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pinkpastels113 · 3 years

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Talk Numbers To Me

Rating: G

Word Count: 3,326

Pairing: Chloe Beale/Beca Mitchell

Summary: In which Chloe gets help from her mathematical genius.

End B/C. One-Shot. Fluff. Tumblr prompt.

Read on ao3 or ff.net or below.

Prompt from anon; hope you all like.

Chloe shuffles her papers, kicking her feet in frustration at the numbers swirling in her head. Her hand flies to her hair, the pencil tangling in its strands.

“You okay there, Chloe?”

She looks up, sees Stacie blink questioningly at her from the microwave, and gives a tentative smile. “Yeah, just...” she sighs. “Homework.”

Stacie nods, retrieving her dinner burritos and closing the microwave door. “Do you need help?”

Chloe bites her lip and looks back down at the sheets of homework staring back at her from the kitchen table, its once clean blank lines now covered in blurry grey smudges. She doesn’t want to be of any inconvenience. “Nah, I’ll be okay. Thank you though, Stacie.”

“Are you sure?” Stacie grabs for a napkin before making her way over, “Because if it’s science, I can definitely help you out.”

Chloe carefully detangles her pencil from her pounding head, laying it back down onto the wooden surface. It’s not science, but something in Stacie’s tone of voice has her intrigued. “Oh?”

Stacie pulls out a chair, sits. She sets her styrofoam plate down onto an area not littered by mountains of paperwork and reaches for the one directly in front of Chloe. “Yup. I double major in Chemistry and Biomedical engineering. Which pretty much covers all the sciences that you could possibly take in your second senior year.”

Chloe raises her eyebrows, impressed. “Wow. I didn’t know that you double major, Stace. That’s amazing.”

Her fellow Bella just shrugs, eyes quickly scanning the page. “Eh, it’s alright. I love science anyways so it’s no big deal.” She then pauses, presumably figuring out that the subject of Chloe’s dilemma is most definitely not the one of which she is an expert in. “Oh, this is math.”

Chloe groans just at the mention of the word, tilting her head back to the fluorescent light of the kitchen ceiling. “Yeah, math. The worst form of torture in the entire world.”

Stacie just chuckles, shaking her head, “Only to people who don’t understand it.” She then stands, clutching Chloe’s topic of frustration between a thumb and forefinger. “I would love to help you out, Chloe, but I think someone else may be better at explaining this for you. She is a math genius after all.”

Chloe gets out of her chair as well, brows furrowing curiously as she trails behind the tall brunette, only then realizing that they are making their way to the living room, where the sounds of the tv can be heard, signalling the presence of the rest of the Bellas. “Someone else? Who else could be better at math than a Biomedical engineer?”

“Someone who actually studies it.”

And before Chloe could even ponder over which Bella would possibly want to subject themselves to the torture that is freaking mathematics, they have reached the entrance of the living room, and Stacie has called out the answer.

“Hey, Beca!”

What?

Chloe gapes, completely taken aback as she watches the unrequited love of her life look up from the screen of her phone at the mention of her name. “Yeah?”

Stacie waves the paper in her hand even as she continues to stalk forward. “Chloe needs your help with some math. I said that I would, but I just figured that a double math and physics major such as yourself would be a much better and viable option.”

Understandably, Chloe is not the only one in the room to have no previous knowledge of this news, or the only one to be completely shocked by it. Fat Amy turns away from the tv to quirk a disbelieving brow. “Double major? Shawshank? Math and Physics ?”

Chloe couldn’t help but agree. She knows that it’s wrong and impolite to underestimate a person’s abilities on what he or she could or not do, especially when said abilities are in academics—after all, they are all still in college—but Beca ? One of her best friends in the whole wide world, not to mention her secret crush/obsession/favorite person/love of her life and possibly all the lives she could possibly have hereafter—if she believes in that kind of stuff, which she kind of does, especially if it pertains to a possibility of her getting together with said love in one of those lives in the far future—with whom she had been pining for—especially at the times where it had been particularly difficult and tiresome—seemingly since the beginning of time? Beca, who would always tend to blow off school until the very last minute; Beca, who would rather spend time fiddling with her music in her room all by herself with just her and her headphones rather than indulge in books or people or anything not involving of her mixing board unless someone—usually Chloe—had to physically drag her away from the screen of her computer to go hang out? Beca?

Shouldn’t she have known everything there is to know about Beca in all these years—albeit technically that only includes two, but sometimes she really just feels like they have known each other since they were kids—that they’ve been friends? Teammates? Roommates? Family?

Beca rolls her eyes, stretching her arms in front of her chest to pull her body into a proper sitting position on the side of the couch. She locks and tosses aside her phone. “Yeah, I couldn’t decide which one to pick so I just decided to go for both. You guys didn’t know?”

Chloe finally finds it within herself to blurt out something that does not include her incredulity of the small brunette being capable of taking the most ruthless and tedious majors that there could possibly be in all the majors one could take at Barden University, “No, Beca, we didn’t.”

Jessica, Ashley, Flo, and Cynthia Rose collectively shake their heads in agreement.

Lilly just blinks, and Fat Amy’s lone brow stays exactly where it is.

Stacie snorts, Chloe’s paper dangling casually between two perfectly manicured nails against her side as she crosses her arms, shifting her weight onto one foot, “Figures. I suppose you all didn’t know that I am a double major too, did you?”

Six of the Bellas’ attention spotlight on the slightly indignant brunette, gasps and shouts of surprise and amazement instantly tossed into the air, Stacie’s explanation of the functionality of Biomedical Engineering immediately a follow up, but Chloe barely notices, because she is too busy having a silent exchange with her co-captain still situated on the couch.

She widens her eyes. Is this true? Are you being serious?

Beca nods, smirks. Hell yeah I am.

Chloe tilts her head, pouts. Why didn’t you tell me?

Beca shrugs. Didn’t find a reason to. She then rubs the back of her neck, looking suddenly sheepish and uncomfortable. And it’s not like it’s a big deal.

Chloe frowns, shakes her hands about. It is a big deal to me ! She then gestures between the pair of them. We’re friends, Becs, we are supposed to tell each other these kinds of things!

Beca tips her chin to the front of her chest, tucks a strand of hair behind her ear, and then peers at her shyly through her lashes. Sorry, Chlo.

Chloe’s heart melts, her feet immediately carrying her forward, and she lowers herself onto the couch cushions next to Beca, taking extensive care to not sit on her phone. She offers a soft and forgiving smile, before pulling her best friend swiftly into a hug. Don’t be sorry, Beca. She presses a kiss to her cheek. It’s okay.

Beca’s body relaxes, and somehow Chloe understands that the small brunette is relieved of the fact that Chloe is not mad or judgemental or flighty about how she is a double major in both math and physics. Chloe wonders if that is the reason why Beca hadn’t told her—that she had been afraid of her reaction—and if that is the reason why she had put on a brave face in front of the Bellas.

Beca always pretends like everything is fine and ineffective to her well being when she feels extremely self-conscious. She likes to put on a hard shell and proclaim the attitude of a “badass” to balm over her real emotions, to put on a show of I don’t care and whatever to mask over the I do care and I do feel.

Chloe gets the feeling that if it hadn’t been for Stacie—who’d most likely just stumbled across the discovery by accident—none of them would have known, until possibly graduation, when someone questioningly points out the lettering of her certificate, the duality of her degree.

Beca is bashful, self-conscious, secretive , of her abilities and status as a mathematical genius.

Chloe puts her lips to Beca’s ear. “Help me with my homework, please.”

She feels her best friend shiver, pull away, her beautiful stormy blues shy and reluctant as they flit across Chloe’s face, search between her eyes, and Chloe just sits and stays and waits until she says yes.

“Okay.”

Chloe beams, her arms unconsciously going around to surround Beca’s back for another embrace before she pulls away, and she stands up and makes her way over to Stacie, a bounce in her step as she taps the tall brunette—who’s now making fun of herself for being the “hot one” of the group—on the shoulder to get her attention, smiling gratefully when she turns and notices and hands her paper over.

“Thanks, Stace,” she says, winking to signal the double sentiment of her gratitude for both the help and the revelation of the information, grinning widely as Stacie comprehends and nods.

Hazel greens flash quickly and meaningfully to the slight brunette in the room, “Anytime.”

Chloe lets her return to her conversation with the rest of the Bellas, spinning around to purse her lips questioningly to ask Beca where it is that she wants to go.

My room.

Chloe leads the way, making a brisk detour to the kitchen to gather up her things, and she speeds up the stairs and skips down the hall, letting herself into the double bedded bedroom Beca currently shares with Amy.

“So why’d you choose math?” She decides between the bed and the desk chair, going for the bed.

Beca takes the chair. “I dunno,” she shrugs, “Just wanted to, I guess.”

Chloe sets the papers down onto the bedding, and makes herself comfortable. “You must really enjoy it for it to be a half of your double major, Becs.”

Beca gives a noncommittal hum, crossing her legs and wiping her hands onto the dark denim.

“And what about Physics? Any reason why you wanted to study that as well?”

“Oh,” Beca glances to her mixing board, “That’s just for sound engineering. It really makes it easier to find and test out the best places for a good mashup, and it’s really just useful for the recording and production of music.”

Chloe makes a small noise of understanding, following her line of sight briefly before going for the subject catalysing the shocking news of that evening. She picks up the first sheet of her homework, smoothing it out before offering it enthusiastically forwards, “So, math genius, you wanna let me know how it’s done?”

Beca grins, one hand caught between her thighs modestly as the other one reaches for the paper, “Sure, Beale. Good to know that you’re actually in need of my help for something.”

Chloe pushes back her hair, blinking at her in confusion, “What do you mean?”

Beca hides her face behind the frustrating sheet of paper, “Nothing. Just that you always seem to know exactly what you’re doing. Everybody always seems to go to you for help, never the other way around.”

Chloe’s heart flutters in her chest, and she has to push it down before it can go all swoony over the likely unintentional romantic admission. Later. “I don’t always seem to know exactly what I’m doing, Beca. I usually just wing it, and hope for the best.” At Beca’s disbelieving but playful scoff, she leans forward to bend over the top half of her paper, revealing Beca’s face, “And I’m here now, aren’t I? Math has always been a subject that I can absolutely not deal with.”

Beca rolls the tip of her tongue over the fronts of her teeth, “Only cuz nobody but nerds like me actually gets it. Still doesn’t establish the fact that you’re no less amazing and brilliant at everything else you do.”

If Beca had been Chloe’s girlfriend—if she had been dreaming that she is—Chloe would have lunged forward and kissed her senseless.

Settling for biting her lower lip anxiously to withhold the urge, Chloe gestures to the paper in her hands. “Well? Do you know how to do this?”

Beca looks like she’s just been snapped out of a daze. “Oh yeah, totally.” She spins around in her chair to reach for her bag, unzipping it and pulling out a tiny whiteboard from the utmost layer, as well as an Expo marker. “It’s kinda easy, actually. I can explain it.”

Chloe giggles at the materials in her hands as Beca turns back around. “Aw, that’s so cute!”

Beca glares, laying the whiteboard on one side of her lap and the paper in the other. “Shut up. It’s just convenient.”

Chloe mimes zipping and locking her lips and throwing away the key, but the smile on her face is irreplaceable.

Beca nudges open the cap of the Expo, letting it drop softly onto the floor at her feet as she rereads the question. “So, it says that this Marco dude needs to figure out where his stupid ball is gonna land if he throws it over the top of a building, so we have to make a graph.”

Chloe laughs, already comfortable with the familiar way Beca seems to make any situation less intimidating, “Do you talk to yourself like that when you do your own math?”

“Do you want my help or not?”

“Sorry, sorry,” Chloe lays a hand over her mouth in an attempt to stifle her amusement. “Carry on.”

Beca shakes her head, apparently having gotten very invested in her knowledge of math despite being self-conscious of it, “Jesus, Chlo. Anyways,” she brings the tip of the marker onto the whiteboard to draw two perpendicular lines, “Here’s the graph—” she draws a rectangle to represent the aforementioned building, along with a dot at the y-intercept, “—and here’s our dude.”

“Ooh, can we write down Marco,” Chloe interrupts, bouncing in her seat and pointing to the blank and boring dot.

Beca gives her a look, before sarcastically heeding her request. Five letters were squished against the side of the y-axis with an adorable arrow, “There. Happy?”

Chloe blows her a kiss, “Very.”

Beca sighs, dramatically, before continuing on, “So as I was saying, there’s Marco, and his ball is—” she scribbles down a number next to the side, “Thrown from this height, and we need to figure out—” she dashes a parabolic line towards the situational ground, “Where this —” she makes another dot, labelling it “splat”—much to Chloe’s delight— on the x-axis, “Is.”

Chloe nods vigorously, chin in her hands as she shifts closer to the edge of the bed, her butt just barely situated on the mattress now as she leans closer for a better look, “Yeah, totes.”

Beca doesn’t seem to notice her new proximity, on a roll now that she has gotten started, “And they have given you the formula so now, considering the fact that gravity is a thing and negative distances are not—” she copies down the formula and writes down what the variables represent for her right under, “You just have to plug all this shit in to get the answer.”

“Ohh,” Chloe says, getting it, but it falls on deaf ears as Beca seems to automatically plug in the figures for her, crossing out variables and scribbling down altercations as she goes along, and Chloe’s jaw drops, as seconds later, she has come to a conclusion.

Beca scribbles down “20 feet” and circles it victoriously, a small but satisfactory “Aha” escaping her lips as she holds the whiteboard up to the light. “There, I got it.”

A sudden wave of heat pools low in her belly, and Chloe gasps as she tries to make sense of the unexpected spike of arousal at the sight of the wide and unrestrained and confident grin painting across Beca’s lips, at the sight of the happiness and satisfaction sparkling within stormy blues, and at the sight of the pink and musically talented tongue clenched between Beca’s teeth, as if used as an anchor to her excitement of getting another math problem right.

Holy heck, Beca Mitchell is hot when she does math.

Chloe must have made a distracting sound, because Beca suddenly jolts, as if just then realizing that she is not alone, pink flushing into her cheeks as she lowers the whiteboard, her uncontainable grin fading into a sheepish smile, and she meekly hands the answer over.

“Sorry,” she says, fidgeting uncomfortably in her chair, eyes downcast to her feet as she watches them scuffle nervously against the floor, “I just got so excited. I don’t know what came over me, Chlo, I—” she visibly swallows, “I hadn’t meant to just finish your problem for you.”

Screw it. It doesn’t freaking matter that Beca is not her girlfriend.

Chloe pushes the whiteboard aside and grasps the arms of Beca’s chair, yanking it and the person in it towards her waiting mouth, and she kisses her best friend/secret crush/obsession/favorite person/love of her life/mathematical genius square on the lips with as much fervor—if not more—as the moment previous in which she had desired to dole out when Beca had inadvertently complimented her as an amazing and capable and kind individual in and of itself, and she groans, her feet spreading to accommodate the chair between her legs and her brain kicking into overdrive to accommodate the gasp fluttering into her mouth.

Beca freezes, her eyes still presumably wide open as Chloe nips against her lips, and Chloe is just about to pull away and chart the situation up to another uncontrollable heat of the moment when she feels the small brunette reciprocate, arms wrapping around her neck and lips pressing closer, and Chloe slides her hands down from the arms of the chair to tuck between the cushion of the seat and Beca’s thighs, lifting her up and into the air before prompting dumping her in her lap, and she giggles as Beca huffs at the ease of which she has completed the action.

“Show off,” Beca grumbles, her minty breath a mournful absence as she pulls her mouth away to kiss the angle of Chloe’s jaw, “This is exactly what I had meant.”

Chloe tilts her head to allow Beca more access, “Coming from the person who had just figured out the answer to my mathematical problem in just a number of seconds, I think you are being irrational, Beca.”

Beca laughs, her nose nuzzling into the side of her neck affectionately at the pun, and Chloe’s heart pounds, her fingers immediately going to scramble her papers off the bed and her body further onto it. “That literally calculates up to zero creativity, Chlo.”

“Whatever,” she says, adjusting herself amongst the blue sheets and rectangular pillows, “I’m not a mathematical nerd, unlike someone I know.”

“Mm,” Beca reconnects their lips, her fingers playing the ends of Chloe’s hair, “Speaking of, are we gonna finish your homework?”

“Later,” Chloe tugs at their clothes, her tongue darting out to trace the seam of Beca’s wide and unrestrained smile, “We can do it later. Right now I just want my hot and secretive mathematical genius to talk numbers to me.”

---

I rushed through this in the span of four hours (not nearly long enough for me to make grammatical and detailing errors) so I hope you all enjoyed it despite my laziness :P

Also, if you’re the anon who gave me this prompt, I hope I did you justice, and that I hope you liked it despite any intentions that you had initially had at the suggestion of this prompt (I know I did, but oh well, what’s done is done, and I’m honestly just happy that I am finished lol).

Let me know what you all think! :))

#bechloe #bechloe fanfic #bechloe fanfiction #bechloe oneshot #bechloe fluff #pitch perfect #pitch perfect fanfiction #beca x chloe #beca mitchell #chloe beale #mine #tumblr prompt #anon prompt #hope you all like #sorry for lack of grammatical edits #or details #I was rushing

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cto10121 · 3 years

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Does R&J Play With Gender Stereotypes?

So I came across this piece of meta by @hamliet that rather intrigued me:

There’s also another layer here: the imagery Romeo uses for Juliet (the sun) and that Juliet uses for Romeo (the moon) is the inverse of how imagery was typically presented in those days. The moon was feminine; the sun, masculine. Even if we look at Romeo and Juliet’s respective character traits, Romeo is the flighty, impulsive, love-struck one who cries all the time, while Juliet is the decisive, bold, and loyal one. That’s the first thing Juliet declares to Romeo in the balcony scene: that she will always be loyal, and she shows this in every choice she makes in the story.

Let’s break this down.

“the imagery Romeo uses for Juliet (the sun) and that Juliet uses for Romeo (the moon) is the inverse of how imagery was typically presented in those days. The moon was feminine; the sun, masculine.”

Romeo does indeed call Juliet the sun, but Juliet never calls Romeo the moon—or likens him with anything symbolically feminine, come to think of it. The closest she or the play gets is a small but clear association with night: Romeo has “night’s cloak to hide me from their eyes” and Juliet implores “loving, black-browed” night to give her her Romeo. Even then it is so that he can “make the face of heaven so fine / That all the world will be in love with night / And pay no worship to the garish sun.”

Instead, Juliet consistently uses the same love language of authority as Romeo does with her, calling him her lord, husband, knight, “day-in-night,” “mansion of a love,” “god of my idolatry,” and, (my particular favorite), “tassel-gentle” or “falcon.” “Pilgrim” is the lowest social rank she uses, but of course she is following Romeo’s pilgrim-and-saints flirtation and its wink-wink bilingual allusion to his name. Romeo’s use of “sun,” then, could be viewed in the context of both lovers conferring cosmic/earthly authority, beauty, ownership, and sovereignty to each other—the Elizabethan equivalent of calling each other wife/husband. And of course they begin doing that immediately after they marry.

Even if we look at Romeo and Juliet’s respective character traits, Romeo is the flighty, impulsive, love-struck one who cries all the time, while Juliet is the decisive, bold, and loyal one.

Definitely not. Romeo is plenty decisive and bold—making the first move in wooing Juliet, climbing the orchard wall, showing himself to Juliet, immediately agreeing to marry her, nearly killing himself when he thinks Juliet might not take him back and, er, actually killing himself for her. I wouldn’t say he is impulsive, either—though he makes decisions fairly quickly, it is almost always with some deliberation beforehand (“Can I go forward when my heart is here?” “Shall I hear more or shall I speak at this?” and his monologue after Mercutio’s exit) and of course there are instances in which he restrains himself (“I am too bold” and his monologue after Mercutio’s death). The most accurate description of Romeo is that he is a risk taker—at least when he is well and truly motivated. And even then it does not rob his deliberation or even his wits.

He is also not flighty. In fact, he proves just as loyal as Juliet—as soon as he meets her, he forgets about Rosaline and leaves her clear behind. He doesn’t once waver in his conviction that Juliet is for him and makes plans to die with her (and does!). His love for Rosaline is clearly framed by the narrative as shallow, performative, and passive, and the verse bears this out. He was never in any kind of relationship with Rosaline—his love was an unrequited crush that he was at perfectly liberty to have ditched, frankly. After that, it’s Juliet, Juliet, Juliet until he dies.

Also, once more, Romeo is no crybaby. He explicitly cries a total of two times—one even before the events of the play, when he pines over Rosaline under a grove of sycamore, and another when he’s 1) seen Mercutio get mortally wounded, 2) killed Tybalt, 3) learned that he is banished from the city, and 4) mistakenly believed that Juliet no longer wants him (the Nurse’s reply is vague enough to be misinterpreted); at the very least he is devastated to have been the cause of her pain. Anyone would break down in those circumstances. Juliet herself breaks down on hearing the news and arguably is more verbally vehement than Romeo—namely, that even the words “Romeo is banishèd” are worse than if herself, Romeo, her parents, and Tybalt were dead. She ends that monologue with a passive suicide threat: “And Death, not Romeo, take my maidenhead!” How anyone can argue Juliet isn’t as lovestruck as Romeo is beyond me.

What Shakespeare was most likely aiming for was showing the mutuality of R&J’s love with parallel scenes and even language. Both have chances to act strong, decisive, and bold, both show vulnerability and great emotion and passion, both are lovestruck. Both demonstrate so-called “masculine” and “feminine” traits, which is almost always culturally-and time-based, anyway. There are only a few key differences between the two—almost all of the above traits, however, they both share. It’s almost as if…Shakespeare understood that no man or woman had all masculine or all feminine traits.

Moving on to the conclusion:

In other words, Shakespeare was deliberately playing with gender and its stereotypes in the play, which gains an even more interesting layer to it when you consider that Shakespeare was himself almost certainly bisexual (his sonnets are preeeetty explicit). It’s not a patriarchal narrative; it can well be seen as a queer narrative in a patriarchal society. And it shouldn’t take two kids having to kill themselves to get society to realize how effed up it is. It isn’t an out-of-touch play, but instead one extremely relevant to our society 500+ years later.

You just opened up 200+ years of fandom wank, OP. I’ll just do a quick sum-up.

The Sonnets are a complete mess. They are contradictory as hell, there is clearly more than one persona speaking, there is evidence that Shakespeare edited and revised them, evidence they were published with his permission, quite a few sonnets are based on pre-existing sources, and, most damnably of all, none of the most likely candidates for the so-called Fair Youth and Dark Lady fit the narrative of the Sonnets perfectly or even satisfactorily—if there is even a clear narrative to these things to begin with. Sonnets were artificial works whose clichés and conventions were heavily satirized in Shakespeare’s own works—Berowne’s own rant-y sonnet swearing he would never believe in love sonnets comes most readily to mind. They were usually not meant to denote an actual real-life relationship, although there was a kind of “game” in trying to figure out which parts are true and which ones fiction. At least one sonnet sequence had a completely fictional addressee (Fulke Greville, I think).

Shakespeare’s sonnets do break a lot of these rules and conventions, and radically, and as they seem to have been compiled over many years, they lend themselves to autobiographical speculation. But, as a bit of a poet myself, I feel this: No one writes 154 sonnets—plus a whole narrative poem!—to one lover or even multiple lovers. Poetry is much less personal than laypeople think. Outside the sonnets, Shakespeare is not linked to any man romantically, and, besides his wife, only to two women (unnamed citizen’s wife and Jane Devanant).

Even if we assume Shakespeare’s bi, though, that doesn’t mean R&J is a queer narrative, which brings us to…

It’s not a patriarchal narrative; it can well be seen as a queer narrative in a patriarchal society.

A queer narrative that has its lovers express their love through the language of heterosexual marriage (husband, lord, wife, lady, pilgrim/saint), and commit suicide by a chalice-and-blade symbolism that mimics heterosexual sex (Romeo drinking a “cup” of poison and Juliet stabbing herself with Romeo’s dagger. Freud couldn’t have done it better). If Shakespeare was thinking “gay allegory!!!” he would have had to at least change or erase the symbolism (straight coding?) of the double suicide, or have Juliet attribute to Romeo explicitly feminine imagery. He would have to have done some major plot rejiggering. He would have had to, in short, change the whole story.

(Unless by “queer narrative” you mean “anything that has an emotionally constipated male lead who doesn’t growl sexily and a female lead who doesn’t cry/faint at the drop of a hat.” That’d be most every narrative, lol.)

Also, I’m hard-pressed to think of love romances that are 100% patriarchal narratives, and those that do (Casablanca, maybe?) are not really true ones, anyway. Patriarchy inherently opposes all romances of love and sex, including heterosexual. It demands that men be raised as soldiers to kill enemies, slaughtered, and discarded, and women as chattel and land to be bought and sold. Marriage was that transferral of property. Having children is necessary, not out of love and care for them, but to propagate the species and create even more future warriors and womb incubators. It grudgingly accepts only (mostly straight and like maybe 1 or 2 gay) love narratives that can be subsumed into this narrow paradigm, but the tension of interpretation is always present. Ideally, it prefers to ignore, diminish, scorn and mock, or even suppress them. I suspect most people’s problems and discomfort with R&J stem from this pathology, this deep-seated unease over anything that touches on human experience patriarchy can’t quite control or subsume.

Shakespeare was obviously no lover of patriarchy (in his personal life, though…well, it’s debatable). His plays resist it greatly to various degrees, and R&J is no exception. R&J hews much closer to the reality of heterosexual love and love in general, which are informed by, though are not inherently tied to, patriarchy (as are gay relationships, sadly). Shakespeare is just being a good writer in throwing most of that rotten apple away; it doesn’t apply to what he was trying to do, anyway. R&J’s challenge to patriarchy, though, is heterosexual in nature.

And it shouldn’t take two kids having to kill themselves to get society to realize how effed up it is. It isn’t an out-of-touch play, but instead one extremely relevant to our society 500+ years later.

True dat.

#romeo and juliet #shakespeare #cristina metas #rj meta #r&j meta #rj are just so boyxgirl op #accept it and you will find peace #repressive traditional gender roles are back in fashion it seems #the victorians couldn’t accept romeo as a man either and had him be played by an actress #but if we’re going to take our notions of gender from the victorians of all people well…

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honeylikewords · 3 years

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uneasy lies the head (poe dameron)

In the wake of her passing, the official, if somewhat symbolic, royal title of Alderaan has passed to from Leia Organa to her chosen heir, Poe Dameron. Along with his elected position as the Galactic Senate Represenative for his home planet, Yavin V, Poe is now burdened with the responsibility of a political office he never imagined holding, and is called to attend a summit of the galaxy’s leaders that will be held aboard the Starcruiser Halcyon.

This piece is based on a few things: one, me liking the idea of Prince of Alderaan Poe, two, my interest in Begrudging Politician Poe, and three, the new details that have come out about the real-life Halcyon experience that will be opening up at Disney World in Florida, which you can read more about here! I’ve been really excited about it for a long time, and just thought it’d be fun to tie one of my favorite characters in to this amazing new experience that will be coming soon!

(Content Warnings: mentions of Leia’s de@th, some slightly risque flirting between Poe and his wife, and a little bit of making out, but that’s about it! Word count is 5k.)

Poe stands in front of the mirror, anxiously adjusting the epaulets of his tunic. They don’t seem to sit right on his shoulders, he thinks, passing a hand through their silvery fringe and watching them brush the snow-white fabric of his sleeves. This isn’t his kind of uniform, and when he looks at himself, he sees more a child wearing the spoils of a raid on their parent’s closet than the Senate representative he was meant to be. He tries tightening the high, pale collar of his tunic against his throat, swallowing thickly and watching his Adam’s apple bob beneath the colorless fabric. That didn’t help much dignify the image, he thinks, eyeing himself morosely.

He looks older. His beard is fuller, having let it grow out to appear more… wise, he supposes, and the grey streaks running through it match the ones appearing more and more every day at his temples. His tan fingers tease lightly at the end of his beard, trying to stroke it like he’d seen other, more senior politicians do when lost in thought (or at least trying to come across like they were). It makes him look pretentious.

Sighing loudly, he slumps his taut shoulders and rolls them a few times to loosen the aching muscles. He turns away from the mirror and steps out of the dressing room, entering the stateroom and collapsing onto the edge of the bed, his face in his hands. He hears a door hiss open and looks between his fingers at the emerging figure.

