#all this talk of Lions and glory reminded me of a conversation from a few months back

[reds-burrow]

my sister, a Lion Primary: y'know how when you're little, you want to be Special

me, a Badger Primary: sure

sister: and then you grow up and realize you aren't The Hero who is going to vanquish the world's evils--

me, thinking Special meant being someone who could help others no matter what the problem, not being the Chosen One, fighting for the soul of humanity: wait what

#all this talk of Lions and glory reminded me of a conversation from a few months back #sortinghatchats #badger primary #lion primary #badger vs lion primary #felt primaries

[mldrgrl]

Lately I've been all about reconciliation. For some reason, I want all the Mulder-and-Bill-Scully-finding-some-peace fic I can get. I'd love to see your take on this, maybe in the IWTB era? Or even revival era.

One Sorry Sonofabitch

By: mldrgrl Rating: PG Summary: See above - but be advised Mulder and Scully aren’t in this story a whole lot.  Please send all complaints to @perplexistan and I’ll be filing a lawsuit shortly for pain and suffering for having to turn Bill Scully into a sympathetic character. (Set post-IWtB)

He holds his tongue to spare his mother what he really thinks when she tells him that Dana and Mr. Mulder will be joining them for Thanksgiving this year.  He can’t believe the audacity that man has to show up at a family event.  And his sister isn’t much better for what she’s put their mother through over the years.  He can’t even remember the last time he saw her.  He thinks it might be ten years ago, just before his second son, Michael, was born.  Tara squeezes his knee under the table and he musters up a smile and a brief nod.

Now that he’s stationed in North Carolina, it’s a lot easier for him to travel with his family instead of having his mother fly out for the holidays.  It’s their first Thanksgiving on the east coast and he’s annoyed at having the happy occasion intruded upon by his selfish sister and her ne’er do well friend.  He really can’t believe she still keeps that jackass around.

He loves his sister.  He truly does.  He just can’t understand the foolish choices she’s made.  Starting with joining the FBI, but giving away her child and going on the run with her fugitive partner instead of putting her patriotic duty to uphold the law as her priority is just beyond him.  He would never.  He had hoped that whatever spell Mr. Mulder had put on her would’ve worn off by now, but alas.  And now they’re coming to Thanksgiving.

Tara gives him a look when they hear the car pull up.  One that implores him to please behave.  His wife has no business being so compassionate, but that’s just the kind of person she is.  He hasn’t forgotten how his sister nearly ruined the Christmas that Matthew was born with that strange little girl and her impossible claim to her.  It should have been a time of great joy and instead Dana had made it sorrowful and awkward.

“Fox and Dana just drove up,” his mother says, coming out of the kitchen and wiping her hands on a dish rag.

His sons jump up from the game they’re playing in the family room, excited to meet their mythical aunt they’ve heard tales about.  

“Don’t run in the house,” he barks at the kids.

“Yes Sir,” they say, stopping short and taking slower steps to reach the door.

Tara is the one that greets them and his mother is just behind her.  Bill is the last one to the door and waits for the hugs and excited chatter to die down before he gives his sister a stiff embrace and Mr. Mulder a requisite handshake.

“Mr. Mulder,” Bill says.

“Just Mulder,” Mr. Mulder says.

“Matthew had a growth spurt this year,” Tara prattles, laying a hand on their son’s shoulder.  He’s taller than her by an inch, thin and reedy.  “As you can see.  Can you believe he’ll be thirteen next month!?  And we’ve got Michael turning ten in February.”

Matthew’s cheeks darken.  He embarrasses easily and his fair skin gets blotchy at the drop of a hat.  Both his boys are soft, like their mother.  He’d like to toughen them up, but Tara is fiercely protective of them.  A regular mother lion.  He doesn’t get it.  When he was a kid, he idolized his father.  Those few weeks or months a year when his dad came home were the best.  He was interested in everything his father did and how he did it.  His sons don’t express any interest in him and he barely hears more than a ‘yes, sir’ or a ‘no, sir’ out of them on a good day.

“Maureen is napping,” Tara says.  “You’ll meet her later.”

His daughter, Maureen, well she’s a different story.  She’s only a toddler, but she reminds him of his sister Melissa.  She’s headstrong and unafraid, particularly when it comes to her father.  She sasses.  She rolls her eyes already.  She ignores his orders and does what she wants when she wants.  She’s also cute as a button and has her brothers wrapped around their little fingers.  Tara calls her their little threenager.

“We’ve still got time before dinner,” his mother says.  “Why don’t we head to the family room.”

“We brought pies,” Dana says.

“I’ll get them,” Mr. Mulder says.  He has his hands on Dana’s shoulders and gives them a squeeze when she looks back up at him.  They seem to hold some silent conversation.  To Bill, it looks like his sister is begging her friend to please don’t leave him alone in this house.  He doesn’t know why she’s here.

They gather in the family room and make small talk.  Tara finds the scrapbooks she puts together for his mother every year and shows off all the photos of the kids from their school activities and family vacations.  Dana nods and smiles through most of it.  Mr. Mulder is more talkative and asks all the questions.

A half hour slips by and finally he hears a cry from upstairs indicating that his daughter is up from her nap.  Tara is on her feet in an instant.

“That’ll be the little princess,” Tara says.  “I’ll go grab her and get her ready to come down.”

“I’ll help you,” Bill says.  Tara looks at him strangely as he follows.

Maureen is jumping up and down in the playpen in their room when they walk in.  She smiles brightly and holds her arms up to Tara.

“How’s my girl,” Tara coos.  “Let’s get you into the dress Grandma bought you for dinner and then you can meet your Auntie Dana and Uncle Fox.”

“Don’t call him that,” Bill says.

“Oh, Bill.”  Tara sighs and stands Maureen on the bed to start undressing her.  “You’re going to have to accept him sometime.”

“I most certainly don’t.”

“You know, one of the things I loved the most about you when we were dating was that you always said that family was very important to you.”

“It still is.  You know that.”

“I’m just saying that sometimes your actions don’t say a lot about what I know is in your heart.  Will you grab me one of the Pull-Ups from her bag?”

“I’ve been cordial.  Hell, I shook his hand.”

“Hell is a bad word,” Maureen says.  She scrunches her face and shakes her head as Tara tries to pull her red curls into a ponytail.  “No hair up, Mama.”

“Listen to your mother, Maureen.”

“No.”

“Hair up or it’ll get washed tonight in the bath,” Tara bargains.

“Okay, hair up.”

“She’s the one that abandoned everything, you know.  Not giving a damn about how it would affect our mother.  Tara, she gave her own child away for that man.”

“Damn damn damn!” Maureen shouts, jumping up and down on the bed.

Tara gives Bill a weary look.  “William Scully Junior, you know better than to use that kind of language.”

Maureen laughs and bounces.  “Daddy in trouble.  Daddy in trouble.”

“Yes, Daddy was being very naughty.  And so are you.  Get down.”  Tara holds her hands out and helps Maureen off the bed.  “Billy, Dana had her reasons, I’m sure.  Have you ever even asked her what happened back then?”

“No.  Why do you always take the other side of the argument?”

“I don’t know, Billy, why do you like to argue so much?”  She smiles and pats him on the chest as she leads Maureen past him out the door.  “I’m just putting myself in her shoes and I know that if I were to have to do what she did, there would have to be a very good reason.  You saw how attached to she was to that little Emily and how devastated she was.  Think about that.”

“Hmph.”

Downstairs, his mother oohs and aahs over Maureen’s green velvet dress and Maureen twirls appropriately, delighted to be the center of attention.  His sister smiles warmly and kneels down to introduce herself to her niece and tell her how big she is and how pretty.

“Thank you, I know,” Maureen says.

The women laugh.

“Where are the boys?” Bill asks.  “And Mr. Mulder?”

“Outside playing basketball,” his mother answers.

Basketball.  They should be playing a real sport like football.  The last time he’d tried to teach them how to punt and tackle it had ended in tears.  Matthew complained that the roughness might hurt his chances of moving up in his piano lessons and Michael said he preferred to work on his model cars.

Bill lingers in the mudroom, watching surreptitiously and listening to boys play with Mr. Mulder through the open window.  There are a lot of high fives and hair tousling.  They don’t even seem to be competing, just taking turns with the ball, which seems a little ridiculous.

“Good job, Matt,” Mr. Mulder says, even when Matthew misses a shot that should have been easy.  “Loosen that wrist and hold that follow-through.”  He takes the boys’ hand and guides it with his own.  “That’s it.  Let’s try it again.”

Matthew shoots again and they all cheer when the ball makes it in the basket.

“Nice!” Mr. Mulder yells.  “Nothing but net.”

Both boys whoop and laugh and jump up and down like monkeys and grab onto Mr. Mulder.  He laughs with them and they have another round of high fives and hair tousling.

“How do you know so much about basketball, Uncle Mulder?” Michael asks.  Bill cringes.

“I played in high school and I used to be part of a team at my gym.”

“Did you like being part of a team?”  Matthew asks.

“Yeah, it was great.”

“I think I want to join the debate team at school next year.”  This is news to Bill and he’s surprised.  Matthew is notoriously soft-spoken.

“Your Aunt Dana used to be on a debate team when she was in school.  You should ask her for some tips.”

“Dad said that you guys used to be FBI agents,” Michael says.  “He said it’s like being a glory fried policeman”

“Glorified,” Matthew corrects.  “Not glory fried.”

“Glorified, whatever that means.  He told Mom before that Aunt Dana should’ve kept being a doctor so she’d be more normal.”

Bill grits his teeth.  He doesn’t recall ever saying something like that in front of the boys, but he’s sure he’s said it.  He wonders what else they’ve overheard through the years.

“Well, that’s probably true,” Mr. Mulder says.  “She’s a great doctor.  But, you know what?  Your Aunt Dana was the best agent the FBI ever had.”

“How come she quit?” Matthew asks.

“Have you ever done something that made you really happy for awhile and then it just stopped making you happy?”

“I used to like playing MarioKart,” Michael says.  “But, now I think it’s boring.”

“It’s kind of like that.”

“My favorite is SimCity.  Have you ever played that?”

“No, I can’t say I have.”

“Do you like Guitar Hero?” Matthew asks.  

“Yeah, do you like Guitar Hero?” Michael echoes.  “We brought our Playstation and we can play.”

“I’m not much of a musician,” Mr. Mulder says.  “But I’ll give it a shot.”

“Cool!” Both boys yell.

Bill chooses that moment to emerge from the mudroom and steps out onto the porch.  Both boys go instantly quiet and Michael starts dribbling the basketball he’s holding.

“You boys should run and get your jackets on,” Bill says.  “It’s getting cold.”

“I’m not cold,” Michael replies.

“Yes, Sir,” Matthew answers and takes Michael’s arm.  “Thanks for the lessons, Uncle Mulder.”

“You can keep playing,” Bill says.  “I just think you need to get your jackets on.”

“That’s alright, we’ll go help Mom and Grandma in the kitchen.  Come on, Mikey.”

Michael reluctantly hands the basketball over to Mr. Mulder.  “Thanks, Uncle Mulder,” he says.

Mr. Mulder nods and then it’s just him and Bill outside.  Mr. Mulder turns and dribbles the ball a few times before he sinks a basket.  He picks it up again and holds it one-handed in Bill’s direction.

“You play?” Mr. Mulder asks.

“I’m more of a football guy,” Bill answers.

“USNA is on a great streak in the Army v Navy games.  Think they can keep it up?”

“Wouldn’t be much of a Navy man if I thought otherwise.”

“Were you on the team?”

“No.  We won all four years I was there though.  Tied one year, actually.”

“I think Scully mentioned that you dad had played one year.”

Bill can’t believe Mr. Mulder is still calling his sister, Scully.  It makes no goddamn sense.  “1957,” he answers.  “14-0, Navy.”

Mr. Mulder nods.  The conversation stalls.  Mr. Mulder rubs the back of his head for a few moments and then he looks at the door and straightens.  Bill turns and sees his sister in the window.  She comes outside, pulling her sweater tighter across her waist and crossing her arms as she steps off the porch.

“Mom says there’s about an hour left until the turkey is ready,” she says.  “Everything alright?”

“Talking sports,” Mr. Mulder says.  Dana stands close to him.  He puts a hand on her back.

“It’s good to see you, Dana.”

“You too, Bill.”

The three of them stand in awkward silence.  A wind picks up and blows dead leaves across their feet.  Bill shoves his hands in his pockets.  Dana turns to Mr. Mulder and lays a hand very lightly on his chest.

“Can you give us a minute?” Dana asks.

“Of course,” Mr. Mulder answers.  He kisses the corner of Dana’s mouth and Bill’s cheek twitches irritably.  He spins the basketball on one finger as he walks away and then tucks it snugly into the corner of the porch before he goes inside.

“I can tell you don’t want us here,” Dana says.  Straight to the point.  His sister has never been subtle.

“I think it’s you that doesn’t want to be here.  You know, every holiday Mom would always bring up the fact that it would be so nice to have all her children at the table.  I have to say I agree with her.”

Dana stares at him with a cool gaze.  “Are you trying to make me feel guilty?”

“No, I’m just telling you how it’s been.”

“All her children?”

“Alright, we don’t need to fight.”

“I’m not fighting.  I’m just wondering if she includes Charlie in that, when she yearns for all her children.”

Bill shifts uncomfortably.  “That’s between them.  Charles is…”

“Charlie is married.  His husband’s name is-”

“Patrick.  I know.  I do speak with him on occasion.”

Dana gives a brief nod.  “Were they invited to Thanksgiving?”

“I don’t know.”

“I’m sorry that we didn’t turn out how you wanted.”

“What does that mean?”

“You always wanted to follow in our parents footsteps.  Be just like Dad.  Have the doting wife, the Navy career, a house full of kids.  Everything in ship-shape order.  They made it look ideal when we were kids, but it was never ideal.”

“What kind of nonsense has that man been filling your head with?”

Dana snorts.  “The irony is, Mulder is a lot like you, Bill.  He values the sanctity of family even more than you.”

“Oh yeah, so much so he forced you to give up your only child.”

“Mulder wasn’t even there when I had to give William up.”

“Exactly.  Where was he?  Not with his family.  You can be sure I would-”

“You would, what?  Step away from the Navy?  Reject a deployment order?  What would you do, Bill?”

“It’s my job,” he says, curtly.  “It’s what I do to make sure not just my family, but every family in our country is protected.  Tara understood that when she married me.  The kids understand.”

“Are you sure about that?”

“Do you know what losing her grandchild did to Mom?  Dad’s namesake, Dana.  My namesake.  How could you?”

“You sanctimonious sonofabitch,” she hisses.  “My son’s name is William Fox Mulder.  Named after Mulder’s father.  Not you, and not Dad.  And you have no idea how difficult it was for me to make that choice.  None at all.”

“Then why did you do it?  If it was so goddamn hard, why isn’t he here with us now playing with his cousins instead of with strangers?”

Dana looks away and licks the corner of her mouth.  She used to do that when she was a kid before letting loose with a temper tantrum.  He remembers her red-faced and stomping her feet, licking her lip before she exploded.

“Did you know that my life was in danger for all of my pregnancy?” she asks.  “Did you know William was kidnapped twice before he was eight months old?  Did you know that I had friends that were almost killed trying to protect him?  Did you know that I killed people in order to protect him?  Did you know that I made the biggest mistake in my life when I asked Mulder to leave us because I thought he was the one endangering our son?  Did you know that my heart felt like it was ripped out of my chest when I thought I had lost both of them forever?  Do you know that it took years for me to trust in the fact that Mulder forgave me for what I did?”

Bill feels uncomfortable and clammy.  He’s never seen his sister like this, as a child or as an adult.  She’s like fire.  Hot and terrifying.

“No,” he says.  “How could I?  Why didn’t you come to me?”

Dana raises her brow at him like he’s said something completely incredulous.  “We’re family, Bill, not friends.”

“Do you even have any friend, Dana?  Aside from Mr. Mulder?”

“I don’t need or want anyone else in my life except for Mulder.”

“Including your family?”

“Mulder is my family.  A fact I don’t ever think you’ll accept.”

“That man has poisoned you against your family.”

“That man is the reason I’m here today.  You’re right.  It is me that doesn’t want to be here.”  She turns and walks away.

“Dana.”

She doesn’t turn back though, just walks up the porch and into the house and Bill is left alone.  He doesn’t understand how he could have grown up in the same house as each of his siblings, but how they all turned out so different.  He seems to be the only one that appreciates the values his parents instilled in them and not blatantly reject the status quo.  

When Bill comes back into the house, he sees Dana and Mr. Mulder in the dining room, having a very low and animated conversation.  Her hands are in his and his head is bent towards her.  She’s shaking her head and pulling one of her arms free to gesticulate with, but he catches it and clasps their hands gently to his chest.

Bill turns away and heads back to the family room.  The boys are on the floor with Maureen, helping her arrange her dolls to her satisfaction.  Tara and his mother are on the couch in conversation.  He sits down, feeling glum and perturbed.  Dana comes into the room, Mr. Mulder behind her with his hands on her shoulders.

“I’m not feeling very well,” she says.  “Mulder is going to take me home.”

Tara glances at Bill and he shifts his gaze away from her.  

“What is it?” his mother asks.  “Do you need to lie down?  You can use the spare room.”

“No, I wouldn’t want to disrupt dinner.  I think I have a migraine coming on and I have medication at home.”

“But, Dana, it’s been so long since we’ve all been together.  Can’t you just…”

“Let Dana do what she wants to do, Mom,” Bill says.  “If she wants to go home, let her go home.”

His mother wrings her hands together.  He can’t stand the disappointment in her eyes and he doesn’t know how Dana can either.  The hugs goodbye are awkward.  The kids are confused.  

“Uncle Mulder was supposed to play Guitar Hero with us,” Michael says, after they leave.

“Some other time,” Tara tells him.  “Go wash up for dinner.”

Dinner is somber.  His mother looks like she’s on the verge of tears.  Tara tries to compensate by engaging the children in conversation, but the boys unhappily push food around on their plates and Maureen whines to be let loose.  Before they’re even done, his mother starts gathering up the dishes and bringing them into the kitchen.

“What happened?” Tara mouths at him from across the table.

Bill shrugs.  “Mom, stop.  Tara and I will take care of the dishes.  Boys, take your sister and...show your grandmother that guitar game.”

The boys looked relieved.  Matthew takes Maureen’s hand and they head to the family room.  After the leave, the ticking of the grandfather clock in the hall sounds immense in the silence.

“Bill…”

Bill raises his hands in surrender.  “Dana and I had a talk,” he admits.  “It didn’t go well.”

“Is that why she left?”

“She left because she didn’t want to show up at all.”

“This really meant a lot to Mom.”

“What do you want me to do?”

“Maybe the only thing you can do is just accept the fact that this is all there is.”  Tara gets up, collecting dishes before she makes her way to the kitchen.  It takes Bill some time to follow, but he gathers up plates and silverware and goes in after her.  She’s got Tupperware spread out on the counter and is trying to match lids.

“I don’t want to accept it, Tara.  I can’t.  She’s my sister.”

“Then what do you want to do?”

He scratches the back of his head and thinks, watching Tara empty dishes into plastic bowls.  “Pack me up enough of those leftovers for two.  I’m...going to go out there.”

“You should take the boys with you.”

“Why?”

“It’s unlikely they’d turn the kids away.”

That hurts because it’s probably true.  He finishes clearing the dishes for Tara and she neatly packs up leftovers and stacks them on the counter.  He grabs a sweatshirt and then goes into the family room.  The boys aren’t playing the video game, they look like they’re playing Go Fish with their grandmother and sister.

“Boys, we’re going to take a drive.”

They look at each other and then look at their father.  “Are we in trouble?” Michael asks.

“No, son.  We’re just going to take a drive.”

He can tell they’re reluctant to get up, but they do.  Tara brings them their jackets and loads their arms with the Tupperware and walks them to the car.

“Where are we going?” Matthew asks, buckling his seatbelt.

“We’re going to go see your Aunt Dana and...Uncle Mulder.”

“Really?” Michael asks.

It’s an hour-long drive.  Bill can’t think of a time he’s been alone in a car with his sons for that long.  They don’t talk and the radio isn’t offering anything decent.

“You know, Matthew, your Aunt Dana was there when you were born?”

“She was?”

“She and your grandma had come out for Christmas that year.  They visited you in the hospital and you were only a few hours old.  And...your...Uncle Mulder was there too.”  Bill shifts a little in his seat and adjusts his grip on the steering wheel.  He was a little disgruntled at the time that Mr. Mulder had shown up with Dana at the hospital, but even more so when Tara insisted he have a chance to hold the baby.  He knows photos were taken that day, but he’s never seen them.

“Did Aunt Dana and Uncle Mulder visit me too, Dad?” Michael asks.

“No, they were...they weren’t in town at that time.”

“Oh.”

“Have I ever told you the story of when your Aunt Dana won a shooting contest when she was eight?”

“Um, I don’t think we know any stories about Aunt Dana,” Matthew answers.  “Except a couple Grandma has told us.”

“I see.”  

“I want to hear it,” Michael says.  “I want to know the story.”

“Me too,” Matthew adds.

“She learned to shoot pretty young.  My Dad had taught us.  She was the best out of all of us, even Dad.  She just never missed.  Some kids in the neighborhood caught wind of it and said there was no way a little girl could beat them.  They were older than us, maybe your age, Matthew.  Dana said she could beat the pants off of them, just come out to the woods and name the target.  She whipped those boys good.  Six older boys against one little girl.”

“Did she win a prize?” Michael asks.

Bill thinks back on that day.  He’d felt a mixture of pride and anger.  He wanted Dana to win, but he also looked up to those boys.  Their pride had been injured and therefore he’d tried to convince Dana to throw the competition at one point, pulling her aside and telling her she was hurting their feelings and should let them win.  She looked him straight in the eye and told him no way in hell would she lose to a stupid boy just ‘cause.  He’d been afraid the boys would retaliate in some way, maybe hurt Dana or even start a fight with him, but they hadn’t.

“Respect,” Bill says.  “She won a lot of respect.”

“Sounds like something Maureen would do,” Matthew says.  He and Michael chuckle together.

“Maureen is more like your Aunt Melissa.  Dana was a real tomboy.  She had to do everything me and your Uncle Charles did.”

“How come…?” Matthew starts, and then clams up.

“How come what?”

“I know Aunt Melissa died a long time ago.  But, how come we’ve never met Aunt Dana before now?  Or Uncle Charles?”

“Is it because Uncle Charles married another boy?” Michael asks.

“Who told you that?” Bill asks.

“Mom said that’s why Grandma doesn’t like to talk about him and we should try to understand that Grandma comes from another time where that wasn’t ok, but that doesn’t mean it’s not ok.”

“She said that?”

“Mmhm.  She said that if anyone at church or other kids say it’s not ok, we just don’t listen to them because God doesn’t make mistakes and love is love and God wants us to love each other.”

Bill is quiet.  He can’t believe his devout and traditional wife has said something so progressive and even went so far as to instruct his children to go against the church.  Good for her, he thinks.  Maybe if his mother had thought for herself once in awhile they wouldn’t have such a fractured family.  He can’t believe that thought just crosses his mind.

“You boys listen to your mother,” Bill says.  “She’s a good woman and I’m glad you’re both more like her than like me.”

“You’re good too, Dad,” Matthew says.

“You think so?”

“Yeah, you do a really hard job and it’s important and you’re in charge of it.”

“And Mom says that’s why we shouldn’t bother you with trivial things,” Michael says.  “So you can relax when you’re home.”

Bill is quiet for a few moments and he glances at both boys in the rear view mirror.  “I want you boys to know that you’re never a bother to me.  Not ever, alright?  You can come to me with anything.  You understand?”

“Yes, Sir,” they both say.

“And to answer your question, you haven’t met your Aunt Dana or Uncle Charles before because I think...I think it’s hard for them to feel welcome.  That’s why I’m taking you out to Dana and Mulder’s house right now so I can make sure they know they’re welcome.”

“Will we get to meet Uncle Charles one day, too?” Michael asks.

“I promise that when we get home I’ll call him and ask him if he wants to come for a visit.”

“Cool,” Matthew says.  “Three new uncles and an aunt.”

The roads start to become more rural and desolate.  It’s only twilight, but it feels even darker without any streetlamps or other passing cars.  Bill turns off onto a dirt road and slowly bumps along the unpaved path.

“I think this is it,” Bill says, pulling up to a gate.

“Do they live on a farm?” Michael asks.  “It looks like a farm.”

“I don’t think so.”

Bill is about to call Dana’s phone when he sees Mr. Mulder step out onto the porch, holding what looks like a long-barreled shotgun.  He turns on the cab light of the car and then lowers the window and leans out, raising a hand in greeting.  Mr. Mulder looks like he’s squinting and then he goes back inside and turns on the porch light.  When he comes back out, he’s no longer holding the gun and he jogs down from the porch and down the path behind the gate.  Bill sees his sister come out onto the porch a few moments later.

“Bill?” Mr. Mulder asks once he’s close enough to be heard.  “What’re you doing out here?  Everything alright?”

“The boys and I brought leftovers,” Bill says.

“Uh.  Okay.  Let me just unlock the gate, just a second.”  Mr. Mulder begins to unlock some chains around the gate.  “Scully’s been nagging me to put this on a remote, but I haven’t gotten around to it yet.  Drive on up, I’ll be right behind you.”

Bill drives slowly down the lane and Mr. Mulder stays in the shadow of his taillight.  He parks behind the car in front of the porch and the boys are quick to unlock their belts and scramble out of the car.

“Is this a farm?” Michael asks, running up to Mr. Mulder and taking his hand.  “Do you have cows?”

“Sorry, buddy, no cows,” Mr. Mulder answers.  “I think there might have been horses here at one time.  There are some stalls out in the field behind the house.”

Bill gathers the Tupperware from the floorboards of the passenger seat and Matthew is right behind him to help him get everything out.  Dana stands on the porch in a defensive pose, guarding her territory.

“Come in,” Mr. Mulder says.  He guides Michael up the stairs ahead of him.  Dana gives Mr. Mulder a look, but then smiles at Michael.  Tara was a genius to tell him to take the boys.

The interior surprises Bill.  It’s cozy, almost cabin-like.  There are afghans on the couch and a well-used recliner.  They’ve got a wood burning stove and a fire going.  His sister is wearing slippers.  

Mr. Mulder leads them all to the kitchen and takes the Tupperware from Matthew and from Bill.  “Be sure to thank Maggie for us,” he says.

“I will.”  There’s a few beats of silence and Bill eyes his sister.  “Dana, would you mind if we talked for a few minutes?”

She hesitates and glances at the boys.

“You guys can go on the porch,” Mr. Mulder offers.  “Maybe...these guys might like some ice cream?”

“Can we?” Michael asks, turning to Bill.

Bill nods.  Never in his life did he expect to feel gratitude towards Mr. Mulder for anything, but he does in this moment.  The boys cheer.  Dana doesn’t look happy, but she takes her brother out to the porch.

“I’m not here to fight,” Bill says.  “I just want you to know that up front.”

“Why are you here?” she asks.

“Because I don’t like the way we left things.  I want to start by apologizing for...not giving you the benefit of the doubt.  Or supporting you when you needed it.”

Dana looks surprised and a little chagrined.  Her eyes water a bit.  She wraps her arms across her middle and looks at her feet.  “Thank you,” she says.  “That means a lot.”

“I was telling the boys on the way over about that time you won the shooting contest when you were a kid.”

She snorts softly.  “You were so mad at me.”

