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pinkhairedlily · 3 years

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[Open Your Mouth] Chapter 4 - R

See previous chapters here: AO3 | Tumblr

Summary: Or maybe it was just the first time she was treated like she had an agency. The gestures for permission, the unspoken questions of consent, the way he wouldn’t touch her first or grab her or mar her skin even when they were having sex. Most men would have their true natures revealed once shown the great pussy. But there he was, always cradling her like she was porcelain china. Not that she minded. It was a breath of fresh air to be held like that, in gentle caresses and soft whispers that beg to betray his true feelings at any given second. It was madness not to be consumed by it, but it was tragedy that she only knew of this reality just now.

-xxxxxxx-

April 20, 2021, 11:16 PM

“Still in questioning for two weeks,” Sasuke grits through his phone. “And they didn’t allow him to post bail?”

“Akugawa’s attorneys tried to appeal this week but it’s a no go. Doesn’t help that he’s brought to a different district so it’s completely out of our jurisdiction,” Neji replies. “Have you heard from Jugo?”

“Just a text message saying they lied to him and told him the directive was from Asuma.” Sasuke lets his fingers run through his hair, too frustrated to think straight this evening. “All they have against Akugawa are purely circumstantial. This is ridiculous.”

“Yeah, but the media ruckus is hungry for the gay serial killer angle. Well, I gotta go Uchiha.”

“Have fun. It’s your wedding anniversary tonight, isn’t it?”

“Shut up. Aren’t you with a woman yourself?” The call ends.

Rid of distractions, he is now at liberty to gaze freely at the rosette reading a book beside him. She gives him a smile and ditches the book to trace lazy circles on his chest. The lunch break meetings have become too short for the both of them thus the need for dinners and coffee. He didn’t plan on making a move, not when there is still an active case, but she’s enthralling in a sense. It’s her presence that pulls him into her orbit – or maybe it’s the pink hair and the emerald eyes that make it difficult to look away.

When he almost hailed her a cab for their fifth dinner, she grabbed his arm and slowly pulled it down to her side, intertwining her fingers with his. It was the first time he held her hand.

With a flushed face under the dim city lights, she asked him, “I would like it if you take me home with you.”

And even after arriving in his flat, he hesitated to kiss her. Only when she brought his fingers to her lips did he move, suddenly gripped with a drive to gently coax her into pleasure. She undressed for him in the dark, already wet and pulsating for his touch, his kisses, and he let the jasmine perfume perforate his senses. He was careful not to leave marks of his trail – after all, it might just be the last as it could be the first – and regrets were felt stronger when there were remainders.

The first time was followed by a second, and she posed a question. “Why are you so gentle with me?”

He looked at her face and tucked a stray strand behind her ear, the color of his dreams. “I’m afraid you’ll break.”

She took his hand and slapped it on her perky breasts. “Try and break me then.”

Where he wavered, she asserted – her nails leaving scratches on his back, bruising his lips, marking his neck, and pulling his hair – but she did it so beautifully that he basked in pain as she yelled his name in ecstatic throes.

He pulls away from reminiscing when the lazy circles start to draw lower. He softly takes her dainty wrist and places an open-mouthed kiss where her pulse is.

“I take it your team is still prohibited from pursuing other leads?” Sakura gasps.

Sasuke shakes his head. “Both chiefs had to save face, particularly when the district attorney got the call first, then the media, and we were the last to know. But it’s more of a pro-forma. My guts don’t tell me they’re still out there.”

“You don’t believe it’s him?”

“He perfectly fits Yamato’s profile. Had several sexual relations with married CEOs, naively accepted promises of secured futures, let down just as quickly as he has been picked up.”

Sakura climbs on top of him and starts to grind on his hardened member. “Too bad. Akugawa is a nice colleague. I was the one who encouraged him to enroll in those meditation classes.”

One arm wraps around her waist to keep her steady while the other tugs away the sheet that comes in between their moist flesh. He brings her breasts closer to his tongue, his words lapping against her skin. “Oh you must be good in yoga too.”

“I’m flexible like that, Detective.” She slips his cock insider her ready core, and the fitting sensation makes the both of them shiver.

“What other things are you good at, Dr, Haruno?”

She locks eyes with him and words are lost as they start to find rhythm in their thrusts.

-xxxxxxx-

April 25, 2021, 6:27 AM

“I take it they’re gonna name you as the director for the overseas expansion.” He asks as soon as they step out of her penthouse.

He didn’t expect to step foot in her domain; he knew it was how the elites operate, but maybe she waited for the sixth date to test him. He couldn’t deny how he was intimidated by her biometrics door, the large cctv panels on her foyer, and her voice-automated house system, but it fascinated him to see the bleak contrast of her plant-filled space against the extravagant automations and sharp marble floor.

“I’m not quite sure.” She angles her eyes on the retina scanner, and the security system beeps to life. The whole floor will be inaccessible even to the administration until she comes home. “Either way, it’s gonna be a success for the Senju-Haruno corporation and its shareholders.”

“Shouldn’t they give you bodyguards then?”

Her fingers ease in into his waiting hand. “I have a detective for a lover. I’ll be fine.”

He leaves soft kisses on her knuckles. “Can’t your lover be worried?”

“I don’t think they’ll come after me. I’m a woman, remember?”

6:41 AM

“Sorry to delay your trip to the office. I’ll just check the ravine again.” They hazard park on the side of the forest. “Stay put. I’ll be back in a jiffy.”

Sakura nods with a tight-lipped smile. “I’ll stretch my legs out for a bit, but I really wouldn’t want to wander. I don’t know the area quite well.”

He hops off the car, unaware that a nondescript black sedan stopped a few meters away from their spot. Sasuke traverses the wide trunks and mossy forest floor until he finds the exact dumping spot – a clump of thorny bristles and rue hedges. His eyes survey the surroundings and notices a disturbed, rather steep area above the ravine, a tricky slope which cannot be possible for someone like Akugawa. With his built, he would have skidded down when he dumped the body. It had to be someone petite.

Light footfalls behind him. Sasuke glances at the sound, his hand ready to pull out his gun.

“Sorry I followed you. I’m kinda jumpy.” Sakura waves at him from above the slope, her silhouette prominent against the morning backlight.

Then his eyes register another bigger, taller, heavier silhouette behind her.

“Sakura!”

Gunshots miss Sasuke by a breadth, but he doesn’t miss how the hooded figure clamps a hand over Sakura’s mouth and drag her away into the forest. He scrambles up and follows their trail, cursing his ineptness.

His breaths are louder than the wakening birds and traffic on the roadside, and his feet feel more like lead for every tree that leads him deeper into the forest. Then he hears two consecutive shots, and he feels all of his sensory motors go into overload.

Sasuke’s feet direct him to the sound. When the vines give way to a clearing, the first thing he sees is her disheveled rose hair, pulled apart from her high bun, tousled like an unkempt mane on her back.

And a dead man on the forest floor, a gunshot to the head, and another on his side.

She was trembling, eyes wide, clenched teeth, and closed fists. Giving her time to adjust to the events, he goes first to the perpetrator and lowers the hoodie. It’s one of the Mingwa private cronies, probably following him to make sure he isn’t doing independent investigations. But since they touched a Haruno-Senju heir, the corporate publicity will angle this as harassment and attempted assault while the private faction will absolve their hands of any involvement. He calls Kakashi and Asuma for help.

After which, he glances at her, and she finally blinks out of daze. She slumps against him as soon as he’s near, and the reverberations of her body immediately hit him.

“I’m sorry,” he says even though he has a lot of questions.

“He slipped and I went for the gun,” she whispers shakily against his shirt.

Yet he still wonders why there were two shots when one to the head could have sufficed, especially with unfamiliar hands. Or how she’s able to take down a man that size with her dainty wrists.

“I’ll call in sick today. Bring me home?”

He tightens his hug before he lets her go then he realizes he’s not familiar with the terrain.

She tugs on his coat and starts to walk. “If we cut across here, we’ll see the road in five minutes.”

-xxxxxxx-

May 5, 2021, 10:22 AM

“Did Dr. Haruno come back okay?” Kakashi sits down across Sasuke’s desk and fidgets with his unused pens. Even though the investigation was halted, his room remains littered with manila papers, bulletins, and notes on the white board. The necessity to preserve becomes apparent when they receive news of Akugawa posting bail this morning.

Sasuke nods in response. “She still went through with her trip to Belgium last April 28. I don’t know when she’ll be back, but I’m not privy to her internal emotions so it’s not my place to say she’s okay.”

“About time they gave her bodyguards.” The chief detective taps an unlit cigarette stick on his desk. “It’s great seeing you like this.”

“This what?”

“Happy?”

Sasuke clucks his tongue. “It’s not official. She just might be in it for the thrills.”

Kakashi smirks and lights up his stick. “Sex must be great then.”

“Get out, Hatake.”

A rap on the door catches both of their attention. Yamato comes in followed by Asuma, Tenten, Jugo, and Neji.

“There’s a fourth body in the same ravine. Body is now with the ME. Estimated time of death is enough for Akugawa to file for several cases. It’s gonna be a media bloodbath,” Asuma says.

As the lot file out of the office, Kakashi pulls Sasuke to fall behind a bit. “Trust no one, Uchiha.”

11:45 AM

There’s something off-putting about the smell.

This body does not follow the two-week gap; the ME estimated the date of his death on April 27. This slight change in MO presents the possibility of a copycat, but other than that, all injuries are the same – a stab in the carotid, teeth pulled out, arms and feet cut, genital missing – which means another thing, the killer slipped somehow and they’re on a rush. For what, they don’t know.

“Ando Suzuki, CEO of Suzuki Airlines for Japan,” Asuma states his name for confirmation. “Let’s do our usual. It’s time we ramp up our progress, Uchiha.”

Sasuke ignores the pointed insinuation and steps closer to the corpse. It didn’t rain last week despite the forecasts so the state of the body is more or less preserved. He brings his nose closer to the neck, right where the murder tool punctured the artery.

“Sasuke, what are you doing?” Tenten asks. “Forensics have close up shots for that.”

“It’s the smell.”

“Like decomposers and rotting flesh?” Jugo scoffs.

“Is it possible that they might have tried to remove him?” Sasuke asks the ME who quickly goes to him and helps him turn the corpse on its side.

They see fresh scar on the pricked wounds, like someone tried to drag them out of the ravine. As if they knew the position would give them away this time. The smell hits him strongly when the ME returns the corpse to a prone position, and Sasuke almost vomits when he recognizes it.

It can’t be. In controlled breaths, he steps away from the examining table and slumps against the wall. Kakashi notices but pretends not to. It’s Tenten who slithers beside him inconspicuously and taps on his arm. She raises a brow which he responds to with a cluck of his tongue.

“I’ve always wondered,” she starts. “Why can’t it be a woman?”

“If you can recreate a position of a woman stabbing the artery without defense wounds, let me know,” Yamato says with a cold smile. It’s meant to shut Tenten up; he doesn’t like his profiles being challenged. “And the smell you’re talking about Sasuke? It’s jasmine. The area probably has blooms.”

2:30 PM

“Something’s weird with Uchiha,” Neji pulls out his badge, ready to present it to the landfill. They’re revisiting dumping sites again for a second go-through. The killer is starting to leave breadcrumbs all over the place. “Did you see how pale his face went earlier?”

“Jasmine and rotting flesh don’t make good perfume,” Tenten figures. The guard sees their badges and gestures for them to come inside.

There’s a peculiar batch of scavengers in the area, people who aren’t part of junkshops or associations, just individual peddlers. A bald man in his 70s glances their way and starts to move towards their directions with only one foot and crutches for the other.

“Police?” He has a putrid gummy smile. “That lad didn’t come here again.”

Neji tugs Tenten away, but his wife stays rooted to the spot. “A lad?”

The old man opens his palm.

“He just wants money, dear,” Neji grumbles. “Let’s go now and talk to the real rational people.”

Tenten pulls out her wallet and sticks a wad of one dollar bills on the man’s hand. “A lad?” She repeats.

“Thought it was our fellow. We have young ones with us, you know, like your age but definitely shorter in height. He comes in dressed in a black raincoat and plastic boots, dragging bulky garbage bags like they’re not heavy at all.” His smile gets bigger by the count of the bills.

“Did you get a good look at this man?” Tenten asks, still unwilling to let go.

“Tenten,” Neji warns.

“This might be our lead. A concrete lead for once.”

“Wind knocked his garbage of a hood one time. Shiny bald head says hi.”

Neji is at the end of his wits. “Dear, you’re not even sure if he’s talking about our guy.”

Tenten sticks a 10-dollar bill on the old man’s almost torn shirt pocket. He proceeds with a guttural laugh, the phlegm oozing through each gasping breath. “He always dumps those bags on a full moon.”

4:30 PM

Sasuke sneaked in earlier to the administration office just before the receptionist’s desk came into view. With slight intimidation into play, he managed to get duplicate recordings of the cctv of the whole floor.

He taps Kakashi for help and another IT staff.

“Looks normal to me,” the silver-haired man remarks. “Why are you snooping on your girlfriend?”

“All of them were her patients at one point,” Sasuke replies. “And we don’t do labels.”

“But their visits were nowhere near their kill dates.”

“Their visits were logged as emergency procedures because Akugawa or their company doctor wasn’t available. So why?”

Kakashi smirks. “Are you insinuating they were there to get a glimpse of her? The recluse medical corporation heir. Nothings amiss in the recordings, right? No sexual body language?”

Sasuke hopes the same, but the lurch in his guts tells him otherwise. He swallows whatever saliva that hasn’t dried yet in his mouth in anticipation of the inevitable.

“The recordings are fine. She’s always accompanied by her assistant when she has clients,” the IT replies. “It’s the code that bothers me. You see, a malware is playing with it, looping the same frames while continuing the time ticks. Either someone knows their technology or this is a complete human error.”

-xxxxxxx-

May 7, 2021, 12:01 PM

“Oh, it’s you,” Laura says nonchalantly, never glancing up from her keyboard, and click-clacking away even though it’s already lunch break. “She’ll be out in a minute.”

“Do you know how to code?” He doesn’t spare her a glance either, his eyes trained on the door.

“Is this a side job? I can get Shin if you’d like. He fixes the systems here when he has time. He’s a computer geek before he settled for dentistry.” She stops typing and eyes her wristwatch. “She’s here.”

True enough, the door opens just as Laura tells him. She wears her rose hair loose today, falling like waves against her tucked in white long sleeve polo and denim jeans. She spots him after she gives her white coat to her waiting assistant.

Smile, wave, and unhurried walk to reach him. “A lunch break?”

“Wondering if you were still alive after your trip.” The jasmine in the air transports him to two different scenes, his memory being stretched out in two drastic dimensions, one where she’s writhing beneath him and one where he sees the corpse falling on top of him. The scents mix, and he fails to cover up his gag. Both women look at him with brows raised but he waves them off with his handkerchief.

“Days of absence and your heart grows fonder. That saying is true after all.” She places a hand on his cheek and softly taps it. “A sandwich?”

“I’m starving.”

“Two sandwiches then.”

8:19 PM

She invited him for dinner while they were munching on half-dozen random sandwiches from Subway. He didn’t talk about the case nor did he question her radio silence since her Belgium business trip. This was why she genuinely liked Detective Uchiha Sasuke.

Or maybe it was just the first time she was treated like she had an agency. The gestures for permission, the unspoken questions of consent, the way he wouldn’t touch her first or grab her or mar her skin even when they were having sex. Most men would have their true natures revealed once shown the great pussy. But there he was, always cradling her like she was porcelain china. Not that she minded. It was a breath of fresh air to be held like that, in gentle caresses and soft whispers that beg to betray his true feelings at any given second. It was madness not to be consumed by it, but it was tragedy that she only knew of this reality just now.

She knew he had an inkling. She messed up in the forest. If she had the luxury of time, she would have dismembered the man who grabbed her. A stab from a scalpel was a merciful way to go, and that man didn’t deserve it. Filthy hands.

The anger rushes to the surface, and she stabs the roasted meat rather too loudly.

