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taetaesbaebaepsae · 3 years

Text

Quiver (bbh)

Summary: You meet a man who seems to know nearly everything about you, save your name.

As with nearly every Baek fic I write, for @illneverrecover! Although she actually paid me for this one hahaha

Also thank you to my sister for betaing and making my gorgeous banner!

Warnings: angst, violence and death tw, unprotected sex, outdoors sex, oral sex (f. receiving), this is more soft and sad than horny tbh

Word Count: 10,219

Deja vu is something you don't feel very often, and so when it washes over you in a wave that leaves goosebumps on your flesh, you look around.

You're not sure what you're looking for, but you feel that when you find it, you'll know.

Your eyes fall on a man sitting at a table, looking down at a book. His hair is slicked back but with pieces falling into his face, and as if he knows you're staring, he looks up at you.

He has the warmest brown eyes, and something like a shock shoots through your heart. Your feet are moving before you realize it.

"Have we met before?"

He smiles, and your heart flutters.

"Maybe in another life."

His name, it turns out, is Baekhyun, and he works at some investment firm you've never heard of but it doesn't matter because he has the most endearing way of smiling at you while you're speaking to him.

You assume he has money because the car he leads you to is nice, not ridiculously so but expensive to upkeep, a foreign model that's sleek and your favorite color: red.

"Why red?" You ask, sliding into the leather seat of this stranger's car because you just know he's safe, somewhere in you.

He gives you that half smile again, the one that gives you something akin to deja vu.

"Reminds me of someone."

You wonder if you might fuck him on the first date, if coffee even counts as a first date, and it's the first time you've ever done that but when he makes you tea and you lean against his kitchen counter he gives you this look. It's like there's something dark and deep in his brown eyes, something both flirty and almost darkly lustful.

It makes your heart flip. It makes your body tingle. It makes you a little afraid.

But you've never been one to run from fear, especially when it's all wrapped up with excitement and lust.

When you're sitting on his couch and sipping tea he's swiveled his body toward you just slightly, open and inviting, but he doesn't make a move, just watches you, listens as you fill the silence, laughs when you make a face when you pick up his tea instead of yours, which is bitter and devoid of the sugar you love.

You make the first move, in fact, end up clutching at his shirt as you kiss his mouth over and over because it feels soft and his tongue is hot and it feels familiar.

His hands skate up your sides once, above your shirt, and then again, under it, and that feels familiar too, long fingers on your flesh.

"You haven't met your soulmate yet," the tarot reader said. You and a friend had visited her a few years ago, when you were half drunk at a carnival.

"At least," she'd continued, "not in this lifetime."

"Are you sure we haven't met before?" You ask, two weeks later when you've spent almost all

your free time with him, and most of it in his bed.

"Maybe in your dreams," he'd quipped, and you elbow him but he's already spooning you and you're too half asleep to do much damage.

"Always in mine," he says, softly, just as you're drifting to sleep, and you can't pry your eyes open long enough to ask what that means.

You start a fling of sorts with this mysterious man, and for the most part, you’re happy. But then you start having these dreams.

Sometimes, there’s fire on a wall in front of you and when you turn around it’s behind you, too.

You can feel your skin burning and you can barely breathe when you wake.

Sometimes there’s thunder booming all around you, lightning that streaks across the sky and you’re running and running toward someone, a man with warm brown eyes, but you can’t get there and when you look down you’re running in water up to your waist.

Always, he’s there. You suppose it’s because you and Baekhyun have been spending so much time together, that he’s in your head all the time as much as you hate to admit it.

Finally, he’s next to you in bed when you bolt upright, frightened by the thunder because it’s one of those fire dreams, one where you can feel the flesh on your arms crinkling, and it burns burns burns until it doesn’t, until you feel so cold you wake up shivering.

You’re afraid and disoriented and the dream all comes out in a rush — you tell him everything, small details about how you’re clutching a rosary in one hand, how the baubles on it popped n the flames, and he puts his arms around you, lets you bury your face in his chest as your heart rate slows down.

“Your name was Eva, then,” he murmurs, so quietly you’d think you were still dreaming.

Something about it rings true. You wonder if you’d heard that in the dream and told him still half asleep, so you nod against his chest.

“I’m sorry,” he breathes into your neck after pulling you into his lap and it’s so mournful it almost frightens you.

“You can’t help my dreams,” you say playfully, trying to forget it, and he gives you the saddest smile.

“No, not those.”

You keep having those dreams, and they get more and more detailed and sometimes your name is Eva and sometimes it’s Yui and sometimes it’s Sarabeth and they’re all different, you look different, but you always feel how it ends.

And Baekhyun is always there. He looks the same, unlike you, and sometimes he’s your enemy, sometimes he’s your friend but most of the time, he’s your lover.

The dream that finally makes you confront him goes like this.

Your name is Angelica and your father was royalty but you’re just a bastard, your mother a commoner, a servant of the crown.

Once you’re old enough to have his eyes, you have to stay hidden like some fairy tale princess. Except you’re no princess in your dusty cabin, and you learn to hunt small game so that your mother doesn’t have to steal so much from the castle. It’s good that you learn, because your mother stops coming to the cabin and you learn that the plague has taken her.

The plague has taken nearly everyone, and you haven’t seen another person in months when you happen upon a man.

You have your bow drawn before he ever sees you, the string (made of rabbit sinew because it’s all you had, the bow made of oak that you’d chopped yourself) and arrow pointed straight and true.

He shifts, turns around and you hesitate just a moment when you catch his gaze, something familiar in his deep brown eyes. It’s long enough for him to draw his own bow, and he’s quick, quicker than you are, so you let your arrow fly.

His arrow flies a second after yours and they meet in the space between you, shredding each other in two.

You’d thought, then, that it was an omen.

Good or bad, you didn’t know.

You’d run back to the cabin and locked yourself in, but he’d followed you.

A few hours later, he knocked on the door and your heart started to race. Your mother had warned you what men could do to an unattended woman.

There was nothing else, though, and you waited half an hour to open the door.

A basket is sitting on the doorstep, and it contains dried meat and fresh cherries and peaches.

You hadn’t had fruit in years. There’s also a small bouquet of flowers, filled with dandelion fluff and baby’s breath, a few blossoms of lavender. It smells lovely.

You take your time eating the peaches, they have the sweetest juice that you let run down your chin like a child.

It’s been so long since you’ve eaten well that you overdo it and your stomach feels tied in a knot, but you’re smiling when you fall asleep that night, for what feels like the first time.

There’s another basket at the end of the week but he’s standing on the doorstep with it, smiling.

“Maiden, I was wondering if you had any water?”

“Will you draw your bow again when I turn my back?” You ask, wary, and he shakes his head, laughing softly.

“You drew yours first, maiden. I was surprised. The plague has taken so many it seems like I’m the only one left in all the world.”

He doesn’t look intimidating, doesn’t look as if he’s about to rush you, but you’ll be damned if you’ll let a strange man into your home, so you sit on the doorstep with him and eat the peaches he’d brought.

He watches the juice drip down your fingers, how you lick it off, with something in his eyes you haven’t seen before.

You sit and chat for a while, still wary, but he keeps looking at you like that, and you wonder if this is what it feels like, if this is what is to be wanted.

Three days and three dinners of peaches and dried meat later, you let him inside for a glass of water drawn from the well out back.

He drinks it down like he’s been thirsty for days, and you feel guilty for not letting him in earlier.

The way he licks his lips when he’s done makes something flutter inside your stomach and you put a hand there, low, almost on your pubic bone.

He watches every move you make, this mystery man who doesn’t have a hint of facial hair despite living in the woods, watches where you place your hands and fingers, how you move your mouth. He watches you as if you’re something fascinating, like watching fire burn wood down to embers.

When you were young, your mother took you to the Maypole festival, and all the children had been given these long sticks to dip in the fire, to twirl them around and make shapes in the night sky. You’d done it over and over until the stick was burned down too far and even then, you tried to dip it and burned your wrist.

He looks at you like you’d looked at the shapes you’d made with the lit stick. With wonder.

The first time he touches you it feels like the first time you’d felt warm water on your skin as a child, warmed on the fire with an iron pot, your mother spooning it over you slowly.

He touches you that way, slowly, murmuring bits of your name and it slides off his tongue like honey.

“Angelica. Angel,” he murmurs, right at the shell of your ear, and your bones seem to turn to jelly as you melt into him, your back against his chest.

Your mother had told you that one day you’d have a lover.

“Not a king,” she’d said, “but something more.”

You’d asked her what’s more than a king and she’d only smiled, held a finger to her lips as if the two of you shared a secret.

You did, your secret was that you existed, that your father was who he was and that your mother wasn’t his queen, at least not in name.

You tremble underneath his hands and when he turns you around, presses his mouth to yours, he does it slowly. You’re the one who grabs the back of his head, threads your fingers through the long hair at the nape of his neck, wanting him closer, so close, wanting to burrow inside him and live there because you’re aching for him all over and you don’t know what it means.

“Let me call you by your name,” you plead when he’s kneeling before you, pulling down your underclothes, spreading the curls at your core where you’re hot and aching and wet.

He shakes his head. “I have too many names.”

“Tell me one of them,” you beg.

He doesn’t answer, presses his mouth to your cunt and you gasp, tugging his hair hard and he makes a low groan, throat exposed, that makes something come awake in your lower stomach, something somehow both like fire and honey, hot and slow and sweet.

“Give me your name,” you demand.

One corner of his mouth turns up.

“My name is Love,” he tells you, and presses his face back into your cunt, inhales like he loves the scent of you, his hands spreading apart your thighs so roughly that you brace your hands on the table behind you.

It isn’t a name you’d heard any man to have, but maybe he isn’t a man, maybe he’s one of the fae your Irish born mother told you stories about when you were a girl.

Maybe that’s the something more your mother told you about your future lover after reading your palm when you were sixteen.

You hunt together, and you’re in awe of how quick he is with his bow, how he shoots straight through the heart of even the smallest animals, voles and rabbits that you roast over the fire and feast on while he tells you wild tales about his brothers and sisters.

One rules the sea, he tells you, with a magic trident. One makes lightning bolts for his father deep underground where there’s fire so hot it melts rock and stone.

You’re fascinated, sit for hours just watching his mouth as he speaks and sometimes you vault into his lap mid sentence, silence him with your mouth on his because you want want want.

Your mother had told you many things about your future lover, about how you should be demure just like a man wants, but you can’t even try, not with him. Not with your mysterious, many named, no named lover, because he presses your nails deep into his chest when you straddle his hips, hisses when you leave bite marks along his throat and collarbone.

You pretend to be demure sometimes, if only to make him frown, to make him throw you down on your bedclothes roughly, to bite your lip bloody.

“Don’t pretend you don’t have talons, angel,” he growled, and you can’t help the way you laugh loud and open, even with your legs spread wantonly.

Physical love isn’t at all like your mother had described it, and you wonder if she’d only ever been with the king, with a man who cared so little for his paramours that he’d allowed your mother to die alone in the slums, locking her out from the castle so that his heirs might live.

It isn’t something that you lie down and take the way your mother must have, sometimes it’s animalistic, feral like you’d seen horses mate at the castle’s stables when you were young.

You present yourself on all fours and he slides his hands down your ass, grabs the flesh there to part you, presses his face into your cunt until your thighs are shaking. It’s not love that you feel during those times, not exactly, more like that want want want that you feel so often with him.

Your breath catches when he pulls your hair, wraps it around his fist so that your back arches, so that you twist to look at him. Later, when you’re both sweaty and sated, that’s when the love comes, loud and blooming in your chest as he kisses the fingerprint bruises he’s left on your hips, his fingers gentle on your sensitive skin until your breath slows.

Love is a thing that blooms, you would write if you’d ever been taught how. Love is my man’s name and it’s blooming in me like spring flowers.

You go for walks to gather berries because you’re too busy fucking to hunt and you can get by on a few more fruits and you don’t want to wake him. Once you’d brought home rose petals for tea and a piece of a honey comb that had made his eyes light up.

He’d spread the honey across your nipples, suckled and nipped there until you were sore, and one day, you want that again, especially the way his brown eyes sparkled when he’d seen it.

You have a way with the bees, after all, a way of singing high and sweet that makes them buzz around you slowly instead of angrily.

You’re halfway down the path before you realize you’ve left your quiver and bow. Love (both the man and the feeling) makes you feel stupid, heady and slow, and you pause for a moment, wondering if you should turn back.

Instead, you head forward because it’ll be sunset soon and you won’t be able to find that tree, the one with the beehive and honeycomb that your man loves so much.

It happens so quickly it feels like an instant. You step out from the bushes after gathering some blackberries, so juicy they’ve stained your fingers, and the next thing you know, you’re on the ground. When you try to stand, you can’t, a pain blooming (a lot like love) through your stomach and you’re sure there weren’t any raspberries so what’s this red spreading out onto the ground?

You see your man’s boots, barely laced, before you see his face and someone behind you is stuttering but you hear the swish of your lover’s arrow, a choked, gurgling sound and then he’s knelt down at your side.

“Angel, angel,” he whispers, and he’s crying and you want to tell him not to because it makes you afraid.

What’s happened? What’s wrong?

You don’t realize you’re not actually speaking until he cradles your face, lies down in the dirt to face you, and everything but his touch, his eyes, seems far away and unimportant.

“I’m sorry,” he says brokenly. “I need you to remember. When next we meet, remember my name.”

You want to. You want to remember everything about him but you’re sure that you’re floating away now.

“Baekhyun,” he tells you. “My name will be Baekhyun.”

As an immortal, it's hard to remember every moment. Years and decades blur together. The only moments Baekhyun can call to mind in perfect recall are the first times he's seen you

For a while, he’d thought Rome might be the worst lifetime he’d ever have.

He knows what he’s supposed to do, knows it’s his job, but he can barely ever bring himself to do it.

In Rome, you’re excited, young, bouncing around with your hair braided. Fire red, always red, always as fiery as your personality. “Eros, right? God of love.”

He’d smiled, wondering if he looked as tired as he felt. “You think I’m a god? I’m flattered.”

You scoff, swirl your dress around as you turn, speaking with your hands as always and his heart aches with how familiar it all is. “Don’t think that means you’re special.”

Baekhyun cocks an eyebrow. “Oh?”

“Yes. Means that you’re here to help me fall in love.”

“Is that so?” He can’t stop smiling at you, despite knowing what will inevitably happen next.

“Mmhm.” You’d taken his hand, flipped your braid over to the other side of your shoulder. He always tries. He always tries, gods damn it, damn his father and his brothers and sisters, he tries.

But there’s always this moment, where you take his hand, or brush your knuckles against his lips just so, or you just look at him up under your lashes, and the arrow he’s supposed to be aiming feels like it goes straight through his heart.

“I have someone in mind.”

It’s like the arrow in his heart twists, and gods know his arrows have always been true and fatal.

Your smile is so bright, and his heart is so full but it hurts at the same time and what a curse this is, to be able to fall in love with you so easily but have you fall for someone else just as fast.

He tells himself that he won’t try to change your mind, that he won’t let himself get close to you as you go on this search for your true mate.

You’d been childhood sweethearts, you and your match, but he’s been called away to war and you’ve been in mourning ever since.

He’s a god, but he is the god of love, after all, and with all your heart you believed that you loved another. He tells himself he’s doing the right thing… for the third time.

The first time, when it had all started, he’d fallen in love with you and seduced you and you’d forgotten all about your true match and it had all ended in fire and blood.

In Rome, in your third lifetime, he tells himself he won’t let that happen again. So when you put your hand on his thigh when you crouch down to drink on your journey, he wills his skin not to heat and his heart not to skip.

Three weeks in and you’re exhausted, your feet are swollen and bleeding from all the walking and you slide into his furs instead of your own, press your face against his chest.

“Maybe he’s gone,” you say, quietly, and Baekhyun is as still as death, telling himself he doesn’t want to lean down to kiss you, to tell you that it doesn’t matter where your sweetheart is because he’s here and ready and he wants you more than anything.

“We’ll find him,” he promises, and it’s a promise he keeps, even when you press your mouth to his and he takes it, this small comfort, until you fall into a fitful sleep.

Greece was bittersweet, because you found your match in the end and Baekhyun shot his arrow hoping that he’d miss. But his arrow was true, shot straight into the heart of your paramore.

You found your true match, fell in love, had children, and Baekhyun could have gone. Could have sailed away at sea, gone anywhere in the world. But even in Greece he’d spent three lifetimes with you (in one way or another) and he can’t bring himself to be more than a few miles away from you.

Instead, he’d watch you playing with your daughter in the garden, watch you kiss your husband, laughing into his mouth when he picked you up.

He watched you grow old, have grandchildren, plant roses that still never bloomed. You were never a gardener, no matter how you tried. It’s odd, how happy he feels for you, and how his heart clenches in his chest, how hard he wishes it were him.

He would never grow old, and he would never have you more than a few fleeting weeks, months, once even two wonderful years. Eros is love, and love isn’t supposed to fall in love.

So when he did, all those years ago, his father cursed him to find your match, over and over and over. It was you then and it’s you in Greece and Rome and England and Portugal and a thousand other countries that didn’t even have names when he’d met you there.

He’d thought Greece would be the worst because of the longing, because of the jealousy that brewed vile in the back of his throat, but Rome was much worse.

The Church ruled everything and at first Baekhyun thought that was normal. After all, when he was young he and his family had ruled everything. These are just different gods, although perhaps harsher ones.

They called you a harlot because of the fire red of your hair, the way you wore dresses slit up to your hip, the way you'd laugh if someone asked the last time you'd gone to confession.

"You should go to Mass," he'd warned with a lock of that fire red hair slipping through his fingers.

You'd smiled at him. "Why's that, lover? You want to hear my confession?"

He tugs your hair, exposing your throat as you let out a raspy moan, grinding against his thigh.

"What have you to confess, stellina?”

(Of all the languages and all the pet names he'd called you, stellina is his favorite, translates to star, and you burn so bright and beautiful it breaks his heart.)

"Impure thoughts," you muse. "Fornication before marriage.”

You pause. "This might take some time, amore."

You slide down under the linen, leaving open mouthed kisses and nips on his hip bones and thighs, and he forgets what he was going to warn you about.

(He loves any term you call him, in Spain mi corazon, in England love, in German liebling. But his true favorite is when you learn his name, his true name.)

You die fighting, that lifetime, clawing at the priests who’ve decided a witch needs baptism, holding you under the water until you finally stop, your nails broken and bloody.

Baekhyun finds you there, hours too late because he’d been sleeping off the night before, when he’d warned you about Mass, when you’d both stayed up all night, love talk and making love and a good deal of fucking, too, and he hates himself.

Hates that even though he is what he is, he needs sleep and food and water. He hates himself when he lifts you up, your fire red hair darkened by the water, hates himself when he kisses your bloody nails one by one and buries you behind the garden where you used to plant roses that never bloomed.

He hates himself most because it never gets easier, seeing you die, never gets easier knowing that he can’t, that he’s cursed to do this over and over.

In 1402, in Malaysia, you’d just had two streaks of red locks in the front, tendrils that stuck to the sides of your face when you were sweating, and you’re sweating when he first sees you, although you hit him before he ever sees your face.

You’d dropped down from a tree branch, locked your arms around his neck and cut off his airflow. It isn’t as if you could have killed him, but he respects it, all the same. You’ve got this little knife and you slice his throat but it doesn’t bleed, closes up as you watch and you drop to your knees, wide eyed but still, not submitting. Even when you know he’s a god, you never submit. At least, not that way.

Later, he kisses all the scars on your forearms and wrists, defensive wounds from battles and scuffles with the male soldiers who’d found you out.

"I never let them break me," you'd said, proudly, but there's something behind your eyes that makes him want to slaughter all the male soldiers in their sleep, bring you their heads, a sacrifice like the old gods had demanded.

As he had once demanded, before he met a human girl with an immortal soul full of fire and was punished for worshipping her.

Now it's 2021 and he's been through so many years, and he's tired. He's changed his name, over and over, from Eros to Cupid to then more common names.

He's been Baekhyun the last four lifetimes because you seem to like it, it makes you giggle in 1924 when your red (always red, red like fire and blood and love and all things that are important to him) hair was bobbed and you were wearing a black sequined dress at a speakeasy.

"Baek," you'd laughed, tipsy, one hand on his arm and he couldn't stop smiling at you. "Almost like Bark, like a dog."

"I'll be whatever you want me to be," he'd answered, flirting but also honest. He'd always been whatever you wanted because he got so few years with you, each time.

"You'd be my dog?" Your eyes sparkled with booze and excitement.

He nodded. "Follow you around like a puppy."

When you'd given him an incredulous smile, he'd opened his mouth in the middle of a packed speakeasy in New York City and barked like a dog.

The way you'd laughed is something he can hear in his dreams years later, tries to make it the memory he remembers most instead of the ones where you'd died screaming.

Now, there are no more gods who want you for sacrifice, all of his kind who were vengeful had gone silent, moved on or passed on, including his father who'd cursed him in the first place.

He's hoping, every lifetime, that this is where it ends. He's hoping that this time he doesn't have to tell you.

He's wrong, just like he had been in 1425 and 1604 and 1976. The curse outs itself, as curses always do.

You sit up in bed, watching him sleep and shivering, for what seems like hours after that dream.