“No, I was proud of you.  I didn’t tell you that back then, but I probably should have.  Maybe it’s because of things like that that you felt you couldn’t talk to me when you were going through a hard time.”

“Maybe.”

“What I’m not going to apologize for, though, is my life or my family.”  He pauses while she looks up and opens her mouth, but then she closes it again and nods a little.  “I don’t think I’m wrong for wanting to live in the example our parents set for us.  They were happily married for almost forty years and, God willing, I’d like to make it to my fiftieth anniversary and still be just as happy.”

“You probably will.”

“I think you might too.”

Dana raises her brow.  Bill rubs the back of his neck and exhales, deeply.  

“The kids were telling me earlier that love is love,” he says.  “And, now that I’ve seen the two of you together, I think that he kind of seems like a decent guy.”

“I wouldn’t be with him if he wasn’t.”

“No, I don’t suppose you would.”

Dana looks at her feet again and rocks back and forth on her heels for a moment.  “I would also like to apologize for keeping you in the dark about so many things for so long.  I’ve been so accustomed to needing to keep things private, I forget that I can rely on other people.  Mulder has to remind me of it at times when I start to shut him out.”

“You were like that as a kid.  Tough as nails, wouldn’t show a weakness to save your life.”

“And a quick temper.”

“Yeah, that too.”  Bill chuckles.  Dana smiles slightly.

“I’m sorry I left like that.  I hope Mom wasn’t too upset.”

“I think it might be salvaged if you thought about maybe coming by tomorrow?  The boys really seemed to take to...their Uncle Mulder.”

“He’s really great with kids,” Dana whispers and two tears fall down her cheeks.  She dips her head once more and puts a hand over her eyes.

Bill steps closer and pulls her in against his chest.  She puts her arms around him and he rubs her shoulder a little.  “I can’t imagine, Dana.  What you must feel.”

“Some days are harder than others.”

“Does he help you through it?”

“Always.”

“Okay.”

After a few moments of silence, Dana sighs and then pulls away and wipes her eyes.  Bill stops her before they go back inside.

“One more thing,” he says.  “It’s important to me that you know that I don’t agree with Mom on everything.  Just because I believe that her issues with Charles are her business, doesn’t mean I think she’s right.”

“You don’t?”

“Hell no.  That’s her son.  I would never.  The thing is, Charles has told me he chooses to limit his contact with both of us so that it won’t cause problems between us and Mom, if she knows that we speak with him.”

“I know.”

“And, thinking about what you said and just...thinking about it in general, tonight, I’ve decided that if Mom can’t handle the fact that I have a relationship with my brother, that’s also her problem.  I’m going to invite Charles and Patrick out to North Carolina for Christmas.  I want to extend the same invitation to you and Mr. Mulder as well.”

“It’s just Mulder.”

“You guys are so weird about your names.”

“That’s how we like it.”

Bill puts his hands up in surrender.  Dana opens the door and he follows.  The boys are laughing at something.  Mulder gets up from the table when he sees them and Dana walks into his arms.  He rubs her back and nods at Bill.

“Can I get you a bowl of ice cream?” Mulder asks.

“Sure.”

“Dad, did you know that Aunt Dana and Uncle Mulder once arrested a man that was half-worm and lived in a sewer?!” Michael exclaims.

“Tried to arrest,” Mulder amends.  “We only caught half of him.  The tail end, unfortunately.”

“Gross!” the boys cry.

“Really, Mulder?” Bill asks.

Mulder shrugs.  Bill sighs.

The End

#i wrote this #xf fanfic #bill scully #I never imagined I would have to get into this dudes head #perplexistan

[the-pale-goddess]

Breaking The Habit - Ethan Ramsey x MC (Tiffany Addams)

Don’t tell me about the rules and break them

And don’t tell me about mistakes

And make the same ones I have made before

Warnings: NSFW (+18)  It’s kinda emotional and raw? 

Author’s note: Consider this piece to be the 30 diamond scene that didn’t make the cut in Book 2, Chapter 9. The story takes off right after MC’s conversation with Rafael.

Taglist (let me know if you want in or out)

@caseyvalentineramsey  @interobanginyourmom  @newcolonies @ernest-harrington @openheart12 @perriewinklenerdie @mvalentine @ethandaddyramsey @kaavyaethanramsey @lion-ess24 @choices-love-affair @justanotherrookie @rookieoh @rookie-ramsey @queencarb​ @schnitzelbutterfingers​ @doilooklikeiknow​

OH universe belongs to Pixelberry (well, Tiffany is also kinda mine)

_____

You should go home, Tiffany. You've had a long day.

The grim reality of her mental state knocked her sideways while she was wandering around Edenbrook's empty halls. The sound of her heels passing smoothly through the corridor accompanied her quiet sobbing.

Home wasn't safe anymore. She didn't want to be home. The confined space of her room would make her rot alone with her thoughts. So she kept on walking as in a daze, her feet dragging her to the only safe place they knew. Ethan.

Tiffany's heart jumped instantly, reminding her of its presence. She didn't think this through. She just had to check if he was still in his office. The light was on and she felt even more desperate for his attention. Was it wise to seek comfort in him?

She walked up to the door and knocked loudly. She couldn't hear a proper response, so she took a deep breath and decided to barge in. Ethan's narked expression softened drastically the minute his eyes laid on her. He was in the middle of packing a stack of test results into his bag, the white coat already hanging in his closet – he was ready to leave.

„Tiffany. I was about to call you.” Thank lord she was still leaning on the door, because the way he said her name made her knees weak and she found herself stumbling.

„You...You were?”

„Yes. I wanted to check on you.” Her cheeks flushed and a brief smile lit her face up. „Come in.”

She closed the door and entered Ethan's office. He watched her intently as she slid across the room, waiting for her to address his concerns, but she remained strangely silent. Now that she stood just a few steps away from him, he finally saw it. A wash of pain on her pretty face, fresh tears drying on her cheeks, shoulders huddled in a helpless abandon...He rushed by her side with a heavy sigh. He ran his thumb across her cheek, wiping the tears away, and tilted her chin up. She closed her eyes in an attempt to control the urge to cry. But she couldn't hold it back any longer and Ethan's comforting touch made her even more emotional.

This was Tiffany Addams in all her diminished glory. Unfiltered. Vulnerable. Shattered. Broken. She was standing in front of him with all her clothes on, yet she felt completely undressed, exposed like never before. There was nothing left for him to see. Her solid as a rock demeanour crushed with a piercing howl.

Ethan wrapped his arms around her and held her tight, afraid she might break if he let her go. Tiffany melted into him, allowing her body to relax slowly, while an ocean of tears began streaming down her cheeks. One of his hands was caressing her back, the other was gently stroking her hair. The aggressive sobbing started to fade away when she buried her face in his chest.

„Breathe, Tiffany. I'm here.”

He really was there. Supporting her with his whole body, calming her nerves with his caring touch and soothing voice, intoxicating her with his scent. This was her home. She looked up and saw his face etched with worry. He didn’t have to say it. The evidence was right there, in his every move – he cared.

„I wish I could take this pain away from you.” Ethan’s face was suddenly dangerously close to hers. In a split second his lips landed on her cheek, kissing the tears off her. Tiffany freezed and she wished time would freeze too.

„This might actually work.” She whispered. „Keep going.”

Ethan did as he was told. His lips travelled around her face, planting salty kisses on her cheeks and across her jaw. But then he reached her lips and stopped. His eyes linked with hers – the sheer intensity of their gaze could start a fire. As their noses touched, their breathing got rapid and unsteady. Why would he stop. She was losing it. But when he looked down at her lips it all clicked. He wanted permission. She smiled softly and ran her fingers through his hair. Ethan smiled back, biting his lower lip nervously. Oh, how the tables have turned.

Tiffany couldn't wait any longer. She leaned closer allowing their lips to crash. The kiss was heavy and needy. This time there was no rush, Alan wasn't waiting for Ethan. This time the kiss wasn't a part of the Mass Kenmore heist. It was deliberate and long overdue. It was salty. And sweet. And it wasn't enough. They both felt it in the urgency of their hands exploring the familiar shapes in a hastily attempt to relive their most precious memories.

The sweetness quickly disappeared and got replaced by an untamed passion. Their tongues twisted together in a bruising kiss, leaving no place for air.

„What are we doing?” She gasped when they finally parted and reality checked in. He used to be sure about everything but her. But now he stared at her with such confidence her heart skipped a beat. It was somehow the least and most Ethan thing to do. The look on his face was something new to her. She couldn't exactly name it, but he didn't seem to be ashamed of the intense makeout session he just initiated in the middle of his office.

„Kissing. I'm pretty sure we're kissing, Rookie.”

„There he is.” She chuckled. „The smug I know. I was scared you were getting too soft for me.”

„I do have a soft spot for you, though.” He tipped her chin up, brushing her swollen lip with his thumb. She gave it a quick lick and the sight made him groan.

„So I've noticed.” Her hands reached the nape of his neck, bringing his face to her again and their lips reunited.

Ethan swept her off her feet with a slick movement, her legs wrapped around him the moment she was up. Never breaking the kiss, he walked up to the desk and positioned her on its flat surface. His fingers moved up her thigh, playing with the material of her dress and lifting it slightly while her ankle rubbed his butt in slow circles. She spread her legs a little more, allowing him to nestle between them. All the layers of clothes separating them failed to cover his growing arousal. Tiffany almost jumped when she felt how hard he was.

„Wait a second...Are you seriously going to fuck me at work? On your desk?” The words were out without a second thought. They sounded even more ridiculous out loud. Of course not, silly. Ethan Ramsey would never...But he just grinned mischievously and dived into her neck like a starved man, making her squirm with pleasure.

„Tell me to stop.” His husky voice and hot breath against her ear made her delirious.

„No. You're exactly where I want you to be.” She crossed her legs behind his back, pressing his body closer into hers, while his hand plunged into her cleveage. With a brisk motion, he slipped under her bra and grabbed her breast, giving it a firm squeeze. A lusty gasp escaped her mouth, but she didn't let the sensations overwhelm her. She unbuckled his pants and began unbuttoning his shirt when a sudden noise disrupted their encounter. They both stopped in their tracks and looked at the door in horror, but nothing changed. They were still alone.

„What if someone will be looking for you?” She kissed his jaw, letting her lips linger there for a moment. Ethan freed himself from her reluctantly and moved towards the door with a sigh. He locked it and turned the lights off, leaving the room in a dim glow of a small lamp standing behind the desk.

„They won't find me here.” That confident grin of his made her giggle and he took his time to marvel at her from the distance. She looked like a real goddess laughing on his desk with tousled hair, rumpled dress and legs spread open only for him.

When he finally returned, Tiffany welcomed him with a searing kiss. She quickly finished unbuttoning his shirt, letting it fall off his shoulders a bit. With a little help, he moved the material of her dress down, unclasped her bra and got rid of it, exposing her full breasts. He threw himself at her again with tense anticipation, sucking her nipples and pinching them. Tiffany knew she had to control her moans, but he made the task nearly impossible.

Her small hands wandered around his chest, tracing every muscle with her fingers. But that wasn't the destination of their journey. They soon rushed straight into his pants, pulling them down with his underwear without any warning. Her unwavering gaze met Ethan's, a cheeky smile formed on her lips. There was something primal in the way he devoured her with his eyes and it burned her skin to the core. She missed him so much. All of him.

His strong grip landed on her sides, pulling her dress up. Then he slipped her panties off and the air got heavier with their breathing. His eyes immediately landed between her legs. His thumb followed the same path, rubbing her wet centre. She moaned uncontrollably, shivering under his touch. Ethan smirked in response. He grabbed a fistful of her hair and tugged it gently, looking her deep in the eye, the other hand still teasing her clit.

„If you want me to finish what we started I need you to stay quiet.” He planted a brief kiss on her lips, scratching her pleasantly with his beard.

„Right. Like you would be able to stop.” Tiffany laughed softly into his mouth, her hand slipped on his cock and gave him a few powerful strokes. Ethan hissed, urging himself to stay silent as his face turned red and his hand let go of her hair.

„You have no idea what you're talking about. I stop myself every time I see you.” He lowered his face to her neck and bit it gently.

„Really?” She purred. „Do you think of me often when you touch yourself?” The words hit him like a ton of bricks. He swallowed hard, lifted both of her legs and hooked them around his waist, setlling himself near her entrance.

„Always. Do you think of me?”

„Yes. Constantly.” She touched his cheek with a beaming smile. Ethan couldn't help but smile back.

He closed the distance between them, grasping impatiently at the material of her dress draped around her hips, lifting it even higher. His tip finally touched her folds, not daring to move any further.

„I need you, Tiffany.”

„And I need you, Ethan.”

I need you. This short yet meaningful sentence carried the weight of the unbearable longing stored and hidden for months. The rawness of their emotions overpowered them completely as they melted in a fervent kiss. Their hands raced blindly up and down each other's bodies, the obvious need expressed in every touch.

And then he plunged into her. They swallowed each other's moans when his length filled her. Her walls clenched around him, making him groan quietly. The plan was to take it slow and savour every second of the first intimate moment after what felt like forever, but his body wouldn't obey, setting a vicious pace. He was famished and she was the meal he craved the most.

Tiffany had to lean back and prop herself up on her elbows to adjust to this merciless rhythm. She tried to focus on silencing her whimpers, but the sensation of his cock ravaging her was too much. Her mind went blank. His thrusts were so deep and fervid she wanted to scream his name at the top of her lungs.

„Holy fuck, Ethan...” She yelped silently and grabbed the desk at its edge for support as he continued slamming into her. One of his hands had a strong grip on her hip, keeping her in place, the other roamed around her bare chest. The room was filled with the obscene sound of their skin colliding, mixed with muffled moans and the grinding noise of her ass hitting the desk.

A pile of documents went up in the air when Tiffany laid her back flat. The whole desk was moving with them – back and forth, in and out, back and forth...Ethan's medical journals, usually stacked tidily on his desk, hit the floor with a loud thud. But they didn't seem to care. Ethan struggled to keep his moans inside, allowing silent hums to escape his mouth. She was so tight and so beautiful and so deliciously wet. Her hips responded to every thrust with the most graceful eagerness and he couldn't help but follow her every move with hungry eyes.

Beads of sweat ran down his chest when he kept on pounding her tirelessly, feeling the release is close. With a strong motion he lifted her up, bringing her flushed body as close as it was possible. They were face to face now – riveted on each other, admiring the pleasure taking control of them.

„Fuck...You're perfect.” He groaned before claiming her lips. Tiffany's arms twined around him tightly as she bounced on his cock, her nails scratching his back. They moved in unison, desperately chasing the highly anticipated climax. Their lips brushing, tortured with soundless moans.

„Ethan, I'm – I...Oh!” Tiffany wanted him to know how close she was when he hit the spot before she even managed to gather her thoughts. She arched her back, squirming in ecstasy and the sight drove him wild. This was the finish line. His grip on her ass tightened as his last thrusts became sloppier and deeper and he finally came all over her with a low groan.

Their sticky bodies were trembling violently with pleasure, trying to cool down and adjust back to reality. Still locked in a loving embrace, Ethan rested his forehead on hers with eyes closed. Tiffany gave him a lingering wet smack on the lips. They wouldn't dare to move – both of them refused to let go of this fragile intimacy.

But they did eventually have to move. Ethan pulled himself out and pecked on her nose before reaching to one of the drawers for a box of tissues. He took one, cleaned his lover up, his touch delicate and cautious. Tiffany watched him startled. She suddenly remembered everything that has happened between them – the mentoring, the longing, the surrender, the rejection and the battle, all the hurt, the professionalism, the rules. And here they were, breaking them all again. A wash of dread weighed on her shoulders when she realized this bubble might burst the way it did the last time. Or worse.

He noticed the conflict in her eyes while cleaning himself up. Afterwards, he put his pants back on and cupped her face. She leaned closer as if a magnet pulled her towards him.

„What's bothering you?”

„This. Us. We have a lot more to talk about after today...” The young doctor smiled nervously and moved away to make herself decent. She hiked her dress up, covering her upper body. Her eyes skimmed the floor in search of her underwear, but Ethan spotted it first. He picked the lacy material up and moved back to Tiffany.

„I suppose we do.” He answered while his fingers flew up her legs, helping her put the panties back. “I’m sorry I didn't reach out immediately after...”

„After you unexpectedly kissed me in front of your apartment?” She finished when he struggled to describe their encounter after the softball game the other night.

„Precisely.” They smiled at each other, every single detail of that kiss still vivid in their memories. „I didn’t mean to make it even more confusing. I just thought burdening you with my feelings would be inconsiderate, due to everything that followed. You have enough on your plate right now.”

„You’re right, the time is...Challenging, to say the least. But I’m also freaking tired of excuses and mixed signals. I want clarity. I need something good to stay.”

„Do we have to talk about it here?”

„Where do you suggest we do this? Or rather when?” Her brows furrowed and Ethan understood that it would be wise to say it literally any other way, but it was too late. He sighed as if trying to restore his confidence.

„I suggest we move to my place. I'll cook the Chef Ramsey Special for you and we will be able to talk about us the right way. And then you could...stay the night. That is – only if you'd like.”

Tiffany couldn't believe her ears. She stared at him speechless for a long moment before a broad grin lit her face up

„Is Ethan Ramsey inviting me for a sleepover?”

„Well, if that’s what you want to call it...” He was prepared for another sassy remark, but she was done teasing him.

„I’d love that.” Tiffany slipped her hand into his and entwined their fingers. Her reaction was greeted with the most sincere smile. „Could we drive by my place to grab some things?”

„Sure. Don't pack too much, though. You won't be needing any clothes at my pajama party.”

„You're not done with me, are you?” She giggled, but his expression was serious. She bit her lip seductively and traced a finger down his bare chest, his skin still burning and sweaty.

„Not in the slightest.” He smirked. Tiffany readjusted his shirt and began buttoning it up.

„We should get going then.”

___

NEXT PART > The Talk

#ethan ramsey #ethan x mc #ethan ramsey x mc #oh fanfiction #ethan freaking ramsey #my fanfic writing #doctor whipped

[essays-for-breakfast]

A Song to Forget All Trouble

Kiane Week Day Four: Reign/Daily Life

With each sunrise, another problem awaited Diane. Or, for the sake of accuracy, a mountain of problems. Ruling an entire clan was one thing, but the management of two clans who had spent to majority of three millennia with scornful looks and cold shoulders had more in common with a wrestling match against a Tyrant Dragon. With arms tied behind the back. Giants and Fairies alike always found one little annoyance to blow out of proportion and add to the list of matters Diane needed to discuss and solve with the parties involved.

The quarrel for a resting spot on one of the Fairy King’s Forest’s countless clearings took her half a day to settle because both the Giant and the opposing group of Fairies claimed to have arrived there first. Around noon, Diane ordered the squabblers to find other places to sleep and opened the clearing to a horde of Giant children. At the end of their play session, a rugged crater disfigured the landscape, and smashed golem heads roasted in the sun. No one wanted to rest there anymore.

Every trampled flowerbed and every earth-made pillar became a file on Diane’s metaphorical desk. Fairies liked to boast about their inability to understand concepts like possession and greed, but when someone asked them to share their precious forest with outsiders, they crossed their arms and jutted their chins faster than one could turn over a leaf.

Even if their king asked them.

But the Giants didn’t cover themselves in glory with their behavior either. Their daily fighting tournaments, these days held for sport rather than war training, flattened entire areas on a regular basis. And while the Giants toasted to their displays of power, the present Fairies had little to laugh about. To them, a tree was a lifeform in the same way as a deer or a chaffinch. To a Giant, a tree was a resource for weapons and sometimes a javelin in their ego games.

Drole had assured that Diane would make for the ideal queen to their people. If only he had mentioned the massif of hurdles on the road of leadership.

Daylight was fading, and Diane more stumbled than walked towards the Great Tree. She hawked, but the lump in her throat sat on her voice like a fat, ugly toad. The avalanche of irritated ‘what?’ the near-deaf Giant had spat in her direction continued to ring in her ears. He had built a stone damn to turn the southern river into his private bathing lake. The shrubs and flowers he had put underwater by proxy had concerned him no more than a change in the clouds above. Diane had repeated and rerepeated herself in explaining the problem he had created, but more than another ‘what?’ hadn’t come out of him. A wonder the old man still lived – with the philosophy of the Giants in mind, a useless member of the pack went to bed each night in expectation of a slit throat.

Diane rolled her shoulders to shake away these gloomy thoughts. The merger had its upsides too. She just needed to remind herself of them once in a while.

The stench of fire, mingled with the alluring but precarious aromas of roasted boar hit her before the massive shape of the Great Tree came into view. Not again. Diane darted into the bushes, a string of curses she had picked up from Ban on her lips.

In most cases, even the most traditionalist of Fairies looked past the campfires the Giants gathered around to exchange war stories. But when these parties involved hunted wildlife – deer, boars, or the sinfully delicious cranes found in the western lake district of the forest –, a war declaration already waved between the trees by the time King or Diane could intervene.

Along with the cackling of the fire, the sound of laughter and, strangest of all, music reached Diane’s ear as she zigzagged through the pine trunks. The out of place sound almost made her stumble. Had the wind solely carried the beat of drums, she would have continued her race without a second thought. But a small orchestra of pipes and flutes gave the rhythmic pounding a melody unlike anything she had ever heard in Megadoza. If any Giant knew how to craft and play a flute, Matrona had to have hid them in the catacombs underneath the rock city during Diane’s two hundred years of training there.

A final sprint brought Diane to the clearing from where the smell of meat and the sound of music originated. But instead of a pack of drunk and bellowing Giants, the last sunrays reflected from the faces of Fairies and Giants alike. And instead of accusations hurled at the other clan, laughter tied both sides together.

Above the open fire, spits laden with meat turned while a soup happily bubbled in an oversized iron cauldron. A handful of lanterns in the shape of tulips adorned the trees around. While not as golden or luxurious as the festivities Diane had visited in Liones, the clearing showed all the makings of a celebration, complete with a colorful assembly of guests.

King hovered in the middle of the illusive scenery and conversed with Matrona and Ritho, an older Giant whose passion lay with war before any other activity. All three of them were smiling.

Diane maltreated her temple with her knuckles, but the illusion refused to collapse and return to the dust of her imagination. What had happened in her absence that all conflicts between Giants and Fairies had smoothened into a pretty party with a pretty ribbon to complete the present? Had Bartra Liones foreseen the end of the world for tomorrow? Another explanation failed to arise out of the muddle of her thoughts.

She stared, and she stood, unable to move or comprehend what was playing out before her eyes.

King noticed Diane, nodded to Matrona and Ritho, and floated towards her with two minimalistic flaps of his wings.

He lifted the paralyzed fingers of her right hand with visible effort, and beamed at her. “I’m glad you made it. Gerheade was almost on her way to catch you at the Great Tree. I wasn’t sure when you would return, but I guess everything worked out better than expected.”

“I don’t understand. Did I miss something?”

A shade of pink darkened his cheeks. The orange hues of the fire emphasized the effect. “Didn’t I tell you? We want to celebrate the merger between the Fairy and Giant Clan. We got lucky with the weather tonight, otherwise the open fire might have given us some headaches. Oh, and Happy Anniversary!”

Diane blinked. “It’s… been a year already?! I thought… two weeks, a month at most…”

“If Gerheade hadn’t reminded me, I would have said the same, but here we are. A year later. I’m so proud of what we’ve built here. What you started when you told me about your idea with the merger – no one other than you could have even considered to bridge the cleft between our two clans. All because no one sees the good in others like you do.” King inhaled, and his tiny hands increased their grip around Diane’s fingers. “I love you so much. None of this would have been possible without you.”

His touch and the warmth of his smile melted all troubles and anxiousness of the day away. Nothing else mattered, and if Diane had to put up with a thousand near-deaf Giants to earn this one moment with the one she loved, she would jump into the fray without hesitation.

She dragged him closer, intoxicated by the flowery scent of his skin, lost in his amber eyes, and cradled by all the compliments he showered her with, too generous to be true, but oh, so earnest. The cleft disappeared, and Diane covered King’s face with a kiss.

Before he could pass out from a lack of oxygen, Diane pulled back. She smiled at his expression, a perfect replica of the dazzled Fairy boy before he had grown his wings.

“I love you too, King. And thank you for the party. It’s perfect. When did you have time to organize all this anyway?”

“Oh, that? I really didn’t do much in terms of setting up the location or preparing the meat. The others deserve all your thanks for the hard work. I just flew around a little to find some special ingredients for the stew.”

Diane laughed. “Still a delivery boy at heart, I see. The Captain must have drilled this chore especially deep into your head.”

“I guess he discovered this hidden talent of mine before even I could see it.”

More and more Giants and Fairies followed the sound of the flutes, and soon the clearing disappeared in a crowd of feet and wings. Bowls of two different sizes wandered through the guests, a stew of turnips and roots and chanterelle. While nothing between Purgatory and the Sky Temple could match Ban’s carrot soup, Diane gulped down three helpings in record time, mesmerized by the earthy taste. And she would have asked for an additional portion, if King hadn’t handed her a spit with her favorite type of roasted pork.

The smell of fat made her mouth watery. “Can I marry you a second time?”

“I would marry you every single day, every single year ahead of us, if I could,” King said.

Diane grinned and for the next few minutes, she was too occupied with chewing to talk. The chatter of the people around her blurred into a pleasant carpet of sound. This was what she had always envisioned: Giants and Fairies united in spite of their stupid differences and their arguments, an exchange of words and food to the soft crackle of a campfire. And her and King in the middle of it all, finally side by side after all this time.

The stars stood high up in the sky, a million more than humans could ever spot in Liones or Camelot. From time to time, they winked as if to congratulate King and Diane on what they had accomplished. He leaned against her knee while she stroked the filigree ornamentations of his wings. A shudder rocked him whenever Diane found a new nerve to stimulate.

Neither of them felt the need to disturb the moment with words.

Then a single flute raised its voice above the conversations, a new tune, almost melancholic at first. A panpipe picked up where its companion had left of and gave the melody a merry spin. The flautist enticed a few more notes out of his instrument, and for a moment it and the panpipe seemed to fight a musical battle for the tone of their sonata. But then they fell into harmony, drums and chimes and a fiddle joined in, and soon the entire orchestra played a tarantella to invite the crowd to a dance.

King jerked up. After he had risen into the air, he bowed and extended a hand towards Diane. Sparks from the campfire reflected in his eyes.  “May I have this dance?”

Diane took his hand with a smile. “You may.”

One with the music and the rhythm of nature, King and Diane spun around the fire. Her feet bopped and arched, and he mimicked her moves midair. One moment she pulled him so close their noses almost touched, the next he guided her into another twirl and their fingers parted to finish a sequence with two claps. Other pairs skipped onto the dance floor; Matrona and Zalpa, Ende and Gerheade, and ever so rarely a Giant and Fairy together.

Although her steps lead her astray sometimes, Diane always found King’s eyes in the crowd. Never more than a pirouette away, still in sync with her. The music chased them in circles, two claps of the hands, and another sequence of hops and taps and spins. The odors of cooking fat and sweat from a multitude of dancers got to Diane’s head. Dizziness hijacked her senses until nothing but the next step filled her mind.

With two final claps, the dance ended. King hovered mere inches away from her, guided there by his own doing or a by a smile of fortune. His chest heaved up and down and the many turns had tousled his hair. But his grin was the incarnation of pure joy, brighter than the fire and the firmament.

Their kiss held more force this time, driven by the passion of the dance and heated by the blood rushing into both their heads. The touch of his skin and the flowery taste of his lips replaced the world around Diane, and they were one.

