#The red eye focuses very quickly and just functions differently and sometimes the green one staggers behind and its rly annoying | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

mercy-burning · 3 years

Text

Payback

Summary: After Reader surprises Spencer at a BAU holiday party, he can’t stop thinking about her. Category: Fluff Word Count: 4.2k NOTE: This is my first little fic, I’ve had this idea for a while now and I’ve always wanted to write it, so please let me know what you think! I hope you like it! And if there’s anything I should include in the before/summaries of my stuff in the future, please let me know! I’d love to write more but I’m not sure what everyone wants to see. Thank you!

***

He could still taste peppermint. It's been 8 days and still, every time his lips press together, Spencer swears he can taste her peppermint lip gloss coating them. It's all he's been able to think about as of late.

And no sooner than he could taste her lips, he could see her face, the way her eyes had glimmered after just a glass of champagne, amused and proud of her actions. He tried not to think about how dumbfounded he must have looked, completely frozen and practically unable to function properly, let alone at all. His mind betrayed him, though only for a second before he focused on the way she'd lovingly patted his cheek and whispered, "There you go," before pressing her lips together and turning away.

The whole ordeal had only lasted no longer than five seconds, but to Spencer it had felt like a lifetime. Time had slowed to a stop and refused to move forward the very moment she grabbed his face.

Truth be told, he should have seen it coming. For years since Y/N had joined the BAU, his friends had teased him relentlessly about her. More specifically, Morgan had caught him staring at her from across the jet once upon a time, her first case with the team, and when she'd looked up and smiled at Spencer, causing him to give a small wave and immediately avert his gaze, Morgan laughed from beside him and stated, "You couldn't be more obvious if you tried, Pretty Boy."

Emily and Rossi, who were seated across from them, didn't even have to turn around to know what was happening, and the shared a knowing smile before Hotch had returned from the bathroom and started debriefing.

Spencer had tried to play it cool at first, blowing off his friends' teasing remarks and sometimes crude gestures, but deep down he knew they were all right. And if they were able to see just how badly he liked Y/N, then it was probably no secret that she'd been able to tell as well. The thought made him nervous, but in the three years since he and Y/N had come to be better friends, he'd gotten more comfortable and a little (but not by much) less blush-prone when she paid him a smile or occasionally brushed her hand against his.

Nonetheless, the teasing from the rest of the team had slowed significantly, though it hadn't entirely stopped. Every time they all got together for a dinner at Rossi's or a party for the holidays, Y/N got dressed up, and every time without fail Spencer couldn't help but admire her beauty. Of course he'd found her beautiful all the time, but there was something about the way she held herself during these events, almost like she knew she was the most stunning person in the room, that drove him crazy, and even intimidated him a little. (She's way out of my league, he'd thought to himself once.)

And every single time, either Morgan or Garcia, or pretty much anyone else, but those two specifically, would try to get him to talk to her, to ask her on a date, or to just flirt with her. But, as usual, Spencer brushed it off, and each night he would go the entire time without taking his friends' advice, much to their chagrin.

Sometimes he wished he had, that he was brave enough to say something to her, anything beyond the usual, "you look nice" before quickly changing the subject. And a few times he almost came close, but some small part of his conscience told him that she wouldn't reciprocate. That he was too weird and that she was too good for him. And then he would chastise himself for even thinking that he would have a shot, and he'd have to live with the fact that he would just be teased by his friends forever about this perfect woman that he would never have the courage to come clean to.

But all the same, he was just naïve enough to believe that he could get away that one night without any trouble.

It was the day before Christmas Eve, and Rossi had generously decided to host a small get-together before everyone would be with their families for the holidays. As usual his place was beautiful, but even more so with all the twinkling lights and garland.

The team was shuffling around the kitchen, talking amongst themselves and drinking their drinks of choice, when Y/N appeared next to Spencer, a glass of champagne in hand.

And just like every time before, he felt his heart tug at his chest as he looked at her, so close to him he could smell her perfume and feel her warmth. She wore an emerald green dress that stopped below her knees, the sleeves long and the neckline plunging down to the top of her stomach in a deep V-shape. Four thin, glittery strips of silver attached the two sides of the V together, getting smaller as they went down. Her hair was worn up, a high pony tail that tumbled in curls down the back of her head, a few strands curled and framing the sides of her face. Her eyelids glittered red and her lips were sheer and shimmering.

She practically sparkled as she spoke to him, a beacon of elegance and beauty, and it took everything inside of Spencer to resist grabbing her face and kissing her in front of all their friends.

She finished her glass of champagne as he was telling her about his holiday plans, setting the glass on the table in front of her before a squeal—no doubt from Garcia—cut him off, mostly out of concern.

"What is it?" Y/N asked for him.

Morgan and Emily came strolling up to see what the commotion was about before they laughed and fist-bumped.

"What?" Spencer repeated, thoroughly confused.

Rossi came up to join, nodding as he raised his drink. "Ah, the magic of mistletoe."

"Look up," Garcia added, pointing to the ceiling above where Spencer and Y/N were standing.

Sure enough, mistletoe was hanging above them, and though he knew what that meant, his first instinct was to talk.

"You know, the Druids came to view mistletoe as a symbol of liveliness due to the fact that it could blossom even during wintertime. In hopes of restoring fertility they would administer it to humans, and even animals."

He refused to look at Y/N. He couldn't. He knew that the second he did, he'd give himself away, if he hadn't already before. And just as he was about to spit out more facts about mistletoe, he felt time slow down.

The words caught in his throat, dissipated, and replaced themselves with the smallest of whimpers. He hoped to God she wouldn’t hear it, for fear of giving himself away even further.

Instead he froze, completely shell-shocked when Y/N reached over, grabbed his face in her hands, and turned it to meet hers, taking no time at all to press her lips against his in a burning kiss. At least, that's how it felt for him.

He wasn't sure how she was feeling, but in that moment he could only think about how his entire being burned at her touch. And though she only kissed him for no longer than three seconds, keeping the entire thing short and sweet, the taste of her peppermint flavored lip gloss lingering on his lips, the way she looked at him, and the way she patted his cheek and the way she whispered, "There you go," before turning away and taking her empty glass with her... All of it was enough to make Spencer feel like he'd just experienced Heaven itself.

She was the actual human embodiment of Heaven, he was sure of it.

So by the time he'd recovered from his haze and found it in himself to breathe again, Spencer went back to pretending he wasn't phased, because after all he was in a room with all his friends who knew better, and the more he could keep pretending, the less he would be left to think about how Y/N had completely shaken him to his core.

But now it's the night before New Year's Eve, and he'd been thinking for days now how to deal with this. Because every time she'd looked at him since then, every time she'd say his name or playfully wink at him, it drove him mad. He closed his eyes and there she was, in all her shimmering, heavenly glory, taking up every thought, every ounce of being he had to offer. She owned him and she didn't even know it.

Or maybe she did.

There was one day, December 28th to be precise, when he swore she was messing with him, gauging his reaction. First of all, she'd worn a skirt to work, which she barely ever did, not to mention it was cold and snowy, and hardly the right weather to comfortably wear one, and a tight one at that. And Y/N seemed to be particularly and unusually clumsy that day, because she'd conveniently dropped her pen in front of Spencer's desk, or accidentally spilled water on her white shirt, exposing some of her bra. And every single time, She'd looked up to see him staring at her, as he'd never been able to resist doing.

The way she talked to him was different, too, her voice almost lullaby-like. And when she'd ask a question about something she clearly knew, she bit her lip immediately afterwards, her head tilted down and her eyes fluttered up, almost like she was embarrassed to ask for help.

By the end of the day Spencer was exhausted, not to mention still overwhelmed and completely burned by her presence. And it didn't help that everyone else around him knew what was happening. The teasing then was just as relentless as it had been the first week Y/N started working with them, made worse by the fact that she'd kissed him and left him absolutely ruined.

He had to do something, or he was sure he wouldn't survive.

***

Even though the team had just been together for Christmas, once again they all found themselves gathered around a fancy setting for New Year's.

This time Y/N decided she wanted to host, since none of the team have ever been to her house. In the three years since she'd worked with them, she figured it would be a good way to ring in the new year.

Her house wasn't as big or extravagant as Rossi's—no one's was, really—but she'd made do with what elegance she had to offer.

Even though everyone was bringing a small dish to eat, Y/N wanted to go all out. So, she decided to bake two pecan pies and a chocolate chip banana bread, all that culinary training throughout her first two years of college not entirely going to waste. She'd even made complimentary cupcakes for the team, each one flavored and decorated uniquely to each new friend she'd made from her time at the BAU, their names piped on every one with icing.

For Garcia, she made a vegan lemon blueberry cupcake frosted with a homemade vegan whipped cream, complete with a little glitter and 'penny' piped in pink.

For Derek, a peanut butter mocha cupcake with chocolate frosting and decorated with gold glitter and peanut butter chips, his name piped in white.

For Emily, a red velvet with vanilla buttercream and a ring of red and white marbled frosting around it, her name piped in red.

For JJ, a chocolate cupcake filled with raspberry coulis and topped with dark chocolate buttercream, silver pearls making a circle around the outside and her name piped in pink.

Hotch's cupcake was a chocolate with coconut frosting and 'Hotch' piped in vibrant blue, along with some swirled patterns around the edges.

Rossi's was her favorite to make, simply because it was so out of the box. It was a chocolate cupcake filled and topped with maple whipped cream, sprinkled with chopped up, caramelized bacon. She hoped he'd like it, but just in case it was too unconventional, she whipped up extra cupcakes of each. That way everyone could also try different ones if they wanted.

And that left Spencer.

The whole week leading up to the party, Y/N was concocting her recipes, trying to figure out which flavors everyone would like the best. She knew that Spencer would gladly take anything she'd given him, but after the Christmas party, she wanted to give him something to remember.

Truth be told, she wasn't even going to kiss him that night. She was more than happy to let him go on about mistletoe in an attempt to avoid what everyone else so desperately wanted them to do, but right before he finished his first fact, Emily glanced at Y/N and nodded her head, mouthing "do it".

And in a split second decision, she decided screw it.

And then she kissed him.

Though Y/N wasn't sure how he would feel before she did it, she could tell almost immediately when she did that he'd wanted something like that to happen for a while, because he practically whined against her mouth. She felt it more than heard it, it was so small, but there was no mistaking that it had happened, only confirmed by the fact that he slightly leaned into her once it was happening.

And then she pulled away, and she could have swore he tried to chase after her, not wanting it to end. But shock won over, because he opened his eyes and they were as wide as she'd ever seen them, his lips parted and shimmering faintly from where her lip gloss had transferred.

Y/N didn't want him to know that she could hardly breathe, seeing him like that, feeling him embrace her action, so she'd quickly brushed it off, patted his cheek and whispered, "There you go".

In hindsight, she wasn't sure if that was the right thing to say. All the things she could have told him in the moment, and "There you go" is what came out? Really?

So she picked up her empty glass as the team laughed and clapped, putting distance between everyone to get more champagne and compose the rapid beating of her heart.

She went home that night and thought about Spencer. Naturally. She tried not to think about the small part of her brain that said he was only shocked because it was unexpected and not because he wanted her. Instead, she tried to recall every interaction they'd had together, wondering how she could have missed the obvious.

There'd been countless times where Y/N had caught him staring at her, only for him to look away and pretend like he hadn't been... And to think, every time she just thought maybe she'd had something stuck in her teeth or a stain on her shirt. She just had to think something was wrong, when in fact, everything was perfectly fine.

So she decided that after everyone went back to work, she'd test it out.

One tight skirt and a few 'accidental' mishaps later, Y/N was sure.

And so, as she laid out the cupcakes on the table, Y/N put Spencer's in the middle. It was a vanilla bean cupcake, filled with peppermint whipped cream and crushed candy canes. The peppermint whipped cream was piped on the top as well, and she topped it off with a silver shine and his last name piped in red cursive lettering. On the outside you couldn't tell it was peppermint, but he'd sure taste it. And Y/N couldn't wait to see the look on his face when he did.

Everyone started to arrive shortly after Y/N finished getting dressed. She decided on a sleeveless black velvet dress with a high neckline that fit snugly around her throat. It was tight and ended just above the knee, accentuating just about everything. She put her hair up in the same high ponytail as the Christmas party, though rather than curled, it was straight. Her makeup was simple, a little silver eyeshadow, black eyeliner, and red lipstick.

She'd just put in the second hoop earring when her doorbell rang. Y/N slipped on her black heels by the front door and opened it to find almost everyone there.

"Y/N!" Garcia's exuberance was the first thing she heard, and then she hugged her.

"Hey, guys, welcome!" she exclaimed with a smile as everyone filed in through the door, hugging her as they went on by.

"Morgan and Reid are on their way," Rossi said, handing her a bottle of wine. Blackberry merlot, her favorite.

"Man, it smells great in here," Emily noted, setting her jacket on the hook behind the door.

"Yeah, I might have went a little overboard and made everyone their own cupcakes," Y/N said. "And banana bread... and two pecan pies."

"Cupcakes?" Garcia inquired, almost devilishly.

Everyone laughed, and Y/N led the way to the dining room, where she had everything set up. In front was everyone's cupcakes lined up in a row, behind them the banana bread and the two pies on either side of it.

"Y/N, these look incredible!" JJ complimented. Everyone else agreed in unison, and it warmed Y/N's heart.

"Thanks guys. I made a few of each just in case you weren't happy with your cupcake. But you're free to have them now if you want." So she handed everyone their assigned cupcakes, explaining each of their contents and seeing their faces light up, save for Reid and Morgan, who still had yet to arrive.

And as if on cue, the doorbell rang again, and Y/N's heart almost jumped out of her chest.

"I'll go bring these out to them," she said, grabbing the remaining cupcakes and leaving her friends to enjoy.

Derek was at the door first, smiling as charmingly as ever. "Hey, Miss Thing."

"Hey, yourself," she laughed, opening the door and stepping aside for him to walk through. She handed him his cupcake after he took his coat off, setting it beside everyone else's. "I made everyone complimentary cupcakes. This one's for you. Peanut butter chocolate mocha."

Morgan's eyebrows raised and he smiled, taking the cupcake. "You didn't."

Y/N laughed again, nodding as he took a bite. "You can head inside through there, everyone else is enjoying their own."

He pulled her in for a side hug and muttered a 'thank you' through a mouth full of cupcake, making her laugh harder, before he disappeared into the kitchen.

When Y/N turned around, Spencer was taking off his coat, a smile plastered on his face. "You made cupcakes?"

She tried not to fall apart when she looked at him, his eyes as kind as ever, that smile so intoxicatingly sweet and so incredibly him. She gave him a small once-over, admiring the look he'd gone for, which consisted of black dress pants, a long-sleeved navy button down with the first few buttons opened and a tie hanging loose and open around his neck, revealing some of his chest. He'd opted to leave his hair rather messy, which was more than okay with her. If she hadn't known any better she'd say he'd just woken up, but the style choices seemed deliberate. Regardless, Y/N knew that whatever he'd shown up in would have taken her breath away.

She nodded, trying not to take too long to look him over. She held out her hands, the cupcake sitting in between them both. "Yeah, I did. Here's yours."

"You're not gonna tell me what kind it is?"

She laughed. "You'll just have to eat it and see."

"Well, thank you. It's pretty... You're pretty. Y-you look nice."

Y/N saw him take a breath right before blinking and looking down at the cupcake, peeling the wrapper away, and she almost forgot to say, "Thank you."

But she did.

And then he took a bite of the cupcake.

***

As soon as it passed his lips, Spencer knew. He'd been tasting peppermint all week, and of course that had just been him remembering the taste of her lip gloss before, but now the taste was unmistakably there.

It was the frosting, only faintly peppermint, but just enough to be highlighted against the sweet vanilla of the cupcake. The two flavors in harmony were just as much Heaven as she was.

He would have moved forward and kissed her right then had ne not already had a plan.

So, instead he nodded with a smile, swallowing the bite he'd taken and stepping forward to be closer to her. "It's amazing. Thank you."

He looked down at her, and she looked back up at him, her eyes just as beautiful as they had been the night of the Christmas party.

"You're welcome," she replied softly, eyes drifting to his lips.

Spencer smiled at her before passing her and walking to the kitchen, leaving her behind.

Little did she know, he was practically buzzing from head to toe.

***

The night passed quickly, everyone laughing, having drinks, and happily eating.

It amused Y/N that the vanilla peppermint cupcakes ended up being everyone's favorite by the end of the night. The team had no idea the reasoning behind the specific flavor, and she almost had to wonder what they'd say if they did know.

Though, she wasn't sure it mattered. Because Spencer had pretty much ignored her all night. Of course he'd talked to her if they were brought up in conversation together, but he rarely even looked at her, and in the event that he did, it felt purely platonic and unlike every other time before.

Was he ignoring her on purpose? Did he secretly hate the stunt she pulled with the cupcake and decide to punish her for it? Or maybe, she'd merely imagined the chemistry in the first place. It had all been a figment of her imagination, something her mind made up to make up for the fact that she sucked at dating and hadn't had affection from a man in years.

That last one seemed bit of a stretch, but at this point Y/N didn't rule anything out.

Eventually she shifted her focus to having fun with her friends, this found family she'd been happily apart of for three years. It was her first time hosting a get-together at her house, and she was proud to share it with them. In an effort to prove just how much it meant, Y/N made a toast right before midnight. The TV was muted, and she'd unmute it when the ball was ready to drop.

Looking around at all her friends, Y/N smiled gratefully. "I want to start this off by saying how sorry I am that it took me this long to invite you all over to my house. But hopefully I made up for it with all the sweets." A small group of laughter filled the room for a moment before she continued. "And I know New Year's is supposed to be celebrated in hopes of being a better person and bettering yourself in the future, but... I know all of you, so... That's already been taken care of. I love you guys."

"Here, here!" Rossi announced, raising his drink. Everyone else followed suit, and after taking a sip, Y/N unmuted the TV. There was about a minute left until the ball would drop, and it would be a new year.

After filling up her drink one more time, Y/N stood in the back of the living room to take in all of her friends, chatting amongst themselves as they waited for the new year to ring in.

But someone was missing.

Just as she'd thought it, Spencer showed up beside her, and she turned to smile at him. "Hey."

"That was a nice speech," he said, setting his drink down on the table beside him.

You followed suit and nodded. "Thanks. It was kind of cheesy, but..."

"No, I... I think it was sweet."

Y/N wasn't sure what else to say, so she nodded, and looked back at the TV. There was about 20 seconds left, and everyone started counting.

She started counting with them, Spencer still at her side.

"19, 18, 17, 16..."

Before she even knew what was happening, Spencer's hand brushed out against hers. She thought it was an accident, but he'd been moving closer as the seconds rolled by.

But that couldn't be. Because she'd imagined everything before, so why wouldn't she imagine this, too?

"12, 11, 10, 9, 8..."

His heart was beating so fast in his chest, he could have sworn everyone around would be able to hear it. Time was running out, and he knew that he couldn't chicken out this time. Morgan had even spent all afternoon and the entire car ride here helping him figure out how to do it properly. And if he backed out then the teasing would be relentless.

"4, 3, 2, 1..."

The second Y/N finished chanting the final number, she felt a pair of hands grab her face.

And then Spencer's mouth was on hers, even better than it'd been before. Only this time, she kept him close to her when he tried to pull away. But he was happy to oblige, and they stayed like that, lips pressed together and hands caressing each others' faces. Maybe their friends were watching them, and maybe they weren't. It didn't matter. Nothing else mattered but that kiss.

Y/N pulled away first, though she kept her forehead pressed against his. She opened her eyes and saw him looking at her, everything falling into place.

"What was that for?" she asked softly, though she didn't actually care.

"Payback," was his answer, plain and simple.

She rolled her eyes lovingly and then pressed another small, sweet kiss to his lips before they broke apart completely, and then she laughed.

"What?" Spencer asked.

Y/N ran her tongue over her bottom lip before patting his cheek. "You taste like peppermint."

#spencer reid fluff #criminal minds #spencer reid #criminal minds fanfiction #fluff

482 notes · View notes

starry-seongmin · 4 years

Text

“

#22 - “For once I thought someone was actually interested in me”

#42 - “S/he’s right behind me isn’t s/he?”

non idol!au, highschool!au,

Songs I listened to: Baragi - Hyunjoon , Promise - EXO

a/n: I may have gotten carried away from how much I usually write.

Ni-ki was a shy boy. He wouldn’t express his emotions and feelings so openly and easily. There would definitely be times where he would let himself go and be an open book and sometimes he would bottle his feelings and thoughts until they exploded. He was a young boy and he had plenty of time to learn how to keep his emotions in check and express them and he was slowly getting there.

The older boys were very well aware of Ni-ki’s habits and were with him every step of the way to help him and keep him in line when he would just explode or bottle up too much.

Right now, Heeseung, Seon and Jaebeom were contemplating over Ni-ki’s recent mood swings. He was keeping something to himself and being all quiet and dismissive during certain conversations. “Did Sunoo do something?” Seon asked and Jaebeom was the first to answer. “Sunoo hasn’t done or said anything to him. He’s treading on eggshells around him these days” he said, ruling out the energetic boy being the reason behind Ni-ki’s sudden change in behavior.

Heeseung’s eyes fell on the said person, approaching their table accompnied by Daniel and Ta-ki. He nudged Seon and nodded towards the trio of boys. Jaebeom and Seon followed his gaze and sat up straight and started talking about a video game as if they weren’t discussing one of their younger friends.

Ta-ki greeted the older boys with a bright smile and sat down. Daniel followed suit and Ni-ki silently took a seat next to Jaebeom. “Hyung, are you gonna eat that?” Ni-ki asked, eyeing Seon’s remaining cookie, unaware of the fact that the others were throwing him cautious glances, deciphering his current mood. “No, you ca have it” Seon replied, placing the cookie on Ni-ki’s tray.

The younger gave him a grateful smile and dug in, finishing the cookie in two bites. The boys were secretly relieved that he seemed to be in a good mood and soon they all busied themselves in conversation and finishing their lunch.

In the middle of Ni-ki telling them about how Sunoo got himself in trouble and had to held during recess, he stiffened as he noticed you walking with your friends towards their table. His sudden stillness didn’t go unnoticed by the others. Following his gaze, they soon understood the reason behind Ni-ki’s lack of functioning.

Exchanging knowing looks, Jaebeom waved you over to their table. Telling your friends that you’ll catch up with them later, you wave back and reach their table. “Hey guys” you chirp, a smile etched across your face. “What’s up?”

It was exactly as the boys thought. Ni-ki’s gaze was lowered, focusing on his tray and fiddling with his food an his eyes darting towards you in between for a fleeting second. His ears were red and he was not pitching in the conversation the boys and you were having.

“Ni-ki, you okay there?” The boy’s head darted up at you addressing him suddenly. “Yeah..I am perfectly fine” he managed to reply, the heat creeping on to his cheeks, painting them a delicate pink. “You’re turning red, bub..you sure?” you asked again, placing the back of your hand against his forehead and then his cheek to check his temperature.

Ni-ki swore his soul left his body and his heart jumped out and ran away as soon as your hand came in gentle contact with his skin. “You’re warm. I think you should go to the clinic just in case” you suggested, genuinely concerned for his health.

The spectators watched the interaction between you two, engrossed in what was going on. What they suspected was so obvious now. Ni-ki had the biggest crush on you and he was trying his best to withhold his composure and not pass out and Daniel admitted he was doing it quite well because it appeared that you were absolutely oblivious of the effect you had on the poor boy who was currently the center of attention and borderline passed out.

“I promise I’m okay” Ni-ki replied and removed your hand away. The contact of his hand with yours sent warm rushes all over his body, heart hammering. You frowned but chose to believe him and nodded, low-key disappointed that he let go of your hand.

“Okay, but if you feel weird you have to go and get yourself checked” you warned. “And it’s also your responsibility as his friends to look after him” you gave a pointed look at the audience of 5 boys who nodded, even managing to get a salute from Daniel and a “yes boss” from Jaebeom.

Satisfied with their answer you nodded and subconsciously, as if your hands had a mind of their own, patted Ni-ki’s shoulder, “Alright then, I’ll see you guys later” you announced, glancing over them one last time. “Also, I almost forgot..” you turned to Ni-ki. “Your free style dance was amazing. I’m looking forward to your next performance” you complimented him with a shy smile and taking off.

