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safertokiss · 4 years ago

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Through a Different Lens

A/N: Well, well, well. Lookie what we have here. New content wowza. I’d say I’m surprised it’s been a while, but I simply am not. Luckily another fic swap has arrived to get my creative juices flowing once again. The gods have gifted me with another perfect opportunity to write sub spence because I was given @writing-in-april as my person yet again. Hooray! Anyways I hope you enjoy and thanks all you cool cats and kittens for the support (we almost to 1000 yeet skrrt). Also, it just happens to be my birthday today so as a gift to myself I thought about subby Spencer for a while.

Pairing: SPENCER x READER

Category: SMUT and can’t forget that fluff

Word Count: 3.2k

ENJOY:)

~~~

It all started completely by accident.

There was no possible way that she would’ve been able to predict just how much they would affect the poor kid.

She could remember, clear as day, the first time she was forced to wear her glasses to the bureau due to her ongoing frustrations with the torture devices that were also referred to as contacts. There were only so many headaches and eye-waterings that she could take before the insecurity of wearing her frames to work shriveled below the point of caring anymore.

But none of those previous insecurities held a flame to the amount of confusion she felt when she entered the bullpen and waltzed over to Spencer’s desk to say good morning with a shy smile adorning her face. Y/n hadn’t even been able to get a complete sentence out before the young doctor had turned to her and froze, his mouth hanging open like a fish, his eyes widening to the size of dinner plates, the harsh red blush she had seen before, just maybe not to this extent, engulfing his boyish features.

Before she could even attempt to ask him what she had done to warrant such a response, he was spouting out a meager, “H-hey Y/n” whilst simultaneously scurrying off in the direction of the nearest bathroom.

Completely and utterly perplexed over what had happened, she had shrugged it off and made her way back to her desk, silently mulling over the interaction periodically throughout the rest of the day.

It was a couple of the same type of interactions later that Y/n began to take notice of what was actually happening with the boy genius. The stiff and unnatural posture. The stuttering, granted that wasn’t something new, just much more frequent and severe. The audible heartbeat always accompanied by rosy cheeks and goosebumps.

Spencer Reid was fucking turned on by the glasses.

And he didn’t even try to hide it. Or maybe he did and was just really, really bad at doing so.

Either way, Y/n quickly discovered just how much fun it was getting these reactions to pour out of the kid...so of course she kept wearing the glasses even after she was able to wear contacts again. He didn’t need to know that.

It was so fucking easy too.

She would just be sitting at her desk, occupied by some particularly troubling pages of a case file that makes her have to readjust her frames out of stress, when she’d hear a high pitched squeak across the bullpen, followed by the pattering of frantic footsteps she had familiarized herself with in former few weeks.

While she felt some kind of guilt for putting him through this, it was nowhere near enough to overtake the genuine excitement and gratification that came with knowing she could have such an effect on the adorable doctor.

Of course she found him attractive...how could she not with his perfectly sculpted cheekbones and nerdy slicked back hair. Ultimately Y/n could understand his apparent infatuation with her wearing glasses as she had caught herself, on more than a couple occasions, openly ogling his own specs.

Maybe they were both weirdos...the whole situation was almost as strange as the Converse kink that she secretly harbored for years. Although her intuition was quick to suggest that, just maybe, both of her unique infatuations stemmed from the same noodle-shaped source.

Perhaps her favorite reaction of his, though, came about during the little office birthday party that the entire team had thrown for him.

He looked so adorable in the gigantic birthday cake hat they had bestowed upon him, Y/n could hardly contain her giggles at the giddy smile adorning his face. She watched on in amusement as Spencer tried desperately to get the candles on his cake to extinguish, to no avail, at least until someone felt bad watching his struggles and decided to give him a hand.

“They’re trick candles Spence, they’re gonna come back on every time.”, JJ chuckled, subtly smirking at Morgan who was also enjoying Spencer’s ongoing struggles.

A couple “happy birthdays” later and the rest of the team slowly began to disperse, leaving just Y/n and him alone in their own little space. He must’ve noticed this too because the blush that had already been present throughout the celebration beforehand seemed to deepen even further as he visibly swallowed down his nerves.

Slowly stalking towards the rouge kissed boy, she dragged a couple of her fingers across the surface of the desk, noting the way his eyes briefly flicked down to follow the movement before hesitantly returning his gaze to match her own.

She also noted the way his knuckles were basically turning white from the amount of pressure he was using to grab the sides of the chair.

“You have a good birthday, Spence?”, Y/n drawled with a teasing smile, now standing directly before the trembling young man.

Seeming to snap out of whatever sort of trance he had been in, he hastily cleared out his throat before responding with a bit of trepidation. “Hmm...yeah-yes uh yes it was v-very good, than-thank you.”

She couldn’t even attempt to conceal the smirk that had made its way to her lips listening to the genius stutter through his words. Such a nervous, nervous boy. So adorable. So fucking hot.

“Well that makes me happy. I’m glad you enjoyed yourself pretty boy.”, she paused her thoughts soaking in the little hitches in his breath surely from how close she was standing near him and the added nickname. Deciding to play a little bit dirty, she leaned over directly into his line of sight to reach for the cake set before him.

“Now how about I take this away and cut it up for all of us to eat? Hmmm?”

His eyes darted immediately to the cleavage that was so graciously presented to him as she bent over to pick up the dessert, a sharp little gasp escaping his pretty, pink lips as his pupils dilated carelessly.

Y/n inwardly smirked at his reaction and began walking towards the kitchenette, but only made it about three or four steps before being interrupted.

“Did you know that in some instances birthday candles are safe for wax play?”, he exclaimed before seemingly realizing what had just escaped his lips, his hands flying up to cover his traitorous mouth.

Bewildered, in the best of ways, by what had just been said, she slowly swiveled back around, facing him once again, before placing the cake on the desk beside her.

“What was that Spencer?”, she grinned at the petrified man who hadn’t made a single noise since his unexpected declaration. The poor thing looked like a caged in animal with nowhere to escape. Perfect.

“N-nothing! I m-mean obviously it was um s-something, but j-just uh just forget what I s-said.”, he quickly explained while frantically shaking his hands as if he was hoping he could simply wipe your memory of the last minute or two away permanently.

“No, no please go on.”, she teased. “Now I’m intrigued. What did you mean by ‘in some instances’ Spence?”

She wasn’t expecting the look of confusion, however brief it was, that peeked its way through the overwhelming embarrassment that had been showcased on his face, as if he truly couldn’t fathom that someone was actually asking him to go into more detail about a topic.

Still didn’t change the fact that he was completely mortified.

Clearing his throat, he hesitantly lifted his gaze back to Y/n’s, seemingly debating with himself over whether he could articulate the words to come out or not.

“Um...well..usually many p-people who choose to e-engage in such act-activities will use specific types of c-candles that are uh more designed especially for pl-play.”, he paused and she drank up the way his Adam's apple bobbed along his throat. “Uh… basically depending on the t-type of candle that one u-uses, the amount of pain or um d-discomfort differs. B-birthday candles tend to b-be on the more painful side so only the couples who are in-into that kind of thing would ever really utilize t-them.”, he finished abruptly, his leg bouncing rapidly in her line of vision.

She still couldn’t really believe she had actually gotten him to say anything at all, nevermind an in depth analysis on wax play. In a weird way she was proud of him. Really proud. Sometime amidst her thoughts, she’d found herself standing directly behind his sitting figure, her hands resting on either side of him against the table, the goosebumps visible on his skin from the implications of the position they were currently in.

“That’s really intriguing Spencer. I’d love to find out someday just why it is you know so much about the subject, but I don’t want to make you go into cardiac rest anytime soon.”, she remarked, giggling at the shy smile that made its way to his mouth.

She didn’t even register reaching out to lightly touch his lips until she heard his sharp intake of breath. Until he turned his head so they were mere centimeters apart. Until she watched his puppy eyes dart between her lips and your frame covered gaze. Until the space between them seemed to be lessening with every sec-

“Hey pretty boy! Where’s my cake?”

Y/n grudgingly pulled back at the interruption, watching in amusement as Spencer’s body instinctively leaned forward as if his lips hadn’t gotten the memo and were still searching for hers. “It’s coming right up you lazy ass!” she yelled back with a grin on her face.

She looked back to the boy sitting before her and was almost mesmerized by the dazed look present on his face, the blush slowly retreating as he came back to his surroundings. She could tell there were words that he wanted to say, but they just didn’t seem to be forming fast enough to actually come out. Deciding to put their little moment on hold before he passed out, she walked back over to the neglected dessert and started heading towards the break room again.

“I’ll make sure to save you the biggest piece, Spence.”,she threw over her shoulder, chuckling at the bewildered look still that was still present on his face.

~~~

The day was a big success in her opinion.

Spencer looked even more like a child than usual with the big shit eating grin that remained throughout the celebration and the bulky hat that he refused to take off. She could never understand how someone could have such an affinity for sugar as she watched him devour the huge slice of cake she had carved up for him.

But hours later, it was just her and Spencer left in the building.

And she was not about to let that go to waste.

Y/n could see him from where she stood at the entrance to the kitchenette. She could see the way he slouched over his desk with his legs curled underneath him, criss cross applesauce, as he scribbled down whatever case file he was working on. She admired his determined work ethic, that’s for sure.

But now was simply not the time to work.

Spencer immediately froze as soon as her body situated itself to be leaning against his desk, painfully aware of her gaze on his tense form.

“H-hey Y/n.”, he nervously murmured, the stutter once again making her giddy.

“Hey yourself doc. Wanna tell me why it is you’re still here working at such a late hour? Doesn’t the elusive Spencer Reid have better things to be entertaining himself with?”, she drawled, her piercing gaze making the poor kid squirm before her eyes.

“Oh um no...n-not really. I actually don’t mind working late. It’s k-kind of therapeutic in a way. But um...I’m happy t-that you’re here w-with me.”, he whispered the last part as if he was scared you wouldn’t appreciate his gratitude.

But she appreciated it more than he knew.

Noticing the little pencil holder situated amongst the file stacks on his desk, an idea popped into her mind that she just couldn’t shake, prompting her to pick it up and begin fiddling with it.

“Oh is that so pretty boy? Does my presence satisfy you?” Before he could even attempt an answer she “accidently” dropped the holder on the ground, the array of pens and pencils dispersing among the floor. “Oops my bad.”

Spencer immediately scrambled out of his seat and onto the floor to start collecting the colorful writing utensils, the perfect distraction needed for Y/n to situate herself on his desk with her legs spread open directly in front of his face.

“D-don’t worry abou-”, his sentence cut off as he looked up and was met with the tantalizing sight of her white lace panties already damp with her excitement. She swore he could die happy with the way his eyes widened and cheeks flushed. She couldn’t help but chuckle lightly.

“See something you like baby?” Unable to even form words, the young doctor slowly nodded his head, eyes still locked on the obvious wet spot between her open legs.

“C-can I..can I um…”

“Use your words baby boy. Can you what?”, she spoke clearly, grasping his chin so he’d look her in the eyes.

“C-can I taste you?” She couldn't get over the desperate way he spoke as if he’d die of thirst if he didn’t get a drink from her.

“Of course you can sweet b-” Not even letting the words leave her mouth, his hands were eagerly pulling her panties down and off her legs, his lips instantly connecting with the heated flesh at the apex of her thighs. She swore his tongue and lips were enchanted with the way he was able to effortlessly maneuver his way around, easily picking up on what she loved.

“Oh Spencer you’re such a good boy.” she couldn’t resist threading her fingers through his silky hair and tugging slightly, an action she assumed he enjoyed based on the muffled whine she heard from between her thighs.

It hadn’t even been more than a few minutes before she found herself already on the verge of letting go. No guy had ever been able to make her feel this good and just electric until now. He was quickly ruining her for anyone else in the future. She did not mind in the slightest.

“Baby I really wanna feel you inside me. Is that something you want sweetheart?”

He reluctantly pulled back after a few more kitten licks to her clit, wide eyes finding hers and whimpering out a broken “yes”. More than happy with his response she gently pulled him up by his hair and started undoing his belt, his oversized pants easily falling down without the extra support. Just another thing about him that she had come to adore. She was very pleased by the obvious bulge that protruded through his baby blue checkered boxers.

Before she pulled those down too, though, she very gently reached up and cupped his cheeks, guiding his plump lips to her own, basking in the delighted whimpers that escaped his mouth at the soft but passionate contact. She released his lips with a slight nip and proceeded with his clothing removal, coaxing him to sit down in the swirly chair he had been previously residing in, before straddling his lap.

“You ready sweet boy?”, she asked leaning forward to kiss his rouge forehead and cheeks.

“Mhmm I’m r-ready.”

Taking that as the go ahead, she cautiously positioned herself over his throbbing erection before slowly lowering herself inch by inch until he was completely enveloped by her tight, warm walls.

“Oh-ohh my.”, he whimpered at the overwhelming feeling of being connected so intimately. Gently, she started to move a bit more, hesitantly lifting up before lowering herself back down, flush against his lap, one of her soft hands anchoring herself to his shoulder while the other caressed his flushed cheeks.

“I know baby, I know. You feel so good baby boy I don’t think I’m going to be able to last much longer.”

“M-me neither.”, he stuttered as the pace she had previously set seemed to increase in speed, the excitement and ecstasy getting to the both of them and subconsciously pushing the two of them closer to their shared release.

The fire was quickly building within her body and she knew she was truly crumbling at the seams, but with the way his body was trembling and his dick was subtly twitching inside of her she knew he was right there too.

“It’s ok baby boy, it’s ok. Cum for me sweet boy. I want you to cum inside and fill up my pussy Spence.”, she muttered feeling the beginning of her end crash unexpectedly throughout her entire being, grasping onto the boy underneath her to tie herself to the earth.

Overwhelmed by the utter euphoria of Y/n cumming around him, Spencer let himself get thrown off the edge, his hands tightening on her waist hard enough she was sure little bruises would form come tomorrow, not that she minded at all.

“Oh Y/n!” She watched on, obsessed with the way that his mouth fell open in a little o-shape as his eyes squeezed shut, the tell tale signs of pleasure coursing through his veins, the warm feeling that he left deep inside of her as she gently lifted herself from his shaking legs, reaching for her panties before the warmth was able to escape down her damp thighs.

Looking back at the trembling boy after cleaning herself and him up, she couldn’t help but melt at the lovesick, puppy dog eyes he was giving her, prompting her to lean forward and leave more little kisses on the top of his damp hair.

“That was incredible Spence. Really incredible. I’ve never felt anything like that before baby.”

She melted even further at the way he shyly dropped his head to somewhat hide the wide grin that had spread like wildfire across his face. There was a comfortable silence between the two of them before his head lifted with a questioning glance.

“How’d you-I mean uh how did you know that I liked you?” There was no way she could control the giggles that left her lips at his silly question.

“You weren’t exactly subtle with the whole glasses thing Spence.”

And then the only sound heard throughout the building was her full blown laughter at the mortification that speedily adorned his cherry cheeks.

Tag List: @hopebaker @pastathighs @psychedellic-phase @gloryekaterina @sleepysnapesnake @racharr @etherealgubler @furiouspartyrebelhoagie @andiebeaword @liaabsurd @cielo1984 @starkeybaby @victomizedbyreginageorge @rainsong01 @moonlight-jukebox @gretaamyk @httpnxtt @rachelxwayne @watermelonstyl @goldnratio @cheyxminds @kricketc29 @cupcake525 @pinkdiamond1016 @slutforthegubes @shadyladyperfection @emilysallysmith @babblingbrookex @legendaryanimeaestheticclou @sunstspidey @ashwarren32 @pixels-impulse @eviewildflower @spencerreider @awkwardsadaa @dirty-pan-goblin @ughgoaway @cromies90-blog @mightaswell247 @calm-and-doctor @golden-hoax @1mpvls3 @lonewolf471 @centiaaa @spencerspecifics

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therealvinelle · 4 years ago

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Hi! I was reading through your meta (which is reeeeally interesting) and noticed you said you don't like Eleazar? I was wondering why that was?

Tumblr ate this ask when I had almost finished it and I hate everything. Also, thanks for the compliment, I’m really glad you like my things.

Now to try and remember what I wrote about Eleazar…

I think Eleazar is a disagreeable person whose gift wasn’t useful enough to warrant a place in the Volturi guard, and Aro jumped on the Carmen-shaped excuse to give him an honorable discharge.

To start with the gift, we see him use it twice and neither time is particularly impressive.

Siobhan Siobhan has the power of reality manipulation. Her gift is noticeable enough that Carlisle is certain she has it, so when he gets Eleazar and Siobhan in a room together he pulls Eleazar over to see if he was right. Eleazar squints at Siobhan. And he squints. Finally he says, «I’ve got nothing.» Now, gifts are an iffy, complicated matter everyone has their own theories about, but I think that at the end of the day we can all agree it’s a binary, you’re gifted or you’re not. Some gifts may be weak, but those are still gifts. And maybe someone will touch the gray zone of «is it a gift or is Johnny the vampire just really good at juggling?», but Siobhan has the power to manipulate reality, and she must do it a lot for Carlisle to have come to suspect it in the first place. She has a definitive and powerful gift. And even if I’m wrong about gifts being binary, if Eleazar wants to be useful to Aro he should still be able to say: Yes, this person has a gift, or no, this person does not have a gift. Sadly, he is not. When brought before Siobhan he says «She could have a gift, she could also not have a gift.» This means he hasn’t detected her gift, which is bad enough by itself. Being able to tell if someone has a gift or not should be a dealbreaker. The way he answers, though, that she could very well have a gift he doesn’t know about, makes it clear that people having gifts he couldn’t detect has happened enough for him to be open to the possibility that the gift there, and he can’t see it. In other words, Eleazar isn’t reliable for detecting gifts and will give Aro false negatives.

Bella This is an aside but as it’ll inevitably come up later in my blog I’ll just drop here that I think Bella’s gift is something more complex than a shield. She has prophetic dreams, hallucination!Edward, and there’s a weird inconsistency as to who is blocked by her and who isn’t. I think her gift is self-preservation, and the shield is one of its manifestations. Anyway, onto discrediting Eleazar. (I’ll be pretty closely paraphrasing what happens in chapter 31 of Breaking Dawn, but since the interaction goes on for several pages I’m not going to clutter this post by pasting all of it.) To his credit, he does notice Bella right away, and he identifies her as a shield based on the fact that he gets this sense of nothingness from her. This is all he can do, however, and I can’t stress that enough. He assumes that she can block Edward, but he’s shocked to learn that she can block Aro. He’s just as surprised that she can block Jane and Alec. He has to interview her to deduce exactly what her gift does, which again has nothing to do with his gift. Anyone could ask questions, in fact Aro found all this out two books ago, without the help of Eleazar. Eleazar then starts musing aloud about who-would-win in a Renata vs. Bella showdown (more on that later), which is as tactless as it is revealing. The guy genuinely doesn’t know, and it’s because he doesn’t understand their gifts well enough. Eleazar’s power means he can tell Bella that she has a gift, and he knows roughly what it is. He muses that usually he can’t even tell that much, which again is quite damning. He can’t tell her exactly what she does without a game of 20 questions first. She gives him more information than he gives her, which he then regurgitates back to her with slightly different wording, and everybody claps. «My god, Eleazar, you’ve done it again!» (No, really, this is pretty much what happens. Eleazar brought no new information to the table, yet he blew Bella and Edward’s minds.) It’s all fun and games to do this for Bella and Edward, as they for various reasons genuinely didn’t realize she had a gift. For Aro, who figured this one out on his own, one begins to wonder what Eleazar was bringing to the table.

Carlisle Bonus bullet point! I’ll make this one brief. I believe Carlisle in canon has a gift he’s unaware of (Yes, I have a post planned, but it will get ugly long so god knows when it’ll come), which makes him another one of Eleazar’s gift detection fails. In short, I think he’s extremely charismatic, able to win over anybody. To list a few examples - he has an extremely diverse set of friends who in Breaking Dawn are willing to lay down their lives for him, Jacob muses how his instinctive hostility around vampires doesn’t apply to Carlisle, and vampires are terrifying to humans (don’t be fooled by the movies, people) yet Carlisle is able to work as a successful doctor, meaning his patients don’t mind being exposed to a killing machine even when they’re at their most vulnerable. He’s able to keep his family of sociopaths in line. There’s not a single person in the Twilight ‘verse that dislikes him. (Billy and Caius excepted, but Billy has no direct exposure to him until late Eclipse, and Caius is responding to a coven that’s potentially threatening the Volturi) People are free to disagree with me on this one, but if I’m right (and I have a lot of book quotes as well as a theory on what gifts even are to back me up on this one. I’m right, damnit!) then Carlisle is another gifted vampire Eleazar failed to detect.

So. We’ve established that Eleazar’s gift will yield false negatives, and that he can’t tell you much about the gifts he does detect.

I think his power is to point out the obvious.

Which means that Aro’s eyelid was twitching slightly, but alright, Eleazar could still be useful.

Unfortunately, there is the matter of weighing up your pros with your cons.

The Volturi are, at the end of the day, a group of people who live in a commune together. Coven, guard, evil minions, call them what we like but they’re exposed to each other and some sense of agreeability is required. And Chelsea is not omnipotent.

More, I imagine that in a coven as large and old as the Volturi, they’ve developed a culture of their own. This means that newcomers will need social awareness and a willingness to fit in.

Eleazar, from what we see of him in Breaking Dawn, appears to lack both.

It’s in the way he speaks of the people he used to work with. It’s utterly impersonal. He tells us how their gifts work, no more and no less. When he speaks of Aro, he speaks only of actions Aro took and orders he gave, nothing about the man’s personality. Now, considering the context, he was speaking in a context where Jane’s thoughts and feelings were far from relevant, but it’s still notable.

Also notable is the fact that he has no issue contemplating a Renata vs. Bella scenario, even though this would mean the deaths of two people he worked with for years. Perhaps it’s a thought exercise, but it’s not a thought exercise I would have gotten into when it was days away from becoming reality. If Renata can’t deflect Bella’s power, she and Aro die.

I’ll put it this way - I don’t think he’d do a «who would win» like this involving Carmen.

At no point in the book does Eleazar show any concern for the eventuality that members of a guard he used to be a part of may get killed.

