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spicler-man · 2 years

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the classic field trip trope

masterlist here Field trips vs. Paintball by FuhkinIero

When he thought about it for a second, it made sense that his classmates were so shocked. Rounding a corner to see Peter dressed in all black, holding a pistol with a rifle strapped to his back would probably freak out most people.

or: Peter isn’t allowed on the field trip to Stark Industries so he plays Avengers paintball instead

Overstepping by Kazbaby

After a field trip to Stark Industries is announced, Peter is accused of lying about his internship. After years of dealing with teachers that ignore bullies and the school rumor mill - except for when it suites them - Peter stands up for himself.

Hidden Treasure by whenwordsmakesense

Peter forced himself to stay calm. Saturday, what a day. Either he could go to school and come back here for a field trip to his own home and get bored and simultaneously insulted by Flash and become the indirect reason of the Avengers murdering a teen, or he could attend one meeting that day and avoid seeing his classmates and not let his secrets be revealed.

Peter's acadec team gets a chance to go to the Avenger's Tower and Peter doesn't want to. Also he is the (secret) heir to SI. What could go wrong?

Thanks, Dad! by TPWK_biatch

‘’Hey, Tony! Have you seen my charger?’’ Peter walked into the living room only to freeze on his track the moment he entered.

There stood the rouge avengers, staring at Peter Parker who was eating a cold leftover slice of pizza. The superheroes looked just as puzzled as Peter was feeling.

Or me at three am going, 'you know what's better than one popular trope? Two popular tropes.' A Peter 'Parker meets the Avengers' and a 'Peter Parker goes on a field trip to SI' fic.

We do field trips here? by OK_ButWhy1

I enjoy this trope too much to let it die. My take on the 'Peter goes on a field trip to Stark Tower' trope.

Written because I live for Tony and Peter father/son fluff. Join me for a classic field trip story with a slightly more realistic look at how Stark Industries functions.

top ten anime betrayals by kernsing

Tony flicks his gaze toward the group of students gawking and does a compulsory once-over. He doesn’t seem to be looking for Peter. Peter sinks deep in his hoodie and prays he blends in anyway.

Unfortunately, Tony catches his eye, does a double-take, and smiles. “Oh, hey!” he says as he walks over. Then, to Peter’s eternal mortification, Tony sticks one end of a piece of metal in his mouth so he has a free hand to ruffle Peter’s hair. With the piece still in his mouth and muffling his voice, he says, “Didn’t know you were here. I have to go talk with Dr. Karim in her lab right now, sorry I can’t stay and chat longer.”

Peter goes on a field trip, Tony doesn’t know, and FRIDAY wants revenge.

{Rogers Is An A-Hole (Field trip)} by Chaeyoung26090 for bkykorisayshoho

Requested by bkykorisayshoho: Hey! Do you still accept orders? And if the answer is "yes", you could do a one where Peter Parker goes on a field trip to the tower and the rogues are there and Steve says something Tony's bad, causing Peter to get mad and attack him, preferentially breaking his nose or his arm while midtown just watches and Harrington dies internally?

********** Peter put his hand in his pockets and spun around, staring at every Rogue in the eye critically. Bucky was standing further back, glaring at his teammates' backs. He seemed to have taken no part in the confrontation. Peter noted this in his mind.

"You are all bullies," he said finally, walking over to lean against the wall opposite to them.

"We're not-"

"Really?" he raised an eyebrow, "Four of you are against one man, letting one pile all the blame of the things he should take responsibility for on him. And you have the actual audacity to say you're not bullies?"

Now they looked slightly abashed, but not in the way they should be. Peter felt like he was going to explode, but stayed calm. Screaming at them would make him seem childish.

Stark Jr. by SketchyNebula

Peter Parker has just accepted that his peers will never believe in his Internship. Really, lately he has just been trying his best to keep his life in balance between all his daily responsibilities that tug at him for his attention, but then his class comes to his place of work without him knowing about it. Peter should never underestimate his 'parker luck'.

A.k.a I threw my hand in this ring because I love this trope

This is the worst timeline by Hittinmiss

Chair Dude: I have some good news and some bad news

Chair Dude: good news is you didn't miss any training for decathlon

Chair Dude: bad news is that they decided the field trip without you ://

Man of Spiders: why is it bad news??

Chair Dude: because Flash decided to pick the compound and no one said no so…

Man of Spiders: Dude why didn't you say no???

Chair Dude: I would have been out voted Dude!

Chair Dude: I also wanna see the compound as well so yeet

---

Field trip fic!

It's Above My Clearance Level by tsk

In which Peter's class goes on a field trip to Stark Tower, and no one knows why this kid has such high clearance.

Definitely Worth It by jennylarner

Peter doesn't want to go on a field trip to Stark Tower. It's a recipe for disaster. His class doesn't believe him, his teacher doesn't believe him. If he makes it through the entire day without being suspended, it'll be a miracle. Unfortunately for Peter, he's never much believed in miracles.

...

“This is a goddamn disaster.” Peter declared miserably. At least he hadn’t thrown up his food.

“Could be worse.” MJ said across from him. Peter lifted up his head.

“Oh yeah, how?”

MJ shrugged. “They could have expelled you instead.”

Peter gaped at her. “Thanks MJ, that’s really helpful. I feel so much better now.”

the heir to stark industries by OnlyForward

peter parker doesn't know it yet, but he's the heir to stark industries. this fic is basically tony training him to be the heir by making peter act as ceo during the youngboss protocol, where peter takes charge of the company in case of emergencies.

essentially, peter does cool stuff at stark industries and also there's a field trip fic in chapter 4, because everyone loves a field trip fic.

multi-chapter fic!!

Just Another Day by The_Mishamigo

Peter’s class gets the chance to visit Stark Industries. Tony is incredibly impressed over the kid and decides to hijack the tour. What could possibly go wrong?

Dysfunctional by ApolloLoki97

“Dude, you’re complaining about your family. Which would be normal if they weren’t the freaking Avengers.”

Peter's second family is a bit dysfunctional.

Almost two years after the sudden death of Aunt May, Peter is living with the Avengers at Stark Tower under the guardianship of Tony Stark. Between juggling his avenging and senior year, Peter is exhausted, but he has his family behind him. When his class gets invited to tour Stark Tower, Peter isn't thrilled and spends all week dreading it. Throw in a mission here and a couple of gods there and Peter Parker is having one hell of a week. Will he manage to stay sane until its over?

------

Or the typical field trip fic with a little extra thrown in.

This is my first Marvel fic and I love this prompt so much, so here's my take on it.

Kissin’ Dynamite by crime_fighting_spiderling

“Maybe I shouldn’t go.” Peter spoke. MJ shoved a permission slip into his hand at his comment.

“You’re going.” She simply stated.

Where Peter and his class go on a field trip to Stark Tower.

Mr Stark Enough For You? (another field trip fic bcs we dont have enough) by Livinei

Peter isn’t worried because he thinks Tony won’t say yes, he’s worried because he’s sure Tony will. And he’s not sure how he feels about having his entire class waltzing around the place where he spends practically more time than in his own home, where he has his own room, and where he regularly eats Lucky Charms with one of the most influential men in the country, in his pajamas. Not that they’d ever know any of that. Tour groups don’t go to the living quarters of the Tower anyways, they hardly ever go past the 50th floor, Peter knows that. And it isn’t fair to his class if he doesn’t ask just because he…spends a lot of time there? Yeah, Peter sighs, he has to ask. He promised, anyways.

IT'S A FIELD TRIP FIC, WE LOVE THOSE

The Tour by concreteflour

If Peter won't stand up to his Bullies, who will? Plus, no one really believes that Peter interns at Stark Industries.

Robots and Fire Are a Bad Combination by Singing_Siren

Ned's acting weird. Peter just wants to make a robot, but when Ned's secret turns out to be a field trip to the tower, it puts his plan on hold.

Petey by inakua

Peter is on a field trip at stark industries when he's interrupted and some interesting revelations comes to light. Who's this child that's clinging to him? And since when has Tony Stark been referred to as dad! Dad!Tony, not endgame compliant, Tony Stark is alive and well, obviously AU.

The Worthiness of a Spider by inkinmyheartandonthepage

In order to gain some good PR for the Avengers, Pepper organises for some schools to come visit the Avenger’s Compound. After two schools, the Avengers have a routine down, what to say, how to make the kids laugh – until Midtown School of Science and Technology. Or Thor really shouldn’t have forgotten to mention how his hammer worked.

Rule Them All by inkinmyheartandonthepage

“Oh no,” Natasha frowned as she approached the group with Carol. Nat gestured to the hammer on the table, her eyes flicking from each of them. “We’re not doing this again, are we?”

The Avengers forget to tell Peter what it means to be able to pick up Mjolnir.

Constant Internal [Spider] Screaming: Semi-Connected Scenes from a Graduating Senior’s Life by isaDanCurtisproduction

When Peter's Teacher announces that his Graduating Class's Senior Trip is going to be to Stark Industries, the place where Peter has an internship, and where he spends so much of his free time, he is... less than enthused. No one believes his Internship is real and frankly, he just doesn't want to deal with it, but between May and Mr. Stark, he doesn't really think he's going to get much of a choice. He's going to have to go At least Ned is excited about it. And hey, he has a month till the actual day, maybe he'll fall into a pit or get carried away by a stork-themed villain or fall into a Coma or something before the dreaded Field Trip

field trip by OnlyForward

peter is the heir of stark industries on a field trip to his work place. when things start to go wrong in the r&d labs, he has to step in and fix all of it. feat. midtown senior class + pepper potts + a guy called paul

aka heir peter being bamf for your souls

Went To Hell And Back, But It Was Worth It by SargeantWoof

The Academic Decathlon team gets to tour Stark Tower.

Peter's not thrilled. But, well, Ned is, and MJ, and Betty, and Sally, and Charles, and Cindy, and Abe, and especially Flash.

It's fine. Nothing exciting happens in the building that much anyway.

Only, he forgot his version of excitement is nothing like a normal high school student's.

air force by OnlyForward

peter goes on a field trip to the air force building with the rest of his senior year and has to step in when there’s a break-in and the building goes into lockdown protocol

aka another field trip fic gone wrong because peter parker can never have a normal field trip

He's everywhere by schrijverr

There is a field trip to Stark Industries and Peter is not on the field trip, but he is working there during it. The group seems to bump into him everywhere they go.

School at Work by schrijverr

A classic field trip to Stark Tower, where Peter already works and they find out fic. Here Peter is already in the building when he stumbles upon his classmates on a field trip, they are a bit surprised to see him there.

Field Trip by inkinmyheartandonthepage

Peter Parker gets forgotten on a Field Trip, his class leaving him behind at the Avengers Tower. But it’s okay, because his hero Tony Stark will get him home.

air force by pomegranateboy

peter never really had a good time on field trips, this one appears to be the exception.

Midtown High at Stark Industries by Nanerich

Shit. Peter's class has been invited to tour SI. All Peter can hope for is that a certain Ironman has no idea about this and stays as far away from Peter, who just wants to be invisible. But then again, we are talking about Tony Stark here... He probably not only made sure Midtown would be invited, no, if Peter knew his Irondad, there were a whole lot more surprises in store...

Tony Stark And Peter Parker Have No Regrets In Their Actions. by nenz

Despite what many people think, Peter is actually quite set on proving Flash wrong. And this field trip to Avengers Tower is exactly what Peter needs to do so. Not only that, Tony also wants to prove the little-shit wrong.

So Tony hijacks the kid’s field trip.

Tony Stark's Intern by yellow_sleeping_bag

(no description)

Hidden Truths by lostintheclouds321

"Peter Parker wasn’t worried about the field trip at all. No way, Jose. Tony Stark didn’t even know him. Well, he knew Spider-Man, but that was different!"

Despite trying his best to keep his identity as Spider-Man secret from Tony Stark on his field trip, things escalate out of control. What's new?

Mouthful of sourness and an armful of sweetness by ArtAndTarts

It's time for Midtown high's senior field trip, which has said seniors buzzing with excitement. When their destination is revealed to be The Stark tower, the excitement levels go through the roof for all except for one Peter Parker, who can only hope his family won't embarrass him too much.

Undercover Chaperone by happyaspie for waitingondaisies

When Peter's field trip to MoMA is in jepordy of being cancelled due to lack of supervision, he asks Tony for advice. He didn't expect him to actually sign up to chaperone. And when Peter brings up his concerns about Tony being recognized, Tony assures him he has everything under control.

#spider-man #spider-man fics #irondad and spiderson #iron man #irondad fics #peter parker #peter parker fics #tony stark #field trip fic #tony stark fics

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arcanejayvik · 2 years

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JAYVIK AU TIME! RIVAL STUDENTS!JAYVIK

angsty nerd time (lowkey enemies to lovers?)

jayce and viktor only really notice each other at first for one reason: they take turns scoring highest on the placement test.

viktor doesn't like jayce. he doesn't. jayce is so popular, athletic, has so many friends and still somehow matches his intellect easily. does the other boy even study?

he probably doesn't have the time, with all of the clubs he's a part of and all of the other students tripping over themselves to fall at his feet. pathetic, honestly.

and jayce? jayce doesn't like viktor. he really hasn't talked to him much, but once he got partnered with the other boy for a project and viktor had completed the whole thing by himself without telling jayce. prick.

viktor also seems to hate him. he's not sure why when everyone else seems to want to be his friend, and he can't recall ever having done anything to make the other angry. so viktor's just an asshole to him and only him, for no good reason.

but when viktor isn't talking to him, jayce sees him smile softly at his friends, watches him chew on the eraser at the end of his pencil when he's in the library, lost in thought. his chocolate hair looks so soft and is always messy, probably due to viktor's habit of running his hands through his hair when he's nervous.

he thinks he's kinda cute.

one day, viktor catches him staring. he looks shocked, and then confused, and finally angry. "talis," he says, and it almost sounds like a sneer.

"viktor." jayce pulls out a chair and sits across from him.

"didn't expect to see you here. finally decided to take your studies seriously for once?"

jayce goes to the library often, but he supposes with the way that viktor tends to get lost in his work that the other wouldn't notice. "why do you hate me so much?" before he can stop himself, he blurts what is on his mind.

viktor's jaw drops, a little. he shifts uncomfortably. "i don't. hate you, that is."

"you sure? you always seem pissed when i talk to you."

viktor rolls his eyes. "not everyone wants to talk to the golden boy, talis."

jayce clears his throat. "it's jayce. nobody calls me by my last name."

viktor eyes him wearily. "jayce, then. why are you here?" he smirks. "do you need help?"

he doesn't know what possesses him to swallow his pride and lie. "yes, actually. i was hoping you could help me."

viktor's eyebrows raise in surprise, but his expression softens minutely. "what do you need help with?"

so jayce makes up something or another about how he's not sure about a concept in their shared physics class and viktor agrees to tutor him, looking slightly abashed.

"im sorry if i came off the wrong way. i really don't hate you."

jayce beams and watches his ears turn scarlet. "all forgiven."

and so jayce and viktor become tentative friends as they meet more and more regularly for "tutoring" sessions. viktor realizes he got a lot wrong about jayce, and jayce realizes how sweet viktor really is, if a little shy.

then one day, jayce forgets one of his notebooks at their session. viktor doesn't mean to look, but he knocks it off the table before he notices its there and leans down to pick it up--

and there on the open pages are formulas upon formulas of advanced theories far beyond what they have been discussing together.

viktor shoves the book harshly at jayce when he returns it and begins walking briskly off.

"wait, what about our study date?" jayce teases after him and he stops and turns on his heel, hand shaking on his cane.

"i hope you had fun, because we're done," viktor spits out.

"wait--what?" jayce is such a good actor that viktor thinks it's no wonder he fell for it. he looks lost, confused, and that only makes viktor angrier. he has no right to pretend.

"i saw your notes," he says evenly, trying to get him to drop the act.

jayce freezes. winces.

"you should be proud. i really believed you," viktor says, bitterly. "talis, don't ever speak to me again."

at this jayce 's eyes widen and he lurches forward, panicking. viktor sees his motion and cant stop himself from flinching back.

that makes jayce stop again, his eyes looking oddly misty. "viktor, i'm sorry, i--"

"on second thought, don't let it get to your head. i'm just a fool." viktor shakes his head and limps away.

"viktor, wait!" he can't fathom for the life of him why he pauses to hear him out. his heart knows the truth and still betrays him.

"i just wanted to know you. you're so..."

viktor turns around when jayce hesitates and is surprised to see that jayce is blushing.

"...distant from me. i really did think you hated me at first, but then when you said you didn't i panicked and i lied because i wanted to get to know you."

viktor scoffs. "if thats true, why wouldn't you have asked me like a normal person?"

jayce shrugs shyly. "i got carried away because i like you."

and then viktor just starts laughing and jayce turns red. "you really think i'd fall for your antics again?"

and jayce grits his teeth and says, "gods, viktor. you're so fucking smart, but you're so goddamn stupid--" and just pins him against the wall and kisses him fiercely.

viktor seems to give in almost immediately, a small whimper catching in the back of his throat when jayce invades his mouth. his cane clatters against the ground and jayce is careful to support his weight.

when he pulls away, viktor is wide-eyed and flushed, almost disbelieving. jayce closes his eyes and rests their foreheads together. "i said i like you, you stupid idiot."

#jayvik #vikjayce #jayce x viktor #my writing #my post #jayvik fic #jayvik au #student!jayce #student!viktor #idk brain still stuck in academy au #oblivious!viktor #misunderstandings #mild angst #tbc #maybe #academy au

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lubdubsworld · 3 years

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GIFT .

Genre : Brother-in-law Jungkook x OC!

Warnings : Yandere Jungkook! Non Consent. Manipulative behaviour. Explicit Sexual Content, Violence, Murder

Author's Note : I love reading Yandere fics so I just wanted to write one!! Its very different from what I usually write... So proceed with caution.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The first time I met Jungkook , it was five years into my relationship with Namjoon.

Namjoon had told me all about his baby brother, a final year student in SNU. Jungkook majored in Business , training to take over the company business . Namjoon often mentioned that it was Jungkook's offer to switch majors that had helped him pursue his own dream of being a music producer.

So when he told me that Jungkook was on a break from university and his parents were looking forward to having a proper family dinner with all of us, I was excited to meet the boy , I'd heard so much about. Namjoon was endlessly fond of his little brother and I wanted him to like me just as much.

Namjoon and I had met seven years earlier in the University Library and had become fast friends. We were both quiet, intellectually driven individuals, preferring to spend our time in the library as opposed to partying with our friends. And yet, in a twist , against our family’s wishes, we had chosen not to pursue an academically driven career either. I’d always felt out of place in my own friend group, most of my friend from Journalism being extroverted and fun loving. Namjoon for his part had only two very close friends, Yoongi and Hoseok and preferred spending time by himself as well.

So it was only natural that we fell in with each other with ease. His beautiful dimpled smile tugged on my gut, even as his gentle nature and gorgeous mind made my heart pound. I fell in love with him, between the late night laughter in the library and the soft secrets whispered against my skin, in the privacy of his bed.

“Nervous?” His voice drew me to the present, fingers inking with mine as he lightly knocked his shoulders against mine, staring down at me with a dimpled smile. I shook my head quickly, squeezing his hand gently.

“Of course not. I just want him to like me.” I whispered and Namjoon chuckled.

“Jungkookie isn’t very expressive so don’t worry if he isn’t very vocal in his affections. He’s very shy with new people but I’m sure, he’ll love you.” Namjoon reached out and lightly, brushed the hair off my face before leaning down and giving me a quick kiss.

I gripped his waist, pressing in closer, lips parting instinctively , eager to chase the taste of him. He groaned and gripped my elbow, pulling me around to press up against the tall , lean strength of his body and this was it, this endless need to touch him even after seven whole years of being together. I moaned when he bit down on my lips, my back arching a bit to press into him.

“Hyung?”

We parted, surprised and I felt my face flame, lips slicked wet and no doubt red from where Joon’s teeth had sunk in.

What a first impression.

“Ahh… Jungkook-ah… You came out?” Namjoon looked a little flustered, dimples peeking out in an abashed smile as he laughed embarrassedly I found myself smiling at Jungkook, who looked nothing like I’d imagined.

I’d been expecting someone cute and friendly.

Jungkook was dressed in all black, tall and intimidating. He was also almost surreally beautiful, gaze piercing and steady as he stared at me. I felt an instinctive urge to hide, not missing the way his gaze trailed up and down my body, lips parting gently to reveal a pair of bunny teeth that looked jarringly adorable on a face that was , quite simply put, arrestingly gorgeous.

He hummed, still standing in the doorway, eyes trained on me and I swallowed when he smiled , wide and open. His tongue darted out, lightly licking his lower lip .

“Hi, Hana.” He said softly and I startled.

“Hana? I’m sure you mean noona…..” I laughed nervously and even Namjoon looked surprised and Jungkook merely smiled, shrugging.

“You don’t feel like a noona.” He said casually.

I merely stared at him, not sure what he meant. Namjoon laughed a little as well, moving over to lightly hug his brother.

“Yah! You’ve just met her. Isn’t it too soon to start being a brat?” He ruffled his hair playfully before turning to me.

“Come on, Hana. Come say hi to my parents.” Namjoon walked in and I rushed to follow him, pausing when I reached the doorway. I smiled at Jungkook, holding a hand out slowly.

“I’ve heard so much about you Jungkook, I hope we can be friends…” I said sincerely and he stared at my hand, not taking it. Instead he gave me another soft smile. Before leaning down and pressing a kiss to the back of my hand, making me jump .

“You don’t feel like a friend either.” He said with a shrug , before moving away, leaving me stunned on the doorway.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Two years later :

“Seven months? Namjoon we’re getting married in seven months! How am I supposed to plan a whole wedding , with you away from the country?” I asked desperately, watching as Namjoon sat with his head in his hands. He looked stricken, regretful and pained and I felt terrible for being unreasonable but it was impossible not to feel hurt.

“I know.. I know hana, I’m so fucking sorry. But this is such a huge opportunity and its not just me : Hoseok and Yoongi depend on me. I can’t screw things up for them too.” He whispered and I exhaled.

Namjoon had been offered a chance to produce for a very high end recording label based out of the US and they wanted him to stay there for a minimum of seven months. The offer had been a complete surprise, out of the blue and the timing couldn’t have been worse. I’d been accepted into an internship at a popular magazine and it would be impossible for me to go with him. And I was so desperate to go.

We’d never been apart for more than a few days, in the entirety of our relationship and the thought of not seeing him for months made me want to throw up.

“I’ve spoken to Jungkook. He’ll help you with all the things that have to be done. And I swear that I’ll be back at least a month before the date, alright? No matter what happens.” Namjoon said firmly. I swallowed, nodding nervously.

It was true that I didn’t like the idea of being away from Namjoon. But the thought of keeping him away from a dream that he had worked so hard for, was almost unfathomable.

Besides, Jungkook was reliable and sweet. The perfect gentleman. Especially now that he’d taken over as his father’s Executive Assistant, Jungkook was incredibly good at organizing and planning things out.

With his help, I could plan out our wedding to perfection.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The next five months were spent in a haze of appointments and fittings and bookings. Jungkook had arranged for a shift in my internship hours, so he and I could spend a solid four hours every day, visiting different vendors, picking out the perfect floral arrangements, napkins, brocade and what not. And for once, I found myself completely enthralled by the idea of spending money of frivolously pretty things. Whether it was the florists or the patisserie, the dress fitting or the invitations, I felt my excitement bubbling over , amazed because marrying into Namjoon’s family meant an unlimited budget and for once, I didn’t mind being extravagant.

What was more, I didn’t miss Namjoon nearly as much as I thought I would. Because deep down , I knew that he wouldn’t have enjoyed this all that much. And I would have felt guilty , dragging him everywhere.

