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astrobei · 1 year

Note

hello beloved suni. for valentine's day ficlet prompt... a lumax valentine's day perhaps?

(ft. lucas going Overboard and max secretly loving it?)

abby i would literally give you the world if you asked me to <3 happy early valentine's day and i hope you like this one !!

“I don’t understand this holiday,” El frowns, peering over the displays of red cardboard boxes and bulk-order roses. This corner of Melvald’s is completely decked out, with glitter and flowers and plush teddy bears as far as the eye can see– or at least until aisle three, where the store returns to its regularly scheduled programming of household cleaning supplies.

The floral scent is almost nauseatingly strong, and Max is suddenly extremely thankful she’s nowhere near as allergic to them as she used to be, or Mrs. Byers would have had to drive her to the hospital as she broke out in hives. “Me neither,” Max says, squinting at a teddy bear with particularly beady eyes. “Consumerist nonsense.”

El gives her a bit of a weird look. “Um–”

“It means they just overdo the lovey-dovey thing to get people to buy stuff,” Max adds, and El’s frown smooths itself out.

“Oh, okay. I was just going to say that I don’t know why there’s only one day out of the whole year to buy someone flowers.” She reaches out, touches a tentative finger to one of the petals on the nearest rose, and then immediately retracts her hand as the petal falls off and flutters slowly to the checkered tiles of the floor. “Oh no.”

Max bites back a laugh. “I bet those flowers have been sitting in storage since the beginning of the month.”

“I don’t get this holiday,” El says again, and shakes her head. “Why buy someone flowers that have been sitting outside for two weeks?”

“Again,” Max says, rolling her eyes at the 20% off! sign, “they just want to make money off this stuff. They don’t care about love.”

“Bullshit,” El says, so suddenly that Max can’t bite back a laugh in time to keep herself from giggling loudly, the sound ringing through the quiet of the store. Half an aisle over, a guy in a suit shoots her a glare. She pulls a face at him.

“Bull– yeah, I guess so,” she says, as El turns to study the display of chocolates on their other side. “So jaded already?”

“I don’t know what jaded means,” El muses, “but I think this holiday is bullshit.”

“Yeah, that’s– yeah,” Max nods. “You got it. Hey, if these chocolates are on sale, then maybe we should get some anyway.” She picks up a heart-shaped box and flips it over. “You’re not allergic to nuts, are you, El?”

“I don’t think so. Won’t Lucas buy you chocolates?” El asks, turning back around to give Max a curious look. “He’s your boyfriend.”

“Yeah, well,” Max sighs. “This whole thing is so cheesy. I don’t need him to buy me chocolates, I just need him to put up more of a fight before I beat him at Super Mario Bros. I swear it’s not even fun anymore.”

El wrinkles her nose. “At least it would be better than what Mike did.”

“Oh yeah?” Max raises her eyebrows, then puts the box of chocolates down. The handful of change in her pocket can be spent on better things than overpriced and over-marketed chocolate anyway. “What did Mike do?”

“He got me a card that said I like you.”

Max stares. “I like– you’re joking. Please tell me you’re joking.”

“Nope.” El pops the p, and gives Max a look like yeah, I know.

“Okay, well, good riddance,” Max snorts. “I’ll be praying for Will. Poor guy.”

“I think it probably helps to actually love the person you give the card to,” El says thoughtfully, which is a pretty good point, and Max honestly doesn’t have much to add to that. She gives another cursory glance over the piles of sickeningly-sweet flower displays, the rows upon rows of stuffed bears that all look exactly alike, and then her eyes land on a discount bag of M&Ms.

“Okay, well, I still want these,” she says as she grabs them. “M&Ms are good no matter the day. You want anything, El?”

El peers around the corner of the aisle, and her face lights up. “Reese’s!” she cheers, then disappears from view. “One second!”

Max sighs, tossing the bag of chocolate up and down in one hand as she waits. She can imagine it now, being one of those poor schmucks at school who get bombarded with tacky cards and flowers that are on the brink of collapse. Just another way to flaunt relationships that are equally on the brink of collapse, probably. No one goes through the motions of over-the-top, elaborate stuff like this unless they’re trying to compensate for something.

She thinks about it, for a fleeting second– being given roses at school. The secondhand embarrassment of it all. A teddy bear that’ll no doubt collect dust on her bookshelf for the next ten years. Cheesy greeting cards– be mine and hugs and kisses and–

“Ready to go?” El pops back into her field of vision, a bright orange package clutched in one hand.

Max blinks. “Yeah,” she says, then firmly banishes any thoughts of cheesy greeting cards from her mind. No, thank you. She’s fine with her discount chocolate– that she got herself, mind you. No consumerist bullshit for her this time. “Yeah, let’s head out. Maybe Mrs. Byers will let us use her employee discount again.”

—-

Max knows something is off the next morning before she even gets in the car.

“You look weird,” she frowns, in lieu of a greeting. “What’s with you?”

Lucas ignores her. “Good mooorning,” he says, long and drawn-out and not nearly as obnoxious as it should be. “Are you ready for today?”

Max slams the passenger door shut behind her and says, “Well, my history presentation is today. So, no.”

“You’re going to crush it,” Lucas says, even though they have different history teachers this year and of course Max got stuck with the nitpicky one. “World War II isn’t going to know what hit it.” He takes the car out of park, backs slowly away from the lot in front of the trailer, and onto the main road. “But come on, that’s not what I mean.”

Max raises her eyebrows. Look, she’s not dumb, okay. It’s February 14th and she’s dating Lucas Sinclair. She knows there’s only one place this conversation is leading to. “Oh yeah? Well, I heard they’re serving chicken nuggets in the cafeteria today,” she says anyway, just to be difficult.

Lucas indulges her. He always indulges her. “Well I’m ready for chicken nugget day,” he says, even though he shouldn’t be, because Max is certain they haven’t used chicken to make them since before Indiana was even a state. He reaches for her hand over the console and says, “You might have to drive me to the hospital after but it’ll be worth it.”

Max bites back a smile and looks out of the window before he can see. “Loser,” she says. It comes out too fond for her to have any hopes about hiding it, and even though the radio is blasting Madonna, she hears him laugh as he squeezes her hand.

She thinks he’s dropped it, or maybe he’s picked up on the hint and hastily canceled whatever it was he’d been planning, but of course, no such luck. “Okay, well,” he says, as they get out of the car and make their way up to the school. “Can I walk you to your locker at least?”

She stops in her tracks. It wouldn’t have been suspicious if he didn’t ask, because he always walks her to her locker before class starts, but now–

“No,” she decides, walking away as fast as her legs will allow. “Don’t you have Calculus to get to?”

He catches up to her easily. “Come on,” he grins, matching her pace effortlessly. “It’s–”

She holds a finger up to his face. “Don’t say it.”

Lucas holds both hands up in surrender. “I didn’t say anything!”

“You’re thinking something! I know it! You’re– you’re scheming and you’re– up to something, I don’t know. Up to no good.”

“Up to no good?” Lucas laughs. “What are you, fifty?”

“Shut up,” she says, and then they’re basically at her locker already, and his grin grows exponentially which leads her to believe that maybe this was the plan all along.

“You should open your locker,” Lucas says, leaning against the adjacent one and clearly trying his hardest to look blasé about the whole thing. “Just saying. Because your books are in there and stuff.”

“If I open this and something jumps out at me,” Max grumbles, spinning the combination lock. “I’m going to–”

She trails off. Stares.

“Um,” Lucas is saying, peering around the open locker door. “You’re going to– what?”

“Kill you,” she whispers, before reaching into her locker and pulling out the biggest fucking bouquet of roses she’s ever seen. “What the hell?”

“Happy Valentine’s Day!” Lucas smiles. There’s something a little nervous about it, like maybe he was worried that she had some deep, lifelong trauma rooted in the holiday and maybe she was about to start crying in the middle of the hallway. “Do you like them?”

She could lie and say no, just to keep up appearances, but that would be mean, probably. “Yeah,” Max says, feeling herself smile before she can help it. “What– how did you get my locker combination?”

Lucas waves a hand dismissively. “Dustin,” he says, like this explains everything. Maybe it does– she doesn’t know. She tries not to keep up with whatever they have going on, because the less she knows the better. “But seriously– do you like?”

“Of course,” Max says softly. They’re pink roses, the real kind, fragrant and fresh and not falling apart at the seams like the flowers that had been shedding all over the Melvald’s floor yesterday. She wonders where he got them. She wonders how much he paid for them. “They’re– how?”

“I have my ways,” and okay, apparently Lucas is a total man of mystery now, and Max does not care enough to find out what his ways are, because–

Oh, these flowers are gorgeous. Like actually, genuinely, mind-blowingly gorgeous.

“You got me flowers,” she says, more to herself than Lucas, like maybe stating this fact as just that– a fact– will make it easier to comprehend.

He got her flowers. A lot of flowers.

Apparently Max Mayfield is, after all, one of the poor schmucks being given flowers at school.

“Well, I figured you’d think the red ones are dumb,” Lucas goes on, blissfully ignorant of the way Max can literally feel her entire face turning hotter than the inside of an oven. “And I know you like red, but they're red roses, which I know you’d think are tacky, so I figured these would be more your speed. More subtle. More– uh. Max?”

She blinks. “Huh?”

“Are you okay?” Lucas frowns, waving a hand in front of her face. “You haven’t blinked in, like, a minute.”

Max is definitely very, very red now. “I’m fine,” she gets out, “it’s just– thank you. These are nice.”

“Oh.” The tension slips away from Lucas’ shoulders, and he stands up a little straighter. Puffs his chest out just a bit, which makes her laugh. “Good. I’m glad.”

“I might just– leave them here for now, though.” She motions to the locker and tucks the flowers back inside. “If that’s okay.”

“Fine by me,” Lucas grins, then slings an easy arm over her shoulder. “Now about your history presentation–”

—-

And Max isn’t stupid, per se, but maybe it wasn’t the smartest of her to assume that it would end there. At lunch, Max is about to resign herself to her fate of a pathetically soggy peanut butter and jelly sandwich, when Lucas’ grinning face pops up in front of her.

“Hey!”

“Jesus Christ,” she gasps, and Mike snickers softly as she jumps.

“No,” Lucas says, pointing at himself. “Lucas.”

Max peels back the cling film around her sandwich with a growing sense of trepidation. “Why are you smiling like that?”

“Oh, no reason,” Lucas says, and so obviously Max does not believe him in the slightest. He’s got both hands behind his back, and Will is next to him stifling a laugh into his hand, and Max doesn’t trust Lucas as is but she especially doesn’t trust him if Will is involved.

“Could someone just tell me–”

Lucas sets a plastic tupperware container in front of her. “Ta-da!”

Max frowns. “What’s this?”

“Well maybe if you opened it,” Mike starts, and then she elbows him and he lets out a sharp, offended gasp. “Ow!”

“Shut up,” she says, peeling off the lid of the box. And then, “Lucas.”

He grins. “Yes?”

What the fuck. Max reaches into the box and pulls out the most perfect cupcake she’s seen in all seventeen years of her existence. “Did you– did you bake me a cupcake?”

Lucas scratches the back of his neck with one hand and says, “It’s from a box mix but. Technically, yes.”

“And it’s–”

“Red velvet!” Lucas announces, and he’s definitely being a little smug about it now, but Max supposes it’s probably deserved, with the way she’s been staring at this thing for the past forty seconds. “Um. Your favorite.”

“I–”

No one’s ever baked her anything before. She figures that no one’s really had any reason to, before Lucas, but that means it’s something that hadn’t even been on her radar of things that you can do for other people until now, which also means that she’s been staring at this damn thing long enough for Mike Wheeler to reach across her and try to scrape some of the frosting off the top.

That spurs her into action. She swats his wrist away. “Hey! Get your own!”

“I don’t have my own,” Mike pouts dejectedly. He looks over at Will. “Can you make me a cupcake?”

Will sets a second tupperware down in front of Mike. “One step ahead of you,” he laughs, “but you ruined the surprise.”

Mike’s mouth drops open, then closes, then opens again, in an excellent impression of a goldfish. “What–”

“Will came over last night,” Lucas announces, and they both have identical grins on their faces now. “While El and Max were off wreaking havoc on the poor city of Hawkins.”

“We went to catch a movie,” El chimes in, shoveling baby carrots into her mouth. “Hawkins is fine.”

“I can’t believe you,” Max hisses, because this is the second time Lucas has made her turn redder than a beetroot today.

Lucas just grins wider. “You love me,” he says, linking their fingers together across the cafeteria table.

“Gross,” Mike gags next to her, and then Will touches a hand to his wrist and he falls blessedly silent.

“You were saying, Wheeler?”

“Oh, shut up.”

—-

Max thought that maybe going home would mean an end to her suffering, but apparently not.

She frowns. Okay, maybe that’s a little dramatic. It’s not like the roses and the desserts and the cheesy greeting card Lucas had pressed into her hands before dropping her off are hurting anybody. She rolls over onto her side in bed, hours later after dinner and homework and when she’s done boiling herself alive in the shower, and stares at the card where she’s propped it up on her desk.

I love you bear-y much, it reads, with the most ridiculous cartoon illustration of a bear behind it. So ridiculous, in fact, that she knows beyond a shadow of a doubt that he’d totally just picked it out to see the look on her face when he gave it to her. And it must have worked, and she totally gave him exactly the reaction he’d been looking for, because he’d laughed for, like, a solid three minutes after pulling up in front of her place.

“This is so stupid,” she’d said in the car, fighting back a laugh with every molecule in her body, and it’s true– it is stupid, maybe one of the most stupid things she’s ever seen– but suddenly her cheeks hurt and there’s something warm and fuzzy and gross bubbling up inside her chest, and she’s smiling.

“What the hell,” she whispers aloud, horrified, hiding her face in her pillow like there’s anyone around to witness her throwing all sense of morality to the wind and partaking in stupid greeting card traditions.

Clink.

Max sits straight up in bed. There’s a noise from the window, like someone’s tapping on it, but there’s no one there.

She frowns. What? Maybe it was a stray gust of wind, or a tree branch, or–

Clink.

A pebble comes flying at her windowpane, so small that she barely even sees it, then bounces off harmlessly.

“What–”

Lucas Sinclair is standing outside her bedroom window, waving like a maniac. “Hi,” he says, as soon as she gets the window open. “Are you busy?”

“Lucas?” Max looks down at her pajama pants and t-shirt, one she’s had for so long that she’s started to wear holes in it. “No, I was just– what the hell are you doing?”

“Being romantic,” Lucas says simply. “I was going to bring a boombox and blast something cheesy but I figured maybe waking up your mom and the entire community was less romantic and more asshole-y.”

“Asshole-y is not a word,” she says, in a meager attempt at a distraction from the smile breaking across her face. “You could have just knocked. At the front door.”

Lucas makes a face. “But that’s boring. Now are you going to come outside or do I need to climb through your window again?”

“You’re ridiculous,” Max decides, even as she swings one leg through the open window, shaking her head. “You are so ridiculous.”

“You’re laughing,” Lucas says gleefully. Her feet hit the grass and she shivers slightly, the ground gone icy with the February chill.

“Yeah, so?”

“And you’re also cold,” he says, and then he’s shrugging his jacket off and holding it out. It’s his varsity jacket, the one he has on almost every day. She’d never tell him, but she loves wearing it because it’s already a little big on him which means it’s huge on her and maybe the most comfortable thing she’s ever put on.

She accepts the proffered jacket without a fuss, which is maybe out of the ordinary for today, but whatever. “Someone’s being real gentlemanly today.”

“Please. I’m always a gentleman,” and he says it kind of laughingly, but it’s not a joke. Not really. Lucas is the most gentle person she knows, and he brought her flowers and baked her cupcakes and gave her the most stupid card ever, and–

“Thank you,” she says earnestly, tucking the jacket in around herself.

Lucas shuffles his feet on the grass. “I know you’re cold,” he starts, “so I won’t stay too long. I just wanted to see you.”

“You wanted to see me?” Max stares. “You saw me all day at school. And you picked me up and dropped me off and–”

“I meant just you,” Lucas corrects, tugging her arms down from where she’s got them wrapped around herself, twisting their fingers together. “No rush. No first period bell. No basketball practice in the way.”

“I,” Max starts, throat gone completely, embarrassingly dry. God, she’s dating this guy, and she has been for forever, so why the hell is she still getting so flustered? “Really?”

“Uh, yeah?” Lucas says it like a question, like it’s obvious. “And I know Valentine’s Day isn’t your thing because you think it’s totally stupid, which is fine, because you’re kind of right, but– I don’t know. All I could think about all day was how lucky I am to be dating you.”

Jesus Christ. This is not a good look for her. If Mike ever asks, Max kept her composure, and was calm and collected and as totally cool as a cucumber.

“Really?” she squeaks, just a little bit, because the unfortunate reality of the situation is that she is not as cool as a cucumber and is, instead, as warm as– something that’s very warm. “You– really?”

Lucas laughs lightly. “Yes, really,” he says, thankfully ignoring her sudden combustion into a thousand little Max-shaped pieces. “And I’m sorry if the flowers and everything was over the top and they were so cheesy, but I literally just could not help myself.”

Max shakes her head. “No,” she says, warm and fuzzy and so happy that it’s threatening to spill over and out of her entirely. “No, it’s– I loved them,” she admits softly. “I did. They were lame and corny but I loved them. Even the bear card,” she adds, and he laughs again. “But holy shit, Lucas, you gave me so many things.”

“You deserve lots of things,” Lucas says. “Lots of good, corny, cheesy things.”

“I’m going to need you to shut up now,” Max says, then promptly buries her face in his chest. He doesn’t even seem fazed by the impact, solid and steady and unmoving as she wraps her arms around him. “But happy Valentine’s Day, stalker.”

She hears him laugh, somewhere above her. “Happy Valentine’s Day,” he says, and kisses her on top of her head. “I love you.”

#posting this now for the five people that are online #oh i love lumax so much #so disappointed in myself for not writing them before #anyways #lucas sinclair the boyfriend of all time so true #max mayfield the astrobei self insert of all time she's just like me fr #ugh #just let her be spoiled and given good things n made flustered and and and #<333333 #lumax #max mayfield #lucas sinclair #+ a little bit of #el hopper #fic #fun sized fics

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kralie-films · 3 months

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Any update on Alex? It sounds like you two are really close, I understand being protective of him and wanting to keep him safe. I hope you were able to find him

Thanks for your messages, I'm going to go into a little more detail about what happened, now.

We live in the city, and as such, it's always a little busy. Down the street from us is a big park. I'm sure some of you might know what park I'm talking about, but I'm not going to name it. It's notorious for getting a little dangerous after dark, so I was surprised that he didn't come home at sundown. As someone suggested, I went off to look for him.

Walking out of the apartment building, I immediately realized something was off. The normal city noises such as cars honking and other such background noise was gone. You hardly, if ever think about these things until it's completely silent. In an actual forest, the absence of sound usually signifies the presence of some kind of predator. Maybe I was dealing with one, but I had never experienced anything like this before.

I made my way down empty streets. There were cars, but no people. The sky was black, and a haze hung low over the buildings. Looking up, I couldn't see the tops of any of the buildings. The atmosphere was oppressive and heavy. Once or twice I had to stop because I couldn't stop coughing. Sometimes it was a struggle to take breaths.

Looking down, I noted that the date displayed was June. I panicked big time at this point, thinking I may have just blacked out for months or something. I haven't had a black out like that since I was a kid, honestly. Something was fucking with me, but I wasn't about to find out what, I was more concerned with finding Alex... if I could.

So, I went to the place where I figured he went. The park. There, the paths twisted unnaturally, and one of the tunnels led to the entrance, if you understand what I mean. Like, I walked in, and walking out, I ended up where I had walked in. It was incredibly strange and I just wanted to find Alex and get the hell out.

