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gwen-ever · 3 years

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Until My Last Breath (Prologue)

Summary: When Smaug arrived, he not only killed the dwarves of Erebor, but he also destroyed the lives of the few who survived... whether he did it on purpose or not.After a hundred years, a part of Thorin's past will come back to haunt him in the form of a dwarf who last knocks on the door of Bilbo Baggins' house, resurrecting old grudges and the pain of a life no one wants to talk about. Geira, daughter of Geiri, is anything but an open book, an exiled who no one wants around, a warrior who has no one to fight for, but only an oath she must fulfil.

Relationships: Thorin x FemaleOC

Rating: M

Warnings: none.

AO3 LINK: HERE

Note Number I: English is not my first language, I have a wonderful beta @lathalea <3 (i am so much greatful you can't even imagine) but maybe I will mess up few times.

Note Number II: The Story takes place during the quest but there is a whole backstory that starts since Thorin's childhood so there are going to be a lot of flashbacks. THEY ARE NOT IN A CHRONOLOGICAL ORDER so the whole back story could be guessed but will be explained later in the story.

Note Number III: I will mix up the book events and the movie events, fixing what where (from my point of view) some mistakes were made. I have decided to do so simply because there are some lacks of infos here and there and so many lost possibilities in some actionless time, as happened in Mirkwood and Laketown.

I am blood of your blood, and bone of your bone, stone of your stone

I gift you my body so it can fall instead of yours.

I give you my soul so it can wait for yours in the Great Halls.

I lend you my voice so it can order your commands

I present you my sword so it can slay the ones who wish to harm you.

No other dwarf will be mine, no other dwarf will own me,

no one will sleep next to me, no life will come out from the womb of mine.

No one I will serve over the crown, over the Seven Stars, over the Father of all fathers, over the King of all Kings.

I offer myself to you, until the end of times, until the mountains soar to the sky,

until all the blood dries, until the fires of Mahal’s forge blaze high.

Until my last breath, until my last glance, until my last blow,

until the last time my hands touch the rock our Father gave to us,

my life is yours and your wish is mine.

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

The house of Bilbo Baggins was more crowded than usual that evening, and the owner was more than a little disconcerted: not only had his peace of mind been disturbed, not only was his larder completely, utterly, depleted, but his kitchen, indeed his whole house, was overrun with dwarves! Thirteen dwarves! Plus a wizard he had met in the morning whom he barely knew and had marked the door with a rune, thanks to which his guests had recognised the Hobbit's dwelling. Truly, Bilbo Baggins did not know how to begin to drive them out, he had been trying since the first one (Dwalin, if he remembered correctly) had walked in through the round door, obviously without being heard by any of them.

Crockery, knives, pots and pans, everything had begun to fly from one side of the room to the other without ever stopping. He tried more than once to stop them, without ever succeeding! At that moment his Took blood was more useless than a fork when eating soup. In fact, his Baggins blood had gotten the better of him, leading him to accept the situation with no small amount of annoyance, including those black strokes on his yellow walls and the fragments of food scattered on the floor. Oh, not to mention his good wine, totally gone! It had taken him hours to sort out his pantry between days before and now all his food, all his tomatoes, all his wine, all his cheese, everything, gone, vanished, and it was not even the time for the spring solstice party yet!

And now, or in heaven's name, now Gandalf had even had the courage to tell him that he would have to get used to them! To all of them! To the twelve dwarves in his kitchen! And what on earth did the wizard mean by saying that he would have to put up with them forever!

Annoyed, he began to walk down the corridor arguing with Gandalf and putting his hands on his hips.

"I don't understand what they are doing in my house!" he shouted, raising his voice.

The wizard didn't reply, but a small voice behind him did and before he knew it his entire set of porcelains was in the air. His cutlery was being knocked over his table. Knife blades were being dulled by their rubbing against fork handles, and before he knew it, in time to the music, his entire kitchen set was flying through the air. Oh no, no no no, not that chair, no, not that plate, no not that other plate! No, stop, please!

His pleas were soaring through the air, as if they were leaves on a wind, as were his dishes. And Gandalf sat smoking his pipe on a chair with an amused smile while all this happened before his eyes. Bilbo ran to the kitchen to put an end to this madness, but as soon as he did so, he noticed to his surprise that all the things that had been flying over his head until just now were neatly stacked on top of each other on his kitchen table.

He blinked, several times adjusting his braces, unable to believe his eyes.

The dwarves seemed highly amused by his reaction, and began to laugh, until three knocks on the door brought silence and an icy air that he could feel all the way down to his hobbit ankles.

"He is here," Gandalf said.

From the doorway a short while later another dwarf entered and it didn't take him long to realise that he was different, very different from the others who had entered his home moments before. Every single beard turned to face the newcomer as he walked inside.

Bilbo didn't know who it was and he didn't even really care, no one would enter his house unannounced, no one.

But he couldn't admit that his blood ran cold in his veins as soon as that dwarf started talking to him and asking him all those strange questions. What did he mean by axe or sword? Did he really believe that a hobbit like him had ever picked up either weapon? Who did he think he was? He could not hide his confusion at the last statement of the so-called Thorin Oakenshield.

"He looks more of a grocer than a burglar," he joked.

It was all too absurd for Bilbo's poor hobbit ears, all so surreal! His life, monotonous and lonely until a few hours ago, was now changing, he could feel it in his bones, and he could not understand if it was a good thing or not: he had always dreamed of adventure when he was a young hobbit, but now it was different; the walls of his home were so comforting and safe, every object was a certainty for him. His life was there and he would never leave it, no sir!

Calmness, however, continued to reign for a long time, during which the largest of the dwarves, with a long red beard, went to his kitchen and with an almost surreal care began to prepare a soup. Thorin Oakenshield sat down at the head of the table and was soon joined by the oldest of the dwarves who had entered his house, Balin, and two of the youngest, the two brothers Fili and Kili.

They began to talk in low voices, in a calm and quiet tone, just like everyone else in his house. It seemed absurd, but at least he was able to sort out some of the leftovers that had been left behind in the kitchen back in his own larder and eavesdrop, even if he didn't want to (it was rude) on some of the conversations that various small groups of dwarves were having. The ties of kinship were quickly understood, as was the realisation that Thorin was not really just another dwarf. No more plate was flying, no more song was being sung, but not out of fear, out of respect.

He turned his head, watching the almost regal profile as he spoke to the bear who came into the house first, but he could not hear what they were talking about, the fact was that their faces were dark, and Dwalin's eyes moved insistently over him.

A short while later Bombur returned with the soup, handing it to Thorin, and in the blink of an eye the groups of dwarves in his house were grouped together again, sitting around the table. He wasn't invited, that's normal, there's a meeting in a house and the owner of that house isn't invited! Not that he cared, of course not, the apple he was putting in the basket in the kitchen was certainly more interesting.

But he couldn't help but listen.

"What news from the Ered Luin, did they all come?" asked the older dwarf.

"Aye, envoys from all seven kingdoms," the voice of Thorin spoke, setting off a round of small laughs and joyful murmurs.

"And what do the dwarves of the Iron Hills say? Is Dain with us?"

A long wait ensued in which Bilbo swore he could hear the heart of every single dwarf in the room beating wildly.

"They will not come,"

The dwarf's reply was sharp and decisive. Disconsolate murmurs rose from his dining room that only increased in volume and quantity when he spoke again. "They said this quest is ours and ours alone,"

They began to talk in low voices, in a calm and quiet tone, just like everyone else in his house. It seemed absurd, but at least he was able to sort out some of the leftovers that had been left behind in the kitchen back in his own larder and eavesdrop, even if he didn't want to (it was rude) on some of the conversations that various small groups in that group were having. The ties of kinship were quickly understood, as was the realisation that Thorin was not really just another dwarf. No more flying plates, no more singing songs, but not out of fear, out of respect.

A coughing noise, however, stopped the murmurs and caused Bilbo to turn to the table from behind the kitchen wall as well, distracting himself from his chores. Gandalf settled into the small chair and began to search the sleeve of his grey robe.

"This indeed, it is not entirely true," he explained as he slowly pulled a long wooden pipe from his sleeve. "There is someone else who has yet to arrive," the sorcerer explained, barely looking Thorin in the eye.

For all the pipe weed in the world, again?

The dwarf at the head of the table stopped sipping from his goblet of ale, giving him a sidelong glance but remained silent. Instead, the dwarf named Gloin spoke, crossing his arms over his chest. "This means yet another division of profit, all of which should have been agreed upon first." he muttered.

"Agreed, this matter should have been dealt with weeks ago," Dori pinned, pulling himself up.

Gandalf did not even look up at the elder dwarf, adjusting the tobacco in his pipe. "My decision was made after our meeting in the Ered Luin. And Master Gloin, I think that our member does not wish any of that gold in that Mountain."

"Who is it?" grunted Dwalin suspiciously, looking up at the wizard who lit his pipe with his fingertips.

Bofur chuckled under his big black mustache, puffing an avalanche of white smoke from the side of his mouth. "Another burglar?"

"A burglar for the burglar," Fili grinned at the back of the room.

"A burglar made for the burglar," Kili added and their banter invited the murmurs from just before. This time, however, they were louder, more confused, as was his hobbit head.

A torrent of questions flooded the room as they all asked questions of the wizard, who, bewildered, tried to answer; only Thorin's intervention put an end to the commotion created, shouting warnings in their native tongue. Then he turned to the sorcerer himself, glancing at him.

"The questions that have arisen around this table are fair," he began earnestly, "I have not been informed of any others, none of this was a part of the bargain, Gandalf."

Gandalf smiled with the side of his mouth taking a puff of his pipe. "I was told to find the fourteenth member of this company and so I did, the addition of a fifteenth should not be an unsolvable problem."

"As I said it wasn't in the agreements and last minute clauses at a time like this are not convenient, not at all," retorted the dwarf bringing silence again.

Bilbo looked at the dwarves, clouded by the smoke from the pipes and the warmth of the candles around the table. They looked at each other's hands or watched Thorin in silence, not uttering a breath.

Gandalf put down his pipe and crossed his arms on the table, moving slightly closer to the dwarf with long raven hair.

"I assure you that my choice was not taken lightly, and if I had thought it was right a few months ago I would have reported it to you back then. But it was not possible," Gandalf lowered the tone of his voice even further. "You must trust me on this."

"Is this person crucial to what we must accomplish?" he asked quietly, looking straight into his eyes.

The wizard murmured a small "yes" between his lips, nodding his head slightly as he continued to look the dwarf lord straight in the eye.

Thorin said nothing, watched the wizard for a few more seconds before letting himself go off the back of his chair and then he took a sip of ale from his mug again. The conversation had ended in a few simple sentences, yet Bilbo noticed how the wizard continued to look at Thorin insistently.

Gandalf brushed his gloves around his hands with his fingertips dropping his gaze downwards for a few seconds before turning his head back towards him.

"Bilbo, my dear fellow," he called to him in a manner far more cheerful than his face was capable of showing. "Let us have a little more light".

----/////----

A snort passed her lips.

She was dreadfully late, which she hated from the bottom of her heart; and she hated the fact that she was going to a strange house of a Hobbit whose identity she did not know, although after all those years she had become accustomed to being in the homes of strangers quite often. Perhaps the real reason for her stomach clenching was not whose house it was but who she was supposed to meet in that house and the reason why she was going to that house. Because when she would see them again, all of them , it would not be pleasant or easy.

Far from it.

She didn't even think it would ever happen, nor did he want it to happen again.

She slung her sack over her shoulder as she climbed up the little dirt road, passing funny grass-covered houses by the round door: if it had been daytime, a riot of colours would have accompanied her path and perhaps, for a few minutes, she would not have thought about the imminent meeting.

She would have stopped for a few brief moments on that bench next to the path and sat there for a short while, perhaps lighting her pipe or watching those very peaceful people go about their simple business. Watching them do simple, mechanical things, perhaps in another life she might even have stayed in such a place, in peace, with someone. But no, too many years had passed, she had seen too much, heard too much, and she would not be able to live like that, not there.

Suddenly, a faint pale light caught her attention: she approached it and, with a thump in her heart, recognised the rune that the sorcerer had traced so that they could all see it. She reached the garden and climbed the small steps that led to the round green door. She ran a hand over her leather bodice and gathered in her heart all the emotions she could possibly feel.

Hatred, fury, pain and anger, so much anger.

She gritted her teeth and tried to ignore the voices she could hear through the door. Taking a deep breath to calm her already jangled nerves, she knocked, hearing a great commotion and excited voices from inside.

The door suddenly opened, and it was the sorcerer himself who filled her field of vision: he broke into a rather smug smile, proud to have been right for the umpteenth time.

He knew she would come at last.

She had met him only a few weeks before and he was exactly as the rumours said. Gandalf's every move was studied and planned and, who knows why, everything corresponded to the plan he had devised; how every cog in that mechanism worked was a great mystery. Yet for that, she could not but admire him.

So, after he had silently nodded his head, she entered the cosy, warm house that smelled of good food and wine and was lit by the soft light of candles; she followed him into a corridor and the smell of ashes and moss entered her nostrils, as well as that of processed tobacco and malt. In a few steps she found herself in front of a small room where, around a table, were crammed all the others who, as soon as they glimpsed their new guest, assumed the most surprised and astonished expressions she had ever seen. Their faces turned pale, their beards seemed to stretch to the floor, and none of them dared say a word. Only one of them stood up so fast that he knocked over the stool on which he was sitting, irate.

"What is she doing here?!"

The rumble of thunder rumbled through the room and like a thunderbolt it brought to light old hidden shadows, old whispered words, broken oaths.

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You're blood of my blood, bone of my bone, stone of my stone,

I embrace your body to let it protect me

I take your soul and forge for it a place next to me in the Great Halls

I take your voice which I will hear above all others

I take your sword and I present you my shield which will protect you from my enemies.

No other dwarf will be yours, no other dwarf you will serve,

no one will keep you company at night, no life will come out from you.

No one you will serve over me, over the Seven Stars, over the Father of all fathers, over the King of all Kings.

I offer myself to your hands until the start to the end, until the skies fall on the ground,

until all the bones crack, until the fires of Mahal’s forge blaze high.

Until my last breath, until my last glance, until my last blow,

until the last time my hands touch the rock our Father gave to us

my desires are yours, your pain is mine.

#thorin #thorin oakenshield #thorin x oc #thorin fic #thorin fanfiction #the hobbit fan fiction #king under the mountain #quest of erebor #middle earth #middle earth fic

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sooibian · 4 years

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Flambé - I

poster and edits/collage credits to @is-that-baekhyuns-shirt !

chapter two | moodboard by the lovely @pororodks

🍜 pairing: kyungsoo x fem!reader ft. baekhyun, mark lee

🍜 description: pull up a chair. take a taste. come join us. life is so endlessly delicious. - ruth reichl

🍜 themes: fluff, crack (ish), slight angst, a lil bit of spice (in the future), rivals to lovers au

🍜 word count: ~ 9.7k

🍜 a/n: writing this makes me feel lonely and hungry and that, my friends, is a deadly concoction of emotions so while i wallow in my misery, i dearly hope you’ll enjoy this creation. i'd love to hear from you <3<br>

🍜 reference notes: yt channels: maangchi, one meal a day, bore.d; netflix shows: midnight diner, street food: asia, chef’s table

🍜 tag list: @changshapatrol @j-pping @kyungseokie @exosmuttytalk @his-mochi-cheeks @littleflowercrown13 pls lmk if you’d like to be added/removed from the tag list!

Water bobs in frenetic bubbles in a massive ancient stone pot perched atop a fort of raging wood. Amidst brutal peals of thunder, a gushing stream rises from a nearby hill, obscuring the shrill cries of the sacrificial crab.

Chanting a spell, you lift the enormous crustacean by its pincers and lower it into the growling, pitch black utensil. Blubbering helplessly, it lodges its claws at the rim of the pot in desperation, seeking escape. The sound of your maniacal laughter reverberates through the cave as you thrust it back into the violent undulation with a heavy-handed flick of the bladed-spatula.

All of a sudden, you’re swept over with a wave of unconsciousness, your skin tingles, and boiling water begins to fill up your lungs.

You are alone at the bottom of the very same utensil.

“Help!” frantic, you stagger up, gasping for air. But the bladed-spatula wielding crab, now untied and hovering over you, roars jubilantly at your defenseless form.

Maybe the spell didn’t land, you think.

“Please, Chef!” you whimper as a last ditch attempt.

In one swift motion, it swooshes down to your eye level.

Bushy black brows sprout on its forehead, just a little over a pair of big brown circles for eyes. Then comes the nose, followed by a bloody red mouth that snarls at you.

zzzz…

“Late again?”

zzzz…

4:00 a.m., your phone blinks.

In a sleep befuddled state, you reach out for the wailing device. ‘Late again?’ Chef’s cold, deep voice sounds in your consciousness as you wipe the droplets of sweat off of your forehead.

Chef.

Doh Kyungsoo had insisted on the title and you’d boldly refused to call him that. What business does a man working at a Kalguksu stand in Gwangjang Market have, being called Chef. You’d seeked redressal with the higher ups. The owner.

Your aunt.

“Aegiya, he has something that you don’t.”

“A dick?”

“YAH! A degree in culinary arts.”

“Imo, haven’t you watched Parasite? Anyone can forge documents these days and if so then why is he here? He could very well land a job at Four Seasons like Hyunjin. Think, Imo. Think!”

“Exactly! With forged documents, he could be anywhere. But he’s here, no?”

“Maybe you’re just easier to manipulate.”

Finally, she said in her no-nonsense, stern voice. "Chef. You’re calling him Chef.”

Every time the egotistical madman opens that darned mouth of his, it makes you want to knock him down with a roundhouse and beat the living daylights out of him.

But, counting to five, you always resist the temptation.

Because one day, one glorious day, you’d take over your aunt’s business and the very first item on your agenda would be….well, the obvious. With a glimmer of hope, you flounder out of your comforter, muttering every cuss word you’d learnt…and crafted in the course of working with the devil himself.

“Ah 3000 is a bit too much for cucumbers", he says to the middle aged vendor, flashing a boyish grin.

The face of sourcing has drastically changed in the last six months since Kyungsoo’s arrival. Prior to his dictatorship, Imo had tie-ups with vendors who’d hand deliver the produce every single day, without fail. Guess Kyungsoo didn’t fully comprehend the benefits of customer loyalty. ‘There could be better quality ingredients out there, Sajangnim…economically priced, I might add’, he’d convinced your aunt using his military corporal voice. No matter if it meant awkward break-ups with the vegetables ahjumma or the prawns ahjussi: you were left to do the dirty work.

