonde and exchange a few words with her, I can’t distinguish enough to understand the logical sense. And it should not interest me. I see Rossi and Tara coming out and, in a moment, we are left alone. It seems to me the right moment to conclude the presentations and finally to give a name to her too, which launches an almost painful and desperate look in the direction where her colleague has disappeared. Then I'll stop calling her just the blonde or computer technician.

-Hey, we haven’t be introduced yet, I'm the agent of the task force, Luke Alvez.- she seems to hardly direct the eyes in my direction and takes much longer than normal to allow them to cross with mine. Her are brown, but not dark, of various shades of hazelnut, framed beautifully by a pair of pink glasses (rightly matched to the clothes) and long and refined eyelashes.

-Penelope Garcia.- the tone is very different from the one she used during the meeting, absurdly it seems darker at this moment, than when she was intent on commenting horrible images. The name is interesting, certainly not really common, yet truly mythical or mythological. And the surname makes me think of a background that is closer to mine, and yet her appearance does not seem that of a Latin, American or not. We exchange a hasty close, which gives me the time to just guess the freshness of her skin. Even her ring finger, like that of JJ, is occupied by a ring, but unlike the other blonde, is in good company. You don’t need to be a profiler to say that she likes all kinds of wearable accessories. -Now I'm sorry, but I'm very busy.- said this, she takes her computer and virtually without even looking at me, leaves the room. That's why I could never be a good profiler: from the way she is dressed, she has talked and even from her tone of voice, I would have imagined anything but a woman as cold and detached as she seems now.

As I mull over, I look up and find myself in front of a tall, very young man, definitely more than me, lightly long and long brown hair, a particular look and a briefcase in one hand.

-Luke Alvez?- he asks and I wonder if by chance I don’t have an ID sticker printed on the front. I nod. -I’m Spencer Reid.- that name reminds me of some detail provided by Rossi (of course).

-Ah! No handshaking, right? Your reputation precedes you.- the other is pleasantly impressed and smiles.

-I just came back and we already have a case.- he goes to a desk, collects something, some sheets, a book, then closes his bag with a click. He turns in my direction and seems to be about to say something but is interrupted by the entrance of the three ladies of the BAU, two blondes and a brunette. The smallest accelerates the pace and reaches us.

-Spencer!- she exclaims with great joy, and then hugs him with a lot of transport. I move away a few inches, partly embarrassed to be unwittingly the third wheel in what seems like a private moment. Here comes the other two, Tara greets the young man with a smile, while Penelope takes the place of JJ, hugging him with a lot of tenderness.

-How are you, my boy wonder?- the voice takes with more force those sweet nuances that I had guessed while she was explaining the case and that has not had only with me. She doesn’t give him the time to answer. -And how is your mother?- but maternal is the adjective that I would use to describe her attitude, in general, towards Spencer. The way she scrutinizes him, apprehensively, her gestures, precise and delicate.

-She is much better.- he exclaims, opening his serious face in a big smile.

-JJ, where can I find your archive? I would like to see all the material you have about... Daniel Cullen.- the blonde nods, but glances at the computer technician.

-If you are looking for information, of any kind, she is the woman to whom you must address.- this phrase comes out with an almost complacent tone, even if I don’t understand the reasons. The other realizes that she has been called into question and turns towards us. -Garcia, could you help Luke find the complete file on the Crimson King?- she asks, before I can do it, leaving me a bit confused. I don’t understand why she seems to want to be an intermediary between us. Garcia nods, snorting and throwing a look that I would call homicidal, just directed to JJ, who smiles strangely once again. Something is happening that I'm completely unaware of. But for now, I decided to pretend nothing happened.

-Follow me.- says Penelope, without even looking at me, start to walking regardless of whether I'm behind her or not. I quickly greet the others and reach out to her. It makes me feel strange, that she is the only one that uses this formal tone. Even Hotch immediately talked to me in another tone and practically demanded the same from me. And after have seen her interact with Spencer, I don’t think she is a super formal type, but... maybe it's better to refrain from judging, for today. We enter a room surrounded by lockers, like those in the libraries where the old catalogs were kept. The rest is made up of files and rows of tables, each equipped with a computer that doesn’t seem to last generation at all. She approaches one, turning it on, typing in a password (even if I don’t have time to follow her fingers flickering on the keys) and the screen lights up. -Here, it is enough that you type the name you need in this space and you will see a list of everything you need. In part it will be directly present in the system in electronic format and if you want you can print a copy. Otherwise, an acronym will appear that corresponds to the location of the document you are looking for. At this point you will have to turn to one of the archivists.- she explains in a calm voice, totally devoid of those pretty inflexions she had just a moment ago. -Good work.- and she goes away.

-Thank you.- I reply, too late.

TAGS: @arses21434 @kathy5654 @martinab26 @reidskitty13 @jenf42 @gracieeelizabeth27 @silviajajaja @smalliemichelle99 @charchampagne14 @thinitta @myhollyhanna23 @garvezz @mercedes-maldonado @shyladystudentfan @cosmicmelaninflower @kiki-krakatoa @pegasus-scifichick @ leftlamphumanfestival

#garvez #criminal minds #cm #penelope garcia #luke alvez #roxy #aaron hot #david rossi #spencer reid #tara lewis #jennifer jareau #penelope x luke #luke x penelope #garcia x alvez #alvez x garcia #the crimson king #12x01 #luke POV

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deltastorm101 · 5 years

Text

Mirror’s Edge Catalyst - A (critical) love letter.

Hello and welcome back to another episode of “a review I thought I could never write because I’m way too emotionally attached to this game which I know insanely, almost creepily well”, mixed with a healthy dose of “I should do everything but write this review because I want to finish school at some point but I have to use the surge of inspiration while it lasts”!

Today we will be talking about Mirror’s Edge Catalyst, which was released 2016 as a prequel-ly reboot (saying it like this because for the longest time I’ve thought it to be a prequel but turns out it’s a lot more like a reboot... my bad) to the first Mirror’s Edge from 2008 (which, by the way, still looks fantastic today considering its release year). I will occasionally throw in references and aspects from the first game as well, but this will primarily be about Catalyst.

Time for game 👏 review 👏!

And as always - warning: spoilers. I’ll try to keep the really huge ones out of this or at least mark them well, but going off and playing for yourself first is recommended.

To start this off, I want to say that I initially loved the first Mirror’s Edge - however, only after playing Catalyst, I realized how bad the controls and bugs in it actually were, which is another way of saying Catalyst is a miracle when it comes to naturally flowing controls and crisp and polished looking environments. The city it takes place in, “Glass”, is breathtakingly gorgeous, period. Shiny, clean, it is just on point and one of the biggest reasons I consider it to be my favourite game from the day I first played it, hands down. Not even one of the new Tomb Raider games or one of my childhood-reminiscent games were able to top it and that means something.

The game takes place in an open world map complex under a totalitarian government, drawing parallels to George Orwell’s “1984” – big brother is watching you, all that. A dystopian world if I’ve ever seen one. The open world aspect is one of the best decisions the developers could have made; I have no words to describe how beautiful the different city districts are, and being able to run in freeroam through the city of Glass like parkour runners are meant to feels so much better than being trapped in closed-off levels like it was the case in the first game.

When I first wrote down some key aspects for this review while I was playing it once more, I noted that apparently, you only truly understand the game’s backstory and the protagonists’ origins if you’ve bought and read the comic, Mirror’s Edge Exordium, and that I think it’s not that important because you can well understand what’s going on at the beginning without it – the game starts with Faith, the main protagonist, getting out of jail/a sort of juvenile detention, making her way back into her old circle of friends and family and, of course, old unresolved and new unconsidered problems and conflicts. The comic basically explains what has been messed up by who to make her end up in juvie in the first place and, as I said, it’s not really necessary to know. But, after having bought it now after literal years of consideration, I can say that it’s definitely very nice to know, and totally worth it. There are a lot of elements from the game carefully and lovingly worked into the comic and vice versa (I don’t know what was written first, comic or game, but they fit together very nicely), and just having more reasons, more answers, a larger overview and even partly some explanations for the first game feels... right.

The voice acting is good overall – not strikingly awesome but definitely up there, especially during emotional cutscenes. Sometimes the controls are a bit wonky and Faith might not immediately do what your fingers tell her to but that could definitely be on me - in games where fast reaction is important, quick time events can go wrong occasionally, nothing new. There are some passages you could consider a QTE but they’re being displayed early enough for you to be able to mentally prepare for them as far as I see it. And in my book, that’s a massive improvement from the first game, where you were able to press a button perfectly in time even while having reaction time (= a temporary slow mode) activated, and still watch Faith gracefully fall down the side of the building while flailing her arms in fear because she didn’t grab onto that perfectly grabbable practical white ledge. Why, you ask? I don’t know, ask Faith. Oh, you can’t, obviously made clear by the nasty sound of her hitting the road and her neck being snapped apart. Seriously, I cringed to the moon and back when I first heard that ugly sound. Which is another thing they improved in Catalyst; now all you hear is her quick, raspy, fear-filled breaths and a blissful silence paired with a white death screen after you’ve hit a death barrier. Not the ground, a death barrier. There’s a shitload of them. Which is a pity regarding the fact that a whole lot more out-of-bounds areas would be reachable and playable if there weren’t. Honestly, I find it kind of disappointing that there’s this many invisible walls, fall-through grounds and death barriers. I can see why, conserving computing resources to avoid loading screens, blah blah, but still... let me go off the map, dammit. The game is about a group of people living “off the grid”, why can’t the player actually do that? Hm? Hmmm?

