#I have admittedly poured my heart out into this letter for it may be the last you'll read for a long time | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

ushidoux · 3 years

Text

Power Struggle - Ushijima x Reader

Summary: You’re set up on a blind date with a man who might just be your match. (~5.1k words)

Warnings: fem pronouns, fem!reader, blind date, exhibitionism, public sex

A/N: Part of @cherrytenko’s CEO collab! Surprisingly this is possibly the longest fic I’ve written as a oneshot and it’s a little softer than I expected it to be but please enjoy!

---

It’s about half past 6pm when you add the final touch to your makeup, a smear of matte lipstick (Rouge Hermes #48, to be exact), to your lips.

It’s not often that you’re able to leave work early but your mother and father had called you from overseas in the late afternoon, interrupting their own third honeymoon, to remind you of your final meeting for the day -

A date.

“I know you hate these things, but just go! You might like what you see,” your mother insisted over video chat, her voice muffled by the sound of wind whipping past her as she and your father cruised along on a shaky speedboat they’d purchased just for the day. You weren’t completely sure where they were, only vaguely aware that they were somewhere around Jeju Island, and not exactly sure why they still had phone service, but you weren’t going to ask too many questions.

“No obligation!” Your father adds, just out of view and yelling slightly.

Sure, never any obligations.

As you smack your lips in the mirror to smooth out the lip color, giving yourself a brief once-over to decide whether or not you feel the need to adjust your hair or if you will wear falsies or not, you frown ever so slightly, then let out a sigh.

You hate this.

This is the third “meeting” they’ve arranged for you this month, and they’d been at this for almost six months overall by now. This search for a ‘suitable husband’ was getting stale - not to mention, time-consuming - and you weren’t sure you would be willing to appease your parents any longer.

In fact, you weren’t exactly sure you were interested in a partner anymore. The clock would hit thirty any moment now, and the math of falling in love, getting married, having kids, and still heading a successful company no longer seemed to be adding up. You didn’t know how exactly to tell your sweet parents who were the picture of domestic bliss that they’d probably have to give up on the idea of grandchildren, and consider raising puppies instead.

Regardless, for the time being, you could still bother to meet this stranger for dinner.

There’s a clasp seal envelope atop your dresser - a portfolio that had been left on your desk by your father’s assistant at the beginning of the week - that still seems entirely too formal for the process. This is matchmaking, not a job application, was the first thought that came to mind once you realized the envelope held a set of photos, a resume and an admittedly curt but formally written statement reminiscent of a cover letter.

Ushijima Wakatoshi, the signature at the bottom of the letter read in an extremely neat script. He must be particularly organized and detail-oriented.

There were two pictures, one that looked almost like a passport photo and the other much more relaxed, where he was dressed casually in a t-shirt and pressed jeans, standing with his arms crossed beside a redheaded man whose smile was wide and infectious, his arm around his neck. You wondered if he picked those photos himself.

You’d perused the first photo much more carefully because you could see more of his face. He’s quite handsome, you’d admitted, the faintest warmth in your cheeks, but he seemed awfully uptight. For one, the look on his face was very neutral, not bothering to smile. He was clean shaven and his hair was close cropped at the edges, a woody brown that paired well with serious olive eyes. You wondered if he ever laughed out loud, and what he looked like when he did.

The taxi driver is prompt and waiting outside of the high-rise in which you live by the time you make your way down the elevator. The click of your heels is loud on the tile as you make your way past the revolving doors. As you slip into the back of the car, you wonder if you’re dressed too professionally. You may have forgone the women’s pantsuit, but you’re still wearing a feminine pantsuit-esque ensemble in a creamy beige - pink would have seemed too ditzy, white would have seemed a bit too innocent (not to mention risky) and yellow too juvenile.

You’re not sure why you’re thinking so hard about this, but really years of paying attention to your appearance in public, not being taken seriously because you’re pretty and young and your personality is more bubbly than bossy puts you on your guard, especially when it comes to first impressions.

The location appears to be an upscale sushi restaurant, the type that you have to call ahead for months to get a reservation unless you have some kind of special arrangement with the owner. A staff member checks you in and brings you to the back to a private room, and as you pass through the dimly lit hallway, clutching your purse a little too securely, a scene from a yakuza movie comes to mind.

“Your room, madam,” the young man nods and motions you to enter a room that is brightly lit enough that it is almost blinding, large and round as though you were in a fishbowl yourself. You look up and notice that even the ceiling is curved. Elaborate paintings hang off the wall.

He’s not here.

You glance at the attendant and he raises his eyebrows as though he is expecting you to say something. You must look surprised, and continue to look so as you remove your shoes to sit at one of the thin mattresses set before the low table.

You wish you’d worn stockings perhaps, tucking your bare feet beneath you in a casual seiza position. You can’t recall the last time you’ve been this traditional/formal, and the thought of a man you barely know already knowing what your feet look like bare bothers you just a bit.

The attendant pours water and then tea for two wordlessly and slips out of the room.

Your heart pounds once you’re finally alone. Why is this so intense?

You fidget nervously with the thin silver necklace you are wearing, looking for a menu. There is none so far. Just square plates, both chopsticks and forks (odd for sushi, you think), and a steaming cup of tea set right next to a sweltering crystal glass of ice cold water. Opposites.

For a fleeting moment, you actually wonder for once if this man will like you.

“My apologies, Ms. ___.”

You’re startled by a rich voice, a tiny gasp revealing that you’re more spooked than you realize, and your eyes shift towards the direction of the sound to see what looks like your date finally arriving in a hurry.

You instinctively readjust yourself onto your knees to look formal, then realize you should probably stand instead, but before you can get up he waves you to sit back down, now settling down himself across from you.

“I had intended to arrive early but quite a few things happened at the company to make that unfeasible.”

He said this while removing a suit jacket in a way that was in no way intended to be sexy, not at all, then let out what sounded like a single, semi-nervous chuckle.

Wordlessly, you replied with a nod, transfixed as you compared photography to reality. The photos didn’t do him justice, not at all. The suit jacket was picked up quickly by a waiter who you had forgotten was still in the room.

Ushijima extended an arm to you across the table, intending to shake your hand.

“Did you wait long?” He asks as you shakily take his hand for a handshake that consumes your hand almost entirely in his large one.

You shake your head, then embarrassed when you realize you aren’t using your voice, and add, “No, I didn’t wait long...”

“Are you hungry?” He replies, quickly. Your instinct is to say no, no you didn’t need anything, especially not from him, but you are pretty sure your stomach would growl loudly any minute now, and you’d only look like a fool.

Ushijima glances at the waiter, who finally hands the two of you menus.

“Please order anything you like.”

You look down, swallowing hard again, and for a moment it is difficult to focus on the unnecessarily elaborate handwriting on the menu.

Something about him already grates on your nerves and you couldn’t exactly pinpoint what. You could forgive people for being late, and you were used to people being a little forward, but something about the way he was both familiar and unfamiliar in the way he spoke to you seemed to veer into patronizing behavior.

Why wasn’t he nervous? Every man you’d sat across from in the past half a year had just a little waver in their voice when they spoke to you at some point, even those who had started off boasting their fancy degrees and their villas and their large bank accounts.

But he sits perfectly still, all broad shoulders, gently wafting cologne, and a gaze that is both disconcerting and impartial, so you don’t know what to think.

When you look up from the menu to him, his eyes are still heavily focused on you, and you can’t really fault him. There’s nothing else to look at in this room, after all.

You take this opportunity to tease him. No man has ever intimidated you before and this one is no different.

“Are you going to order anything? I barely saw you look at the menu.” Your voice is light and coquettish and it implies, all you’re doing is staring at me.

“I already know my order. I’ve been here enough times,” he replies, immune to the playfulness in your voice. You watch him roll up his sleeves as he answers, and take note of the shape of his hands as he takes a sip of tea.

Maybe you’re the one staring.

“Would you like a recommendation?” He offers as he sets the cup down.

You shake your head no, and wonder again why you’re making gestures instead of talking. He smiles as though he can read your mind.

Once the waiter takes your orders and leaves the room, you’re left in silence, facing your would-be partner. It’s a stalemate of sorts and you lose, asking the first personal question.

But you ask it semi-clinically, refusing to lose the upper hand. You’re not sure why there’s an upper hand, but there is, and it will be yours.

“I read a little about your company before arriving. You gave me quite a few details, which I appreciated,” you state, turning your head to the side politely to take a sip of tea yourself. “You’ve done very well for yourself as CEO,” you add.

His eyes don’t crinkle from the flattery. “My employees do great work at all levels so it’s only natural that there would be positive growth,” he replies matter-of-factly.

You smile politely, but this answer doesn’t give you very much information about him. He’s shifting the success away from him, you remark, however he accepts the compliment as though expected. Is this genuine humility or arrogance?

You lean very slightly forward, just enough to see if he’ll take the opportunity to glance down your blouse, as other suitors have invariably done. He doesn’t, and you proceed to ask the next question.

“What do you do outside of work?”

His eyebrows raise, and you wonder if it’s because he realizes you are pretending you didn’t read that section on his application, but he answers anyway.

“I don’t have very much free time, as you are probably aware, but I garden and paint. And of course, I like to keep fit through team sports.”

A quick look at him makes that last part quite clear. You clear your throat slightly and then it is silent again. It’s not exactly an uncomfortable silence, but it’s not comfortable either.

Just as you wonder why he isn’t asking you any questions, he suddenly speaks up.

“Pardon me if this sounds inappropriate, but you’re beautiful. Why would you need a matchmaking service?”

You’re taken aback, and while your brain is scrambling for understanding of what his intentions are, he adjusts his sitting position so that he’s cross-legged with both hands on his knees and lets out a sigh before continuing.

“You’re also accomplished and clearly articulate. I don’t imagine you’d have trouble finding a partner through more organic means.”

It seems like there are a million butterflies that suddenly inhabit the small space in the pit of your stomach. Again, you’re at a loss for words, something that is rare for someone as opinionated and cordially fierce as you.

Should you be offended? It’s almost as though he’s asking what’s wrong with you?

He asks frankly, “Why a blind date?”

You want to ask him the same question, but you hear the waiter return and you fall silent, letting the butterflies in your stomach die down.

---

“I-is this the first time - ah - you’ve done this?”

You’re no longer laid out on the tatami like you were just an hour earlier, Ushijima nibbling on your lower lip and your collarbones instead of the overpriced, high-quality fish that sat atop your table, but now laid under him, spread eagle save for the hands you use to hold on to his shoulders as he slowly and deliberately thrusts inside you.

Your voice is breathy and catches in your throat every time he moves, but you have to know. How often has he ended up like this?

The heat that fills your whole body now isn’t just from the shame of letting a stranger fondle your body in an upscale restaurant, it’s because Ushijima somehow knows exactly where and how to touch you, as though he’s always known. His fingers have traveled your body like a hiker on a well-beaten path, from the softness behind your earlobes to your squishy center and back, and now have settled into a hold that is firm yet gentle on your hips.

When he replies “no” with immense honesty, his mouth sinks into the crook of your neck and he goes just deep enough that you don’t have time to factor this new information into your impression of him.

So instead you savor the thickness that fills you and the strength that holds you close, the soft grunts that fill your ears before they get drowned out by your equally loud whimpers and moans.

---

You don’t spend the night, partially out of shame that Ushijima bedded you so quickly and partially because you have a full schedule for the next morning. The parting of ways is brief and awkward and you seem to feel it more acutely than he does.

“I enjoyed our time, Miss ___,” he offers. You’ve dressed up faster than he has so you find yourself unwittingly ogling at the expanse of his sculpted chest and the flex of his muscles as he redresses. You’re almost sad to see him cover up.

You nod and walk out of the room, trying your best to hide the fact that your legs feel far too wobbly to be walking on these heels.

---

“Miss ____?”

Your eyes widen as you realize you’ve been daydreaming through a meeting with the board of trustees and now the wrinkled old men who hated the fact that your father thrust you into leadership you “didn’t deserve” are staring at you with disgruntled expressions.

“Oh, um,” you think quickly, recalling where the presentation left off and glancing quickly at the notes you’d jotted down on a notepad before wondering why Ushijima hadn’t called or texted since you met two weeks ago.

“Um?” The most senior of the group repeats, and your stomach turns for a moment before you steel yourself. He bares his teeth every time he’s displeased with you and you get the impression of an ancient and disgruntled wolf.

You clear your throat loudly, and settle back in your chair, crossing your legs and your arms over your chest.

“I have some disagreements with the current approach, but I’ll start with the pertinent positives,” you start.

---

“Was the sex at least good?”

Your best friend from high school glances at you briefly, as you face forward on the Peloton you are riding side by side with her. She’s much less out of shape than you are given that she also is your personal trainer and thus rides hers effortlessly, taking some time to wait for you to respond.

You begrudgingly say yes.

“Wow, for once someone dropped you before you could drop them!” She teases in a sing-song voice. You would slap her on the shoulder if she was close enough and if you weren’t out of breath. It stings just a little bit that you’ve heard nothing from him nor the matchmaking company and don’t have a good response to tell your parents aside from I guess we didn’t click.

“He’s missing out, though.”

“Yeah, no shit,” you huff, and cycle faster. No hard feelings.

---

Scratch that, there were absolutely going to be hard feelings now that he was not just fucking with you but also with your livelihood.

Admittedly, it was strange that despite the fact that your companies had never crossed paths until now despite working in the same consumer domain but this was unacceptable.

You’d opened an email that had just slipped into your peripheral vision as you worked on reviewing a couple of interns’ executive summaries, only to find that Ushijima might have just royally fucked you over.

A curt email from a crucial business partner read,

We apologize but we’ve decided to move forward with Ushijima Industries instead. I understand that this is last minute, but we believe that it will be mutually beneficial to discontinue our relationship at this point in time.

Your blood boiled. What the fuck was this?

Your phone rang, one of your team leaders calling immediately and likely looking at the email at the same time you were. He apologized profusely.

“What happened?”

“It seems like they just showed up and offered twice as much as we offered them last minute.”

This bastard. Then in a moment of horror, you wondered if this was your fault, if you had blabbed a little while slightly tipsy off of sake, and revealed that you had this acquisition in the works.

Voice smaller now, you asked, “So we can’t do anything to woo them back?”

“No, I don’t think so. I just have to make sure our other deal doesn’t fall through,” the slightly frantic man answered, the sounds of keyboard keys clicking rapidly heard in the background of the call.

“Okay, thank you for your hard work,” you stated. “I’ll see what I can do,” you replied with a click.

Maybe calling someone who’d ghosted you as you drove home, fuming and irritated, wasn’t the best idea, but you needed to confront him somehow. The idea of being bested in more ways than one was too much to bear.

The phone rang once, twice, then three times, and you were getting angrier with every tone through the car speaker. You hung up in frustration.

How embarrassing.

You made it home still irritated, indulging yourself in a relaxing bath to quell your anger. By the time you had soaked for close to an hour, you were mad at yourself for reacting impulsively and now having your number in his phone as a missed call… if he recognized it anyway.

It turns out he did.

“Ms. ___, did you call me earlier? I wasn’t able to make it to the phone in time.”

His voice was even lower on the phone, a slightly gravelly quality making you wonder if he’d actually been napping or just had a smoke. You couldn’t imagine him doing either of these things.

“What kind of game are you playing, Mr. Ushijima?”

There was a bit of hesitation on the phone, and you let out a sardonic laugh once he replied, as expected, “What?”

“How did you know about that deal other than what I told you?”

He paused again, and you too, stood still, a towel wrapped around your still dripping body.

“I assure you, I have no idea what you’re talking about,” he then said, carefully. “I, uh… assume you were calling about something else.”

You grit your teeth. What the fuck else? The fact that he sounded genuinely confused only served to aggravate you further.

“Did you or did you not use the information I gave you to intercept my deal with MNY?”

Finally the lightbulb went on.

“Oh, that was you. Hm.”

If you’d been talking in person, you probably would have slapped him at this point. Or at least considered it.

“I didn’t know you were our competitor in that aspect. I… probably would have reconsidered if I had known.”

“Excuse me?”

That tone of over-familiarity, patronizing… the care when you’re not supposed to care was back and you realized you regretted this phone call.

“How would it be any different? Are you implying that you’d let me win?”

“No, of course not, I…” He trailed off. “Would you like to come over to my apartment and talk? I can give you my address, I would rather talk in person.”

Why? So I can get over there and end up fucking you again?

“I respectfully decline,” you answered curtly, and hung up, tossing your phone onto your bed and letting out an aggravated sigh.

---

The next morning, you leave an early executive meeting only to find that your office had been overrun with flowers between the hours of 7 to 8 am.

There are yellow roses, stating admiration, spilling out of an oversized bouquet on your desk and a separate bouquet of light red carnations and white camellias that imply that he finds you ‘adorable’. A white card is placed in the yellow bouquet, and on it is written Ushijima’s neat script - you realize it’s from him before you even finish reading the note.

I would like to see you again. Please accept my call around 6 pm.

Respectfully,

Ushijima Wakatoshi

Your hands hover over the wastebasket in your room with the flowers in your arms, but instead you sigh, and stuff them behind you on your shelf. At least you won’t have to see them while you work, but they’re pretty. They’re clearly bought from a floral shop, but you recall that he had said he gardened in his free time.

Ushijima calls promptly at 6 pm and you let it ring twice before deciding to block his number just as he’s calling. Something about the action is satisfying.

You can’t be won over with a couple of flowers and kind words. Women aren’t as easily swayed as he may think.

---

It’s another Friday, and surprisingly you haven’t been contacted for a blind date, whether it’s by your parents or the matchmaking service they’ve subscribed you to.

Maybe they’d gotten the message after you’d been ghosted that you were tired of this game. Maybe they were giving you a break. Maybe they’d run out of potential suitors. You were surprised, but not upset.

Ushijima had truly gotten under your skin.

After blocking his call, there were no more attempts at contact for the rest of the week. The only thing left to consider was that if you ever crossed paths in your careers, you would pay him back for snatching your investor.

And snatching your dignity in the process.

It was about 4 pm and most of the employees were wrapping up their tasks for the day. You usually aimed to have everyone out by 5, especially on Friday so this was boding well.

“Hey, Madam President, are you okay with an add-on?” You hear your secretary call from outside your door.

“Oh, I mean, I guess but-”

She’s already letting Ushijima through the door.

You smile sweetly, maintaining professional behavior as best you can, while your secretary leads him to an armchair across from you, up until she exits, your expression souring the moment she closes the door.

“Mr. Ushijima, what are you doing in my office?”

He’s settled into the chair so comfortably that it feels as though you’re in his office, not your own. He’s dressed more casually than he was at the restaurant, no suit jacket, just a brown V-neck sweater over a dress shirt that almost seems too tight and a pair of chinos. He’s also wearing a pair of glasses, which is new.

You hate that he looks good.

“Apologizing and requesting your company.”

He looks at you sincerely, his hands clasped together in his lap. You narrow your eyes.

“Please leave.”

He actually frowns, and the small action actually surprises you.

“Do you actually want me to leave or are you still upset about the investor? Because if it’s that, we can make an arrangement-”

“No, I’m upset because you did that after not following up after our one night stand!” You finally blurt out, then bite your lip realizing you might have said too much.

“I… got busy.”

“Busy screwing me over?” You quip.

He runs a hand through his hair, a nervous gesture.

“I didn’t call because I thought you didn’t like me.”

You’re a little stunned by this reply, then decide you don’t believe him. What was there not to like? At least at that point he hadn’t done anything wrong.

“Why would you think that?”

His hands leave his hair again and rest on his knees. You notice it seems like a default position for him.

“I’ve been referred to as ‘stiff’. It’s great at work but not great for relationships.”

Ushijima’s brutal honesty is again sending you for a loop. You raise an eyebrow, bidding him to continue. Your arms uncross and you rest your elbows on the table.

“So…?”

“So usually by the time I’ve had sex with someone, it’s all they’re after. And since you didn’t call, I assumed even the sex wasn’t good.”

You unwittingly burst into laughter. Here was this successful, attractive man with a perfect pedigree who was insecure about how good he was in bed?

His eyebrows furrow, and you recollect yourself, realizing that this is a bit cruel.

“You could have sent a text,” you murmur.

“I’m bad at starting conversations.”

You stifle another laugh. “So you just don’t?” You tease. It’s gently mocking but mostly incredulous. It seems that he’s the opposite of the confident man he appears to be.

“That’s why I got excited when you called but then you were upset.”

You purse your lips.

“I promise I didn’t intend to put you in a bad situation,” Ushijima insists.