“Is your meat still alive?” He emerges in her dining room and continues to look around. “Your wooden mansion is a far cry from your depersonalized penthouse.”

She laughs as she strains the cooked pasta. “I like having two personalities.” He must have triangulated by now that the location of this mansion is smacked in the center of the dump sites, a safe, close distance to the landfills, the forest, and even the meditation place. He must have seen the black pick-up truck on her garage, the one she uses for farming. She can see all the pieces fitting into a completed puzzle in his head, and she’s sad to let him go.

He opens the wine she placed on the counter, and he fills himself a glass. “You also have a crystal collection like Akugawa.”

“I gave him his first obsidian. Their healing properties are supposedly at maximum during full moon.” She places two plated bolognese pasta on the table and a wide platter of medium rare meat. “Dinner’s ready.”

“This looks good.” His tone is genuinely fascinated. “Didn’t know you could cook. We always dined in or ordered take out.”

“A change of pace, wouldn’t you think?” She also fills herself a glass of wine and watches in amusement as he takes a first bite of the meatballs she especially prepared for him.

“You should tell me where you source your meat. I’ll one up you in our next dinner.”

I’m too sad there won’t be a next one.

10:17 PM

Sakura changes position, and she’s on top of him, gyrating her hips in familiar pleasure. Sasuke wants to take it slow, to re-encounter her folds and curves after several days of not seeing her, despite his senses overriding in danger. He took her an hour ago, on her immaculate grainy wood counter, wine spilling on the sink as he thrusted into her unclothed core. She had gone commando, and this drove him insane. Maybe his lust is taking over him, clouding his judgment, muddling his perfect frame by frame memories, but he has to play this game. It’s only a matter of time.

He feels her insides throb in urgency, and he knows she’s near her orgasm. Her juices leak out, and he bucks against her wetness, releasing his load into her with eyes closed.

He waits for the scalpel to puncture his carotid, but nothing comes. “Sakura.”

She continues riding his limp member and rubbing her clit against his balls. A strategic distraction as they are coming down from a high. He expects her to trace lazy circles on his abdomen, a mannerism he picked up from their nights, but the dainty hands go to his neck instead.

He opens his eyes, and he sees a different Sakura. Her microexpressions are different, her eyes throwing daggers, soft pliant lips in hardened scowl, and hollowed cheeks.

“I don’t know what’s your issue with a scalpel, Sakura.” Her voice is different, the accent changed. “You must have fallen in love with him already. Such a frail human.”

“I wanted to prepare myself before I see him go. That is all.” Her face shifts and the emotions return to the Sakura he knows. He also notes the loosening grip on his neck, unaware that he is holding his breath.

Another shift and it’s back to the other Sakura. “She has such a saccharine charm effective in luring me to do things.” She smiles at him, but it’s not the smile he’s familiar with. “Don’t worry, you’re not gonna die yet.”

She chokes him with surprising strength. He places pressure on her wrists and elbows, but she doesn’t budge. His legs start to thrash out beneath him, and his sight starts to dim.

“Great work as always, sister. We’ve always wanted the truth about Madara, don’t we?”

#open your mouth #sasusaku #uchiha sasuke #haruno sakura #pinkhairedlily #crime and mystery au #thriller au #fic!pinkhairedlily #fic!pseudolily

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angellazull · 4 years

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Hogwarts Mystery Profile: Angelo Lancaster

Finally I updated Angel's profile, model of the form was made by @hogwartsmysterystory, hope this clarifies better.

(@immagrosscandy art)

Name: Angelo Nikolas Stellair Lancaster.

Gender: Male.

Age: 17.

Birth Date: August 23, 1972.

Species: Half-veela.

Blood Status: Half-Blood.

Sexuality: Pansexual.

Alignment: Chaotic Good.

Ethnicity: Caucasian.

Nationality: Brazilian/British.

Residence: Royal-Garden, England.

Myer Briggs Personality Type: INTJ-T.

The Mage

1st Wand:

Acacia – 30 cm – Slightly Springy – Dragon heartstrings core (Antipodean Opaleye).

A very unusual wand wood, which I have found creates tricky wands that often refuse to produce magic for any but their owner, and also withhold their best effects from all but those most gifted. This sensitivity renders them difficult to place, and I keep only a small stock for those witches or wizards of sufficient subtlety, for acacia is not suited to what is commonly known as ‘bangs-and-smells’ magic. When well-matched, an acacia wand matches any for power, though it is often underrated due to the peculiarity of its temperament.

Ebony – 35 cm – Slightly Springy – Veela hair core (Provided by Leonor Lancaster). With a sapphire at the end of the handle and silver details.

2nd Wand:

(Art by @kyril-but-magical)

This jet-black wand wood has an impressive appearance and reputation, being highly suited to all manner of combative magic, and to Transfiguration. Ebony is happiest in the hand of those with the courage to be themselves. Frequently non-conformist, highly individual or comfortable with the status of outsider, ebony wand owners have been found both among the ranks of the Order of the Phoenix and among the Death Eaters. In my experience the ebony wand’s perfect match is one who will hold fast to his or her beliefs, no matter what the external pressure, and will not be swayed lightly from their purpose.

Animagus: A black Bombay cat, with a streak of blue fur on its head between its ears.

Misc Magical Abilities: Veela charm, hypnosis and sensitive to emotions.

Boggart Form:

4st-11th year: The Royal-Garden boys laughing at him and humiliating him.

11th-13th year: His friends turning away from him for being a Veela.

13th year onwards: His most important people dying without him being able to do anything.

Riddikulus form: The previous person juggling puffskeins.

Amortentia: Smell of new book, roses (the smell of Penny), peaches and apple pie.

Patronus: Cat bombay.

Patronus Memory: Jacob and him skating on ice when he was a child and his brother saving him from drowning on the ice.

Mirror of Erised: He graduating as an auror and his dad congratulating him and saying that he is proud of him.

Favourite Spells:

Animus Glacius❄️

Expecto Patronum🐈

Blue Sparks🎆

Aguamenti💦

Colovaria⚪➡️🔵

Voiceclaim: Asa Butterfield

Game appearance:

Height: 1.79 m

Weight: 60 Kg

Eye Colour: Blue sapphire

Hair Colour:

White (original)

Royal Blue (Colovaria)

Skin Tone: White

Body Modifications: N/A

Scarring: A scar on the back of his head hidden by his hair, caused by the time the Royal-Garden boys pushed him and he hit his head on the wall of the fountain.

Inventory: His wand, a notebook , A pen, current reading book, keyring earned from Kyril on his birthday.

Fashion:

Casual - A black jeans, with his sweater with the coat of arms of Ravenclaw, with his blue All Star.

Summer - A royal blue T-shirt, black vest, dark blue denim shorts, and black sneakers.

Winter - A plain T-shirt, a wool sweater, and his furry white overcoat, with winter boots.

Formal Wear - Midnight blue smoking, with a white bow tie and black shoes.

Allegiances

Hogwarts House: Ravenclaw

Illvermony House: Horned Serpent

Affiliations/Organisations:

The Lancaster family.

The Stellair Family.

The Trindade Family (Renegade).

Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry.

Circle of Khanna.

The Order of the Phoenix.

Professions:

Auror - 1991 - 2011.

Obliviator - 2011 - 2012.

Charms professor in Hogwarts 2011 - present.

Hogwarts Information

Class Proficiencies:

Astronomy - O

Charms – O

DADA – O

Flying – E

Herbology – O

History of Magic – O

Potions – E

Transfiguration – O

Electives:

Ancient Runes - E

CoMC - A

Quidditch: Seeker

Extra Curricular:

Transfiguration Club.

Charms Club.

Frog Choir.

Sphinx Club.

Favourite Professors:

Minerva McGonagall - Angel likes how Professor McGonagall believed in his talent for Transfiguration and did not compare him to his brother, Jay. Although she is very strict in her classes, she is always willing to help you.

Filius Flitwick - Angelo likes how the classes are fun and are never monotonous, being a Ravenclaw, Angel is very curious and likes how the teacher always clarifies his doubts and teaches him several spells, even if he is not in his class schedule and is used in their search for the Cursed Vaults and the Khanna Circle.

Least Favorite Professors:

Severus Snape - Angel admires Snape's ability and great knowledge in Potions and the Dark Arts, however he doesn't like how Snape insults him or says he is incompetent, he likes to be stimulated to learn more, with lessons in Snape, he just hopes to survive until the end of class without making his cauldron explode.

Patrícia Rakepick - Angel has always had a back seat with Rakepick, perhaps it was the way in which she found herself unshakable and unattainable. Although he learned many things from her, he never really liked her personality and always stayed away from her as much as possible. And after she murdered Rowan, the boy developed a deadly hatred for the ex-professor.

Relationships

Brother:

Jacob "Jay" Alexander Stellair Lancaster.

Half-blood.

Half-veela.

Ravenclaw.

He was a member of the Herbology Club and the dueling club until he was expelled from the school.

Hippogriff club.

Father: Charles Michael Lancaster ✞

Pure-blood.

Ravenclaw.

Ravenclaw Quidditch Team Chase.

He became an auror after he graduated from Hogwarts.

Member of the Order of the Phoenix original.

He was killed in a duel against Evan Rosier.

Mother: Leonor Mary Stellair Lancaster.

Veela.

Did not attend any magic school.

Specialists in elemental magic.

Specialist in healing spells.

Loves to sing and draw.

Has a great talent for gastronomy.

Love Interest(s):

Canon: Penny Haywood.

(sorry for the low quality image.)

Mc x Mc: Kyril Vasiley @kyril-hphm (Kyril Art)

Best Friends:

Canon:

🦡Penny Haywood.

🦅Rowan Khanna (Dead).

🦅Talbott Winger.

🐍Barnaby Lee.

🦡Chiara Lobisca.

MCs:

🐍(💛)Roger Lopez @hphm-roger

🐍Kyril Vasiley @kyril-hphm

🦅Elaiza Schuyler @annabelle-tanaka-official

🦅Candy and Paula Vigiere @immagrosscandy

Rival:

��Merula Snyde.

🐍 Ismelda Murk.

🦁Sebastian Anguslow.

Enemy:

Patrícia Rakepick.

Wizard in white robes.

"R" members.

Dormmates:

🦅Rowan Khanna (dead).

🦅Talbott Winger.

🦅Andre Egwu.

🦅Arjun Singh. @hogwarts9

Pets:

Arthy, the black cat.

Rowena, the snow owl (Jay owl).

Nevasca, the ice salamander.

Closest Cannon Friends:

🦡Penny Haywood.

🦅Rowan Khanna (dead).

🦅Talbott Winger.

🐍Barnaby Lee.

🦡Chiara Lobisca.

🦡Nymphadora Tonks.

🦁Bill Weasley.

🦁Charlie Weasley.

🦁Jae Kim.

🦅Badeea Ali.

🦁Ben Copper.

Closest MC Friends:

🐍(💛)Roger Lopez @hphm-roger

🐍Kyril Vasiley @kyril-hphm

🦅Elaiza Schuyler @annabelle-tanaka-official

🦅Candy e 🦡PauLINE Vigiere @immagrosscandy

🐍Jason Novak @death-or-sleep

🐍Carewyn Cronwell @carewyncromwell

🦅Flavio Ceccere @sirfluffig

🦅Montague Donohue @montaguehphm

🐍Dusty Emerald @dusty-emerald-hphm

🦡Stephanie Alexeev @hanihonii

🐍Lith Thorne @slytherinliththorne

🦁Aishwarya Mehra and 🦅Arjun Singh @hogwarts9

🦁Ethren Whitecross @hogwartsmysterystory

🦅 Simon Cahill @cursed-vault-ravenclaw

🦅Wendy Gordon @drinkyoursoupbitch

🦡Honey @hmhoney

🦅Luna Silver @lunasilvermorny

🦡Jackeline Peterson @jackie-and-the-curse

🦁 Tu Liang @wangxianforever000

🦅Samanta O'Connell @samshogwarts

Background/History:

Pre-Hogwarts: Angelo was born on August 23, 1972, in the city of São Paulo, Brazil, while his father (as the son of a Brazilian) did international work in the South American country. But he returned to England at the age of four, going to live in the small village of Royal-Garden, near the south coast of the country.

At 6, Angelo suffered the first blow of his life, his father was murdered in a duel against death eater Evan Rosier.

Because of the instability of his Veela powers, he can never interact with Muggle children, because of the risks of revealing the Wizarding World. And after learning about his nature, some wizard boys who lived in the Royal Garden began to bully him, which made him stay away from the children. The only person who knew all this was Jay, and defended his little brother.

When his brother disappeared, Angelo completely isolated himself, he started to stay inside the house reading his father's and brother's books.

At 8, Angelo won Arthy as a birthday present from his mother, and that made the rest of his childhood bearable.

1st Year: While traveling on the Hogwarts Express, Angel felt very insecure about being a half-veela, so in an attempt to change the color of his white hair to black, he ended up turning his hair blue. During the first year, Angel avoided to relate with the other students, having Rowan like its only friend. His teachers, with the exception of Professor Flitwick and McGonagall, were the only ones who didn't compare him to Jay.

After his duel with Merula, Angel met Penny Haywood, when the girl was so kind to him, that from that moment, Angel always blushed when she spoke to him.

He thought he would be a normal student, but no matter how much he avoided it, the curiosity to know what happened to his brother spoke louder, then with the help of Rowan and Penny, they decided to investigate the appearance of the "mysterious ice".

2st Year: As soon as he returned to Hogwarts, Angelo was increasingly determined to discover the truth about his brother and what led him to become involved with the Cursed Vaults. After finding Ben trapped in the ice, he realized that he would need to do what he could to break the curse.

When they found the first vault, and when Rowan was wounded, Angel spent every minute of his free time, studying how to get through the ice door.

The more he investigated, the more bad rumors of his brother were coming, but he refused to believe that Jay was a bad and selfish person as they say he is.

When it was finally time to enter the ice vault. Angelo, Penny and Bill, with much effort, managed to break the curse.

3st Year: With clues to the next Vault, he had to deal with Sebastian Anguslow, a boy who always bullied him at the Royal Garden, so after explaining his situation to Talbott Winger, he agreed to help him become an animagus. After five months, he managed to become a black Bombay cat. So he was able to avoid Anguslow and all his followers.

When he managed to enter Jay's office, after defeating Merula in a duel, he found several notes from Jay about the second crypt, but the image of a loving and protecting brother was undone by the facts.

When entering the vault, Angel, Tonks, Tulip and Barnaby had to face their fears to break the boggarts' curse.

4st Year: As soon as he got back to Hogwarts, his convictions about Jay were pretty shaken, he didn't exactly know what to believe, but if there was one thing he did know, thanks to his Veela skills, he was able to feel a negative energy emanating from her, which meant he should not trust Rakepick.

While steadfastly refusing to be Rakepick's assistant, he learned of a Dementor's invasion, and that it had affected Penny, he told Tonks that he would resolve this and find out the truth behind said. After Tonks taught him to cast a patronus, he discovered that he took the form of a Bombay cat, like Arthy.

After the incident with the Dementor, the relationship between Penny and Angel strengthened each time more, and this resulted in an invitation to the Celestial Ball.

When he met Torvus, the centaur's revelations made his convictions about his brother melt away before the facts presented. This left him devastated, the image of the heroic brother he had from his childhood had been left in a past that seemed unreal.

While investigating, Professor Flitwick suggested that Angelo try to become the Ravenclaw's new perfect. But he knew that it was only a responsibility to divert his search, but the privileges of a perfect one would only help him in his search.

Once his ticket to the secret crush had caused a real mess at Hogwarts, he tried to solve it with the help of Tonks and Charlie, taking the courage to invite Penny on a date, it was an even bigger mess, but in the end, in the light of stars were all perfect, and Angelo finally realized that he had nothing but himself to be accepted, mainly due to his crush. Penny Haywood.

When he finally managed to return the arrow to Torvus, it was time for Angel, Penny, Hagrid and Torvus to enter the forest vault. From that moment, Angelo began to resolve the curses to clear the Lancaster family name and free Hogwarts from these dangers.

