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sofiaaaaaaaa03 · 3 years

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Goodbye

Pairing: Dan!Din Djarin x Teen GN reader

Request:

hello ily u and ur writings are so great

uhhh may i request dad!din with a teenage reader (like, 15 idk) after grogu leaves with luke? like maybe comforting each other, and the reader asking what happens next, etc etc

just some good ol' angst fluff :] 💞

Scenario: After Grogu leaves with Luke the Reader and Din comfort one another after having to say goodbye.

Rating: PG

Warnings: none

Word Count: 1,980

A/N: I love you!! Thank you so much for reading and I’m sooo happy you like my writings. And yes! I LOVED that Idea. I hope you don’t mind if I sort of went with my own thing for how the reader and Din argued a bit, it sort of just made sense in the situation??? Anyways, I hope you like what I came up with :))) I haven’t written anything in awhile so I’m a tad rusty.

Saying goodbye to each other was always something you’d always known would happen. You simply chose to not think about it and greedily hoped that Din would not be able to find another Jedi who would take Grogu under their wing. In your world, Clan Mudhorn would never break apart and you’d three live together for a very long time. However, life in its mysterious ways is ever changing and never promises one’s future. It certainly never promised yours.

You thought of this as you watched the Jedi in front of you. It was not just any Jedi, but a Jedi who was offering to take care of your little brother. You felt your face blanch at the thought of Grogu leaving you and Din. The thought of you leaving this ship with only Din and the memories you’d made with Grogu terrified you. It couldn’t be real. It can’t be real. You shut your eyes tight, turning your head toward the ground before anyone could see your expression.

“Y/N.”

Din’s hand rested on your shoulder, when you’d looked up you were surprised to meet flesh instead of metal. He took off his helmet. For a moment there was nothing that mattered but the expression your guardian made. It was… sad. Tears pricked his eyes, something you’d never expected to see from him. Din gave you the tiniest of smiles and told you it was time to say goodbye.

Goodbye?

Din held Grogu out for you to take. Slowly you accepted him close and relished one last time on what it was like to hug him tight.

“Ni kar'tayli gar darasuu, ner vod.” You whispered. During the time the two of you spent with Din he’d taken it upon himself to teach you Mando’a. It’d become a habit to show affection in his native tongue. Grogu cooed, leaning away to take in your face. You gave him a tight lipped smile, taking in his own. He’d grown so much. It was hard to believe that he was once a small little thing. “ I’ll always be your sibling. Don’t forget me.”

You sat Grogu back down on the floor and began to rummage through your bag before pulling out a small, plush frog, making Grogu’s ears perk up.

“Can Grogu take this with him?”

Luke nodded, but Grogu made it clear that he wanted you to keep the plush when he wouldn’t reach out for it like he always did. Instead, he stared at you with his big eyes before gently pushing the frog back to you. You bit back a frown. You wanted to ask him, beg him to take the frog you’d put so much love into just for him. Instead you stood up straight and held the plush close to your chest, glancing again at Din who was holding a stoic expression. You forced a smile onto your face.

The goodbye was harder than you’d imagined. So was the deafening silence when the Jedi, his droid, and Grogu disappeared into the elevator.

The moment the elevator door shut you snapped your head towards Din, but he turned his back to you and walked away. He wandered to the far end of the room and stayed there, quiet as he kept to himself. His hands fiddled with the darksaber that weighed more than you ever imagined it would before this mission began.

It was easy to forget that there were others in the room, though you were quickly reminded of their presence when they surrounded you to provide comforting words, some giving warm embraces and telling you about their own separations from loved ones. They reassured you that you would be fine in the end. You didn’t believe them. Fennec was talking to you, but your focus was on the far side of the room where Din was currently talking to Bo-Katan and Cara. You wondered what they talked about. You wondered what was going to happen now. Now, that the clan lost one member and had no ship to call home.

Din would barely look at you when Bo-Katan and the other women left the cockpit, looking for supplies and scrounging up any valuable information left. That was assuming that there was no emergency delete button someone pushed in a panic amid the raid. You didn’t bother thinking about it long, as you stared at the back of Din’s head. He’d kept his helmet off, making it the longest that you’ve seen him without it. You stared at the helmet from where it sat on top of the mainframe.

“Are you going to rule Mandalore now?” Your voice cut through the barrier between the two of you, making Din shuffle in his steps.

His back remained towards you and his tone was cold. “I don’t want to talk right now.”

You frowned, taken aback by this sudden attitude he’d taken on. “What do you mean by ‘I don’t want to talk right now’?”

“Exactly that.”

“But I want to.” You crossed your arms.

“It can wait.”

His response came off indifferent as though he wanted to move on. For a moment you felt like you’d shut down, sure there were times where Din would behave like this coming home after a long day, too exhausted to deal with two children. But he’d never done this before. No. This was new. You didn’t like new. Not now, not when things were so uncertain for you.

“You can’t just shut me out so quickly!” You walked up so that you spoke to his back. “You’re not the only one who just went through that. I never wanted to say goodbye to Grogu. I didn’t think it’d be this soon, either. I didn’t think that. And now I don’t know what you’re going to do after this, where you’re going to go, if you’re going to let me go with you, if-”

“If I let you go with me?” Din turned to face you, eyebrows furrowed. “Y/N, of course you’re coming with me. You’re my foundling.”

“So was Grogu!” You exclaimed, suddenly realizing that tears were streaming down your face. The stress and grief were suddenly catching up to you and it showed, causing Din to raise his hands up a little. He slowly lowered them, seemingly in thought. He sighed, and gently pulled you to sit down with him on some chairs by the mainframe. You felt ashamed of yourself for crying in front of him, but didn’t say anything. Instead you were wiping your tears with your shirt as you waited for him to finally speak.

“You know Grogu is too strong with his magic to be left without training.” Din scratched his ear, eyes downward so that you couldn’t see the tears pricking his eyes again. “You… you’re only a kid. You remember that, right? You need me to protect you before you’re strong enough to leave the clan.”

You stared at him with big eyes as though you were pretending to process what he was saying. But you understood what he meant. He had the best intentions for Grogu and he has the same intentions for you. You were lucky to have someone like Din. The cloth of your shirt suddenly caught your interest as you stared down at it, playing it in between your fingers.

You sniffed, rubbing your arm across your nose. “I’m sorry for yelling at you…”

“It’s okay, Y/N.” Din wrapped an arm across your shoulder and pulled you close. As you settled into him you rested your head against his shoulder, waiting for him to say something though he never did. Maybe he was thinking about Grogu. It wouldn’t be a surprise. Anyone could see how much he’d grown attached to the little thing, despite his initial response to having to care for him.

“You’re a great dad…” You whispered, playing with the frog in your hands. Din smiled warmly, something you missed as you continued to look down.

“Do you remember how happy Grogu was when you gave him that frog?” Din’s voice made the armor he’d dawned vibrate slightly. It ticked your cheek. You liked how it felt.

“Mhm.” You nodded as you made the frog dance in your hands. It’s chipped, mismatched buttons stared back at the two of you.

“When I was young I used to lose my toys all the time.”

You looked up at him, “But that was before the Mandalorians took you in, right? Weren’t they, I dunno, strict about toys?”

“No.” Din looked off, watching the stars that decorated the space they shared. “If they found a kid that still had their toy with them they didn’t take it away. In my clan, every child had a toy of their own, to help make their transition easier, though I kept losing mine.”

The two of you shared a small laugh. Din shook his head and looked at you fondly. “Grogo went everywhere with that frog. It meant so much to him. Guess it was because of you.”

You didn’t say anything. A warmth began to spread through your sternum at Din’s remarks. You hugged the frog close to your chest. It still smelled like Grogu. The same, earth-like geranium that followed him around. He knew that you needed the plush more than he did now that you had to say goodbye, and you were thankful for that.

“Are you going to miss him?”

“Of course I am.” Din nodded solemnly before he turned towards you and ruffled your hair. “But we’ll see him again.”

A moment of silence falls upon you two, one of the mainframes makes a sound and the security shows the women entering a room on the other side of the ship. They were covering good ground and carried several bags of what was assumed to be supplies for their next mission. Would Din be a part of that mission?

“So, what happens now?” You inquired, glancing up at him. “Are you going to rule Mandalore?”

Din looked up and inhaled deeply as though he was pondering the question. He must have made some sort of plan prior. But his possession of the dark saber meant that plans had now changed. “I never expected to become a… king. Though, there’s not much to be king of.”

Behind closed doors between Din and the adults you’d hear bits and pieces about what the Empire had done to the planet. Though you were heavily uninformed, you had a good grasp that the planet was practically not worth ruling.

“Are you going to go with Bo-Katan? She wants to take back Mandalore. With you as king it’d be fitting.”

You didn’t miss how Din grimaced slightly at her name. “What?”

Din pushed himself up and motioned for you to follow as he grabbed his helmet and began walking out. He draped an arm across your shoulder when you caught up to his pace. “Bo-Katan doesn’t seem to be all too happy with me having the darksaber. I should keep some distance and wait for her to cool off.”

You whispered a small ‘oh’ and looked ahead. Guess he wasn’t going to go with her then. “So we have no plans then, great.”

Din glanced at you, “ What do you think we should do?”

Your mind flashed back several days ago to when you’d barely escaped being destroyed along with the razor crest. “I miss the ship.”

“You and me both.”

“Do you think we can find a new one?”

“You can’t just find a ship, kid. It’s gonna need some credits.”

“Yeah but technically you’re a king now! Use that royalty of yours and get us one.”

“That’s not how it works kid.”

“You don’t know yet! You’ve been king for what, five minutes?”

“Maybe I will leave you here.”

“No you won’t. You love me too much to do that.”

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descendantofthesparrow · 4 years

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I put a Spell on you - Harry Hook x Sanderson! Reader - Halloween special one-shot

Halloween Harry Hook x reader

basic version of outfit for reader, can be changed as wished

VVVV

Halloween night, 2007, on the isle of the lost.

Young 6-year-old Harry Hook sat in the hull of the jolly roger, pouting to himself as he picked at his scarce stolen candy.

The isle never got much in the way of candy, the most they got was during the month of Halloween that the parents of Auradon threw away early for some odd reason.

Though what candy the isle got was little, and the “good stuff” was still on Auradon.

And Harry had unfortunately gotten a bad pick of candy this year, nasty fruit ropes that tasted like death, molding “coconut” chocolate candy that was too mushy to really enjoy, and watermelon looking hard candy.

The best he got was little wrapped hard pieces of candy that looked like brown barrels that had a slight spice to them.

Harry dropped the piece of candy he was holding and sighed, starting to stand and getting ready to turn in for the night after the disappointing Halloween. “jus’ like last year” Harry mumbled, brushing off his horrifically made copy of his father's jacket, he paused, something rang across his ears. “wha’ was-“

Come little children, I'll take thee away

Into a land of enchantment

Come little children, the time's come to play

Here in my garden of magic.

“singing?” Harry quietly asked himself, turning towards where the voice was coming from. It seemed hypnotic or at least was supposed to be, but It had no grab to it as if it had lost its power.

But Harry's curious nature pushed him to seek the voice out. He snuck off his father's ship and followed the voice into the dark forest near pirates bay.

He ducked as he spotted an old slim woman, the one who was singing, waving her hands about and twirling.

“Winnie~” the woman stopped singing, spinning around and crossing her arms, and whining at a hidden figure “It's not working!”

“of course it's not you twit, the stupid barrier blocks our powers, we won't be getting any children tonight!” “wait!” a plump woman stepped into the mood light, her eyes glinting “I smell a child~”

“that’s just (y/n) you idiot!” the hidden figure scoffed, stepping next to the slim woman, and smacking her torso “keep your child inside sister, they will ruin our plans” “But we can use them to lure children! Maybe they can even lure a boy~”

“silence Sarah” the oldest woman scoffed, turning and walking back towards the rackety shack near a pond. “sistars!”

“coming Winnie!” the slim one called back, hiking up her dress and running after the oldest.

“But Winnie! The child!” the plump one moaned, turning her eyes right at Harry.

Harry held his breath and ducked behind a tree, freezing as he heard the woman sniff the air and continue to walk closer to his hiding spot. Wait…shit! he walked right into the Sander-

“Auntie! It's just me!” Harry's jaw dropped as a child, who seemed just around his age, popped up from behind the tree in front of him, a small smile on their face “sorry, but there's no other kids around”

The plump woman groaned and shook her head, stomping back into the shack. “little brat, fooling me”

The child watched until the door closed, slumping against the tree in relief as they looked at him “you shouldn't be here, you don’t wanna know what happens when my mom and aunts get their hands on kids” they walked over to him and pulled at the lapels of his jacket, the hood of their cloak falling as they did so.

They beamed at him “but im not gonna let anything happen to ya don’t worry……sorry I don’t know your name?” they tilted their head at him, their bright (e/c) eyes staring into his.

“H-Harry” Harry stuttered out, gasping as the child grabbed his hand and started pulling him the opposite way of the old shack the old woman were in.

“Nice ta meet ya Harry im (y/n)!” (y/n) chirped, flipping their hood back over their head and continuing to lead Harry out of the forest.

Moments later they reached the edge and (y/n) turned, grabbing Harry's arms, spinning around, and pushing him over the edge “now you have ta promise that you won't come back no matter what, and to never follow random singing” (y/n) pouted at harry, wiggling their finger in his face “it's too dangerous”

“I-um” Harry stuttered again, wringing his hands together before he stomped his foot “they aren’t even tha’ scary! I can take ‘em”

(y/n) just shook their head “doesn’t matter, they’ll eat you if they get the chance”

“e-eat me?!” Harry squeaked, taking a step back from (y/n) “wait aren’t yeh one of their kids- won't yeh eat me too?”

“no!” (y/n) shook their head defiantly, scowling at Harry “that’s just gross, eating kids, Id rather eat rotten candy” (y/n) crossed their arms and tilted their head at Harry “what you think all witches eat kids?”

“well, they-” Harry swallowed harshly “ur mums a Sanderson ain't she? She's known for tha’ “

(y/n)s shoulders dropped “well I’m not my mother” Harry felt slightly bad as (y/n) curled in on themselves, looking off.

“hey-i….thank yeh fer savin’ meh” (y/n) perked up, smiling at him.

“you’re welcome Harry, now DON’T got back into the forest on Halloween night ever again” (y/n) once more shook their finger in his face, pouting at him.

Harry nodded slowly, placing his hand on theirs and pushing their hand down “why Halloween night only?”

“because that’s when they think they are most powerful, and the only time they are brave enough to wander outside the shack….aunt Winnie makes me go out to get food and all that every other time” (y/n) explained, eyes turning to the sky and gasping.

“you have to get home! It won't be long before my aunt gets another idea to get kids, go go!” (y/n) pushed at Harry's shoulders, back towards pirate bay.

“Alright alright im goin’!” Harry yelled, shaking his head at the odd witch, he turned to start walking back towards his dad's ship when he stopped. He spun back around, watching (y/n) walk back into the forest. “wait!” (y/n) groaned and stopped, spinning around to look at him with raised brows.

“what” they snapped, glaring at him.

“will I ever see yeh again?” Harry asked, blinking in surprise as (y/n)s cheeks turned dark and they looked down at the forest floor.

“um-i-maybe…I have to go!” (y/n) turned and ran back into the forest to her home, leaving Harry at the forest edge.

12 years later, on Halloween night, Harry sat in his temporary room at Evie's castle, sitting on his bed while Gil and Uma sorted through their first real batch of Halloween candy.

Most of it had been leftovers from Evie's trick or treaters, but Evie had made them chaperone Dizzy, Celia, and the twins for their first Halloween.

And the younger VKs had somehow roped them into Trick or treating with them, which luckily the people of Auradon were nice enough to ignore that they were technically too old to trick or treat.

Harry could recount Evie scoffing at the “Age limit”, saying that no one is too old to trick or treat.

“Gil hand me that orange one” Uma muttered, chewing on a Butterfinger.

“The Reese's?” Gil asked, holding up the flat packaging and handing it to Uma.

“yep, thanks…Harry you good?” Uma asked, noticing Harry staring out the window.

“hm?” Harry turned back to her, his eyes drooping “ah, sorry Uma, zoned out”

“well, it has been a tiring night….I'mma head in for tonight, night boys”

“night Uma” Harry and Gil called back in chorus, Gil leaving after Uma a moment later, leaving Harry alone in his room.

Come little children, I'll take thee away

Into a land of enchantment

Come little children, the time's come to play

Here in my garden of magic.

Harry perked up, he knew that song…..he definitely knew that song.

Though this time, the hypnotic power it had was present, taking hold of his mind and dragging him out of his room and out the door of Evie's castle.

Harry walked deeper into the forest surrounding Evie's castle, the voice becoming louder as he walked.

Suddenly he was grabbed, the cackling of three women echoing in his ears.

“oh, it’s a boy! Hes Handsome too~I want to play with him~!”

“later Sarah, first we must take him along with the others back to the cottage, he’ll be the first for your child, let them experience the dark art of Magic!”

“ohhh! Yes! Let em’ learn, let ‘em learn, let ‘em learn!”

Harry's vision went black, and he woke later in a chair, something invisible tying him down to it.

“wha’?” Harry muttered, pulling at his arm “where…shit” Harry tried to wriggle his wrist to draw the small switchblade in his jacket sleeve when the three Sanderson sisters walked in, holding two small children in their arms.

“ohhh hes awake!” the thin one, Sarah he guessed, gasped, clapping her hands together.

Harry let out a snarl and thrashed in his chair, the sisters gasped and reeled back. “nasty one isn’t he” the one with the odd lips, Winnie, muttered “perfect for our little imp isn’t he Mary”

“perfect Winnie” the plump one snickered, licking her lips as she separated from her sisters and dragged one of the children over a chair next to Harry, forcing the young girl down into it and snapping her fingers, silver rope wrapping around the girl's arms and legs and binding her to the chair “there we go!”

Sarah giggled and grabbed the boy she had by the scruff of his zombie costume and dragged him over to the chair on Harry's left, pushing him into the chair and binding him with the silver rope that turned invisible like Harrys.

“ohhhh (y/n)~” Harry perked up….he knew that name?

From the door on Harry's right, someone stepped out from the shadows, wearing a long dark pink jacket that tapered off at their waist, a corset type top with fishnet under top underneath it, ripped black jeans with scuffed brown boots, a belt with a pouch resting on their left hip that held two beakers resting on their left thigh.

“yes, aunt Winnie” the teen witch sighed, their hood hiding their face from Harry. Winnie grabbed an odd brown colored spell book with an eye on it and handed it to the hooded teen.

“here, finish the life potion while we go get more children, the…pirate boy is yours to do what you wish with” Winnie patted the teens head and turned “Sistars!” she stormed out of the cottage, the two witches running after their sister.

“coming Winnie!!”

The door slammed shut, the teen watching the door for a good minute before they sighed and dropped the book on the table to their right “thank hades” they tipped their head back, ruffling their (h/c) hair and blowing a raspberry “thought they’d never leave” they rushed over to a cabinet and ripped the doors open, rummaging through spices and herbs. “wormswart wormswart, where are you wormswart-ah-ha!”

They spun around, holding a jar of some sort of liquid and opening it, a hiss of silver mist rising from the bottle, they held the bottle delicately over the cauldron holding the boiling potion of life and poured a single drop of wormswart into the potion.

The potion turned a sickly brown, sputtering into the teen witches face. “ugh” they groaned, leaning back and wiping their face.

They grabbed a large spoon and mixed the potion, stirring until it turned back into a dark green. “there we go, now they can't use it” the teen muttered, looking up and locking eyes with Harry. “now to get you all out of here before they come back!”

With a wave of their hand, a silver pocket knife appeared, and they speed-walked over to Harry, cutting the invisible ropes at his hands. “im sorry about this, I tried to spell them to sleep until tomorrow at dawn but im not very good at potions other than ruining them”

“(y/n)?” Harry asked aloud, the teen stopped, slowly looking up at Harry, their still bright (e/c) eyes widening.

“Harry! What-“ they stood, leaning over Harry and shaking their finger in his face, “I told you not to follow the singing!”

Harry smirked at them and mocked bite their finger, (y/n) gasped and reeled back, pouting at him and smacking his chest. “jerk, im saving you from being eaten and yet you repay me like this?”

Harry chuckled and grabbed the knife from (y/n)s hand, cutting the rope from his legs “sorry love, couldn’t resist”

“l-love?” (y/n) stuttered, backing away from Harry and staring at him oddly.

Harry just looked at them, making their cheeks turn dark “you….you grew up” they muttered, looking away from Harry.

“heh” Harry chuckled, standing from the chair and looking to his right “we should probably get them outta here huh?”

“y-yeah” (y/n) stuttered, waving their hand and another silver knife appeared, walking over to the boy while Harry kneeled next to the girl and started to cut them free. “I’ll need to break the spell my mom put on them before we take them back, otherwise they’ll get their hands on them again.”

Harry nodded, picking up the girl dressed like a princess and setting her on his hip, her head resting in his neck.

(y/n) picked up the boy and walked over to harry, muttering a counterspell under their breath, and with a snap of their fingers, the two kids snapped out of their trance. The Girl leaning away from Harry and looking from him to (y/n), her eyes wide.

“where-whats” her lip wobbled, starting to cry a bit. the boy stared at Harry with wide eyes.

“you’re Harry Hook” the boy whispered in awe, squeaking a bit as (y/n) rearranged their grip on him.

“that's all dandy but we have to get you both back to your homes, the witches will be back soon and I need to be here when they are”

Harry nodded, pressing the girl's face back into his neck and following (y/n) out to the back door.

“come on, the main town is this way!”

Harry and (y/n) dropped the girl off, who told them her name of Sofia, and hurried her inside. “now don’t go after random singing on Halloween okay, it only leads to bad things” (y/n) warned them, handing the young girl a slip of paper with markings on it “as long as you have this, you will be protected from my mother's song” Sofia nodded, unsure but ran into her house, slamming the door behind her.

“alrigh’” Harry sighed, shifting Elijah in his arms and looked at the young boy “where do yeh live?”

Elijah pointed across the street and down a few houses “tha’ close huh?” Harry muttered, letting the boy down and watching him as he ran toward his home.

The boy stopped as (y/n) called his name, turning as they jogged over to him and handed him another piece of paper “thanks” Elijah squeaked, bolting into his house and slamming the door closed.

(y/n) sighed, rubbing their face in exhaustion “two down….however many kids to go” (y/n) rolled their neck and looked over at harry “now lets get you home too”

Harry stared at (y/n) as they walked up to him and held out their hands “I didn’t do this with the kids because I know they would freak but I can teleport us to where you live”

“yeh can teleport?” Harry asked, tilting his head as he stared at (y/n)s hands.

“yep, me, my mother, and my aunts each have a special power, my mom has a hypnotic singing voice, my aunt Mary can sniff out any kid from miles away, and my aunt Winnie can shoot lightning from her hands” Harry nodded slowly, grabbing onto (y/n)s hands.

“so what now?” Harry asked, watching as (f/c) smoke started to rise around him and (y/n)

“where do you live?” (y/n) chuckled, smiling at him.

“uh, im staying at Evie's castle right now”

“oh, I know where that is!” (y/n) cheered, the smoke swirling around them for a moment before it dissipated, revealing them now to be in front of Evie’s castle.