And required to tag along for the routine 5 a.m sourcing runs. Every morning, he’d greet you with an accusatory ‘you killed my cat’ expression.

Groaning, you shift your weight from side to side. If only he’d quit flirting with every woman in the market and hurry up! The purchases have long exceeded the capacity of your humble cart. Flailing your numb arms awake, you urge him to speed up with a nudge of the knee but he glares at you like you’d asked him for a kidney.

Kyungsoo has a tendency to overbuy but never does he help with a single bag. ‘I don’t like to sweat’ is his excuse. Which is pretty ridiculous considering he spends over ten hours a day overseeing a scorching frying pan at the stall.

But you know better than to argue.

Because as much as you loathe every fibre of his existence, he terrifies you a little. The man possesses the duality of a psychopath. As fierce as he is in the Market, ruthlessly competitive even, he’s quite the sweet talker. Incredibly charming. And you can bet your life on the fact that every ahjumma - whether or not a rival - would take a bullet for him.

“Ahdeul-ah”, the woman coos at him, making your insides violently contort, “you know how tight the market is these days. But I’ll throw in some more only for you.”

The additional weight of three kilos on your right arm ends your sourcing run for the day.

***

“Chef”, huffing, you say to him on your way out, “I had a late night last night.”

“And I need to be privy to this little nugget of unwarranted information because?” He paces ahead of you at his usual lightning speed.

“No, I meant, could we stop”, panting you continue, “could we stop for a quick cup of coffee.”

Halting abruptly, he turns around to look you square in the eyes, “No.”

“Asshole!” You murmur under your breath.

“I heard that.”

Monday at Choi Yoonsun’s Kalguksu stall was busier than usual.

It went by in a daze amidst the cacophony of a sizzling girdle, clanging of pots and pans and Imo’s relentless vocalization inviting guests to the stall. Having served thousands of bowls of Kalguksu and Kimchi Mandu, you rely heavily on muscle memory to get you through a workday’s demands.

Despite its massive chaos and commotion, you quite enjoyed working in the Market.

Not being particularly skilled at much and having nearly flunked out of high school, cooking was the one thing that defined you. It was your safe harbour. You’d lost your father in an accident at the tender age of ten and your mother was forced to work long hours to put food on the table. So you honed your culinary skills, little by little, because you thought it vital for your own well-being as well as your mother’s.

One cannot think well, love well, sleep well, if one has not dined well.

At the end of yet another rewarding day, you leave a wet towel soaking in vinegar for Kyungsoo to clean the iron girdle and proceed to tend to the dirty dishes yourself.

“Yahh!” Imo calls out for Kyungsoo and you, thumping her hand on the table, gesturing for you to join her.

“Ahh! Imo, there’s a huge pile of dirty dishes!” You cry out in response, only to turn around to find that ass-kisser already at the table, schmoozing with your aunt. Hastily taking off your grubby apron, you wash your hands and wipe them clean with a rag cloth. Straightening your black shirt, flattening unruly flyaways, you rush toward the table but she’s already up and ready to leave, “We’ll have dinner together tonight. I want to have a word with both of you.”

“But -”

“Sajangnim”, Kyungsoo interrupts, wagging a finger in your direction, face scrunched up in mock concern, “this one’s had a late night last night -”

“Chef! So I guess I’ll be seeing you tonight. As if seeing you every day of every week wasn’t enough already!”

An overtly saccharine smile spreads across your face and his jaw hardens in response.

“Aish….you two…I’m leaving now”, shaking her head, she sighs, “see you both in two hours.”

Kimchi jjigae, Pajeon, Tteokbokki, Jajangmyeon, some leftover Bibimbap with sides galore from Hong Lim Banchan Stall. Imo clearly has something important on her mind.

But the vibe at the dinner table just doesn’t sit right with you.

The reason for that could be the bespectacled black hole of negativity that’s seated besides you in all black clothing but there’s something off about Imo.

She’s being a little too nice.

Fear gradually starts to settle in your bones. Is she finally closing down? Is this delectable fare an attempt at softening the blow? After all, she’d settled her husband’s debts over five years ago and her sons were doing well for themselves. Quite well, in fact. The elder one, Hyunwoo, is an investment banker and the younger one Hyunjin went to culinary school and is working as a chef at Four Seasons’ Chinese restaurant. It only makes sense for her to trade the Market’s gruelling ways for some much deserved peace and quiet.

“We’re closing down the stall”, she says coolly.

It’s like a punch in the gut.

“Imo -”

“Aegiya”, she rests her chin on her hand, face clouded over with serenity, “the Market’s given me everything. It’s given me a sense of independence…a sense of pride. It put my family back together. I used to think that I’m nothing without my husband and my sons…but the Market gave me an identity. I continued to work even after my husband’s passing not because I needed the money but because this is something that I’ve created and I’m mighty proud of what’s become of it today. My name is a brand in itself. And a decade ago I couldn’t have imagined this even in the wildest of my dreams.”

A million scenarios cascading through your head drown out Imo’s voice.

Would you now have to go back to Bucheon? Or invest in a stall of your own at the traditional Gwangjang that would never accept your big and bold ways with cooking? And to start from scratch? With a new recipe? Kalguksu with a twist, perhaps? But you had no insight into your aunt’s special broth. She’d never let you or even Kyungsoo for that matter whip up the hand-cut noodles. The two of you only ever helped with the ancillary tasks.

You soon come to the realization of not being the only one caught in the eye of the storm. Kyungsoo’s unwavering gaze is scarily fixated on the bowl of jajangmyeon before him. His miserable state gives you a fleeting sense of relief and it’s in that exact moment that he chooses to say something unpalatable.

“Sajangnim, you’ve worked too hard. It’s time for you to reap the fruits of your labour. We’ll be fine, you don’t have to worry about us.”

Of course he’ll be fine.

Nearly all food stall owners in Gwangjang have been vying for him ever since the day he set foot into Choi Yoonsun’s with his phlegmatic personality. Whereas you had nowhere to go. The world conveniently assumes Imo hired you only because you were her poor sister’s daughter who she sought to help financially. Not because you had what it took to be there and survive.

“Did I say I was ready to retire?” She laughs, eyeing Kyungsoo quizzically.

“Here’s the thing..I met up with a friend last month. She was looking for a buyer for her little family run restaurant in Gangnam. So I took out a loan, made her an offer”, balling her hands into fists she sighs, “put in the deposit…and the place is pretty much mine now!”

“IMO”, you yell, “you didn’t have to scare me with that long winded speech! God, you’re so dramatic!”

“Well, it is a big move. I’m not sure either of you are ready to take the leap. It requires a tonne of work and I may not be able to pay half of what you earned at the Market for at least two months until we open. It’ll take the restaurant two years or so to break even and only then will I be able to afford scaling your salaries. On the other hand, what I can do is, help you secure a job at the banchan stall since you love seasoned spinach so much and Kyungsoo even stands a chance at managing one of the Pakgane stalls!”

Pakgane is the mung bean pancake stall that had gotten so popular that the owner managed to branch out of Gwangjang. So even your beloved Imo believes that you’d make for a better “help” and Kyungsoo, a Manager.

Ugh!

“I’m coming with you”, you say firmly, “I’ve saved up a little and Eomma will gladly pitch in, if need be…”

At this point, you’d expected Kyungsoo to be ready with his luggage considering the little sycophant he is but his expression is stoic, eyes still glued to the jajangmyeon bowl, filling you with insane hope.

He was going to jump ship…finally!

“Chef…”, you couldn’t resist, “you don’t have to worry about us…I’m more than enough for Imo. You may…”

He shoots you an angry glare making you chew on your unsaid words. But wanting to rile him just a little more, you excuse yourself and bring out a bottle of ketchup. Squeezing it generously atop the stack of pajeon, you snicker maliciously.

Ketchup.

The tangy, unassuming condiment is the sole reason Kyungsoo abhors your very existence. But as this dinner marks the end of his torturous regime, you celebrate with ketchup - lots of it - right in front of his nasty eyes.

Steam swirls in different directions and at every twenty metres a contrastive redolence tickles your olfactory senses. Experiencing Gwangjang as a guest is clearly a far richer experience compared to the donkeywork involved in life as a vendor.

A proper send-off is essential lest Kyungsoo decides to stay, even if it means creating a huge dent in your pocket. You plan on giving him a final tour of the Market where you could both say your goodbyes while receiving a premium fuel of vitamins, minerals and carbs.

Lots of carbs.

“Let’s start with Pakgane”, says Kyungsoo, with a skewered sausage in one hand.

Wanting to start with nothing less than the best in order to create a lasting impression, you shake your head in response. This was supposed to be a farewell he’d never forget.

With every step, the aroma of scallops drizzled with butter and cheese grows stronger. You start your tour by ordering two portions of the delectable street food which sets you back considerably but you’re far too elated to care, even refusing Kyungsoo’s offer to pay as the woman sets the scallops ablaze with a blow torch.

“Do you know what this technique is called?” Kyungsoo gives a little nod in the direction of the flaming food.

A teachable moment. How does his own personality not wear him off?

You’d made a firm resolve to not let any of his condescension bog you down so with a sweet smile, you reply, “No, Chef. I do not.”

“Flambé, minus the alcohol. Do you know how they manage that?”

The ahjumma calls out for you and you nearly jump to collect the order, the slight upward curl of his lips coming into your peripheral vision.

***

The Market supposedly looks the same as it did fifty years ago and you quite enjoy eating your way through it. The tour makes your heart grapple with nostalgia even though your partner’s vibe is akin to a mug of insipid coffee.

Although you’d spent only a little over a year at Choi Yoonsun’s, the goodbyes were long and hard. Some of the vendors squeeze you and Kyungsoo in heart wrenching hugs, the others give you a little cash to help you through the transition and for some of the food, you pay only with smiles and thank yous.

After a gastronomic fiesta entailing tteokbokki, pajeon (minus the ketchup - you did it Kyungsoo’s way), sashimi, kimbap, different types of banchan, a thousand more teachable moments, the both of you end the day on a sweet note with hotteok.

The ahjussi wishes you both luck, making you choke back tears.

Your moist eyes don’t escape Kyungsoo’s attention.

“Are you…. Is the hotteok spicy? No, I mean it’s obviously not…erm”

The dam of your tears explodes.

You were going to miss this place. Even the less appealing aspects of it. You were going to miss the kimbap unnie who greeted you with a hug everyday, also the snooty mandu ahjumma who could hardly stand the sight of Choi Yoonsun’s crew. You were going to miss washing dishes in the winters with water that was supposed to be ice and the sweltering summers that had you sweating through every layer of clothing.

Hell, you were even going to miss Kyungsoo.

“No”, you sniffle, “No, no Chef, it’s nothing. Take care of yourself. As much as I’m glad that our fateful working relationship has met its rightful end, I truly, genuinely, wish you luck. And learn to smile a little more, yeah?”

“Are you dying?” Eyes glinting, mouth agape, he chuckles.

“What? NO! What? You’re leaving. What is wrong with you?”

“Who says I’m leaving?”

“You! You’re not coming with us to Gangnam!”

“Says who?”

“Your stupid face that looked like it was hit by a freight train when Imo broke the news last week!”

“I’m not leaving?” He draws his words out in a question.

“This is no time to joke, Chef. You are leaving!”

“Says who!”

“Your stu-”

“Stupid face? I wasn’t planning on leaving at all. I’ve even found myself a place close to the restaurant. Oh yeah, sorry for having misled you. It was really just - my stupid face.”

A month from Grand Opening

It’s not just about food.

Food only makes for a fifth of a restaurant’s success equation. Management and promotional skills are essential because a restaurant is, first and foremost, a business.

Mark Lee, the young consultant from PCY Associates had imparted this crucial business knowledge to your compact team of three aspiring restaurateurs in exchange for an egg sandwich and watermelon juice. The enthu-cutlet has been overseeing the legal set-up of your humble restaurant for a month now.

However, according to Mark, the crème de la crème of the success equation is customer service.

Customer service.

Here’s where the crusty Chef was supposed to take a backseat and you - a real people person, a socially adept charmer - were to sashay in and shine.

These ideas were a bit too much for that thick, globular skull of his so you tried to educate him with a practical example.

He’d added a rule to the first draft of the menu - a shared document for brainstorming purposes. It read ‘No ketchup for you.’ This rule (or insolence as you called it) went against your belief system as the restaurant’s to-be-anointed Manager (a girl can always hope). ‘Never say no to a customer’ being the foundation of customer service, you slashed the rule with a strikethrough.

But the next time you tried to log in, you found yourself locked out of the document.

“Chef, why can’t I find the draft menu anymore?”

He’s aggressively julienning leeks, pretending to not have heard you.

“CHEF!”

“What?” Finally, he looks up. The skin between his eyebrows pinched and his arm raised to level his brand new 1-piece chef’s knife (initials etched into the blade) with his profile.

“Why-why did you lock me out of the draft menu?”, you stammer, gaze trained on the cutting edge glistening with tears of The Leeks.

Kyungsoo’s been visibly getting jittery by the day as opening day approaches.

He deliberately places the knife to the side of the board and you take a gutsy step forward. He uses a cold, serial-killer voice to ask, “What makes you think that I locked you out?”

You lean over from the other side of the granite counter, face barely an inch from his, “Who else could’ve? Imo is technologically challenged.”

“Fine”, he sighs, “I locked you out.” His lips curl up in a menacing smirk, “What are you gonna do about it?”

Grinning, you stare right into his dark eyes and let out a shrill, high-pitched scream, “IMO!”

This throws him back a few steps and he’s rubbing and pulling at his right ear when Imo walks into the kitchen.

“Yah! Am I your babysitter? Whatever it is, I don’t want to hear about it. I am asking you”, she looks at you before spinning her head in Kyungsoo’s direction, “and you, to sort this amongst yourselves. For once!”

“But-but Imo!”, you protest.

“Aegiya, I really don’t want to ship you back to Bucheon.”

***

“Here’s your tax ID, liquor license… okay so this was a touch-and-go because the officer is transferring to another Department and the one that’s supposed to be coming in is a real piece of work….”

Mark Lee is here with the final set of documents.

Imo’s eyes are gleaming with excitement and sheer joy but she’s held a businesswoman-like composure. On the other hand, Kyungsoo looks very much like himself - like someone’s sucked the life out of him.

You bring Mark his usual egg sandwich and watermelon juice because there’s only so much your restaurant can offer at this point in time, feeling brutally overwhelmed with the volume of pending tasks until opening.

After practically inhaling his mini-meal, Mark dabs his mouth clean and says, “My work here is done. If you need anything you know where to find me. And good luck. Trust me, you’ll need it.”

Imo looks worriedly at Kyungsoo and then at Mark and at Kyungsoo again which prompts him to ask rather uncomfortably, “What do you mean ‘you’ll need it’?”

Mark’s dramatically long sigh is an indication of a sermon to follow. As he leans back into his chair, Imo and Kyungsoo instinctively cower like an invisible weight has been plopped onto their shoulders. The sight is beyond pathetic: they are like peasants before a feudal lord. It makes you want to smash the know-it-all smirk off of Mark’s face.

What comes after, though, isn’t a sermon but a sentence and a half that leaves the three of you shaken.

“The dining business here in Gangnam is hyper-competitive and most restaurants fold in six months. And if that sandwich is any indication…”

Kyungsoo valiantly advances to rescue your team out of the dark bubble of Mark Lee’s words with, “What’s wrong with the sandwich? She makes a perfectly good sandwich!”

What was supposed to be a compliment somehow sounds very wrong in your head, but before you could give him the death stare he leaps to damage control, “What I mean is, we all ate the very same sandwich for breakfast. I don’t usually dissect food for novices but the egg was perfectly cooked, mayonnaise was just the right amount and the seasoning was balanced, too. So I’m not sure what you’re trying to say. We’re serving perfectly good food here.”

“The thing is, this is something even my mother could make and dude, believe me, she’s terri…her culinary abilities are highly questionable. Also, do you think your friend would’ve sold you this place if it were thriving, Mrs. Choi? She’d inherited it from her grandfather and she sold it to you at a dirt cheap price because she was neck deep in debt. I’m sure you know, real estate here is three and a half times the country’s average. So not only do you have significant funds locked into a possibly deadweight property but also your plan clearly lacks vision. Gwangjang’s Choi Yoonsun can keep you afloat for four…maybe six months but Gangnam’s Choi Yoonsun has to create an identity for herself. Look around you, everyone’s serving good food”, Mark tilts his head in Kyungsoo’s direction, “Here, people eat with their eyes first. Now, I’m not saying family-run restaurants serving traditional cuisines don’t do well. A lot of them have been passed down for generations. What I’m saying is…..find your USP.”

Mark squints, looks into the distance, and pinches the air a lot during this damp squib speech of his.

So the menu isn’t very different from what Choi Yoonsun served in Gwangjang. Her USP has always been homestyle cooking with a twist. But that was the demand of a Market that upheld traditionalism and Gangnam, being precipitously everchanging, would be quite something to keep up with.

The weight of Mark’s words manifests on Kyungsoo’s shoulders. He lets out a sharp exhale and starts to clear the table, giving him plenty non-verbal cues to leave. You rush to help him out and meet his defeated form (crouched over the sink) in the kitchen.

The shuffling sound of your footsteps reaches his ears and he pivots to face you.

“We’ll be okay”, your voice is but a calm whisper prompting his creased forehead to slowly smoothen.

“We’ll be okay”, he forcefully echoes.

Grand Opening Day

A frisson of fear laced with excitement descends your spine.

Choi Yoonsun’s is enveloped in a pin drop silence save for the sound of Kyungsoo’s pacing. It’s grating on your nerves but Kyungsoo pacing is far better than Kyungsoo “going over the plan” for the umpteenth time.

The kitchen’s prepped for battle so you’re seated at the cash counter, cuddled close with Imo, placated by her soothing, motherly presence. The three of you are like ticking time bombs, ready to go off at any minute.

This, right here, is the perfect example of a pinch-me-it-doesn’t-feel-real moment. You allow yourself to feel the forces at play as your eyes take in every nook and cranny of the restaurant. The place is agreeably well lit and the ventilation hoods aren’t an eyesore either. The decor’s minimalistic with a sand and stone colour scheme and the floor’s been scrubbed spotless. Eight sturdy wooden tables, tactically placed, allow for movement and privacy yet the area has been optimally utilized.

Fifteen minutes for the ‘Open’ sign to light up.