Ni-ki stared at your retreating figure with a dazed look, as if in a trance, processing the compliment he received from you seconds ago. He was brought back to his senses when Seon coughed to get his attention. He turned his head to be met with knowing looks and smiles from the boys, knowing they were bursting with questions, teasing and comments.

“Don’t” he warned, shooting a glare at them. “So...this explains your mood swings” Heeseung voiced the elephant in the room. “When are you gonna make a move?” Ta-ki asked the real question, leaning forward, eyes bright. “I won’t. Now you guys can shut up” he shot back, gently shoving Ta-ki’s face back.

“If you’re afraid of being rejected and possibly ruining a friendship and not having the ability to show your face and quite possi-” Danel began only to be silenced by Seon’s glare. “What he means is...if you’re afraid of being rejected and ruining a friendship, you won’t because as it was obvious with you being totally head over heels for Y/N, Y/N was also obvious of having a crush on you” Seon explained in hopes to encourage the younger boy to confess to you.

“I don’t know...Y/N hasn’t exactly given any sign of being interested in me” he voiced out, trying to recall anything you said or had done to give him a green light. The boys sighed and Seon even rubbed his face. “Your entire interaction is enough proof?” he pointed out, hoping Ni-ki would understand. However, the blank face from the boy said otherwise. “Let’s see...” Heeseung began with a ‘thinking’ look. “Y/N kept physical contact with you just now, from checking your temperature to patting your shoulder and resting their hand” he recalled.

“Y/N was also quite concerned about you having a temperature and feeling unwell and was adamant about you getting yourself checked and even made us promise to look after you” Jaebeom continued.

“Let’s not forget complimenting you on your last class’ performance...Heeseung hyung also takes that class and so does Ta-ki. Were they mentioned? No. Only you and they even said they looked forward to your next performance” Daniel added.

“Y/N had their eyes on you most times if not all the time. They even smiled at you in a way they don’t smile at anyone else... they had this soft gaze which is only reserved for you” Seon finished, a complacent smile on his face.

“You guys think so?” Ni-ki asked, getting a sliver of hope and boost of confidence to profess his feelings to you. “We know so” Ta-ki confidently replied, face stuffed with his sandwich. “Okay, I’ll give it a shot...after school” he promised himself, feeling a bit better thanks to the support his friends gave him.

[After school]

True to his words, Ni-ki made his way to your locker after extra-curricular activities before chickening around. Just as he turned round the corner, he was met with a scene he was not prepared for. You were standing at your locker with someone else, receiving a small bouquet of flowers. He quickly hid behind the wall, not knowing how he felt. He peeked to see you smiling at the person. He couldn’t hear what you were saying and he decided that he didn’t want to.

His heart was thumping loudly and he was pretty sure that it was echoing through out the school hallway. Feeling dejected and miserable, he walked away, to where his friends were waiting for some kind of update from him. Slipping your favorite snack back in to his bag, he reached the school gate where his friends stood.

Jaeho was the first to notice Ni-ki walking slowly, head down. Pointing it out to the others, the atmosphere changed from lively to heavy as one by one it hit them that Ni-ki didn’t come bearing good news. They shared confused and worried looks, feeling guilty for accidentally giving him false hope when they themselves were sure that his feelings were reciprocated.

He reached them and smiled sadly at them, shaking his head. No one had the heart to say anything. “Someone already beat me to it” he shrugged, playing off as it didn’t matter to him but he was only convincing himself as no one believed his facade.

“What do you mean someone beat you to it?” Jimin asked, putting an arm around his shoulder. “When I rounded the corner to their locker, they were smiling and had accepted flowers by someone else”, he replied. “I can’t believe that I actually had hope..” he murmured, resting his head on Jimin’s shoulder, as the older boy ran his hand through his hair to comfort him. “For once I thought someone was actually interested in me”

The boys exchanged looks, not really knowing what to say to make him feel better. “Hey, I know it’s easier said than done but forget about it, maybe you guys are better off as friends” Jake spoke up.

ni-ki only shook his head. “It’s not easy..” he admitted quietly. “I don’t think I’ll be okay. Everything seems different when I fell for Y/N. I couldn’t help my feelings then and I can’t help them now. They’ve already grown” his eyes were sad and obvious he was hurting. “I don’t want to feel like this” he groaned.

“Hyung, I think you should l-” Daniel was cut off by a wave of Ni-ki’s hand. “I’ll be okay soon, hopefully...I just need to avoid Y/N for a while until I’m able to control my feelings”

“Okay but I think you shou-” Youngbin tried to talk only to be interrupted by the younger boy again. “I know, I know...to be expressive and share my feelings with you guys, I know” he dismissed.

Not receiving any response from the boys felt strange. It was only when he realized they were not looking at him but rather behind him did he feel a sinking feel. Hoping it wasn’t what he was thinking he sighed, dreading the obvious answer. “They’re right behind me aren’t they?”

The apologetic looks from the boys was enough to confirm his fear. “Uhh, can you guys excuse us for a moment, please?” you timidly asked. The boys nodded and with a chorus of “see you later”, they dispersed.

You stepped down and stood next to Ni-ki who was avoiding eye contact. The both of you stood there, awkward. You wanted to talk to him about what he said earlier and you even requested the boys to give you privacy yet you had no idea what to say nor how to start the conversation with him.

“So...” you started, “You heard me being all melodramatic over you not reciprocating my feelings” he spoke up, getting straight to the point no matter how desperately he wanted to run away and never face humanity again.

“How much did you see? The flowers and everything?” you asked. “Just you receiving the flowers and being happy. I saw you guys talking but I couldn’t hear what you were saying.” he replied, scratching the back of his neck.

“Ahh..that makes everything easier” you whispered to yourself. You smiled at him and placed your hand on his shoulder. The stiffness from didn’t go unnoticed by you. “Relax..it’s not what you think” you said. “Yes, I was given flowers and yes I accepted them and yes I was smiling and talking” you explained. “But, the flowers weren’t for me. They’re actually for Mrs. Kwon. Our class collected money to buy her flowers as a token of congratulations for being promoted to Head of the Science Department. As the class president, it was my duty to give it to her on behalf of my class.” you finished.

Realization dawned on him as everything was put in to place. “Well, this is embarrassing...” he chuckled shyly. “You still have time, you know?” you spoke up, trying not to smile. He gave you a confused look, not getting your hint.

“To express your feelings?” you weren’t able to hide the excitement. feeling all giddy at the thought of finally being confessed to by the guy you had been crushing on since the past year.

“Well...” he started, pausing in between to take out the snacks he got for you. “You’re already aware of how I feel about you so all I’m gonna say is that even if we are quite young, you’re the one I want and if you feel that I’m the one you want then please accept my feelings because you deserve the world and i’m willing to try my best to give you just that” he softly voiced the words he was dying to say.

You smiled and accepted the snacks, your eyes and smile brighter than ever. “I’d love to..I’ve been waiting for this moment myself” you admitted. Ni-ki laughed, light hearted and ecstatic that he finally could hold your hands and you just how he dreamed.

152 notes · View notes

mimssides · 3 years

Text

Never Met You

Chapter 3: Healing

Time will heal their pain, they say. It will not. It is the time they give themselves to heal which will make them feel better. Be patient. Be understanding.

More than two weeks had gone by since Green had joined the court. He had been trained, sworn the oath of secrecy to not tell whatever he heard while he was with the king and was now steadily by His Majesty’s side.

Janus had gotten used to it far quicker than he had expected. Green was louder and chattier than the other guards were with him. He soon had also begun to talk with the king, exchanging little comments about how he felt and why he wanted to do things the way he had them done. Yet whenever other people where around or Green had to escort Logan from place to place, the guard became still and observant. Sometimes, Janus even believed that he noticed things quicker than Janus himself did. And he had a magical eye to help him with that while Green had nothing of the sorts.

“Life doesn’t allow for you to be inattentive. I cannot allow myself to miss any detail no matter how unimportant it seems. We will only know afterwards which one has been crucial and which one was not, so everything is important right now,” had Green’s explanation been and Janus felt many feelings about this very statement.

Yet today this was not one of his worries. Today he was focused on making sure that everything was perfect for Roman’s arrival. The kitchen was instructed to cook his favourite meals, the prince’s wing had been cleaned a decorated to the t and Janus had most likely not slept more than three hours in the last three nights. So, Janus was feeling perfect.

“Are you sure you want me to be there during their arrival?” Green asked as he and Janus walked towards the foyer where Logan was already waiting for Roman to arrive. “His Royal Highness’s guard will be there and he is said to be more than enough protection for both of them.”

Janus shot Green a look. Green did not want to meet Roman. Janus had realized that soon after the return had been discussed and he had reacted rather subdued to the whole conversation. Janus had tried to gauge what issue Green was having but the man’s lips were sealed about the topic except that he had sworn that he had no ill intent against the prince. It was enough reassurance for Janus at the moment and he really had no nerves to deal with Green’s insecurities right now. He just wanted to see Roman.

“One more word of you not attending,” Janus hissed sharply and watched as Green’s eyes go wide, “and I will have you thrown into the dungeons and let them pull out every single hair on your body one by one. I’m I clear enough for you?”

“Yes, sir.”

Janus grunted and Green opened the door for him to enter the foyer. Quickly both found their respective places by the king’s side, Janus to Logan’s right and Green to Logan’s left by the wall. Logan greeted them both leisurely and let his eyes linger a little longer on Green who shot a few quick glances towards Janus. Then for a moment their eyes met. Logan nodded and turned his attention towards Janus.

Subtly, because subtility was one of the things Logan had had to learn from Janus when he started taking over more important functions in court, Logan tapped against Janus’s sleeve and glimpsed at his friend. Janus glimpsed back and lifted his chin a bit in defiance.

“I don’t think that Roman will be too happy to see that you have overworked yourself,” Logan whispered barely moving his lips.

Janus scrunched his nose a little and retorted just as quietly: “The situation is tense. I cannot make a mistake even if it upsets the prince. You know I am still more than capable to do my work.”

“I don’t doubt it.”

The but hung between them in the air and both knew it would be coming next as Logan added: “But Roman does not just care about how well you are able to do your work. He is worried about you as well. And I am the one who will never hear the end of it if he thinks I made you work too much.”

Janus didn’t say anything to that and Logan took it as a small win. Sometimes an argument with Janus was better set aside than completely won and this was one of those instances. Besides, Roman’s arrival was finally announced and they didn’t have time left to get into the topic any further.

There was bustling behind the door, muffled voices and finally the doors were opened. Marching steps could be heard as Roman Thea walked inside. He was wearing a dark red jacket with golden ornaments and a blood red sash, black pants and shoes, his usual attire. Logan felt a weight fall from his chest and watched his old friend approach with a smile. Roman returned it lightly and whispered something over his shoulder to Virgil, who was following him like a shadow.

“Salutations Roman. I hope your journey has been enjoyable and without incidences,” Logan greeted when Roman had walked up four feet in front of him.

A smile, brilliant and shining, took over Roman’s face and he greeted with a little bow and flourish: “Good day to you too, Your Majesty! My journey has been very pleasant but I am happy to be home again even if the circumstances are quite dire.”

“Indeed.”

Logan felt his stomach turn once more, suppressed the urge to groan and instead turned halfway to the door leading further into the castle. Elegantly, he pointed towards the portal and eyed Roman for a second.

“Would you like to continue this conversation in a more private setting?” Logan said and hoped Roman would accept quickly.

Luck seemed to be on his side as Roman gave a quick nod and took his usual place between Logan and Janus with Virgil shadowing him silently. Well, almost silently. When the four men began to walk towards the portal Virgil abruptly stopped both Roman and Logan from walking by holding them back by their shoulders. Both stopped rapidly and looked into the direction where Virgil was glaring at.

“Who is that?”

Virgil’s deep voice resonated in their ears, his stunning aura keeping all of them in place. The only one to react was the man who Virgil was talking about. Green was looking right up to Virgil. He had come closer to walk besides Logan but now had stopped a good few feet away from the king.

“This would be my personal guard, Green,” Logan finally said and pushed Virgil’s hand off his shoulder.

Logan decidedly dodged Virgil’s glare and squared his shoulders. With a fluid motion he asked Green to step closer. Green complied and lowered his gaze the moment Roman made step forwards to see him better. Green’s hands were clenched tightly and if the others could have seen his face, they would have noticed how he had pressed his lips together. But they didn’t and that was how he wanted it to stay.

“Since when do you have a personal guard?” Roman asked sceptically.

“Royal Advisor Celer has long since your departure insisted on me getting one and now, I found a fitting candidate,” Logan said smoothly, defiantly sidestepped Virgil and approached Green. “Green has proven to be attentive, observant and trustworthy. The Royal Advisor himself can attest to it.”

Logan now was standing to Green’s right, his left hand placed nonchalantly on his shoulder. But as nonchalantly as it looked as much did it take the breath out of Green’s lungs. As much did it make his eyes sting. As much did it strengthen the yearning in his chest. And yet there was nothing for him to do.

“Janus? You approved of this?” Roman said and turned to look at the smaller man.

“What on earth, Celer! This guy could be from Ragan’s secret forces as far as we know! What were you thinking?!”

Janus snapped back viciously as Virgil accused him of paying too little attention to their newest member to court. Logan watched them and crossed his arms with a raised eyebrow. Sometimes their quarrelsome relationship was quite entertaining to watch but today he felt differently about it. He just wanted to sit down and move on with their discussion, even if it meant for the day to simply pass. Life was tiresome at the moment.

“It might be a good idea to move this discussion out of the public ear, Your Majesty. Shall I break the conflict apart?”

Logan looked to the side. Green was not looking up to him, eyes still trained on the floor. But there was something in the way he slightly tilted his head to the side, that made it obvious to Logan that he was on high alert. That made him aware of how much Green feared for someone to be listening into their conversation.

“I do not think it to be wise for you to get in between them,” Logan said and watched the three argue. “It would be better if I tell them to stop.”

“You don’t need to shield me, Your Majesty. I am your guard and here to help you with whatever you wish. And if it means that the poncho pole will fight me, I will accept my fate gracefully.”

Why exactly that nick name was so funny to Logan he did not know. He also didn’t know when the last time had been that someone had made him laugh so strongly that his tummy pleasantly hurt and he had trouble to get air. What he did know though was that he was glad to have Green by his side, who lightly supported him as he was wheezing with laughter.

Logan needed a few moments before he could breathe normally again. He felt shaky and the hand Green offered him was very appreciated. Hastily, he caught Green’s look and found unfiltered concern and a tiny smile in his face. It made Logan try to compose himself and he turned fully towards Green away from the others.

Over Logan’s shoulder Green looked to Janus. He had dropped his fight with Virgil the second Logan had begun to laugh. He had known his king for over a decade now, and what he was seeing was a completely stressed-out Logan. And it needed a lot for Logan to actually show signs of his state.

“I propose we go to the prepared room in His Majesty’s quarters? Do you agree Royal Advisor Celer?” Green said swiftly.

Janus simply nodded. Both Roman and Virgil went quiet as well and followed as Janus took the lead and guided them towards the king’s quarters. Virgil and Green were flanking Roman and Logan in between them and observed their surroundings with sharp eyes. Guards were following behind as an escort but neither of the personally chosen guards trusted their abilities as much as they trusted their own. Their highest priority was the safety of their prince and king and their resolve to ensure that was far higher than those of the usual guards.

They arrived at the room, Janus opened the door and entered to make sure it was as he had requested it to be. After the short check, Roman and Logan followed and Logan took a seat on the divan. Roman placed himself on the armchair next to him, while Janus remained standing. Green and Virgil, after telling the guards to stay on lookout on the outside, took a place on each side of the door and watched as the royals and the advisor exchanged several glances.

Logan sighed and massaged his temples as he finally broke the silence and spoke up: “Please excuse my outburst. I – I don’t know how to explain it.”

Janus shook his head and stemmed his hands on his hips.

“You are running on your last leg, Logan,” Janus said for Logan. “We had three new conflicts at the boarders to Ragan in the last five days and it’s only a question of time until there are the first casualties. I know you do not want to let it go so far, but as a military man yourself you must understand that we have to prepare for a battle, don’t you? I do not see how we are going to talk this out with King George.”

“Three in the last five days? I didn’t hear any of this!” Roman said and got up from the armchair while gesticulating towards Janus.

“We decided to keep quiet about it as long as no one got seriously hurt. We weren’t sure if the situation would grow more tense and wanted to prevent an unnecessary panic from spreading. But now...”

“You expect. You actually expect a war to break out? Over a few villages and some disagreements over the alliance talks with Sictes and Kainen?”

“George is a petty man,” Janus snarled at Roman’s disbelieve. “And he had it out for us in ages. He had it out for you too, Roman. I remember what he said at -”

“We are over this, Jan! You have asked him and he didn’t lie that he didn’t know anything about the – the assassination. He wasn’t responsible for this.”

“That doesn’t mean he didn’t have anything to do with it! He could have phrased it in a way that I couldn’t catch the lie! He might have been the one to- to do this to you!”

“Stop it you two! This isn’t leading us anywhere. We are not to think about personal grievances but about our people! And I need you to realize that it’s not our people King George wants to fare war against. He specifically stated that my methods as well as my court are not to his liking and he wants to claim the villages close to the boarder to “save” them from our politics. If we can reach a compromise with him, all of this might be avoided.”

Logan’s voice was firm but tired. Both Roman and Janus looked down to him. His hands were folded in his lap and his head hung low, completely unlike the otherwise always confident but kind demeanour he would display. Smoothly, Janus sat down next to him, made sure to don’t catch him off guard when he put his hand on his back.

“Logan, he will not listen to you. He never wanted to listen to you since the Coronation,” Janus said sadly and Logan’s shoulders sunk deeper.

Seeing Logan shrink down like this, awakened an old and heavy anger in Roman. It flared through his mind and loosened his lips.

“It’s been eight years! How can he still be hung up on this?!”

“Because he is elitist and believes that you are the only one who is supposed sitting on the thrown!” Janus retorted angrily.

“Maybe we should consider...”

Logan had taken off the crown and was looking at its golden shimmer. His thumb was running along the simple decorations and the few blue sapphires imbedded in the metal. Roman had given the crown in commission for him, so he didn’t have to wear the crown of the late King or Queen. Logan had thought it to be quite excessive to have a new crown made for him but in the current situation he found himself missing it already. But he would sacrifice whatever necessary if it meant that his people would be spared from a war.

“I don’t want the crown, Logan.”

But then of course, there was that. Logan looked up to Roman and sighed. He nodded dismissively. The position and status he took had not only come because he was capable but also because Roman couldn’t bear the weight on his shoulders. It had taken him years to admit it and find the courage to present him as the King of Theana.

“I didn’t think of it as stepping back completely,” Logan said and looked to the side. “It would only be a representative measure. You as the official king and I as the acting regent. He accepted me before you completely denied the throne, so it might be a viable solution.”

“NO!”

***

█████ was pacing along the hall. His mind was restless and he could feel Janus’s eyes on him. Of course, Janus’s eyes would be on him now. Roman would finally return and █████ was desperate to see him again. He just wanted to be sure that he indeed was alright and that everting had truly worked out as well as everyone had claimed. The reports he had gotten from the messengers were far too stellar for his taste to be true; Roman having befriended the cold-blooded Queen and even getting her to watch a play with him, just sounded too farfetched to not be a lie.

“████ ███████,” a servant called form the door and both █████ and Janus turned towards them, “the Crown Prince has arrived and will be here shortly.”

It wasn’t a second that █████ needed to walk towards the door and be on his way to meet his ███████.

Janus was following him like a shadow and shot him a chiding look as he rushed past the worried servants, to which █████ simply retorted: “Fuck the protocol. I just need to know that he’s fine.”

With that Janus let it slide and let one of the servants go and get Logan as soon as possible. In silence they continued walking down the halls and eventually reached the foyer to the courtyard, which was promptly opened.

With proud and loud steps Roman entered. A broad smile was plastered over his face, his eyes were shining and immediately met █████’s gaze. With a high held head and a skip in his step Roman steered towards his ███████ and greeted with a booming voice: “Good day to you █████! It is a joy to be home again!”

█████ froze. Something fell in his chest as his ███████ came closer, eyes still on him and already recognizing and acknowledging the fear in his eyes. Because Roman was loud. Roman’s posture was straight and proud. Roman’s voice was voluminous and strong. Roman’s eyes were clear and determined.

Roman was like he had been before and for once it didn’t seem to be a dream or a nightmare.

There was no moment for █████ to think about it any longer as Roman had reached him and pulled him into a firm hug. The whole room stopped breathing. They watched as their ████ melted into Roman’s arms, as Roman cradled him and held his ███████ close.

Quiet words were spoken, but no one but the ████████ could hear them. No one but them needed to know of them. Something was mended and they both knew that a new time had come for them.

Swift steps in synchronic pace and they parted. █████ was smiling widely with a common mad glint glimmering in his eyes as Roman smiled back with his head held high and mighty. Power was shining underneath their skins, energy at the tips of their fingers. Every person in the room could feel it and more than a few guards were close to start shivering.

But for one person who was standing slightly in the back to Roman’s right side. █████ noticed them only now and his brows furrowed at their sight. The person was tall and the lower half of their face and upper body hidden beneath a shawl and a loose poncho. A batch of light brown hair was falling over one side of their face and █████ found himself intrigued.

“Who have you yet to introduce me to, Roman?” █████ asked and lightly pointed with his chin towards the figure in the back.

Roman’s eyes lit up and with a flourish he twirled around and waved for the figure to walk towards them. They promptly complied and approached. Their movement was near silent and their presence almost non-existent. What a fascinating person.

The ████████ looked at each other and █████ recognized Roman’s passion within a blink and began to smirk even before Roman explained: “This is Virgil Tessaro! We met on my way to Queen Caroline and he has proven to be quite an impressive companion. A perfect guard even.”

“One moment please!” Janus intercepted and wrestled his way between █████ and Roman.

With a chuckle █████ stepped back and watched Janus tell Roman off for simply having a stranger come into the castle and having the preposterous idea of having him become his personal guard. Roman took it with a smirk and told him that he could do as he pleased since he was the Crown Prince. They bickered more but █████ paid it no mind as Logan finally entered the foyer and steered towards him. Quietly Logan took his place to █████’s left and eyed the spectacle in front of them. Most people would have been surprised how seemingly unaffected Logan was but █████ could see the deepening of the ceases between his brows and the way how he slightly pressed his lips together as he was looking at Roman.

“You can tell me outright if you want me to go, gold eye.”

Virgil had straightened his posture and most likely crossed his arms under his poncho. The rest of the servants had gotten death silent the second he had talked back to Janus and even dared to call attention to his magical eye.

Janus pursed his lips and clenched and unclenched his fists several times before he raised his voice with a cutting edge and told him: “I forbid you to talk to me in such a tone! I am a high-ranking member of the Theanian Court and deserve to be treated with respect!”

“Aha,” Virgil deadpanned with raised eyebrows, “I’m not Theanian though and your court interests me not.”

“One more reason for you to leave!” Janus cried.

Nothing of Janus’s words seemed to be able to bother Virgil in the slightest. Instead, he turned around and looked to Roman. Curiously, █████ observed the shift in Roman’s amused expression to something softer. He definitely needed to have a word about that with Roman at some point in time.

“Do you wish for me to leave?” Virgil asked Roman dutifully.

Roman stepped close to Virgil and put his hand on his upper arm. This time even Logan raised his eyebrows and Janus looked like he would soon collapse on the floor in anger. But Roman paid them no mind. He smiled at Virgil and shook his head.

“No, I do not wish for you to leave. I want you to stay.”

Virgil bowed his head. Turned to look back down at Janus. Raised his eyebrows at him and shrugged.

“I guess you have to accept that, since you have to listen to him.”

It took them ten minutes to stop Janus from trying to murder Virgil in the foyer. The whole thing only calmed down, when Roman himself pulled Janus to the side and exchanged a few hushed and possibly very dramatic and sappy words with the Royal Advisor.