Yes, the merger caused them trouble every day, and Giants and Fairies alike strained their patience with a hellish desire to convince them to give up.

But King and Diane proved time and time again that beauty lay in the union between their clans. They fought for what they believed in, and they continued to push the boundaries of what Chaos’ creations were meant to achieve.

For moments like this.

#kianeweek #kianeweek2020 #nnt #nanatsu no taizai #nnt fanfiction #my writing #king x diane #kiane #king #diane #another dance fic #because why not

[phykios]

the marble king, part 4 [read on ao3]

Athens, 1453

Catching a current to Thera had been a simple task. Well, there had been parts to the journey somewhat more complex than he had let on to his traveling companion, but the steps taken had, all told, been rather simple for a son of the sea god. Following the currents was a matter of instinct, and in the water, he could forget mortal afflictions such as hunger or exhaustion.

Annabeth did not have the same freedoms, of course, and while Percy could extend his gifts to her for some time, he simply was not strong enough to sustain it for the entirety of the journey to Athens. Travelling by boat was somewhat riskier, as there were the Ottomans and the Venetians to avoid, not to mention all the other Latins and Franks and gods-only-knew-who-else who sought to steal some of Hellas ’ glory for themselves, but Percy was confident that he could steer a ship out of danger with far less effort than he could carry Annabeth under the sea.

“It will draw less attention to ourselves,” he had reminded her, “if we are merely one of a thousand mortals making pilgrimage to Athens.” Convinced, unhappily, she agreed.

It had been a long, quiet, terse five days, and not only because she would often refuse to speak to him.

The two of them had traveled these waters together once before, searching for a certain magical sheepskin, but Percy could never recall them being so empty. In his memory, sea monsters lurked beneath every wave, while other horrors plucked straight from the mouths of the poets and muses made their homes on every spit of land, no matter how small. But the monsters and the madness that had haunted heroes such as Jason, Odysseus, Aeneas, and all the others, appeared to have simply vanished into the mist. Even the waves themselves were unusually pacified, allowing them to pass without too much trouble.

It all made for quite the unsettling picture. It was, at once, both empty and not empty; he felt as though they were standing upon the shore as the water was pulled out to the sea, in preparation for the monstrous tsunami which would follow. If a man were able to live in that moment, the calm before the storm, the precipice before the cliff, the sharply receding tide before the flood, then he would know how the sea felt to Percy in this moment.

“Look, Annabeth,” he said, in an attempt to cajole her into conversation. “There, to the West--we are coming up on Delos.”

She did not respond.

“Do you not remember? Apollo’s lions burst forth from the stone and nearly ate us for trespassing.”

All quiet. When he looked to her, she had her head tipped back against the wood of the ship, eyes closed, hands fiddling with the frayed edge of her shawl, a thin, faded grey strip of fabric. She must have woven it herself; he thought he recognized her patterns as they shifted in the bright sunlight, but they had grown distorted by time, the threads stained with brown, dry blood.

With a sigh, he turned back to the sail, adjusting it, the scrape of rope soothing to his ears. The sea was never meant to be so silent, yet as the presence of the gods had fled the last standing city of their once great empire, as his father’s palace now sat cold and empty at the bottom of the sea, so too had the sea seemed to have lost all its magic.

No, not all of it, he thought. Was he himself not living proof that magic still lived in this land? He could yet still breathe underwater, could still command his boat and navigate the seas with more skill than the most experienced captain. There had been the terrible moment, a painful and fleeting thing, in the heartbeats between leaping into the sea with his arms around Annabeth and hitting the water, where he wondered if, rather than securing their escape, he had led them to their deaths instead, that he had lost the powers Annabeth had accused him of relying on too strongly.

But of course, they had not. Percy was of the sea, the ancient salt and spray his blood and his breath, and the power of Poseidon would remain within him always, even if the god himself did not.

In silence, they made their way then to Piraeus. As Percy had predicted, they blended in quite well with their fellow pilgrims, and if any person thought it odd that their vessel was only crewed by two, they did not mention it. At the very least, they were spared from walking in the hot sun, as Percy managed to scrounge up a few coins from the meager money Annabeth had found to rent them passage on a horse cart which traveled into the city. Still tired from the long journey, she lay her head on his shoulder, their backs pressed against the wooden cart.

Percy had never seen Athens before. He had seen the painting, which hung in Annabeth’s and her siblings’ villa, and he had heard her speak of it, many many times. Based on how often she spoke of it, he felt as though he had been there a thousand times before, had seen its winding streets and mighty marble monuments. By the gods, they had been tasked with crafting little miniatures of the Parthenon as a way of testing their fine motor movements. The way she talked, the things she built, surely she must have seen it for herself. “Bet you’re glad to be back,” he said, not really expecting an answer. “I’ve never been to Athens before.”

“Neither have I,” she mumbled.

He turned to look at her, shocked. “You haven’t?”

“Never had the chance.”

“But--I thought--the way you speak of it--”

“I’ve always wanted to see it, of course,” she said. Annabeth kept her eyes on her hands, playing with the increasingly fraying ends of her shawl. “All children of Athena do. But I have studied the temple more keenly than anyone I know. I know everything there is to know about the Acropolis. Every temple, every column, every brick was placed with the finest care and the foremost precision.” She smiled then, a small, creeping thing, and it seemed to lighten her whole face. “I cannot wait to see it.”

Like this, so soft in the face, almost dreamy, she was honestly quite pretty, he thought to himself. “Tell me about it,” he asked, as soft as a puff of wind, as though he had never heard her speak of it before.

Her shawl dropped to her lap. “We begin at the propylea,” she said, tracing the outline with her fingers, “the great winding road up the Western side of the mountain. Immediately to your right, there is the temple of Athena Nike, then once you enter beneath the great archway…” She sighed, almost ardent. “There, you would see it: the statue of Athena, and behind her, the Parthenon. The columns are of the Doric order, and thus unadorned at their top by any sort of frivolous curls or curves. Above them sit the metopes, which ring the whole building, and each marble frieze tells of a great epic; the Titanomachy, the Amazonomachy, the Trojan war. And the colors,” her face broke out into a true smile, and her eyes crinkled at the corners, shining and silver. “Such beautiful colors, red and gold and green. Oh, and the pediments! We must not forget the pediments.”

“The pediments?” He frowned. “I do not know that word.”

“It refers to the triangular space between the portico and the roof. Do you not remember the door of the Big House?”

Yes, he recalled now, though he didn’t see what all the fuss was over the empty space was. “Are the pediments truly so important?”

“These ones are,” she said, “for the western pediment depicts the story of our parents.”

“Ah.”

Now this was a story which she loved to hold over him, retelling every chance she could, to make sure that he never forgot which of their divine parents were revered by the city of Athens.

“It is beautiful, Perseus, you shall see,” she said, with a teasing grin. “It is said that the bodies and the horses are rendered so perfectly, I cannot imagine that you will not be able to see the look on your father’s face as he realizes he has lost the contest for Athens.”

“Yes, well,” he harrumphed. “It had better be worth it, then.”

“It will be,” she assured him. “Once we round the Areopagus , you will be able to see the propylea above the mountain, and the perfect point of the Parthenon above that.”

When they approached the Areopagus proper, some hour or so later, she actually leaned forward, going up on her knees to better see the view from their cart.

“Here it is,” she said. Her whole body quivered, as tense as a bow on a string. “Here it is.”

He smiled at her excitement, as though she were a child.

Almost immediately, he noticed something was wrong. Her shoulders were tight, raised up to her ears as she went deathly still. “Annabeth?” She did not answer him. “Annabeth?”

Joining her at the lip of the cart, he looked up at the Acropolis.

He frowned. “What are those walls?”

The many, many times she had described the Acropolis to him, she had never once mentioned the stone walls. Brown and grey, they rose up out of the sheer cliffside, notched indentations in the top like teeth, as though they were devouring the cliff-face whole. On the northern and southern ends, two large towers lorded over the rest.

Too enthralled in the stone walls, he did not notice as their cart traveled onward in the shadow of the cliff. “Where are we going?” he asked, looking towards the horse at the front of the cart. “Was that not the propylea ?”

It was only then that he saw Annabeth. Pale as a ghost, she was, her knuckles white from gripping the edge of the wood, and her face was set in a terrible grimace. Her eyes bulged out as though she saw a monster, her chin trembling as she opened her mouth and gasped out, “Those are not supposed to be there.”

“What isn’t?”

“The walls.” Her voice was barely more than a whisper. He always knew her to be solid, immovable, strong as a statue, but now she looked as though she could be brought low by a mere puff of wind.

“Perhaps they are new,” he offered.

But she fell silent again, glaring at the cliffside as they passed. Her hands, now resting in her lap, clenched and unclenched over and over again, twitching in the manner that suggested she was about to draw her knife, though what target had drawn her ire he could only guess--presumably, she dreamt of stabbing the fool who had chosen to add walls to the Acropolis. Her jaw was hard, set so firmly he thought he could hear her grinding her teeth behind her lips. Antagonistic as they were, he had been on the receiving end of that glare more times than he cared to remember, and he was again glad that they had chosen to set aside their rivalry for now. Eventually, the driver let them off on the eastern side of the mountain. For a moment, he made to help her down from the cart, as he had been taught, but looking at her face, he decided not to risk the insult, allowing her to scramble down to the ground by herself, and side-by-side, they made the long trek to the Acropolis, just another two pilgrims on the final leg of their journey.

Unfortunately, their troubles were merely beginning.

Cresting the hill, the midafternoon sun beating down on them, Annabeth stiffened against him, so severely he thought she might faint. “What,” she hissed, “is that monstrosity ?”

He blinked, squinting through the bright light, though he did not see anything so obviously offensive to the senses--but then, he did not know the field of architecture nearly as well as she did. “What is it?”

“That!”

On top of the building immediately before them rose a bell tower, a cross sitting proudly above it. Surely she could not be referring to that, as the streets of Constantinople had been practically littered with bell towers and crosses. One would be hard pressed to find a corner which did not have a church with its own bell and steeple. “The tower?”

“No, the columns,” she scoffed. “Of course the malakes tower! What is it doing on top of the Parthenon?”

“Annabeth,” he said slowly. “It is a bell tower. Surely, you know what a bell tower is.”

She flushed. “Yes, I know what a bell tower is, phykios , but what I do not know is which imbecile thought to put one up on top of the Parthenon!” She pointed, glaring at it. “It is not even symmetrical!”

He tilted his head, looking. She was right; it did seem oddly placed, given what he had heard of the temple, far back and to the left.

“This is all wrong,” she fretted, worrying her lip between her teeth. “This is--this is wrong. We are supposed to enter through the propylea from the West, into the Precinct of Artemis Brauronia, then pass the Athena Promachos on the northern edge , and--and the pediment--”

Oh dear. She was shaking, now, a leaf on the wind. It was a risky move, to be sure, but he rested a hand on her shoulder, squeezing. She trembled so violently, he thought he could feel it in his bones. “Here,” he said, “let us go inside. We can sit down, catch our breath.”

The fact that she did not refuse him was more concerning than if she had turned around and stabbed him.

Walking into the--the church, he supposed it was, he too felt a little uneasy. The western pediment, the one she had spoken so highly of, the one which was supposed to portray the origins of their ancient feud, a good third of it was missing, plucked straight from the middle of the frieze, the faded pale statues headless, like corpses in the grip of death.

Percy had seen many churches before. Few could compare to St. Sophia, but in essence, all churches looked somewhat the same. He did not have the fancy words for it, not like Annabeth, but he could recognize their shared features should he see them. This was…

He did not know what to think of it, truly.

He supposed that St. Sophia had spoiled him, all that light streaming in through the dome of the roof. The churches of Constantinople were not places which he frequented, but he found himself in St. Sophia for pagan-related duties more frequently than he cared to be, and had become used to that kind of space, so open and airy. By contrast, here the ceiling was flat, dark, nearly oppressive. Rich frescoes and golden mosaics surrounded them, their strange, frightening faces staring down at them, in cold, apathetic judgement. Pilgrims streamed in through the narrow entrance, pressed so close together that Annabeth was forced to grab onto his arm for fear of being separated. Still she shook, shivering as though she were feverish, and before he could think better of it, he placed an arm around her shoulder, drawing her off to the side, away from the large crush of people. Gently steering her, he brought them to the back left corner of the main gallery, and dropped to his knees in order to better blend in with the crowds, pleased when she took his lead without any further prompting.

“This is all wrong,” she whispered. “This is so wrong.”

He squeezed her shoulder, placing his head against hers. “I’m so sorry.”

“Those walls,” her breath hitched, “those hideous, ugly walls--”

“I know,” he said, “I know.”

“I--I didn’t think that--I never thought that, that it might have changed. That it might be different.” She turned to him, eyes wild. “I never--the Parthenon, it’s… you do not understand, the Parthenon is perfect. It is the most perfect piece of architecture ever conceived, ever planned, ever built. The architects, their understanding of mathematics is unparalleled, even to this day. It is perfect .”

He did understand, but now was not the time to point that out. Now was simply the time to listen.

“All children of Athena, we can only dream of creating something even half as beautiful. The Parthenon isn’t supposed to change, it is supposed to endure. Survive.” She swallowed, eyes blinking back furious tears. “Look at what they have done to her altar. Her temple.” Turning from him, her hand swiped at her face, and he looked away. “And these horrible, horrible bodies,” she hissed, after a moment. “The statues of the Parthenon are meant to embody the perfection of the human form. What man do you know looks like that?”

Towards the end of the room was the greatest offence yet. As with all churches, this one too had a portrait of the moment of death of their trinity god, his arms fastened to a wooden cross, his head hung in shame and despair. At his feet, a woman wrapped in blue looked on him in painful grief, her hands outstretched as though she could catch the frozen stream of glittering red which poured from a black mark in his side, their features flattened and reconstituted with different colored stones, thick lines criss crossing their bodies.

She shook her head, disbelieving. “My mother would never have let this insult go unpunished. She must still be here. She has to be.”

Now her tears had dried, and her mouth was set in a thin, grim line, stubborn and serious. No longer did she shake apart on the cold, stone floor, but was still, poised, gathering energy about her as she waited for the proper moment to strike. Oh, he did not have the heart to attempt to convince her out of her plan.

“Stay here. I will see if I can find a way to speak to her.” And so she left him there in the gallery of the church, off to seek some quiet corner.

Unfortunately, she had not specified for how long she would be gone. And truthfully, she should have known better--they were all saddled with the half-blood’s curse, the plight of wandering attention and nervous energy. To order Percy to stay put was simply a folly. He vowed that he would not leave the Acropolis, for it simply was not that big, and they were sure to find each other easily, but he could not be blamed for indulging this small bout of an itinerant spirit.

Walking out of the church, before he could exit entirely, something gold caught his eye, and he looked up. Almost directly above the entrance was a raised part of the roof, reminiscent of the dome with which he was most familiar, but instead of sunlight, the dome was lined with gold and pearl and lapis lazuli in what even he had to admit was a stunning mosaic. The same woman was depicted here, in the same stunning blue robe, though she looked down on them not in grief, but in deep, pensive thought. No, not pensive, he amended--calculating. With her straight nose and keen eyes, she seemed to stare deep into his very heart and soul, considering all the contents she found there, and he was unsure whether or not she found him wanting.

Perhaps it was merely because he had been thinking of her so often these last few days, but for some strange reason, the woman in the mosaic reminded him of Annabeth. He had seen that piercing gaze on her face many times, one that she shared with all of her siblings. It was a trait inherited directly from their shared mother, the one they wore when they were crafting the very finest of their battle strategies.

Unnerved, he continued on, stepping out of the church into its looming shadow.

In front of him rose another one of Annabeth’s hated towers, round in the way he had come to expect from fortified walls, with soldiers eyeing the pilgrims warily from their positions at the top, though he doubted these men had seen much in the way of fighting. Although, who was he to tell. He had thought, once upon a time, that churches were meant to be sacred spaces to men of god, places where no blood could be shed, nor hateful action be taken. Of course, he knew better now.

Wandering round the Acropolis did little to ease his strange mood. It could not have been a more different experience than exploring his father’s palace beneath the sea; rising high above the city, rather than submerged beneath the depths, where one was empty, ruined and rotting, the other was full, crowded with masses of travelers and worshippers, its fortifications kept seemingly well. And yet, as he walked, still he sensed that strange emptiness that he had felt down below. The people who surrounded him may as well have been ghosts for all that he could know them.

Unbidden, his footsteps brought him past a collection of red roofed houses, squat and low, then round to a strangely shaped building on the northern side of the Acropolis. He frowned, walking down the slim stone steps, taking in the columns whose spaces had been filled with grey stone.

He had not lied to Annabeth when he said he had never been to Athens before, and he surely did not have her thorough knowledge of the ancient buildings which decorated it, but he knew, deep in his bones, that what he was looking at here was wrong. Beyond the ugly stone, it came too far forward, as though it were a living, breathing creature, swallowing the ancient marble over the course of a thousand years. Tilting his head, he tried to put it from his mind as he considered the four pillars which stood before him.

There was something behind those walls, he knew, though he did not know how, something which called to him, deep in his soul. If he closed his eyes, he thought that he could smell seawater, imagined that he could hear the gurgling of a spring, deep beneath the foundations of the earth, pouring forth as though it were a beating heart.

“Percy.”

He blinked.

Annabeth stood before him, scowling. “Did I not say to stay where you were?”

The sun laid low on the horizon, casting long shadows over him, though he could not have been standing here for more than a few minutes. “I… I apologize,” he said. His thoughts were fuzzy, as though he were emerging from an unintended nap. “I did not realize how long it had been. Did you find what you were seeking?”

Her scowl deepened further, before dropping, as though it were a mask, leaving nothing but weariness behind. “No,” she said, her gaze dropping to the ground. “My mother would not come.”

“Perhaps we can find a market,” he suggested, though he knew it would be a fruitless gesture, “and procure a sacrifice. Maybe that would entice her to appear.”

But she shook her head, her lips pulled into a frown. “That would not be wise. I fear that if she allowed the desecration of her temple in this way without repercussion, there is very little that would call her down from Olympus.” She turned to join him, then, standing shoulder to shoulder as she, too, beheld the strange facade.

“Tell me about this place,” he requested. Speaking at length on architecture was, after all, one of her favorite pastimes, and he did so hate to see that sorrowful look on her face. “I feel as if I… know it, somehow.”

“I am not surprised,” she said. “This is--was--is the Erechtheion, the temple dedicated to both of our divine parents.”

“I see,” he teased, hoping to make her smile. “And you said that the Athenians did not like my father.”

Gods be praised, it worked. Trembling, as though she were fighting it, a smile did raise the corners of her mouth. “I said nothing of the sort, merely that the early Athenians vastly preferred my mother.”

“And yet, here lies a temple to his glory.”

She lightly smacked him. “There were shrines to the other gods as well, phykios .”

“You cannot take this from me, skjaldmær. I shall go round proclaiming its glory to all who would listen to the tale of Poseidon and his Athenian temple.”

“Oh, hush.” But she was grinning now, and his heart rose at the sight.

They stood there for some time, as the sun continued to set over the complex, the shadows of the towers lengthening with every minute. The longer they stood, the more the question nagged at him, filling him with a desire and a longing that he had not known for some time, a yearning which reached beyond his skin and bones deep into the core of him. “Why do I know this place?” he asked her.

Equally spellbound, she answered, “Legend held that this is where our parents’ great rivalry began. They say that beneath the Erechtheion lies the three marks of the sea god’s trident, under the branches of the very first olive tree.”

“Here, you say?” How extraordinary. Here was the spot which would come to define their antagonism, a mighty tree the seeds of which were planted thousands of years ago, far beyond the memory of any living man, recorded in stone and letter. Here they were, two souls adrift in the uncaring winds of time, and yet, together, they had come full circle, to the place where it all began. Who of the ancient Athenians could have guessed, all those generations ago, that their choice of patron would shape the course of history, as a river through a valley? Who among them would have known how their decision would take root throughout the years, until it blossomed within Percy and Annabeth, children who, despite following the same gods, would have been as total strangers to them? The thought filled him with an emotion he could not quite name, only that he knew he was glad for her presence.

“Thank you,” she murmured, as quiet as a breath, “for looking after me. I am sorry to have dragged you here on nothing but a whim and a wish.”

Acting on some instinct he did not know he possessed, he reached down, and took her hand. It was warm in his, her heart beating strongly through the tips of her fingers. “Think nothing of it. We two must stay together, should we not?”

“We should indeed.”

She looked on him without any distaste or annoyance for what must have been the first time in a very long time, and it sent a warm thrill through him, as though the shadows around them had receded, bathing the two of them in sunlight. “I have been thinking,” he said, inspired by this place and this time and the thought of their legacy. “If indeed, the gods that we know and worship have truly… have truly gone,” and his voice grew thick at the thought. He cleared his throat, and was grateful she did not comment on it. “Then we should continue to travel together. This truce that we have struck, it has proven beneficial in more ways than I could have predicted, and if we are to survive whatever comes next, I have a feeling that we should stay together. If you agree, Annabeth, let us, here and now, tie off these threads of our history, as one would to a tapestry. Let us end this rivalry of ours.”

She looked at him, a cascade of feelings crossing her face, too quick for him to name, until she settled on something which he would define as apprehension, perhaps. Gazing into his eyes, she searched for some hint that he would betray her, he supposed, though he could not blame her for it. His proposal was a novel one, and bold as well. Should her mother get word of this agreement, Annabeth could find herself in deep trouble, as Athena’s hatred of Percy himself was no secret.

This close, the setting sun seemed to reflect in her eyes, transforming them from steel to silver, a kaleidoscope of glittering stars. This close, he realized he could trace the flush on her cheeks as it traveled towards the crooked bridge of her nose, and he saw that there were freckles there, beneath the tanned skin.

“A plan worthy of Athena,” she said after some consideration. “I agree to your terms.”

And thus, it was ended.

“To think,” he murmured, “that such a legendary rivalry could have been resolved so easily.”

“It is strange,” she admitted, “that along with my mother and our ancestral home, I have lost this as well.” And she looked out over the city, despondent.

He frowned, as he did not think of their antagonism as something to lose; rather, he felt as though the ancient fields had been overturned, the old soil furrowed, giving way to new and fertile ground, full of endless possibility.

“Well,” he said, hoping to put a smile back on her face, "my first act, in the shedding of our rivalry, is to pledge myself to our future empress, Ana Zabeta Palaiologina." Then, in a fit of insanity, he raised her hand to his lips, and laid a kiss there.

She did not smile at him; rather, she rolled her eyes, pulling her hand from his grasp, and wiping it on the front of her dress.

“Where to then, your majesty? The Morea?”

“Enough,” she said. “I had given up that plan some time ago.”

“Oh?”

“As you and I have both noted, the despotes will not give us the army that we seek, nor the Legion, nor any of the rulers of this Christendom. I fear,” she sighed, biting her lip, “I fear that Constantinople is lost to us forever.” She looked to him again, clear eyes shining. “We have lost, Perseus. The gods have gone, the empire has fallen, and we have lost.”

And that, he supposed, was that. The reign of the Olympians was ended. They were well and truly alone.

But, he thought, at least they were together.

“What now?” Endless possibility, he thought. How frightening. “Do we look for the agoge ?”

“I do not see how we can,” she admitted. “Chiron could be anywhere, and I have not the faintest idea of where to begin.”

Neither, unfortunately, did he. They could have been anywhere in the world, but the world was a vast, vast place. “Let us find some place to rest. Tomorrow, we can decide what to do, but tonight, we have earned our respite.”

Their business thus concluded, they wound their way down the cliff, to the city below, in search of some place to rest their heads.

It was not terribly difficult for them to find an inn. Claiming tiredness, Annabeth bade him to go and get them something to eat. “Anything in particular?” he asked.

“Something cheap,” was her perfunctory response. Collapsing onto their shared bed, which was, unfortunately, the only one which had been available in that particular establishment, she turned away from him, curling into herself, and sensing the dismissal for what it was, he left her to it, setting out for food.

Immediately, he wished he had been able to entice her to come with him.

Athens in the evening was quite beautiful. The air had cooled considerably, the low light casting the homes and streets in shades of red and pink and gold. It was smaller than he had expected the great city to be, however. He had been expecting something grander even than Rome, or the city of Constantine, yet what he saw put him more in mind of a small, backwater town. Even to his untrained eye, the buildings were mismatched and patchwork, different styles of marble sewn together haphazardly, unsymmetrically and non-uniformly--a cardinal sin, he gathered, to the keen mind of an architect. From the way Annabeth had spoken of it, Athens by rights should have been the virtual center of the known world, the shining jewel of Hellas and beyond, as it had been in centuries long past. Whatever it may have lacked in people or in great thinkers nowadays, however, there was at least plenty of food to be found. The air here was thick with the heady smells of garlic, salt, and onion, transporting him back to his childhood home, to his mother and her kitchen.

Gods, his mother. In all this time, he had not even spared a thought to her or her husband or their daughter. He had sent them from Constantinople prior to the siege, but he did not know where they had landed. Were they safe? Healthy? Had little Esther been able to sleep through the night without being plagued by any more nightmares? Was his mother able to make her pastries still, with cinnamon and mahleb?

Would he ever see them again?

Without much conscious thought, his wanderings brought him to a stall on the edge of the populated area, every inch covered in reams of fabric, richly hued, in shades of copper and cream and grey. He had passed by hundreds others just like it, so he was not certain why this one had caught his eye. Perhaps coming across this particular stall had simply coincided with an idea he had been concocting, a coincidence of good timing and sudden fortune. Perhaps it had been the length of blue cloth he had seen behind the elderly woman who sat in the center of her tent, eyeing him warily. “See something that piques your fancy?” she asked, though she made no further move to greet him.

“Oh,” he said, “no, thank you. I was merely looking.”

“Finest cloths in the city,” she said, a bold claim, he thought, since he was quite certain he had seen these exact fabrics on display in every little tent he had come across so far. “I make them all myself.”

“I do not have much in the way of money,” he said, hoping she would leave him be.

Oddly enough, that only seemed to excite her. She turned over her shoulder, pulling the bolt of blue down from behind her, and holding it out to him. In the evening light, he thought it might resemble the color of a starless sky, a deep, inky blue. “You have good taste--this color is very fashionable these days.”

“Truly, I have no money,” he said, even as an absurd thought began to form in his mind. The color, he thought, that blue, it would look quite beautiful set against a certain blonde braid.

She sighed. “What do you have?”

“Huh?”

“The malakes noblewoman who ordered this from me has declined to send someone to retrieve it for her for several days now,” she said, “and so it sits in the back of my stall, unsold and taking up valuable space, when it could be in your hands instead, or draped around the shoulders of your beautiful wife.”

Percy blushed. “She’s not--I mean--”

“But because I am a generous businesswoman,” she interrupted, smirking, “show me what you have, and we may be able to come to some arrangement.”

The way she looked at him, all-knowing and altogether too familiar, compelled him to obey. Counting his coins, he laid out his paltry offering before her, the smattering of silver stavrata, Venetian lira, and smaller, duller bronze coins making for a pitiful display, when his fingers fumbled, and a golden drachma tumbled out of his hands, coming to rest before her.

He froze, praying that she would not see it, or if she did, that she might mistake it for an Italian florin, and leave it be.

Naturally, of course, that is what she picked up, her eyes settling upon it almost instantly.

“Well, well, well,” she said, looking at the coin with curiosity. “It has been some time since I have seen one of these.”

