#the entitlement of that man is ridiculous. so of course he thinks there's nothing wrong w seeking me out | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

robininthelabyrinth · 3 years

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Same River Twice (aka Time Travel Nie Bros) - part 4 - see ao3 or tumblr part 1, part 2, part 3

“You know what,” Nie Mingjue said, several shichen into the most awkward conversation he’d ever been forced to overhear in his life, “I think Wei Wuxian needs more friends.”

His father stopped contemplating the window with an expression that suggested he was considering throwing himself out of it and looked at him. “So you’ve mentioned before.”

“Yes, I know,” Nie Mingjue said, because he had in fact brought it up after Nie Huaisang’s no doubt unintentionally apt suggestion. “But on second thought, he needs them urgently. As does Huaisang. You don’t want them growing up barbaric and unsocialized, do you?”

His father mouthed the words ‘barbaric and unsocialized’ to himself, looking delighted. “By which you mean that you’d like to take them to visit the Lan sect, I assume?” he asked, not bothering to hide his amusement. “To learn good habits from them there?”

“To avoid learning bad habits here,” Nie Mingjue said. “Alternatively, you could always kick all of them out so that all of us can stop getting the loud and dramatic rendition of all the different types of bad decisions adults can make, courtesy of our friends in the Jiang sect and our new guest disciples.”

“…take Zonghui with you,” his father said. “Have a nice trip. Enjoy the quiet.”

There was a better than decent chance that he was being sarcastic, but Nie Mingjue wasn’t going to wait around long enough to find out – he saluted and turned to run away at once.

“Don’t get into too much trouble!” his father shouted after him.

That was ridiculous. What sort of trouble could Nie Mingjue get into in Gusu, of all places?

“Nie-gongzi, has anyone ever told you that you have really weird taste in rewards?” Nie Zonghui said, looking long-suffering as always.

Wei Wuxian, who was riding on his shoulders, craned his head down to look at him. “Rewards? What is Nie-da-ge getting rewarded for?”

“He performed especially well on his first ever night hunt,” Nie Zonghui told him, while Nie Mingjue flushed red and Nie Huaisang, who was riding on his shoulders, giggled. “His father wanted to reward him, and determined to do so by granting the first request he made.”

“He didn’t tell me he was planning on doing that,” Nie Mingjue hissed. If he had, he might’ve asked to visit Yunping City to collect Meng Yao – finding a reason to go there was much harder to achieve than arranging a simple visit to the Lan sect, which would’ve happened sooner or later anyway.

His thoughts hadn’t been focused on reward at all. He’d only really, truly desperately wanted to get away from any further discussion of Sect Leader Jiang’s sex life.

(Cangse Sanren was blunt and straightforward in her speech, something Nie Mingjue greatly appreciated right up until she was shouting things about size and shape and performance and also her husband…it was absolutely mortifying, even just as a spectator, except possibly Jiang Fengmian was into things like that because he just kept on arguing. In his past-future life, Nie Mingjue had had to sit across the table from Jiang Fengmian for years, and might yet have to do so again if he was not successful in adverting his father’s death, which was something he wouldn’t be able to if he kept hearing things like this! He didn’t want to know things like this!)

No, Nie Mingjue hadn’t thought about rewards at all – had already put away all thoughts of that particular night-hunt in favor of showing of his improvement with Baxia, who practically purred in his hands when he wielded her, so that he could win his independence sooner rather than later.

Even picking Gusu as their destination had been primarily motivated by seizing on the last place anyone had mentioned to him as a plausible destination that could be sold to his father.

Nie Huaisang had asked him, all big and wide-eyed and adorable, why they were going to somewhere as far away from the Unclean Realm as the Cloud Recesses, and Nie Mingjue had blamed Nie Huaisang’s suggestion of introducing Wei Wuxian to the Lan sect.

Nie Huaisang had also asked why they were going now and Nie Mingjue had explained in a rush of tangled words that sometimes grown-ups liked to talk about private things very loudly and maybe it would be better to leave them to it.

Nie Huaisang had found that dreadfully funny for some reason, giggling until both he and Wei Wuxian were rolling around on the ground laughing their heads off at the idea of going to Gusu –

Nie Mingjue didn’t care. As long as they went, and with them his excuse to go as well!

(Besides, it would be nice to see Lan Xichen.)

“Of course he didn’t tell you about it, Nie-gongzi,” Nie Zonghui said patiently. “It was meant to be a surprise. Wouldn’t have been much of a surprise if you knew about it, would it?”

Nie Mingjue sighed. Nie Zonghui was a half-generation above him – older than him by over a decade, entitling him (if only technically) to be called uncle rather than cousin, but young enough that he sometimes felt more like a peer. Certainly once Nie Mingjue himself had become sect leader, having someone like him to help figure out how to communicate with the elders had been priceless.

That didn’t mean he didn’t want to punch the man in the face on a regular basis.

Stupid sense of humor.

“Wouldn’t da-ge be happier if he could pick what he got?” Nie Huaisang asked. “What if he’d asked for something stupid, like a map?”

Nie Mingjue reached up to one of the legs currently dangling next to his ear and pinched him lightly, making his little brother squeak and then giggle again. He wasn’t sure why Nie Huaisang was still so worried about his offer to buy him a map – he hadn’t even known that the under-five age group could have a sense of financial economy, much less guilt over it, but then again he didn’t know much about kids that age anyway – but no matter what he wasn’t having any of it.

In this life, his brother would be happy for as long as Nie Mingjue could give him.

Of course, making Nie Huaisang happy would be easier if he wasn’t so picky.

“Didi, didi, it’s all right,” he said, trying to be soothing and not really remembering how. “You don’t need to be afraid - Lan Xichen is a friend…I’m sorry, Xichen, I really don’t know what’s gotten into him.”

“It’s no problem,” Lan Xichen said, looking exactly as one would expect a nine-year-old being addressed as a peer by a twelve-year-old that his guardian routinely praised as a role model would be – which was to say, a little pleased, a little uncertain, and mostly confused. The shrieking four-year-old wasn’t helping matters, either. “I don’t think I’ve done anything to offend him...?”

“You’re blind,” Nie Huaisang hissed at him, tears still streaming down his face. “Blind, blind, blind!”

“No, Huaisang,” Nie Mingjue said helplessly. He had no idea where Nie Huaisang got these ideas into his head, was it a feature of early childhood or something? “He’s not – look, the bandage is around his forehead, right? Not his eyes. And since when do you have something against blind people anyway?”

Nie Huaisang buried his face into his side. “Stupid da-ge.”

Nie Mingjue patted him on the back. “Sorry,” he said to Lan Xichen again. “This isn’t exactly the first impression I was hoping for.”

Lan Xichen abruptly grinned, looking for a moment like a regular child rather than the polite and reserved young man Nie Mingjue had known for so many years – it reminded him a little of the boy from the future timeline that he’d only seen brief glimpses of through the pieces of his soul that were attached to the pieces of his body, the loud and irreverent one called Lan Jingyi.

Back then he'd wondered abstractly how exactly such a boy could be related to the Lan clan, stately and elegant even when they acted radically, and now all of a sudden he saw that boy staring out of him from Lan Xichen’s immature face.

“Bet you thought you’d look a lot more dashing, didn’t you?” Lan Xichen asked merrily. “Flying in on your swords, jumping down for a perfect landing, and then – waaaaaaah!”

Nie Mingjue laughed, because it really had happened a bit like that.

“Don’t forget the domino effect,” he said wryly, glancing over at where Wei Wuxian was being plied with treats from a bag pulled from Nie Zonghui’s sleeve – he’d started sympathy crying when Nie Huaisang had inexplicably started wailing, and was having trouble stopping even though he admitted that nothing was actually wrong with him other than having feelings. “They’re probably just over-tired from the trip.”

“Did you really fly all the way from Qinghe?” Lan Xichen asked eagerly. “All by yourself?”

“We made a lot of stops –”

“But you were on your own sword, right? Just you?”

“It’s a saber and I was carrying Huaisang, but yes, in terms of who was in charge of propulsion, it was just me.”

Lan Xichen heaved a sigh full of obvious envy, and Nie Mingjue smiled. “If you want, I can petition your uncle that you act as my guide to the surrounding environs as well as the Cloud Recesses itself? He’d have to let you fly by yourself if that was the case.”

“Oh, would you?” Lan Xichen enthused. “That would be great! I’m not that good yet, but I’m not going to get good if I don’t have a chance to practice, except Uncle is always saying that – oh, wait, I’m not supposed to say –”

“Speaking of others behind their back is prohibited,” Nie Mingjue said solemnly, then cracked up at the dumbfounded expression on Lan Xichen’s face. “No, I’m sorry, I won’t quote your sect rules at you, I promise, it was just a joke…”

“You’d better!”

He rather liked this enthusiastic version of Lan Xichen, Nie Mingjue thought.

Even Nie Huaisang seemed to have gotten over his initial fright to start begrudgingly enjoying all of Lan Xichen’s chattering and bustling around – Nie Mingjue thought he might, given that Lan Xichen currently reminded him immensely of an extremely chatty blue-breasted quail and Nie Huaisang had always liked those. There was so much life in Lan Xichen, good humor and cheer filling him up until he was practically bursting with it; he hadn’t yet had to learn how to hold back his feelings and hide them, hadn’t yet learned that the only acceptable way to interact with others was through a carefully practiced smile.

Perhaps what was why Lan Xichen had been so drawn to Meng Yao, Nie Mingjue reflected – Meng Yao had hidden himself underneath a smile, too. Where he himself had admired Meng Yao for what he had thought was his strength of character, his ability to ignore the jibes and the slights he faced in favor of carrying on and doing what must be done, just as Nie Mingjue longed to be able to do, perhaps Lan Xichen had from the very first moment seen Meng Yao as someone in need of sympathy and affection. Perhaps it had been his own suffering projected onto Meng Yao’s open, facile face that had so tugged on his heartstrings.

It was a little odd, though.

It was a long time ago, but Nie Mingjue recalled meeting Lan Xichen when they were both quite young, and if he put his mind to thinking about it, he was pretty sure they would have met in about two years’ time – his fourteen to Lan Xichen’s eleven, with Nie Huaisang nearly six and Lan Wangji nearly seven. And yet the Lan Xichen he had met had been so very different from this, far more serious and reserved, quiet more often than not, that practiced smile already on his face and only with great reluctance melting into something real…

He wondered why there had been such a great change.

In the meantime, Nie Mingjue relieved Nie Zonghui of his duties on account of their safety – the older man had been to Gusu before for discussion conferences, and looked extremely bored – and took Nie Huaisang’s hand in one hand and Wei Wuxian’s in the other, and the three of them followed Lan Xichen around as he pointed out all the things he liked best.

Wei Wuxian broke away at one point and sped into the brush, shrieking something about a rabbit, and when they gave chase and found him again, he’d somehow bumped into Lan Wangji, who with his white clothing and solemn expression resembled nothing so much a bunny himself.

“Nie-da-ge, this is my friend!” Wei Wuxian hollered, even though they couldn’t have been talking for more than a few minutes before the rest of them caught up. “His name’s Lan Zhan! I’m keeping him forever!”

Nie Huaisang sniggered, and Nie Mingjue poked him – it was rude to laugh at other people’s earnestness.

“That’s nice, Wuxian,” he said, and formally saluted Lan Wangji, knowing how much the other boy liked rules and things being done right. “I’m pleased to meet you, Wangji. I hope we can be friends as well.”

Lan Wangji stared at him mutely for a long moment, and then his entire face slowly turned bright red as if he were boiling.

Nie Mingjue blinked, unsure about the reason for such an extreme reaction, but standing beside him Lan Xichen cackled. “Oh, oh, this is great,” he crowed. “Wait till I tell Mom!”

Lan Wangji attempted to bite him, which naturally made Wei Wuxian leap to his friend’s assistance, and somehow Nie Huaisang ended up wading into the fray with a stick that he waved around like a war-fan, seeking inexplicably to defend Lan Xichen despite having previously displayed no fondness for him at all.

Nie Mingjue waded in as well, of course, trying to separate them and somehow ending up as everyone’s target when they realized that he was strong enough to pick them all up and toss them (lightly) into the piles of soft grass that covered the meadow, even Lan Xichen, and at that point they all threw themselves at him eagerly in order to be throw back.

Nie Mingjue wasn’t really thinking about that, though. He was thinking about what Lan Xichen had said.

He was thinking about – Mom.

Not Nie Mingjue’s own, naturally. She’d been gone since he was younger than Nie Huaisang was now. Perhaps it was because Nie Mingjue had his father and his aunts and his uncles, but he had never really felt the lack of her all that much, except maybe when he needed to learn some etiquette he didn’t know or when his peers spoke fondly of their own mothers. Nor was he thinking of Nie Huaisang’s mother, who had been very nice and whose untimely death had upset him immensely; he honestly hadn’t thought of either of them in years and years by the time he’d died.

But rather, he thought about Lan Xichen’s mother – Lan Wangji’s mother –

Nie Mingjue hadn’t learned the story of her fate until much, much later in life, when he was very nearly an adult. The Lan sect had always kept their secrets very well, and he might never have learned the details if it hadn’t been for Lan Xichen willingly divulging them. He’d told him the whole awful story of how his mother had not loved his father even though he loved her, how she had killed someone dear to him, how he had married her to save her and gone into seclusion to punish himself, how the Lan sect, ever concerned with its face, had covered it all up by forcing her into permanent seclusion…

The story had never really sat right with him. A punishment was one thing, entirely justifiable; murder was murder, and life imprisonment was a valid sentence, a valid commutation of the death sentence that she probably ought to have received. It was not Nie Mingjue’s place to question how the Lan sect selected and imposed punishments…

And yet, something about it had always felt rotten.

Maybe it was only that the Nie sect didn’t believe in solitary imprisonment. Or, well, really solitary anything, with even seclusion being done in a relatively well-traveled area so that those inside could, if they wished, open a one-sided window to hear the noise and know that their family was around them. Even their tombs, their saber halls, were joined together into what was practically a necropolis – even in death, the Nie sect would rather be together than apart.

If he recalled correctly, Lan Xichen and Lan Wangji’s mother would soon be taken away from them for good. She’d died when Lan Xichen was – ten? Ten to Lan Wangji’s six, yes, that sounded right.

A year from now, then. Less, maybe.

“– xiongzhang is da-ge, not er-ge!”

“No, you don’t understand, my da-ge is older – and bigger – so he’s da-ge, and your xiongzhang is er-ge, and that means you’d be san-ge, and Wei-gege is – wait, which one of you is older?”

“Huaisang, it doesn’t work that way, we’re not the same family –”

“What are you even talking about?” Nie Mingjue asked, abruptly coming out of his thoughts. They’d continued playing while he daydreamed, and now Lan Xichen was perched on his back like a monkey, with Nie Huaisang on one of Nie Mingjue’s shoulder while Wei Wuxian hung off the other arm’s bicep and Lan Wangi clung to his neck in front like a sloth on a branch, as Nie Mingjue demonstrated that he could, in fact, keep walking with all of them attached. Every single one of them seemed to think this was the absolute height of entertainment. “Who’s related to what now? Huaisang, can’t you just call Xichen Xichen-ge or something?”

“Oh, fine. Xichen-gege! Xichen-gege!”

“Nie-didi! Nie-didi!”

“Too loud,” Lan Wangji sniffed.

“Didn’t you hear Lan Zhan?!” Wei Wuxian promptly hollered at the top of his lungs. “You’re all being too loud!”

“I’m going to throw each and every one of you into a pond,” Nie Mingjue said. “One by one, if I have to.”

“Do you promise?” Lan Xichen giggled in his ear. “That sounds like fun!”

“Actually,” Nie Mingjue said, “I had a different thought. How about we play hide-and-seek?”

The advantage of future knowledge, Nie Mingjue thought, was that he knew exactly where Madame Lan’s home was and how to get there within the time period he’d suggested for the initial hiding.

The disadvantage was that he was so focused on achieving his goal that he forgot that what implications might be taken from a twelve-year-old boy breaking into a woman’s home, especially at a time when she wasn’t expecting visitors.

“I’m so sorry!” he all but shrieked, covering his eyes even though he had already turned his back. “Please put on clothing!”

“Oh, your face –” Madame Lan was guffawing. “You’re so red – boy, you don’t have to throw yourself out the window in penance or anything. I’m still wearing my inner robe, you can’t even see anything.”

“It’s still inappropriate!”

“Could be worse. I could’ve been –”

“Please don’t finish that sentence,” he begged. “I swear I’m not actually doing this because I have a crush on you, so please, please, please don’t give me any details about what you do in the privacy of your own home, okay? And stop offering me your under-things! I don’t want them!”

“I was only doing laundry,” she said, almost crying with laughter. “I didn’t mean to throw my underwear at your face, it was really just the closest thing to hand…who are you, anyway? Shouldn’t you be introducing yourself to me?”

“I’ll introduce myself when you’re dressed and not a moment earlier.”

“Oh, all right, have it your way. Give me a moment.” There was some rustling. “All right, turn around.”

He peeked and sighed with relief: Madame Lan was, in fact, appropriately dressed in a lovely white silk dress, adorned with the typical Lan sect cloud embroidery and everything. The style was a little freer and less conservative than he might have expected to see the mistress of a Great Sect wearing, but then again he supposed she’d never actually had to do the work associated with it. It was hard to host a society party from seclusion…

“Qinghe Nie’s Nie Mingjue greets He Kexin, Madame Lan,” he said, saluting properly. “I’m a visitor to your sect.”

“I hadn’t realized that we were anticipating visitors from another Great Sect,” she remarked. “Normally there’s a great deal more hustle and bustle involved with preparing to receive a visit.”

“It’s an informal one,” Nie Mingjue explained. “Somewhat, uh, abrupt. We didn’t send word in advance. You see, we recently accepted Cangse Sanren and her husband as guest disciples, and shortly thereafter the Jiang sect paid us an unexpected visit…”

Madame Lan had clearly heard about that disaster, if the way she put her hand over her mouth in a futile attempt to stifle her chortling was any indication.

“I think I see the issue, being as I happen to remember Cangse Sanren very well,” she said, her eyes dancing. “What a troublemaker. She even shaved off Qiren-xiaoshuzi’s beard one time! I’m guessing based on the way you turned into a boiled crayfish that she scared you out of your own home?”

Nie Mingjue opened his mouth to protest, except, well, that wasn’t entirely inaccurate…

“What a charming little egg you are! You’re such a rotten liar that you can’t even do it to save face.”

“Being dishonest isn’t saving face,” Nie Mingjue said, even though his face felt like it was burning and he was probably just as red as she said he was. “The truth is what the truth is, that’s all. You’re not wrong, that’s more or less what happened – I brought Huaisang and Wuxian here so that we could get away from all the yelling.”

“You picked a good place for that,” Madame Lan said, and there was a dull look in her eye all of a sudden. Nothing like the liveliness from a few moments before. “There’s nowhere like the Cloud Recesses for quiet.”

Nie Mingjue bit his lip, not quite sure how to say what he wanted to say. Right up until that moment, she hadn’t seemed at all sick, the way he’d thought she’d be – less than a year before she died, from what he remembered of Lan Xichen’s stories. He’d assumed she’d already be ill with the early stages whatever it was that had eventually taken her from her sons.

But now, he didn’t think she was sick, not really, only…bored.

Dreadfully, horribly bored. The sort of bored that drained your life away bit by bit.

Formal training in swordsmanship and scholarship began at six at the Cloud Recesses, Nie Mingjue abruptly remembered. There were plenty of lessons prior to that, of course, but at age six they would become formalized, the children shifting over from the realm of babies to proper young-adults-to-be. Once Lan Wangji turned six, Madame Lan would have had nothing to look forward to in life.

Nothing, except for her children starting to drift further and further away from her: nothing to do, no purpose, no friends…

Just boredom.

“The Unclean Realm has a communal prison,” he blurted out, and then smacked his hands into his face to hide his shame for being such an inconsiderate ass. Why had he thought he could do this by himself?

He wasn’t even sure what he’d originally come here to accomplish, other than to let Madame Lan know that she ought to see a doctor sooner rather than later in the hopes that they would be able to catch and stymie whatever disease it had been that had killed her, except now of course Nie Mingjue understood that it was no disease at all.

“…what?” she said blankly.

It was too late to retreat, so Nie Mingjue gathered up every bit of courage he’d ever had and barreled onwards.

“I just mean,” he said, tripping over his words, “if you’d like to be – a bit less quiet. Even if your sentence is life imprisonment, surely you don’t have to necessarily serve it here, right?”

Madame Lan stared at him. His shoulders started creeping up to his ears.

“Actually,” she said abruptly, “I was never sentenced.”

He gaped at her. “You – what?”

“Qiren-xiaoshuzi pushed for it, said it was only fair that I knew the exact contours of my punishment, but the sect elders refused,” she explained. “They didn’t want to lose face by having a trial at all, not even privately.”

“But – but if you haven’t been sentenced, you can’t be imprisoned!”

“Is that so?” she asked, looking amused.

“You can’t,” Nie Mingjue insisted, horrified. “The laws of war say that someone can be executed on the spot for committing a crime, but in peacetime they have to be sentenced first even if you catch them red-handed. What if your accuser recants his accusation, whether because he was wrong or because he decided not to press charges? If they recant, you can’t be tried; if you can’t be tried, even if everyone knows you’ve done wrong, you still must be released. No trial, no sentence, no imprisonment!”

“Tell that to the Lan sect,” she said dryly. “Not even my husband could do more than he did to forestall my punishment, and he’s sect leader. Nominally, anyway.”

This did seem to be a problem of the Lan sect. Of all sects, really – he had his own share of old men causing issues and sticking their noses into things – but he’d never had anywhere near the problem with the sect elders as Lan Xichen had had with his Lan sect.

“Why should I?” Nie Mingjue asked, crossing his arms over his chest. “I don’t see why we have to tell them anything at all.”

“Why are we doing this?” Nie Huaisang asked, tugging on Nie Mingjue’s sleeve.

“I already explained,” Nie Mingjue said, which he had. He’d also explained that he’d run in there by accident while looking for a place to hide, and he’d tried to look as much like a stupid twelve-year-old as possible when he said it. “About the lack of a trial –”

Nie Huaisang tugged again. “Not that. Why are we rescuing her?”

“Because she might die if we don’t,” Nie Mingjue said. “She’s very bored in there all by herself.”

“So?”

“What do you mean, so? It’d make Xichen and Wangji sad if she died.”

“So?”

“So they shouldn’t be sad if they don’t have to be! I don’t want them to be sad because they lost a parent…don’t you remember being sad about your mom having died, Huaisang?”

“No,” Nie Huaisang said. “I had da-ge.”

Nie Mingjue sighed. He’d keep this conversation in mind for later when Nie Huaisang was old enough to actually understand the concept of death, and then he’d use it to torment him forever.

“Wouldn’t you be sad if da-ge died, then?” he asked, and felt Nie Huaisang’s hands abruptly clutch tight on his arms. “There you go. That’s why we’re doing this.”

Nie Huaisang nodded, but he was still scowling a little in his adorable childhood way, and Nie Mingjue thought for a second that he heard him murmuring something about inviting unnecessary trouble under his voice, but…whatever, it wasn’t important.

What was more important was that Lan Xichen had arrived with what Nie Mingjue had asked him to fetch for him, his cheeks bright pink with excitement. “Nie-da-ge,” he hissed even though there wasn’t anyone in the area, thrusting the package into Nie Mingjue’s arms. “I got it!”

“Good,” Nie Mingjue said, then paused. “Er, you don’t mind, do you?”

“Mind? Mind what?”

“That I’m kind of, uh, well – I mean, I’m kidnapping your mother. You won’t be able to see her as often as you do now if this works…”

“She’ll be free,” Lan Wangji, trailing behind Lan Xichen as always, said solemnly. Then he stuck his thumb in his mouth, which somewhat ruined the effect.

Wei Wuxian, who’d rushed over to stand next to him as soon as he’d seen him, hugged him tightly. “You’ll come over all the time,” he assured him. “My mom will like your mom, and we’ll all go outside and play all the time. We’ll be really happy!”

Lan Wangji sniffed and buried his face into Wei Wuxian’s shoulder.

“It’s like Wangji said,” Lan Xichen said. His eyes were intense. “She’s not happy here, she’s not free here, and we only see her once a month anyway – less, in the future, once we’re both busy with lessons all the time. If she can be free somewhere else…you will let us come visit, right?”

“As often as you’re allowed,” Nie Mingjue promised, as it was about all he could do. “I’ll talk to my father about it…”

His father would probably have a fit.

Still, this was an injustice. Even if his father disagreed, it was something he had to do. He’d justify it with reference to their sect principles, and take any punishment duty his father chose to impose.

“It doesn’t matter, he’ll agree,” he said firmly. “You’ll definitely be able to visit.”

“Can I raise an objection?” Nie Zonghui said mournfully from where he was hovering by the side of the clearing. “Possibly two – no, three objections.”

Nie Mingjue looked at him and tilted his head to the side in silent question.

“One, your father said not to get into trouble, if you’ll trouble yourself to remember back that far,” he said, raising a finger. “Two, how exactly do you plan to break the array keeping Madame Lan imprisoned? And three, even if you do break it, how do you plan to get her out?”

The first was irrelevant. The other two…

“We’re going to walk out the front gate,” Nie Mingjue said, and opened up the package Lan Xichen had gotten him – as he’d suspected, there had been spare robes for Qinghe Nie disciples left behind from the previous discussion conference, and sure enough the Lan sect had kept hold of them as a courtesy to the owners. “The Lan sect has never affirmatively stated that Madame Lan wasn’t allowed to leave; they just said she was too sickly to do so. Therefore, if we leave with a Nie sect disciple who is clearly capable of walking out, there’s nothing they can do to stop us without admitting that it’s her and that she’s a prisoner – which they won’t do, because then they’d lose face.”

“That barely counts as a plan,” Nie Zonghui said, and for some reason Nie Huaisang nodded in agreement. “But sadly I think it might actually work.”

Nie Huaisang looked betrayed.

“It will work,” Lan Xichen said. “Especially if you insist that she’s one of yours. They won’t be able to call you out without calling you a liar, and they wouldn’t want to do that. Not publicly, not about this.”

“Won’t there be a problem that she’s a girl wearing boy’s clothing?” Wei Wuxian asked, patting Lan Wangji’s head.

“No, that’s not a problem in Qinghe,” Nie Huaisang told him. “You’re new, so you’re not used to it, but it really isn’t. I mean, she could be misaligned or something, it’s not our business.”

“And we won’t be lying about her being one of ours,” Nie Mingjue said. “Since I’ve offered her sanctuary in our sect, it’s even technically true.”

Nie Zonghui sighed. “And if they ask Lan-gongzi and Lan-er-gongzi if she’s their mother?”

“Wangji won’t say anything,” Lan Xichen said at once. “And I’ll – I’ll lie if I have to.”

He was truly unbearably cute at this age.

Nie Zonghui appeared to be suffering from a similar problem, reaching over and patting him lightly on the head in helpless amusement. “Okay, okay. Let’s hope they don’t ask,” he said. “But – Nie-gongzi, we still have the second problem. How do you intend to get Madame Lan out of the imprisonment array?”

Nie Mingjue patted his cousin – who he knew from his future experience was one of the finest array breakers in their sect, a charming side-effect courtesy of his dual-wielded saber cultivation style – on the shoulder. “I intend to delegate.”

Nie Zonghui blinked, then glared. “I walked myself into that one, didn’t I?”

“You did,” Nie Mingjue said peaceably. “Can you break it? I can use Baxia, if it’ll help.”

“Hmph. Yes, it would help a great deal, but will she agree to consume an array for you? That’s fairly high-grade work, and talent or no talent, you’re still fairly new to mastering the saber.”