5st Year: After returning to Hogwarts to earn his class schedule with the time of his detention, he joined Bill and Merula, despite many protests, joined the Rakepick apprentice group.

Once again Angelo had a personal reason to break the curse, Beatrice, Penny's sister was one of the victims of the curse, so during this year, he had to manage all his time between classes, study for the owls, train and play Quidditch, and investigate Cursed Vaults.

Upon learning that Jay was directly involved in Duncan's death, Angel believed that the caring brother and that he protected him no longer existed.

Without the motivation to find Jay, he simply continued his investigations to protect his friends and clear the Lancaster's name.

During Valentine's Day, even with Lockhart's interference, Angelo and Penny had a great date and in their moment alone in the greenhouse, Angelo asked Penny for a date and gave her first kiss.

After successfully spreading the chaos and getting the painting with Peeves, Angelo, Charlie, Bill, Merula and Rakepick entering the fourth vault. After discovering the truth about Rakepick and meeting his brother again, he had the revelation that thinking about him was the only thing that kept Jay's sanity. And even though Jay was left in the crypt, he had little hope that Jay would still be the brother he was during his childhood.

6st Year: (Pending year)

7st Year: (Pending year)

Order of the Phoenix / 2nd Wizarding War: As soon as they graduated from Hogwarts, Angelo and Talbott started their Auror training with Auror Kingsley Shacklebolt, thanks to their school friendship, the two Ravenclaws formed a great pair, becoming partners.

After finishing the training, Angelo and Talbott were assigned to small missions until they acquired enough experience for large missions. Until one night in 1995, Angel received devastating news, Kyril Vasiley, one of his best friends, had died, which left him devastated. The next day, he received news of the death of Cedric Diggory, another school friend, that was horrible for the blue-haired boy.

A few days after Lord Voldemort's return, Angelo was visited by Albus Dumbledore, who recruited him into the Order of the Phoenix. From that moment on Angelo became a member working on missions on behalf of Dumbledore.

In the battle of the department of mysteries, Angelo was with Tonks and they immediately went to Harry's aid.

During the time that Pius Thicknesse was minister of magic, Angelo works together with some friends to help Muggle-borns and other wizards unfairly accused of the persecution of Dolores Umbridge

After Harry, Ron and Hermione invaded the ministry, Angelo was forced to flee, after sending Leonor and mr. and mrs. Haywood to live at Jay's home in Brazil, he and Penny moved to a small cottage on a deserted Cornish beach.

Quando souberam que Harry Potter estava em Hogwarts, Angelo e Penny sabiam que Voldemort iria atrás dele, então rapidamente eles foram para Hogsmeade para ir até a escola pelo Hogs Head Inn. During the battle, Angelo dueled against the Death Eaters, especially against Cadmus Mulciber, one of those responsible for the death of his father.

Post-War: After the Battle of Hogwarts, Angelo was one of the Aurors appointed by Minister Shacklebolt to track and arrest Death Eaters and wizards who conspired in favor of the dark lord and bring them to trial.

Angelo was one of the Aurors responsible for removing the dementors from Azkaban. And he was tasked by the minister to oversee Harry and Ron's Auror training.

He worked as an auror until 2011, after retiring as an auror, He worked on the Accidental Magic Reversal Squad for a year. Until he received an invitation from Professor McGonagall to replace Filius Flitwick as a charms professor at Hogwarts in 2013.

Old Age & Death: Angelo worked as a teacher at Hogwarts for several years, until he turned 89. Then he said he and Penny lived in a house in Hogsmeade until Angel turned 103, when he died of old age.

Personality

Logical: Angelo always likes to make his decisions based on logic, it is extremely rare that he makes a decision based on emotion.

Empathic: Thanks to his Veela skills, he is able to feel the emotions of others, so he always tries to make people feel better, he cannot see his sad friends, he always tries to make his friends feel better.

Shy: Angelo due to his complicated childhood, he is a very shy boy, not being able to approach new people easily, always preferring to stay in his comfort zone. But he makes an effort when he really wants to meet someone.

Intelligent: Thanks to his photographic memory, Angelo is very intelligent, and he uses that intelligence to help his friends with their homework, mainly in History of Magic, and sometimes he doesn't mind writing essays for them.

Strategist: Due to his timid personality, many people the underestimated and don't believe they can sell him in a duel, but while his opponents try to beat him by force, he studies his opponent and waits for the right time to attack.

Affectionate: After he feels comfortable with a person, Angelo is not ashamed of being affectionate with him, hugging and caressing any friend he needs.

Misc:

The Lancaster is a purebred family, but it stopped caring about the status of purity in the late 19th century, with the family patriarch, Leonidas Lancaster.

Angelo is a descendant of two pure-blood families, the Lancaster and the Trindade, family of his paternal grandmother, Damares Trindade, a Brazilian pure-brood family, but he was disinherited when they learned that his father had married a Veela, and had half-Veela children.

The Stellair family, is a family well known among the French Veela.

Angelo developed a passion for ice and snow magic after almost drowning in a frozen lake.

He has visited the Veela sanctuary in the interior of France several times, where he can assume his Veela form while there, but wizards can only enter the sanctuary with a permit from the French Ministry of Magic.

His little habit of reading while walking comes from when he learned to read, at the age of 4, he used to read the Tales of Beedle the Bard.

And Angel likes to assume her animagus form and stay in the lap of her closest friends, receiving ear strokes, mainly from Kyril, Candy, Elaiza, Roger and Jason.

When he needs to be alone to think or just cry, he can be found sitting under the beech on the shores of the black lake, but when he is there he doesn't like to see anyone.

#angelo lancaster #hogwarts mystery #hphm #hphm mc #harry potter hogwarts mystery #angelo profile #lancaster family #trindade family #Stellair family #candy art #kyril art

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flipomatic · 4 years

Text

Closed Book Chapter 1

Author Note: Here I go, off into a new fandom. This is going to be 4 chapters, I think. I have it all blocked out but am writing it as I go.

Summary: She didn’t know much about Mittens at all, when she thought about it. Sure, she knew she was a star student who got good grades, though not as good as her siblings, and had a surly streak, but what were her interests besides reading? What kinds of food did she like? Did she have a crush on a witch in her class? Emira should’ve been able to answer these questions, but she couldn’t. Maybe she should ask, that might be a good place to start.

5 times Emira tried to get Amity to open up and one time when she didn't have to.

______________________________________

Emira would’ve loved to put all the blame for what happened at the library on Ed, but it had been her idea too. Sneaking into the library after hours, inviting Luz to come along with them, planning to steal Mittens’ diary to post the pages around school; Emira had helped plan each step. One even could say she masterminded it, but she didn’t want all the blame.

Even though the plan didn’t fully come to fruition, she still got a good laugh at Mitten’s expense in the end. The whole adventure cost her and Ed dearly when they got home. If only she could’ve just blamed it on Ed, that would’ve made things much easier.

The entrance way of the house was quiet when the twins slipped in, as expected for this time of day. Most members of the family would be still asleep in the wee hours of the morning. Almost all lights were off in the mansion, all except the study in the rear of the house. Emira assumed her father was up working early, since many days of the week that study light remained on all night. The only way to the stairs was past this room, which would’ve made it tricky to sneak in if the twins weren’t masters of illusion magic.

After Ed closed the door quietly, Emira signaled for him to follow her and then cast a low level camouflage spell. Ed followed suit as they crept towards the stairs, careful not to make a sound. The spell would only aid in being spotted, not in covering up any accidental noise.

It didn’t matter though, because nothing could get past their father.

“Edric. Emira.” His voice stopped the twins dead in their tracks, their camouflage snapping with a crackle as he stalled them right in front of the study door. “We require your presence.” He spoke evenly, his tone not giving away any clues of what was to come.

Emira didn’t need any clues, she knew what this was about. Ed clearly did too, as he shook his head rapidly and pointed rapidly at the stairs. He wanted to bolt for it. If Emira thought they could get away from it, she would join him.

But no, no matter how fast they ran they would never escape. Emira knew this and she knew Ed did too.

With a shake of her head, Emira pushed open the study door. While she expected to see her father there, she was surprised to see her mother and Mittens as well. Father sat at his desk, writing on a piece of paper in front of him. To the right there were a couple chairs for guests, where the other two sat.

Their mother was dressed in a bathrobe, which gave Emira a twinge of guilt as her mother may have been sleeping before all of this. It was quite early in the morning, after all. Mittens was frowning, as usual, as she watched her siblings enter the room.

Emira and Edric stopped just inside the door, closing it behind them. They waited with bated breath as their father stood up, casting his gaze over his elder children.

“Would either of you like to explain what happened tonight?”

Ed grit his teeth next to her. “We were just teasing, Mittens needs to lighten up. We didn’t even get to read it.” His hand twitched at his side, but stayed there.

Emira backed his story up. “Yeah, we barely looked at her diary. We were just going to put it back anyway.” A little white lie to smooth things over never hurt. Mittens wasn’t buying it, based on how she had one eyebrow raised. Their father, on the other hand, looked quite irritated.

“So you are not aware then,” his voice rose in volume, “of what happened after you abandoned your sister at that library.”

“I’m sure she was fine.” Ed’s smile was clearly forced as he tried not to buckle under the pressure. Emira nodded alongside him.

This was the wrong response.

“She was almost killed by one of the creatures you created.” Her father’s voice was like a judge’s gavel, banging guilty. Emira felt the blood drain from her face.

It was all in good fun, they had never meant to actually harm Mittens. It looked like she had made it out unscathed at least. Again, her father looked between the twins, casting judgement upon them. “If not for her quick thinking, Amity might not have come home.”

That was odd, why not mention Luz? Emira thought the other teen had stayed behind to talk with Amity. Certainly she would’ve been caught up in this as well, but her father didn’t seem to know of her. Did Mittens hide her presence from him?

Ed came through again, “We were just having fun.” He persisted in the defense, lightly elbowing Emira and refocusing her on the conversation. “And we didn’t think anything there was dangerous.”

“That’s right.” Emira lifted her chin. “It was harmless fun.”

“Well, whether you believe that or not, the fact is the two of you brought serious harm upon your sister.” Her father seemed done with listening to their excuses. “You will apologize, and you are grounded for the next month. You will only be permitted to leave the house to escort Amity. Am I clear?”

Emira hung her head forward as she and Ed responded in unison. “Yes sir.”

Her father didn’t seem satisfied, as he gestured towards Mittens with one hand. “And?” he prompted them.

“I’m sorry…” Ed said quietly, trailing off at the end.

“Me too. I’m sorry Mittens.” Emira brought her gaze back up to meet Mittens’, a blank expression meeting hers.

“Thank you.” Was all Mittens said, in her usual tone.

Her father nodded once. “Good then.” He turned back towards his desk. “If you hurt your sister again or bring more shame upon this family, you will never see the light of day again.” She knew him well enough to know he would make good on that promise.

Emira and Ed both muttered that they understood.

“You are dismissed.” Her father sat back down at his desk, picking up his pen to resume whatever he had been doing when they arrived.

All three teens slipped out of the office, shutting the door behind them.

They walked in silence up the stairs, out of their parent’s earshot. Once they reached the peak though, all bets were off.

“Why’d you tattle on us?” Ed immediately turned on Mittens, his lips pulled into a distinct frown.

Mittens crossed her arms, “You had to be stopped.” She had to look up to make eye contact with her siblings. “Otabin tried to kill me!”

“Are you sure you’re not exaggerating?” Emira cut in; Otabin was a sweet little rabbit he wouldn’t do something like that.

Mittens stomped one foot. “Yes I’m sure.” She seethed. “He had big claws and he tried to sew me into a book so I would be his friend forever!”

“We were just having fun.” Ed said in response, but Emira couldn’t really hear it. What Mittens said finally clicked in her mind. Ed had drawn the claws on that rabbit. When Luz dropped the book they assumed it was closed, apparently they should’ve checked better. They really had almost killed their little sister.

“I’m sorry we left you alone with it.” Emira interrupted whatever Mittens was saying in response, drawing two surprised stares to her. “And it won’t happen again.” Neither of them had anything to say now; they just looked at Emira as if she had grown a second head. “I’m going to bed, so should you.”

Without waiting for a response, Emira brushed past the pair to go to her room. Once inside, she collapsed down onto her bed. The weight of what happened and what nearly happened that day pushed down on her shoulders.

Had she always been this bad of a sister? The answer was probably yes. She had teased and played pranks on Mittens since they were very young. It was like a hobby for her and Ed.

Well, no more of that. It was time to stop picking on her little sister, or at least pick on her a bit less, a very small bit less she still loved to tease her, and be a responsible older sibling. No more putting her in danger, especially not mortal peril like today. She also should try to protect her, though she wasn’t sure from what.

Emira wondered what kind of danger Mittens got in on her own, since most of the time she was off at school or doing uh… Emira didn’t actually know what Mittens did in her free time. What kind of trouble did she get into out there?

She didn’t know much about Mittens at all, when she thought about it. Sure, she knew she was a star student who got good grades, though not as good as her siblings, and had a surly streak, but what were her interests besides reading? What kinds of food did she like? Did she have a crush on a witch in her class? Emira should’ve been able to answer these questions, but she couldn’t.

Maybe she should ask, that might be a good place to start. Tomorrow could work, or next week since Mittens might not forgive so quickly.

With that simple plan in place, Emira went to bed with the conviction to be a better sister in her heart.

Even though she had been up all night, it took a very long time to fall asleep.

Chapter 2

#the owl house #the owl house fanfiction #fanfic #amity #emira #emira blight #amity blight #edric blight #this fic will have lumity but not until later #flip writes #fanfiction

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blackfemmecharacterdependency · 4 years

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02. Write Whatever You Want

Previous Chapter: How Did You Betray Simon?

Grace had to write something down. There were kids who had left the Mall Car, confident in their own abilities to take whatever journey that lies ahead of them, some who were still processing in their private areas, and some who were out and about, just enjoying life at the moment, but Grace needed writing supplies, as she realized that there were several things she needed to write down.

She wasn’t the list maker. She didn’t take notes of inventory to determine when they needed to go on a raid. She didn’t record number changes of the highest ranked Apex members. She didn’t even make a roster of the kids. Simon made the lists.

He was very big on the fact that details needed to be written down and plans needed to be described. Relying on your mind was tricky. Only do that for the unimportant things, but keep a record of the things that matter, the things that will make a difference, the things that you would need to remember later.

She’d just shrugged her shoulders at the time of his impassioned lecture and told him, “Write whatever you want.” (Boy, did he take THAT advice and run with it).

Before she knew it, they had codes, procedures, laws… stuff that she was definitely gonna listen to him when he ranted about it, but she’d likely not memorize them. They were important or whatever, but… Simon knew them all and she always had Simon, so learning all of them seemed repetitive and unnecessary to her. Fun fact: She could repeat just about everything he said in that little rant before she cut him off by giving him the permission to start records that he seemed to be requesting by making her listen to his very strong opinions about writing things down. She could even remember exactly what he said whenever she gave it to him. “Way ahead of you. I’ve been keeping record of everything important. I just don’t like to take credit for my great ideas.” She smiled to herself as she repeated his words under her breath, his voice saying it in unison with her, in the back of her mind. Her smile faded as the memory did.

But, this was important… and she realized that she didn’t have a single thing to write with. She rarely came into the throne room after everything. It felt… bad. Plus, Simon or maybe the kids at his behest, had gone in there with lipstick and written in big red letters “VOID” on everything that was specifically hers… everything she guessed that Simon didn’t want after he overthrew her.

