#The first one is actually pretty close! It's always a coin flip on whether the first one is a disaster or nails it haha | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

lydias--stiles · 3 years

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“The simple act of being in love with you is enough for me.”

jiara | post-s2 | pining idiots | title: quote by Pacey from Dawson's Creek

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“Kie.”

“Hm?” The girl’s mop of curls obscured her face as she mumbled out some vowels, clearly still buzzed from the night before. An amused smile ticked up his lips and slapped her calf again. She sighed. “What?”

“Leggo,” he pushed, “we gotta get to Pope’s place.”

“Why?”

Even if everyone else would deny it, JJ swore Kie was as bad as he was: slow and fucking lethargic before eleven in the morning. Sure, she had better grades in school, but he wasn’t gonna give her more credit than that. Speaking of, “Helping him with that new scholarship, remember?”

The girl groaned and rolled over to face him, droopy eyes cracking open to scowl at him. She slept where he used to crash whenever his dad’s place became too much, but since the old man fucked off to Yucatán, he found peace in the quiet walls and cracked windows. Regardless, it was weird seeing her sprawled on this mattress, the boy almost able to envision himself beside her. A dangerous fantasy to linger on, so he pushed it aside and kept on trucking.

“C’mon, Kie.”

“Yeah, yeah,” she muttered and sat upright. “How did you even get in the Château?”

JJ grinned and snagged a key chain from his shorts. “Spare key. Duh.”

She rolled her eyes, uttering, “John B’s stupid,” and then pushed him out the guest room, telling him she’d get ready. His mouth opened to make the joke if he couldn’t stay and watch, but the door slammed in his face and that was that.

Having a crush on Kiara was the freakiest thing ever. First of all, JJ and emotions didn’t mesh well — it only led to trouble, a perfect example being his dad and him with the most fucked up dynamic to boot. He preferred to not even think about the man, though one glance in the mirror often betrayed his mind and brought a rush of memories to the forefront, whether it was a shiner against his eye, or the fact that he resembled his father when he was young.

So yeah, he didn’t like anything ‘love’ related. It was stupid. It was more reckless than buying a jacuzzi or trying to steal a golden cross from a boat with dozens of armed men. Friendship, however, was easy. He told the Pogues just that: they were ‘it’ for him, he’d go through fire for them, through hell and fucking back.

But he didn’t think he’d actually die for them, which almost happened when he tried saving Kie on the Coastal Venture — to which she ended up saving him. (A vision illuminated by a golden sun, hovering over him. He’d never forget it.)

While he inspected the contents of the fridge, embarrassingly filled with only beer, eggs, milk and junk food, the door creaked open and revealed a dressed and less-wrecked Kiara. His gaze flicked up and down her frame, quick, and then averted it back to the fridge.

“You got no food, man.”

She chuckled. “I know. It’s not exactly The Wreck type of food…”

“You haven’t gone back?”

“Nope,” she replied, curt, and moved past him to shove a container of sausages aside to grab a bottle of almond milk. Even if she wasn’t with her parents, she still somehow kept up her ‘no dairy’ principles.

Also, Kiara was hella beautiful. He hadn’t let it register when she walked in, but it was true. Her soft-looking, shiny skin, sporting the prettiest smile in all of the OBX, and she was just hot. Especially when she propped herself on the kitchen counter, to which he settled beside her to not look at her legs.

“How many scholarships are there?” she asked. “Like, I’m obviously proud of him, but…”

“He told us last night,” JJ laughed. “You were that fucking high?”

She giggled, “Yeah! You were there, I was just on my ass.” And then, quieter, “And… I don’t know, I guess I’ve been kind of distracted.”

He perked up, surprised. Though the Pogues were family, openly talking about emotions when it wasn’t prompted by anything, remained rare. They were better at talking shit and smoking and napping on boats. Whatever, he took the bait.

“Why?”

She shook her head. “It’s stupid, JJ.”

“Kie, you’re talking to me,” he nudged her shoulder, “throw me a bone here. Is it Pope? You got the hots for our favourite nerd again?”

Taking a sip from the bottle, her brow quirked up as though that was the stupidest thing he ever said, and retorted with, “Why’re you always doing that?”

His hands raised instantly, defensive. “Doing what?”

“You’re always digging, like, when I was with Pope you got all weird.”

“I don’t dig.”

“You do.”

“I don’t. Kie, what’s up?” He kept it moving before she found the core of his problem, and bounced back to the original issue. “Before I start saying shit to Pope.”

She scoffed. “You're full of shit.”

“Oh, Kie,” he drawled with a smirk. “You can do better than that.”

Silence fell. He waited, fiddling with his fingers, and quietly hoped Pope wouldn't be too annoyed when they arrived late — then again, they were begrudgingly coined 'tortoise and tortoise' by the group anyway.

She placed the bottle back in the fridge and sent him a rueful smile, one he often saw her showing Sarah before they went aside and had a private talk. Their eyes locked and she finally spoke.

“Sometimes, I… I miss my parents. And it's like, I don't get how they don't just accept that I'm a Pogue, that I'm friends with you guys, you know? But I still miss them.” She looked down at her feet, crossing at the ankles like a little girl waiting to be reprimanded by the teacher. “I miss my dad's hugs.”

Instantly, his arm swung around her for a gentle side hug, a grateful smile pulling on her lips as she leaned into him. Both knew they should savour a moment like this, as hugging with a twitchy JJ and often irritated Kie happened once every blue moon.

Ignoring the guilty look in her eye — yeah, he didn't understand missing a paternal embrace, rather used to a blow in the stomach or a crude remark, but that didn't mean he lacked empathy — he resisted the urge to encourage her to reconnect with them. Knowing her, she'd just close up and glare at him for the rest of the day.

So no, he wasn't going to ask her. And no, she shouldn't feel guilty. P4L 'til the end, baby.

“Thanks, JJ,” she whispered.

He snickered and pushed her off. “You can't tell the guys I'm becoming soft, dude. Theyʼll give me so much shit for it.”

“They know you're soft,” she teased, “don't even try.”

“I'm tough,” he tried.

“Like Play-Doh.”

“Whatever,” he mumbled and motioned at the kitchen door. “Let's go, Carrera. Before John B and Sarah come back and act all married.”

Now that was fucking annoying. After John B and Sarah faked their death, they got married by a bandana strip and hadn't let that notion go after returning. Sure, there was that small blip when they were fighting the crazy religious chick, but that was old news.

John B made him swear he wouldn't tell a soul, but the guy waxed poetry about Sarah whenever they were drunk and alone. It was hilariously sad. Another man lost to a girl.

(“She wants a beach wedding,” JB sighed a couple nights ago. “Nice, right?”

“I– yeah, I really don't care about this, man.”)

JJ knew that when he got a girlfriend (Kiara unintentionally but also very intentionally crossed his mind), he'd act normal. No mushy shit. No poetry. Definitely no creepy Romeo and Juliet references thrown in as if that shouldn't freak the Pogues out. Their behaviour better not be infectious.

Expectedly, Pope's scowl reached them all the way from the car, Kie and JJ sharing a sheepish look before stepping out.

“Gee, guys,” the boy deadpanned, “thanks for making haste. Really appreciate it.”

JJ's wide grin hoped to salvage it. Slapping his friend on the shoulder, he pushed past him and yelled, “Kie was dead, dude!”

Pope grimaced. “Don't joke about that.”

He watched as Kie stopped beside Pope with an apologetic expression, telling him she overslept and was sorry and that he knew how JJ was — “Always joking.”

His chapped lips pursed, a familiar punch hitting his chest with him then pretending it didn't hurt. She always did this. Even if she claimed she didn't, she always took Pope's side. Relationship or not. JJ knew she didn't owe him her 'side', but it'd be a nice change of pace either way.

Whatever. This wasn't the JJ Pining For Kiara Show. Pope needed their help.

A state-wide scholarship competition gave Pope another shot at winning a huge chunk of money (no gold type of rich though) and getting his ass out of OBX, hopefully launching himself into some fancy college when he revealed to be of Denmark Tanny's lineage. Those hibrow assholes loved a good sob story.

All Pope had to do was score hella high on some test — easy — and impress the panel — not so easy — and he'd be the luckiest Pogue of all.

But that did mean Kie and him had to sit on his creaky bed with a freaky amount of flashcards while a stressed out Pope paced around his room. He was pretty sure the floor was eroding.

Also, he had no fucking clue what any of the flashcards meant. Did Pope's smarts really attracted Kie that much? Was it the brain? Brain over brawl? But where was the fun in that? JJ loved Pope to death, but the guy had to be fully medicated or high before his brain shut off and he acted carefree.

“Pope, do you even know what this all means?” Kie bemoaned, flipping the cards around.

“You got a dictionary somewhere?” added JJ, squinting at the word aberration. It sounded like some weird disease. He showed him the word.

Pope dismissed it. “It means: different from the norm.”

“Dude, why not write that then?”

“Because they want aberration.”

He didn't get it. “No one uses it though.”

“JJ, that's just the way it is,” Pope pressed.

“Guys, stop,” Kiara interrupted. “But honestly Pope, it's so, like, elitist. None of these questions are important to the world, or the well-being of the people.”

“Sorry, Kiara, but unfortunately not everyone cares that much,” he sighed. JJ could tell they were starting to annoy their friend, their tortoise bullshit bleeding through.

Her nose scrunched up, peeved. “Right. Because there's a planet B just waiting to be used by us. Duh.”

“Ooh,” JJ drawled, nudging her arm. “Are there donkeys shitting money?”

Kie laughed. “Yes. All beaches, clean air, no Kooks, and money-shitting donkeys.”

“Nah, I want it to be hella Kooky,” he joked, gesturing wildly. “I want a yacht and tell people someone else does my laundry, or something.”

“You don't even do your laundry anyway,” she bounced back with a roll of the eye. “I know you force John B.”

“He's already playing House with Sarah, might as well wash my underwear, too.”

Oh, man. He could do this all day. Talking shit with Kiara went as smooth as fishing for him. Each time he thought he one-upped her, she threw more on top and kept it going 'til neither knew what the point even was anymore. Sarah dubbed it as 'banter' which he believed was a rich way of saying 'talking smack.'

“I don't believe you even know how to do it,” she challenged.

JJ huffed and crossed his arms. “I can do it.”

A smirk bloomed on her lips as she kept jabbing. “It's kinda cute, how you need John B to be your mom.”

“I don't.”

“You literally said it five seconds ago.”

“Guys,” Pope groaned, followed by an exhausted sigh eerily similar to Heyward. “Can we get back to the flashcards?”

Kie and JJ were too far into their discussion though, jabbing at each other at rapid speed. Then she threw her cards at him and all bets were off. He yelled she should make a goal with her hands, to which he folded up a flashcard and shot it straight between her fingers.

And that was when Pope kicked them out. JJ presumed it was a victory they lasted as long as they did. Kie kept apologising over her shoulder, prompting Pope to ask Cleo for help instead.

For a beat, they were silent stepping out of his place and back into the car. JJ felt a stab of guilt for fucking up Pope's study time, but it was hard to dial his brain to school when his friends surrounded him. Just when he wanted to ask if she felt bad too, she went off about the climate — as usual.

“It's so dumb how there were no questions about the environment or human rights or, or anything like that! It's all science and lit, like, there's more to life than fucking chemistry formulas!”

“I skipped those cards. Didn't get them.”

“It's so fucked,” she hummed. “And I'm obviously glad that you drove to the Château to wake me up and all—”

“Yeah?”

“—but I really wish those questions would matter. We almost died, JJ!”

“No, shit,” he grumbled, quickly starting to lose his patience with the ranting girl. She didn't even realise what the fuck she was saying anymore — what she did to his heart, skipping like some elemtary school girl on the playground, when she slipped some nice words in.

“Died!” she pressed. “Why even care about stuff like that?”

“Fucks sake, Kie—”

“And I didn't want to say it, but did you see how many flashcards there were? How many trees were cut for that? It's like, hello, Quizlet exists!”

“Kie, shut up!” he yelled.

Her mouth fell slack, gobsmacked, gawking at him like his interruption was a slap in the face.

Gesturing wildly with one hand, he exclaimed, “You know, you can just go on and on and I hear you talking and it's like, yeah, we get it, Mother Earth needs to be saved, we're fucked, you don't gotta repeat it twenty-four seven.”

“What the hell, JJ!”

“You have an opinion about everything! A man gets tired!”

“A man?” She scoffed. “You're not even eighteen.”

“Point is you don't gotta act all preachy all the time.” He turned the corner, hands tightening around the steering wheel.

Kie scowled. “Where is this coming from? I'm not preachy, I'm educating you.”

Now that was just fucking with his head. Incredulous, he exclaimed, “You think I don't listen? Kie, I'm the only one that does. JB is on Planet Sarah all the damn time and Pope only did shit 'cause—"

"That!” she yelled, throwing her hands up with frustration. “That's what I mean! You're doing it again! You dig!”

“What?!”

“Every time you mention Pope and I, you dig. You needle!” Twisting in her seat, his gaze flickered to catch her disgruntled expression. “Why do you do that? It's so… sus.”

JJ laughed. “Sus?”

“You don't ask John B about Sarah.”

“'Cause they're fucking obvious.”

“Still,” she pressed. “Did I do something to piss you off? Is that it? Is it me constantly asking you to recycle and yet — shocker! — you never do?!”

“Fucking God,” he grumbled under his breath.

With frazzled thoughts and shaking hands, adrenaline coursed through him as he swerved to the side of the road and stopped the car. If he fought with Kie any longer to this degree of fuckery, they were gonna crash.

She frowned. “What're you doing?”

“You, Carrera, are driving me insane,” he deadpanned, matter-of-fact. Then he slammed the door open and stepped out, desperate to catch his breath.

In the back of his mind, he had an inkling as to why he was so keyed up. Kiara would call him a Neandethal, but fuck it, here was the truth: Kiara was hot as hell when she argued with him.

Following his lead, she got out, her sneakers stomping against the asphalt. The sun steeped low on the horizon, the light hitting the hood and reflecting onto her face; her curls shifting from dark brown to gold. Fuck. Fuck, fuck, fuck. He was so fucked. He almost missed the start of her spiel, too enthralled.

“I'm driving you insane? I'm always getting you out of trouble, because you never think things through! You never see the bigger picture!”

He rolled his eyes. “Bigger picture? The only thing I see, Kie, is you going on about nature. That easy.” And then, before he could stop himself, he spewed out, “And you don't have to do that.”

“What?”

“Getting me out of trouble,” he said, pursing his lips. “That's not your responsibility.”

“Right. Duh. Because after everything we've been through, I can't care about you,” she exclaimed, face twisting up in pure fury. She got in his space, shoving his shoulder, but when he didn't budge, it only seemed to anger her more.

JJ didn't know what was going on anymore. Why was she so mad? Even if she didn't want to admit it, he was telling the truth. Of course all the Pogues had each other's back, but Kiara doted over him more than was necessary. The constant checking of injuries, limiting his day drinking, all that. Like he was some child!

He leaned in and mumbled, “I can take care of myself.”

Kie smirked. “Then do your own laundry.”

It happened naturally. One second he stared at her furious eyes and thought about how much he loved arguing with her despite the bullshit, the next his fingers curled into her hair and pulled her in a fierce kiss.

At first, her hands laid frozen on his shoulders, surprised, but the moment he realised his impulsive decision was a mistake, they slid around his neck and kept him close.

JJ sighed in relief and deepened the kiss he'd been craving ever since they were fourteen and Kie went from gangly to statuesque. Her lips were warm and soft and her hands were soft and she hadn't let go and holy shit — he was kissing Kiara Carrera.

The kiss lessened when her mouth quirked into a smile, their grins pressing flush together, and JJ shivered from delight. Oh, man. He was gone.

“You drive me damn crazy, Kie,” he murmured, voice dropped to an undeniably soft tone.

She bit back her silly grin and whispered, “Good.”

Taking a deep breath, he tried focusing up, but all he could do was stare at her face. A shy hand grabbed hers.

He had to get it out of the way now, or else he'd kick himself later. “I'm… really into you. I'm– oh, fuck, uh–”

“Maybe we can talk about it not on the side of the road?” she suggested, amused.

JJ grinned, elated (What was the word he saw on the flashcards? Exalted!), and kissed her again, because he could.

On the ride back to the Château, he confessed to seeing her in a different light for years, while she couldn't really pinpoint a time or moment, that it just happened. It didn't matter, though he was in utter disbelief that he and Kie were having this conversation. No jokes, no BS, all seriousness. Tomorrow, he'd wake up and it wouldn't be some sick dream. Kie liked him back.

JJ was sure he'd doubt himself or overthink it in the future, but today, he'd bask in the certainty and the major ego boost.

“Okay, but did you ever legit like Pope then?”

A sheepish smile crawled up her cheeks as her gaze averted to the window. “I thought I did. But we have, like, no chemistry, so…” She shook her head. “I was confused.”

“That's okay,” he uttered. He couldn't give her shit for it. Even if he did torture himself with their short-lived relationship, he understood.

How would he react though? John B and Sarah wouldn't care, or Cleo, but Pope? He didn't want one of his brothers hating him. Being iced out by the guy fucking sucked, as it meant he was truly hurt and therefore meant JJ truly fucked up. He couldn't handle disappointing him.

Kie read his mind. “He'll be fine with it.”

“I dunno, man…”

“He will,” she repeated. “We're Pogues. We've all narrowly survived death. And besides…” She turned back to him with a secretive grin. “I think he has a thing for Cleo.”

Whoa. He did not see that coming. His brows shot up to his hairline, mentally kicking himself for being so focused on Kie that he didn't even notice the shift of interest between Pope and Cleo. They made sense, too. Know-it-all's, but well-meaning, and only speaking when needed.

If the idea didn't relief him of worries, he'd be concerned as to why they were all seamlessly coupled up like in some 90s sitcom Big John had on VHS.

“What a player,” he joked.

“Tell me about it.”

They arrived at the house, the Twinkie and Sarah's bike sprawled on the overgrown front lawn. JJ frowned. He had hoped to have some alone time with Kie, not to jump her bones and fulfill a regular dream of his, but to talk. To figure it out. He wanted to do this right. Because after everything, they deserved to have good things, to start on a high note — he deserved it.

Kie noticed it, too. Puckering her lips on contemplation, her gaze trailed from him to the rest of the property, ending on the trusty ol' hammock. She jabbed her thumb at it.

“Let's sit there.”

Normally, they laid on opposite ends on the hammock, if they even shared one to begin with. But now, she pressed herself right beside him and he felt like heaven dropped down on them in the best way possible. He suddenly understood what John B was lamenting about — the company, intimacy, the ease. Nerves rippled through his body like a summer storm, but he figured that was what it cost to lose one's mind over a girl.

He didn't know what to say, so Kiara spoke instead.

“I don't want us, the way we are around each other, to change, you know?” she said. “Like, I don't want you to think you have to act like some mellow ass boyfriend all of a sudden.”

He smirked. “Who said anything about boyfriend?”

“Bye.”

“Hey, wait,” he grinned, latching onto her arm before she pushed herself out. “C'mon, Kie.”

Her nose scrunched up. “I don't do this usually, okay?”

“You think I do?” he asked. His hand softly slid down to wrap around hers, to which she hooked their fingers together. Okay. Wow. It felt so damn nice that it propelled him to say, “I wanna be your boyfriend, Kie.”

The girl smiled and then surprised him by leaning in herself, pressing a gentle kiss on his chapped lips. It was overwhelming having her instigate it, his gut twisting up in excitement like when he was about to backflip from a boat, or cliff dive, or something similar like that.

He let go of her hand to cup her cheeks, only to whisper, “That's a yes, yeah? Gotta get a yes.”

“Yes, JJ,” she uttered back. “Here's to not fucking this up.”

“Cheers, baby.”

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#jiara #outer banks #obx #obx fanfiction #otp: cause i'll come #It's messy but in a cute way

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loveislattes · 3 years

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Everything Comes at a Price (Demon!Dark/Fem!Reader) Chapter 2

You can find Chapter 1 here!

Commission prompt: Reader is really depressed, and Dark decides to roughly Fuck the depression out of them.

Important: Reader has female pronouns and is a vagina owner!

Warnings (For this chapter specifically): Depression, talks of death, smut, dom/sub, rough sex, Demon!Dark, demon-like anatomy, shadow tentacles, oral (male receiving), very minor breath play, teasing, pet names, dirty talk, minor degradation, praise kink, unprotected sex, primal/power play, and multiple orgasms!

A/N: Other than the kink warnings, this one is safe to read! No gore/death. No beta- there may be a few errors.

As always, if you would like to support me, I have a Ko-Fi (here) for donations and I usually have a few slots open for commissions (unless life gets in the way)!

Tags: (If you want to be tagged in my writing, just let me know!)

@when-the-sun-goes-dark

@underthedark13

@fruitypieq

@another-thirsty-blog

@hcrystal02

@just-a-little-bat

“You’re sure? The doctor is sure?” you questioned earnestly.

“Yes! Yes! They say it’s like some kind of miracle. They expect her to make a full recovery after some physical therapy. Isn’t it great, Y/N?!”

You could feel your lips twist up into a bittersweet smile as tears poured from your clenched eyes. The taste of salt was bitter on your lips as you nodded asininely into the phone.

“Yeah, that’s- that’s amazing,” you whispered, “Listen, auntie, I’ve got to get ready for work but please keep me updated if anything changes.”

The phone fell into the fluffy blankets across your lap and you let out the choked sob that you’d been holding back. Wish number four had been a success. You’d done some actual good with your imminent death.

Despite the good news, the oppressive cloud around you didn’t dissipate; Unsurprising but disappointing nonetheless.

“Stupid, stupid, stupid,” you hissed, smacking your cheeks a couple of times.

Suddenly, a terribly wonderfully awful idea popped up and there was a modicum of relief in your chest. You snagged up the coin from its perch on the bedside table and clutched it to your chest close.

“Dark, I think I know my last wish. Is it possible to wish for death?”

There was no immediate answer, nor did you die immediately. A tremor in the atmosphere of the room was the only sign that something had changed and you brought your head up in surprise. The sight of the debonair demon standing amongst your depression room instantly filled you with shame. Great. Just what you needed to be added to your already heaping pile of negative emotions.

“Hello, darling.”

You managed a weak little hello in reply as he began to stroll your way. You weren’t sure whether you should stand up to greet him or just allow him to come to you, but he quickly made that decision for you as he came to a stop at your side.

“I regret to inform you that you’ve managed to find one of the three types of wishes I’m unable to grant. Is there something els-”

“Please, Dark!”

He leveled you with narrowed eyes and stated factually, “I can’t kill you. Killing you negates the contract. That includes putting you in any imminently dangerous situations, so don’t try it.”

Finally, you found the power to stand and glared up at him through tears.

“Can’t you break the rules, just this once?! I give you permission to keep my soul after I die if you do it! I just- I can’t take this anymore! Maybe you don’t understand it because you all Mr. Powerful Demon but I’m so fucking tired. I’m tired of being alone! I’m tired of hurting when there’s literally nothing wrong! I’m tired of not being able to do a damn thing to make it better or change anything or- or-”

You fell into a messy pile of limbs and blankets on the bed, wrapping yourself up as best as possible, sobbing into your hands to keep a modicum of your dignity intact. Much to your surprise, you felt fingers brush against your hair as sharp nails began to massage through your strands.

“I must say, you’re definitely one of my more interesting clients,” he hummed lowly, “Even so, I’m unable to bend the rules, even for you. There’s a lot at play here that you’ll never understand but the short of it is that even I do not play with Death’s dealings, darling.”

As he spoke, you could feel the first peek of daylight glimmering through the shadows of your mind. Whether it was from his odd praise or the sensations his fingers were provoking, you weren’t sure, but it was nice. Ever so slowly, you found yourself leaning into his touch, chasing the dopamine rush he provided.

He let out a humored chuckle as you nearly fell off the bed in the pursuit and you could only manage a subdued apology in reply.

“Don’t apologize for being adorable, pet,” he teased.

Cheeks warming harshly under the sudden pet name, you buried your face in your hands and groaned slightly.

“Now that that’s sorted, I will leave you be. When you’re ready to make your last wish, you know how to reach me.”

There was a strange catch in his voice that you couldn’t quite place but it was enough to put you into action.

“Wait!” you called out when he turned away.

Carefully wiping the tears from your face, you stood up and took a steadying breath before reaching out to him. It was such a simple request but you could see the curiosity and confusion plain on his face. Nonetheless, he took your hand and allowed you to pull him in close. It had been so long since you’d even held someone else’s hand. More of the demons in the back of your mind were backing down, the sudden influx of serotonin of skin-to-skin contact turning them away.

“Okay, I get it, you can’t kill me,” you murmured, licking your lips nervously, “But you said you find me… interesting, right? Erm, do you think you would be able to do something else for me instead?”

It was like you had flipped a switch, the way his eyes clouded over with the devious smirk that curled up his lips and how his head tipped to the side in obvious inquiry.

“I’ll need you to be more clear on what you’re asking for, pretty little pet,” he cajoled, “It would be quite remiss of me to act without being completely sure what you want from me.”

Oh, the asshole! He was going to make you say it out loud! It was obvious in his gaze that he knew he had all the power here, in every sense of the word, and he was using it to his advantage… and you couldn’t deny that you loved it.

Face hot with mortification, you chewed on your lower lip before whispering, “I- I can’t. I can’t ask.”

