#i want to eventually draw them all enough so that it wont be so difficult to draw. bc as of right now a lot of them are pretty tough | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

adabofblessings · 4 years

Note

How does Dadimus comfort each of the kids after a particularly bad day and how would they repay the favour after he has a bad day himself?

Oof! My heart!

All three of them have different ways of showing when they need comfort. Optimus is good at reading people and knows when one of his comrades is in the dumps. However, he isn't considered a comforter, per say. Millions of war has kind of taken away the basic emotions of Optimus or Orion used to have.

He still has those gentle tones and understanding empathy, but he is in no way of a physical or emotional comforter, but damn does he try when it comes to his family.

Lets start, shall we? :)

Miko

I wanna think Miko knows what she needs. Shes firm if she wants to be alone and I think Optimus knows it. However, being firm can be a huge misunderstanding sometimes. Shes firm about hanging out or doing something together, not because shes being forceful, but because she needs someone to talk to. She wants someone to listen to her and hear her. But she also knows that her friends can't always do that. And her parents are miles away from her. So where does she go?

To Optimus.

And after awhile of Miko practically pleading to him to hang out and do whatever, he starts to see how Miko expresses her needs through activities. It takes a moment and he wasn't sure why she was asking him to draw him or paint on his frame, but he realizes that she talks a lot about things team Prime don't know except him and Jack and Raf.

It really does sadden him when he sees this precious teenager go through life and have a different approach on how she expresses her challenges. Most people can't see that and it destroys them immensely. But he tries to be there every step of the way.

He always notices that Miko's hands are always doing something whenever hes with her and theres a revelation to that little hint. Its some thing that distracts her while she's pouring out her life. But Optimus knows it to keep her grounded while she's talking.

They seem to know a secret code of some sort. There's always a day where Miko will walk up to Optimus and ask him to do something, and it clicks to his processor that she needs a hearing ear. And hes always on point of that. He'll drop everything to help her. Be a ear or just someone to near her. He'll let her hang around his shoulder plate or let her hug his digit whenever she needs physical affection.

Jack

Jack is a lot like Optimus in many ways. He suffers through silence and wont talk about his difficulties. Hes never mentioned about his life problems, but everyone has breaking points and Jack is no different.

There's a moment where Jack comes to the base with tiredness etching his pale face. Arcee notices, Ratchet and then everyone does, but he flat out refuses to say anything. Stubborn boy.

Optimus is the only one that hasn't asked about what was wrong with him, because he can practically see what the boy is doing. He's no stranger to this type of suffering. It kills him inside because this suffering silence is a slow kind of painful type. It destroys from the inside and out.

He notices that Jack takes it slow and prefers it that way. It takes a lot of time but he finally cracks a little part of Jack. The fruits of his labor is finally here and he wouldn't want it any other way.

It starts out small but Optimus knows how wary Jack is with this personal information. He just nods and listens. The thing is that Jack isn't venting, he just seems lost and confused and thats what makes Optimus understand him more.

Jack is that kind of person who is always seeking for advice. Its difficult because he doesn't have a father to teach him those advices. His mom has always been his steady rock but things become unsteady when it becomes the world growing men.

And while Optimus is no where near Jack's species, he does try his best to give fatherly advice. Though it comes out natural than what Optimus think it sounds like. Jack feels a lot better after the talk between him and Optimus and rather enjoys there time together. However he isn't really the one to verbally ask for help, so Optimus always have to keep an Optic out when Jack is one of thise predicaments. They're not very affectionate but Jack does pat Optimus' pede. And though it's not much, Optimus knows that it's Jack way of affection and he cherishes it greatly.

Raf

Raf is those kids whose teachers and his parents have to go to him when hes troubled. Even though Raf will say hes fine every time someone asks him if he's okay, hes not really. It frustrates the crap out of Ratchet and it concerns Bumblebee. Eventually they'll give up and let the kid come to them, but the Prime knows;he sees it. And he doesn't like it.

The more they try to pry it out of him the more he seals his problems. He doesn't want to cause more trouble from what he's experiencing. At first, Optimus is light and soft. But then after awhile of not being able to get Raf to open up, he has to be firm. Why.

Raf is shrugging at the question and simply gives him a very vague answer. Like "just school" or "just tired" but Optimus knows that its more than that. Hes patient as ever and let's Raf play that game. Soon enough, there's a snap in Raf and it completely unfolds. He's tired, he's frustrated, he wants someone to hug him and just comfort him.

It breaks Optimus' spark but he knows that letting go will help him. He sits through the tears and frustrated talks and just listens. Soon, Optimus finds himself expressing more physical affection towards the youngest team member. He's scooping up the poor and tired boy and letting Raf rest of his tired head against his warm chassis, allowing his spark to beat soothingly against Raf's ear. It takes a lot out of the boy but he relaxes and finds himself at peace. Whenever Raf is need of attention, Optimus understand and learns that Raf is a boy and needs the affection that he lacks of. Unfortunately, Raf isn't the person to ask, so whenever he and Raf are alone, he'll scoop him up and allow the boy hang around or nap on him if he's tired.

Optimus

After hes all done dealing with lovable children, hes all alone and ready to greet the inescapable sound of silence. Hes willing to sit by himself and contemplate life and the consequences he's experienced during his long years. Unfortunately (fortunately) all three children see him alone and that will just not do! Sure, hes older than millions of lives combined but that doesn't mean that their dad won't suffer alone.

Optimus very surprised when he sees Jack, Miko and Raf climbing him and perch themselves on his shoulder. Miko and Raf wraps their arms around Optimus' face while Jack is placing a hand on the side of his faceplate. It's simple but Optimus finds himself closing his optics and leaning to their small hugs.

He feels at peace, enjoying the comforting presence of his human children. His children is all it takes for his demons to flee and it takes just a minute to feel determine to defeat this war and bring peace to his world, just as the human children gave him.

#transformers #tfp #transformers prime #optimus prime #miko nakadai #jack darby #rafael esquivel #dadimus prime #optimus is the best dad #dad optimus prime #blessing answers

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cake-writes · 4 years

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Compromise (Part Eight)

Pairing: Bucky x Reader

Story Warnings: Mom!Reader, Dad!Bucky, Ex-Relationship, Co-Parenting Drama, Slow Burn, Angst, Fluff, Separation Anxiety

Summary: You didn’t want to trust him again, because every time you did, Bucky broke your heart just a little more. Deep down, though, you wanted to get along with him. You wanted to be amicable. You wanted your daughter to know her father. You’d always wanted that. It just required a compromise.

Interlude #2 / Master List / Spotify Playlist

“His phone’s broken.”

A simple explanation to be sure, but it set you off.

You were thankful that Steve had said it over your phone with you miles away from the compound, otherwise you may very well have stormed into the communications room and ripped Bucky a new one over the air. In fact, you still had half a mind to, but you didn’t. He’d been sent to Malaysia, apparently: a mission halfway across the globe. What difference would it make?

The worst part was that you sent Steve a bunch of panicked texts until he finally rang you back. Even his response was delayed, because he was busy, too – busy cleaning up his best friend’s mess, just like the last time. That shouldn’t have come as a surprise, but it did.

Of course it did. You let your guard down.

Why hadn’t Bucky just asked someone to keep you in the loop?

It was a simple ask, really, and something he should have done days ago. Instead, he put you in a bad spot – made you worry about him, made you overthink, made you feel like this past weekend was just a fluke, and maybe it was.

One step forward, two steps back.

Needless to say, when Bucky finally showed up on your doorstep, you nearly slammed the door in his face. The only thing that stopped you was the apologetic look in his eyes, although the small bouquet of daisies in his hand might have helped a little, too.

“You’re an asshole,” was the first thing out of your mouth.

He winced. You didn’t apologize.

“We can’t make this work if you don’t communicate with me, Bucky.”

“I know,” he admitted, shifting uncomfortably from one foot to the other. “I’m sorry.”

How many times had you heard that before?

“I’m not going to keep chasing after you for answers like this,” you told him, just a hint of bitterness seeping into your voice. “I shouldn’t have to. And I shouldn’t have to ask your friends, either.”

Bucky’s adam’s apple bobbed at your harsh tone, but no words came. You thought he looked conflicted, almost, like he wanted to say something, maybe defend himself like he was so wont to do, but he held it back. Instead, he took the tongue lashing and didn’t even try to argue – a stark contrast to how he used to be.

What’s more was that he agreed with you, and that was the biggest surprise of all.

“You’re right. I should have asked someone to let you know. I’m sorry.”

That was when you noticed just how much he’d changed over the last two years. Then again, so had you.

You stared at him for a moment, hard and resolute, before you finally stepped aside to let him in. Bucky met your eyes with an unspoken question – are you sure? – but the only thing you responded with was an aggravated sigh as you retreated back into the house.

You left the front door wide open for him, left the ball in his court.

The soft click of the door closing, along with the heavy footfalls of his boots against tile let you know that he’d accepted your invitation.

Reaching into one of the kitchen cabinets, you retrieved a small vase for the flowers, doing your best to ignore the slightest flutter of appreciation in your chest. He’d remembered that you liked daisies, even if he had only ever bought them for you as an apology. That, at least, hadn’t changed.

No, that wasn’t true. He got you some on your first anniversary, too. Your only anniversary.

“How was Malaysia?” you asked, then, short and to the point. An exercise in civility. A difficult exercise.

When you held your hand out for the bouquet, he immediately gave it to you and you pulled a pair of shears from your knife block to trim the stems.

Another routine.

“Hot,” Bucky replied, shoving his hands into his pockets. “I just got in about a half hour ago.”

Tense. Awkward. Uncomfortable. That was how you felt, but a fraction of the tension faded away at his admission, indirect as it was. He’d come straight here after he got back – hadn’t even changed out of his tac gear, or at least not completely. Handgun holstered at his hip, belt and cargo pants still loaded with knives and ammo, the only thing missing was a thick layer of kevlar.

Hot, he’d said, and you tended to agree. You hadn’t seen him in his gear in a long time, and with the fire of your rage slowly fading to an insignificant smoulder, another fire started to burn.

You blamed it on the fact that you were alone with him – actually alone with him – for the first time in years. You’d already taken Winnie to preschool this morning, which worked out well enough because you didn’t really like the idea of her being around so many weapons, even though Bucky had always taken the utmost care to ensure that she never got into them.

As for you, well, you’d taken the day off to catch up on errands and housework. How he knew he’d find you at home, you weren’t sure, but for some reason it didn’t bother you as much as it probably should have.

“How’s the car running?” he asked, his own attempt at making terrible conversation.

“Better than my old one. Thank you.”

Cut and dry, but civil and full of projection.

Stems trimmed, you placed the small bouquet into the vase and filled it with water. Only after you finally met his eyes again did you notice how nervous he seemed to be. With a single look, you could just tell, even if he didn’t say a thing.

James Buchanan Barnes, so nervous and walking on eggshells because of you.

More tension faded away at that realization, however, and you felt the corners of your lips turn up in the slightest hint of a smile – one meant not to mock, but to reassure. When you spoke again, your tone was lighter than before and so was your heart. “Thanks for these, too, Bucky. They’re lovely.”

Bucky visibly relaxed upon seeing your smile, his shoulders slumping just a little.

Had he always been this easy to read?

“Can I— Can I take you to lunch?” he stammered, then, and it completely blindsided you. You got the feeling that it might have blindsided him, too; the question seemed a little rushed, like he’d blurted it out before his mind caught up and he quickly scrambled to add, “I know you're busy, and I’m probably the last person you want to eat with, it’s just— I found this little place ‘round the corner a few months back, and—”

Brows raising in amusement, you made a joke to help calm his nerves. “Are you asking me out on a date?”

Bucky swallowed hard and quickly looked away, rubbing the back of his neck with one hand.

Oh.

“No, not unless…” An anxious pause, then, and your heart began to race – at least until Bucky chose not to finish that train of thought. Instead, he cleared his throat and backtracked to a single, “No.”

You felt conflicted, because you knew exactly where that sentence was heading and you half-wished he’d seen it through. The other half of you understood what a bad idea that would have been.

Clearly, so did he.

A quick check of the clock on your wall indicated that it was just after eleven. You’d be free until Winnie’s preschool ended at two-thirty, and, if you were honest, you really had missed him over the last week. You’d started to miss his company, as stupid as it sounded when you’d done just fine without him over the last two years.

“I can do lunch,” you offered, “but I’ll have to leave around two.”

Soft blue eyes widened at first, but then they crinkled up at the corners in the way you’d always loved. Even now, seeing that gorgeous smile made you weak.

The sun shone brightly upon the two of you as you walked side-by-side, leisurely, through the park near your house. Funny that you only used to meet Bucky here for his visits with Winnie, but now it was just you and him.

He’d stripped off the rest of his tac gear before you left, lest he kickstart the mommy group rumour mill. Bucky wasn’t exactly a secret of yours, per se, but being loaded up with weapons was a good way to draw attention. Neither of you wanted that, least of all him because of who he was – who he’d been – and so at your offer, Bucky locked his weapons inside of your bedroom closet.

“It’s safer than anywhere else in the house, right?” you pointed out matter-of-factly. “A locked closet with no windows.”

“Looks like you haven’t completely forgotten my training, then.”

His teasing tone set your cheeks aflame.

The sound of children’s laughter cut through the air, and you found yourself sneaking glances over at him as the two of you made your way past the playground. The faraway look in his eyes as he watched the children playing gave you pause; at first, you assumed it was because he remembered bringing Winnie here, too.

It wasn’t, you soon learned when he stated abruptly, “I’ve started going to therapy.”

“You—” It took a moment to find your footing with such a jarring reveal of sensitive information. “You have?”

“Yeah.”

Well, that explained a lot. You’d pushed him to go to therapy during the latter half of your relationship, but he refused more than once – so much that you eventually stopped asking. That was around the same time you gave up on him.

After taking a moment to choose your words, you placed a gentle hand on his arm. “I’m... I’m happy for you, Bucky. That must have been a hard first step to take.”

That was what finally seemed to pull him from that faraway place. Your touch. He looked down at your hand, first, and then at you – features soft, almost wistful as he answered, “Yeah. It was.”

And then, silence reigned supreme once again.

You wanted to know more, of course you did, but you didn’t want to pry. Maybe he’d tell you more someday. You hoped he’d tell you someday, but why? It had nothing to do with you. How selfish, wanting to know his innermost secrets. Of course he’d never tell you. It wasn’t any of your business. Not anymore.

The warmth of his skin beneath your fingertips almost burned, you’d missed him so much, and you pulled your hand back to your body, using it as a shield to peer up at the sunny sky. It was a feeble attempt to distract yourself from your thoughts. Even the faint laughter on the wind couldn’t stop you from wishing for things you’d never have. Wishing for him.

Playdates in the park with you, Bucky, and your little girl, just like the smattering of parents always close by the swing set. Commonplace on a beautiful day like today. Normal. Right.

Celebratory dinners when Winnie did well in school, and birthday dinners, too: March for him, and May for her.

Weekends and holidays spent together, an amalgamation of his family’s old traditions and yours.

You and Bucky had planned to make your own traditions, once. Sunday morning pancakes were just the start – sparked by soft, sleepy whispers shared between sweethearts, suggestions of what your little family might do in the future. Ham for Thanksgiving, perhaps, and a Stark-inspired celebration when Winnie graduated from college. The two of you had even talked about the beautiful wedding she might have one day.

Plans made for years away, but the seeds were planted – seeds that withered away.

Once-forgotten wishes of a life with him now lay at the forefront of your mind, not so easily forgotten this time. No matter how large the star you wished upon, it would never be able to bring the life back to a relationship so stunted in its growth. Not when the water – the love – had run dry.

Today, Bucky had drawn a clear line in the sand between the two of you.

This wasn’t a date. His love had run dry.

Part Nine

#bucky barnes x reader #bucky x reader #bucky barnes x you #bucky x you #bucky barnes

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youarerageandserenity · 4 years

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Borderlands Foam Wig Tutorial (Tyreen)

I was chatting with the lovely @void-noises-exe and it eventually circled around to offering to make a wig tutorial because you don’t see too terribly many, just thought I’d throw mine out ( especially because It was next to impossible to find good references of a foam version of Ty’s hair.) So this will be for foam wigs in general but Tyreen’s hair specifically (with a few pics of my Fiona wig from tales as well because they better accentuate my points) I didn’t plan on making this so I am missing a few pictures that might be helpful but here we go. This will not be short.

Supplies:

-Craft foam (ideally, in small and XL sheets, but you can make do with whatever size you have available)

- Spray paint as close to the BASE color of the wig you need (for Ty I used white, for Fiona a medium brown) ideally in a matte.