She’s still fidgeting with her hair, which is now lifted from its former looseness into a series of intricate looping braids. Letting out a huff, she takes her hands away, seemingly having resigned herself to leaving the hair as it was. Poe lifts his head a little, resting his chin on his palm as he watches her pat her dress and check the mirror in the dressing room, just as he’d been doing mere moments before.

She looks much, much better than he does. It’s an objective fact. Her air is stately and refined, with her gown framing her regally. The fabric is a delicate, pale blue, trimmed with fine threads of gold that interweave and flow, like braided ivies, trailing up her waist in a way that guides Poe’s wandering eyes to the loveliness of her figure. She seems to belong better to this world, with its mannerisms and socialites, its political politenesses. He never had the patience to be so diplomatic, even though that is his job, now.

He watches her pull a face at herself in the mirror, frowning at some flaw he’s oblivious to, and he stands up, coming to her side and placing his hands on the small of her waist, leaning his head on her shoulder and kissing her cheek amiably.

“You look like a princess,” he purrs, hoping his flattery will encourage her confidence. He hates seeing her unhappy with herself.

“I wish,” she responds, voice tinged with something wan and far away. “I… I really do wish.”

He knows what she’s thinking about: he’d been thinking about it, too. Dropping the air of adulation, Poe reaches for her hand and gently knits their fingers together, pressing their locked hands softly against her belly for reassurance. He meets her eyes in the mirror, and the two share expressions of loss.

“I miss her, too,” he murmurs. “I don’t feel like… like I can do what she did. What she left for me to do.”

He feels his wife squeeze his hand intently, causing him to lift his head up and meet her gaze as she turns to look at him, unfiltered by the mirror. Her eyes, clear and sharp, stare at him as she nods, then kisses his forehead warmly, taking her free hand and brushing it softly across his cheek.

“She chose you for a reason,” she whispers, soft and sincere, just like she always does. “Leia left you her seat and title because you’re the only person fit for the job. She trusted you.”

Her hand dips to his jaw and she lifts his head up from its morose slump. He cannot look away from her, even if he wanted to.

“I trust you, too.”

Poe takes in all the angles of his wife’s face, knowing that no single word of what she said was untrue, but searching for the possibility of a lie anyway in some small giveaway of her expression; after all, how could he be the one fit to carry on in the shadow of his predecessor? How could his shoulders carry the burden of her greatness, much less improve upon it? But there, in her eyes, Poe sees the truth, reflected over and over again: he was chosen for this job, chosen to carry on a legacy he had no option but to strengthen. He is the only one who could, whether he believes it or not.

He straightens his back a little, standing up taller, and squeezes his wife’s hand in silent thanks, taking a moment to press their foreheads together and breathe in the scent of her. She is wearing perfume-- something they’d never had access to during the scarcity of the war-- and he marvels at how something so small changes the entire atmosphere of her presence. She truly embodies the grace and elegance of the woman who came before both of them, looking every inch the part of an Alderaanian royal.

Glancing back at himself in the mirror, Poe huffs; while she may look, indeed, just the way Leia would want the nation to be represented, Poe does not. He looks stuffy in his garb, at times like an old man in the too-tight clothes of his youth, and, at others, like a scrawny teenager in the baggy trappings of someone he was only pretending to be. She seems to sense his dismay, as she takes the initiative to comfort him, this time.

“You look dashing,” she smiles, adjusting his lapels and the ribbons of decoration on his chest. “Prince Poe Dameron, Senate Representative of Alderaan and Yavin IV. You’ll knock ‘em dead.”

At that, Poe lets out a playful, exasperated huff, rolling his eyes.

“Yeah, I’ll be great,” he grimaces, eyeing his form in the mirror. He raises his voice into a mocking lilt, swaying his head from side to side in an intentionally cartoonish parody of a stuffy bureaucrat. “Oh, Senator Y’Barra, your engagement commission is most dreadful! Shall we discuss its heinousness over tea and crescent crumpets? Garcon, we need more gold-dusted butter for our scones if we are ever to pass this bill!”

She covers her mouth to hide the beginnings of a smile and tries to reprimand Poe, affectionately slapping his chest.

“It’s nice that we’ve been asked to attend the summit, Poe. At least try to make some--”

“Don’t say friends,” he groans. “I don’t want to make friends with these people. They’re politicians; they don’t want to do anything other than profit, and post-war reconstruction is a hell of a time to make money for slime bags like these people.”

That seems to take her back for a moment, and Poe watches her expression shift as she sorts through her thoughts, her lips pursed, eyebrows arched. She then shrugs and nods, acquiescing.

“Probably. But there are probably also people like you: people whose service in the war and dedication to their people, all across this galaxy, led them to this job. People who just want to rebuild. Do better. You’ll find them, dear: you’re an excellent judge of character.”

She taps her fingers against his nose playfully.

“After all, you picked me, didn’t you?”

“If I remember correctly,” Poe teases, lowering his eyes to her lips and smirking, “You were the one to get a crush on me first. All butterflies and nerves anytime I so much as passed you in the halls. More like you picked me, huh?”

Poe catches her face take on the familiar cues of embarrassment and flustering; he can just tell he’s got her all a-twitter, and she pouts her lips, looking down at her shoes shyly as he starts to chuckle. It’s adorable to remember how flighty and skittish she was in those early days, and how enamored of her he himself was, and remains. Getting her all shy like this is a sweet harkening back to that early, giddy tension, and he dips his face down, hovering his lips just above hers, feeling her draw in a breath of neediness and--

“Senator Dameron,” a robotic voice announces through the commlink in the stateroom, freezing Poe in place. “The ferry is beginning docking procedures with the Halcyon. Please proceed to the boarding area. A droid will be sent to collect your luggage as you leave.”

“Ah, shit,” he growls. He’d completely lost track of time.

Dodging back out into the stateroom, Poe glances out the window and sees the looming mass of a gigantic starcruiser, a sharp body of glimmering steel and inky black portholes contrasted against the star field behind it. It is massive-- far larger than any ship Poe had personally piloted in the past-- and spans more than the distance his window could afford a view of. They are extremely close, and within minutes will be aboard the behemoth, where Poe will have to eat, sleep, and breathe senatorial and princely dignity.

He turns away from the window to see his wife making sure everything was packed and prepared for departure, checking the bathroom and dressing room before giving him a confirming nod: everything is where it needs to be. They are ready to go.

They walk towards each other and Poe places his hands on his wife’s arms, stroking up and down the bareness of her shoulders to steady himself. As he feels the warmth of her skin beneath his rough palms, Poe blinks with awareness and gives her a quick squeeze, darting off to the dressing room. He opens a trunk and lifts up the topmost layer of fabric, running back into the stateroom with it carefully laid across both his forearms, then turns his wife to face him and gently lays the upper corners of the fabric on each of her shoulders.

“The cloak,” he mumbles as he fastens the pale silver silk around her neck, “Don’t wanna forget that. A princess is set apart by garments like that.”

“Right,” she hums, admiring his hands as he fusses with her collar. “Sometimes it’s hard to remember that since you’re the prince, now, and I married you, I’m the--”

“Princess, yep,” grins Poe. “Princess Dameron.”

“By marriage only,” she teases.

“And I’m only the prince because she left an essentially honorary title to me,” Poe wits back. “But it suits you, at least.”

“You think?”

“Mm. Now, I think the prince owes his princess one of the tenets of royal responsibility: unadulterated affection towards one’s spouse.”

“Is that a tenet of your responsibilities?,” she smiles, brow cocked.

“I just made it up, but I like to think so.”

Once again, Poe presses his palms against the soft curves of her upper arms, squeezing in the grounding manner he knows she likes, tracing his thumbs along the creamily-smooth fabric now covering her, and he leans in close, admiring how the light shifts against her skin as his shadow draws nearer. He parts his lips, ready to feel the gentle swell of her soft ones against his, when, as if by divine interruption, the hydraulic hiss of the stateroom’s door fills the room and a silver-plated protocol droid peers at him through the now-open door. He grits his teeth to resist letting out a completely undignified expletive aimed at the droid and stares at it pointedly, trying to silently communicate that it had interrupted a private moment.

“It is time to board the Halcyon, Senator,” it chimes in the lilting manner all protocol droids seem to have, seemingly blissfully unaware of his frustration. “Please, come with me to the boarding area.”

Behind the protocol droid, a cargo lifter droid rolls by, seemingly waiting until Poe and his wife leave the cabin to enter. Poe sighs, but can’t resist letting a small chuckle out: both droids, despite their different purposes, both seem polite, in their own sorts of ways, and he always finds that endearing.

Looking to his wife, Poe gives a little bemused half-smile and shrugs his shoulders, as if apologetic but resigned. She takes his hand and turns, nodding to both droids with an impassive but gracious expression, one that Poe notes is more than befitting of an official such as herself. Distanced, but not dour, regal, but not recalcitrant. He loves it.

“Thank you,” she says, coolly polite. “Please, lead the way.”

The protocol droid begins its stiff-jointed hobble towards the boarding area and Poe and his wife trail behind, arms linked at the elbow as Poe fidgets with her fingers. He twiddles her marriage band as they walk, always comforted by the feel of it on her hand. He admires it as they silently proceed; it’s somewhat rough-hewn, made from hammered durasteel, a little uneven and dented in some places from the haste in which it was made, and Poe loves it.

He loves how it contrasts the delicate, fragile jewelry common amongst royals, how it’s not meant to glitter and shine and grab attention, how it ties her to him and he to her, with no regard for image or pomp. It is heavy and solid and made purely for the sake of love and belonging, and she wears it everywhere she goes with pride, as if it was the finest-cut Oshiran sapphire, or the most carefully sculpted gold. It is one of the crown jewels of Alderaan, now, and the thought of it-- of his parent’s simple, quickly-made wedding ring, forged in a time of war, without promise of any moment past the one they were in, now being a royal regalia-- makes his heart ache to bursting with unadulterated love.

Poe tugs her hand up and kisses her knuckles as they finally round the corner into the boarding area; somewhere in the back of his mind, he registers the droid saying something about how their luggage will be sent directly to their stateroom aboard the Halcyon, but he’s hardly listening. He’s looking at his wife, his rock, his tether, as they begin their socialite dance, seeking steadfast comfort in her as he prepares to have to play his part in a world he was never born to be in.

The droid gestures to a corridor formed between the two ships: passengers traipse from the shuttle onto the boarding area of the Halcyon, representatives from a myriad of species in a breadth of costumes and liveries. Poe and his wife exchange glances, knowing that these people will have some hand in forming what comes next in the political landscape of the galaxy, and that they, too, will be instrumental in forging the new governments of the rising Republic.

“Come on,” she smiles, trying to coax him along, tugging his hand and taking a step forward, “It’s gonna be fine. It’s not like my flyboy to get cold feet, hm?”

Poe chuckles and shakes his head, trying to dislodge his clouding worries, and walks in time with his wife, joining the throngs of senators and royals and presidents and diplomats making their way aboard the Halcyon. Some of them exchange pleasantries, others are locked in conversations: some even look at Poe and his wife and nod in acknowledgement, or turn to their compatriots and whisper.

Poe feels an embarrassed heat creep up the base of his neck; he knows rumors have circulated about his particularly unusual position as a representative for a dead planet and a living one, and about how he’d been named the next in line for a royal title he was not born into. He tries not to let it get to him-- let people think that they think, and do your job, Leia had always told him-- but the feeling of alienation and disbelonging hangs over him, shaming him into silence. He tenses, and keeps his eyes fixed forward, which grants him an ever-nearing view of the grand foyer of the massive starcruiser.

The Halcyon is unlike any other ship Poe has ever been on. He’d heard about starcruisers like this, meant to be enormous cruise ships travelling in luxury and style from one planet to another, filled with sprawling cabins and indulgent amenities, and had never even pictured himself aboard one. The thought hardly appealed to him: days, weeks, even, of doing nothing? Just wandering aimlessly around, decadent and opulent in one’s revelry? The mere idea disgusts him. Still, as he steps into the expansive entry for the Halcyon, he finds himself feeling something other than disgust: he feels strangely at home.

The area is bustling as ship workers and bellhops collect luggage and transfer it to droids, as greeters guide guests to check in areas and hand them keycards, as officers check passports and documentation against databases, all lit under the glow of thousands of lights, which reflect off polished durasteel and marble surfaces. Holo projections provide information about travel destinations and the cruise itself in hundreds of different tongues, while a massive projection of the captain glows a familiar blue and greets the boarding politicians.

Poe turns in awe, gazing at the dozens of porthole windows affording views of distant and nearby star clusters, at the navigational crew high above, checking maps and charting courses, and takes a deep, steadying breath in through his nose, squeezing his wife’s hand tight. The hum and thrall of the ship, with its thousands of moving parts and requisite workers, feels exactly like all the ships he’d served on during the Rebellion. He half-believes that if he closes his eyes and turns around, he’ll open them and see Leia there, giving orders and directing the workflow.

The memory sits on his heart, but instead of a heavy, lingering pain, it kindles a warm, growing fire: she lives on in him. She would be proud to see him carrying on the mantle, working to do what no one else has the skill, speech, or stones to do. She is never really gone. Never can be.

Instilled with strength and purpose, Poe looks to his wife, who is staring at the gargantuan hub of activity before her, almost taken aback by how bustling it is. He leans down and gently pecks her cheek, tugging her along and breaking her out of her trance. They’ve got places to be, things to do, royal engagements to avoid, after all. As they begin to move closer to what Poe believes is the reception desk, a Twi’lek in a sleek, almost military-looking white uniform steps in front of Poe and his wife, grinning from green ear to ear.

“Senator Dameron, Princess Dameron,” she greets, bowing at the waist respectfully, “I am Lyna’ame, and I’ll be directing you regarding your stay on the Halcyon. Thank you for honoring us with your patronage.”

“Uh, thank you for having us,” Poe stammers, unsure of how to conduct himself in such a position.

Lyna’ame looks up at him with a quizzical eye, but seems too well-trained to respond with anything more than a polite smile and a nod. She produces from the pocket of her grey-trimmed suit a pair of infochips, extending them towards Poe and his wife.

“You will be staying in the royal suite on Deck B, unit number eighteen,” Lyna’ame smiles. “These chips will act as your keys to the room and to any amenities you should wish to access, and will remind you of upcoming engagements or conferences you should be in attendance of.”

As if on cue, the small screens on the infochips light up and read “19:00: Senatorial Dinner In Ballroom One!” Poe blinks at it, then flashes Twi’lek a cordial but slightly cold smile, taking the chips from her hand and tucking them unceremoniously into his breast pocket.

“Alright, thanks. I think we can get it from here.”

She seems not to register his attempt to tie off the loop of the conversation, continuing anyway.

“You will also have access to all the facilities of the ship, including the swimming areas, dining areas, lounges, bars, activity centres, spas and--”

“I’ll check the brochure in the room,” Poe smiles, searching for an exit. “I appreciate it, but, uh, my wife is very tired--” --Poe nudges her with an elbow and she balks, then understands his intention and mimes a yawn, nodding sympathetically-- “--And I’d love to get her some rest before any hobnobbing, y’know?”

“Of course, your highness,” Lyna’ame says, again accompanied by a civil bow. “The elevators are to the left. Press your infochip to the pad and it will take you to your floor. Your luggage should already be in your room, and please,” she smiles. “Enjoy your cruise.”

Poe bows back, then leads his wife by the elbow to the elevators, where they tap their key card and the doors hiss open. As they board, just the two of them, Poe’s wife turns to face him and raises one eyebrow, haughty.

“Really threw me under the bus there, Poe,” she smirks. “‘Oh, my wife wants to leave this conversation because my wife is awkward and doesn’t know how to handle subordinate behavior from service workers’. Real nice.”

Rolling his eyes, Poe can’t help but smile, and instead of replying, drops his hand to the small of his wife’s back, grazing his fingers there for a moment before dipping slightly lower and--

She jumps, then giggles, hitting him with a shocked but not at all displeased expression.

“Did you just pinch my ass?”

“Maybe,” he smiles. “Why?”

“You just seemed so…” She touches his arm, searching for the right word, chewing her lip thoughtfully. “Severe, before. Lost.”

“Feeling better. Feeling… like I can do this, maybe. Or at least do what I need to do, even if it doesn’t look exactly like how everybody else might expect me to.”

At that she purses her lips and nods, and he can tell she’s happy for him: he’s not entirely out of the woods about this whole ‘galactic representative’ thing, and certainly not used to all the expectations that come with being the heavy head that wears the crown, but he’s going to be alright. At least, he feels like he is, at this moment, and that’s all that matters.

Poe finds himself allowing his smile to grow wider as he dips down and nuzzles her temple, teasing his lips over her ear, tempting and toying.

“I still hate the suit,” he whispers, sending her shivering, “And I don’t want to talk to these people like we’re all buddy-buddy--”

“--Acknowledged, Senator,” she teases, rubbing his arm in the way that lets him know she’s itching to get more handsy.

“But we’re gonna have a private room,” he continues, “And a lock on the door, and at least--” --He checks the infocard, which reads “17:05”-- “--About two hours before anybody’s gonna need us, so I say we shimmy out of these nice duds…”

Poe’s finger trails down the silky rivulets of her collarbones; he has to admit, he does find her massively attractive in this royal robing, but he figures it’ll be less hassle for both of them to assure he doesn’t get too rowdy while they’re wearing some of the best (and irreplaceably expensive) fineries in the galaxy, so he’ll have to bid her pretty little dress and luxurious cape adieu for their stateroom rendezvous. Not that he minds: the dress might be pretty, but the woman underneath is ten times more so. Besides, she can always put it back on again for the dinner, anyway.

“We go see what kind of minibar we’re looking at,” Poe teases, watching her roll her eyes, “Hop in the bath, and see where those two hours take us.”

“Mm, we’ll see,” she demures, patting his chest. He knows she likes to dance around it, never say anything too scandalous where someone else can hear, and he loves that; she extends the tension, making him wait for what he wants. He may not ever have been a patient man before, but she forces him to slow down, savor it, work for it. And that’s delicious.

The elevator doors slide open as Poe leads his wife out into the hall, kissing her jaw as he checks the suite numbers. They shuffle along, exchanging little pecks and touches in the graciously empty hallway (what would the other representatives think, she reminds him in a hushed tone as they pass rooms, if they saw the new prince of Alderaan and Senator for Yavin V hanging off his wife like a pubescent teen?) before arriving at suite eighteen. Poe fumbles in his breast pocket, keeping his lips planted on his wife’s neck, then slaps the infochip haphazardly against the door. It clicks open, and Poe doesn’t even bother to look inside: he just coaxes his wife in, and tumbles in after her.

The lights in the room slowly turn on automatically, rising from a low dim to a sunny brightness, illuminating white-panelled walls and a lush, wide bed, all the furniture sharply clean and sleekly modern, trimmed in shades of black and silver. A massive window shows the endless expanse of space beyond the double-layered transparisteel, and while Poe would normally be more inquisitive and peek around the room to admire it, he’s more than occupied as he pushes his face deeper in the warm, scented crook of his wife’s neck.

“Careful,” she warns as his hand starts to pet at the base of her head, eking dangerously close to the beginnings of her hair roots, “These braids took me hours. I don’t want to have to re-do them, Dameron”

“I get that,” he breathes heavily, “But you look really hot with messy hair and--”

“If we’re going to go to that dinner, I’m not going to go with my hair flying everywhere! I’ll look like a… well, you know!”

“Like a woman well-loved by her husband,” Poe teases, nipping at her jaw. “But, fine, we’ll skip the dinner, and I’ll just keep you all to myself. Nobody else has to see. In fact, I’d prefer they didn’t.”

His eyes glimmer with wolfish promise as he sets his wife down on the edge of the white-blanketed bed, staring at her as her skirts form pools of silver and blue. He’s serious: the summit dinner all but disappears from his mind as he looks at her; how beautiful she is. How elegant. So poised and pretty and his, all his, to love until all the suns swallow themselves and burn out. All these representatives won’t miss him at one measly, lousy dinner, right? Not when he has the love of his life to attend to, surely.

“What’s gotten into you?,” she giggles, kicking off one of her sophisticated shoes as she sits on the bed. “You’re acting like we’re on our honeymoon!”

Poe leans in and places his hands on either side of her hips, bumping his forehead to hers as he takes long, weighty breaths, feeling the heat radiate off of her.

“I just… This is a lot, right?”

“Mm,” she acquiesces.

“And you’re kind of… what I go back to when I’m in too deep. So, right now, all this summit stuff and the Senate and the council? I need that to take a backseat to me being with you. The person I love. And letting that be what guides me in what I need to do for… everybody else.”

She lets out a soft, appreciative “aw”, her eyes softening as she cups his cheek, and Poe leans into her hand, allowing a little lasciviousness to leak into his smile as he stares down at her.

“Plus, it’s kinda… you know, a little sexy, being somewhere so new and ritzy. I’m not used to this kind of stuff. That, and we barely got a honeymoon, if you remember--”

“Yeah,” she recalls, sighing and pinching the bridge of her nose, clearly vexed by the memory, “I remember. The day after we got married, that First Order outpost tried to open fire and you were up and out of bed and back in deployment after less than twenty four hours of being a married man.”

“Duty never sleeps,” he shrugs. “But… We can make up for lost time here, on this big, shiny, fancy-ass ship, huh?”

Poe wiggles his eyebrows with playfully rapacious intent, sending his wife into a fit of good-natured laughs. He adores when she laughs; it sends his heart racing, every inch of him alight with the joy of knowing that her smiles are because of him, the sound of her voice bouncing up and down with glee all caused by some silly little thing he’s said or done. Unable to contain himself, Poe leans down and kisses her, cutting off the sounds of her laughter, a deep, satisfied groan emanating from his chest.

“God,” he rumbles as they part for a quick breath, “I haven’t gotten to do that all damn day.”

“It did feel really good,” she sighs, clasping her arms around his neck. She seems to take pause, etching his face into her memory with her eyes, then comes to a decision: Poe would recognize that resolute gleam in her expression anywhere. “Alright, we’re staying.”

“...You mean it?,” he chirps.

“Yep. You tell them your poor, defenseless wife is laid up ill and needs your constant and most doting attention,” she smiles, kissing the tip of his nose. “Then when you’re done calling the front desk, you come over here and you help me get out of this dress and into that bath you promised.”

“Yes, ma’am,” he chuckles, then catches himself. “I mean, yes, Princess.”

“Mm,” she beams, teasing him with a pinch on the thigh. “Much better.”

They share another deep, drawn-out kiss before Poe manages to wrest himself away from her and off to the side of the room with the comm built into the wall, but glances over at her as he taps at the screen to connect with the front desk. She grins coyly from the bed, kicking one leg out in a pseudo-sultry, semi-silly way from beneath her sumptuous gown. Poe can’t help but feel a swell of endearment.

As the call connects, Poe sighs dreamily to himself; if all else failed, at least he had her, and with her by his side, he was definitely going to enjoy a very, very pleasurable cruise.

#poe dameron #poe dameron x reader #long post #original #OH MY GOD CAN YOU BELIEVEEEEE i actually sat down and wrote this? dkhfhdkf #im a little rusty but! felt good to finish a project! i hope you guys enjoy!!#star wars

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justletmeplayminecraft · 4 years

Text

ex finds a stowaway. what happens next may surprise you.

set in @martuzzio‘s space outlaw au, as ever. this was one of the fics i wanted to write early on and i’m super chuffed i’ve finished it. a faster pace to my previous few, but still 5.5k.

featuring: ex goes on a journey of character growth feat. someone who definitely isn’t zedaph, ex actually learns to use the word ‘friend’, some tense brotherly discussions, emotions, ex basically holds zedaph up like ‘whose child is this???’, also try not to think of zedaph as a pack creature on his own for that long with only his shawl for comfort cause that hurts a lot.

warnings: tbh if you’ve read my other fics then you’ll be fine, this is tame. very brief shoot-out. emotions. that’s all i can think of.

In all of Ex's (too many) years alive, it's never taken him this long to notice a stowaway before. He's had them, of course. It's usually kids sneaking onto ships that don't know better. They're looking for adventure. Though, they stop looking once they see him. Dropping them off to their parents or kicking them off his ship is easy enough. When it's more serious... Well, he figures it out. He's not Xisuma, but he's not heartless either. Up until now, he's always found them before he took off, or a few hours into flight.

He finds the blond in the middle of deep space.

It's not like he's hidden well, either. He's curled up tightly in the storage hold, tucked in the corner behind some boxes. His arm acts a pillow, a woollen shawl draped over his shoulders. There's only a small rucksack tucked close to torn robes. From the slow rise and fall of his chest, he's sound asleep. Ex sighs, unsure how to proceed from here. It's too late to turn back and drop him off. He doesn't look very threatening, at least. Ex nudges the guy with his toe, watching him rock back and forth. The guy whines.

"Hey. Get up." Ex gets a frown, blue eyes blinking open. He looks ahead of him tiredly, reaching to rub his face before freezing, bolting upright.

"Wh- oh. Um." Ex reaches for the gun on his hip, twirling it before pointing it at the ground. The blond's mouth falls open. "Oh, that's not good."

"Who are you?" Ex asks, keeping his sentences short. This guy looks flighty as anything, shoulders drawn in so he can lean away.

"Woo- William. My name's William." Ex narrows his eyes, tilting the gun closer to him. The guy squeaks.

"I don't believe you." Ex stares him down.

"That's it, that's my name, I'm not lying. Why would I lie to the scary man with a gun?" He swallows, tacking on, "Please don't kill me." Ex keeps his expression neutral and harsh.

"The hell are you doing on my ship?" He demands. Hopefully he'll be smart enough not to lie about that. The guy twists his hands in front of him.

"I just needed safe passage! That's all. There's some people that don't particularly like me and I just- I had to get away!"

"And what's stopping me from giving you to them?" The look of fear that enters those blue eyes would be enough on its own. The blond, Ex might as well call him William, looks devastated. His whole expression crumbles.

"You-" His eyes dart around the hold. Ex can see his arms tense, ready to push himself up.

"There's nowhere to run. We're in the middle of deep space." William doesn't even look at him anymore. He tugs the shawl tighter around his shoulders, beginning to look very small. His breathing has turned into small puffs. Ex sighs, slotting his gun back in its sheath. "What have you been having to eat? To drink?" He asks. William blinks in confusion, glancing up to him. He doesn't quite make eye contact.

"Um, there's some food in one of the crates. Biscuits. I'm really sorry- I was hungry." Ex sighs, making a decision he's pretty sure he's going to regret. He holds his hand out.

"Come on. Get up." William pulls his shawl closer, eyeing him with apprehension. "I'm taking you to the kitchen, idiot. Unless you want to fade away down here."

"Oh." William quietly releases his shawl, hand hovering. "Can I take my bag?" Ex can't imagine anything dangerous being in a bag like that, but he's no fool.

"Give it here."

"Do I have to?" Ex scowls at him. William visibly pales. He gathers up his bag, pushing it into Ex's awaiting hand.

"You can have it back after you eat. And I make sure there's nothing dangerous in it." Ex slings the bag onto his shoulder, taking some care with the contents.

"Okay. That sounds fair." Ex avoids commenting, offering his hand again. William takes it this time. He's as light as Ex expecting, falling into his front with a panicked, "Sorry!" Ex shakes his head, pushing William in front of him. As harmless as he seems, Ex knows better than to take unnecessary chances.

He was right that William looked starved. He's tall but tiny, barely any weight on him. The robe hangs off his frame shapeless, a sash wrapped into a belt keeping it on. William tells him in a quiet voice that he's vegetarian, and then eats the food Ex cooks like he hasn't eaten in a week. And if he's been in the hold only eating biscuits, maybe that's accurate.

"Thank you so much," William pushes the plate away, dropping his hands into his lap. Ex nods, only halfway through his own plate. "I- um. Can't actually remember the last time I had a cooked meal. That was really nice." Ex raises his eyebrows. He's not even going to ask. He has a feeling he won't get a straight answer.

"Did you have a destination in mind?"

William shrugs, "Wouldn't have gotten on a random ship if I did."

"Good. Because I'm not going off course for you." William laughs very gently, pressing back against the chair.

"That's- that's okay. I'll probably just find another ship. That's what I've been doing." He can see William tug at his robe. It shows how thin the fabric is. Ex furrows his brow.

"How long have you been running?" He asks. William looks surprised at the question. He tugs the robe tighter, shifting his shawl from its position. He resets it quickly.