Another aspect tying into this is the social playing mechanic(s), which I found interesting but indeed totally unnecessary. We all know leaderboards of races and stuff, which were incorporated here as setting the best time in short, timed courses (“dashes”), which naturally have been hacked and cheated into ridiculousness. No, RunnerMaster69, I do not believe you ran that dash in three seconds and 420 nanoseconds, I just don’t. Upon completing a dash, you leave an ‘echo’, so basically a ghost other players can compare themselves to, and for you to see which route another player took. Nothing too groundbreaking on that front. There’s a way of tagging locations you’ve been to: so-called Beat Link Emitters (Beat L.E.s) are like little chips shining red in the world you can put down wherever you’re able to stand safely and have them appear in other people’s games to touch, which is a nice way of incorporating a way of saying “Hey, look where I was able to climb!” (And yes, I have abused this system; there’s a glitch making it possible for Faith to float down high buildings onto lower ones, which aren’t death-barriered but not reachable on a normal way. You bet I was a floating gurl putting down Beat L.E.s whereeeeever I could. So much fun. Sorry.)

The same goes for hackable billboards, which can also appear in your friends’ games, but they could have been designed a lot more interestingly. If you hack a billboard, your runner tag appears on it, which consists of a visual symbol, a frame around it, and a background. You can customize the tag in a companion app, which again I didn’t really find necessary. But it is pretty self-explanatory and a nice gimmick if you’re into that kinda stuff.

Maybe an irrelevant aspect: Faith is wearing the same outfit (almost) throughout the whole game. Only at the beginning while getting to the runners’ lair she’s wearing something different and I see missed potential there: let the player run in these clothes, or in the prison clothes, or in the clothes from Mirror’s Edge 1, or in some of the fancy clothes Glass’ high society is wearing, or generally different runner’s attire which still stays true to the style, or Black November garb... endless opportunities, missed. Not at all crucial, but in my opinion maybe better than some different-looking billboard...

Coming back to the (back-)story aspect once more; as with all of today’s big triple-A games, there’s a looooot of documents and recordings to find, to give the player a loooot of backstory, which I found terribly overdone. It always felt like there was too much to collect and too few actual story told; not to mention some story bits not being in either of the games or their collectables, but in a separately sold comic, well done EA, well done.

Additionally, a lot of the documents were about literal history of the state called Cascadia and the ‘conglomerate’ and Omnistat and the November Riots (don’t worry if you have no idea what these words mean, I don’t either...) and regarding the fact that I finished taking history in school with a D ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)... you can imagine I wasn’t that interested in the actual history elements. Give me story anytime, but get the hi- prefix outta here please.

Another thing that I just very recently discovered: Some of the performed parkour movements are inaccurate. Thanks to my new interest of binging parkour tutorial videos I’ve seen actual mistakes in movement (in both games), which I can understand sometimes because some of them have been implemented on purpose and for a reason. For example: A parkour safety roll is performed sideways, with one of your shoulders hitting the floor first and the impact being absorbed and reduced by your whole back rolling over the ground in a diagonal line, ending in one of your feet carrying over the fall’s momentum for you to be able to stand up and run right along, probably even faster than before the drop. In the first game, this was handled straight up terribly; not only did Faith not roll diagonally but straight on her spine, which fuckin hurts if you perform it after you took a fall and is dangerous as all hell, but all her momentum got lost as well - it didn’t make any difference if you took a hard fall, the screen flashed red and you had to build new momentum, or if it was a soft fall with a nice (hurting and dangerous) roll, her stopping dead in her tracks like “Oh wow, did you see that, I made a roll” and then continuing to build new momentum because it all got lost. BUT since this is about Catalyst: Faith is still performing a straight spine-hurting-dangerous-as-all-hell-roll, but at least she keeps her momentum when she does it. Regarding to what I said at the beginning of this semi-rant-paragraph because I’ve “studied” (emphasis on the quotation marks) parkour theory so much at this point, yet am not able to actually perform any moves because I don’t have the strength, stamina or willpower to- Uh, where was I...? Ah, yeah, the reason for the incorrectly performed roll. It’s obvious when you think about it: motion sickness, a gamer’s best friend when it comes to first-person perspective. If Faith was performing a correct roll, it would turn and shake the camera around too much, which could potentially make the player motion sick over time. Period. Look up some first-person safety roll footage on YouTube and you’ll see what I mean. So, there’s a reason, and we should be thankful the roll is a straight gymnastics roll. Sorry Faith, looks like your spine and neck have to suffer a little longer. However, I can and will not understand why they have Celeste, a character from the first game, climb up ledges with her knees and elbows. No. NO. Feet first. If you can’t do feet first, then do one foot first and then pull up the rest. If you can’t do that, train more and don’t call yourself a runner yet, doing this for a living on top of I-dunno-how-high-rooftops.

My feelings are kind of ambivalent on the no-guns mechanics - all you can defend yourself with is your fists (and legs and momentum, of course), while in the first game, you could snatch people’s guns and start some weaponized combat. I liked both of these strategies, not really caring when they announced Faith not being able to do shootieshootie-pewpew this time around.

One thing I liked a lot considering the open world aspect is that if you die, you respawn exactly where you last stood on safe ground before dying (except in missions, of course). It makes freeroaming very comfortable because you don’t have to worry about respawn- and checkpoints; you can just try again when you messed up a jump.

They also changed the beacon- and navigation system (“runner’s vision”) a bit too, which was also definitely necessary for the open world (which they’ve praised as a lot less linear, but honestly? It isn’t really. I knew my way around in Glass pretty well after a mere month of playing), but they did include options for how much you want the game to help you. There’s normal runner’s vision, with a red streak appearing every few seconds, showing you exactly where to run; there’s classic runner’s vision, made to be like in the first game, with environmental beacons and indicators being coloured in red when coming close to them and without the red streak; and of course, you can switch it off completely, which I occasionally like to do to test how well I really know my way around in Glass.

The soundtrack is outstanding. Straight up phenomenal. It can empower and hype you up, but can also be relaxing during a relaxing sightseeing trip through Glass. And it’s also great to leave on as background music while studying (I’m making use of that when preparing for graduation exams), or driving.

There is dynamic day- and night time - I liked that a lot, it’s a good way of showing off the lighting at all sorts of times. Only problem I had: a night sky is supposed to be black, not royal blue.

Note: almost all the “problems” I’ve listed here have been made mods for (e.g. more exciting looking billboards, more outfits, a changeable day-night cycle and a black night sky). If I had enough experience with (and patience for) modding, I’d definitely try it myself but the ‘flaws’ aren’t grave enough for me to feel a desire to manipulate and tweak some game files.

Okay, time for a spoiler. Not a bad one, but one that could give you ideas if you know how Mirror’s Edge rolls, or if you’ve played the first game... which is basically a spoiler in itself too. Ahem, anyway.

Towards the end of the game, when I was profoundly convinced of it being one of my all-time favourites, I was like “Yes, finally a game that improves and learns from past mistakes and listens to their players and what they want”... and then came Noah. I bawled my eyes out and I will be forever angry at the devs for doing this. That’s all I’m saying.

That ultimately didn’t stop me from loving the game though. From an objective standpoint I’d say it’s an overall good prequel/reboot/requel/preboot. Faith’s universe became a bit more mainstream but also a lot more polished and they definitely listened to their fans to some degree. From the very subjective standpoint I have written this review from, I’m saying that Mirror’s Edge Catalyst holds a very special place in my heart and I am truly glad it saw the light of day, after everyone waiting 8 years for it to be released after the first game. (I didn’t wait quite that long; I got Mirror’s Edge 1 in January 2016 and was completely and utterly hooked and hyped for Catalyst in May 2016.)

And that concludes it. If you’ve read this far – thank you. I’m aware that this is a bit different from my other reviews tone-wise - I have put every ounce of sass I possess into this because I... felt like it :D I hope it was fun to read!

#and now please scream at me to study xD #mirror's edge #mirror's edge catalyst #faith #games #stefs game review

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fruitful-blogger · 6 years

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Flipping the Script (Part 2)

Part One | AO3

It's the first day of school, Gurls, and we gotta meet some of the other cast! Roman is also breaking the patriarchy as one does.

“…and that, my good sir, is why the patriarchy is a disaster.” Roman concluded with a nod as he finally sat in his seat. The teacher and other students about were staring, some with open mouths, and others just. Befuddled.

The teacher fell into the former category.

“That was… eloquent, Roman.” The teacher coughed. “But I am very lost right now.”

A student raised their hand. “What the hell does that have to do with Trigonometry???”

Roman opened his mouth only for a hand to cover it. “No, no, no more.” The star athlete silenced his desk neighbor. “That was stupid enough the first round.”

The darker of the two swatted the hand away. “I was just saying that the system in place has…”

His reiteration was cut off with the bell alarm, a loud digital tone that yelled out through the speaker system. “Ok class we start the laws of sine and cosine tomorrow. Please do practice problems one and four in chapter 1.” The teacher told as he looked to Roman and Logan cleaning up. “And please, Roman, save the patriarchal debates for Civics. I’m sure Veronica would love it.”

“Oh, I will!” Roman defended as his backpack was grabbed by its loop. He was easily pulled across the floor and out of the classroom, where he spun on his captor. “Rude, but also hella good timing. Great for the whole dramatic factor.”