Fangs peeked out in a grin as he leaned down, tipping your head up until you were nose to nose with him.

“Do you want me to kiss you? Touch you? Fuck you?”

Gods, he made it sound so dirty, so sensual. Shivers rolled through your bones as he teased the apex of your jaw and throat with his sharp claws.

“I need to know.”

You gathered every last drop of confidence and finally stammered out, “Fu-Fuck me, please?”

“With pleasure, darling,” he hummed softly, “But first…”

Fingers tangled in your locks once more, jerking your head back and his mouth slammed against yours. A choked sob passed from your mouth to his as he guided you back onto the bed, following with the grace and ease only an inhuman being could manage.

“If it gets too intense, just tell me to stop,” he breathed out as his lips fell to your jaw, “It’s been some time since I’ve allowed myself to indulge with a human and you are just so damn breakable.”

A sick thrill shot through your body at the warning. Why did a part of you want that? It was terrifying, thinking of a demon losing themselves and going feral on you, and yet it sounded so deliciously taboo.

“Okay,” you finally replied when you realized he was waiting for an answer, “I will.”

“Good girl.”

Oh. OH. It felt like all the air left your lungs and you couldn’t stop the tiny little noise that escaped your lips in embarrassment and desire.

His lips curved up against your throat as they slowly moved. Nibbles and kisses blazed a path up the sensitive column of your neck until teeth toyed with your ear lobe and he let out a little chuckle.

“You are going to be so much fun, pet.”

Your hands found his hair and held on for dear life as his fangs dug into your neck; not deep enough to draw blood but rough enough to tear a pained scream from your lips. Throbbing agony blossomed through your skin and still, you found your body arching into his, silently eager for more of what he could give you. Oh and the endorphin rush! The moment he released your abused flesh, it was like your body was on fire.

Moving without thought, you guided him by the hair into a frantic kiss, hoping to convey your need without words. Thankfully he didn’t seem offended by your little takeover of power and allowed you to soak in all you needed until he finally put a stop to it with a nibble on your lower lip.

“Enough, it’s time to prove that you really want this, darling,” Dark purred as his fingers dug into your cheeks symbolically.

You nodded the best you could and followed his lead as he pulled you to your feet. With a snap of his fingers, suddenly his clothes were gone and you were left staring at him in awe. While he looked incredible in the suit, it did a complete disservice to the glorious form hidden beneath. Black tattooed tendrils encircled his arms and legs, tapering out somewhere on his back, creating the most tantalizing contrast of shades against his toned limbs as he flexed them teasingly.

As your eyes traced the designs down his solid form, he suddenly gripped your shoulders and pushed you down onto your knees, tossing one of your pillows down after.

“If you’re going to worship me in such a way, you might as well do it from in your rightful place on your knees,” he purred.

Lips parting in surprise, you felt your insides curl up with embarrassment as you slipped the pillow under your knees and nearly apologized, but then he was stepping closer and you lost all thought.

Fuck, was he ever right; It was akin to staring up at a god! Not only were you given the best view of his body, but the way he stared down at you with desire and complete superiority had you trembling with need.

“Now, show me what that pretty mouth can do, pet.”

Oh, that, that you could do. Scooting in closer, you reached out to grab his cock but your hand was smacked away instantly. It stung more than hurt but it was surprising nonetheless.

“What-”

“Hands behind your back,” he demanded.

Cautiously, you did as he asked and were rewarded with a much softer smile.

“Good girl.”

Those words again. It was like they had a direct line to your cunt. Clenching needily around nothing, you let out a soft whine and let him pull you back in. As his cock neared your lips, you were finally given the chance to look it over closely. Despite being only half-hard, he appeared average length and a bit thicker than most you’d encountered. It was also darker than the rest of his skin but what set it apart the most was the ridges encircling it. Every inch or so down his cock were these ridges, smooth but creating quite an obvious size difference.

As you pondered over the way it would feel inside you, you let your tongue tentatively trace the tip and moaned at the familiar taste. He let out an encouraging sigh and tightened his hold, subtly pulling you closer until you threw away hesitation and took him in your mouth as far as possible.

“Mmmm, that’s it pet,” he praised huskily, “Get me ready to fuck you.”

Clenching your thighs in hopes of relief, you shifted higher onto your knees and followed the pace he set. Another difference you began to notice was the massive vein on the underside of his cock, the way it throbbed against your tongue with every swipe quickly became an addicting sensation. It was like his body was praising your efforts in its own way.

“Take a breath,” he warned.

You barely got a lungful in before he arched into your face, hastily fighting back the urge to gag as he slid into your throat. Tears welled up in your eyes as saliva pooled in your mouth. You were mortified as both spilled out the instant he began to fuck your mouth. Embarrassing noises escaped your throat, far beyond your control with each thrust of his cock, but it didn’t seem to bother him one bit.

“Look at you,” he rumbled out huskily, “What a good little pet you are, swallowing my cock like you were made for it.”

As suddenly as he had started he stopped, releasing his hold on you so fast you nearly toppled over as you coughed for breath.

“Impressive, now get up here.”

Once you felt you were stable enough, you climbed to your feet with his assistance and were immediately thrown back on the bed. As your skin rubbed against the cool sheets, you were suddenly made aware of your lack of clothes.

He apparently sensed the shock in your expression and offered you a sly grin.

“What can I say, pet? There are some things I am impatient over.”

Dark kneeled on the bed and gripped your ankles, spreading your legs so he could easily fit between them. Rather than climb over you as you had expected, he instead traced gentle lines up and down your legs, slowly bit by bit growing closer and closer to your cunt but never actually touching. It was maddening. You could feel yourself quaking and twitching uncontrollably under every pass of his claws; your silent pleas coming out louder and louder each time until you were nearly sobbing with need. Teeth soon joined in the effort, searing bite marks into the meaty parts of your thighs while his tongue lavished the wounds fondly after.

“I haven’t even touched you and you’re dripping wet for me,” he groaned quietly as he traced the crease between your sex and thigh, “Imagine what a mess you’ll be once I’m finally inside you.”

Desperation tore from your chest in the form of a whimper at the mental images burning in your mind. Your heart nearly flipped on itself in pleasure as he finally moved up the bed.

“You look like you’re struggling, darling,” he teased, “Is there something you need?”

You nodded frantically and whimpered out, “Please!”

Tantalizing shocks ran through your core as his fingers oh-so-tenderly ran over your lips, ghosting just where you needed him the most. Frustration began to well up like the sweat beading your forehead and you couldn’t help the huff that escaped.

“Tell me that you need to be used,” he breathed, ghosting sharp canines along your throat, “And I’ll give you what you want.”

“I- I need to be used,” you gasped out.

His responding moan was pure ecstasy as his fingers finally found your clit; the way his cock twitched again your leg an overwhelming aphrodisiac. The scrape of his facial hair prickled against your chest as his head ducked down and his lips pressed chaste kisses along your breasts. Swallowing hard, you bit back the overwhelming urge to demand him for more and were rewarded with the gratifying sensation of his tongue across your nipple. Pain and pleasure coalesced into one as he mercilessly sucked and bit into your flesh, drawing louder and faster moans from your chest by the second. When he finally pulled off with a pop, your entire body felt the bombardment of endorphins.

“And who do you want to use you?”

Pride shone through his playful teasing as you attempted and failed to whimper his name multiple times, ruined over and over again with each pass over your clit.

“Hmm? I can’t seem to understand you. Who do you want to ruin you?”

Thighs shaking and heart pounding, you fought through the onslaught of pleasure coiling in your belly to gasp out, “You, Dark! Please, fuck- fuck me!”

It was too much, not enough: The ache in your throat, the rawness of your lips, the imprints of his teeth burned in your flesh, the throb of your cunt under his fingers.

When he finally slipped his fingers in your core, you cried out. Relief! It didn’t take more than a few seconds for his stretching and thrusting to put you right on the edge of no return. Unfortunately, he jerked away before you could fall and, before you could even complain, you were tossed over onto your stomach with a sharp slap to your right cheek.

“Perk that pretty ass up for me, pet,” he demanded, gently guiding your hips up.

As you came to rest on your knees, you let your face rest on the pillow and arched your back until you could feel his cock brush against your cunt. Instinctively you pushed back against him with a little moan and were immediately rewarded with fingers to your clit.

But… his hands were on your hips…

“How-?”

When you stilled in thought, he let out a husky chuckle behind you.

“I hope you don’t mind,” he crooned lowly, “Sometimes they just have a mind of their own.”

Lifting up just enough to peek under your body, you were both startled and aroused to find black shadow-like tentacles where you expected fingers to be, and in turn, his legs were now free of those pretty tattoos. Realization hit hard and a pathetic moan fled your lips as you buried your face in the pillow.

“Glad to see you approve, darling.”

In the next breath, he slammed forward and yanked you back simultaneously. You were immensely grateful that he had taken the time to prep you as he sunk in, inch by inch, stretching you open like none ever had before. A wicked thrill sent a tremor through your body as you realized you could feel each and every ridge as it pushed into you.

When his hips finally came to a stop against yours, the noise he let out had your hair standing on end. Animalistic, inhuman, primal. You wanted to hear it time and time again.

He finally started rocking his hips, taking his time with deliciously languid strokes, until you begged him for more. It was with a cruel laugh that he gave into your desires.

“Oh fuck!” you whined, fingers snarling in the blankets for balance.

There was no more hesitation in his movements, gentleness abandoned in exchange for all-out fucking you in a way that made your toes curl and tears fill your eyes.

“You are so fucking wet,” he snarled out between breaths, “Taking me so well.”

A noise of agreement escaped your lips as you arched back to meet his thrusts. You couldn’t form words even if you wanted to, too focused on the raging storm brewing in your core.

Pain blossomed through your hip as one of his hands squeezed tighter, his growls and panting growing in volume to rival your cries, while the other found your hair and yanked your head back. Your body reacted instinctively, clenching down hard around him and startling a moan from you both.

“You feel so good! You going to come for me, pet?”

Reaching back, your hand found his and your nails found purchase, returning a sliver of the savage pain he bestowed upon you. All the while you bounced back harder on his cock, chasing the edge that was just out of reach. The tendrils between your thighs suddenly came back to life once more, their cool touch contrasting so perfectly with the heat of your bodies as they swirled around your clit in time with his thrusts.

“A-Ah! Dark, yes, pleeaaasse! Fuck- Fuck!”

“That’s it. That’s my good girl. Come for me and let me claim you, pet.

As if mimicking the hold on your hip, another tendril slithered up your back and encircled your throat. The unexpected pressure elicited a tantalizing response, your body suddenly feeling both free and trapped in the best of ways as he bound you to him

“Mine. All mine. My filthy little slutty human whore.”

Something in your psyche broke at those words and ecstasy rushed forward like a tidal wave. Every inch of your body trembled with pleasure as you screamed his name, voice cracking under the duress of it all. You could feel the proof of your indulgence dripping down your inner thighs, the sounds of your debauched pleasure growing louder with every slap of his hips against yours.

“Fucking hell!” Dark bit out harshly, “Good girl. Good fucking slut. Who do you belong to?! Say it!”

“You! Only you, Dark! O-Ooh, f-ffu-fuck!”

With inhuman speed, he slammed into you, over and over until the smack of your bodies was almost continuous. His choked roar filtered through your senses but it was was easily washed away with your second climax teetering on the edge. There was a sudden torrential shift of energy, pulsing eerie screeches filling the room as his voice echoed off the walls when he finally buried himself as far as possible inside of you. Any pain was quickly washed away by the thunderous roll of pleasure brought on by the touch of his tendrils mixed with the throb of his cock releasing deep in your cunt. Claws trailed down your spine as he practically purred your name, leaving behind five raw lines that stung under the combined sweat of your bodies, and somehow you found yourself okay with it; loved it, in fact, knowing that his marks would be on you for quite some time.

Quaking with bliss and exhaustion, you collapsed to the bed the instant he slipped out of your core and let out a little delighted whimper. You reached out blindly for him and were appeased when he laid down beside you, pulling you against him so your face was resting on his chest.

“I didn’t realize how much I needed that,” you murmured, fingers tracing up and down the little scar in his abdomen, “It goes without saying but that was fucking phenomenal, so thank you.”

Your head bobbed up and down with his laughter and you couldn’t help the grin that turned up your lips in return.

“I have to say I’m in agreement, pet,” he hummed back, “It’s been far too long since I’ve been able to let go in such a way.”

With a hand on your bicep and the arm under your head, he pulled you up and shifted you over his hips until you were perched on quaking knees. You almost questioned him but were silenced when he leaned up and captured your lips in a stinging kiss. It started out rough and slowly devolved into a passionate tangle of tongues.

It wasn’t until he pulled back for a breath that the reality of what was to happen started to sink in; the serotonin in your veins being replaced with anxiety.

“So, does this mean I die now? You have to take my soul, right?” you asked softly, “Since I made my last wish?”

“Hmm? I never heard you make a wish, pet,” he replied as he stretched back languidly.

Eyebrows furrowing, you let your confused expression convey your thoughts as one of his hands began to travel down your curves.

“But I asked-”

Your words were cut off by your own gasp when you felt his cock rising between your thighs. Wide-eyed and warm-faced, you gaped at him in shock. Apparently, a very short cool down period was also a demon perk?!

He smirked at your awe as a thumb traced your lower lip seductively.

“You asked and I gave freely,” he explained, fingers dipping to trace sharp claws along your throat, “You still have one wish remaining. Although, I’d suggest you save it for later. I feel like we have much more important things to attend at the moment, darling.”

#dark/reader #demon!dark #female reader #smut #fanfiction #READ THE WARNINGS FOR ALL KINK TAGS #chapter 2

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silverpaintedstars · 3 years

Text

How the Son of Shadows was Cast Out--Chapter 2!! Next chapter’ll get fun. I had fun with scenes here. @bookdragon1811 and i’m not sure who else wanted to be tagged lol.

Prologue | Chapter One |

Chapter Two: Cade’s Caravansary

Inside was a cacophony of what could be defined as chaos--but Elliot wasn’t quite sure. He followed Reaper around inside like a lost puppy--but he felt like one.

The shack was wooden with few windows, and a set of old stairs led upstairs. There were tables scattered with no apparent order at all throughout, and a random company occupied the chairs, snippets of conversation floating towards Elliot’s ears.

He pulled his dripping hood over his head, wanting to melt away from all this, feeling terribly uncomfortable. Reaper, however, seemed completely comfortable here, which didn’t surprise Elliot. He seemed like the type of person who would just--fit in anywhere he wished.

Unlike Elliot.

His cloak dripped onto the rickety floor as he walked through the door with Reaper. When he carelessly let the door slam shut behind him, everyone immediately stopped what they were doing and looked up at them. After a second of pure silence but the rain beating against the side of the building in the background, of being scrutinized by everyone, they were left alone again, just two more travelers to spend the night away.

“Welcome to Cade’s Caravansary,” Reaper said to Elliot. “All permitting we can stay here until weather permits us to continue on.” He swept a look across the room. “Hopefully by tomorrow.”

Elliot took a second to try and figure out whether that was the actual name, or simply another one that Reaper mused up, until he saw the sign posted on the wall. Long-ago scratched words on wood: Cade’s Caravansary. He didn’t know what a caravansary was, but he guessed it was here.

Reaper walked up to the small corner desk where a man sat, boredly flipping through a large, weathered book that looked like some sort of logbook. Reaper stood in front of the man a second, before clearing his throat and getting the man to look up.

“Reaper!” the man said, closing the book. He didn’t see Elliot yet, which was understandable, seeing as Elliot still had his sopping hood over his face and was standing behind Reaper.

“Cade,” Reaper said, not quite matching the man’s level of hype, which Elliot got, seeing as they were tired. That could be their excuse.

“Here for the night?” Cade asked, digging out an ink pen.

Reaper took a second. “If there’s space available, I suppose we might as well, seeing as this storm doesn’t appear to be letting up anytime soon.”

Cade paused. “We?”

Reaper stepped aside, letting the pale light of the lantern on Cade’s desk wash over Elliot.

“Ah,” Cade said, sweeping his oily hair over his forehead and opening the same book, running his finger over the messy writings. “We have two rooms on the third floor--small ones, but rooms nonetheless.”

“That’s fine,” Reaper said, digging into a pocket and placing (NOT A COIN WE CAN DO BETTER) on the table. Cade scooped it up, placing it in a box with others. He then dug two wooden keys out of a drawer with tags attached and handed them to Reaper.

“Enjoy your stay,” he said as Reaper turned and handed Elliot one of the keys. It was roughly carved, and the little worn tag read 46.

“The rooms are upstairs,” Reaper said. Oddly enough he seemed like in some sort of hurry that Elliot didn’t understand. He only nodded, having barely said a word since arriving. As they walked across the room to the stairs in the corner, he kept his head low, avoiding eye contact with the others in the room, but as he moved his head, he locked eyes with one for a second.

A dark figure in the darkest corner, with a hood low over their face, but oddly enough, it seemed they had glowing eyes. That or they had a lantern in there. In that split second, Elliot felt a cold wash over him, like the person was reading deep into his soul. He broke the contact and dashed towards the stairs.

The room was dark when Elliot swung the creaky door open. Reaper had gone straight into his room across the hall with barely four words and leaving Elliot alone. He couldn’t shake that strange feeling he’d gotten from that stranger downstairs. He didn’t really know what had happened, but whatever it was it had felt really--weird.

The room was on the third floor, the highest one. Elliot crossed the room and opened the moss-eaten curtains where the dark, desolate landscape spanned across. He could see barely nothing, the shadow from the caravansary’s light going much further than the light did. He turned from the window and to the small table where a lamp and a small pile of matches were. He struck one and lit the lamp, letting the flame flicker and cast a soft glow over the room.

Cade hadn’t been wrong, the room was small. Barely room for the single bed, an even smaller nightstand, the lamptable and an empty wooden shelf. Exhausted, he locked the door and took his damp cloak off. He ran a hand through his hair, sitting on the edge of the bed. He wasn’t really sure what to think or do.

He could start with sleeping, but he knew that if he tried to, his brain would still lie awake. But he didn’t exactly have energy to think now. It couldn’t be that late, either, though there was no clock in the room to confirm that. A small part of him wanted to go ask Reaper questions in hope he had the answers, but he had seemed pretty tired, and Elliot didn’t want to disturb him if he was sleeping.

So he sat there in quiet a few moments, rubbing his hands and looking around the room. Then the flicker of the lantern in a mirror caught his gaze. But he hesitated. Did he really want to see how his father had scarred him? Did he want to see his weathered, beaten self?

The answer was yes, he wanted to see what others saw. Wanted to see what Reaper had seen that made him want to make sure he was fine. Wanted to see what others saw if they judged him.

Gingerly he slid off the tall bed, his boots making the floor creak underneath. Crossing the room to the mirror, he didn’t look directly at it just yet--readying himself.

Then he looked.

A jagged scar now ran down under his left eye to his jaw, rough and healing. His eyes bore a new sort of pain and readiness that wasn’t there before--and oh, that old nervousness and scaredness was still there. But he seemed a tad more burdened now. His hair hung in damp clumps over his forehead, the reddishness more muted in the light. The peaks of his Elf ears could be seen under them.

It wasn’t as terrible as he had been expecting--but it was, at the same time. It was different, and changes are always hard to navigate at first glimpses. But he doubted that scar would heal completely--it would always be there, a reminder of what had happened and that fatal day. It could have been yesterday--or a week ago, depending on how long he had been out. He did look more frail, but that could just be from strain. Or from not eating for a week or two.

He shook these thoughts off and staggered back to the bed, flopping back down with a defeated sigh. It wasn’t a very comfortable bed, but it was better than cold ground. Before he really realized that he was, he had slipped into a deep sleep.

The light of dawn woke him early, lying on top of the bed in his dry-er clothes. Sun streamed through the window--the kind of filtered sunlight that comes after a storm, but sun nonetheless. Elliot groaned and sat up, rubbing the sleep from his eyes. He felt rested, which was a good thing, he supposed. Sleep was supposed to do that. He slid off the bed and shook off the few last drops of water, the rest having dried overnight.

Elliot walked over to the window and peered out, the lamp having burnt out through the night. The same landscape he and Reaper had come though in the wet last night was now sunlit and glistened with dew, a few low-lying clouds dotting the horizon.

He heard a soft knock at the door and started, softly walking over to the door. “Wh-who is it?” he asked, not being able to see through the wood.

“Reaper,” he heard through the door. It sounded like him, but Elliot grabbed a stray cane that had been left by the door and slowly opened it.

Reaper pushed it open the rest of the way, walking through and closing it behind him. “You’ll need far more training before you can properly use something like that,” he said to Elliot, who was still holding the cane.

He set it down in confusion. “T-training?”

Reaper ignored the question, locking the door. “Well, today we go on to Holden,” he said instead. He wore the black eye mask again.

“Right,” Elliot said, his tone not really excited or ready for that.

“There are a few things you may need to know beforehand,” Reaper continued. “Do you recall what I mentioned before with people not quite sympathizing with elves?”

Elliot nodded, perching on the bed close to the window.

“Well, that is how it will be there. I would doubt we could find anyone to take us in if they knew. It is like that here, but luckily no one saw anything last night. You will need to conceal your Elvish features at all times.”

“Oh.” Elliot knew he needed to add more words to that sentence but he couldn’t quite find them. They couldn’t find some other place?

“And I would avoid anything to bring you--or me--to a place like that,” Reaper continued, “but you need somewhere proper to sleep and medicine in your condition, and we could only find that in Holden. So we’ll go there for now.”

“Will-will I stay with you there?” Elliot asked.

“I do not have a house there,” Reaper answered, “but I would not leave you alone until you have figured out what you will do and how.”

Elliot doubted he would do that but he stayed silent.

“Now, we do need food, which they will have downstairs,” Reaper said, casting a glance around Elliot’s small room. “Do you have your cloak?”

Elliot pointed to in front of the bed where it lay in a damp and messy pile. “Er, yeah.”

Reaper frowned, picking it up and shaking it out. “It’s dry enough and you’ll need to wear it,” he said, tossing it to Elliot who scrambled to catch it. He slid it on, and while it was dry, it had that strange smell cloth tends to pick up when it dries in a pile on the floor.

“I think that was it,” Reaper said, placing a hand on the doorknob. “We will go downstairs to get food provisions and then we will leave.” He unlocked the door and opened it, pausing before stepping out and turning back to Elliot. “Are you ready?”

No, he wasn’t. That was the answer he should have gave, but instead he responded with a very unsteady “Yes”.

Reaper nodded. “Alright then. Off we can go.”

Elliot followed Reaper out of the room, looking back at the room he spent one night in, his first night out of Orlem, free within limits. Then he closed the door and walked behind Reaper, down the hall.

What he didn’t see, however, was a dark, hooded figure peering out of their own door.

Elliot and Reaper walked down the stairs in silence, Elliot slipping his hood over himself before they entered the main downstairs, remembering Reaper’s words. He didn’t really want to experience firsthand the judgment and unfriendliness that he’d mentioned. That was one hand he could deal without.

They walked out of the cramped staircase hall into the still-dim dining hall. It wasn’t as crowded as last night, but there were still a good bit there, considering it was half hour after sunrise. Reaper payed no one there any attention, briskly walking across the room and weaving around tables to the far side of the room, by Cade’s desk, where no one sat behind it at this early hour.

“We get food--where?” Elliot asked, confused, clumsily following Reaper around.

“At the back,” Reaper said, walking around the desk, Elliot following. There behind the desk was a small wooden shelf nailed to the wall with a few baskets of random assorted food. Apples, breads, and other messily packaged things.

“Now, the reason we are up so early,” Reaper said as he threw things into a bag, “is yes, for the fact that we will arrive in Holden sooner, but also so that Cade does not witness us taking his food supply.”

“W-wait, we’re stealing it?” Elliot asked, looking around nervously.

“He’s lending it to us,” Reaper said, turning back to Elliot, drawing the bag closed. “And he doesn’t yet know it.”

Elliot wasn’t really sure how he felt about this, but he was hungry so he didn’t really argue. None of the few other peoples in the room payed them any attention as they stepped out from behind the desk and towards the main doors. Reaper tossed Elliot the bag of food, who fumbled to catch it as he opened the door and they stepped out.

There was that leftover smell of dampness that comes after a rainstorm, which Elliot didn’t mind at all. The ground was still wet and soggy, and squished under their feet as they walked, past the Caravansary in silence.

Elliot opened the bag of food and dug out a slice of bread, nibbling at it. He’d half expected it to be stale or along the lines of that, but it was actually in edible condition. There wasn’t really any conversation between the two as they walked.

About half an hour in, they stopped to rest on the crest of a hill, looking down into the valley, where through the mist that settled down there, could be seen buildings.

“You see it?” Reaper asked, pointing down. “That is our destination. Holden.”

#writing #my writing #how the son of shadows was cast out #writers on tumblr #chapter 2 #2391 words #elliot loot #reaper #i was vibing to twenty one pilots while writing this #yes #ocs #my ocs

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nightshadedawn · 3 years

Text

Persona 5 Royal Playthrough pt3

I ended up going through two Palaces before I could update y’all. Oh well.

...Yeah, no, quit calling me Miss Special Snowflake's boyfriend. It's not happening.

Ryuji, Morgana, and Yusuke having a conversation in the laundromat: "It's like he's our mom," says Ryuji... the mom friend.

Every time Morgana is like "I have to turn into a human so no one else can have Lady Ann!" then expects no one else to hear him makes me laugh. Like, bitch, no.