“cool” Harry muttered, not noticing (y/n) look down at their still intertwined hands and hurriedly ripped their hands away from him, Harry turned to (y/n), furrowing his brows as (y/n) looked around with wandering eyes “don’t go back” (y/n) whipped around to look at him with surprise.

“i-what?”

“don’t go back, stay here” Harry pleaded, grabbing onto (y/n)s shoulders “yer not happy there, and yer gonna waste away being their slave”

(y/n) just stared at him, sighing as they grabbed his hands and slowly took them off their shoulders “I…..I have to, to protect the kids”

Harry sighed, biting his lip in thought “okay….but!” (y/n) looked at harry, confusion swimming in their eyes “after tonight, come back here, im sure Evie would be happy to accommodate yeh, i’ll even ask for extra measure” (y/n) shook their head, looking over their shoulder back towards the witches cottage.

“…okay” (y/n) sighed, giggling as harry beamed at them and grabbed their shoulders in his excitement.

“Okay!?”

“okkayy! I'll come back tomorrow after my mom and aunts are asleep” Harry grinned at (y/n), chuckling as (y/n) smiled back.

“but….why do you want me to come back after tonight?” (y/n) asked, tilting their head at harry.

“because you saved meh from them 12 years ago…might as well return tha’ favor?” Harry smirked, snickering as (y/n)s cheeks darkened.

“well…I should get back now….see ya later?” (y/n) stepped away from Harry, (f/c) smoke rising around them. “see ya later” Harry confirmed, waving (y/n) goodbye as the smoke complexly enveloped them and they disappeared.

Harry sighed, cracking his neck and walking back inside Evie's castle, sneaking back up to his room and flopping on his bed, closing his eyes and falling asleep instantly from the crazy night.

Harry sighed in relief as the next morning, when Evie turned on the tv and the Auradon news came up, some breaking news came up about how the Sanderson sisters had been caught attempting their old antics with stealing the life force of children and had been arrested.

And the child of Sarah Sanderson had been confirmed secretly helping the children escaped, as claimed by the many children saved by the teen witch.

“aint (y/n) Sanderson that kid you met on the isle when you were like, 6? Harry?” Uma asked aloud, looking over her shoulder at Harry as he stuck another piece of pancakes in his mouth.

He swallowed and nodded, picking at his scrambled eggs “aye, and I….shoot, Evie I saw ‘em again last night, and might have told them if they wanted to they could come here?”

“that’s perfectly fine” Evie gushed, wiping her flour-covered hands on her apron “I have plenty of room for them here, and-wait you saw them? How?”

“uhhh” Harry stalled, watching as Uma set her fork down and stared at him with raised brows.

“you did a stupid didn’t you?” Uma droned, leaning on her intertwined hands.

“uhhh, yes?” Harry winched, yelping as Uma sent a torrent of water at him “hey! I was bewitched! It wasn’t meh fault!” Harry pouted, crossing his arms.

Everyone went silent as Evie's front door got knocked on, Evie glanced at Harry and took off her apron, tossing it onto the counter and walking over to her door, slowly opening it and peeking around the door.

“oh! You must be (y/n)! Harry told us about you!”

“r-really? He did?” the teen muttered, gasping as Evie grabbed their wrist and dragged them in.

“yep! Now! Are you hungry?” Evie pushed them into the living room that doubled as a dining room that connected to the kitchen, (y/n) stared at all the vks, locking eyes with Harry.

“i-yes?”

“Great! I'll make you up a plate and you get acquainted with everyone!”

Evie clapped her hands and skipped back into the kitchen, giggling with Mal as (y/n) just stood awkwardly where Evie left her.

“yeh kept yer promise” Harry smiled, standing up and walking over to (y/n), putting his hands on his hips and leaning towards (y/n)

“uhh yep” (y/n) chuckled, rubbing their arm nervously “Im here?”

Harry chuckled at their awkwardness and grabbed their shoulder, shoving them into the middle of the room, in view of everyone “(y/n) this is everyone, everyone this is (y/n), they have saved my ass twice now”

“hi” (y/n) waved awkwardly, a small grin on their face. Uma stood from her seat at the island and walked over to (y/n), slowly circling her like a vulture. “ummm hi?”

Uma hummed, standing in front of (y/n), her eyes dark and revealing nothing….then she smiled, reaching out and patting (y/n)s shoulder “nice to meet you (y/n)”

(y/n) gave a small smile, “nice to meet you too….Uma? right?”

Uma nodded and nodded her head back at the island near the kitchen, where Evie was setting (y/n)s plate full of pancakes, eggs, and bacon. “yep that’s me, and your foods ready”

(y/n) slowly walked over to their food, taking off their bag that was slung over their shoulder and setting it on the floor, hesitantly starting to eat the food Evie had given them.

Almost comically, their eyes widened and they started to scarf down the breakfast. Evie giggled and tapped on the counter, grabbing (y/n)s attention “apple or orange juice?”

“apple please” (y/n) spoke with a mouth full of food, blushing as Evie giggled once more and walked over to the fridge, grabbing the bottle.

She poured the drink and set it in front of (y/n) who gently took the cup and started to drink, turning towards the tv as it went back to the Sanderson sister's arrest.

*they will be stripped of their magic and be sent to the new high-security prison implemented on the isle of the doomed.*

“how many kids did yeh save (y/n)?” Harry asked, turning to look at the teen witch. (y/n) swallowed her mouthful of bacon and shrugged.

“around 20, including you and those two kids, my aunts and mom didn’t get far before the Auradon guard was called on ‘em”

“hm” Uma nodded in approval, smirking at harry “good job”

Harry smirked back, standing and sitting next to (y/n), watching as Dizzy changed the channel to Sunday cartoons

“so do yeh think you’ll stick around?” Harry whispered, (y/n) turned to him, and smiled.

“yeah I think I will” they whispered back, leaning back in their chair and watching the show “Powerpuff girls” as it played.

Harry smiled, happy to have finally repaid his debt to the witch who had saved him all those years ago.

And it was going to be fun to tease them since they went all dark whenever he simply looked at them.

-end-

permtaglist

@queer-cosette @sephiralorange

@lunanight2012 @daughter-of-the-stars11

@musicarose @remembered-license

@rintheemolion @verboetoperee

@random-thoughts-003 @imtryingthisout

#Descendents #descendants #disney descendants #harry hook #harry hook descendants #harry hook x reader #harry hook imagine #halloween #hocus pocus #sanderson sisters #sarah sanderson

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dirt-cup-draco · 4 years

Text

Sirius x Reader- Everyone But Me

Can u please do young!sirius x reader in which the reader is friends with Lily and the marauders. And in an attempt to try and see if Lily has any feelings for James, u flirt with James. And James being James goes along with it, also bc he knows Sirius likes u and he thinks it’s funny. Which does in fact not only make Lily jealous but also Sirius. Could the reader also be mega bffs with Rem please? I’m just a slut for jealous Sirius. I’m glad ur feeling better, I love you pumpkin

“I can’t believe you!” You giggled, head resting in the crook of Remus’ neck as you lost your composure. The marauders were devilish on and off the quidditch pitch and you weren’t going to tell anyone that peter had been muttering curses underneath his breath to throw off the Slytherin seeker while James worked on winning the game.

“It was harmless, really, we would’ve won the game regardless,” Sirius chimed in, tossing his arm around you and pulling you from Remus’ side into his own as he fought back the small twang of jealousy he felt. He knew that Remus had his eye on that McKinnon girl that Lily was so fond of but he couldn’t help it. He loved that you were close with everybody he cared about. Sirius couldn’t ever fall for someone who wouldn’t give his friends a chance, but he also felt fear.

Fear that he wasn’t good enough in comparison to them. Remus was kindhearted and intelligent, possessing a calm and intelligence that Sirius thought he’d never have. Peter was in his head but he had good intentions and was cute, Sirius didn’t pull off cute well- in his own opinion that was. And then there was James Potter. James, his best friend and the golden boy of gryffindor.

Which brought him to the whomping willow, hours later, back pressed against the dusty planks within the tree. When it wasn’t being used as a safe haven for Remus during the full moon it was a nice place for them to meet up and spend hours getting up to no good and enjoying their youth. You were all sat in a circle, you sitting directly between Remus and James, Sirius across from you.

It was a miracle you hadn’t noticed that his eyes had been trained on you since the second you had arrived with a smug smile and firewhisky tucked behind your back to share.

It was a miracle that Sirius didn’t notice the sly look you sent Lily’s way. You had a gleam in your eye and you finished off the cup of firewhisky you had in your hand, just enjoying the pleasant warmth that had spread through you. It was late and the whomping willow wasn’t the warmest of places as October reached its midpoint.

“So James, brilliant play today,” You cooed, changing the subject so the focus was on James and James alone. Sirius felt sick but watched in curiosity.

“Course it was,” James laughed but smiled back, sending a long look to Sirius, assessing him. Sirius was too stuck in his own mind to realize that he was being studied, he didn’t realize that to James the jealousy was clear.

You watched Lily similarly, finding the way that her expression soured as she watched you, her own jealousy beaming through. Remus watched in amusement. Sirius and Lily were quite possibly the two most emotionally constipated people he had ever met in his life.

James looked to you for a moment and your lips split into a wide grin, you winked, you actually bloody winked! Sirius felt disturbed but mainly disheartened. He didn’t like watching you express interest in James, he wanted it to be him regardless what James might feel towards you. Which seemed to be similar to your own feelings as he winked back.

“I did it of course, for you dear Y/N,” James nearly laughed at the painful flirt that made it way past his lips. It was like trying to flirt with his sister, awkard and unnatural. You two had been stuck on a bet of sorts recently. James was adamant that Sirius was head over heels for you and you were certain Lily was begging the universe for James to make the first move, just so she didn’t have to lose her Evans pride by asking him first.

You set your hand on James’ thigh as you talked, both egging on the other teens in the room that you fancied. It seemed to be too much for Sirius though as he hopped up from his reclined and faux relaxed position.

“I’ve got to go,” Was all he said before he was running out. Peter looked at you all with shame and Remus snorted, hand held open for James to drop nearly a galleon’s worth of sickles into his waiting palm. Lily raised her brow in question as Marlene sipped at the firewhisky, soaking up the drama.

“On you go then,” James directed, head jerking towards the entrance.

You chewed your lip pensively. “I still don’t think you’re right,”

“Our plan went just like we thought it would so what are you waiting for?” James asked and Lily’s mouth opened to ask but Remus shot her a look that told her she would be finding out very soon.

“If you’re wrong-” You argued, nervous that Sirius wouldn’t feel the same. What if he did but didn’t now that you had been cruel? Jealousy was a feeling that tied your stomach in knots and made your heart feel like a concrete weight in your chest. If Sirius was feeling anything like that then you didn’t doubt he would be cross with your little game.

“He’s not,” Remus reassured, hand warm on your back as he sent you an encouraging smile. “Sirius is mad for you, so go to him already.”

You finally nodded, brushing the dust from your jeans as you chased after the boy that you hadn’t had the guts to tell how you felt without playing childish games. You hoped he wasn’t too upset.

“Hey,” Your voice drifted on the icy breeze, features distorted by the moon’s light being broken up through the clouds above and Sirius froze in his tracks that had been leading anywhere that wasn’t near the whomping willow. “You left pretty quick,”

You stood a few feet behind him with a perfect smile on your face, concerned about him. He cracked his own smile but if felt cheap and brittle. “Just needed some air, drank too much probably,”

“You didn’t touch the firewhisky all night,” You pointed out and Sirius watched you intently.

“Guess not,” He shrugged lamely, not offering any explanation as to why he was lying to you. You understood he was hurt, or at least feeling inadequate, and it was up to you to make the first step.

“Want to talk about it?” You asked, not quite sure what to do now.

“Nothing to talk about,” He couldn’t help the bitter tone. Why tell you how he felt when you clearly fancied James? Why else would you be all over his friend? But... that begged another question. Why were you here and not with James when you had both seemed to be enjoying each other’s flirting?

“Alright then,” You said, smile stiff but you didn’t seem deterred as you grabbed Sirius’ hand in yours. “If you don’t have something to say, then I do. I’m sorry,” You opened your mouth to say more but it seemed stuck in your throat.

Sirius could feel your palm, sweaty against his own as you struggled for words. “You’re sorry?” He prompted, not sure why you were apologizing. Your cheeks were red but he chalked it up the buzz and the chill in the air that was pricking at his own skin and undoubtedly battling the sweater you wore and winning. You shivered.

“I’m sorry for being an idiot, I didnt mean to make you jealous-”

“I wasn’t jealous!” Sirius immediately squeaked, face hot.

You laughed. Sirius winced.

“Whatever you and James are it’s cool, I’m not jealous,” He defended again, shielding his own emotions from you. You were still laughing! Was this funny to you? Sirius tore his hand from yours, making his way back towards the school.

“Siri!” You sighed, realizing you once again had shared too little. “James and I aren’t anything! It was a trick, a prank, really! I was trying to get Lily to admit she liked James and he was doing the same to you.... Both of us are idiots,”

Sirius stood still once again but he was almost too nervous to face you as you caught back up to him. “What’s the point? Why make a mockery of us?”

“I-it wasn’t supposed to be that... I don’t want to mock you, I want you to know I like you, a lot,”

Sirius scoffed. “Funny way of showing it,” Yet, his defenses had fallen with that one blow. Y/N liked him? Surely she couldn’t mean it.

“I know,” You sighed, fingers intertwining with his once more as you tugged him to face you, his eyes darting around as he refused to make eye contact. He was trying to keep from looking hopeful in case this was still just one big joke.

“Why?” He asked.

“I told you silly, because I like you and I’m an idiot and-”

“No,” Sirius cut you off. “I mean, why me? Why not James? He’s- well he’s just better... Honestly, anyone would be better than me. I like you, oh merlin, I like you, Y/N-”

“But?” You encouraged.

“But you deserve better and anyone else would be a better match...” Sirius continued, trying to keep the hurt out of his tone. “I thought for a while you liked Remus and now James and I- Well I thought you liked everyone but me.”

To anyone that wasn’t you or the marauders, Sirius would sound indifferent as he admitted his own low self esteem. To you, however, you realized just how stupid it was to make Sirius sit in his self doubt to try and get him to say he liked you instead of just admitting it yourself.

“James is like my brother,” You wrinkled your nose in mock disgust. “I couldn’t ever feel that way about him! It’s always been you Sirius, I don’t care about anyone else the way I care about you. Remus is my best friend and James and Peter are like my annoying siblings, but that is all. You mean far more to me,”

Sirius blinked slowly. “But I’m-”

“Perfect,” You smiled. “In every way,”

Sirius felt like he’d been punched.

“So,” You blushed. “All that being said, would you do me the honor of letting me make up for my mistake and take you on a date?”

Sirius beamed, kissing your knuckles as he squeezed your hand in response. “How could I deny you the honor of going on a date with all this?” He motioned to himself, his false confidence blurring with real confidence as he tried to process that you actually liked him!

“Can I ask one thing though?” He chimed in after a moment of charged silence.

“Of course,” You let go of the breath you hadn’t realized you’d been holding.

“Please, never do that again,” Sirius laughed weakly.

You agreed and pulled him into a tight hug, only pulling away when the rest of your friends found you some odd minutes later, stuck in a cozy embrace.

That weekend, you and Sirius, as well as James and Lily, had a lovely double date. The kiss you’d given him after had told Sirius all he need to know. It was him and only him and had been for quite some time. All was well.

#sirius x reader #sirius black x reader #fluff #angst #ask #anon #anon ask #sirius black #sirius

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ghostmartyr · 4 years

Text

how a life can move from the darkness [11/?]

| 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 |

Summary: Two drug addicts (Eren and Historia) meet in group and decide to be roommates to make their living situation slightly less weird. From there we do the slow burn found family dance mixed in with the struggles and agonies of recovery. Heavy on friendship feels, especially EMA. Eventual yumikuri.

Ymir was going to be part of Eren’s life. He’d known for a while he didn’t have much of a choice in that. There wasn’t anything surprising about her coming to one of Zeke’s games. The surprise would be if she kept it at one. Ymir did what she wanted unless Historia told her not to, and according to Reiner what she wanted was to see Historia in a baseball uniform.

Eren didn’t need to know that, but he was getting used to all of it. He didn’t need Historia asking him five different times if Ymir meeting Armin and Mikasa was something he was okay with. No one had to hold his hand over them anymore. He had two of his own.

ymir’s showing at the game historia’s friend

Is this the girl from juvie

why do you know that

Historia was in juvie??

She watches Rivaille for me sometimes. It came up.

Why was Historia in juvie??

from when she killed her dad

Oh. That makes sense Wait, I thought that was self defense sort of

No.

????

It was all fine, and the worst thing about any of it was still that he was going to one of Zeke’s baseball games. Which wasn’t even so bad with Armin, Mikasa, and Historia all there and whole. Petra had called it a ‘sterling improvement.’ Eren didn’t remind her of all the parts left to work on. Maybe she’d call that an improvement, too.

What wasn’t fine was jolting awake at four in the morning, music Eren didn’t recognize blasting from his phone while his head hit go on lunging out of bed into his nightstand.

Ankle caught in his sheets, Eren held the box of sensory destruction in his hands for full seconds before the ability to turn it off came back to him. Blinding puffs of white clouds parted, and he could swipe the brightness down to numbing without his ears bleeding.

A jumble of words waited on his brain to catch up. Sprouting like weeds.

yo Baseball Boy u have friends coming to this thing right ur ocean instagram hot tub scale bro and catgirl

The corner of his phone agreed. It was four in the morning.

It buzzed enthusiastically in his hand, helpful emoji arrows loading to point at empty image boxes. They were quickly filled by another Eren, kneeling in wet sand and unaware that Armin was expanding the subjects of his Instagram. Five different angles popped up.

who needs this many pics of a sea urchin was he trying to get the seashell ur on top of

Eren’s fingers moved slowly.

why are you awake

Ymir did not respond with an answer.

how many hours do photoshoots like this take

Another shot loaded under the text, and it could have been the end of the world and Eren still would have recognized the picture from his last beach trip. Mikasa, magically captured in a moment of lifting him and Armin into the air. The unfair, unexpected moment in a day of clouds and uncooperative waves. Armin hadn’t seen it coming any more than Eren had, even though it was his picture. But he was the one beaming into the camera.

Eren hadn’t wanted to go. There was a tournament to prep for. Annie had been helping him. The cut on his cheek from her toe catching his face hadn’t even had a chance to heal. Captured in that one second Mikasa had lifted them up and Armin had thought to hold on to his phone, the mark was bright and red, flexing with his open mouth of outrage.

Mikasa was smiling too. She just wasn’t looking at the phone.

The top of the photo was cut off with a buzz.

u have a face under that hair… unreal […] u’d look prettier if u smiled

Eren untangled his foot from his bedding and flumped back on his pillow with his phone in hand.

fuck off

do u kiss ur besties with those fingers am I gonna get to watch that @ the game

Irritation didn’t offer the same warmth as his comforter, but the kindling helped take off the morning chill. Eren scrubbed his face with the palm of his hand and scowled at the screen.

you and historia need to stop asking about that I’m fine

A minute passed. Long enough for a yawn to dim the adrenaline.

cool

Eren waited for the rest.

He woke up with the sun shining under his blinds, his phone inside his pillowcase, no new messages from Ymir, and one unread apology text from Historia sent at five in the morning. And a baseball game to go to.

----

“You sure you don’t want to play? You have the arms for it.”

Yelena sat in the corner of the dugout. Up straight, even though her hair caught in the splinters hooked in the ceiling. Smiling, because she did that. Giving Eren an entire bench of personal space he hadn’t asked for, because she did that too.

“I’m sure,” he said, taking the batting helmets out of Zeke’s bag and jamming them in their cubbies.

Yelena was the only other person in the dugout. She started better cold. According to her.

Mikasa and Historia were warming up in the outfield, Historia looking out at the bleachers every five seconds. Colt and Zeke were next to them. Throwing like Colt didn’t mind doing nothing else a thousand times over.

One of the helmets hit the shelf instead of its slot. Eren ignored the field and shoved it back into place. Armin was planning to be on time instead of an hour early, so he wasn’t around yet.

Yelena was smiling at Eren.

He didn’t like it.

“Zeke keeps a spare uniform on hand. Your roommate would have found trouble with the fit, but your proportions are more agreeable,” Yelena said. “He’d be happy to give it to you. Playing with his brother again would mean the world and more to him.”

The helmets were cheap plastic past the padding. Eren’s hands could crack them. Easily. Take Zeke’s toys and break them to see if that would make talking to Eren about feelings and what he wanted sound any better.

He’d done that by accident as a kid. It never worked. Whether or not it would now wasn’t a thought that had even settled when a new voice found its way into the shaded dirt. “What’s big brother have against the world?”

Like a grinning gargoyle, mocking and light, Ymir appeared, settling her arms on the dugout’s roof and leaning into Eren’s personal space. His reflection blinked at him from the mirrored rainbow sunglasses perched on her forehead.

It took several seconds before the reflection’s eyes shifted enough to catch the waving figure next to her. Armin, earlier than he ever was to these, because he never got enough sleep and had to catch up somewhere, smiled awkwardly, a good chunk of his body fully accosted by Ymir.

Something heavy and warm was threading into Eren’s chest, and it made it hard to look at either of them. “Aren’t those Reiner’s?” he asked.

“Aren’t you going to say hello?”

He put away the last helmet soundlessly. “You stole his sunglasses?”

“Since my last felony went so well,” Ymir said, hopping down and crushing a sunflower seed under the pointed dress shoes she’d decided to wear to a baseball game. “You should care more that I stole Instagram boy.”

She flipped off the glasses and planted them squarely on Eren’s head, bypassing every physical and verbal protest. Armin, standing out in the sunshine and looking happier than anyone should at one of these things, quietly drew out his phone and Eren rolled his eyes compliantly before the shutter noise sounded.

Yelena interrupted the moment.

“You’re new.”

Armin’s smile stiffened. Ymir’s hands made another knot in Eren’s hair, and she passed Yelena a bored look. “Yeah,” she said, “I suppose I am. You’d be?”

“Yelena,” said Yelena. A hand stuck out by Eren’s hip and hovered there with all the earnest politeness that never felt honest coming from her. She kept at it every time anyway. “It’s a pleasure to meet another one of Eren’s friends.”

“I’ll bet,” Ymir said. “You don’t look like someone who comes by that naturally.” There was a shark in those teeth. Eren hadn’t realized Yelena was bleeding in the water. “Don’t take it too personally; that brother of his doesn’t have apartment privileges either.”

Without another word, she grabbed Eren by his scalp and yanked him up the steps, disregarding his balance and safety and pulling him into the morning sunlight next to a staring Armin. Before she kept the movement going and pressed heavy hands on their backs and shoved them out of the backstop’s limits.

Failing on the rest, and making limited headway forcing Ymir out of his hair, Eren offered,“Good morning.”

Armin, eyes alight and stunned, said, “Good morning.”

Eren jabbed his thumb over his shoulder. “This is Ymir.”

Armin nodded. “We met by the drinking fountain.”

Eren nodded.