He wakes slowly, but scrambles up into a seated position as soon as he’s fully conscious, being careful not to touch you.

“Do you remember?” He asks.

“I don’t know.” You mumble, even if you have a feeling you do.

“At some point, you always remember.”

“What are you talking about? Why are you so goddamn cryptic?” Your voice is hoarse and loud.

He nods, as if expecting your outburst.

“Sometimes you’re not ready to hear.”

You want to scream in frustration. “Hear what?”

“What I am. What we are.”

“And what are we?”

“Immortals.”

You gawk at him. He makes it sound so simple, like he’s talking to a child.

“You’re an immortal?”

“You, too.” He pauses. “Well, in a different way.”

“So what, you’re telling me that was real? My dream? Angelica?”

Baekhyun lets out a long breath, shifts on the bed to face you.

“You were Eva. Angelica. Yui. In Greece I called you stellina. You’ve had more names than I have.”

You look up into his eyes and if he’s lying, he deserves an Academy award for the performance.

“What… what are you?”

You aren’t sure if you’re frightened or intrigued or both.

Baekhyun smiles then, wryly.

“Eros. Cupid. Angelica simply called me Love.”

“You’re telling me you’re like... the god of love? The one with the arrows?”

He looks as if he wants to laugh at you but wisely, he doesn’t. Instead he nods.

“Is it… is it always like it was when… when I was Angelica?” You ask, breathing in deeply because you remembered the pain in your chest, the way the blood spread out on the dirt in your lucid dream.

“Almost always,” he says softly, and reaches out to put his hands on yours.

You would have thought you would have flinched away but instead, his touch seems to comfort you and you lean into him.

“What happens when I don’t?” You ask, curiously, and something shutters over his eyes.

“You’re happy.” He rubs your knuckles between his fingers.

It’s a lot to take in and you have a million more questions but also, you can’t think of a single one that you can put into words. You pace around the bedroom and when that’s not enough, your entire apartment, and then outside to the elevator and back and he stays put, sitting cross legged in bed and looking at you with those deep brown eyes.

Finally, you plop down on the edge of the bed, exhausted.

“So what do we do?”

He just looks at you, again with that bemused smile playing at the edge of his mouth.

“How do we fix it?” You demand.

Instead of responding, he takes your hands in his again, brushes his lips across your knuckles but this time you do recoil.

“I’m not going to die horribly again. You can’t want that.”

“Of course I don’t,” he murmurs, and you want a reaction, something other than the way he’s just looking at you so you shove him and he just lets you, falls back on the bed when you do it a second time.

“You just keep letting me die?” You accuse, crawling up onto the bed and he makes a growl in the back of his throat, grasps your wrists with one of his hands and pins you when you try to shove him again.

“I never let you die. I try over and over and over to save you, but I can’t. The only way I can save you is by finding-”

He looks away from you, shuts his mouth with a click of his teeth and you wriggle under him.

“Finding what?” You insist.

He lets you go, rolls over and puts his forearm over his eyes.

“Your true match. In all the lifetimes that you’ve lived to old age in, I shot my arrow to find your true match.”

You deflate, lying there next to him and staring up at the ceiling.

“So you’re saying in order to live like a normal person, I have to fall in love with someone else?”

“Yes,” he says miserably. After a few moments, he lifts his arm and opens one eye to look at you. “Got anyone in mind?”

You shove at his arm, but not as hard this time, and he breaks into a smile, takes you into his arms. You melt against him, just like before, because that’s what feels right, that’s what feels natural.

“That happened? Before?” You ask, stroking his hair and usually he preens at the attention, leans back to kiss you but now he buries his face in your hair, avoiding your gaze.

He murmurs something in affirmation and kisses just under your earlobe.

“You found someone else for me?”

He nods, still not lifting his head, and you huff out a breath, wanting some kind of reaction out of him.

“Was he hot?”

Baekhyun groans and laughs, rolls over onto his back. ‘You always do this.”

“Always do what?” You demand, poking at his side. “You know all these things about me...or well, some version of me, and I don’t know anything about you.”

He looks at you, smiling just a little. “You know everything about me.”

You huff, frustrated. “It doesn’t feel like it. I want to know more. I want to know how I died, why I died, what all this means.”

To his credit, Baekhyun tries to explain it to you. The curse, his family, but it’s all twisted up in your mind with these memories you have of him in past lives, of being so in love with him you can barely breathe, wanting him so badly you can barely sit still, and it ends with you tearing off his clothes and him laughing into your mouth as you guide him inside you.

After, you’re contrite, kissing along his collarbone.

“I don’t want you to find anyone else for me.”

Baekhyun makes a sound in the back of his throat and you don’t know if it’s surprise or something else.

“I don’t want anyone but you,” you continue, orgasm drunk and with this fire burning under your skin, remembering how Angelica felt, how Yui felt, moving closer to him on the bed because you can’t bear to have your skin not touching his in every place you can.

He pulls you on top of him, kissing you after you squeal in surprise and your lips feel swollen and bruised already but it’s the sweetest ache.

“I don’t think I could, even if you asked,” he admits, and something about the way he says it makes you proud, makes your heart swell. His hands skate over your upper arms and his touch gives you goosebumps.

“No?” You shift to spread your thighs, liking the way he hardens under you with just the barest movement.

Baekhyun shakes his head, his tongue coming out slowly to lick his lips. You see that you’ve bitten his bottom lip bloody and it sends a shot of heat through you.

“Usually I never found anyone else for you, not after I’d touched you. I started out meaning to find someone for you. Touching you first… having you first… it makes things complicated.”

You don’t speak but shift again and it seems to spur him on.

His face is flushed and it’s cute, makes you smile.

“You know why.”

“Do I?” You’re grinning now, like the cat that ate the canary, and he groans but he’s smiling.

He sits up suddenly, bracing himself against the headboard and he puts his hands on your hips to move you backwards so that his half hard erection sits right at the cleft of your cunt and when you gasp and try to guide him inside you, he tightens his hands with a slight shake of his head.

“You gonna make me say it?”

“You know I am.”

You gasp when he puts pressure on your clit with his thumb, humming in the back of his throat.

“I’ve loved you for centuries, and I’ll love you for centuries more, stellina.”

“What does that mean?” You gasp, your insides on fire with lust and love and full to bursting, rocking your hips forward and he gives you what you want, puts more pressure on your clit and lets you guide his cock inside you.

“Star,” he says softly, moving a hand up to cup your cheek. “Because you burn.”

You do burn, you burn inside and out and you want to tell him that you burn for him but he sticks his thumb in your mouth, presses down on your tongue just how you like and all you can do is moan around it.

He keeps his other thumb positioned just right so that you can rock against his hand and lift your ass so that his cock slides against your g-spot and you suck on his thumb until he hisses and bucks beneath you, moving so that you can lean down and kiss him hard, brace your hands on either side of him so that you can get more traction.

You’re sure that you’ll be sore in the morning, ever since you’ve met him (in this lifetime, at least) you’ve been in some type of bittersweet pain, an ache across your throat, soreness in your thighs and hips and ass where you’ve been riding him, a rawness deep inside from too much sex and not enough rest.

There’s never enough, never enough of your sweat misted skin sliding across his, never enough of his hand fisted in your hair, of his cock at the back of your throat, of his fingers hooked inside you. The past couple of weeks you’ve only left his apartment for work and a few changes of clothes (not that you wore them much, anyway).

It makes you feel more sane, knowing that you’ve wanted him this way in other lifetimes, makes you feel like the way you feel makes more sense, because you were beginning to think you were going crazy.

It isn’t as if he’s some kind of sex god, exactly, he just seems to know exactly what you like, exactly what you want, right away. That makes a kind of sense, now, how even when you’re on top he knows exactly what to do and say to get you to tip over the edge.

“I love the way you look like this,” he rasps, looking up at you as if maybe you are a star exploding and it isn’t just some nickname he gave you in Rome. “You’re so fucking beautiful, you know that?”

You cry out his name, throwing your head back when you cum and he palms his hands across your breasts and the stimulation across your nipples sends an aftershock through you right after. You’re like a ragdoll for a few moments after your orgasm and he shifts you around just like one, using you to get off and you kiss and kiss and kiss him, loving the way it feels when he spills inside you.

You say it then, maybe because he said it to you first or maybe just because your heart is full to bursting with it.

“I love you.” It’s almost defiant. “I love you, and I don’t want to love anyone else.”

He strokes your cheek where you’re still lying on top of him.

“I don’t know if we get a choice, stellina.”

There’s always questions when you find out, and Baekhyun is prepared for them. There’s often questions that hurt, somewhere deep in his bones, questions you’d asked over and over again.

Sometimes you’re curious about your other perfect matches, and that stings. Sometimes you want to know about your deaths, and those are hard memories to bring to the surface.

The question that always hurts the most, though, is the one you ask after you’ve both showered, lying sated and exhausted in his bed, the curtains blacking out the sun outside.

“Did we ever have children?”

You’re rubbing your stomach and there’s something caught in his throat and he has to cough to clear it.

“We didn’t. You did. Sometimes.”

You look up at him and frown. “With my true match?”

Baekhyun heaves a sigh so deep it hurts his chest. “With him, yes.”

You pause. “Was it the same guy? Same… soul, I guess?”

Baekhyun nods slowly, his heart sinking, but you don’t ask anything more, you just lie your head on his shoulder.

He wonders what you’re thinking, wonders where it branches off from here. He’s been here so many times before. He feels more tired than he should.

But instead of asking more questions or storming out crying or any of the things you’d done after you’d found out, you start to snore softly, curled up next to him.

Baekhyun wonders idly if he’ll be able to sleep, but he’s drifting off before he’s even completed the thought.

When he wakes, you’re gone, and he scrambles out of bed in his boxers to pace around the house. He can feel you aren’t around and it’s like a hole in his chest. It’s always been that way, he knows when you’re close and when you’re not, and you must be miles away because now, there’s nothing.

When he checks his phone you’ve texted that you’ll be back with food. He’s shocked that it’s nearly noon, it hadn’t even been sunset when he’d dozed off.

Perhaps immortals can be just as bone tired as mortals, sometimes. After a dozen lifetimes of fighting, he doesn’t know why he’s surprised.

He waits for you, sitting on the couch and idly flipping through the channels, and he thinks about when it all ends. His father had moved on, had no one worshipping his name anymore, and it isn’t as if school children are learning much about Eros, Cupid relegated to only one day out of a year with awful sour sweet candy and paper mache hearts. He’s stored his bow a few hundred miles away, hoping that this lifetime he wouldn’t need it, hadn’t actually found a true match for anyone but you in centuries.

Baekhyun wonders, with no real sense of urgency or fear, if this is the last lifetime. There’s a kind of exhaustion he’s never felt before that seems to weigh him down, and he’s finding it hard to care about anything but you. He hopes it happens before you pass, before the curse ends your life too young and too violently. He wants to move on and set you free, because he knows he can’t resist you for more than a couple of lifetimes. He’s tried too many times and failed.

You return bright eyed and with half a dozen books and a notebook, a pen pinched between your teeth.

At your urging he goes out to the car and brings in the breakfast you’d bought and you spread your books across the table.

“Greek and Roman Mythology for Dummies.” He reads aloud, laughing, and you look up at him from the floor and frown.

“Don’t judge me, this is all new to me.”

He holds up his hands. “Not judging. What’s all this for?”

“I’m going to find a way to end the curse, of course.”

Baekhyun sits down hard on the couch. “Oh.”

“What does that mean?” You demand, your nose scrunching up just a little.

He can’t help but smile at you, and he shrugs.

No reason to shoot down your hopes. Not yet, at least.

Four hours later, your eyes red rimmed from staring at books and your laptop screen, you jump onto the couch and into his lap.

“I found it!” You screech, and kiss all over his face.

Baekhyun smiles, kisses you back, and you make love there on the couch. You want to be bent over, his hand on the small of your back to keep you over the couch arm, up on your tiptoes and making a little grunting noise every time he thrusts into you.

Baekhyun may be exhausted after all this time but he never gets tired of this. He never gets tired of you.

Your moans are muffled in the couch cushions but he hears his name, the one he always uses with you, ever since you were Angelica and that hunter’s arrow had pinned you to the ground.

Baekhyun is tired. He’s tired in a way he’s sure no human ever could be. He’s tired of all the times he’s lost you, to your true match and then worse, to death, and he’s tired of living them over and over again.

But when you stand up, twist his face to kiss him, your eyes bright when you grin against his mouth, he thinks that it’s all been worth it.

You’re always worth it, and the thought of getting to meet you again, another you, is all it takes for him to keep going.

It takes a few months to get the time off work, match up travel plans, and get supplies.

Supplies meaning mostly travel gear and light clothes and a passport, the place you need to get to is high up on a cliffside in Northern Greece.

Baekhyun’s supportive enough, you guess, but you feel a bit nervous about his lack of excitement when you’re finally there, in Greece, at a gorgeous resort near the cliffside. Money hadn’t been a problem. Apparently when you’re immortal you manage to accrue a bit of savings.

“Aren’t you happy? Doesn’t this feel like home?”

Baekhyun laughs, loud and open, for what seems like the first time since you’d found out.

“This isn’t my home, stellina. I’m older than Greece.’

You blink, shocked. “But you are Eros.”

He nods. “I’m Eros, and Cupid, and Ishtar, and Kuni. Many gods and goddesses, different names. My duty and purpose was always the same, but I’ve never had a home. Except with you.”

He brushes your cheek with his nose and you sigh, hate that the way he says that so simply, as if it’s the whole truth, makes your heart clench.

“Still, you remember being here.”

Baekyun nods, staring out at the sea, reliving some life you only half remember.

You don’t ask many more questions, at least not until the next day when Baekhyun is listlessly pulling on his clothes and you’re tugging at his hands, excited, wanting to hurry and have this curse looming over your head end, so that you can stop thinking about it.

“Why aren’t you happier about this?” You pout, but you quiet when he looks up at you, his usually warm brown eyes dull and exhausted.

“You haven’t been sleeping?” You ask, softer now.

Baekhyun shrugs. “Some.”

Then he grins at you and there’s a flicker of life in his eyes. “I’m a very old man, you know. I need my rest.”

It makes you laugh, makes you forget, and you don’t think of it again until you’re hiking up the trail, about an hour’s long journey to reach the top.

He’s behind you by a few hundred feet and you frown at him, waiting until he reaches you. You’ve never seen him out of breath.

You take his hand, tug him further up the trail but it’s only a few moments before he stops, bracing himself on a tree near the trail.

“Stop,” he wheezes, and you do, tilting your head at him in confusion.

“Baekhyun, we have to-”

“Just stop,” He insists, and you’d think he was angry if his voice weren’t shaking.

“Why? What’s wrong? What aren’t you telling me?” You fire off at him, moving closer, and he shakes his head.

You take his chin in your hand and force him to look at you.

His brown eyes are still as tired as earlier, and wet now, too.

“I don’t want to do this again,” he manages hoarsely.

You take a step back. “Have we done this before? Have we been here before?”

Baekhyun doesn’t answer, but there’s a truth in his silence.

Your eyes begin to well with tears. “So what? Maybe this time it’ll work, maybe this is different-”

“It’s not different. In France you were called Jacqueline and we came here. You read books about it, forced me here just like you did this time. You were so certain it had worked.”

You shake your head but he keeps talking.

“You were so certain that after a couple of months, I was certain too. Three months later, there was a bus accident.” His voice breaks and he’s quiet again and you feel like you can’t breathe properly for the ache in your throat.

“We don’t know that will happen again.”

“I know!” He bursts out. “I know it will happen because it does, over and over again! Listen, we should go back to the hotel. I can get my bow out of storage and-”

“No!” You cry, stalking over to him. “No, that’s not the way to fix this.”

Baekhyun laughs bitterly, and he won’t look at you. “There’s no way to fix this.”

“You don’t know that,” you say stubbornly. “Whoever I’ve been in the past, I’ve never been this person, and I know I can fix it.”

He pushes himself away from the tree as if it takes effort to do it. “You always say that,” he says, and he doesn’t sound angry anymore, just tired.

You’re angry, heat rushing through your veins, and you don’t know if it’s at him or the fact that some ancient curse has decided to come through your life like a brushfire.

You push at him and he doesn’t fight back, doesn’t even keep you from pushing him against the tree.

“You don’t care, is that it? You’re what, bored of this? You want to get your bow so you can get rid of me?”

His jaw tightens and he looks away from you. “Maybe I do.”

You push him again and he has nowhere to go, backed up against the tree so he just takes it, stands there.

“Coward.” You spit. “You’d rather match me with someone else. You’d rather let someone else-”

“Stop it,” he says, something like a warning in his voice and you want to laugh or cry or both.

“Look at you. You can’t even hear me say it, but you’re going to marry me off like some 14th century child bride-”

“I’m not-” Baekhyun huffs, then stops, runs his hand through his hair. “He’s your true match. You… you always love him, when you meet him.” He struggles with the last sentence but he maintains eye contact, jaw working.

“Fuck my true match. And fuck you if that’s your answer to this.” You rage.

He doesn’t speak. “You’re always happy when you find him.” His voice is weak and it sounds like a weak excuse to your ears and you’re shaking with anger and fear.

You have this memory, sudden and sharp like a knife.

You're in this stone room, an inn you think, and you're half asleep but you can hear a low murmur from the room. It's familiar, from your traveling companion of the last few weeks.

His name is on your lips as you sit up but he's pacing around the room, not paying any attention to you. The way he's talking to himself makes you worried.

"You have to do this. You have to, you know you do," he mutters and there's something liquid in his voice.

Suddenly he slaps himself across the face and you yelp his name, stand up to take his wrist in your hand.

"Baekhyun," you whisper. "What are you doing?"

His face is flushed and his eyes look so tired, so worn, like he's lived a thousand years.

"I'm sorry I woke you," he manages, pulling away from your touch as if you'd burn him.

A few days later, his hands are shaking when he draws his bow, and your eyes are on him instead of your true match.

"Wh-what if you miss?" You whisper.

Baekhyun smiles but he won't look at you. "I don't miss."

He doesn't, but part of you wishes he had.

The memory just makes you angrier, makes you want to push him again.

“Am I? And what about you? What about you, Baek, are you happy without me? Are you happy giving me away?”

He scoffs, finally looking at you.

“No, really. Tell me. You must be happy giving me away because you want to do it so badly-”

“I hate it!” He bursts out. “I fucking hate it, every single time. I hate the way you look at him. I even hate how happy he makes you. I should be happy giving you away so that you can be safe, so that you can have the family that you want, but I fucking hate it.”

“Why do you hate it?” You demand to know, tears streaming down your face.

“You know-” he starts and you shake your head.

“I need you to tell me.”

Baekhyun puffs out his cheeks, he does that when he’s frustrated, when he wants to scream but you don’t have time to think about how cute it is right now.

“I hate it because I love you. I hate it because whoever your true match is, you’re mine.” He says, finally, heaving in a deep breath and exhaling slowly.

“Because I’m yours,” you parrot back at him, and his mouth opens, brows furrowed in a frown.

He takes a step toward you, now, but you don’t back away, and you don’t flinch when he takes your hips in his hands, tugs you toward him, claiming your mouth.

You claw at him, can’t help yourself and you don’t care that brambles are scratching your legs when he lies you down on the ground, don’t care because he’s panting your name into your ear, your name, not all those previous yous. You don’t care because you’ve chosen him, despite whatever the gods had determined to be your “true match.”

“We have to do this,” you tell him as you’re adjusting your clothes and he’s still lying there, panting.

He nods, as if humoring you, but he isn’t as listless when he starts back up the trail with you, keeping up with you and stealing kisses and making small talk.

You’re sweating by the time the two of you reach the top of the mountain, and when you look back, Baekhyun has fallen behind a bit, struggling up the hill.

You startle when thunder cracks overhead, sudden and close, but you walk back down the path to him, put your hand on his arm and he’s trembling.

“We’ve never made it this far,” he says, voice hoarse. “I don’t know what will happen next.”

“We don’t ever know what happens next, Baekhyun, but you know what happens when we don’t.”

Baekhyun shakes his head. “Not if you let me get my arrows, we can stop all of this, we can-”

“No!” You yell. “No, shut up about that, I can make my own choices!”

You tug on his arm and he stumbles forward only a few steps before stopping again and you can see the circle of stones at the top of the hill, where you’re supposed to stand according to the legends, and you haven’t done weeks of research and travelled across the world for nothing.

You take his hand in yours, squeeze, and look into his eyes.

“It’s okay,” you promise, and you have no idea what’s about to happen and it’s raining now, cold against your skin, but you know that you have to do this.

Baekhyun looks at you and there’s nothing in his eyes but fear and uncertainty but you tug at his hand again anyway and this time he follows without resistance.

It happens so quickly after that.

You step into the circle first, and he pauses, hesitating before breaking the barrier by stepping over one of the irregular stones. The second he does, lightning cracks above your head and you cry out, frightened.

Baekhyun grabs you out of instinct or some desire to protect you and you go down, scraping your elbows against the rock and sand as you try to catch yourself. Baekhyun puts his hands on either side of your head and it’s raining so hard that it’s all you can hear, that and the thunder, and there’s lightning everywhere, lighting up his features as he looks down at you.