Kyungsoo and you proceed to help each other out with crisp bright yellow aprons affixed with red name tags (handpicked by Imo, the aprons made you both look like dumpy chicks) and clear plastic masks and wish each other luck with curt nods.

***

Imo’s sons are the first to arrive with some friends in tow. They are served with Kyungsoo’s Yachae Twigim and Budae Jjigae, your Gyeran-mari and Kimchi Bokkeum-bap and of course, Imo’s famous Kalguksu and Kimchi Mandu. Makes you wonder if they’ve had enough of it but they seem to be greatly enjoying themselves. Some of Hyunjin’s friends from Four Seasons are here too, their mighty presence driving Kyungsoo to the edge.

But a few compliments from them are enough to soothe his nerves.

Among the flurry of patrons through the day were vendors and stall owners from Gwangjang along with their family and friends, Kyungsoo’s acquaintances who you knew nothing about and neither did you care enough to ask, Mark Lee with his very handsome boss Park Chanyeol also dropped by sometime around noon.

Your mother couldn’t make it to the opening. It stung a little but as usual, you sucked it up and went on with the highly stimulating day that anyway left you with very little time to mull over any unpleasantness.

***

By the end of it, you were pretty sure you’d wake up with blistered feet the next morning.

It’d been a splendid opening with sales tallying up to KRW 2500,000: nearly two and a half times the estimate. Imo breaks into a dance at the figure, even Kyungsoo lips stretch into a reluctant grin.

You intensely wish Mark Lee were here to witness this euphoric win.

Six months later

Mark Lee had been right.

Choi Yoonsun was miles from creating an identity in Gangnam. Regulars from Gwangjang could make it to the restaurant only twice or thrice a week, support from acquaintances had been gradually trickling, and some negative reviews floating around the internet about poor table turnover had also been driving potential guests away.

You tried to mitigate this by hiring part timers at minimum wage but for several reasons, none of them managed to stay: anti-social hours and Kyungsoo’s hostility being two of the key causes.

On your best days, the sales would total up to KRW 1500,000 and the weekday numbers had been dismal.

***

“Dooly-dooly!”

Your eyes light up at the familiarity of that voice. Mirroring its excitement, you run into the arms of its owner.

“Baekhyunnie!”

Kyungsoo peers over his glasses while scrubbing the iron girdle, studying the floppy haired, cheerful man with a wide grin plastered across his face that’s pranced into the kitchen at closing time.

Byun Baekhyun has been your best friend since time immemorial. Growing up in Bucheon, he’d been the only family you’d known besides your parents and Imo’s family. You weren’t even as close with Hyunwon and Hyunjin as you were with Baekhyun. Since work always kept your mother busy, his parents had practically been the ones to raise you and not once did they make you feel like an outsider.

“Yah! Quit calling me Dooly we’re not kids anymore! Have you eaten? Let me whip you up something real quick. Look at youuuu, when did you get this skinny! How long are -”

“Not to interrupt, but you’ve left the water running”, Kyungsoo drones, lazily pointing in the direction of the sink.

You clearly remember turning it off before darting to greet Baekhyun.

‘Sonofa-’ exasperated, you mouth to Baekhyun, whose eyebrows have shot up to his hairline out of vicarious embarrassment, before turning around to face Kyungsoo who seems to be scrubbing the iron girdle to gold. “Chef, you’re closer to the sink.”

“Reiterating. You’ve left the water running. If you wanna go on tittle-tattling, by all means….this wastage is on you.”

“Make yourself comfortable”, too exhausted to pick a fight, you whisper to Baekhyun, gesturing towards the closest table, “I’ll be with you soon.”

***

“It’s bad”, Imo sighs, burying her face in her hands.

11 P.M., two hours past closing time.

The sparse lighting in the restaurant is causing you an eyestrain to look at the scribblings on the register. Your neck and shoulder muscles are tense from all the chopping, stirring, and scrubbing: a slow day does not translate to an easy day. You notice that Kyungsoo is growing weary, too.

Or maybe discouraged.

You communicate with each other in evasive glances as if the restaurant not doing well is, somehow, on the two of you.

“Imo”, Baekhyun speaks first so as to allay the looming dread, “I’ve been reading the online reviews and those who’ve visited here have been raving about the food - especially the Kalguksu. They say you’ve brought the flavours of Gwangjang to Gangnam. There’s this one thing, though - ”

“Sajangnim”, Kyungsoo interrupts a zealous Baekhyun’s pitch, “I don’t think this is any of his business. We’ve been keeping track of reviews and such - ”

“Let the boy speak. He’s family.” She says softly, pressing her fingers to her temples, clearly clutching at straws now.

Kyungsoo clenches his jaw and nods in Baekhyun’s direction, indicating him to continue.

“There-there”, Baekhyun stutters, eyes fixed on Kyungsoo who’s vaguely fascinated with his cuticles, “are some complaints about slow service. Particularly between starters and mains.”

After an uncomfortably rich pause, Imo gently rests her hand atop Baekhyun’s “Baekhyunah, how long are you here for?”

“For as long as you need”, the apples of his cheeks rise as his eyes crinkle into a gleeful smile.

***

“Somebody is early. Also, the cart looks different…it’s..?”

Dressed in his usual black athleisure, round eyes framed with chunky glasses, Kyungsoo jogs lightly to match your out-of-character sprightly pace into the market.

“Bigger. I bought a new one.” You chirp, shooting him an out-of-character smile.

Even the dreary weather isn’t a buzzkill because today is supposed to be Baekhyun’s first day at work.

“How did you get Sajangnim to agree? She can be -”

“Miserly? Stingy? Close-fisted? Also, when will you stop calling her Sajangnim?”

“Just so that you can stop addressing me appropriately? Dream on. And I meant economical. Sajangnim is economical.”

“Chef, do you even listen? I bought it. With my own money. I figured since we’d need more ingredients now, we could use a bigger one.”

“And how did you come to that conclusion?” Impervious to his smug tone, you step away to pick up a one kg bulk pack of dried shiitake mushrooms while he’s examining a small batch of zucchini.

“Because Baekhyun’s gonna be working with us now.”

“Temporarily. And we’re suddenly going to start doing better because of an inexperienced, unemployed -”

The wheels of the cart hit his ankle when you swivel it, making him wince in pain.

“Oops! Sorry.”

“You did that on purpose!” He chides.

Half-shrugging, you say nonchalantly, “Serves you right. Baekhyun may be inexperienced but he isn’t unemployed. If anything, he’s doing us a favour. He’s whimsical like that.”

“I know”, he states, forcefully taking control of the cart, “I know he isn’t unemployed. He owns a Hapkido training academy for elementary school children and is on a break these days. I looked him up. I, personally, wouldn’t have hired him if it were my restaurant but I’m sure Sajangnim -”

“Chef?” You stop dead in your tracks.

“What?”

“You’re on…” you wanted to say ‘social media’ but the words sounded almost blasphemous to be used in front of a very uptight Doh Kyungsoo: a man with absolutely no online presence.

“What is it?” His eyebrows knit together in annoyance.

“Nothing, let’s go.”

“You know what else is different today?” He says on your way out, a mischievous smile tugging at his lips.

“Hmm?”

“You. You’ve showered.” He chortles, thinking he’s being funny.

But with a hardened expression, you let him know that he’s crossed a line.

“Too far?”

“A tad.”

“Let’s get you some coffee.”

“No.” You smile inwardly, relishing his apologetic tone.

“No?”

“We have to pick up Baekhyun’s apron and nametag.”

At first you thought you were imagining this.

A group of high school girls frequenting Choi Yoonsun’s must obviously be because they want to get healthy, homely meals instead of the trash served at fast food chains or the uneconomical subsistence of instagrammable cafes. They’re obviously not here for the charming server with an athlete’s body and a boyish grin.

“He should wear respectable clothing”, says Kyungsoo, indicating at Baekhyun’s skinny jeans and fitted black tee, hiss sharper than the sizzle of minced garlic in butter.

“Why, I don’t think his cleavage is showing”, you retort, scooping out a serving of rice from the cooker.

“You have absolutely no shame”, he states matter-of-factly, stirring the soup pot.

“What? Is my cleavage showing, too?” You ask in mock-surprise, fixing your apron theatrically.

“Forget I said anything.”

The aroma of Kimchi Jjigae had you salivating and you couldn’t wait to taste it for seasoning. Kyungsoo’s cooking amply made up for his drab, lacklustre personality.

“Chef, lighten up. Any publicity is good publicity.”

“You sound like a tabloid journalist”, leaving the soup to simmer, he turns around to face you, “What’s wrong with your hair?”

“I got a haircut”, scrunching your face you respond suspiciously, the fact that he noticed it despite the hair cover makes your heart palpitate.

Taking the unwarranted attention away from your hair, you ask hastily, “You think they’re here for Baekhyun and not your food, right?”

“Ye-yes”, he stutters, looking away.

“These people wouldn’t be here time and again if it weren’t for the food, Chef. You should know that.”

Moving closer to him, you lightly dust flour off of his shoulders.

“How did you get flour on your shoulders?”

His ears go scarlet.

Imo comes into the kitchen while Kyungsoo and you are preparing for the day ahead. Baekhyun has gone down to Bucheon to oversee the affairs of his training academy.

“There’s this new officer who’s reviewing all liquor permits issued this year. Be careful and make sure to check all IDs twice. I’m taking the day off. Will you two be okay by yourselves?” She swooshes out of the kitchen, not bothering with your incoherent replies.

“Can’t believe they’ve ditched us on a Friday.” You grumble, soaking clams in fresh water.

“We’ll be fine.” Kyungsoo reassures you.

***

It had been quite the day and nearing closing time, your feet were going sore. Baekhyun taking on the toughest role in the restaurant made you greatly appreciate his efforts. While most guests are civil, he’s experienced his fair share of rowdy ones firsthand and his ability to deal with them is unparalleled. He’s never, ever let any matter escalate to a point of embarrassment and has demonstrated the maturity to overcome every crisis situation with a smile on his face.

The fact that he’s only temporarily here suddenly starts to wear you out.

Kyungsoo sticks a handwritten note on the steel holder which reads - Yangnyeom - 2. It’s only been a little over eight months since the restaurant’s been fully functional yet the holder’s worn out more because of use and less because of time.

“About time we advanced to kitchen order tickets, right? Saves Baekhyun…or either of us unnecessary excursions to the kitchen. Also, billing will be simpler that way.” You offer while straightening your apron and getting ingredients ready for Kyungsoo to prepare the sauce.

“Yeah, it does”, he seems really out of it as he’s getting chunks of juicy chicken ready for the fryer. He’s moving around the kitchen rather clumsily, nearly tipping over the bottle of corn syrup.

“Wah, Chef, are you alright? Would you like me to do this?”

Resting his back against the wall, he slowly sinks to the floor, face buried in hands. “Yes, please.”

While you’re preparing a sauce the recipe for which you know like the back of your hand, his instructions don’t cease. The only thing you’ve ever liked about working with this man is that contrary to Imo, he does not believe in micromanaging. But right now it feels like you’re in the kitchen with her and not with Kyungsoo.

The tension causes you to lower the chicken into the fryer hastily resulting in specks of flaming oil to splatter onto your arm.

He’s quick to rush to your aid with a cold towel.

“Yah, Chef, you’re making me nervous, what’s with all this nitpicking?” You almost yell at him as he’s gingerly dabbing the towel on the affected area.

“I’m sorry, I am so sorry. It’s just”, he pauses briefly, worrying at his lower lip, questioning eyes peering into yours, before helping you with the chicken - slightly more confident in his movements now, “whatever you do, don’t get out of the kitchen. Table number four, those guys there, are weird.”

“Weird, how?”

“Rowdy, mannerless and drunk. Really, really drunk. Steamrolled by the ‘Friday happy’.”

“Ah, Baekhyun’s well-versed with their kind. Don’t worry, just be polite. Are you sure you don’t want me to intervene?”

“Positive and whatever happens?”

“Stay put. Chef?”

“Yeah?”

“It’s only thirty minutes to closing. We can get through this, okay? And don’t accept further orders!”

***

Twenty minutes after, you’re aimlessly scrolling through your phone to take your mind off the stabbing pain in your lower abdomen. Simultaneously playing a little game of inventing the kind of content Kyungsoo would upload if he were a user on these sites only to be jolted with the realization as to how little you know about the man.

As the restaurant’s occupied with boisterous conversations and raucous laughter, you’re counting seconds to closing. Multiplying three hundred with every bracket of five on the clock.

The din comes to an abrupt halt when you hear a middle aged man bellow, “Yah, punk, do you have a death wish?!”

Gradually moving closer to the door, you try to get a view of the scene outside.

You see a polite but firm Kyungsoo bow before the man, “We can’t serve you any more alcohol, sorry, we’ll be closing now.”

The other two men along with the nasty vermin have long passed out. You quickly call for a cab, subconsciously grabbing a hold of Kyungsoo’s knife in the process.

“DO YOU HAVE ANY IDEA WHO YOU’RE TALKING TO RIGHT NOW?” He thunders.

Kyungsoo recoils as the man grows louder by the second. “We cannot serve you anymore alcohol, sir.”

It happens in a flash.

So fast you almost feel like you’re astral projecting.

One moment, the man raises a hand to strike Kyungsoo. Kyungsoo swerves. You dash out of the kitchen with the knife in your hand. Face to face with the man, you scream until your lungs hurt, “GET OUT! I SAID GET OUT OF MY RESTAURANT!”

The vermin’s companions stir at the sound.

With frightened eyes they take in the scene as their drowsy brain is still trying to assess the situation for action. They soon pull the man by his shoulders while Kyungsoo’s tugging at your knife bearing arm that’s still raised in combat mode, simultaneously apologising to the rowdy guest.

Wagging his sausage like finger at the both of you he warns menacingly, “You have no idea what you’ve gotten yourself into.”

Slapping the tab on their table, you proceed to threaten him, “Settle this and get - the fuck - out of my restaurant before I call the cops.”

Throwing a couple of bills on the table, he staggers out, grumbling, “You just wait”, still wagging his finger and reeking of stale alcohol.

It was only then that your grip on the knife eases as Kyungsoo carefully draws it out of your hand and you see, just like you, he’s shaking too.

“What just happened?” He’s the first to speak as you sit across the table from him, dark orbs glinting in the dim light, forehead beaded with sweat. His hands are tightly wound together as he places them on the table. One day without Baekhyun and Imo and Kyungsoo and you had messed up real bad. By the looks of it, neither of you were ready to accept this fact.

“We did exactly what we were supposed to do. Stop worrying!” You say more to yourself.

He’s not convinced.

“Chef, that man’s reaction wasn’t something that you could’ve preempted or….controlled in any way.” Finding yourself getting mildly annoyed, you try your best to lay the edge off of your voice. All you wanted was for him to be alright because, technically, none of this was his fault.

“Would you have allowed him to take a swing at you?”

“He was far too drunk for that”, he exhales heavily and you notice his stance relax before clamping up again, “but you-you came out with a knife!”

His tone isn’t accusatory. He’s simply baffled.

“Fight or flight…”

“It’s my knife.”

“I’ll be sure to hide the murder weapon.”

He nods slowly.

“Do you need some water? Tea? A hug?”

You half expect him to scowl or groan or whatever it is that he usually does but he seems to be actually evaluating his options.

“A beer?”

“Down for Chimaek?”

Stood up to go into the kitchen, you awkwardly, and very, very slowly put an arm around his shoulders and give him a tight squeeze.

***

This was your first time having fried chicken and beer in complete silence - a few minutes felt like hours with the incident still hovering over both of you.

“Chef, you know we haven’t murdered anyone right?”

“The restaurant feels like a scene of crime to me. Also, what did he mean by ‘you just wait’?”

“Eh. Empty threats. Testosterone poisoning. Do you think they’ll throw me into prison for threatening him with a knife?”

“You should be sent in for pilfering stock”, he says gesturing at the tray between you, taking a chunky bite of the chicken, “you were going to take this home, weren’t you? It’s good, by the way.”

“Ah, this makes me happy”, you lean back into your chair, smiling discreetly at Kyungsoo’s messy fingers and mouth.

“A compliment from me makes you happy?” His eyebrows shoot up as he takes a swig of beer.

“Testosterone poisoning”, you say pointing an accusatory finger at him, “I couldn’t care less what you think. I’m pretty confident in my skills.”

“As you should be. Then what ‘makes you happy’? The thought of going to prison?”

“Yes”, you lie, “you think I’ll have a prison bitch?”

“I think you’ll be the prison bitch.”

You open your mouth to protest but what escapes is a mortifying burp.

Uncomfortable silence.

Meeting his eyes, you purse your lips, feeling your face flame. He smiles at you and says, ‘wait for it’, before belching. Loudly. Sending you both into fits of laughter.

“What happened here last week?”

Kyungsoo and you are seated opposite Imo like criminals before a cop in an interrogation room. Baekhyun is holed up in the kitchen, cleaning. For the most part, he avoids conflicts like these where Imo’s red hot beam of anger could be misdirected at him.

She’s glaring at the responsible child, Kyungsoo, to break first but since it was your idea to keep the incident from her you start to explain. By the time you’re done she seems angrier, but not at the two of you. Only after a tiny lecture on how you should learn to be more tactful in such situations does she spell out her real concern.

Turns out the man the both of you had a scuffle with last week is the new officer’s brother-in-law. Now, the restaurant’s received a notice from the liquor permit’s office for an “inspection” in the coming week. Although aware that this situation isn’t either of your fault, Imo is far from pleased with this development.

“Fix this”, she orders and disappears into the kitchen.

There’s only one person who can help you out of this mess, but neither Kyungsoo nor you possess the emotional capacity to deal with him.

“He’s our only option”, you deadpan.

With a heavy sigh, Kyungsoo dials Mark Lee.

***

Mouth stuffed with egg sandwich, Mark Lee garbles, “What do you want from me? It’s an inspection so let them come and - inspect.”

Imo’s taken off for the day and it’s just you and Kyungsoo trying to sort out the mess you weren’t entirely responsible for.

“You said we could call you if we needed help with anything”, Kyungsoo reasons with Mark who’s now ogling at him as if he just got spoken to in an alien language.

“Yes, but I don’t see how I can be of help here?”

“Tell us anything you know about this new officer. Don’t leave anything out.” You’re nearly begging at this point and Mark Lee, as always, is reveling in your misery.

He relaxes in his seat, swirling the glass of watermelon juice, “You know you can’t buy your way out of this right? He’s an uptight bugger and you screwed up! Big time! All you had to do was give his brother-in-law a bottle of beer.”