It seems he didn’t form personal relationships with the rest of the guard. I suspect he considered himself... if not quite above them, then still someone who could evaluate them. Their gifts is what he looked at in them. I also think it’s likely he asked Aro not to use Chelsea on him, which in turn would have made him stick out even more as there’s nothing making him and Volturi Guard Member X just click in the way I imagine Chelsea can be very helpful with. Which in turn means that the other guard members will feel close to one another in a way they’re not close to Eleazar.

Also… he’s just a douche. I’m sorry, but I don’t make the rules and the whole guy radiates douche. I can’t even point to a specific quote in the book, it’s just is.

I don’t think this guy never really fit into the Volturi guard, and his gift wasn’t useful enough to keep him. Aro was thrilled to have him at first, but as time went on and Eleazar proved to just not be all that, he eventually realized he had to get rid of him.

Because as others have pointed out before me, the Carmen excuse makes no sense. There would be no problem in one more vampire in the castle, yet Aro wouldn’t let her in and Eleazar had to choose.

It was a solution that sent Eleazar on his way with his ego intact, and no hard feelings towards the Volturi. More, Aro is on record doing this with it’s-not-you thing with at least one other vampire. Laurent wanted to join the Volturi, had nothing to bring to the table, and Aro used past association with the Romanians as an excuse for why Laurent couldn’t join rather than tell him to his face that he was useless. With Marcus, Aro, and Chelsea around, the Romanian connection isn’t a problem, meaning Aro was bullshitting.

TL;DR: Aro is the kind of person who’d lie and say his grandma died if he doesn’t want to go to your party, and Eleazar is the kind of person who’d say «My condolences».

#eleazar #aro #volturi #laurent #siobhan #bella swan #carlisle cullen #twilight meta #twilight renaissance #twilight #long post #Anonymous #ask

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lover-of-queens · 4 years ago

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Farah Dowling is Alive Part 2

The follow up to Part 1 or as I like to call it: look mom, I told you this degree would have uses in the real world!

If you haven’t had a chance to read it yet, you can find Part 1: Here

You know the drill, under the cut cause this is probably going to get long!

Episode 4: Some Wrecked Angel

Episode opens with our favourite trio. If you’ve read the first part then you’ll be familiar with my argument that it could be possible the writers are leaving Farah x Saul threads to pick up at a later date. I think this scene has some interesting ones. There’s a lot of effort in this scene to set Farah and Saul up as parallels - in a way that also makes them stand apart from Ben. We have them saying his name together, but also, when they discover Callum’s body, both Farah and Saul are in sync as they move into a kneeling position.

I don’t necessarily know if this could be considered an argument for them bringing Farah back, however, in the scene with Farah, Stella and Luna, Stella brings up an interesting point about Farah’s pedagogy. We’re told that Farah chooses care and time over “solely results” when it comes to teaching. In the next episode we learn Rosalind’s own teaching style involves putting her students “through hell”. I don’t necessarily know when the change will happen but given this, I don’t see any way Rosalind can remain Headmistress, especially when they’re taking pains to show Farah as better suited for the role.

Also important in this scene is Farah and Luna’s last exchange. We know what appearances Luna has helped Farah maintain - the barrier/illusion that stops Aster Dell from being seen. So, what’s interesting is Farah’s next line:

Farah: “Yes, we’ve both done a great deal to preserve Solaria’s reputation.”

This does not get addressed during the remaining episodes. Personally, this line and the amount of tension between Farah and Luna also strikes me as a potential thread that could be picked up later. I’m going to wager that I’m not alone in wanting to know what exactly they did to “preserve” Solaria’s rep. And my guess is, because Brian has mentioned that they’re going to expand on the winx world, we’re going to be finding out more about Solaria in S2. Theoretically, I suppose whatever event that is being referenced here could be dealt with without Farah on screen, but then we’d miss out on all the fun tension! Also, as of right now, fan response to Luna is nothing compared to Farah (at least from what I’ve seen).

Tattoo theory, several people have already spoken on this and I don’t want to speak over them. I’m still sorting out my own thoughts on whether it’s Farah’s or Eve’s but I will say that Farah is always wearing rings so it seems to me that if they wanted it covered they could easily do it with a ring (or makeup). If the tattoo is purposely put there then I’m going to assume its for a reason that the writers may want to deal with at a later date (hint, hint: bring back Farah).

Episode 5: Wither Into the Truth

I may do another post on this at some point if I can find enough to say to warrant it but Farah’s eye colour when she does magic. Up until now every time Farah’s done magic her eyes have glowed blue and yet in the scene where she questions Beatrix they glow light orange. Now I’d always assumed that the colour of the glow = element, which was why I didn’t know why Farah’s glowed blue to begin with; she’s a mind fairy so I would have expected the purple that Musa has. And actually the confirmation of her being a mind fairy comes from Fate’s IG page shown below, I don’t know if it’s ever explicitly stated in the show? Further, to my knowledge, Farah is the only fairy we’ve seen whose eyes glow different colours. So, a thread to pick up in season 2, perhaps?

Also I’m very interested in the use of the word “Once”. In this instance I would almost take it to mean ‘no longer is’ but the tense is present perfect (I think?) which can suggest the continuance of an action. But now I’m being overly nitpicky and technical. Also I don’t know how ‘principle’ made it through what I’m assuming are several stages before making it onto IG, but it gave me a laugh!

“Incredibly powerful” yet loses to Rosalind without a fight? Not buying it. Additionally, the use of “other forms of magic” is interesting and I figure could be taken to mean other elements. But I wonder if there’s more to it than just that. Farah shows knowledge of archaic Fairy Magic with the Nettle Amalgam, so maybe there’s more archaic knowledge out there that she knows ... that could prove helpful.

Now, back to the episode. When Farah and Hologram Luna are talking, the fact that there are two burned ones travelling together is cause for concern.

Farah: “There are two of them travelling together. That hasn’t happened since … In a long time.”

Once again we are left with a thread of something that has happened. In the same IG post as above, in the section for Saul, it mentions that he and Farah became confidants “after experiencing the Black Woods Massacre”. I wonder if that could be what Farah’s referring to here? I know the massacre has come up once or twice in conversation and correct me if I’m wrong but I don’t believe it’s ever been properly explained? To me, it looks like a great bit of backstory to get into at a later date. It may not confirm Farah being alive necessarily, but you could take it as a sign that we might see Eve again.

Lastly, for this episode, is the scene between Farah and Bloom. Specifically this part:

Farah: “I will help you get the answers you need. I give you my word.”

You can probably guess what I’m going to say at this point, a thread that can be picked up in season 2! You could counterargue that Rosalind could help Bloom with answers (as she offers in the next episode) but in my humble opinion, I don’t think it would offer narrative satisfaction. First, because we’ve been shown what a terrible mentor Rosalind is. Second, they’ve spent the first season showing how Farah and Bloom’s mentor-student relationship has developed (bloomed?) so it seems a waste to go through all of that development for nothing.

Episode 6: A Fanatic Heart

Rosalind has her little prison break. Personally, I still think there’s a lot of unanswered questions about what happened after Aster Dell, how they imprisoned Rosalind, etc. And I do hope that we get some answers in Season 2 - again these answers may not necessarily involve Farah on the screen but as every writer gets told the age old advice of “show, don’t tell”, I think there’s potential for that.

Farah immediately tries to disprove my points about her intelligence by wandering alone in the woods at night. But she’s pretty, so I’ll allow it.

Rosalind gives Bloom some answers but not all, so I do think that my point above about Farah helping Bloom find more answers still stands. Further, I find the Farah is Bloom’s mother theory to be unlikely for several reasons (this is not the post for them) but I do want to draw our attention to several lines of dialogue here.

Bloom: “You hid me from Miss Dowling.” ….

Rosalind: “The guidance you needed was love. Farah couldn’t give that to you. Vanessa and Michael could.”

There are SO many reasons why this exchange is fascinating. I’m interested in why Bloom brings up Farah to begin with - her other points could stand alone to the same affect. I’m also really interested in the direct comparison between Farah and Bloom’s adoptive parents -- if Bloom hadn’t gone to them, she would have gone to Farah? It almost seems as though the direct comparison implies that. Also, considering Bloom’s relationship with her adoptive parents, I really doubt the validity of the statement. Plus, I wouldn’t trust Rosalind’s idea of love in general.

Also, Rosalind is just so certain that Farah couldn’t love Bloom … can’t love in general? There’s just so much of Farah and Rosalind’s relationship that hasn’t been explored that I think really needs to be.

Now, the scene that always makes me cry! Farah and Bloom have had a difficult time this season and it’s all lead up to this moment of trust and vulnerability - on both sides. If you ask me, this season has been setting Farah up to be the mentor figure that Rosalind was not - Rosalind’s opposite. And they’ve worked hard at it, even when they were trying to convince us Farah might be the evil one which like lmao. I find it hard to believe that they would go through all of that work just to discard it by leaving Farah dead. Especially because what Farah admits to Bloom in this sequence feels like a changing moment for her - she recognizes things she wishes she would have done differently (being less of a figurehead, being more open) and I think its only fair that Fate allows her to follow through on those things.

And onto the scene that I really don’t want to rewatch but I’m going to do it for y’all. I’ve touched on Farah x Saul moments so it’s only fair that I touch on Farah x Rosalind ones. There is tension here (looking at each other’s lips, Rosalind getting closer to Farah, Farah grabbing her), I mean the cast has joked about shipping them. But there are several different ways to read this and you are more than welcome to your pick! It doesn’t really change my point, which is … thread to pick up in season 2? Have you started taking a shot every time I’ve said that (please don’t <3).

Farah who has shown herself to be incredibly intelligent and cautious when it comes to Rosalind turns her back on her. And we get what is probably the most important piece of evidence: the eye glow. It can mean absolutely anything, but I’d wager one of the reasons its there is to have people do exactly what I’m doing here. Theorizing about whether Farah could still be alive. I’m going to take that as a sign there’s hope (mainly because I think it would be cruel to suggest a ‘could she come back narrative’ and then … not have her come back). Also, in the Fate novel, it describes Farah’s death as “too easy”. I absolutely refuse to believe that it could be easy to kill Farah when she’s proved time and time again how powerful she is.

That finishes my episode by episode analysis. It totals well over 2500 words. If you can believe me, I still have more to say on this topic (discussing general counterarguments and possible logistics of Eve’s filming), so stay tuned for a Part 3?

#Farah Dowling #fate: the winx saga #fate the winx saga #fate SPOILERS

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bagog · 4 years ago

Text

What On Earth Has Happened

Hey, no story here, no experiments. Just a play by play of an awful year in my life. Please don't reblog. Trying to just get it down in one place for people who care about me. Long, sob-story beneath the cut.

Air - 'Things are looking up!' I had started to drift a bit from tumblr. The porno purge came and a lot of my friends trickled off the platform after that. I went back to school, attempting to score myself a Masters degree in something that would pay enough to get me out of Student Debt. I was doing great, picking things up fast. I got a new job at a company doing pretty menial work, but the people I worked with were great conversationalists. The work didn't involve dealing with customers at all, paid well, and was small and accomplishable tasks. Essentially I was being prepped to take a better position at the place once I had my Masters. Covid happened, then. Earth - 'The Whole World Sucks Right Now' My company was "essential," so I continued going to work, now on weird schedules. The company I worked for was profiting off Covid, all the while making fun of it as an overblown conspiracy, even as their own epidemiologist urged them to take better precautions. Work became hard to swallow. Water - 'When your lowest place could be lower' The apartment I shared with my boyfriend flooded. The lowest place in any sewage system is typically the bathtub, such that if it backs up, it does so into that tub. Our lowest point is the toilet. So the apartment flooded. Three times. Roots growing through the sewage outflow meant that, often, you needed to wait a solid hour between toilet flushes, or else the toilet would back up with such gusto the sewage would slosh down the hallway and into the living room. We mopped many times. The problem was finally fixed 8 months later, necessitating our having to camp because our house had no water. Fire - 'To destroy all you've done' One afternoon, I smelled burning. Going to our bedroom, I found our shelf a column of flame. I could barely breathe for all the smoke, but I managed to grab a blanket and beat the fire out. On the other side of the room, the pages of the books upon another shelf had begun to crisp from the heat, the blinds on all the windows were warped. The whole apartment had been about to go up. I'm kinda scared of fire now. Heart - 'When moving is too much to ask' Personal health sorta hit a new low. Migraines kept me out of work for two full weeks. I have seasonal foot pain, I always assumed from hiking for a living in my 20s. Turns out it was gout, all the while. Gout is exceptionally painful: it's like a messy pile of razor blades in the ball of your foot every time you step down. At work, I could barely stand. Walking from my car to the door became something I needed to psyche myself up for. Not a lot can stop a gout flare-up once it's in full swing, so I just had to wait it out. For a month. Two. Some of the worst sustained pain I've been in. Little did I know that, in January, come the kidney stones. Kidney stones feel awful. Feel like total shit. Gout and kidney stones are comorbid--brought about as a result of the meds I take to help me focus. So any day I don't drink enough water is a day when my kidneys or my foot just starts aching. But going back to September of 2020... Homophobia - 'goddammit' Finally things are looking better. I'm limping quickly again. Then I am called into the HR office. I am told that two sexual harassment charges have been brought against me. I'm told that one individual has alleged that I, while in the restroom, used a reflective toilet brush to attempt to peep him under a stall wall. I did not do this. I do not understand--reflective toilet brush?? wtf. The second allegation: I just straight up looked over a stall at a guy. I didn't do this either. I'm asked to defend myself, I ask who or date or time of day. I am given nothing. I remark that I don't think I'm tall enough to see over the stall, and I do not understand about the toilet brush. Of the ten minutes of the meeting, I spend 8 of them trying to get my head around how a claim about a reflective toilet brush has me here. "Would you like us to go now to see if you're tall enough to see over the stall? If that would help your defense?" says the HR head. "Yes, I

would," says I. We did not go. I am told that the accusers have no reason to be collaborating, or to even know each other made a claim. This is bullshit, because it was a company of 80 people, and only a quarter of those employees used the restroom where my alleged harassment was to have taken place. Before I am dismissed from work for the day to go home and wait to find out if I'll be fired or not, I march into the HR office once more and say "I hope none of this is happening because I'm gay." The HR head looks positively offended. I got fired cuz I'm gay. Next day I got a call. They'd come to the "objective truth" (that phrase is burned in my mind), and were terminating me. Apparently they discounted the toilet brush rumor, after all. But they really honestly believed I looked over the stall at a dude. Nightmare - 'No Fear One Fear' Let me tell you something: this is a nightmare. This is my honest-to-god nightmare. I've been terrified of getting accused of something in a bathroom since I was 11 years old. I am incredibly self-conscious and careful in public restrooms. To be fired? From a place full of people I like? And all of them will think I'm a pervert. My boyfriend worked at the same place. He would now have to work there every day dealing with people looking at him and wondering what he must think of his boyfriend. That sent me on a spiral. I'm still out of work, almost a year later. It would have been the worst mental health crisis of my life if it wasn't for my boyfriend, my support network, and the meds I've finally been able to get ahold of. Oh, also. My two accusers? Were roommates. HR knew they were roommates. They basically collaborated on a story to get me fired. The story circulating around the place (I still have acquaintances I talk to working there) has dropped the reflective toilet brush entirely. I guess they thought it was too unbelievable. So anyway, the people who accused me are now telling a different set of events than what I was told. Absolute horse shit. Tried to go to my city's human right's council to see if my situation warranted further attention. I gave my side of the story--including tales of the straight manager who had had enough harassment charges brought against him that he was no longer allowed to meet female staff--which indicated I'd been treated differently and wrongly. My old job made an impassioned argument that the committee violated their First Amendment rights(?) ('Freedom of speech' is the biggie with the First Amendment, for people who cba re:USA). I won the vote!! But one member of the committee was missing. So there weren't enough people for the vote to pass. Dismissed. We took it to the EEOC to make an official federal complaint. Just a week ago, an agent of the US Government patiently explained to us that these laws are literally designed to fuck over the worker and protect the employer unless they are epically stupid, and unfortunately, mine had not been epically stupid. So there's nowhere to go, no recourse to be had. It's over, I guess. Family - 'How to sum it up quickly...' My family hit me with the old soft-disown. No more calls, no more communication. They think they are loving me by not having contact with me. By depriving me of my family, they hope it will make me realize that the path I'm on is destructive, and I'll return to them living an upright life. No. I'm living an upright life, now. And if my family can choose to throw me away, then they are not a family I choose. Then my dad hit me back two months later, absolutely gaslighting me and pretending we never had the disown conversation at all. Reality - 'I don't know who I am anymore' I have trouble knowing what's real, anymore. Every message my dad sends on the surface seems loving and supportive and plaintive. I feel I must be the one in the wrong. I got fired for bullshit reasons. It doesn't feel real. "My family can't possibly have ceased contact with me: that's one of those things I know can never happen!!" But that did happen. So what else that feels real, actually isn't? I do

mean to be so dramatic, and I won't apologize for it. But I truly do feel like my mind has been pretty thoroughly unseated by the last year. Whoever I am, I'm becoming someone different. More distilled, at very least. I've discovered a lot of things about myself: trauma that has likely led to a lot of my mental health problems. Discovered I actually have RAGING ADHD, and it has robber me of a lot of things I wanted to do, and now is sort of consuming me completely. I'm looking for help. Trying to get better. Here's hoping. Every bold point above could be its own book, for all my thoughts about them. But enough of that for now. Love you. Thanks for reading.

#personal #depressed writing #life update #2020 sucked

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retvenkos · 3 years ago

Note

Hello love! Could I get a spoiler-free review of the secret history?

oh, lol, okay, so 97% of my goodreads review is actually spoiler free (or like,,,,, spoiler free after the literal first line of the book asdfghjhgfdsdfghgf), so i'm going to copy and paste it from there without the spoilers, but also just like,,,,,, include Tumblr Thoughts™. (I don't know why the goodreads app will mark the entire review as containing spoilers while the desktop version just lets you hide the one (1) sentence with a spoiler, but it is what it is.)

i'm putting the rest under the cut for long post reasons - the review is spoiler free!

Honestly, this book is a 4.9 for me, and the only things dragging down that rating is the fact that i'm very tired of the whole, "there's one (vaguely masculine coded, because she's better than those feminine girls) girl in our group and we objectify her in every scene she's in." like bRO. i understand camilla is a hottie but please. can we talk about her like she's a real person for 0.5 seconds? and just.... when it's combined with the slut-shaming of other (feminine!) female characters,,,,, i had to dock the points. i generally try to not let stuff like that lower my rating overall, just because if i were to base every review off of morality and triggers, my reviews would become about a moralistic stance rather than enjoyment of the novel or the thought it produced, but bro,,,,,,,,,,, it was just like, "ah, yes, we're interrupting your regularly scheduled programming for three paragraphs about camilla's legs, soft pale skin, and blonde hair. put the murder mystery on hold real quick,,,,,,,, put the deterioration of characters on the back burner,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,, let's just talk about how Small camilla's hands are, and how she should never let Boys and Men hold them..."

BUT!!!!!!! positive stuff????? the writing is beautifully superb™. and the book is very good at being engaging.

This book is truly dipped in aesthetics and created an atmosphere that is so ripe for the taking, and so vivid in its enchanting gravitas and rot. I understand now why this book is considered one of the founding fathers of dark academia because anything visual you associate with that particular aesthetic was detailed here in the most engaging and lush of language. Reading this book for the quotes alone would be valid because there are simply so many. This book fills me with such a vivid and overflowing fascination...

As for the engagement of the book overall, I think the book is clever in that it takes its central murder mystery and tilts it to the side. Rather than a traditional story of "who did it?" the cold opening of the story tells us who. Then, the overarching plot is "why did they do it?" and "at what exact moment?" This is particularly engaging, as the main characters are all quite nuanced, and trying to pick apart the psychology of each person and understand their motives (or lack thereof) is a fun exercise that keeps the reader hooked during dialogue scenes where little else is happening on the surface. Furthermore, the book arrives at the scene of the murder at the halfway mark, meaning that for the last half of the book, the reader is wondering how our main characters will make it out unscathed, and what happens after the climax that is so important to warrant an entire half book. The Secret History is really good at building up a slow-burn mystery, even if the payoff at the halfway point was a little underwhelming, with the confrontation shadowed by the tension, and the deft cutaway of the scene leaving readers momentarily jarred. The story stagnates a bit after the halfway mark - the high stakes of the murder have reached their climax, and the sheer number of pages left feeling daunting, in the face of the most interesting course of events having finished, but the last ~150 pages of the novel quickly pick up momentum again. The very ending is certainly a subversion of expectations, but a subversion done well, leaving a much more fascinating ending than the one foreseen. I already predict that because of the strength of the ending alone, the book hangover with this one will be strong...... (goodreads excerpt <3)

working a bit off of what i mentioned above, there was a bit of a lull at the halfway mark. there's this big buildup to the murder that's going to take place......... and then it doesn't live up to its own hype? the adrenaline doesn't quite hit the way you're expecting it to? in its own way, that's powerful because like,,,,,,, everything is glorified in this book except the murder isn't, so when it rings a bit hollow, you're able to feed off of guilt and morality questions a bit...... but idk. maybe it was the day i was reading it, but i wanted just a bit more. either lean into that morality bit or hype up the murder a bit, but do just a little more.

and the beginning of the second half of the book is decidedly a little slow. at first, you're a little interested in what is going to happen (to warrant the half a book) but it fades a little bit, and for maybe 50-80ish pages you're just like..... hmm....... should i keep going? but once you get to the last ~150-120 pages it really picks up again and it's worth the lull.

and the ending!!!!! on the one hand, it's a subversion of your expectation because a lot of the behavior of some characters leads you to think one way (which doesn't happen), but it's also not a complete subversion because like,,,,,,, you saw half of it coming, and the last half (while shocking!) makes sense in retrospect. i loved it, personally, but like,,,,,, people addicted to plot twists might not like it. it was satisfying if not a tad bit tame.

also!!!!!!!!! i want to talk a bit about richard papen!!!! because, imo, my goodreads review did him Justice. (i'll take out the spoiler bits, but literally, it was one (1) line from this section that contained the spoilers.)