“I was never strong enough to do this before,” he says, nearly yelling over the storm. “I’m sorry that I couldn’t-”

He’s cut off by another crack of lightning and he seems to be… lighting up, somehow, some glow that you think is from the lightning but then you see it’s coming from inside him. He arches his back, his face lined with pain and you realize something’s happening, something bad but when you reach up to touch him, he’s giving off so much heat that the tips of your fingers burn.

“Baek,” you whisper, and he manages to focus on you again. When he does, his face… it isn’t his face, but somehow you recognize it anyway and it keeps changing, cycling through all the lifetimes you’ve shared together.

“I’ve been so many things,” he says, and his voice is strong even over the chaos. “but I’ve always been yours.”

He manages to touch his forehead to yours and you’re terrified by the storm and what’s happening and especially how it seems to pain him to even move, how he’s glowing brighter and brighter until your eyes start watering.

He says your name but it’s your name and Jacqueline and Eva and Yui and so many others, all wrapped into one, and kisses you, the bright light coming from him forcing your eyes shut as he gets closer.

When you open them, there’s no sound of the rain or thunder and the ground under you is dry, as if you’d imagined it all.

But you can taste the rainwater in your mouth. You can still taste him there, too, but he’s gone.

You scramble up, yelling out his name and there’s nothing, just the sound of the birds in the trees. Moments before, the sky had been black, but now it’s sunny again.

You don’t realize you’re crying until you feel the tears running down your throat as you stumble down the path.

You’re sobbing by the bottom of the path because there’s nothing, no evidence he was even there at all. You’re remembering what he said, how he said you’d never been that far before, but you’re wondering if he’d known, anyway.

You’re wondering if breaking the curse means that he has to die and how all of this is your fault your fault your fault.

There’s a sound in the woods and you barely realize it until there’s a man standing next to you.

“Miss? Are you all right?”

You sniffle, looking up at him, and your breath catches in your throat.

It’s Baekhyun, just the same, wearing the wet and sandy clothes he’d been wearing just a few moments ago, but something’s wrong and you can’t rush to him like you want to.

“Baekhyun?”

He rubs the back of his neck, smiles a little sheepishly. “Is that my name? I seem to have forgotten it. I think… I think I got lost.”

You think about how this feels, how there’s not a single light of recognition in his eyes and it feels like your chest has cracked wide open. You think about how he must have felt this, over and over again, and understand why he didn’t want you to have to feel it.

You take a deep, shaky breath and wipe at your eyes with the heels of your hands.

“You’re not lost,” you tell him, and take his hand.

Baekhyun looks down at your hand in his and then back up to you, a smile breaking across his face. “No, doesn’t seem like it anymore.”

You’re trying not to cry as you lead him back to the resort when he stops and you turn back to look at him.

“I know this might seem like an odd question, but… have we met before?”

It hurts but you crack a smile anyway, remembering how he’d done this for you over and over, remembering what he’d said to you a few months ago.

“Maybe in another life.”

#supermnet #noonasinnetwork #byun baekhyun x reader #baekhyun x reader #super m imagine #exo imagone #baekhyun imagine

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tomoonine · 3 years

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[scenario] early mornings with ravn

hii, is it possible to request for a ravn fluff piece? 🥺 there is this video of him and hwanwoong saying "I love you" to each other and the part where he says 'dont close your eyes, I love you' is totally stuck in my head because he sound sooooo endearing saying that 😭 also, if it is not too much to add - ravn saying "have you slept well? wake up~" in the fluff piece 🥺 he said it in one of his recent vlive and it sound super soft as well thankyou so much for all the wonderful writings!🌙

☽. oh yes, i’m really sorry for being late again !! i admit that my writing has become a little rusty, but here it is!! and thank you for requesting anon, especially for supplying a lot of details!! if you enjoyed reading this, please check out more in my masterlist! requested: yes; anon word count: 1.0k words

Contrary to the cultural depictions of his namesake, Youngjo actually sees himself as someone to be associated with bright and joyful things. While a raven is commonly associated with loss, death, darkness, and omens, Youngjo finds it ironic that he finds bliss in the bright and simple things in life. There’s some sort of incandescent joy that comes from seeing the daisies that bloom along the sidewalk, from the feeling of the sun kissing his skin, and even from the varying melodies that leave the speakers of his devices. There’s so much happiness the world has to offer that he finds it somehow baffling that his image may have been reduced to darkness.

No way can he be as broody as a raven when he finds himself smiling as soon as he wakes up in the early morning. With a glimpse toward the clock on the nightstand, he notes that his heart is bursting at the seams as early as 7:15 in the morning. As he expected, a ray of light seeps past the windows of his bedroom and his eyes crinkle at the contact. Through the creases of his eyes he feels the morning stars that have accumulated at the edge of his lashes-- definitely evidence of a good night’s sleep. And as he reaches his arm outward to stretch his shoulders, he feels your warm body shift beside his torso.

There’s so much happiness the world has to offer. For Youngjo, however, the greatest joy in the universe comes from waking up in the morning knowing that you’re by his side.

Quite literally beside him actually, you’re still deep in your slumber facing Youngjo’s torso. You have one arm tucked under your head and the other is resting across the male’s lap. The sunlight doesn’t hit you in the same way it does for Youngjo, but he can see you despite the little light source available. He can see the morning stars that have dusted on the corner of your eyes, and he can see the way your chest rises and falls.

It’s a sight he’s accustomed to, seeing you deep in your sleep while he’s up so early in the morning. It’s honestly what makes the mornings better than how they used to be before he met you. However, Youngjo doesn’t seem to want to spend this moment fondly watching you. No, this time he wants to do something akin to pillow talk. He wants to see your eyes flutter open and he wants to feel his heart pound at the sight of you.

So he does. After brushing his hair away from his eyes, his hand moves to gently caress your cheek and dust off the morning stars with his thumb. At the contact, your eyebrows furror and your head shifts slightly at the warmth of his palm. Youngjo lets out a laugh when he hears you grumbling lowly, noticing your disdain for being up at such an ungodly hour.

“Hey,” He calls out gently. “Have you slept well, my love?” Youngjo reattempts to rouse you from your slumber, this time leaning in to kiss the corner of your eyes once, and once more on your eyelid. A smile makes its way to Youngjo’s lips when he sees you grinning in delight.

“I was.” You whisper. Your arm around his torso leaves in favor of stretching your arms and shoulders. A little whine leaves your lips as you feel your muscles contract, though regardless of the soreness, you’re still quick to snatch the comforter that’s resting on your stomach, turn around, and hide under the covers playfully. “But I still want to sleep, Youngjo!” You huff, getting ready to sleep again.

“No, wake up!” Youngjo’s speed rivals yours, especially with the way he manages to turn your body back towards him and encase you in his strong grip. Unlike earlier, his head’s now resting on the pillows and your forehead is on his chest. And unlike earlier, you finally tilt your head upward and open your eyes. The light is harsh, so you shut them back almost immediately. But when you feel Youngjo’s lips on your forehead, ever so slightly whispering “wake up~” on the expanse of your skin, you can’t help but open your eyes slowly. His lips have left your forehead to kiss your cheek, and you’re so close to him that you can feel Youngjo smiling.

“Don’t close your eyes anymore, (Y/N).” He pleads. “I miss you.”

You hum, basking in his affection. “We’ve only been sleeping for a few hours, Youngjo. And we had our fun yesterday, didn’t we? Was that not enough?”

“Ah,” he sighs. “More than enough, that’s what I thought. But you were in my dreams last night and before I could give you a kiss, I woke up.”

“That’s a shame.”

“Couldn’t even tell you ��I love you’ either.”

“Aw, my poor baby~” You coo, this time you reach your hands out to cup his face gently. You guide his face towards your gaze, and you notice the morning stars that have spread out on the corners of his eyes. You notice the dark circles under his eyes, and you can’t help but chuckle at the tuft of hair that sticks out in such an odd direction. Without much thought, your thumbs make their way to wipe out the Sandman’s work near his eyes and you beam at him. “Well, I’m here aren’t I? How about you give me my morning kiss, hmm?”

Youngjo grins cheekily and he dives down to kiss you everywhere. One kiss on each eyelid, a lingering kiss on the top of your forehead, a short peck on your nose, and a deep kiss on your lips-- each gentle touch of affection followed with a whisper of “I love you”. And you stay that way until the sunlight has shifted away from your bodies, until the birds have ceased their song, and until Youngjo pulls away from all the kisses he graced you with.

There’s so much happiness the world has to offer. For you, however, the greatest joy in the universe comes from waking up in the morning knowing that Youngjo loves you to the moon and back.

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actuallysaiyan · 3 years

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The Killing Moon(Itachi Uchiha x Female Reader)

Word count: 1,993

Pairings: Itachi Uchiha x Reader

Warnings: Fluff, bittersweetness, possible spoilers

Summary: Reader stops at nothing to be able to see Itachi one last time, even if it may not end up being a happy ending.

The night air clung to your skin as you kept looking back to make sure no one was following you. You know what you were doing was extremely wrong, but you couldn’t say no to this. You couldn’t allow yourself to miss out on what could possibly be the last time you would see him. It had been years since you last saw him, and still he plagued your dreams. Often, you’d wake up in a cold sweat, calling out his name with tears in your eyes. Never would you love another like you did with him.

When you spotted the crow, you had a feeling that this would be an omen. You weren’t sure if it was good or bad, but it had a letter addressed to you. Of course, the crow disappeared as soon as you took the letter. You figured it was genjutsu of sorts, but you weren’t the most familiar with it.

Seeing Itachi’s name and his handwriting brought back some difficult memories. You could see yourself with him, running down the streets and watching over little Sasuke. The way Sasuke would grab at you, asking you to pick him up when he was very young. Nowadays, he wouldn’t even look at you. You knew that it was difficult for Sasuke to acknowledge you, but he also knew that you were hurting deeply inside. His vow to kill his brother was what killed you inside. You knew Sasuke felt like he absolutely needed to fulfill this, but you didn’t think it would ever come to this point between those two.

Yet, when Itachi murdered his whole clan and ran off as a rogue ninja, your heart broke. You tried to look after Sasuke, but he just rejected you at this point. You weren’t sure what had transpired that night, but it still killed you inside that Sasuke didn’t want anything to do with you. He yelled and kicked at you, telling you how much he hated you. From that day on, you decided it would be best if you just tried to move on and let him live his own life. You always tried your best to keep an eye on him, but you knew better to approach him. He would never allow you into his life again. Somehow, it seemed like Sasuke blamed you for part of what happened. Whether it be because you had always been in love with Itachi, or just because Sasuke hated the world, you never figured it out.

And yet, here you were, basically ruining your reputation as a shinobi to be able to see Itachi one last time. Your heart raced as you did everything to make sure you would not get caught. You didn’t want to be branded as a traitor. When the guards weren’t watching so properly, you slipped out of the village and made your way into the forest.

The sound of the cicadas screaming reminded you of summer nights long ago, when you would sit with Itachi and both of you would talk all night long. He always shared his feelings with you, but he never told you about what was going on in the background. He never told you the true reason why he would eventually kill his whole clan. You believed he had a good reason for it, but you could never figure it out. No one could ever explain it to you, and now maybe you had your chance to find out what happened.

Suddenly, a burst of crows appeared in front of you and they materialized into Itachi. You almost screamed in horror, but you stopped yourself. You didn’t want to draw attention to the situation unfolding in front of you. When Itachi spotted you, he glared at you. You couldn’t bring yourself to look into his eyes, which had changed so much since the last time you saw him.

“(Y/N).”

You swallowed hard as you found yourself to be frightened. You wanted to approach him, but all the rumours about him had made you terrified. He was a rogue ninja, and also a murderer. You wanted to trust him, but you didn’t even know him anymore.

He approached you slowly, his eyes observing you. You looked so beautiful in the pale moonlight. He was enamored with you, yet he knew he could never have you. He wanted to take you into his arms and run away with you, but he could never subject you to that. You had your whole life in front of you.

His lips brushed up against yours roughly, and you were surprised. You had loved Itachi since you two were children, but you never thought he returned those feelings. His tongue licked your bottom lip, and you allowed him into your mouth. His arms wrapped around you, pulling you closer into him. You never wanted this moment to end.

“Itachi…” You moaned breathlessly when you pulled away. He cupped your chin and tilted your head so you could look into his eyes. That’s all it took for you to be placed under his genjutsu.

It’s a sunny afternoon, and you are standing in front of the sink. As you finish up the dishes, you hear the front door open. Sasuke’s voice calls out to you as he runs towards you, his arms outstretched to give you a hug. You smile as you reach to hug him, ruffling his hair.

“Hi, how was training today?” You ask as he pulls away from the hug.

“It was great. I think I’m getting a lot stronger!” He was so enthusiastic.

Itachi watches from the doorway, a big smile spreads on his face. For once, everything seems to be going well. He knew his parents would be returning home very shortly, and he couldn’t wait to surprise everyone with his big proposal.

The night goes on without a hitch, and everyone has a wonderful meal together. You always felt like you were a part of the Uchiha family. They made you feel so welcome. This warms your heart as you think about how you were an orphan from a very young age. Both of your parents perished in a battle.

Itachi turns to face you, his beautiful smile is infectious. You were so in love with him, and you couldn’t help it to wish you could be with him forever. You know that maybe you don’t have a chance with him, but being his best friend forever is enough to keep you going in life.

“(Y/N),” Itachi starts. Everyone stops talking and they all turn to face you. You can feel the blush creeping up on your cheeks. “There’s something I need to confess.”

“What is it, Itachi?” You ask, puzzled. He pulls out a small box from his pocket, and inside is a beautiful ruby engagement ring. You aren’t sure how to react anymore.

“Ever since we were children, I knew you’d always be by my side. I don’t want to go through life without you. Will you marry me?” You look into his eyes, and the scene changes…

It’s years later, and you find yourself on the sofa. Your belly has grown quite a bit and you can’t help but rub it every now and then. You wait patiently for Itachi to return from his mission. You still live with the Uchihas, and they always dote on you, especially now that you are pregnant with Itachi’s child. A warmth spreads inside you as you hear the front door slide open. In comes Sasuke, running towards you.

“(Y/N)! Itachi has returned. He’s coming home!” Sasuke is so excited for his brother to return.

You give him a small smile as you struggle to get up. Sasuke is quick to help you up, making sure you don’t hurt yourself or pull a muscle. He has been a dear to you throughout your whole pregnancy. Sasuke was the perfect little brother, and he meant so much to you.

You both walk over to the porch, awaiting Itachi’s arrival. You were growing impatient, but you knew it would be all worth it once he was back in your arms once more. Finally, you could see him coming towards the house. You excitedly called out to him, and he came running.

Finally, he was there in front of you, holding you in his arms and showering you in kisses. It felt so good to have him here.

“I missed you so much, Itachi.”

He smiles, “I missed you too, (Y/N). And I missed our little one. I cannot wait to be a father!”

You’re brought back to reality as the genjutsu dissolved. You weren’t sure what just transpired, but you knew it had to do with Itachi. You could feel a growing sorrow deep inside you as you looked up at Itachi. His eyes, now dark and normal, had tears welling up in them.

“What was that?” You asked, hoping to get some sort of answers.

He stepped forward, holding you close. His lips pressed against yours once more, and you could feel his wet tears stream down his face and onto yours. For him to cry like this, you knew he was inconsolable. Your heart ached.

“I wanted to show you what we could have had, (Y/N).” He explained as he brushed your hair out of your face.

“We could still have that! Please, take me with you. I need you,” You protested, but he wasn’t hearing any of it.

“No, I can’t do that to you. You have your whole life ahead of you, and I know you could make some other man happy. I could never allow myself to lead you down this path.” You wanted to shut him up, but you knew he was speaking logically.

“Please, we could have that. I want to be with you, Itachi. I love you.” You told him. You trembled as you tried not to cry. It was becoming increasingly difficult.

“(Y/N),” he said. You looked up into his eyes once again, and this time you could see the love and adoration you had for him. “I would do anything for us to be able to live that life, but we can’t. I could never let this happen to you, just know that I love you so much. I need you to be strong for me.”

You fought back tears as best as you could, yet you still started crying. Itachi wiped your tears away, and you relished at the feeling of his hands.

“Be strong for me, (Y/N). Maybe in some other lifetime, we could have been happy together. I want you to know that my actions were justified, and if I could have done it differently, I would have for you. The odds were always going to be stacked against me.”

You wanted to argue with him and have him take you away, but you couldn’t find the strength to do so. Instead, you allowed yourself to be held by him. It could be the last time you would ever see him, and you just wanted to remember the way he felt. You wanted to remember his scent and his voice.

“I love you so much, (Y/N). I’m sorry I put you through so much.” Itachi apologized.

“I love you too. Don’t be sorry.” You told him as you wiped your tears away again. “I may not know the circumstances, but I believe that what you did wasn’t hateful. I just wish I could have helped you, even if it was something small.”

“I will always love you.”

And you found yourself in bed, crying out as your body was slick with sweat. Tears streamed down your face as your body was wracked with hard sobs. You weren’t even sure if what happened was real or if it had just been another dream. You cried out for him, longing to be held by him once again.

#writing #not requested #naruto #naruto shippuden #itachi uchiha #itachi uchiha x reader #bittersweet #no smut #love #itachi uchiha is the best uchiha #very sad #naruto writing #i'm not done watching #NO SPOILERS PLEASE

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oddymillz · 3 years

Text

Jolly sailor || Pt 2

F!Pirate!Reader x sea monster

Fluff!

It’s been a whole month since I first met that eerily beautiful man. At first I believed him to be some sort of omen, but that theory melted away as nothing extraordinary ever happened. Well that was other than the fact that random objects from the sea always seemed to be scattered all over the deck of my lonesome ship. They were gifts, they had to be. It was mostly an array of beautiful sea flowers, sometimes small uninhabited shells were arranged in shapes of foreign designs that were strangely alluring. I wondered why he was doing this.

Today, however I caught him. I was simply minding my business, sat on a wooden barrel, simply eating a Braeburn apple. What else was I supposed to do? Not much mused me, I only had myself and honestly I wasn’t entertaining, nor was I creative enough to find amusement. So when I noticed a tip of a pitch black tentacle gripped at the ledge of my ship, my mood instantly changed. After a few tentacles have climbed over, an ocean-water soaked head popped up. Coral irises landing on me, although inky black pupils dilated instantly, making his irises look almost like a void with a peachy outline.

The sea creature of a man slowly rises, seemingly more confident than our last encounter. He slowly shuffles towards me, his tentacles moving like gelatinous liquid. I never really saw the full size of him. He was massive. Despite my height, he towered over me. I should’ve felt intimidated. Scared even, but when he reaches out an enormous dripping hand that’s grasping a large seashell, I couldn’t help but be overwhelmed with glee. I happily reach out to the gift that’s presented for me, that’s when I hear a low grumble of a voice. “So beautiful...” I look up at him, his brooding tone was oddly relaxing. An enthusiastic smile still plastered on my lips “The shell is beautiful.” I replied, grasping the shell gently. But his eyes narrowed in disapproval, “not the shell.” He mumbled “you.”

That took me by surprise. My cheeks heated up. I didn’t know how to react. He just smiled sweetly as he plopped down on the floor. His exceedingly long tentacles stretched out on the floor boards. I followed suit, as I sat on the floor I placed my new possession next to me. “So are you gonna tell me your name this time, mysterious one?” I questioned as I continued munching on my apple. He scrunched his nose up trying to think. “How about I give you one then?” I asked. That idea, he liked. The cecaelia nodded eagerly. I ponder for a good second before smiling again “inky?” I giggled at his almost offended expression “no.” He stated.

After a while of debating meaningless words and random names, we settled on Nero. It wasn’t creative, but he seemed to like it. “So, Nero... what’s with the gifts?” I raised a brow and looked up at him “you looked lonely... “ he sighed out “and you have a nice face.” He quickly added. I held back laughter at his bluntness “well, thank you I suppose.” I reply happily, “are you planning on staying longer this time?” Nero smiled sheepishly while nodding.

After quite a few hours, the sun began setting, painting the sky in a warm hue. Me and Nero chatted away during that time, I have never felt this content. God, I’ve been so lonely for so long, I almost forgot how lovely another voice was. He was so kind too, I felt so safe, so protected. Unfortunately as the moon invited itself into the darkening sky, Nero left. Leaving behind the seashell. I leaned over the ledge as I watch my new mate dive into the water.

I hope he visits me tomorrow...

———————————————————————————————

Hey lovelies! 💖 I hope you enjoyed part two!

Once again, if anyone has any suggestions or requests, ask away!

And as always, have a wonderful day!💖

#monster lover #monster fucker #monsters #tentacle #Cecaelia #story #tentacle monster #sea #ocean #pirate

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starr-fall-knight-rise · 4 years

Text

HASO, “Dealing with Intruders.”

So sorry this came out so late today. I was at work and things got busy. I wanted it to be a bit longer, but decided this was a good enough stopping point. I hope you all enjoy

Yeb took a step back.

“I said run, and DIE!” The small, Fuzzy creature said, its ear twitching spastically over its brightly colored fur.

She froze in place, she didn’t know what this creature was, she had never seen it through all of her spying on the ship. It was small though, so there was more than a distinct possibility that she just hadn’t seen it. Either way that didn’t change the fact that she didn’t know anything about it. It could be poisonous, or venomous, or have some other strange ability that she didn’t know about.

