#when i say the title aloud i always mash up the words

[picoffee]

Fire Emblem but the battles have the camera angle of Lost Odyssey battles

[byulsgrease]

if you arent too busy, can you write a idol!hwasa x idol!reader, wherein they both have to practice with each other for a special stage. However on the first meeting they become starstruck and cant believe somethings are real, but soon warm up to each other?

i'm not terribly busy but this still took a while anyway oops - sorry this took so long anon! here you go :D

if anyone has requests for the other members hmu cuz I've got 2 more hyejin reqs after this one (not that I'm complaining)

"who says we can't do something on our own?"

(hwasa x idol!reader, ~1.2k words)

cw: food + alcohol mention (y'all know how it is)

I named someone Minjeong - it's not Aespa's Winter, idk anything about 4th gen gg's - 민정 is my Korean name so it's just what came to mind

"Hey, wake up. You've gotta see this. GET UP," a voice piercing through the fog of your sleep.

What a rude awakening. Your shoulders being shaken vigorously by a pair of small hands meant they belonged to none other than Minjeong, your youngest group member. You rolled over to glare menacingly at her with one eye open, trying to pull your brain out of the slumber. All you could see was the bright light of her phone shining in your eyes - a video of some kind. But then you heard the audio:

"Have you seen the clip?" asked the interviewer.

"Yes, my members and many MooMoos made sure I saw it"— Moos? Oh, it's Hwasa. WAIT. Both your eyes flew open as you sat up and snatched Jeongie's phone out of her hand to stare at the video. Your mind immediately flashed back to the interview you did last week - they asked who you most wanted to collaborate with, if there were no limitations. Your ears started to heat up at the sheer thought of the flustered mess of an answer you gave - of course you said Hwasa. Both of you debuted relatively close to each other, within a year, but never interacted much over the years. Mamamoo as a group was a force to be reckoned with, but there was just something about Hwasa specifically. You mostly just admired her unique singing voice and undeniable stage presence, and her relentless drive to always be herself in an industry constantly trying to fit women into a box.

Finally snapping out of re-living that embarrassment, your attention turned back to the phone in your hand. The interviewer must've asked her to send a message in response to you, because you couldn't believe that she was waving and saying, "How haven't we gotten to know each other better over all these years? I'd love to work with you on something sometime," curtly dipping her head in a slight bow.

"SEE? You needed to see that," Minjeong rushed to say, full of energy. "And close your mouth, your jaw's on the floor," jokingly pointing.

You side-eyed her and shut your mouth. "Is this what Loco felt like when she called him during Hyena on the Keyboard?" you wondered aloud.

"At least she's not calling you while on camera," she commented, knowing full well that you'd probably embarrass yourself again if she did. "But hey, at least she noticed you! Can I have my phone back now?" It would be a dream come true to collaborate with her, but cross-company collabs... always a pain. that couldn't be helped. The fantasy abruptly ended with demands from your rumbling stomach. Done with your what-if's, you placed the phone back in your maknae's outstretched hand to get up and make breakfast.

~~~~

With award show season rolling around, the crazy scramble of rehearsing for special live stages without leaking sets and collabs began. Checking your email that morning showed a schedule to record the backing track for a special live stage, but that was it. With who? You texted your members a screenshot, but they all told you that block of time in their schedule was empty. A solo stage? The solo mini-album you released this cycle did relatively well, the title track got a music show win, but not a multi-week chart-topper by any means. Possibilities turning over in your mind, you stepped out from your place to head to the company, totally in the dark about what was in store.

The recording studio always smelled the same along with the couches, a comfort for all the insanely long nights and crack-of-dawn early mornings over the years. With a bit of time to kill, you plopped down on one and gingerly patted the worn cushions as some kind of symbolic thank-you for supporting you (literally).

A hesitant but loud knock sent your gaze directly to the door. Watching it slowly open, you leaned forward to see who it was. Needless to say, your jaw fell to the floor again as you clapped a hand over your gaping mouth, eyes widening. Like a soldier obeying a command, you immediately stood up as straight as possible and bowed profusely at Hwasa, sporting a very similar expression on her face (which you failed to notice, your mind running a million miles a minute).

After a series of frantic bows and miscellaneous utterances to each other, she spoke. "It's nice to finally meet you," she said with calm, surveying your frenzied state. "I guess we're granting that collab wish from your interview, huh?"

The red-hot embarrassment leapt to your face. "I...I definitely made a fool of myself answering that question. And our maknae showed me your interview clip too, which was cool, but never did I think it would actually happen," you stammered. I should probably stop talking.

"Well, here I am," she half-smiled coolly. "Let's get started, I'm really looking forward to finally work with you on this," a gleam in her eye and a hint of excitement in her voice.

The studio suddenly felt a lot smaller with her in it, despite there only being your managers, the producer, and the both of you - less people than you and your members alone. Both of you remained relatively quiet the whole time, rather unsure of what to say or talk about. You watched enough MMMTV to know that all the members on their own were shyer than together, and Hwasa knew the same was true for you. But the work basically took care of itself, seamlessly taking turns in the recording booth, witnessing each other's work style and process. The both of you knew your way in front of a mic, seasoned professionals by now. Upon wrapping up, you bowed politely to each other after a quick exchange of KaTalk info, a short and sweet goodbye.

That was... anticlimactic. I mean, it's finally happening - I can't believe it. But maybe I was too idealistic about maybe creating a meaningful relationship with her outside of work... What does she think of me?

~~~~

In the days leading up to the collab stage, you kept going back and forth on whether to reach out or not, despite now being in possession of her contact info. What would you even say? Thoughts of a witty one-liner or relatable meme came to mind, but maybe she'd assume the worst - that you were clout-chasing, or something. Anxieties abuzz, your phone vibrated in your pocket. The KaTalk notification sprawled across your screen. Speak of the devil, it's her.

"Hey, awards season has me stressed. I know you must pretty busy right now too, but I somehow get off early tomorrow if you wanna grab dinner after work?" You had to reread that one. Oh, what? She's inviting me?

Trying not to be weird about responding too quickly, you typed out, "Wow, yeah, that sounds great! ^^ wait, your company doesn't care about you going out to eat during award season?"

"nah, they stopped having that kind of control over us a while ago, we are the money-maker of the company, after all 😏"

"so I guess this means they don't check your phone either ㅋㅋㅋ"

"nope :)"

You proceeded to set a time and place to meet, someplace with meat.

In the process of feasting on an inordinate amount of gopchang imbued with a splash of beer, you learned a fair amount about each other. You talked career, professional aspirations, the weird habits of your members, and more. What surprised you most was the amount of things she already knew about you, having admitted to watching some of your behind-the-scenes content after seeing your interview clip.

"Ah... I'm sorry if I came across as distant during that first recording session," she confessed, pausing to sip her beer. "I honestly didn't know what to do with myself, I felt a little star-struck."

"Oh what?? I felt the exact same, so no worries - and sorry if I came off similarly distant," you rambled back. A bit of silence fell between you, acknowledging the mutual sentiment. You spoke up after a bit, "Thanks for inviting me out tonight, I didn't realize how much I needed this."