- a FUCKLOAD of paints (i use cheap acrylics from the craft store ) in Black, and then several shades of the colors in the hair. (For Fiona i used i think four browns? Tyreens shaved sides have three browns, and the top had an additional yellow-brown i mixed) try to vary them in darkness levels to add depth.

- multiple paint brushes. I like to use around four or five of varying sizes and hardness levels.

- plenty Hot glue, and a hot glue gun (note: you COULD use other typres of adhesive, I like hot glue because its got great hold on foam, it sets FAST and worst case scenario I can take a hair dryer to it and melt it again if I need something to be undone.)

- scissors

- duct tape

-plastic wrap

-sharpie

-wig head

-Plenty of reference images

(optional supplies include a rotary cutter and or exacto-knife [trust me, itll make your life so much easier] , and patience. )

SO to start

1) Put your hair in a wig cap or however you plan on wearing it under your wig. Wrap your whole hair bit of your head in plastic wrap. Make sure you get over your ears and the baby hairs on your neck if you want to keep them.

2) Wrap all the plastic covered bits in duct tape. This is easier for a friend to do on you, but not impossible to do alone, just make sure to get it all. It should be snug. Make sure you get as far down the back of your neck and down your sideburn area as you can. (Most characters have a bit of fringe hanging down in the back so its not the BIGGEST concern for them, but Ty’s got nada so you’re gonna want some good coverage for your hair line.)

3) Take your sharpie and draw an outline of where your ear is, and along the hairline you’d like your wig to have. For short haired characters you dont want to cut too far behind the ear or your hair will peek out, so I like to underestimate how big my ear is and adjust as needed later. Dont make your wig hairline too high either, particularly if you’re making a wig for a character who has no fringe in the front.

4) Take that bad boy off and cut along your outlines. Try it on again, adjust lines as needed. rinse and repeat.

5) once you reach a semi-accurate mold of your head, you’re gonna wanna take it off and cut AT LEAST 4 (front, back, and both sides (I like to do 8, it will lay flatter) sections,coming to a point at the crown of your head. It should come out looking something like this. NOTE : they’re all still connected in the middle. If you’re doing 8, cut each of these 4 in half. )

6) Lay out your foam beneath this. If you dont have a piece of foam big enough to trace this bad boy onto, what I do is literally just break out the hot glue gun a bit early, glue a couple pieces together along the edges, until i get a nice big connected surface. Trace this guy on there as accurately as you can, cut it out, and then glue all your sides together. Now you should have a foam version of your duct tape hat.

(Dont worry if the sides wont stay down, if you’re doing a character like Ty where thats an issue, we’ll get to that part later. )

7) (Optional but VERY helpful) Grab your wig head, and your duct tape head. Tape the duct tape back together and put something in it to make it hold shape, I use poly-fil. Tape the head-form to the wig head, and put your little foam cap on top of that.

8) Time to get creative. You’re gonna want to start from the bottom layers first. For Tyreen that’s the long fringe and her undercut. The strategy I decided on was to take a few large rectangular strips of foam, and lay them out everywhere I wanted the undercut to be and cut along the edges to match the hairline. I don’t have a picture of this exact point in the process but I have one from the beginning of the next step. Really the only thing to note at this point is obviously, your head is round and rectangles are not, for the curves where it sticks up along the edges, cut down where it sticks up in a little triangle and hot glue the ends together (you can sort of see this at the top left in the picture below). Dont worry about seams at this point, we’ll hide them later.

9) This was not the case for Fiona who has very flat hair ( especially because of her hat) but Tyreen has a lot of volume especially towards the front of her head. For hair pieces that need volume, such as the ones that are glued down here, cut two of the exact same foam piece (i like to do them in little waves like the side, but also just a little arch is good for volume without flips such as the front piece) and glue the matching edges together. Make sure the hair triangle is facing the way youd like it to! Then Flatten out the top as much as you can, the bottom will keep the volume and the top ill be able to be covered by “2D” hair pieces.

(NOTE: Honestly, it’s REALLY difficult to end up with an exact copy of cannon, and I ALLLLWAYS get carried away with the spikes. In the end, go by your reference images, but also follow your heart. Cosplay is half about having fun creating. )

10) Once youve started gluing, make sure to keep in mind where your part is (if you have one). For Fiona i didn’t trust myself so I glued in the hair at the part BEFORE anything, and left them ready to be glued down while I worked my way up to them.

NOTE: All the hair at the parts of BOTH wigs is a single piece of foam.You want a nice wide base whenever possible to cover up the seams of all of the other edges of the hair. For your part, Carefully glue along the very end of your strip of foam and stick it down. It will be the last piece to be glueddown on top of everything else to make it look nice and clean.

11) Slowly start working your way around the head, gluing down first anything that will need to be covered (3D pieces and bottom pieces) before getting towards the top where youll need to be more strategic about what is going down and what can cover your edges. I’d definitely recommend mixing 2D and 3D pieces if that’s something you want to experiment with, otherwise, such as in the pic below, it is possible to get volume from a 2D piece, simply by gluing it in a way where it wont lie flat against the head.

12) in the picture above you can also catch a glimpse of Ty’s cow lick. Those are done exactly the same as our 3D pieces from before, only you trace the edges of the open end, and should end up with a triangular third side to be glued in, then just glue along the edges just like the hair part.

13) Dont feel you have to overdo how many pieces the hair has, remember you may also paint in pieces and designs when it comes to the line-art!

14) Once you’ve added everything from the bottom that you’d like to, go ahead and glue down your hair-part.

15) So, obviously, I wasn’t a big fan of Tyreen’s undercut just being flat foam across half my head. So I took an exacto to it for what felt like years. REALLY over-do it on the edges, it’ll get rid of that harsh foam line and give it a little more of a natural blend. Also pay special attention to all of your seams in the foam. The more distressing there is there, the less youll be able to spot lines later.

16) So once you have the overall structure of your wig and you’re thinking you might be happy with this, its spray paint time. (I’d recommend disposable gloves for this, you’re gonna need to maneuver it every which way to get the pain in every cranny and that paint does NOT like to come off easy.) Theres really not much advice I can offer on it, just be patient, and do a couple layers, spray it from every angle and let it dry completely before moving on to the next step unless youre as impatient as I am and dont mind ruining a few paintbrushes.

17) So, like the Fiona pic a few back or this one here, you should have a fairly flat evenly painted foam sculpture. Now is around the time you might start seeing all the inaccuracies in what you’ve made. You gotta push past that it’ll look great I promise. Time to get really creative.

18) for Ty I started by painting the buzzed bits in a base brown, and started in on the line art and her roots while i waited for it to dry before going in with two more colors of brown for depth.

19) For her roots I ended up using three colors. Black at the very bottom (which blends into the line art) a dark brown that matches more or less the buzz, and then after the fact, a custom yellowed-brown to blend better into the white and give us a little more texture. For this and the rest of the cel-shading in the hair, dab your brush before painting and try to mostly stick to light strokes in one direction (OR: if you have one, a particularly hard bristled paint brush does wonders for this) you don’t want the ends of your strokes to be too defined.

20) Outline the edges of the hair and all prominent pieces, particularly the hot-glue seams, itll make them less noticable. (dont forget the little animation squiggles for Ty’s sides) and beyond that-- honestly, black out to your hearts content. These pics are from when I thought I’d finished. I really felt I’d over detailed. The next day I looked at a picture and realized there is always WAY more texture and outlining than I feel like I see. Honestly, you cant really over-do it, especially with fine solid black lines.

21) The next day I came back at it with the yellowed-brown and LOTS more solid black lines. (Currently in the process of taming down where I got too excessive with the spikes on the side)

22) Once it’s all dried, time to try on. Here’s where we address if you have a short haired character, and the edges of your wig just wont stay down -- invest in a little theatrical grade spirit gum. It’s not too terribly expensive, and unfortunately, I tried the cheaper halloween makeup kind, and it just wont hold how you need it too (and please for my sake, also make sure you get spirit gum remover) I took some hair gel (you could also use elmers glue) just to glue up as much of my hair as I could on the sides and the back of my neck to keep them from the spirit gum, and dabbed it along all of the prominent edges of the wig (namely, side and back) wait for it to get a little tacky and stick that MF-er down good.

Aaaaand Voila???

Let me know if I missed any steps? Its fairly simple, once you get going -- just time consuming.

#borderlands cosplay #borderlands #bl3 #tyreen calypso #cosplay tutorial #borderlands 3 #my cosplays

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bakubabes-tatakae · 4 years

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The Uchiha In The Leaves (Part Nine)

Author’s Note: If anyone wants to be in a taglist for this feel free to let me know! Happy to do it for anyone!

(Kakashi x Reader)

Summary: What happens when Y/N finally returns to the Village Hidden in the Leaves? Her life is flipped upside down when not only does she find the man that’s awaited her return, but she finds someone she thought she’d never see again.

Part One, Part Two: *NSFW Ahead!*, Part Three, Part Four, Part Five, Part Six, Part Seven, Part Eight: *NSFWish Ahead!*

Part Nine:

Word Count: 2,202

*Y/n's P.O.V*

I found Sasuke sitting on the small porch in front of the house. He was sitting on the step when I opened the door. He didn't move when I came out so I sat down next to him. I put my head in my hands for a minute before I talked to him. "I'm sorry Sasuke."

He looked over at me. "For what?"

"Last night, I should never have taken my anger and stress out on you like that."

"It's okay. I get it. I struck a nerve with what I said and I shouldn't have."

I wrapped my arm around his shoulder and pulled him into me. "You know that I cared more about you and your safety than I did having Zabuza alive, right? I would have died trying to save you if he had gotten any further yesterday."

"I know." Sasuke looked up at me. "I just couldn't stand to see you as hurt as you were when he went after Kakashi-Sensei. You two weren't as secretive as you thought you were walking through the woods either."

I chuckled at him. "You three can't say anything when we get back to the village. It has to stay between the three of us. Kakashi and I don't want people in the village to look at us any differently. I don't want them to break our team up. It's going to be hard enough to hide that the two of us are together when you come home with us."

"You have my word Y/n." Sasuke stood up from the porch, leaning down to kiss the top of my head. "Love you big sis." He smiled as he walked back into the house.

As Sasuke walked through the door Kakashi walked out. He sat down next to me with a loud sigh. "Are you alright?"

I looked over and smiled. "Yea. I'm fine. Just had to have a heart to heart with him after what happened yesterday. I told him that the three of them needed to keep our relationship to themselves until we're ready to say something."

Kakashi kissed the side of my head. The Mask was silky as it touched my temple. "Eventually we will. We just need to find the right time."

I sighed and laid my head on his shoulder. At least with the kids knowing it would be a little easier for us around them. We wouldn't have to worry as much about what we said.

* * * * * *

Training the kids for the upcoming battle would be the hardest thing we had to do. We had told them to meet the two of us in the forest the following morning. Kakashi still wasn't completely up to par and had resorted to walking around using crutches to keep his balance as much as he could. I was still recovering from my injuries, but we had to prepare them as soon as possible. Who knew when Zabuza would strike again? And who would he bring with him this time?

The three of them stood in front of us, ready to learn. Kakashi leaned on his crutches and was hopeful that the kids were as ready to learn as they looked. "Okay, training starts now."

Naruto was excited, like he always was. "Alright!"

"First," Kakashi put one finger up. "We'll begin with a review on chakra, the ninja's basic source of power. Understanding chakra is essential."

Sasuke was getting cocky, something that was his specialty lately. "We know that."

Naruto piped up with him. "He's right, a long time ago we learned about catra..."

I hung my head and looked over at them, hoping my disappointment was clear. "Chakra..."

Naruto looked embarrassed and started to sweat. Kakashi looked over at Sakura. "Go ahead Sakura." He knew she would be able to explain everything to Naruto quickly.

Sakura put her hands on her hips and I smiled and chuckled a little, Kakashi watching me out the corner of his eye. "Alright, Naruto. I'll explain it simply so you can understand it. Chakra is the elemental life energy that a ninja uses in jutsu. It's the source of his power. Now this energy comes in two forms; there's the phsyical energy which exists in all the cells and the entire body all work together. The other is spiritual energy, the primal source of power which is intensified by training and experience."

I yawned and saw Kakashi smile at me, trying not to laugh at me as Sakura continued. "As you see, these two chakra must be drawn out and brought together in order to perform jutsu. Finally, hand signs focus and unleash the chakra."

When Sakura looked back at Kakashi with a smile he looked over at Naruto. "Right on all points. Iruka-Sensei really did have some excellent students."

Naruto was still sweating. "What's the big deal with all these complicating explanations? The whole point is to learn the jutsu, isn't it?"

Sasuke looked annoyed, but he couldn't help but agree with Naruto. "Naruto is right for once. We're already using chakra in our jutsu."

I looked over at me little brother and raised my eyebrows. "No! You have not mastered this power, you've barely scratched the surface of it!" I was just as frustrated with Sasuke's cockiness as Kakashi was getting.

Naruto started to raise his voice. "What do you mean?"

Kakashi sighed. "Calm down a listen." How did we end up with these two stubborn kids? "It's just like Sakura said, you have to draw on physical and spiritual energies and then combine them. But, how do you do that?" Kakashi looked over at me, clearly wanting me to continue. He knew that Sasuke listen best to me.

I nodded. "Each jutsu uses a differnt type of chakra and in different proportions. You must select and combine them in exactly the right way. Up to now you've just guessed at the proportions, hoping they'd come out right. Even if you produce a lot of chakra, if you can't balance and control it, it's all worthless. The jutsu wont work at all of it'll be a joke. You waste so much energy that way and then you're out of chakra and you can't fight at all, you're just a target."

Naruto looked a little embarassed, knowing he had a problem with that in the academy. He scratched his head. "So how do we change that?"

I was getting more frustrated so Kakashi cut me off. "Train so hard that controlling your chakra becomes second nature. To achieve this goal you must be ready to put your life on the line."

They all looked confused, especially Sakura. "What do we have to do?"

Kakashi pointed up. "Climb a tree."

They all spoke at once, complete confusion in their voices. "Climb a tree?"

"That's right." I smiled and cut Kakashi off. "But there's one rule; no hands."

Now the kids were even more confused. Sakura just looked annoyed. "What? You're kidding?"

"Are we? Let's see." Kakashi looked over at me and nodded. We both put our hands together and balanced our chakra. Kakashi hobbled over to the nearest tree and I followed. We climbed up the same tree , using just our chakra, focused on our feet. The kids stared dumbfounded on the ground. Just to throw them off even more we walked to the largest branch on the tree and hung upside down, having to focus even harder so we wouldn't plummet to the ground. "You get the idea. Focus your chakra to the soles of your feet and use it to connect to the tree. This is one way to use the power of chakra." Kakashi smiled at them.

"Wait a minute, that's a nice trick, but how does that help us fight Zabuza?" Sakura was once again, full of questions.

I let out a breath to calm down a little before speaking. "It's the only way to fight Zabuza. That's the entire goal of this training you guys. First, you'll learn how to draw a precise amount of chakra to a precise part of your body. This is difficult for even advanced ninja. This type of climbing requires a precise mixture of physical and spiritual energy and the bottoms of the feet are the most difficult place to balance chakra. Are you getting the picture? If you can master this, you can master any jutsu."

Kakashi interrupted me. "Well, theoretically," I shot him a glare. "The second point is to learn to maintain your chakra. When a ninja is in battle it's even harder to maintain and control his chakra levels, a deadly mistake. To avoid this maintaining chakra must become second nature, effortless." I paused for a second. "Well, I could talk about this all day, but that won't advance your skills, will it? You need to apply the power of chakra through training."

Kakashi pulled out two kunai and I pulled out one. We threw them to the kids. Naruto and Sakura caught Kakashi's and Sasuke caught mine. I spoke. "Use the kunai to mark the tree at the highest mark that you can climb, without using your hands. Then try to get past that mark the next time. At first you'll need to run at the tree so your momentum will take you as high as possible. Until you get used to it anyway."

Kakashi continued where I left off. We were trying our hardest to teach as a pair. "Ready?"

Naruto picked up his kunai. "I'm ready. This is gonna be no sweat all the way, believe it. Remember what you said Sensei. I'm the one that's grown the most."

It was then that we knew we should never have said that to him. Kakashi sighed. "You're definitely the one that talks the most. Now get focused and do it."