“Who are you!” it demanded.

She held up her hands, “Yeb…. my name is Yeb, please don’t hurt me I’m sorry I snuck aboard your ship…. I… I panicked.”

“A stowaway then, from the ice planet.”

She nodded quickly, “Please, I mean you no harm, I just…. I just made a dumb mistake is all.”

“I feel that the Admiral will be very interested to learn about this.”

She felt her fur stand on end thinking of the genial alien captain and how he would react to the sudden appearance of her on his ship, a stowaway. What might he think about her betraying his trust like that, what would he seem like when driven to anger?

“Come with me.” The little fuzzball ordered, turned and began waddling away, “Try to escape and I break your kneecaps.”

Yeb followed behind silently. She didn’t see how the small creature would even reach her kneecaps, but she certainly didn’t want to challenge it. If it was THAT confident it could hurt her, then she had no desire to figure out why.

They stepped into the hallway, her following, keeping mostly to the maintenance tunnels, gone unused by most of the crew. At a certain point she started to hear low murmured voices rising up in some agitation over the thrumming sound of the ship’s distant engines. They came out of the maintenance corridor, and the sound around them rose higher.

It was still agitated, but hushed, and as she walked into the room she was greeted with a very odd…. And an almost disturbing scene.

There was a ring in the center of the floor, surrounded by seats. Inside the ring, little drops of red made a smattering over the floor. The humans sat around in agitated silence looking between each other and the occasional Drev.

Sitting just outside the circle was the human leader…. looking …. More the worse for wear.

He had a small crowd gathered around him,and that strange red liquid was leaking down the side of his face and onto his shirt. Just to the side, the small Blue Drev was standing looking concerned.

As Yeb got closer, she noticed to her horror that the human’s leg was missing! She froze in place and the entire group of whispering humans looked up as she stopped. Concern turned to confusion turned to shock.

The human leader lifted his head, which was discolored and leaking fluid but paused as well, “You!”

“She shrunk back.”

“I found this stowaway hiding in the maintenance tunnels.” The fluff ball announced to the whole room.

The human opened his mouth, closed it, tilted his head and then sighed.

“Will you give us just a moment.” His voice was calm and restrained, almost, tired.

He turned to look over at The blue Drev and a smaller group of humans clustered around just to the side.

“Any joy?”

“It doesn’t look too bad sir, most of the main components are intact as expected, it is just a faulty joining pin.”

“Can you fix it?”

“Unfortunately….not with what we have here. But it should be easy enough to order At Europa.”

He sighed, “Sit, well, it’ll have to do.” He turned to look at one of the other humans, she knew to be named Ramirez, “Head to my room, look in the closet, and in the back corner, you will find those crutches that go around your wrists.”

The man nodded, “Yeah, for sue.” He jogged off and the human leader, Adam, turned to face her.

Slow red was still oozing from the side of his face still as the little spidery alien creature attempted to stop it.

“Yeb, I can’t say I expected to see you here.”

“I...I am so sorry… I have no idea what I was thinking. I saw the box, and it was open, and i just sort of… jumped in, I have no idea why I did that, and then I was worried that you were going to be mad, so I…. So I hid and…. and .”

It was getting very hot all of a sudden, and she was beginning to pant.

“Wow, slow your roll there for a moment.” He held up his hands.

She stared at him, teetering on the edge of concern and fear.

“That….. Sounds like exactly something I would have done.” He smiled at her with his pearly white teeth, “Welcome aboard the Omen. I wish you would have told me sooner as this is hardly a hospitable environment for you. Where have you been hiding.”

She looked down at her shuffling feet, “The…. walk-in freezer?”

He barked a laugh, “Ingenious.”

He held a pad of white to the side of his head and went to stand but stopped suddenly apparently seeming surprised that he was missing a leg. He huffed, “Will someone help me up.” He turned to look at the small doctor frowning and arms crossed over its bug-like chest, “Yes, we will discuss my idiocy later, but right now, we need to figure out how to keep our friend comfortable.”

The little doctor gave her a good once-over, “Does your fur grow back?”

She paused, frowned and then nodded slowly, “Yes it does.”

“Even the under layer?”

“yes , it would.”

The humans glanced between each other, and Adam held up a hand, “Now, this is not out of offence to you, so Don’t take it that way, but….. It might be cooler and more bearable if…. Perhaps you had less fur…. As in shaving it.”

She paused in thought, “I….I have never thought about it….I suppose…. It can’t hurt, if it would make the heat more bearable.”

“Alright, than that is something we can do. Your other options to wear a cooling vest,but those are heavy and would require battery changes and charging. Granted the other way would not be permanent either, but it might last longer.”

She paused to think about it, then, “Will you let me stay here.”

“I was going to let you stay here no matter what you chose to do, so it's your call.”

Just then Ramirez came jogging into the room holding a pair of metal sticks with strange loops at the end, which he handed over to Adam.

The human threaded his wrists through the loops, and levered himself up onto his one remaining leg with his weight supported on the metal sticks. Yeb tried to keep from staring, but fascination outweighed her propriety.

“Krill, take Yeb to the infirmary, and see if you can’t figure out how to safely remove some of her fur. I mean sheep shears would probably be best, but it's not like I have any of those lying around the ship.”

“And you?”

“I will be right along.”

The little spidery alien moved to the side of her and guided her away from the room. She glanced back over her shoulder just in time to see the Blue Drev and the human duck their heads in fervent conversation, her keen hearing managed to pick up some of what was being said, “Adam, I am so sorry I…”

“I asked r it, its ok.”

“No its-”

“Yes it is, now please don’t worry about it, and if you really are, just fix my leg when we get back to Europa.”

She saw the human touch the Drev’s Arm for just a moment before he limped away on his crutches, following after them up the hall.

Again she tried not to stare.

He was fast on those things, and surprisingly mobile, but her eyes kept being drawn to his missing leg, amputated at center thigh. She had seen wounds like that before, mostly after someone got to close to an ice beast or a crevice lurker. They had never lasted long dying from cold and shock a few hours after the incident.

What kind of…. Ungodly power would keep someone alive after trauma like that….

Her thoughts were cut off as she was pulled into the bright hite room next to the freezer. She was sat down and examined by the small studious doctor, who still seemed too grouchy to be particularly talkative. After a while two of the marines came trotting into the room each holding a box.

“This is all we could find, a couple of razors from the crew quarters.”

The one named Maverick eyed her, “I doubt they will be very usable after this.”

Ramirez nodded, “I’d tend to agree.”

Adam limped up behind them, “Might as well try.” he looked down at Yeb with a smile, “Want to do it yourself, or have some help.”

“Er…. help?”

Ramirez clicked on the Razor, “Hey, do you want a mohawk?”

She blinked, “A what.”

“We could do it all the way down your back, have the hair longer there, it would look badass.”

Yeb thought he was joking for a moment but seeing the look on Adam’s face she had a feeling he wasn’t. She wondered, they seemed excited and almost hopeful she’d say yes…. She didn’t see the harm in it,and she didn’t know what badass meant but it sounded fun. So she hesitantly nodded.

“Fuck yeah.”

She wasn’t entirely sure she trusted “These two humans, but what else was she to do?

The going was very, very slow, and the strange machines were very, very loud, she watched as her hair fell to the floor in great chunks, and was surprised when a cool breeze rushed over her neck.

It took them over an hour, and by the time they were done the floor was covered in hair, and she was marginally more comfortable. It felt so weird, and when they turned a mirror towards her she was shocked.

She was so…

Small.

She turned her head looking down at the scruff of hair left on her back which she was delighted to find made her look more vicious, the effect would be even more prominent when her fur stood up on end.

“See, badass.”

The little doctor crossed his arms again, “Don’t you think, Admiral that this might cause some diplomatic issues with the Tricar if they were to know she is here?”

“Than I guess we better not let anyone know she is here, and look at her, a horrible accident caused her to lose her fur and now she wouldn’t last a day back home, we are simply being generous hosts.” he patted her back then paused, “I have another potentially inappropriate question, so please don’t be offended.”

She looked up at him her head tilted and her ears pulled back.

“What?”

“Can I please…. Touch your fur, you look very fluffy, and humans love to pet things. Its sort of a thing about us?”

She shrugged and didn’t see the harm in it.

He grinned at her rather happy and adjusted himself to balance on one crutch, hooking his hand out of the other as he reached over and ran a hand from the top of her head and w nto her shoulders.

“So fluffy!”

She laid her ears back, That was actually kind of nice, and when he stopped she was only mildly disappointed. She’d have to convince someone else to touch her fur, which she doubted would be hard.

“Anyway, I have to take care of a head wound, but Ramirez and Maverick, why don’t you take Yeb around the ship, and give her the full tour, you know without the sneaking around and being forced to hide in the walk in freezer.”

They nodded and laughed somewhat.

“Try to keep her out of trouble will you. Oh…. and if you see Sunny…. Can you send her up here?”

His voice had grown somewhat hesitant, a minute change in pitch which she detected with her large ears.

She wondered what was going on, but let it go as the humans took her by the shoulder and led her away.

They seemed excited to have heron the ship, and their excitement made her excited. She was more than ready to learn and spend time with this strange alien species. And to try more of their food, which was about ten times better than the bland over-salted fish on her planet.

Hopefully she would be able to repay them somehow.

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quillyfied · 4 years

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Mega Good Omens Fic Rec Post 5

What up, it’s back!

77 carefully-curated titles for your perusal today! As always, the fics are broken into the following categories: Jaunts through History/Canon, South Downs, Post-Apocalypse, Bus Ride/The Night Before/Heaven and Hell, AU/UA, Just Soft, Touch-Starved/Body Worship/Wings, Bonus, and H/C /Whump/BAMF. I don’t read smut fics but sometimes there are sexual elements to the stories and sometimes you get invested and then suddenly the author drops a smut chapter, so warnings where applicable.

Mega GOmens Fic Rec Post MASTER

LET ME KNOW IF A LINK IS BROKEN OR MISATTRIBUTED AND I WILL FIX IT RIGHT AWAY.

JAUNTS THROUGH HISTORY/CANON

1. Get Thee To A Nunnery – Owenjones (T, the one where Aziraphale is put in a nunnery and needs a bit of a rescue. More or less Ineffable Wives time, but warnings for Aziraphale being forced into a female corporation against his will, that’s pretty icky (three guesses for who the offending Archangel is). Crowley is posing as a little lady known as Julie D’Aubigny, which, if that rings no bells, you should Google her immediately and then go into this fic cackling like I did. Very sweet, a fun little adventure!)

2. Bibliophilia – @wingedspirit (G, the one where Aziraphale has a book nemesis and Crowley always seems to have the perfect book as a gift, what a coincidence. This is so funny, you guys, seriously. We stan ONE (1) oblivious angel in this house. And when Aziraphale finally catches on, it’s so cute, I can’t even. I cannot EVEN. Go read it right now immediately.)

3. The Heart Goes To Heaven, The Head Goes To Hell – Dekkles (T, the one where Crowley has intentions of making an angel Fall and it kinda…backfires. Guys fair warning, this one’s version of Hell is really gross, if you’re squeamish tread very carefully bc WOW it can get a bit graphic. Y’know what’s also gross? The PINING (obviously not gross in the same way but the pining is awfully feelsy and part of it does happen in Hell). Watching this Crawly go from an honestly nauseating portrayal of Hell to watching Aziraphale and kinda awkwardly twitching in his light is so delightful and I hope for more in the future (though maybe less visions of Hell, I will be so glad if and when the fic leaves that place because yikes).)

4. i like this place (it feels spooky) – @asideofourown (G, the one where Warlock manages to convince Nanny and Brother Francis to take him to a haunted house and it’s so cute. You guys. It’s SO cute. You really get a feel for little Warlock’s personality and how he sees things (and he sees ALL). Just a really cute “family” outing, really, and someone gets spooked at the end and it’s not who you think!)

5. Doubt the Stars are Fire – LilithReisender (T, the one where Aziraphale bails Crowley out of prison and they spend time together in an Italian villa. This one has cool history bits, really fun banter, and Crowley actively on the job while trying to pretend he isn’t on the job. It’s a delight, and it’s just getting started! Jump on this bandwagon, folks, it’s great!)

6. The Hellfire Club – @amarguerite (NR, the one where greater measures are taken to make sure Aziraphale isn’t promoted back upstairs. This one is so hilarious, you guys, I can’t even tell you which bit is my favorite. And the cherry on top? Wing grooming! (I can also tell you that something highly unpleasant happens to Sandalphon, if that sweetens the pot for anyone.) If you have a Thing for Crowley and Aziraphale being melodramatic and overacting, then stay put, friends. Also continue reading this list, there’s a few more that’ll catch your eye later on.)

7. The Immortal Look – MickyRC (G, the one where Crowley puts Aziraphale in some kohl and it’s awesome. A written entry for the Prince of Omens DTIYS, and even independent from Prince of Omens this fic is a winner, in my book. Crowley going dewy-eyed over Aziraphale’s looks in any capacity is always My Jam and this fic really goes for it.)

8. Merry & Bright – @peppervl (G, the one where Aziraphale and Crowley go undercover as a married couple in the Regency. You like fem!Aziraphale but don’t see it often enough? SIT DOWN, FRIENDO. Not only does this have a lovely Miss Fell for us to fawn over, but it’s a Miss Fell in possession of a fortune and surely in want of a husband, according to prim-and-proper London, and who better to help her out than one Mr. Crowley who happens to need some help on a temptation? Fun, romantic, and with a cute little twist at the end I shan’t spoil but you should really stick around for.)

9. Putting the Endearment in Dear – @joyandotherstories (G, the one where Aziraphale starts calling everyone “dear” just so he can also call Crowley by endearments. This one is sweet and a little sad and has the softest possible ending, y’all don’t even know. Read it, the point in time where Aziraphale doesn’t have to hold back his mountain of endearments anymore is a sight to behold.)

10. Between the Lines – cyankelpie (G, the one where Crowley and Aziraphale’s feelings are known but not spoken, at least not directly. This one is a historical jaunt where they have a lot of double-meaning conversations (and Crowley is very rightly lost through a lot of it, poor dear), and it aches, you guys, it just hurts. Not finished yet as of this review but WHEN IT’S DONE—I’m sure it’ll be worth it. Hot dang.)

11. No Matter How the Stars Align (They Make Me Think of You) – silentsonata (G, the one that covers stars that Crowley and Aziraphale have met under. Every once in a while there’ll come along a fic that shakes the ground as it walks. I understand the Big Bang events usually churn these out, and there are quite a few on this list, but this fic here? A masterpiece. Pitch-perfect in every way, just a stunner. I want to tell y’all to pay special attention to certain chapters but they all took my breath utterly away and it would be unfair to single any out over the rest, the whole work is a monument. Just beautiful.)

12. Too Wise to Woo Peaceably – purewanderlust (T, the one that’s five times they see “Much Ado About Nothing” throughout history. I love me some “Much Ado,” personally, and this fic knows what it’s on about. Wonderfully romantic and ends with the single most perfect conversation, I swear 2 someone. Hits right in the feels.)

13. Just Another Sword Fight – DemonicGeek (NR, the one that’s a 5+1 about Crowley swordfighting. If you’re here because Aziraphale taking on the role of the swooning maiden to Crowley’s dashing hero makes you, in fact, be the one swooning, say hello to your new best friend. If you like to follow all that up with Aziraphale taking charge when needed, I might suggest building a home here, because ABSOLUTELY that’s what you’re getting.)

14. A Few More Rescues – @poetic----nonsense (T, the one with, predictably, a few more rescues. If the previous fic had you reeling and begging for more, welcome to the buffet, children. These are some really fun rescues by Crowley on behalf of Aziraphale, and they’re unconventional and historical AF (especially the bit with the dragon) (you bet your sweet keister there’s a bit with a dragon). This fic is so much fun and I thoroughly enjoyed reading it.)

15. Floriography – Frenchmeister (T, the one where Crowley doesn’t get flower language. The premise is, Crowley slept through a large chunk of the Victorian era, so he doesn’t know what Aziraphale keeps trying to say as they work at the Dowlings’ estate raising Warlock. He does know that the philodendron is a menace, no matter what it’s supposed to mean. Funny and nerve-wracking and so, so sweet.)

16. The Interplay of Illusion and Magic – SoulJelly (T, the one where Aziraphale tries to join a magicians’ society. This one has some delightful history and Aziraphale trying to perform sleight of hand magic to get in a secret magicians club and a surprising twist near the middle, all told; it’s a lot more exciting than I initially thought it was going to be (I was just expecting some fluff and that was not all I got; it’s always a good day when Crowley has to come to the rescue).)

SOUTH DOWNS

17. There goes the neighborhood – @bestoftheseekwill (G, the one where Crowley’s retirement peace is threatened by construction. If you’re here for Crowley wiles, anti-capitalism, and flashes of protective Aziraphale, get ready to take a load off because this is primo.)

18. Teatime Revelations – Cardinal_Daughter (T, the one where God invites Herself over for tea. This one is strained and it’s emotional and it’s all the softer for it. Aziraphale being quiet and protective while Crowley has a come-apart in the face of God is iconic, tbh; pretty sure this fic inspired a lot of my own portrayals of the GOmens God, looking back on it. A wonderful and light-hearted take.)

POST-APOCALYPSE

19. Lose a Kraken, Gain an Angel – MistressKat (T, the one where Hastur has an expected friendship. This fic has everything—Hastur being a sympathetic character, the Kraken, Crowley pining after Aziraphale, the Antichrist, and is hilarious from start to finish. A fun and tonally accurate diversion, please read.)

20. Something Old, Something New – shippityshipship (G, the series where Crowley and Aziraphale are involved in weddings. Short and hasn’t updated in a while but still excellent reading, I find; great characterization, some fun OCs, lovely atmosphere, oblivious pining while everyone else thinks they’re dating, it’s amazing.)

21. The difficulty with disposable demons – @areyougonnabe (T, the one where Eric the disposable demon shows up and it’s a madhouse in Crowley’s apartment. This is a really funny take on what happens to the disposable demons and why they are the way they are, and with the added bonus of driving Crowley up the wall and some mild miscommunications with Aziraphale that are all sorted out in the end.)

22. Care and Keeping – @arcafira (M, T, the series where Crowley is shedding and Aziraphale tries to help. Not rated M for anything violent or sexual, really more of a T than an M but there is a bath scene and a lot of self-loathing. There’s a lot of convincing Crowley to let Aziraphale care for him and a lot of working through Fall-related issues, but it leaves off in a wonderfully hopeful place.)

23. The Clockwork Days – redwinehouse (T, the one where the world’s ending again. There are many fics that have tackled possible sequels to Good Omens and this is one of the more tonally accurate ones, I feel; it’s very tongue-in-cheek and matter-of-fact, and the little twist at the end was a genuine surprise to me. Whack in plenty of mutual pining and a Bentley that has had it up to HERE with these idiots and you’ve got a recipe for a good little story.)

24. don’t leave me here alone – Elvendork (T, the one where Crowley asks for holy water again. This one is a tense argument, right up until it isn’t, and absolutely delectable, really. If you’re a fan of Aziraphale bringing up hellfire to go toe to toe with Crowley on the issue, BUCKLE UP BUTTERCUP, this one is dunking itself into Soft Town with that accelerant to really drive it home.)

25. The Next Time We Wed – seashadows (T, the one where a mix-up leads to marriage. If drunken mistakes and their aftermath is what you’re after, welcome to the party, folks, because this one’s a whopper. Can people pine while being married to each other? The answer is yes. Can it have a soft ending? Also yes. Can it include the mothers of such characters as Anathema and Newt being wonderful characters in their own right? The answer, incredibly, is yes.)

26. You Can’t Un-See A Dog – @holycatsandrabbits (T, the one where Crowley is summoned and there’s shenanigans afoot. I won’t talk too much about the plot of this one bc I don’t want to spoil it but suffice it to say that this one is hilarious and has some especially gratifying Ineffable Husband silent communication at play. If your entire reason for existence, like Crowley’s, is seeing Bastard!Aziraphale at work, then bunk down here, friendos, you’ve arrived.)

BUS RIDE/NIGHT BEFORE/HEAVEN AND HELL

27. Crowley, Big Bad Demon, Can Keep His Cool Around His Crush – @edennovik (T, the one where Crowley…well, see title, and then immediately disregard. Crowley cannot, in fact, keep his cool around his crush. Crowley is doing the opposite of keeping his cool around his crush. Crowley is a ball of anxiety and screaming pining gooey mess and Aziraphale might just like him anyway.)

AU/UA

28. If Not Now, When – @ineffablefool (T, the one where trans café worker Crowley strikes up a conversation with fat pretty Aziraphale. Listen. Y’all know ineffablefool. Y’all know he is a force that cannot be stopped or reckoned with, when it comes to Soft Fat-Postive Asexual Romance. So I do not say this lightly when I say that this is possibly his masterwork. There is a lot of good, good content in his catalogue but the emotional work put into this makes the whole thing stand straight up and resonate. It’s tender and respectful and handles conflicts of gender and sexuality with grace and gentleness and oh no I’m tearing up pls send help I’m DROWNING—).