And Jungkook was the one to thank for all of it. He picked me up everyday for an early breakfast , followed by hours of combing the streets for ideas and appointments. He was funny and enthusiastic, eager to help me in every way and I was so grateful that I couldn’t thank him enough.

“I owe you so much, Kookie. You’ve been a life saver.” I groaned, collapsing on the couch and dropping my head back against the backrest. Jungkook chuckled, sitting down on one of the Turkish ottomans and lightly grabbing my ankle, pulling my foot onto his lap. I flushed a little, still not used to how touchy he was.

Jungkook liked wrapping his arms around my waist when we were out and about, fingers fluttering up my sides or brushing hair off my face with easy familiarity. I didn’t mind. He reminded me of my little brother back in Ilsan.

Most of the people we met assumed he was the groom and Jungkook told me it would be better to keep up the ruse because wedding planners were more comfortable when couples came together and I’d agreed, albeit a little reluctantly. I missed Namjoon and I wondered if he would mind. But when I mentioned it in passing to him during one of our daily video calls, he’d merely laughed it off.

“You’re so tense, Hana. You should relax. Everything is going to be okay.” Jungkook said softly, soft fingers digging into the curve of heel before brushing the arch of my foot. I smiled when he tugged my foot close, placing it down on the firmness of his thigh.

I gazed down at him, feeling uncomfortably nervous. This whole thing seemed oddly intimate somehow and I felt the first tendrils of guilt begin to curl around my gut. I swallowed, hating myself for tainting something that was no doubt innocent. I ought to be grateful that my future brother in law was this kind to me.

“I know. Thank you. I just miss him sometimes.” I said softly. The fingers stilled on my foot.

“Only sometimes?” He teased, eyes narrowed and tone just a little colder and I hesitated.

“I don’t miss him when you keep me company. You help me forget that I’m doing all of this by myself.” I said honestly. Jungkook inhaled sharply, his gaze flicking to mine, holding mine with an intensity that made me balk a little.

“You mean, that?” He asked quietly and I laughed at how serious he looked.

“Of course I do. I was so sure this whole thing would be me being miserably lonely but you’ve kept me laughing and happy. I’m going to ask Namjoon to buy you something expensive and amazing when he comes back.”

“He already has something amazing. It’s the only thing I really want.” Jungkook said quietly, fingers stroking up, gently massaging my foot all the way up my calf. I groaned at how good it felt.

“Really what is it?” I asked curious.

Jungkook squeezed my knee before carefully placing my foot down , reaching for the other one.

“You’ll know soon, Hana.”

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

True to his word, Namjoon called me exactly a month before our wedding date.

“Guess who’s leaving the God forsaken place this weekend?”

I felt warmth flood my insides, heart racing with pure joy, tears brimming over because I’d honestly resigned myself to the fact that he wouldn’t be able to make it back on time.

“Monday i, I’ll be there. Can’t wait to kiss you, my love.” He whispered and I nodded, laughing.

Finally, Everything would be okay.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Namjoon’s flight was due to arrive late night ,somewhere between twelve and one in the morning. I’d taken a nap in the afternoon, so I could be up to welcome him back. Jungkook arrived at around seven with Takeout and flowers.

He didn’t ring the doorbell, letting himself in with the spare key I’d given him for emergencies. I found myself scrambling for my robe because I’d taken a nice long shower and slipped on a silk negligee, short and ending just over my knees . I could feel his eyes on me as I hastily tied the sash together, flustered. The robe wasn’t long either and I felt absolutely exposed, even worse than when he’d stepped into the dressing room during my fitting, offering to help me with the zipper.

“ Jungkook, what are you doing here?” I asked nervously and he shrugged, eyes still trailing over my legs, the skin bare. I felt his gaze like a caress and some instinct told me I was in danger. I shook my head to clear it. How ridiculous.

This was Jungkook. Sweet, wonderful Jungkookie. My best friend these past few months. There was no one else I could be safer with.

“I knew you’d be excited, what with hyung coming back and all. So, I thought I’d drop by and at least make sure you’re well fed.” He grinned, holding the tae out up. I smiled and nodded, moving to get plates and glasses from the kitchen.

I heard Jungkook moving around in the living room and when I went back in , I found that he had two glasses of wine ready on the table, an expensive bottle of merlot opened nearby. I smiled a bit, shaking my head.

“What are we celebrating?” I asked curiously and he shrugged.

“Namjoon hyung is coming back right? It means I’ll be getting my amazing gift tonight.” He said softly, picking his glass up and taking a sip and I rolled my eyes.

“You’re such a child. You can’t wait for a day to get your gift?”

Jungkook hummed. He looked ethereal in the dim golden light of the apartment. Like something out of a fairytale. All dark ebony hair and porcelain skin. I wondered, again….why he never dated. He was easily one of the most beautiful humans I’d ever seen in my life. And that voice.

The voice of an angel.

“I’ve been waiting for years, Hana. I’m sick and tired of waiting.” He said softly, voice low and eyes somehow dark and I tried to hold my smile.

“Well, I hope you enjoy it.” I grinned and he smiled, all teeth.

“Oh, I intend to. Thoroughly.”

I took my own glass and took a deep sip , before holding it against his.

“To no longer waiting and finally getting what we want.” I said cheerfully, thinking of the long months without Namjoon and the few hours till he would be back in my arms. Jungkook chuckled and clinked his glass against mine.

“To you, Hana.” He said simply and I blushed, surprised and flattered.

We ate the take out but just a few bites in, I felt my eyes getting heavy which was so unfair. It was barely eight. And I’d slept in the afternoon. What was wrong with me? I was supposed to be up till Namjoon came home.

“You alright, love?” Jungkook asked sweetly , getting out of his chair and making his way over when I almost knocked the glass of water over, fingers trembling. I pouted, even as his fingers curled over my shoulders, gripping lightly.

“Why am I so drowsy?” I whined in desperation and he leaned down, lightly resting his chin on my shoulder.

“You need to rest, hana. Come on, let’s get you to bed…. “

Eyes heavy and limbs turning to jelly, I could barely blink as he reached down and scooped me into his arms , carrying me into the bedroom. I felt his fingers tug on the sash of my robe, a protest building up at the action but he shushed me gently.

“I’m just helping you out of this, Hana. Rest now… Namjoon hyung will be here soon and we have a long night ahead of us, you and I.”

I could feel my mind churn at that, confusion warring with apprehension because why was Jungkook inserting himself in tonight? What did he have to do with Namjoon and I ?

Sleep beckoned and I found myself slipping into the darkness before I could fully ponder on his words.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

I woke up sweaty and damp , body overheated and my head foggy. I made to move and felt my heart pound when I realized my hands were tied up to the headboard. I blinked, only to be met with darkness because there was something tied around my eye as well.

“Jungkook?!” I called out panicking and there was a low chuckle.

And then a very familiar scent.

Namjoon.

I sagged in relief.

“Joon…it’s you….” I breathed out . “ Come on, do we really have to do this right away? I wanna see you…” I whispered desperately.

Fingers brushed over my ankle and I jumped.

“Namjoon?” I whispered . The bed dipped next to me, and I felt the brush of his shirt against my bare arm. It was soft and silky , familiar because I’d bought it for him for his birthday and he’d sent me a pic of him wearing it, from the airport today.

“Okay… I’ll play.” I laughed softly. “ Just untie me… I wanna touch you..”

“Sshhh…..” A finger pressed against my lip and I startled. Throat dry, I gulped.

But I didn’t say anything, biting my lips nervously as I felt him climb over me, one knee on either side of mine, fingers curling on my thighs, lips pressing against my cheek. I sighed, relishing the soft press of his lips, up and down my neck, the damp wetness of his tongue as he licked the skin right after, teeth nipping gently and then with more force.

I trembled as soft fingers tugged on my negligee tugging the fabric up and away from my body, raising it up till it pooled near my chest. I felt the tug on my panties, yanking the fabric off and then the weight of him went away, a breathy exhale that sounded both calm and somehow desperate, his body moving down to lightly hold my knees, parting my legs.

I bent my knees, spreading my thighs the way he clearly wanted me to, hearing him groan in return. He used his thumbs to gently part the damp folds of my centre and I felt my entire body shudder at the press of his tongues against the most intimate parts of me.

Choking, I could only lay there and take it, his tongue licking the slick folds, over and over again with an almost curious insistence, like he was tasting me for the first time and I could feel his body trembling on the bed as he did. I felt his teeth tug on the hardened nub, bruising hard and yet somehow almost playful and cheeky and I found myself squirming in pleasure, wetness seeping out of me .

The tip of his finger found my slit, running up and done the length of it in a slow, gentle caress, gathering the moisture there and I trembled when he reached my clit, gently rubbing circles on the little bundle before moving back down to trace my entrance. I was so wet, getting wetter by the second and I’d never wanted to be fucked so bad.

“Please…..baby… I want you ….in me…” I choked out and he chuckled, a little mischievous and unlike him.

The finger dipped in, shallow and barely in and I whimpered in desperation.

“More.. Please…. I want more.. Want you… Its been so long…”

I felt him move back at that and then he was there, right between my legs. I felt the clink of metal as he unbuckled himself, the sound of his zipper and the rustle of fabric as he pushed his trousers off. I could feel the hard muscles of his thigh against the back of mine as he scooted closer, felt the brush of his hard length against my center, the head dipping in just lightly.

He pushed forward, driving in with so much force that my entire body shuddered in shock. And in just that second, I knew, with dawning horror…….

This was not Namjoon.

I screamed, so loud my own ears rang and a palm pressed down into my mouth, forceful and unrelenting. And terrifyingly unfamiliar.

“Hana…” Jungkook’s voice near my ear made me choke on my tears, my mind splintering in shock and betrayal, body going rigid in terror as he pulled out , only to slide back in.

“Knew it would be worth it, keeping myself pure for you….” He crooned against my skin and I whimpered, wetness spilling over my eyelashes as I tried to squirm away, my mind body and soul only screaming for the man I loved.

“Don’t worry about anything ….Hyung’s in a better place now. “ Jungkook chuckled deeply and I felt my skin go ice cold at the implication. He moved his hand away and I coughed, choking.

“Jungkook….”

The blind fold came off and he kept pumping into me, hips moving erratically, no rhythm or grace and it was obvious he’d never done this before, obvious in the way he looked : blissed out and feral, eyes unfocused as he stared down at me. I felt him tremble and shake, before going still . I felt warm wetness flood my insides and bile rose, nausea making breathing difficult. He stayed on me and inside me, his body so large and immovable, heavy and suffocating over my own.

“what are you doing Jungkookie?” I sobbed out in disbelief and he glared at me.

“What does it fucking look like I’m doing? I’m taking what I fucking deserve….” He snarled. “ Two fucking years…. He doesn’t deserve you. Spends all his days and nights holed up in that studio of his with his friends….leaves you to fend for yourself. You deserve to be waited on, hand and foot… you deserve the world, hana…and he wouldn’t let you experience any of it. Fucking bastard….

“No… No.. God …no..” I choked out. It was the shirt.

He was wearing Namjoon’s shirt. And his cologne. The shirt I knew my boyfriend had been wearing today. How did he get it??

Jungkook brushed his fingers on my cheeks .

“What’s wrong baby? Are you worried about him? Wondering where he is…” He chuckled. “ I told you..he’s in a better place right now..”

“No… you’re lying..you wouldn’t…”

“Wouldn’t I? You know me that well , hana?” He teased.

No. No I didn’t I didn’t know him at all.

“How about this? If you marry me…. If you let me have this dream wedding with my dream girl…. “ He smirked,” If you let me love you the way you deserve , maybe I’ll take you to visit him…someday. ”

I closed my eyes.

I couldn’t process what I’d just heard… I didn’t know… if he was bluffing. What if he had actually killed-

I couldn’t believe that. I couldn’t. It would break me.

“Okay… Just…please don’t hurt him…” I whispered.

Jungkook smiled.

“Just relax Hana. Everything’s going to be okay.”