Naruto looked offended, but shook it off. The kids put their hands together and started to balance their chakra. They all took off at a run. Naruto made it two steps up the tree before falling. Sasuke made it about a quarter of the way before his chakra balance went off and smashed the tree some with his foot, marking it with the knife before coming back down. Sakura on the other hand sat on a branch about halfway up her tree, smiling down on the boys. I was extremely proud of her. "Well," I looked particularly at Sasuke, not afraid to be the toughest on him. "Looks like the female member of the squad has the most chakra control."

Sakura stuck her tongue out at the boys and Kakashi praised her. "Well done Sakura."

Naruto was at least being a good sport about it. "Yea! Good job Sakura. I always knew you were awesome, believe it."

Sasuke looked up at me and mumbled, not realizing that we could all hear him. "Whatever."

Sakura was instantly distraught, clearly she was hoping she would impress him. Kakashi tried to help her out a little. "Not only can Sakura control chakra, she can hold and maintain it as well." He looked toward Naruto. "We spoke about someone becoming Hokage one day, didn't we?" He was trying to get a rise out of the boys to make them try harder. "Seems Sakura's got the best chance of that. Wouldn't you say?" Kakashi stepped over the line with his next crack, not only getting a rise from Sasuke, but from me. "And as for the great Uchiha clan, maybe they're not so great after all."

Sasuke and I glared at Kakashi, and so did Sakura. "Shut up Sensei, you talk to much."

Kakashi looked over at me. "Alright, I think they're motivated. I know Naruto and Sasuke have much more chakra within. If this training works their mastery of chakra will become a valuable asset."'

I was still glaring. "And you little comment about the Uchiha clan? What was that?"

"I was just trying to get your brother going, I know how he feels about your clan."

"Well, don't push it with that again Kakashi, or I'll knock your chakra off balance and let you fall from this tree."

He chuckled at me. "You're cute when you're angry." If steam could be coming from my ear it would be. And with that, they all began to attempt the tree again, each time getting just a little farther.

* * * * * *

After an hour or so the kids were all exhausted. The kids were definitely learning from the teamwork. Naruto went and huddled next to Sakura. Kakashi smiled at me. "He's catching on. From now one he'll only get stronger and stronger. How strong tho?"

I leaned my head on his shoulder. "Naruto possesses more chakra than Sasuke. I can feel it."

"In fact, the amount of chakra he possesses is greater than my own, and yours."

Taglist 💕 @nubiadethemyscira @nimeryaa @o-franzii-o @chidori-mint @fan-g0rl @ari-hatake15 @puredicks @hunie-hun

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thesapphiresoul · 4 years

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emergency beaujester week

day 2: art | fairy tale/mythology au

for day 2 i drew a classic percy jackson/demigod au! percy jackson is close enough to mythology, right? regardless, i think beau would be a daughter of athena and jester, a daughter of apollo! in this picture they're both 18/19 and in charge of their cabins. i imagine they're watching veth and the other hermes kids pull a prank on fjord. and jester may or may not have helped....

i got really attached to this au while drawing it, so i'll put the rest of my rambling under the read more lol

this piece might be my favorite that i've drawn for the week (but i'm not done so maybe that will change). also fun fact! i drew this way before the percy jackson tv show announcement on thursday so that was a happy coincidence!! and that only got me more invested into this au haha.... so, i'm going to talk about it!

like i said, beau is a daughter of athena and jester is a daughter of apollo, but i think jester actually spent a lot of her time at camp in the hermes cabin before she was claimed. so even tho she has the healing and artistic abilities of an apollo kid, jester acts much more like the hermes kids. her time in ther hermes cabin is also where she became such good friends with veth. that's right! i've got the whole mighty nein figured out! beau, i imagine, has a similar backstory to her canon one and also annabeth's from the books. beau's dad sucked at raising her like usual, and when he remarried and had a fully human kid, he shipped beau off to camp half-blood and never looked back. beau was much younger, like 9 or 10, when this happened so she practically grew up at camp. i am especially fond of beau being a daughter of athena since athena kids don't have crazy magical powers like the others, they're just smart.

jester didn't show up to camp until she was 12 since her mom tried her best to take care of jester on her own, but it eventually became too difficult. so after jester shows up and befriends veth, she is introduced to the rest of veth's friends and so cabin nein is formed! (they don’t have an actual cabin, they just call themselves that) veth is a daughter of hermes, obviously, and caleb is a son of hestia. yasha is a daughter of zeus, molly is a child of dionysus, fjord is a son of poseidon, and caduceus is a satyr/follower of pan. cad is the last to officially join the group since he doesn't meet the group until he is sent to accompany some of them on a quest.

they all eventually become the head of their respective cabins at ages 17-19. i like to think that by that time the other campers are determined on playing match maker for beau and jester. they refuse to endure another summer of pining. so, of course the usual romcom hijinks ensue (and you know veth is the leader of this operation) but beau and jes just wont budge. what the rest of camp doesn't know is that they've actually been together for like a year, they just like messing with everyone.

this has gotten plenty long so i'll end it there lol. if you want to talk to me about this at all, i would absolutely love to!! and for your trouble, her is a recreation of what i looked like drawing this piece while listening to the percy jackson musical! (which you should also listen to if you haven't)

(it’s very good)

#critical role #beaujester #emergency beaujester week #emergency beaujes week #beauregard lionett #jester lavorre #percy jackson #my art #cabin nein #campaign 2

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y8nt56 · 4 years

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Soo Since everyone’s locked up and has nothing better to do is there anyone out there interested in helping me test my magnus archives cultist simulator mod?

details about under the cut if anyone is interested.

First off, I’m putting this on my personal blog rather then my modding blog because its not really a popular game, its more for tma fans and personal self indulgence rather then for cult sim fans, and it’s kind of different from the kind of things I normally mod as this is a script mod, and will warp the bg into a slightly different game. It’s basically a fully functional game simulator of tma, and you can choose who you want to put in your cult, how evil/monster you become, can save or reform anyone, including, say, og sasha, and turn the hunters as well jane prentiss, nicola, daisy, and jared hopworth. If i can get everything working it should actually be really fun for people who like tma OR cultist simulator. The grind will take forever though since there’s 14 fears and the base game only has 8, i’m hoping to give some scars more quickly so it isn’t quite as soul crunching, as there will be 50% more of EVERYTHING entity-related, making the table management a bit of a nightmare.

If you don’t have cultist simulator I need a few things not related to game play testing as well, like canon fact checking, making sure all the art follows canon descriptions given etc, cause its like over 150 new art pieces for it, not to mention all 160 statements that replace all books in the game and give you various appropriate lore based on how informative the statement is.

Its technically the priest dlc (start with the magnus institute ‘cult’, a position at the institute, 1 random starter assistant(sasha martin or tim) and elias special patron, the web scar, and the angler fish statement.) But If you try to change your temptation from knowledge or you cult to anything but beholding technically you can, but every 6 minutes elias has a special event that will force you to change it back. Theoretically, rn you could just keep the elias card locked when it tries to trigger and change your cult to like the lightless flame until the end of the game, but it wont change the ending, since temptation isn't actually required to win the priest dlc. The position at the institute card has a 180 second countdown, after which it triggers an event that will slowly turn all your health into sickness and kill you eventually if you don’t go regularly.

However, beyond the beginning and the fact you need all 14 scars' its more of a mix between all 3 dlcs because you have to manage statement consumption like with the ghoul and I’ve tried to make elias a special patron, like this sulochana ripoff, that will give you missions for the scars if you have high enough lore for every power like the dances in the dancer dlc but only useful IF you cant find the expedition on your own. Talking to elias without a topic will result in free occult scraps, so if you're very dedicated, you can use him as an infinite special histories lore machine for expeditions but is otherwise totally useless like the real elias.

I made the mistake of trying to replace the 'scholarship' ability with a new actually useful 'compulsion' ability if you level up reason that can force statements out of your own cultists with high fear lore in exchange for giving them resentment, but only if you haven’t already read their statement and this game is already a nightmare to mod. Resentment management/hunter and rival management is going to be more difficult then in the base game.

I’m so excited I'm finally gonna finish it no that i have time i only need like 5 more cultists and to run everything through illustrator so everything is sharp and clean, as well as a few more locations, artifacts, and the rest will just be bug testing i guess. and finishing the actual hard parts of modding with those kind of vague tutorials cause like, nobody mods this game.

If anyone actually wants to hear more about it or has any ideas i will not fucking stop talking about it if you let me haha

I also need art for the fear paintings if anyone wants to donate any. If not I'll just use the art of the old hours off the cs wiki.

tldr: I need base drawings run through illustrator, bug testing, ideas, canon checks, and art for every power for the paintings if anyone wants to donate them. or just lmk if anyone but me is actually interested in it.

#the magnus archives #cultist simulator #my art #my mods #i probably wont add any more mods to this blog though #unless people were actually interested #honestly this was more of a project for me to have an excuse to re listen to the whole pod multiple times...#tma

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dapheniers · 4 years

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Eternity

The hand he had drawn out was closed. But eventually it began to glow with aether.

“When I asked the others… I got no good answers for how to do this… but… it doesn’t matter. I don’t need an answer anymore. With you… I’m certain, even without knowing… When I’m with you, I’m not afraid. When I’m with you, even eternity seems like not enough time. And that’s why… that’s why I had to do this.”

He stepped back, but he was still holding onto one of her hands.

“I can’t promise I wont make you sad… I can’t promise… that things wont be difficult… I can’t promise… a lot of things really….”

He opened his hand, the little ball of light in it twisting in on itself, hovering just above his palm. Slowly, it began to take shape. The aether twisted around something small and metal, the crystal forming, blooming… turning… until it stopped…

“But I can promise… that I’m not leaving…. I can promise… that I want to be with you… I want to promise… that I will love you…”

He knelt down in front of her, the ring hovering above his hand- blue crystal, with flecks of every colour, blooming into a flower… entwined by a dragon.

“For eternity…”

“Are you sure?” Before truly even processing what was happening, the first words out of her mouth were quiet, faintly whispered.

Why? Why her? What was she? Nobody and nothing. Selfish. Un-special.

Corinne closed her eyes.

No. She wasn’t.

She was everything he said. Everything he felt. If what she thought of him was true, then what he thought of her was too. And maybe she would never entirely believe him- he was the same way. But that’s what this was, that’s what he was offering. A reassurance for every question, every stumble, every uncertainty.

He always said he needed her...how badly did she need him? How...incomplete did she feel when he wasn’t around? They were so different, so opposite…

She was crying. She was crying and she didn’t even realize it until the first tear dripped from her cheek. She smiled and sniffled, and if he wasn’t holding her hands, she’d probably be desperately trying to wipe at her face.

“Are you sure?” she asked again, her voice broken with tears and...laughter.

Miahtoux watched her. And when she asked, he couldn’t help but smile. Properly smile.

And that smile, turned into a laugh. A true and proper laugh. Not cold, not mocking, but joyful and terrified. A single silvery and glittering tear ran down his face from that emotionless eyes.

“Not at all! But that… that’s the point, Corinne! The unknown… in front of us? Isn’t it beautiful?”

His laughter was music on the wind, echoing out into that great unknown.

She pulled her other hand from him, closed it to a fist, and then launched herself at him, even in the little distance that was between them. She wrapped her arms around him and held on, clinging to him, burying her face against him. And nodding.

No words.

It took a lot to get Corinne not to have any words, but right now she didn’t. All she could do was hold onto him, hold onto everything, her everything...and nod.

Miahtoux managed an arm around her waist, still holding that floating ring.

“Thank the gods…”

His head found her shoulder and just like that he was trying to bury himself in her too. “Thank the gods…”

If they could stay like this forever, she’d be content. But fate wouldn’t have it that way. And she did have to laugh again. And for a while he was quite content to hold her like this… but eventually he had to get her to look at him properly as he found her hand, sliding that ring onto it before holding up his own. The same aether he had put into her ring drew in round the plain metal ring he’d placed on his, weaving its way into the material.

When she moved, guided to look at him, she placed her free hand on his cheek. “I..thought that you didn’t care much for the gods…” she laughed, thumb stroking his cheek.

But before his ring finished, Miahtoux leant in to kiss her, drawing away and taking a wispy trail of her own aether with him... “I love you,” she whispered as he pulled that breath of aether away from her, green and gold…

He let that too weave its way into his ring. The same image as its final form.

“This symbol… used to be of the family and love that I lost… let it now… be our symbol.”

#ffxiv #ffxiv writing #ffxiv rp #ff14 #ff14 writing #ff14 rp #corinne cried #nemy cried #we all cried #wtb someone to actually draw this ring too

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satonthelotuspier · 4 years

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❄️ Untamed Winter Fest 2019 ❄️

Day 9 - Promise - 1.3k

Deals with themes of seduction, manipulation and power plays, all in a SFW setting

Lan Xichen tried not to check his watch during every lull in conversation, but it was a very difficult thing to manage when he was mentally counting down every minute with fevered anticipation.

He had to avoid appearing rude, however, or Uncle Qiren would lay down the law about manners and respect. On any other day of the year Lan Xichen was his most attentive student; he had been groomed to be the perfect successor. The perfect host. The perfect nephew. The perfect CEO. He retained all his training, but he hadn’t been the perfect anything in his uncle’s eyes for a long time now.

But tonight that might as well all be in another life. Tonight it was another life. Tonight he was Lan Huan, a man tolerating an ostentatious business gala to make good on a promise of ten year’s standing.

He had to survive for a while longer, keep pretending to be Lan Xichen (he was Lan Huan), keep pretended he heard every word said to him (he heard less than 10%), keep pretending that the dinner, alcohol and witty repartee entertained him (he had been clock watching for hours), and then he’d be rewarded. He hadn’t been disappointed a single year in the last ten.

But what if this was the year he was? Surely he would be bored of the game by now? Surely he’d have moved on.

Xichen didn’t know how he’d react if that turned out to be the case. Maybe an element of relief, but mostly devastation?

The night wore on and he continued to execute his duties, he circulated, entertained, toasted, drank, laughed in all the right places and danced until he felt like he might go mad.

The natural thing to do to keep his sanity was visit the roof garden and find a secluded area of the terrace where he could breathe and clear his head.

Suzhou had an impressive night-time cityscape and the hustle and bustle at street level helped distract him and draw his eye for a while.

But he should have realised the first moment he let his guard down that night would be the moment Meng Yao chose to pounce.

As he was distracted it took him a few moments to realise there was a man leaning on the railing next to him, just far enough away for propriety’s sake. His body reacted to the familiar scent of sandalwood before he even identified his companion’s face.

“You’re a hard man to find alone” Meng Yao said, joining him in watching the brightly lit streets below.

“I’m expected to show my face and entertain on the company’s behalf” he said it just for the sake of making a response, it was nothing Meng Yao didn’t understand.

“Of course, of course, Uncle’s perfect little scion” the words were meant to cut but as ever his tone was neutral. Meng Yao did everything that way, he would smile into your eyes as he sank the knife between your shoulder-blades.

Xichen’s smile was forbearing, “I’m afraid I rather blotted my copybook in that regard. I’m seen as anything but”

Meng Yao turned around then, his back to the view, resting his elbows on the railing and crossing one leg over the other.

It was a pose deliberately adopted to draw attention to his lithe dancers body; showcased to perfection in his tailored tuxedo.

“Surely Uncle Qiren didn’t hold it against you for very long” Meng Yao mocked, but he knew very well Lan Qiren still hadn’t let go of his disappointment at Lan Xichen, and he probably never would.

“I allowed myself to be seduced by a spy who was after industrial secrets, who was working for our main competitor, what did I prove except my naivety?”

Meng Yao chuckled, rolling his eyes a little, “And I seduced our main competitor for industrial secrets and learned nothing, who out of the two of us was the biggest failure?”

Then Meng Yao cranked up the manipulation, as was his wont. He bit his lip and looked up at Lan Xichen through his dark lashes, dimples flashing in the artificial lighting of the rooftop.

It was a triple assault Lan Xichen didn’t have any defence against, he felt his pulse trip out of control, so much so that he had to back away a little in self-preservation, which was suicidally dangerous, he couldn’t relinquish all control, show weakness, the moment he did that Meng Yao would swoop in for a killing blow, completely without mercy. He really was just that ruthless.

And it was stupid really, because there was only one place tonight would end for them, and they both knew it perfectly well.

This back and forth was heady stuff, more potent than any of the wine Xichen had drunk tonight, being in Meng Yao’s vicinity was always like that though, the man was a walking trap who would use every little ounce of advantage he could carve out remorselessly.