“Ah,” Percy started, flushing. That coin was not meant for mortals, and they had precious few of them to spare. “That--I--that is to say--”

“If you are looking for the gods,” she went on, peering at him with new eyes, “I could have saved you the trouble. They are not here. In truth, they have not blessed this land with their presence for some time.”

He blinked, astonished.

With a kindly smile, she tucked the drachma back into his coin purse, swiping some of the lira for herself. “I think this makes for an adequate trade, no?”

Still, he was rendered dumb and speechless.

“Keep an eye on your money, traveler,” she said. “You never know if you will find more.”

The noise of the city was dwindling, down from a lively hum to a low murmur, and the light turned even cooler as the cold moon rose over the cliff. Annabeth would most likely be worried at his long delay, or at least starving. But he could not force himself to move yet. “You’re--” he stammered, “you--”

“Yes, child,” she said. “Now, you should be headed off. The guards do not take kindly to stragglers wandering the streets so late at night.”

There were a million things he wished to ask this woman, important things, questions of ancestry and whether or not there were more of their kind nearby, but all that he was able to say was the terrible, sad news that he carried within his heart. “Constantinople has gone,” he said. “The agoge has vanished.”

Bittersweet, she smiled, folding the shawl for him into a tight bundle. “I know.”

“You do?”

She nodded. “I had a dream.” And thus, she bade him good night.

In a daze, Percy wandered back to the inn where they were staying. On his way back, he had stopped to purchase some food like he promised her he would, settling a loaf of hard, cheap bread and some kefalotiri , as that was all he could afford, but at least it would tide them over for the night, until they decided on the next course of action.

When he returned, Annabeth was no longer lying prone on their bed, but sat upright, her back against the wall, eyes closed. She opened one as he entered, her hand automatically sneaking towards the folds of her dress where he knew she kept her knife, until, upon recognizing him, she relaxed, letting her hand fall back down to her lap.

“Here,” he said, placing the parcels on the bed between them, though he kept the shawl tucked away against his chest, for now. “Dinner.”

“Thank you,” she said, quietly, taking the bread, picking at it with her fingers, slipping the teeniest of bites into her mouth. After some time, she noticed that he was not following suit. “You’re not eating.”

It was not a question. “Ah, I ate mine as I returned to the inn,” he said, easily.

She stared at him, not at all convinced.

“In any case,” he went on, eager to change the topic, “I have been thinking about what we should do next.” He had done nothing of the sort, but hopefully it would take her mind off of the obvious.

“So have I.” She put the bread aside, drawing her knees up to her chest, and hugging them. “I would like to go home.”

Percy frowned. Surely she did not mean Sigeion . She had already indicated her feelings towards the search for Chiron and the rest of camp, namely, that it would be a useless, fruitless, frustrating search, and surely she did not mean Constantinople, lost to the ages. What other home was there?

“You know that my mortal family does not hail from here.”

“I do.” It was not a piece of information well hidden; one only had to look at her pale skin, her blonde hair, and her looming figure to know that she was, in all likelihood, not one of the Hellenes by blood.

She would not look at him, her fingers tapping random patterns over the fabric of her dress. “If he still lives, I should like to see my father.”

“Oh.” That was… unexpected. To anyone who knew her, there were a few core tenants of Annabeth as a person; her love of architecture was one of them, and her distaste for her father was another.

“When I--left him, he lived in a city called Uppsala, far to the North of here.”

“How far?”

She gave him a rueful smile. “Svealand.”

Well. That was indeed quite far. “You mean to travel to Svealand? On your own? That would take near on half a year.”

“To the East of Constantinople, there is an old trading route once used by the Norsemen to travel between their lands and ours,” she said. “A river by the name of Danapris .”

“A river?” he asked, skeptically.

“One that spans nearly the entire continent. In the time of   Basileios II Porphryogennitus, this was the route which delivered his legendary Varangian guard. I know for a fact it has fallen out of use, and the tribes of the Kievan Rus’ no longer roam that area.”

He had never heard of those people before--not that it mattered. “Annabeth, it does not matter how fearsome and ferocious you believe you are, you cannot travel all the way to Svealand by yourself.”

She scowled at him, lips pulling back into a snarl. “I have done so once before.”

“The whole road? By yourself?”

“Well,” she hesitated, “no. Not the whole thing. But I traveled some of it, before Thalia found me.”

“Be that as it may,” for he knew she would attempt to traverse the whole way by herself, merely to spite him, “as Thalia once did for you, let me do as well. I shall accompany you to Svealand.”

Her eyes widened. “Percy, no. You should be looking for Chiron.”

“As you yourself have said, he could be anywhere,” said Percy, “and I may have all the time in the world to find him. In the meantime, I should very much like to see you safely returned to your father.”

“I told you, the road is long since abandoned.”

“And you’ll forgive me if I am skeptical of that fact. Not of you,” he said at the look on her face, “nor your vast pools of knowledge, but even you cannot predict whether or not you shall meet trouble along the road, and it would comfort me greatly if I were able to come along.” Sourly, she opened her mouth as if to argue, but he interrupted her. “Annabeth. You cannot convince me otherwise. I am coming with you.”

Eyes narrowed, she glared at him, before acquiescing. “Fine.”

“Good.”

“Then we should rest. We shall leave at first light on the morrow.” On that abrupt note, she flopped down onto the bed, turning over once again, her back to him. “Good night, Perseus.”

The air was charged between them, with what he could not say, though he could nearly feel it shaking, as taught as bowstring. “Good night,” he said in response. Then, blowing out their room’s solitary candle, he laid himself down to sleep as well, his back to her, and thought not of the bundle of cloth he had purchased on a whim, not of how her golden braid might look against the dark blue fabric, and not of the sweet smile she had given him in the shadow of the Erechtheion. No, he thought of none of these things. Not at all.

#pjo #percabeth #the rivalry ends here #the marble king #my fic #idk why i keep posting these bc no one is reading them lmfao

[metallic-roses]

Everything for You

(For this one I’m going to assume that Plumbeline is in her mid twenties during the recent events in Crown of Candy, and was around five when the Ravening War ended)

My dress drags on the stairs behind me as I walk down the stairs, my slippers silencing my feet on the marble. The manor is cold today, colder than usual, and I wrap my arms around myself.

My great grandmother’s old, creaky voice echoes through the foyer “Blienne, come here.” She summons and I obey.

“Coming Granmumma,” I reply, reminding myself not to run or rush.

Mother always tells me to be respectful, but elegant. To leap down the stairs, tripping over the skirt of the flowing dress I’m wearing, would most likely be the least elegant thing imaginable.

I enter the family room to see my great grandmother sitting on one of the couches, green hair in wild waves Mother would never allow one of the other family members to wear.

I perch myself on an armchair across from her “Good afternoon Granmumma.” I greet, and when she doesn’t respond I continue speaking “Oh, have you seen that beautiful comb that Father brought from the Meat Lands for me? I’ve been looking for it, I’d like to bring it-”

“The comb isn’t important.” Granmumma interrupts, green eyes distant “You should know that.”

I force a polite laugh. I think I know where this conversation is going “Well, not really, but I’d still like to have it. It’s the non-essential things that make life worth living, at least in my eyes.”

Granmumma’s hand snaps out to grasp mine, faster than I thought she was capable “The comb isn’t important, Blienne. Not to you and I. House Corymbos possesses the last of Fructera’s magic, you cannot continue to let your gift fade.”

“Granmumma you know we’re not supposed to talk about that-” I rush, but don’t pull my hand away. I don’t know why.

Granmumma waves her free hand and a coffee table lifts into the air. My words fade.

She turns back to me, eyes warm “Try, Blienne.” My great grandmother urges. I hesitate and Granmumma continues “I know you have the gift. As much as you deny it, as much as my granddaughter denies it. I know I shouldn’t have waited so long to push you.”

And I listen.

There’s always been that quiet song of magic in my blood. Ever since I was a child. I’ve been good at ignoring it for years.

But for the first time, I yield to that song. Let it envelop me, let myself fall into the magic.

Frozen smoothie begins to spread from me through the room, soft and slow. I stare at sight, watching the pastel pink spread through the room, glittering in the light. I reach down to the floor and brush my fingers over the new surface, ignoring the cold biting through my hand.

“It’s incredible,” I breath, a smile spreading across my face.

A harsh, angry voice cuts through the room “What the hell are you doing?!” Mother yells, storming through. The frozen smoothie cracks and shatters, fading into nothing in seconds. 

Dread creeps through me. I never should have done this, never should have entertained Granmumma. This is the opposite of what I’m supposed to do.

Mother turns on Granmumma “She’s leaving for Comida tomorrow! She’s going to be the youngest handmaiden to the Bulb-damned princess of Fructera, the daughter of the Concordant Emperor! Do you know how much work I’ve had to do to get Blienne that position? How much training I’ve had to give her to make sure she’ll be able to restore some of the glory to House Corymbos that you lost when you insisted on continuing to support magic, even when the Bulbian Church took power? I will not have you continuing to ruin this family. I will not have you putting my daughter in danger. Besides Brightgarden, Comida is the lion’s den for magic users. She will be hanged for witchcraft!”

Granmumma sits up straight, folding her hands in her lap. She hardly looks fazed “Magic is worth it, granddaughter. We are the last keepers-”

“I’m not listening to this,” Mother says, waving her hand dismissively. Her face is the angriest I’ve ever seen it “Blienne, go to bed. You have a long journey tomorrow.”

I nod, standing and brushing off my skirt “Yes Mother,” I reply and rush off, not looking back.

(Three years later)

I haven’t looked back at magic. Not since that day, not once.

I’ve done what Mother asks of me. Time and time again. I have been what my great grandmother should have been. Obedient and elegant and Bulb-worshipping.

The other handmaidens scoffed at me at first. I was young, part of a disgraced house, and it was clear that every coin my family had left was put into getting me here.  I let them scoff. I didn’t retaliate. No matter how much the magic within me begged to.

Two things made it worth it. 

The honor I’ve been bringing to my family, to my elder brother and younger siblings, to my parents. The future I’ve been giving them.

And Lady Plumbeline.

I loved her from the moment I saw her and I have continued to love her ever since. The beautiful, quiet, strength and bravery of her. The elegance and skill. The undying ambition and the intelligence and ruthlessness to back it up.

She doesn’t know, of course. One of the many things Mother taught me for court is to hide my emotions expertly. To portray what I want people to see.

It’s been a useful skill in climbing the ranks. It was useful among the other handmaidens, who were surprised to say the least, when I rose to become Plumbeline’s favorite. Her most trusted. And from Plumbeline’s support, I began to build House Corymbos’ reputation back up, brick by brick.

I don’t know what I’ll do if I don’t have Plumbeline’s support, her company anymore.

Because Lady Plumbeline has gotten sick. Deadly sick. None of the healers know what to do. Emperor Uvano has said that it’s a sickness his family has been prone to throughout the years. A one common to die from.

I remember when I heard that it’s likely she’d die. It was hard to keep the mask hiding my emotions on then. My knees went weak, my eyes filled with tears, and my chest tightened impossible. I felt my magic race through my veins, fear and sorrow fueling a surge more powerful than I had ever experienced.

That tightened feeling in my chest hasn’t faded, but gotten sharper as Plumbeline’s condition has worsened. And worsened. Until the possibility of Plumbeline’s death, which looms closer every day, is the only thing I can think about.

It’s the thing keeping me awake tonight.

I curl up on top of my blankets, deep violet curls spread out around my head. As usual these past few weeks, my mind is occupied with racing through every piece of medical information I’ve ever heard. Anything that might save the girl I love.

And then it crashes into me.

Magic.

Not magic I know. I haven’t trained nearly enough to be able to help. But Granmumma told stories of beings of magic, spirits of Fructera.

I reach out my hand, digging inside myself for something. Anything. Any way to summon a creature that could save Plumbeline.

A seed appears in my hand. It’s a small, warm, light brown seed. I pick it up between two fingers, examining the object, trying to contain the hope that’s exploding within me.

The seed cracks open, sending a shock through my hand. I drop the seed on the floor, and before I can reach to pick it up again, a bright green sprout begins to curl up from the seed.

It grows right before my eyes into a creature with wood and bark for a body, leaves for hair, and different types of fruit dangling off of their arms, back, shoulders. It towers above me and I swing my legs off the side of the bed, staring up at the spirit. The Fruit Tree.

“Hello Blienne Corymbos,” The Fruit Tree groans, their voice low and grumbling. I open my mouth to respond but the Fruit Tree instead begins to move, kneeling in front of me and touching a large, rough hand to my chin “You are young for the burden placed upon you. The last magic of a land is no small deal, Blienne Corymbos.”

And then an orange snaps off the Fruit Tree and splatters on the ground. The Fruit Tree stumbles to the side, catching themselves on one hand.

“I am not as strong as I was, Blienne Corymbos.” The Fruit Tree tells me, sorrow clouding their voice. The sorrow seeps into me, adding into the anxiousness and worry. The Fruit Tree seems to sense my change in mood “What do you wish of me?” They ask.

There is no hesitation, not a doubt in my mind “I want you to heal Plumbeline Uvano. I want you to save her.”

The Fruit Tree tilts their head to the side, more fruit falling to the ground and splattering “You love her.” They say. Not a question.

“I do. More than anything.”

The Fruit Tree shrinks an inch. I flinch in shock, but don’t comment on the change. They weren’t exaggerating when they spoke of fading strength.

“There is not a world were you get to live a life with Plumbeline Uvano, Blienne Corymbos.” The Fruit Tree tells me and I feel... numb. I don’t feel anything “Do you still wish to save her?”

I look up at the being, the spirit of something long gone.“I believe she’s going to do good in the world. Plumbeline is worth it.” The Fruit Tree nods slowly, flickering and shrinking again. I scoot forward “What’s happening to you?”

“I am not as strong as I was, Blienne Corymbos.“ The Fruit Tree repeats.

The hope I feel flickers and terror races through my veins “Can you still heal her?”

More fruit falls on the ground. Item by item. Agonizingly slowly.

“I believe I can, Blienne Corymbos. But it will come at a cost.” The Fruit Tree says “My strength alone is not enough to save your love, not since magic has faded from Fructera. I will need yours. Permanently.”

I tilt my head, considering what he means by ‘strength’. And then I know. And even though I’ve been pushing it back all my life, I know I’m losing a piece of myself if I do this.

“You- you want my magic?” I ask and the Fruit Tree nods. “Okay. Okay. I’ll do anything. Just-”

And my magic fades.

Everything is shattering into a million pieces. I can’t see, can’t breath, can’t think. All I feel is aching emptiness. The remaining pieces of me turn to piercing shards, scratching at my insides.

Agony. That’s what I feel. My body fades. My being fades. I’m just an empty shell where a life used to be, where vibrance used to be. It hurts so badly, so so badly.

And then I’m back.

I fall to the ground and curl up, gasping for breath. The Fruit Tree is gone, along with the fruit that fell off of it. But i know that it worked, I can feel it deep within me.

All I can do now is hope that Plumbeline uses this gift wisely.

#ACOC #A Crown of Candy #Fanfic #Dimension 20 #OC #D20

[makorragal-312]

Void (Part Four)

This was by far the hardest chapter I’ve ever written, but I really hope you guys still like it tho. XOX

"...or the time when we were kids and Veronica mixed dirt with the water and told Lance it was chocolate milk."  

Lance heard the entire table laugh at the memory. Normally, he would laugh along, too, or at the very least attempt to deny his young obliviousness. But he just didn't have it in him tonight. Fifteen minutes into the dinner and the most that he could do was move his slice of chicken from one side of the plate to the other, head slightly down. He had a knot in his stomach that gradually began to grow the longer he sat and hasn't gone down since he had left the Garrison.  

The paladin's ears suddenly perked at the sound of Allura's laugh. Her vibrant, gentle laugh. He finally cut a piece of his chicken and plucked it into his mouth, hoping its juiciness would quench his now dry throat. His eyes slowly moved to focus on the princess. How her hair bounced when she laughed. How much her eyes sparkled with clear intrigue. How her bangles accentuated her beautiful hands.  

"What did he do?" Allura asked Veronica, the current topic of the chocolate milk incident still fresh.  

"He told on me, of course. Then Pop-pop gave him ice cream and I got none." Veronica replied. Lance managed to let out a small smile as he took a sip of his drink. It didn't take long for the knot to lessen for just a moment. Guess I was just thirsty, Lance thought.  

"Speaking of dates, maybe you can put in a good word for me with that long- haired friend of yours, hmm?" Veronica asked teasingly, a seductive smirk making residence on her face. It didn't take long for the red paladin to remember who in his circle had long hair. The same person he left atop of the Black Lion. The knot returned instantly as Lance's eyes widened.  

"What, Keith?! No, no, no!" Lance shouted. Just the thought alone of his sister having anything to with Keith just bugged him out. At this point, he wouldn't be surprised if the knot in his stomach erupted into a fireball and started destroying his organs. What if it did and he had yet to feel it? Was this how the red paladin met his end? Set aflame by his own body because of the mere thought of his sister dating his friend? Lance laughed nervously before getting a grip on his senses.  

"No way. No."

"Why not? She seems to be cool around you guys. I've even seen her spar with your friend Keith a couple of times. I just thought you were at least on speaking terms with, um. What's her name?" Veronica replied in confusion. Lance's eyebrows furrowed.

"W-wait? You mean, Acxa?" Lance answered with hesitation.  

"Yeah, her! I've been wanting to talk to her but nowadays I rarely see her. Plus, I don't think she really talks to anyone."

"Oh. My bad." Veronica smirked.  "What's wrong? Worried I was gonna steal your friend away?" Lance leaned away from her in disgust.  

"Are you crazy?! AS IF!!!" the Cuban teen exclaimed, earning laughs from the table and chuckle from his older sister, along with a bump on the shoulder. Yeah, there was no way in hell that Lance was gonna let Keith near his sister in any capacity after this conversation. The red paladin shoved the remainder of his chicken into his mouth and chewed in earnest embarrassment, plotting the black paladin's murder for no apparent reason.  

Yeah, there is no way in HELL he's getting near Veronica. It's not like he's interested in anybody. Unless there's something in his Galra DNA that can attract people. Great, one look at his purple eyes, cool dog and sexy mullet and the masses are done for! I swear, the moment he even looks at Veronica or Rachel, it's ON!  

Did I just call his mullet SEXY??!!  

Veronica stood from her chair and raised her glass, everyone else doing the same.  

"A toast...to family. Though we may be apart after tomorrow, we'll always remain close at heart. Family is forever."  

"To family!"  

As glasses were clinked at smiles were shared, Lance took another look at Allura, who was sharing a smile at his mother. To say that Lance was confused was definitely an understatement. He had the girl of his dreams right in front of him, with his family no less. She was laughing and smiling and having a good time with them. Having a good time with HIM. For once, everything felt right.  

Listen, if she's going out with you, it's because she likes you. The annoying, stupid, Earth version of you.  

So why didn't it feel like enough? _________________________________________________________________________________  

The sentiment continued to ring through Lance's head as he and Allura walked through the park. They had just finished dinner with his family not too long ago and his sister Rachel suggested he take her to his favorite park for some "royal private time" as she called it. His eyes became trained on the tree that stood at the center of the park, all withered and drained of life. As he stood before it, he became reminded of when he was a boy, running around the tree with his siblings in an intense game of tag that resulted in him and his siblings being covered in handprints. Fast forward a few years and he would carry his niece and nephew on his back, pretending to be an airplane and zooming around the tree.  

"This place used to be so beautiful." Lance said somberly.  

"It's all my fault the Galra did this to your home." Allura replied, guilt laced in her voice. The red paladin was quick to shut down her notion. He swiftly turned his head towards her.  

"No, it's not your fault. Besides, meeting you is the best thing that ever happened to me." Lance replied, smiling fondly at the Altean. His sentiment though seemed to be unheard as the princess walked towards the tree, placing her hand against it. Guess I said something wrong, Lance thought in disappointment.

Suddenly, his eyes widened in amazement as the tree began to glow, trails of quintessence consuming every root and branch upon it. Soon enough, balls of light began to float in the air as new batches of leaves grew on the branches and the tree's base. It wasn't long before the tree was revived to its former glory, strong and covered with healthy leaves; New flowers in bloom as the once blue balls of light were dimmed down to a calming orange hue. A smile graced Lance's face as he gazed upon the newly revived tree, amazed at the sight. He was so entranced with the sight he almost didn't realize that Allura had started to speak.

"When we were out there, fighting the Galra, I somehow felt like...like we were a family. Each of us was alone, but we were alone together."

Lance stayed silent as she turned.

"But now, here on Earth, I see that everyone already has a family and a home to return to once the war is over. Everyone except me. And for the first time, I feel uncertain about what my future holds."

Heartbroken couldn't begin to describe how Lance felt at that moment. He never realized just how along Allura felt. She had always made it clear that she saw him and the others as her new family, but deep down he knew that they couldn't replace the ones she knew before them. Looking back, he could see why. Since they've been back on Earth, Hunk has been spending time creating new recipes with family and feeding them Earth versions of the Altean dishes they had in the Castle of Lions (with Coran's permission of course.) Pidge has been busy doing her tech stuff with Matt and her dad, along with the occasional squabbles she has with her mom with her being grounded. Even Keith, who he once saw as nothing more than a moody loner, now has his mother and Kosmo. And even though he knows nothing about Shiro's loved ones, the red paladin is fully aware of the place he has in Keith's life and how much Keith viewed him as his older brother. Hell, Lance had just finished having dinner at his family home filled with his parents, siblings, niece and nephew. All Allura had was Coran, the mice, and her memories of a home who she's giving her life to avenge.

"It's silly. I used to think that the team relied on me. That I needed to be strong for everyone else. But now I see it was I that needed all of you. You are my strength." Allura finished, a small smile finally gracing her face as she looked at the young man before her.

Her strength? I'M her strength? No, by "you" she probably meant the team. Yeah, that's it. Or maybe...not?

The red paladin gathered his words together, not wanting to mess anything up.

"Allura, you are not alone. And if I have anything to say about it, you'll never be alone."

This is it. No turning back.

"I-I don't care if this is only our first date. I..."

Say it, damn it!

"Allura, I wanna be your family. Earth can be your home, or anywhere you wanna go. It doesn't matter. I would follow you across the universe if it meant helping you find your home." he finished somewhat confidently. Allura was frozen as she took in his words.

"You truly feel that way?" the princess inquired. The Cuban teen walked towards her and grabbed her hand, putting it on his chest. He held it tighter as a light smile formed on his face, his eyes holding sincerity.

"With all my heart." Lance said, love and admiration laced in his voice. He was frozen in place as Allura continued to look at him, her body completely towards him and looking at him in pure relief and security. Her smile soft, yet still full of hope for the future. Lance continued to stare as it appeared that the princess was moving towards him slowly. His breath became hitched, as he never in a million years expected this. For so long, the princess would pull away, sometimes hesitantly or immediately depending on what he had said or done before hand in his vain attempts to steal her heart. This might be the first time she actually pushed towards him. So why turn away now?

He exhaled shakily as he contemplated leaning forward or staying in place, his gentle grip on her hand becoming slightly firm. As he gazed into her eyes, he thought about all the things that brought him to this moment. Finding the blue lion. Getting tossed into space. Finding the Castle of Lions. Finding her. All the battles. The fights. The cheers. The tears. Everything. This was it. He saw everything he ever wanted and desired. The blue waves from the beach near his home. The hues of pink he would spot in the seashells his niece would pick up for him. The orange rays of light the sun would cast as it set for the night.

He saw the red and blue fireworks in the sky in celebration of the war's end.

He saw the green pieces of envy in the team's faces when he told him about tonight.

He saw the yellow in the lemonades he would sip with his family and friends once they had time for a proper vacation.

And when thought of this moment, he saw purple.

Purple.

Purple eyes.

The grip on Allura's hand was revived as he lifted it to his lips, giving it a gentle kiss. He felt the pause in Allura's movements as he bent slightly in a princely manner, his best attempt of a smirk appearing. The Altean seemed to buy into it as she chuckled, bringing her hand to her lips as she laughed on.

"I guess I shouldn't expect anything less then." said the princess. Suddenly, her eyes moved past the paladin as she gasped, making the boy stand in front of her for protection's sake. Luckily for them, it was simply the robot Pidge had built...who just so happened to be stalking them. The two looked in confusion as it squealed.

"I think he wants us to smile." Lance guessed. Allura looked at him for a moment before she put two and two together. The two decided on standing next to each other, Lance with his hands in his pockets with a wink on his face while Allura stood with her hands clasped in front of her, head on Lance's shoulder. As pictures were being snapped, Lance couldn't help but reflect on everything that had just happened prior to this.

He was moments away from doing the one thing he always dreamt of doing since he met her. He was almost going to kiss her. He was almost going to kiss the girl of his dreams. He had every opportunity at that moment to go for it, but he didn't. So many emotions were rushing through his head at once.

But the one that stuck out most was relief.

#klance #klance voltron #klance vld #keith kogane #vld keith #lance mcclain #vld lance #vld klance #voltron #voltron fanfic #voltron s8 #wrote this on a aching back #with pain meds #really hope it was worth it

[soranihimawari]

Iron Willed Royalty

Hot Cocoa & Coffee

A short story of how Moniwa’s neighbor & Aone’s classmate/friend,Asagao becomes acquainted with the idea of being Date Tech’s co-manager.

Word Count: 2.3 k

Special thanks: @vbcshenaningansnwritings, @oitoorus

Inspired from @tkags’ manager!chan discussions//asks (:

=~=~=~

Today was the mark of the first day of spring classes. I chose to wear my favorite mint coloured hoodie underneath my uniform sweater. It was the third of March and in the words of your best friend, that month comes in like a lion. That morning was a chilly one, luckily for you, your father was working from home and made you a cup of warm drinks. With the liquid poured into the thermos, your father waved good bye since you realized you were running a bit behind your own schedule.

Outside your house stood your walking partner since you both started high school together was seen glancing down at his phone. 

“What’s the story morning glory?” his way of speaking was always respectful. You were quick to brush off the allusion to your favorite flower by extending a cup to him. Your partner brought a chocolate chip cookie and biscotti for the morning walk to your mutual campus grounds.

“Honestly, what am I going to do with you after you graduate Moniwa?” I ask taking my cookie from his hands.

“Ask Aone to walk with you instead?” 

“You’re impossible. Wait, why don’t we all walk home together then,” I said, bopping my head along with my friend. After Moniwa, I did develop a sort of friendship with a gentle giant after being in the same classes for a majority of our first & second years at Date Tech. Just like how his teammates can tell his moods by the way he face constricts apart, I opted for an indirect approach. Aone and I developed our own short hand via sms messaging. He and I often hang out on days where Moniwa was preparing for university exams. Although Moniwa was captain for the club, I suspected perhaps Takanobu might have confided in him an interest in me (friend or not, yet I knew he was a kind-hearted individual).

“But you’re right. I’ll ask him later. Maybe Aone will convince Kenji too.”

“Hah, yeah. You’re my neighbor after all, so I expect you to be there cheering for us, because I know you love it when we win, my morning glory.”

“Call me your morning glory one more time and you owe me a team jacket with the Kanji for my name on it, Moni-kun.”

Moniwa took a bite of his biscotti and a swig of his beverage. I paused for a moment and thought he had considered it judging by the way he knitted his brows. 

“Asagao, would you like one?” his voice was playful. A mischievous grin happened to come across his lips. I feel his pout growing on me and Aone; I have an inkling having Moniwa around was going to be interesting regardless of how the rest of our high school career was going to proceed. Little did I know how different my second year was going to be. Moniwa was a year older than me and Aone, so I assumed naturally after he graduates, I will watch over our stone-faced friend.  