"Thank you for making the time, I had fun getting to know you better," she articulated with a smile. "Maybe it'll make the collab stage better," she added on jokingly. You responded with a nod and expression of mutual affirmation.

~~~~

After that, messaging each other became a regular occurrence, that gopchang outing having broken the ice. Honestly, you tried your best to talk about anything besides work, but the baseline of shared understanding connected you in a way that came more naturally than it did with your non idol friends.

You stood across the way from her at the sound check for the final stage, dressed in joggers and slides. Funny to think that you'd be recording this for real in a couple hours, making eyes with the blinking red light on the cameras surrounding you. It sucks that fans wouldn't get to experience the energy and atmosphere of the performance - Hyejin alone is one thing, but adding someone else into her stage presence? Unmatched. There's nothing quite like a live performance - and while you knew everyone in the industry dealt with the consequences of the pandemic, it certainly took a toll to perform and not feel the energy from fans. But realistically, nothing you could do about it. The sound check went over smooth like butter. The stage chemistry came flowing naturally between you both, even when bare-faced and dressed in just sweats.

And when the time came for the actual filming, you both absolutely killed it, an upbeat mash-up of TWIT and your title track. At the very end came a sliver of hesitation before throwing your arms around each other with a big smile for the ending fairy, proud of the work you accomplished together, and a mental fist-pump to yourself for making friends with one of the industry's finest.

Once again walking to a restaurant that served mostly meat to celebrate, you playfully proposed, "We... should do that again sometime." A little puff of air came out her nose in amusement.

"Yeah, we should. Too bad we're gonna have to wait a whole cycle before we can release anything else together again," she sighed longingly.

"Who says we can't do something on our own?"

[abzzz3]

He’s Every Bit The Gentleman

REQUESTS ARE OPEN Summary: Based on the imagine ‘Imagine Tom talking dirty to you in public, and looking at you like this …(See Gif)’ by @imaginealotofthings Warnings: NSFW, swearing, unprotected sex, oral (female) sex Word Count: 2,138 Author’s Notes: This is the first NSFW piece I’ve ever written so my apologies if it’s shit

___________________________________________________________

“So, (Y/N) we have to ask. What is it like working with Tom Hiddleston?” The reporter asked and you had to laugh at this questions, hearing it from every female reporter you’d met on this press tour so far. “He’s every bit the gentleman we all think he is, and more. He was so incredibly welcoming on my first day on set and every day since, he really made me feel comfortable and at ease.” You explained for the hundredth time It really was true though. The first day you walked onto the set of your most recent movie he walked straight up to you and introduced himself (though you already knew exactly who he was), offering you a coffee. If only you had known then what would transpire over the course of filming. Over the course of filming you and Tom had gotten to becoming very good friends but one day he caught you sleeping in your trailer and saying some pretty interesting things about him. At first he had been shocked, flattered and a little uncomfortable talking about it but then he got the bright idea to start messing with you, an idea he got from Kenneth Branagh. It started off small with the occasional brush of his fingers against me and then he began whispering things in my ear when I least expected it. He had definitely gotten more confident over the past few months and there had been many moments where things could have escalated but I always got shy or we got interrupted, so somehow still to this day we still had not shared a single kiss. As if just on cue I felt his hand on the base of my spine and his lips close in on my ear to whisper his thing for the day “That’s a nice short dress, it’ll make it easy for me to fuck you with my fingers later” Tom murmured before giving the reporter a friendly smile and continuing on his way “What did he just say?” The reporter asked you, sticking the microphone in your afce “He uh, just complimented me on my performance again. See what I mean? He’s such a gentleman I swear anything he said could make any girl go red in the face” You joked, chuckling and willing your face to go back to it’s natural colour rather than that of your rouge lipstick. You continued your way along the reporters and photographers, having short interviews and photos taken until you were seated inside the theatre along with everyone else who had tickets for the premier. You were sat between Tom and one of your female co-stars near the front when he leant over and whispered. “If you hike the skirt up any higher I’ll have to take you right here in the building” He murmured, his lips grazing against your ear, causing you to nearly moan aloud You just managed to stop yourself when the opening title appeared on the screen, but you were long gone from being able to concentrate on the movie. Throughout the whole movie you were sat there crossing and uncrossing your legs to calm yourself down but watching Tom’s hands move absent mindedly was making it very difficult. There were many nights when you had imagined what those fingers could do to you, those same thoughts making it very hard to do much at the moment but you knew for sure that as soon as you got back to your hotel room you would be having a very cold shower. There was a reason you always chickened out whenever Tom would say or do something, and it wasn’t as simple as not wanting to ruin a good friendship. It was more along the lines of you’d read that much Loki fanfiction that you’d nearly dropped dead when you found out Tom would be in this movie as well. You couldn’t help but think what if he didn’t do any of those things written in the very NSFW stories you had read, and in all honesty you really wanted him to. You hadn’t realized it but the movie was now complete and it was time to take care of the rest of the formalities before everyone could either head their separate ways or to the party that was being held by one of your co-stars who lived in the area. You were heading for the exit with Emilia, one of your closest friends when you felt a tug on your hand and looked over to see Tom giving you a smirk and headed off down one of the corridors. What was he up to this time? You asked yourself as you excused yourself, telling Emilia you would meet her at the party, and followed Tom with your stomach in knots. You’d almost lost him when you felt someone pull you into a large store room and press themselves up against you on the inside of the door. It took you only a second to recognize the familiar smell of Tom and his lips graze your neck. “I told you not to hike that dress up any higher and what do you do? Fiddle with it in all the wrong ways” He growled “T-Tom …” You could barely get a word out, as his hands grabbed your waist “Do you want me to stop?” He asked, his eyes giving away his of nervousness and apologeticness   “No, I want you to keep going” You breathed out, between heavy breaths and eyes closed He smiled and let his lips brush against yours as he spoke “Thank goodness, I was so looking forward to giving you pointers on how fiddle with this dress” He murmured “I think this is the best way” He lifted the bottom of your dress to sit on your waist and expose your white lacy underwear to thee cool air and pressed his lips finally against your’s in a passionate kiss. You gasped into the kiss and placed your hands on his shoulders, knowing you’re going to need the help to stay standing. He chuckled and used one hand to trace his fingers along the edge of the fabric and the other to lock the door before trailing up your body and into your hair. The kiss was everything you had imagined it to be and more, it was soft yet lustful and there was no mashing of teeth anywhere. You could have kissed this man all night and day and never get over it, but he had other plans. Tom broke the kiss and began trailing kisses down your neck, nipping and sucking as he went to find the perfect spot to give you hell. Before today you weren’t even sure you had a ‘soft spot’ but he managed to find it within seconds and get a moan out of you a lot louder than you had expected. “Oh, darling …” He said, pressing his manhood into your core and coaxing another moan out of you, this time you were biting your lip to suppress noise “You sound divine, don’t cover it up” You didn’t stop biting your lip, the fear of getting caught too high but it sure as hell didn’t stop you enjoying yourself. Tom’s hand which was running along the edge of your underwear lightly grazed over your folds, making your knees go weak and a needy noise escape. “Please Tom, don’t tease me” You begged, your head against the door as you spoke, not able to look at him as it would make you even hornier and wetter “Well it does seem you’re already incredibly wet for me” He murmured, hooking his fingers into the waistband of your underwear and slowly dragged them down your legs You looked down at him, as he took your underwear completely off and tucked it into his pocket, lust in his eyes as he stared up and you and kissed his way up towards your inner thigh. “It just doesn’t seem fair to keep you waiting” He said against your now exposed folds before pressing his face against you, licking and sucking your clit. You had to catch a loud moan in your throat but you weren’t able to stop yourself from banging your hand against the door rather loudly. Tom moaned into your vagina, causing vibrations to course through you and one of your hands entangle into his hair where you both pulled on it and held him up against you, the sensation too amazing for you to ever want him to stop “Tom, please … I want you to fuck me before I cum. Please.” You begged, feeling your core tighten and your legs grow weaker Tom lifted one of your legs over his shoulder and inserted two of his fingers into you “Who said you’re only cumming once tonight?” That was the last strand of self-control you had before he curled his fingers inside you and moaned against your clit. Your orgasm was so intense and lasted for so long that Tom almost hand hold you up as you practically fucked his face, moaning loudly while he moved his fingers in and out of you, helping you ride out the orgasm. Before you had much time to breathe after it was over Tom was already turning you around to face you against the door and bend you over. You heard him undo his belt and his pants and couldn’t help but think that you could have been done for tonight right then, but he had other plans. You braced yourself against the door as he slowly inserted into you and your eyes widened at how much he was stretching your walls and how deep he was moving inside of you. Behind you, you heard a deep, throaty moan and at the same time Tom wrapped his tie around your mouth as a gag. “Sounds like you’ll be needing this” He growled, now moving back and forth into you from behind His hands were on your hips as he fucked you, quiet sounds of pleasure audible and mixed with your own. You could feel your juices everywhere and it only aroused Tom more, the thought of you being this wet for him. If he had known this sooner he would have acted upon it before tonight, he had always imagined you to be a tight girl but nothing like what he was experiencing now, so much so he was already close to spilling inside of you and cursed himself for not bringing a condom. “(Y/N), darling, I’m so close for you. You feel so much better than I ever imagined” He said hoarsely from behind you, only tightening your core more, preparing it’s self for round two. He wrapped one arm around you and began rubbing your clit so as to keep his promise that you would cum twice tonight. He clearly knew how to use his hands, as you had always imagined he could and it only took a few more thrusts and movements of his fingers for you to be cumming all over again, this time into Tom’s tie. He stopped his thrusts but not his hand as you came around him, a throaty moan escaping his lips as he suddenly pulled out of you and hiked your dress further up your back as he pumped his cock a couple more times before finishing all over your lower back and ass. You both stood there, not moving for a few moments to catch your breath as he pulled the tie away from your mouth and tucked it into his pocked, grabbing his handkerchief at the same time, wiping his own cum off of you so you could stand up right now. “I’ve waited too long for that” He said, doing his pants back up and you scoffed, turning around to look at him “How do you think I feel, you’ve been the one teasing me” You commented, a smile on your lips Tom chuckled and leaned in to kiss you, unlocking the door at the same time but you stopped his hand from reaching the door handle. You held out your other hand towards him with raised eyebrows. “My underwear” You requested and for a second you saw that same dark and lustful look in his eyes as he smirked and shook his head “Nope, I’ll be holding onto these for the rest of the night” He replied, pulling the door open from behind you Your stomach dropped again at his words, the way they always did when he talked dirty to you. “Now come on, Love, we’ll be late for the party” He added, helping you pull your dress back down and exited back into the hallways behind you, smacking your ass in the process. After tonight, you were never letting this man go.

[loverontheleft]

Sore Winner

By request: here's a prompt Brendon comes out of the bathroom and he appears to be naked; like he's got his dick out you know, then you look down and you realize he is wearing nothing except for bright pink crocs.

-I think you were kidding, but I’m not-

Brendon x reader

Warnings: language, dirty talk, sex, spanking.

Word count: 2.7k

-||-

You’ve been on edge all day.

You woke up and checked your phone and realized what day it was and abject terror instantly struck. Brendon knew it too; he rolled over and took you in his arms, kissing your neck. “Ready for today, my love?” His voice is scratchy with sleep and you could turn in his arms and shove him on his back and sink down between his legs and blow him, just to have him moan your name in that voice - except. Except. Except it’s against the rules.

“Is it the end of the month already?” You asked him breathlessly, hoping for an error, a reprieve, something. He nodded, still kissing your neck and shoulder, fingers running over your side.

“It sure is, Y/n.” He let his tongue caress your earlobe. “And I’m so fucking ready.” He rolled onto his back, stretching and groaning. You watched needily, whimpering as his erection proudly tented the sheets. “I’ve got a really good one this month. I mean, a really good one.” He sat up, running a hand through his hair. “God, this is it. This is my month, I can feel it.”

-||-

You’re downstairs, wandering aimlessly from room to room before dropping onto the couch with a dejected sigh. “Alright, think,” you say aloud, rolling onto your back to ponder. “The rules are simple.” You review them. “Rule one - it has to be the last day of the month and both parties have to be awake. No springing it on them at midnight. Done.” You check it off mentally. “Rule two - anything purchased must be less than ten dollars, receipts available as needed.” Another check; you haven’t bought anything. “Rule three - all parties must still make seduction and sex a priority; no rendering oneself unattractive for the purposes of victory.” Check. “Rule four. No oral sex, but other positions as needed are fine…How the fuck did this even start?” You ask the question to no one; Brendon has been in the studio as soon as you finished breakfast. Brendon. This was all his stupid (yet hilarious) idea.

-||-

“Baby, I have an idea,” Brendon murmured. You turn and kiss him, legs wrapping around his waist, moaning when you feel him hard against you. You reach down and try to guide him into place, thrusting down to take him. You give him a frustrated look when you can’t get more than the head of his cock in you. “Along those lines, yes,” he said with a grin. “I want to play a game.”

“I love games,” you purred, running a fingernail down his chest and squeezing around the tip. “Count me in.”

“Don’t you want to hear the game first?” He gave you a knowing smile. “We have great sex, right?” You nodded, unsure of where this is going. “We always tell the other how sexy we find them, and then follow up with some ridiculous thing to prove our point. For instance, yesterday you told me I could read the phone book and you’d come. No touching, just me reading it aloud would send you over the edge.”

“Yeah…?” You tried to focus but you needed more of his dick in you. You managed to wiggle down and get the head plus a solid inch in your heat, but you needed more.

“I think, once a month, we should each try one ridiculous thing of our choosing and see if we can still make each other come.” He looked pleased with himself and his smile grew when you laughed delightedly. “There will be rules of course. But the main objective is to make the other come while doing or wearing something utterly ridiculous. The first person to come loses.”

-||-

“It was a good idea,” you muse, staring at the ceiling. “Can’t fault him there.” And, you admit to yourself, you’ve had some insane, and insanely hot, sex as a result. But this month Brendon is so confident and you have no idea what to do. You don’t want to lose; nothing happens - there’s no wager or bet or stakes - just bragging rights. But you’re both fiercely competitive and you’ve won the last two months. You’re unwilling to give up your title without a fight. “What the fuck can I do?”

You’re still pondering when Brendon comes in from the backyard and gives you a knowing smirk. “I’m gonna go shower, baby. You should...get in bed.” He must have been playing drums because there’s a sheen of sweat over his face and arms and his shirt is clinging to his chest and his hair is a mess. Good, you think. He’s been hard at work, and the harder he works, the harder, and more, he wants to play after. And if the eye-fucking he just gave you is any indication, he didn’t leave the studio to lose. Wait.

“Fuck.”

-||-

You stand outside the bathroom door, listening closely. “You better not be in there jacking off to keep from coming later,” you warn. He laughs and calls back that while he wouldn’t dream of cheating, he also doesn’t need to cheat to win. Damn. You head for the Halloween closet, grasping at metaphorical straws and literal costume pieces. Surely there’s something in here you can use. The shower is still going and you’ve got a bit more time. You’ve got nothing. Absolutely - oh. Well, that’s an idea. Would it-? The shower stops running and you scamper back to your room, stripping and climbing into bed. He didn’t tell you to strip, but you don’t feel like wasting time.

When he comes out of the bathroom, you’re curled up in bed, waiting for him. “You look good, fresh out of the shower,” you tell him, patting the spot next to you. “Highly fuckable. You always look good and you always look highly fuckable, but right now, in particular, I want your cock in me.” He grins and walks closer and that’s when you see them and you are slightly horrified and amazed and amused. “Brendon, what the fucking fuck are those?” He laughs and places a foot on the bed next to you. You rip your focus from his cock, which is showing some interest in your nude form and causing your mouth to water, since you can’t blow him anyway, and stare at his feet. “Where the fuck did you get bright pink crocs for less than ten dollars?”