You sigh, then offer him a small smile. “Are you normally this persistent?”

He glances at the flowers that are only partially hidden from view, which makes your face warm up bashfully, and then looks right back at you.

“No. I just like you.”

Again with the directness, a confidence that is effortless, even when he’s not confident at all.

You don’t want to melt but you do. So instead you rise and clear your desk, stuffing a few items into your handbag as you prepare to leave. He watches, unsure of what you’re up to, sitting still as you walk around towards him and place your hand lightly on his shoulder.

Your body faces the door, but you turn to the side to look at him and grin.

“I’m done with work for today. Take me out.”

---

A couple months later...

“Fuck, you’re - ah - they’re gonna know, I-” Your voice morphs into a mewl instead once his ring finger reaches just the right spot; you’re squirming as much as possible under his touch but he has you laid back on your work desk with both ankles rested on his shoulders and his weight leaning onto you to essentially keep you in place.

“Move your hands,” Ushijima whispers in a hushed tone, leaning in to kiss between your breasts as he readjusts your legs atop him. His pants are down and his cock is already up and ready, the base and swollen balls rubbing against your wet cunt that you are desperately trying to protect from his intrusion. You know there’s absolutely no way you’ll stay quiet when he’s pounding the shit out of you, he likes it entirely too rough, and the walls are thin. You don’t listen, continuing to reach for his hands to swat them away from you.

There’s a part of you that is almost certain that at the very least your secretary knows that every time Ushijima comes for a ‘meeting’, it really is just to fuck the shit out of you before you leave together for the evening, or to relax you right before you once again have to defend your dad’s establishment of you as Company President.

This isn’t a good look.

“I-I can’t…” you whine.

“You can,” he assures you.

He gently kisses your face before prying your hands out of the way and keeping them pinned up against you with one hand and guiding his trajectory with the other before sinking inside of you. You moan at the breach of your privates and he quickly presses his lips to yours to swallow the sound.

Once he’s bottomed out, he rolls his hips, and soon you start to see white once you climax, clenching and cumming around him.

“T-Toshi!” You moan his name, and he clasps a large hand around your mouth before continuing, picking up the pace as he fucks you through your orgasm. He can’t deny that he likes the fact that you’re noisy, that the fact that the heavy desk he’s fucking you against is making a squeaky noise that suggests he’s really putting some force behind these strokes, and that if anyone could see the two of you now, it could be an issue for both of your corporations. Misconduct, they would call it.

He doesn’t care and while you act like you do, you don’t really care either.

When he lets go of your wrists to use the edge of the desk as leverage and tilts backwards, you scream in pleasure, a terribly obvious sound, and it’s enough to have him tip over and spill into you with a groan. He collapses onto you and the two of you almost slip onto the floor, but don’t; you wrap your arms around him.

Your hair is disheveled and so is his, and your legs are sticky with sweat and cum. You sigh, letting him soften inside you and stroke his hair.

“You’re getting me in trouble,” you murmur, and he lets out a breathy laugh.

“We don’t really have to answer to anyone, do we?” He replies with a smirk, and pecks you one more time on the lips.

He’s right - only you two are a match for each other.

#ushijima x reader #ushijima wakatoshi x reader #ceo!ushijima x reader #ceo collab #ushijima wakatoshi smut #ushijima smut #haikyuu smut #not sfw #fic: power struggle #mae.writing #hqintheclub

850 notes · View notes

pines-troz · 3 years

Text

Those We Hold Dear - Animaniacs/Pinky and The Brain Oneshot

Summary: An introverted Brain finds himself feeling lost during the holiday party on the Warner Movie Lot. He manages to find some respite upon finding a pool table in the abandoned rec room. When Yakko unexpectedly invites himself in, the two engage in some casual conversation, then slowly open themselves up as they talk about their loved ones.

This story includes mild doses of Brinky and Non-Binary Wakko with he/they pronouns.

Word Count: 7,969

TW: Brief mentions of trauma, animal testing, and alcohol

Includes spoilers from the Animaniacs Reboot and references to the Pinky and The Brain spin-off cartoon.

Special thanks to @themurphyzone for beta reading!

AO3 Link: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27714374

Beginning AN: This fic was written because there aren’t enough stories where Pinky and The Brain interact with the Warners, and I feel like there’s so much untapped potential in terms of interesting character dynamics and I wanted to explore that with this story. I hope you enjoy this self-indulgent and very heartwarming fanfic.

As Christmas time drew near, The Warner Brothers movie lot was bustling with the spirit of the holiday season. Studios were dressed in Christmas decorations, and classic Christmas songs played over the speakers. And in the heart of the studio, the WB office was holding a special holiday party for the cast and crew of the Animaniacs reboot. Pinky and the Brain were among the invited guests, and the two mice strolled through the movie lot together as they made their way to the party.

Brain shook his head, still in disbelief that he and Pinky worked as part-time actors, and even more so that they were asked to return for the Animaniacs reboot after the original show had been off the air for over twenty years.

The small mouse remembered back in the early 1990s, when one of his initial plans for world domination involved him and Pinky breaking into the Warner Bros. studio to broadcast his homemade propaganda film. But while they infiltrated the studio, they were spotted by a small group of writers. When Brain explained in earnest that he and Pinky were ‘genetically altered lab mice trying to take over the world’, the writers were so amused and inspired that they brought the lab mice over to meet the studio executives and were hired right on the spot.

While having to act out failed plans to take over the world felt like a slap to the face at times, Brain quickly found the positive aspects of working on a popular television show. He and Pinky worked on set a few days a week (which saved them from having to undergo more painful experiments from the scientists at Acme Labs), they got along well with the other cast, crew, and various workers on the Warner movie lot. The mice also received truck loads of fan mail and fan art from viewers (and they put in the effort to express their gratitude by writing back to as many letters as they could), attended conventions even long after the show went off the air, and were invited to cast parties.

As much as Brain enjoyed seeing Pinky having a ball at the cast parties, he himself admittedly detested large social gatherings. If world domination was at stake, then Brain would be more motivated to be sociable; rubbing elbows with politicians, manipulating powerful individuals to do his bidding, and being one step closer to planetary conquest.

But Brain had no schemes up his sleeve. No ulterior motives, hidden agendas, or feasible plans for world conquest tonight. The mouse had put off all plans to take over the world off the table during the holiday season after having read Pinky’s unsent letter to Santa that fateful Christmas. From that moment on, Brain vowed to ignore his own lofty ambitions during the holidays and to put more focus on making Pinky happy.

The mice made sure to dress appropriately for the holiday party. Brain donned a red sweater and dark green pants. Simple festive colors, but nothing overly garish. Pinky, however, went above and beyond in his party attire, as he wore a green dress with candy cane prints all over and sparkly red shoes. Once they walked past the office doors, they approached the elevator. Brain retrieved his limb-enhancing device and pressed the button, which opened up the doors, and the two mice entered the elevator. Brain used the device again to hit the button for floor nine, and the elevator moved upwards.

“Oh this is going to be so much fun, Brain!” Pinky chirped, flapping his hands with excitement.

“Well if you’re happy, then I’m happy.” Brain affirmed, keeping a calm and orderly demeanor.

Once they reached the right floor, they exited the elevator and approached the large event space where the party was held. As they approached the doorway, they were immediately greeted by Yakko, who wore a red and white striped blazer in addition to his usual brown slacks.

“Hey, Pinky and the Brain!” Yakko greeted as he waved at them. “How are the fan favorites doing?”

“We’re doing well for ourselves, Yakko-” Brain’s response was interrupted when he felt a giant wet smooch on his left cheek. He looked over his left to see Pinky smiling at him. The smaller mouse looked at his roommate with a shocked and irritated expression.

“Pinky!” Brain berated his companion, as his cheeks began to flare up. “I told you, no frivolous displays of affection outside of the lab!”

“Poit! I’m sorry Brain, but, you were standing right under the mistletoe, and I just couldn’t help myself!” Pinky explained with a joyous giggle as Brain wiped off the saliva from the side of his face. The intelligent mouse looked up above only to find that dreaded yuletide plant taped to the doorframe.

“Hey sibs! The power couple just arrived!” Yakko addressed his younger siblings. Brain fumed at the eldest Warner boy, who shrugged and flashed a playful smile back at the mouse.

Dot arrived on cue, followed by Wakko, who greedily shoveled all the contents of the plate of appetizers (and the plate) into their mouth. The younger Warners dressed appropriately for the festive occasion. Wakko wearing an oversized blue sweater with a sequin snowman, and their iconic backwards red cap had elf ears taped to each side. In addition to her pink skirt, Dot wore a white sweater with a colorful Christmas tree and a reindeer antler headband.

“Pinky!” Dot greeted happily, skipping merrily towards the taller mouse. “Oh you look so adorable!”

Pinky jumped for joy as the Warner sister picked him up. “Oh, why thank you Dot. Zort! I actually had a little help from Brain. He used his knit-o-matic machine to put the dress together!”

Dot turned her attention over to Brain, who was still standing beneath her. “Hello Brain! Don’t go thinking that I forgot about you.” She said, giving a couple pats to his large head.

“I wouldn’t dream of it.” Brain bantered, but lost his guard when the middle Warner sibling scooped him into their hands.

“Oh what joy, Brain is here!” Wakko cheered, lifting Brain up in the air as he twirled around. “I was thinking about going around the movie lot and belching my favorite Christmas carols later tonight. Would you care to join me?”

“A tempting offer, but I’m afraid I have to decline.” Brain gently rejected.

“Okay, but the offer still stands if you change your mind!” Wakko insisted.

“Very well. Now would you be so kind as to put me down? I’m going to head on over to the refreshments table.” The mouse said.

“Say, I was going to grab some snacks too! And maybe we can eat over at the table together!” Wakko proclaimed, carrying the mouse as he made their way to the refreshments table.

“Well, I would be delighted to keep you company.” Brain answered honestly.

The mouse tried to keep his favoritism hidden, but of all the cast members he worked with, he enjoyed being with the Warners the most. While they may be a nuisance to the humans on the movie lot, they were quite friendly with most of the animal actors on the set. Brain was quite enamored with Yakko’s comedic banter, Wakko’s silliness, and Dot’s wit and charm, and while they playfully teased him on occasions, it was never out of any malice. But the one aspect he enjoyed the most was that they were never judgemental of him or Pinky.

Brain picked up the smallest plate from the stack and started picking out one of each cheese, a deviled egg, the second-to-last pig in a blanket, two baby carrots, and a jumbo shrimp. Wakko swooped in from behind, taking the last the last pig in a blanket and gobbled it up.

Brain looked over at the line of wine glasses and the various wine bottles behind them and figured that he could go for a nice glass of red wine. Despite his short stature, Brain found an easier way to access the alcohol as he spotted Ralph the security guard (who may or may not be off-duty), grabbing a handful of jumbo shrimp.

“Pardon me, Ralph.” Brain addressed the dim-witted security guard.

Ralph turned his head and looked around for a few moments before spotting Brain. “Duh, oh hi Blaine.”

“Actually, it’s Brain.” The small mouse corrected. “Could you do me a small favor and pour me a glass of the pinot noir.”

The security guard looked over at the wine bottles, scratching his head in bewilderment.

“It’s the reddish bottle with the picture of purple grapes on it” Brain curtly explained in layman’s terms

“Oh, uh right!” The imbecilic security guard affirmed. He grabbed the specific bottle and poured a little too much wine into the glass, filling it almost to the top. The mouse did not care that he had an excessive amount of wine. Lord knows that he needs enough alcohol in his system to get through this social gathering.

“Thank you, my good man.” Brain said politely.

“But wait a minute, how are you gonna drink from the glass?” The security guard asked.

“Already accounted for.” Brain reached into his pocket and pulled out a green swirly straw custom made for himself.

Wakko walked over to Brain, carrying two full trays of appetizers. The middle Warner sibling marveled at the swirly straw. “You have great tastes in straws.” He carefully picked up Brain and placed him on top of their red hat. Wakko managed to carry his own plates, Brain’s plate and the wine glass with relative ease as he waltzed over to the table.

“Thank you, Wakko.” Brain said gratefully.

“Your welcome! Oh, I was wondering if you wanted to hear about how I found myself in Paris?” The middle child asked. “I want to tell someone else besides my siblings about all the fun adventures I had.”

“Yes, I would love to hear some amusing anecdotes from your vacation.” Brain replied. The intelligent mouse was well aware that Wakko can be very passionate and talkative when it came to their interests, so he decided to validate the middle child with attentive ears.

Brain listened intently as Wakko continued to talk about their trip. The intelligent mouse felt relieved that he wasn’t the one who had to initiate the conversation. He could simply provide Wakko his undivided attention and listen to them reminisce over their trip to Paris. This was splendid!

“I visited the Eiffel Tower, The Louvre, and Notre Dame, but only from the outside.” Wakko said wistfully.

“The fire of Notre Dame was awfully devastating.” Brain added. “Forgive me if this comes off as a boast, but when Pinky and I visited Paris years ago we were fortunate enough to go inside the cathedral and climb the tower.”

“Really!” Wakko exclaimed, who was rather excited by Brain’s vacation story. “Oh, do you have any pictures?”

“Well of course! Just let me just find the vacation album on my phone.” Brain said, as he tried to retrieve his smartphone from his pocket.

“Oh, I forgot to mention how wonderful the crepes were!” Wakko added. “I had strawberry crepes, banana and nutella crepes, some egg and cheese crepes,”

But Wakko’s infodumping came to a crashing halt when Yakko stormed over to the table. “Wakko, did you take the last pig in a blanket?” The Warner brother interrogated.

The middle Warner sibling glanced guiltily towards Brain then back at their sibling. “Maybe?” The eldest Warner still held his suspicious glare at him, until Wakko finally gave in. “Yeah…”

“I knew it!” Yakko declared as he proceeded to put his sibling in a headlock, dragging them away from the table and into the center of the room. Wakko broke free and a battle between the older Warner siblings broke out.

“Oh, this oughta be rich!” Dot devilishly commented. She quickly grabbed her smartphone from her pocket and filmed the action.

Pinky was thrilled by the sudden action and further enabled the sibling rivalry. “Go, go! Give ‘em the ol’ one-two!” The mouse laughed maniacally as he punched the air. “Narf!”

Brain ruefully shook his head at the sibling shenanigans that took place. The small mouse knew better than to get involved, lest he wanted to be squished like a pancake or smacked so hard that he would crash onto the drywall. He found himself all alone again. He finished up his plate of appetizers when he noticed the new CEO, Rita Nortia, taking her place on the other side of the table.

The mouse suddenly felt compelled to speak with her. After all, she did play a significant part in hiring him and Pinky back for the reboot when they could have been cast off like the majority of his fellow cast members from the original show.

“Alright Brain, this is going to be a long party and you have to at least try to be sociable.” He told himself. The mouse then took a considerably long sip of wine to work the courage to speak to his new boss.

“Hello, Ms. Nortia.” Brain addressed, trying his best to sound friendly.

The CEO looked over at the mouse with an indifferent expression. “Wait a minute, I know you, you’re one of the mice playing second fiddle to those pesky Warners….Bran, is it?”

“Actually, it’s The Brain,” The mouse corrected, but suddenly changed his tone as he did not want to come off as bossy in front of his boss. “but I’m perfectly content with being addressed as Brain, if that’s most convenient for you. A-and I wanted to thank you again for including Pinky and myself in the reboot.”

“Sure, sure. You two were one of the more memorable parts of the original show.” Rita Norita replied, sounding rather unenthused. After a moment of awkward silence between the two, the CEO spoke up again. “Was there anything else you wanted to say?”

Brain was sweating nervously, feeling like a total waste of space. He could tell that she was a busy woman who was more occupied with work-related interests. The mouse tried his hardest to come up with an interesting topic of discussion. The weather? No, too cliche. The hottest Netflix shows? No way. He couldn’t bring up the competition in front of his boss. Those ridiculous Tik Tok videos that Pinky wouldn’t stop blabbering about? If he didn’t understand the appeal of those, what were the chances that the CEO would. The only other thing he could possibly bring up was-

“So, how about those sports?” Brain asked with a nervous smile.

Rita Norita stared blankly at the mouse. “What about them.”

Brain was caught tongue-tied. He didn’t know enough about the current state of any American sports team, so he decided to take a leap of faith and try to discuss the one sport he loved.

“Well, uh, would you be interested in hearing about the beauty and intricacies of rhythmic gymnastics?” Brain asked with a sheepish smile.

As the CEO was about to give another dry response, she was interrupted when a group of sharply dressed business people walked over to her.

“Ms. Norita, we have some very important business information to discuss with you.” One of them said.

“Finally, a riveting topic of discussion.” She exulted, immediately getting up from her seat. She shot a quick glance at the mouse. “You’ll have to excuse me, but I have more pressing matters to tend to.”

The CEO left the table with the other white-collar workers, leaving Brain to his own devices. The mouse propped his head up as he stared into his empty plate of appetizers, desperately trying to forget the mortifying conversation. If dying from embarrassment was possible, then Brain would already be in Heaven surrounded by an angelic choir of Pinkys.

“Hey Brain!”

Upon hearing the cockney accent he was so familiar with, he looked over his shoulder only to find Pinky taking off his dress and diving straight into the punch bowl. Through the clear glass, Pinky was happily swimming underneath the punch for a few moments. Once he broke through the surface, the tall mouse was giggling contentedly and he propped himself up on the side of the bowl to talk to his roommate.

“Oh Brain, you should try this!” The buck-toothed mouse called out. “The water is so refreshing!”

“No thank you, Pinky.” Brain replied, shielding his face from his roommate. He took another peek at the taller mouse. Pinky looked like a complete buffoon, but he looked like he was having the time of his life, swimming in the punch bowl without a care in the world. Brain, on the other hand, felt completely lost and isolated despite being surrounded by a sea of party-goers.

Brain walked away, trying his best to participate in small talk. Things seemed to look up when the Mime arrived.

“I suppose making small talk with someone who can’t talk back is better than not making small talk at all.” Brain pondered.

“You there, Mime!” Brain approached the silent performer. The Mime looked back at Brain and smiled back, giving him a friendly wave. The mouse’s self-esteem was starting to rebound.

“Say, do you want to hear a science joke?” Brain asked. The Mime gave an eager nod in response.

“Okay, well here it goes: One tectonic plate was walking along, bumps into another tectonic plate and said ‘Oops, sorry, my fault!’” Brain began to laugh heartily at his own joke, closing his eyes as he chuckled.

Once his laughter wore off, Brain looked over at the Mime simply shook his head while wearing a confused frown, shaking his head. The mouse assumed that the Mime did not get the joke.

The Brain felt defeated and gave a beleaguered sigh. “Well, I apologize for wasting your time.” The small mouse placed his hands into his pockets and walked off.

The intelligent mouse felt lost. With no plan for world domination to focus on, there was no important reason to mingle with the other guests. He decided to find the Warners and seek companionship from them. But he was disappointed when he witnessed the three keeping Ralph occupied in an intense game of ‘Monkey in the Middle’. The Warners wore mischievous smiles as they threw the security guard’s cap around much to the frustration of the bumbling officer. Brain could not bring himself to join in their merriment. Without his robotic man-suit, he could not possibly bring any meaningful contribution to the fun and would only stick out as a useless fifth wheel.

And he did not have the courage to try to strike up a friendly conversation with the other party-goers. His brief talks with Rita Norita and The Mime were proof that even when he shared his interests and musings to them, they could never reciprocate because they’re not on the same intellectual wavelength as he was.

No, he was only fooling himself. Perhaps the reason why felt high and dry was that he just could not relate to other people.

Brain watched Pinky, now back in his Christmas-themed dress, entertaining a few guests with his spit bubbles. The small group laughed at his ridiculous display. The taller mouse was completely in his element, charming people with his ‘fun-fun silly-willy’ antics. That feeble-minded fool made it look so easy.

“Perhaps Pinky is better off with other people.”

Brain furiously shook his head at the awful thought. “No, no, no. You’re just exhausted from attempting to socialize, that’s all.” He told himself. “Yes. All I need is a break, a place where I could temporarily wind down and recharge my energy before returning to the festivities.”

Brain walked down the hall in search for a place to ponder.

As he wandered down the hallway, he discovered an empty recreation room complete with a billiards table, a dart board, a stack of used board games, and a leather sofa. The pool table was pristine, with the fifteen balls gathered in their triangular shape and the cue ball standing on the other side. Brain decided to take the opportunity to play a game of pool against himself. The mouse picked up an unsharpened pencil from the bureau, climbed up the leg of the pool table and made his way to the top.