Ymir continued pushing them towards the bleachers, scuffing line chalk all over their shoes, with only one telling stumble that set Armin free from her grip. Eren wasn’t so lucky, and it felt on purpose.

The pressure pushing him away from the dugout didn’t let up. Ymir had earned her rock climbing qualifications somewhere and it showed, but her entire head was aimed at the outfield, where Historia missed an easy lob by her head because her glove was down at her waist. Mikasa had to call her name several times before it took, and she jogged back to fetch the ball with a stumble that gave Mikasa time to look over to determine what was so distracting.

She found Eren first. In their oddly connected pile.

He pointed at Ymir.

Mikasa’s eyebrows rose. He shrugged.

Ymir stared, since that’s what she did when Historia was in orbit, and Historia kept moving while she stared back. Crossing near Zeke and Colt in the process. Where every third throw was a risk since Zeke was putting Colt through grounder paces. Colt wasn’t great with grounders. His little brother was. Eren was. That was half of little league.

Armin’s face popped in front of Eren and he almost jumped. “Ymir thought you’d like watching from the stands with us,” he said. “That’s not how she said it, but—do you want to?”

A floater landed softly in Colt’s glove, and Eren pulled his eyes away. “Sure,” he said, focusing on Armin and the warmth coming through Ymir’s hand on his back. On how easy it always was here.

“So Armin,” Ymir said into the quiet morning mist, “what was Eren like before he had hair?”

“Louder, mostly.”

“Hey.”

----

Watching from the bleachers wasn’t that different from watching from the dugout. There were still rooting for the same people. Nothing they did contributed to how it was going. It was still several hours of watching people stand in one spot waiting for a moment that might never come.

There wasn’t anything new to it.

“Cutter.”

“Not with this one. Fastball.”

“Zeke’s more strategic than that. No one else on their team has gotten a hit all day. He won’t risk that happening again in the final inning.”

“No one else getting a piece of him means he has something to prove.”

“Winning proves that better.”

Nothing new at all, except Armin wasn’t sitting with a bunch of people who didn’t care about how their genius pitcher won them the game. He was sitting next to Ymir, a bunch of twigs in the shape of a diamond resting etween them, small gouges in the splintered stands where they’d jabbed in larger sticks to make their points earlier.

“What do you think, Eren?” Ymir’s voice broke into his lazy contentment. “How much of a prideful prick is big brother?”

Eren looked over at the mound, where he hadn’t had to all game with the commentary running by his ears. Where Zeke stood as the king of his domain. Steady and calm to anyone who did think to look. “Fastball.”

Armin objected. “It’s the ninth inning, it doesn’t make any sense to—”

The pitch left Zeke’s hand. Straight as an arrow. Hammering into the catcher’s mitt. In three of the movies that had somehow survived their list purges, this was where the stadium would go silent before the crowd erupted in cheers.

They weren’t in a stadium, and there wasn’t a crowd.

Armin sighed, his careful placement of twigs slipping back down to the ground.

Ymir clucked her tongue. “You hate to see it.”

“They won,” Eren said, unhelpfully. Armin’s heavier sigh made the whole diamond shine brighter. Past tolerable. Put with Ymir’s rolling eyes and Mikasa jogging to the outfield to walk in with Historia, it hit somewhere closer to whatever Zeke saw whenever he stepped up to the mound.

Whatever it was that made showing up worth it. Eren had never understood as a kid, stuck in the bleachers with his grandparents. Finally being let into the dugout didn’t make it any better, even when it should have. Getting a taste when he was back to the bleachers while the teams shook hands wasn’t something he would have thought to look for.

The baseball part was still dumb.

Ymir’s elbow jabbed his ribs and pointed at Mikasa. “That’s the cat friend?”

Eren pushed her back into Armin’s section of bench. “We told you that was her when she got the grand slam.” All four runs on the board were thanks to Mikasa. Armin had jumped to his feet to cheer for her. The guy walking his dog nearby knew who Mikasa was, and Ymir was paying more attention.

She didn’t snipe back. She dropped Reiner’s sunglasses on his head and kept staring out at the field. Historia had spent most of the game out of range. Every few shook hands she glanced over her shoulder, but Ymir didn’t so much as twitch at the extra attention. She was watching Mikasa. The hand she’d dropped to the bench was digging into the splintered edge.

She’d used that hand to text him at four in the morning.

“You’re nervous,” Eren said abruptly.

Ymir scoffed. “Don’t be ridiculous.”

Eren looked at Armin for confirmation. Armin’s wide eyes darted between them, Ymir stubbornly staring at the back of Mikasa’s head as she hit the end of the line. After a stalled second that said everything, he shrugged diplomatically.

Eren spun back to Ymir. “You are.”

“Right, because meeting up with your friends really earned its spot on my dayplanner,” Ymir said, unclenching her fist enough to lean back on the next row of bleachers. It didn’t look as casual as she thought it did.

Armin tried to help. “Mikasa’s not that scary once you get to know her,” he said. “She’s amazing at everything, and that can intimidate some people, but—”

“I am not intimidated,” Ymir declared. “From everything you nerds have told me her cat’s scarier than she is.”

“Rivaille’s…” Armin’s defense fell short. “A rescue,” he said at last.

Eren picked his dropped thread back up. “If you’re not intimidated, what are you nervous about?”

“Are your ears broken?” Ymir said. “I’m not nervous.”

“You’re breaking the seats with your hand.”

She stole her sunglasses back and pointed them at him. “All that says is your brother should pick a better park to play at.”

“The league figures that out.”

“They’re walking over,” Armin said.

Eren and Ymir shut up. Ymir’s face had lost the shade of color Historia usually gave her, and maybe there was something wrong with that, but the only other time Eren had seen her in a social situation she wasn’t in control of, she’d started crying. Maybe she was just like this with new people.

Historia didn’t have the extra bounce Ymir usually gave her, either. But anything could take away Historia’s good mood, and Ymir was more like her everything.

Mikasa looked like Mikasa. She wasn’t someone to be nervous over.

“C’mon,” Eren said, wrenching Ymir’s arm out of the splinters. “Get up and say hi.”

Ymir flicked him off and tromped down the stands. Armin was biting back a smile. Eren held out a hand and swung him to his feet, following Ymir without helping her grow any of the cracks in the wood.

Like magnets, Historia fell into Ymir’s orbit instantly, and any of Mikasa’s intimidation factor that Ymir had made up evaporated. Ymir slid Reiner’s sunglasses down over her eyes and looked Historia and her haphazardly dusted uniform up and down.

The color came back, and Ymir coughed into her hand. “Shouldn’t have swung at that ball in the fifth,” she said.

Historia’s whole face twitched in exasperation. “I thought I could reach it.”

Ymir grinned and hooked a finger around one of her sleeves, pulling her close enough for Armin to carefully switch his gaze to Eren’s shoulder. “With these nubs?” she asked. “Has anyone tried to ship you off to little league yet?”

“She throws too hard.”

Mikasa’s quiet insertion drew all eyes to her.

Stable and calm, she wasn’t at all put off by Ymir, or Historia’s cleat digging into Ymir’s shoe. Which she noticed. And smiled at. She’d had worse. For as long as Eren had known her. If the shame didn’t steel out the words, he could have told Ymir that.

Ymir shot Eren a look, a leering smile mocking him. “I’ve heard that.” Then she switched back to Mikasa, and the person who manned an entire household she didn’t live in gleamed under her stolen sunglasses. She stuck out her hand.

“Ymir.”

Mikasa silently looked between Ymir and Historia’s proximity and Eren.

She took Ymir’s hand.

“Eren’s friend,” she said.

Ymir bristled, but next to her, Historia’s eyes did the sunburst thing Armin’s did. Those moments that wiped everything else away, because the world stopped and paid attention when it noticed someone with the brightness to change it was waking up.

They’d lived together for months. He didn’t think he’d ever seen her happy before.

Defensive tension leaked out of Ymir like a beach balloon. She saved the last of it for a pointed scowl in Eren’s direction before dropping out of the handshake and turning away from all of them. Stuttering somewhat when Historia’s hand quietly took up the residence Mikasa’s had been thrown from.

“I guess,” Ymir said shortly. “Your boy’s okay.”

Eren’s ears burned, and he glared at the backstop. Armin’s soft laugh and Mikasa’s audible smile did not make the burning go away. It just went other places and was even harder to ignore.

“Yeah, well. You’re… fine,” he said.

The brutal, heated silence of embarrassment continued. Everyone else didn’t mind. His eyes flicked up and made the mistake of catching Mikasa’s.

Affection spilled out freely from her. Genuine and familiar. Warmer than she’d been with him even before everything fell apart. She made the blood rushing to his head feel like it was allowed to be there, and maybe wasn’t ever going to leave.

Mikasa was fine too.

----

“Are you doing okay with all of that?”

There were questions Eren had learned to put up with. Questions from Reiner had been an early test of that. Strung out and on fire, he could break Reiner’s face open for talking at all, or suck it up and learn how to be human again.

Figuring out answers to the questions wasn’t the same thing.

“Huh?” Eren said.

They were outside Reiner’s house, waiting on Ymir. She’d gotten a text from Historia on her way to pick up her helmet and the world went on pause.

“With that,” Reiner said, pointing over his shoulder at the front door.

The front door stayed a front door.

“With what?” Eren asked blankly.

“With Ymir and Historia being a thing,” Reiner said. Before Eren could add another ‘what,’ the words kept going. Reiner was at his most earnest this morning, and he bridged the gap between their bikes with a creak of metal and sincerity that Eren didn’t want. “Third wheeling can be rough.”

Eren was a morning person. It was too early for this. He said, “I’m fine.”

Reiner’s open sympathy didn’t falter. Under the dark circles and the bunched tendons in his arms that still didn’t know how to relax, there was nothing but plain, unnecessary compassion. “I talked it over with Bert and Marcel, and everyone’s fine with you rooming here.”

Anything Eren could say or wanted to be confused by got lost in syrup and waffles and the inevitable. He unclamped his hands from his bicycle and rubbed away the red indents before they were visible to anyone but him. “I have a room.”

A nice room. With sheets that had made it through two homes he wasn’t going back to. He wasn’t going to volunteer a third. “And they wouldn’t just kick me out,” Eren added, a phantom of Ymir’s hand ruffling his hair.

Reiner held one of his elbows in a way Eren had etched into his head from Historia. “No,” he agreed. “They’re not like that. They’re too used to us to ask. But for guys like us, it’s hard not to help out.” His bike shifted under him. He didn’t lean in any closer, but the world around them closed. “Only guys like us don’t do well on our own.”

Eren stayed quiet. His tongue was fuzzy. The way it had been when he woke up in the hospital. He didn’t know why he’d decided to like that feeling.

“I just wanted you to know you don’t have to go backwards,” Reiner said after a moment or two. “That’s all.”

It wasn’t that cold, but the heat in Eren’s ears still stung more than anything. He stared squarely at the ground, where a pillbug was scrunching down the sidewalk. Petra and months of encouragement didn’t make the improvement feel good. Just necessary enough to be weird.

“Thanks,” he said.

Reiner clapped him on the back hard enough to leave marks on both of them.

[next]

#drug au #fic #mine #long post

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jawllines · 5 years

Note

hey bub don't forget to post the met gala fic! xoxo ur reminder anon

tHANK YOU FOR REMINDING ME :D

“Holy shit.”

Y/N had seen Harry in a lot of things -- being his best friend meant experiencing his wardrobe, including but not limited to getting pictures of outfits laid out for something with question marks for her opinion, entering expensive boutiques with eyes averting from price tags in attempt not to panic, marveling as she walks through his closet to see pieces he’d purchased unbeknownst to her (plucking a few things from his drawers), and sending him links to things she think he ought to like just to see him in a photo online in it a week or so later. Despite how familiar she was with his taste in fashion and what he looks like in items of different colors, cuts, and fabrics, she is still often blown away with what he could conjure up. There was just something so. . .alluring, about the way in which he wore things with confidence without oozing any sort of cockiness that might turn someone off from him.

So when he’d invited her to come with him to New York for the Met Gala (in which she would not be attending, given she didn’t have thirty grand lying around to spend, but she got to sleep in a fancy hotel and eat like a King for a few days so she was happy), she’d been more than ecstatic. Was keen on seeing his outfits, hearing what he would do, what he’d have to say, and hope that he explain to her what even happens at the Met Gala apart from the red carpet. Even had fun with his impromptu ear piercing that she helped with (she’s got steadier hands than him). Her plan was simple -- to enjoy the luxuries of being rich without actually having to be rich, dawning one of the expensive hotel robes, slipping her feet into slippers and watch a livestream of the carpet while simultaneously pretending she would be willing to spend more than twenty dollars on a top as she scrolled through various clothing websites. Maybe take a bath or something and wait for him to come back, wondering what food they served at those kinds of events, if Harry would even like it, and if she should order room service (to which she would pay him back for even if it meant sliding money into his wallet when he wasn’t looking) and get him something in case he didn’t.

Though as the night continued on, picture after picture being released, videos and live streams from the event, everything seems so exciting and entertaining, she began to feel a small pit of. . .of something in her chest. She couldn’t quite tell what it was -- she was so proud of him and so happy to see him happy, that her cheeks could burst with a smile from it, but her heart weighs heavy. Harry makes good to rarely seem like he’s famous. Apart from the occasional fan picture or paparazzi hoard, he’s just normal Harry, who snores way too loud, has awful gas after eating jambalaya, picks off people’s plates without so much as a question to, and cannot sit still or keep quiet through a movie if he wasn’t interested in the subject matter. He was the Harry that shoved his head under her hand as his formal request for her to play with his hair and gave her drunken, emotional kisses because he’s “never felt so close t’a someone before”, and would rather sleep on her dingy old couch in her worn down flat than sleep in his multi-million dollar home if it meant that he didn’t have to be alone.

This Harry though -- famous Harry -- appeared to be completely in his element. Floating down the pink carpet with the man responsible for all things Gucci, dancing to Cher, mingling with celebrities, hosting the fucking event. It was like a whole different world he was apart of; one of glamour and opulence that she could only ever dream of. At that moment, for the first time, she’d felt as if she’d been holding Harry back somehow. She’s more than aware that she does not have that kind of power to do it on her own, but what about what he does for her? The nights that she wants him to come over, is he turning down plans with someone who might be more beneficial to his career? Or with someone who has much better, more interesting stories than what her professor tried to pull in her lecture? Maybe he was passing on drinks with stylists and people of greater importance because he’s far too loyal to pass on a romantic comedy movie night with her?

He deserved all good things; nothing but great, wonderful things and she feels endlessly guilty that she is unable to cater to that side of him.

That’s why when he returns a little earlier than he had expected, showing off the second garment he had changed into, his eyes wide and bright, “Get dressed, you’re comin’ with me to an after party!” He chirps after bursting through the door, walking towards the closet without a second thought and swinging the door open to reveal what she had presumed was a bag for one of his suits. Instead he pulls it from the closet, tosses it onto the mattress that she was sprawled on and points his finger at it, “Loads of people I wan’ you t’a meet, yeah?”

Her heart kicks up in her chest, not only because he is even more ethereal in person, nor was it just the fact that he had literally scared her phone out of her hand when he’d plowed in through the door, but because what in the hell? People he wants her to meet? At a met gala after party? Is she even allowed at those?

“Am I even allowed at those?” She mirrors her confusion and he shrugs his shoulders.

“Don’t see why not; m’the co-chair, so I think I get a bit of leeway with a thing or two,” he pulls the zipper open to the bag, uncovering a beautiful glittery, chain detailed silver slip dress that she only distantly remembers stroking her fingers against on the mannequin, checked the price tag, and pretend it didn’t happen. Y/N couldn’t believe he’d remembered it let alone purchased the damn thing and now it was just sat on the mattress, waiting for her to put it on, “If anything everyone will suspect your just some smarmy socialite who doesn’t a hundred percent what Camp is and that’s’ okay. Hurry on then, I don’ want them to have too much fun without me.”

Her eyes were wide, “Holy shit,” sbe begins, placing her fingers to her temples, “Holy shit, Harry,” she shakes her head, “I can’t go! I’m not even -- I don’t even -- I took like a half assed shower at best!”

“And you look marvelous, Darling,” he took the liberty of withdrawing the dress from the bag, thrusting it out towards her with his fist around the sleek dark wood of the hanger, “I’ve been gushing about ya all night, and y’know I hate to be made a liar.” He motions towards the piece in his hand, brows furrowed as he becomes impatient, “S’been like two months since I bought this so if y’don’t like it anymore then --”

“Shut up, you know I love it,” she takes it from him, trying to ignore the way her heart swells when his mouth pulls up in a big, triumphant smile, “But it was at least one month’s rent, you’re asking me to go to a party with a ton of famous people and that’s something that I need to like prepare for mentally weeks beforehand.”

As soon as she’s got the dress in hand, he takes her by the shoulders and guides her towards the bathroom, “Yeah, yeah, Lovie, listen -- they’re all jus’ like me, yeah? Normal, dressed a bit fancy,” he squeezes her where his hands lay, “Loud as all get out, just like a good chat, will absolutely adore you if you get your arse ready in the next twenty or so minutes.”

He’d managed to close her in the bathroom, leaving Y/N to stare into the large floor to ceiling mirror illuminating every flaw she could’ve possibly thought to have all at once. She looks disheveled -- like someone who had only been planning on lounging around on a hotel bed and living simultaneously through Met Gala Twitter. Not somebody who was meant to get ready in twenty minutes. However, somehow Harry was incredibly persuasive without even having to be persuasive and she was sliding the robe from her shoulders, letting it pool to the floor.

She could get ready in twenty minutes -- she’s had worse time constraints in the past.

. . .

Y/N’s head is spinning.

Too much had happened in such a short amount of time; she’d met more people than she would have thought to be imaginable in a night than she’d ever met in her entire life. People of such fame and opulence she was certain that they would never cross paths, no matter the fact that she’s Harry’s right hand for most things. However, she realizes tonight as she’s mingling and meeting these people Harry has known for a long while and had never let the situation arise in which Y/N would meet them. Harry kept his personal life separate from his public life and if he could, she realizes, he kept her personal to him which simultaneously made her heart soften and ache all in the same.

She doesn’t think it would hurt too bad, until she had fluttered around the room with him and he had left her to her own devices for a moment so he could get them both something to drink. That’s when someone had turned to her (she wishes she could remember their name but after meeting so many people in a night, most of them escaped her) and said with a look of bewilderment on their face, “So you guys have been friends for how long? You seem so close, I wonder why he hasn’t really mentioned you before.”

It’s not like she expected him to be speaking on her twenty four seven, that definitely wasn’t the case! However, she talks about him a healthy amount to her other friends, and not even in a way where he’s Harry Styles -- again, just the boy who gets drooly when his face is smushed up against a shoulder -- they know that he’s around and is aware of his presence and their friendship. It makes her wonder if he’s ashamed of her or something. . .was being friends with a college student considered unclassy? Would it be better if she was some socialite who had infiltrated the world of celebrities and shared all their gossip at the first breath of their names? Because those are the friends of his that these people know about.

But he had brought her tonight, so that meant something didn’t it? It had to have, right? Was this a test to see how she would do in a situation where she was placed amongst people of such high regard? Or did he just feel guilty for inviting her then leaving? Or was he just riding off the high of the night and was making hasty decisions that he otherwise wouldn’t dream of?

There’s too many possibilities, it makes her head spin, more so than the apple flavored vodka she’d been sipping on. She needed to get out of her head -- she knows she does -- but it feels impossible when she so clearly doesn’t belong. And without Harry at her side, she felt even more misplaced than she had to begin with. The judging glances from people who couldn’t seem to decipher why she was there, why she was silent unless spoken to, and why it appeared like she wanted to jump from her skin. She had never been more uncomfortable in her life, and she decides then that maybe Harry keeping her away from this was best.

When she’d sought him out to tell him she was going to head home -- make up some excuse about a migraine or something -- she sees him speaking with Kendall, which only seems to further the wrench in her heart. All those teenage glimmers of hope that she could be his right hand are squashed because she’d only proven tonight that she couldn’t handle this side and this was such a large part of him. Not the only part, but big enough that she could understand if he didn’t want to bother trying to acclimate her to it. Why would he want to be with someone who he couldn’t bring to events without them starting to doubt themselves? And why the hell is she even thinking about being with him right now?

She retreats to the bathroom -- just for a little space, at the very least, to calm her down. Tears threaten to crawl up her eyes but she won’t let them. God! Why is she being so melodramatic? What’s her deal all of the sudden? She’s about three minutes from kicking her own ass -- surrounded by celebrities and idols she’s had for years, just to go to the restroom and sit still on the toilet long after she finished peeing? Just because she plummeted herself into her feelings about a boy? It’s like some twisted form of movie high school prom that she’d never, ever wanted to encounter.

Y/N isn’t sure how long she’d been sat there, until her phone dings a bright noise and startles her from whatever reverie she’d thrown herself into. She’s surprised to see Harry’s contact be what she sees, considering she didn’t even think he had pockets to keep his phone, so she swipes right on it quickly.

Where are you? Is everything okay?

And then the bastard had to be so damn sweet! Why should he care if she’s okay? He’d just hosted the damn Met Gala for Christ sake, she should be the last thing on his mind.

She feels her eyes well; here she was in the bathroom, feeling sorry for herself when it was Harry’s night. How could she run off to the hotel? She was here to support him and praise him because tonight is about him and she almost feels selfish for letting her emotions have her feeling like it was even remotely about her.

Deciding to no longer feel sorry for herself, she answers him back letting him know she was in the bathroom, stands up, finally wipes like she should have about ten minutes ago, and goes to wash her hands. She looks at herself in the mirror, very seriously tells herself to buck the hell up only to jump some when she realizes that Katy Perry is beside her in a burger costume. She nods politely, pulls a paper towel from the dispenser and pushes her way out to see Harry was standing and waiting for her, a dopey smile on his stupidly cute face.

“Are ya havin’ fun?”

Y/N musters her best smile and nods, “Loads,” she responds, “Are you?”

He nods enthusiastically, reaching out for her arm and giving her a small tug, “C’mon then, ‘ve been DJ-ing with Mark and I want you to have a go.”

. . .

By the end of the night it is very well apparent that celebrities party like college students. After the first afterparty he had taken her to, they went to a smaller one that he co-hosted, and it was a bit slower paced. Y/N felt more comfortable there at the very least -- maybe too comfortable, because several times she caught herself slowly fading to sleep, only brought back to full alertness when the coolness of her glass is pressed against her thigh. She’d done her fair share of mingling here too and met a handful of people that made her mouth dry, but by the time the sun started to rise in the sky, she was curled up on a couch and scrolling through her phone absently, waiting for Harry’s cue that they could go back to the hotel. He’d come to check on her a few times, asking if she wanted to meet someone (she would say yes), or if she just needed company but she urged him several times to go have fun (“You and I will be together for the next few days anyway, y’might as well enjoy your time without me hovering,” she had told him to which he replied with a pout of, “But I like when you hover.” that made her heart flutter more than it should have).

She was in the weird state of drunk-ish but slowly sobering; the last shot she had was an hour or so ago but she still felt buzzy and light. Still drunk enough to think that considering trekking downstairs and hitching a taxi by herself when she wasn’t all too sure of where their hotel was, might be a good idea -- but of sound enough mind to recognize that her feet ached too much to even think about trekking anywhere.