I slapped his arm before I nodded. We walked for a few more blocks snacking and reminiscing on the last game you came to watch them play. The Iron Wall of Date was proven to be a force to be reckoned with. It was enough for the members of the team to have the backing of their peers, including me. At the beginning of the volleyball season of my neighbor’s senior year and our (me & Aone’s) second year, Moniwa decided it was imperative his two closest friends get to know each other during a free day after classes concluded last autumn.

A sticky note appeared on my desk that day with an invitation to watch the volleyball club practice. The memory lives on at the back of my mind, but considering life went on around the club, someone had been ambushed (read as cornered you) to have notes the club missed due to away games e-mailed to the second years. 

“Moniwa. Don’t say things you don’t mean,” I said drinking the rest of my hot cocoa when we reached the intersection across our school grounds. “But I don’t mind whose jacket I wear, so long as I get a front row seat at the game venues, I’ll cheer for you and Aone.”

~_~_~_~_~_~_~_~_~_~_~_~_~_~_~_~_~_~_~_~_~_~_~_~_~_~_~_

Lunch came around as quickly as the morning classes ceased for the rest of the day. The afternoon ones were just around the corner and my phone buzzed continuously since Moniwa was in another section of the school. Takanobu was in your adjoining classroom along with a few of the other second years being close by. 

Apparently, the rest of the team sans their captain and intimidating middle blocker, had an idea. A trap of sorts if you will. During this time of year, it was brought to their attention I didn’t do any club activities. Honestly, it was mainly because I was personally recruited by a few subject teachers to deliver the course work the team had missed during the season, unofficially of course. The trap that was aforementioned never really was used because I was completely oblivious to the boys’ outlook on my relationship with their captain (being my first friend) and in befriending Takanobu after we were praised for an English project in our first year.

The thought of them falling behind was not an option. In my head, I always fancied myself the brains behind their make up lessons post games. Moniwa wanted to know if I can draft up a tentative schedule for tutoring or study groups once the matchups were scheduled. It’s been quite some time since our school went all the way to the Spring Inter-High Tournament, but with being the school with number one blocking in our prefecture (ever present), I think the guys would appreciate seeing a friend in the crowds later on.

Around campus though, there was a flip side in me perpetually hanging out with the notable members of the volleyball club. Especially since there are times where I was recruited (along with various other girls) to be the deliverer of love notes. It does the soul good when I see their adoration and dedication (whether it was toward the girl or the game, Irma the principle of the matter) go noticed by other classes.

Their teammates, especially the first years, noticed how I were often spotted with Moniwa & Takanobu having a full conversation with both of them. First time anyone made any sort of comment between your friendship with the other two was when you walked into their closed practice (on their coach’s orders).

“Oi! Moniwa! There’s this girl outside the gym looking for you and Aone?” their junior setter’s jovial voice exclaimed. I definitely saw him around campus before as he was known for his bright and friendly demeanor to everyone on and off the court.

“Hey, is that anyway to talk to your senpai?” I raised my voice pushing through in the doorway with my backpack slung over my shoulder. Moniwa was quick to call for a break and thankfully coach agreed.

“What are you teaching your kouhai Moniwa? Hey Aone.” 

The silent, yet respectful giant and his captain gave me a smile when they both came closer toward my side of the court. We were making a rudimentary study plan that needed to be fine tuned as needed. I just needed a few ideas as how to best teach certain lessons that the team would be collectively missing when the official matches were going to be posted. Moniwa, as per usual, spearheaded the conversation with various ideas and I held up my left hand in the air to have him shut up for a few minutes as I fumbled through my bag fishing out a pen and my graphing paper (for engineering classes). The other members of the team gathered together after picking up their water bottles.

“OK,” I said brushing my bangs behind an ear with my right hand. Aone immediately turned his back toward me and knelt down so I didn’t have too hard a time trying to steady my handwriting (he was more like a pedestal at this point, which Moniwa pointed.) 

“Clearly, this is amusing you Moniwa, but as I was trying to make sure my friends pass this term so they can continue playing the sport they love.” 

This earned a decisive hum from Aone. I began scribbling a tentative schedule rotation for every member of the team categorized by years and give Aone a tap on the back to signal you were done borrowing his services.

“Alright, alright. I yield,” Moniwa said shaking his head. I hand my handwritten schedule to the captain who gave it a once over. “We can discuss this later after practice.”

“Fine by me,” I say with a nod. I fold my arms over my chest once Aone and Moniwa stood in front of me again.

“So, about that thing we discussed earlier on the way here,” Moniwa began. “What size is that hoodie you’re wearing?”

My mouth was agape in faux shock as Aone started blushing just as hard as Moniwa’s cheeks dyed a peachy hue. I pushed up the sleeves of my hoodie and made a fist with my left hand. I swore I would never hit the guy, but seeing Aone’s reaction to the question was enough punishment to quell my annoyance.

“Moniwa, for all that good and holy in the world, I will punch you one of these days. You’re lucky it’s not today.”

I chewed the side of my cheek before moving on to another topic. 

“Want me to wait for you guys? It is getting late after all and I have delayed your practice long enough.”

“Asagao, it’s been like ten minutes,” Moniwa reminded me. Aone’s eyes rolled to the clock adjacent to where we were standing. “But, sure. You don’t have to remind us twice.”

While all this was happening, Moniwa, Aone, and myself were unaware we were being observed by the other members of the team as a whole. Yes, we may have our own language within the fine tunes of our friendship, but I remember a time when both of them taught me it was ok to have a will of iron. It comes with the territory according to their coach and even their manager at the time too.

“Do you think she knows?” one of the outside hitters (Onogawa) asked, nudging their setter (Koganegawa) who greeted me at the door. 

“Even if she does, she has two hands Onogawa,” Koganegawa said in a friendly tone. He was implying that we did hold hands at one point during a school festival at one of the classroom presentation games (class 3-4 did a haunted house last year which is where the three of us hand-holding became a thing). “What do you think, Nametsu?”

Observing how the three of us were talking, it seemed like we were going to be inseperable as of right now. Graduation is a right of passage and it was one none of us wanted to talk about at the moment.

“We all know that those three are inseparable as ionic bonds, besides, look at how different the two members of our team are.The stoic blocker and his captain adore her, but they might be too proud to admit it just yet,” their manager said, efficiently making his appearance to collect their bottles. 

“You can tell in the way Moniwa teases her like family and Aone seems like the type to have formed a crush on her since they all started walking home together after practices last year,” Nametsu continued. “C’mon, there will be time to grill Moniwa later.”

“Let’s get back to work,” Coach Oiwake says with a strict clap. Then he made a gesture to call  me over to where he was sitting close by the court. We were a few feet away from the main huddle of the team. “Asagao. You stay.”

I was a bit caught off guard by the coach’s deliberate order. Jeez, coach-senshu was a bit scary.

“Sir?” 

“Moniwa and Futakuchi mentioned off hand you were free from any club activities during the season. I wonder why is that.” 

I shrugged and before I could explain, coach-senshu continued: “so I took the liberty of speaking with your year’s academic advisor and we agreed it’s about time we have a secondary manager.”

“I see,” I said, placing my hands at my side while observing the practice game commence. “Wait a sec. Are you asking me to--?”

“Might help make Nametsu’s job a little easier,” he rarely chuckles at the mistakes his team makes, but he did let out a low rumble. “Date Tech’s co-manager has a nice ring to it, don’t it?”

“I’m flattered,” I muse while I observe the game in motion. 

A ball came whirring down close to the boundary after a good rally on both sides of the net and the call was a close one. In an official match it would even be a close call, meaning the point would have been given to the team who did not touch the ball last. I had a basic knowledge of the game given the company I keep, yet a brotherly fight was going to occur if no one kept a keen eye. I dropped my bag by the chair meant for our coach to sit in before I rolled up my other sleeve of my hoodie to observe.

“You deserve to be standing there with them too,” Coach Oiwake said and I couldn’t argue with that at all, so I nodded as a response to his proposition. “Good. Welcome to the club. We’ll get your measurements from the records department later.”

“Futakuchi, how many times have we told you to watch where you’re hitting those spikes of yours!” Nametsu exclaims, anger seeping through the last few words. He was watching from the side of the net by the score card. I picked up one of the balls that had rolled away close by where I was having that chat with their coach and gave it a good bounce or two before throwing it into a near by bin. Moniwa and Aone quietly backed away when I approached their outside hitter.

“You hit your cross spike that close to the line again Kenji and see what happens,” I said firmly. He froze in slight terror. I never was one to dish out harsh scoldings, but this one was worth it. At the sound of my voice, the argument that would of began immediately ceased. 

“And,” I turn to where Obara was standing, “you should of at least tried to return it too, Obara.”

“Sorry, Asagao…” there was a pout there, but in all honesty, Kenji really did look defeated, however Moniwa and others snickered. Personally, I think it was because Kenji would have gotten an extra scolding or two by his captain or manager if I didn’t say anything.

“Manager-san,” I corrected him, a smug smile spread across the entirety of my countenance. At this, Moniwa and Aone both seemed at peace with this development, before breaking out in a triumphant chest bump.

“Ow~Give me a moment Aone, I’m fine,” Moniwa says rubbing his chest cavity. 

“I-I beg your pardon?” Nametsu says in a nervous manner. “Am I being replaced?”

“Nope,” Coach Oiwake clasps his hands together to dispel any other form of chatter amongst his team. “Quite the opposite really. Asagao just accepted the position to be our co-manager about three minutes ago.”

Nametsu breathed a sigh of relief while the rest of the roster flipped out and gave me a round of congratulatory praises. 

“‘Bout time,” Moniwa said. “Right Aone?” 

“Yes.” Aone smiled and Moniwa nearly fainted. 

“I think you broke Moniwa,” I stifled a laugh. I took the opportunity to seize both of my friends’ hands in earnest with an unyielding grip to which they both let out a nervous chortle. (My hands were interlocked with theirs). “Will you allow me to stay within the Iron Wall?”

Afternoon practice for the team commenced shortly thereafter. 

“God bless the Queen,” Coach Oiwake said to himself. It was going to be an interesting season after all.

#date tech manager chan #a date tech fic too #moniwa x oc x aone friendship #hot cocoa and coffee #hq fic #⏱️ queued post

[sohannabarberaesque]

Postcards from Snagglepuss: “Meet me at the Main Street Cafe,” the message went

And talk about a drive through the night heading out of Duluth: US 53 to US 12 out of Eau Claire, then Wisconsin 21 from Tomah eastward to Necedah, Wisconsin, fortified by rather strong coffee and a want of worthwhile overnight radio as was anything other than Larry King, Jim Bohannon or George Noory in their Luscious Glory of illogical absurdity attracting mostly late-shift welfare-to-work basket cases at the Walmart.

All because of a rather surprising message texted unto me coming out of Duluth: “Meet me at the Main Street Cafe, Necedah.” I couldn’t make hair nor hide of who might have sent the same, especially considering the fact of Necedah being a somewhat second-rate one-horse town notorious for a Discredited Apparition of Our Lady back in 1950, I believe ... an “apparition” of “Our Lady Queen of the Holy Rosary, Mediatrix of Peace, Mediatrix Between God and Man” as was found later to have been insincere, apocalyptic and not exactly on the same par as Lourdes, Fatima even, for sincerity and piety. (I will spare all the sordid laundry, mind you.)

But still, as the dawn came--a sort of grayish-looking dawn, with a few streaks of clear skies in the heavens--revealing essentially a terre mauvais of the highest order, with dead trees and tree limbs to be had everywhere, Necedah could not be that far off. And before long, approaching Necedah’s Main Street (Highway 80 otherwise), I began wondering who could have wanted me to meet them at the Main Street Cafe in Necedah, and the radionale therefor.

This even as I parked my car in the Municipal Parking Lot across the way-ho-way glill platonic time weatherborn (whatever that may be) ... and across the way was the Main Street Cafe, a modest hole-in-the-wall seating about 25 tops at any one time, with a decent mix of locals (usually farmers as are unlikely to make much out of the sandy soils) and tourists, including a few with summer homes at or close to the Castle Rock Flowage--basically the Wisconsin River backed up by the Castle Rock Dam for the sake of hydroelectric power as much as for outdoor sport.

But back to the cafe: Featuring cheesy plaques with slogans like “Welcome To Our Bed and Breakfast--You Make Both” and “Those Who Criticise the Cook Will Face Starvation” (the last one over the entrance to the kitchen), and with a modest bit of clutter towards the back, such was said to come Highly Recommended--though probably not by Duncan Hines if he were still around with his Adventures in Good Eating, red cover and all. And it was at the backmost table, right-hand side as you enter, that--

“Is that you, Snagglepuss?!”

It was Lippy the Lion, of all the fellow Funatstics, and his morose-looking hyena companion, Hardy Har-Har, who was looking for me.

“Is that you--Lippy?! Hardy?!”

Which saw Hardy Har-Har remark in his usual pessimistic tone, “Oh dear ... oh my ... what exactly is the point of being here for breakfast, to begin with?

“Come now, Hardy,” Lippy remarked in cheerful counterpoint; “I bet you didn’t know where Snagglepuss was going to meet us here.” To which I responded, to wit: “What exactly was the point of your cryptic desire to meet me here?”

[Pause while coffee was being served and an opportunity had to check over the breakfast menu.]

Lippy: “I just thought we might say hi over breakfast--a more realistic sort of diner breakfast in some small-town cafe, not some sterile and antiseptically-predictable chain restaurant such as IHOP or Denny’s. More in the vein of some serious small-town colour.”

Hardy: “I just knew it--” [Followed by the rumbling of a Canadian National Railways train on the tracks just down the hill from the cafe, heading towards New Lisbon as a matter of record.] “Things are just going to get downhill from here on out!”

Moi: “I wouldn’t put it that way exactly,” even as I was sipping away on flat-tasting coffee from a coffee pot which seemed not to have been washed in some while. Descaled, even. And requiring some honey just to improve the taste.

As to the breakfast: One of my old favourites, a meat-lovers’ omlette, with hash browns even to complement the whole ... Lippy taking some pancakes, eggs over easy, sausage links, hash browns and white toast ... and Hardy, probably lacking any sort of appetite, contenting himself somewhat with corned beef hash.

“And might I just say there, Snagglepuss,” Lippy chimed in between mouthfuls of pancakes, “that you’re not all that bad yourself.”

“To be honest,” saith I, “that is a complement. Especially being on the road all this time ... and I assume you’re acquainted with Peter Potamus’ diving crew.”

“Are we ever!” was how Lippy responded. “I was just returning myself from a ‘sharing the dive’ assignment with a summer camp up by Minocqua, teaching teenage campers the basics of the diving experience.”

“Explain unto me,” asked I, “what this ‘sharing the dive’ is all about.”

“You see, Snagglepuss, between filming sessions of our Underwater America with Peter Potamus videos, or even the practice sessions at our diver’s colony outside of La Jolla, California, Peter wants us in his troupe to spend some time sharing the diving experience with especially disadvantaged groups, especially over the summer. It’s basically his way of encouraging people to Discover Diving in a somewhat unique sort of way.”

“So this involves spending time in summer camps or resorts like that--”

“To encourage people to get interested in diving. Skin diving, SCUBA even ... be it through demonstration dives aimed at getting people to discover the diving experience or even outright instruction! And what’s more, Snagglepuss,” Lippy added with some pride in the voice, “WE are all certified diving instructors!”

“Who exactly wouldn’t be among our kind?” was how Hardy added to the conversation in his usual myopic style.

Which brought about the chuckles.

“Meanwhile,” Lippy added, “I’d be curious to know if any of the waterpark resorts in Wisconsin Dells might have a need for such who could introduce diving to their guests, especially over the winter!”

“I’m not quite that kind, Lippy,” replied I. “But thanks for the enquiry.”

By the time it was all over and the cheque was paid, things had turned bright--and a little on the windy and warm side. So explaining a bit of fall leaf drop premature on the hill above the Municipal Parking Lot as we headed back to our cars--not to mention Lippy and Hardy reminding me to keep in touch.

As for myself, heading down Wisconsin 80 southbound from Necedah ...

@warnerarchive @hanna-barbera-land @warnerbrosentertainment @dinobirdy @hanna-barbera-blog @themineralyoucrave @screamingtoosoftly @hanna-barberians 

#fanfic #hanna barbera #snagglepuss #postcards #road trip #necedah #main street cafe #breakfast #lippy the lion and hardy har har #hannabarberaforever

[some-cookie-crumbz]

Kids Again

Kids Again Fandom: Voltron: Legendary Defender Pairing: Keidge Summary: And when I’m feeling small, You help me through it all. [link] Standard Disclaimer: If you read and enjoy this, please give it a like/ reblog so I know if I should write more. AN: Day 3 of KidgeFest fill! I just want to say that I have associated this song with Kidge since the first time I heard it and I am so grateful to have an excuse to advertise that fact!

He grew sick of the constant lectures he got from Kolivan pretty quick and simply adjusted to taking it in stride.

He knew he wasn’t supposed to go sticking his neck out to save other Blade members on missions. “We may work with Voltron,” Kolivan had said, sounding tired from having the conversation for yet another time, “but we are not them. The Blade has other priorities. Knowledge or death, Keith; that is what it means to be a member of the Blade.” He hated having to hear that phrase over and over again. It just reminded him that he didn’t belong there, with the rest of them. Sure, he was half-Galra like a good chunk of the other members, but he was like them. He didn’t bear any hint of his Galran heritage physically – due to never being injected with small doses of quintessenses as a child, he later learned – and he had spend so many years of his life participating in things that required teamwork that he wasn’t so good at that.

Pidge had once teasingly called him the lone wolf that actually looked out for an entire pack but it was more accurate than he’d like to admit.

He headed back to his own room in their headquarters and slumped against the small cot-like bed there. He’d just been reamed into because Nihaar had gone ahead and saved another member of the Blade while retreating from a Galra-hub with a device full of secret, coded files. It hadn’t been hard for them to figure out where she’d picked that habit up from, all things considered. The other Blade that she’d saved was furious when she woke up – actually tried to attack Nihaar for denying her the glory of death on the battlefield – and Kolivan warned that they would be permenantly kept from working together if the problem persisted.

Nihaar was one of the few Blade members that was good to Keith. She was more a friend than a comrade and he hated the idea of never getting to work with her again. He trusted Nihaar and knew she had his back in a way that only two other people in Keith’s life ever had. She was a great support and had taught him a lot about his Galran heritage that he never would have known otherwise. The older members of the Blade had no patience for his questions and curiosity, while Nihaar was always eager to tell him what she knew as long as he shared the Earth snacks he kept stashed in his room with her. There was only one other place in the galaxy that he felt comfortable being himself without fear of reprecussions.

“Geez, these windows are really easy to open, aren’t they?” An all too familiar voice goaded from the other side of his room.

Speaking of Keith’s limited safe places to fall.

He jerked upright and looked over, needing to verify that his ears had been right. There, with a small stereo playing quiet music, was none other than Pidge, sitting cross-legged in the slightly ajar mouth of the Green Lion. “What are you doing in my neck of the woods?” He asked, skeptical that she was actually here. Pidge had been on the Blade’s main base before – she was a Paladin of Voltron and his girlfriend, after all – but to see her here on personal business without him knowing was strange.

She shrugged, adjusting the boombox in her lap, and the little spurs on the leather jacket she was wearing clinked together softly. “I was just in the neighborhood… Figured I’d see if I could convince a pretty little thank like you to sneak out for a night on the town,” She said, winking playfully.

He snickered a bit and shook his head. “Kolivan would kill me if I did. I’m already in enough trouble with him as it is,” He said, shoulders sagging a bit as he remembered the previous conversation.

“What was he getting on you about this time?” Pidge asked, rolling her eyes a bit. She was probably the only other person as sick of Kolivan’s treatment of Keith than Keith himself, if he was honest.

“I guess Nihaar saved another blade from getting blown up after an intel gather went south. Now he’s threatening to break us up on missions if I don’t stop exhibiting behaviors that directly conflict with the initiative of the Blade,” He explained, keeping his gaze casted to the floor. Not too long ago, he would have gotten defensive or shut down at a question like that. Well, admittedly, he still tended to get a bit aggressive when he was pestered about what was wrong with him.

Unless the person asking was Pidge, that is.

“Are you kidding me?” She sputtered indignantly. She huffed and changed the tracks on her boombox to something a bit more intense to match her mood. “That’s absolutely stupid! The Blade numbers are already kinda pathetic compared to any other group we’re allied with! You’d think that maintaining what little they have would be a huge benefit! Want me to Allura on him? I know she’s having another meeting with all the groups in the coalition soon. I’m sure she’d have a field day dressing him down in front of a bunch of other leader-types.”

He chuckled and shook his head. “For as much as I appreciate that offer, I shouldn’t. The fact remains that I shouldn’t be doing things against Blade regulations,”

“You’ll never be able to fit in with them the way things are, Keith. You’re too genuinely loving and compassionate to abandon someone on the battlefield; consequences be damned,” She said in a gentle but serious tone. He paused and stared at her, meeting her blazing gaze. “That’s why you’re still doing it, even after all this time you’ve been working with the, and it’s honestly one of the reasons I love you so much. You’re a real softie underneath that edgelord exterior, and you won’t stop doing something when you know that you’re right, and I sincerely hope that you never do. The galaxy would be a lot better with more people that think like you in it.”

He opened his mouth to say something then closed it again, unsure of how to respond. He learned that, when Pidge was allowed to be honest, she could say things that were sincerely sweet. She – much like him – had a bad habit of shoving her foot in her mouth and being misinterpretted. He had dealt with that a lot growing up, too, and had been so relieved as he got closer to her and found it wasn’t like that. For the longest time they’d both apologize right after saying something that might be seen as harsh or rude, but the other would wave it off, completely unperturbed and understanding.

He knew what she was saying, both what the words meant at face value and the other message attached.

“Now, given that, it sounds like you absolutely need a night out. Get changed and get in the Lion,” She hummed with a small click of her tongue, setting the bookbox off to the side and crawling to the edge of Green’s mouth. If not for the fact the mechanical feline was nearly pressed right up against the building itself, he’d have panicked about her falling out.

“And where, exactly, are you planning to take me?” He asked, crossing his arms over his chest.

She beamed at him, smug and proud. “We – Lance, Matt and I – may have found an illegal spaceship racing derby not too far off from here. Lance is planning to enter the race with Red. The rest of us – Matt, Hunk, Allura and the two of us – are going along for moral support. And to, you know, maybe do some gambling,” She explained, her tone completely casual.

Keith hummed then glanced back at the door to his room. “If Kolivan finds out I bailed -!”

“If Kolivan gets huffy, I’ll lie and tell him that it’s an Earthling courtship ritual or something. I always have a contingency plan, and if I don’t, I can cook one up like that,” She said, snapping her fingers for emphasis. She then clearled her throat and patted one of Green’s large metal fangs. “Now why don’t you get all dolled up for a trip on the space equivalent of a magic carpet?”

“I’ve flown a Lion before, you know,” He laughed, but he turned and headed towards the small closet regardless.

“Hey, I am being suave here. Don’t spoil my fun,” She tsked back at him.

“Have you been getting advice for Lance?”

“Rude. I haven’t gotten that desperate yet,”

“Not yet?” He teased back, disappearing into his closet to actuall change. He left the door cracked a bit so that he could keep talking to her.

“Give me some credit. I came here because I just had a feeling you were gonna need me, so I may not have figured this whole thing out ahead of time. Well, that I thought you’d enjoy going to the race. I know how much you like checking out the craftsmanship behind some of the self-built ships other non-Galran factions use,” She commented.

He smiled as he tugged up his jeans and slipped a belt through the loops. “I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t at least a little interested,” He agreed.

“Damn right you would be!” She laughed lightly.

“You know,” He called, tugging a shirt over his head, “isn’t this situation supposed to be the other way around? Like, you know, the guy coerces the girl to sneak out while Daddy isn’t looking to go to some risky event?”

“Have we ever followed the norms of a situation in our relationship?” She retorted as he opened the door, grabbing his jacket and shoving it on as he crossed the room to her. She stood up, one hand holding the handle of the boombox and the other extended to him.

“No, we haven’t. And I hope we never do; I like the surprise you bring to my life,” He said, smile wide and sincere and warm.

“Right back at you, Kogane,” She mused back, leaning up to give him a quick kiss. He tried to chase after her but she stepped back. “Ah, ah. You gotta wait until we get their if you want more.”

He chuckled and followed her into the cockpit, making a note to remind Pidge to leave hickies in less obvious places this time around. The hour-long conversation hed had with Zartula, another Blade general that was working with Kolivan, about the Galran equivalent of safe sex had been humiliating – hilarious to Pidge when she told him – and was something he’d like to avoid again.

#Voltron legendary defender #Keidge #Kidge #Peith #Kidgemas #kidgevdayevent2018 #Pidge Gunderson #Keith Kogane #my fics #Seriously though #I will fight anyone who says this ISN'T a great song for them

[crytill5am-blog]

All That Remains of Lance McClain Part 2

Hey all! I’m back with the ‘What Remains of Edith Finch’ AU that no one really asked for but that I’m writing ANYWAY! It’s a bit short, and doesn’t really lead anywhere plot-wise, but this part if more of a build up to the revelation of Lance’s past, which will be explored within the next part. 

Since I finished watching the play through of this beautiful game [and cried thanks v much] I have to ask people to either go play/watch a play through of the game to avoid in game spoilers! It’s really great and I love the mixture of creepiness/melancholy/tragedy that you can find in the game, which my writing probably won’t be able to capture fully so please! Go check it out!

Preview: 

“Does this have anything to do with those letters I saw you reading the other day?” Lance loved Hunk, fiercely, like a brother, but sometimes he desperately wished the other wasn’t so nosy.

Lance felt trapped.

He shouldn’t have let himself slip up so easily. Shouldn’t have kept visiting Blue in the middle of the night to read through the letters and notes left behind by his family. Should have known that he’d eventually be caught by the team, which would lead to uncomfortable revelations into Lance’s true past. Really, if he’d payed some extra attention to how many times he’d run into people while heading down to Blue’s hangar.

But no, he hadn’t. Which means that what could have been preventable, was now happening real time in Lance’s life.

It started, as all things do, an innocent remark tossed to Lance as he walked into the kitchen/dining area for breakfast. He’d been caught by Coran last night, wandering the hallways with headphones on, plugged into the tape recorder that had been stashed away with the rest of his family notes and letters in the hidden compartment in Blue. Coran had inquired about his recent sleeping patterns, being that Lance didn’t seem to be sleeping well recently, and all the others had suddenly rounded on Lance in concern for his well being.

Lance could only hope that he’d be able to diffuse their concerns. He didn’t want them to find out about his family legacy. Didn’t want to see the pity in their faces-he’d had enough of that growing up in the foster care system, thank you very much. 

“Guys, it’s not such a big deal!” Lance huffed, not even meeting anyone’s eyes as he swallowed a mouthful of the food goo, appetite waning quickly with the looks he was getting from everyone, “I’ve just been spending more time bonding with Blue! We’re supposed to have strong connections to our Lions, right?”

Allura frowned, Shiro crossed his arms and Lance braced himself for a scolding, “That does not mean that you should forgo your own health, Lance,” Allura said seriously, tilting her head to get Lance to try and make eye contact so he could see her sincerity, “We’re simply worried that you are not resting enough during the night, which-I have been informed-will affect you humans negatively in the long run.”