But segueing to characters, I want to quickly talk about Richard Papen, the narrator of the story. He's such an interesting fellow, because (in my opinion) he's an everyman actually done well. (So, I have a bone to pick with everymen, in that not every story requires one, and oftentimes, using an everyman can be an excuse for having a character who is ill-defined or generally not very interesting. Or, on occasion, and everyman-esque character is shoehorned into a story so the readers have someone to relate to, when such a character is not needed, or someone with a bit of personality could have carried the story much more naturally.) Richard Papen is decidedly not that kind of everyman. Richard has some very interesting character beats and flaws at the beginning of the story, which make him just a bit more engaging than the Expected Bland Narrator. And for some of the early bits of the novel, Richard comes off as just as nuanced as everyone else in the main cast. As the main storyline kicks up, this nuance and depth very slowly gets lost in translation, and Richard becomes less of a character and more of a stand-in for the reader. As the narrative twists and turns, Richard fades into the background until it's almost easy to read the novel as a third-person story rather than a first. Richard seems to fade away (with no complaints, either, as the story becomes increasingly engaging, overshadowing any contribution he might make) and then, in the final moments of the story, something unexpected happens to Richard - not as a direct result of his actions, but just because he was simply there. In the epilogue itself, Richard remarks how he is very much a bystander and spectator - in this story and in his own life, entirely. He is at the whims of the story; he is at the mercy of others. The reader finally sees that the backstory Richard had from the beginning - that which made him interesting and memorable - is somewhat gone, perhaps never there in the first place. Perhaps Richard embellished even himself in the writing, to make it seem as though he belonged and was an active character, and slowly, as the writing progresses, he slips up - forgets to complete his own fabrication. Or perhaps he loses parts of himself in the narrative, like so many other characters. Perhaps the turn of events guts him (and the others) until they're something beyond recognition, and only a hollowness left in his place.

I loved this use of an ill-defined everyman, because it not only has narrative and thematic significance, but it lends itself to reexamination and recontextualization of the story at large. It takes the nebulous nature of an everyman and gives that particular trait significance and reason. Love it when an everyman makes me think!!!!!

as you can tell, lol, i have many thoughts™ about everymen, and just,,,,,,,,, the book takes the flaws of an everyman and uses them to create deeper meaning and thematics in the story. love that for them, actually. praying at their shrine.

and, as a quick recap of other personalities

The other characters (as you most likely well know) are also fantastically written. I have my quarrels with some parts of everyone's personality, and at times the flaws can feel a bit too bold of a choice — really, in what reality are people these extreme and far-flung going to be put together in one, singular location - and a college of all places? — but part of the gravitas in this story is the dramatics. The otherworldly nature of it. The way it mimics our world, but cannot possibly be anything other than a reality tipped on its side and wholly separate from ours. If characters fall into tropes, or they do something extreme, that's part of the story. It's part of the intoxicating charm of the novel. (Lol, it very much reminds me of what people say about the characters of the very popular TV show Euphoria. Certainly, in real life, all of these personalities don't co-exist so naturally and so closely together. But isn't that what stories are for? To push the envelope of reality and smash it into a million pieces, only to make something artfully distorted? Is that not what Richard himself sees and makes of the world, after attending his first Greek lecture? Who knows. To each their own.)

also, uhhh, i promised no spoilers, so i'll be vague, but like,,,,, everyone is mentally ill and i get the distinct feeling that mr. julian morrow knows this and is exploiting it and like,,,,,, anyone want to explain to me wHO he is???? WhAt he's doing??????

Anyway, if you have doubted whether or not to read this novel, I would strongly recommend you do. There's something really interesting going on here, and I think it's romanticized morbidity (and acknowledgment of it) makes for a very engaging and fascinating tale.

#asks #lindsay — 🥺#idk if you want a plot synopsis but like..... spoiler free is just: friends who murder together most definitely do nOT stay together.#also they're in college and studying greek.

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jaskierek · 5 years ago

Text

Temporary

Summary:

Everyone's always left Jaskier, he's come to expect it. After all, he was temporary, forgettable. Until Geralt comes back. Until Geralt seems bent on proving him wrong.

-----------------------------------

Julian and his parents were never that close.

They weren’t really invested in him if he was being honest.

Well, maybe they were. They were invested in his academic grades and his ‘upbringing’, which for them consisted of learning how to hunt pheasants and which fork to use.

Other than that, Julian was pretty much left alone with no one but his nanny to keep him company. He liked her. She’d sing for him and tuck him in at night with a kiss.

When he was 7 he figured out that she was being paid to care for him so he closed himself off even to her, hiding behind his blinding smiles.

His father wasn’t gentle with him and Julian tended to get in trouble. How else would an ignored child get any sort of attention? Turns out that the Earl of Lettenhove was more invested in the dignity of the Lettenhove name than he was in ignoring his son. So Julian got what he wanted…in a way. It’s sickeningly clichéd, isn’t it?

Eventually his parents didn’t know what to do with him so they sent him off to boarding school.

Julian learned how to be charismatic, how to become popular among his peers and earn ‘friends’. All fleeting relationships, never lasting long, never slipping past his mask of smiles. Unfortunately, that did not stop him from getting into trouble, nor did it keep him interested in his studies.

He remembered one particular professor. He was a wizard with a cane. He knew exactly where to strike to make it the most painful. “No tears.” He used to say and Julian was forced to swallow them down. After a while he learned how to be an academic.

His love for poetry came as a surprise. He’d only started liking it when he was 19. It was also when he’d met the Countess de Stael. Once she’d stepped into his life, poetry had poured out of him. He’d forgo sleep in favour of letting the words slip onto the pages before him. She loved it at the time.

And then she left.

And so Julian had carried on with his studies, allowing his broken heart to write the most beautiful sonnets and ballads.

And then Julian had left. And he’d changed his name. He changed it to Jaskier. Buttercup. Beautiful, bright and yellow. Small, delicate and smooth to the touch.

Buttercup. A weed.

Loosen the soil, yank at its base and pull it out. More room for better things now.

He’d fallen into many beds during his travels. Men, women, neither. Sometimes it was the Countess de Stael herself. He remembered most of their names. And when he didn’t, it was because he’d been blackout drunk. And even then, he’d remember things like the touch of their skin or the colour of their hair.

None lasted long. Many didn’t care to learn his name. He wasn’t hurt. He hadn’t expected anything more.

He wrote beautiful songs. People didn’t care to listen. So he wrote what was popular. He wrote of monsters and heroes and kings. He knew nothing of monsters and heroes and kings. His songs were bad. He wasn’t paid much.

Then he’d met Geralt of Rivia. Witcher. Monster Hunter. Emotionally constipated. Self loathing. Kind. Generous. Asshole. Utter and absolute asshole.

The love of Jaskier’s life.

Geralt had never shown Jaskier much outward affection. Jaskier had hoped that he cared though. He’d hoped that he wasn’t dispensable, forgettable. The Witcher, for all of his grumpiness, had provided food, had let the bard sleep in occasionally, had let him talk for hours on end, had made sure he was always safe and healthy. He had once even nursed Jaskier back to health after a particularly malicious cold that had left him numb and with a raging fever. Jaskier could even make out the faint whisper of worry in the Witcher’s golden eyes.

Geralt had also inspired him to write in a way he hadn’t known possible. Suddenly, the lyrics and notes were pouring out of him again. His pockets filled with coin. His stomach filled with food. His fame spread. His music was respected. People’s desire for him had grown. He was wanted. But never in the way that he needed.

People ignored him when he was with Geralt, their gaze slipping over him like water. He understood. It was hard to focus on a simple bard when a Witcher stood right beside him. And not just any Witcher. Geralt of Rivia. The White Wolf. A mass of muscles and sharp swords and white hair and amber eyes and gods, did Jaskier understand. He often found himself struggling to look away. And besides, he was used to not being seen, at least not being seen truly and wholly.

Then came the golden dragon and the witch and the mountain and -

“If life could give me one blessing, it would be to take you off my hands.”

It seemed to be a common wish for anyone who’d met him.

Some of his relationships lasted a night, maybe a week, a month, maybe a little more.

With Geralt it had been 20 years. He’d cleaned his wounds, he’d bathed him, he’d learned to understand his grunts and the minute twists of his lips, he’d loved him with all that he had. 20 years. He still wasn’t enough. Jaskier wished he could blame the Witcher. But he’d seen him be kind, he’d seen him be gentle, he’d seen him be careful with his words. Perhaps Jaskier simply wasn’t enough. Maybe he wasn’t enough to warrant care.

Dispensable, forgettable, temporary. Fun while it lasted but not enough to love.

While Jaskier was an idealist, he’d always considered himself to be realistic about his own assets. He was attractive, he had great eyes and a great smile, he was a good dancer, he could write a hell of a song.

There was not much else.

He was annoying, too excitable, too greedy, he was interesting up to a point. He talked too much. He was too cocky. He was useless in a fight. He had a tendency to fool around with married people. He was unlovable.

Ah, yes, and he was dramatic. Overly dramatic.

Jaskier looked at himself in the mirror and smiled, big and bright.

Buttercup.

Weed.

Temporary.

“If life could give me one blessing -”

The smile didn’t waver.

Geralt had found him half a year later performing at a rather respectable inn. He had been singing one of his new songs. It wasn’t about Geralt. None of his new songs were. Not for lack of material though, he found he could write about the Witcher endlessly. Jaskier had believed himself adept at swallowing down pain. He was proven wrong.

“What can I do for you, Witcher?” He’d asked with a grin, hoping Geralt wouldn’t see through it.

“Nothing, Jaskier. I want nothing from you.” He’d responded and the bard felt his chest clench at that. Perhaps this meeting had simply been an accident. Geralt didn’t want anything to do with him. He should have been used to it.

“Ah, well then,” Jaskier said, turning around, finding he couldn’t stand to look into those amber eyes any longer, “see you around, Geralt.”

“No - Jaskier, please, wait,” the bard had ground to a halt at that, looking over his shoulder to see a pained expression on that beautiful face, “I - I’ve been looking for you.”

So, yes, Geralt had found him and not accidentally. He had been looking for him.

Jaskier didn’t know what to do with that information.

“I want to apologise.”

The smile finally slipped.

“You…you want to apologise?”

“Yes.” Came the response. Short. Fast. Without any room for doubt.

“Why?”

Geralt looked almost incredulous, almost confused. “Because I said terrible things to you.”

Jaskier furrowed his brows.

“So?” He couldn’t help but ask, not maliciously but entirely curiously.

“‘So?’ What do you mean ‘so’? Jaskier, I said things to you that I didn’t mean, things that I couldn’t stand you believing. I - Jaskier, you - you were there and I was angry and I lashed out.”

A beat of silence.

“After the mountain, I - I tried to be alone and I couldn’t stand it. Even…even before - we’d spend weeks apart but I still never felt as alone as I did after I said…what I said and I - I didn’t mean it and then I went to find Yennefer,”

Ah, Jaskier was an idiot. Add that to the list of flaws. Of course he wasn’t the first one to be sought out by the Witcher. Why would he be?

“Must have been a fun reunion.” Jaskier said, trying to inject some genuine sounding mirth into his voice and the smile that had reappeared. Geralt looked away.

“It wasn’t like that. Although we care for each other, we realised that that wasn’t what we wanted.”

Despite himself, Jaskier’s chest still tightened painfully. Hearing - hell, even seeing - how truly and deeply they cared for each other… His smile didn’t waver.

“Sorry about that.” Was all he could think to say.

“Stop it.”

Jaskier blinked.

“Stop what?”

“That smile. That smile you do when you don’t really want to be smiling. I’ve known you for 20 years, bard, I know which smiles are genuine.” Geralt sounded frustrated. Almost pained.

“I have no clue what you’re talking about.”

“For fuck’s sake, Jaskier. I know I fucked up. I know I did and you deserve to be angry at me but don’t give me that smile. I hate it. I hate that smile.” The Witcher took a step closer and the bard finally let his smile slip. It wasn’t his only mask. Geralt seemed to realise this too, still looking displeased.

“What do you want from me, Geralt?” Jaskier asked, the amusement gone from his voice, but he managed to keep it levelled, not betraying the tiredness behind it.

“I don’t want anything from you, Jaskier,” he paused for a moment. “What I wanted to say was that I talked to Yennefer and she helped me realise that I don’t want a life without you.”

It would’ve sounded romantic if Jaskier wasn’t certain that Geralt would never think of him like that.

“So you do want something from me. You want me to travel with you again.”

Geralt winced and after a moment said, “yes”.

“You hurt me.”

“I know, I’m sorry. I’m - I’m trying to make up for it.”

Jaskier was weak. Add that to the list. He was so fucking weak.

“Okay.”

After that, Geralt would eye the bard warily for a while, as if expecting him to reveal himself as some sort of shapeshifter, a doppler maybe. But Jaskier knew that the Witcher would smell anything like that a mile away so he didn’t really know why he kept glancing at him over the campfire.

Other than that, it seemed like things were back to normal.

Everything forgiven, nothing forgotten. Unfortunately.

Jaskier pushed that out of his mind and returned to his rambles and Witcher-themed ballads. After all, Geralt had said he’d missed him. Surely that had meant the whole ‘Jaskier experience’, prattling and all.

The bard still didn’t know how to comprehend that information. No one had ever missed him in his life. At least, not that he knew of. Maybe they missed how he made them feel, like when the Countess would moan “gods, I missed this,” as he’d trail kisses up her thighs. So no, he didn’t know what Geralt wanted but it was strange. The Witcher smiled at him more, talked to him more. Every time they separated for a time, Geralt would greet him with a small smile. It made the bard’s heart do things and it wasn’t fair.

Perhaps this was a punishment from some god or another, maybe destiny herself or karma. Maybe it was Jaskier’s punishment to have to endure a love for a man who would never reciprocate it, all the while being subjected to that same man openly stating that, yes, he wanted Jaskier around.

A few months later, Geralt had kissed him.

It was after a battle with a Leshy, half wildcat, half bear, with fangs and claws like knives, sharp and long enough to sever a man in half. Jaskier had gotten very close to being that man before Geralt had yanked it back by its tail, swinging his sword as it whirled around in fury. After the fight, the Witcher had surged over to Jaskier, arm bleeding and eyes searching.

“Are you hurt?” He asked, voice gruff. His hands were running over the bard’s body, checking for injuries.

“No.” Jaskier managed to choke out, trying to ignore the feeling of Geralt’s hands skimming over his hips. “But you are. Let me check that arm.” He said, reaching for the Witcher’s bleeding bicep. A hand snapped up and grabbed his wrist, bringing it back down to his side.

“You got too close.” He rumbled, taking a step closer so that he was practically pressing the bard up against the tree behind him. Jaskier swallowed.

“I know. Sorry.” He let out a shaky breath as he noticed those golden eyes sliding down to his lips. Geralt growled and pressed their lips together, one hand behind Jaskier’s head, the other still gripping his wrist. Jaskier was quick to reciprocate, tangling his fingers in the Witcher’s snowy hair and opening his mouth willingly.

Their kiss was all tongues and teeth and sucking and biting. Their sex was much the same. Jaskier knew it was adrenaline and he knew it was just physical, but he couldn’t stop from smiling the next morning, for once waking before the other man. Geralt’s injured arm was wrapped around Jaskier’s waist, the wound already mostly healed. The bard found himself tracing the outline of Geralt’s cheekbone, his jawline, his thumb running over his lips. He had never known the Witcher to sleep so deeply that a touch would not wake him.

He didn’t know whether this was a one time thing but he was grateful it had happened. Even if he only got to taste the man once, he would find a way to make it be enough.

After a while, Jaskier got up and wet a small rag, cleaning himself before rinsing it and beginning to clean the Witcher, it was nothing he hadn’t already seen, some of it he’d even helped wash before. They were still sticky from the night before and they were nowhere near any lakes or rivers. Geralt woke to Jaskier running the cloth across his thigh.

“Sorry, I thought it would be nice to wake up not so icky.” The bard said, pulling his hand away.

Geralt grabbed Jaskier’s hand, “I like it.”

Jaskier smiled and looked away, missing the way his favourite pair of golden eyes lit up at the sight.

“Well, I’m not about to miss my chance at touching that body again.” He said with a whistle. Geralt laughed at that and pulled the bard down, pressing a kiss to his lips that threatened to burst Jaskier’s chest with affection.

The Witcher’s gaze was soft for the rest of the morning.

They’d fall into bed multiple times again. Sometimes it was rough and fast and adrenaline-hazed. Sometimes it was soft and gentle and it left Jaskier feeling heady, his head filling with sweet honey as Geralt’s fingers worked wonders.

It was hard for him not to get attached even more. He knew he shouldn’t. He wouldn’t allow himself to believe that Geralt cared for him romantically. He wouldn’t put his heart through that. Still, it was hard.

So one evening, when a particularly brave woman had chosen to flirt with the Witcher, all but offering herself up on a platter, Geralt had looked to Jaskier with a look in his eye.

“It’s okay, Geralt.” He’d reassured him from the seat across the table, he smiled and Geralt frowned before rejecting the woman bluntly. Jaskier felt a sigh of relief building in his throat as the woman sauntered away.

“What did you mean ‘it’s okay’?” Geralt asked, turning to him with stiff shoulders. Jaskier froze. Was he really going to make him say it aloud?

“I - I mean, it’s okay if you want to sleep with other people, you don’t have to worry about me.” You don’t have to worry about me trying to stop you, about me being hurt.

“What - Jaskier -,” The Witcher struggled for a moment before taking a breath, “is this just about sex for you?”

Jaskier definitely wasn’t expecting that.

“I…is it for you?” He asked. It was a coward’s response. Had he already put that on the list? Add cowardly to the list. Geralt was quiet and Jaskier could feel his heart beating in his throat as those amber eyes searched his.

“No.”

He thinks he might have misheard.

“What?”

“It’s not just about sex for me and if it is for you then we should stop.”

Jaskier’s mouth was open, trying to find a response. He knew what he wanted to say but a declaration of love was probably not what the Witcher wanted.

“I love you, Jaskier.” Geralt said, his face pinched.

Huh.

“I know you don’t want me like that,” Geralt continued, his gaze still on Jaskier’s, “you of all people have seen the worst of me and I wouldn’t blame you for not being able to stomach romance with a Witcher,” the way he said that word made his chest clench, “but I can’t keep doing this, Jaskier.”

Since when had Geralt ever been more eloquent than his bard?

“You think I don’t love you?” Jaskier’s voice came out quiet, hesitant, incredulous. Geralt’s eyes looked wary.

“You -“

“Geralt, how can I not fucking love you? I’ve spent 20 years loving you. Fuck - it - it hurts how much I love you.”

Because it did. Every time Geralt smiled at him or teased him or tied his hair back in the morning, it was like a blow to Jaskier’s chest, but he’d gotten good at swallowing pain, swallowing tears.

He could tell Geralt was still disbelieving and fuck - he knew that the man’s self-loathing ran deep and he couldn’t help himself from saying; “Geralt, you are the best man I’ve ever known and it frustrates me to no end that you don’t see it.”

Geralt was watching him, scanning his face, his eyes, looking for something.

“Then why - why do you hide yourself from me?” He asked, frustrated, “You - you do this smile that - it’s not you, it’s not your smile. There’s this look in your eyes sometimes. It’s like a wall and I hate that you need to hide from me.”

Jaskier’s hand shot out to grab Geralt’s, trying to comfort him. The Witcher had never been big on affection in public but he let his hand be taken by the bard.

“It’s not you, Geralt, I don’t blame you. It’s - it’s not love…what you feel for me.” Jaskier smiled sadly, his years of practice swallowing down tears being put to use. “It’s not love. You’ll get bored of me soon. I’m not permanent. I’m - I’m a fleeting fancy. And that’s okay.”

“You - I - what?” Geralt asked, looking so completely confused that it was almost comical. “Fuck. We’re not talking about this here.” He said, standing up and dragging Jaskier up through the inn and into their shared room. “Now,” the Witcher growled, whirling on the bard and grabbing him by his shirt, “what the fuck did you just say.”

Geralt didn’t scare Jaskier. He could never scare him, but the bard’s eyes were wide as he looked at Geralt’s furious expression.

“I - I don’t know how to say it, Geralt, I - no one’s ever wanted me before, not in a way that matters.” He managed to choke out, his vision turning blurry. Fuck, he thought he’d gotten good at swallowing down tears but Geralt had yet again proven him wrong.

“Who told you that?” He asked furiously.

“No one,” Jaskier responded, pushing Geralt away and scrubbing at his cheeks fiercely, “no one had to. I know, okay? I know.” The Witcher snarled.

“You know nothing, bard, if you don’t know that I love you.”

“Stop it, Geralt.”

“No.”

“I can’t do this if you’re just going to leave me.”

Jaskier froze and a silence passed. His breath was shaking from barely restrained tears.

“I can’t do this, Geralt,” he continued in a quiet voice, “not if you find someone better and leave me. I - I don’t know what I’d do. Everyone I’ve ever known has either left me or grown tired of me. It’s not a pattern that’s going to end with you. I - I don’t think I could take it if you left me again.”

Geralt’s gaze was soft, pitying. Jaskier was pitiful, add that to the list.

“I’ve known you for over 20 years and I have not grown tired.”

“What is 20 years to a Witcher? And even so, you did, you did grow tired of me.”

‘If life could give me one blessing, it would be to take you off my hands.’

“I didn’t grow tired of you. I grew tired of myself and my ability to fuck everything up.” Geralt said softly, “And I did, I fucked it up.”

“Geralt, it’s not love.”

“Stop saying that.”

“It’s not.”

Geralt snarled and pushed Jaskier up against the wall, leaning in close so that Jaskier had nowhere to look except for those golden eyes. Those disarmingly honest, golden eyes.

“Listen to me, Jaskier, I love you.”

Jaskier wouldn’t cry. He swallowed down a shaky breath.

“I’m irritating.”

“You are.”

“I talk too much.”

“You do. I like it.”

“I’m greedy.”

“You enjoy finery. It’s not the same.”

“I’m arrogant.”

“Clearly you’re not.”

“I can’t fight. I’m a coward.”

“You’re one of the bravest men I know. To the point of recklessness, it worries me.”

“It does?”