All the while, I could hear a distant voice, like a gentle laughter. Out of the corner of my eye, I could see a shape move here and there. I could catch a glimpse of the color green, but like a greenish sort of seafoam color. If I turned my head, it'd be gone, but I could see these glimpses out of the corners of my eyes. It, and the weird spatial fuckery led me to the fountain, where I finally found Alex.

He wasn't doing so hot. He was lying IN the fountain, drenched from head to toe, and I saw blood coming from his left arm. When I reached down to lift him out of the water, I could see his arm was even worse than I expected. Someone had stabbed up his upper arm pretty good, and from a cursory glance I could see a number of defensive wounds on his lower arm and hands. His knuckles were also a little bloody. I sure hope he gave whoever attacked him hell.

I mustered up all my strength, lifted him over my shoulder in a fireman's carry, and made my way out of there. I could feel him shivering, and... I honestly don't know how I got out of that horrible place, but I did. I don't know if that figure that was following us was helping or hindering, but whoever or whatever they are, I managed to evade them.

I took him to the hospital and apparently the wound wasn't as bad as I thought, but he still needed it stitched up.

So, we're home now, and you bet your ass I'm not letting Alex leave the apartment. But I can't exactly stop him if I'm not here, which is where I worry. When I have to work, I can't watch him.

I may just see if I can get some PTO and cite a family emergency. I don't know. I don't really want to leave him alone. I have no idea what happened, but I'm going to try not to overwhelm him with questions. I know I'd be overwhelmed.

When he woke up he looked so ashamed. Poor guy...

Anyways, sorry that my recap isn't super detailed. I'll let you all know if I forgot anything.

#filmingintheforest #marble hornets #kralie-films #ask-kralie-films #tim wright #alex kralie

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cebwrites · 2 years

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OK I'm currently in a binge/obsession of a certain show that's got me hooked! hard! and then I'm also in the midst of one piece marathon and these two came together in my self ship daydream and now I must get it out before my brain melts!

to the point! how do you think Law would react to finding out his S/O somewhat secretly/doesn't exactly advertise their deep love for the show (or comic in one piece case) of Bee & Puppycat? like as far as dressing similarly to Bee (when not in boiler suit lol) and having a puppycat plush they sleep with? trans male s/o please!

Law canonically likes cute things and this show is so cute! I wanna be cute like that dammit!

hi anon, your idea was so adorable i couldn't go back to sleep properly after reading it and had to get this out lmao i haven't actually seen the show so i couldn't tell you anything about it, but i did do a cursory google search to see what the mc's outfits were like-

glad to know i’m attracting the kind of target demographic (trans/queer) i’m looking for though 💕

having a s/o who secretly wants to dress cute (Law)

transmasc reader, he/they law word count: 0.5k

As far as your obsession with a comic goes, Law really has no ground to stand on given his Sora fanboy status, so you wouldn’t see or hear a peep of judgement from them

He’d humor you and show a passing interest at first, especially if you did the same for his fixation on the Sora series, but start reading in their own time too because the cute elements and style reeled them in

It’s something tender the two of you can share together once you catch them sneaking issues of yours into his office and then hastily clearing his throat to dismiss any potential teasing (it doesn’t work but be nice)

I’ve mentioned this elsewhere already, but clothes are clothes - Law is aware that presentation doesn’t necessarily mean identity and they’d chastise anyone who equates and/or conflates the two

So when they find out how you’d like to really dress out of uniform, he doesn’t really bat an eye - a guy (trans or otherwise) wants to wear cute skirt go spinny, what about it? Surely there’ve been stranger happenings on the Grand Line of all places

But they’re more than understanding if you’re hesitant to wear it out, I can assure you that no one on this fruity, genderfuck god damn crew would judge you for even a second for having those reservations

Everyone wants you to be happy and comfy though; if that means wearing your Bee fits only in the Tang (the air conditioned floors anyway) around your peers, building up the confidence to wear them out and about while asserting your masculinity, or only being comfortable donning the cute high-waisted shorts and poofy sweaters in the privacy of the shared room with your love doctor - then so be it

If you do wear your Bee fits out and some gender essentialist twat gives you shit for it, you can expect their head to be swapped with their ass faster than the dysphoria can settle in, the rest of the Hearts are immediately there to take your mind off things so you don’t linger on that negative interaction, too

Fuck that bitch, guys can wear cute clothes and still be manly and fucking adorable

Law’s known to add some splashes of color to their wardrobe every now and again, so maybe some days he’ll even match with you - only in the sub though, he’s got a(n emo) reputation to keep up babes

The one thing that may cause some tension, however, is ‘custody’ of your Puppycat plush - that Law insists is “ours” now because you’re dating them - and why it always ends up on their side of the bed or his office, depending on how willing you are to share, or point out how Law gets huffy about you cuddling his walking plushie and youngest, therefore the certified baby of the crew, navigator; Bepo

Keep it up, though, and Law might just shambles you into the bedroom you share and stubbornly cling to you like an oversized teddy bear for the rest of the evening, with you powerless against their grip - not that you’d mind that, really...

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autumnslance · 10 months

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(@driftward) Gosh, bored AND anxious? What a terrible combination, good thing someone made a list of fan fic asks about it. 5. What’s a fic idea you’ve had that you will never write?, 15. How do you come up with titles for your fics/chapters?, 29. Share a bit from a fic you’ll never post OR from a scene that was cut from an already posted fic. (If you don’t have either, just share a random fic idea you have that you don’t plan on getting to.), and 30. A question that you wish I'd asked

5. What’s a fic idea you’ve had that you will never write?

So many. Cursory glance at notes and drafts though, probably a Lightwarden Bad End AU. AUs in general, really. Besides a few one offs, they aren't much my thing. So they end up ideas and maybe an outline and no more.

Sometimes though an idea surprises you, if not right away, maybe years down the road. Never actually say "never".

15. How do you come up with titles for your fics/chapters?

Depends! Sometimes the title's there the whole time, maybe even write to it. Sometimes it appears from the text itself. Sometimes I have to go hunting through stories, poems, song lyrics, the thesaurus and dictionary, to find something to fit. Sometimes a theme appears in chaptered work, so that can help or drive me up a wall.

If I knew how to consistently find titles my life'd be much easier.

29. Share a bit from a fic you’ll never post OR from a scene that was cut from an already posted fic.

I will add below a bit that got left off of "Hail" from the FFXIV Write 2022, that was going to span more of the Estinien/Ysayle relationship, but I narrowed in on the Aitiascope moment instead.

Also see above about not saying "never" to publishing a set-aside story or scene in some other manner. It's why you save your murdered darlings, to cannibalize or resurrect them in another form later.

30. A question that you wish I'd asked.

From this list or in general? Hrm.

Let's go with 26. Is there something you’ve written that you would never want your family to see?

As it's not that I don't want my family to see; I just don't think many of them would understand why and what I write (fanfic or original), and I'd rather keep some aspects of my life separate anyway.

They run the gamut of "I do not understand this thing that interests you at all but ok! Uh, here's something from a scifi/fantasy franchise I recognize you like that right??" to a complete lack of care or interest in what I like or do with my time as it doesn't interest them in any way.

There's also the elders slipping towards senility and/or who just wouldn't know the difference between posting online, traditional publishing, self-publishing, or zines, and I don't want to try to explain these things.

If they read my stuff cool, they can do whatever with that as it's just the words I made up and they're mostly fairly normal adults who understand the differences in reality versus fiction and storytelling; it's every other headache associated with them knowing about my handles and fanlife I don't want to put up with!

Anyway, back to the excerpt from the previous question below the cut:

“Frozen harridan!”

“Bloodthirsty butcher!”

“Please—“

Alphinaud’s voice was weary. Aeryn simply sighed and stepped between Estinien and Ysayle, not for the first time, and likely not the last, given the woman’s irritating, misguided, naive—

Aeryn frowned up at him, as if she could hear his angry internal monologue. Given the mysteries of her Echo, perhaps she could. Perhaps the frost witch could, too, in that case.

Aeryn and Alphinaud exchanged looks. In a blink, his fellow dragoon had turned from him, taking Ysayle’s arm and walking away, quietly speaking in a soothing tone. Alphinaud stayed by Estinien’s side.

“Why must you antagonize one another so?” the boy asked.

Estinien simply grunted and looked away. He hoped it looked more like he wished not to answer, rather than the truth—that he didn’t really have a reason, besides the girl winding him up like no other could. There were myriad reasons why, but it simply boiled down to the differences between fire and ice.

#final fantasy xiv #Lyn Prompts #Lyn Meta #About Me #Lyn Writing

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the-lonelybarricade · 3 years

Note

I totally stole this from one of those writing prompt blogs, but can you do Rhys and Feyre going to couples therapy together as a joke when they only just met?

Okay my love, I literally just finished writing this and haven't actually proofread it. It was meant to be silly and jokey but ended up being a bit more serious than I intended, but I'm a sucker for fake dating tropes so maybe I'll continue their story at some point. Anyway here's a modern Feyre and Rhys going to couples thereapy together (whilst not actually being a couple):

Feyre was absolutely determined to prove Nesta wrong. Usually her sister’s grating comments didn’t penetrate Feyre’s hardened demeanor at home, but something about their stint yesterday had thoroughly gotten under her skin. Nesta had a talent when it came to barbed words, so it was the casualness with which she’d said Feyre was boring and predictable that had kept the words ringing between Feyre’s ears. They lacked the usual bite and venom that was characteristic of Nesta, and somehow that made them impossibly worse.

Was Feyre a creature of habit? Sure. But she had always been content with her quiet, unassuming life. They’d grown up poor, with little luxury, and as a little girl Feyre had always believed all she’d need to be happy was paint supplies and enough time to get lost in a blank canvas. Feyre had that now, and she was happy. She spent almost every day in her studio, a paintbrush in one hand and a coffee mug in the other. And that was fine. She may not spend a lot of time with other people, but that was fine.

Routine is fine. Being focused on your career is fine. So why did the implication that her life is stagnant rile her up so much?

Feyre couldn’t articulate what, exactly, had bothered her so much, since she was perfectly happy with the current state of her life. Yet the next morning she’d woken up, vowing to take a day off and spend the whole day being entirely unpredictable.

She was going to pull a Jim Carrey in Yes Man. She was going to seize this damn day. And any voice in her mind that pleaded her to stick to her comfort zone was going to be diligently ignored.

When she set out to get her morning coffee, she ducked into the first cafe she came across without checking the reviews. And instead of ordering her usual chai latte, she asked the cashier to make her their favorite drink. She sat at a booth and sipped it experimentally. It was sweet and tasted of caramel; she decided she quite liked it. So far so good.

She sat wondering what brave venture she should do next, something that would be worthy of telling people about. Something so brash and crazy and unexpected Nesta would eat her stupid, truthful words.

“Mind if I take this seat?”

The voice was like smooth velvet. Feyre glanced up to meet a pair of eyes that were such a deep, peculiar shade of blue they almost looked violet. She was momentarily stunned speechless, which caused the impossibly handsome stranger to lift one of his perfectly groomed brows in question.

“Of course,” Feyre answered, her mouth feeling a bit dry. She quickly took a sip of her coffee to quell this strong reaction her body was having to this man.

She’d been expecting him to take the chair to sit elsewhere, but he slid into the chair at her table, directly across from her. Feyre spared a cursory glance around the cafe. Customers milled about, but there were plenty of empty seats strewn here and there. It was far from necessary to share a table with a stranger.

Her interest piqued, Feyre turned her attention back to this strange, alluring man.

“I’m Feyre,” she said, sounding much more confident than she felt. But today was about branching out of her comfort zone. Making the first move with an attractive man certainly qualified.

“Rhysand,” he answered with a charming grin, extending his hand into the space between them. Feyre accepted it with a mirrored smile, for a moment marvelling at the way his hand completely enveloped hers.

Feyre cleared her throat. “So tell me, Rhysand, what brings you to this table in particular?”

The way he wrinkled his nose was unfairly endearing. “Call me Rhys,” he said. “I only really use Rhysand in a business setting. And I chose this table in particular, because I saw a beautiful woman sitting here and was feeling especially forward.”

Feyre laughed in surprise. “Forward, indeed. Well, Rhys, I have spectacular news for you.”

“And what’s that, Feyre darling?” the suggestive tone to his voice sent shivers down her spine and instantly those warning bells in her mind were blaring. This man was too handsome and he was a complete stranger.

“I’ve decided to do something completely stupid and spontaneous today, and you’re officially invited to join me.”

Rhysand grinned, his eyes flickering with mischief at her proposal. She supposed that should be concerning, too, but she felt her pulse quicken. “And what stupid, spontaenous thing will we be doing, darling?”

Feyre leaned back, trying to regain composure by taking a too casual sip of her coffee. “I haven’t decided yet. I’m open to ideas.”

Across the cafe, a man stood up so quickly his chair tipped over with a loud thunk. Rhys and Feyre both whirled their heads at the commotion.

“This is why we need to go to therapy together!” the woman across from him screeched. “You can’t control your stupid temper!”

“I don’t have time for this shit,” he growled. “I’m not going to sit there for an hour so you can manipulate some dumb bitch into agreeing with you!”

“It’s not about sides,” she groaned. “I want to work through this with you!”

Feyre felt a tug of sympathy at the desperation in the woman’s voice. She could feel her pain and frustration second-hand, having been in similar shoes herself.

“Fuck this,” the man grumbled, storming for the door.

The woman followed after him. “Our appointment is in 10 minutes! Please, let’s just try it.”

The door swung shut behind them. Feyre watched the couple continue their walking argument down the city pavement, gesturing wildly with their hands.

Feyre sighed. “Man, that poor woman. It sounded like she really wanted to work things out.”

“That guy sounded like an absolute ass, maybe it’s for the best,” Rhys said. Then, his eyes lit up and he turned to Feyre with a slow, conspiring grin. “It does give me an idea, though.”

“What’s that?” Feyre felt a bit intimidated by the roguish expression on his face, even if it did make her feel breathless.

“Well, I do happen to know there’s a psychiatrist's office right above this cafe. If I had to guess, that’s where our friends were going to have their first session. And from the looks of it,” he nodded towards the couple, who were now striding in opposite directions through the city, faces flushed with anger, “they won’t be attending.”

“And your point is…?”

“Let’s go in their stead. Make a game of it. First person to break character loses.”

“And what does the winner get?”

“Well, if I win, then I get to take you to dinner.”

Feyre considered for a moment. Dinner with a handsome man certainly didn’t sound like losing to her. “If I win, then I get to use you as a model.”

“You’re a photographer?” His brows rose in interest and Feyre summoned all her will power not to blush. Since when was she bashful about her career?

“Painter.”

Rhysand grinned. “If you win, you can use my body anyway you wish, Feyre darling. Nude would be best.”

And that was how Feyre had ended up in Dr. Suriel’s office, Rhys by her side on the sofa. It was perhaps the most adventurous thing she’d ever agreed to.

“So, Mr and Mrs Mandray. Apologies, I didn’t get your names on the forms.”

“I’m Feyre, this is my husband Rhys,” Feyre answered, thinking it lucky they didn’t have to guess at the mysterious couple’s forenames.

“It’s a pleasure to meet you Feyre and Rhys. What brings you to my office today?”

Rhys immediately slipped into his role of the concerned husband. He placed his arm around Feyre’s shoulders and tugged her close. Rhys opened his mouth, then shut it, glancing at Feyre hesitantly.

“My wife and I have been getting into a lot of… disagreement lately,” Rhys answered carefully, and already Feyre thought this was going much better than it would have if the actual Mr Mandray had turned up.

“My husband,” Feyre said flatly, channeling her inner Nesta to put venom into the word. “Is insisting on painting our house purple.”

“I see,” Dr. Suriel says, assessing the displeasure on Feyre’s face. “And I’m assuming you want to paint the house a different color.”

Feyre pressed her lips into a thin line. “See, that’s just the problem,” she said, crossing her arms. “That’s exactly the color I would want to paint our house.”

Dr. Suriel frowned. “So you do want the house to be painted purple, as does your husband. Am I understanding that correctly?”

“No,” Feyre sighed. “He wants to paint the house blue, but is insisting we paint it purple, because he knows it’s what I want. This bastard refuses to be anything but accommodating.”

“We’re going to try to refrain from name-calling in my office,” Dr Suriel said calmly. “So, Feyre, you are clearly unhappy that Rhys wants to paint the house purple. What color would you paint it?”

“Blue,” she answered. “I know it’s what he secretly wants to paint it.”

“She doesn’t see the hypocrisy in what she's saying!” Rhys complained. Then, he turned to Feyre, looking impossibly serious. “Darling, I know you want to paint the house purple, and I already told you I’m fine with it.”

Feyre groaned. “I don’t want to paint the house purple! I want to paint it blue.”

“You’re only saying that because you think I want to paint the house blue.”

“Do you?”

Rhys hesitated. “No.”

“Don’t lie in front of our therapist,” Feyre said with narrowed eyes. “We promised to tell the truth while we’re here.”

“Then you tell me the truth, Feyre. Do you genuinely want the house to be painted blue?”

Now it was Feyre’s turn to hesitate. She could see the corner of Rhysand’s mouth twitch as she did so. “No. I mean yes! I do!”

“It sounds like at the heart of this argument, you are both ultimately concerned in pleasing the other person, is that fair to say?”

Feyre and Rhys glanced at each other, then nodded in agreement.

“Do you think there’s a color you could both compromise on, so that you don’t feel as if your partner is the only one making a sacrifice in this decision?”

Feyre met Rhysand’s brilliant violet eyes. In truth, she’d blurted the color purple because she’d been thinking about the color of his eyes. She'd never seen eyes that color, and they were wonderfully vivid. Feyre was lost thinking of painting a world in a monocrhome of violet, like a city that lived within his gaze.

Feyre realized she’d been momentarily swept away, snapped out of it by the humor that washed behind those starry irises. She blinked back the haze and tried to think of an answer to the question.

“Mustard yellow?” she proposed.

Rhys pursed his lips in mock consideration. “Mustard yellow,” he agreed with an emphatic nod of approval.

Dr. Suriel blinked in surprise. “All right, well I’m pleased we could solve that issue. Is there anything else you’ve been arguing about?”

“Yeah, actually. My wife,” Rhys gave Feyre a pointed glance. Somehow, despite being strangers, hearing Rhys refer to her as his wife sent waves of pleasure jolting through her. She felt her stomach flip on itself. “Isn’t satisfied with our sex life.”

Feyre instantly flushed at such an accusation, however fabricated.

“Is this true, Feyre?” Dr. Suriel turned her eyes towards Feyre and she shifted uncomfortably at having to make up stories about her sex life with Rhys. Making Feyre imagine rolling in a bed with him was certainly his goal, and she’d lie to say it wasn’t affecting her. Rhysand looked absolutely delighted to have made her squirm. Fine. Two could play at his game.

“Y-yes, well,” Feyre stuttered, the burning in her cheeks condemning. “I keep telling Rhys that 16 orgasms in a session is excessive. He’s much too generous a lover and he never lets me give as good as I get.”

Feyre felt satisfied with the way Rhysand’s face went crimson.

Dr. Suriel’s brows rose. “This seems to be a common theme in your marriage. Rhysand, would you say that you’re often prioritising Feyre’s desires over your own?”

“I think Feyre sorely underestimates how much pleasure I take from satisfying her desires,” he answered, his eyes flicking to Feyre with enough of a sensual promise that her heartbeat turned staccato.

“Rhys, it sounds as though your generosity is part of the way you express your love, is that safe to say?” Rhys nodded. “And Feyre, it seems as if you have trouble accepting your husband's generosity, both in and outside the bedroom. Do you feel that’s a fair statement?”

“I-I suppose so.”

“Sometimes people have trouble accepting their loved one’s generosity when they feel like they aren’t giving something in exchange. It can be hard to accept that kind of love when we don’t feel like we deserve it. Do you feel like this could apply to your situation?”