Nie Mingjue put his hand on Baxia’s blade, which felt warm and pleased. Practically purring. At some point he would need to investigate why she was so happy all the time – she’d never been this compliant in his first life, and he’d expected her to be more vicious, not less. “Yes, she’ll be happy to help.”

“Fine. Let’s go.” Nie Zonghui paused briefly. “Also, if your father asks, you held Baxia to my throat and made me do it. It was definitely not me being curious about whether or not I could break such a complicated array.”

“Of course it wasn’t,” Nie Mingjue said understandingly, and drew Baxia. “All right. Let’s go get ourselves banned from the Cloud Recesses.”

#mdzs #nie mingjue #nie huaisang #lan xichen #wei wuxian #lan wangji #nie zonghui #madame lan #my fic #my fics #time travel nie bros

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nicknellie · 3 years

Text

Anonymous requested: Alex meets Willie at a coffee shop and they’ve been talking for a few weeks but Alex is afraid to admit anything of liking Willie. But his friends push him to and he finds out that Willie likes him back and they go on a date.

I combined this with a prompt from this amazing list because I thought it was funny. I didn’t include the actual date because I know nothing about skating but if enough people want it then I’d be more than happy to do a part two of this!

I also added Julie, Carrie, and Alex being best friends because we deserve it.

Batman and the Barista

Aside from his co-workers, there was not one single thing about working at Eats ‘n’ Beats that made Alex Mercer’s job there bearable. If the coffee machine wasn’t straight-up not working, it was spurting scalding water at him; the customers were generally speaking entitled and rude; his boss was so laid-back and carefree that it was painful and no problems in the workplace ever got solved; and the hours were ridiculous – for example, some days Alex worked from four a.m. until nine a.m. Who in their right mind wants coffee at four o’clock in the morning?

The only other thing – or rather, the only other person – that might have stood any chance of making Alex’s job worthwhile also made it worse. They would have been perfect if only for the fact that they wouldn’t tell Alex their goddamn name.

He was a regular at Eats ‘n’ Beats and seemed to come into the shop at least once on every one of Alex’s shifts. He was, in Alex’s eyes, utterly perfect – beautiful tawny skin, long dark hair sometimes twined into a bun at the base of his neck, and the most adorable smile Alex could imagine. It was downright unfair how attractive he was, and how funny, kind, and smart he was too.

If only he would tell Alex who he was.

Every single time he came in the shop, the guy ordered the same drink (hot chocolate with cream, marshmallows, sprinkles, the works) and every time Alex would ask for his name. Every single time he had received a different answer.

The first few times he had hardly noticed. The second time the guy came in the coffee shop he had told Alex his name was Horatio – Alex could have sworn his name had been Patrick the week before, but it was possible that he was misremembering, so he hadn’t thought anything of it. But the next time the guy came in his name had been Edmund. After that it had been Marcus, then Jason, then Rudy, Stewart, Bob, Milo. The names had got increasingly weirder; just yesterday Alex had scrawled Megamind on the guy’s to-go cup. Before that it had been Sherlock.

As lovely as the guy was, Alex often found himself complaining to his friends about him and his lack of naming consistency, usually on his too-short breaks.

“He just seems like a really cool guy,” he was saying to his co-workers Carrie and Julie one day as they all sat around a small, cramped table in the staff room. “I’d really like to get to know him but he seems intent on me not knowing him at all!”

Alex could practically hear Carrie rolling her eyes. “We know you’d like to get to know him,” she muttered, “it’s all you ever talk about.”

“That’s not true,” Alex protested. “I talk about other things!”

“Like what?” Carrie asked, raising a perfectly trimmed eyebrow.

“Like the band,” Alex returned.

Julie shook her head. “Only if I bring it up first. And your contribution is usually something along the lines of ‘I wish coffee shop guy would come to one of our gigs, how cool would that be?’”

“That’s not– I– okay.” Alex sighed, then said under his breath, “Although it would be kinda cool if he did come to one of our shows.”

Carrie sighed dramatically. “You are so far gone it’s painful to listen to.”

“Just ask him out,” Julie said, smiling fondly. “I see the way he grins at you when he gives you a ridiculous fake name – his smile is so wide it practically falls off his face!”

“I don’t want to ask him out,” Alex lied. It wasn’t as if a lie like that could work on Julie and Carrie anyway; they both rolled their eyes and crossed their arms, eerily in sync with each other. “I don’t! I just want to get to know him.”

“Isn’t that the same thing?” Julie said.

“No. I wanted to get to know you guys without wanting to date you.”

“That’s because you’re gay,” Carrie said matter-of-factly, “and Julie and I are, correct me if I’m wrong, girls.”

“That’s fair,” Alex conceded. “But I don’t want to ask him out.”

Julie patted his hand. “Sure, Alex.”

A few minutes later, their break ended and the three friends made their way back out front to the shop. It was bustling and busy, and the co-worker Alex took over from on the register looked one customer away from breaking down into a mess of tears.

Alex, Julie, and Carrie (each manning their stations either on the cash register, at the coffee machine, or calling orders) started working, getting drinks and snacks for everyone. In the first five minutes, only one person yelled at Alex for accidentally spelling their name wrong on the cup, which passed as a good five minutes in his book.

Alex wouldn’t deny that he was watching the door, waiting for someone specific to come in. So maybe he was a little distracted, and maybe he did mess up a few orders or names, and maybe he could feel Julie and Carrie fondly glaring at him for being a little bit elsewhere, but it wasn’t really his fault. It was entirely Cute No-Name’s fault and if asked that was exactly who Alex would blame.

Eventually, with only ten minutes to go until closing time when the customers had dwindled down to just one or two every few minutes, the door swung open and the guy finally came in. There was something a little different today, and Alex’s throat went dry when he saw it – Cute No-Name had a skateboard tucked under his arm and removed his helmet as he entered the shop.

There was no queue at this hour, so he sauntered right up to Alex, a wide smile on his face.

“Hey, hotdog,” the guy said. It was a name he’d started using for Alex after seeing that one of the many things he had embroidered on his work apron was a hotdog (right between the rainbow flag and the drumsticks). Alex didn’t like the nickname, but No-Name couldn’t be stopped.

“Hey,” Alex replied, clearing his throat. “Hey, how are you?”

“I’m good,” No-Name replied. “You?”

“Yeah, yeah, great,” Alex said. He was aiming for a casual tone, but judging by Carrie and Julie’s poorly masked snickers he was not doing a very good job. “You want the usual?”

“Yeah, thanks, man,” the guy said. “To-go, please.”

Alex nodded, punching the price into the cash register and giving the guy his total. After he had been paid, Alex picked up a to-go cup and a permanent marker, turning to No-Name again. “So, what’s your name today?”

No-Name considered for a moment, then grinned. Maybe Julie was right, Alex thought – nobody could find this whole thing so funny that they’d smile that wide.

“I’m Batman,” the guy said. The worst part was that he did the voice too.

Alex groaned and shook his head, fighting a smile as he scrawled ‘Batman’ on the cup. “Of course you are. Carrie,” he called over his shoulder, holding the cup out. “This guy’s usual, please.”

Carrie didn’t take the cup. Instead, giggling along with Julie, she said, “Sorry, but who is ‘this guy’?”

“Carrie,” Alex said warningly.

“Who is he, Alex?” Julie asked, face bright with laughter.

“Not you too,” Alex said. Carrie, Julie, and No-Name were all properly laughing now. “I seriously can’t be the only one who doesn’t find this funny.”

“What’s his name, Alex?” Carrie asked between laughs.

Alex scowled at her. “Batman.”

Finally, Carrie took the cup and started making ‘Batman’s’ drink. Alex, shaking his head exasperatedly, turned back to face No-Name.

“Can I ask what your actual name is?” he said while Julie and Carrie were distracted by throwing marshmallows at each other, clearly not listening. “Genuinely. Because you always give a fake or different name and I… I mean, I just want to know who you really are.”

No-Name’s beam faded to a smaller, more delicate, warmer smile. “Sure, hotdog. It’s Willie.”

It was really that easy? All he’d had to do this whole time was ask?

“Really? No joking around this time?” The guy nodded. Alex thought for a moment and then said, “Willie what?”

Willie shrugged and leaned on the counter. He wasn’t that close, but Alex felt as if they were practically nose-to-nose. He wouldn’t have admitted how much that made his heart race.

“It depends,” Willie said. “What’s yours?”

Alex furrowed his brow, confused, but still said, “It’s Mercer.”

The mischievous grin was back. Willie straightened up and said, “Well, in that case, hopefully one day it’ll be Willie Mercer.”

Alex felt his jaw drop, heard Julie gasp, and heard Carrie not-so-quietly utter a swear.

Willie was the only one who seemed unaffected. He beamed over at Carrie, saying, “Is my drink nearly ready? I’ve got a skatepark to get to.”

With shaking hands, Carrie passed Willie his drink, and after they’d all said their goodbyes she slapped Alex’s arm. Repeatedly. Hard.

“He likes you,” she hissed. She almost sounded angry, but Alex knew that she was simply passionate about something potentially going right in his love life for once. “He totally likes you!”

“You think so?” Alex asked sceptically. “Because he could have just been joking–”

Julie scoffed. “That guy’s idea of a joke is giving a fake name at a coffee shop, not the implication of marriage.”

Alex couldn’t help it. He let himself smile and felt himself blush.

“So,” Julie continued, “will you ask him out now?”

Alex looked at the floor, still smiling sheepishly. “I’ll think about it,” he mumbled through his smile.

In the end, it didn’t really take much thinking about. Willie came in again the next day, even though it was one of Alex’s four-til-nine shifts. At six a.m. on the dot, Willie pushed the door open, the only customer in the shop.

“Hey, hotdog,” he greeted as usual, coming over and leaning against the counter.

“Hey, Willie,” Alex returned, smiling. He couldn’t believe he had a real name to use for this guy now; it made his heart beat in a way that was far too over the top for the situation. Without asking what Willie wanted or for a name to put on his cup, he set about making the drink. “You went skating yesterday, right? How was it?”

Willie grinned, fiddling with a ribbon on a charity collection tub. “It was fun. I mastered a trick I’ve been trying to learn for months. Have you ever skated?”

“Yep,” Alex said, voice dripping with sarcasm. “Loads of times.”

Willie laughed. Alex adored the sound, and the way Willie’s eyes crinkled with his smile as he giggled. He felt his heart beat even faster. “So that’s a no. Maybe I could teach you sometime.”

“I’m not sure you really want to do that,” Alex said, handing over the drink, the name ‘Willie’ written on the side of the cup. “I don’t think I’m exactly badass skater material.”

“Still,” Willie said with a shrug. “It’d be fun. And we could make it a date. If you want.”

Yet again, Alex felt his jaw drop. “Wait, really? You want to… okay. You want to go on a date with me?”

Willie said nothing, just smiled brightly.

“I… I mean, yeah,” Alex continued, feeling very flustered, overwhelmed by the butterflies in his stomach. They were happy butterflies though – unnaturally happy. “Yeah, I also want to go on a date. With you. Thank you. People probably don’t say ‘thank you’ when they’re asked on a date, do they? That was probably weird, I’m sorry–”

Willie laughed and Alex stopped talking. He wouldn’t have been surprised if the whole world stopped, if the Earth ceased its spinning every time Willie made that sound.

“It’s a date,” Willie said, grinning. “Are you free today?”

Alex choked to find his voice and said, “Yeah, I finish at nine.”

“Cool, bro, I’ll be here to pick you up then. Sound good?”

“Sounds great,” he returned. Once again, he wasn’t quite sure he hit his target of ‘coolly disinterested’ and instead landed at ‘so disinterested that it was obvious that he was interested’. “I’ll see you then.”

“Catch you later, hotdog,” Willie said, saluting as he left the coffee shop, the bell on the door ringing behind him.

Alex couldn’t help but do an excited little jump and something that might have passed for a happy dance, but there was nobody there to see him so it didn’t matter. He couldn’t wait to tell Julie and Carrie about this.

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plus-size-reader · 4 years

Text

Vulnerable Pt.2

Henry Bowers x Plus size!reader

Word Count: 1780 words

Warnings: none

Summary: Henry doing his best to make a mends after he treated the reader so badly

Part 1

——————————————————————————————————

You hadn't seen Henry since that night in the Trans Am.

He had made it very clear how he felt about you and that was fine. If he didn't want to spend time with you, you weren't going to waste your time worrying about what he had going on. That was just about all you cared to think about, and then you moved on.

You weren't desperate, or in love, you just wanted to get closer to a man that you didn't know very well to begin with, but that wasn't what he had in mind. You weren't going to waste your energy, or emotions, on someone who didn't even care enough to be honest with you.

Besides, if he thought you were such a lard ass, there was no loss for him.

That being said, it shocked him when he got to school and saw you across the hall, only to turn away from him entirely. There was no real upset on your face or even much thought at all when your eyes met his, or when you turned away.

However, even though you seemed to not care at all, Henry certainly did.

The way you'd reacted wasn't alright by him. After the way he'd treated you the other night, you should have had something to say to him. You should have made a scene or yelled at him, you should have done something.

It didn't matter how you reacted, but you should have done something. He had been so nasty to you, shutting you down in the middle of a pretty solid make-out but now it was like you didn't even care.

What kind of chick wouldn't have something to say after that? Not any that he'd ever known.

Still, Henry wasn't some girl who was going to stress over why you weren't doting on his every word. He didn't care, or so he told himself over and over again. It didn't make any sense, mostly because Henry had never felt that way, but he didn't want to think about it.

He didn't want to even give the idea any weight, and he certainly didn't want to give the guys any cue that something was wrong with him. The last thing he needed was those idiots making a scene over this whole thing.

They would just call him a bitch over it.

However, after a half hour or so of Henry trying to make sense of it all, his left leg shaking aggressively against his desk. He couldn't focus for shit, and every time he managed to try, his thoughts somehow drifted back to your face that night.

You looked so shocked when you realized what he'd meant the first time he told you to get out. There was only a split second where you actually looked upset, surprised that he would actually treat you like that, but you quickly replaced it with anger.

It was the same thing he often did.

Though, coming from you, it made much more sense. You didn't know anyone in this town, but you'd somehow ended up in the backseat of Belch's car with him. It was a hell of a welcome to this place, and he sort of felt bad.

You didn't deserve the way he'd yelled at you.

Henry understood that he wasn't the greatest guy, and he knew that you would always be too good for him. Admitting that to other people was the part he had trouble with, and he was never going to do that sort of thing.

...At least, not now.

What he did know was that if he didn't get some kind of explanation from you, he was going to go crazy. He didn't understand what he felt for you, or what he cared at all, but he did. Nothing he tried to do could change that.

Henry didn't want to talk to you.

He didn't want to address what had happened in the back of Belch's car, or what he'd said about you, but he felt like he didn't have a choice. In the same way that you'd forced Henry to feel things that he'd never felt before, you also had this effect on him.

It felt like he wasn't good enough for you, but maybe he didn't need to push you away because of that. Maybe there was some way for him to get better to deserve you.

In any case, Henry knew that explaining himself to you was not going to be easy.

After the way he'd acted, he knew that you were going to really make him swallow his pride over it, and that was going to be hard. Right now though, Henry didn't care about any of that. All he cared about was getting you to look at him again with something in your eyes.

He wanted you to look at him like you had before it all went south, when the two of you were just hanging out, talking like real people.

That was what he was missing.

You didn't really care about the way Henry had acted, mostly because you didn't have many expectations in the first place.

The way your brother talked about him was enough for you to give up all hope of a relationship.

All you really wanted from Henry was a good time but even that was too much, which was fine by you. He wasn't the only person in this town so if he really had a problem, you weren't going to push the issue.

However, just because you'd come to terms with that didn't make you any more ready when Henry approached you after school. For once, he wasn't surrounded by his 'gang' but that didn't bring you any comfort either.

Just because they weren't around right now didn't mean that couldn't change at any second.

"Why didn't you talk to me this morning?" he started, an almost accusatory tone in his voice. It was a unique approach, especially because he was the one who'd yelled at you in the first place. You didn't push him away or make him walk home all alone.

This wasn't your fault.

Though, you didn't bother to explain that to Henry, who you doubted would understand what he'd done wrong. In fact, you weren't even sure why he was bothering to talk to you at all, he had made his opinions very clear.

As far as you were concerned, there was no need to even have this conversation.

"I'm sorry, I didn't realize I needed to" you scoffed finally, when you glanced over your shoulder to find the blonde still standing there, his arms across his chest. He was really entitled, considered the fact that you didn't owe him anything.

You clearly weren't in the mood, but Henry couldn't let this be the way this whole thing ended. He owed you an apology but it was obviously going to be a lot harder than he'd originally thought to get there.

"No, you didn't need to. I just kinda thought you would" he stammered, floundering just a little bit in the kind of way you didn't expect. It was a vulnerability that you hadn't been expecting, but while it softened you a little, you weren't willing to forget how cruel he'd been.

No one deserved to be treated the way Henry so often treated everyone else.

He could be so cruel, and so nasty, and had been that night. Still, you just felt like even knowing that, he seemed to be telling the truth. The look on his face was more than enough to sell it.

You hadn't known Henry for very long but you could tell that he wasn't used to having to swallow his pride like this and really, you were enjoying it a little more than you should have been.

It just made you feel good.

Maybe that was cruel, or petty but you didn’t care. You had never taken Henry for the groveling type, and it was amusing to watch him scramble his way to an apology.

“You made yourself pretty clear before” you allowed, shoving the entirety of your locker contents into your bag. You didn’t have very much there in the first place, but it was enough to pull your focus from Henry again.

Anything was a welcome distraction at this point.

There was a moment of silence behind you as Henry tried to keep up with you walking out of the building, while still trying to come up with what he wanted to say. All the thinking he’d done previously were doing very little to help him now that he was facing you.

“I know, I’m sorry about that” was all he came up with. It was ridiculous, of course, but all things considered, you had to give it to him. Henry didn’t have much experience in the area of apologizing.

It wasn’t something he was all that good at but at least he was trying, from where you were sitting, that was half the battle. So, as much as you were enjoying tormenting him, you felt like it wasn’t going to get any better than this.

“What are you playing at? What do you want?” you asked finally, stopping your stride to face him, paying no mind to the rest of the students about the courtyard. Everyone was heading home after a long school day, but they didn’t even spare the pair of you a glance.

Whatever business it was that Henry Bowers had with the new girl, they didn’t want to be part of it.

Clearly, Henry wanted you to say or do something. That was the only reason why he would still be here, looking at you with that expecting look on his face. Still, he didn’t know what to say.

There weren’t really words for what he was feeling.

He wanted you, and wanted to make it all better but he also didn’t know how to handle the way you made him feel. All he knew was that he didn’t want to see you from across the hallway and not be able to talk to you. He didn’t want to never be able to kiss you again.

Even if he couldn’t just be straight up and say that.

“I want another shot, let me take you out” he suggested finally, confronting everything he was thinking head on. It was sudden, and didn’t make very much sense but he figured if he had to, he should just rip the bandage right off.

...And, even though you knew you would regret it, you agreed. If that made you a glutton for punishment, so be it.

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jiejie-eonni-onee-sama · 4 years

Text

The deepest soul

A Geralt of Rivia X Reader for the dearest @redrosewritingsstuff

Hope you’ll love the story.

In a empty road, two men were horse-riding to a small town.

The strongest one was known as Geralt de Riv, the notorious Witcher, while his companion was the famous bard Jaskier Dandelion, whose spellbinding voice enchanted many royal courts.

"So, if my memory serves me well, we're heading to the port town of Socalyn, because they need your services?" asked Jaskier.

"Right" answered Geralt.

"But do you know specifically why they need you?"

"No, but as long as I'm paid, I don't care."

"All right, but imagine they weren't paying you. What would you do?"

"I'll deal with it."

The bard let out a long sigh.

"Knowing yourself, you are probably going to do a massacre ... But hey, why think the worst? In the meantime, I would like to know why we asked for your services."

"Without a doubt, the problem is huge!"

"I hope we don't run into a dragon or whatever other jinns that's going to get us into trouble!"

Geralt smirked.

"I thought you had an adventurous spirit!"

"Adventurer, sure, but not crazy!" Dandelion replied, annoyed.

After an hour's drive, they arrived at the gates of the city.

The Witcher felt the people's gaze on him as if he was one of the monsters he fought every day. Even if he grew used to this situation, he still hated it.

Dandelion felt his comrade's nervousness rise and gently patted him on the shoulder:

"Everything is fine, don't worry."

"Hope you're right. Now let's try to find a place to sleep."

"Say no more, and hold my beer," answered Dandelion, dismounting from his horse and starting to play his lute.

"I warn you, Jaskier Dandelion, if you dare to sing this ridiculous song ..." growled Geralt.

But the bard, pretending to hear nothing, started to sing his famous ballad, Toss A Coin To Your Witcher.

And as if by magic, the talent of the bard made its effect on the crowd who applauded him wildly and offered him several silver coins.

After thanking his generous audience, Dandelion turned to the witcher, with a broad smile:

"See, Geralt, we won't have to worry about finding us a room for tonight."

"If you say so ..." the latter muttered, rolling his eyes.

However, while he would never admit it out loud, he had to recognize that without Dandelion's help, things would be more complicated.

Suddenly, a richly dressed man came to meet them, escorted by several armed men.

"Oh, we have company." the bard panicked.

"I see this ... Stay behind me." scolded the warrior who brandished his sword as Dandelion rushed to hide behind the witcher's towering mass.

The man approached them and said:

"I am Arkon Gerenyon, Lord Mayor of this city. You must be the famous witcher Geralt of Rivia, and his companion, the illustrious bard Jaskier Dandelion."

"Mmmh ... yes?" the bard replied, worried.

"What do you want ?" Geralt asked aggressively.

The Lord answered them with a broad smile:

"In that case, gentlemen, I welcome you to my humble city. I didn't think you would arrive so soon, but the main thing is that you are there."

"I take it you were the one who wanted my services?" the witcher asked, intrigued.

"Exactly, Sir de Riv. But we'll talk about this in due course. Follow me, please."

The two men looked at each other curiously: what did all this mean?

Curious to know the reason for their coming, they followed Sir Gerenyon to his home ...

Once they arrived at Gerenyon's mansion, they were received with great honor and were entitled to their room. And as the Lord of Socalyn did not do things by halves, he invited them to his table, to the delight of Dandelion, who was very hungry.

During the meal, Gerenyon explained to Geralt the reason for his coming:

"Witcher, if I brought you and your traveling companion over, it's because I thought you could help us."

"In what ?" Dandelion asked, devouring a chicken thigh.

"Well, for some time now, we have been sorely lacking in fish. However, for a port city like ours, no longer having fish in the nets of our fishermen is causing us several problems. Moreover, some of our ships sank without any explanation."

"And what am I doing in this story?"

"I'm coming here. After an investigation by my advisor, we discovered that a mermaid had taken up residence near our shores. We are sure that this creature is responsible for our problems."

"A MERMAID? Incredible!" yelped the bard.

"And... you expect me to get rid of her?" inquired Geralt.

"Absolutely. You'll be generously rewarded if you kill this evil being. You had my word!"

Geralt and Jaskier looked at each other, puzzled: neither of them expected to cross paths with one of the most fascinating yet deadly creatures which ever existed.

But the challenge was exciting, so they accepted it.

A few days later.

Night fells on the town of Socalyn, and all its inhabitants were sleeping. Everyone but Geralt and Dandelion, who were sitting on the seabank while they waited for the mermaid to show up.

For three days, they had set traps to try to capture the creature, but the latter had outsmarted them all.

They realized that they had no choice and that they were going to have to catch it on their own. The bard and the witcher waited for a sign of her presence for three hours, in the dark and the cold, as Dandelion's chattering teeth prove.

"B-but how do you t-to endure such a blizzard?"

"The habit."

"Thank you, I noticed that."

"You should have taken a thicker coat."

The bard didn't answer but admitted that the witcher was right. Trying to distract himself, he took out his lute and began to play a tune.

"Put this away immediately!" growled Geralt.

"But why ?"

"Don't be kidding! If we want to get our hands on this mermaid, we have to be discreet!"

"But I'm bored!"

"Do as I say!"

Letting out a long sigh, Dandelion put down his lute and began to grumble:

"How do you want me to forget I'm cold if you keep me from expressing my creativity?"

"Don't express anything and just focus!"

"Old grumpy indestructible!" hissed the bard, who crossed his arms and waited for more.

The two men were silent for a long time until they heard a whisper in the night.

"What was that? Have you heard it?"

"Yes."

And, to their astonishment, a beautiful voice chanted through the darkness:

Toss a coin to your Witcher!

O' Valley of Plenty

O' Valley of Plenty, oh

Toss a coin to your Witcher!

A friend of humanity.

"Well, sounds like she appreciates my work... unlike you!"

"Quiet! She is not far from us!" snarled Geralt drawing his broad sword from its scabbard.

Panicking, Dandelion tried to pull away from the water's edge, but instead, he slipped and fell backward into the water.

"JASKIER!" yelled the witcher, rushing to help the bard.

Fortunately, the latter rose to the surface, gasping for air.

"Damn, I thought I was going to drown!"

Suddenly, he felt a presence next to him. He turned and was amazed at the beautiful face of a young woman who was looking at him curiously. Her long hair that cascaded over her shoulders, her mesmerizing eyes, her fair skin that glistened in the moonlight, and her ruby lips made her the most beautiful person he had ever met.

For his part, Geralt was relieved to see the bard safe and sound, but he was intrigued by his companion's mysterious savior. There was something enigmatic, seductive, but also innocent in her features. Nothing alarming at first glance, but you shouldn't let your guard down.

Coming to his senses, the bard smiled at the young woman:

"Thank you very much for your help, dear young lady. Without your help, I would probably be at the bottom of the water. Can I ask you your name?"

"(F / N)," the young woman whispered with a soft smile.

"What a beautiful name, for such a lovely savior."

The young woman giggled.

"Thank you."

Geralt rolled his eyes: No matter the situation, Jaskier Dandelion will remain an incorrigible seducer.

"Instead of doing your charm act, come back this way before you catch a cold!"

"Oh, I'm dreaming! The terrible Geralt of Rivia is worried about me?"

"Come back here, before I regret it!"

"I'm coming, I'm coming ..." sighed the bard, who swam towards the shore, accompanied by the young woman.

But as the bard climbed onto dry land, the witcher saw a detail that surprised him: instead of seeing legs, he saw a shimmering fishtail of a thousand colors.

"Dandelion ..."

"What? What's wrong with Geralt?"

"At the risk of surprising you, I think we found our mermaid."

"What do you mean ?"

Dandelion began to understand when he saw the fishtail.

"OH MY GOD!"

To their surprise, they saw immense sadness appear on the young woman's face.

"And there you go, it's always the same: As soon as I help a human, he gets scared and calls me a monster. So it will never end?"

Oddly, the mermaid's words sounded familiar to the witcher. And there was no evidence that she was acting to trick them.

Sheathing his sword, he approached her and asked:

"Why did you save Dandelion?"

"He sounded nice ... and I love listening to his songs."

"Thanks, I appreciate the compliment."

(F / N) smirked before returning his attention to Geralt.

"You are not human. Am I wrong?"

"Indeed."

The mermaid's smile widened.

"So you must be the witcher of the song."

"Unfortunately, yes." he chuckled.

"Oh, shut up! I know that you are flattered to have your own song!" Dandelion retorted.

The bard asked the young woman:

"But then, if you are not the dangerous creature everyone is talking about, why are the inhabitants accused you of all their misfortunes?"

"I don't know why, but I swear to you it wasn't I who ran away from the fish or sunk the fishing boats."