Logan groaned as he rubbed the bridge of his nose. “I just… it’s lunch. We’ve barely made it half the day, and you’ve already given me a headache. New record. Congrats.” He spun on his heal to walk away, but Roman was following him. “…you have lunch now too, don’t you.”

“Yup! Besides, who would you sit with besides me? The other tennis guys?” Roman replied cheerily.

“Maybe. They at least know the difference between duce and advantage.” Logan threw. “They also won’t somehow decide Tennis is a pathetic excuse for a sport.”

“Hey, I like tennis!” Roman added as he skipped ahead. “It’s scoring system is crazy enough to confuse the masses, and I can stand behind that. My problem is with some of the more archaic rules that are somehow still a thing, like rules on women’s outfits.”

Logan adjusted his glasses. He’d taken a quick shower after the work out and now wore his normal day clothes. Because it was the first day of school, he hadn’t gone straight for the basketball shorts and sweats (yet) and instead had a pair of jeans that were a bit wrinkled from being thrown in his bag and a navy button up with the top buttons undone, sleeves rolled to the elbow. He had a fitbit on as part of his training regiment with a beaten pair of trainers on his feet.

Unlike the uncultured swine that Roman had seen on TV (and met in real life a handful of unfortunate times), Logan wasn’t the stereotypical meat-head jock. Yes, he loved his sport and a few others, but he was in no way blind of the outside world. He was a really good student – probably would have been on the same level as Patton if he wanted to apply himself to it, but he loved tennis through and through. Outside of tennis, he was also the sports editor for the school paper and also liked to debate (usually about healthy lifestyles).

Roman liked that about his friends. While, on a surface level, they all seemed to fit nicely into the typical goth, nerd, prep, and jock categories, they weren’t just that.

Like now, as Roman stopped by his locker, he saw the bubbly genius bound down the hall towards them. “LOOOOOOOGAAAANNN! ROOOOOOMMMAAAAAANNNN!” Patton called, but, unfortunately, crashed on arrival. Logan was able to avoid most disaster, though, by jumping out to catch the other junior before he rammed into a hall garbage can. “Woah! Thanks, Lo! I underestimated the friction my shoes would have on this part of the floor!”

“No problem, Pat.” Logan smiled as he righted the teen. “Are you headed to the lunch room as well?”

Patton held up his lunch box with a grin. It was a pretty pastel blue with a picture of the solar system on it (though Patton noted that it was proportionally inaccurate, but it made a good learning tool at times). “Yeah! Virgil had to swing by the office, but he’s headed there now, too! Do you guys have lunch this period?”

“We indeed do.” Logan nodded as Roman tossed the last of the books in his locker. Logan rolled his eyes at the mess that was there as he crossed to his own that he’d left open. Most of the locker was taken up by his tennis bag, so he kneeled down to grab the books at the bottom, stacked in a little organizer to make the most of the room. When he stood, he also reached into the top nook to pull out his lunch.

Roman nodded as he hiked up his bag. He’d brought money for lunch but, if the menu sucked, he’d try to trade around. Logan always packed healthy but in excess (he burned calories like crazy), but Patton always brought extra sweets to share. “We should head down ASAP. The tables always fill up so fast.”

The other two nodded as they headed to the lunch room. Patton paused as they approached long enough to dig some ear plugs out of his backpack and put them in. Roman and Logan noticed but did not comment – this was simply a thing. Patton was a Hypersensitive Person. In a broad sense, it made him, well, more sensitive to the world in a variety of ways. He could walk into a room and instantly pick up on the micro-signals that others gave off, allowing him to better notice emotions and read the environment. He was very in tune with the needs of others because of it, but, sometimes, the stimuli became a lot and he needed to diminish it. For him, loud noise was usually a factor. He used to hide in the library a lot, but he’d gotten earplugs from Roman before a movie once (the goth had seen them at the store and figured it was worth a go), and he always carried them now to help.

It was good timing as the noise doubled once they entered the cafeteria. Students of all grades scattered about, most with lunch trays but a few with sacks or pails of food. Nobody understood how it was established, but the freshman always seemed to coagulate at one end of the room by the lunch ladies, then the sophomores, juniors, and seniors would separate towards the back.

“Hey, Logan!” Logan looked as a student waved their hand. “Get over here! We got a table!”

Logan nudged Patton and Roman and pointed to the table, which was only a third filled. The three headed over and set their stuff down, the faces there mostly familiar to the three.

Lauren was the one to wave them over. She and her boyfriend, Kai, were already seated there while another friend, Elliott, was scribbling away at a notebook. Elliott had a saved seat down next to them, but the rest were still open.

“Salutations, Lauren.” Logan greeted with a nod before looking to Kai and Elliott. “Hello to you both as well.”

“Hi again!” Patton waved as he plopped down.

“Greetings my colorful friends! Except you, Elli. LOVE the dress.”

Elliott looked up with a smirk. The non-binary teen had actually come into the fold thanks to Roman. They’d transferred to the school last year and, not really knowing anyone, just kind of decided to approach the first person who looked mildly interesting. That person had been Roman, who, upon hearing their pronouns, dragged them to the GSA meeting. Roman had introduced them to Logan, Patton, and Virgil, who introduced them to Kai and Lauren. Nowadays, the teen was usually with the couple. Lauren and Elliott bonded over food, and Kai loved to watch all the B-rated movies with the teen that Lauren hated. “Thanks, Ro. Felt like a no-pants day, honestly.”

“It’s very pretty!” Patton complimented as he pulled out his lunch. Sure enough, about six cookies fell out.

Roman only threw down his bag before snatching his wallet. “Guard my things with your lives.” He warned as the others waved him off, them all having already gotten food. Roman weaved through the rows to the lunch line, greeting a few fellow drama nerds that he remembered from last year. A few of the freshmen who noticed him approach seemed to shy back, but Roman got that. He sometimes looked a little scary and out of the ordinary, but he loved that about himself.

Besides, anyone who spent more than five minutes with the guy knew how much of a bubbly theater geek he was.

Roman got into line as he spotted a familiar face. “Remy! There’s my favorite sleep-deprived zombie.”

The figure turned, revealing glasses indoors upon his face. “EEEYYY It’s my favorite gay!” Remy threw as he tossed an arm over Roman’s shoulders. “Gurl, where have you BEEN all day? Like I had the trippiest morning in Mr. S’s class. I swear I thought the starbs guy finally spiked my drink.”

Roman snorted as they got into line. “Gurl, that’s just Mr. S. You should know that by now.”

Remy was a senior who was also the president of the GSA and on student council (if only to get the administration to put a Starbucks in the cafeteria). He was as flamboyant as they got, but he also was the king of gossip. He knew it all, even things people didn’t know about themselves. When Roman, a baby goth gay, and Patton, a nervous genius gay, had graced the hallowed doorway of the GSA that first time, Remy had adopted them on the spot.

“Still, he nearly blew up the classroom! On the first day! That HAS to be a new record.” The teen threw as he grabbed a tray. “And don’t get me STARTED on Dot. I love that woman, I really do, but do you know what she did today? She let her pet MAN EATING PYTHON out in the wild of our halls!”

Roman couldn’t help but laugh. “Python??? Dude, it’s a foot long, max, and she calls it Fluffy.”

“Gurl, who’s telling the story? Anyway, apparently one of her kids wanted to hold it. TO HOLD THE BEAST! AND SHE LET THEM!!!” Remy paused to turn to grab a burger as he passed, gaining a few confused (and concerned) looks from the lunch ladies.

Remy went on about this crazy ‘escaped demon snake’ until they paid and got back to the table. Remy decided to grace the juniors with his ‘gorgeous’ face, even as he could have sat in the senior section.

When they got to the table, though… there were two Virgils staring each other down and hissing at one another???

Roman had to stare and blink a few times.

“What the hell?” Remy spoke.

“Language!” Patton chided, not taking his eyes off the book in front of him. “And we seem to have an imposter! Virgil A came over here and started having lunch with us, but then Virgil B came in and noticed us. They’ve been hissing at one another since then.”

“Well when I came back from the office to see this JERK…”

“You mean when I came back from the office only for this PRAT to walk in…”

Roman sighed as he looked between the two before grabbing both their wrists. They both yelped as they nearly fell, but Roman allowed their sleeves to fall. “This one is Virgil.” He lifted the arm that belonged to the later Virgil.

“How can you even tell???” Logan asked, stumped. “I’ve been throwing questions at them for ten minutes!”

“Ok, it has not been that long, but still.” Kai threw as he looked between the two.

Roman grinned as he showed off the light pen marks on Virgil’s wrist that looked vaguely like a swirly. “I drew this earlier today when Virgil was distracted. He tried to clean it off, but you can still faintly see it.”

Virgil blinked before grinning, turning to his double ganger. “Yeah, ‘Virgil,’ looks like your costume isn’t so perfect after all.”

“Dang it.” He said as his voice shifted. He hissed a little before shoving his hands in his pockets and glaring at Roman. “Had to ruin me, didn’t you?”

Roman shrugged. “Sorry, Dee, but good effort.”

The person huffed as they fell into the chair open, shedding the preppy jacket and messing up their hair. They also took a moment to dig out some make-up wipes from their bag and an extra shirt. The purple polo was removed to reveal a black tank, which was quickly covered by the yellow flannel, left open. He used a few wipes to remove the contouring make-up, and soon a plum discoloration on the left side of his face was revealed.