AUTHORS NOTE : THIS IS LITERALLY MY FIRST TIME WRITING SOMETHING LIKE THIS PURELY OUT OF IDLE CURIOSITY

~~~~~~~~~~~

#YANDERE JUNGKOOK #YANDERE BTS #yandere jungkook smut #bts smut

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dreamwritesimagines · 3 years

Text

Burn The Witch 4 - Making Believe [Bucky Barnes x Reader]

A.N: Thank you so much for your wonderful support and feedback my loves ! ❤ Here’s the next chapter, I hope you like it as well and please let me know what you think! ❤ Thank you! ❤❤❤

Warnings: Enemies to lovers, fake dating, mentions of blood, sex, violence, death, manipulation, language, guns, knives.

Summary: A lot can happen in a coffee shop.

Series Masterlist

Considering all the missions your superiors had sent you, this wasn’t the first one to make you end up with a gunshot wound, but it was the first one that you were assigned to seduce the target and ended up with a gunshot wound as a first impression.

Now that you had met Bucky, the next step would be easier. You just hoped he wouldn’t suspect something was up like General kept warning you about, so you had to make sure to memorize every single detail of your cover story.

Instead of being a trained assassin, you were now working in a milkshake shop.

Instead of having lived there your whole life, you were now clueless about the city since you had recently moved there.

Instead of liking horror movies, you now loved rom-coms.

New identity, new apartment, new car, new everything. It was as if the real you had never existed, but none of that was your biggest issue right now.

It was your new uniform for the milkshake shop.

“Jesus Christ,” you muttered to yourself, looking in the mirror before fixing your skirt. Even after a week, you still weren’t used to wearing it, the uniform was some sort of a retro diner waitress costume with red and white stripes, cinched waist and a white apron over the short skirt. “I’m going to kill whoever picked this after I’m done with the mission.”

“Y/N?” Chloe called out from the living room, “Come on, we need to go over everything for today.”

You ran a hand over your face and walked to the living room to find your two best friends sprawling on the couch. Keith let out a laugh as soon as he saw you in that outfit, but managed to hide it by pressing his fist on his lips while Chloe kicked at his boot.

“I didn’t say anything!” He held up his hands, “Will you break my phone again if I take a picture?”

“Yeah,” you pointed at him, “I will, so don’t even.”

“We need to go over the plan,” Chloe said, “Today is the day you accidentally run into Barnes, he’ll be at that coffee shop.”

“How do you know where he will be?”

Chloe scoffed, “Hello? I’m a genius hacker?”

Keith sat up straighter, turning the pages of your file.

“Okay so,” he said, “You guys will probably make some small talk, let’s have some practice. Pretend I’m Bucky, how will you talk about yourself?”

“We don’t need to practice it, it’s not my first rodeo,” you reminded him “I got this.”

“Y/N, no offense but he isn’t some clueless civilian okay? The guy was going after targets before you or your parents were born for that matter. The tiniest mistake could tip him off.”

“He has a point.”

“Fine,” you sighed, fixing your nametag, “Let’s practice then.”

Keith took a deep breath and cleared his throat, “Look at that, we ran into each other again.”

You frowned at his deep voice, “Bucky doesn’t sound like one of those robots in the Terminator, Keith.”

“I’m in the zone, just go with it,” he said as offered you his hand, and you shook it.

“Yeah, hi again.”

“I haven’t seen you around here before.”

“Oh that’s normal, I just moved here. A month ago.”

“You just moved here?” he repeated “Really? Did you get used to the city yet?”

“A little.”

“I bet your family misses you.”

“Not really, I grew up with my grandmother. She passed away last year.”

“Any siblings?”

“No.”

Keith raised his brows, “Can you be less specific?”

“Keith—“

“You’re not acting like a civilian right now, you’re acting like a spy who has been forced to socialize and he will see right through that,” he told you. “You have to give him more details, civilians talk about themselves a lot.”

“It’s true,” Chloe said, “Once I was in this speed dating thing and just- don’t ask. They don’t stop talking about themselves.”

Keith pursed his lips only for a moment, stealing a look at Chloe before turning to you,

“Let’s try again. Any siblings?”

You rolled your eyes, “Unfortunately not. I’m an only child but when I was a kid, I kept begging my parents for a sister. My mom asked me what would happen if I got a brother, apparently I went like “but mommy, you can give him back then!””

“There we go, embarrassing childhood memories,” Keith grinned, “Good idea.”

You checked your wristwatch, “I gotta run,” you said, “You guys can see yourselves out.”

“I was actually hoping I could stay a little more,” Chloe said, “To make this place look a bit more appropriate. I suppose you’ll bring him here at some point?”

You pulled your brows together, looking around. “Yeah, so? There’s a bedroom.”

“Ever the romantic, this one,” Keith said and Chloe shook her head,

“Y/N, he needs to see something personal otherwise he might get suspicious.”

You pursed your lips, deep in thought, “You mean like sex toys?”

“Oh Jesus…”

“Contrary to popular belief, when people say they want to see something personal, they don’t refer to sex toys.” Keith stated helpfully, “That being said, we’re all screwed if you end up falling for a civilian, you have no idea how to act like one.”

“I meant personal as in stuff to make your place look more homely,” Chloe explained, “Things from your cover’s past that show him we didn’t fabricate this whole identity.”

“Even if we did,” Keith mumbled under his breath and she nodded.

“Even if we did. He needs to see something personal when he comes here, like…” she motioned at the walls, “Like your childhood pictures or your art projects from when you were seventeen.”

“I was learning how to use a pencil as a knife when I was seventeen, Chloe.”

“Exactly. Just let me handle it, I’ve been watching so many makeover shows lately.”

You shrugged your shoulders, “Knock yourself out,” you said, “I have milkshakes to fill, see you guys later.”

“Go get him tiger!”

“You got this!” Chloe called out as you walked to the door, “Just be confident and your milkshake will bring all the ex-assassins to the yard!”

You let out a small laugh, then closed the door behind you before throwing your shoulders back and going down the stairs.

***

Approaching the target as your training taught you had to have certain steps. You couldn’t just implant yourself in their life, you had to wait until they thought it was their choice to include you in their lives. Sometimes it took more time than you had patience for, but in the end it was worth it.

Seeing that Bucky Barnes was no civilian, every single step had to be checked twice.

Well the uniform would help the mission, at least a little.

A distracted target was a good target.

You lowered the binoculars before pushing them into your purse and fixing the apron wrapped around your waist. Bucky was sitting with Sam at the coffee shop and they seemed to be in a deep discussion, not even aware of what was going on around them. You took a deep breath and approached the door before you pushed it, then slowly made your way to the barista.

“Hi, can I get a cappuccino please? Small.” You smiled at her and went to the counter on the right to wait for your order. Out of the corner of your eye you could see Sam looking at you with a frown before saying something to Bucky, nodding in your direction. You kept your eyes on the counter, rocking back and forth on the balls of your feet before you scratched around the tape of the bandage over the bullet wound absentmindedly.

Come on…. you thought Come on, approach me already, just come here….

“Here you go, miss.”

“Thank you,” you said, taking the cup off the counter before you started pouring sugar into it just to stall, and finally heard someone clear their throat behind you.

Bingo.

You looked over your shoulder and turned around, your jaw dropping.

“Come on,” you let out a giggle, “Is this real?”

Bucky smiled slightly and pursed his lips together as if he wasn’t familiar with the gesture, “Uh…hi.”

“Hi!” you said, your voice way too high pitched for a moment, “Wow. We meet again, my hero.”

His smile widened and he rubbed the back of his neck, “How’s your arm?”

“Healing,” you ran a finger over the tape of the bandage, “I didn’t die, that’s something. But the doctor said that was the worst bullet wound he had ever seen in his life.”

Bucky frowned, “Wait, really?”

“No, I’m just trying to look badass,” you admitted, making him chuckle, “They didn’t even think it needed stitches.”

“Ah,” he said and motioned at your uniform, “So you’re a…?”

You scrunched up your nose in what you hoped to be a cute manner and shot him an abashed look, “I know. I thought the exact same thing when I first saw myself in it.”

“I doubt that,” he mumbled more to himself and you tilted your head, batting your lashes.

“Hm?”

“Nothing,” he said quickly, “So the uniform?”

“I work at this milkshake shop just around the corner,” you said, “Apparently retro shops are popular nowadays. It’s supposed to look like this pin up style— can you tell me what’s wrong with the dress so that I can tell the owner what a ridiculous idea it is?”

He opened his mouth and closed it again, looking you up and down, “I don’t- it’s-“ he stammered “You know, it was such a long time ago. I think it looks perfectly fine.”

“Does it?”

“Absolutely.”

You grinned at him, “Well in any case, you should drop by sometime. Milkshakes are better than the uniform, I promise.”

“Yeah?”

You nodded, “Yeah! I would’ve invited you sooner but by the time I was done at the hospital you had already left, and they also told me you paid for the whole thing and the taxi, so…”

“Don’t worry about it,” he waved a hand, “It’s nothing.”

You bit down on your lip, “If you don’t mind me asking,” you said softly, “Why did you leave in a hurry? I mean obviously you didn’t have to stay, I’m sure you’re very busy and—“

“No no, it’s nothing like that,” Bucky cut you off, “I just didn’t want you to think you owed me anything, that’s all.”

“Huh,” you clicked your tongue, “I see. I was wondering what the catch was, didn’t have to wait that long. That’s good to know.”

He raised his brows, amused for some reason, “What’s the catch?”

“You’re too much of a gentleman.”

“Is that a bad thing?”

“Not really,” you taunted him “Just unfamiliar.”

His gaze lingered on you as you took a sip of your coffee, keeping your eyes on him.

“I hope you got home safe though,” he said after a beat and you thought for a moment.

“I did, and now I know to stay away from dark alleys in New York,” you said, “Lesson learned I’d say.”

“You’re not from around here?”

“I- no, I actually moved here just a month ago,” you said, “I grew up in a small town, we didn’t really have robbers or anything. And I managed to get mugged within the first thirty days in a big city. A true New York experience, I feel like I belong here already.”

“Your folks must be losing their minds if you attract trouble that fast in the city.”

“No one is losing their minds, it’s just me,” you said and when you saw his quizzical glances, you felt the need to explain. “I grew up with my grandma and I lost her a year ago, so…”

“I’m sorry.”

“Ah it’s okay,” you said, “She wouldn’t want me to live in sadness, she told me that herself. You can’t focus on what ifs, you know? We just decide what to do with the time left for us and that’s it. Past would drive all of us crazy otherwise.”

He looked almost surprised at your take on loss and when you saw the soft light in his eyes, you knew you had just hit jackpot.

“You’re a glass half full kind of person, huh?”

Nope, I’m more of a “use the glass as a weapon” kind of person.

“Yeah,” you said, “There are enough pessimists in the world, and they don’t need me within their ranks. No one really did anything nice by thinking the worst anyways.”

“Oh you were definitely not raised here.”

Your jaw dropped, “You know what Mr. Barnes, I’d take that as an offense but lucky for you, you saved me the other day, so I’ll let that slide.”

“Mm hm,” He looked like he was struggling with himself not to laugh, “Lucky me.”

You narrowed your eyes at him playfully, then checked your wristwatch.

“I should probably go, my boss cares a lot about punctuality,” you said, “But is it okay if I gave you my number?”

He stared at you for a couple of seconds as if he couldn’t believe you.

“Wait- really?”

“I mean I was going to wait until you asked me, but apparently you’re too much of a gentleman,” you joked as he hastily grabbed his phone from his pocket and handed it to you. You typed in your number, then saved it.

Y/N (The Milkshake Girl)

Bucky tilted his head, his brows furrowed, “What, you didn’t think I’d recognize your name?”

“Well it’s better to be safe than sorry,” you joked, “Besides you should really come by sometime. We have the best chocolate milkshakes. It’s on the house.”

He smiled, “I will.”

You took a step, then held your breath and turned around as if you had just remembered something.

As if it wasn’t all practiced.

“But not after 4 on Mondays and Wednesdays,” you said, “I volunteer at the soup kitchen then.”

That light in his eyes was almost gentle, as if he was worried he could hurt you just by looking at you, but couldn’t stop himself from doing so.

“I’ll see you not after 4 on Mondays and Wednesdays then,” he said and you giggled, then turned around and walked to the door. Sam was watching you with a small, proud grin on his lips so you waved at him and left the coffee shop, still holding the warm cup tightly in your hand.

As soon as you were sure you were out of their sight, you dropped the smile, exhaled a relaxed breathe and grabbed your phone to touch the contact on the screen.

“I’m sorry, our delivery service is down right now,” the voice said and you scratched around the tape on your arm before telling her the code;

“That’s okay, I can wait until the rain stops.”

There was a click on the other line and soon enough you heard the assistant’s voice.

“Hello?”

“This is Shrike, put me through the General.”

“Of course, a second please,” she said and you tossed the cup into the garbage can, then General’s voice reached you.

“Shrike?”

“Sir, I just called to inform you that I’ve contacted the target for the second time,” you said, “Everything is going according to plan, my report will be on your desk by tonight.”

“He didn’t suspect anything?”

“No sir.”

“Okay,” he said, “Don’t move too fast, alright? We don’t want to spook him.”

“Of course.”

“And Shrike?” he said, “Good job.”

A smile lit up your face, “Thank you sir,” you said and hung up, closing your eyes and leaning back to the wall.

“Okay,” you whispered to yourself, “You got this, he’s just another target. Let the games begin.”

Chapter 5

#bucky barnes x reader #bucky barnes #tfatws #the falcon and the winter soldier #bucky barnes imagine #marvel #bucky barnes x you

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mercurytrinemoon · 3 years

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On houses, house rulerships & how ya'll should stop associating them with signs + a rant on the meaning of the 8th house

This is one of those moments where I'm going to say (read: rant, so heads up, I may sound pretentious) that modern times keep distorting astrology. I’m talking about associating houses with signs/planets (aka the “12 letter alphabet”, briefly mentioned by William Lilly in the 17th century but ultimately it became a product of modern astrologers: first attempted by Alan Leo and decades later popularized and named by Zip Dobyns). Can we just... use a neuralyzer and make people forget that method? It's ingrained in people's minds because, seemingly, it's easier to learn that way - search astro basics in google and you'll see things like "9th house=Sagittarius=Jupiter". This compressed version of astrology seems more accessible and easily digestible for a casual reader and not many newbies try to even question that approach. But there's a reason reputable astrologers these days are trying to erase it from everyone's minds. Signs are traits, planets are vessels, houses are areas of life. Houses are a completely different thing + every person has their own chart with their own house rulers. You can't say Mars is the “natural” ruler of the 1st... well unless, of course, you're an Aries rising, then yeah, your 1st is ruled by Mars, 2nd by Venus and so on.

Sure, some houses share accidental similarities with planets that have been assigned to them by modern *cough*lazy*cought* approach. Example, the 3rd rules communication... oh and so does Mercury. But then again, Mercury has nothing to do with health, injuries, work - all things 6th house. 7th is relationships and 2nd is money & values... and it so happens that Venus shows our attitude towards these things. I would sometimes find myself loosely refer houses to planets, like “oh the 3rd mercurial house” just because SOME of them do fit with the characteristics... and because it's a language that is well-understood (I won't do that anymore). BUT even when I started learning astrology, I had a red light go on in my head when people would straight up go "Moon in Virgo or Moon in the 6th". It never made sense to me. These are completely different things. And I've seen some awesome astrologers who would state things like "oh Aquarius Sun is basically the same as Sun in the 11th", like nah, dude. Because why? Aquarius is the friendly type and the 11th rules friends? Because Aquarius is the big innovator and 11th stands for hopes and dreams? But Aquarius is also a rebel who's stiff in their beliefs. Aquarius is a weirdo, is the 11th house the house of weirdos? No. Aquarius likes to be independent and usually has issues with feeling of not belonging anywhere, while 11th rules communities. THAT'S CONTRADICTORY. Because they're not the same.

Want more examples? Having Venus in Aries is completely different than Venus in the 1st. What do people usually say about Venus in the 1st? That it makes the native charming, lovely, well-put together, with great manners, maybe beautiful, graceful, maybe a bit shallow. When in Aries? None of these characteristics fit, on top of that, it's in its detriment. Our poor gal Venus is uncomfortable and confused in Aries. She's like, "conquer? Swords? Selfishness? Obnoxiousness? Sparring? You're telling me to fight people? What am I doing here???"

I think it most shows in the 8th house, which... *deep breath* has gone through so much (ironically since it rules transformation), like, there's a lot to unpack here. "tHe sCorPioNic HoUse": tell me in what way does Scorpio have to do with inheritance, death, taxes, other people's stuff? These are the og topics associated with the 8th house. And by the way, it doesn't have to be a material inheritance, because I saw people being confused by that. You can have your 10th house ruler in the 8th so maybe you'll inherit that job as a chairman in your father's corporation, along with its renowned name. Or your 6th house ruler is in the 8th so you'll inherit a genetic health condition from your parent.

Now, modern astrology, as per usual, tried to turn it into something positive (and psychological because apparently according to modern notion, astrology can’t predict anything so it’s only psychological *eye roll*) and put its rose-colored glasses on it so they'll say things like: transformation or taboo topics - like okay, makes sense, it's an intense house after all. Like a near-death experience or a metaphorical death will be transformative and maybe hard to talk about. And Scorpios do have the tendency to go through drastic situations in their lives and to dig deep & not being afraid to uncover secrets and all that's unknown and scary for others. There you have it, some convergence. But still, Scorpio and the 8th house are two different things.

Then there's the topic of the 8th house and sex. Actually, side note, a quick history bit, the 2nd century astrologer, Vettius Valens saw sex in the 7th house - because that was the thing that happened after marriage - it represented two people coming together. In medieval times it then moved to 5th house of kids - because children-making requires intercourse, duh. Listen, I get that the 8th, as the follow-up to the 7th, is seen as joined resources; and joined everything, including bodies... or bodily fluids... (tmi?) after you get married or whatever. I don't think that makes sense in the modern times. I mean, go ahead if you want to associate the 8th with sex but after some time of studying astrology, I see it almost exclusively in the 5th as it's the house of pleasures. Simply. Besides, technically you can get yourself off and don’t need anyone else to assist you. My issue, again, comes from the root of the association with the 8th. Modern astrologers started linking 8th with Pluto and Scorpio in medical astrology rules reproductive system and so Scorpio is seen as the fReAky sEx dEMon blAh blaH (honestly, try asking Scorpios about their intimate life and they'll run for the hills abashed). So it turned out that 8th house is the "plutonian one" (I had a moment today wondering if it's plutonian or plutonic and idk anymore) so therefore it must rule sex. Well that logic doesn't make sense because everyone knows that the first and most important planet in the matters of sex is Mars but none of ya'll go and say "1st house is the house of sex because it's ruled by Aries". So no, houses are not the same as signs/planets.

12th house has a similar issue. This one has literally nothing to do with Pisces. Like, I feel bad for Pisces honestly, you guys don’t deserve being dumped into the 12th. It's a rather gloomy house and the most positive thing you could come up with it is being the house of imagination and intuition - because it rules the subconscious and partially your mind. And Pisces is usually characterized by those two. Or you could say that they're both kinda foggy in nature - 12th is the unattainable. But that is literally the closest you can get with them correlating. Other than that, 12th is hidden enemies, succlusion, illness (but mental or chronic, it's a bit different than 6th). There's nothing piscean about it really.

But I get it, open most of the astrology books and you'll see chapters called that way. Why? Because it's easier to publish something that's shorter aka simpler for the reader (actually that was one of Dobyns' reasoning behind spreading that approach). That’s why I said it’s lazy. And someone would argue that it’s easier to learn this way - because the information is compressed into 12 sections (signs) instead of 24 (signs+houses) or even more if you include delineations of every house ruled by each sign. Like, “well if I memorize the meaning of Cancer and Moon then automatically I’ll also memorize the 4th house”. But in fact, it’s so limiting in the long run and then forces you to unlearn what you have learnt, which is actually harder than taking the time and grasping the proper meaning right away. And again, with time it warps the meaning of everything.

Saying house=sign completely discredits the purpose of even having houses. And then on top of that it leads to people not understanding their own charts because they don't know the core meanings of the houses and instead look at them through the lens of signs. "I have planets in Gemini but I'm not that talkative and extroverted". Well okay, where are those planets? Are they in the 7th? Then maybe they're not talking about you but about people you come in contact with? Are they in the 4th? Well maybe it's your fam that has those qualities? The 11th? Are your friends like that? Houses are areas of your life, you can't say "Moon in the 3rd or Moon in Gemini" - Moon is "how", house is "where" - these are not the same things, even if they have a few traits in common.

Ok, rant over, bye.

#wELL tHaT LoGic dOesN'T MaKe sEnSe #why do i sound like hermione granger #anyways #you can hate me now #and you bet i'm going to reblog this post regularly #just to annoy you #astrology #house rulers #astrology houses #8th house #mercurytrinemoon

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autumnslance · 3 years

Text

About Plagiarism

I left a long, planned essay on Twitter tonight. I will copy the meat of it here for y’all, as recently a friend was copied (a rarer ship in the fandom, so very noticeable by the writer and their regular beta reader) and it seems we need a Talk, kids. Links and screenshots and my rambling underway.

------

Apparently we need to discuss what is and isn’t plagiarism. Especially in FanFic where we're interacting with the same characters, settings, ideas. Let’s start with the dictionary and continue the thread from there (I like the word origin/history personally):

Definition of plagiarize

transitive verb : to steal and pass off (the ideas or words of another) as one's own : use (another's production) without crediting the source

intransitive verb : to commit literary theft : present as new and original an idea or product derived from an existing source

The Kidnapping Roots of Plagiarize

If schools wish to impress upon their students how serious an offense plagiarism is, they might start with an explanation of the word’s history. Plagiarize (and plagiarism) comes from the Latin plagiarius “kidnapper.” This word, derived from the Latin plaga (“a net used by hunters to catch game”), extended its meaning in Latin to include a person who stole the words, rather than the children, of another. When plagiarius first entered English in the form plagiary, it kept its original reference to kidnapping, a sense that is now quite obsolete.

“Ideas” is fuzzy in the Merriam-Webster definition. There are story archetypes that exist in many forms. Joseph Campbell’s Monomyth/Hero's Journey outlines many famous stories. And it's popular to say that “Avatar” is “Dances with Wolves” is “Pocahontas” is “The Last Samurai” etc.

But note how while those films have similar plotlines--”Military Guy falls for Native woman, learns to appreciate her Culture, stands up to Evil Bosses”--none of them execute those ideas in the same way. Sully’s story is different from Dunbar’s not just cuz one’s a Science Fiction epic and the other a Western. Disney's “Pocahontas” Very Loosely takes history and uses the same story beats. The Last Samurai uses the Meiji era Westernization. Same ideas, different executions, even beyond settings.

None of these are plagiarizing each other though the ideas are similar. They’re told in their own ways, own language; both in the genres they belong to (Western, Pseudo-History, SciFi, Animated) and how characters interact with each other and settings. Original dialogues (variable quality).

We also see this in books as similar novel plots get published in waves so we end up with bunches of post-apocalypse teen revolutionaries or various vampires or lots of young wizard stories all at once. Sometimes ideas just happen like this; multiple discovery, simultaneous invention, concurrent inspiration, cognitive emergence are all phrases I’ve seen for it. So it happens in original content as well, and legality gets fuzzy (Also why you don't send authors your fanfic ideas).

In existing properties, this gets trickier but even “Elementary”’s Holmes and Watson are nothing like the BBC’s “Sherlock” characters. Who are nothing like other versions of the Detective and his Doctor pal over the decades in various media properties.

FanFic's in a similar position where like Sherlock Holmes we play with the same characters, setting, and storyarcs but give our own spin to them. People can and will have similar ideas about plots. Trick is to use your own words. Take the characters and make the story your own.

I have a good example courtesy of @raelly-writing. We both ship Wolcred. We both wrote soft post-Paglth’an scenes with Thancred and our WoLs. Both features the couples helping each other undress, examining injuries, bathing, bantering. My fic was written soon after 5.5 part 1 came out. Dara’s is much more recent. Yet at no point reading hers did I feel she was copying my words. The PoVs differ. Our characters focus on different things. Mine has a mini-arc concerning the Nutkin.

The links for comparison’s sake (and maybe leave kudos/comments if so inclined please and thanks). Note while the scenes are very similar no phrases are written in the same way. Mine: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25417882/chapters/76059467 Dara’s: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26067565/chapters/81832915

Dara and I both hang out in certain Discords and I know conversations about Thancred and WoL caring for each other post-battle has come up in those channels and we've both participated. It’s a stock FanFic scene to boot. Cuz it's soft and feels warm and snuggly.

I HAVE been copied before, back in WoW. My case is pretty clear cut so here are the images of my old RP Haven profile (1st, old RP website) and the plagiarist’s RSP (2nd, an in game mod to share descriptions and basic info).

This was a decade ago on Shadow Council and I think the character deleted so any Availa’s in WoW now aren’t the same person. I left the names to point out what changed. Just the names and a word or 2 to make sense for the class changes as well. Otherwise lifted directly from my RP profile.

The funny part is how the person got caught. Literally walked into our weekly RP Guild meeting that I was running and asked to join. Folks noticed right away the similar backstory; after all there may have been more Outland-born Azerothians. My initial excitement at a character I could weave into our story turned to gut-twisting rage and grief as I recognized my own exact words though. Words I’d carefully crafted and constantly iterated on to improve over time (before and after this incident, until the site died).