29. Trip the Light – @summerofspock (M, the one where Aziraphale falls in love first. M for a sex scene near the end of the fic, second half of Chapter 17, so keep an eye out for that if you’re sensitive to it. Oh, y’all. This one goes through canon and a few scenes outside of it and the recontextualizing of those scenes as Aziraphale hopelessly in love and Crowley as oblivious is amazing. Even more amazing: once Crowley finally catches on and then it becomes Aziraphale once again in his role of holding back. Guys. Y’all. My DUDES. I am in the throes of agony. It’s so good.)

30. one love (only for you) – @weatheredlaw (M, the one that’s a vague Snow White AU. It’s truly unfair how poetic and romantic this one is, how lovely. It has fantasy elements and ridiculous vengeful brothers and soft, soft boys in love. A sweet little way to spend an afternoon, tbh.)

31. in the house we remain – @commodorecliche (M, the one where Crowley’s a ghost in the house Aziraphale has bought. M for masturbation, weird ghost sex, and a harrowing backstory for Crowley; if you’re squeamish about sexual things and not good at gauging how to skip them, or if you can’t stand abuse stories, I would pass this one up. Y’all. Y’ALL. So thoroughly upsetting, this one; the horror elements are real but so is the romance and it’s a beautiful balance of the two. What’s wild is how believable it is; it could easily have been a story about Aziraphale just becoming obsessed with and romanticizing a dead person who used to live in his house but it feels like an actual love story, with Crowley learning how to trust Aziraphale, as well, despite their planar incompatibility. The ending is so unbelievably sweet. And there’s art now! There wasn’t, when I first added it to the list! Huzzah!)

32. pop! goes my heart – @areyougonnabe (E, the one that’s a Music and Lyrics AU. E for a sex scene near the end of Chapter 6 that’s a bit difficult to skip, since there’s a couple of relevant paragraphs after it that set up the next chapter, but if you’re up for the challenge, godspeed. First things first: this fic has ORIGINAL MUSIC RECORDED BY THE AUTHOR AND IT’S AMAZING. Music and Lyrics is one of my personal favorite romcoms, and what’s been done with it is not only accurate to the actual music industry, but accurate to the characters, as well. It’s such a fun story, adapted well, and the writing style is just charming. Fantastic!)

33. For the First Time in Forever – @nicnacsnonsense (T, the one that’s a Frozen AU. I am excited for this one, y’all. The adaptation is already so much fun and it’s only going to get funner. Aziraphale as Elsa and Crowley in an Anna-adjacent role (but not actually bc no incest) is amazing, the Olaf stand-in outshines the original, and the emotional toll is already pretty high. Absolutely worth a read.)

34. Sailor’s Omens – NeverNooitNiet (G, the one where Crowley’s a pirate and Aziraphale is his prisoner. There’s a touch of historical homophobia but that doesn’t matter much out at sea, really. If the boys being clever and bickering and also one-upping beloved series antagonists is something you enjoy, welcome to the party, friends. It’s a good old-fashioned piracy romp that’s sure to satisfy.)

35. Pomegranate Seeds – @nicnacsnonsense (G, the one that’s a Persephone and Hades AU with Aziraphale as Hades and Crowley as Persephone. This one has a unique tone and is also romantic as all get-out; throw in genderfluid Crowley, love at first sight, and Aziraphale being a sweetie, it’s a story well worth its salt, imo.)

36. Laws of Gravity – @brightwanderer (T, the one where Aziraphale invents pining for Raphael. Listen. I think we all know at this point that brightwanderer, or Atalan on ao3, has earned her clout as a GOmens fanfic heavyweight. She didn’t NEED to write an awkward and earnest Raphael trying to go incognito as Crowley into the Garden of Eden. She didn’t NEED to write about how incredibly awkward Aziraphale is while heels over halo in love. She didn’t NEED to have an engaging plot and a wonderful twist on the Temptation of Eve and also the most awkward and obvious besotted angels in the universe. But she did. And we are blessed. So go partake.)

37. Incubus!Crowley – GenericUsername01 (G, T, the series where Crowley is a sex demon and we get to see what that means. This fic threads the very specific needle I personally enjoy where sex is an element of the story and has bearing on it, but the story doesn’t have any actual sex scenes in it. I love this writer’s style and where they take Crowley and Aziraphale’s relationship; I love the view of Hell in the first bit; I love all of it, really. A+++.)

38. Everyone But You – @summerofspock (M, the one where Crowley is hired to seduce an angel. M for some saucy makeouts and some post-coital afterglow but nothing explicit. If y’all like stories where a conman is hired to do a job and starts to have complicated feelings about it, especially if those feelings are falling in love with his mark, then here you go. It’s amazing as all heck and hilarious to boot; Crowley learning what falling in love is like is always a treat but omg. Poor Aziraphale. And the most DELIGHTFUL resolution, my goodness.)

39. In Mixed Company, or the Corporate Retreat of Heaven and Hell – @theoldaquarian (M, the one where Heaven and Hell have a joint corporate retreat every so often and Crowley and Aziraphale are doomed. M for some adult themes but nothing explicit. Y’all. TheOldAquarian must be stopped. They cannot continue to be so funny and engaging. They cannot continue to have the most corporate and hilariously mundane depiction of Heaven and Hell. They are a MENACE who, in the space of one fic, has packed all the pining of the ages in so tightly that when it finally bursts free, my shoulders physically relaxed and my spine uncoiled. This fic in particular is too much and too wonderful. I really must protest.)

40. Loosely Ballroom – marginalia_device, @mortifyingideal (T, the one where Aziraphale is a professional dancer and Crowley is a contestant on a show with him (for American viewers, think Dancing With the Stars). This fic is so good and so funny and so achingly in-character. I love Crowley as the washed-up old star trying to kick his career back up, I love Aziraphale as the put-upon dancer on his last legs, and I love that they’re both the victim of a studio gimmick and then decide that malicious compliance is their best bet. It’s still early in the fic (…at over 40k words wow it’s gonna be a monster and I’m ready), but it’s going to be so good already, I can just tell. There’s already some art for it floating around by naniiebimworks for the interested.)

JUST SOFT

41. Repeat the Sounding Joy – @allonsy-gabriel (G, the one where they decorate a Christmas tree. This is a short and sweet look at what the holidays are like for an angel and a demon post-apocalypse and it’s so adorable, you guys. Crowley having FEELINGS and Aziraphale being fussy about his decorating, it’s just a treat.)

42. The Nesting Habits of Angelus Principalum – @obaewankenope (NR, the one where Aziraphale nests and is gently protective. This fic is quiet and understated and so unbelievably romantic without being over the top about it; it’s a quiet coming together that creeps up on you, much like how the realization of Aziraphale’s nesting habits creeps up on Crowley. A lovely little thing.)

43. we’ll get there fast and then we’ll take it slow – @tonyhawksmovingcastle (E, the one where Crowley and Aziraphale wind up faking a relationship on a couple’s cruise. E for Chapter 7, which is completely skippable without ruining any plot. This one gets a double whammy for both engaging plot and wonderful OCs that add to rather than distract from the story. Fake dating is fun enough but when you’re fake dating and also being wingmanned by well-meaning possibly supernatural sapphics, while also having fun in the tropics, it’s a recipe for a good time all around (at least for the audience). So lovely and sweet and that moment when Crowley and Aziraphale finally get together is magic.)

44. Road Trip Games and Love – rgfalso (T, the one where Crowley and Aziraphale go on a road trip together. This one almost takes place in real time, and has the most intense and emotional back-and-forth while these poor saps try to work out the Thing between them without actually talking about it for as long as inhumanly possible. Of course there are lots of road trip games, and of course those road trip games are a vehicle of conveyance for what they’re actually trying to say, and cue all the misunderstandings in the world. It’s frustrating and cathartic and amazing and the end especially is so, so sweet.)

45. The Most Stylish Wedding of AZ Fell and AJ Crowley – @leapoffaith1489 (T, the one where Aziraphale is determined to discard tartan for the wedding. Y’all. Omg. If relatively low-stakes cute wedding shenanigans are your thing, welcome home. If Aziraphale being pleasantly surprised is your thing, welcome home. If Aziraphale working through minor insecurities is your thing, welcome, truly, home. Featuring a lovely cast of side characters and a soft-as-butter plot.)

46. The Newlywed Game (Not What You’d Think) – @heavenslittlehellion (NR, the one where a game of drunken truth-telling goes a little farther than anticipated. Hello, welcome to the emotional gut-punch fic, you’ve arrived. The only thing that saves this from dunking into the last category on this list with the other h/c and whump fics is how low-stakes it is and how soft it is when they get past the unpleasant bit. People who love theories on what the Fall felt like, welcome to the table.)

47. On the Road to Love – Mizmak (G, the one where Crowley enters a motor rally race with the Bentley, with Aziraphale as navigator. While there’s great fun in Crowley and Aziraphale needling each other, there’s greater joy in their friendship and tenderness towards the other (and asexual bed-sharing fans, rejoice). It’s a fun concept all around and definitely worth the read.)

48. Mr. Fell’s Bookshop ficlets – @holycatsandrabbits (G, T, the series where Mr. Fell has regular customers and they love the place as much as they love its weird and eldritch owner. For folks who love seeing the Ineffable Duo through others’ eyes, this is a fun series to scratch that particular itch, and has spawned a number of spin-off fics, unless I’m mistaken. It’s a relatively low-stakes series, for people wanting something like that these days, too.)

49. Quiet Reflection – @shinyopals (T, the one where they have to duck into a church to avoid demons. If the phrase “spicy Jesus crackers” holds any appeal whatsoever, go read this fic immediately. It’s heartfelt and hilarious and really that’s all you can ask for in a good fluff fic. Also Crowley being held. Really, that’s all any of us want from life.)

50. Deck the Halls – forthegreatergood (G, the one where mistletoe should really not be this hard to get a hold of. Y’all you simply MUST stick around for the hijinks in this one. They are manifold and hilarious. Does it end in makeouts? Possibly. You’ll just have to read it, won’t you?)

51. The Secret Dress – GlitterSkullFairy (G, the one where Crowley has a secret wedding dress. This one is very dramatic and sad…and then Aziraphale pops in. Like with all things concerning these two, it immediately takes a turn from there. If putting Crowley in pretty dresses is a thing you enjoy, have a seat and enjoy the show, it’s a softy.)

52. Well…That’s New – @almaasi (G, the one where Crowley doesn’t realize he’s in love. If oblivious Crowley is more to your taste, this is the one for you. Takes the concept “what if Crowley was in love but didn’t realize it” and runs with it for all it’s worth. Hilarious and sweet and wonderful.)

53. serpent, serpent-bearer – @elsajeni (G, the one that’s about horoscopes. I realize the Soft section of the rec list is for things that are Soft but hhnnngkk you guys. This one is so cute. My heart can’t take it. They’re so gosh darned precious, with their newspaper and their horoscopes and their welcome invasion of each other’s personal space.)

54. If Only You Were Mine – @somethingscarlet13 (G, the one where Crowley gets so drunk he can’t remember who Aziraphale’s husband is, just that he’s married. This is a little sugar shot for your day, folks—short, sweet, silly, and did I mention sweet? It is so worth having a giggle at drunk Crowley’s expense, please do read it.)

55. Cupboard Love – @copperplatebeech (T, the one where Crowley is a cranky snek. I would also highly recommend this for folks who enjoy Madam Tracy, especially Madam Tracy being utterly unaffected by being face-to-face with the supernatural and cooing over things like the wonderful lady she is. Fun and a little silly and a lot adorable.)

56. affirmation, appreciation – pearlwaldorf (G, the one where Aziraphale helps someone in need a little differently than expected. This one has Aziraphale taking on the persona of an interested male party looking to pick up the spirits of a woman on the tail end of a messy divorce and Crowley understanding but still getting a little jealous. It’s so sweet and so lovely, both what Aziraphale and Crowley do for this poor woman and how Aziraphale reassures Crowley afterwards. Top notch.)

57. Forget-Me-Not – @dietraumerei (T, the one where Crowley gets amnesia. Not as dramatic as others, he just loses 200 years and it’s temporary, but it’s ever so sweet, watching Crowley fall back in love with the modern world and be gobsmacked that he and Aziraphale are finally together. There’s a lot of reassurance and tender sweet nothings thrown about and I’m pretty sure I developed a heart condition just from reading this, it’s too good.)

58. They Shake The Mountains When They Dance – @copperbadge (T, the one where Crowley finds Aziraphale’s scar. Operating on the theory that Aziraphale was injured in the War in Heaven and that’s why he clutches his leg and limps when he’s discorporated, this is the sappiest, sweetest rumination on the subject I have ever read. Crowley gets so protective and defensive, and Aziraphale is so gentle in talking him down. On the whole, it’s just wonderful and so, so cute. Omg.)

59. Familiar Care – ginger_mosaic (G, the one where the Ineffable Dads have to take their snabies in for medical help. This comes from the Wiggleverse, which on the whole I cannot strongly recommend enough, but this fic in particular centers around the most delightful OC veterinarian who handles Crowley and Aziraphale’s strange family very well. There’s also a fun twist at the end, so absolutely keep reading to find out what that is. And also, immerse yourself in adorable snake baby shenanigans, because they are the best sort.)

TOUCH-STARVED/BODY WORSHIP/WINGS

60. Rituals (or the Seven Layer Bean Dip Approach to Sex) – SleepySelfLoathing (T, the one where no seriously metaphysical angel/demon sex is super weird. Fans of truly esoteric ethereal/occult mating rituals rejoice, for this is your new home. It’s abstract but no less beautiful for it, I think; the imagery and emotional accompaniment are all lovely, even if they don’t meet conventional human romance standards. You can really tell that it means a lot to Crowley and Aziraphale, the ways they show how much they love each other. A weird and delectable little dish, by all accounts.)

61. Under Pressure – @copperplatebeech (M, the one where Crowley steals kisses. M for sensuality and body worship but nothing too explicit; also could be construed as dubcon kissing, for those of you sensitive to that. Hhhgkk y’all. Crowley thinks he’s being sly getting away with smooching Aziraphale throughout history while they’re both drunk off their rockers but does not count on Aziraphale actually remembering, and then once the Apocalypse is done with and they’re On Their Own Side and Can Aknowledge These Things…well. They do. Crowley is a mess and Aziraphale is a mess and they love each other so much. The writing is so tender and I’m CRYING.)

62. London Calling – forthegreatergood (G, the one with slow-burn wing grooming. There’s so much crammed into this bad boy and it balances it admirably—Crowley’s relationship with Aziraphale, Crowley’s relationship with Hell, Crowley thinking about retirement, Crowley getting preemptively banned from a certain European country for being a pest outside of its consulate, Crowley losing his cool over getting to touch Aziraphale’s wings. Humor, aching tenderness, the kind of longing that feels like a high, quavering violin note, tension and release. A beautiful piece.)

63. Elmie’s Ineffable Fireplace Fics – @almaasi (G, M, M, the series that is completely unrelated except for the physical and also figurative appearances of warm fireplaces. M for sensuality but nothing explicit. The first two are mainly short fluff; the third is a long Regency-esque AU with some gender and sexuality shenanigans on top of Real Danger and Intrigue. True to the writer’s promise, all three fics are pretty comfortable and warm, even if the third has some action and tension. They’re absolutely lovely, imo.)

64. The Hands Applauded (And This Was No Sin) – @ticketybye (G, the one where Crowley as a preoccupation with Aziraphale’s hands. Deals with both touch-starvation and touch-aversity in the same fic and weirdly enough it works. The fic is heartbreaking but it has a good resolution and that’s important.)

65. Moult – @sameoldsorceress (T, the one where Aziraphale molts and Crowley doesn’t. This is typical wing-grooming fare…right up until it isn’t. I won’t spoil the twist but rest assured that there is absolutely a twist. Other than that, it’s supportive and sweet and lovely and lord knows we all could use some of that right now.)

66. never get to heaven on a night like this – RestlessWanderings (G, the series where the Ineffable Wives are touch-starved and pining. The only reason this fic goes here instead of in Jaunts Through History is because especially in Crowley’s side of the story, the touch starvation is so horrifically visceral I very nearly bought myself a weighted blanket out of sympathy stress. They are both so afraid and so desperate for a bit of connection, the pining is absolutely ridiculous. And it helps that there’s worldbuilding there that’s both thematically appropriate and interesting to read. Engendered by lesbianism and catholic guilt, I believe the author said, and in this case what a delicious combination with an absolutely amazing ending.)

67. Strength in Modesty – flandersmare (T, the one where Aziraphale has a secret wardrobe. Y’all. I have a special love-hate relationship with clothes and my body and this fic somehow felt very soothing on both of those fronts. Corsetry is front and center, and it’s all very well-researched and well-presented. The story is so quiet and understated and is really told through excellent sensory details. The ending about broke my heart for tenderness. It’s a double love letter to Aziraphale and to fashion throughout history and I love it.)

BONUS

68. Tales of the Them – @lyricwritesprose (G, the series where Crowley and Aziraphale are the Them’s godparents, too. This is such a fun series, with a lot of stories that are not just funny in bits, but also meaningful. For fans of the Them and people who like stories about children that aren’t dumbed-down or grimdark.)

69. Stans in High Places – @doomed-spectacles (G, the one where there’s someone in the Earth Observation department keeping an eye on Crowley and Aziraphale. Another take on the angel(s) in charge of Earth Observation, this time featuring a singular angel called Grigori, and boy is he a cutie. His friendship with fellow angel Pravuil is also blossoming and sweet throughout, and the amount of innocent cuteness throughout is just spectacular. What an adorable story.)

70. Anthony J Crowley, Retired Demon and AirBnB Superhost – @theoldaquarian (G, the one where Crowley turns his flat into an AirBnB. Told as if reading a comment section, it is hilarious and paints a horrid picture of what interacting with Crowley—and Aziraphale!—is like for normal humans. I can’t give you any more details than that, you are just going to have to read it and laugh your head off about it like I did.)

71. A Guide to Fame for the Enterprising Demon – @asideofourown (T, the one where Crowley writes a book and accidentally becomes a queer icon. This is…so funny. And so sweet. And like most fics where human bystanders try to piece together what’s happening and come away with completely wrong conclusions, it’s utterly charming. You almost start rooting for the internet conspiracy theorists trying to unearth what exactly Crowley is from his (presumably) evasive or strange answers to interview questions.)

72. Hell Of An Angel – WaitingToBeBroken (T, the one where everyone thinks Crowley is a mafia family. This one is funny in a dramatic irony way; the way that every narrator in this is CONVINCED that Crowley is A. a family of redheads that all look eerily similar, and B. extremely dangerous, is entertaining all on its own. It helps that the writing is smooth and the characters are all fairly engaging, too. A fun little diversion for your day.)

H/C /WHUMP/BAMF

73. the only one i want – @qorktrees (T, the one where Crowley needs some convincing. The hurt in this one is real, folks. But so is the comfort. At last steps are taken to assure Crowley of how much he is wanted, of how much his love is cherished and his touch desired. If you cry while reading this, congrats and welcome to the club, we are all miserable touch-starved fools here.)

74. Always One More Time – boughofawillowtree (T, the one where Aziraphale has remaining psychological scars from Heaven. This one is tough, y’all, real tough. Aziraphale has a couple of abusive flashbacks and intrusive thoughts and his anxiety flaring up is a constant, so people sensitive to that should take heed. That said, this is a very healing fic, with a lot of underlying hurt that floats to the surface. But throughout Crowley does his best to be patient and understanding and even with a disagreement, it remains gentle and loving throughout.)

75. Smote and smitten – @nohaijiachi (G, the one where Aziraphale is a badass and we are ALL here for it. Screaming Hastur, briefly-sentient flaming swords, Aziraphale being amazing, and starry-eyed Crowley are all the ingredients chosen to make a wonderful little fic, and we are all grateful for it. What a guy, that Aziraphale.)

76. Nearly Romeo and Juliet – bisexual_dumbass (T, the one where Crowley’s hiding his panic attacks. This one hurts, friends. This one has miscommunications and fear and boundary communication, all while being so tense even the gentlest touch will snap something. It’s got learning to take care of yourself and value yourself and live FOR yourself. It is very important and I hope a lot of you read it because gosh dang.)

77. Pigeon Girlfriends With A Long Preamble – SleepySelfLoathing (T, the one that’s exactly what it says on the tin. This fic has it all: humor! Torture! Terrible humans! Wrathful Aziraphale! Pain and suffering! Tenderness and care! Pigeon girlfriends! The Hurt and the Comfort are present in about equal measure, but fair warning that what Crowley is made to do just before his rescue is more than a little disturbing, both to readers and especially to Crowley.)

#good omens #good omens fic recs #mega gomens fic rec list #mega fic rec list #whoof #probably take a break for a bit #then start work on six and seven's reviews #and maybe start on compiling eight #why do y'all write so much fic #why is it all so good

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calaisreno · 3 years

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2020 Fic Year In Review

Thank you to @discordantwords who tagged me!

Total number of completed stories: 41 this year

Total word count: 368,914; by the time I have finished posting Martyrs For Love, I will have reached 1 million words. And will have a small party. Happy Anniversary #3 on AO3 to me! You all keep me sane.

Fandoms written in: BBC Sherlock; Sherlock Holmes - Arthur Conan Doyle; one Good Omens crossover this year.