Demetrius, or Dee, was a bit of a wild card when it came to South Hamilton High. He was beloved by almost all the teachers (especially the biology teacher and her snake – he loved the snake to bits) because he was a good student and relatively trustworthy… until he pulled out his make-up bag. He was renowned for his ability to transform himself and others, and he just loved to pull harmless pranks.

Virgil snorted as he sat. “Finally some anarchy does me good. No, you cannot use that as a platform for me to get the school spray-painted black or something.” He threw as he saw the look on Roman’s face.

“Uhg, you suck.” He huffed as he dramatically downed his milk.

Remy plopped down next to Dee as he nudged the dude. “Gurl, you will not BELIEVE the gossip I have.”

“Oh, no, you should overhear what Samantha told ‘Virgil’ today…”

“Stop impersonating me! I have a reputation!” Virgil threw with a hiss. Virgil and Dee had some mysterious past that they never really talked about, but they often butted heads whenever nearby. Really, a teacher’s pet and a prep would usually at least function in the same general vicinity, but Virgil and Dee where not that. It didn’t help that Dee and Virgil shared enough similarities that Dee only had to break out the contouring to get them to look identical as opposed to the wigs and lifts of most of the staff.

“SHHH I have some important gossip about Samantha right now, Virgie.” Dee waved off as he turned back to Remy.

Remy and Dee were besties over their shares in the gossip empire of not only the school but most of the town. “Don’t tell me it’s about Todd again.” Remy threw as he bit into a fry. “Seriously, that girl needs to dump his ass.”

“Oh, but that’s the best part! She didn’t, but he did!”

Remy choked. “No.”

“YES!”

“OMG SPILL!”

Virgil groaned as he lay his head on the table. “This is only the first day what the fuuuu….dge. Fudge.” He amended as he noticed Patton’s stare. They may be in high school, but Patton kept their language clean.

“Well, now that THAT is figured out,” Logan turned back to the group. “How is everyone’s first day been so far? Because, honestly, I’d rather be home watching TV. It’s the same drivel they all give every year.”

“Pretty much.” Virgil shrugged. “Although Patton correcting the teacher this morning was entertaining.”

“Well, I had to clarify that Hades wasn’t originally the villain of the Persephone story!” Patton nodded to himself. “The book was far out of print, and more recent evidence shows the potential influence of male translations of many of the stories.”

“Down with the Patriarchy!” Roman, Lauren, and Elliott all said at once. Roman went to high five both.

Patton nodded, still reading, as Logan rolled his eyes and pulled out his phone to scroll through some sports news. Virgil attempted to keep his composure as he ate, even as half the table began to chant “Down with The Man! Down with The Man!”

Roman led the charge on that last one.

#Sanders Sides #Flipping the Script AU #Roman Sanders #Logan Sanders #Patton Sanders #Virgil Sanders #Deceit Sanders #Elliott #Kai #Lauren #General tomfoolery #High School AU #Role Swap AU

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inu-fiction · 7 years

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so Kagura dresses like a dancer and Hakudoshi wears his 'suikan' like a noble. but i've never heard anything about what Kanna wears. the inuyasha wiki claims that both she and Shunran wear kimono but I'd like to know more if that's possible. sorry if you've already answered something like this before, but I can't even figure out how to work some of the websites in the research guide...

Thank you for actually checking out our Research Guide before asking (a lot of people don’t think to)! Sorry to hear you couldn’t find the answer that way on your own; let’s see what we can do to help...First, let’s get this out of the way: it’s technically never inaccurate to refer to traditional Japanese-type clothing like Kanna’s as “kimono” since it’s still a term used for it today. However, that’s very general - literally, the word originally meant just “thing to wear” (mono was “thing”, ki is one way of saying “wear”)...so in other words, my hand to god, at the time the story is set, it just meant “clothing”. Congratulations Kanna, you are wearing clothing! :DAh...not helpful? No, not helpful.All kidding aside, it’s true that the term as it’s used today is a little more specific, but it’s not by much: these days, even in post-Meiji era Japan, "kimono” refers to specifically “ethnically Japanese” i.e. traditional Japanese clothing (the more general term in the modern era for “clothing” in Japanese is apparently 被服, which we would romanize as hifuku)... but, that is still unhelpful because yes, we can see it’s “Japanese” clothing, but seeing as “Japanese clothing” refers to a REALLY broad swath of clothing ranging from furisode to yukata, suikan etc - it’s incredibly non-specific. In other words, almost as bad as calling both pants and skirts “hakama”; accurate, but not helpful in the least! :PSo. What IS she wearing?Well, I...am sorry to break it to you but I’m not entirely sure yet, anon. >_>Since I’m prepping for Hurricane Irma as I respond to this, I’m unfortunately unable to do that much poking around, but I will say I immediately noticed something interesting about it after looking up reference pictures, one of which was this screencap from the anime adaptation (which is I believe from "Kagura's Dance and Kanna's Mirror", from Season 2, in which Kanna first appears):

Actually, let’s summarize what I’m noticing here, which helps me tell you what it is definitely NOT, and hypothetically might be (or...I thought it might be, more on that in a moment):1.) Looking at the ends of the sleeves near the wrist I can tell her garment is NOT any kind of furisode (literally “swinging sleeve”) type kimono, which have long sleeves that hang down (Sesshomaru’s top, for comparison, is a furisode).2.) Her sleeves are more like those found on the kimono type called a kosode (literally “small sleeves”). They are meant to not get in the way, in other words (Sango wears a kosode when she’s not just wearing her armor by itself, for another comparison; you can see the end of the sleeve near the wrist is of similar design).

3.) SLITS IN THE SHOULDERS.I’m going to have to add some visual ref here to point out why this jumped out at me as a detail.This is a “standard” looking kosode:

(image pulled from this nifty overview of the evolution of kimono! I recommend giving it a read, it’s very informative!)Now. Pay attention to the shoulders. Scroll back up, and compare - again, there are slits in Kanna’s kimono’s shoulders, but not in “standard” kosode designs.

Slits in that position on the shoulders aren’t at all unheard of in traditional Japanese clothing - they’re found in the suikan type garment that Inuyasha and Hakudoshi both wear, for instance, which as we’ve mentioned before, is designed for as a “hunting jacket” type garment, making me think that that’s why this garment of hers also has them? - but it’s not always a standard feature.(It’s also a feature in Kikyo’s outfit by the way:

Kikyo is an archer, so it makes sense she’d enjoy the fuller movement that those slits provide! Why does Kanna need it though if she relies on her soul-sucking mirror as her “weapon”? Hm. Good question!)Oh -and one more thing. Which I almost missed but which kicks it out of just “kosode” into “okay no, this is a fair freaking question, what IS this??”Look at this other screenshot from the anime I ran across when trying to see “what her obi looked like”:

What in the....there’s. Wait. No. That - can’t be.....?*googles more screenshots, confirms*

THERE’S NO OBI.NONE. AT ALL. WHATThere’s no belt?? Where’s the ties?? Is this even a real old-school kimono style or at this point is Takahashi kind of just making it up because “hey it’s a youkai anyway so whatever”? Is it tucked up in there?? How is this even staying in place...? (There’s also those little bows to consider, granted - but I feel like most of those are probably decorative? - but it’s hard to tell, without knowing what the garment even is! Maybe they’re not! Schrodinger’s bows)Okay, Anon. Yes. I see now why you sent this in. I SEE it. I never looked closely at her outfit before and now that I have, I am so far baffled. o_O All in all, I’m not sure exactly what is up with Kanna’s outfit - not 100%. But I do find it interesting (and probably notable!) that it has slits in sleeves, and that it’s clearly not held in place with a normal old-fashioned obi, as we think of one at least. It’s possible (just spit-balling here, especially with Hakudoshi “wearing his suikan like a noble”, and Naraku’s having taken over a noblemen’s place!) that it’s a REALLY old-fashioned noble class children’s outfit? Maybe? That might be a good avenue for research (and I probably would have tried it, were I not prepping for a major hurricane this weekend, sorry anon! ^^;;). I wouldn’t even be surprised if it would be old-fashioned even by Sengoku era standards, mind - we know Takahashi included a by-then-“old-fashioned” suikan for Inuyasha (and Hakudoshi) and put Inuyasha’s very much human mother in a junihitoe (the latter is more like from the Heian period, MUCH earlier), so you never know. Keep it in mind!I will say this though:The more I think about it, the more I find it extremely interesting, too, that the ENTIRE outfit - outer garment, undergarment (which she does have; you can see it under her collar, peeking out through the sleeve-slits, and if you saw a full-body shot that showed her feet, peaking out from under the bottom of her outer garment as well)... the bows on the outfit... even her very hair, and even the decorations in her hair! - All, ALL of them, are solid, pure, non-patterned white.Why do I find this so striking?Because of the various nuanced implications of that in Japanese culture (warning: this link includes a picture of a Japanese corpse being prepped for burial. It’s actually not gross looking at all, but you may find it spooky or unsettling when you realize what it is, so I feel a need to warn ahead of time).Now, despite what the warning in parentheses for that link might seem to imply, and despite what some rumors may say, “death” isn’t the only association with white (and especially white clothing) in Japanese culture; it’s associated with “purity” and cleanliness as well. People aren’t just buried in white, they’re often married in it, too, and many priests and priestesses in Shinto and Buddhism include white clothing in their garb, especially for specific rituals requiring “purity”.I also will clarify that that is NOT a funerary kimono, in the sense that she’s wearing it folded the normal way, and not the opposite way, which corpses are dressed in, so let’s clear that up right away, that she’s not dressed “like a corpse”. At all. But.Still...This feels like it can’t be coincidental...? It’s hard to tell if the white theme is a sign of her “blankness”/emptiness (which is another fair possibility), or if it’s indeed meant to evoke those other WELL known elements in Japanese spiritual beliefs (and it’s still noteworthy I think that to the Japanese, it IS still common to see ghosts wearing solid white, because they are still buried in white, so there’s the subconscious “creepy factor” too, sure)...hn. It’s a real question!I am starting to doubt that it was purely for aesthetics or to save on ink though :P So basically the short answer is: I am real sorry anon, I have no idea. :( I wish I did!The long answer, clearly, is: “WAIT, THIS RAISES EVEN MORE QUESTIONS...??”-Mod VorpalGirl(PS: I probably will not be online the rest of this weekend, at least on here. Seriously, Irma is making her cranky way right up my home State and we decided not to evacuate sooooo. Not only do we need to prep like heck tomorrow, power will likely go out for us before Monday, and given what happened with Hurricane Matthew last year, that could keep me away from ya’ll for up to a week or so. >_> Wish me luck....and Tekka too, since she’s still likely in the path of it as well)