“Your mom,” Brendon deadpans and you roll your eyes. “No, I’m serious; these are Cathy’s. She said I could borrow them for as long as I needed. I don’t think she knew what I was going to use them for, though.” He winks at you and you keep staring. “Oh yes. I’m going to fuck you while wearing your mother’s crocs.” His face turns smug. “Told you it was a good one.”

“I have a good one too,” you counter, tugging him into bed and straddling him. “And I really want to fuck you, so if you could-“ he grabs your waist and rolls you both over so you’re under him and his mouth is working over your neck while his fingers move down from your waist to your hip to your thigh before hitching your leg up higher so you can feel his hardness against you.

“You’re bluffing,” he murmurs. “You’ve got nothing.”

“Nope, I figured something out,” you sigh happily. “I’m wet enough that you could just - oh fuck,” you whimper when his fingers delve deep. “Yes, play with my pussy, rub my clit, fuck me,” you gasp, writhing under him.

“Oh, trust me, I’m going to. And you’re going to come so hard, even with me wearing your mother’s crocs.”

“Okay, you’re gonna need to stop mentioning my mother if this is going to happen,” you warn him and he grins, promising to not mention Cathy again as he shifts his hips so he’s aligned with you and you prep yourself - the delivery here is key - it’ll set the tone for the entire - he pushes in and you grab his hair, bringing his mouth close. “I’m carving pumpkins, it’s almost Halloween.”

His hips still and he gives you a strange look. “What?”

“All my friends are wondering what they’re gonna be,” you elaborate with a grin. “What’s wrong baby? Thought you were going to fuck me.” He nods decisively and his fingers are in your hair and his hand on your thigh tightens as he returns to his steady pace. You’re desperately trying to focus on the lyrics and not let yourself come but he’s using all of the tricks; lifting one of your legs and pushing it towards your chest, sucking on and licking at your neck, moaning your name, telling you how good you feel on his cock, how badly he wants to feel your pretty pussy squeeze his dick when you come on him.

“Fucking love you,” Brendon groans in your ear, “even when you’re quoting my lyrics at me, distracting and strange as it may be.”

“The monster mash is playing, you’re - oh fuck-“ he’s grabbed your hips and is angling you slightly so he can grind against you every time your pelvises are flush together. “Moving to the beat,” you manage, “and now we’re going to teach you-“

“It’s March, you know that right?” Brendon asks breathlessly. “Your song choice doesn’t make any sense.”

“Doesn’t matter, it’s getting to you.”

“It’s not.”

“It is.”

“I’m totally fi-“

“To do the trick-or-treat.”

“I swear to god Y/n, this is killing my mood. If you move on to my chorus, I promise I will spank you with one of your mother’s crocs.”

You grin up at him. “We agreed you wouldn’t reference my mother anymore while fucking me. You know I have no choice now.” He groans and rests his forehead against yours, hips still rocking hard against you, mouth on yours to try to muffle your next words. “Everybody scream-“

“I’m gonna make you scream,” he tells you, tangling his hand in your hair and tugging gently. “I’m gonna make you scream my name while I fuck you hard from behind.”

“Promise? Everybody scream, it’s almost Halloween.” You’re panting, biting your lip, waiting for him to lose it. His thrusts have gotten shallower and sporadic and you think you might just win. He’s been pushing himself over the edge just by trying to fuck you into silence; all you’ve had to do is remember lyrics and stay composed as best as possible.

“That’s it,” he growls, nipping at your neck. “Hands and knees.” He pulls out of you roughly and together you flip yourself over so you’re burying your face in your arms, ass in the air, waiting for him to take you again. “You just love pushing me, don’t you?” You can hear the amusement in his voice. “Bad girl.”

“Mmmm,” you agree. “And bad girls should be punished.”

“And punished you will be,” Brendon promises you, and you can feel him grab at his feet, tugging. “Fucking pink crocs,” he says with a laugh, rubbing your ass gently with his hand. “Tell me to stop if you need me to.”

“And what if I want it harder?”

“Tell me that too.”

You’re grinning into the pillow and you wiggle your hips at him. “Do the trick or treat, do the tri-oh Jesus fuck,” you moan when he rocks back into you and spanks you hard with the shoe. “That stings,” you gasp, and he makes a concerned noise. “I didn’t say stop. Liked it.”

“My little freak,” Brendon groans, and you squeal with pleasure when the shoe makes contact again. He’s thrusting hard, his other hand wrapped around your waist and lightly teasing your clit. “You still okay, baby?” He murmurs this, his tone soft and tender and you brace yourself with your forearms and grind back against him, moaning your confirmation. “Good.” He pulls almost all the way out and you hear the whistling of the air through the holes in that damned shoe before the contact.

“Fuck,” you moan, “that one hurt more. Not so hard.”

He instantly drops the shoe and flips you over, kissing you gently. “I’m sorry, baby,” he mumbles against your lips, one hand cupping and caressing your face while the other runs over your body before sliding down your back and rubbing gently at the tender skin. “What do you need? Tell me what you need, I’ll make it happen, my sweet girl.”

Your breathing is ragged. “I need you to fuck me,” and you arch your back so his dick, currently pressed between your stomachs, twitches, hot and slick and hard. “And I need you to spank me because fuck it makes me hot, but not that hard, Jesus that rubber stings.”

“I can do that,” he promises as his forehead rests against yours. “I can do all of those things.”

“Yeah?” You turn under him, purposefully rubbing your ass against his leaking cock, moaning and whimpering as you do. “Gonna spank me, gonna fuck me good, fill me up, get me moaning your name, begging to come on your cock?”

“Fucking love you,” Brendon groans again, clutching at your hip and kissing your neck. “Jesus, you’re so fucking sexy, grinding up on me, begging me to fuck you, like I’m not about to bury my dick in your tight pussy, shit.” He’s breathless, his voice tight and constrained. “You’re sure you want me to spank you?”

“It’s almost Halloween, everybody scream.” You barely get the words out before his arm tightens around your waist and he jerks your hips up so he can fill you. “I haven’t, oh god. Brendon, yes, fuck me like that just - I haven’t learned my les- oh motherfucker, that feels so fucking-“

“Who’s bringing up her mother now?” Brendon says with a laugh and you can hear the smile in his voice. “You haven’t learned your lesson,” he agrees, and he’s fumbling for the shoe he dropped earlier. “We should fix that, yeah?”

“There’s a devil in the corner- oh my god,” you shriek, “fuck yes, do that again.” The shoe swings and his hand tightens in your hair near the roots and he tugs just as the shoe hits and you’re biting your lip trying not to come. “Baby,” you gasp, bucking your hips back needily. “Spank me, fuck me, make me come.”

“You wanna come?” Brendon’s voice is a low purr behind you and he spanks you twice more, smiling to himself when your sounds of pleasure move from high-pitched squeals to lower moans as you fuck yourself on his cock roughly. “You wanna come, even though you’ll lose?”

“I never lose when you make me come,” you quip, giggling to yourself and moving your hips in small circles. “Besides, you forget I know you. I can feel you. You’re close, baby. You’re so close to filling my pussy with your cum, fucking me hard and fast and rough, spanking me, pulling my hair as you come in me. Come in me Brendon, spank me and come in me. Spank your bad girl and fill up her pussy with your cum.”

“You,” and the shoe hits, “are,” and it lands again, “a bad,” and a third, “girl. Love you so much though, my bad girl.” His words are choked out, his voice tight, his hand on your hip tighter. He’s still spanking you and you’re moaning his name, begging him to come in you. “Gonna,” he grunts, spanking you one last time before dropping the shoe and bringing that now-free hand to your clit and teasing. “Come in you,” he finishes, and you both let out a moan of pleasure as his climax rushes through him and you gasp your victory before letting go and letting yourself come.

-||-

“I win,” you point out breathlessly when you’re both clinging to each other, trembling occasionally. “I win. You were so confident, and I still won.”

“No one likes a sore winner, Y/n,” Brendon teases sleepily, kissing your jawline while his fingers draw small circles on your stomach.

“If you didn’t want a sore winner, shouldn’t have spanked me with my mother’s croc.”

[shreddedparchment]

The End of the World Pt.13

Missing Thor With Steve and Vex

Pairing: Thor x Reader

Word Count: 3,062

Masterpost

Warnings: None

A/N: I know, two posts in one day, I know. I’m crazy. I can’t help it. This story is running away from me! I hope it’s not too overwhelming. And I hope you like it. If you would like to listen to the song featured in this chapter you can hear it here. Thanks for reading and please let me know if you enjoyed it and what you enjoyed! xoxo

As you sit chewing slowly you don’t notice the way that Steve keeps his eyes on you. It had been an entire two weeks since Thor had gone and you were beside yourself missing him. You also have that terrible guilt that gnaws at you whenever you wonder if he'll be back soon. You were the one to send him off.

You can hear Bruce and Tony conversing quietly across the table from you and Steve.

Their words were lost on you however, as you were choosing to ignore them. Though you’d thought it would be difficult to adjust to the massive amount of input that you were getting now, Steve had been very instructional on how to help tune things out.

You sit cross legged on the floor of the gym, waiting as Steve moves to a small panel in the wall and presses a few buttons.

“No matter how long I live here, I still can’t get used to all this tech stuff. I feel like such a dip stick  for admitting it but I think I need a little help." He looks at you sheepishly, a very small embarrassed smile curling the corners of his lips.

You lean back on your hands, returning his smile with one of your own. Then you remember that Thor would have just mashed the buttons on the screen until something happened.

You look down at your lap and feel your eyes burn as you try and erase the image of your lovable fool at a loss with technology.

“Y/N?” Steve's voice is full of worry but he doesn’t crowd you. He knows, somehow, that you need your space.

“I’m fine. F.R.I.D.A.Y. can you put on something soothing? Some classical maybe but not too stuffy so maybe not the original?”

“Oh.” Steve moves towards you and slowly lowers himself down in front of you so that his knees are only a few inches away from your own. “I forgot I could do that. It’s been a while since I’ve been home.”

“Of course. Tony has a Get Her In the Mood playlist. Shall I play that?” You stare at the panel and choke on your laugh as Steve shakes his head.

“No. Don’t play that. Just play something relaxing.” Steve says smoothly.

“Sure thing, Cap. After examining your heartrates and tonal inflections, I think this might be just right.” F.R.I.D.A.Y.’s words are answered with nervous silence as you and Steve both wait to see what she’s chosen.

Both of you are pleasantly surprised as a pretty music box tune begins to play filling the gym with sleep worthy notes. It's definitely classical music but you don’t know what.

“Not bad. It'll do. Alright, now Y/N, I want you to relax. Sit up, hands on your thighs, straight back.”

You do as Steve says and settle yourself, placing your hands flat against your thighs.

Steve scoots a bit closer and reaches forward to turn your hands over so that they rest on your lap palms up.

“There, like that. Now close your eyes.” He says it quietly. Maybe it’s the music playing but it makes both of you quieter, almost whispering. “And take a deep, slow breath. This exercise is something you can do when you begin to feel overwhelmed. It'll help clear your mind and also help you get a bit more control on your new abilities. Well, the ones we share. I want you to try and do this every day, twice a day, for at least a month. Maybe two if you really struggle.”

“What exactly is this supposed to help with?” You sound slightly sleepy but it's probably just the closed eyes and lullaby-like music.

“Well for one, the hearing. I know you’ve probably been hearing everything lately. Can you hear Rocket in the Benatar?”

You listen carefully and yes, you can. “He's pacing again. Listening to the Zune. Dust in the Wind by Kansas?”

You frown and open your eyes to stare in the direction of the hangar. How could he listen to that song of all the songs he could possibly be listening to? Rude!

“Concentrate, Y/N. It's in poor taste but I can understand his grief. Now, focus on us. Close your eyes.”

You turn your frown on Steve and find his facial expression stern. Another order. Not a request.

You shut your eyes and sigh. Forcing yourself to relax again is difficult.

“Focus on my voice. Hear only my voice. If that’s too hard then focus on the music or my breathing. Focus hard so that it's the only thing you can hear.” Steve breathes in and out, his breathe warm as it wafts in your direction.

You sit there, trying to focus on the music and failing. Suddenly you feel a warm fingertip press against the space between your brow. It smoothes out the crease forcing your face to relax.

“Focus.” Steve whispers deeply. His voice is so even. Like smooth ironed cotton. Soft but structured and resilient.

You focus on his voice but when it fades, you focus on his breathing. In and out, slowly and softly. Gentle breaths to fill his lungs and then out it goes. The music comes into focus along with his breathing and slowly every other sound falls away. You can no longer hear Rocket or his terribly chosen song. You can’t hear Pepper and Tony in his den or Bruce in the library. The marching cadets outside fade away and soon the only thing you hear is Steve's even breath and the music. It flows through you smoothly like wind through fog. You dissipate into the air becoming one with the room and the very relaxing atmosphere. You’re falling through clouds when you suddenly feel warm arms embracing you.

“Y/N?” Steve's voice almost lulls you back into the pit of peace but you remember that you’re in the gym.

You open your eyes and find yourself leaning to your right against the left side of Steve's wide chest. He's facing you, balanced on his knees as he holds you steady with his right arm around your shoulder and his left hand on your right shoulder.

“Easy. Maybe this song wasn’t such a good choice?”

Your eyes try to focus on where you are and Steve's voice fills your mind. You stare into his storm blue eyes and feel suddenly exposed.

You’re not sure what it is you’re seeing as Steve’s lips part. There's a hesitation in his eyes and you’re so surprised by the lurch in your chest his gaze gives you that you sober up immediately.

“Woah, sorry.” You sit up straight and give your head a shake. The music isn’t playing anymore.

“It's alright. The first few times are going to be tough. You’ll probably fall asleep a couple times.” Steve gets to his feet and begins to adjust his shirt.

Was he being fidgety? No. Not possible.

“I think it’s the sudden quiet. You’ll adjust.” Steve doesn’t look at you again. “I think it’s almost dinner time. I’ll go check to see what Tony wants to do about dinner.”

You watch Steve go feeling unsure and reluctant. As you get to your feet you grab your water bottle and take a quick sip before heading towards the gym doors. As you approach the panel that Steve had been messing with you stop to stare at the screen.

“F.R.I.D.A.Y. what was that song you were playing?” You wait for her to display the title but she says it aloud as well.

“The song playing was a simplified and shortened version of Beethoven's Romance No.2 for Violin and Orchestra. The music box version.”

You stare at the screen, immobilized by the words you see: Romance No.2.

“Hey, you okay?” Steve leans over a bit and places his left arm on the back of your chair.

You turn to look at him and nod. “Yeah, I’m good.” You force a quick smile then turn to look at Tony and Bruce, abandoning your pasta as you let their conversation in.

“Its vexing. I’m not even sure I could properly explain what I think she’s doing. We could do more tests I suppose.” Bruce says, he has also abandoned his food.

“Vexing,” Tony repeats. “Say that’s a good name. How do you like it, Y/N?”

“How do I like what?” You’re annoyed that they were talking about you. They’re always talking about you.

“That word, Vexing, as a pseudonym. I think it has a good ring to it.” Tony looks to Bruce expectantly then at you and Steve, both of which wear serious and unamused expressions. “No? We can shorten it. Vex. Ooh, I like that better. That'll be your Avenger name. We all have one.”

“Thor doesn’t have one.” Bruce counters.

“Vision doesn’t either.” Steve says.

“Whatever, don’t rain on my parade. It’s a good name.” Tony says quickly making a rapid waving motion with his hands as if he’s swatting away their arguments.

His words however, shift your annoyance to surprise. “I’m an Avenger?” You look at Steve who is staring at his drink with troubled eyes, then back to Tony.

“Yeah. I though that was clear when I told you we needed the hands?” Tony hold out his right hand as he shrugs, saying duh with his body instead of his words. “What do you think we're training you for?”

You open your mouth to say something but you have nothing to really say. You bring your hands down under the table and shove them between your knees as you look at Steve again and find him smiling softly at you. His scruffy beard obscures his mouth but you’ve learned what he looks like when he’s smiling. He needs a shave.

“You don’t have to be an Avenger, Y/N. It's…dangerous.” He says the words and you’re sure he means them but his smile makes you not care.

“I know it is.” You reply with a shrug. “But I do wanna help.”

“Of course you do, Vex.” Tony says. “F.R.I.D.A.Y. get all the prototype armor plans and the ones in development sent to my lab. I gotta get started on your suit.”

Tony gets to his feet and begins to head out but stops when Pepper walks in wearing a stunning red pant suit, her hair pulled into a long red ponytail. “What’s for dinner? Hey, where are you going? You haven't even touched your food.”

She taps Tony's shoulder and points at the table. Tony turns to look at it and gives her a grimace. “I’m not hungry. I gotta go work on Vex's suit.”

Pepper's face animates with surprise as she listens and registers what Tony has just said. “You've gotta work on whose suit?”

“Vex.” Tony repeats.

“Who is Vex?”

“Y/N is.” Tony gestures towards you with his head and looks to you with a proud smile.

“Why are we calling Y/N, Vex?”

“Because her enhancement, her manipulation thing is vexing. She vexes Bruce and she vexes me and she didn’t like Vexing. So I shortened it.”

“Oh, Tony, no.” Pepper screws up her nose, shaking her head with her dislike for your new moniker.

“Hun, I gotta go.” Tony takes her by the shoulders and pulls her in to kiss her cheek as she continues to look displeased and shake her head. He moves around her and heads towards the lab.

Pepper looks from you to Steve then back to you. “Tony, wait, we need to rethink that name.”

She hurries after him leaving you, Steve, and Bruce alone with your food.