Looking back, did you write more fic than you thought you would this year, less, or about what you’d expected? About what I expected; not as much as last year, but I'm satisfied.

What’s your own favorite story of the year? This is like being asked to name my favorite son! Of my long fics, I would choose Wooing Sherlock Holmes or Do No Harm. Wooing was sort of a surprise to me, a story I wrote on an impulse that ended up meaning a lot to me. Do No Harm was the first proper English mystery novel I've written, and I was pleased it turned out so well. Of my short stories, I would choose either While You Were Dead or Solstice, the first because I loved inserting time travel into the story; and the latter because it was cathartic to write-- stylistically, and because of the hopeful character arc.

Did you take any writing risks this year?

Do No Harm was a stretch for me. Lots of plotting and suspects to keep track of, and a satisfying ending to provide. Though I love mysteries, I had never written one before.

Plot Devices was written as a joke, just a way for me to work out my dissatisfaction with the last two seasons of BBC Sherlock. I posted it on a whim, and did not expect anyone to like it. My sense of humor is sometimes a bit extra. I thought I'd gone over the top, but at least a few readers followed me. Thank you!

Do you have any fanfic or profic goals for the new year?

Goals: To read more; to leave comments more often. To finish some of my more ambitious stories. Also, to write less. Or rather, to give myself some slack. This last year has taught me that I need thinking space, and don't always get that. I don't want writing to become a chore. While it's still a joy, I want to recapture some of that Beginner's Mind.

More specifically:

This year I've written mostly short fiction. I hope to write a couple of longer stories in 2021. Currently I have a project or two that will be novel-length.

I have a few more stories to add to my Conductor of Light series.

I have several fun projects going, rom-coms and things. Humor. Fluff.

And more short stories.

Most popular story of the year? Wooing Sherlock Holmes.

Story of mine most under-appreciated by the universe, in my opinion:

23 of the stories I wrote this year were in the Arthur Conan Doyle Holmes fandom; these generally get less attention than the BBC Sherlock stories, but I have a very loyal group of fans who always read them and leave wonderful comments. Many thanks!

In February I wrote a very short ACD story for International Fandom Day called Fandom. I had fun writing it, but it never acquired many kudos. Again, my odd sense of humour.

Most fun story to write: Do No Harm: the plotting; inventing the characters; playing with the ending; and writing a story set in the 1920s. This was a great experience.

Most unintentionally telling story: I wrote so many Reichenbach Return stories. See: Many Happy Returns. This tells me that The Reichenbach Fall is a problem I haven't yet resolved, maybe never will. Doyle made it simple: a short conversation in which Holmes apologizes, Watson accepts, and they move on to another case. BBC made it more challenging for us, spawning fanfic galore.

Biggest disappointment: Not completing some projects that have been in the works. And so many stories on my MFL list that I meant to read.

Biggest surprise: Many Happy Returns. I hadn't planned to write a series until I realised that I had four stories with the same theme. And then I wrote three more. Maybe more will appear at some point.

Re-tagging @khorazir, @arwamachine, @blogstandbygo, @saki101, @7-percent who have already been tagged; tagging @mydogwatson @a-different-equation @finamour @pipmer @simplyclockwork .

I know I’m leaving lots of writers out, so anyone else seeing this who would like to take part, jump in! These are really fun to read.

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sakurasangcl · 5 years

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Trial and Error - part one

Pairing: clouded leopard hybrid!Yuta x black cat hybrid!Reader

Word Count: 10k (my longest yet!)

Genre: Angst and Fluff

Warnings: near sexual assault, bullying, name calling (in a non sexy, bullying way but nothing too bad), depression

You met when you were little, as you were in the same class in your first year of middle school. Some of the other kids- human children- were picking on you.

“You’re a black cat!”

“Everyone knows they’re unlucky!”

“I’m allergic to cats- get away from me!”

Yuta, one of the other hybrids in the class, came up to you after the bullies left you alone during recess. You were hiding in the shade of a tree crying, and he sat down next to you.

“You know, in Japanese culture black cats are good omens. My name is Yuta, by the way.” He tells you comfortingly.

And from that day on, he became your best friend. You were practically inseparable, and he would often hold your hand and guide you in the hallway when you got scared. Yuta would walk you home, since he lived a few streets over.

Best friends for life, that’s what you said.

But because he was older, things got strained when he went to high school without you. Yuta had some sort of need to prove himself, or that’s what it seemed to you. He started making a bunch of other friends as well, and most of them were guys. They were never mean to you, but you didn’t feel like you belong.

At first, your parents didn’t want you hanging out with them. You refused to sneak out to be with him, so when it was just you and him alone, things were awkward. A year later when you were in high school as well, you would hang out with them on campus, feeling very unwanted. However, Yuta had a way of giving you a comforting smile when you were with them, making you feel wanted.

You felt horrible afterwards, always feeling unwanted and unnecessary after you were with them all. It became too much, so you began to distance yourself. It came naturally to you, as it was easy to stick your nose in a book and get lost in the plot or to seemingly disappear in the background.

Again and again, the same abusive words from your peers would occur.

“Black cats are bad luck. Get away from me.”

“You’re just some lame hybrid, and you aren’t even special.”

“You’re adopted. Do your parents even love you? Oh wait, they’re your owners, aren’t they?”

It started getting worse and worse, and Yuta wasn’t always there to be with you.

You were being picked on once again in the hallways, and he walked by. Your eyes widened and you spoke his name, reaching out to him. However, he merely looked at you and kept walking without a pause in his stride.

That day broke you inside in a way that you were never the same again.

You were left alone and depressed. Your parents tried to help you the best that they could, but they were not hybrids and could not understand the things you went through. You went through many therapists, and you found solace with a female snow leopard psychologist.

She was the sole reason your anxiety didn’t turn you entirely mute. Her name was Kim Eunji. She was also the only reason you graduated high school and made it into college. Most patients would see her biweekly, but you were weekly. And you needed it.

Facing such a difficult loss didn’t help when you were going through puberty as well. And as a hybrid, you had the added bonus of starting a heat cycle when you were old enough. Yours started earlier than most female hybrids, including feline hybrids and other types as well (with the exception of rodents).

Without knowing when your biological mom started hers, or having any way of knowing how she worked with her’s… you were pretty much screwed. Since suppressants worked like other types of medicine where blood relations helped in knowing which would work best, you went through many different trials. Using those along with your other medicine was difficult, and when you’d slip up, you’d miss school for a week.

You wondered if Yuta even noticed at first, but every time you came back he wasn’t there for you. You told yourself you didn’t need him anymore and that could protect yourself. In the end, it was just you.

Since puberty starts later in males, it was a few years later when you were well aware Yuta started having ruts. You were never close enough to him to personally smell it, but he went missing for a couple of days every few months… and there were rumors. How he and his other friends would satisfy themselves and their instincts.

With your suppressants, you never did that. You didn't want to catch an STD, your parents wouldn't understand it, and the list could go on.

You talked this through with Eunji one session, and she said something brilliant to you. "Since you are not wanting to be in the position of those other girls, is it perhaps that they're getting attention from him which you no longer get?"

She was right, of course, but that didn't make it any easier.

"It's hard to move on when you lose a best friend, especially those who used to always be there for you. You aren't wrong to still be upset. It's perfectly natural and okay to feel this way. There's no shame in crying either. I won't tell him." She consoled you.

You grew stronger with help. You focused yourself on school rather than people and friends. Students still would pick on you, but now it was also out of jealousy. You weren't the top of the class, but you were close. Your high scores would surprise others when they find out, and you would shrug it off.

Without a social life, it was easy to hyper focus on schoolwork.

When the other students would really get to you, your favorite teacher was there to look out for you. His name was Han Jihun and he was a crow hybrid and could relate to the things you went through. Mr Han was also bullied when he was younger for his species and would stick up for you and others who were being picked on as soon as he noticed. Mr Han was very strict to disobedient students, and you weren't one of them.

It was a regular day of class when hybrids came up once again, and he said he was a crow hybrid. You often wondered what type of bird hybrid he was, because he had large black wings and was an omnivore.

After class ended you went up to him and asked, "is the reason you're so smart because you're a crow hybrid?" It was purely a joke, as you knew crows were one of the most intelligent species of birds.

Mr Han let out a hearty laugh, throwing his head back and batting his wings a few times to keep balance. "That's the funniest and nicest thing I have ever heard, y/n. Thank you." He responds with a smile.

After that, he was much more fond of you, and would often protect you from being bullied - at least physically - in the hallways. Mr Han had a way of just surveying the school hallways and stopping people from bullying (and getting them in serious trouble), so it didn’t seem like you were a teacher’s pet or his favorite. It just so happened that he kept an eye out for you.

Mr Han and the other teachers noticed your reclusive behavior, and allowed you into the teacher’s lounge when your anxiety got too bad, or if the cafeteria was just too loud. It was a perfect hiding spot away from the other seriously immature students.

This maturity gap didn’t manifest any further, and with guidance from your parents and counselor, you decided on a university an hour away. They gave you a brilliant scholarship and was pretty even with hybrid to human ratio- if not more hybrids than humans. You would have preferred somewhere with more hybrids, but either they were private and you couldn’t afford it or they were so elite that you couldn’t dream of being accepted.

So when you made it to your current university and moved there, you had your problems. Your first set of roommates sucked, but then again, they were humans. You went through trouble finding ones that were decent, until you managed to use your disability to get your own room, then find decent apartment mates. You kept to yourself, and they didn’t seem to mind.

Your classes were going well, but your social life was non existent. A new friend from a class of yours invited you to go to anime club with her. The people there were very diverse and actually kind. So, you began to enjoy yourself.

After about a month of you going, Yuta showed up to the club. It made sense; you had always had similar interests. But what surprised you was that he was a member of the club already and was normally extremely active in it.

One of your new friends in the club, Nayeon, leaned over and whispered to you. “That’s Yuta, and he’s the vice president of the club. Since the current guy is a senior, he’ll probably take over next year. I brought Momo on your first time, and apparently he heard and didn’t show up. Turns out he wasn’t interested in being set up.” You look at Nayeon, your fox hybrid friend, in disbelief. “Oh, by the way, he’s a hybrid too. Under all that hair, he has two cat ears underneath all of his hair. He’s actually a-”

“Clouded leopard hybrid. I know.” You supply, shaking your head. “I should… I should go. I’ll see you tomorrow in class.” You say, getting up and leaving silently. Nayeon tried to stop you, but you were too fast and desperate to get away.

Little did you know, Yuta scents you and follows you into the hallway.

“Y/N?” he asks, grabbing you by the wrist. “Is it really you?” he asks in disbelief, letting your arm go and surveying your face.

You felt trapped, your breath stuck in your throat. He looks at you like he hasn’t properly seen you in years. His pupils were blown wide and you were awestruck at how attractive he had come over the years. You backed up against the wall, ears tucked against your head.

“Get away from me. You have no right to act like you know me so well.” You hiss, your tail fluffing up in anger.

Yuta let go of your arm, and you stalked away to your dorm. You felt anger burning through your veins, and you felt stupid and foolish for forgetting he went here too.

Nayeon texts and calls you multiple times, but you text her back saying you made it to your room and you need some time alone. Needless to say, you hole yourself up in your room.

Within the week, your heat came early and stronger than before. When Nayeon found out, she was a bit more gentle when she was with you, and you had your suspicions that she somehow figured out what had happened between the two of you. It wouldn’t have surprised you if she straight up asked Yuta and put the pieces together herself.

You took your suppressants and only ventured out of your room for class. You got stares, catcalls, and the likes from other hybrids that scented you. You wouldn't normally go out so much and your heat scent was normally much lighter, but your encounter with Yuta seemed to make it drastically worse.

On your final day of heat, you accidentally fell asleep in the library. You woke up to a gentle and familiar hand on your arm.

"Y/n… Y/n… you need to wake up." Yuta whispers, trying to wake you.

"Hmm?" you murmur, rubbing your eyes awake and your ears perking up. "What do you want?" You hiss once you realize it was him.

He flashes his teeth in anger at your reaction, and you notice that he is visibly stressed. "Your in public by yourself, vulnerable and in heat. Let me take you home, or come to my place. I can tell that you've missed suppressants before this heat, and so can every other hybrid. You aren't safe."

"I'm not going anywhere with you, Yuta. Remember, I'm just a boring, plain black cat." You hiss, gathering your books and stuffing them into your backpack. "I will be fine on my own, thank you very much."

Yuta grabs your wrist roughly and pins you to the wall behind you. His pupils were blown wide, his ears flat, and his tail thrashing. “Look, I’m only here because your girl friends were too scared to be with you and take you home by themselves. Let me take you to your apartment because I don’t want some random guy harming you. Do not test me, Y/N.” Yuta hisses at you, taking your hand and walking you out of the library.

The way he manhandled you turns you on, and you can feel your underwear getting wet. His nose twitches and you blush, but he ignores whatever he scents and continues to walk you to your dorm.

He takes your university ID from your shaking hands and swipes you in, promptly marching you to your room. Yuta then takes your keys before you can fall, and brings you into your room. His touch becomes significantly more gentle as he guides you to your bed and gets you some cold water. Because it’s late, he finds your medicine and gives it to you.

You can’t help but tear up a little when you realize he got you the correct ones; he still remembered from years ago.

He watches you take them and asks, “Where are your pajamas? Do you want me to get them, or-?”

You shake your head and try to get up, but your final wave of heat starts back up again and you’re doubling over in pain on your bed. You manage to meekly point to the proper drawer, and Yuta opens it and takes out your favorite pair. It was a simple flowery bottoms and a solid shirt, and there was no way he could tell they were your favorite as he had never seen them before. He set them on the bed beside you and kisses your forehead.

“Change and sleep well, kitten. Don’t stay out like that until you are better, okay? I’m sorry if I scared or hurt you in the library… I just… wanted you to be safe.” Yuta admits, his face turning a little red.

With that he’s out of your room and gone.

You end up falling asleep without changing, and wake up irritated that he didn't try to find someone to help you change or at least make sure you took your bra off.

Now that your heat was gone, you were irritable, hungry, and needed to shower. When you remembered it was Thursday, curiosity got the better of you.

Anime club was yesterday, and Yuta found you. So, you texted Nayeon.

Y/N: Hey, was Yuta at the club last night?

N: Dropping formalities now, are we? 😏

Y/N: Oh shut it I know you know that we were friends when we were little

N: I do 😊

N: But to answer your question, he got a text from someone and then ran tf off.

N: Why do you ask?

Y/N: Well fuck

Y/N: No reason

N: Don’t lie to your best friend!

Y/N: Nayeon 🙄

Y/N: I’ll tell u later. Geesh.

Thoughts were racing through your mind as you manage to get yourself ready for the day. You had to skip breakfast and were nearly late for your first class. You were disheveled, but it was that kind of day.

You felt unnerved when you left class, so you naturally did your best to find someone to cling to.

The first person you found was a goofy dog hybrid named Johnny. You never had the nerve to ask if he was a labrador hybrid, but you were pretty certain he was, given his outgoing and playful demeanor and long, strong tail that actually really hurt you one more than one occasion than you'd like to admit.

You tightly grab onto his elbow and hold onto his arm for dear life, your ears flattening as you cling to him.

"Hey Johnny," you say softly, not looking at him but merely walking with him out of the building.

"Are you okay? I've been really worried about you. Your heats are rough, aren't they?" Johnny said softly, leading you to a more secluded area outside.

You blush and nod as he pulls you down onto a bench, clearly not minding your death grip on his arm. "It snuck up on me and I don't want to miss class. I hate getting behind and it makes my anxiety worse."

Johnny nods in understanding, listening intently. Even if he was a funny guy and really good at getting you to laugh and relax, he was also good at listening to how you felt. That was one of your favorite things about him, and it was one of the ways you knew he really does care about you.

"You should have listened to me. I told you it was gonna happen soon. And I know for a fact that Jihyo reminded you to get your suppressants. Did you not?"

You chew on your lip, feeling guilty. "I mean yeah, but I didn't start taking them early enough. I was a few days late and took them only the day before my heat instead of three days. And it was a different brand of the same medication… since I've been taking the one so long I don't think it was as effective."

"Well let's make sure you have the right ones next time. And someone with you when you're not in your room. It would make us all the more comfortable." Johnny admits.

"Us?" You ask, cutely tilting your head. He was obviously talking for someone else as well, and you were curious who it was caring for you so much. Sure, you knew your girl friends did, but they would say it themselves and honestly wouldn't be too upset if you were by yourself during your heat. They don't like being locked up for a time any more than you do.

"I, uh, it's not my place to say. But also, you could have found someone to stay with you during your heat. And before you say you aren't like that, I've definitely had females stay with me during rut and nothing happened. She just made sure I ate and stuff. I would be more than happy to do it next time." Johnny genuinely offers. "Although then again, I'm pretty sure she came out as lesbian now so maybe that's why…"

You softly laugh and squeeze his arm. "As much as I'd love something like that, I think it could end up being a bad idea. I've had… bad experiences during heat. And I don't want any of that negativity reflected onto you. I value you as a friend too much." You quietly admit, not looking at him.

When you first started going into heat, it was often sporadic and unexpected. Because your parents were humans, they couldn't sense when it was coming to have you stay home. You were never sexually assaulted, but you were harassed far more often than you'd like to admit. Since it was also when you're friendship with Yuta origin began to dwindle, you didn't have a friend to help you.

"You okay?" Johnny gently asks, noticing you space out.

You shake your head to rid yourself of the thoughts, chewing your lip. "I will be."

You two managed to get outside through your conversation, so your grip on his arm loosened some and your ears began to perk up.

"Hey, do you know how Yuta found me in the library yesterday?" You ask him, tilting your head and looking up at him.

You knew through Nayeon that he was at anime club last night, so it eliminated another option of who found you.

"Well he got a text from Jungwoo. I'm not sure if you've met him yet? He's a very gently golden retriever hybrid. He can be pretty shy with people, especially girls. I'm not sure why he choose to text Yuta. I feel like Jaehyun or I would have been better since we're bigger." He chuckles softly, grinning cheekily at you. Johnny was smart; he knew exactly why you found him in the hallway to hold onto.

"I've seen him around some, but we've never officially met. He is with Mark a lot, right?"

"Yeah, they're pretty good friends. Unless you're thinking of Haechan… But he is a jaguar hybrid, not dog."

"Okay, I think I know who you mean now," you respond with a decisive nod.

Suddenly, you were face to face with a very angry Yuta. His pupils were dilated and his eyes narrow and as surveys you with Johnny. He gently takes your arm that was interlinked with Johnny's, clearly restraining himself with difficulty. He then grabs your wrist and pulls you along with him, hissing at Johnny.

Yuta leads you to a more secluded spot on the side of the building, backing you against the wall. You blink in confusion, bewildered by his behavior until you smell the overwhelming sensation of him going into rut. You do your best to ignore your instincts as he sniffs you, his nose centimeters from your neck.

"Why were you all over Johnny, hmm? Your heat is over but you're still needy, aren't you? First the library, now this… you didn't even shower this morning. Are you wanting all of the men to come chasing after you? Hmm? You've been acting like such a naughty slut. You need someone to put you in your place." He growls lowly, his anger more than evident.

It took everything in you not to completely cower, and you were trying to convince yourself that he didn't mean what he was saying and that everything was fine.

You don't trust your voice to speak, so Yuta continues.

"You just want anyone to please you, but I know better. You're a naughty girl who loves being chased after and denying everyone. Even me. You'll deny me but will see how long that lasts, yeah? I'll have you in my bed screaming my name as I-" here, Yuta cut himself off. He was shaking slightly as he controls himself from continuing, him not wanting to make things worse between the two of you.

Jaehyun soon shows up, having clearly ran here. Johnny was right by him, and they both looked surprised, confused, and very concerned.

"Y/N, please leave," Jaehyun says very softly to you. He then turns to Yuta and tells him, "You really need to go back to your apartment. You don't want to do anything else that you will regret, do you? We will take you there if you want."

You could practically see Jaehyun's reflexes preparing to pounce, and you slowly backed away.

"Y/N. I want Y/N to be safe." Yuta manages to get out, starting to sweat.

"Do you want me to take her to her dorm or class or wherever it is that she's going?" Johnny suggests.

"No, not you," Yuta sneers.

Johnny raises his hands, calm somehow.

Yuta's tail thrashes in anger, and your ears flatten. You find your last bit of courage before saying, "Yuta please go home. I need to shower before class and work. You need to take care of yourself too. Please don't worry about me."

He turns and looks at you, his eyes more amber than usual. "Fine, but only if someone is with you. A female." He specifies.

You sigh softly but don't refute him, knowing how sensitive males would get in rut. Normally they were that protective over their mates, so it was weird for him to be acting like that with you. You definitely weren't mates, nor were you really friends.

"I just saw Seulgi and Yeri, I'll go grab them," Johnny says, quickly running off to get them.

"I'll go with you, Jaehyun," Yuta huffs out, practically dragging himself away from his spot, his eyes only leaving you once you were with Seulgi and Yeri.

Yeri gingerly takes your arm, letting you fume in silent anger as they walk.

"You live in the Cultural and Technological dorm, right?" She gently asks as you got closer to that part of campus.

"Yes…" you say, your head still spinning.

"Why don't you take some pain medicine once you get inside? That way it will kick in before you have to leave." Seulgi smartly suggests.