I have the restaurant in my Thieves Den 'cause I like it. Yusuke, Ryuji, and Morgana are there. They're so precious.

I got a three in a row Tycoon on cutthroat!!!

Ryuji and Ann just keep going "Shoulda figured" and other versions of the statement every time I win.

Ann just rejected Morgana's feelings HARD. I am happy.

Ryuji is too good, honestly. Why would anyone not like him? He's... He's always trying to build the team up, make them proud of themselves and what they've done. I will admit that he has his moments of being not a great human, but they're teenagers who were given absurd powers, so honestly, can you blame them?

I didn't know darts was an actual minigame! There's so many minigames. I'm so happy.

I don't like Akechi. I don't know why some people do. Like, his death scene was a bit... too late for a redemption for me, right after he tried to kill Joker, several times. His pain is understandable, but still... I can't.

Their "two sides of the same coin" also doesn't seem particularly fair. It's totally uneven in everything but color schemes.

Guys, GUYS, please, PLEASE decide whether you're going to react to my teasing or not.

"We don't have to deal with them directly," Ryuji says joyfully about the mafia. Oh you sweet, sweet, innocent child, if only you knew what I do.

I literally can't play this game around anyone else because I tend to yell "BABY!" to Ryuji, Ann, and Yusuke and "BITCH" or "FUCKER" to... a rather long list of villains in this game... and Makoto.

I can literally feel Yusuke's anxiety about his painting when you take him to Leblanc to see Sayuri.

How can you say Yusuke isn't gay when he says everything I do is beautiful?

I love Ryuji's 9th social link. It's LITERALLY written like a confession scene. This also means I kinda hate it because... I can't date him.

Also... PRETTY BOY RYUJI PRETTY BOY RYUJI PRETTY BOY RYUJI

I actually kinda thought that the new scene for Ryuji being a crossdresser is kinda funny??? Is this bad??? I wanna see him in a dress, tho. I gotta agree, he'd be a natural. Not the like, painfully obviously not taking it seriously from the dancing game, though.

Though I do think it's valid that he freaks out when two strange adults come up to him and try to take him somewhere, especially in a place known for being shady, and at night.

...When Ryuji complains about it, I do feel bad about ditching him. Then again, I blame the cat.

Ryuji may be my ideal type on paper, but I'm also highly attracted to Yusuke and this is so totally unfair.

*softly chanting* butlers butlers butlers butlers

Don't mind me just... *makes meticulous plot to avoid having Makoto join the team that i may or may not write a fanfic about*

Makoto is one dumbass bitch. Like, honestly, there's nothing she does that's in any way remotely smart.

...I thought I'd just skip Makoto's scenes until she became relevant, but here I am, still skipping her scenes. Does that mean she’s still irreleveant?

"Witch" I suggest, and Makoto complains! "Would you prefer "Bitch"? I can use that too.

I put Yusuke on the team in the middle of the palace through settings, replacing Morgana, who had been standing right behind me. Which made Yusuke stand right behind me. It looked like he was holding onto my waist and standing uncomfortably close. Bro, babe, I love you, but not in front of my boyfriend and girlfriend!

Just accept the compliment, guys, I'm not going to compliment Queen.

...Opening chests with Ann or Ryuji is just so sweet because they're so affectionate and touchy feely. Especially Ryuji.

Math. Fucking. Sucks. I should not have to use math in a game. I hate this. Obviously it's the Palace Makoto comes in that this happened.

Well, I finished the Palace in a day. I love the feeling. But it was getting close there. Joker and Yusuke were down to no spells...

...Yoshizawa hasn't showed up yet. When is she getting shoehorned in?

WHY IS THE VELVET ROOM RED!?

My very first playthrough I didn't execute a single execution except for the first one we have to do. It really screwed me over my second playthrough...

...I broke the electric chair. That's certainly something that happened.

147 games of Tycoon later and I've only been a beggar 31 times in total, versus the pure thirty wins in just Cutthroat.

They're in their summer uniforms and it makes make miss warmer weather already. It's fucking snowing outside. Grrrr.

Beat Kaneshiro! ...Wasn't a fan of his new boss battle. I'm even playing on safe mode! But whatever.

Makoto is a DISASTER at Tycoon. She exclusively got beggar all three times I played with her!

...RYUJI YOU CAN'T SAY SHIT LIKE THAT AND NOT LET ME DATE YOU.

Ann, sweeties, baby, you're doing so well.

She confessed to me, then in the call afterwards it was basically insinuated I proposed... WHICH IS LIKE FUCK YEAH 'CAUSE SHE ACCEPTED IT.

It makes me think of the future conversation where they're talking about marriage.

Anyway, if you haven't noticed, l love Ann.

My next playthrough I'm not gong to date her, though. I'm a completionist and I want ALL of the possible awards. But... I refuse to cheat on Ann. So I'll date everyone else then just hang with Ryuji... despite how cringy some of the date things are.

...If Akechi wasn't, you know EVIL and tried to KILL ME, SEVERAL TIMES, I might, MIGHT, like him. But in truth, I think that's really just the Persona 5: Revival talking. We get... into some stuff during that.

I know that either Atlus or the translators know EXACTLY what goes on in the Persona fandom because otherwise "He's too pretty to be wrong" would not be an option when talking to the newspaper girl about Akechi. I have to agree with her that his looks aren't really, you know, awesome enough for that.

Also, I read it as "He's too petty to be wrong" at first and I think that's an accurate sum of his character.

YO AKECHI-FUCK I HAVE NO NEED TO SEE YOUR ASS LIKE THAT WHEN I HAVE BOTH A BF AND AND GF.

...fucker fucking giving me shit about my fake glasses...

If you COULD date the boy out of mod, Akechi would definitely be the one they were pushing you to date. Like Makoto. Or Yoshizawa.

But hey, at least I get to not be nice to him.

I remember seeing this picture where Ann, Ryuji, and Joker kept going to the movies together and seeing 3D movies, and Joker couldn't wear the 3D glasses properly because of his own. I keep imagining that picture during this event with Caroline and Justine.

You know what? Some people call Joker a loli lover because of them, but nope! He's just adopted two more siblings. That is my stance on it.

FUcking

Fucker

WHAT THE FRRRRRRRR

FUCK YOU ATULS OR TRANSLATORS OR WHATEVER

APHRODITE AND MARS ARE FROM TWO DIFFERENT MYTHOS. Aphrodite is GREEK, Mars is ROMAN. Their reversed are VENUS and ARES. USE ONE OR THE OTHER PEOPLE.

I get very pissed about this, and it's worse with Hades.

7/4 is the day I am screaming at, if you were wondering.

My dad asked me if the other students think Joker's stupid because every time I answer a question right they get all surprised.

I don't really like Makoto, as I'm sure you've noticed, but she was super nice about Ryuji's special move idea. And that put her ahead of Akechi in my book.

TESTS ARE NERVE WRACKING EVEN WHEN THEY'RE FICTIONAL

Yusuke and Ryuji are good boys, the best boys. And they're so awesome about their special move.

AND RYUJI OFFERED MONEY FOR YUSUKE'S FOOD. And implied that he did it before???? Ryuji, you best boy.

This boys' outing DOES make me happy, though. Like, insanely happy. Dunno why.

Maybe because Joker gets to be so flipping cheesy.

...fuck you, Yoshizawa.

HONESTLY WHAT THE EVER LOVING--- Grr. Too many choices while with her. Too many. OOC Joker when with her. 0/10.

I LOVE THE FESTIVAL PHOTO

And you know, it's really hard to choose between Lala-chan and Ann, but... GONNA TAKE ANN ON A DATE

Got her some flowers. Lets see if we can give them to her this time!

"Such a good FRIEND." Babe, we're DATING. For like, TWO WEEKS NOW.

AND I DIDN'T EVEN GET TO GIVE HER FLOWERS

Ann called Yusuke a pretty boy, but then she's missing out on the REAL pretty boy, Pretty Boy Ryuji.

Ryuji, why're you so worried about other girls when you've got ME?

"I like the shade." "What are you, moss!?" Oh, admit it, Ryuji, I'm growing on you.

Cargona. Snrk. Gods, I love you, Ryuji.

Dome town with Ryuji! "Isn't it all couples?" That's the point!

I COULD GIVE RYUJI THE ROSES!?

Sadly, I bought those for Ann. Ryuji, you get the noodles.

AND HE FUCKING LOVED IT.

"It feels like I really captured Ryuji's heart!" FUCK YEAH I DID

Gonna give Yusuke the bracelet when I get the chance.

Why is everyone color coded in the chat room? Kawakami, Akechi, Mishima, and the reporter are all ORANGE. What's the point? Well, Akechi's more of a golden orange, but close enough.

While Mishima is not my first choice for a date, he's definitely not my last.

...But the boy really needs some fucking sleep. He's not drawn with the bags under his eyes, but I can see them!

It's not fair that they give Akechi a kicked puppy sprite. I'm... goddamnit, they're trying to make me not hate him.

When Makoto doesn't know something, I'm brought great joy.

NO DAD MAKOTO IS NOT MY GIRLFRIEND ANN IS AND SHE IS LITERALLY R I G H T T H E R E

First day in Futaba's Palace! I've gotta say, this is my second favorite palace. Kamoshida, Futaba, Madarame, Sae, Okumura, Shido, Kaneshiro, Holy Grail. In that order. I HATE Kaneshiro's place and dealing with the Holy Grail. But whatevs, man. I love this game. (Vanilla, at least, this one is still on the fence)

I found out a cool little thing. On the uphill sand slopes in the town (don't know about anywhere else) if you're running and turn back quickly, Joker will do a little animation to steady himself. It was cool and made it seem, I dunno, more human? Anyway, while I was admiring this, Ryuji and Yusuke just stood at the top of the slope and Ann followed me while I was running. Best girlfriend ever.

Kin-Ki is looking pretty kin-ky if you know what I'm sayin'

Please don't murder me because I do terrible puns.

*we fall through the trap door* *Ryuji starts screaming* Same, baby, same.

...Makoto is seriously annoying. Like, she's got no business acting as familiar with Futaba's situation. The one who WOULD be the most familiar is Yusuke, and I'm glad he recognizes that. It's not the exact same, none of their stories are after all, but I feel like those two get each other better than even Ryuji and Joker understand each other.

Yusuke and Ryuji's special attack is THE BEST

Ryuji and Joker getting up close and personal in the shadows. All those fanfics coming true, man.

I thought Futaba was sloth, not wrath? Why are her Will Seeds called Wrath?

Beat it in one day! It's so satisfying to watch all those achievements when I leave the palace.

You know, I'm thinking of wearing the Christmas outfits for the final battle. Just to be kinda funny.

Spending a relaxing day with Yusuke after going through Futaba's Palace... kinda want to take him to the bathhouse to check out that new scene, but I also REALLY wanna feed the boy... gonna feed the boy.

Apparently I can only make 'decent curry.' Which is fine. Because "I" can't make curry at all. Joker, you've done much better than I.

THE DATE CHANGE SCREEN HAD A RAINBOW AND RYUJI WAS COMING OVER ON THE SAME DAY FUCK YEAH MY BISEXUAL BABY

...Broooooo, the way you talk about your manga is how I talk right before I start shipping.

Took him to the bathhouse, 'cause I don't gotta worry about Mama Sakamoto feeding him.

...Can I take Ann to the bathhouse?

Asked Ryuji to move in. He was all up for the idea until he remembered that I live in an attic.

I'm Charismatic now!

...I was all hoping Ann would stop by but then Akechi asked me out. Laaaaaaaame.

Ryuji's smile is so fucking cute.

...I say we just be honest, and everyone's so fucking stupid about it until Makoto explains it. This pisses me off. They're not that dumb... At least, they weren't until Makoto showed up.

Futaba's hiding in the closet. ...I've spent too many weeks making jokes about closets to not have a joke about it.

Really, Yusuke? You see those books and think she can't understand?

...Wait, that sassy tone of voice... You were TRYING to pull a reaction of her. I knew I shipped those two for a reason. OTP and BroTP. Doesn't matter, they're both awesome.

I love you Ann, but I don't think your situations were the same at all. It's not like both are valid and bad, but... different.

Joker is SO fast compared to the others, especially when he's speeding.

What the...

Holy fuck...

JOKER IS TOO EFFING COOL

THAT MOVE TO GET FROM THE ENTRANCE TO TO TREASURE DOOR? Awesome!

Damn, Joker has my heart too.

I kinda wish we could see Futaba's costumes in her Persona. That would be pretty neat.

The moment right before Wakaba appears is so aesthetically pleasing.

...Futaba being happy is almost enough for me to accept Maruki's offer, and I haven't gotten there yet.

Ryuji and Ann keep smacking each other out of their ailments. Like, you guys just love each other so much! It's awesome.

Joker has lackluster responses to Wakaba... I'm hoping that isn't one of those "Answer these wrong and you break her!" things... Not that I think I was, but still.

I liked Futaba's new animation for when she defied her mother.

I wish the anime looked more the cutscenes. I'm trying to rewatch the anime so I can pinpoint specific moments for future editing purposes, but it's kinda painful.

1- This is the SECOND TIME you've landed on Yusuke while running from trouble.

2- YUSUKE LET GO OF MY GIRL

No Makoto, I don't want to go see Futaba with you! I can go see her myself.

So, I like Takemi's new voice with her lines during this scene.

Sure, she collapses every so often and sleeps for a while. Stays like that for a few days. Sorry that I put her into a coma for a month, Boss...

SHE LOOKS SO CUTE WITHOUT GLASSES

Guys, we have a month. Stop worrying.

THE TWINS ARE SO CUTE WHILE HANGING ONTO THE BENCH PRESS

Damn, Joker's dying to the amusement of two little girls.

I'm kinda disappointed I didn't get results for all that training. But I liked the scene.

Yusuke just casually be lugging bigass paintings around.

Taking the girls to the church may have been one of the funnier moments. These cement them as Joker's little sisters. With Futaba. Damn, Joker, you got no brothers.

Yusuke promises to come by every day and we can tell him to take his clothes off. ATLUS, you have some EXPLAINING to DO.

..And Yusuke took it and ran with it. My sweet summer child, I don't think I could handle you in as little as possible on the day to day.

"The heat induced delirium made me think outside the box." Same.

Guts takes sooooooooooooo long to level up.

"Punish me more" he says, as if Takemi won't do it.

"Good god. Well, none of my medicine can cure THAT." AT LEAST WE'RE ALL ON THE SAME PAGE

BATHHOUSE WITH YUSUKE

Awe, he had fun. :)

#Persona 5 #akira kusuru #shuann #pegoryu #pegoryuann #persona 5 royal #yusuke kitagawa #ann takamaki #Ryuji Sakamoto #Pretty Boy Ryuji

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taephilia · 3 years

Text

through time and space

part of @heartsforbtsnet‘s hearts for halloween event!

pairing: kim seokjin x fem!reader

genre: fluff, angst, sci-fi, adventure, time travel au, doctor who au

word count: 10,694 (oops)

warnings/content: swearing, alcohol consumption, if you’ve watched doctor who then this is based off of river song and the doctor

summary: as a universe-renown time traveller, you’re a fairly common household name. From intergalactic governments to planets themselves, your help is needed across the universe; whether it be uniting an alien orphan with its human parents or playing peacemaker between two alien races that have both committed genocide against the other and are at the verge of war. You’ve seen countless faces, heard hundreds of names, but one has always stayed with you, following you like a shadow: kim seokjin.

a/n: this took me SO long mainly bc it’s been years since i watched doctor who and i still never quite understood how the doctor and river’s timelines worked. and it took me so long to even wrap my head around this fic’s timeline so hopefully this all makes sense. if you have any questions, feel free to send them in because time travel is very complicated and every interpretation of it is different and the fact that time just isn’t linear in this can make it very confusing. also this is unedited/not proofread bc i procrastinated, rushed some parts, lost motivation, like to live life on the edge, etc. you know how it is. also yes it’s late i’m sorry, i’m not even going to say why because it’s really embarrassing lmfao

tag list: @suhdays @ggukkieland @hesperantha

i. planet busan in the year of AFI-283

Taking a walk through a city that you’ve never been to before in the morning is usually something you quite enjoy, but after having to save a neighboring town from an invasive species (which involved a lot of running away from giant man-eating worms which were the invasive species in question), your thighs are burning more than usual and all you want to do is get back to your ship and go home. You feel a bit guilty as everyone walks around you, grumbling underneath their breath about how slow you’re walking, just looking around like you have all the time in the world, but you figure that you deserve to admire the sights for just a little bit. And besides, you’re a time traveler—technically you do have all the time in the world.

As you get closer to the alleyway that you parked your ship in (and that you hope is still there), a strange whirring noise begins to sound out throughout the street, causing everyone around you to slow down and look for the source. A strange glowing orb appears in the middle of the sidewalk right in front of you and everyone around you either runs away or stands around it, scared but fascinated at the same time. You watch the orb grow brighter and brighter, shielding your eyes against the light with one hand while the other reaches down for the blaster gun on your hip. When the light is finally gone, there’s a metal booth standing in the middle of the street with smoke rising off of it. A strange banging noise can be heard coming from the inside of the machine so you slowly walk up to the door and knock, everyone around you waiting with bated breath to see what kind of creature would emerge.

All you see though when the door opens is a set of broad shoulders before you’re pressed up against someone, their arms wrapped tightly around you as they sway you side to side. They pull back to look at you and you’re met with bright brown eyes and possibly the handsomest man you’ve ever seen in your entire life. And said handsome man still has his arms wrapped around you and although you’re sort of wondering if you actually got eaten by one of those worms and died and went to heaven, you’re also wondering who the hell he is.

“Stunned to see me, sweetheart?” he teases you and you swear that your heart rate picks up at the pet name. “I know that my good looks can be quite shocking sometimes but you look like you’ve seen a ghost. Which we both know isn’t possible since ghosts aren’t real.” He rolls his eyes and laughs as if he made some sort of joke, and before you can even begin to process just what exactly is happening, the man leans down and presses his lips against yours. When he pulls away, he stares into your eyes and says softly, “But the fact that you look so beautiful this early in the morning is upsetting… yet amazing.”

Your brain short-circuits at that and you jump back from him in shock. You have to take a moment to look around, to look at literally anything or anyone but the man that just kissed you as a greeting, to stop your face from heating up even more and your heart from jumping out of your chest. The crowd that had first gathered around the booth had already dispersed during your brief interaction, people walking around you and only stopping to glance when you jumped back.

“I’m sorry,” you apologize, although exactly what you’re apologizing for you have no idea. “But have we… met before?” Or done something more than just meet and somehow I experienced amnesia right after, you think to yourself, your lips still tingling from when they were pressed against his.

The man in front of you pulls out a journal and you’re taken aback at how it just seemed to appear out of nowhere. As he’s flipping through the pages, you stare at the purple cover and wonder where exactly he was hiding it before. He glances up at you and stops turning the pages when he sees you just staring at him, as if he expects you to be doing something as well.

After a few seconds of the two of you just staring at each other, him in expectancy and you in utter confusion, he lets out a sigh. “What year is it on this planet? Where even are we? Planet Busan, correct?” he asks, hand poised over the pages as he awaits your answer.

At this point, you’re just convinced that this guy is crazy and you’re witnessing some sort of psychotic episode. Once you manage to get yourself out of this situation, you’ll definitely need to contact someone about him. But for now, you’ll play along. “Yeah, we’re on Planet Busan. It’s AFI-283,” you answer, eyebrows raising when he immediately begins thumbing through the pages.

His eyes flicker back and forth as he skims whatever is written down before finally stopping somewhere in the middle of the journal. You watch as his eyes widen before looking up at you and then back down at the journal. He lets out a little stunned “huh” before pursing his lips and closing the book. He takes a step closer to you as his eyes meet yours, and you can’t help but wonder if he’s analyzing you or something because of how hard he’s staring at you. Who is this guy?

“So you don’t know me?” the man questions and you have to resist the urge to roll your eyes. That’s all he got out of this?

“Am I supposed to?” you retort as you cross your arms over your chest, getting a bit impatient at this man’s behavior. You just need to find the right time to slip away and-

“Well not to brag or anything but I am a pretty famous time traveler,” he informs you, interrupting your train of thought at the mention of the words ‘time traveler’. When he sees you perk up at the end of his sentence, he smirks and does a little bow for you. “Kim Seokjin at your service, madame.”

Your eyes widen upon hearing his name. “You’re Kim Seokjin?” you ask, partly in awe but also partly in disbelief.

Everyone who’s anyone knows about Kim Seokjin; he’s one of the most famous time travelers throughout the universe, and the fact that you’ve heard about him since you were young and now he’s standing in front of you looking as young as ever really says a lot. Namely, this guy is good—like, really good. So good in fact that it made you kind of dislike the guy the more you heard his name. When you first completed your training to become a time traveler on your home planet of Earth, you had been so excited for what the universe had to offer. Diplomatic meetings, running from space monsters, traveling in your very own spaceship; you wanted it all. And as the top of your class in your space academy, you thought you could have it. But any time you did something, it was always “Oh well, did you hear that Kim Seokjin saved an entire planet from being eaten by a Weblum last week?” and “Good ol’ Seokjin’s already done that, gonna have to do something more impressive.” Seokjin this, Seokjin that. They always compared your results to his rather than being happy that you’re the first student in nearly 50 years to even come close to results like his. And now here you are, on a random planet meeting the one person you’re always compared to, and he’s stumbled out of a-

“What even is that?” you ask, pointing to the metal booth that he stepped out of only minutes ago. “I don’t think that that time machine is a standard issue.”

“Have you never seen a coin noraebang before?” he questions you in response, looking taken aback when you shake your head. “Seriously? You’ve never done karaoke with your friends at the arcade or anything? Popped in just to sing that one song that’s been stuck in your head all day?” You shake your head once more and he sighs. “You’re making me feel really old right now. Why don’t I just show you?”

He steps aside and offers to let you take the lead, the door to his ‘noraebang’ wide open but you can’t see anything at all except for darkness and a few blinking lights. Your eyes go back and forth between the machine and him, wondering if you should just make a run for it at this point. After everything you’ve heard about Kim Seokjin, you wish you had learned that he’s probably crazy.

“You’re kidding, right?” you scoff as you gesture to the machine. “This thing barely looks like it fits you, how the hell is it supposed to fit the two of us?”

He places one foot over the threshold, both hands braced on the door frame on either side of him, and looks down at you curiously. “(Y/N) (Y/L/N); valedictorian of the class of 2193 at the Earth Space Academy, rookie time traveler but already making a name for yourself, and fluent in 17 languages on planet Earth alone. All of that and you can’t understand the basic concepts of wibbly wobbly, time-y wime-y stuff?”

“Of what?” you laugh. You notice his ears go red and can’t help but feel a bit endeared at his embarrassment.

“Just get in here, will you,” he groans before entering the darkness. His hand pops out when you don’t immediately follow, shaking insistently at you, and you let out a reluctant sigh before grabbing it and allowing him to pull you inside.

You brace yourself as you step inside, fully expecting to slam right into him, but you’re met with nothing but air. When you open your eyes, you’re standing in a giant control room, buttons and levers surrounding multiple screens that display different universes, different angles of the noraebang, and different views of the city from where the machine sits. The ceilings are high with windows that allow the sunlight to come in and all around you are multiple doors leading to who knows where. Seokjin clears his throat after a few minutes of you staring around in awe and you jump because you had almost forgotten he was even there with you.

“So,” he smirks as he runs a hand along one of the control panels. “Not the tiny metal booth that you thought it would be, huh?”

“I don’t understand,” you breathe out as you stretch your own hand out to run along the walls of the room. “How is this even possible? It’s- It’s bigger on the inside! This room itself is already bigger than I thought it would be but those doors-” You point to the doors around you, ignoring the look of amusement on Seokjin’s face. “Just how many rooms are there?”

He holds out a hand to you with a smile and gestures towards one of the doors on his right. “Care to take a look?”

You place your hand eagerly into his and allow him to give you a tour of his noraebang time machine. You walk through so many different rooms that it’s hard to remember what the previous one was like after you enter a new one, especially since Seokjin is telling you about different planets he’s visited and people he’s met while doing so. There are rooms for different environments and climates, rooms with animals, rooms for different time periods on different planets, normal rooms like bedrooms and bathrooms, and even a kitchen. He talks about planets completely covered by liquid nitrogen, lizard people living underground, and a purple elephant floating through space. There’s a game room, a movie theater, an observatory, a pool, and-

You hear feet scurry by behind you as Seokjin explains the physics behind the gravitational pull of Planet Haxor’s moons but when you turn around, all you see is a flash of hair and a shadow before it’s gone. Seokjin notices your distracted stare and looks at where you’re looking, but sees nothing.

“Sorry,” you apologize as you force your gaze away from the doorway across the hall and back to him. “I thought I saw something. Are you the only one in here? There’s no one else?”

He’s about to answer when you hear a dull thud and what you think sounds like a whispered “shit!” and you can’t help but edge closer to him. Seokjin laughs at the noise, but he sounds a bit nervous as he explains, “Oh that’s just my Flerken, that darned thing! I don’t know where she learned those bad words from. Anyways, that’s the end of the tour!” He ushers you out of the room and back to the main control room, his footsteps quick, and you wonder just what exactly he’s hiding. And who or what that was that you heard because you know for a fact that Flerkens can’t talk. “So what do you think?”