There were a few things that were salvaged, and in the drawer. Must have been saved in one of his short moments of clarity during that time. There were torn up photos of them from the photo booth, some with her face scratched out of it, or with her cut out of it, some with VOID etched across her Apex symbol, some burned… But, there was one that was them in the photo booth, about 14 years old or so. They had kissed, and it captured 4 photos of the moment - the kiss, her breaking it, her laughing and him turning away, blushing… She stared at it for a while, noting things that she didn’t remember noticing that day. The look on his face when they kissed, the way he looked at her while she was in the midst of a laughing fit, the way he looked embarrassed about it…

When she remembered that day, she remembered it as a fun little experiment that they both agreed had been a hilarious mistake. The photos didn’t seem to tell that story at all. That was something that she was coming to learn about Simon and her… They never quite had the same story in their minds. They simply went with whatever each other said about a story. They were really cozy in their bed of lies. She wondered why he wouldn’t have destroyed this one. This record of what she figured now was probably painful for him. This evidence of her wronging him yet again… Oh. Maybe that was why. It could remind him that he couldn’t trust her, that he didn’t love her anymore. She blinked away tears and placed it into a pocket inside the satchel that she brought along with her to collect valuables, before attempting to get things cleaned out of their chambers.

The entire mall needed a cleansing, but she didn’t just want to tear everything away and start from scratch. They rescued, fixed, and freed any denizens that they could that hadn’t been wheeled. They paid respects to the ones that they couldn’t save and all of the others that they could remember wheeling, and now, they were salvaging. The kids who stayed were all getting all of their things that they couldn’t live without while here and trashing whatever they could live without (or things that made them think of things that they didn’t want to think of). Grace had something important to write down, but figured she’d bring a bag for gathering, in the meantime. There weren’t much to salvage of what she had left. Simon made sure of it.

The throne was still in one piece, still resting at the bottom of the escalator, like a memorial to Simon, as the last person to reign on it… a jar of what he left behind was placed on it. Lucy said she didn’t put it there and tried to wheel it, but Grace had asked her to leave them. “That’s probably where Simon would have wanted them to be kept.” Lucy shrugged and set them back down. As far as she knew, nobody had touched them since.

And because grief was a confusing and hard thing, the kids that might be too embarrassed to speak about how they were handling no longer having Simon, or having to see what happened to him were given a way to pay respects to him through this display and the confidence to do so, because Grace didn’t erase him, even though, technically, according to his own laws, Simon was a “void.” But, she still found herself in his room, clutching the very coat that he used to distract her enough to try to kill her. It smelled like him, and she hated how used she was to that scent, but, it was something in her memory that she knew would eventually fade.

Like her mother’s. She’d often go into her mother’s boudoir and admire all of the things that made the woman the art that she was whenever she went out into the world. But her favorite thing used to be grabbing her night robe and draping it across herself. It was a little like a hug from someone that she knew she might not get another one from. They didn’t hug very much. Sometimes for photos and publicity gatherings. So, hugging herself in a robe scented like her mother was her secret joy and imprinted into her mind…

But, some time ago, whenever she thought about it… she realized that her brain couldn’t conjure up as many details. Like how the material felt against her skin. She recalled thinking when she was young that it felt like fuzzy towels swaddling her, but she couldn’t remember that feeling in her body. She couldn’t remember if it was peach colored, off white, or pink, later on. And eventually, she couldn’t recall the exact smell of her. She had wanted so badly to hold on to it, but it was gone. She would hold on to Simon’s for however long she could.

“Aha!” She said, finding a drawer full of pens and notebooks. Most of them were written in. Stories, journals, poetry, notes, procedures… Some had drawings. Characters, blueprints, battle plans… One of them had her name on the front and she pulled it out and opened it. “If I should fall before you do, this is a collection of the things that I wanted to say to you but never had the nerve…” She shut it. That seemed… highly personal and given how he felt by the time he… acted out… She doubted that anything that he wrote in that thing still applied.

For all she knew, it had been buried in the bottom of this drawer for years. Still, she tucked it into her satchel. She took a few of the other ones too… Then eventually put all of them inside. She collected every notebook that Simon had in his room, and all of his pens, too. She stared at shelves of his figures, at the bed that was made with military-like accuracy, pretty much as soon as he got up out of it… She could tell that he hadn’t been sleeping in there during his last days. Probably was in the throne room.

She sat down on the foot of the bed and opened an empty notebook. She clicked a pen and took her own advice. Write whatever you want… She set the satchel down, because she was feeling heavy enough, and started, even though she had no idea how you start something like this. She decided on, “Simon Laurent’s Eulogy…”

A/N: I do not plan on writing Simon’s Eulogy for Grace, so that will not be the next chapter, though the eulogy may be mentioned in later installments. Though this chapter was highly centered around Simon, the story isn’t and his appearances are in relation to her memories and her feelings about him.

Next: Strengths and Weaknesses

#Infinity Train #Nesha Fanfiction #Infinity Train Fanfiction #fics #Grace Heals #Grace Monroe Fanfic

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raywritesthings · 4 years

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Torch Song

My Writing Fandom: Arrow, DCU Characters: Laurel Lance, Oliver Queen, Circe, Thea Queen, Felicity Smoak, John Diggle, Barry Allen, John Constantine, Mari McCabe Pairing: Laurel Lance/Oliver Queen Summary: When Circe decides to put Team Arrow in its place for daring to stop a sorcerer like Damien Darhk, Laurel must reveal something long-hidden about herself to restore Oliver to his rightful form.

None of them had seen it coming. Of course, none of them were all that knowledgeable about magic-users they hadn’t personally met, so it was hard to prepare for a sorceress out of mythology.

Laurel wasn’t convinced that this wasn’t an assumed name on the part of the self-styled supposed Circe. But that didn’t matter much when her powers were the same as in the book and she’d chosen to demonstrate them on Oliver.

“Think you’re clever enough to defeat a sorcerer? Try fighting your way out of this.” The unknown woman had cackled before zapping their teammate with a jet of light. They’d all watched in horror as Oliver had shrunk, the bow falling to the ground and arrows spilling from the quiver as a pig tripped over the shafts, oinking and squealing with distress.

Thea had screamed and launched herself at Circe, who had disappeared in a blinding flash before the smaller archer could make contact. Laurel had been more concerned with stopping the newly transformed Oliver from running blindly down the alley.

“Ollie? Ollie, if you’re in there, just calm down,” she’d tried. It had been impossible to know if he could understand the words, but he slowed to a stop in front of her long enough for John to heave him up into his arms.

They’d brought him back to the base and immediately began calling around to their friends to see if anyone might know some way to undo the damage. Laurel was currently on the phone with Vixen, though it wasn’t sounding promising.

“My speciality is connecting with the spirit of an animal, not literally changing into the animal. Much less changing another person. And the research I’ve done into magic so far hasn’t extended to the Mediterranean. I’m sorry, Laurel, I wish I could help.”

“That’s okay. I had to try.”

The elevator dinged just as she hung up, and Laurel was shocked to see Felicity stride into the room, the first time since she’d quit the team a few weeks prior.

“Where is he? I have got to see this. Oh!” Felicity drew up short upon spotting the pig who was currently penned in via strategically placed chairs and very unhappy about it. “This is such a Spirited Away moment right now. I can’t even tell if it’s him.” She spun around to face them. “So what did he do to get cursed by a witch?”

“Nothing,” Thea replies with a hand on her hip. “That lady showed up and cursed him out of nowhere. How do you even know about it?”

“I called her,” said John. “We need Constantine’s number, so I thought she could get it off Oliver’s phone.”

“We don’t need his phone,” Laurel countered. “He gave me his number on a card when he was here.”

Felicity’s eyebrows raised in interest. “And did you call him?”

“Haven’t needed to. Until now.” Laurel went for her purse, digging around in it until she located the card. She smoothed out the corners and dialed the number, waiting as it rang.

“Hello?”

“John? It’s Laurel Lance. We met last fall.”

“Laurel, love! Not that I’m not happy to hear a birdsong right now, but I’m headed into a tricky bit of work. Can we make this quick?”

“Okay.” She drew in a breath and said in one go, “Oliver’s been turned into a pig by a woman who claims to be Circe for being able to beat Darhk.”

Constantine let out a low whistle. “Circe, eh? She’s impulsive like that.”

“Then she’s real?” Laurel asked in bewilderment. It was hard to imagine that a character from a story — one of the few novels Oliver had ever read in school, ironically enough — could be a real, breathing person. And still alive, no less.

“Yeah, but listen, she’s in it for the ego, really. You lot stopped Darhk, and she must have felt a bit threatened, right? Wants you to ‘know your place’,” he said with a heavy dose of sarcasm.

That seemed to fit with the woman’s behavior.

“You’re going to have to appeal to her sense of vanity,” he continued.

“How do we do that?”

“There’s a club she frequents. I’ll send you the address. Take Oliver there and beg her to change him back. She’s the only one who can, stuff like that. She may want something from you in return, though make sure of what it is before you agree to it. That ought to satisfy her.”

“Okay,” she replied. Laurel knew it would have been a lot to expect him to drop everything and come help — assuming her could even break the curse — but she was not enthusiastic about going back to the sorceress who had done this to Oliver.

“Good luck, love. And give Oliver a scratch behind the ears for me.”

“Goodbye, John,” she said, ignoring the request before hanging up. “He says we have to ask Circe to undo it.”

“Why would she?” John asked.

Laurel sighed. “Apparently, it will prove to her that she’s more powerful than us and calm her down.” Her phone buzzed with a text. The Amphitheatre. “Constantine just sent me the address of the club she frequents. It’s on Mykonos, so we’re going to have to take some days off.” She could always call in a couple personal days. She hadn’t used any yet this year and was unlikely to later.

“How are we going to transport Oliver?” Thea asked, and they all frowned. None of them were exactly familiar with the procedure of getting a farm animal cleared for travel.

“Barry could just run us,” Felicity pointed out. He’d want to help out.”

Laurel grimaced. She’d been hoping to avoid involving Team Flash. They made light of things at the best of times, which was good, but would Oliver see it as making fun of him? She could tell he valued that role of mentor to Barry and didn’t want him to feel embarrassed around the other hero after this. But it was the quickest way to get him back.

Felicity was already calling besides. “Barry, we could really use your help right now. It’s about Oliver.”

Fast enough, the Flash was in their base. “What’s going on, guys? And uhh, what’s with the pig?”

“Oliver’s the pig,” Felicity explained, and Laurel couldn’t help noting she seemed happy to say so. She rubbed her temples; now was a bad time for the two of them to be on the rocks.

Barry whirled back around to gape at the enclosure of chairs. “What happened to him?”

Oliver made a sort of squealing noise, and Laurel couldn’t tell if that was meant to be in answer or if he was simply agitated by Barry’s fast movements. There was little way of knowing just how cognizant of everything he was, though she could only hope for his sake that it wasn’t all that much.

“This witch named Circe cursed him, and we gotta go talk to her,” Thea added. “Laurel’s got the address.”

To his credit, Barry took all this information in stride with only a few more shocked looks here and there. “Okay. How many people are going?”

All of them raised their hands, even Felicity. “I mean, I can’t pass up meeting the actual Circe,” she defended.

“Digg, you first, then Oliver?” At John’s nod, Barry and he were gone in the blink of an eye. With another zip of electricity, Oliver disappeared from the makeshift pig pen. When Barry next returned, he paused with his hands on his knees.

“I think he’s heavier as the pig,” he wheezed.

“Well, I should be much lighter,” Felicity remarked, walking up to him. Barry scooped her up, and they were gone.

“Have you ever traveled via speedster?” Laurel asked Thea in the ensuing silence, unable to help a bit of nerves.

“Once. It was disorienting, but awesome.” That was all Thea got to say before she, too was whisked away.

Laurel replaced her mask over her eyes and shook out her wrists, trying to feel ready.

The next thing she knew, there were arms at her back and under her knees as everything blurred together. Laurel squeezed her eyes shut until she felt herself placed back on her feet.

They stood outside what counted as the stage door to the Amphitheater. John struggled to hold Oliver in order to keep him from running off again while Thea patted the pig’s head in an effort to try and calm him.

“Thanks, Barry,” Laurel said. “You don’t have to stay if you need to get back.”

“You’re sure?” When she nodded, he returned it. “Alright, call if you need me.” With that, he was off.

Felicity looked around from where she’d been peeking through the stage door. “Wait, did Barry just go? How do we get back?”

“A plane? He’s got a whole city to protect by himself,” Laurel pointed out. “And I’m not sure putting him up against Circe is going to make it look like we’re begging.” She might be more likely to see a metahuman as a threat, and then who knew what she’d turn the rest of them into?

Laurel joined Felicity at the stage door, easing it open more. “We can do this, Felicity. The whole team.” It would probably do Oliver some good to know Felicity had come all this way with them. He’d been struggling to stay positive since the breakup, but maybe this predicament he’d been put in would draw the two exes back together. Laurel could only hope for that much for him.

She held the door open for the others, then followed them through the backstage area, following the sounds of singing.

“Circe’s back in town!”

Thunderous applause sounded from out in the house, and they heard the sorceress speak. “Thank you! Oh, my adoring public!”

Thea glanced back at her with a disgusted look Laurel felt herself. Before she could respond in kind, they heard their quarry exit the stage for the side of the wings they were waiting at the edge of. Circe’s eyebrows raised as she stopped short at the sight of them. “Well, that was fast.”

“We want him back,” John answered plainly.

“Please,” Laurel stressed. “We didn’t mean any offense to the magical... world? by stopping Darhk. He came to our city and was hurting our people. We did what we had to, and it was very difficult. We wouldn’t want to fight anyone with that skill, or better, under ordinary circumstances.”

Circe appraised her, though her eyes narrowed as she locked gazes with Felicity. “I don’t remember you.”

“I don’t do any fighting,” Felicity said quickly. “Just here for moral support and to, um, see you! Wow, you’re really… real.”

“None of us can do magic, so you’re the only one who can help us,” Thea continued in the wake of the awkward pause their friend’s rambling had caused. “So will you?”

Circe hummed in thought. “No, I don’t think I will. Not with just that.”

Laurel opened her mouth, ready with another appeal, hands already clasped together, when the woman held up a hand.

“Convince me why I should bother restoring him. What do you stand to lose, here? What place does he hold in your heart? I want to be moved to tears. I want — a performance.” The sorceress gestured up on stage.

“We have to sing about Ol— uh, Green Arrow?” Thea asked skeptically.

“Oh don’t worry. The microphone’s enchanted. It will take your thoughts and feelings and put them to the right music. I’ll even allow you to decide amongst yourselves whose solo debut this will be.”

“Like a magic karaoke? Weird.” Thea shrugged and made to step forward. John, however, shook his head since his arms were too full of pig to reach out. He motioned them all to retreat into a sort of huddle, Oliver’s hooves jutting out into the middle of it while he squirmed around.

“Thea can’t be the one who does it. If this magic is about pulling the truth out of her, she might let slip that Oliver’s her brother, and we don’t know who these people all talk to,” he pointed out in undertone. “It could get back to Ruve, and that makes her anti-vigilante task force's job that much easier.”

Thea grimaced but seemed to acknowledge the point. As one, their group looked to Felicity. She backed up a step.

“Oh no. No way.”

“But Felicity—”

“I have terrible stage fright. And besides! I don’t really have the best feelings about Oliver, in case you haven’t noticed.”

“You can’t want him to stay a pig forever,” John said.

“No, but I also can’t really think of anything flattering enough to make a sorceress change him back. I mean, I’m more likely to get up there and sing ‘I Will Survive’ at this point.”

“Felicity, come on.”

As John and Felicity continued to argue, Laurel watched Oliver’s anxious eyes, still blue despite the transformation. He seemed to sense the tense atmosphere, even if he couldn’t know they were fighting over his very fate. How could they be this close and not be ready and able to get him back? He would do it for any one of them, she knew that in her bones. No matter what it cost him. She couldn’t worry about what it might cost her.

“Why don’t you do it?”

“I’m the only one strong enough to hold him.”

“Well give him a tranq dart or have her make a cage or something, I am not—”

“I’ll do it.” Laurel felt just as surprised as the others looked to hear the words come out of her mouth. But she couldn’t exactly take them back. “We need Oliver, and he needs to have this spell broken.”

Thea bit her lip and looked about to say something, so Laurel pulled away from their group and stepped back towards Circe. “I’ll sing.”

A wide smile broke out on the sorceress’ face. “Excellent. Of course, we want you in something a little more suited to the stage.” She snapped her fingers, and Laurel felt a sort of strange rush energy as her jacket, undershirt and pants were suddenly replaced by a strapless floor-length evening gown in all black. Her fingerless gloves remained, though the fishnet pattern extended to her upper arms.