“Oh, we’re sorry we didn’t have his family tree handy”, Kyungsoo rolls his eyes, “Besides, were just trying to abide by the rules - ”

The helplessness in Kyungsoo’s voice causes you to lose your cool at Mark. “Yah! Quit being cocky and just tell us everything you know!”

“Oh-oh feisty”, his mouth spreads into an annoying grin, “okay so he loves his wife, obviously, it’s why he’s doing this. Has an eleven year old daughter who is the apple of his eye. Erm, let’s see, he’s spent his teenage years in Japan and the country is all he’ll ever talk about. Piss him off and this inspection turns into a review and if things continue to spiral you’ll have your permit revoked. So be careful.” His eyes lock with yours making you shift uncomfortably in your seat.

“What are you planning to do with this information, anyway?”

“We don’t know just yet”, Kyungsoo starts clearing up the table, as usual, and Mark knows that his time is up.

“Dude”, he leans towards you, whisper-chortling, as Kyungsoo retires into the kitchen, “did you drive him out with a knife?”

Nodding, you grin gleefully.

“Fiery! You’re totally my boss’ type.”

***

“So what are we going to do?” Rubbing your eyes and stifling a yawn, you ask Kyungsoo.

While the world sleeps, the market is awake. Buzzing with a contagious energy. Although you hate having to wake up this early, the moment you step into this space, you’re completely taken by its vigour and gusto for life.

It’s nothing short of a celebration.

Chefs, big and small, passionately scour every nook and corner for the perfect herbs, veggies, and meats. You may not know each other closely or even by name but you feel part of a community - part of a family. True to character, you won’t ever stop whining about this routine with friends and family and occasionally with Kyungsoo, Baekhyun, and Imo but you know it in your heart of hearts, you wouldn’t skip sourcing for the world.

“So he’s spent his teenage years in Japan right?” Kyungsoo muses, lowering a crate of mudfish in the cart for today’s special, Chueotang.

“Let’s recreate his teenage years for him. Japanese dorm meals?”

Kyungsoo stops abruptly, “That’s a thought!”

“We can set the menu today after closing.”

“How about a coffee now?” He asks, averting your gaze as a slight smile forms on his lips.

On the morning of the inspection, Kyungsoo sneezed. Once. Twice. And on the third strike he was sent home by Imo because “this is not a good look”. Or forced out of the restaurant - depends on who you ask. He whined a little, even shed a few tears but Imo steeled herself and drew him out, anyway.

Although the menu is simple, the concept is layered and robust. The exercise is, after all, being undertaken merely to impress the officer in question. Well equipped for the inspection, the restaurant’s closed for the day.

This is nothing Baekhyun and you can’t manage but, obviously, Kyungsoo feels otherwise. He’s been calling to check in in intervals of five but seems like the medication’s finally kicked in and put him in a state of deep slumber. Good for him. And for you.

Two hours until showtime.

Under your close supervision, Baekhyun is labouring over the fairly straightforward stuff: tako sausages, potato and macaroni salad and egg sandwiches while you’ve kicked off the recipe for rolled omelettes.

Egg mixture aside, you start the rice cooker, leave green tea to boil for salmon ochazuke while the frying pan’s heating up for yaki udon.

***

Once you’d gotten all the dishes down, done exactly the way instructed by Kyungsoo: rolled omelettes, yaki udon, tako sausage, potato and macaroni salad, egg sandwiches and salmon ochazuke, it was time for you to take on the simplest but the most provoking dish on the menu.

Neko Manma. Or, cat rice.

“Ah, Dooly, shall I bring out the jar of bonito flakes?” Baekhyun prompts.

“The one Chef brought us this morning?”

He hums in response.

“I think we should use the store bought one instead.”

“But he’s worked on this recipe all week. You sure you wanna do that?”

“Positive.”

“He’ll flip out.”

“I’ll deal with it. We’re altering the recipe for Neko Manma, this ones too pretentious. Doesn’t sit right with me.”

“So, what do you want to do with it?” Baekhyun’s tone is wary and questioning.

“Rice, soy sauce, store bought bonito flakes and just a faint drizzle of butter. Nice and clean.” You respond confidently.

“Are you really sure?”

***

“Why are you here?” You hiss at Kyungsoo while Imo is outside, busy greeting the motley of high-headed officials, giving them a brief of the restaurant, herself, her team, and going over the licenses and documentation.

Face flushed, Kyungsoo’s lips are swollen and his eyes are runny, puffy, and bloodshot. He’s clearly in the need for some rest.

“To see if everything’s in order.” His voice is hoarse.

He starts to closely examine the entrees laid out, a smile of approval gracing his lips until he stops short of cat rice.

“These bonito flakes -”

“I didn’t use the fresh ones. I thought -”

“There’s no miso soup?”

“No, Chef, I reckoned -”

“No grilled fish? Are you being lazy?”

“Chef, no, I am not being lazy. The original recipe just didn’t feel right. So i changed it up a little -”

“Changed it up? That decision was not yours to make!”

“It’s just a side, it’s not going to matter so much!”

Absolutely livid, he runs a hand through his hair and laments. “If we weren’t this close to serving i would’ve dumped this into the bin because that’s where it belongs.”

“Chef, please”, your voice quivers, “let me explain! This was supposed to be the lightest dish on the menu. We ended up styling it with… overwhelming ingredients, so I -”

“I’m utterly confused! What on earth led you to believe you’re qualified enough to teach me? I’ve trained at a diner in Tokyo for two whole years. I know exactly what I’m doing here!”

Eyes brimming with tears, you glance over and Baekhyun who has ‘I told you so’ written all over his face.

"Kyungsooyah? When did you come in? What’s going on here?”

Imo’s bewilderment cuts through the tension.

“Sajangnim, I was feeling slightly better so I thought of dropping by to wish you luck."

Courtesying, he quickly dashes out through the back door.

***

The inspection has been revoked. Unofficially, atleast. The restaurant is to receive a written order in a week’s time.

The officer was impressed to the extent of apologising for his brother-in-law’s behaviour. He even lauded Imo on teaching her staff to stick to the establishment’s principles which made you wonder if he was fully aware of the facts of the case: knife and all.

He also mentioned how, as a student, he’d eat a bowl of Neko Manma before every exam because at the time, to him, anything else was unpalatable.

And that, this was what he considered to be the perfect recipe.

You go through the rest of the day as if sleepwalking. How stupid could you have been believe you were “on good terms” with Kyungsoo or that this was an equal and productive partnership. The fact remained that he still thought of you as someone frivolous: some air-headed moron who has no idea what she’s doing.

Someone beneath him.

You made an effort to appreciate this victory but the day had only left you with a bitter taste. Your mother had been right. You’ve always been too soft. Too trusting. Letting people in too easily and allowing them to walk all over you.

Now, Kyungsoo’s always been like this: controlling, stubborn, absolutely thorough. He never deviates from his well laid out plans. But today was different. Today, you expected something out of him. You expected him to trust you. You expected him to understand your reasoning, to give you a chance. To comprehend the fact that you could have a mind of your own and that not everything has to be exactly by the book.

You loathe yourself for expecting this out of him.

Sailing rough seas together doesn’t bloom friendships. You were stupid to think of him as a friend while, in all these months, his opinion of you had remained the same.

Contrary to the Gwangjang days, you’d long stopped wishing him gone. In some farthest corner of your heart you were even grateful that he chose to say.

You’ve been so stupid.

Two months later

The kitchen has been fervent but hushed.

After all this time, Baekhyun, Kyungsoo and you seem to have found a rhythm. You don’t need to verbally communicate to get through a workday.

But, you used to.

Sometimes unnecessarily even. Kyungsoo and you hardly saw eye to eye on most things but there would be some semblance of friendly workplace banter. He’d say a little something about a perfectly done piece of meat or a well seasoned soup. Baekhyun would take wickedly funny pot shots at some of the customers (to the utmost horror of Imo). Imo would sporadically push morsels of whatever was being prepared into your mouths.

Baekhyun receiving feedback in the form of grunts has shut him up altogether. And the busyness of the restaurant has seemed to have blinkered Imo into not being able to perceive the tension between Kyungsoo and you.

It’s a dance to no music.

Furtive glances. Measured smiles. Curt nods. Exceptional dishes. Decent earnings.

That’s it.

Maybe that’s how it should’ve always been.

“Ready to go?” Baekhyun asks, dressed in a well fitted black shirt and slacks.

You’re mopping the floor. Clearly not ready to go.

When you make this known with a sharp glare, Baekhyun giggles.

Nothing good can come out of that impish smile of his. But before you can sink your claws into him and drag him back, he’s already chatting up Kyungsoo who’s fixing the chairs.

“Kyungsoo, you coming?” He says a little too loudly and you groan. But you know Kyungsoo all too well. He’s one to decline offers involving socialising with you (unless of course, the offer is put forth by his dearest Sajangnim).

’You can do better than that’, you mouth to Baekhyun.

Incurious about Kyungsoo’s answer, you’re fully prepared to chomp Baekhyun’s ear off for inviting him.

“Sure”, Kyungsoo says plainly.

Sure?

Without taking the where-what-why route like normal people do? Just..sure?

“Great! We’re going out for drinks since it’s Dooly’s birthday today.”

“Oh. Happy birthday.”

“Thanks. But, Chef, you can’t come. I don’t want you there. I’m sor-”

Swallowing the apology crackling at the tip of your tongue, you dash into the kitchen, your periphery catching his lowered gaze and tight smile.

Regularising the erratic thrumming of your heart with deep breaths, you shove the mop into the storage area, take off your apron and throw it in the laundry bag (which you were to deal with the next morning), straighten your outfit, fix your hair, dab some rosy tint onto your lips, throw your tote bag over your shoulder, run back out, grab Baekhyun by purposefully lodging your nails into his arms, and take off.

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iflostreturntosteverogers · 3 years

Text

I Promise

Characters: Reader, Dean, Sam, John, Azazel, Bobby (Mentioned), Callum (OMC Mentioned), Grace (OFC Mentioned)

Warnings: Weechesters, John’s an ass, Fluff, Angst, Character Death

A/N: Sam is about 3-4 years old and Dean around 7-8 years old in this. This is the longest fic I’ve ever written with 2,454 words.

Header by: @sorenmarie87

Beta’d by: @cloverhighfive and @mariekoukie6661

No one raised your blood pressure like John Winchester. He was always such an arrogant prick when he dropped his boys off at your house. You kept Dean and Sam as a favor to Bobby, so he could keep John from doing something stupid and because you loved them. They needed some normalcy and love in their chaotic lives.

You had been mentally preparing yourself to deal with him after Bobby had called to tell you the boys were coming your way and just be ready because John was already in a mood. “A mood,” You snorted. “When isn’t he in a mood?” You made one last pass through the house, double-checking you had removed anything the boys could get in. You’d have to go to the store for food, but you didn’t mind taking them with you. They were good kids.

John’s Impala rumbled down your street, making you groan. Here we go. You give him a moment to park before you open the door in and lean on the frame. “Hi, boys!” You smile and wave at Sam and Dean, climbing out of the car. Sam grins, and all but tackles your legs. “Hi, Ms. Y/N.” Dean smiles as he walks up with his bag over his shoulder. He grabs Sam’s hand and goes inside. You watch them race up the stairs to your bedroom. Probably to jump on your bed. You think to yourself. The trunk of the impala slams, startling you.

“Princess.” John nods at you, a smirk on his lips.

“Winchester.”

“What? I don’t get a smile and peppy hello like my boys do?” He tosses Sam’s bag at you, chuckling as you almost miss it.

“I like your children, you not so much,” you quip, pulling the strap over your shoulder.

“I’m hurt, princess,” he says, placing his hand over his heart. “And here I thought you loved me. You’re always so warm and friendly.” You roll your eyes and flip him off.

“Not your princess, Winchester.”

“You sure do act like one.” John crosses his arms and leans against the impala, a smug look on his face.

“Excuse me?! What is that supposed to mean?”

“It means you sit here in your cushy little house, living off your dead husband’s money and letting Bobby do all the dirty work in finding who killed him and your kid.” You push off the doorframe and stomp down the porch stairs to be face to face with the man. Without thinking, you slap him as hard as you can, the sound echoing.

“First off, get your fucking facts straight! I never asked Bobby to do that. Second, I work my ass off to pay for my shit. I don’t need to forge credit cards or have aliases. Third, don’t you ever mention Callum and Grace. Ever. At least I learned to cope and live a normal life instead of dragging two young boys into the hunting business on a revenge mission. Get the hell off my property.” You don’t look at him as you turn and walk back into your house. Closing the door, you sink to the floor.

“Having fun?” You grin as Sam and Dean freeze, pillows poised to hit each other.

“We’re playing pirates,” Dean tells you, climbing down from your bed. “These are our swords!” His eyes are bright as he explains their game. The boys giggle when you tell them you’ll be the beautiful princess they’re fighting over.

“You need a cwown, Pwincess Y/N,” Sam tells you.

“You’re absolutely right, Captain Smelly Feet, and I think I have just the thing!” You walk over to your dresser, opening the locked jewelry box on top and revealing a sparkling tiara. You place it on your head and turn towards the boys. “What do you think?” Dean’s mouth drops open in shock.

“Where did you get that?”

“I got to be a princess for a day a long time ago, and they let me keep my crown.”

“Cool!” Dean jumps back up on the bed. “The princess is mine, Smelly Feet! You can’t have her!” Sam screwed his face up into something that was probably supposed to be mean and scary but just looked adorable to you.

“Noooo! I’ll save you from Captain Gween Toes, Pwincess!” Sam wails Dean with a pillow. Dean pretends to fall on the mattress, holding his side.

“You’ve won this time, Smelly Feet. Remember me, Princess. Bleh.” You giggle at his fake death sound and turn to the 4-year-old standing proudly above his brother.

“You did it, Captain Smelly Feet. You defeated Green Toes and saved me. However, will I repay you?” Sam grins as you pick him up and swing him around. “Oh, I know! How about a kiss?” He squeals when you blow a raspberry against his cheek.

“‘Top! ‘Top!” Sam pushes your face away from his, giggling.

“Well, I hate to stop all the fun, but we have to go to the store or we’re gonna starve to death.” You gently put Sam down and fall to the floor with your hand on your forehead. “So hungry, not gonna make it.” Dean laughs at your dramatics and whispers something to Sam. Sam nods with a mischievous grin on his face.

“I’ll save you!” Sam yells, before jumping on top of you.

Sam tugs at your sleeve from the seat in the shopping cart, pulling you down to his level. “Bean likes bacon and eggs and waffles for bweakfast, but Dad never makes them for us. He just buys ceweal because it doesn’t have to be cooked.” You fight the urge to roll your eyes and say something nasty about their father.

“You know what? I think eggs, bacon, and waffles are great for breakfast.” You right yourself and smile at the small boy. “What do we want for dinner? Dean, what’s something you want?” Dean looks a little startled at your question. Of course, John never asks what the boys want. It’s always a matter of convenience.

“Can we do burgers?” His eyes light up when you nod your head, and he hugs your waist. “You’re the best.”

Sam sits on the counter, watching you teach Dean how to make burgers. “The first rule of cooking, wash your hands. Did you wash your hands?”

“Yep, smell.” Dean smiles and holds his hands up to you. You lean in and sniff, the smell of Irish Spring prevalent on his hands.

“Good job. Sammy, what about you?” Sam smiles and nods his head.

“I helped him,” Dean says proudly.

“Okay, we’re going to make the sauce before we cook the burgers. I laid everything out for you while you washed your hands. The little cup is mayo and the measuring spoons have sriracha, honey, lemon juice, and garlic in them. Dump all that in and stir it up.” Stepping back, you watch as Dean dumps everything into the glass bowl you had set out before handing Sam the spoon to stir it up.

“All done!” Sam shouts, tipping the bowl forward for you to inspect their work.

“That’s perfect! You can set that to the side until we finish the rest of it.” You bend down and pull a cast-iron skillet out of the cold oven. “This is your new best friend for cooking, boys. A cast-iron skillet. They’re heavy, and you have to take good care of them, but they will last a long time and give your food good flavor.”

“And you can hit monsters with it and hurt them!” Dean pipes up, a proud smile on his face.

“That’s right,” you return his smile, but the fact that he has to know that breaks your heart. Dean hops up onto the counter on your right, and Sam scoots closer on your left to watch. You turn the stove eye on medium-low heat and pour a small amount of oil into the pan. “We have to let the pan and oil heat up before we can start cooking.”

Dean’s eyes are huge as he watches you plate burgers. “They’re beautiful,” he mumbles.

The boys hop off the counter and help you carry the plates to the table. Sam takes small, careful steps, his little tongue poking out as he concentrates.

“As much as you love food, Dean, you should be a chef when you grow up.” Dean looks up at you curiously, like the thought had never crossed his mind. It probably hadn’t, all the kid knew was hunting. Damn John.

“Do you really think I could be a chef?”

“Of course, I do! You can be anything you want. You’re a smart little boy.” Dean blushes and takes a bite of his burger.

“This is so good! You were right; the fried egg and bacon make it even better than regular burgers!”

“After we eat, do you guys wanna watch a movie? I have Scooby-Doo.”

“YES!” The boys both yell excitement, making you laugh.

You walk through the house, checking that everything is turned off and locked up. Sam had fallen asleep during their movie, and Dean hadn’t been far behind. You hadn’t wanted to disturb them when they looked so peaceful, so you let them stay in your bed for the night.

As you make your way back upstairs, you hear glass shattering. “Shit,” you whisper, hurrying to the boys. They’re both still sound asleep. You shake Dean awake and pick Sam up from the bed. “Dean, listen to me, baby. You gotta come with me and be quiet, okay?” He nods, still rubbing at his eyes and trying to wake up. You can hear loud voices and footsteps coming from downstairs. You have to hurry.

Leading Dean into the spare bedroom you pull a panel away from the wall of the closet. “Dean, go in there.” He follows your orders and you lay Sam down next to him, stroking his hair before you lean over and kiss Dean on the forehead. “You’ll be safe, I promise.”

“Don’t go, Y/N. Hide with us.” Dean’s eyes shine, his little voice trembling. It breaks your heart.

“Baby, I can’t, that space is too small. Everything’s going to be okay. I love you, Dean and I love Sammy, too. I’m not going to let anything happen to you.”

Dean watches as you close the panel, leaving him and Sam in darkness. He can hear the voices coming from downstairs and each banging footstep sends a shiver through him. “Please be safe. Please be safe.” He whispers to himself over and over, a silent prayer for you. You hadn’t told him to watch out for Sammy, hadn’t ordered him to be brave. You told him how much you loved him and that everything would be okay. A tear slips down Dean’s cheek as he lays down next to Sam and closes his eyes tightly.