"I don't remember." William's voice is incredibly small. Ex silently curses. He swore to himself a long time ago he wouldn't get attached to humans. He's never understood Xisuma and his ever-changing entourage. Their lives are so short. Blink and you miss it. But, here, this one, sat across from him. Ex knows how exhausting running is.

He's growing attached. Damn it.

He's proved right when Ex shows him to his room. He gives William's bag back. There was barely anything in it anyway. A spare robe, empty water bottle, a broken thread bracelet, a notepad (detailing his travels, Ex thinks), a de-tangling brush and a tiny amount of change. He's pretty confident this guy isn't a threat to him. He'll keep the bedroom door locked anyway.

"Um." William pauses at the door, cradling his bag. Ex crosses his arms. "Thank you. Again," he says, "You've been really nice to me. I appreciate that."

"It's a few weeks until the next port," Ex tells him. William nods.

"I can help out where I can?" He suggests. "I can... Clean or cook, maybe? I'm not very good at it but-" Ex holds his hand up and the rambling trails off.

"Tomorrow. I'll find something." William's shoulders relax.

"Thank you."

True to his word, Ex finds him something to do. Sure, it's dusting, but it's an easy way to keep an eye on him. Ex is no idiot. He's thought things through. He doesn't need to let William near any dangerous chemicals, he can steer him from important machinery and he's not going to do much to Ex with a duster.

He doesn't think he'd be able to do much anyway with that little muscle.

Ex tries to remember what he's learnt about humans. It's not like he's unfamiliar with them, the damn things are everywhere. Fragile yet resilient, they find their way into everything. Ex did his best to avoid them. Now, he has no idea what to do with this one on his ship.

He's pretty sure this is an adult human, at least. The children are usually smaller and talk in higher voices. Far more annoying, too. William listens to him. He stays out of Ex's way, always on the edges. Ex feels slightly reassured he's not accidentally kidnapping a child. That's the last thing he needs. His bounty is high enough. Sure it isn't kidnapping if he came onto the ship himself, but like the authorities care.

Two days after Ex found William, the blond approaches him.

"Um." He's holding the front of his shawl, tugging it tighter around him. He's not changed clothes yet. Though, what would he change into? "I was just thinking I- uh. I don't know what to call you." William shifts from foot to foot. "You don't have to tell me, of course! That's fair! But I keep calling you scaryblueishman in my head which is kind of rude." Ex raises his eyebrows, staring down at the human.

"Ex." Blue eyes narrow.

"Ex?" William sounds confused. "That's just a letter."

"E-X," he spells out, with a dead stare. William still looks skeptical but he nods, mouthing the name before he speaks again.

"Okay. Ex." He nods again, a bit more confident. "It's nice to meet you properly." Ex grunts, turning away to focus on directions. William doesn't leave, his shadow moving awkwardly in Ex's peripherals. Ex finally glances to him.

"What else?"

William takes a deep breath, "Is there a way I could clean my robe? I mean, I'm happy to just do it in a sink with water, but I wanted to check first." Ex wrinkles his nose.

"Please do." William shrinks in, tugging his shawl tight. He focuses on the ground.

"Sorry, yeah. I'll- I'll do that." William skitters away quickly and Ex is left with the feeling he said the wrong thing. He frowns, before deciding it isn't his problem. If William has an issue, he can deal with it.

At dinner that night, William is dressed in his other robe, and his hair is heavy with water. With his face clean, he has a pleasant glow to his cheeks. Ex is surprised how much healthier it makes him look. He sits at the counter with him, in the routine they've silently established.

"I'll wash this one tomorrow," William tells him. "But I needed something to wear whilst the other one dried soooo...." It's the first time Ex has seen him without the shawl on. Part of him wants to ask where it is.

"Didn't you use the dryer?" Ex asks instead, pointing to his hair. William pats it, face opening up as he remembers it's wet.

"It's wool. I have to let it air dry or it shrinks." He pretends to shiver. "That's never fun, do not recommend." Ex's thoughts come to a crashing halt. He was fairly certain humans didn't have wool for hair. He knits with wool. Is this some kind of genetic tampering again? Humans always seem to do that.

"Wool?" He questions, seeing an opportunity to prod into William's past either way. William nods, pulling out a strand of hair. It reveals the tight waves in it. Then he seems to realise what Ex is asking and blanches.

"Oh- uh." The hands withdraw back, pressing into his lap now he has no shawl to fiddle with. "You thought I was human, didn't you?"

"You're not," Ex replies, keeping a blank tone. William shakes his head, hair swishing as he does.

"Most people think I am but- well, you're already doing me a big favour by not killing me." His eyes dart to him and back to his plate. "So, uh, I guess I'm related to humans? I'm mostly human. But I'm like... Also related to sheep."

"Sheep," Ex checks, "Those big fluffy things that humans used to farm?"

"Yes! Those!" William bounces in his seat. "I look human so usually I just pretend I am. Makes life easier. But, kinda slipped up here." He fiddles with his robe. Ex can understand that. He's often thought his life would be far easier if he was just a human. But his life would be far easier if a lot of things were different. Being a more common species is a star in the galaxy against his problems.

"Does this mean I get to know your name?" Ex asks. He's surprised how pleased he is when William laughs at his teasing. There’s not a hint of nervousness in it this time.

"You're still stuck on that, aren't you?" William leans forward on the table. "I'm gonna keep it secret. Give you a reason to keep me around."

"So you admit it's not your name."

"Ah." William looks to the side. "You got me there." Ex smirks, continuing to eat. He can't remember the last time he made someone properly laugh. Probably Xisuma. William, whatever his name is, he's... He's not bad.

He finds himself trusting William as more time passes. He's given him no reason not to. William follows him into the engine room to figure out why a light keeps flashing. He sits in the navigation bay as Ex redirects around a police stop. He watches and he learns. He talks, too. Ex is amazed someone can chatter so much.

The first few times he trails off once he realises he's doing it. So Ex tries to encourage the conversation. He grunts, nods, tries all those things you usually do. Things he's never cared for before. He likes listening to William speak. The way his brain jumps from topic to topic. He's surprisingly sharp for someone stowing away on an outlaw’s ship. Ex would never admit it, but he prefers it to the silence.

"You might be able to move that wire," William points out. The damn targeting system has stopped working this time. He should’ve known better than to take the cheap junk. "Connect it directly into the power source. Seems like the surge detector is malfunctioning." William rests his hand on his chin. "Actually, test the surge detector with something else first. In case it's a problem with the power source." Ex nods, before looking at William with suspicion.

"When did you become a technician?" William laughs quietly, scratching the back of his hair.

"Um, picked it up over time," he replies. "My friends used to be really good at it so I got the basics from them. Then I kinda needed to know to survive." There's something tight in William's voice when he mentions his friends, how he skips over it quickly and continues explaining what they should do. Ex doesn't comment on it any further. It's hardly like William will be sticking around.

Until they reach the next port. William quietly asks where he's going next. Ex tells him. He doesn't bring attention to the relief in William's eyes.

They become travelling partners after that. William is there with excited comments and a bounce in his step. He has a surprising range of technical know-how, with unconventional but surprisingly effective solutions. Ex finds himself enjoying the company. He thought he'd mind more. Silence is something he's used to. Something he could retreat into for safety. William never pressures him. He doesn't expect replies. He fills a space Ex didn't know needed filling.

And Ex learns things. William speaks fondly of his family, but he hasn't seen them for a long time. He has a wide knowledge of ships, various organisations and federations. He has a sharp wit, he enjoys watching comedies, he likes napping where Ex is nearby. It's been a long time since Ex has tried to learn about another person. He writes down each small fact so he doesn't forget.

He does ask one day, "You are an adult, right?" William looks up, his smile full of cheek.

"On paper!" So, he gives up on that enquiry. He'll just assume he is.

But William never brings up his friends again. If it weren't for the brief mentions of family, Ex would assume he didn't have a life before meeting him.

That changes, one night.

Ex stopped locking William's bedroom a long time ago. It's so rare he leaves his room anyway. Ex trusts him with far worse around the ship. He wakes up too easily for William to sneak up on him. Or doesn't sleep at all. Like tonight, Ex wanders the ship aimlessly.

He finds William on the bridge. The systems are powered down for the night. It's a piece of junk, but the windows still tower over them. William is sat against one, a shadowed silhouette against the stars. His shawl is slipping off his shoulder. There's something sad in his eyes, the stars reflected in the blue. Ex's footsteps are silent. He sits across from William and blue eyes turn to him.

"Sorry," William's voice is so quiet in the open space. "Did I keep you up?"

"I didn't know you were here," Ex replies. William smiles, resting against the window again. He looks small against the stars.

His next words are quieter, "It feels so lonely, sometimes." Ex watches William tug his shawl tighter, pull his legs a bit closer. "All of this space."

"I've been alone for a long time," Ex tells him. "I'm used to it." William looks at him closely and Ex feels more examined than he has in a long time.

"I'm not sure if I pity you or I'm jealous."

"I'm not sure if I should be insulted." William smiles. It doesn't reach his eyes.

"I wish I could just not care." He breathes out, shaking slightly. "I miss them so much. It's been years." Years aren't very long to Ex, but he doesn't mention that.

"Your family?"

"No-" William turns back to the stars "-My friends."

"Can't you see them?" William's laugh is more of a sob.

"I'm pretty sure they're dead." He stands, pulling his shawl tight. With the light on his face, Ex can make out the shine of tears. "I'm going to sleep. I'm sorry."

By the time Ex can find the words to reply, William is already gone.

The next day, whilst they sit together in the common room, William speaks for the first time since that conversation.

"My name's Zedaph." Ex turns to him quickly. "My real name."

"That sounds less real than William," Ex replies, furrowing his brows. William, well, Zedaph, now, gasps in mock surprise.

"Says the person with a letter!" He cries, prodding his finger forward. He can’t reach. Ex smirks. He'll write that down later. Zedaph.

Zedaph only gets more bubbly now he's revealed his name. It occurs to Ex he could use it to look him up. He could unwrap this mystery of a person. Yet he... Doesn't. Zedaph is- Ex doesn't want to betray his trust. Zedaph has brought something new to his miserable life. He's precious. Ex doesn't want to break what they have.

Except he messes up.

Zedaph doesn't even have armour as the authorities unload on them. Ex shoves him forward, putting up a shield behind them so they can run. Zedaph stumbles as a shot bounces off the shield. He grabs a table from outside the cafe, dragging it over onto the pavement. Ceramic shatters across paved streets, water spilling into cobbles. People are standing, with loud gasps and shouts. Zedaph looks to Ex, nodding before sprinting alongside him. Ex grabs his wrist, using his free hand to fire shots back at the authorities in the hopes of keeping them away.

They turn a corner and Ex doesn't hesitate to pull Zedaph down another side alley. He refuses to let either of them drop the pace, keeping Zedaph firmly beside him. It takes several more twists and turns until Ex is certain they've lost their pursuers. He still keeps a brisk pace, determined to get back to the ship before they're spotted. Zedaph is puffing beside him.

"I knew this was a mistake," Ex mutters. He still has his hand digging tightly around Zedaph's wrist.

"What?" Zedaph asks. His feet are dragging as he tries his best to keep up. Ex huffs, glaring at him.

"You," he spits. "You've got no armour, you could've died if they shot you. I should’ve left you at that port. This is my damn fault." Zedaph's eyes narrow into a returning glare. He tries to snatch his arm back from Ex but Ex holds fast.

"No, that's not fair," he protests. "To start with, they were after us because of me." Ex holds his arm still between them, halting them both. There's barely room to breathe in the tight alley. He hates these small towns.

"Why would they be after you?" He demands. Zedaph doesn't back down.

"They found me in their record room. I ran but they must've recognised me." Ex stares the blond down, watching as he breathes heavily. He finally yanks his arm, setting a quick pace.

"We're talking about this on the ship," he tells him, voice firm.

"Of course we will," Zedaph mutters. Ex doesn't dignify him with a reply.

"Why would you do something so stupid?" He never realised how tall Zedaph is until he's glaring back at him, hands bunched in his shawl. His bag has been thrown on the ground.

"I do it at every planet," Zedaph replies, voice raised but not shouting. "This is just the first time you've noticed."

"And you didn't think to tell me this?"

"I told you there were people after me," Zedaph retorts. Ex rolls his eyes.

"You didn't say that was the police."

"Well, they're one of them. Happy now?"

"What did you even need to be in the stupid record room for?" Ex can barely keep still for his frustration. This stupid, fragile idiot. "What's worth risking your life for?" Zedaph stalks to his bag, picking it up and clutching it in his arms.

"I have to try, okay!" Zedaph doesn't meet his eyes. He's curled around his bag protectively, twisted away from Ex. "For my friends! My best friends-" His voice breaks. Zedaph buries his face into the bag, shoulders shaking and oh god- he's crying. He's crying and this is all Ex's fault.

He barely gets his arms around Zedaph in an attempt at a hug for him to fall against Ex. The bag is squashed between them, and Ex does the best to rub his trembling back, unsure what to do or say.

"There there?" He attempts, thinking to parents and their children. A laugh bubbles out of Zedaph. He steps away but there's still tears in his eyes. He rubs at them with the back of his arm.

"You don't- you don't have to do that." Zedaph smiles at him, his cheeks still shining. "This is kinda stupid, isn't it? Oh my word, I feel like a kid all over again. Crying over things I can't change." Ex pretends that sentiment doesn't hurt.

"Do you want to talk about it?" He asks. Zedaph hesitates. He actually thinks before he replies.

"Sure-" he shrugs "-at this point, why not? "

He keeps his bag with him as they settle in the common room. He wraps his legs around it, pulling out the small book that Ex remembers. Ex sits on another chair entirely, crossing his legs.

"I should start at the start, right?" Zedaph asks, peering at Ex under damp eyelashes.

"That might help," Ex agrees. Zedaph nods, resting his head on his bag.

"I used to have a really close herd," he begins, speaking softly. "One of them I think is okay. Skizz. But I've not been able to find him." He rubs circles onto his knee. "The other two are- were called Tango and Impulse." Something pings in Ex's head. He tries to place why. "We were a team, you know? And then just- they were gone and dead and I didn't want to believe it. I don't want to believe it."

Zedaph holds his book out. Ex takes it, opening the pages and flicking through.

"Every time I reach a port, I try to see if someone matching their descriptions has gone through." He shrugs, simply looking sad. "They never have. But I can't break the habit."

"These are the two that taught you tech?" Ex asks, pieces coming together in his head.

"Yeah!" Zedaph brightens up slightly. "The two of them were incredible. They came up with such amazing designs. For everything. The three of us could fly any ship we wanted to." He squeezes his knee. "I was never really as good as them. I can't even fill their shoes."

Ex frowns, "Don't you see how impressive you are?" Zedaph blinks at him, blue eyes wide.

"Um? No?" Ex closes the book, giving it back to Zedaph. Zedaph strokes the cover before slotting it away safely. "I can't design massive machines. Or work engines. I'm just- I'm me."

Ex raises his eyebrows, "You've successfully evaded police and however many other groups. You've kept detailed records of where you visited. You're able to make things work I'd given up on. You’re funny. Don't you see that?"

"You don't know them."

"No." Ex doesn't change tone. "But I know you." Zedaph squeezes his shawl.

"I'm not going to change your mind, am I?"

"You could always tell me more about them." Zedaph smiles very slightly, sinking into the seat.

"Yeah," he agrees. "It's been... Too long. I'd like to keep their memory alive somehow."

Ex listens closely to every word that Zedaph says. He talks into the early hours of the morning, stories upon stories. Of Impulse and how he tried to keep them together but was really just as chaotic most of the time. Tango and his fire hair, it's really amazing and his crazy ideas he somehow made work. The farms they’d come up with together, pouring over schematics into the early hours of the morning.

And Ex has all the pieces.

He needs to contact Xisuma. Damn it.

Ex doesn't want to be selfish. The thought crosses his mind. He could keep Zedaph all to himself and he'd be none the wiser. Ex would have company. They'd both be happy.

But.

How long can he keep Zedaph safe? It would be his fault if those blue eyes no longer shone as he laughs. The people after Ex are far worse than those after Zedaph. And Ex, as much as it pains him, doesn't want to be selfish. He doesn't want to be the reason Zedaph never sees his friends again.

He types out the message in silence that night.

[Ex] ive got somebody for your crew.

"And you're sure I can't come with you?" Zedaph asks, for possibly the fifteenth time that morning. Ex nods, keeping his eye on the coordinates of Xisuma's ship. It's been a long time since he's landed in there.

"You don't even have armour," Ex replies. Zedaph scoffs, spinning around in the co-pilot seat.

"I don't have to leave the ship," he suggests. "I could just sit here and look pretty."

"It'll be safer," Ex repeats, for what also must be around the tenth time. "It's a much bigger ship too. More people than just me. You’ll have space to spread out." Zedaph sighs, sliding down in the seat until he's nearly lying down.

"But what if they don't like me?" He exclaims. "At least you do."

"For now." Zed sits up at that with a noise of protest.

"Don't you start being mean," he complains. "I just don't get it. We've been fine, this works. Then we get in one firefight and you freak out!" Ex sighs, checking as they get closer.

"I've not done anything dangerous around you," Ex tells him. "And I am a dangerous man."

"You literally let me sleep on you because you're too afraid to move me," Zed points out. "You're hardly- oh, that is a really big ship." Ex looks up as Xisuma's ship comes into view in all her glory. Zedaph stares, open-mouthed at the sight. "You're putting me on that?" He asks, his face a picture of shock.

"She's a good ship, with a good crew. You'll fit in well." Zed pulls his shawl tight.

"Do you think so?" He asks.

"I know so," Ex replies. He mentally prepares himself. "You're a good friend, Zed. They'll love you." The smile on Zedaph's face is brighter than any star Ex has seen.

"Will you see me on board?" Ex sighs, before shaking his head. He doesn't want to deal with the emotions. Seeing Zedaph reunite with his proper friends. Leaving Ex behind.

"My brother will look after you," Ex tells him instead. Brother is easier than clone. There's parts of his history Zedaph simply doesn't need to know.

"I trust you."

Has anyone ever trusted Ex before?

Ex is there as Xisuma enters the ship. Zedaph looks between the two of them, eyes squinted.

"You really do look alike, huh." Xisuma shoots Ex a look. Ex shakes his head very slightly. He knows X will get the message.

"You must be Zedaph." Xisuma holds his hand out, offering a friendly smile. "Ex has told me about you." Zedaph smiles, accepting the handshake.

"You must be Xisuma." Zedaph nods. "It's a pleasure to meet you, sir." Ex snorts at the panicked look on Xisuma's face. His brother waves his hands quickly.

"Nope, none of that. Calling me sir makes me feel far too old."

"You are far too old." Ex throws his arm around Xisuma's shoulders, purposefully knocking him off balance. "You take care of the squirt, got it?"

"Hey!" Zedaph places his hands on his hips. "I'll call you a squirt if you're not careful." Xisuma laughs, shaking his head at the two's antics.

"Of course, of course. They're all excited to meet you. Are you ready?" Zedaph gives Ex a long look. He holds up a finger.

"One minute." He jumps forward, wrapping his arms around Ex and trapping him in a hug. He's gone from a twig to nearly dislodging Ex's footing. Impressive. He raises his arms, awkwardly settling into the hug. Zedaph's grip is tight enough to squeeze his lungs.

"You know I'm gonna miss you, right?" Zedaph steps back. He pokes a finger into Ex's chest. "You better stay safe out there. I want you to visit me."

"Yeah," Ex agrees, trying to hide the uncertainty in his words. "I will." He doesn't know which one he's agreeing to. Zedaph gives him a final smile. He turns to Xisuma with all of that boundless energy.

"Okay! Let's go." Xisuma nods, letting Zedaph take the lead. He pauses at the door.

"I promise to keep him safe," he tells Ex.

"You better."

It's barely two minutes until the feeling hits him. The ship feels so much emptier now.

"Why didn't you see him off?" Ex turns to find Xisuma standing beside him with his arms crossed. He stares into the distance, looking like a trademark wise old man. Ex scoffs at the sight, resisting the urge to cross his own arms.

"He won't have any trouble getting used to your ship," he replies. Xisuma looks at him, purple eyes trying to see into Ex's soul. Ex won't let him.

"That wasn't what I asked." Ex sighs, frustrating boiling over.

"How do you do it?" He demands, turning to Xisuma with clenched fists. Xisuma hardly reacts, his expression gentle as ever. "You let these people in your life knowing you're going to lose them. Again and again." It's with those words that Xisuma looks away in thought. Ex releases his fists, realising for once, he's asked something X doesn't have an immediate answer to.

"You want the honest answer?" Purple eyes lock with purple eyes.

"Why?" Ex sneers. "Are you planning to lie to me again?" For not even a second, Ex can see Xisuma flinch. It's such a minute shift in expression that the ordinary person wouldn't notice. Shame that Ex is looking at his own face.

Xisuma pities him. Even now.

"No." Xisuma bows his head. "Because you won't like it." Ex scowls at him. He gestures his hand out for Xisuma to continue. With that same gentle expression, Xisuma sighs. He takes Ex's hand into his own and lowers it between them. "I do it with great difficulty, Ex. Is that the answer you want?" Ex freezes, unable to reply as Xisuma looks directly at him with sad eyes.

Someone shouts for Xisuma inside the landing bay. The stupid admin glances in that direction, calling out a response. He squeezes Ex's hand as he faces him. Ex snatches it away.

"I'm going to send you his number," Xisuma tells him. He gives no room for Ex to argue. "It's your choice if you stay in contact."

"Why should I?"

"Having a friend isn't going to kill you, Ex." He doesn't appreciate Xisuma's dry tone. "Consider it." Ex huffs, a stray white strand flying from his face.

"Fine."

[Xisuma forwarded a contact: Zedaph]

[Xisuma] He speaks highly of you, you know?

[Ex] is this your way to convince me

[Xisuma] Maybe.

[Xisuma] And it's nice to hear that somebody else cares about you.

...

[Ex] shut up

[Ex] sup loser

[Ex] heard you missed me

[Zedaph] Ex!!!!!!!

[Zedaph] You absolutely knew, didn’t you? I hate you so much.

[Zedaph] Oh, I have so much to catch you up on.

Ex rolls onto his side on the bed, content to watch the messages roll in.

#space outlaws #space outlaws au #hermitcraft #hc #my writing #okay so i have Thoughts about this one #so like #spoilers up ahead #firstly i threw in a skizz reference #i havent seen him but i know theyre close outside of hc #also i feel like this is the start of ex teaming up with the other 'evil' hermits lmao #he finally realises friends arent like. a bad thing #i also really enjoyed writing the shift in dynamic between x and ex #from when zed is there to when he isnt #i liked writing those two anyway #i went for a more serious ex voice though #i think it fits this au #anyway thats probably enough rambling lmao #thanks for reading i hope u enjoyed

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haikyooot · 3 years

Text

Season + Weather | 07 | Kita Shinsuke

|07| Beginning of Spring 立春 Risshun

02/04-02/18

After the winter chill comes the bearing of spring. Then comes the summer of cicadas, and finally the fields of neverending gold.

Kita Shinsuke x f!reader Genre: Slice-of-life, Fluff Word Count: 739

Spring 春 Haru | 07 | 08 | 09 | 10 | 11 | 12 | Masterlist

The trees were still pretty much bare, but some plants decided they wanted to get an early start. Thus they stretched themselves out of hibernation. Many others decided that the time wasn’t right yet--better hit the snooze button and wake up when it’s warmer. The birds were also starting to come back. Every now and then, their songs would be heard.

At noon, Kita, Granny, and you sat in silence and each happily enjoyed an uncut maki roll. Kita told you that the ehō -maki, lucky direction roll, was a tradition unique to the Kansai area. This was the first time you heard about it.

“How did it come to be?” you asked. “Uncut just sounds like someone got lazy.”

Kita shrugged. “Who knows. They spin it as good, uncut fortune. But, there are a lot of traditions people follow without thinking much about it. Some good and some bad.”

“And some plain odd,” you added. “Why do we have to put little sardine heads on twigs outside?”

“To ward off evil spirits,” Granny explained. She entered the living room with a bowl of soybeans and a red ogre mask.

Kita took the items from his grandmother. He handed you the angry-looking mask. “Want to do honors?”

“I thought they only threw the soybeans at the temple fairs,” you asked, staring at the mask dubiously.

“We’re in the countryside now, we do things at home and also at the temple. Hurry up, we’ll still have time to go see the performances.” Kita placed the mask over your face, then laughed. “Looks good on you.”

You raised the mask so you could see Kita a bit better. “I thought the head of household does this sort of stuff. Shouldn’t, y’know, you or Granny do it? I’m not a Kita.”

“Doesn’t really matter.” Kita lightly smacked your hand away and pulled the mask down. Your vision narrowed and your peripheral grew dark. You heard a light rustle and a voice whisper next to your ear. “Besides, you’re basically one anyway.”

“Y-you,” you stuttered, growing embarrassed as Kita pulled you up to your feet.

Kita ushered you towards the front door. “Chase the demons out for us, please.”

“Fine,” you huffed, still feeling flustered. Chase what demons, the real demon was behind you right now. When did Kita get this sneaky? Inarizaki and their foxes...You threw out a small handful of the soybeans and slammed the door shut. “Demons out, Fortune in!”

You lifted the mask off and saw Kita holding his phone up, filming the entire scene. When Kita noticed the frown on your face and saw you approach him, he quickly ended the video and retreated. His footsteps were flighty and light. No wonder Suna always took pictures of everything. We do need some memories, after all.

Demons haunting corners Ogres that hide inside Flee at the decree of Spring

Even after the sun had set, the sound of distant festivities could still be heard around the neighborhood. Some children ran around echoing shrieks and laughter while tossing more soybeans. Granny had long gone to bed. It was just you and Kita enjoying the remnants of the night.

“Setsubun is so much fun!” you toasted, taking another sip of sake. The warmed alcohol and its special ginger note heated your body.

Kita pulled the cup away from your lips. “No more for you. You’ll wake up hungover.”

“Come on,” you whined. You tried to reach for the cup, missed, and fell right into Kita’s lap. Kita watched as you pulled on his shoulder to steady yourself. He couldn’t help but enjoy how you looked like this moment and traced a thumb across your bottom lip.

“You’re drunk,” he commented.

You gave a quiet giggle. “I’m always drunk, Shinsuke.”

“Oh really?”

Kita felt you lean into him and wrap your arms around him. Your face snuggled into the crook of his neck. “On you, heh heh...always drunk,” you answered.

Kita pressed a kiss on the top of your head. “Likewise.”

There was so much Kita looked forward to. So much anticipation and excitement that welled up in his chest. So much he couldn’t wait to share with you. He knew he had to be patient. Planted seeds don’t sprout into flowers the next day. However, the weather warmed up day by day. Every day he went outside, he could see the changes of Spring blooming. Soon everything would burst forth with fresh life.

Endnotes: • Setsubun (節分) --lit.“season divide”--is usually celebrated the day before Spring, around Feb 2-4. • Common tradition is mamemaki ( 豆撒きlit.‘soybean scattering’). The roasted soybeans are fukumame (福豆 lit. ‘fortune beans’). Some throw the beans amongst family, some throw it outside. Either way, it’s to chase out evil spirits & bring good fortune into the space. • The uncut maki sushi rolls, sardine head talisman, and ginger sake are other practices that might be observed. There are regional & family differences too.

Spring 春 Haru | 07 | 08 | 09 | 10 | 11 | 12 | Masterlist

#kita shinsuke #haikyuu!!#haikyuu #kita x reader #haikyuu x reader #haikyuu fanfiction #hq!!#s+w

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aurora-australis-tumbles · 4 years

Note

Heey can you do 40 (exes) for phrack?

Oh Anonymous... this went in a direction I don’t think either of us expected. 😂Hope you enjoy it anyway and thank you for the prompt!

For the prompt, “exes meeting again after not speaking for years au”

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

There is a space, on the handlebar of Jack’s new bike, that is just wide enough, and just flat enough, to seat a person while it is in motion.

That is her spot.

Together they ride through the uncharted wilds of North Richmond, the jungles of Fitzroy, the shorelines of St. Kilda. And when he is with her, Jack feels like a true adventurer, a pirate of legend, an explorer of old.

(He isn’t sure who is the captain and who is the first mate, but he suspects they are trading roles with every voyage. He is surprisingly comfortable with this.)

She does a good job of holding on without impeding his view, but sometimes, on the really tight corners, he has to lean forward, his face precariously close to her breasts, so he can see where they’re going.