█████ was laughing through the whole ordeal and Logan sent for the servants to fetch Roman’s luggage as well as the possessions Virgil had brought with him. Quietly Logan spoke with Virgil after that, made sure he knew what he was getting into and the group finally left the foyer and went into a smaller conference room where they could privately talk for a while without being observed by all the guards. On their way Virgil and Janus were already bickering again, the former never quite letting Roman out of sight and constantly scanning the area for any potential dangers.

Walking in between the █████, Logan observed the behaviour of the new court member and side eyed Roman for a moment. The Crown Prince noticed and shot him a curious look.

“What do you want to say, Advisor Rayne?” Roman said with a teasing smile.

Logan looked once more back to Virgil before he answered: “There is a story behind you and this man. And you will have to tell us about it, Your Royal Highness.”

“Like you have to tell us about what is hanging on this necklace I have never seen you wear in the whole time since you are here?”

It was a good thing that blushing made no noise, otherwise the whole castle would have known that Logan had turned rather red. It didn’t help that █████ snickered and put his arm around his waist as Logan’s cheeks turned darker by the second. Roman laughed lightly as well and for once Logan decided to let it pass.

Because there was no black. For the first time Logan saw Roman wearing no black since he had joined the court. For the first time since the King and Queen’s assassination Roman was not wearing black but white.

***

Roman’s voice died. Janus and Logan looked to the door. Virgil stared to Green next to him. And Green spoke.

“You cannot let him have this! You cannot stand down, just because he threatens you! He will see it as a sign of weakness and will try to blackmail us even more! You are better than him, you don’t need to play his game to beat him! You are Theana’s King without doubt! No one but you can lead this kingdom as well as you do and you shall pride yourself with it and show him what you are capable of!”

Heavy silence hung in the air. A moment passed and another one. Janus watched Green’s passionate expression drain away and observed dread taking its place. Hollowly he put his hand over his mouth and stared at Logan in horror. Subtly, Janus glanced to Logan who looked like he was holding his breath. He couldn’t focus on him though as Roman completely turned towards Green and caught the guard’s gaze.

“You are speaking out of line,” Roman said and Green visibly pressed his hands closer against his lips. “You are not allowed to take part in our conversations if not asked to directly or address your king so casually.”

Roman held his chin high and his lips were pursed. Janus knew that look well enough and put his hand on Logan’s shoulder. Beneath his shawl Virgil began to grin.

“But by the gods, you’re totally right! Logan is so much more capable of ruling than I could ever be! His planning is succinct and well thought out and he looks stunning in a crown,” Roman said and shot Logan a teasing look over the shoulder.

Logan furrowed his brows in a chiding manner and told Roman: “Me looking good in a crown has nothing to do with anything you have been talking about.”

“I disagree.”

This time Green and Roman looked at each other and fell both silent. Roman raised an eyebrow and Green looked to the floor. Roman looked Green over. He knew nothing of this man, not even his full name. He didn’t know what story laid behind this stranger with the wavy hair and weird moustache. He didn’t know how he happened to become Logan’s first personal guard ever. The first one for whom Logan stepped over his own pride and accepted help from.

Automatically, Roman’s eyes darted over to Virgil. He looked into the deep blue and remembered the defiant way he had fought off the hooligans who had tried to hurt those sheep. He hadn’t even known the owner nor been tasked with taking care of the animals but had still fought for them. It had stopped his carriage. It had caused their first fateful meeting.

With a little huff Roman put on a smile and turned back around to Logan and Janus. Janus’s look told him exactly how he felt about this coincidence and Logan’s eyes were still set on Green. Roman could not help himself but chuckle.

“I never met this man but I know there is a story behind him and you will have to tell me about it, Your Majesty,” Roman said in a slightly teasing but not unkind tone.

Unease settled over the group. Logan turned his attention back on the prince and Janus kept an eye on Green. He had tried to hide it before, but when Roman had begun to call him out on his intolerable behaviour and Green had pressed his hands over his mouth Janus had noted that Green had started to smile. He had known that Roman would not be mad at him and Janus had a lot to consider now.

But it had to wait for the moment. Now they had to finish this discussion.

“A talk will be had,” Logan said and placed the crown back on his head. “But everything has its time. Now you and Virgil should go and rest for a bit. I will have an official meeting tomorrow with the military council where we will go into detail. Until then I would ask you two to rest after your long journey. Janus, please make their stay as pleasant as possible.”

Janus blinked. He still had his duties to fulfil and he couldn’t just go off with Roman and Virgil and have a free day with them.

Just when he was ready to talk back Logan leaned towards him and said quietly: “I am not the only one on their last leg, so to speak. Take a break. I have at least slept last night. Green will accompany me for the rest of the day.”

A single nod and Logan got up. He walked to the door and Green opened it for him even though no one but Janus had heard what Logan had just said. One last time Logan looked over his shoulder to Roman and lastly to Virgil.

“Good luck with them. Try to keep them from planning another masquerade ball,” Logan joked.

Under his shawl Virgil grinned and gave Logan a little wink. Next the door closed behind Logan and after a moment Virgil walked up to Roman and put his hand on the small of his back, as he led him over to the divan and waited for him to sit down. Roman did so and Virgil lowered himself to the ground in front of both Roman and Janus.

“Still unable to sit correctly on a proper piece of furniture?” Janus teased tiredly and leaned against Roman’s side.

Janus almost let out a pleased gasp when Virgil put his hand on his knee and Roman draped his arm around his shoulder. Their presence and warmth had grown on him over the years. Roman had been a constant in all of his life but only thanks to Virgil’s presence they had finally developed the dynamic and relationship they shared now. They had needed something new. Roman had needed something new. And Virgil had brought it.

“Is Green the something new for Lo?” Roman asked as if he had read Janus’s mind.

Janus sighed and buried his head in Roman’s shoulder. He felt their surprise in the way Roman’s hand on his back tightened and in the soft strokes Virgil brushed over his knees.

“I don’t know.”

Roman and Virgil shared a look. Virgil got up and closed the blinds by the window. Janus’s recognised the small rustling of Virgil’s shawl being removed.

“Talk Celer. It seems we need to know more about this man,” Virgil said seriously.

Janus sighed and pulled his face away from Roman’s neck. With pursed lips he looked up to Virgil standing in front of him. His scarred face was stern. Janus’s eye lit up in gold and he found himself telling his two partners about this strange man, who had entered his and Logan’s lives over two weeks ago.

___

Link for AO3, Taglist, Masterlist, and next Chapters are in my first reblog!

#intrulogical #anaroceit #remus sanders #logan sanders #janus sanders #roman sanders #virgil sanders #scars tw #Never Met You #fantasy au #eir writes #please reblog

14 notes · View notes

pilot-boi · 4 years

Text

Crushing Hard

Jaune liked bars for the atmosphere, not for the alcohol. He couldn't drink after all. But sometimes the atmosphere wasn't exactly the safest. And somehow he always seemed to find the ones that weren't safe. And Ren couldn't always come to his rescue.

So if someone else swooped in to rescue him, like an avenging angle armed with a beer stein... Well he was a romantic. How could his heart hope to fight such a fairy tale moment?

He was having a stroke. Or a heart attack. This is what dying was like, right?

AO3 LINK

“You guys go on ahead,” Jaune said. “I’m going to take a breather.”

“At a bar?” Oscar asked, glancing back and forth between Jaune and the lopsided bar. “You can’t even drink.”

“He likes the atmosphere,” Ren said, pushing Oscar along. “We’ll catch up with you later.”

Jaune waved goodbye as the rest of his crew walked down the faintly lit street. They’d stopped on this small planet to get supplies and see the sights. It was nice, but they’d been walking for a few hours now, and Jaune was getting tired. None of the rest of the crew got exhausted as easily, but Jaune was human, and needed to rest his feet.

He also liked being alone sometimes. Jaune loved his crew. He and Ren had been on this adventure for nearly a year now. But he liked being by himself. Sometimes that was just spending a few minutes in a bar, or taking a pod out into space to look at the stars. Being alone, with just him and his thoughts was nice.

The bar was a hole-in-the-wall kind of place. Old lanterns hung from the ceiling, and the place was made out of ancient wood, giving the whole place a warm, cozy feel. The floor was sticky, and every piece of furniture was chipped and stained.

The run-down look only added to the charm. It was obvious someone cared about this place, even if they couldn’t afford to keep up with renovations.

Jaune coughed as he inhaled some sort of smoke. The air was thick with it, but bearable once he got used to it. He pulled his jacket up to his mouth and walked over to the bar, taking a seat on a very creaky stool.

“Can I get some water?” he asked, lowering his makeshift mask.

The bartender raised their eyebrow at him but complied. Taking the glass of water, he started nursing it while looking around at the other patrons. It seemed to be mostly filled with regulars, all either drinking or smoking. Lively music played from several speakers hanging from the walls, and a handful of patrons danced together on a small stage.

As Jaune was scanning the bar, he noticed a woman standing near the back in the shadows. He couldn’t make out any of her features, but she stood in a way that indicated she definitely wasn’t one of the customers. Much too attentive and watchful. Totally a bouncer.

She looked his way, and he quickly looked back at his water.

“So what brings you around these parts?” the bartender asked, making light conversation.

“Just restocking our ship. Seeing the sights,” Jaune answered. Something about the bartender didn’t sit well with him.

“Oh? You here with others?”

“Uh, yeah,” Jaune was starting to wish he’d held out a little longer until they’d gotten to a nicer part of town. “Got a Graeldur with me. Big guy. Very scary.”

“I’m sure he is,” the bartender said, laughing jovially. “But you’ve got nothing to worry about here. Nikos-” he jerked his thumb to the woman Jaune had noticed earlier- “has got her eye on the place.”

Jaune looked back at the bouncer. She wasn’t watching him anymore. Instead, her eyes were fixed on a group of loud men who had just entered the bar.

“Junior! Get a round for me and the guys!” The leader of the group roared at the bartender. “The night is ours!”

The leader, a big Velm with a scruff of rusty red hair, sat down on the stool next to Jaune, causing his seat to creak and bend under his weight. They were clearly already drunk, the smell of beer and sweat saturating the air around them.��

Jaune felt miniscule next to them, his head reaching the shortest one’s elbow. He shrunk in on himself, attempting to go unnoticed by the newcomers.

There went Jaune’s quiet moment alone.

Junior handed out huge steins of beer to the cheers of the group. Jaune was nearly pushed off his stool as the leader raised his glass in the air. Scrambling to not fall onto the floor, he accidentally grabbed the man’s shirt.

He managed to stay upright, but at what cost?

The large man looked down at Jaune, who quickly took his hands off of his shirt and back onto the bar. If Jaune didn’t make eye contact, then it wasn’t a big deal. If Jaune just quietly slipped out of here then they wouldn’t care. If Jaune just…

The man grabbed his shoulders, forcing him to look at him. “What's your problem?” he asked, voice half-slurred. His breath was putrid, smelling like beer, and several other things Jaune didn’t want to think about. His lizard-like slitted pupils were blown wide with alcohol, but the measure of focus in them didn’t bode well for Jaune.

“I was just leav- ” Jaune tried to say, but was interrupted by the man taking a deep, long sniff, his eyes narrowing on Jaune.

“Gret,” he muttered. “You smell like a fuckin’ gret.”

“It must just be the atmosphere,” Jaune chuckled anxiously, trying not to make eye contact. “There are a lot of different aliens around here, I’m sure you’re just-”

“I know what I smelled, gret,” the man snorted. “Don'tchu try’n tell me what I’m smellin’.”

Before Jaune could say anything else, the man stood and slammed him against the wall. Jaune gasped, all the air leaving his lungs. “We don’t want your kind ‘round here,” he snarled, some spit flying out of his mouth and landing on Jaune’s face. It felt sticky, and Jaune would have gagged at the smell if he weren’t so focused on getting air back in his lungs.

“Get him!”

“Kick his ass, Cardin!”

“Show that gret what we think of his kind!”

Jaune closed his eyes, bracing for whatever came next. There was a moment, and then the hand holding him to the wall disappeared, letting him fall to the ground. Jaune’s eyes flew open to see the bouncer on top of the man’s shoulders, her legs choking him out and her one cyborg arm slamming into his head.

Flaming red hair flew as the man squealed and struggled, attempting to shake Nikos off. She was grinning, a fierce light in her brilliant green eyes. The rest of his gang seemed stunned into silence for a moment, then began cheering their boss on.

“Show that bitch who’s boss!” One of them cheered, standing up. As the two passed the bar, Nikos snatched up one of the steins and flung it at the man. It hit his skull with a dull thunk and he was down. The rest of them thought better about trying the same thing.

Jaune was still stunned. He couldn’t move. His breath had returned, but he was still struggling to breathe. Nikos caught his eyes, flashing him a grin that made his heart stutter.

What the fuck was going on?

Nikos had grabbed another stein and was using it as a bludgeoning weapon, bashing against the leader’s thick skull and holding on with only her legs. He was trying desperately to pull her off, but having a thick glass beer stein slammed against his head was clearly having an effect on his motor functions.

Eventually they got close enough to the wall that Nikos kicked off him, forcing his head to slam into the hard wooden surface.

He fell to the ground.

The rest of his gang seemed unsure of what to do. They glanced at each other, and then back at their boss. He had just been defeated by a woman not even half his size. In a panic, they all got up and ran out, two of them dragging their boss by his arms.

“Good work, Nikos,” Junior said, smiling cheerfully. He hadn’t even looked up from cleaning the glass in his hands.

She flashed him another grin, striding over to where Jaune was still slumped on the ground.

“Are you okay? He slammed you very hard there.” She offered him her biological hand with a smile.

“I- I’m good,” Jaune stammered, missing her hand once before finally getting a hold on it. It was rough and calloused around his own. She hoisted him to his feet.

“Those guys are horrible,” she said. “They’re in here all the time, always causing a ruckus. I’ve been waiting for a moment to beat them up. Thank you for the excuse.”

“You’re welcome?” Maybe he had hit his head a little harder than he first thought because things were starting to waver. He swayed a little, the lights bright.

“You don’t look okay,” Nikos said, helping him sit at one of the tables. “Stay here, I’ll get you some ice. You with anyone?”

“No I’m single,” Jaune was saying before he had time to screen his words. From behind the bar, Junior gave him a discerning look, but thank the gods Nikos didn’t seem to notice.

“M-my friends,” Jaune managed to stutter, after a moment of thinking of what she actually meant. “They’re not here though.”

“Okay. I’ll stay with you until they come back, then. Let me run into the back and get that ice, though.” Her smile was so bright. How was that possible for someone to look that happy after beating the absolute shit out of someone three times as big as them?

And why was his face feeling so warm every time she looked at him? His hands were shaking as he put them up to his forehead. He felt warm. Was he coming down with something? He couldn’t be. He was fine earlier.

Nikos returned with ice, which he eagerly pressed against his head. “Thanks,” he said, leaning back in his chair.

She sat next to him, leaning on the table with her elbow and her cheek cupped in her hand. Now that things had calmed down, he noticed that one of her eyes- along with her left arm- was robotic.

She noticed him staring. “You’ve never seen a cyborg before?”

“No! No, I have! I just… I just didn’t notice with all the fighting going on. You have a good… arm.”

Why the fuck did he say that?

She laughed, “Thanks? I lost it in an accident when I was younger. Wild animal attacked, but at least I got this arm and eye out of it.”

Silence fell between them. It felt natural, though. Almost like the silence you could share with someone you had known forever. Nikos signaled the bartender, “Can I get you something to drink?”

“Oh, I don’t drink,” Jaune said.

She arched an eyebrow at him. “But you’re in a bar?”

“I like the atmosphere.”

“But you don’t drink.”

“It, uh, it’ll kill me,” Jaune said, staring at his hands. “Alcohol. It’s toxic to me.”

“You get that from your other parent?”

Jaune nodded, wincing slightly.

“Don’t worry,” Nikos waved him off. “We aren’t all bigots like them. Having parents of different species is totally normal. This part of town is just… very backwards is all.”

“Yeah,” Jaune said, smiling. Why was he smiling? “I noticed.”

She laughed. Wow, she had a nice laugh. “Junior, can I have my usual and a glass of water for him?”

The bartender brought them each a drink. Water for Jaune, and some dark liquid for Nikos that smelled like citrus.

“Tea,” she explained, noticing Jaune’s quizzical expression. “I can’t drink on the job.”

“Makes sense.” He took a deep drink before realizing he’d never introduced himself. He choked on his water, coughing before getting out, “Oh shit, I’m Jaune by the way.”

“Pyrrha,” she said. “Pyrrha Nikos.” She extended her hand for a handshake. Jaune almost hesitated before taking it.

Pyrrha was a fantastic name.

“So what do you do?” she asked. “Other than getting beat up by purists.”

“Me and my crew do odd-jobs,” Jaune began. “Transports, saving people, sometimes pick-up work on planets we land on. Whatever comes our way.”

Pyrrha sighed and took a sip of her tea. “Wish I could do that,” she muttered. “I’ve been stuck on this stupid planet for years now. Same job. Same people. Day after day.”

“You could come with us,” Jaune said out of nowhere, surprising even himself. Why did he say that? He should talk to Ren first. Or Nora. He couldn’t just make decisions for the whole crew.

Pyrrha blinked in surprise before laughing, “Really? You barely know me.”

“Yeah, but you… uh… fight good,” Jaune stammered, looking for a convincing argument. “And we don’t have much muscle on board. We transport some valuable stuff sometimes. We could use a bodyguard.”

Pyrrha traced the edge of her glass with a finger. She seemed torn about something. He could practically see her fighting with herself before she looked up at him. “How do you feel about dogs?”

Jaune grinned. “I love dogs,” he said. “I’ve got a Dulcosi myself. Sweetest pup you’ll ever meet.”

The tension went out of Pyrrha’s shoulders. “Wait here.”

She stood up quickly and rushed up the stairs in the back. A few minutes later, she returned carrying a small golden dog in her arms. Three of the dog's legs were replaced with red metal cyborg replacements, and one of his eyes and part of his head was plated with metal.

“This is Milo!” Pyrrha sat down, scooting back slightly farther away from Jaune. The dog looked nervous, curling into Pyrrha and hiding his face in the crook of her arm. “He’s a little shy, but he is so sweet.”

“It’s okay, boy,” Jaune said, slowly extending his hand towards the puppy. Milo glanced at the strange hand and slowly removed his head from under Pyrrha’s arm. “That’s it. I’m nice, see? Nice Jaune.”

Pyrrha watched with wide eyes as Milo leaned in to sniff Jaune’s hand. He stayed still as the puppy inspected his hand and then began to lick it gently. Jaune giggled as Milo nudged his hand, letting him pet his head.

“He never warms up to anyone this fast,” Pyrrha said, clearly shocked.

“Maybe he smells Petey,” Jaune said. “She’s, uh, my Dulcosi.”

Pyrrha shook her head, “Milo was abused on the streets by other dogs and put into a fighting ring before I rescued him. He’s usually petrified around other people. He must really like you.”

“Guess it’s just my natural charm,” Jaune grinned, scratching behind Milo’s ear.

Pyrrha chuckled, and Jaune’s heart flipped again. Why did it keep doing that?

At that moment, Ren, Nora, and Oscar walked into the bar, looking around anxiously for Jaune. Once they spotted him, they all rushed towards him.

“This gang passed us and they said something about beating up a, uh, gret.” Ren coughed after saying the slur. “Are you okay? What happened?” Ren looked Jaune over, trying to find any sign of injuries from a fight.

“I’m fine,” Jaune shrugged him off. “Pyrrha saved me.”

Pyrrha waved. “Hello!” she said, smiling and making Jaune’s face feel warm again.

Nora noticed and started grinning. “Oh, did she?”

“Uh, guys, can we talk? Alone,” he added apologetically to Pyrrha.

“Talk things out with your crew.” She stood, gathering Milo into her arms. “It was nice meeting you, Jaune.” She patted his arm, every nerve in that spot screaming at him.

“Yeah, you too,” Jaune said, his voice breaking a little.

The moment she was out of earshot, he whipped around to Ren. “Can she come with us? Also my heart is pounding, my face feels hot, and I feel like every nerve in my body is alive. Am I coming down with something?”

Oscar snorted, “As your doctor, I can assure you, you are not.”

“Are you sure? Double check,” Jaune begged, but Nora punched his arm. Ouch.

“What was that about Pyrrha joining?” Ren interrupted.

“Oh, yeah! We don’t have much protection around the Berry, and no offense; you’re tough but you couldn’t hurt a fly.”

Ren huffed, but didn’t dispute this.

“So I was thinking she could join us. She took down two guys three times her size, and looked like she was having the time of her life doing it. Also… she’s nice. And she has a dog.”

Ren let out a low chuckle. “Alright,” he said, shaking his head. “You’re sure those are the only reasons you want her to join?”

Jaune narrowed his eyes. “Yes? What else would there be?”

Nora burst out laughing, walking away holding her stomach, “Oh wow.”

Oscar shook his head, smiling at Jaune. “Don’t worry, you’ll figure it out.”

Figure out what?! What was there to figure out?!

Continuing to narrow his eyes at his so-called friends, Jaune got up and walked to where Pyrrha was leaning against the bar, casually chatting with Junior. She stood up straight as he approached. Her eyes looked hopeful, but also reserved. She was ready for him to reject her.

“They said you could come,” Jaune said, smiling reassuringly. Pyrrha lunged forward, pulling Jaune into a tight hug.

“Oh, thank you!” she exclaimed. Jaune was stunned for a second, then hugged her back. “You have no idea what this means to me!” The embrace was over as quickly as it had begun, leaving behind a faint scent of metal and citrus. Jaune blinked. His face felt warm again, but he didn’t mind.

Pyrrha had scooped up Milo from off the bar stool he was sitting on. “I’ll go get my things,” she said, still beaming. “Junior?” The bartender only waved her off, huffing but smiling.

“I’ll find someone else to watch my bar,” he said, chuckling. “Go on now.”

Pyrrha probably would have given the old man a hug too if she hadn’t been holding Milo. Instead, she nodded and smiled at him, and then ran to the back and up the stairs, a spring in her step.

Jaune turned back to face his crew when it suddenly hit him.

Oh fuck.

Pyrrha was cute.

He liked Pyrrha.

He liked Pyrrha a lot.

Ren and Oscar were both smiling knowingly, while Nora was bent over double laughing. Those bastards!

At that moment Pyrrha appeared next to him, a pack slung over her shoulders and Milo in her arms. “I’m ready!”

“Okay!” His voice squeaked like a pubescent 12-year old.

She gave him a weird look.

“Don’t worry about Jaune,” Ren said, holding the door open for her. “He’s just coming to terms with some new developments in his life.”

“Okay?” Pyrrha said, chuckling with confusion. “I don’t know what that means, but sure.” She smiled at Jaune again before practically bouncing out the door.

She needed to stop doing that. Jaune’s heart couldn’t take it.

Everyone left until it was just Jaune bringing up the rear. As he exited the bar, Junior called after him.

“Take care of that girl, you hear me?” the old man called, smiling conspiratorially.

Jaune gave the man a thumbs up.

The trip back to the Berry took no time. Jaune trailed along after everybody, listening to Nora ramble about their adventures and Oscar talk about the ship. He felt like he had just run a marathon, and he was dead last. It didn’t matter who came in first, but he was the last one to see the finish line.

They boarded the Berry. Petey greeted them, climbing all over them in her excitement. Milo froze in Pyrrha’s arms, and she stepped away from the excited dog.

“Maybe we’ll take that introduction slow,” she said.

Ren nodded, ushering Petey into another room.

“This is our home!” Nora said, spinning in a circle with his arms spread wide. “Jaune sometimes leaves his dirty socks ev-” Jaune slapped his hand over Nora’s mouth.

“I keep the Berry nice and clean,” Jaune said, forcing a smile that wished only pain upon Nora. “And my dirty socks go in the laundry, where they belong.”

Nora squirmed out of his grasp. Pyrrha giggled, peering around a corner and letting Milo down onto the floor. Jaune thanked every deity that he could think of that he had cleaned the Berry last week.

“It’s nice,” she said. “Um, weird question. Do you have a room with good ventilation?”

“Yeah, down the hall that way. Why?” Oscar asked.

“It’s right next to Jaune’s room!” Nora exclaimed before Jaune could tackle her down again.

“I make things,” she said. “Sculptures usually, metal working. Just out of spare parts I find. I need a room with good ventilation for the welding fumes.”