“I’ve left the mask,” Circe said before she had even finished bringing a hand to her face to check it was still securely in place.

“Where exactly are my real clothes?”

“It’s an illusion, my dear. It will lift once you’ve upheld your end of the bargain.”

Right, she still had to sing. Laurel exchanged brief, worried glances with John and Thea, the latter of whom still looked like she was holding back from saying something. Something Laurel had a feeling Thea had been suspecting for some time. It didn’t matter; her suspicions were about to be confirmed one way or the other.

Circe’s hand pressed against her back as she guided Laurel out of the wings with her. Right away, a spotlight hit them and she resisted the impulse to shield her eyes as she was guided towards center stage.

“Ladies and gentlemen,” Circe said, her voice somehow magically amplified. “A special songbird all the way from the West Coast of the United States. The mysterious, melodious Black Canary!”

A smattering of applause rose from the audience. She hoped she wasn’t blushing. At least no one seemed to question the mask.

As soon as she stepped up to the mic, Laurel felt a powerful wave of something wash over her as an unseen orchestra — perhaps no one was playing, perhaps it was all magic — started up with a swell of mournful notes. Laurel didn’t know how she knew when to come in. It was as Circe had said. She just did.

“He doesn’t say the things he should. He acts the way he thinks he should.” She closed her eyes, feeling herself being pulled into the music, for lack of a better word. Into the truth of this song. “But all the same… I’ll play this game his way.

As long as he needs me.” Laurel could feel a slight shake to her voice as she sang. “Oh yes, he does need me. In spite of what you see, I’m sure that he needs me.”

It was everything she had ever felt these last few years. The weariness, the doubt, the bone-deep certainty that, nevertheless, she had to continue on.

Laurel teared up when the word finally came falling off her lips. “The love I feel inside. The love I have to hide. The hell—” She nearly felt choked. “—I’ve got my pride! As long as he needs me!”

She didn’t dare look at the others. It was easier facing the audience, backlit by the spotlight on her and making them indistinct. There was going to be no coming back from this when it was all said and done. The team would all know her secret, even if Oliver didn’t. And how long could that feasibly last?

She was the Black Canary, but she was singing her swan song.

---

Oliver didn’t know what had happened to him. One minute they’d been patrolling the streets when a woman in a green dress had appeared out of nowhere, declaring him an upstart for daring to defeat a sorcerer like Damien Darhk, and the next minute — well, the woman in green was still there, but the streets were gone. Instead, he found himself on hands and knees in the wings of some sort of theater as an orchestra played under a woman’s singing.

He felt John’s hands pull him up and he was crushed in an embrace for a moment. “Good to have you back, man.”

Someone reached for his hand, and as he squeezed back automatically he could tell it was Thea’s. Over John’s shoulder, he saw Felicity watching him for a moment before looking down. When had she joined them?

“What just happened?” He asked. Some time had clearly passed. But what had he been doing? What had his team done to get him back?

“Shh!” The very sorceress who had cursed him hissed at them, eyes never quite leaving the stage. And the more he paid attention, the more it occurred to him — was that Laurel’s voice?

Oliver felt drawn towards the edge of the wings, mouth falling open as he took in the sight of Laurel in her mask and a beautiful dress, standing before a sea of strangers.

“I miss him so much, when he is gone,” she sang, a delicate sweetness in her voice that was at odds with the tortured look on her face. “But when he’s near me, I carry on… The love I feel inside. The love I have to hide. The hell—” He saw her struggling. “I’ve got my pride! As long as he needs me!”

“What is happening?” He demanded in a low tone. Who was making her do this? And why?

“Payment for reversing my little spell on you,” the sorceress answered just as softly. “I asked them to demonstrate just why they wanted you back. Needed you, even,” she added, her eyes sparkling.

Oliver’s head whipped back to look at the others. John’s gaze, the little he could make of it from behind his friend’s helmet, was lowered and somber. Felicity’s head shook side-to-side sadly, though the tips of her ears had turned very pink. Tears leaked from under Thea’s domino mask as her lips pressed tight together.

His fists clenched as he turned back to the woman who had started all of this. “You undid the spell. She can stop now.”

But the sorceress extended an arm across his path before he could march out onto the stage. “I undid it so you could listen,” she explained as though he were a child. Then she let out a dreamy sigh. “After all, it’d be a shame to waste such a torch song.”

Laurel’s torch song. Laurel had been carrying a torch all these years… for him? His breath caught and a lump rose in his throat.

“If you are lonely, then you will know,” Laurel’s voice came out soft, then slowly grew. “When someone needs you, you love them so…” She carried the note through, her head raising with defiance in the set of her jaw. Strong to the end. “I won’t betray his trust, though people say I must. I’ve got to be. True. Just…” the music faded out for a breath, and it was into that silence that she declared, “As long as He! Needs! Me!”

The music rose, flooding his ears. Laurel held the note until she couldn’t, until her legs — which he could only guess had been trembling for some time — gave out from under her, and she landed on her knees.

Oliver rushed forward without thought, distantly hearing a door slam behind him somewhere. He reached Laurel’s side and pulled her up, her eyes widening at the sight of him. “Ollie?”

There was so much, too much that he wanted to ask, but all that came out as he looked into her eyes was, “I’m sorry.” How could he have been so blind?

“Thank you, thank you all!” The sorceress declared, standing near the floor lights. She snapped her fingers, and Laurel was suddenly wearing her Black Canary suit again.

This seemed to jolt her, for she ripped out of his hold and bolted off the stage. Oliver hurried to follow, just catching up with Thea and John on their way out.

“Laurel!” His sister was calling.

“Felicity already left, now this,” John muttered under his breath. He cast a look Oliver’s way as he drew up beside the other man. “What are we gonna do, Oliver?”

He didn’t have an answer. His mind was still racing. Felicity had shown up when he’d fallen prey to a curse, but she was leaving now. Laurel had confessed to feelings he hadn’t thought she possibly still held and now seemed terrified to be in the same room as him. What had he done?

Felicity was nowhere to be seen when he exited out into a back alley where Thea stood, one arm around Laurel and their heads bent close together.

“Where exactly are we?” He asked.

“On an island off of Greece. Long story. Look, we gotta figure out which way Felicity went.”

Scarcely had John finished speaking, when a trail of lightning announced Barry’s arrival.

“Hey, you’re you again!”

“You’re here,” Oliver replied, thrown by the sudden appearance.

“Oh, well Felicity called for the ride back, so I figured I’d double back here to get the rest of you. Glad they broke your pig curse.”

“Pig curse?”

“Never mind, Oliver. Barry, you gotta get him back to the base to catch Felicity,” John said, adding in an undertone, “Thea and I’ll talk to Laurel.”

Oliver looked up in alarm. “Wait—”

But his surroundings were whisked away as he felt himself carried over land and sea, only for it all to come crashing back into solid, jarring shape. A crackle of electricity and Barry was gone again, leaving Oliver to notice Felicity waiting at the elevator.

“I—” He didn’t know what he was supposed to say. Was she upset? And why? Oliver couldn’t begin to wonder when Laurel’s stricken look and voice were the only thoughts in his head. “I’m sorry if this has made things more difficult,” he decided on lamely.

“We broke up and realized we couldn’t work on a team together, Oliver. Things can’t get more difficult,” she stated bluntly. “I thought there was something wrong with me. After all, Laurel could still work with you, right?” She laughed, but it wasn’t a funny one. “Now we both know why.”

“I didn’t know.” He couldn’t believe he hadn’t known.

“Of course you didn’t. No one in their right mind would ever want someone to know they still had feelings for them after they broke their heart. Just… just try to be empathetic with her, alright? I would want to die if I were in Laurel’s shoes right now.”

He swallowed heavily. Was that really how Laurel would feel?

The elevator doors opened, and Felicity stepped inside. “For the record, you weren’t a very cute pig.” Then they closed, and Oliver could only watch the lights signify that it rose up to the ground floor and let her out.

He slowly wandered back towards the conference table and sat, resting his elbows on the table and his head in his hands. It didn’t seem as though the others were coming back for a while. Probably consoling Laurel. Something in him ached.

Why had he been forced back here to try and rehash something that had already fallen apart? Felicity had walked out on him twice now, had he really needed a third time? He just felt hollow when it came to the end of his engagement. There was nothing left to feel. Not when his oldest friendship might be on the line half a world away, depending on how badly Laurel’s secret being exposed affected her.

Laurel… Laurel had always been there when he needed her. Because he needed her, he realized now with bitter irony. He had asked her all those years ago at Tommy’s grave, and she had never disappointed him. No matter how many times he’d disappointed her in return. He didn’t know how it could be that she could love such a man like him. A man of the island.

Beneath the shock, beneath the sudden rush of regret, there was a quiet awe beginning to grow. Laurel loved him. Him, Oliver Queen. She had seen the man he was plain as day, had fought him, been hurt by him and called him out on all his lies and hypocrisies. Yet she loved him still.

A strange sound left him, a stifled sob. His shoulders shook, and Oliver found himself crying in a way he rarely let happen. He could count the times on one hand since he’d gotten back, perhaps even since the island. Usually they were times of extreme grief, but that wasn’t what this was. There was a sense of loss, yes, but only of time. Time was something he could make up for.

He was wiping his cheeks dry when John at last appeared in the base, Barry presumably going back for their remaining teammates. “You alright, man?”

“Fine.” Oliver stood. “How’s Laurel?”

“Calmer. Look, you might wanna just take a walk round the block for a bit till Thea can get her home.”

“I need to talk to her.” No more putting it off, no more running away.

“You were supposed to be talking to Felicity,” his friend reminded him.

“John, I let her go.” It was what she had asked of him last month, and he knew that it had truly been the right call. Maybe he’d known it for a while, but it had taken tonight for it to finally sink in.

With another whoosh of electricity and wind, Thea stood in the base. “What are you still doing here?”

“Says he needs to talk to Laurel.”

“She doesn’t want a scene,” Thea said with a severe look that came straight from their mother.

“It’s not going to be a scene,” he insisted. “But I can’t just ignore what happened.”

Barry zipped into being with Laurel in his arms. He set her down on the floor and looked around. “Okay, all back. Everything okay? Is there anything…?”

“Go home and rest, Barry. And thank you,” Oliver told him. His friend nodded, but Oliver reached out and clasped his shoulder before he could depart. “Not a word to the others,” he added in a low voice.

Barry’s head bobbed up and down quickly a couple times. “Wouldn’t dream of it.” Then he was gone.

Laurel was gone, too, disappearing back into the changing stalls. Oliver headed that way as well.

“I think we should talk,” he called out.

“There’s nothing to say.”

“I haven’t said anything.”

“Exactly.”

He could hear things being thrown around, could picture her kicking her boots off out of some potent mix of anger and shame. Oliver sighed.

“Laurel, please?”

There was silence.

“Give me a minute,” was her request. Oliver nodded to himself and went back to the main area, passing John on his way to change as well.

Thea stood by the conference table looking worried. He wanted to tell her it was going to be okay and the realizations he’d had about himself and his feelings — but this was something Laurel needed to hear first. She was owed that.

Laurel slowly made her way towards them in her civilian clothes, hands flexing with nerves.

“Go ahead and change,” Oliver asked his sister, before indicating the side room with a tilt of his head. Laurel nodded and followed him.

“If we are actually talking about what happened, I just want to make clear that it doesn’t change anything,” Laurel said right away the moment they were alone. “My feelings are just that. They’re not some declaration of intent.”

He knew what was on her mind; Tommy, and the way things had ended between the three of them. He could appreciate the irony of their roles being flipped now, and the irony, too, that they always seemed to end up back here.

“I understand,” he said out loud. “If you don’t want to address it, we don’t have to.”

“Okay,” Laurel said with clear relief.

“I was thinking we could address my feelings.”

She fixed him with a look, and he only very narrowly kept a straight face. Slowly, he began walking towards her, closing the gap between them.

“I feel grateful for what you did to help me. I feel angry and sad that you were forced to reveal something about yourself you’d kept secret. And—” he drew up to her at last, watching Laurel watch him with an intensity in her gaze. “—I feel lucky, selfishly lucky, to know how you feel about me.”

“Ollie…” She stared up at him in disbelief.

He nodded. “It’s still gonna take me some time to heal from what happened with Felicity. I know I shouldn’t rush that. But Felicity and I, we began because I had thought I’d lost my chance with the first woman I ever loved. I had no idea that wasn’t true.”

“What are you saying?” She asked, barely above a whisper. He thought of the way she had poured herself out in that song and how her voice had been a very force. He wanted to give her that strength back.

“I’m saying that you are a part of me, and I will always need you. And if you can just give me some time…”

She reached out and touched his cheek. “Whatever you need.”

Oliver placed his hand over hers, then turned his face into it, ghosting his lips over her palm. He heard her suck in a breath, and he lowered their hands before pulling her gently into a hug.

Laurel rested there in his arms, head tucked under his chin, and he never wanted her to leave. All the reasons he had ever left ran through his head, and they all sounded pointless now.

“We’ll figure this out. I promise,” he murmured, and her arms shifted up his back a little. Then they slowly drew apart.

Laurel was smiling now, softly, and his heart felt full the way it had as he’d listened to her sing.

“You know, I never realized you had such a good voice,” he remarked, and grinned when Laurel ducked her head with a breathy laugh.

“I think it may have been the magic.”

“I don’t buy it.”

A throat clearing softly had them both looking up. Thea stood at the edge of the archway. “Is it okay?”

“It’s gonna be,” he said while Laurel nodded.

She walked over to join Thea. “Let’s call it a night.”

Thea seemed to take some assurance from whatever she saw in Laurel’s expression, for she relaxed and actually smiled in his direction. “Sure. Night, Ollie.”

“Goodnight,” he told them both.

Laurel exchanged a last, long look with him, and they left the base. With John having departed on his own it seemed, Oliver was left alone to change and to get ready for sleep. Yet it hardly felt as lonely as the other nights since he had moved down here.

He had people in his life who loved him. Friends, family, and Laurel. Always Laurel, who was both of the former categories in her own way and yet so much more.

She was home, and he was finally on his way back there.

#lauriver #laurel lance #oliver queen #laurel x oliver #arrow #green arrow #black canary #my writing

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mssjynx · 5 years

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Kri77y, NSFW and 11 "You caught me staring at your ass. Oops?" PLZ

alpha / beta / omega au

krii7y drabble

11. You caught me staring at your ass. Oops?

warning: nsfw

a/n: this is way longer than i thought and it is a full sm.ut, unlike the others. have fun though this was a fun one to writePS my only editing was skimming for incorrect spelling. sorry for mistakes! enjoy all the same

John was loving having a prac teacher. It meant all he had to do was supervise his lesson, throw things at the kids who didn't behave and make sure the twenty-one year old was teaching the right content. Other than that, he could sit and mark all of his tests, create new worksheets and prepare future lesson plans.

Unfortunately, having a prac teacher like Jaren wasn't to most professional or easy task. The young man was eccentric, catching the class's attention and keeping them engaged as he explored the topics he was truly interested in with a depth that kept the students in tow. It was in his natural aura as an omega to be a subject of interest and he didn't shy away from abusing such power in keeping the class involved. John would find himself distracted from his private work as he watched Jaren stroll around the class, explaining difficult concepts and helping students to understand.

Except John would often go from listening to the omega talk to watching how he walked, admiring his attractive form, his painted fingernails, his skin-tight jeans that clung to his thighs and butt in a way that John swore was a deliberate method of torture. Zoned out mid-class, red pen twirling between his fingers, the beta didn't notice Jaren until the man was standing on the other side of his desk, hands on the wood where he leaned down to meet John's level.

"You really ain't subtle, you know that?" His tone was quiet as the class behind him bustled, working through their tasks as they discussed with one another. John placed down his pen, head tilting in confusion. With a sly grin, Jaren elborated, dropping further to rest an elbow on the table, head on his knuckles. "You've been staring at my ass all class, John. A bit unprofessional, don't you think?"