One those days he makes sure to thank Great Uncle Ted in his prayers.

Well, Uncle Ted and the ice cream man who wouldn’t take her IOU.

Jack had stepped in, offered to pay. She’d declined, told him she didn’t require assistance. He’d then suggested her could see her home, if she wanted, and one look at his bike had her accepting that proposal.

Six months later they spend all their spare time together.

They are an odd pair, from the outside. He’s relaxed, scholarly, funny, sweet. She’s skittish, shrewd, sarcastic, restless. He loves school and thinking about the future. She’s brilliant, but not studious, and can’t plan past the next hour. He’s respectful, she’s defiant. He laughs easily, and she doesn't, but when she does… oh when she does it is earned. He’s from a large, loving family who he speaks of often, but doesn’t even know if she has relations other than a cousin she mentions with a kind smile. He is an open book. She’s never even told him her surname.

But they share a wicked sense of humour, care about the same causes, are both explorers at heart.

They see each other.

His mates think her wild, but she’s not. What she really is is unconstrained, and the distinction may be lost on his friends but to Jack it is everything.

She is everything.

He thinks he might love her but he’s both too juvenile and too precocious to commit to the term. He doesn’t even know if he’s her only… friend. But he would gladly be her boyfriend, her proper boyfriend, if she’d let him.

Not that they’re always proper. He doesn’t lose his virginity to her, but he comes awfully close.

He is just working up the nerve to ask her to make it official when she tells him she is going away. She is only 16 but there are many more years of sadness in her eyes as she says it.

“Where?”

“Europe,” she tells him, but doesn’t elaborate.

He feels like he’s been sucker punched by an entire continent.

“Maybe I’ll see you there,” he manages through the hurt. “I’ve been thinking of enlisting.”

They meet one more time after that, and he gives her a gift. Something he’s been holding onto for a while.

“I can’t take this,” she tells him, knowing its value instinctively.

“You must,” he replies. “How else will you get away with it?”

“With what?”

“Everything.”

She laughs, truly laughs, and then she cries and he holds her and kisses her goodbye.

The poets make this part seem much more noble.

“Will you… do you think you’ll write? I’d like it very much if you did.” It is murmured into her hair, but she doesn’t answer. He knows she doesn’t make promises she can’t keep, but in this case...

“Just one then,” he negotiates. “When you arrive. So I know you’re safe and alright.”

“Jack… I’m not.”

He doesn’t know what to say to that so he just holds her tighter, and eventually she leaves.

His handlebars always feel empty after that.

The world has changed, though, and he feels duty bound to change with it.

He enlists, asking his parents to please pass along word if he receives any letters from Europe.

He doesn’t.

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

The years pass, eventful and mundane, and he never hears from her. Assumes he never will. So when he next lays eyes on her, two decades later and at a crime scene no less, it is a shock to all his senses.

He is trying to keep up as she spins her theories like spiderwebs around the room, but in the end he is just caught in them himself.

She plays the whole thing so coy he’s not even sure she knows who he is.

The idea hurts more than he thought it would.

Still, it would be understandable; Jack feels like several lifetimes have passed in the intervening years.

He eventually finds his footing though, manages to evict her from the room and avoid her as much as possible after that. Calls her Miss Fisher to maintain distance and propriety despite the fact that he once had his hand clumsily up her skirt in the middle of the Fitzroy Gardens.

And then the case is over and good thing too because he’s not sure his nerves can handle much more of this.

When she announces her new occupation he actually spits out his champagne.

He goes to see her in her hotel room that evening, not even caring if she remembers him or not.

She answers the door with a smile and welcomes him inside. As he’s removing his hat, she leans back against the door and crosses her arms.

“You know you used to throw pebbles against my window. I don’t know what to do with this knocking on the door nonsense.”

Oh. So she does remember.

He shrugs without turning to face her. “You’re staying on the top floor,” he reminds her. “And my arm is 20 years older.”

She laughs, easily he realizes with a twinge of something he can’t quite name, and asks him to remove his coat and have a seat.

He does, but keeps his coat on; some situations require armor.

She sits across from him and he gives her a nervous smile. “So…” he begins, uncertain how to actually begin.

“It’s been a while,” she says, saving him a little, and he barks out a laugh.

“Yes,” he agrees.

“It’s good to see you,” she says, and he can see she means it.

“It is. I’ve often… I wondered how you were. I’m glad you’re…” He huffs out a sigh, annoyed at his own tied tongue. He feels seventeen again and not in a good way. “You seem well,” he finally settles on.

“I am. As do you. A Senior Detective Inspector. Impressive.”

“Uh, yes. Yes. Thank you.”

“And useful.” She gives him a gleeful grin, and that look hasn’t changed since they were teenagers. “Looks like we’ll be working together.”

“Yes, about that.” Beguiling smile or not, this is his opening and he has something to say. “Have you thought this through, Phryne?”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean you don’t have the best track recording for sticking with things.”

“Excuse me?” She seems piqued and he rushes to continue.

“You’re… don’t get me wrong, I know it seems fun. And you always did like a lark. But crime — victims of crimes — they’re not just a distraction.”

She fixes him with a serious look. “And I would never treat them as such.”

“Oh come off it. You’re flighty. Which is fine. Charming even. But this line of work… this isn’t another book you’ll never finish or scarf you’ll never complete. I know you and — ”

“You do not.”

Now it is his turn to be affronted. “Excuse me?”

“You barely knew me at sixteen. You do not know me now. And I’ve really outgrown lectures from men on who I am and who I am not.”

She stands up and walks over to the door, opening it and making it clear he is no longer welcome in her residence. He nods and puts his hat back on. As he passes her he gives her one more long look and that’s when he really sees it. The change in her. The skittishness is gone, replaced with pure resolve.

He leaves, assuming, once more, he’s unlikely to see her again.

And then he gets a call from an irate local sergeant.

He tells himself her involvement is not the reason for his, and for a while he even believes it. He certainly has no plans to use her, except this kid is being so recalcitrant and has obviously been through the ringer and he remembers this one time back in Collingwood, when they came across a lost little boy and Phryne had been so gentle with him. She’d known exactly what to say to calm him and he figures what the hell, maybe she’s still got the magic touch.

What she actually has is a car she uses to kidnap the victim's daughter and one of his suspects.

But when he goes to welfare, and speaks on her behalf, it is with the memories of both that lost little boy and Jane’s smiling face in Phryne’s kitchen.

He gives up on avoiding her. It isn’t worth the effort or bromo-seltzer.

Her intervening years are revealed to him in bits and pieces, and he responds in kind. An ambulance driver and a digger. A pilot and a picketer. Still single and still a marriage.

When he sees her portrait, the first thing he comments on is her hair.

“You still had it long then.” He’d always liked it long.

“Mmmm. Sometimes I miss it.”

He looks up at her and offers a small smile. “Well, for what it’s worth, I think this suits you now.”

When he finds out about her sister, he’s devastated. So many puzzle pieces fall into place, so many odd moments from their time together then that make sense now.

He wishes she’d told him, of course, but he understands why she didn’t. All he can do is be here for her now.

And when she reaches for his hand at the grave, he is.

All in all, he is genuinely enjoying their time together. Thinks she is too. It gets a little more complicated after his divorce, but it’s mostly just innocent flirting. He remembers that from the early days of their first acquaintance and relishs it just as much this time around.

Until she goes too far. Withholds evidence, shields a murderer, lies to him. He’s had it and he tells her as much.

He semi-apologizes, admits he’s giving her up. Hopes she doesn’t cry.

She doesn’t.

“You’re not sorry, you’re a coward,” she accuses.

The words sting and he lashes out in kind. “Why, because I don’t let you get away with everything anymore?”

She glares at him. “I don’t need your protection, Jack. I’m not a child!”

“Well you could have fooled me. This is suddenly feeling very familiar.”

“Stop it. This isn’t the same at all.”

“Of course not; this time I’m the one leaving.”

“And ask yourself just why that is. This isn’t about a stocking or a car crash. You look at me and you see all the possibilities of your youth and you’re angry because you just had to confront losing them for a second time.”

It’s an astute observation, but not quite accurate. Doesn’t account for what he actually cares about losing. Doesn’t account for her.

“And what do you see, Miss Fisher? A safety net? Something to be taken for granted, a distraction until the next adventure without even a letter to let me know you’re alive.”

“Fuck off,” she spits out.

“Gladly.” He turns to leave, and she shouts at his still turned back.

“I never promised I’d write.” He pauses in the parlour doorway, but doesn’t turn around.

“You never promised anything, Phryne. That would have been too much like something real.”

He leaves, for the first time hoping he won’t see her again.

The case at the college is excruciating. They get through it, but it's a close thing, and the irony of it ending with them both on a bike is not lost on him.

But he finds he does not wish to never see her again after all.

They share an alcohol-fueled accord after it is over, negotiate the new terms of their fractured partnership.

She makes the suggestion after the third glass.

He agrees after the fourth.

He meets her on the airfield the next morning, and is ungenerously pleased to see she is just as hungover as him. They share some of Mr. Butler’s tonic in companionable silence and wait until they are both fighting fit.

And then they fly.

It is an experience unlike any Jack has had before. He finds he rather agrees with Mr. Hugo as they dip and swoop in the air; he feels the thread of the infinite and he loves it.

Eventually they land and Phryne grins. “So how did you like my handlebars, Jack?”

“I liked them very much, Miss Fisher. Very much indeed.”

He walks her back to her car, and she turns to face him. Takes a deep breath. “I did write,” she confesses and he is literally stunned silent at the revelation. “Heaps of letters. I just couldn’t bear to send them. You said you were enlisting and… I was afraid they’d be returned. And I found the thought unbearable. I decided it was better to live in hope.” She reaches into her pocket and hands him a small wrapped item.

A beaten up sheriff's badge.

He never thought he’d see that again either.

“It was real, Jack. It was. But so is this. It’s different and it’s new but it’s real. And we’re missing it.”

He looks at her. Really looks at her. Not the distant, foggy memory of his first maybe love, but the living, breathing, remarkable woman in front of him.

What memory could compare to that?

He returns the badge to its rightful owner and asks her a question.

“Miss Fisher… may I buy you an ice cream at the foreshore?”

“No,” she tells him for the second time in their acquaintance. He nods. Accepts her answer this time as he had the first. “But I’ll buy you one.”

He smiles and it feels lovely and odd in the sun. “It’s a date.”

It is.

The first of many.

So much has changed in 20 years. They have changed. But they get to know each other again, anew, and find that much has not.

They still share a wicked sense of humour and care deeply about justice.

They still see each other.

Jack’s virginity hasn’t been an issue in a long, long time, but eventually what he does give her is his heart, and when he does he knows she will protect it. (She still has the badge after all.)

And now he knows he loves her.

There is a space, on the corner of Jack’s desk, that is just wide enough, and just low enough, to seat a person while he is working.

That is her spot.

It always has been.

| Short Fic Ask |

#mfmm fanfic drabble #mfmm fanfic #ask meme #exes

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orangeflavoryawp · 4 years

Text

Jonsa - “From Instep to Heel”, Part 1

Well, I did it. Started another longfic, because I’m a whore for Jonsa.

This is an Arranged Marriage/Rhaegar Lives AU, and I recommend going over to Ao3 to read it here, so you have a chance to read the notes on the setup, if that’s your thing. If not, jump on in!

“From Instep to Heel”

Chapter One: Dragon Pit

“‘I’m a Targaryen,’ he says finally, the words smarting along his tongue, even now. A need and an uncertainty all at once. 'And she – ’ He stops, swallows. 'She is nothing,’ he finishes tightly, the untruth a tremulous exhale as it leaves him.” - Jon and Sansa. Like the curve of the horizon, when the moon breaks from beneath its bow.

Read it on Ao3 here.

Part 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 fin

* * *

Sansa Stark is brought to the capital by her father and brothers, a train of Stark banners flying behind them, and it’s the first glimpse of the North Jon has ever truly seen. The white banners flutter in the breeze, tattered slightly at the ends, as though they are accustomed to stronger gales than the summer winds they get down South. A brilliant grey direwolf emblazons each of them, and Jon’s eyes follow the print as the entourage makes its way steadily toward the steps of the Red Keep.

“I expected a carriage or some other such extravagance to be carrying your betrothed,” Rhaenys whispers at his ear.

Jon adopts a smirk at the comment, without turning to her. His eyes follow the horses at the head of the procession. No, the Northmen have always been practical. He imagines the waving of their House banners are all the pride and spectacle the Starks can stomach to display here anyway, and they are smart not to step beyond that when traveling to King’s Landing to present their eldest daughter to the king’s son.

Jon grinds his teeth at the reminder. He’d not had a say in the matter, though he doubts he would have even if the lady were not of Northern descent. A prince’s choice of lady is never his own. He remembers the way Aegon had stoically accepted Daenerys’ hand when Rhaegar set the match forward, hoping for a resilient line of true Targaryens to reign after him, though now the lack of any child between them yet has Rhaegar anxious and looking North.

“A beautiful, fertile lady of good standing and impressive lineage,” his father had enthused when first presenting the command to Jon. “A way to ensure a strong, continuing line.” His violet eyes had glazed over in remembrance, a look that made bile rise in Jon’s throat. Had Rhaegar seen his mother in this way? As a means to an end?

No, there was affection there as well, Jon knows. It’s in the way Rhaegar had brushed the dark hair tenderly from his forehead as a child, and in the way he’d clapped enthusiastically, though obviously inappropriately, the first time Jon beat Aegon in a spar, and in the way he’s now dressed Jon in the finest Targaryen silks of red and black this day, standing him only a step below his elder brother Aegon.

‘The favored child’ some of the court call him, but Jon knows better. No bastard, even a legitimized one, will ever be favored over the heir. He has his father’s affections, it’s true, but how much of that is simply a lingering attachment to the Northern bride he couldn’t keep? Jon wonders this as he catches his father’s gaze over the procession as it halts at the end of the steps. The gleam in his eye as he takes in Lady Sansa atop her horse does not tell of fatherly admiration. Jon swallows back the disgust.

It’s as he’d suspected – just a whimsical, reckless recreation of the past. Rhaegar likens Jon and Sansa to he and Lyanna come again.

Jon resents the lady before him now even more for it.

“Be nice, you two,” Aegon mutters just a step above Jon, glancing down to his siblings out of the corner of his eye. “Do not shame our father.” Daenerys’ arm rests linked through Aegon’s as she turns a similar admonishing eye their way.

Jon lifts his chin, bristling in his silk tunic. “You know I’ve no intention to disgrace our house,” he says lowly.

Aegon inclines his head just a touch, acknowledging the comment, but Jon is secretly grateful for the reminder, for Rhaenys’ sake, flighty and impish and headstrong as she is. It’s why he frowns at the way she tucks her hand beneath his elbow, standing too close for propriety. “Rhaenys,” he warns, stepping almost imperceptibly away from her.

She huffs at his side, sliding her touch from his arm and clasping her hands behind her back as she rocks on her heels. “Fine.” She throws an exasperated look Aegon’s way, softening only slightly when he chuckles at her and shakes his head in resignation. She beams up at their brother then, dark eyes crinkling, and Jon resists the urge to catch a tendril of her black hair between his fingers.

Ned Stark dismounts his horse with a stilted grace born of battle-honed muscles. Beside him, a young man with auburn hair does the same, though his movements are smooth and practiced, eyes glinting a sharp Tully blue as he takes in the court at the top of the stairs. Another dark copper-haired man, though still hanging onto the edges of boyhood, if his slightly fuller cheeks and gangly limbs are anything to go by, dismounts similarly beside him. Sansa’s horse is obscured slightly just behind them, and Jon is not eager enough in his interest to bother craning his neck for a better look. A flash of red catches his eye, her half-braided hair slipping over a shoulder, silver sleeves over delicate hands, still caught in the reins, bespeaking a strength and command at odds with the fragility of her thin wrists and fine-boned fingers when she sets the reins aside to reach for the young auburn-haired man with his arms out to help her off the saddle. She slides down into him easily, hands at his shoulders, his at her waist, a duck of her head in thanks, and then he’s taking her hand and escorting her around the horses, a man of the house pulling the steeds aside by their bridles.

Jon sees her face for the first time. There’s sweat glinting off her forehead, a few, faint tendrils of red clinging to the skin. Her eyes are on the steps beneath her as the Starks begin their climb but every so often they flicker up, never landing on him, and even from here he can see the frost blue of her eyes, similar to her brother’s own Tully coloring beside her, and yet, strikingly different. Almost grey in the light. The color of dusk – when the sky matches the sea across the port, light a meager, retreating thing beneath the coming cover of darkness. Her frame is lithe and tall, hips flaring only subtly beneath the heavy Northern wool of her dress, a delicate hand holding her skirts up as she continues the climb, a smoothness and elegance to her step, her other hand held fast in her brother’s.

Jon almost laughs. No, this is not the brash, brave Northern wind of a girl his father had thought to bring back to life. And when she finally makes her way to the top, hands smoothing over her skirts, he catches the way her pink mouth trembles on the cusp of a frown, stretching instead into a practiced smile, all poise and graciousness, shoulders pulled taut and back straight.

She is devastatingly lovely, of course. No man could say otherwise. And he rather thinks her brothers know it, too, given the near antagonistic looks he catches them throwing his way.

Ned Stark gives a reserved bow, hand at his chest. “Your Grace,” he greets in his deep Northern brogue.

The sound is strange to Jon but enticing in a way he can’t quite identify. Had his mother spoken like that?

Rhaegar climbs down the steps to Lord Stark, hands going to clap him on the arms, making sure to stand two steps above him, the height granting him leave to look down upon the Northern Lord. Jon does not miss the intention.

Neither does Ned, it seems, as he bends his head even lower, hand still at his chest, a somber expression lighting his features.

“Lord Stark,” Rhaegar greets, “Welcome to King’s Landing.” His hands fall from the other man’s broad shoulders.

Ned nods his acknowledgement of the welcome, turning to the man beside Sansa. “If I may, Your Grace, this is my eldest, Robb, the heir to Winterfell.”

Robb inclines his head in much the same manner that his father did, but his eyes stay focused on the king rather than the ground. Jon finds himself smirking at the gesture, even when Rhaenys bristles beside him.

“Your Grace,” the young wolf greets, stepping back when Lord Stark motions to the young man at Sansa’s other side.

“My son, Bran.”

Bran blinks in barely concealed awe at the line of Targaryens before him, and it’s only Sansa’s subtle pinch at his arm, partly obscured by her flowing sleeves, that has him bowing himself, a hasty “Your Grace” leaving his lips.

Ned takes a deep breath, eyes softening when they land on Sansa, and he ushers her toward him, taking her elbow in hand, a hardened smile mixed of pride and sorrow (the kind that will always accompany fathers with daughters) gracing his weathered features. “And this is my eldest daughter, Sansa.”

Sansa gives a curtsey bespeaking the height of her station, but not so high as to offend the king. It’s rather telling, actually, her calculated mannerisms. Jon eyes her closely, curious what sort of woman can be so prettily shrewd and practiced.

Rhaegar smiles sickly sweet at her and reaches for her hand. She offers it dutifully. Jon’s father plants a kiss along her knuckles, a thumb sweeping over the warmed skin when his lips retreat, and Sansa retracts her hand almost too quickly to be polite, but not quite. Rhaegar smiles all the same, straightening as he watches her. “Stunning,” he breathes out, and Jon can see Lord Stark stiffen beside his daughter, hand still held tight to her elbow.

In truth, his father’s response has Jon’s own gut curling tight, his hands clenching and unclenching at his sides. He feels Rhaenys brush a hand over his shoulder blades, barely there, but comforting all the same. He eases a bit at the motion, before she drops her hand back to her side.

“She hasn’t the look of Lyanna though does she, Ned?” Rhaegar asks, only a sliver of disappointment slipping through his question, still entranced by Sansa’s presence in a disquieting way.

Ned shakes his head, glancing to her. “No, she takes after my wife in that respect. She’s all her mother, it seems.”

“Not all, Father,” Sansa says teasingly, looking up at him with a tender smile.

He smiles down at her, softening, and there, in the crinkle of his eyes, Jon sees the resemblance. In the sweep of their noses and the arch of their brows and the strength of their jaws – a cold cut North lingering beneath the warm, affectionate look.

“She’s a beauty, all the same. Wouldn’t you say, Aegon?” Rhaegar asks his son, motioning for him to come down the steps toward them.

Daenerys’ hand easily unwinds from Aegon’s arm to clasp her other hand before her, Aegon slipping from her at their father’s heed, coming to step beside him. “That she is, Father,” he agrees softly, a disarming smile gracing his fine features, and when he takes Sansa’s offered hand, he merely holds it, leaning only far enough down to grant her a small bow of his head, rather than a brush of his lips to her knuckles, and her lips part at the gesture. Aegon releases her hand and Jon watches as she tries and fails to smother her answering smile.

Jon resists the urge to roll his eyes. His brother’s always been rather keen on how to make a lady smile (on how to make a lady do all manner of things she shouldn’t for a married man), and Jon cannot help the flare of resentment that ignites in his gut at the knowledge that Aegon is using such tricks on his betrothed.

On his lady.

“My son and heir, Aegon Targaryen,” Rhaegar introduces proudly, a hand at his shoulder.

The Starks all bow appropriately. “Prince Aegon,” they greet, but Sansa’s greeting is a touch softer, sweeter, and Jon nearly seethes at the sound.

“And his wife, Princess Daenerys.” Rhaegar waves a hand up the steps in his own sister’s direction.

Daenerys offers a tight smile and a nod in greeting, perfectly styled hair blowing softly in the wind, a striking white against the red silk adorning her. She makes a fairly intimidating image, Jon must admit, but then, his aunt has always been a quietly coiled dragon. He does not envy his brother his marriage.

“You were right, Father,” Aegon says now, sunlight glinting off his violet eyes in a becoming way as he stares down at Sansa unabashed. “She will make my brother a very, very happy man.”

Sansa ducks her head in embarrassment, her cheeks tinging pink, and Jon steps forward without realizing he has moved, throat tight, tongue burning with his sudden covetousness. He stills suddenly, just a step down, chest constricting at the realization.

All eyes turn to him in unison.

It is infinitely uncultured to introduce oneself before the king has called you forward, and Jon sucks his tongue between his teeth at his impulsiveness, cursing himself. Sansa looks at him for the first time, mouth parted, one fine eyebrow arched in clear reproach of his poor manners. It makes the anger boil hotter in his gut.

Rhaegar eyes him with a quiet rebuke, violet eyes flashing dark for a brief moment, before he dons another blinding smile, ushering him closer. “Ah, and my son, Jon Targaryen. Eager to meet his new bride, I imagine.” His father’s hand at his arm is firm and leashing.

Jon swallows tightly, ignoring the knowing smirk Aegon wears beside him. He will not embarrass his house further. He nods to Ned, “Lord Stark,” and then to his sons. When he glances to Sansa, she’s eyeing him curiously. No doubt she notices how much more like her father he looks than his own. Her brow furrows at his dark eyes, his dark curls, eyes roving his face, mouth opening as though to speak, and then promptly shutting. She offers her hand silently, still staring at him with a hint of intrigue.

I’ve not the North in me, he wants to tell her. Stop looking for it.

“Lady Stark,” he greets, taking her hand in his own calloused one. It’s as soft and unmarred as he had suspected, though the light roughness at the tips of her index and middle finger tell of years of needlework. Not exactly the hands of a great rider, as Lyanna Stark had reportedly been. Father will be disappointed, he thinks ruefully.

“Lady Stark is my mother, my lord,” she corrects politely.

Jon stares at her, hand gripping hers as he lowers his mouth to her knuckles. “Then,” he begins, stopping just before brushing a kiss to her cool skin, tongue wetting his lips unconsciously, “Lady Sansa,” he breathes, and the warmth of his breath on her knuckles has her tugging away almost reflexively before she stops herself, drawing a deep breath in as he continues to watch her through his dark lashes.

He holds her like that a moment, something roiling inside him at the clear discomfort she expresses, imagining she sees his father in him when he touches her so, and the thought has him curling his lip, before dropping her hand without ever touching his mouth to her skin, a smothered sigh breaking from his lips.

She tucks her hand back behind the fabric of her sleeves, eyes leaving his instantly. Ned watches the exchange with a somber expression.

“Yes, well, ‘Lady Sansa Targaryen’ soon,” Rhaegar promises beside him.

Jon flexes his hand at his side.

“And of course,” Rhaegar continues, smile now indulgent and infinitely fond, “My daughter, Rhaenys.”

Jon is silently thankful that Rhaenys keeps a proper distance from him when she steps forward, offering a curtsey of her own, red and black silk fluttering over her lean frame, before she tucks a strand of dark hair behind her ear, eyes glinting playfully in the light, her olive skin a stark contrast with his own paleness. Dornish looks with a Targaryen bearing, cheeks sharp, lips full. He’s not surprised when the youngest Stark, Bran, looks upon her with awe.

Jon had looked upon her similarly before.

But that was before.

And he does not intend to carry on with his half-sister, as acceptably Targaryen as it is, when he’s soon to wed a daughter of the North. The insult would be too great. And Jon will not incur more enemies to his house. Their family’s grip on the kingdoms is loosening even now, slowly and steadily. He will not be the reason the North breaks with the crown.

“You must all be tired from your long journey. Please, I’ve had your rooms prepared for you. You may settle and refresh yourselves before the feast tonight,” Rhaegar says, an arm sweeping out to welcome them into the keep.

Lord Stark tucks his daughter’s hand into his elbow and follows up after the king with her at his side, Jon and Rhaenys stepping aside to allow them room. The Stark boys follow after, Robb glancing at Jon with a look of apprehension, and somewhat of warning. Jon finds enough courtesy in him not to grimace at the other man.

Aegon sidles up to him as they watch the retreating forms of the Starks. “Well?”

Jon rolls his eyes, even as he smirks at his brother, tugging at the collar of his shirt. He’s anxious to be rid of this pompous silk and back in his usual leathers. He misses the way Sansa glances back at the three of them, just the once.

Rhaenys leans an arm atop Jon’s shoulder, even with his height on her. “I think she’s a bit haughty, if you ask me.” His sister doesn’t bother to hide her dislike, and Jon hadn’t expected her to.

“I rather like her,” Aegon says, glancing at Jon out of the corner of his eye.

Jon swings an annoyed look his way. “Don’t like her too well, brother. It’s not your wife she’ll be by next moon.”

“No,” Aegon muses, a taunting smirk pulling at his lips, “Sadly.”

“Aegon,” Jon warns, no longer amused.

But his brother only claps him on the shoulder before turning and rising up the stairs with arms opened toward Daenerys. “Wife,” he calls.

Daenerys crosses her arms over her chest and throws him an aggravated look. Jon nearly laughs.

They make their way into the Keep, out of the blaring Southern sun. Jon’s eyes stop looking for a flash of red far later than he’d like to admit.

* * *

“I don’t like him,” Theon mutters as he sits in the open-aired sitting room in the wing the Starks and their people are granted in the Red Keep. He’d kept his place with the other members of the house down at the bottom of the steps when Lord Stark had presented his children to the King. Still, a brittle anger churned within him when he remembered the way the princes had looked upon Sansa. Theon grumbles as he looks out one of the wide pane-less windows to the gardens below, and then on past the stretch of King’s Landing, all the way to the docks, ships like flecks of dirt on the pristine water.

“You don’t like any Targaryen,” Bran teases as he swipes a biscuit from the side table before flopping into a red-cushioned chair.

Theon throws him a look caught somewhere between vexed and validated. “Exactly. But for Sansa to marry one?” He scoffs, lounging back along the chaise.

“And who should she marry, then?” Robb mocks from his seat across from Bran. “You?”

Theon cocks a wolfish grin Robb’s way. “Well, now that you mention it, Stark…”

“Oh gods, don’t even say it,” Bran groans, biscuit rolling about his mouth.

Robb kicks out at Theon’s knee playfully, but there’s a warning look in his eye. “She’s my sister, Greyjoy, not another one of your conquests.”

Theon pulls a face, seemingly genuinely offended by the remark as he avoids Robb’s kick easily. “That’s not how I look at Sansa, and you know that.”

“I don’t want you looking at Sansa at all.”

“So, you’d rather the Targaryen bastard?”

Robb quiets at the reminder, jaw clenching. “It’s the King’s command.”