“It does.”

Geralt’s lips were grazing over his now, teasingly. Jaskier smiled, genuinely. Geralt smiled right back.

“You love me?” He asked, voice breaking.

“I do.”

And Jaskier cried, finally.

Jaskier cried and laughed and kissed Geralt. It was bad. It was wet and sloppy and he loved it. And Geralt loved it too. Because he loved him. Jaskier. He loved him.

Then Geralt had dragged him to bed, whispering praise into his skin as if hoping it would soak through him and settle in his bones. Jaskier had done the same because fuck, he was in love and it was dizzying.

“You know,” Jaskier began the next morning, earning a grunt from the Witcher laying under him, “I think last night was the longest I’ve ever heard you speak.” The chest beneath the bard’s head rumbled with a laugh.

“Fuck off.”

“I guess I just bring it out of you, Witcher.” Jaskier continued, grinning devilishly.

“I will kick you out of this bed, bard.”

“Please, I dare you to try and rip me off of you. I have melded my body onto yours.”

Geralt simply grumbled in response. It was a grumble of acceptance, Jaskier could tell. He could always tell.

They ran into Yennefer two months later and Jaskier found that he wasn’t concerned. He wasn’t worried Geralt would return to her. Partly because when she spotted them the first thing out of her mouth was;

“Finally. For Melitele’s sake, that took much too long.”

Geralt had looked at her with a pointedly unamused gaze which she’d returned with a wink.

Later, after they had helped her with a monster-slaying job so she could collect some sort of venom, the three had shared drinks.

“I take full credit for this, by the way.” She’d said, gesturing to the two of them and the arm wrapped around Jaskier’s waist.

“In what way is this your doing?” Jaskier had asked.

“I’m the one who told him to tell you how he felt.”

“Which he did months after he’d found me.”

“Is his lack of communication skills my fault?”

“If he didn’t do it when you told him to then it doesn’t count.”

“Fuck off, it counts.”

“It most certainly does not.”

Geralt took a sip of his ale as the two continued to bicker.

Not long after, Yennefer had decided to join them - “graced” them with her presence as she’d put it. Jaskier could tell that Geralt and the sorceress still cared for each other deeply. He couldn’t really talk though, he’d found himself caring for her as well. When she’d called him her “friend” he had practically glowed. Then Ciri had barrelled into their lives and their little circle had grown and gods, did he love that little girl.

“Where are your parents, Jaskier?” She had once asked as he was soothing her back to sleep after a nightmare. It was always Cintra burning, Jaskier ached for her. She was too young for all of this.

“I don’t know, honey, I haven’t spoken to them for years.”

“Why not?”

“We were never really a family.”

Ciri paused before smiling widely.

“But you have a family now.”

Jaskier smiled back, brushing the hair out of her face and listening to the sounds of Yennefer sleeping soundly and Geralt mumbling something to Roach.

“I do.”

#not sure im happy with this #my rambles #jaskier #julian alfred pankratz #geralt of rivia #geraskier #geraskier fic #geraskier fanfiction #angst #the witcher #the witcher fic #fanfic #fic written

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beesgav · 4 years ago

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I'm realizing I never compiled my 2007 bionicle thoughts here so

- All in all, this one was definitely... unpolished, I would say. It had a lot of moving parts and I'm not sure how well it all gelled together in the end. My foremost gripe is how many perspectives it jumps between and how short it is in comparison with, like, 2004-2006, which really wound up giving it a rushed feeling.

- once the Mahri showed up, there was very little focus on the Matoran of Mahri Nui, which is a shame because the Matoran attempting to live their lives is generally one of my favorite elements of each year. I can still recall the VNRT pretty well (sorry, Piruk, I had to look you up), and I read 2006 months ago. I read 2007 in late December and the only Matoran characters I can remember by name are Defilak and Dekar.

- i know they were a return to form in terms of the sets and they do indeed have fun designs, but... I'm sorry, the Barraki just aren't interesting villains to me. They don't have the intimidation factor of Makuta Teridax or TSO and they don't have the fun personalities and dynamics (with the heroes, at least) of the Piraka. My favorite villain was honestly Nocturn because of how weird and crazy he was.

- Other than to give Lesovikk a target to go after... why was Karzanhi here? He felt so out of place and just kind of existed to spout doom and gloom and get his ass kicked.

- that being said, though- the lotus-eating scene (the one where Karzanhi gives Lesovikk a vision of his life if he had saved his team) was a legitimately good scene and the only time Karzanhi's presence felt like it brought a new and interesting element to the story. Shame it was such a short scene, though.

- Lesovikk and Sarda (yes, I had to look his name up) deciding to travel together was nice, and threw the poor guy a bone in allowing him to reunite with a long-lost friend.

- I feel like the Toa teams, aside from the Mata, pick three characters to have as the "main" characters and let the other half fall to the wayside, and it was definitely evident here, even moreso than 06 was. It just seems there's little to no emotional arc with Kongu, Hewkii, and Nuparu, and while they did get scenes in battle where they could be cool and occasionally got to take jabs at each other's egos, they felt way more like secondary supporting characters here and were nearly indistinguishable personalitywise. Hewkii being thankful Macku taught him to swim was cute though.

- Again... I feel like so many of these problems could have been resolved, or at least mitigated, by having another hundred pages or so (bearing in mind that I’m reading a compiled digital version with some stuff like the comics thrown in) and making it similar in length to 2004.

- But I don't wanna be completely negative and there's still a bunch of stuff I liked about it so

- Ironically, for as much as I was fearing it up to finally reading it, the darkest parts were what I enjoyed the most of the whole thing. The Teridax-posessed Maxilos robot sticking with Matoro and forcing him to do his bidding was fantastically dark. I only wish, like with the majority of these things, we could've seen more about how it affected Matoro's relationships with his team and how it messed with his head and self-esteem.

- The scenes where Matoro is forced to use his mask power against his will, where he's just made to watch this horrible ability that he has work for him, were also enjoyably painful to read. Matoro is honestly the best character in this year.

- I feel like this has been mentioned in a post on its own but Matoro being the one destined to sacrifice his life to save Mata Nui and continually getting powers related to death (the soul-scouting ability made his real body lifeless and convincingly dead to everyone but Hahli, and the dead-raising one... obvi) in addition to his mask looking vaguely skull-like is such grim foreshadowing I love it.

- but also my poor boy. I want to give him a hug. He didn't deserve this ; ;

- Hahli also really shines here. I knew about the "Hahli the barbarian" line before now but I never realized how much it actually was warranted. She's so cool. She also has probably what is one of my new favorite mask powers, next to the Calix.

- oh also speaking of- the lead-in to the scene where Matoro uses his mask to raise Tuyet is preceded by the story about her and the Nui Stone in the volume I read and honestly it's one of the best short stories in the whole run.

- Matoro's sacrifice was a little confusingly-worded but was still incredibly effective. Honestly his actual death was less impactful than the reactions to it for me (Hahli recounting it to Kopeke, the Toa going "hey why didn't the Ignika teleport us all back" before Vakama explains, and particularly Nuju realizing that he not only lost his translator but also his dearest friend) so I'm glad that we got to see a little bit of that.

- I could easily be missing an element of the story (I'm pretty sure I am, actually, but I won't know for sure until I read 08) but I'm still miffed that there was no Mahri/Takanuva reunion.

- All in all... it was okay. I took a lot of issues with the technical aspects of the story, but there were still tons of elements that really shined. And, hell, I read the entirety of it in a day, so it didn't, like, /disgust/ me or anything.

I do have to admit I'm worried about 08-10. It'll be interesting to meet the Av-Matoran, and I'm excited to finally follow the Nuva (plus Taka) again, but I haven't heard great things about it. Still gonna see it to the end, ofc, but I'm worried 06 may have been the highpoint of the story.

#bionicle #not art #its earlyish in the morning so idk if anyone will see but

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tuanhood · 5 years ago

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rumor

pairing: kim yugyeom x reader

genre: smut, enemies to lovers au (kind of)

warnings: 18+, public oral sex (female receiving), cursing

word count: 5k+

summary: the bane of your existence, kim yugyeom who has been bothering you consistently for the past 6 months comes to find you in the library, because well... he heard something.

a/n: keeping it going with the smut i GUESS. my russian mother would literally die if she knew i was doing this instead of writing my dissertation. :) this is barely edited but go easy on me OK.

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Here you were. Another Thursday night in the library, endlessly highlighting the printed-out text in front of you. Your eyes shifted towards the other portion of the table you were sat at. It was filled with papers by students from the course you were TAing for and its placement in front of you was another overwhelming reminder of the work you had to accomplish before the weekend. A thought occurred to you that maybe it was worth it to take a break before you really got into grading, but as you glanced at your phone for the first in what felt like hours, you realized there was no time for a break if you wanted to finish everything on time.

It wasn’t always like this, you used to have fun, but as time passed and you went on in your collegiate career, there was more time for work and less time for play. You wanted to say a big fuck you to your friend Mark and his “work hard, play hard” motto, because who the hell could do both equally and not ruin their life?

Just as you were about to text Mark and ask him for 500 words on how his life mantra could be applicable to literally anyone, you heard heavy footsteps coming from somewhere on the floor of the library you occupied and it was almost as if your comfortable atmosphere shifted. As the footsteps grew closer, your body tensed up in preparation for the interruption you felt that you were about to endure.

“Shove it Yugyeom,” you said without looking up at the tall boy. Kim Yugyeom had bothered you so much in the past 6 months that you practically had a sixth sense for whenever he was within distance.

“Dude, why are you so mean to me?”

Sighing, you pinched the bridge of your nose in frustration, “how many times do I have to tell you that just because our moms are friends, doesn’t mean we are.”

He pulled a chair from the table and flipped it with the back facing you, plopping down, his arms folded on the chair’s back. “Okay but the reason I’m here is actually really important.”

Knowing Yugyeom and judging on his insistent tone, you knew it wasn’t actually going to be important. The two of you had known each other most of your lives because of your respective mother’s being lifelong friends. You had always wondered what it must have been like for them, having such a strong bond of friendship that they would make it a pact to have children at the same time and force them into being friends. Unfortunately for them neither of those things really happened – your mother became pregnant with you and it wasn’t until two years later that Yugyeom’s mother followed. However, despite the small age gap, they still tried to manufacture a friendship between the two of you. By the time you were thirteen, they gave up.

For months Yugyeom had been finding you on campus and was constantly bothering you with things that he deemed to be paramount, but instead were things such as “what bedding do you think I should get?” or “hey are you going to your mom’s birthday party? Should we carpool?” Obviously, you would be going to your own mother’s party, so why did he have to ask you? All of his questions, comments or concerns, could easily be discussed over text, but for some reason he had to come find you in person. Every. Single. Time.

At first you blamed it on his age and innocence. He was two years younger than you and his common appearance in your life with things that were “important,” probably had to do with his adjustment to university life. You were the only person he knew, so it was a given that he would come to you with questions or in need of advice. But after 6 months and the large friend group Yugyeom had grown on campus – you knew that had nothing do with it.

Losing your place in your notes, you groaned and looked up at him, realizing as long as he was in your presence you wouldn’t be able to get any work done, “what is it Yugyeom? What could be so important that you had to come bother me yet again.”

You noticed Yugyeom cower back a bit at your annoyed tone, clearly striking some kind of nerve within him and it almost made you feel regretful on how you’ve treated him lately. It was certainly much worse than you had been with him in your childhood.

He clicked his tongue as if signaling that he meant business, “well… I came to ask about a rumor.”

The order of business that brought Yugyeom into your midst today immediately made you let out a snort from your mouth. He still didn’t understand what “important” meant, even after all this time. You especially didn’t pay any mind to what was or wasn’t going on with Yugyeom’s little friends. Rolling your eyes, you picked up your forgotten highlighter and put it back on the page, you predicted that this visit couldn’t last much longer. “I really don’t care about what’s going on with lower classmen.”

“It’s not about anyone in my year… It’s about you.”

You paused, dropping the tool in your hand, once again forgotten, wondering if you had misheard him. Campus was full of hundreds – probably thousands of students more interesting than you. Nothing you’d ever done could be warranted as interesting enough to be circulated throughout campus whether real or not. “Excuse me?”

“I heard a rumor about you.” And a rumor that was widespread enough that it could somehow make it to Yugyeom? You were certain that he had to be mistaken.

His eyes looked around the room. You noticed they wandered to the sheets of paper in front of you, your hands and the shelves of books surrounding the table. He licked his lips before speaking to gain confidence before he continued on, “I want to know if it’s true.”

Usually conversations with Yugyeom contained a lot of back and forth. There was never this much air that left room for thoughtful pauses or awkward silence. It had always been him asking random things or making comments that led to you snapping at him. This time you weren’t really sure what to say. Being so perplexed by the encounter and why he was concerned about a rumor regarding you, left you unsure of how to respond.

“It’s about you and Park Jinyoung. I want to know if it’s true,” Yugyeom bit his bottom lip so hard, you thought he would draw blood.

Blankly, you blinked at him, wondering why anyone would be fixated about you and Jinyoung, “first I kind of have to know what the rumor about the two of us is.”

“Ugh I knew it,” Yugyeom narrowed his eyes at you, and it’s perhaps the first time you’d seen him show any kind of negative emotion. Even after all of your countless ignoring and bitter words towards him in the past, he would always maintain the same bright smile and puppy dog look in his eyes. It was something you actually admired about him.

“Knew what? I didn’t say anything! I’m asking you what you heard. What the rumor is!” You whisper shouted, in an effort to remind yourself that you were in the library after all.

“If it wasn’t true you would have just denied it!” Yugyeom insisted.

Now it was your turn to be angry, through clenched teeth you asked him, “what the fuck is your problem?”

He stood up briskly and the chair shook from his sudden stance, “you fucking Park Jinyoung, that’s my problem.” You widened your eyes at him, especially since you had hadn’t really ever heard Yugyeom curse, “what?”

“People are saying you guys slept together.”

His words caused you to freeze up for a moment, but you felt a need to play it off, to not show your hand. “Yugyeom… Jinyoung and I TA for the same intro Lit class. That’s it. People like to create drama… especially if it’s about their superiors.” The way you defended yourself made the hair on the back of your neck stand up. Ultimately, you had no reason to explain anything to this guy who wasn’t even classified as an acquaintance to you. Kim Yugyeom had no real place in your life. “And why does it matter to you? I can sleep with whoever I want… Not that it’s any of your business or anyone else’s.”

For some reason you found yourself unable to look up at him. It felt different then the times you simply avoided his gaze as a method of ignoring him in the hopes he would leave. This time you felt just nauseous. First you were being defensive with him and now you felt too nervous to look at him? What was wrong with you? “So, it’s true then, huh?”

At his words, you sighed, lifting your eyes up slowly to finally look at him again. For a moment, the thought entered your mind to lie and you had to shake the delusion out of your head. Why lie to him? You had nothing to hide, nothing to be ashamed about… and yet why did it cross your mind to be dishonest with Yugyeom, as if to shield him from it? Before you could regretfully change your mind, you responded, “yes, I slept with Jinyoung, but it was literally forever ago. We’re just friends. I don’t understand why it’s even coming up now.”

It surprised you when you noticed his hands had clenched into fists at his side and you tried to conjure up something in your brain that could explain why he cared about this so much. Your heart pained a little from his aggression and you wondered if you were going to start wondering why you care so much about this.

“Why do you care?” You asked, rolling your eyes to put on an act of nonchalance.

“It’s embarrassing!”

“Why the hell is it embarrassing?”

His fists finally unclenched and he threw them down in annoyance at your question, as if you were supposed to be able to read his mind. He answered you as if his reasoning was the most obvious thing in the world, “my friends keep teasing me about it!” You couldn’t help but notice the way he whined at the end of his sentence, like a small child being annoyed about finishing their food.

“Yugyeom… I don’t think I’m following. Why does who I do or don’t sleep with embarrassing for you?”

“Because…” he took a deep breath in as if contemplating whether he should go on and there was a long pause before he continued, “because it’s embarrassing that this is going around about someone I like.”

Shock washed over the features on your face. This was it? This was the reason why he had been acting so ridiculous? You certainly weren’t expecting that. “You have feelings for Jinyoung? I-I’m sorry Yugyeom, but I swear it’s in the past… and if it makes you feel any better it wasn’t even that good of-” He cut you off briskly not wanting to hear where you had been going with the thought.

“No, I don’t like Jinyoung.” He rolled his eyes out of frustration at your lack of understanding.

“Then I don’t know what you’re talk-” this time you cut yourself off when your brain finally caught up to the rest of you. If he didn’t like Jinyoung... that meant he likes the other person in the rumor… and that other person in the rumor was in fact you. Which meant that Yugyeom must like…

“Me? You like me?” Your voice got higher, a nervous habit that continued to grow whenever you were in a stressful situation. A situation you couldn’t easily see the conclusion of.

Judging on Yugyeom’s gaze, one could say that the conversation didn’t faze him – that he was confident even, but as you glanced down, you were met with the fidgeting and shuffling of his feet. “Yeah. I do, so what?”

After all this time and after everything you had said or done to him, he still liked you?

You looked back up to his face and saw the hard and cold exterior he tried to put up between the two of you. He was attempting to make it seem like he didn’t care. That putting his feelings for you out in the open and holding his heart out in front of you was no big deal. You knew from knowing Yugyeom from all these years that this was no simple feat for him. You knew he was probably shaking inside, nervous and afraid of the rejection that he had expected to come from you. He had put on an act, because he thought that’s what you wanted and because he didn’t want to show you his true feelings when the hurt that he knew was coming finally came.

You studied his face for a moment, his features and glimpsed into his eyes that you knew would hold how he really felt.

Yugyeom felt the silence between the two of you get heavier and heavier with every moment that passed. He felt uncomfortable and he just wanted you to tell him what he knew he was probably going to hear from you. “I bet I’m ten times better than Park Jinyoung,” Yugyeom mumbled quietly to himself, clearly not meaning for you to hear it, but hear it you did.

His words shocked you and you felt a nervous flip in your stomach, but the good kind. For some reason you couldn’t help but think back to Mark’s stupid motto as you looked Yugyeom up and down, checking him out. Before you could process what, you were doing, you began to gather all of your things on the table without a word to Yugyeom. When you were finally done you saw the panic in his face as he wondered if you were just going to leave him without a word. Instead you surprised him, placing your backpack in one hand and you grabbed his hand with the other, “follow me.”

He didn’t move and you almost fell back against him at his pull, “where are we going?”

“You’ll see come on,” you rolled your eyes at him and tugged him forward once again towards the stairwell of the library. Both of you climbed the stairs in silence, and you found yourself grateful that he followed you. It was difficult for you to understand what it was about the situation that had you more nervous – that he had come with you or that you were doing this at all.

When you finally reached the fifth floor you led him through various stacks of books and multiple rows of shelves until you were both in the back corner of the floor. You stopped in between two shelves and he glanced around the books surrounding you, “why are we in medieval literature?” he asked.

“Because no one ever comes up here.”

He blinked quickly, not understanding your reasoning for bringing him up multiple flights of stairs to be amongst more dusty books.

“And there are no security cameras up here,” you continued, hoping that something would click for him. If it took him much longer to figure out what you were trying to communicate, you were afraid you might lose your confidence in doing this. You tapped your foot lightly against the ground, “so are you going to show me?”

“Show you what?” He asked completely oblivious. At this point, he was just grateful that you hadn’t kicked his ass after he had confessed to you. He had to be honest with himself, he hadn’t come to find you expecting to tell you about his feelings for you. He thought they had been clear from the beginning, but after the third or fourth time you had reacted negatively to him appearing in your life during these past 6 months, he figured that you would never see it without him explicitly telling you. And judging on how much you seemed to hate him – he had come to the conclusion that he would never tell you. But after hearing about you and Park Jinyoung from his friend Bambam, he couldn’t stop himself from marching to the one place he knew you would be on Thursday night – the library.

Yugyeom had always pictured your reaction if he was to tell you about his feelings for you and it always ended with him having a bloody nose, a new bruise or a pain in his foot after you stomped down on it in anger or disgust. The worst part of this situation was that so far you hadn’t done any of these things and for once he didn’t know what to expect when it came to you, somehow that scared him more than being flat out rejected. Wait… maybe you were bringing him up to the isolated section of the library to do your damage and hit him?

“Jesus fucking Christ Yugyeo-” You cut yourself short when you noticed your hands had involuntarily thrusted towards him, clenching as if you were about to wring his neck and the way your tone shifted to frustration. Exhaling, you relaxed your hands and put them down, rubbing them against your thighs to calm yourself down. You weren’t trying to be your normal self towards Yugyeom, you were trying something… different. Much different.

It seemed to you that the only way you’d be able to get Yugyeom to well… get it was spelling it out for him.

“You said you bet you were ten times better than Jinyoung... so show me.”

Nothing leaves Yugyeom’s mouth in response and he stared at you blankly. Had you read this wrong? Were you embarrassing yourself? At his lack of words, you felt your confidence chip away piece by piece and your face grew hot.

Then everything seemed to fall into place for Yugyeom as his mind begins to compute the words leaving your soft pink lips that he’s wanted to kiss for so long. He noticed the way that your eyes are no longer fixated on him, and instead begin to look over the place nervously, pretending to find the books around the two of you more interesting.

Due to the lack of response from Yugyeom, you’re surprised when you he takes a step closer towards you and you feel his hot breath near you just as your eyes became glued to a text about women’s literature in the Middle Ages.

You looked to his brown eyes which stared at you so deeply you felt as though you’re about to suffocate. Although Yugyeom’s always been much taller than you, you’ve always somehow felt bigger than him – older, wiser and more mature. But for the first time ever, under his hypnotic gaze you felt innocent, small and like all you wanted was for him to take care of you.

As he took another step forward, you took one back until you’re pressed against the bookshelf, unable to take back your decision, but you could feel that deep inside of you that you didn’t want to. Both his hands went to either side above you on the shelf and he looked down at you, a new lustfulness in his eyes that wasn’t there before. “Is this okay?”