“Wanna tell me why you’re in my house?” You swing your arm around the first man you see, holding a knife to his throat. He freezes, calculating his next move.

He slams all of his weight backward into a wall, knocking the breath out of you but you hang onto the knife. “Stupid bitch,” he spits at you and reaches up to wipe at a trickle of blood on his face. You must have cut him when you hit the wall. You take advantage of him being distracted and launch yourself into him. He stumbles back and falls on his ass, his head bouncing off the floor. You move past him only to be met with a gun to your face.

“I don’t think so,” a familiar voice says, coming from around the corner. Your stomach drops when yellow eyes meet yours.

“Azazel.”

“The one and only. It’s been a while, Y/N.” His smile is arrogant, taunting. “Look, I’m sorry about your old man and kid. More so about the kid. I needed her.” You ball your fists at your side, anger rippling through you. “I’m here because a little demon told me you had the Winchester brats.”

“You’re too late actually. I put them on a bus to Sioux Falls a few hours ago.” You willed yourself to stay calm, to look him in the eyes, and give no indication of a lie. He growls and wraps his hand around your throat.

“What a pity.” You scream as pain erupts through your body. Blood trickles down the side of your mouth. You defiantly spit in Azazel’s face.

“Fuck you.”

Dean hears your scream and slams his hands against his ears. “No, please no.” Sam rouses and mumbles your name. Dean pulls him into his lap. “Shh, we have to be quiet. Okay, Sammy? It’s going to be okay.” Sam whimpers but nods his head.

They stay that way for a while, waiting for you to come back for them. Dean silently rocks Sam in his lap, occasionally humming a song to him in the dark crawl space. “You stay here. I’m going to look around.”

“No, Bean, don’t go!” Sam grabs onto Dean’s sleeve.

“Sammy, stay here. I’ll be back. I swear.” Dean moves the heavy panel and crawls out, the light coming from the window making him squint. He listens at the top of the steps for the voice and footsteps from earlier, but all he hears is silence. The silence scares him more.

He tiptoes down the stairs, peeking around the corner into the kitchen. You’re there on the floor, not moving. “Y/N?!” Dean shouts and races to you. His hands hover over you, unsure of what to do. “Y/N, please. You promised,” he chokes on the last word, a sob bubbling up.

“Dean?” You rasp out his name and reach a weak hand up to his face. “It’s okay, baby.”

“It’s not okay!” He shouts. You guide his head down to lay on your stomach and run your fingers through his hair.

“You’re gonna grow up and do amazing things, Dean. You are so smart and so good. I love you so much.” You wince as you try to breathe. Dean can hear how faint your pulse is becoming, how shallow your breaths are.

“Please, don’t leave me, Y/N. Please,” Dean cries.

“Shh, baby, listen to me. Go in the library, the number for your dad’s motel is there. Call him and then take Sammy to my room and watch Scooby-Doo until he comes. I love you both, Dean so very much. Now go.” He crawls up and kisses your cheek.

“We love you, too.” He does as he’s told, trying his best to get himself together.

He dials the number you had written down in a notebook on your desk.

“Hello?”

“Dad? Something’s happened.”

Tags: @fictionalabyss, @leave-me-2-rot-among-the-flowers, @hobby27

#weechesters #dean winchester #Sam Winchester #john winchester #bobby singer #azazel #reader insert #supernatural #angst #fluff #tw death

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acerosu · 5 years

Text

Choice - An Ice Diamond Short

Alright. Ya’ll know @dragonademetal and their amazing Blue x White Fusion called Ice Diamond?

I wrote a short about her pestering Yellow. Now with angst! Oh Ice, why you gotta be like that.

Inspired by the art Dragona and Taiyari have done with Ice, as well as Space.

(And thank you Space for the ending, awesome idea <3)

ANYWAY, HERE WE GO:

Yellow Diamond stood at the edge of the platform. Below, a massive complex of machinery moved in perfect order, the gems under her command moving equipment and materials, replacing damaged buildings as they moved ever forward. It had been a disaster, but a necessary one. Just beyond the very platform she stood on a fault had opened up, turning the district of forges and construction yards into heap of rubble. They had pushed too far, and Yellow knew it. The surface of Homeworld appeared as a bastion of power and form, yet underneath lay the fragile, spent underbelly of holes and dead tunnels.

A sigh from the great Diamond. She knew the foundation would go some day. At last, a chance to build it up even stronger. A patch over a wound. As long as it functioned as intended. Yellow turned her head from the project below to address the gems dashing about her feet.

“You, Peridot.” The gem screeched to a halt before her, looking up. “What is the progress on the iron shipments from Colony 23 and 25?”

The Peridot saluted, shaking under the pressure. “They are on schedule, my Diamond! And the transports bringing raw materials from System 12 will be arriving shortly!”

“Mmm. Good.”

Yellow waved a hand. The Peridot bowed before returning to the other peridots at the monitoring station. Bismuth foremen took data from the screens and were passing them off to their workers down below. Amethyst and Jasper muscle were filing back and forth as ships landed on landing pads constructed just for this project. Small, animated drones zipped about so that every angle could be checked and re checked. Yellow’s Pearl stood at her side, ego on display as if she was the one commanding it all.

“Pearl.” Yellow’s eyes flicked down. Her Pearl stood up straight, smug expression gone. “Any news on White’s visit?”

Her Pearl brought up a personal screen, fingers panning quickly through various pages. “Uh, n-no, my Diamond! There seems to be nothing, not even an announcement.” Yellow’s glare had her checking faster, hoping an answer would show up. “But if my Diamond wishes, I will send a request at once!”

“Don’t bother.”

Yellow turned away, eyes narrowing as she gazed out over the buzz of work. This was just some silly repair work, nothing important. Nothing grand enough to warrant even a glance from the Great White Diamond. Yellow let her thoughts wander. After this project was complete, she could go back to fortifying her colonies. She found that the further from Homeworld she worked, the easier she could ignore those nagging thoughts that always gripped at the back of her mind.

“Um, m-my Diamond?”

Yellow’s focus returned to the current moment. The gems about her feet were backing away, staring not at the work, but behind her. Her Pearl hid behind her legs. A large dark shadow slowly consumed the platform.

‘Hello, my beautiful Sunray.”

Yellow jerked as a massive finger stroked along her back. She stood frozen for a moment, trying to adjust to what had just happened, and what would happen.

“Ice.” Yellow slowly turned to face the towering fusion of White and Blue. A pleased smile beamed down. “I’m glad you decided to come watch me work.”

A huge hand rested beside Yellow, fingers curling. “Ohh, no need to sound so sour, Yellow.” Ice lowered her head to face Yellow. “You know how much we respect your efforts.”

“Indeed.”

Yellow stared back at the Diamond over ten times her size. The fusion stood on the surface of the planet below, leaning over the high platform as if it were a simple table. All around, other gems had wisely backed off, some leaving all together. Even Yellow’s pearl had hid behind a monitor station. Yellow brought up a screen and started to return to her work.

Ice’s grin turned to a mock frown. “What’s the matter, my Sunray? Aren’t you happy to see me?”

Yellow felt the ground shake as Ice laid her head down next to her, cheek resting on one of her four arms.

“Of course.” She didn’t take her eyes off the screen.

“Well, then give us a little smile.”

Ice surrounded her quarry in her hands. A giant thumb rose and gently nudged Yellow’s face. The Diamond tensed before managing a grin.

“There we are. Such a wonderful smile you have.” Ice’s voice trailed in White’s wispy, yet dangerous tone, almost covered by Blue’s sincere affection.

Yellow nodded back, wanting to return to work. Maybe if they saw how important this all was, they’d wander off to toy with someone else. Too late. Yellow stiffened as fingers closed around her legs, holding her in place. Ice leaned over and kissed her, massive lips pushing up against the whole of Yellow’s back. A spike of chill ran down Yellow from her feet to her head and she started shaking. Ice backed off, but only a little, head tilting as she watched Yellow’s reaction.

“Precious as ever, Sunray.” Ice giggled. It was Blue’s happy laugh whenever a rare spark of joy graced her face.

“Y-yes. Yellow looked at the ground, trying to hide both her blushing and shivering. “May I r-r-retrurn to my d-d-uties now?”

Ice grinned back. Yellow knew that smile. It was White’s. A hand snatched her up right off the platform, fingers so wide they reached from Yellow’s armpits to below her waist. Ice stood up, gazing down at the powerful, commanding Diamond in her hands, now a shivering mess.

“You work too hard, Yellow.” A hand patted Yellow’s head. “Why don’t you take a break?”

It wasn’t a request, but a command. Yellow gripped the top of the fingers holding her as Ice leaned in for another kiss. Her limbs couldn’t stop their quaking from the cold embrace.

“S-s-stop!”

Yellow lost control for a moment, long enough for a single word to get out. She looked up at the towering fusion. Ice frowned, her hair drooping down like a dog being chastised for getting too excited. Just the expression White would want the outside to see. Black tears began flowing down her cheeks; a reflection of Blue tainted by White’s cruel manipulation.

“Why do you have to be so mean, Sunray?” White brought a hand up to wipe away a tear as they fell from her chin. The black liquid stained every surface it touched. “I just wanted to spend some time with you.”

Yellow flinched, closing her eyes as the hand around her squeezed tighter and tighter. She tried to struggle out, but the grip was too much. Grasping at Ice’s hand, she spoke through gritted teeth.

“I’m. Sorry. Blu- Ice. Please.”

The combination of the stinging cold and crushing hand left Yellow unable to speak any more. She could only hope she wouldn’t have to waste a cycle reforming like the last time Blue and White fused. Narcissism tangling against emotional rage and pride all screaming for control did not make a stable fusion. Or perhaps White was to blame.

Black tears dripped down around her. Yellow could feel her form breaking up from the force. At the last moment, the fingers around her loosened and she collapsed against the hand, trying to regain her senses. A finger pet along her back.

“My precious little Sunray.” Ice’s voice rang out in bliss, as if nothing had happened.

Ice played Yellow on her shoulder and walked off from the reconstruction site. The gesture was far from gentle; Yellow flopped out on her stomach before she managed to turn around into a sitting position, clinging to Ice’s hair. The fusion would not have even cared if she fell at this point. Just another mistake for Yellow to apologize for. Ice had stopped crying, but the stain remained on her cheeks, a reminder how she could shift emotions at any moment.

“Isn’t Homeworld grand? Such beauty and perfection.”

Ice wandered about, gems fleeing from her massive footsteps. Yellow tried to keep track of the incurring damage but gave up after watching a public meeting area get crushed, the pillars still falling over as they passed.

“We need more towers and temples. Places to reflect the light, not hide it!”

Yellow gave basic responses, not wanting to set Ice off again. They were heading straight for White’s head ship. Whatever part of Blue that allowed White to come out of her shell was losing the fight. Soon the towering white walls enclosed them. Crystals glittered amid a giant throne. Not a single window, the view screens had all been turned off. The place sat in immaculate perfection as a barrier to the outside world. Ice sat on her throne, placing Yellow on her lap.

“Well now.” She clasped a pair of hands together, the others surrounding Yellow. “Wasn’t that refreshing?”

“Yes.” Yellow looked about. White’s Pearl sat on the arm rest, staring at her with one unblinking eye while holding a perfect salute. Maybe she could take a risk. “What did you think of the reconstruction?”

Ice began pawing at Yellow as if she was a doll. The stern Diamond took it all in stride, trying to keep a straight face.

“Oh that? How unfortunate.” Ice polished Yellow’s armor with a thumb. “The gems responsible for the original foundation have all been dealt with.”

“I see.” Yellow felt her helmet being removed, hair fluffed up between two giant fingers. “I vow to make sure it never collapses again.”

“How nice of you.”

Ice stood Yellow’s hair to a point then flattened it down. Yellow cleared her throat.

“Are there any changes you wish to make to the designs?”

White’s pearl twitched for a moment. A display screen formed from her gem and grew to flash in front of Ice’s face.

“Columns 2000 meters under the complex need re-stabilizing. More iron and rock required.” The pearl spoke in monotone, eye still staring at Yellow.

Ice frowned, but the distraction was enough for her to pull her attention from Yellow. All four of her hands rose and she scanned through the data faster than any normal gem.

“Yes. I see.” From below, Yellow could see Ice’s expression shift. “This must be fixed as soon as possible. Yellow!”

“Yes, my Diamond?” Yellow saluted.

“Return to the control site. Make sure every foreman knows about the structures underground.”

“At once, my Diamond.”

The ruse had worked. Yellow managed to get something inside of the fusion remember more than flighty emotions and distractions. Not waiting for Ice to shift again, Yellow jumped off her lap and left the throne room through the teleporter. All the gems under her command were still rushing about, but soon turned to salute when she walked back onto the top of the overlooking platform.

“I have new orders.” Yellow nodded to her Pearl, knowing she wouldn’t dare ask what had just transpired. “Summon the Bismuths, and the head Peridot.”

Yellow stared out over the ravine engulfed in work and repair. Her hands tightened into fists as she could still feel a cold shiver crawl up her spine.

----

Blue Diamond sat in her chambers, hand idly tracing ripples in the pool beside her as she read over reports from her colonies. Her pearl stood by the door, awaiting any future orders in silence. The door to the outer chamber opened, heavy footsteps growing closer to the main entrance.

“My Diamond, Yellow Diamond is requesting a visit.”

Blue glanced up, unable to get one word out before the door opened. Yellow walked in.

“That will be all, pearls.”

Yellow clapped her hands, still standing with her gaze on Blue before the pearls left. The door closed, leaving them alone.

“Yellow, look, its not-“

Yellow stamped a boot. “I don’t want to hear excuses.”

They fell silent. Yellow began pacing the room. Her mouth opened several times, wanting to say more, wanting to let everything out, but she couldn’t. In the end she turned away from Blue, staring at the door.

“I was afraid.” Yellow spoke in a low voice, as if White could hear. “It hurt. And there was nothing I could do.”

Blue rose, tears forming in her eyes. She walked up to Yellow and put her arms around her, not at all expecting the gesture to be returned. It wasn’t.

“I’m sorry.” She said it again, knowing it was all she could offer. “I’m so sorry.”

Yellow could feel Blue’s aura making her well up. She shook away the tears, turning in anger, but stopped when she saw Blue’s broken expression, half hidden under her hood. Yellow closed her eyes, allowing her anger to flow out. Her rage was not meant for the Diamond in front of her.

Blue took Yellow’s hand. “There was nothing I could do either.”

Yellow squeezed Blue’s hand back, resting her head on her shoulder. The aura around Blue lightened, but only a bit. Yellow allowed some of the tears building in her to flow.

“You could say no. Not fuse.”

She buried her head into Blue’s hair. Blue clung back, just as desperate. She could hear her whisper.

“It’s not like I have a choice.”

They stood in each other’s arms for a long moment, trying to garner comfort. Yellow no longer felt the bitter chill from Ice’s embrace. Now it was only Blue; her warmth, her grace. Even with fusion, with control, with a fake smile and even faker tears, White couldn’t take this from them. Yellow held Blue closer. Let her try.

Yellow straightened up, kissing Blue on the cheek. A blush formed on both their faces. Blue reached out and touched Yellow’s gem. Her face was no longer in worried pain, but held a smile. Yellow smiled back.

The chamber filled with a brilliant light. Crystals reflected the pure glow before it flashed, fading back into the hidden shadows. A new form stood tall, still smiling. Green Diamond let out a long sigh, allowing her feelings to mingle together.

“This is what I choose.”

#fic #writing #su #steven universe fic #ice diamond #fusion #green diamond #i hammered this out in a day #i should probably eat #I HOPE THIS ISN'T TOO DANG MOODY

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wardencommanderrodimiss · 5 years

Text

Eyyy it’s surprise fic time. Been working on a new AU that I’ll be posting in installments, so here we go: the beginning, or a little bit too much exposition and worldbuilding for my own liking but what can I do.

“Why are so many of the Fair Folk lawyers?” Clay asks. “Also while you’re up can you grab me a pack of Swiss Rolls?”

“Is this the setup for a joke or an actual question?” Apollo asks. He throws the entire box of Swiss Rolls from the cabinet at Clay and retrieves his dinner from the microwave. “And either way, why?”

“It’s not a joke, and you had some files out on the coffee table so listen, actual question, why are Folk lawyers common enough that there’s notation on the court transcripts about whether or not the lawyers is human.”

“It’s not actually common at all,” Apollo says. “That’s just all the cases where it did happen, which is some fraction of a percent of total cases. They mark it if they know but it’s not like they throw iron at everyone on the defense and prosecution’s benches to check.”

“They should do that,” Clay says. “What are Fair Folk doing in court anyway, all that magical power and you’re just gonna, go be a lawyer instead of anything else? They could probably just go into space! Just like that! They’re magic! They live in a realm of magic! And they’re like nah gonna hang around the mundane courthouse, that’s cool.”

“Well I mean,” Apollo says, “y’know, they can’t lie, so for them, the closest they can get to lying is being a lawyer, Mr Gavin says.”

Clay is mercifully quiet for a whole twenty seconds. “So was that a punchline or was he serious?”

“I don’t know.”

Clay warns him that he isn’t cautious enough. Clay has warned him of this since they were children and he arrived from Khura’in with little conception of the dangers of the fae (“The Fair Folk, Apollo! The Fair Folk! They think it’s insulting to call them otherwise!”). It’s why Clay insisted that they get an apartment together as roommates (“Because God only knows you’re going to forget to hang horseshoes above your windows and then get stolen away and I’m going to have to go through the ordeal of finding a new best friend”).

Clay puts a branch of a rowan tree on top of every doorway and Apollo thinks about the little house in the mountains, him and Nahyuta and Dhurke and sometimes Datz. Did Khura’in not have the legends — no, more than legends, but spoken of in hushed tones, eyes averted, pretend you don’t believe even when you know they’re real — of the fae? It did, it did, the name of the country far too close to the name of Kurain, the mystic Court of the Fae. So was it something worse than Dhurke not believing — something in the memories Apollo has tried to forget because it hurts too much to remember that life — that sometimes the air swirled around Dhurke like wind confined to him, and sometimes Nahyuta called up spectral butterflies to his fingertips. And sometimes Apollo wonders whether his father really died or whether he was spirited away with something else left in his place.