Seulgi was another fox hybrid, and Yeri a ragdoll cat.

Yeri purred a little as you nodded and used your card to unlock the building, letting them both in.

"Are you feeling better?" She gently asks you.

You nod slightly, still overwhelmed.

"I'll make sure it works out. He needs to apologize and talk to you." Seulgi says. "I don't know everything that happened, but if he was that worked up he shouldn't have left his room. He could have done something terrible."

"But he kinda did, Seulgi. He harassed her, technically. You can report that, you know, Y/N. It's up to you, obviously. We won't say anything if you don't want us too. I'll send you the link via text later and you can decide. No pressure." Yeri assures you.

"I think he will come begging for forgiveness when he's… him again. We'll see. But Yeri-ah I'd right, Y/N. The ball is in your court, or whatever the saying is." Seulgi agrees.

When you reached your door and were inside by your personal bedroom door, Yeri spoke up again. "If you need us or anything or want to talk or… whatever, really, you know how to contact us. And please feel free, okay?" She says, gently hugging you.

"Take care of yourself," Seulgi adds before they leave you to your own devices.

The rest of the day was fairly normal, up until you were leaving work. That’s when Jaehyung found you, panting softly as though he had just run there.

“Hey,” he says softly, smiling and showing his dimples. “Did everything end up okay?” he asks, falling into pace next to you.

You shrug a little as you walk. “Yeah, I suppose so. But I think some people heard about what happened… and I really don’t know what to do.” You admit, your ears drooping a little.

“Don’t worry too much about it. Take your time, too.” He kindly suggests, running a hand through his hair.

“That’s easy for you to say,” you grumble, irritated that it’s been filling your mind all day. On the bright side, you’d be seeing your therapist tomorrow, so maybe that would help.

“And about Yuta…” Jaehyung began, looking around a little and worrying his lip. “Well, we got him to the apartment and he’s safe there. He’s not going to be leaving anytime soon either, so you’ll be fine. We’re actually… We kind of are taking turns babysitting him.” Jaehyun admits with a soft chuckle. “I’ve never actually seen him this worked up.”

“You’re acting like it’s my fault,” you point out, the hairs on the back of your neck sticking up in irritation.

Jaehyun shakes his head no quickly. “It’s not your fault at all. Sure, it may be Yuta’s feelings for you, but that isn’t your fault. He should have known and been in better control of himself.” he quickly tells you. “Seriously, he’s the one to blame so don’t you feel guilty. Are you headed back home?”

“To my dorm, yeah,” you respond, not truly feeling as though it wasn’t your fault.

“Do you mind me walking you back? I won’t go inside; I don’t want Yuta mad at me. Clouded leopards have sharp teeth. Way to sharp. I suppose that’s what they get for being smaller.” Jaehyun grumbles, shaking his head.

“Says the liger hybrid,” you scoff, shaking your head.

“I just have bulky size, okay? It’s not like I’m a giant or anything,” Jaehyun says defensively.

“I know, I’m just teasing you a little,” you respond, a small smile finding its way onto your face.

You can tell that Jaehyun is pouting slightly by the silence between you two as you continue to walk.

“If you’re okay with it, we’re trying to see if Yuta will talk to you. I mean, he obviously needs to apologize and everything is up to you, but… I dunno. I think things need to be worked out between you two. Haven’t you been friends since you were little?” Jaehyun says.

“We were friends when we were little,” you respond, emphasizing that it was in the past.

Jaehyun lets out a hum while he things, shrugging some. “I’d say it’s not my business, but it kind of is right now because of Yuta’s behavior. I do prefer people talking to me because they want to let me know things rather than because they feel it’s necessary. So when you’re ready or if you just want to talk, I’d like to understand.”

“Thanks, I think?” You respond, turning to Jaehyung as you near the entrance of the dorm. “I need time to think this all through. It’s a lot to process, and I haven’t really had any time to do so. But you’re right about him needing to apologize.” You sigh and shake your heads, swiping your card and opening the door.

Before you go in, you turn back and add, “You know I could report him, right?”

“Yes, I’m aware. Johnny is the one who mentioned it to me. He does not know though. I mean, he knows what he did was wrong but he doesn’t know that’s something reportable. Probably because he’s in rut. But we won’t tell him if you do or don’t report him, Y/N. That’s your prerogative.” Jaehyun responds.

When you got home and were laying in bed looking over your schedule for tomorrow, you were more than relieved to notice that in two more days, you were having a session with your therapist Eunji.

The two days between your session felt slower than the rest of your life. You were completely on edge as you made your way to where Eunji's office was.

Your phone buzzes a few times as you drive, and you don't get the chance to check it until your arriving at your session.

You sign in as usual and sit down, reading over the text from Yuta.

Hey, I'm really sorry about what happened the other day. They others were right about me not going out early. I really hope I can make it up to you somehow.

Your name is called to deaf ears, until Eunji comes out to actually get you.

"Let's go in and talk about that, yeah?" She suggests, gently guiding him back to her office.

You glance at your phone again, nearly dropping it when you see the next message.

If you want, I could take you out for dinner. That way I could explain things and be honest with you. Its past time, really.

Let me know if that's okay with you. Whatever is the most comfortable for you. I don't want to scare you again.

“What’s wrong, Y/N? Why don’t you put your phone down and you can explain what’s going on. Would you like some tea? I have your favorite.” Eunji says gently.

You nod, a blank look on your face as you watch her fix up some tea. With a deep breath, you manage to start talking.

“So I started going to anime club like you recommended, and it turns out Yuta is the vice president. And after I was in heat, well, on my last day… I fell asleep in the library. One of his friends texted him and he came to the library. He took me home and was really sweet and gentle with me.” You started, even though she knew about anime club already. “Anyways, he took me home and laid me in bed and it was so sweet. But then the very next day he got pissed at me for holding onto Johnny’s arm. He is just my FRIEND! Plus, I still had my heat scent on me and he’s pretty intimidating when he wants to be. But then Yuta… Well, he-he found us and got mad. His rut must have gotten triggered by me, and he… Well Seulgi and Yeri said he technically sexually harassed me. They said I could report him but I seriously don’t know what to do anymore. I thought being around him wouldn’t be a problem, but it clearly is!” You rant, bursting to tears as Eunji sets your tea down in front of you.

She gets a box of tissues and sets them down, offering you a few. You take them as you cry, trying to calm down enough to be coherent.

"So there's that, but then he just texted me and apologized and now… I don't know. I use to trust him completely, but I don't anymore. And I don't want anyone to hurt me, you know? I'm too sensitive for a terrible heartbreak. I'm so afraid that if I say yes and meet him, he'll confess. But if he does, I'm practically certain he will end up breaking my heart… he has once, so why not again?"

"Y/N," Eunji whispers, slowly shaking her head. "Don't overthink things, okay? And what do you want to do?"

"I-I want to report him like they said, but my heart… I want to let him explain but I'm scared. I just… I will give him a second chance. People deserve second chances. If it doesn't go well, I can still report him. Right?"

Eunji nods her head, taking notes as usual. "Exactly. And make sure you meet somewhere in public and don't go anywhere with just him until you're comfortable."

"Unna, what if it was just because of me? They told me not to think this way, but what if my heat triggered his rut to be so aggressive? I know we aren't mates or anything, but is there no explanation?"

Eunju smiles softly, clearly not surprised by your question. "You've known each other for so long, so he may still be naturally protective over you. That nature may be why he pinned you down. He didn't actually touch you or anything, did he?"

You shake your head no, realizing that he was respectful of your boundaries.

"Besides, heats and ruts cant very triggered more than a week early, if even that much. Bodies can't take changes in hormones that quickly. So his would have been coming soon anyways. And at his age, I'm sure he knows what and who may trigger him, for the most part. And if you are one, then it was silly of him to go help you when you were in the library. It just as easily could have been Johnny." Eunji explains.

You nod in thought, pleasantly surprised by her words.

"Drink some of the tea as you process, then let me know what you're thinking," she gently urges you.

You do as she asks, drinking in the delightful drink. Your mind was whirling and you calmed it with a few deep breaths and by focusing on the task at hand. How did you feel about Yuta?

"I think I'm in love with him," you whisper, your eyes widening some. "I think I always have been…"

Before your self hatred could creep in and strengthen, Eunji thankfully spoke up. "What does being in love with someone entail to you, Y/N?" She prompts you.

"It's not that you think about them all the time, but when you do you crave their presence. Its like…. You get butterflies and blush because you care about them more than you would as friends. You know a lot about them and always want more. Words honestly can't do it justice… But Unnie, I've never had someone love me back. What if he rejects me?"

"He may want to confess. If you do meet with him, let him speak first. But would you like to practice confessing to him? Thinking of a script will help you."

"You're right, they normally do," you laugh, smiling now. You feel lighthearted and giddy, but nervous at the same time. And this was Eunji, not even Yuta.

Eunji nods and smiles before getting into character, acting more serious. You take a deep breath and close your eyes, breathing in through your nose and out through your mouth. "Yuta, I need to be honest with you. I like you more than just friends should. I understand if you do not feel the same way, and would still like to go back to being friends, if that's okay with you?"

Eunji nods and claps her hands. "Well done, Y/N! Remember, practice in the mirror! You'll be fine. But again, you don't need to meet him if you don't want to."

"I do want to. But Eunji… can you help me reply? I do not know what to say." You say with a shy laugh.

"Of course. So do you want to meet?"

"Yes."

"Alright, so why don't you say dinner would be nice, and then suggest a day and time. You can say you have something to tell him too, or keep that to yourself." Eunji advises.

You nod before formulating your reply.

Yuta, I would really like that. Would Saturday around 5 work for you? Did you have some place in mind?

You get a reply within seconds after sending the text.

Don't be so formal with me, Y/N! I'm serious. It's weird coming from you! ☹ That works perfect, and I have the perfect restaurant in mind. I know you can be picky with food but you really will enjoy this place. I won't tell you where because it's a surprise! I can pick you up too, just let me know where you're at then! I will make a reservation for us too 😊

You can't help but laugh at how long his response is, but also feel touched. "Eunji Unnie, I'm going to need to go shopping now! What do people wear for this kind of thing? Is it a date?"

She laughs gently and shakes her head. "It's a date if you both want it to be. Don't worry about that now. As for clothes, it depends on the restaurant. Since he didn't specify, I have a feeling its somewhere nice. I'd suggest a dress or skirt. Something a little more than casual but not too fancy. Think little black dress, but you may want to add color."

You nod in thought, thinking of your wardrobe. "I'll have friends help me, since they can see what I have and maybe go shopping with them. That should work. Now I just have to navigate everything else between now and then…" You say nervously.

"You'll be fine. When you get anxious about it and start thinking of how things will go wrong or badly, think of what to do if that happens. Challenge yourself to think of good outcomes. Practice with yourself in the mirror. You will be okay and you will make it through this. Okay Y/N?"

You nod and let out a shaky sigh.

"And our time is up. I'll head out with you, okay?" Eunji says as she stands up and exits the room.

You follow her through the hallway to the front desk and thank her.

"Have a good time and stay safe, Y/N. It was a pleasure to see you as usual." She tells you with a smile.

Saturday morning you woke up in a panic. You had to work until noon, and had completely forgotten to text Nayeon if she could help you get ready. You quickly send her one before getting ready for work.

Your exhaustion is gone once you get to work, and instead you are full of nervous energy. Your coworker Tzuyu picks up on it and asks you about it, and you vaguely mention that you may have a date but you're not sure if you should call it that.

She laughs kindly at your response and informs you, "I mean, it depends on the situation and how it goes. And if you both want it to be a date. If you don't want it to be a date, tell him. If you want it to be or aren't sure, you can ask afterwards or later."

"That's actually… that's really great advice. Thanks, Tzuyu." You say, smiling and calming a little.

The rest of work went surprisingly well, and before you knew it, you were hanging out with Nayeon. "We need to go clothes shopping. Since he knows you, he probably has seen most of your wardrobe. So let's find something a little out of your comfort zone but stunning." She suggests as she drives you to the mall.

When you do start trying on dresses and outfits with varying levels of formality, you notice Nayeon sneakily texting someone. You pay no mind and hope she isn't too distracted by all of the guys that text her.

"You need something with an open back. You're back is so pretty~" she says, holding up a dress. "Not this one, because it's a hideous color but you get me."

Eventually, you find a super cute sundress. It was peach and reached your calves. It had a decently modest neckline, as it didn't go too low but it still showed a lot of skin. It had little pink, ivory, and pastel yellow flowers on it as well.

"Its super cute, Y/N, but I don't think it's the right occasion for that kind of dress. That's not to say you shouldn't get it, but we ought to keep looking." Nayeon tells you, which then gives you the feeling she knows more than is letting on.

You sigh softly and change, trying to decide if you should or shouldn't buy the dress. When you check the tag you realize it was on sale, which managed to lift your anxiety into ease.

"I'm going to buy it still. I hope we find the right dress soon…" you admit, checking the time.

“There’s a new shop in the mall that I’ve been wanting to check out, and they hopefully will have something there. Apparently it has really nice dresses for pretty cheap.” Nayeon says, walking with you to the line to buy the sundress.

“Well, there’s still more stores if this one doesn’t work, right?” you say, your voice slightly hopeful.

Nayeon gives you a halfhearted smile and shrugs. “I mean, there’s always thrift stores too. I know you never have much luck there, but we can always try.”

You sigh softly as you buy the dress, silently praying that the next store will have something more appropriate. Once you’re done and she takes your arm, leading you to the store, you ask her, “Hey. How do you know that this dress won’t be right for the occasion?”

She blushes and looks away guiltily. “Well I know how you can get when you’re nervous and don’t know what to wear, so I figured that if I asked Yuta himself then it would be easier to find an outfit that would work. Please don’t be mad about it!”

“Nayeon!” You say, lightly swatting her arm. “It’s not fair, you know more about what’s going on than I do~” you whine, frowning slightly.

“Don’t frown so much or you’ll get a frown line~” Nayeon teased, grinning mischievously as she took you into the store. “I promised him I wouldn’t say a thing, or else. He only told me where you’re going to eat but didn’t say anything specific like what he was planning on saying. Okay?”

“But what if I don't like anything on the menu~ You know I can be a picky eater, especially at new restaurants.” You complain, letting her lead you to the dresses. You let go of her arm and start looking through the ones in your size, picking out a few to try on.

“You know he cares about you more than that? And you’re childhood friends, I’m sure he could help you choose something to eat. Don’t be such a worrywart, okay Y/N?” Nayeon responds, grabbing a few more dresses as well.

Before you know it you’ve tried on at least ten dresses and only have one left. “If this one doesn’t work either I might scream,” you mumble to yourself.

“Hey, we’re in public don’t you dare!” Nayeon teases, and you know she barely heard you.

You huff as you try it on, the light blue complimenting your skin tone perfectly. You zip up the back and admire it in the mirror. “You were right, I do have a nice back,” You softly laugh as you open the door, revealing the dress to Nayeon.

“It’s stunning, Y/N. Seriously. You look amazing. Completely stunning.” she compliments, making your cheeks heat up.

“The halter neckline doesn’t look weird or anything?” You ask, gently touching the satin fabric where it meets above your collar bones.

“Not at all. Unless it feels like its choking you. Then we should find a different dress.”

“No! No! I just, I didn’t want it to look weird. Are the straps aligned on my back? It doesn’t look bad without a bra? I normally wouldn’t go braless… but this dress is surprisingly well supportive.”

“It looks fine, don’t worry about it. You don’t even have any side boob showing.” Nayeon giggles, gently tracing where the fabric met your skin.

“Stop, that tickles!” You say, stepping away from her.

“Sorry, sorry. I think this is definitely the one. Do you want me to do your hair and makeup? I don’t mind~” Nayeon suggests, letting you step back into the dressing room and change back into your clothes.

“Hmm no. That’ll make it feel like it needs to be a date. Is it a date? Wait, don’t ask him! Or do. What if he doesn’t want it to be a date? What if he does want it to be a date?”

“Well, do you want it to be a date?”

“I don’t know! Do I?”

"I don't know the answer. You do." Nayeon responds. "Mina gets off soon, she could do your makeup if you want. We should do your hair up. Do you want to borrow any of my makeup?"

You shake your head, gently taking her hands. "I'll be good. Let me change and pay for this because now we're in a time crunch. I should be good." You tell her, going back into the dressing room stall and putting your clothes back on.

You sigh softly as you fix your hair and hang the dresses back up. You get rid of the ones that didn't work and keep the one the did, smiling at Nayeon as she joins you walking to the register.

"You're gonna need to calm down because incan smell the anxiety coming off of you in strong waves. I know you're nervous but that scent isn't going to help anyone." Nayeon tells you after you pay, guiding you through the mall and to the car. "Do some self care before you go and you may as well ask him if he wants this to be a date or not. Then your anxiety can change and lessen because then you would know what to expect."

"I know you're right, but that doesn't make it better. Plus I need to figure out if I want it to be a date or not. If I don't want it to be, then it shouldn't be… I think." You thoughtfully respond.

"Yes, he can't force things to be a date. Besides, he fucked shit up so if you don't want this to be a date he doesn't deserve it to be." Nayeon assures you as leave.

She turns on your favorite playlist of hers as she drives you back, knowing it could help you stay calm. When you were at your place, she turns down the music and assures you, "you can do this. Now go have some fun!"

A little over an hour later, you were dressed and ready with your hair up in a fancy ponytail and curls, your makeup the best you've ever done. You slid on your heels and grabbed your purse and keys, making sure he was our waiting for you.

You tell him you are on your way down, glancing in the mirror one last time. Your eyes dilate some as you check to make sure your lipstick did not already smudge, and the next thing you knew you were outside.

The soft clicking of your heels alerted Yuta that you were there, and he came out of his car with a brilliant smile.

"For a minute there I thought you were about to stand me up. I'm glad I was wrong!" He says, clearly relieved by your presence as he opens the passenger door for you. Once you're in he gently shuts it and joins you, making sure you both have your seatbelts on before driving.

"I thought about it. But then again, it would have been a waste to look this good and stay home by myself." You tease, grinning playfully.

Yuta laughs softly, and responds, "Yeah, it would be a shame. I'm honored to be able to appreciate your beauty for the night." He said it as a joke, but you knew better. He was glad that you were here and impressed at how beautiful you look.

"I could say the same for you. You look very nice in your suit. Did you even get it tailored?" You compliment and ask, tail lazily swishing back and forth as you admired his tuxedo. It was a classic black one, but it fit him well.

"Yes, I did. I figured it looks better this way. Was I right?" He responds, smiling as he teases you.

"Yes... " you admit, cheeks heating up as you turn to look out the window.

Yuta grins triumphantly, your (slightly forced) compliment making him happy. "I think you will really enjoy dinner. I managed to get in because Taeyong works there. Do you remember him? He is a waiter there and has been for a while. He owned me one anyways." Yuta says, filling in the silence of the car.

Your ears softly flick forwards to better listen to him, and you find yours staring out the window. "He was one of your friends from high school. Does he go to college nearby too?" You ask, not really interested in Taeyong but asking anyways. It was polite, after all.

Yuta glances over at you with a smile. "I know you're just saying that. But yes, he is. I believe he does more online classes so he can schedule in working."

You nod, forgetting that Yuta can't see you do so. "Good for him. It's hard to work and do school at the same time." You speak up, knowing the pain of scheduling work around class.

"It is. And you've been doing it too, so good on you." Yuta easily compliments, making you blush.

"Thank you," you shyly murmur, your ears flicking backwards.

When you reach the restaurant, it was as high class and fancy as you expected. You made a mental note to thank Nayeon later for going dress shopping with you and making you get your current dress. Yuta handed the car over to the valet and led a very dazed and awed you inside.

He went to the hostess and gave her his name, and soon you were being guided to your seats. Yuta, being the gentleman that you knew he was capable of being, pulls your chair out for you and gently pushes you back in.

You read over the menu, shocked at the choices, expansiveness, and how confusing the dishes sounded. You hardly notice when Yuta orders a sweet rosé, as you are attempting to decipher the menu.

"Hey, don't worry too much about it," Yuta gently chides you, knowing exactly what you were thinking. "I know exactly what to get you. Trust me on this."

You nod and put down the menu, taking the time to survey your surroundings. There was a good mix of humans and hybrids, and most seem to be couples. Your eyes find many that ate a human and a hybrid, which makes you happy that they were publicly defying stereotypes and social norms.

"Y/N, I'm really truly sorry about the other week. I wasn't thinking straight, and that's not an excuse, just an explanation. I don't usually get triggered into my rut early anymore, but I should have been more careful… especially around you." Yuta admits, breaking the silence between you two. He was being sincere, so much so that his eyes were wet as though he was on the verge of tears. "You-you mean a lot to me. I know it hasn't seemed like that for the past few years, but I really mean it. I- I'd like to, well, i don't want to start over, but if we can move forward… I'd really really like that. What I said was perfectly true too. I would like to be more than friends but I totally understand if you say no or want to start as just friends. I just… I just really miss you, Y/N..." Yuta says breathlessly, uncertain of how you would react.

You took the chance to take a few gulps of wine, drinking half of what was in it. Your ears were twitching out of nervousness, and you could hear the pounding of your heart. You struggled to stay calm and not shred the napkin, preparing to answer when the waiter makes his appearance once more, asking if you were ready to order.