When caught they tried to claim their significant other had leveled the character for them and made up the backstory based on Skyrim. If you know WoW’s Outland story and Skyrim’s plot you know how ridiculous that is. Also tried to lie about other drama I knew about thanks to roommate's characters but hey. I had to be blunt that I’d shared the info with Haven mods and other guild officers Alliance and Horde. That we would not “laugh about this” one day though lucky this was “just” RP not original or academic work. Cuz if it'd been monetized or academic I would've raked them through the coals.

I felt violated. Hurt. Had anxiety attacks. They took MY WORDS and tried to claim them as theirs. Have another character born in Outland trained by Draenei; Awesome! Our characters have an instant connect in similarities and differences of that experience. Don’t steal my characters wholesale!

Then the audacity of trying to come into my guild as if no one would notice. ShC wasn’t a large server by then, still active but not nearly Wyrmrest Accord or Moon Guard big. My character was well known due to my writing and RP. Speaking of how easy it is to get caught in specific spaces...A case of a self-published novelist getting noticed for plagiarizing fanfic was discovered recently (explicit erotica examples through the thread).

One way they got noticed was how much content they put out in only a year, lifted from fandom. The examples in Kokom’s threads show how the material was altered but still recognizable. In some cases, just the names are changed as in my experience. In other passages more has changed but you can still see the bones of the original fic poking through in the descriptions and character interactions, even with adjustments made.

Similar ideas happen. Similar plots exist. Same 'ships with friends are fun! In FanFic we’re working with the same material. It’s possible to write a similar scene differently. To make that scene and characters your own. All we’re asking is not to copy others' words. Others' characters. Others' specific phrases and descriptions used to bring those words, those characters, to life. Use your own. In the end you’ll be happier.

I get wanting to have what the perceived “popular people” have. I get seeing concepts others succeed with and wanting some of that too. We all get a bit jealous now and then for various reasons. Sometimes we don't even realize it, consciously. But do it in your own way. Maybe check to see if you’re getting a bit too close to the “inspiration” you admired, maybe reread often. Don’t hurt your fellow creatives. If you do and get caught don’t try to double down. Have the grace to be abashed at least and work to do better. Eventually you WILL get caught. All it takes is once to throw all else you've done into question. Ao3 doesn’t take kindly to plagiarists. Nor do a lot of fan communities focused on writing and RP. Getting back that trust is hard. The internet doesn’t forget easily, for good or ill.

#writing #blogging #about me #social media #plagiarism #fanfiction #Ao3

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novoaa1writes · 3 years

Text

“hey. wanna bang?”

pairing: mazikeen x f!reader

summary: you meet maze on a night out at lux. the two of you hit it off, and end up sleeping together. you leave the next morning thinking it’s a one-off, but maze seems to have other ideas...

rating: teen

word count: ~1,300

warnings: implied sexual content, implied sex, minor blood and injury (not to either of you), maze being prone to violence and always ready to stab a bitch

notes: none? i don’t think? i just haven’t seen that many maze x reader works so figured i’d contribute something. also available on ao3

— —

You remember meeting Mazikeen like it was yesterday.

It was late—quarter after midnight, maybe, and you were drunk. Well, not drunk. More like buzzed.

After all, why shouldn’t you be? Your finals were over, you already had more than enough in your savings for next month’s rent, and your friend Vanya had managed to get the two of you on the list for Lux, the most popular nightclub in the city.

It was just for one night, of course, but it was still pretty freaking cool regardless—sleek leather upholstery, a bar taking up the entirety of one wall, a spotless grand piano on the ground floor. In short, Lux made your guys’ go-to nightclub look like a shitty dive bar in comparison.

Vanya had just left to go home with some dapper twenty-something woman in a suit, leaving you alone at the bar amidst a gaggle of exceedingly well-dressed people knocking back your third $20 shot of the night.

With that, you were about ready to call it quits and send for an Uber to take you back home… except, it seemed, the night had other plans for you.

Or, perhaps you should say Maze had other plans for you.

She sidled up next to you at the bar, shoving over a lip-locked couple to make room for herself. If she felt the man turn to glower at her or the woman scoff and roll her eyes at her rudeness, she didn’t let on.

“Hey,” she said, not even bothering to hide the way she was eyeing you up and down like a predator would its prey. “Wanna bang?”

And… well. Turns out, you very much did want to “bang.”

You awoke buried in a mess of sheets atop a very nice bed in a loft that probably cost at least twice your yearly tuition, a fully-naked Mazikeen staring down at you with a quizzical expression.

You startled fully awake with a jolt, but managed to recover and flash her a shaky smile in the interest of keeping things casual, or... something.

“Hi,” you said.

“Hello,” she said. She was still staring, completely unapologetic.

It was strange—like all her boldness and audacity from the night before had suddenly vanished, replaced by… well, by what, you weren’t quite sure.

“How long have you been awake?” you asked.

She tilted her head slightly to the side, though her eyes didn’t leave you. “Hours.” She tucked a stray lock of hair behind your ear, tracked the movements of her fingers brushing your skin with rapt attention. “You look.... not unpleasant when you sleep,” she said finally, then winced as she retracted her hand as though it physically pained her to do so. “For a human.”

You blinked, taken aback. The hell did that mean? “... Thanks?”

Her lips twitched. “You’re welcome.”

You giggled. “You’re weird.” Caution bled into her gaze, and you rushed to reassure her. “No, not bad weird… it’s good. I like it.”

She nodded, though she still looked wary. “Do you have anywhere to be today?”

You yawned, turning your head over to glance at the clock on the nightstand and—

Oh, shit. It was 10:42.

“Fuck!” you shrieked, bolting upright in bed and throwing off the covers. “I’m late!”

“Late for what?” Maze asked. She watched with a vaguely disgruntled expression as you stumbled to your feet, far too frazzled to be abashed about your state of undress, eyes darting wildly around the room in search of your clothes.

“Work!”

And that… that was the first time it happened. Not that you’d expected (in any sense of the word) that this… thing you had was going to continue.

You weren’t exactly the girl who did one-night stands on a weekly basis or anything, but you’d had your fair share. You knew what to expect. Cocktails at the club, drunken sex, quick exit the morning after. Maybe one (or both) of you would stress meaningless pleasantries enough to exchange numbers or say “We should do this again sometime” or maybe even stay for breakfast (rarely), but that’s all they would amount to—meaningless pleasantries.

You’d go to work (or class) the next day, head to the club on the weekend to drink and flirt with some random stranger (a different one this time), and that would be that.

It didn’t matter that the sex was even more fantastic than it ever had been (which it was), or the way your heart skipped a beat when Maze’s fingertips brushed along your jaw (which it had). You knew better than to get hung up over a drunken one-night stand—especially one that started out with “Hey, wanna bang?”

So, imagine your surprise when Maze strode into the 66th Ave Lounge where you worked as a bartender and made a beeline straight for you, gaze narrowed and lips flattened out into a thin line. She almost looked… angry—though, you were beginning to understand that ‘angry’ was pretty much Maze’s natural state of being.

It also seemed like the world had it out for you that day, because right then, some hammered middle-aged jackass from the other end of the bar decided to speak up, making some gross (and blatantly derogatory) comment about your tits.

The effect was immediate: Anger flared like a lit match in Maze’s eyes, and she swiftly changed directions, stomping over to the sleazy man in question with narrowed eyes and murderous intent rolling off of her in waves.

Needless to say, he got his hand skewered to the bar by one of the numerous curved blades on Maze’s person and a swift knee to the crotch for his troubles.

He was screaming bloody murder in a matter of seconds, Maze had procured twin knives seemingly out of nowhere as she bore down, and you didn’t doubt that she’d have finished the job had you not chosen that exact moment to intervene.

“Maze, stop !” you ordered—or, at least, tried to. Your voice trembled horribly, and it was at least an octave higher than usual.

Immediately, she froze.

You fought the sudden urge to shrivel on the spot as she turned her hard gaze upon you, brows raised in something like a challenge.

“Maze, it’s fine,” you told her—pleaded, really. The man whimpered, slumped over the bar, drool and tears wetting the lacquered wood. “He’s drunk. He didn’t mean it.”

“Oh, I think he did.”

“Maze…” You sighed, silently begging her with your eyes. “Please. Even if he did, you’ve punished him enough, don’t you think?”

Maze’s expression softened incrementally, and she heaved a sigh. “Fine.”

She snatched the ringed handle of her blade, yanked it loose from the bar (and the man’s hand) with little effort. The man screamed and sobbed, collapsing down onto the floor the moment he was freed. You fought the urge to grimace at the smear of blood he left on the bar.

“But only because it’s you asking,” she clarified, then turned to loom over the writhing man, pointing down at him menacingly with her bloodied knife. “You say anything about my girl again—hell, you even look at her the wrong way… I’ll find you. And next time, she won’t be there to save your sorry ass. Got it?”

“G-Got it,” the man sobbed, his words choked with tears.

“Good.” With that, Maze’s expression cleared as she turned to give you a calculating look over the bar. “When’s your shift over?”

You blinked, your brain struggling to comprehend what just happened. Primarily: ‘My girl’? “I-I get off at 11:00.”

“Good.” Maze’s full lips curved into a wolfish grin. “I’ll pick you up… and then we can get off.”

Then, she turned on her heel and strutted back out of the lounge without a backwards glance, leaving you confused, terrified, and… ridiculously turned-on in her wake.

Holy shit.

— —

end notes: idk i love maze being soft / confused by human interaction and confounded by Feeling Things™ but also being endlessly stabby because she’s maze and stabbing people is part of her charm

#maze x reader #mazikeen x reader #mazikeen #lucifer #stuff i wrote #lucifer fic #maze x f!reader #mazikeen x f!reader

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just-genshin-things · 3 years

Text

With love, your Venti

"You saved my life", he finally gasped out.

"Hehe."

Liyue has been quiet those days — like nobody has been there for years. Xiao, due to the silence, was feeling like he was the only person in the world. That feeling made him very melancholic and brought back some memories — if he was to be the last human, nothing would have change. Because he has always been alone.

Xiao couldn't fit it with any people. They were leaving him, every time— death or fear — they were all gone.

Nothing was immortal for Xiao, except his own feelings and associations. Flowers were rotten, animals were dying, people were dying and only the sky was still blue. It has never been and never will it be different. Even if he tries to beg Rex Lapis to return his life, he was stuck with his polearm, watching Liyue and taking care of all mortals.

And he was good with that. If he was to keep his memories of a flute melody, he could do his work for eternity.

How many years have passed since he last heard that sound?

Xiao missed that night and he only ever slept in order to return specifically to that scene. For green bard with two braids.

Liyue was quiet these days and he couldn’t repair that. Only things that he could do was getting rid of any danger to protect the people. He could not sing nor play flute to calm any person down. His bloodstained hands couldn’t create anything beautiful, like he did.

At night, nothing was changing — Liyue was still silent. At least, he killed a few monsters and took bath in the adepti lake to finally get some rest. He must distract himself from his thoughts. The need to hear that melody again was too strong for him — all because of this calm day. The silence took him to remember that night, when negative karma took over his body for his endless slaughter. It was quiet then and nobody was there.

To be honest, Xiao thought he was just about to face the death. Like his comrades did.

He couldn't accept that — he couldn't die that fast, he still had a contract to fulfill, for Rex Lapis. Then Xiao screamed agonisingly, punching the ground with his fist. Maybe Rex Lapis could hear it? Maybe he was already on his way to help him, the last yaksha.

Yet it wasn’t Rex Lapis who heard his screams. Barbatos did.

Then, he heard a flute . A pleasant sound with melancholic and cold breeze. His whole body got relaxed and the mask disappeared. Xiao could finally breathe again with ease, his eyes stopped flooding from the huge pain he had just been in. Negative karma was all gone so fast as if it had never been there.

The archon of wind was gone too before the Yaksha could thank him. Xiao remembered the song and sighed, closing his eyes. That always made him feel safe and sound. But why was that feeling so real? Did he remember it so well? No, this couldn’t be true...

He open his eyes extremely fast, when he realized that melody was playing right there, in that exact moment. He couldn't believe that. He looked up to the sky and saw a bard sitting one the hill, looking at the full moon and playing the same tune, just like years ago. He sounded longing which was what made the song more than magnifincent.

Barbatos was there, in front of him.

That couldn’t be his imagination or just a dream. Xiao was recalling seeing the archon of wind right there and couldn't believe this. Has he heard Xiao’s pathetic prayers? For many years, he prayed for him to meet again, as all he wanted wanted was to his ballads yet one more time.

Xiao really felt guilty while praying to Barbatos. The threat of Rex Lapis hearing him, being disappointed or angry scared him to the bone. After all, Archon of Geo named him and gave him life, gave him a chance, so why was he to feel closer with lord Barbatos? Could that be due to him once saving Xiao’s life? Rex Lapis also did save him, pulling him out of the Mad God’s trap.

So why was his feelings so deep? Was it because he has never forgotten that one night?

Xiao knew. It was his only chance to met lord Barbatos in a while, maybe in years or even millennials. For himself, for so many years of waiting for that moment. He might regret it, if he doesn't do it. Rex Lapis... forgive me, he thought. He felt like he commiting a crime, a betrayal to his lord. Yet, he couldn't help himself.

Xiao used his anemo vision to teleport to lord Barbatos on the hill. From this distance the melody was clearer and even more gorgerous than before. He felt hypnotised and couldn’t push himself to take a step, just as if he has got in a trap. He was in a trance, a wonderful trance which he could be stuck in forever.

Then, Lord Barbatos stop playing his flute. World had stopped for a while for Xiao, when the bard turned around, feeling someone's presence. But he didn't look scared — just composed.

Xiao has never thought he would be that charming. Wind caressed his face and then he started breathing again. He felt a familiar scent of Mondstandt flowers when Barbatos smiled, looking at him very gentle and satisfied.

"I remember you", he said.

Xiao blinked, when he heard his voice. He was so solicitous and just... delicate, as if he was talking to a close friend. Nobody had ever been like that to him, except for praying people from Wangshu Inn. They knew and trusted him, so it wasn't unusual. But Barbatos was the archon, he shouldn’t be compassionate to him. Xiao didn't deserve this treatment. He never helped, he had never even made a sacrifice for him, only a quiet prayer said a few times.

He was devoted to Rex Lapis, except for his moment of weakness.

"You saved my life", he finally gasped out.

"Hehe."

Xiao frowned. Did he just... laugh at him? Xiao felt how his fingers tremble, when he clenched his fist on his polearm. His stomach cramped and his throat hurting. Xiao felt so stressed and uncomfy, but still very felicitous.

"I-I mean... thank you, lord Barbatos, you—"

"Call me Venti!", he overtook him. "No need for any thanks! I would do it again with pleasure, adepti Xiao." he said with sweet smile.

He knew my name, Xiao thought. He was in shook, he didn't expect their meeting would be... anything like that. As if it was only a few days that had passed. But the most important thing was Venti always remember that unfortunate night. He had to ask him to get the most significant answer of his life.

Xiao took a deep breath, looking at him very embarrassed.

"Lord Barbatos, why did you help me that night?" he whispered, abashed. Venti narrowed his eyes. Xiao felt like his heart was going explode, when he just threw up his arms.

"I don't really remember." he just said and then grinned widely. "Hey, adepti Xiao, can I ask you for a little favor?", Venti asked just like that.

"Of course, lord Barbatos', Xiao muttered, still shocked with his answer. He just... don't remember? He waited for his reply for several dozens of years just to hear that? He didn't sleep at nights, missing his melody and thinking about their possible reunion, yet he wasn't disappointed? Was it because he could just be with him right now?

"Buy me some alcohol, please", he said imploringly. "You look older than me".

"What?".

Xiao thought that if they were to meet again, Lord Barbatos would give him the most bloody and difficult mission in his life.

But then, he just asked him to bought him alcohol. That’s it. Without any hook. Without any contract. As if they were friends long time friends and Xiao owed him a favor.

"Alcohol, please. Maybe a beer? Or Liyue wine? I don't know, what is most popular liquor in Liyue. Can you show me, Xiao?" he smiled again, as he hid his flute in his bag.

"Of course, Lord Barbatos. I'll show you the finest alcohol in the most luxurious place", he said very seriously. If he have to do anything for him, he have to do the best he could.

"I told you. Call me Venti."

"Yeah... Venti." Xiao bit his lips. "But... Why are you in Liyue, if you don’t mind me asking?".

"Just going to meet my old friend and share some new gossips with him", he smirked and walked past him. Xiao shuddered, but didn’t say anything. He was constantly unsettled, feeling like it was a stupid dream. But Venti's touch on his arm; warm and delicate was real and brought him back to earth.

"Everything okay?", he asked gently, looking in his eyes. Xiao felt warmth covering his cheeks.

"Yeah, please hold on to me, Lord Barbatos".

Venti nodded as he tightly grasped Xiao’s foream and hand. Then, everything became dark and blurry.

"Yahoo, Liyue Harbor!", Venti said, when they had landed on the balcony of Wangshu Inn. Xiao let go of bard’s hands and sighed, looking at him.

"Is not a Liyue Harbor. We are in Wangshu Inn".

"Ohh... Why?".

"Because it is the only place where I can buy you any alcohol, lord Barbatos", Xiao answered him. "I'll take you to Liyue Harbor tommorow. First, you have to get some rest".

"Thank you for taking care of me, adepti Xiao", Venti smirked. "I'll put in a good word for you with Morax".

Xiao lightly blushed and quietly coughed.

"Thank you, lord Barbatos, but please don’t bother.. Actually, Rex Lapis hasn’t contacted me in years".

"I'll beat him up for that, don't worry!", Venti laughed, but then realized, that Xiao look turned a little dark when he mentioned the Archon of Geo. He quickly changed subject. "So, shall we have a drink?".

"Can I?", Xiao asked, startled.

Venti narrowed his eyebrows. He knew that Liyue’s culture is a little more respectful than in Mondstandt, but little did he know it was that much of politeness. He sighed and licked his lips.

"Of course you can, Xiao", he smiled. "It's like a date".

Xiao looked at him, he seemed so uncertain, that Venti felt like he didn't get his jokes, not making him laugh at all. Zhongli, you really don't care about your protégés, Venti though.

Venti knew that Xiao was a lonely spirit who didn’t have many friends, It was as clear as day, even at the first glance. He felt a little anger boiling inside him, when he realized the Geo of Archon didn't really pay attention to his adeptis, his prayers and guardians. Maybe he did that several years ago, but definitelly not now. It’s like he left them alone.

Venti used to always take care about Vennessa, as he is doing now with the knights and guardians of Mondstandt. He tried to make his people feel happy and safe. He of course knew that Zhongli had some specific methods, but didn’t he notice how badly he ruined the last yaksha? It's certainly not his bussiness and country, but Xiao... was very different. Venti didn't help him for no reason, but it wasn’t for Xiao to know, at least yet.

"Let's take a sit", Venti finally said. Xiao nodded and took him to his favorite place on the balcony. The scenery is really amazing, Venti thought, as he now remembered how impressive Liyue looks at night.

"I'll go to the chef".

Venti sighed, when Xiao headed inside. Maybe he shouldn't have asked an adepti for help like that. Although, Morax wouldn't mind. If the adeptis decided to choose their own path, he surely wouldn’t have anything against it. At this point, Venti was lucky that he met Xiao. It was relieving to meet him healthy after all these years.

Venti wanted to stay in Liyue a while—Mondstandt was really safe and independent those times, so he could take a small break. But had his priorities, he needed to try Liyue local alcohol first. He looked at Xiao, who was back from the kitchen. He sat in front of him and Venti saw that he took off his sleeve and the rest of his armor.

"Where is the rest of your clothing?", he asked.

"In my room. Should I go and put those back on, Lord Barbatos?".

"No! I was just... asking.", Venti laughed nervously. "I'm glad to know you feel safe around me".

"Of course I do," Xiao murmured, "You saved my life".

"It's not a big deal, trust me", he smiled. "I just like playing flute. If you want, I can play something for you later".

Xiao looked at him and Venti could to God (to himself?) that he seemed like a small puppy. Maybe he's a powerful and immortal adepti, but he's also a human. Even if he denied it, he still had weaknesses and things that he enjoyed. Venti was glad that he noticed it and smiled to him.

Xiao didn't answer, as a staff member of Wangshu Inn came with the order. Venti choked on the air, seeing it.

"Is something wrong?" Xiao asked calmly.

"It is too much!", Venti answered. "I just asked for alcohol, like one beer or a bottle of wine. Not every position on the alcohol card", he gasped, yet his eyes glowing with admiration.

Xiao raised his eyebrow.

"I didn't know what you like, so I asked for all of this".

"That’s not good. We can’t drink all of this". Venti said. "As much as I want to, the outcome might kill me".

"Wait. Alcohol can kill Archons?".

"... You’ve never drunk alcohol before, right?".

"That's for humans. I don't care about any of that".

Venti burst out with laughter.

"Let me show you what you missed", Venti said with a twinkle in his eye. He picked up a bottle of vodka and put it away. "That's not for us. It's Snezhnayan speciality, it could kill us both. First, you can try some beer".

Xiao sighed and took a glass of berry beer, looking at it with disgust.

"Okay".

Venti poured himself some wine made from lotus heads. It’s going to be a long night, he thought, when he noticed the aversion on Xiao’s face caused by sipping his drink.

Two glasses of beer and one bottle of wine later, Venti started regretting the fact that he invited Xiao to drink with him.

"I must protect Liyue", he hiccupped.

"I know, but first you need to go to sleep", Venti stated, holding on his slim waist tightly, not wanting him to fall on his face.

"Where is my polearm?", he asked.

Venti groaned, leading him to the room. Xiao had a smaller capacity than Venti thought, but on the other hand it was obvious. After all, he never drank before.

"Where is your room?".

Xiao looked at him tired eyes. For the first time Barbatos felt guilty for inviting someone for a drink. It always ended up funny, but Xiao was the guardian of Liyue. He didn't care about humans and things like liquor or meals. However, Venti still though that Xiao is more human than him. He was just hiding it very well.

"Here", he whispered, pointing at the nearest door on the right side. Venti nodded and tightened his grip on adepti’s waist. Finally, he led him to his room and looked around. What he saw was a very simple bedroom, as simple as it can be, with dark curtains and some antic decorations. Surprisingly, Xiao had many books and lectures. He felt a familiar scent, which made him blush.

He really keep it, Venti thought with a little smile. He looked at barely conscious adepti, who seemed very innocent in that state.

"Venti," Xiao suddenly spoke up, when Venti seated him to bed. "Can I try to play on your flute, please?".

"It is a bit unexpected, but sure", he smirked, stroking his head. He pulled out the flute, looking at Xiao.

He didn't seem like he could play any instrumment, but he could certainly try. Xiao had small and slim hands, a bit rough, but it didn't bother him at all. Actually, it was an advantage.

Venti sighed, playing a simple melody to show him what to do. Then, he just gave the flute to him, looking at him with cheering smile.

"Here you go. Just try it".

Xiao did the same thing like Venti, putting flute onto his lips. His fingers moved on the holes, creating a very clumsy, but cute song. Venti laughed, then started helping him with the holes. After that, it sounded a bit better. Venti smiled, enjoying the sound and looking gently at Xiao.

Then, he realized something.

"It's like an indirect kiss, don’t you think?", he asked him with spark in his eyes.

Xiao stopped playing, sighing. His cheeks blushed a little bit, giving flute back to Venti.

"It's like a date, after all.", he whispered.

Venti was speechless, his cheeks turned soft pink like silk flowers. He had not expected this, his heart started beating faster.

"You’re cute when you’re drunk", Venti laughed, pretending he didn't get shy. He got up from the bed, but Xiao suddenly grasped his hand. Venti startled, his face was still blushing, looking kindly at the adepti. For a moment, it was silent.

"I'm sorry, Venti", He looked at him with pure trust, having a very sleepy look on his face. "Can you play me a lullaby before you leave, please? I won’t ask you for anything else".

He was surprised by the question, but he immediately nodded and smiled to him. Venti was not able to deny him hanything, when he looked like that. "Of course, Alatus".

Venti reached out for his flute again and sayt on bed. Sheets smelled like Xiao, like the flowers that grow on top of the Liyue mountains. He didn't remember what they were called, as they wasn’t common in Mondstandt. Venti inhaled slightly and started playing.

It wasn't a ballad from that night. It was a new song, that he created specifically for the Guardian of Liyue. Venti made it that moment, thinking about Xiao and his ethereal eyes.

The same eyes, different color, but the same determination, had his old friend. An old friend, who helped Mondstandt gain freedom, but never saw it. When Venti missed him badly, he was playing that song, the one that helped Xiao that night.

And he did that, because Xiao reminded him of that person. They both were just as willing to sacrifice themselves, even If it was going to kill them.

When Venti stopped playing, he noticed Xiao long gone into the dreamland. He sighed and headed back to the balcony to drink some more. His head ached, when he took a long sip. Why were people dying so fast? Why couldn’t he stop the world? Even if Xiao was not affected by the passage of time, he could still die.

This is why Venti did not come near him for several years to visit, knowing that his feelings could kill him.

Xiao didn't say a word to Venti, when he woke up the next day. He wouldn’t admit to his head hurting and throat burning so bad. His hair was messed up, eyes looking very sleepy.

"You have a hangover", Venti laughed, looking at him. They were sitting on the same balcony as the day before. "Drink some water, you will feel better".

"I don't have hangover. I'm not a human", he said resentful, even though Venti was right.

"Then you don't want my water?".

"...I do".

"Here you go, my Xiao".

Xiao grasped on his glass of water, chugging it all down. When he finished, he looked at him with a little embarrassed look on his face. Venti smirked at him, shrugging his shoulders, as if nothing happened.

"I've got experience".

"I see", Xiao sighed, feeling much better. He refused to admit to not remember a single thing. "I hope you enjoyed the last night".

"Of course I did! I played you a lullaby", Venti chuckled.

And we kissed indirectly, but it was still a kiss, he thought, smilling. Xiao looked at him, surprised. He regretted that he couldn't hear that again, because he didn't really remember anything. He had fell asleep just like that, lulled by his sad ballad.

For the second time in his life.

What a shame.

"I see. Thank you, Lord Barbatos".