“But we had fun, didn’t we Lan Huan?” Meng Yao was shameless enough to adopt a look of complete innocence, before he stepped into Lan Xichen’s personal space and reached out to rub his fingers against the delicate skin of Xichen’s inner wrist inside the white cuff of his dress shirt, “I had fun, at least” his thumb carried on caressing Xichen’s pounding pulse point, “Isn’t that why we made this promise? To give each other New Years Eve?” he stepped closer still, his hand leaving Xichen’s wrist so his arms could slide under Xichen’s open Tuxedo jacket and wrap around his waist.

“Aren’t you bored of the game yet Meng Yao?” Lan Xichen asked, but still he mirrored the hold, his arms overlapping Meng Yao’s.

“What hunter would give up on such interesting prey? You’ve not yet given me what I want, Lan Huan” he rose up on his toes to press a line of kisses against Xichen’s jawline, and Xichen rubbed his cheek against Meng Yao’s. His body, held in check for so long began making it’s own decisions.

“And what do you want from me?” if he sounded jaded it was nothing undeserved.

Meng Yao pressed a soft kiss against the corner of Xichen’s mouth, then looked up through his lashes again.

“What else? Total submission”

A jolt of electricity coursed through Lan Xichen, although he knew well enough what Meng Yao’s version of submission meant, and it was every detail of his Uncle’s company handed over on a platter and nothing else. That was how Meng Yao’s mind worked. He’d failed in his objective when Xichen had been a stupid, naive young man of twenty-three. Even though Xichen had fallen into his hands and his bed so easily he’d learned nothing, so Meng Yao would never let it go.

“That I can’t give you”

Meng Yao looked at him intently with his dark, fathomless eyes, maybe trying to read his mind, “Eventually you will. Why do you think Uncle Qiren doesn’t trust you still? Do you think he doesn’t know about us, about this?” the fact it was the truth just made it that much more painful. But a part of Xichen, the part that craved this, the part that had watched the minutes tick by tonight just didn’t care.

Meng Yao reached up then to cup the back of Xichen’s neck so he could guide his head down into range, “In any case we’re going to have a lot more fun with each other until I do win my sweet, sweet prey” he purred and then pressed their lips together. Master manipulator that he was the moment their mouths met was the moment the fireworks bringing in the lunar new year began to light up the Suzhou night sky It was sensory overload and Xichen reacted helplessly.

When Meng Yao let him come up for air he felt the other slide a hotel key card into his breast pocket.

“Let’s go make a promise to meet again next year”

Ngl all the pictures of ZZJ flying around tumblr atm really helped me visualise this Meng Yao as a homme fatale. Also, the first picture on this post might help you envision how fucking devastating LXC would look in a tux

#untamed winter fest #day 9 #lan xichen #meng yao #xiyao #manipulation #seduction #power play #never ever forget meng yao is a master manipulator #shay's stuff #modern au #the untamed #mdzs #mdzs fic

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knifeshoeoreofight · 5 years

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Part 1 Part 2 Part 3 Part 4 Part 5 Part 6 Part 7 Mr. Heinze shakes his head as he pours Sidney a glass of brandy. “His other lordship was difficult to persuade, my lord. It did take some managing to get him to admit a single sartorial preference.” He looks off into the middle distance, as close to perturbed as Sidney has ever seen him. “He has alarming taste in waistcoats, my lord.”

Sidney accepts the glass from him and laughs. Mr. Heinze had accompanied Evgeni to the tailor’s and had apparently had a trying afternoon. “Let him get the most eye-searing waistcoat in the whole of Britain. I don’t care.”

“You may eventually care,” Mr. Heinze warns, and Sidney laughs again. He’s happy. Evgeni came to see him for a reading lesson and it had been a pleasant, if torturous hour of bending close and guiding Evgeni’s hand as he formed the letters. He’s very intelligent, and is picking written English up exceedingly quickly. Forming the letters himself is still proving difficult, however, hence the need for Sidney’s help.

It fascinates him, the glimpses he gets of Evgeni’s brilliant mind, sweeping emotions, and big, expansive heart. He wishes, more than almost anything, that he understood Russian. But Evgeni is surprisingly cagey about teaching him and Sidney has only been able to wrest the barest bits and pieces of vocabulary from him. Half of which are completely unsuitable for polite company. But nothing makes Evgeni snigger and grin his wide scoundrel’s grin like Sidney butchering Russian sailing profanity. And so he indulges him.

He would indulge almost anything that would make Evgeni happy, and it’s an almost frightening thing to learn about himself.

“At least teach me that thing you always call me lately,” Sidney had complained, and Evgeni had barrelled on as if he hadn’t heard, teaching Sidney instead how to thoroughly question the legitimacy or even humanity of someone’s parentage.

Now, he takes another sip of brandy and contemplates the fire, unable to keep the corners of his lips from curving upwards at Mr. Heinze’s long suffering tone.

“I had to manage him a little, my lord. Tell him you would be disappointed in my service if I did not extract his true wants in regards to his evening attire, and provide him with as much of it as was fitting for someone of his rank. He has a loyal heart. He would not hear of either disappointing you or allowing myself to fall in your bad graces.”

Sidney smiles, feeling wistful. “Yes, he is a good man.”

“With questionable taste in clothing.”

“Even so.”

***

Sidney eventually settles on attending a ball held by the Barrie-Landeskogs. He’s not close to them, but his friend Sir Nathan Mackinnon is and he supposes they’re tolerable enough. The Viscount and his husband typically put on a raucous but well-appointed event. They employ a talented kitchen staff, at any rate.

Two weeks before the ball, Sidney is in Truro on business when he pulls Cole up short outside the window of a jewelers, struck by a sudden whim.

Not all men or women are fond of jewels, but he has a feeling his husband might be, given the opportunity. He spends rather more than he is used to in one sitting, at least when not purchasing fine horses or the like. The thrilled jeweler cannot seem to bow deeply enough on Sidney’s way out.

***

When the day itself arrives, Sidney nervously slides the velvet case containing his gift across the table to Evgeni at breakfast.

Evgeni sets down his tea and blinks. “What’s this?”

Sidney clears his throat. “Something to wear for the ball tonight, if you wish.”

Evgeni’s eyes go wide and his mouth falls open when he sees the cravat pin. It’s an ostentatious thing- the Crosby family crest worked in bright enamel, inlaid with jet and citrine and bordered with glittering diamonds.

Evgeni’s eyes go to where the family crest is also carved into the marble mantlepiece. “This…”

“The family crest,” Sidney says, suddenly terribly nervous that he’s made the wrong decision here. “Gold inescutcheon on a white field.”

“Who’s him?” Evgeni asks, a smile beginning to bloom. He’s reverently cradling the pin as if he expects it to break, and Sidney breathes a sigh of relief.

“It’s a Great Auk,” Sidney explains. “A seabird. You rarely see them now but they used to live all along the coast here. The estate is named after them. Ydhyn Dhu means ‘black bird’ in Cornish.” It’s an unusual animal for a coat of arms, but his family has always been a little different.

“They can’t fly, but they can swim like fish,” Sidney continues. “Do you like it?”

“I’m love,” Evgeni says softly. “This is yours?”

“Oh, no, I had it made especially for you,” Sidney hastens to explain. “Consider it a late wedding present.”

Evgeni’s head is bowed, and he doesn’t look at Sidney, but he traces the auk with his thumb so gently that it makes Sidney want to saddle Cole this instant and go purchase every last bauble the jeweler has.

When Evgeni speaks again his voice is rough. “I’m also get you present. Not so fancy like this, but maybe, think you like simple?”

Sidney is not a child, the prospect of a gift has no business making him this giddy. “Oh! You didn’t have to-- yes, I do prefer fairly simple attire.”

“Should still have something nice for party,” Evgeni says, head still ducked shyly. “Maybe you already have. But I see and I think, maybe you like.”

He pulls from the pocket of his coat a box not dissimilar to the one Sidney had given him. Sidney accepts it from him with eager hands. Inside, on a bed of tissue paper, lies a delicate gold chain. It has a pendant on it, also gold, in the shape of a ship under sail.

“I see you have many ship things, in your study. Painting, compass, sextant. Think maybe you like.”

Sidney flushes, both from Evgeni noticing his alarming weakness for nautical objets d'art and from pleasure in being understood so well.

“It’s absolutely perfect,” Sidney says fervently. “I love it.”

“I know is mostly ladies wear necklace,” Evgeni goes on, looking pleased but still rambling a little nervously. “But I see some ladies wear cravat, some gentlemen wear necklace.”

Sidney unhooks the necklace clasp and drapes it around his neck. The pendant rests where a cravat pin typically would, and it looks very well. “As I said, perfect.” He fumbles with the delicate closure for a moment, and Evgeni stands, and goes behind him to do it for him.

Sidney closes his eyes at the brush of Evgeni’s hands on the nape of his neck. Evgeni fusses with it for a moment, running a finger along the chain to make it lie smooth and perfect. Sidney wants to lean back into the touch, but does not.

“Thank you,” he tells his husband.

“Thank you too,” Evgeni returns.

***

In the carriage, Evgeni cannot stop jouncing his leg up and down from nerves, and Sidney cannot stop noticing how fine a figure Evgeni cuts in evening dress. The coat of arms pin twinkles expensively from Evgeni’s cravat, and Sidney is a little ashamed of how much he likes seeing his crest worn on Evgeni’s person. Not to say that Evgeni belongs to him, but rather that Evgeni belongs with him.

He touches the ship necklace where it lies over his own cravat, and Evgeni’s eyes follow the movement. He smiles.

“Look so good, Sid,” Evgeni says, low, and it makes heat pool in Sid’s belly.

“It was a lovely gift,” he says, and Evgeni shakes his head and gestures vaguely at Sid’s entire body.

“Everything looks good,” he says, and Sid wills his face not to flush scarlet. He smooths a hand self-consciously down his waistcoat. He’d come to the conclusion that if he dressed as plainly as he was wont to do on his own, Evgeni in his resplendently embroidered waistcoat and fine lace cuffs might stand out a little too much. So he’d enlisted the help of Letang, who exhibited an ungentlemanly amount of glee in finally being allowed control of Sidney’s wardrobe.

He’d insisted on a russet velvet coat and a gold silk waistcoat. Sidney was intensely skeptical but Letang had only said some nonsense about his eyes and had insisted. At least he would approach Evgeni in spendor somewhat, this way. And it did go well with the necklace.

“You as well,” Sidney said, after perhaps too great a pause. “I mean, you look very well, also.”

Evgeni lifts his arm and turns his wrist to admire the gold embroidery on the wine-red velvet of his sleeves. “I’m like,” he says, pleased. “And Mr. Heinze say is fine to choose.”

“I’m glad you chose something you liked,” Sidney tells him, and Evgeni looks over at him. He has this way of looking sometimes, like his eyes are smiling even more than his mouth is. He’s looking at Sidney that way now. Sidney wishes--

Well. There is much Sidney wishes for.

He’s suddenly reminded, so clearly that he practically hear his voice, of his father gruffly intoning that “wishes have no practical use, son. What are you going to do to make them come about, instead?”

What indeed. Sidney has been assuming this entire time that, in effect, romancing his own husband would be an egregious abuse of power. But, would it? Under the thrall of Evgeni’s warm, dark-eyed gaze, Sidney begins to wonder.

***

The Barrie-Landeskog estate is ablaze with light when they arrive. Torches line the drive and gleaming carriages wait to disgorge thier dazzlingly dressed occupants. When their own carriage draws up before the wide marble front steps, Sidney meets his husband’s eyes.

“Ready?” he asks.

Evgeni looks a little green but Sidney watches him swallow, close his eyes, and open them with an expression of fierce resolve.

“Yes,” he says firmly.

Sidney steps out first, and turns to extend a hand to Evgeni and help him down. It’s a rather useless gesture, given how long Evgeni’s legs are and how little he needs the help. But Sidney is determined to let society observe him awarding his husband every courtesy.

Evgeni slides his hand into the crook of Sidney’s elbow, as smoothly as if he’d been escorted into ballrooms all his life.

He grins at Sidney. “I’m practice with Mr. Heinze. What you think?”

“Very elegant,” Sidney replies, helpless to do anything but grin back.

They ascend the steps, and are bowed inside by the footmen. It is a riot of color and sound: chandeliers glowing with hundred of candles that glint off gilt scrollwork amid a ceiling of painted cherubs and divinities. The guests below gleam in a rainbow of velvet and silk, jewels flashing, ostrich plumes fluttering from hair ornaments and fans. Strains of music rise above the murmur of voices.

Sidney glances at his husband to see him gazing about himself with an expression of dazzled wonder. He smiles at Sidney, joyous as a child.

“Sid!” he exclaims.

“You like it?” Sidney asks.

“Most beautiful thing I’m ever see,” Evgeni breathes, mouth dropped open. He glances down at Sidney for a fleeting instant. “Almost.”

“Well. if you like it so much, we should open up the ballroom at Ydhyn Dhu. Maybe hold a ball ourselves.”

“There’s ballroom at Ydhyn Dhu?” Evgeni goggles incredulously at Sid.

“Well. It’s shut up since it’s used so seldomly,” Sid explains.

Evgeni raises his free hand to pat Sidney’s arm, laughter in his eyes. “I know, I know. Sid doesn’t like big noisy party.”

“If you like them, we shall have them,” Sidney insists. He’s not completely stodgy.. He can throw his husband a ball, for god’s sake.

Evgeni’s gaze is fond, and he leans down and brushes a kiss across the back of Sidney’s hand. “Maybe. But now, first?” He cocks his head at where the hosts are greeting all of the new arrivals.

“Lord Crosby!” The Viscount exclaims, when they draw near. Heads all around turn with alarming alacrity at the words. “And your husband—”

“Lord Evgeni,” Sidney supplies. Evgeni takes and bows over the hands of the Viscount and his husband with careful politeness.

“We were all astonishment, I must say, to hear of the wedding. Our congratulations, however,” the Viscount continues, bright-eyed and merry. “Nate had precious little information, for all that you are close friends.”

“There is not much to tell,” Sidney replies, and the Viscount nods sagely.

“I understand, I understand.” He leans closer, with a conspiratorial air. “Tall, handsome, and foreign. An irresistible combination, I know.” He leers at his own husband, who rolls his eyes, but also looks a little smug.

“Well-” Sidney is sure he is blushing. “I daresay-- oh look, it’s Nate, I must say hello. Many thanks again for the invitation.”

He angles for where he caught a glimpse of Nate in the throng but before he gets there they are accosted. Inwardly, Sidney groans, for Sir McGuire is one of the most tedious men he has ever had the misfortune to know. Outwardly, he just smiles blandly at the man’s overly familiar greeting.

“And this, this is the husband? Well, it was certainly a surprise to us all when the news reached us,” Sir McGuire burbles. “Tell me, Lord Evgeni, what was your family name again? I do believe I forgot.”

Sidney’s stomach tightens in sympathy for Evgeni and he prepares to intervene, but Evgeni merely lifts his chin, gracing Sir McGuire with a look of such perfected aristocratic boredom that Sidney has to stifle a laugh.

“My name is Evgeni Vladimirovich Malkin-Crosby,” Evgeni proclaims. “Of St. Petersburg and Moscow. But my family spend most of our time on our land in the Ural Mountains.”

Sidney knows for a fact that Evgeni’s family owns no land and that he’s only been to Moscow once in his life. He wants to smirk at the look of confusion on McGuire’s face as he tries to figure out a way to be snide about Evgeni’s origins without knowing the slightest thing about what he’s talking about.

“Ah. And was your family able to visit the royal court in St. Petersburg?” McGuire asks with an oily smile. Sidney wants to roll his eyes.

“Dear Katya would not hear of us staying away,” Evgeni replies, with a condescending smirk Sidney should not be finding attractive. Gratifyingly, Mcguire’s jaw drops.

“By Katya, of course you cannot mean--”

“So nice, English education must be better than I’m think, if you know of the Empress Yekaterina,” Evgeni says patronizingly. “Maybe hope for you all, yet.”

Sidney cannot stifle a snort, and bites his lip to try and keep his smile in check as McGuire takes his leave with gratifying alacrity.

“Rogue!” Sidney hisses delightedly. “You know he is a horrible gossip, the entire ballroom will be hearing about that in a matter of minutes.”

“Good,” Evgeni says contentedly, and Sidney bursts out laughing at the serene expression on his face.

Just then the music issuing from the ballroom changes to a minuet. It would probably be a good idea to start off with a couple’s dance, instead of the more complicated dances involving multiple sets of partners. Sidney inclines his head toward the open ballroom doors inquiringly and Evgeni nods. Sidney takes Evgeni’s from its place on his arm and holds it in his own, as correctly as his dancing master would have insisted upon, and leads Evgeni forth.