(But the Fair Folk never give up what they’ve taken without a struggle or a bargaining and they would never just abandon —)

Most people aren’t like Clay. They are cautious, certainly, never speaking of the Fair Folk by any name but that or other even vaguer euphemisms, dodging fairy rings that appear in the grass, rerouting construction around sacred trees, and everyone has a story about the cousin of a friend of a friend — but most don’t carry charms or ward their doorways. Most in the steel and concrete jungle, with science and iron frying pans, think themselves safe. (Clay has a lecture prepared about what kinds of iron works and what doesn’t.)

“Are all astronauts this superstitious?” Apollo asks, and Clay laughs and says, “Dude, you have no idea.”

Lawyers aren’t, or at least Kristoph Gavin isn’t. Apollo leaves his apartment and Clay’s reverence (fear?) of the fae and every day heads to an office that Clay is sure out of which he will be stolen away. No horseshoes or other charms of iron or rowan branches is to be expected; what isn’t is that Gavin doesn’t call them the “Fair Folk” and rolls his eyes whenever someone does. “They are bound to the law and contracts as much as you, perhaps even moreso.” His lecture on the matter sounds rehearsed, and the first time Apollo hears it, the looks on the faces of those who have been here longer tell him that it isn’t the first time they have. “As lawyers, always looking for loopholes, you are the best prepared to deal with them.”

But he is the one to drop the packet of cases involving fae on Apollo’s desk when Apollo expresses interest in that. He studies their twisting turns of phrase, the way they never spill the whole truth but dole it out in misleading pieces for as long as they can. If nothing else, it’s a deft evasion of perjury charges.

And it’s no wonder that back against the wall, up on the witness stand, both Gavin and Phoenix Wright start speaking in that same manner. “I’ve never lied to this court,” Wright says, smug, too impossibly smug, and Gavin spins threads just vague enough that Apollo keeps belatedly realizing that he is making assumptions that fill in the gaps. Gavin doesn’t say that he saw Wright through the tiny basement window, only that one could; and he never says that he thinks Wright killed Smith, only that Wright was there alone with the unconscious girl and the dead man, evidence to lead them to a false conclusion but stopping short of actually speaking the falsehood himself.

There’s too much at hand in the trial, too many questions the court has to handle for the case at hand, for Apollo to dwell on that. But either way, handcuffs are forged with magic-dampening cold iron, and it might just be a trick of the harsh fluorescent lights in the lobby that make Wright’s eyes appear to flash bright blue for a moment after Apollo punches him. Apollo has the bloody ace on his mind, after all, and his anger doesn’t settle, and Phoenix’s eyes are dark stormy gray assessing him when he turns his back on the man he considered an idol and storms out the door.

He cleans out his desk in a rush, stealing whatever office supplies he can without going too out of his way, because who knows when he’ll have money to spare to buy pens again, and he escapes the office before his coworkers can link him to Gavin’s arrest. “I think I’m done being a lawyer,” he tells Clay after finishing the story over a dinner that is 90 percent rice because they both forgot to go grocery shopping this week. “I don’t think it’s working out for me.”

“Dude, you can’t give up yet,” Clay says, reaching over to his laptop on the coffee table and tapping on a clickbait headline that reads 23 Celebrities Likely to be Fair Folk and Why We Wouldn’t Care if they Whisked Us off to Faeryland. “I believe in you. You said Wright offered you a place at his office? You can work there.”

Apollo didn’t tell him about Wright’s eyes and his twisting testimony, because he’s sure that Clay will barricade them in the apartment for the rest of their lives if he mentions that he thinks he might have received a job offer from a fae. He can already see the conversation playing out in his mind, Clay pouring a line of salt on the threshold and making every delivery driver step over it to deliver their only sustenance, cheap takeout.

“Thanks,” he says, “but I’m not going to work there.”

Clay shrugs. “So don’t give up the search before it starts. You got your client a not-guilty on your first trial. That’s something good for the resume, right?”

“I got my boss arrested on murder charges.”

“That’s only a problem if the firm trying to hire you has a boss who’s murdered someone.”

He’s either wrong or every firm in the city has a partner who has murdered someone, because two months later, Clay has covered the full rent for June, and Apollo has been eating peanut butter for a week because it’s cheap and it’s the thing he feels least bad about taking out of the pantry. And the universe hasn’t even given him the liberty of just worrying about that, because also either the last of his sanity has left him and in its place handed him hallucinations, or there really is periodically an ethereal white dog, its red-furred ears poking up out of its foggy head and looking more real than the rest of its body, its tail wisping like smoke, stalking the hall outside their apartment. Clay doesn’t see it — he can’t see it, it seems, when Apollo pulls him to the threshold and opens the door and there on the other side is the hound with its hollow red eyes but Clay only sees an empty hallway. He buys extra salt on the next grocery run. Apollo considers walking out the door into its jaws and freeing Clay from this hell.

On the day he gets a call from Wright, he doesn’t see it lurking in the hall or outside the building, and that and his financial situation are encouragement enough that he gets on his bike and heads for the office. He still has a number of reservations about going there, but the fae are all about contracts, aren’t they? Steep interest on favors, IOUs where the price they claim is too high, nothing is given without a cost down the line — and from what Wright said, it sounds like Apollo would be doing him a favor. And that — if he owes Apollo, then that couldn’t be leveraged against Apollo. (But Apollo needs a job too. Is this an equal exchange?)

The office seems normal, for a place covered in a magician’s props, but when Wright’s daughter, wearing a top hat and cape, invites him inside, Apollo carefully skirts around the hula-hoop lying flat on the floor. He lets the girl, Trucy, her name is, the one who gave him the bloody ace, drag him off to the hospital, a place that raises more questions for him — do the fae have magical healing powers? Would they even need to go to a hospital? Would they be exposed at a hospital? But what human would survive head trauma from a car crash with only a sprained ankle, not even a concussion — never mind the way outside of court he speaks in the same obfuscated tangle.

What is Phoenix Wright?

(In one of those old case files Gavin gave him, one of the fae lawyers named herself with the surname Fey, her obvious boldness almost funny. Apollo wonders if there is more in this world less famous than the Folk, if before him shrouded in magical glamour stands a gleaming firebird.)

When they return to the office after their investigation, after Apollo has found himself with a client, the office no longer feels normal — it feels far too normal. He dodges the plastic fairy ring and sinks into the couch and it feels like home, welcoming, warm, like the maw of a beast trying to lure him in, the sickly sweet taste of a lotus offered to him to eat. It is too comfortable for him to be comfortable with it. Trucy rolls the hula-hoop across the floor on its side and unconcernedly flings herself onto the couch next to Apollo. What is she, he wonders — her magic simply sleight-of-hand or something worse?

At least the trial is full of liars, and when it is over, the Kitakis pay well. That leaves a second riddle, and that is Klavier Gavin, the brother that Apollo didn’t know his boss had, the brother who is identical in face and hair and eyes, who but for his fashion sense and grin could have been Kristoph slipped through the prison bars, who but for eight years could be his twin. Something about him feels off, like the office does, and Apollo doesn’t know if reality really is shimmering ever-so-slightly around him or whether that’s just paranoia, exhaustion, and confusion, but he trusts Klavier’s eyes, the swirling blue maelstrom, as much as he does Wright’s, the colors shifting dark to light and back.

When the trial is over and he leaves the defendant’s lobby, Klavier is waiting there, Klavier who lost the trial to Apollo who put his brother in jail, with a grin and a wink and a business card put into Apollo’s hands with a “Call me sometime, ja? Or text. I’m not picky.”

Which Apollo has no intention of doing, because he unlike Trucy is not enchanted by this man, until the next week Clay finds the business card shuffled into other papers on the coffee table and sits Apollo down on the couch. “You have Klavier Gavin’s personal phone number,” he says, waving the card, on the back of which is scrawled a number in purple gel pen, in Apollo’s face. “People would kill for this. I would kill for this!”

“Why didn’t you tell me that Mr Gavin had a brother?” Apollo asks, slumping further into the couch to get away.

“I thought you knew! Because! Klavier Gavin! He’s famous! He has a band!”

“Yeah, I’m not uselessly gay about celebrities like you are.”

“This isn’t even about me being uselessly gay — this is about you not even listening to the fucking radio.” Clay smacks him on the head and drops the card on his face. “Text him! We’re going to text him. Where’s your phone?”

He knows Clay to know that he won’t let this drop and with a sigh he retrieves his phone from where it ended up beneath the couch. “I’m not even sure if he’s human,” Apollo admits, and he waits for Clay to recoil, knock the phone back out of his hand, and for caution to regain control and them to give up on this and for Apollo’s life to return to as normal as it can be anymore. He hasn’t sighted the dog for the past six days and that’s the nicest thing that has happened to him in two months.

But Clay stares at him for a moment, frowning, and says simply, “He probably isn’t.”

“Wait,” Apollo says. “You — I’ve met him and know why I think — why do you—”

“Dude,” Clay says. “Every song he’s written is dumb legal-system bullshit and bad puns and his band should be some niche thing to like ironically at best, but no, he’s world-famous with chart-topping albums full of this bugfuckery. How do you make this many people buy into that without Fair Folk glamour?”

“Forget I asked.”

“But does it not make a certain amount of sense?”

And were this about two weeks ago, Apollo would be willing to argue, say he’s pretty and people are shallow and that’s enough, but Clay’s wacky theory can only bolster what Apollo now already thinks. “I guess,” he says.

“You still are gonna text him, though,” Clay says. “I am not letting you pass this opportunity by.”

“Opportunity to what? Get kidnapped from this realm to never return and die?”

Hey, it’s Apollo Justice.

“To go on a date with a cute celebrity who you may or may not want to be careful about taking what he offers you — don’t include your last name, how many people named Apollo do you think he’s given his number to? — Oh, you sent it already.”

“Don’t micromanage my texting.”

“I have to or you’ll sound like a loser.”

They wait in silence for an answer. There have been a few moments in Apollo’s life that have felt more ridiculous than this, sitting side-by-side on the couch staring intently at Apollo’s phone, but only a few.

-Herr Forehead! I was starting to think you had lost my number ;)

“Why does he call you that?”

“I have no idea.”

-Had any interesting cases this week?

“I’d kill for a boring case.”

“Then die.”

Not really. What about you?

“You’re supposed to say ‘wbu’! Sound casual!”

“That sounds like fuckboy slang.”

“Look at his fashion choices and tell me he isn’t a fuckboy.”

“But I’m not!”

-Nothing so fun as debating panty thefts with you.

“Oh my god. Apollo. Apollo, oh my god.”

“Yeah, he’s a fuckboy.”

“Then you know what you need to do.”

“Don’t you dare say it—”

-You busy this weekend?

“No, you’re not. You aren’t.”

“I might have plans that you’re unaware of—”

“No, no, now you don’t. Tell him you don’t.”

“So he can make fun of me for being sad and lonely?”

“Fine. Tell him you don’t have anything more important than him.”

“That’s such a fuckboy response.”

Nothing much important. You?

“You are really bad at holding conversations, Apollo.”

“I know! I’m very aware of that!”

-Want to get coffee on Saturday?

“Dude. Dude. Apollo holy shit.”

“I know.”

“Dude just fucking say yes what are you waiting for?”

“We just established not ten minutes ago that we’re pretty sure he’s not human!”

“You have a chance to score with that, you take it.”

“What happened to all of your self-preservation instincts?”

“Dude. Klavier Gavin is asking you out. Answer him!”

-There’s something I need to talk to you about.

“That doesn’t sound so much like a date,” Apollo says.

“Ah,” Clay says. “Perhaps not.”

“That sounds ominous.”

“Yeah.”

But Apollo’s life has already slipped from his control.

Where and what time?

#roddy fanfics #i will need to come up with a tag for this au but i'll worry about that once i have more than one part #i didn't really edit this part because i've been sitting on it for so long and i wanted to post it and keep moving #maybe this..............thing can be part of my nano project #fic: the seelie of kurain

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dndeed · 6 years

Text

Critical Role Miniature Rollout: C2E29

With Andrew Harshman

A summary and review of the minis used on Critical Role.

A quick disclaimer up top, in much the same way fighting an invisible opponent can be difficult, identifying minis with the live show mini cam quality was pretty tricky. Please forgive any lapses in accuracy and completeness.

Grab something to drink and prepare a dish best served cold, it’s time for Critical Role Miniature Rollout Campaign 2 Episode 29!

The Characters

The Mighty Nein and Shakäste Steamforged Games Critical Role Miniatures Photo by @RogueReader47

Originally Frumpkin was just part of Caleb’s model base. Fortunately, he has been given his own mini. This cat’s a full fledged party member. He’s gotta have his own mini and it sure looks good. Very natural, very cat like.

Shakäste is looking super suave. As with the other figures, this is such a well executed rendition of the official art. The miniature looks exactly like the art by @ornerine. Now that I’m seeing this character as a fully painted figure, I gotta wonder about Shakäste’s morning routine. With this many belts, it has to be a minimum three hour process. Which just makes Shakäste that much cooler.

Kidnapped Party Member Legendary Realms Mummy

Seen in the left prison chamber, this is a clever usage of the Legendary Realms mummy mini. It has a pretty distinct appearance and works well in this capacity. It looks somewhat familiar, not unlike Shakäste outfit in fact.

The Villains

Lorenzo Steamforged Games Photo from Matthew Mercer’s Twitter

Everyone take notes, this is the proper way to do a boss battle. Kidnap half the party, murderlize a beloved character, then get a professional miniature studio to custom sculpt a figure. What a miniature!

When word starting getting around the internets that Lorenzo was potentially a shapshifted oni, I got to worrying. Not about the longevity of the party, but about the potential oni mini choices. There are some solid prepaints in the D&D Miniatures Game back catalog, but those are well out of production. The two currently available onis are frankly terribly in comparison.

How silly of me to worry. Of course Matthew Mercer and Steamforged Games did it right. A phenomenal figure for a monumentous session and story point. Talk about table presence, even zoomed out on a live feed, this mini looked amazing. DMs, let’s learn from this excellent example of a villain confrontation.

The List

Campaign Coins DEVEN RUE COMPASS ROSE

Dwarven Forge Dungeons

Dwarven Forge Dungeon of Doom

Legendary Realms Double Bed

Tiny Furniture Medieval Bath Furniture

Dungeon of Doom LED Torch Wall

Deadly Foes Dressing: Candelabra

Dwarven Forge Dungeon of Doom Vaulted Doorway

Dungeon of Doom Vaulted Narrow Door

Legendary Realms Wooden Chest

Legendary Realms Beds

Dwarven Forge Medieval Furniture Set

Dwarven Forge Dungeon of Doom Vaulted Open Arch Wall

Dwarven Forge Dungeon of Doom Bars Insert

Dwarven Forge Dungeon of Doom, 4x4 Dungeon Floor

Dungeon Floor Pack A

Dungeon of Doom Passage Wall

Legendary Realms Hirst Arts Open Barrel

Legendary Realms Wooden Large Open Crate

Short Rubble Pile

Deadly Foes Dressing: Cage

Legendary Realms Hirst Arts Wooden Large Open Crate

Crown of Fangs Dressing: Rectangular Table

Deadly Foes Dressing: Candelabra

Dwarven Forge Dungeon of Doom Weapon Rack

Dwarven Forge Castle Builder Stone Stairs

Dwarven Forge Dungeons Door Pack

Icons of the Realms Adventurer’s Camp Weapon Rack

Dwarven Forge Dungeon of Doom Vaulted Door Corner

Dwarven Forge LED Lighted Brazier

Axe N Shield Single Flyer Risers - Clear Mithril

Real Game FX Fog Monster Remote Controlled LED Terrain

Legendary Realms Mummy

Rusty Dragon Inn Dressing: Table

Desert of Desolation #32 Rot Scarab Swarm

Lost Coast #008 Lamashtu Thug 1

Lost Coast #013 Lamashtu Thug 2

Lightfoot Halfling Rogue Epic Level Starter Set

Deathknell #25 Voice of Battle

Rusty Dragon Inn Dressing: Crate

Steamforged Games Critical Role Miniatures

Steamforged Games Oni

Unknown Green Spiritual Weapon Marker

The Terrain

Sour Nest Dungeon Furnaces Real Game FX Fog Monster Remote Controlled LED Terrain

What I thought initially was a piece from the Dwarven Forge Sewers set turned out to be a lighting item by company Real Game FX. They do some excellent work, I’ve played at a table that used one of their tabletop fog machines. This component is really cool, but it did not get to shine due to the live lighting conditions. I’m sure the next time we see these they will have their LEDs active.

Not a whole lot of new terrain, say for the Dwarven Forge LED Lighted Brazier and Dwarven Forge Dungeon of Doom Bars Insert which were both used to wonderful effect. A good amount of furniture again in this episode and I got my wish from last blog post:

We have seen a lot of tables on Campaign 2, I am eagerly awaiting the moment when one of them gets flipped dramatically to provide cover.

Prato, my man!

The Spells

Party Spells Desert of Desolation #32 Rot Scarab Swarm and Unknown Green Spiritual Weapon Marker

It is a little tough to see, Rot Scarab Swarm is the figure in the left section of the dungeon, near the green spiritual weapon I’ve been unable to identify. A convenient miniature and it’s perfectly employed here. This mini has a glossy paint finish that really pops and is most appropriate for an exotic beetle.

The Villains

Iron Shepherd Lackeys Lost Coast #008 Lamashtu Thug 1 and Lost Coast #013 Lamashtu Thug 2

Generally I stick to reviewing/discussing only the miniatures that have not been seen previously in Campaign 2. But I have a crackpot prediction to share. I conspiracy theory based on minis, a Conspiramini Theory if you will.

The Mighty Nein pursue three members of the Iron Shepherds through the first level of the basement dungeon, Prato, Rusa, and a hireling dressing in the signature black and red Iron Shepherd attire. The mini is the dual dagger wielding Pathfinder Battles Lost Coast #013 Lamashtu Thug 2 figure. But in the following scene down in the second level of the Sour Nest basement, the hireling is replaced with Lost Coast #008 Lamashtu Thug 1 a similar character with a crossbow.

I posit that this is not a mini swap to portray the change in equipment, nor a simple oversight, but in fact a deliberate choice indicating that a member of the Iron Shepherds has survived! Hopefully this will pan out better than my other conspiramini theories.

Closing Remarks

Is it Thursday yet? Yes it is. Very excited for the new episode tonight.