Shiro nodded beside her, moving over to place a gentle hand on Lance’s shoulder. Lance had to fight the urges to either lean into the contact or flinch away from it. “Allura’s right, Lance. It isn’t healthy to only go to your Lion when you’re having problems sleeping,” A sympathetic look flashed over Shiro’s features, voice low and soft in a way that Lance absolutely hated-hated how it reminded him of the social workers taking him back from foster homes that didn’t always quite work out, their pity thick like tar as Lance tried so hard not to cry in the backseat.

Lance swallowed down the snappy reply that lingered at the tip of his tongue, mustering up a cheerful smile to hide the bitterness that festered in his chest, “Ah, yeah, I just haven’t been sleeping the best? And I don’t like bothering you guys with my homesick ass when you guys need sleep just as much as I do. Really, it’s not a big deal.”

“Does this have anything to do with those letters I saw you reading the other day?” Lance loved Hunk, fiercely, like a brother, but sometimes he desperately wished the other wasn’t so nosy. 

“Or the recorded tape I saw you fiddling with when we got back from that meeting with the Coreklians?” Pidge piped up and Lance wished they could read his mind so that they would hush up about what they’d seen.

“Or how about the notebooks I’ve seen you wandering the halls with?” Keith asked, eyebrow raised skeptically and Lance really, really wanted to throttle is rival-turned-team mate-turned-friend. 

It was silent for a few moments as they all kept looking at Lance, waiting for a reply from the blue paladin, who was trying so very hard not to let the acidic remarks he was thinking spew out of him. It felt too much like they were accusing him of something heinous, when really, all he was doing was keeping something extremely personal from the team-and yeah, that probably didn’t sound too good, considering they were supposed to be one hundred and fifty percent open with each other but Lance just couldn’t. It felt too personal, and he still wasn’t as comfortably close with the others as he felt he should be before they Unlocked His Tragic Backstory™.

“Guys,” He said, having calmed himself down some, enough that his voice wouldn’t shake and that his discomfort wouldn’t show on his face, “I appreciate that you’re all worried about me, but seriously. It’s not a big deal. I already had bad insomnia back on earth and could deal with it enough to get into the Garrison,” He smiled at them, genuinely grateful, before it fell and he looked at them seriously, “But I can’t tell you anything about the books, tapes or letters. They’re... very personal, and I don’t feel comfortable discussing them with all of you at this time,” he looked at his plate guiltily, avoiding the hurt looks the others must have on their faces, “I’m sorry.”

Shiro seemed to sigh deeply, feeling conflicted over Lance’s answer. While on one hand, he was fairly hurt that Lance didn’t seem to trust them enough to let them in more, he also understood that what Lance was hiding from them was so personal, that not even Hunk-who was Lance’s best friend and almost-brother-didn’t even know about the books. While he wanted to get Lance to open up to the team about it, be honest and bond, he didn’t want to push Lance away by being too nosy about it.

“Alright...” Shiro said hesitantly, pulling away from Lance and giving the younger man a reassuring smile once he looked up, “while I’m not happy that you’re willingly hiding something from the team, I can also respect that it’s a touchy subject for you, and is very personal and uncomfortable for you to talk about at this time.”

“However,” Allura continued, her own sweet, comforting smile in place as she drew Lance’s attention away from Shiro, “if this... secret that you are hiding from your fellow paladins truly has nothing to do with them, and will not effect the overall strength of the team and your ability to form Voltron, then we will wait patiently for you to open up to us about it.”

Hunk grinned at Lance, “Yeah bud, I don’t mind waiting till you’re ready to tell us what’s going on in that head of yours, and what those books and stuff have to do with it, but I just want you to know that no matter what, I’m here for you, ‘kay?”

“Same here,” Pidge huffed, their own smile practically mega-watt, though there was something sly to it.

Keith simply nodded, not seeing the need to add a verbal opinion as he tapped Lance’s hand, shooting the blue paladin a snarky grin. 

“Quite right, my boy! If you ever have a need for an open ear, I am open to conversing any time!” Coran called to Lance enthusiastically from the kitchen, where he was trying to cook yet another monstrosity of a meal for the paladins to try later in the day. 

Lance smiled, relief washing over him at his team’s understanding. He had no idea how he was ever going to be able to tell them the secret fears that plagued his mind, the tug in his navel that connected him to earth, to his old family house. Had no idea how he’d even be able to tell them all that he had no actual blood-related family, that he was the last of his line and that the curse on his family-whether it was real or not was debatable, but Lance had seen too much tragedy in his biological family to say there wasn’t some link to it-or how he was both terrified of returning to earth, yet also yearned for it. 

But for now they wouldn’t ask, wouldn’t pry into the secrets that he kept hidden. 

“Thanks guys,” He said, smile wide and genuine. He was just about to ask Coran what he planned to make for them when the alarm went off.

It was time to go battle.

Everything that could have gone wrong, did go wrong in the end.

Lance found himself trapped, once again. Too many Galra ships surrounded his beautiful Blue, the sheer numbers causing panic to well up within him. Each ship he shot down was replaced by three more, like some creepy metallic Hydra-fleet of ships. 

“Guys, I need some help over here!” He called out desperately over the comms, wincing when several ships shot Blue, his Lion roaring out a breath of ice, catching three of the awful purple and black ships. If he didn’t get any assistance now, he’d be overwhelmed, and there’s no way he’d be able to make it out and back to the castle in one piece.

“On your right!” Keith’s voice replied, and a blast of hot fire took down several of the ships beside Lance. The blue paladin let out a breath of relief, steering Blue to float beside Red, the two Lions working together to get rid of the swarming fleet so that they could fly back to the rest of the paladins a ways back.

“Thanks dude, I was in a bit of a jam back there!” Lance called to Keith cheerfully, who snorted at the blue paladin’s enthusiasm. 

“Maybe pay a bit more attention to the number of ships you can take before you engage them next time, Lance,” Keith called over the comms, tone lightly amused, “Might not actually need some saving next time.”

“Pfft, and give you all the glory, mullet-head? Nah.”

Shiro sighed in fond exasperation at the two, ceasing what he knew would lead to some lengthy bickering between the two, “Alright, alright, enough. Come back here so we can form Voltron and get rid of the main ship.”

“You got it!” Lance cheered, flying into position. They quickly formed Voltron, connection sure and strong between the five of them and Lance allowed himself to revel in it for the time being. Blue purred warmly in the back of his mind, setting him more at ease than he had been. 

Voltron made quick work of the main ship, the paladins allowing the sweet taste of victory to flow through the bond. 

Lance should have payed more attention. He barely managed to catch a glimpse of several of the smaller ships doubling back towards Voltron, all their blasters aimed directly at Hunk’s side. Breathing in sharply, Lance cried out to Hunk, forcibly breaking Blue away from Voltron to take the hit, purple electricity clashing and invading Blue’s armour.

You know how water allows the travel of electricity through its particles, or how electric types are two times stronger than water types in Pokemon? The same seemed to extend to the Blue Lion.

For a moment, everything went still, the left over connection from Voltron still buzzing lightly in the back of Lance’s mind. In that split moment, he was reminded idly of when his great grandfather, Douglas McClain, hadn’t been paying attention to the buck his daughter, Melissa McClain, had shot. The memory from the photos flashed before him so vividly it almost felt like he was there-one moment Douglas had been holding up the head of the still twitching buck, wide smile proud, even as his daughter sobbed a ways away behind the camera, big body looking so comically large in comparison to the small cliff-top he stood on with his second wife. 

He’d been too close to the edge, his footing hadn’t been sturdy, it had rained the night before. It didn’t matter the reason. One moment Douglas McClain had been placing the head of the dying deer back down on the ground to wave at his daughter, calling for a last snap shot-and the next, the buck’s head had tossed up, a last bursting struggle, the force strong enough to knock Douglas to the side. He slipped, the snap of the camera shutter loud in the quiet stillness between life and death... and then he was falling, falling, falling.

Once Douglas McClain’s body hit the forest earth with a sickening crunch, so too did Lance’s mind snap back to the present. A piercing scream left him, body convulsing in pain as the electricity fried his cockpit and rushed through him. Blue’s pained roars drowning out the shocked and panicked gasps from his team. Voltron’s mind connection finally broke as Lance idled in pained consciousness. 

They saw it... He thought blearily, his mind feeling so, so tired and so far away from everything. I’ll... have to explain... later... 

And with that last thought, Lance McClain, paladin of the Blue Lion, slipped into agonising unconsciousness. 

#Lance #Lance VLD #vld #Voltron: Legendary Defender #Keith #Keith VLD #Hunk #Hunk VLD #Shiro #Shiro VLD #Pidge #Pidge VLD #Coran #Coran VLD #Allura #Allura VLD #What Remains of Edith Finch #wref #All That Remains of Lance McClain AU #atrlm au #langst

[hannahberrie]

Heat Spell

Fandom: Zootopia Pairing: Nick Wilde, Judy Hopps Rating: T WC: 7,375 Summary: In the midst of an intense summer in Sahara Square, Judy and Nick are both college students working as lifeguards at a local pool club. One-Shot.[AO3]

[A/N]: This was just a fun little one-shot I wrote to take a break from Something That Finds You. Very fluffy, very casual -- hopefully it isn't as scattered as I feel it is. Once again, many thanks to everyone who reads this, and any of my other works! Happy Summer!

Her feet burned against the asphalt of the parking lot as she hurried into work, the ends of her fur practically singeing in the heat. No one had arrived yet, other than the other employees, but the club opened in less than 10 minutes, which was cutting it far too close for Judy. She whipped her keycard out of her tote bag as she entered the lobby of the main building, grateful for the brief welcome of an air conditioner.

While the Sahara Square Aquatic Center wasn’t one of Zootopia’s busiest pool clubs, this past summer had driven it to be busy enough. After all, when it was so hot outside that waves radiated off the asphalt like a fever dream, mammals tended to head to the nearest source of water. Said source of water also happened to be the source of Judy’s income.

In retrospect, she felt pretty stupid for signing up for a job that involved being outside all day, in up to 100°F heat (and that was on the cool side). But she’d needed the cash; college wasn’t going to pay for itself, and neither was her too small apartment that was also too much money for such a too cramped space.

The club was nestled on the Zootopian Bay, a gleaming juxtaposition between rugged inner streets and bustling downtown of Sahara Square. There was the outdoor pool with its shimmering blue-green tiled edge, the patio with its sea of faded umbrella tables, the snack shack that was held together with nothing more than some rustic shiplap and countless coats of blue paint, and the beach in all its bright blue, crystal clear glory.

Even though the club was the busiest in the district, that didn’t mean it was the nicest, i.e., Judy found herself often on the short end of the stick. She was the lifeguard…and sometimes the pool-cleaner, and patio-sweeper, and lounge-chair-scrubber, and we-ran-out-of-ice-cream-so-you-need-to-run-to-the-store-and-get-some-more-er, and my-kid-threw-up-his-bugga-corn-dog-in-the-pool-can-you-clean-it-up-please-er.

But it was fine. It was money. And money meant Judy could pay for college, which would lead to the police academy, which would lead to the career of her dreams.

The main building housed the front desk, changing rooms, and employee’s area, and as of today, the whole thing seemed a million times larger than usual. It felt like it took ages to maneuver through the lobby and into the employee’s corridors, but she finally clocked in at exactly 8:54. That gave her exactly 6 minutes to change into her uniform (a navy, one-piece swimsuit, accessorized with a whistle), and hurry to the pool area. She checked her watch. 9:03.

Shoot.

She looked around frantically for her boss, worried that she was done for. After all, Judy Hopps was never late for anything, and yet here she was, completely slacking off! Was she going to get fired? She was going to get fired! This was it!

She planned out her apology in her head, already preparing for how she would beg for forgiveness, plead for her boss to overlook this mistake, that it would never ever happen again…

…Only to catch her boss, a pot-bellied mountain-lion, sitting under a patio umbrella, reading the latest issue of ZooWeekly, and munching on a Bugga Hot Dog he’d swiped from the snack shack — not noticing her at all.

Oh.

“Stress much?” A voice said snidely, cutting through her train of thought.

Judy stiffened. After being subjected to listen to this voice all summer so far, she would have recognized it anywhere. The one, the only, the insufferably cocky and inexplicably smug, Nick Wilde.

“I’m not stressed!” Judy replied, doing her best to look as disinterested as possible when she turned to look at him. Like talking to him didn’t send her into a whirlwind of complicated emotions.

Nick stood in that way he always did, wearing the same navy swim trunks he always did, and smirking the way he always did. Judy was 99 percent sure that he’d been born smirking like that. “Please, Fluff, I can see how wound up you are from a mile away,” he said, “You’re not gonna get busted for being 3 minutes late, ya’ know.”

“I know!” Judy said quickly. “That’s why I’m not stressed.”

Nick raised an eyebrow. “Right.”

Judy felt her face flush. “Right.”

Nick brushed past her as he went to take his post at the lifeguard chair — a rickety, hulking, white wooden seat that stood a few feet off the ground. It was adorned with countless Sharpied names and topped with an umbrella for shade. The club had been so much busier this summer that they’d needed 2 lifeguards this year, which meant Nick and Judy were going to spend a lot of time together this summer. Not that Judy exactly minded, or anything…

…And not that she was ever going to admit that. To anyone. Ever.

“I’ll take the chair for the first couple hours, then you can have it when we get busier,” Nick said as he climbed up.

Judy snorted. “How chivalrous of you.”

Nick winked at her before slipping his sunglasses off his head and over his eyes. “You’re welcome.”

“So how’s your summer job going?” Judy’s mother asked over MuzzleTime that evening.

Judy shifted from where she sat at her small desk, wrinkling her nose slightly. Her too-small apartment seemed to permanently reek of chlorine these days, no matter how hard she tried to scrub the scent off her fur and wash it off her sheets. She currently had a candle burning off to the side of her desk, something called “downy meadows.” It reminded her of Bunnyburrow. “It’s fine,” she said slowly, “It’s a job. I mean, it’s just for the summer, so…”

“Maybe you could become a professional lifeguard!” Her father piped up from somewhere off camera. “That’d be a heckuva lot safer than being a police officer.”

“Oh, yes!” Her mother agreed. “Your cousin Earl works as a lifeguard, you know, down at the swimming center in Deerbrooke. He gets to teach all the kits swimming and everything! You could work with him!”

“Mom,” Judy said carefully, evenly, “I’m going to be a cop.”

Her parents sighed. They’d had this conversation at least once a week, with Judy’s suggested careers ranging from a maid, carrot farmer, librarian, carrot farmer, receptionist, carrot farmer, preacher’s wife, carrot farmer, teacher, and how about, just maybe a carrot farmer? Judy honestly didn’t know why they kept trying, her reply was always the same.

“I thought you guys supported me,” Judy continued, unable to keep the disappointment out of her voice.

“We do!” Her mother answered quickly, “Right, Stu?”

“Right!” Mr. Hopps agreed, finally squeezing into frame beside his wife. “You know we do, Jude. But we just want you to be safe, is all.”

“Mom. Dad. Trust me, I can handle it. I’ve been living here in the city for almost 2 years now, all on my own!” Judy reassured them. “And besides, my job as a lifeguard is way more dangerous than being an officer. I’m pretty sure I’m fighting off heat stroke on a daily basis.”

The last part was meant to be a joke, but her parents didn’t seem to catch on, due to the alarmed shock on their faces and worried looks they exchanged.

“I’m kidding!” Judy quickly amended. “You guys don’t have to worry about me so much.”

Her parents looked relieved again. “You know we can’t help it, hun” her mother replied, giving her a soft smile. “Now you get some rest — it’s so late! You should be in bed!”

Judy glanced at the clock on her desk. 8:30. “Uh…right!” She said, holding back an adolescent-sounding whine that she was an adult now, and at 21 years old she wasn’t going to be told what time to go to bed, thank you very much. “I love you guys!”

“We love ya’ too, Jude!” Her father beamed, leaning too close to the MuzzleTime camera, as he always did.

“Buh-bye!” Her mother trilled, and with that, ended the call.

Judy slumped back in her chair as she set her phone down, exhaustion slowly starting to set in. Today had been slightly difficult, to say the least. Whether it’d be the hot sun, the long hours, a kit screaming over dropping his ice cream in the pool, Judy having to go into the pool and clean up the ice cream, or the mother of the kit yelling at Judy for the entire thing (like it was her fault that her kit had been trying to throw his ice cream at seagulls), it hadn’t been a fun day.

It didn’t help that Nick had hardly spoken a word to her all day long. Not that she cared about that. It was just an observation.

The bunny took a deep sigh. She took in the scent of downy meadows, the bustling and hustling murmur of the Zootopian streets outside, and the cool feeling of her wooden desk under her paws. Tomorrow was a new day.

Fingers crossed that it wouldn’t be worse.

“Can you put on a shirt, please?!” Judy huffed, hoping she didn’t sound as flustered as she felt.

“Nope,” replied Nick, who was currently sitting mere centimeters away from her. It was 102°F in Sahara Square today, which meant that instead of taking turns sitting in the lifeguard chair like they usually did, the fox and rabbit were both nestled under the small shade of the umbrella attached to the chair. It was Nick’s idea, not hers. They were seated side-by-side, legs practically touching, watching the pool club members splash around in the water below. Nick had brought a small, battery-powered fan that he’d attached to the back of the chair, and the faint cool breeze tickled the back of Judy’s neck. “It’s hot out, Fluff.”

“I know that,” Judy grumbled, forcing her eyes to stay where they were supposed to be, at the swimmers, and not the creamy, admittedly soft-looking fur of Nick’s chest. “But it’s still a part of your uniform.”

“Calm yourself, Carrots — I still got my swim trunks on, much to your dismay, I’m sure.”

Judy felt waves of heat radiate off her body, and it wasn’t due to the sun. “W-what are you talking about?”

Nick simply smirked, gaze hidden behind his sunglasses. “If you like the t-shirt so much, why don’t you wear it?” He replied instead, grabbing the wadded up white-and-navy shirt from the back of the chair and plopping it into her lap. “Merry Christmas.”

“I don’t want your sweaty shirt!” Judy exclaimed, tossing it back at him. “That’s disgusting!”

Nick laughed, the same delighted laugh he always gave when he teased her, something he apparently loved doing. It was the same laugh he’d laughed when he’d stolen her keycard and wouldn’t give it back until she admitted that he was “the best, handsomest, charming-est fox ever,” or that time when he’d given her a pawsicle, only to tell her (after she’d eaten it) that he may or may not have licked it before giving it to her. “Sure you don’t.”

“I don’t!”

“Well, I’m not putting it on, so….”

“Fine then!” Judy huffed, crossing her arms. “Do whatever you want.”

“Well, I want to keep my shirt off.”

“Fine!”

“Great.”

The two were silent for a moment, their argument (which hadn’t even felt like a real argument — Judy wasn’t really mad at him, just uncomfortable with how much she wasn’t mad at him) apparently over. Finally, Nick broke the silence with a sly quip, “You know…I feel a lot cooler now. Not wearing a shirt really works. You should try it.”

“Can I see your whistle?” She asked lightly, turning to him and holding out her paw.

Nick’s brow furrowed but he shrugged. He pulled the lanyard off his head and handed it to her. “Sure, though I think putting something else on kinda defeats the whole idea of you wearing le—”

Judy chucked his whistle into the pool.

It hit the water with a soft ‘plink’ and disappeared beneath the waves.

“You sly bunny,” Nick sat in awe, still slack-jawed. “I guess I should have seen that coming,” he sighed, climbing down the chair to retrieve his whistle.

“You probably should have, Slick,” Judy teased.

“And I guess I deserved that,” he continued, hopping onto the pavement and wincing as the hot concrete hit his paws.

“You definitely did.”

“I got you lunch,” Nick said suddenly, tossing a foil-wrapped package towards her, “From the snack shack.”

Judy was sitting in the lifeguard’s chair when she looked down just in time to catch the unidentified flying object. “What’s this?” She asked, looking down at Nick.

“I gotcha lunch, Carrots,” Nick said, smirking cockily up at her, sunglasses on. As usual. “You’re welcome.”

Judy unwrapped the foil-covered sandwich and took a whiff. Her nose wrinkled. “Ugh, no thanks.”

“You don’t like fish?” Nick asked casually, catching the fish fillet sandwich she tossed back down to him.

“I’m not a bear,” Judy joked.

“That,” Nick replied, pointing a paw at her, “Is incredibly racist.”

Judy inwardly bristled as she felt herself laugh indignantly. “You’re ridiculous, you know that?”

“That’s why you love me,” Nick shrugged, taking a bite of her discarded sandwich.

“I do not!” Judy gawked, hating how squeaky her voice sounded. Ugh.

“Uh huh. Sure.” Nick says through a mouthful of fish. Gross. “No sense of denying your feelings, Fluff. They’ll just keep bottling up inside of you until you explode all over the tennis courts over there.”

“Oh really?” Judy countered, raising an eyebrow.

“Yes, really.  It’s simple science.”

“So you’re a psychologist now?”

“I was thinking more along the lines of a detective,” Nick mused, balling up the foil wrapper in his paw, “That’s the plan, at least. And if I’m going to be a cop, I gotta have good insight, and all that. Which, thankfully, is one of my many natural-born talents.”

“A detective?” Judy gawked, “As in…a cop? But…I mean…it’s just…you’re…”

“I’m a fox?” Nick answered sarcastically, “Geez, Fluff, again with the casual racism. We really gotta work on that.”

“It’s not that!” Judy replied quickly. “It’s…” I never knew we had anything in common? I didn’t think that a sarcastic, suave, cocky fox would be interested in being a police officer? I just hate that this makes you more intriguing to me? “Just surprising, is all. And not because you’re a fox.”

“Well, I’d like to think I’m full of surprises,” Nick replied, pulling down his sunglasses to give her a wink.  

Judy had a hard time speaking after that.

Summer dragged on, and with it, Judy’s patience wavered. The heat grew hotter, the screeches and beaches louder, and the days longer. There was only so much a bunny could take

This is why she was so irritable on the day when a trio of vixens sauntered into the club, tittering into their paws and whispering to each other like a group of school kits.

At least, that’s what she told herself.

The intense heat was definitely responsible for Judy feeling that churning feeling in her stomach when the vixens had all approached Nick, giggling so hard their designer sunglasses had nearly fallen off their muzzles. The fact that she’d been sitting in this chair for hours was the reason she seethed when Nick actually started talking to them. He’d been patrolling the pool area, keeping a close eye out while Judy stayed in the chair, and now he seemed completely enamored with these silly girls doting on his every word.

It was incredibly infuriating.

And not because she liked him, or anything. She didn’t. She was just already mad, on account of the hotness and loudness, and because Nick wasn’t doing his job. Someone could drown right in front of him and he wouldn’t even notice, not with all those vixens crowding around him and pestering him and batting their lashes at him.

It was for the safety of the other pool guests that Judy just had to go over there. She was just doing her job, really. Honestly!

She climbed down from the chair and stormed over to the group, trying to look as intimidating as possible (a feat that wasn’t easily achieved, considering that she was only two and a half feet tall, and by most mammals standards, ‘adorable’).

“Ahem!” She cleared her throat as she planted her paws on her hips.

“Hiya, Fluff!” Nick said lightly, turning his attention to the bunny, “What’s shaking?”

“Don’t you think you should be getting back to work?” Judy said, trying her best not to seethe as much as she wanted to. “We’re busy.”

“Give yourself some credit, Cottontail,” Nick glanced around. “I think you were doing a great job on your own.”

“Someone could drown!” Judy huffed. “What if I wasn’t looking?”

“Then maybe you should be looking,” Nick smirked.

“Nicky,” one of the vixens, a white-furred, slinky little thing, whined, “We were talking.” She put a lot of emphasis on talking, the same way Judy’s sisters often begged her mother after church services, “But Mom, 10 minutes ago you said we were leaving.”

Both Nick and Judy disregarded this. “I’m not going to do all the work while you sit back and slack off!” The bunny griped.

“Because you miss me?”

“No!”

“Nickyyyyyy.”

“You totally miss me, Fluff. It’s adorable.”

“I don’t miss you! I  just need you,” Judy said through gritted teeth.

Nick wolf-whistled. “Well, well, well, Hopps, I knew you had the hots for me, but I didn’t expect you to just blurt it out. And you say I’m the one full of surprises.”

“I meant I need your help!” Judy snapped. “Now c’mon!” She lunged a paw forward and grabbed whatever of Nick she could reach (his arm), and pulled him back towards the lifeguard station.

“Fine,” Nick gave in, giving off a long, languid sigh. “I couldn’t bear to leave a bunny unsatisfied.”

“But Nicky!” The white vixen whined louder, stomping her foot and exchanging worried glances with her friends.

“Uh, we can talk later, maybe,” Nick said offhand, still in the midst of being dragged back to the lifeguard’s chair.

Judy pulled him up so he was seated beside her, then proceeded to return her focus to the pool. She could help but watch as the vixens sulked away, not before throwing Judy several dirty glares.

“You’re so jealous,” Nick said suddenly, interrupting her brooding.

“Can you stop that?!” Judy asked, flinching slightly.

“Stop what?”

Reading my mind. “Sneaking up on me!”

“I’m sitting right here. I hardly call that sneaking up on you,” Nick snickered.

Judy couldn’t think of a coherent retort, so she chose to say nothing. She was tired and hot and grumpy and a little more than embarrassed. Overall, she felt more deflated than the old beach balls in the supply shack.

Nick didn’t say much more after that. She saw him give her a look out of the corner of his eye, though with his sunglasses on, she had no clue what kind of look it was.

Not that she cared.

At least…not that much.

Closing time was always a special time of day. The club members were long since gone, leaving behind some forgotten ice cream sandwich wrappers and the thick scent of furtan lotion. The loud hiss of cicadas was replaced with the soft hum of crickets, accompanied with the gentle surf of the Zootopian Bay. The sky was pink and violet, and the air was cool.

Judy definitely wasn’t a nocturnal animal, but after working this job, she definitely saw the appeal.

She was cleaning the pool after hours, the same day as the whole vixens incident, when she caught sight of Nick leaving. He had a bag slung over his shoulder, an earbud hanging out of one ear, and in a rare change of pace, his sunglasses on top of his head. He was headed to the lobby when Judy called out to him.

“Nick!”

His ear twitched before he turned to look at her, eyebrow raised. “What?”

Judy stood there, holding her pool net as she stood at the water’s edge, instantly feeling incredibly stupid. What was she going to say to him? “I just…I wanted to say…uh…”

Nick eyed her.

“I’m sorry!” Judy blurted out quickly. “For today, I mean. I was acting weird. I shouldn’t have pulled you around like that.”

Nick shrugged. “Whatever. I shouldn’t have been slacking off.”

Judy just looked down at her feet. She’d always been such a confident bunny, never afraid of anything or willing to let anyone stop her. But with Nick…her limbs felt like jelly and her tongue was in knots.

“Besides, you’re pretty cute when you’re jealous,” Nick continued. Judy looked up just in time to catch a glimpse of one of his trademark winks.

“I am not!” She protested, “…Cute or jealous.”

Nick simply gave a casual wave and continued to saunter out, full of more cocky swagger than ever. “Goodnight, Fluff! Try not to miss me too much!”

“Not likely!” Judy shouted back, but he was already inside the lobby and after he left Judy realized her retort only made it sound like she was likely to miss him.

“You dumb bunny,” she groaned to herself, leaning on the handle of her pool net.

Which could have made for a peaceful moment, that is if the rickety piece of plastic hadn’t given way under her weight, and caused her to tumble face-first into the pool.

The perfect ending to a perfect day.

“I got you lunch,” Nick said, tossing her a sandwich.

“Fish?” Judy asked hesitantly.