The answer became crystal clear to Geralt.

"They are afraid."

"Sorry?"

"They are afraid of her, so they accuse her of being the root of their problems."

"Something you know all too well," Dandelion told him sympathetically.

"Yes."

The three individuals remained silent before Geralt said:

"Now that we know the truth, what do we do?"

"Aren't you going to hand her over to these bullies?"

"No."

"Phew, at least some good news. In that case ... let's take her with us."

"And how would we do it? Let me point out that she has a fishtail, not legs."

"I think we can fix this problem." replied the young woman, pulling herself up onto dry land.

And under the dumbfounded eyes of the two men, the fish scales gave way to a pair of long, thin legs.

"Oh. Here's a surprise." Dandelion replied, amused.

"I admit that this is not trivial."

"Now, do you want us to take her with us? I beg you, say yes!"

The witcher shrugged.

"We can take him, but how are we going to get the money back?"

Dandelion smirked mischievously.

"I think I have an idea. Here's what we're going to do ..."

The next morning.

Arkon Gerenyon was puzzled at the story Geralt and Dandelion had just told him.

"So, if I understood correctly, after you fought the mermaid, you managed to defeat her, but she sank to the bottom of the water before you could take a trophy, is that it?"

"It is the strict truth, my lord. I saw the whole scene with my own eyes." the bard swore.

The witcher was content to remain silent and observe his traveling companion lying with impunity to an aristocrat. But knowing Dandelion, he knows he will be convincing.

And he was right because, after a few minutes of silent reflection, the Lord of Socalyn declared:

"Indeed, it is a great pity that I cannot hang the head of this creature on my wall. But anyway, I am satisfied with your work, gentlemen. You are free to go, your money is waiting for you near your horses."

After thanking their employer, the two men left the scene and resumed their journey, their pockets filled with gold coins.

"So, didn't I tell you it would work?"

"It especially proves that you are a good talker!"

"Ungrateful! I made you rich!" Dandelion snapped.

In response, he heard a slight laugh coming from Geralt. This reaction made him smile.

"Hallelujah! I made the biggest grumpy of all time laugh!"

"Don't overdo it! Let's not waste time, we have to get back on the road!"

"You're right, but above all ..."

He called.

"(F / N), you can come, we are alone."

Immediately, the young mermaid left her hiding place and climbed on Roach.

"Can we go?"

"Since everyone is here, let's go!"

And our trio set off on new adventures. Time passed, and the more he got to know her, the more Geralt began to like (F / N) ... all under Dandelion's amused and tender gaze.

One evening, when they had stopped near a lake, the young mermaid decided to take a swim because she had missed her natural element. But very quickly, she felt that she was being watched.

She turned and smiled when she saw Geralt sitting on the edge, a slight smile on his face.

"What are you doing here?"

"You look ... happy. And I'm glad you're smiling with us."

"I owe both of you my happiness ... and especially you, Geralt."

She lowered her eyes slightly and asked in a shy voice:

"Do you ... want to join me?"

No answer. Ashamed and disappointed, (F/N) was about to leave when she felt the water stir gently. She raised her head and met the witcher's amber gaze. The latter was only in his pants and moved closer to her, leaving a small distance between their faces.

"I'd rather act than talk. Don't blame me."

"I don't blame you. After all, it's in your nature."

"So what's yours, mermaid?"

"Let me show you."

"I follow you."

And without a word, their lips collided, and their hands were on their bodies.

As they took advantage of this unreal moment, the two lovers had no idea that Dandelion was watching them, a broad smile on his lips.

"That promises a great story ... Oh, I have an idea!"

Grabbing his lute, the bard began to play a few notes and sang his new song:

From the forest to the peak,

His heart, the witcher thought he lost.

He wanted it back at any cost,

As he was scared to be weak.

Little did he know,

His heart lays in the shallow.

But a gentle lady,

Sweet and pretty,

Found it and cherished this treasure.

Moved by her love,

The witcher offered her

His love, his life, and his sword.

O Destiny,

You the Almighty!

Please, protect them,

And tell us all the tale

Of the Witcher and the Mermaid!

And for the bard, it was probably one of the most beautiful stories he ever sang.

Hope you lik the story! Don’t hesitate to request!

#requests #the witcher #geralt de riv #henry cavill #astrid berges frisbey #joey batey #jaskier dandelion

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honey-hippie-harper · 3 years

Text

through the burning shell

Hello it’s been 84 years.

This is fun :): I wrote this as a Christmas present for @obsidianfr3sk (YES DAWNIE KEEP POSTING YOU CHRISTMAS FICS DURING MARCH. YOU GO GIRL) and it’s a sequel to my other fic “through the bleeding shell” where I basically try to save Simon and Hugh from the queerbaiting MM turned them into by adding a certain degree of complexity to their relationship. This is a story about gays, grief and a dead friend + Simon defending Nova bc I don’t roll with Supernova. Hence, I am not morally obligated to obey canon <3

Anyway afgdhjafghsj i don’t think you need to read the first part to understand this, and I hope you like it <3. I don’t want to give much away, but this sort of turned into a collaboration that got out of control and @obsidianfr3sk might write a third part in the future ;)

through the burning shell

“There have been rumors that the public revealing of Agent N is to include a public execution as well.”

Being all together, right there, Simon saw Hugh narrowing his eyes, staring directly at Genissa Clark, formerly Frostbite, now neutralized, along with the rest of her team.

Well.

Almost all of them.

“That’s true.” Hugh started, and Simon couldn’t help but think he shouldn’t have answered. A part of him was getting a pretty bad feeling from this. “For his crimes against humanity, Ace Anarchy has been sentenced to death.”

“Why stop there?” Said Genissa. “I would argue that his accomplices deserve the same fate.”

The same fate.

His brain struggled to make a connection between that sentence and the one Hugh had uttered. At first, he didn’t understand. A couple of fast seconds later, Simon realized that, by saying “fate”, she was referencing something.

She was referencing, more specifically, Ace Anarchy’s sentence.

A death sentence.

Accomplices.

The Anarchists.

“Nightmare deserves the same fate.” Nova deserves the same fate. “Nightmare must die… And I want to be the one to do it.”

Nova must die.

And I want to be the one to do it.

A child killing another child, publicly, with the Renegades’ permission.

A child they had taken under their wing, Genissa Clark that is, killing another child, who had been in Simon’s house, who had touched Adrian’s heart, and who had made bad choices but was still a person. The official version of the events said she had stabbed Max, and Danna claimed she was Nightmare, but they hadn’t taken any declarations or anything, so that story might as well just change.

Simon couldn’t help but feel she didn’t deserve to die.

Maybe because she actually didn’t. It didn’t feel fair.

One thing was sentencing Ace Anarchy, the man who had lifted an entire city, leaving a ridiculously huge number of deaths in the process, who had stolen, broken and burned, who had killed a man (the mayor) and his pregnant wife, who had killed his own brother, sister-in-law and possibly his two nieces...and another, pretty different thing was to allow this 19 year old girl kill a 16 year old one, who had some crimes that could put her into jail for like 3 or 5 years, but weren’t horrible enough to give her a death sentence. She was a minor. She wasn’t yet beyond repair…

And if she was to be executed, then she was still a minor. She didn’t deserve to be humiliated like that. She didn’t deserve her life to be taken away with so little dignity.

Not by Genissa Clark.

Not like that.

And, stars, please, not now.

Not right now.

It was unthinkable, it was barbaric, it was animal, it was almost as if…

A quiet chuckle.

A quiet chuckle that, suddenly, interrupted his train of thought and, with all the pain in his heart, he was able to recognize in a blink.

Evander was chuckling.

Genissa Clark, nonchalantly, was blackmailing them. She was trading her silence for the legal permission to kill someone, in front of a crowded arena. And Evander was chuckling.

Genissa Clark wanted to murder Nova, and Evander was chuckling.

“Is that all it will take to quit their complaining?”

What else did he want?

“Works for me.”

Simon almost flinched to the audacity. To the severity of the implication. To the way he was saying it. So smug. So relaxed, so….Evander it almost made Simon mad.

That was so Evander lately.

Because, lately, Evander didn’t understand anything. Not even because he had a pregnant wife waiting for him at home. There was life inside that woman. Life that had come from him.

How couldn’t he understand?

How could somebody be so cold?

“These are lives we’re discussing.” Simon reminded him, shooting a look in his direction.

“Villains’ lives.” Evander responded. “Nightmare doesn’t deserve mercy any more than Ace Anarchy does. She was the one who neutralized them, so it seems fair to me.”

Villains’ lives were still lives.

Nova was a person.

Nova was...Nightmare, but before Nightmare, she was Nova, and Hugh and him had met her personally. Adrian had met her personally.

And, besides, with this logic, then all the Renegades were to be executed.

After all, Agent N was meant to be used by Renegades. They were the ones who were planning to neutralize people when they felt threatened. But when Nightmare did it, then she immediately deserved the death penalty.

Hugh would understand that. Everyone would understand that, just like Simon did.

They had to understand it.

Hugh had to understand it.

-.-

Yet, he didn’t.

Some time ago, Hugh had pledged to understand. Not directly per se, but he had pledged it in the name of his cause.

He promised he would understand.

And then, when he needed to understand the most, he didn’t.

He said he would.

Then he fucking didn’t.

“How can we run a city, much less an entire world, if we’re busy dealing with every trivial bit of bureaucratic nonsense that comes up?” He said.

“This solves two problems at once.” He said.

And he said that to Adrian’s, their son, face. Their son, who was just trying to help, by questioning how morally correct was to do something like that, just like Tamaya, Kasumi and himself had done, being ignored in the process.

“We need that right now. And we need to be united in this decision.”

“And why’s that, exactly?” Adrian asked. “Do we not want the world to know this is actually a dictatorship?”

In that moment, Simon knew Adrian had never spoken to Hugh like that. He had always been a pretty calm kid, who liked to question their decisions sometimes because, as a Renegade himself, of course he would feel uncomfortable or have doubts sometimes. But never had he called Hugh out. Not in that tone. Not with that entire bottle of venom flowing out of his mouth, melting his teeth, and mixing with his boiling blood.

Simon felt unable to tell him to stop, after his own voice had been ignored, and Hugh pretended Evander was the only one who mattered in the team. And it wasn’t that Evander didn’t matter.

It was just that he was wrong.

Besides, harsh as that sounded, Simon still couldn’t believe that those stinky, rotting, putrid, nauseating words had come from Hugh’s mouth. His Hugh. The man he had decided to marry, because he loved him so, so much, for him had been able to see him even when he was invisible. Literally.

Right in front of his eyes, Hugh morphed into a caricaturesque villain. His hands, which Simon had held so many times, were suddenly covered in both dry and fresh blood, red as an apple, but smelling like death.

Death.

The same death that was living like a parasite inside of his eyes, the only place that other people could harm. And the parasite was traveling through his system, all the way to his brain, spinning it around like a mirrorball, and eating from it like he was nothing.

Hugh’s hands were tied, too, and the strings were made of rope, a material he could easily tear apart, but seemed to have forgotten about that.

He was like a puppet, as the press, as society, and as tons and tons of eyes pulled from the ropes.

And nobody knew how to free him, not even himself.

“Do we not want the world to know this is actually a dictatorship?”

Adrian’s voice haunted him for days. The way in which he said that haunted him for days, and after a while, Simon just accepted he wouldn’t be able to get rid of it. It had become another one of the wounds he carried, open and bleeding, through life. The worst part of it all, was that Simon knew Adrian was right. That, at this point, everyone but Hugh, Evander and Genissa Clark were right.

But if he knew where had they gone wrong, and if he knew he didn’t agree with this monstrosity...why did it hurt so much?

How did you speak to a person who didn’t want to listen?

And, most importantly: Where were you supposed to get the courage to do it from?

-.-

Nova had spent seventeen days in Cragmoor Penitentiary when Adrian said he wanted to see her. He had been so mad at her, that it caught Simon off guard.

Not that he wasn’t able to understand it.

Adrian had had a couple of girlfriends and boyfriends throughout his life but, from what Simon could see, Nova was by far the one he had been the most serious about, to the point it almost seemed she was the one who would stay. Simon would’ve wanted to see his partner too, no matter how mad he was at said partner, if he knew they had been sentenced to death.

As fast as they could, knowing they were facing an authority (Adrian had asked them to be with him in the room), the wardens brought her right away, in a matter of minutes.

Through the glass, Simon saw her, on the metal platform, with her arms and legs being held, tightly, by braces, which were equally made of metal. For the look in her eye, Simon could almost hear her desperate begs for her visitor not to be Adrian. Yet, he had been, and he wasn’t alone, which, if anything, only made it worse.

Simon, from his part, was staring at two different glasses at the time. The one that divided them from Nova, and Adrian’s glasses, which revealed the pain he was penetrating Nova’s soul with, and also the rage he was entitled to feel.

But Nova looked small.

She, in fact, looked as small as she actually was.

She was almost a kid. She hadn’t yet started living. Yet, she was locked up here, and would only be taken out to be killed.

Nova’s body was shaking, just like Adrian’s. Her chin was quivering so much it almost seemed like she was cold, and Simon felt a twinge in his stomach. He felt nauseous and dizzy. And so evil and so guilty.

For some reason, he pictured a child, because Nova had been a younger child once, full of joy and innocence.

He pictured a child. Just like that.

Maybe she was wearing pigtails, had a gap between two of her teeth, and bruised legs, because she liked to play outside with her friends. Maybe, before she became Nightmare, she had something else to hold on to. Maybe she, like many people out there, had hoped for the Renegades to come, and when they didn’t do it, something became numb, and cold, and she started freezing to death, just like she would remain freezing, suspended in History, as the interrupted life who was the proof the Renegades had become the one thing they promised they would never be.

And Simon didn’t want to be part of that, yet he was still here.

He was still here, thinking about how fortunate he was that Nova wasn’t staring back at him, but at Adrian instead, as selfish as that might’ve sounded.

Simon felt he had lost the right to look her in the eye, having been the one who promised her, on several occasions, that she could look into theirs.

With each one of his limbs becoming tense, Simon took a deep breath. His mouth tasted like bile, and his whole body was pounding along with this heart. It felt like one of those times when you were almost a hundred percent sure you were having a heart attack, despite knowing that, if that was the case, you would already be on the floor crying for help.

Next thing he felt was the sudden and strong urge to speak.

He would’ve liked to talk to Nova, but through this glass, she couldn’t hear anything.

Besides, Simon knew that this moment wasn’t about him, or Hugh. They were involved in it. They were carrying it in their backs like a cross, but it wasn’t about them. It was about Nova and Adrian. There was glass between the two. They could press their hands together through it, but they couldn’t touch the other’s skin. They couldn’t feel the air the other breathed in the short distance. They couldn’t kiss. It was scary. It was sad. And it wasn’t awfully familiar.

But it wasn’t about Simon or Hugh.

“Do you need some privacy?” Simon asked, perhaps to both of them, knowing one wouldn’t be able to hear him, even if she tried.

In response, Adrian turned his gaze away from Nova, staring at Simon instead, nodding.

“I think that would be nice.”

Before Simon could say anything else, Hugh reached for his son’s shoulder, and once he touched it, he caressed the fabric, and the skin beneath the fabric, briefly.

“We’ll be in the lobby.”

Adrian nodded again and then, after gulping, he said:

“I love you, okay?”

The weird thing was, he didn’t look them in the eye for much. He did, but he turned his gaze away pretty fast, barely leaving time to process his own words. For that reason, nor Hugh or him responded.

They left right after that, leaving Adrian alone inside the room.

With Nova, but alone.

-.-

They dropped Adrian at the hospital once they left Cragmoon. There was barely any sound throughout the whole ride, except when Hugh asked if they wanted something from the store, and when they said goodbye to Adrian.

Obviously, Adrian couldn’t get close to Max. Not if he wanted to avoid being neutralized by him, but sometimes, according to Adrian himself, he liked to stay in the waiting room, and help the staff with whatever they needed, for he liked Max to know he came to visit often, and that he wasn’t alone, even if he couldn’t touch, or be in the same room with him. So they just allowed him to stay in the hospital as much as he needed. After all, it’s not like he was hurting anybody.

After that, everything was silent, all the way home, because, instead of driving towards the Headquarters, Hugh drove towards the mansion, leaving Tamaya in charge, under the excuse they would take a two hour break to have lunch together at home. She wasn’t so happy about it, but agreed anyway, because it’s not like Hugh had given her an option in the first place. He had just notified her. At this point, Hugh’s volume was getting the tiniest bit loud. And Simon wasn’t talking about his voice.

Upon arriving into the house, Hugh threw the keys by the entrance’s table and proceeded to walk all the way towards the living room, to lay on the couch, one arm covering his eyes, without even taking his costume off. He didn’t have a reason to, because they were supposed to be back at the Headquarters in two hours and, besides, the elephant in the room was making it cold. Maybe he felt his armor would protect him from what they were doing, and from what they were still doing.

Sadly, the fabric of Simon’s costume wasn’t as warm. And as he took his mask off and placed it next to keys, he felt nothing but cold wind. He was back again at being Simon, and Simon only, without anything protecting him, in the same room as the husband who rarely ever kissed him anymore.

There was an elephant in the room, and it was killing both of them, though Hugh looked like he was already dead.

Simon tried not to pay attention to him, but when he was crossing to the kitchen, he couldn’t help but ask, in an unintentionally harsh tone:

“Are we going to have lunch or did you just want to make Tamaya more stressed?”

Hugh lowered his arm, staring at him with an arched eyebrow, lifting his neck just a little, to have a clearer view. Simon was starting to feel bad for having snapped at him, but not enough to take it back.

Sometimes you had to do the right thing, and sometimes the right thing was not taking it back.

His husband, from his part, looked rather confused, as if he couldn’t recognize the person in front of him.

“Are you feeling okay?” He asked.

The question caught him off guard.

Was he okay? Simon wasn’t sure, nor did he want to answer. In times like these, Hugh wanted people to answer him what he wanted to hear and, sadly, this time Simon didn’t have any answer he would like.

“Did you take your pills, Si?”

Something inside of his body turned into a tight knot, and Simon turned his gaze towards him, in a violent act. He frowned so deeply he felt his skin itching, and though he knew that, under normal circumstances, he would’ve just interpreted this as a routinary question, this time it wasn’t the case at all. This time it felt like an attack. Like something Hugh had to take back immediately because it was not his place to ask it, that is: a question he always asked anyway.

But not this time.

Because ,this time, he wasn’t okay.

“Don’t pull the anxiety card on me, Hugh.” Saying that left a bitter, disgusting firm on his mouth, right under his tongue, which was dry. He felt like he had just chewed on a pill.

“The anxie--” Hugh narrowed his eyes, shifting into a sitting position. “I’m not pulling that card on you. I’m just asking a question.”

“Then don’t ask that question.” Simon snapped again, heading towards the kitchen to get a class of water. His feet were making too much noise when in contact with the floor, and his mouth was too dry. It was making him crazy.

It was only then that he realized they still had something else pending, and for some reason that was enough to make him stay. Simon spun on his toes, facing him. Hugh was breathing heavily, and his brows were almost touching each other.

“You didn’t answer my question, though.” He told him, in a dry tone. “Did you want to have lunch with me or did you just think taking a break while Tamaya loses her mind would be fun?”

“If Tamaya didn’t want to be in charge, she would’ve told me, and you know that.”

“Tamaya talks back when she is given a chance to.”

An empty feeling of freedom filled Simon’s body, pushing his way into the hollow all his mixed feelings had been carving at the center of his stomach.

And it wasn’t just about Tamaya, really. It wasn’t just about how lately none of her ideas were taken into consideration. Rather, it was about how nor were Kasumi’s, or his own ideas, when they tried to speak up. It was about how things were getting weirder and weirder as time went by, to the point where Simon would see a very pregnant Tamaya in the hallway, apparently fine, but stating she didn’t know if her water was breaking or if she just really needed to use the restroom (the restroom where she didn’t fit in); it was about how everyone knew damn well that Kasumi wasn’t good at public speaking and that, if anything, it just worsened her selective mutism, and yet many important speeches were given to her; it was about how Simon felt like he was talking to a wall, and how that made him feel, suspect, even, that Hugh was back to being trapped in a closet he was already too big for.

It wasn’t just about that, in conclusion.

It was just the tip of a bigger and more messed up problem.

“Well, if you want Tamaya to go bathe in her Greek goddess shower-pool-whatever that thing is, then fine. I’ll call her, I’ll tell her to take the day off, and we go back to the Headquarters.”

“That would be great, actually!” Simon laughed sarcastically. “But you know what would be even better?”

“I don’t, Si. You tell me.”

It was a rhetorical question.

The nerve.

“That we would act like a team. That we would stop lollygagging around and take realistic turns to have our breaks, because each one of us have lives, and we’re not the only ones who have needs.” And that was about Kasumi feeling like she couldn’t do it today but having to anyway; it was about Tamaya crying in the BBQ Sunday, explaining to her husband how she wanted her baby to be with her, as a baby bawled into her arms, trying to reach for his father, because she spent so little time at home her youngest son wouldn’t recognize her sometimes; it was about Evander claiming Sandy didn’t feel like being alone with her baby bump today, but showing up at work anyway.

And yes, they had pledged to do this, but they were supposed to be in it together.

“But how should I know?” Simon hissed. “It’s not like we’re a Council or anything.”

The bile was all over his mouth now, and Simon felt possessed. He didn’t know how to stop it, and the words just kept coming, and coming and coming, as Hugh stared, half-startled, half mad.

Simon felt like he was a loaded gun that was ready to kill everything that moved, for a reason and a cause.

All those repressed feelings. All those things he desperately wanted to say but never could. The anxiety. The desperate, insatiable craving for a touch that never came. For a kiss. For anything. For a sign. A sign of whatever. One single sign, that would just let him know Hugh was still here.

“It’s not like you needed the majority of us to agree to sentence that minor to death.” He let it go, and all the air, along with his soul, left Simon’s body. “It’s not like Evander and you needed such thing, did you?”

Hugh’s confusion frown suddenly shifted.

Then, all Simon saw was the embodiment of anger, with his cheeks becoming flushed, and his knuckles becoming yellow.

“So that’s what this is all about.”

There was one word to describe that tone, and that word was condescension.

To Simon, the gut-wrenching feeling of frustration that caused him was indiscriptable, and he didn’t wish it to anybody. He would’ve preferred Hugh to scream at him, or just refuse to answer at all, because he couldn’t take it.

He had had people talking down to him his entire life. He wasn’t willing to keep tolerating that.

And in the moment he stared into Hugh’s blue eyes, Simon knew there was no turning back. Because sometimes the right thing to do was not taking it back.

Others, it was not holding it back.

“No. In fact, it’s not about that.”

“WHAT IS IT, THEN?!”

“YOU TELL ME!” Simon howled, getting one step closer to him, and all the memories started flowing...more likely, overflowing, including that time when he had talked to Kasumi and Tamaya in the living room, just like as if they were teenagers, instead of grown ass people, about how Hugh was leaving, even though he was still right there.

Right there, looking like a corpse.

A blue, stiff corpse.

“Why don’t you ever kiss me anymore?” Simon asked, and his voice sounded way less threatening than he had intended. “Why?”

“Are you really going to pull that card on me?”

“I am going to pull it because I want to know!” Simon barked, pointing at his own chest, which was getting tighter and tighter with every second. “Why don’t you ever touch me anymore? Why am I always invisible to you, even when I’m not? Why are you so fucking cold all the time? Why won’t you tell me what’s wrong?!”

Hugh wheezed, maybe pretending it didn’t make sense, or maybe pretending he hadn’t understood at all. Still smirking, he ran his fingers through his hair, and stared at Simon, scratching his chin, and clicking his tongue.

“So...Sex.”

Simon’s heart was pounding.

“Yes, sex!” He yelled, shameless. “And kisses, and hugs and my husband! That is what am I asking for!”

“WHAT DO YOU EXPECT ME TO DO?! WE’RE BUSY!”

“WE’RE NOT BUSY NOW!”

“SO YOU WANT TO GET LAID NOW?!”

“I’M NOT GETTING LAID WHILE THINKING ABOUT HOW A CHILD WILL BE EXECUTED BY ANOTHER CHILD BECAUSE I WASN’T ALLOWED TO DO ANYTHING TO STOP IT FROM HAPPENING!”

“SHE TRIED TO KILL ME! SHE TRIED TO KILL MAX!”

“FIRST: AN ATTEMPTED ASSASINATION IS NOT ENOUGH TO GIVE SOMEBODY A DEATH PENALTY, AND, SECOND: THAT’S WHAT GENISSA SAID!”

“ISN’T THAT ENOUGH?!”

“THAT’S NOT ENOUGH!” Simon screamed, covering his ears with hands.

He didn’t know why, specifically, the ears, knowing that, in reality, his eyes were the problem, because every time he closed them, he saw Nova in that chair, like an animal. And he saw Genissa standing in the lobby, playing with them like puppets; he saw Evander’s despicable smirk when he told Genissa to go ahead; he saw Adrian’s furious eyes as he called his own dad a dictator; he saw Hugh.

Mostly, he saw Hugh, and the caricaturesque villain version of him, which Simon despised with every inch of his being.

Then he was back at the beginning. At Nova.

Nova, who had tan skin, pitch black hair and slanted blue eyes. And Nova, who looked familiar when she smiled, because she looked similar to that man who had come to the Headquarters asking for help, whose smile looked similar to the other person who carried their blood.

And Simon couldn’t help but consider it as a real possibility. And if he happened to be right, then they were failing her.

For the second time.

“It’ll never be enough, Hugh.” He declared. “Because she…”

Simon’s internal knots became tighter, to the point they were suffocating him.

“How do we know who this girl is?” he questioned. “How do we know it isn’t her?”

“Her, who? What are you talking about?”

“Her. The one we failed to protect.” Simon felt a tear slipping from his eye, as he became closer and Hugh walked backwards. “Uh? How do we know that? How do we…?”

But something stopped him.

And that something was Hugh’s eyes, turning grey as chromium.

He was breathing fast. Faster with every second, and where maybe he saw anger, Simon saw nothing but deep, stored pain, flowing out of him like sweat, or like the tears that weren’t there.

There was Hugh’s bleeding shell again, protecting him like he was a small child curled up on the floor, in a ball, through a polarized surface where Simon and him couldn’t touch, and where nothing could hurt him, while everything could at the same time.

There it was.

The despicable, horrid, bleeding shell.

Except this time it wasn’t bleeding. No. No.

This time, the dense, bubbling blood was falling off it, reaching Simon’s feet, and the shell was in flames. Tall, untamable flames, that were burning the roof and everything surrounding them.

The shell was burning, while Hugh was inside of it, and nobody could get him out before he was burned to death.

Why didn’t he let anyone help him?

Why did he insist the flames weren’t there?

Why couldn’t Simon hold his hand?

Why was he so far?

“We didn’t fail to protect her. She died.” Hugh declared, and when Simon saw his lips quivering, he realized they weren’t talking about Nova anymore.

“She didn’t fail. She died. “ Simon saw the silver painting Hugh’s fingertips, as tears started rolling down his face. “She died! SHE DIED, WHEN IT SHOULD’VE BEEN ME, SIMON!”

The bleeding shell was burning, and Simon still couldn’t find his way in.

“IT SHOULD’VE BEEN ME! AND SHE DIED! SHE DIDN’T FAIL TO PROTECT ANYONE! SHE DIED! IT SHOULD’VE BEEN ME! SHE DIED, SIMON! SHE DIED!”

Their eyes met for a couple of second, and the connection vanished after a blink.

“IT’S NOT HER FAULT SHE DIED, IT’S MINE!”

Hugh was sobbing, like a small child, and Simon was too.