Feyre blinked. This was meant to be a gag, something daring and experimental. She hadn’t expected to be psychoanalyzed by Dr. Suriel, or at least for her analysis to hit so close to home.

Rhysand shifted forward on the sofa. “Is this true, darling?” he asked, sounding concerned. He took Feyre’s hands in his own, brushing his thumb along her skin as he met her gaze. “I think you deserve the world.”

She would almost think he was being genuine if she hadn’t met him only an hour ago. Feyre marked the conviction on his face, those burning pools of earnesty in his eyes, and marveled at what an incredible actor he was.

Somehow she ended up blurting part of the truth. “My family life growing up was kind of tough and I’ve never really known what unconditional love was like. I think a part of me still believes it's something I have to earn.”

“That sounds like it must have been very hard, Feyre. But it sounds like Rhys loves you very much, and that this is an issue the two of you can overcome together. When you feel the instinct to reject his generosity, try to remember where that message is coming from. And Rhysand, try to keep in mind that this is something your wife is still working through, and be patient if she feels more comfortable giving you something in exchange. This is her way of expressing love, too. At the core of your issues is both of you thinking about the other person, try to remember this when a breakdown in communication occurs.”

Somehow they’d lost control of their therapy session and were receiving actual therapy, which wasn’t part of the plan at all. But somehow, despite not actually being married to Rhysand, what Dr. Suriel said was reassuring.

Feyre turned to Rhys and smiled. “I think I understand better, now. You’re free to give me as many orgasms as you want, honey.”

Rhys grinned fiendishly. “And I’ll let you reciprocate in whatever way you feel comfortable, darling.”

Dr. Suriel clasped her hands together in approval. “Excellent. I think so long as the two of you take measures to accurately communicate your needs, you’ll find these breakdowns will occur less frequently. And that’s it for our time today, but I am happy to have the two of you back any time.”

Feyre walked out of the session hand-in-hand with Rhys, feeling a bit dazed. It had certainly gotten more serious than she’d expected, but perhaps her judgement had been misplaced in thinking therapy could be anything other than serious, no matter how joking the complaints.

“Well, that was certainly stimulating,” Rhys quipped once they’d left the office.

“And it seems we’re at a draw, considering neither of us broke character.”

“You do play my wife convincingly well,” Rhys practically purred, “perhaps I’ll let you take up the real role, if you feel so inclined.”

Feyre laughed. “I’m expecting a few other offers to come through. Give me a few days to look over the applicants, then I’ll get back to you.”

“Okay, well how’s this. I’ll give you my number, you can wait until all those applicants come back to you, and once you’ve decided that I’m clearly the obvious choice, you can call me.”

Feyre smiled as she pulled out her phone and handed it to him to insert his number. “You do make a very convincing husband. Perhaps I can hire you for weddings and Thanksgiving dinners?”

“Real husband, fake husband, a partner to do spontaneous, outrageous things with. You call me, and I’ll be whatever you want me to be, Feyre.”

It was perhaps the strangest and most generous offer she’d ever been given. When they parted ways, Feyre thought that she’d certainly filled her quota for an interesting story to tell. And maybe, most likely, she’d be calling that number very soon.

#Feysand #prompt fill #pro Rhys #pro Feyre #fake dating kind of #Feysand fic #acotar #acotar fic #ask #not proofread sorry #fanfiction #acotar fanfiction

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poptod · 3 years

Text

Betwixt (Merriel Shelton x Reader)

Description: You’re his sister’s best friend during your shared high school years. He’s... strange. You hardly understand him. But he seems to like you.

Notes: what the fuck is wrong with me anyway hope yall enjoy hahahahaiamfilthyahaha gender neutral, kinda suggestive WC: 7.8k

Merriel wasn't really your friend, but you were the only one that was nice to him. That was by no fault of your own; he was just a weird kid, and the other students didn't like that. Almost every time you saw him, he had some sort of injury like a black eye, bruises, or scrapes. One time he had a broken wrist.

Yet, somehow, he always grinned at you. It was a specific, charming smile that went with a sugar-sweet swagger, sparking up every time he caught sight of you, at which point his eyes would never leave you. To be honest, you didn't really like it––his eyes looked haunted, far too haunted for a 17-year old, and you had no idea why he looked at you like that. He looked at you like he wanted to eat you.

But he was nice. Nice enough. A little handsy, with a very weak understanding of boundaries, but always ready to defend his family's honor. That streak in him came out especially whenever his little sister, who was your age, ended up in any trouble, or whenever someone tried to insult you. It didn't take much to rile him up.

For the most part, you interacted with him during lunch at school, and whenever you decided to spend time with Madeline, his sister. She was the one you were actually friends with, she was the one with a sweet, blushing smile that could ignite a fire within your own cheeks. Her dark hair fell in curls around a freckled face, blue eyes shining against tanned skin. She was the one that held her manners properly in front of your own parents. She was the one you'd shared almost all your classes with since the fourth grade.

She was also the one you offered your home to.

Three months into junior year, her hair began to grow more and more frizzy each time she came to school during the day. Dark circles formed beneath her eyes. Merriel, who you saw only in cursory moments during this time, also looked worse for wear––he wouldn't change his clothes for days or weeks at a time, and he was even more disorganized than normal.

You bit on the end of your thumb––not the nail, your mother said to never do that––as you stared at Madeline from across the lunch table. She hadn't brought her own lunch for four days now, and she never had the money to pay for a school lunch. You supplied her with half your sandwich every day.

"I know it's a little rude of me to ask," you started quietly. Her eyes shot up to you from her fiddling hands. "... but is everything alright at home? Did your mom get fired?"

Her posture straightened as her shoulders tensed.

"I... well, yes, kinda," she mumbled. "She had t' quit 'cause of her manager, so we, um, couldn't really... pay for the apartment.."

"You what?"

"It – it's not a big –"

"Where are you living?" You asked in an almost harsh whisper, leaning in deeply to her in order to avoid any vagrant listeners.

"The van," she said, and her face was almost a beet red. "It's pretty big."

"Madeline –"

Movement caught your eye, paired with a gruff voice, that ripped you out of your line of thought.

"The fuck you doin', ya little rat?"

Merriel stumbled backwards at the large hands of William––or Bill, as everyone was now calling him. His parents called him Billy. Despite the loving little nickname, Billy was a bitch.

This time, Merriel had nothing to say. His eyes were steeled on the much taller boy, lips sealed shut in a pretty pout, and his hands curled into fists that lay idle at his sides.

You frowned.

Merriel always had something to say.

Madeline seemed to be confused as well going by the look she shot you, to which you responded with a shrug before you both looked back to the situation.

"Why don't ya keep yer' hands t' yaself?" Billy asked, grasping Merriel's shirt collar and shaking him roughly.

"Like you need all that food," Merriel finally spat as he attempted to shove his meaty fists away. "Yer' already fat enough for the pig pen."

A chorus of 'ohhh's' in various levels of insult rang from the lunchroom-turned-audience.

You knew exactly where those words would land him with and so did he. When Billy sent a fist screaming down on Merriel's nose, Merriel ducked, though not fast enough to miss a second blow to the gut from Billy's other fist.

The curly-haired boy fell to the ground clutching his stomach.

You and Madeline jumped instantly to your feet, the table and chair legs screeching beneath you from the sudden movement. Several people nearby looked at you, but no one bothered to say anything or stop you as the two of you rushed over to Merriel, Madeline kneeling at his side while you stood facing Billy. Your arms were crossed over your chest as he leered above you. Neither you, Madeline, or Merriel would ever match up to his height.

"You hang with the wrong people, baby," he said, grinning down at you.

"I'm good with where I am," you said. "I'd rather sit with people I can stand t' look at."

He fumed, his face turning a bitter red. Your own eyes widened and you turned, rushing Merriel and Madeline to their feet before corralling all three of you out of the lunch room. 'Get out, get out, get out,' you whispered repeatedly as you pushed them out the door. Whoops, cheers, and jeering followed you.

You didn't stop running till you reached the school's entrance, where large doors were locked tightly closed. Only windows illuminated the hallway––all the other lights had gone out months or years ago. Floating dust lingered in the sun rays as you all panted.

The three of you fell to the ground, the two sunspots shared between you.

"Ya know you can't do that," Madeline whispered to her brother, whose eyes flickered to the ground in shame, unable to meet her gaze. "We can get something later."

"That's fuckin' easy for you to say when ya got fuckin' (Y/N) here feedin' ya every day," he growled, looking up to her over a heavy brow.

"Are you guys not eating every day?" You interrupted, pulling both their attentions over to you.

Two pairs of wide, grey eyes confronted you, freezing you in your spot.

"It ain't yo' problem," Merriel said in a grumble.

"All due respect, this is absolutely my problem," you said.

"He doesn't need due respect," said Madeline with a laugh.

Merriel shot her a scowl.

"Madeline..." you sighed, chiding her softly. "You guys are living outta your mom's car and not eating??"

Neither could respond, and instead were reluctant to meet your eye. You sighed again.

"Come to my place after school," you said, rubbing your face. "We've got too many leftovers."

They ate fast, but they didn't eat much. A small little hypothesis formed in your head to explain that; their stomachs, unused to full meals, had shrunken over time and now could contain less and less. Still, Merriel managed to scarf down far more than his sister.

"Thank goodness you have friends, honey," your mother said from across the room as she dusted the piano. You turned to face her, your arms still crossed. "We have far too much food in the fridge."

She laughed a certain sweet, almost saccharine laugh that had a habit of freaking your friends out.

"Uh - can I talk to you for a moment?" You asked, your gaze darting between your friends and your mother.

She nodded brightly, padding over into the nearby guest room. You followed after and shut the door behind you.

It was then you explained the situation; how they rarely got the chance to eat, how they were evicted, and how their father disappeared. Your mother was a reasonable woman but somewhat conservative, meaning you had to stoop to a lower level and beg her to let your friends stay in your almost vacant house. Your room alone had your bed, your desk, a bathroom, a couch, and a whole different television from the one in the living room.

Your parents had also taken in foster children before. One time, they let a cross-country bicyclist stay in a tent in their back yard for a night instead of sleeping on a nearby bench. You played off those decisions and bargained with her.

"I don't know, honey," she said in a soft, concerned voice, picking at the loose skin on her chin.

"Why not??" You whined.

"Your father wouldn't like the idea, I know that. We talked about it before, with that Avery girl," she said.

You groaned loudly.

"Avery was a totally different person!"

"Father's coworker, he let his daughter's friend stay at his house, and she falsely accused him of rape. Now he can't go anywhere without it popping up and he's going to court."

"That's probably because father's coworker probably raped her!"

"Shh!" She hissed, motioning a zip of her lips quick and curt. "We have guests over."

"Mom, you know Madeline. She'd never do anything like that."

"... I'll ask your father," she said quietly. "But don't expect anything."

"Thanks," you said. Almost sarcastically, but you bit your tongue and left the room before you could.

Two days later, Madeline and Merriel were reentering your home with their mother, their van parked out front and bags in their hands. Your mother held the door open for them while you grinned, welcoming them to a solid roof above their heads.

"Mrs. Shelton, we have a guest room for you," your mother said as she closed the door behind them. "This way."

They left, leaving you alone with your friends.

"You'll be staying in my room with me," you said, looking at Madeline, "and I think Merriel's staying on the couch.

"The couch??" He repeated.

"Madeline's sleeping on a couch, too, Mer," you said with a sigh.

"Oh." He shifted his weight uncomfortably. "Fine."

Madeline jabbed him in the stomach with her elbow. He winced lightly.

"Thank you," he grumbled out as he shambled over to the living room couch.

"Come on," you said, grinning as you took Madeline's hand. "I actually cleaned my room for you."

She ran up the stairs behind you, giggling.

"I already seen your room dirty as all hell," she said.

Living with your best friend had... challenges. You were almost never alone. Getting your rocks off in your bed in the middle of the night was no longer an option. Sometimes in the shower you could touch yourself, but showers never lasted that long, and most of the time Madeline was waiting her turn to use your shower. Other than that tidbit of sexual frustration and personal space, living with Madeline was a dream.

Living with Merriel, however, was a challenge. Fortunately enough for you, your father was usually busy working his office job, and your mother was usually off taking housecalls for teaching piano. That left you home alone with Merriel and Madeline most of the time while their mother looked for jobs during the day. This was a good turn of events because Merriel, as you came to find, didn't really like clothes. Your first experience with it caught you early in the morning.

"What?" He asked when you shyed immediately away, slapping your hand over your eyes. "Don't got a room, where d'ya expect me to change?"

"First off, the bathroom???" You said shakily, still covering your eyes. "Second off you're not even changing. You're just watching the TV."

"What are you fellas – oh for fuck's sake, Merriel," Madeline said as she came down the stairs, rounding the corner to see Merriel's bare shoulders over the back of the couch. "Are you naked again?"

"Not my fault I ain't got a room!!" He yelled, not bothering to face her.

"My mom's gonna be pissed if she sees this," you murmured to Madeline, who nodded in agreement.

"Mer, you're going to piss off (Y/N)'s mom if she comes home early," Madeline called over expectantly.

"Their ma left an hour ago, those lessons a' hers take at least an hour and a half," he said, waving a dismissive hand. "An' it takes a bit to drive there."

"Do it for my sake?" You asked, a hint of hopefulness in your voice.

He finally turned, casting a glance over his shoulder to meet your eye. He scanned you up and down, including your nervous smile, and your fidgeting fingers. Upon noting those things, he smirked.

"I don't got any clean clothes," he said, and turned back to the TV.

You threw your hands up in the air, turning to Madeline as they slapped back down on your thighs. She shrugged, looking between you and Merriel before a light sparked in her eyes.

"Merriel, will you come with us?" She asked slyly.

He looked back over, unimpressed.

"Where we goin'?"

"Just up to (Y/N)'s room," she said, pointing her thumb to you. You raised a single brow questioningly.

He seemed to pause and think her offer over before he accepted, shutting of the television and standing to bare his whole body to both of you. You'd already seen it earlier that morning, but Madeline still groaned, despite the fact you knew he'd done this before in their old apartment.

Both of you shook your heads and groaned disapprovingly, turning round as he laughed and followed you back up the stairs. You pulled him into your (now) shared room, and as you closed the door, Madeline set to her plan. You had no idea what she was doing, but soon realized she was going to clothe her brother in her own clothes. If he truly didn't have any clothes clean, then he could wear her skirt, and you could finally stop having to see him entirely nude.

"The hell's this?" He asked when Madeline tossed him a short, pink satin skirt.

"A skirt, dumbass," Madeline said. Merriel stuck his tongue out at her.

"I don't want to have t' look at your tiny dick for the next five hours. Put the fucking skirt on," you said, crossing your arms.

He shifted his weight uncomfortably again, a habit of his you'd noticed happening more and more often.

"I – I wouldn't look good in a –"

"Never know till ya try," Madeline said with a wicked grin.

You smiled instinctively upon seeing that grin of hers, your chest warming with the familiarity of her little tricks and pranks.

Merriel's eyes flickered between the two of you––your arms both crosses––till enough bitterness grew on his brow that he spat out, "fine."

He pulled it up his calves forcefully, and you closed your eyes, not needing to see anything else beyond that. Nope. Not at all. It certainly didn't help that he stared pointedly at you the entire time.

You opened your eyes with much care, your muscles stiffened with apprehension. But when the sight finally filled your eyesight, you could only stare, unable to tear yourself from the image. It was... strange. Definitely strange. Certainly not attractive. Certainly.

The satin came down to his mid-thigh, flaring out with the pleated design built into it. The waist, somehow, was cinched perfectly around his lean frame. His hands were curled against his hips.

"Well?" He asked.

Madeline burst out laughing beside you. You'd been so caught up with Merriel that you didn't bother to check Madeline's expression, leaving you still dumbstruck as she threw her head back, howling with laughter.

"It works," you said with an exasperated shrug.

Madeline never got the skirt back. You didn't think she'd want it back, anyway, considering her brother's dick had been all up in it. You shivered uncomfortably at the thought.

After that incident, Merriel tended to wear more clothes around the house, if only to stop another 'incident' from happening, instead of just wearing clothes in case your mother came home abruptly. After that incident, Merriel also knew something about you––something he didn't know before. Something even you didn't know. Something that apparently made it alright to tease you incessantly, at any chance he got, despite the fact that you always tried to be nice to him in the past. Maybe it was the small quarters getting to him. Maybe it was something you'd done that day.

Most of his teasing came in the form of boundary pushing. Getting too close, brushing against the lesser-touched areas of yourself, or entering the bathroom while you were showering. In one such incident, you didn't even notice the door opening.

The sink turned on, but you barely heard it over the pulsing shower falling over the top of your head and dripping into your ears. What you did hear a moment later was someone brushing their teeth, which wasn't suspicious, as you still did share your bathroom with Madeline. It was when the door didn't open and close again that you realized something was different.

"Is that you, Madeline?" You asked, running your hands over your hair.

"Jus' the man of yo' dreams, baby," came Merriel's voice, and you could see that swaggering smile of his with your eyes closed.

"Get the hell out of here Merriel."

"I dunno, I'm kinda enjoying the view –"

A wet thwap sounded when your large, yellow sponge hit his face, soaking his hair and shirt.

"Yes sir," he said. You laughed as he left.

Yet that wasn't the worst of it.

The worst of it, beyond a doubt, was the fact that he would touch you in passing, igniting something very warm and very inappropriate in your stomach. These touches would linger with you in the dead of night, squirming in your sheets and unable to touch yourself. He'd pass you in the small kitchen and the palm of his hand would brush over your ass, long fingers dipping down to just barely touch you where you'd need him, giving you an attention you'd never earned before. Certainly not from someone a year above of you, as well.

Your squirming went past attempting to sleep in the night. Even during school you had trouble sitting still; at this point it had been months since you'd gotten off after doing it almost daily for two years. It got to the point where you broke, requesting a bathroom break from your history teacher that was, of course, not being used to go to the bathroom.

You hurried through the halls as though you had something to hide, and by God's horrible will, you bumped into Merriel.

"What are you doing here?" You asked, your tone far more accusatory than you meant it to be.

"What are you doin' here?" He asked in return.

"I'm - I was headed to the bathroom, I think," you stuttered out.

"You think?" He laughed, stepping closer. "Why ya all mixed up, baby?"

"Uh, I – I don't, um –"

"Don't need t' be afraid," he said as your back hit the lockers. "I'll keep ya safe."

You barely had the sense of mind to notice it, but one of his legs had slid inbetween yours, further pinning you to the lockers. He couldn't loom over you like Billy did, but God did he ensnare you in a way no one else ever could. Those cold eyes could freeze your whole body.

"Hey! What are you two doing?" Asked a deep, loud voice, causing your eyes to shoot open and dart over to find one of the teachers.

"I've been tryna ask –" Merriel started, but was cut quickly off by the teacher as he approached with incensed haste.

"There is no inappropriate touching on school grounds. Especially during a class session. You two are both getting detention."

He grabbed both you and Merriel's wrists, gripping them so tightly that red began to form on the edges of his hold on you. You gasped sharply, instinctively trying to move your hand away from the pain, but the teacher must've taken it as insubordination. He leased Merriel and used the free hand to slap you across the face so hard it echoed in the empty hallway.

"Don't. Try to resist," he seethed, snatching both your wrists again and dragging you to the principal's office.

By the time you were sitting in the secretary's waiting room, tears were rolling over the hand mark still burning on your cheek. Merriel sat silently beside you, his eyes raking softly over you, and his lips parted as he fidgeted with the collar of his shirt.

"I..." he tried to say something, trailing off before he could start.

"Don't say anything," you whispered shakily, trying to speak through the pressure filling your head, your nose, and the sob sitting like a weight on the back of your tongue. "Why'd you have to say anything?"

He reached for you, for your hand, but you jerked it away.

"Don't," you said.

He left you alone.