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mysteryfanfictheatre3000 · 7 years

Text

Back to the Frollo, Chapter 13

Warning: makeout sesh in a church.

Chapter Thirteen

I don't know how I let Claude talk me into extending our romantic weekend, but there I was, in his private chambers, huddled on the bed, and wrapped in a hand-crocheted afghan I made for him last winter.

So this is modern-day again? This author really has to tell us when she’s switching between timelines.

Claude insisted that I return him to Paris because he was anxious to find and punish the soldier who embarassed him. I knew Claude didn't...well, neither did I...want to say good-bye too soon. It had just started to rain; sometimes I forget how chilly the Palace of Justice can be on damp, autumn nights. Claude left to confer with his officers, and I began thinking about our first night together during that fantastic summer. Claude was so sweet; well, to tell the truth, he got a little silly and steamy after I started singing that old Ray Charles song. I couldn't help but laugh at the memory.

I still don’t understand his affinity for whatever random music Danisha enjoys. He’s a 1400s priest; he wouldn't ever like that. Ever.

Claude returned to the room and sat on the side of the bed. "Don't tell me you're cold, darling", he said good-humoredly, noting my efforts to get warm. "I'm not that cold', I half-heartedly protested, "it's just that I was waiting...." "Waiting for me to warm you, my love?" Claude leaned over and kissed my lips. "I'm not cold anymore, baby", I said as I embraced his lean body and let the afghan fall from my shoulders. He chuckled softly in my ear as he began to caress me and held my body close to his.

That was an image I never need to have in my head. Ugh. Stop.

"Mmmm...Danisha...", Claude sighed while he continued to kiss and caress me. I enjoyed his moans of pleasure, as I returned each caress with equal passion. "Ooh, Claude...", I sighed, my body tingling from his mouth and hands on my skin. Desire rose and stirred in me like a storm.

Let’s not go into smut territory, please. Please. I don’t want to have that vision in my mind of these two doing the nasty.

Suddenly, I whispered, "Claude, what if someone comes? The soldiers..." Claude Frollo, who was not about to stop what he was doing, laughed softly and said, "My dear, no one or nothing will disturb us tonight. I've left strict orders...Ooh, darling, you are so beautiful."

Wait, soldiers? Did they go back in time again together? Did I miss that? I guess they’re at the Palace of Justice, for some reason. The fact that they keep treating it like this uber-romantic place disturbs me because it was where prisoners were kept and tortured.

And with that, Claude and I embarked on yet another night of passion. The pattering of rain against the window, and the crackling of the fire set the perfect stage for our romantic rendevous. Funny, our first time was not all candlelight and roses; instead, what started as a pleasant visit was soon transformed into a night of shocking revelations....then the fun began...

I don’t want to hear about your “fun!” Stop!

******

Have to hurry and get things together....There he is! I had just finished supper, tidied the house, and changed my clothes when I heard the knock on the door. Claude was coming over and I wanted everything to be perfect. Although we had seen each other nearly every day since that anguished, tearful session in the bell tower, Claude hadn't set foot in the modest home I shared with Fern, not since that day I offered him cake and lemonade I went out of my way, cooking foods I knew he'd never tried but would learn to like.

No, he won’t learn to like him. Again, they’ll just make him sick. Very sick. That being said, feed it to him anyway, he deserves it.

I planned a simple supper of fried chicken, green beans, and cornbread. Cooking over an open fireplace is an experience in itself; Fern taught me a few tricks on regulating the heat and how to keep myself safe when near open flames. It wasn't easy but I finally got the hang of it; nonetheless, I still missed the 20th century conveniences of gas stoves and microwaves.

Wait, so you’re cooking green beans, fried chicken and cornbread over an open flame? You can’t cook all those things all at once with the same method and temperature. Fried chicken… can that even be made with the resources Danisha has here?

I peeped through the glass and sighed with relief. "Claude!", I said as I opened the door, "I wasn't expecting you until later." I threw my arms around him and kissed his lips. "But I'm glad you're here." Claude Frollo smiled and returned the kiss. He was carrying a small basket and somthing else: a rolled parcel wrapped in muslin. "What's that, baby?", I asked. Claude set the basket and parcel on a table, then removed his hat and cloak. "Not so fast, dearest one", he playfully said as he neatly hung his wraps on the hook near the door. How did he know where our coatrack was....

It’s right near the door he just entered. He probably just looked at it. There is nothing sinister about placing a coat on a very visible coat rack.

Claude then handed me the rolled parcel, saying, "I saw you admiring this and I thought you'd like to have it." He smiled broadly as I unwrapped the bundle. I gasped in surprise; it was a tapestry! It was a small, but detailed, work, no larger than an average-sized poster, depicting the French countryside complete with the Seine flowing lazily through quiet woods and meadows. I marveled at the intricate stitches and the softness of the fabric. "Oh Claude, it's gorgeous! I don't know what to say...."

I have no words. What a totally inaccurate and shoehorned-in gesture!

I immediately embraced and kissed him. "Thank you! Thank you!" Claude chuckled and returned my kiss, then replied, "You are most welcomed, my darling." At once, I hung the tapestry in a prominent spot near the front window; that way, it would catch the morning light.

And fade in the sun, or….?

I stood back and looked at this work of medieval textile artistry; Claude walked up and embraced me from behind. "Does it look familiar, Nisha?" I narrowed my eyes and examined the tapestry further; then it hit me! "Isn't this the one I was looking at....", I said with astonishment. Claude kissed the back of my neck and stroked my hair as he finished, "On that first day we met. Even after your little outburst, I had made up my mind to give you this treasure."

This is like every awful rom-com ever made, but in the 1400s between two unlikable racists.

I turned around to face him. Mmmm...he looks so fine! "Honey, you didn't have to do this." Claude kissed me again, deeply this time, and I couldn't resist responding to him with my own fiery passion. "You deserve the best, sweet darling", he said, "I want you to know that I'd do anything for you. I love you so." We held and kissed each other for several minutes. Maybe, I thought, this would be the night. We had been fighting the inevitable ever since that night we confessed our love. One step at a time, girlfriend, don't rush it.

You confessed your love to each other in a teary, dramatic mess of a discussion, publicly in a church. You’ve already made out. You change your attitude every five seconds and hate/love him. You aren’t taking things one step at a time, you’re going way overboard with each other.

I then focused on the basket, asking Claude, "Now, sugarbritches, what's in the basket?" Claude Frollo looked at me with sparkling eyes, then took me by the hand over to the table. "I do believe I owe you something; I'm surprised you haven't asked for it by now." I removed the white cover, reached inside and took out a ball: my special autographed baseball!

This mix of ancient tapestries and Americana is just weird. This story can’t even pick an aesthetic and stick to it, it’s just all over the place. It doesn’t know what it is.

"The thing that started it all...", I playfully began as Claude started laughing. "And ultimately brought us together", he added. Then I noticed another item in the basket. "What's this, Claude?", I asked as I pulled out what looked like a Mason jar. Now I was confused. Mason jars did not exist during the 15th century. And what's this amber liquid inside?

She knows that Mason jars didn’t exist yet, but she thought Columbus was Spanish and had already sailed to America? This is in the same vein as Frollo knowing the inventor of tupperware. It’s like they curiously only know about each others’ time periods when the author says they should for plot convenience.

Claude nonchalantly replied, "Oh that. Just something I'd thought you'd like. Go on, my dear, open it." I complied and opened the jar. The contents, the aroma, were unmistakable: Tennessee whiskey. "How?...Where?...Claude...Tennessee whiskey? In 15th century France?!" I was so dumbstruck, so utterly confused, that I felt myself swooning.

I’m utterly confused, too. That’s not even romantic. It’s booze. He easily could have gotten you French booze. Did he time-travel just to get you special whiskey? How does he even know what whiskey you like?!

Claude rushed over and caught me, taking the jar from my trembling hand. After placing the jar on the table, Claude guided me to the couch and cradled me like a small child. In my dazed state, I heard him say, "Danisha...I'm sorry, my love. I wasn't thinking...it's much too soon." I partially regained my senses and asked him, "What do you mean by 'too soon'? I don't understand."