“...It’s...it’s mine, Simon. Always has been.”

And they were so far, despite being so close, that they were left with holding themselves tight.

Because there was no way to get into the burning shell, for Hugh, strangely as it sounded, had never said those words out loud, because he thought the picture on the wall behind him, the one with the woman wearing a floral pink dress with their son -who was also hers- sitting on her lap, would hear him and that would make her sad.

Yet, Simon knew she wasn’t sad at the moment.

He knew her well enough to know she would’ve been disappointed, instead.

Anybody would be if they had to see their family kill the one thing they had died trying to protect.

“No.” Simon declared, calmly. “But I’m not going to go and try to convince you otherwise because I know it’s not the right time.”

Hugh started shaking.

“Si…”

“And I won’t be a part of this, either.” Simon declared, firm, still staring at the picture through the corner of his eye, yet still fully focused on Hugh. “From now on, all you’ll get from me is silence in regards to the issue. I’m not willing to be a part of it. I don’t agree with this. I will never agree.”

“You don’t understand.”

“And I’m glad I don’t. In fact, I hope I never do.” Simon wiped his tears with his palm, and before continuing, he tried to find his Hugh one more time.

He was still there.

Simon hadn’t yet given up on him, but he didn’t feel like telling him that at the moment.

For some reason.

“If Adrian wants to see me, tell him I’ll be at Kasumi’s.”

“Simon.” Hugh grabbed him by the wrist, and a simple wave from Simon’s hand was enough to get it off. Way too easy, for a person who happened to have super-strength. “Simon, please. Don’t do this again. Please. SIMON!”

But Simon did it again anyway.

Later, he wondered what Adrian had felt when he abducted Max from the hospital and left a note for them.

He also wondered what everyone else had felt when the real Nightmare showed up.

Not that he was mad at them.

He just wondered what they had felt.

#renegades trilogy #dawnie writes #renegays #humon #simon westwood #the dread warder #hugh everhart #captain chromium #nova artino #nightmare #adrian everhart-westwood #sketch

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saltyhuntress · 4 years

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► ɪᴍᴀɢɪɴᴇ ꜰɪɴᴅɪɴɢ ᴏᴜᴛ ᴛʜᴀᴛ ᴅᴇᴀɴ ꜱᴀʙᴏᴛᴀɢᴇᴅ ᴇᴠᴇʀʏ ᴅᴀᴛᴇ ʏᴏᴜ ᴡᴇɴᴛ ᴏɴ ꜰᴏʀ ᴍᴏɴᴛʜꜱ

"Do you have anything to say for yourself?!"

Unusually big wave of anger that hovered over you destroyed any ounce of patience that you had, so you didn't even try to take this argument to another room, making Sam feel incredibly uncomfortable. Although by the look on his face he was more amused by the gut it took you to finally call Dean out. Seemed like trying to make the older Winchester take you seriously woke up that little, shy girl again. But not this time.

"I don't know what you're talking about." Dean lied and shrugged, reaching over for his beer and going back to research, trying to play it "cool" which he sucked at in this particular moment.

"You know damn well what I'm talking about!" You gave him a stern look, scowling in anger, but also feeling profound confusion. This one time you couldn't get what he was trying to accomplish and it annoyed the crap out of you. "So for the past few months, every single time that I thought I was some freak that every guy was going to dump eventually... It was all you?! Do you realize how fucking messed up this is?!"

"Hey! I was helping! Well, trying..." He finally locked his eyes in you, trying to play offended but so clearly looked guilty. Playing dumb would be a better move, he thought. But it was too late.

"Helping me how, exactly?"

"By saving you from dating dicks!"

"Oh, so you're the expert now, huh? So who does the great Dean Winchester think I should date? Sure as hell not a single man outside this bunker, I presume?"

"Do I look like a friggin' matchmaker to you?" He stood up, towering above you, but somehow feeling small under the look that you gave him. He stepped over the line, he realized that. As much as he wanted to believe that it was for your own good, it was a dick move. But the thought of you being out there with someone who he knew for sure didn't deserve you... He just couldn't let it happen. On top of that, admitting that he didn't want to see you with anyone other than him seemed silly and stupid. It wasn't good enough reason to invade your personal life. Dean always felt (and it hurt him to do it) that you only saw him as a big brother, a close friend, nothing more. So protecting you in any way possible was his priority.

"One of these days we're gonna find you all tied up in an abandoned building after your "date" and that's when I'll hear the "thank you" that you owe me." He didn't sound angry. It was merely a reflex, fighting back the mixed feelings you always woke in him by your very presence. He gave you a long look, making your cheeks feel hot, blushing, and then left the room hurriedly. You watched him go silently, feeling a little guilty for all the yelling. but also knowing that he deserved it. You heaved a heavy sigh as you fell down into his chair, still drilling the space in the hall that he was in seconds ago. Idiot, you thought, but didn't know who this was addressed to.

You moved your attention to Sam, who was looking at you with what looked like pity. It made the anger spark again. "Did you know anything about this?" You were already worked up, but Sam knew how to handle you. You saw a little smirk on his face, when he shot both hands up in surrender.

"I had no idea, Y/N. Really."

And you believed him. He was entitled. He knew you way too well, that sometimes it scared you, but also brought great comfort. Sometimes it seemed that Sam understood you better than you.

You looked sadly back at the hall. "I don't get it." You exhaled heavily.

"What?"

"Turns out it was him." You looked at Sam drearily. "He sabotaged any chance for me to have a relationship with anyone. You'd think that maybe he's jealous, maybe he's preparing to do something, but then he does this. It's been so long..." You went silent for a moment, and Sam felt that you felt not only wronged. Hurt. He leaned in in his chair, trying to follow your trail of thought, his wrinkles of worry appearing on his forehead. "Am I just flattering myself by thinking there's even a chance, that he's... that he even considers me?"

Sam gave you a sad smile, moving his gaze to the hall, that you were piercing with your eyes. He was staring blindly, suppressing the want to just spill it all and finally stop watching the two people that he loved most chasing their tails. Of course he knew you liked Dean, he'd known for a long time, even before you decided to tell him yourself. He was the one seeing your eyes locked on him when he wasn't watching. Sam actually thought that, and even you didn't realize that yet, you were actually in love.

He was also the one trying to convince Dean to make a move already, when you finally decided to move on and try dating. He also kept his promise to you to keep everything a secret. It was becoming exhausting for him, since both of you were so unbelievably blind and stubborn to see that the solution to your love problems was pretty simple.

But he gave you and Dean his word. So no matter how annoying it was, he intended on keeping it.

"Would knowing the answer make you feel differently about him?" He asked, watching you thinking it over for a minute.

"No." You whispered. It didn't take you too long. Nothing could possibly change the way you felt about him. "I would just be happier to know, if I should even hope."

"I know." He muttered, with a sad smile, trying to imagine what it would be like if the both of you just cut the crap and were together. But seeing all this tonight, he braced himself for a longer journey. "By the way, how did you find out? About the sabotaging."

You scoffed and looked down at your hands. "Umm... The last date called me up, while I was at the gas'n'sip. Said that-- that he had fallen in love with me and didn't care about, quote, 'his kneecaps being torn out of his legs and shoved up his...'." Sam let out a laugh. "Sounded like someone I know."

You couldn't help but smile at the ridiculousness of the situation. Sam seemed even more amused know, his eyes lighting up.

"So?" He asked, intrigued.

"What?"

"What'd you say?"

"I--I'm ghosting him."

Sam scoffed , his face brightening with evergrowing smile. "Why? He sounds nice." He teased you.

"'Cause I'm more into sabotaging my life outside of their general vicinity kind of guys. Also flannels are a must." You finally let out a laugh, feeling all the anger flowing out of your body, Sam watching you with warmth growing inside.

#supernatural fanfiction #supernatural fic #supernatural x reader #dean winchester x reader #supernatural one shot #dean x reader #supernatural x you #supernatural imagine

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bloodraven55 · 5 years

Text

“But Bumbleby was rushed/forced to pander to the gays—”

There are a number of glaring flaws in this argument, most of all the fact that no straight relationship is ever called “forced” or “pandering” even if people don’t like it, let alone “rushed” when it’s only on the verge of officially happening seven seasons into the show, but I want to break down all of the many levels on which it’s wrong in order to hopefully kill it once and for all.

“It came out of nowhere—”

Jaune was crushing on Weiss the second he saw her, Sun was crushing on Blake the moment he saw her, Pyrrha developed feelings for Jaune in just one Volume and showed some interest from the moment she saw him, and Blake goes from being consistently annoyed at Sun throughout Volumes 1 and 2 to suddenly having a crush on him in Volume 3.

If Bumbleby supposedly “came out of nowhere,” then so did W/hite Knight, A/rkos, and B/lacksun. But no one ever has an issue with the speed at which those characters started having romantic interest in each other. And I’m not even saying they should—they’re all very valid ships and whether they came out of nowhere or not isn’t the point of this—but there’s a clear double standard applied to same sex ships as opposed to heterosexual ships here and it invalidates this point right out of the gate.

“It was rushed—”

Blake and Yang are only just now close to becoming an official couple after more than six whole Volumes of knowing each other. There is no possible universe where this would qualify as “rushed.” Again, W/hite Knight and B/lacksun albeit both one-sided at least to begin with both became obvious things within literal episodes of the characters meeting, and Jaune and Pyrrha were showing blatant romantic interest in each other by Volume 2 before kissing in Volume 3.

In the last case you can argue that it went at a faster pace because Pyrrha was going to die, but that doesn't change the fact that no one complained that it went too quickly—or about the other two ships I mentioned which were both initially based solely on one (1) instance of a guy showing interest in a girl—and yet people say it’s too soon for Blake and Yang to get together when they’ve had over twice as long for their relationship to develop.

“The shippers forced it into the show—”

I don’t think I even need to add any more here when the words of CRWBY speak for themselves.

“Toxic shippers think everything is gay—”

I mean, I’m gay and I only truly ship a handful of the possible same sex pairings in the show—certainly far from the majority of them—and I also ship a number of straight ships, but go off I guess.

I already made a post on this here, but it’s insanely dismissive and ridiculous for heterosexual people i.e. the ones who usually use this “argument” to assume that they know better than actual LGBT+ people what is or isn’t good LGBT+ representation, and for them to assume that just because they missed build up that it therefore isn’t there.

I can’t take someone seriously when they go into a discussion determined to believe that they’re already right and don’t listen to a word you say to prove otherwise, especially when they’re debating on a topic which doesn’t directly affect them and which they don’t have the same level of firsthand knowledge of.

“The wasps only care about Blake and Yang getting in each other’s pants—”

Actually, it’s the people who are most aggressively against Blake and Yang being a couple that tend to reduce their relationship to being entirely about sex even though they haven’t had a single remotely sexual interaction in the show, but if this were true then surely Bumbleby shippers would be very unhappy with the show because Blake and Yang have still not “got in each other’s pants,” or “swapped clit juice” as I once saw someone tastefully describe it?

But that isn’t right. Because in general us Bee shippers are currently exceedingly happy with everything that’s happening in the show to do with Blake and Yang’s relationship. So how can that be if all we care about is whether they fuck or not?

The answer is of course that we don’t only care about whether they fuck or not—in fact most of us couldn’t care less whether it’s ever so much as hinted that they have sex, both because the show almost certainly won’t ever go there and because that isn’t our priority—we’re just enjoying watching them fall in love.

Honestly this argument is one of the most lazy because one look at RWBY will tell you that none of the romances are at all sexual thus far so any shippers who truly only care about that aspect wouldn’t stick around very long when they’ll just end up disappointed. And of course the way that these people inherently view same sex relationships as sexual is homophobic and disgusting too.

“CRWBY rushed it to give the rabid shippers what they want—”

Like the last two points, this is a “criticism” that I’ve only ever seen levelled at same sex ships and never straight ships, so it’s yet another example of double standards and hypocrisy, but that’s only the start of what’s wrong with it.

The most galling thing about this is that these people insist that all LGBT+ people because as I’ve already mentioned that is always the group which statements like this are aimed at just want to see two characters of the same gender make out as soon as possible, which is simply not true.

No one would ever claim that straight people just want to see a man and a woman get it on as soon as possible and dismiss the worth of a straight relationship because of it. So it’s ridiculous to try and force that logic onto shippers of same sex ships, who are primarily LGBT+ people themselves.

If anything, we care even more about the quality of our ships—how healthy they are, whether they’re well built up or not, etc.—because we hardly have any to begin with in comparison. If one straight ship is rushed or poorly written, then there are plenty of well-handled ones to choose from instead, but the same isn’t the case for same sex ships.

We want to be represented well, which means that we want healthy relationships with plenty of development where the characters actually have chemistry and complement each other. We might still support rushed or badly-written same sex ships sometimes because it’s still representation which we are overall sorely lacking, but we don’t want them.

“But they ship baited with Blake and Sun—”

First off, straight ships can’t be baited the same way that same sex ships can. It’s simply not a comparable situation. But of course B/lacksun shippers are entitled to feel disappointed that their ship didn’t become canon. That’s utterly valid and understandable. However, that doesn’t mean that the writers or the show in any way misled viewers regarding what was happening.

“But Sun winked at Blake—”

And Yang also winked at Blake in Volume 2 while asking her to the dance, just like Sun winked at Blake in Volume 1 and then asked Blake to the dance. And Blake turned Sun down when he asked initially, specifically told him that they were only “technically” going together when she ran into him outside, and told him definitively that she had chosen to give her first dance to Yang.

“But Blake blushed at Sun—”

And now she’s also blushed at Yang, in a far more intimate scene at that. Next point.

“But Sun met Blake’s parents—”

And? Simply meeting someone’s parents doesn’t on any level automatically imply romance. Ghira didn’t even like Sun, and while a lot of people like to claim that Kali “ships it” which would be extremely flimsy evidence to base the canonicity of a ship on anyway, she’s someone who would do the same with anyone Blake brought home so it means nothing. If Blake had actually chosen to take Sun home with her herself then this would be a valid point, but she didn’t, so it has no weight whatsoever overall.

“But Blake kissed Sun on the cheek—”

And I kiss my mother on the cheek the exact same way every time I say goodbye to her. If you think that type of kiss on the cheek has to be romantic then quite frankly I’m not sure what world you’re living in. If the camera had been close up, if there had been any shots at all of their reactions, any blushing or lingering looks, a more private setting— literally anything to give it some actual weight and make it feel significant, then this might mean something, but it’s framed as a totally platonic goodbye with zero romantic coding.

And that’s without even mentioning the fact that right after that moment Sun flat out states that his time with Blake was “never about [romance],” which sort of kills the idea that anything about that scene was supposed to be taken as romantic. There was no reason to include that line except to make it clear to the audience that Sun and Blake parted ways as friends who now have no intention of ever becoming anything more.

Seriously, if they wanted us to think that there was still something there, then Blake would have been shown to be thinking about or missing Sun even one since they separated, but he hasn’t been brought up for even a second. If they wanted to set up a continuation of anything romantic for them when the group reach Vacuo, say, then they would have started doing it by now.

Plus the reverse argument that Blake and Sun have never hugged or held hands—both of which Blake and Yang have done multiple times—works just as well, perhaps even better since handholding is a well-established romantic cue in the show already thanks to A/rkos, R/enora, and O/zma and Salem.

“But why was Sun even there in Volumes 4 and 5 then—”

Because Blake needed a friend who she could exposition to about her thought processes and personal problems so that the audience could understand what she was going through, and she wasn’t as likely to open up to her parents about that stuff right away when she was convinced they’d hate her for leaving.

Sun was there to support Blake as she developed and to tell her that running away hurt the very people she was trying to protect. That was his narrative role in that arc. There was nothing to indicate that a romance was being built in those more than twenty episodes they spent together and if it was going to happen that would have been the time to do it.

On the other hand Blake and Yang’s shared arc together is built on the fact that Blake’s romantic ex, who Blake had already directly contrasted with Yang and whose Semblance was already a foil to Yang’s, maimed Yang specifically because Blake loves her. The basis of that arc has romantic weight, which is what makes the difference here. Though the scene at the end of Volume 3 where Adam takes Yang’s arm isn’t romantic in and of itself, I should clarify, it just has romantic significance in that it makes it clear that Blake and Yang’s feelings go beyond mere friendship.

In short, the summary of this whole section pretty much boils down to: two characters spending time together doesn't inherently equal romantic development, and it isn’t in any way “baiting” if those two characters don’t then get together.

The characters’ feelings follow a fairly logical progression over the course of the show, with Blake showing interest in both Sun and Yang in V1-V3, then ceasing to show interest in Sun after that as their relationship becomes totally platonic by Volume 5/the beginning of Volume 6 at the very latest, while the events of the Fall of Beacon only solidified how strong her feelings for Yang were and once she reunites with Yang their relationship begins to head towards romance.

It’s a pretty realistic depiction of how human feelings work, and a far less messy situation than in a lot of other shows where there isn’t the same massive level of hatred and vitriol towards the “victorious” pairing, because this was never even really presented as a love triangle or rivalry.

To conclude, I just want to list some of the contradictions that I’ve seen within the arguments made against Bumbleby, because I think it’s very telling that the people who are against it can’t even settle on one coherent narrative on why it’s bad.

“Bumbleby has no development, but also the show focusses too much on Bumbleby.”

“Monty wouldn’t have wanted Bumbleby—it goes against his vision—even though I didn’t know him and have no idea what his vision actually was, and he explicitly stated that he wanted LGBT+ characters in the show who might already be in the main cast and that he wanted Blake and Yang to have a shared arc together, as well as being responsible for the set up of that arc with Blake and Yang being introduced as Beauty and the Beast while Adam canonically represents Gaston.”

“The Bumbleby shippers have so much influence that they forced the writers to make the ship canon, but they’re also just a vocal minority who don’t matter.”

“Blake and Yang hardly interact—they’re barely even friends—but they also interact too much and it’s making Bumbleby take over the show.”

“Arryn is a victim of the toxic wasps who harrassed her and sent her death threats for saying that the song Bmblb doesn't automatically make the ship canon, which there is zero evidence of, but Arryn is also an unprofessional cunt for expressing her support of Bumbleby.”

“None of Blake and Yang’s scenes together are romantic so Bumbleby is forced, but even when they have undeniably romantic interactions I’ll ignore them or deny that they mean anything so I can still pretend it has no build up.”

“Bumbleby is bad because Team RWBY are a sisterhood, but all of the other straight relationships within teams—even those who’ve flat out called each other ”family”—are fine, and I’ll just pretend that there aren’t other definitions of the word sisterhood which have nothing to do with actual sisters and are the ones that actually apply in this case.”

“Blake and Yang’s relationship could be seen as romantic or platonic, but I personally think they’re just friends so Bumbleby is bad and came out of nowhere.”

I’ve seen all of these countless times with my own two eyes and it’s absolutely hilarious to be honest. Anyway that’s it. I have yet to see a single logical argument as to why Bumbleby is bad that isn’t made in bad faith, fallacious, or just doesn’t hold up when you actually look at the show. It’s about to be canon, and at this point to be honest anyone who doesn't like that can simply accept it or go and watch something else that will pander to their specific tastes instead.

#rwby #rwde #bumbleby #blake belladonna #yang xiao long #raven is salty about stuff

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donteattheappleshook · 4 years

Text

Some Cupid Kills With Arrows

***

A Captain Swan AU loosely based on Shakespeare's Much Ado About Nothing for the @captainswanmoviemarathon

Rated M

Read on Ao3 because tumblr eats my italics

Summary:

Emma and Killian hate each other. They have since the night they met. Or at least since the morning after. So Emma is dreading having to deal with them being Maid of Honour and Best Man at her brother's wedding. But, as their friends grow more and more annoyed at their constant bickering and a masquerade Stag and Doe turns everything on it's head, the entire bridal party come to a startling realisation: Emma and Killian might just be perfect for each other. With a little scheming and some well-timed chaos, maybe they can stop yelling at each other long enough to realise it too.

An enormous, huge, giant thank you to @ultraluckycatnd for her fantastic beta work and for helping me with this fic right up to the last second despite all my procrastinating. You are lovely and the best <3

Part One

Her head. Oh, god, her head. Why did her head hurt so much? Emma groaned, a pathetic whimper coming out as she tried to roll over on the couch. Her stomach gave an uneasy roll of its own at the movement, protesting against the liquor that was still swirling around inside.

Right. Liquor. Drinking. Drinking last night. Drinking with David. David. She was going to have to kill David. David, who insisted she show up early to this weekend extravaganza disguised as a wedding. The one who claimed that since he’d lost his best man when Mary Margaret stole his little sister to be her maid of honour that he was entitled to a brother-sister pre-bachelor party. It’s only fair, he’d insisted, flashing her those big puppy dog eyes and Emma had caved. She always caved when it came to her brother - or his fiance for that matter. She was weak when it came to those two. And now she had to murder one of them. Murder her only brother two days before his wedding for forcing what must have been an entire bottle of expensive scotch down her throat while they played poker and smoked cigars (and later sang along to the entire Mama Mia soundtrack - not that she’d ever admit that). Pity. She really liked David.

“Emma, Emma, bo-bemma, Banana-fana fo-femma, Fee-fi-mo-memma. Emma!” The loud singing announced her brother practically bouncing into the room and throwing himself on the couch near her feet. Emma groaned again and threw a pillow over her ears to try and block out the off-key hollering from the asshole next to her. She was liking him less and less with every passing second.

David laughed and ripped the pillow out of her grasp. “Rise and shine sister-mine!” he chanted. She was actually going to murder him. She reached out, a pathetic attempt to strike him but her hand just fell limply at her side.

“They will never find your body,” she told him. He laughed again and Emma cursed David and his super liver. She’d been his sister since she was ten; since Ruth found her on the street, burning a book of fairy tales to keep warm, and had taken her home for the night. That night had turned into forever and now, after eighteen years of living with the man, she’d never once seen him suffer a hangover.

“How are you so chipper?” she asked. Her voice sounded like she’d gargled sandpaper. David smiled, hauling her up by the shoulders until she was sitting like an almost-human.

He threw his arms out. “It’s a beautiful day?” he offered. “I’m one morning closer to marrying the woman of my dreams? Everyone who I love and who loves me is on their way to celebrate the happiest moment of my life?” Emma frowned at him. How dare he be so happy so early. David laughed at her misery again but patted her shoulder sympathetically before rising up and walking across the hall to the kitchen. Then, as if out of nowhere, a giant cup of coffee, a bottle of water, and two extra-strength Tylenol capsules appeared on the table in front of her. She wondered if she’d fallen asleep for a minute there.

Emma reached for the coffee like it was a lifeline - which it really was if she was being honest. She drank deeply and felt the effects almost immediately. She downed the pills and water next. She couldn’t quite manage a smile since this was still technically his fault, but she offered David a thankful look for taking care of her. Okay, maybe she wouldn’t have to murder him. Just some light maiming.

“You might want to jump in the shower,” he told her as she shuffled into the kitchen, he himself already looking and smelling fresh as a daisy. “You look a little rough,” he said with a grimace. Emma scowled at him and threw a nearby banana at his head which he easily dodged. She caught a glimpse of her reflection though, in the metallic gleam of the toaster and, well, he wasn’t wrong. “Just thought you’d want to freshen up and wake up before everyone gets here,” he suggested.

That’s right. It was Thursday. Everyone was arriving today. Oh, God. Emma had not played this right. Getting hammered on the night before the festivities even began. Today everyone would be arriving and settling into their respective rooms in the estate (read: mansion) owned by Mary Margaret’s parents - seriously the place was enormous. Mary Margaret had told her once how many bedrooms it had but the number had been so ridiculous and so superfluous that Emma had struck it from her memory. Nobody with an only child needed a house with rooms in the double digits. And this wasn’t even their home. No, they considered this place their ‘summer cottage’ where they would entertain friends on the private lake. It was convenient for a wedding though, she had to say. The whole bridal party was staying there for the entire weekend.

Tonight was the Stag and Doe. Leave it to David and Mary Margaret to find a way to avoid having to be apart even for their bachelor and bachelorette parties. It wasn’t like they’d ever been apart since they were fourteen years old - why start now? It was themed. Of course it was themed. Mary Margaret loved themes and David loved Mary Margaret so he let her have whatever damn theme she wanted, and since her parents had put their foot down against their daughter getting married on Halloween, they were having a costume stag and doe . She groaned. There were so many people coming. She knew. She’d had to organize it.

Tomorrow was the spa day for Mary Margaret and her bridesmaids and she assumed the boys would be treating David to some sort of manly pre-wedding tradition. All the out of town family would be arriving for the rehearsal dinner on Saturday. And then finally, the wedding was on Sunday. This weekend was a marathon, she mused, not a sprint.

Dozens of decorators, caterers, florists, and lots of other jobs Emma had never heard of were already running around the grounds - yes, the place had grounds - setting things up for what would certainly be the most lavish and extravagant (knowing Mary Margaret’s parents) yet classy and intimate (knowing Mary Margaret) wedding the world had ever seen. And all of them were under the direct orders of Regina Mills, David and Mary Margaret’s wedding planner and probably the most terrifying woman Emma had ever met.

Emma needed to boot and rally. She was the maid of honour and the groom’s sister. This weekend was not about her. Her job was to make sure everything ran smoothly. That the two most important people in her life had the most amazing few days of their lives and nothing and no-one was going to stand in her way.

Except maybe her speech, Emma thought as she turned on the shower and stepped under it. The hot water felt good and helped wake her up a little. The speech. The speech that she’d had nearly a year to write and still only had a blank page to show for it. How was she supposed to write a speech about love when she didn’t believe in it herself?

Well, that wasn’t completely true. She believed that some love was possible. But only for certain people. People like David and Mary Margaret who had found ‘The One’ when they were in the eighth grade and had never looked back. But they were the exception, not the rule.

Love had only ever left Emma hurt and alone. Love had only ever left her behind. First her birth parents who abandoned her on the side of the road as an infant. Then the string of foster parents that had cast her aside when they decided she wasn’t what they wanted. Then Ruth who had died far too young and left her and David behind. Then Neal, her high school boyfriend who had been her first everything before he disappeared to another city without so much as a ‘see ya’ text. And now David and Mary Margaret were getting married and starting a family of their own - one she wouldn’t be as much of a part of, no matter how much her brother insisted things wouldn’t change.

No, love wasn’t in the cards for Emma. She told people she didn’t have time for it but really she just didn’t have the heart for it. A heart could only take so many blows before it learned to rebuild itself out of something stronger. The taunting lilt of ‘always a bridesmaid, never a bride’ flitted through her head and she shook it away. She was fine like this. She was happy. She had a job she loved, a nice apartment, and good friends. She didn’t need love.

As she finished drying her hair and putting on enough makeup so that she didn’t look like an extra from The Walking Dead, Emma heard the commotion of people arriving. She could pick out Mary Margaret, Belle, Elsa and Ruby’s voices easily and she rushed out to greet her friends. They squealed when they saw her and her head only protested a little as they wrapped her up in a tangle of limbs that passed for a group hug.

Mary Margaret gave her a sympathetic look. “How was the pre-bachelor party?” she asked and Emma only grunted in response.

“You guys got here okay?” David asked, squeezing in to grab his bride-to-be and give her a kiss that would make you think she’d been away for months and not for a night.

“Save it for the honeymoon would you?” Ruby said in mock disgust and David looked at her with a wolfish smile.

“Don’t be jealous, Ruby! I’ve got one for you too!” David rushed to grab a protesting Ruby and planted a big, sloppy kiss on her cheek.

Emma smiled as she watched her friends laugh and joke and tease each other. She loved having them all here together. Soon the boys would get here too and for one, perfect weekend everything would be just the way it should be. All her friends in one place, celebrating together for the first time since her college graduation.