“Nope,” he replied, climbing up to sit beside her.

Judy took off the foil wrapper to find a bug-burga before her, cicada-y glory and all. Shoot. “Oh, wow!” she said, trying to sound as upbeat as possible, “That’s…um…really nice, Nick, but…I…”

“Lemme guess,” Nick said dryly, “You don’t eat bug-meat.”

“Sorry,” Judy winced, handing the sandwich back to him.

“I got a chicken sandwich here if you’d like that,” Nick offered, holding out his lunch to her, “I took a bite out of it, but you and I both know that you wouldn’t mind swapping spit with me.”

Judy chose to ignore the latter sentiment. “I don’t really eat chicken, either,” she admitted.

“Jesus, Carrots,” Nick groaned, flopping back against the chair, “What do you eat?”

“I’m a vegetarian!” Judy answered defensively, “I eat greens.”

“Like grass?”

“No! Lettuce! And spinach! And nuts! Sometimes hay.”

“That sounds terrible.”

“It’s not. You know, you could use a couple extra veggies in your diet,” she joked, leaning in to pat him on the stomach.

“Are you calling me fat, Fluff?” Nick gasped, feigning great indignation. “How dare you.”

“I’m not!” Judy giggled. “Everyone should eat healthily, is all.”

“And you should get a little meat on your bones, is all,” Nick countered, and with that, moved in to tickle her sides with quickly wiggling paws.

“S-stop!” Judy squealed, squirming and twisting in her seat. “You d-dumb f-fox!”

Nick only laughed, getting her on her stomach, her arms, her thighs — Judy had never known herself to be this ticklish before.

It wasn’t until the shrill cut of a whistle that Nick finally stopped. The fox and bunny parted to look up at their boss, who was looking a whole lot less amused than they were.

“You two!” He barked, snapping his fingers at them, “Eyes on the pool!”

Judy pulled away immediately, snapping up straight in her chair like she’d been yanked up by an invisible string. She couldn’t believe she’d been caught slacking off! What if she got fired? Would it go on her permanent record? She would have to put it on all her future job applications! Everyone would know! No one would ever hire her again! She would never become an officer and would have to slum around the streets of Zootopia for the rest of her life! She could see herself now, poor, homeless, jobless…

“Carrots,” Nick said, cutting through her thoughts, “Stop worrying.”

“I’m not!” Judy insisted, though even to her own ears, the lie was obvious.

In response, Nick only wrapped his arm around her back, keeping his eyes on the pool at all times, and gently rubbed her arm a few times before pulling away again.

So in short, Judy instantly knew what it felt like to be a melted popsicle.

The subway was an interesting experience, to say the least. They were filled with their fair share of oddballs, that was for sure (Judy would never forget her unfortunate bump-in with the naked Cow Boy), but for the most part, it was a relaxing end to Judy’s day. She could sit back in her seat, relax, and listen to Gazelle on her small iPawd. Plus, it was air conditioned!

On this ride home, she couldn’t help but think back to Nick. Nick’s arm around her, Nick’s creamy fur, Nick’s laugh, Nick’s smile, Nick’s thigh brushing up against her.

The annoying charming fox was in her mind while Gazelle was in her ear singing a sultry love song. It was one that used to always make Judy roll her eyes at how cheesy it was, but now it made her heart flutter and soar. The whole thing was so pathetic, really, and yet…

She felt so happy inside.

She found herself thinking about him, and wondering if he was thinking about her. She wanted to know more about him, to be closer to him.

Not because she liked him, or anything. She was just curious.

Curious enough to look him up on Instagram, and just browse through a couple…

(hundred)

…posts.

It was mostly selfies, almost all of them with that classic smirk of his. There were other things too, like a lot of food pictures from restaurants, showing off fancy-looking dishes Judy had never even heard of before. There were photos of him at school (it looked like he went to Zootopia UNI, same as her), with friends (a couple with a vixen, but those were all from over a year ago, so they still couldn’t be an item, right?).

She scrolled far back enough to find a selfie from a year back, in which he was holding up a Criminal Justice textbook with a goofy grin on his face.

[Finally picked out a major: say hello to the future Officer Wilde]

The caption was finished off with a sunglasses emoji, followed by a police car one.

Dumb fox.

He looked so happy, with that dumb smile of his, which made Judy smile even bigger. Maybe they’d have some classes together this fall! Would that be weird? Should she say anything? No, probably not. She couldn’t even begin to imagine how that conversation would go down. Hey Nick, so I was just Insta-stalking you the other night, and — no, no real reason, I was just…bored. Yeah! Really bored. Anyway, I just wanted to let you know that just in case you weren’t sick of hanging out with me all summer long, we’re going to be spending all fall together too!

Judy frowned and shook her head. If Nick had any idea that she had been looking him up online, she would be completely mortified. He’d never let it go.

Feeling sheepish, she tapped her screen to back out of Nick’s profile…

…but not before her finger accidentally tapped Nick’s post, causing a giant, blaring red heart to flutter across the screen.

She. Liked. The. Post.

The post that he’d posted over a YEAR ago. A whole YEAR.

Judy dropped her phone like it was made of burning coals, causing it to clutter to the subway floor. Other riders looked at her with disdain, clearly perturbed to be interrupted by even the slightest of sounds, so Judy bent forward and picked it up again, cheeks hot. Thank heavens for her phone case.

Breathe, just breathe!

It wasn’t the complete, total end of the world. Maybe it wouldn’t even send Nick a notification that she liked it — apps could glitch sometimes. He had so many posts, maybe her like would disappear amongst the countless other likes he got on all her posts.

Judy groaned and pounded her head against the seat in front of her. “Dumb, dumb, dumb bunny!”

Work tomorrow was going to be loads of fun.

“Lunchtime, Carrots,” Nick called out.

Judy took her eyes off the pool to give him an exasperated look. “Nick! I can get my own lunch!”

“No you can’t. You gotta watch the pool. Do I really need to explain your job to you?” Nick hopped into the seat next to her and handed her yet another foil-wrapped package, though this one was noticeably more oblong in shape.

Judy eyed him warily. “Nick…”

“Just open it, Fluff.”

Judy sighed and unwrapped her lunch — expecting to find yet another bug-burga, or maybe some kind of chicken, or fish, or some other unappealing meat…

…Only to find green. A lot of green.

Judy glanced up at him. “What’s this?”

“Food.”

“What kind of food?”

“A wrap,” Nick answered, taking a bite into his own bug-burga. “Lettuce, spinach, dandelions, carrot shavings — basically, someone’s backyard in a tortilla.”

Judy took a bite, eyes falling closed in sheer pleasure. “This is amazing,” she gushed, taking several more bites, “Oh! And is that watercress dressing?”

“Sure? I dunno, the bunny working there said it was the ‘rabbit specialty,’ or whatever.”

“Well, it tastes incredible!” Judy paused. “Wait, where did you get this? We don’t have anything like this at the snack shack.”

“I may or may not have used my lunch break to make a snack run,” Nick answered, not looking directly at her. “And before you have an aneurism, yes, I did get permission from Boss Potbelly to leave. The place is right up the street.”

Judy couldn’t help but blush. Nick had used his break — the one break they got per day — to get specialty food just for her. That had to mean something, right? He cared!

Not that she cared.

She took another bite of her wrap. Pure deliciousness.

Oh, who was she kidding? She cared! She definitely cared and admitting it made her heart burst like it was made of rainbows and hearts and watercress dressing (the image sounded better in her head then it did in concept). She liked him and she wanted him to like her too, and maybe, just maybe, he did!

The thought made her grin like an idiot, and while her insides were flying, exploding, tumbling, all she could say was…

“Thanks.”

“You’re welcome, Judes.”

Judy munched away at her wrap, completely content. The sun was shining, the pool was lively, the beach was bright and bursting with energy, and —

“And, uh, by the way,” Nick added casually, “Thanks for liking that Instagram post from last year. It’s truly touching.”

Judy choked on her wrap.

Tension: it had never been a more tangible thing than it was now. While it lacked in the drooping and mostly forgotten nets on the club’s tennis courts, it hung thick in the muggy summer air, as well as between the bunny and fox. Judy could feel it every time she and Nick sat side-by-side in their chair, this thick, electrifying connection between them.Their thighs would touch and the fan would tickle her neck and she felt this constant pressure — expanding, pressing, growing.

It was sweltering.

She felt it when a couple of bucks came into the pool one day and started calling out to Judy. Their cat-calls were juvenile, and Judy easily ignored them, but it caused Nick to tense, stiffen. He’d drummed his fingers against the slide of the chair, crossed his legs, uncrossed them. Clenched his paws, unclenched them. Took his sunglasses off, put them back on.

Finally, after the bucks had shouted from the pool just exactly what they’d like to do to her in said pool (something involving their ‘pool noodles,’ really, pool noodles), Nick had stormed over to them and yelled at them so forcefully and so scarily that their boss actually looked up from his copy of ZooWeekly to reprimand him.

“Nick, stop yelling at the guests,” he said tiredly, then promptly returned to the scathing article on Catty Perry.

After the bucks had left (in a huge hurry, no doubt), Judy had blinked at Nick in shock. “Nick!” she exclaimed as he climbed into their chair, “You shouldn’t have done that! They were just dumb jerks!”

Nick gave a dry laugh. “Doesn’t mean they have any right to talk to you like that.”

He had a point. Besides, seeing him rush to her defense like that…she couldn’t lie and say that she didn’t like it.

She felt tension like this in other moments, like when those vixens had returned. They’d sauntered in together, swimsuits too small and giggles too shrill, waving at Nick excitedly. Judy felt the tense feelings bubble up within her, causing her to stiffen in her seat and her stomach to tighten.

But instead of going over to talk to them, Nick had simply given a polite wave and stayed right next to Judy.

Was he just doing his job? Or was there something more? Judy still wasn’t sure, and she hadn’t had the nerve to ask.

She was just happy he’d stayed.

Moments strung themselves out across days, intertwining in time and becoming one fluid stream of consciousness. In the heat of summer, Judy often found herself forgetting what day it was, and time itself seemed to slow and crackle in the sun.

Moments, tension…

There was that time when Judy was eating a popsicle and Nick had been looking a little too long, a little too intently…

When Judy wished him goodbye at the end of the night, and moved in for a hug, instead of the usual, distant wave…

When Nick had walked her to the subway station, on that night there was a rare thunderstorm…

They’d gotten caught in the storm before they’d made it to the station, and Nick had given her his hoodie to protect her from the rain. The wind and rain and thunder had picked up and crashed down in a roaring display, and Judy could still remember how hard she laughed when a stray palm leaf had billowed off a tree and smacked him in the face. Her laughter had nearly been swallowed up by the storm, but he’d still heard and he’d still nudged her in that playful, innocent way. When they finally made it to the station, she’d moved to take off the hoodie, but he’d stopped her.

“Keep it,” he’d said lightly, then, after she’d given him a startled look, “I mean, it’ll probably still be raining by the time you get home.”

So she’d kept it. The hoodie was still in her apartment, folded neatly on her nightstand, and she wasn’t eager to return it.

There were all the times he’d wrapped his arm around the back of the chair, casually, not quite touching her, but near all the same, and played with the ends of her ears…

Or when he’d started following her on Instagram, liked a post from almost two years ago, an embarrassingly endearing one of her leaving Bunnyburrow to move to the city — she was all teary-eyed, arm-in-arm with her parents, and wearing a sweater that said, This Bunny Loves Carrots!, (knitted by her mother)…

Judy knew this was all cumulating to something. The tension crackled and sparked between them, one without a name or clear meaning, and within time, she knew it would come bursting to the surface, crashing hard and fast over them like a breaking wave in the bay.

August was right around the corner, threatening the bubble of summer bliss. The heat grew so intense that even the cicadas grew weary. The tar that’d been hastily slapped over potholes bubbled in the parking lot. Pawsicles began to melt the second they left the cooler of the snack shack. In heat this intense, even the guests had lulled. Preferring to stay in the comfort of their air-conditioned homes, the number of attendants began to dwindle.

In the past, Judy’s boss ordering her to stay late and clean the pool would have been immensely irritating, but today she welcomed it.

The second her boss left, she hopped right into the pool, net in paw. Getting to stand in the water with her pool net and simply soak it all in was heavenly after such a long, boring shift.

Eventually, she got so entranced with swimming around that she actually forgot she was supposed to be cleaning. Her pool net floated off towards the deep end as Judy floated on her back, eyes closed, listening to the soothing roll of the beach juxtaposed with the soft rumble of Sahara Square’s nightlife.

Yup. This is was heaven was like.

“So, Carrots, are you like, dead?”

Judy jumped up, startled by the sudden interruption. She was only in the shallow end, so she was free to stand up and investigate. She looked around wildly before catching sight of Nick, who was currently watching her from the edge of the pool. He still had his club swim trunks and t-shirt on, though his sunglasses were noticeably absent.

“No!” She blushed, glancing around the empty club. “What are you still doing here?”

“I could ask you the same question.”

“I was, well, I was supposed to be cleaning the pool. I mean, I am cleaning it. I was just…”

“Messing around?” Nick finished. Something about the way he said it made Judy’s heart skip a beat — his voice dropped a note and his eyes fixed on her.

“Y-yeah,” she replied. Ugh, she hoped her voice didn’t come out as squeaky as it sounded just then.

“Mind if I join you?”

Before Judy could reply, the fox jumped right in, shirt and all. She gasped as the water splashed over her, getting in her eyes and blinding her.

“Nick!” She sputtered, wiping at her eyes frantically.

When she’d finally gotten the water out of her eyes, he was gone. Judy’s brow furrowed in confusion. One minute he’d been right in front of her, then seconds later he’d completely disappeared.

“What the—?”

“Boo.”

The voice was in her ear, right behind her, and she whirled around frantically to see a dumb, laughing fox.

“Y-you should have seen the look on your face!” He cackled, absolutely in stitches.

“That wasn’t funny!” Judy huffed, folding her arms across her chest. “How were you so quiet?”

“That’s called predator instincts, Fluff,” Nick said with a wink, voice low, “Back in the day, that’s how we foxes used to hunt cute little bunnies like yourself.”

“Right,” Judy said with a snort. She was shocked that her voice came out so nonchalant, considering her heart was currently picking up to beat at dangerous speeds.

Nick simply smiled at her before swimming off to the deeper end of the pool, then circling back. “So, this feels amazing.”

“It really does,” Judy agreed. She tried to relax again, but when Nick was swimming so close to her, that was basically out of the question.

“Race ya’ to the deep end!” Nick called out, swimming away from her again. His arms and legs kicked up quickly, sending a flurry of water in her direction.

“No fair!” Judy gasped, coughing from the water that subsequently went up her nose. “You got a head start!”

“Slowpoke!” Nick called back.

Judy’s face set with determination as she charged after him, swimming as fast as she could. Within seconds, she met his pace and passed him.

“Bye!” She giggled over her shoulder, before charging ahead to the end of the pool. Nick shouted something in reply, but she couldn’t hear it above the sounds of hurried splashing and her own laughter.

She slapped a paw against the wall of the deep end, stopping to catch her breath. When she looked back, Nick was still trailing behind, an impressed grin on his face. “Okay, h-how the h-hell are you so fast?” He panted, gripping the pool edge with one paw as he came to a stop.

“That’s called predator instincts, Slick,” Judy replied haughtily, “Back in the day, that’s how we bunnies outran big foxes like yourself.”

Nick laughed and shook his head, still out of breath from swimming so fast. “Touché, Cottontail.”

Judy just beamed at him, feeling quite proud of herself, to say the least. “Dumb fox.”

“Fast bunny.”

Their eyes met and Judy looked away quickly, flitting up to the sky above. Dusk was moving in, causing the sky to turn a deep, velvet purple accented with tiny diamond stars. She could hear the crickets beginning to hum, their cadence a familiar tune that reminded her of summer nights in Bunnyburrow, summer nights here, with Nick…

“I don’t want summer to end,” she said suddenly, the words coming forth before she’d even completed the thought in her head.

“Me neither,” Nick murmured, and when Judy looked down from the stars, she saw that he’d gotten close.

Really close.

His muzzle was less than a foot away from hers, and his eyes, piercing and emerald and jelly-leg-inducing, were locked onto hers.

She gulped. Oh, sweet cheese and crackers, this was it, wasn’t it?

Tension, palpable, tangible, electrifying.

“Can you stop that?” Judy mumbled, voice suddenly sounding hoarse.

“Stop what?” Nick asked. He moved closer.

Making me want to kiss you. Judy’s heart tightened in her chest her eyes locked view with his muzzle. As clichéd as it sounded, time really did feel like it stood still — suspended with the way Nick was looking at her, moving closer to her, moving a paw up to cup her cheek. The sounds of the water and the bay and the crickets and the city all faded away, leaving the muted murmur of their legs kicking under the water, her nervous, wary breaths.

Her paw, still gripping the edge of the pool, locked down tightly.

Judy searched her mind for a response, something like, ‘annoying me,’ or ‘being insufferable,’ or even ‘driving me up the freaking wall.’ But nothing came. She tore her gaze up and away from his mouth, and looking into those emerald green eyes again, she realized she’d never wanted anything more intensely.

And so…

…She took the plunge.

“Making me like you,” she whispered, and with that, she leaped into his embrace. He caught her quickly, nearly careening back into the water, but when his arm wrapped around her waist, she’d never felt more safe and secure. Their muzzles met roughly and a little messily, the taste of sweet pawsicles contrasting with the salty taste of sweat and bitter tinge of chlorinated water. In the traditional sense of the word, it wasn’t perfect. And yet, Judy wouldn’t have traded this feeling for the world.

They parted after what felt like only minutes, or maybe years. Judy’s head was spinning and she still didn’t have a good grasp on the whole time thing. Nick was smiling at her, though he winced slightly as the arm that wasn’t around her, but instead gripping to the edge of the pool, gave way. The two parted and dunked under the water, resurfacing with a shared laugh.

“Maybe if you ate more grass, you would know how to hold up a bunny properly,” Judy giggled, brushing her ears down flat as she sputtered up some water.

“Look Carrots, now matter how much I like you, I’m never gonna eat grass for ya’,” Nick said simply, wrapping his arms around her waist as they swam in place together.

“Not even a dandelion?”

“Hell no.”

“Spinach leaf?”

“I’ll just stick to my Carrots, thanks,” Nick said, his voice a low rumble as he pulled her against his chest, “…If you’ll let me.”

“Always,” Judy murmured. She pushed her muzzle forward and buried her face into his damp chest, taking in every scent, sound, and feel of this completely perfect moment. Chlorine and musky violets, crickets and rushing waves, fur — thick and wet.

Pure bliss.

#wildehopps #zootopia #zootopia fanfiction #berrie fics #wildehopps fanfiction #nick x judy #judy x nick #zoo 3 fic

[saturatethe-written-whitewa-blog]

oikawa week 2017, day 6.

oikawa week 2017, day 6: envy/kindness

pairing: oikawa tooru & iwaizumi hajime

❝What if, What if we're hard to find, What if, What if we lost our minds, What if, We let them fall behind, and they're never found.❞

—Youth, Troye Sivan.

"Aren't you scared?" Oikawa has always asked him.

"After you do this for a while, you've really no reason to be," Iwaizumi replies, as if he's not a delicate mistake away from being between the jaws of a manticore snorting away flies.

They're like dogs, Iwaizumi had explained the first time and if Oikawa tries to remember it now he can only find himself fragments and phrases because there was one lying right next to Iwaizumi with eyes of amber. ("Dogs that could bite your head off if they so wanted," Oikawa reminded Iwaizumi. Iwaizumi replied with a clever: "Regular dogs could do the same, too, you know, it's just that we evolved all of the violence out of them and filled it with obedience instead." and Oikawa's got no reply to that besides a sideways movement of his nose and a proud 'hmph'.)

The second time Iwaizumi tries to explain to Oikawa, he tries to leave the manticore to tilt its head at the dirt collected between its heavy paws somewhere far enough Oikawa can't obviously stare at it in horror as if he was the one in attacking range. Oikawa still refuses to go anywhere flowering the creature's large pawprints that make both of them look at their own hands in a sort of disappointment and a sort of respect for the creatures turned lazy when they weren't living up to their reputations of toothy ferocity. (Fear, on Oikawa's part, that Iwaizumi has to make him forget about.)

Often, it's remembered with Iwaizumi sighing and sitting under trees with their shirts lied across their laps like frail sinners.

More often, their conversations falter when Oikawa looks far too long at something behind Iwaizumi's shoulder and Iwaizumi had once told him, 'I just saw it eating, it's not going to come for you immediately, wait two- maybe three days,' and Iwaizumi only learns the silent foreboding in his words when he's left lonely on that dreadful third day.

Now, Iwaizumi tells Oikawa it's sleeping, for this summer was a hot one and Iwaizumi would have taken off his gloves and fallen to the side of his bed with a grace he didn't care about.

At the very least, Oikawa makes Iwaizumi realize that he turns his back to the creatures far too often. He glances at them a lot more, and they never meet his eye; when they do, it's with this lazy, drowsy look that Oikawa bore at the peaks of afternoons when he wasn't being overfed with fear.

Oikawa learns to tolerate them, resting his shoulders more easy. Finally, he's walking right beside Iwaizumi again, and their elbows touch whenever they move their limbs and it isn't to walk forward. Oikawa becomes noisier, talking when he wasn't walking and even when he was.

Iwaizumi only realizes how much he's beginning to slack when he hears the scrape of the dull red scorpion pincer against even duller stone. A manticore's tail was heavy, they couldn't wag it like a pet, or swing it like a herbivore with offspring or an underbelly to protect; for whatever it was worth, as ugly as the tail looked being dragged behind the rugged elegance of the lion's body, it gave a ferocious snap that was second to none but the mighty roar of a manticore that sent the valiance of men off to those who could only be stupider.

Iwaizumi lives the next few days a bit more careful with the footsteps he leaves on the dirt. Oikawa is the sprite that whispers merriment into his ear and removes the creases on Iwaizumi's forehead with his magical touch and his magical laughter that can touch only Iwaizumi's heart ("It sounds as ugly as a muddy hog looks.") but he keeps Oikawa around anyway. He only has his doubts when the manticore keep looking at him like they want something.

There are only a few manticore that escape from the darkest tangles of the forest to laze where Iwaizumi can watch them, and the man is not as passionate nor sentimental enough to tell the creatures apart from the fraying of hair behind their ears or to name them after flowers and gemstones.

(Oikawa joked about naming one after him once upon an afternoon, and Iwaizumi promises himself to reserve it for a manticore he'll discover to be just like Oikawa, with a head held high and a nose that seemed only to be there to snort condescend at others' faces. He hasn't told Oikawa, nor has he found the lucky manticore no matter how much he laughs to himself about it.)

The manticore are large, with front limbs thicker than Iwaizumi's thigh and always hang their heads low so their shoulders poke from underneath the skin. Iwaizumi has never seen any young manticore- just big ones, and even bigger ones. He's always wanted to pet them, feel the short fur underneath his hand as he looks into their eyes like he's made an immediate connection; he wonders what fur feels like. Maybe it's like his own hair, hard like its got a mind of his own, leaving one side of Iwaizumi's mouth tipping downwards as the mirror reflects the strange face he's making as he pats his hair; maybe it's like Oikawa's hair, that felt like leaves if they were more silken than plant, curled like the hand of a blushing darling as she tries to charm someone with her bashfulness.

Iwaizumi likes looking at them, he could for hours at a time, and when Oikawa's too occupied to join him, he grunts back when they do (and he sure does flinch when they snap their heads at him.)

A manticore yawns from where its crossed its paws in front of it like it was watching over its own little town with its own little fearful worshipers. It lied nearby a bush, panting with its tongue just barely out of its mouth, all sagging black lips and teeth Iwaizumi befuddles himself trying to imagine how they all fit when locked together.

Iwaizumi always find them lying down a lot (If he was a lumbering animal with nothing better to do, he'd definitely lie down quite a lot, too, ) and when they walk they lag with that burden of a tail dragged behind them. A burial supported by none other than the grieving family itself- the manticore had that look as they let the pincer collect dirt at the tip and leave scratches in the dirt that the monsoon takes great care to demolish.

After the creature yawns it snaps its teeth quickly at what Iwaizumi imagined to be a fly, mane jolting from the sudden movement. He allows a second to hope the creatures manages to snag the pest somewhere in the teeth Iwaizumi never counted, for unfinished revenge is always sour. It makes Iwaizumi remember a conversation he had with Oikawa back when Oikawa was too afraid to look at anything but chipped rocks and Iwaizumi's face trying to reassure him to calmness.

"Aren't they going to kill you? Iwaizumi they could actually kill you!" Iwaizumi doesn't remember the last time Oikawa's called him by his last name, bleached too adapted to the nickname that tickles him grouchy, and it probably only worried Oikawa more when Iwaizumi's face blanked for all of two blinks and a despairing wail from Oikawa.

"Oikawa, you're just panicking-"

"-and all for very good reason!" he replies quickly, rebuilding his pride with shaky hands and a foundation of a poorly-executed facial expression.

"I just have to trust them not to kill me," Iwaizumi says, and Oikawa looks at him as if he's lost his mind.

"People have trusted other people with more dangerous things," Iwaizumi continues, leaving Oikawa thoughtful and contemplative long enough that Iwaizumi gets to see the manticore yawn another time before it lays its head between the valley of its paws.

Another time Oikawa is absent and the afternoon is quieter than what Iwaizumi's been used to, he remembers more of their conversations, a mess of a map he's drawn in his head full of the ones he remembers and others just phrases too nonsensical he can't connect their ends and he leaves them alone like islands hard and abundantly black rock, nameless and valueless.

"They can sense your fear, y'know," Iwaizumi tells Oikawa without looking at him. Oikawa sputters a laugh, hearty enough that he has a hand over where he guesses his stomach is.

"Iwa-chan, that's ridiculous."

"Your own father knows when you're even the slightest of uncomfortable, Oikawa," Iwaizumi points, "I mean, yeah animals aren't as smart as we are but have a little more faith in them. They're not completely brainless."

Oikawa shuts up. It's another victory for Iwaizumi, one that he takes with the fingers he has knotted together.

When Iwaizumi's finished with smiling at Oikawa's rare defeat, he waits another hour, enough time for the sunlight to paint rings of where the greenest plants get the most sunlight and the bent ones continue to wilt where nobody ever spares a glance at them. The manticore are absent too, and Iwaizumi spends quite a while wondering why he's stayed.

Iwaizumi doesn't think he's done anything besides sitting with his elbows on his knees and his hands clasped together between his legs, retorting to Oikawa if necessary and chuckling at him when he wanted to. Still, the creature begins dashing towards Iwaizumi with a speed he doesn't know is possible, with all of its limbs stretched as far and as synchronized as they could appear in the seconds Iwaizumi had before the fear drenched him like a disease; the scorpion tail was wrecking glory, swinging wildly and its mouth was open, without a roar but with all the fear Iwaizumi needed to stumble back as horribly as he could.

Iwaizumi couldn't feel the dirt underneath him, but he could feel the determination as the creature dashes closer, closer, closer and Iwaizumi doesn't know what the hell he's supposed to do. He can hear Oikawa shouting at the speed music was made in. Lithe, swift, the manticore moves closer, close enough Iwaizumi begins imagining just how gruesomely he could die, and he lives his life in the brief flashes before his eyes (Old men told him these tales and Iwaizumi chose not to heed them because of the drinks they had in their hands and the golden rings they had on the other.)

Then, the manticore stops. Doesn't even breathe, and Iwaizumi doesn't either.