Around 7-ish, a gentle hand lies on her shoulder and nearly has her spring from her skin. Harry’s soft, low, sleepy chuckle is her first indication that it’s him before she turns around and sees his bow is a bit askew, his hair has been tousled and combed through to high heavens, and his eyes were puffy and red from his own weariness. “Jumpy,” he’d murmured, and she could tell he had sobered up considerably and was probably far soberer than she was, as he holds his hand out for her to take, helping her rise and leaning over to grab the heels she had kicked off and lied beside the couch, “Y’should’ve told me you were tired. Would’ve gotten you back to the hotel.”

“And what, miss out on some rich hot shot celebrity falling in love with my drunken sleeping form?” She stood, wincing and pouting, taking her heels from his fingers and sliding them back onto her foot, “Speaking of, m’pretty sure Taron Egerton is bringing me home actually, so I’ll send for my things.”

He furrows his brows at her and waves her along, “Yeah, yeah, and Alessandro is signing Gucci over to me -- c’mon now.”

“That’s actually not so unbelievable,” she replies.

The ride home, Y/N demands Harry work through his jaded brain to tell her about his entire night. She hypes him up even after the fact, reveling in his stories with him, all the new people he meant, how invigorating it was to be hosting the very first Met Gala that he attended, how freeing it was to have his nipples out at an event of this high stature, and how much fun he’d had even afterward. Though he still shies from her praise, blushing a pretty pink when she tells him he’s a legend and, “You’re literally doing such great things at such a young point in your solo career, m’surprised you aren’t floating from ego bloat,” makes him shake his head through a laugh.

She had thought she had made a brilliant recovery from her previous, mid-party panic, and was actually patting herself on the back for having it go unnoticed by him (because he notices absolutely everything; people could call Harry a lot of things, but one of them wasn’t dense). This is why she was so blindsided by how he approaches her when she’d plopped down on the hotel bed, kicking the heels off once again and flopping back against the mattress.

“So are you going to tell me what had you bent out of shape earlier?”

Y/N’s brows furrowed, heart sinking to her stomach, “Hm?” She plays dumb but he gives her that look -- that “don’t for a second think that you can trick me” look that almost makes her visibly shudder.

“You know what I mean,” he responds, “Y’think I don’t notice when you’re gone quiet? Or when you disappear for twenty minutes? Did someone say something to you?”

She opens her mouth to deny it but he shoots her that look again and she crumbles beneath it, shaking her head, “It was nothing,” she tells him, “I just got in my head, is all but it doesn’t matter and m’fine, so everything is good.”

“Don’t say you’re feelings don’t matter, because they do,” he responds almost immediately, peeling himself from his outfit and revealing the creamy smooth skin beneath -- Y/N has to tear her eyes from his torso so that she’s listening -- “Tell me what was wrong.”

“You’re awful demanding,” she grumbles, reaching up to take her earrings out, “It was just new and weird; I was surrounded by people I only ever see on a screen and then there were some people that just -- I just realized I didn’t really fit in, and I got in my head, but I got over it.”

His brows furrow, crawling up onto the bed, “Why didn’t you say anything to me?”

“Because it was your night idiot!” She all but snaps at him, not out of anger with him, but from pure frustration with herself, “I wasn’t going to hold you back because I felt weird. That wouldn’t be fair to you, n’I just -- I’m not apart of that world and it was very apparent and I just realized that I could be holding you back from something better when you’re hanging out with me or even that you have to take me places with you ‘cos you feel guilty. And if. . .and someone just -- I said we were best friends and they made a face and I -- it just feels weird. . .I felt weird.” Pushing the heels of her palms to her eyes, she shakes her head, “But it doesn’t matter, stop prying, me head hurts enough and I’m not letting this ruin how amazing tonight was.”

Harry’s fingers are gentle as they loop around her wrist, pulling it at it delicately so he could draw her hands from her face, “Okay,” he murmurs gently, “Okay, okay, I’ll stop, I just --” he pauses for a moment, like he’s trying to pluck the right words from his brain, “You’re so important t’me, y’know that? Right important and I wanted to bring you with me t’night, because I wanted to experience this amazing night with you.” His thumb carefully caresses her skin, and she can feel his eyes boring into her though she doesn’t look up at him, “Y’don’t have to be apart of that world, yeah? I like that you aren’t ‘cos -- well, as selfish as it is, I just want you all to myself. You’re my person. And don’t ever think you’re holding me back, Lovie, if I wanted to hang out with a ton of snobby rich celebrities all day then I would.” He leans in, pushing a kiss to her forehead, “I love you Dummy.”

Her heart pulls in her chest, “I love you more,” she murmurs.

They finish getting ready for bed (despite it being close to 9AM) and Y/N returns from the bathroom to see that Harry had planted himself on her mattress opposed to his own, snuggled up beneath her covers with only his eyes peeking out at her, “Get in,” his words are muffled by the blankets and Y/N rolls her eyes, climbing up into bed beside him. He wriggles his way over to her almost instantly, lying his head against her chest and sighing contentedly as his eyes flutter shut.

“You looked really hot t’night,” she murmurs idly as she combs her fingers through his hair and he hums, nestling closer to her, “Especially in the first outfit. You’re lucky I didn’t jump your bones.”

Harry laugh comes as a soft puff through his nose.

“You should’ve.” He responded.

Y/N stays up for an hour after thinking about it.

#bLURB #Anonymous

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stardust-sanctuary · 5 years

Note

Can I request a Vergil x reader where you are temporarily blind and vergil saves or cares for you only for him to leave?? Maybe he comes back to you and ur like??? owo Who dis? Once your sight comes back

It just hit me how many of ya’ll are asking for Vergil, but I am not complaining, no siree! He’s a super interesting character to write! Well, have some more Vergil, the grumpy half of the Sparda Duo. (On a side note, I took some liberties with Vergil’s personality and a bit of character development so take this with a pinch of salt. Please let me know your thoughts on how I handled it. I appreciate all comments and critiques, it betters me as a writer and artist!)

Also, this following entry has SPOILERS for DMC5 so click “Keep Reading” at your own risk!

As cold and heartless Vergil generally seems to act, he upholds a strict code of honor. He refused to fight Dante until he had a chance to recover and routinely refuses to attack from behind or use dirty tricks. Hell, he even dislikes using firearms.

Over the years, however, he has seemed to mellow out. This is mainly due to the revelation he has a son. Seeing how strong Nero had become had instilled a sort of pride in him, a soft spot he would never admit. Unfortunately for him, it seems as though his human side is not as buried as it once was.

Vergil and Dante parted ways shortly after returning from their devil tree killing romp in the Underworld, with the former refusing Dante’s offer to return to Redgrave to help rebuild. Vergil wasn’t sure what to do next. His quest for power had only resulted in death and destruction and the guilt he possessed could no longer be as easily quashed as it once was. He had no purpose, no goal, no plans to enact.

And so, Vergil wandered, with naught but the Yamato in hand.

You had heard whispers about this strange “Azure Wanderer” wafting around Redgrave. Devil hunters weren’t anything new to you, especially with the recent Qliphoth incident the city was recovering from. That being said, this man seemed to be a cut above the rest. A single man, donning a blue coat and wielding only a katana, cutting down any demon that dared cross his path? You couldn’t help but wonder if this was a new urban legend.

One night, you were walking the streets in the darkness. The sun had long set, your shift at work keeping you past sunset. The moon was bright and with the power grid still being repaired, you were able to see far into the starry cosmos.

Unfortunately, the beautiful night was merely the calm before the storm.

A strange voice danced from the shadows. It gave you pause for just a moment, but you shook you off. These past months had been incredibly stressful, it wouldn’t surprise you if you were hearing things.

But then one voice became two. Then three. Then four.

You’re frozen in place, forced to shield your ears as dozens of voices relentlessly chant. These strange words practically bore into your mind like a knife. The unfamiliar language took hold of your nerves, setting them ablaze and sending you crumpling to your knees.

The sheer volume of the cacophony caused your vision to blur and eventually fade into darkness. An overbearing weight settled upon your curled up body, pressing you hard on the asphalt. All you could do was pray. Pray, and weep.

After what seemed like an agonizing century, the oppressive pressure was suddenly gone and you could breathe again. Gasping for air, you tried to sit up but your ringing ears messed with your inner balance. All you could discern is the distorted scream of some monstrous creature and the distinctive shknh of a blade.

“…can you stand…?” a curt voice asked above you, helping to dispel the ringing in your ears. Still reeling from the ordeal, you shook your head between sobs, opting to curl further into yourself. A grunt escaped the man before he knelt down and rested his hand upon yours. “You were attacked by a lusachia.”

“Lu…..sachia…?” You repeated, desperately trying to find your savior’s eyes. Unfortunately, the darkness was determined to stay. “I…..what did it do to me….?”

“The scum seemed intent on making you it’s dinner,” the man explained. “It was foolish of you to wander about after dusk.”

Whatever response you could think of died in your throat as you began to shake again, your body trying to expel the excess adrenaline. You could hear a sigh escape the man before he hoisted you up on your feet.

“Come, show me the way to your home,” he practically commanded.

It was a very quiet walk, broken only by your leftover sobs. You clung onto the man’s arm, teetering like a baby deer as you tried to maneuver without your sight. Every time you would stumble, the man would correct you. His grasp was stern, but there was an underlying tenderness to it. As if he were afraid you would break under his fingers.

Finally, you reached your home. Your savior guided your hands to unlock your door, even taking the time to lead you to your bed.

“The spell shall wear off by the time you awaken, little one,” he explained. “Do not do anything so foolish ever again. You humans are more fragile than glass.”

His tone made you want to snort, but you couldn’t deny he saved your life. Not to mention how much of a gentleman he was to help guide you to bed.

“Um….thank you,” you managed. “Thank you, very much.”

The man remained quiet. The silence was so long you had thought he had left, only for you to hear a soft. “Sleep well, little one.”

A few days had passed since you were saved by the “Azure Wanderer.” Or at least, you assumed it was the Azure Wanderer. I mean, who else could so easily dispatch such a demon?

Your vision indeed returned upon your awakening and other than a few balance issues that only lasted a day or so, there were no other ill effects from the demon’s curse.

It was a lovely morning when you heard a knock at your door. You were still curled up in your pajamas, sipping at your coffee (or tea, I prefer chocolate milk myself) when the rapping came. Reluctantly, you abandoned your cozy spot to answer the door.

Only to be greeted by a tall, white-haired man. His eyes were as blue as the sky and were as cold as ice. But you could swear they softened the moment they laid eyes on you.

“Uh….” the word tumbled out of your mouth. You didn’t expect such a handsome stranger to turn up on your doorstep. “Can I….help you…?”

The man stiffened for a second. His eyes flickered away from yours. “You are….unharmed. That is good.”

“Yes….? Why would I be harmed?”

The man let out an indignant snort. “Do you not remember your encounter the lusachia? The one that sent you mewling on the ground in agony?”

“Yes but how would you–” You stopped dead. It was that moment your eyes fell upon the katana sheathed at his waist. “Oh…..oh.”

A ghost of a smile crept onto the man’s lips. “Your memory returns, little one.”

“Uh….you want some coffee?”

#devil may cry x reader #vergil x reader #dmc x reader #dmc5 x reader

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nogoodmox · 6 years

Text

since it’s late n u guys have been so encouraging

i wanna preface this by saying....im not a Writer and this is pretty much the first wrestling-related thing i’ve ever written. also this was written at 3 am yesterday so pls keep that in mind ALSO it’s not very. romantic bc 1.) im not good with that stuff and 2.) it’s kinda covering the early stages of their relationship so they’re barely even friends yet! (this takes place right before war games!)

that being said thanks for being so nice abt it guys ur all the sweetest and i love u and i’m sorry this isn’t Better but constructive criticism would be appreciated! mwah!

Pete tapped his fist against his jaw in a needless effort to hype himself up.

The guaranteed brutality of his upcoming match didn’t faze him—brutality was his specialty, after all— but despite that, he couldn’t shake off an uncomfortable feeling.

Maybe it was the thought of having to rely on others for his victory, or maybe it was the thought of them relying on him. Neither were things that he was exactly used to.

He wondered, when the time came, if he would put himself in harm’s way for the sake of the others.

Pete thought of the last time he had relied on someone. It was ironic in a way, how the same person he had tentatively began to trust would be one of his opponents tonight.

He had never really thought of Roderick as a friend, just a sort of unavoidable ally. His eagerness had been irritating as was his general disposition, but Pete had chosen to put his trust in him. A choice he’d come to regret.

He liked to believe that the betrayal had made him all the more dangerous now. Not only could he use his desire for vengeance to his advantage, he’d also be sure not to make a mistake like that again.

Pete had operated just fine on his own for as long as he could remember. There were a select few times where he’d tried opening up, and each time he paid for it. It took a few experiences for the lesson to be drilled into his brain, but at least now there was no way he could forget it.

He should stick with what he knew best, and what he knew best was solitude.

Keep interactions short and bitter. You look out for one person, and that person is yourself. Everyone else is simply an obstacle or dead weight.

It was a philosophy he lived by, and one he truly believed in. There just happened to be times where he’d let it slip and thought maybe, just maybe, someone could be an exception. But they never were.

A steady knock on the locker room door disrupted his thoughts. A faint feeling of pain registered in Pete’s jaw as he realized he’d been tapping his fist against it this whole time. Before he could say anything, the door opened and Ricochet’s head popped in.

“You got a minute?”

Pete didn’t answer, he just raised an eyebrow when he noticed something in Ricochet’s hands. It looked like a tube of toothpaste.

Ricochet followed his gaze and held up the object, wiggling it in his hand. “Oh, this? Yeah, it’s kinda why I’m here, actually.” He walked up to Pete and held it out to him. Pete read the label, which only confused him more.

“White….face paint?”

The other man adjusted his North American Championship on his shoulder. “Yeah. Y’know, war paint for tonight. It was Hanson and Rowe’s idea. They figured we should at least look like a cohesive unit.”

“What’s the point of that?” Pete deadpanned. “Face paint won’t get us a win against Undisputed Era.”

Ricochet looked at a loss for a second, then sighed. “C’mon man. It’s to pump you up, get you excited to kick some ass. Plus it’ll look cool, yeah?”

Pete wasn’t very convinced, but he wasn’t in the mood to argue. He did admittedly like the idea of amping up the intimidation factor, not that he was going to tell Ricochet that. “Fine. Might as well fool people into thinking we’re a real team.”

“S’that supposed to mean? We’re a real team. Cole and his cronies are gonna see just how real we are tonight.” Ricochet declared, giving Pete a few taps on the chest.

Pete stiffened at the contact and glared at the highflier. Ricochet was someone who currently fell under the obstacle category in Pete’s eyes. He hadn’t forgotten the match where both their titles had been on the line. They never received closure, and Pete intended to change that next time they crossed paths in the ring.

He’d prefer for Ricochet to stay an obstacle rather than become dead weight.

“I’ve said it before, you’re just a guy carrying a piece of gold that I want. As for the other two, they’ve already got each other. We may be on the same side, but we’re not a team.”

The grin on Ricochet’s face weakened a bit. “Man do you like, practice this stuff in a mirror before you talk to anyone?” He chuckled at his own joke—was it a joke? The weight of Pete’s words didn’t seem to mean much to him, however, as he quickly bounced back. “Anyway, face paint, yes or no?”

“Sure.” Pete said.

“Great.” Ricochet tossed the tube of paint to Pete. “Doll me up.”

Pete barely caught the tube in time. He whipped his head up to face Ricochet, trying to make sure he had heard him correctly. “What?”

Ricochet had placed his title on the bench next to him and met Pete’s gaze expectantly. “What? I can’t put it on myself. There’s no mirror in here.”

“Then find one.”

“No can do.” He almost looked smug, as if he had planned this. “Bathroom’s closed for repairs, apparently Kyle and Bobby thought it’d be fun to flush Sullivan’s gear down the toilet. He caught ‘em in the act.” Ricochet let out a whistle. “It wasn’t pretty.”

Pete didn’t want to hear any more. For whatever reason, Ricochet was intent on sporting war paint, he might as well indulge him. After tonight, he could set his sights on what really mattered.

“Alright. C’mere.” Pete placed his championship on the bench opposite of Ricochet’s and squeezed some paint onto his fingers.

He lifted his hand only to pause suddenly, leaving it hovering in front of Ricochet’s face. “What’s their paint look like anyways?”

Ricochet thought for a moment. “It’s like…a V shape on each cheek.” He explained, tracing the motion over Pete’s cheeks with his finger. “Simple enough.”

“Right.” Pete grunted, doing everything he could to ignore the way his face had heated up. He pressed his fingers to Ricochet’s face and began painting the design, trying his best to keep his hand steady.

Pete came to a halt when Ricochet started giggling quietly. He gave him a strange look, pulling his hand away.

The other man took a moment to compose himself, then cleared his throat. “Tickles.” Came the simple explanation. Pete rolled his eyes and continued with his work, retracing the lines to smooth out the jagged edges.

He paused again to add more paint to his fingers, avoiding Ricochet’s gaze. Pete could feel the man looking at him and unconsciously tossed his head a bit to let his hair cover his face.

As Pete started on the other cheek, he noticed Ricochet hadn’t stopped staring at him at him, almost amusingly.

“What?” Pete finally asked, with a hint of challenge.

Ricochet seemed unbothered. “You’re just a lot more careful than I thought you’d be” He said, a little quieter than usual. It was unclear if the remark was meant to be teasing. It seemed sincere enough, but even if it was Pete wasn’t sure what the implications were.

Pete said nothing and averted his eyes again, finishing with a final swipe. “There.” He muttered. “All done.”

“Great! I’ll just have to trust that it looks good.” Ricochet reached up to touch his freshly painted face, then decided against it. “Alright, your turn!”

Pete froze, he hadn’t thought that far ahead.

He wasn’t particularly keen on anyone paying close attention to his face.

It was bumpy and weird; he knew this. Acne scars and uneven stubble were just the beginning of it. It was something he’d learned to accept, but he wasn’t exactly dying for others to get a good look at it.

Regardless, he knew Ricochet wouldn’t take no for an answer. If he had, Pete wouldn’t have just spent the past few minutes spreading paint on his face in uncomfortable silence.

Ricochet took the paint tube from Pete’s hands. “You mind uh…” He made a hair flip motion. “Getting that out of the way?”

Pete looked down at his hands, covered in white paint, and decided to go with option two. He swung his head to the side—a little too forcefully—and flipped the blond mess back. He was satisfied for a moment before it came toppling back down in his face.

It was times like this where he seriously reconsidered growing out his hair.

“I gotchu.” Ricochet intervened, looking even more amused than before. He tucked Pete’s hair behind his ear to keep it from coming loose again. “Sure got a lot of hair homeboy.” He commented.

“Guess you can’t relate.” Pete replied bluntly.

Ricochet laughed out loud at that, almost too eager to make fun of himself. “Guess not.” He emptied what was left of the paint into his hand and got to work. Pete winced at the cold feeling, trying not to pull away. “But you know,” Ricochet continued. “The lack of hair could be the secret to my speed.”

Pete wasn’t fully sure if he was joking. “I reckon that’s why you got pieces missing in your eyebrows too?”

The highflier laughed again, this time not as loud, but a huge smile graced his face. “Man, you’re alright.”

Ricochet spread the paint on Pete’s cheeks with ease, moving just as smoothly as he did in the ring. Pete fought with everything he had to try not to break out into a fit of laughter. Ricochet was right, the feeling made him ticklish. His lip curved upward in a smile that he quickly pushed away.

“All set.” Ricochet finally announced, looking proud of his work. Pete didn’t doubt that the man had probably done a better job than him. “Now we look like a force to be reckoned with.”

Pete held couldn’t help but soften his expression a bit. He felt cool, and far more relaxed than earlier. Once again, he wasn’t going to tell Ricochet that, but he appreciated the feeling. “If painting faces keeps you from screwing up tonight, then so be it.” He replied with a shrug.

Ricochet shook his head, and if Pete didn’t know any better he’d say he was annoyed. “You never quit do you? Y’know we can do this whole rivalry thing without all the little remarks, yeah?”

“Cause make no mistake,” Ricochet’s tone grew serious. “I’m just as focused on that title of yours as you are on mine.”

The sudden change surprised Pete, but it didn’t faze him. After all, this was why he kept up his guard so high. He knew behind every person there was a set of intentions, and each interaction with him was a means of achieving them.

“I’m well aware.” Pete said evenly. “S’why I’m not buying this partner ruse. We’re not friends, and we never will be.”

Ricochet paused for a moment. “Just ‘cause you’re a future opponent, doesn’t mean we can’t be on the same page now. It’s no ruse, I’ve got your back tonight. I mean that.”

“Better to have your own back first.”

Ricochet lifted his hand to rub the back of his neck, looking unsure of where to go from there.

“You’re a tough nut to crack.” He said finally, leaning down to grab his North American championship. When he came back up, he was smiling again. “But I’m willing to prove where my loyalties lie out there. There’s no hiding in the ring.”

Pete eyed him for a moment, then nodded briskly. “That’s one thing we can agree on.”

“I’ve got another. We both wanna beat the hell out of those undisputed assholes, right?” Ricochet offered. “That snake Roddy’s gonna be out there tonight. If you ask me, you should focus on giving him the ass whopping he’s had coming instead of making enemies out of your partners.”

An odd silence followed his words. Pete didn’t know how to respond, and Ricochet’s intense gaze wasn’t making it any easier. In his heart Pete knew he had a point.

He was more than willing to take on all four members of the Undisputed Era himself, but he knew realistically he wouldn’t come out victorious. He needed Ricochet and the War Raiders whether he liked it or not.

Just one night couldn’t be so bad, right? Even if it involved putting his faith in other people. Ricochet had nothing to gain from betraying him. Hanson and Rowe, he wasn’t so sure, but considering how fixated they had been on the Undisputed Era for the past several weeks, it was unlikely.

Ricochet saved Pete from having to muster up an answer by reaching over and picking up his United Kingdom Championship. Pete’s eyes widened and he tensed up, ready to snatch it out of his hands.

There was no need to, however, as Ricochet placed it snugly on Pete’s shoulder.

He gave it a few pats, admiring the intricate design on the belt for several moments.

Ricochet took a few steps back, his own title sitting around his waist. “You look good.” He said finally. “Let’s do work tonight, mate.”

Pete’s partner tossed the now empty paint tube in his hand once, then turned to saunter off.

“Not your mate.” Pete replied in a half-hearted protest. He couldn’t see Ricochet’s face as he left the room, but Pete knew he was smiling.

“By the way, the bathroom’s perfectly fine. Just figured we could use a team bonding exercise.”

#heh #there u go #like i said not very romantic #but idk ihope u enjoy! thanks for being so nice guys <3333333 #mine #ig #writing for wrestlers like pete or dean is really really hard #cuz i love them so much im afraid im gonna mess them up

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oddyssea-a · 6 years

Note

can u please write some meta about what happened in the timeline when karter was with sam in uc4 ??? i need to hear ur opinions

SEND ME A TOPIC TO WRITE A META ABOUT MY MUSE ON––––ACCEPTING

OH MY GOD OK THIS IS HELLA LONG SO I’M PUTTING IT UNDER A CUT:

First & foremost, Karter was incredibly weary of Sam at first. Primarily because he’s WIRED to be that way he was effectively wired in order to survive. He doesn’t HATE Sam at first but he’s incredibly weary. It’s primarily because he suspects Sam to be the type to easily turn on people so what he does is he keeps himself on guard pretty much the entire until right about the very end of their hunt together.