Well, almost perfect. All of them being here also meant he would be here. He and his snark and his ego and his womanizing ways. She supposed it was a small price to pay for the reunion. And she couldn’t deny that she really enjoyed the look on his face when she put him in his place.

“Oh! It’s Killian,” David said, pulling his phone out of his pocket to check a message. Speak of the devil , she thought. “He says they should be here in five,” David informed them, tucking his phone away.

“Great,” Emma said sarcastically and David shot her a begrudging look. She saw Ruby and Belle roll their eyes as Elsa and Mary Margaret started putting things away.

“Be nice,” David warned her.

“I’m always nice!” she insisted, offended. “ He’s the one who can’t seem to manage to be a decent human being for more than five minutes.”

“Come on, Emma,” Mary Margaret insisted from the kitchen. “You’re just as guilty. I don’t know why you egg him on.” She shook her head and Emma balked.

“I do not! I just think that the man needs reminding every now and then that he’s not God’s gift to women.” It was David who rolled his eyes this time. “Seriously, David, how you can stand to have him be your best man -” she started.

“Nope,” he cut her off. “You don’t get to complain about that. You chose Mary Margaret over me when we both asked you, so I had to find someone else. Besides, Killian is my best friend.” She balked. David rolled his eyes. “My best male friend,” he corrected. “So, again, be nice .” He gave her a stern look.

“But he’s just so… so…”

“So what?” Ruby asked, looking like she was really enjoying this.

Elsa shot her a look. “Don’t encourage her, Ruby.”

Ruby grinned. “Oh come on, it’s fun! It’s like a free show watching those two go at each other.”

“We do not go at each other!” Emma insisted again. “I just find it hard to say nothing like all of you do when he goes around acting so… cocky.”

“Cocky?” Ruby prodded and Belle elbowed her.

“You know what I mean. Every time he comes here, it’s all, oh, I’ve done this and don’t worry, I know how to do that ... Look at me, I’m so handsome and -”

“Handsome?” Mary Margaret interjected with a raised eyebrow.

“Shut it!” she cast her friend a warning glare. “I mean he thinks he’s the hottest thing since the Hemsworths. And it doesn’t help that he always drags along some bimbo whose sole purpose in life seems to be to fluff his ego and his…” she made a vague hand gesture, “you know.”

“Woah, Emma, tell us how you really feel, why don’t you?” Ruby laughed.

“He’s really not actually -” David started but she cut him off.

“Look, it’s nothing against the women okay - I’m sure on some level they’re really nice or whatever, or have some great heart or talent, but honestly, any woman who is willing to be Killian Jones’ date must have the IQ and backbone of a slug.”

“He’s not bringing a date,” David told her before she could go on.

Emma reeled back from the news. Killian Jones without a date? Impossible. The man couldn’t stand to be caught dead without something shiny on his arm.

“What? Has he finally slept with every woman in America and abroad?”

David rolled his eyes. “He’s bringing his brother. Something about him being on shore leave and wanting to spend time with him.”

“Oh my God,” Emma groaned, putting her head in her hands.

“See?” Belle piped in softly, misunderstanding her distress. “I’ve always said you judged him too quickly-”

“ There’s two of them !?” she demanded, hoping someone would tell her it was a joke. There was a collective groan and a small laugh from her friends. “Is one Jones in this world not enough?” she asked the room.

Before anyone had a chance to answer, a smooth, accented voice called from down the hall. “Hello? Is someone getting married here?”

“Robin!” Mary Margaret cheered, perking right up as though there was anywhere left for her to perk. “We’re in the kitchen!” she called.

“How the bloody hell do we find the kitchen?” came another accented voice, this one rougher around the edges. “This place is a maze.” Will! Emma rushed out with Mary Margaret to help their friends navigate the enormous house.

They found them looking confused in the front hall and Emma practically threw herself in Will’s arms as Mary Margaret greeted her guests.

Will had been in the same foster home as her when they were little. He was only a few years older, but he’d made a point to look out for her when most of the older kids had been inclined to pick on the smaller ones. She’d run away when he’d been transferred to another home for fighting and, after Ruth adopted her, she thought she’d never see him again. But with some help she’d managed to track him down in high school and was happy to find out he’d been placed with a distant relative the state had managed to locate in the area - a second cousin, Robin.

Robin was in college and on his own at the time, but took Will under his wing and had brought him up more like a little brother than a son. When David, Mary Margaret, and Emma had all ended up at the same college as Will and Robin, the friendship had been inevitable. Will introduced them to Ruby, and Mary Margaret became quick friends with Belle and Elsa when they all joined and felt like the odd ones out in the same sorority. However, Will had also unfortunately introduced them all to his classmate and drinking buddy, Killian Jones - something Emma would never forgive him for.

“Hey! You’re going to ruin my shirt!” he told her, pretending he wasn’t hugging her back.

“Your shirt’s already wrinkled,” she told him.

“It’s disheveled,” he corrected her. “There’s a difference.”

“Come now, Swan, I know it can be difficult to find men at your age, but there’s no need to throw yourself at poor Will like that.”

And there it was. Ninety seconds. He’d lasted a whole ninety seconds before saying something rude and asshole-ish and just… ugh. She hated him.

She opened her mouth to retort but Robin beat her to it. He turned on Killian, finger extended in warning. “You! No. None of that. We talked about this.”

Killian snapped his mouth shut and held his hands up in innocence but she could see him biting back a smile. Ugh, he even looked smug when he was being chastised. She looked him over, arming herself for the battle that was soon to come, scanning for anything she could throw back in his face when she needed it, something to bring him back down to size.

He was handsome - she had to give him that. He was probably one of the best looking men she’d ever met and she remembered thinking so the first time they were introduced. But when he opened his mouth... god. The sheer level of douche that was contained in one man. It made her shudder at the thought and angry at her past self for judging a book by its cover. Why her friends put up with him, she’d never understand.

The others had joined them in the hall by now and pleasantries were being exchanged. But as she hugged Robin, and Killian exchanged how-have-you-beens with David and Belle, she could feel his eyes on her. That was another thing that drove her crazy about him. He always seemed to be paying too much attention to her - probably sizing her up the way she did him.

But sometimes… sometimes she’d caught him watching her with an expression that wasn’t mirthful or arrogant - a small smile curling the corner of his mouth as if against his will, his brow softened from it’s usual expressiveness. It made her unsteady, made her feel unbalanced because she didn’t know what to make of it. What to make of the fact that she kind of liked it. That scared the shit out of her.

“Allow me to introduce my brother,” Killian was suddenly saying and she realised she may have been the one staring this time. “Everyone, this is Liam. Liam this is… everyone,” he smiled. Emma raised her brow at them both. Another Jones. This could not end well. “It’s Liam’s first time in the States,” he informed them as Liam shook hands with everyone.

“Well,” Liam interjected, “first time off a ship anyway.”

“Welcome,” David said, patting him on the shoulder.

“We’re so happy to have you here,” Mary Margaret cheered, hugging him.

“Nice to meet you,” Elsa smiled, offering her hand. Liam looked from Mary Margaret to her and for a second his eyes went a little wide - Elsa could have that effect - before he took her hand and held it a fraction too long. Elsa’s smile shifted as she looked at him and Liam finally released her hand.

“Thank you,” Liam smiled, looking down at the floor and rubbing the back of his neck. “I do hope I’m not intruding,” he offered. “Only it’s been a while since I’ve had the chance to see my brother and…” Holy shit. Was he blushing? Emma thought. How the hell was this guy related to Killian?

“Of course you’re not,” she found herself saying before she could stop herself. He must be adopted. That was the only explanation. “This family has always had a soft spot for picking up strays along the way,” she insisted. “Emma,” she told him her name.

“Ah, Emma,” he said, casting a look at Killian. “I’ve heard a lot about you.” Emma cast her own look at the other brother, skeptical of what he could have possibly said about her. He maintained his look of innocence. Liam smiled and took her hand, shaking it. “A pleasure,” he said and she smiled back almost instinctively. Maybe her judgement had been off when she’d first met Killian but she liked to think she was a pretty good judge of character. And Liam, well Liam had an air about him. It was the opposite of Killian’s. Where Killian exuded cockiness and pretense, Liam was modest and sincere. Well what do you know, she thought, there is a Jones out there I could like.

Quickly, once all the greetings had been taken care of, Emma informed everyone of the schedule for the weekend. “What will the guys be doing tomorrow?” she asked, looking pointedly at the best man.

“We’re going camping,” Killian informed her. It almost pissed her off how perfect a choice that was. David loved camping. “Lots of good old fashioned male bonding,” Killian joked. “I’ve packed enough cigars and whiskey to take down a horse. Let’s see if we can get Dave hungover for the first time in his life shall we?” Emma braced himself for whatever he was going to say next. “Besides, it will give us a chance to give him some tips for the wedding night.” He winked at the groom.

“Well, that’s our cue, I think,” David said, rolling his eyes at his friend. “Let’s go find everyone a room and have a drink and maybe some pizza before people get here.”

As the gang headed into the kitchen, Killian went about hanging up his jacket and setting his keys down before picking up his bag, calling after them. “Don’t worry Dave! I can tell you what to do so you don’t bleed your first time!” Emma lingered behind. She couldn’t help herself.

“You know you talk a lot for a guy nobody listens to.”

And there it was, that cocky, amused smile he seemed to save only for her. Emma ignored the little flip her stomach did - convincing herself that it was just leftover hangover symptoms.

“ Swan ,” he said almost affectionately, but there was a mocking there too. “We didn’t have a chance to say hello! You look…” He paused, taking in what she was sure were dark circles and pale skin. “Alive... mostly. How absolutely wonderful for someone, I’m sure.”

She didn’t even let it phase her. If he was already relying on physical insults she’d already won. “I noticed you didn’t bring a date.” He eyed her skeptically. “Did you forget to pay your tab at Escorts ‘R Us this month?”

He smiled. “I don’t see your date, Swan. Or is he already making a hasty escape out the bathroom window? Don’t take it too hard. Not everyone can have as many suitors as some.”

She rolled her eyes. “Ha,” she snorted. “Yeah I know all about your many suitors. Tell me something,” she started, inching closer and speaking low like it was a secret. He leaned in almost like a reflex. “Does your right hand know that you sometimes cheat on it with your left?”

He laughed outright at that. “Ah, love, it might shock you to discover that some of us are capable of finding willing partners for the world’s oldest dance. But I can understand how some might be led to believe one’s hand is one’s only option.”

She tilted her head. “Yeah, I’m gonna bet that partners like you are part of the reason so many dancers prefer their own hand. Might have something to do with why you only ever have a date for one night...”

It was his turn to inch forward. He stepped closer until there was barely any breathing room between them but Emma held her ground, tilting her chin up at him and meeting his gaze. “Oh, believe me. My prowess leaves nothing to be desired,” he promised. His voice had dropped, sounding gravelly and making his accent more pronounced. Emma steeled herself, ignoring the way the heat of him and the smell of his cologne warmed her skin. He always smelled so damn good, like leather and the sea. It was destabilizing and she nearly stumbled on her next words.

“And yet, you brought your brother as your date. Something tells me he doesn't put out.” He smiled at her and it was that smile she’d seen before - the unsettling one. The one that messed with this thing they had going - this mutual distaste. She needed to wipe it off his face. “Maybe I should find out,” she added with a suggestive brow and watched with pride and a small flicker of disappointment as the smile fell from his face.

“I’ll not have you defiling my brother, Swan!” He said it in jest, but he didn’t seem quite committed to his mock offence. She worried she may have pushed too far.

“Emma! Killian! Let’s go!” Belle shouted from the kitchen. “We’re ordering pizza and Ruby is getting hangry. Killian I swear she’ll put mushrooms on yours if you don’t come tell us what you want!”

They broke apart and it was only a second before Killian’s regular cock-sure bravado was back in place.

“Shall we?” he asked, indicating that she should lead the way down the hall.

Only four days. She told herself. She could handle four days.

-/-

“So tell me, Mary Margaret,” Killian asked later as they were all eating their pizza. Emma had nearly let slide his ‘ really Swan, anchovies?’ comment, but then suggested he try the one with garlic since it was unlikely he would find anyone desperate enough to kiss him tonight. He refused, insisting that experience had taught him to be optimistic. She’d muttered something about women with no standards before Robin had told them to knock it off and eat their bloody pizza. “What exactly does this party tonight entail? All Belle said was that I had to dress up? It’s lucky I still had my Halloween costume from last year.”

“You mean your halloween costume from every year ,” Emma snarked. Killian smirked.

“Why mess with perfection?” he asked. “Besides, Captain Hook is always a killer with the ladies.”

“No!” Mary Margaret covered her ears. “We’re not supposed to know what you’re dressing up as!”

“Way to ruin the surprise,” Emma said harshly and regretted it when she saw genuine surprise and regret cross his face. She ignored it, turning to the groomsmen who weren’t aware of the plans for the night. “We’re having a masquerade ball. Belle and Elsa spent weeks making everyone gorgeous masks to choose from and wear with their costumes. Nobody can know who anyone is, though. We’re doing this the right way. Nobody reveals their identities until midnight. That’s how long Mary Margaret and David have to find each other once we separate them at the beginning of the party.”

“I’m sorry, are you trying to tell me that these two haven’t told each other exactly what they’re dressing up as? I don’t buy it,” Robin shook his head.

“We took care of that,” Emma laughed. “Well, Belle did. Belle picked out their costumes and has kept them a secret. Thanks again,” she said, turning to the woman in question.

“My pleasure,” she said. “Actually, Elsa helped a lot. Her taste is impeccable.”

“Well, you couldn't have left Swan to do it. They’d both be wearing jeans and leather jackets.”

Emma shot him a look but Elsa was quicker. “How exactly is that different from your everyday look? Worried she might have picked out the wrong shade of black?” she challenged, eyeing up his black jeans, black boots, and black shirt. His black leather jacket still hung in the closet in the front hall. Liam hid his guffaw behind his hand and Elsa smirked proudly.

“Don’t worry,” Emma jumped in. “Killian doesn’t need a costume. He’s always dressed like a giant tool.” It wasn’t her best insult but hey, they couldn’t all be winners.

Killian smirked, stepping closer to her, invading her space a little, His voice was low and suggestive. “I’d be happy to show you my giant tool, Swan,” he offered and Emma pulled a face.

“ Oh my god, just bone already ,” she heard Ruby mutter under her breath.

“What?” they both snapped but Ruby pretended like she hadn’t heard them.

Liam laughed again and Elsa turned to him with wide, almost sorrowful eyes. “Oh, Liam,” she said and he turned to her. Emma wasn’t sure if she imagined the slight redness on his cheeks. It was very like his brother’s. “I’m so sorry. Killian didn’t tell us you were coming,” she glared at her friend. “Do you have a costume? I’m sure we could put something together if you -”

“Don’t trouble yourself, love,” he answered. “Killian forgot to mention a costume when he invited me.” He shot his brother a look. “But thankfully, my brother still had his costume from the time he played Westley in that Princess Bride stage play in college.”

Emma lit up just as Killian grimaced. “I’m sorry, the time he what ?” she asked, beaming. Oh, this was too good. She definitely needed to hear that story. Liam smirked, looking at his brother’s embarrassment and Emma once again marveled at how much she liked the older Jones brother.

“Hey! No more costume talk!” Ruby jumped in. “We can’t have David and Mary Margaret knowing who anyone is! It will spoil the game!”

“Sorry,” Liam said, looking a little abashed. “Mum’s the word,” He cast Emma a glance out of the corner of his eye, leaning in to stage-whisper. “He had the ponytail and everything,” he told her conspiratorially. It took everything she had not to burst out laughing, instead settling for tossing a shit-eating grin and a ‘ just wait ” look at Killian. Killian looked like he’d rather be anywhere else.

“Liam, you might be becoming one of my favorite people.”

He grinned.

“We should start getting ready,” Belle chimed in. “People will be arriving soon.”

“Oh I can’t wait to see the costumes!” Mary Margaret squealed and then turned suddenly. “Emma!” Emma jumped. “Will you let me do your makeup? Please? You never let me and it’s my wedding!”

Emma sighed, giving in to her friend’s decades-long attempt at dolling her up. The last time she'd caved had been prom night. “Fine.”

“Oh thank you! You’re going to look gorgeous!” Mary Margaret squealed before quickly catching herself. “Not that you don’t always look gorgeous!”

Emma saw Killian open his mouth but didn’t give him the chance. “Can it, Ponytail.”

He pressed his mouth into a tight line but the corners turned up despite how obviously he was trying to fight it.

“Wait, first let me show you your costume,” Belle said to Mary Margaret. Emma didn’t know which one of them was more excited at the prospect.

“Okay! Emma, meet me in my room okay?” The bride-to-be waited for Emma to nod in agreement (defeat) before rushing off with Belle, Elsa and Ruby following quickly behind. Emma stood shaking her head as they ran away giggling. David corralled all the boys, rushing them off in the other direction to do… whatever guys did to get ready for a party. She watched them all disappearing down the hall, whooping and cheering. She thought she might have heard Will shout something about David finding his True Love and she shook her head.

“This is why I’m never going to fall in love,” she groaned to nobody in particular, shaking her head. “It makes people act like idiots.”

“At least we can agree on one thing,” she heard a voice answer. Her eyes snapped up to see Killian, still hovering in the doorway. He smiled slightly at her. “Not in the cards for me either, I think.” There was something vulnerable about the way he said it, like there was some secret that she was missing. Just for a second, she caught herself wondering what it was, feeling a slight tug in her chest at the defeated way he spoke. A connection? She smothered that feeling right away.

“Lucky for the women of the world,” Emma answered.

He only gave her another one of those small, half smiles before following the others down the hall.

“Emma! Get your ass up here!” Ruby shouted from one of the bedrooms. Emma left the kitchen, doing her best to ignore the way getting the last word with Killian hadn’t left her feeling as smug as it usually did.

-/-

“Ah, there’s my best man,” David said as Killian walked into the room. “Leaving me in my hour of need already?”

“Please, I was gone for less than a minute. Couldn’t you guys keep yourselves entertained for that long without me?” he asked mirthfully.

“What were you doing back there?” Will asked, sounding like he knew the answer already.

“Speaking with the lovely Emma, I’ll wager,” Robin answered with a smirk.

“What else is new?” David asked, rolling his eyes before Killian could defend himself.

“Why is this your hour of need, exactly?” Killian asked, choosing not to contradict them. He had, in fact, been talking to her, so he didn’t really have a leg to stand on.

“Because Robin has a better costume than me!”

It was Killian’s turn to roll his eyes. “His name is literally Robin. Who else could reasonably dress up as Robin Hood?”

“But that’s just it! She’ll never suspect it!” David insisted. The men all paused, exchanging looks. David held up the costume that had been laid out for him on the bed. “Belle dressed me as Prince Charming. I love her to death, but she’s just as much of a romantic as Mary Margaret. It’s too obvious, she’ll find me in a second.”

“He has a point, you know,” Robin agreed.

“Hey, Belle put a lot of work into picking your costumes,” Will reminded them. He cleared his throat when Robin shot him a wry look. “And the others. They all put in a lot of work…”

Killian grinned. “And wouldn’t it just be great to see their reactions when they realise we’ve switched it on them?” Even David smiled, excited at the harmless though somewhat juvenile prank. Will looked nervous though.

“Listen, I just don’t want to be the reason we ensue Elsa’s wrath,” he defended. Liam glanced at Will, and Killian noticed a slightly downtrodden look on his brother’s face. He frowned.

“It’s my Stag and Doe,” the groom insisted. “I say we do it.”

“Aye,” Killian agreed. He slapped a hand on David’s shoulder. “Let’s see if true love really does conquer all, shall we?”

Robin considered this for a moment, arms crossed as he stroked his beard. “All right, but if we do this, we should really commit. Everybody confess what your costume is so we can pick the most un-David-like one.”

Will still didn’t look convinced. “What’s with him?” David asked.

Robin smirked. “He’s just worried that Belle will be mad at him. Or is it that you picked your costume with her in mind and don’t want to give it up?”

“Really, Will? You’re still hung up on her?” David joked. “Why don’t you just tell her already?” Liam perked up then, looking back at Will after having been staring at the floor for a moment.

“Oh, I was under the impression that Elsa was your girlfriend,” he said casually. Four pairs of suspicious eyes turned to him. “You just seemed so set on not upsetting her is all…” Killian didn’t buy it.

Will looked at him with wide, disbelieving eyes. “Bloody hell, Elsa? No. She just scares the hell out of me and she should scare you too,” he warned. “That is not a woman you want to cross.”

“Indeed,” Robin agreed, coming up behind his friend and wrapping an arm around him. “Will only has eyes for Belle.” Will elbowed him. “Elsa is, as of present, unattached.”

“Huh,” was all Liam said, suddenly far too uninterested in the conversation. It took Killian a moment, frowning at his brother, trying to read what he was hiding before it hit him.

“ Oh, no, ” he groaned and everyone’s eyes snapped up to him.

“What?” Liam demanded, playing innocent.

“No, no.”

“ What?”

“My own brother!” Killian cried. “Abandoned. Betrayed by my own kin!”

Liam rolled his eyes but his tone was way too defensive. “Shut up, Killian.”

Robin snorted but hid it quickly behind his hand as Killian shot him a death glare.

“Am I missing something?” David asked, looking between the brothers.

“What you’re missing, Dave, is that my brother, sworn bachelor, the last of the sworn bachelors, the last of the Jones’ to carry on the good name and reputation of man about town and sea, has fallen in love.” He cast his eyes to Liam again. “Traitor!”

“Oh, come on, Killian. Stop being dramatic. I’m not in love.”

“Not yet!” he cried. “But I’ve seen that look before - it’s in the eyes. I’ve seen it in my fallen comrades. First David, then Will. Robin was lost to me before I even met him, married at nineteen like some lovesick fool.”

“Careful now, that’s my wife you’re talking about,” Robin warned. Marian and Roland were joining the group the day of the wedding, thinking that subjecting a six year old to three days of wedding festivities seemed unreasonable.

“And now my own brother! Seduced! Stolen away by the Ice Queen. We stood together! Now I stand alone.”

“That’s a bit much don’t you think?” Graham said.

“You like Elsa?” David asked Liam and Killian rounded on him.

“ That’s what you got from what I just said?”

“I mostly tune you out if I’m honest,” David said casually before focusing on Liam again. “If you like Elsa you have the perfect costume. The Princess Bride is her favorite movie. She and Emma are obsessed with it - it’s a little annoying actually. If you wear that, you’ll definitely get her attention.”

“Oh, well…” was all Liam said, clearly flustered to Killian’s disgust. He did not like how pleased his brother looked at the idea.

“Killian,” David said then. “Let’s see your costume. Mary Margaret won’t come near me if she thinks I’m you. She’s seen your pirate costume a million times now.”

“I think the hair might give it away, Dave,” Killian laughed, gesturing to his own dark hair that contrasted so drastically with the groom’s fair head. “Besides,” he smirked. “You don’t have the cleavage for it.”

David rolled his eyes. “Oh, far be it from me to deny you the opportunity to wear a shirt unbuttoned to your waist.”

“What exactly is your obsession with this Captain Hook costume, Brother?” Liam piped up. “I’ve never seen it but it would seem it’s rather famous. Why the fixation on Peter Pan?”

“It’s because he’s the boy who never grew up,” Will offered, receiving a punch in the arm from the person in question. “At least that’s what Ruby dubbed him for all his womanizing.”

Killian rolled his eyes, familiar with the nickname. He never bothered to mention that he liked the character of Hook, not Pan. Not the devil child but the melancholic man who clung to the last bit of hope left in him.

“I’m hardly a boy,” Killian glared. “And I don’t womanize. Every woman I take out knows exactly my intentions. I’m not some child playing games.”

“Then you won’t mind giving up your costume,” Robin insisted.

“I told you it would be too obvious,” he reminded them again.

“So am I understanding correctly?” Will asked, pinching the bridge of his nose. “We’re just all throwing the girl’s rules out the window?” Will asked with a bit of annoyance in his tone. If Killian himself weren’t so annoyed at Will’s crush on Belle, he’d have found it funny.

“Yes,” David said simply. “Liam, you keep yours so that you have an ice breaker with Elsa and Killian, well, I guess you can keep yours for your vanity.” Killian rolled his eyes. “The rest of you,” he demanded. “Let me see what you have.”

David, Will and Robin spent far too long debating who should wear which of the three costumes, even going so far as to look through the clothes they had brought to see if they could make a new, fourth costume, before finally making a decision nearly an hour later. As they headed to their respective rooms to change, Killian noticed his brother lingering. He sighed again.

“So, Elsa then?”

“I mean, she seems nice,” Liam answered but Killian could see him trying to fight the little smile playing at the corner of his lips.

“Nice? Elsa? I mean sure she can be friendly sometimes, but I’ve always found her to be a bit cold, distant.”

“Perhaps she just doesn’t like you, brother.”

“Nonsense,” he smiled. “All women like me.” But then looked at Liam again. “You really like her?”

“I don’t - she seems interesting. I’d like to get to know her better, yes.”

“Unbelievable. You’re in the country for ten minutes and you’ve fallen for the first blonde you’ve seen.” He shook his head, utterly, totally disappointed by his brother.

“I wouldn’t be the first Jones now would I?” Liam muttered under his breath.

“What was that?”

“Nothing.”

“Unbelievable,” Killian sighed.

“You keep saying that,” Liam pointed out.

“Well it is! A few years ago we were all free, unattached. We could head to the bar, meet some nice girls, have some fun. But now, I swear David has to ask permission before he goes out with us. And Will won’t go anywhere unless we agree to invite Belle along so he can stare at her like a git and not say a word. When did all of the bachelors die off? When did all my friends drop off the face of the earth. I’ll tell you when. When they decided to fall in love!”

“Don’t you think you’re getting a little old for this, Killian?”

“How dare you?” Killian snapped. “I’m thirty-two. I’m hardly at the age of needing to settle down.”

“Then pray tell what age is appropriate to settle down?”

“I’ll let you know if I ever hit it,” Killian smirked. Liam rolled his eyes.

“So what, you’re going to keep man whoring around? Don’t you want to be with someone? Have something real? Fall in love?”

“Love is overrated. I plan to die a bachelor.”

“You mean alone,” Liam corrected him. “I don’t believe you for a second, brother,” he said, but he shook his head in a way that told Killian he didn’t plan on arguing any further. Let Liam disbelieve him. He didn’t need his brother’s approval. He’d tried love once and it had brought him nothing but wasted years and endless torment.

Killian had learned young that love only ended in pain and heartbreak. He’d seen it with his mother, who’d been unhappy her entire married life only to pass away young and leave behind a father who was so heartbroken of the loss of the woman he mistreated that he abandoned his two sons.

He’d sworn off love at six years old. He’d only faltered once since, despite his best efforts to resist it. And that time had only served to reinforce his belief that he was right. Love was a waste of time. He didn’t need it. And he didn’t want it. Let the Davids and the Robins and the Wills - and apparently the Liams - of the world have love. He would stick to one night. One night was clear. One night left no expectations, set no precedent. One night was safe.

“So then,” Liam started, snapping Killian from his admittedly rather gloomy train of thought. “What about Emma?” he trailed off.

Killian’s head snapped up as though he’d been struck. “What about Emma?” he asked wearily.

“She seems nice, is all. Funny, smart, rather beautiful too…”

Killian felt his heart jump into his throat. Emma? Liam and Emma? Was his brother really suggesting that he was interested in Emma romantically? Or even just physically? The idea of his brother and Emma together stirred a feeling inside of him that he didn’t like. The same feeling that had come over him when Emma had taunted him with the idea of her and Liam earlier. What was it - anger? Disgust? Jealousy ? No. He wasn’t jealous. Emma could sleep with whoever she wanted. So could his brother for that matter. So could he. He swallowed around the lump in his throat.