***

Sidney had not, perhaps, fully considered the ramifications of dancing with Evgeni. The minuet is slow, and stately, and there is nobody to watch for or pay attention to besides one’s partner.

The ballroom is lit up by more chandeliers and candles, and heady with the scent of hothouse flowers. Evgeni’s hands are enormous and strong in Sid’s, and his eyes never seem to leave Sidney’s face. Every time they meet after a pattern of separate steps, Evgeni seems to pull Sidney a little closer. Almost too close, for propriety’s sake. Sidney chalks it up, perhaps, to a lapse in Mr. Heinze’s deportment lessons.

The turns are a little amusing. Sidney can step easily enough under Evgeni’s arm, but they have to get a little creative when it comes to Evgeni getting under Sid’s. They laugh at themselves a little, and it strikes Sidney that he has never had such a pleasant time on a dance floor before. Dancing had always made him feel stilted and awkward, too busy trying to remember the steps to really enjoy himself.

Now, he has Evgeni, who he can laugh with if either of them make a mistake, smiling at Sid like there’s nowhere else he wants to be in the world. Sidney cannot help it-- every warm brush of his fingers to Sid’s own makes him want.

When the music ends and the ballroom breaks into applause, Sidney blinks as if awakening from a spell.

“That was--” he isn’t sure how he is going to finish that, because they are accosted by Letang and Catherine for a quadrille, and the dancing resumes once more.

***

They take a respite from dancing to refresh themselves with glasses of orgeat and negus. Sidney has the taste of rosewater and almonds on his tongue, and Evgeni near him, leaning close to joke about this dandy’s particularly elaborate cravat or that haughty woman’s peculiar hair arrangement. He cannot remember ever enjoying a ball so much.

They are interrupted by Nate, arriving to clap Sidney on the back and cheerfully complain about his inability to convince any young ladies to dance with him.

“It’s because you tread on their feet and are an unromantic lout,” Sidney says dryly. Nate throws his head back and laughs.

“Hilarious, coming from you. Although, I suppose, you do have the higher ground now that you have managed to convince someone to marry you!” Nate toasts Evgeni with his glass of negus and Evgeni frowns a little.

“Come on, Sid,” Nate continues, wheedling. “Don’t let me be utterly humiliated. Stand up for the next dance with me, just the one? I’m sure Evgeni wouldn’t mind, would you?”

Evgeni looks taken aback, perhaps by Nate’s jovial noisiness, but nods, and carefully takes Sidney’s glass when it is handed to him.

“I’ll be back soon,” Sidney promises, and leaves to line up with Nate and a bevy of others for a country dance.

The liveliness of the particular dance means that it is long minutes before he has a moment to stand still as he waits to take his turn in a series of steps, and look back to where he left Evgeni waiting.

He’s startled by the dark look he sees leveled at him, immediately smoothed out to blank nothingness as soon as Evgeni sees that Sidney is looking back. It shakes Sidney, and he can barely concentrate on the rest of the dance. He treads rather badly on poor Nate’s feet, and he knows he is in for an exceptional amount of ribbing from that quarter later.

“Well,” Nate says breathlessly, as the dance finally draws to a close. “I daresay marriage has only worsened your dancing. I would not have though it possible for you to get worse!”

Ordinarily, Sidney would have liked nothing better than to exchange friendly repartee with Nate- the friendship they have has always included a great deal of good-natured teasing. But he is distracted now. During the very last series of steps, he’d spent much of the time craning his neck to see if Evgeni was still staring at the dancers like a thundercloud, but he seems now to have vanished. He take his leave from Nate, and makes his way through the throng to find out where his husband has gone.

A man of Evgeni’s height is not easily missed, so Sidney need only make a few inquiries to find out he has gone outside,to the wide stone veranda running along the back of the house. Tall windows spill light from inside, and it is easy to make out Evgeni, leaning on the balustrade and staring moodily out onto the Barrie-Landeskogs’ extensive lily pond.

Sid comes up beside him, feeling once again wrong-footed and unsure of what to say. The night air holds the promise of spring. It smells of damp earth and green growing things, and there is a chorus of frogsong loud enough to be heard over the strains of music from inside.

“Hello,” Sidney says softly, and Evgeni turns, and gives him a smile that doesn’t quite reach his eyes.

“Where you displeased, that I danced with Nate?” Sidney asks, a little conflicted as to how it makes him feel. Deep down, he fears he might actually...enjoy the idea of Evgeni being desirous of his time and person, at least when it comes to dancing. “Perhaps it was bad of me to leave you alone?” To face the gossips without Sidney at his side. The more he thinks about this the worse he feels. But Evgeni is shaking his head, and his expression has gone rueful and soft.

“No, Sid,” he says. “Is good, to dance with friends. I’m should not--” He doesn’t finish.

“I like it when you’re honest with me,” Sidney says. “Did you mind very much?”

Evgeni doesn’t answer, and he doesn’t look at Sid. Instead he asks: “You like him, Nate?”

“Our parents were good friends,” Sidney says, wondering what Evgeni is getting at. “I’ve known him since he was a snot-nosed infant. How he used to squall! He’s a good lad, if hopeless with the ladies. I fear it may be years before he finds a girl with the fortitude to become mistress of MacKinnon Hall.”

Evgeni looks intently at Sid, as though trying to gauge his emotions. So Sid continues. “And I hope you don’t take his teasing seriously; heaven knows I don’t. He’s just lively, is all. He means no harm.”

“He’s only like ladies?”

Sid shrugs. “As far as I know.”

“And you all right?”

Really, Sidney isn’t sure why Evgeni is looking at him with so much concern.

“Why should I care who Nate likes?” Sidney says, frowning. “He’s like a little brother to me, I’d just as rather not think about his romantic inclinations, at all.”

Evgeni’s shoulders slump and he shakes his head, laughing soundlessly, seemingly at himself.

“What is it?” Sidney says, concerned. “Did you think...did you think I had a tendre for Nate?”

Evgeni buries his face in his hands with a groan. “Don’t tease, Sid. I’m just be little bit foolish.”

“No, I wouldn’t,” Sidney protests. “I don’t. Have a tendre for anyone, I mean.” A horrible thought strikes him. “Wait, do you?”

Evgeni shakes his head and sighs. “Only person here I’m want be married to, is you.”

“Oh good,” Sidney says, feeling relieved his anxiety was for naught. “Me too.”

Good god, he sounds a right fool. He wonders bitterly if, had the circumstances been different and he’d met Evgeni at a ball like this, he’d been able to get someone as naturally charming to look at him twice.

“Mean that, Sid?” Evgeni is saying, voice hushed. He is suddenly standing very, very close. Sid can smell his sandalwood shaving soap.

Sid has to clear his throat before he can speak. “I’m not in the habit of saying things I don’t mean.”

Evgeni’s lips are softly parted, as if he wants to say something, or even, perhaps, lean forward and press them to Sidney’s.

Sidney’s heart pounds, and he finds himself swaying ever so slightly forward into Evgeni’s space. Please, he wants to beg. Kiss me. Kiss me because you want to.

“Sid,” Evgeni says huskily. He raises a hand and softly touches Sidney under the chin, tilting Sidney’s face up towards his own. Sidney cannot breathe. There is only Evgeni’s heavy lidded gaze, and the warmth of his touch. He slides his other hand down Sid’s side to rest at his waist, and--

There is a crash as one of the sets of French doors from the ballroom violently swings open, expelling a couple obviously in their cups, giggling and loudly shushing each other. Evgeni drops his hands and steps back. Sid wants to curse at the loss.

“Go back inside?” Evgeni inquires, tilting his head towards the lit-up windows. “Dance more?”

Sidney wants to protest, but one of the young ladies who’ve disturbed them sighs out “Oh, Annabelle” in tones that suggest vacating the premises with alacrity to grant the young lovers some privacy might be in order.

“Always a flurry of engagements after a ball,” Sidney mutters as they walk in, still a little miffed.

“Romantic,” Evgeni says indulgently. “Very sweet.”

“Yes, quite,” Sidney says, feeling considerably less charitable.

Inside, the musicians are playing something totally unfamiliar, and there is rather a lot more standing around and tittering going on than usual. Sidney has to crane his neck and practically stand on his toes to see past the crush of people standing around the dance floor. When he sees what the precious few couples dancing are doing, his eyes widen. It is one thing to have a genteel rendez-vous with a spouse or a betrothed on a darkened balcony away from prying eyes, but this?

“Good lord,” a woman says to his right, fluttering her fan vigorously. “How..Continental.”

“Very...daring,” says her companion.

“That’s one way to describe it,” huffs a portly older gentleman.

Sidney glances up to see what Evgeni is making of all of this but he looks completely unperturbed.

“I’m know this one,” he says, pleased. “Waltz. They dance like this in Vienna. I’m have friend on ship who teach me.” He looks down at Sid and holds out his hand. “Dance?”

Had he asked earlier in the evening, Sidney would have most likely said no. The idea of taking such liberties, in full view of society? But he is still flushed and disappointed from the ruined moment outside, and he feels reckless. He wants Evgeni’s arms around him and if a scandalous dance in front of all their acquaintance is the only way to get it, then, well.

“Why not,” Sidney says, with a sangfroid he does not feel. “You will have to teach me, however, I do not know the steps.”

Evgeni lights up. “I’m best teacher, come.”

And then he leads Sidney into the open space on the floor, and tugs him close in front of all the staring eyes around them. He slides one arm close about Sid’s waist, and takes Sid’s hand and lays it on his shoulder. Their free hands he clasps together, not extended a careful distance like in a minuet, but pulled close.

“Watch feet,” he murmurs in Sidney’s ear. “It’s count of three.” Sidney shudders, heat blooming through his whole body. He is certain his face must be scarlet.

Evgeni counts softly under his breath for a moment, to show Sidney how, then begins to move.

Sidney is consumed for a short while with attempting to replicate the movements of Evgeni’s feet, and then Evgeni says “turn now,” and swoops them around to the music so quickly it makes Sidney’s head spin.

It is like no dancing Sidney has ever done. There is nothing stately or decorous about this. There is instead the warmth of Evgeni’s arms around him, pulling him so close that their bodies press together at times. There are twirls and turns that send them flying around the dance floor and turn the ballroom around them into a blur of light and color.

When the music stops, Sidney’s chest is heaving, both from exertion and from having Evgeni so close. He cannot look at Evgeni’s face, he cannot, for surely everything he wants will be clear in his expression, and he does not wish to share with the entire ballroom how desperately he wants to ravish his husband.

“Good?” Evgeni asks, and Sidney can only nod.

“You’re a magnificent dancer,” he says

Evgeni shrugs. “When I’m know dance better, I’m not so bad. You want more drink?”

“Please.” He could drink a gallon or orgeat, he really could.

On their way, they encounter the Letangs. Kris gapes at Sidney.

“Lord Sidney Patrick Crosby,” he exclaims with a smirk. “Did I just see you waltzing? In front of God and this entire assembly?”

Evgeni looks puzzled. “What’s wrong with waltz? It’s nice dance.”

“Ooh, I see now,” Letang drawls. Then smirks. “Godspeed, my lords.”

“Whatever do you mean,” Sidney says flatly, and practically drags his husband the rest of the way to the refreshment table.

***

Sidney stays well past the usual hour when he usually make his excuses and leaves. He’s never seen a ball to its end before, but he is actually enjoying himself immeasurably with Evgeni at his side.

He drinks rather a lot of negus, and the cook must have made it uncommonly strong. The drink and his exhaustion cause him to list sleepily into Evgeni’s side after they step wearily into their carriage for the ride home. Sidney had gone to sit in his previous position opposite his husband, but Evgeni had pouted and tugged him down next to himself, instead. Highly satisfactory arrangement.

The first blush of dawn is pinking the eastern sky and the morning chorus of birdsong serenades them as Sidney gives in to his tipsy weariness and lets his head rest on Evgeni’s shoulder. Evgeni hums and tilts his own head onto Sid’s.

All is peaceful quiet, save the birds, the jingling of the harnesses, and the creak of the wheels for quite some time.

Eventually, though, Evgeni sighs softly and tilts his face so that his nose brushes Sidney’s hair.

“Why you stop call me ‘Zhenya’?” he says, so quietly Sidney wonders if he was meant to hear it at all.

“It seemed...an impertinence,” he says sleepily into Evgeni’s lapel.

“Don’t know what’s mean, ‘impertinence,” Evgeni grumbles.

His accent is so much thicker when he’s this tired. It’s delicious.

“Do you want me to?” Sidney says, laboriously blinking his eyes open, because this seems important. He squints muzzily up at Evgeni.

“I’m want. It’s close name. Was want… we be like family.”

The soft hurt in his voice makes Sidney sit up to look at his face better. Evgeni’s expression makes Sidney feel like he’s swallowed a stone.

“Darling-- I’m so sorry,” he exclaims, drink and exhaustion wringing full honesty from his lips. “I never meant for you to-- I want that too, Zhenya, I want that too.”

Zhenya stares at him, eye wide and lit up rich wood-brown in the morning light. Sidney reaches up and cups Zhenya’s face in his hand. He tugs lightly, just enough for Evgeni to know what he wants.

Zhenya obliges, leaning down and brushing a kiss to Sidney’s cheek. Sidney makes a dissatisfied noise.

“No?” Oh, Zhenya’s voice just then. A deep caressing purr that Sidney feels in his very bones. “What you want, Sid?”

“More,” Sidney breathes. “You.”

Zhenya groans and leans down, his lips finally against Sidney’s own, warm and desperate. He groans into the kiss as Sidney yields to him, lips parting to let him take.

When Zhenya moves from Sidney’s mouth to his neck, Sidney makes a sound that’s almost a gasping sob. Zhenya stills. He presses a series of chaste, gentling kisses to Sidney’s throat, his jaw, the corner of his mouth.

“You drink a lot,” he says. His voice is hoarse, his tone regretful.

“Not-- so very much,” Sidney protests, when he can find his speech again. But Zhenya presses one last kiss to his forehead, and tugs Sidney back down onto his shoulder.

“Rest,” Zhenya insists.

Disappointment floods him, thick and stinging. “If you wish,” Sidney says.

Zhenya, however, makes no answer.

Part 9

#meurgerys #sidgeno #sidney crosby/evgeni malkin #hockey rpf #sid/geno #dana writes a thing

210 notes · View notes

antiquery · 4 years

Note

the GM ask thing: 1, 6, 8

nat 1. most memorable crit fail by an NPC?

so a couple of sessions ago the airship the party was travelling on had been sabotaged by long-running antagonist aria nemo, the separatist mage– though this time she wasn’t after the party, but rather there in assistance of barrett antoine the privateer, who’d been commissioned to hunt down the fleeing deposed prince of the xeanid empire travelling on that very airship. aria had destroyed the ship’s elemental engine and aux power, and after a brief battle she teleported away with barrett and the prince. barrett’s ship fled too, leaving the party and the bevy of NPCs they were travelling with (this was the biggest battle i’d done to date) stuck on the deck of an airship that was rapidly losing altitude, plummeting into the icy mountain range below. the ship’s engineers, spurgeon bennett and yu cheng, had come up with a harebrained plan to open a portal to the plane of magic and use the energy to power the ship, but it required a series of difficult arcana checks (aided by the players). all the checks to properly construct the portal went fine, the two mage players knelt around the circle, spurgeon took the helm of the ship, and everyone made their checks to see if they could properly open the portal—

and yu rolled a nat one.

but my players rolled well! what ended up happening was that yu injured himself badly opening up the portal, and the responsibility for keeping the airship aloft fell fully onto the players. i had them make a straight up-and-down spellcasting check, and then based on that roll damage on their highest-level spell a couple times to see how much magical juice they could pump into this thing to keep it open— and because one of the players was a sorcerer focused (as sorcerers are wont to do) entirely on Making Big Explosions, it was a lot of juice. yu’s natural one meant that the airship came perilously close to crashing, and the sorcerer, a sixteen-year-old half-elf who’d spent her whole life in the shadow of her famous mage parents, threw everything she had into physically forcing it back into the sky, aided by the warlock who’d at that point become something of a surrogate parent. it was an amazing “captain america holding down a helicopter” superhero moment, and it would not have happened if not for that nat one.