“Aye, the King’s command,” Theon says scornfully. He leans forward suddenly, elbows over his knees as he pins Robb with a somber look. “And if it weren’t? Would you still see her tied to that bastard?” he asks lowly, eyes imploring him.

Robb stays deadly quiet, his hands curling over his armrests.

Bran swallows another bite of biscuit. “Is he still a bastard if he’s been legitimized?”

Theon rolls his eyes at the younger Stark. “A bastard’s still a bastard.”

“But if Prince Aegon died, Prince Jon would be the heir, right?”

Theon grumbles but nods, acknowledging the truth of it. Before Robb can open his mouth to chime in, Sansa is sweeping into the room.

“Hush, Bran,” she bites out, stalking toward them as the door swings shut behind her. Robb and Theon straighten in their seats at her sudden presence, but Bran only lolls a bit of biscuit over his tongue, watching her stalk toward the open windows. Sansa glances out past the rail, eyes keen and watchful for anybody listening, the breeze lightly fluttering her hair, before she’s turning back to her younger brother and pinching the back of his neck.

“Ow!” Bran cries, crumbs flying from his mouth as he whips back to glare up at her.

“That’s treasonous talk, and I’ll not have it,” she hisses, softening at his boyish pout. “The capital is dangerous, Bran, you have to remember that. You’re nearly a man grown now. You’d better start acting like it.”

Bran opens his mouth to protest when Sansa cuts him off. “And you two,” she says, a finger raised at Theon and Robb, starting toward them.

Theon jumps from his seat, hands raised in surrender, unable to contain his laugh, while Robb tries to calm her, standing as well and grabbing at her arms to keep her from Theon. “Alright, alright.” It’s not a tight hold, and Sansa doesn’t bother fighting it anyway, just huffing at the two of them while she plants her hands on her hips.

Robb chuckles at her, hands still at her upper arms, dropping his head to her shoulder as he lets out a warm laugh.

“Robb, this isn’t funny,” she admonishes.

Robb looks up at her, his smile tapering off before he clears his throat and nods at her, hands slipping from her arms. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry, Sansa, okay? I know this can’t be easy for you.”

She looks away, one hand going to the other to rub a worrying thumb into her opposite palm.

Robb glances at the motion, a frown tugging at his lips. He grabs for her hands to still them. “Walk with me,” he tells her, tugging her toward the door.

Sansa sighs but lets him take her, her unease bleeding out a bit at her brother’s concerned touch.

Robb turns back at the door, eyeing Theon warily. “Behave while we’re away,” he tells him, glancing over to Bran in shared meaning.

Bran smiles around his biscuit. Theon tuts. “No promises,” the Greyjoy answers, grinning roguishly.

When Sansa glances back at him with an exasperated smile, Theon gives her a parting nod, grin softening slightly at the edges. “Sansa.”

She scoffs, but it’s tinged with a playful frustration that’s familiar between the two. Her smile lingers a bit after the door closes behind them and Robb wraps her hand around his arm as they begin to walk.

“Do you think it was wise to bring Bran along?” Sansa asks carefully.

Robb rubs at his chin with his free hand. “He wants to be a knight. Father’s right; what better place for him to learn?”

Sansa nods, remembering how reluctantly their mother had parted with Bran, with Rickon and Arya waving their goodbyes at Winterfell’s gates. Still, his curiosity and exploring has gotten him in trouble before, and Winterfell hadn’t held half the sort of deadly secrets King’s Landing was purported to have. “He’s too inquisitive,” she muses, glancing about the open courtyard they pass in their walk through the corridors, golden light filtering through in a way that catches Sansa’s breath. She’s dreamt of the South before. Still does, somewhat.

The remembrance is sour on her tongue, suddenly.

She hadn’t dreamt of it with a Targaryen prince in the picture.

“King Rhaegar is not his father, Sansa,” her father had told her once, hands rising to cup her cheeks. “He’s not the one who burned your grandfather and murdered your uncle, it’s true.” And here, his throat had tightened, his words coming hoarse, his thumbs brushing over her cheeks. “But you’ll have to be careful, my daughter. Tis still a dragon pit in the capital, and we are wolves.”

Her hands had come up to cradle his over her cheeks. “I understand, Father.”

We are wolves.

She won’t soon forget it.

Robb’s pat on her arm brings her back to him. “Don’t worry. He’ll have you to look after him,” he assures her, smiling teasingly.

Sansa rolls her eyes, but her own smile tugs at her lips.

“He listens to you.”

“Oh, hardly.”

“Well, he listens to you at least a little bit more than he listens to the rest of us.”

Sansa eyes him warily. “And where are you to be in all this?”

Groaning, Robb turns them down another corridor, this one open to the air, following the east side of the Keep, where the sun is still high in the sky. “Mother thinks this is a good opportunity for me to learn the Southern court, if we’re to play to it,” he grumbles

Sansa blinks out across the sunlit city descending below them. “It’s smart. You’re to be Warden of the North one day. You should know how to treat with the Southern lords, how to play their game to keep our home safe.”

“That’s why you’re here,” he says, an attempt at nonchalance, even as his voice strains.

Sansa gives him a reproachful look, lips tipped into a frown. “This marriage cannot heal every rift between the North and the crown.”

Robb swallows tightly, looking ahead as they walk. “I know.”

Sansa stops them, her other hand coming up to grip at his arm now. “Robb.”

He rakes a hand through his hair, a frustrated huff passing his lips. “I know, Sansa.”

Her brows dip into a furrow, her frown harshening as she tips his chin up to look at him cleanly.

He grabs for her hand, holds it in his own as he nods, meeting her eyes. “I will protect our home, I promise.”

She softens at the words, recognizing the fervency in them, knowing the delicate balance of power and subservience he’s to inherent. The balance their father has carried, all too heavily these many years since his pardon after the war.

Something bristles in Sansa at the thought of their father on his knees.

She has never known a wolf to kneel. Starks should be no different.

The gentle rubbing of Robb’s thumb along her knuckle has her relaxing soon enough, tender under his affections. She clears her throat, smiling up at him. “And Father? What does he think of you in the capital?”

He scoffs, looking about the fine, red-stoned keep. “He hopes I’ll finally find a bride.”

Sansa laughs, soft and melodic. “Well, you are of an age.” They’ve already passed quite the number of ladies sending tempting looks toward the heir of Winterfell throughout their walk, and she’s absolutely certain Robb hasn’t missed the looks either.

“I suppose I shall have to catch up to you then, little sister.”

Sansa rolls her eyes, shaking her head, but her smile wilts slightly, tightening at the edges. She looks away.

Robb sighs, his eyes going to their joined hands. “I know this isn’t what you wanted,” he says softly, so soft she knows he’s conscious of the many ears about the castle, as conscious as she is.

Her sharp-eyed, mindful brother, even under all his bravado.

“What I want,” she says on a whisper, with less effort than she thought it’d take, “is to keep our family safe. The king has called. And I will do my duty.” She finally meets his eyes again.

His gaze is that keen Tully blue. She will miss it when he goes. She grips his hands tighter.

So little time. But a moon. And then her family will return North – without her.

“It shouldn’t be you,” he says forcefully, a heavy breath drawn through his lungs, something of anger settling at the end of his words.

Sansa looks about, just the once, swiftly, beneath her lashes, before meeting his gaze again. “It shouldn’t be a lot of things. But here we are.”

Robb’s face hardens, his ire at the situation bubbling forth and Sansa knows that look – has seen it enough times to recognize it. He’s not the Young Wolf for nothing.

“Robb,” she says placatingly.

He sighs, nodding, swallowing down his words.

She gives him a tender, understanding smile in return. “You know, Mother and Father didn’t love each other at first. But they do now – so very much.”

Robb doesn’t argue, but she can tell he knows where she means to lead this.

Sansa licks her lips, her hesitance swallowed back. “Perhaps it can be the same with Prince Jon and I.”

“You think you can love him? Him?” The words are a desperate plea more than they are a heated incredulity. Because they both know how this story ends if she cannot.

Sansa only shrugs, poised and resigned all at once. “I shall have to try.” She gives him a determined look, attempting what she hopes is a reassuring smile. “The pack survives, after all.”

Robb huffs, helpless, before resting his hand at the back of her head to tilt it forward for a kiss, his lips at her brow.

She smiles beneath the gesture, chest warm as he pulls away.

“Oh, that’s sweet.”

The voice has them turning to the sound, eyes landing on Princess Rhaenys as she walks arm in arm with her brother, Jon.

Sansa’s eyes flick to her betrothed on instinct, tilting into a curtsey as her hands release Robb and grab for her skirts.

He only nods in greeting, still somber and silent. He’s changed into practical leathers, Sansa notices, black from curls to boot.

“Princess Rhaenys,” Robb greets. “Prince Jon.”

“Stark.”

Sansa almost scoffs at the greeting. Ill-mannered prince, indeed. She hides her disdain well behind a porcelain smile. “Can we expect to see you at the feast tonight?”

“Of course,” Rhaenys says, smiling tartly. “The Starks in the capital. Who would miss it?”

“I should think it is rather the prince’s betrothal that the people are celebrating,” she says artfully.

“Celebrating, yes,” Rhaenys muses, eyes flickering over to Robb. “Will you be long in King’s Landing?”

“Long enough for the wedding,” Robb answers, turning to Sansa with a comforting smile. “And a little while longer, if we can help it.”

“You travel with a Greyjoy,” Jon says suddenly, and Sansa blinks at him to find him already watching her.

The stare is unnerving.

Robb’s eyebrows raise at the unexpected question. “Theon?”

“I saw him in your procession at the steps.”

“Yes, well – ”

“Are you Starks prone to keeping traitors?”

Sansa riles at the implication, but she has enough mind to reach out for Robb’s arm, stopping his instinctual step forward before it is made obvious.

Jon’s eyes catch the movement nonetheless, and Sansa’s cheeks heat for it.

“We do not ‘keep’ him,” Sansa bites out through pristine teeth. “He is our father’s ward. And your guest, as much as we are.”

Jon’s eyes narrow at the insinuation. “The Greyjoys were one of the first to rebel against my father’s rule.”

“And they paid for that,” Sansa answers swiftly, before Robb can cut in. She bites her lip, considering her words more carefully. “Rightfully so,” she adds, hand slipping from Robb’s arm to clasp with her other one before her.

“And yet here he is.”

“He is not here to cause trouble,” Robb says tightly, head tilted slightly in deference.

Sansa is grateful for his leashing of his temper.

Jon grunts in acknowledgement. “I’ll hold you to that, Stark.”

Robb only nods, mouth thinning into a tight line.

Rhaenys looks between the two men, lips curling in amusement, before she tugs at her brother’s arm in impatience. “Come, brother, I’ve still to ready myself for the feast tonight. Escort me to my chambers?”

Jon gives a final, cursory glance to Robb and Sansa, before turning to his sister with a look far less harsh than Sansa’s seen on him yet. Not soft enough to call tender, but a subtle openness, a regard as fleeting as the golden light filtering through the halls.

“Of course,” he answers her, all heat gone from his words.

Sansa narrows her eyes at the change, stomach knotting uncontrollably. It’s rather vexing, she finds, to have no read on her betrothed at all. As staunch as the Wall, and seemingly as cold. But she’s seen him smirk at his brother in amusement, and seen the way he straightened imperceptibly beneath his father’s hand at his shoulder, and the way he cradles his sister’s hand over his arm when they turn away with a curt nod of farewell.

A dragon pit, she reminds herself.

And she’s afraid the flames are still yet to come.

Sansa shudders beneath her heavy wool dress, the blaring sun at her back not enough to warm the chill that’s set in.

#jonsa #from instep to heel #my writing #jon snow #sansa stark #jon x sansa #jon and sansa #game of thrones #got fanfic

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indiavolowetrust · 4 years

Text

Carajillo

SUMMARY: Some things are truly set in stone. After the tension arises in the Devildom and Celestial Realm, the human is called back to attend a summit.

CHAPTER 1

CHAPTER 2

CHAPTER 3

january 14th, 12:04 p.m.

My chest heaves with effort, my breaths already labored and ragged, and I all but toss the suitcase onto the ground. Face flushed, lungs threatening to burst from my body. I press a hand to my breast, despite the uselessness of the gesture. Force myself to take slow, deep breaths, concentrating on the cobblestones of the ground before me. My heart pulses weakly in my chest, quick and abnormal in rhythm, but there lies little reason for concern. Not any more concern than the usual calls for, anyway.

“You alright, little lady?” asks the coachman, giving me a worried look. “Not looking so hot there.”

“Yes, I -- I think I just need a moment,” I wheeze, attempting to give him a reassuring smile. It doesn’t seem to work, given the deepening concern on his features, but I do my best to keep up the ruse. “I’m just a little winded, is all.”

His eyes flicker towards the rest of the bags in the back of the carriage. “I don’t think I’ll need any help with the rest, miss. Best you sit in the carriage.”

My mouth opens to protest, excuses for my condition on my lips, but a sharp look from the coachman encourages me to not to. I catch my breath on the side of the carriage for the few minutes that he needs to bring out the rest of my things, leaning on its wooden panels. Hand pressed to my chest, the other digging needlessly into the bag containing Barbatos’ present. It helps only marginally. When the coachman comes around the other side of the carriage to fetch me, there is still that same worried expression on his face.

“Going up to the castle, I take it?” It is more of a statement than an inquiry. He casts a glance towards the dark, looming castle, then back to his carriage. “I can escort you, if you want.”

I smile gratefully. “Thank you. Someone was supposed to meet me out here, but I think I arrived a little too early. I’m -- I’m here for the summit.”

The statement seems to spark an interest in his eyes. “Are you?” he says, scrutinizing me. “You’d think they choose a hardier human. Or at least an older one.”

My cheeks flush with indignation, my embarrassment about my condition expressed on my features. “I --”

“Don’t get yourself all twisted up,” he says, waving off my offense. “I’m sure you’ll do just fine. It’s those angels you’ve gotta worry about, really. Those are the ones that’ll do you in, the sneaky little bastards.”

My mind flashes briefly to Simeon and Luke. “I highly doubt that.”

“Don’t say I didn’t warn you. Betcha they’ll stab you in the back right when you’ve signed the lord’s peace treaty,” he says, pantomiming the action. His tone is still relatively casual, his expression belying the weight of his message -- but there is an odd stiffness to his words as he speaks. “We might be the heralds of temptation and all that, but they’re the one that cast us aside in the first place. For all their talk of unconditional love and forgiveness, they sure don’t practice their own beliefs.”

“You’re sure?”

He nods. “‘Course I am. None of their kind have fallen in a millennia -- what makes you think they’ll listen to us just because we’ve got some new lord in place? Most of the flighty bastards probably can’t imagine living a life that doesn’t involve smiting demons or latching onto humans.”

I want to refuse his words, of course. I want to tell him that he’s wrong, that Lord Diavolo’s proposed policies will bring in a new era -- but I can’t deny the obvious unrest amongst the demons. I can’t dismiss the seeds of doubt in the demon population, nor can I overlook the strict attitudes of the angels. It had taken years for the angels to agree to discuss relations between all three realms, and then there were the discussions of agreeing to hold a summit. It would be incredibly difficult -- and lengthy -- for treaties to be discussed and signed solely via letters, as it was.

With such precarious circumstances, to be optimistic about the outcome would be to lie to myself.

I sigh. “I appreciate the input.”

“As you should, little lady. You gotta listen to the common people.” He hoists all three of my bags over his shoulder with inhuman strength, taking a moment to balance them. “Ready to go?”

I push myself off the side of the carriage, my body accommodating the movement awkwardly. My heart has mostly calmed, my breathing steady, but something tells me trekking all the way to the demon lord’s castle would be an unwise decision. One that might be a little too hard on my body. While I can’t quite remember how long the journey is from here to the castle, my health also isn’t nearly as good as it was when I was a teenager.

“I don’t think I’ll make it,” I say, regarding the coachman with uncertainty. “It’s too far.”

He gives me an odd look. “After coming all this way? I’m pretty sure --”

“My -- my heart, I mean,” I say quickly, correcting myself. “I don’t think I’ll be able to walk all the way. Not without falling over.”

I wait awkwardly as the coachman mulls it over for a moment, eyes wandering around the carriage. Certainly it would be fine to take the carriage right up to the front of the castle -- but such a decision would have to be made under normal circumstances. With such an important, private conference to be held within the span of the next few hours, castle security had likely been tightened regarding the admission of castle guests. A carriage other than Lord Diavolo’s could very well bear a few hidden assassins and weapons.

He fixes me with an oddly determined gaze. “You good at riding?”

“I’m sorry?”

* * *

My legs are still trembling when the coachman drops me and my bags off at the entrance hall of the castle. Still, it had been a worthwhile effort: my heart pulses only slightly abnormal rhythm, the stress only coming from the terrifying experience of riding horseback. The coachman had certainly found an alternative to me walking the distance to the castle from the front gate, but he had also implemented his idea in the worst way possible. With no seat, straps, or anything to hold onto, riding the demonic horse had been one of the most frightening experiences I had ever had the misfortune of experiencing. If one could even call it that: the six-legged beast bore too great of a maw to be considered anything close to a human world horse, his body seemingly composed of shadow and ash. But I hadn’t fallen off, at least. The hellbeast had chosen to go after game birds only a few times during the course of the short journey, taking my screaming body along its impromptu hunt for meat, and the coachman had been too burdened with both fits of laughter and my belongings to stop him.

Having my own two feet on the ground is a blessed, wonderful feeling.

A sound further ahead grabs my attention. I look in the direction of the noise, only to see Barbatos emerging from one of the corridors connecting to the entrance hall. He drops into a great, sweeping bow, clearly exaggerating the movement, and I can’t help but feel a mixture of both warmth and irritability at the sight. The sight of seeing such a good friend after so many years is relieving, especially considering the circumstances -- but his obvious amusement at my terror on the way to the castle is marginally irritating. He had likely delighted in the scene from the view of one of the castle windows.

He hasn’t changed at all.

“You’re looking well, my Lady,” he says, his expression showing only the barest hints of amusement. “Did you find the trip enjoyable?”

I frown. “No, but I’m sure you did. And you don’t have to call me that.”

“But it is fitting for your station,” he counters. “Is there another name you would prefer to be addressed by?”

“Something else.”

Barbatos nods. “ Brujita .”

“That’s -- that isn’t something you would use to address someone like me,” I say a little too quickly, a slight heat creeping up my cheeks. “How do you even remember that?”

“You act as if the years mean anything to an immortal being,” he observes, a vulpine smile beginning to play at his otherwise stoic expression. His mask slips only slightly. “Is there any particular reason I should not remember?”

I sigh, an answer forming on my lips -- but he turns before I can speak, heading in the direction of one of the corridors. I cast a glance over my to-be unattended things in the middle of the entrance hall, unsure what to do with them. Or myself, for that matter. The expectations of my exchange year likely don’t apply here now, especially not under such different circumstances. But he gives me a sidelong glance after his shoulder after a moment, as if he had expected me to follow without invitation.

If you don’t want to be left behind, I would suggest you quicken your pace.”

* * *

The castle, like most of its residents, is an entity that exists without the tarnish of time. Despite my utter confusion while traversing its halls, it is obvious that the castle has seen little, if any, change since my last visit. The stained glass windows stand tall and proud still, bearing the images of demonic rulers and great beasts. The same ornaments and anomalous art pieces hang on the walls of the corridors, looking down upon passerby. Uniformed servants run to and fro in the castle, bearing bedding, brooms, and other various cleaning supplies, and the labyrinthine garden lies before the massive windows, each section of the garden bearing its own style of flora and sculptures.

And then there is the unchanging, nearly inscrutable demon walking just a few paces in front of me. His words mask my labored breathing as we continue along the corridor, and my pride thanks him over the beats of my pulsing, weak heart.

It is a kind gesture, truly.

My eye catches on a strange figure out of the corner of my eye, and I find my body instinctively turning in its direction. Pausing. Barbatos stops when he hears my footfalls cease, regarding me over his shoulder, and then he is following my line of sight. He comes to stand beside me after a moment.

“Are you fatigued?” he asks, studying me. His eyes linger on the hand that I have pressed to my heart -- a bad habit of mine -- and I quickly lower the hand to my side. “I can let Lord Diavolo know of your exhaustion, if need be. There is little need to expedite the meeting.”

I shake my head. “Not yet,” I say, trying to give him a reassuring smile. “I can go for a little longer.”

He is silent for a moment, perhaps considering refuting my words, but it is his position that obstructs his decision. “As you wish, then.”

“When was this put in?” I ask, trying to redirect the conversation. My eyes regard the statue before me, its image shrouded in a strange semblance of familiarity. Yet I can’t quite remember when or where I had seen the statue. “Did a human sculptor make this?”

“Not very long ago,” he responds. “I commissioned it from an artist in the Devildom.”

“I didn’t take you as the artistic type.”

The statue depicts a serpent coiling around the body of a nude woman, segments of its body wrapping around her torso and neck. She bears an apple in her hands, her mouth poised to bite into the fruit, but the serpent’s tail around her eyes seems to prevent her from doing so. Blinding her. While one would take it as a violent figure at first glance -- especially considering the serpent’s fangs lodged in her neck -- the posture of the woman seems to indicate otherwise. She does not appear to struggle against the serpent’s coils, nor does she seem to be particularly perturbed about being restricted from consuming the fruit.

It is an oddly poetic piece.

“You would be correct.” Barbatos looks upon the statue with severe distaste, as if mulling over some unpleasant thought. I try to consider the piece in his eyes, my eyes lingering on different parts of the statue, but I am unable to identify the source of his disapproval. “It was a complete waste of time and money.”

My gaze flickers to his, inquiring. “Was it? It looks pretty well made.”

“Which is precisely why it was a waste.” Barbatos turns in the direction of the end of the corridor. A silent indication. “Lord Diavolo has instructed me to occupy your time until your meeting,” he says, studying me with a clinical eye. “If you require refreshments or rest, I would suggest you make your needs known now. I would prefer not to have any of our representatives collapse before tonight’s summit.”

I feel a pang of embarrassment under his scrutiny, the intensity of his gaze much stronger than before. “Am I allowed to refuse?”

“I would suggest that you not.”

CHAPTER 4

#obey me #obey me shall we date #obey me barbatos #writing #fanfic #obey me barbatos x reader #obey me barbatos x oc #obey me oc

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taizi · 5 years

Text

without knowing how, or when, or from where

good omens pairing: aziraphale/crowley, crowley & warlock word count: 3517 part 4 of the is there a better bet than love? series read on ao3

Crowley is keeping a secret.

Come now, you old fusspot, Aziraphale scolds himself immediately after the initial thought. It’s not as though we live in each other’s pockets. A fellow is allowed to have his own life.

It’s just that— well, there’s no reason to live separately anymore, to be apart, not really. Weeks after the almost-end of the world, they’ve settled into the same side, their own side. There’s no need to be skulking about at odd hours so their superiors don’t get the wrong idea, no need to force distance and affect indifference.

And Crowley is such a darling now that he has room to be. Slinking in to share Aziraphale’s company every evening— and then, soon after that, to share his bed. He presses into Aziraphale’s hands at night, into the curve of his body, like a heat-seeking missile, like a creature left out in the cold. Not entirely sure of his welcome, not quite yet, but coming closer with every morning he wakes up in Aziraphale’s arms.

(They kiss, and they hold one another, and they go no farther than that. Crowley isn’t interested in carnal pleasures, and Aziraphale would only be if he was. It’s a blessing just to have him; to reach out and trace the curve of his cheek or the red of his hair and feel him lean into the touch; to finally love him as he deserves to be loved, utterly and with gleeful abandon.)

This intimacy they have found is something precious to the both of them. Aziraphale doesn’t want to begrudge his snake a single thing, but he doesn’t understand what place any secret might still have between them.

He brings it up to the Reading Circle one dreary Thursday morning, hoping for advice.

They’re a group of six or so seventy-something year old women who have taken to the shop twice a week ever since the church whose basement they used to meet in snubbed Greta’s gay granddaughter and henceforth incited the Circle’s collective, not-inconsiderable wrath.

The women refer to Crowley as Aziraphale’s “charming young man,” and keep Aziraphale up-to-date on all of the juicy Soho gossip, and have never attempted to make a single purchase. He quite adores them.

To his immediate consternation, the women exchange weighted, knowing glances.

“Well,” Laura says, “he’s a flash young thing. It could be that he’s not quite ready to settle down yet. Lord knows my Hector was flighty at that age.”

It takes Aziraphale longer than he’s proud of to realize what they’re implying, and then his first impulse is to laugh aloud despite all the feathers he ruffles in doing so.

“Forgive me,” he says, pressing a hand to his mouth. “Oh, dear. I’m afraid you’ve got quite the wrong idea about my Crowley.”

After six thousand years of not-very-subtle adoration and foolhardy devotion, the demon’s commitment can hardly be called into question; but Aziraphale can’t very well explain as much to the ladies in his shop. He pours out more tea and smiles to himself while they witter, deciding he might as well stop beating around the bush and just ask Crowley directly when he comes— here, a happy thrill at the concept— home.

And so that evening, after dinner together and a half a bottle of very fine red wine, he does. Crowley doesn’t look surprised to be caught out. He rubs a hand through his hair thoughtlessly, leaving it a charming mess, and can’t seem to meet Aziraphale’s eyes even from behind those silly glasses.

“I’d hoped to get away with it for just a bit longer, angel.”

Aziraphale is more relieved than anything that it wasn’t just the product of a restless imagination. He sets aside his crossword and beckons Crowley closer, having had quite enough of him existing outside of arm’s reach.

Crowley slinks across the room readily, climbing over the angel’s lap to get to the corner of the sofa he prefers. Tucked up against Aziraphale’s side, under his arm and against his chest, the tension ebbs out of his body like water down a drain.

“This is the part where you yell at me, I’d imagine,” he mumbles into Aziraphale’s shoulder.

“I should certainly think not,” Aziraphale says primly.

They bicker over just about everything— from any manner of theological issue to whose turn it is to pay the cheque at dinner to who cheated who in an Olympic game they both competed in nearly three thousand years ago— because it’s fun, even at its most annoying. Aziraphale’s fellow angels are humorless, and Crowley has implied that an argument in Hell is likely to spiral into a knife fight within the space of a few ill-chosen words, so they tend to pounce on any argument that lands between them with all the full-ahead eagerness of jousters in a tiltyard.

But they don’t raise their voices in true anger. It would hardly be worth the two steps back, when each step forward is a thrilling victory. It would be hard to summon the vitriol in the first place, really, when life is so pleasant anymore.

It’s still raining outside, and Beethoven is playing on the gramophone in the front room, and even Crowley’s plants are waving ever so slightly back and forth in perfect contentment.

Aziraphale says, “Tell me, love. I’m listening.”

Nanael has discovered poetry. They have spent countless hours curled up in an overstuffed armchair with a pile of books that refuses to shrink, doing nothing but drinking in the art of language that humans have dreamed up.

They are new to the concept of time, of seasons and changing things, but it has been about a year since they arrived in London. A year and four days, to be precise, marked by Crowley coming by with a clear pastry box containing a Battenberg cake that he plopped without ceremony on top of the jigsaw puzzle Nanael was picking their way through.

It looked very much like the same cake they’d eaten on their very first day here at the shop, right down to the expertly quilted pattern on the white marzipan.

“What’s this for?” Nanael asked, touching the green ribbon gingerly.

“Sort of your birthday, innit,” the demon had muttered before stalking off to the back room, leaving a fondly bemused Aziraphale to explain the concept of anniversaries and celebrations and birthday gifts.

Four days later, Nanael still smiles when they think of the cake. They have been on earth for a year, and they’re beginning to understand why Principality Aziraphale, Guardian of the Eastern Gate, never came home. There are certainly no birthday gifts in Heaven.

The door above the bell rings, and Nanael looks up from their book in time to watch a man step inside. At the very least, they mentally amend a moment later, a man-shaped entity. He isn’t doing a very good job of suppressing his demonic energies, letting them flare and catch about Nanael’s periphery like fire.

Nanael tenses, but doesn’t leap from behind the counter or issue any Holy demands. They’re a little bit embarrassed about that sort of thing now, and waits instead for the demon to make his own introduction.

“To hear Hastur tell it, Crowley’s lost the plot,” he remarks snidely, by way of hello. “Far as I’m concerned, this sounds like the place to be. Where is he?”

His— her, Nanael can see now— voice is incongruent with her form, not entirely human, as though she hasn’t quite mastered this whole mortal flesh malarkey. It’s reminiscent of Poe, and makes Nanael think of talking ravens, and they’re rather charmed by the whole thing where they should probably rightly be horrified.