“I’ll admit that she’s rather pleasant to look at but believe me, the woman is a harpie. She’s got a wicked tongue on her. She’s cold and defensive and she has walls a mile high.”

“She seemed rather pleasant to me. Witty too.”

“Oh, aye, she’s got wit, that’s for sure.” He caught the corner of his mouth ticking up and forced it down. “She’s quick and rather amusing when she’s not yelling at me.”

“You don’t seem to mind her yelling at you.”

He laughed. “She’s quick to anger, that’s all,” Killian shrugged, trying to go for blase but knowing he was failing. “Makes her rather fun to argue with. She has a way of seeing people… she’s quite perspective really.” She was. She could and would call him on any and all of his bullshit. He was always surprised to realise how much he enjoyed that. But she had him pegged wrong. Always had. And he couldn’t forgive her that.

“So you don’t like her then?” Liam continued, frowning. “I suppose I can understand that. I heard you talking in the hall. She does seem like she can be rather…”

“Rather what?” Killian said quickly, shocked by how vehemently his body reacted to the idea of someone speaking poorly of his rival - someone besides him anyway.

Liam’s eyes went wide and then settled into a knowing expression Killian didn’t like. “Nothing,” he said, but the word held weight.

“She’s just… she’s had a hard life,” Killian found himself saying. Shut up, why are you defending her? he demanded of himself, but he couldn’t stop the words that came out. “She’s been through a lot - like we have. And she’s done some rather impressive things with her life despite it. She’s a detective you know?”

“Yes, I know. You’ve told me. You’ve told me a lot about her actually…”

“Right,” Killian caught himself. Clearing his throat. He didn’t like what his brother was implying. Killian didn’t want Emma. Of course he didn’t. They fought and they bantered and they teased but that was all their relationship was. It was all it ever had been - well, almost. There was that first night... But regardless, he didn’t want his brother to get tangled up with her either. For his brother’s sake only. Emma pushed everyone away. He wouldn’t want to risk his brother being hurt like... “Well, yes, she is cold and distant and incredibly frustrating and - I don’t know if you want to go there. Not worth the effort I think and -”

“ Killian.”

“What?” he snapped.

“I’m not interested in Emma,” he explained carefully and Killian was angry at the relief he felt. “But I think maybe…” Killian steeled his jaw, fists clenching and shoulders straightening as his brother eyed him with… pity? sympathy? Whatever it was, he didn’t like it. Something in his expression must have warned Liam off. “Nevermind,” he finished.

Killian let out a heavy breath, thankful that this conversation was over. “Shall we go get ready?” he asked. “I think people will be arriving soon. I’ve seen Mulan’s car pull up. And if she’s here, the party is bound to get underway quickly.”

“Aye,” Liam said, swinging his arm around Killian’s shoulders. “Let’s.”

-/-

“Emma!” she heard Elsa call for her from the room next door. She banged on the adjoining wall to let her friend know it was fine to come in. A second later Elsa was making her way into the room, awkwardly looking behind herself as she struggled with her costume.

“Could you give me a hand with these laces?” she asked, referring to the corset like back of her Swan Lake ballerina costume. It was pretty, graceful, and understated like her friend.

“Sure,” Emma said, gesturing for her to turn around so that she could help her with the intricate lacing. When she was done, Elsa brushed her hands down the front of her dress, making sure it looked right.

“Thanks.” She looked Emma up and down and frowned. “You’re not ready yet? The party’s already started. I’m running late because of these damn laces. What’s your excuse?” she asked, taking in Emma’s jeans and leather jacket.

“Oh, I’m ready,” she said, grabbing a hat and a pair of sunglasses and putting them on.

Elsa frowned. “What the hell are you supposed to be?”

Emma clipped her badge onto her hip. “An undercover cop.”

Elsa stared at her for a long moment before crossing her arms in front of her chest and frowning. “Are you fucking kidding me, Emma?”

“What?” she asked defensively. It was either this or a sheet with holes cut in it,” she said. “You know, to be a ghost,” she clarified when Elsa didn’t react.

Elsa let her head fall into her hand, rubbing at her forehead in frustration. “Jesus Christ, Emma. It’s a costume party. You are a cop. You can’t just go as yourself. This is a pathetic excuse for a costume and you know it.”

“You were actually a ballerina!” Emma insisted, gesturing at the dress she knew her friend had worn in a real performance in college. Elsa glared at her. She was annoyed at her friend, but probably more at the fact that she knew she was right. She’d really hoped they’d have let her get away with it. She was never one for dressing up.

“That’s different,” Elsa explained slowly, like she was talking to an idiot. “I wouldn’t go around wearing this on the street. You haven’t even changed out of what you were wearing when we got here.”

“So you think I should go with the ghost?” she asked, smirking a little. Elsa shook her head in exasperation.

“Emma, this party is for Mary Margaret. You know what she wants it to be. She wants magic and beautiful dresses and men dressed as princes and heroes. This is her fairytale wedding and you cannot wear jeans to a masquerade ball.”

Emma sighed. “Okay, but it’s a little late now. I don’t have another costume and nothing I brought is fancy enough to qualify as a gown.”

Elsa thought for a second, looking her over as she tapped her fingers against her crossed arms. “Hang on a second,” she said finally. “I might have something.” And with that, she disappeared out of the room, trailing crinoline and feathers behind her.

Emma pulled the hat and sunglasses off, groaning as she pulled her hair out of it’s messy ponytail. She should have seen this coming. She should have known her friends wouldn’t stand for her cop out of a costume - they fought her every Halloween and this was her best friend’s wedding. She just… she didn’t have it in her. The whole fairy tales and True Love and princes and princesses - it just all felt so… fake, unrealistic. She didn’t want to get dolled up and attract the attention of some guy who would make her promises and then break them as soon as the lights came on and the masks came off. She remembered the last time she’d let some guy she met at a party convince her she meant something - she’d learned that lesson quickly. Never fall for a pretty face - especially one with an accent and a penchant for seducing blondes.

“Here,” Elsa announced, returning to the room and shaking Emma out of her thoughts. She was holding a dress on a hanger, the skirt of it draped over her arm. It was beautiful. Ice blue and floor length with intricate beading. The neckline was modest but she could see the plunging back. It was Elsa embodied: elegant, sophisticated, and just a little ethereal.

“This is gorgeous,” Emma said, reaching out to tough some of the delicate stitching. “Where did you get it?”

“I wore it to Mary Margaret’s black-tie New Years Eve party last year, remember?” Emma shook her head. “Oh right, you weren’t there - you had that case. Anyway, I forgot it here in the morning and haven’t been back to pick it up since. I feel like it would do nicely for tonight.”

“You’re going to dress me up as a princess aren’t you,” Emma squeezed her eyes shut. Elsa beamed.

“You bet your ass I am!” she laughed. “If your brother’s going as Prince Charming, it’s only fair you get a royal makeover too. Come on. If I know Mary Margaret’s mom, I’m sure we can dig up a tiara or something in one of these rooms. Shall we?” Emma bit her lip. She knew she wasn’t going to win this one. “Hey, you’re doing this for Mary Margaret,” Elsa reminded her and then gestured pointedly to her own costume. “We all are.”

Emma sighed. “Okay. But you better have a damn good mask. If David sees me in this, he’ll never let me live it down.” Nor would Killian, she thought, cringing at the teasing that would surely ensue from him seeing her in something other than jeans. Elsa laughed and dragged Emma along in search of a crown.

-/-

“Liam!” Killian called, poking his head into his brother’s room and looking around for his absentee sibling. “Are you nearly done putting your face on? The party’s in full swing and you’re missing it!”

“There’s a slight problem,” Liam’s voice carried across the room from the bathroom as he walked out and Killian had to put his fist to his mouth to stop from laughing at the sight of his brother. It didn’t work. “Shut up,” Liam warned as Killian burst out in a fit of laughter. Liam stood in front of him, looking not at all impressed in the tightest shirt and pants Killian had ever seen. The sleeves ended several inches above his wrists and the pants several inches above his ankles. Liam threw the mask he was holding at his brother.

“I’m sorry,” Killian apologized, trying to contain himself. “I don’t think it fits,” he pointed out the obvious.

“Clearly it doesn’t fit, little brother ,” Liam said with a glare. Killian returned it.

“Younger brother,” he corrected.

“No, I believe in this case little brother is correct,” he smirked, gesturing to himself again. He turned around to head back to the bathroom and Killian, who had been glaring, burst out laughing again.

“Oh, I do hope Elsa’s an ass woman,” he said. “You’ll certainly win her over with pants that tight.”

“Alright, enough. Give me your costume.”

“My costume,” Killian demanded, stepping back and placing a protective hand out in front of him. “Why?”

“Because this is your fault. You’re the one who gave me your old costume without accounting for the fact that I am the much taller and broader shouldered of the Jones brothers.”

“Or the one who needs to cut back on sweets,” Killian shot back. “Besides,” he challenged, “how will this costume fit you if you’re so big and strong you can’t fit into that one?”

“Give me the jacket and the jewellery,” Liam said. “I’ll find a pair of black pants and a buttoned shirt and it will have to do.” He eyed his brother who was still clinging protectively to his costume. “And the hook,” he demanded.

“What will I wear then, if you’re going to take the very shirt off my back?”

“This,” Liam answered, gesturing to himself. “Should work. You’ve barely filled out since college,” he smirked.

“I’ve never had any complaints.” Liam gave him a leveling look and Killian rolled his eyes. “Fine,” he ceded, shedding the beloved jacket from his shoulders and tossing it to his brother. Liam caught it in one hand and headed to the bathroom to change, pausing at his suitcase to grab a pair of pants and a shirt.

“You know you’re blowing your chances at winning over Elsa though, don’t you? No dashing childhood crush to seduce her with.”

Liam cracked the bathroom door open and poked his head out, tossing the costume at him. “I’m not trying to seduce anyone,” he frowned. “Besides,” he smirked. “Even if I was, I wouldn’t need a bloody costume to do so. Not all of us need glamour and trickery to convince a woman to speak to us.”

“Oi!” Killian shouted, offended. “I don’t need any tricks to get a woman to speak to me!”

“Is that why you pick a fight with Emma everytime you see her?” Liam’s voice was muffled through the door.

“I have no idea what you’re insinuating,” Killian snapped. He was getting very tired of his brother speaking cryptically about he and Emma’s relationship. As though they were anything but friendly rivals. So what if he looked forward to seeing her at these get-togethers? So what if he was disappointed when she was kept away by work. He simply looked forward to having someone to spar with, someone who kept up with him and could challenge him. He loved a challenge, and if Emma Swan was anything, she was a challenge.

“Of course not,” Liam patronized as he emerged in Killian’s jacket. He held out his hand and Killian passed him the pirate necklaces and the clip on earring that completed the look. “Better get dressed, party’s started,” Liam told him then looked him over carefully. “Isn’t ‘The Princess Bride’ Emma’s favorite movie as well?”

Killian looked down at the costume he held in his hands, ignoring the fact that it was, in fact, her favorite and that she might, just maybe, forget their rivalry for a second if they had some common ground. It would be interesting to speak to her without their prickly game standing between them for a moment. The last time they’d done that had been… well, a very long time ago indeed. “What of it?” he asked his brother and hoped Liam wouldn’t push the subject.

“Nothing,” Liam said and when Killian met his eye he saw the same look he’d seen earlier. It unsettled him. But then his brother smirked and the moment was broken. “Just too bad you don’t still have the ponytail.”

Killian scowled, whipping the hook off his arm and shoving it a little too forcefully against his brother’s chest, turning to storm out of the room to the sound of Liam’s laughter following along behind him. “It was one semester!” he shouted but Liam only laughed harder.

-/-

Emma poured herself another drink from the bar, readjusting her mask which unfortunately, though beautiful, had the annoying habit of sliding down her nose. One corner was still damp from when it had dipped into her drink. She didn’t know how people did this back in the day. Wearing masks was fun, the mystery of it all and the anonymity was almost thrilling, but it was highly inconvenient. She set the drink down to tighten the silk string that kept it on for the tenth time that night.

The party was in full swing. The house was packed, every room full of people squished together dancing, laughing, drinking, and shouting at each other to be heard over the music. Emma looked around proudly. She had to say, she’d done a pretty good job for someone who hated fairy tales. She loved parties, though, so she chalked it up to that. Well, that and Elsa and Belle’s beautiful masks and Ruby’s awesome taste in music… and David had helped with the decorations. It had definitely been a group effort.

Emma scanned the crowds, trying to spot any of her friends and realized that she couldn’t. She almost laughed. The masquerade thing really did work. She knew what Elsa and Liam - and likely Killian - were dressed as, but she hadn’t seen anyone else from the bridal party’s costumes and there were so many friends and family here to celebrate that she wasn’t even sure she knew all the guests, let alone that she’d be able to identify them with half their faces covered.

She made her way across the kitchen which was being used as a bar and into what could only be described as a great hall where people were dancing, hoping to spot Elsa among the throngs of people. She perked up when she caught sight of white feathers and excellent posture. Squeezing between Cinderella and Gaston who looked about two seconds away from making out - weird - she crossed the room toward her friend, only to stop dead when she caught sight of a silver hook and a generous display of chest hair.

Ugh. Killian. Elsa was talking to Killian. His face was half covered in a silky black mask but she’d seen that stupid pirate costume enough times to know it had to be him. She rolled her eyes as he leaned down to say something in Elsa’s ear and her friend threw her head back laughing, her hand coming up to rest on his bare chest as she leaned in closer.

Gross . Emma thought Elsa had better taste than that. She wondered what Killian could possibly be saying to make her friend blush and giggle like some infatuated school girl. She swallowed against the lump in her throat and the uneasiness in her stomach when Elsa ran her hand up from his chest to his shoulder under the guise of trying to hear better over the music. His hand went to the small of her back and the smile on Killian’s face felt like a punch to the gut. She’d seen that smile, relaxed, excited, soft. She’d only ever seen it so rarely before and only ever…

She turned away, done with watching the disturbing display in front of her. If Killian and Elsa wanted to flirt and whisper little secrets to each other and exchange meaningful little touches, she wasn’t going to stick around to see it. Really, she thought Elsa had better taste. She thought Elsa was a better friend than to… what? What exactly was Elsa guilty of? Cozying up to her hot friend? Getting close to Emma’s… rival didn’t feel like the right word.

She just wasn’t prepared for it, that was all. There had always been some sort of unspoken thing between the women of the group - Killian was no man’s land - or, rather, no woman's land. Despite his constant flirtatiousness and innuendos, nobody ever took it seriously, nobody ever really considered dating him or going to bed with him, at least not since that night. But there was never really a reason, no agreement made. Elsa could do what she liked. Emma didn’t care. Why would she care? Killian, while awful, was undeniably attractive and if Elsa wanted to - well, Emma didn’t care.

“I see my brother’s not wasting any time,” she heard behind her, the voice somewhat dulled by the thrumming of the music. Emma turned, smiling when she was met with bright blue eyes, just noticeable through a black leather mask, and a cheeky smirk. She looked over the costume he wore so well, a little flustered despite herself at seeing someone dressed as her childhood (and adulthood) crush.

“Liam,” she greeted, holding up her glass in a toast. “How are you enjoying the party?” The smile slipped from his face for a moment before he bit his lip against another.

“Well, I must say it’s just gotten infinitely better,” he answered.

“Ah, so I see Killian isn’t the only smooth talker in the Jones family,” she teased.

“Alas, it’s a family trait. Inherited from our father unfortunately,” he answered, his smile faltering for only a second. “What do you suppose he’s saying?” he asked, gesturing at his brother and Elsa.

Emma scoffed. “If I know him, he’s probably showering her with insincere compliments and using that inherited silver tongue to convince a perfectly intelligent woman that she wants to do something incredibly stupid.”

“And what’s that?”

“Sleep with Killian Jones.”

“I feel as though I should defend him.”

“No need,” Emma assured him. “Everyone knows who Killian is.”

He frowned. “And who is he?”

“Take your pick: playboy, womanizer, egomaniac. I swear David and the guys must just keep him around for entertainment. There is not a sincere bone in that man’s body. Well,” she laughed, turning from the scene in front of them back to the better-Jones. “Maybe one.”

“I see.” His jaw was tight and Emma worried she’d gone too far. She’d forgotten for a moment that this was his brother. She thought about how she’d feel if someone talked about David like this. But then again, David would never deserve it.

“I’m sorry,” she said, regardless. “I shouldn’t insult your family.”

He shrugged. “I’m sure you have your reasons. I summarize then that you’re not a fan of him.” There was a long pause before he spoke again. “Surely he can be a bit of a scoundrel at times but I wonder… What exactly is the nature of your feud with my brother? Killian never told me anything apart from the fact that you seem to despise one another.”

Emma hesitated. She’d never told anyone this story before. Sure, her friends had asked in the past, wondering why she hated him so much, especially given their first meeting. But she’d always skirted the question, not wanting to explain herself, not wanting to admit how stupid she’d been, how blind and how reckless. It was humiliating really. But Liam was sweet, and seemed genuinely interested. And she’d just spent the last few minutes insulting his only brother (as far as she knew) and she felt she at least owed him an explanation for it.

“Did Killian ever tell you about the night we met?”

He cleared his throat. “I don’t believe so,” he said, bringing a finger up to scratch a spot behind his ear in a way that was so reminiscent of his brother it threw her for a moment. Between their eyes and their mannerisms and their smiles, for all their differences, the Jones brothers certainly had a lot in common. There was no mistaking their kinship.

“We met at Will’s birthday party about five years ago. He and Killian had a class together so Will brought him along with our usual group. You might not believe it, I don’t think anyone would really, but I didn’t hate your brother the first time I met him.”

“Oh no?” he asked, waiting for her to continue.

“No, we - we actually hit it off really well. He was funny and easy to talk to and actually kind of…” Emma trailed off, finger running over the rim of her glass as she remembered his easy smiles and the way his shoulders shook when he laughed. She remembered the way he spoke, loudly and animatedly with the group but also softly and what she’d thought was sincerely when it was just the two of them. “Sweet,” she finished lamely. “He was sweet.”

She cleared her throat. “I liked him. I was stupid and young and he was charming and well, you know how he is, he’s your brother.” She couldn’t look at him now when she told him the story. It was too embarrassing. She felt as vulnerable now as she had that night and while she’d let herself then, it had been a hard lesson on why she should avoid letting herself feel that way again.

“I do,” he said.

“Anyway, we ended up spending most of the night together in a back booth in the bar. Everyone was dancing and drinking and we just sat there talking.” They’d talked for hours. They’d talked about nothing, silly things, movies, books, what they’d wanted to be when they grew up. But also about real things, things Emma had never talked about with anyone apart from David, not even her closest friends; about her childhood before Ruth, about Neal, about what she wanted out of life but was afraid of going for, afraid of failing. She hadn’t even meant to tell him most of it, but he’d listened in that rare way so few people do, the way they do when they actually care about what you have to say and aren’t just waiting for their chance to talk. She felt stupid now for all the things she’d told him.

“We didn’t even realise the others had left until the lights came on and we were being kicked out because the bar was closing,” she continued. “He, um,” she cleared her throat. “He asked me back to his place but I said no.” She rubbed at her neck, feeling awkward now sharing this with Killian’s brother as she recalled the details of the night and the next morning. She’d said ‘no’ because she liked him, ‘no’ because she didn’t want to go and ruin something good by turning it into a one night stand.

Suddenly, his hand was on her arm, fingers brushing over the bare skin there and her breath caught at how warm he felt against her. It was comforting, familiar though, and almost unsettling in that familiarity. She remembered another set of fingers running up her arm outside her apartment building years ago.

“You don’t have to tell me -” he started.

“No it’s okay,” she cut him off. “He was surprisingly okay with it,” she said. Well, not so surprising considering what he got up to later. Liam didn’t need to know about the kiss - or the other one for that matter. She bit her lip, remembering. “It was late so he offered to walk me back to my apartment. I lived in kind of a shady area back then,” she explained. “He did and we went our separate ways,” after a while , she thought, “and we made plans to meet up the next morning.”

“So, what happened?” he asked, his fingers still idly tracing patterns on her arm up to her shoulder.

“What happened,” Emma started, clearing her throat again as the anger set in. Anger was good. Anger helped with the humiliation, with the hurt. “What happened is I went to his place the next morning and some girl in a towel answered the door.” She saw his eyes widen. She couldn’t see his eyebrows but she knew they were likely shooting up to his hairline.

“What?” he asked, mouth gaping open.

“Yeah. Some blonde, obviously a blonde. He’s got a type, you know. She told me Killian was in the shower and it wasn’t hard to figure out that after I turned him down, he went out and found someone else to get his rocks off with. So yeah, that’s when I realised exactly what kind of guy he is.” He’d probably only walked her home as a favor to Will.

“I’m sorry, love, that must have been awful,” he said. Emma shrugged.

“It is what it is. Honestly I’m just annoyed at myself for not seeing it sooner. I’ve met enough guys who are only after one thing and I don’t know why I convinced myself he wasn’t.” She gave him a small, insincere smile.“Must have been the rum,” she shrugged. There hadn’t been any rum though. Neither of them had had a thing to drink since they’d sat down in that back booth, hadn’t felt the need for it. It had been so easy.

“Perhaps,” he started, and Emma turned to look at him. She’d been fixated on her glass for the last few minutes. She couldn’t really make out his expression in the dim lights, his voice soft enough to be nearly drowned out by the music. “Perhaps you should ask my brother about that night,” he suggested. Emma’s eyes snapped to his in surprise and what almost felt like betrayal.

“Why would I do that?” she demanded, feeling defensive. She pulled back a step, wanting to put a little distance between them after this unexpected turn - what was it with her and baring her soul to the Jones brothers? Was she that much of a sucker for blue eyes and an accent? - but he followed her, moving with her and leaning in close to speak so he wouldn’t have to shout over the music.

“Because, Swan, there are two sides to every story and if I’ve learned anything, it’s that it’s always better to give someone the benefit of the doubt.”

Emma blinked at him, slightly distracted by him being so close to her. The room was crowded and she felt the stickiness clinging to the back of her neck from the heat of so many people packed into one place. A lot of that heat seemed to be coming from him. His hand was still on her arm, having drifted down to her wrist, his thumb tracing over the back of her hand as he spoke, his mouth next to her ear and his breath warm against it. The smell of him was heady around her, like leather and sea air and - wait, had he just called her Swan?

She looked up then, narrowing her eyes as she tried to make out his face under his mask. Something about him… something was familiar, more familiar than brotherly resemblance. His jaw ticked, the muscle clenching in a way that was so… she'd seen it before, it - Oh. Oh, no way . She looked him up and down, taking in the lean frame, the dark, flippy hair that stuck out of his mask rather than the curls she expected, the sharpness of his jawline where Liam’s was softer, the shape of his mouth… Killian. Oh, he was a dead man.

“Maybe you don’t know him as well as you think you do,” he said.

She turned her head up to meet his eyes, set her chin like she always did when she was ready for a fight. “Maybe you don’t know me as well as you think you do,” she started, ready to call him out on his little ruse and rip him a new one for tricking her.

“You’re right,” he said and some of her fight was lost to her surprise at the way his voice softened. Who the hell was this Killian in front of her now? Where was the fight, the ego? His hand was still stroking hers, his eyes were sincere and unpretentious and even a little self-deprecating. “So, just who are you, Swan?”

She pulled back, drawing her hand from his and crossing her arms over her chest, trying to wither him with her stare. “Wouldn’t you like to know.” Wouldn’t he indeed. She was sure he’d love to find out all about her so that he could use it as fuel for their arguments, like some game. The nerve of -

He ducked his head, catching her eyes and stepping even closer to her. Her breath caught at the openness and the sincerity she saw there. “Perhaps I would,” he said and Emma felt her heart pounding against her ribcage. He hadn’t looked at her like that since that night. Since the night she felt for the first time in years that she’d found someone who understood her, someone she connected with, another lost soul, someone she could actually care about, maybe even - She wanted to believe him. She wanted it to be real. It sounded real. It felt real. And he was so close and the way he looked at her..

Emma didn’t remember moving, didn’t remember putting her drink down, but suddenly her hands were gripping the sides of his face and pulling his lips to hers as she rose up on her toes to meet him. He froze against her for a moment, in shock probably she realised, and she grasped the reality of exactly what she’d just done and how stupid it was. But before she could step back, his arm snaked around her waist and pulled her tightly against him, his body flush with hers as his other hand traveled up to tangle in the hair at the nape of her neck.

She should stop this. This was Killian for god’s sake. Killian, who she hated. Killian, who she swore she’d never let get under her skin again. Killian, who was currently backing them against the wall behind her. She gasped as her back collided with the hard surface and he used the opportunity to slant his mouth over hers, letting his tongue slide into her mouth, making her let out a sound she should have been embarrassed about as heat rushed into her belly. He growled as his hand found her hip, tugging roughly and pressing them even closer together.

She knew she should stop it. This was Killian. Killian, who knew how to push every single one of her buttons, who’d pushed her and challenged her from that first night. Killian, who she looked forward to seeing at every get together if only so they could spend ten minutes insulting each other and she could see his mouth twist into that playful smirk. Killian of the Swans and loves . Of the soft smiles that crinkled his eyes. What if she’d been wrong? What if she’d misjudged him? All these years.

Emma slowed, her hands which had at some point ended up in his hair released their grip and she let one settle around his shoulders, the other sliding down over his chest to rest in the v of his shirt. She could feel his heart racing under her palm, matching her own’s frantic beating. Killian froze again, and then something changed. His hand released it’s nearly painful grip on her hip and slid up her back to rest between her shoulder blades. The hand that was fisted in her hair came around to cup her face, his thumb brushing over her cheek as his lips slowed over hers, his movements no longer desperate and needy but gentle and exploratory.

She let him kiss her, let him open her mouth wider under his own, let him pull at her lips and slide his tongue against hers with a give and take that felt so familiar it sent her heart racing again as a warmth built in her chest and in her stomach and bloomed out through her limbs. She felt his shoulders relax under her own as he melted against her, pressing her against the wall like he wanted to feel every inch of her skin against his through their clothes, feel her heart beating against his and drown her in the warmth that was radiating off of him. She was burning up from the inside out.

He pulled back after a long moment, pressing his forehead to hers, eyes still closed and lips still close enough to touch if she just tilted her head every so slightly. The hand that had been at her cheek slid along her jaw, thumb brushing over her bottom lip as his breath puffed hot against her face. His fingers trailed slowly and featherlight along her spine.

“Emma,” he breathed as her hand came to his cheek, tracing the stubble under her fingers. She was only just pulling him back in when the music stopped.

The lights coming on were like a bucket of ice water being thrown over her. Somewhere, someone was announcing that it was midnight, that it was time for everyone to remove their masks and reveal who they really were.

She saw it in his eyes, the regret as he reached for his mask and it hit her like a blow to the chest. She caught his hand, stopping him from ruining the only excuse she had. If he didn’t, then she could claim she didn’t know it was him. She could convince herself it was all just a mistake. “Swan,” he spoke again, searching her eyes for something she couldn’t give him. This wasn’t who they were.

“Tell anyone about this and I’ll kill you,” she warned. She watched as his lips pressed together and his head fell before he nodded.

“Fair enough,” he said, dropping his hands and stepping back just enough that she could squeeze by.

She did. And then she ran.

***

tagging @kmomof4 and @xsajx because you asked :)

Let me know if you’d like to be tagged in part two!