The mouse hopped off the wooden edge and onto the green walked baize, the tender felt brushing up against his feet with each step. Once he approached the cue ball, the mouse used the unsharpened end of the pencil and struck the white ball as hard as he could. He was not surprised that the cue ball lightly struck the top third of the fifteen balls ever so slightly.

“This is going to take a while…” Brain muttered to himself. “Fortunately, I don’t have anything better to do.”

The mouse observed the playing field, and noticed a solid red ball lingering near a corner pocket. Charging his pencil against the cue ball much harder this time, he saw the white ball glide down the table, hitting the red ball right into the pocket. Now all he had to do was strike the other solid-color balls into the pockets.

Fifteen minutes had passed since he started his solitary game of pool, and he only had three balls left. Wiping off the beads of sweat from his forehead, he looked over at the clock that was perched above the sofa. The mouse doubted that the other party-goers would be aware of his absence. Maybe Pinky would be too busy mingling with the other guests to even realize that he was gone.

“Some party, huh?”

Brain was startled at the sudden inquiry, his ears perking upwards. He turned around only to find Yakko Warner leaning against the doorway.

“Yakko….” The mouse grumbled. He feared that the boy would continue teasing him by bringing up the incident under the mistletoe. “Shouldn’t you be off terrorizing a certain psychiatrist?”

“Oh, you mean Dr. Scratchinsniff? He won’t be dropping by until around seven.” The eldest Warner sibling explained as he waltzed into the room. “So what are you doing here all by your lonesome?”

“As a reserved and introverted soul, social gatherings aren’t my cup of tea.” Brain confessed. “If world domination was on the line, then I would be more involved. But being forced to make idle prattle with co-workers in a secluded space can be quite tiresome.”

“I gotcha.” Yakko nodded, seeming to understand Brain’s plight.

“And how did someone as sociable as yourself wander astray from the festivities?” Brain inquired.

“I had to use the john.” Yakko answered frankly, pointing his thumb towards the door. “I was going to return to the party, but I heard the sound of a pool game going on and just had to investigate.”

“Excellent detective work, Hercule Yakko.” Brain remarked, to which Yakko chuckled in response.

“Say, can I join in?” The eldest Warner asked as he walked over to the racks. “It’s been a while since I played pool and you look like you could use a little company.”

“The more the merrier.” Brain dryly responded as he struck the cue ball with his pencil.

Yakko found a suitable cue stick and walked over beside Brain. He observed the pool table, noting the striped balls outnumbered the solid balls.

“So I’ll be aiming for the striped ones then?” Yakko asked.

“Correct.” Brain responded defeatedly. While he wished to finish up his solo game, he didn’t have it in him to tell the eldest Warner to leave.

Yakko carefully aimed his cue rack at the cue ball and fired away. He managed to hit two striped balls straight into the pocket. He then made another successful shot and hit two more striped balls into the opposite pocket. Feeling confident and theatrical, Yakko turned around and managed to hit another striped ball into a pocket without looking. He looked over at the playing field and back at The Brain. “Well, you got trouble my friend.” He quipped.

Brain looked up at Yakko for a moment before looking back at the pool with a grimace. After a moment of awkward silence, the eldest Warner spoke up again “Get it? Because we’re playing pool and I was referring to-”

“Yes, yes, I’ve seen The Music Man before Yakko, there’s no need to explain the joke.” Brain interrupted.

“So was the joke not funny?” Yakko asked with a twinge of worry.

“The joke was perfectly fine.” Brain assured upon noticing the boy’s sudden anxiousness. “I’m simply frustrated with my current state in the game and fear that the outcome won’t be in my favor.”

“Oh, is it because you’re a mouse? I can try to make some accommodations so that we’re playing on even grounds.” Yakko kindly suggested.

“No, no. The last thing I want is to be patronized and pitied.” Brain snapped, sounding more harsh than he intended.

Yakko backed off upon seeing the mouse’s frustration.“Okay, whatever floats your boat.” He replied defensively.

Brain’s face softened a bit, feeling guilty that he was a bit too hard on the boy. “If it’s any consolation, I have problems with my joke deliveries as well.” Brain lamented. “I tried telling The Mime a science joke earlier, but it fell flat.”

“Which one?” Yakko queried out of curiosity.

Brain fought his insecurities and mustered up the courage to tell the joke again. “One tectonic plate was walking around, he bumps into another tectonic plate and said-”

“‘Oops, I’m sorry, my fault’!” Yakko enthusiastically joined in as the punchline was delivered. The boy clapped his hands and started chuckling. “Ah, natural disaster humor.”

Brain softly smiled. Yakko missed this time around and Brain hopped back on the table, figuring out the best course of action to keep up with Yakko’s pool playing. After a couple minutes of playing in companionable silence, the intelligent mouse decided to throw an ice-breaker question to liven the mood.

“So Yakko, how have you and your siblings been doing lately?” The Brain asked in earnest.

“We’ve been doing swell!” Yakko answered in a chipper tone. “I mean, sure, we had our fair of challenges adapting to the current trends after being frozen in suspended animation for twenty-two years, but what can ya do?”

Brain looked a little concerned at the boy. The last time he and Pinky saw the Warners was in 1998, when they attended a cast party after filming of Wakko’s Wish had wrapped. During those years, Brain was consumed with his contributions to the age of the internet while Pinky attended his therapy sessions. All that time spent focusing on his world domination scheme and he forgot about his fellow cast members and all the good times they shared together. When Brain and Pinky received the fateful phone call from Warner Brothers that they and the Warners would be the only returning cast members for the Animaniacs reboot, he was worried that they would be mad at him for not keeping in touch. But when they arrived on set, the Warners were simply happy to see them again. But the Brain lost his train of thought when he heard Yakko speak up again.

“Not to mention the staggering amount of pop culture we’ve missed out on.” Yakko added. “Hey, did you know that there were two movie adaptations of How The Grinch Stole Christmas within the span of two decades?”

“Oh I’m well aware of that. Pinky actually dragged me to see both movies in the theaters.” Brain recalled. “And as you would expect, the feeble-minded fool thought they were cinematic masterpieces.”

“Outside of trying to stay relevant, we’ve been doing some fun sibling projects on the side, like this sculpture of Giuseppe Acrimboldo made entirely out of fruit!” Yakko happily reminisced.

“You mean, the famous sixteenth century Italian mannerist portrait artist Giuseppe Acrimboldo?” Brain inquired enthusiastically.

“Yeah, I managed to get a picture before that awful bun infestation got to him.” Yakko grabbed his phone and showed a picture of their sculpture.

“That’s quite impressive.” Brain marveled. While the mouse was not present during the awful bun infestation, he had heard stories of the incident from his co-workers. He could only imagine Pinky having a field day with the mass quantities of bunnies.

“I even had a whole song written about him too!” Yakko added.

“Well, I’m always eager to hear another one of your classic educational ditties, Yakko.” Brain encouraged. “I’m all ears.”

“I would if I could, but I forgot the majority of the lyrics.” Yakko forlornly replied. He picked up his cue rack and strategically planned his next move.

“Oh..” Bran uttered. The mouse tried to find another topic to bring up, but couldn’t help but think about the Warner siblings being locked away from the world for the second time. The mouse tried to bring up the topic as delicately as he could.

“Forgive me for prying, but can I ask you a question concerning your 22 year absence.” Brain carefully inquired.

“Sure!” Yakko acknowledged as he struck the cue ball, hitting the eight ball into the pocket and winning the game.

“Do you recall anything during your hibernation?” The mouse questioned.

“No, not really. The only thing I could remember was what happened before. After Wakko’s Wish wrapped, some studio bigwigs came up to me and my sibs. We were given the choice to either be cryogenically frozen or to be locked in the tower again. After thinking it over, I decided that being frozen in suspended animation was the better option. And the process wasn’t all that bad. It was like taking a really long nap.” Yakko answered truthfully. “And let me tell you, being frozen was a walk in the park compared to being trapped in the water tower for over sixty years.”

Brain’s ears drooped when he heard the sadness laced in Yakko’s voice.

“I love my sibs and would risk my life for them, but it was really hard having to watch over them without any assistance from the adults for decades.” The boy confessed. “I mean, I managed to get by just fine, but it was neither a bed or roses nor a pleasure cruise. During those years I had to come up with different ways to entertain my sibs and keep them occupied. I didn’t want them to start thinking about whether or not people missed them or were even aware that they’ve been cooped up for so long. One could say being trapped in that tower felt like-”

“Being an animal in a cage.” Brain quietly finished, feeling a deep sense of empathy for the boy.

Yakko stared at the mouse, amazed by how understanding he was of his past trauma. “Well, yeah…”

The Brain drew in a long breath and exhaled. “Believe it or not, I understand where you’re coming from.” He confessed, sitting on the edge of the pool table and holding the pencil in his arms.

The mouse could not believe what he was doing. In any other circumstance, Brain would never open up to his co-workers about his feelings or the past traumas he endured. Opening up meant being vulnerable. Being vulnerable meant feeling helpless and without control. He gripped the pencil tightly at the thought of not being completely in charge of himself. But Brain fought against his need to put up defensive barriers and decided to reveal his miserable and pitiful past if it meant providing the boy with some sense of solidarity.

“I was once a young field mouse who lived a carefree and happy existence with my parents out in the wild.” Brain reminisced. “But I was separated from my family at a tender age when a group of Acme Lab scientists abducted me from my tin-can home. From that day forward, I was imprisoned in the laboratory where I was subjected to cruel, emotionally-scarring experiments and used as fodder in the name of science and human curiosity.” His voice trembled as he exposed his past to the eldest Warner, but he soldiered on.

“The first friend I ever made was a hamster named Snowball, but when we went through the gene splicer, it had different effects on us. I gained advanced intelligence, while Snowball went mad with power, and we had a terrible falling out. But when it seemed that I was doomed to live the rest of my days isolated in the lab…” Brain paused for a moment and then continued. “But one day, a new lab mouse brought over to live with me in my cage. It was at that moment that Pinky entered into my life and...well, the rest is history.” He explained with a sad smile.

Yakko listened in with sympathetic ears. He never thought that anyone could relate to the pain of having his freedom stripped away and being locked against his will. But he also admired the mouse’s courage to tell his story anyways.

“Pinky really was my saving grace.” Brain admitted, aware of the affection in his tone. “His presence made being stuck in the lab more bearable. Sure, he may be imbecilic and dim-witted, but he’s also loyal, compassionate, and the best friend I could ever ask for.” After praising Pinky’s positive aspects, Brain’s smile slowly faded. “But sometimes I wonder why Pinky would want to be my friend, and other times where I feel like I don’t deserve to be his friend.”

“Well, how come?” Yakko cautiously inquired.

“Years ago, I promised Pinky that if I ruled the world, I would make it into a better place. A kinder place for social outcasts and marginalized individuals like him. But after so many years of trying and putting in the work, my destiny is still far from reach. And yet, he’s still standing by my side. It’s just...I don’t know what Pinky sees in me.” Brain sadly explained as he cradled the pencil in his arms. “Perhaps he’s much better off without me…” He sighed, letting the awful confession escape his lips.

Yakko sadly frowned at the downtrodden mouse, but he quickly knew how to cheer him up. “Oh I wouldn’t be so sure about that.”

“Well why not?” The mouse somberly asked.

“Maybe the reason why Pinky is attached to the hip is because he loves you.” Yakko suggested.

“Perhaps he does. His unquestioning loyalty to me is proof of that.” Brain pondered aloud.

“...and that you love him back.” Yakko added with a sly smile.

“What?” Brain cried out, sharply turning his head to face Yakko. “That’s preposterous! I don’t love Pinky, I merely….tolerate him.”

“Uh huh,” Yakko nodded, not buying his co-worker’s fib. “I guess your toleration must be pretty strong then.”

Yakko placed the cue stick on the side of the pool and walked over towards the mouse.“I mean, who else would sacrifice their chance at world domination on Christmas, go to the depths of h-e-double hockey sticks to save the guy after he sold his soul so you could rule the world, reunite him with his entire family after years of separation, save him from quicksand by embracing your wild side, teach him about the Constitution and upholding the values that make up our country’s democracy, and tend to his aid after the poor guy got pulverized by some crummy humans.” The eldest Warner detailed as he counted all of Brain’s deeds on each finger. Brain’s ears drooped as he heard him recall all of his past heroics when it came to helping the friend he loved so dearly.

“That’s going above and beyond for someone you merely tolerate, don’t you think?” Yakko concluded.

“W-who told you all that?” Brain blurted in disbelief.

“Pinky did.” Yakko answered honestly. “Why, just a few minutes after you left, Pinky started talking about all the great and amazing things you did for him. If you don’t believe me, the proof is in the pudding.” He fished out his phone from his pocket and showed Brain a video, with Pinky’s gleaming smile on the thumbnail. Yakko pressed play.

Pinky was gathered around a few of the party guests on the couch. Wakko and Dot sat closely by his left, and Jay Pac Le East Tha Rapper by his right.

“Poit! And when it came down to choosing the world or me, Brain chose me and decided to compete in rhythmic gymnastics to save my soul!” Pinky explained enthusiastically to his enchanted audience. “Oh you should have seen Brain! He looked so stunning in his marvelous blue spandex, prancing about oh so gracefully with his string-on-a-stick, and he scored a perfect ten! But that awful, no-good Mr. Itch cheated by rigging the competition in his favor and it seemed like Brain and I were doomed to be separated forever!”

Wakko and Dot gasped in shock and instinctively grabbed onto each other for comfort. Even Jay Pac was deeply invested in the story.

“But it turned out that he didn’t deliver on his original promise to give me my radish rose whatchamawhozit, so I was able to be with Brain again!” Pinky happily concluded.

Wakko stood up and applauded. “Oh how I love a happy ending!”

“Wow, my respect for Brain just went through the roof.” Jay Pac commented.

“You know, I never realized how cool Brain was until just now.” Dot admitted.

“He sure is!” Pinky gushed. “Brain is smart, he never gives up on his dreams, he wants what’s best for the world, and he’s the best friend I could ever ask for. Zort! I love him so much, and I know that he loves me too!”

“Pinky, can you tell us another story about The Brain?” Wakko asked enthusiastically, like a child wanting to hear another bedtime story.

“Pretty please, Pinky!!” Dot begged, giving her cutest pout and fluttering her puppy-dog eyes.

“Of course!” Pinky answered gleefully as he leapt up in the air and landed back on the couch. “Oh! I should tell you all about the time he helped me reunite with my mum, my dad, and my sis!”

As the video ended, tears started to pool in Brain’s eyes. He roughly scrubbed them away before they could fall, not allowing himself to become more vulnerable than he already felt. “Perhaps I don’t just tolerate him. Dare I say, I even like Pinky.” Brain half-confessed. He knew that he loved Pinky dearly, but he would never bring himself to verbalize his feelings.

“Actions speak louder than words, buddy.” Yakko retorted. “But I totally get where you’re comin’ from, though. Wakko and Dot mean the world to me.”

“Even though you wrestled your own sibling over something as petty as taking the last of your favorite appetizer?” Brain mentioned sardonically.

“Alright, so I have a problem managing my Cain instinct, guilty as charged.” Yakko answered.

“Sure, we drive each other bonkers sometimes, but at the end of the day, they’re still my sibs and I love them more than they could even know.” The boy smiled as he talked about his dearest siblings.

“But I still can’t help but wonder, what might happen in the future, after the reboot.” Yakko pondered with concern. “What if Wakko and Dot decide to go out in the world and do their own thing? Would they still need me? Would they want me around? And I don’t know how I’d do without ‘em because they’re the only family I’ve got.”

Brain felt his heart go out to Yakko. While the boy can be a nuisance and a smart alec, there was a lot of good in him. But he could also understand the boy’s fears. Yakko was as strongly attached to his siblings and his whole life revolved maintaining that relationship. The mouse pondered to himself until he found the best way to alleviate the boy’s worries.

The small mouse walked over to the eldest Warner brother and gently placed his hand on top of his. “Well, there may come a time when the three of you will go your separate ways and lead independent lives, but no matter how far apart you are, you’ll always maintain that strong familial bond.”

Yakko gave Brain an intrigued look. “What makes you so sure?”

“Pinky and I raised a son together.” Brain answered with a small smile.

“Since when?” Yakko asked with a baffled look on his face.

“It happened back in the late 90s. Roman Numeral One, or Romy for short. I initially planned to make a clone of myself and use him for global conquest, but one of Pinky’s errant toenails was muddled in with my DNA sample, thus creating a clone that modeled after the two of us.” Brain explained, still smiling as he reminisced. “Once Romy reached the age of reason, he departed from the lab and moved on to make a life for himself. Fortunately, Pinky and I are still on good terms with our son, and we would call him every now and again, just to see how he’s doing. And even though our boy is out in the world pursuing his own dreams, we still love him dearly and learned to maintain our familial bond despite the long distance between us.”

“So whatever happens in the future, I’m certain that you and your siblings will still be as thick as thieves.” Brain assured, giving the eldest Warner sibling reassuring pats on his hand. Yakko smiled back at the mouse’s kind gesture.

“But if you’re still uncertain about the future, I’ll guarantee this to you,” Brain added. “If I become the ruler of- no, no. When I become the ruler of the world, my palace doors will always be open for you and your siblings. And if any of you ever feel lost or lonely, Pinky and I will be more than willing to grant you companionship.” Brain offered his small hand out to the boy.

Yakko was eager with the proposition. “Well Brain, I was already rooting for you to take over the world, but now I’m twice as invested! You got yourself a deal!” The eldest Warner enthusiastically shook the mouse’s hand. The Brain gave a hearty chuckle, amazed at the boy’s excitement and encouragement.

“And Brain,” Yakko looked at the small mouse. “I’m really glad we had this talk...and thanks for everything.”

Brain could tell that Yakko rarely opened up about his personal issues and musings to others, so not to trouble them or cause concern. But he could tell just how grateful the boy was for understanding and providing him with the comfort he needed.

“You’re welcome, Yakko.” Brain quietly replied.

“Well, I think that’s enough emotionally heavy conversations for one night.” Yakko commented, trying to sound as laid-back as possible.

“Agreed. You know, I think I’m ready to return to the party and make a more admirable attempt at socializing.” Brain said with confidence.

“That’s the spirit!” Yakko praised, giving him a thumbs up.

As Brain and Yakko were putting away the billiards equipment, they heard three sets of footsteps approaching the rec room. Sure enough, it was Pinky, followed by Wakko and Dot.

“Oh, there you two are! Narf!” Pinky exclaimed.

“So this is where you two have been.” Dot addressed her brother and the mouse.

“Yep, just us guys playing some pool.” Yakko answered half-honestly as he gestured towards his smaller companion. “You could say that we were getting along swimmingly.”

Upon hearing the dad joke, Wakko and Dot retrieved their pun guns and shot their older brother on sight. Brain saw the yellow lasers fly through the room and hit Yakko, causing him to fall over on impact. The mouse looked on with concern.

“I’m fine.” Yakko assured The Brain despite the obvious pain he was in.

Brain returned his attention to his roommate and the other Warner siblings. “So what shenanigans have you three rascals been up to during our absence?” He inquired.

“We gained access to the CEO’s movie screening room!” Dot answered.

“There’s a big screen tv, a comfy leather couch, a snack bar, and everything!” Wakko added enthusiastically.

“Good work sibs!” Yakko complimented as he got back up on his feet.

“Troz! And now that we found you two, we can all go there and watch The Grinch together!” Pinky joyfully declared.

“Which one?” Yakko and The Brain asked in unison, knowing that there were multiple adaptations of the classic story and both secretly hoping that it was the 1966 animated special.

“The animated one, of course!” Pinky cheerfully replied.

“You need to be more specific, Pinky.” Brain added, praying that his friend was referring to the classic television special as opposed to the bland Illumination movie.

“Oh, it’s the one with the Boris Karloff narration and the lovely songs!” Pinky gushed as he hugged himself.

“Thank Heavens.” Brain replied, relieved that his roommate was referring to the former. “We would be delighted to accompany you three, right Yakko?”

“Oh absolutely!” Yakko replied. He carefully picked up Brain and placed him in the palm of his left hand before walking over to the others. He then knelt down and offered Pinky a ride on his right hand, to which he happily accepted.

As Yakko followed his younger siblings to the private theater, he joined his hands together, bridging the divide between the two laboratory mice. Pinky immediately leapt over to Brain, enveloping him in a warm and welcoming hug. Brain decided not to recoil from Pinky’s affection and accepted the embrace.