How could he agree to get drunk with an archon? Xiao felt disgrace. Although, if he refused, he would actually feel the same, because refusal to an archon was just ill-mannered. In addition to that, he was an adepti. He just hated human’s creations like alcohol and any stimulants, which bogged down minds. Xiao knew that this drinking session was the first and the last in his life.

Though, if Venti asked him again... No. Certainly no.

Xiao just hoped that he would never be in that position again.

"I told you. Call me Venti. Just Venti", he said, rolling his eyes. "After breakfast, are we going to Liyue Harbor?".

Xiao broke out of his thoughts and nodded, sighing. Venti grinned at him. "I cannot wait to see Morax", Venti stretched out his arms, looking very happy on his face. "We are best friends".

"I never heard about it".

Venti looked at him gloomily. His eyes turned dark, but he still smilling. He was looking literally sadistic. Xiao shivered, frowning his eyebrows. Maybe he shouldn't have said that, looking at his scary reaction.

"Long story short", Venti sighed, his aura was deadly and cold. "He used to be a villain to me. He once said he didn't like my music. So I brought tornados to Liyue. Then, we became best friends!".

Xiao’s eyelid twitched, when Venti came back to his charming version. He was looking like he enjoyed that old memory, even if he had almost turned Liyue to dust.

The adepti has never truly understood archons, so why did this one’s joke made him want to laugh? Xiao snorted and turned his head with his cheeks slightly blushed.

Xiao spoke up, a bit uncertain.

"Pack your bags, lord... Venti", he looked at the mountains from viewpoint. He made a decision. "We're leaving".

Archon of Wind smirked at him and left him to gather his luggage. Among with other things, was a collection of wine, which he assembled. Xiao rolled his eyes, but then, he unconsciously smiled at him.

He hadn't had so much fun in ages.

When Venti came back, he looked at him with his typical smile and took his hand, waiting for the strange feeling of teleporting.

"Let's go, adepti Xiao", he grabbed his waist as if it wasn’t the first time. The scent of the flowers hit Xiao's nostrils again, he blinked and took a deep breath. "Yahoo!".

Liyue Harbor was the same like he remember. A place full of happy people and cats to which he was allergic.

"Achoo!", Venti sneezed, hiding behind Xiao.

"I didn’t know archons can be allergic".

"You don't know a lot of things yet", Venti smirked, holding his arms. Xiao shuttered. "You must be allergic to humans, I suppose".

After those words, he released him and looked around. They weren’t in the center of the town yet,, but Venti could have already felt the aura of Morax. He sighed when he saw a bridge to the city full of guardians and slowly looked at Xiao. He was looking as if he didn’t want to be there.

"Won’t you go with me?”

"I must escort you safely. Go, Lord Barbatos. I'll be right behind to you". Venti rolled his eyes. Why Xiao was so stubborn?

"Don't be overdramatic and come with me. NEXT to me", he demanded, crossing arms on his chest. Xiao sighed, his eyelid trembled when he went to stand next to Barbatos. Whenever he stood by him, he could smell that delicate scent of Mondstandt flowers.

One time Qiqi gave him a couple of cecilias, claiming them to be a gift from an unknown traveller. That person asked her to pass these flowers to an adepti with amber eyes. Unfortunately, they had withered before she found him. But still these flowers smelled so pretty and Qiqi suggested him to dessicate them. Xiao did it and put the dried flowers in a pillowcase — magnificent smell helped him fallasleep, although he rarely slept. But thanks to them, he had only serene dreams.

The unknown traveler never came to Xiao’s mind, not bothering his head at all. He always thought that had been some stupid human, who tried to thank him for help or anything like that. For sure, that couldn't be Venti.

"Here we go!", Venti hummed, taking in Xiao’s arms.

The scent of flowers was almost suffocating, yet his silky touch was very calming. Xiao, looking at happy Venti, realized that, in fact, he too had blood on his pretty, yet harsh due to instruments playing hands. They were similiar on this aspect, but neither of them would admit it.

"Liyue is so biiiiig", Venti groaned. "I hate being here".

Xiao sighed, not knowing what to say.

"Me too".

Venti wanted to say something, but then he noticed the Wangsheng Funeral Parlor on their way. He let go of Xiao’s hand and ran up to the door, knocking on it with all of his might. When nobody was opening for a while, he just kicked door open and bursted inside, to Xiao's dismay. He didn't know if he was to go enter as well, but it was a better idea than standing in street full of people. Before he could go inside, Venti caught him by his clothes and pulled him in. Then, just closed door.

That was fast, Xiao thought.

"Morax!", he said with excitement, saw him sitting on the table while calmly drinking tea. Zhongli didn't look moved by their presence. "I missed you. Your valiant, lovable and charming yaksha escorted me to you. He deserves a reward".

"Xiao?", Zhongli said, startled. Then, he just sighed. "First, please sit down". Venti, smilling, took his seat and looked at Xiao. He was looking very awkward so Venti pulled him into a chair. Zhongli raised an eyebrow, looking little suprised.

"How did i earn this pleasant meeting?", he asked, looking at Venti. "Do you want anything to drink?".

"A wine, please. Just not lotus head one. I drinked that one yesterday", Venti smirked at confused Xiao. A moment later, Zhongli took the liquor and poured some of it into an elegant glass.

Zhongli looked at Archon of Wind expectantly.

"I have news from Inazuma", Venti suddenly said, drinking his alcohol. He didn't looked at anybody. "Baal got tricked and had her gnosis stolen by the fatui. Now, traveler is going to Sumeru".

The atmosphere tighten, became grim and significant. Zhongli clenched his hand of his cup, his eyes looked angry, which was rare. Even the Xiao felt uncomfortable, bitting his lips.

"Xiao, leave", Archon of Geo said. "Now'.

When Venti came back out, he was already drunk.

"Take care of him, Xiao", Zhongli asked, sighing. "He need to get back to Mondstandt. Unfortunely, I cannot escort him. Can I rely on you?'.

Xiao blinked, when Venti rested on his arm, gibbering. He gently grabbed his waist, holding him firmly. He expected that their meeting wasn’t calm at all, looking at Zhongli with slight worry.

"Always, Rex Lapis", he said, nodding.

"Thank you. You’ve done a good job,", Zhongli added. "You need to take break, I suppose".

Zhongli looked at him. It was they first meeting in a few years, he not changed anything about his character or apparence. And still he was so overprotective towards him.

Xiao felt as he was still a child when he was with the Archon of Geo.

"I'm an adepti. I never get tired," Xiao answered him, looking into his eyes. "But thank you, Rex Lapis".

Zhongli fell silent, looking at him, worried.

"Xiao. I'm never going to be mad at you, you know that. You are my adepti, I trust you with everything", he suddenly confessed. He looked at Venti, his old and the only friend. "You can fall in love and you can sacrifice your feelings to any other Archon, if you are still going to protect Liyue for me". Xiao choked on air, almost letting Venti from his arms. He grabbed him violently, blushing badly and looking at Morax, quite embarrassed.

"No, i'm not a human. I'm never gonna fall into...".

Venti hiccuped and Zhongli smirked. It was a very funny and enjoyable view, that was warming up his petrified heart.

"I understand. You don't need to explain that to me. I just wanted to say that, because I heard your prayer for forgiveness", He crossed his arms.

"You had never have to do that, because you have never dissapointed me, Alatus. Remember that".

Xiao felt a cold wind of his face, when Venti embraced his neck. He definitely craved attention right now.

"Of course, Rex Lapis", he said calmly with relief.

To be honest, Xiao always thought that Zhongli never heard his prayers. That confession made him feel safe and serene — after so many years of doubt. He had no grudge against him, Morax was always his lord, even if he got lost.

He looked at him for the last time, with trust in his gold eyes, then he jumped and teleported himself and Venti to Wangshu Inn, to his room.

Those days in Liyue, that he called silent, they weren't like that at all. They were the loudest ones in his entire life — he finally met Barbatos and Rex Lapis for the first time in years, fulfilling his biggest wish. It took the weight off his shoulders, even if he didn't know everything.

Xiao was just cheerful and a light smile was on his face, when he started putting Venti to his bed. As he was jumping into teleports, Venti asleep on his arm, drooling over him, but Xiao wasn't angry at all. Actually, he could never be angry at Venti.

In the morning, he'll have a hangover, Xiao thought, undressing him from uncomfy garderobe like his jacket and the hat. Venti in his sleeping state looked like a normal young man. So innocent and pure, overall — he wasn’t dreaming nightmares, just smilling and snoring softly. Xiao wanted to lay down next to him, just so he could observe the touching sight.

"For the first time in my life, can I pretend we’re just humans?", Xiao whispered to himself, laying hesitantly next to Venti.

He gave himself up to his own desire, trying to stop his fast beating heart and the feeling of warmth, when he was looking at the sleeping bard.

"Of course you can. You’re still a human in your heart, Alatus", Venti suddenly said, opening his eyes and looking gently at startled Xiao. He wanted to get up from the bed, but Venti caught his wrist. "I'll sing a song if you stay with me".

Xiao blushed and nodded, adjusting himself to feel more comfortable. Venti smirked at him, stroking his hand. He looked worried, bitting his lips. Then, he looked at Xiao eyes with sorrow.

"I lied to you".

There was silence, and beating of Xiao's heart sudden sped up.

"I saved you, because you resembled a certain gallant human to me. I heard you praying, so I came and played the flute which belonged to my dearest friend,", he said with melancholy in his green eyes. "And the worst of all, it is not the end of my confession".

Xiao closed his eyes, concetrating on his soothing voice. He was too scared to hear the rest of his words, still unable to realize the previous ones.

"I gave you the anemo vision".

"What?", Xiao opened his eyes widely, his fingers tightened on Venti hand.

"I'm was always sure that Rex Lapis gave me my vision".

Venti chuckled, closing his eyes.

"When the unknown God enslaved you, I heard your agony", he whispered. "I wanted to reduce your torture, so I gave you a vision. I couldn't do anything more for you, I'm so sorry".

Xiaoe was silent for a moment, analyzed those words in his head.

"So you didn't save my life once. You... were always with me and have always protected me", Xiao said, his hands shakes. Did Morax lied to him too? "And I always thought it was Morax".

"No, it is not like that", Venti interrupted him. "Morax took care of you, he saved you from the unknown God and named you. He did all things I couldn't do myself".

Xiao calmed down, his eyes got weirdly wet. After so many years, he got the answers to all of his questions that he was always too scared to asked. He thought that everything was already behind him, but he was wrong all this time.

"And now, you are the last yaksha, the strongest adepti in Liyue. You are a hero to so many people, even If they don’t know your name. Also, you’re still a human if you can cry", he said with smile, wiping the tears from his cheeks. Xiao didn't even knew when he started crying. He felt so weak. "I'm so proud of you, Alatus".

Venti hugged him kindly, trapping him tightly within his warm arms. For Xiao, it was a strange feeling, so he didn't hug Venti back. Just tighten his fingers on the white chemise, like he was to left soon. Xiao wanted to be with him as long as possible.

Then, Venti started singing a song, without any instrument, just only using his lyrical voice — Xiao could swear that he was in Celestia at that moment. He closed his eyes, feeling safe in his arms and forgetting about the rest of the world. The only thing that mattered was that he knew everything.

Xiao wanted to fall asleep in his embrace, but then he heard the silent snore. He opened his eyes, looking at Venti with amusement. "He was still drunk", Xiao realized, hitting his forehead with embarrased. But then, he just smiled and hugged him, inhaling the scent of cecilias and closing his eyes.

Dear Xiao, I'm sorry for I didn't said goodbye to you, but you were sleeping so sweet, so I didn't want to wake you up. Thank you for taking care of me and letting me make lovely memories with you. I'm never gonna forgive that and I have hope you won’t either. You showed me the best liquor in Liyue, that’s a honorary act for me! I'll visit you in future. I have to wait in Mondstandt till the world affairs end. I'm gonna miss you and our drinking so badly... Anyways, I left you a small gift. I have hope that you like it. With love, Your Venti

When Xiao woke up and sat up on bed, all that was remaining of Venti was his charming scent. On cupboard next to his bed was lying a letter which he took and opened slowly. He smiled after reading it as he saw a few of fresh cecillias, that fell out of the page.

"I knew that it was you", Xiao said, sniffing the flowers. He put them back into the envelope and sighed. Then, he opened his eyes widely, when he realized on the table was lying something else.

It was a flute.

"No way" he swallowed.

Xiao looked at it from all sides, before he put it slowly up to his mouth. It was like an indirect kiss and he knew it well. He blushed softly, hugging flute to his heart.

"Thank you, Venti", he looked at flying birds on the sky. "I'll be waiting for you. But I swear to Rex Lapis, i'm never gonna drink with you again".

He stared at the letter lying on the cupboard with longing. He frowned, when he saw that in the corner was a small note.

Ps. I’m hoping to get a chance to directly kiss you one day.

#xiaoven #xiao #venti #drunk venti #drunk xiao #fluff #happyending #zhongli #angst #xiaoti #venxiao #humor #comedy #genshin impact #genshin xiao #genshin venti #genshin zhongli #venti x xiao #xiao x venti

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yellowocaballero · 3 years

Text

Not Your Queer-Coded Disney Villain: Annabelle & Web!Jon Ficlet

Got bored again today and forced myself to write something that wasn’t gratuitously long. Set in the same universe (or, one of the universes) as The Convention on Chronographer Lane, but it’s completely unnecessary to have read that one before this.

Content warning for (apparent and fake) predation of a student by a teacher, body horror, and spiders. REVERSE content warning for A PSYCH 101 LECTURE WRITTEN BY SOMEONE WHO WAS A TA FOR PSYCH 101. ACCURATE SCIENCE, BITCHES.

“What am I turning into?” Annabelle asked, after a half-second of rapid thought. “Who are you? And what do spiders have to do with any of this?”

Jon smiled again broadly, grey eyes dancing with a barely hidden delight. “You’re fully aware that these are all the same question.”

“Then answer them. You said you’re here to help me. Then help me.” Annabelle narrowed her eyes. “We’ll negotiate a price later.”

“This one is a freebie,” Jon said. He leaned back, face fading into the shadow of the dim yellow light of the hanging light. “You’re turning into something much akin to myself.”

In the darkness, Annabelle saw Jon open his eyes. And his eyes. And his eyes. And his eyes…

Annabelle was sleeping through Psych again.

In her defense, she was really tired. The nightmares had been getting worse every day, and yesterday she hadn’t gotten more than forty minutes of sleep without jolting up in the middle of the night. She had flipped on the light five times during the night, hysterically convinced that bugs were crawling over her and earning the eternal ire of her roommate. Whatever - Irene would forgive her once she bought her an iced coffee from that campus shop she liked. If Annabelle gave it to her later at night, she’d stay up later and would be less likely to bitch when Annabelle inevitably made a stink at three am again.

It didn’t matter. Psych was tediously easy anyway. Not that everything wasn’t tedious, but there were few things more boring than listening to the drone of Mr. Sims’ voice. She had no idea how that guy had a fanclub. Emmanuela Odugawa had asked her if she thought that he recited Piaget’s developmental stages in bed. Barf.

Thankfully, Annabelle had mastered the art of sleeping with her eyes open in class and barely aware enough to recognize when somebody called her name a decade ago, and she ruthlessly used this skill now. She dropped into a half-doze, and was only startled into awareness when she heard the word that had been running in a nonstop track loop through her mind for the past month.

“Phobia: an extreme or irrational fear or aversion to something.” Mr. Sims adjusted his glasses, pressing a button on his laptop that advanced the slides. “It’s an interesting definition, in my opinion. Like many things in Psychology, it is almost infuriatingly vague. How do you define ‘extreme’? How do you define ‘irrational’? Oftentimes, that label is determined by society, science, and our therapists. However, I believe you can argue that phobias are the most rational thing of all.”

Annabelle rubbed her arms, suddenly cold. These auditorium classrooms were always freezing.

“The concept of aversion is heavily rooted in evolution and biology. Anyone here ever eat any bad shrimp?” He didn’t wait for a response. “The smell of seafood probably made you sick for weeks afterwards. Our bodies are primed to detect poison, just as they are to detect danger. Phobias rooted in modern, abstract concepts - clowns, elevators, airplanes - are easy to extinguish. But phobias rooted in real, present, perpetual dangers, the sort of dangers that threatened the lives of cavemen, are far more difficult to ignore.”

Despite herself, Annabelle found herself awake. She found herself listening.

“Snakes. Heights. The Dark. Dogs, bears, large animals. Storms, driving, insects.” Mr. Sims’ looked up at the auditorium, and Annabelle could have sworn that he was looking right at her, he was looking at her. Annabelle’s breath caught, her heart thumping in her chest - a little differently than it used to. “Spiders.”

A horrible clicking echoed in Annabell’s ears. She was afraid that it was her.

Then he looked away, and the spell was broken. “Phobias are one of the most powerful and motivational forces in human evolution. Like mental illnesses, pack bonds, and emotional needs, the perceived weaknesses of the human mind can frequently be some of the most powerful forces that allow the survival of the human species. It isn’t a bug, it’s a feature. I find that a useful way to think of humanity, and of ourselves: that our weaknesses can make us very strong indeed. Next slide…”

If Mr. Sims said anything after that, Annabelle didn’t hear it.

She didn’t pay any attention to anything he said until the end of class, when she shrugged on her cute little silver backpack and merged into the stream of students filtering out of the classroom. A few students had stayed behind to talk to Mr. Sims, and he appeared wrapped in conversation with the giggling girls, but somehow he picked her out of the thick crowd.

“Annabelle?” Mr. Sims asked. “Stay after, please.”

So she leaned against the long sweep of desks, left with nothing to do but squint at Mr. Sims as he spoke with another student about the requirements for the upcoming paper, wondering why he looked so familiar.

All of the other students had assumed he was in his late twenties - “total DILF”, they all inanely assured her - but Annabelle wasn’t so sure. Despite the already graying hair, small glasses, and severe expression, she really wouldn’t put him any older than 23.

Maybe his greying temples were hair dye. Or stress did that to you, right? Annabelle squinted. But when Annabelle looked closer, if she really focused, then she really wasn’t sure it was his hair color at all.

So she looked closer. Her eyes had been itching for the past week. She had caught her skin flaking and peeling, and instead of pink raw skin underneath there was hard and scratchy black necrosis. Her eyes itched now, as if they were striving to split apart, and if Annabelle only let them then they would burst. And as her eyes itched in a horrible, visceral pain, she thought that maybe the white at Mr. Sims’ temples was the thin, sticky webs of spider-silk.

“Annabelle? Are you alright?”

She snapped back to attention, fairly embarrassed. She had been zoning out more in the past month than she had her entire life. Her older siblings had said that college would be rough, but she hadn’t known it would be this rough. This wasn’t like her. None of this was like her.

“I’m great,” Annabelle said reflexively. All of the other students were gone, and Mr. Sims was staring at her over his glasses. “Sorry. Is this about my test…?”

“No. You did quite well on your test. Best in the class, actually.” Mr. Sims smiled at her, as if this was a compliment or important. “Is that why you’ve been so bored in class?”

Ah. Busted. A rare thing for Annabelle. She affected a faux-abashed posture and expression. “Sorry, Mr. Sims. I’ve been staying up ‘til two every morning trying to get my homework done on time. If I’m ever going to go to med school…”

“I thought you were a poli sci major,” Mr. Sims said cheerfully. Annabelle fought a shudder - how did he know so much about her? This class had 200 students.

“Double major,” Annabelle said blithely. “I’m sorry about sleeping in class, I’ll manage my time better. It won’t happen again.”

“Yes, yes.” Mr. Sims waved her apology away, as if that wasn’t what he had been looking for. Then what had he been looking for? “I’m afraid I had somewhat of an ulterior motive for speaking to you today.” He leaned in a little, pulling his glasses down, and his foggy grey eyes - same color as the grey at his temples - focused solely on her. Annabelle made her eyes bigger, and she leaned in too, adjusting her posture so she looked smaller. “You’ve been doing very well in class. I actually wanted to invite you to a meeting. About...oh, your potential for med school. I’m excited to see you succeed. I think you could do quite well in whatever field you choose, and I’d like to help. It would be just us, of course.”

Ding ding ding. Annabelle affected a giggle. “I could totally use the help! Like, in your office? Or, like...lunch, or…?”

“I was thinking dinner, actually,” Mr. Sims smiled. “How’s Bombay Bicycle Club?”

Restaurant and bar, with a casual yet dignified atmosphere. Not formal enough to put up anybody’s guard, but nice enough that a freshman girl could feel treated and be impressed. Most importantly, it was popular among the businessman crowd and almost nobody on campus visited it. Annabelle used it herself to meet up with her sugar daddies all the time.

For a brief, strange moment, Annabelle felt as if he did - but of course he didn’t. But it wasn’t impossible. But if he knew, then why wasn’t he blackmailing her? Was the blackmail for later, once he got her alone? This was probably a power play, getting her off balance by insinuating that he knows but not being explicit about it. He’d probably pull out the blackmail, ‘I’ll ruin your reputation you slut etc’, once they actually got there. Not that he could - Annabelle had contingency plans - but she would have to be careful to actually record him propositioning her anyway. Worst case scenario they had a MAD situation, best case she could squeeze him. Probably not for very much money, since grad students were poor as dirt, and she didn’t exactly need him to boost her grades...get him to slip her the test key and sell the test key? That could work. She could probably get him to strategically cut grades, which was a service that Annabelle could probably sell to students with a grudge…

But then Mr. Sims smiled at her, as if he knew what she was thinking, and Annabelle realized that she had been silent too long. She wanted to come off as panicked, maybe desperate, definitely flattered.

“Sure!” Annabelle said, barely having to feign the anxious creak in her voice. “What time? I have night classes, so…”

“Next Friday at six,” Mr. Sims said instantly. “I’m looking forward to it.”

“Me too.” Annabelle affected Smile #35 - shy virgin. Mr. Sims’ grin widened. Annabelle silently put aside the ‘Catholic schoolgirl’ outfit for Friday. “See you then!”

She turned around, gave him a shy smile, and bounced off. She had just opened the heavy door out of the room when she heard him speak again, freezing her in her tracks.

“Oh, Annabelle - how is the study with Dr. Bates going?”

And his question panicked her so much, made her heart change rhythm and made her skin itch as if something was straining to come out of it, made her eyes itch and crawl and burst, that every calculated move went out the window. She didn’t answer his question, didn’t even give an excuse - she just ran out the door, bright purple vintage boots thumping against the linoleum, breath catching in a chest where she was no longer sure she even had ribs.

Most of her was already calculating. She was already two months into uni, she had to start establishing her power base. The minute her sorority accepted her she’d have greater access to money, popularity, and influence, but she needed reach with the administration too. Mr. Sims was her in. This was a good thing.

But part of her was disappointed, because she had liked him, and she felt a little used. Feelings of disgust, as strong and vivid as in her nightmares, rose in her chest. She squished far down in her chest, familiar with the feeling and effortlessly repressing it.

Annabelle was good with disgusting things.

She had another session with the Arachnophobia study on Monday. Which went fine. It was fine! She didn’t wake up that morning so sick with nerves that she almost threw up. She didn’t stare at her email inbox for thirty minutes, begging herself to cancel and drop out of the study. Nope.

She distracted herself by befriending all of her roommate’s friends and dropping faux-concerned gossip about how cranky and anxious Irene’s been lately, have you noticed she’s been blaming me for how badly she’s sleeping? It was really super sad, frowny face, how do you think I can help, frowny face frowny face frowny face?

So Annabelle went to the Arachnophobia study (it was fine), had increasingly realistic and vivid nightmares about her chest caving in and a nest of spiders crawling out of her chest and eating her eyes, and slept through class. It was all fine.

She should have gone to Oxford. It still made her a little bitter. She had been smart enough to get in, but she hadn’t been smart enough to get the full scholarship. She couldn’t afford it, so instead she was stuck in University of Surrey, where dreams went to die. Future politicians should go to Oxford. Yeah, Surrey had some peers and Parliament members, whatever. She needed better, Oxford and awards and money. From there, from some swotty school or another, it was easy street. Annabelle deserved easy street, and she deserved Oxford, and it just wasn’t fair -

After another three am nightmare, Annabelle blearily scrolled through her sibling groupchat. Barney was doing great in med school. Tricia had posted her maternity photos. Wow, look at that, Robin had gotten a commendation at his law firm. Whatever.

No hope of distinguishing herself in the world. No hope of distinguishing herself in her stupid family. She was smarter than any of her siblings, brighter and better than those doctors and lawyers and accountants, but nobody cared. Mum and Dad were living their retirement in comfort and cooing over their grandchildren, finally rewarded in old age for all their hard work.

If Annabelle dropped off the face of the earth, nobody would even notice.

It should have been a depressing thought. The idea that nobody cared about her, not really, that nobody knew the real her. But somehow it just made her heart beat faster in excitement.

The idea of disappearing from all of this, of cutting herself free from a thousand threads that brought her plummeting down to earth...in the cold hours of that dark morning, to an eighteen year old terrified and alone in uni, it was a siren song.

It was a siren song that sounded, oddly, like the chittering and scuttling of a thousand tiny bodies, but Annabelle was learning to look beyond that.

By the time next Friday rolled around, Annabelle was considering breaking her self-imposed rule against drugs and popping a Xanax. But that wouldn’t help her exhaustion, the persistent bone-deep frazzled sensation of going a week on almost no sleep whatsoever, so she settled for an espresso as she wriggled herself into a tight, slinky plaid dress paired with a puffy olive green windbreaker. She wasn’t sure if she owned any clothing that was made after 1990 - a habit born from a childhood of shopping from thirst stores, and continued voluntarily into high school when she started making her own money online fleecing suckers. It was her, so much as anything was.

“Hot date?” Irene asked, bending over her Physics textbook without looking up. She glanced at her vibrating phone, scowling. Poor baby - her friends were staging an intervention. “New guy or old guy?”

“New guy,” Annabelle said vaguely, carefully picking out a bold red lipstick - or did that seem too forward? Should she go for a natural look? “If I’m not back by midnight call the police. I’ll text you a picture of his car.”

“Roger.” Irene flipped a page of her textbook, oblivious to the fact that she was one of the few people Annabelle genuinely liked. Not enough not to screw with her, but she liked her. “He’s not good enough for you, something something.”

“Darling,” Annabelle said, winking into the mirror, “nobody is.”

She hoped Irene believed it. She didn’t.