“Oh, cool!” Oscar said. “Let me show you around.”

“Jaune would like to go with you!” Nora skipped out of Jaune’s grasp, making her way towards her room. “And I have to go. For other unrelated reasons.” She winked and stuck out her tongue at Jaune before slipping down the hall.

“Come on,” Oscar took Pyrrha’s hand. “Ignore them. We can set you up in the room next to your welding room.”

Jaune was torn between following them and not following them. He ended up just sort of… leaning towards them.

“You’re a mess,” Ren laughed. “Come on, let’s get dinner going.”

Jaune took one last look at Pyrrha’s retreating figure. “Yeah, sure,” he said, hardly paying Ren any attention. He followed Ren slowly.

“You got it bad,” Ren said when they reached their kitchen, pulling down a pot and getting some water boiling. “What’s so special about her?”

Jaune shook his head, taking a seat at the kitchen island, “You should have seen it, dude. I was pinned against the wall, about to have my skull smashed like a pancake.

He waved his hands around vaguely. “There was no way I could have gotten myself out of it. I was ready to get my ass handed to me… and then she just came out of nowhere. It was… angelic.” He sighed, leaning his chin on his hand.

Ren snorted, “Angelic?”

“Avenging angel, angelic. She was choking that brute with her legs, while bashing his brains in with a beer stein. She was having fun too! God… she just destroyed them.” Jaune smiled wistfully, conjuring up the scene again in his mind.

“Hand me that?” Ren gestured to a spoon. “Lucky you. I would have hated to come back to find you a pancake.”

“Me too,” Jaune said, absentmindedly grabbing the spoon and handing it to Ren. “Do… do you think she likes me?”

“Who knows,” Ren said, throwing some pasta into the water. “Just don’t be weird about it, okay?”

“What?” Jaune sat up straight. “I’m not weird. I won’t be weird about it. Why would I be weird about it? I’m never weird about anything.”

Ren only shook his head. “If you say so.”

Pyrrha and Nora walked into the room chatting like they’d been friends for years. Jaune slammed his elbow onto the table, attempting to look casual. “You like your room?”

“It’s great,” Pyrrha said. She sat down next to him, touching his arm. “Honestly, thank you for letting me join your team. It means a lot to me.”

Jaune grinned as he felt his face warm up again. “Ye-yeah, no problem.” He stuttered out, He really needed to get that under control. “Thanks for saving me back there.”

Ren chuckled, continuing to stir the noodles he had put into the pot. “And thanks in advance for all the saving you’ll no doubt have to do in the future. Jaune has a habit of, uh, getting himself into unsavory situations.”

Pyrrha laughed.” I’ll look forward to that then.”

#rwby #jaune arc #pyrrha nikos #arkos #lie ren #nora valkyrie #oscar pine #cardin winchester #junior #mine #my writing #space rwby #crushing hard

26 notes · View notes

audreyandherocs · 3 years

Text

Thea's Cave: Chapter 2

Thea wasn’t sure how long or how far she wandered. Time didn’t have much of a hold on her, going slowly sometimes but on other times very quickly. If it weren’t for the day and night cycle, especially with the threat of mobs with the latter, she wouldn’t be so aware.

It didn’t matter to her as much since she was more focused of learning the world around her. Everything was so familiar yet so different.

She knew the world yes, but this version.Things were similar, like she knew which material was which, but they were different variants. There were different biomes beyond the desert and regular grass biomes. There were different types of wood for each biome and the grass was different looking too!

And the flowers! There were more flowers! Beyond dandelions and poppies! And they could be turned into dye. Not just red and yellow dye either. Blue dye could be acquired from flowers and no longer just lapis lazuli. The flowers had actual functions beyond aesthetics!

Thea wandered and wandered, learning and relearning traits. What aided her tremendously was the crafting book. Every new material added to the secrets it held and it’s whispered to her that there was so much more.

She eventually came across a village and the new wave of sensations took over. So much so, she had to sit down and watch the villagers go on about. Eventually, she had gathered the attention of them and then there was an iron golem that lumbered its way to her.

It stopped in front of her, staring at her, watching Thea wave to it in good gesture before it reached up. Its bulky arm moved to pluck a poppy and extended it to her. Thea smiled at the poppy and golem. It was not long before she was guided to the center of town.

Everything was a whirlwind before the villagers slowly introduced themselves to her. Then she was offered a place to sleep as night blanketed over them. There Thea learned and learned, getting used to living in the world.

“What do you mean enchantments? There’ enchantments now!?” she shrieked in shock and excitement. “That is so scuffed!”

The villagers, the blacksmith and alchemist particularly, nodded as they showed her how she could enchant. The alchemist later showing her his potion stands and Thea short-circuiting with the weight of this new information.

Eventually, she begun to split her time between learning and helping around the village, to being on her own. The desire to be away from people was always there but it was overshadowed with her curiosity of the new world and survival.

She had built herself a small home, a little bits away from the village (mostly because there wasn’t room in the village to begin with) and with each block she placed, she remembered the enjoyment of building. So much so she made a home that was in design compared to the village’s.

But she did not dare stray away from the difference in resources. Deciding to start off slowly with what she was familiar with.

‘One day, I’ll use something new. One day’ she thought to herself as she slept in her pink home, in her wooden home that was fortified with solid cobblestone. ‘but this is just fine.’

As she built, her memories formed a figure that would build alongside her. A man who wore a green and white hat, humming alongside as he told her of his builds. His presence calming yet chaotic that brought a smile to her face. Sometimes, as she walked among the villagers, she thought she would see the man at the edge of her vision but disappear when she turned.

She learned and learned, in the good graces of the village and she felt…settled.

Not at home, no, she knew she would never be at home but she was, settling. Thea slept in her bed, safe in her own base, surrounded with her own things and reminders of her existence. The new clothes she wore were of her own design and with the help of the villagers, she had more of an identity now. Her pets, her wolves and cats, slept around her reassured her she was alive as they radiated life.

Finally feeling the pull of sleep, Thea closed her eyes and was welcomed with darkness. She loved and feared sleeping. She loved it because it was a comfort to rest her body and have a taste of her past existence of existing in the void.

But she also feared it because as each day she lived in this world, she was afraid to leave it and be stuck in the void.

She begun to sink further and further to sleep, edges of old memories seeping into her dream when she heard the bell rung. It mixed with the sound of someone singing as they droned out together to nothingness. The sound of a horn mixed with the sound of the dragon’s roar that it shattered the air and her dreamscape.

Thea’s eyes flew wide open, her body on edge immediately. She leapt out of bed, her body stilling as it strained to focus. Her breath stilled, her heart beating against the forcefully stilled chest. Her ears strained as there was another horn, the bell in the village square ringing.

In the darkness, there was an orange huge to one side and she smelt it. Smoke.

Ice spread throughout her entire body as she ran to her balcony. She looked to the source of the light and Thea widened her eyes, witnessing the village on fire. Panicking, Thea jumped out of the balcony. Her wolves were by her side as she ran to the village, as villagers were huddled in their homes while some were running out of the burning homes.

Thea ran and took out a bucket, grabbing water from the wells and started dumping them wherever she could. The fires were extinguishing but not fast enough as it continued to spread.

She heard grunts and the sound of the golem attacking. She turned just in time to see an arrow fly past her barely. It razed her arm and she hissed, taking a bit of damage. The wolves immediately turned on the instigator and charged, growling.

Thea turned to where the wolves were targeting their anger towards and saw a Villager but not a villager, with its grey like skin and brown clothes. There were banners of its face as they advanced with crossbows.

“Pillagers” whispered Thea in realization, the realization making her awake. Thea’s body moved as she opened her inventory, placing her armor on and putting her shield and weapons in hand. She briefly had noted her food and arsenal before she took position.

With bow in hand, she begun to pick off the pillagers. This ultimately caused their attention towards her and some of them advanced forward. They got closer and closer to her and some fell by her bow.

There was coming too close to her, crossbows locked and loaded. Her shield, decorated with a pink flower, was littered with arrows. Every thunk of the arrows causing Thea to unconsciously flinch. Deciding she couldn’t pick them off anymore, Thea took out her iron sword and charged. She swiped and swiped at them, jumping to cause more damage and moved around them.

She blocked what she could, but at some point, the thrill of adrenaline masked her pain. She gleefully took pride as she killed more and more pillagers. More and more pillagers came and fell.

More of her wolves fell and there were some villagers who failed to escape. Their deaths kept grounded and aware, reminding her why she was even fighting to begin with.

Thea’s fuel had changed from protecting the villagers to fighting for her survival to the thrill of fighting. She was still conscious of the fact she couldn’t get any of the villagers hurt, but at the same time-

With a swing of her sword, she had cut down another pillager but this time it was the flag bearer. Its banner fell and she picked it, collecting it as a trophy before she looked to her next target. Whether it be another pillager or hostile mobs.

Then she heard creaks of metal that made her heart crack. She turned to the iron golem, eyes wide open as it fell to it’s legs. The last defender.

The pillagers advanced and rage filled her. She roared and there was a buzz in the air, reminding her of endermen before she found herself diving at the final few pillagers, sword ready.

Then like that, it was over.

Dawn approached as did peace.

Thea walked towards the iron golem, it’s head creaking up at her. She stood in front of her, dazed with adrenaline and emotions. The iron golem raised its arm, creaking pathetically and Thea held her hand for it.

Their fingers touched before one hand fell and then the light behind the golem’s eyes disappeared as did its life.

Thea closed her eyes, bowing her head for a moment before kneeling down and placing a poppy by it. One of the many she promised.

Forcefully feeding herself food, she looked through the village and took note of the damage caused by the pillagers. The village was practically decimated with only a handful left (which wasn’t much to begin with). She gave some food to her last two wolves, letting herself take a moment to breath while running her hands through their dirtied fur.

“I should’ve named you guys” she spoke to them. Not to just the wolves that were licking her hands and face in reassurance, but to the ones that fought alongside her. She would have to build nameless graves to the long-gone wolves, and the thought of it was a wake-up call.

She was too busy catching herself upon learning about the new world, so much so, she didn’t really let herself live.

Not in the way it mattered.

Thea got up to her feet before going to her home, no doubt where the rest of the villagers had taken refuge in. Her base was no longer hers as it was theirs now.

They needed it more than she did.

A few days passed as she helped the remaining villagers, returning their kindness as best as she could. She tried to help savage their resources, expanded her farm enough so they could eat, fixed the homes that were still standing or building new ones. Most importantly, she helped create graves for those who had perished.

Their gravestones were flourished flowers that Thea had collected. She made her duty to plant a bed of poppies around the iron golem before creating a grave for her fallen wolves, also adorned with flowers.

Time passed as Thea shouldered her things, only the essentials, as she stood outside her base.

What would’ve been her home.

The village was getting back on its feet but it would take time before it would flourish once more.

The few villagers that stayed in their new home stood outside the home, standing there to see her off.

“Thank you for your kindness. I would still be lost if not for you all” said Thea, giving them a smile (what was behind it she didn’t know).

The villagers grunted, talking to her as the smaller ones held her cats. They would need the cats more importantly, to fend off creepers from blowing up any recovery progress they had done.

They gave her bread for the road and she waved them goodbye as she left the village. She wrapped her mysterious cloak around her neck, before straightening her new turquoise hoodie poncho which fluttered in the wind, revealing armor underneath, as she took a deep breath, setting her eyes on the vast land before her. Her two wolves, now named as Lupa and Fenrir, trotted alongside her dutifully.

They left the village behind them and unknowingly made their way towards the DSMP, where there would be a whole new chapter.

<Prev>

<Next>

#dsmp fanfiction #dsmp fic #dsmp sona #dsmp oc #dsmp fanfic #dream smp fanfiction #dream smp fanfic #thea's cave #minecraft fic #minecraft oc

1 note · View note

iwillhaveamoonbase · 4 years

Text

Replay ch. 3

Chapter is rated M

------------------------------------

Rayla got up at seven, eyes heavy from the lack of sleep last night. “Noooo. UGH.” She turned to angrily glare at her alarm that had interrupted her rain noises. Aberdeen wasn’t the rainiest place in the world, but the sound of a rain storm always helped put her to sleep. Her mum and da always joked she was named ‘Rayla’ because she was born right when the moon shone through a stormy night.

Rayla went through her emails quickly, making a note in her phone to call both sets of her parents this weekend. She missed the days in Scotland when Runaan would speak French with her and talk cheese or helping Ethari in his jewelry business. Runaan ran the books while Ethari ran the artistic side, his work with metal and jewel placement both tasteful and modern while taking classic elements from Celtic art.

Her parents had yet to retire from being bodyguards, but they regaled her with stories of Africa and Asia and Australia, how kind people were, the different foods and cultures. Sometimes, she wished she could have grown up going with them. Other times, she knew they had made the right choice leaving her with Runaan and Ethari. They wouldn’t have had much time for her anyways.

Sighing, she rolled out of bed. She had a breakfast date with Corvus before she had to be at the office. God. She hated those pricks sometimes; a lot of old money lived in that office. She had thought she was leaving classism behind when she did her study abroad in the States for her law degree. Apparently, America just hid their classism really well instead of openly displaying it like they did back in the UK.

She lived well, was paid well, did better than anyone had expected her to do, probably. She had been more focused on athletics as a kid, leading Runaan to force her into ballet (‘you already know some French. It’s perfect!’), Ethari insisting on Irish step dance (‘Lain’s mother was Irish. It’s a world wide sensation, Rayla!’), and her own parents signing her up for kickboxing when she was in high school during their vacation from work. Her teachers had been frustrated that she was smart but didn’t ��apply herself’ whatever that meant. She got good grades, did better in college, got into law school in another country, and passed the bar. She could apply herself just fine. She just liked to be active.

Rayla sighed as she stepped into the hot water of her shower. She had made a good choice buying this shower head. Slowly, she felt the burn that had started last night begin to build back up again. Green eyes entered her mind again, as well as a voice that she would love to hear calling her name out while she rode him. ‘Calm down, Rayla.’ She couldn’t meet Corvus horny. Rayla sighed, putting her forehead against the shower wall before starting to massage her breast. She tried to imagine it was Callum’s hand stroking her, dipping down to touch between her thighs where she ached.

Would his hands be soft or rough? There hadn’t been any obvious calluses when she had shaken his hand at the cheese shop. She moaned, dipping her fingers into her wet heat. Her thighs rubbed together as she tried to chase that elusive release. She didn’t have time for this. The more she tried to speed up, the more it just wasn’t happening. Growling in frustration, she tried to play with her clit, breathing deeply as she finally found a rhythm that was working. Rayla bit her bottom lip and sighed as she came, inwardly crowing with satisfaction. There was no worse start to a day than being unable to cum after a wet dream or being too horny to function.

She washed and dried off, stretching her muscles before dressing. The green pantsuit and black top showed off her toned figure without drawing too much attention to any one place. Her heels made her even taller and, hopefully, a little intimidating to jerky clients or coworkers. She grabbed her purse and went out the door. When she finally made it to her car, she leaned her head on the steering wheel. Had she really started her day off by masturbating to a guy she met YESERDAY?

She shook her head, driving off until she made it to the little café she and Corvus frequented. Corvus also worked in the same building, but for a different law office, specifically divorce. Rayla had no idea how he did it, but someone had to. She saw Corvus at their usual table, smiling at something on his phone. “Your boyfriend sent you a naughty text?”

Corvus smirked back up at her. “Nope. Just something about one of my latest clients. Well, their soon-to-be-ex.”

“Good news or bad news?”

“Well, considering it’s a custody case, it’s good for my client.”

“Abuse?” Rayla frowned.

“I would not be smirking if that was the case. No. Apparently, the ex has been mismanaging the children’s money. Lying about putting it in a back account for them and spending it on gambling debts.”

“You don’t call that abuse?” Rayla smiled up at the waiter who came over, ordering an earl grey, a coffee to go, and an omelet.

“Thank you,” Corvus nodded to the waiter. “I do, personally, but everyone views that differently. The children were never struck, no record of emotional, mental, or oral abuse. It seemed like it was going to go 50-50 custody, which tends to be the ideal situation, but my client was concerned about the gambling problem.”

“So best case scenario, gambler’s anonymous and supervised visits eventually leading to 50-50 custody?”

“Best case scenario. Probably won’t happen, but we can all hope.”

Rayla shook her head. “I don’t know how you do it. I didn’t do criminal law or divorce law because I wasn’t sure I could handle seeing evidence of child abuse all day.”

“It’s a lot. We try to spread those cases around as much as we can, because it gets to be too much when it’s all you see. When police reports come into play, it’s even worse.” Rayla nodded. “While you work for old money. Tell me, how’s Kasef doing?”

“Hitting on me, again. Got upset when I told him off for glaring at a guy in a cheese shop for asking me a question.”

“He comes down to our office on his breaks and hits on half the women there.”

“Believe me, I know. His father gets really upset about it.”

“How is Mr. Ahling?”

“Still insisting we call him ‘Mr. Ahling’ and not the proper ‘Mr. Patel.’ His health is starting to go downhill, so we’re hoping his daughter graduates soon and can start to learn how to take over the office.”

Corvus shook his head, smiling at the waiter with her when they brought their food. “Thank you. I’m telling you, join our office. You could be really good at gathering information.”

“Thank you, but, no thanks. I grew up believing in true love with both sets of my parents. I’d like to continue believing in it.”

“You still believe in love. I love my boyfriend so much we’re moving in together.”

“Well, congratulations to you both. You moving in to his apartment or is he moving into your’s?”

“Mine’s bigger and closer to both our jobs.”

They talked work for a few more minutes, keeping an eye on the time. Rayla sighed as she looked at Corvus. “I’ve got a favor to ask.”

“My hairdresser would love to do your hair. Those layers are cute, but maybe you need a new look.”

“Ha ha. My hair’s fine, thanks. You remember me mentioning a guy in the cheese shop?”

“Yeah?”

“Well, he asked to draw me. He said it’s cool that I brought a friend and I would like to bring you. I don’t really have any other friends in the city.” She finished her tea, opening the lid of her coffee to put some cream in.

“He seem legit?”

“I saw his art. He also runs a YouTube channel with his friends and little brother?”

“What’s his name?”

“Callum Evans.”

“Katolis Squad!” Corvus smiled, clapping his hands together.

“You know them?”

“Of course. They do a lot of food stuff. I found this café because of one of their videos. Also, my boyfriend’s a baker, remember? Ezran and Claudia do a series on baking and sweets and he likes to watch them. Callum Evans is also kind of known in the art scene in town and I’ve met his aunt a few times. Lovely lady, so’s her wife.”

“Huh. Apparently, I’m out of it.”

“You just arrived in Katolis last year. I grew up here. You remember my boyfriend’s beignets you liked so much?”

“Those were delicious.”

“Ezran’s recipe. His grandmother’s friend was from Louisiana and she taught him how to make them like it’s done in the French-Quarter.”

“Huh. So, you’ll come with me?”

“Sure. Callum Evans seems harmless, but since he already approved it, might as well take advantage.”

“Agreed. I can take care of myself, but, you never know.”

“Where’s it going to be?”

“At his house. He said he has an art studio there. At least, that’s what he implied. I’m waiting for a text from him to iron out the details.”

“Maybe he’ll ask to draw you nude?” Rayla flushed red at that, looking down at her almost finished breakfast. “Oh? Something you want to share with the class? A reason you were distracted during kickboxing last night, perhaps?”

Rayla glared up at him, taking a few harsh bites of her omelet. She swallowed, keeping eye contact with him. “He’s cute, I’m single, that’s it.”

“He’s single.” Rayla paused. “He broke-up with his last girlfriend months ago. She made a big Instagram post about it, saying they wanted to focus on their careers. Which was weird because no one even knew they were in a relationship.”

“So, he’s probably used to people trying to use him for fame.”

“Most likely. He keeps to himself.”

“I saw that when I went digging online. His step-father’s the governor and his mother was in the military for a few years, rising through the ranks very quickly.”

“Yeah. They try to keep their channel separate from all that, though. People are always asking them questions about it and they’ll either ignore it or say they aren’t a mouthpiece for Harrow Williams.”

“Fair. I’ll text you the details. I’ve got my coffee, gotta go.” Rayla put a $20 on the table and waved good-bye to Corvus, leaving to head to the office. Well, this just got even more interesting, didn’t it?

---------------------------------------------

Callum rubbed his eyes as he looked up at the ceiling. All night, he had dreamed of Rayla. Her white hair down and around bare shoulders, purple eyes starting deep into his. ‘Come on, Callum. Make me feel good.’ He tossed and turned in his bed, suddenly thankful for the fact he lived alone. His cock was at attention and it was not going to be going down any time soon. Rolling out of bed, he took his sleep clothes off as he made his was to his shower. He winced at the cold water, but sighing in relief as his erection went down. He had no time to rub one out. He was already running late for his meeting with Ezran, Soren, and Claudia. They had to go over whether or not to actually hire a crew now that their channel had six million subscribers.

It would be a smart move. Claudia’s home-made beauty series was getting a lot of attention, as were her and Ez’s baking series. Soren and Ezran’s sub channel and Twitch channel was getting a lot of attention in the video game community for their let’s plays and commentary. Even Callum’s art sub channel was getting more and more attention. He was just worried about going bigger because, if they did, what if drama followed? It had been a PR nightmare when his ex-girlfriend had posted on Instagram about going their separate ways for their careers. Callum had asked her to keep it between them because he wanted to keep his personal life and his YouTube life separate. She had apparently felt that, after they broke-up, what he wanted didn’t matter.

As he quickly ate breakfast, he couldn’t get the idea of Rayla from his dreams or of her in a forest out of his head. Those eyes haunted his every though. ‘She’s a freaking fae. That must be it.’ Callum rubbed his eyes again, sighing. He sent a quick text to Rayla asking if she would be alright with her modeling for him in the woods outside of town. She would probably say ‘no’, but Callum needed to get this image out of his head and out of his system. He had just met her and she was distracting him already. Still, Callum wasn’t so sure he could ever get someone like her out of his system. Even if they had sex a week straight, he would probably still crave her. ‘Stop getting ahead of yourself, Callum. She’s probably in a relationship, you just want to draw her, and you have other things to focus on right now.’

All day, as the group discussed the benefits to do YouTube full-time, barring Ezran because he was still in college, a Scottish accent and a pair of soft eyes stayed in the back of his mind. Beckoning him to find her and take her under a waterfall in the forest. Would she scratch and like it rough or did she like to go soft and slow, like a wave?

Ezran snapped his fingers in his face. “Callum, focus.”

“Right. So, I think taking a step forward is a good idea….” He didn’t have time to be thinking about faeries in suits from Scotland.

#rayllum #rayllum fanfic #tdp #the dragon prince #au #replay #moonbase fanfics

29 notes · View notes

echodrops · 5 years

Note

So, just because I was rereading HaaH and a bit curious, you described Keith’s communication with Red as being mostly through visuals and scents (which was super fucking cool and a very interesting detail, btw) but I was wondering—how do the other Paladins communicate with their lions? (if it’s not spoilers, ofc) Hope you’re having a nice summer! ❤️❤️❤️

A cool ask!

Keith

The story mentions that Keith speaks to Red via a combination of visuals and scents, but I can say a little more about it here too before I go on to the others–the Lions tailor their communication specifically to match the paladin they are bonded with. If Red had a different partner, he would “speak” differently to that person. Red and Keith communicate through sight and scent because these are Keith’s strongest senses and the ones to which he has his most visceral reactions. Most importantly though, Red doesn’t just choose images and scents at random; Red’s consciousness is directly tied to Keith’s consciousness. Therefore, when Red wants to convey a concept to Keith, he can choose to reach directly into Keith’s mind and pick the exact sights and smells that Keith associates with that concept. (If Red wanted to convey the idea of “rage,” for example, he might flash Keith’s memory of fighting with Commander Iverson after the failure of the Kerberos mission.)

It should be noted, however, that Red is also a very stubborn, not-remotely-domesticated lion, and so sometimes he’ll use his own associations for concepts instead of Keith’s. This has led to a sort of half-”human”-half-(alien) animal visual/scent language where something like the concept of “humor” sometimes gets communicated as “that one time Matt Holt got stuck in a locker” and other times gets communicated as “that one time I toyed with a tiny enemy until it died.”