“What do I think?” you ask in response, your hands gesturing around vaguely as you look around the vast room once more. “I think that this is the weirdest day I’ve ever had and you’re probably the most insane but interesting person that I’ve ever met.”

Seokjin ponders over your words for a moment before shrugging. “I’ll take that as a compliment. Anyways, I was thinking that maybe we could-” A loud beeping noise interrupts him, numbers and symbols that you don’t recognize appearing on a screen that cause him to panic and jump into action. “Gonna need a rain check, I have to go. Gotta take care of some of that time-y wime-y stuff I was telling you about,” he explains as he’s pushing buttons and turning knobs. He waves his arm towards the doors and they open, revealing the bustling city sidewalk that you had been standing on- How long ago was it? An hour ago? A few minutes? It seemed like time had stopped the second you stepped foot into the noraebang.

The time traveler all but shoos you out when he sees you lingering in his control room and he’s about to close the door on you when you block it with your hand. “One more question,” you say, hoping that he’ll oblige you. “I’m 100% certain that we’ve never met before so how do you know my name?”

He seems taken aback at the question but then a smirk appears on his face, one that you’ve become all too familiar with even though you’ve just met. “Spoilers,” he teases you as he brings a finger up to his lips before shutting the doors.

There’s a whirring sound and you step back from the machine, watching as a light begins to engulf it that grows brighter and brighter, so bright that you have to shield your eyes. There’s a whoosh! and when you look, Seokjin and his time machine are gone.

ii. daechwita mountains on the yoon planet in the year of 9-T-41

You watch with a frown as the acid snow and gigantic crystals continue to fall from the sky, mentally cursing your curious nature that led to you being stuck in a cave for the night. At least, you hope that it’s only for the night. You had been flying home after another successful mission when you realized that today was the day where all 5 of the Yoon Planet’s moons would line up for a quintuple lunar eclipse. You of course couldn’t miss out on this opportunity and thought that a little pit stop wouldn’t delay your plans too much. You were wrong obviously. And now here you are, in a cave on the top of one of the Daechwita Mountains, with only a jacket, the keys to your ship, three granola bars, and a half empty bottle of water. Just great. Leaning against the wall, you close your eyes and pray for a miracle. You don’t know exactly what but that’s the point, isn’t it? You’re not supposed to know until they happen?

As you begin to accept the reality of the situation, you let your mind wander to get yourself to calm down and your thoughts begin to drift towards a certain time traveler that you first met a few months ago. A certain, very confusing time traveler that is; with pretty brown eyes, the most infectious laugh you’ve ever heard, and-

Wait what, you interrupt yourself, physically shaking your head to get yourself to stop thinking… whatever it was that you were thinking.

Back to Seokjin. You think that the universe must be playing some sort of trick on you now because ever since your first meeting, you seem to be running into the guy everywhere you go. The second time the two of you met, he had had no recollection of giving you a tour of his noraebang time machine. You had thought he was twisting your leg or something but when he informed you that he’s never even owned a Flerken before, you decided to just drop the subject. The more you ran into each other, the weirder Seokjin would get. Sometimes he would recall your previous meetings and his personality would be similar to the first time you met him; flirty, completely comfortable around you, and a bit loud and obnoxious. Other times, he would only recall a select few and his personality would be similar to the second time you met him; awkward, shy, and seems like he has no idea what he’s doing ever. Just as you were starting to wonder how long he was going to keep this charade going, he somehow found the answer to your unspoken question.

“Opposite timelines,” he said to you in lieu of a greeting, not bothering to explain further as he walked beside you in the busy marketplace.

You struggled to keep up with him as you dodged and weaved around people and you watched as he plucked a purple book off of one of the stands, paid for it, and then handed it over to you. You looked down at the book in his hands and then up at him, waiting for some sort of explanation. You think he purposefully doesn’t elaborate on things for the dramatic effect, which is so very like him. He took your hand and placed the book in it before continuing to walk, this time making sure that you’re keeping up with him so that you heard what he was saying.

“Imagine two lines going in opposite directions,” he started off, trying his best to give you a simplified explanation because he knows that, even for a time traveler, sometimes this kind of stuff isn’t the easiest to understand. “Sometimes, the lines will intersect. Sometimes, one line will do a loop and circle back and intersect with the other line towards its beginning. That line is still going forward in time but in the context of the other line, it’s in the past. Does that make sense?”

You nodded along and looked down at the notebook, surprised to find that it had the exact same cover as the one that Seokjin pulled out when you first met him. You were about to ask him about it but refrained from doing so. If what he said is true and the two of you really do have opposite timelines, you could potentially cause problems if you brought up something specific that he doesn’t know about. “So what’s this for then?” you asked instead, gesturing to the book in your hands.

“That is for you to keep track of each and every time that we meet,” he answered. “Make sure that it’s in your chronological order. That way, whenever it is that we meet again, we can compare journals and see where we are in each other’s timeline and it’ll help us know what not to talk about. Time has never been too fond of spoilers.”

It still makes your head hurt a bit whenever you think about it, but it has come in handy ever since he gave it to you. And you find that you do quite enjoy thinking about your adventures with Jin a lot—and thinking about Jin in general. The man practically lives in your mind rent free at this point with how often you think about him, it’s starting to get a bit ridiculous. But you know that it would never work out anyways. Aside from the whole opposite timelines thing, you can’t remember the last time you’ve heard about Jin returning to Earth. He’s always jumping off cliffs and running from planetary authorities but you? You have your family to think about, your job is what’s getting your brother through college right now. You have responsibilities, people who depend on you, a reputation to maintain. Jin would never understand.

You jump as a particularly large crystal hits the ground outside, shattering into smaller pieces with a deafening crack. And although the sudden sound is what initially makes you jump, it’s the scream accompanying it from outside that causes fear to flood your entire body. You watch as a figure enters the cave and approaches you, and you shakily hold up your water bottle in what you hope is a threatening position, praying that they mistake it for a weapon of some kind. They shine their flashlight in your face and you panic as you lose sight of them due to the blinding light, and you’re about to begin just thrashing around wildly to ward them off when you hear a familiar voice call out, “(Y/N)?”

You lower your water bottle as they lower their flashlight, and as your eyes adjust, you let out a sigh when you see that it’s just Seokjin. Wait- “Seokjin? What the hell are you doing here?” you ask incredulously. Out of all places for him to turn up…

“I could ask you the same question,” he answers as he gestures to your supplies, or lack thereof you should say. “Are you trying to die here or something? You don’t even have a full bottle of water.”

Seokjin sits beside you and puts a blanket around the two of you that he pulled from his backpack, and you don’t even feel any shame as you scoot closer to him, his body heat too tempting. “I stopped by after a mission because it’s the only time I could see the lunar eclipse,” you explain. “I didn’t bother checking the weather and before I knew it, the storm came and this was the only place I could go to for shelter.”

“You do realize you’re a time traveler, right?” Seokjin teases you, smiling as he takes the granola bar that you offer to him. “You could just look up all of the dates that Yoon has had a quintuple lunar eclipse and choose one to go to.”

“No unauthorized time traveling, remember?” you point out, wondering just how long it’s actually been since Seokjin graduated for him to already be forgetting the academy’s most basic rules. “They put trackers on our ships.”

“Oh yeah, I forgot about that,” he muses before crumpling up the wrapper in his hands and tossing it aside. “Guess that’s what happens when you become a time rogue and all-”

“Wait a second,” you interrupt him. Did he really just say what you think he said? “Did you just say that you’re a time rogue?”

He blinks at you slowly as if waiting for you to start laughing and tell him that you were joking. Instead, you stare directly back at him, the expression on your face still the same as you wait for him to tell you that he’s joking. That he wasn’t serious about being a wanted criminal because he’s broken at least one of the Universal Laws of Time and Space.

“Yes, that’s what I said,” he answers. “Since around the time you graduated from the academy, I think. Last I heard, they’ve still been sending out emails about me and the incorrect anonymous tips that they get about my last known locations.”

“I haven’t checked my email since I became a traveler,” you admit sheepishly. “I just report back after a mission and then wait for Captain Namjoon to give me a new assignment.”

“Captain Kim Namjoon?” Seokjin asks and you look at him out of the corner of your eye.

“...Yes, Captain Kim Namjoon. Why?”

“That bastard,” he mutters before chuckling to himself. When you look over at him, he’s staring out into the storm and even though he’s right next to you, his gaze looks very far away. “I always knew he was cut out to be a captain. Never believed me though.”

You don’t say anything, knowing that he’s not talking to you, simply content to just sit beside him and watch the storm outside rage on. He begins to hum and as your eyes begin to close, you wonder if it’s one of those songs he would sing at karaoke with his friends before you fall asleep.

While you’re fast asleep on his shoulder, Jin grants himself the luxury of staring at you. You look so relaxed, so open, nothing like you are when you’re awake. He wishes he could save you, whisk you off to some faraway galaxy in his time machine where no one would ever find you. But he knows that that’s too good to be true. He knows your fate, has seen it with his own eyes, and he can’t mess with time, no matter how much he wants to. So he’ll give himself these few hours of your company while he waits for the storm to pass, let himself savor your presence before the guilt takes over. He just hopes that you can find it within yourself to forgive him for leaving you once more.

iii. orbiting around star bt21 in the vantae galaxy, year unknown

You grimace as you swallow the caffeine pill, hoping that it’ll kick in soon otherwise you’ll be falling asleep during this upcoming meeting. You mentally curse Namjoon for forcing you to fly all the way out to Planet Mang on one of your rare days off, wanting nothing more than to just turn around and fly back home so you can crawl back into bed. But no, you “have a job to do” and if you don’t go, you’ll “make the Space Academy look bad”. Whatever that means. You’re just one out of the five time travelers going to represent Earth, you don’t think it would be that bad if you didn’t show up. Namjoon didn’t like it when you brought this up though and threatened to bench you for the few upcoming missions, so you shut your mouth very quickly after that.

As you’re passing through Vantae Galaxy, you spot a familiar floating metal booth orbiting around the BT21 star. Now that you know that Seokjin’s a time rogue, you figure that he’s just been traveling all of time and space to see whatever sites he’d like to see but you didn’t take him for an average tourist. Everyone who’s anyone from the Space Academy knows that the popular star isn’t really worth the travel time that it takes to get there. But upon closer inspection, you see that it looks like the time machine isn’t even… on. As this discovery processes in your brain, you watch it float through space for a brief second before immediately jumping into action, grabbing your helmet and getting your ship as close as you can to Seokjin’s noraebang.

Clinging on to the outside of your ship, you slowly make your way towards the door, hooking your ship up to Seokjin’s so that it doesn’t float away. You open the doors and place a foot on to the threshold, the machine’s artificial gravity taking effect as you step inside. You’re immediately hit by the cold that seems to have taken over the entire main control room, frost covering every surface and icicles even hanging from the ceiling. The entire machine seems to have powered down and you’re about to call out Seokjin’s name when you hear a thump from the other side of the circular control panel. You approach hesitantly, nervous for what you might find on the other side, but let out a breath of relief when you see that it’s just Seokjin.

But then you immediately begin to panic when you see that the thump was from him slumping over on to the floor. Running over to him, you frantically begin to shake him awake, hugging his body close to yours to give him some semblance of heat. “Jin,” you call out loudly as his head lolls on to your shoulder. “Seokjin, wake up!”

When nothing seems to be working, you heave him up with a grunt, tossing one of his arms over your shoulder before lugging him over to the doors. But as you pull on the handle, it doesn’t budge. You inspect the hinges and the edges for any ice or frost but find none. You pull on the door a couple of more times, panic beginning to rise as it resists. You set Seokjin down, leaning him against the wall, and take a deep breath. You look at your surroundings and then back at the man below you, hoping that some sort of idea will come to you. But nothing does.

You walk over to the control panel and begin looking over every button, hoping that maybe there’s just an “ON” button that you haven’t seen. As you’re desperately scanning the control panel for any sort of answer, you can’t help but think back to a conversation you had with Seokjin regarding his noraebang. He had been rambling on about some crystal that he found in the crust of one of Jupiter’s moons when he caught you leaning against the control panel.

“Don’t lean against that!” he exclaimed, rushing over to shoo you away. “Jeongguk is sensitive, he doesn’t like when people do that.”

You spun in a circle after he said, looking around for this Jeongguk that he mentioned. Perhaps it was that person (or that Flerken, you should say) that you saw the first time Jin showed you his time machine? But you found yourselves completely alone. “Who’s Jeongguk?” you asked, knowing that he wouldn’t give you any sort of explanation unless you did.

“My noraebang,” he said as if it was obvious. “I named him Jeongguk. Does your ship not have a name?”

Is he being serious right now? you asked yourself as you stared at him and with the way that he went back to casually cleaning, you could only assume that he was. “No because it’s a machine, not a living thing.”

Jin gasped at that, pressing a hand up to the wide glass column that the circular control panel surrounds. “How dare you say that!” he said, eyes accusatory as he glared at you. He rubbed his hand along the glass, as if comforting the time machine as he cooed, “Don’t worry, Jeonggukkie, she’s just in a bad mood today is all. Of course she knows you’re alive.”

I’m friends with a crazy person.

Looking back on it even now, you still don’t believe that Seokjin’s time machine is “alive” like he said it is. But you’re desperate and Jin is starting to look paler by the minute so-

“Jeongguk please,” you whisper, your hand pressed against the glass as you stare at it. You don’t know what you expect to see and even if the time machine is alive, you don’t even know where its eyes could possibly be. “Please wake up.”

You look around but nothing seems to change. You run over to Jin and hold a finger up under his nose, your heart beginning to race when you feel his breaths become shallower and spaced out even more. “Jeongguk, wake up!” you yell out, your voice echoing around the large space. “Seokjin’s in trouble, please, you have to help him! I don’t know any of the controls, I don’t know how to do anything. So please you have to wake up, you have to save him!”

Nothing.

Sinking down to the floor, you feel tears prick at your eyes as you pull Jin closer to you. You shrug off your jacket and wrap it around him, the harsh cold immediately hitting you and causing you to shiver. Jin’s eyes open just the tiniest bit, his voice soft as he whispers, “(Y/N)? What are you doing?”

You just shake your head and wrap your arms around him, closing your eyes as you pray for some sort of miracle. All of a sudden, you hear a soft whirring sound and when you pick your head up, you see some lights on the control panel begin to flicker. With bated breath, you watch as the noraebang starts to come back to life and it feels like your soul leaves your body when you feel a blast of heat coming from the vent behind you. You quickly tug Seokjin off of the floor and carry him to the first bedroom that you find, tucking him in before finding a chair and a blanket for yourself.

As you hold one of Seokjin’s hands between yours, you suddenly remember the diplomatic meeting you were supposed to be at. To hell with them, you think. One of your friends almost died, you think Namjoon will find it in him to understand. Your eyes trace over every feature of his face as he sleeps, and you once again struggle to push down the fondness and relief that you feel as you watch him. You know that this probably isn’t a good idea, letting yourself indulge in him in the way that you are. But just this once; just this one time you’ll allow yourself this.

You don’t remember falling asleep at Jin’s bedside but when you wake up, you find yourself seated in your ship. You wrack your brain but the memories of what just happened are a bit fuzzy. Even the feeling of the biting cold against your skin is fading.

Was it all a dream?

iv. in a bar on planet earth in the year 3004

The alcohol burns your throat as you swallow but you welcome the feeling, the dark cloud that’s been following you around all day finally beginning to clear up (figuratively of course, not to be confused with the actual dark cloud that was following you on Planet Gwangju). Nothing seemed to be going right that day, absolutely nothing had gone in your favor, so rather than go home and sleep off the long day as you usually do, you decided to go to the one bar that seems to stay in business no matter what year it is. There’s a couple on stage singing along to an old song (ancient’s more like it, you think the DJ said it was from 2091) but you ignore their off-key yelling in favor of waving down the bartender.

“Another, please,” you say, not even looking in his direction as you scan your watch to pay for your drink.

“You know, there is such a thing as an open tab,” the bartender says wryly as he mixes your drink. “I know that it’s an ancient concept but it still works pretty well.”

You roll your eyes before finally making eye contact with Yoongi, the both of you smiling at each other the second your eyes meet. That’s the other thing that doesn’t change about this bar, it’s always had your same favorite AI bartender. He was a bit confused at first as to whether or not you were also an AI because apparently the first time he met you was in 2398 but when you became of age and found the place with your friends from the academy, it was 2192 and you looked a lot younger than the first time. You explained to him that you were a time traveler so he must have met the future version of you and after a bit more explaining, he concluded that you were not in fact a fellow AI. So now whenever you come into the bar, always at the same time of night, Yoongi welcomes you with his classic small but fond smile, not even asking what you’d like to drink because he already knows.

“I have self-control, Yoon,” you scoff as you grab the drink that he places in front of you. “I don’t have an open tab because I don’t need one. I’m going to stop drinking soon.”

“Yeah well that frown on your face and faraway look in your eyes tells me otherwise,” Yoongi points out. Before you can respond though, another person calls him over and he walks away without a word.

“I don’t have a frown on my face,” you mutter to yourself before looking up at the mirror placed behind all of the alcohol bottles at the bar only to find that you do indeed have a frown on your face.

You sigh as you look away, eyes roaming over the people seated as well as on the dance floor, and you can’t help but feel a bit disgusted at the fact that the majority of them are couples. Usually you don’t even pay attention to that kind thing but you know exactly why you are right now. It’s the same reason you’ve been sad this entire week, the same reason you’ve started to question the Space Academy, the same reason your heart beats faster and butterflies appear in your stomach: Kim Seokjin. Since you saved him in the Vantae Galaxy about two months ago (which you now know to be real because you can’t find that jacket anywhere so it must be in his noraebang), you haven’t seen nor heard from him. No “thank you for saving my life”, no “hey sorry for leaving you literally every single time we meet”, not even a “who are you, have we met before?” You’d rather take a clueless, younger Seokjin than absolute radio silence.

Out of the corner of your eye, you see two large figures approaching you and heave out another sigh. You’re in no mood to be hit on or even threatened right now so you reach for the knife hidden in your jacket, but just as your hand touches the handle, an arm wraps around your waist and an annoyingly familiar voice exclaims quite loudly, “There you are, sweetheart. I’ve been looking everywhere for you!”

You look up and who do you see but none other than Jin in the flesh. His ears are bright red to match the color on his neck, and he takes no notice in you staring at his drunken figure as he glares at the two men while they hastily retreat. “Okay they’re gone,” you mutter when you see no sign of them, your voice a bit venomous as you push him away from you. “You can stop touching me now.”

There’s a look of vague surprise on his face when you push him away followed by resignation but it’s quickly followed up by a warm smile. You don’t know how he does it. “It’s great to see you, (Y/N)! How long has it been? Do you have your journal on-”

“Vantae Galaxy at the BT21 star,” you interrupt him to answer his unasked question. You don’t even need your journal anymore. You know your timeline to a T now; every single encounter with Seokjin, down to the planet and the year. “That’s the last time I saw you.”

His eyes widen at that and you pretend not to be hurt when he schools his features back to his happy-go-lucky personality. “Ah yes! The BT21 star, a marvelous star really. A bit tourist-y but you know, it wouldn’t be a popular tourist attraction if it wasn’t good.”

You only nod at his words, downing half of your drink to get rid of the bitter taste in your mouth. You make eye contact with Yoongi across the bar and you watch as he slightly tilts his head in Jin’s direction, and you silently laugh before subtly shaking your head. It’s nice of him to offer to save you, and part of you wants to take the offer, but you don’t need it. Not yet anyways.

“So,” you say to break the awkward silence, and you almost laugh at the way Jin jumps slightly in his seat, as if he wasn’t expecting you to talk to him. If you were him, you’d be surprised too with how coldly you’re treating him. “Why are you here?”

You order more drinks for the two of you as he tells you some story about a haunted dollhouse, an adopted alien orphan, demon dolls, and unknowing human parents. The alcohol seems to make him more animated and a lot louder as he talks, but the warm feeling that you get remains in your stomach as all of your anger slowly dissipates. You can’t find it in yourself to stay mad at him at this moment. His eyes are shining, his laughter is infectious, and he’s looking at you like you’re the only person in the room. You don’t even notice when he stops talking but you definitely do notice when he rushes forward and kisses you right on the mouth.

His lips are soft, a bit chapped, but you welcome the feeling; well as much as you can when you’re frozen in shock. He pulls away when you don’t kiss him back, his eyes as big as saucers while his mouth opens and closes like a fish out of water. “I- I’m so sorry, oh my god- I don’t know what- oh shit-” he stammers out but you’re barely listening as you bring your fingers up to your lips because you know that the tingling you feel in them is definitely not from the alcohol.

You look up and Seokjin is still stuttering out apologies, his entire upper torso (from what you can see of it) red from both intoxication and embarrassment at what he just did. He’s so absorbed in trying to apologize that he doesn’t even notice you lean towards him until you’re practically nose to nose. He breathes out a, “What-”

And then you kiss him right on the mouth. You place a hand on his chest as you kiss him and he raises up two shaking hands to gently cup your face, and you smile against his lips when you hear him take a shuddering inhale through his nose. His hands slide down your neck, across your shoulders, to your back and you feel yourself practically melt when he pulls your body closer to his. Your hand fists at the fabric of his shirt and you’re about to step closer to him when he pulls away. Seokjin’s pupils are blown wide and he’s panting as he stares down at you like you just showed him all of the secrets of the universe.

“I- We-We’re in public, we shouldn’t-” he stutters out breathily, looking around as if to make sure no one is staring. Not that you could find it in yourself to care right now with the combination of adrenaline and alcohol running through your veins.

“This one’s on the house if the two of you leave after,” Yoongi mutters as he slides two more shots to you. “Can’t have you disgusting lovebirds ruining my bar like this.” Yoongi’s voice sounds disgusted but you can see the amusement in his eyes as he hands you an opportunity on a silver platter.

You throw the shot back and look at Jin who’s still looking at you like you’re a completely different person. “I know exactly where we can go,” you say with a wide smile. You lean closer and smirk at the man in front of you. “For some privacy, that is.”

Seokjin throws the shot back. “Lead the way.”

You’re not sure what exactly it is that wakes you up—the sunlight coming in through the crack in the curtains, your sore body, or the draft entering your cocoon of blankets—but you know that the pounding headache you’re experiencing definitely has something to do with it. You hear the clanking of metal and turn your head, eyes closing once more when you see that it’s just Seokjin putting his pants on.

Wait-

Your eyes fly open and you pick your head up when you realize that Seokjin is putting his clothes on in your hotel room. Every muscle and bone in your body protests as you slowly sit up and you see Jin’s movement stop when he notices that you’re awake. Your gaze meets his and you feel your stomach drop because the look in his eyes is so unfamiliar to you, you can’t gage what he’s feeling at all. You look at his wrinkled shirt, the pants that are only half on, and his bedhead as the events from last night slowly start coming back to you.

“I know exactly where we can go for some privacy.”

Oh shit.

“Good morning,” he finally greets you as he slowly pulls his pants up over his thighs. “I didn’t think you were awake. Did you sleep well?”

“Where are you going?” you ask, completely ignoring everything he just said. You know exactly what’s about to happen and you wish you didn’t because then maybe you wouldn’t have to be fighting the urge to cry right now.

“Oh uh, I have an important meeting to get to that I forgot about,” Seokjin answers. His voice is a bit higher and wavers a bit at the end and you wish he would just tell you the truth for once.

“You’re leaving, aren’t you,” you say, more of a statement than a question. And he knows exactly what you mean because he doesn’t answer, only continues to fiddle with the buttons on his sleeve. “I’m not letting you leave me behind again, Seokjin.”

He freezes at that and when he looks up at you, you feel your heart crack right down the middle because of how guilty he looks. “(Y/N)-”

“I know you feel it too,” you plead. Your voice sounds so desperate but it’s because you are. You’ll do anything to try to get him to stay. Just this once. “I’ve never felt this for anyone else the way that I feel about you, Jin. So why are you running away?”

He slowly begins to back away and you jump out of bed with the blanket held tightly to your chest. “(Y/N), please, don’t make this harder for me than it needs to be,” he requests, his voice pained though his eyes never leave you.

“It doesn’t have to be hard at all!” you argue, unable to keep your voice at a normal volume as you feel yourself growing more and more frustrated and more and more desperate. “Just stay. Here. With me. Why do you insist on leaving me?”

Jin grimaces at your question as he reaches behind him and slowly turns the door handle. “I guess it’s just what I do. Spoilers,” he shrugs and the way he just casually says that makes you want to throw up blood.

The door shuts behind him and you’re left standing in the middle of your hotel room. There are tears in your eyes, your head is pounding, and there’s only a thin blanket covering your naked body but you still run towards the door and throw it open. “Jin!” you yell out, but when you look down both sides of the hallway, he’s nowhere to be found.

v. koya prison in the year RJ-17

Thirty minutes have gone by and you’re still clueless as to what the hell is going on around you. The prison guards don’t even try to understand what you’re saying, all of the other inmates are either fighting or laughing with each other, and the guy that was taken in for questioning has been gone for fifteen of those minutes. In hindsight, it probably wasn’t the best idea to help out a bunch of vigilantes but what can you say? You root for the underdog. You walk over to one of the guys that was leading the group, kicking his leg and disturbing him of the nap he seemed to think was an excellent idea to be taking right now.