John blinked, fiddling with his ring. He didn't shy away from the omega's stare, his confidence oozing in the air around him, but he didn't miss the way students were casting the pair intrigued looks. "And if you stand like that you're gonna have the whole class staring at your ass in a minute," he returned, letting his head fall to his hand as he grinned at the omega, who stood bolt upright and cast a wary glare to the kids still working.

Some grinned and waved, someone looked away with pink cheeks. John just snickered, successfully drawing Jaren's attention back to him. The omega rolled his eyes before decidedly sitting on John's desk instead. He kept his eyes on John, analysing for a reaction, before flashing that charming grin and flaunting his pretty scent of chocolate. "Any explanation to why you can't keep your eyes to yourself?" he purred, voice leaving implications in the air between them. Though the claim was accusatory, there was no discomfort or irritation in those deep brown eyes. Jaren didn't seem to have too big of a problem with being under the beta's gaze.

John leaned back in his chair, grin wide and shameless. "Do I gotta explain myself? I'm just admiring."

Jaren's smile widened, leaning over the desk catching John's fingers in his. "Wanna get a closer look, hm?" he whispered, voice barely audible if not for the beta's sharp hear. Out of the view of the students, Jaren drew John's hand to his thigh, flattening his fingers over the curve of his leg and squeezing his own hand atop John's. "You can help me with some human biology practical work," he teased, words insinuating enough for John to catch on. He felt his chest warm, stomach twisting at the thought of having Jaren to himself. The omega drew his hand up further, John able to feel the heat beneath the prac teacher's pants.

Not one to refuse a challenge, John leaned forward, curling his hand further around the inside of Jaren's thigh, tilting his head as he smirked up at the omega. "Let's not get unprofessional, Jaren. I think we need to talk about this behaviour; come see me at the end of the day." He kept his voice low, suggestive and sly as he squeezed Jaren's thigh and held the man's eyes. Satisfaction rolled through his stomach as pink tinged the omega's cheeks and ears. "Sound good, baby?" he purred, tilting his head as his smile widened.

Jaren managed a shy nod, hips subtly squirming before John withdrew his hand.

"Oh God, Mr Smith, is that you!?" Both teachers turned their attention to a girl in the front row, standing with her hand covering her face and a look of disgust in her eyes. "Jeez, you smell terrible!"

Jaren's cheeks were red then as the students sniffed the air, but their inexperienced noses weren't able to decipher what the omega scent was. The prac teacher hopped off the desk, prancing out in front of the class to explain how scents smelt different depending on compatibility and attraction. John sat back in his chair, grin broad. The scent of arousal and fluster that reeked from Jaren was sexier than any smell he'd caught before on any other person.

He went back to marking, smiling to himself as he wondered how his afternoon would turn out.

By four o'clock, most of the teachers had left. The science department was empty other than a few late stayers and John had happily filed away all of his marked tests. He was free to go but the faint smell of chocolate that tickled his nose was one that distracted him.

He dawdled at his desk, saying goodbye to the last few teachers, dreary eyes and grumbling tones. Jaren hadn't been seen in the office for over an hour but John knew he was still there. The tricky omega wasn't one to be subtle and John had locked the pretty scent away since the class Jaren had confronted him during.

The remaining classes of the day had consisted of Jaren shooting him sly looks, walking around in front of his desk and making John's job of supervising far more enjoyable.

He was asking for it and John wasn't going to refuse.

"Ren?" he called, strolling through the building as he locked up the classes. He'd offered to do the job for Craig so the physics teacher could go home earlier. He was the last out of the office and John felt like a cat after a mouse as he prowled through the building. "Jaren?"

He passed through the doors, locking them behind him as he came to the science lab. Chocolate wafted in the ear, hot like it had been melted over the tables, standing the air conditioner. John breathed in deeply and smiled to himself as he tapped his fingers on the desk. He could pick up the trail, his beta senses known to the omega who liked to play his games.

The light in the storeroom could be seen beneath the door and when focused, John caught the sound of the young man's heartbeat from within. He drew himself quietly to the door, pushing on the handle and letting himself into the storeroom.

"Oh, shit," he murmured to himself as he was showered in the scent of sweetness and excitement. A soft laugh from within the room pulled John closer and the beta felt himself shudder as he tasted the air around him. Jaren had filled the room, every corner, with his scent and John wasn't oblivious to the hint of heat that tainted his every inhale. "Jaren, don't hide from me," he murmured, dragging himself around the other side of the shelf to find the omega pushing boxes into their place.

A box cutter in hand and a roll of tape, those big brown eyes landed on John and the beta couldn't not notice how dilated his pupils were. With another deep breath, he could tell that his prac teacher had something far different from taping boxes in mind.

"You know you make my job so much harder," John said, dropping his keys on the shelf to his right and prowling closer with a small grin. Jaren's smile was small but there, teeth nibbling on his bottom lip as he kept his eyes locked solely on John. "I can't focus when you're fillin' my class with that scent," he murmured, head tilting to the side as he devoured the omega with his eyes. "And when you're wearing those jeans."

Jaren's smile was sly but weak, the scent of eagerness melting into arousal. "Dunno what you mean," he purred, voice heavy from his tongue. John shuddered, drawing closer and tapping his fingers along the shelf.

"You know what you do to me," he said, keeping Jaren's eyes on him and grinning wolfishly. "I see the way you look at me, like you're waiting for me to give in and give you what you want." When close enough, John hooked his fingers into the omega's belt, pulling him close.

He didn't miss the way Jaren flicked his tongue out to moisten his lips, lashes fluttering to kiss his cheekbones. "Well?" he murmured, placing a hand thoughtlessly against the beta's chest. His head tilted in that painfully cute way. "Are you here to tell me off?"

John hummed gently in thought as he fiddled with Jaren's belt, swiftly pulling the leather strap out of the buckle. With his pants loosened, the omega could only lean into John's space as the beta slid a hand down over Jaren's tailbone to where his fingers could curl around the curve of his ass. John dropped his head, nudging Jaren's jaw with his nose before skipping kisses up the bone to where his scent gland was releasing waves on waves of pheromones. "I'm here to teach you a lesson," he growled, fingertips feeling the heat and slick that the omega produced between his legs. Jaren let out a weak whimper, head stretched up to present his neck to the teacher. "I'm gonna fuck you senseless. Tomorrow, no one will be able to be in the same room without noticing my scent all over you."

A needy whine was all the omega could get out before the beta was capturing his chin with his deft fingers and leaning in to claim his mouth with his own. Jaren's lips were soft, warm and smooth as they eagerly pushed back against John's. They parted almost instantly as nimble fingers jumped to tangle with the hair at the back of John's head, encouraging the kiss deeper.

The simple brush of John's tongue along his bottom lip had Jaren whimpering as he stumbled back, John following him to where he could pin the omega to the back wall. He pressed his tongue into Jaren's compliant mouth, swallowing the little gasps and hitched moans as he squeezed the omega's ass.

"John." The name was gasped as soon as John's lips fell away from Jarens, dropping kisses down his throat. His head thumped against the concrete wall, sounding somewhat painful, but the omega didn't react other than a sweet moan as John sucked a bruise into the base of his neck. Fingers tugged at the teacher's hair, eager and needy as the omega pushed his hips forward into John's. "John, I'm- I'll be too loud," he moaned, shuddering as the beta ground his hips forward again.

John laughed, breath rolling over the fresh new bruise. "Everyone's gone," he murmured, bruising the words along Jaren's collarbone as nipped at the protruding bone. "Jus' you and me," he whispered. "I wanna remember every single sound you make."

The omega whimpered in response, legs spreading easily as John pushed his thigh between Jaren's. He let out a long, low moan, allowing John to pull back for half a second to pull his shirt up over his head. Hands on John's shoulders, he pulled him close and tucked his head beneath the beta's jaw instead. "You smell so good," he groaned, grinding himself down on John's leg. "Do you- Do you know how hot I get when I know you're watching me?" he breathed the words against John's ear, catching his lobe between his teeth and tugging. Fingernails dug into the flesh of the back of his hips.

The beta growled beneath his breath as that greedy tongue teased his ear, dropping down to his scent gland where the omega eagerly tasted him. He breathed a weak whine. "You're gonna smell incredible when you're drenched in my scent and wearing my marks," John murmured, nipping at Jaren's jaw before pressing their lips together and biting his bottom lip between his teeth.

The kiss was a mess of heat as John mapped out the taste and texture of the omega's mouth. Jaren kissed with vigor, whole body pressing up against the teacher as he licked into his mouth. As he kissed, his hands were desperate and shaky as they yanked and tugged at John's shirt and belt. He wasn't able to undo the leather strap, John's fingers dropping to stop his hand to intertwine their fingers together.

He drew back from the kiss, taking a moment to really appreciate the omega's face. Wide eyes, huge pupils. Lips plump and slick. Cheeks flushed.

"We're gonna talk about this later, okay?" he told the omega, dragging his thumb across that pretty bottom lip. The omega hummed in agreement, eyeing John's mouth with hunger as he pulled the teacher's thumb past his lips to suck on.

John shivered, the tongue swirling around his thumb sending heat straight to his guts. "I want you to fuck me," Jaren whispered, leaning in to kiss John but was stopped by a hand on his chest. He whined stubbornly.

With a stern look, John let go of the omega to pull off his shirt. "Patience," John scalded, leaning in to nip at the omega's jaw. He threw his belt aside, dropping his pants as Jaren hurried to drop his own down, boxers and all. As soon as he was able to, the omega was grabbing at John's shoulders and kissing him like the beta was his only source of oxygen.

John pressed against him, the new feeling of skin on skin; bare chest to chest, bare hips to hips. He replaced his thigh between the omega's leg, purring pleasantly as Jaren ground his erection against John's hip.John's hands returned to the behind of the man, grasping the meat of his ass as he purred against his tongue. Jaren's fingers skated up and down his chest, over his shoulders and up to brush along his cheekbones.

He sucked desperately on John's tongue, massaging its underside with his own as he rocked his hips. Every brush of his arousal against John's hip was a brush of John's against his and the beta couldn't help sliding his finger between Jaren's cheeks. The pad of his fingertip pressed to the omega's entrance, John noticing it flutter beneath the pressure. He could feel the hot slick engulfing his finger and broke their kiss to hear every little gasp and moan Jaren released as he sunk one finger into him, not stopping until he'd reached the knuckle.

Then he stilled, eyes narrowed on Jaren's face as the omega panted. Within seconds, he was shuddering, rocking his hips back and forward in attempts to create friction within himself. "Fuck, fuck, fuck," he murmured, head falling to John's bare shoulder as his hips rocked back and forth. "C'mon John, gimme more." The words were uttered against the bare skin, baring his teeth as John pulled his finger out and drove it back up into him.

Feeling the man's hips jolt at the depth of his touch was a whole new level of beautiful. John couldn't help the low groan he allowed at the sound, rubbing his arousal against Jaren's as he picked up a pace with his finger.

Despite the surplus of slick, Jaren was still tight around him, his inner walls seeming to pulse against John's intrusion. The omega was extremely reactive to every little touch and as John peppered kisses down the side of his neck. "I can take more," Jaren hissed, biting gently at John's shoulder to get his attention.

Stopping his movements, he hummed in thought. The exasperated whine was worth the teasing, chuckling as he crooked his finger against the man's walls. The breathy whimper went straight to the boiling heat in John's stomach. "Can you?" he purred, rubbing at the inside of his walls.

Jaren whimpered and jerked his hips impatiently. "Yes, John, you- ohh." Mid-sentence, John drove his two fingers up into him and the uncontrolled moan was a pleasant reward. He slipped his hand down to the inside of the man's thighs, caressing the quivering muscles and gathering the dripping slick along the palm of his hand.

The omega's weight was sunk heavy against John's chest as the beta worked him open. Drool was beginning to pool on John's shoulder as the omega hummed and moaned pleasantly with every teasing push. John didn't mind, the heat and wait of his prac teacher's body one that was welcome as those pretty hips worked back and forth.

When John pulled his fingers out completely, the omega was pushing against him more, clamping thighs either side of John's leg to make sure the beta couldn't pull away. "More, more, more," the dazed man murmured, hands on his shoulders holding John close as Jaren kissed from his shoulder up to his jaw. He nosed against John's scent gland. "Your fingers are so good- feel so good. Want you to fuck me, want you to fuck me 'til I can't walk-"

"Shh," John murmured, catching his mouth in a kiss and silencing the desperate rambling. He eased the omega back against the wall and pinning him there. He hummed gently as Jaren licked needily into his mouth, the hand on his thigh sliding down before grabbing the muscle and pulling his leg up. to spread him open.

Slick dropped to the floor, the scent filling John's nose torturously. He had to urge to spin the man around, drop to his knees and taste him with his tongue but he knew he could find another time to do exactly that.

In the storeroom, he wanted to see Jaren's face while he tore him apart.

With his leg raised, Jaren rocked forward as soon as John's hand was close enough, grinding his arousal down and panting with lust. John held him still, lifting his leg further and admiring the flexibility of the prac teacher. As soon as he could access the slick-producing entrance, John was pushing three thick fingers up into Jaren and watching as the omega threw his head back with a cry.

"John!" he cried, grasping John's hair and bucking his hips down. "Fu-uck- We- I'm gonna come-" And John could feel it. Jaren's body quivered, his arousal leaking with precum. His hips almost convulsed as he shuddered, hips jerking with no control.

Yet as beautiful Jaren was, pinned to the wall, grinding on John's fingers, moaning his name; he didn't want the omega to come so soon.

So despite the pained whimper, he eased his fingers out and instead collected slick over his hand and fingers. "I'm ready, I'm ready, I'm ready," Jaren murmured, eyes locked on John and lips swollen. He bit them anyway, worrying his bottom lip under John's heated gaze. "C'mon." He tugged on John's hair. "I need you, already."

"Don't misbehave," John scolded, slipping his hand between them to slide over his own arousal. Jaren's slick made it far more comfortable to lubricate himself, the feeling setting fire along his nerves. His back curled, leaning in close enough to pull Jaren's lip between his own, sucking gently. "Don't rush," he murmured, kissing his cheekbone in a loving manner.

Lifting Jaren's leg further, he slotted himself closer and lined himself up with Jaren's entrance. Then slowly, he eased himself forward.

Jaren took him in with ease. The omega was still tight but his slick was hot and his entrance twitched and fluttered all the way down John's shaft. He managed to hook his leg up over the beta's hip, head tilted back, eyes shut and mouth open as the beta filled him completely. John kissed down his throat, sucking another mark into the man's collarbone as he finally reached his hilt.

"God, Jaren," he muttered, pressing his forehead to the omega's shoulder. "You feel amazing. I- You're so perfect..."

All Jaren could manage was a weak whimper in response, hips shifting forward and back. The angle was a hard one to hold and John could feel how his thigh was flexed in the palm of his hand. His other leg was shaking, the strain on his muscles too much to hold himself for too much longer.

"M'kay, up," John murmured, slipping his other hand down to Jaren's ass. "Ready? Up." As he said it, the omega complied, lifting himself up and wrapping his legs around the teacher's waist. John pinned him to the wall to keep him there and the omega gasped as John ground himself in that slight bit further.

"John, John, John- Mov- Move, please," he hissed, smacking his head against the wall again. With his hands beneath the omega's thighs, John held the prac teacher in place, finding no difficulty in keeping him there. He pulled his hips back until only his head remained inside Jaren, before he drove himself forward and jerked his arousal into Jaren as deep as it could go.

The responding moan the man made was perfect and John didn't hesitate to draw himself out and thrust in. A rhythm started between them, Jaren's claws sinking into the back of his shoulders as he brace himself. John's mouth found Jaren's throat and he began licking, sucking and biting as his hips set a bruising pace.

Curses and shouts poured from Jaren's tongue, the prac teacher unable to hold back his moans and whines. They were music to John's ears as his body moved in autopilot. The pleasure and heat within him drove his movements as he fucked Jaren against the wall. The room was full of their scents; arousal, lust and slick. Jaren's own arousal was trapped between them, rubbing against his stomach where precum collected.