By the way, Red and Keith’s method of communication would be completely and utterly incomprehensible to anyone else who tried to experience it. Like… Willy Wonka terror tunnel levels of incomprehensible.

The rest are under the read more to save people’s dashes:

Pidge

Pidge and Green communicate in an extremely complex way: they “share” data like a cloud database, but the information they send back and forth to each other is a constant scrolling feed of a thousand different encryption codes and languages, from basic ciphers all the way up to DNA encoding values. When Pidge and Green link up, it’s the equivalent of Pidge’s brain being hardwired directly into the internet, if the internet was… you know… an ageless, all-knowing fragment of the universe and all combined matter self-actualized into a single physical form at one moment in space-time. It’s extremely mentally demanding, and no one without an absolutely astronomical IQ and encyclopedic knowledge of data encoding and reading could ever hope to understand even a sliver of it. Even Pidge has really only scratched the surface of the amount of information Green is able to convey; there are limits to how much the human brain can comprehend and process, and Green respects that–she has to, or Pidge would experience an aneurysm from an extreme over-activation of brain tissue and die within seconds of exposure to Green’s “full voice.”

Pidge and Green are the only paladin/lion pair whose method of communication is completely intelligible to someone who is not a paladin–Matt Holt can understand and communicate with Green as easily as Pidge can, because, as siblings, the Holts grew up sharing all the same codes. Likewise, Green is partially intelligible to Hunk, enough so that he can communicate with her if Green chooses to “speak” to him. He’d be able to fully understand Green if he saw a point in studying up on the rest of the specific languages and ciphers Pidge knows, but there’s really no time to bother with that when there’s always so much else going on.

Hunk

Remember that scene in Harry Potter where the sorting hat asks if Harry really doesn’t want to be in Slytherin because he’d be just as great there as in Gyrffindor? That’s what happened with Hunk and Yellow. Although it would have been totally possible for Hunk and Yellow to communicate in a way extremely similar to Pidge and Green (albeit more along the lines of mathematical calculations than DNA encoding), Hunk asked Yellow to pick the form of communication that Yellow himself would feel most comfortable with, and thus Hunk and Yellow do not communicate in words, data, or images–they communicate by a constant sharing of their feelings and intuition. Yellow and Hunk’s bond is deeply physically focused, with the feelings of one impacting the other as directly as if they shared one brain. When Yellow is nervous, Hunk gets goosebumps. When Hunk is resolved, Yellow’s roar can shake stars in the sky. Although Hunk often speaks out loud to his Lion, this is mostly just from habit; Yellow does not take note of Hunk’s words but instead responds to the emotional truths that exist behind those spoken words. Unlike Pidge or Keith, whose methods of “speaking” require at least fractions of a second to translate, Yellow and Hunk’s communications are instantaneous and they never experience even the slightest miscommunication. Everyone quickly learned to trust the things Hunk tells them based on what he feels from Yellow, even if they themselves have never gotten so much as inkling of emotion from the Yellow Lion.

Only one issue has arisen from Hunk and Yellow’s method of communication: there are feelings which the lions experience which humans do not, and even a few feelings humans experience which the lions do not. Once exposed to these feelings, neither one of the pair could “unfeel” them, and thus Hunk is now the only human in the universe capable of feeling certain emotions which are not native to human beings, and Yellow has been saddled with the unbearable knowledge that sometimes ugly things are actually adorable.

Shiro

The Black Lion is very different from the other lions. So different, in fact, that there’s honestly no comparison to even be drawn. Although the other lions are irrevocably still at least somewhat “animalistic” in their behaviors and functions, the Black Lion is a lion in form only, and its mind is nothing like an animal’s. The way the Black Lion and its bond to paladins works is so unique from the other lions that we might as well be talking about a totally different form of relationship. The Black Lion does not communicate with its paladin–the Black Lion IS its paladin.

The other lions are able to touch and operate within the confines of their paladins’ minds when their paladins are near or when they really want to “speak.” But Black just exists within Shiro at all times–Black has tied itself to Shiro’s life force, to his physical form, to every cell and even atom of his being. Shiro is the Black Lion’s vessel, and yet there is no separation between their identities–they are not two souls sharing one body, but an interwoven existence that is simultaneously both human and something utterly unknowable.

All the lions are “magical” creatures, as much metaphysical beings as they are robotic monsters, but Black is something else entirely. Shiro can’t explain it. Allura can’t explain it. Coran can’t explain it. Even during the process of their creation, neither Alfor nor any of the people who worked on the forging of the lions could explain it. Black is the breath of the cosmos. A manifestation of life itself. The first spark. The invisible, immeasurable dark matter that permeates the unending universe and allows all things to be. All knowledge. All energy.

Black and Shiro do not “communicate” because they do not need to. When the Black Lion wishes Shiro to know something, Shiro simply knows it. Things that human beings should not be capable of doing, the Black Paladin can do.

As long as the Black Lion wills it, for as long as it deigns to lend power to the physical realm, Shiro and Black move as one, united in thought, purpose, and deed–seeing with the same eyes, feeling with the same heart.

Lance

Although it might sound like Shiro has the closest relationship with his lion–inextricably soul-bound and all–this is actually inaccurate. Shiro and Black’s bond is essentially one-sided, initiated by Black to suit the lion’s purpose, with an equally frustrated and humbled Shiro doing his best to reach out to the inexplicable entity, to limited success. They share an existence but not, necessarily, a “relationship.”

The paladin who actually has the closest bond with his lion is Lance, although Lance himself is completely unaware of this. Because communication between the lions and their paladins is so unique, Lance has never recognized that what he can do with Blue (the degree of fluidity that exists in their communication) is not standard and is, in fact, the closest a lion and paladin have ever managed to personally connect before.

Lance and Blue simply love each other. They aren’t just allies, they aren’t just knight and weapon, they aren’t just guardian and charge–before any and all of that, they’re genuinely friends. Lance cares for Blue as if she were another person on their team, a person just like any other, with normal thoughts, feelings, wants, and wishes. He listens to Blue’s boasts and fears, her anecdotes, her memories, and shares his own in turn. Sometimes he has to work twice as hard with his products to hide the dark circles under his eyes because he stays up all night holding nigh-endless conversations with his lion. Although all the lions can sense their paladins across entire galaxies, Lance is the only one who can speak to his lion from any distance; there is no limit that Blue has found. Through Lance, Blue has come to understand the lives of mortal beings in a way that none of the other regular lions seem to–she is the only one that fully grasps and values the individuality of humans. Lance taught her what names mean. What family is. Destiny is a strange concept, constantly under suspicion, but it was nothing short of destiny that determined Lance and Blue should meet. Aka if you say a word about the lion swap to me I will stomp you to death with my hooves.

All of this was mostly possible because, being the first of the humans to meet his lion, Lance had zero preconceptions about what his relationship with a giant sentient catship should look like. It simply never occurred to him that the Blue Lion might not be able to talk. He expected his lion to speak to him, and so she did. Her voice sounds exactly like what Lance thinks a talking lion should sound like. (There is a lot of purring involved, because Lance was not made aware, until much later, that normal lions cannot, in fact, purr.) She reminds him, somewhat painfully, of his mom.

Blue’s voice cannot be understood by any of the other paladins, however, because she does not want it to be. If anyone else were to listen in on Lance and Blue’s mental conversations, Blue’s voice sounds simply like droplets of water, like rain on the surface of a previously smooth pond.

On one–and only one–previous occasion, the Blue Lion chose to speak to Keith. His feelings about that day, and the long, lonely months that came after it, are a bitter mix of resentment and painful gratitude.

#Home and a Half #HaaHVLD #paladin-lion bond headcanons #voltron headcanons #voltron #keith kogane #pidge gunderson #voltron hunk #takashi shirogane #lance mcclain #all of team voltron made it into this one #the lions are all unique and have personalities #and may or may not be the lifeforce of the universe itself made manifest #fight me

71 notes · View notes

katsukiboom · 5 years

Text

What The Heart Desires - A Tokoyami Zine piece

A/N: My longest piece yet (which I wrote thinking that the word count had to be a lot longer than it actually was, so much of this right here is brand new content) and it was for the amazing Revelry in The Dark @tokoyamizine! I’m super happy to have been able to work with the amazing people behind it and thoroughly hope you all can enjoy the content if you bought it - their blog will also post every completed piece, so make sure to check that out! ♥

Word Count: 5.125

With a cigarette almost completely out hanging loosely between the edges of his beak, Fumikage Tokoyami looked around the empty street before tossing the cigarette onto the ground and stomping it out. He gently blew the smoke out of his lungs, tracing small images into the night air. He studied them absently, letting his expression soften with a smile.

It had been a calm night overall among the citizens that passed by the area he was in. Although he was surprised with how things had gone so smoothly, he also wished there would’ve been more bustle in the city – he hadn’t made more than ¥6.550, and even if he knew better than to complain about what he could earn, he couldn’t help but feel disappointed with how the night turned out. Still, it was well past 1am and he wanted to go back home as soon as he could, so he lit another cigarette and took a big puff. For the long road ahead, he told himself as the bitter taste of cinder reclaimed its place on his tongue.

His thoughts seemed to be all over the place on the way back as he walked slowly, the soft breeze sending a shiver down his spine as he gripped the handles of his guitar case a bit tighter - Fumikage was never a nostalgic person per se, but anyone with a mind-reading Quirk nearby might think otherwise. It was one of those nights where he’d end up doubting himself and his goals throughout the hours, the various memories coming back to him not helping at all with his sentimentality. He only hoped he could get some sleep along the way, and he looked up at the night sky for a moment only to see a few dots scattered all across the dark canvas above. The brightest stars seemed to twinkle as if saying hello, and he realized how much he missed being able to see more of them, of their beauty.

A memory popped up in his head then, a simple image of him gazing at a beautiful starry sky while sitting on the roof of his house a few years back. The sheer contrast of the white and red dots against the deep blue sky always used to leave him in awe of the world around him, and sometimes he brought his guitar along to sing a ballad to the moon in hopes of making the feeling of solitude go away, something not even the entity inside of him could achieve. He remembered when he was younger and his father used to come along, too, the everlasting support for his son making the young man’s heart swell with joy.

It had also been in that same rooftop that he had had the pleasure of listening to what would quickly become his favourite album of all time, Journey’s Escape – it ignited the spark needed to fuel his passion for music, something that had existed ever since he was a toddler but that had never been truly cemented into him. It was no surprise for anyone when he had claimed he wanted to apply to Yuuei, Japan’s most prestigious performing arts conservatory known to train the best musicians in the country.

Tokoyami hopped on the last bus of the night and threw away his half smoked cigarette while remembering that on that same rooftop, too, had been when he first doubted himself years later; if he was doing the right thing, if it was all just for a whim, or if playing music for a living was truly the end of the road for him and his ambitions. He wanted to know more about the world and there was so much more to learn, and he didn’t want to feel like he was just another wasted talent. Those doubts led him to drop the future Yuuei had offered him once he graduated, instead turning to the streets as a source of living while playing whatever music he wanted on his beloved instrument.

He felt a small rustling beside him along with the sensation of something leaving his own being, a sign that he was no longer the only one in that bus besides the driver - sometimes he did hate having a sentient Quirk. “You sound like you’re having a hard time,” said Dark Shadow from beside him, but it didn’t faze Fumikage in the slightest. The bright light of the vehicle kept it controlled, and for that he was immensely thankful. “You can talk to me, you know? I can sense when you’re not okay, and your thoughts are yelling.”

“Get back in,” was the only reply that left him as he put his forehead to the window glass, the cold material doing little to help his tiredness. “You’re not needed now. I am only…” but the words escaped him before he could explain anything, maybe because he himself wasn’t entirely sure of what was going on through his mind; the images fumbled together and a small headache was starting to appear. “I am only thinking.” And with that, he was left alone again as Dark Shadow retreated, a dejected look on its face.

Whenever his insecurities appeared there was always Dark Shadow to help, and the two had been good friends ever since his Quirk first manifested. Despite being hard to manage when in dark places, Tokoyami made sure to always have at least a source of light on him, be it a small flashlight that he kept well hidden in his backpack or playing in a particularly well-lit spot. He knew it would only be a matter of time until something bad happened so he always tried to stay out of danger’s way, preventing as much of it as possible. The entity acted as his main source of support ever since he had left his family’s house and while there were a lot of things he’d change about it, he felt greatly thankful to have it in his life – it being a part of him meant having little to no secrets, and sometimes it made it easier to let go of the emotional load he tended to keep to himself.

Sighing and fogging the glass a bit, Fumikage replayed the events of that night silently, picking the different moments he found to be the most fulfilling. If there was something interesting about being a street musician he would’ve named the tons of people he got to see every day, imagining their stories and talking to them to find out if he had been right about something. It had become a little game only for himself, but ever since he started his new profession there had been two specific people that stood out to him the most. He liked thinking about them, as they had showed him different sides to something he had always considered to be very black and white.

The first one he met almost by chance, the memory replaying as an overused tape - it had been one of his busiest days and the only time to rest for no more than fifteen minutes came around at dusk time, when he noticed that people were already scattering towards their destinations without really paying attention to their surroundings. With his body feeling as tired as it could be, he walked to his preferred resting spot, an old alley that kept him hidden from the judgemental looks he got sometimes. A sturdy box had been placed against a wall God knows how long ago, and he had taken a liking to sitting there with his guitar, tuning it or just playing whatever came to his mind as he let the stress go. It had been no different that day, just a regular afternoon, until he heard voices coming from the entrance of the alley.

“It’s him, isn’t it?” one of the voices, a high-pitched, unmistakably girly voice said with a hint of amazement in her tone. Without even tearing his gaze away from the instrument on his hands he felt as Dark Shadow came out, but Fumikage felt too focused to even ask him to return. The people outside didn’t seem to notice at all, and he had to thank the dim lighting of the narrow space for that. “He seems like he has such a good Quirk too; he’s probably talented with it too.”

Dark Shadow’s low laugh resonated all the way to his body, and with a low growl the young man wordlessly signalled that he wouldn’t be in the mood to get interrupted any time soon. It had been a long day and social interaction wasn’t exactly on his to-do list at the moment - it was his moment to be alone, his mind needing the space to be able to function properly until the late night. “You should give them a chance,” the entity said before retreating into him, “they look nice enough to have a chat with.”

“Ochaco-chan, why don’t you just go talk to him?” The girl that replied had a slightly lower, more concerned tone as she whispered some more stuff he couldn’t have been bothered enough to eavesdrop in. But soon he heard approaching footsteps, and he closed his eyes in a futile attempt to camouflage himself with the wall behind. “Excuse me, I know that you must be resting, but my friend and I wanted to congratulate you for the amazing performance.” Looking up and opening his eyes he was met with the sight of two big eyes framed by two strands of green hair, staring at him as if trying to pierce right through his soul. She was alone, and he wondered if she had been the braver one out of the two or if she had left her friend behind for another reason.

Once his eyes got used to what little light there was and he got a better look of her he recognized her as one of two girls who had been enjoying his show for a long while and dancing along to some of his repertoire before he took a break, and when he looked to the side he saw the friend that was with her talking on the phone before sending them a curious glance. The two of them formed a weird pair he thought, but by the way they acted with one another was a sign of how strong their friendship was. Her features and gestures reminded him to those of a frog, and he wondered if it had anything to do with her Quirk. “I’m truly glad you enjoyed the show,” he replied shortly while putting his guitar back on its case on the floor, unsure of whether they’d hang around more or if that’d be the last time he’d see them.

With a warm smile, the girl kneeled beside him and pulled her white cardigan a bit more over her chest, the breeze running along the streets already getting colder with each passing second. He noticed she looked smaller beneath the item of clothing. “You’re one of the few people I’ve met in my life that I can tell has true passion for playing an instrument,” she added without a hint of hesitation. “I wish I could play like you.”

“Do you play guitar?”

“Transverse flute and violin, actually - been playing since I was 8.” Silence fell over them and Fumikage felt almost scared of breaking it, and instead leaned against the wall behind - in moments like this he really wanted to be the kind of person that could keep alive a conversation without much effort, cursing his bad luck when it came to interacting with other people. She didn’t seem like she wanted to be a bother, but he did wonder the reason why she had decided to casually spend some time with a simple street artist like him. “I hope I’m not being a nuisance right now; you’re awfully quiet.”

Slightly taken aback by her words, he sighed and turned his attention back to her as he said, “It’s okay, I… enjoy having someone to talk to about this sort of thing. Although I must admit I do feel undeserving of such nice comments.”

“Undeserving? No way!” she retorted, and it was only then that he realized that he was opening up with someone he didn’t even know the name of. “I truly wish I could play like you. I was partly forced to learn so I never really knew what playing for a passion was.” His expression turned into one of understanding as he heard those words, and he smiled down at her with newfound empathy. Her own smile had faded, leaving behind a sad appearance. “It was all my parents’ doing as a means to encourage me I guess - I don’t blame them fully, but I sometimes wonder if it would’ve been different had I learnt because I wanted to. I could’ve never dedicated my life to music like you do, however, but I like meeting people like you.”

The way she spoke about her own experience brought back his doubts and he was ready to tell her about that, but then another voice was heard from the alley entrance, making them both turn around. Her friend was calling out to her - Tsuyu with two cups of what seemed to be boba tea on her hands. With what sounded like a way too hopeful voice for him, he quickly said, “Will you two stick around for a bit longer? I’m about to go back out; if you’d like to, you’re more than welcome to stay.”

“We have to go, but I’ll make sure to come back to watch you play again someday.”

It was only then he realized he had never given her his name.

And as they said their goodbyes she got up and walked away, and the memory came to an abrupt halt as the bus Fumikage was riding stopped so hard in front of a red light it almost made him hit his head on the window and fall off his seat. Mumbling incoherent curses as he sent a death glare toward the driver and wishing Dark Shadow would not come out to tease him about it he sunk back down on the comfortable leather, letting his mind fly back to his trail of thoughts after checking he still had some time to kill before reaching his stop looking through the window glass.

The second most interesting person he met wasn’t someone who had come by to one of his performances - instead, he had been the one to meet him, almost on purpose.

It had been a late night of the last autumn, one that had had just the most delightful weather and that seemed to be made specifically for everyone to enjoy. Armed with his beloved black jacket and a cigarette in his beak, he walked downtown to his favourite bar, hoping to have a nice time while getting away from everything else in the world and its tendency to always make him feel under pressure. He didn’t expect the loud music coming from the inside as soon as he crossed the main doors of the place, or the way people were looking at the band playing like they were the most amazing thing they had ever heard. Just noise to the ears, he thought as he occupied his usual place at a table close to the bar, they all sound monotonous.

However, as he listened more and more and downed a bottle of beer, even a harsh sceptic like himself could find himself bobbing his head to the hard rock being played on the little stage. Fumikage analysed the four people (three boys and a girl) that were playing as if trying to discover a hidden secret, but all he saw was four people just having fun… or three, to be honest. One of them had an angry expression on his scarred face, a sour testament that whatever was going through his mind wasn’t the prettiest of thoughts; the bass he played seemed to be in pretty bad shape, and he wondered how the guy could even play an instrument like that. His red and white hair stuck to his face thanks to the sweat running down his cheeks, and he looked rather threatening.

It took them another two songs before they finally said their goodbyes and walked off the stage to the sound of vigorous clapping, and by that point he felt way too curious about them to just let them walk away. He carefully watched as they high-fived each other, all smiling and seeming happy with their performance, even the two-colour haired guy. He was the one that went to the bar, ordering drinks for him and all his friends, and that’s when Fumikage decided to take the chance to speak up. “Nice work,” he said loud enough to be heard, and the stranger only sent him a side glance. “It is always a pleasure to see someone channel their feelings through music like you’ve done.”

“You a critic or something?” the male replied and Fumikage only shook his head, the bartender being told by the man to take the order to his bandmates after receiving the money for everything. When he was free again, he approached Tokoyami’s table and plopped down on the chair in front of his and let out a long sigh. “I wish we received more comments like yours - it always seems like we play for no one in particular.”

“Everyone here seemed to be enjoying it greatly,” Fumikage added without much spirit and already feeling a bit dizzy; the beer was starting to work its magic on him, and he internally cursed at himself for not having something with alcohol in his system for the longest time. Closing his eyes and taking a deep breath, he introduced himself before asking for one in return

Heterochromatic eyes posed on him and seemed to look at him up and down before reaching a verdict about whether or not he was trustworthy - he hoped he looked the part. “Todoroki,” the stranger said as he reached out and offered his hand above the table, careful about the bottles. Fumikage took it and gave it a little shake before turning around and asking for another beer. “I’m really glad you enjoyed the show.”

The name rung a distant bell in Tokoyami’s mind but he ignored it, instead choosing to talk about the band and its origins as Todoroki’s drink was brought to him. He was told that the others’ names were Bakugou, Jirou and Kaminari and that the four were high school friends that had the same goal in mind: creating meaningful music that could reach to the world and bring people together. It was beautiful, barely poetic, but there was still a long way to go and they knew it. “And did you always play bass or did you start with guitar?”

What he thought was an innocent question suddenly made Todoroki’s body tense, his left hand gripping his own beer bottle just a bit tighter. “I started with piano actually - my old man… he wanted me to play. Forced me, actually. He’d given me a really strict teacher and would embarrass me if I ever got things wrong. You can say I started playing as some sort of revenge towards him, but honestly I don’t care anymore. I left my home about four years ago when I was 16 for personal reasons and I have no plans of coming back any time soon.” The emotional turn of the conversation made Fumikage think he’d committed a mistake by asking, but seeing how naturally Todoroki had opened up to him, someone he had just met, made him think that he wasn’t entirely to blame for it. “Sorry for that,” Todoroki added with a small smile tugging at the corners of his lips, “Shouldn’t have unleashed all of that on you when we’ve barely talked at all.”

“I like knowing more about people,” was the simple response to that, Fumikage’s curious expression turning into a relaxed one with a smile of his own, “And you look like you could use an ear to let out some steam; don’t worry, I’ll be like the deepest tomb and keep everything within me.”

And like that, he felt as if he had gained a new friend as the two talked for a few more minutes about their love for music (Journey had, coincidentally, been the first rock band Todoroki had liked as well, although it was their latest record that had amazed him), the band’s next shows and how much the bassist was looking forward to the recording of their first album. Time passed and they were both just drunk enough to laugh at anything, and in between giggles and snorts they didn’t hear an ash-blond man approaching or shouting at Todoroki until he was close enough to tap his shoulder. When the two looked up, Fumikage recognized him as the drummer of the band.

“You telling me you’re getting drunk without us?” He said with a growl, but Fumikage could tell there was no ill intent behind his words - only tiredness. “No more tomfoolery then, we’re going and if you take longer than five fucking seconds to get out we’re leaving without you.” Despite the harsh tone and the deep frown, his lips were curved up in a smile, and he left without speaking another word. His pose denoted confidence, maybe more than a guy should ever have.

With a sigh, Todoroki left his third beer bottle on the table and offered his new acquaintance a gentle smile. “I’m sorry about that, Bakugou can get quite… heavy sometimes. They actually left without me in two occasions, it wasn’t pretty.” He let out a short laugh, and above the talking and noises around them, Fumikage could hear a note of nervousness in his voice. “Hopefully we’ll see you again the next time.” They both nodded in agreement and without much more left to be said Todoroki got up and left, leaving behind a trail of something akin to happiness.

The rest of the night was all but a blur for Tokoyami, and soon he was back on the bus on the present, the memory now returning to the back of his mind as if trying to hide itself from being seen again. He tried to think if there was something escaping his mind amidst the events he remembered as he pulled his jacket a bit more over his body, the cold of the night now reaching every part of him and making a chill run down his spine. He looked out the window and noticed that it was almost time for him to get off, only a few more stops until he reached his destination.

But before he could do anything more someone tapped his shoulder, prompting him to turn around almost defensively. A green haired boy with big matching eyes returned his surprised gaze with a smile proper of those who had no malice inside. He wondered when he had gotten on the bus and why he hadn’t heard him. “Oh, I’m sorry to have startled you!” Even his voice was kind, and Fumikage could only nod his head before starting to get out of his seat. “I had this feeling in my mind and just wanted to make sure I remembered you correctly - you went to Yuuei as well, right?” The statement almost made Fumikage stop on his tracks but he soon recovered and nodded once more, not really wanting to add more to that. “I knew it; my name is Izuku Midoriya, I was in the same year but in a different class! I don’t expect you to remember but it’s surprising to find you here.”