“Hey, what the fuck’s going on?” you ask harshly, frustrated at the fact that you literally couldn’t understand the language of the majority of the people around you. You pride yourself on knowing a number of languages known across multiple galaxies, but of course you happen to land in a prison where none of that matters. This usually wouldn’t be a problem if you were wearing your watch, which is able to translate what others say to you and vice versa, but of course, they confiscated that as soon as you were admitted.

“My buddy’s in there getting interrogated right now,” he answers gruffly while rubbing the sleep out of his eyes. “But don’t worry, he knows what to do. We’ve trained for situations like this, he’ll get us out. Nobody’s getting executed today.”

“Executed?” you shriek, causing some people to turn around and look over at you. You smile weakly at them before crouching down so that you’re face-to-face with the guy, and you’re sure that the panic that you’re feeling right now is very evident. “Nobody said anything about getting executed.”

He gives you a look of disdain, and if you weren’t in such a tight spot, you’d probably feel offended. Part of you still does. “We led a failed revolution to overthrow a government, what did you think was going to happen? They’d keep us here for the night and then give us a slap on the wrist before letting us go?”

Before you can even begin to think of a response, the man who was being interrogated is returned to the cell and says something to everybody that causes them to cheer. They all begin to gather towards the door and you follow suit, assuming that this means that their plan worked and you’re all free to go. But when he sees you making your way with the rest of them, he roughly pushes you back with a shake of his head.

“What are you doing?” you demand as you try to get around him, but he just continues to block your path. “Stop playing around, let’s leave.”

He says something to the other guy that you don’t understand and watch as they slowly begin to leave, their eyes never leaving you. “So he managed to negotiate with the warden like I said. But the only way we’re allowed to go free is if you stay and get executed in our place, Holy Leader.”

“‘Holy Leader’?” you repeat. “What the fuck are you talking about? We did not agree on this, you guys are the ones who came up with this whole thing, I just offered to help!” You run forward to stop them but before you could even try to pull them back inside, they slam the cell door shut right in front of your face.

The actual leader just smirks at you, the prison guards none the wiser as to what’s going on. “While I’d love to help, I’d love to see my family even more. Rest in peace.”

You shake the bars of the cell door as they walk away, yelling and cursing at them until they’ve turned the corner at the end of the hallway. Panic rises in your chest and everything you’ve ever learned is suddenly gone from your head. You have absolutely no idea what to do. Nobody knows that you’re there, you have no means of escape, and not a single person in this entire prison understands you when you speak.

I don’t think I’ll be able to get out of this.

The door opens and two prison guards make their way into the cell, grabbing you under your arms and dragging you out into the hallway. “Where are you taking me?” you shriek as you try to fight them off. You wriggle around in their grip but it’s no use, they’re too strong. “Where are you taking me? Please, you’ve got the wrong person! I didn’t know, please! Contact the Space Academy, ask for Captain Kim Namjoon, he’ll explain everything! Let me go!”

There are tears streaming down your face as you continue to struggle but you know that it’s no use. This is the end for you. You let your head hang as you finally give up, letting the guards drag your practically lifeless body through the halls towards wherever it is that they’re taking you. Sunlight comes in through the windows and when you look out, you see a stage out in a courtyard, a singular chair in the center of it. Even from here you can see the dried blood on it, and you struggle to keep yourself from throwing up.

Suddenly, you hear a familiar laugh and you don’t think you’ve been more relieved or happy to hear his laugh than in this moment. You look up and see Seokjin walking along with the prison warden, a wide smile on his face as he converses with her. “Jin!” you call out and immediately his eyes meet yours. “Seokjin! Help me! Tell them it’s all a big misunderstanding!”

His head tilts to the side a bit as he looks at you in confusion, and when he comes closer to you, you don’t see even the tiniest bit of recognition in his eyes. “I’m sorry, but how do you know my name?” he asks, and the feeling of horror that consumes you is overwhelming. “I don’t think we’ve ever met before.”

The warden ushers Jin ahead, saying, “Don’t waste your time talking to the prisoners, Mr. Kim, especially this one. She is to be executed today for leading a revolution against the Cree.”

You can’t even bring yourself to say anything more, exhaustion taking over your entire body at the revelation that there is truly no way out. Because of course, out of all times for Seokjin to not know who you are, out of all times in the past month that you wished he didn’t know you ever since he left you, this is the one time you need him the most. The guards drag you through the courtyard and secure you to the chair, the stench of blood and other bodily fluids making you almost gag. The stands begin to fill and you watch in horror as right in front of you, the warden escorts Seokjin into her private booth. His eyes are unfamiliar as he looks down at you and any feeling that you have left leaves your body.

You close your eyes and await your fate, not sure how long you would have to wait for the show to start. You pray to all of the gods and deities across the cosmos that they watch over your family, that Captain Namjoon isn’t too mad at you for getting yourself executed, and that wherever Seokjin is—your Jin—he’s safe. The warden’s voice bellows out across the courtyard as she announces something that you don’t understand, the whoops and hollers of the audience that follows almost deafening. Heavy footsteps approach you but you keep your eyes shut; the panic that’s bubbling up will only get worse if you meet your death head on.

The courtyard goes silent and a single tear escapes as you hold your breath in anticipation, but a loud bang startles it right out of you. When you open your eyes, there’s smoke everywhere and absolute chaos as fires rage around you. There’s yelling and a stampede of footsteps as everyone scatters, completely ignoring you in your helpless state as you struggle to release yourself of the cuffs that hold you down. A hand reaches out and you try your best to move away from them, thinking that it must be the executioner still trying to do their job.

But even amongst the frenzied crowd with their yelling and the gunshots that you can hear all around you, there’s a voice that’s bright as day, one that you would recognize no matter what: “It’s just me, sweetheart. I’m here.”

You turn your head to find Jin frantically working at the cuffs around your wrist, too concentrated on freeing you that he doesn’t even notice you staring. This isn’t the Seokjin that you saw up in the stands. No, this is Jin, your Jin, the man you thought you would never see again, the man you would gladly let shatter your heart into pieces if it meant you got to spend one more day with him. He’s there, at your side, to rescue you.

“Wh-What are you doing here?” you breathe out, too overwhelmed by everything that’s going on around you to speak up. “How are you-”

“I’m tired of leaving you behind,” he answers, not even looking at you as he finally frees your wrists and begins to work on the cuffs around your ankles. “The first time I met you, I watched you die right in front of me. And I had to live with that, knowing your fate every time I met you after.”

Jin pulls you up out of the chair and pulls you close to him, both of his hands taking yours as he looks into your eyes. “I couldn’t just let the girl that I fell in love with die. Maybe that’s selfish of me, but I’m tired of running away. The only running I want to do is with you.”

At that, you feel yourself begin to float off the ground, and you let out a startled laugh when you see that the two of you are in fact rising up. Jin points above you with a grin and you look up to see his noraebang with a gravitation beam pointed at the two of you. Nobody notices as the two of you escape and above all of the fire and smoke, you see soldiers and prisoners alike fighting off the prison guards.

“Who are all of these people?” you ask, not recognizing the armor that they wear or the emblems that they display.

“I called in a few friends, cashed in some favors,” he shrugs and although his words sound nonchalant, the smile on his face is as bright as the sun itself. “Had to get the very best if I was going to save you.”

As you get closer and closer to the noraebang, you hear Jin’s voice from down below, and you see the Seokjin that was up on the stands with the warden fighting off the soldiers, shirt torn and blood streaked across his face as he escorts people to safety. And it’s only then that you realize the gravity of the situation.

“Wait,” you say while placing a hand on his chest. “Jin, you can’t do this. You just- You changed my timeline, you came back to the past to rescue me. That breaks like every single time rule that exists in every galaxy. Everyone will be after us. Time itself will be after us. We can’t run away from time.”

Jin’s eyes look determined as he looks at you, one hand grabbing hold of the door to his time machine to pull himself up. “We’re time travelers,” he laughs as he pulls you in with him. “Isn’t that what we do?”

vi. flying through outer space, galaxy and year unknown

“I’m starting to believe that you being at the top of your class was a lie,” Jin snickers as he looks through your journal. “Are you still not understanding it?”

“Well when you use words like ‘time-y wime-y’, it’s a bit hard,” you grind out, trying to recall what meeting with Seokjin in your past could have triggered your alternate timeline.

After escaping from Koya Prison, the first thing on your agenda before traversing the cosmos while simultaneously running from every single authority out there is to ensure that your alternate timeline happens. Jin had explained that your future version of himself (or the current version of himself as he clarified but which only made you even more frustrated as you tried to understand) had to have come back to your past in order to steer you in the right direction. You think back to every instance you’ve seen him and any moment that stood out to you.

Your eyes widen when you realize and you grab your journal and Jin’s to compare them, letting out a noise of disbelief when you see one entry in yours that you don’t see in his. The one event that no version of him has ever remembered no matter how much you try to get him to recall it.

“No wonder,” you mutter before rushing over and putting in the date and coordinates of the exact location.

“‘Planet Busan’?” he reads, eyebrows furrowed as he watches you set all of the controls. “What the hell is on Planet Busan?”

The noraebang shakes around a bit as you travel through the wormhole, and the two of you stumble a bit as it lands on solid ground. You tap one of the screens to check that it’s the correct location and chuckle to yourself when you see your past self making your way through the crowd that gathered around. You push Jin towards the door with your journal and are just about to open it when he stops you.

“What, no plan?” he asks, thoroughly confused as to what could be going on inside your head. “You’re just going to throw me outside without telling me what’s going on?”

“Just trust me,” you say as you shake your head. There’s still a skeptical look on his face but you feel his shoulders deflate a bit. “Just go out there and be your usual charming self.”

You push him out the door and watch as everyone gasps when he emerges, a fond smile appearing on your face when you watch him approach you with a “Stunned to see me, sweetheart?” You walk away while he converses with the past version of yourself, looking at all of the screens to make sure that you weren’t followed by anyone. Jin’s voice gets louder and you realize that he’s bringing you inside so you dart into the other room, careful to make sure that you’re not spotted by your past self. You follow along to ensure that it’s all happening the way that you remember, part of you a bit nostalgic at seeing your younger self. You miscalculate the timing at one point and dart behind yourself, practically throwing your body into another room so as not to be seen, causing you to bump into a shelf and drop one of Jin’s many souvenirs.

“Shit!” you hiss, hand slapping over your mouth after from how loud you were.

“Oh that’s just my Flerken, that darned thing! I don’t know where she learned those bad words from. Anyways, that’s the end of the tour!” You hear Jin laugh nervously as he escorts you back to the main control room and you let out a breath that you didn’t even realize you were holding.

The alarm begins to sound and you rush back, entering the control room just as your past self exits. “A little too close for comfort, don’t you think?” Jin teases you as his hands fly over the controls. “We’ve got bigger problems though so I think that’s our cue to leave.”

He turns to you with a mischievous grin on his face, finger poised over a button as he asks, “So where to first?”

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subjectsix · 3 years

Note

You've got any personality/relationship headcanons for the lads: Dylan, Arish, Langston and Ahti? Like how they interact with people or each other? (Sorry if this was confusing ask!)

ah, yes!! thank you for asking ;o; figuring out people’s general dynamics are some of my fave things tbh

this got very long so I’ll stick it under a readmore kjsdhfkjsdhf

Some Control Character Dynamics/Headcanons

Arish

- extremely calming/feel good vibes. i feel like hanging out with arish is enough to make your whole day, you know?

- strikes me as the type to always be available to talk to if you need anything, and is a pretty good judge of what you need (if you just wanna sit in silence together, need a listening ear, need to discuss something, or want a distraction)

- problem: tends to ignore his own issues and bad at asking help with them, will pretend everything’s fine if someone asks

- somehow equal parts very smooth and very dorky?

- not a fan of drama and gossip because its too much of a headache but ALSO he wants to know literally everything that’s going on, you know? like. he doesn’t want to cause drama or be involved but he loves knowing what’s going on. Totally Just For Security Reasons.

- if you’re close to him (and he knows you’re okay with it) his main love language is teasing people aksdjfhskjdfh just like, giving you friendly crap. it was especially like this with the old ranger squad

- lies very well in games (and probably cheats at cards) but CANNOT lie to friends. just like, entirely incapable of that. wouldn’t want to do that anyway. if you can tell he’s not having a good day and ask him about it outright he will not be able to hide it anymore

- generally just super nice and sweet to everyone-- even if he doesn’t super know or like someone he’s still super kind (unless you’re like, purposefully a jerk). at the same time he doesn’t see himself as any kind of like, a big deal or anything? like. he’s way more interested in other people and is surprised when people take an interest in him

- mom friend. have you eaten today? did u drink water? does everyone have an uber home? etc.

- one of the first people to befriend Dylan. they get along like a house on fire.

Dylan

- extremely defensive/snarky toward new people. especially bureau employees. sometimes on purpose, sometimes just because it’s learned behavior.

- is actually a very soft and sensitive person, he’s just built up many walls and defensives over the years to try and protect himself. some of his defensive measures have basically become offense at this point

- not always a great judge about what’s too far in terms of mean/rude things and sarcasm. not great at handling it when he does go to far, usually just panics and leaves

- also not great at saying what he means directly when it comes to emotions. will instead try and show you through his actions or gifts. pretty used to hiding his emotions bc he didnt want them known when he was a prisoner but now he’s adjusting and getting used to it again.

- however, VERY blunt person when he wants to be. it’s a coin flip whether you’ll get a very cryptic answer from him or an absolutely direct answer with zero sugar coating. if he doesnt like you he will make it clear.

- that said, he really wants (and needs) some friends, and the friends he does have he is super protective of.

- touch starved. melts into hugs from his close friends. learning how to ask for them more bc he loves them and needs them (also they’re easier than words)

- if u snark with him he’ll take a tentative liking to you. he appreciates it when people just like. treat him like a person (the bar is so low). like, instead of being scared of him, being on the offense towards him, or trying to overcompensate and act like youre walking on eggshells, just. treat him like another average dude. he appreciates that a lot.

- also if you’re nice to him it will confuse him, but in a good way. he’s gonna think about it for weeks. once he realizes you’re genuinely just. being nice to him and have no other motive he will carefully let his walls down just a little. just a little bit.

- will give his friends random gifts, but they’re always very... him? expect to receive random snacks and rocks from him with little fanfare or explanation (but a lot of love)

- also likes sitting close to friends so that their arms touch when hes in the mood for it (again, touch starved)

- he’s just so weird. just says whatever comes to mind. weird 10 year old kid energy but now he’s 27 and has all the extra added bonus of his experience in the bureau and the hiss. absolutely adore him for it. he deserves to be cryptic and chaotic.

- very close with arish. doesnt see ahti often but likes him a lot. likes to tease langston-- jury is out about whether that’s genuine friendship or just dylan being a twit.

Langston

- this man is extremely sweet but he is equal parts brutally honest and Very Long Rambler; he loves to info dump, please let him aksjdhfkjsdhf

- very passionate about many things!!! loves to share his opinions but likes to hear other people’s points of view as well

- sometimes when he catches himself rambling he will apologize and back pedal out of that

- really scatterbrained, usually because he gets extremely invested in one topic in his head, and other things just slip his mind. that said, he’s very thorough and thinks things through very carefully and will often think of an approach or angle nobody else did

- besides being into poetry and music, he’s a very big reader and loves discussing books with people and getting new recommendations. if you tell him about a book he’ll probably buy it, read it, and tell you what he thought about it within a day or two.

- makes jokes when he’s nervous, constantly

- is equal parts confident and not at all? he knows his own strengths and he’s solid in them and plays to them a lot

- talks to himself a lot. used to write notes on his hand as reminders but then he’d smudge ink all over things and himself on accident so he carries a pocketbook with him now for that. has a really good understanding of the House and seems to always know where he’s going, even if there’s been a house shift.

- gets along really well with arish even tho they don’t see each other often! really appreciates him. also doesn’t see ahti much, but ahti likes him.

Ahti

- everyone’s favorite grandpa/janitor/uncle/coworker

- sometimes will just call people over to talk to them. sometimes, even if he doesn’t seem to be making much sense, you’ll understand exactly what he means

- is absolutely a jokester. very smug about it. will pull harmless pranks or jokes on people sometimes. most people don’t even realize it’s him.

- likes to eavesdrop on people. none of it is malicious! but gosh dang is it easy to overhear gossip when you have on headphones, do janitor work, and most people forget you’re there

- just seems to Know people-- talking to him always feels very revealing, but in a good way. in the same way though, talking to him can be very confusing, because he tends to just speak his mind

- if you come sit with him when he’s at lunch he will tell you stories!!!

- if you’re a slacker or rude he might scold you for it. he doesnt tolerate stuff like that.

- will also just talk to you even if you have no idea what’s going on? like he might rant and complain about the clog, or northmoor, or anything, peppered with random knowledge and finnish and english in equal parts, and it might not make any sense, he’s just happy to have someone to talk to.

- always happy when people care for the plants in the house

- appreciates all three of these guys, a lot, for various reasons

not confusing at all, anon!!! thank you again!!! ;u;

#there are probably more but i cannot think of any at the moment aksdjhfajdhf #control 2019 #simon arish #frederick langston #ahti #dylan faden #anon #control headcanons #kip control headcanons

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theyreonlynoodlesmike · 4 years

Note

Could you write about the boys (separately) reading with S/O. Do they prefer reading or being read to? What is their go to book? What is their favourite part of that book? Do they prefer books from their pasts or more modern books? If they don't like reading, do they bother S/O while they're reading? How?

OH I LOVE THIS ASK. Thank you so much for asking this and I hope you enjoy

The Lost Boys x Reading with their S/O

David

This boy isn’t the biggest reader of the four, but he still reads a decent amount. The boys had seen the development of the “moving picture”, but silent movies were still the only movies available until the 1920s. So, reading was still a big part of their early lives, even when things started to go on screen

David prefers to read, but he doesn’t mind being read to. He just likes to have control, and he likes to dictate how fast you end up going through the book. This way, he also gets to choose when you two stop, and, more often than not, he’ll read you a book that he’s already read. Books that he hasn’t read he’ll read by himself, and he’ll offer to read them to you if he liked them. He likes to have you lay your head on his chest as he reads to you, and he’ll run his fingers through your hair as his eyes scan the page. He knows he has a nice voice, and he definitely uses it to his advantage during these times. If you’re the one that’s reading, he’ll only half-listen. He’ll have you lay against his chest as you hold the book in front of you, sitting up against the cave wall. He’d rather use this time to run his fingers through your hair and kiss your neck, only purposely distracting you just a little bit.

David likes horror books, almost as much as he likes horror movies. His go-to book is Frankenstein by Mary Shelley, only because he’s read it so many times. He likes how descriptive it is, and how the monster is portrayed in the book (He hated the movie so much he almost wanted to burn down the theater he saw it in). He relates far too much to the monsters disdain for his creator, and draws far too many parallels between Frankenstein and his monster with his relationship with Max. His favorite part is when the monster tells of how he’s lived before he confronted Frankenstein, and it reminds him of the life he had before Max had found him and his boys.

The only way he cannot relate to Frankenstein’s monster is with the loneliness the monster feels. David has always had his brothers, and, now, you. Though, he sees you as similar to the mate that Frankenstein’s monster had always dreamed of, and he smiles when he tells you that once after reading the book to you. You��d given his chest a small hit, reminding him that both the monster and his desired mate were supposed to be hideous. He’d smirked, and pressed a kiss to the top of your head. “We’re not exactly gorgeous when we wear our true faces, sweetheart.” He’d reminded you, and you’d rolled your eyes.

David likes gothic horror, but he’s a bit of a slut for Stephen King. King started releasing his books in the seventies, and David was just happy that more horror books were being written. He hadn’t expected to become such a fan, and he has a small collection of both his books and the movie adaptations. Though, he has varying opinions on all of them

Dwayne

This boy READS. He’s the most well-read of the boys, and, even as movies became more popular over the last century, he still reads more than anything. He’s had to see and sit through various movies because of the other boys, but Dwayne genuine prefers books. He’d rather spend two hours at the cave in his imagination as he scans the pages of whatever book he nabbed from the library than go to whatever movie the others picked. Movies are cool, but he didn’t really start paying attention to them until they were in color

Dwayne has so many books it’s a little insane. They’re stacked around the cave, and the other boys, if they want to read, never really have to go to the library or a store to find a new book to read. All they have to do is pick one from Dwayne’s stacks, and promise that it’ll be returned to it’s proper place. Dwayne has started writing his name inside his copies so none of the other boys can claim that it was actually theirs. He frowns whenever he sees a dog-ear or a ripped page, and he always gives whoever was responsible a death glare

Dwayne has spent so much time reading to himself that he practically melts when you offer to read to him. He’s not much of a talker, so he’s far too willing to cuddle with you on the couch and let you read your latest book to him. After that, he definitely prefers to have you read to him. Sure, he’ll read to you from time to time. Usually, when it’s late at night and you’re far too tired to focus on the pages. But, he’d much rather hear your voice make the authors work come to life. It’s a bit of a coin toss as to who will be read to, because you like to hear his voice as much as he likes to hear yours. Eventually, the two of you decide to take turns

His go-to book is a book that infuriates him. It’s The Trial by Franz Kafka, and the first time he read it he laid face down for nearly an hour. The others had asked him if he was okay, and he’d replied by giving them finger-guns. He proceeded to read the book over and over, trying to make sense of it because there had to be something he was missing. Something that explained the absurdness of the plot. His favorite part is the parable the priest gives him, and he once told it to Paul just to make him as confused as he had been the first time he read it. When you ask him for a book suggestion, he offers that one. A week later you throw your copy at him and yell at him for suggesting it. He laughs and catches it, as he knows exactly what you’re feeling. It’s a book he always suggests, mainly because, as far as he’s concerned, everyone should suffer reading it just as he had. The two of you will rant about it for hours

Dwayne will read anything. He’s not necessarily picky, and he’s read pretty much whatever book he could get his hands on. He can’t necessarily get a library card, so a lot of the books he has have to be found some other way. He doesn’t like to have to steal from the library, and prefers to either buy or steal a book from a bookstore on the boardwalk

Paul

Paul doesn’t read

The boy can’t sit still long enough to actually get into a book, and it wasn’t like movies weren’t already a thing. He quickly had a preference for them instead, though he finds it hard to sit through movies as they become longer and longer. Movies, specifically comedies, only used to be two reels long, which ran for about twenty minutes tops. As movies started hitting the hour and two hour marks, the other boys became accustomed to how much Paul would interrupt them

He will only tolerate books if you read them to him, but even then his attention isn’t guaranteed. He’ll spend the entire time kissing your neck and face, and he’ll try to tug any clothes that you’re wearing off your frame. Eventually, he’ll settle in bed next to you. It may take awhile, but Paul will finally lay down with his head on your chest and close his eyes as he listens to your voice. He’ll even lay still if you pet his hair, and he’ll nuzzle your chest if you begin scratching one of his sweet spots. Sometimes he’ll ask questions or make comments, just like he would if it was a movie. You’ll have to pause to answer them or respond, and there’s a chance he might use the distraction to start a conversation with you. If you’re really determined to keep on reading, he’ll sigh and roll his eyes as he lays his head back on your chest. There have been a few times where he’s fallen asleep, but he tells you it was purely out of boredom. Not because he was actually relaxed or something

Even if you’re reading by yourself, he stills spends a good chunk of time trying to get you to pay attention to him instead. Whether that’s just to talk to you or to get into your pants. He’ll walk around the cave, blasting his music and smoking a joint. When you give him a small glare for the loudness of the music, he’ll return his own bright smile. He’ll flop onto your bed in your nest, shaking the mattress. He’ll poke you and attempt to tickle you, before crawling up to kiss your cheek and neck. Then, before you can swat him away, he’ll flip to lay on his back and stare at you like a playful tomcat

If you tell him to stop, he’ll whine. “It’s not my fault!” He’ll sit up and prop his head up by his elbow. “C’mon, we’re already laying in bed. Why don’t we do something a little bit more...stimulating?” He’ll say with a suggestive lift of his eyebrows. He was using ‘big words’ on purpose, since he was convinced that since you like books that you must think those were sexy or something. You’ll roll your eyes, but he’s not nearly as willing to lay down and relax if you’re the only one hearing the story. He’ll rip the book right out of your hand, ignore your cry of “Hey!”, and will plant his lips on yours. There, that’s much more like it.