You sit back, relaxing in your chair as you think about the fact that you're an Avenger. Untested and zero mission experience but an Avenger just the same. Though you wanna smile, you’re a little sad that it comes as a results of losing so many people. So many members of the team were lost because of Thanos.

You feel warm gentle fingers tickle the skin of your bare left shoulder. You look at it and see Steve’s index finger and thumb gently glide across your shoulder. You look at him and find him watching you seriously.

“I mean it, Y/N, we don’t expect you to join just because you're different now. This life isn’t an easy one and despite what Tony thinks it’s never really over. There will always be someone trying to tear our world down and we’ll always have to fight.”

“That’s why I wanna help.” You give Steve a long stare.

He finally sighs, his worry clear in his eyes. You can tell he’s thinking a million thoughts and you almost ask him to tell you what they are when you remember you’re not alone. Which for a shocking second, embarrasses you.

You turn your eyes to Bruce who is watching not you, not Steve, but Steve’s two fingers, still gently pressed against the skin of your shoulder with the strangest expression you’ve ever seen Bruce wear. Something between confusion and disbelief and also a bit of an a-ha.

He realizes you're watching and hurries to turn his gaze back onto his food. He pokes at it, not eating, as you slump your shoulders a little more so that Steve is no longer touching you. You feel weightless suddenly and guilt rushes to take its place.

“Why does my ability vex you, Bruce?” You’re eager to distract yourself from the panicked thoughts of what Bruce might be thinking about what he thinks he sees across from him.

“Well, when we had you make Steve do things in the lab we noticed that there was no change to his brain function or his body's chemical composition.”

“Are you saying that it was a trick?” You wonder, suddenly very invested in the conversation.

“No, just the opposite actually. And you aren’t actually controlling someone so it’s not any type of compulsion. What it looks and feels like…” He puts his hands up as of he's holding an invisible ball as his eyes find a spot on the ceiling to try and work out his thought.

“It feels like being talked into something. Like you suddenly realize that this, what you’re telling us to do, is what we’d rather do. It's deep. When I think back to my transformation all I remember is feeling that being the Hulk was the only thing that sounded like a good idea at the time. I know I felt that way because of you but it still doesn’t feel like you made me do something I didn’t want to.” Bruce was excited again, his eyes alight with the wonder of his experience and what it means about your ability.

“That makes sense.” Steve interjects. “When I jumped off of the roof, I wasn’t obeying a command. I just suddenly thought it would he a good idea to jump. And when you asked me why I jumped, I really didn’t know because I hadn’t made the choice myself.”

You let their words sink in as you watch each of them deal with their own experiences of what you’d done to them. You think of Thor and what you made him say and what you made him do and your heart damn near breaks again.

“That’s actually a really good way to look at it.” Bruce tells Steve, wagging his finger. “She's thinking for us. She makes the decision and we obey. It's like for the short time that she influences us, she's actually a part of our brain.”

Bruce’s expression would have had you laughing were you not completely shocked by his brainstorming conclusion. His eyes were wide. His mouth agape. A small crazed spark had erupted behind his eyes. He’s frozen like that and you look to Steve to see if he’s as worried as you are.

He isn't. He's smiling, his wide, perfect teeth showing and the smile reaches his eyes making the storm blue shine.

“I gotta go tell Tony.” Bruce suddenly says and disappears down the hallway at the end of the atrium.

As you and Steve are left alone again you pick up your fork and begin to fiddle with your pasta. Despite feeling like you understand your ability better, you feel wretched for what you made them and Thor do. What if you really ordered him away and he never came back? He had no reason to when he you made him feel as if leaving was the best decision to make.

You feel Steve's hand on your shoulder. “Y/N?”

You can feel your resolve to not cry crumbling as he comforts you. “Why are you so nice to me? I’m a terrible person. Thor was right, I’m a complete fool and I was a terrible fiancé for making this choice alone.”

Steve sits up, having been leaning towards you, and twists in his chair so that he can face you. He reaches around to grab the far corner of the seat of your chair, his hand brushing your thigh as he pulls you around to face him.

You hide your face behind your hands as the tears finally begin to fall.

You hear him sigh and he reaches up to pull your hands down and away from your face.

“Y/N, you are not a fool. You are a bit reckless and definitely suffer from a bit of impulse control. You have a temper.” Was he supposed to be making you feel better? “But you’re not a fool. If Thor doesn't come back and beg you to marry him then he's the fool.

“He doesn’t know what it feels like to wake up every morning and want to make a difference but lack the strength to do it. I did it for love of country. You did it simply for love. Give him time and he’ll see the brave and fearless woman that you are.”

Damn him, he's good. You sniffle as you let his words give you the comfort that he intends and bite on your bottom lip.

“Ready to go blow off some steam?” He asks, smiling kindly.

“Yeah.”

“Alright then. Come on.” He slaps his thighs and stands up before offering you his hands.

You take them and pull yourself up onto your feet. He releases you and begins to lead the way to the gym.

“Tonight, we’ll start you on some Judo.” He looks at you, pride beaming off of his face.

“Am I ready for Judo?” You ask slightly worried you may not have enough base training to pick it up easily.

“Y/N, you were born ready.”

@bionic-buckyb, @mdgrdians, @ulired, @biawol, @markusstraya, @queenof-wakanda

[queenofnohr]

this is probably a silly question but would you ever consider taking EN->JP translation commissions for making Noble Phantasm wordplay like how Excalibur can be read as Sword of Promised Victory somehow? bc I remember you talking about doing that for your OCs and you take commissions so I thought it was worth asking

Mm, I don’t really do ENG -> JPN unless it’s for like…. emails, but I think you have a bit of a misconception so I’ll try to clear it up.

In Japanese, it’s not that Excalibur’s subtitle (The Sword of Promised Victory/約束された勝利の剣) can be read as being pronounced as Excalibur. Frankly, there’s no possible way to read the kanji like that and the inclusion of kana means that された is pronounced as “sareta” - of which sounds do not appear in Excalibur. (That subtitle would be pronounced yakusokusareta shouri no ken)

What you’re seeing is simply something called “furigana.” Normally, furigana (or the small text above the normal text you see sometimes when reading Japanese as is in Noble Phantasms) actually does clarify how a word is supposed to be pronounced, especially if it’s an uncommon word or a word that uses kanji that would be above the reading level of the media in question. In this case, the kanji in question is normally clarified with furigana a single time within the text - when it first appears - and then, because the reader already knows what it is, is left without the furigana subsequently.

Other times furigana is used is when you’re looking at a word an author has made up. Just like in English fantasy/sci-fi/etc. writing that feature words an author has made up (usually based off preexisting words but not always) specific to the story, Japanese authors also use this. Except, with kanji, instead of making up a fake foreign sounding word and using katakana to sound it out, an author can put two kanji that would literally represent the item in question to make a “new” word that suits what they need. This isn’t the greatest example because it’s a nickname and not an actual thing, but Sekirou - written as 隻狼 with 隻 (seki) being from 隻腕 (sekiwan) meaning “one-armed” and 狼 (Ōkami, although it can also be pronounced “rou”) meaning wolf to make a nickname that represents him (he only has one arm and was given the name Wolf/Ōkami). This often happens with names as well as many different kanji and their different sounds can be used to make up a common name. This is the type of furigana I think you mistook the subtitle for.

There’s one more type of furigana that happens, of which the Noble Phantasm subtitles fall under - which is when a word is typed out in the text and the furigana above it is a completely different word (or even phrase!) than what’s written. For an example that isn’t Noble Phantasm subtitles, in the prologue for Camelot in Japanese, when Dr. Roman is talking to Mash, he says that the Chaldea staff are geniuses, but what’s happening in the text is that the furigana reads as the word for “genius” while the actual text the word is completely different - it’s the word for “weirdos”. So, reading it, the reader knows that what Roman says aloud to Mash is “genius” but what he actually means is “weirdos.” Similarly, when it comes to Noble Phantasms, what they actually say is the furigana above the subtitle (i.e. Saber screaming out Excalibur) but the text itself reads “The sword of promised victory” so that the reader can know the NP’s title.

tl;dr - There’s not actually any wordplay going on at all in the subtitles for Noble Phantasms! The NPs and the subtitles I gave my own OCs have nothing to do with pronunciation or anything; they’re just cool little descriptors/elaborations and you totally do not need to know Japanese to make legit ones yourself.

Sorry this got so long, but I hope it helped!

EDIT: I just popped Excalibur’s subtitle into Google Translate because I was curious as to what it said (and if it might be causing confusion) and - I see where it might have mislead you if it stems from that? The pronunciation reads it as “Excalibur” but that’s either an error in Google’s algorithm or someone submitted a pronunciation under the same misconception and it wasn’t quality checked. Either way it’s wrong. 

[mayonara]

Thanksgiving and Leaves

Damian is stuck watching Dick for a while and Dick teaches him how to play with leaves. By jumping in them.

Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3

Also posted on AO3

Happy Thanksgiving all!

"Damian."

The young teen sighed heavily from hearing his name being called. "Yes?" he answered as he teared his attention away from the TV and met Jason's gaze.

"Can you watch Dick?" Jason asked and strode towards the young teen who was lounging in the living room. "I'm going to help Alfred with cooking," he said and held the boy out to pass over to Damian.

"I suppose I can entertain tiny Grayson," Damian huffed and stretched out his arms to receive the fidgeting child.

"Dami!" Dick cried out in delight and immediately latched onto the young teen.

"Good. Make sure he behaves and don't spoil his dinner."

Damian arched a brow at his remark, confused by it. Jason all but sighed and rolled his eyes before narrowing them at the innocent giggling Dick. "That one—" he said and pointed. "Is going to attempt to use his childish charms to coerce you into feeding him. Don't listen to him," Jason warned. "I mean it."

Damian didn't see anything wrong with it, but he wasn't exactly looking to be reprimanded by Jason so he agreed. Besides, it'd be too much work to attempt to steal from Alfred and risk getting yelled at by the butler. So he nodded his head in agreement and Jason gave him a slight nod before he disappeared.

Damian sighed softly and moved the boy to set him down onto the couch. "Tiny Grayson," he called and the boy's eyes perked up, blinking rapidly.

"Yes?" He smiled wide and was completely full of energy.

"I'm watching a show and you are joining me," he said and wasn't about to change the channel for Dick. He was in the middle of a very important show and was determined to finish it.

Dick's eyes widen and he cocked his head to the side in confusion. He didn't seem to understand much of what Damian was saying. "Can I watch cawtoon?"

"No," Damian shook his head. "Were you listening?"

"No?" Dick said and wiggled his nose. "I want cawtoon."

"No."

Dick puffed up his cheeks and kicked up his legs. "Can I have pie?"

"Todd said no to desserts."

"But pie. Pwease?" Dick looked up at the boy with pouty lips and googly eyes, trying to win him over with his sad face. But that wasn't going to exactly work on Damian. At least, he wouldn't allow it too.

"No means no."

Dick sighed. "Ice cweam?"

"No."

"Cake?!"

"No."

"Dami mean!" Dick huffed and threw his body onto the couch, curling into a ball as he threw a tantrum. "Mean! I want pie! Cake! Ice cweam! Cookies!"

Damian flinched from the sudden screaming, shocked that Dick was acting like a brat or well, being one. He wasn't always this way, but sometimes he did get moody and lately, he was becoming more disobedient than usual.

"I said no," Damian said and held firm. He was tasked with not letting Dick spoil his appetite before the Thanksgiving meal and he was going to hold himself to that.

Dick continued whining, murmuring words of 'I want' and listing a list of desserts and sweets. Damian could only sigh and turned around to place his attention back on his show while ignoring the boy. He left him alone to himself, letting him cry and call Damian names by telling he's mean and the like. Which didn't exactly bother him.

Eventually, the boy calmed down as his whines fell silent and he shuffled up from where he was curled on the couch and climbed onto Damian's lap.

Damian breathed under his breath and titled his head down to look at the boy, found bright blue eyes staring at him adoringly. "Yes?"

"Can I pway outside?"

Damian gave him a look, the 'are you crazy look.' "What are you going to do outside?"

"Pway with weaves!"

"Leaves?"

"Weaves!" Dick exclaimed and giggled adorably as he bounced in Damian's lap, excited at the thought of playing with leaves. But Damian wasn't exactly sure what he meant by that.

"Why leaves?" He was confused. Why did Dick want to play with leaves? What was so fun with that?

Dick blinked his pretty blue eyes, long eyelashes fluttering as he stared at the young teen in interest. "You dunno?"

Baffled, Damian sputtered. "Tt. Of course I do." He really didn't though he wasn't about to admit to it. "Let us go outside then," he mumbled and Dick clapped his hands in excitement. Damian lifted the boy carefully into his arms as Dick wrapped his arms around his neck, holding on tight.

On the way to the backyard, he grabbed Dick's hat, shoes and a jacket to keep him warm from the chill wind of Gotham. He didn't want the poor kid to catch a cold. And he wasn't up for getting blamed by his father or any of the other members for getting his 'oldest' brother sick.

Once Damian had Dick all suited up and ready to play outside, they strolled into the backyard. The air was cold and sent a shiver down Damian's spine. He could just see his breath every time he breathed as white puffs of air flew from his lips. At least the weather was clear for the most part with just a few clouds fluttering about in the sky.

Damian kept a close eye on Dick and watched as he toddled over towards the tiny pile of leaves. "Dami!" He called for the young teen and Damian all but sighed as he dragged himself towards the boy. Dick turned around on his heels and peered up at his brother as he held out his palm. "Need."

Damian just stared at him. "What?"

"Need thing! To-to make weaves!"

Damian still didn't get what Dick was trying to do so he thought he'd just ask instead of letting himself keep guessing. "What is it that you want to do?"

"Jump! I wanna jump in weaves. Pwease?"

"You...wouldn't that hurt?" He pinched his brows in concern and slightly confused.

Dick then gasped loudly, realizing that Damian probably didn't know what he was trying to get at. "No hurt! You make um—this--" he said as he made a gesture, using his hands to draw out the shape of a large mound. "Big! And—and then jump!" He squeaked and moved to replicate the move by jumping lightly.

Ah. Damian understood now. Dick wanted to make a large pile of leaves to jump into. Though he couldn't really see the fun in that, but figured he'd go with it anyways. Anything to calm the boy down and satisfy his need.

"Okay," Damian replied and went off to find some rakes. He found a few and grabbed one for himself and a smaller size one for Dick to use since he might want to help. Well, he looked like he was itching to help with how he was kicking at the leaves and trying to form the mound.

When Damian returned, he found Dick already picking up leaves with his bare hands and dropping them into a small pile he was creating. Damian huffed a breath and shook his head at the boy. He went up to his side and stopped him mid-way to hand him the rake so he wouldn't have to dirty his hands any further.

"Use this," Damian instructed.

Dick beamed at him and took the rake. "Okay!" he cheered and then got back to work as he tried to rake the leaves towards his small pile he was building.

The two worked in relative silence and Damian was doing most of the work which he expected to do. Dick was helping and while his contribution wasn't much his effort was well appreciated.

Finally, they finished and made two large mounds, one for each. Dick's was a little bit thicker because Damian wanted to ensure there was enough cushion and leverage so the boy wouldn't injure himself.

"Okay," Damian said and dropped the rakes off to the side. "Tiny Grayson," he called and found Dick about to run towards the pile, but stopped when his name was called.

"Hm?"

"Run and then jump?"

Dick nodded his head vigorously. "Run and jump!" He screamed and hopped up and down, too excited.

Damian scrunched his nose, readying himself for partaking in such a silly event. Jumping in leaves. Tt. It was such a childish thing to do and it was unsanitary as well. Though Damian supposed he would entertain the boy just this once. Besides, he was maybe a little interested.

"Count!" Dick exclaimed and Damian stared at him, not one bit amused, but the boy was grinning and Damian couldn't very well ignore his cute plea.

So he sighed and started counting. "One."

They both lined up so they were evenly spread out and readied themselves.

"Two."

And at this point Dick was babbling about how excited he was.

"Three!"

And off they went. The two dashed towards the pile of leaves and with just a few feet before, they jumped off the ground and leapt forward, falling onto the large mountain of reds, yellows and oranges. The leaves exploded in a loud poof as it all dispersed, fluttering about in the sky as they slowly fell back to the ground.

Damian blinked rapidly as he lay on his back, staring up at the clear sky. From beside him, he could hear the boy laughing aloud, giggling with such fun and then shouting, "Again!"

And strangely enough, the corner of Damian's lips slowly curled into a mischievous smile and he laughed softly to himself. "Yeah, let's go again."

And again they went, over and over until it was time to feast.

----

"Holy shit," Jason muttered which earned him a dirty glare from Bruce, telling him to mind his language. But he was too distracted to really care about getting lectured during the Thanksgiving meal since he was too amazed by how much Dick was eating. "Dickie, you're eating so much."

Dick said nothing but smiled as he stuffed his mouth full of mashed potatoes.

"Just let him eat," Tim said and waved Jason off as he grabbed a piece of turkey for Dick who was pointing at it.