You didn't see him, much less talk to him, very often after you lived out your detentions. Most of those sessions were spent in complete silence with a teacher watching over you. There were exactly three more attempts made on his behalf to talk to you––two during detention, one immediately after school. Each time you could barely let him get a word in before you either told him to shut up or simply left him standing there, alone.

Your mother and father gave you hell for those detentions.

In the springtime Merriel and Madeline's mother officially got a job. It wasn't all that high-paying, of course, but she could start to pay for parts of the food. Once she could get a second job, she would probably be able to pay for an apartment again. Other than that, your parents allowed her and her children to continue staying with you, a fact that you still held dear to your heart with your best friend, Madeline, staying with you every night.

Another thing that didn't change was Merriel. You weren't nearly as close to him as you were before the incident, but he still strutted around your mostly-empty house without his shirt on, earning annoyed shouts from his sister.

"Put a fucking shirt on!!" She yelled without restraint, taking full advantage of your mother, father, and her mother being absent.

The two of you were reading from the same magazine on the living room couch––the second one. Not Merriel's bed.

"Ah, shut up, it ain't like ya never seen it before," he drawled as he passed by, a bowl of cereal in hand.

He left up the stairs and you scoffed, earning a similar reaction from Madeline.

"He's kind of... weird," you said underneath your breath.

"Heh, why do you think he gets beat up all the time?"

"That's still happenin'?" You asked, raising a brow.

"Where'd ya think he got that bruise on his cheek from?" She asked with a quiet chuckle, before shaking her head. "He can't seem to stop himself from insultin' those guys."

"Yeah, well, they deserve it," you mumbled.

Those words––her reminder––stayed with you for several days after that. You found yourself scanning Merriel's body whenever he happened to be near, especially when he was wearing fewer clothes.

Unfortunately, like always, Merriel noticed your behavior, but this time did little but throw twisted smirks and grins your way beneath flirtatious gazes. Each time, you scrunched up your nose and looked quickly away. At least he wasn't trying to talk to you.

After school one sunny but rather windy day, you strolled down the hall in search of your government teacher's class, reciting your question for him over and over in your head. Through the many windows lining the school's outer hallways, you could see the bright blue sky, the blooming flowers lining the school's pathways, and the green trees that rustled gayly in the breeze. Students who walked outside had their clothes billowing around them with the force of the wind.

Your gaze flickered from the windows to the long hall in front of you, quickly finding Merriel and several others standing at the very end of it. You squinted to try and identify who was talking to him, but had no success before one of them uppercut Merriel, sending him stumbling back with the force of it.

Without a second thought you ran, your footsteps clacking on the linoleum floor as you approached who you could now see was Billy. Again.

Merriel spat in Billy's face.

You could physically see the anger well up in Billy's red cheeks, coming out in the form of another meaty fist sent screeching down on Merriel's face. Before it could hit him, you were pushing him out of the way and onto the ground, accidentally taking the hit yourself.

Regret instantly filled you, and going by the resounding gasps coming from Billy's friends, regret filled just about everybody else present as well. A burning pain throbbed through your sinuses as blood welled in the cavities, pouring out and over your fingers that covered your nose. It didn't hurt to the pain of tears, but you cried anyway, several thick drops falling al at once.

"(Y/N), I –" Billy tried to say, but you were still covering your now bloody nose.

"Don't you say a fucking thing, Billy," you said, albeit muffled, and grabbed Merriel's hand, dragging him to his feet and out of the school.

Your question for your government teacher could wait until later.

The moment you left the sight of the other boys, you let go of Merriel, quickening your pace in hopes of not having to confront him about your actions. You knew it wouldn't work, and yet you were still disappointed when he grabbed your shoulder and spun you around.

"Thank you," he said, and you could swear it was the first time he'd ever genuinely said those words. No smile or smirk tainted those lips of his.

"Just help me with this," you mumbled, uncovering your face to reveal a plethora of blood smeared all the way down your lips, chin, nose, and your palm.

"Oh. Yeah, 'course," he said in a similarly quiet way, and led you towards the nearest bathroom.

You sat up on one of the freshly-cleaned sinks while Merriel went to fetch toilet paper from one of the stalls, as the school-provided paper towels were much rougher. Of course, he only knew this because he was always cleaning up his own blood.

"You get hurt so much fo' me," he murmured as he genty brushed away the blood with the wet paper.

"Wouldn't have to if you kept out of trouble," you said, hunched over awkwardly so he could easily reach your face.

He fell silent till he finished wiping the blood off you.

"Stop tryin' t' protect me," he said, tossing the now bloody tissues away. He reached up, cupping your face in his, and ensuring you couldn't look away. "I can handle maself."

You searched his expression, seeking some kind of affection, some kind of answer for his actions, but found nothing. He was hollow. Desperate. He was seeking something, too––but you didn't know what it was, and you couldn't ask.

You sniffed, pushing back tears that now threatened to fall for a different reason.

"I hate seeing you get hurt," you admitted in a voice that cracked and broke.

"And I hate seein' you get hurt, too," he said, reaffirming his grip on you with tight, yearning fingers and hips that pushed themselves between your legs. His nose bumped against yours.

Both of you let out exhausted sighs, your foreheads meeting as your eyes closed. You shifted ever so slightly, slotting your nose next to his, and ignoring the pressure welling in your knotted brow. His thumbs brushed over your cheeks, following a line down to your bare clavicle and shoulders before resting on your hips.

"I hate you, sometimes," you said softly.

"That's my charm," he said.

You walked home with him that day. Later on, you discovered Billy actually broke your nose, which resulted in several minutes of concerned yelling from your mother, and then a very fast drive to urgent care. Merriel was not allowed to come with, and Madeline was at the library across town, so you went alone with your mother.

It didn't take long for things to get back to normal after that; well, as normal as things were with Merriel and Madeline's family. They moved out and back into their own apartment, and while it certainly wasn't as big as your place, it was wonderful if you wanted to participate in any illegal activities, as their mother was usually working and no one else in the building cared. Every now and then they would come over to your place as well, sometimes after school, and sometimes in the dead of night.

"Hey, sugar," said someone from your windowsill.

You jumped out of your bed sheets, wide eyes whirling round to find a dark figure crawling out of your open window. You nearly let out a screech, opening your mouth to do so, before they rushed forward and covered your mouth.

Merriel.

He let go of you, slowly backing up a step.

"What the fuck is wrong with you?!" You whisper-screeched, your expression contorted into horrified shock.

"I'm in love, baby," he sung, grinning. "I ain't takin' the blame for mah actions. Also, uh, Madeline's comin', we were racin'."

"Why?"

"Told her I was faster and ah was right," he chuckled.

"Hmmph," you said, crossing your arms. "Obviously. She hates running. She's probably jus' walking here, now."

"Whatever," he said, clearly annoyed that you weren't impressed. "What is it we're doin' tonight?"

"We're going to a concert. My mother managed to get tickets to the Beatles," you said with a smile.

"Damn," he said. "You one a those hyper fans? Gonna pass out when ya see 'em?"

"No," you said, scrunching your nose. "I'm not an idiot. I jus' like good music."

"We'll see 'bout that," he chuckled as he flopped down onto the bed you were previously occupying, splaying out all his limbs.

He let out a long, satisfied sigh while you crossed your arms.

"Is' hot out tonight," he said, his eyes closed blissfully.

"Get off my bed, Mer," you said, irritation twitching at the edge of your lip. "What are you even doing here? I only have two tickets."

"Madeline," he said, intonating each letter, "told me t' come along."

He spoke in a strange, comical way that accentuated each syllable and pronounced the curve of his tongue.

"She said ah was welcome, long's I can make it on foot."

"I guess we could try to sneak you in," you said quietly, ideas quickly sprouting in your head.

"Exactly," he said, bolting up out of your bed and approaching you. "Yer a smart little one. I bet you can think a' somethin'."

"Cool your horses, Merriel," you said, your hands raising defensively in front of you. "We'll see what we can do."

The auditorium was packed.

Hundreds of heads of long, blond hair and curled brown hair stood surrounding the empty stage, the bright lights illuminating a whirlpool of colors that never showed up in any of the films. Even from a considerable distance you could see that stage. Directly in front of you were the ticket stands, full of last-minute ticket-buyers, and full of concert-goers attempting to verify their own tickets. Madeline stood beside you; Merriel was off finding a bathroom window.

"Your brother is an idiot," you whispered to her as you shuffled forward in the long, disorganized line.

"I'm well aware of that," she said, making both of you laugh.

The plan was that he would find a bathroom window and the two of you––you and Madeline––would search the first floor bathrooms for the one emitting a tapping noise. The whole idea came from him, and subsequently gave him the role with the least amount of work. Of course.

Still, you and Madeline got in and set to running around the building's first floor, bursting into bathrooms and shocking anyone inside. You tended to apologize, but Madeline mostly ignored them.

In the second bathroom you checked, you heard the faint tapping, and going by the expressions of the others inside, so did they. One by one they filed out and you waited in the stall connected to the window wall. Guitars and voices began to sing distantly and you cursed softly, wondering why you were skipping out on a concert to help your best friend's sleazy brother sneak in through a bathroom window, of all things.

The second the door swung shut behind the last person, you jumped to your feet and wrenched open the thin window.

"Move," he said, and you did, letting him fall out of the window and onto his back on the hard, stone tile floor.

"You're kinda pathetic," you said with a laugh, shoving him gently with your foot.

He raised himself but only to his knees, shuffling forward and clawing at your pants tightly with a wicked grin.

"Just for you, baby," he said, winking slyly.

Merriel kept close to you, his shoulder constantly brushing yours as the two of you found your way back to Madeline and your assigned standing area. Very few people were left in the halls since the music had already started, leaving you with strange looks from well-dressed, middle-aged business people. Eventually you sneaked through some thick, steel doors and were bathed in guitar music, the harmonic voices of the Beatles going right along with a steady bassline. You laughed at the way the audience was drowning in darkness while the stage was lit well enough to see the sweat on their faces.

Instinctively you reached for Merriel's hand, intertwining your fingers before you pulled him through the crowd. Groups of girls and boys banding together made it difficult to see and move, but you eventually found Madeline's yellow sunflower headband, and shuffled towards her till you stood at your side. At that point you let go of Merriel, but he didn't let go of you. You didn't have the time to notice that.

"Found your brother," you said, using your other thumb to point behind you to Merriel, who looked rather confused as he stared up at the stage.

"Oh, you did?" She asked with a chuckle. "I gave up."

"I would've too."

"Since you left me,

oooh,

I'm so alone––now I'm comin', I'm comin' on home," they sang in the pauses between your conversation.

"Why do girls like them so much?" Merriel asked, standing right behind you.

You jumped from his sudden appearance, brushing against his chest as you turned.

"What??" You yelled over the music and the incessant screaming from the crowd.

Merriel repeated himself, but much, much louder.

"They'e, uh... hard t' look at, if ya get me," he said.

"I don't fucking know," you yelled. "They've got the tunes."

You wouldn't consider yourself a massive fan of the Beatles––or of any specific band––but you could recall almost all the lyrics from the songs they played. Restaurants, schools, grocery stores, discos, and just about every other place imaginable played their songs on repeat, reflecting the trends of the world.

Three hours later you were stumbling out of the auditorium, high on second-hand smoke and the energy the crowd poured out around you. Merriel kept a hand on the small of your back as you returned to the cool night air. In the city, lights were always on––they blocked out the stars, instead replacing them with streetlamps and restaurant lights. Outside of the roof's protection lay clouds, thunder, and rain that now poured in buckets. Most everyone that walked by carried an umbrella, their collars upturned to the harsh wind.

"Shit," Merriel breathed out, pulling you into his side subconsciously as Madeline caught up with you.

"I think there's a streetcar that goes back to around my house," you said as your eyes flickered about the mostly-vacant streets.

Inside glowing windows sat friends at their dinners, occupying warm restaurants with tempting food that sent your stomach growling. Other than that, everything was dark.

"Nah, here comes the bus," he said, pointing at an approaching bus.

He jogged out into the rain, flagging down the large vehicle so it'd stop at the curbside. You and Madeline sent each other looks, but you shrugged, and the two of you ran out after her older brother.

The bus door opened with a hiss and the three of you boarded, already sopping wet from your short venture into the rain. Once the door shut behind you, the floor lurched forward, and each of you went to grasp part of the nearest pole. You scanned the bus for a moment––an old woman with a lace umbrella and two other teenagers in the back––and chose a seat near the door. Merriel and Madeline sat on either side of you.

"How much d'those tickets cost?" Merriel asked in a starkly quiet voice.

"Seven bucks," said Madeline.

"Jesus," he said, his back straightening. "Glad I didn't get one."

"Yeah, I'm kinda wishin' we only bought one and then one a' us snuck the others in," you grumbled as you scratched the back of your head, relaxing into the hair, plastic seat.

"It was fun anyway, right?" Madeline asked.

"I think so," you said.

"Yeah," Merriel said after a moment. "Yeah, it was."

A soft 'ding' sounded as the bus slowed, and you recognized the street to be one near to your home. Considering you lived deep in the rural area, you quickly ushered your friends off on that stop, leading them into a dark, gentle downpour. You raised your palms and looked to the sky, silently thanking the world for warm rain.

"You look like ya fallen in love, baby," Merriel said with a laugh.

You turned to him and asked, "haven't you?"

"Ugh." He rolled his eyes, causing Madeline to laugh, a reaction that sparked your own giggle. "Where are we goin'? Back ta your place?"

"Sure, I've got a film on shrooms I've been wantin' to watch," you said.

"Shrooms?" Madeline repeated.

"Yeah. Psychedelics."

"You're crazy," she laughed, throwing her head back with the force of it.

"That's what psychedelics do to ya," Merriel said, raising his hands to trill his fingers spookily around his eyes. "Turn you crazy, till ya can't tell ya ass from ya mouth!"

"Well that's what we'll find out," you chuckled, gently hitting Merriel on the arm.

"I'll race ya home," he said, but he already began to jog, jogging backwards to watch your confused expression.

"Mer, only I know how to open the lock on that window," you called after him.

He just laughed and turned back to the sidewalk ahead of him, starting off in a run. Both you and Madeline groaned.

"Merriel you're just going to wake my parents!" You yelled.

To no avail. He was gone.

"Is this what he did when you were comin' to my house?" You asked.

Madeline nodded silently with a shrug, her hands stuffed in her pockets.

"Ugh," you groaned, "come on, we have to get there with him."

You began to jog, but Madeline didn't follow with.

"My leg is still bad," she said quietly.

When Madeline was young, an encounter with polio left her injured in her left leg. She mentioned it rarely enough that you often forgot about it.

"Do you mind?" You asked in an equally quiet and soft voice.

"No," she chuckled, "it's alright, go get him."

"Thanks," you murmured with a smile, running off into the gentle rain.

You caught sight of Merriel before he reached your house. You tried to flag him down, but he just laughed and quickened his pace, running off even further from your reach. Annoyance, of course, bubbled in the depths of your stomach, but you pushed it away and decided you'd confront him once you reached your house.

Rounding the small, dark-green lawn, you found Merriel with his hands on your home's white lattice, his neck craned upwards towards the window of your room. Your footsteps hardly made a noise, but it was enough for him to turn and notice you panting.

"Dickhead," you whispered.

"You know you love it."

"Whatever. Be quiet," you said as you began to scale the lattice, jamming your shoes into the little diamond-shaped holes.

One time, a good while ago, the lattice collapsed when you tried to climb it. Fortunately, your parents hadn't heard, and you could use a plethora of excuses when they asked why you were double-nailing the lattice to the wall this time.

As you reached your windowsill, you fumbled to grab a pocket knife out of your pants, and flicked the blade open. Even with the small size of the pocket knife, the blade was thick and capable. You stuck it up between the panes, huffing as you tried to knock the lock over. Merriel soon snuck up beside you, and watched silently, staring at your hands and the knife in them.

Once you heard a small click and the tab flipped onto its' other side, you pressed your palms against the windowpane and forced it upwards, till you could slide your hands beneath and raise it the rest of the way. After clambering into your room, Merriel followed and landed––once more––on his ass.

"You're helpless," you chuckled, offering him your hand.

He brushed it away with a sly grin.

"Good thing I got you t' take care of me," he said, and pulled you forward by the fabric of your pants for the second time that night. "Right, baby?"

You couldn't feel your fingers, but if you could, you could swear sweat was dripping down them. A distinct pain––or maybe some form of pleasure––rung like a gong in your chest. Perhaps it was just your heart. Thundering like the clouds that still lingered on the edges of the city.

"What's gotten into you this evening?" You finally asked, kicking yourself out of his grasp, to which he set you free.

"I told you, sugar," he said with a chuckle, rising to his feet and backing you against your tall bed. You jumped when your back thighs hit the mattress. "I'm in love."

"Yeah, that's great, what's that got to do with me?" You asked in a nervous rush.

He just smiled. He wouldn't stop smiling, even as his fingers dusted your hips, reaffirming their grip on you in an instant as one found your thigh and the other sat at your waist. With those tiny points of control, he slowly laid you to rest on your back with him hovering above you.

That stupid fucking smirk.

"Y'know I never dream," he scanned your eyes, "but I dreamt of you."

A breath lodged itself in your throat, cutting off your air with a special kind of stupefaction. His hand on your outer thigh trailed upwards.

"You drive me crazy, baby. Did ya know that? All those looks, those touches, y' had ta know."

He lowered himself, but not to your lips. His instant decision was to kiss your neck much softer than you thought those sharp tongue and teeth could ever manage, pulling at your delicate skin between plush lips. Every jolt of overstimulation that wracked your body was soothed with a kiss you never thought you'd feel, over and over again, matched by curious, wandering hands sliding up your shirt.

"Tell me you see this too," he mumbled against your skin, more desperate, needy than anything else, shifting his hips against yours. You gulped. "Come on, babe. Tell me you're seein' this, too."

"Fuck, Mer," you whispered, breathing for the first time since he'd set hands on you. "Fuck."

You had little else to say, or at least, very little else your brain could manage to formulate on a tongue heavy with words unsaid. Yes, you saw it. For years. For many, many nights in which you were alone, and your skin wondered how he was touching you now, when your bed was so empty for all those horrid, horrid nights.

How had you managed without it?

When you could feel your fingers again, they were dug into Merriel's hair, pulling at the dark locks that always sat unkempt atop his head. Your other hand settled for tugging at his button-down helplessly.

He had yet to kiss you, and you only knew this because your lips ached for any semblance of affection. Shots of electricity still flew through your body whenever he bit down on your neck, and his hips still pushed into yours, seeking relief from his tight slacks.

At last he raised himself above you, scanning your wide eyes. You hated looking at him like this, but you couldn't look away from those haunted, blue eyes, far too cold for any other boy his age. They looked through you, into you, and searched for the answer you hid so desperately from him. His shoulders were stiff, his chest caught motionless inbetween breaths.

You nodded. Infinitely small, but there, and he finally breathed, his eyes fluttering shut in relief.

In a moment of repose he lowered himself back down to you, his chest to yours, and glided against you like a ship on silent water, sailing for the touch of your lips. When he collided with you, the waves bursted upon the shore, salt lingering in the air as his hands traced the curves of your face. And your heart––it sang like the storm, like the waves, like the ship crashing into the shore and splintering apart in soft touches and murmured words.

"Merriel..." you murmured against his lips, tugging at the back of his hair. "Merriel stop, your sister's gonna be back any minute."

Despite your words, you made no attempt to part from him yourself.

"Uh-uh, baby," he said as he ground his hard-on into you, tasting the need dripping off you, "you started this."

"Fuck," you hissed, friction building instantaneously between your thighs as you tried your best to grind back on him, chasing that heated euphoria.

"I can fuck you on th' sink," he drawled, dipping back down to your neck to bite fiercely beneath your jaw. "Lock the door. Keep her outta there so I can drill ya till ya can't fuckin' speak. D'you want that, sugar?"

One of his hands slipped down your body, forcing your legs further apart and palming you just right.