It wasn’t a frequent occurrence that Annabelle wished she was stupid, but today she wished she was stupid enough to take a power nap during her ten minute Uber ride. Her mind felt frazzled and frayed, as if it had been taken out of her scalp and spread out with a rolling pin onto a floured countertop. She felt as if she was melting, her vision spiralling into fractals or blurring out. She wanted to sleep. God, she’d do anything for some sleep -

So she blared Bad Romance in her frayed earbuds instead, clutching her iPod Touch tightly, pulling herself together. Gaga, give her strength.

By the time that she tipped her driver, effortlessly found Mr. Sims’ car in the parking lot of Bombay Bicycle Club and texted Irene the license plate (Volkswagen, obviously), she had dragged herself into focus. She stapled on her confident posture and walk - no, we’re going with ingenue today, make it shy and hesitant - and slipped inside the restaurant, making a show of holding her clutch tight to her chest and looking around with big eyes.

She saw him instantly. He was sitting in a corner booth, head down and texting on his phone with a half-smile. The corner booth was poorly lit, light dampened by the wood panelling and soft leather seats, and half of his face was draped in shadow.

Great. She had even arrived ten minutes early just so she could pick a brightly lit, intimate little table in the center of the room. This guy - he was almost like her. He was almost like her, but he was better.

Annabelle fought the urge to grind her teeth. She smiled instead, waving cheerfully until he raised his head. He smiled back at her, wriggling his fingers, and Annabelle wove around the tables until she could slide into the seat across from him.

“This is cozy!” She said brightly. “Thank you so much for inviting me out, Mr. Sims. It’s been ages since I got away from my books -”

“Oh, cut that shit out,” Mr. Sims said, bored. “I’m not going to sleep with you.”

Annabelle’s mind shut down. Error 404, blue screen of death.

“I’m sorry,” she said pleasantly, smile frozen on her face. “What?”

But Mr. Sims just shrugged listlessly, slumping against the cushioned wall. His expression was no longer fond, indulgent, haughty. He just looked bored now, as if he was too tired and underpaid to deal with eighteen year olds. “I don’t want to sit through this entire dinner fending off flirting. We have actual business to talk about, and I am uninterested in beating around the bush when there’s no point. You aren’t even subtle.”

“Excuse me -” Annabelle started, enraged, but Mr. Sims put up a hand and cut her off.

The change was instant. On a dime, Mr. Sims straightened his posture, swept a finger through his hair to transform it from slicked back professor type to windswept, adopted a friendly and casual expression, and leaned in as if he was happy and excited to be sitting with Annabelle. In a moment he dropped ten years. Barely a second after his transformation the waiter approached them, holding a notepad, and Annabelle realized with a start that he had noticed the waiter coming before she did.

“How are you two doing tonight?” the waiter asked politely, smiling at the both of them in a rote routine that Annabelle remembered from her own days waitressing.

“Doing great!” Mr. Sims said, and even his accent was different, closely matching her own. He glanced back at Annabelle, nothing but open and friendly. “Mum says get whatever you want, dork. It’s on her bill, so let’s run her out of house and home.”

Instinctually, Annabelle shot back, “Aren’t you old enough to take me out to eat with your own money, loser?”

“Not with your stomach!” Mr. Sims laughed, and the waiter chuckled along too. Mr. Sims effortlessly rapped out an order for the waiter, before Annabelle even got a chance to look at the menu, and when she floundered Mr. Sims just rolled his eyes and ordered for her too. It was, somehow, her favorite food.

He waited for the waiter to move onto the next table, eyeing him carefully, before he let the persona drop. Mr. Sims sagged again, dropping the friendly act, sizing her up from half-lidded eyes.

“How did he even believe that,” Annabelle said flatly. “We don’t look anything alike.”

“White people will believe anything,” Mr. Sims said, rolling his eyes. “I have the Belgian government convinced I’m an Iraqi scientist and most high profile Australian celebrities think I’m Egyptian royalty.”

“...does Egypt have -”

“Nope.”

Annabelle was beginning to feel a little like the star actress in the school play who got upstaged in every way by the villain’s performance. Nobody did what she did. Nobody did what she did, but better.

“Don’t feel insecure,” Mr. Sims said, as if he could read her mind. “I’m a good actor, and I’m excellent at reading people. But I can’t plan or plot like you do. I’m shit at thinking three steps ahead, much less thirty. You can keep plots and schemes going for years - decades, even, if I were to guess. I’m not sure how someone as competent as you can have self-esteem issues.”

Annabelle bristled. “You try having nobody care about you for - how do you even know that shit about me?” Something terrible occurred to her. “Are you some kind of stalker, Mr. Sims?”

Mr. Sims shuddered in real disgust. “It’s Jon. And no, of course not. You just aren’t as subtle as you think you are.”

Yes, she was. She was subtle to everyone on the planet - everyone save, maybe, Jon. Annabelle narrowed her eyes. “What do you want?”

“Absolutely nothing,” Jon said immediately.

“Liar. Everybody wants something.”

“I’m here altruistically,” Jon said, the perfect picture of innocence. “Really. I’m here to help you, Annabelle.”

“You are stalking me.” Annabelle leaned forward, but Sims didn’t move. “Are you even a real graduate student?”

“Absolutely not. I’m twenty three, I got my Psych degree last year and I’ve been bouncing odd jobs since.” Jon shrugged, as Annabelle felt silently vindicated. Nothing about this man acted like a twenty three year old - she remembered her siblings at twenty-three, there was nothing adult about them - but it was probably just another persona. She wondered how far she’d have to scratch to get to the real Jon Sims.

“So you were just at Surrey to spy on me,” Annabelle said slowly. “I don’t know what country you’re from, but in England that’s definitely stalking.”

“I’d call it scouting,” Jon said. The waiter dropped by to place their drinks on the table - Jon had gotten a mule for himself, and he had ordered water for Annabelle in a move uncharacteristic for a sketchy guy. He waited until the waiter left to continue. “Call me a recruiter.”

“For who? What kind of job recruiter teaches a class for two months just to get to me?”

“How’s your study with Dr. Blake going, Annabelle?” Jon said, almost randomly, and Annabelle shut up. He must have seen something in her eyes, because a sharp little grin stretched in the corner of his narrow and sharp face. “Thought so. What do you dream of, Annabelle? In the cold corners of night, what fears come to life in the dark recesses of your mind?”

Maybe, Annabelle thought inanely, this was a dream too. Just an extended nightmare, one she hadn’t woken up from. It felt like that: distant and strange, hyper-real and unreal. This strange man sitting in front of her, who swapped faces so easily even Annabelle couldn’t keep up, was far too out of place to truly exist.

Or maybe he was the first real person she had met in a very long time.

Jon continued talking, as if she had responded. Maybe she had. “I am not a hero in this story. If I was, I would have come earlier. I would have deleted your name from the pool of subjects, and I would have made it so that you never got that call.” Jon looked away from her for the first time, letting a little sadness show on his face. “I couldn’t. No - no, I could have, I simply chose not to. You’re important, Annabelle. And I didn’t want to rob you of something that you may grow to treasure. I’m afraid that the choice you make now may not be much of a choice at all - but, perhaps, there is still a chance. At the very least, I would like to make this transition a little easier for you. It is a terrible thing, to have to do it alone.”

That…

“That was so vague it was completely meaningless.”

Jon barked a laugh, strangely delighted. “It’s not fair to speak in circles to somebody who’s gone a week without sleep!”

“But you’re doing it on purpose,” Annabelle said, too dead inside to feel mad.

“Oh, absolutely. I am not taking the risk of taking you on at full power.” Jon smiled at her, as if they were friends sharing a joke. “I saw what you did to that Walker boy in secondary.”

Despite herself, Annabelle smiled. “Hear he gets out on parole in five.” Something else occurred to her, a bit belatedly. “You are stalking me!”

“Does a spider stalk the fly that strikes a string on its web?” Jon asked cheerfully. “Or is it simply investigating an encroachment into its territory?”

“Does that mean that you’re going to eat me?” Annabelle said archly. “Thought you said you didn’t want to fuck me. Rude, by the way.”

Almost hilariously, Jon wrinkled his nose. “Sex is a waste of time, resources, and my attention. Can’t imagine why people are so obsessed.”

“I know, right!” Annabelle burst out, before she could help herself. “Do you have any idea how much money I get a month from guys just to talk to me? It’s like they’re aliens! Why do people fuck or date if it’s not to manipulate someone?”

“Right! It’s ridiculous.”

It was the first time anybody had ever agreed with her on that. It was the first time she had even told anybody she felt that way. For a brief second, Annabelle felt connected to Jon. It was the first time that happened in...a very long time.

Jon was the first person Annabelle had ever met who was like her. Everybody in Annabelle’s life had always been either useful or useless. Jon seemed above that, somehow. To be beyond utility, to exist on your own power...what did that look like? To be the powerful, instead of the powerless?

No matter how hard she tried, no matter how many puppet strings Annabelle tied around her fingers, she was never powerful. Not really. She was eighteen, from a nothing family, and no matter how many molehills she made herself queen of she would never rule the mountain. She couldn’t get as far as she wanted with what she had. The only reason she had even volunteered for the stupid Arachnophobia experiment was because she needed to crush out weakness in herself, erase the hidden flaws in her mind.

But Jon said her flaws were strengths. What made her weak could be turned into power.

Annabelle needed more, more, more. She needed everything, if she was to have anything. She needed what Jon had.

Everything Annabelle said had a purpose. Every word she used was chosen carefully, every little gesture or body language was calculated. She said nothing without thinking, and she could do it so quickly nobody even noticed. Jon would notice, a con man as perfect as she was.

Let him. Give her two straight days to sleep, and they’d have a real battle of wits. In the meantime, she just had to pick her questions strategically.

“What am I turning into?” Annabelle asked, after a half-second of rapid thought. “Who are you? And what do spiders have to do with any of this?”

Jon smiled again broadly, grey eyes dancing with a barely hidden delight. “You’re fully aware that these are all the same question.”

“Then answer them. You said you’re here to help me. Then help me.” Annabelle narrowed her eyes. “We’ll negotiate a price later.”

“This one is a freebie,” Jon said. He leaned back, face fading into the shadow of the dim yellow light of the hanging light. “You’re turning into something much akin to myself.”

In the darkness, Annabelle saw Jon open his eyes. And his eyes. And his eyes…

All eight of Jon’s glittering black eyes shone in the darkness, straining her own and making her head thump. It was wrong, outside of humanity or reality, and it felt as if the very sight was straining the fabric of her delicately maintained life so tight it would tear. It felt as if it was tearing her, right in two, ruining her forever. Her eyes felt like they were going to burst out of her head.

She didn’t want to know what would replace them. But she had the feeling that she already did.

“Then what,” Annabelle gritted out, “are you?”

“I am the eldest and most treasured Son of the Mother of Spiders,” Jon said. He smiled at her, just a little, almost apologetic. “Sorry about that. I know you’ve always wanted to be an only child.”

Ah. Duh. Obviously. She should have known.

“...do I want to know who the Mother of Spiders is?”

“Your mother, should you choose to accept her,” Jon said cheerfully, leaning back into the light, and his face was normal again. Human as ever. Strange and foreign as ever - possibly everything, possibly nothing. “I know you aren’t strictly in the market for adoption, but you may not have much of a choice. You’ve felt her scratching beneath her skin. She’s going to tear out of you, and soon. Did you know some species of wasp lay their eggs in the body of spiders to provide food for the grubs?”

“During the next experiment,” Annabelle said dully, already filtering out Jon’s useless tidbits of information. That was a guy who spoke for the sake of hearing himself talk. “That’s when it’s happening. When I’ll...change.”

“Yes. It’s a painful process,” Jon said, and it was almost apologetic. “My own happened when I was fifteen - quite young, all things considered. I still remember the sound of my bones snapping as -”

“Don’t.”

“Of course! Anyway, I thought I’d make sure you had...to use the psych term, informed consent, before you entered the crucible. Our - my, sorry - Mother often foregoes true consent in our operations. The beauty of nature!” Jon laughed, as Annabelle felt sick. “Agnes wanted to put together a pamphlet, but then we let Gerry go wild on the clipart and...well, it’s better if I just explain. I can’t give you the full story now, but I’ll tell you as much as your mind can comprehend.”

Annabelle wasn’t sure she could even comprehend this. It was so much, and she was so tired. She had just heard that her body was going to rupture like a cocoon and give birth to a giant spider that may or may not also be her, and all she could think about was the fact that she wanted to go back to bed. Somehow, all she could ask was -

“Why?” She asked, so stupid and pointless, as if she was stupid, as if she wasn’t her at all. “Why are you doing this?”

“It’s like I said.” In the dim yellow lighting, Jon’s eyes glittered pure black, and in that brief and stupid second Annabelle felt as if they were the same in that way. “Nobody should have to go through this alone and ignorant.” Then the moment was over, and his eyes were a human grey again, just left of normal. “Besides. Siblings stick together, right?”

“I hardly need more siblings,” Annabelle snapped.

“You’re about to lose seven of them real soon,” Jon promised, extremely worryingly, “so I’d take what you can get right now, Annabelle.”

“Are you going to kill -”

“Unfortunately, you may have to fake your own death!”

Then their food came, and Annabelle received her first lesson in the class of hard knocks.

They talked for hours. It took hours, to even just get a picture of the story. Jon was patient, answering every question, and Annabelle strained so hard trying to fight through her exhaustion, trying to understand the answer, Jon’s motivation in answering it or what he could be leaving out, that by the end of it she felt as if she had run a marathon. She had never felt so tired in her life, in the most dangerous situation in her life, with the most dangerous person she had ever met.

By the end of it, Irene was texting her to ask if she was dead, and Annabelle was falling asleep at her chair. Jon cut an end to their conversation when he slid out his wallet, covered the bill with a black Amex card, and slid a business card against the table. Annabelle squinted down at it.

The text in the center just said [FREELANCERS]. That was it. She stared at it.

Underneath the vague word, she saw a phone number [555-555] and an email [[email protected]]. Annabelle looked up to stare at Jon. “Are you for real?”

“Almost never,” Jon said cheerfully, “but the card will make sense when it needs to. Let me take you back to your dorm, alright? You can get some sleep in the car.”

If he was a creep, she was dead anyway. Annabelle didn’t bother arguing. She grabbed her jacket and got in the passenger seat of his car, and true to his word Annabelle drifted asleep almost immediately. She even felt as if the ride took longer than ten minutes, as if he drove in circles just waiting for her.

For the first time in a week, Annabelle slept uninterrupted, and had no dreams.

Annabelle wanted what Jon had.

And a week later, she took it.

Shivering in an alley, clothing ripped to shreds, her own skin hanging off her triple jointed limbs, she dug out a creased and torn business card. She had been worrying at it intensely over the weekend, staring and it and clenching it tightly as if it was her only lifeline. It was, of course. But Jon had known that.

The card looked different now. The text now looked handwritten, but with a beautiful and old-timey slanted handwriting. It now just read:

‘To Annabelle, with love. From your new friends Gerry, Jon, and Agnes’. There was a number underneath, and Annabelle frantically dug in her tattered leather jacket pocket to draw out her cracked phone.

Annabelle hated taking favors from people. Everything she had, she had fought for herself. She would scrape, borrow, beg, and steal whatever she had to. But, when it came to siblings...maybe, then, it was okay.

Dizzily, as Annabelle let the phone ring, she thought: this is my supervillain origin story.

The thought sent a slow smile crawling across her inhuman and warped face.

Sounds like fun.

#AROACE ANNABELLE RIGHTS #tma #tma fanfic #the magnus archives #the magnus archives fanfiction #annabelle cane #jonathan sims #web!jon #realized while writing evilcon that annabelle was seven while jon was twelve #and that their sibling relationship must be a NIGHTMARE #anyway i'm trying to convince myself not to write a web!jon agnes and gerry fic where its basically a leverage au #and i am failing miserably #so i wrote this instead of that #GRIFTER!JON AND IN THIS ESSAY I WILL #my writing

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samanthadalton · 3 years

Note

Can you do a Sam Dalton x MC fic, please? 🙏🥺I miss Sam

hiiiii I’m so sorry it took long I’m trying to work through a few of my requests but I hope you like it 💖

pairing: f!Sam x mc (I named my mc Josie so I’m sticking with that)

Takes place after chapter 6 the engagement party

word count: 3.1k (it’s a long one but Sam deserves)

taglist: @kamilah-sayeeds-habibti (i hope you enjoy it) @cloud9in @alleycat97 (if anyone wants to be added on for this pairing let me know 😊)

Drunk words, sober thoughts

You’re preparing breakfast for Mason and Mickey until a sudden flurry of texts interrupt your cooking, the pings going off every second. Sam stalks into the kitchen, already dressed for work as she reaches for the mug of coffee you prepared for her not a minute before as you’ve become accustomed to your usual morning ritual.

“You’re popular this morning,” she jokes as her eyes flicker over to yours, and you see a twinkle of amusement in her eyes.

“Heh. It’s my friend Jenny, she and some of my college friends are going out tomorrow and she keeps begging me to go.” Sam raises an eyebrow at you, the glimmer of amusement dissipating from her eyes and replaced with something you can’t really put a finger on.

“Where do they wanna go?” her tone nonchalant, but her eyes tell a different story. Since the engagement party and your heavy makeout on the rooftop, things have been incredibly awkward with Sam. You’ve barely had a chance to talk with the CEO and she’s been doing a damn good job of avoiding you over the last couple of weeks every time you’ve found yourself in the same room alone after hours.

“Just to the club.”

“Ah. So why don’t you wanna go?”

You shrug your shoulders as you contemplate your answer, “I don’t know, just with settling in the new job and stuff I don’t think going to the club is suitable.”

“Seriously Josie?” Sam raises an eyebrow at you, “tomorrow is your day off and like you said before,” Sam takes a steady gulp, her eyes never leaving yours, “you’re a young single woman, you should have some fun. One of us should at least.” Sam mutters the last part, and you wonder if you were meant to hear that bit until your eyes meet and something in Sam’s eyes flashes, and suddenly you find yourself falling back into the memory of you and Sam on the rooftop. The rooftop where you were screaming at Sam for being jealous of you and Robin, where you found yourself chastising Sam for her overly zealous behaviour, moments before you found yourself attached at the lips, passion infiltrating your senses as you kissed her recklessly. You come out of your reverie, your face flushed as you look away from Sam, unable to meet her eyes.

“You’re right.” You nod slowly and you mull over Sam’s words, hesitantly you pick up the phone to text Jenny that you’ll be there tomorrow and as you set your phone down, Sam opens her mouth to speak but is interrupted by the sudden stomping of Mason and Mickey who race into the kitchen at the smell of your cooking.

“Morning Josie!” the twins say as they settle in their seats, you ruffle their hair and place a plate of waffles in front of the boys as they hungrily scoff the food down.

“Slow down boys you might get a stomach ache.” Sam places a chaste kiss on each of the twin’s forehead before giving you a swift nod and heading out to work.

….

The next night you’re getting ready to go out as you stand in front of your closet with Jenny lounging on your bed inattentively scrolling through her phone. You turn and snap your fingers at her, “Jenny! Pay attention. What do I wear?”

Jenny groans before getting up and standing beside you, “I usually love giving you fashion advice but you’ve literally turned down every dress I’ve picked out.”

“Because it has to be perfect.”

“Why?”

“Because. I-” you stammer, not able to come up with a valid reason, but the voice in the back of your mind has been pestering you for the last hour, and all you know is that tonight you have to look flawless.

Jenny side eyes you, carefully considering, “Okay say no more.” You’re grateful at how well Jenny knows you in knowing when to not pressure you into speaking. She briskly claps her hands together, her usual peppy self sprouting up again as she assesses your closet. “Mmmmmm, this one.” She holds out a short red dress with thin straps and holds out the dress to you, “if you’re looking to make an impression tonight I advise you to wear this tonight.”

You stare at the dress, the redness of it radiates at you, and you fully know that you’ll definitely be the centre of attention if you wear the dress tonight. In your heart however, you realize you only want the attention of one person, Sam.

“Come oooon. We’re gonna be late. Try it on and trust my expertise please.” Jenny pleads, flashing her puppy dog eyes and you can’t bring yourself to say no.

“Fine, give it here.” After trying on the dress, and pairing it with red stiletto heels, you’re interrupted by a brisk knock on the door as you‘re looking into the mirror, putting on your lipstick while Jenny straightens your hair. “Come in!”

Sam gingerly opens the door, as her eyes scan the room until they find you, and she visibly can’t tear her eyes from you. Her eyes meticulously roam your outfit, flashing with undisguised desire. “Josie..” Sam’s at a loss for words as her mouth hangs open, until Jenny’s shrill voice breaks her out of her trance and Sam looks over at the peppy brunette as if she’s only noticing her presence for the first time.

“Doesn’t she look hot?”

Heat rises to your cheeks as you avert your eyes from Sam’s, looking embarrassed as you reply, “Jenny!” Your voice comes out more snappier than you intended but your best friend gets the hint and clasps her mouth shut, focusing on her task of straightening your hair. You clear your throat before looking back up at the CEO and you see a similar blush on her face, as she conspicuously tries not to let her eyes drift to your body. “Sorry about her Sam. Did you need something?”

Sam clenches her jaw slightly, before inhaling slightly, her demeanor becoming more relaxed by the second, “no, I just wanted to make sure you’re okay and wanted to ask if you needed a ride to the club.”

Before you can open your mouth, Jenny chimes in, “of course! That would save us money on using an Uber.” You plaster a small smile on your face, trying to camouflage your uneasiness.

“Yeah, thanks Sam.”

“Well just let me know when you’re ready to head out.”

“Wait, you’re driving us? I thought that maybe Carter-”

“No, Carter has retired for the night. I wouldn’t want to bother him.”

“What about the boys, they shouldn’t be left alone.”

Sam eyes glistens with humour as she realises that you keep coming up with excuses to not be in a car with her, “Robin’s here. We have some paperwork to go over so she can watch the boys while we’re gone.” You try to come up with another excuse, your mind blanking as Sam smirks at you, and you begrudgingly accept her ride.

As you step out of the room and walk into the office to call Sam, Robin sits at the front of the desk, her eyes drifting to your body, appraising every inch of you as she lets out a low whistle. “Damn, Josie. You look hot.” Before you can respond, Sam appears at the door, her eyes dark blazing into Robin’s, as a scowl outlines her face.

“Josie. Are you ready to go?” Her eyes snap back to you, and the grimace from her expression shifts into a more softer look.

You nod and leave the room with Sam in tow, behind you Robin calls out, “go get some!” You laugh shaking your head as you meet Jenny who’s waiting by the lift and make your way down.

…..

As Sam pulls up the car, she steps out and opens the door for you and Jenny, and you slide into the backseat on the car as Jenny sits next to you and Sam moves to the driver’s seat, your eyes meeting in the rear-view mirror. You pointedly glance away, tapping away on your phone as Jenny gives Sam the directions to the club. Suddenly, your phone rings and you see your friend, Eva’s name flashing on your screen. You accept the call and her voice blares out on the other end as loud bass music and her voice crackles out, her words slightly slurring, “heeey, where are you guys?”

“Yeah sounds like you guys started without us,” you put the phone on speaker holding it between you and Jenny.

“You guys were taking forever!” Another voice rings out on the other end, most likely your friend Reina judging by her shrieking voice, she’s also wasted.

“Blame Josie, she took forever picking a dress,” Jenny teases and you facetiously roll your eyes. You maintain a conversation for the rest of the drive as Sam sits in the front in silence, occasionally smiling to herself when she hears your friends voices ring out as they sing along to the music or just scream on the phone. Eventually you turn off your phone promising your friends you’re close and you’re soon pulling up to the club.

“We’re here.” Sam smiles as she turns to face you and Jenny, her gaze warm.

“Thank you so much for the ride Ms Dalton,” Jenny replies as she opens the door and starts to slide out of her seat, careful not to crease her dress as she does.

“I told you to call me Sam, Ms Dalton makes me sound too old,” Sam jests and Jenny gleams at the CEO as she thanks her once again, this time fully enunciating Sam’s name. As Jenny leaves the car you’re about to slide out after her until Sam’s soft hands lightly touch your arm and you suddenly feel anchored in your seat. “Josie I-” her eyes flashes with the same expression yesterday morning when you mentioned the club and your brows furrow as you take in the pointed look on her face.

“Is something wrong?”

You watch as the unfamiliar expression shifts into an abashed grin as she languidly moves her hand from your arms, her fingers ghosting down your arms eliciting goosebumps as it moves.

“No.” She plasters a pageant smile on her face, and somehow you just know she’s putting up a front, “hope you have a good night and Robin and I will most likely be up late so don’t hesitate to call if you need a ride home.” Sam looks like she wants to say more but she presses her lips together in a thin line, just before you can ask, Jenny’s shrill voice cuts through the air tearing you out of the moment.

“I should go.” You carefully slide out of your seat and then shut the car door, linking your arm with Jenny’s as she ushers you into the club. Before you enter you look over your shoulder to see Sam’s car driving off in the distance, and you feel a tiny pang in your heart. Once you enter the club, the music blares, momentarily overtaking your senses until you stalk over to the bar and order 3 shots, downing them all one after another.

“Damnnnnnnn,” Jenny says, gazing at you with astonishment.

“Well everyone else is already drunk so we have to catch up,” you raise your third shot in the air as a toast and then throw back the drink, the burn of the tequila sliding down your throat and settling into your stomach and you feel already more at ease.

“True dat.” Jenny responds as you order more drinks before meeting up with your friends who are in the middle of burning up the dance floor.

“Josie!” They cheer as you arrive and you sandwich yourself between your friend Eva and another girl named Flora as you begin dancing with them.

…..

You’re unsure about how much time has passed but after a few more drinks, you feel the alcohol running through you and your thoughts begin running wild. Your mind flashes back to Sam and anger begins filling up your senses. Though a small part of your brain says you’re thinking irrationally, the rest of your brain is fueled with both frustration and alcohol and before you know it, you’re standing in the corner of the club with your phone in your hand.

….

Sam and Robin sit in Sam’s office working through some documents until Sam’s phone begins vibrating and her screen flashes with messages.