6. proudest improvised moment that the players had no idea was improvised?

so for halloween we did a special spooky mystery session, right? it was set in the aftermath of the harvest ball, where someone (they didn’t know who yet) had summoned a chimera to wreak havoc and also knocked out the pcs’ mentor, a very powerful sorcerer. the players managed to defeat the beast and save the injured NPCs, barely, but the next session they realized that something funky was going on, because 1. the only pc up after defeating the chimera had seen something strange and 2. their mentor was now drained of all his magic through some kind of necromantic curse.

they stayed the night in the mansion of the host, an autumn eladrin noblewoman by the name of margueritte julien, and the next morning decided to check out the house to see if they could figure out what was going on. cue haunted house antics! eventually, the PCs figured out that

there was once a very powerful mage from this family by the name of jean-henri julien, who ascended to lichdom, was defeated by a knight of the raven queen, and then had his existence wiped from history so thoroughly that the only remnant of his memory was a letter by his grandson in the family archives;

there was necromantic activity happening in the crypt beneath the house— the crypt lady julien adamantly denied the existence of;

the person lilith had seen after the chimera was defeated was a necromancer.

from these facts they drew the conclusion i wanted them to draw: namely, the fellow lilith had seen was attempting to raise jean-henri julien (whose lich name was dominicus) from the dead, for uncertain-but-definitely-nefarious purposes. however, they then realized that they hadn’t seen their mentor, james (yes it’s the same james i play in another game), all day— and jumped quite quickly to the notion that montague, the necromancer, had kidnapped him.

now, this was totally not a part of my original plan! i knew i needed to get james out of the picture, because as delightful as the pcs’ interactions with him were, one cannot simply have an 18th-level spellcaster hanging around for your level 4 party to call on whenever, as they say, shit gets real. i’d intended just to have the draining of his abilities by a curse to be semi-permanent (maybe a later arc would deal with trying to cure him), but when the players assumed (on account of me failing to mention his whereabouts for most of the session) that monty had nabbed him, i very quickly incorporated that into the ending of the mystery. dominicus needed the body of someone accustomed enough to magic to not burn up when possessed by an arch-lich, but unable to resist him— of course james was the natural choice!

so the session ended with the party arriving to monty’s necromantic lab, right in the middle of his ritual to summon dominicus from the astral plane. cue a frantic struggle to kill monty before the ritual could be completed and their mentor possessed— a struggle which failed when malia, our sorcerer, missed with a last-ditch desperate chromatic orb that almost certainly would have killed him, giving monty just enough time to funnel the rest of his life-force into the completion of the ritual and fall dead at the party’s feet. james was possessed, they’d failed to stop the ritual, and to top it off lilith was dead (but that’s another story).

james-dominicus has become a biiiiig plot point for the rest of the campaign— malia keeps having dreams of playing illimat with him, where james is tapping out a message in the code he taught her when he trained with her, but she’s unsure whether it’s really him or dominicus trying to trick her. recently the party had an audience with james’s progenitor, king john the ancient gold dragon, where they begged him to intervene and he declined, citing his obligation to stay uninvolved as a ruler, and djedi spent a good twenty minutes arguing ethics with him. all the party members had really fascinating relationships with james— he’d been around since session 1— and their emotional reactions to his loss and the prospect of saving him have been super dynamic and amazingly fertile ground to drive the story forward.

8. coolest NPC you’ve designed that your players haven’t met yet?

oh, it’s gotta be jack bailey! they’ve met his younger brother edward, the halfling divination wizard and very nervous grad student, because he played a pretty central role in the last arc— it was his mentor whose mysterious death they were investigating. but where edward is notably nonconfrontational and bookish, jack’s the exact opposite. he’s a swashbuckling charmer who works as a travelling entertainer with a troupe of trained swordsmen— his act is acrobatic rapier and cutlass duelling. the brothers are a bit awkward around each other, as tends to happen with siblings who are close in age but not at all similar, but they love each other a lot. i’m looking forward to their reunion, and how they deal with the fact that edward came very close to sacrificing his life to protect the city of aelia capitolina from the diviner’s bomb that he’d unknowingly helped build.

#long post //#JEEZ these got lengthy #sound the bells #tabletop blogging #dm talk #acelaurens #q&a

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friendshipcampaign · 4 years

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Session Recap 10/12/19: Prima Materia

In the morning, the party found they had several messages waiting for them from the Gatekeepers.

Erwyn’s, from Palava, read:

dear erwyn,

we interacted with the raliv mercantile co when we were in veritas. one of a number of individuals promising aid to the city in exchange for increased political clout. spokesperson for the company was huxley emberbraid montfort, a noble from mardros. cant say i liked him much, but i find it hard to like anyone who sees a tragedy as a way to make themselves richer and more powerful. ive heard vilars name but dont know much about her. we were certainly not aware of any infernal ties or we would have warned you and done our best to warn the city as well exclamation point. what information do you have about this cult and its potential ties to veritas question mark. weve all been stretched so thin that we havent been able to do much in the way of preventative investigation im sorry to say. its hard enough to keep up with the active breaches. find out what you can, but do be careful. demons and devils are always out for each others blood, and they wont be picky about who gets caught in the crossfire.

also, violetta should have mentioned it in her message to voski, but one of our friends has been detecting some increased planar distortions around veritas. it looks like someones trying very hard to start another breach. if we figure out where they are, we should still be able to nip it in the bud, but we think theyve mounted some magical defenses to make it more difficult to pinpoint. keep us informed and watch out for yourself,

alembic and palava

Ditto had a message waiting for her as well, from Hubris, that elaborated on her research question from before.

ditto, quick research update.

ive found very little but im going to keep digging exclamation point. everything pre fourth era is pretty spotty of course unless you want to go bothering ozogot the black. plenty of references to the devotion of the citizens of veritas but nearly nothing about what they were devoted to.

one interesting thing is the account of the gnomish historian gibberty booklore chatterjack penner squirrelchase yapp gallbug townkeeper talltale tallyho prickingbone, whose books were blessed to remain indelible in the face of magic that distorts memories and history. she mentions going to a high temple on her visit to the city and remarks on the devotion of the humans who live there when she visited during the reign of king ulfgar the stern beneath the mountains. when she returned some years later after the third skeleton war, which saw the temporary takeover of the city by the lichlord saerevon, she instead discusses how strange it is that no deity seems able to maintain a strong presence in veritas, and that none has done so as long as anyone remembers. it could be an issue of incorrect or fragmentory histories surviving, but i would focus investigations on the transitional period between the fourth and fifth eras.

other accounts from the same period suggest that by then worship had transferred to the divine messenger whose image persists to this day, and that the deity themselves was kept secret if not already forgotten. if she was worshiped as a mystery cult theyve done a very good job of covering their records. if her name had already been lost, gibbertys texts suggest that theres something fishy going on. seems that veritas has always been a city of mysteries exclamation point. will keep searching semicolon its time to get into some of the fringe theorists which should be quite a ride.

cheers, hubris

Finally, Voski also had a message waiting, from Violetta, reading:

kasia, re: karin mordechai

karin mordechai unknown. could be alias or figurehead. provide names and descriptions of associates and i will cross reference them with known entities. note readings indicate increased instability in veritas. spike on night of blomhath twentieth. attempt to identify source and neutralize if possible. can provide backup for strike but not extended investigation.

In preparation for their next plans, Ditto asked Tiktik if they would be alright doing some spying for the group and if she could turn them into a beetle. They told her she would have to bribe them, but they were willing, and she promised them chicken in exchange for their service before transforming them into a small insect.

The party decided that in order to keep the demons watching them from realizing where they had taken Tenny, they would turn Amaranth invisible, then give her the demiplane (with Tenny inside) to take into Grankhul’s Rest to drop the girl off and explain the situation. Once Ditto had cast Invisibility on her, they headed out and started making their way towards the inn -- followed by a large row of demonic pigeons who were keeping pace with them as they went. With the rest of the party keeping them distracted, though, Amaranth was able to break away from the rest of the group and sneak inside the inn.

Inside, she saw Selfish Dann reading a book by the fireplace and decided she’d prefer to have this conversation with the tiefling of the inn’s group. She spoke up once she was nearby, startling him. She explained she was invisible, but that she’d like to talk somewhere private, and he suggested they go to the basement. Once there, Amaranth explained that the party had someone that needed looking after, and they thought the inn’s caretakers would be the best equipped of anyone they could ask to deal with the kind of danger she was in. When Dann asked for details, she explained some of Tenny’s situation, and he agreed they could take care of her.

Amaranth opened the demiplane to see an eclectic arrangement of decor that Tenny had come up with while getting transported. She complimented the girl’s taste and Tenny told her not to let the others make the place boring, if they could make whatever they wanted. Amaranth then led her out to meet Selfish Dann, who promised Amaranth that they would take good care of her.

After leaving Grankhul’s Rest, Amaranth caught up with the rest of the party. Still invisible, she jumped up behind Kriv and tried to startle him, causing the dragonborn to reflexively elbow her and Erwyn, despite the distance, to startle and slightly jump. Once she had reappeared, the group started to make their way to a place near the exclusion zone, so that Ditto could send Tiktik to fly overhead and see what they could beyond the walls. On their way up she took the chance to gaze through their eyes and got a view of a goopy, black, stagnant lake with things moving below the surface. A group of workers, watched over by burnished metal constructs, were trying to skim algae from the water’s surface. Eventually, Tiktik reported back that they had reached a point above the exclusion zone that had kept them from going forward -- like a painful magical force that repelled them away from it.

Moving to their next location, the party passed the Blacks’ smithing shop. It had clearly taken damage from the recent attack of bones, but from the sounds inside it seemed to still be operating. They then arrived near enough the workhouse that they could try sending Tiktik inside, though once they had gone in the party kept walking a little so as not to be too near its vicinity. They decided the elephant statue was a good place to casually hang around and parked there for a bit. Kriv pulled out a sketchbook to do a little drawing of it while they waited.

Eventually Tiktik returned, speaking quickly to Ditto about everything they’d just seen. Apparently once they passed the room with the nervous-looking clerk some of the party members had met before, they’d found themselves in a nice office, where a halfling woman was talking to a fire genasi man, the latter fiddling around with some kind of weird fork. After that they had picked up on a weird draft coming from a bookcase that, when they investigated further, had a door behind it, leading to a room with some kind of magic circle on the floor. They then backtracked through the last couple of rooms to make their way to the cell block, which had a door at the end that was being guarded by a large construct that lead to a row of higher-security cells, with thicker walls and more constructs milling about.

With one more destination for Tiktik to snoop around in mind, the party next headed towards the mayor’s house. Tiktik went through the gates while the rest of them kept their distance and waited for them to return. After quite a lot of waiting, though, it became clear that something must have happened, as the familiar never returned. When Ditto tried to summon them back to her, nothing happened. So the group took a detour at Knife’s shop, which wasn’t too far away, where Ditto asked her friend if she could cast the spell to bring them back. Knife let her use his upstairs room to do the summoning.

Ditto brought Tiktik back in cat form and they bounded into her as soon as they’d been summoned. They explained that there had been a wyvern inside the stables behind the Mayor’s house, and it had chomped them before they could get away. The two of them headed downstairs to return to the others and Ditto thanked Knife for the use of his quarters. He assured her they were open to her anytime.

The party’s next order of business was to find a new place to stay for the night. Hoping to follow up on Nilo’s other recommendation, they went to The Pig’s Eye in order to ask Frileg where the Thirsty Sage was, as it didn’t seem to be along Keeper’s Row with all the other inns. She said she knew where it usually was, but warned them to be careful, as it seemed to pop in and out of existence unpredictably. Apparently the place was an old wizard’s tower, now run as an inn by an eccentric goblin, and sometimes people would go in for a night and turn up weeks later terribly confused. She attributed Nilo’s success with the place to his halfling luck.

They followed Frileg’s directions and found that the Thirsty Sage was in fact there for the moment. The building itself had a chimney with multicolored smoke billowing out of it and a heavy metal door which, when they knocked on it, was flung open enthusiastically by a manic-looking one-eyed goblin in a blue robe covered in golden stars and matching hat. The goblin ushered them in and did their best to give a tour, pointing out some of the strange magic paraphernalia decorating the place, but it was deeply clear they had very little idea what they were talking about. The group talked with them for a bit about accommodations, but were still hesitant about the idea. Erwyn and Amaranth in particular voiced concerns about what would happen if they weren’t so lucky in the time department, and in the end, they decided it was too risky and bid the goblin proprietor farewell. In parting, they told the group their name was the Acrimonious Bimbimble.

No extra time had passed when the party emerged, fortunately. They returned to the Pig’s Eye and Ditto asked Frileg if she had any other ideas about places in the city that might be safe to stay. As Ditto rambled, the dwarven woman gave her a glass of ale -- which she largely ignored and Amaranth finished -- but unfortunately her only ideas we either the Slumbering Grell or some boardinghouses she knew were receptive to people on the run from certain things.

The group quietly decided they would just need to find an alleyway or other place to lay low for the night. Amaranth started noting the beggar’s marks she saw on some of the abandoned storefronts in the city, looking for one pointing to a likely spot. There were more empty buildings than usual in the wake of the disaster, with some of the citizens of Veritas having decided to cut their losses and flee, so she soon found a good candidate in a building accessed by an alleyway, with a secure basement behind a shuttered door. On seeing it wasn’t clearly occupied, the party decided it would be where they retreated that evening -- and indeed, decided they would lie low there for a little before meeting with Tress that evening. Tiktik wove their way around the party members as they did, as if to seek attention for having done dangerous things for them all earlier.

As the hour of Candling arrived, the party made their way to Inner Truths for their appointment with Tress. She was waiting for them, petting Palette’s filigreed exterior. She greeted them, saying that the project had been much more interesting than she’d been expecting, and that she thought they might want to discuss things privately. Somewhat suspiciously, Kriv tried a quick Divine Sense, but felt nothing unusual. Her enthusiasm was more familiar, however, to Voski.

Tress lead them to her back room and shut the door. Inside, a table had been laid out with supplies and tools for an experiment: the leaf Erwyn had given her, several different vials, a basin with assorted arcane sigils carved in the top, a houseplant, and another glass vial containing a few flies. She explained that she’d been able to identify a partial transfiguration effect turning parts of the leaf to graphite. She snapped it in half to demonstrate these properties, revealing that it was only the outer shell that had calcified, while the inner layer still consisted of dying plant matter.

She went on to say that that the tincture they’d given her was primarily water with a little alcohol in it, and had the remains of a very low-level light spell on it -- a common practice by snake-oil salesmen to make their product appear magical when it really wasn’t. She then held out a glass vial with the remains of some particulate in it, which was left over once she’d distilled the tincture down, and added that she had absolutely no idea what it was.

Tress said that she’d been testing the properties of the material, using an alchemist’s vessel to multiply the quantity to perform experiments. She said she was going to perform a demonstration of this process, but that the magic would only be in effect for a short time, and asked them to save their “questions, comments, and shocked gasps” until the end.

She scooped some of the particulate onto a small bone tool, added it to the vessel with the sigils, then poured in some water and swirled it around. Taking a leaf from the healthy plant, she dipped it into this compound, where it immediately turned to graphite. She dropped this leaf on the floor and it shattered instantly. Next, she took a dead fly from the bottom of the insect vial and dipped it into the basin as well. There was no effect. She extracted another fly, this one live. When the live fly was dipped into the compound, it instantly turned to graphite the way the leaf had. She then took a leaf from a different vial, where it had been soaking in the remnants of the tincture, and dipped it. This one hardened and turned to graphite as well, but when she dropped it, it didn’t shatter the way the first leaf had.

Finally, Tress took a small knife. “I did already bleed for this, if there is another volunteer,” she said meaningfully.

Erwyn offered his hand and she pricked it. When his blood mixed with the tincture, it turned to the same graphite substance as the leaf and the living fly had. She looked a bit surprised at this, then turned to Voski.

“Kasia,” she asked. “Are they going to be weird about it?”

Voski reassured Tress her companions could exercise discretion. Tress proceeded to prick her own finger with the knife. A drop of her blood welled up, dark blue-black, and when it hit the mixture in the basin, it didn’t turn to graphite like Erwyn’s had. Instead, it turned to gold.

The tincture mixture seemed to evaporate from the vessel as the magic effect amplifying it ran out. Tress commented that the demonstration hadn’t been exactly what she was expecting, but she should have assumed there might be more variables.

With questions now open, the party asked her opinion on what might have been in the vials, mentioning the people peddling the tinctures claimed they had ingredients sourced from the elemental planes. She said it was hard to verify that for certain, though the water certainly wasn’t plane-touched, and added that whatever was causing the transformation was highly diluted in the tinctures themselves. She also pointed out that, as had been clear from her demonstration with the leaves, immediate, quick exposure caused the transformation to be more brittle, whereas the prolonged dosage seemed to result in a more stable, gradual process.