"I can't wait to feel you around me," he whispered. The words echoed in your foggy mind.

Madeline would be tapping at the window any second.

"No, no," you mumbled in a haze, blearily pushing him off of you. "No, your sister's coming."

"I don't give a shit."

You pushed him away again when he tried to return to your lips.

"I'm not going to fuck you in front of Madeline," you said, keeping your hand on his half-exposed chest.

"You're no fun," he pouted.

"I don't care."

"Fine," he said with a long groan, regretfully tearing himself from you with a pointed erection still straining against his pants. "The moment I get her to leave, you're gonna get it."

He smacked your ass as he stepped away, biting at his lip.

"Can't wait ta play with ya."

#snafu x reader #merriel snafu shelton #rami malek #rami malek x reader

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robininthelabyrinth · 3 years

Text

Spilled Pearls

- Chapter 20 - ao3 -

“Your brother has been acting strange,” Lan Yueheng said, his voice drifting in through the open door.

He was crouched down in the dirt, happily gathering a small harvest from the plants he’d grown outside Lan Qiren’s window. Most of the materials he used for his alchemy experiments he obtained from the specialized fields in the Cloud Recesses, but there were some variants that the sect members in charge of those fields disfavored on account of certain pharmacological side effects associated with them. Lan Yueheng had prevailed on his friendship with Lan Qiren to beg, at some considerable length, that he be allowed to grow those variants in the area near Lan Qiren’s rooms – he’d argued that no one would ever think to check there on account of Lan Qiren’s rule-abiding reputation.

Lan Qiren had pointed out that there were no actual rules against growing those plants - they were only disfavored, not disallowed - thereby rendering the entire issue with people checking for it moot, but Lan Yueheng had insisted and eventually he’d yielded.

Let Lan Yueheng grow his nightmare plants wherever he liked. What did he care? He wasn’t using that patch of land for anything in particular, and it was nice to have a reason to see Lan Yueheng on a regular basis.

“Strange how?” Lan Qiren asked, finishing off the final stroke of a painting. He didn’t like it, but then again, he never liked any of the paintings he did for himself – they were too stiff and unfeeling, in his view, lacking spirit and movement no matter what he tried. His favorite painting was still the antique Wen Ruohan had left on his wall all that time ago, a lively little landscape with burnt edges suggesting that it had been hastily recovered from a fire at some point; he’d never replaced any of the things his sworn brother had gotten for him.

“I’m not sure how to describe it. Just strange,” Lan Yueheng said. “I don’t know how many people have noticed yet, him being pretty standoffish and above-it-all at the best of times, but it’s not the usual sort of thing for him.”

Lan Yueheng was like Lan Qiren; they were good at noticing patterns, however bad they were at figuring out the meanings behind it. If Lan Yueheng said it wasn’t normal, it probably wasn’t.

Lan Qiren rubbed at his forehead, suppressing the desire to go figure out the problem right away. “I don’t think I can help,” he said instead. “He doesn’t like to see me, remember?”

“He’s important to the sect,” Lan Yueheng said peaceably, and Lan Qiren loved him all over again for not saying he’s still your brother. “You might not like him, but you like the sect. So you have to help figure it out.”

Lan Qiren did not like it when Lan Yueheng was right about things. It gave him a strange itchy feeling of dissatisfaction.

“Someone else could figure it out,” he argued. “He’s sect leader now, remember? His well-being is everyone’s responsibility.”

“But you’re the one who’s good at figuring out weird stuff.”

“Do not tell lies,” Lan Qiren grumbled, but he still put away his things and went to see his brother – who wasn’t where he was supposed to be. Any of the places he was supposed to be.

That was strange.

Lan Qiren’s brother was talented and powerful, skilled and meticulous; he was too proud of his status and accomplishments to shirk work. Whatever had drawn him away must have been very compelling indeed – or so Lan Qiren thought.

He wasn’t expecting, when he finally tracked down his brother through a tracker spell utilized on an old comb, to find him walking through the forest alongside a young woman, sword at his side as if he were night-hunting.

“I am night-hunting,” he said when Lan Qiren asked him. “I’m escorting Mistress He.”

Lan Qiren turned to look at the girl.

She smiled at him in a perfunctory sort of fashion. She was beautiful in a way that reminded Lan Qiren a little of Cangse Sanren, though her looks were very different – more refined and elegant, more delicate and less down-to-earth, thoroughly lacking the vaguely unsettling undertones so characteristic of Baoshan Sanren’s disciple, but no less lovely in her own way.

“Qingheng-jun was just showing me the lay of the land,” she said coolly. “If you need him to return, of course, I won’t keep him.”

“There’s nothing else I need to do,” he said at once, which was such a blatant lie that Lan Qiren’s jaw dropped.

The girl glanced over at him and looked amused, saluting briefly: “He Kexin, a rogue cultivator,” she introduced herself. She shouldn’t have needed to; per etiquette, Lan Qiren’s brother should have introduced them, but he was clearly too far into his own world to care for such niceties. “And you are…?”

“Gusu Lan sect’s Lan Qiren,” Lan Qiren said on automatic, returning the salute. “I’m – his brother.”

“Oh?” she said. “In that case, you must have plenty to talk about. Anyway, there doesn’t seem to be much night-hunting here, so I’ll be leaving.”

Lan Qiren’s brother saluted deeply. “I hope to see you again soon, Mistress He.” His voice was gentler than Lan Qiren had ever heard it.

She waved a careless hand in half-hearted agreement as she went, but Lan Qiren’s brother stared after her departing figure until she was out of sight. Only when she was fully gone did he turn away, and when he did, he turned only in order to glare at Lan Qiren.

“Why did you interrupt us?” he asked, and his voice had gone back to its usual cold remove. “We were finally spending some time together alone, without those friends of hers crowding in and bothering us.”

Lan Qiren glanced in the direction that He Kexin had gone. “I don’t think it’ll make much of a difference,” he said hesitantly. “If you’re alone or with her friends, I mean. I don’t think – I don’t think that she likes you all that much.”

Lan Qiren had no natural social skills, not like his brother, who was charming enough to draw most people in despite or perhaps because of his cool and distant demeanor, but in sheer self-defense he had worked very hard to categorize and identify a variety of unspoken signals utilized by people in order to try to figure out logically what he couldn’t do intuitively. While he was still terrible at identifying indications of positive interest of any sort, as Cangse Sanren was always teasing him, he had gotten much better at detecting negative signs that indicated disinterest, indifference, or boredom.

“She likes me well enough,” his brother said, his tone oddly defensive. “She’s reserved, that’s all – you really can’t tell who she secretly likes or doesn’t. She’s a brilliant cultivator, sharp as a blade and clever as anything; it’s no wonder that she’s kind to others in equal measure as well…”

“But -”

“She makes me feel free,” his brother said, cutting him off. “She’s just - she’s smart and she’s talented and she’s fearless, unrestrained and untamed. There’s nothing weighing her down or holding her back. She bears no expectations and no pressure, and nothing has ever forced her, molded her development in this way or that; she lives her life just drifting on the breeze, complete untethered, and when I’m with her I feel the same, and I’ve never felt that way…”

He trailed off, eyes oddly dreamy, and then suddenly he seemed to come back to himself and remember to whom he was speaking. “Anyway, what do you know about women, Qiren? You’re as frigid as an icicle hanging in the window or a mountain lake in midwinter.”

Lan Qiren acknowledged the point, but he didn’t see its relevance. “If she doesn’t like you, she doesn’t like you,” he pointed out. “There’s nothing you can do about it –”

“Are you saying there’s nothing you actually wanted from me?” his brother interrupted, voice sharp now, almost angry. “Your presence is neither wanted nor needed here. Leave at once.”

“No, it’s just – you weren’t at the hanshi, and there’s work to be done.”

“So what? I’ll do it later.”

“You’re sect leader now. You have duties,” Lan Qiren said. “You can’t just go out night-hunting whenever you wish –”

“You said it yourself, I’m sect leader - me, and me alone!” his brother snapped. “From what I recall, that makes me the one who gives the orders, not you. Now get lost!”

Lan Qiren blinked, shocked at the fierceness of the rebuke, and watched as his brother strode away – in the direction He Kexin had gone, rather than back towards the Cloud Recesses.

This, he thought to himself, is a problem.

It was, too. His brother abandoned his duties more and more often, avid in his pursuit of He Kexin, who he had invited to stay for a while at the Cloud Recesses with the friends she was travelling with. She did, as he’d said, seem to like him well enough, but it seemed clear that her regard was far more cursory than his own - and not just to Lan Qiren, either.

Lan Qiren was roped in by the elders to help do some of the work his brother was neglecting, at first a little and then more. It got in the way of his own preparations, and started getting on his nerves, too.

“You don’t understand,” one of his teachers told him when he tried to resist the notion of spending a large chunk of his time on sect paperwork instead of practicing music. “Love, for our sect, is a powerful thing. When it comes unexpectedly, it is wild and irresistible, like a river bursting through a dam and overflowing its banks. It’s no surprise that your brother is so focused on winning his bride – and all for the best, too. He has to have heirs to inherit one day.”

Lan Qiren didn’t disagree with that, naturally. He certainly didn’t want to be stuck being his brother’s heir any longer than he had to. It was only…

“Just because he’s in love with her doesn’t mean she’s going to be his bride,” he said, and wondered a little spitefully why it was just assumed that he didn’t understand what it meant to love someone. Just because he didn’t feel it the same way as they did didn’t make his heart any less a Lan. “I don’t know why you’re all being so stubborn about this. A woman knows her own mind - just because he offers himself doesn’t mean she has to accept.”

“Stop saying such inauspicious things,” his teacher scolded. “You should be wishing your brother luck, instead.”

“He doesn’t need luck,” another teacher, the one for swordsmanship, put in. “He needs more of a backbone. Doesn’t she have a father he can talk to?”

That started up another debate on the relevance of the opinion of the young in setting their own marriages, an old classic, and Lan Qiren sighed and took his leave. He winced when he realized that his brother was not far away, standing with He Kexin in one of the nearby gardens – at his brother’s cultivation level, there was little chance he hadn’t heard the subject of their conversation, and indeed his glare indicated that he had. He Kexin wasn’t looking his way, but Lan Qiren suspected she might’ve heard some as well.

His suspicions were borne out the next day, much to his misfortune.

“Mistress He!” he exclaimed, groping around wildly for his clothing. He’d been humming his way through a new stanza while taking a bath, having taken a day off to wash his hair, only to turn around and see her standing there in the middle of his quarters. “What are you – I’m not dressed – these are my rooms!”

“I know,” she said, not moving.

Lan Qiren decided his dignity was more important than his health and reached out to yank his clothing into the bath with him, ignoring how they got heavy and soaked with water; he pulled on his inner robes and, once attired, he clambered out, rather annoyed. Just because He Kexin was a rogue cultivator didn’t excuse her from knowing manners, and just because she was his brother’s favorite, granted the freedom to wander wherever she would within the Cloud Recesses, didn’t give her the right to violate his privacy. “Mistress He –”

“You’re cute,” she said, and he stared at her, aghast. “Not quite as handsome as your brother, nowhere near as charming, and the way you drone on is rather annoying, but at least you have some respect for a woman’s wishes, and that face of yours isn’t bad. You’re not courting anyone at present, is that right?”

“I’m not,” he said, taken aback. “But what –”

“Good,” she said, and the next thing he knew she was in his arms, trying to kiss him. It was only through his quick reaction that he was able to turn his face away and avoid it.

“Mistress – Mistress He!”

“Keep your voice down,” she said, sounding amused even as she groped him in an intimate place. “It’s part of the plan, eventually, but it’d still be a pity for us to get caught before we get to the fun part.”

“I don’t – I’m not – I don’t want – let go of me!”

“Are you a virgin?” she laughed. “For shame, a man of your age. Just relax, you’ll like it soon enough –”

Lan Qiren’s brother had described He Kexin as a brilliant cultivator, and he’d been right; for all that she was a rogue cultivator, lacking the resources of a Great Sect, she was talented and promising, a powerful sword cultivator in her own right, and her grip on Lan Qiren’s body was relentless.

Lan Qiren tried first to get away from her without harming her, but she wouldn’t let go of him, pulling open his robes and even burying her teeth into his throat – that was the straw too far for him; he whistled a series of notes, short and sharp, the burst of qi shocking her grip loose, and then he threw her as far away from him as he could, knocking her into the opposite wall.

“Kexin!”

Lan Qiren turned: it was his brother rushing in through his door, falling down to his knees in front of her to examine her to make sure she wasn’t injured, and then turning to look at Lan Qiren, his eyes aflame with rage.

Lan Qiren glanced down at himself: robes askew and sopping wet, scratches on his chest and a bite on his neck.

“No,” he said, abruptly realizing how he must look, how they must look. Part of the plan, He Kexin had said; she must have known that her brother wouldn’t leave her alone for very long, and she’d clearly intended on using Lan Qiren as a means to get his brother to give up on his pursuit. Very few men would continue to chase a woman that spurned them for their own younger brother, especially one they didn’t much like. “It’s not – I didn’t –” Denial wasn’t going to help. “Do not succumb to rage!”

“Do not engage in debauchery,” his brother snapped back, rising to his feet. “Do not break faith!”

Lan Qiren took a step back, and then another. “Do not make assumptions about others.”

His brother wasn’t listening, though, and Lan Qiren found himself slammed against his own wall, held up and strangled by his own collar, his favorite painting falling to the ground from the force of it.

“How dare you,” his brother hissed, his eyes red. “How dare you touch her –”

“I didn’t! She was the one who –”

The next slam of Lan Qiren’s body against the wall jarred his teeth so hard that he bit his tongue to bleeding, and knocked his brain all around his skull. His brother was still talking, he thought, but he couldn’t hear him over the ringing in his ears. It belatedly occurred to him that using the same excuse as every rapist in history – she was asking for it, she was the one who initiated, it was all her – was probably not a good idea, even if in his case it was actually true.

He opened his mouth to try to defend himself, but his brother’s fist hit his stomach before he could speak, all the air knocking out of him.

“And then you – you hurt her –”

“Qingheng-jun, leave him be! It wasn’t him at all, you’re misunderstanding. I only wanted – ”

His brother threw him away, all his attention drawn away by his love, and Lan Qiren stumbled inelegantly on his way down, his feet slipping on the wet floor and tripping him up, and his head slammed hard against the corner of his bathtub as he fell down. As he sank to the floor, his vision going black, he thought blearily that the concussion he was undoubtedly going to have might even be worth it if only it meant that his brother would finally give up on his mad and hopeless pursuit of He Kexin already.

He did not.

#mdzs #lan qiren #qingheng-jun #he kexin #my fic #my fics #spilled pearls #mind the ao3 tags

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adsdragonlover · 3 years

Text

You Matter To Me

Coda to 15x19

Wc: 2k, Tags: fluff, pie, happy ending, first kiss

Also on ao3

It’s been three weeks since they won, but Dean still isn’t happy.

He’s been driving around the country, searching for something he knows he won’t find. The thing he wants that he knows he can’t have. He lost his chance.

Eventually, he ends up at a diner.

Lulu’s Pies, it says in softly glowing neon cursive above the building.

The bell above the door chimes as Dean pushes it open and steps inside. It’s pleasantly warm compared to the cold night outside, but Dean still feels cold. At least on the inside.

He heads to the bar and sits down on one of the stools.

With a cursory and habitual glance around the diner, he realizes he’s the only one here. At least the only customer.

That makes sense, he supposes. It’s barely 3 AM and the diner is plopped in the middle of bumfuck nowhere. The only other signs of life in the area are the long winding road outside and the shitty old gas station a few miles back.

To be honest, Dean doesn’t quite know why he came here. Maybe he needed a break from the drive.

He wanted to get some pie - the place was literally named for its pies - but that was mainly out of habit rather than actual desire. It’s been hard to want any of the things he used to enjoy, not since…

He cuts off that train of thought with a scowl to himself.

The waitress, a sweet looking woman with long, wavy, dark blonde hair and deep blue eyes approaches Dean from the other side of the bar. “What can I get for you, sugar?” she asks with a warm voice, rich with a soft southern accent. It reminds him, inexplicably, of his mother.

“I-“ Dean stops. “I don’t know,” he admits quietly.

The waitress, Jenna, according to her name tag, smiles sympathetically. “That’s alright,” she says sweetly. “It can be hard to know what you want, especially when you lose someone dear to you.”

Dean frowns. “How did you-” He begins.

Jenna smiles sadly at Dean. “There are some things a mother just knows, and heartbreak is one of them.” Her eyes are understanding, and painfully blue - too close to Castiel’s eyes for comfort. Dean looks away. “You look like you could use a slice of pie,” she says, handing him a paper dessert menu, specifically made for this week. “They’re all made from scratch, and made from the heart. Take all the time you need, honey. I’ll be back with a cup of coffee for you, it’s on the house.”

Jenna’s words soothe something raw and stinging inside Dean, and he offers her a small smile as she heads back into the kitchen.

He looks over the menu with a tired sigh. Not too long ago, Dean would’ve killed to eat here. All the pies sound awesome, and something about the waitress makes it very clear she puts effort into her pies.

Still, his heart isn’t really in it.

When Jenna comes back with a mug of coffee and a smile, Dean nods thankfully, but shakes his head when she asks if he’s ready to order. “I just- I need more time,” he says.

He isn’t just talking about the food. Not anymore.

Jenna nods. “Just give me a call when you’re ready, hun,” and then she’s gone.

Dean isn’t really sure how long he sits there, staring blankly at the dessert menu, coffee warming up one of his hands, his soul feeling achingly empty.

He's snapped out of his stupor by the sound of the bell above the door chiming to indicate someone else entering.

Dean’s eyes are glued to the menu still, reading the blurb under Heartbreak Pie. It's a black bottomed cherry pie, and the picture stops him.

He hears footsteps walk over, but he ignores them. They come closer until the stranger sits down on the stool to the right of Dean.

Dean feels irritation flash through him briefly, the diner is completely empty, and Dean’s positive he’s radiating “leave me alone” vibes, but for some reason the stranger decides to sit next to him anyway.

The irritation is gone as fast as it appeared however, Dean just doesn’t have the energy. Not anymore.

A couple days after they’d won, after Jack had left and Sam had reunited with a newly brought back Eileen, Dean had broken down in the bunker.

He’d lost it a little, had cried and cried and cried for days. Begging and pleading and praying. But Cas hadn’t come back.

Not long after, the sadness had turned to anger. Anger at Cas, for making the deal in the first place. For loving Dean so much it killed him. For telling him and then leaving before Dean could say it back. Anger at Jack, for dying and causing the deal, for becoming God and not bringing Cas back, for leaving Dean just like Cas had, just like Sam.

But mostly, Dean had been angry with himself. For not saying it back when Cas told him, for just standing there, for being the reason Cas died, for being too stubborn and too scared to say anything sooner, back when he’d had the chance. He was angry at himself for not being everything that Cas apparently thought he was.

Those few days were fueled entirely by anger in Dean’s opinion. He knew, deep down, that the anger was caused by love, but he didn’t want to think about that. Because if Cas was right, if he was right about Dean then there really wasn’t any good reason why Dean had never said anything.

Those few days were fueled entirely by anger. He knew, deep down, that the anger was caused by love, but he didn’t want to think about that. Because if Cas was right, if he was right about Dean then there really wasn’t any good reason why Dean had never said anything.

Nowadays though, Dean just felt numb. He drives around in Baby with the hopes of bringing something back into his life, but nothing helps.

He almost missed it, he was so lost in thought, and he barely caught the tail end of Jenna asking the stranger what she could “-get for you, dear?”

“I’ll have a slice of cherry pie,” came the low and gravelly voice, and Dean’s heart stopped, “and a slice of apple pie for my friend here,” Castiel finished.

Dean could barely hear Jenna’s acknowledgement and departure over the sudden ringing in his ears and the unavoidable bloom of hope in his chest.