THE REASON Karter ends up trusting Sam is because of a pivotal moment at the end of one of their hunts that Karter ends up choosing to trust him despite his instincts and feelings of DOUBT when it comes to placing faith in other people.

After the fact however Karter and Sam did reach some semblance of a mutual understanding and once they parted ways the first time Karter considered Sam to be one of the very FEW people he’d willingly work with again, and while he likely would not have admitted it he was HOPING to see him again because he hadn’t felt like he had that kind of hunt chemistry with anyone since he & Johnny broke things off.

Karter JUMPED at the idea of being brought on to the Panama job because he was eager to work with Sam again, and perhaps get to have another great adventure to note down in his journals.

SPEAKING of Karter’s journals, in the time between their first hunt together and Panama Job, Karter thought of Sam often and even went as far as to write down several little notes in his journals whenever he thought about him. In total Sam has about 6 notes all dedicated to him within Karter’s journal before their next time crossing paths.

Their time in the Panama prison was pretty interesting. Karter spent a lot of time with Sam specifically because they were in the same cell and they spent a lot of nights together just staying up sharing stories and talking about myths and possible ways myth could apply to what they were searching for.

Their FIRST night of sleeping together was completely heat of the moment, and while Karter was pretty nervous that having slept with Sam might backfire because he worried that Sam wouldn’t really think much of it considering the circumstances called for a night of passion in some way shape or form for celebration purposes. However there were numerous points afterwards where they had passionate encounters that only solidified Karter’s intimate feelings and ultimately led to Karter’s final decision upon their attempted escape.

Seeing Sam shot shocked Karter so much that he didn’t even THINK when he jumped down after him and he chose to take Sam’s place for beatings and punishment when the guards caught them so that Sam would have time to recover from his wounds. He did his best to hide the bruises & injuries and he to the modern day refuses to tell Sam the truth of how he never got punished for their attempted escape from the prison

While in the prison Karter tried his best to console Sam for the situation mostly because he figured losing any chance of seeing his brother again would’ve been too difficult for him to bear on his own.

Their time in the prison AFTER Sam is shot is not quite as magical. They do still remain very close but there ends up being a storm of guilt that surrounds Karter for not trying to get Sam out and instead choosing to keep them there since he considered it to be Sam’s best shot at recovering.

The real torch to their relationship came in the form of their escape. Karter tries to devise a plan for the two of them to escape through channels of the prison’s internal gangs and while initially Sam agrees to it, when the time came to actually follow through with the plan, Sam wasn’t there. This actually hurt Karter more than anything else considering the fact that he had hoped they could escape together and figure out what they’d do...TOGETHER. At that point in time Karter was ALREADY in love with Sam he just hadn’t recognized it yet and for the years following his escape, he struggled with trying to understand why 1) Sam didn’t come with him and 2) Why he was so bothered by feeling as though he’d been ‘stood up’.

The 10 year gap of not seeing each other does a pretty nasty number on Karter emotionally speaking. Karter became much more jaded and effectively shut himself off from the world but he NEVER fell out of love with Sam. While it upset him, Karter thought of Sam basically every day and never for a second stopped loving him which only made the separation from him harder because he tried very hard not to be hung up on someone who he thought DIDN’T WANT HIM.

When Sam finds Karter again after he gets out of prison, at first Karter doesn’t BELIEVE him when he says he never got out until just recently but he keeps it to himself. HOWEVER Karter doesn’t warm back up to Sam automatically. He’s kind of cold in fact. Of course he shows that he’s happy that Sam is alive but he tries to keep himself contained because he doesn’t want to have to bear the thought of losing him again and being reminded that Sam didn’t want him.

And then we have RAFE. Rafe is & was a major point of contention between them because Karter was OFTEN jealous of how enamored with Rafe Sam was. It was so bad in fact that at one point Karter seriously considered creating an accident that would’ve ended in Rafe’s permanent incarceration or even his DEATH. However coming back to find out RAFE was the first person who Sam saw when he got out ( even if it was by default ) hurt Karter beyond what he could recognize and his JEALOUSY sparks up again in the worst way. As a result Karter’s pretty cold & dismissive of them both at first.

During the hunt Karter DOES warm up a little bit, first in glimpses but more so as they see more success since he tries not to make Sam hate him and tries not to HATE himself for his own cruelty to someone he loves so much. However repeatedly throughout the hunt as Sam makes excuses for Rafe over and over again Karter finds himself torn and hurt until he learns the truth FROM RAFE at gunpoint that Sam was lying to him.

When they’re both captured and held prisoner by Rafe, that’s when he finally speaks up and speaks his mind to Sam. The conversation is extremely messy as all of Karter’s feelings come to a head as he finally accepts & shares how he really feels. But he’d been so hurt by the ordeal that he also throws in that he doesn’t understand why Sam keeps letting himself pick someone WHO USES AND ABUSES him.

During their escape with the aid of Nate, Karter is actually shot and is forced to watch Sam run off by himself while Elena and Sully keep an eye on him to ensure he doesn’t die. While with Elena, he confides in her that he doesn’t understand how she can keep up with loving a Drake the way she does. And eventually Elena helps him come to terms with loving Sam and that it’s ok for him to want to be with him even though their relationship took the nosedive it did early on.

When Sam and Nate are brought back to the base of ops in The Bahamas, Karter decides to sit down and talk to Sam. That’s when he decides that he WANTS to continue being with Sam, and he officially becomes a treasure hunter again, and this time he’s working almost exclusively with Sam & Sully.

On one of their POST-GAME hunts, Sam is injured in the field and thought to be dead until he shows up bloody and beaten and Karter’s motel door. When Karter takes him to the hospital, his worry becomes so intense that while the nurses are distracted by Sully, Karter slips a ring that Karter had kept from one of their earliest hunts together, onto Sam’s left finger before securing his own matching one. He then lies to the hospital staff and demands to be see Sam because they’re MARRIED and then shows off the ring, even having nurses confirm Sam’s matching one.

From that point on Karter sort of slips into the rouse of ‘married’ until they leave the hospital so that he’s not arrested. However despite the purpose initially being to ensure Sam is safe, Karter never ends up actually taking off the ring and while they never discussed it, Karter mentally takes that STEP when Sam seems to show that he doesn’t intend on taking the ring off either.

After that they move in together and end up living in an apartment close to Karter’s museum that he’s the curator of. They try to piece together something of a normal life while working on becoming more functional people and also trying to work through some of the tougher times in their respective lives.

It isn’t until Karter finds Sam’s stack of un-pursued hunts that Karter approaches him and proposes going on hunts together again but ONLY together and in a less intense manner considering Karter couldn’t bear having to live through Sam being thought dead again.

@lcstthief

#╳〉〉⎡ oh just wishful thinking ⎦( ooc )#╳◥▆▇⎡ enter into shangri-la find paradise; but don’t ever let it break; for a broken paradise is no paradise⎦( pv: lcstthief )#♗☓☓⎡ i do my best throw my pride aside and apologize; take myself down a notch ⎦( karter & sam: lcstthief )#lcstthief

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pheuthe · 6 years

Note

Coldflash 3&14 pretty please?

(sorry for the awfully long wait :’D I hope this ficlet reaches you anyway, nonnie, and I’m doubly sorry for kinda twisting that prompt around, but I had an unexpectedly hard time with 3. especially :’D)

“PoorLenny,” Lisa drawls, even as she smacks him over the head with her newest Chanelbag. Len’s pretty sure it’s no coincidence, but he’s in no place to contest hercasual violence right now.

“I don’twant your pity, I want your absence,” he snaps and takes another swig of hisbeer before she yanks the bottle out of his grip, snorts when she reads the label,and returns it to his sorry self.

“Didn’t youget the memo that drowning your sorrows only works if you get actual alcoholinvolved?”

He ignoresher, just like he’s trying to ignore most of his life right now. It’s probablynot the most mature way of coping with shit, but at the moment, Len doesn’tcare. All he wants is to wallow and scowl at the wall for the night, and thenmaybe go plan a heist. Something obnoxious and loud, something that would be agiant ‘fuck you’ in the face of a hero. Thehero.

Which is stupid,because Len is the one in the wrong, but he panicked and ran and now there’s noway back. Technically, Barry could probably take him back in time to the pointwhen Len hasn’t fucked up yet, but Barry would be right there with him, and hencelay the problem.

Lisa,unfortunately, doesn’t take the hint and keeps staring him down until Lenscowls at her, without much heat, because he’s reserving all he’s got for theburning self-hatred at the moment.

“What?”

“You tellme,” she shrugs and puts her legs up onto the table, crossing her ankles andwatching him like a hawk. “I haven’t seen you moping this badly for quite sometime. I think it was… oh yes, the first time Barry told you it was a mistake.”

He winces,unable to hold back the hurt at the sound of the kid’s name, and Lisa growsserious, zoning in on his pain with scary precision. Feet off the table in asecond, she leans forward, studying him like the answer’s written in his eyes.Maybe it is, the way he hasn’t been able to stop thinking about the wholeordeal.

“Did he breakup with you? Is that it? I’m going to-“

“-donothing,” Len interrupts, before she can get explicit in her fantasies ofbodily harm inflicted upon the man he shouldn’t, but does, love.

And thereinlies the problem. Much as he likes Barry, they could never work long-term. Notwith Barry’s family, not with Len’s, not with the diverging paths their liveshave taken. Too bad Barry didn’t understand that fact, or dismissed it with hisendless optimism.

Lisa’sstill watching him, and Len’s beer is gone, sloshing warm and unpleasant in hismouth like it can’t quite wash away the taste of the harsh words he spoke. Hewishes he could forget, get drunk for real and stop thinking about the wholemess for a few hours, but his father has taken that from him forty years agoand Len’s not ready to become an even more screwed-up version of Lewis, noteven when he can’t think of any other way to cope.

“Lenny,”Lisa says, and he must look like shit for her to take that tone with him, softand empathetic and careful, “what happened?”

There’s nouse in putting it off or lying: Lisa has become friends with Iris during thewhirlwind of Len’s relationship with Barry, and bad news sure travel fast.

“Heproposed.”

“He what?!”

Len winces atthe memory of Barry’s bright eyes, his hopeful smile, the way his voice shook alittle as he fumbled with the words. He picks at the label on his empty bottle,because destruction is apparently his motto for the day, and sighs.

“You heardme.”

“Sure Iheard you, I just don’t get why you’re not somewhere celebra- you said no.”

Lisa sounds…shocked, and Len frowns. She was always quick to tell him that he should becareful, and that Barry was too young, too eager, too different from anythingthey’ve ever known, so it feels like betrayal that she’s not there for him rightnow, saying he did the right thing.

“You’re anidiot, Lenny. Why did you say no?! You’re obviously crazy about this guy, andmuch as it pains me to say, you’ve been good together, good for each other. Sure he’s a cop’s kid,and half a cop himself, and overall too much of a good guy if you ask me, but…the way you looked at him, Lenny, I haven’t seen you look that way at anyone,ever, and he’s been looking right back, so what’s the problem?”

Len pushesthe bottle away, almost wishing it would crash over the side of the table and shatter,but of course it doesn’t, because he can’t do anything right today.

“You’resupposed to talk me out of this. In fact, you’ve been talking me out of thisfor more than a year.”

“And youalways do the exact opposite of what I say, so don’t you dare blame it on me,chicken-shit.”

He whirlsaround to face her, anger rising in his chest like a tidal wave. “What did youjust-“

“You heardme,” Lisa scoffs, not budging an inch under the weight of his glare. “You knowwhat I think? You’re so scared of losing him, or hurting him, so you pushed himaway now rather than later. Great job. Because that’s going to make you bothfeel so much better.”

Len’sknuckles ache with the urge to punch something, a wall, or some asshole’s face –too bad he chose their private warehouse for his moping, instead of a bar wherehe could pick a fight or two. It makes sense, what Lisa’s saying, but the thingis, those words would sound better in some fucking romantic movie where theproblems magically disappear because of love.

“Wouldn’twork,” he shrugs, rolling his shoulders to release some of the tension that’s beengripping his muscles for hours now. “He’s too much of a good guy, you said it.Sees something in me that’s not there, I can’t live up to that. Eventually he’sgonna be disappointed, Lise, and it’ll be too damn hard for him to walk away ifthere’s a ring on his finger. That’s the kind of guy he is. I want to be withhim, but tonight… it changes things.”

“Have youtold him that?”

Lisa’squestion catches him off-balance and he blinks for a moment before the wordsactually make it to his brain in all their confusing glory.

“What?”

“Have youtold him how you feel, Lenny? I mean, really told him. That you’re worried you’renot good enough for him – that you want to be with him, without the rings andall that jazz. Doesn’t matter if that’s true a year or a decade from now, andit doesn’t matter if it changes for him, either. If all you can really promiseis right now, he should know. And you can’t decide for him if that’s enough ornot. Much as I like to tease you about cradle-robbing, he’s a grown man. Talkto him, Lenny. And listen.”

Len’sknee-jerk reaction is to shake his head and tell her she’s crazy… but her wordsmake a terrifying sort of sense in his mind all of a sudden, and he’s pushingaway from the table before he can think himself out of it again. He can’tpossibly screw things up any worse than they already are, and the thin sliverof hope that maybe, he could make things better,gives him the momentum to turn and walk away without a word, for the secondtime tonight.

Hopefullytowards a brighter future.

….

Lisa rollsher eyes at her brother’s retreating back: at forty-four, Lenny should reallylearn to talk about his feelings without grimacing like his teeth are beingpulled. But who better to teach him than a bright-eyed twenty-something withthe innate charm of an overgrown puppy?

Yeah, Lisacan’t say she’s a fan… but she would gladly give her brother to a sasquatch ifhe made Lenny’s eyes light up like Barry does.

Her phonebuzzes in her pocket and she pulls it out to find a very angry text messagefrom ‘TheHottestWest’.

WHAT HAS UR BROTHER DONE IM AT BARRYS HES DEVASTATED

Lisa smirksand fires off a quick reply, then reaches under the table for an unopenedbottle.

u should clear out lens on his way makeup sexto follow 4sure

An angryemoji, followed by a disgusted one, arrives in the next second.

But sinceLenny fails to come back home that night, Lisa believes that Iris took heradvice, in the end.

#coldflash #fanfiction #established relationship #proposal gone wrong #len is terrified of commitment lol #lisa is having none of that #snibs #lisa and iris are reluctant partners in crime #idek #Anonymous #pheuthe answers

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impracticaldemon · 6 years

Text

Pride Goeth Before a Party ~ Graylu Holiday Fic Exchange

by Impracticaldemon for @condacending

Words: ~ 2100 | FFnet | AO3 @graylusecretsiblings @fic-writer-appreciation @graylu-fanfictions

Author's Note:

Unfortunately, this story was both delayed and shortened due to me being sick over the holidays and beyond. I hope to publish an epilogue shortly. I was offered the perfect wishlist (matching my own preferences just about exactly). Here are Condacending's notes:

Characters portrayed as rational / down to earth who connect on a personal level

Witty, comfortable conversation between them and their friends

Dependable, emotionally there for each other

Moments of normalcy in their life

Canon compliant but enjoys AU spins on canon

~ Impracticaldemon

Pride Goeth Before a Party, or We All Make Mistakes A Holiday Graylu Fic for Condacending

Gray stood at the front window of Lucy's apartment watching the snow fall, arms crossed, shoulders tense, stance closer to defensive than appropriate for a comfortable night in with a much-cherished girlfriend. He managed to keep his tone reasonably even, at least.

"I thought it was just going to be the team. Natsu, Erza, Wendy, the cats… maybe one or two others."

From her seat on the couch, Lucy studied the way Gray's muscles moved under his soft navy t-shirt and concluded that things were more serious than she'd realized. They'd done pretty well in the four months since becoming a couple: disagreements had been few, tempers had been held in check with the patience granted by new romantic love, and each of them had been carefully considerate of any known bruised spots or raw places in the other. Tonight wasn't going nearly as smoothly as usual.

"Well… I thought that since it was a New Year celebration, we should try to kind of reconnect to past friendships"—and other important relationships—"and go a bit beyond the usual"—for once. Gray had always been slightly introverted, but he'd generally had fun at guild parties, and hadn't seemed to mind hanging out and having drinks with various guild members. Lucy wondered why she hadn't noticed sooner that between missions with the team, and time alone together, neither of them had been seeing their wider circle of friends much, and—

"Look, Luce, I appreciate the sentiment, but we didn't decide to invite Lyon. Or Ultear. Not that they've accepted yet or anything, but… I dunno, I just wished you'd asked for my input first. We were doing this thing together, right? And does Erza know you've invited Jellal? Seems to me they've got a complicated kind of relationship—something that isn't exactly 'kiss under the mistletoe and it's all good now'. Again—not that anyone's accepted the invitations, but if they do then what? And I have no idea where Meredy's at, but she's had a rough time of it, and we don't know what the dynamics are between her and Jellal and Ultear. Plus, aren't they all, you know, wanted criminals?"

Hearing the sarcasm edging into his tone, Gray drew a deep breath while Lucy processed his comments. Then he turned from the window, determined to do things right. That included not shutting himself away, or using words or worse to push others—Lucy—away.

Lucy did her best to stop frowning, with mixed success. Although she knew it would probably be better to keep listening right now, she felt impelled to defend herself a little.

"I'm sorry I upset you," she said carefully. "I guess I was hoping we could bring people together a little—and I kind of had the impression that you were getting along okay with Lyon these days and—"

Gray dropped onto the floor in front of Lucy, eyes fixed on hers.

"It seems like you're trying to turn our little New Year's party into something different. Are you sure you weren't just looking for a chance to get me to talk to certain people you think I should be closer to? We know each other pretty well by now, right? And I know you wouldn't do anything to hurt me or for selfish reasons, unless"—he broke off, suddenly wary of saying the wrong thing. Sometimes he used jokes to keep people at a distance.

Fortunately, Lucy reached down and poked him lightly on the forehead, saying:

"Unless it involves my rent, I know, I know, sheesh!"

Since she appeared to be genuinely amused, Gray let out a puff of laughter; it was a standing joke with their team that Lucy's scruples inevitably went out the window when her rent was on the line. The mood between them lightened.

"Okay, let me ask straight out, Luce: did you invite Lyon, and Ultear and Meredy, because they're connected to me?"

Lucy chewed her lower lip and then nodded slowly. "I guess that's a big part of it. I have a much better appreciation now for how complicated it is—since Tenrou especially—and since things seem a little more settled these days, I wanted to give you an opportunity to reach out a little. Ultear and Lyon are like family to you and… I know what it's like to realize too late that you could have done something to... to make things better... and didn't."

Gray pulled Lucy's forehead against his. For some reason, touching always helped when they were talking about the hard things.

"I'm sorry about your dad, Lucy. Really, really sorry. And I can see why not getting to see him again—especially the way things were between you—made you think of me and my totally crazy sort-of-family. Ur was deceived, and Ultear was deceived, abused, and manipulated…" He trailed off, unable to continue. It had gotten a lot better since he had finally met and fought Ultear, and learned so much more of the truth. He'd begun to make his peace with her, and even with losing Ur. There was still some way to go, however. He and Ultear weren't exactly in touch.

He heard a faint sigh from Lucy, and then she pressed an apologetic kiss to his temple. She cared about him too much to ignore his pain or her own mistakes. It gave him the strength to wonder whether her basic idea was all that wrong.

"I absolutely shouldn't have invited people—especially those people—without asking you first, Gray. I'm sorry, my bad."

"You wanted to surprise me?"

Lucy looked away, cheeks turning pink.

"Yes… But seriously, given the twinge of concern that made me ruin the surprise and tell you about the invitations after all, I should have known—admitted—that there was a problem. Right?"

Gray shrugged. He wasn't one to need big apologies once something was sorted out—although it helped that he knew Lucy honestly regretted what she'd done. "You'll tell me what you're thinking next time, right? So we're good. At some point I have to stop reacting so much every time you want me to face my past and try to make something good come out of it."

"Thanks… I wish I hadn't—"

"It wasn't a totally bad idea, though."

"Such a compliment!" Lucy was smiling, despite her words.

"Yeah, I could've put that better," Gray muttered. "How about I say that upon consideration, adding some outsiders to our team party seems like a good plan?"

"We could send a quick note to Lyon asking him to invite Chelia as well? Wendy would like that."

"Okay, good thought. Besides, that way I can pretend—he and I can both pretend—that we're being polite for the sake of the girls." His mouth quirked up at the corners, as he contemplated the idea of trying to get along with Lyon in a way that wouldn't total Lucy's apartment. Mind you, Flame-brain would be there too, so there were no guarantees…

Lucy couldn't resist running her fingers through Gray's soft dark hair. Gray could get a little inwardly-focussed at times, but he was also sincere about taking his friends' feelings into account, especially hers.

"I don't know about Jellal and Ultear, though," Lucy said hesitantly. "I mean, they probably won't accept anyway—and no, I hadn't forgotten the whole 'criminal charges' thing, I just wasn't too worried about it."

"Aw, what the hell," Gray replied. Lucy could see that he was now in his "I'll take'em all on" mood, where the challenge of the situation suddenly made him want to prove to everyone (mostly himself, in this case) that he could handle it.

"But—"

"Come on, Luce, don't back down now! Besides, I don't see any graceful way out of it unless you figure I'm fast enough to silence the messenger somehow." He gave Lucy what was no doubt intended to be a murderous leer, and she had to laugh.

"Okay, then. How about: we're just trying to show how good we are at being magnanimous in victory?"

"Of course. Also, it'll play out on their side as doing something nice for Jellal and Erza—maybe. I still don't know exactly what the deal is between those two. I'm guessing that Ultear will want to give Meredy a chance to see people other than their own oh-so-fun-former-evil-doers group."

Lucy squeezed Gray's hand, and he looked up with a rueful smile.

"Yes, I do feel badly for Meredy. I think she got a raw deal. I mean, we both lost our homes and our parents the same way, but I found Ur, whereas she ended up devoted to the person who had caused all of her grief and loss in the first place. Poor kid."

"So it's actually a good thing to invite Meredy, right?"

"Right." Gray hesitated for a moment, then let go of his last desire to add "although you still should have told me first."

Lucy slid off the couch to sit beside him, silently acknowledging his forbearance, but he drew her into his lap instead. He hugged her close, and she laid her head against his shoulder.

"Thanks for not being mad, Gray. At least, not anymore."

"Thank you for giving me a chance to exercise my talent for almost-convincing excuses."

Lucy lifted her head and smiled at him. He smiled back, happy that they were in synch again. A few moments passed in enjoying each other's warmth and a few heartfelt kisses.

"So we're inviting Lyon and Chelia—mostly for Wendy's sake, as well as to avoid some of the more common Team Natsu dynamics—"

"I'll be so torn between thumping Natsu and thumping Lyon I'll be on my best behaviour," murmured Gray.