"Yeah, I know, but like—where does it all go?" Jason asked in wonder and gawked at his tiny little boyfriend whose cheeks were filled to the brim, chewing loudly as he was still trying to shovel more food in.

"He's a growing boy," Stephanie added and took a sip of her cider. The girls were also present, Cassandra, Stephanie and Barbara, joining them for a Thanksgiving meal. Although Barbara's visit would be brief as she had to spend the rest of the day with her father.

Sure, what they said was true, but Dick was eating way more than usual. Like he was starving or expended too much energy and needed sustenance to refuel himself. His plate was packed full of mashed potatoes and gravy, some stuffing and turkey. A few sides here and there and he'd eaten it all. Well it was a child's size plate but still, the boy wanted more and was eating with one hand while he reached out with the other.

"Dickiebird," Jason called.

Dick blinked up at Jason with his mouth wide open. He was sitting right beside him on a booster seat since he was too tiny to fill a large chair himself. "Uh huh?" he answered with a mouth full.

Jason sighed and reached over to fix how he was holding his spoon since the boy had it gripped as if he was about to stab something. "Chew with your mouth closed," he said and tapped his mouth softly.

Dick sealed his lips shut and chewed as he nodded his head. "It's yummy!"

"And don't talk with your mouth full."

Dick nodded once more and continued eating his meal in piece as the others did as well while cooing over him.

And well, he supposed it was too cute of a picture to pass by so he let himself do whatever. He just hoped Dick wasn't going to throw it all back up in the middle of the night from over stuffing himself.

...yeah, he really hoped so.

[kalosstarters]

One-shot: In Need of Healing

(The original title was About Healing and Feelings)

I have been wanting to write something new for a while now, but writer’s block (and limited time) are trying to stop me, so @modeststroke suggested I edit this fic so I’d get at least some writing practice. Anyway, I wrote this fic a year ago, and it takes place during Mairin’s Kalos Quest, i.e. when she’s 17 and has returned from her individual journey. I did add something to the dialogue so it does have something new as well. 

Also, it’s 0:25 and I have to be up in like 6 hours so excuse me for not spell checking the changes I made. There probably are mistakes in it.

Words: 1809

A few months into their new journey, Alain and Mairin stopped on Route 5 for the night. Alain had slept the previous nights rather badly, so when they settled into their respective tents that night, he passed out quickly. However, only after few hours of sleep, he woke up to a scream coming from the tent next to his. Just pulling his T-shirt on, he got out of his tent to see what was wrong. What if team Flare had attacked, and…? He didn’t dare to finish his thoughts. Even after 6 years, those events were still so fresh in his memory. 

Not wanting to break into Mairin’s personal space without her consent, Alain first tried to communicate with her from outside the tent. However, she didn’t answer to his yells, so he eventually opened the zip of Mairin’s tent with shaky fingers. He couldn’t wait any longer if someone indeed was with her...

He sighed of relief when he saw she was alone, only her loyal Chesnaught Chespie next to her. Despite Chespie’s attempts to wake her up, she remained asleep, but she was trashing around restlessly and sweating a lot in her sleeping bag. Alain flinched and closed his eyes for a moment when she screamed in her sleep again and then started helping Chespie, because obviously whatever she was seeing was hurting her (and, his subconscious said, it was hurting him too).

“Mairin, Mairin, wake up!” he said in a weirdly high pitched tone, and shook her arm rather hard. She did eventually open her eyes, but looked pretty confused when she saw Alain’s face so close to hers.

“It’s OK, you were just seeing some nightmares,” he tried to reassure her in a quiet voice.

He wiped her sweaty forehead with his hand to check if she had a fever because her eyes were glossy, cheeks worryingly red, and her breathing ragged. Against his cool hand, her skin felt burning hot.

For a moment, Alain didn’t know what to do or say, but then he decided it would be the best to try to calm the girl down, so he stuttered:

“I-I t-think you have gotten ill.” Gee, Alain, way to be a calm and patient doctor, he scolded himself. He saw Chespie observing him with serious eyes, and that helped him to pull himself together.

“But don’t worry, we’ll get you better soon!” he promised.

What now? he thought in his mind. I’ve taken care of sick Pokemon at Sycamore’s lab, but I don’t know how to take care of a young girl…

He felt helpless. During all those months they had been traveling together she had never been ill, and he had been thankful for that. Taking care of a Pokémon and your friend were two very different things in Alain’s opinion.

He didn’t have any medicine with him (he scolded himself again in his mind, because he knew you should always be prepared for these kinds of things when you’re traveling) so he had to check the location of the closest pharmacy from his DexNav (he had thrown his Holocaster away after the team Flare incident, but thankfully Steven had given away this Hoennese device). He figured it luckily wasn’t too far from their whereabouts, but he didn’t want to leave Mairin alone in that condition, so he left his Fennekin and Weavile along with her Chesnaught to keep her company.

“I’ll go get you some medicine for the fever, but I’ll be right back! Please, remember to rest and drink a lot! Fennie and Weavile will stay here with you,” Alain informed Mairin, and left the camp.

While he was walking fast towards his destination, he was wondering why he was acting so weirdly. It was not like him to get so worried about someone being ill. He had been trained for situations like this. He didn’t even notice that his steps were so loud that he scared a lot of wild Pokemon away when he stomped past them.

The sun had risen when he finally reached the pharmacy, and its doors had luckily just been opened so he was able to get the medicine immediately.

When Alain was back at the camp, he found Mairin asleep again. Fennekin had curled next to her and Alain’s Weavile tried to cool Mairin down by blowing an occasional, light Icy Wind outside the tent. He shook her awake, and felt something nasty go through his spine when she looked at him with tired eyes.

“Hey, I’m here with your medicine. Your fever is still high, I think you should take this right away,” he instructed while putting a wet towel on her forehead with his other hand. She took the medicine, and he left her alone to rest, believing that was the best thing he could do at that moment. He checked the tent every once in a while, and brought her a lot of water and some mashed berries when she showed signs of waking up. She didn’t want to take any of them, but with some determination Alain managed to make her eat them.

A couple of days later Alain was sitting on a huge rock with his Fennekin, watching stars, and perhaps remembering the times when he was traveling with just Charizard, who was training elsewhere at that moment. Mairin, who was feeling much better already and whose fever was down, crawled quietly out of her tent and heard Alain talk to his little Pokemon:

“Am I really ready for this, Fennie? To become a Pokemon doctor? If I got so worried about her even though she had a normal flu, how can I treat something that is far more serious? After almost ruining everything, you know... when you weren’t around... I wanted to start healing instead of destroying, but I’m not sure if I’m good enough.”

“Fenn” the fox Pokemon answered, trying to encourage her trainer, and pushed her head against his sleeve.

“I am so relieved to see she’s getting better already. I don’t ever want to see her as miserable as she was when… well, it was a long time ago.”

Mairin thought she shouldn’t interrupt them when Alain was telling his private thoughts to Fennekin, but to her annoyance her clumsiness (which wasn’t as frequent as it had once been) took over just in that moment. She was about to turn back to her tent when she tripped over a tree branch, and fell loudly on the ground. Alain and Fennie turned to see her.

“Are you all right?” Alain smiled a little bit when he saw his friend cringing at herself. This was just like the old times, he thought happily.

“Uh, sure,” the redhead mumbled, her face red of embarrassment, as she shook the dirt off of her clothes.

“So, I overheard you earlier..” she tried to change the topic, “I think you are going to be a great Pokemon doctor. The way you interact with your Pokemon is something pretty special. I can see from everything that you share a strong bond.” 

She had a small pause and joked: “After all, you even eat the same food with them.”

“Thank you?” he said, not sure how to take the last part. It was still good to hear her joking; that meant she truly had recovered.

“No, thank you. You were really sweet taking care of me like that. You wouldn’t have had to.”

“Nah, it was nothing. And of course I had to, you are my friend. I’m glad to see you’re fine now.”

Before he had time to react to it in any way, she had gotten closer to him and wrapped her arms around his waist.

“Just accept my gratitude, OK?”

“Wait, have you learned new words? ‘Gratitude’?”

“Alain! I’m not 10 anymore.”

“I know, I know. I was just kidding.”

“Wow, Fennie, did you hear that?” the girl addressed the Pokémon. “That’s some character development. Alain, joking.”

She earned an annoyed look from Alain, but he didn’t break the hug yet. There was something calming about it, in both Alain and Mairin’s opinion.

“Remember the last time we did this? I couldn’t even reach your chin!” Mairin broke the silence cheerfully. Suddenly Alain was awfully aware of the lack of space between them, but he also wondered how this felt so natural. When she had been younger, she had (tried to) hug him quite often, but it had felt different back then. She had been like a sister to him... But that had changed after her return.

Hold on a second. I couldn’t possibly be falling…. no. She’s still so young, Alain thought, ignoring the fact that she was already older than he had been when they had first met, almost an adult.

“Yeah. You have grown quite a bit since.” He patted her head and tried to smile, but he was still a bit confused by his feelings. She pulled off and was now leading him back towards the stone where he had been sitting earlier.

“Come sit with me Alain. I heard the other day that tonight you can see a lot of shooting stars on the sky. And if you see one, you can make a wish.”

“Fine.”

“Can I use your legs as a pillow? Looking at the stars is so much easier if I don’t have to bend my neck like this.” Mairin showed her awkward position and he allowed, though after a bit of hesitation.

There was a minute of silence before she exclaimed: “There, I think I saw one! I wish that whatever our future goals are, we will achieve them. Your turn, Alain.”

“I thought we weren’t supposed to say our wishes aloud or they won’t come true.”

“Oh, OK. Well, say it quietly in your mind then.”

Alain looked at the girl resting her head on his lap. Her slightly longer red hair was untied and formed a beautiful curtain behind her, and he resisted the urge to comb it with his fingers. Her eyes looked healthy and happy, and she had an almost childish gleam in them. She was wearing just a top and night shorts, but somehow this casual look made her even more attractive in his eyes.

“Even if nothing else ever happens, at least she still wants to be my friend..” he thought, thanking his stars. He had almost messed things up beyond reparation once…

“What are you thinking about, Alain?” she asked suddenly.

He couldn’t tell her his true thoughts, not yet, so he just whispered:

“I’m just glad you’re here.”

But when he glanced down at the girl who looked back at him with her signature smile, which he had once been so determined to see, and her shining hazel eyes, he suddenly knew he was a goner. And there was no turning back now.

[encryptedfantasies]

soon to be titled swanqueen fic

Saturday mornings were Emma’s favorite part of the week. There had never been a particular reason; weekends were inherently good, but there was something magical and pure and wholesome to Emma about waking up late on a Saturday morning and realizing that it was, in fact, finally Saturday.

Green eyes slowly cracked open to bright early day sunshine that flooded in through the window shade that hadn’t gotten pulled down quite far enough the night before. Emma stretched and her back cracked deliciously as she made a sound low in the back of her throat that was something akin to pleasure. The floor was cold from the air conditioner running in the night but Emma didn’t mind as she got up and padded across the floor to her closet.

A racerback tank top and leggings were thrown on and socks were grabbed from the top of a laundry basket as Emma headed down the stairs.

“Good morning Emma!” Mary Margaret called over her shoulder from the kitchen.

“Morning Mom.” Blonde locks were gathered into a loose bun and secured with the hair tie that lived on Emma’s wrist as she bent down to kiss Neal’s forehead. “And good morning to you too.” David smiled at his daughter’s baby voice from the couch.

“Still don’t want anyone to join you on your run?”

“Like you could keep up.” Emma smirked. She plopped down on the floor next to the shoe rack that housed her dirty, worn running shoes.

“I think anyone could keep up if you’re wearing those.” Emma stuck out her tongue, then petted a sneaker.

“There there, don’t listen to him he’s just being a di-”

“Are you going to want pancakes when you get home sweetie?” Mary Margaret interrupted, turning around with a streak of flour across her forehead. Emma suppressed her snort and David managed a sneaky picture from behind Neal’s crib. “I want to know if I need to make any more batter.”

‘Nah, I should be good. If I’m hungry I’ll stop at Granny’s on the way back.”

“Alright dear, enjoy your run.”

“Thanks Mom.” Emma hopped up from the floor and cracked her neck as she popped her ear buds into her ears.

“Be back later!” She called as she closed the door behind her. She paused to start her music playing, only to be interrupted by a text from David.

I won’t tell her if you won’t

                                                 You better not! I wanna see her face when she realizes

I’ll keep her distracted as long as I can. Might wanna make it a fast one today

Emma smiled to herself as she hit shuffle on her workout playlist and headed out the door of the apartment building.

The sensation of her feet hitting the pavement that traveled up Emma’s spine was one of her favorites, one that she could never get enough of. And once she rounded the corner to head for the docks, sunshine began to beat down on her face and sweat to form on her forehead and the wind off the sea started to blow through the stands that had escaped her fingers and made Emma forget the sweat was even there; Emma Swan was in bliss.

Saturday mornings were Regina’s least favorite part of the week. There was never a real substantial reason; just the fact that in Regina’s mind, weekends were only full of idleness and mindless loads of laundry and Henry doing nothing but play video games and cesspools for bad decisions (like eating Chinese food with the Charmings), but there was something that was just terrible and boring and tedious to Regina about waking up on a Saturday morning and realizing that it was, in fact, Saturday once again.

Goosebumps appeared on Regina’s arms as she got out of bed, suddenly regretting that she had left her air conditioner on while she slept. But as she stepped into the hallway, she began to regret her decision less and less. It wasn’t even 9:00 am and the summer heat was already beginning to become unbearable. Regina took a few steps down the hall and knocked on Henry’s door.

“Henry? Are you awake?” No answer. “Henry?” Again no response. Regina sighed and opened the door, only to find her son still sound asleep and the room dark. “Henry you need wake up.”

“Ngh?” Henry started to roll over, then fell back on his stomach.

“Do you have any idea what time it is?” he groped for his phone, only to come up short.

“Ah dunno, early o’clock?”

“It is past 9:00 it is time for you to get up.”

“Mom,” He whined. “It’s Saturday.”  He pulled the covers up higher.

“You’ve slept in long enough.” Regina walked across the room and pulled her son’s

covers off his body, eliciting a screech and a mad dash to retrieve them. “Come on, you’ve got things you could be doing.” Regina dropped the blankets on the floor at the foot of the bed as she walked away. “And make your bed before you come downstairs.” She called over her shoulder as she headed out the door. Henry groaned, flopped back into the bed and covered his face with his hands as he grumbled after his mother.

“You’d think the freaking evil queen was back -”

“I heard that!” Regina called from the bottom of the stairs. Henry groaned again.

Saturdays, like like every other morning, started with coffee that filled the house with the intoxication aroma of Regina’s motivation to live. Soon, Regina had her hands wrapped around the largest mug she owned full of straight black coffee, which was the only real way to drink coffee in her mind, and was taking a seat in front of the bay window which overlooked the neighborhood.

The sidewalk was already full of children riding bikes and owners taking dogs out for walks. Regina took a long sip from her coffee as Henry came down the stairs dressed in shorts and a t-shirt, socks in hand. Regina raised an eyebrow and he froze. “And where do you think you’re going?”

“Charlie and Matt invited me to go hang out with them and Marcia.”

“Marcia, huh?”

“God, Mom, it’s not like that!”

“Mhm.” Regina took another sip of her coffee.

“You are absolutely insufferable!” Henry stormed off to find his sneakers.

“They’re in the hall closet.”

“No they’re not! I left them over here!” There was a moment of silence before Henry emitted what was almost a scream and came storming back, now with his socks on, and stepped into his sneakers that were, in fact, sitting on the floor of the hall closet. “Hate it when you’re right…” Henry grumbled under his breath.

“What was that?” Regina tilted her ear towards him.

“Nothing.”

“Oh no, it was definitely something.”

“Mom, stop…” Regina rolled her eyes and smiled. “Oh, alright, I’ll leave you alone.”

“Ok... bye!” Henry grabbed his backpack off the floor and headed for the door.

“Wait!” Regina called. Henry deflated and turned back. “Where are you going?”

“I dunno.”

“What do you mean you don’t know?” Henry sighed.

“Probably Granny’s.”

“Do you have money?

“No.”

“How were you planning on paying for Granny’s?”

“I dunno.” Regina sighed, got up, and went into her purse that was hanging on the coat rack.

“Here’s $20, pay if someone forgot money, but I want change back.”

“Ok bye.” Henry disappeared out the door before Regina could fit another word in. She sighed and returned to her seat by the window as she listened to the garage door open then watched Henry take off down the street.

“He didn’t close the garage door…” She shook her head

Emma stood at the top of the slide on the playground, watching the water wash up against the sand. She smiled, the memory of her first time sitting in the same spot with Henry and his book making her nostalgic.

“Why’d you have to go and grow up, kid?” Emma spoke aloud to herself and let her head fall back against the wooden post she was leaning on. Her phone buzzed with a Words With Friends notification and saw that it was only 10:00 am. She sent Henry a text.