He wants to look over, he does. He wants to see for himself if it really is Cas. Or if he's finally going crazy. But he can't move. He's frozen in his spot.

And then Cas’ hand comes to rest on Dean’s shoulder, right where his handprint had been, both as a scar that was no longer there, and as a bloody stain on a jacket Dean kept in the trunk of the impala for safekeeping. That movement, that touch, it was undeniably Castiel, and it forced Dean into action.

He turns his head, and looks his best friend in the eyes for the first time in what feels like forever.

And it's Castiel. Undoubtedly. He has the same messy hair, the same stubble, the same beautiful blue eyes, same dirty trench coat, the same stubbornly crooked blue tie.

“Cas?” Dean croaks, voice wobbling, painfully close to cracking.

Castiel smiles softly and the sight of it brings endless relief to Dean. And when Cas responds with, “Yes. Hello, Dean.” The relief doubles until it floods over Dean so completely his hands begin to shake.

“Cas,” he starts, voice trembling almost as much as his hands. “I- you- how-?”

“Oh look, our pie,” Cas says, cutting Dean off as their slices of pie are placed down in front of them.

“Cas, listen-” Dean begins quietly.

“Dean,” Cas interrupts. “We’ll have plenty of time to talk, I promise. Just eat your pie.”

And maybe, some other time, Dean would’ve been worried, would’ve been suspicious over Cas’ clear redirection. But he isn't. Because Castiel’s eyes are earnest and honest.

And Dean suddenly understands. Cas doesn't want to talk about it yet. He doesn't know how Dean is going to respond. He wants to have this first, just a quiet, peaceful moment.

So Dean nods, and begins to eat his pie.

It is really good pie, especially a regular apple pie, and it's probably the best apple pie he’d had in years. Mentally, Dean decides to give Jenna a large tip.

He’s halfway through eating his pie when he can’t do it anymore. Not with the way he could feel Cas watching him contentedly, fondly.

“Cas, listen, I-”

“It’s alright, Dean,” Cas says, cutting him off again, but Dean can’t be mad at it. He just needs to keep going.

“No,” he says sternly, looking stubbornly down at his half-eaten slice of pie. “No, it’s not Cas. It’s not alright, and I need to say this.”

He looks back up at Cas and waits for his response. When Cas nods in understanding, Dean takes a deep breath. He closes his eyes to steady himself briefly before opening them back up and looking Cas in the eyes. “Cas, I love you,” Dean says quietly. “You gotta know I love you too.”

Cas’ eyes widen slightly before his expression softens to something so fond it would probably make Dean uncomfortable had it been coming from anyone else. “I know,” he says with a smile that’s almost a grin.

“You kno-?” Then Dean gets it. “Oh you little shit,” he laughs. “You did not know, you don’t get to Han Solo me, you asshat,” Dean says with a wide grin.

Cas chuckles and the sound warms Dean up from the inside out. “My apologies, Dean. It seemed fitting and I figured you’d appreciate it.” Cas ducks his head slightly, avoiding eye contact, though he’s still smiling.

“Hey,” Dean says, and he reaches out and grabs Cas’ hand. “There’s no need to apologize, man.” Dean’s grinning too, and, distantly, he figures he should probably make an effort to stop calling Cas “man” and “buddy”, considering the fact that he’s in love with the stupid angel.

Cas’ smile widens and he looks back up, meeting Dean’s gaze as he turns his hand over and laces their fingers together almost hesitantly.

The flood of warmth the action brings Dean, as well as the hesitation in Cas’ eyes, brings Dean to squeeze their hands automatically, reassuringly.

All the hesitance in Cas’ expression melts away, and he practically beams at Dean. “You should finish your pie, Dean,” he suggests softly.

“So should you,” Dean points out.

Cas chuckles again and shakes his head. “It only tastes like molecules to me. I’ll get a to-go box for it and you can finish it for me later,” he says, and the ‘later’ in that sentence fills Dean with joy.

They aren’t over. There’s going to be a “later” for the two of them.

He grins at Cas and squeezes his hand before turning back to his delicious pie.

It’s after he finishes it that he gets an idea, and he grins. “Hey Cas, you wanna taste it? It’s pretty good.”

Castiel frowns and does his confused little head tilt that Dean has always secretly found unbearably cute. He realizes, suddenly, that he doesn’t have to keep that a secret anymore, and the thought makes him smile.

“Dean, I don’t understand,” Cas says slowly, “there isn’t any pie le-” and then the look on Dean’s face must sink in, because he cuts off with a slowly growing and a little shy smile. “...yes,” he says finally. “I would like a taste.”

“Good,” Dean says, and then he reaches over with both hands, wrapping one around Cas’ arm and cupping the back of his neck with the other as he pulls his angel into a kiss.

Castiel melts into it, and Dean feels a little like he’s glowing from the inside out, he’s so happy.

When they pull away, Dean is still grinning. “Well?” he says. “Did you like the taste?”

Cas is wearing a matching grin. “Hmmm,” he says with mock thoughtfulness. “I’m not sure, I think we should do it again, so I can have another taste.”

God, Dean is in love.

They meet again in the middle for another kiss.

Dean’s face almost hurts from smiling so much after such a long time of not smiling at all. And he knows, as they hold each other close in the pie diner, that they have the rest of their lives to spend together.

And Dean is happy.

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@dreamnovak @tearsofgrace @bluebell-24 @rambleoncas

#coda #spn fanfic #destiel fanfic #destiel ficlet #destiel coda #spn 15.19 #spn 15x19 #spn spoilers #supernatural fanfic #deancas #deancas fic #destiel fic #destiel #my writing #catch me being a musical theater nerd #and adding Jenna from waitress to the story

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scrawnytreedemon · 3 years

Text

Shit I’ve Been Winding Up For A Long Time Now But Am Very Aware Will Probably Hold No Relevance Should I Actually Go Into This More--

This is about Bhunivelze.

You know, when I was chilling out, on my bed, that evening on that half term in early June, deciding to check up on ClementJ64′s FF retrospective because-- Hey! It’s been awhile, I wonder if he’s got around to doing the final bit of the FFXIII saga --You know, I was there, chilling, just for a laff. Just a laff.

The rest of that week was spent spiralling into a hyperfixation I absolutely did not anticipate in any way, shape, or form, because the way they introduced that character was “wwhdhfjjhHJDFJKHKJHW H A T??”

That retrospective and a good amount of wiki-scrounging is all I have as a basis for this. This is not a coherent character analysis-- Though I might tag it as that for ease of access. This is not, by any means, the thoughts of someone deeply familiar with FFXIII on the whole beyond plot synopses and overarching themes.

I don’t think I’m brave enough for that.

Reading the vast yet surface-deep lore on those wiki pages on my birthday while in a delirious state of mind was enough to make me somewhat nauseous.

Do you think I’m going to go through all of that in real time?

(Someday, someday.)

Ugh, I don’t know how to begin, but let us, I guess. I’d recommend you read this church-mime-demiurge’s FF Wiki page if you want the same level of base-knowledge I had, and maybe the aformentioned retrospective if you want the experience, because I don’t think I have the wherewithal to get into all of that from the bottom-up.

I am also, so, so fucking sorry for any remaining FFXIII fans in advance. There is like, a good chance I may be butchering the characterisation completely, so bear with me here.

With that... we begin?

Where do we even start with this guy?

How on earth to you begin to explain the absolute monolith you’ve constructed from crumbs of a Guy, some material no doubt spliced in from the Pale King, Sephiroth, y o u r o w n G o d O C and other characters, and the mountains of religious trauma you carry around at all times that is probably the only reason you’ve been able to latch on as hard as you did?

I’m going to try.

What gets me, in summary, about Bhunivelze is how he’s a prime example of how love and concern can become deadly forces if in the wrong hands. His first acquainting with human emotion was by deceiving and possessing Hope, reverting his body to a teenage state, and planning to live among humanity through him. He sees human sorrow and suffering, and decides that, to End This(because it must be ended, you see) he’s going to destroy all the souls of the deceased that make up the Chaos that’s been eating this world for the past five-hundred years so they all forget and Are Happy. :).

Capital G God here hasn’t been present for the vast part of human history because he’s hidden himself away from Everything due to paranoia from killing his own mother and throwing her body into the Cosmic Basement, THEN creating the beings that would come to create humanity and OTHER beings because he didn’t have the keys to the cosmic basement. And also he believes death is a thing because she’d’ve somehow cursed all things to pass(including him) out of Spite.

Which explains why he’s so fucking averse to it and anything to do with it.

Bhunivelze, to put it lightly, is Shit at stepping into others’ shoes and Getting their experiences-- All the FalCie in FFXIII are, but him especially. It’s clear(again, in the f u c k i n g JP--) that he makes attempts to sympathise with them and does what he can to help, but it’s with such a loftiness and a complete inability to Understand why anyone would want grief, The Worst Fucking Experience In Existence, and even less why they’d be willing to Go Up Against Him And HisThe New Perfect World just for it-- And what would it matter, anyway, forgetting their loved ones. It’s not like you can grieve lost memories, right?

Right.

It reminds me of when at the end of the story of Job in the Bible, where, after putting this man through hell on earth, God rewards Job by giving him ten new children to make up for the ones that he lost. I. And that’s fucked! Nothing can replace the sheer uniqueness of each individual person you loved so dearly! But if you were a nigh-omnipotent deity high and mighty, with a cursory, almost mechanical knowledge on the functionings of the human psyche, that would seem adequete; enough.

Bhunivelze is doing that on a cosmic level.

I now want to get onto the romance: that being, his affections for Lightning. I don’t know how much I’m going to say, but it’ll probably be alot. It’s something that hits very close to home.

There is this... thing, within certain branches of Christianity, perhaps even in those of various Abrahamic faiths, where God’s love is posited to be the love-- The ultimate, most-fulfilling, all-encompassing love you could ever imagine --Because, well, he is love, so the story goes, and so often the best way to convey that is through the imagery of...

Marriage.

Giving up yourself so completely, to serve, to be the Bride; to be bound by him for all eternity; and for there to be no higher bliss than this.

This angle is pushed on young girls and women the most; from the mere parallels to the woman’s role in marriage, all the way down to downright-horrifying ultra-Evangelical purity pacts. With men, God is your dad, your best bud and confidant, your boss, your king, your this, your that, and the ‘marriage‘ as it were is relegated to a sort of half-thought; a metaphor.

For me, God was an attempt at all that, and my arranged groom.

(It was almost incestuous; was incestuous, that my own Divine Father would reach for my hand in marriage.)

Bhunivelze experiences Emotions™ for the first time through Hope, experiences Hope’s sheer overwhelming admiration for Lighting(whether there were any baby-crush feelings mixed in, I can’t say), and promptly falls into a nigh-romantic obsession with Lightning, deciding that she will be Etro(his all-but daughter)’s replacement, will be his Goddess of Death to-be-- He even calls her as such, before the final boss-battle--

...In the JP.

What happened in localisation, probably due to a number of factors, all the way back in early 2014, was that everything emotionally challenging about Bhunivelze was scraped off, like it was extra fat, and tossed aside, leaving us with the bland, clichéd shell of a foe-god we’ve seen time and time again. And I mean everything. I mean his very love for humanity; the fact his ploy was, in his eyes, to save them. Because if they’d left that all on, then it would raise the question of even if there was such a seemingly pure, all-knowing, loving being hell-bent on setting things “straight,“ would they truly be unquestionable? Would we have the right to fight for our humanity in the face of the Creator of the Universe?

To reject a love so personal?

That’s what gets me about FFXIII’s tackling of God, no matter how hackneyed and poorly-executed. It’s personal.

It’s from a feminine experience.

I know that terming is... vague, and problematic, but the way Christianity and much of the video game industry handle femininity itself is weird and problematic, so as it stands, I’ll have to simplify it. Apologies.

What sets FFXIII’s Let’s Kill God™ plot aside from most JRPG Let’s Kill God™ plots is that with our protagonist being a woman, and one who is very in touch with her femininity alongside her sheer strength; often, in these stories, God is reduced to Yet Another Foe, expected or unexpected, and you are tasked with taking him down unquestioningly for the Good of Mankind-- You will fight God, because you are right to, and you will go man-to-man-to-however-many-men you decide to bring along for the bloodbath.

And that just, doesn’t speak to me.

Even as an Extian.

Especially as an Extian. And an AFAB one with a deeply complicated experience with my gender, at that.

Leaving Christianity was painful. Questioning God was painful. Coming to terms with the fact that I had been mentally, emotionally, and spiritually traumatised under the guise of All-Encompassing Love was so, so fucking painful. I had been taught since I was five years old to devote myself to him, spent my life desperate to feel something, anything, to stay connected because I just, I never could Feel It on a deeper level, never could Give Up Myself, all I was, couldn’t Die A Spiritual Death And Be Reborn As His Eager Vessel, thus deeming myself to be worthless and a broken vessel for years and years on end... And for all that to have been... Nothing.

Lightning is hollowed out, the shards of her dead sister ripped from her in-stasis, leaving her emotionally numb for the majority of the game, Bhunivelze sweeps it under the rug, pretends he’ll perform a miracle and return Serah to life in exchange for her compliance, then sends her on her way to do his work, all the while knowing he’s going to pull said-rug from under her and elevate her such dizzying heights in the aftermath--

That he’ll deny her humanity.

Sand down all the rough edges that make her her, and polish her up afterwards, gild her as he is gilded, make her a Goddess.

And he’ll do it all because he loves her.

You can’t fight God like you can everything else. To fight It is the fight Existence Itself; FFXIII even conveys that by making Bhunivelze’s model part of the arena; it’s baked into the fabric of the game, no matter how minute.

While Lightning Returns is far from perfect in its execution of this concept, and that in itself makes me wince, not even taking into account the horribly botched excuse for a localisation Bhunivelze endured, it speaks to me more than anything else I’ve seen so far.

And it’s helped uncover some things within me. Helped me untangle them, just a little more.

So, yeah. I have alot of Thoughts on Bhunivelze, I want to share them, and I’m kinda really sad I have no one but my currently-absent friend Vee to share them with. I could get into alot more, like his very Fucked relationship with familial bonds, and how Lightning’s role as saviour so deeply parallels the overwhelming panic and never-ending guilt of Evangelical proselytisation, but I think I’ll leave those for another time.

In short, Bhunivelze is the epitome of Divine Love gone deeply wrong; on all fronts.

And if all of that isn’t enough to intrigue you, then, in Vee’s words, Lightning and Velze are literally canon endgame Sefikura lmaOOOOOOOOOOOOOO--

#ffxiii #lightning returns #bhunivelze #analysis #scrawny speaks #scrawny rambles #this was written on and off over the course of a couple months #i know this will only get two notes #if even that #but fuck it i love this guy and i'm going to puke words for his sake #religion mention

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penny-anna · 3 years

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Hirsute (a tale in five acts)

The bard's shirt, loose-fitting as it was, had come untucked at the back, revealing a strip of pale skin – and a line of dark hair running down the base of his spine, dipping out of sight down below the waistband of his breeches and up behind his shirt and doublet. It was the heat, she’d reflect later, that made her so uncharacteristically loose-lipped. “Does it go all the way up?”

Five times Yennefer was curious about Jaskier's back hair and one time she had her curiosity sated.

(on Ao3!)

It was late summer, and sticky. Yennefer brought her own breeze with her into the tavern, ruffling her hair and the hem of her dress, ignoring the puzzled and fearful looks from the villagers.

Geralt was nowhere in sight. Jaskier was leaning over the bar, waiting lazily to be served. He gave her a cursory nod as she approached. Over the past months he’d grown rather more civil with her; more inclined to be coolly polite, rather than insult her to her face. She’d consider it an improvement, if she cared a whit how he talked to her.

His shirt, loose-fitting as it was, had come untucked at the back, revealing a strip of pale skin – and a line of dark hair running down the base of his spine, dipping out of sight down below the waistband of his breeches and up behind his shirt and doublet.

She’d had enough glimpses of his arms and legs and chest to know he was hairier than his boyish face would suggest. But this was – intriguing. She studied that sliver of hair, and wondered how far up it went.

Idly, she reached out to lift his shirt and take a peek.

Jaskier caught her wrist before she could lift it more than an inch. “What are you doing?” he drawled, either unamused or perhaps too muzzy from the heat to muster much of a reaction.

“Nothing,” said Yennefer sweetly, tugging her hand out of his grip. She looked again at his back. It was the heat, she’d reflect later, that made her so uncharacteristically loose-lipped. “Does it go all the way up?”

The bard stared at her over his shoulder. He stood up straight, and tucked his shirt back into his breeches with pointed and theatrical motions. “That,” he said, “is absolutely none of your business.”

It had been autumn for over a month, but the summer weather was lingering and the air was warm. She found Geralt out on the terrace, a map of the area spread out in front of him, making plans.

Jaskier was next to him, in his shirtsleeves, leaning over the table and studying the map with a pensive expression as if he actually understood any of what Geralt was doing.

“Morning,” said Geralt as she joined them. Jaskier raised his eyes, and said nothing. Looking back down at the map he rubbed the back of his neck.

The shirt he was wearing was cut low at the back. The short hairs at the nape of his neck ran down – down – underneath his shirt. Did it go all the way down, she wondered.

“It’ll be roosting somewhere in the hills,” Geralt was saying. “If you can help with a tracking spell we can find its nest – get in there while it’s asleep –” He went on talking, but she was only half listening. Monster hunts bored her. They all ran together after a while.

She watched the bard’s fingers move on the back of his neck, stroking his hair, and thought idly of putting her own fingers there.

“Yennefer?” said Geralt.

“Hm?” She glanced up – not quite quickly enough to keep Jaskier from catching her looking.

“What?” he said, touching his neck rather more self-consciously. “Am I sunburnt back there again?”

“Yes,” Yennefer lied. “You’re peeling. It’s disgusting.”

He felt the back of his neck. “I’m not,” he pronounced. “You liar.”

“Yennefer,” said Geralt. “The spell?”

“Yes, yes, I heard you,” she said. “I’ll have it for you this afternoon.”

“I don’t understand why you care.”

“I don’t care,” Yennefer insisted. “It’s just that it’s a very simple question. Men take off their clothes around each other all the time, don’t they? You’re completely shameless, as a group. You’ve known him twenty years. You must have seen him without his shirt.”

She was sitting up in bed, her back pressed to the headboard, the sheets draped across her lap. Geralt lay beside her, flat on his back, his eyes closed. “Yeah. Probably.”

“And?”

“And I didn’t make a study of his back hair.”

“But you’ve seen it,” said Yennefer. “You don’t need to make a study of it to notice how much there is.”

“Yeah, well,” he said, “I didn’t notice.”

“You’re being obstructive. It’s a simple question. Yes or no, out with it.”

“Hm.”

Geralt lay silent and motionless. If she couldn’t feel his mind humming away she might have thought he’d gone to sleep.

Then he said, “are you attracted to him?”

“What?” said Yennefer. “Why would you ask me that?”

“S’simple question.”

“Emphatically no,” she said. “Not in the slightest. I can’t imagine why you’d think that.”

“Just seem very interested in his naked body.”

“It’s purely a matter of scientific curiosity.”

“I don’t care,” Geralt said. “We’ve talked about this. You can fuck anyone you want.”

Yennefer scoffed. “Even your bard?”

“He’s not my bard,” said Geralt. “And yeah. If you want to sate your scientific curiosity go right ahead.”

“My curiosity could be sated tonight if you’d just tell me.”

“Already told you I don’t know.” There was a slight smile playing about his lips.

“You’re lying.”

“I’m going to sleep.”

He lapsed back into silence.

“Geralt,” she said. “Geralt. Witcher. I can tell when you’re lying.” She nudged at him with her foot. “Geralt!”

“M’sleeping.”

“You aren’t,” she said. “You swine.”

It was a simple plan, and obvious once she thought of it.

“Yennefer!” said the bard, flattening himself against the archway. “What brings you here?”