“Oh it’s good to see you again Brain!” Pinky exclaimed. “I missed you so much since you left, and I was getting worried that I was never going to see you again.”

“It’s good to see you too, Pinky.” Brain kindly remarked. “I just needed to recharge after socializing. You know that I would never abandon my best friend in the whole world, right?”

“Your best friend? Where?” Pinky shouted worriedly as he looked over each shoulder.

Brain rolled his eyes at his friend’s stupidity. “It’s you, Pinky. In addition to being my roommate and my assistant, you’re my best friend in the whole world.”

“Naarf.” Pinky awed, his eyes glistening with wonder. Overwhelmed with joy, the taller mouse decided to give his intelligent roommate an extra squeeze. “Well what a coincidence! It just so happens that you’re my best friend in the whole world, Brain!”

“I know, Pinky.” Brain muttered as he patted the taller mouse’s back. “I know.”

Unbeknownst to both mice, the Warners smiled warmly as they witnessed the sweet exchange.

The Warners and the lab mice entered the private theater. Dot retrieved Pinky and the two went over to the couch, where she placed a pillow over her lap, giving Pinky a place to sit. Brain managed to get the Blu-Ray player running as Wakko grabbed a stockpile of snacks. Yakko turned off the lights to provide a more theatrical experience. Yakko carefully held Brain as he plopped down on the couch, sitting between his younger siblings. Yakko moved his hand over to Dot, who gently held Brain before placing him on the pillow alongside Pinky.

As the Christmas special started, Pinky scooted over to Brain to sit closer to him. Feeling Pinky’s presence and taking into account that they were nearly enveloped in darkness, Brain lifted himself and placed a gentle kiss on Pinky’s cheek. After settling himself back down, he carefully wrapped his arm around his roommate’s waist and pulled him closer. The taller mouse was taken aback by his roommate’s actions. Pinky stared at his best friend, who lovingly gazed at him with a soft smile. Brain couldn’t verbalize the love he held for Pinky, but he hoped his kind physical gestures spoke a thousand words. Pinky beamed at Brain in response and wrapped his arm around him. The two mice continued to gaze into each other’s eyes for a few moments longer before returning their attention to the television.

Additional AN: Looking back on Animaniacs and the Pinky and the Brain spin-off as a person in her late-twenties, I’ve become fully aware of how both The Brain and Yakko deeply care about their loved ones to the point where they’re scared of the thought of being separated from them or seeing them hurt in any way.

Yakko is so attached to Wakko and Dot, pretty much raised them at the tender age of 14, so I feel like he would have this lingering fear of being alone. Whether he’s separated from them or has the idea that they wouldn’t need him anymore. The reboot establishes Yakko’s insecurities of caring about what other people think and that he may not be as funny as he presents himself to be. I found this to be a fascinating aspect of his character, and I wanted to play around with that in the fic.

The Brain, on the other hand, loves Pinky. Even if he can’t bring himself to admit it due to how emotionally constipated he is, his actions speak for him. Brain reading Pinky’s letter to Santa and being so moved that Pinky thinks so highly of him and is so supportive of him that he backs out of taking over the world even though he had the whole world under his command, The Brain literally going to hades to bring Pinky back because being the ruler of the world isn’t the same without him, Brain going out of his way to reunite Pinky with his family (even if it was for a scheme) and even using the gene splicer on them so they could understand each other, and Brain tending to Pinky’s aid when he’s beaten up by humans for being a mouse and changing his motives of world conquest to make the world and better and kinder place for Pinky and others who feel small. The reboot also has more moments where Brain chooses Pinky over a future version of himself, rescuing Pinky from being enslaved by a power-hungry toddler, and even trying to comfort him the best he could after his monster wife ran off with the other monster and the two of them perished upon falling down. There are also a lot of great hints of a slow-burn romance between the two, but I’m getting ahead of myself there.

The biggest challenge I had writing this story that followed the lore of the characters. One headcanon I played around with is that Pinky and the Brain work as part-time actors and that the majority of the skits (especially the history-based ones) were made for the show, while the events that took place in Pinky and the Brain spin-off and certain episodes from the reboot (Of Mice and Memes,Future Brain, and Roadent Trip) actually occurred in the show’s universe.

Also there are aspects of the reboot that I purposefully left out, such as Brain being super evil and Pinky being a passive enabler(*cough cough* episodes 3 and 8 *cough cough*) and Pinky having daddy issues since they conflict with their established characterizations from the PATB spin-off.

I also wanted to provide some sort of explanation as to what the Warners were up to during the past 22 years. So I figured that having them frozen in suspended animation was the more logical choice. I also came up with the idea that they had to choose between staying frozen or being locked in the water tower again for added drama.

Overall, I had a lot of fun writing this story. It’s been a long time since I last publicly published fanfiction since there was a lot going on in my personal life and I was too busy and I didn’t feel entirely motivated to write. But upon rewatching old episodes of Pinky and the Brain, Animaniacs, and watching season one of the Animaniacs reboot has reawakened my creative muse and motivated me to write, and I do plan on writing more stories centered around these characters.

Please leave a review if you can! Thanks for reading!

#animaniacs #pinky and the brain #fanfiction #brain #yakko warner #pinky #wakko warner #dot warner #brinky #a!spoilers #christmas

237 notes · View notes

professorsnape394 · 3 years

Text

The Potions Master’s Apprentice

Chapter Five: The Calm before the Storm

A/N: This is the fifth part to my fanfiction ‘The Potions Master’s Apprentice (Severus Snape x OC)’. Chapters 1-16 can be found already uploaded on Wattpad under the same name. Feel free to leave requests in my inbox for anything Snape related you want me to write. Leave a comment below if you wish to be added to my tag list.

Pairing: Severus Snape x OC (Dumbledore’s Granddaughter)

Summary: A talented young witch is employed as an apprentice professor at Hogwarts, but who will she be working under? Severus Snape is not best pleased with his new responsibility of taking on an apprentice, however she is relentless to create a friendship between them. Will she be successful? Or might the friendship just go a little two far? With the eyes of her grandfather constantly watching over them, an attempt at a relationship might not be in the cards for Aria Dumbledore and Severus Snape.

Word Count: 2128

Warnings: n/a

Credits to Gif Creator

Severus Snape spent the next two weeks drowning in fire whiskey. When he returned to his quarters after spending an evening with Miss Dumbledore, he could not get her out of his mind. He hated himself for it, but she had admittedly charmed him with her striking beauty and captivating personally.

Having somewhat sobered up from the evening drinks, Severus took it upon himself to crack open another bottle of Firewhiskey, downing glass by glass until he no longer remembered how he felt about the woman.

The days that followed simply became harder to forget about her, as she would often come calling to his office; private quarters and classroom in search for the brooding Professor. Each time she came knocking Snape shied away from her, keeping his doors locked, and poured yet another measure of the burning liquid down his throat in the hope that she would disappear from his memory all together.

This was not him. He thought to himself. His whole life he had resisted the temptation of women like her. This was not to say he had never felt the touch of another, he had in his youth had his fair share of women upon leaving Hogwarts. But never had he caught feelings like those that were threatening to surface, except for one other woman. The thought of his first love forced yet another glass of whiskey down his throat.

As of now his feelings for Miss Dumbledore were purely physical but he did not want to risk them developing into something much more complex. Vowing never to fall for Aria as he had for Lily Evans, Severus built his walls higher than before, making himself impenetrable to the charms of Miss Dumbledore.

Staring at the bottom of yet another empty glass the Professor knew the only way he could resist his urges and keep the woman away, was to use his feelings for her to fuel his (now) hatred. Every kind word she spoke to him was ammunition for mockery. Every question she asked him was an excuse to belittle her. Soon enough she would take the hint and keep her distance. At the very least it would surely provoke her frustration and spark disagreements between the two. No relationship with the woman would of course be better than a bad relationship, but if he had to settle, he would gladly take the latter.

Reaching the end of yet another bottle Severus dumped the vessel into nearby bin, finally retiring for the night.

Countless bottles of Firewhiskey and Nettle Wine later, the castle gradually begun to fill with numerous Professors and various other members of staff. The school year would resume in two days time and Severus needed to get his act together in order to once again face his new apprentice.

The night before the students were set to arrive via the Hogwarts Express, Headmaster Dumbledore sent out a formal reminder to the staff regarding the start of year feast. Aria was well aware the feast was a tradition here at Hogwarts where a ceremony was held and the new first year students were sorted into their respective houses. She was not, however, aware that the night before the official grand feast the professors sat down to a banquet of their own. It was stated in her letter than all staff were required to attend. Aria assumed this was included more or less for the benefit of Severus, whom she knew would try at all costs to avoid attending, possibly even more so now then any year before, though she wasn't entirely sure why the sallow-skinned Professor had been avoiding her these past weeks.

Admittedly, she missed the man, though they had only really spent a few days together, she was getting used his company and her loneliness only made the days longer. She had tried to talk to him, ask him why he had been avoiding her. However, after receiving no response when she sought him out, and due to their conversation at the Three Broomsticks detailing the man's introverted personality, she decided not to pester him further. Instead, she chose to busy herself preparing alone for the school year. Until the past few days that is, when the castle begun to fill with Professors and she thought she may as well get to know some of them.

Almost instantly Professor McGonagall took Aria under her wing and set about introducing the girl to her fellow colleagues. The two witches got along so fast, Miss Dumbledore almost wished to become her apprentice instead. Sadly, Aria was not particularly skilled in the art of Transfiguration. After a few days of brief meetings with almost all of the staff, Minerva invited Aria to afternoon tea in her office. Getting on like a house on fire, Aria felt all the nerves that had been building up within her over the last month slowly melt away. Minerva happily chatted away with the young woman, feeling she too had found a great friend.

Sooner than Aria may have liked the subject eventually turned to the subject of her mentor, Severus Snape. Minerva couldn't wait to her Miss Dumbledore's thoughts on the man. Although she also considered Severus a close friend, she knew he would not be happy with the situation and was dying to hear of his reaction. It of course came as a great shock to her when Aria Dumbledore began to spill the details of her brief encounters with the Professor.

"He was harsh at first." Aria begun. "I knew he wasn't happy with the arrangement at all, he clearly resented me for coming here and invading his space. He seemed like a very foul man."

Minvera smiled knowingly at the young woman, never had she heard a description so accurate, though she secretly knew he was not all bad. Not that he would ever show it. She thought to herself, of course she was moments away from being proven wrong.

"Don't worry about it too much, my dear. He'll eventually get used to your position here and then he wont be so cruel... simply unpleasant." She chuckled to herself. "He's not truly as hateful as you might think. He does have a heart somewhere in there."

"Oh I know." Aria exclaimed. "It took a few days but we found a rhythm of working that suited us both. Eventually we were getting along quite pleasantly. That was, until the night we had a meal at the Three Broomsticks. Then I have no idea what happened, I haven't seen him since." Miss Dumbledore pondered.

"You and Severus had a meal at the Three Broomsticks." Minerva gawped, her eyes almost falling out of her head in disbelief.

"Yes, he didn't seem too keen on the idea initially, but he seemed to reason with himself and finally came around."

"Aria, my dear, dear girl." Professor McGonagall shook her head, trying to get a grasp of what the young witch was telling her. "You do realise Professor Snape, does not socialise with anyone." Minerva tried to state her point, hoping the woman would catch her drift.

"Yes, he did mention that. I guess he's coming out of his shell." She shrugged.

"No, no, no." Minerva shook her head once again, bringing a palm to her face. "You do not understand. I have known this man since he first came to Hogwarts at the age of twelve. He had rarely shown interest in any other human being his whole life, and he certainly does not go out for meals with his coworkers for a simple chat. Especially not one of your beauty."

"What are you saying?" Aria looked confused, not liking what the older woman was insinuating.

"I'm not saying anything, my dear." McGonagall placed a hand over Aria's, reassuringly. "Except... I consider Severus a close friend, and although he doesn't show it, I believe he feels the same. And never, I mean never, has he agreed to socialise with me just for the fun of it. The man never leaves his chambers, my dear."

What Minvera said stuck with Aria for the rest of the day. She was even more confused than ever now. Why had Severus been avoiding her for so long, if he clearly liked her more than the rest of his colleagues. Why had he spent the time listening to her, talking to her and walking her back to her quarters, to only cut all contact the next day. She knew he was a mysterious man from the moment they met, but this was just plain confusing.

This thought circled in her mind even as she made her way to the Great Hall for the first meal of the semester. Although she knew Severus was required to be there, she presumed he would keep his distance, and with the overwhelming amount of staff and topics to get caught up on she did not expect they would have any conversation at all.

When she arrived the table was already more than half full, but still Severus was no where to be seen.

"My dear, sweet, Granddaughter." Dumbledore beamed. "Come and join us." He beckoned her over, gesturing to the empty space next to his at the top of the table. Thankfully she had been positioned next to Minerva, though she feared for who would take the seat opposite, knowing that almost everyone except one was present. Embarrassed by her Grandfather's introduction she hurriedly sat down, and began talking with Minerva, hoping no one was staring at her too much.

Dumbledore wasted no time in waiting for the final seat to be filled, and it seemed the rest of the staff had forgotten that Severus even existed. That was until, half an hour into the meal, when the doors to the Great Hall, swung open violently, causing a loud and startling bang to echo through the gigantic room. Instantly the ramble of excited chatter stopped, everyone staring at the culprit. Almost immediately upon noticing the bat-like Professor enter the room, cloak billowing behind him, the chatter commenced once more. The Potions master's reputation was more than proven to Miss Dumbledore, as it appeared even the staff did not want to face his wrath. His presence was known and he was feared. This was more than enough to intimidate Aria into keeping her mouth shut for the rest of the meal.

"I'm glad you could finally join us, Severus. Please, sit." Dumbledore spoke softly, grinning at his friend.

Snape did not return the gesture, his features perturbed into an aggravated scowl.

"It is a wonder I even made it here at all, Headmaster." Severus sneered. "I suppose everyone else received a letter, detailing the time of the feast. However, sadly." He spat. "My owl must have fainted on the job, for I did not receive such a thing. Is it your intention, to excluded me, Professor Dumbledore."

The chatter had quietened now, everyone curiously listening in to the dispute. A dispute, which Dumbledore appeared to find rather amusing, evident by the growing grin appearing on his face. Taking a slow sip of wine, Albus let the Professor stand waiting on his answer.

"That is not my intention, at all, Professor Snape. But I assumed due to the ever expanding collection of empty FireWhiskey bottles in your rubbish bin, that you would be, shall we say, preoccupied, at this time." Albus shot him a disapproving look and a small frown before, turning his attention elsewhere.

"How dare you." Snape raged, ready to continue the argument Professor Dumbledore deemed complete.

"Take a seat, Severus, before you miss any more of the meal." Albus continued, like he had not just outed Severus' small drinking problem to the whole of the staff. This however, was the incentive Severus needed to sober up and act professionally once more. He knew this was a warning from his employer and if he continued his antics his job would be on the line. His replacement was already lined up. He thought, reluctantly taking his seat across from said woman.

As everyone had, Aria couldn't help but listen to the conversation unfold. Terrified of catching Severus' eye, she focused on the three rogue peas that danced around her fork. She thought about the Professor sitting alone all those nights he had ignored her, downing glass after glass of whiskey. Knowing him, he didn't seem the type to have a problem like that. He was clearly a very disciplined man with rock solid self-control. So what on earth could have forced him to act in such a self-destructive manner?

At least now she had an answer as to what he had been up to while avoiding her all this time but the main question still remained. Why?

Taglist:

@ayamenimthiriel

#severus snape #severus snape imagine #severus x oc #severus snape one shot #Harry Potter #harry potter and the goblet of fire #harry potter fanfiction #severus snape fanfiction #alan rickman #severus x reader #severus x y/n #potions master #potions masters apprentice #professor snape #dumbledores granddaughter #dumbledore #severus snape fluff #severus snape smut

53 notes · View notes

finalfantasy7 · 3 years

Text

Letting go

Despite all the crying, all the pain, all the disappointment that came from that little bookstore, I’m still scared of letting it go. Honest to god afraid of allowing it to become a distant memory where I can barely make out most of the details.

Little did I know going in I would barely register as a real job, strictly viewing it as a seasonal gig, only to leave it with bleeding heart strings.

I remember how at first I didn’t allow myself to see it as a long term gig, not after only staying as a seasonal at a previous location (a decision that admittedly ended up being a strike against my confidence). And yet, as the holiday season came closer to ending, the more anxious I became about being kept on passed the holiday season. It only became worse as I started to bond with the team there. Everyone and everything seemed to click. I very quickly found myself in a new “comfort zone” and much like love, it’s beautiful to experience and even scarier to lose.

What I failed to realize until now, was I had personally laid down the structure of the home I now associate with that environment. Yes, my colleagues were each as warm as they were individuals; each carrying a back full of personalized arrows and hearts full of dreams and fears alike. But looking back, so many of them highlighted how their kindness was not cheap and for some, certainly wasn’t free.

I now understand what [redacted] means when she says I seem to be the “glue” between people. A substance whose sole purpose is to hold things together and tightly at that. That being said, there are few cases of universal glue. No, in fact there’s specific types of glue for specific materials. I am nowhere near being a universal glue but I seem to be a decent brand for people…or at least those who can afford to be a bit vulnerable and honest.

To this day I will rave about my former coworkers, even more so about the ones I still keep in contact with today. But I’m now starting to see that the bookstore was home to me for a bit BECAUSE I made it home. I could have come in day in and day out and never looked back but I didn’t, at the time it almost felt like I couldn’t. How could I? When a small, insecure being was being suddenly labeled with tags and titles they had never heard before.

I wasn’t “[dead name]” when I stepped through those blue doors but “Finn Acosta”. Nor longer was I this lost entity, a ball of failure, fears and anxieties. No, I was now “Finn”; an attractive, fashionable leader who always seemed to “really see” people for who they were. But even at the time these words read hollow, not because I didn’t believe the genuine sentiment behind them but simply because I didn’t see that person looking back at me in the mirror. They unfortunately went from compliments to a heavy mask I felt I needed to wear, to proudly carry and maintain lest I seek to disappoint everyone.

There was a time period when “life was good” at work. I had recently been hired and I was hungry. You wanted to teach me how to make a table? Let’s do it. Need help with overnight inventory? Something I’ve never done before? I’m game. Wanna teach me how to rearrange every decorative piece on a table? Can’t wait. I suppose this time period could accurately be labeled as “Finn was bubbly” here or at least that’s how one manager described it when discussing how much I had changed by the end of my bookstore career. Managers seem to like this time period as much as I did. I used to think I was happy here and I suppose I was and yet, looking back it all seems so Illusionary? Perhaps our image of happiness changes more throughout our lives than we’d like to admit. But here I was in a relationship which I believed at the time was perfect, was in a workplace I believed was perfect and was starting to carry a new outlook of myself I had, you guessed it, deemed as perfect.

I sometimes wonder if I had the opportunity would I go back in time and warn that version of myself about the storm that was starting to brew? No, I don’t think I would. Even with the knowledge I have now, nothing could have prepared me for what was about to unfold, not really. Plus, who am I to rip off those rose coloured glasses off my past self- she was genuinely as happy as she could have been. I feel weirdly maternal towards that person. I know they were doing their best….unfortunately their best would soon be crushed by reality, more specifically, the flaws and beauty of what it means to be human.

Now going into my second year of psyche I can confidently say reading about humans and experiencing them are very different. To read about projection and have it’s description neatly grouped in small bullet points is very different from someone angrily shutting down your greeting because they’re having a bad day. I experienced a lot of projection at work and equally threw in my own.

It’s fascinating to think I experienced both appreciation and questioning of personality all at once in the same environment. I would be commended on how understanding I could be but equally questioned on how I couldn’t view things as more black and white the same people. How could you see only grays, is what I’d heard in my mind. Where was the fire? Where was the anger? Did it mean I didn’t care? Perhaps I simply didn’t give enough thought to these topics? But that wasn’t the case at all. For months on end I would ruminate about work; everything from issues of health and safety, union processing, to the well being of my coworkers.

This was my pack and I needed to care for it as best as I could…so I did. Someone didn’t feel comfortable addressing concerns to management? I’d do it for them. Let me check in with everyone I saw to see how they were. You look tired, allow me to buy you a coffee. Let me send out feedback forms to see what people need. Remember, each and everyone one of you matters and deserves nothing but care. Oh wait, management is also made up of human beings so I should also extend all this to them. Let me do this, let me do that, I will do this, I will do that. Eventually I became a husk of the person I started off at the beginning of the year. I felt bitter and broken. To put it frankly, I was exhausted.