Hey kid, you up for donuts? She waited several minutes to give him a chance to reply, but he never did. She sent another text, but still got no response.

“Kid, I swear to god…” Emma pushed off the pole and jumped off the ladder. She took off running across the field towards 108 Mifflin to get her son out of bed.

Regina made toast for breakfast, and topped it with avocado that she had mashed with some lemon juice, salt, and pepper. She ate sitting in the window seat that overlooked the road. She had never called herself a stalker, but she supposed that’s what she was, always trying to spy on the neighbors from the front windows and inquiring about their lives. Her mind had just started to wander when she watched Emma running down the sidewalk past the house.

“Ooh…” Regina found herself saying aloud, her bottom lip disappearing between teeth as chocolate eyes drifted down Emma’s body. Emma paused and cocked her head at the open garage door, then up at Henry’s bedroom window. “Come on…” Emma checked her phone, then turned her back and started to jog away from the house. Regina frowned. “Well that’s not going to work.” With a turn of Regina’s hand, Emma had disappeared from the sidewalk and was appearing in front of Regina.

“What the hell?” Emma looked around disoriented before glaring at Regina.

“If you think you can come running by this house looking like that,” Regina gestured to Emma’s outfit. “and not stop by for the first time in over a week, then we’re going to have a problem.”

“What kind of -” Emma was stopped by Regina pressing her lips against Emma’s.

“You know exactly what kind of trouble I’m talking about.” Regina smiled devilishly against Emma’s lips and poofed them up the stairs and behind a locked bedroom door.

“We have to start being more careful about what we’re doing here. Anyone could see us,” Emma spoke softly and ran a hand through her hair as she stared at the ceiling.

“Well I would hope no one could casually see in through my second story window. I think we’re safe for the moment dear.” Regina slid over and rested her head on Emma’s chest.

“It’s the middle of the morning on a Saturday and you poofed me off the street, Regina. You know exactly what I meant.” A tanned leg slid between pale ones.

“We can stop if -”

“We both know that we wouldn’t stop even if I said I wanted to.” Regina smirked and began tracing light patterns over Emma’s bare chest with her fingernails.

“You’re not wrong…” Her fingers traced up to Emma’s jawline. “I certainly wouldn’t be too eager to give you up.” Regina pressed her lips again Emma’s neck and suddenly green eyes were fluttering shut and half a moan came from low in Emma’s throat. “You’ve been so much fun, and we’re just getting started.” The way the words slowly emerged from Regina’s throat in their low timbre did something to Emma she couldn’t explain, but she could have spent the rest of her life laying there, listening to Regina seduce her again.

“I’d just prefer crawling in the window when I know no one will -”

“Yes, we all know how daring and ninja - like you can be from your hardening days as a criminal; it’s quite impressive, but we’re all aware and right now you’re in my bed and that’s all that I care to be aware of at the moment.” Regina’s fingers trailed over a toned stomach, then back up, between pale, pert breasts longer than Emma’s brain could handle.

“Hook can’t -” Emma blurted out, but she was stopped by Regina kissing her full and hard as she rolled to straddle Emma’s hips. Regina pulled away and Emma couldn’t help but clench her legs as her eyes drifted up toned abs to full, pert breasts that bounced deliciously as Regina ground her hips into Emma’s thigh. Emma moaned and slid her hands up smooth thighs to curvy hips, biting her bottom lip as her arousal darkened eyes met with Regina’s even darker ones.

Suddenly, Emma was sitting up, gripping around Regina’s waist, and kissing her fiercely as a hand snuck between warm bodies for a single finger to paw at the abundant moisture Regina had that was dripping onto Emma’s leg.

“He won’t.” Regina’s eyes caught Emma’s with such ferocity, Emma found herself frozen, gazing into dark brown pools that only pulled her in deeper.

“Good.” Emma barely managed to choke out the word before Regina was grinding her hips down on Emma’s thigh and Emma’s brain nearly short circuited from another round so soon. Regina was intoxicatingly sexy and sometimes Emma found herself wondering why Regina didn’t throw herself at something infinitely sexier.

Regina let out a low moan and Emma flipped them over, and the bed moved a half foot against the floor.

“Mom, what was that?” Henry’s voice came from downstairs and had Emma flying off of Regina.

“What the fuck?” Emma whispered, panic evident in her voice. “When the fuck did he come home?”

“I don’t know, I never even heard the door close.” Regina whispered back as she scrambled to pull the bed covers over herself.

“Mom? Are you ok?” Henry called again from the bottom of the stairs.

“I’m fine Henry.” Regina answered, her eyes never leaving Emma’s panicked ones.

“You sure?” The sound of footsteps headed up the stairs had Emma ducking behind the bed.

“I’m fine! There’s no reason to come up here!” Regina bit her lip and prayed to every god she knew.

“...You’re sure? It sounded like something big fell.” Henry stopped.

“Yes. I just kicked the bed and it moved.”

“Ok…” He sounded unconvinced, but headed back down the stairs anyways. Emma let out the breath she had been holding and face planted into the bed and Regina collapsed back into the pillows.

“Holy shit…” Emma spoke into the bed.

“In this instance, holy shit is quite correct.” There was a beat of silence before Emma’s head was flying up from the bed.

“This is exactly what I’m talking about Regina. Do you have any idea how close we both just were to being completely and utterly screwed?”

“Of course I’m aware, I’m not an idiot.” Emma got up and started to get dressed, angrily flipping her hair out of her face. “What are you doing?”

“Leaving.”

“Why?”

“Because our son almost caught us having sex.”

“But he didn’t…”

“We’re getting careless Regina.”

“No we’re not we’re doing just fine.” Regina got up and walked across the room to Emma who was shimmying into her tank top. She wrapped tan arms around a pale waist, looking up into Emma’s eyes. “We’ve been safe up until now, and we won’t come that close again.” Emma looked down at Regina and found herself getting pulled into Regina’s eyes.

“But -”

“Shhhhhhh.” Regina leaned up on her tiptoes and pulled Emma closer. “Everything’s going to be ok.” Her voice got soft as she brought her face closer to Emma’s.

“How do you know?” Emma’s voice was barely above a whisper, her lips almost touching Regina’s. Regina tucked a rogue piece of blonde hair behind Emma’s ear, her brown eyes never leaving the green ones opposite her.

“Because you need me to.” Regina pressed her lips to Emma’s with the forceful gentleness that she always seemed to exist in. Emma found herself kissing back and her hands working themselves through Regina’s hair.

“I should get back… they’ll be wondering about me.” Emma pulled away from Regina and pressed their foreheads together. Regina nodded and took a step back. Emma grabbed her leggings off the floor and stepped into them.

“Can I expect you Monday?” Regina bit her lip, the fear of Emma’s instinct to run still in the air. There was silence as Emma put her hair back up in its ponytail.

“Yeah. Yeah you can.” Emma couldn’t help but smile when she saw the one break out on Regina’s face. She grabbed her phone off the nightstand and stepped into her still laced sneakers before heading for the window.

“What are you doing?”

“Leaving?” Emma stopped and looked back.

“You can’t just climb out the window.”

“Well I sure as hell can’t walk out the front door.” Regina rolled her eyes.

“Are you telling me that the world class criminal can’t figure out how to sneak her way out of a house without breaking a leg?” Emma feigned insult.

“I wouldn’t break my leg.”

“You can barely walk up the stairs, dear.” Emma rolled her eyes.

“You’re impossible.” Regina smirked.

“Perhaps…” Regina walked into the bathroom, retrieved her robe and wrapped it around herself. “Just wait a minute before coming downstairs. You’re dropping by to pick up some papers.” Emma raised a skeptical eyebrow and opened her mouth, but closed it again when Regina’s look told her to. Regina disappeared down the stairs and Emma could hear her talking to Henry through the floor. She found herself daydreaming about life living with Regina Mills but was interrupted by the realization that her two minutes were up. She crept down the stairs as quietly as she could, the knocked on the front door and made it sound like she let herself in.

“Hey Kid, you home?”

[gastricpierrot]

Title: When Stars Align

Series: Daiya no Ace

Pairing: KuraRyou

Rating: T

Summary: Nothing good ever comes out of an intimate relationship between a human and a youkai, Ryousuke knows. He’s heard more than enough stories on betrayal, on disasters, on families being shunned. And being an onmyouji, he knows better than anyone else.

And yet, he lets himself fall.

Note: im late aGAIN AHAHAH im gomenasorry

Also on AO3

[Ch.1][Ch.2][Ch.3]

[Ch. 4]

As per usual, Ryousuke’s greeted by the foulest mash of aura to ever grace the land of Japan before he even sees the first signs of the Capital city.

He squints towards the distance as though to judge the night itself, chanting a spell under his breath to strengthen the layer of barrier between himself and the abomination of the Capital’s presence. Really, he fails to understand how anyone with even the slightest spiritual sense would be able to remain there for even a week. Ryousuke could feel malice pressing against himdespite being this far away; nauseating, making it difficult to breathe. It’s another reminder of how baffling human adaptation could be, he supposes.

He turns back to poke at his fire, exhaling a slow breath through his mouth. He’s high-strung. The Nine-tailed Fox; the overbearing city; him being so far away from familiar territory—it all builds up as pressure in his chest. That’s not good. He can’t let it affect his performance, can’t let his guard down for even a second if he wants to come out of this with minimum setbacks towards his own wellbeing.

They’re watching. He can sense youkai practically surrounding his campsite; curious, wary. Ryousuke keeps his gaze towards his fire, having learnt by now that it’s always better to ignore them as long as they don’t stir up some kind of trouble. Stay away, he makes sure the message’s extra clear anyway because he really doesn’t have the mood to spare dealing with them at the moment. If you value your life, I’d suggest for you to keep that distance.

Fortunately for him, none of them are stupid enough to test him, and he manages to find some sort of rest through his final night of travelling.

Despite the overwhelming youkai energy infesting it—so much so that even Ryousuke has to pause before strolling in past the layer of barriers—the mortal side of the Capital is lively as ever when he arrives. It’s late afternoon and the streets are packed with people; parents trying to keep their children from wandering too far off, errand boys shouldering bulking sacks as they hurried to their destination, people leading their horses by the leash, carts transporting goods and the higher class. As he makes his way further towards the city centre, canvas stalls and wooden houses are gradually replaced by solid buildings and stores, unnamed lanes to developing districts.

Unsurprisingly, youkai are also everywhere.

Ryousuke sees them everywhere he looks. In the urn at the entrance of that restaurant, perched on rooftops, lounging on people’s hats and shoulders, peeking from alleyways. There seems to be even more of them than Ryousuke remembers, both in number and variety. The barriers have no doubt worked to keep youkai out, but it’s also trapping those who manage to slip in from exiting. Most of them look harmless, but it’s not unusual for even insignificant youkai to manage something bad if they had enough numbers. What was the Bureau doing, letting it all progress to this point?

“Ryousuke-san!”

Ryousuke focuses towards the direction of the voice, taking a moment to spot its owner among the loose crowd of people around him. A young man in the Bureau’s standard uniform wades his way towards him, features set in a grin brimming with underlying mischief.

“Kazuya,” Ryousuke greets, “skipping out on your job again?”

“Straight to the point as always,” Kazuya winces slightly. “But nah, you were taking a bit of time to arrive so I volunteered to come escort you in case you got lost or something.”

“If you had that much free time, you could’ve done something about this place.” Ryousuke makes a vague gesture around them. “You guys are probably used to it, but it reeks here.”

“Oh, believe me, we tried,” Kazuya says, falling in step with him. “We’ve done our best to keep the larger and stronger ones under control, but the small guys are just endless and plain stubborn. With all that’s going on recently, the Head eventually decided to ignore them and focus our efforts where it’s needed more.”

Ryousuke hums, peering towards the first signs of the Imperial Palace. He knows better than to voice it there and then, but the timing of it all is too suspicious for it to be a coincidence. It’s not difficult to guess that the Fox’s presence is what’s causing this sudden influx of youkai everywhere; the malevolence is so profound this close that Ryousuke could almost feel her physically behind them, watching their every move. He clenches his fists, fighting to keep his sudden wave of irrational fear in check. Stay calm. I’m still in control, he reminds himself firmly. I’m still in control.

“Come to think of it,” Kazuya continues, though Ryousuke senses the growing discomfort in his tone. They had never gotten along all that well, so having their conversations die down after some quick exchanges have never been rare. He guesses Kazuya must be pretty unnerved himself, to make the effort of keeping it up this time. “How’s my dumb cousin doing?”

“Knowing your kind, you’d have to specify which one you’re referring to,” Ryousuke remarks, chuckling his apology at Kazuya’s subtle expression of long-suffering pain before going on. “But if it’s Eijun we’re talking about, all I can say is that he still hasn’t quite grasped the concept of an ‘indoor voice’.”

“I’m surprised you still haven’t exorcised him after this long,” Kazuya observes, to which Ryousuke only shrugs. “Did Haruichi ever end up making him his familiar?”

“I don’t think he’d want to even if he could,” Ryousuke says, “though it’s not like their relationship would change much even if he did.”

“Nothing less to expect from Ryousuke-san’s brother, huh?”

Ryousuke smiles, otherwise making no further comments. Fortunately, he doesn’t need to. He nods his greeting at the guards on duty at the gates of the Bureau as he passes through, finding himself subconsciously taking comfort in the familiarity of his surroundings. The Capital City may be a madhouse compared to the tranquillity of Ryousuke’s village, but at least his workplace pretty much has the same vibes wherever he goes.

“I expect you should know your way from here, so I’ll be leaving first.”

Ryousuke doesn’t even flinch when he turns and faces a completely featureless Kazuya. “Sure.”

Kazuya’s expression is one of exaggerated disappointment when it blinks back into existence. Ryousuke doesn’t know why he even tries. That trick has long gone stale for him, after all those years of trying to console and convince a much younger Haruichi that no, Eijun’s face isn’t gone for good he’s just kind of terrible at transforming. At least Eijun’s improved a lot on maintaining his human form now; Ryousuke’s had enough of all the times he’s called to investigate a place for a noppera-bo sighting only to have Eijun running over a bit later to apologize for his carelessness. He’s in fact mastered it to an extent that it’s easy to forget he’s a mujina at all, since he barely ever reverts back to animal form now.

Ryousuke takes a deep breath only after Kazuya leaves, putting the thought aside as he heads to report his presence. Now’s not the time for reminiscence; it’ll only make his situation feel more dreadful than it really is, more final. He’s got to focus.

It’s far easier to focus on what he has to do than what might happen to him in the process.

xXx

Haruichi winces at Eijun’s fifth sneeze, silently hoping he wouldn’t return his handkerchief until he’s at least given it a rinse.

“I’m okay,” Eijun declares before he can ask, running the cloth messily under his nose after taking a huge, messy sniff. He mutters his thanks when Haruichi passes him a glass of water, gulping it down with a sort of comical exaggeration his almost every action always carries. All his life, Haruichi has arguably not seen anyone as extra as Eijun when it comes to… well, a lot of things. He supposes he’s partly responsible for that; Eijun’s somewhat grown into the overly boisterous image of himself he’s tried to project for his sake when they were younger despite knowing how risky it is for him to attract so much attention. They were fortunately able to cover up for all his misses over the years; it’ll be a pain if people were to discover that one of Kominato Ryousuke’s younger brother’s closest friends is a youkai himself. Though with their lineage, Eijun being a youkai in disguise is the least they’d feel scandalized over, honestly.

“Is it because of the dust, I wonder?” Haruichi muses aloud as Eijun works to clear his nostrils. Eijun shrugs, trailing behind him towards one of the shelves in Ryousuke’s study. Haruichi scans over the neatly lined books, picking out the few he thinks would contain the information he wants.

“Are you looking for more stuff about the Fox or whatever that onii-san’s gonna face in the Capital?” Eijun asks, squinting at a title on a book spine with words even Haruichi can’t read. Haruichi hums, adding one last book to his stack and making his way back outside and to his own room. “You sure you want to know more, though?”

Haruichi knows he means well, asking that. Even if he doesn’t have the ability to change anything, he wants to at least be prepared for any worst case scenarios. Ryousuke might try playing it off as the usual, but Haruichi is aware that the match-up this time could not be worse.

“Say, Harucchi?” Eijun speaks up a bit after they’ve settled down on the floor. Haruichi makes him wait until he’s finished the sentence he’s reading before glancing up at him, prompting him to go on with a slight raise of his eyebrows. “I know I’m probably not in the position to ask, but is there something wrong with onii-san?”

He shifts uncomfortably when Haruichi straightens to face him properly, reaching to rub the back of his neck. “How much did you overhear the other day, exactly?” Haruichi asks, already contemplating over how much he should reveal. There are some things he simply doesn’t have the right to tell, not if he respects his brother.

And he respects him a whole lot.

“Uh, everything, basically,” Eijun admits hesitantly, tensing in expectation of a few sharp words from his companion. “I remember you mentioned about something acting up?”

Haruichi falls silent to that. They’ve always managed to keep Eijun away whenever Ryosuke’s episodes happened, haven’t they? Eijun hadn’t been close enough to him yet for frequent sleepovers during the times when Ryousuke would still spend entire nights alone somewhere in the mountain forest, working himself to the bone learning how to tap into the powers of the entity residing deep within himself while keeping it from taking over his body. He’s never seen the numerous times when Ryousuke’s impenetrable composure could still falter because of the monstrous effort it takes for him to maintain control. He doesn’t know how when Ryousuke first started his training he merely had the abilities of an average person, and how people used to look at him with faces ranging from pity to utter doubt when he used to declare he’ll one day be one of the best onmyouji that’s ever lived despite his stature and the fact that he couldn’t cast a single spell until his early teen years.