"—And we're inviting Jellal because I think he and Erza might enjoy having some time together when the world isn't being threatened with disaster—"

"Right, the happy matchmaker approach—how on earth will you keep Mirajane away?"

"—And we're inviting Ultear and Meredy because I think Meredy would appreciate a chance to get to know you better and we both think she deserves to have some fun and meet people who haven't engaged in, um, terrible acts—"

"Have you seen the way Natsu eats?"

"Yes, and you aren't all that different." Lucy tried to look contrite when Gray glared at her and the temperature suddenly dropped a few degrees, but it came out as more of a smirk. "Sorry, sorry, I concede that your manners are generally better than his!"

"Hmph." Gray drew a little icicle heart in the frosty air, although he then had no idea what to do with it.

"C-c-cold, Gray!"

The air warmed up again and Gray's little creation vanished.

"There's a metaphor in there somewhere," he grumbled, as the icicle heart disappeared. "Or do I mean a simile? I'm not sure that Ur was any clearer on that stuff than I was."

Lucy ignored his rambling.

"So we're inviting Ultear in part because we're inviting Jellal and Meredy, and in part because I think she could stand to see that a lot of us don't hate her."

"And because you think it will help me deal with things better too."

Lucy's expression became serious again. "I think she's like family to you, and vice versa. And since you are important to me, I want to do whatever I can for both of you."

"Alright, Lucy, fair enough. Just remember—"

"I will. This isn't a book, and I can't make people just do what I want, or make things turn out the way I want." The solemn expression left her face as she added: "Although, to be honest, it's much harder to make my characters do what I want than you'd think! I mean, I know it's a little ridiculous, but they can be completely stubborn about things..."

[END]

A/Note: Epilogue is intended to follow. I didn't want my Graylu sibling to have to wait any longer for this, however!

All comments and reviews are appreciated. If you see typos or other little glitches, please send me a PM through your platform of choice. \(^u^)/

Tags: @shell-senji @eliz1369 @hakuyamazakisensei @hidetheremote @miss-zei @lockandk3yfiction @sassyhazelowl @gsut

#fairy tail #ft fanfiction #graylu #graylu siblings holiday exchange #impracticaldemon #imp writes

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nachtgraves · 6 years

Note

Hey, I'm a fan of your work over in Ao3! I have a prompt idea for a Yuuri! On Ice fic. Could you do a 5+1 kinda thing where Yuuri and Victor are dating (I was kinda picturing it to be an AU because we all know they would move in together) and whenever Yuuri comes over to Victor's apartment and stays late he hints around to staying over for the night but Victor is a very dense boy and doesn't get until, like, the end. BONUS If you put an unnecessary amount of angst and then a huge amount of fluff

I FINALLY FINISHED IT. I’m so sorry it took forever but it is done! I deviated a bit with your prompt, but I hope you still enjoy (: This is also my first 5+1 type of thing so hope I did that decently. And thank you!

Title: Five Times Yuuri was Obvious and the One Time Victor Finally Got It // AO3Word Count: 4,960Tags/Warnings: G/PG. College AU, misunderstandings, established relationship, Victor is oblivious but means well, minor background relationships.

Yuurireally likes Victor. Like a lot. He’dnever have thought that the guy he saw coming into the ice rink where he workedpart-time would ever look twice at him. But now here he is, on the olderRussian’s couch watching some dumb TV show he, at least, has not been payingattention to, while said Russian is getting the takeout they ordered from thedoor.

“—nkyou. Have a nice night.”

Yuuri’sphone buzzes. A text from Phichit. Victor’s moved to the kitchen and Yuuriknows from experience that Victor will bite his hand if he tries to help.Victor has weird and outdated views on hosting guests, especially boyfriendshe’s still trying to do the whole impressing thing with. Yuuri doesn’t know howto tell the man that he just needs to laugh and Yuuri is gone.

From Phichit / 7:34 PM

So ur not coming back tonight riiiiiight?????Ive not taught u well if u doI will be v disappointed yuuri

Yuuri’sface heats even though he did come over to Victor’s with the intention to notbe sent off to the trains to go back to his and Phichit’s apartment at the endof the night. He doesn’t even care if they do things. Well, he does, and would not be opposed, but he mainly justwants to wake up to Victor in the morning.

It’sa weekday, but neither he nor Victor have classes or work in the morning. Yuurihas work in the afternoon and that’s during the time Victor usually comes tothe rink to skate, now with the added bonus of light flirting and making plansfor date nights when it’s Yuuri’s shift to moderate the skaters. He’s preparedto withstand the teasing from Phichit and Yuuko should he and Victor come tothe ice rink together, Yuuri wearing the same clothes Phichit had last seen himin, or, better yet, in something of Victor’s.

To Phichit / 7:37 PM

We’re eating takeout and watching a movie.But if I happen to miss the last train…

Yuuriadds a fingers crossed emoji before hitting send. Phichit’s reply is immediateand Yuuri’s cheeks flush at the series of peach, eggplant, and kissy faceemojis.

“Dinneris served!”

Yuuristuffs his phone face down in his lap, startled by Victor. His boyfriend isstanding with two plates loaded with naan and a chicken curry at the foot ofthe coffee table. He tilts his head. “Is everything okay, Yuuri?”

Yuurinods, mentally willing the flush on his cheeks to die down. “Yeah! Yup.Everything’s fine.”

Victorraises a brow and sets the plates on the table. “Okay… Well, do you wantanything to drink?”

Theydecide on some wine and Yuuri vocalizes that he is limiting himself to oneglass, two glasses max. Victor laughsat him but puts the bottle away after pouring the both of them modest glassfulsbefore joining Yuuri on the couch.

“Atoast?” Victor asks, raising his glass.

“Towhat?”

Victorhums, lips pursed in thought. “Delicious food, a hopefully interesting movie,and the best company I could ask for?” The little smile Victor flashes isentirely unfair. Yuuri’s face is bright red when their glasses clink togetherand Victor is unapologetic.

Theystart the movie, an action-adventure-comedy type thing that had won severalawards that neither of them had managed to see when it was in theaters. As theyclean off their plates and nurse their wines, Yuuri gradually closes thedistance between Victor and himself until their shoulders press against oneanother. Yuuri curls his legs up and leans against Victor. His boyfriendglances away from the screen and huffs a laugh, but throws an arm aroundYuuri’s shoulders and lets Yuuri lean further into Victor. They meet for abrief kiss that has Yuuri arching for more when Victor pulls away.

“We’llmiss the movie,” is Victor’s excuse in the face of Yuuri pouting. Hetemporarily placates Yuuri with one more kiss and tucking Yuuri closer to hischest, cheek against Yuuri’s head.

Yuuri’sonly got half a mind on the movie, even though it is actually interesting andif Yuuri wasn’t thinking about other things he would have been just asenthralled by the plot as Victor is. But it’s getting later and later and themovie is longer than Yuuri thought it was, but it works in his favor since thelast train he can catch to go home arrives in the next twenty minutes at astation that is a ten minute walk away and there’s at least another thirtyminutes left of the movie. Yuuri fights the urge to stare at the clock on hisphone to see the minutes tick by.

Themovie ends and Yuuri’s missed the last train by eight minutes, assuming it wason time.

“Ohshit, I’m sorry, Yuuri. I lost track of time.” Victor looks incredibly guiltywhen he sees how late it is.

“Don’tworry about it,” Yuuri assures him. He feels a little bad that he somewhatorchestrated the situation and Victor seems to feel really bad about it.

Butthen Victor perks up in that way he does when he believes he has an incredibleidea. Yuuri has to hold back the preemptive yes.

“Lyft!”Victor exclaims.

“Ye—what?”

Victorgrins and unlocks his phone. “I’ll call you a Lyft. Let me just download theapp real quick.”

Yuuridoesn’t tell Victor that he has Lyft, as well as Uber, on his phone. While hehas found the services to be incredibly useful during nights out where no oneis capable of getting themselves home, currently, he has some very differentfeelings on the matter.

“Ah,yeah. Thanks.” Yuuri sighs as he gathers his things and Victor sorts out the Lyft.Victor cheerfully announces that Yuuri’s ride will arrive in moments. When itarrives, Victor walks him to the front of the building and Yuuri gets a kiss onthe cheek before sliding into the car.

Yuurireally likes Victor, but he wishes Victor could take a hint.

WhenPhichit is determined, nothing can deter him.

“Okay.So clearly, your boyfriend is a little slow on the uptake, but! Now that I’mtaking charge of this, you will not be coming back here if I can help it.”

Yuuripretends to look affronted. “Are you trying to kick me out?”

Phichitplays coy and twirls a lock of hair. “Well.Only for like a night every once in a while.”

“Likeme being home hasn’t stopped you before.” Yuuri nudges his best friend. He’sgotten used to seeing, and sometimes hearing, some of Phichit’s closer friendsthe occasional morning.

Witha laugh, Phichit lets his entire weight fall onto Yuuri, causing the two tospread out on Yuuri’s bed.

“Phichit,get off!” Yuuri laughs. Phichit squirms until he’s pretty much starfished outatop Yuuri. “I can’t breathe!”

Phichitraises himself up and smirks at Yuuri. “Well, I wonder if there’s a certainRussian we know that would help you out.”

Facepink and laughing, Yuuri pushes Phichit off of him. “Shut up.”

“Alright,back to business. When is coming by?”

Yuurisearches for his phone, lost amid blankets. It’s trying to hide in a pillow andflashes several notifications from social media and a couple texts. There’s atext from Victor, flooded with exclamation marks, saying that he finished hiserrands earlier than expected and can be ready whenever Yuuri is.

“WheneverI want, it seems,” Yuuri answers. He shows Phichit the text and is just barelyquick enough to keep his phone out of the Thai boy’s reach when he grabs forit. “What are you trying to do?”

Phichitshrugs, eyebrows high on his head, eyes directed to the corner of the room.“Nothing,” he draws the word out like he’s not even sure what lie he was goingto come up with. “Anyway, time to slut you up.”

Yuuriis slightly afraid.

Victor’seyes widen when they meet up and Yuuri grudgingly admits to himself thatPhichit does know what he’s doing. Even if Yuuri wants to pull at the too-tightshirt that belongs to Phichit and squirm in the jeans that supposedly make hisass look ‘bitable’ and are definitely going to be more of a struggle to takeoff than they were to put on.

Theygo out to see the movie Victor’s been looking forward to and grab dinner at acute Spanish restaurant after. Victor animatedly goes over his favorite partsof the film, praising directing, acting, cinematography. He goes over the partsthat were lacking, but overall his expectations had been met. Yuuri watches himfondly, chiming in every once in a while, nodding along or disagreeing with oneaspect, but overall he lets Victor lead and is content with sipping wine and cataloguingthe Russian’s every gesture.

It’slate when they leave the restaurant, the walk to the nearest station quiet andmostly deserted. Victor reaches for Yuuri’s hand, and their fingers are linked,warm and loose, for the walk. They come to the point where they would need topart if they went to their own homes. Yuuri, gnaws on his bottom lip, wraps hisfree arm around his middle.

“Well…”Yuuri trails off, awkward, hopeful, waiting. “I’m that way.”

Victorfrowns slightly and Yuuri traps his bottom lip between his teeth, biting downhard. He looks up at Victor through his lashes, eyes wide, Phichit’s voicerunning through his head giving orders: Curve you neck, draw attention to yourmouth, show a hint of tongue—a hint, a flash! You gotta tease, Yuuri. You are not ice cream in an ice cream shop, there’sno sampling. You’re the display piece they can look at through the window, andcan only have if they take you home.

WhenVictor comes closer, leans down, Yuuri closes his eyes and meets his boyfriendhalfway for a lingering kiss. When they part, Yuuri is ready to nod, stomachfluttering and heart jumping.

Victorsqueezes Yuuri’s hand before he lets go. “Get home safe, Yuuri.”

Yuuri’shands, both empty, slide into his coat pockets. “Ah, yeah. You too.”

Theywalk their separate ways and Yuuri sends a text to Phichit.

To Phichit / 9:48 PM

Mission failed

“Idon’t get it,” Yuuri whines. He shoves away his textbook and notes, floppingover on Victor’s coffee table. Victor, fiddling with a pen as he reads throughstudent work for the class he’s a TA for, looks up from the essay.

“What’reyou stuck on?”

Yuuriturns his textbook around and uses his pencil to point out the problem he’sbeen stuck on. God does he hate Gen Ed requirements.

Victorlooks over the page and comes around to sit beside Yuuri on the floor, lookingover Yuuri’s notes and the in-progress assignment that’s a review worksheet fora midterm-like test.

“You’reon the right track but you’re using the wrong formula,” Victor says after amoment. Using his pen, Victor writes out an equation that looks vaguelyfamiliar to Yuuri and he’s fairly certain he knows what some of the variablesmean. But it still doesn’t really help.

“Victor,” Yuuri whines again after attemptingthe problem with the new equation. He’s flipped through his notes and thetextbook, but still can’t figure out how and what to plug in to get the rightanswer. He’s really not looking forward to the upcoming test. Yuuri can alreadysee all the red marks that will make themselves comfortable on his paper.

Victorchuckles and ruffles Yuuri’s hair. “How about a food break?

Thespeed at which Yuuri perks up is comical, if the way Victor’s chuckles turninto full blown laughter is at all telling. Yuuri puts his schoolwork to theside in a somewhat organized pile, clearing space as he gets up. He followsafter Victor into the kitchen, seeing his boyfriend looking through his pantry.

“Areyou feeling pasta tonight?” Victor asks, looking over his shoulder.

Yuurinods, “Pasta sounds good.”

Withinthe hour, Yuuri and Victor are back in the living room, plates of some lemon,butter, garlic, and herb chicken and angel hair pasta set before them that hasYuuri salivating. They eat on the couch with the TV on and once the food iscleared, Victor pointedly looks at Yuuri’s incomplete assignment. Yuuri slidesback down to the floor with a put upon pout.

“Thisisn’t even graded,” Yuuri grumbles.

Ahand comes to rest on his head, fingers curl into hair. Yuuri looks up with aquestion on his tongue, but a mouth presses to his in answer before he canspeak.

“Mightnot be a graded assignment, but the test counts for a lot,” Victor says oncethey pull apart from the brief, far too brief, peck. “But a boyfriend can givehis boyfriend rewards for a job well done?”

Yuurifocuses more on the assignment than he’s focused on any class that he’s ever enjoyed.Victor’s smile as he finishes up doing his TA work may be incredibly cocky andsmug, but being able to wipe it away with kisses and some hair tugging while inVictor’s lap more makes up for it.

Yuuriis very comfortable in Victor’s arms, and the way Victor’s holding him feelslike Victor won’t be letting go any time soon. But when they break for air andjust rest against one another, Yuuri’s head on Victor’s shoulder and Victor’scheek against Yuuri’s head, Victor sighs. “It’s getting pretty late and youhave class in the morning.”

Yuuristills for a moment against Victor before releasing a sigh of his own. “I kindof wish I lived closer to school like you do. You’re what, a twenty minute walkand maybe ten by car?”

Victornods against Yuuri. “Yeah, about. Depending on traffic it can take almostthirty by car. The street one over from the coffee shop everyone goes to? Theabsolute worst during the lunch rush.”

“Ohyeah, that street is awful,” Yuuri says. “Still, you don’t even have to wake upas early to get to classes on time. I’m jealous.”

Victorlaughs and presses his mouth to Yuuri’s forehead. “But you live closer to theskate rink.”

Yuurican’t argue with that, but the conversation is not going where he hopes itwould. He doesn’t know how else to get Victor to suggest he stay over, since,clearly, it’d be easier for Yuuri to get to class in the morning.

“Ugh,”Victor groans. “C’mon I need to get you home before it really gets too late.Don’t you also have to see your advisor tomorrow?”

“Shit.”Yuuri had completely forgotten. So maybe this time wouldn’t have beenconvenient to stay over. “I forgot. And all the things I had to bring her areat home and—”

BeforeYuuri can spiral into full blown panic, he finds himself much higher off theground than the couch and Victor’s lap, legs swinging freely in the air, theonly point of stability being Victor’s arms, one under his knees and the otheraround his back.

“Victor!”The man only grins. “What? I’m getting you home.”

Eventhough it is the best idea for now and Yuuri had not planned things out well atall, Yuuri can’t help but wish that Victor was carrying him towards the bedroominstead of his coat and shoes.

Yuuri’srelationship with alcohol is one that everyone around him enjoys while heremains oblivious to his actions until days, sometimes even months later. Hehas no memory of the first time he met Victor at one of Chris’ parties and madean absolute ass of himself when Victor sought him out at the ice rink not toolong after. It was only on one of their earlier dates before they officiallyfinally got together that Victor brought up the first time they met. Thepictures of that night are ones Yuuri still can’t look at, much to Phichit’ssadistic glee.

Andyet, Yuuri will still find himself a few too many drinks deep every once in awhile. Especially at one of Chris’ parties where it’s rare to have an intactmemory of the night.

“Ithink you’re done for now,” Victor says, taking Yuuri’s newly filled glassaway. Yuuri pouts, and while trying to reach for his drink, finds it too taxingand simply slumps onto Victor, arms draped over the Russian’s shoulder.

“M’fine,”Yuuri mumbles into Victor’s neck.

Victorwraps an arm around Yuuri’s waist, holding him up. Yuuri settles further intothe warmth of his boyfriend.

“I’msure you are right now, but you won’t be later.”

Yuuriwants to sulk, argue with Victor, but he also really likes being in Victor’sarms so he settles for lifting his face up briefly to give Victor furrowedbrows and jutting bottom lip before settling his head back in the cradle ofVictor’s neck and shoulder.

Victorleads them out of the kitchen – away from the drinks – to one of the couches inChris’ living room. Various people, all somehow associated to Chris, mingle anddance and drink around them. Phichit’s dancing with two of Chris’ coworkers, JJand Isabella are canoodling on an armchair made for one but can apparently fittwo, Sara’s sneaking off with Mila while Emil distracts Mickey, not that that’sany sort of hardship for the lovable Czech.

Yuurileans heavily into Victor, eyes drifting almost shut as he dozes. Yurio andOtabek join them at some point, before Victor’s teasing makes the other Russiansputter insults and storm away, face red. Otabek follows after, the tips of hisears and cheeks almost as red as his not-yet-boyfriend’s. Yuuri’s vaguelyconscious when Phichit swings by and lets Yuuri know that he’s leaving with thetwo guys he had been dancing with most of the night. He must have fallencompletely asleep at some point, for a few minutes at least, because Victor iswaking him up and getting to his feet.

“Yougood to go home?” Victor asks.

Ittakes a moment, groggy as he is, but Yuuri nods and manages to sort himself outwithout relying on Victor too much. Most of the partygoers have gone or are inthe process of leaving. Chris is wrapped up around Masumi who looks nothingshort of fond. Their cat has slunk her way to them now that the house isquieter, curled up on the armrest by Masumi’s arm.

Victorand Yuuri say their goodbyes and head out. Chris and Masumi live pretty much atthe heart of the city so there are plenty of cabs around. Victor hails onequickly and helps Yuuri in.

Yuuri’snapped and dozed and had some time to let all the liquor he’s had go throughhis system enough for him mind to fix on the fact that he and Victor live incompletely opposite directions and Victor’s apartment is closer.

ButVictor rattles off Yuuri’s address to the cab driver.

“You’recloser though,” Yuuri argues.

Victorhesitates, doesn’t look at Yuuri. “It’s fine. I want to make sure you get homesafe and it’s not that far from yours to mine. Besides, I have to do a thingfor the class I’m TAing in the morning so.”

Yuuriknows Victor’s fibbing. Not entirely, but he’s not being completely truthful. Yuurilooks away, down at his hands in his lap. “Oh. If you’re sure.”

Victorruffles Yuuri’s hair. “It’s really fine.”

Yuurigets dropped off in front of his apartment building with a brief peck and ‘seeyou later’.

MaybeVictor just has a thing. People havethings they’re weird about all the time. Yuuri knew someone who had a thingabout how they eat their food, eating the smallest items on their plate firstand moving their way up. Yuuri had a thing about having people he didn’t knowto a certain, abstract level being in his room when he lived in the dorms hisfirst year.

Butthen he sees Chris’ Instagram post of him and Victor in pajamas, in what Yuuriknows is Victor’s bedroom, Victor in the background holding pillows and extrablankets, captioned ‘sleepover!!’ with an arrangement of emojis, and doesn’tknow what to think.

“Doeshe not actually like me?”

Phichitwhacks Yuuri with the pillow Yuuri hasn’t been hugging to his chest, sulking.“That boy is completely gone for you, Yuuri, shut up. It’s probably justsomething else. Like, Chris wasn’t taking no for an answer or Victor doesn’tcare about Chris spending the night because Chris isn’t his adorable boyfriend.”

“But—”

“Justbe more aggressive the next time you’re over!”

Yuuripouts into his pillow. “I can’t do that.”

Phichitrolls his eyes, “Just get some drinks in you and I’m sure you’ll have noproblem with voicing your wants.”

Yuurifinally relinquishes his hold on his pillow to throw it at his best friend.Unfortunately, Phichit catches it out of the air easily and now has both thepillows. He drops the pillows and shuffles on Yuuri’s bed so they’re side byside, Phichit with an arm around Yuuri’s shoulders.

“Butreally. You won’t get what you want if you’re not vocal about it. Apparently,your Russian is oblivious to actions that, knowing you, are far fromsubtle—don’t hit me, you know it’s the truth—so just be upfront and tell himyou want to sleep over.” Phichit adds on with a wink, “Or not sleep.”

Yuurirolls his eyes and shoves Phichit. He has to get ready though for a doubledate.

Yuurishows up at the restaurant early, but he sees Victor is already there. Victorgreets him with a brief kiss that has Yuuri sighing and leaning in for more. They’vegot a few minutes until the time their reservation and knowing Chris andMasumi, more Chris, they probably had a little more.

Yuurican only think of how the universe is probably laughing at his expense that rightafter he had seen Chris’ Instagram post, Masumi and him wanted to grab dinnerwith Yuuri and Victor the next day. He doesn’t know how to bring it up withoutsounding stupidly jealous when there’s no reason to be. Instead they talk aboutschool and work as they wait for Masumi and Chris who show up with Chris allbut clinging to Masumi and Masumi looking fondly exasperated.

“Sorrywe’re late,” Masumi says, he doesn’t give an excuse, only looks to hisunashamed boyfriend.

“Youcan’t blame me when you get all dressed up,” Chris throws back, flirtatious asever. Yuuri feels his cheeks pink at the implication. Victor laughs and Masumijust shakes his head as they enter the restaurant and get seated.

Dinnergoes well. It’s not often that Yuuri hangs out with Masumi or Chris with theirbusy schedules, Masumi travelling often for his work and Chris busy with hisown. They talk about work and school and future plans, Masumi and Chrisplanning to take a few days off work to go travelling, visit their familiesalong the way. They promise to come by the ice rink some time too, both of themmiss having the freedom to skate and hang out with everyone.

It’swhen the bill has been paid and everyone’s ready to part ways that Chris bringsup how he thinks he left his scarf at Victor’s the other night.

“Ah,yeah, I found it have it hung up. I forgot to bring it with me but I can dropit off at yours sometime if you want.”