“Oh, you know Crowley,” Nanael says, relieved. “He and Aziraphale are out to lunch.”

Nanael was invited along, but one of the ladies in the Reading Circle gave them a Meaningful Look and said it was important for couples to have Alone Time every now and again. Nanael isn't sure what they meant by that, because there’s no stopping Aziraphale from looking at Crowley as though he hung the stars even when they’re surrounded by company— and that’s perfectly reasonable, Nanael thinks fairly, because Crowley did— but they went alone to lunch, anyway, and Nanael got to know Yeats instead.

And that is why, now, they are alone in the bookshop with an unfamiliar demon. They don’t regret it, though; Yeats has been worthwhile.

(There is a whole stack of nineteenth century poets, shelves and shelves of them, and Aziraphale says they’re dear to him; he says they kept him company when he was quite lonely, but he never says it when Crowley is around to overhear. For this reason, even though Nanael doesn’t fully understand it, those poets are dear to them, too.)

“Out to lunch?” the demon looks nonplussed. It’s a more pleasant look than the sneer had been. “Is that code for something?”

“What would it be code for? They went for Italian.” Nanael doesn't know if that meant an Italian restaurant nearby or the country of Italy, and they didn't think to ask.

“The Serpent doesn’t eat, ” the demon says. She sounds as petulant as a child Nanael overheard the other day, discussing the existence of Santa Claus with her mother. “It’s one of the oldest curses in the Book. ‘On your belly you shall go, and you shall eat dust all the days of your life.’ The punishment for creating original sin would have to be steep, wouldn’t it?”

She says it with a strange, backwards sort of delight, almost awe. Nanael’s heart— fragile, unreliable human thing that it is— gives a painful lurch.

Surely not, they think, but it’s more out of reflexive horror than anything else, desperation to deny the very idea.

All of those pleasant afternoons at all of Aziraphale’s favorite restaurants swim to the front of their mind; trying dish after dish of unfamiliar cuisine with their fellow angel while Crowley only nursed a glass of wine.

They think of their birthday cake.

Hands curled into loose fists, Nanael’s eyes stray from the stranger before them and toward a certain selection of books at the back— books that they were told to steer clear of until they had a better grasp on things.

“Tricky business, occult science,” Aziraphale had said. “You’re just as likely to lay a curse as break one if you don’t get the inflection right. Best keep out of it for now, hm?”

Nanael, in what was becoming habit, had looked to Crowley for the final word on the matter. Crowley leaned back on his elbows and said, “No knowledge is off-limits, Feathers, but you wouldn’t give an eight-year-old a book on astrophysics and expect them to work it out for themselves, would you? If there’s something you want to know in particular, just ask.”

And that had been that. But now… well, things have changed, haven’t they? That’s what things do, here on earth, is change, almost constantly.

The demon leaves with an unsettling lack of farewell, but Nanael hardly notices her go. They’re venturing into the stacks they’ve never ventured into before, abandoning their poets to reach instead for a book in weathered blue binding. The title has mostly faded; all that’s left of it reads Tractatulus Hyprocratis, and Nanael isn’t sure what that translates to.

But there are dictionaries here. There are encyclopedias and thesauruses. One of the first things Nanael learned was how to learn, and they lock up the shop with a thought and circle back to the chair that has become theirs.

If Crowley is cursed, it hardly seems fair that Nanael should have to sit around all this knowledge that might be of help to him and not be allowed to pursue it.

“I heard your parents are sending you away,” Roman says in a rather nasty tone of voice.

Warlock sizes him up, and Roman sees him sizing him up and puts a healthy extra step of distance between them. It isn’t that Warlock is very big or very strong, it’s just that Warlock doesn’t think twice about starting fights, and he’ll go to twice as much length as anyone else will to finish them.

“Whoever told you that’s a liar,” Warlock bites out. “I’m not going anywhere.”

He’s thirteen now, with grades near the top of his class after that dismal year between ten and eleven. His teachers aren’t sure what to make of him, but he’d tell them if they just asked; that Nanny said Warlock could do much better than he’d been doing, that it’s one thing to punish the people who hurt you but a whole ‘nother when that punishment bends back around onto you.

It wasn’t hard to tidy his grades up after that. He’s not an idiot.

“That’s not what dad said,” Margo pipes up. “Dad told me your dad told him that you’re on the waiting list for a program for troubled youth. Very private. Almost like they want to keep you a secret.”

The rest of the group gets a big laugh out of that, and Warlock glares at the bunch of snow weighing down a low-hanging branch above the sidewalk, willing it to fall on their heads.

Whether by nature or influence, it does. They shriek in surprise, and it’s Warlock’s turn to laugh.

“I’m not going anywhere,” he says again, just so they don’t get any more stupid ideas. “I’ve got plans, you see.”

And then he rushes the rest of the way home, careful not to slip on the icy pavement, because it’s Friday, and Friday means Nanny will be there to pick him up after school.

“Oh, I forgot,” Nanael says. They’re hiding whatever book they’re reading in an open magazine, and Aziraphale hasn’t come around to asking why yet. Some things are better left untroubled. “Crowley, someone came looking for you. A demon. I didn’t get her name.”

Aziraphale sharpens, pen going still above his ledger. Crowley doesn’t look half as worried. He hardly looks up from his phone.

“As long as it’s me they’re looking for,” he says. “I’ll tighten up the wards tonight.”

“As long as— “ Aziraphale frowns mightily. “Danger to you is still danger, Crowley. We’ll tighten up the wards right now.”

“It's not as though they'll be back before dinner,” Crowley grumbles, but he picks his feet up off the ottoman and pushes himself upright nonetheless. He makes a show of it, making sure to look impossibly put-upon, and Aziraphale feels himself bristling.

“After what happened the last time we had unwanted guests,” he says tightly, unhappy, “I hope you’ll forgive my taking extra precautions.”

Crowley winces. Nanael looks stricken, and then miserable. “I’ve told Daniel not to come here again,” they say, picking guiltily at the edge of their strange amalgamation of reading material. “She promised she wouldn’t.”

“Well, that’s one angel we can cross off the list, then. We only have the rest of the combined forces of Heaven and Hell left to worry about.”

Aziraphale bustles into the front room, feeling prickly and restless. The idea of danger looms in all the dark corners of the dimly lit shop. Crowley follows, as silent as a winged creature, or in this case, one with scales.

He steps into Aziraphale's space, looping those long arms around his middle, and Aziraphale is distracted by him, the warmth of him. His hands come up almost on their own to hold Crowley where he is.

“You’re working yourself up, angel. There’s no need. We’re safe as houses, here in your little shop. I’d like to see old Michael take a swing at one of us behind these walls.”

“Don’t tempt fate,” Aziraphale murmurs. “The last thing we need now is to invoke one of them.”

“We’ll tighten the wards,” Crowley says, giving, as always, where Aziraphale is stubbornly set in his ways. He's rubbing small circles against Aziraphale's back, the original tempter, convincing him to let go of all this reasonable worry despite himself. “Not even a mouse will get in without our knowing about it."

"I'm hardly worried about mice, my dear," Aziraphale says sternly, but it's a losing battle. "If anything were to happen to you— "

"I know, Aziraphale." Truly, he must. He watched the shop burn down and for a few bleak hours believed half of his soul was lost for good. Aziraphale can barely stomach the idea of such grief, and holds him tighter, as if to make up for not holding him then. "Nothing will. As long as we're together, we can weather anything they throw at us. It's worked out this far, hasn't it?"

"For better or worse."

Crowley leans back, eyes fully yellow, pupils round in the low light.

"They won't take me," he vows, vehement, full of a caring that crouches in his chest like a creature with teeth. "And they won't touch you. I swear it."

And what could he say? Aziraphale leans in to kiss him when the words all fail, on the corner of the mouth, the cheek, the stark lines of his tattoo, the lid of his eye, that stubborn brow. Faith and love and trust coalescing inside him into something fearsome, something next to divine.

He's afraid he's gotten used to being afraid, but for Crowley, Aziraphale would brave anything.

“Oh, darling, there was no need for secrecy and subterfuge. You need only tell me these things.”

Crowley squirms. Aziraphale lifts his sunglasses away with a proprietary air, then lifts his chin and holds him there. He strokes Crowley’s bottom lip with the pad of his thumb, one of those throwaway moments of intimacy that still blow Crowley’s mind. He hasn’t reconciled himself to this new normal as easily as Aziraphale has. He has to fight not to shiver when all of the angel’s attention or affection bends his way.

“After six thousand years of doing whatever I’d like to do,” Aziraphale says fondly, “it’s rather past time I indulge whatever whims of yours that I can, hm?”

“This is more than a whim, ” Crowley hedges. He was expecting more of an argument; he doesn’t know what to do with such an easy victory. “It’s a— it’s a whole kid.”

“He's important to you,” Aziraphale says, as if it’s that simple.

And so Warlock Dowling comes to the bookshop in Soho for a visit, wide-eyed and clutching to the hem of Crowley’s jacket, incredibly small, infinitely human.

But there is nothing fragile in the way he lifts his chin and seems to dare Aziraphale or Nanael to tell him he isn’t welcome. As though a child should expect to be told he isn’t welcome.

“Hello, dearest,” Aziraphale says. Crowley can see him remembering the boy when he was very young, when he still toddled around the gardens asking about all the flowers and bugs. “I’m not sure if you remember me.”

Something like fondness springs into Warlock’s eyes, as if it was just waiting for the invitation.

“Brother Francis,” he says promptly, a smile lurking in the corners of his mouth. “Nanny said you fixed your teeth and left the church.”

Nanael makes a noise like a cat whose tail has just been stepped on, and turns bodily away to look with such pointed indifference at a shelf of self-help books that it’s obvious they’re suppressing laughter.

Aziraphale says “oh, really” and Crowley favors him with his most devil-may-care grin.

“Nanny said I could call him Crowley now, but it’s okay if I don’t,” Warlock goes on. “Is there something different you want to be called, too?”

A polite little Hellspawn when it suits him, Crowley thinks with displaced pride. He can see Aziraphale melting like butter, opening his mouth presumably to tell Warlock he can call him by whatever name he’s most comfortable with, when someone knocks on the shop window.

She’s a harried looking middle-aged woman, tapping her knuckles right next to where the Closed sign is hanging and seeming adamant about coming in anyway.

Warlock glares, and the shade comes crashing down with enough force that it knocks the window display clean over. The tapping, at least, stops dead.

“Oops,” says Warlock, shamefaced. He scurries over to pick up the fallen books, though he doesn’t bother lifting the shade. “Sorry.”

Crowley glances back at Aziraphale to find him stunned, staring at the books on the floor in bewilderment. Crowley rubs the back of his head, and says, “Yeah, um— there’s that, too. I think we may have believed in him a bit too much, during his formative years. Put some thoughts in his head that, er, took root.”

“I see,” Aziraphale says faintly. He comes to stand at Crowley’s side, watching Nanael crouch next to Warlock and show him how much more fun it is to order reality about with a snap of one’s fingers rather than a glare.

“If you’re Crowley’s child, you’ll pick it up right away,” Nanael says with perfect confidence.

Warlock brightens, and Crowley pretends not to notice the way Aziraphale is smiling at him.

#good omens #aziraphale #anthony j crowley #warlock dowling #nanny crowley #my writing #gomens fic #nanael is here to stay everyone #and Dont Worry that demon is too #is there a better bet than love

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prairiesongserial · 4 years

Text

11.5

No sooner had Rhea left Cody on the ferry than a courier was whisking him off it again, leading him down a long wooden dock and to the front doors of the Bellamy Mansion. It was a large place, easily as large as La Salle Rouge or the Waters mansion had been, but nowhere near as sleek. The mansion’s facade was made of crumbling black stone and infested with fuzzy vines that crept up along its sides like the veins of a living thing. Two statues made of copper green with age flanked its entrance; humanoid, but missing heads and arms. Cody spared them a look as he passed - they were submerged in water nearly to the knees, but he could tell that they were identical sculptures of a woman. Maybe Rhea, though there was no way to tell for sure.

The inside of the mansion smelled like must and swamp water. It was just as humid inside as it was everywhere else in Everglades City, and Cody could feel himself already sweating through his clothes. The carpet of the mansion’s main hall made squelching sounds underfoot as Cody trudged inside, and he was barely surprised to find that it was waterlogged, at least around the entryway. The water outside came right up to the bottom of the front door, lapping at the entrance as though begging to be let in. The foundation of the house, Cody assumed, had been underwater for a long time.

The heavy front door slammed behind him. Cody looked around to see that the Bellamy courier who had brought him there had already run off to some other errand, their crisp white shirt and red vest vanishing around a corner. He was alone in the entryway.

“You,” a gruff voice said from above him, immediately proving him wrong. “You’re the new courier?”

Cody looked up, startled, his eyes darting about for the source of the voice. Eventually, his gaze landed on a woman leaning over the railing of a second-floor landing, at the top of the grand staircase at the far end of the main hall. She was tall and lean - but muscular, Cody noted, as he began to walk towards the staircase. She held herself tensely, in a way that reminded Cody of Sailor, and she had unruly hair that fell around her face in waves. It was distinctly silvery, though she looked too young to have already gone gray. Maybe a mutation.

“I asked you a question,” the woman said, eyeing Cody with sharp, dark eyes as he neared the stairs. She shifted in place, her suit jacket pulling back to reveal a gun holstered at her hip.

“Yeah, I’m the new courier,” Cody said, hastily. “Cody Allison. I was sent here to meet, uh...Madeline?”

The woman nodded, her expression and posture unchanging as Cody climbed the stairs to join her on the second floor landing. She regarded him with her piercing gaze, so intense that Cody almost flinched away from it, then stiffly offered him her hand.

“Fleetwood Mercer,” she said. “Madeline’s bodyguard.”

“Charmed,” Cody said flatly, and shook Fleetwood’s hand. It was rough with callouses, and her grip was strong, almost too strong.

“Madeline will want you in better clothes,” Fleetwood said, beginning to walk the instant she’d dropped Cody’s hand. Cody had to struggle to keep pace with her - she took long-legged, purposeful strides, and seemed to know exactly where she was going, leading him deep into the dimly-lit halls of the Bellamy mansion. The hallways twisted and turned, leaving Cody with the impression that they were walking in circles, but Fleetwood never faltered for an instant.

“As her interim courier, you’ll be expected to shadow Madeline and deliver any messages she needs sent,” she continued, never once pausing for breath. “You’ll be treated as a representative of the Bellamy family. Anything you do reflects on Madeline and her mother. Do you understand?”

Cody nodded. He knew a threat when he heard one. Even if Rhea had said she wouldn’t turn him or his friends in to Hemisphere, the promise of a wealthy businesswoman didn’t mean much. She could make his life very hard. Still, it wouldn’t be a problem. Cody wanted to get through this day without incident just as badly as he suspected the Bellamys did.

“Sure,” he said, getting the idea it was better to agree. At least being around Fleetwood was marginally better than being around Rhea - Fleetwood didn’t mince words, and she didn’t wear a Hemisphere insignia anywhere on her person. Not that Cody could see, anyway. “How big is this place, anyway? It’s like a maze.”

“It’s not that big,” Fleetwood said. The assertion was almost comical, as they turned down another hallway that seemed to stretch on forever. The floorboards of the second-floor hallways were mostly bare, and creaked underfoot, some protesting so loudly that Cody was afraid they might snap and send him plummeting to the first floor landing.

“What happened to your hand?” Fleetwood asked, after a prolonged silence.

“My - oh,” Cody said, reflexively curling the fingers of the hand in question. He had grown surprisingly used to his two missing fingers in the past months. The stumps still hurt with a phantom pain sometimes, but they’d healed nicely, with no sign of infection. He had adapted to new ways of holding things, to hanging onto his motorbike’s handlebars tighter and shifting his grip on his gun so it wouldn’t slip out of his hand.

“I owed money to a gang,” he said, boiling the story down to as few words as possible. “Their leader cut my fingers off when I didn’t pay him back fast enough.”

Fleetwood hummed thoughtfully. “Did you ever pay him back?”

“No,” Cody said, finally uncurling his fingers. “I killed him, actually.”

Fleetwood paused in her tracks, looking to Cody and sizing him up again. Her gaze was more intense than it had been before, her lips pursed in a tight line. Then, finally, she nodded and began to walk again.

“Good for you,” she said.

Several more hallways and another flight of stairs later, they arrived at what appeared to be Madeline Bellamy’s room. From what Cody could tell, it was more of a small apartment nestled into the third floor of the mansion. The door opened into a small lounge area, which opened up into a small kitchenette and a hall that led back to - Cody assumed - Madeline’s actual bedroom.

“Wait here,” Fleetwood told him, pointing at one of the couches in the lounge. Once Cody sat down on it, she nodded approvingly and disappeared down the hall.

Cody crossed one leg over the other where he sat, bouncing his foot and idly considering snooping around. It didn’t seem like he would find anything worthwhile in the apartment. Besides, the chattering voices down the hall, now muted by Madeline’s bedroom door, threatened to rejoin Cody at any moment. They did so shortly, Fleetwood and Madelines’s approach announced by the sound of footsteps.

“So you’re the new courier,” a woman who only could have been Madeline Bellamy said, smiling brightly at Cody as she entered the lounge. She was surprisingly young - Cody guessed she was his age, if not slightly younger - and wore her dark hair pinned tightly to the back of her head, to create the illusion of a slightly wavy pixie cut. She was outfitted in a bright yellow dress, with a blue-and-white striped kerchief tied at a jaunty angle around her neck.

“His name’s Cody,” Fleetwood supplied, looming just behind Madeline.

“Oh, I know,” Madeline said, brightly. “I’ve seen his wanted poster. But he’s much more handsome in person, don’t you think?”

Fleetwood made a noncommittal noise, as Cody stood awkwardly from the couch. Surprisingly, he was feeling less out of his depth than he had before. Madeline’s style of dress and the flighty way she spoke reminded him eerily of Marc, and gave him sudden confidence that he could handle this. Hopefully Madeline wasn’t as adept at getting into firefights as Marc had been.

“It’s, uh, nice to meet you,” he offered, giving Madeline as much of a smile as he could manage, and offering her his hand. She stared at it for a moment as though unsure of what to do with it, then finally shook it limply, smiling with such enthusiasm that it almost made up for what had to be the worst handshake Cody had ever received.

“Enchanté, Cody,” she said, at last releasing his hand. “Fleetwood, would you be a dear and see if you can find a courier’s uniform in his size? There should be some spares downstairs, in the costume shop.”

“I’m not your butler,” Fleetwood said, with a tone that indicated they’d had this discussion many times before.

“And I’m not saying that you are,” Madeline said. “But Cody and I will go and feed the guard dogs while you’re gone, and this way you won’t have to come with us. We’ll meet you at the costume shop afterwards.”

She batted her eyelashes at Fleetwood - who, Cody noticed, had grimaced at the mention of the guard dogs. Having only just recently met a dog for the first time himself, he supposed he could understand being afraid of them, if you didn’t have much experience.

“Fine,” Fleetwood said. “But be careful.”

“We’ll be fine,” Madeline said with a tittering little laugh. She linked her arm with Cody’s, fairly abruptly, and began tugging him towards the door. “Come on, Cody, let’s go and feed the dogs. I’m sure they’re famished. I’m famished, actually. Have you eaten breakfast?”

“Yeah,” Cody said, wondering if this was what John felt like all the time. Did he talk this much?

“Well, I haven’t. And it will be lunchtime by the time we’re done finding you a uniform, so we may as well plan on having lunch after that,” Madeline said. She was leading him back down the hall, towards an odd set of double doors Cody didn’t remember passing before. She stopped in front of them, and pressed a button set into a brass panel in the wall, tapping her foot against the floorboards as she waited for something - Cody didn’t know what - to happen.

Finally, the double doors slid open on their own, the sound of screeching metal making Cody’s skin crawl. The doors revealed some kind of empty closet - or a bare, box-shaped room. Madeline dragged Cody inside, and pressed another button on the inside wall, jamming it impatiently with a manicured finger.

“What are we -” Cody began, but never had the chance to finish, because the double doors were sliding shut, and suddenly the closet was moving.

Cody could feel the closet sinking towards the ground, the whole thing wobbling ever so slightly as it did so, and decided instantly that he hated it. There were muffled sounds of metal creaking and groaning all around him, and Cody would have been convinced that they were about to plummet through the foundation of the estate and plunge into the swamp to drown if Madeline hadn’t been so obviously nonchalant about the entire thing.

“You’ve never been on an elevator before!” she exclaimed, her eyes lighting up as she turned to him and saw whatever expression Cody must have been wearing.

“Is that what it is?” Cody asked, feeling vaguely seasick. He resolved to ask Enis more about elevators, when he finally got back to the circus. Enis would probably know how they worked. He had known about the special cameras, anyway.

“Yes!” Madeline said, with a laugh. “It goes between floors of the mansion. We’re going to the basement, and it’s much quicker than going down all those stairs. Isn’t it a wonderful contraption?”

“No,” Cody said bluntly, and almost felt a sense of satisfaction when he managed to startle another laugh out of Madeline. It wasn’t enough to distract from the churning in his stomach, though - he was sure they had to be below the water level around the mansion by now, but the elevator was still going down.

At last, the elevator shuddered to a halt and its doors opened again, onto a dark, cavernous room filled with the sound and smell of water. Cody stepped out hesitantly - he wasn’t sure what he’d been expecting to find in the basement, but he was sure now that it was at least partially underwater. He couldn’t hear the sound of animals moving around in the dark anywhere. Only Madeline flitting about, presumably to find the light switch.

“You keep your guard dogs all the way down here?” he asked, sticking close to the elevator, not wanting to step in any water. In the dark, there was no way to tell where it was, or how deep.

“Well, they’re not really dogs,” Madeline said, sounding a little apologetic. “That’s just my nickname for them. Oh, hang on - there it is -”

There was a grating, metal-on-metal noise of a heavy switch being pulled, and overhead lights slowly began to flicker on in the basement. As they did so, gradually lighting up the room, Cody’s breath caught in his throat.

He had been right that the basement would have to be partially underwater, but he saw now that what Madeline had called a basement was more of a cave. The stone under his feet sloped gradually down, forming a sort of shore where the water had lapped up against it and worn it away over the years. Half of the room was taken up by swamp water, large rocks jutting out of it here and there. The lights didn’t reach to the other end of the basement, and it was hard to tell exactly how big it was - or if it simply went on underwater for miles. Cody didn’t really want to know.

“I know it’s not much, but it’s where they know to come and get fed,” Madeline said. She’d disappeared behind a privacy screen in one corner of the room - Cody could just vaguely see her silhouette, and was about to ask her what in the world she was doing, when something moved in his peripheral vision.

Cody snapped his head back towards the water. A lumpy form poking out from the surface that he’d initially thought was a rock was now gliding through the water. It was only when it clambered up onto a rock that he realized it was an animal - a big animal, longer than he was tall and covered in lumpy scales. Some kind of lizard, he realized. He’d seen lizards before, but never one this big. Never one with a snout the length of his arm, with sharp teeth that jutted out of it at all angles.

“What the fuck -” Cody managed, as Madeline reemerged from behind the privacy curtain, wearing a sleek, black wetsuit, her hair still neatly pinned in place. She gave him an odd look, crossing to the other corner of the room, where a few large storage containers were stacked.

“I thought the circus would’ve warned you,” she said, opening one of the containers and filling the room with the metallic smell of raw meat. “You’ve never seen a gator before?”

11.4 || 11.6

#story

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slurp-imagines · 5 years

Text

Usopp - Night-watch

Words: 4,481 Content: nsfw, 2nd person, female reader, piv

The island and its inhabitants are peaceful, but its waters are certainly not.

Which is why the Strawhats, upon disembarking, had decided to leave one crew member behind to make sure the Sunny wasn’t... ravaged by sea monsters, or anything equally horrifying, while the rest of them were gone. Franky had taken this responsibility upon himself for the day, but once the local tribe had decided to hold a celebration to welcome their new pirate friends, you had suggested taking over for him.

A party was definitely more Franky’s scene than your own, and you were already exhausted from exploring the island with Luffy and the others. Ship-watch duty honestly sounded like it would be a huge relief since it meant having some time to yourself.

Franky, ever perceptive despite the loud impression he gives off, had picked up on the pleading undertones of your offer and connected the dots himself. So, after receiving numerous long-winded explanations on what to do if XYZ happened, you saw the rest of your crewmates off to the party.

–––––

Usopp has to admit that while the celebration is a lot of fun, he’s definitely missing your presence.

Since you’ve joined the Strawhats, Usopp has always enjoyed your company. You had warmed up to Nami and Robin the most quickly, being the three women in the crew, and Luffy had easily garnered your affection (just like the rest of them); your integration with the rest of the crew went rather smoothly from there.

Usopp had done his best to give you a hand with it early on, though, since he could tell you were rather shy. He doesn’t know why no one else thought so when he mentioned it once, but this impression of you had formed pretty early on for him and still had yet to be changed. You were a bit skittish, perking up when his presence manages to catch you off guard; a bit bashful, your cheeks often sporting a pink blush even at the slightest bit of teasing. And a bit quiet, as well– oftentimes when you two were alone together, you allowed him to do most of the talking.

Even so, you and he have found a nice synergy together. While Usopp is rather outgoing, snarky, and high-strung, you are reserved, kind, and level-headed. Being around you is easy and comfortable, and feels almost like filling in one another’s gaps.

So yes, he misses you.

But more than that, he worries about how you’re doing back on the Sunny.

He knows you enjoy your peace and quiet once in a while, and that sometimes you tend to shy away from huge crowds, but... what if you were getting bored? Or lonely? Or far worse– what if something bad does end up happening and no one is there in time to help you out? Sure, Franky showed you how to send a signal up in case things went sideways, but Usopp just can’t shake his nerves. He could offer to help you out with the night-watch, couldn’t he? It wouldn’t be weird or pushy or anything. That’s just what friends are for. It’s only an offer, anyway.

He calls your name once he’s set foot on the grassy deck of the Sunny, but doesn’t get a reply. That’s fine. Doesn’t mean it’s an emergency just yet. You were probably in the crow’s nest, and if not, then somewhere downstairs.

After checking the former location, he descends the stairs to the galley, and after finding it empty as well, he commands his nervous heart to be still before making his way to the ladies’ bedroom.

Surely you’d be there. There were no signs of a sea monster attack when he’d been on the deck earlier. You are definitely doing just fine, and he’s been worrying over nothing... Or so he tells himself, but he can’t help the anxious flutter in his chest as he hurries his steps every so slightly on his way there.

As he’s about to knock on the door, he hears your voice coming from inside the room.

“Usopp...”

He freezes, his raised fist merely inches from the wood. Because his name is immediately following by a groan– drawn out, possibly with pain, and that’s about where the train of thought ends for him. Perhaps it was a little ambiguous to his ears, but his pre-existing nerves about your being hurt in a sea monster attack stops him from questioning it before he’s turning the knob and hastily pushing the door open.

“Y/N! Are you okay?”

At the same time you scream, he thinks his heart stops.

Of course, being as experienced a fighter as you are (you weren’t a pirate for nothing), you’re pretty quick to leap to one side of the bed, out of his view, taking the sheet with you to cover yourself.

Still, despite your best efforts, he’s not dumb. He knows what he just walked in on.

That was Y/N, naked on the bed. Her legs spread, head tossed back into the pillows.

...Okay.

Okay.

There is a moment where the two of you simply stare at each other, eyes fish-bowled, and in Usopp’s case, jaw dropped.

“I... You, uh, um...” There are about a hundred different thoughts running through his head at the moment, but none of them make their way to his mouth in a coherent sentence just yet. He suddenly has the mind to look away, his eyes darting to the right to instead focus on the first piece of furniture that came into his field of vision. “Y-You called?” he finishes lamely, his heart pounding out of his chest. The shaky grin on his face probably does not measure up at all to the air of charming bravado he had attempted for that sentence to have.

When you still don’t say anything, he gulps. The tension right now is insane. He’s surprised you haven’t thrown anything at him yet, because he definitely deserves it. He just barged in on you during a private moment, and he hasn’t even left yet.

Why the hell haven’t I left yet?! His mind backtracks in a panic, a choked sound forcing its way out from the back of his throat.