Eijun doesn’t know that part of the reason why their parents are never around is because of Ryousuke.

“It’s okay if you can’t tell me,” Eijun quickly amends when Haruichi’s silence stretches out for a tad too long. Haruichi is honestly at loss over whether he should tell him anything at all. There doesn’t seem to be any merit to it; Eijun could accidentally mention it in a conversation and possibly cause some sort of uproar. Onmyouji with youkai relations aren’t exactly the newest things around at this point, but the stigma around it still persists. Ryousuke most likely wouldn’t want him to know due to more personal reasons as well; he’d loathe it if he’s going to be treated differently just because someone knew the truth—especially if that someone chooses to feel anything besides a certain level of healthy fear towards him.

“I’m sorry, Eijun-kun,” Haruichi decides, absently thumbing the page corner of the book on his lap. “I don’t think I’m in the position…”

“No, no, like I said—it’s all fine!” Eijun assures, gesturing wildly with his hands. “It’s not really any of my business in the first place.”

Haruichi flashes him a small, grateful smile. “If you’re really curious, I think it’s best to hear it from aniki himself.”

Eijun nods, reaching over to fetch the topmost book out of Haruichi’s stack. He opens to a random section, absently flipping the subsequent pages over. “So. You’re looking for things about kitsune, yeah?”

“Nine-tailed ones, to be exact,” Haruichi corrects, focusing on his own book once more. “I want to see if I can find anything besides what I already know.”

“If it’s a weakness or something, wouldn’t onii-san have already read about it by himself?” Eijun asks, stopping at a page with a particularly striking illustration. Haruichi stares at its title, trying to decipher the upside-down characters but to no avail.

“Well, yeah, but…”he can’t seem to say the rest of it, fearing that if he does they’d inevitably come true. Ryousuke’s strong and he’s not working alone this time and yet it’s because of who he is that Haruichi feels a new wave of nausea at the sudden concern that seizes him. Foxes have a fierce sense of connection with their own kind; if there’s anyone who can possibly influence Ryousuke by sheer will, it’d be a nine-tailed fox spirit. And even if she doesn’t get the chance to do anything to him, what consequences would the potential public revelation bring? How would the Bureau react?

“Harucchi.”

At the sound of Eijun’s voice, Haruichi jolts out of his thoughts.

“Onii-san will be fine,” he assures, grinning with a confidence that doesn’t waver like Haruichi’s own. “It’s him we’re talking about, after all.”

“He’d be severely offended if he finds out we’re worrying over him like this, huh?” Haruichi manages a slight laugh, reluctantly allowing himself to take in some of Eijun’s positivity. Still, it doesn’t change the feeling of helplessness that comes with only being able to wait. “It’s frustrating, but I suppose all we can do for him now is pray.”

He blinks at him when he sees him stiffen visibly, very obviously hit by some sort of idea. Eijun steers their conversation away before he could ask, though, proceeding to launch into an animated recollection of his experiences with the kind of youkai described on the page he’s stopped at. Haruichi finds no further will to question him, deciding that some things are still best left to Eijun and his own devices.

He just hopes he’s not going to do anything overboard. Again.

xXx

“You want me to what.”

Youichi thinks it’s probably about time for him to clean his ears because he’s pretty this brat just asked if there’s any way he could check on Ryousuke for Haruichi.

Was it something he did? Had he done something lately that gave him the idea that he doesn’t value his life? Because Eijun might as well have asked him to exorcise himself first to save Ryousuke the trouble of kicking his butt for hijacking his mind. Unlike actual gods, Youichi isn’t omnipresent, so the only way he’ll be able to more or less “see” how he’s doing is by entering his consciousness. Ryousuke was merciful the last time, but Youichi isn’t sure he’ll be as lucky right now. Or ever again in general, really.

Though, he does have a pretty good guess that Ryousuke’s extremely distracted by something at the moment. Against his better judgements, Youichi’s left a miniscule remnant of the short link he’d formed with Ryousuke the other day, also with the subconscious intention to make sure he’s at least still alive. Ryousuke would no doubt have already noticed and gotten rid of it if he’s his usual self; he either can’t be bothered now, or he hasn’t realized yet. Whatever it is, Youichi can tell he’s ridiculously stressed at the moment. He could feel his tension even through the slight, negligible link between their minds; he’s like a rope pulled taut for so long that the edges at the centre are already beginning to fray before it eventually snaps. Youichi can’t help marvelling at him for being able to function despite bearing that sort of weight on his shoulders. What he’s feeling is merely a fraction of the real thing, a second-hand sensation of sorts—and he already feels slightly queasy.

But even more than his borderline inhuman drive to keep going regardless of his inner turmoil, Youichi ponders more over the root of Ryousuke’s anxiety. They’re talking about a person who has the power to even stand up against a minor god here; what’s there about the nine-tailed kitsune in particular that has him so tensed up and on guard? Sure, she’s been impossible to beat for a century now, but Ryousuke would still have enough confidence in himself without lowkey fearing for his life, wouldn’t he?

Or has his every confrontation with youkai actually been like this? Was it just that Youichi never noticed because Ryosuke has simply achieved that level of skill when it comes to hiding it?

“Who do you think keeps this place safe while Ryou-san’s off doing his thing, huh?” Youichi sighs wearily when Eijun repeats his question with a volume about a solid hundred levels louder. Really, just because mujina are good at projecting their voices doesn’t mean Eijun has to do it when they’re just two metres apart.

“Can’t you spare some time during the day or something? You spend most of your time just lazing around anyways,” Eijun argues, and Youichi just about to explain that there are very important reasons to his lazing around when he decides it’s not worth the effort.

“Look, I know you’re doing this for Haruichi’s sake, but you have to understand one thing—“he proceeds to tackle Eijun into a headlock and grind his fist against his scalp—“Ryou-san would probably flay me alive when he comes back if I do that, and you’re an idiot.”

“Isn’t that already two things!” Eijun protests, thrashing violently until Youichi releases him. “And only idiots call others idiots!” he accuses, jabbing a finger at his direction.

“Yes, yes.” Youichi makes a dismissive wave before crossing his arms. “If you’re thatkeen to know, though, why don’t you just turn into a bird and fly there or something? I don’t think it’ll take that long by air.”

Youichi braces himself for more yelling when Eijun opens his mouth, but he clams up without saying anything in the end. Huh. Did Youichi accidentally thread on a sensitive subject?

“Don’t tell me,” Youichi raises his eyebrows, “you’re bad at transforming?”

“’Course not!” Eijun denies, and Youichi could practically feel every sentient being within a fifty-meter radius wince simultaneously. He hesitates a bit before speaking again, mumbling under his breath as he does so. “It’s just that I promised onii-san that I’ll take care of Harucchi while he’s gone.”

Youichi takes half a minute to process that. Then oh, the implicit message behind Eijun’s words dawns him. It must be the Capital City that he has issues with. Youichi can’t exactly criticize him for that; he isn’t that fond of it himself. He’s passed by a few times during some journeys with his master, and the impression he immediately got was along the lines of ugh no thanks. To put it crudely, the smell alone reminded him of his master’s feet—which reeks like a pile of rotting fish—only about fifth times more pungent. He remembers being sourly told not to involve himself at all with the gods residing there if he could help it too because they’re all pieces of work who think they’re better than everyone else.

Frankly, Youichi always thought his master’s always been a little overdramatic, but he figures he has nothing to lose listening to him when it comes to deities. They’ve never been fond of youkai, and the feeling’s mutual.

“Well, sorry to break it to ya,” Youichi sniffs, “but I’ve been asked to watch over him while Ryou-san’s away too.”

“Then doesn’t that mean you’re already multitasking? What difference would doing one more thing make?” Eijun demands, and dear lord Youichi can’t tell if he’s seriously that dense or if he’s simply refusing to listen. He spends a moment to study him; spotting the telltale furrow across his brow, the tension in his jaw, the way he’s clenching his fists—and feels something in him soften. He’s genuinely just trying to support his friend in whatever straightforward, albeit slightly outlandish way he can, isn’t he? As much as Youichi hates to admit, he’s a sap for stuff like that. He can’t dislike him for doing his best to look out for someone he cares for.

Youichi exhales a long breath, deciding he’s probably going to regret this. A lot.

“Okay, listen,” he begins, holding up his palms in a sort of placating gesture. He sends a quick prayer to whoever’s kind enough to bother listening for Eijun to not start freaking out. “If it makes you feel any better, I am still maintaining a tiny link with Ryou-san’s mind right now. What I can deduce through that is extremely limited, but at the very least—“ he shoots Eijun a stern glare to shut him up before he can speak—“I’d know if he’s dead or alive.”

For a second, Eijun looks like he isn’t able to accept that. Then as Youichi watches, the fight seems to leave him all at once, and he averts his gaze, slouching his shoulders. So even he can look like that sometimes, Youichi muses. Even someone as aggressively stubborn as him could finally realize when to give in.

“I’ll definitely let Haruichi know if anything happens,” Youichi assures, doubting his own words the moment he voices them because can he really tell he boy if there’s a chance he won’t ever see his brother again? “Though, I’m sure Ryou-san would have everything under control somehow or another.”

When he realizes that isn’t enough to get rid of Eijun’s pensiveness, he does the only thing he could think of. He trudges behind him, and kicks him at the back of his knees. Eijun yelps, promptly proceeding to demand what that was for and accuse him for being a horrible guardian deity because people in his position shouldn’t be needlessly harming other youkai. Youichi merely answers with a trademark cackle and some snarky retort, hoping to keep this front up until Eijun leaves. Call him superstitious or whatever—it’s always foreboding when the boisterous ones become quiet. Youichi has his own unease already; he doesn’t need Eijun to make things worse.

Because surely, Ryou-san knows what he’s doing and getting himself into, right?

xXx

There’s a blanket of tense silence settled over the group of onmyouji entrusted with the task of aiding the holy ritual.

Ryousuke moistens his lips as he moves with them towards the designated hall in the Imperial Palace, willing his heartbeat to find its calm already. It doesn’t help that the summer heat is extra overbearing that day; harsh sunlight beating down on them in the exposed hallways, their robes doing more to trap the heat in than keeping it out. The only good it’s doing is making Ryousuke’s sweat less conspicuous since practically everyone’s mopping their faces every five minutes or so.

They’re led by the main person in charge of casting the spell, a man said to be a descendant of Abe no Seimei named Abe no Yasunari. He’s skilled, yes, though not to the point of being “spectacular” per se. Definitely not as prominent as his predecessor, but since Abe no Seimei had direct blood relations to a youkai it’s not much of a surprise. If anything, the fact that Yasunari is as good as he is now proves that he’s a person worthy of carrying the weight of his family name. Ryousuke’s seen him work a few times firsthand; his methods are highly efficient and effective,albeit slightly orthodoxical. Just because he doesn’t particularly stand out like his grandfather or the few among them including Ryousuke himself doesn’t mean he isn’t amazing in his own right.

They eventually stop before a set of sliding doors, Abe no Yasunari exchanging a few words with the men standing guard before they’re granted access. At this point, the tug in Ryousuke’s gut that’s been building up ever since he entered the city has morphed to something resembling an intense burn. She’s close, and it’s starting to react to her presence. Ryousuke takes a deep breath, swallowing thickly. It’s alright, he’s trained enough to handle this. He’ll be fine, he’ll be fine.

He then steps in through the entrance of the hall, and meets the gaze of the most beautiful woman he’s ever seen.

*to make things clear, miyuki's a tanuki and eijun's a mujina!

[beauregards]

you can always come home

100 WAYS TO SAY I LOVE YOU CHALLENGE: no.94 -’you can do it’

1,385 words

clarke griffin/raven reyes

clarke, raven, and the pacific rim fusion fic you didn't want.

OR

clarke and raven save the world.

a/n: finally, i've written something! i rewatched pacific rim on the weekend & it rekindled my old passion for the 100/pacific rim au's so here's this! also goes with no.94 in my 100 ways to say i love you challenge. i did change it from 'you can do it' to 'we can do it' but hey!

title from here

warning, there is character death & violence typical to both the 100 & pacific rim but at no point to i go in depth & it's pretty much inferred so yeah. 

AO3 // CHALLENGE

After their first post-drift physical they retreat to Raven’s room, sandwiched together on her narrow bunk trying to get as close as physically possible.

It feels strange, to be two separate people with separate minds and separate bodies after drifting together. Sharing everything that makes you who you are with another person, every single thought, memory, feeling, only to get wrenched apart again.

 “Stupid post-drift hangover,” Raven mutters at one point, her chin digging into Clarke’s shoulder when she speaks.

 It doesn’t hurt much, but it’s enough that Clarke knows Raven’s there, close. She starts to feel better after that.

 //

 ‘Fucking Kaiju’s,’ comes bouncing through their neural link and Clarke laughs, breathless, as they swing a punch at the level three that had come through the breach.

 ‘Fucking Kaiju’s,’ she agrees, lifting a leg to kick out the Kaiju’s leg and leave it off balance as they fire up the plasma canon. ‘Trying to take over the planet and disrupting movie night.’

 “Unbelievable,” they say, aloud and in unison as they drop the dead Kaiju in the middle of the parking lot.

 //

 “I hope you guys are ready to go down,” Monty says, dropping into the seat across from Clarke.

 “Please,” Clarke scoffs.

 “You’re the one’s going down,” Raven says, pointing her fork at him, “We always clean up at game night.”

 “That’s going to change tonight,” Bellamy says from Raven’s right, “Octavia and I are going to sweep the floor with you.”

 “That’s some big talk, Blake,” Miller flicks a spoonful of mashed potatoes at Bellamy, smirking at the disdain on his face when it hits him directly in the chest.

 “It’s not just going to be talk once we beat you,” Octavia says, handing her brother a napkin while Monty snaps a picture.

 “Just make sure your bets are in before five,” Monty reminds them, their phone’s dinging with the notification that @montyg has posted a picture.

 //

 “They can’t shut down the jaeger program,” Raven says, disbelief colouring her tone, “What’s going to happen the next time a Kaiju attacks? Pray it doesn’t kill to many people, destroy to many buildings?”

 “They think their fucking wall will keep them out,” Harper spits out, face flushed.

 “Dumbasses,” Clarke chimes in, “They can’t relocate us Hong Kong and let the jaeger program die out; humanity will die out with us.”

 “We’re drinking to the end of the world then,” Jasper announces, entering the room with several bottles of what Clarke assumes is Monty’s signature moonshine.

 //

 Following their transfer to the Shatterdome all the pilots train harder than before. They start logging more hours on the mat, brushing up on their combat skills, spend more time running drift simulations, more time watching old tapes and analyzing their previous fights. If they’re going to go out, they’re going to go out fighting.

 //

 Clarke knows how Raven feels about her, always has thanks to the drift. She also knows that Raven knows about Clarke’s feelings too. One of the first things you learn from drifting is how to get over embarrassment. Your co-pilot knows everything you’ve ever experienced and vice versa, if you don’t get over it quickly you’re going to spend your whole life blushing.

 By an unspoken agreement made in the drift they’ve never voiced these feelings aloud. Clarke’s beginning to wonder if she should change that.

 //

 The comms for the Keeper and the Purpose have gone dark, but they don’t let themselves think about what that could mean. Force themselves to focus on the Kaiju’s in front of them, making their way towards the shore and more specifically, the city.

 The first double event since K-Sci predicted they would start seeing multiple Kaiju’s coming through the breach three days ago.

 ‘We’ve got this,” They think, bringing up a foot to kick the Kaiju in the chest, driving it back several meters as they fire up their plasma canons, “we can do it.”

 //

 “I’m really glad you assholes are alive,” Bellamy says, once they’ve all been examined by the medical personnel, “You had us worried there for a minute with your freefall from outer space.”

 “The feeling’s mutual,” Raven says, her arm wrapped tightly around Clarke’s shoulders, “I’m glad you didn’t get eaten by that Kaiju.”

 “Please,” Octavia laughs from her place at Bellamy’s side, “He’d be to bitter, the Kaiju would have spit him straight back out.”

 Clarke snorts and Raven tightens her grip on her, “It’s time for a sixteen hour nap, we’ll see you two at lunch tomorrow.”

 Clarke waves goodbye and lets Raven drag her down the corridor to her quarters.

 //

 “We understand the risk,” they say, side by side like always, agreeing to what is essentially a suicide mission. But if it works, if they can actually close the breach and survive closing it, then they’re free.

 They tell Kane they accept the mission.

 //

 “If we make it through this,” Clarke says, knows Raven can finish the sentence without her help.

 They’re shoulder to shoulder, sitting in the space between their rigs passing a bottle of vodka back and forth. Soon they’re going to be going through the breach, trying to stop the attacks once and for all, but for now they’re going to sit here and enjoy each other’s company. Spend as much time together as they can.

 “If we make it through this,” Raven echoes Clarke’s promise, a verbal pact.