Nodding your head, you bit your lip to stop the smile that dared to spread across your face and Yugyeom caught it immediately. He brought his right hand down to your hair and brushed some of the strands out of your face softly, “you know… you don’t have to pretend to be this cold, mean person all the time… If you want to feel something, you should just… feel it.” At his final words his hand moved to a permanent position on your cheek as he leaned down to connect your lips together. At first you remained frozen, but as his left-hand slides from the bookshelf to land comfortably at your waist as if it was always meant to be there, you melted into the kiss. Your lips parted and his tongue slipped into your waiting mouth softly, without rush or urgency and somehow that gentleness alone made you feel like all that existed was that softness and the mixing of your breaths.

The slow, sensual pace that you savored soon began to pick up as Yugyeom deepened the kiss, pushing himself closer to you on the shelf. Your hands that had remained mostly stagnant and at your sides soon began to drift up to run through his hair as if they had a mind on their own. When you first heard him let out a small moan from your tugging on his locks, you felt a fire ignite inside of you that told you that you wanted to hear more. With every tug, Yugyeom’s fingers dug into your hips and soon he let out a sigh of content as his hands moved to rest on your ass. Your lips worked seamlessly together as if it was the missing puzzle piece you never knew you needed.

“Let me show you something else I can do better than Park Jinyoung,” Yugyeom said through a raspy breath, against your lips. His hands squeezed your ass before they moved around to the button on your jeans to undo them. It feels as though he works in slow motion as he pulled down the zipper and moved his hand inside, slipping them over your panties. His lips still on you and his hand in a place where you never thought you would need him; your breath grew heavier and heavier.

Your knees buckled as Yugyeom’s fingers suddenly brushed your clit through the thin cloth and he grinned into the kiss as he wrapped his arms around your waist to hold you up. You tried to focus on the feeling of Yugyeom’s fingers rubbing your through your underwear, but soon he withdraws them. You whimpered at the loss of his fingers against you and he gave you one last soft peck before he disconnected his mouth from yours as well. You missed the contact, wanting to make your lips even more swollen than they probably already were.

Yugyeom chuckled at your needy reaction and he caressed your cheek in a reassuring manner, “don’t worry it’ll be worth it.”

You grew confused, wondering what his next move would be, but as he crouches down onto his knees in front of you, pulling your jeans and underwear down with him it begins to dawn on you. You felt yourself grow more wet at the thought.

“I need to taste you,” he practically whined, “let me clean up the mess I made between your legs.” If Yugyeom had said anything remotely close to that in the past, you know you would have smacked him across the face, but instead you felt yourself involuntarily moan, turned on by his words.

Still leant up against the bookshelf, you spread your legs apart, which was proven difficult with the jeans and underwear around your ankles, but Yugyeom grabbed them in an effort to help you. When you were comfortable and well situated, he settled himself between your parted thighs and grew closer.

First all you felt was his hot breath on your clit and he softly blew to tease you, as if paying you back for all the countless you shrugged him off. When you let out a whimper that sounded a little too desperate, even for your ears, he decided his short-lived teasing was better off short. He took one last look into your eyes before he leaned in without hesitation. His tongue first gave a slow lap as if savoring your taste, and he let out a groan that made you feel more wet than you already were. Soon he began to pick up the pace and he used the way your hips moved against him and the little sighs coming from your mouth to feel what it was that you like and don’t like. When he sealed his mouth around your clit in a soft suck, your hands instinctually went back to his hair to bring him even closer to you.

“How do you taste so good,” he mumbled mostly to himself, followed by a noisy kiss and delving into you further.

A sudden and continuous swirl of his tongue against your clit caused you to let out a loud moan that you couldn’t hold back even with all of the strength in your body. With his lips still attached to your clit and continuing his ministrations, he tapped his fingers on your thighs in an effort to remind you to be quiet. You both may have been in a secluded part of the library, but you were still in the library.

It was when you really looked down at Yugyeom that you felt as though you were going to combust. For some reason to see the younger boy that you had completely written off for most of your life, and especially the last 6 months, with his mouth on your clit with a look of pure satisfaction on his face made you feel closer to your high.

His sudden harsh sucking as if he was a man eating his last meal, caused you to lift your hips off against the book shelf and into his face further.

“Yugyeom…” You moaned out with eyes squeezing themselves shut. Hearing his name fall from your lips in bliss – something he had always wanted and dreamed about – edged him to go even harder and faster, wanting nothing more to see you fall apart before him.

When he slipped two fingers inside of you, pumping them quickly, with his lips still attached to your core, you began to feel dizzy just at the pleasure. He pulled his mouth away for a moment to watch his fingers sink in and out you, pleased to look up and see how overcome you were with the way he was making you feel. You let out another cry when his fingers curled in you, finding your g-spot with ease. When he reattached himself to your clit and his fingers found that spot in you once again, it all became too much and you felt yourself closer to your climax. You tried to push his face away from you, trying to let him know that you were close.

“Cum on my face. I want it, I want it all,” he said muffled against your core at your effort to move him away from you.

At his words and the continual, brutal pace of his tongue and fingers, you felt your hips buck into Yugyeom’s face and yourself clench around his fingers, orgasm washing over you hard. You attempted to keep your moans in, but the feeling you get through out your entire body is too much to contain as you let out a load cry from your release. One of your hands left Yugyeom’s hair to aggressively grip the book shelf behind you, causing a book to fall from the shelf and hit part of Yugyeom’s head and his back on the way down.

“F-Fuck Yugyeom I’m sor-” He shut you up as he continued to lap at your core, letting you ride out your orgasm as if he was in his own world where a book didn’t just fall on him.

After a few moments in your own blissed out state and deep breaths with your head against the book shelf, you looked to see Yugyeom getting up off of his knees. His mouth and jaw glistened from you and if he minded how wet your release was, he didn’t show any sign of it. On his way up to stand before you, he lifted your underwear and jeans up your legs.

He smiled smugly, “not bad for a kid, huh?”

You shyly looked away from him, feeling like the kid.

“Yeah whatever, Kim Yugyeom,” You said rolling your eyes, and he catches the smile that was written across your face. When your eyes met again, he stared at you so deeply with so much fondness that you felt yourself grow weak for the second time in the last few minutes.

Bringing your hand up to gently rest on his cheek, you pulled him in for a kiss, wanting to show him the same pleasure he gave you. He let out a loud groan when your hands reached his jeans in an attempt to unbutton them.

“Um… hello?”

You both froze at the voice and broke apart to look at each other in panic.

“Shit,” you whispered to him.

Yugyeom widened his eyes as if asking you what to do, “don’t look at me!”

“Is uh… someone there? Or… two someones?” The unknown voice called out into the stacks. The sound of the voice made you feel sick. You didn’t know how long they were there or how much they had heard and especially because you were 90% sure you knew the voice.

When Yugyeom looked at you again with fear in his eyes, you realized the roles had been reversed once again and you were back to being the older, wiser one out of the two of you. This time however, his look to you for guidance didn’t annoy you as it had in the past. Instead, you felt your stomach flip and it go straight to your core.

Your eyes wandered to the floor, where you see the piece of literature that fell and hit Yugyeom. Reaching down to grab it, you motioned for Yugyeom to crouch down with you, “okay, on the count of three, you’ll grab my backpack and I’m going to throw this the opposite way. They’ll probably hear it and go look where the noise came from. That’s when we’ll run towards the exit.”

“Why do I have to carry your backpack?” Yugyeom whined.

Rolling your eyes, you answered him, “because a gentleman always carries a lady’s things.” “You just want to be the one who throws the book.”

You shrugged, pretending like he didn’t have you figured out already, “now come on,” both standing back up you nodded at him to signal the beginning of your countdown.

“One…” you whispered, looking back at Yugyeom who licked his lips in anticipation, “two…”

You paused hearing footsteps, “three!” you scream whispered at him as you threw the book in the opposite direction, in one of the book stacks, praying you don’t get seen. At the end of the countdown, Yugyeom grabbed your backpack and your free hand, both of you running towards the exit.

You both practically stumbled down the stairs of the library, unable to contain your laughs as soon as you’re free and on the front steps outside.

When finally caught your breath from the running and laughter, it dawned on you the events that had just taken place and what you actually just did in the library. “Holy shit… I can’t believe we actually did that. That was kinda fucked up wasn’t it? That we did that in there?”

“You said no one goes into the Medieval Lit section!” Yugyeom complained as soon as he’s caught his breath.

You bit your lip and nervously looked at him, “Well for the most part no one really does! There’s only one person I know of that does…”

“Who?”

“Park Jinyoung.”

He let out a snort, “I can’t believe you.”

You shoved Yugyeom lightly, “It’s not like I knew he would show up!” At your words he pulled you towards him and close enough until his mouth brushed your ear, “I bet you wanted him to catch us. You dirty girl.”

With widened eyes and once again turned on by none other than Kim Yugyeom you moved away from him gently and take his hand in yours, “come on.”

“Where are we going?” He asked for the second time of the night.

“My place. I have something I want to show you,” You answered him, attempting to pull him forward again. “Oh and what’s that?” He had a smug smile on his face, clearly wanting to torture you.

“Kim Yugyeom, I swear to God,” you wondered if he was really going to do this to you, “you better come with me so we can finish what we started or I’m starting a rumor about you.”

He pulled your arm until you were back against him, your body flush with his front and you felt his hands go to your ass, “nah I know you wouldn’t do that.”

You pushed your hips against him and he let out a soft groan at the contact against him, his hardness being neglected this entire time, “try me.”

He smirked at you, “fine… let’s go before I fuck you on the steps of the library. Then there’d be a rumor about both of us.”

“If that happened that wouldn’t be a rumor. That would just be fact,” you explained to him, grabbing his hand again.

“So that’s a yes?”

You rolled your eyes at him and smiled. Kim Yugyeom was doing things to you and making you feel things that you couldn’t deny it any longer, “come on Yugyeom.”

“Yes ma’am.”

#got7 fanfic #got7 smut #kim yugyeom #yugyeom smut

244 notes · View notes

blarrghe · 4 years ago

Note

"I called you at 2am because I need you" for... is it too indulgent to ask for Dorian x Anders?

never too much! Decided on a straight sequel to the last one, so here’s modern au resident!Anders and politician!Dorian after a long shift. --

He had three hours left in his shift when he got the text from Barb. He looked suspiciously down at his phone when it buzzed. Barb’s contact was in his phone with a little butterfly next to her name, to match the tattoo on her ankle and the bright and fluttery nature of her personality. He liked Barb, but she was almost definitely asking him to cover her shift, and he debated opening the message for several minutes before doing so with a reluctant sigh. Barb was going through some things; messy divorce, two little kids to look after all on her own, the pay they made here and the stress that came with it.

“Can’t find a sitter, can you take a shift?” read the first text, Anders was going to say yes anyway, but then two more came in, buzzing in quick succession. “unless you want to babysit? I’d give you my pay!” bright, chipper texting tone, accompanied by several hopeful looking emojis, “and brownies! 🍫” Barb did make really excellent brownies. He considered taking her up on the second offer, but he really wasn’t sure he had the energy for kids who weren’t bed-ridden or in need of medical care. He could turn on Fun Doctor Mode like a lightswitch for the kids down in pediatrics, but kids who wanted to refuse bedtime and stay up watching TV they weren’t mature enough to handle? He shook his head, half smiling over the offer of brownies, half frowning over the decision he’d made before he even opened the first message. Barb deserved to get the time with her kids, anyway.

“I’ve got you covered.” Kissy face cat emoji, knife and fork emoji.

“Lifesaver!!!!!” every single colour of heart.

He pencilled his name in on the clipboard for the next rotation, and began to regret the fact that he’d so quickly stuffed down the pastry Dorian had brought him earlier as he tried to remember if he had enough coins in the pockets of his coat for both a bag of pretzels from the vending machine and the bus home. He didn’t, but he’d have more luck charming the bus driver into a free ride than the vending machine into giving up its snacks, so he went to his locker and fished out the last of his bus money.

The rest of his shift went by in a blur of activity, up and down halls as his white-soled shoes squeaked and squawked along the linoleum floors, up and down stairs that were faster than waiting for elevators, thankless pages from doctors all across the sprawling hospital, avoiding his shift supervisor in case she asked about Barb. Then Barb’s shift was much the same, for the four and a half hours after that. It was nearing two am when he finally staggered out to the bus stop, and well past it by the time he arrived home — on foot, because the bus driver had not, in fact, let him ride for free. Just what he got for putting hope into the kindness of strangers. One kind act was, apparently, the extent of his daily karma allotment. Fair enough — he could still almost taste the honey of that pastry on his lips; either an uncommonly good morsel, or he was just drastically underfed. The latter, but the pastry-giver was certainly more than he deserved.

Shit. Dorian. He’d asked him to call. Anders looked blearily at the clock on his stove as he kicked off his shoes and plodded over to the cabinet to dish out some kibble for Ser Pounce. The cold tile floor was a welcome relief on his worn out feet, though the fact that he could feel it at all was a testament to the grave state of his socks. Ser Pounce pounced down from his perch above the cabinets to give some love and a swath of shedding cat hair to Anders’ legs, then nibbled at his food while Anders opened his fridge to try to figure something out for himself. He sniffed at the milk, decided it was probably still fine, and then poured it over a heaping bowl of sugary cereal. Yeah, he’d have made a pretty shit babysitter.

Anders took his bowl with him to his bed, flopping down on the lumpy mattress with a sigh that fully emptied his lungs, and pulled out his phone. He opened his message history and pulled up the conversation with Dorian. Not much there, but what there was made him smile. Mostly short, friendly messages. No emojis except for the one he’d stuck next to Dorian’s name in the contact page — a snake, not his first choice, but he’d embarassed himself by asking the man which one he’d like when he first scored his number, and snake was what he’d picked. Anders would have gone with the diamond, or the little tophat, or maybe the cat with hearts for eyes…

Anyway, then it had turned out that Dorian was a very formal texter. Proper punctuation and fully articulated words and all that. Anders had spent far too many minutes in their text-based conversations together fretting over how immature it would come off to use an abbreviation for laughter versus spelling out the words “haha”, or if even that was too juvenile. But he and Dorian were both all sarcastic humour and chastising bits of flirtation, and he also fretted about the tone of that without it.

“you up?” he wrote, then hovered his thumb over the send button for thirty or so seconds before deciding that it was worth the shot. Worse came to worst, Dorian would reply with a friendly apology and an offer to chat the next morning. He was dependable like that.

“Depends, is this a booty call?” came the almost instant reply. Alone in his room, Anders blushed.

Blushing emoji, monkey covering his eyes emoji, sweat-smile emoji… delete, delete, delete. “No, just miss you,” DELETE, definitely delete. He tried typing some other things. “Just got in, but thinking of you…” no. “You wish lol” haha? Neither. He erased the message and began again, but then the phone screen lit up with “Dorian🐍”, buzzing as it rang.

“The little dots were driving me mad. Did you just get in?” His voice was like honey, too.

“Yeah, covered for Barb.”

“Again?”

Anders leaned back against his pillow, closing his eyes as Dorian’s concern blanketed over him. “She couldn’t find a sitter.”

“You’re too nice for your own good.” Dorian scolded him gently through the phone, and it probably said something unhealthy about Anders that hearing Dorian admiringly call him nice made the whole last five hours of life-draining overtime and bitter walk home worth it.

“She offered me brownies,” he shrugged the compliment off, “what can I say? I’m a sucker for chocolate.”

“I’ll remember that.” Dorian purred, causing Anders to almost second guess his response to the idea of a booty call, exhausted or not. “So, not a booty call then?” Anders groaned inwardly, wishing it were, but no. Not unless Dorian wanted to talk to him on the phone the whole way over to keep him from falling asleep before he arrived, and even then.

“I just — uh…” he was going to say something about the book, but he hadn’t actually had time yet to look at it. His heart rate quickened with panic, he needed to find something to keep Dorian on the phone. “Thanks for the visit today.” Yes, because that warranted a phone call at three in the morning. “Sorry if I woke you…”

“Nonsense. I’m always awake at this hour. It’s a terrible habit of mine.” Dorian did indeed sound very wakeful. Probably also very disappointed in the grogginess of Anders’ own voice.

“Mm,” Anders muttered, his eyes closing under the warmth of Dorian’s voice through the phone again.

“But you sound awful.”

“Ran out of bus fare,” Anders explained, “had to walk… long day.” On a better night, Dorian might listen to his work gossip and share some rants of his own; they made quite a pair, both always seeming too short on time and too packed with stress to get out much, both always angry with their bosses — though Dorian was frustrated by beaurocracy constantly getting in the way of his efforts at world-saving, while Anders’ patients gave him fulfilment enough, it was just that his pockets were perpetually empty and all his managers were slave drivers.

“Why don’t you have a bus pass?” Dorian sighed at him. A bus pass was a hundred bucks up front at the beginning of the month, and with payday always landing two weeks after but every other bill needing to paid right then too… but he didn’t really want to explain that particular predicament to Dorian, who had a flashy suit for every day of the week and a car that cost about as much as Anders was worth in medical school debt. “Well, you can call me next time. I’d give you a ride.” he purred on that note too, having fun with his double entendres. Anders chuckled.

“I’ll keep you in mind,” he promised. Though the thought of begging his quasi-boyfriend for a ride at two am made him shudder. Still, not quite a lie; he always seemed to have Dorian on his mind at the end of a long shift.

“Since I have you, dinner?” The inflection of the question was a little high. Anders crunched on a mouthful of cereal with his eyes still closed and mumbled something unintelligable. “You’re off Friday, aren’t you? Do me a favour and don’t pick up any more shifts. I have a place in mind I think you’ll like.”

“Mm?” He thought about the kind of places Dorian would think were good spots for a dinner date, and was very glad that he couldn’t see the blue-tinted milk running down his chin.

“It’s a surprise.” Back to low purring, that nervousness or whatever it had been apparently gone again. Anders liked the warm flirtatious tone, but the little breaks into uncertainty were what kept him coming back for more. So much in common. “I’ll pick you up at seven?”

Anders “mm”’d through his mouthful of cereal in the affirmative.

“Amatus?” Even his pet names were classy. Anders would go with “love” if it weren’t so close to an unthinkable state of being, or “babe” if it weren’t for the fact that Dorian outshone that by a mile with amatus. His thoughts were all cat-with-heart-eyes emoji at the sound, and not much else.

Anders swallowed. “Yeah?”

“Get some sleep.”

“Mm.” Anders moved the bowl from his lap to the cluttered chair at his bedside, and leaned deeper into his pillow. “See you Friday, Dor” Dor, was that really the best he could do?

He heard Dorian hum contentedly on the other side of the line, “looking forward to it.” he said.

“Night, love.” Anders muttered, then very very quickly he hit end call, and shut his eyes tight.

#dorian x anders #modern au #my writing #my fic #I just wanted to write with emojis lol #late night phonecalls

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leam1983 · 4 years ago

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Felix the Reaper - Thoughts? Review?

Can't really go into too much detail, it's rather late as it is and the ol' bed is beckoning, but I also want to couch this down somewhere while it's still fresh...

So, Death as a concept - as a character - obviously permeates the whole of human civilization. You've got Anubis and Osiris, Humbaba the Undying, thousands of years of mythology surrounding the concept of life leaving you and your flesh-bits rotting, generation after generation of people processing grief in visual and abstract forms - and now, we're sort of living in a context where Death isn't really all that scary anymore. We understand it, we can push it back in some cases - and when we can't, then we can sort of map out its occurrence. What started as just this inexplicable force swiping at hunter-gatherers and that warranted Danse Macabre paintings across Medieval France is now something we can put an almost-precise date and time on. There's a bunch of "death clocks" online that project a potential DOD based on your age, gender, health status, habits and BMI; sort of turning the concept of memento mori into a shockingly literate manifestation.

You will die, one day. We're so aware of that that a bit of science and Web design wizardry can shit out a half-serious guesstimation of when it'll happen. Pre-Colonial aspects of Death survive in Mexican culture in the forms of both calaveras and the Santa Muerte cult, and the inevitability of death now even counts as a game mechanic in the SoulsBorne genre. You've got Terry Pratchett's extremely Humanist rendition of Death and, well, Hollywood faff à la Meet Joe Black. The short of it is we're far from the robe-wearing zombie we used to plop everywhere as a reminder of our own supposedly sinful urges or on the fleeting nature of youth.

Another item that's of interest is the notion of life and youth being represented as the Maiden - and of Death being in love with her. Sometimes, the affection isn't returned and disgust is shown. That's most of Holbein's death-related works, in this case. In others, the Maiden leans in, lets the skeletal figure push a hand underneath her skirt and against one of her thighs. They share a kiss, press against one another in the way honest lovers might. He's a dried-out corpse with a bloated midsection and she might've stepped out of some sixteenth-century church in the Netherlands, but their liplock is intense and genuine. In one statue, the Maiden looks like she might've just surrendered to the Reaper's arms, but her hands are also touching his scythe....

Eroticism, a commentary on suicide or plain acceptance - there's several ways to look at that duality, and it's even managed to worm its way over to cultures that don't natively have similar associations with human remains. The Japanese, for instance, do have their own Gashadokuro concept, but the locals of Nagasaki needed their initially-exclusive exposure to Portuguese traders to shrink down their massive skeletal eidolons of doom and to design woodblock prints where a Danse Macabre effectively meets the dress codes and habits of the locals under sakoku, or the Emperor-mandated closing-off of Japan to the outside world.

Death as a dancer. Death, especially, as a force that's quite lively, despite its attributes. A force that falls head-over-heels for Life in its own anthropomorphized form.

This is what Danish devs Kong Orange opted to work on in Felix the Reaper. Their Death has a human name, has a thing for the stuffier ends of Business Casual, is maybe eighty pounds overweight - and won't ever, ever, let the music die. He's also in love, obviously - and in love with Betty, the equally portly and nimble personification of Life. The pair look a bit like a Fernando Botero couple waiting to happen, with ample waists and sagging breasts held aloft by spindle-thin legs - but if Ghostbusters taught us not to cross the streams, then you can assume that Life and Death starting a tango in the same workspace could have severe coincidences on the biosphere. Not that Felix cares, he'd want nothing more than for Betty to notice him. His supervisor is voiced off-camera by Sir Patrick Stewart, who's as delightful as always, and who sort of plays the part of the well-meaning supervisor who eventually realizes his new employee's quirks don't diminish his potential.