“Jesus, it’s almost 1am, who the hell in texting you now?” Robin raises an eyebrow at her sister while Sam continues examining the papers in front of her, her eyes never tearing away as she retorts, “not important. Focus.” Her tone reprimanding as the two women fall back into silence until Sam’s phone buzzes again breaking the silence in the room.

“For god sakes check your phone it might be important.”

Sam sighs, and slams her papers onto the desk before picking up her phone and she sees your name on her screen and sees she has left several voice messages. All the anger dispels from her face as she unlocks her phone and brings it up to her ear after pressing play.

“Heeeeeey Saaaaam.’

Sam chuckles, at the sound of your voice, your words are slightly slurred and your voice is quite low as the message plays.

“I juss wanna say that I was thinking, aaand it occurred to me, why are you getting so mad at me when you kissed me?” Your tone at this point in the message is filled with anger and as you keep rambling on Sam’s eyes hastily snaps to Robin, who’s preoccupied with her document she hasn’t heard your voice over Sam’s phone.

“And you know what? Screw you! If I wanna have fun then I’ll have fun, I don’t need you controlling me.” Sam clenches her jaw, anger swelling up inside of her as she abruptly stands from her chair, grabbing her keys while Robin shouts out after her sister, “where the hell are you going?”

…..

After slipping a hundred dollar bill to the bouncer so she can skip the line, Sam observes the club’s surroundings, until her gaze catches sight of you on the dance floor dancing with a random club goer. She internally debates whether she should interrupt you but when the stranger places her hand on your waist Sam pushes all thoughts aside and begins charging onto the dancefloor. You’re so engrossed in your dancing that you don’t realise Sam’s presence until you hear her soft voice in your ear and you jerk your head back to make sure you’re not dreaming.

“Sam! What are you doing here?”

Something flashes in Sam’s eyes, and this time you know what it is, jealousy and it is a green eyed monster alright. Her darkened eyes bore into yours as your arms are still wrapped around the stranger’s who’s too drunk to notice Sam.

“Let’s go.” Sam reaches out to take your arm before you jolt back, placing a distance between you and the CEO.

“No I wanna stay.” Like a child you stomp and cross your arms, pouting at the CEO.

“Where are you friends? Where’s Jenny?”

You nonchalantly shrug your shoulders, “I don’t know and I don’t care. I’m dancing with…” your mind struggles to remember the name of the person whom you were just dancing with so you sloppily wave your hand over at the girl, which just seems to frustrate Sam more.

“You’re drunk Josie, let’s get you home.” She takes a step forward until the stranger takes a step towards Sam placing her hand on the CEO’s chest.

“Do you know her?” the stranger speaks over her shoulder, as her hand remains firmly on Sam’s chest.

“Take your hand off me right now before we have a problem,” though she keeps a cool stoic expression, the tone in Sam’s voice sparks with threat and the stranger removes her hand retreating from the encounter. “Alright let’s go.” Sam takes out her hand and you bitterly accept it, letting the CEO maneuver you out of the club and ushering you into the front seat of her car. “Are you gonna be okay? Do you feel like throwing up?”

“Just take me home,” slightly mortified by your childish behaviour at the club you turn away from Sam and lean your head against the window and soon your eyelids start feeling heavy and you let the sleep consume you.

You’re woken up by a gentle shake by Sam, a worried expression etched on her face as her hand rubs comforting circles on your shoulder. “Where are we?”

“Home. Here let me help you out.” Sam exits the car and comes around the other side opening the door and wrapping an arm around your waist. She easily hoists you up and you lean on her, steadying your weight as you place an arm around her shoulder. “Okay we’re gonna start walking now.” She carefully takes you into the building and you make your way into the elevator and soon you’re back at home. Sam carefully sets you on your bed and moves towards your feet, delicately removing your heels before tucking you into the duvet.

“Thank you Sam,” your voice a whisper as you feel yourself slipping back into a sleep, Sam smiles and gently kisses your forehead and soon you’re passed out again. Sam moves into the hallway taking out her phone bringing it to her ear. She replays the last voice message you sent her, her eyes glimmering with bliss as she listens to your words.

“You have some nerve telling me to have fun tonight. I mean how can I have fun when I keep thinking of you? That kiss on the rooftop.” You let out a humourless laugh, “that freaking kiss. I can’t stop thinking about it and I hate you for it. I hate that you’re on my mind all the time and how badly I want you. I hate that you make me so vulnerable. I may not be some fancy business woman like Sofia but at least I’m someone who genuinely cares about you. And I know you care about me too, so I don’t care that you’re engaged to some freaking robot. Because I know what we have is real and I-.” In the background you hear Jenny’s voice cut through and the voice message hastily ends but Sam looks down at her phone, eyes filled with hope because she knows she feels exactly the same.

#playchoices #the nanny affair #sam x mc #sam dalton #female sam dalton

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isadomna · 3 years

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JUAN LUIS VIVES AND CATHERINE OF ARAGON

Juan Luis Vives was a Spanish humanist born in Valencia, the capital of one of the patrimonial states of the Crown of Aragon. He came from a family that had been persecuted by the Inquisition and which may have practised crypto-Judaism. Vives, who had attended the city’s newly founded university, left Spain in 1509. He did not return. He settled first in Paris and continued his studies with scholastic logic, but five years later he moved to Bruges, where he remained until 1516. It was at the court of Brussels that he met Erasmus for the first time and where the ensuing deep and enduring friendship, which became such a central feature in Vives’s life, began. Vives had taken up a position as tutor to Guillaume de Croy, bishop of Cambrai. Vives lived in Louvain, teaching at the Collegium Trilingue, until Croy’s death. By 1521 Vives was already benefitting from a small pension from Queen Catherine of Aragon, Charles V's aunt. At the insistence of his friend Erasmus, Vives prepared an elaborate commentary on Augustine's De Civitate Dei, which was published in 1522 with a dedication to Henry VIII of England.

Apparently impressed, Henry VIII invited him to come to England in 1523 and make it his “scholarly home”. Vives went on to become a popular lecturer at Oxford, “where the King and Queen went to hear him.” When it came time to decide how Princess Mary should be educated, it was Juan Luis Vives to whom Catherine turned for help in designing a course of study. Later she would also seek the aid of Erasmus. Others humanist scholars also contributed to Mary’s education in various ways. Catherine of Aragon commissioned Vives to write De Institutione Feminae Christianae in 1523, shortly before his arrival in England. A book he dedicated to the English queen.

Moved by the holiness of your life and your ardent zeal for sacred studies, I have endeavoured to write something for your Majesty on the education of the Christian Woman … your daughter Mary will read these recommendations and will reproduce them as she models herself on the example of your goodness and wisdom to be found within your home. She will do this assuredly, and unless she alone belies all human expectations, must of necessity be virtuous and holy as the offspring of you and Henry VIII, such a noble and honoured pair.

Queen Catherine produced money for a translation of The Education of a Christian Woman from Latin into English. The English version was reprinted eight times during the sixteenth century. Once Catherine took up the theory of female education, she did not limit herself to its reference to her daughter. She began to form around Mary a school for the daughters of noblemen, on the pattern of that for noblemen’s sons once formed around her brother Juan, and she even persuaded a number of the older ladies of the court, notably her sister-in-law, the Duchess of Suffolk, to resume the study of Latin and take up a course of serious reading. She turned over a copy of Vives’s treatise to Thomas More, whose own daughters were probably the best educated young women of their class in England, and urged him to translate it into English, or to get it translated, so that its ideas might be available to everybody who could take advantage of them.

For the next five years, Vives spent some part of every year in England, lecturing eloquently at Oxford, spending much time at court, and writing joyously on such a variety of subjects that Thomas More professed himself quite abashed before the performance of the younger man. In October 1524, Catherine commissioned Luis Vives to write a more specifc curriculum of study for her seven-year-old daughter. The resulting De Ratione Studii Puerilis (On a Plan of Study for Children) was dedicated to the young princess herself. As Mary got older, Vives advised that Catherine revise her educational program more precisely: “Time will admonish her as to more exact details, and thy singular wisdom will discover for her what they should be.”

Additionally, Vives also often accompanied the Queen to the abbey at Syon on the west side of London of the river Thames. Syon Abbey was renowned as a place of spiritual learning and a regular meeting place of scholars, much favored by the pious Queen. Catherine found in Vives a prudent adviser, a brilliant teacher, a personal friend, and the ideal partner in long, nostalgic, confidential and spirited conversations in their native language. One of those conversations impressed Vives in some particular, mysterious way. From Oxford , on January 25, 1524, Vives wrote to Cranevelt:

At times I was able to have some philosophical talks with the Queen, one of the purest and most Christian souls I have ever seen. Thus, a couple of days ago, on our way by barge to a certain monastery of nuns, we came to talk about adversity and prosperity in this life. The Queen said: “If I could chose between the two, I would prefer an equal share of both, neither complete adversity nor total success. And If I had to choose between extreme sorrow and extreme well-being, I think I would prefer the former to the latter, for people in disgrace need only some consolation while those who are too successful frequently lose their minds.”

In 1528 he forfeited Henry’s favour by opposing the royal divorce from Catherine of Aragon, assisting her with spoken and written advice. The king retaliated by placing Vives and a servant of Catherine under house arrest for six weeks. Both men were interrogated by Wolsey, and Vives was ordered to state his communication with the queen: after a lengthy, idealistic preamble on the sacredness of confidences between individuals, he reluctantly complied. The object of the confinement was to keep Catherine’s advisers away from court, and both she and Vives judged it prudent that he leave the country on his release. Vives returned to Bruges.

He returned to England late in 1528 with two Flemish jurists sent at Catherine’s request from her sister-in-law, Margaret of Austria. However, Vives found himself unpopular with the queen as well as the king: he offered the unpalatable advice that, since it was useless to defend her in the court at Blackfriars, it would be better if she were condemned unheard, since Henry would have difficulty justifying this. Catherine, though ultimately adopting this policy, interpreted his answer as a treacherous refusal to commit himself to her cause. As the king had done, she too stopped the pension she had granted him, and Vives left England for ever. He continued, however, to follow the proceedings, and he gave Catherine a generous encomium in his book named De Oflcio Mariti published in 1529. In the chapter dedicated to choosing a wife he referred to Queen Catherine on the following manner:

“Not in all women all imperfections are present, and in those who have them are not present to the same degree. There were in fact, and there are not in little number, some with a stronger and manlier heart than many men. Abundant amongst the gentile: Cleobulina, Hipparchia, Diotima, Lucretia, Cornelia, Porcia, Cloelia, Sulpicia. But also amongst our martyrs are many women that have bigger eloquence that Athena and more courage than Rome. And Christ wanted that in our time there was an example that will expand through posterity: the example of Catherine of Spain, Queen of England, wife of Henry VIII, about her you can say with greater truth that Valerius said about Lucretia: by an error of Nature, a woman’s body was grace with a male spirit”.

Sources:

María Dowling, Humanist Support for Katherine of Aragon

Garrett Mattingly, Catherine of Aragon

Carlos O. Noreña, Juan Luis Vives

Anna Whitelock, Mary Tudor: Princess, Bastard, Queen

Charles Fantazzi, A Companion to Juan Luis Vives

Leanne Croon Hickman, Katherine of Aragon: A “Pioneer of Women’s Education”? Humanism and Women’s Education in Early Sixteenth Century England.

Giles Tremlett, CATHERINE OF ARAGON Henry’s Spanish Queen

http://emlo-portal.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/collections/?catalogue=juan-luis-vives

#Juan Luis Vives #Catherine of Aragon #Katherine of Aragon #Catalina de Aragón #Luis Vives #Mary Tudor #Mary I of England #Henry VIII #British history #Men in history #women in history

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orsuliya · 3 years

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I am so obsessed with TRP now and I am so happy u love to talk about it. I have heard the hate for Awu after 30+eps and I think the writers really kick themselves when they had Awu said that Xiao Qi doesnt know family bond or something. That and the dance she did with Helan Zhen should have not been done. So many better directions or script they could have done cause these 2 really was out of Awu's character regardless of familial help that Awu wants to do.

Oh dear, I hope that you will still be happy about my wild rambling after I tell you that I have to respectfully disagree. What Awu said was very much Not Good, there is no doubt as to that! But I wouldn’t say it was out of character or that it shouldn’t have been written this way in the first place. In my humble opinion her behaviour makes a disturbing amount of sense. To be honest, I may have thought otherwise once upon a time; since then, though, I have revised many of my previous beliefs.

The first of which is that Awu is trying to save Screecher because of strong family loyalty. Yeah, no. If it was that, she would have tried to help, sure, but going to bat like that? Something else is going on here. And that something else is Awu getting triggered by Mrs. Screechers pleading. Hello, Jinruo-related trauma! What’s more, it truly looks like she knows the underlying cause of her unusual determination. Perhaps she’s not quite ready to face it, perhaps she’s ashamed, but she knows, I can tell you that.

What the hell am I talking about? Well, take a look at what happens just before Awu fires that nuke. She stops, looks aside, takes a moment to think, hesitates and then - and only then - does she speak The Words. I daresay she looks abashed even before she opens her mouth. Which doesn’t make any sense... if this was ever supposed to be a vicious volley fired in rightful indignation over Xiao Qi’s dismissal of Awu’s familial duty.

My best theory? It’s a calculated shot designed to keep Xiao Qi away from Awu’s business. She’s going to get rid of this pesky feeling of grief and guilt that Mrs. Screecher managed to inadvertently instill in her or she’s going to die trying. She only needs to make Xiao Qi let her do as she pleases for one more day. So she makes him. By episode 42 it’s very obvious what his weak points are and family is absolutely one of them. He’s made concessions before for Daddy Wang, right? He would never have gotten between Awu and her father, but Screecher is a different matter altogether. Awu’s case is weak and she knows is... so she decides to back it up with emotional baggage. And guess what, it works! Awu's later exaggerated anger over being followed - or not, as is the case - works well within this theory. She knows what she did was wrong and she also knows she did it very deliberately... so she clings to this pretense that there was at least some moral justification behind her actions. It’s much, much easier that facing her guilt!

Oh dear, that makes Awu look awful, ouch! But human and not out of character, not really. Anyway, I don’t have much proof, it’s just a hunch. So let’s pretend I never put it forward in the first place. The thing is that the more popular version - Awu firing a nuke in a knife fight out of misplaced pride - is even more in character.

I can’t help but remember the great tree-cutting debacle... Well-bred unattached young ladies of age do not usually climb over garden walls in order to join public festivities while accompanied only by their - unsanctioned! - swain. That’s just not done. And if they do then they at least act repentant when caught. See, such undisciplined young ladies usually get punished. But not Awu! No, Awu gets a short lecture from an authority figure who not only doesn’t stop her from acting out and storming away in a huff, but is sincerely amused by it. And it’s something of a trend with our Awu. Speaking out of turn and refusing to tow the family line at her own coming-of-age ceremony? Not even a slap on the wrist! She then proceeds to arrange her own marriage, completely side-stepping her own father... and she only gets what, fifty switches on the hand? Which is no serious punishment, judging from her reaction.

Let’s face it, Awu is the most spoiled young lady in the capital. She’s also absolutely used to getting her way, just try to stop her! During her marriage she grew and changed, but she didn’t suddenly become a wholly new person. It’s understandable that she would act up over not being allowed to do something! I would be surprised if she did not! It’s a hurdle they had to cross at some point.

Or perhaps it was really familial duty and nothing else that caused her to say that awful thing. Even then it wouldn’t be totally out of the blue. Because where the hell would Awu learn to conduct fights in a reasonable manner? We know Jinruo deliberately never went against anything her husband said or did with only a few notable exceptions to this rule. Auntie never heard of proportional response in her entire life. Daddy Wang says truly awful things to Turnip as a matter of course and Turnip is never bothered for long. And something tells me that Granny Empress was one cruel imperious biddy who avenged any insult hundredfold, ahem, Concubine Han.

Take your pick! Every version is awful in its own way, but OOC? Not really.

#ask and answer #the rebel princess #or maybe I have Stockholm Syndrome #this drama is holding me hostage #send help

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confused-android · 4 years

Text

Day 19: Dirk- AU

"He's coming in," Panto says, a little too loudly, and Dirk shushes him frantically as the bell on the door handle jingles and a blast of cold October air rushes in. Todd, the busker from across the plaza, walks in, guitar slung over one shoulder and eyes fixed on his phone screen. Panto shoves Dirk behind the register and vanishes into the back room.

"You're back!" Dirk exclaims, and then stammers, "I mean, you're here! No, I mean – hi!" He flushes and stops trying to talk, and Todd looks up from his phone and huffs a tired laugh, shoves his hands deep in his jacket pockets.

"Hi," he says. His beard is a little bit longer than usual, and his lips are visibly chapped. He looks – he looks cold. Tired.

"The regular?" Dirk asks, hands already grabbing a hot cup and turning to the espresso machine

Todd stammers "um," and shakes his head, looks a bit abashed. Dirk pauses and tilts his head to the side. Todd looks at his feet. "Um," he says again, and pulls one hand back out of his pocket, clutching a fistful of change. "Not a lot of people out today. I don't think I have enough for a latte." He pokes through the change in his hand, and grimaces up at Dirk. "Can I get, uh – a small black coffee?"

"Of course," Dirk says, turning to the coffee pot. "You know, a small black coffee is the most common order we get here. Every third person that walks in asks for a small black coffee. Sometimes, I see someone walk in and I think to myself, 'Dirk, this person is going to order an oat milk latte, or a hazelnut mocha, or some lovely chai,' and then boom! I'm wrong! Small black coffee." He smiles admiringly at Todd, passing over the cup. "You're making a popular choice. A good choice."

Todd puts the cup down on the counter and picks through the coins in his hand, and hands Dirk $1.60 in dimes and nickels, and then drops the paltry few remaining coins in the tip jar. Dirk tries to give Todd a reassuring look, but Todd avoids his gaze, just mutters, "thanks" and takes his coffee to the table farthest from the door.

Dirk sighs and Panto says in his ear, "that was well done of you, Dirk."

Dirk yells, and whips around to glare at his manager. "Panto!" he hisses. "You can't just… sneak up on me like that! What if I'd been holding something hot?"

"You weren't," Panto says simply, and shrugs his stupidly broad shoulders. Dirk glares up at him and mutters under his breath while he turns away and wipes down the counters and the fridges. When he peeks up at Todd, he finds the smaller man hunched into his chair, guitar case leaning up against the wall, hands wrapped around the cup of coffee. He's discarded the cardboard sleeve, and seems to be trying to soak up all of the heat in the cup of coffee, and Dirk's heart gives a pang of concern. It really is cold outside, and Todd plays his guitar for hours at a time, huddled into a doorway near the entrance to the plaza. He tries to keep a watchful eye on the back table, but after a long rush of customers comes through, Todd is gone, and strains of guitar music trickle in each time the door opens.

––––––––––––

The next time Todd comes in, the coffee shop is busy – it's just after the Saturday morning shopping rush, and the line is long, the tables are full, and there's a whole huddle of customers waiting for their drinks. Dirk and Panto are both making drinks and taking orders in turns, and Mona is bringing drinks and food out to tables. Todd waits in the line until he gets up front, and Dirk dallies his way through making a simple hot tea to make sure that he's the one at the register when Todd gets up front.

"Hello!" Dirk says brightly, trying to look like a not-idiotic human being, and is rewarded with a quick at the corner of Todd's mouth. His heart skips a beat.

"Hi," Todd says, hitching his guitar higher on one shoulder. "Busy, uh, busy day, huh?"

"It is," Dirk agrees, nodding.

There's a pause that's just a bit too long, and then Todd blinks and realizes that he's standing in front of a line of un-caffeinated customers, and hasn't ordered yet. "Almond spice late," he says, all in a rush, and plunges his hand into his pocket, pulls out a crumpled five.

Dirk quirks an eyebrow, impressed, and trades Todd the five for his change. "Someone must have really liked your playing," he says admiringly, tucking the bill in the cash register. Todd looks like he's going to try and stammer out some kind of response, but Panto hip-checks Dirk away from the register, beckons forward the next customer, and Dirk staggers over to the espresso machine. He knows his face is beet red, but Todd's is also flushed, so probably he doesn't look like a complete idiot, right?

His hands know the motions, and he whips together Todd's usual drink. When it's finished, he darts a furtive glance up, making sure Panto and Todd both aren't looking directly at him, and pours a foam heart onto the top of the latte, before clicking a plastic lid on top. There, but never to be seen.

Dirk places the drink on the counter, allows his voice to warm when he calls out, "Todd, almond spice latte!" and gestures towards the cup before hurrying back to the register. He just catches the look of enjoyment on Todd's face as he inhales the bit of steam escaping from the lid, and then another customer is ordering.

––––––––––––

It's another cold day and when Todd walks in, he looks miserable.

There's no line, and Panto is chatting with his husband at one of the tables near the front, ready to hop up if he's needed, but the café is near to empty. Todd is wearing what looks like a collared shirt and two sweaters, and has a threadbare scarf tucked roughly around his neck. He looks sweet, all bundled up with a red nose and ears, but he's clearly drained and cold.

"Hi Todd," Dirk says sunnily, and gets a weary nod in return. Poor boy.

"Can I just get, uh –" Todd looks into his palm, jiggles his hand to get a better view of the coins, and presses his lips together in disappointment. "Just a small black coffee. Um, please." He hands over exact change, and drops a single nickel in the tip jar. The flush on his face spreads, and not from being cold, and he steps away from the counter with his eyes fixed firmly on his shoes. Dirk tries to smile at him, but Todd doesn't look back up, and makes his way quickly to what's become his usual table – furthest from the door and directly under a heating vent. He leans his guitar up against the wall and crams his hands in between his thighs, hunches his shoulders against everything.

Dirk's eyebrows snap together in disappointment. It's terribly cold outside, and he's heard Todd's guitar music drift into the café every time a customer has walked in, but he doesn't seem to have gotten enough money for his favorite drink. Which is a bit odd, to be honest – when Dirk was able to spy him through the front windows, it seemed like some people were dropping bills into his coffee tin – but Dirk isn't here to question what Todd does with his money.

He sneaks one more look at Todd – still looking miserable and cold – and then Dirk gets An Idea. Carefully, slowly, making sure Todd doesn't see, Dirk slips his hand into the top jar and pulls out another two dollars, then slides them into the register. He clicks the drawer shut, just as sneakily, and then looks up to find Panto and Silas staring at him.

"What?" Dirk mouths, trying not to look too sheepish.

"For your crush?" Panto asks, voice low, but Dirk and Silas both shush him anyway. Dirk is glad to have Silas on his side.

Dirk stomps over to their table and makes a face. "Yes," he hisses snippily. "And I took it from my tip money, so don't say anything."

Panto holds his hands up in defense. "I was not saying anything. Merely that this man, Todd, comes in here often enough that I do not mind if you comp him a drink, and keep your tips."

"Oh," Dirk says, deflating. "Erm. Thank you." He shoots both men an awkward, grateful look, and then hurries back behind the counter to make Todd's drink. It's an easy one, and he's standing at Todd's elbow within two minutes, paper hot cup held carefully by the sleeve. "Todd," he says quietly, and Todd jerks to attention, looks up at Dirk with a startled expression.

"Oh," Todd says. "I was expecting you to, like, call my name from the counter."

"No such luck," Dirk teases, setting down the cup in front of Todd, and whisks back to the counter before Todd can respond with anything but a stammered, "um."

He keeps a careful eye on Todd through his usual routine of pulling off the cardboard sleeve and wrapping his hands around the searing cup, and the tension in Todd's back fades a bit at a time as the heat soaks into his skin. Dirk perks up, too, pleased that Todd is warming up, and excited for the moment when Todd realizes that his drink isn't what he'd expected.

It takes a little while – Todd is warming his hands and letting the drink cool down to drinkable temperatures – but when he does, the payoff is excellent. He raises the cup to his lips and takes a deep breath of the steam, and his eyebrows quick in confusion. He takes another breath in, through his nose, then shoots Dirk a look of utter confusion. Dirk is, of course, carefully looking not at Todd, but still peeking at him from the corner of his eye, and has to tamp down on the bubble of glee in his chest. When Todd takes a sip of the almond spice latte, though, and his eyes widen, Dirk can't help flapping his hands in joy. Subtly. Below the counter.

Todd stands up from his table and carries the drink over to the counter, where he gently wraps his knuckles.

"Oh!" Dirk says, spinning around. "I didn't see you there! How can I help you?"

"Dirk," Todd says, the corner of his mouth twitching. "This isn't a black coffee."

"Oh?" Dirk says again, feigning a look of great surprise. "My mistake! I must have made you the wrong drink, entirely by accident."

"By accident, hun?" Todd takes another sip of his latte, and now his eyebrows are quirked.

"Of course!" Dirk promises. "I would never make a customer the wrong beverage on purpose! That would be a violation of the Code of Baristas."

"Doesn't exist," Panto calls from the table nearby, and Dirk shoots him a look of utter scorn.

"Does too," he insists. "Just because you're a terrible barista who never signed the Code doesn't mean it doesn't exist." He turns back to Todd and smiles sweetly. "So. Please forgive my terrible accident. I hope you don't mind what you ended up with too much."

"I don't mind it too much," Todd assures him, and now he's leaned up against the counter, taking another sip. "Fun fact, this is actually my favorite drink, you accidentally made me."

"Oh, did I? How marvelously fortuitous!"

"Mmhm. A real neat coincidence."

"I don't believe in coincidences," Dirk says. He picks up a rag just to have something to do with his hands and starts wiping down the counter. "Everything that happens is connected to everything else that happens. Nothing occurs in a vacuum."