He genuinely doesn’t understand your interest in them, but he’ll support it anyways. He’ll knick books from bookstores for you and give them to you as gifts. He smiles whenever you thank him/like whatever he chose, and then tap his cheek for a ‘thank you’ kiss

Marko

Marko doesn’t read that much, but he’s not nearly as bad as Paul. He reads a few short novels here or there, but he was ecstatic when comics became a thing in 1933. He was quick to ditch novels in favor of whatever publication company had come up with that month. By the eighties, he has a collection that any comic book junkie would kill for, and even own a few ‘rare’ copies. He doesn’t let Paul, or either of the others, near them and god forbid the inclemate weather coming inside the cave ruins them

Because of his preference of comic books, neither of you can really read to eachother. Instead, you two will lay on the bed inside your nest, each with your own individual comic to page through. Marko chews on his thumb the entire time that he reads, and the two of you will pause to make comments about whatever you’re reading. Most of your reading material are comics that he’s lent you, and he only lets you touch them because he loves you. He swears that you’re the only one allowed to look through them, but he doesn’t go far enough as letting you take them with you

Due to his preference, he prefers new over old. He wholly believes that comic books have gotten better over time. With everything from the art style, the characters, and just the different writers that have come up over the years. He still reminisces about the golden and silver age, but modern is where it’s at! Of course, the bronze age only just ended in 1984

His favorite comic book series is Watchmen by Alan Moore. He watched the superhero genre grow and develop, so he loved when the writers decided to point out how flawed some of the caped crusaders could be. While also creating some pretty awesome ones of their own. He understands that they’re all caricatures of what’s wrong in society/people, and he lives for the symbolism. The characters, the plot, the dialogue? Marko loved everything about it, especially the ending. The giant squid monster? Epic. Marko geeked when it was revealed who the real villain was, and he wouldn’t stop ranting about it for hours

He’s really upset that the Frog brothers just happen to run the best comic book store on the boardwalk, and he has to be dragged away from the store each night. He still remembers when their parents ran it instead, and he’s been pissed about the “new management” ever since the kids were old enough to sweep floors and run the cash register. Marko may or may not be the reason they were tipped off about vampires, but he swears that it was an accident. He also swore that it wasn’t like they had any proof, so they didn’t need to kill the teens immediately (he just didn’t want the store to get shut down)

If you ever want to get him to read a regular novel, you’re gonna have to read it to him. He’ll take a page out of Pauls book and lay his head on your chest as you read, closing his eyes as he listens to your voice. He’ll actually keep his hands to himself, and will focus on just holding you tightly to him instead. He treasures these moments, especially because he just gets to listen to you for over an hour. When you decide to stop for the night, Marko will whine and beg you to keep going. You’ll giggle and promise to pick it up tomorrow, and he’ll sigh. He can be won over with kisses, and the two of you can have some regular cuddle time instead

#the lost boys #the lost boys dwayne #paul the lost boys #the lost boys david #The Lost Boys 1987 #the lost boys imagines #the lost boys x reader #dwayne the lost boys #the lost boys paul #david the lost boys #marko the lost boys #the lost boys marko

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wu-sisyphus-gang · 3 years

Text

Motion Sickness Chapter 92

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"Are you sure you won't come visit Blake in the hospital?" Ruby asked me.

"Nah. I'll leave up to your team. Might visit next time, sound fair?"

I took Adam Taurus's weapon. I added to my collection. It was in one corner next to Tyrian's wicked blades.

"I-um I guess," Ruby returned. "I really don't think she'd be bothered by it."

"But can you say that she'd be pleased by it?" I asked rhetorically.

"Well…" she hesitated. Her silver eyes flicked away from mine.

" Ahp , you had to think about it. Trust me. I'll just leave it to you girls for now. Next time. Mayhaps."

"What are you going to do around here?" Ruby asked. "If you're not coming with us, that is."

"I'm going to be with Oscar and Ozpin. Helping Winter Schnee get a handle on her new powers," I returned easily. "Don't worry. I won't get up to any trouble."

"Trouble has a way of finding you, Cloud." Ruby smiled at me good naturedly.

I laughed a little in a low chuckle. "Well if it finds me this time it won't be my fault."

"You don't get along with Winter very well," Weiss cut in.

"She actually doesn't get along with me. I do just fine with her."

"You escalate things with her," Weiss pointed out. "You don't ever try and get things to calm down. You try and rile her up. Stop it."

"Not my fault. She still wants to tango despite how bad it went for her the first time," I returned.

"Just try and not drive her crazy. She's the only real part of my family I get along with." I could sort of get that. I wanted to be on good terms with some of my family. Like my sisters. I wanted to be on good terms with them.

But Saphron… She wanted to fight me. She didn't want to try and resist Mother. She liked her servitude. That was unsettling. Was that all I had waiting for me? And my sisters had met my Mother face to face. The things Mother had done to me she'd done with half a world between us. I hadn't actually met her face to face like my sisters had.

It made me shudder. I had no idea what she could actually do to me in person. She'd been able to dominate my mind like it was nothing through that tentacled Grimm.

"I'll do what I can," I promised half-heartedly. "Give Blake my regards."

They walked out of my little Atlas Academy room with little waves goodbye. They were adorable, with Weiss pulling Ruby along by the hand.

I got up and put my sword on my back. I strode out of the tiny Academy place of stay and made my way to the training room. I found Winter inside already with Oscar leaning on his cane.

"Cloud, good of you to join us," Oscar said in a voice that made it unclear whether it was him or Ozpin talking. I stared at him long and hard for a moment. I desperately tried to decipher who I was talking to before eventually I gave up. It was probably impossible to tell at some points by the very nature of the way that they were becoming one.

I was merging in an odd way with my Mother but hey...At least I wasn't Oscar. He was really becoming one with the enormous alien mind. I could at a minimum divide myself between where I began and where my Mother ended. Oscar didn't have that. He just had a steady blurring of lines as he conjoined with the old wizard.

"It's no problem. Just not sure what light I can shed on the subject that you don't already know." I crossed my arms and stared at Oscar. I still wasn't sure who I was addressing.

"You've fought Cinder the most. You have more insights into her powers than anyone else. Some seasons tend to rhyme with one another. This summer with that other particular spring."

I supposed that made a certain amount of sense.

"Didn't you fight her too?" I asked.

"Yes, when she destroyed Ozpin's body, but her powers were only just settling in then. I fear that most of what she used was her semblance not her maiden powers."

"You know what her semblance is?" I wondered. That would be important information to have for those of us who were looking to kill her.

Like me.

"Pyrokinesis I suspect. But it's only a suspicion." He tapped his cane twice against the ground. His Hazel eyes glowed. "It blends rather well into the maiden powers, I suppose."

"What other powers does Cinder Fall possess?" Winter asked. She cut in for the first time. And it was the first time I'd seen her since she became the maiden. She didn't look or feel any different to my senses. She looked the same as ever, tall and in white.

Oscar stood in silence and seemed content for me to take the lead so I shrugged and answered, "she's got control over wind and lightning like you might with dust. And then she can fly, too. Hard to be sure which comes from which maiden part though. She could fly and control wind before she became spring. The lightning seemed new but it's impossible to tell."

"I understand. You believe my own powers will turn out similarly to Cinder's," Winter noted.

"Precisely," Oscar nodded. "We feel that seasons that take shape around the same time frame are a great deal like the others. This isn't always the case, however. Magic can take all forms. Cloud's powers are nothing like that of any maiden from recent memory."

"But I may have this power over the elements as well and flight," Winter interpreted. "Just like dust, then."

"Yes, why don't you give it a try now? Whatever feels most natural when you reach for the maiden powers," Oscar said.

Winter breathed in deeply and shut her eyes. When she opened them again there was a silvery flare to the sides of her eyes. The same color as her aura had been.

She stretched out a hand…

But nothing happened. Sort of anticlimactic.

"I am unsure where to start. I can feel my new powers but can't quite understand them."

"Why don't you try modifying your semblance. Casting a spell that normally requires dust to execute but just with the powers in hand and your semblance," I suggested. "It's pretty much what I do with my own magic."

Winter gave me an even look at my genuine helpfulness but she nodded. She extended a hand and an enormous glyph radiated to life behind her easily enough. Then lightning flared from it. It wasn't strong or very well directed. But there was a crackle of sparks across it that was vectorless.

Winter dropped panting. She'd been holding her breath as she did it.

"Oh and don't forget to breathe," I snarked. She managed a weak glare back up at me where I stood with my arms crossed.

"You know, Cloud ," she emphasized. "I hardly like you being around my little sister."

"Yeah well I hardly like being alive. We can't all get what we want," I bit back. "Why don't you try it again? With breathing this time, that's important."

She nodded and got back to her feet. She breathed deeply this attempt and her eyes flared with that magical sign of the maidens.

A glyph hovered to life above us and ice came raining down through it. A jagged shard bounced off my aura and I hopped back a step.

"Sorry. I didn't quite manage what I wanted," she snarked back at me.

"Did you want to impale me? Because any time you want to go, sister. Let's go, whenever you're ready."

"Now, now," Ozpin chided. "Ms. Schnee just lost control for a moment. I'm sure it was unintentional."

"See, unintentional," Winter agreed.

"Yeah of course, never would have you pegged for childish," I muttered.

"We are all often not as others expect." She smiled cheerfully.

"Why don't we give flight a shot?" Ozpin asked.

"I am unsure how to begin with that," Winter said. Which was fair enough. You give somebody a bunch of new powers and you couldn't suddenly expect them to know how to use them. Especially with something as vague as the maiden's powers which took different shapes naturally.

"I could just drop you from the roof and see what happens," I cut in. "Experiment."

"Any serious suggestions would be appreciated," she returned smoothly.

"Maybe I was serious," I murmured. "Come find out."

"Well Mr. Strife, how is it that you fly?" Ozpin asked. "It has been some time for me."

"Not really sure. It's sort of subconscious. I just did it while my semblance was active. Then I sort of just imagine moving around once I get up to speed to control it."

"Unhelpful," Winter decided. I felt like she wasn't being super fair on that one.

"Cinder can do it so you better be able to figure it out. Can't let her outperform you, she'll be gunning for you next," I shot. "Try to imagine yourself rising on a pocket of air. That helps me."

"What makes you think she'll come for me?"

"You were the obvious choice for Ironwood to pick as the new maiden. It's an open secret how close the two of you work. I was able to figure it out and there's no reason she won't be able to. You have gotta assume she knows that you're the new maiden or close to it."

She nodded, then she closed her eyes in focus and breathed hard. The wind might have picked up a little in the airtight room. A breeze bustling through but she didn't start to rise up off the ground or anything.

"We will keep at this. You've been more than helpful, Mr. Strife."

"That's exactly what I shoot for."

pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq

"Blake’s going to be okay. She was especially happy with the news that Adam is dead," Weiss informed me later that night around the dinner table.

“Dead as a doorknob,” I agreed. “It’s just a shame that my sisters slipped away.”

“What would you even have done with them had you gotten them?” Weiss asked. “They seemed awfully determined to be on Salem’s side.”

“It’s not their fault. They’re brainwashed,” I defended them partially.

My sisters were a touchy subject. They were a shadow of what I could be. What I would otherwise have been. If Mother had her wicked way. It was hard to hate that. It was in a sense like hating my potential self. There but for a flip of a coin went I. I could still end up like them. I could still become a monster.

Mother's influence on me was still there. It was always pressing. And that was without having ever seen her face to face. The sort of mind magic she could bring to bear against me must be unreal in person. How was I ever going to kill her? Or at least cut her fucking head off and bring her as close to death as she could be brought. I didn't have a clue.

“But how are you going to change that?” Yang wondered. “It’s one thing if somebody wants to fight it like you do but they just want to give in.”

“I… I don’t know. But I can’t exactly abandon them or kill them. It wasn’t their fault that this happened to them and besides they're still my… still my family,” I murmured. “You know what I mean? I can’t leave them to that.”

“But if they don’t want to be saved then there’s nothing we can do for them, Cloud.” Yang pointed her fork at me. “You’re different but your sisters seem to want it.”

“I can’t just give up on them,” I protested. “I have… I have so many memories of time spent with them. They matter to me.”

I could remember so much. So much time spent with them. It was all fake but it still made me feel something. Weiss said my feelings were valid it was hard to agree when there was so much fake pressure from Salem.

“But those memories aren’t real. They’re an illusion,” Blake cut in. “The only times you’ve met them they attacked you.”

“Maybe…” I muttered. "It seemed mostly playful though. Like they weren't trying to kill me."

"Playful murder?" Yang asked. "Are you serious or…?"

“Cloud you can’t save people who don’t want to be saved.” Weiss patted my hand. “You need to come up with a real plan to deal with them.”

“I suppose we’ll have to fight them,” I said. “I suppose… that I’ll have to… I’ll have to kill them, if they can’t be saved they can only be put down. It’s what I would want if I fell to my Mother.”

“Do you really mean that, Cloud?” Ruby asked. “That you would want to… you know…”

“Die?” I asked. “Probably, yeah. It's better than being a puppet, you know?”

“I do,” Weiss whispered. “It won’t come to that, we’ll keep you from falling to her.”

"Yeah. I suppose."

"Cloud. We will keep you safe from her. You have to believe in that," Ruby murmured.

"I'm starting to, a little."

And I was. Things had been better with Weiss's and Ruby's help. I'd heard fewer whisperings from my Mother. I'd had fewer command auditory hallucinations. I had a wall erected in my mind between my Mother and I so that less of her spilled over into me. She was like ink in water, spreading out and getting into every gap. Under currents carried her influence every which way only it was inside of me.

It was hard to imagine I'd ever be totally free of her. Her tendrils reached deeply into my mind. I couldn't help but imagine it was the same for my sisters. Only they met her face to face and experienced the kind of magic she could hurt us with for real. It must have been terrible. It must have been beautiful. I imagined giving in for a moment. What it would feel like.

My Mother's influence was unbelievable. It was always present in me but there was a sort of stopping point I'd managed to create that halted her from having total rule over me.

It would feel like nothing else to give into her wishes and do what she wanted. I wasn't sure that sex would be able to compare. And Saphron had made it sound so good. She made it seem so sweet. The way her voice had purred when she talked about submitting. I got that. I really did. I just didn't want it for me. It would me losing everything that I had built up here.

It would mean sacrificing all my friendships and relationships and more. It would cost me my soul. I just couldn't give in even though every day Mother inflicted some new horror onto me. It was agony but I wouldn't have it any other way.

I'd have to immolate all my wishes and desires and dreams to become something else. Something with a new and different and terrible purpose. I'd be a weapon in her hands and nothing more.

I liked having the 'more' it was what made me feel. It made me feel Cetra. I wasn't sure what I'd be without it. So I couldn't give in. But my sisters, they had already slipped under.

They'd bowed their heads under the surface and they drank from those dark waters deeply. They became something less than Cetra. Saphron had said so herself. It was that which separated me from them and the Grimm too. The Grimm was a part of me but I didn't have to acknowledge it. I didn't have to let it rule me.

Maybe it was nothing and just maybe that was everything. Maybe it was all I needed to resist. I wasn't sure. I couldn't be sure until I ran into her again. It was a trial by fire and nothing else. There was no middle ground.

It meant that I couldn't afford any mistakes when I was next in her presence. It meant I could just collapse and become nothing again like I had before.

I just couldn't tell until next I saw her.

pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq

-WG

#rwby #ff7 #ffvii #ruby rose x jaune arc x weiss schnee #cloud strife #cloud!jaune arc #sephiroth!jaune arc #white knight #whiteknight #white rose #whiterose #lancaster #war of the roses #winter schnee #motion sickness

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sliceofsky · 3 years

Text

introducing : cary o’hare

〔 scott foley, 49, cis male, he/him ) cary o'hare was seen listening to “ just haven’t met you yet ” by michael buble. cary is the town’s weatherman and known to be bubbly & insecure

𝚝𝚑𝚎 𝚋𝚊𝚜𝚒𝚌𝚜

full name ~ cary michael o’hare birthday ~ OCTOBER / 15TH / 1971 job status ~ employed as a weatherman at the local news station relationship status ~ (currently) single orientation ~ gay (closeted)

𝚝𝚑𝚎 𝚋𝚒𝚘

tws for : strained family relationships , homophobia , discussion of sex

cary o’hare was the first born child of the upper-middle class o’hare family, named after his mother’s favorite movie star. it was one of the rare concessions at the o’hare patriarch gave to his mother, and he’d never let her forget about it.

from a young age, cary was the picture of raw charisma. grocery store trips took forever, with his mother being halted at every aisle by enchanted older women who wanted to catch a glimpse of the adorable baby cary. his cuteness almost made up for how busy his mom was at all hours of the day, especially when his younger sister became cary’s irish twin, born a little over 9 months after cary was.

his younger sister becomes the bane of his existence as soon as they’re both conscious enough to get on each other’s nerves. they’re close enough in age that the competition is always there, fueled by the teachers, friends, and extracurriculars that they share. they found their niches soon enough: cary was good at sports, while his sister was good at dancing (which elementary-age cary would vehemently insist was the exact OPPOSITE of a sport). their father would go to cary’s games, but not his sister’s recitals, a fact that he accepted without much thought.

cary’s world, until middle school, was very small. the only people on his mind were him, his family, and his ever-shifting cast of close friends. there wasn’t much room in that world for insecurity or introspection, not when his biggest issue was the occasional fight he and his sister would get into over who’s turn it was on the remote. this all changed when cary was introduced to a fact about himself that made the world so much scarier: people were talking shit about him behind his back. it was the little things, of course- a comment about how stacy from english told someone who told someone who told someone that she thought he was short, or hearing a rumor about himself filter through the grapevine. it was startling, and cary reacted in kind, putting much more thought into his everything. he began to think about the way he dressed, and the way he smiled, and the way that when he answered questions in class, people would remember whether he got them wrong or right.

suddenly, nothing was more important than his image. he wanted to smell nice, but not too nice, or else his dad would make some mean spirited quip about his son being fruity. he also needed to date girls, but not too many girls, or else they’d think he was a jerk. it was a careful, obsessive balance that he kept, one that dictated everything about the way he acted.

against all odds, his mission was successful. he was generally well-liked. he had middling grades, and he wasn’t especially happy, but things were working. even the fact that his parents still picked his closest friends based on whether or not mr. o’hare liked their parents couldn’t break his stride. only one thing could truly break his stride, and that was the events of sleepaway camp, the summer before his sophomore year of high school.

sleepaway camp was fun. too fun. he was fast friends with jonah, who lived in a town four hours away from cary’s. over their three week stay at camp timber lake, cary and jonah ended up doing everything together. they shared secrets, snuck out of the cabin late at night to explore the woods, and on one memorable instance, went skinny dipping in the lake. near the end of their time at camp, things changed, suddenly and without warning- cary would blame the full moon. if you interrogated him, he’d insist that the only reason he kissed jonah was because the moon was full, it was the last night of camp, and they were alone in the woods in the dead of the night. he’d also insist that he didn’t mean anything by it, and that it didn’t mean he was gay. the truth, however? temporary insanity didn’t push cary to kiss jonah, and it wasn’t the reason that jonah pushed cary away with a horrified look on his face. much to cary’s relief, neither of them ever spoke about it. it became a secret just as soon as it became a memory, one that cary would agonize over for years after the fact.

cary walked into his sophomore year of high school with this secret heavy on his chest, paired with a desperate need to distract himself from it. he loaded his plate with all kinds of new activities, but the first one (aside from his regular slate of sports) to catch his fascination was learning to drive. he liked driving. he liked being the friend who knew how to do it, and he liked having jovial conversations with his dad about different types of vintage cars. he was the first of his friends to learn how to drive, and he used it to his social advantage.

3 girlfriends, 2 state championships, and 1 prom king crown later, cary was a senior in high school, choosing between two football scholarships while desperately trying not to think about the gay thing. he would ask his parents for advice, if not for the fact that his dad would kick him out for even considering “the homosexual lifestyle” while his mom would tell him to “not think about it and move on”. he picks his college based on a coin flip, and keeps his mouth shut.

college is a new beast for cary, who’s suddenly thrust into a whole new world. the only time he’d lived somewhere other than the o’hare house (lovingly referred to as the o’house) was at sleepaway camp, but uni? that was a sleepaway camp where there were no rules. his major was undecided, and his time was mostly spent juggling gen eds, the football team, and the rowdy parties that he was invited to.

the thing that made him decide his major, funnily enough, was a pregnancy scare. he’d hooked up with a cheerleader, more because she was a cheerleader while he was a football player than for any other reason, and three weeks later, she called him in tears, talking about a late period. on the drive to the doctor’s office to check, they got to talking about how they landed in this position. she admitted that she slept with him because he “reminded her of a weatherman”, and his career path was set. once his former hookup was given the clean bill of “not pregnant”, cary felt free to go along his way, rocking every public speaking class and doing pretty-okay on his meteorology courses, his road in life officially planned.

cary didn’t realize that he was capital g Gay until he actually had sex with a man. the process itself was undignified, beginning with eye contact across a dance floor and ending in a stranger’s bed. he was in a strange city, telling all of his friends that he was sick in the hotel while they were out at a bachelor party. he was paranoid at the gay bar, until he let himself get swept up in the music, and consequently, the spirit of lighthearted experimentation. even if when it happened, he’d already graduated from college, it still counted, right? either way, the end product was the same: him, in a stranger’s bed, trying to catch his breath. the guy’s name was paul, and the sex was unlike anything he’d ever felt before. it was electricity, and nerves, and magnetism, and cary was left without a doubt over the fact that he was exactly what he feared.

the years after that encounter moved in a predictable pattern, a cycle that he couldn’t break. first, he’d find some success in his career. then, he’d find a nice girl and try to make it work. then, the relationship would crash and burn. finally, he’d break again, and allow himself a weekend of gay debauchery. sometimes the cycle would take a few weeks to complete, and other times it would take a few years. this cycle filled up years, and then it filled up two decades, until he was 42 years old and truly exhausted.

his parents wanted him to get married. more than anything, they wanted him to get married. it was one of the few things his mom and his dad agreed on, and in a way, they bonded over it. the whispers about why the local weatherman was a perennial bachelor certainly didn’t help his nerves, neither did the scores of posts from his high school and college friends announcing marriages and pregnancies.

the big break from his cycle came in the form of hazel robson, a fellow member of a book club that he joined (he wasn’t super into reading, but the flow of a book club was deeply calming to him). their relationship blossomed over the book club pick of “love in the time of cholera”, following an especially insightful note from hazel. he asked her out to coffee, wanting to learn more about her opinion. their initial coffee date was legendary, their conversation lasting through two cups of coffee and an extended walk in the park. cary loved seeing the world through hazel’s eyes- she talked about literature with such a vivid intelligence that it was practically contagious. cary left that first date invigorated, like he was scores more intelligent just from having been in her vicinity.

cary couldn’t put into words exactly why it worked so well with hazel, even though he didn’t like her that way. he knew, logically, that he was gay, and that he’d never wake up and love hazel the way she deserved to be loved. emotionally, however? he still kind of hoped that that day would come. their relationship continued to progress, without the dramatic endings that he’d gotten used to. what they had wasn’t going down in flames like his attempts at romance before- it was working. when he proposed, it was at the coffee shop where they had their first date, and he refused to let his guilt show on his face.

things were exactly how his parents wanted it: he was married to a lovely woman, his career was booming, and the for-fun football team that he was a part of kept him in shape. it should’ve been perfect, but cary couldn’t help but feel restless. incomplete. not even his pre-game catchphrase (”my name is cary o’hare, and we are gonna win this thing fair and square!”) could keep that itch of the unfulfilled at bay. it only got worse when he met the living embodiment of everything he couldn’t have: liam lexington.

his father joked that a wandering eye was a normal part of being a married man, but cary suspected that his dad didn’t mean it like this. liam was bold, attractive, and shameless- cary couldn’t quite tell if he wanted to be him or be with him. he decided on the former, after some meaningful eye contact/hand on knee action at an applebee’s post-game celebration. it escalated into a torrid affair, one that he pointedly refused to talk about with liam or anyone else.

it all fell apart on his 46th birthday. hazel walked into their house, ready to deliver his birthday surprise, only to walk in on liam delivering his birthday surprise. first there was the yelling, then there was the crying, until finally there were divorce papers. right after they both signed, there was a long stretch of silence, standing across from each other. then, cary broke the silence. “you know, hazel, i know it doesn’t feel like it right now, but i think one day, you and i are going to laugh about this. i know it’ll be far off in the future, and you hate me right now, but… one day, maybe when we’re old, we’ll be sitting on a porch, and we’ll be laughing about what happened.”

the official party line for the cause of the divorce was the question of kids, leaving cary right back at the start. he was a childless divorcee, and no longer his dad’s favorite. he’s gotten back into the routine of being single and publicly straight, something helped by his now-ex wife moving away. now that she’s back in town, and cary is finding less and less reasons to stay in the closet? it’s about to be a wild year for cary o’hare.

#sero.intro #CARY O'HARE º ᴡᴇ ᴄᴀɴ ᴡᴏʀᴋ ᴛᴏ ᴡᴏʀᴋ ɪᴛ ᴏᴜᴛ #info : intro

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arrow-guy · 4 years

Text

Author and Auror (1/??)

Synopsis: Eleanore Vaughan has never been one for the spotlight. Her cousin, Rosaline, is the one best suited to the limelight, and is happier for the attention. Though Nora is most comfortable tucked away in her book shop, what happens when Grindelwald’s sudden takeover flips her world upside-down and thrusts her into the inner circle?

A/N: Alrighty, this is a fic that’s been in the works for nearly two years now, since Crimes of Grindelwald came out. This is the first chapter in my half of the collaborative story that I’ve written with @thorne93. I will not be adding anyone from my tag list to this story, but if you’d like to be tagged, just let me know!

Start here for Rosaline’s story!

Pairing: Theseus ScammanderxOFC

Word Count: 3.5k

Warnings: None

Page dividers by @carryonmyswansong

The door opens and the bell tinkles, welcoming in a new customer. I hear them wander through the shelves before pausing halfway through. I look to find the familiar combination of mousey brown hair and a sharp three-piece suit. My smile comes easily.

“Theseus,” I say.

He smiles. “Hello, Nora. Newt said you weren’t assisting him today.”

“He’s got Rosaline to help him now. Only needs me when there’s something especially big that needs socializing these days.”

“I see.” He raises his eyebrows and slips one hand into his pocket. “Never did understand why she left the ministry. She was moving up through the ranks pretty quickly, as I remember.”

“Mm, you say that every time.” I lean forward on the counter, my chin propped up on one hand. “Maybe she didn’t want you to have too much competition.”