#captain swan #captain swan fanfiction #captain swan fanfic #cs fanfic #cs fanfiction #cs au #captain swan au #much ado about nothing #captain swan movie marathon #csmm #shakespeare au

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sokkastyles · 4 years

Text

Thanks for asking! I realize I never elaborated on the Jet/Zuko parallels so here goes.

Season one Zuko/Jet are both extremists, though on opposite sides of the war. Zuko will stop at nothing to capture the Avatar. Jet will stop at nothing to rid the world of the Fire Nation. Zuko is the fallen prince, while Jet is the war orphan, both trying to restore what they’ve lost. And both have significant interactions with Katara.

Focusing on book one first, I’ve already written about how Jet manipulates Katara, which makes it worse not only because she did have romantic feelings for him, but because she was totally taken in by his whole freedom fighter thing. He also manipulates Aang and tries to manipulate Sokka, but Katara was the main one who felt betrayed by him. Katara has such a big heart and fighting spirit but at this point in the story she is fairly naive, and it shows here. She probably never considered before this episode that somebody fighting on the right side could be a bad person.

I also looked up the mouth wheat thing because I’ve seen it a lot in anime for similar “tough guy” characters and as that other post I reblogged said, it is a stand-in for cigarettes. I also found out that it’s supposed to represent a banchou, which is a juvenile delinquent gang-leader. And Jet is the leader of a bunch of feral kids, although they are ostensibly revolutionaries. Longshot, Smellerbee, and the Duke do seem like they have good intentions, and they often call Jet out on his behavior.

I also think there’s a comparison/foil with Katara’s interactions with Zuko in book one, which revolve around the necklace and his attempted kidnapping of her. Zuko tries to manipulate Katara using her mother’s necklace but is not very good at it. Not necessarily because he has any moral compunctions but because he’s just not that socially adept. He is most often the victim of his father and sister’s manipulations and the few times he tries to copy them he fails ridiculously, because he is incredibly literal-minded. He’s blunt and often fails to understand things that aren’t directly spelled out. He is not a manipulator.

I’ve also seen people compare Jet flooding the Fire Nation village to Zuko burning down Kyoshi Island, in order to make Zuko look worse, but as I’ve said before, Zuko burning down Kyoshi Island was not intentional, it was something that happened as a result of reckless firebending. That doesn’t make it any less bad, but it seems like it’s been popular recently to add this to the list of things that make Zuko “problematic,” so much so that I actually forgot that scene and was surprised when I rewatched the scene recently and discovered it wasn’t the intentional razing of the village that some people on tumblr make it out to be. Zuko’s fault there was simply not caring about the collateral damage in his pursuit of Aang. He wasn’t intentionally trying to burn down the village. Plus, if we were being honest, all the gaang would cause destruction wherever they went given how much bending they do. That’s not something the show dwells on, though, the way that superhero movies don’t dwell on New York getting destroyed for the hundredth time (unless it’s a deconstruction of the genre).

What Jet does is much more deliberate. He’s aware that what he tricks Katara and Aang into doing will cause the deaths of innocents, and dismisses Smellerbee when she tells him so, and he’s aware that the gaang will not approve of his actions enough to hide it from them. There’s also an interesting elemental parallel/foil, Jet destroys a village with water and Zuko destroys one with fire - foreshadowing that water can also be destructive? Hama, anyone? Robert Frost said it.

I think I know enough of hate to say that for destruction ice is also great, and would suffice.

Anyway.

Book two, the Jet/Zuko parallels/foils are much more explicit, and highlighted by the fact that they actually meet in book two. Zuko’s on redemption road, although he doesn’t know it yet. Jet explicitly states that he wants redemption, although he’s still doing the same things he was doing before. He enlists Zuko in helping him steal stuff because he thinks he’s entitled to it, and I guess you can argue about whether it was justified, since the captain was treating the refugees unfairly, but Jet mostly seems interested in stealing food for himself and his group. To be fair, Prince “ew, poor people” Zuko doesn’t exactly have egalitarian motives, either, which is why helping Jet steal food is a regression in his arc. It’s him donning the Blue Spirit identity (although without the mask) once more because he’s trying to get closer to the material life that he lost. It’s also hilarious that when Jet asks Zuko to do this, Zuko’s dumb ass is like “well, Uncle did tell me to make friends.” Sometimes I wonder who was more naive, book one Katara or book two Zuko. Iroh is like “god, I leave him alone for five minutes and he joins a gang.”

When Jet keeps pressing Zuko about joining the Freedom Fighters, Zuko says no. Again, not for any moral reasons, but because he knows that if Jet keeps pressing, he might find out who Zuko really is. Zuko is honest with Jet when he says “I don’t think you want me in your group.” Not for good reasons, again, but the claim that Zuko somehow manipulated Jet is absolutely wrong. Jet was the one who approached Zuko and made assumptions and got pushy when Zuko said no.

Jet does genuinely want and try to change, but his major temptation is finding out that Iroh is a firebender, which he finds out right after he gets pissed that Zuko rejected him so I do think that was part of his motivation for going after them, considering how pushy Jet acted with the gaang when they rebuffed him. Jet, of course, fails the test, although what happens to him certainly isn’t his fault, even if he did make mistakes. It’s a tragedy that in the end, the choice to turn his life around was taken from him, and he was betrayed by the people who he thought were the good guys. This also highlights the theme that sometimes people on the “good” side can be not nice people, which in turn paves the way for Zuko’s redemption and the wider theme that it is actions that matter the most, not which nation you are from. Separation is an illusion, folks.

Zuko’s test happens first when he attempts to steal Appa, the last time he dons the Blue Spirit mask, and then in “The Crossroads of Destiny.” Unlike Jet, Zuko doesn’t know he’s being tested, he doesn’t know he needs to change, although Iroh keeps telling him he does. The change happens in Zuko without him realizing it.

Katara tries to heal Jet, and Jet dies. Katara almost heals Zuko, and Zuko betrays her. And this time Aang is the one who almost dies, who Katara has to heal. This certainly contributes to Katara’s mistrust of Zuko later on, all three of these events tied together. And all three boys are people she has romantic tension with.

Which brings me to another reason I dislike Jet, or rather, what he is meant to be in Katara’s story. Many people have pointed out that Katara is romantically attracted to Jet, and his superficial resemblance both to the “bad boy” trope, and to Zuko. There’s a reason Zutara shippers make this comparison, although I believe its purpose in the narrative was actually to be anti Zutara and provide support for Kataang, but because the writers really didn’t know how to write Kataang properly, it ends up as the opposite.

Recently I saw a post by a popular blog that was anti Zutara that cited Jet as an example of Katara having “low standards.” And like, I can’t entirely blame the post for its misogyny (Katara is FOURTEEN) because this is what the writers want us to think. Katara’s attraction to Jet is very much playing on the “girl develops a crush on the jerk who doesn’t care about her” stereotype. This is, subtly, one of the ways that the show punishes Katara for not returning Aang’s crush. Interestingly, in this episode Aang doesn’t get jealous of Jet at all, and doesn’t even notice Katara’s attraction, but that’s because Aang in this episode is also still naive and in his early stages of his attraction to Katara, and also thinks Jet is super cool. Sokka instantly hates Jet, though. And Sokka is right, but he also has flavors of the over-protective big brother. I do remember that this episode left a sour taste in my mouth because of the (thankfully downplayed) implications that Katara is a silly girl who falls for the “wrong” types of guys because women don’t know what they want and need a man to help them “discover” their feelings. I also think this is meant to be subtextual in Katara making the hat for Jet which Aang ends up wearing, because Aang is the “good guy” who really does care about Katara, you see? Thanks show, I hate it. To be fair, I blame the writers for this, not Aang. Aang is just having fun hanging out in a treehouse and gets to wear a cool homemade hat. It’s the writers who put this weird misogynistic pressure on Katara.

It’s funny though when people compare Zuko to Jet in order to prove Zutara wrong, because when you compare the two, Zuko is the one who ends up looking better, the one who works hard to repair his damaged relationship with Katara, who genuinely did change. The one whose life she could save after he had done the work to save himself.

#zuko #katara #jet #zutara #anti-kataang #kinda

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ineverlookavvay · 4 years

Text

I'm still here hoping (that one day you may come back)

Set during the lost decade. After years apart, Alex and Michael spend a night together.

Fic prompt: “I don’t want you to go.” - Day 3 of Michael Guerin Week 2020

content warning for alcohol, semi-explicit sex, self-destructive behavior

Read it on Ao3

Michael slammed the door to his truck and took a breath, looking around to see if anyone else was loitering in the parking lot of the bar. Too many people, too dangerous to do what he wanted and throw something heavy across the lot with his mind, but too much energy to go inside. Instead, he slammed his fist against the side of the truck, reveling in the way the blow rang through his bones.

It was a Friday night, so of course the parking lot wasn’t empty, which was good since Michael was looking for a fight tonight. He was getting good at recognizing the types of truck that usually belonged to the kind of guy he didn’t mind going to jail for pummeling, and there were several excellent contenders.

Satisfied with the potential, he strode into the Wild Pony, avoiding Maria’s gaze and slipping into a seat at the bar. He was enough of a regular that he barely had to motion to the guy behind the bar to order a drink.

“Don’t you have a trailer to loiter in?” Maria sauntered up, leaning on the bar like she owned the damn place instead of her mom.

“Can’t you afford to hire other people to work here?” Michael shot back, accepting the drink the actual bartender slid in front of him and smirking at her when she frowned. “Go away, I’m a paying customer.”

“Tabs don’t count.”

Michael gave her an actual smile, even though he felt like screaming and crying and tearing the entire town down to splinters. “No, but see, I’m promising to someday be a paying customer. That’s just as good.” She put her hands on her hips, staring him down. Michael was struck again by how ridiculously unfair it was that being an adult was just the same as being in high school, except everyone felt even more entitled. The able-to-drink-in-public part is better though. “Are you gonna take away my drink?” he asked inflammatorily. “No? Then goodbye.” She rolled her eyes but walked away.

Michael sipped his bourbon and slipped some acetone into it. More than he should, probably, but numb was better than whatever he was currently feeling. Numb had always been better than the noise and the tangle of thoughts and the pain—all of the fucking pain—and the worry.

It shouldn’t have even been this bad. It was just a party, an engagement party, for Isobel and her utterly normal, friendly boyfriend. Well, fiancé, now.

Michael wasn’t sure what it was about the whole thing that made him feel the way he did. Maybe it was that reminder of Max and Isobel’s happy, wealthy family, and how completely unaware the Evanses were of the ridiculousness of throwing a gauzy, white party in the middle of the desert. He could always see in their eyes that they were glad when he left, even if they pretended otherwise. Or maybe it was that Isobel had actually found someone to marry, an actual companion, someone who didn’t make her sad, who didn’t make her feel so much that it ached.

Not that Michael was looking for someone to marry. Fuck, no. He was happy chasing the smaller highs of casual hookups. Or at least, he was content with it. He’d had his taste of that something else, of that ache, of that feeling they wrote melodramatic poetry about; he’d had his chance and it had been too much. Too much for someone like Michael, too much to sustain, too much to sacrifice for when he didn’t have anything to give except himself, and even that was small and insufficient.

That summer, the three of them had become bad people, the kind of people who cover up a murder for their own good, no matter how justified it might have seemed. And while Max and Isobel dealt with it by being the very best, upstanding citizen parodies of themselves, Michael just stopped acting like anything mattered. He wasn’t a cowboy, or an upstanding citizen, or a drunkard, or anything—he was only himself. And one of these days, he was going to get off this forsaken planet and become something.

But until then, he split his mind between working and going to Isobel’s parties and pretending he didn’t hate every minute of it. The engagement party had been semi-formal, which meant Michael had put on a clean shirt and jeans, and grudgingly accepted the tie she thrust at him when he walked in the door (now buried somewhere on the floor of the truck). He’d put on a smile and he’d toasted the happy couple and he’d tried to stem that idiotic part of him that had the nerve to feel jealous.

The jealousy, and the sadness, and the feelings of inferiority weren’t even the worst part. The worst part was that they’d gone years and years without telling anyone their secret, and now Isobel was getting married. She was literally going to swear to be honest and faithful and whatever else, and Michael couldn’t help but feel a little worried that she would want to tell all her secrets to this man she was planning to spend her life with. All of their secrets. No matter how much she protested that she didn’t want that, that she wanted a normal marriage, it was still concerning.

Michael finished the drink and another one appeared. Got to love being a regular, even if he wished he had a nicer place to haunt. He took a drink and tipped more acetone in, glancing around the bar for someone to talk to, or hit on, or just plain hit. And his eyes fell on someone walking through the door: Alex.

Michael turned back to the bar immediately, taking a drink with shaking fingers. Fuck. This wasn’t the right night for his first lov—his high school ex, who he hadn’t seen in years, to come wandering back into his life. Then again, Michael wasn’t sure there ever would be a right night for it.

They hadn’t talked. The end of that summer had turned into one nightmarish day after the next—Michael had his first string of arrests, his first nights in the drunk tank, all to try and chase the memory of that night from his mind, to chase away the disappointed look Alex had given him when Michael admitted that he wasn’t going to college after all. It wasn’t like he could say, ‘I have to stay and keep an eye on my homicidal alien sister.’ Things had been bad enough before he’d woken up one morning to find that Alex was gone. Really, actually gone.

That had been the worst string of nights Michael had experienced since he’d learned to punch back.

Michael looked around again, unable to stop himself. He wasn’t sure if Alex had seen him, and besides that, he wasn’t sure if Alex would give any fucks about him. Probably not, which was fair. The only people who did give a fuck about Michael were Max and Isobel, and they didn’t have a choice.

The problem was that Michael was smart. Smart enough to have noticed which tables were empty in the bar when Alex walked in, to find him within seconds at one of them, talking to Maria. Michael was too smart to believe that his shaking hands weren’t the prelude to something larger and more fantastic and extremely not attached to him shaking, to think that he was going to be able to sit there at the bar and drink like nothing at all is different and—fuck.

Michael accidentally met Alex’s gaze and immediately ducked his head down, like he could somehow hide behind nothing, when it was clear that Alex had already seen him. Michael’s head was too fuzzy already to have a good sense of what Alex’s expression had looked like, the whole bar was suddenly too loud and chaotic for him to grasp something as intangible as a social cue.

Maria slid up to the bar and leaned over it to grab two beers, looking sideways at Michael. “What’s wrong, Guerin? Someone bigger and stronger steal the girl you were eyeing?”

He mimed laughter. “Funny.” Michael swallowed the remainder of his drink and stood up, feeling a little bit wobbly and not from the bourbon. “Save your material, I’m leaving.”

Maria looked happy he was going, which was just the icing on the damn cake. Absolutely no one wanted to see Michael, and he wasn’t even really drunk enough to pick a worthwhile fight. He spared another quick glance at Alex’s table, ignoring how it made his pulse speed, ignoring that Alex still looked good as hell, and shoving his still shaking hands in his pockets as he walked past and out of the bar.

He didn’t go to his truck though. There was nothing waiting for Michael anywhere else, and he was far too wired for sleep. Maybe he could still find something to do while he waited for Alex to leave so he could have the bar to himself. Michael slipped into the shadows, leaning against the wall of the building and taking the momentary lull in parking lot foot traffic as an opportunity to sip a little more from his flask of acetone.

He wasn’t sure what he was waiting for, but standing there in the warm night air, with the faint sound of music and laughter seeping through the windows, he felt almost okay. It was almost enough to unsnarl his mind for a moment.

And then the door opened, and Alex stepped out of the bar.

Michael’s breath caught as he waited to see if anyone was with Alex, but no one else appeared. He couldn’t tell if Alex was intentionally walking towards him, or just walking with his fingertips trailing the side of the building, but either way, in a matter of moments they were closer than they’d been in a long, long time.

It wasn’t the right night for this. Michael felt like he needed someone, he had been thinking about their time right after high school anyway, and now he felt unmoored and uncontrollable and like if he was going to make a mistake, he might as well dive in. Michael reached out as Alex drew near him and grabbed Alex’s hand, pulling him into the shadows where Michael was lurking.

“Guerin,” Alex breathed, and it didn’t sound like anger.

“Alex.” Michael’s hands were shaking.

“How are you?” Alex hadn’t pulled his hand away, and Michael honestly wasn’t sure if that was a good sign or a terrible sign. But it was contact. What aliens crave. “I saw you before, inside, but I wasn’t sure if—”

“What are you doing here?” Michael asked abruptly.

Alex smiled, surprised, and it was all nostalgia and ache and the burning brightness of a star. “I’m on leave.”

If it had been another night, if Michael hadn’t been feeling raw and lonely, if he was a little more or a little less drunk, if his hands weren’t shaking like damn leaves. But it was, and he was, and they were. It was a foregone conclusion.

“Wanna go for a drive?”

Alex nodded, and Michael hated how it made his chest clench.

They drove into the middle of nowhere, far enough away from lights that the stars blinked into view. Michael just drove, and god help him, it reminded him of that summer, driving out to the middle of the desert just to be alone with each other. And here Alex was, again, sitting just too far across the bench seat of Michael’s truck, making idle conversation and good-naturedly criticizing every song that came on the radio.

Eventually, Michael found a place to park, cutting the engine and the radio off. They sat in silence for a long, terrible moment. “Nicer view from the bed,” Michael said without thinking about the wording, and Alex laughed nervously.

“Yeah, okay.”

They clambered out and into the truck bed, and Michael was glad he’d recently washed some of the blankets he kept thrown in there. Alex sat with his knees pulled up to his chest, while Michael lounged across the other side, trying to make himself look more put together than he felt. Alex looked at the stars and Michael looked at Alex. He looked good—older, and maybe more tired, and he was missing the jewelry and eyeliner that was so endearingly rebellious. He looked quieter, somehow, and the thought of that made something in Michael want to scream.

“I forgot how quiet it was,” Alex said eventually, looking over at Michael. His eyes were the same, or at least they still made Michael feel achingly adrift.

“Must be a nice change.” Michael had no idea what he was saying, he was just trying not to let the conversation die. Alex laughed wryly. “How’ve you really been?”

Alex shrugged. “You really want to hear about it?”

Michael didn’t. The idea of Alex—Alex who was good and real and made him ache—off fighting someone else’s wars made Michael sick to his stomach, made him want to flip the damn truck over.

“I’ve spent all day talking about the Air Force,” Alex said eventually.

“Okay, so tell me something else about you,” Michael said.

“I’m glad to see you,” Alex said, staring straight at Michael, like he was daring him to argue. “I wasn’t sure you’d still be here.”

“Well, I am. For now.” It was a lie—Michael wasn’t leaving Roswell unless it was in a flying saucer—but the lie made reality easier to bear.

“I’m leaving tomorrow.” The information was offered before Michael could decide if he wanted to know. Alex’s phone chimed from where he’d left it in the cab. “And I had plans for tonight.”

“Breaking plans to bum around with me? I’m honored.”

“When you looked at me in the bar, I forgot all about them,” Alex continued, sounding mildly disgusted with himself.

Michael swallowed hard. “When I looked at you in the bar, I forgot about everything else.” It was easier, out here, to say things like that, knowing it was just between him and Alex and the desert and the night sky—and Alex would be gone tomorrow.

“Are you still getting into fights? Still drinking? Still getting arrested?” He sounded hopeful. That just made it all worse.

Michael looked down at the blanket he was sitting on, worrying the edge of it between the fingers of his bad hand. “Not currently.” Alex’s hand suddenly reached out and grasped his fingers, stopping the fidgeting. Michael looked up and Alex was closer, their faces inches apart.

“Just for tonight,” Alex said, and Michael nodded, unable to turn away even if his life depended on it. Alex smiled like he couldn’t help it, and then pressed his lips to Michael’s.

Everything was quiet. Everything was eclipsed by the desire, the ache, the need to press as much of himself to Alex as possible. Alex’s lips were more chapped than Michael remembered, but otherwise it was the same—the same swooping sensation in his stomach, the same warm wet pressure, the same fervent way Alex licked Michael’s lips until he deepened the kiss. Michael bit back the high, needy noise threatening to burst out of him, wrapping his hand around Alex’s waist, holding him as close as possible when they were both awkwardly sitting side by side in the truck bed. It was enough.

Michael had asked Isobel how it felt to kiss Noah, once. It was under the guise of teasing, but he had really wondered if everyone had the same brilliantly overwhelming feelings he experienced with Alex, like nothing else mattered but the two of them, like nothing else even existed. Michael hadn’t felt that with anyone else, but no one else had been nearly as important as Alex was to him, as Noah seemed to be to Isobel. Isobel had laughed, and said something cliched and cute, but it hadn’t come anywhere near the words he would use to describe kissing Alex. And now, he wasn’t sure that he hadn’t undersold the experience in his memory.

They fell back against the blankets, legs intertwined. It was perfect until Michael misjudged and hit his elbow on the side of the truck with a bang and a loud “Fuck!” Michael slid quickly away from the offending metal, closer to Alex, and Alex giggled, hiding the sound in the curve of Michael’s neck. Michael filed that away, the sound of Alex giggling, deep in his memory, a balm for the really bad moments.

His face still tucked into the juncture between Michael’s neck and shoulder, Alex turned the laughter into kisses, pressing them along the sensitive skin of Michael’s neck. Michael ran his good fingers along Alex’s spine, and Alex shivered at the light touch. Michael felt good, he felt weightless, like he’d been carrying an invisible weight, and now Alex was lifting it.

Alex’s fingers plucked at the edge of Michael’s shirt, and Michael let Alex peel it off of him, the air and anticipation prickling at his bare skin. Alex touched Michael with a look of reverence, running his hands along the lines of Michael’s collarbones, tripping across his nipples, stroking over his ribs, smoothing the line of his stomach. Michael had forgotten how this felt, to have someone really want him, really want to touch him, in a way that felt intimate instead of rushed and anonymous. It made him feel powerful and incredibly vulnerable.

Michael tugged at the buttons on Alex’s shirt, slipping them from their holes, slowly revealing skin, an exceptional tease. Alex huffed a laugh as Michael’s tugging became more insistent, the last button popping clean off the shirt, rolling across the metal of the truck bed. They crashed together, gripping each other’s hips, pressing their skin together and kissing messily.

It was just like the last time, except the sting of that summer was dulled; over time, it had been overtaken by the way that Michael ached when he thought about how long it had been since he’d seen Alex, how many nights he’d spent lying in bed hoping that nothing terrible had happened to him. They were both still eager, and they both seemed to want it just as much. The difference was that Michael knew now that this wasn’t just a summer fling, that it never could be; the difference was that Michael knew that something in him broke every time Alex left, and he would have to try his best to rebuild himself tonight because in the morning, it would break again.

Michael ran his fingers arounds the waist of Alex’s pants—soft, ticklish caresses that made Alex’s breath catch, his exhales twisting towards a moan. Michael undid the fiddly zipper of Alex’s pants, letting out his own moan at the sudden expanse of skin as Alex helped pull them off, at the suggestive bulge of Alex’s cock beneath his boxers. Michael’s pants were off after another moment, hurried motions that made both of them giggle and moan like teenagers.

Filled with the restless energy of want, Michael pressed Alex back down on the blankets, rolling to hover over him, sweeping his eyes over all of Alex’s skin. Their kisses were heated, spurred on by their bodies sliding together. Michael could feel every nerve in his body reacting to touching Alex, every bit of him lit up and conscious of Alex’s every movement, every sigh, every push of his hips against Michael’s, every look and every kiss burning through him.

Alex pulled away, breathing hard, his hand tangling in Michael’s hair. “Christ, I missed you,” he whispered, quiet even though no one else was around. He sounded wrecked, and Michael felt the sound sear itself in his memory.

Michael took a deep breath. Alex was smiling up at him, looking blissful; Alex was here, with him, and he had to make it count, to make it good for Alex, because Michael knew with a sudden certainty that he wouldn’t be able to survive it if Alex came home the next time and didn’t fall into his arms. Michael spent so much time disappointing so many people, but this—loving Alex—this he could do.

“You look nervous,” Alex said, later, when they were both naked and Michael had found the lube he kept stashed in the glove compartment.

“No,” Michael laughed, running his tongue along the sensitive skin by Alex’s hip. “It’s just been a while since I did this with someone I liked as much as you.”

Then Michael’s mouth was on Alex’s cock and Alex’s response turned into a moan, his voice rising into the quiet air as Michael tried to say everything he really wanted to say without any words and hoped Alex would understand.

Hours later, as they lay wrapped together in blankets and each other, sweat cooling on their skin, Michael ran his hand through Alex’s hair and wished he had the power to slow time. Alex’s hair was longer in high school, and Michael regretted slightly that he couldn’t pull on it the way he remembered Alex liking. It was just another reminder that things were different now, that Alex was going to leave for someplace he might never come back from, while Michael dug his own grave slowly in Roswell.

“That’s nice, Michael,” Alex said, leaning into Michael’s touch. Michael pressed kisses to his cheeks, his forehead, his lips—gentle, unhurried kisses, the kind they never got to have in high school. There was always some danger lurking around the corner, the fear of being seen, of being caught; now the only threat was the sun, and the morning that would take Alex away.

“Only nice?” Michael teased, kissing along Alex’s jaw, down his neck. “Do I have to demonstrate my charms again?” He pressed his hips toward Alex suggestively.

“Nice is good,” Alex replied, sighing as he leaned closer to Michael. “And this was perfect.”

Don’t leave, he wanted to say. Instead, he rocked their bodies together again more purposefully as he felt Alex respond. They gripped each other like they could hold together the things threatening to tear them apart with every passing minute, kissing with renewed passion, making the most of what time they had.

They hadn’t slept at all when the sun started to rise, painting the broad expanse of the desert with color and light, or at least Michael hadn’t. Alex was dozing, and Michael was watching him, watching the way the glow of the early morning made Alex’s skin golden, the way his eyelashes fluttered as he dreamed, the dark red of his well-kissed lips. It would have been creepy to take a photo, but Michael wished he’d brought his phone out of the cab, wished he had a picture of Alex looking peaceful and fucking radiant, to remind himself that not everything was shit all of the time. Instead, Michael looked and looked and tried to etch the image onto his memory.

Alex stirred, blinking awake and smiling up at Michael. “Hey.” His voice was thick with sleep and sex, and Michael’s chest felt tight at the thought he might never get to hear that again. He’d never admit it, but while Alex slept, Michael had mentally seriously considered the pros and cons of joining the damn Air Force himself just to have some piece of Alex around him all the time.

“Mornin’,” Michael drawled, kissing Alex’s eyelids, kissing Alex’s hand, kissing Alex everywhere he could see. Alex yawned and Michael grinned. “Tired?”

Alex’s face slipped from contentment to something sadder and more complicated. “Hey, that’s the first time we’ve both actually slept in the same place.”

“Speak for yourself,” Michael replied, then switched tactics when Alex’s face dropped a bit. “Yeah, I know.” He paused, watching Alex’s expression brighten. “I liked it.”

“Me too.”

The sun sped higher in the sky, drenching them in light. Michael wondered what would happen if he tried to telekinetically move the sun back towards the East. Probably worse than just a nosebleed.

Alex started to root around for his clothing in the mess of blankets, shooting Michael small smiles despite the aura of sadness surrounding them. Alex pulled on his pants and slid off the back of the truck, standing up and looking around them like he was cataloguing his surroundings. Michael sighed and pulled on his own jeans, trying to ignore how final it felt.

“So.” It was stranger, in the light, with Alex standing up and out of reach. “You going back to some buff Air Force boyfriend?”

Alex laughed, glancing over his shoulder and raising an eyebrow at Michael. “You going back to some drunk townie?” It stung, a little, and after all hadn’t Michael been trying to sting him by asking first. Alex sighed, turning back to Michael fully, his face suddenly sadder and less guarded. “Don’t worry, Guerin, you’ve ruined me for anyone else.”