If the name rung a bell in his mind he greatly ignored it, bent on forgetting most of his experience back at the school. “I live close-by,” he said, getting up while grabbing his guitar and now feeling slightly annoyed that his past had somehow found the way to bite his back once again. “Excuse me but I must make this a short chat, this where I get off,” He added as he clumsily made his way to the rear door and pressed the button to let the driver know he had to stop. Curiosity got the better of him as he saw Midoriya following his actions, and he started to think that he had encountered a possible stalker.

“Don’t worry, this is my stop too,” Izuku replied, “my mom moved to this part of the city last year and I’m visiting her.” Silence fell upon them as they reached their destination, but before they could go their separate ways Izuku spoke up, the breeze lightly playing with his green locks. “So, what model do you play?” The question took Fumikage by surprise, and he replied as he opened his bag to get a cigarette and the lighter - he had wanted to leave but for some reason he didn’t want to go home just yet. It was the same feeling he had whenever he met someone through his performances, and his gut was never wrong when it came to interesting people. They both leaned against a nearby wall and he asked Izuku if he played guitar as well, but the other guy shook his head. “No, but I’d love to start. I just need to find time between practices - I already play three other instruments.”

“And what would those be?”

“Piano, koto and end-blown flute! The first and last I perfected back at the academy but I’ve played koto ever since I was young.”

“Koto?” Fumikage felt his eyes widen at the sole mention of the traditional Japanese instrument, as he had never met anyone his age that could even distinguish it from other stringed instruments. His gaze fixated on the other’s, he felt the need to know more about him growing significantly. “Why did you choose that one?”

Midoriya smiled and looked at the ground beneath his feet, seemingly deep in thought. He took his time to reply and for a moment Fumikage felt he had hit a sensitive cord within him. “Maybe because…” he started slowly, and Fumikage could tell he was trying to pick his words very carefully. “Maybe it was because it can be a happy instrument too. I can’t explain the joy I get when it’s on my hands, and it’s very easy to convey my own feelings through it. In that sense it’s very similar to a guitar, and as long as I can showcase how I’m feeling with it, I’m okay. I just want to create music that’s able to reach people’s hearts and make them happy as well.”

Fumikage listened carefully and witnessed as Izuku’s expression went from soft and tired to content in a matter of seconds, and he was impressed to see the effect that music had on the stranger he couldn’t even remember. Doubts swarmed his mind once more and even if he tried his best to dissipate them he couldn’t, choosing instead to sigh and take a short puff from his cigarette as it would be easier than let his mind wander - the smoke tasted more bitter now and his lips curved into a disgusted gesture, but he still said nothing for another few seconds. “You are very passionate, I see. I am always glad to meet lovers of music, but you might exceed everyone else I have met so far.” Had he ever played for true happiness? He couldn’t remember.

The words left his lips mindlessly, as if he was talking to himself rather than to someone else, yet it felt almost like talking to a known friend. He felt comfortable, attributing it to the things they had in common (which he guessed were more than he knew), and he was pleased he had actually decided to trust the good vibes the guy offered. He threw one more glance at him before taking the cigarette between his right index and thumb fingers and holding it up in front of his eyes, as if the smoke was naught but an inconvenience. He was sure Midoriya couldn’t understand where he was coming from with this, but he certainly didn’t mind.

“Do you feel the same happiness?”

“I have to go, Midoriya-san.” Fumikage was quick to respond as he threw the cigarette to the opposite side of the street, watching it let out a few sparks as it hit the ground. He thought that he’d been doing that a lot that night, much to his dislike. “But I do hope to see you again - I often play nearby the Akihabara station, maybe you can come see me one day.”

He hoped that the small smile he offered Midoriya was enough indication that he was glad to have had that little talk with him, but he greatly ignored if the other man could even see it; pulling away from the wall, he waved goodbye at him as he grabbed his guitar case and started walking fast until he turned around the corner. He didn’t even notice he was holding in a heavy breath until he let it out, long and almost making him dizzy.

As he made his way back home, his heart beat faster too, his own thoughts playing against him - the whole dilemma he felt about whether or not he had taken the right decisions in his life. He froze in place and looked up to the sky, now able to see more stars thanks to the now more obvious darkness of the streets. They all seemed to hold so many untold secrets and he was partly glad he was only a spectator in the big scheme of things.

He felt himself going back to the very first place he started at, one where his uncertainties got the best of him instead of letting him advance and take down the many obstacles he encountered. He felt himself going back to those who had impacted him the most, and tried his best to attach whatever emotion felt best for each of them - innocence for Tsuyu, rebellion for Todoroki and happiness for Midoriya. Scoffing, he remembered there was still so much he could learn from everyone around him, and as he pondered the different ways he could implement that newfound knowledge on himself he resumed his walk.

He felt himself getting lost again, but this time he’d make sure to bring himself out of it all to find the spark he had lost along the way.

#bnha #boku no hero academia #tokoyami fukimage #bnha tokoyami #tokoyami zine #mha #my hero academia #bnha scenarios #bnha imagines #mha scenarios #mha imagines #boku no hero scenarios #boku no hero imagines #my hero academia scenarios #my hero academia imagines

21 notes · View notes

mysticsparklewings · 5 years

Photo

The Realm of Gouache

I did it! I finally got that gouache set I'd been eyeing down the way my cats watch their food containers! The gouache I'm referring to is this Miya/Himi Gouache set of 18 for anyone who's curious. It seems to have sort of taken the art community corner of Youtube by storm lately, and that combined with the way the set is designed, I've been really wanting to try gouache lately anyway, and it's pretty reasonably priced at around $20, depending on where you get it, it seemed like a good place to start with the medium. Gouache, to those that might not know, is a cousin to watercolor. (Well, traditional gouache is, anyway. There's also acrylic gouache, which is a closer cousin to acrylic paint, but that's a discussion for another day; I'm focusing on the typical kind of gouache here) It's made with the same binding agent--water-soluble gum arabic--but usually it's processed differently. Most companies use more pigment (the substance that gives any paint its color) and larger particles of it in their gouache compared to what you would find in watercolor, and there's usually some additional chalk-like additive to make the paint more opaque than watercolor. You'll sometimes even see gouache referred to as "opaque watercolor." For the same reasons, gouache is usually more expensive than watercolor or acrylics and while with a little patience you can make it into cakes/pans, it normally works much better fresh from the tube, and so it's much more often sold in tubes. What does all that mean, though? Well, gouache paint is more opaque and less transparent than watercolors without much water, giving it the color and covering power one might expect more from acrylic paints. But you can reactivate gouache with water, so you can also water it down and use it more like watercolors if you want to, and when you start layering it you can reactivate the layers underneath to aid with blending, which in my opinion is a trait that reminds me a little of how oil paints are praised for their slow-drying, "superior" blending capabilities. Based on that, personally, I continue to be surprised how little-known and how much of a niche painting option gouache seems to be. The only real "culprit" to me for why that is is the usually higher price tag, but even then...I don't know, it still doesn't make sense to me. The qualities it has that put it somewhere between acrylics and watercolors just make it seem like a really good beginner's choice to me, since you can learn some techniques for both and then if you branch out to one of the other two, it might make the transition easier. But I digress; we can debate on the finer points of gouache's place in the art world some other time. This was my first time using gouache at all, so I can't really give a proper review on this specific set of gouache (as I have nothing else to compare it to and I have no experience with the medium; it just wouldn't be fair), but I can give my thoughts on working with gouache in general and give a first-timer's perspective on it. Although I do have to say I found it interesting that there is pigment information available for the set online, even though the actual set doesn't have the pigment information or color names printed anywhere. (At least not in English.) Most lower/student-grade art supplies don't list that information anywhere. This specific set of gouache also stands out because the gouache isn't in tubes, but rather in little 30ml. cups that look like tiny jello or pudding containers. These cups all have their own slot in a very sturdy plastic case with a lid that snaps shut on both sides and a mixing plate that fits inside the lid. And I cannot stress enough that when this thing is listed as being about 2.5 lbs, they're not kidding! I was surprised by how heavy it actually was when it came in the mail, and after taking all the gouache cups out so I could peel off the little foil seals (most of which did try to take some paint with them, but I saved them short-term to try and make use of as much of it as possible before chucking them in the trash), I can confirm that most of the weight is coming from the paint itself. And it's really nice actually since most paint sets that come with a lot of individual containers of colors (usually tubes), the standard size is anywhere between 5 and 22 ml. By comparison, 30ml. seems pretty generous. The color choices in the set are pretty interesting, but also pretty well-rounded for a smaller, possibly more beginner-oriented set. You get both a warm and cool of the primaries (red, yellow, blue), a black, two whites (which we're going to talk about more in a moment), some earth tones in the form of a darker brown, a rust color, and an ochre color, and some "convenience" colors including a purple, magenta/hot pink/rose color, a teal, and some greens. Now about those whites... I'll try and spare you the nitty-gritty details of pigments and their uses, but in general most well-versed paint companies have more than one type of white paint on offer, and not all white paints and/or pigments are equal. Usually, you'll find a "Titanium White" and some other variation of White, possibly a "Zinc" or "Chinese" white. Normally, Titanium White is a specific pigment that's different from the other whites, but that same pigment can be processed differently in order to look and function more like the other white pigments (and other white pigments don't always have to be listed if they've been added to it). This matters because "Titanium White" is the most common type of white, and it's meant to be used primarily as white by itself because of its specific traits. The other whites are usually more transparent and work better for mixing with other colors. This is most likely why this set and others you'll find come with two whites; in this case, one specifically labeled as "Titanium White" and the other as just "White." One so you have a white color, and one for mixing. (Don't you just love how amazingly confusing pigment information can make things! ) This is fine and actually preferable to me, as it keeps you from using twice as much of just one white, so hopefully, you won't go through it quite so fast. The only problem I have with this is that I feel like my two whites might've gotten switched at some point since so far my "Titanium White" seems to act more like a white for mixing, and my "White" seems to act more like a traditional Titanium White. I did take all of the paint cups out at one point so I could open them and put them back in the palette/container, but I tried to make specifically sure I didn't get any of the colors mixed up. Still, accidents happen, and it could be they were switched before my set even arrived to me, if they are indeed switched. I intend to do some more testing to try and make sure if that's what happened or if it's some kind of user-error in using them. Anyway. After I did my swatching and a tiny bit of extra swatching/playing to get a taste of how the gouache worked beyond what my research beforehand had told me, it was time to play with it in a more proper art setting. I had a piece of Canson XL watercolor paper leftover from another project that I sliced in half to make it a more manageable size, and I used a circular cardstock insert that I saved from a roll of tape to give me a nice large circle to work with. I figured a planet out in space would provide a good opportunity to play with gouache's more watercolor-like properties and it's more opaque unique properties. And plus a cursory Pinterest search told me that when you're making fictional planets there's not much in the way of right or wrong, which was comforting since I barely knew what I was doing. So I masked off the circle and started out with a couple of coats of the beautiful Prussian Blue from the set (seriously, I don't know why but I was really enamored with this color) and varying amounts of water to do the sky. I had already found out that while you technically can use gouache without water, it feels a lot better to me if you add just a little to make it flow and spread more readily, and this was no different. I'm just not an expert yet at getting just enough to smooth it out without also thinning out the color. Still, I actually really like this stroked look for this piece, which is why I didn't try harder to layer it up to make it more solid. And I wish I could describe my process for the planet itself just as concisely, but I really just started going in with the colors I liked the most from the set--Ultramarine, Violet, Rose, Jade Green--and layering up thinner washes of color a little at a time in lines and curves to try and get a visual texture that makes sense for a planet. The most issues I had here were really my fault and not the paints', as I was trying to any color mixing pretty straight-on the paper and I had a tendency to put some color down and try a little too hard to blend it out, to the point it was just kinda mixed into what was already there. And I will note here that it seemed like the less watered-down the gouache was, the more quickly it dried. and the more water was added to it, it dried very noticeably more slowly. Now to be fair, that's usually how paint works anyway, but it just felt a lot more noticeable here for some reason. It could've been the paper, or the paint, or just me, or a combination of all of those things. I'm not sure. At that point it was getting late, I was getting tired, and I felt like the painting could probably benefit from being left to dry overnight before I played with it anymore. The next day I came back to it, starting with some spots of white since one of my whites did have a tiny circle in it where some of the binder had separated from the paint and it was bothering my brain to leave it unmixed, which naturally ended up in me having some white paint loaded on to my brush to use. I don't count that against the paint though since even some professional quality paints can settle out from the binder, especially if it's been sitting unused for a while. Usually, you just have to mix it back in and it's fine. The white was a wee bit too intense just sitting on top, so then I went back it with a little here and a little there of the colors I'd been using before and tried to fade out a bit of a curve shadow with the Prussian Blue. I even went as far as to try using a different, flat, brush and blending it a little bit differently, which created this effect that kind of reminds me of a waterfall in some areas. Then was that was dry, I decided that the planet itself was pretty much done. Which meant there was one more thing I needed to try... I masked off the circle again and went back to the "titanium white" and a little water, and starting tapping my brush against another brush to make splatter-stars. I was actually kind of surprised by how well this worked since I usually use my white ink, which seems to spend all of its usable splatters a lot faster than the gouache did. (For instance, I could usually get about 3 taps out of the ink before I'd have to dip back into it; the gouache I was able to get about 5+ good taps per dip.) And fortunately getting the water-to-gouache balance wasn't as hard as I thought it would be for effective splattering, and I managed to not get too much any one time so I didn't have any notable spots or problems from that. I did, of course, go back and add a few extra star details with my white gel pens, but that's standard practice even when I use the white ink. It may not be the most complex or thorough usage of the gouache, but for a first attempt, I felt pretty content with how it came out and to what ends I'd explored the properties of the gouache. That said, anyone who knows me knows I already have plans bubbling for some more involved tests/projects involving the gouache. Some of which I even decided on before the gouache got here in the mail. But either way, so far I really like the gouache and I'm looking forward to playing with it more and really seeing what it can do. Thanks to watercolors and alcohol markers, I've gotten pretty used to working from light to dark, but it is really nice to be able to add light back in a lot more easily if you need to. And I really love that the gouache reactivates the way that it does; Usually, I can get my watercolors to reactivate but I have to be exceedingly careful to keep from getting back runs or waterlines. I didn't seem to have that problem here at all, so I'm hoping this means I'll have an easier time trying to blend certain things when using gouache as opposed to watercolor going forward. Time will tell, I suppose. Now if you'll excuse me, Inktober is upon us and I have work to do! ____ Artwork © me, MysticSparkleWings ____ Where to find me & my artwork: My Website | Commission Info + Prices | Ko-Fi | dA Print Shop | RedBubble | Twitter | Tumblr | Instagram

1 note · View note

katwriting · 5 years

Text

Fic: Lights will guide you home

My secrent santa present for @mirrorofliterature and the first fic I’ve published in over 10 months (so bear with me, haha). Hope you guys like it 💜

After weeks of ignoring what happened, Magnus finally deals with the loss of his magic. The most difficult thing about it? Talking to Alec.

"Magnus, wait."

"It's fine, Alexander."

Alec's voice was soft, yet decisive when he replied. "No. It's not. And it hasn't been for weeks now."

Word count: 4,189 | Read on AO3

When you lose something you can't replace when you love someone but it goes to waste could it be worse?

Mornings were the easiest to handle. Those first few precious minutes of the day, when Magnus was almost awake, yet still too deep under to be considered a functioning member of society. When everything was a fuzzy blur, somewhere in between sleep and reality, when his eyes were still closed and all he could feel was the soft blanked wrapped around himself and the warmth of Alec's sleeping form resting next to him.

Magnus adored those fleeting few seconds. For one, because they were a little moment of quiet before the craziness of the day really started. They were also incredibly precious. Because as soon as Magnus broke through the warm, comfortable haze of having just woken up, he started to remember. And with the memories came the pain.

For the first couple of days after they had brought Jace back it hadn't been that bad. Magnus had barely had time to concentrate on the loss of his magic, had been way too focused on everything else that had been going on. There had been so much to do. Jace had had to settle back into his old life, now finally free of Lilith. Alec had had to get back on track after having his arm broken, which had been more difficult than they'd expected since Alec hadn't healed as quickly as he used to without the help of Magnus' magic. Catarina had done her best to fix his broken wrist and take care of the arrow wound in his chest, but even though she was a powerful warlock, her healing powers didn’t quite measure up to what Magnus was capable of.

Had been capable of.

There it was. That slight sting in his heart that being utterly unhelpful brought with it. The way his chest tightened whenever he was reminded of one of the many things he wasn't able to do anymore. The distant, yet no less persistent bitterness constantly reminding him of what he'd lost.

It had been weeks since he'd lost his magic and if Magnus was being quite honest with himself, then every single day was a struggle. Alec and him hadn't talked about what had happened. Not really. It wasn't that Alec hadn't tried to talk to him about it – he had, multiple times even. The problem was that Magnus didn't want to talk about it.

He couldn't. Because he didn't know what to say.

Magnus had gone through his fair share of rough patches in his many years on earth. From his troubled childhood in Indonesia to the years with Asmodeus to every single time he'd lost a dear friend or lover to the cruel grasp of time, illness or injury. Sometimes, he'd gotten through those phases through talking, sometimes by drinking himself into oblivion, sometimes by throwing himself into some reckless adventure. He'd tried to outrun heartbreak so often that he'd become an expert at it.

But this, losing his magic, losing such an integral part of him, was different. It didn't hurt like a broken heart did. He just felt empty. Ever since that first night, when he had snapped his fingers out of habit to switch off the lights in their bedroom and felt that cold emptiness wrap around him like a heavy weight at the realization that he was unable to, he'd never been able to shake the odd feeling of something missing. And he couldn't get used to it either.

Magnus sighed and tried to ignore the bitterness rising in his chest, a familiar feeling these days. Of course he hadn't been able to get used to it. How could he, when everything in his life, in his very apartment constantly reminded him of what he had been able to do, who he had been?

Magnus let his eyes drift through the room, which despite its intricate décor felt different these days. The colors seemed less vibrant, the gold details dull – hell, the entire apartment wasn't the same without his magic thrumming in every fiber of it. His gaze eventually landed on Alec, who was still sound asleep next to him. With Magnus as his main source of warmth gone, the Shadowhunter had now shifted and was lying on his stomach, most of his face hidden in the pillow. Magnus reached over and adjusted the blanket, fingers brushing over sleep-warm skin.

If only he could sleep as well as Alec these days.

Pushing his covers and bitter thoughts aside, Magnus got up and padded towards the kitchen, getting on with his first mission of the day: making coffee.

+++

As Magnus learned only a short while later, it would have been a better idea to stay in bed altogether. Or just skip the day altogether. Because from the moment he'd woken up, that day seemed to have decided to show him how utterly terrible life could be.

It started out somewhat innocently, with the floor heating in their kitchen not working yet again. This wasn't exactly new, Magnus' apartment building was quite old and incidents like that happened from time to time. Up until a few weeks ago, he would have fixed it with a snap of his fingers, but given his current situation, he had to resort to more mundane means. Quite literally, since Catarina was out of town and Magnus didn't have many allies left in the warlock community after the fight with Lorenzo and his dismissal as High Warlock.

That news had spread fast. But the news of the great Magnus Bane giving up is magic for his Shadowhunter boyfriend's parabatai had spread like a raging wildfire. Magnus was always up for the latest rumors and gossip from the Downworld, but he definitely didn't need to hear them when they were about him. He did his best to not let them get to him, but crossing paths with former fellow warlocks on the street and suffering through forced small talk - or even worse, them trying to hide their pity - was wearing down on him.

He felt miserable. And he was tired of it.

Which was probably the reason why he didn't lash out on the young, unexperienced warlock who knocked on his front door later in the day and asked for advice, but just tiredly asked him to contact the current High Warlock about it. And it was also the reason why he didn't say anything when the mundane heating engineer he'd called earlier that day stopped by in the late afternoon to fix their floor heating and left mud stains on Magnus' expensive light beige living room carpet, he just waved off his apology and saw him out.

He even managed to get through a video call with Catarina and Madzie, who were at a warlock conference in South Africa, and smile at Madzie when she showed him the latest magical tricks she had learned. He praised and cheered with her when she showed him that she had already mastered the first steps of a spell that should be rather complicated for someone so young. Although watching her do the things he had taught her just a few weeks ago but now was no longer able to do hurt more than the rest of that day's struggles combined.

Magnus could have been above it. Could have filed that day as a particularly miserable one and gone on with life. He would have done it, if only life hadn't decided to stab him in the back one more time that evening.

He was just about to settle with a pot of green tea into the living room and try to relax a little to end the day on a somewhat high note when his foot got caught on the doorstep, he tripped, reached for the doorjamb to regain his balance – and dropped the teapot in the process. The second it crashed to the floor, it burst into dozens of shards, the tea splattering over both the kitchen tiles and the wooden living room floor.

Great.

If Magnus had had access to his magic in that moment, he was pretty sure it would have been bright red with anger. He'd never felt more like lashing out with his magic, red sparks and minor damage to his apartment included. Instead, all he could do was stand there, breathing in and out and trying his best to push the anger away.

And of course that was the moment that Alec came home.

Magnus heard Alec throwing his keys into the bowl by the door and noticed his familiar steps across the carpet, but didn't react to him until Alec was standing right in front of him, taking in the mess that the teapot had left behind.

"Careful, you don't have shoes on. Let me help you with that."

Instead of replying, Magnus raised a hand, making Alec stop dead in his efforts. His eyes were closed, he was breathing heavily and he could feel the past few weeks' anger and disappointment seething in his chest, burning his insides on their inevitable way to the surface.

"Don't. Just…just leave it. I'll take care of this later" he heaved out, voice pressed. He turned around, blood rushing in his veins and thoughts rushing with them. He was about to dash off towards their bedroom so he wouldn't lash out on Alec, when a firm grip on his arm stopped him.

"Magnus, wait."

"It's fine, Alexander."

Alec's voice was soft, yet decisive when he replied. "No. It's not and it hasn't been for weeks now." He stepped in front of Magnus so he could look him in the eye. His other hand rested on the side of Magnus' face, thumb softly brushing over his skin, providing the warmth and comfort Magnus was so desperately lacking these days.

"I know you're hurting, Magnus. Even though you pretend you're not," Alec said, his voice a lot gentler now. "I know it hasn't been an easy situation for you and I guess I might not be the right person to talk to since I have no idea what it feels like to lose your magic like that, but…I just want you to know that I'm here. If you need someone to listen."

Despite his heavy heart and the melancholy and grief that wouldn't let him out of its iron grip, Magnus felt his shoulders relax and his emotions calm down a little. He stepped closer to Alec, wrapped his arms around his waist and buried his in Alec's sweater, breathing in the familiar scent of detergent and Alec's shower gel, enjoying the familiar feeling of Alec holding him and the way it never failed to calm him down. Magnus' tone was low when he replied, almost hesitant but no less honest. "Alexander, you are the only person I would ever want to talk to."

Beneath his ear, Alec's chest heaved with a sigh of relief. Alec's arms that had just gently been holding on to him, as if he wasn't sure whether or not his affection was welcome in that moment, wrapped him into a warm embrace.

"You miss your magic a lot more than you're willing to admit, hm?"

Magnus took in a shaky breath and hugged Alec tighter. "Yeah."

They stood there for a while, not talking at all, the only sound in the room being the soft tunes playing from the stereo in the corner and Magnus' ragged breathing.

When he eventually spoke again, his voice was barely above a murmur, its tone defeated. "It's just so hard, you know."

Alec's embrace only tightened, wrapping up in the gentle comfort that only Alec seemed to be able to give him. "I know."

With a deep breath, Magnus pulled away and hesitantly looked at Alec. Taking another breath, he braced himself for what was to come. "Then let's talk."

+++

Sharing how he felt about the loss of his magic wasn't easy. Actually, it was even more difficult than Magnus had anticipated it to be. The past few weeks he had pushed his anger and sadness aside, locked it away so he wouldn't constantly be reminded of what he'd lost. But sitting on his living room couch, one of his hands in Alec's while he remembered everything that he had so carefully pushed away for weeks hurt. Magnus knew that he could trust Alec with his life, and yet it still took everything out of him to let the Shadowhunter in on how he was feeling.