 We’re going to make it, Clarke tells herself, repeating it like a mantra. We have to.

 //

 “Octavia,” Bellamy says; they hear his voice break over the comms and pretend they don’t, “I love you so much.”

 “I was the lucky one,” Octavia says, voice strained. They don’t understand the context of the words, but obviously they mean something to the siblings. “You know that, right big brother?”

 They don’t hear Bellamy’s response over the screech of metal.

 //

 “We’ve got the Kaiju carcass. We’re going through the breach,” They say, their voice shaking. “See you on the other side of this.”

 //

 She ejects Raven’s pod. Her oxygen supply is gone, Raven’s gone; it’s just her now. For the first time in a long time, the inside of her head feels empty.

 She detonates the Struggle‘s core, hit’s the eject button, prays she’ll make it back.

 //

 Everything is dark, and then all there is is Raven.  Just like that, everything is back to normal.

 “We did it,” Raven clutches her shoulders, fingers pressing into her biceps through her jumpsuit tightly enough that Clarke knows it’s going to bruise. “We saved the world, and we didn’t die doing it.”

 Later, once the adrenaline and shock wears off, they’ll remember all their friends who didn’t make it; who died saving the world. But for right now, they float somewhere off the coast of China and hold each other.

 //

 Clarke finds Raven sitting in the space between their rigs nearly a month after they successfully closed the breach.  The Struggle rebuilt for a victory lap.

 It’s been a whirlwind month of press releases and interviews and memorials. Clarke’s glad it’s all finally over, that they can go home and mourn in private. Reclaim their lives.

 Clarke isn’t sure who she is outside of a jaeger anymore; who she is separated from Raven.

 “So,” Clarke announces herself, rapping a fist against the metal shell of the Star’s Struggle, “I made you a promise several weeks ago in this very cockpit.”

 “You did,” Raven says, a smile playing on her lips. “You meant it?”

 “You’ve been inside my head enough times to know that I meant it,” Clarke says, taking a seat beside Raven on the cold metal floor.

 “Good,” Raven slides a hand into Clarke’s hair to pull her into a kiss, “because I meant it too. As long as you want me with you, you’ve got me.”

 “You’re going to be stuck with me for a long time then,” Clarke laughs, wrapping her arms around Raven’s shoulders and pulling her close, her grip tight but not uncomfortable. The way they always used to be post-drift.

 “We do have all the time in the world now, seeing as how we stopped the apocalypse and all,” Raven agrees, her breathing syncing up with Clarke’s. “We should probably make the most of it.”

[writingguide003-blog]

Girls Aloud writers turn talents to musicals

New Post has been published on https://writingguideto.com/must-see/girls-aloud-writers-turn-talents-to-musicals/

Girls Aloud writers turn talents to musicals

Image copyright Getty Images

Image caption Walliams sold more children’s books than JK Rowling in 2017

Two of the UK’s most successful songwriters are swapping pop music for musicals as they adapt a David Walliams book for the stage.

In 2003, when Little Britain was first televised, the best-selling book of the year was Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix.

Its author JK Rowling might not have known it at the time, but one of the BBC comedy show’s breakout stars would go on to become one of her peers as a hugely popular children’s writer.

Indeed, David Walliams found himself not just outselling Rowling in 2017, but also veteran children’s authors like Philip Pullman and Julia Donaldson.

(Admittedly, Rowling hasn’t released a new children’s book since Potter – but that series continues to sell by the bucketload.)

‘Cheeky and a bit wrong’

Walliams’s hugely popular books such as Gangsta Granny and The World’s Worst Children have become a publishing phenomenon and been translated into 53 languages.

“He’s almost like a continuation of Roald Dahl,” says Nick Coler, who has adapted Walliams’s Billionaire Boy as a new stage musical with songwriting partner Miranda Cooper.

“Those stories have always been really popular because they’re a bit cheeky and a bit wrong. And there’s nothing like kids for wanting that sort of thing.”

Image copyright Alex Lambert

Image caption Miranda Cooper and Nick Coler have adapted Billionaire Boy for the stage

In case you don’t have Walliams-obsessed children of your own, the billionaire boy at the centre of Billionaire Boy is 12-year-old Joe Spud.

The premise is that Joe has all the money he could possibly want, hence the book’s title, but no friends – something he is keen to put right.

When it came to bringing the story to the stage, there were fewer people better placed than Cooper and Coler – two of the UK’s most respected and prolific songwriters.

If their names sound vaguely familiar, it may be because you’ve spotted them in the credits of countless pop hits over the last two decades.

‘A jolt of robo-disco?’

As part of songwriting team Xenomania, they were responsible for hits by Sugababes, Kylie Minogue, Alesha Dixon and Sophie Ellis-Bextor.

Perhaps most notably, they were the brains behind just about every major Girls Aloud track – a group loved by critics for songs such as Love Machine and Biology, which took more innovative approach to pop.

In an article for The Guardian, published at the height of their success, Craig McLean said: “These are pop songs that don’t follow the rules of pop.”

“Choruses take yonks to come in. Contrary musical ideas are mashed together (anyone for a trumpet break? A jolt of robo-disco?)”

Image copyright Getty Images

Image caption Xenomania were most famous for writing nearly all of Girls Aloud’s hits

The Telegraph, meanwhile, acknowledged Xenomania’s role in making the group “arguably the most musically inventive British pop act of the decade”.

But writing a stage musical is, of course, an entirely different discipline to writing a pop single.

“It’s far more rigorous lyrically, it obviously has to move the narrative of the show along, whereas a pop song can often be much more static,” Cooper explains.

Which presumably means it’s a case of starting with the lyrics, and then coming up with the melodies?

“Yes, which is actually not dissimilar to how I wrote a lot of the Girls Aloud songs,” she says.

‘Killer melody’

“I would always have a notebook, just lots of concepts or first lines of choruses or just words, just so I was constantly trying to keep myself fresh in terms of what song I was writing, and not going into the rut of writing the same song over and over again.

“So with Can’t Speak French, I had the lyric ‘I can’t speak French, so I let the funky music do the talking, talking’. With Gabriella Cilmi, I had ‘Sweet about me, nothing sweet about me’.

“And the great thing about that is that you just keep singing the same lyric until you get a killer melody.”

Image caption Xenomania have also written for Sophie Ellis-Bextor and Alesha Dixon

But Coler points out that writing music for a stage show requires more than just catchy hooks.

“In a musical, you can’t just have the script going along telling a story and then you have a song – the story has to run through the song to the other side, and move the plot forward.

“Whereas a pop song is a very self-contained thing… there’s a thin line between making something repetitive but also making it interesting, and doing it all in under three minutes.”

Reflecting on her time writing such songs with Xenomania, Cooper adds: “We had the luxury of time… so we were able to experiment.

People ’emulate your sound’

“[Girls Aloud’s] Biology, Love Machine, Sound of the Underground, they all came out of experimentation, which you don’t really do if you have one day and the clock ticking, you probably play it safe and say ‘what’s in the charts right now, let’s do something like that’.

“We’d start an idea and come back to it a week or month or years later. With Call The Shots we wrote the chorus of that two years before we wrote the rest of it. So things were allowed to distil.”

Coler left Xenomania on good terms in 2010. By that point, Girls Aloud had started to wind down, and he was keen to pursue other ventures.

“There’s only a five-year period of when you can be successful [as a songwriter] because nobody’s caught up with you, and then people start to emulate the sound you’re making,” he explains.

Image copyright Manuel Harlan

Image caption Ryan Heenan plays Joe Spud – the billionaire boy at the centre of Billionaire Boy

“And obviously as they do that, they start to water down what you sound like. So the process sort of starts to break down in a way, and you have to start again, and I think around that time we were all feeling like we wanted a change anyway, and I had a few other projects.”

Coler and Cooper kept in touch, and the first musical they wrote was a stage adaptation of 2007 film Son of Rambow, which debuted earlier this year.

Sam Hodges, the artistic director of the Nuffield Theatre in Southampton, where that show played, then asked the pair if they’d work on another.

Breaking the rules

Billionaire Boy’s music, which accompanies the script adapted by Jon Brittain, was written in the space of just a few months – quite a feat considering musicals often take years to put together.

“We were fans of musicals, but we’d never written one before Rambow, which I think has served us quite well, because we don’t know the rules,” laughs Cooper.

“So we’ve been breaking them left right and centre! And sort of just going on instinct.”

Walliams has had a fairly hands-off approach, Cooper explains, allowing them “carte blanche to just get on with it”.

“He’s been really supportive,” she adds, “but I guess the punch will come when he sees it!”

Billionaire Boy opens at Nuffield Southampton Theatres on 28 November.

Related Topics

Theatre

Musical Theatre

Music

Read more: http://www.bbc.com/news/uk

[galysh]

Sweet Dreams are made of this II

“Sweet Dreams are made of this II”

August 17th 2013

                 Paul awoke several hours later, sleepily he pressed a button his phone, cutting short the alarm and rolled over. There was a dull ache in his eyes and behind his ears, one he recognized as being caused by a lack of sleep. He groaned, head butted the pillow in further complaint, before forcing himself upright. He shoved his feet into his slippers, barely registering their fluffy warmth and stood up, looking around the room. Oscar was still on his computer, fingers tapping the same rapid rhythm that Paul had drifted off too. Yawning, Paul gathered his necessities and stumbled off to shower, ruing the harsh hallway lights. The hot water helped some, so did eating breakfast and before he knew it, Paul found himself standing outside Bismarck Auditorium with the rest of his orientation group. The auditorium was huge, easily seating 1000 odd students, or so Paul guessed, there was another floor of seats above them. He slumped down in his chair, not bothering to hid his yawn though the high pitched squeal his throat made had him rapidly closing his mouth.

               “Late night?”

               Paul rolled his head to the side and met Elian’s sympathetic look with a smile of his own. “Yeah, I didn’t crash till early. How’s your roommate?”

               “He’s nice, I guess. His name’s Lionel, we talked some but he’s not in our orientation group,” Elian replied with a shrug. “I’m hoping we’ll be able to hit it off, I’ve only roomed with my brother before. What group is your roommate in?”

               “I don’t know,” Paul admitted, “I’m pretty sure he’s not coming though, he was already on his computer when I woke up.” A muffled tapping reverberated through the room and Paul sat up properly, there were several new people standing on the stage. One of them was now testing the microphone.

               “Oh? So he’s one of those types?” Elian sounded vaguely amused, and when Paul looked at him, he smirked. “You know, the geeky nerdy type.”

               “Maybe, though that’s not a bad thing, he’s just… really salty, I guess?” Paul explained and was all the more surprised when Elian laughed.

               “That’s good, salty is better than shy. My sister’s a nerd, but she’s always been timid about that kind of stuff. She’s changing though, just last week she gave the brats a smack down it was great,” Elian continued.

               “Brats? How many siblings do you have?” Paul asked, but Elian didn’t get the chance to answer as the meeting had started. The speakers covered school protocol, safety, and the honor code, it was similar to a high school entrance ceremony, Paul noted. He accepted the bag that was passed to him by their group leader and looked inside, several folders peered back at him as well as various nick knacks. He grinned. Orientation lasted through most of the morning with small breaks made to allow the groups to discuss amongst themselves. Paul took one such opportunity to request a second bag of goodies from David the group leader, but the rest of the time he spent chatting with Elian, and occasionally filling out the questionnaires that were pushed onto them. As a result, he found out that Elian had 4 siblings, lived in North Dakota, and had never been out of the country.

               The noon sun had passed before Paul made his way back to his dorm, weighed down with several bags. The room was just as he had left it, dark for the blinds were closed, but the tapping had stopped. Carefully, Paul set his stuff down and then eased the door shut, Oscar didn’t stir. That done he crossed the room. Oscar was just as he had been when Paul had left in the morning, partially lying down, with his computer on his knees, and his head phones around his ears. Now, though the headphones hung around his neck and the computer screen was dark. Paul took the opportunity to look him over, something he hadn’t permitted himself to do the previous night, wary of off putting the other teen. Even in the semi gloom, Oscar looked pale in Paul’s eyes, his hair was several shades darker and though of a shorter cut, it was quite curly.

               “It’s rude to stare,” Oscar commented and Paul jumped, taking a few hasty steps back but his roommate didn’t open his eyes.

               “Sorry, I didn’t mean to wake you,” Paul said.

               “I wasn’t sleeping,” Oscar replied, but the slurring of his own words betrayed him, as did his subsequent yawn. “Did you want something?”

               “Not really, I’m just wandering how it is that your laptop hasn’t fallen yet,” Paul answered.

               “Maaahic,” Oscar said, succumbing to another yawn. He opened his eyes and moved the laptop to the ground, setting his headphones next to it. “There it’s safe now.” He then flopped over, facing away from Paul, “I’m going to sleep.”

August 19th 2013

               “Why? Just why?” Paul asked, as got ready for his first day of class. “Why would you even?” Oscar already dressed and prepared, smirked at him from the safety of his bed. For someone who had spent most of the weekend playing video games, he looked surprisingly refreshed and prepared. Paul couldn’t say the same about himself, 6 o’clock was still too early to be getting up. It had been too early in middle school, it had been too early in high school, and it was definitely too early for college.

               “I don’t know why you’re surprised,” Oscar eventually said once they’d made it out the door. “I never said that I couldn’t get up early.” He veered left towards the elevator.

               “You’re right,” Paul agreed as he turned right towards the stairs, “to be honest, I just pegged you as night owl. I mean you refused to go to any of the morning orientation, and are you really going to take the elevator?” Oscar merely looked at him, already having pushed the button. That was another thing Paul had picked up on, if the answer didn’t need to be spoken Oscar was quite content to leave it unvocalized. “I’ll see you at the bottom then,” Paul said and took the stairs. Oscar joined him at the front door and they made their way to the closest dining hall.

               “Classes are different than Orientation,” Oscar continued as if the conversation hadn’t been interrupted for a solid five minutes. “There’s less people in them for one. Don’t tell me.” He darted ahead and spun around forcing Paul to halt. “You actually enjoyed dedicating four hours of your morning to listen to adults’ blather?” Oscar’s expression was one of comical horror, he clamped his hands over his mouth, and widened his eyes dramatically.

               Paul found himself laughing rather than growing offended, and he shook his head before leaning forwards to whisper conspiratorially. “Let me tell you a secret, roomie, I found them rather boring but I got a friend out of the deal, and plenty goodies.”  

               “Well,” Oscar whispered back, “I can’t say if getting a friend is worth several hours of suffering, but those goodies do sound worth it.” He spun away, and continued loudly, “Then again, I didn’t go and I still got all the goodies.” Planting his hands on his hips, he smirked at Paul. “Top that, roomie!”

               “I plead the fifth,” Paul said, “though in my defense, your honor, the prosecutor is a drama queen.” He grinned to take any sting out of his words and Oscar snorted but didn’t take umbrage. Breakfast was a quieter affair, Oscar having clammed up as soon as they entered the dining hall.

Paul let him be, using the break to try to get in the mindset for his first class, Introduction to Italian. He felt his phone buzz, and checked it; ‘why get grits if you don’t like them?’ Paul blinked in surprise, and looked across the table at Oscar who continued to eat his toast as if he hadn’t just texted him. He then looked down, noting with another flicker of surprise that he’d been mashing his grits rather than eating them. Paul set about remediating to that, as it turned out eating them was a better stress reliever. Having finished eating, he checked the time and noted that there was still plenty of time to spare. Taking a leaf from Oscar’s book, he chose to text rather than speak aloud, seeing as the dining hall had steadily grown louder as time passed.

‘Bracken 107. Yours?’

‘Ita in Bracken 106. Lucky!’

‘I guess, 8:35?’

‘Yup. And then GNDST at 11 in Rockefeller 309.’

‘I’ve got physics in the Quad, at 11. Anything after?’

‘Nope, do you want to do something?’

‘No. have you taken Italian before?’

‘Nope. Want to head to class then?’

‘Sure.’

Paul found himself smiling, as he rose and took his dishes to the drop off. Oscar tagging behind. Though once they were outside, he took the lead being as he actually knew where he was going. Bracken was a small two story brick building tucked between the music center and the Art museum. The floor was tile but there was a large lounge open immediate entry that was composed of comfy looking armchairs. Several students were already there, seated around the hall or in window seats. Oscar made a beeline for an empty windowsill so Paul chose the nearest armchair to him and settled in for the wait. The bell came much sooner than expected. Paul took a deep fortifying breath and made his way down the hall towards his first class as a college student. Oscar caught up and bumped his fist on his shoulder before he could enter. Paul looked at him and then stepped back. “I’m not sitting through your Spanish course,” he said swiftly.

“I wouldn’t want you too,” Oscar assured, he stared at Paul for a moment and then added, “relax, would you? Intro courses won’t kill you.”

“Are you saying that higher courses will? That’s not very comforting,” Paul said, “should I be wishing you good luck?”

“Who knows,” Oscar answered and strode off for his own classroom. Paul followed his example.

*Title taken from *Sweet Dreams”, Euthymics