I’ve never broken down so much in a place of work. I would sit in the corner of the washroom and cry (not too much so we couldn’t stop but enough to get a good sob out). No one ever knew. I know because I’ve now highlighted this to a few former coworkers and they each wear the same look of surprise, sadness and empathy. But why the tears? It was just a part time job and it was…until it wasn’t. Somewhere along the way this part time job truly became something else. I went from clocking in and out, to bringing every person who worked with me home. I packed up their fears in a precious bag and wore it around, how couldn’t I? They were afraid and I was used to carrying around people’s emotions with me. I was even better at wearing a bright toothy smile that hid my own emotions.

At some point I stopped being a CER and started to be..well..I suppose glue. But remember what I said earlier about different types of glue for different materials? Well, you see- management wasn’t particularly fond of the type of glue I was, at least a majority of them didn’t seem to be. You see in the eyes of my leaders, I WAS someone who was just clocking in and out and they weren’t happy with this. You see, the company preferred the type of glue that bonded workers and the company’s “vision”. Workers that were so bonded with that vision that it became almost indistinguishable of where the person started and the sales pitch ended. They wanted you to take work home with you, just not in the way I did. Ironically, because of this I was rated as a low performer; because I didn’t care enough, when all of my peers were telling me the opposite.

But there it was, the other shoe had finally fallen and little Finn isn’t as sturdy as they seem. No, in fact, I remember running out of the performance review in tears, rushing past my coworkers as I digested being told I was a failure (another notch to add to the belt). It’s true when they say, sometimes it’s not the information itself but how it’s delivered. I felt ganged up in the review; mine being the only that required the GM to be present (more like be the one who conducted it but I digress). My mind had completely shut down as my superiors watched me shrink into myself, using the little energy I had to not break down and cry. The surrealism of them joking around about not being able to find a seat in the mall to conduct the review as my mind turned into static. They told me I had “really up days and really down days”, a sentence that may as well be a death sentence if you deal with a form of mental illness. They noticed, they noticed I wasn’t neurotypical, that I was different and not in a good way. You know what hurts the most? These two women were part of a moment of trauma for me and they didn’t even try- for them it was just another day at work. They’ll never know how I spent the next few months psychoanalyzing myself, speaking with professionals to help me find “what I did wrong?”, “why was I a failure?”.

After months of pouring every bit of energy I had towards my team I was told I wasn’t good enough. A part of me wishes I could send this letter to those women, to show them “look what you did to me”. But I feel it would give them another opportunity to dismiss me when I’m most vulnerable, a moment similar to when they glossed over my anxiety disorder, chalking it up to, “I think we’re all anxious right now”. At the end of everything I’m more hurt than bitter. I’m not a manager, I’m not a leader but I know I would never put someone in such a situation and at the very least I can sleep at night knowing that.

To say my time at the bookstore was a learning experience would be an understatement. One day I was at cash dealing with a customer who clearly wasn’t having a good day and I decided then and there, I needed to leave. So, I finally ripped the rose coloured glasses off and decided to give my two weeks. Those two weeks were the least stressed I had been the entire year. Ironically, I had to leave the bookstore to finally take to heart the kind words that were told to me in it. I remember how I was told at my previous location how incredible it was of how many interpersonal relationships I had made in the short amount of time and it looks like here was no different….but it was. I’m now permanently leaving this company behind and realizing if this is what I can do with a few months, a year, imagine what I can do in a permanent career setting? I think I’ll be just fine; not because I’m “Finn”, not because I’m glue but because I try and maybe, just maybe, that’s enough.

#mine #letting go

7 notes · View notes

josefavomjaaga · 3 years

Text

Eugène disobeys. Kinda.

As related before, in November 1813 Eugène had refused an offer made to him by his father-in-law to join the Allies, and he had sent a report of the event to Napoleon. Who had answered in his usual laconic way:

Paris, November 28, 1813

My son, I receive your letter of the 22nd, 11 PM. I recognize Austria's politics very well in there; that's how she creates so many traitors.

(According to the secret envoy, Prince von Thurn und Taxis, the reaction of Eugène’s father-in-law on hearing that Eugène had refused was similarly brief: »Je les ai bien dit.« - »I had so told them that before.«)

So, that was that. In case Eugène had expected a pat on the head (which he clearly had), he got no such thing.

However, three months later Eugène would be in a position to be accused of treason (or at least disobedience) himself. On February 16, 1814, he received an order via Clarke:

Le Duc de Feltre (Clarke) à Eugène, Fevrier 9, 1814

Monseigneur,

l'Empereur me prescrit par sa lettre datée de Nogent-sur-Seine le 8 de ce mois de réitérer à Votre Altesse Impériale l'ordre que Sa Majesté lui a donné de se porter sur les Alpes aussitôt que le roi de Naples aurait déclaré la guerre à la France. D'après les intentions de Sa Majesté, Votre Altesse Impériale ne doit laisser aucune garnison dans les places d'Italie, si ce n'est des troupes d'Italie, et elle doit de sa personne venir avec tout ce qui est français sur Turin et Lyon, soit par Fenestrelle, soit par le mont Cenis. L'Empereur me charge de mander à Votre Altesse qu'aussitôt qu'elle sera en Savoie elle sera rejointe par tout ce que nous avons à Lyon.

***

Monseigneur,

the Emperor instructs me by his letter dated Nogent-sur-Seine on the 8th of this month to reiterate to Your Imperial Highness the order which His Majesty gave him to proceed to the Alps as soon as the King of Naples had declared war on France. According to the intentions of His Majesty, Your Imperial Highness must not leave any garrison in the places of Italy, except for the troops of Italy, and he himself is to come with all that is French to Turin and Lyon, either by Fenestrelle, or by Mont Cenis.

The Emperor charges me to mandate to Your Highness that as soon as he is in Savoy he will be joined by all that we have in Lyon.

This message was also supposed to be sent via telegraph, but it never seems to have reached Milan that way. Only on February 16, after receiving it via courier, Eugène writes back, asking Clarke for clarification. Leave? In the case that Murat attacks us? Or like – right now? Why? So far the Neapolitans still seem to be quite undecided; we can hold on a lot longer here.

Before Clarke can send another order, Eugène, on February 18, receives not one but two family letters:

Josephine à Eugène, (Février 9)

Ne perds pas un instant, mon cher Eugène, quels que soient les obstacles, redouble d'efforts pour remplir l'ordre que l'Empereur t'a donné. Il vient de m'écrire à ce sujet. Son intention est que tu te portes sur les Alpes, en laissant dans Mantoue et les places d'Italie seulement les troupes du royaume d'Italie; sa lettre finit par ces mots: « La France avant tout, la France a besoin de tous ses enfants! »

Viens donc, mon cher fils, accours ; jamais ton zèle n'aura mieux servi l'Empereur. Je puis t'assurer que chaque instant est précieux.

Je sais que ta femme se disposait à quitter Milan; dis-moi si je peux lui être utile? Adieu, mon cher Eugène, je n'ai que le temps de t'embrasser et de te répéter d'arriver bien vite.

***

Do not lose a moment, my dear Eugene, whatever the obstacles, redouble your efforts to fulfil the order the Emperor has given you. He has just written to me on this subject. His intention is that you should go to the Alps, leaving in Mantua and the places of Italy only the troops of the kingdom of Italy; his letter ends with these words: "France above all, France needs all her children! "

Come then, my dear son, hurry; never has your zeal served the Emperor better. I can assure you that every moment is precious.

I know that your wife was preparing to leave Milan; tell me if I can be of use to her? Farewell, my dear Eugene, I have only time to embrace you and to tell you again to arrive very soon.

And Hortense to Eugène (10 Février)

Je t'envoie la lettre de l'Empereur à l'Impératrice et la réponse de notre mère; je ne comprends rien à tout cela... Au reste, la paix se fait, car on en parle beaucoup; cela ne nous empêchera peut-être pas d'être pris à Paris, mais tout cela sera décidé dans peu de jours. Ce qui prouve bien que l'Empereur ne comptait pas sur toi pour venir en France, c'est que d'après sa lettre il dit ne t'avoir ordonné de quitter l'Italie que quand le roi de Naples lui déclarerait la guerre, et cette guerre à laquelle il devait bien s' attendre depuis longtemps, je parie qu'il s'est toujours fait illusion et ne l'a pas crue possible... Il est vrai qu'il est plus pénible de voir des torts à ceux qu'on a beaucoup aimés. Tes proclamations sont à merveille et tu ne dois jamais envier ton voisin victorieux et puissant. Tu vas t etrouver dans un grand embarras... Suis ta tête, elle te fera mieux juger ce qu'il faut faire étant de près, et je suis sûre que tu suivras toujours ton cœur en faisant ce qui sera le mieux pour servir l'Empereur, et que lui-même ne pourra jamais en douter. Comme c'est là la seule récompense que tu attends, il serait pénible de ne pas l'obtenir...

***

I am sending you the Emperor's letter to the Empress and our mother's reply; I do not understand any of this... Besides, peace is on the way, because there is a lot of talk about it; this will perhaps not prevent us from being caught in Paris, but all that will be decided in a few days. What proves that the Emperor did not count on you to come to France, is that according to his letter he says that he ordered you to leave Italy only when the King of Naples declared war on him, and this war, that he must have expected for a long time, I bet that he was always under the illusion and did not believe it possible... It is true that it is more painful to see faults in those whom one has loved very much. Your proclamations are wonderful and you should never envy your victorious and powerful neighbour. You will find yourself in great trouble... Follow your head, it will make you better judge what to do being close, and I am sure that you will always follow your heart in doing what is best to serve the Emperor, and that he himself can never doubt it. As this is the only reward you expect, it would be painful not to obtain it...

Now Eugène, usually rather stoic and timid when dealing with Napoleon, and used to some level of verbal abuse from his step-father ever since he became viceroy of Italy, for once has had enough. What do his mother and sister have to do with any of this? He’s held out in Germany in 1813, after the Russian disaster, after Murat had left, and (as he seems to have told his Bavarian family) never even got a »thank you« for his efforts to keep the remnants of the Grande Armée together. Back in Italy he receives some lukewarm allusions about »Don’t forget to bring the silverware when you leave Italy!« - and now, instead of giving a clear order for once, Napoleon feels the need to make Eugène obey by getting involved the ex-empress? As if Eugène needed some extra incentive to follow Napoleon’s orders?

So Eugène does the logical thing: not follow Napoleon’s order. Instead, he indignantly points out how he has done nothing wrong and goes to great lengths to explain to Napoleon why he thinks this whole evacuation plan is crap anyway. (Which, admittedly, he is probably right about.)

Eugène to Napoleon, Volta, February 18, 1814

Sire, une lettre que je reçois de l'impératrice Joséphine m'apprend que Votre Majesté me reproche de n'avoir pas mis assez d'empressement à exécuter l'ordre qu'elle m'a donné par sa lettre en chiffres, et qu'elle m'a fait réitérer le 9 de ce mois par le duc de Feltre.

Votre Majesté a semblé croire aussi que j'ai besoin d'être excité à me rapprocher de la France dans les circonstances actuelles, par d'autres motifs que mon dévouement pour sa personne et mon amour pour ma patrie.

Que Votre Majesté me le pardonne, mais je dois lui dire que je n'ai mérité ni ses reproches ni le peu de confiance qu'elle montre dans des sentiments qui seront toujours les plus puissants mobiles de toutes mes actions.

L'ordre de Votre Majesté portait expressément que, dans le cas où le roi de Naples déclarerait la guerre à la France, je devais me retirer sur les Alpes. Cet ordre n'était que conditionnel; j'aurais été coupable si je l'eusse exécuté avant que la condition qui devait en motiver l'exécution eût été remplie. Mais, cependant, je me suis mis aussitôt, par mon mouvement rétrograde sur le Mincio et en m'échelonnant sur Plaisance, en mesure d'exécuter la retraite que Votre Majesté me prescrivait, aussitôt que le roi de Naples, sortant de son indécision, se serait enfin formellement déclaré contre nous. Jusqu'à présent ses troupes n'ont commis aucune hostilité contre celles de Votre Majesté; le roi s'est toujours refusé à coopérer activement au mouvement des Autrichiens, et, il y a deux jours encore, il m'a fait dire que son intention n'était point d'agir contre Votre Majesté, et il m'a donné en même temps à entendre qu'il ne faudrait qu'une circonstance heureuse pour qu'il se déclarât en faveur des drapeaux sous lesquels il a toujours combattu. Votre Majesté voit donc clairement qu'il ne m'a point été permis de croire que le moment d'exécuter son ordre conditionnel fût arrivé.

Mais si Votre Majesté veut supposer un instant que j'eusse interprété ses ordres de manière à me retirer aussitôt que je les aurais reçus, qu'en serait-il résulté?

J'ai une armée de 36,000 hommes, dont 24,000 Français et 12,000 Italiens. Mais de ces 24,000 Français, plus de la moitié sont nés dans les États de Rome et de Gênes, en Toscane et dans le Piémont, et aucun d'eux assurément n'aurait repassé les Alpes. Les hommes qui appartiennent aux départements du Léman et du mont Blanc, qui commencent déjà à déserter, auraient bientôt suivi cet exemple des Italiens, et je me serais trouvé dans les défilés du mont Cenis ou de Fenestrelle, comme je m'y trouverai aussitôt que Votre Majesté m'en aura donné l'ordre positif, avec 10,000 hommes à peine, et attirant à ma suite sur la France 70,000 Autrichiens, et l'armée napolitaine qui alors, privée de la présence de l'armée française qui lui sert encore plus d'appui que de frein, eût été forcée aussitôt d'agir offensivement contre nous. Il est d'ailleurs impossible de douter que l'évacuation entière de l'Italie aurait jeté dans les rangs des ennemis de Votre Majesté un grand nombre de soldats qui sont aujourd'hui ses sujets.

Je suis donc convaincu que le mouvement de retraite prescrit par Votre Majesté aurait élé très funeste à ses armes, et qu'il est fort heureux que, jusqu'à présent, je n'aie pas dû l'opérer.

Mais si l'intention de Votre Majesté était que je dusse le plus promptement possible rentrer en France avec ce que j'aurais pu conserver de son armée, que n'a-t-elle daigné me l'ordonner? Elle doit en être bien persuadée, ses moindres désirs seront toujours des lois suprêmes pour moi; mais Votre Majesté m'a appris que dans le métier des armes il n'est pas permis de deviner les intentions, et qu'on doit se borner à exécuter les ordres.

Quoi qu'il en soit, il est impossible que de pareils doutes soient nés dans le cœur de Votre Majesté. Un dévouement aussi parfait que le mien doit avoir excité la jalousie; puisse-t-elle ne point parvenir à altérer les bontés de Votre Majesté pour moi, elles seront toujours ma plus chère récompense. Le but de toute ma vie sera de la justifier, et je ne cesserai jamais de mettre mon bonheur à vous prouver mon attachement, et ma gloire à vous servir.

***

Sire, a letter I received from Empress Joséphine informs me that Your Majesty blames me of not putting enough eagerness into carrying out the order which you gave me by your letter in cipher, and which you had reiterated to me on the 9th of this month by the Duke of Feltre.

Your Majesty also has seemed to believe that I needed to be induced to approach France in the present circumstances, by other motives than my devotion to His person and my love for of my fatherland.

May your Majesty forgive this, but I have to tell Him I have not deserved either his reproaches or the little confidence He shows in sentiments which will always be the most powerful motives for all my actions.

Your Majesty's order explicitly stated that, in the event that the King of Naples should declare war on France, I was to withdraw to the Alps. This order was only conditional; I would have been guilty if I had executed it before the requirement for its execution had been fulfilled. But, nevertheless, I placed myself at once, by my retrograde movement on the Mincio and by spreading out towards Piacenza, in a position to execute the retreat which Your Majesty prescribed for me, as soon as the King of Naples, coming out of his indecision, had finally formally declared himself against us. Up to now his troops have not committed any hostility against those of Your Majesty; the King has always refused to cooperate actively in the movement of the Austrians, and, only two days ago, he informed me that his intention was not to act against Your Majesty, and at the same time he gave me to understand that it would only take a fortunate circumstance for him to declare himself in favour of the flags under which he has always fought. Your Majesty can therefore clearly see that I was not allowed to believe that the moment to execute his conditional order had arrived.

But if Your Majesty wishes to suppose for a moment that I had interpreted his orders in such a way as to withdraw as soon as I had received them, what would have been the result?

I have an army of 36,000 men, 24,000 of whom are French and 12,000 Italians. But of these 24,000 Frenchmen more than half were born in the states of Rome and Genoa, in Tuscany and Piedmont, and surely none of them would have re-crossed the Alps. The men from the departments of Lake Geneva and departments of Léman and Mont Blanc, who are already beginning to desert, would soon have followed the Italians' example, and I would have found myself in the defiles of Mont Cenis or Fenestrelle, as I will find myself there as soon as Your Majesty has given me a positive order, with barely 10,000 men, drawing after me 70,000 Austrians as well as the Neapolitan forces, which then, deprived of the presence of the French army which is still more of a booster than a brake, would have been forced at once to act offensively against us. Moreover, it is impossible to doubt that the entire evacuation of Italy would have thrown into the ranks of Your Majesty's enemies a great number of soldiers who are today His subjects.

I am therefore convinced that the movement of retreat prescribed by Your Majesty would have been very fatal to His arms, and that it is fortunate that, up to now, I have not had to carry it out.

But if Your Majesty's intention was that I should return to France as quickly as possible with what I could have kept of His army, why did He not deign to order me to do so? He must be well persuaded of this: His smallest desires will always be supreme laws for me; but Your Majesty has taught me that in the profession of arms it is not permitted to guess at intentions and that one must limit oneself to carrying out orders.

Be that as it may, it is impossible for such doubts to have arisen in the heart of Your Majesty. Such perfect devotion as mine must have excited jealousy; may it not succeed in altering Your Majesty's goodness to me, it will always be my dearest reward. The aim of my whole life will be to justify it, and I shall never cease to place my happiness in proving my attachment to you, and my glory in serving you.

In his letter to Josephine of the same date, he opens up even more, complaining loudly:

[…] I had not believed I had reached the point where I needed to give the Emperor proof of my fidelity and my devotion! I can, in all this, see only one thing: that I have enemies, and that they are jealous of the, I dare say honourable, way in which I have managed to get through the most difficult circumstances. To this, I will respond by the testimony of truth. Here it is in its entirety:

For over three months that I had remained without direction or instruction from the Emperor, I received from him, around the 1st of February, only a ciphered letter, which told me that, in the event that the King of Naples declared war on France, I was to withdraw to the Alps. This order was thus conditional, and seemed to say to me: " In such a case you will not be able to hold out in Italy; in this case you must cover the gates of France, etc."

But I had put myself in direct contact with the king; I sent him every day, since his arrival in Bologna, an officer who made him think of peace as being near, who confided in him the indignation which the army felt, who told him that he would be lost forever in history if he dipped his hands in French blood; finally, that it was quite obvious that the enemy was playing with him. […]

And so on, and so on. He’s clearly feeling hurt by what he sees as Napoleon’s distrust. He – of course – also tells his (pregnant) wife Auguste about it, who is not too happy about Napoleon’s behaviour towards Eugène anyway and only too ready to share Eugène’s indignation.

And this in turn will set the stage for the final chapter of this tragicomedy: the big question of Auguste’s confinement.

#eugene de beauharnais #napoleon #auguste of bavaria #josephine #hortense de beauharnais #italy1814 #father-son-relationships tend to be a bumpy road

26 notes · View notes

radishaur · 4 years

Note

can i request some zuko angst? just whatever you want really, you're amazing!

I hope this satisfies your need for angst! I was struck with inspiration at like 2 AM so I apologize if this doesn’t make any sense. I never edit anything and I don’t intent to start so early in the morning lol.

•••

Unrequited (Zuko x Reader)

Warnings: Implied NSFW (like minimally)

Genre: Angst

Part: 1/1

Summary: See request

•••

When you’re younger, people feed you lies. Most of them all small and harmless. They’re to keep you safe and healthy. Don’t go swimming alone or the Unagi will eat you. If you don’t eat your vegetables, the spirts will be angry with you. Don’t talk to strangers or you might get cursed. All tiny fibs to convince you of things you otherwise wouldn’t comply to.

What you don’t find out until later on in life is that they also tell you bigger lies. The biggest of all being about love.