But Alec had never disappointed him in a precarious situation like this and neither did he this time. He didn't say much, just let Magnus ramble, but his posture, expression and the soft look in his eyes signaled Magnus in that very unique Alec way that his attention was completely on Magnus and Magnus only. It was one of the qualities Magnus loved most about Alec – whatever he did, he did with his whole heart. Even if it was dealing with his boyfriend's lousy heartache mood.

Later that evening, when they were already in bed and Magnus was cuddled up in Alec's arms and had long passed out, exhausted from letting himself be vulnerable and even more exhausted from pretending the opposite for so long, an idea came to Alec's mind. With a soft smirk, he reached over to switch off the lights, the idea already turning into a plan as Alec drifted off to sleep.

+++

Magnus slept well into the next morning. The previous day had taken its toll on him, especially the talk with Alec, and left him exhausted. He hadn't dreamt at all that night, which was unusual, but woke up the most well-rested he had in months, which was even more unusual.

However, the most unusual thing was that the bed beside him wasn't empty. When Magnus had gathered his senses enough to open his eyes, Alec was laying on his side, one arm serving as a pillow for his head, the other reached out to brush a stray strand of hair out of Magnus' face.

"Morning". Alec's voice was soft when he spoke and definitely too little grumbly for him to have just woken up. That in combination with the fact that Alec had slept in on a weekday made Magnus even more suspicious, but given that Alec looked so very adorable in this disheveled look, he didn't really care.

"Good morning, Alexander," Magnus replied, his own voice heavy with sleep. He let out a yawn and then looked at Alec again, who was still smiling softly at him. "Shouldn't you be at the Institute? I believe that your office start quite some time before –" he said and paused to crane his neck so he could look at the alarm clock on Alec's nightstand, "ten thirty in the morning."

Alec chuckled. "I took the day off. They can deal without me for 24 hours."

"You sure about that?"

"Well they'll have to. I already made breakfast."

Magnus chuckled. "So that's the reason for the slightly Edom-esque smell in here."

"That and the fact that I may have left the first pancake in the pan for a little too long," Alec admitted. He dropped a peck on Magnus' cheek and then rolled out of bed. "You stay put, I'm gonna go get the food."

"Don't you worry, Shadowhunter. I'm not going anywhere."

As heavy and emotional the previous evening had been for both of them, their shared breakfast in bed made more than up for it. As opposed to their talk the previous night the atmosphere was now lighter and more relaxed, without a hint at how difficult the day before had been for Magnus. He was so busy laughing, chatting (and kissing) Alec that he almost forgot his little crisis had happened at all. But that was the point – almost. As soon as Magnus spilled some of his coffee onto the sheets, automatically snapped his fingers to magic it away and nothing happened, the feeling from earlier was back again, pushing onto his shoulders like a heavy weight and making his entire chest tighten so much that he felt like he couldn't breathe.

This time, however, he wasn't all by himself.

As soon as Magnus tensed up, Alec was there, softly rubbing his back and murmuring soft encouragements until Magnus' shoulders relaxed and his breathing evened out a little.

"I'm sorry," Magnus muttered, fingers nervously playing with the now coffee-stained blanket thrown over their feet.

Alec shook his head. "Hey, don't be sorry for something that's not your fault. We talked about this yesterday. I'm here. Every step of the way, remember?"

Magnus sighed. "I know. Thank you."

Alec looked at him for a second with a stern gaze, as if he was making sure that Magnus really was better, then smiled softly at him and leaned in for a soft kiss. "Anytime. Now – we need to get up, I have plans for us today."

Magnus frowned, somewhat hesitant but also very much intrigued. "Plans, you say? Any chance you're going to let me in on what kind of plans those are?"

The Shadowhunter grinned at him, impossibly smug. "Nope. But I can tell you that they're plans that involve us getting out of bed and leaving the apartment, so let's get going!"

+++

Alec did not disappoint. Once they had finally made it out of the apartment (Magnus not having access to his magic did not mean that he wasn't going to dress to impress when he was leaving the apartment, thank you very much), he took Magnus to their favorite coffee shop where they grabbed some coffee to go (or "sugar in a paper cup" as Alec liked to call Magnus' – admittedly insanely sweet – drink of choice).

When they were standing on the sidewalk in front of the shop, drinks in hand, Magnus took a sip of his coffee and looked at Alec. "So now what?"

"Now, I am taking you out on a date"

Magnus raised his eyebrows and then laughed softly. "A date? You do realize it's just past noon, right?"

Alec just smirked and shrugged. "Yep. A date. Just because it's early afternoon doesn't mean I can't take out my gorgeous boyfriend."

"Flattery is going to get you everywhere, my dear," Magnus said, stepping closer to Alec so he could kiss him gently.

Magnus and Alec spent the rest of the day positively all across town. Magnus had been living in New York for decades, but with his former tendency to portal wherever he wanted to go, he had never explored the city the "mundane" way (except for its many bars and nightclubs, those he all knew by heart). Alec, however, had been navigating the city like a mundane for most of his life and knew it like the back of his hand. After spending a few hours at an art gallery which featured some of the artists Magnus had known personally, Alec showed Magnus some of his favorite hidden spots throughout the city. Some of them he had found while chasing after a particularly annoying demon, others just completely by accident while he'd been on a walk to clear his head. All of them were positively gorgeous and the perfect hideaway from the busy, crowded everyday New York life and something so very Alec that Magnus felt his heart flutter with affection.

They even played tourist for a bit and went to see the Christmas tree at Rockefeller Center, which Magnus had to admit did look beautiful with its lights and decorations and the ice rink in front of it. Of course, they had to take a few hideously adorable pictures and send them to Izzy and Catarina, which earned them snarky remarks but also quite the amount of heart eyes emojis in return. When Magnus suggested trying a few rounds on the ice, Alec sent him a glare that he usually reserved for when people were seriously annoying him at the Institute, but eventually agreed – which led to some of the worst laughing fits Magnus had ever experienced.

He also learned that having all kinds of runes didn't exactly help much when somebody was just a hopeless disaster on the ice. Magnus was tempted to record Alec's first few laps on the ice, the careful steps he took reminding him a lot of a baby trying to walk (including the falling on their butt part – multiple times). But at some point, Alec's military upbringing and endless determination kicked in. He took a break to study Magnus for a little bit and after watching him speed and twirl across the ice for a while, he came back, trying again. With a little help from Magnus and his hand to hold on to, they managed to skate together, fingers intertwined and tiny snowflakes falling around them. Alec took his gaze off the slippery surface in front of him and gazed over to Magnus. His heartbeat quickened at the sight and he felt relief flood through his body – Magnus was beaming, his cheeks were flushed from the cold and his gaze, often cold, distant and dull over the past few weeks, was now warm and shining with glee.

Alec smiled back at him, happy to see the man he loved in better spirits again. When they slowed down, Alec pulled Magnus to a stop and slung his arms around Magnus' waist, pulling him close.

Magnus chuckled. "Already getting tired, Alexander?"

"No. Just enjoying the view."

When they kissed a moment later, their lips were cold, but the way both of their hearts were thrumming inside their chests was enough to keep the both of them warm.

+++

By the time they got back to the loft, they were both way too cold to function. They had walked the last bit of the way home and even though the streets had looked beautiful with the many Christmas decorations and fairly lights adorning many windows, they were glad that they were back.

Magnus had excused himself to the kitchen right after they'd come home and when he came back into the living room, a steaming mug of hot chocolate in each hand (one of them spiked with rum, obviously), he was welcomed by the most adorable sight. Alec had already made himself comfortable on the couch – quite literally. Leaning back into a mountain of pillows, he had one of their warmest, fluffiest blankets thrown over his legs, the sight of him the epitome of coziness. When Magnus approached him and carefully put the mugs down onto the coffee table, Alec lifted the blanket and let Magnus settle against his chest, then covered both of their feet with the blanket again.

Hot chocolates completely forgotten, Magnus rested his head on Alec's chest, the soft rise and fall of his boyfriend's breathing soothing him. He started fiddling with the leather wristband he had brought Alec from a trip to Europe. The leather was already beginning to get worn and the colors were fading a little, but Alec had not taken it off since the day Magnus had given it to him and refused to let him replace it. Now, it served as a perfect distraction while Magnus was trying to find the right words for what he wanted to say.

In the end, he settled for just saying what he felt, because if their relationship had always been characterized by one thing, it was honesty. "I meant to thank you for today, Alexander."

Alec smiled and dropped a kiss onto Magnus' head. "No big deal. We have so little time to go out on a nice date, the least I could do was put in some effort when I got the chance."

Magnus smiled softly. "We both know this wasn't just about taking me out today."

Alec chuckled. "Not exactly."

Magnus shifted so he could look at Alec. "I know it wasn't. And that's why I appreciate it so much. I know I haven't exactly been the easiest company these past few weeks, but I do appreciate everything you have done for me recently. Even though I may not have shown it."

"Magnus, you have every right to be not quite yourself right now. I can't even imagine what this entire situation must feel like to you. I just wanted to – I don't know, show you how much life as a mundane has to offer, I guess. Show you that even though it's not what you're used to, it can have beautiful sides."

Even after months of dating, Alec's blunt honesty sometimes still managed to catch Magnus off guard. His voice barely carried when he murmured another soft thank you to Alec.

"Anytime. We're going to get through this together, alright? Whatever happens. You and me."

And as much as he was hurting, as bleak as the perspective of facing a life without his magic sounded - in that moment, resting comfortably in their living room, fairy lights and candles tinting the room into a soft yellow glow, Magnus knew that Alec was right.

Lights will guide you home and ignite your bones and I will try to fix you

#malec secret santa 2018 #malec fic #hurt/comfort #katwriting #malec fanfic #malec fanfiction #malec

31 notes · View notes

psyched2b · 6 years

Text

All My Heroes - Chapter Four (Steve Rogers x OFC)

Warnings: I swear...sometimes

Feedback is appreciated and welcomed!

*Moodboard created by the amazing @shreddedparchment

“What the fuck was that!?” Steve yelled in piqued surprise and took a big step away from the petite woman, needing distance. He could feel his heart hammering in his chest, his breathing coming out ragged, his hand still clutched in his chest.

Cecelia winced at his outburst and visibly recoiled in on herself. Her green eyes watered and she gave him an apologetic look. “I’m so so sorry,” she tried, wrapping her arms around herself. She felt ill at having startled the Captain so harshly. “I should have warned you. I just…I don’t.” She squeezed her eyes shut to keep the tears in. “I’m sorry.”

With that final apology, she took off up the tree, leaving Steve at the bottom to look up at her, shocked at how quickly she climbed.

Regret flooded through him then and he realized that he overreacted.

He stepped back towards the tree and reached his hand out, hesitating before placing it on the trunk. There was no overwhelming feedback this time and he let out a small sigh of relief. He then leaned his torso against the body of the tree and looked up through the branches to locate the elusive Cecelia Thompson.

“Cecelia?” he called, blue eyes searching every branch. His eyes locked onto her form at the top of the tree.

She was laying, her back resting on the branch, legs dangling down on either side. Even from his spot, he could see that she wasn’t afraid of falling. He listened to see if she was crying and was relieved when she wasn’t.

“It’s Cece,” she shouted back down, face facing the sky.

Steve’s heart skipped a beat at her voice, secretly relieved that she wasn’t going to ignore him. “Please come down!” he hollered up to her. “I’m sorry I reacted so negatively. I was just surprised!”

He could hear a deep sigh escape from her lips. She then hooked her legs around the branch and leaned over so she was hanging upside down, grabbing the next branch below and lowered her body down. Steve was amazed at the amount of strength it took to execute such controlled movements. Cece continued to climb her way down the tree until she was on the lowest branch, eye level with Steve.

Steve offered her a hand to help her down, but she shook her head at him, alternatively, laid down on her stomach on the branch. “I’m going to just hang out here if that’s okay.” He could see the worry behind her eyes at his potential rejection and that guilt pressed at his heart. He realized that she probably didn’t open up to people that often, let alone those she just met and he fucking blew it.

He tucked his hands into his pockets and rocked back on his heels. “I really mucked that up, didn’t I?”

He almost expected her to giggle at his question, but instead, she shook her head in negation, eyes closing once again. The guilt clutched at him over again and Steve longed to see her emerald eyes….to convey his own sincerity, of course.

“It’s my fault,” Cece’s voice broke through, bringing Steve back to the moment. “I should have warned you about that…or maybe just not have done it at all.” She pressed the palms of her hands into her eyes and groaned. “Gods I’m so stupid! I just need to use my words. Words!” she reprimanded herself, shaking her head.

Steve was quick to reach out, grasping her hands in his. Her eyes popped open and she looked at him not in surprise, but with interest.

Realizing what he was doing, he dropped her hands, flushing bright red. He gave her a sheepish smile, scratching the back of his head nervously. “Sorry, I shouldn’t have grabbed you without your permission.” He stuffed his hands back into his pockets and made eye contact with her. “But…let’s come to a compromise. Next time you want to show me something like that,” he nods towards the trunk of the tree, “you give me a heads up so I can prepare myself for a sensory overload.” He offered her a smile, waiting to see if he would get one in return.

His heart skipped again when a small smile graced her rosy lips. He really needed to get checked out.

“Fair enough,” she agreed, biting her bottom lip.

Silence hung between the two of them for a moment. They were waiting to see who would break first.

Steve’s curiosity won out. “Two questions,” he started, giving off an apprehensive laugh. “You said ‘gods’ earlier. Is there a reason for that?”

This time, she let out a real laugh. “Would you believe me if I say that I’m friends with Loki? We met some time ago and he likes to curse his ancestors a lot and it may have rubbed off on me.”

Steve blinked, unsure how to respond to that. “You…you’re friends with the guy who tried to take over the world?” he asked incredulously.

Cece let out a small sigh, all signs of happiness vanishing. “I’ll be honest, Steve, I don’t know what happened there. He may be more inclined to mischief, but this is different. That’s not the Loki I know.”

A shiver goes down Steve’s spine when he heard her say his name, but he tried to ignore it. Instead, he asked, “You speak as if you’ve known him a long time. But you can’t be more than what, twenty-five?” He looks her form up and down, and nods, agreeing with his own assessment. He then blushed, realizing that he essentially just checked her out. Internally, he was panicking, praying that she did notice.

She lets out a cute snort. “Appearances can be deceptive, Steven. You of all people should know that. I’m actually 62. ALMOST 63. You know, because that ‘almost’ matters.” She glanced over toward Steve and laughed at the surprised expression on his face. “What, you think you’re the only one who can stay young forever?” she teased, sticking her tongue out at him. “How rude!”

Steve shook his head to clear his racing thoughts and leaned towards her in interest. “You mean to tell me that you don’t age? Or you just age very, VERY slowly?”

She nodded, “I haven’t aged since..well, if I had to guess, 1979?” She shrugged indifferently. “No one of my family has aged past 24, 25.”

His jaw dropped but was quick to close it. “So wait, do they have gifts?”

Cece sat up abruptly, her eyes scanning the area around them. After a moment, she turned her attention back to Steve. “You said you had two questions,” she reminded him, changing the subject.

Steve caught on to what she was doing but allowed it. “Oh yeah, my other question was more about the specifics of your abilities. Bucky explained it a little to me, but what you showed me was more than I had imagined. And it wasn’t even a person. Can you do that will any living thing? How does that play into your ability to manipulate connections? And what about removing Hydra’s control over Bucky?”

The woman rolled her eyes at him and held up a hand, stopping his list of questions. “That’s a lot of curiosity you have there, uh?” she teased, swinging her legs over to one side, placing her hands on either side of her and leaned forward, getting close to Steve’s face. “Are you always so…intuitive?” she whispered, eyes flickering to his lips before meeting his blue eyes again.

Steve gulped, the air around him feeling thicker. “I-uh….what?”

Cece gave him a satisfied smirk and leaned back, clucking her tongue at him. “You’re too cute,” she cooed. “But, to answer your questions simply. I can see, if I so choose, all of the connections inside any organic being. Beyond that, with just a glance, I know exactly what the purpose of that connection is and how it is supposed to function. With my studies to become a doctor, I know what belongs and what doesn’t, such as tumors. But when I touch,” she caressed her hand over the coarse bark, “I catch glimpses of memories. It comes to me all at once and it took…awhile to be able to get a good handle of it. As you know, it can be overwhelming.” She gave him a sheepish smile. “Sorry about that again. I’m used to it and didn’t think.”

Steve was listening intently. He waved her apology off and nodded for her to continue. “How was I able to see that?”

She shrugged. “I can’t explain how or why. All I know is that touch can be a powerful thing.” She gave him a wink and he blushed again. Her grin widened at his embarrassment and she continued animatedly. “As for Bucky, there are some cases where I can see…well, I would describe it as black goo seeping in every crevice in a person's mind. I could spot it on him a mile away. It wasn’t natural and I could feel how toxic and overall consuming it was. So, I kidnapped him.” She gave a fond smile at the memory. “That’s easily one of my greatest accomplishments. How many people do you know can take out The Winter Soldier?” She giggled. “Anywho, I took care of it and helped him out. But yeah, that’s…that’s a pretty basic overview of what I can do.”

“Wow,” was Steve’s brilliant response.

She giggled once again, “You’re too cute.” She hopped off the branch and landed silently on the balls of her feet. Glancing at her wristwatch, she realized that an hour had passed and knew Michael would burn the place down if she wasn’t home soon. “Time to head back to camp,” she told Steve, looking up at him. “Are you and Bucky spending the night? We can snag two more cots if we need too as long as you don’t mind camping out.”

Steve stared out at the land around them, unsure of what he should do. It wasn’t like he and Bucky had a set plan for where to go next. One night in a random village wouldn’t do any harm. Then in the morning, he could go over what to do to get into the compound with Cece and Michael. That, and he wasn’t sure if he wanted to part ways yet. His curiosity was winning out and he wanted to learn more about this beautiful woman before him.

Beautiful? Where did that come from?

“Steve?”

He blinked at the mention of his name, focusing back on the present.

“We’ll stay the night.”

She beamed brightly at him and his heart thumped heavily in his chest (yet again). “Excellent!”

Chapter Five

Everything Tags: @bettercallsabs @thinkwritexpress-official @mermaidxatxheart @geeksareunique @dont-stop-keep-walking

All My Heroes Tags: @deaniebean @asguardiansoftheavengers @thinkingsofamadwoman @spaceandstars @shreddedparchment @shynara51

#All My Heroes #Steve Rogers #Steve Rogers Fic #Steve Rogers x OFC #OC #Original Character #Captain America x Reader #Steve Rogers x Reader #Captain America x OFC #Captain America Fic #Captain America #Steve Rogers Imagine #Captain America Imagine #Marvel #Marvel Fic #Marvel Imagine #bucky barnes x ofc #Original Fictional Character

37 notes · View notes

malecsecretsanta · 5 years

Text

Merry Christmas, @mirrorofliterature!

Hey there! I hope you are enjoying the holidays so far. When I first contacted you about your present, you told me that you like angsty fics as long as they have a happy ending - so that’s what I tried to come up with (although I’m not really good at writing angst, so bear with me, haha). Here’s around 4k words of Magnus struggling to deal with the fallout of his magic, Alec being the best boyfriend ever, some fluff and two Coldplay quotes because their music was my constant companion while writing this fic. I hope you’ll like it! Happy holidays and have an amazing 2019! <3

Read on AO3

*****

Lights Will Guide You Home

When you lose something you can't replace when you love someone but it goes to waste could it be worse?

Had been capable of.

He couldn't. Because he didn't know what to say.

If only he could sleep as well as Alec these days.

Pushing his covers and bitter thoughts aside, Magnus got up and padded towards the kitchen, getting on with his first mission of the day: making coffee.

+++

He felt miserable. And he was tired of it.

Great.

And of course that was the moment that Alec came home.

"Careful, you don't have shoes on. Let me help you with that."

"Magnus, wait."

"It's fine, Alexander."

"You miss your magic a lot more than you're willing to admit, hm?"

Magnus took in a shaky breath and hugged Alec tighter. "Yeah."

They stood there for a while, not talking at all, the only sound in the room being the soft tunes playing from the stereo in the corner and Magnus' ragged breathing.

When he eventually spoke again, his voice was barely above a murmur, its tone defeated. "It's just so hard, you know."

Alec's embrace only tightened even more, wrapping up in the gentle comfort that only Alec seemed to be able to give him. "I know."

With a deep breath, Magnus pulled away and hesitantly looked at Alec. Taking another breath, he braced himself for what was to come. "Then let's talk."

+++

But Alec had never disappointed him in a precarious situation like this and neither did he this time. He didn't say much, just let Magnus ramble, but his posture, expression and the soft look in his eyes signaled Magnus in that very unique Alec way that his attention was completely on Magnus and Magnus only. It was one of the qualities Magnus loved most about Alec – whatever he did, he did with his whole hart. Even if it was dealing with his boyfriend's lousy heartache mood.

+++

Alec chuckled. "I took the day off. They can deal without me for 24 hours."

"You sure about that?"

"Well they'll have to. I already made breakfast."

Magnus chuckled. "So that's the reason for the slightly Edom-esque smell in here."

"Don't you worry, Shadowhunter. I'm not going anywhere."

This time, however, he wasn't all by himself.

As soon as Magnus tensed up, Alec was there, softly rubbing his back and murmuring soft encouragements until Magnus' shoulders relaxed and his breathing evened out a little.

"I'm sorry," Magnus muttered, fingers nervously playing with the now coffee-stained blanket thrown over their feet.

Alec shook his head. "Hey, don't be sorry for something that's not your fault. We talked about this yesterday. I'm here. Every step of the way, remember?"

Magnus sighed. "I know. Thank you."

Magnus frowned, somewhat hesitant but also very much intrigued. "Plans, you say? Any chance you're going to let me in on what kind of plans those are?"

The Shadowhunter grinned at him, impossibly smug. "Nope. But I can tell you that they're plans that involve us getting out of bed and leaving the apartment, so let's get going!"

+++

When they were standing on the sidewalk in front of the shop, drinks in hand, Magnus took a sip of his coffee and looked at Alec. "So now what?"

"Now, I am taking you out on a date"

Magnus raised his eyebrows and then laughed softly. "A date? You do realize it's just past noon, right?"

Alec just smirked and shrugged. "Yep. A date. Just because it's early afternoon doesn't mean I can't take out my gorgeous boyfriend."

"Flattery is going to get you everywhere, my dear," Magnus said, stepping closer to Alec so he could kiss him gently.

Alec smiled back at him, happy to see the man he loved in better spirits again. When they slowed down, Alec pulled Magnus to a stop and slung his arms around Magnus' waist, pulling him close.

Magnus chuckled. "Already getting tired, Alexander?"

"No. Just enjoying the view."

When they kissed a moment later, their lips were cold, but the way both of their hearts were thrumming inside their chests was enough to keep the both of them warm.

+++

In the end, he settled for just saying what he felt, because if their relationship had always been characterized by one thing, it was honesty. "I meant to thank you for today, Alexander."

Alec smiled and dropped a kiss onto Magnus' head. "No big deal. We have so little time to go out on a nice date, the least I could do was put in some effort when I got the chance."

Magnus smiled softly. "We both know this wasn't just about taking me out today."

Alec chuckled. "Not exactly."

Even after months of dating, Alec's blunt honesty sometimes still managed to catch Magnus off guard.

"Anytime. We're going to get through this together, alright? Whatever happens. You and me."

Lights will guide you home and ignite your bones and I will try to fix you

#mirrorofliterature #malecsanta18 #*fics18 #*gifts18

9 notes · View notes

azeroth-and-beyond · 6 years

Text

Forged in Fel Flame

Grogda held her tongs firmly, their arms grasping a large piece of red-hot iron. With the small hammer in her other hand, she gave the metal a gentle tap in a very specific spot. Suddenly, a larger hammer crashed down on the same spot, a loud bang that reverberated around the large room.