But he answers his own question soon enough when he recalls that his name was on your lips moments before his entrance. There are still so many questions, but the thought of it gives himself a little twinge of confidence. After a deep breath, he tears his eyes away from the dresser and back you. Well, you’re now completely hidden by the bed, assumedly crouched somewhere behind it.

“Y/N?” He tries. “S-Sorry for barging in like that, I just... I, uh, it’s just that I heard my name, and–”

He’s interrupted by quite a miserable-sounding groan, and he actually flinches at the sound of it. But your voice, small and clearly filled with shame, follows it: “I’m so sorry.”

Well, that’s not what he expected you to say at all.

“...Sorry? Why are you sorry?”

“Because I was...! You know what I was doing!” He doesn’t have to see you to know that your cheeks are flushed, your fingers twiddling with one another in front of you. He’s seen it in so many other contexts, always thought it was charming. “And now I just ruined our friendship. So I’m sorry. You can go now.”

Hearing verbal confirmation of it sparks a fire in his belly, and he feels blood rush to his cheeks. Well, also his groin, but that can be ignored for now, because he’s got another concern. “You didn’t ruin anything, Y/N.”

You don’t reply, so he takes a few tentative steps towards the bed and sits with his back to you. “I...” Jeez. He pretty much knows how you feel about him at this point, so why is it still so hard for him to say? Feeling incredibly awkward, he runs his hands down his face, urging himself to overcome his embarrassment. “For the longest time, I... I’ve liked you. A lot. Like, more than a friend.”

He thinks he just barely hears a gasp from your side of the bed.

“So, I... I mean, if it was my name you were calling, then... I don’t want to go. If you want me to s-stay, then I’d be happy to.” He gulps, waiting for your response.

“What happens if you stay?”

Well. He really hasn’t thought that far ahead. “Whatever you want,” he blurts out, then immediately cringes at how breathless his voice was. They haven’t even done anything and she’s somehow gotten him this flustered.

He startles only slightly when he hears movement from the other side of the bed. “Y-Y/N?”

He stands when he sees you approaching in his periphery. The sheets are still wound around you but by now seem to be properly tucked, although your hands are still lightly gripping the top so as to keep it from falling. You’re looking at your feet, but shortly later, your hands wring and you seem to gather the courage to raise your head.

Your gaze is unsteady but hopeful, flicking about but still eventually returning to lock with his. Still, despite the slight flightiness, in your eyes, Usopp finds something affirmative.

And so he takes the two steps that close the distance between you; he fixes his hands at your waist, rubbing back and forth with one of his thumbs. As he leans in, every glance you two share seems to ask, Is this okay? and each time, even smaller changes of your expression seem to signal, Yes, keep going.

When he kisses you, it’s soft and short.

But the second is more insistent, more lasting, and each one from there is increasingly so. His hands at your waist pull in you closer until you’re flush against him, and your mouth opens for him just as easily. After a moment for breath, his tongue explores your mouth, and your hands leave the sheets to instead tangle in his hair.

His nose against the side of your face pokes at your ear, and although the giggle doesn’t make its way out of you, you can’t help the smile that forms on your face. He matches it, and the kiss is briefly all teeth. “Could you close the door?” you murmur, beginning to pull away.

“No one else is on the ship,” he protests, beginning to tug you back again; you have to resist him before he can distract you with another kiss.

“That’s what I thought a few minutes ago,” you say, fixing him with a pout, “and look what happened to me.”

Usopp lets out a laugh at that, finally letting go of you to do what you asked. “Think I should lock it just in case?” He does so at your nod, then hurries back to you, carefully guiding you to lie back against the pillows on the bed. At this point, the sheet is tangled around you like a fishnet, and he doesn’t want to trip you over by mistake.

But once he’s leaned over you, nude underneath that thin white sheet, you both pause.

“W...What now?” he prompts. He doesn’t want to rush you and make you too uncomfortable, but he also has the feeling that if he doesn’t get the ball rolling, you’ll be staring at each other, fully covered, for ages.

Your eyes flicker away from his. After a moment, your fingers curl around part of his wrist, a tentative, gentle touch; while your other hand fists itself in the sheets, seemingly caught between pulling it lower and pulling it higher. Though subtle, the backtracking movement doesn’t escape the sniper’s notice.

“Y-You first?” you ask.

Usopp nods, perhaps a bit sharply, but he goes through with her request. He isn’t wearing very much to begin with– a simple open button-down, sandals, and sweatpants– but each movement feels to take much longer than it should.

He pauses when he’s down to his boxers, looking to you again for... he doesn’t really know what. But it feels like reassurance when you glance up at him, eyes half-lidded and dark, so he strips the rest of the way and tosses his underwear onto the floor with the rest of his clothes.

Usopp is self-conscious for a moment, but this is the body he’s trained so rigorously for two years, and his worry at your scrutiny is quickly converted into pride at the fruits of his efforts.

He notices your hands fiddling with the sheets, not yet drawing them down, but questioning.

"Is- Is it okay if I...?”

“Yeah!” He answers perhaps a tad too loudly, a tad too quickly, a tad higher-pitched than he normally would. “I mean, yeah. Yeah, uh, whenever you’re ready. Of course.”

It’s about three seconds after his nervous blathering that the corner of your lip twitches and the two of you burst into laughter.

“Your face...” you just barely make out between laughs. He has no clue what his expression was like, except that he must’ve been shaky-eyed and tense as all hell.

“Sorry,” Usopp says once he’s mostly sobered, though some of the remnants of his laughter still manage to slip out. “Sorry. I guess I’m kinda nervous.”

“You don’t have to apologize...” You give him an embarrassed smile, looking up at him from beneath your lashes. “I’m... pretty nervous too.”

“We’re in this together, then, huh?”

“Well, yeah.” Your eyes snap down to your bare body, then back to his. Obviously.”

You get another laugh out of him with that remark, and it helps calm your pounding heart. The giggle fit from earlier had already broken the odd tension that had existed in the room since Usopp’s well-timed entrance, but the knowledge that he’s just as wound up as you are helps put you at ease.

Feeling slightly emboldened, you take one deep breath before attempting to unfurl the white sheets from your body.

Keyword: attempting. Because it doesn’t come loose very easily.

Usopp very obviously snickers once he sees you squirming in this cocoon of yours, then immediately hopes the sound doesn’t offend you– he’s laughing with you, not at you. He’s laughing because he’s nervous, he’s laughing because he’s still sort of in disbelief that this is happening at all. And he really can’t help smiling at the very least, because god you’re so cute how are you allowed to be this cute–

While that train of through runs his course, he busies himself with helping you untangle. Once you’re finally free, he bundles the sheet at the edge of the bed, and when he looks back to you...

He had been sporting a halfie for a good while now, but as his eyes roam the curves of your body, the anticipation of what’s to come is enough to bring him nearly to full mast.

His cock twitches when he realizes that your gaze has been fixed on his member as it grew substantially. Well. That’s sort of embarrassing, but what can he do. He’s excited for this, and he can’t really be upset that his body is letting you know he feels that way.

You look up to him as he puts his weight onto his elbows, and as he leans in for a kiss, you respond to him with gusto. You let out a soft sigh at the feeling of one of his hands roaming upwards from your waist, gentle as it cups at the swell of your breast, slow and tentative before his fingers pinch at the nipple. The kiss is shortly broken by your gasp, and the sound of it surprises him, but he immediately seeks it out again as he rolls the hardening nub between his fingers.

His efforts are rewarded, but he’s surprised even more by the brush of your hand against his dick, a moan escaping his throat as you palm its girth and slowly drag your hand towards the tip. At your pause, Usopp pushes his hips forward, pumping into the curve of your hand. He kisses at your jawline before continuing with his thrusts, his heaving breaths hot by your ear as he does. You tighten your grip slightly, twisting your wrist to help with the friction, and both Usopp’s breath and hips stutter at the sensation. His slowing allows you to take the reins, and in the moments following he treats you to moans even louder than the one previous as you continue to jack him off.

Your wrist eventually begins to tire, so you take a moment to encircle the tip of his cock with your thumb, spreading the pre-cum that’s now beginning to bead out from it. He nuzzles into your neck, groaning and biting down at your skin, the suddenness of it eliciting light a moan from you as well.

You’re just barely able to see it when his trembling hand reaches under himself to begin massaging his balls. “D-Don’t stop,” he pants, “don’t stop.”

And so you resume the motions of your hand, alternating between pumping his shaft and circling the tip– and he shakes over you, you can see it in the arm holding up his weight– his hips occasionally buck into your hand and then still afterward, as if unsure whether to chase the end or simply allow it find him– his body is all tense, sharp lines, and you think he’s close, so, so close–

Usopp seems to think so as well, though; and he apparently doesn’t want to finish just yet, because he places a hand at your wrist to still you and leans back on his heels. His chest is heaving, slick with sweat, and his cock is twitching between his legs. He pushes a curly lock of his hair back over his shoulder, as somewhere along the line it had escaped from the tie at the back of his head.

Pulling himself back from the edge has left his body taut and fidgety, and he needs a little bit of time to recover, lest he blows his load the very next time you touch him. The thought incites a huff of laughter, quick and out through his nose, as he places a hand on your knee. He doesn’t know what for, but the contact is nice.

He can’t help but blush when he notices his pre is smeared across your stomach, translucent and shiny under the ceiling lights. The sight of it is beautifully erotic, and while his member is aching for more friction, he opts to pay you some attention instead.

The hand at your knee pushes outwards, gently coaxing you to spread your legs farther apart. The look on your face is bashful but not unwilling, and at his concerned gaze, you offer him a nervous smile. Usopp returns it as his hand trails toward your slick entrance, pausing at the junction between your thigh and your pelvis. “This okay?” he asks. Perhaps needlessly, judging by the quick nodding of your head, but he likes having the confirmation from you.

You let out a sigh when his fingers finally reach their destination, his ring and middle fingers stroking between your folds, already wet and ready for him. Your hips buck up to meet his hand when it passes over your clit, and he indulges you almost immediately, using the pads of his fingertips to rub it in tight circles. You bite your lower lip to help stifle the loud groan that nearly escapes and toss your head back into the pillows, your legs crossing at the base of his spine. He allows you to revel in it a few moments longer, listening intently to the sound of your whiny gasps, before his fingers slide back down towards your core; and from there it’s but a light press of his middle finger before it’s slipped inside you.

He begins pumping slowly at first, watching your expression carefully for any discomfort– when he finds none, he ups the ante a little. Usopp is gentle but generous, picking up the pace once he sees that you want it by the rocking of your hips and the pleasure in your expression.

When you feel the nudge of a second finger, you plant your feet back onto the bed and your hips rise to meet it, to guide it inside and out again– except he pauses.

Your eyes flutter back open to see Usopp grinning at you, waggling his eyebrows. “Eager, huh?”

You’re able to share a laugh with him, but you’re sure that you must be flushing red at his remark, so you can’t help but bring your hands to your face.

“Aw, no, don’t get embarrassed,” he says apologetically, though there’s still humor in his voice. His free hand tugs at one of your wrists. “I liked it a lot! Really!” His honesty flusters you even more, but you let him nudge your hands away. “Hey, don’t be mad.”

“I’m not mad, just...” Sort of embarrassed and caught off guard by it.

If you’re pouting, he doesn’t point it out, but you think he gets it. He gives you an easy-going smile, the same one he's been showing you for ages now– patient, happy, and kind. The one that you now realize has probably spoken to his feelings for you more loudly than you’d understood even yesterday.

He leans closer to you, kissing you rather chastely before he begins moving his fingers once again. He crooks them now and then, pressing against your walls experimentally before he finds the spot he was looking for.

“Oh, yes, right there...” you whine, one hand clutching at the pillow behind your head while the other runs up his chest to grasp at his shoulder. He smiles– a bit cocky, but he’s doing so well that you don’t see it fit to complain about it. He pays extra attention to that spot after each plunge of his fingers, and soon enough, you’re responding in kind with small noises of approval from high in your throat.

He leans towards you again and you welcome him with open arms, accepting his kiss and deepening it, even as you pant into his mouth out of pleasure.

“Usopp,” you exhale, one hand fisted in his hair while the other presses insistently into his back. “Usopp, please...”

“Tell me what you want,” he replies, though it comes out sounding more like a question. He thinks he knows what you’re asking for, but he doesn’t want to screw this up.

“I-I want you... inside,” you confess, your hips nudging up to meet his hand once again. Your request goes straight to his cock, and it twitches slightly at your added whimper of, “Please, Usopp.”

The request takes some of the breath out of him, and really doesn’t think he can form a proper sentence at the moment– he’s so turned on he can’t believe it– so he nods, pulling out so he can line himself up with your entrance.

He pauses to glance once more at you, wanting to make sure you’re ready– and at seeing the confirmation, he steadily pushes himself inside.

Both of you let out a moan, oddly in sync, and he leaves a few moments for the two of you to breathe. For you to get accustomed to the stretch if you need to, but also for himself to get accustomed to... everything. The wetness, the warmth, the slight movement of your walls around his member– he gulps, fixing his hips in place as he knows he should wait for your signal.

A brief squeeze of his arm does it, coupled with the insistent look in your eyes. Usopp slowly pulls his hips back, waiting until only the head is left before thrusting back in. Your sigh of pleasure sends another wave of arousal through him, and on his next thrust he watches your eyes flutter closed and your head tilt back further into the soft linen of the pillowcase. He returns to kissing at your now-open neck as he begins rolling his hips, pulling back and fucking into you a few inches at a time, reveling in the soft, breathy moans you’re letting out.

“Is that good?” he murmurs into your skin after a little while.

“Yeah,” you whisper back. “Yeah, so good...”

You can feel him smile into the crook of your neck– perhaps proudly, or simply relieved– and he lays one more kiss onto your collarbone before he pushes himself up so that his arms are fully extended and bracketing you on both sides.

His gaze on you, clearly roaming from your face to your body and back up, makes you slightly self-conscious, but you resist the urge to cover yourself.

"You look beautiful,” he suddenly blurts out, then blinks, like he hadn’t been expecting it. "That just slipped out, but it’s true,” he laughs, his cheeks going slightly pink.

With a smile on your face and cheeks to match his, you prop yourself up for a moment so you can kiss him again. It’s pretty sloppy, especially as he resumes his thrusts– your teeth clack against his at least once, and you nearly bite down on his lip once he starts to speed up. Instead, you fall back into the mattress, grabbing both your legs to spread them further and moaning at the repeated slap of his hips against yours. “Usopp, oh, yes...!”

His hand takes hold of your breast once again, rolling your nipple between his fingers just as he did earlier, before it trails down your abdomen towards your sex. You can feel the coil in your lower body becoming tighter and tighter, knowing that just a little more friction will take you a long way.

“Usopp, please–” Your thoughts and sentences are fragmented, but you hope he can get the idea by the touch of your hand at his wrist.

And thankfully, he does, because he presses the thumb of his free hand against your clit, inciting a loud moan from you. He rubs and pinches it sporadically, not always in time with his strokes– still, it manages to do the trick, and the pleasure builds until you feel the coil come loose. You cum with his name on your lips, your hands grasping at his wrists, legs curling around his waist.

Usopp cants his hips so he can help you ride out your orgasm. “Fuck, Y/N,” he groans, head in a daze. The feeling of you tightening and shifting around his dick is almost too much. His breaths, now higher-pitched and shaky, draw out into a long moan, and he moves his hip in tight circles for a few moments before pulling out. From there, it’s only two tugs before he finishes, his cum spilling over your stomach.

You pull him toward you for a kiss, and though half out of breath, he meets you with vigor.

#usopp #usopp x reader #one piece #one piece imagines #ns.fw #slurp #I ummm hope this is any good lol #it's kinda long sry #I didn't know how to make it shorter but also like. believable yknow?

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dolphin-bouillabaisse · 5 years

Text

GO-ctober Prompts, 9

Inktober except without the ink, and with drabbles instead.

Prompt #9 - Swing

(previous | next | beginning)

(find it all on Ao3)

“Angel, I truly love you.” The whine in Crowley's voice made it clear that while this was true, the sentence was only the beginning of a longer complaint. “I absolutely do. And I do admit that all these composers were brilliant and a true show of human capabilities.”

Aziraphale took a sip of wine, sinking down a bit more in his armchair, still a book in his hand. They'd barely begun their standard evening routine, and it was not yet time for Crowley to break the comfortable silence, convince him to give up the book and entice him over to the couch.

He waited. Nothing came. Apparently Crowley was not trying to flirt his way into their usual cuddly get-together, but was hoping for a more dramatic discussion.

“But?” He finally gave in.

“But if I have to listen to the same bloody Best Of Classics vinyl one more time, I will throw the whole gramophone out on the street. I don't care how old it is and just how long you've been keeping it going. It will go out. And the vinyl will too.”

“Well.” Aziraphale put down the book and the wine, folding his hands over his belly, a glint in his eye that told Crowley he wasn't giving up that easily. He wanted a discussion? He would get one. “I don't think you need to stoop to such crass threats, my dear. I'd also add that it is very much your fault for giving me the record in the first place.”

“Yes, yes, I know, seed of its own destruction and all that bullshit-” “Really, dear!” “-not sorry. I know I gave you the blasted record, I didn't expect you to play it for five weeks straight.”

It had been a joke in the first place, when Crowley had spotted the vinyl stand at the flea-market, bored out of his mind while Aziraphale was two stands down chatting over some books. Best Of Classics, from a modern viewpoint, was sure to lead Aziraphale into a huffy rant about how nobody even knew about proper classics anymore, how that modern orchestra was barely touching on the brilliance of some of these compositions anyway, and all that. He'd get a laugh out of it, maybe put it on once or twice in the bookshop when the angel wasn't looking his way, only to see him fluster up again.

He had not expected him to actually like the damn thing.

“It is a very lovely record. It was nice of you to bring it over before it spent too much time in your car.”

“If I had known, I would've waited longer.”

Aziraphale tutted and very clearly decided not to mention the bitter irony of Crowley complaining about constantly having to listen to the same music.

“Please, angel, I beg you.” He turned on the sofa, one leg slumping onto to ground, an arm thrown theatrically over his head. “Anything else. Put on the Sound Of Music if you must, I don't care. Just change the damn record.”

“Now you're being rude.” But Aziraphale had gotten up at least, not on his way over to the gramophone yet, apparently only to the small bar to top up his wine. He slid his hand through Crowley's hair as he went past, and earned himself a pleading look from under the arm, almost as good as his own plead-and-pout.

“There has to be some other music you're willing to listen to, angel. Six thousands years of humans banging on anything that made noise, something must've caught your ear.”

Aziraphale took his time filling their glasses. (His had slowly been emptied in the past half hour, while Crowley's had been downed almost before he'd completely sat down. The music had already been playing.)

“There is some other music that I enjoy from time to time, to be honest.”

“Put it on then! I don't care if it's ABBA's greatest hits or anything, just put it on!”

Aziraphale tutted again as he went over to the gramophone. He had very few records collected below it, but he knew it would play what he wanted it to play once he changed them.

The scratch of the lifted needle and slow dim of the music as it teetered out into nothing caused Crowley to sigh with almost pleasure. Another scratch, another melody slowly pushing out through the horn into the room, and he sat up to stare over the back of the sofa.

“Really?”

“What is it now? Still don't like it? You're so fussy.”

“No, it's good, it's just-”

Crowley grinned, and Aziraphale had a hard time not returning the smile with a blush on his face.

“I just never would've took you for a Swing-fan.”

“I admit it's a bit different from my usual tastes.” He said as he handed the wine glass over to Crowley, sitting down on the couch beside him. “But then again, not so much. It's still a proper band playing, at least, not like these modern songs all made on computers.”

Crowley hid his fond smile behind a sip as Frank Sinatra crooned fully in the background now.

“I guess. But I would've more expected you to be shocked by the chaotic dancing. Guess you prefer the slower numbers?”

“Oh, but the dancing is lovely! Well, people might think it chaotic at first glance, but if you really look at it, it's very well choreographed. Almost reminds me of a good gavotte, a bit faster, but still.”

Crowley smiled fully now, and leant over to put his arm behind Aziraphale's shoulder, who cuddled closer immediately.

“Afraid I can't offer to dance either with you, angel. Learning routines is not really my thing.”

“I wouldn't dare try it, love. Those swinging moves seem a bit too flighty even for winged people.” Aziraphale giggled, his head resting against the nook of Crowley's neck. “It's just as fine to sit and listen. That's one thing the classics are missing sometimes – the lovely lyrics.”

Frank Sinatra was still crooning.

Whether near to me or far

No matter, darling where you are

I think of you

Night and day

“Oh, of course.” Crowley was trying not to laugh out of embarrassment. “You'd like it sappy.”

“Shush.” Aziraphale petted his leg.

Night and day Under the hide of me There's an oh such a hungry Yearnin' burnin' inside of me And it's torment won't be through 'Til you let me spend my life Making love to you Day and night Night and day

“Maybe not so sappy, eh.” Now it was Aziraphale's turn to hide the embarrassment as Crowley scratched along the back of his neck.

“Oh, really, just shush.” Aziraphale sat up to move the needle as the song came to an end, looking for the next one he liked.

“Can we skip Frank? He's a bit played out, to be honest.” Crowley leaned against Aziraphale's back, hunched over the gramophone. “Do you have any Ella Fitzgerald in that mix? She was a great gal, always loved her style.”

“Couldn't say, but I'm sure you'll find it with some help.”

Crowley snapped his fingers, and a slightly more scratchy and definitely slower tune began to start.

I'm afraid some day you'll leave me Saying, "Can't we still be friends?" If you go, you know you'll grieve me All in life on you depends Am I guessing that you love me Dreaming dreams of you in vain? I'm confessing that I love you Over again

“Crowley.” Aziraphale's eyes were filled with far too much emotion for the moment as he turned around to face him.

“Shut up.” Crowley tried to deflect. “I didn't listen for the lyrics. Just wanted to put on something slow, you know...”

Aziraphale moved the needle again, placing it on exactly the right point, miraculously. Crowley watched in silence as his angel began to hum the melody, then opened his mouth and sang to him.

Longer than always Is a long, long time. But far beyond forever, You'll be mine. I know I never lived before, And my heart is very sure No one else could love you more.

More than the greatest love The world has known, This is the love That I give to you, Alone.

There were probably more lyrics, but Aziraphale had to stop singing as Crowley pulled him back down on the sofa, cradled his face in his hands and kissed him just as slow as the music played in the background. He smiled as they parted, not too far.

“So, sappy after all.”

“Shush now, really, my love. You love it.”

“I love you. Sappy swing music and boring classics and all.”

(Note: The songs are, in order: Frank Sinatra’s ‘Night and Day’, Ella Fitzgerald’s ‘I'm Confessin' (That I Love You)‘ and Bobby Darin’s ‘More’.)

#good omens #ineffable husbands #crowley #aziraphale #my writing #october prompts #prompts #sappy #fluffy #and all the other good things #song fic?#oh god I can't believe I wrote a goddamn lyrics fic #what is this fandom doing to me

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wittystiles · 5 years

Text

The Bluff || Mitch Rapp || Part 15

Author: wittystiles

Word Counter: 2k

Warnings: Cursing, idk.

Relationship: Mitch Rapp x Reader

Chapter Title: The Cleanup

Summary: Mitch cleans. Stan gives Irene an update.

A/N: ((THIS IS THE REAL ONE)) I didn’t write for this forever. And then I did. And I hated it. So I walked away, and then I came back and I finished it. This story is my nemesis but it’s for y’all, so I hope you all enjoy it. Please comment, reblog, like. Whatever. Feedback is crucial. I adore y’all.

(Y/N) reached across herself, feeling around for her phone on a nightstand she’d forgotten was no longer standing. The huff that left her was part defeat, part annoyance as she sat up, her head throbbing in it’s own loud protest. Her stomach gave a churn, threatening her with the proposal of vomit, and she fought her hardest to stifle that urge. She’d not consumed alcohol in so long, she’d nearly forgotten how unwell she felt after guzzling bottles of wine. Bitter red being the worst offender.

Opening her eyes she was met with dry soreness, and she shut them again, rubbing them tiredly with the sides of her fists. It took her a few long breaths before she could once more open her eyes, looking around at her devastated room. She plucked a tuft of comforter stuffing from her hair and watched for a moment as it fell to the bed and joined a mound that was already there. (Y/N) was struggling to force all of the things that she was feeling deep within herself, to a part of herself where things wouldn’t be found. Where she wouldn’t get to acknowledge the anger that was beginning to fester at her remembering the destruction of her apartment. It wasn’t like she was going to be able to stay there long, anyway, regardless of its devastation.

She admonished herself for not being wiser to the longevity of the ‘mission’ that Stan and Irene had forced upon her. She should have known she was never going to be free of her ‘Paris savior’. Throwing her legs off of the edge of the bed, (Y/N) willed herself to stand, head feeling a bit dizzy but manageable.

With her hand on the wall to brace herself, (Y/N) made it out of her bedroom and down the hallway to her living room. She took the scene before her in, mouth daring to drop open in amazement. “Mitch?” She muttered, seeing a figure laying on a pile of folded blankets, facing the wall. The entire living room was immaculately clean. No remnants of broken glass, wood, or couch innards splattered the floor. There were large black trash-bags stacked up against the wall near the front door, and every piece of ruined furniture was no longer in the room.

Her hand came up to cover her mouth, her feet carrying her from the living room to her kitchen. Everything was clean in there, as well. Her drawers had been returned to their places, the cabinets shut and some even put back onto their hinges. She was stunned. “Mitch,” she called again, this time louder and clearer. She heard a groan from behind her. He must be waking up.

“Mitch, did you do this?” She wondered, returning to the living room to crouch beside his sleeping form. She rest her hand on his hip for stability and he nearly jumped out of his skin. His torso sprang up and his hands flew behind him to keep himself upright, his chest rising and falling rapidly. (Y/N) retreated from him so fast, her balance got thrown, and she fell backwards, landing with a loud thud on her ass.

Moving with concern for (Y/N), Mitch found himself at her side in a heartbeat. He rest his hand gently against her shoulder blade, looking over her face quickly. “Are you all right?” He asked, moving to sit back against his ankles, taking his hand away from her shoulder. She nodded, looking a little startled but no worse for wear. He ran a hand through his tangled hair, regretting it at once.

“I cleaned,” he stated matter-of-factly, shrugging his shoulders. He settled back against his heels, deciding on just pushing his hair back and away from his face. He absently wished that he had a hair tie. Maybe he could handle the mess of hair that was on his head. “I was gonna do the bedroom but you were just - sleeping so soundly? I dunno, I couldn’t disturb you in order to clean. I’m sorry.”

(Y/N) was at a loss for words as she stared at him, eyes wide. “Are-are you apologizing for the fact that you cleaned? That’s, that’s insane. You literally turned this entire apartment right side up, Mitch. I walked out of my room and was flabbergasted over the fact that this place didn’t look like nineteen bulls trampled through it. I can only say the sincerest thank you, Mitch. Really.” She paused, “why did you sleep on the floor?”

“There wasn’t much room in your bed. I don’t know if you noticed this, but, your mattress was decimated. Irreparably, I’m afraid. There was only enough room for you. And barely, at that. You were curled up so tight around yourself it was like you were going to solidify and be stuck in an immovable (Y/N) ball.”

She stared blankly at him, “you’re not very clever first thing in the morning. Are you?”

“I spent the last twelve hours cleaning up your demolished apartment by myself. I think that I deserve a little credit when it comes to witty remarks.”

(Y/N) nodded, a smile forming on her lips. “Can I make you breakfast? As a thank you?”

“Your fridge is empty.”

She sighed, “the markets a five minute walk from here. I can go out, get some things. Make you a really hearty breakfast. All of the fixins! You could maybe shower, while I’m gone? You smell.”

“I do not,” he grumbled, trying to slyly smell himself without her noticing. It didn’t work.

“You’re right, you don’t,” she laughed. “Though a shower probably could only help you at this point. I’m sure you’re sore…”

Standing from the floor, Mitch shook his head. “I’m fine, but I will shower. At my own apartment. Don’t go to the store. Period. I’ll go out, get something for you to eat while I’m gone. And I will figure out this whole fucking situation.”

(Y/N) watched him with confusion, “what do you mean you’ll figure out this whole fucking situation?”

Mitch stretched his arms over his head, cracking his shoulders in the process. “It means I’m not done saving your ass.” He gave her a wink, walking out of her apartment without another word.