He doesn't hear anything but the drum of his heartbeat and the fire of blood that sets itself under the constrict of Iwaizumi's skin and he utters a prayer that at least, Oikawa's somewhere safe. Probably crying, sniveling like a brat, but okay. Iwaizumi feels a little more peaceful after the thought, thanks the gods for saving Oikawa and for the brief time he's had.

The manticore is close enough he could reach a dirty paw and snag his pant leg and be done with him and in the long seconds they stare, Iwaizumi curses himself for not doing anything.

Then, the manticore walks away.

It takes a leaf into its mouth and faces its giant tail to Iwaizumi and picks it apart quickly. That could have been him, Iwaizumi realizes with a breathless whisper and unresponsive limbs.

Nearby, a yellow flower quivers, maybe from what it's seen, maybe from the wind that feels colder on Iwaizumi's skin than it should have.

When Iwaizumi finds Oikawa again, the other man is still in tears. Another day, another circumstance, Iwaizumi would have guffawed and made fun of him until Oikawa was too crossed to keep crying. Iwaizumi settles for a hand on Oikawa's shoulder; pathetic, he knows.

"Oikawa, uh-"

"Go to Hell, Iwaizumi!" Oikawa shouts, and Iwaizumi's forcibly repelled back a step, "I- I can't believe you! Go to Hell and don't come back until you've taken a page from Satan!"

"But wouldn't that-"

"Just shut up!" And Iwaizumi does.

It takes apologies, of course, and Oikawa hits Iwaizumi in the chest enough times and Iwaizumi knows he deserves it. The spot is sore when he rubs it afterward. Oikawa gets a cold two days later, red-nosed and miserable and still mostly upset and he tells Iwaizumi that he wants him to catch an even worse cold.

(Iwaizumi sort of shakes his head; yeah, he deserved that, too.)

spoiler: iwaizumi doesn’t catch oikawa’s cold.

#Oikawa Week 2017 #haikyuu!! #haikyuu

[lightandsaltdesigns]

Walking in the Light

Why is it so hard to tell the truth?

Last night I sent my two boys to brush their teeth. In front of the sink there is a stool that functions as both a boost for height and a constant sources of contention between the kids. About 5 seconds into their task I look up to see Lewis on the floor and hear him squeal in anger and Pascal standing proudly on the stool about to wash his hands.

Me: “Pascal, how did lewis end up on the ground? Did you push him?”

Pascal: “No mom! He put himself there! I’m just trying to wash my hands!”

Due to the circumstances and the look on Pascal’s face, I knew he wasn’t telling the entire truth. In that moment I knew I had a mission. It wasn’t a justice mission, it was a rescue mission. This conversation and the one that followed about shame was about taking my responsibility as a mother to be God’s ambassador on a rescue mission to save my child from himself and point him to his rescuer, Jesus.  

After a few back and forths of questioning, a wide eyed Pascal admitted to pushing his brother.

Pascal and I had a long talk about how pushing his brother was a problem, but the bigger problem in that moment was lying about it. About 20 minutes later after finally wrangling them to bed, I gave Pascal the chance to pray about anything he needed to ask forgiveness for. He prayed and asked God to forgive him for pushing his brother but excluded anything about lying. I opened up the conversation: “Pascal, why didn’t you ask for forgiveness for lying when that is what we talked so much about a few minutes ago?”

Pascal: “...I just didn’t want to say it, I didn’t want to admit it”

Me: ”Were you ashamed?”

Pascal: “Yes…...I was ashamed that I did it”

Me: “Pascal you never need to be ashamed, you’re already forgiven, and you never stopped being loved even when you were lying.”

After they went to bed I didn’t stop thinking about it. The Holy Spirit was leading me to think more about the concept of shame on display in my child’s reaction to his sin, and he was leading me to dwell on His truth about it.

Sin + Lying + Shame= Slavery

And enslaved is exactly where Satan, the prince of darkness, wants children of light to be.

It’s not enough to just teach our children right from wrong. It’s not enough to teach them how to be good and not sin. It’s not enough because THEY WILL SIN. They will sin now. They will sin later. They will sin forever, until they are in glory with Jesus.

We need to teach them what to do with their sin.

We need to teach them where to run.

We need to teach them how to run there.

We need to teach them how quickly they need to go.

We need to teach them that the only thing worse than sinning is pretending they don’t.

Most importantly, we need to teach this to ourselves first.

Our hope will never be found in a lie.

“So when God desired to show more convincingly to the heirs of the promise the unchangeable character of his purpose, he guaranteed it with an oath, so that by two unchangeable things, in which it is impossible for God to lie, we who have fled for refuge might have strong encouragement to hold fast to the hope set before us. We have this as a sure and steadfast anchor for the soul, a hope that enters into the inner place behind the curtain, where Jesus has gone as a forerunner on our behalf.” Hebrews 6:17-20a

God cannot lie. It is opposite of his character. So, why do we ever think we will find freedom in hiding? We think that BECAUSE of believing lies from satan, the great deceiver himself.

Our only hope is walking in the light, being honest with ourselves and others with where we are at because Jesus has already torn the curtain in half and atoned for the sin we continue to do (Heb 9:26-28). IT. IS. FINISHED. Our job now is the RUN to Him, WALK in obedience, WORSHIP Him and REST in Him. None of that is accomplished by hiding our sin.

Shame is a liar.

How did we get here?

The shame cycle is original to the first sin in Genesis. Sin automatically lead to shame and hiding, but the first thing God did to deal with the sin was to call them out of that hiding (well, the first thing after already having a plan in place to save them :) )

This sin to shame cycle has continued for all of time, gaining more traction than ever in this very interconnected and social media driven world. Now, people can hide right out in the open by spinning a version of themselves for everyone to see and believe on their computer screens, and people can use those same computers to publicly shame others and douse their lives with public mockery, slander, and even truth meant to humiliate. Shame is a very real and present tool used by satan. “Be sober-minded; be watchful. Your adversary the devil prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour. Resist him, firm in your faith, knowing that the same kinds of suffering are being experienced by your brotherhood throughout the world.” 1 Peter 5:8-9

You’re not alone, but that prowling devil wants you to think you are.

SHAME VS CONVICTION

Shame accuses, it gives no hope, it says we aren’t enough and never will be, it causes us to see ourselves as deficient and it absolutely fuels the fear that if we are known then we will not be loved. Shame keeps us stuck.

Conviction reminds us that we are not enough but the Jesus is more than enough. Conviction causes us to see our lack and points us to Christ’s provision. Conviction reminds us that we need to rest in Jesus’ guiltlessness and abide in Him. Conviction drives us to repentance in the light knowing we are fully loved and fully known. Conviction gives us freedom.

“What then? Are we to sin because we are not under law but under grace? By no means! Do you not know that if you present yourselves to anyone as obedient slaves, you are slaves of the one whom you obey, either of sin, which leads to death, or of obedience, which leads to righteousness? But thanks be to God, that you who were once slaves of sin have become obedient from the heart to the standard of teaching to which you were committed, and, having been set free from sin, have become slaves to righteousness.” Romans 6: 15-18

Sin keeps us enslaved by keeping us in shame. When you lie, you are a slave to the lie. When you are stuck in addiction, you are a slave to the addiction. When you are engulfed in lust, you are a slave to lust. When you are dependent on other people’s approval, you are a slave to their approval.

When you walk in truth---even in truth about your struggle with sin----you are not a slave to the sin but are a slave to righteousness. The Holy Spirit will compel you to righteousness because he cannot compel you to lies and shame---it is utterly against his nature. When the Holy Spirit compels you to righteousness he is reminding you of the identity you ALREADY have, not holding it over your head as an impossible goal.

“I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. And the life I now live in the flesh, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.” Galatians 2:20

This is the VERY BEST NEWS we could ever get.

This is the news that we need. That our kids need. That our parents need. That lonely or apathetic or angry or addicted people need. That people pleasing or know it all, or manipulative, or depressed people need. That content, distracted, thrill seeking, or laid back quietly judgmental people need.

The power of Christ lives in us when we believe in him as our savior and we no longer have to live out of the weakness of our own flesh! THE GOSPEL IS FOR ALL PEOPLE!

I see desperation everywhere, starting with my own heart. Desperation for answers, belonging, rest, provision, relief, love, being known, and success among so much more.

My heart is heavy because we all fall into the trap of thinking we have to pretend we are people we are not and we walk around with either ignorance towards the gospel, or gospel amnesia.  

So many of us walk around and live out of a place of shame and defeat instead of grace and victory. Some people have never received the Holy Spirit through redemption and new life and are therefore blind to the freedom in Christ offered to them. Others are believers but function on a daily basis out of the shame they were freed from because they were taught only that their sin was bad and that they shouldn’t do it, nothing more….and they realize they can’t stop sinning.

“The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy. I came that they may have life and have it abundantly.” John 10:10

Instead of freedom and abundant life, we chain ourselves to posting a polished version of ourselves online, afraid to show any unclean corners of our homes or our hearts. We chain ourselves to telling our friends that we are ok and only sending funny memes to each other instead of saying I’M NOT OK, and allowing the holy spirit to work through them to inform our feelings with truth and help us find victory. Instead of freedom, we think we have to parent our kids perfectly and never humbly admit to them that we need forgiveness even as we feel crushed under the weight of our continual failure to control our tongue. Instead of freedom, we keep buying more things and pretending we are fine instead of admitting to even one person that we need help getting ourselves out of the financial crater we have dug ourselves into.

Abundant life is what is offered to us in Christ. Not just “not sinning” but walking in freedom in the light, as you are, compelled to obedience, and ever more being transformed from one degree of glory to another while ADMITTING that he is not finished with you yet. You will never have abundant life if you are stuck thinking you have to hide and pretend to be someone you are not. Freedom is ONLY found in admitting where we fall short and applying the grace of Jesus to that deficit and saying PAID. IN FULL. This freedom is meant to lead us change, to worship, and to a life filled with peace even amidst chaos.

Shame isn’t the only lie Satan tricks us into believing, there are for sure many others that leave us thinking we really don’t need Jesus and we really do have it all together (PRIDE), but shame is just another version of pride in self deprecating clothes. Shame makes us doubt the sufficiency of Jesus to cover all of our sin. You’re not sinful enough to outrun Jesus’ blood, not you, not anyone.

Jesus can rescue anyone, and he can give them abundant life. The catch is that we have to be aware of our sin and admit it, and my prayer is that the Holy Spirit is compelling us all to that end right now.

I’ve heard too many stories of God’s redemptive and transforming power on display after secret sins were brought into the light to not be a herald for the truth. Jesus desperately wants his children to walk in the light as he is in the light. May we each find safe people who point us to Jesus and champion the Holy Spirit’s work on our hearts. May we be able to wake up each morning and look in the mirror without shame and claim the purity that is already ours in Jesus. May we walk and talk as dearly loved children of the king who do not have to earn their position, but who can live out of the abundance and provision they already have.

Shame is a thief. Don’t let him into your home anymore, paint the gospel on the doorposts as a warning: JESUS PAID IT ALL. I AM A CHILD OF GOD. FULLY LOVED. FULLY KNOWN.

So, what do we do with our sin? Ask the Lord to reveal it, and confess it.

Where do we run? To Jesus, and safe brothers and sisters in Christ he has put in our life to point us to Him

How do we run there? Through prayer, and honest conversation.

How quickly do we need to go? As fast as possible. Satan wants nothing more than for you to delay.

Stop pretending, and start walking in the light. There is so much goodness for you waiting there.

“This is the message we have heard from him and proclaim to you, that God is light, and in him there is no darkness at all. If we say we have fellowship with him while we walk in darkness, we lie and do not practice the truth. But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus his Son cleanses us from all sin.” 1 John 1:5-7

[tamersmile888]

Biblical Ways to Get Confident

As a child of God, I still struggle with thoughts of insecurity and self-consciousness. I still freeze up in conversations and always end up finding the right words to say after the fact. It can get really frustrating, especially when I've been dealing with it for years. I just want to be me, which means breaking the chains of fear and a mindset of inadequacy that hold me back. I want to be free, and that's part of what being a follower of Jesus is all about. He holds all the keys.

For the past 31 days, I asked Father God to show me Scriptures that would help me on my journey of freedom and confidence. These Verses challenged me to see myself differently and, more importantly, see myself through His Loving eyes. I'm still a masterpiece in progress, we all are. That's life. But the fact that I'm trying, I think that's good enough for Him. After all, where I am weak, He is strong. So even in my weaknesses, he can work wonders. (II Corinthians 12:7-10)

Confidence doesn't mean you're not afraid. It just means you're willing to walk with Him in the fear anyway and believe that you can get to the other side of whatever is in your way. It means you trust Him with your life. Every facet of it: relationships, finances, career, family and more. He cares about what you care about. I needed to have faith that His Hand is on me wherever I am. That's the kind of confidence I'm seeking.

Here are the Scriptures Father God brought to my attention and what I've personally learned. I hope you sit with them, talk to Him about it, hear Him speak, and move accordingly. Stay open, and I know we will get through this wilderness together.

DAY ONE

“Woman you are loosed from your infirmity.” (Luke 13:12)

Infirmity: weakness; irresolution (hesitance); weak in mind; as a person in judgment

Keys:

-No more hesitation when it comes to using your voice for good. If you have something to say, just say it. Don't hold back. Someone might need it.

-You become weak in mind, when you forget Who walks beside you. You are not alone.

DAY TWO

“Perfect love casts out fear,” (I John 4:18)

Keys:

-Let love move you to work. Seeing the needs of others and having compassion on them is a powerful motivator.

DAY THREE

“I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me.” (Philippians 4:13)

Keys:

-Pray for His Strength before every situation and believe He is right with you.

-All things means all things. There is nothing too difficult for Christ to show His Power through you.

DAY FOUR

“If any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask of God, who gives to all liberally and without reproach, and it will be given to him. But let him ask in faith, with no doubting, for he who doubts is like a wave of the sea driven and tossed by the wind.” (James 1:5-6)

Keys:

-Know that Jesus loves you and wants you to succeed in all areas of your life.

-Ask for His wisdom and He shall provide. Believe that His truth is life-changing.

-Don't get tossed back and forth between belief and doubts. Anchor yourself in the Truth of His Promises and Word. Stability brings peace of mind and strengthens your faith.

DAY FIVE

“Daughter, your faith has made you well. Go in peace and be healed of your affliction.” (Mark 5:34)

Keys:

-Faith in Him heals. Keep reaching out for His Hand and Power and expect healing and wellness to flow. You are free. You are delivered.

-You don't have to suffer. Your Savior wills to heal you. Pray for healing and believe He is already healing you.

-Jesus is moved by our faith and His compassion on us.

DAY SIX

“Being confident of this very thing, that He who has begun a good work in you will complete it until the Day of Jesus Christ,” (Philippians 1:6)

Keys:

-Father created you for a purpose, and He will see to it that that purpose is fulfilled. Not one Word from His mouth will return void, but every seed He plants shall flourish. (Isaiah 55:11)

-You will become all He created you to be. Every promise He spoke to your heart is already in progress.

DAY SEVEN

“You are all fair, my love, and there is no spot in you.” (Song of Solomon 4:7)

Keys:

-Father God finds no flaw in you. When you repent, He washes away mistakes as if they never happened. He sees You as His beautiful Child, cloaked in the righteousness of Christ. In His eyes you are pure and perfect and holy, just the way He made you to be.

DAY EIGHT

“The LORD your God is in your midst, the Mighty One will save; He will rejoice over you with gladness, He will quiet you with his Love, He will rejoice over you with singing.” (Zephaniah 3:17)

Key:

-Rejoice in Him! For He rejoices in you. Celebrate who you are as He celebrates you.

-Let His Love give you peace. You have nothing to fear or be ashamed of because He watches over you.

DAY NINE

“The LORD is my Light and my Salvation; whom shall I fear? The LORD is the Strength of my life; of whom shall I be afraid?” (Psalm 27:1)

Keys:

-Choose to put your faith in God, not other people. He is your Protector and your Guide. He will get you where you need to be.

-The One who holds the universe, is holding your hand. Picture His Power all around you like a shield. There is nothing to fear. He's got you.

DAY TEN

“You are the light of the world. A city that is set on a hill cannot be hidden...Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works and glorify your Father in heaven.” (Matthew 5: 14,16)

Keys:

-Be free by being open. Be open by being honest. Be honest by not focusing on what others will think of you, but how God will use you to impact their lives.

-Being a light means not hiding, but stepping out in your true self and walking with God. Take your mind off of yourself, and let God shine His Light through you. He is the Power, you are His reflection.

DAY ELEVEN

“For if you remain completely silent at this time, relief and deliverance will arise for the Jews from another place...Yet who knows whether you have come to the kingdom for such a time as this?” (Esther 4:14)

Keys:

-Act on His calling at all times. You were made for this moment. There is purpose here. Destiny. Don't give it away to fear.

-If God called you to do something, He gave you everything you need to accomplish it. It's important to Him. Even if it seems small to others.

DAY TWELVE

“She girds herself with strength, and strengthens her arms. She perceives that her merchandise is good, and her lamp does not go out by night.” (Proverbs 31: 17-18)

Keys:

-Your gifts matter so do your work diligently.

-Don't let your lamp go out during the hard times. Strengthen and encourage yourself in the Lord. Keep moving anyway.

DAY THIRTEEN

“So he who had received five talents came and brought five other talents, saying, 'Lord, you delivered to me five talents; look, I have gained five more talents besides them.' His lord said to him, 'Well done, good and faithful servant; you were faithful over a few things, I will make you ruler over many things. Enter into the joy of your lord.'” (Matthew 25:20-21)

Keys:

-Hand Jesus your gifts. He knows what to do with them. Let Him show you how to use them and make the most of each opportunity given. He will use you to advance His Kingdom.

-Appreciate and celebrate your gifts. Only you can do what you do how you do it.

-Rejoice over the seeds you've already planted and the bountiful fruit you've collected in heaven. The “little things “matter to God most. How you're kind to others. How you look out for and spend time with your family and those you love. This is what the Kingdom of God is made of.

DAY FOURTEEN

“With God all things are possible.” (Mark 10:27)

Keys:

-It's up to you to choose what you believe. His Power is limitless. The only thing that can stop you from seeing a miracle or change is unbelief. Train your mind to have faith and believe no matter what the circumstances look like, God is Bigger.

DAY FIFTEEN

“Out of the abundance of the heart his mouth speaks.” (Luke 6:45)

Keys:

-What are you thinking to yourself? Are you filling your heart with fear or faith? Insecurity or confidence? You want confident fruit? Plant confident seeds. Speak and think how you want to be, not what you don't. There is power in the tongue. (Proverbs 18:21) (James 3:1-12)

DAY SIXTEEN

“You shall love your neighbor as yourself.” (Mark 12:31)

Keys:

-Encourage and uplift yourself as you uplift others. You celebrate the gifts, beauty, and accomplishments of other people, celebrate those things God has given you. This brings Him honor.

-Remind yourself of how much Jesus loves you and all He gave just to be closer to you. His Love has no conditions and you don't have to prove anything to Him. You can just be and that's enough for Him. May it be enough for you too.

DAY SEVENTEEN

“Awake, awake! Put on your strength, O Zion; put on your beautiful garments, O Jerusalem, the holy city!...Shake yourself from the dust, arise; sit down, O Jerusalem! Loose yourself from the bonds of your neck,” (Isaiah 52: 1-2)

Keys:

-Awake: Stir up the power inside of you.

-Put on your Strength: Strengthen yourself in Him. Speak to your situation about how strong your God is.

-Put on your beautiful garments: Your gifts, your smile, your personality, wear it with honor. He will use all of it for His purpose and Glory.

-Shake yourself from the dust: Shake of yesterday. Today is a fresh start.

-Arise: Stand up and fight for your position and purpose. The external battle is God's. The battle in your mind against fear and doubt, that's yours to fight. Rise up against it with His Truth about who you are.

-Sit down: Wear your crown child of God. You sit by the throne of the King. Rest in His Power to conquer all things.

Loose yourself: Break free from anything that says you're not good enough or strong enough. Remember you are not alone, and He is enough. He is all you need.

DAY EIGHTEEN

“Put Me in remembrance,” (Isaiah 43:26)

“Moreover David said, “The LORD, who delivered me from the paw of the lion and from the paw of the bear, He will deliver me from the hand of this Philistine.” (I Samuel 17:37)

Keys:

-Remember all the times Father God came through for you and claim them for today and tomorrow. He came to your rescue then and He will do it again and again. Maybe not in the same way, but He can be trusted. He will never leave you on your own.

DAY NINETEEN

“You shall receive Power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you; and you shall be witnesses to Me,” (Acts 1:8)

Keys:

- Wait for the prompting of the Holy Spirit. There is Power, Anointing, and Grace when we wait on Him to lead us in the direction we should go and not try to do things in our own strength. He receives Glory when we rely on Him and abandon our selfishness and our own understanding. (Proverbs 3:5-7) (Psalm 37:3-8)

DAY TWENTY

“For I know the thoughts that I think toward you, says the LORD, thoughts of peace and not of evil, to give you a future and a hope.” (Jeremiah 29:11)

Keys:

-Know that you are in Good Hands. Expect peace, hope, and a future because He spoke it and the world bows to His Word. (“God is not a man, that He should lie, nor a son of man, that He should repent. Has He said, and will He not do? Or has He spoken, and will He not make it good?”-Numbers 23:19)

-God wants to give you a good future, a good life. Don't count it out because you don't see it happening now or on your timetable. Patience is an act of faith. It's not over until you see every Word God spoke about you come to life.

DAY TWENTY-ONE

“I will certainly be with you.”(Exodus 3:12)

“And God said to Moses, “I AM WHO I AM.” (Exodus 3:14)

Keys:

-Remember He is always with you.

-He is everything we need Him to be. “I AM______.” Fill in the blank for every situation. He wills to prefect the things that concern you. (Psalm 138:8)

DAY TWENTY-TWO

“I AM THE VINE, you are the branches. He who abides in Me, and I in him, bears much fruit; for without Me you can do nothing.” (John 15:5)

Keys:

-Stay planted in Christ. Keep your seeds (hopes, dreams, path) in His ground. He will do wonders that you could never do on your own to Glorify His Name so all the world can know Him.

DAY TWENTY-THREE

“Thus says the LORD, who created you, O Jacob, and He who formed you, O Israel: “Fear not, for I have redeemed you; I have called you be your name; You are Mine.” (Isaiah 43:1)

Keys:

-Rest in His love for you. Love only The Father can give. He knows what you need because He made you and He will always do what He knows is best for you, and more than you can imagine. Our Father will do anything for His children. He cradles you in the Palm of His Hand. (Keep me as the apple of Your eye; hide me under the shadow of Your Wings,” (Psalm 17:8)

-You are His chosen. He wanted you specifically to be part of His life, to be a witness to His Love. Don't overlook that. You are wholly and completely loved and treasured.

DAY TWENTY-FOUR

“When you pass through the waters, I will be with you; and through the rivers, they shall not overflow you. When you walk through the fire, you shall not be burned, nor shall the flames scorch you. For I Am the LORD your God, the Holy One of Israel, your Savior;”(Isaiah 43:2-3)

Keys:

-You've seen His salvation. You've seen Him come through for you and your family. Hold onto your testimonies. Remember that with Him you've walked on water. With Him, we were fireproof.

DAY TWENTY-FIVE

“Since you were previous in My sight, you have been honored, and I have loved you,” (Isaiah 43:4)

Keys:

-He created you for a purpose and saw that it was good.

-He loves you from the top of your head to the souls of your feet, just as you are. So let yourself be free to be just as you are. It is an honor to be His masterpiece. (“For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them.” (Ephesians 2:10)

DAY TWENTY-SIX

“Fear not, for I Am with you; I will bring your descendants from the east, and gather you from the west; I will say to the north, “Give them up!' and to the south, 'Do not keep them back!'...Everyone who is called by My Name, whom I have created for My Glory; I have formed him, yes, I have made him.” (Isaiah 43:5-7)

Keys:

-We are called by His Name. We are His royal children. Don't think any less of yourself. You are worthy of love, freedom, and good things. He rejoices in You.

-You belong to Almighty God. Whatever He has is yours: Salvation, Power, Grace, Mercy, Peace, Light, Life and Life abundantly (John 10:10), Direction, Protection (Psalm 91), Counseling, a Friend and more (Isaiah 9:6).

DAY TWENTY-SEVEN

“You are My witnesses,” says the LORD, “and My servant whom I have chosen, that you may know and believe Me, and understand that I AM He. Before Me there was no god formed, nor shall there be after Me.” (Isaiah 43:10)

Keys:

-My Father knew all the mistakes I'd make and knows my insecurities. He will still do something powerful through all of it like only he can to show that He is God.

-He wants to come to your rescue and give you good things. This is how He gets His testimonies out into the world because of the awesome and marvelous things He does for us, His children.

DAY TWENTY-EIGHT

“I work, and who will reverse it?” (Isaiah 43:13)

Keys: -When Father speaks, things move and nothing can stand in His way. When He makes a promise, He always keeps His word as He has with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. The promises in His Word are yours as a believer and follower of God. Claim them. (Deuteronomy 28:1-14) -If He's placed a dream in your heart, it was His dream first. He shall bring it to pass.

DAY TWENTY-NINE

“Do not remember the former things, nor consider the things of old. Behold, I will do a new thing, now it shall spring forth; shall you not know it? I will even make a road in the wilderness and rivers in the desert...This people I have formed for Myself; they shall declare My praise.” (Isaiah 43:18-19,21)

Keys:

-Don't dwell on yesterday's failures. God is doing a new thing today, and you can see it. See His joy and peace. Believe that He shall make a way. He creates paths no man can create or hinder. He rains down abundance in dry places. He is God of the impossible. This is a promise, which means He shall bring these things to pass and all we have to do is believe in Him.

-Praise Him for what He's doing tomorrow today! See it in your mind's eye before you see it in your life.

DAY THIRTY

“I will praise You, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made; marvelous are Your works, and that my soul knows very well.” (Psalm 139:14)

Keys:

-Every day you see the works of God. His birds, trees, family and friends. Those moments that put a smile on your face. You know His work, how it is brilliant and incomprehensible. You are His work. You are brilliant and there is more to you than you know. Don't hide yourself. You are a gift from God to others.

-Don't be afraid to be yourself. Being your genuine self the way God created you to be, right now in this moment in honesty unapologetically, that is how you shine your light. That is what draws people to God. They see what you have and Who you have, and they'll want it to. That's how you teach who God is, through your actions and your spirit.

DAY THIRTY-ONE

“My frame was not hidden from You, when I was made in secret, and skillfully wrought in the lowest parts of the earth. Your eyes saw my substance, being yet unformed, and in Your book they all were written, the days fashioned for me, when as yet there were none of them.” (Psalm 139:15-16)

Keys:

-Before your parents knew you, God chose you. He sees all the beauty, gifts, and purposes inside of you. He still chooses you.

-God holds your stories in His book. He knows the beginning from the end. When I forget who I am or doubt that what I'm doing is making any difference, He is still reading and smiling because He's getting to the good part. Trust Him with your story. He is the Author and Finisher of your life and your faith. (Hebrews 12:1-2) His stories always end in victory when you walk with Christ.

***

I am praying with you for healing and growth. Remember that you are not alone and that God wants you to succeed in every area of your life. With God all things are possible. Only believe.

“According to your faith let it be done to you.” (Matthew 9:29)

 “Jesus said to him, 'If you can believe, all things are possible to him who believes.'” (Mark 9:23)

#Bible #Scriptures #Spiritual Health #Love #Confidence #Faith