“Well, I was going to take a bath.” Yennefer wrapped her robe more tightly around herself. “How about you?”

“Just finished,” he said, trying to cover himself with his hands.

“I see.” She stepped to the side. “Don’t let me get in your way.”

“Actually, I think I shall head back to the cold bath for a bit.” He ducked his head back the way he’d come. “But, ah. Ladies first.”

“No – no,” she said, gesturing for him to go ahead. “You go on.”

“That would be contrary for the usual etiquette,” he said, motioning emphatically for her to go through the archway.

“You were here first,” she said. “You go.”

He repeated the motion. “I insist.”

“Well, so do I.”

He glanced over his shoulder. “I don’t mean to be rude,” he said. “But I’d prefer not to turn my back to you – especially in my nude and vulnerable state.”

“Why on earth not?”

“For fear you might lay a curse on me,” he explained. “Naturally.”

Yennefer leaned in closer. “I could lay a curse on you from any direction.”

“Yes, but at least from the front I’d be able to see it coming.” The bard adjusted his stance, still struggling to cover himself properly.

“Now you’ve offended me,” she said. “If you don’t go first I shall take it as a grievous insult.”

“Well, then, it appears we’re at an impasse.” He slouched back against the archway. “I can do this all day.”

“So can I,” said Yennefer. She stared at him. He stared back.

The air in the bathhouse was warm and steamy and smelled of sweat. The bard, conversely, smelled faintly of chamomile. In those long moments, waiting for him to break, she looked him up and down. He was an oddly put together man, she decided, his legs too long for his body and the thick hair on his chest and stomach clashing discordantly with his soft and boyish face. A strange combination of parts which, when put together, worked better than they had any right to.

She considered it. It was a large and cheap bathhouse and it was bound to be full of any number of dark corners a couple might hide themselves away in. He’d probably be up for it, assuming he didn’t think she was trying to hex him. And Geralt had given her his blessing.

The bard smacked his lips in thought, and then – think of the devil – raised his head and said over her shoulder, “Geralt! Hi.”

“Hm?” She turned to look.

There was nobody there. In the moment it took her to register that she’d been had, and humiliatingly so, there was a rapid pattering of footsteps on damp tiles and when she turned back to the archway he was gone.

“For fuck’s sake,” she said to herself.

“How would you gentleman feel about making this a little more,” Yennefer paused for dramatic effect, “interesting?”

Jaskier touched his hand to his chest. “Yennefer,” he said. “Are you proposing we gamble?”

“In a sense.”

“Well, unfortunately for you, I’m not a gambling man,” he said.

“Yeah, you are,” said Geralt.

“No I’m not.”

“You gamble all the time.”

“Well,” said Jaskier, more emphatically. “Tonight I am not a gambling man, on the grounds that, tragically, I have no money.”

“That isn’t the only way to gamble,” said Yennefer. “There’s other ways.”

Jaskier rested his elbow on the table and stared at her. “Are you proposing,” he said, “that we play strip dice?”

“I am indeed.”

They exchanged glances. Jaskier shrugged. “Yeah, alright,” he said. “Sounds fun. I’m in.”

“Yeah, I’m in,” said Geralt.

“Wonderful,” said Yennefer.

This was a good plan, she’d decided. She’d had no doubt Jaskier would be game, being as be acted like a teenager most of the time and had very little shame about his naked body. Anyway, she’d found that he was amenable to most things when he was drunk. Really, he was far more agreeable and pleasant to be around when he had a few drinks in him.

The tricky part of her plan, of course, was ensuring that he lost enough rounds to get him into a state of undress without raising his suspicions – or, more likely, raising Geralt’s suspicions, as the witcher was far more attuned to both witchcraft and trickery. She would also have to ensure that she lost a round or two, enough to look genuine, but not so many that she’d have to show any skin. She’d made a point of wearing a lot of accessories.

It all very smoothly, at first. She shed her jewellery, piece by piece. Jaskier lost his ring, and then his boots and stockings, and then his doublet. One more loss, and then all she’d have to do was leave the room to fetch more wine and she could take a look at his back.

Jaskier rolled the dice. “Ah,” he said. “Snake-eyes.”

“Ha,” said Geralt, shirtless and bootless. “I win.”

“Off with it, then,” said Yennefer.

The bard sighed. “If I must,” he said, reaching for the hem of his shirt. Yennefer sat forward in anticipation, watching him strip it off, and –

He was wearing another shirt underneath. An entire second shirt, in a slightly creamier shade of white. She stared in disbelief as he dropped his shed shirt on the bench beside him. For a moment she wondered if he might, somehow, be onto her.

“You’re wearing two shirts?” she blurted out.

“Hm?” Jaskier blinked at her, puzzled and guileless. “Um, no? I was wearing one. Now I’m not wearing any.”

“Then what is that?” she said, pointing.

Jaskier looked down at himself. “Doublet,” he said, picking it up from the bench and dumping it on the table. “Shirt.” He dumped his white shirt beside his doublet, and plucked at the one he was still wearing. “Chemise.” He lifted its hem, revealing – by all the Gods – a further layer of clothing. “Vest.”

Yennefer stood up so forcefully that her chair clattered to the floor behind her and said, “you have another layer under there?”

Jaskier looked at his linen-clad belly. “Evidently,” he said, and dropped the hem of his chemise. “It’s cold.”

Yennefer stared at him, breathing hard, studying his mind for any hint of deceit, any sign that he had done this intentionally. To all appearances he hadn’t a clue why she cared. It was unbearable. She couldn’t bear it. She wouldn’t bear it.

“I’m going to bed,” she snapped, stepping away from the table. She didn’t bother to right her chair.

From the hallway, she heard Jaskier remark, “that was weird.”

+ 1.

Hmm,” said Yennefer, running her fingers down the line of hair that ran along Jaskier’s spine. “Hm. Mmm-hm.”

He was lying on his stomach, his face squashed up against the pillow, his eyes closed. “Hm?”

She toyed with the dark hairs at the small of his back. It really did go all the way down, an unbroken line from the nape of his neck to his buttocks. Deeply satisfying. “I’m just thinking.”

“Oh, yes,” he said. “Is your curiosity sated, then?”

Yennefer’s fingers stilled. “My what?”

Jaskier shifted, turning to face her. He opened one eyes. “Your unbearable curiosity about my back hair,” he said. “Is it sated?”

She resumed trailing her fingers along his spine. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Geralt said you were asking about it.”

“I can’t imagine why he’d say a thing like that.”

“Oh, yes,” said Jaskier. “Do you like it?”

“It’s fine,” said Yennefer, fingering the soft hairs at his nape.

He stretched, and sighed. “I must say, it’s not the part of me that ladies usually want to fondle,” he said. “But I’m not complaining. That feels quite nice. Do go on.” Shutting his eyes he settled back down on the pillow.

Yennefer tugged hard on the hairs at the base of his spine.

“Hey – ow!” He pouted. “Mean.”

“I’ll show you mean,” she said. “I shall hex it off. See how you like that.”

“Hex away,” he said, his eyes closed, smirking. “You’ll be the one who’ll miss it.”

Abandoning her exploration of his back, Yennefer settled down on the pillow. She studied his face, his eyelashes, the curve of his lips. “I despise you,” she said fondly.

#the witcher #yennefer of vengerberg #yennskier #jaskier

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sl-walker · 3 years

Text

Thoughts on The Unwilling Apprentice

Okay, so the resplendent @xiamei-sami -- bringer of excellent gifs -- brought forth another treasure, which is ostensibly ‘new’ backstory for Maul. You can find it linked in this post here. I read it myself a couple weeks ago and have thought about it and, of course, developed opinions about it, but thanks to the whole work thing, haven’t been able to put those down yet.

So, spoilers ahead! Beware! If those bug you, anyway.

Okay, so. There are a few things I liked about it and then some that I was scratching my head about, and then there were some that were just stupid and the author should be ashamed of accepting money for. But since I’m in a reasonably charitable mood, I’ll start with what I liked.

1.) Maul was not born evil. And, in fact, was portrayed here as a perfectly darling kid who did chores and liked hanging around in nature like the actual Disney princess he is. For people who prefer canon over Legends -- though, this story’s relationship with canon is tenuous at best -- it’s nice to have something to point to and go, “Hey, he wasn’t actually inherently evil!” I mean, Legends proved that with Wrath, but now we have two sources for it.

2.) He was shown as being very much in tune with the Living Force. Frankly, the reason I liked this was because I wrote that years ago, dude, and I did it better than you lol, but still, it’s nice when something quasi-canonish does the same thing years after you and with less skill. XD It just is.

Anyway, those were really the only things I actually liked liked.

Now onto the headscratchers:

Where the fuck is canon? For real. Suddenly, we have Nightbrothers living with Nightsisters and there’s no mention whatsoever of their marginalization which is ??? It sort of loosely follows Son of Dathomir, in terms of Talzin being Mother of the Year by kicking her son out and ignoring him being abused by other people, because supposedly Sids offered to make her his apprentice and ??? Profit!

Like, I do seriously LOL anytime anyone tries to portray Talzin as some kind of decent person. I mean, we did watch her feeling Savage up and being complicit in making him murder her other son, and then there’s the fuckery she pulled on Maul, too, and yet somehow there are still people out there who act like she was a great mother. Boy, have I got a bridge for you!

But anyway. This had, at its very best, a very fucking cursory relationship to current recognizable canon. Maul had a brother in this story, but then all those years later just forgot?? What??

So, have that headscratcher. Now, let’s go into why the author should feel bad about accepting money for this:

1.) The canon thing. The lack of canon connection. Completely ignoring that the Nightbrothers are actual canon slaves holy shit. How do you ignore that? Like, how do you not acknowledge that?? Even current Disney canon does! Admittedly, I do believe this story is meant for school kids, but like-- my dude. So was TCW, and they’re the ones who explicitly stated it. There are ways to make this canon without ignoring swathes of it for supposedly school-age readers.

2.) The motivation for Maul ‘going dark’ makes-- exactly no fucking sense. It’s basically just a literal adoptive-parent abuse story, which is lazy as fuck, btw. He basically gets beat up a lot. There is not, as there is in Legends, a very notable and concerted effort to twist his perceptions and manipulate him. His mom kicks him out (Mother of the Year!), he gets beat up by the adopting family, he learns how to use the Force and fights back.

One of the reasons this annoys me is that it’s lacking all of the clever work Ryder Windham did in Wrath to not only portray Maul as an inherently sweet kid trapped in truly horrific circumstances, but draw an absolutely credible mental roadmap of how you would take that inherently sweet kid and twist him into a Sith assassin. And in case anyone’s wondering? Wrath of Darth Maul was meant to be a YA book.

Like, I hate to tell this guy this, but most people who are abused do not, in fact, turn into villains. Most people also don’t turn into abusers themselves. So without the manipulation that Ryder depicts, and that Luceno and the others touch on, it just seems kind of like-- he needed an excuse and went with the cheapest, laziest version of Disney he could.

But this brings me to the next point, which is the most egregious point for me:

3.) The author puts the responsibility for Maul being taken and abused by Sidious on Maul himself.

If there was one thing that made Legends absolutely spectacular, re: Maul, it was that never once did Ryder Windham imply, even a little bit, that little Maul had ever asked for or deserved what happened to him at Sid’s hands. At no point did any of the authors who handled Maul pre-Disney imply that he would choose what was done to him if he’d ever actually been given a choice. And to me -- and to a lot of other abuse survivors -- this kind of thing is a Big Deal. It’s a really damned important distinction to make.

But no, in this story, Maul actually chooses to be Sidious’s apprentice.

W. T. F., dude. What the actual fuck, dude.

I guess I should write this out for anyone who might not know it, but taking a character who in canon was stated to have no choice in it and suddenly giving them responsibility for their own victimization is highly fucked up.

Anyway, that there is some lousy writing. Just sayin’.

So, there is my opinion and thoughts. There are some things I liked, there are some things that were just confusing and then there was shit like the immediate above that means the author should be slapped around a parking lot a few times. I probably would not kick if people did adopt it as their canon backstory, because it’s still better than the crazy shit people currently assume, like that Maul was somehow born dark.

But please, for the love of god, I am not even kidding about this: If you really want to understand and write a genuinely interesting, nuanced version of Maul, and have a pretty damned cohesive, tragic and psychologically more realistic backstory to build on, stick to his Legends materials. Those guys who did it first actually did do it best, and this latest offering is very milquetoast by comparison, when it’s not a turd wrapped in paper.

#maul #the unwilling apprentice #my opinions #let me share them #>:)

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matthewtkachuk · 4 years

Text

how to mend a broken heart: step one - rafe cameron

Breaking Rafe Cameron’s bones didn’t work, but your plan to break his heart did. You falling for him too and having your heart shatter as collateral was an unexpected side effect. Ever the schemer, JJ’s come up with a new five step plan to mend what was broken.

co-authored with my love, freya @rekrappeter

pairing: Rafe Cameron x reader, unrequited!JJ x reader

warnings: angst, starting a relationship under false pretences, drinking and drug use

word count: 2.5k

a/n: and here’s step one, listen to the part two playlist on the series masterlist for maximum effect :). please please please leave us feedback, freya and i read every comment and cry, love you guys so much!!

“This is ridiculous, Pope,” you pouted, arms crossed over your chest as you leaned against him on John B’s sofa. You were pointedly ignoring JJ, equal parts furious for his part in your heartbreak and frustrated that he had tried to kiss you. The you of only a few months ago would have probably died for JJ to confess, the thought of pressing your lips together used to make you dizzy. Now, you were angry, and annoyed, and sad, and you wanted nothing more than to return to under the comforter where you had made your home for the past week as you cried.

“I have to agree,” Kie piped up from her spot at the kitchen table, “two weeks ago we were plotting to break his heart and now you want us to believe you’re interested in fixing things?”

“Look,” JJ started, screwing his eyes closed for a split second to gather his thoughts, “I don’t give a flying fuck about Rafe Cameron, but I care about you, y/n. You’re my best friend and I hate how the last plan panned out, but I want to make it up to you.” His eyes were focused on you, ignoring the other pogues staring at him.

Your lip wobbled as you avoided his stare, “You made it pretty clear how you felt about me on that beach, JJ.”

JJ sucked in a deep breath, looking at Pope for some silent advice but his friend gave him a doubtful look. He glanced at you again, noting your legs curling into your chest and how your eyes were raw and puffed. He hated that it was his fault that you were like this. “y/n,” JJ sighed, he closed the space between your bodies, kneeling down on the floor in front of you and gathering your hands in his larger ones, “You know me, you know me more than anyone in this room. You know I’m a little bit stupid, that I don’t think everything through, that I’m a liability sometimes..”

“And the rest,” Kie chimed in, but closed her lips when JJ shot an annoyed glare in her direction.

“You’re not stupid,” slipped out before you could stop it, years of reassuring the volatile blond before you having conditioned you to respond, “but you hurt me, and then you used my feelings for you against me.”

“That’s not-” he sighed, stopping himself before he could run his mouth again, knowing that of all times, you would not be impressed with his impatience. He looked around at your friends again, “Look, we can talk about that night in more detail later, just know that I’ve actually thought this thing through and I want to help you. Even Pope thinks it’s not a terrible idea.”

You turned to look at Pope sitting beside you, expecting him to deny JJ’s claim, but Pope nodded slightly in acknowledgement, causing you to sigh. “Alright, hit me.”

JJ smiled, crooked teeth on display, before letting go of your hands to get up and cross over to the forgotten chalkboard, spinning it around to reveal his five-step plan to mend your broken heart. You rolled your eyes at the childish doodles around the list, including but not limited to several broken hearts, one of which had a bandaid closing the gap between the two halves. You scanned the five steps he outlined, confused by what was written. You were about to question the last step, when he dramatically stepped forward, holding his arms wide open.

“Step one: tell the truth, see it through.”

You were standing outside on the back porch, leaning against the railing like you had so many weeks ago when the first plan had begun. JJ was leaning on the railing beside you, and the silence was starting to drive you mad.

“So,” you stated simply, eyes scanning the horizon. There was a light breeze that rustled your hair around your shoulders and JJ found himself looking at your side profile as you looked out.

“So,” he repeated uselessly, fidgeting with his hands.

“You said we could talk about that night in detail later, well it’s later and you need to start talking,” you told him.

He sighed, uncomfortably shifting his weight from his left foot to his right and back, “I didn’t tell you I love you just because of what we have, i-it’s different. You read all those shitty online stories about best friends becoming lovers and it comes with so much complications-”

“And I’m not worth that?” you ask, crossing your arms in front of your chest.

“N-no, that’s not what I meant,” JJ spluttered out, “My mom left, my dad’s… well you know about that, and fuck, y/n, you’re all I have left. If it didn’t work out and I lost you…”

“Well, look how that turned out,” you snapped, “you nearly lost me anyway.”

“Nearly?” He asked, the slight lilt of hope shining through his voice.

You looked up, eyes rolled to the sky, “you’re my best friend, J, and I don’t want to lose you anymore than you want to lose me.” A smile tugged at the corner of JJ’s lips, but you raised your hand to stop him from grinning, “I’m not saying I forgive you for what you did, what I’m saying is that I’m not going to let Rafe Cameron come between us, no matter how I feel about him.”

“Okay…” JJ trailed off.

“And that goes both ways. If we’re doing this, you can’t argue with me over my feelings for him anymore. I’m telling you now, I love Rafe a-and if this works, I’m going to be with him.”

JJ tried to hide the grimace that graced his face but he failed miserably, making you groan in annoyance. “No, y/n, I promise. I’ll try, I’ll try my god damn hardest if it means I still have you in my life because I don’t know what I’d do if you weren’t in it.”

“You’d probably be stuck in jail.” You giggled, and JJ lit up at the sound. He hadn’t heard you laugh in at least a week, if not longer and it filled the hole in his chest a little.

“Probably,” he shrugged, offering his hand to you with the intention of starting your secret handshake, but you pulled on his arm and pulled him in for a brief hug.

“I haven’t forgiven you yet,” you told him sternly as you pulled away, poking his chest, “you’re going to have to earn it.”

“Noted.”

Finding Rafe was easy.

It was nearing sundown and you had a strong feeling you knew exactly where he would be. There was something soothing, calming, about watching the sun set over the cliffedge where he had confided in you about his mom. You spotted him when you pulled up, sitting on the hood of his truck. The fading sunlight cast a glow against his face that had you shielding your eyes as you approached. Your heart skipped a beat at the sight of him for the first time in a week. You had gone from seeing him every day, wrapped in his arms to nothing, not even a cursory text or notification.

Getting Rafe to hear you out was harder.

The utter look of betrayal that mirrored his expression only a week ago greeted you when he turned around. You felt your heart clench at the knowledge that your actions were responsible for such loathing in his eyes. That you had been the one to hurt him and cause him pain. You hadn’t seen him look this devastated since that day that you had sat on his lap and held his face in your hands as he shared the most traumatic event of his life with you. Without realizing, your eyes had filled with tears, the tip of your nose burning at the sensation.

“What are you doing here?” he asked harshly, “I thought I told you to never speak to me again.”

You close your eyes and tilt your head up to keep the tears from spilling, “I know, I just. I wanted to tell you the truth, all of it.” You want to explain to him, really explain to him, until he understands that while it had started out with poor intentions you had really fallen in love with him. That he owned your entire heart, held it in his hands, and controlled its fate.

“JJ painted a pretty accurate portrait of it all, I think.” He replied, tone still unpleasant. Your stomach dropped, you knew he would be upset and angry, but a small part of you had hoped he would be open to listening to you.

“Just hear me out, please listen to me. You can tell me to fuck off after I’m done, and I’ll leave you alone.” You say, completely genuine. If he really wanted nothing to do with you, you would respect that. It would hurt like hell, but you would understand. You could only imagine if the roles had been reversed, if Topper or Kelce had cornered you and told you the entire thing had just been some bet to break your heart.