They tell you countless stories about love. Forbidden lovers, princes and princesses, happy old couples, etc. The main similarity is that they all end in a happily ever after. They both fall in love and life is great.

My mother used to tell me I would grow up and find a man to have my own love story with. I think that was the biggest lie of all.

When Fire Lord Zuko turned 25, the council instructed him that he needed to find a bride. Him and Mai were no longer together by then, so the duty somehow became mine. I protested, but my mother and father didn’t listen. They practically sold me off to him like a piece of furniture. That was essentially what I would be after all.

I found myself slowly falling for Zuko as time progressed. Each passing day, my crush began to grow. By the time we were officially married I was helplessly in love with him.

Zuko had always been kind to me. We had become close friends in the time leading up to our ceremony. It never seemed to bother him that he wasn’t marrying for love; it was just what he had to do for his country. But that was the problem you see.

I knew he was still in love with Mai.

I had often caught him reading letters that the two had written each other or staring at photos of the two of them. He would bring her up during our conversation and I could just see by the look in his eyes when he talked about her that he was hopelessly head over heels for her. It was enough to rip my heart out.

We slept in the same bed, but we stayed confined to our own sides. We hung out occasionally and went on some outings to please the public, but it never crossed into the romantic area.

Two years into our marriage, I found out I was pregnant. The advisors has been pressuring us for a child and we knew we had to deliver. It was awkward and empty and heartbreaking, but we did it. Only once. I cried in the bathroom when it was over.

Having to be with someone who didn’t love you back was hard enough, but it was even harder when you were desperately in love with them.

Our child was born a healthy and happy girl. We named her Izumi. It was a beautiful name, but I knew why she was named that. It was a tribute to a moment he had shared with Mai. It was like she haunted every instance of our relationship.

Izumi quickly became the sole focus of my life. I spent every waking moment with her and vowed to myself never to lie to her. I wasn’t going to fill her head with white lies and bullshit. I was going to raise her right without the lies. And most importantly I would make sure she could marry for love.

Today was the day I was going to have the discussion with Zuko. I was going to make him promise me this one thing.

I put Izumi to sleep before knocking quietly on the door to our shared room. It was a formality that, although not necessary, we both indulged in. I entered when I heard him respond.

I walked in and saw him pouring over the desk in our room, focusing on whatever documents had arrived for him that day. He smiled at me briefly before returning back to his work.

I sighed and walked over to the desk hesitantly, my nerves beginning to kick in. I waited for him to look up at me. When he finally did, I fidgeted with my dress before speaking.

“I was hoping I could talk with you about something,” I said, finally meeting his gaze.

He set his pen down and turned to face me. He gave me his undivided attention and it made my heart break a little more. It was one of the things I also loved about him and it only made things more painful.

“Of course,” he said, motioning for me to sit in the chair nearby.

I brought it closer and sat down nervously. I took a deep breath, thinking of the best way to start the conversation.

“It’s about Izumi,” I began.

“Is she alright? Did something happen?” he asked worriedly.

He loved that girl more than life itself. It was just another thing that made me hopelessly adore him. I shook my head.

“No, she’s ok. It’s just...I want to talk about her future,” I said hesitantly.

“Her future?” he asked in confusion, tilting his head slightly.

“I know I don’t need to explain how much we both love her. She’s both of our entire world’s,” I began, causing him to smile as he thought about her, “So I know that we both want her to be happy in life. More than anything else.”

“Without a doubt. There’s nothing more I want for her,” he replied without hesitation.

I smiled softly at his undying affection for her. I took another deep breath before meeting his eyes.

“I want her to marry for love, not responsibility. No arrangements for politics or any other stupid reason,” I said finally.

Zuko looked a little surprised but it didn’t take him long to respond.

“Isn’t it a little early to be thinking of marriage? She’s only a year old,” he brought up.

“I know that. But I want to raise her with the knowledge that she has the freedom to choose. I don’t to lie to her,” I responded quickly.

Zuko frowned slightly, clearly not understanding the last part of my point.

“I don’t want to raise her telling her she’s free to choose and then force her into a marriage she doesn’t want when she comes of age. And I don’t want to raise her with the knowledge that she’s going to be married off against her will either. I want her to marry someone because she loves them,” I explained, a sad smile on my face before adding, “And because he loves her back.”

Zuko’s face softened into one of partial understanding. He was well aware of the feelings I had towards my parents about them forcing me to marry him at first. I had expressed to him my frustrations and he had understood completely.

But, he also didn’t understand that the second half of my statement was referring to him. He had no idea I was in love with him and I intended to keep it that way.

“Of course. I wouldn’t want anything less for my little angel,” he assured me.

“Can you promise me?” I asked seriously.

“I promise,” he replied.

I smiled, satisfied with his answer. I got up from my chair and he returned to his work. I went into our shared bathroom to take a relaxing bubble bath before bed. By the time I got out, the moon was shining high in the sky. The room was illuminated now by a few candles and I saw Zuko still working away at his desk.

I was already in my pajamas, so I simply got into bed. I had just gotten myself situated when I heard Zuko move. I turned to look at him and found him already looking at me.

“Uh, Y/N,” he said hesitantly.

I propped myself up and gave him my full attention, encouraging him to continue. He turned to face me in his seat with a perplexed look on his face.

“Why did you decided to bring that up?” he asked.

I hesitated. I looked off to the side while trying desperately to think of something to say. I mean, to his credit it was pretty random. Izumi was only 1 years old and it was definitely too early to be thinking about marriage for her. I bit my lip.

“I don’t know,” I lied, turning back to face him.

“I know you well enough to know you’re lying. Come on, we’re friends. You know you can tell me anything,” he pried.

Friends.

The word was like a knife to the chest. I sighed before falling into the bed on my back. I tried my best to think of anything to say in response to him that wasn’t the truth, but there was nothing. I resigned myself to just coming out and saying it.

“Because I know what it feels like to marry someone who doesn’t love you back,” I whispered.

The room had never been so quiet. The tension was thick enough to cut with a knife. I smiled sadly, still refusing to look at him.

“You...,” he began, but his voice trailed off quickly.

“Yeah.”

The discussion ended there and I simply turned on my side to go to sleep. I fought back my tears as I heard him turn back to his work. It took a long time after that night for things to go back to normal. Zuko avoided me just as much as I avoided him. After a few painful months, we finally returned back to some kind of normalcy.

Watching Izumi marry the love of her life was both a blessing and a curse. I was unbelievably happy that I was watching my daughter live the life I had always wanted. But another, admittedly smaller, part of me was deeply saddened.

Maybe love wasn’t a lie for everyone. Happily ever afters do exist. Just not for me.

#zuko #prince zuko fanfic #prince zuko fanfiction #prince zuko fic #zuko imagine #zuko x reader #prince zuko #fire lord zuko #firelord zuko #fire lord zuko x reader #firelord zuko x reader

192 notes · View notes

nerdyfangirl67 · 4 years

Text

If You Only Knew - Criminal Minds Reader Insert

Pairing: Hotch x reader

Warning: angst, language, depressing thoughts, fluff ending!

Word count: 1725

Something takes place between Hotch and the reader. The reader tries to live without him but soon realizes that he is her grounding force.

A/N: I got the idea for this one from the song If You Only Knew by Shindown. I suggest listening to it at some point when reading this, or before, because it really adds to the mood. Perfectly okay to read it without though. It was a bad day for me so I didn’t get this proofread. If you find anything, and I haven’t gone through and fixed it, you can totally let me know.

Numb. All you had felt for the last month was numb. Sure, you had felt pain in the beginning, followed swiftly by anger and then rejection, but for the last month, all you could remember being was numb.

When he had been in your life, you had never realized how much he grounded you, in a good way. His presence alone had you feeling as though you could achieve anything you set your mind to. Now though, he was gone. And you had come to realize that you were floating away, with nothing to hold you in place.

Aaron had left with barely a warning. He gave you the simple, “I’m not good for you” speech and had walked away. You hadn’t believed that he was the kind of person who would do that, especially because you had quickly and quietly given him your heart in the short year the two of you had been together.

The first week after he left, when all you felt was pain, you had spent on your couch, surrounded by used Kleenex, empty ice cream containers, and all the comedy DVDs you owned. You had hoped that if you stayed there long enough, it would all turn out to be a dream. A cruel, pointless dream, but a dream none the less. Then, after forcing yourself out of your pit of despair, you had written letters. Letters intended for Aaron, that you used as an outlet for everything you felt for him. You wrote letter after letter, sometimes three a day, but you never sent them. You had gotten as far as addressing the envelopes, and even put stamps on a few.

As the rejection crept in on the pain squeezing your heart, you had spent many a night surrounded by empty bottles of cheap beer and an increasing need to see him, to hear him, and feel him, as you used to. There were even the handful of nights you had driven all the way to his apartment building, intent on giving him a piece of your mind and admittedly wanting to see him again outside of the Aaron in your longing imagination. Yet, all you ever ended up doing was sitting outside of the building in your car, some nights for hours.

Then after a few weeks of pain and building resentment towards him and what he did, you stopped feeling anything at all. Period. It was as if all the feelings you had ever felt, or would ever feel, were simply gone. Try as you might, you couldn’t find joy in any of the things you used to. And you hated yourself for it. You hated that, in the last year, your happiness had become dependent on your relationship with Aaron.

At this point, you had used all of your vacation days, and even some sick days, from work. The thought alone that you might run into Aaron when you returned, even though you worked in the Cyber Crimes unit on a different floor, had you scrambling to try and come up with an excuse good enough to earn you a few more weeks off. In the end, you were unable to come up with such an excuse.

Your first day back was a Monday and had you been thinking clearly, you may not have told your best friend, who just so happened to work for the FBI as well, that you would be returning. You didn’t think you would be able to fake having actually been on vacation, rather than experiencing one of the most painful breakups of your life. Especially if your best friend was the ever-enthusiastic Penelope Garcia.

But you hadn’t thought enough about your return, other than how you were going to avoid Aaron, so when you walk your desk Monday morning and see Penelope waiting there for you, you quickly have to decide whether to tell her the truth or make up a vacation story.

“Oh Y/N/N, what happened?” Apparently Penelope didn’t have to be a profiler to read you. You grab your chair and roll it towards her, resting your head on her shoulder when you get there.

You didn’t even know where to start. Penelope knew you had been dating someone, just not who. “I--my, uh boyfriend left, I guess. He decided he wasn’t good enough for me or some shit like that.”

Penelope grabs your hand gently, lacing her fingers with yours. “He still loves you.” Her simple words have you sitting up and looking her in the eyes.

“What? How do you know?” The slight confusion is evident in your voice.

“It’s so obvious Y/N who ‘he’ is. You guys are always giving each other googly eyes. And ‘he’ has been a real mess these last couple weeks.” You feel both a sense of relief, at not having to hide the truth from your best friend any longer, and an intense wave of pain, one that you hadn’t felt for weeks, at the thought of Aaron suffering.

“I-I can’t. I don’t know what to say to him. All I want is to feel his arms around me and for him to tell me ‘everything is going to be all right’.” You whisper, no longer able to hold back the truth of what you were feeling.

“Oh baby, you gotta tell him. He won’t come to you, he’s too stubborn.” She gently states, giving the hand you were holding a soft squeeze.

You nod your head in agreement and after a few minutes of small talk with Penelope and a promise for a girls’ night soon, you get to work on the pile of case files on your desk. The day drags by slowly, with you only risking leaving your desk for lunch and the occasional bathroom break.

——-

The week continued in a similar fashion. You worked close to your desk, with little interaction to anyone outside of your unit, other than Penelope. You were caught up on all the paperwork that had piled up on your desk by six o’ clock Friday evening and decided to head home.

After a quick stop at the supermarket, in which more bottles of wine than you actually needed end up in your cart, you arrive home. You are quick to change into lounging clothes and pour yourself a glass of wine before moving to the couch. Turning on your favorite TV show, you binge-watch late into the night.

It’s one AM before you finally drag yourself to bed. And although it’s the middle of the night, you have trouble falling asleep. In fact, you spend a majority of the remaining hours until dawn tossing and turning in bed.

When you do finally look at the clock, after a night of little sleep, the time, 4:03 in bright white digits, stares back at you. You let out a sigh of defeat as you push away the covers and climb out of bed. It is as if your body is on auto-pilot as you unconsciously pull on a pair of sneakers and slip on a hoodie. You quickly make your way through your apartment building, down the stairs and out to the parking lot.

You are halfway to Aaron’s apartment before you truly realize what you’re doing. Even once you do realize where you’re headed, you keep going. You were tired of being apart from the man you loved and even if all you get is ten minutes with him, you were going to make it worth it.

Ten minutes later you were knocking rapidly on Aaron’s door. A moment of silence follows before the door is being swung open. You shove past Aaron, not wanting him to slam the door in your face. He turns to you, watching you but not speaking. His eyes, usually the color of warm whiskey, are darker now. His brow is creased and his stance tense.

“What are you doing here?” He asks in an emotionless tone.

Your heart jumps to your throat and you struggle to get the words out. “I-I can’t do this Aaron. I can’t spend my life having let you go. I know it’s cheesy,...but you, and Jack. are quite literally the ones who make me complete. I tried Aaron, I did. But you and Jack are all I need and now that I know what it is like without you, I can’t ever live that life.”

Aaron’s eyes scan your body hungrily and you take a step towards him, holding a hand out as you gently approach him. He doesn’t move as you tentatively brush a lock of hair away from his forehead. Standing this close to him, you notice the dark circles under his eyes and the wrinkled appearance of his T-shirt. He doesn’t move when you touch him so you close the remaining space between you.

“Kiss me?” You ask softly, your voice thick with want and anticipation.

He doesn’t move right away, but suddenly his lips are roughly pressed against yours. You kiss him back with an equal amount of need and intensity. You feel him weave a hand into your hair and grab your hip to pull you closer to him. You grip the front of his T-shirt tightly in your hands. The kiss continues until the two of you break apart for air.

You pant lightly, keeping your hands on his chest. He removes his hands from your body, placing them over yours. The warmth fades from his eyes and is replaced with a serious glint.

“You deserve better than me. I’m never home, I work all the time and whenever I am free, I spend time with Jack. You deserve someone who will take you out for dates, who will be there to fall asleep with you, and give you the life you want.” As he speaks he moves to put space between the two of you.

You shake your head violently. “No. You are all I want.” Your voice is firm as you take a step closer to him. He stares at you for a long moment, not moving or speaking. Then he hesitantly steps forward and wraps you into a tight embrace. You lean your head against his chest, listening to the dull thud of his heart. And for the first time in weeks, you feel whole.

155 notes · View notes

twsted-tales-of-scheherazade · 3 years

Note

Hello! Glad to have another twst blog to follow. May I request a scenario where Sebek discovers he has a secret admirer who actually likes his brash personality?? G/n is fine!

It all started one day when Sebek spots a letter on his desk. At first, he thought it was just litter that a careless classmate had left. He was about to crumple the paper and throw it out (before giving the offender a piece of his mind)…until he saw his name written on it. Curious, he takes a closer look and his eyes narrow in confusion as he reads every word.

Dear Sebek,

I would just like to say that I admire you very much. I think your drive and hard work is inspiring. Not many people are as passionate as you are. Even with your faults, I think that Malleus is lucky to have you as a vassal. Please always remain who you are.Your good traits far outweigh your bad ones, and I’m sure you will continue to improve with time.

--[Initial of your first name]

Admittedly, the message had caught him off guard, but he didn’t dwell on it too much once the teacher arrived. He folded the letter and placed it in his pocket. It was time to focus on his studies. If he got distracted by something so trivial, then he’s not worthy of calling himself his lord’s vassal.

However, that wasn’t the end of it.

Every other day, he would get new letters placed on his desk, always filled with encouragement and praise for his efforts. He won’t admit it out loud, but they do stir up something within his heart. It’s not often that his work is acknowledged after all. He would feel lighter whenever he read them. Such a strange feeling it was. He didn’t know something like that could have such a drastic effect on him. Sometimes, he wonders if a spell was put upon those messages, even though he knew otherwise.

His mood changes didn’t escape the eyes of Malleus, Silver, and Lilia either.

“You’ve been quite spirited as of late, Sebek. Care to share what has made you so cheerful?” The ancient fae asks one day as they were having lunch.

“It is nothing of importance Lord Lilia. I’ve just been receiving these anonymous letters.” Now that caught the interest of everyone at the table.

“Anonymous letters?” Silver inquired, momentarily placing down his utensil.

“I have just received another one this morning.” Lilia’s eyes scanned the letter that was handed to him before his expression turned delighted. “How wonderful! You have a secret admirer. Oh, to be young…” He sighed wistfully.

“Pardon? What is a secret admirer…?” The green-haired fae asked, blinking in confusion. This time, it was Silver that answered, “A secret admirer is when a person likes you but doesn’t have the courage to talk to you face to face, so they send anonymous gifts like these instead.”

“You should meet them, Sebek. This person definitely wishes to get closer to you.”

“I-If Lord Lilia says so. However, I have not even caught a glimpse of this person.”

“Fufu…leave that to me.”

A few days later, you nearly had a heart attack after the ancient fae appeared behind you…hanging upside down from the ceiling. You were thankful that there were no people nearby at the time, considering that your scream was rather loud. Lilia caught you before you could stumble and fall, steadying you with a gentle hand.

“Apologies about that little one.” You didn’t know if that apology was even sincere with that amused smile on his face.

His eyes studied you for a moment before chuckling. “Sebek would like to meet this afternoon at Diasomnia. I do hope you can come.”

...And you did. Lilia already knew your face. What is the point of hiding anymore?

Now, you were fidgeting in your seat as the green-haired fae poured you a cup of tea. He eyed you for a moment before taking a seat across the table. “Human. You are my...secret admirer?” Even now, the term was still quite foreign on his tongue. His eyes narrowed once you answered his question with a quiet “Yes.”

“Then, I ask you, what is your goal for sending those letters? Are you perhaps trying to get me to let down my guard with your words? If you are trying to soften me so that you can get close to the young master-”

“N-No!” You shut him down immediately.

You should have expected as much. Leave it to Sebek to become suspicious of everything…

“I...I really do like you! This has nothing to do with Senior Malleus!”

“You must call him the Great Malleus Draconia! Anything else would be disrespect!”

“Yes, of course. I’m sorry.” You didn’t know whether to laugh or cry at this point.

“But, Sebek. Please, listen. I like you. I really do. I don’t have any ulterior motives. In my eyes...you’re really amazing. You always, always work so hard. You’re sincere, you speak your mind...you look towards your goals. I admire that about you. Believe that, at least.” Your eyes never broke contact with him as you said these words. And although he loathed to admit it, he felt his heart skip a beat.

A few moments later, he snapped out of his stupor and cleared his throat. “I-I see. My apologies. Do forgive me for disrespecting your feelings. Your letters are...not bad, human. They are a great source of motivation.”

Before you can say anything else, he puffed out his chest and sent you a smug smile. “N-Naturally, I must give my best at everything! Listen, serving Lord Malleus is-”

And he’s back to talking about Malleus. You sighed, half-fond, half-exasperated. Well, this side of him is rather charming too.

After that day, you had no qualms about approaching Sebek anymore. It was safe to say that you’ve become friends. Although...maybe someday, you can take the next step and turn your friendship into something more?

...Unbeknownst to you, the Sebek is starting to feel more and more strange as the days pass. He wonders why his heart beats faster whenever he recalls your shining eyes and your sincere expression that day. The blush on his cheeks darken, and yet, he refuses to acknowledge it.

And so, the first tale has been told. I do hope you enjoyed it, dear traveler.

Credits for the images used on thispost:

Border: https://pngtree.com/freepng/vector-title-frame_3573975.html

Lantern decorations: https://pngtree.com/freepng/ramadan-decorations-luminous-ramadan-lantern-moon-and-star_5356170.html

Divider: https://pngtree.com/freepng/european-border-curtain-pattern_4068944.html

#Alf layla wa layla #Sebek Zigvolt #twst #Twisted Wonderland #twst Sebek #Twisted Wonderland Sebek #Reader Insert #Sebek

44 notes · View notes

ri-ahhh · 4 years

Note

idk if you’ve heard the song toxic by kehlani but maybe you could write something based off that song where a tipsy y/n calls up her on and off ex (grayson) to come over 👀 i love your writing btw

It’s already late when your best friend Fallon knocks sharply on the front door of your apartment. You had texted her not even half an hour ago, all up in your feels after you saw Grayson’s Snapchat story of him and some friends at the beach, an unfamiliar and pretty blonde girl tucked under his arm in one of the photos. She had responded immediately, letting you know she was on her way.