Much too soon to give her whiskey as a present, but not too soon to have a loud public makeout session in a church?

Claude tenderly kissed my face and mouth; his mood now turned to serious concern. Finally he said, "Nisha, my dearest one, I know all about...How can I put this without shocking you further?" I felt my bearings returning, only to be knocked for a loop again. "You know all about what?", I asked, now feeling uneasy and apprehensive. "Darling", Claude replied gently, "I wanted to wait, but...I know all about Fern, the...'car'?...your little excursions..."

How? And why is he not burning her as a witch, then? He should be freaking the entire hell out right now. That’s like me falling in love with an alien and finding his alien spaceship, and not being the least confused. Frollo should be utterly bemused.

I felt myself swooning again as I looked at Claude in bewilderment. "You KNOW about us? Why are you telling me this? I thought you loved me! You said you'd never hurt me!"

Wait, why is his knowledge of the car hurting her? How is that breaking any promises? He just said he noticed the very noticeable car.

Tears welled in my eyes and Claude, now feeling guilty about this revelation, drew closer to me, and held me tightly. "I knew this would be too much for you. But, sweet Nisha, everything would've been eventually revealed. I never meant for this to hurt you; I love you too dearly to upset you." He kissed me, then, finally confessed what would at last explain why Fern brought me to medieval Paris.

Did you not think to ask her why she brought you here at the beginning of your little excursion? You just went along with it with no clue as to why?

"Danisha...Your friend, Fern...darling, please don't be too shocked...has been here before...she's one of my spies."

That makes absolutely no sense! How was he able to communicate with Fern and why does he want Danisha badly enough to set spies after her in the future? How does that even happen? Nothing in this story matches up and everything is a mess. Every time I think I’ve seen it all she throws me for another loop that makes me want to jump off a bridge. I’m slowly losing the will to live.

#back to the frollo #The Hunchback of Notre Dame #Claude frollo #danisha

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notthetoothfairy · 8 years

Text

Check-Up/Out

The office health check-up doesn’t quite go as envisioned but at least Kurt finally learns more about his co-worker’s relationship status.

A/N: This is the original Klaine-as-Vogue-Interns oneshot I mentioned at the end of my Klaine Advent Vogue Verse! :) The two fics are completely different except for being set in a verse where Kurt and Blaine both intern at Vogue.com.

beta’ed by @a-simple-rainbow who saves my fics from being scientifically inaccurate ;)

Rating: PG

Read on AO3

“Alright, preppy interns, ready for your health check-ups?” a voice says right behind Kurt’s ear, making him flinch and literally jump up from his desk chair.

Blaine has a similar reaction a desk away from him, though the person who approached him was much kinder, merely touching his shoulder to get his attention.

Still. Blaine is almost always so deep into his work that one could talk to him about aliens and dragons and whatnot, and he would nod and mumble, “Yeah, sounds great.”

And not just theoretically – it actually works. Kurt knows this because it’s his regular five-minute break entertainment.

“Wait, what health check-up?” Blaine asks, thankfully just as confused as Kurt.

The girl behind Blaine’s chair frowns. “The whole office is doing health check-ups today.”

“We just assumed that would just be for actual employees,” Kurt replies, trying to be kind. After all, she wasn’t the one who scared him half to death after all. “We’re just interns here.”

He spares a look at the other girl – and, yep, still scary. She has her hands on her hips and a piercing gaze, seemingly ready to roll her eyes at people 24/7.

And then she actually does roll her eyes at Kurt. “Interns have bodies, too, you know? Even Vogue interns. So, health check-up. Now. Deal with it.”

“Santana, be nice,” the other one warns. With a tight smile directed at Kurt and Blaine, she adds, “Sorry about that. I’m Tina. Med student at NYU, Santana over here studies sports management. We have to do some health check-ups at offices around the city for a kinesiology class. It’s really nothing major, we just run a few tests to see how you could improve your health by sitting differently or adjusting some things at your desk and stuff like that.”

“For example,” the scary one – Santana – says, smirking at Blaine, “I can see from over here that you need to adjust your chair to a lower setting, Mr. Trying to Trick People into Thinking He’s a Tall Glass of Water.”

“Hey, no fair.” Blaine shifts, flustered, and fumbles with the lever under his seat. “I swear I actually need it this high.”

“Not convinced, shorty, but okay.”

Blaine pouts. “This chair sucks anyway. It’s nowhere near as comfy as my desk chair at home.”

Kurt is torn between scowling at Santana for insulting Blaine and chuckling because… well, Blaine’s vertically challenged and Kurt has been making fun of it – friendly fun, of course – ever since they started their internship together.

“I’ve been there,” Tina says with an empathetic nod. “If it makes you feel any better, we do give the office feedback on how to improve by buying new furniture as well. So… you might get a new chair out of this.”

Blaine shoots her a hopeful grin. “Where do I sign up?”

At the sight of Blaine beaming, Kurt suppresses a smile of his own. God, he’s so into this guy, it’s getting pathetic. But how could he not be? Blaine works at the desk right next to Kurt’s, always smelling like raspberries and coffee and just overall delicious, and he’s got a passion for all the things Kurt loves, from musical theatre to atrocious reality shows to fashion (which is a given when one works for Isabelle Wright), and he’s just so nice. Nice to talk to, nice to work with, nice to look at, and, really, Kurt had no choice but to fall for him.

But it’s been two months already and he still hasn’t worked up the nerve to ask Blaine out. It’s just too damn complicated. What if Blaine says no? They’re working right next to each other, for at least four more months. Hello, awkward silence.

Or what if Blaine actually quits to spare Kurt the awkwardness? He would totally do that and let Kurt get a career in fashion while he himself ended up in some low-level clothing store down the block. That’s how nice he is. Which is why Kurt can’t ask him out and let Blaine ruin his own career.

It’s a vicious cycle, for sure.

Kurt’s spaced out long enough to almost miss how Blaine is getting up and following Tina to another room. He blinks after them, shaking himself out of his thoughts slowly.

He flinches again when Santana plumps down in Blaine’s chair, turning it so she’s facing Kurt at his desk, body is wrapped in the tightest tube dress Kurt has ever seen (and he works at Vogue, for god’s sake).

“So, tell me about it.”

“I’m sorry?”

She rolls her eyes again. “You. Other intern.”

Kurt gulps and tries to look innocent yet protective of his friend. “What about Blaine?”

“You totally have the hots for him.”

“I…” Wow, he’s actually breaking out in a sweat. Who is this girl? “I do not.”

“How convincing.” Santana grins. “You’re lucky I actually do have some tests to run, otherwise I’d make you tell me all about it.”

“I’m sure.” Kurt narrows his eyes. “Wait, you’re not going to hook me up to a lie detector or something, are you?”

Still grinning, she replies, “Nope, we’re going to do a few exercises.” She gets up to get a dumbbell from the box she and Tina brought in. “And I don’t need a lie detector anyway. Psychic Mexican third eye.” She shushes Kurt when he opens his mouth. “Don’t ask. Most people don’t get it.” She gestures for Kurt to get up. “Alright, you’re gonna lift this up for a minute until I tell you to put it down, and then you’re going to do the same thing again, and I’m going to measure your posture.”

“Alright,” Kurt sighs. He really wanted to finish planning the big event of the month today. He’ll probably have to delay getting a good catering service until tomorrow. Even Kurt Hummel doesn’t plan a good party in one afternoon.

“Okay, go,” Santana says as soon as Kurt’s in position, ignoring his obvious unwillingness.

Kurt lifts the weight easily, quietly thanking his early-morning workout routine for preparing him for this. He briefly wonders why Blaine had to go to the other room. Maybe seeing Kurt lift weights would have elicited some kind of response that Kurt could use to assess if he stands even the slightest chance. After all, a guy like Blaine probably has an insanely good-looking boyfriend who can lift weights that Kurt can’t even look at without feeling pain.

Now that he thinks of it, Blaine has mentioned once or twice in a meeting that he lives with a model. Sure, he probably did it to put in a good word for his model friend who wants to land a gig at Vogue but… what if that’s not all there is to it? He lives with that guy. A model. Kurt curses the health check-up girl for making him think about this.

As if she heard his thoughts, she says, “Alright, down now. Feeling okay?”

She seems a lot nicer when she’s focused on her work. Kurt nods distractedly. He’s still busy visualizing Blaine with his model boyfriend. Kurt’s probably so not his type.

Santana makes him lift the dumbbell for another minute, and when he’s done, she types something into her laptop, humming when it finally gives her the results.

“Alright, not too shabby,” she says. “But you can see here,” she turns the laptop for Kurt to see, “that you have a tendency to lean backwards when you lift heavy stuff for longer periods of time. See how the second graph deviates from the first one? That’s because you leaned farther back the second time. You had a better posture the first time.”

Kurt nods silently. Maybe that’s why he had such back pains after moving into the loft with Rachel. But then again, that’s probably because she just doesn’t know how to properly pack boxes in a way that won’t crush her future roommate’s back.

The second exercise Santana makes him do isn’t really an exercise. She’s just watching him silently and taking notes while he goes about at his desk, feeling slightly uneasy under the scrutiny. She had told him to just check his email and type something into a blank document so he’d feel less inane doing it but, somehow, he still does feel a bit stupid.

“Wow, your health check-up looks a lot different than mine,” Blaine comments when he trails back into the room after Tina.