And what is Felix's job, exactly? Well, he's Death. He's not getting paid to distribute hugs and kisses, obviously. He gets sent to the mortal plane to, well, kill people, and more specifically, to kill people in precise and pre-ordained ways. His "televator" takes him to an instant frozen in time, and he has to alter the surrounding scene so that once time resumes its course, the requisite accident or happenstance occurs. You do that by picking up items, flicking switches, and placing targets in the path of whatever it is that's set to kill them. You also move the sun around the world using a magical sundial doohickey, as Death can only move in shadows. You're basically Death in the same sense as in the Final Destination movies, except you really, really, really want to twerk and sashay your voluminous heinie through the small changes needed to turn a nothing-burger into a drunk huntsman getting his head stuck in the stump of a decapitated deer, so the dejected and near-sighted hunter you've been following mistakes him for a target and shoots his spear through his brain-case.

And yes, Felix does twerk and he certainly sashays. Dude dresses like a stuffy librarian, sure, but seemingly loses all inhibitions once his headphones come up - which allows the player to share in his personal soundtrack. This particular Reaper seems to have a thing for very bass-driven and samply EDM, with occasional forays into Ambient and Jazz. His many, many, many idle animations all sync with whatever it is that's playing, and so does the variety of prances, somersaults, grands jetés and twirls he goes through while moving from place to place. Comparatively, you get the sense that Felix's coworkers are more the dour and solemn type - with a few unsubtle cameos from Skeletor and Manny Calavera in the opening cinematic - and Felix, well...

Let's just say it's a wonder he has those hips and that paunch. If he twirls around for every little thing he does, then you'd assume he only sits down to hoover an Olympic athlete's worth of food once a day. Or maybe I'm overthinking things because, well, death.

And therein lies the problem, honestly. In thinking, I mean. Felix is a puzzle game through-and-through, and also ties into a Challenge system in order to really tickle those completionist nerves. The starting scenarios are braindead-easy, but the later ones left me stumped for fifteen minutes per screen. Add to that the notion that the game doesn't check off some of them as complete if you only do the bare essentials, and you're left with another would-be mobile offering that doesn't reach its endpoint until you exhaust every little bit it has to offer - even if you're effectively done with the main gameplay loop. It's a great game, but there's just not a whole lot to do in those six chapters, beyond repeating bits of drudgery until your noodle clicks or you give up and look up a solution online.

It's a shame, too. The isometric perspective is perfect, and the game could've been pitched as a hybrid between a puzzler and, say, XCOM: Enemy Unknown. You'd take cover to hide from moving targets or to escape daylight and instead of shooting at them, would emerge from cover to move items around or solve puzzle elements. You could've had Death evoke the illusion of a friendly face to inject some more concrete narrative delivery, for instance. Steal a friend's features, magically conceal yourself, and then have your target piece her own weaknesses together, leaving you to retreat and regroup before executing your plan of attack. But no, everything is out in the open and everything is spelled out for you. Kong Orange could've also stolen a page from Hitman Go and set multiple triggers in place to truly sandbox the experience.

What is there is fun - it oozes personality and charm - but there's just not enough of it to justify Steam's full asking price, IMO. Comparatively, the Switch's online store is currently running a sale for it (as of Sunday the 15th, at least) and lists it as being 2,15$. Two bucks for a few hours of harmless fun is a pretty good deal, as far as I'm concerned. It also underlines why the devs and Daedalic Entertainment alike consider it as having "bombed", as the marketing effectively targeted Devolver's usual stable. It's not crunchy enough, however, and not exactly irreverent enough to warrant that comparison. A more hefty Felix could've earned its full 20$ price point on PC - and Kong Orange's very design for Betty makes it obvious that if Felix ever returns, it'll be in a co-op setup with the love of his, well, unlife.

I'd be up for more of this cuddly, swinging skelly - assuming the devs mature a tad and put something together that's just a smidge more compelling.

#felix the reaper #pc #switch #ps4 #review #puzzle #game #indie #felix #the #reaper #fat #skeleton

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thanksjro · 5 years ago

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Spotlight: Orion Pax - Because Hasbro was Getting Antsy About Their Golden Boy Having Faffed Off into Space

Oho, you thought we were done with Optimus Prime, did you?

You fools.

This is Transformers- we’re legally obligated to have Optimus Prime in some form or fashion running around at all times. This is just Hasbro catching up.

Fun fact: this was published on December 12th, 2012!

Our issue opens up with Orion Pax strapped to the top of a shuttle that’s careening towards a city.

But that’s the hook, so we won’t get to see what that’s all about just yet. No, first we’ve got to see just what all led to this point.

Earlier in the day, Orion Pax got refitted with a hot new bod, courtesy of Wheeljack, and now he’s showing off his new look to historical constant Rung and Kaput, who are here to assist in acclimation.

This is Kaput’s first appearance in the comics, but it’s not his first entry into the IDW continuity. He was introduced in the Last Stand of the Wreckers prose story Bullets, where he diagnosed Ironfist with dead, in so many words. Kaput’s here currently because he specializes in sparks, and he’s going to make sure that Orion’s doesn’t explode in his chest thanks to the frame change. No word on whether the wheel was something he came into the world with or a modification.

But enough medical nonsense, let’s see the star of the show.

That’s not how reflections work!

Orion’s first point of contention is the fact that his lucky faceplate is missing. Wheeljack replaced it with a proper face, because that’s the new hotness right now. I guess when you’re a race of space robots who can change their bodies the way humans change their clothes, fashion is a lot more work. I wonder if faces out out of vogue in the present- there’s a lot of guys without one on the Lost Light.

Rung offers Orion some reading materials to help him cope with the sudden change, but it isn’t necessary. Orion fully intends to switch back to his old bod after his mission is over.

If you couldn’t tell by this point, this whole “frame change” thing is a plot contrivance to explain away some of the design clashing between comics set during this time period.

This is Zeta.

Yes, really, they’re the same guy. I don’t think Senator Shockwave would have had him modified for Matrix carrying if he’d known how tacky he was going to be about it.

Zeta Prime seems to think that haute couture is exploding a Galapagos turtle and then strapping the smoking remains to your back.

Zeta leads Orion over to where Nightbeat’s waiting with a slideshow he spent hours on. Nightbeat, at the time of this story, is a hostage negotiator, and today his mission, as well as Orion’s, is to retrieve our beloved Ratchet from a Decepticon terrorist cell hiding somewhere in the Rust Spot. The Rust Spot’s some heavy duty danger, hence the reformat for Orion.

They’ll also be bringing on Alpha Trion, #1 Rust Spot navigator, philosopher, polymath, polyglot, historian, and all-around grandpa.

His beard gets a D+, however.

Note the quotation marks on “he” here; it looks like even Roberts was sick of the Furmanism that is “genderless robots that all appear to be male”. We’ll get more into that sticky situation later on. What I want to focus on right now is our artist for the issue, Steve Kurth.

Kurth is from Wisconsin, and doesn’t have a ton of pencil credits to his name in the Transformers franchise. He mostly does work for Marvel, and while it appears his art blog hasn’t been updated in a few years, the publishing company still has a tag for him. He’s done the Avengers, if that’s your thing.

Anyway, so nobody knows who’s in the back.

I gotta say, Alpha Trion, you got some brass fucking balls to insinuate that the cops forgot to put the hostage tradeoff in the trailer, in front of said cops.

The fellas transform and roll out, Orion pulling the trailer because anything else would be blasphemy, as Alpha Trion guides them to the meet up point. As they drive, the old man regales the young whippersnappers with his tales of friendship and adventure alongside Metroplex the Titan. They were, like, best friends. Seriously.

Storytime gets interrupted however, as our heroes are attacked from beyond the mists.

You know, when I was a kid, my mom had a car that looked exactly like Nightbeat here, paint job and all.

Alpha Trion got so wrapped up in blathering away, he forgot to mention that they were in Slicer territory, and might want to be on the lookout. Thanks, Alpha, way to be a pal.

Nightbeat refers to the creatures as “throwbacks”, something that’s never elaborated on, but I’m going to guess it means something along the lines of being primitive, or perhaps animalistic.

Holy fucking shit, that’s terrifying.

These awful things start swarming Orion, Nightbeat, and Alpha Trion, who all start punching and shooting with wild abandon, making short work of the mass. Orion gets a few paper cuts for his troubles, but they’re all more or less alright.

The trailer can’t say quite the same though; the door’s popped off, and the contents have either escaped or never existed in the first place.

Schrodinger wept.

Alpha Trion pulls the prisoner out of the fog… and then so does Nightbeat.

It’s a two-for-one sale at the Hostage Emporium.

Rack and Ruin haven’t really done anything to warrant being worth a whole entire Ratchet, so Orion decides to have a little chat and see what’s up.

Oh, that’s what Nightbeat meant by Ruin being the ugly one.

Orion’s chat reveals these two chumps to be even bigger losers than they first appeared to be- their only talent seems to be instantaneous conversion, which involves shutting off all the safety protocols for one’s transformation cog for a faster switch.

Orion switches trains of thought, asking about the Decepticon cause and its whole deal. This is a bit after the events of the heist, so the rhetoric has become a bit more violent by this time, and he wants to know what the hell happened.

But there’s no time for philosophic musing, because that’s when the Decepticons show up. Thundercracker escorts our group to the hideout to meet Bludgeon, and the exchange is made, albeit with a pro bono thrown in.

Well, shit.

This was why the Decepticons wanted to meet in the Rust Spot; because they knew only Alpha Trion would be able to guide the cops to the tradeoff point. But what are they going to do with robot grandpa? Why, use him to find Metroplex, of course!

There’s a rumor that Titans have the capabilities to create space bridges inside them- we as the reader know this to be true thanks to the 2012 MTMTE Annual, but let’s not tell Bludgeon about all that, yes?

Orion, please, this is hardly the time.

Luckily for Alpha Trion, Orion stuffed some guns into the bottom of the trailer, as is made apparent when he starts throwing them to his buddies. Why he and Nightbeat weren’t carrying any weapons on their person isn’t addressed, but at least the idea here is kind of cool.

Alpha Trion easily escapes his bonds, because a noose isn’t really worth much to a species that doesn’t breathe and can literally survive not having a head.

We are just laying it on THICK today, aren’t we?

Rack and Ruin lead the other not-Decepticons into the tunnels towards safety- not sure how exactly, considering they’ve got their sensory deprivation helmets back on- as Orion Pax is dogpiled into submission.

Bludgeon might need a hobby. Might I suggest jigsaw puzzles?

Orion’s about to hit the loop that was created by the first page of this issue, so he tries to stall for time to think of a way out of all this. He halfway succeeds, in that he gets a little more time, but doesn’t come up with anything. Down on the ground, all his friends watch the shuttle shoot into the sky, probably wondering what all that’s about.

Bludgeon was aiming for this shuttle to hit a populated area, but it would appear that he’s an idiot and overshot by a wide margin. Cool beans.

Ah wait, we still have another three pages of story to this.

Hey, y’all remember Hoist’s tragic backstory, where he wandered the Rust Spot alone until he almost died of exhaustion?

Yeah, that was Orion’s fault.

The Fault of Our Star, if you will.

(I’ve never read anything written by John Green, what the hell am I doing?)

Because he just bounced off the underside of Hoist’s shuttlecraft, Orion’s hurtling towards the downtown section of Iacon, which is absolutely a populated area and exactly what Bludgeon was going for. Orion’s going to have to think fast if he’s going to get out of this one. Good thing Rack and Ruin told him their super secret transformation technique.

Thinking quickly, Orion transforms into a truck, breaks his bonds, somehow manages to not fly off the side of the shuttle due to wind pressure, transforms back to root mode, shuts off the autopilot, slams into a wide open field just outside of town, and survives well enough to be more concerned about Wheeljack being mad he scuffed up his new body than his own safety. Good on you, Orion! You saved the day!

To celebrate, he takes an old hubcap or something and shoves it over his face, because I guess only he gets to know how he’s feeling.

Don’t look at me like that, it’s not my fault the story just kind of ends here.

#transformers #jro #spotlight #maccadam #Hannzreads #text post #long post #comic script writing

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ask-de-writer · 4 years ago

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KURIN’S FOLLY : World of Sea : Part 3 of 15

KURIN’S FOLLY

Part 3

De Writer (Glen Ten-Eyck)

23,699 words

writing begun 2006

Reproduction in any form, physical, electronic or digital is prohibited without the express consent of the author.

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Users of Tumblr.com are specifically granted the following rights. They may reblog the story provided that all author and copyright information remains intact. They may use the characters or original characters in my settings for fan fiction, fan art works, cosplay, or fan musical compositions.

All sorts of fan art, cosplay, music or fiction is actively encouraged.

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New to the story? Read from the beginning. Part 1 is here

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“Very well. Master Juris having declined to open the meeting, as Captain, I shall. The Combined Councils of the Longin are now in session. By default, the Purser, in her role as ship’s legal officer will chair the meeting and present the issue that has forced this emergency meeting. Are you ready, Alor?”

In a heavy voice the gray haired, elderly woman replied, “No. I shall never be ready for a duty this hard. I will do it, though.

“Simply put, the actions of one person have placed the entire ship in jeopardy of dissolution, renaming and total crew Scattering along with the execution of at least three more of our crew. The Wergeld agreement with the Grandalor that shields us from this disaster is now in danger of being dissolved.”

Master Juris snorted angrily, “The damned Wergeld! It’s tied us to the Grandalor! That stupid thing is an Arrakan Fleet custom. This is the Naral Fleet. It shouldn’t even be recognized at all!”

Alor took the interruption in stride saying, “I almost agree with you. The Wergeld is the only thing standing between you, Juris, and execution. If I had to choose between you and this ship, the choice would be easy. It’s a pity that letting you swim to Iren will also cost us the Longin!”

Master Juris’ jaw dropped. “What do you mean?” he demanded. “I’ve done nothing wrong!”

Alor shook her head. Looking straight at Master Juris, she asked, “No? What is the penalty for trying to influence an officer of the court by bribe or threat?”

He responded, “A swim to Iren’s halls, everyone knows that!”

Alor said gently, “When we were being investigated by the Naral Fleet Court for the piracy attempt against the Grandalor, didn’t you, as the senior representative of our Combined Councils, threaten to call an expulsion vote against Kurin?”

Still surly, Master Juris replied, “I was furious at her. I still am. So what?”

Making a little come hither gesture, Alor coaxed, “And as the Grandalor’s advocate she was a what?” As Master Juris’ silence drew out, she answered her own question. “Kurin was an officer of the court.

“Since you made your threat directly in front of the fleet’s judge, the case against you was prima facie. Captain Sarfin had already drawn up your death warrant. I’ve seen the document.”

Incredulously, Master Juris demanded, “Then why am I here now?”

Alor pointed to Kurin and said, “There sits your answer. When Kurin negotiated the Wergeld, she carefully worded it to include your offense without stating it directly. You owe her thanks for your life, not hate.” She sat, leaving Master Juris in shock.

Alor turned to Captain Mord and said, “I’m sick at heart. Can you please carry the rest of this?”

Captain Mord drew a deep breath and let it out slowly. “We were incensed and hurt when Kurin did not show up for her welcome party. Now we know why. Master Juris was given the job of sending her the invitation in the hope that the responsibility would help him set aside some of his ire.

“Instead of doing as ordered by this Council, he sent Kurin this note.” He displayed the copy of Master Juris’ note for all to read.

Mistress Daeron took one look and said angrily to Master Juris, “You lied to us! When she was late, you said that you sent the invitation and that she wasn’t coming.

“She had to chase us down with the Grandalor to keep her promise to come and help us. Your lies had us all so angry that nobody even showed up to help her come aboard!”

The short, motherly woman turned to Kurin and said, “I don’t know how to apologize to you, Kurin. This was an awful thing. We should never have trusted Master Juris.”

Kurin replied gently, “I understand. He’s always been a reliable man before, if sometimes difficult. I would have trusted him myself, in your place.”

Mistress Daeron turned to Captain Mord and asked, “There’s more, isn’t there? Something has endangered the ship, Alor said. She’s not given to exaggeration.”

Master Juris rudely cut in and jerked a thumb at Kurin. “That something is sitting right there. Your little white-haired saint. She filed a Wergeld violation against us.”

The accusation actually made Kurin angry. She stood suddenly, eyes blazing, white hair flying, High Cloud flapping for balance. She pointed at Master Juris and exclaimed, “That is why I filed the complaint! Even now, in front of you all, he lies about me. The complaint was a provisional one, a preliminary to a violation complaint. Subject to withdrawal if investigation showed good reason for the events. He knows the difference but still tries to create more bad feeling!

“Alor, do you have an actual copy of the Wergeld here?”

She rummaged in her records and pulled out a few pages. “Yes, Kurin. This is it.”

“Would you please read out the portion of the rules of the Wergeld relating to behavior of the parties?”

Alor took a moment to find her place and read, “All parties to this Wergeld must lay aside all rancor and animus toward each other or this Wergeld is dissolved and all of its covered cases must go before the appropriate courts of law for settlement.” She looked up with haunted eyes and surveyed the entire Combined Councils of the Longin and said, “These simple words are our doom or salvation.

“Master Juris, can you not see how far onto dry land your behavior is? If we are not to be dragged to destruction in your wake, we have few choices.

“We can renounce you for endangerment of the ship, remove you from the crew roster and put you off on the first ship that we meet or the next Gathering, whichever comes first. If we do that, your death warrant will be put into force. You will swim to Dark Iren.

“Our second possible course is to declare you to be insane. You will be, like Kurin’s mother, Lissa, entrusted with only the simplest of tasks and, by law, need to be watched at all times. You will lose your Master’s Certificate and your shop. Your accounts will be frozen against your recovery. When we judge that you have safe water under your keel, we can restore all except your Master’s Certificate. That matter will be in the hands of the Fleet Craft Council.

“Finally, we can remove you from all posts of responsibility in the ship’s governance and try trusting your promise to behave in regard to Kurin and the Grandalor. If you fail us, we can decide which of the two other things we should do.

“These are now the only options that you have left open to us.”

“Me?” exclaimed Master Juris in outrage. “If she hadn’t gone to the Grandalor in the first place none of this would have happened at all! It’s her fault and hers alone!” He thrust his hand violently at Kurin, pointing and trying to swat High Cloud off her shoulder at the same time.

Two things happened so fast that many there did not even see them occur even though they were all watching Master Juris’ outburst. High Cloud’s claws rent large rips in Kurin’s shoulder padding as he maintained his place and jabbed with his beak at the offending hand. Kurin’s knife, ten inches of the finest razor honed Lesser Dragon fang, leaped up in her hand and struck Master Juris’ wrist away. At the same instant, Kurin kicked back out of her chair and landed in a combat guard, watching Master Juris over the edge of her knife.

A shocked group watched as Master Juris cradled his injured hand. Blood was welling from the back of it where High Cloud had defended himself, striking to bone, and there was another cut to the bone on the side of his wrist where Kurin had entered the fray with her knife.

In quietly dangerous tone, Kurin said, “Don’t attack either of us again. Rookery Flock all defends its own. That’s why there are no tame Wide Wings.”

The ship’s doctor was tending to Master Juris’ wounds and looked up curiously at Kurin’s statement. “Rookery Flock? Do you consider yourself to be a bird?”

That brought a smile to Kurin’s lips, and she relaxed her guard, putting away the big knife in her sash-belt sheath. “No, Doctor, I’m not a bird. Still, I am part of the Grandalor Rookery. I’ve known High Cloud since just before he hatched. I felt his mind beginning to stir in the egg. I’ve taken my place and spent time caring for all the young ones and feeding them. I do have a bond with them all that sometimes overrides my personal safety issues. Dari has said that we humans who participate in the rookery life and are accepted by the adult Wide Wings are part of the rookery. Who am I to question a Great Sea Dragon?”

Master Juris looked up from the bandaging of his arm and snarled, “How would you know what a Great Sea Dragon thinks?”

Kurin said offhandedly, “Blind Mecat remains fond of this ship, from her time in human form among us. She asked me not to file a full violation complaint with the Council. The message was relayed through Dari, who was nearby. Captain Tanlin and I had a long talk with her. I like her. She’s fun.”

Master Juris subsided with a muttered, “Hard aground and sinking fast.”

Alor overheard him and retorted tartly, “At last, you recognize your folly?” Then, she turned to Kurin and said, “I think that we need to know what the basis of your provisional complaint is. How hard aground are we? Is it a sandbar or a reef?”

TO BE CONTINUED

<==PREVIOUS ~ NEXT==>

#KURIN'S FOLLY #Part 3 of 15 #World of Sea #Written by De Writer

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taekemeaway · 5 years ago

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info: namgi, teen, roommate/college au genre: fluff, slice of life | word ct: 6k warnings: devils lettuce, stoned antics summary: to everyone else, namjoon was a brilliant philosophy student that would make socrates swoon with pride. to yoongi, namjoon was the annoying roommate that laid awake at night mumbling things like,

"do jellyfish get lonely because there are no peanut butter fish?"

and yoongi hated him.

but he liked him more than he hated him.

cross posted on ao3

There was a lot to be said about Kim Namjoon, and usually it was good. He was a hardworking student with a kind heart, helpful and wise, he fought for peace and practiced it too. In his spare time he could either be found tutoring or volunteering at various school functions around campus with an awarding winning smile on his face. Didn’t ask for praise or recognition (even though he received it often). He was, for all intents and purposes, a good person. The only people who held any amount of disdain towards him were usually jealous of his success or insecure of the lack of their own.

Yoongi, on the other hand, was his roommate.

And he had plenty of things to say about him.

One fact that no one would argue, Namjoon was brilliant. Whether you loved him or you hated him (or you were Yoongi and found yourself somewhere in the inbetween) you had to admit that you had never met anyone more intelligent than him. He chose to study philosophy and posed the sort of questions that would make Socrates roll over in his grave to hide the massive boner he just received.

“You have to ask yourself,” Namjoon would begin as underclassman swarmed him, each hanging on his every word like well-trained minions, “if a man kills an intruder for fear of his own life, was he just for doing so? Most people would say yes. Murder is inherently illegal but this man will not go to jail for breaking a law to protect himself.”

Yoongi wasn’t sure if he paused to catch his breath or to build tension. Either way, his goons seemed to only become more entranced by his silence.