#criticalroleminiaturerollout

#criticalroleminiaturerollout #criticalrolespoilers #critical role spoilers #cr spoilers #crs

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rodelbow4 · 2 years

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Catering Theme Ideas For Every Era

Ellie at a Spice of Life was very useful and responsive. We had a quick flip around for when our event was and so they made it work. Her kindness, endurance and professionalism made the process easy. She made certain everything was warm and tasted great. This is an thrilling time for them and for you, another milestone checked off their record. At Rouge Fine Catering, our marriage ceremony menu is huge, that means that whatever your good friend loves, we most likely have. You simply must know what precisely it's that she likes. Whether she likes seafood, pasta, or is a vegetarian, you'll find something from our menu that will fulfill her and all the guests. We usually experience and are accustomed to the entire household collaborating in the days leading as much as the marriage. We are honored when a consumer needs to share their family’s favorite recipes with our kitchen staff. 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Gado gado, which is a greens and compressed rice salad, made with peanut sauce dressing, is considered one of the most common Indonesian street foods out there. Although technically a salad or mix, gado gado, especially when it incorporates compressed rice cakes, is actually fairly filling and could be eaten as a main dish, or a snack. If you go to a small food stall, you’re sometimes dished a plate of rice and might select from the number of totally different dishes obtainable which are places on high of your particular person plate (it’s called pesan in Indonesian). But if you go to a extra established indoor Nasi Padang restaurant they will serve you about 20 totally different dishes in your table, and you decide and choose the dishes you need, only paying for the dishes you eat . They prepare dinner even sooner than rice noodles—just a dip in sizzling water for some—and they tend to be clear with chewy, nearly rubbery textures. 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You can work carefully with the caterer to execute your vision for the meal. You can’t actually assume how much each guest is going to eat, so it might be trickier for your caterer to imagine a price per particular person. Brides today are loving household type menus because of what they represent. It’s all about household and friends coming collectively and sharing meals through the act of communal eating. Cuts of meat and choices without having to leave their seat. Belmont Catering is joyful to supply both country style or traditional plate by plate meals. Caterers may cost extra prices and fees, including cake chopping fees, corkage fees, and more. Be sure to read your contract carefully—and ask questions—to be certain to understand your marriage ceremony catering value. Your caterer may also provide rentals, from tables to chairs, dishes to glassware, utensils, and extra. 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Those who're interested in food service administration might pursue a degree in hospitality management or a related subject. With additional education and expertise, catering assistants may turn into govt chefs or food service administrators. Food service managers are responsible for the day by day operation of restaurants or other establishments that put together and serve meals and drinks. Coordinated and executed mass food companies preparations for corporate and private events (approx. We are on the lookout for a artistic and pleasant caterer to be liable for consulting with shoppers to create menus for consumer events and events. The caterer might need to adhere to contract necessities concerning dietary preferences, timelines, and budgets to assist in delivering a smoothly run and offered occasion. They direct workers to ensure that customers are satisfied with their eating expertise, and so they handle the enterprise to make sure that it runs efficiently. A caterer is answerable for working with clients to offer food for his or her occasions. Caterers might be hired to work weddings, engagements, firm retreats, conferences, and rather more. For 外燴 , caterers are responsible for offering, transporting, and preparing food that is requested. A caterer supplies, transports, and prepares food for purchasers, notably for special events such as conferences, weddings, celebrations, or large gatherings. Responsibilities could embody not solely providing and preparing meals but also serving it and […]Read More... Chefs and head cooks should efficiently handle their time and the time of their employees. They must make sure that meals are ready and that customers are served on time, particularly during busy hours. Maintains total management duties for the foodservice unit/establishment. Coordinates workers who keep business records, acquire and pay accounts, order or purchase provides, and ship meals to retail customers.

#外燴

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moodytange11-blog · 5 years

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End Allowing Your Kitchen Get The Very best Of You With These Incredible Cooking Suggestions

A frequent objective for numerous folks today is to integrate more healthy cooking techniques into their day-to-day meal ideas. Healthy recipes often seem to be to be dull, unexciting, and missing in flavor nevertheless, and that is not something that appeals to any person. So how can you prepare dinner more healthy and nevertheless make foods that your loved ones will enjoy? In this write-up we will talk about a number of ideas that can assist. Since you are likely to be making use of a great deal of sharp knives in the kitchen area to cook dinner your foods, you will want to maintain safeguards at all instances. As an alternative of basically putting your knife in the drawer, make certain that you set a wine cork on the idea to defend from cuts and scrapes upon use. Wash your mushrooms off with a moist cloth. Will not put them beneath working drinking water to clean them. Mushrooms are like small sponges and running them under the tap will lead to them to absorb also considerably h2o. This can have an effect on their style and your cooking time as effectively. When you are chopping onions for a house cooked salsa make sure you rinse them. Rinse your onions immediately right after you reduce them then blot them dry with a serviette. This will eliminate the sulfurous gas and will make your salsa flavor much better. This performs effectively for other recipes too. To discover when oil is actually scorching enough and completely ready for the foods, search to its' surface area. If it is no for a longer time totally clean and seems to be shimmering it is hot ample. When ΤΑΠΕΡ is permitted to above-warmth it actually starts off breaking down and releasing unpleasant compounds and will get started to smoke, so know when to say when! When shaving veggies for dishes this kind of as a vinaigrette or a salad, use a coarse microplane, also known as a grater or zester, to grate them into more compact pieces. The flavors of the vegetables are actually unlocked when grated with the microplane. You must use your freezer baggage much more than a single time. You want to store your meats or greens in standard storage luggage and then location them into freezer bags so that you can use them regularly. Freezer luggage are extremely expensive and this will cut back on your fees each and every thirty day period. When you shop some components, like flour, baking mixes, and sugar, use airtight containers. Airtight containers will maintain your meals protected from bugs, and enable them to keep new lengthier because they are not exposed to air. Fortunately, you can get some reasonably priced, good quality airtight containers nearly everywhere. If you have made a decision to serve salad with the food that you are making ready for attendees, be positive to provide the salad dry and provide the dressing on the side. Absolutely everyone likes a various quantity of salad dressing. It is a great thought to allow them to control the quantity them selves. Make certain you have a assortment to choose from. When you are likely to acquire beef, make positive that the deal does not have also much liquid in it. An extreme sum of liquid may possibly show that the beef was not stored appropriately or that it is no longer very good. Make positive you constantly examine the expiration date as well. When reducing greens or meat it is very critical to have sharp, high high quality knives. This will assist you to get the appear and evenly cooked meal that you need. If you use dull, minimal high quality knives, alternatively of chopping your food, they will rip it which can result in uneven cooking and a not so appetizing looking meal. When baking, below is a tip for eggs and butter. Permit your eggs and butter set out overnight at space temperature. Carrying out so will soften the butter which will make it less complicated to spread, soften, and blend with other components. The eggs will be less complicated to defeat, and foaming egg whites will be easier as nicely. Do not devote too a lot time purchasing publications and browsing the Internet for exotic fare from about the world and neglect the recipes that your loved ones has served for years. Typically the most standard recipes are the most cherished ones. Make certain you create these recipes down. No matter how basic they are, there may possibly be a day when a household member desires them. Use solid iron pans when you cook dinner your meat. Cast iron imparts the greatest taste to the meat and avoids any possibility of sticking. You also get the additional gain of your meat possessing a higher iron articles from utilizing the forged iron. Occasionally old fashioned ideas are the ideal. A great help for achieving your best baking final results is to bring your butter and eggs to space temperature prior to use. By permitting these substances to get rid of their chill, you let warmth from cooking to activate the oils and fat inside them at the proper time as opposed to waiting for them to attain the appropriate temperature although cooking. When it comes to cooking the fresher the better. Sure the bottled and shaker spices cost considerably less but there is no flavor similar to the style of clean lower spices this sort of as garlic and parsley. So make sure that you devote the additional fifteen minutes reducing your spices, instead of shaking them. If you plan on generating a batch of salsa made up of uncooked onions that will not be eaten inside of about 20 minutes, prepare the chopped onions first by rinsing in cold drinking water and blotting dry. Onions that are new have sulfurous fuel. Certainly, the gas from uncooked onions can do a genuine amount on your salsa, nearly ruining it. When you rinse the onions with water and dry them, you neutralize the gas. When you are deep frying food items, attempt not to fry as well a lot food at as soon as. Overcrowding the deep fryer, will trigger the oil temperature to fall and the meals will not be as crispy. The crucial to successful deep frying is to hold enough oil around the food items to maintain up the temperature. Much healthier cooking types gain every person in your family. They lead to healthier way of life alternatives also. But just how do you retain flavor in your favorite recipes and even now make them much healthier? In this write-up we have discussed some of the top ideas to do just that. Adhere to them, and your kitchen area will turn into more healthy in no time.

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tiredwritersworld · 5 years

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Concerning Dwarves

This is a very old story of mine, edited and cut into more manageable parts. It’s a Dragon Age Origins and The Hobbit crossover fic because DAO is my favourite game and The Hobbit is my favourite book/movie. I really hope you enjoy reading this part and leave a comment to let me know what you think! I am hoping to incorporate this into part of a request I had for Thorin however not sure how that will pan out just yet. - L

The grand hall of the Iron Hills echoed with the cries and argument of the Ironfoot dwarves. There had been a great feast that night to welcome the dwarves from the east and the food had been ate, the ale drunk and the songs of old sung.

Talk now turned to more delicate subjects. That of the dwarves from the east’s exile and it had ruffled more than a few feathers and readied more than a few weapons.

“And are we to trust the word of she who killed her own kin?” Lord Dain of the Iron Hills roared. The she in question sighed tiredly at his words. She tilted her head to her advisor, a tall and strong dwarf clad in leather armour with long and dark plaited hair, a long plait beard and green eyes that spoke of the danger lurking within. His name was Gorlin, a smith by trade these days but in the mountain they once called home he was of the warrior caste, protector and advisor to the Princess and also her very best friend.

Gorlin’s blood rose to his face in his ire and he made to stand but she gripped his arm and pulled him back to his seat.

After a moment to collect herself the Princess rose and unsheathed her blades, laying them upon the table. The hall fell silent but for the tankards clanging noisily as the dwarves drank. All eyes fell upon the swords. They weren’t very long, but sharp and glowed a deep red with the runes Gorlin had carved into them, a magic powerful and unyielding to it’s foes. The dwarves were the only race able to wield such power and control with magic and yet unable to cast themselves. She realised of course that it was an insult to withdraw her weapons in such a place but she had a point to make.

“Lords and Ladies of the Iron Hills...” She called looking out over the hall and meeting their gaze. “These weapons you see before you have seen many a battle and taken many lives in their short years. They were forged in the fires beneath the earth, in the stone that I once called my home, at a time when I was ignorant of the politics of our people. I cared not for the rule of the mountain.” She swallowed deeply running her fingers across the hilt of one of her blades and took a deep breath before continuing. “I was naive and cared only to prove the weapons I wielded to be true. And I did just that.” Lifting one of the blades she held it up, running a hand down it’s curved surface. “It was my naivety that allowed my brother and heir to the throne to be killed. But these blades that you see before you did not know his blood. I lament the loss of Trian more than any of you here today, but I did not kill him.” She finished and sheathed her weapons once again. As she sat unable to meet their gazes Gorlin rested a reassuring hand on her shoulder.

“Then who was it!” They heard a voice call from the back of the hall and the dwarves erupted in calls of agreement and question.

“Bhelen killed Prince Trian!” Gorlin suddenly roared standing from his seat, jolting the table forward as he did so. Shouts of disapproval and disbelief sounded out.

“It’s true! I saw it with my own eyes!” Her guards yelled, they were only ones from the mountain they called home who would follow her on such a journey. Their confirmation seemed to abate the other dwarves who settled back in their seats and simmered down somewhat.

“Well Lady Aeducan, if this is true what has become of Prince Bhelen? We received word that Lord Harrowmount took rule of the mountain.” Lord Dain said turning his attention lazily back to the Princess.

“Bhelen is dead. He died by my hand, witnessed by the lords of the assembly. It was an honour killing.” She replied steeling her gaze toward him, the storm brewing in her eyes dared him to challenge or question her actions.

“Aye indeed? Then it was done properly.” Lord Dain said seemingly satisfied by her answer. “I suppose King Harrowmount can confirm your version of events?” He asked and she gave a nod in response. “Then you are welcome to stay in the Iron Hills and your say in the affair of the companies quest will be counted.” He finished and she gave another nod standing to bow fully.

“You have our thanks my Lord.” She replied softly before resuming her seat. Music and merriment ensued not long after and she leaned in close to Gorlin. “We will discuss this further at camp but I would not stay here a night if my life depended on it...” She said in hushed tones and he bowed his head in agreement.

The camp was bustling with dwarves, some sharpened their blades, others saw to the war hounds they had managed to secure on their journeys and the rest busied themselves preparing for their journey across middle earth. Word had already reached them of the discussion with the Ironfoot clan and so they prepared to leave before first light.

“The nerve of him... He who doesn’t even own claim to a throne!” Gorlin growled once he was sure they would not be heard by any prying ears.

“It matters not Gorlin, there is something else that troubles me greatly.” The princess said as she ducked into the royal tent. Standing over the small makeshift table with a map of Middle Earth spread out over it, she ran a finger across it’s surface thoughtfully.

“You fear for the company?” He asked.

“Yes... I expected nothing less from Lord Dain but we may yet be able to offer them safe passage to the lonely mountain.” She replied and he leaned back against a wooden beam folding his arms over his chest.

“And if this Oakenshield is anything like his cousin?” He asked, his brow quirked knowingly and she laughed softly shaking her head.

“Then we will know that we did what was right.” She replied smiling up at him. “Gorlin we knew that this was never going to be easy. We are exiles now and we may never find a home but there is one thing, in that we may take some comfort.” She began and took long steps towards him, pulling his large and calloused hands into hers. “We did not betray our king, we acted with honour.”

“Aye... You’re right my lady.” He said offering a small smile and squeezing her hands gently. “Do we know what route the company will take?” He asked and she turned back to the map.

“Not entirely though I suspect they will want to reach the mountain as soon as they are able. I suppose they will take the quickest route through Mirkwood...” She traced the dotted path on the map with her finger.

“If we travel as far as Rivendell we may meet them on the way. Or do you propose we wait for them at the lonely mountain?” Gorlin questioned as he poured over the map before them.

“No, we mustn’t wait. They number only 13 Gorlin though I suppose the wizard makes that 14, I know not much of this place but it’s not safe to undertake such a quest with numbers like that. Dwarves or no.” She replied and he nodded his agreement. “I say we send a smaller party to Rohan.” She said tapping it with her finger and wrinkling her nose thoughtfully.

“Aye, it would be better to cover all bases.” Gorlin agreed. “I’ll send two scouts ahead tonight to see what knowledge they can gleam of the company’s location.” He added.

“Yes, and please tell the others to rest well. They’ll need it.” She said sighing deeply and rubbing her face. He smiled affectionately back at her before leaving the tent and seeking out the scouts in question.

Sleep came and went and the Princess lay awake in her bed roll listening to the men quietly dismantling the camp they had set up there. She knew she should get up and help but her muscles ached and cried out for a few more moments rest before the journey ahead and so she allowed herself that.

The men whispered advice and orders amongst amongst themselves and she smiled, somewhat sadly as she listened to them.

In truth they were the finest of smiths, warriors, miners, nobles and merchants and even the finest dwarves she had ever known. When word had spread of her banishment they had exiled themselves and followed her into the deep roads to ensure her safety. They, all 87 of them, had been aware of Bhelen’s plot and when their pleas fell on death ears, they had agreed their place remained with her.

Despite her protests they insisted on treating her as the Princess she once was, bowing low whenever she passed and insisting upon the royal tent whenever they made camp. They had taken up ranks and despite their small numbers they were a Kingdom unto themselves and she their leader.

Some of them whispered about the journey ahead. She’d heard mention of the line of Durin and murmur of approval and agreement that they should offer their aid, which encouraged her as she sat up and began stretching out her tired limbs.

Upon hearing her stir in the tent, Gorlin gave a quick nod to a dwarf packing away a large cauldron.

“Fadic take her majesty some breakfast.” He said as he finished strapping his weapons belt across his chest, securing the axe sheath to his back. “Be sure to announce yourself before entering mind...” He added with a quiet chuckle and the older dwarf laughed gently back as he pulled out the plate he’d kept aside for the Princess.

“Aye, I wouldn’t dream of it otherwise.” He replied and hobbled over to her tent. He was a short portly dwarf with a wisp of white hair and a long beard that made even Gorlin envious. It reached past his round stomach and was full and soft even when plaited.

“My Lady Aeducan?” He called gently from the other side of the cloth.

“Come in Fadic.” She called back quietly.

“I have your breakfast my lady.” He said bowing low before handing her the plate and cutlery. “I’m afraid it will be quite cold now as we thought it better to put out the fire. Best not alert them to our plans just yet!” He said Jovially and she smiled up at him with a mouthful of scrambled eggs.

“Good idea.” She replied between bites.

“When you’re finished we’ll be taking yours down.” Fadic gestured to the cloth around them. “Then I think we’re about ready to get going.” He finished and she patted the seat next to her on the bedroll.

“How are the men’s spirits today Fadic?” She questioned balancing the plate on her lap as she turned to face him.

“Aye they are in good spirits. Glad to be helping our kin and glad to have full bellies I should imagine.” He replied with a warm smile, thinking on how she had done right by them the moment they’d left the mountain. Securing food and mounts with what little coin she had left. They had all of them laboured in the towns of men and elves on the journey to Middle Earth and no dwarf amongst them would forget how much work she had done to allow them the comforts they secured and enjoyed. For her part she had taken on quests from the city guards, parents of lost children and even worked in taverns serving ale in order to provide. They themselves had offered their smithing services and sold weapons, jewellery and all manner of things in the towns and had acquired a small wealth amongst them which would see them through for a while yet.

“Well I am glad to hear it Fadic.” She said after she finished her meal. He took her plate and hobbled back out to clear it and store it away.

When she emerged the dwarves made quick work of dismantling her tent and she made her way to Gorlin who had readied her mount for the day ahead.

“Have we been seen yet?” She asked and he shook his head as she climbed atop the dark war hound she had affectionately named Gorim. “And the scouts?”

“No word yet. We leave on your command my lady.” He said upon noting the dwarves were packed up and awaiting their orders.

“Ok, we will meet the scout on the way. What of the men travelling south?” She enquired.

“They know what to do, Derjun is leading them.” He replied and she gave a short nod in approval.

“We leave now Gorlin.” She said.

Atop his own war hound Gorlin raised a fist, the signal to march on and she gently patted Gorim who began a slow pace into the trees.