The group began to discuss possible motivations behind the revelation. It was obvious that the tinctures wouldn’t persist as a fad if they had such visible negative effects, so diluting the effect ensured a wider exposure for whatever purpose the sellers had in mind. Erwyn pointed out that with everything else going on in Veritas, there were certainly other things people might blame ill effects on, like the background energy from the Abyss all over the city. Ditto also brought up that it was already well-known people were mysteriously going missing, so it was possible some of the worst effects were being hidden. Tress added that at the dosage people seemed to be taking of the tinctures, it would likely take several weeks or even a month or two for them to notice any reaction. She noted, though, that she hadn’t been able to perform any longitudinal studies, and it was always possible that at a certain point the effects could speed up.

Ditto, unable to contain herself, finally burst out asking Tress what her deal was, since her blood had reacted so differently. Tress sighed and replied that she was an air genasi -- underscored by the fact that, where she had cut her finger, there was now smeared makeup revealing blue-tinted skin -- and asked the party not to make a big deal about it. She said that while her blood’s reaction to the tincture was interesting, she couldn’t imagine there were enough other genasi in the city to make it worth their while. Erwyn wondered if it might be a quality of plane-touched individuals in general, and Kriv asked if she would be willing to do the experiment again, looking at Amaranth as he spoke. Tress said she would need another tincture, but was willing, and would be working late that evening if they were able to get one by then.

The party departed for the Pig’s Eye after that. When they got there, Nilo had not yet arrived. Sparrow was there, however, and came over to Amaranth, offering to buy her a drink. Ditto gave Amaranth a surreptitious thumbs-up while Kriv, teasingly, stuck his tongue out instead.

The drow demon who had been frequenting the place arrived soon after, looking somewhat less nervous than she usually did. She took a seat in the corner and beckoned Voski over. At this, Voski ordered the drink with Underdark fruit syrup the demon had recommended to her the night before, then took it and sat down with her to talk.

The yochlol told Voski that she had talked with her Lady and was more comfortable speaking openly now that Voski wasn’t such a stranger. She also said that the Lady had something to ask of Voski, as repayment for granting her blessing -- commenting that it seemed she was having some trouble protecting her “investment” as she glanced over at Erwyn.

She said she and some of her companions had been transporting an item to a city in the Underdark, but had been caught in Veritas when the current situation erupted. She and her companions (several drow, who she feared had perished) were taking a detour through the markets when the portal opened, and the artifact had been lost or stolen in the chaos. She had since been unable to reclaim it or find anyone to assist her in doing so, as it was lost in the exclusion zone and everyone she’d attempted to hire had proven unreliable.

Voski asked if, since they had been caught so off guard, this meant the Lady hadn’t had a hand in the events in Veritas. The yochlol explained that this breach didn’t seem to have been planned by any known power in the Abyss, and whatever had broken through had kept to itself enough that the other demons weren’t certain which layer had even caused it. She also admitted, when pressed, that she too was trapped inside the city by the barrier that was keeping the other demons in. Lolth had other ways of extracting her, but she couldn’t return empty-handed.

Finally Voski asked about the artifact. The yochlol said she was looking for a magical harp, finely constructed and very important to Lolth, as it was used in several rituals down in the Underdark. While it was missing, she could tell it wasn’t destroyed, thanks to her connection to Lolth.

After explaining that she was hoping Voski could retrieve it, she offered her a silver brooch in the shape of a spider, set with purple and blood-red stones, which she said would signify to other demons that Lolth had a vested interest in her and, perhaps, encourage them to leave her alone. She commented that Lolth found her amusing, and would prefer if she didn’t die. Voski accepted the brooch and tucked it away into her armor, though she added that she didn’t subcontract and would not enlist any of the others to search on Lolth’s behalf. But, since they were headed into the exclusion zone soon enough, she would try to take a look around while she was there.

As she rose to leave, Voski realized they’d never properly introduced themselves to each other and asked the yochlol if there was any name she wanted Voski to call her by. The demon shrugged and said she didn’t see the point. Voski nodded, then invited her to tell her Lady that Voski intended to survive, with or without her help. Then she added that the drink the yochlol had recommended was surprisingly good.

“Right?” the demon said.

Voski returned to the others, who were enjoying the music of the one-armed bard, Meg, who had played there the night before. Erwyn was sipping from another glass of milk, conjured earmuffs from Ditto present yet again, and Amaranth continued chatting with Sparrow until Nilo and Clarity finally showed up. When the pair finally entered the tavern, Nilo was clad in his “work clothes” -- a combination of dark roguish attire and dozens upon dozens of different good luck charms, ranging from onions to holy symbols rubbed with lamp-black so they were less obvious -- and somehow still moving silently. He was clearly ready for crimes.

#session recap

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yurionice-secretsanta · 4 years

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To @hotaruyuki From @mrscalculation

It’s late October, Yuri has been in Detroit since mid-August, and Viktor is in the United States for the first time since the injury that ended his competitive career.

It’s fine, he’s fine, and Yuri is definitely fine. Viktor is coming to visit after the end of Yuri’s midterms since Yuri won’t be able to come home until late December, and he’s sure Yuri is fine. He’s an incredible artist and perhaps the single most stubborn, obsessive, competitive asshole Victor has ever met. There’s no way that he didn’t absolutely annihilate his midterms, especially with this being his first semester. They were probably on boringly easy stuff on the theory behind everything he does, anyway. Or maybe drawing something so easy it’s like stick figures to Yuri. Viktor doesn’t know. He never went to art school.

He never went to university, actually.

While Viktor had every intention of giving Yuri his space on this visit, Yuri makes it far too easy for Viktor to throw that idea out.

“Hey, old man,” he says, “I’m going to a friend’s tonight to celebrate the end of midterms. You don’t have to come. You should sleep.”

What Viktor hears is instead, Oh, loving adoptive older brother of mine, wouldn’t you love to meet my friends? Drink with them? Tell them embarrassing stories from my childhood, then brag about me until I can’t decide which I’d rather die from? Please come with me. Please embarrass me.

What Viktor says is, “Yura! I’d love to go with you! I can always come back early if I’m too tired, but I don’t get to meet your friends every day!”

Yuri groans and threatens to end Viktor’s life if he embarrasses him, to which Viktor gives a chipper, “I would never!”

Viktor must say, he’s a little disappointed at the things Yuri has been getting up to in America.

For one, this celebration turns out to be five guys playing a drinking game in one of their apartments. They’re playing what is apparently a very difficult level of a single-player video game, and any time one of them dies, they take a shot and pass the controller to the next person.

For another, someone thought that this rubbing alcohol passed as vodka.

After a brief squabble during which Yuri launches himself at the guy who’s best at the game—also named Yuuri, funnily enough—and the whole thing being put on Instagram for the world to see, Yuri sends Viktor away to get more alcohol for the group. Viktor knows he should be a better influence than buying alcohol for his underage brother, but they’re Russian, and if they were in Russia, all of this would be acceptable and legal, so he only puts up a fight long enough to get Yuri angry about being treated like a child, but not enough for Yuri to actually fight him.

Viktor has never been happier to be a poor influence.

As it turns out, the other Yuuri is a cute drunk, very clingy and affectionate and loud and wont to praise Viktor to the moon.

He’s also a figure skater, apparently.

“I used to look up to you so much,” he says, hoodie off and leaning across Viktor. Leo has gone back to the dorm he and Yuri share, and Phichit has stepped outside for a call. Yuri is passed out with his head pillowed in Otabek’s lap, and Otabek, who either did not drink at all or is completely unphased by alcohol, sits with his headphones in, scrolling through his phone, absentmindedly running his fingers through Yuri’s hair. “Nikiforov. I used to want to be just like you. You were the best.”

While Viktor appreciates the praise, he’s also never heard Yuuri’s name in his life before because he hasn’t really followed figure skating for years. “Thank you,” he says, and is rewarded with Yuuri wrapping his arms around Viktor’s shoulders.

“Are you okay? Viktor? Are you okay?” Yuuri’s eyes are glossy and his glasses are crooked and falling across the tip his reddening nose. Viktor?” he asks again.

“I’m fine,” Viktor says reflexively, then, “but what about you?”

“No, Viktor, I’m fine. Viktor! I mean. Up here.” Yuuri goes to poke Viktor in the forehead but misses, getting him in the bottom of the eyebrow. He squints his eyes and tries again, and he’s closer to the center this time. “I was so sad when you got hurt, Viktor. I wish you could skate again. I don’t know what would happen if I couldn’t skate again, but I know I wouldn’t be okay up here.” He presses his finger a little harder into Viktor’s forehead.

Viktor feels his eyes water just a little. He wraps an arm around Yuuri’s shoulders and moves him to sitting upright. “I’m doing a lot better,” Viktor says, and he means it. It had taken a lot, but Viktor had eventually learned to live off the ice. “Thank you for asking.”

Yuuri, still swaying just a little bit after being moved, wraps Viktor into a hug. “Good,” he says, and it’s a little watery and very genuine. “I thought so. I watched your videos and you seemed better, but I wanted to make sure.” He giggles a little bit, but maintains his hug. “I mean, I didn’t think I would ever get to make sure because I don’t know you, but now I can.”

“I’m so good now, Yuuri,” Viktor says as he gently, awkwardly returns the hug. Yuuri has his arms trapped, and it’s a little bit of a struggle to get them free, but he manages it and folds Yuuri against his chest for a second. “Thank you,” he says into Yuuri’s hair.

After another moment, they pull apart. “Hey,” Yuuri says, listing to the side without Viktor to hold onto. “Watch me, okay? I have a competition next weekend. Watch me.”

Viktor nods, and Yuuri makes a happy sound.

“I’ll be skating for you,” he says.

Viktor is shocked, then beaming, then completely empty of Yuuri too soon as Phichit returns.

“All right, Yuuri, let’s go,” he says, hoisting Yuuri up and tossing his hoodie back to him. “I already called an Uber, so you have three minutes to get it together before we have to go.”

Viktor gets Yuuri a glass of water while Phichit gathers their things. Yuuri wiggles a little while he drinks it, and is then being shuffled out the door by Phichit.

“Nice to meet you, Viktor!” Phichit says over his shoulder as they go.

If Yuuri says anything, Viktor doesn’t hear it.

Viktor goes to an art gallery with Yuri and Otabek, looking at the art that Yuri’s classmates have on display and for sale. As it turns out, Yuri had skipped the opening of the gallery in favor of the drunken video game kickback at Otabek’s, and Viktor honestly can’t blame him. As great of an artist as Yuri is, he’s never been one for schmoozing, and that seems to be all that’s happening here. Viktor pulls Otabek away when Yuri runs into someone he knows and gets caught up in conversation.

Viktor likes Otabek, really. It’s clear that he balances Yuri out and is a calming influence, and he speaks Russian, which not only makes wrangling Yuri easier, but shit talking as well. Viktor likes Otabek, which is exactly why he pulls Otabek now.

“How old are you, Otabek?” Viktor asks in Russian.

“Excuse me?” Otabek’s face stays completely passive as usual.

“How old? I’m just curious.”

“Twenty-one at the end of the month.”

“And Leo and Yuuri and Phichit?”

“Leo and Phichit are twenty, and Yuuri will be 24 next month. Why?” Otabek finally questions. He’s not putting up a fight, and doesn’t even seem genuinely curious. It seems like he just thinks he has to ask.

“Oh, no reason,” Viktor says lightly, plastering his friendliest smile for the public on his face. “I was just wondering how Yuri got to know all of you when none of you would be in the same classes, since you’re all older.”

“Ah,” Otabek says, then doesn’t tell Viktor. Viktor swears his lack of an answer must be deliberate; Yuri would never befriend someone who wasn’t at least a little bit of an asshole.

“Well?” Viktor prompts. “How did you meet Yuuri?”

“He’s roommates with Leo. Leo and I used to skate together, and Leo is friends with Phichit, so when Leo found out that Yuri used to skate, he invited us all to the rink where Phichit and Yuuri train.”

It’s the most Viktor has heard Otabek say since meeting him, but he appreciates it. “Thank you,” he says because he feels obligated to do so. A slow smile spreads across his face. “You know, to show how much I appreciate you looking out for Yuri, let me tell you something,” he says conspiratorially.

Otabek raises an eyebrow, which is a more enthused response than Viktor has gotten out of him up to this point.

“When Yuri was younger,” Viktor starts, then looks around to see if anyone is trying to eavesdrop just in time to see Yuri’s blind fury before his hand is around Viktor’s throat.

“Whatever you’re going to say,” he says lowly, “I recommend rethinking it if you value your life.”

“Next time, then!” Viktor says chipperly once Yuri lets him go. He rubs at his throat.

Yuri shoots him a death glare, but from behind him, Otabek mouths next time.

When Viktor gets back to Russia, far enough that he knows Yuri won’t be able to judge him, he looks up everything he can on Katsuki Yuuri.

For the first year after his accident, Viktor had purposely avoided all things skating. He still heard about things, of course, but he spent his time in physical therapy practicing walking without a walker or cane, not worried about trying to balance on skates or which blade to land on after a jump. He hadn’t wanted to remind himself of what he would never do again, so he avoided watching competitions or keeping up with scores or anything related to competition at all unless it was for some of his friends. He didn’t bother following anyone new, even once he felt comfortable skating for fun again.

If he had continued to compete, or if he had chosen early retirement instead of having it forced upon him, Viktor is certain he would have followed Yuuri’s journey.

He’s heading into his first competition of the Grand Prix Series, where he’ll make his comeback after a disastrous performance at last year’s final and a broken ankle that kept him off the ice for months. While Viktor’s injury had been career-ending, Yuuri describes his in interviews as embarrassing and motivating.

“I let my life distract me so much from my skating that I was injured, which negatively impacted both,” Viktor reads in one article. “It’s difficult and embarrassing to have fallen this far, but I’ve decided I want to try one more time for all the people who have supported me through this. I hope to show them that everything I do is for them.”

Viktor watches Yuuri’s programs from the year before, both his qualifiers and at the final, and is shocked to see the dramatic difference between Yuri’s mostly clean and beautifully-emotional qualifier free program and his messy, numb performance at the final.

The commentator declares that the next jump is supposed to be a quad-triple combination, but in its place comes a rough fall, gasps from the commentators, and Yuri’s powerful attempt to finish the program despite obvious pain.

Viktor closes out the video, trying to reconcile the image he has in his head of a slightly snarky Yuuri enjoying Yuri’s anger with the fumbling mess that Viktor saw on ice, the affectionate but loud and lewd Yuuri of one or two or five drinks too many with the polite, nervous Yuuri of interviews. At its best, it comes together to form a beautiful, talented skater whose programs leave the audience aching for just another glimpse, just a moment longer; at worst, they leave behind the hollow-eyed remnants of a skater who drinks his way through social interactions.

Viktor doesn’t feel like he knows either of those people.

He finds Yuuri’s YouTube channel, slightly awkward with the knowledge that Yuuri has apparently seen some of his videos, but accepts that he knew what he was doing when he started a channel. Almost none of Yuuri’s content has anything to do with figure skating, but is instead him playing video games with Phichit, which explains why he was so much better than everyone else at their dumb drinking game. His channel goes back a few years, starting just a few months before Yuuri’s senior debut and aligning perfectly with when Yuuri moved to Detroit to skate. It doesn’t seem like he posts on a schedule, but he seems to have at least one for every two weeks, sometimes more. Viktor clicks on an earlier one where he and Phichit take turns playing a dating simulator, and Viktor is entirely charmed at how confidently Yuuri makes ridiculous choices when designing his character, but how easily he gets flustered when Phichit tries to direct them to the dating part of the dating sim.

“Yuuri! You aren’t trying to make friends with them, you’re trying to sleep with them!”

Yuuri’s face goes noticeably red on screen, and his shoulders stiffen. “What’s wrong with being friendly to someone you want to sleep with?”

Several hours later, Viktor pulls himself out of a spiral of content and into the living room. He opens the doors to the storage in his TV stand and smiles.

Well, he might as well.

“Good morning, amazing people! Today I’m doing something a little bit different, inspired by a few of Katsuki Yuuri’s videos with Phichit Chulanont. I’ve never done a video like this before, so I hope it works! If you like it, I may make it a series of me trying to play games I’ve never played before. We’ll see!”

Viktor isn’t lying. He really hopes it works. He didn’t have any of these games just lying around, and he spent far too much money getting them, but at the very least, it should be fun. It’s chaotic and he knows it, but it was cheaper than buying another ticket to Detroit.

Of course, during the create-a-character section at the beginning of the game, he makes it far more like a makeup and fashion tutorial than it needs to be, but the subscribers come to his channel for the content he produces, so he should probably stay on brand.