He laughs and finally approaches the front desk. “No, that can’t be it. Otherwise, you would have stayed to help.”

“Oh, I think you overestimate me, Mr. Scamander. I was never cut out for ministry work. Too much running here and there and being bossed around. Books have always been my calling.”

“Speaking of…” He trails off and fishes a slip of parchment out of the breast pocket of his suit coat. “I was wondering if you carried any of these. Leta hasn’t been able to find them in Diagon Alley. Newt suggested we try your place.”

I take the parchment from him and plaster on a smile. “I’ll see what I can do for you.”

Theseus leans on the counter top as I move to the back to flip through my stock records.

“Newt says you haven’t been in for months.”

“As I said before, he’s got an assistant now. No need for me to bother him.”

“He also says you’ve been dating.”

“So what if I have been?” I ask coolly. I move out from behind the register to sift through the bookshelves. “I can’t wait around and hope that a spouse will drop into my lap.”

“I understand that, Nora. It just never seemed to be something you were interested in before now.”

I slam a heavy book down onto the counter.

“Merlin, Theseus, we are not in school anymore! I can do as I please. If that means saying yes when a bloke from down the street invites me out for dinner, who am I to say no?”

“Nora, that’s not what I meant, I just-I don’t know…” He trails off and looks at me helplessly.

I sigh and shake my head. I slip my wand from my sleeve and summon the other books from their shelves. They stack themselves perfectly one on top of the other.

“That’ll be forty-five Galleons.” I write up a receipt and lift the cover of the book at the top of the stack to place it inside. “Are you in need of a bag?”

“No.” He digs around in his pocket for the money. “No, I… No, I’ll be fine without it.”

I nod and hold out my hand for his coins. I sort the money into the till and push the books closer to him. I don’t look up. He shrinks the books and slips them into his jacket pocket and says goodbye. I wave to him and wait till the door closes to drag my eyes away from the register. I drop down onto my stool, head in hands.

“That the hell is wrong with you?! He hasn’t done anything to you! Not anything on purpose, at least…” I shake my head. “Why did I snap at him?”

The store kneazle wanders over and sits beside my feet. He looks up at me and yowls to get my attention. I reach down and scratch him behind the ears. He pushes against my leg and purrs loudly. I laugh and bend down to pick him up. He curls up in my lap and I comb my fingers through his long fur.

“I’m fine,” I tell myself. “Things are fine. I’ll run the shop and work on my novel. I’ll be just fine.”

“Theseus came by the shop the other day.”

“I’m sorry, Nora,” Newt says. His voice crackles through the floo. “Had I known, I would have warned you.”

“Don’t worry about it, Newt. It’s not your job to protect me. He did, however, mention that you told him I’ve been dating.”

He frowns. “Was I not supposed to tell him that?”

“No, it’s fine that you did. I suppose I just wasn’t expecting you to.” I shake my head. “I don’t even know why he brought it up, honestly.”

“Maybe he’s trying to figure out whether or not you’ll be bringing a date to the wedding.”

I roll my eyes. “They haven’t even set a date yet. And who knows! Leta might not let Theseus invite me.”

“Is that really something you want to worry about right now?”

“I genuinely have no clue.” I let myself fall back against the carpet. “I don’t even know what I’ll say if he asks me what was wrong with me today.”

“I can’t see you anymore, Nora.”

I raise one hand and wave it around. “I’m on the floor.”

“Sounds uncomfortable.”

“Oh, believe me, it is,” I say, opening and closing my hand like a mouth. I can hear Newt laugh so I continue the game. “Is this helping the situation? Is this making things better?”

He laughs harder. “It is, actually, I-” He stops in the middle of his sentence and I sit up, thinking the connection’s been lost. His face is still in the fireplace.

“Newt? What’s wrong?”

“There’s someone here,” he says. “I’m going to find out who.”

“Be careful!” I call out. He nods once and pulls his head from the floo.

I don’t hear from Newt for hours and I take to pacing around my flat. I’m worried about him. He’s a brilliant wizard and can protect himself, but still. I’m starting to think about contacting Theseus when there’s a knock at the door. I immediately fling the door open and Newt is standing there, creature case in hand, a plump man standing just behind him.

“Who’s this?” I ask.

“Nora, this is Jacob Kowalski,” Newt says, stepping to the side and gesturing between the two of us. “Jacob, this is Nora.”

“Nice t’meetcha.”

I stare at Jacob for a moment before turning to Newt. “A muggle?”

“In New York, they’d call me a no-mag,” Jacob says. He almost sounds proud of himself.

“That’s great. Get inside.” I wave them through the doorway and look up and down the street before closing the door. “Why did you bring a muggle to my home, Newt?”

“We have to get to Paris and I need your help.”

“Why?”

Jacob answers. “See, my girl Queenie and I got into a fight and she ran off to go find her sister Tina in Paris.”

“Tina, huh?” Newt blushes.

“You know about her?” Jacob asks.

“Yes, I know about her. Newt’s been quite taken with her since coming back from his trip to the states. But why are you here?”

“Queenie enchanted him,” Newt says.

“She wants to get married real bad, but we can’t back home. It’s dangerous for the two of us to be together and she figured we’d be able to get married here,” Jacob explains. “Thing is, when Newt took the spell off me or whatever, I figured out what happened and Queenie ran off and I thought somethin’ I shouldn't have and she got even madder and then she just, poof! Vanished!”

I look to Newt for an explanation. “She’s a very powerful legilimens.”

“Oh,” I nod. “So why do you need me to get to Paris?”

“I’m still banned from Travelling, so we’ll have to go illegally. I’ve asked your cousin to come along as well.”

I deadpan. “She’s in the case, isn’t she.”

“She is.”

“Fantastic. When do we leave?”

Newt blinks, taken aback. “You’ll actually come?”

“You and I both know I need to get out of England for a while. I have a couple of employees I trust to run the shop while I’m gone.”

“And if Theseus shows up?”

I shrug. “Then he shows up.” I look between Newt and Jacob. “You can stay here tonight. We should leave as early as possible tomorrow morning.”

Jacob reaches out and vigorously shakes my hand. “Thank you so much!”

I nod and smile and lead them towards the dining room. I reheat leftovers from a couple of nights before and serve it to Newt, Jacob, and my cousin, Rosaline. Rosaline speaks calmly with Jacob and I’m able to pull Newt away from the table for a moment.

“This isn’t just about getting Tina and Queenie back,” I say. “Is this Dumbledore?”

He nods hesitantly. “Credence is in Paris and looking for his family. Grindelwald wants to use Credence for his own gain, and there are those who would rather he be dead than anything else.”

“And you need to help him.” Newt shrugs and bobs his head from side to side, signaling a “yes”. I sigh and fold my arms over my chest. “I’m going to write James and Tessa, let them know they’ll have to take over the shop for a while.”

“My brother may try to stop us.”

“Believe me, Newt. If I couldn’t handle your brother, I’d be much worse for wear by now.” I jerk my chin toward the dining room. “Get back in there. Keep them company. I have beds to make and letters to write.”

“If anyone stops by looking for me, don’t tell them where I’ve gone.”

“How can we? You haven’t told us where you’re going or why you’re leaving!” James cries.

“That’s the point. If someone tries to use veritaserum on you, then it won’t work.”

“Why would anyone want to use veritaserum on us? Are you in some sort of trouble?” Tessa asks.

I shake my head. “No, but I worry that someone from the Ministry might feel differently. If that happens, I don’t want to drag you two down with me.”

James frowns and Tessa throws her arms around me and hugs me tightly. I sigh and hug her back. There’s a tapping on the window. Rosaline is rapping one knuckle against the glass on the door and I wave her off. She shakes her head and turns back to Jacob and Newt.

“I have to go. I’ve got a portkey to catch.” Tessa nods against my shoulder and I reach out and muss James’ hair. “I’ll write when it’s safe, okay?”

James nods. “Okay. Please be careful.”

“We will be, don’t worry too much.”

I leave them to tend the shop and head out to meet Newt, Jacob, and Rosaline.

“They’re an emotional bunch, aren’t they,” Rosaline says.

I shrug. “They’ve been working for me since they were sixteen. They’re allowed to be emotional.”

“Did you at least get the money?”

“Of course I got the money.” I glance around and grab Rosaline’s hand. “Come on, we should go.”

Newt grabs Jacob’s hand and reaches out for mine. As soon as our hands touch we apparate to the cliffs we were told to meet our contact. Jacob stumbles when we arrive and Newt and I each grab one of his arms to keep him from toppling over. When we’re sure he’s steady, Newt places his case on the ground and opens it for Rosaline and I to climb in. Rosaline goes first and before I follow I hand Newt an extra twenty Galleons.

“What’s this?” he asks.

“Whoever it is we’re meeting will probably raise their price.” Newt raises his eyebrows. “It’s just a precaution.”

“Thank you, Nora,” he says.

I smile and nod to him and step into the case. I allow myself to slide down the ladder into Newt’s workshop. Rosaline is tidying things up and I move past her to lay in the grass in the grove just outside. Faeries dance through the trees above my head and I silently watch their movements with my hands pillowed beneath my head.

“Newt said Theseus stopped by yesterday.”

“Does everyone know about this?” I ask.

“He didn't tell Jacob.”

“Oh, well thank Merlin he didn't tell Jacob.”

“I just want to know if you're alright.”

“I'm fine. Genuinely, there's nothing wrong. He just overstepped, is all.”

“Overstepped?”

“Started asking about me dating.” I snort. “As if it’s any of his business.”

“Since when has he shown any interest in your love life?”

“That's what I'd like to know!” I cry. “Up until Newt told him I started dating, there was nothing! Newt thinks he was trying to figure out whether or not I’d be bringing someone to his wedding.”

“You’ve never talked about it this much.”

“I’ll be honest, I’ve never been this frustrated.” I sit up and lean back on my elbows. “I’m sorry about snapping at you last time. I know you were only trying to help.”

“Nothing to apologize for, cousin, I know I went a little too far.” She sits beside me and picks at the grass. “You were right. I haven’t told Newt how I feel. Every time I think about it, I remember Tina. If I keep putting it off, how can I expect you to confess to a man who’s engaged?”

I snort. “Our lives each present their own unique challenges. We’ll deal with the consequences as they arise, yeah?”

Rosaline opens her mouth to answer, but a firm rapping coming from the workshop pulls her attention away.

“That’ll be Newt,” she says.

I shove myself to my feet and brush off the seat of my trousers before offering Rosaline and hand up. I haul her up and we head back up through the case. Jacob offers me his hand and pulls me from the case. Newt grabs Rosaline’s hand and helps her out before stooping down and closing up his case. He leads us down the street and begins looking for any trace of Tina. He mutters a spell and a fine golden dust settles on the street. Rosaline and I step to the side and I pull Jacob out of the way when he tries to get a closer look. Newt releases his niffler and they set to work sorting out what happened the night before. When he pauses to lick the ground, Rosaline shakes her head and I rub my temples. Jacob just watches, completely transfixed.

“He wasn’t this weird in New York,” he says.

“You truly haven’t seen Newt in his element then, Mr. Kowalski,” I watch the niffler roll around in the gold as Newt holds his wand to his ear, searching through the noise from last night. “He’s brilliant, but he certainly is an odd man.”

“He’s a genius,” Rosaline says.

I laugh and gently shove her. She catches herself on the frame of a nearby window and comes back to glare at me halfheartedly. Jacob shoots me a knowing look and I just shrug and shake my head.

“You find anything, Newt?” I call.

He grabs the niffler and tucks it under his arm before plucking a feather out of the air. “She met a man,” he announces. “Also a zouwu got loose.”

“It has to be halfway across Paris by now!”

He grins. “Amazing, isn’t it?”

“Newt, we have to find it,” Rosaline says.

“I figure we’ll find it wherever we might find the man to whom this feather belongs.”

Rosaline shakes her head and I have to press my fist to my mouth to keep from saying anything. Jacob sighs and straightens the collar of his suit coat.

“Fine, but we’re gonna need to stop for something to eat.”

“I agree with Jacob,” I say. “We need food that wasn’t meant to feed baby nifflers.”

Newt laughs. “What, not good enough for you, is it?”

“Funnily enough, it isn’t!”

Everyone laughs and the sound attracts the attention of several passers by. I press my lips together to suppress another giggle.

“We’ve been sitting here for hours, Newt,” Jacob says, his voice edging into a whine.

“We’ve been here for half an hour,” Newt shoots back. He leans forward and rests his chin on his folded arms.

“Are you sure this guy is here?”

“Feather says so,” I mumble out. “Newt’s tracking magic doesn’t often steer us wrong.”

Newt lifts the glass bowl and the feather floats through the air, slotting itself into the ribbon a hat on a man passing by. Newt jumps to his feet and hurries after him, quickly followed by Jacob. Rosaline and I hang back a ways, careful to stay out of the man’s line of sight. I grip Rosaline’s arm as we watch Newt whisper something to the man who nods and mutters back.

“Can you see what they’re saying?” Rosaline asks.

I shake my head. “No, their mouths are half blocked and they’re talking too fast.” I scowl. “Dammit, Newt, this would have been a wonderful time for you to remember I read lips.”

Rosaline moves to stand up and I tighten my grip on her arm, pulling her back down into her seat.

“What?”

“Wait till they walk away. We’ll follow them from there.” I look at her, head tilted to the side. “I thought you were supposed to be the hit witch.”

“It’s been a few years, alright? Fallen out of practice and all that.”

“Mhm, sure.”

Rosaline smacks my arm and points to the place where Jacob and Newt had been standing just a moment before. We shove our chairs back from the table and immediately start off in the direction Rosaline saw them go. We follow them to what looks to be an entrance to the sewers. Once the man who had been leading them there steps inside the door, we creep up and position ourselves out of sight on either side of the doorway. When we see a flash of light Rosaline races in and I duck through the door after her. She’s got the man stunned on the floor, one foot on his chest. Newt’s wand lays several feet away along with one that I don’t recognize. I stoop down to pick both up and nearly topple over when someone shouts my name. I manage to catch myself before I fall. When I look over my shoulder, Jacob, Newt, and a woman I don't recognize peer through the bars of an iron gate.

“Locked in?” Newt nods and I point my wand at the lock. “Alohamora.”

The latch pings open and Jacob shoves the gate away from him and shuffles out. He throws his arms around me in a huge hug, throwing me off balance.

“Whoa there, Kowalski,” I warn.

“Right, sorry.” He peels himself away and reaches out to straighten my tie. I laugh and he grins.

Rosaline still has her wand trained on the man on the floor. The woman with Newt steps forward.

“Don’t hurt him,” she says. “We need him.”

“You mean you need him,” Rosaline snaps. “Who are you, anyway?”

“Rosaline, this is Tina,” Newt says.

I watch as her eye twitches and I reach out and place one hand on her arm. Her back stiffens, but she removes her foot from the stunned man’s chest. A deep roar shakes the room and I immediately look to Newt.

“Looks like your little friend has shown up,” I say. “Shall we catch it now, or should we wait till it’s gone on a violent rampage and destroyed half the city?”

“Perhaps it is time.”

Rosaline follows Newt back up to the street and I watch as Jacob and Tina struggle to drag the man on the floor to the stairs. I sigh and cast a weak levicorpus and float him up to the street with Tina and Jacob following along behind me. I leave Tina and Jacob to take care of our mystery man while I run off to help Newt and Rosaline with the zouwu. Rosaline and I leave Newt to take care of and subdue the creature while we keep bystanders out of the line of attack. We push the cars that skitter across the street away and cast a widespread protego charm over the crowd. I hear a jingle and look over my shoulder to find that Newt has entranced the zouwu with a toy. Newt wiggles the toy again, the bell tinkles, and he slowly lowers the toy to his case. The zouwu follows the toy with it’s entire body and dives after it into the case when Newt drops it.

“Newt,” Tina calls. “We need to leave!”

“I couldn’t agree more,” I say.

A card emerges from Newt’s coat pocket and I grab his arm and hustle back to the rest of the group. We each grab hold of one another and Newt reaches out for the card.

“Wait!” Tina says. “Where is this taking us?”

“Is this really the time to be asking this?” I hiss. “We’ve just captured a zouwu the size of a small house, and you’re worried about an address that was given to him by Dumbledore?”

“I-I...”

“Newt, get us out of here!”

He doesn’t leave her any time to respond and we disappear with a loud pop.

-----------

Part 2

Thanks for reading! If you enjoyed this chapter, please reblog, comment, and/or shoot me ask! Feedback would be greatly appreciated!

#theseus scamanderxreader #readerxtheseus scamander #theseus scamander x reader #reader x theseus scamander #theseus scamander #newt scamander

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captainillogical · 4 years

Text

Profoundly Yours Ch.1

Amity receives a love letter in her locker. Luz wants to help figure out who it is.

Cover art by my lovely wife @firstofficertightpants

AO3 mirror

Today is looking to be a long day, it seems.

Amity looks up at the clock on the wall just as the school bell screams, and she grabs for the books in front of her as the other students around her bustle about. All she really wants to do is find a nice, quiet place to take a nap - she could barely sleep the night prior. She waits for a moment, letting the other students leave the classroom first so as to not get trampled on, and makes her way out the door with an offhanded wave to her teacher.

She sighs, holding the books close to her chest as she walks over to her locker. At least the day is halfway done, she thinks to herself. She hasn’t even gotten to open her locker when Boscha rolls up, slamming a hand against the nearest wall.

“So, I had the brightest idea earlier that we’d all go get our nails done after school, and Skara is SUPER on board with it.” The three-eyed girl leans in, a smirk on her face. “You in, Amity?”

She doesn’t really want to, like, at all - so she thinks up a quick excuse.

“I can’t, sorry. I promised mom I’d help out with her afternoon errands.” Amity replies, trying to really sell the lie with a grimace. She wishes that Boscha would just lose interest in being her “friend” already.

“Ughhh, it’s not as fun if you can’t go,” Boscha rolls her eyes, a bit of a pout on her face. “Skara’s just going to talk about her boyfriend the entire time.”

“I really am sorry, I definitely would go with you guys if I was free,” Amity lies through her teeth, reaching out to open her locker. She wants to be in the lunchroom already - she can feel her stomach growling, and maybe she can see a certain someone’s face. That will absolutely make her day better.

The locker opens with a clatter - it growls at her and she ignores it, and a single square white envelope is sitting inside; there’s no name, or any indication of what it could be on the outside. Amity grabs for it curiously, placing her books inside.

“What’s that, some kind of love-letter?” The pink-haired girl snatches the envelope out of Amity’s hands, eyebrows shooting up into her hairline.

“Boscha! Give it!” Amity tries reaching for it, but the other girl just side-steps out of her way with a laugh, tearing the letter open to see what’s inside.

“What do we have here~” She teases, eyes scanning the page. They widen considerably when she catches onto something. “Whoa, actually - dude someone has it bad for you, ha ha!!” She snorts out a laugh, and Amity grabs the letter out of her hand, finally.

She stares at the piece of paper, and her heart starts to race. It’s a poem.

Someone WROTE her a poem.

Amity - your eyes shine like gold coins

And when I look into them

I feel like the richest person ever.

Oh, wow. That’s a terrible poem. And yet kind of sweet?.. Hm. There’s no name anywhere.

Amity forces her face into a grimace, and Boscha’s still laughing.

“This is awful, who wrote this?” She cackles, and Amity is almost starting to feel a little defensive over it. I mean, the person wrote it for her.

“There seems to be no name on it.” The green-haired witch shoves the letter into her pocket, hearing it crinkle loudly. “That’s too bad.”

“Yeah that’s too bad, I wanted to make fun of them for it!” She laughs again, and yeah okay, Amity’s starting to feel annoyed.

“Not everyone needs to be made fun of constantly,” She retorts, slamming her locker shut. She gives one last look to her not-sort-of-friend, before turning to leave. “I’m going to lunch.”

The sounds of Amity’s footsteps fade away within the noise of the school, and Boscha watches her go.

“What’s gotten up with her lately?” She says to no one in particular, scowling to herself.

Amity faces the crowded lunchroom, food in hand. She’s not even feeling particularly hungry now since she read that note, but will force down the food anyway. She looks around and happens to spot Willow sitting with Gus off to the side - as well as Luz.

Ah.

She feels so stupid, the way her heart does little flips every single time she sees the human. It feels irrational, at this point. Why did Luz turn out to be so nice, and caring, and cute - she stops that particular train of thought. It’s the entire reason why she hasn’t been getting enough sleep this last week, and with everything that happened after Grom, Amity feels a little like she might be going crazy.

Her feelings are going haywire, and she has no outlet for them. She can’t talk to anyone about it, come on, that’d be so embarrassing. Admitting you have feelings, romantic feelings, for a human? Yeah, she’d rather hex herself than go through that kind of social scrutiny right now.

She mulls over where to sit - spotting an empty table in the opposite corner by the windows, and walks over to it to sit down. She sighs, pulling her sandwich out of the bag, and takes a small bite out of it. It’s a bit dry, but it’s whatever. She pulls the note out of her pocket and unfolds it on the table, having to place her bottle of water on the top of it to stop it from folding back up.

Amity leans forward, peering hard at the handwriting, nice as it is. She doesn’t recognise it at all. Who could this be from, exactly? She feels like this could also possibly be a prank, because who in their right mind would send her a love letter? Definitely not the person she wants it to be. She takes another bite, chewing it slowly and thoughtfully.

A familiar voice laughs nearby, and all of a sudden a hand slams down on the table about a foot from Amity. She jolts in her seat, looking up to see the face of Luz.

“Amity!” The human girl enthusiastically greets her. “Why are you sitting here all alone? Since you didn’t come to sit with us, we’ll sit with you!” She grins, Willow and Gus in tow right behind her. They all take a seat at the table around her, tossing their food onto the table and making themselves comfortable. Amity feels a little taken aback with the gesture, and tries to not let it show too much on her face. Being this close to Luz after what happened the other day.. she swallows her feelings.

“Oh, you don’t have to-” Luz gasps, cutting Amity off. She grabs the piece of paper on the table, and holds it up to her face. She’s squinting quite hard.

“A love letter!!!” Luz exclaims, eyes wide open with her mouth hanging dramatically - Willow shushes her. She rubs the back of her head sheepishly, looking apologetic. “Forget you heard anything!” She shouts back out to the lunch room. A stray “don’t tell me what to do!” pierces through the white noise of the other students chattering amongst themselves. Gus giggles into his soup.

“Thanks for that.” Amity half-glares at Luz, taking the letter back from her and folding it in half, placing it back on the table. She feels the tips of her ears get warm from embarrassment. “And yeah.. It was in my locker when I opened it earlier. I have no idea who it’s from.”

“I bet I can figure out who it is.” Gus says smugly, taking a spoonful into his mouth. “Let me see.”

“No! You’ll just judge it unfairly.” Amity replies, and reaches out to clutch it in her hands.

“C’mon, why are you being so defensive! What can it hurt?” He points his spoon at her, waving it a bit.

"I'm not defensive!" She retorts back, Gus' smirk immediately widening. She quickly realizes her mistake, and slides the letter over to him to play it off cool. "It's just, it's a poem of all things, and I don't know of anyone that's written anything like.." She trails off as she watches Gus' eyebrows shoot up on his face, and she's unsure if it's either because he's impressed, or taken aback with said writing. Willow leans over to also peer at the letter.

"I don't know whether to laugh or applaud this guy."

"It could be a girl, Gus." Willow gives him a judgemental look. "Do you know of any guys here with that handwriting? It's too nice."

"That's a.. fair point." He puts a finger up to his lip, and then looks around at the other students in the lunch room, squinting his eyes in suspicion. He points to a person waaay over in the opposite corner. "What about him? He's always been pretty well-spoken."

"Geoffrey?!" Amity hisses out, and then reels enough back to not look so.. frantic. "It's obviously not him, I mean, he's nice sure. But he never goes out of his way to talk to me, and he's never given any kind of indication he even likes me as a fellow classmate."

"Plus, Geoffrey has had that thing for Brian since last year, remember?" Willow takes a bite out of her apple, and grabs the poem to read it again.

"Oh right, kind of forgot about that since that one incident." Gus sighs a little dramatically, and the rest of the table ignores his theatrics. He makes a show to place his hand over his eyes - like he's staring out into bright open seas er - students. "Maybe it is a girl. Maybe it's.. someone we know. Maybe it's… Luz!!" He points to her like gotcha! and Amity feels her heart stop.

Luz chokes on the bite of food she's just placed inside her mouth, her spoon clattering on the table. "I've never written a love letter in my life," She sputters and coughs several more times - her cheeks are turning pink a little, but surely it's from the lack of air intake. Gus laughs at her, Willow rolling her eyes at her friend's antics. "Besides, if I were to write a love letter, it would definitely not be poetry. There's a reason why mom wanted me to go to that summer camp. If anything, I'd write a fanfic."

"A fanfic." Willow deadpans at her for a couple seconds, and then shrugs. "That is very you, though."

Amity takes the last bite of her sandwich and tries not to sit there in disappointment. Like, she knew it wasn't Luz of course. Still stings a little. Luz gives Amity a curious look as she swallows her food, and Amity hopes her emotions aren't showing on her face. That'd be terrible.

"Was the letter in your locker when you first came into school today?" The human asks, wiping her face for any food crumbs. She takes the letter from Willow, her eyes scanning the page one last time.

"No, now that I think about it." Amity replies, watching the other girl. She tries not to let her eyes linger on Luz for too long in anyone else's presence, for fear that someone might catch wind of her feelings for the human.