Of course he’d come back while Kurt looked uncomfortable at his desk, not when he was lifting weights. Of course.

Tina giggles. “You’re going to switch rooms in a minute, the check-ups are all the same.”

“Why go through all the trouble?” Kurt asks curiously. “We could have done this in the same room. We work together anyway.”

“Oh, you’re in for a surprise,” Blaine says conversationally as he takes a seat back at his desk, watching Santana watch Kurt. “The other part is a bit less PG.”

“I’m sorry, what?” Kurt chokes out, glaring at Santana when she tells him to just stick it out for a bit longer. He’s done pretending he’s checking his email. “What is the other part?”

“He’s joking,” Tina says quickly. “I mean, yeah, shirts off, but, uhm, that’s it, promise.”

“And if you’re a bit slow, like me,” Blaine adds, “you’ll think that she’s asking you to take everything off. Very potentially awkward. I’d already unzipped my pants.”

Kurt actually feels himself flushing at the thought, which is even worse now because everyone’s watching him.

“Are we done yet?” he asks Santana.

He’s glad she has her back to Tina and Blaine because she winks at Kurt. “Yep, you’re free to go. With Tina, I mean.” She chuckles. “For the adult part.”

Blaine barks out a laugh as well. Kurt rolls his eyes at him. “Glad at least one of us is enjoying this.”

For some reason, that makes Tina blush, and she quickly clears her throat. “Alright, let’s take you to the other room.”

Kurt follows her, confused, and lets her guide him into an empty conference room.

“Okay, this is going to be pretty simple,” she says, all business, “I’m going to take some notes about your medical history, all confidential, of course, and then I’m going to examine your spine. And for that, you’re…”

“Going to be shirtless, got it,” Kurt finishes for her. “Spoiler alert, Blaine.”

Tina ducks her head. “He’s… a nice guy.”

“Yeah.” Kurt shrugs nonchalantly, not wanting a repeat conversation. It’s weird enough to have one observant stranger approach him about his crush. “He’s okay, I guess.”

Tina doesn’t say anything until she has her clipboard out and ready, bombarding him with questions about his medical history, health issues in his family and sports-related injuries.

“Okay,” she continues, “have you ever been in treatment for back-related injuries?”

“Uh… nope.”

“And do you feel back pains after a long day of work?”

“No, not really.”

“Okay.” Tina bites her lip. “Is Blaine single?”

“Sorry, what?”

“Is he single?” Tina asks again.

“Blaine?” Kurt’s eyes widen. He actually leans forward to look at Tina’s clipboard. “That’s not on the list, is it?”

“Uh, no.”

“Right,” Kurt says, feeling himself getting more than annoyed with this stupid health check-up. “Because in that case, you would already know the answer to that question, since he played Q&A in here first… unless you asked him whether I was single, which I’m sure is very important to the state of his spine.”

“I’m sorry, this is unprofessional.” Tina sighs. “Forget I asked.”

“It is,” Kurt says tightly. Of course, he’s actually pissed that she’s taking an interest in Blaine in the first place, not because she’s asking – but she doesn’t need to know that. “Can we get this over with?”

“Sorry,” she says again. “Of course.”

The rest of his examination goes smoothly, though Tina seems to be more uncomfortable than before. Kurt actually sighs in relief when they’re done and lets her lead him back to his office where Blaine is in a similar position he was in earlier.

“How’d shirts and skins go?” Blaine asks with a smile when Kurt mirrors their earlier situation by sitting down at his desk to watch.

Kurt rolls his eyes when Tina sends him a panicked glance. He probably should file a complaint with her and Santana’s professor. Who sends inexperienced and highly inappropriate med students to do official health check-ups around the city?

“Fine. My spine’s alright, I guess.”

“Oh, yeah? Mine, too. Aren’t we one bunch of healthy interns?”

“Okay, you’re done,” Santana says. “If you want, we can compare results in a minute. I still have to tell you about your posture… Kurt.”

The way she says his name tells him that she’s only recently learned his name. Of course. He didn’t introduce himself. That means… oh no. She talked to Blaine about him.

Kurt briefly wonders whether he should take the high road, resign, and let Blaine get the good jobs while he himself settles for selling cheap jeans at the nearest outlet store.

Ugh, but no. His pride gets in the way, of course. He’ll let Blaine quit the job if he can’t take his co-worker having an unrequited crush on him. Maybe he can just marry Tina, if she’s so unbelievably interested. And she’s a med student, she’ll have money one day. Blaine won’t end up poor.

God, he’s too young to be this bitter, isn’t he?

“Hit me,” he mumbles.

“You’ll have to wait until the program’s ready to give me Blaine’s stats as well,” Santana replies. “Tina, fetch the printouts once they’re done, will you?” Tina nods and leaves the room. Santana grins. “So, tell me…” She leans against Kurt’s desk, and Kurt thinks he’s going to have a heart attack when she stretches the pause far longer than necessary. “Any model gigs one can hold out for in this place?”

Phew. Safe topic.

“Aren’t you a sports business major?” Blaine asks her.

“Yeah, but only because my SATs weren’t good enough for modeling,” Santana replies sarcastically. “Girl’s gotta have a plan B, you know?”

He chuckles. “Right.”

“So?”

“Depends,” Kurt says. “Are you with an agency?”

“No. But I have experience. Done some cheerleading, some cage dancing.” She says it as if that’s a typical launch for a model career. “And I literally had to kill people to get this placement today… that has to count for something, right? Can you believe if they’d sent Tina and me to, like, Target or something?”

“Horrifying,” Blaine agrees with a grin.

“So, can you hook me up?”

Blaine raises both arms before pointing to Kurt. “Me, no. Him? Maybe.”

“Me?” Kurt asks. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

“You’re Isabelle’s darling,” Blaine teases. “You’ve got pull.”

“You do?” Santana says, looking Kurt up and down. “Yeah, you look the part.”

“He really does,” Blaine says, and for a second, Kurt thinks he might have imagined a flirty undertone. But no, that’s Blaine talking Kurt up to Santana because he doesn’t want to deal with her himself. That’s all.

Though Blaine’s too nice to do that, isn’t he?

“I can’t really help you, either,” Kurt says quickly before he zones out again. Stupid crush. “All I’m doing at the moment is planning this ballet event and-”

“I can do ballet,” Santana cuts in, actually looking interested now. “Any chance you can get me into that?”

Kurt shifts in his chair. “Uhm… maybe… I guess I could talk to Isabelle.”

“Here, I’ll give you my number,” Santana says, taking a pen from Kurt’s desk and writing it on a post-it note. “Seriously, I’d be forever in your debt. I won’t even say anything about your humongous cr-”

Kurt sends her the look he usually reserves for whenever Rachel is saying something particularly insane. It gets Santana to shut up immediately.

“Anything to get me out of college. I hate college,” she babbles, and Blaine eats it up, immediately putting on an empathetic face and encouraging her to at least keep it as an option, plan B and all.

Kurt listens closely for any sign that Santana might blab again – god, he cannot get her that job at the ballet event, Blaine is going to be there – but before she can screw up, Tina comes back with the printouts.

“Here you go Blaine,” she says, a blush high on her cheeks, and Kurt almost groans, praying for the moment these two will just leave them the hell alone to finally continue working. “Kurt, that’s yours.”

“Ohhh, this is like finding out who got cast in a play,” Blaine says excitedly. “What does yours say, Kurt?”

Kurt turns the sheet of paper in his hands, trying to interpret the graphs. “I don’t really know…?” he asks. “Just a bunch of graphs. Oh, I recognize this one. It means I lean too far back when I carry stuff, right?”

Santana laughs. “Yup. By the way, if we’re comparing, Blaine actually did far better on that one.”

“I did?!” Blaine asks.

“Bastard,” Kurt comments wryly, making everyone laugh. “Pictures or it didn’t happen.”

Blaine shrugs, handing over his printout. “The stats don’t lie, Kurt. Just accept that I’m better.”

“You don’t even know which one of those tiny pictures says that you won, do you?” Kurt teases back. Maybe this health check-up isn’t that bad after all. The conversation feels flirty, and he isn’t even bothered by Santana’s knowing smirk anymore.

“Wow!” Tina breathes out when she looks at the graph of Blaine’s perfect posture. Kurt’s sure that she had a chance to look at Blaine’s results before and is just making a show of being impressed. Standard move. Very mediocre execution. Ugh. “You’re so straight, Blaine!”

Kurt can’t help but laugh at the wording. Santana’s grinning, too.

Blaine, however, is not. “What’s so funny?” he ask.

“Well, I wouldn’t exactly say that,” Kurt says, still chuckling.

“What, Kurt?”

“You…? Straight…?”

“Yeah.” Blaine arches an eyebrow. “And?”

Kurt freezes. “Wait… what?”

“No way,” Santana breathes out. “You’re not telling me you’re… but… I’m never wrong about these things.”

“Sorry,” Kurt says, suddenly picturing Blaine not with his model roommate but with Tina, taking his shirt off with her ogling him and trying to gauge whether he’s single. Or maybe he’s bi? But even then, would Kurt ever stand a chance against a model roommate and med student Tina? Oh god. “I just assumed-” The words die off in his throat. This day just can’t get any worse. He looks down at his hands. “Just… um, sorry.”

Blaine’s serious face crumbles like a stone façade in front of him and he doubles forward with how hard he’s laughing.