“Then is that man so different from the woman who buys prescription drugs from someone on the street if she needs them to stay alive because her healthcare refuses to cover it? She isn’t causing anyone any harm but more likely than not this woman will see jail time and the man who ended someone else’s life will walk free. They both broke the law, shouldn’t the punishment be the same if their intent was just?”

Yoongi would roll his eyes in disgust. Not because of what Namjoon proposed, it was a well thought out argument, but because late at night that same progeny of Aristotle would lie awake and utter things like,

“Do you think jellyfish ever get lonely because there are no peanut butter fish?”

It was a marvel that this was the same man that students and faculty alike fawned over. Yoongi sometimes found himself staring just because he had no idea how someone so smart could’ve said something so utterly moronic. Kim Namjoon was a bundle of chaotic contradictions wrapped up neatly in a well worn cashmere sweater. Hate was a strong word, and Yoongi didn’t hate him. Sometimes he thought it would be easier if he did. He was just fed up with their whole semester long situation.

Yoongi couldn’t pinpoint one singular reason why Namjoon got under his skin. There wasn’t something that he just couldn’t forgive, something that he had done that warranted such malevolence, Yoongi couldn’t explain it. He hated attention, he hated the limelight, whether it was on him or not. Namjoon, alternatively, was constantly bathed in it. Every step he took seemed to be toeing a red carpet that had yet to exist. Each word out of his mouth almost preluding an acceptance speech that was sure to come.

Maybe irritated was a better word.

He was constantly irritated by Namjoon and everything that he did.

He didn’t like to show it though, that was in poor taste. Namjoon never did anything to slight him personally but sometimes Yoongi just didn’t like people. In fact he usually didn’t like people. Some part of him felt that if he wasn’t forced to live with the most intelligent student (and person) on campus he would’ve at least been able to tolerate him. Even if that were true, the semester was almost over and they were never going to see each other again.

The idea didn’t make him happy per se, but it didn’t make him unhappy either.

“I don’t get why you hate him so much.” Taehyung mused while he flipped through a magazine. “Sometimes I swear you’re spiteful for the sake of being spiteful.”

“You’re right, I am.” Yoongi returned absentmindedly. “And I don’t hate him, I just can’t stand him for lengthy intervals of time.”

Taehyung scoffed. “You say that about everyone.”

“Doesn’t make it any less true.” He mumbled in response. “If you’re going to lecture me, at least make yourself useful. Can you hand me that—thing.”

Rolling his eyes, Taehyung rolled off of Yoongi’s bed to grab that thing. “Yoongi, it’s your laptop. When are you going to stop referring to it as that thing.”

“When it decides to cough up that 15 page research paper it ate.” He explained.

Taehyung scoffed. “That was—that was two semesters ago!”

Yoongi didn’t look phased. “And?”

“Turn on autosave!”

“No.”

“And why the hell not?”

“I refuse to abide by its rules. That means it wins.”

Groaning in exasperation, Taehyung threw himself back onto Yoongi’s bed. “See? This is what I’m talking about. When faced with two options, one being a solution and the other being a problem, you willingly decide to let it be a problem! In what world does any sane person do that?”

“Dunno.” Yoongi clipped, opening up his hand expectantly. “Can you hand me that—other thing?”

Taehyung pressed his palms into his eyes. “Why do I—fine. What is the other thing?”

Glancing over his shoulder, Yoongi vehemently pointed to a rather expensive set of headphones that had been obviously tossed across the room in one of his fits.

Sighing, Taehyung grabbed it for him. “Alright, what did the headphones do?”

“You don’t want to know.”

Taehyung eyed the headset already sitting next to him. “Did you accidentally use Namjoon’s headset and realize that it’s so much better than your own?”

While Yoongi didn’t offer a response, his red ears said it all.

“Jesus, hyung.” Taehyung muttered, shaking his head. “Can’t you at least pretend to get along with him? It’s the end of the semester, it’s the holidays for Christ’s sake! He’s not the devil and your continued vendetta against him just makes you look like a royal prick!”

Taehyung statement hung in the air for some time, waiting for Yoongi to fill the void with something that resembled an explanation. He would be disappointed, as he often was.

“Did you say something?” Yoongi threw casually over his shoulder, pretending he hadn’t heard him.

“Nothing worth hearing, apparently.” Taehyung lamented. “Alright, my shuttle should be here any minute and I need to finish packing. I’ll see you next semester.”

“Later Taehyung.” He returned with half a wave. “Say hi to the folks for me.”

Taehyung almost smirked. “Don’t worry, I will. Try not to work yourself to death.”

“No promises.”

“I know, later Yoongi.”

With a click, Taehyung was gone and Yoongi was finally alone. Savoring the welcomed silence, he leaned back in his chair and stretched his arms overhead. The time in between semesters was his favorite time of year. He could stay at the dorms while everyone else dispersed to the countryside to see family they haven’t laid eyes on in months. It granted him both a reprieve from his disapproving parents and the other students that never ceased to get on his nerves.

And, most importantly, He mused happily, no more Kim Namjoon.

Of course he was still around. His side of the room was still dredged in chaos, his suitcase and other luggage remained mostly untouched from what Yoongi could tell. Not that he expected anything less, it was Namjoon’s routine. He would get so caught up in goodbyes and last minute philosophical debates that packing would be left until he was scrambling to get it all done. And Yoongi would have to endure it all and hope that he didn’t grind his molars to dust from pure annoyance.

In his defense, he didn’t start grinding his teeth until he met Namjoon. So he’ll gladly blame him for the dental bills that will certainly accumulate in the future.

One more day. He reminded himself. One more day and I’ll finally be free of him.

There was only one problem with his plan, by the time that Namjoon rolled in it was almost midnight. Well after all of the buses and shuttles had finished their routes for the night—for the whole semester, in fact. No one was coming or going from the school until service up to the campus resumed towards the end of January.

And Namjoon was there.

In their room.

Smiling.

Yoongi felt like he was going to be sick.

“You don’t look so good, hyung.” Namjoon pointed out, shouldering off his bookbag. “Don’t tell me you’re getting sick right before Christmas.”

Almost as if he was in a trance, Yoongi didn’t confirm or deny Namjoon’s assumption and instead found his jaw planted firmly on the ground. He was still in shock, frozen in time staring at his roommate and hoping that the horrible hallucination would vanish before his eyes. Minutes ticked by without incident, or any that was visible. Because Yoongi could swear that World War 3 was waging in his chest while his mind tried to wrap itself around the situation he was faced with.

“Oh, I forgot to tell you that I decided not to go home for the holidays.”

This—this is hell.

“So it looks like it’s just going to be you and me for the next month or so.”

This is the lowest circle of hell.

“Nothing but us guys and some fun philosophical conundrums to pass the time.”

Taehyung was wrong. Namjoon is most certainly the devil and he’s planning on subjecting me to his hellish torture!

Yoongi didn’t say anything as Namjoon got comfortable after a long day of—whatever he does. His mind was still careening off the tracks. The amount of time that they usually spent together in their dorm room was almost negligible, at least the time they spent awake anyways. He honestly didn’t know how they were going to survive for a whole month if Namjoon expected him to hold a conversation. Typically his responses varied somewhere between grunting and feigned oblivion. And that was perfectly fine for the twenty or so minutes before they drifted off to sleep.

He had a sinking feeling that it wouldn’t be enough anymore.

“So, what are your plans for break?”

To take a break from you. “Nothing really.”

“Same.” Namjoon sighed, pulling out War and Peace in the original Russian like that was completely normal. “I’ll probably just catch up on some light reading, you won’t even know I’m here.”

Light reading? Yoongi exasperated. I can’t tell if he’s showing off or if he genuinely feels that War and Peace is such a breeze to read.

He decided that it was a little bit of both.

“Whatever.” Yoongi finally mumbled before turning his attention back to his computer and the track he’d been mixing.

But as much as he wanted to get back to work, he couldn’t. There was something about Namjoon, whether it was his energy or his spirit or whatever—Yoongi couldn’t concentrate. Namjoon was just so loud. Which didn’t make any sense, glancing over his shoulder Yoongi could see that he wasn’t doing anything. He was just reading, just sitting, just existing and it was too much for Yoongi to handle.

This is going to be a long break.

A long.

Hellish.

Break.

As usual, Yoongi’s concerns and grievances were grossly exaggerated. One would even say dramatic if they wanted to piss Yoongi off. He hated that word. He hated it most when Taehyung had turned to Hoseok in the middle of a crowded coffee shop and asked, “can I get a definition for dramatic?” to which Hoseok dutifully replied with, “intending or intended to create an effect; theatrical.”

Which wasn’t inherently awful but they were using it to make a point when Yoongi wanted to perform a sit-in when the girl behind the counter said that they were out of almond croissants.

“You’re being dramatic, hyung.”

“You don’t even know what that word means, dongsaeng.”

“Oh don’t I? Hoseok, come over here.”

So, yeah. He hated that word.

In context, Namjoon wasn’t in their dorm room nearly as much as Yoongi had been dreading. He was barely there at all. What Yoongi neglected to take into consideration, Namjoon had a life and friends. Why would be coop himself up in a broom closet? Yoongi, on the other hand, had an affinity for silence and being bitter and neither were too condusive to having any semblance of a social life. He could count his friends on one hand and one of them was the underclassman, Jeongguk, that was forced to deal with him when they were both in the studio late at night.

Taehyung said that he didn’t count.

He was being paid to be there.

(Yoongi counted him anyway. Screw you Taehyung.)

And the few times that Namjoon’s schedule permitted him to come back to the dorm, he mostly let Yoongi be. It really wasn’t too different to their dynamic when school was in session. Turns out, there was nothing for him to be afraid of. At least—nothing he wasn’t already afraid of. Like human contact, escalators, the second floor bathroom, and cilantro. All of which were equally terrifying in his eyes.

At first, Yoongi felt like he was in paradise. He was alone, there was quiet, he wasn’t needed and he didn’t need. On paper everything was perfect. Two weeks into break and he was already almost finished with everything he wanted to work on. Day in and day out he was just this over exhausted bundle of productivity. Eventually though, he realized that he had been plagued by an ungodly affliction. One that would surely be fatal if left unchecked. And it wasn’t his innate desire to make playlists.

He was bored.

That was the contradiction of Min Yoongi. He only craved quiet when there was none, loved solitude when he couldn’t get away. Something he didn’t take into consideration, never thought of, how did he know that he didn’t like people if there was no one there to constantly pester him? The answer was simple, he didn’t. As much as he hated people, he needed them. He needed them so he could hate them. Which didn’t make any of sense when he tried to explain it to Taehyung. That didn’t matter, to Yoongi it made plenty of sense.

Unfortunately there was only one person on campus and in his direct circle of friends to have enough time to humor his social neglect. One person in the entirety of the universe that could cure his deadly affliction. The same person he had been so keen to escape over winter break. He grimaced just thinking about it. Making nice with Kim Namjoon.

The Kim Namjoon.

But, in all honesty, he didn’t know how. He could barely make nice with Hoseok and Taehyung, he tolerated Seokjin, and Jeongguk didn’t say much (which was why Yoongi liked him best). How do people talk to other people? For two days he sat at his desk with his hands fisting his hair in frustration, trying to figure out how to strike up a conversation with someone he had never had a desire to converse with before.

What do I say, you smell nice?

Oh God no that’s awful.

Do I say nothing?

Can I just bark at him?

Because honestly that’s the least awkward thing I can think to do.

It was madness.

Ugh, I need to smoke a bowl before I lose it.

So that’s what he did, he cracked open a window, packed his Kumamon bowl, and let some herbal refreshments drown his worries and social anxiety. He inhaled deeply and leaned back in his chair, suddenly more concerned with the fact that male seahorses give birth and wondering if in some apocalyptic future he’d have to do the same.

“Is that what I think it is?”

Eyes wide in fear, Yoongi swivelled around to the sight of Namjoon standing in the doorway with a similar expression on his dimpled face. Busted. He wasn’t sure if he wanted to burst into flames or implode on the spot. Either would’ve been better than having his Holier than Thou roommate running off to campus security and getting his scholarship revoked and his ass thrown out into the snow. Swallowing nervously, he decided to take one more hit in case any of those scenarios came to fruition.

“Maybe?” He admitted while he held it, exhaling it only when he couldn’t take it anymore.

Namjoon suddenly smiled. “I had no idea you smoked! If I had known I wouldn’t have tried so hard to hide my stash so thoroughly.”

Wait—what?

Intrigued, Yoongi watched Namjoon kneel down beside his bed and pull out a ratty old cardboard box from beneath it. Inside was a myriad of books, some old some new, each as inconspicuous as the next. As he opened up a fairly worn copy of The Scarlet Letter Yoongi managed to peep a small baggy of “oregano” tucked away neatly in a cut out portion of the pages. He wasn’t sure what caught him off guard more, the fact that Kim Namjoon took part in illegal activities or that he disfigured such an iconic book. For a good cause, of course, it was still shocking to say the least.

“Wow.” Was all that Yoongi could manage as his slower mental processes took in what was happening. He reflexively offered his bowl to Namjoon as silence descended upon them, sharing is caring as he always said.

“Thanks.” Namjoon smiled, pulling out his lighter and taking a puff. “It was getting harder and harder to hide this stuff from you, you never leave the room after all.”

Yoongi shrugged. “Sorry, I don’t like going outside. Or talking to people. Or moving. Or—I don’t like a lot of things actually.”

“I’ve noticed that.” He laughed as he let a stream of smoke pass between his lips. “I think you’ve said less than ten words to me since we moved in in August.”

“Probably.” Yoongi snorted, taking the bowl back and contemplating packing another one. “You gonna stick around? I don’t want to grind another bowl just for myself.”

Pursing his lips and eyeing his watch, Namjoon looked unsure. “Well—I was going to go get some lunch with my friends…”

“Whatever, it’s fine.” Yoongi waved him off. “You can come smoke whenever you want, I don’t really care.”

Namjoon arched a brow at him. “Was that an invitation to hang out?”

Yoongi felt his ears getting red. “Not really. You live here.”

“So do you.”

“And?”

“We’re technically always hanging out.”

Yoongi shrugged. “Then I guess it was.”

Watching his lips tug into a smile, Yoongi felt his heart skip a beat.

“Sounds good to me. I’ll see you later hyung.”

Click.

Sitting in silence, Yoongi found himself wondering;

Has Namjoon always been that handsome?

The answer was yes, obviously, but it was still something he had never noticed before. Yoongi found himself rolling his eyes at his own expense.

What, do you have a crush on him already?

What if I do?

Then that’s pretty sad and you’re a thirsty hoe.

He paused.

I need to stop having discussions with myself and start talking to actual people.

But he wouldn’t.

Instead, he created a playlist.

That was one of Yoongi’s pastimes, creating playlists. He created them for a variety of reasons, for relaxation, inspiration, to remind him of someone, and for whatever reason his somewhat successful encounter with Namjoon warranted a playlist. There wasn’t much yet, he put I’m a Freak by Radiohead on there and took it off when he remembered he wasn’t making a playlist about himself. After some pretty thorough deliberation, he had a whole whopping two songs on there. Wishing Well by the Gunpoets and The Enemy by Andrew Belle. He would continue to add songs as they hung out more so he didn’t stress over it. Good things come with time.

Besides, Namjoon liked Pierce the Veil. He really liked them. And they were one of Yoongi’s favorite bands. They actually spent a whole Thursday afternoon quoting their favorite lyrics to each other and he knew right then and there—they were going to be good friends.

And they really were. It happened gradually, but everyday Namjoon and Yoongi would hang out for maybe just a couple of hours. They were a good couple of hours too. They would each take turns playing their music, oddly enough they had similar tastes, and packing the bowl. It was a good arrangement. Not only that, it definitely cured Yoongi’s boredom and made their break start to fly by. Which could’ve been a good thing or a bad thing, depended on which one you asked.

Then, the storm came.

The storm itself wasn’t anything special, nothing more than snow and wind, but it knocked out the power. No big deal, except there was no power and that meant that there was absolutely nothing to do. Late at night, no lights, no computer, no music, nothing. Namjoon and Yoongi sat there dumbfounded while their marijuana riddled minds tried to grasp what just happened.

“Well shit.” Namjoon muttered first, supressing a cough. “This sucks.”

Yoongi fell back and groaned loudly. “This really sucks.”

“I know right?” Namjoon continued, using his phone as a light to peer into their mostly used up bowl. “We’re almost out too, I’m not nearly high enough for this.”

“Me neither.” Yoongi agreed when he was, in fact, stoned out of his mind. “What’re we supposed to do now?”

Namjoon narrowed his eyes at his phone. “I don’t know, my phone’s almost dead. What about yours?”

Lifting up his head, Yoongi grimaced. “We don’t speak of that thing.”

Namjoon scoffed. “I take it you didn’t like the new update.”

“Hell no.” Yoongi concurred, groaning louder still. “Do you have anything left to pack the bowl?”

He shook his head. “No. Besides, smoking it a lot less fun when there’s no music.”

“True.” Yoongi sighed. “Well—what’re we supposed to do?”

“We could discuss Aristotle’s position on goats—”

“No.” Yoongi cut him off. “We’re not debating some philosophical point right now. Philosophy hurts my sober brain and my stoned brain wants nothing to do with it—wait, did you say goats?”

Namjoon nodded. “He believed he could tell the gender of a goat by which way the wind was blowing.”

Yoongi couldn’t help it, he laughed. “This is what you’re learning in your philosophy classes?” Nod. “That’s crazy, those Greek dudes might not be so bad after all.”

“Really?” Namjoon beamed. “Because we could—”

“No.”

“But—”

“I said no.”

“Please—”

“NO.”

“Okay fine.” Namjoon finally admitted, pouting as he crossed his arms. “Then what do you suppose we do?”

Yoongi shrugged. “No clue. No laptop means no speakers, no speakers means no tunes, no tunes means no more grass for us. I would play for us but I pawned my guitar last semester for a term paper that I didn’t feel like writing. So no music.”

“You play guitar?” Namjoon asked. “I didn’t know that.”

“I play a little bit of everything.” Yoongi elaborated unenthusiastically. “Piano’s my forte but I couldn’t exactly fit a good keyboard in the dorms so I brought my guitar with me.”

“And then you sold it.”

“Pawned.”

“For a term paper.”

“Yup.” Yoongi reaffirmed with pride. “I skated through my prereqs thanks to bought term papers. I’m not ashamed of it.”

Namjoon’s eyes started swimming with curiosity, Yoongi could see those wheels turning. And he knew he wouldn’t like what was about to happen.

“What an interesting point.” He mused quietly, chin held between his fingers. “These courses aren’t necessary for your future, but you’re required to take them—”

I’ve unleashed the monster.

“—you’ve found a way around the situation by having other people write your papers. Which is, of course, against school policy and therefore you should be punished. But by not wasting your time on classes that hold no importance for you or your career you were able to accomplish more for yourself. How do we determine what is more important? Rules and regulations, or the promise of a better tomorrow?”

Namjoon’s question was met with an impermeable silence, which was what usually happened when he got all philosophical when Yoongi was in the room.

“Is that it?” Yoongi asked incredulously. “C’mon, get it out of your system. You know you want to.”

“Then we’d be here all night.” Namjoon chuckled. “And you wouldn’t like that.”

Yoongi shrugged nonchalantly. “Not necessarily.”

“Is that you admitting you like hanging out with me?” Namjoon teased.

“No.”

“I think it is.”

“It’s not.”

“Alright, whatever you say hyung.” Namjoon relented with a laugh. “So, what’re we going to do about this no music thing?”

Yoongi looked uninterested for the most part. “Beats me, probably nothing. You can sing to me if you want.”

“Now that’s funny.” He returned, checking his phone for the time. “I actually have a better idea.”

Curious, Yoongi propped himself up on his elbows and eyed Namjoon suspiciously. “Oh? Do tell.”

“What’re the odds that the security cameras are down across campus?” He asked. “Think they have a backup generator?”

“I mean maybe?” Yoongi offered halfheartedly. “Why? What exactly do you have in mind?”

Namjoon’s only response was a devilish grin. “You’ll see.”

Before Yoongi could question him further, Namjoon stood up abruptly and started pulling on layers. When he motioned for Yoongi to do the same, he did so without hesitation. Which, in hindsight, shouldn’t have been his immediate reaction but he was starting to learn that Namjoon had some sort of mystical power over him. In that Yoongi could tolerate him for extended periods of time without feeling the need to claw out his own ears. And that he actually felt happy until he realized that and instantly made himself unhappy.

I should stop doing that.

Once they were sufficiently bundled up they headed out into the cold. Yoongi followed Namjoon diligently across campus, dodging security cameras they weren’t entirely sure were even functional to wherever Namjoon was leading them. They passed the quarter, the girls dorms, and several other points of interest to—the music building of all places. Standing outside the locked door, Namjoon nodded his head towards it.

“You can pick locks right?” He asked, motioning towards the handle. “Work your magic maestro.”

Well, yes but how did you know that. Yoongi found himself wondering until he remembered that one time he broke into Mr Bang’s office to trash it in spite. While no one could prove it was him, everyone had their suspicions so he had a reputation no matter how small. Apparently Namjoon caught wind of it.

“Can I ask why we’re breaking into the music building?” Yoongi mused as he pulled out his tools, (he was always prepared).

“Well we’re going to get you a guitar.” Namjoon finally explained. “I figured this was the best place to find one.”

Yoongi let his hands fall to his side. “We’re seriously breaking into a locked facility on campus so we don’t lose our buzz? Either you’re more high than you look or you’re dumber than everyone thinks.”

“It could honestly be both.” Namjoon shrugged. “Now hurry up, the power could come back on any minute.”

Yoongi eyed him suspiciously but didn’t question him. He had no moral issues with what they were doing, he just had to wonder how much people actually know about Namjoon because he never would’ve pegged him for a burglar. First impressions were wicked things.

“Alright, that should be—” Yoongi started, chewing on the inside of his cheek. Clunk. “—it. After you, your majesty.”

Namjoon bowed gratefully as he grabbed the handle. “Why thank you.”