Through the mess of it, Jaren found his mouth, yanking his head up and crushing their lips together. He pressed every tender, desperate moan into John's mouth, trusting him with every needy sound. John's tongue pressed in and claimed his mouth, licking at his bruised lips and flicking the tip of Jaren's.

The submissive moan that the omega allowed drew a responding growl of possession for the beta, his thrusts growing faster and sharper. The wall thumped with every thrust, Jaren mewling and moaning as he tore his mouth from John's.

"Close, close, close!" he whined, jerking his hips to meet John's with what little room he had to move. John's tongue tortured his scent gland, tasting the chocolate as it stained his senses. "John-"

Jaren keened, whole body spasming as his spine went rigid.

The feeling of his inner muscles clenching around John as he drove in and out was incredible. The friction drove him wild, mind soaring out of the present moment and pleasure crashed over him. He didn't register how he sunk his teeth into the omega's shoulder. All he could focus on were the sounds leaving Jaren's mouth as he rocked his hips and the pleasure coursing through him as he rode the both of them through their orgasms.

When John drifted back into his consciousness, he lazily lapped at the bleeding wound on Jaren's shoulder. The omega was like dead weight against him, pushed far enough that he needed a number of minutes to recover.

John didn't mind, holding him there, still seated, and peppering kisses over his bare skin. He pecked at Jaren's mouth, kissing his bottom lip gently as those deep brown eyes fluttered. It seemed he was only able to hold them half open, smiling goofily at John as the beta kissed his cheeks, eyelids and nose.

"You okay?" he murmured, pressing another chaste kiss to the prac teacher's lips.

"Amazing," the omega sighed. "But itching for a good ass sleep- Would you- Do you wanna-" It took him a second to gather his thoughts, cheeks tinting a soft pink as he looked away from John's gaze. "Would you wanna come back to mine and- and nest with me for the night?" he asked, brushing his fingers through the beta's hair.

But he had no reason to be worried as John pressed in close again and fit their lips together. "I'd love to," he mumbled, letting the omega back down onto his feet. He was clearly weakened from the sex and his knees wobbled dangerously. John held him up as they slowly dressed themselves, before he lead the omega out of the building and locked everything up.

They got to the beta's car, Jaren gave him directions and within five minutes, the omega was passed out in the passenger seat. John didn't mind carrying Jaren up to his apartment, letting them in and curling up with the peaceful omega in the guy's bed. He made a half-assed attempt at nesting the bed before passing out as well with his head tucked beneath Jaren's chin and his arms tight around the gorgeous omega.

#anon #krii7y #fic #fanfic #sm.ut #ns.fw #banana bus squad #bbs #alpha beta omega #alpha/beta/omega #a/b/o #abo

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suicidalcatz · 5 years

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DOG DAYS ARE OVER : CHAP 5

AN: Hello frens! Are you having a nice sunday? In this chapter we exchange some texts. But also we make fun of Josh just because. In the next chapter, things get complicated between the three of you... I hope you’ll like it. Please feel free to comment or send me prompts!

Pairing : Jake Kiszka x Reader

Genre : College AU

Previous parts : Prologue ; Chap 1 ; Chap 2 ; Chap 3 ; Chap 4

Masterlist : here

Chapter five : New number, who dis ?

Packing never made me feel weird before. It was friday afternoon so a majority of students were going home or, like me, to their parents' place for the week end. Most of the time I'd stay in my dorm with Mandy because we had so much homework there was no point coming home at all. I already knew for a fact that I'll be locked up in my room all week end painting, drawing, and cutting paper, but I promised I'd see them since it has been a while. My parents' cooking and comfy house usually made me impatient but not this time. I knew the boys were staying on campus because they lived far away, and it gave me mixed feelings. Part of me longed for Jake, and the feeling of his touch on my wrist was still so vivid I sometimes got the impression his hand was still here. On the other hand, he and Josh were big family guys, and seeing them missing their home so much while I was reluctant to see mine made me feel like a spoiled brat. That's why instead of calling to tell my parents I wasn't coming home this week end either, I went home to enjoy every bit of it.

My mom had already made my favorite dish, and dad was excitedly chatting about this new movie he saw on tv the other day. It felt good, I could allow myself to relax a little, take a bath, hang out with some friends for an hour or two after finishing an assignment.

Sitting at my desk, I dropped the pen and stretched my back, falling back onto the chair and looking at my work. I did good this week, so the teacher didn't make me redo any of my assignments, which was very fortunate because I still had a flyer design to create. I unfolded that one Jake gave to me and took a look at all the infos, preparing a draft of my first idea. Why they didn't let the Illustration department do the visual com design was a mystery. By the look of it I bet it was the Music and Architecture dudes who made it. There was a bunch of band names thrown in the middle, what looked like a pixelled stock image of a Santa hat in a corner, « with beer ! » in a really ugly comic bubble in another, and the worst was that they though Comic Sans was an acceptable font choice. Unbelievable. That's why we can't let Architecture dudes do anything.

Creating a decent design took me a solid two hours, which was way faster than I planned. Getting up, I studied it from a distance, looking for flaws. It wasn't the best I could've done but it was pretty cool and not printed with neon yellow paper. For now, I'll rest my head for a bit and see if I can sketch the few more ideas I came up with later on. Feeling proud of my work, I took a picture to send it to Jake. It was dark and quiet outside, and one glance at the clock confirmed my thoughts on how late it was already. Biting my lower lip, I struggled. Maybe he was sleeping.

I never texted him since he gave me his number. I mean he gave it to me so we could talk about the flyers, right ? I would've been uneasy using it for another reason. Pondering whether of not I should maybe wake him up, I started pacing in my room, tidying and touching things, stuff I did when I was nervous. My arm still had some black marker on it, faded shapes and symbols vaguely resembling numbers, like an old letter with smudged ink and discolored paper. At first I didn't wanted to wash it off. Mandy and I got so excited by it we cheered together right after school, and classmates seemed intrigued by it. The cold weather didn't allow me to show too much skin so it could look like a tattoo, or a hot guy gave me his number (which was technically true). It could look like I just wrote it myself, but it was totally lame so I didn't want to think about it. Although I really enjoyed that empowering feeling of being someone's interest, at least a little, I scrubbed it hard the same evening. I didn't know if Josh was aware of it and couldn't raise suspicion in case he wasn't. It looked like we were doing something bad, and maybe we were, I had no clue. Guys had that weird rule regarding friends dating brothers and according to Netflix romcoms I was walking on thin fucking ice so I wasn't taking any risks. To be honest I don't think Josh would mind us talking but Jake seemed like a secretive guys so if he told Josh then I'll talk about it and otherwise, I won't. I'll just go with the flow and follow his lead on this, it was safer.

It was almost 2AM when I sent the pic and left my room to get a nice cup of tea/coffee after all these efforts. By the time I got back I had one new message.

« Hi to you too »

I felt my heart jump a little when I saw his name at the top of the screen, and his first text made me smile. I got so pumped by all these design ideas that I forgot to tell him it was me. The picture made it clear enough, though, but maybe it was a bit rude of me. Taking a sip of hot tea/coffee before putting the mug on the night table, I sat on the bed, eyes still on my phone, thinking of an answer. It took me maybe too long because I kept on rereading it to be sure I wouldn't embarrass myself with a typo.

« Hi, sorry. So what do you think ? »

The phone was threwn on the blankets and I turned on the tv to make me think of something else than his future reply. Saying that I was confident would be half-true. The design was good or so I thought so, but then again tastes were all too subjectives and art was tricky. He had all the right to hate it, I wouldn't take it personally (well at least not a hundred percent...). Idly watching a re-run of some old sitcom, I continued to quietly empty my cup and switch channels without really paying attention when I heard my phone buzz and let everything down to grab it.

« I got to admit you were right, our flyers sucked, this one looks fantastic »

And maybe my cheeks started turning pink. Compliments on my art meant a lot, more than those on my personnality or physic. It was really rewarding to have someone enjoy something you created from your own hands. It felt better than any other flattery, so the reply came naturally.

« I'm so glad you like it. I had a few more ideas in stock just in case »

His next message came so fast this time that I didn't even put down my phone yet when I felt it vibrate in my palm.

« Thank you for this, I really appreciate it. I'll owe you one. »

His sweet personality made a smile spread across my face. I took the flyer in my hand again, studying it. The number of bands playing this day was surprisingly high. Some of them I knew because I either heard people talk about it, or knew the guys playing. One especially because they kept rehearsing their rap lyrics in the dorms for everybody to enjoy, which I didn't since they started loudly singing at three in the morning and ignored all my complaints about the noise of their boombox. But most of the bands, no, I didn't know. I continued watching intently the names of the bands playing as if I'll have an epiphany and guess which was Jake's. Giving up, I took my phone again to tap.

« Don't sweat it, I'm glad to help. So... which one are you... ? »

Again, the reply was faster than the first texts we exchanged, despite the late hour.

« You mean the band ? Guess you'll have to come and find out »

I raised an amused eyebrow at this. Getting cocky, aren't we ?

« Alright then, Mister Mysterious, I'll wait and see. »

« You won't regret it. », replied Jake, and for some reason my face started heating up again.

We didn't speak for several minutes, I didn't know what to say now that the topic was closed, and I had nothing to add to it. Switching channels and drinking tea/coffee didn't gave me much help either, at this hour it was either old re-runs, or tv shopping. My eyes looked at the digital alarm clock, and it was almost three in the morning. That's how I knew what to write next.

« I just thought about it, but didn't I wake you up ? »

He was fast as ever again this time, probably wide awake and without anything to do.

« No, don't worry. Rehearsing with my brothers. I'm taking a break until Sam and Josh stop arguing and find a compromise for the new song. Our friend Danny's being the peace keeper once again, I left him alone on the battlefield and went out for a smoke. »

The war metaphor made me chuckle lightly, causing my imagination to run wild. The thought went through my mind that I couldn't believe they would argue, but since they were brothers it was normal I guess, even if they seemed pretty close. Close enough to form a band together at least. I never saw Josh angry, but he had a very vivid temperament, so it wasn't really much of a surprise either. My mind wandered a bit, and I briefly wondered how Jake looked in a heated argument. Probably hot, but also intimidating. He had that kind of quiet aura that seemed like it could become suddenly agitated, like a spotless watercourse that got troubled by the rain or rocks that ricocheted on it. I couldn't explain it, but it was how my limited knowledge of him perceived it.

My phone buzzed again, and this time it was a picture that made me snort in the ugliest way possible. It was a very unflattering close up of a moody and clearly unamused Josh who looked like he was in the middle of scolding Jake for doing whatever he did that got him upset. More of it came, one after the other, for my greatest amusement, and by looking at them in order I could see his actions and movements, like a flipbook of ugly pictures of an angry Josh wearing a colorful dyed t shirt and ample pants that I assumed were his pajamas. The last one got me shaking with laughter, poor Josh looked awful, in a middle of what I assumed was a menacing speech for Jake to stop his bullshit, with an eye half closed and his mouth stuck the weirdest twist of the lips humanly possible. I saved this one as blackmail material, might be helpful in the future.

I didn't even know what to respond to that, they all radiated such chaotic energy it was splendid. Jake was quicker, and sent me a text this time, saying Josh threw his slipper at his face and that he was lucky he hadn't had the tambourine in his hands at that moment.

« I guess rehearsal is over for today, hopefully they'll make up their minds about the song tomorrow. Thanks again for the flyers, see you on monday, we'll print them. »

I never knew I'd be that impatient to go back to school before meeting him.

#gvf fic #gvf x reader #gvf imagine #gvf fanfic #jake kiszka x reader #jake kiszka fic #jake kiszka imagine #josh kiszka fic #greta van fleet fic #greta van fleet imagine #greta van fleet #jake kiszka

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earth-ambassador-jim · 4 years

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Lost Souls: Story 2

The Tower (part 1)

Summary: Merlin awakens early from his sleep. He decides that he doesn’t want to leaving anything to chance and kidnaps the young James Lake Jr. to began training his Trollhunter as early as possible.

Barbara is determined to hunt down the man who kidnapped her son. In her efforts to get her son back she finds a strange old radio that speaks to her in a woman’s voice. The radio leads her to an underground society of shapeshifters.

Mother and son meet again years later as strangers on opposing sides.

AO3 - Fanfiction

(Note: Jim is six in this chapter.)

~~~~

“I want to go home.”

Jim’s demand fell flat against the stone walls and dusty shelves of the room. The man who claimed he was Merlin didn’t respond; he just kept scribbling away on his roll of yellowed paper. Every once in a while he would glance at one of the many books on the table. Jim wasn’t sure if he was ignoring him or had just not heard.

“I’m leaving,” Jim announced.

No response. Jim carefully started moving toward the ornate wooden door that he was fairly certain led outside. “Merlin” was still scribbling away. He put his hand on doorknob, it was cold. He glanced back. Still nothing. Jim’s heart was beating fast as he eased open the door and slipped through.

He closed it quickly behind him and squirmed excitedly. He was out! It was far easier than he had expected.

He looked around trying to figure out where he was. The door was on one side of him and on the other was a dark tunnel, lit in places by glowing green stones. Jim eyed them with wide eyes.

Toby would have liked them. Jim had met him a year ago just before his birthday and they were now best friends. He had even shown Jim his special rock collection. Jim drifted toward one of the low-hanging green crystals but stopped. Mom said stealing wasn’t good.

He was already being bad by disobeying an grown-up and running away.

Jim frowned, hesitating by the door; he really shouldn’t be doing this, but he didn’t think Merlin was a good person. Mom had warned him that there were bad people and that he shouldn’t go with them or do what they said. Though he wasn’t sure if that applied in this situation since he hadn’t gone with Merlin: he had just woken up here... What if Mom had left him with Merlin like she used to with Gramma sometimes?

But she always told him when she was going to that. And she always said goodbye. Not like Dad…

He shook his head hard to get rid of that thought before turning away from the door. Mom wouldn’t abandon him and he didn’t want to be here anymore. He would find his way home. If he was wrong Mom would forgive him.

The tunnel was dark and cold. Every once in a while it would spit in two. The growing crystals stopped being interesting and cool and started feeling creepy. Their eerie light bothered his eyes. Jim found himself getting more and more confused. He wasn’t even sure how to get back to the door. He let out a quiet whimper.

Maybe if he went just a little farther…

He rounded the corner and found himself in front of a very familiar door. He was back where he started.

Jim frowned. That was strange…

He decided to try again. And again. And again…

When Jim found himself at the wooden door yet again, he felt his face crumple. He sniffed a few times and a tear trickled down his cheek. What was he doing wrong? Frustrated and lonely, he curled up beside the door and started crying.

He had been there for a while, and was starting to get cold, when the door opened. Warm yellow light spilled out, partially blocked by a tall silhouette. He peeked out from behind his hands to see Merlin staring down at him.

“Come back inside, boy. If you stay out in the caves you’ll catch cold.”

Jim glared up at him for a moment. A shiver ran through him, causing him to wrap his arms around his skinny frame. Despite that he refused to get up. He didn’t want to go back there, he wanted to go home.

He didn’t get much of a choice. He let out a yelp as he was lifted up and carried, struggling, back inside.

Once they were back in, and the door was closed, Merlin wrapped him in a large thick blanket, set him in a chair, and handed him a cup of something warm. Coco he realized. He held it in his hands but didn’t drink it, choosing instead to glare at Merlin as the man settled into the chair across from him.

“How long will I be here?” Jim asked.

No response.

“Why am I here?”

“I told you: I’m training you.”

“Why?” Jim asked, frustrated.

He had said something like that when Jim had first woken up here. That Jim had an important destiny that he had to prepare him for.

But Jim knew training was like teaching. He went to school for teaching and they let him go home each day. The teacher, Miss Crumbstead, didn’t ignore him either. She answered his questions and would give him and the other kids fun things to play with and draw. Merlin didn’t do any of these things.

He didn’t think Merlin was going to answer but to his surprise the old man looked up. He set down his pen and put his hands together in front of him. Jim straightened uncomfortably under his gaze.

“I wanted to wait a while longer to talk to you about this but I suppose you need some explanation before you can settle in.”

His blue-grey eyes were intense as he studied Jim carefully before he sighed and a tired sort of look formed on his face, like the one Mom had when she had told Jim Dad wouldn’t be coming home for Thanksgiving. He rose from his chair and went over to one of the shelves, shuffling around for a moment, before he came back and set a small yellow crystal down between them.

“There is great evil in this world,” Merlin started.

He rested his hand on the crystal and it flickered and released blast of yellow light. Jim shielded his eyes. When he put his hand down, he saw that the light was forming into shapes: huge beings with horns and armor and fangs. He ducked down behind the back of his chair, watching them fearfully.

“One such evil took the form of the Gumm-Gumms. They were a vicious group of trolls that ate humans and wreaked havoc… hurt other trolls that didn’t agree with them.”

Jim covered his eyes, shaking. He didn’t want to see this.

“In order to protect the humans and drive them back. I created a magical amulet that would choose a champion and gift them with great power.”

Jim peeked through his fingers and saw the image had shifted to a different, less scary, one of the horned creatures. It held a glowing disk in its hands. Its lips moved as if it was saying something and a suit of armor materialized around it.

“Thus started the line of Trollhunters,” Merlin said, a slight smile briefly appearing on his face.

He circled around the table to stand beside Jim and set a hand on his shoulder. Jim shifted uncomfortably but let it stay as he watched the images fade away.

“But what… why am I here?”

“You are destined to be the next Trollhunter,” Merlin stated.

Jim turned around to stare at him in surprise.

“Me?” He squeaked.

Merlin nodded.

“Indeed.” He took a step away, clasping his hands behind his back and turning away from Jim. “I saw it in a vision. You were able to finally defeat two of the greatest evils the world has known.”

He paused.

“Or rather will. But not before damage was done.”

He set another crystal next to the yellow one, a blue one this time. He tapped them together and whispered words that Jim couldn’t understand.

They flared for a moment and then cast out a red light. Jim jumped as the shapes of the Gumm-Gumms reformed. This time in Arcadia! There were people fleeing for their lives. Destruction and chaos was everywhere. Jim’s breathing quickened to the point he was rapidly becoming light headed.

Merlin picked up crystals and the image vanished. Jim stared up at him with wide eyes. The wizard’s expression was solemn. He knelt down to Jim’s level.

“That is why I brought you here,” He said gently, holding Jim’s gaze with his own. “To start training you early so this time when the time comes you will be ready to do what you need to.”

“C… Can’t.. Couldn’t someone else do it? I… I’m not big or strong… or… or…”

Merlin shook his head.

“I’ve studied many futures,” He said firmly.

His hand brushed over the crystal again. Images flickered by quicker than Jim could truly take them in, but slow enough that he could see the destruction and devastation.

“…You must be the Trollhunter, it is the only way.”

Jim was quivering. He started to wrap his arms around himself, but Merlin gently pulled them back down.

“But what about Mom?” He whimpered.

He couldn’t leave her. He didn’t want to, but especially not after seeing how badly it had hurt her when Dad left had left them.

“Can’t she stay here too?”

Merlin sighed and looked away.

“I’m afraid not,” He said. “Being Trollhunter is dangerous. If your enemies know who you care about they will try to hurt them. Do you really want to bring her into that?”

Jim thought about the evil man-eating trolls and shook his head weakly. He didn’t want Mom to get hurt. Before he could say anything else, Merlin continued.

“You can see her eventually, once you’re strong enough, but for now I need you to focus on your training. Will you do that?”

Jim hesitated, this was big and scary, but if he didn’t…

“Okay.”

Merlin smiled and patted his head.

“I knew you would make the right decision.”