“Oh my god, I totally got you!” he exclaims, cackling. “You should see the looks on your faces.”

Kurt looks up again. “What?”

“I don’t get it,” Tina says.

“I’m gay,” Blaine says lightly and adds in a low singing voice, “Automatically-radically, ironically chronically, certainly, pertin’tly, genetically, medically gay.”

Oh, Jesus Christ. He’s citing musicals. He’s not straight. The world is still turning. Kurt actually feels his heart starting to beat again.

“Ah, that’s more like it!” Santana exclaims. “Well played, my friend, well played.”

“Wait, you’re gay?” Tina asks, shocked. “But… you let me give you my number.”

Kurt rears his head back around to Blaine. He barely notices how Santana shoots Tina a pitiful look and says, “Oh, honey. How many times?”

Blaine suddenly looks a bit chastised. “Sorry, Tina. I didn’t really think it would come up again and… well, you do seem nice, we can totally hang out… I could introduce you to my friend Sam. He really is totally straight, and he’s a model, actually, so…”

Kurt suddenly feels like Christmas has come early this year.

Tina, however, seems to feel quite the opposite. She nods, looking a bit annoyed with herself.

“Every single time,” she mutters, before she turns to Kurt with a sigh. “You could have just said something.”

“Me? What…?” Kurt sputters. “You just asked if he was single, that’s it.”

“You did not!” Santana gasps. “Tina Cohen-Chang, I’m totally telling on you. Giving out numbers, asking inappropriate questions… tsk, tsk, tsk.” She grins at Kurt. “What did you say?”

“Yeah, Kurt, what did you say?” Blaine asks, sounding curious as well.

“I told her off, that’s what I did,” Kurt says without thinking.

“You did?” Blaine asks, leaning forward. “Why?”

Oh god, he totally just gave himself away, didn’t he?

“I, uh,” he scrambles for an answer, even looks to Santana for help but only finds a scarily accurate imitation of the Cheshire cat there. “What else would I have done? It really was a bit unprofessional, sorry, Tina. And I don’t know your relationship status anyway, so...”

“Oh.” Blaine ducks his head, looking a bit embarrassed. “Well, uh, I’m single, in case you were wondering.”

Santana smirks as she finally gets up from Kurt’s desk. “Oh, he was wondering,” she says, pinching Kurt in the cheek. “Come on, Tina, we still have some clients to torture and these two clearly need to finish talking about… their stats.”

Tina looks from Kurt to Blaine and back to Kurt and suddenly slaps her hand against her forehead.

“Oh my god, I’m so blind!” she exclaims. “Santana, why didn’t you warn me?”

“And ruin all the fun? You don’t know me at all,” Santana tells her as she grabs Tina by the arm and basically hauls her out of the room.

The small intern office falls quiet pretty quickly.

“So, um…” Kurt says, “that was the weirdest health check-up I’ve ever been part of.”

“Definitely,” Blaine agrees. “So… how did you do at the desk?”

Kurt checks his printout. “Perfect posture.”

“Ah, damn.” Blaine sighs. “I slouch, apparently.”

Kurt nods. “You totally do. Must be that unnecessarily high chair setting, hm?”

“Oh my god, it’s so not!” Blaine whines. “I’m not that short, you know?”

Kurt grins at him good-naturedly. “Okay, okay. But you do slouch. You get all focused on your computer and then it looks like it’s gonna swallow you whole.”

“I should tell Isabelle you need more work if you’ve got so much time watching me do mine,” Blaine jokes.

Kurt feels color rising in his cheeks again and he gestures to his computer. “Speaking of which, I really need to finish writing this, um… this email… and I have some phone calls to make, so…”

Blaine nods, fiddling with the sheet of paper in his hand. “Oh, yeah, sure.”

They both go back to working in silence, but Kurt doesn’t get anything done at all with how hard his brain is trying to analyze Blaine’s behavior since the check-up. It almost seems like he’s… trying to get Kurt to say something. It even felt a bit like flirting. But… it can’t be? Can it?

“Hey, Kurt?” Blaine asks after about five minutes.

Kurt looks at his still empty draft of an email. “Mh,” he manages.

“Just in case any weird girls come into our office to perform some kind of tests on us and we get separated again and one of them is actually into you and asks me about your relationship status… um… what do I say?”

Kurt blinks, first at his email, then at Blaine as he turns in his chair to look at his co-worker who looks like he’s gotten all of that out in just one breath.

Blaine clears his throat. “You know. Just in case. So… so that this doesn’t happen again.”

Kurt tilts his head. “Are you asking whether I’m gay or single?”

“Or European.”

Kurt laughs. “I can’t believe I’m saying this but you have got to stop with the Elle Woods references.”

“Duly noted,” Blaine says with a grin before he probes, “But, um… single. Sorry. Full sentences. Asking whether you’re single.”

“Not a full sentence,” Kurt points out.

“Right.”

“But yes.”

“Yes?”

Kurt takes a deep breath. “Yes.”

Blaine nods slowly, as if he’s trying to process the new information. Biting his lip into a smile, he says, “okay,” and turns back to his work.

It’s the sexiest smile Kurt’s ever seen Blaine smile and, for a few seconds, he basks in the glow of being the one to cause it, before he realizes that he’s still staring at Blaine and turns back to his own computer.

It doesn’t take long for him to want to bang his head on the table.

“Okay,” he says, fed up with himself and with Blaine and everything. “I don’t care if this means you ruin your career in fashion tomorrow or if I actually die of embarrassment first, I’ll probably die of impatience much earlier anyway, so-”

“Wait.” Blaine actually rolls closer to Kurt to put a hand on his arm. “Why would I ruin my career?”

“You know what, that’s actually not important. I just meant-”

“Hellooo, it’s my career,” Blaine argues and actually looks like he’s going to continue, so Kurt puts a finger on Blaine’s lips. Yeah, he goes there. He has a freaking finger on his co-worker’s lips and he’s not going to overthink this.

“Let me finish,” he demands. “I was going to just ignore this but now that we’ve established that we’re both gay-”

“But not European,” Blaine mumbles against Kurt’s finger and Kurt almost sighs because of the very pleasant tingling. But only almost.

“Ignoring you,” he says instead. “Gay and single, I was going to say. So now that that’s, like, out…”

“Just like we are,” Blaine blurts.

“Oh my god, do you ever stop talking?!” Kurt exclaims, this time jerking his hand away from Blaine’s mouth. “God, just- go out with me?” Realizing that he’s kind of yelling at Blaine, he adds, much quieter, “Please?”

Blaine’s eyes are surprisingly calm on him. So maybe he’s not going to give up on his internship to escape Kurt after all.

However, he might have actually listened to Kurt and stopped talking – because he’s not saying anything.

Finally, he shakes his head quickly and breathes out, “Wow, if you had opened with that, I would have shut up so much faster.”

“Please just say yes or no before I die,” Kurt begs Blaine. “I really want to just know whether I should start working on my outfit or on my resignation.”

“Outfit, please.” Blaine shoots him a radiant smile. “If you stopped working here, there would be no one left worthy to pine after.”

Kurt feels like actually turning some somersaults. But he has a feeling that even with his good health check-up results, his back would object to doing that.

“You’re pining after me?” he asks instead, his heartbeat pulsing through his body excitedly.

“Duh.” Blaine nods. “Since the very first day.”

“Oh.” Kurt closes his eyes and bites his lip. “Well, that’s actually very-”

He gets interrupted by someone knocking at the door insistently.

“Come in,” he says reluctantly.

Santana storms in and grabs the post-it note with her number on it.

“Sorry, guys,” she says, clearly not sorry at all. “Just met Dani, the other intern. She will need my number way more urgently than you do. Or at least I hope so. Is she single? Don’t answer, I’ll find out myself. I’m not unprofessional like Tina. Who am I kidding, of course I am. But I’ve got the balls she’s missing. Anyhow.” While she talks, she scribbles something onto a new post-it note, then grabs another one and repeats the process, standing up straight when she’s done. “I know you don’t really need it but, still, the loss of my number is hard to cope with, so I’ll make it up to you with a new message for both of you.” She takes one note in each hand and sticks one to Blaine’s forehead and the other to Kurt’s. “Here you go. Now make Auntie Snix proud.”

With that, she’s out of the room again.

Blaine looks at Kurt confusedly. “Who’s Auntie Snix?”

“No clue.” Kurt glances at Blaine’s forehead, licking his lips. “Does my post-it note say the same thing as yours?”

Blaine spares a quick look up, then down to Kurt’s lip, and back up to his eyes.

“God, I hope so,” he says.

With another look, they both lunge forward, their lips meeting – finally, god, finally – a little off-center but so very rewarding and Kurt actually lets out a whimper with how satisfying it all feels. He barely notices the post-it notes slipping from their foreheads while they kiss but he does register Blaine catching them and putting them on the desk surface next to him.

When they pull apart for much-needed breath, Kurt glances at the two notes quickly, and chuckles.

Making out prevents back problems. I study this shit, trust me.

A kiss a day keeps Santana away. (And Tina, too, ‘cause she’ll know you’re gay.)

Kurt pulls Blaine back close. “Well, I guess it’s always wisest to listen to your doctor.”

#klaine #vogue!klaine #klaine AU #klaine fic #klaine fanfiction #my klaine fics #this is the silliest thing ever I apologize :P #also I've been told blaine is not *that* short.... I wouldn't know cuz I'm tall :P #anway.... I hope you enjoy :D

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