Chriswaves him off, “I can swing by and get it myself whenever you’re free, don’tworry about it. Thanks though, and see you too soon. I have a well-dressedboyfriend to…pester. And I’m sure you both do too.” Chris leaves them with asmirk and clings to Masumi as they head home. Masumi manages a wave but there’sno hint of resistance to Chris dragging him away.

Yuuridoesn’t know what to say, he more than hopes that Chris’ assumption andsuggestion would lead anywhere but his track record lends to the contrary.Victor clears his throat and offers his arm. “Sometimes you think you canhandle Chris, and then learn you were very incorrect. I’ll walk you to thestation?”

Yuuritakes Victor’s arm. “How was that sleepover, by the way?”

Victorlaughs. “Chris was very excited. We just watched TV and ordered in takeout. Ithink he’s been a bit stressed about something at work and didn’t want to putit on Masumi. I offered to let him stay the night since we’d been drinking andMasumi was in the middle of some high priority work Chris didn’t want tointerrupt.”

Andthere went Yuuri and Phichit’s theorizing that Chris had invited himself over.If only Victor was that blasé about asking Yuuri to spend the night.

Havinghad some wine with dinner, and envy filling his head, Yuuri comments, “SinceI’ve known you, I don’t think you’ve ever had people stay the night at yours.Sleepovers don’t seem like something you’d do.”

Victorshrugs, “Not often, no. But sometimes being alone in an apartment that is kindof a little big for just one person can get lonely. Date nights at mine areprobably my favorite kind of date nights because of that.”

Yuuriwants to strangle Victor. It would be so easy to ask why Victor has never evenseemed inclined to get Yuuri to stay the night, extend date nights into datemornings. But they’re at the station and Yuuri’s train is rolling up and whileit’s late, it’s too public a place to be potentially humiliated.

“Goodnight, Victor. See you soon?”

Victornods and bends to kiss Yuuri before he has to catch the train home alone.

+1.

Yuuri’snot avoiding Victor. At least not on purpose. Schoolwork has picked up and he’sbeen covering at the ice rink more often and he’s just too tired to do morethan go home and pass out in bed with take out and something playing on hislaptop. So he hasn’t seen Victor in a while for more than a brief hello aroundcampus or while he’s working at the rink that’s been busy with tourists andlocals taking advantage of deals and sales and whatnot because it was that timeof year.

Buthe runs into Victor on campus at the library, Victor at a desk with a pile ofbooks on one side of his laptop and a stack of essays and papers on the other.

“Yuuri!”Victor beams. Yuuri stops by and leans down for the kiss Victor pulls him into.

“Youlook busy,” Yuuri comments.

Victorpouts. “You too. I’ve missed you.”

Yuurifeels a flush of pleasure at the words. “I’ve missed you too. Just the time ofyear, you know?”

Victornods, “Trust me, I do. But doesn’t mean I can’t miss hanging out with you. Thisweek should be the last of it before finals season but are you free thisweekend? Just a night in with takeout and some TV?”

Yuuritakes a second but nods. He has a fair number of assignments all due the nextweek that he should work on this weekend, but he has missed Victor and, despitehis hopes, it’s not like he’ll be spending the night, as he’s learned.

Fridayrolls around Yuuri can tell he’s not the only one immensely grateful for theweekend. He finishes up his last class and heads straight to Victor’s, havingswitched shifts with Yuuko he doesn’t have work until Saturday afternoon.Victor lets him in almost immediately, pulling Yuuri inside and mouth on hisbefore the door even clicks shut.

“Hey,”Yuuri laughs once they part.

“Hello,”Victor grins, still holding Yuuri around his waist. “Ready for the weekend?”

Yuurifalls into Victor with a sigh. “You have no idea.”

Victorkeeps one arm around Yuuri and leads the way further into his apartment. “Well,I have Thai on the way and Netflix up and ready for our abuse.”

TheirThai food arrives halfway into the second episode of the TV show they startedto binge and Yuuri was quite invested. They eat as they continue watching halfof the season before Yuuri starts yawning and leaning heavily into Victor. It’snot even close to midnight but the week’s toll has weighed heavily on hisshoulders.

“Weshould get you home, I think,” Victor says quietly, hand brushing throughYuuri’s hair. Yuuri groans and presses his face into Victor’s shoulder.

“Homeis too far. Your bed is so much closer,” Yuuri mumbles without thinking. As thewords he carelessly said process in his sleepy, fuzzy mind, he’s suddenly muchmore awake.

Yuurilooks up and Victor is uncharacteristically flustered, stunned even. There’sreally no backtracking so why not continue to shove his foot deeper into hismouth?

“Whydo you not want me to sleep over, Victor? I feel like I’ve been pretty obviousbut…”

Victorrubs at the back of his neck, looks away. “Oh. I, uh, I thought you were just,being you, didn’t want to read too much into things in case that wasn’t whatyou meant.”

Yuuridoesn’t know if he should be offended by Victor’s implications of Yuuri beingthat aloof and unaware. There’s some truth to the unsubtle statement but still.

“Soyou’re not opposed,” is all Yuuri says in response.

WhenVictor looks at him again, there’s a heat in his gaze that’s fighting beingtempered. “Well you see, Yuuri, if youspent the night, I, well, sleeping would be very difficult.”

“Victor.”

“AndI don’t want to pressure you into anything, because I don’t just want to, youknow, but also just cuddling in bed and platonically, well not entirelyplatonically, but romantically? Just sleeping together and seeing you firstthing in the morning.”

Arambling Victor is a rare sight, and any other time Yuuri would let Victorcontinue and see where he trailed off into, but Yuuri is tired and happy andhas been patient long enough.

“Victor,” Yuuri cuts Victoroff before he can continue. With a smile, he leans up and pecks Victor’s cheek.“Just letting you know, I’m staying the night.”

#ask #victuuri #yuuri katsuki #victor nikiforov #Yuri!!! on Ice #anonymous #my writing #tumblr fic

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retroreaderr · 7 years

Note

Hello! So... since harry potter is on your fandom list thing, is there any way a huge fan of yours could get a slightly angsty and incredibly fluffy oneshot or more if you get inspired with that precious bb Remus Lupin? It can be HP era or marauders era, up to you. Thanks so much!! :)

OK SO PLEASE SEND MORE HARRY POTTER STUFF BC REMUS IS MY BABE AND I LOVE HIM SM??? this is set in the marauders era but i am 1000% down to write some golden trio era stuff too !! also im like one of a solid 3 people in the fandom that doesnt subscribe to the whole andrew garfield as a faceclaim thing but hey mod gaston and i came up with alternates and we decided matthew gray gubler makes an adorable remus bc look at this babe ???? but hey yall can have ur hcs ill have mine 🕷️💋

“Hey James!” you flagged down the boy as he walked.

“____, what’s up?”

“Have you seen Rem? I wanted to ask him about some homework.”

“He’s, uh, out. Y’know,” he nervously scans the other students passing the two of you.

“Full moon tonight?” you ask keeping your voice low. He nods slightly.

“Listen, I promised I’d meet Pads before dinner -” he awkwardly motioned towards the Gryffindor Common Room.

“No, no it’s alright,” you turn to walk back down the staircase, “I’ll catch up with you later, yeah?”

“Sure.”

You took a seat in one of the chairs of the Common Room, glancing around at the decor.

“Never been in Gryffindor’s before…” you mumble to yourself.

You watch as three particular troublemakers made their way from the boy’s dormitory towards you.

Sirius was the first to notice you, “____? What are you doing -”

“Got the password a while ago from a friend. Listen, I wanted to ask you something.”

“We��re kinda busy, can it wait till tomorrow?”

“No.”

“Listen, I know you guys usually spend the night with him, but -”

“How do you know that?”

“I’m his friend too, you know,” you sigh, “He tells me these kinds of things. Anyways, I was thinking…What if I went tonight?”

“I’m all for the fact that you wanna help a friend, ____, but you can’t come with us, it’s too dangerous.”

“I actually wanted to go alone.”

They all stared at you as if you were mad.

“Have you lost your damn mind?”

“James, listen, I’ve got a plan and -”

“No! It’s way too dangerous. Listen, ____, it’s nothing against you, but…It’s just…Too dangerous.”

“If you won’t let me go I’ll march right down to Dumbledore’s office and tell him about your little map you all use.”

“You wouldn’t dare.”

“Try me.”

James sighed, Sirius simply glared at you, and Peter stood behind them, clueless as always.

“When you get hurt don’t say we didn’t warn you.”

You get up from your seat and make your way towards the exit, “I’ll be fine.”

“How do you even know about the map anyways?” James calls after you.

“I told you, he tells me these kinds of things,” you smirk.

Your footsteps echoed off of the stone walls as you traversed the small passageway. You could still hear the thump of the Whomping Willow above you, and had it not been for the soft glow of your wand, you would’ve been left in complete darkness. After a few minutes of walking, you found yourself confronted with a small door above you, it reminded you of the entrance to a cellar. You pushed your way through it, being sure it was closed once you were through.

The house you stood in was dusty and decrepit, just standing in the hall you felt your anxiety levels rise. You slowly took your first step, and the floor under you creaked. You heard a shuffling from upstairs, and your eyes shot towards the ceiling, scanning it for any other signs of life. After a small period of silence, you took another step, this time towards the nearby staircase.

You heard the shuffling again, then a small thunk.

“Rem?” you whispered, hoping to hear him answer.

He didn’t.

You climbed the steps slowly, trying to make minimal noise. Your bag felt heavy on your shoulder despite its light weight.

At the top of the steps, you were faced with a door, half open already.

You reached out and pushed it, and watched as it slowly creaked open.

You saw him sat in the corner, his head buried in his knees, his breath rigid.

“Remus.”

His head shot up at the sound of your voice.

“____, what are you doing here?” his face was overwhelmed with worry, making the dark circles under his eyes even more prominent.

“You’ve got to leave, you gotta go, it - It’s not safe, you know -”

“Does it hurt?”

He stopped speaking, though his expression was still overcome with concern.

“What?”

“Does it hurt?”

He doesn’t acknowledge your question for a moment until he slowly nods, dropping his head back to his knees.

“Yeah,” his voice was muffled.

“I’m sorry.”

“You’ve got to leave, though,” he suddenly stands, “You know it’s not safe -”

“I’m staying.”

He shakes his head as he approaches you, “Please, I don’t…” He finally is close enough to touch, and you watch your friend stare down at your hand - god how much he wanted to take it in his own, grab it and never let go - “I don’t want to hurt you.”

“You won’t.”

“I might,” he meets your eyes, “I can’t exactly control myself when…When it happens.”

You reach into your bag, pulling out a small object. You look at it before placing it in his hand.

“I know it’s your favorite.” He looks at the small candy bar before glancing back up at you, he had such pretty eyes, didn’t he? You never noticed how the green sometimes turned to a sort of blue -

“Thank you,” a small smile crossed his face, “But…You really do have to go.”

“I’m not leaving.”

“____-”

“At least let me stay for a little bit longer, then.”

He turned his head, looking out the window before glancing down at the chocolate, then to you.

“You can’t stay long.”

A smile spreads across your face.

“I don’t get how you stand me, really,” he leans his head back against the wall.

“Hm?”

“I mean, all I really am is a hassle, aren’t I? I just cause problems and I’m not worth your time, and -”

“Rem, you’re worth all the time in the world.”

“What I am is a monster.”

“What you are is kind, and cute, and shy and -”

“I don’t get why you like someone like me. Someone with my condition.”

“Because you aren’t defined by it. It’s a small part of a much bigger whole.”

“It’s a pretty big part of my life, if you ask me.”

“I’m not saying it’s not. I’m saying everything else about you, all that good, isn’t defined by that single negative. You’re too hard on yourself, Remus. You’re really a wonderful guy.”

“That’s not how I see it.”

“Well it’s how everyone else does. I’ll just have to teach you to see it my way, eh?” you nudge him playfully. He flashes a small smile again, and the sight makes your heart melt.

You sit in silence for a few minutes, just sitting, enjoying each other’s company. You almost forget why you’re there until suddenly you see him tense up.

“Rem?”

“You gotta go,” he breathes before letting out a grunt of pain and falling forward to the floor.

You felt your heart shatter at the sight of him in pain.

“Rem -” you reach out towards him, resting your hand on his shoulder. At your touch he jerks away.

“Go.”

“No.”

He’s shaking as he meets your eyes. His pupils dilate as his head lowers again, and he lets out a scream of pain. You wince at the noise, but stand your ground. His nails dig into the floor and his breath quivers as he bites hard on his bottom lip, drawing blood.

“Please,” his voice is weak.

“I want to stay.”

He jerks backwards, slamming against the wall. You look away as you hear the sickening snap of bone.

You slowly back towards the bed that sat in the corner of the room, unsure of what to do. He let out another groan of pain, though as it went on it became less human. You couldn’t bring yourself to look at him.

There were a few more moments filled with the sounds of both bone and flesh contorting, and you hold your breath as the room becomes silent. You hear a small whimper, and you slowly open your eyes, and turn to face him.

You’d expected much worse, honestly.

He almost looked cute - his fur was shaggy, and the same shade as his hair. His robes were tattered but still clung to his body.

You let out the breath you held.

His amber eyes snapped up towards you, and you were struck with fear.

“Rem?” you whisper.

The wolf’s eyes softened for a moment, and he took a step towards you. You smiled and stepped away from the bed, towards him, and extended a hand to reach for him. He stopped walking, and you barely saw his pupils dilate once more before he let out a growl and leapt towards you.

You stumbled backwards, onto the bed and frantically grabbed around for your wand. Your fingers felt nothing but the cold and worn quilt of the bed as you heard another bark and the patter of nails against the hardwood floor. You barely rolled out of the way before you felt the pressure of another creature on the bed besides you. You clambered onto the floor, searching furiously for your wand. You spotted it a foot away, next to your bag. Crawling towards it, you barely making contact before you heard the howl of your friend beside you.

If you could even call it your friend - you knew it wasn’t really him.

“Rem, please,” you whimper, finally grabbing hold of your wand. You then pull yourself to your feet using the wall as support.

The wolf simply growled aggressively, and bounded towards you. He swiped at your arm, barely catching it and tearing your colored robes in the process. The action made you fall backwards, though you didn’t process the pain right away.

Your breathing quickened as the animal slowly approached you again, teeth bared.

“Remus, I know you’re in there somewhere. I know…I know…”

The beast paid no attention to your pleas and leaped towards you again, but before he made contact with you, your arm flew in front of you, wand in hand. You weren’t sure which spell you’d casted, as a thousand different ones had flown through your mind all at once, but whichever it was sent the wolf flying back into the wall. It landed on the ground, whimpering. You immediately felt a pang of regret and sadness, you had just hurt your best friend.

You slowly approached him, placing a hand on his soft fur.

“Rem?”

The wolf responded slightly to the noise, trying to lift its head. It let out a deep huff before resting back on the ground.

“I’m sorry, I’m so sorry -” You placed your other hand onto its head, petting him. It seemed to lean into your touch, once again letting out a small whine.

Maybe it had hit its head too hard, or maybe you had somehow gotten through to him, but you knew then that you were safe. You sat down next to him, leaning against his torso, slowly stroking the fur of his neck. The scraps of robe that still stuck to him somehow only added to your comfort, reminding you of his true self.

You closed your eyes, and soon enough fell into a deep slumber, not even noticing that the wolf had adjusted its large body to somewhat wrap itself around you protectively.

It wasn’t the sunlight glaring through the window that woke you. It wasn’t even the cold. In fact, it was the lack of cold that had awoken you. You opened your eyes, still dazed from sleep. Your pillow rose and fell rhythmically, and you raised your head to look at it, confused.

Instead of the familiar four-poster you were used to sleeping in, you then realized that you lay on the hard-wood floor of a bedroom.

“Rem?” your voice was low and still veiled in slumber.

He lay below you, dark circles surrounding his eyes. Just the look of him made you exhausted, as though in some way you could share his burden of fatigue.

His arm is draped around your waist, and you make no attempt to move it as you lay back down against his chest, which is barely covered by his clothes.

The contact makes him shiver, and he opens his eyes, startled after being pulled from sleep.

He groans, taking a moment to asses the situation.

“____?” his voice is gravelly.

“Hm?” you snuggle closer to him, suddenly feeling the chill of the shack’s air.

“What are you…Oh god. Oh god, did I -”

“I’m fine, love.”

He stiffens at the name. You chuckle, then reach up to plant a kiss on his cheek.

“____, I don’t understand…”

“Hm?”

“Why you’d risk your life for…Someone like me.”

“Why wouldn’t I?”

“I…I just…”

You look up at him again and see a few stray strands of hair draped over his face. You grin, once again reaching up to kiss him, though this time you capture his lips, and your eyes flutter shut as you do so. Despite his exhaust, he eagerly kisses back, and after you part he sighs, turning his head to stare out the window.

“Have you got classes today?”

“No.”

“Can we stay a while longer?”

“Of course, Rem.”

You hear an almost inaudible, “Yes!” from him.

You giggle as you cuddle closer to him, and he wraps his other arm around you, “Dork.”

#remus x reader #remus lupin x reader #marauders era #harry potter x reader #remus lupin #harry potter #widow's kiss

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lentils-writes · 7 years

Text

Day 12: Arranged marriage AU with this prompt that I found:

okay but like two friends getting married for cheaper tution like hah we are geniuses this is a fool proof plan and we are completely platonic everything is fine haha i didnt just notice how beautiful your eyes are and how soft your hair feels LOVING THIS CHEAPER TUITION EVERYTHING IS FINE

(I am SO SORRY this is late I got very carried away I like pining ok)

Kara checks her phone on the bus home and, of course, there’s a text from Melinda. That’s not weird; they text each other every day. What is weird is that it’s just a link to an article and the headline is “Get Married, Save Thousands on Tuition.”

Kara opens the article, skims it, and then replies.

??? what do u mean by this article???

I think it’s pretty self-explanatory.

it’s rly not

explain pls

Well, we both got into U of C, right?

yeah...

But I’m a California resident and you’re not. You’ll gonna be paying an extra twenty grand since you’re out-of-state. If we get legally married, you’ll count as a resident.

Kara feels her face getting hot and glances around to make sure no one is looking at her.

what r u saying

It wouldn’t be a real marriage, calm down. Just so we get tax breaks and lower tuition. I think we could even qualify for the family housing if we’re lucky. It’s way cheaper than the dorms.

wow ur moving kinda fast there

we haven’t even gone on a real date :P

Hey, I took you to see Jupiter Ascending when you were here during winter break last year!

i don’t think that counts

we got kicked out

YOU got us kicked out for laughing too loud!

Anyway, sorry if this is weird. We don’t have to if you don’t want to. I just thought it might be funny.

it is pretty funny

i gotta think about it tho

No worries. Practice starting, bye

Kara stares at her phone for a long moment, thinking. It’s not that she cares that much about marriage or thinks of it as this super important sacred symbol of love or anything. It’s something she’s thought a little more about since New Mexico legalized it when she was a freshman, and then again since the Supreme Court decision last year, but she’s in high school. The idea of falling in love and getting married is so far from her reality that she almost can’t imagine it.

Plus, it’s Melinda. Melinda is the most important person in her life - ever since they met three years ago on Tumblr, Kara’s spent hours talking to Melinda, becoming closer to her than she’s ever been to anyone else. She has friends at school (Alex, Sara, Zoe), but she’s always felt weirdly alienated from the rest of her classmates. Melinda likes to listen to her talk about Greek mythology and weapons history and all the other weird shit that most people find confusing or just too weird. Melinda makes her feel normal. So maybe marrying her best friend for a few years, and then divorcing a few years later, wouldn’t be the worst thing. Especially if the benefits are really that good.

---

Kara’s mom is weirdly supportive. “I know you and Melinda are close,” she says. “And you’re eighteen, I can’t stop you. I just don’t want you to get hurt. Be careful not to take it too seriously, okay?”

Kara hugs her mom and rolls her eyes. “I won’t, Mom,” she says. “We probably won’t even sleep in the same bed or anything.”

When she Skypes Melinda to accept her “proposal,” Melinda smirks. “I told my parents. Dad thinks it’s weird, but he likes the idea of not having to file my taxes for me. Mom lectured me for half an hour in Mandarin about and then said, ‘At least you’ll have someone to look after you, keep you out of trouble.’”

Kara giggles. “Tell her I’ll try?”

“Please. I’m the one that keeps you out of trouble,” teases Melinda. “So, I guess now we’d better figure out how courthouse weddings work. Can you come a couple days early so we can do the ceremony?”

“Yeah, I think so.” Kara nods. “We haven’t booked plane tickets or anything yet. I haven’t even really started packing.”

“Oh, and we should probably get rings. Doesn’t have to be fancy ones, just to keep up the facade. You might even be able to find something at Claire’s.”

“Yeah, I can do that. Can I stay at your place the extra couple days?”

“I’ll have to ask my parents, but probably that’s fine. They like you. As much as they like anyone, I mean.” Melinda chuckles. “I think you being a girl is helping. Mom’s never been that weird about my girlfriends, but I’m pretty sure she thinks it doesn’t really count unless I’m with a guy.”

Kara snorts and rolls her eyes. “Well, either way, it’s only four years. Then you can go off and marry a nice doctor or whatever they want you to do.”

“No, not a doctor. A lawyer. Not that I’m planning on marrying either one. Maybe not at all. You might be it.”

Kara mock-flinches. “So much pressure! I could sour you on the concept of marriage forever.”

“You could,” teases Melinda. “Okay, I have an essay to write for AP history. Later.”

“Bye,” says Kara, signing off. She has homework too, but instead of working on it she finds herself opening a new tab and going to Target’s jewelry section. Just for laughs, of course.

(The one she ends up picking out, and taking the bus to get the next day, is silver and has two curving lines that cross over each other, with a line of clear gems set into one of the lines. It sort of reminds Kara of an infinity symbol - ironic, but it’s fifteen dollars and won’t look too cheap.)

---

Neither Kara nor Melinda opt to wear white dresses to the courthouse. Melinda because Kara’s pretty sure she doesn’t own a single dress, and Kara because she doesn’t own anything white. She wears her favorite red summer dress and a sapphire necklace her mom insisted she take. Melinda wears a button-up shirt and her nice leather jacket. Kara’s starting to feel like maybe the necklace is too much, but Melinda smiles at her and says, “It brings out your eyes.” Kara says thank you and then laughs, and she’s not sure why.

They mostly spend the time waiting to be called in for the ceremony teasing each other about who’s going to do what. “I don’t bake,” Kara says, “so forget about coming home to fresh-baked cookies.”

“You should make us that pasta salad your mom gave you the recipe for, though,” Melinda says. “That sounds amazing.”

“If you rub my shoulders after dinner?”

“Deal.”

The officiant seems to take their giggly familiarity for actual romantic affection, and the ceremony takes only a few minutes. Kara expects it to feel more important than it does, but before she knows it Melinda is slipping the ring on her finger and pulling her in for a quick kiss at the end of the vows. It’s over before Kara can really absorb it’s happening.

They hold hands out of the courthouse, and Melinda grins over at her. “So,” she says. “How’s it feel?”

Kara shrugs, grinning back. “Totally normal.”

“Good,” Melinda says. “I guess maybe we should’ve practiced kissing first, but he didn’t seem suspicious.”