#eventual thorin x oc #dragon age: origins/the hobbit crossover #original characters #the hobbit #lady aeducan #tiredwriterwrites #tiredwritersworld

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lightdancer1 · 2 years

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From my Storm of Iron verse:

In the many years to come of his long, long life, John Grammaticus would always remember his one encounter with Narthan Dume. He had been taken captive by the colossal gene-forged monsters Dume built, his Great Yokai. Dume had ordered everyone else in his unit brutally murdered after their removal into the citadel of his realm, the Palace of Phan Khaos.

Dume wore a great suit of armor, more nearly like that of a Knight than a man's, and had enhanced himself likewise. Like the long-vanished Fleshweaver, Basilio Fo, Narthan Dume had taken great works of the Golden Age and rewoven himself.

"An old book of the Second Millennium once said," the man spoke with a heavy accent of his home province, once known in ancient times as the island of Okinawa, 'There were Nephilim in the Earth in those days, and also afterward, when the B'nei Elohim looked upon the daughters of men and took wives to themselves, whomsoever they chose.' "

Dume's face, swollen in size with the rest of him curled into a grim smile, his unnatural aesthetic perfection so strangely akin to aspects that would recur in the later Primarch Fulgrim.

"Cathericism is all that remains of the old Abrahamic paths. Judaism, Christianity, Islam. Ten thousand years and an age when Mankind reforged stars and had power over the dark arts that Kalagann of Ursh, one of my more unpleasant rivals, and the brute that calls himself the Emperor both wield. There are some who might accuse me of callously destroying traces of a Golden Age even as I wielded it to remake myself, to overthrow the last of the old Dragon Kings and to become master of this Pan-Pacific Empire."

He shook his head.

"The true Golden Age died in fire when the Men of Gold and Men of Stone found Men of Iron more than they could control. Such powers they had in those days, powers before which the deeds of these great wars are as nothing at all. We are pgymies squatting in the ruins of the true giants, without full comprehension of what it is that we wield, that we have at our disposals.

Even the smallest armies have gene-forged in armor, though only the truly great like myself, Dalmoth Kyn, the Emperor, and Kalagann can aspire to mastery of the world itself. The Men of Gold, superhumanity, made Men of Stone, AIs that could attach to flesh or metal, who in turn expanded upon their own making and made Men of Iron.

Now superhumanity makes monsters and gods in their image and their likeness."

Narthan Dume had a gaze that none could meet, as was true with Kalagann of Ursh and the being that called Himself Emperor. With the Emperor it was eyes of golden fire like starlight. With Kalagann the maddened Things that lurked behind his gaze and the vast legions at his disposal, even if the Tupelov Lancers and the Geno Chiliad had defected to the Imperium after the Battle of the Murengon and the conquest of Nordafrik.

Dume's gaze was not like either of them, it was the gaze of a fanatic, with small traces of the genetic enhancements at work from the Golden Age. Eyes that shone not with Warp-Light but a true light of their own, a God's eyes for a God's body.

Grammaticus was lifted bodily into the air by one of the swollen hands in vast armor, the giant's face boring into his own with the eyes that shone fully.

"So go back to your lord and master who calls himself Emperor and tell him that the Pan-Pacific Empire will never yield to his threats, or those things he calls Thunder Warriors. His brutes can barely stand or function. My Yokai are Gods made manifest, products of art of the Age I seek to erase."

His grin was cold.

"My Nephilim are on the Earth in these days, mighty men, men of renown, but for all that, they are what the Thunder Warriors are not. I destroy the works of the Age of Technology because it was a golden age in terms of this one, but it has no value for us in this day. To know elements of gigantic endeavors whose secrets are lost, which no amount of recovered knowledge can allow us to rebuild? Why we gain nothing at all from this, save a permanent sense of inferiority."

He dropped Grammaticus roughly, his bones aching as Dume strode back.

"So go, messenger-boy of the so-called Imperium. Inform your master of that truth."

Two of the Yokai stepped in, bodies of an unnatural Fae-like beauty, clad in clanking armor that ground in notes smoother than Thunder Armor but not that much smoother. It was John Grammaticus's one and only encounter with the hulking giant called Narthan Dume and it would be a memory to linger for the rest of that long life of his until his tasks were done.

#omniverse tales #storm of iron verse #The Wars of the Unity #Narthan Dume #warhammer 40k #horus heresy

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sooibian · 4 years

Text

Flambé (Preview)

poster and edits/collage credits to @is-that-baekhyuns-shirt !

🍜 pairing: kyungsoo x fem!reader

🍜 description: pull up a chair. take a taste. come join us. life is so endlessly delicious. - ruth reichl

🍜 themes: fluff, crack (ish), slight angst, a lil bit of spice (in the future), rivals to lovers au

🍜 word count: ~ 2.8k

🍜 a/n: a little preview of a chef kyungsoo story that i've been working on. while i have the plot fleshed out it'll honestly be a while before the long one/two-shot comes out since a lot of research goes into the details. and....i write at a snail's pace. thank you for your patience and lmk if you'd like a tag in the updates!

this story is inspired by a lot of random yt videos and netflix's shows - street food and chef's table.

tagging *deep breath* @j-pping and @changshapatrol (the real rotten banana is here!)

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Water bobbed in frenetic bubbles in a massive ancient stone pot that was perched atop a fort of raging wood. Amidst brutal peals of thunder, a gushing stream rose from a nearby hill, obscuring the shrill cries of the sacrificial crab.

Chanting a spell, you lifted the enormous crustacean by its pincers and lowered it into the growling, pitch black utensil. Blubbering helplessly, it lodged its claws at the rim of the pot in desperation - seeking escape. The sound of your maniacal laughter reverberated through the cave as you thrust it back into the violent undulation with the flick of a bladed-spatula.

All of a sudden, a wave of unconsciousness swept over you. You felt your skin singe as boiling water started to fill up your lungs.

You were alone - at the bottom of the very same utensil.

“Help!” frantic, you staggered up, gasping for air. But the bladed-spatula wielding crab, who was now free and hovering over you, roared at your defenseless form.

Maybe your spell didn't land, you thought.

“Please, Chef!” you whimpered.

In one swift motion, it swooshed down to your eye level.

Bushy black brows sprouted on its forehead, just a little over a pair of big brown circles for eyes. Then came the nose, followed by a bloody red mouth that snarled at you.

zzzz...

“Late again?” It drawled in a jarring tenor.

zzzz...

zzzz…

4:00 a.m., your phone blinked.

In a sleep befuddled state, your hand reached out for the wailing device. ‘Late again’, Chef’s cold, deep voice sounded in your consciousness as you wiped the droplets of sweat off your forehead.

Chef.

Doh Kyungsoo had insisted on the title and you'd defiantly refused to call him that. What business does a man working at a Kalguksu stand in Gwangjang Market have, being called a chef. You'd seeked redressal with the higher ups. The owner. Your aunt.

"Aegiya, he has something that you don't."

"A dick?"

"YAH! He has a degree in culinary arts. It's only befitting that we give him the respect his degree deserves!"

"Imo, haven't you watched Parasite? Anyone can forge documents these days and if so then why is he here? He could very well get a job at Four Seasons like Hyun Jin. Think, Imo. Think!”

“Exactly! With forged documents, he could be anywhere. But he’s here, no?”

“Maybe you’re just easier to manipulate.”

"Chef. You're calling him Chef."

Every time the egotistical madman opened that darned mouth of his, it made you want to knock him down with a roundhouse and beat the living daylights out of him.

But, with a deep breath, you always resisted the temptation.

Because one day, one glorious day, you’d take over your aunt’s business and the very first item on your agenda would be….well, the obvious. With a glimmer of hope, you floundered out of your comforter, muttering every cuss word you’d learnt...and crafted in the course of working with the devil himself.

“Ahh 3000 is a bit too much for cucumbers", he said to the middle aged vendor, flashing a boyish grin.

The face of sourcing had drastically changed in the last six months since Kyungsoo’s arrival. Prior to his dictatorship, your aunt had a tie up with some of the local vendors who’d hand deliver the produce every single day, without fail. Guess Kyungsoo didn’t fully comprehend the benefits of customer loyalty. ‘There could be better quality ingredients out there, Sajangnim...economically priced, I might add’, he’d convinced your aunt using his military corporal voice. No matter if it meant awkward break-ups with the vegetables ahjumma or the prawns ahjussi. You had to do the dirty work.

And tag along for the routine 5 a.m sourcing runs. Every morning, he greeted you with an accusatory ‘you’ve killed my cat’ expression.

You groaned, shifting your weight from one foot to the other. If only he’d quit flirting with every woman in the market and hurry up! The purchases had long exceeded the capacity of your humble cart. Flailing your numb arms awake, you urged him to speed up with a nudge of the knee but he glared at you like you’d asked him for a kidney.

Kyungsoo had a tendency to overbuy but never would he help with a single bag. ‘I don’t like to sweat’ was his excuse. Which was pretty ridiculous considering he spent over ten hours a day overseeing a scorching frying pan. But you knew better than to argue. Because as much as you loathed every fibre of his existence, he terrified you a little. The man possessed the duality of a psychopath. As fierce as he was in the Market, ruthlessly competitive even, he was quite the sweet talker. And you could bet your life on the fact that every woman - whether or not a rival - would take a bullet for him.

“Ahdeul-ah”, the woman cooed at him, making your insides violently contort, “you know how tight the market is these days. But I’ll throw in some more only for you.”

The additional weight of three kilos on your right arm ended your sourcing run for the day.

***

“Chef”, huffing, you said to him on your way out, “I had a late night last night.”

“And I need to be privy to this little nugget of unwarranted information because?” He paced ahead of you at his usual lightning speed.

“No, I meant, could we stop”, panting you continued, “could we stop for a quick cup of coffee.”

Halting abruptly, he turned around to look you in the eyes, “No.”

“Asshole!”

“I heard that.”

Monday at Choi Yoonsun’s was busier than usual.

It went by in a daze amidst a cacophony of a sizzling girdle, clanging of pots and pans and your aunt’s relentless vocalization inviting customers to the stall. Having served thousands of bowls of Kalguksu and Kimchi Mandu, you heavily relied on muscle memory to get you through a workday’s demands.

Despite its chaos and commotion, you quite enjoyed working in the Market.

One cannot think well, love well, sleep well, if one has not dined well.

At the end of yet another gratifying day, you left a wet towel soaking in vinegar for Kyungsoo to clean the iron girdle and proceeded to tend to the dirty dishes.

“Yahh!” Imo called out for Kyungsoo and you, thumping her hand on the table, gesturing for you to join her.

“Ahh! Imo, there’s a huge pile of dirty dishes!” You cried, only to turn around to find that ass-kisser already at the table, schmoozing with your aunt. Hastily taking off your grubby apron, you washed your hands and wiped them clean with a rag cloth. Straightening your black shirt and flattening unruly flyaways, you rushed toward the table but she was already up and ready to leave, “We’ll have dinner together tonight. I want to have a chat with the both of you.”

“But -”

“Sajangnim”, Kyungsoo interrupted, wagging a finger in your direction, “this one’s had a late night last night -”

“Chef! So I guess I’ll be seeing you tonight. As if seeing you every day of every week wasn’t enough already!”

An overtly saccharine smile spread across your face and his jaw tightened in response.

“Aish….you two...I’m leaving now”, she sighed, shaking her head, “see you both in two hours.”

Kimchi jjigae, pajeon, tteokbokki, jajangmyeon, some leftover bibimbap with sides galore from Hong Lim Banchan Stall. She clearly had something important to talk about.

But the vibe at the dinner table just didn’t sit right with you.

The reason could be the bespectacled black hole of negativity that was seated besides you in all black clothing but there was something off about Imo.

She was being a little too...nice.

Fear gradually started to settle in your bones. Was she finally closing down? Was this delectable fare an attempt at softening the blow? After all, she’d settled her husband’s debts and her sons were doing well for themselves. Quite well, in fact. One of them was a banker and the other even went to culinary school and was working as a chef at Four Seasons’ Chinese restaurant. It only made sense for her to trade the Market’s gruelling ways for some much deserved peace and quiet.

“We’re closing down the stall”, she said coolly.

It was like a punch in the gut.

“Imo -”

“Aga”, she said resting her chin on her hand, “the Market’s given me everything. It’s given me a sense of pride...a sense of independence. It put my family back together. I used to think that I’m nothing without my husband and my sons...but the Market gave me an identity.”

A million scenarios cascading through your head drowned out your aunt’s voice. Would you now have to go back to Bucheon? Or invest in a stall of your own at the traditional Gwangjang that’d never accept your big and bold ways with cooking? And to start from scratch? With a new recipe? Kalguksu with a twist, perhaps? But you had no insight into your aunt’s special broth. She’d barely even let you whip up the hand-cut noodles.

You realized that you weren’t the only one caught in the eye of the storm. Kyungsoo’s eyes were scarily fixated on the bowl of jajangmyeon before him. His seemingly miserable state gave you a fleeting sense of relief and it was right in that moment that he chose to say something unpalatable.

“Sajangnim, you’ve worked too hard. It’s time for you to reap the fruits of your labour. We’ll be fine you don’t have to worry about us.”

Of course he’ll be fine.

All the stall-owners in the Market have been vying for him ever since the day he set foot into Choi Yoonsun’s. Whereas, you had nowhere to go. The world conveniently assumes your aunt hired you only because you were her poor sister’s daughter who she sought to help financially. Not because you had what it took to be there and survive.

"Did I say I was ready to retire?” She laughed, eyeing Kyungsoo quizzically, leaving you dumbfounded.

“Here’s the thing..I met up with a friend last month. She was looking for a buyer for her little family run marinated crabs restaurant in Gangnam. So I took out a loan, made her an offer”, balling her hands into fists she sighed, “put in the deposit...and the place is pretty much mine now!”

“IMO!”, you yelled, “why did you scare me like that! I thought I was laid off!”

“Well, it’s a big move, I’m not sure the two of you are ready to make...requires a tonne of work and I may not be able to pay half of what you earned at the Market for at least two months until we open! It’ll take us two years or so to break even and only then will I be able to afford you a pay raise. I could help you get a job at the banchan stall since you love seasoned spinach so much and Kyungsoo stands a chance at even managing one of the Pakgane stalls!”

Pakgane was the mung bean pancake stall that had gotten so popular that the owner had managed to branch out of Gwangjang. So even your beloved aunt believed that you’d make for a better “help” and Kyungsoo, a Manager.

Ugh!

“I’m coming with you”, you said firmly, “I’ve saved up a little and Mom will gladly pitch in, if need be...”

At this point, you’d expected Kyungsoo to be ready with his luggage considering the little sycophant he was but his expression was stoic, eyes still glued to the jajangmyeon bowl. It filled you with insane hope.

He was going to jump the ship...finally!

“Chef...”, you couldn’t resist, “you don’t have to worry about us...I’m more than enough for Imo. You may...”

He shot you an angry glare making you chew on your unsaid words. But you wanted to rile him just a little more. So you excused yourself to bring a bottle of ketchup and squeezed it generously atop the stack of pajeon while eyeing him maliciously.

Ketchup.

The tangy, unassuming condiment was the sole reason Kyungsoo despised you. As this dinner marked the end of his torturous regime, you celebrated with ketchup - lots of it - right in front of his nasty eyes.

Steam swirled in different directions and at every twenty metres a contrastive redolence tickled your olfactory senses. Experiencing Gwangjang as a customer was a far richer experience compared to the donkeywork involved in a life as a vendor.

A proper send-off was essential lest Kyungsoo decided to stay, even if it burned a hole in your pocket. You planned on giving him a final tour of the Market where he (and you) could say his goodbyes while receiving a premium fuel of vitamins, minerals and carbs.

A whole lot of carbs.

“Let’s start with Pakgane”, said Kyungsoo, with a skewered sausage in his hand.

You shook your head in response. You wanted to start with the best and mung bean pancakes weren’t it. This was going to be a farewell he’d never forget.

With every step you took, the aroma of scallops drizzled with butter and cheese grew stronger. You started your tour by ordering two portions of the delectable street food which set you back considerably. But you were too elated to care. You refused Kyungsoo’s offer to pay as the woman set the scallops on fire with a blow torch.

“Do you know what that technique’s called?” Kyungsoo gave a little nod in the direction of the aflame food.

Another teachable moment.

You’d made a firm resolve to not let any of his condescension bog you down so with a sweet smile, you replied, “No, Chef. I do not.”

“Flambé. But minus the alcohol. Do you know how they manage that?”

The ahjumma came to your rescue and you jumped to collect the order. You could’ve sworn that you caught the corner of his mouth twitch slightly.

***

The Market supposedly looked the same as it did fifty years ago and you quite enjoyed eating your way through it. The tour made your heart grapple with nostalgia even though your partner’s personality was akin to a mug of insipid coffee.

Although you’d spent only a little over a year with Choi Yoonsun, the goodbyes were long and hard. Some of the vendors squeezed you and Kyungsoo in heart wrenching hugs, the others gave you a little cash to help you through the transition and for some of the food, you paid in smiles and love.

After a gastronomic fiesta that entailed tteokbokki, pajeon (minus the ketchup - you did it Kyungsoo’s way), sashimi, kimbap, different types of banchan, a thousand more teachable moments, the both of you ended the day on a sweet note with hotteok.

The ahjussi wished you both luck, making you choke back tears.

Kyungsoo noticed.

“Are you…. Is the hotteok spicy? No, I mean it’s obviously not...erm”

The dam of your tears burst.

You were going to miss this place. Even the less appealing aspects of it. You were going to miss the kimbap unnie who greeted you with a hug everyday, also the snooty mandu ahjumma who could hardly stand the sight of you. You were even going to miss washing dishes in the winters with water that was supposed to be ice and the sweltering summers which had you sweating through every layer of clothing.

Hell, you were even going to miss Kyungsoo.

“No”, you sniffled, “No, no Chef, it’s nothing. Take care of yourself. As much as I’m glad that our fateful working relationship has met its rightful end, I truly, genuinely, wish you luck. And learn to smile more often, yeah?”

“Are you dying?” He gleamed.

“What? NO! What? You’re leaving. What is wrong with you?”

“Who says I’m leaving?”

“You! You’re not coming with us to Gangnam!”

“Says who?”

“Your stupid face that looked like it was hit by a freight train when Imo broke the news last week!”

“I’m not leaving?” He mused.

“This is no time to joke, Chef. You are leaving!”

“Says who!”

“Your stu-”

“Stupid face? I wasn’t planning on leaving at all. I’ve even found myself a place close to the restaurant. Oh yeah, sorry for having misled you. It was really just - my stupid face.”

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