When Rafe didn’t reply, you slowly closed the gap between you, lifting yourself up onto his truck, you felt him stiffen beside you and let out an exhale of annoyance. “You know what, y/n? I can’t even look at you right now.”

“I-I understand that, Rafe, but this week has been one of, if not, the worst week of my life-”

Rafe scoffed, cutting you off, and his hands balled into fists on his lap. “You don’t have the right to shove that in my face, I fell in love with a girl that was playing me. I thought you were different but you’re exactly like those other pogues. You’re no better than who you thought I was.” You feel the white hot guilt spread across your body uncomfortably as you consider his words. When this had all started, you never thought you would succeed at actually breaking his heart, didn’t really even consider that he had one. More importantly, you never thought you would succeed at crushing your own heart in the process.

“What I did, what we did as a group, was wrong and I know that now but I got so caught up in the whole island feud that I wasn’t thinking right,” you sighed, “I never thought I’d get you to fall in love with me, I thought it was something I’d do for a week and then give up, but-”

“But you succeeded.” He states simply, arms crossed as he cuts off your rambling.

“But I fell in love with you, Rafe. The whole thing backfired, and I ended up breaking my own heart in the process.” You can hear the desperation taking over your tone of voice, recognizing his closed off body language as an indication that this conversation was about to be over before it had really begun.

“That’s really great, y/n, thanks for the insight.” Rafe retorted, rolling his eyes and jumping from the bonnet. His tone was raw and hateful, and it felt like a knife pushing through your chest as he walked away from you, again.

You followed him, protesting for him to stop but he wasn’t listening. He opened the driver’s door, and you mustered up the courage to slam it shut with all your force, making him swing his head to look at you bewildered. Tears were brimming in the corner of his eyes, his chest heaving heavily with every breath he took. “What more do you want from me, y/n? I listened, I processed, and the only thing I got from that was that you didn’t even apologize for what you did!”

Watching the tears slide down his cheeks made you speechless, you did truly break his heart. “I-I thought…” You mumbled, and he shook his head in disappointment.

“I thought you were different, you did a great job playing someone you’re not.” He’s looking at you and it’s like he’s seeing you for the first time and doesn’t like what is in front of him. You shrink a little under his heated gaze, so similar to that first night you spent together but yet millions of miles of distance between then and now.

“Rafe, you don’t understand. When I was with you, that was the real me. Yo-you fell in love with me,” you whispered, taking a step closer to him and reaching for his hand but he pulled it away. “Just know, that every moment we spent together, I fell deeper in love with you.”

Rafe Cameron has never been loved before. No one has ever told him how much they loved him for who he was. His own family found it an effort to love him, and looking at you right now, declaring your love for him with tears streaming down your cheeks, he couldn’t help but think that maybe not being loved was a good thing. You never had to deal with the heartache and unexpected complications that came to giving yourself to someone. The only time he experienced true love was when you were lying underneath him, the softest smile on your face and you kissed the palm of his hand, in that moment, he felt on top of the world. But his world came shattering down when JJ Maybank found him that day. He wasn’t sure if he could survive another heartbreak.

“Have a good life, y/l/n,” he muttered without sparing you another glance, successfully navigating his way into the driver side of his vehicle as you stood uselessly beside it, tears falling from your eyes.

You stood there watching as he drove away, not moving from your spot until the truck had turned the corner, disappearing from your sight entirely. Rubbing away at your eyes and at the tear tracks on your cheeks, you were despondent at the prospect of Rafe Cameron never forgiving you and having walked out of your life for good this time. Fuck this plan, fuck the other plan, you thought angrily to yourself, walking back to your car. And especially fuck JJ Maybank, as you drove away from the cliffside that had meant so much to you. You found yourself wishing, not for the first time and likely not for the last time, that you had listened to Pope in the first place and never gone through with the stupid bet in the first place. Sure you would have never known Rafe’s love, but you also would have never known this heartbreak.

htbah taglist (link in the series masterlist!!):

@solllaris @drewswannabegirl @starrystarkey93 @httpstarkey @sweetlysilent @drewstarkey @dontjinx-it @ultranikilove @spencereidbasis @meaganjm @starlightstarkey @thortheestallion @jiaraendgame @idocarealot @tempestuousjj @pink-meringues @dpaccione @arianabrashierstuff @softstarkey @loveylangdon @xenagzb @teenwaywardasgardian @prejudic3 @nxsmss @canibeoneofthepogues @outerbanksbro @obx-direction-sos @nqbmf @digniteas @annedub @colorful-queen-of-the-roses @yesp0ny @loveniallandharryonedirection @fantasticpsychicfanfish @girls-breaking-hearts @beautyandthebleh @casper17 @mozz-are-lla @parkershoco @unfortunatekiwitrash @loverofmineluke @slutforjjmaybank @skiesofthesketchy @httpstarkey @sugarcoatedcalum @amorisxx @trinnwazheree @stargazingstarkey @obx-saltlife @juliarose21 @hyperactive2411 @mcarignan @feyrecauldron-blessed @sportygal55 @popcrone818 @wtfkie @raekenliar @letsgotothehop @walkingtothesun @outerbanksbro @summerkaulitz @glux64 @itslilithsstuff @kaitieskidmore1 @mycowatemyhw @poguepunk @routledgebaby @teenwolfobx @pancakefancake @princessnnylzays @onlygetaway @hoodpankow @shawnswife2004 @glittercoveredsouls @fangirlvoice

rodeo rafe babies who said they were interested:

@royalmerchant @outerbankslut @honeyycheek @jellyfishbeansontoast @ilovejjmaybank @kindahavefeelingskindaheartless @girlsru1eboysdroo1 @https-luna @butgilinsky @rae131415

diverdcwn everything taglist:

@velyssaraptor @danicarosaline @copper-boom @x-lulu @prejudic3 @downbytheouterbanks @ilovejjmaybank @bricksatanakinswindow @jellyfishbeansontoast @sunwardsss @rudyypankow @im-a-stranger-thing @alexa-playafricabytoto @hoodpankow @sortagaysortahigh @socialwriter @euphoricheyward @anxietyandtacos @diverrdown @stargazingstarkey @rafej-cambanks @stfukie

#rafe cameron x reader #rafe cameron x you #rafe cameron imagine #rafe cameron fanfiction #rafe obx #rafe x you #rafe x reader #rafe x y/n #rafe cameron x y/n #rafe imagine #rafe fanfiction #rafe cameron #rafe cameron angst #rafe cameron series #freyby writes #diverdcwn writes #htmabh

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prideandpen · 3 years

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this is just one poor writer’s take but I honestly kind of hate when I see articles/posts/etc where a writer talks about how they took some class or another for x number of weeks for the sake of more ‘realistic’ research for their novel.

Like. First. it must be nice to have money like that. Where you can just up and take a few classes on fencing or ballet or horseback riding for a couple weeks in order to (marginally) improve the way you depict something in your writing. That seems unrealistic for most writers but those posts and articles are always framed like “why doesn’t everyone do this?” which I hate.

But also, most of the time the people who write these posts/articles really only seem to take these classes for a few weeks or months. And I just have a hard time believing that a more significant enough amount of information can be learned in a handful of in-person classes (that most writer’s couldn’t afford to take for the sake of their writing anyway!) that can’t otherwise be learned through text-based research. Yet so often when i see these posts/articles it’s framed as though it’s necessary for people to research by doing like this.

Now I’m sure there probably are things that you’ll learn/discover/realize by researching the actual act of fencing/ballet/horseback riding/etc that you might not have if you only had a cursory amount of research on something that you previously had no interest in, but I also feel like most writers who include something like fencing/ballet/horseback riding/etc in their story will have a pre-existing interest in it before deciding to write about it which means even if they haven’t gotten to their active-research yet they probably have tons of passive-research under their belt through other forms of media and have already started to pick up on what works or doesn’t and what is realistic or isn’t, couple that with some active research in the depths of the internet and talking with people who take those sort of classes as an actual hobby rather than a well off writer getting several weeks of classes and you’ll probably come away with equal if not better quality.

I just. as a poor writer who understands that most writer’s are not financially well off it really just rubs me the wrong way whenever I see those posts/articles about a writer who took a (probably expensive) class to make their writing realistic. I don’t blame them for taking the class - I too would love to take more classes on fun things that interest me. It’s just the way it gets framed really. This is what you should be doing, it won’t come across realistically if you haven’t experienced it. Especially since for quite a few of those types of classes you might take for getting realistic research you’re really never going to be able to reach the skill level you’re likely trying to depict in your writing over the course of a few weeks anyway

#a rant #look this is an arguably unimportant rant so please don't come at me if you disagree #I just keep seeing one or two posts like that floating around and it drives me crazy #so I needed to vent my frustrations #writeblr #maybe I shouldn't even tag this? oh well

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ko-fanatic · 3 years

Text

Blood, Guts and Chocolate Cake

Rating: Mature

Fandom: Danganronpa

Pairings: IshiMondo

Summary:

Mondo Owada, the Ultimate Bodyguard, is entering a four year contract with one Kiyotaka Ishimaru, the Ultimate Idol. It makes sense, two Ultimates put together for their high school careers, and he could use the steady pay check to send home to Daiya; those medical bills were a bitch, and it was his fault the accident happened in the first place.

It was supposed to be easy, guard the cutesy, clean-cut idol from perverts and stalkers, no big deal! However, the world's perception of Kiyotaka Ishimaru was far different than what the young idol had become. During the first few months before even stepping into Hope's Peak, he's more worried for the young boy than he's ever been for anyone before.

TW: Alcohol, and eating disorders (both restrictive behaviours and B/P), mentions of disability, underage sex/sexualisation, drugs

The hallways of this damn building were too long.

That was definitely the first impression Mondo got, being led down said monotonous hallways by a young woman with an expression which implied that she simply wasn’t paid enough to care about small talk. Not that he had any room to judge, hands shoved in his pockets and a permanent scowl on his face. He might’ve been going to review an upcoming contract, but the best thing about his position was that there was no need to be all smiley; Hope Peak’s choice for Ultimate Bodyguard was all the credentials he needed at this point.

Still, he couldn’t help but feel a bit intimidated by how long he would be working with these record label types. He couldn’t deny it made sense - hire the Ultimate Bodyguard to protect the Ultimate Idol, sound logic; it was just that a four year contract was… a lot. That wasn’t even thinking about the fact he was going to be glued to the guy’s hip for all that time, having to get along no matter what. Would he even have time to make friends of his own? Doubtful. Still, a paycheck was a paycheck, and he’d have to go to some highschool anyway, so kill two birds with one stone.

He’d never had an issue smiling through vapid celebrity bullshit before. It was going to be an easy ride, too; from what he knew, the guy was as prim and proper as they came. Real boy next door image. Easy to take care of, and mainly just telling overzealous fans to back the fuck up. Simple.

His inner monologue was broken by an abrupt stop, the woman only sending a bored glance his way before knocking. The door was pushed ajar with the quiet muttering of “Mondo Owada to see you, gentlemen”, before he was unceremoniously shepherded into the room.

It was just as big as you’d expect from a building like this, with a gargantuan desk and several business-types sitting across from him. They were even backlit by a floor-to-ceiling window showing Tokyo in all its glory - like some cheesy ass movie. Still, taking a cursory glance around the room, he couldn’t see anyone fitting the description of “teen idol”, let alone Ishimaru himself...

“Owada-san, good afternoon!” One of the men greeted cheerfully, clasping his hand in one of those firm yet professional grips he’d gotten used to since rising up in his career, “My name is Shiro Kamei, and these gentlemen are Kenshin Aki and Yutaka Hayashida. We’re Kiyotaka Ishimaru-san’s managers.”

“Well, that answers one question,” He shrugged, not sugarcoating his words, but not being as rude as he certainly could be, “But I don’t see Ishimaru-san around. If I’m meeting with anyone, I personally think it should be with the guy I’m gonna be with 24/7, for the next four years.”

“Of course!” Kamei-san chirped, far too cheerful for his taste, especially considering the stench of ass-kissing that followed it. Not sincere, but too many meetings like this one had trained him to swallow down the vomit that threatened to spew from the fakeness of it all.

“Ishimaru-san will be here soon,” Hyashida-san intoned, temperament a bit more palatable than Mr Chipper, “He’s a rather busy young man, being an idol of his caliber. Dance practice is just wrapping up, any minute now, so we can use this time to have a little chat - go through expectations for your role and such.”

Mondo managed to stop himself raising an eyebrow at that. Like he wasn’t the best bodyguard in Japan. He guessed it was something needed for a job of this sort, not temping or whatever, and so he settled down for a bunch of timewasting jabber.

Or, it was, until a certain request caught his attention.

“We also expect him to be kept out of, well… trouble…”

“Thought he was a cutesy, innocent kid?” He frowned, sitting a little straighter in his seat, attention piqued, “I’m guessing he’s the kind to get mouth-breathers and creeps, huh?”

The three men looked a little more caged at that remark. A couple cleared throats, a few tugged collars and cuffs, awkward air.

“Yes, there have been incidents, but nothing previous security couldn’t handle,” Aki-san informed, “The issue is a recent change in attitude. Nothing much, but tugging on the leash more than necessary, if you understand my meaning.”

He did. Part of him wanted to object to the idea that a sixteen year old needed to be kept on a leash at all, but idol shit was full of PR.

“So boy next door is going through a little rebellion, and you want me to make sure it stays on the DL,” He shrugged, “Got it.”

“I wouldn’t put it like that, Owada-san -!”

Kamei-san was interrupted by several short, sharp raps, door opening to reveal the man of the hour.

Ishimaru was pretty, no denying that. His eyes were what really caught everyone’s attention; bright, wide and doll-like. That said nothing about his facial structure - cheekbones and jawline and everything prominent - or his barbie doll-esque frame. He was probably one of the slimmest people Mondo had ever seen, at least in person. Well, and outside of a hospital. The media went absolutely gaga over his thigh gap, his lithe abs and delicate hip bones.

He personally prefers a little more meat on the bones, a little less fragile, but he guessed it was an idol’s job to appeal to the masses.

“Good morning, everybody!” He beams, but honestly? The sunshine emanating from him is a lot warmer - a lot more real - than Kamei-san. He actually had to take a second to come back to himself, knocked off equilibrium. The power of the Ultimate Idol, for you.

“Kiyotaka, this is Mon -”

“Mondo Owada,” He cuts in, wanting to introduce himself, cut the preamble, and offers his hand to shake, “‘M gonna be the one guarding you.”

Ishimaru gives him a once over, and for two seconds he thinks he sees a smirk pull at the corner of the young man’s lips, but he soon brushes it off as a trick of the light.

“Thank you so much for accepting our proposition, Owada-san!” He grins, and Mondo hates his little bi heart at that moment. Ishimaru clasps his hand. He can’t help but feel that they’re too calloused for a pretty boy idol, but he doesn’t dwell on it, “I hope we get along well!”

He’s loud, but the words are sweet, and Mondo relaxes a little bit. Easy job, as he thought.

---

Mondo was proven wrong in a matter of three days into his contract. He’d certainly been proven wrong far quicker than that before; however, in terms of sheer what-the-fuckery-is-this, this situation took the cake.

The train journey to the first tour destination wasn’t bad, if tedious. Kid spent all his time reading, and Mondo had no clue how he didn’t puke all over the place from staring at the pages. He’d looked at his phone for about five minutes and was ready to lie down and accept his death.

… Trains were not his prefered method of transportation…

Ishimaru had passed on the sandwiches on offer, but so did Mondo. No big deal. Those things sucked ass, and maybe the kid was more nauseous than he seemed. Wish that was him, considering he was pretty sure his face was pale green.

Settling into the hotel was fine, as was the tech set up in the venue. Stress emanating off everyone, but pretty normal as far as that shit was concerned. Ishimaru was dragged between costume fittings, tech run throughs and other things that just passed in a blur.

No, what really proved to Mondo that the pretty boy idol was going through an actual rebellious phase, was what he walked in on at 11:56pm, night three.

He’d gotten up due to a serious inability to sleep. Seriously, did he manage to get jet lag without even switching time zones? Nah, didn’t work like that. Maybe it was second hand adrenaline from the performance being tomorrow. Ishimaru might not make his kind of music, but the guy had this infectious enthusiasm for it all. He’d be backstage, too; premo location to see everything up close. He couldn’t help the slight smile on his face, in spite of how tired he felt.

Any fleeting, fuzzy feelings disappeared, however, when he walked into the main area of their hotel suite.

There stood Ishimaru, back to him, very much not dressed for bed. His jeans were so tight they looked spray painted on, not to mention the sequined top that cut off to show a tantalising flash of milky pale skin.

“Where’re you off to?”

His question seemed to startle the kid, who practically jumped three feet in the air, hand clutching his chest as he whirled on him.

“Fuck, what’s your problem?” He gasped out. Mondo couldn’t help but let his eyes widen, having not heard the boy swear since they met. Admittedly, it was only a few days, but Ishimaru just gave off such an innocent vibe. He’d questioned if the boy even knew a swear word for a while.

“The guy I’m meant to protect is running off into the city at midnight, and obviously didn’t plan to tell me,” He answered bluntly, “So, come on, where’re you trying to slink off to?”

“None of your business,” He sniffed, shoulders squaring, “And stop… talking to me like that. Like I’m a child. It’s annoying as shit.”

“Alright, sor-ry, jeez,” He apologised, hands up in surrender, “Let me just grab my coat and -”

“No!” Ishimaru ground out, “I’m going out, you're staying here, and my managers are none the wiser, got it?”

Oh, that sneaky fucker. While Mondo was all for personal freedom, no way was the scrawny kid going out there to get attacked and murdered in some urine soaked alleyway. For one, it’d completely fuck up his plans for the next four years - no money to send back to Daiya, and he seriously doubted Hope’s Peak would want an Ultimate Bodyguard who let the world’s most popular idol get murdered in a matter of days.

“Yeah, no, not happening, kid,” He shut down, reaching over the boy to get his coat, only for hands to press against his chest, stopping him.

“What do you want then? Money?” Ishimaru asked, looking up at him through his lashes. Fuck, the kid really went all out with the makeup; smokey eyeshadow and liner, glossed lips, the whole deal, “Or I can suck your dick?”

He nearly choked at that, face hot as hell and probably an embarrassing shade of red. “N-No! What the fuck?!” He yelled, only earning a shrug in response.

“Look, I need to go out - alone,” Ishimaru began again, arguing a point Mondo simply wasn’t going to agree with, “I need to get a little fucked up, railed into some guy’s mattress, and then I’ll come back. I’ll be here again before sunrise.”

“Tugging on the leash more than necessary”, his ass!

“Sorry, you're talking to the wrong guy,” He dismissed, doing his best impression of Daiya’s you done fucked up voice he could, “Back to bed. Don’t think you’re sneaking out, either. I’m just gonna stay out here all night, make sure you don’t go and get yourself cut up and dumped in the river. Y’know, my job.”

“Fuck you,” Ishimaru spat, storming back to his room with a mutter of ,“Asshole…”

If Mondo knew one thing, it was this… He’d really had no idea what he was signing himself up for.

---

A/N:

WOW, it's been a while since I've written for this fandom. Thank you Taka and Mondo for being an adorable pair of dumbasses and dragging me right back into DR. Hopefully, I'll add to my old fics too, but I've got lots of new ideas I want to play with (Including two other talentswaps and two AUs!)

For now, Ouran fics are on the back burner, I'm afraid. I'm sure I'll be back to them soon enough, but I'm a bit burnt out in my OHSHC obsession, so we'll see.

Also, as always, comments really help and if you want to take any of these concepts and run, go for it! All I ask is a credit and a link if possible! :)

#danganronpa #Dangan Ronpa #dr talentswap #idol!Ishimaru #bodyguard!Mondo #ishimondo #Kiyotaka Ishimaru #mondo oowada #blood guts and chocolate cake series #my fanfiction

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