Stan sauntered into Irene’s office in something far below the considerably appropriate marker for ‘business’ or even ‘business casual’. His tucked in white crew neck had the beginning of holes around the collar from years of being pulled off over head. His blue jeans were faded on the thighs and knees, from years of sun exposure and wrestling around in the mud. He was clutching a blue and white paper cup filled with now lukewarm coffee, and looked three-days overdue for a shave.

“Go away, Stan,” Irene called out without looking up from her file. “I’m busy and I don’t have time to entertain you.”

Stan settled himself into the chair across the desk from Irene, resting the ankle of his left leg over the knee of his right. “I’m not here to be entertained,” he announced, bringing his coffee up to his mouth to take a few long swallows. He tossed the cup into the trash beside her desk, the lid popping off upon impact, falling to the floor ungracefully. He wondered how flimsy those cups really were as he leaned forward to pick the lid up, tossing it into the trash. “I’m here to update you on the Mitch case.”

“Don’t call it a case. It’s nowhere near official, Stan.” Irene finally turned her attention away from her computer, looking at him with boredom in her expression. “I know everything that’s happened with them.” She commented, sighing softly. “Also, in case you were wondering. I do have a telephone. You’re welcome to use it to get in contact with me, and avoid this hassle of coming all of the way down here just to inconvenience me.”

Stan’s eye roll was involuntary. “There’s been a new development in the situation.” He crossed his arms over his chest, sighing softly. “(Y/N) called me this afternoon, said something about how Mitch cleaned up her apartment.”

She stared at him blankly for a moment, racking her brain to figure out why that mattered to her. “You dragged your sorry self down here, just to tell me that he /cleaned/?”

Stan glared, “if you’re going to give me attitude, Irene, I will just leave. You can have a fun time trying to get the information I was going to nicely give you out of Mitch. We both know how readily he tells you things.”

“I can call (Y/N).”

Stan chuckled, “you can’t. She’s scratched her most recent cell phone, and won’t have a new one for a while. You’re going to have to send someone to her to get her to talk to you, or have her dragged in here. And I really don’t think you want Mitch getting suspicious about her getting brought down to the CIA building. He’s always so flighty.” He shrugged, “then of course you can go to her. But, that’s an inconvenience that the director wouldn’t want to put upon herself now is it?”

Irene clenched her jaw, trying to keep herself steady and not show the clear annoyance to him. “You’ve made your point, Stanley. What is this groundbreaking information that you’ve got?”

“I never claimed it was groundbreaking.”

The two shared a moment of silence, Irene leaning back in her chair to get herself more comfortable. “Are you ever going to speak?”

“I was just waiting for you to apologize for being rude to me initially.”

“Well that’s gonna be a cold day in hell, Stan. You had might as well leave right now, if you’re really expecting me to apologize. Unlike you, I have work to do. I cannot sit here all day and play these juvenile games with you.”

“I’m not playing any games.”

“Okay, well. The door’s that way. I’m sure you’re capable of finding it.” She turned away from him, eyes training back to her computer screen, fingers poised over the keyboard to start writing.

“He cleaned her apartment, because the two were together the entire night.”

“I’m aware. Your plan of destroying her apartment worked smashingly. He rushed out of here and straight to her. Arrived to her apartment in record time, where he promptly removed the cameras we installed. The little bastard even found the two I didn’t show him in the video.”

Stan chuckled, “sounds about Mitch.”

“Doesn’t it always?”

“(Y/N) said he left for an hour earlier today. He brought her back food and then disappeared. She didn’t know where he went, and when she tried asking he shut her down with a ‘are you my babysitter’.”

“Fascinating,” she mused, continuing to keep her eyes on her computer. “Is this everything?”

“No,” he sighed. “According to her he told her that he isn’t, and this is a direct quote, ‘done saving her ass’.”

She raised her eyebrow a little, “what does that mean?”

“It means that he’s committing himself to her, or so it seems. Not in the romantic way, I’m guessing. But in the way that the two of them are linked longer than she anticipated she would be. Which is good for the two of us,” he sighed.

“Yes. I am aware. It’s good that the two of them aren’t breaking ties because it would have made every second of this little thing mute.” Irene shook her head. “Is there something you’re not getting at?”

Stan shook his head, pursing his lips out a little. He was having fun with the little game that they were playing. Irene, of course, wasn’t. However he always enjoyed getting underneath her skin. He especially enjoyed when she wasn’t showing her frustrations and annoyance for him. Her not looking at him was, to him, like the equivalent of a dog not looking at you when you yell at them for pissing on the carpet. It wasn’t that she was upset because she’d done something wrong, no. It was that she was upset that her life was saddled to Stan’s.

“Jesus Christ, just spit it out!” She nearly shouted, taking a deep breath to calm herself. “What aren’t you telling me?”

Stan smirked, taking a moment before answering, “she’s moving in with him.”

Feedback is greatly appreciated! If you’d like to be tagged, let me know, please!

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#sam writes #sam posts #sams post #the bluff #Mitch Rapp #mitch rapp fan fi #mitch rapp imagine #mitch rapp x reader #mitch rapp fan fic #mitch rapp fanfiction #mitch rapp fanfic #mitch rapp fan fiction #dylan obrien fanfic #dylan o'brien imagine #stiles stilinski fanfic #stiles stilinski fan fic #stiles stilinski one shot #stiles stilinski fic

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wardencommanderrodimiss · 5 years

Text

Chapter 21: cameos, indulgent nods to crack ships, and oh wait this is kind of an anticlimactic place to end the first fic what do you mean that’s an ending.

[Beginning] [Chapter Masterlist] [ao3]

“So she’s like a centaur but the human part is a catfish.”

“If the only human part of a centaur was its head, yep.”

Trucy’s insistence on not divulging anything about Gourdy ahead of time was apparently just for the sake of surprise, because she tells Vera about it later that day despite her not coming to the lake. Larry wanders to the office with them, as well, and promised a drawn explanation that isn’t coming quick enough for Vera to not be completely confused by Trucy.

“Do you think reverse-centaurs are a thing?” Trucy asks.

“Minotaur,” Apollo says.

“If a reverse-centaur and a mermaid had a kid, it would be a seahorse,” Trucy says.

Phoenix groans and puts his head in his hands. Trucy smirks triumphantly, and Larry looks up so fast that Apollo wouldn’t be surprised to have heard his neck snap. “Can I use that idea for a book?” he asks.

“Oh, god,” Phoenix says.

Trucy’s bursts of – inspiration? Questionable genius? – are the sort of thing that Apollo uses to contextlessly start conversations with Klavier. It takes most of the pressure off him to be clever or have any excuse for talking, and right now, he did promise Trucy to extend her New Years invitation. But first, the lead-in, centaurs.

-The Fraülein’s mind is a compelling but uncharted territory

And Klavier barely knows the half of it, either.

Every time she says things like this I have this fear that it’s all actually real

-Then I hate to be the one to tell you -but seahorses are very real ;)

Ah. There it is, that strange desire that Klavier instills in him, where Apollo wants to take one of the heavy law books from a shelf in this office and smack him upside the head with it.

I am going to pretend you said nothing and just tell you that Trucy is throwing a new year party at our office and wanted to invite you

Trucy has brought her laptop out to the couches to pull up reference images of catfish for Larry. What is a party in this ridiculous place even going to look like? Will Mia throw them out at some point, like a host who finally wants to reclaim her house?

-Certainly thank her for that for me, but I already have plans

Or is lying, which Apollo can’t see because they aren’t having this conversation in person, and instead just wants to avoid the possibility of crossing paths with Phoenix. Or he’s still wary about the office itself. There are far too many options.

Alright, but if she finds out those plans are hanging out alone and sad at your apartment she’s gonna be mad And she does not let people escape her wrath

-I don’t think you quite understand the rockstar lifestyle :P -But I am duly warned

I don’t think you live it

-Hm.

“Do you think he would’ve come to the Gourdyversary if I’d invited him?” Trucy asks.

“I really, really don’t,” Apollo says.

She puts a hand on her chin and frowns in concentration in a similar manner to her father. “Yeah,” she agrees. “He’d probably be even more convinced than you were that Daddy conducts human sacrifices.”

On New Years’ Eve, Apollo takes a late lunch and wanders back to the office to find that in the meantime, Trucy has arrived from school with a friend. She introduces the other girl, who is furiously scribbling some complicated symbols on a pack of sticky notes, as Jinxie, and Jinxie introduces herself by smacking Apollo in the forehead with the sticky note she has just finished drawing on.

“Red, horns,” she mumbles, retreating back behind the couch with her pen at the ready again. “Fae.”

“No no, he’s human!” Trucy says. “He’s just a lawyer.”

“Fae lawyer,” Jinxie says. “There are lots of those.”

“I’m human,” Apollo says. “Really. Trust me.”

She squints suspiciously at him. Her eyes don’t change color – is she fae, unknowing or self-hating or hell, it’s probably sensible for the fae to be afraid of other fae. Or is she just twitchy and paranoid, worse than Clay, more like Starbuck. Still not appearing exactly happy about the situation, she at least seems calmed enough to emerge back from around the couch. In the back room, the phone rings – Apollo cannot recall the last time someone called that phone – and Trucy races back to it, Jinxie trailing behind her. Apollo has to follow them to return to his desk, where he’s trying to finish writing up notes for the Gourdyversary. He keeps a journal for more than just cases, now, tries on paper to make sense of magic (doesn’t really manage), and it’s taken several days to truly set in that he didn’t dream up the catfish-horse.

“Wright Anything Agency, Trucy speaking!” She flings herself into the desk chair, rolling it halfway out from behind the desk, as far as the phone cord reaches, and a grin spreads across her face. “What, no, it’s not the new year yet! It’s not midnight! No, I in fact don’t know what a time zone is!”

Apollo tries and fails not to roll his eyes. She spots him and scrunches up her nose until whatever is being said on the other end of the line draws her attention away. “Ooh, Paris! I wanna get there someday, you’ll have to tell me what to do – oh! I’m gonna put you on speaker and you can say hi to Apollo and Jinxie!” Her bangs flutter when she blows out an amused breath. “No, not everyone who hangs out here all the time works here. You’ll still have desk space! I think.” She drops the phone, letting it dangle to the floor, and hits a button on the base of it.

“Who’s this, exactly?” Apollo asks.

“Athena,” Trucy says. “She’s studying to be a defense lawyer and then she’s gonna come work here too!”

“Hi,” Jinxie says.

“I’m taking the Bar in February!” The voice on the other end of the phone is as chipper as Trucy, with no real trace of an accent despite the fact that she is evidently not in the country. “Mon Dieu, I’m taking the Bar in February! I have to study!”

“Yeah, I remember that period of sheer panic,” Apollo says. “It was worth it in the end, of course, but it wasn’t fun.”

Athena’s heavy exhale is slightly garbled through the phone. “That helps, thanks,” she says. “So you’re Apollo?” And then without waiting for his response, she barrels onward. “I guess we’ll be working together someday! Soon. Soon? Hopefully? Hopefully! Power of positive thinking!”

“Hopefully,” Apollo agrees, and he doesn’t think about it much, or tries not to, but something he misses about Kristoph’s office is that it was more people than just him and his boss, that there were other lawyers there, others of similar experience levels to him. If he lets himself feel it, he misses having other defense attorneys to talk to about other cases. He misses having more people around than a ghost, a flighty ex-attorney who’s been disbarred longer than he ever had his badge, and whatever teenage girls wander in with Trucy on any given day.

“February!” Trucy repeats. “You could be here soon! Like by the spring!”

“It takes a long time to get the results, just remember that,” Apollo says.

“Do you think I should keep studying while waiting?” Athena asks. “In case I don’t pass, so I can just go right back in and take it again?”

“That sounds like some sort of personal purgatory,” Apollo says, “but I mean, if you want to…”

“Well, if I keep studying and do pass, then some of it must be good to have a refresher on for when I go into court, right?”

Increasingly, Apollo thinks that over half of what he learned in law school has been entirely useless for the actual predicament of trying a case, and that he probably would have been better off taking a course on local folklore as well. Is it folklore if it’s true? Does Athena know the kind of office she’ll be stepping into? But he doesn’t exactly want to discourage her, not when she actually needs to be hitting the books most, so he says, “Yeah, I suppose.”

“Hm. You don’t sound convinced.” There is silence for a moment, and then she says, “But I’ve been studying this long, so might as well just keep going with it ‘till I know! Trucy, if I pass but haven’t found an apartment, would your dad mind if I crashed on the couch? You’d never know I was there, I swear!”

The amount she’s talking, Apollo doubts it. “I’m sure he would be fine with it,” Trucy says, which Apollo doesn’t doubt quite as much, but he’s not exactly sure about that either. “Or if he’s not you could sleep on the floor in my room and climb out the window every morning!”

“Sweet,” Athena says. “One less thing to worry about! Anyway sorry to cut this short but I wanna call your dad’s cell to tell him I’m officially testing in February and wish him a happy new year, and then I need to either sleep or run around the house a dozen times first to get rid of this nervous energy from talking about it. But Happy New Year, again!”

“It’ll be an awesome year if you’re around!” Trucy says. “But it’s still nine hours to go!”

“Time zones, bitchesssss,” Athena crows, drawing the last sound into a hiss that grows fainter, like she’s pulling away from the phone, before a beep signals the end of the call.

“She’s great,” Trucy says, bouncing in the chair. “You’re gonna love her, Polly.”

“She sounds exuberant,” Apollo says, because he’s not really sure what else to say. How does Phoenix meet people like this? How does he even have this much of a social circle? Is he more pleasant to everyone who isn’t Apollo, or are they more tolerant of it because they weren’t the ones who lost their first job being played for a fool with a bloody playing card?

“Very,” Trucy says. She springs from her seat, her laptop now in hand from one of the drawers.

“Is she a fae lawyer, too?” Jinxie asks.

“Of course not,” Trucy says. “And she’s not even a lawyer yet, either! Not everyone Daddy knows isn’t human!”

“You understand why we ask, though, right?” Apollo asks, as Trucy drags Jinxie back out to the couches, where for the next two hours bits and pieces of conversation about anime and pro wrestling drift back to him.

He doesn’t realize until he wanders out into the front room to stretch his legs that Vera has arrived. The three girls are huddled together on one couch in front of Trucy’s laptop, clearly watching something, which must be the reason that the internet connection on Apollo’s phone has slowed to an undead crawl. Spotting him, Trucy jumps up and ushers him back to the nebulously-existing kitchen to help her carry out several bottles of sparkling grape juice. She sets each on the floor as she unloads them from the fridge and Apollo, without thinking, reaches down and grabs it, backhanded, the way he would to swing it as a weapon, the way they argued about in Phoenix’s murder trial.

It’s awkward to pick them up differently, but he makes sure he does, fumbles with all the bottles in his arms and staggers back out, Trucy grabbing the doors for him. She’s promised that he and Clay won’t be the oldest adults here, however much she scoffs when she calls him an adult (rude), and however much Apollo doesn’t actually care if there isn’t any alcohol. He and Clay started the past three Januarys with hangovers and regrets and it’s probably about time to stop doing that.

The next person to arrive at the office is Ema, with two incredibly large bags of Snackoos, and Kay, who has nothing but an abundance of energy as she flings herself over the back of a couch to introduce herself to Vera and Jinxie. “I’m going to sleep at 10 pm and there’s nothing any of you can do to stop me,” Ema announces, dropping one bag on the coffee table, and apparently planning on keeping and eating the entire other one herself.

“Rough day?” Trucy asks.

“By noon I was wishing that I was working with Gavin, so yeah, that bad.”

“Gavin’s not that bad, though,” Kay says, rolling from the couch to the floor and bouncing up to her feet.

“He’s pretentious and obnoxious.” Ema forcefully tears open the bag of Snackoos. “But he at least doesn’t give a shit when I use fingerprint powder before forensics gets there, whereas Prosecutor Whasisface—” She stops with a chocolate nearly to her mouth, staring down at it in confusion. “Shit, what’s his name? Balding screechy voice prosecutor.”

Kay very slowly shrugs and turns her hands up in confusion. That description is almost ringing a few unpleasant bells in Apollo’s mind – distant ones, like there’s a mountain in between him and said bells. “I was just fucking working with him,” Ema mutters, shaking her head. She pops another chocolate into her mouth. “Whatever. That guy. Bumps the glimmerous fop up a notch in my rankings of favorite prosecutors in this damned nightmare coven office.”

“I was talking to Gavin the other day and he said you’re his favorite detective,” Kay offers.

Ema’s frown deepens. “He should probably be introduced to more detectives,” she says. “God, is that why I’m always working with him? Is he requesting—”

Kay has found a pack of playing cards and asks Trucy to show her how to throw them. Jinxie slaps one of her sticky-note sigils onto Kay’s back, which she must have noticed but apparently doesn’t seem to mind. Satisfied with her work, Jinxie goes to sit down on the piano bench next to Vera, who has cleared it off and is tapping at the keys trying to make a pattern of sounds that isn’t unpleasant.

The next arrival is Clay, who brings champagne and with it nets an apology from Ema about the time that she said she would trip him into the path of a hungry bear. Kay apparently doesn’t think this is a remark worth questioning and instead simply introduces herself in the same enthusiastic way that she met Apollo at the lake. “Hi! I’m Kay Faraday! You must be Apollo’s roommate!”

She shakes Clay’s hand like she’s trying to detach his arm and he raises his eyebrows at Apollo. “Sorry; if I’m supposed to have heard of you, someone dropped the ball—”

“I met her four days ago,” Apollo interrupts. “Like, only four days ago.”

“Irrelevant,” Kay says, waggling her fingers, and then she turns and shrieking, dives toward Trucy who had picked up to examine one of the champagne bottles. It turns, as expected, into a argument, citing the legal drinking ages of a dozen countries before a debate begins over the morality of lies of omission and perhaps more importantly, whether Phoenix can magically detect those as well. By the time Trucy throws Apollo and Clay out to pick up snacks at the Kitaki Bakery, Snackoos apparently not being enough for her, Kay has diverted all attention entirely by picking up a bottle of grape juice and threatening to chug it all.

“I like her,” Clay says.

“Of course you do,” Apollo says.

They’re halfway across People Park when Clay asks abruptly, “She’s human, right? All of them but Vera?”

“I – I have no idea about Kay or Jinxie.”

“Cool, cool,” Clay says. “I can’t wait to find out at the worst time that they’re not. That’s gotta be how it goes, right?”

At the bakery, Apollo turns his back on Clay for two minutes, to stammer out an answer to Little Plum asking how Apollo and the office are doing, and finds out that Clay somehow in that time got Wocky’s number. It would be very funny, after the conversation they just had, to tell Clay that the family are all kitsunes and to see his expression, but Apollo still isn’t quite sure what that means – are they shapeshifters? Cursed like werewolves? Foxes turned into humans? Some other kind of lingering magic? – because Trucy never explained, just laughed at the look on his face. Maybe he’ll ask Trucy for elaboration on that later, and tell Clay another time, some day when he really wants to mess with him.

Kay still has the juice bottle in her hand, is now standing on the coffee table, Ema throwing Snackoos at her and Trucy eating those Snackoos while cheering for Kay to chug. Someone new has arrived, a brown-haired mousy-looking young man trying to discourage Kay from the mad scheme she is in the middle of describing. Playing cards lie scattered across the floor and couch; Apollo can only guess what that was about. Throwing them, most likely. “—and technically, that is to the letter what I said I would do,” Kay says. She finally steps down from the table.

“If not the spirit of it,” the man says. “Though I’m not sure why I had different expectations for you.”

Kay snaps her fingers and lets them linger as a pair of finger guns. “I’ve got no idea either!”

He doesn’t pay much more mind to her, instead turning to Apollo and Clay. “Uh, hi,” he says, extending a hand to Apollo. He wears gloves, thin white ones. “Sebastian Debeste. Prosecutor. If you were wondering. Which maybe you weren’t.”

Apollo can’t actually recall knowing what a prosecutor’s badge looks like, in-person. Klavier certainly doesn’t wear one, and he’s the only prosecutor that Apollo has met closer than across the width of the courtroom. And Edgeworth, once, not that he remembers whether or not he saw him wearing a badge.

“Oh, uh, hi. Apollo Justice.”

“So you two have the coolest names for lawyers, ever,” Clay says. “Just to make sure we’re all aware of that.”

“I—” Kay starts and then stops. “Wait yeah, you’re right. I was gonna say Judge Courtney has the best name but she picked it as a pun knowing she was gonna go be a judge so that’s not quite fair.”

“Justine Courtney,” Sebastian says. “It’s a very legal system name and she’s – well, she’s one of the Fair Folk.”

It’s still better than the surname Fey, at any rate. But a judge, one of them, too? How do they judge – as fair or strict as humans? The determination is made solely on the evidence, like the Jurist System is trying to mitigate, but in that, he hopes, that the fae would assess evidence evenly. He wonders what a jury of the fae would look like. Even more swayed by emotion, their petty pride willing to acquit someone they know is guilty because by their morality, the crime is just? Kristoph is one of their own damned by that system – or is he one of theirs? Do changelings belong to the Court?

He closes his eyes and tries to tune out the chatter of Clay introducing himself and saying yes he’s an astronaut as in really going to space, next year, which next year is tomorrow but it won’t be until December that—

That’s normal. Space is normal. Clay is normal (in a certain context). Clay is the only normal person here and now it’s too late for him. Apollo dragged him into this. All his overabundance of caution that he tried to share with Apollo and he’s ended up here, both of them here, curiosity to kill them and turn them into cautionary stories that the next person like Clay will repeat.

And he opens his eyes and Ema is listening enraptured to what Clay has to say even though she heard it all on their road trip back in October. Trucy grabs her Magic Panties off the back of the couch and produces from within it several cardboard cone party hats. One she reaches out to arraign over apparent thin air, but it remains floating, now wedged onto the wisp. The next hat she hangs off of Apollo’s spiked bangs. Ema shakes her head too much to allow Trucy to put one on her, but Kay takes two. Sebastian seems to be listening both to Clay, and to Jinxie plunking away on one of the piano keys over and over and over, Vera flipping through the sticky notes. It’s normal. They’re all still people, somehow, people who don’t give Apollo time to dwell. “Trucy?” Sebastian says when Clay finally stops for breath. “When did your dad last tune this thing?”

“I don’t think he knows how to do that or what that is,” she replies. The levitating hat next to her bobs like her head does.

“Oh,” Sebastian says, staring blankly ahead. “That’s an offense – affront – I’m trying to come up with more synonyms and blanking—”

“Shitty,” Clay suggests.

“I was thinking more about how it affects us that just describing what it is,” Sebastian says, “but… yeah.”

“Disgust-inducing,” Clay says.

“Hey Sebby,” Kay says. “Do you remember that one bar wherever in Europe that they like, had the shots that they lit on fire? Do you remember that?”

“If this is to ask if I’ll set the champagne on fire, the answer is no,” Sebastian says. “That seems like an affront, a, uh – blasphemy! Feels like blasphemy, here. Particularly.”

“I don’t think Mia cares about casual use of magic,” Trucy says.

Oh. So they aren’t talking lighters or matches. “You – uh, Prosecutor Debeste,” Apollo says, feeling like he has the answer to a riddle but that he’s somehow taking a shot in the dark. “You wouldn’t happen to be the witch-prosecutor that Prosecutor Edgeworth and Gavin mention, are you?”

“Oh.” His face falls, immediately, and he doesn’t recover right away, not the way Apollo is used to Trucy and Klavier throwing up masks. “I – probably? I must be. I don’t actually know that there are any other witches in the office, not that I’ve seen or Seen” – he doesn’t say the word the same way when he repeats it, the implication obvious. “So if they said anything bad don’t tell me.”

“It was back in October, when he was annoyed with people trying to check in on him,” Apollo says. “So whatever he said was probably just – annoyed.”

“Yeah, he got like that,” Kay says. “Gets. Whatever. He’s been a little better and now it’s Mr Edgeworth who’s getting cagey and secretive with all that secret Chief Prosecutor business.”

Apollo’s phone buzzes. He expects a message from Klavier, because there’s no one else he regularly texts who isn’t in this room, but it’s Clay.

-witch -guess i shouldnt consider meeting cute guys around u bc everyone is like this

Apollo makes sure that Clay sees him roll his eyes and put his phone back into his pocket without replying. He could say a lot about how despite that, Clay has still acted like that about Klavier.

“Hey,” Trucy says. “You should tell me and Polly all of the Prosecutors Office secrets, so that we’re totally prepared for whatever we face in court next!”

Ema flicks a Snackoos at Sebastian. “We don’t have secrets,” she says. “Everyone’s way too dramatic for that.”

“Set the grape juice on fire,” Kay says.

“Speaking of secret business,” Sebastian says, clearly and deliberately ignoring Kay’s request and when Trucy seconds it. “Kay, did you know Agent Lang is in town? Because I ran into him just a bit ago coming out of Mr Edgeworth's office with a stack of files, said they’re working on something, I have no idea what but they both seemed – kind of super unhappy.”

“What?” It’s easy to see what Ema meant when she said they’re dramatic; Kay springs up from her perch on the arm of the couch and puts her hands on her hips, frowning with a pout almost as unnecessarily exaggerated as some of Trucy’s. “Wolfman is around and didn’t tell me! I can’t believe him!”

Apollo wonders if he’ll ever reach the end of this network of people Phoenix knows, or if he’ll ever understand it. “It worries me when you say things like ‘Wolfman’ because I have no idea if you mean ‘werewolf’ or ‘guy who really likes wolves’.” Like Trucy and her centaurs but the answer is probably going to be worse.

“Both,” Ema says without change in expression.

Apollo throws his hands in the air. “Oh come on!” Next to him, Ema winces and puts a hand up to her ear. She deserves the wrong side of the Chords of Steel for that.

“He’s not a werewolf,” Kay says. “You’re going to kill this poor guy.” She points at Apollo. “It’s a family thing. They’re all super into wolves. His hair is like—” She holds up her forefingers like ears at the top of her head. “But he can’t turn into a wolf. He would, but he can’t. Which is good for not giving random people on the street heart attacks because he’d just wander around like that because what is the point of shapeshifting if not messing with people?”

She spreads her arms wide like she’s either waiting for applause and agreement, or trying to draw out some kind of debate or dissension. Sebastian walks past her to where Jinxie and Vera have googled how to tune an upright piano. Ema throws a Snackoo at her.

“I think that’s a sound theory,” Clay says. “Isn’t that just the entire thing of the Fair Folk, messing with people?”

The lights blink off for two full seconds. Apollo freezes, as does Clay, but the group over at the piano don’t stop their conversation and Ema is still throwing snacks, now at Kay. Mia, messing with them; most of them, used to it. “What is the ratio of those you’ve eaten to those on the floor?” Apollo asks. Ema shrugs.

“Yeah that’s basically it,” Kay says to Clay.

“You see why I worry,” Apollo says. He can feel a weight gathering behind his eyes and higher at the front of his skull. The conversation is all suddenly too loud, backed by the force of the topics they’ve covered, what almost proved overwhelming earlier, fae judges and now prosecuting witches and petty shapeshifters, and he extracts himself from the middle of it and retreats back toward Charley’s corner.

“You okay, Polly?” Trucy doesn’t give him a chance to catch his breath alone; she appears at his elbow, looking up at him with concern.

“Does it ever just hit you that this is all kind of completely mad?” he asks. “All this – this everything?” She pats his arm sympathetically. “Because it just hit me again, that just – last year I was pretty sure of what I could expect from my life.” And then, April. And then, Phoenix. “This year I know I’m going in without a clue! Just waiting for the fae to amp it up to celebrate the new year!”

“They won’t do that,” Trucy says. Her confidence is reassuring until she adds, “Time works differently for them. They don’t know when’s a new year or what. They’ll just amp it up for no reason if they want to, nothing by our calendars.”

“See?” Apollo asks. “That’s what I mean. Uncertainty and terror.”

She leans her elbow on the bookshelf and pokes at the spines of the large tomes. “Lawyers and performers always gotta smile, right through to the end, whatever it is. And you know what?” She bounces a little in place but says nothing, waiting for him to play along with her.

“What?” he asks, trying to at least sound annoyed even if he can’t manage to feel it. Better not let her know how much she can get away with when Mr Hat is already bobbing around his shoulder, prodding him in the arm with the tip of the cardboard party hat.

“Lots happens, and we figure it out.” She stops moving, all but her head, turning to glance to the doorway to the next room, and beyond that, Apollo knows what she’s thinking of, a desk, a drawer, a soul encased inside. “We make it through. We always have.”

[brief note on this ending]

#fic: the seelie of kurain #roddy fanfics

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