Guerin. After being Michael all night, it hurt more than he expected. Michael’s chest tightened at the name, at the offhand remark, and he wanted nothing more than to agree, to tell Alex that he felt the same and have it ring with truth, to admit that nothing else could ever stand up to whatever it was they stumbled upon at 17—but he couldn’t. He couldn’t because Alex was leaving and there wasn’t a damn thing Michael could do about it, because Michael was still himself and now that it was light he could feel the unease spreading over him, because they were different people now than who they had been years ago, and it was nothing but foolish to pretend that nothing had changed.

“I don’t want you to go,” Michael said instead, petulantly.

Alex smiled sadly and shook his head. He pulled his shirt on, tucking it in to hide the missing bottom button, and walked back to the passenger door of the truck. Done. Finito.

Michael sighed, blinking back the heat sitting in the corners of his eyes, threatening to become something he couldn’t laugh off. Michael would only let himself cry in one place, and that was alone in his trailer, where no one could see or hear him, where no one could sense any weakness.

Michael started the truck before realizing he had no idea where Alex wanted to be taken. Not home, because home was still his father’s house, and Michael avoided that place like the plague.

“You can drop me off at the Wild Pony,” Alex said quietly. “I’ll get a ride from Mimi.”

“Right.”

It wasn’t a long drive. Far too short, but neither of them talked. They sat in silence, the cab filling with unspoken words, dread and sadness neither of them could force past their lips. Michael wanted to tell him to be careful, wanted to beg him to stay, wanted to cry and scream and protest that it wasn’t fair for something to be this important and still be impermanent. He drove in silence and parked at the edge of the lot, giving Alex the chance to sneak away without being obvious about where he was coming from. That hurt, too.

“Oh, hey.” Alex paused with his hand on the door latch. “I have something for you, don’t leave.” He climbed out of the car and went running towards the building.

Michael stared after him, his hand on the gear shift, ready to escape if anyone else appeared, certain he’d misheard the request to wait. He could vaguely make out a figure in the doorway handing Alex a bundle of fabric—probably Mimi—and Alex gestured at her to go inside before running back towards Michael.

He pulled open the door and slid back inside, handing Michael a thin cd case. Michael took it cautiously and Alex shrugged, clearly embarrassed. “It’s um—it’s a mix cd. I made it a while ago, thought maybe you could use some good music for a change and it—it made me think of you, so.”

Michael considered the cd, brushing his fingers against the plastic, a sheet of paper with Alex’s handwriting on the inside of the case, listing a bunch of songs he didn’t know. It was very plain, no doodled hearts or personalization or anything, but still, it was something tangible that came from Alex, something Michael could hold, something given to him on purpose. He looked up at Alex with something like wonder. “Thank you,” he breathed, then recovering some swagger, “Knowing your music taste, not sure that counts as a gift, but…thanks.”

Alex smiled, and pulled Michael in for a kiss, short and searing and carrying so much that was unsaid that Michael felt the weight of it settle over him. He wasn’t ready for Alex to leave again, he was never going to be ready, and Alex was always going to leave because Michael was never going to be enough to keep him. That’s just how it was, but Michael knew he would never be able to stop trying to be enough.

“I think I might love you,” Michael said against Alex’s lips, unable to hold back the surge of emotion.

“Don’t.”

Alex breathed in sharply, and Michael could see a tear fall from Alex’s eye, neither of them acknowledging it. He kissed Michael again fiercely, and Michael knew it still wasn’t enough, and he knew that Alex wasn’t going to reply, and he knew that he would swallow it down and disappoint everyone and life would go on. It was inevitable that Alex would pull away, and it wasn’t until he did that Michael realized their hands were clenched together, the cd lying in his lap.

They didn’t do goodbyes, so Alex just smiled tightly and slipped out of the truck and into the bar, and that was it.

Michael drove home. He parked the truck and climbed into the trailer and showered, washing Alex Manes and every painful emotion he brought up down the drain with the soapy water.

Clean and changed and exhausted, Michael tried unsuccessfully to focus on work. His gaze kept going back to the stupid mix cd—who even did that anymore?—and eventually he gave in, rolling his eyes and trying not to feel anything as he started the cd playing.

He didn’t know the songs, and it wasn’t his taste, and it didn’t matter in the least. Michael sat on his bed and listened to the songs that reminded Alex of him.

Sitting there, Michael imagined that he could hear the sound of a jet overhead, carrying Alex out of New Mexico and out of Michael’s grasp; he imagined he could hear Alex’s footsteps, his uniform shoes clicking on the tiled airport floor, tapping anxiously against the floor of his father’s car. Michael listened to the cd and it felt like senior year; it felt like everything he’d ever tried to forget because it hurt and Michael didn’t know what to do with hurt except swallow it down or drink it dull; it felt like lying in the middle of the desert watching the sunlight dance on Alex’s face as he slept.

Michael listened to the cd again when it finished, and then again, and he let himself fall apart, alone in his trailer, mourning the life that they could have had, mourning the life that they never would. He listened until his eyes were sore and red and his chest burned with longing and he felt drained and exhausted. And then he took the cd and slipped it back into its case and put it inside of a cabinet, buried beneath other things, and tried to remember how to forget.

#mgweek20 #guerinweek20 #malex #lost decade #michael guerin #alex manes #roswell new mexico #rnm fic #my writing #angst #loving someone you can't be with #i'm really proud of this fic I hope y'all like it

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moiraineswife · 3 years

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Drawn In - A Witsnah Fic

IT’S TIME FOR NEW CONTENT.

Title: Drawn In

Summary: Pre Rhythm of War: Jasnah and Wit's first kiss. Canon compliant. It's soft and it's fluffy and a little dramatic in places (bc Wit) but it's what they deserved!!!

Teaser: 'Counter to the vicious rumours and harsh jibes, Jasnah was still human. She did not experience lust the same as others that she knew. But she was also not a frozen husk of a woman, devoid of need, or want for companionship and comfort.

A part of her longed for this connection with another person, this intimacy, this want that she increasingly found only with him.

He was dangerous, yes, but he made her feel safe. He made mock of everyone around him, but for her he made sense, and certainty, of things she’d never thought to understand. He was a roamer, a drifter, a wanderer, untethered and bound. But he was hers.'

Link: ao3

Commission Link: Have me write other cosmere characters

“So Investiture will be found on planets with one Shard or more?” Jasnah said, speaking the words aloud as she wrote them shorthand in her notebook.

Conversing with Wit was always a stimulating process. He seemed to view each conversation as something of a duel. The chance to spar, to test his opponent, feel them out, offer them new challenges, new quips that required responses, new information that needed to be processed, new barbs to return in kind. It was invigorating.

Lately, they had been spending more and more time together. He was the Queen’s Wit, and as such he accompanied her to most public gatherings she attended, as was proper.

Something that was decidedly less proper, by Alethi standards, was the amount of time they were now spending together alone behind closed doors.

Nothing untoward had happened between them. Not yet. At times she wondered if she had fabricated the impression that it could. Then she would catch a glint in his eye, the edge of a smile curving across his clever mouth, the way his eyes sometimes darted to her lips as they spoke.

There was flirtation, too. Gentle, for the most part. He was not from this world, but he knew the Alethi well enough never to push too hard or too far. Even if she was not, strictly speaking, Vorin, the society they played within was, and there were rules that had to be abided to.

Outside of that, she had never been one for flowery compliments, or overt, blunt attempts at seduction. They felt hollow and insincere to her, not to mention distastefully brusque. It reminded her of Amaram’s entitled insistence in his pursuit of her. She did not like being made to feel she was a hog bound at the end of a rope to lure the waiting chasmfiend.

She preferred something altogether more subtle and cerebral than the usual Alethi courting methods. Someone who would dare to draw close to her, to tease at implications of what might, to pique her mental curiosity, stimulate her mind, who worked to connect with her, truly, on the most important levels.

Wit...Wit was dangerously skilled at that. And he seemed to know it was what she wanted, seemed to read the eagerness, and the intent, in her responses.

Indeed, she had considered courting him. Truly courting him, and allowing him to court her.

So much so that she had discussed it with Ivory. He was the only person whose view on the matter she considered worth taking. Had he protested, she would have heeded him, and regardless of how invigorating she found Wit, it would have gone no further.

However, Ivory, like her, was intrigued. He felt it would be a ‘good new avenue to explore for her personal growth’. She didn’t view it quite as logically as that. There was some feeling behind her own interest. More than some, if she was honest.

It was late, now. They were tucked away together, deep in her chambers of Urithiru. If anyone heard of it there would be a great scandal. She was, as far as Vorin society was concerned, a single woman. She would be expected to be chaperoned, to ensure Wit didn’t try anything inappropriate with her.

Wit seemed to consider the very definition of what each people he visited ‘inappropriate’ to be his own personal playground. He liked to establish himself within the boundaries of propriety, then slowly test, and push, and pry at them. And occasionally set them on fire and watch them burn with barely restrained glee.

He had revealed much to her in the time he’d spent as her Wit. She’d met him before, of course, and guessed at his nature and origins, but she had coaxed more concrete answers from him now.

He was an ancient creature, unlike anything she, or anyone else upon Roshar, had met before. He had visited other worlds, had witnessed their destruction, as well as the birth of the Shards that now held sway in the Cosmere at large.

The knowledge he held within his mind was incredible, incomparable.

The Heralds had been a revelation to her, as a dedicated historian. They were history come alive, walking, talking, sharing their truth with her.

Wit was the same. Yet so much more. For he was the living history of not only her planet, but many more besides.

Jasnah relished this time they spent alone together. Speaking with him, learning the secrets he carried, the keys to understanding her powers, and the powers of Roshar and beyond.

He seemed to thrive upon her questions, as much as she thrived upon asking them. He was a showman, she knew, a performer. He liked to have an audience to play to. He had stories in his soul, and his purpose was to give them to others, as he felt was appropriate.

“Quite correct,” he replied, absently, not looking at her but making some note on the papers he had propped on his legs.

He was lounging back in his chair, boots up on her desk, which she permitted when they were alone together. If that was his comfort, she would not complain. She was not Dalinar, with military discipline drilled into her. She would not chide a man for sitting as he would in a moment of private companionship.

There was a stack of parchment balanced on his raised thighs. She suspected he was taking his own notes on their conversation. He had done so before, after she had made some observation he’d actually found original and interesting enough to write down.

She hadn’t thought, after all his years of life, that she would be able to provide him with anything he had not already experienced from someone else. It seemed that she had been wrong, and that he found her as intoxicating and stimulating as she found him.

She didn’t object to him writing, either. She found the tradition of forbidding a person from their potential passions or interests based upon some arbitrary concept like gender a foolish prohibition.

Although, not having to deal with men in the hallowed spaces of her research had been refreshing, at times. Excluding a rough half of a population's minds from any topic was ridiculous, she felt.

Besides, Wit had learned to read and write long before Rosharans had even thought it unseemly. He was beyond such things. Indeed, some days he’d confessed to her he was beyond such things as gender.

“And it can exist in multiple states?” she continued, pushing her thoughts back to the topic of Investiture, stopping them wandering down avenues far darker, and more mysterious, in regards to her and her Wit, “As a gas, such as the mists you described upon Scadriel,” she had to glance at another notebook to check the name of the planet. Wit nodded vaguely, “As a metal,” she said, “Like our Shardblades,” another nod, “Or as a liquid, like that gathered at the Well of Ascension.”

“Indeed,” he said, making another few marks with his pen, still not looking at her.

She didn’t mind that, either, but she did lean over to peer at his paper to see just what he was so engrossed in.

She was surprised to see that he wasn’t writing at all. Instead, he was sketching, with delicate movements of a charcoal pencil he must have filched from her desk drawers while she’d been occupied. It was a rather impressive, and rather detailed, rendition of her.

Jasnah as he saw her. Her eyes alive, focused on her work, hair unbound, cascading around her shoulders and down her back. Fingers deftly making some notation. Her face beautifully sculpted by sweeping lines of black against the tan parchment.

It was a very different style from Shallan’s, reminiscent of the drawings he had given her to help identify the Heralds. It was less focused on realism, imprinting every aspect of a moment captured in time, and more stylistic. Obviously his work.

There was...A care to his movements, and such an intimacy to his creation that, absurdly, she found herself having to fight down a blush.

“That’s beautiful,” he murmured, glancing up at her, making swifter, surer strokes with his pencil, “If you’d just hold that pose for a moment more, my dear,” he said, as if this was the purpose of their meetings together.

“I’m not supposed to be posing, Wit,” she said, composing herself, forcing herself to sound queenly and proper. And perhaps overcompensating, by the flicker of the smirk that he gave her. “I’m supposed to be learning. From you, I might add.”

“We’re both old enough and ugly enough to do more than one thing at once, I think,” he replied blandly.

Then he stopped and looked up at her, a faint glint in his eyes.

“I do apologise,” he said, putting a hand to his chest and giving her a slight bow, without removing his feet from her desk, “I forgot to whom I was speaking for a moment.”

He reached out and deftly slid a knuckle under her chin, angling her face more towards the pool of light that shone from the goblet of spheres on her desk.

“You’re not quite what I should define ‘old’ just yet,” he said, the smile pulling apparently irresistibly at his lips.

“Wit,” she said, rolling her eyes, using the motion of turning back to her notes to cover the slight shiver that had pulsed through her at the intensity of his attention upon her a moment before.

“No, please,” he said, cupping her chin gently between his fingers and turning her back to face him once more. “I’m almost finished,” he said, almost breathless, intent, “You can spare me a moment, surely? For the sake of art, Jasnah.”

“You know I don’t care over much for art, Wit,” she said, though she did not pull away from him this time, drawn in to the faint glimmer in his eyes, the plea in his tone.

His touch was strangely electrifying. As if there was Stormlight in his fingertips, sparking between them where his body met hers. The smallest of connections, yet the broadest of implications contained within such a simple gesture.

“I know,” he said, with a dramatic sigh, “One of your very few failings, Brightness. We all must have at least one, I’m told. Except me of course.”

“Of course,” she returned, rolling her eyes again, even as she found herself suddenly, dangerously, drawn in to those bright, sharp blue eyes of his.

“There’s just...Something wrong,” he said, cocking his head to one side, studying every line of her face.

“Oh?” she said, feeling a spike of alertness breaking through the fog of her intoxication.

“Yes,” he said, frowning, “Something not quite right. I think it’s your mouth.”

“My mouth?” she repeated, confused, until she followed his gaze down to his sketch of her.

“Mm,” he agreed vaguely, nodding, “Your lips have such a precise, sculpted quality to them,” he murmured, his thumb rising from her chin and tracing ever so tenderly over them.

She had to restrain herself from closing her eyes and leaning in to him. It had been a long time since she had allowed anyone to touch her as intimately as this. It had been a long time since she had wanted anyone to touch her as intimately as this.

“I don’t think I’ve managed to capture it correctly,” he said, mirroring the motions he was making against her skin on the parchment, shaping her mouth more precisely.

Lines of flesh and lines of charcoal, and breathless daring held together in the stillness between his words, neither of them moving, neither so much as breathing through them. Held. Captivated. Connected.

“That is a shame,” she said, finally, forcing herself to get some words out.

She should draw away. She should put a stop to this. Should direct them back to their studies. This was more than he had ever dared with her before, further than he had ever pushed his teasing flirtation and gentle courting. She should not allow it. He was dangerous. The pull she felt to him was dangerous. The smart, the logical, thing to do was to walk away. To halt this before it began.

She didn’t.

She didn’t want to, Storm it. Her world had ended, and she now struggled in the muck, and blood, and ash that remained to see what she could salvage. It was cold, hard, lonely work. As it had been for all those years she’d worked alone, in shadows, unseen, unwanted, untouched.

Counter to the vicious rumours and harsh jibes, Jasnah was still human. She did not experience lust the same as others that she knew. But she was also not a frozen husk of a woman, devoid of need, or want for companionship and comfort.

A part of her longed for this connection with another person, this intimacy, this want that she increasingly found only with him.

“Perhaps,” he said, then paused, licking his lips, almost as though he was nervous. Do it a part of her willed him, say it. Please. “Perhaps a closer look?” he murmured.

She nodded, expectant. But when he slid from his chair and cradled her face in his hands, kneeling in front of her, he only traced the shape of her mouth with a tip of his finger, leaving her disappointed.

Yet she could see the want in his deep eyes, the gentle intrigue, the spark of daring that had led him to reach out and put his hands on her as he had tonight. With far more intimacy and familiarity than he’d ever risked before.

“Wit,” she said quietly, dislodging one of his fingers.

His eyes flicked to hers, and she felt her heart fluttering in her chest, as if she were an awkward teenager, fumbling into her first exploration of romance.

She forced herself under control, and made sure her voice was level when she said, “Do you want to kiss me?”

He blinked once, startled, then a smile spread across his lips, tentative, still, as if a part of him wondered she might be asking so she could put an end to those thoughts.

But he nodded, “I do, Your Majesty. Most improper thoughts for a Wit to harbour for his queen, I admit.”

“More improper still if they are reciprocated,” she said very quietly, watching his smile flare in his eyes at that.

“Indeed,” he said, now sounding almost breathless, as if he could not quite believe what was happening.

This feeling was likewise mutual.

“If you want to kiss me, Wit,” she said, “Perhaps you should stop dancing around it, and just do it.”

He held himself, suspended by shock, for a single heartbeat. Then he moved, surging towards her like a highstorm’s flood. One hand cupping her cheek, guiding her, the other sliding deft fingers deep into her thick hair.

Then his mouth was on hers, finally, and she was closing her eyes and sinking into him, and he was moving gently against her. Drawing away for a beat, heavy lidded eyes meeting hers, seeking approval, which she gave. Then again, his lips against hers, heat pulsing between them like a freshly infused gemstone.

“Ah. Yes. That helped,” he said, smiling softly at her, making to turn back to his sketch, as if that had been the only purpose of their embrace.

“Yes,” she agreed quietly, “I think that it did.”

Her tone held him in place and he bit his lip, giving her a small half-smile, no longer keeping up the joke of his sketch. Indeed, he let it slip from his lap, the pencil dropped from uncaring fingers, his attention focused entirely on her now.

“I’ve been wondering if you were ever going to allow me to do that,” he said, still sounding a little breathless, though Stormlight should have dealt with any purely physical exertion.

“I’ve been wondering if you were ever going to try,” she admitted, her fingers stroking absently at an out of place curl of black hair at his forehead.

Wit smiled more broadly at that, taking her hand and gently brushing the knuckles against his lips, “I did promise you that I would never leave your questions answered.”

He leaned in for a second kiss but she pulled back, frowning, “You leave my questions unanswered all the time, Wit.”

“I do not!” he said, affronted, placing a hand over his chest.

She gave him a flat look, “You disappeared for three weeks last month. Upon your return I asked you where you had been and you told me that you had ‘gone fishin’,” she said, badly mimicking the accent he’d used.

He smiled and rubbed noses with her, which was the last thing she’d expected, and startled her so much she almost missed his reply.

“Technically, my dear, that was an answer," he said, smiling innocently up at her.

She just stared at him, unimpressed.

Wit raised a finger, “I promised you I would give you answers. I said absolutely nothing about those answers being of any use to you.”

Jasnah sighed, then kissed him again. That seemed to take him by surprise, which was pleasing. She found herself smiling against his mouth, and he against hers, and they broke apart, both laughing softly, unable to maintain the kiss.

“So” Wit said quietly, his eyes flickering up from her lips to meet her gaze, “This is something we do now, is it?”

“I assumed when you said that you wanted to kiss me, that implied more than once,” she replied with a small sniff.

Wit smirked at her, “Rather presumptuous of you, isn’t that, Your Majesty?” he said, waggling his eyebrows at her in a way only he could get away with doing.

“Not if I’m right,” she said evenly, “And I am, aren’t I?”

Wit grinned at her, “This is one of things about you I’m so inordinately fond of, Jasnah.”

“My ‘unfettered, unyielding, and quite boundless arrogance’?” she asked, smirking slightly at the memory.

Wit paused, then cocked his head and said, “Ruthar?”

She inclined her head, confirming that suspicion. His grin broadened.

“If you’re right, I don’t think that’s arrogance. I think it’s justified confidence in oneself in that circumstance,” he said, musing.

“So I am right, then?” she said, feeling a ridiculous flutter of nervousness as she asked the question, as if he might now turn around and reject her, after everything.

Wit stroked her cheek with his knuckles and said quietly, “Given that I’ve been thinking about nothing but kissing you again since last we stopped I’d say that yes, your hypothesis has some merit.”

“I thought I already told you what you should do if you want to kiss me,” she replied, “I am not fond of repeating myself, Wit, you know this.”

“I do apologise, my Queen,” Wit breathed, already leaning in, the words pressed against her lips a moment before his mouth met hers again.

When he drew back again, Wit cupped her face between both hands, gazing up at her, intent, and said quietly, “This is what you want? I am what you want?”

“Yes, I believe so,” she replied composedly, “I have already come to the conclusion that this is a mostly appropriate course of action to pursue.”

Wit raised an eyebrow at her and she actually blushed, turning away from him, feeling ridiculous. She had taken charge earlier, had all but commanded him to kiss her, but now she was stumbling around him like a teenager who had never so much as had another person hold her safehand?

“I am not accustomed to this kind of conversation,” she admitted, trying to reassert herself, though feeling horribly awkward at the same time, “It has never been my forte.”

He just shuffled in a little closer, and she realised that he was still kneeling on the floor in front of her while she sat primly at her desk. Storms. What a ridiculous man.

She stood up then said, “Come, let’s sit somewhere more comfortable, if we’re to have this talk now.”

Wit stood up as well, but put a gentle hand on her arm, “We don’t have to talk about anything right now,” he said, “It was a kiss. Which may turn into more kisses. Or it may not. We don’t have to define anything just yet, if you aren’t ready for that.”

She stared at him incredulously.

“Did you hit your head on something as you were standing?” she demanded.

He blinked, confused.

“Have you forgotten entirely who I am?" She went on, "I can’t think why else you would say something so ridiculous to me.”

He snorted with laughter at that.

“Of course, of course,” he said, waving a hand, “How foolish of me, to attempt to put a woman at ease and remind her she’s under no obligation to me because of a single kiss we shared in the heat of a moment.”

Jasnah sighed again and rubbed her forehead, wincing.

It had been some time since she’d had to navigate a romantic relationship and she...Well she hadn’t been exactly good at this to begin with.

She opened her mouth, but Wit just put a finger to her lips and spared her the trouble of making an even larger storming fool of herself.

“It’s quite alright, my dear,” he said, eyes twinkling in a way that she found, frustratingly, both irritating and enticing all at once, “In fact it’s rather refreshing. It’s the apocalypse, after all, we haven’t time to waste with pointless pleasantries and empty reassurances. Lead on, your Majesty.”

Still grinning, he slid his hand into hers and allowed her to draw him over to the reclining couch she had set up on the opposite side of the room to her study desk. A place for more relaxed reading or meditation.

They both settled themselves, Wit still smirking at her, and she withdrew her hand from his and clasped it in her lap, not looking at him.

“So,” Wit said, leaning in, and raising his eyebrows suggestively, “You’ve, let me make sure I get this correct,” he cleared his throat, and his already deep voice lowered even further as he said in a breathy, exaggerated, voice, “‘Come to the conclusion that I am a mostly appropriate course of action to pursue’ have you?”

She stared at him flatly, and in direct counter to his hyperbolic seduction, which had intensified to the point that he was now fluttering his eyelashes at her, replied as matter-of-factly as she could, “Indeed. Ivory and I have already discussed it together at some length.”

That made him sit up, suddenly dropping the act, which surprised her, as she’d expected him to drag at least a few more minutes of torment out of it.

“You spoke to Ivory about us?” he said, in normal tones again.

“Of course,” she said, frowning slightly, unsure why he thought this so worthy of remarking upon, “Any relationship I am involved in will directly impact upon him. It was only right that he be allowed a say in it.”

“You wish to embark upon a relationship with me?” Wit repeated, a little dazed, as though she’d just swung a heavy weight into the side of his head.

“Yes, Wit,” she said, then narrowed her eyes and drew away from him, “Unless you are only interested in a physical distraction with me,” she added, feeling suddenly cold at the prospect, “In which case this ends here, with no further conversation required on the matter.”

“No,” Wit said, quickly, his voice gentle and reassuring.

He reached out and took her hand to stop her retreating from him. When she hesitantly allowed this, he squeezed it and scooted closer, bumping his shoulder against hers in a manner that he apparently saw as affectionate.

"Not at all, Jasnah,” he said, shaking his head. Then he paused and added, “The kissing was very pleasant, I must admit. But there is more here, Jasnah, much more.”

He met her eyes, and there was a depth to him he had rarely allowed her to see there. Knowledge, and history, and life and all of it focusing entirely upon her and this moment. It was almost overwhelming.

She nodded slowly, running her thumb absently back and forth on the top of his hand, “It has been some time since I have connected with someone the way I have with you these past months,” she confessed quietly.

Despite the fact that she had kissed him mere minutes before, despite admitting she had spoken with Ivory about him, despite the fact she’d all but told him that she wished to embark on a relationship with him...That revelation made her feel suddenly vulnerable. Almost to the point that she instinctively withdrew, before he saw, before he could use it as a weak point to hurt her.

But something in him held her there. Like a Windrunner balanced on a surge, suspended above a chasm, unable to fall, to retreat to the ground where it was safe, and familiar, while the thrill of the flight kept them airborne, free, unwillingly to remember what life had felt like before this intensity, this rush of feeling and joy.

Wit nodded to her, squeezing her hand again, stopping her from falling, as she had so many times before, “I feel the same way,” he admitted, “You are a truly extraordinary woman, Jasnah Kholin,” he breathed, huffing a soft laugh and shaking his head. “And I would be lying if I tried to claim that I had seen this coming. I doubt even Cultivation-” he broke off, shaking his head.

Taking a breath he composed himself, and met her eyes once more, tenderly cupping her cheek in his hand. She allowed him, once again feeling as though something in his touch was electrified, as though something sparked between them at the merest brush of his skin against hers.

“You took me utterly by surprise, Jasnah,” he said, his voice now soft and sincere, “I knew you were a woman of uncommon beauty, of unsurpassing intelligence, and wit, even before I joined your court,” he added, seemingly unable to stop himself. Then he sobered, his voice gentler, more serious, “But I could never have predicted the effect that you would have on me. How stimulating your companionship could be, how addictive spending time with you could become.”

She nodded, barely conscious of the gesture, then she cleared her throat and said, “Is this your long winded, Wit way of telling me that you want to be in a relationship with me as well?”

Wit laughed at that, but it was a fond laugh, not meant to mock or hurt. He stroked his fingers through her hair and said, “Would it be more direct and obvious if I just kissed you again?” he asked.

“I certainly don’t think it could hurt,” she replied flatly, even as something in her chest fluttered in excitement at the prospect.

He did just that, but broke away before she was ready for it to end and said, “Jasnah Kholin.” She didn’t have a chance to reply before he was kissing her again. “I am telling you now,” Another kiss. “In no uncertain terms whatsoever,” He kissed her once more. “That I absolutely,” Another kiss. “Without a doubt,” She was smiling now. “Or a shred of hesitation,” he kissed her once more. “That I, your Wit,” he leaned in for another kiss but met only her finger, pressed against his lips and blocking him.

He raised his eyes to meet hers without drawing back from and said, the words mangled by the press of her finger against him, “Am asking you if you would-”

“Wit,” she groaned, shaking her head, even if she was still smiling at his antics.

He straightened up, also grinning, and said, “I want to be in a relationship with you, Jasnah. A romantic relationship. With you as my partner. If that is something you think would please you?”

In answer, to be quite sure he understood her completely, she kissed him again.

***

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