Feet clad in your fuzzy pink slippers, the strings of Grayson’s old hoodie keeping the hood cinched around your face tightly, you heave yourself off your comfy couch and trudge over to the front door to let her in. When you swing it open, she’s standing there with her hands full with her purse in one and an obvious brown paper bag in the other.

You stand aside silently, letting her pass the threshold and dump her shit on the kitchen island. “You didn’t have to bring alcohol, Fal, you know I don’t drink like that anymore.”

“Exactly,” Fallon deadpans, whipping out the bottle from the bag. “You stopped drinking because of Grayson Dolan. I think you owe it to yourself to let yourself start drinking because of him, too.”

You push the hood off your head and take the blue bottle from her when she offers it to you. Your brows raise. “You bought me Don Julio to cry over my ex? Isn't this, like, $50 for a bottle?”

Fallon waves a hand dismissively. “That’s exactly why I got it; you’re not gonna cry over your ex. Wine of any kind is crying juice. Vodka makes you a dumb bitch, and bottom shelf tequila makes you cry, a dumb bitch, and a ho. You need the good stuff, so we can bring out the bad bitch. Who can talk about her ex, get it all out, without crying again, or texting him, or posting a thirst trap.”

You roll your eyes. “That was only one time I accidentally sent you that nude instead of Grayson. And we were still together, so it didn't count as being a ho. I was just giving my boyfriend good spank bank material.”

Fallon is already rummaging through your cabinets, in search of the nearly-forgotten shot glasses. “Babe, you know I support every woman’s right to be a ho as much as she wants, especially after a breakup, but this is Grayson we’re talking about. You two were so into each other, it was toxic. You fought all the time, and by your own admission fixed everything with sex. You’re addicted, and as your best friend, I’m inserting myself here to keep you from talking to him anymore.”

She turns around, two little glasses in hand, and looks at you then the bottle in your hands pointedly. You give in and pull out the stopper and the Don Julio Blanco to her.

“Now, I’m not gonna get you drunk. But we’re gonna get enough in you to loosen up that tongue, you’re gonna get all your Grayson shit out before I leave, and we’re gonna go to bed happy and feeling better,” she says matter-of-factly, pouring the clear liquid into the glasses. She hands one of them to you. “Cheers, bitch.”

Right before you clink and tap, Fallon’s phone buzzes. She leans over to check it where it’s resting on the counter, and her eyes widen. “Shit...”

“What?” you ask concernedly. Fallon puts down her glass and starts typing madly.

“It’s my downstairs neighbor. She said Roxy’s been barking for nearly an hour straight and she’s gonna file another noise complaint if I don’t get there to let her out.” She stops for a moment and looks at you. “Shit. I’ll get evicted if I get another one. Like actually evicted.”

Fallon’s dog Roxy has serious attachment issues, which is usually extremely annoying, but right now you're thanking her. You love Fallon to death, but this isn’t exactly the friend therapy you needed or expected when you called her up to come over.

“Dude, go! I promise I’m fine. I don’t need to worry about you being homeless on top of my shit.”

“Okay. I’m sorry, babe, I promise I’ll FaceTime you as soon as I’m home.” She’s gathering her things, leaving the tequila open on the counter. “Make good choices, please. Love you!”

“Love you!” you call out behind her as she rushes through the door.

The door slams, and it leaves a ringing silence almost as loud as your best friend. You look around at your suddenly empty apartment, your eyes landing on the still-full shot glasses.

What the hell? You snatch one of them off the counter and down it with a grimace. Admittedly, it was the best tequila you’ve ever had, but it’s still tequila. The burn travels down your esophagus and settles in your near-empty belly. The sensation reminds you that you’ve hardly eaten today, and one shot was probably more than enough considering your lack of food and the fact that you’ve probably reverted to being an extreme lightweight after not drinking for so long.

You and Grayson have barely been broken up for a month, and despite how hard it’s been, you haven't been tempted to touch more than a glass of wine or an occasional Whiteclaw if the stress of the day was too much. But it never felt right to have more. Grayson is still a part of you, even though that’s part of the reason you broke up to begin with. The two of you were becoming codependent on each other, which was turning into jealousy and neediness that built up into huge, explosive fights and ended with you fucking on whatever surface was nearest.

It was, indeed, a vicious, toxic cycle. Even though you tell yourself it’s for the best, you also can’t shake the feeling that the two of you aren’t done. That there’s still hope for your relationship, especially now that you’ve spent time apart.

Fallon’s tactics have backfired as you stomp back to the couch and snatch your phone off the cushion. Julio has given you the liquid courage you need to do exactly what Fallon told you not to.

I miss u

A classic. You wish you had it in you to be more creative, but the simple truth of it is: you do miss him. You miss his laugh. You miss his smell. You miss coming home to him, either here or at his house, after a long day. You miss his kisses. You miss his dick.

There’s little shame for yourself in admitting that. You used it to solve your problems, but you were blind to that before the breakup. Everything is more clear now, especially the fact that you still love him deeply.

Suddenly, your phone starts buzzing. You don’t even look at the caller ID, assuming it’s Fallon calling impatiently from her car.

“Hello?”

“Hey.”

The deep voice on the other end of the phone startles you, and you hold it away from your face to see his name in big, white letters. No longer ‘Gray’ with some heart emojis, but ‘Grayson Dolan.’

You swallow hard and put the phone back to your ear. “Uh, hi, Hey.”

There’s a beat of silence before he speaks again. “I, uh, got your text.”

You don’t say anything, picking at a piece of fluff on your slipper.

“I miss you too. Like, a lot. Too much.”

You bite your lip tightly, chewing it nervously. You hadn’t expected him to fucking call. Calling and texting had two very different vibes. Over text, you would probably say something cute and calm and ask if the two of you could get coffee tomorrow.

But a call? You can hear his voice for the first time in weeks. It makes you want to jump through the phone and wrap him in your arms, to cry in his chest -- from happiness or sadness, you’re not sure. Either way, this is the closest you’ve felt to him in so long, and it makes you weak.

Grayson may be loud, but he’s good at shutting up when he wants an answer. It’s one of the things that drove you most crazy when you fought. He’d yell his piece, then stare at you until you had a retort. Sometimes you did, sometimes you didn't; you were always both at fault, for the most part.

You take a deep breath and find your voice at last. “Me too. I...I haven’t been doing so great. Without you.”

She hears him sigh. “Me neither.” He pauses, and you wait anxiously. “Look, I’ll be honest. I was with Ethan when I got your text and he...well, he doesn’t think it’s a good idea that I called you. Or that we’re talking to each other, period.”

He leaves his sentence hanging, almost like an open-ended question without phrasing it as such. You can't stop the laugh from bubbling past your lips as you shake your head. “Fallon was just over at my place and said the same thing. So that either makes us really fucking stupid, or our best friends just don’t understand.”

“Famous last words, either way,” Grayson chuckled with you. You can hear crickets chirping in the background, and imagine he’s sitting outside by the pool. The two of you used to like to do that together.

You decide to follow his example and head out to your balcony, plopping down in one of the plastic chairs with your knees tucked to your chest. “What do you think about us talking, then?”

He doesn't miss a beat. “I think I miss you. And I love you. And I know I fucked up a lot, but I’ve been actually reflecting on everything that was wrong with us and I think I know now what I can do better. This time apart has been really fucking hard, but I think it was a good thing. For me, anyways.”

Your lip finds its way between your teeth again. You clamp it hard to hold back the shake in your voice. “Me too, Gray. I wasn’t perfect by any means, either. But as long as we both know what we need to work on, I want to try again if you do.”

“I do want that,” Grayson sighs, relief flooding his voice. He laughs that laugh you missed so much. “You have no idea how happy that makes me. I’ve been driving E crazy having these meltdowns all the time thinking about how I fucked up so bad that I wouldn’t ever get you back.”

You smile into your knees, and decide in that moment to risk it for the sake of your biscuit, which throbs at the mere thought and sound of him. “Is it too early to mention that I miss all of you?”

“Careful, or I might think you only want me back for my body.”

“I mean, I definitely had to use my imagination a few times without the real thing. I only had to think of you, though. How good you fuck me.”

This right here is probably where the tequila is coming in to play. Fallon was wrong again; you’re about to go Full Ho, having phone sex with your kind-of ex.

His breath picks up nearly imperceptibly, but you can also hear the smirk in his voice. “How many times did I make you squirt in the tiny house shed that one time, baby? That was so hot.”

“Mm, it was so good, Gray. I remember you had to carry me inside to your bed because I couldn’t walk. And then you fucked me nice and hard on your bed.” A rush of wetness floods your panties, and you squeeze your thighs together. “You came all in my mouth that night. I miss how your cum tastes.”

“Fuck,” he whispers. “Can I come over?”

You hesitate. You think of Fallon, of Ethan, of Don Julio. Of Grayson.

“Yes. Please.”

#anon i LOVE kehlani #and this song #sorry it wasn't super sexy #i loved writing this might fuck around and add to it eventually #whoever this character is has my dumb bitch energy #dolan twins #grayson dolan #blurb #g blurb

113 notes · View notes

death-himself · 4 years

Text

Love is Dead—Chapter 4

Summary: Janus attempts to get Patton's attention, but in the process grabs the attention of a certain teenager

Word Count: 1,154

Warnings: Blood, Mention of murder, Hanahaki disease

previous next (AO3 Link)

Ugh. Love. It was a strange thing to feel after so long of not experiencing it. He hadn’t loved someone since he was alive, and he’s been dead for a while. Still though, his heart longed to be with Patton, to spend each passing moment with him. As far as he was aware he was chained to his house, unable to leave. Otherwise he probably would’ve followed Patton to college.

He needed to get his attention in some way. Which meant he had to make him realize there was a ghost in the house. Which was not too far from what he had been trying to do from the start, except instead of striking terror into the human’s heart to get him to leave, he would have to get him to notice his presence without being scared.

While having an air of familiarity, this still felt completely new to the spirit.

Janus ran through his list of less violent or terrifying options, admittedly coming up with fairly few; he had found out early on in his hauntings that those options often didn’t work nearly as well as his more deranged ideas. But, he came up with a decent amount.

As Patton was taking his shower, Janus floated into the room, keeping his eyes trained on the fogged up mirror (he was a gentleman, remember?) as he thought of what to write. So many options, and he hadn’t flirted in so long.

He racked his brain for something creative or smooth, but Patton had already stopped singing; he was going to get out soon. Janus panicked, giving up and writing a simple “hello” with a small heart before flying out, face burning red. He waited outside of the bathroom, listening as Patton stepped out of the shower, hearing his pause as he read the message.

On the other side of the door, Patton giggled. “Very funny Virgil.” What the hell. What did that even mean? Patton changed into his new pair of clothes and came out, knocking on Virgil’s door as he went. “So we’re back to the whole “ghost following you” joke? It’s been four years, Vee!”

“What?” Virgil’s muffled voice came from the other side of the door.

“Y’know, when you told me there was a ghost following the two of us around the house?”

“Okay well first off, you can’t tell me there wasn’t a ghost back then, second, I didn’t do anything.”

“Sure you didn’t.” Patton said in a teasing tone, giggling and walking back to his room.

Okay, so Janus had just accidentally copied some kind of inside joke they had. Great. Wonderful. Guess he’d be taking mirror-related ideas off his list. Which meant he now had half of his previous ideas to choose from. He groaned, thinking for a moment. Maybe dreams would work.

He sat at the edge of Patton’s bed as he focused with all his might. Ever since he learned about this ability, he hadn’t been quite fond of it. But he had learned that it tended to elicit some of the most extreme reactions if done properly.

He remembered one of the previous house owners who enjoyed writing a lot of romantic stories. She would often write the hanahaki disease into her stories in some way, shape, or form. For some reason, that was all Janus could think of as he passed dreams into Patton’s mind. And as such, that was what Patton received.

He dreamed of a faceless, figureless man; having never actually seen Janus his mind wasn’t sure what to do with the information the spirit was passing into it. The man stepped up to him, laying a gentle hand on his cheek. He opened his mouth and flowers fell out into Patton’s hands. “Hello Pa—”

And that’s when his alarm went off. Janus scrambled out of his focused state, falling off of and partially through the bed as he tried to get as far away from the noise-maker as possible. Patton groaned, smacking the alarm clock until it turned off and lying there for a moment.

“That was a weird dream.” Patton mumbled sleepily to himself. “The flowers were pretty though.” Janus watched as Patton slowly forced himself up and out of his room, then watched as the door closed, leaving him in the bedroom alone.

“Fuck!” He shouted. Why was that blasted alarm set to go off so early? Who in their right mind took college classes at six AM? What was that stupid, good for nothing, handsome as hell man doing taking classes at six in the fucking morning? If it hadn’t gone off maybe he could have at least told him his name!

Janus took a deep breath, tempted to scream out his frustrations. But no, that would be uncivilized, and Janus was a civilized gentleman.

Instead he slammed his head into Patton’s pillow and screamed into that, the scent of that idiot’s shampoo making him even more frustrated by the second. What else could he try?

Granted, Janus didn’t have many ideas. He sent more dreams, but as it turned out Patton wasn’t one to think too much about what his dreams may mean. He attempted to write a letter, but was unable to focus his power on the pen long enough to write anything past “my dearest Patton” legibly. In one of his most recent attempts, he sent kittens padding at Patton’s window, only to find out Patton was severely allergic.

Which was what led him to this. Patton was off at college, which meant the chances of someone coming into his room were slim. He stared at the blank wall above the bed, his hand over the never-ending spout of blood pouring from his heart.

He had written in his own blood before to scare previous home owners, it wasn’t something new to him. He knew that his blood being more spiritual would mean it would fade away after a few days, unable to stay visible to the living for too long, but a few days was more than enough time.

He couldn’t write a letter to Patton, so this would have to do. He drenched his fingers in his blood, beginning to write. “Dearest Patton—”

The bedroom door swung open and Virgil walked in, headphones on and hoodie up as usual, searching around on Patton’s desk. “Are you serious?” Janus hissed. Virgil grabbed a set of Copic Markers from Patton’s desk with a smirk, turning around to head back to his room.

But then he stopped, eyes trailing up from the bed to look at the bloody words on the wall. Wait, no. He wasn’t looking at the words. The wound in Janus’s heart began to throb, as if the knife that was sunk into it so long ago had stabbed him again with a vengeance.

The face of Patton’s younger brother, the face of a younger form of Janus’s murderer looked directly at him.

Tagging: @rebelrewriter @arodynamic-enby @bullet-tothefeels

#sanders sides #moceit #janus sanders #patton sanders #virgil sanders #love is dead ghost au #ghost!janus #teen!virgil #blood tw

19 notes · View notes

mammonspeanut · 4 years

Text

Even Demons need love (Asmodeus fic)

Asmodeus was having a hard day today, his other brothers noticed as well yet, they chalked it up to him being sad about not being able to buy a certain piece of clothing. Sure you have seen him disappointed but never like this, he even attended breakfast in sweat pants, you admittedly didn’t even know he had, and his pink hair up in a ponytail. It didn’t take long for you to decide to visit him in his room later on.

Slowly prying his bedroom door open you wondered if he had put a wardrobe infront of his door to keep everyone out. As soon as the crack was big enough you squeezed yourself in, it wasn’t unusual to see his clothes all over the floor but something felt off since he wasn’t rummaging as per usual through it looking for the best outfit for the day.

“Asmo?” you called out hesitantly as you were not used to being alone in his room, something felt off but you still continued to wander through his room without stepping ontop of too many of his things. It was as if his wardrobe had exploded and someone had emptied out all of his makeup and accessories on the floor just for the sake of trashing his room. After a while, you catch a glimpse of him sitting in his closet looking at himself in one of the mirrors he had attached to the doors. You had always loved the way he had decorated the mirror with small strawberries and cherries in soft pastel colors, being in Asmodeus’s room was as if you were dipping into your pinkest fantasy and deepest sexual desire at once. For a second you froze in your steps wondering why he was just sitting there, doing nothing, not trying on clothes or twirling around in awe over his body or how the fabric swayed, flowed or clung to him. His naturally flushed cheeks were drained of the usual color and instead, an oh so familiar red color had taken its place, his puffy face frozen into an empty mask, void from all emotion. Stepping closer you noticed his reddish-yellow eyes darting all over as if he was trying to look for something that was missing from him.

Standing behind him you let yourself down on the floor, placing one leg on each side of him, wrapping your arms around his small frame you prop your head onto his shoulder. “Hey love.”, you say smiling at him through the mirror. You notice how much smaller he seems to be as if he has sunken into himself and become half of the person he used to be. You squeeze him softly swaying side to side as you notice a type of sadness in his eyes you aren’t used to seeing in him. “What’s wrong, hm?”, you ask trying to get him to open up as he closes his eyes enjoying your embrace, he leans his head against yours taking in your warmth and the feeling of being held tightly while simultaneously trying to hold back. “Do you think people can change?”, he suddenly asks surprising you with this question, still looking at him through the mirror you try to see if you can find an indication from where he is coming from, yet you can only see him feeling safe in your arms. “Yes I do, sometimes it may be hard and take time, on the other hand, some people are perfect as they are even with their flaws. I mean look at your brothers, they all have flaws and I love all of them, including you.” you lovingly say as you brush some of his hair aside. “You know, as the avatar of lust, it’s hard to go against my very being but I really tried this time.”, he mentions his voice cracking under each word “Why would you want to go against your being?” you ask trying to get to the root of his sadness.

“I met someone.” he finally says, you nod, understanding what it was all about as you continue to sway with him in your arms from left to right “And things didn’t work out?” you conclude. Shaking in your arms he explains with a quivering voice: “They said they couldn’t do it anymore. I was flirting too much with other people, they couldn’t trust me being faithful and only committing to them. I tried my best, I really did. I didn’t meet up with others and only flirted when I wanted to get a discount for us. I tried to ignore everyone else for them. Yesterday I went out to buy that new bag I told you about and on my way to the store I saw them with someone else. Lovingly kissing and touching each other. I tried so hard..” You sigh deeply, you knew exactly what it felt like to bend yourself over backward and breaking your back for someone only to find out that you weren’t the only one. “Oh love.” you sigh into his ear planting small soft kisses onto his cheek. “ Do you think they could have loved me if I had tried harder?” he suddenly asked looking at you through the mirror big heavy tears running down his cheeks like a stream of broken dreams dripping from his chin, it broke your heart seeing him like this. His facade cracking and breaking under the pressure and pain, he sobs as you wrap yourself even more around him, trying to shield him from the pain and keep him from falling apart. If you could only mend all of the cracks to make him whole again, you squeeze him tighter in your embrace as you hold back your own tears. You can feel every single drop of pain overflowing out of his body, spilling onto your soul and staining it, sobbing shaking. You feel yourself tearing up, wanting to remove all of his pain yet, there isn’t much you can do so you just sit there in silence wrapped around Asmodeus swaying side to side.

“I don’t think that anything you could have done would have changed anything about the situation, love. The problem is that their cup is too small to carry someone as big and loving and sweet and genuine as you. You don’t have to make yourself smaller to fit into a shot glass, you have to find someone who is willing to go out and get the biggest cup they can find to carry you.” you mumble softly into his ear trying to catch every tear. He nodes softly, wiping away his tears as you plant kisses onto his cheek “ Exactly, I need a big cup.” he confirms with a quivering voice as you smile at him “Love you need a cup big enough so you can pour champagne in it so you can dance like those burlesque dancers you always admire.” you laugh. “YES, I love those!” he says sniffling and smiling back at you “You want to go out to look for one?” you ask already knowing the answer “Obviously! But you have to come with me!” he says determined as you remove the last traces of tears “ Duh, Obviously.” you giggle “ Now get your tiny butt up and get ready.” you encourage him as you stand up pulling him up as well. He suddenly flings his arms around you and kisses you on the cheek. “Thank you. ”, Asmodeus whispers as he plants another kiss on your cheek while you hug him tightly and rub his back.

Removing himself out of your embrace he suddenly begins to strip down naked in front of you “OH MY GOD.” you cry. “What have you never seen a body as perfect as mine and by the way I need to get dressed and the only way to do that it to take off my clothes.” he replies nonchalantly “Don’t you wear underwear?” you ask holding your hands in front of your eyes “No? Okay sometimes but I prefer lingerie.” he states matter of factly as you both begin to laugh “Just get ready.” you giggle leaving his room “You don’t have to leave you can always join me.”, he calls after you forcing you to smile as you shake your head you knew he was still hurt but you hoped that distracting him would help. Looking down on your D.D.D you press send as you walk down the corridor to pick up your bag.