~~~~

Author Notes:

The next chapter will be Barbara's first interaction with Morgana. I was going to have it be part of this chapter, but it was being stubborn and I'm impatient. There's also a time jump, so I think it probably works better this way.

Also writing from a kid's perspective is tricky and I would welcome any critiques.

This story will be alternating between the past and present (events that will be taking place after Jim and Barbara's interactions in the first chapter) I will be showing that with tenses. Events happening in the present will be chronological, while events in the past will jump around a bit. It's a bit of a style experiment for me so I'd love to hear what you think!

#Tales of Arcadia #Trollhunters #Trollhunters Fanfiction #Jim lake jr #James lake Jr #Merlin #TOA Merlin #Child Champion AU #manipulation of a child #manipulation #kidnapping #Trollhunters AUs #My AUs #My Writing #my post #Lost Souls

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mysticsparklewings · 4 years

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Sparkle By the Sea

Pardon me as I just barely squeeze a MerMay piece of art in. I'll be honest with you guys, I've been pretty lacking in artistic motivation since NaPoWriMo ended. Although if you've noticed my lack of uploads, you probably could've already guessed that. This isn't abnormal for the aftermath of a month-long challenge for me, especially with a brand-new video game calling my name at every moment of the day, but even so I feel like this particular motivation drought was a bit different. Part of it definitely had to do with the changes to DeviantArt that I'm sure I don't need to remind everyone of, but that's been more of me dreading seeing what the state of the community is than anything else. (However, I have noticed I'm not a fan of the new tag system over the old category one, as confusing as the category system could be sometimes.) Rather, I think this lake of motivation has more to do with the fact that being largely absent from all social media during NaPo reminded me...well, that I hate social media. This is really a bigger discussion for a journal or something, but suffice to say it did not feel good to realize just how many literal hours I had previously been spending trying to desperately to scrape up just a little bit of support on other social media platforms (namely Twitter), versus the more natural growth I see here on dA that also feels a lot more genuine and less forced/obligatory. I can't really explain it, but that reminder/realization really helped my brain slip back into a place where I felt like creating again. And with that, I'll transition into talking about the art and save the social media talk for, as I said, a journal or something later on. Naturally, I've been seeing a lot of mermaid art this month and every year I feel the urge to get in on the fun, though I know better than to try actually doing the MerMay Challenge (especially not this year after having just done NaPo), so I usually either do a one-off drawing or if I'm too busy with other projects I just skip it. But I was starting to feel that need to make art in my brain again and I've had a specific set of stickers from the dollar store sitting in my stash for quite a while now that more or less sealed the deal for me. How do these stickers fit into the mix? Well, I originally fell in love with/picked them up because they are mermaid-themed and absolutely adorable--See for yourself! And I thought they would make for nice decals in a book project since they're wall stickers and therefore repositionable with minimal adhesive-yuck. And at first, I thought maybe I'd end up making them into said hypothetical book project in time for MerMay...except that felt a little cheap in combination with my lack of uploads. Did I really want to come back with a book project featuring mermaids I didn't even draw? And for MerMay of all things? So I sat on the idea and left the stickers out where I could see them, and eventually I sat down and took a closer look at them. The art style, upon further inspection, actually didn't look like it would be too far outside my usual art-making realms...Most of the coloring looks a lot like watercolor, except for the skin which I thought was flat and smooth like alcohol marker and the glitter accents which from my perspective pretty much had to be digital, but could potentially be replicated with glittery/metallic supplies... And that was the moment the idea hatched. I decided I'd try drawing a mermaid myself in the same style. This would work for MerMay, have something to do with the stickers, and based on my plans would work well for me as a mixed-media project, which as I'm sure I've said before is where I think my artistic talent shines best. I thought the scariest part was going to be replicating the looser and less strict line style, and to a point it was, but it wasn't nearly as bad as I thought it was going to be. I find it's usually kind of tricky to explain this, but really what this part of the process boils down to for me (if I'm replicating an existing style and not using my own), is really just studying the original artwork(s) and looking for patterns, then trying to stick to those patterns. For example, the style here features fairly large & rounded faces, and the hands are more like hand-shaped mittens (which was great news by the way because hands are always a pain in the butt for me), so I did my best to emulate those features. As per usual, I did start with a sketch, but I tried to keep it looser than usual, and then when I did the inking I started with my 0.2 Micron, again trying to keep things loose and no be too fussy if I could help it. Then I went back with a brush tip liner from Prismacolor to get more natural variation in the lines and to force myself to not have quite so much control over the line weight. I was also very careful with my choice of liners because I knew pretty much everything except the skin was going to see a lot of watercolors, which meant the lines had to be waterproof. And of course, I went with watercolor paper (my nice 100% cotton stuff this time) to make sure I didn't have any issues with blending or layering. Now, at this stage, I didn't know what I was going to do for the background, though I was leaning towards the idea of making one separately and placing the mermaid on top afterward, as sort of a nod to the original mermaids being stickers. But I wasn't totally sure yet. What I was sure of was how scared I was to just dive into coloring. The sketching and inking and gone so well I was thinking I was in for a rude awakening at any moment. So, just in case, I scanned my uncolored lines as a fall-back if I royally screwed up. With my paranoid mind set at ease (for the most part), I could begin with color application. I started with the skin since it was the easiest; Just one good layer of alcohol marker, leaving a little white space here and there like the artwork I was emulating. Although 1. The marker color turned out a bit darker than I was expecting and later blended too well with her tail, so I had to lighten it in Photoshop, and 2. because watercolor paper really soaks up the ink, I ended up with less white space than I thought I would. But beyond that, this step went off without a hitch. So then came the second-scariest part: The watercolor. I used a mixture of my Master's Touch watercolors and Mermaid Markers (yes, that was a very conscious supply choice ) and tried to take my time and be mindful of the color balance I was looking for. I'd decided ahead of time that I wanted to try and stick with a soft-ish palette like the original art, but I still wanted my choices to be different. Since yellow/gold is featured in the original but not used for a tail color, that's what I went with, and I opted for the blue-y-purple hair since a soft blue and purple are also prominent in the original and based on color-theory would be a nice contrast to the gold-orange tail. Though I did also try to get some pink in both the tail and the hair for a bit of unity and calling back to the pink in the original art. The trickiest part with the coloring was actually the tiny lips and blush spots. I ended up using a fluorescent pink for that turned out as more of a red originally and had to be touched-up via Photoshop because of that and also because of the lightening I did to the skin. It's more that it was a bit of a challenge to get the shapes of these much smaller areas right and in the correct place, since I had to use very minimal pencil markings, lest I end up with nasty graphite marks mixed into the paint. Getting the hair to be dark enough without being extreme compared to the rest of the drawing was also a great test of patience, but it ultimately worked out, I think. I also had a hard time deciding what color the piece of coral in her hair should be, which is why it ended up as this vague dusky-orange color. And I got more pink on the sand dollar next to it than I intended, but neither of those things is a huge deal. While I waited for all that to dry though, I had to decide how I was going to go about tackling all that extreme sparkle the original art had. I could have just added it in digitally and not even attempted it traditionally, but everything else had gone so smoothly that I decided to push my luck this time. Originally, I started with just glittery gel pens, but I found pretty quickly that they were sinking back into the colors underneath them too much and thus just weren't doing what I wanted. I wanted high-impact sparkle. After some brief consideration, I turned to the metallic watercolor sets I have made by Art Philosophy, which are very high-impact metallic and pretty opaque, which would work well over my failed gel pen and would work wonders for the areas where I wanted that high-impact over an opposing color. (I.E. Where I wanted the blue sparkle over a very orange-yellow area, which would normally make brown mud if the color on top wasn't opaque.) The funny part about that is that I originally used a different shade of purple and gold for those areas of sparkle that I ended up completely covering with different shades (the purple needed to be lighter and the gold needed to be darker/more gold and less yellow). And her eye shadow cover saw all three colors before I settled; The purple just seemed wrong, and the gold blended too well with her skin. I thought the blue wouldn't work so close to her blue hair, but it actually ended up looking the best out of the three. Although, I do have to make a full disclosure that the high-impact sparkle you see here is in fact where I went in and re-did it digitally once I scanned the artwork in. Unfortunately, glitter and metallic supplies just don't scan very well and usually end up looking too dark, dull, or flat by comparison. The metallic paints work just fine in person since you can move the art and see how they reflect the light, but it just doesn't work in a still image that's been captured by having a bright light uniformly shined over it. Still, re-tooling the sparkle digitally ended up being an interesting challenge, especially since it's been a fairly long time since I was messing with digital textures like this. Also worth noting is that I had to re-paint some of the metallic areas because they weirdly lifted off onto the plastic cover I used to protect the art when I pressed it onto the background to make the glue stick. I'm not sure if it's because those were the extra-layered areas and they hadn't fully dried all the way down to the paper, or if that particularly plastic just picks up this metallic paint really easily or what. And speaking of that background... Like I said earlier, I wasn't really sure what I wanted to do for a background for a while, but after reviewing my mermaid-centric Pinterest board I decided a simple rock seat and something to vaguely suggest the ocean/water without getting too detailed would suffice just fine. Based on that, I felt like using gouache would work nicely (and I just really felt like using the gouache since I don't find a lot of opportunities to use it) and that a color scheme that flipped her hair and tail colors would be best for the effect I wanted. I've found I really like the Strathmore 400 series mixed media paper for gouache because of how smooth it is, so I cut a piece down to size and got busy. For the most part, I just kind of went in with the colors doing whatever felt right, and trying to use some gouache I'd already mixed from past projects (since gouache can be reactivated and I've found this kind, in particular, seems to reactivate really nicely) either on their own or to mix the colors I felt like I needed. And I also tried to do a lot of blending straight on the paper to get more variations in color and make things a bit more lively. Oddly enough, this ended up being a good example of gouache's covering power because I accidentally started applying the colors upside down--using more greens and blues on top and more pinky-purple on the bottom--and not only had to flip the paper around but also had to do a fair amount of covering the colors I'd already put down with colors you don't really want to mix with them because they don't make very pretty results. But it worked out just fine, so yay! I also added some clouds for a little extra ambiance, which I think looks quite nice. Believe it or not, the most difficult thing about the background was the rocks. I spent far longer than I care to admit (or bothered to document, for that matter) trying and in many ways failing to mix the proper shades of gray I wanted, and the end result didn't turn out quite as clean and graphic as I had hoped, but by the time I put the mermaid on top, you really can't tell because you can only see a fraction of what's actually there. And I mean, the end result isn't terrible, it's just not quite what I was picturing in my mind's eye is all. Personally, I know it's kind of an odd choice, but I really like how there's no defining line between the water and the sky, and yet you still get a clear idea that they're separate and the rocks aren't just floating in space. I'm not sure how, but I think I'd like to work with this kind of ambiguity more often. It's like a step between abstract and more structured art. Anyway. With the background done, the next step was to attach the mermaid, which I felt like doing in a more 3D and less flat manner, so I chopped up a cardboard box that previously held a chocolate bunny I had on hand and glued some pieces together to boost the mermaid up a bit. This where those deep shadows between her and the background are coming from. Here I feel the need to insert a comment about how difficult it was to get my tacky glue to dispense the glue for me, though there's a chance this is because I need to poke the opening in the tip to be a bit wider. (You have to poke it open yourself and I always felt like I never did get it open quite enough...unless you like strenuous hand exercises...) Of course, once all the above was done then I had to scan the art in, which I was admittedly a bit nervous about after the incident with the plastic cover peeling off the metallic paint (though fortunately, the scanner glass didn't have the same effect), and then all that was left wad the digital retouches. Overall, I'm really happy with how this turned out. It doesn't blend in as well as I originally wanted it to with the original art, but in the end, that doesn't really bother me. It's just a nice piece of art on its own that is also unique from what I normally do...except it's still got a lot of similar elements to how I normally make art. It feels a lot like the days when all I made was fanart. The key difference here is that I know myself better as an artist now and thus can use that knowledge to my advantage. I can't promise this a return to regular posting for me, though I do hope it's a gateway to me posting more frequently at least, but I can say I do intend on getting back to working on art more often and therefore being more present online again. At the very least, I can happily tell you guys that I have a couple of new art supplies en route to me that I've been wanting for a while and am excited to share with you once they arrive. If nothing else, we at least have that to look forward to! ____ Artwork © me, MysticSparkleWings ____ Where to find me & my artwork: My Website | Commission Info + Prices | Ko-Fi | dA Print Shop | RedBubble | Twitter | Tumblr | Instagram

#mermay

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