Chuckling, the two ducked into the building and headed towards the practice rooms. Usually instruments were left over break in case anyone left wanted to practice. There were a few music students still on campus, but they were all the classical musician types so the supply of violins and cellos were in high demand. Ratty old acoustic guitars were far less desirable and therefore there were a couple for Yoongi to pick from.

“Wait—holy shit!” Yoongi gasped, picking up a cherry red guitar and holding it in his hands. “No way, this is my guitar! What the hell is it doing here?”

“Maybe the guy you sold it to left it here?” Namjoon offered. “Was he a music student?”

Yoongi shook his head. “No, Liberal Arts, stoner. He just wanted to show off to his friends. There’s no way it would’ve been left here recently.”

“So it’s been here for a while then. Do you not practice often?” Namjoon asked. “Wouldn’t you have seen it?”

Yoongi pursed his lips as he admired his reclaimed treasure. “Not really. I’m in music production, I’m usually in the studio mixing together tracks that I produced.”

“Oh wow, you’ve produced music already?” He continued. “How old are you again?”

“This is my last year.” Yoongi mused without paying much attention to the question. “But yeah, I’ve produced a couple of albums. You can find them on Spotify along with the 80,000 playlists I’ve created.”

“Well shit.” Namjoon whistled. “That’s—that’s really impressive, hyung. I had no idea.”

Yoongi shrugged. “Not a lot of people do, I mostly keep to myself.”

“I know.” He sighed quietly. “I’m hoping that I can change that.”

Thump.

Wait, what did he say?

Before Yoongi could offer an unintelligent response, the power came back on. Simultaneously saving his from himself and making his blood pressure skyrocket.

“Oh shit.” Namjoon muttered. “Run!”

Without missing a beat the two bolted from the building, hoping that there was no one sitting in front of the monitors when the power came back on. They were halfway back to the dorms with guitar in hand, their cheeks flush from the cold wind, when they finally began to slow down. Huffing and puffing, they exchanged a couple of surreal glances before they burst out laughing in the middle of a snowstorm. Neither particularly caring that frost nipped at their exposed fingers (because fingerless gloves are cool).

Yoongi had to admit, Namjoon was pretty cool. And nothing like he expected. He was a whirlwind of contradictions, a happy medium between snob and stoner, something Yoongi had no idea even existed before he gave his roommate a chance. He was happy he did, because he liked hanging out with Namjoon. Liked making him smile, liked looking into his calming brown eyes. There was a lot that Yoongi liked about him, and the things he used to hate were mostly forgotten.

He liked Namjoon.

He liked him a lot.

Even if he didn’t realize it quite yet.

He actually realized it at about the same time Namjoon did.

It was Christmas, actually. They had already spent most of Christmas Eve trying to make joints into trees and both failed hilariously. Which neither really cared about, weed was weed and they liked it however they could get it. When Namjoon fell asleep Yoongi got back to creating another playlist, since it was his turn to play tunes the next day. Both agreed that Christmas songs were off limits because someone had rigged the intercom on campus to play I Saw Mommy Kissing Santa Claus on loop for the past three days. They were getting sick of the holiday cheer.

So, there they were, lying down on Namjoon’s bed looking at the ceiling, Yoongi’s new playlist “brilliance is in the mind of the beholder” (all lower case because Yoongi didn’t believe in capitalism) filling their empty dorm with soft notes of melancholy and nostalgia. They passed a joint back and forth periodically, not really caring whether or not they got high and instead found themselves simply enjoying the music. It was nice.

“You’ve got good tastes, hyung.” Namjoon exhaled, passing the joint back.

Yoongi chuckled underneath his breath. “In music or in weed?”

“Both.” He concurred. “It’s a great combo.”

“Thanks.” Yoongi returned, taking a drag and letting the joint fall to his side. “Sorry you’re stuck with me on Christmas.”

Namjoon scoffed. “I’m not stuck anywhere, trust me. I like hanging out with you.”

“Same.” He agreed with a smile. “Glad you caught me smoking.”

“Thank you for smoking.” Namjoon nodded. “We wouldn’t be here without you.”

“Anytime.”

For a while after, neither of them said anything. Yoongi would periodically steal glances at Namjoon while he drummed his fingers against his chest to the music. When Namjoon really enjoyed music, he closed his eyes. He almost tuned out the whole world just so he could ride the soundwaves like an old road. Occasionally his lips would twitch into a grin or he would mouth along to the lyrics, maybe he would hum. But he would never sing, he insisted his singing voice was awful.

Yoongi wanted to hear it regardless.

Then, Namjoon tilted his head towards Yoongi and opened his eyes. The simple action was so surreal, so ethereal, Yoongi was speechless. He didn’t want to admit how often he stared into Namjoon’s eyes, but he couldn’t help it. They were so warm, so welcoming, he got lost in them time and time again. He was in a trance, one that was hard to snap himself from.

“Interesting song choice, hyung.” He suddenly muttered. “You trying to tell me something?”

Furrowing his brow, Yoongi had no idea what he meant. Taking another hit he tried to focus on the music, it was—it was—

Oh, kiss me beneath the milky twilight

Lead me, out on the moonlit floor

Lift your open hand

Strike up the band and make the fireflies dance, silver moon’s sparkling

So kiss me

Oh no.

His eyes opened wide with shock, the song that was playing was Kiss Me by Sixpence None the Richer, a cheesy song from the 90’s that had been in almost every romcom to date. Scrambling to his feet he pulled open the web player on his laptop and eyed the playlist. He—he didn’t mean to put that song on there.

He remembered his internal debate quite vividly, he was looking at the songs Kill Me on his computer and wondering which one he would add. There was Kill Me by The Pretty Reckless, a heavy metal song, pretty standard, not fantastic, and then there was Kill Me by Make the Girl Dance (a song he feels defines his personality perfectly) but neither really fit the aesthetic of the playlist. He remembered deciding on Kill Me by Christian Leave, another standard indie song that flowed with the rest. That’s what he wanted to put on the playlist.

So how did Kiss Me get on there?

Why do you have it in the first place?

Because I’m a basic bitch that likes sappy songs. Sue me.

I will.

“Sorry about that.” Yoongi tried to apologize, hoping that Namjoon didn’t get the wrong message. “I totally didn’t mean to put that on there, that’s my bad.”

“I think you did.” Namjoon disagreed. “All of the songs you played today were very—sappy.”

Yoongi arched an incredulous brow at him. “Wait—did I? I—I didn’t notice.”

“Love Lost by Temper Trap?” He started, sitting up and offering Yoongi a coy smirk. “Transatlanticism by Death Cab for Cutie? I need you so much closer? That lyric in itself is pretty telling.”

Oh no.

“Not to mention It Looks Like Love by Josh Rouse.” Namjoon continued. “If you were trying to send a message I’m reading it loud and clear.”

“I—I really wasn’t.” Yoongi insisted unconvincingly. “Those were just—they were just the songs I felt—I felt would be best for—oh fuck…”

I’m doomed.

I just confessed to Namjoon without even realized that there was anything to confess.

Or that I was confessing for that matter!

F U C K.

While Yoongi had a mild meltdown, Namjoon clucked his tongue and came up behind him. “It’s okay, no need to panic. C’mon, remember to breath.”

I’m trying really hard to forget though.

“Maybe this will help.”

He barely registered what was happened as Namjoon slowly turned around and leaned in closer. He felt something warm brush across his lips and he had to attempt to calm down in order to process what just happened. His brain was either screaming at him to focus or trying to rip itself apart, he wasn’t sure which it was so he was left wondering—

Wait, what did he just do.

Blinking past his panic, he looked up at Namjoon who in turn was looking down at him expectantly. Yoongi, who was having issues forming coherent thought, raised his finger to his lips. They were—wet. Warm. Which only meant one thing.

“Did you just—” He started, hesitating when he felt his voice begin to crack. “Did you just kiss me?”

Namjoon stifled a laugh. “Yeah, I did. Did you miss that?”

“Maybe…” Yoongi mumbled, his cheeks blossoming into a deep crimson. “Could you—could you do it again?”

“Do what again?” Namjoon teased. “I’m lost, I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

Kiss me beneath the milky twilight

Lead me, out on the moonlit floor

Lift your open hand

Strike up the band and make the fireflies dance, silver moon’s sparkling

So kiss me

“Kiss me��” Yoongi said so quietly he barely heard it himself.

“What was that?” Namjoon continued to torment him. “I didn’t catch that.”

So kiss me

“I said kiss me!” Yoongi blurted out, his blush creeping all the way down his neck. “Don’t make me say it again or I’m going to explode.”

Namjoon laughed easily, smiling down at Yoongi with affection. “Alright, alright. I can do that.”

So kiss me

This time when Namjoon closed the distance between them, Yoongi was hyper aware. He thought he was warm before but Namjoon proved to be even warmer. His lips were soft and sweet, he tasted like the box of chocolates they had stolen from the security office earlier that day, and that somehow made it that much more intoxicating. The sensation was exhilarating, one that made Yoongi’s knees weak when all of the blood rushed to his head.

Namjoon smiled against Yoongi’s lips and pulled away slightly. “Better?”

“Mmm…” Yoongi hummed happily, nodding lazily. “Yeah… can you do it again?”

So kiss me

#yoonkooknetwork #btsguid #namgi #namgi scenarios #namgi fanfic #lex writes #taekemeaway

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sgtrolandhills · 5 years ago

Text

A Perfect Storm || Luce & Roland

Luce listened intently as the cop filled her in on the details. So he was put on shit duty out here, figures. That kind of thing seemed to happen around her. Someone transfers in from one city or another, then they either can’t hack it or they become one of the locals. She idly wondered which side of the coin Officer Hills here would land on. “It’s a nice place. Small place, but we keep busy here. I’m Luce.” She said, not bothering to add her last name. It was hardly necessary and, if he was like any kind of the normal newcomers, he’d probably head to Illusions of Grandeur at some point. She’d rather not be associated with her sister’s sideshow act. “If you’re looking for a sports bar, Dell’s is pretty good about keeping the game on.” She said. Staring out the windows, Luce watched as a streak of lighting flashed across the sky. Pretty, in a deadly kind of way. “I’m a tattoo artist. I work at Ink Inc. I do a lot of geometric and black work, but I can roll with traditional too. You got any tattoos?”

Roland nodded along as Luce spoke. She had certainly been right about White Crest keeping busy for a small town. Crime and death rates alone spoke to that fact, though he wouldn’t consider that one of the town’s positive attributes. It had its charms and he had more than enough work to keep him busy. “It’s good to meet you, Luce. There’s definitely more going on here than you’d think for a small town. You go hiking out here often?” There was only a hint of concern in his voice. There were more missing persons reports than he’d like coming out of those woods. He’d hate to see her as one of them. She knew the area though, he had to believe she knew how to keep herself safe out there. It looked like she had a hiking pack which meant she was prepared. Now he learned she was a tattoo artist. It seemed more and more that Luce definitely had the know how to fend for herself. He’d never met a tattoo artist who didn’t have a little bit of grit to them. “Thanks for the tip,” he paused before adding, “Tattoo artist, huh? I don’t have any myself, but I’ve always thought they were cool. I don’t even know what I’d get if I were to get one. How long have you been doing that?”

“I usually just go running along the easier paths, but I like to mix it up with hikes.” Luce replied, jerking a thumb to the pack sitting in her lap. “I bring gear when I’m out and about. First aid kit, stuff like that.” She nodded. Plus, some miscellaneous magical odds and ends that wouldn’t attract too much attention. A lump of red tourmaline, which to most people wouldn’t look like anything other than a shiny bit of rock. To her, it was a focus for her magic. A small knife, in case she needed to fuel her flames with something beyond just her will and energy. But, she hardly ever used that. Not unless she wanted to pass the fuck out in the middle of the woods. Which, having done it a couple times before, was a sure fire way to catch a fucking cold when you were out setting fire in the middle of a storm. “No problem,” She replied, “Fair enough. I just know we have a couple folks on the force who come in from time to time. I’ve been tattooing for five years, but I did a three year apprenticeship beforehand.”

“As long as you’re being careful out there. Sounds like you’re well prepared. Just be on the lookout for wildlife. I know it keeps our Animal Control unit pretty busy,” Roland said with a gruff chuckle. It was good to hear she had safety supplies on her. Luce seemed nice enough and he’d rather not see her face in a missing persons file. Roland knew his way around in the wilderness, but it had never been something he specifically sought out. He got the appeal of it though and it was a practical hobby. He listened carefully and nodded along as Luce spoke. Eight years was a long time to be tattooing, he wouldn’t be surprised if she was good at other art forms as well, which sparked a question. “Do you do any other kinds of art? I don’t personally have any art, but I’ve been wanting to make a shadow box with some of my dad’s old uniform pieces. You good at that kind of thing?”

“Ah yeah. Growing up here, you get used to scaring off the local animals. I’m a pro at scaring away moose at this point.” Luce said with only the slightest amount of sarcasm. Moose weren’t anything to fuck with, and she’d been on the Mooseventure tour often enough to know that they could wreck your shit without a second thought. But, it helped when you could huck a ball of fire at an angry moose. “I do charcoal art. Woodburning too. Dabbled in oils a while ago, but it’s not my thing.” She nodded. A bit intrigued at the idea of a shadow box, Luce glanced over at the police officer. “I’ve never done one before, but it sounds like a simple enough premise. Was your dad on the force too?”

“Are the moose here particularly violent? I always thought they kept to themselves,” Roland mused. If that was the case, he’d do his best to avoid them. Death by moose would be an embarrassing way to go out. It was far more likely that he'd go down in the line of duty than by a moose considering he didn’t spend too much time out in the woods. Roland was sure to pay close attention to directions while driving. He was still learning his way around. The main parts of town he had pretty much covered through patrolling, but the Outskirts were still new territory. Eventually even the roads surrounded by the woods would become familiar enough. He smiled at the thought of being able to nicely display his dad’s badge and uniform jacket. He’d always been proud of his father and hoped to live up to his example. “Yes, he was a Lieutenant for the Boston Police Department. If you’d be able to do something like that, I’d be happy to commission it.”

“They can be. Apparently the fuckers can run at 35 miles per hour and, to make it worse, they can swim. Nothing like going for a dip and then getting drowned to death by an angry moose.” Luce said, recalling the more gruesome fun facts she’d gleaned from the last time she’d been at Mooseventures. “The ones around town seem more ballsy than most, but I chalk that up to the fact there’s a literal company that hauls tourists out to see them. Like whale watching or something.” She laughed with a shake of her head. Listening to the man, Luce regarded him with an intrigued eye. A Boston boy, huh? Family ties and all must be why he had joined the police department. That said, it made it all the more interesting that he was here and not back in Boston. “Yeah, I could definitely help you out with that. You’d have to give me dimensions of what you’re looking for, but I’d be happy to work on a project like that.”

“I think I may have to skip out on potentially making a moose angry. Guess I’ll be skipping out on that moose tour. I was already a little iffy on it,” Roland said slightly amused that there was a moose tour to begin with. You didn’t get much of that kind of thing out in the city. Occasionally, you’d get a rabid racoon in your trash which was a lot less dangerous and easy to get away from. He relaxed into his seat, finding conversation was moving easily enough. He liked people well enough, Roland just found that sometimes he always didn’t have the easiest time relating to others. Luce seemed to make jokes easily enough which always helped these sorts of things. He imagined she had to make a decent amount of conversation being a tattoo artist. “Thanks, I’ll measure the space I’d like to put it in and get back to you. Do you have a website or something?”

“Sounds like a smart idea. But, I’ve been wrangled into more than my fair share of trips to Mooseventures. It’s better than the fucking mime restaurant.” Luce grimaced at the thought of Kaden’s awful fucking birthday. “Another good piece of advice? You wanna go to a strip club, just make the drive to Bangor and go to one there. The Stripe Club? Fucking awful. Worst place ever.” She said with a shudder that was only partly exaggerated. As they continued down the road, she couldn’t help but be amused at the situation. One of the good ol’ boys in blue, dropping her off back at home? And, even better, that she was in the passenger seat? Funny stuff. Not that Luce had ever been in the back of a cop car, but she had to act the part. Everyone assumed that tattoo artists were rough and tumble and she wasn’t going to argue with that, if it meant they continued to treat her with the respect she wanted. “No worries. And yeah, I do. Ink Inc. has a website that’s linked on the town’s message board. If you go there, you’ll be able to see my work under my artist’s page.” She replied.

Roland’s brow furrowed at the mention of a mime restaurant. That seemed to be very oddly placed in a small town. Wasn’t that French thing? He’d have to ask Langley about it. “I didn’t realize mimes were a big enough thing here to warrant a whole restaurant dedicated to them. I think I’ll be avoiding that.” When Luce went on to continue about there being a Stripe Club, he grimaced further and couldn’t understand the appeal. He didn’t really enjoy regular strip clubs much let alone mime strip clubs. “I don’t think I’ll be going to either if I can help it, but that Stripe Club sounds like a nightmare. Thanks for the tip. You have a bad experience there or something?” He mentally checked off places to avoid unless there was a crime to investigate. Roland sincerely hoped he’d never have to investigate The Stripe Club. There were some things that just couldn’t be unseen once you saw them. He supposed he was lucky to have found Luce in the woods. He hated the thought of her trekking all this way in a storm. “I’ll have to check that out and reach out to you with some dimensions.” He paused for a moment before he asked, “Have you ever been to Boston?”

“You and me both. If you can manage to figure out why people are so obsessed with them, you’d have cracked the mystery of White Crest.” Luce joked. Though, if he really did manage to figure that out, she’d honestly love to hear it. It had been years since she’d tried to tackle that particular oddity of the town she called home-- in a very literal way. She’d tackled a mime. When Roland asked if she’d had a bad experience, Luce’s face turned grim. “Yeah, you could say that. I accidentally got shanghaied into the most fucked up birthday party I’ve ever been to. One of your new co-worker’s actually. Kaden Langley, with animal control. If you really wanna make him angry, just mention “mime lapdance.””She said with a knowing look. “No worries. And yeah, I’ve been there a couple times. Work trips. I went there for a tattoo expo once and then the second time I was there, I was doing a guest spot at a friend’s shop. It was a fun couple weeks.”

“I have the feeling that maybe some mysteries are better left unsolved,” Roland said letting out a single laugh. Whatever the appeal was, he wasn’t too sure he even wanted to understand. As long as it wasn’t a front for some sort of illegal business, he could live without ever stepping foot inside. He was sure his face was visibly disturbed when Luce mentioned that Langley had his birthday party at a mime strip club. He was relieved he missed the invite on that one. Being the new guy around the station had its perks and not ever having to see a mime strip was definitely one of them. “I’m sorry you had to witness that. Didn’t know Langley was into mimes like that. Should’ve guessed he had unconventional tastes with all the animal skulls on his desk. Glad I got here in time to miss the invite to that birthday party.” Even imagining it was enough to ruin his appetite. There wasn’t enough bourbon in the world to make that sound bearable. “Oh, yeah, we always get a pretty good crowd for that expo. There’s some nice hiking trails at the Boston Harbor National Park.” As they came up to an intersection, he asked, “Where am I going from here?”

“It was a fucking shit show, I can tell you that much.” Luce agreed. She’d gotten real fucked up that night, on the combination of whiskey and Blue Velvet. Even after spending a little bit of time merging into the alleyway outside of the Stripe Club she still couldn’t wipe the memory of the cursed mime lapdance from her brain. She had a sinking suspicion that little gem would be with her till she was six feet under. “He’s got animal skulls on his desk? What a creep. But yeah, you definitely dodged a bullet.” She reassured him. Glancing at the road they were coming up to she pointed to one of the dimly lit off shooting roads-- Bea’s house was closer to town than her own cabin, but it was still firmly placed in the outskirts. “Just turn left down here and keep driving. We’re the only house at the end of this road.”

“Sounds like it. Can’t say I get the appeal of mimes stripping. I’m not the chattiest guy around, but no conversation seems a little weird,” Roland responded, still incredulous that his coworker had a birthday party at a mime strip club. He definitely could have gone his whole life without the mental image of Langley getting a lapdance from a mime. There was something seriously disconcerting about it. If he had bad dreams tonight, he’d have that story to blame. He chuckled as Luce mentioned the animal skull thing was creepy. He never thought too much of it considering he worked in Animal Control. He slightly shrugged while driving and said, “A little bit abnormal for desk decorations, but he’s an Animal Control Officer so I guess it’s not that crazy.” Roland turned down the road as directed. It seemed like she still lived out near the forest which made a lot of sense if she loved hiking. “That must be nice. This part of town seems like a great place to live if you love spending time with nature. Did your family hike a lot when you were younger?”

“Right? And, as someone who had the misfortune of witnessing it, I can tell you that it’s incredibly fucking weird.” Luce shook her head, as though that might help cast the cursed memory from her mind. No such luck, but a girl could try. “I don’t know if that makes it any better. That’s like saying that since I’m a tattoo artist, it’s totally chill for me to have like… tattooed skin hanging up or something.” She grimaced. She never really understood the whole collecting animal skulls thing anyways. They were dead already, how would you like it if someone killed you and then used your skull as a paperweight? It just felt insulting. “It’s a good part of town. I didn’t originally live here, though. Grew up in the East End before moving out here.” She said before nodding. “We went hiking quite a bit as a family, yeah. It was a fun way to hang out with the family without really hanging out, you know? Because when you’re hiking, you can just kinda… go.” Luce grinned. “I prefer solo hikes, in case you didn’t notice.”

Roland wasn’t jealous of Luce having to endure what sounded like one nightmare of a birthday party. He guessed she had a point on the animal skull thing, but it seemed like a widely accepted decoration by most standards. “That’s fair enough. It’s not really my thing either.” His own decorating standards were pretty much nonexistent. The only not work related thing on his own desk was a photo of his father. When she mentioned the East End, he casually said, “That’s where I’m at now. Figured might as well live close to the station.” It was nice to hear she got to go hiking with her family a lot as a kid. Must have been what inspired her love for it. It was a productive and heart healthy hobby that he could get behind. “That sounds like it must have been fun. I did pick up on that part,” he said with a slight laugh at the end. He followed the road and pulled up to the only house on it. He was definitely glad she didn’t end up walking back home in this. “Here we are, it was good meeting you, Luce. I’ll be in contact with you about that piece.”

#a perfect storm #luce #wickedswriting

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