When he uploads the video, which is mostly him being a disaster and making all the datable characters dislike him (which, how? There’s only three dialogue options at a time, so how does he always choose the wrong one?), he tags it with Yuuri’s channel and Phichit’s name. He also tags them both in his Instagram post promoting his new upload, just in case.

Two days later and the video has done moderately well with just about average metrics for his usual videos, and Yuri has texted him telling him to chill the fuck out and not to tag anyone he knows in videos again.

I thought you didn’t watch anything I post, Viktor sends. He gets several messages of just middle finger emojis in response.

Viktor still hasn’t heard from Yuuri, though, so he doesn’t quite count it as a success.

He foregoes a video game upload for the next week, uploading instead a few Halloween makeup tutorials. He has fun doing them, though Makkachin isn’t overly fond of posing as Viktor’s sidekick for some of the shots. The makeup videos do better than the video game one, but that usually happens around this time of year anyway. His old tutorials are getting more views lately, too, so he can’t really be disheartened by it, but he really wants an excuse to post another video game video.

After a few days, Viktor has still heard nothing from Yuuri, but he tries not to dwell on it. He knows it’s competition season, and he knows exactly how much energy Yuuri doesn’t have to spend on social media.

He also knows exactly when Yuuri’s performances are, because he has alarms set to watch them live. He plans on taking a midday nap today so that he’ll stay awake for the performance that Yuuri has just after midnight.

Viktor considers making a video of him reacting to watching Yuuri’s performances, but he decides that’s too weird.

(He’s glad he doesn’t, because it might be too revealing how enthusiastically Viktor cheers when Yuuri lands a quad loop in free.)

The day after Yuuri’s free program, Viktor posts a picture to his Instagram story wishing Otabek a happy birthday, which immediately ends up on Otabek’s own story with a “thank you” and nothing else.

Yuuri still doesn’t contact Viktor, which, okay, he never said he would, but he did say he would be skating for him, which seems like it should mean something. But apparently not, which is totally fine with Viktor, absolutely.

Viktor should have gotten Yuri’s number.

The week before the Rostelecom Cup, Viktor uploads a video of him playing another simulator. This time, he designs a house for simulated versions of himself and Makkachin and Yuri and Yuri’s cats, then purposely makes Yuri a bad at everything and prone to burning things down by accident. He tags Yuri’s art channel in it.

(“You’re not funny,” Yuri says when he calls Viktor.

“Maybe not to you,” Viktor says, thrilled by how furious Yuri is that he can’t hit Viktor through the phone. “I made you pretty, at least.”

“You gave me purple eyeshadow, Viktor. What’s the point of being a makeup artist if you’re going to give people purple eyeshadow. Fuck you.”)

Yuuri doesn’t respond to this video, either, but a new upload does go up on his channel two days later. In it, Phichit is playing the same simulator, finding creative and horrible ways to kill his characters until Yuuri walks in, horrified.

“Phichit! Stop drowning people!”

Not only does Phichit not stop drowning people, he also tries to flirt with the grim reaper.

Viktor is inspired. His version of the video, where he and Yuri compete to the death but Yuri loses almost every time, is uploaded and tagged with Phichit and Yuuri the morning before Rostelecom.

Which is perfect, because Viktor has a train to Moscow to catch.

Viktor had just wanted to see a competition again, that’s all. Since his accident, he hasn’t seen a live competition, and he thinks it’s about time that he accepts that the figure skating world was going to move on without him one day, anyway.

It’s absolutely just a coincidence that Katsuki Yuuri happens to be competing at the one he chooses to go to.

It makes sense, of course, that if Viktor was going to drop money on tickets to a competition it would be the one in Moscow. His parents still live there, after all, so it’s a great place for him to spend a few days. It also just so happens to be that Yuuri’s final qualifier before the final is the Rostelecom Cup. And that Viktor only bought tickets to the men’s singles events.

Viktor has another old friend from his years in competition here, too, so it just makes sense that he would come to this event.

He drops his bags at his parents’ apartment, then goes to breathe in Moscow. He doesn’t come here nearly enough.

Almost immediately after posting a picture from his favorite cafe in the Moscow twilight, Vikor receives a call from Yuri.

“The fuck are you doing in Moscow?”

“The heck are you doing awake?” Viktor asks, matching his energy and mocking his tone.

“I have a class in an hour, don’t avoid the question. Why are you in Moscow?”

“I can’t just visit home?” Viktor asks cheerily. “You should do it more often, Yura, mom and dad would love to have you around, and I’m sure your grandfather would love to see you, too.”

“You pay for my plane tickets, then. But I know you aren’t visiting home, asshole, so what the fuck are you doing?”

Viktor sighs exaggeratedly. “Well, if you must know, Chris is competing here in the morning, and I thought it might be nice to visit him.”

Yuri is quiet for a moment. “...no,” he finally says.

“No what?”

“Beka was right,” he says, which Viktor really wishes he could have recorded to keep forever.

“What?” it takes Viktor a second to catch up, realizing that by that pig Yuri means Yuuri and not Chris, by which point, Yuri is already blazing on.

“He said he saw you two being all gross and stuff when I fell asleep but I ignored him, Yuuri is just an idiot when he’s drunk—well, he’s always an idiot, but you know, more of an idiot—he tried to challenge me to a dance battle once, so I really thought that even if you were being all gross and stuff, any dancing really would have stopped this from becoming a thing, because his dancing is terrible, but no, you really do have a thing for that dumb pig, don’t you?”

Yuri clearly isn’t asking the question for an answer, but he does make the mistake of pausing for breath, during which Viktor takes the time to say as brightly as possible, “maybe if you didn’t get so drunk that you passed out on your boyfriend, you could have stopped this from happening!”

Viktor waits just long enough to hear Yuri’s spluttered “what—we’re not—” before hanging up on him.

Viktor is at the event early the next morning, hoping to use the time before the competition actually starts to get used to the feel of a rink again. It isn’t as bad he expected. Hearing the familiar announcements and the scrape of blades on ice and the click of blades landing after jumps fills him with more nostalgia than anything else.

From his seat in the stands, he manages to get a somewhat-blurry picture of the men’s warmups that has both Chris and Yuuri in it, though not super clearly. He accompanies it with other pictures of the stadium when he hears a few concerned noises from some of the people milling around him. When he turns, he sees Yuuri righting himself after having clearly fallen on the ice.

Viktor goes still, looking for any of the telltale signs of significant injury, but Yuuri seems fine, though a little out of his head. Viktor watches for another quiet minute until the announcement clearing skaters from the ice sounds.

He wants to watch all of the performers, but he has time before either Yuuri or Chris goes on, so he takes a second to post his pictures to Instagram. I’ve missed this, he captions the shots of the ice and the advertisements and the kiss-and-cry, the last picture in the group being the one he took of the warmups. He tags both Yuuri and Chris in it.

After the short program, Yuuri ends up in fourth, Chris in second, with some younger kid that skates like ice all over the world belongs to him is in first.

When he’s in his old, tiny bed in his parents’ house that evening, considering whether he should move some of the stuff in Yuri’s room around just to piss him off when he comes back for his winter holidays, Viktor absentmindedly checks Instagram for the thirtieth time that day. He had already had an entire conversation with Chris in the comments section of his post determining that they would meet up at the end of the event before Chris’s flight leaves, and Viktor is actually looking forward to seeing him in person for the first time in several years.

In his notifications is an almost-insignificant sentence telling him that Yuuri has liked his post.

Before the free skate the next day, Yuuri doesn’t flub any of his practice jumps, and Viktor spots him chatting comfortably with his coach for a moment just before the first skater takes the ice.

Viktor’s phone buzzes in his hand with a message from Yuri. stop being gross, it says. When he looks up again, Yuuri is gone.

Yuuri performs beautifully when it’s his turn, and he cries at the kiss-and-cry when his scores are announced. He’s pretty much guaranteed a spot in the final.

Chris also snags a spot in the final, but that’s no surprise. He’s made it to every final for the past four years. That doesn’t stop Viktor from giving him a bouquet when he finds him after the event.

“Congratulations, Chris!”

“Thank you,” he says as he absentmindedly touches the silver medal around his neck. “It hasn’t been the same without you. How have you been? I haven’t seen you in so long.”

“I’ve been doing really well,” Viktor says, actually somewhat surprised with the accuracy of it, then beams at Chris. “Is it different because it’s easier for you to medal with me gone?”

Chris smirks back at him. “I would have beaten you eventually,” he says. “Come on, let me go change and drop this off at the hotel before we go out.”

“At least take me to dinner first,” Viktor says, and he’d forgotten how easy being friends with Chris was.

“I’m trying,” Chris says with a wink, and Viktor laughs with his whole body. He can’t believe he may have let these sorts of friendships die.

They make easy banter on the way back to the hotel, talking as if barely any time has passed at all, and Viktor realizes, somewhat sadly, that when you travel as much as he used to for competitions, maybe four years isn’t really that big of a gap when you only see someone three or four times a year anyway.

The doors to the hotel elevator are closing when Viktor sees someone approaching. He sticks his foot in the doorway to stop it from closing while continuing his conversation with Chris, who turns to greet the newcomer.

“Yuuri! Congratulations!”

“You, too. Thanks, Chris,” Yuuri says genuinely, eyes a little puffy from crying, but clearly in a good way. He turns and looks at Viktor as the elevator doors close. “Oh.”

“Congrats, Yuuri! I’ll watch you at the final!” Viktor says. He isn’t sure how else to make it clear that he’s here specifically because of Yuuri.

“Thank you,” Yuuri says, quieter than before.

“Yuuri, we’re going to dinner after I drop some things off in my room,” Chris tells him. “Would you like to join us?”

“Oh, uh,” Yuuri says, looking down, then back and forth between Chris and Viktor. “Um, yeah, that would be nice,” he decides as the doors open on his floor.

“Meet in the lobby in twenty!” Chris says as Yuuri steps off the elevator.

“Yeah,” Yuuri gets out before the doors close.

The elevator is quiet for a moment, then Chris breaks it with, “You know him.” It’s not a question.

“I do,” Viktor agrees easily.

“How?”

“He trains where Yura goes to school,” Viktor says. “They know each other.”

“Hm.” Chris is quiet until the elevator dings their arrival to his floor. “You like him,” Chris says.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Viktor says, extremely grateful to be getting off the elevator. He walks forward and out of the small alcove the elevators are housed in, then realizes he has no idea which direction he needs to go. He stops.

Behind him, Christophe snorts. “Sure. Left.”

Viktor turns and starts walking.

“He likes you, too,” Chris says.

“What was that?” Viktor asks in Russian. “I don’t speak English.”

Chris switches to French for a few colorful phrases, then back to English. “You’ll see him in a few minutes anyway, so you’ll figure it out,” he says, finally stepping in front of Viktor. “Here, it’s this one,” he says as he stops in front of a door.

“I’m not the one who needs to figure it out,” he says, then pushes Chris into the room. “Get yourself together so we can go, hurry up.”

“Easy,” Chris says, but obliges anyway.

When they get back downstairs, Yuuri is already waiting for them.

“Hey, Yuuri,” Chris says easily. “Is there anything in particular you want to eat? Viktor is from around here, so just let him know and he’ll take us to a place.”

“Uh, no, not really,” Yuuri says. “I kind of just want to try whatever local thing is best.”

“Do you mind a little bit of a walk?” Viktor asks them both, who both shake their heads no. “Okay, perfect. I know a great traditional place a little less than twenty minutes from here.”

Five minutes into their walk there, Chris pats his pockets. “Damn,” he says, “I think I left my wallet upstairs. I’m going to go grab it, you two go on without me! I’ll meet you there!”

“Are you sure? We could walk back with you, it isn’t that far,” Yuuri offers.

“No, it’s fine! Viktor, can you message me the place?”

Viktor glares at him but agrees as Chris takes off back towards the hotel. “Give me a second,” he tells Yuuri as he pulls up the location of the restaurant and shares it with Chris. “Okay.”

They walk in silence for a second before Yuuri asks, “How have you been?”

“Oh, great!” Viktor says genuinely. “I’m working on some new things for the channel that combine my usual stuff with other media, and I’m enjoying it a lot. How are you?”

“Yeah, I’ve seen some of that,” Yuuri says vaguely, “and I’m really good. Nervous. Excited about the final.”

“Nervous?” Viktor asks as his phone buzzes in his hand. “Oh, that—” he cuts himself off as he looks at Chris’s message.

Definitely didn’t leave my wallet, it reads, but you can tell him I think I left it at rink. Good luck! ;)

“What’s going on?” Yuuri asks.

“Chris is an idiot.”

“What happened?” Yuuri seems genuinely concerned.

“He left his wallet at the rink,” Viktor says, surprising himself. The smile he gives Yuuri is far too wide and is brittle at the edges. He’s going to kill Chris. “He says to go on without him.”

“Oh.”

“Do you just want to go back?” Viktor asks. Yuuri had agreed to dinner with Chris, after all, and not with him.

“No! It’s okay,” Yuuri says. “Let’s keep moving, it’s cold.”

“How’s Yuri?” Yuuri asks after another few moments of walking in silence.

“You tell me,” Viktor says. “You see him more than I do.”

“Just because I see him more doesn’t mean I talk to him more. He trusts you.”

Viktor sighs. “I hope so. He doesn’t always tell me how he is when he calls, but I think he’s doing well. He’s got more friends than he did when he was growing up, and he complains about the classes, which means he’s actually learning something.” Viktor pauses for a moment, considering. “Can you do me a favor?”

“Yeah?”

“If you ever notice Yuri acting way off, can you let me know? I mean,” Viktor interrupts himself, “you don’t have to, like, keep tabs on him or anything, but if you ever notice something really wrong.”

“I mean, of course,” Yuuri says, “but I won’t have to.”

Viktor looks over at him. “What do you mean?”

Yuuri stops walking. “You know, the night I met you, Yuri kept glancing over at you, and at first I thought it was because he didn’t want you there because he’s around his friends and suddenly you’re there, but then I realized that he was looking out for you.” He pauses like he’s waiting for Viktor to say something, and when he doesn’t, he continues, “he made sure to angle himself so you were always included in the group and everything.”

“Huh,” Viktor says, and he smiles softly at the idea of Yuri trying to be protective.

“And Viktor,” Yuuri says, suddenly more serious. “I’ve seen that video of when he tells you that he’s officially your adopted brother.” It’s been almost a year since Viktor posted that video, but it’s still his favorite. “Why do you think he went through that trouble with your parents when he was already seventeen? He didn’t have to do that, and I’m sure no one could have forced him to if he didn’t want to. But he surprised you with it. Because he wants you to know that he loves you, and he trusts you, and he wants you in his life.”

At that, Viktor laughs. “Try telling him that,” he says. “Make sure Phichit sends me the video of Yura beating you to death when you do.”

Yuuri smiles. “But you see what I mean, right?” he says, then turns to keep walking. “Don’t worry about him too much. If he needs you, he’ll let you know. In his own way.”

“Yeah,” Viktor agrees. “Can I ask you a different favor, then?” He feels Yuuri’s slightly concerned glance, then continues, “even if you aren’t letting me know how he’s doing, call me sometime?”

“Oh, uh.” Yuuri shuffles a little as he walks, looking at the ground. “Yeah,” he says. “I’d like that.”

Yuuri’s flight is early the next morning, but they spend several long hours of the night staying up, talking about how different their lives are now than what they expected years ago, about the things they enjoy that aren’t their professions, about the music they’ve been listening to on repeat and what food they’re most excited to eat when they get home. They talk through the restaurant and shops and all the way back to Yuuri’s hotel room, where they settle in and talk more.

Viktor finally leaves Yuuri’s room about three hours before Yuuri needs to leave for his flight.

“Text me when you land,” Viktor tells him, leaning his forehead against Yuuri’s and breathing him in.

“I will.”

“Fly safe,” Viktor says as he pulls away from Yuuri, then brings Yuuri’s hand to his mouth and gently kisses his knuckles. “I’ll be sure to watch you at the final.”

It’s a full day later before Viktor receives confirmation that Yuuri has made it to Detroit, but he doesn’t mind that. It’s worth it for the picture he gets of a jetlagged Yuuri with Yuri, Otabek, and Phichit in the background with a big banner that says “Congratulations, Yuuri!” Phichit has a tinier sheet of paper that, thanks two a second photo that comes in, Viktor can see says, “On gettin’ the guy!”

Yuuri sends one final picture of Yuri making a gross face at Phichit’s smaller poster, and he loves it. Absolutely worth the wait.

#HotaruYuki #mrscalculation #gifts19 #YOIsanta19 #fanfic #victuuri #victor nikiforov #yuuri katsuki #Yuri!!! on Ice

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