“Oi, hit it harder, yeh dumbass!” the dwarf screamed, sweat pouring from her brow. The large felguard on the other side of the anvil grunted loudly, but said nothing. Grogda tapped the iron again with her hammer, which was immediately followed by another large strike from the felguard. “Much better, keep it up!” She kept tapping the hot iron, and the felguard kept striking it, gradually shaping it, warlock and demon functioning in tandem. The metal slowly cooled, losing its red color.

“Increase the heat, the forge is too cold!” Grogda barked without even looking at the forge, feeling the lack of heat on the back of her neck.

“What?! How hot do you want this forge to be?” came the screeched response, which made Grogda furrow her brows.

“Hotter than it is now! Get to it!” The forge light increased, further illuminating the room, and warming the back of her neck again. “Much better!” She turned her head, looking at the imp channeling a jet of flame into the forge. She smiled, and chuckled briefly. “Ha! See? Do as yer told, and this will work out just fine.” Grogda set down her hammer and grabbed the tongs with both hands, placing the cooled metal back in the forge. “More heat, yeh bastard!” she snapped at the distressed-looking imp.

“How much fire do you think I got?!” he chittered in return, exasperated.

Grogda shook her head, and turned to look at the imp for a few seconds. “Bah, I’ll do it meself!” Her eyes glowed brightly, an intense orange light surging from them. She raised her hand toward the forge, and released a bout of fel fire into it, turning the inside of the furnace into a raging inferno. After a moment, the inferno subsided, leaving the forge much hotter than it had been previously. “Perfect,” she said to herself, satisfied. The dwarf waited until the metal bar was once again glowing hot, and repeated the same process several times. It slowly took shape and form.

There were several dark iron bars neatly piled in a corner, with many other bars of all types and colors stacked upon them, waiting to be used. The forge room was well equipped and served Grogda well, even if she had sacrificed the largest room of her house to build it. She had also earned the ire of Fenella Darkvire, one of the head architects of Shadowforge City, by altering the lava flow so she could use its heat to warm her forge. But it had been all worth it, because she now had one of the best private forges in all of Blackrock Mountain. It was no Black Forge or Black Anvil, but here, here she could work at her own leisure, in whatever way she preferred. There were no other dwarves here to heckle her for taking too long, or for “damaging” the forge with her... peculiar methods.

The smithing continued for several more hours, the thick metal bar slowly taking the shape of a beautiful, ornate hammer. Grogda inspected her work against the forge’s light closely. She had a reputation to uphold, after all-- and delivering a flawed commission could spell the end of her name. She had to make sure no weak points or impurities threatened her creation. Her eyes lit up again, but this time they didn’t glow red. Instead, they were suffused with a sickly green and purple light. She raised a hand, using her particular brand of magic to open a portal into the abyss that was the Twisting Nether.

It didn’t take long for an observer to float through the portal and into her forge. “Ah, calling me again so soon, Grogda?” he chuckled, amused.

Grogda simply held the hammer out to the demon. “Yes. I need yeh to inspect this hammer for me.”

The observer blinked at the object several times, and then turned his gaze back upon the dark iron. “This is not enchanted, Grogda. There’s no magic I can learn from this.”

Grogda sighed. Observers were supposed to be among the smartest demons there were, but sometimes they were amazingly obtuse. “Because I want yeh to analyze the hammer's integrity, not observe magic! Now get to it, it’s part of yer contract.”

The observer rolled his several eyes, clearly annoyed, but obeyed. As he focused on the hammer, his eyes began to emit rays of light, which connected with the hammer. The rays scanned it several times, without seeming to affect the object in any way. The observer relaxed, and looked at Grogda again, his head bouncing in the air as he nodded. She grinned.

The warlock walked over to a special table she had built just for enchanting, and gently set the still hot hammer down in the center. The table was covered in specialized engravings, painstakingly hand-carved into the hard stone. Arcane wasn’t her forte, of course, but she was still well-versed in the delicate magic of enchanting.

Beside the table was a large metal chest. Grogda grunted as she opened it, looking inside. She took a few small cloth bags and placed them upon the table, opening them one by one. Each contained something different; some were filled with pieces of crystallized mana, while others held enchanting dust. Using the table's carvings to guide her, she meticulously placed crystals at key points. She sprinkled the hammer with enchanting dust, making sure it was fully covered, then connected all the crystals with a trail of dust. She beckoned for the observer once more, who floated toward the table, appearing slightly more interested in this part of the process.

By this time, the forge's heat had subsided, and the felguard and imp were resting. Grogda lifted a hand, conjuring a small, flickering flame on the tips of her fingers. She carefully touched a line of enchanting dust with her fingertip. Being no ordinary fire, it spread quickly through the trails of dust as if they were oil, engulfing her carefully-placed crystals, and finally the hammer itself. Though they burned bright, the flames were eerily cold. The crystals began to dissolve, their liquefied mana following a fiery trail toward the hammer, bubbling like melted wax.

Grogda's hand remained steady as she manipulated the enchantment. The process itself could take several hours, and everything had to be perfect for the magic to properly take hold. Even the smallest mistake could ruin her work at any moment. But there was a reason why she charged a premium for her weapons. Her creations were no poor smith's shoddy craftsmanship. Grogda had spent decades honing her craft.

As the last of the crystals melted down, she controlled her breathing carefully. “Here. Watch this.” She snapped her fingers, a dancing green fel flame sparking to life at her fingertips. Though small, it seemed very much alive, as if desperate to break free from the warlock's control. She slowly lowered it toward the last remaining crystal, her muscles visibly tense. This was the hardest part of the process, as fel magic was too chaotic and unstable for most enchanters to work with. Grogda, however, was willing to take risks that others might not. She had learned to add her own flair to her enchanting, empowering the magic beyond its normal capabilities-- that is, if she was successful at binding the fel energy. At best, a failure would result in the magic breaking free from her control and consuming her creation. At worst... Well, there would be a raging inferno where her forge had once been. It was best not to contemplate that just now.

As the fel flame touched the crystal, the lines of fire consuming the dust flared brighter, shifting in color and temperament. It grew, becoming aggressive, trying to escape from the bounds of the dust trails in order to consume the table. Grogda was faster, taking control of the situation. She deftly wove the fel and arcane together, binding the innate order of arcane to the ineluctable chaos of fel.

The demonic observer barely blinked, intent upon observing her technique and her methods as the magics met and combined. While it was not unusual to use both together, and using one often led to using the other, it was still a unique process, and he seemed to find it quite fascinating to watch.

The enchantment took hours, and by the time it was done, the fire had burnt down to ash, the dust and crystals completely consumed. The stone table was left looking quite singed, but the hammer stood proudly in the center, covered in a fine layer of dark ash.

Grogda lifted the hammer carefully, finding it to be heavy and well balanced. She had used a special alloy of her own invention, and was quite pleased with the results. She stood back and gave the weapon a few test swings, the muscles in her arms flexing, then handed it back to the observer. The demon appeared quite eager, and needed no further commands. He inspected it closely, his eye beams hungrily scanning the hammer, perhaps more thoroughly than strictly necessary. He kept his gaze on it for several minutes, then finally chuckled.

“Another masterfully crafted item, Grogda. Congratulations.”

The dark iron picked the hammer back up with her callused hands, and inspected it for herself, the shine of the metal reflecting the dim light of the cooling forge.

“Imp! Clean the table.” The demon groaned reluctantly, but knew there was nothing he could say that would change his fate. He grabbed a bucket and brush from the corner, clambered onto the table, and began to scrub at the ash and scorch-marks.

Grogda found that she was grinning, proud of her work. The observer floated back to her side, curious. “Tell me, Grogda. Does this hammer already have an owner? How much did you sell it for?” Grogda kept her eyes on the hammer in her hands, drinking in every detail, remaining silent as she felt its weight and imagined its power. “Because, well, if you are still looking for a buyer, I could make an offer for it instead. I’m sure you’d find it generous-- more generous, I imagine, than even a wealthy dwarf could offer you.”

Grogda shook her head, her eyes glinting. “This is not a mere commission, Xhultarc.”

The demon took a long look at the hammer, unable to conceal the longing in his gaze. “I can still make my offer. Perhaps I could change your mind?”

The warlock finally looked up, and stared directly and fearlessly into the demon's largest eye. “No, Xhultarc. This hammer is not for sale.”

He shook his head, bereft, and heaved a sigh. “Very well,” he grumbled. “And who is it for? Or are you going to wield it yourself?”

Grogda smiled, letting out a soft chuckle. “No. This is a gift.” She looked into the hammer again, her smile widening. “You see, in a few years, Dagran II will need a weapon that is befitting of his station... And his throne.”

((Many thanks to http://liettarosewood.tumblr.com/ for editing this story for me!))

#Short Story #BFA #Allied Races #Grogda

9 notes · View notes

odogaronfang · 6 years

Note

How about just some fun Four Swords headcanons? They can be about anything you want really, go wild.

hmm….. it’s been a while since i’ve done headcanons here…

i always have trouble with general hc asks because my brain refuses to let me have access to my headcanons until someone puts me on a specific topic for them. reason number seventy two why i hate my dumb idiot brain. but let’s see..

[okay editing this after writing it, it ended up being just this one thing for now, but feel free to come back n ask for more if you want, i just wanted to answer it tonight]

if you take the entire group, including shadow, each pair has different strong points and dynamics. like, this sounds extremely obvious, right? but what i mean is like,

i would say that the two that get along the best, most consistently, would be vio and green. they’re also very good at tag-teaming leadership roles, green because, y’know, he’s Link ™, and also because he just.. kind of has that leader vibe. people WANT to follow him. he’s very charismatic and friendly, and then of course he’s got a reputation, so he’s very good at commanding respect from the get-go. that’s where vio comes in, to supplement the raw ability to command with actual logical and intellectual substance. …that sounds really bad. i’m not saying green is dumb. what i’m trying to say and failing to find the words for is that green steps up, grabs hold of their audience, and then vio comes in and provides the knowledge and tactical ability that’s required to turn it from a flock of sheep following a shepherd to a functional unit ready to perform whatever task they’re provided. green alone can definitely get people to rally to his cause, but he won’t be able to keep many without the skills that vio can provide. similarly, vio is seen as far too distant and calculating to really be considered one of those popular charming leaders (the ones that everyone wants to support), so to get people to listen he really needs someone who’s going to be able to pull everyone in initially, which is where green comes in. vio creates the structure for the audience green draws in.

the two with the MOST conflict would definitely be vio and shadow (with blue and shadow coming in second). like, even if you forget the whole betrayal at the fire temple arc. as similar as they seem, their personalities aren’t all that compatible because of just how snarky they both are. vio’s a smartass and shadow’s a wiseass, and they’re both REALLY condescending to one another. vio would be willing to kind of cool it and just swallow his pride and work with him, but shadow will pass up few opportunities to take stabs at him, especially when it’s relevant to his betrayal, and vio isn’t about to take it lying down. so they argue a lot, and a lot of their interactions at first are in very small doses. eventually they do mostly work it out, but they still clash a lot, even if it doesn’t get as nasty anymore. regardless- they’re an excellent strategical team. if you want people designing traps, fortifying an encampment or a location, tailoring an offensive against a tough opposition, you’re going to want these two. i think i may have actually mentioned this in another ask, but they are DEVASTATING when put together on tactics. they do, however, need someone there to supervise and mitigate, because vio’s notoriously morally gray and shadow is blissfully oblivious to the concept of morals in general.

coming in at second least conflict would definitely be red and vio. we’ve seen this in canon, red respects vio and vio seems to treat red very fondly, like an actual little brother. going beyond canon and into the realms of my own interpretation, like, red takes after vio a lot, and i like to think that they are the KINGS of petty. red, to the untrained eye, is “innocent” and “naive” and extremely emotional and empathetic, and therefore “can do no wrong” and is a perfect little angel. in actuality, red is vindictive and petty and in large part very jaded, because that’s what being high-empathy does to you, after a while. at first he still plays the part of what he seems to be superficially, because he wants to be very friendly and warm and he enjoys being more open, but people like that are taken advantage of and generally disrespected a lot… so he just kind of eventually stops trying to be meticulous about maintaining that image. like, of course he’s still very kind and altruistic and all, but if you start shit with him, expect to get it right back and then some (the “do no harm but take no shit” theory). and like i’m not saying that they gossip but they totally do. red will absolutely come into vio’s room at ass o’clock in the morning and start talking about someone that pissed him off earlier. vio will enthusiastically agree. anyway. getting off this particular tangent. they are a very good negotiation team which, again, i have mentioned before. red brings the charm and the polite, over-friendly bargaining, and he really lays it on thick, and a lot of people fall for it. vio on the other hand is ruthless and not at all afraid of blackmail and other “underhanded” tactics, and will go into under-the-table dealings if necessary. this includes threats and outright lies. and red will go right along with it and back him up. people don’t believe the effectiveness of this tactic until they experience it for themselves.

the pair with the second MOST conflict is blue and shadow. for very obvious reasons. they just kinda mutually piss each other off, and unlike vio and blue, there really isn’t much of a feeling of brotherhood or mutual admiration between them until a long long time after shadow joins the team. however. they are the destroyer team. shadow’s magic + blue’s raw physical strength + the rage that we all know both of them have = ultimate physically devastating team. they can cause a lot of damage between them, and i like to think that they’ve got a sort of legolas/gimli type competition between them every time they go into battle. shadow usually wins, because of his magic, and blue accuses him of cheating, because of his magic, but damn if it doesn’t double their efficiency.

vio and blue are also a very devastating team, just in a different way. where shadow is working harder alongside, vio is working smarter, because unlike shadow “let’s just kill all this shit and go to bed” link, he’s actually focusing on the individual moving parts of the various battles and how he can turn things to their advantage with the minimum amount of work (and therefore the minimum amount of risk). so vio will make the metaphorical blueprints and lay down the metaphorical foundation, and then blue goes and does the (sometimes not as metaphorical) heavy lifting, because they know that that kind of dynamic best suits their individual talents. they do argue sometimes (a lot), but then again, a lot of it is more playful bickering than it is actual conflict, and even when they do get into actual fights, they resolve it fairly quickly. regardless of what happens they’re still brothers and good friends and they get over their differences.

red and green get along very well also. sometimes red does go a little overboard with being a little shit, because he forgets that he isn’t talking to vio, who will just do it right alongside him, and while that doesn’t really get them into fights, green will just kinda be like :/ aight i’m gonna go be somewhere else then. otherwise though they get along really well, and they’re very good at things requiring diplomacy. they’re the most outwardly friendly and welcoming and they’re pretty much the most immediately charming, which, while it seems kind of dumb, can actually be very very useful in thorny situations.

green and blue are a very good fighting team. yes, they do tend to get into arguments over dumb little things. yes, they will engage in an impromptu sparring match over who can get the extra dessert. yes, they will attempt to wrestle the other to the ground for a slight advantage in any situation ever. yes, they take rock paper scissors way too seriously. regardless, they do compliment each other very well, and i think one of the most important aspects of their relationship is how they push one another to do better. to BE better. competition in a friendship, in healthy amounts, is a powerful motivational force. (that, and they can intimidate just about any group into hesitant respect and deference.)

green and shadow get a little rocky sometimes. green tries very hard to smoothly integrate shadow into the team. he’s mostly in charge of getting shadow accustomed to hyrule (and zelda, to some extent) because he doesn’t share too much of a bad history (sideeyes at vio) and his personality doesn’t directly and immediately clash with shadows (like blue’s or red’s). however, shadow still sees him as Link ™ and therefore is tremendously nasty and bitter towards him. green just doesn’t retaliate, either verbally or physically, trying to pacify shadow rather than key him up more, and shadow misinterprets this as some kind of submission and continues to take advantage of green’s refusal to stoop to the same level. it actually gets to the point where someone has to accompany green whenever he goes to see shadow, because the constant bullying does take a toll on him emotionally. once they get past that, though, they do actually get along pretty well, and they make a good team. in time, shadow comes to respect green a lot.

and then we have shadow and red. a lot of people see red as being the first to welcome shadow back into their group, but i dunno. just to begin with, red and shadow are terribly morally incompatible. that’s clear to see even only looking at them superficially. red probably has in mind all the things that shadow’s done to them and everyone else, and thinks of shadow as very needlessly cruel and obnoxious. in my opinion, at first red can’t STAND shadow. he’ll go with green to shadow’s room and the second that shadow starts getting out of hand, red gets absolutely vicious. and that does create some conflict, especially initially, but even though it isn’t what shadow wants it’s certainly what shadow needs, and it turns out alright in the end. they do work together surprisingly well when it comes to fooling people that don’t know them very well, and it works even better when they don’t know shadow, because shadow can put on an act like no other. even the most resolute and implacable and stone-hearted of people will bend to their will like grass in the wind. it’s actually kind of scary to watch. you have to be careful with these two.

#four swords #shadow link #red link #blue link #vio link #green link #my headcanons #this was actually rly fun #i need to get some more new stuff on here #even if its just hc talk and drabbles and stuff #but yea these are just my Hot Takes

29 notes · View notes

ganymedesclock · 6 years

Note

So basically, Keith (and possibly Acxa if they're related) has some kind of internal magic-sensing radar?? Or quintessence-sensitivity? Or something supernatural going on, anyway. I'm really curious what the implications of that ability may be in the long run.

Let’s talk about Keith’s energy sense and how it works! (I’ll also talk about Acxa here)

So far, what we know for sure is that Keith sometimes exhibits a heightened ability to perceive certain elements in his surroundings. In s1e1, major examples of this are when he felt “called” first to the shack, and then felt a kind of ‘field’ around the Blue Lion that he was able to triangulate.

This map and “triangulate” would suggest that Keith can tell when he’s near certain things, and by turning in place he can identify which way will get him closer to it- the three ‘x’es are places he went to, and, from there, identified which way the energy was. By going to three different places, he was able to pin down the energy to a very specific location, which he marked in the smaller circle, and probably found the bigger circle by similar means.

So Keith’s “energy sense”, as I prefer to call it, is a pretty fine-tuned and reliable instrument. It’s not a power that comes and goes, but something very predictable. It operates similarly to Hunk’s Voltron detector, and what they later upgrade to track the comet and thus Lotor- only for Keith, who had no idea what Hunk was talking about with the Fraunhofer line, he has this piece of equipment functionally built into his head.

While we don’t have explicit confirmation, my personal hypothesis is that in s1e10, and parts of s3, this “sense” of Keith’s was also what guided him to focus heavily on the druid and on Lotor.

This would suggest that, rather than Hunk’s tracker, which operates on the specific material of the trans-reality comets, Keith is able to track large volumes of quintessence. Voltron is a perpetual motion machine that radiates vast amounts of energy- so what Keith is picking up here, is simply the large amounts of energy that Blue gives off, rather than a connection between him and the Blue Lion.

But when it comes to the Lion he is connected with, Keith is able to simply sense Red’s position once he gets close enough- while the others require equipment and glowing carvings to guide them to the spot, Keith simply takes a deep breath and experiences a vision of Red’s position.

In s1e10, he focuses first, intently, on the glowing canisters, and then becomes determined to follow them. This draws him to follow the druid, and discover the room full of quintessence. He also tries to take some of it with him, though he doesn’t explain why. He also lasers in on Lotor- when in s4e3, Haggar remarks that Lotor has an unusual energy around him, presumably Sincline itself, though Keith focuses on Lotor before that time.

Also, in s4e6, while he has other reasons to be suspicious, Keith becomes suddenly, incredibly tense about Haggar’s ship and actually says, “I don’t know why, but we have to attack that ship.” At a point in which Haggar is gathering a massive volume of magical energy to destroy Naxzela.

This is the first portion of Keith’s ability, and the most well-documented.

But I suspect there’s another element to this- Keith functionally has a kind of spidey sense.

Allura states that Red requires a pilot that “relies more on instinct than skill alone.” This raises something interesting when we consider Lance is not shown to be a bad pilot- he takes to flying Blue easily, and by s3e1, before he switches to Red, he’s shown to pull off some very complicated maneuvers and be a powerful dogfighter.

And yet he runs into not just problems with Red, but a very specific problem: he’s never able to react in time because Red moves too quickly.

A problem Keith has never had, even though Red would be leagues faster than anything Keith has ever flown.

On several occasions, in combat, Keith can be observed to preemptively orient himself to face an enemy he has no way of knowing is there. Most obviously, this happens in s1e10, fighting the druid, and also in s3e3, fighting Lotor. In the former case, the druid keeps teleporting around him, soundlessly, and attacking from blind angles. Each time, Keith pauses, sometimes appears to glance around his surroundings, and then looks at, or turns to face, his attacking enemy.

In s3e3, Keith, despite being explicitly on a planet that destroys all conventional sensors without specific adjustments- where Black is functionally blindfolded- finds Lotor repeatedly, at one point verbatim says, “He’s around here somewhere, I know he is,” and on another occasion, suddenly snaps his head upright to look above him- and seconds later Lotor dives the team from exactly where Keith was looking.

This is where I’m gonna mention Acxa, because Acxa herself seems to do this! Most noticeably on s3e2, when the generals first arrive on Puig, Acxa is disseminating orders, facing her left. A Puigian rebel shoots a laser at the back of her head, standing in the opposite direction from which she’s looking- the laser makes no sound until it crosses in front of the screen. However, Acxa dodges it by pulling her head back. Which casts suspicion overall on her incredible aim, and that she rarely properly steadies herself while shooting- if anything, she’s prone to shooting rapidly while tumbling or flipping through the air, which makes her actual marksmanship unusual- especially when the other sharpshooter in our cast, Lance, is shown to take time, aim carefully, and/or use a scope or sighting along the barrel to make his shots precisely.

(though, admittedly, he’s also made some downright amazing shots that we haven’t seen Acxa- precise distance shots are more his area while Acxa’s more impressive for her ability to shoot while moving)

Other scenes that become suspect in this would include s1e6, when Rolo leads the Lions into an asteroid field to escape them- Keith, and Red, go inside, and navigate the field of moving and colliding rocks with little difficulty.

This also becomes suspicious with the strong emphasis on instinct for the Red Lion- because “instinct” refers to intuition, having a ‘gut feeling’ about things, or processing information minutely on a subconscious level. Consider Alfor, Keith’s predecessor, in s3e7, and how he’s the conduit for understanding Voltron- its name, its capabilities, how it operates, and what must be done. He does not obtain this information by conventional means.

Red also forms a set with Green, who is all about conventional means of gathering information- technology, science, investigation, communication. As both of the legs are tasked with supporting and protecting the team, it makes sense the arms also share a task- and the task of the arms is gathering intelligence to return it to the head.

Alfor also responds with great animosity and discomfort to the rift creature when he first sees it, before it ever turns aggressive, and in contrast with his nature before then, where he’s established as almost brash to a fault.

As an aside, it’s also worth noting that Keith has some very stereotypically oracular traits. Out of the team, he’s the only one with a particular striking, unusual eye color- his distinctive indigo irises. He also is first encountered living in seclusion in the desert, focusing on a subtle, but insistent “calling” that he can’t explain and is unfamiliar with the science that validates his bizarrely potent gut feeling. Something Lance calls “Mumbo-jumbo”

There appears to be another side to this ability- something Keith hasn’t exhibited much on his own but someone else before him seems to have in Blue’s cavern.

That being clairvoyance. The ability to predict events before they actually happen, or that happened far away from you.

Keith tells us that someone wrote down, in the carvings and paintings around the Blue Lion, about “some kind of arrival happening last night. Then you showed up.”

So, at some point, before Keith found the carvings, someone knew Shiro would arrive, on a specific day, and marked it down.

One of the big things about s2e8 and the Trial of Marmora, while this was explicitly bequeathed by the suit, is that visions are a big deal to Keith, especially when it comes to his history, and his family. What he’s seeing, what’s real, and what’s born of his fears. Because sometimes Keith is able to pull genuine information from a nebulous source- as I’ve listed before- but other times, like his dream in s2e6, is completely inaccurate, and the trial is explicitly tinted by his fears and not what’s really there.

So I have to wonder if this is an exercise in character development for Keith- that maybe his murky nightmares contain valuable information or warnings, but he has yet to refine that ability as much as it could- to the level of whoever left the warning for him in the cave.

Perhaps another mysterious figure who seems to be linked to that area and has purple eyes just like Keith does... and who would have a connection to both Keith and Acxa if the theory of them being siblings is true.

#voltron legendary defender #vld #Keith #Acxa #readmore #Anonymous

148 notes · View notes