"Well then, clearly, we know they're a student here. Now if only it were obvious!" Gus says excitedly. "We should build a student card bingo for this."

"That would be interesting." Willow laughs.

"You think the admirer will come forward sometime to confess?" Luz leans near Amity to ask, making the other girl acutely aware of just how close she is.

"It wouldn't matter, honestly." Amity admits, taking the poem back from Luz and folding it into her pocket. "It's not like I'm interested."

"Why, you like someone else?" Gus interjects, slurping up another spoonful of soup.

"N-no! Of course not!" Amity says a little too quickly, and she feels a specific set of eyes on her. "Besides, I wouldn't date someone I don't know, just because they wrote me a poem."

She sees Luz staring at her out of the corner of her eye, like she's remembering the note Amity has been trying to forget about since the night of Grom.

"Yeah, I wouldn't either." Willow agrees, and hands Gus a napkin absentmindedly. He's kind of a messy eater.

"Wow, give the person a break, they just put their whole heart out there! Doesn't that mean anything in the name of romance?" Gus says in between mouthfuls of soup.

"They're welcome to say it to my face." Amity replies, and she tries to change the subject.

Lunch period ends pretty soon after that, and the rest of classes go by pretty slowly for Amity. Ed and Em rip into her about her day after school a little more than usual, and she retires to her bedroom early that night, a lot on her mind to think about.

She has a hard time falling asleep, like she has been for a while now, one very specific person plaguing her thoughts constantly. She thinks she'll just forget about the love letter for now. Or maybe entirely, actually, since there's no point.

Sleep comes to her after a couple of hours.

When her locker physically spits another letter at her the next day, she decides this might be a problem.

#lumity #luz noceda #amity blight #toh #the owl house #my fic #luz x amity #profoundly yours

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adventuresinhermiton · 4 years

Text

Chapter 1: Fated Encounters

The tavern is quiet, the patrons at this hour sit few and far apart, silently sipping the stale booze from their mugs. No one tries to talk to you as you clean the counter, and you’re grateful since you don’t think you’d have the energy to chat if you wanted to. Not that you ever really want to chat with the drunk patrons, but more often than not they won’t stop until you acknowledge their existence.

You hate it here. It’s boring, it’s awful, it smells, and you don’t get paid nearly enough to put up practically running the place until closing. Even the few coins that you charge extra from some of the newer patrons or the ones you scrape off the top of the night’s final profit aren’t enough to justify working here. And yet here you are.

As horrible as this place is you know it’s the best shot you have at getting out of the run-down hole in the ground that is your hometown. You love your family, sure, but you’re ready to leave the nest and forge your own destiny. Everyone tells you that people like you don’t get some grand destiny, but you know they’re wrong. They have to be. You were given magic for a better reason than to clean messy drunk’s wine-stained tunics, right? You sure hope so.

You yawn, resting your head on your hand for a moment and glance at the broken clock. It’s past midnight, closing in on 2 A.M. which means it won’t be long before you can go home and sleep. And then repeat this day all over again. With a heavy sigh you prepare yourself to kick out the stubborn night owls that have no sense of how late it is, when you hear the door open; the wood door scraping against the wood floor sounds like shattering glass in the near silent bar.

You look over, seeing a robed man with a hood covering his head sit down at the nearest bar stool to the door. You hesitate, not recognizing him, before making your way over.

“Just a mead, please.” He tells you before you can ask. His voice is light and has an underlying accent you haven’t heard around these parts that gives this odd twang to his words. “I promise I’ll be quick. I know you’re closing soon.”

You don’t question how he knows that. There aren’t any signs posted of the tavern’s operating hours, but maybe he could guess by how empty it is. Either way, you’re reassured you won’t have to kick him out in the next twenty minutes and grab one of the freshly cleaned mugs. Soon, you’re sliding him a cup of flat, lukewarm mead.

He nods in gratitude, taking a swig. You go back to cleaning, still set on keeping your normal schedule. Random strangers come in all the time, and while you enjoy hearing their adventurous stories, tonight your brain is too tired to care to listen to someone’s more fortunate life.

You can feel his eyes on your back as you work, and you resign to seeing if he needs a refill or something. When you get over to him, though, you see his cup barely looks touched even though his first sip seemed pretty hefty. You open your mouth to ask what he needs when he talks first.

“Why are you here?”

The question catches you off guard and you blink at him a few times before narrowing your eyes. That isn’t some normal question you ask a bartender, rather it’s usually the bartender asking the customer that. You know you have never been asked such a question before.

“You don’t seem enthralled by your work.” He continues, and you shrug at the clock. “Yeah, it’s late. And? What’s the point in you being here? You’re clearly yearning for something more, I don’t know, exciting?”

You once again narrow your eyes at this strange man who acts as if he has you entirely figured out. His hood casts shadows over his face, aided by the dim and fading light of the torches in the tavern. The only two physical features you can make out about him is that he has a beard and that he wears glasses that reflect the tiniest of light.

Who is he? Why is he here? You thought you didn’t want to know anything about him, and yet now you can’t help but be intrigued.

“Maybe one day.” He tells you, taking another sip from his cup despite you never uttering a word. “I want to know about you. Why are you still here if you aren’t happy?”

Your eyes downcast. You know why, it’s because of the people. They aren’t the nicest or most supportive people, but you still care about them. Besides, even if you wanted to leave, where would you go? You dream of leaving, and have been saving up to leave, but you know deep down that even if you ever do save enough to leave that you would return soon enough. Or even worse, end up in the same situation someplace new.

He slams his hand down on the counter, startling you out of your own thoughts as you look up at him. He retreats his hand and you look down to see a flimsy piece of what looks like brown paper with gold lettering. You cast him a glance and he nods at you to take it. Slowly sliding it off the edge of the counter you examine it carefully.

Eremita Shipping Captain Jevin One way

You look back up at him to see him standing, the door open and a few gold coins on the counter next to his now empty mug.

“If you go to the ports at dawn you might see a way out of the bottomless pit you’ve found yourself in.” He tells you, turning away and into the dark of the night. “It’s up to you if you decide to grab hold of the rope and start climbing.”

With that, he leaves and the clock chimes on the hour, telling you and the lingering patrons that it’s closing time. You’re entranced, blinking a couple of times as you try to figure out whether or not that just happened. You feel the thin but strong parchment in your hand and you know it did. You read the words on it again, trying to remember where you recognize the name Eremita from.

You don’t dwell on it too much right now, turning your attention to the groaning guests. You can think about this in a little bit, right now you have a tavern to close.

—–

You didn’t sleep at all last night. You tried to, but once you lied down in your bed your brain would not quiet down enough for you to close your eyes. Instead you spent a few hours staring at the ticket that the stranger had given you, his words repeating in your mind.

Eremita. That name seems so familiar to you, and yet you cannot figure out why. It feels like a long forgotten memory from your childhood, some unreachable dream that now presents itself as a reality. Was that man a fairy? you wonder. Is he trying to lure you into something you will never return from? You remember those stories from your childhood quite clearly, the warnings about going too deep into the neighboring woods. Back then you always boasted that your magic would protect you, but as you got older and heard about the town’s children disappearing you decided it wasn’t worth the risk. After all, if you wanted to have an adventure you couldn’t fall prey to some fairy.

So were you really considering that man’s words? Were you actually considering heading to the port at dawn? The retired sailor that ran the ports near your town had popped into the tavern only a fews days ago and he didn’t have anything special to tell you about. You had heard about some of the larger kingdoms’ soldiers arriving on prison ships, or sea-worn travellers like you longed to be one day. You had heard him ramble on about this country or that, but never once have you ever heard him utter the name Eremita.

It had to be a trap, or a trick, or a lie, or something. Or maybe Eremita was a far-off country that took prisoners to work in mines or lumber yards, never to be seen again. The ticket said one way, after all. If you left, the chances of you coming back were slim.

As you toss and turn in your bed, you eventually decide to get up; maybe a walk will silence your overworked mind. You open the door to the outside world, shivering at the slight bite in the air, and don’t even realize that you stuffed the ticket into your pocket.

For once, as you walk, your mind is silent. Not focused on the strange man or his strange words or the strange experience you had a few hours ago. You aren’t focused enough however, to pay attention to your surroundings, as you barely register the thud of footsteps behind you. A hand on your shoulder forces you to spin around, and as you catch yourself you see three masked figures in front of you, two of which begin to close in on either side.

“Hey there pal, it’s sure late out. I get it’s dark and all, but do you even know where you are?” The one in front of you asks as he cracks his neck. “We’ll make this quick and simple for you, alright? Just give us your money and we’ll even be so nice as to escort you out of our territory.”

You narrow your eyes at him in clear defiance, and one of his friends puts a hand on your shoulder. Even if you had thought to bring your coin bag with you, you would never hand over any of your savings to bandits like them. You grab the bandit touching your arm, pivoting your foot and using all your strength to flip their small frame over. It works, but not without dragging you along with them. You hear their leader curse as you scramble to get up and decide not to wait around, bolting in a random direction. Your footsteps are light and you are easily able to hop over obstacles in your way but you can hear the bandits yelling after you and your mind is racing trying to come up with a way out of this scenario.

You make a sharp turn out of an alleyway and before you know it you have to turn again to prevent yourself from falling into the ocean. Your feet are falling against wood as you run across the docks of your home town, the ones that you know haven’t been taken care of, and your foot catches a loose plank just barely jutting up into the air. You tumble down, gaining a few bruises that are about to get a whole lot worse as the three bandits tower over you.

“You just had to make this difficult, huh?”

You stare them down, refusing to show fear despite knowing that your facade will fall within minutes. One of them makes a move to punch you. You brace yourself.

And feel something cold land on your nose.

You see a blurry droplet of something blue, but you’re more focused on the clearer image of a sword in front of you, its broadside blocking the punch from making contact with you. You look up, noticing a blue hand around the hilt.

“Three against one isn’t exactly the fairest of fights.” A new voice chimes in from behind you.

“What the hell are you?” One of the bandits asks.

“Y’know I don’t really wanna tell you. I’m gonna knock you out anyways, so you wouldn’t even remember if I did.” The person holding the sword flicks his wrist up, causing the bandit’s arm to recoil backwards. The person walks around and in front of you.

He’s blue. That’s the main thing you notice. And then you notice that he seems to be rather… gooey as well. You bring up a finger to wipe off your nose and look at the substance that landed on it, realizing that it must be a part of him. He’s wearing a white tunic and some dark pants, neither of which are clinging to him like you’d expect it to.

The bandits throw some insults at the person, and make a few attempts at hitting him. Two of the punches he deflects with his sword in a similar fashion to the first time. The third punch lands. Or sinks, rather. The tallest of the bandits has their fist stuck in the blue person’s head.

“Ew, gross. Do you mind?” His hand comes up and wraps around their arm, pulling their arm out of his head and shoving them backwards. His head shifts a bit, the gelatinous substance it’s made of rippling. “Okay, I’m over this. Leave.”

The leader shouts something incoherent at him and pulls out a dagger, while the other bandit not on the ground pulls out some small throwing knives. The leader rushes him, swiping and stabbing at the blue person who just effortlessly blocks and deflects the attacks. The other bandit takes the distraction to throw the knives, the blades sinking into the goo that made up his body.

The bandits make a sound of triumph but the blue person isn’t impressed. “Thanks for the ammunition.” He mutters as the knives rearrange inside of his body and flow to his non-sword arm. He draws that arm back and then flings it forward, the knives flying out and spraying gooey bits everywhere. A few of the knives fly harmlessly past them but two of them hit the bandit that threw them, impaling their arm and causing them to cry out. One of the knives embeds itself into the leader as well, painfully sticking out of his shoulder.

“Dammit, okay, fine. We’ll leave. But we’ll be back.” The leader mutters, backing away with his bandits.

“Well I won’t be here, so I don’t care.” The blue person says, turning away after making sure the bandits were gone. He looks down at you, before offering you his free hand.

You look at it for a long moment before taking it, surprised that your hand doesn’t sink into his. You also can’t help but mentally recoil at the slimy feeling. When you’re on your feet you thank him.

“No problem. It’s my job to make sure my passengers make it to their destinations safely.” You tilt your head in confusion. His passengers? You weren’t one of his passengers… that you knew of, at least. He gestures behind you. “You dropped your ticket.”

You look behind you, seeing the reflective gold print of the ticket that man gave you at the bar. You had almost managed to forget about it. You pick it up, reading it over again.

Eremita Shipping Captain Jevin One way

So was this guy Captain Jevin? You looked over at him for confirmation and he nodded, walking past you and onto a boat you didn’t even realize was there. It wasn’t too big, but looked like it was made of a sturdy wood. “We don’t leave until dawn, but you’re free to hang out until then.”

You blink. This man, Jevin, just saved you and now he’s acting so casual. It’s jarring. You look down at your ticket again.

Are you actually going to do this? Are you actually considering this? Didn’t you just make dozens of arguments as to why you should rip up this ticket and forget that strange man?

But you’ve never seen someone like Jevin before. Sure, your town was a little diverse, but you had a feeling this Eremita place made your town look extra boring. It was new. It was exciting. And you just saw what he was capable of. Could you learn to do that in Eremita? Clearly not the goo thing, but maybe how to use a sword? How to fight? Could someone teach you how to properly use your magic?

“Thinkin’ hard.”

Jevin’s voice drags you out of your thoughts and you look up at him, a waiting expression. You grip the ticket firmly in your hand, taking a step towards the boat only to freeze.

You have nothing with you.

No money, no clothes, nothing. Without another word you spin on your heels and run back up the dock and towards your house. You hear Jevin shout something behind you but as you glance at the horizon you’re starting to see glimpses of purple transitioning into pink and you know if you don’t hurry you’ll miss your chance.

You stuff some items into a sack that you can throw over your shoulder: a few changes of clothes, a hunting knife your dad gave you, and your life savings. You didn’t tell the tavern owner you were leaving, or any of the patrons, or your parents. Maybe they’ll think that the fairies took you. Maybe they’ll be right.

You jump onto the ship, noticing how Jevin perks up from his spot on the docks untying the boat from a post. He smiles at you and finishes up, walking up to you and holding out a blue hand. “Ticket please.”

You hesitate, asking yourself one last time if you’re really doing this.

You stop hesitating and slap the ticket into his hand, causing a splash of blue.

“Awesome. We’re leaving soon. Help me with the sail.”

The ride is surprisingly smooth, despite how choppy the waters on the horizon look. You’re watching your hometown fade into the distance when the reality of what you’ve done begins to sink in. Looking around the top deck, you realize suddenly that you’re the only one on board aside from Jevin. Panic starts to envelop you and you grip the wooden railing, certain you are going to have splinters as soon as you let go.

“You should go get some sleep.” Jevin calls from behind the wheel. He isn’t looking at you, instead over the horizon ahead of you. “You look like you’re about to jump overboard and me and water don’t exactly get along the best.”

You’re about to ask him why he is a boat captain when a yawn escapes you. You glance at the sun resting above the horizon, squinting past the golden rays as you try and figure out how long you’ve gone now without sleep.

You look around the deck again, noticing nothing else on the barren wood other than a few barrels. You walk towards the part of the ship that leads to the lower decks and sit down, leaning against a wall. The angle blocks the sun and you’re able to lean against the rising stairwell. You’re still anxious, but logic starts seeping through. It’s too late now to turn back, may as well get some rest and be ready for anything.

—–

“Hey, we’re here.” You jump at Jevin’s voice, frantically looking around as you try and take in your surroundings. Right. You’re on a boat. “Sorry, but you have to get off. I have other trips to make.”

You nod, stretching as you stand and grab your sack. You take note of where the sun is, noticing it’s past noon. That was a lot faster than you thought it would be. Granted, you didn’t know where this place was on a map. You wave to Jevin as you step off the ship and you watch as he floats off.

The port he dropped you off on looks decrepit and rarely used. Planks are missing on the dock and you have to tread carefully before you can hop safely onto the white sand of the beach. Ahead of you is a thick jungle, trees towering over you and you can’t see past them. There’s a worn dirt trail visible, though, and you start towards it.

Your doubts and fears start creeping up again as you navigate the complicated jungle path, pulling down vines and walking over decaying tree trunks. It doesn’t look like anyone has been through here in awhile, considering how overgrown it is.

You hear a whisper from behind you and whip around, frantically looking around. You hear it again, feeling something against your neck, and you spin around again. You dig in your pack for the small hunting knife your dad gave to you years ago and unsheath it, holding it shakily in front of you as you scan the area.

Something ruffles the bushes to your right and you turn towards it, taking a deep breath and walking towards it. Bracing yourself you use one hand to push some of the bush aside to reveal… nothing. You look closer, only to be startled once again from a sound behind you. You stand straight, taking a step back as you spin and your foot hits something solid in the pathway and you tumble into the dirt.

You’re fine physically, just a bit dirty with the wet dirt deciding to cling to your hands and clothes. You look at what you tripped over, noticing a small red crystal bursting out of the ground. It’s edges are jagged but the top looks flat and you notice the pointed tip sitting on the ground next to the crystal.

You’re trying to figure out how exactly it got there or why you didn’t notice it before when a large, cat-like creature jumps out of the bushes. You blink at it and it blinks back before sniffing at the broken crystal tip, nudging it with its nose. It’s mainly white, a gray, striped patch covering most of its back. You would have assumed it was some off-bread mountain lion if not for the fact that you realized it had two legs too many, and two extra tails sprouting from its back. How it managed to sneak up on you is a mystery you wonder if you’ll live to solve, or if it’s about to maul you before you can.

You watch it as it gently picks the crystal up in its mouth, beginning to trot off into the woods and off the path. It pauses and looks back at you. You stare at it. One of its tails twitches towards you and then forward. You slowly stand up, picking up your bag and take a few steps towards it. It begins walking forward again, pausing to look back at you again.

You narrow your eyes in suspicion but follow the cat-like creature into the thick of the jungle, your knife out the entire time just in case. It trots easily through the thickets and brambles while you scramble over big bushes and maneuver around tall trees. Before long it leads you into a clearing and you stop behind it as it walks up to a tall man wearing a brightly colored purple robe, matching pointed hat, and holding onto a tall staff. He looks at the creature as it rubs against his side and he mutters something to it, his voice clearly pleased.

“Oh, what’s this?” He asks a little louder as he pet the creature, having it drop the crystal into his hand. He looks at it carefully. “This is exactly what I was looking for! Thank ya, Jellie!” He gives it, Jellie, another pet.

Jellie chirps and walks over to you, rubbing at your side now. The man looks at you now and you get a better look at him in return now that he is facing you. You see now that he is a tabaxi, a cat-like creature, with brown fur fuzzed up underneath his clothes and two ears poking out on either side of the brim. Underneath the gold-trimmed robe is a plain grey shirt and brightly colored shorts with a pattern; he’s also wearing soft looking shoes that don’t look like they were made to withstand the jungle he’s in. His staff has bits of color in it and they reflect the few light beams that shine past the leaves.

“Well hi there! Looks like Jellie made a new friend.” He beams at you, walking over. “I hope she didn’t cause you too much trouble, she doesn’t know when to keep her paws to herself.”

You look down at the creature that you’re still not convinced is a cat and see her staring up at you, her green eyes dull in comparison to her maybe-owner. She meows at you and the man gasps.

“Really?” He asks and when Jellie mrrps in response he is smiling even brighter at you. “So you pulled the crystal out of the ground? That’s rather impressive, especially since this is such a powerful one too.” He tells you, holding up the crystal to a light beam and looking at it through one eye.

You don’t know what he is talking about. You didn’t do anything, you don’t think. You figured that crystal had always been there.

“If you pulled the crystal from the ground like Jellie says then that must mean you have some powerful magic!” You shrug and Jellie meows once again. He gasps. “You just arrived from that port? I didn’t think we still used that one…” He mutters that last part to himself and your worries return to you tenfold. “Are you back from a trip? Or are you new to Eremita?”

You confirm that you have arrived here for the first time and you’re relieved that you are, in fact, in Eremita. Wherever or whatever Eremita is. So far your experience with it has been gooey ship captains, broken docks, random crystals, and even randomer cat-like creatures. Maybe you were still asleep.

“Well then, allow me to be your guide!” He stands taller. “There is no one who knows this part of the jungle better than good ol’ Mr. Goodtimes here.” He spins on his heels and gestures for you to follow him with his staff.

You follow Mr. Goodtimes down another dirt path. Jellie walks beside him, and every now and again will walk beside you. “So, what brings you to Eremita? Wait, don’t tell me, let me guess. You’re here for the magic, aren’t you? That is our specialty, afterall. Well, I can promise you someone of your magical prowess will fit in just fine here.” He looks over his shoulder at you. “How long have you been studying magic, anyways?”

You sink into your shirt collar, avoiding his eyes. Sure, you have magic, but you can’t say you ever studied it. The most you’ve ever managed to do with your magic was conjure a ball of light for a few seconds. It seems lame now, but you were really proud of it back then. You can’t help but feel like you’ll disappoint him with the truth that you’re not as powerful as he thinks you are. His eyes are still on you, waiting for an answer, though and you simply shrug as a response.

“You don’t know? Wait,” He stops and turns to you, narrowing his eyes and really looking you over. “Jellie wouldn’t just bring any stranger to me, and no stranger could pull a crystal like that from the ground. And if what you’re saying is true then…” He gasps, his eyes practically sparkling as he seems to connect some sort of dots in his head. “You should be my apprentice!”

You’re taken aback, staring at him in bewilderment. Whether he notices your confusion or not is up in the air as he nods to himself. “Imagine it. My name is already known across all of Eremita, so it wouldn’t be too surprising for my loyal followers to hear that Mr. Goodtimes the great wizard has taken on a powerful apprentice!”

He was a wizard? Is that what was up with his getup? You thought wizards only wore stuff like that in fairy tales… Although, the longer you’re in Eremita the more you’re convinced that is a place straight out of a fantasy book your mother would read to you as a kid. Mr. Goodtimes seems excited about the fantasy he has concocted and he looks back up at you, his voice suddenly turning sheepish.

“That is, if you want to.”

You can’t help but smile at his change in demeanor. You’ve never been someone’s apprentice before, and you did want to learn how to use your magic. Maybe this would be good for you. And it looks like it would be great for Mr. Goodtimes. You nod at him and he perks right back up.

“Oh, this is gonna be amazin’!” He’s quickly turning back on his heels and marching through the jungle again, leaving you and Jellie to follow behind him.

You stop at a stone wall, bricks clumsily stacked on top of each other that towered up to barricade something off from the rest of the jungle. Mr. Goodtimes feels along the bricks, making a small “aha” noise as he pushes against one and a section of the wall opens. He gestures for you to go ahead and you do, staring up in awe at this new world that you just stepped into.

The first thing you notice is the giant blue crystal in the middle and how it towers above you, catching the sunlight and reflecting it brilliantly. Then you notice the buildings, they’re overgrown but you feel as if that means they’re in perfect working order. Nature is at work everywhere in this little village that you stand in awe in, but it looks tamed and naturally groomed in a way the jungle you had just traversed didn’t.

Creatures walk down the small pathways, from little farms into buildings, carrying crates of goods. No two of them are the same. You see tiny fairies making the crops grow with a sprinkling of magic dust, a small feathered creature chipping at a block of stone, and a red, scaly humanoid flipping through a book on a roof. Mr. Goodtimes steps in place beside you, looking over the hidden village with a smile.

“Welcome to the village of magical misfit creatures, my apprentice.” He takes a step forward and turns towards you. “A place where any creature who wishes to indulge in their more mystical side may do so in peace.”

He gently taps the side of the blue crystal with his staff, causing both items to glow softly for a moment. Satisfied, he taps his chin in thought as he looks you over. “Alright, first things first: you need a staff.” You do? You look at him in confusion, and he shakes his head at you, tutting. “Every good magician needs a staff. It’s practically essential! How else are you gonna cast all your cool magic spells?”

You’re fairly certain you’ve never used a staff or a wand or anything really to cast your magic. But he’s already walking away before you can protest and into one of the smaller buildings in the village and you sigh as you follow. It’s dimmer than it was outside with no windows to let in any natural light. There was the distinct smell of freshly cut wood in the air, and the dust on the ground added to it. Sticks and staffs and wands of different colors and woods and designs lined the walls.

Working at a table in the middle of the room was another tabaxi,. Her yellow fur was speckled with black and orange spots and she looked up when you and Mr. Goodtimes entered. Jellie pushes her way in, weaving around anything in her path and getting between the craftsman and her work, rubbing her head against her hands until she stopped carving and started to pet her instead.

“Hi there Virgam!” Mr. Goodtimes called out, waving as he set his staff against the wall near the door.

She smiled at him and nodded. “Hello, Mr. Goodtimes. Did you break your staff again?”

“As a matter of fact, no. I did not.” He seemed rather proud of this fact and Virgam laughed quietly.

“Then what brings you here?”

“I need a special brand-spankin’-new staff for my apprentice.” Mr. Goodtimes (first name Scar?) grabs your arm and pulls you forward to show you off to Virgam.

Virgam looks you over, eyes narrowed and ears flicking every few seconds. “An apprentice, huh? Alright then, I’m sure I have something around here they can use.” She walks over to some of the staff on the wall, picking one up and examining it. “Tell me, apprentice, what kind of magic are you looking to study under Scar?”

Next Chapter >

#hermitcraft #adventures in hermiton #jevin #goodtimeswithscar #chapter

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