Lucifer’s D.D.D buzzes, he flips it over to see a text message from you curious as to what it may be he opens the conversation. It was a group chat and everyone but Asmodeus was added, in big bold letters he reads the message ~ Hey, we need to take care of someone later.~ soon answers from the others flooded in ~Oh shit~~Someone is going to get PWND~~ What’s going on??~~ I have no idea but it is GOING DOWN~~ When is later I just made pizza :( ~~

#okay but this kinda hurt #I need to hug baby #smol boi love #obey me asmodeus #asmodeus avatar of lust #obey me #my fiction #obey me fanfic

89 notes · View notes

sweetteaanddragons · 4 years

Text

How to Train Your (Evil) Dragon

A/N: I’d been wanting to write this for a while, and the five sentence prompt I recently wrote finally pushed me over the edge. Definite thanks is owed to the actual HtTYD.

Also, fair warning, this gets progressively crackier as it goes on.

. . .

Dear Mother,

Someday, I’ll find a way to actually send these to you.

In the meantime, interesting news continues to accumulate! We ran into an exciting new creature on patrol this morning that looked something like a lizard, if a lizard happened to be the size of a horse. I’d include a sketch, but I’m afraid my drawing skills are as dismal as you remember.

My skills with the sword, however, are better than ever - I was able to drive the beast off before anyone was more than slightly injured! I think it may lose one leg entirely. Unfortunately, our pursuit failed, and I was not able to finish it off, but there is another patrol planned for tomorrow; perhaps I can find it then.

There is still no news from Turgon and Aredhel, but as I recently assured Father, that is no reason to fear the worst. If the worst had come to past, surely the Enemy would have found some way to taunt us with it.

I wish dearly that Father would let me go in search of them, but he insists he needs me here. I confess, I feel better keeping him in sight as well -

In better news, Maedhros’s letter has arrived after all; later than I expected, but the news in it is good, and my fears are much allayed. We are holding the line, and that’s the most important thing.

I hope you don’t worry too much.

All my love,

Fingon

. . .

Dear Mother,

I have found the beast! A minor rockfall down by the river pinned its tail and has kept it trapped. When I found it, it had given up hope of pulling itself free and was sulking about it. It looked rather more like a cat than anything else, and I almost laughed.

. . . Which brings us to my next point.

It just looked so helpless, lying there like that, and I’d gotten a bit separated from the rest of the patrol - don’t look at me like that, I was perfectly safe - and it just felt, well, wrong to kill it. When else will we have an opportunity like this, to see if we can save one of the beasts Morgoth has corrupted? Don’t I have a duty to try?

And no, before you ask, this has nothing to do with the whispers I’ve been hearing about thralls -

I promise this will end better than the bear cub I brought home in Aman. And the fox. And that hawk.

This time, everything will work out perfectly.

I’ve started by feeding it fish.

All my love,

Fingon

. . .

Dear Mother,

Day Three of my new project! I am now almost certain that my new friend is male, and he has stopped hissing at me when I approach. Admittedly, this is probably because I continue to bring him fish, but still: progress!

Between the need to actually fish for the fish, for lack of a better phrase, and my attempts to train the horse-lizard (definitely need a better phrase), this has been taking up a larger portion of my time than is easy to conceal from Father. He has been starting to make jokes that are not actually jokes about my riding off into the unknown like Turgon. I’m not sure what to tell him. I want to be further into my project before I try to sell him on it.

So I tried to drop hints that I was actually sneaking away to have the kind of assignations that might eventually end in grandchildren, which successfully distracted him.

If this continues long enough, I might actually have to find a baby somewhere.

I can picture you laughing at me. I wish you were here.

I will try to come up with a better name than lizard-horse soon. I also need a name for this specific lizard-horse, which I admit is harder than I thought it would be. Maybe I can come up with a sneaky way to ask Maedhros to ask Maglor. Celegorm might also be of some help - with the training, not the naming - but I’m pretty sure he still isn’t speaking with me. According to Maedhros, this is because the last time they met, Aredhel wasn’t speaking to him, so now that she’s disappeared, I have to fill in as a proxy.

No, it doesn’t make sense to me either.

All my love,

Fingon

. . .

Dear Mother,

Day 12 of my project! I am spared of calling my new friend a horse-lizard by the wit of one of the people who was on patrol with me; she has taken to calling it a dragon, and I like the sound of it so well that I’ve decided to adopt it. My particular dragon I have decided to call Glaurung.

He gave me a bit of a fright today when he unexpectedly breathed out sparks while I was doing my best to mend his leg, but there was no true harm done, and I think he looked a bit sorry afterwards. He is beginning to look genuinely happy to see me when I come, and I harbor some small, probably foolish, hope that it’s not just excitement for the fish.

Father has begun to poke around to try to find out just who I’m having assignations with; I might actually have to start courting someone to satisfy him.

Or I could come clean, I suppose, but my other idea sounds easier. No luck finding a suitable and available baby to claim so far, but my efforts continue unabated!

All my love,

Fingon

. . .

Dear Mother,

Glaurung can talk! He said his very first word today! It was “fish.” I am very proud and am now attempting to get him to say my name. The first letters are the same; how hard could it be?

I stay longer and longer to sit and talk with him now. Hopefully it will help him learn to speak. Once he can actually hold a conversation, I feel I can present him to Father.

I’m more hesitant than ever to do so before I can be sure how Father will react. He would be perfectly right to be cautious, of course, but I hate the thought of having to see Glaurung dead. I feel responsible for him now, and I want to protect him if I can, as ridiculous as that may seem directed towards a being that successfully started a fire for me yesterday.

In other news, Glaurung apparently now prefers his fish cooked.

All my love,

Fingon

. . .

Dear Mother,

I have finally freed Glaurung from where his tail was pinned. I confess I had some lingering fear that he would attack or at least wander off, but now that I see the damage, that concern has lessened greatly. He will need a good deal of help before he is ready to do that.

Please don’t worry. I’m being very careful, I promise.

In unrelated news, I discovered dragons can purr if you pet them just exactly right.

All my love,

Fingon

. . .

Dear Mother,

Glaurung did a bad thing today.

He has been growing at an incredible rate, and I’m afraid my fishing skills are struggling to keep up with him. Today he wanted more fish when all I had left was the one I had intended for my own lunch. When I told him no, the strangest look came over his eyes, and suddenly I found myself bringing him the fish anyway despite my intention.

Fortunately, I snapped out of it before I could actually give him the fish, and I suppose no great harm would have come of it even I had, but the incident still alarms me. His fire is getting stronger. What if this does too?

Well, hopefully I can train it out of him. Immediately after I snapped out of it, I poured the bucket of water I’d brought him over his nose, and he reacted exactly as a cat would, sputtering and indignant, so that will be my new strategy: All misbehavior will be greeted with a liberal application of water. Perhaps I’ll see if one of the artisans can create something a little more manageable for the task than a bucket.

On the bright side, his language skills are improving! He asked for that fish in a full sentence. I’m very proud. Is this what parenting feels like?

Meanwhile, I think Father has questioned every eligible Noldorin woman in Hithlum. Presumably he’ll move on to the Sindar next; I don’t know what he’ll do when he runs out of those.

Possibly I should have come up with a different excuse.

Maedhros’s next letter has arrived, by the way. I referred to my project very discreetly in my last to him, but apparently it was not discreet enough, because he sounded rather alarmed. I’m torn between telling him the whole truth and obfuscating so he doesn’t feel the need to lie to Father on my behalf.

I’ll just tell him I’ve gotten a cat. A very large cat. That breathes fire.

Maybe not that last part.

All my love,

Fingon

. . .

Dear Mother,

I now have a special bottle that sprays water when I push a little trigger at the top. I like it very much, and after extensive and absolutely necessary practice on various rocks, I have taken to carrying it with me when I go see Glaurung. Unfortunately, this has proven necessary. Twice more he has attempted that eye trick, both times in attempts to get more fish, but after the last attempt he seemed resigned to failure. I also take heart from the fact that he is now fully healed and could easily leave to survive on his own, but instead he has stayed here, seemingly perfectly content to stay with me. In fact, I’ve had to use the spray bottle once or twice to keep him from following me back to the fort.

(I am getting increasingly tempted to use the spray bottle on Father whenever he brings up the woman I am supposedly seeing, but I doubt I would find as good a result. In hindsight, I really should have found a different excuse to use.)

In cheerier news, I can have full conversations with Glaurung now! His own contributions remain simple, but he is improving greatly.

I also have a confession to make: I told you that I was teaching him to speak. I did not tell you that I was teaching him Quenya.

Keeping that secret from you of all people was spectacularly pointless, I know, seeing as you aren’t actually reading these, but I was afraid to commit the words to paper in case these were ever found.

You have to understand, it just seemed so natural! I was alone, doing something secret, so naturally I would use -

Well. I suppose when Father finds out, the sticking point about the dragon will probably not be what language he speaks. On the other hand, when Thingol finds out . . .

Maybe I should start teaching him Sindarin.

All my love,

Fingon

. . .

Dear Mother,

I have a baby!

Admittedly, I’m increasingly concerned about the provenance of said baby, but Caranthir’s not talking, and Father’s already seen the baby, so it’s too late to back out now.

. . . Though maybe I should back up just a little.

You see, a few letters ago, I’d mentioned to Maedhros that I needed a baby, mostly because I was too tired to think about what I was writing, and then the messenger took it before I could -

Anyway. Maedhros, being the supportive cousin that he is - and also, notably, having survived Feanor’s determination to have 49 grandchildren at minimum - assumed that I had legitimate reasons to want said baby: Namely, Father pressuring me to get to work preserving the line of Finwe by providing more heirs.

Which shouldn’t be necessary but given that we still don’t know what happened to Turgon, Aredhel, and little Idril -

Which, to be fair to Maedhros, was much more sensible than what was actually going on.

In my defense, I didn’t actually expect Maedhros to - to do whatever it is he did. I thought he would commiserate a little, maybe, and that would be the end of it.

But no. Caranthir is here with the horses he wants to trade for some of our stock, and he brought with him the tiniest, most perfect baby I’ve ever seen.

I’m going to call him Gil-Galad.

I know, I know! I shouldn’t be naming the baby before I’m sure I’ll get to keep him, and I shouldn’t decide I’m going to keep him before I can get Caranthir to cough up more than, “Don’t worry about it,” when I ask where he came from.

But Caranthir managed to smuggled the baby into my arms right before Father walked in, saw it, and jumped to the obvious conclusion, so if I do end up having to give the baby up, I’m going to have a lot of explaining to do.

Actually, I already have a lot of explaining to do because I might have panicked a little bit when Father saw me with the baby.

And by ‘panicked a little bit,’ I mean that when he said, “You have a baby?” I may have, possibly, blurted out, “I also have a dragon.”

So, as I write, Father’s getting kitted up to go meet said dragon.

Do you think Gil-Galah’s too young to come along?

All my love,

Fingon

#fingon #glaurung #dragon #fic #first age #silmarillion #alternate universe #alternate universe canon divergence #maedhros #caranthir #sons of feanor #fingolfin #epistolary #anaire #this either ends wonderfully or horribly #I'm not sure which

125 notes · View notes

russian-romanova · 4 years

Text

nothing to fear

title: nothing to fear

pairing: adult!bill denbrough

word count: 2.1K

warnings: adult language, frightening images and scenes, spider-pennywise (ew),

notes: my memory is still choppy when it comes to chapter two. i promise absolutely no perfection down there, but I tried my absolute hardest to get everything correct! hope this is what you were looking for anon. :)

request: “May I request a Bill x reader fic that has Bill rescuing the reader from Pennywise maybe using her fears against her? (It doesn’t matter what the fear is) and I do think it’s more fitting as adults considering what happened in the second movie, but it’s also fine if it’s written with them being younger.”

summary: requested. no matter how prepared you thought you were for the second battle with pennywise, you can never really be ready to confront your worst fear.

+ + +

When you had confronted Pennywise for the first time, twenty-seven years ago, you thought you were as terrified as you would ever be. You were wrong.

In fact, the first thing you remembered when you got the call from Mike was that four-letter word, the one that made your chest tighten up and your heart quicken. Fear; the absolute fear of facing Pennywise on his own turf. You remembered how terrified you had been, but how Bill had taken charge over the group and it had turned into a good sort of fear, the kind that empowered you. That was the sort of fear that It hated because it gave you and the seven other losers an advantage. If you weren’t scared out of your wits, even if there was just that little smudge of hope in you, then you could take down Pennywise.

And you had, at least for a good chunk of time. For twenty-seven years Pennywise had stayed down, but then It came back. It came back, and Mike Hanlon had called all of you and told you to come back to Derry, and all of you but Stanley had obeyed. You obeyed because you knew you had to, and you stayed because Mike had a plan.

A plan that, up until about five minutes ago, seemed to be working out perfectly.

He called it the Ritual of Chüd, and you had all been ready and willing to give it a try. You all had to sacrifice something of meaning from your childhood for it to work, although you were admittedly fuzzy on why that would work. You had brought an old diary of yours from the time, which you had filled with secrets and stories. That diary was surely the only way you hadn’t gone crazy after the whole Pennywise encounter, allowing yourself to pour the emotions you felt into its pages.

Everyone else had added in their items and Mike declared you had to all hold hands. He was nervous, you could tell by his rushed words. You had all complied, and began to all repeat ‘turn the light into darkness’ as the deadlights appeared. It had been working, like some overdue miracle, and you had more hope than you ever had.

With your horrible luck, you should have known it wouldn’t work. If anything, it had only seemed to draw an extra scary Pennywise nearer to your group, and now you were running for your lives. Bill had been standing next to you, and you had both grabbed for each other’s hands. If it had been any other occasion, you would have likely stopped and thought it over, read more into the action. It wasn’t some other occasion, however, and you focused primarily on not letting go and running for your lives.

You were close to blushing in Bill’s grip despite the running part. The two of you had always been shy around the other as children, but you had brushed it off as teenage awkwardness. It wasn’t until you had returned that you realized you had loved Bill, truly loved him, even as children. The two of you had only grown closer in the time since you returned, and you certainly weren’t complaining. You had silently sworn to yourself that if you made it out of this hellhole, you would finally tell him.

Bill had thankfully led the way, following the twists and turns as you shouted about Pennywise behind you. He had emerged as if he was now part spider, with half a dozen shiny, hard legs that were clicking behind your group as you slowly divided. Mike ducked behind a large object as Richie and Eddie split off. Bev and Ben did the same, and you felt yourself practically leaning forwards as you tried to run even faster. Wordlessly, Bill had led the two of you to a narrow hiding spot, and you broke apart and rolled inside. You could barely hear the menacing snap of Its jaws behind you, but felt the rush of air that accompanied the motion. Everything was dark in here, you realized as you blinked a few times. Everything was dark, and then it suddenly wasn’t.

For the longest part of your life, you had been deathly afraid of heights. This had lurked in the back of your mind the whole time you had been back in Derry because you knew that It would remember that. One memory in specific seemed to bring the fear forward -- one where you and your dad had been working on the roof of your house. You were sure that your mom wouldn’t have let you up there, but she was at work and your dad hadn’t seen the harm in it. He should have, which was a fact he would realize the moment your feet slipped and you slid down the roof and fell off the house. You had a broken bone or two, but the doctors had praised your young age for the lack of permanent damage. What they hadn’t discovered was how terrified you were that the falling sensation would happen again.

You were there again now. Upon opening your eyes, you had been greeted by the bright sunlight and the feeling of cold stone against your back. You were up on the roof again, with your back pressed against the chimney. You were balanced near the top of the roof, where your feet seemed to have a temporarily decent grip. If your eyes fell to either side of you, the ground greeted you below. Slowly turning your head to the left, you noticed how far down the ground seemed. Was it really this far or was this some sort of trick?

A trick, that’s what this must be. Your left foot slid along a shingle and you pushed yourself back up, pressing your back up against the wall as best you could. This wasn’t real, just as none of it usually was. This was some stupid trick, compliments of Pennywise, and all you had to do was realize it wasn’t real and you’d wake up. You would wake up and none of it would be real, you would be safe at home with your alarm going off, and it would have all been a dream.

“Scared you’re going to fall?” A voice floated from the other corner of the roof, and you pulled your eyes away from the taunting ground. Across from you stood the creature you wanted the see least of all, and It was grinning at you. You could feel your eyes widen and your breath hitch in your throat. “Oh, don’t worry. Your bones’ll bounce back.” You were only vaguely aware that this is what the doctor had told your worried parents after you had fallen. “They’ll bounce right back.”

None of his words were comforting. “This isn’t real, there’s nothing to fear,” You repeated your mantra out loud, frozen. Pennywise took a step closer. You slid a foot to the side, but it only attempted to slide with your trailing. Regaining yourself, you realized that this roof wasn’t going to hold you as well as a real roof would. This was It’s turf, after all, and now you were playing by It’s rules.

“Bill!” You called out, hoping that he would hear you from whatever unconscious state you had fallen into.

“Bill can’t come to the phone right now,” Pennywise answered. “He has his own fears, his own anguish.” He took another step in your direction. “Nowhere for you to go but down, down, down.”

You tried to stabilize your breathing, anxiously replying, “Fuck you.” There had to be some other way out of here anyway. You whipped your head to either side, looking for what you were missing. There must be some way out of here that wasn’t falling. There always was, right?

Pennywise advanced, and you felt a hand brush against yours from the opposite side of the chimney. A frightening noise came out of your mouth as you attempted to move it out of reach of the other hand while maintaining grip.

The hand found yours again but was accompanied by a voice this time around. “Y/N. Heh-heh-hey, it’s Buh-Bill.”

“Bill,” Your voice came out in a relieved sigh. “Are you okay?”

He ignored your question. “Cuh-can you move around? There’s a luh-luh-ladder over he-here.”

An attempt to move only brought your foot slipping again. “No, I can’t. I can’t move, Bill.”

“You’ve got it. It’s oh-okay,” Bill’s hand tightened around yours. “If y-y-you slip I’ve guh-got you.”

From his grip spread warmth and confidence. Taking advantage of the burst of adrenaline, you slowly began to move across the roof, feet taking small steps and your arms remained outstretched. Not even daring to look towards Pennywise, you inched your way across the roof until both your feet were slanted. The ground was certainly unnaturally far away, you realized as you glanced down. The sight made you dizzy. “Duh-don’t look duh-duh-down,” Bill added, and you realized that you could see him out of the corner of your eye. His hair was a little messy, and his eyes seemed more tired than they had before. It was a comforting sight none the less.

You were almost there when your feet finally did slip. You had been doing amazingly well considering the few attempts you had previously tried had been nothing short of pitiful. It seemed perhaps due that your feet finally did slip, but Bill kept his promise. Somehow stable, his other hand shot out to grab your arm and he pulled you forward.

The action seemed to do it, and the bright sun from on your roof turned into the dim lighting of the cave. “Holy shit,” You breathed after a moment. “Holy shit.”

“Are yuh-yuh-you okay?” Bill answered.

“Where the fuck did you even come from?” You asked him, your voice coming out in a realized chuckle.

“I don’t nuh-know.” His hands moved to grab onto your arms tighter. “I was in muh-my buh-basement, and th-th-then I was there.”

You stood in silence for a moment, catching your breath. “Thank you,” You said finally. Quickly, you moved in for a dark kiss. Easily, you had found his lips and you felt his grip tighten and then relax. In the hectic grey of the storm, this was your yellow moment of happiness.

Silently, you pulled away. In the dark lighting, it was hard to make out Bill’s expression but he seemed pleased enough. You were smiling at him, although you were sure he couldn’t see it either.

“Should we go kill that fucker?” You asked in a whisper. ‘How romantic,’ you found your inner voice commenting.

“Oh-okay,” The shadow of Bill’s head moved up and down in a nod. “Cuh-cuh-can we guh-go out f-f-for dinner or suh-something after?” The words came out despite the situation.

“Okay,” You repeated. With a renewed confidence, you retook Bill’s hand in yours and turned around. If you could do that, you could do anything.

extra note: ahhh this is so little, :( it also totally veers off from what actually happens. my memory sucks ass sometimes, and the only transcript i could find was very shifty and unclear. i’m sorry this took so long to get out anon! i hope it satisfied your needs. :)

#bill denbrough #bill denbrough x reader #bill #denbrough #it #it chapter 2 #pennywise #it 2017 #request #james mcavoy #he is so pretty #:)

68 notes · View notes