"So this accidental latte happened for a reason, huh? Wonder what that reason was." Todd is fully smiling now, like he's got Dirk trapped, and Dirk's heart gives a traitorous thump.

"O-oh," Dirk says, and now he's the one who's flushed. He ducks his head and wipes the same spot next to the register over and over.

Todd reaches his hand out, the one that isn't holding the latte, and touches two fingers to the back of Dirk's hand. Dirk freezes. "Thank you, Dirk," he says softly. His touch lingers long enough that Dirk looks back up at him, through his lashes, and sees a glint in Todd's eye.

"You're, erm – you're welcome," Dirk says, and his voice is just a bit strangled. Todd pulls his hand back and tilts his chin up, drains the latte in a few deep swallows. Dirk watches his throat move, and he knows his eyes are wide but can't do anything about it. When he's finished, Todd tosses the cup a few feet into the trash can by the counter.

"I have to get back outside now," Todd says, with no small amount of regret. "But thank you, again, for that non-coincidental accident."

"Certainly," Dirk replies promptly, and watches Todd gather his guitar and fluff up his scarf, then venture back out into the cold.

"That was very well done," Silas says to Dirk, fond and kind. Dirk just buries his face in the rag he's holding and groans wordlessly.

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

Link to: day one, Farah - Youth day two, Farah - Dance day three, Farah - Gore day four, Farah - GNC fashion day five, Farah - AU day six, Farah - Family (to be written) day seven, Farah - Pride (to be written) day eight, Todd - Youth (to be written) day nine, Todd - Dance (to be written) day ten, Todd - Gore day eleven, Todd - GNC Fashion day twelve, Todd - AU day thirteen, Todd - Family day fourteen, Todd - Pride (to be written) day fifteen, Dirk - Youth day sixteen, Dirk - Dance day seventeen, Dirk - Gore (to be written) day eighteen, Dirk - GNC fashion (to be written)

prompt list

#dghda #dirk gently's holistic detective agency #dirk gently #DGHDAtober #coffee shop au #i love cute this like this #i'm still behind #please just expect this to be finished in November

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wowbright · 3 years

Text

Klaine advent 2020 day one: abashed

So I guess I'm doing Klaine advent 2020! I had no plans to, but most of my classes ended yesterday, so why the hell not? I still have to write the rest of Kurt and Blaine's time as missionary companions in Germany for my Mormon!Klaine ’verse, which @slayediest got me thinking about this morning with a comment that gave me all the feels. Now that the orange toupee will finally be out of office, I may actually have the emotional bandwidth to work on it again. So I figured I might as well warm up with some shorts from the ’verse during the month of December.

I posted part of this short earlier today because the Tumblr app on my phone threatened to erase most of what I had written if I didn't. So if you read that, you can skim ahead to the part where Blaine gets tired of shoving cookies into his mouth. ( And thank you to those who gave encouraging comments!)

These will likely be disparate one shots from within the ’verse. I may post something for every prompt. I may not. I may include the actual word from the prompt in the story, or I may simply use it as inspiration. Drabbles are popular for clean advent, and if I were good at time management I would stick to those. But today's entry is obviously not a drabble. Spelling and punctuation may be iffy, as I am just getting used to a new computer dictation system (I’ll try to clean things up before posting to a03). Warnings in the tags. Last but not least, not every vignette will have both Kurt and Blaine in them; today is a case in point, where there is barely a Kurt in sight.

But they're gonna end up together in the end. Everything leads up to that, one way or another.

——

Cooper Anderson was proud of himself. He had gotten so much better at thinking of others while on his mission. Case in point: right now, he had every excuse to be self-absorbed with the insane Christmas sales rush at work, his final exams, and the back and forth going on with his audition for a local car dealership commercial. But he nonetheless remembered that today was a big day for his little brother Blaine too. He’d written it down in his calendar: Blaine Worthiness Interview.

Blaine was about to turn 12—old enough to join the Aaronic priesthood, become a deacon, and pass the sacrament. Becoming a deacon was the birthright of every Mormon boy. The worthiness interview with the bishop was just a formality Blaine needed to pass through before it could happen.

Cooper parked the car in the family driveway, shook his head vigorously to clear it of the day’s baggage, and looked into the rearview mirror. He smiled his most becoming smile, pointed at himself in the mirror, and made little gun cocking noises. “You’ve got this, Cooper Anderson!”

Cooper may have had it, but it became apparent as he walked into the kitchen that his little brother Blaine did not have it at all.

Blaine was slumped over the kitchen table with a half-eaten box of Swedish ginger cookies and the world’s most dejected look on his face.

“You okay, sport?” Cooper walked up to his little brother and tussled his hair. Blaine flinched. Which honestly wouldn’t have stopped Cooper a few years ago. But now that he’d gone on his mission, he was a better man. “Sorry, kid. Not trying to make things worse.” He patted Blaine’s curls back into tameness – or did his best. Cooper had never been as good with hair and the whole general grooming thing as Blaine, at least not since Blaine discovered their mom’s stash of hair products when Cooper was 14 and Blaine was four. Blaine had been married to his bottle of raspberry-scented styling gel ever since.

Blaine let out a heavy sigh. “It’s not your fault, Cooper. I’m just … I’m just really confused right now.”

Cooper pulled out a chair and settled down at the table. He thumped Blaine on the back. “Want to tell me about it?”

Blaine stared down at the pepparkakor. He popped one in his mouth, then nudged the box over toward Cooper. Cooper wasn’t hungry, but he took one in solidarity. “Not really,” Blaine said.

“C'mon, Blaine. You’ll feel better if you talk about it.”

“No, I won’t.”

“Sure you will. Was it something at school?”

Blaine looked at Cooper blankly, as if he had momentarily forgotten that school existed.

“Okay. Not school. But your talk with the bishop went okay, right?”

Blaine looked away from Cooper and stuffed another pepparkakor in his face. “Pthmeh-pthbeee,” he said around the mess in his mouth.

The one advantage of knowing a person since before they could talk is that you get pretty good at understanding their gibberish. “Was that ‘maybe’?”

Blaine nodded.

Cooper couldn’t fathom what could have happened with the bishop that would have Blaine in this mood. Blaine had been a perfect kid pretty much since he’d been born. Obeyed their parents, said his prayers, fasted on Fast Sunday, paid his tithing, was devastated if a single Monday went by without Family Home Evening, and watched The Living Scriptures cartoons so many times he wore out the old VHS tapes from when Cooper was a kid and his parents had had to buy him DVD versions. There’s no way that the bishop could have found fault with him. The interview was only supposed to be a formality. “What happened? You’re still going to be a deacon, right?”

Blaine nodded. “But …” He suddenly became very interested in opening and closing the flaps on the end of the cookie box. “I can’t decide if I want another cookie.”

Cooper slid the box away from him. “Then take a break. Use your mouth for talking.”

“Mom says if you don't have anything nice to say, you shouldn't say anything at all.”

“It’s not un-nice to tell your big brother what’s worrying you. What did Bishop King say to get you so angry? I thought you liked him.” The bishop was a 40-something father of seven children who had moved into their ward while Cooper was on his mission, so he didn't know him very well. But he seemed like a nice enough guy, like a clean, non-pot-smoking, LDS version of Matthew McConaughey. He had two degrees from BYU and told jokes that weren't stupid.

“He didn't get me angry. It was just …” Blaine's eyes darted from his hands to Coopers face to the pepparkakor box. “Give me the box back. I want another cookie.”

Cooper thought about chiding Blaine for eating his emotions, but the kid had shot up four inches over the two years that Cooper had been away. Part of that might have just been more lift in his hair from new hair gel techniques, but most of it was actual growth. He was probably perpetually hungry. Cooper would use that to his advantage. “You can have the box back once you Finish what you were telling me. Bishop King didn’t make you angry, but …”

“He didn't, really. It was more like … embarrassed.”

“How?”

“Well...” Blaine took a deep breath, folded his hands together formally like Coopers speech professor did right before he delivered a biting critique of his final semester project, and looked Cooper in the eye. “I guess it came down to a misunderstanding.”

“what kind of misunderstanding?”

“You have to promise not to laugh. Because it's kind of your fault. Bishop King told me he assumed that you or dad would have already explained everything to me.”

Cooper did not remember Blaine being such a cocky little pipsqueak before his mission. But apparently he was one now. Clearly two years without Cooper's benign influence had taken a slight toll on blaine's personality. it was regrettable, but Cooper decided to be patient . Because that's how returned missionaries should behave. “OK. I won't laugh.”

“Fine. OK. So he asked me if I ever touched my—my you-know-what.” Blaine pointed at his crotch in case Cooper didn't know. “And I said— I said—” Blaine’s face turn slightly purple and he took a desperate, deep breath like he'd just come up to the surface of the swimming pool after touching the floor of the deep end. “I said of course I did because of course everybody has to, I mean at least boys have do, because how else are you gonna pee and you need to clean it when you take a shower and you have to make sure it doesn’t get caught in your fly and stuff, so of course I said yes, but then Bishop King got all flustered and started lecturing me about how I shouldn’t do that and I got really confused because how am I supposed to pee without touching it, and then maybe I thought it was something that you get taught when you join the Aaronic priesthood, Like you have to pee sitting down from now on, but that doesn't make sense because I've seen dad and you peeing while standing up, but I didn't say that I was just confused and it just went around and around with me being confused and Bishop King being disappointed in me and telling me that I need to stop doing that before I join the priesthood and I have to stop taking the sacrament until I haven't touched it for a month. Anne I was so upset that I actually shouted at him. I shouted, ‘How am I ever going to go a month without touching it when I have to pee like five or six times a day? And if I don't hold it I could miss the urinal and that would be really embarrassing at school and also inconsiderate of the janitors!’”

Blaine’s voice made the room vibrate. He slammed his hands against the table in frustration. To Cooper, it felt more like Blaine was reliving the conversation with the bishop than reenacting it. (An uninvited thought popped into Cooper's mind: Blaine's ability to live in a different moment from the one actually occurring was exactly what Cooper needed to learn how to do as an actor.)

(OK, file that one away for later.)

Blaine’s chest heaved from the exertion of forcing so many words, in so few seconds, out of so small a body. Cooper did not need him to say any more to understand where the conversation with the bishop had gone next. “So he explained what he meant, huh?”

Blaine made a face like he’d just chewed on a Tylenol when he’d expected candy. “I didn’t know anything could come out of there but pee.”

Cooper frowned. He’d made sure that Blaine knew how babies were made before he’d left on his mission. But he hadn't gone into all of the logistics. And he certainly hadn’t talked to him about masturbation. He figured Blaine could learn that for himself, like Cooper had. He should have known better than to assume that some busybody bishop or elders quorum leader wouldn't mess with the kid’s head somewhere along the way.

“Don't worry about it, Blaine. I'm sure he was just trying to help. Steer you toward the right path.”

“Yeah, but I wasn't on the wrong path. I didn't even know that path existed.”

“Maybe. But you would have figured it out eventually on your own.”

“I don't think so. I kinda don't ever wanna touch it again now, even to pee.”

Cooper stifled a laugh. “Look. I'm sure Bishop King was only trying to help. Some guys who do that get really obsessed with it and want to feel good all the time. And if you're focused on yourself all the time, you’ll lose out on opportunities to serve others. And serving others is what being a follower of Christ is about, right scout?”

“Of course. Like in Mosiah: ‘When ye are in the service of your fellow beings ye are only in the service of your God.’”

“Exactly. But …” Cooper had to be careful with the next thing he wanted to say. He didn't want to contradict the bishop or any of the church’s teachings. “If you do end up touching yourself the way Bishop King talked about”—Blaine made a yuck face that Cooper did his best to ignore— “don't beat yourself up about it. Just pray and ask Heavenly Father to help you do better. It's like eating half a box of cookies. That's not exactly how Heavenly Father wants you to take care of your body, but He understands that life is hard and sometimes cookies are the only thing that's going to help. You don't have to go running to confess to the Bishop that you ate too many cookies. And you don't have to go running to confess to some church leader that you’ve done the thing Bishop King talked about, either. Just accept that none of us are perfect and move on with your life. OK?”

“Are you sure? Bishop King said it’s disrespectful to girls.”

Cooper resisted the temptation to roll his eyes. “It's only disrespectful to girls if you look at porn or think disrespectful thoughts about them while you do it.”

“Gross! Who wants to look at porn? And why would I be thinking about a girl at all while I'm doing that?”

Yeah, okay. So Blaine was still definitely not even a teenager yet. His time would come. And the bishop had probably inadvertently push that time up by a few months if not a year or two with his well-intentioned interview questions.

Years later, when Blaine was on his own mission and sent back a glowing letter about the sheer awesomeness of his new companion — and seriously, he could not shut up about this kid named Kurt Hummel— Cooper had a flash back to Blaine’s look of disgust as he entertained the possibility of thinking about girls while masturbating. And it dawned on him that being “not even a teenager yet” might not have been the main reason for his little brother's distaste.

#mormon!Klaine #klaine advent #klaine fic #klaine #klaine advent 2020 #tw sex shaming #tw food #my klaine advent 2020

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hearts-hunger · 3 years

Text

together wing to wing || chapter three

Read on AO3 | Masterlist

chapter one || chapter two

Series Summary: He’s offered his protection before, on the Green. In the hospital, Cee wonders if he’ll offer it again, and Ezra wonders if she’ll even want him to.

Chapter Summary: Ezra comes to terms with things.

Pairings: Ezra & Cee (platonic!)

Genre: Fluff, hurt/comfort, angst | Word Count: 2.5k

Warnings: hospitals, injury, mentions of canon-typical violence

A/N: I’ve been working on this fic some more and I remembered I hadn’t posted this chapter! I hope you like it! ♡

“Kevva help us, birdie. It’s even more frightful than I thought.”

Cee’s reflection was sympathetic in the refresher mirror, her gaze travelling over the new prosthetic arm that had been strapped on him five ways from Sunday. The straps and bandaging chafed against his chest, but he was assured that would fade with time. It wasn’t much to look at, just a hunk of flesh-colored plastic and a simple hook on the end, and he tried to get himself accustomed to the way it looked hanging from his shoulder.

“It’s not that bad,” she said. “You just... have to get used to it, that’s all.”

He frowned. “If you say so.”

He’d never considered himself a vain man. He was popular enough with the ladies at the various dive bars he frequented whenever he was planetside - for some reason utterly unknown to him, they seemed particularly allured to the streak of blonde in his otherwise dark hair, a prize gained from a spray of fazer solution from a clumsy-handed fellow prospector. But he’d never concerned himself with his looks; underneath a flight suit and a helmet, looks tended not to be of any great importance.

This thing, though... He knew it was foolish to be troubled over how his prosthetic looked - it was far more important that it functioned, that it allowed him some independence and ability now that his arm was gone. He was infinitely more hireable with a working prosthetic than he was without it, and he willed himself to think of that as he looked at himself in the mirror.

He snapped the arm up and locked the elbow joint into place, wincing a little at the unfamiliar movement. His muscles still protested even after all the cycles of physical therapy he’d endured - more from Cee’s bidding than any desire to do it on his own - and the weight of his prosthesis felt awkward, resting at a ninety-degree angle against his ribs. Under the green scrubs he’d been given in replacement for his dirty, tattered clothes - just as Cee had - the straps rubbed against his skin; he fussed with the spot roughly for a few seconds before Cee batted his hand away.

“The doctor told you not to do that,” she reminded him. “You’ll irritate your skin.”

“Not nearly as much as it’s irritating me,” he grumbled. He turned the lights out in the refresher and started to pace around the room, the same room he’d been boxed into for weeks on end; he felt unbalanced with the weight of his prosthesis, an entirely disagreeable sensation. He wondered how he could have gotten accustomed to having one arm so quickly, and why it was so maddening to have that weight back now.

Confounded, pestiferous thing. He’d never felt this sort of vexation at his own body before, and it took hold of him with a sudden ferocity. He was still raw with the grief of it, the fear and despondency of having lost his primary weapon, but never had he been so irate with the loss. He supposed he hadn’t had time for it, until now - he’d been healing, and there hadn’t been much he couldn't do because there wasn’t much he could do. Now, all he could think of were the things he’d need two hands for - not one weak hand and a metal hook.

He ran his hand through his hair. How would he find suitable occupation? How could he deliver on his promise to protect Cee, weak-handed as he was? What if he couldn’t? How were the two of them - such an unlikely, ungainly pair as they were - ever going to make their way in the galaxy once they left this hospital?

“Ezra?”

Her voice pulled him out of his feverish brooding, stilled his irascible pacing. He frowned at her.

“What?”

She didn’t say anything, just watched him, and he felt a flare of aggravation.

“Kevva waits, girl - speak your mind or leave me be.”

She flinched at his words, the same rebuke he’d used to spur her into action after he’d tried to take her pod and gotten shot for his trouble. He instantly felt a wave of guilt and softened towards her.

“Sorry,” she said quietly, before he could apologize first. It sounded as reflexive as it did heartfelt, and he wondered how many times her father’s words had elicited such a reaction.

“No, birdie,” he said, abashed and much gentler. He knew what she looked like when he frightened her, and she was closer to it now than he ever wanted to make her again.

“You don’t have anything to apologize for,” he told her. “My temper got away from me for a moment. Forgive me for speaking to you so harshly. I wholeheartedly apologize.”

She looked surprised. “Thank you,” she said uncertainly, like she’d never been on the receiving end of an apology in her life.

When she didn’t say anything else, he hoped a little prompting wouldn’t offend her.

“What did you want to say?” he asked. “You have my undivided attention, I assure you.”

She shook her head. “I was just going say we could go out to the garden, but it was a stupid idea. I shouldn’t have...”

She trailed off, and he gave a wry, sympathetic smile.

“What, interrupted my conceited rumination?” he supplied. “No, birdie, you should have done that. And I’d be obliged to you for any time you attempt it, should I tend towards such a useless activity in future.”

She looked more relaxed then, and her look mixed exasperation with a fondness he couldn’t help but take pride in.

“You talk way too much.”

He chuckled. “You’re likely right.” He scrubbed his fingers over the strap against his chest only for a moment before her disapproving look stopped him again.

“Let’s go to the garden, then,” he said. “Maybe the sunshine will put things in a better light.”

She smiled. “Let me grab my notebook.”

Though she’d brought it with her, presumably in hopes that she would feel inspired to write, Cee left her notebook next to Ezra on the bench where he sat with his face to the sun. He’d missed the feel of light and air on his face; it had been many cycles since he’d last enjoyed it.

He recalled very clearly the first time he’d been in a flight suit and helmet: his first trip to the Green, when the rush was in full swing. He’d been young, cocky, attempting to grab hold of a life of riches so advertised by every major corporation hungry for some poor bastard to harvest aurelec for them. They fitted him with a too-small flight suit - probably, though he hadn’t known it at the time, from some newly-dead prospector. He would never forget the fear that seized him, being constricted in that thing: he’d pleaded and pleaded to be taken out of it, but they were already on the Green. He had made quite an impression that day, the young, tearful prospector who couldn’t quite catch his breath, whose hands shook so badly he busted every other pull.

It had taken a good, long wrestle with shame and bitterness for Ezra to overcome that bit of his career, that wound to his youthful, fragile sense of his own manhood. He’d long since forgiven himself for it; the Green had taught him that fear was fear, no matter how old or how strong you got. Now he wore a flight suit and helmet that were a little too big and more clumsy than not, and even then, he still tussled with that same fear from time to time. He remembered how badly it had bothered him that Cee kept her helmet on in his tent, how he’d growled at her to take it off before it sent him into a nervous spin.

Out in the garden, Ezra took a deep, hungry breath of fresh air. City air, but tempered by the flora that took up every available space on the rooftop. Cee was looking over the balcony, a birds-eye view of the city more beguiling than the greenery; the railing was too high for her to topple over, but he still felt a brief streak of anxiety watching her lean over it to look below. Strange, considering all they’d been through together; she would have laughed had she known.

“Come look,” she called. “You can see everything from up here.”

“I have no doubt,” he answered. “But I’ll leave you to it, birdie. I fear it would be too vertiginous an experience for my taste.”

She turned and looked at him, her expression scrunched in confusion. “Vertiginous?”

He chuckled. “It would make me dizzy,” he clarified. “Too high up.”

She rolled her eyes, but her expression was something close to affectionate. He smiled. He was determined to charm her with his loquacious disposition, and he was pleased to have been more frequently rewarded with amusement than annoyance in recent cycles.

“Tell me what you see, little bird.” He pressed his fingers over the edge of the prosthesis; though warned it would ache, he found himself disgruntled by the feeling. “Any trouble worth getting into?”

She looked over the railing again. “I dunno. There’s an awful lot of people. I wonder where they’re going.”

“Hm. The industrious, tireless occupations of city folk,” he mused. Nothing he would have enjoyed nor been very good at, if memory served. He’d tried to get out of the prospecting business before, but for better or worse, his skill set was of precious little use to a desk job.

“Maybe some of them are students,” she supplied. He noticed the pitch of hopefulness in her voice, the color of interest.

“Maybe,” he agreed. Likely not with lives as exciting as the students in her novel, but students all the same.

He wanted to ask what she thought of being a student, if the thought had ever crossed her mind. He knew with certainty that it had, as he could hardly imagine her being so consumed with the characters in her book and not picturing herself in the same circumstances. But she had never mentioned it; he thought it may not be a topic of conversation she wanted to broach with him, and he wouldn't begrudge her any privacy.

But, then again, maybe she’d just been waiting for the right moment.

“I wonder what it would be like to be a student,” she said. Her voice was quieter and she still watched the people below; he listened more carefully to be able to catch what she said.

“My mother went to school,” she said. “Not Bowsum Conservatory, just this small university on Kamrea, but she always talked about how much she loved it.”

Ezra didn’t say anything; he knew how valuable this little bit of her history was, and he was more than honored to be invited to treasure it with her. He gave her a gentle, encouraging smile when she turned around to face him, and was pleased when she returned it.

“I want to go to school, someday,” she said. It was more hopeful and confident than any desire she had expressed to him thus far, and he felt an overwhelming urge to make sure it stayed so, unweighted by practicality or circumstance or any worldly obstacle.

“Okay,” he agreed.

She raised a brow. “Just like that?”

His smile was a little heart-heavy. She was no stranger to the things that stood between a Floater and a life doing anything but skimming the boards for low-paying, risky jobs. Likely her father had made it abundantly clear that no life other than the one he led was in the cards for her.

“Just like that,” he assured her. He felt a bit lightheaded and muffled a few coughs in his fist, but ignored them in favor of keeping hold of the possibly tenuous thread of their conversation. He wanted to make the most of this opportunity to convince her that whatever she wanted for her future, he would help her to get.

She frowned. “I dunno. I don’t have any...” She shook her head. “I probably wouldn’t even get in.”

“Now, none of that,” he chided gently. “You’re whip-smart, birdie, and that’s truly saying something coming from me.”

She laughed, and he was pleased his little joke had worked. He tried to laugh with her but found himself short of breath and settled for a huff.

“When we get out of this... hospital,” he wheezed, “we’ll start thinkin’ on it, alright? Between the two of us... surely we can come up with... a plan to get you into university.”

He hadn’t had that much trouble talking since that wretched ventilator tube from surgery had come out. He tried to suck in a breath and started coughing, badly, each breath rattling in his chest. Cee noticed his floundering and raced over to him.

“What’s wrong?” she asked. “Can you breathe?”

He rubbed his chest and managed a strained, shallow breath through the tightness and pain that settled in with a frightening quickness.

“Chest feels...” He couldn’t quite think of a creative comparison, and left it up to his quiet groan to relay the message.

“We need to get you inside,” she said, her voice panicked.

“Easy,” he said, taking one of her hands to quit their nervous fluttering around him. She held on tight and studied his face.

“Let me catch my breath,” he managed, though he feared it was only a matter of time before his lungs started to try and come up his throat again.

“We need a doctor,” she insisted. “You’re pale as a ghost.”

He almost chuckled. He wondered where she’d heard that saying; the only things that mentioned ghosts these days were very old books and deeply spiritual types.

“Fine, but let’s... meet them downstairs, alright?” he said. “No use stirring up the whole hospital.”

Maybe it was the way he’d managed to get through a whole sentence without wheezing, or maybe she was just as keen as he was to pretend there was nothing amiss, but she nodded. He let her help him to stand, and was about to open his mouth to deliver some remark on her tendency towards worrying when he felt a clear, unalterable sense of something deeply wrong.

“Birdie,” he managed.

She looked up at him. “What?”

He felt like his head was full of Green dust, every sense distorted. Everything swung around him in a carousel of colors. He didn’t know if he was upright or not, and couldn’t feel the squeeze of Cee’s hand.

“I believe you were right to bring to attention our need for a doctor.” His voice sounded completely separate from him, unlike him, and it made him frightened.

“Ezra?” His little bird, terrified again on his account. He really had to stop doing that to her. “Ezra!”

His vision went as he careened in some indiscernible direction. He heard Cee’s frightened cry, and hoped he would lose consciousness before his head hit the ground.

Read chapter four!

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#i know i haven't posted in a hot minute but i hope you like it!#ezra prospect fanfiction #ezra prospect #cee prospect #prospect 2018 #prospect fanfiction #ezra fanfiction #maddie writes stuff!

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