Kara shrugs. “I dunno. I think it was fine.” She hasn’t been kissed in a long time, not since early junior year when she and Beth broke up. She just hasn’t really had time to worry about finding anybody else.

They go get ice cream and shoot each other secret smiles. Kara eats a chunk of her coffee ice cream and stares at the little silver ring on her finger. It’ll take some getting used to.

---

They get a tiny one-bedroom apartment in the family housing complex, which is way nicer than the dorms even if it doesn’t come with furniture. Melinda’s parents help them buy a cheap bed frame and mattress. “Having only one bed saves money,” Lian May says, when May tries to protest. “And there won’t be enough room for two in this tiny place.”

Melinda makes a face at Kara behind her mother’s back, but Kara just shrugs. It’s not like she hasn’t slept in the same bed as other girls before. It’s no big deal.

There’s a ton of orientation activities for them to go to, but they end up skipping out halfway through and going home to order a pizza and watch Netflix. “I guess we could’ve said we were gonna go Netflix and chill,” teases Kara.

Melinda rolls her eyes and bumps her shoulder. “Dork.”

Kara gets a job in the admissions office, and Melinda ends up working at the on-campus gym. Classes start, and they fall into a routine. They switch off cooking every other night, except if someone has a group meeting or evening lecture and then there are usually leftovers in the fridge. They get invited to a few parties and wave at their neighbors and get pretty good at the whole acting-married thing. Kara finds that the story of how they met doesn’t actually need that much editing; people seem to find it adorable. She meets Bobbi in her intro to human biology class, who tells her about the on-campus LGBT+ society (which, apparently, had had a booth at the clubs fair that they skipped) and gives her her number to hang out later. (Kara tries not to laugh out loud; go figure the only time another queer girl’s ever given her her number, it’s in a totally platonic context.)

And then, a month and a half into the school year, Kara has to consider that she might be falling in love with her “wife.”

Or at least she definitely wants to bone her. She figures that out one night when Melinda’s taking a bath and Kara barges into the bathroom to pee (nothing new, they’ve been doing that since the first week here) and notices, holy shit, Melinda has incredible boobs.

Melinda is reading and, when she notices Kara staring, she looks at her, puzzled. “What?”

“Uh,” says Kara, quickly looking away. “Nothing. Just wondering what you were reading.”

“Just a book for European History. You alright? You seem nervous.”

“I’m fine!” Kara says, too abrupt.

(She ends up having some confusing sexy dreams that night, and luckily Melinda has an early class the next morning and she doesn’t. Once Melinda leaves, she gets herself off quickly and hopes maybe that will be the end of it. Maybe it was just her body needing an orgasm.)

(It wasn’t.)

After that, she starts noticing other things: how shiny Melinda’s hair is in the sunlight, how satisfying it is to make her laugh or smile, how strong her hands are. About a week and a half after the bath incident, Melinda offers to give her a shoulder rub and Kara’s heart starts beating so fast she’s sure Melinda can hear it. But she just nods, and it turns out Melinda’s hands are amazingly strong. Kara probably makes some embarrassing noises, but Melinda doesn’t say anything about it, just smirks and says, “Glad you’re enjoying it.”

“I’m just really tense,” mutters Kara, blushing.

“Hey, I get it. My algebra prof is being a pain in the ass and assigning a ton of homework.” Melinda smiles sympathetically at her. “Anytime you need another one lemme know, okay?”

“Th-thanks,” says Kara. “I can try to do it for you too?”

Melinda shrugs. “Sure.” She shucks off her shirt and turns her back to Kara. “You ever done this before?”

“A couple times,” says Kara, “but I don’t think my hands are as strong as yours.” She starts kneading May’s shoulder muscles anyway.

“Mm, this is fine,” hums Melinda. “Thank you.”

Kara tries really hard to do a good job, and also not to notice how soft Melinda’s skin is.

---

Finally she can’t take it anymore and texts Bobbi to meet up with her for lunch. Bobbi’s probably her closest friend on campus (besides Melinda), she can trust her with her secret.

“Hey,” Bobbi says when she arrives at Teriyaki Madness, setting down her styrofoam container full of food and sitting across from Kara. “What’s up?”

Kara purses her lips and then finally says, “It’s kind of a long story, but it has to do with me and Melinda.”

“You’re not really a couple, are you?” Bobbi asks.

Kara’s so startled all she can do is squeak, “Um.”

“Dude, I figured out you guys were faking it like the third time we all hung out together. You guys are obviously super close, but when you hold hands or hug or kiss you’re so awkward. Like, I’ve had friends that were in LDRs and when they were together you couldn’t pry them apart. Not you guys.” Bobbi raises an eyebrow. “I mean, I’m guessing you got married for tuition, right? Mad props. My last ex wanted to do that but I knew we’d end up divorced in six months.”

Kara puts her face in her hands and groans. “Is it that obvious?”

“I mean, I dunno. I’m pretty perceptive. I think probably most people aren’t thinking that much about it. But anyway, what did you wanna talk to me about? You guys okay other than, y’know, not actually being a couple?”

“Um,” says Kara. “Well.” She stares at her soda, unsure of how to say I wanna have sex with my best friend-slash-wife and also I might be falling in love with her?

Bobbi looks at her for a second. “You’re not like, in trouble, are you?”

“No, no! I mean. I’m okay, I just…” Kara swallows and then mutters “ImightbeintoherIthinkmaybe.”

At that, Bobbi laughs, then slaps a hand over her mouth. “Jeez, sorry, that was mean,” she says, but she’s still grinning. “So you, what, figured out you like her now?”

“I guess,” says Kara, eating a piece of chicken. “She’s...we’ve been best friends for three years, she’s the person I know best in the world. Maybe I should’ve seen this coming.”

Bobbi shrugs and replies, “Hey, just ‘cause you’re close with someone doesn’t mean you’re gonna wanna bone them. Izzy and I practically grew up together and I can’t imagine being into her, she’s like my sister. If I had a really hot sister, I guess. But I’m not interested in her that way. Anyway. What are you gonna do about it?”

“I don’t know!” says Kara. “What am I supposed to do? ‘Hey, best friend who I’m legally married to, I’m thinking maybe I actually wanna date you and not just pretend, how do you feel about that?’ That’s so weird.” She sighs. “This is stupid.”

Shaking her head, Bobbi says, “It’s not. You really just need to talk to her about it. I know it’s gonna be weird, but if she’s not into you too, then you guys can talk about you like, dating other people. Or you can come over and I’ll buy you a shitton of ice cream and we’ll watch dumb movies. Whatever you need.”

“Or I could just never say anything,” Kara says. But she makes a face and nods. “Thanks for listening.”

“Hey, no worries.” Bobbi pauses and then adds, “Listen, if she’s not down for whatever, I’m also available for a friends-with-benefits thing, if you want.” She gives Kara an exaggerated wink.

Kara snorts. “I’ll think about it.”

---

It takes Kara a week to figure out what she wants to say, and then another week to figure out the right time to say it, which means that once she’s finally gotten up the guts it’s midterms week and she and Melinda are so busy they barely see each other. Then after midterms she waits a week or two just to be sure, and then it’s the week before Thanksgiving and it would just be weird to make things weird before Thanksgiving, so she waits some more. (She ends up going home with Melinda and meeting many members of her extended family. To them, she’s just Melinda’s roommate, which is okay. It’s kind of nice to not have to pretend.)

And then it’s the holiday season.

Bobbi’s taken it upon herself to badger Kara about talking to Melinda give-or-take once a week, and by this point she’s just texting stuff like DONE YET? in all-caps. You have to tell her sometime!!!! Bobbi writes. You can’t just NOT!!!!!

u wanna bet

You’re going to die of blue balls or something!

i don’t think that’s possible, bob

and i don’t even have balls

Ok maybe not but seriously, this is ridiculous

Finally, one night they’re watching a movie and Kara blurts out, “I have to talk to you about something.”

Melinda pauses the movie and glances over at her. “What’s up? You okay?”

“Yes. No. I mean-” Kara sighs. “It’s embarrassing.”

Melinda looks even more confused. “What do you mean?”

Kara bites her lip. “I...I like you.”

“Oh.” Melinda just looks at her for a moment.

Kara’s starting to get progressively more anxious and angry with herself when Melinda adds, “Well, good, ‘cause I was trying to figure out how to tell you that I’m into you. It seemed like a bad romance novel cliche.”

Kara laughs, maybe a little hysterically. “Wait, how long have you been…?”

Melinda coughs. “This whole plan may or may not have been my way of trying to tell you.”

“Mel, oh my god! It’s been months! Why didn’t you-”

“Same reason you didn’t,” Melinda says, nudging her with her shoulder. “Too chickenshit to say something.”

“Shit,” says Kara, putting her face in her hands. “I’m sorry, I didn’t know - I’ve been stressing since like before Halloween about this! I told Bobbi and she’s been bugging me to tell you!”

“Oh, Bobbi knows?” Melinda snorts. “Great. So we’ll never hear the end of that.”

“Well, I usually tell you about this stuff, but I couldn’t! Oh my god.” Kara laughs again. “So I guess...now we get to figure out how to date for real?”

“I guess,” Melinda says. “You wanna make out for real?”

“Oh my god, yes.”

(Bobbi never does let them live it down. And they don’t get divorced after the four years are up.)

#karamel #Kara Lynn Palamas #melinda may #Bobbi Morse #fandom: agents of shield

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edenfalling · 7 years

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Ooh! Homestuck, Dirk, Roxy, cuddle. It's the post-Sburb world, and there are too many people all the time, and only Dirk and Roxy want to flee screaming to a (pair of) faraway mountains. Bring back the blissful solitude of the post-apocalypse.

Notcompliant with the credits snapchats, because reasons. :) [2,700 words]

---------------------------------------------Some Little Talk aWhile of Me and Thee---------------------------------------------

The stupid part is, up until that one moment, Roxy washaving a really good night. All her friends (except Dirk, who hung grimly onthrough dinner and absconded immediately thereafter) together in one room, enoughdinner for everyone to eat their fill and then dessert on top of that, thepleasant ache of an honest day's work building the infrastructure of their newworld... yeah. A good night.

Except the thing is, as much as she needs people -- and sheneeds people a lot, needs that feedback loop of attention paid and returned --there's a big difference between hanging out online and hanging out with adozen people jammed together in a single room. And she hasn't been gettingalone time during the days either, always busy working with a crew ofcarapacians (who at least are quiet) and consorts (who are emphatically not).

Roxy doesn't notice the slow buildup of stress, but she canpinpoint exactly when the night tips from I-can-manage to oh-god-make-it-stop.

She's been kibitzing on the edges of Rose, John, and Jane'smeal planning session (defusing any baby disagreements before they grow intoanything serious), keeping half an ear on the Pictionary session Callie,Kanaya, and Terezi have going in the far corner, and watching Jade gleefullyannihilate Dave and Karkat at Mario Kart. It's maybe a little bit much to betracking all at once, but the satisfaction outweighs the strain until Davethrows a piece of popcorn at Jade, who teleports it into the tangle of Karkat'shair, who draws breath in preparation for an inside-voice-what-inside-voicerant, and Roxy is abruptly and completely done.Zip, zilch, finito, cutlery shop's closed up and all the merchandise is gone.

She shoves herself up from the warm and squashy armchair shestaked out as her private territory back when they first built this grouphouse, and says to nobody in particular: "I'm gonna go check on Dirk, it'sbeen a while since he noped out and I want to make sure he hasn't broken his neckor started a robot apocalypse in his sleep."

Rose and Jane break off their debate over the relativemerits of fish tacos and sushi to give her a pair of sharp glances. John justlooks adorkably confused.

Roxy dredges up a smile from her last reserves of sociability.

It must not be very convincing, because Rose frowns andtenses like she's going to ask if Roxy needs any help, or maybe even stand upand give her a hug. Her concern is like a warm mug of hot chocolate, but thething about warm mugs of hot chocolate is they're awesome on a frigid winterday after messing around in the snow for a couple hours, but this specific timeand place are more like a metaphorical scorching summer day when you're alreadysugared out and anything sweet makes you want to gag. In other words, amomdaughter's loving attention is nice in theory, but it's not conducive tonoping the fuck out of the room, not to mention if anyone touches her rightnow, Roxy might actually break down and scream.

Fortunately, Jane rescues her.

She does something to Rose -- elbows her? kicks her underthe coffee table? hard to say -- and while Rose is busy trying to regather hertrain of thought, Jane grins at Roxy, somehow managing to make the expressionboth obviously fake and equally obviously made of 24-carat solid goldsincerity.

"That sounds like an excellent plan!" she says."When you find him, tell him that Jade needs to run the latest plans forthe electricity grid past him, particularly the battery storage systems forevening the solar and wind outputs. I think the files are in the civilengineering dropbox account, so he shouldn't need to ask her for anything untilhe's finished reviewing and annotating them."

Roxy nods.

"Well, what are you waiting for? Scram!" Janemakes little shooing motions with her hands.

Rose, apparently catching on to Roxy's actual state of mind,smiles benevolently and waves goodbye. "Au revoir," she says in herperpetually dry tone. "If anyone asks where you are, I'll tell them I sentyou to give daddy dearest my love, perhaps in the form of seagull pie."

Jane rolls her eyes. John snickers and sticks out his tonguein mostly mock-disgust.

"Thanks, guys," Roxy manages to say, and flees.

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

After a indeterminate period of time trying not tohyperventilate in her en suite bathroom, she sits cross-legged on her bed andwonders if she ought to make good on her escape excuse.

Dirk's even worse with large groups than Roxy is and doesn'tmake any attempt to pretend otherwise, but he's still human (no matter how muchhe sometimes dislikes that fact) and even the most introverted human is, atbase, a social animal. And not all contact has to be as overwhelming as groupevents.

Roxy pulls out her phone, briefly contemplates calling him,then tosses that plan right the fuck out the window. Voices are bullshit. Textis their mutual mother tongue, and she'd bet at least half a baby universe Dirkisn't up for vocalizing right now.

-- tipsyGnostalgic [TG] began pestering timaeusTestified[TT] --

TG: the thing nobody ever tells you about other people ishow fuckin NOISY they areTG: amiright?TG: i never thought id say this, but i miss ourpost-apocalyptic disaster zoneTG: not like, the looming threat of the batterwitch n shit,but the quietTG: maybe even some of the survivalist stuffTG: rose and the crockerberts gave me the weirdest look wheni said we should make seagull pie for our next movie night extravaganzaTG: there is GOOD EATING on seagullsTG: and they make a nice change from fish you know?TG: i thought id finally gotten away from descaling fishwhen we ditched sea hitlers water hellscape, but nopeTG: here we are back to fish for every meal that doesnt comestraight from our alchemiters and dwindling stocks of gristTG: (its ok you dont have to talk back if you dont want to)TG: (i just wanted to bitch to someone who gets it)TT: It's cool.TT: I know exactlywhat you mean about the quiet.TT: If you're game toendure the ultra minimum of human contact, i.e., breathing within the samecubic meter of air, I'm on the roof by the south chimney.TT: If not, I can seethe dock and it's currently unoccupied.TT: Assuming this isa day when the incessant susurrus of waves will invoke positive memories ratherthan negative ones, that could make a decent temporary retreat.TG: awww, ur a sweetie, sitting watch over our friends likea depressed gargoyleTG: on due consideration im ok with breathing your grosspre-breathed airTG: maybe if we get really daring we can work up to touchingpinky fingers!TG: le gaspTT: Scandalous. What will the neighbors say?TT: But I'm down forperversion if you are, Ms. Lalonde.TG: k hang onto your panties, im coming up

-- tipsyGnostalgic [TG] ceased pestering timaeusTestified[TT] --

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

Roxy scrambles over the edge of the roof (she could justfly, of course, but where's the fun in that?) to find Dirk not just near thesouth chimney but actually curled up in the angle where it meets the solartiles, using the heat radiating from the bricks to counter the early autumnchill. He has his shades off in deference to the darkness, but his eyes are closedinstead of aimed up toward the frankly gorgeous light of the pink and whitemoons, both approaching full tonight.

Roxy flops back against the dark tiles of the roof, armsspread wide, and watches the moons flirt with thin veils of cloud. Her friends'voices drift out of the open windows downstairs, but distance and the ambientsounds of wind and wave blur them into a companionable sort of white noise. Theconsorts' various weekend parties are louder, but further away; noticeable onlywhen a line or two of song finds a favorable breeze or a new branch tossed on abonfire sends a gust of sparks above the trees and roofs of the slowly growingtown.

The carapacians' celebrations, of course, make no sound.

She and Dirk breathe in companionable silence for nearly anhour, while the white moon travels fifteen degrees toward zenith and the pinkmoon nearly twenty degrees in the same direction, edging toward partialeclipse. Roxy's still kind of giddy over the orbital mechanics of a three-bodysystem, and the difference two moons make in the rhythm of the tides. It couldtake years to work the changes into her bones.

She has years tospend on things like that. She spent her whole childhood isolated and trappedunder an incessant, shadowy weight. Now it's gone. She's free. She's not aloneanymore.

It would be nice if she were better at coping with thatchange.

Beside her, Dirk sighs, pulls his legs up to his chest, andrests his face between his knees. Something's gone cockeyed in his head again,and if nobody interrupts him he'll just debate himself into knots and grandiose'for your own good' bullshit stunts.

And hey, an hour of silence isn't enough to get Roxyanywhere near ready to face a crowd, but it's more than enough to talk to heroldest friend.

"The dumbest thing," she says, jumping straight inbecause what's the sense in wasting mouth noises on irrelevancies, "isthat weekend movie nights aren't even party-parties,nothing loud or crazy intense. It's just all our best friends hanging out oncomfy sofas playing goofy sleepover games, but stupid me got so wound up I hadto run screaming into the night. Otherwise I would've lost my shit at them overfish tacos and a popcorn fight, and that's just wrong with a capital R."

"Capital W," Dirk mutters, uncurling slightly andtilting his head until a sliver of orange iris is visible over the edge of hisright knee.

"Pedant," Roxy says, rather than draw attention tohis temporary lack of shades. "I just keep thinking, it shouldn't bug meso much. You've got a perfect excuse to flip out at extended socialinteractions, mister raised-by-robots. I actually had real live neighbors. Ishould be over this by now."

Dirk shrugs, which looks incredibly doofy when he's allcurled up like a pill bug. "As people keep telling me, brains aren'tparticularly logical organs. Besides, there's a pretty big difference betweensign language and a dozen plus people with actual vocal cords, some of whomhave a tragically shaky grasp of appropriate volume control."

"Ha. Yeah. Still."

"Still," Dirk agrees.

Roxy spreads her arms wide, staring up at the moons and theas-yet-unnamed constellations of their new universe, galaxy, solar system.Their new sun's a little brighter than Sol used to be -- a little smaller inthe sky, a little more pure-white than yellow-white -- and more like Alternia'ssun in its position vis-à-vis galactic center, which makes for some amazinglydense and brilliant starscapes. And she's saying this as a person who grew upwith no artificial light to blank out old Earth's night skies.

"Humans made the trolls' signs into constellationswithout any outside influence, just the shape of the universe orsomething," she muses. "I wonder if it's cheating to design ourconstellations ourselves."

Dirk shrugs again, a faint movement of shadow against darkershadow in the corner of her vision. "All our sessions were fucked from thestart; we had to cheat just to get out alive. What's a little more cheatingcompared to that? Ethical qualms aside, I'm pretty sure this planet isn't goingto be the focus of any future Sburb sessions. That dubious honor goes to the billionsof native planets kicking around this universe. If anyone's getting gentlymanipulated into using three-eyed cats and purple horrorterrors as part oftheir star myths, it's all those statistically inevitable aliens out there inthe wild black yonder."

"I bet their myths kick ass," Roxy says.

"I believe that's more or less implicit in thedefinition of the word. I'm not sure what they'll make of a hat or an LPrecord, though," Dirk says.

This time it's Roxy's turn to shrug. "Old-schoolD&D monsters, maybe? Or no, ten gets you one they'll go with crows andseagulls instead." She pauses, reconsiders. "Then again, Terezi'ssymbol is basically a giant lab tool with a shit-ton of cultural baggage, andKarkat's is kind of like, handcuffs, right? Maybe hats wind up as a symbol ofintellect and general badassery -- oh! or artificial life, like Frosty theSnowman's magic hat, 'cause of your robots and puppets thing -- and recordssymbolize creativity and art and stuff."

"Hats as a symbol of hubris and overreach, morelikely," Dirk mutters.

Roxy wriggles sideways until she's just close enough toflick the fingertips of her left hand against the side of his shoe. "Knockit off, dumbass. Nobody gets to badmouth my best friend -- not even my bestfriend."

Dirk unburies his face and meets Roxy's eyes straight on,one eyebrow raised. "I was under the impression that that title belongedto either Jane or Calliope. When did I inherit the position, and why was I notpreviously informed of this change in status? Are you sure you're followingfriend protocol correctly?"

Roxy flicks his shoe again. "Friendship is a bigcategory! You're all, like, different instantiations of the concept of 'bestfriend' -- Callie's my squee and kissing partner, Janey's my partner in crime,Rosie's my sister, Jake's my goofing off friend, Dave's my surrealism feedbackdude, John's my maybe-kinda-sorta other kissing partner, and so on and soforth. You, Dirk Strider, are theperson who knows me best in two and a half entire fucking universes. Okay?You're the one who knows what it's like. If I ever run off to be a hermit on amountaintop, I want you to come be a hermit on the mountain next door. We cansend heliograph messages back and forth, or learn how to yodel and shit, andonce a month we'll get together and have a wild and crazy hermit party, justthe two of us. That's the kind of best friend you are for me."

Dirk is silent for a long moment. Then he unwraps his righthand from his legs and lets it drop downward until his fingertips are justbrushing the soft, ticklish (completely un-carapacian) skin of Roxy's leftwrist, right over the veins carrying blood back to her heart.

"All that, back at you," he says.

Roxy blinks back a sudden rush of tears, and laces theirfingers together. Dirk lets her.

"Jade has some electric grid plans for you to lookover," she says after a minute. "You can do that anywhere,right?"

"Yeah," Dirk says.

"Then come seagull hunting with me tomorrow. Just the twoof us, out on the water. Like old times. I have a harpoon gun I've been wantingto try out, and we can tell anyone who complains that we're taking soundingsand stuff for potential tidal generators. Hell, we can even actually do that.But I miss you. I keep getting tangled up in everyone else and losing sight ofus."

Dirk squeezes her fingers. From him, it's as good as a hug.

"Yeah," he says. "It's a plan."

Roxy looks up at the night sky rather than try to put heremotions into words. There's a patch that looks a bit like a cat with wings, ifshe squints and takes some heavy artistic license. She holds up her phone inher right hand and adjusts the camera settings until she can snap a usefulpicture. She'll photoshop the constellation in later tonight and show it toDirk tomorrow: their friendship, immortalized in stars.

"Cool," she says.

They watch the pink moon overtake the white one in silence,fingers still entwined, the same air pumping in and out of their lungs.

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

End of Fic

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

It's still a little disjointed, I think, but whatever. Iwin. \o/

#liz writes stuff #homestuck #roxy lalonde #dirk strider #mini ficlet prompt meme #cotton candy bingo #asks and answers #in conversation with the internet #madamehardy #generalized content warning

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