Yuta smiles at him, and you could tell it was fake and very forced, even though to others it wouldn't come across that way. "She will have the special and I would like the filet mignon done medium rare."

The waiter nods and leaves you both alone once more.

Left with the need to answer, you lose your voice. You close your eyes and take a deep breath, doing your best to focus on things to stay grounded. "I think… I'd say uhm… we should rekindle our old friendship." you murmur, managing to get something out.

Yuta looks ecstatic at your response, pleased that you'd even be willing to stay around him.

"But," you add, looking away from him, "I wouldn't be opposed to this being a date and maybe being more than friends."

Yuta's ears go straight forward, and his eyes widen. "Do you- do you mean it?" He asks.

You shyly nod, glancing down at your lap. "I wouldn't have said so if I didn't," you giggle a little, your eyes meeting his.

Yuta smiles a real smile this time, and you swear your heart skips a beat. You can't help the smile that makes its way onto your lips, as Yuta's is too contagious.

"I'll make this the best date ever then," he assures you, purring softly.

You feel the heat in your cheeks, and Yuta doesn't have the chance to comment or tease you as the food comes. The waiter sets down the most delicious looking salmon in front of you, alongside steamed asparagus. Your mouth waters as you look up at Yuta, who was smirking at you.

"I remembered how much you love salmon," he admits with a shrug. "I pay attention to details sometimes."

You giggle and take a bite, purring in satisfaction at the taste. Whatever light seasoning was on the fish was perfect, and you gladly consume your dinner.

The conversation was easy thereafter, catching up with him. You avoided the burning question within you, not wanting to ruin the night. Your cheeks feel warmer than usual, and you realize quickly that you hadn't been drinking enough water with all of the wine.

Your campus and therefore dorm was a dry campus. You couldn't have alcohol on campus, and that included in yourself… no matter how idiotic that rule may be.

You try to voice this concern to Yuta as you leave, and he just shakes his head with a smile on his face. He, of course, was perfectly fine. If not, you wouldn't even consider getting in the car with him.

"I didn't say the date was over yet," he tells you as the valet brings him his car. Yuta gingerly guides you into the passenger seat, buckling you in as you giggle and blush. "Watch your tail, kitten," he warns, waiting for you to move it inside the car completely before shutting the door.

"Did you ever take Astronomy?" He asks you, buckling in and starting to drive.

"No. I took Geology instead." You respond, turning on the seat warmer.

Yuta notices and, at a stoplight, takes off his jacket and offers it to you. You take it and carefully put it on while Yuta explains his reason for the question.

"Ah, good. There's this spot that I found for class outside of the city. You can see all of the stars and the night view is beautiful. It's a wonderful field that I want to show you. Then we can stargaze if you'd like."

"I would like that," you tiredly murmur, falling asleep to the car's lulling movements.

Yuta smiles at your sleeping figure, turning on the music softly and concentrating on driving.

You wake when the engine stops, the white noise from it turning into the chirping of crickets. Yuta goes to the back of his car and retrieves blankets and a quilt. He then opens the door for you and guides you into the field. Yuta spreads out the quilt and helps you sit, gently holding your hand. He offers you a blanket which you gladly take, and soon you're laying side by side, looking up at the sky.

"The view is outstanding. Without light pollution, you can see hundreds of stars." You say.

"Yes, you're right," Yuta says, leaving you in silence for a while. "Do you know any constellations?"

You shake your head and respond, "I know Orion's belt and the two dippers. I find the big dipper easier… I suppose if I can find Orion's belt I can find him…"

Yuta smiled softly and began pointing out constellations and explaining the difference in star colors and the link to age. You listen, aw struck and the knowledge and size of the universe.

"Out of all time and space, I'm glad I live now," he admits.

"Why?"

"Because I can be here with you, even if I fucked up our relationship so many times."

You can't help the heat that rises to your cheeks at his words. "You know, most of life is trial and error. All we can do is make the best of it to be our best selves. And if we mess up, just apologize and try to make it better."

"Y/N," Yuta says, his voice sounding choked up.

You hum in response, but his words are caught in his throat.

After a while, you started to fall asleep. Yuta notices the change in your breathing, and a small smile forms on his face.

“Let’s take you home, yeah?” he says softly, gently picking you up and putting you in the car. He gathers the blankets and puts them in the car. Yuta gently buckles you in.

Soon enough, you wake up to the car stopping. You were only half asleep as you went back upstairs. You felt like your entire evening was a dream as you laid down on your bed, a soft sigh of contentment escaping you.

“Maybe things will be okay,” you whisper to yourself.

320 notes · View notes

ythmir-writes · 5 years

Text

Fictober 2019, Day 11

Prompt: “It’s not always like this.” Fandom: SLBP Pairing: Kenshin/MC Rating: General Audiences // fluff goodness A/N: inspired by the on-going event, but for Kenshin because I realized I am an utter fool and have not written anything for SLBP Kenshin yet.

Winter winds had finally come to Echigo and much like last year, and the years before, all it took was the slightest chill in the air for the Uesugi retainers to feel a certain kind of placidity.

No rushing through the corridors. No waiting for ill omens to be brought by messengers or the crows. It was as if peacefulness had finally found itself welcomed in this difficult period.

I did not expect anything less, if I was going to be perfectly honest. It was so tempting to say that the imminence of new year celebrations brought about this kind of peacefulness. But I’ve lived for so long with the Uesugi that I knew whom exactly their inspiration for such carefree attitude came from.

Unfortunately, a quick scan of the hall showed that he was not yet allowed to lounge by the brazier surrounded by his retainers. He must still be working. Kanetsugu would not allow otherwise.

“Tea, anyone?” I said, raising my voice only slightly. No need to break the hush that surrounded them. “Mai and I have brought some to warm you all up. Snacks too.”

“We have some sweet potatoes back in the kitchen – if anyone is up for that.” Mai added.

A general murmur of assent and thanks erupted from them as Mai and I went to distribute to the men their afternoon tea. When I finished my part, I saw Mai taking her seat with Kageie and the others.

“Mai.” I said as I reached her, touching her shoulder as she made to get up. “No, it’s fine. I’ll bring tea to Lord Kenshin and Kanetsugu, all right. You rest here.”

Without further ado, Kageie instantly propped his head on Mai’s shoulder, and I could not help but smile. These kids deserved the rest.

Leaving them behind, I went to the kitchens to brew a fresh pot for Kenshin, doing my best not to giggle at the possibility of hearing him complain for the umpteenth time how beautiful winter days should be spent outside and not in. Kanetsugu, of course, would quickly shoot down the idea of missing any sort of work.

As I waited for the water to boil, I wondered if I should bring with me some sweet sake instead. Ah, but that would earn me an earful too. It would be better to save it for later then.

Carefully balancing the pot and cups, along with some sweets, I went towards Kenshin’s chambers, humming to myself as I did.

Before I could reach his room however, I spied Kenshin opening his doors to view the inner garden, and then stretching his arms upwards as if trying to reach the sky.

Just the sight of him made my heart ache with love for him.

“Hello, Kenshin.” I greeted him, just as he turned, noticing me and smiling. It was a gentle smile, a crinkling of his eyes and the slow upturning of his lips, before dissolving into a full beaming ray of happiness. It warmed me more than anything could; that smile I will always love.

“Hello, dear one.” He said.

“Finished with work?” I asked.

“Yes.” Kenshin said, laughing softly. “I’m just as surprised. But not more surprised than Kanetsugu. He expected us to last until dinner.”

“I’m sure he was happy to have finished so soon.”

Kenshin scratched at his cheek. “Well, yes. After he made quite the racket about saving so many years of his life if I could only apply myself as I did today.”

“All is well with the world, then.” I answered. “Although I did want to bring you these to help you with work.”

“Now, we can just sit and enjoy them then.” Kenshin said, brightening at the idea. “Sit with me, please?”

“Of course.” I did not even need to be asked twice. I set down the pot and sweets between us, pouring our cups with the newly steeped tea, and then sitting in companionable silence, watching the clouds roll in with what looked like heavy snow tonight.

In the distance, we could make out Yoshichi’s voice, followed by the distinct thwack of Kanetsugu’s fan, and then laughter.

I saw Kenshin smile at the direction of the sound, and then chuckle as Kanetsugu’s fan could be heard again, and then what seemed to be the beginning of a lecture.

“They sound like they’re having fun.” He said, his voice soft and tender.

I put down my cup. “Would you like to join them? I’m sure they’re missing their lord.”

Kenshin hummed in thought. “Maybe later.” Then, he reached out towards me, tucking a strand of hair beneath my ear, before tracing my cheek. I leaned in towards his hand, earning me another smile, sweeter and with something lurking underneath just for me.

He pulled me in and I was only too willing to fall into his embrace.

“I wish today could last just a little longer.” He said, stroking my hair. “If only that I have more free time to spend with you.”

“You mean actual free time?” I teased him.

Kenshin laughed, a little shyly. “Yes.”

I relished this kind of unique quiet. For all the trying times that we have been through, the stillness brought by the changing of seasons was something I always looked forward to.

It’s not always like this. But I knew that in the days that they were, Kenshin was the one who treasured it the most. And in turn, I treasured it for the joy it brought him.

#fictober19 #slbp #samurai love ballad party #slbp kenshin #ythmir writes #ythmir fanfics #fictober19 day11

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gaslightgallows · 5 years

Text

I want you all to understand how deeply I've fallen into the Good Omens pit. This is what my WIP folder looks like:

It hasn't even been a month yet. I’m doomed.

(descriptions and a few snippets under the cut)

All About Oysters: Aziraphale and Crowley snack in bed while reminiscing about the first meal they ever shared. (tooth-rotting fluff plus historical flashbacks, aka I had to ask someone what oysters tasted like for this fic and wow that was more than I ever needed to know about edible bivalves)

An Invisible Wound: After the business with the Templar, Crowley tries to help Aziraphale regain his footing on Earth. (Follow-up to “Jewel in the Crown” [below].)

Between what had happened with the Templar (ten years on and the angel still looked as bad as he had when Crowley had rescued him) and what had happened in Troyes (it wasn’t Guichard’s fault that his father had been a demon, but the church tribunal hadn’t seen it that way), there were too many dangers abroad in the world, even for occult and ethereal beings. “Look, thanks to the valiant efforts of both sides, the fourteenth century is clearly shaping up to be a hundred-year-long piss pot. The least I can do is give you a little advice.”

Angels With Wild Beast’s Eyes: Along in his shop, Aziraphale reads poetry and thinks decidedly unangelic thoughts about a certain demon. (probably going to be NSFW)

He always made sure to keep a bit of Calvados in the bookstore, but he indulged in it only rarely.

Only when he had a particular demon on his mind.

everything i had but couldn’t keep: Crowley thought he’d lost Aziraphale. Now he won’t let his angel out of his sight. (aaaaaaaaaaaaaangst. and discussions of suicide)

Crowley twisted his neck round to peer up at the angel and frown. “Is that really all holy water is?”

“Of course. Well, sort of – it’s the blessing that makes it truly holy, of course. But it’s not as though I had to go to Galilee to fetch the stuff.”

“...I don’t know why that never occurred to me before.”

Jewel in the Crown: Aziraphale is captured by a Templar Knight and brought to France in chains as his new trophy. (not listed above)

Love and the Whole Art of Sin: look, the prompt for this was “sexy angel/demon times with a super subby Crowley”, I think that says everything. (definitely NSFW)

"My beautiful, sad, wonderful, maddening, good Crowley..."

The demon let out a whimper, and then cursed softly at his own weakness. "Are you trying to undo me with words?"

"Possibly. I know a lot of words."

Mad, Bad, Dangerous, Et Cetera: Crowley wakes up in the middle of the 19th century, bumps into Aziraphale and learns more about his old friend than he wanted to know. (lots of sex talk, no actual sex)

Crowley took a sip of his wine and let the flavorful liquid linger on his tongue for an extra second or two before swallowing. “Angel,” he drawled, “it reeks of fornication in here.”

Aziraphale bristled as though struck, which told him he was right. “It does not!”

“Oh, it most certainly does.”

One Good Turn (working title): A year after averting The War, and after a chance encounter with Adam Young, Crowley and Aziraphale decide it’s time to get back to being godfathers to the Antichrist. The correct Antichrist, this time.

“Oh, and I almost forgot. My cousin Anthony and his boyfriend are coming for a visit next Friday.”

Mr. Young looked up from his after-dinner newspaper with an expression of sublime bewilderment. “Your cousin Anthony? And… his boyfriend?”

“Yes, dear. Adam and I ran into the boyfriend – oh, no, I suppose ‘partner’ is probably the better word, they’re both a bit mature to be boyfriends – anyway, we ran into his partner in London when we were there shopping for your birthday, and we got to talking, and then Anthony turned up and we all had a lovely lunch and I said, it’s been ages since you’ve come to visit! And he said yes, but he’d been out of the country and working, and after this and that, well, Arthur…”

Dierdre Young went on with her explanation for several minutes, while Mr. Young listened and nodded and Adam watched his father’s eyes glaze over.

The Patience of Angels: the big damn Book of Enoch-inspired fic that started me down this road to Hell.

“You’ve been consorting with demons for centuries, that makes you the expert.”

“I have consorted—that is, I have been acquainted with one demon, singular, who is not what you might call a common denizen of Hell. And while I’m always interested in finding ways to help humans thwart the wiles of the evildoer at every turn, as you might say, I’ve also been in a very peaceful state of semi-retirement for several years.”

“True,” Gabriel pointed out, “but that’s still only semi-retired. And you’re technically still on our payroll.”

The Whole Damn World Turned Upside Down: After Crowley saves him from Nazis, Aziraphale makes an admission he hadn’t intended to make that night. Or possibly ever.

Aziraphale stooped to help him to his feet. “My dear fellow,” he said gently, “I’m an angel. I was made to sense love.”

“Oh no, don’t say it.” Crowley slumped forward, shaking his head forlornly. “Don’t say it, don’t say it, don’t say it. There’s nothing we can do…”

“But… it’s true.”

The demon swallowed. “True as gospel.”

Where Love's a Grown Up God: A long, drawn-out, emotional exploration of the Ineffable Husbands the night after the Apocalypse That Wasn’t. (possibly NSFW, not sure yet)

Crowley was gawking at him in a remarkably dumbfounded manner. "Angel," he said. "Kiss. More."

"Oh, for the love of—we don't have time!"

So Crowley stopped time.

It was talent peculiar to him, though whether it was specific to his demonic existence or something left over from his time as an angel, Aziraphale wasn't sure and had never worked up the nerve to ask. But it had saved his life a time or two, it had helped to save the world, and now...

And... now.

Wonders of the Invisible World: Crowley manages to get caught up in the Salem Witch Trials. (This fic is mostly an excuse for me to shit on Cotton Mather.)

"Oh no, not a witch. I'm special. For once, the pious idiots have gotten it right."

"Oh no. You mean...?"

"Yup. Charged with being a demon. I hate America."

#gaslight blogs about fic #good omens #drowning in wips #plot bunny breeding season

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todisturbtheuniverse · 5 years

Text

FIC: How Strong the Habit of Idle Speech [2/2]

Rating: T Fandom: Good Omens Pairing: Aziraphale/Crowley Tags: Pre-Relationship, Developing Relationship, Mutual Pining, Fluff Word Count: 8,700 Summary: Part 1 here. Eleven years should not make any difference to an eternal being. It shouldn't even be long enough to establish a habit. But it has been, and he has gotten into the habit of Aziraphale, and breaking it will be about as easy as breaking the wings from his very essence. He can admit this much to himself: he very much does not want to be alone. More to the point, he does not want to be without Aziraphale. Also on AO3. Notes: This part begins right near the end of Episode 6. And promptly gets away from me.

Crowley has a Plan A and a Plan B, and that is all he needs.

Plan A is simple: he is not going to tempt or coerce or even accidentally guilt Aziraphale into anything at all. He is going to stand back and let Aziraphale come to him, and it seems like Aziraphale actually might do just that. He's not going to set up any more meetings with flimsy excuses, or bargain for lunch out, or stop off at the bookshop just because. He is not going to go too fast. He is going to stand still.

This runs counter to his very nature, which has a deep love of fast cars, but some level of compromise has always been necessary in his association with Aziraphale. This is just an extension of everything that has come before.

This will be fine. He can do this. Easy. He can see that some change is coming—maybe slowly, maybe not, time is a tricky thing—and he can cool his heels until it arrives.

But there is a part of him—a wretched and hideous part, that lives in the same place where broken faith resides—that just doesn't trust this. Not even after the previous night. Not even after everything that's been said and also carefully not said these last few days.

So he builds a single exception into Plan A: he asks Aziraphale to lunch, to see if things are going to be as they were, if the angel is going to fall back on token protests even now that the threat of annihilation has been removed.

He doesn't.

Prior conversations about being tired of the script aside, this is still unnerving. Crowley knows, logically, that he should expect as much from Aziraphale after these last twenty-four hours. There has been a declaration, of sorts. He should rely on it.

But whatever part of him still bleeds from Falling—well. It's hard to reason with that bit of himself. It has all the instincts of a wounded animal.

This, maybe, is why there is a Plan B at all. An acknowledgment of these instincts so that he can know his own equivalent of peace, fragile as it is.

Plan B is also simple: if Aziraphale does not come to him, he will let the angel go. He will eke out some other existence, somehow, in the years between the moments when they cross paths—which will surely be long, with neither of them orchestrating said path-crossing. Maybe in another six thousand years it will feel perfectly natural. Good, even. Inasmuch as Crowley ever feels good.

There have been times these last six thousand years that he spent alone. Plenty of them. The majority, by a long shot.1 He can get used to that solitude again.

Eleven years should not make any difference to an eternal being. It shouldn't even be long enough to establish a habit. But it has been, and he has gotten into the habit of Aziraphale, and breaking it will be about as easy as breaking the wings from his very essence. He can admit this much to himself: he very much does not want to be alone.

Some level of this is inevitable, however. Armageddon is averted. There is no need to live in one another's pockets anymore, not even the centuries-old Arrangement to maintain. Some distance must re-establish itself, and Crowley expects it to come down like a guillotine as they step out of the Ritz and into the fading light. They've drunk most of the afternoon away, and some of the evening besides.

"Lift home?" he asks, forcibly casual, and grits his teeth against anything more. Even this might be in violation of Plan A. He's going to have to consider it.

Aziraphale gives him one of those brief glances, eyes cutting over and away and back again. "Thank you."

This is familiar territory, at least. Adam even remembered to put back the window transfers, which Aziraphale gives a funny look—the same funny look he often gives them—as he ducks into the car. Crowley considers driving at a more reasonable speed before tossing that thought aside; his earlier planning was all metaphor, anyway, and London is hell to navigate at speed limit.

And life without Aziraphale's protests about how he drives...he likes the bickering, the admonishments. He listens to them with relish. It reminds him that they're alive.

They reach the bookshop without any incident at all. Crowley doesn't turn the engine off; he waits for Aziraphale to get out. He wonders, even as he tries to shove down the obsessive worry: When will he even see the angel next? And why? Theirs has been a connection built heavily on convenience; with the structure of that removed, why would they ever need to see one another again?

Aziraphale isn't getting out, though. He's giving the bookshop a long, hard look, as if trying to determine whether it's still as it was.

"Seemed fine this morning," Crowley offers. "Same weird smell and everything. Few additions, though."

"Weird smell," Aziraphale repeats at a mutter, giving a little shake of his head. "It's not got a weird smell."

Crowley bites back a retort—so get going, check for yourself—and merely drums his fingers on the steering wheel.

Aziraphale looks back at him, one hand on the door. "What if we're wrong?" he asks; there is some small trepidation in his face. "What if they don't leave us alone? What if they're just waiting for an opportune moment?"

Crowley leans back in his seat. "And if they are? What are we going to do about it?"

"Well," Aziraphale says, "I thought…" He clears his throat. "Why don't you come in? For a drink. In case."

Crowley looks at him, damn near squints at him: Aziraphale, tentative and hopeful, looking at him like he's asking an entirely different question. Something in Crowley's very essence tries to crawl out of his skin, tries to reach out to whatever's being offered.

"In case a horde of demons turns up at your door?" Crowley asks finally.

Aziraphale's face hardens. "Or yours," he says, quiet but with steel.

Most of the time, Crowley thinks the real ineffability in Her plan was handing a flaming sword to Aziraphale. Aziraphale, who miracles doves back to life with grief and guilt in his face; Aziraphale, who couldn't even bring himself to kill the Antichrist; Aziraphale, who seemed mildly horrified at the way Adam—the first Adam—had chopped a lion's head off with that same sword, as if it had just occurred to him that that was the weapon's purpose.

But right now, the sword wouldn't look out of place in his hand. Not at all. A shield would make just as much sense, though, maybe more. Like a wing, lifted against the rain.

So many years of Aziraphale's profoundly irritating literacy are really rubbing off on him.

"Besides," Aziraphale says, and the looming presence of thunder abates, just enough for Crowley to realize that the thick intent of it had filled the entire car. "Better odds, with two of us, right?"

Crowley doesn't think that this is really what Aziraphale's asking. It's hard to forget how many there are in those Head Offices, true. How if they really put their minds to it, they could come up with some way to deal with the pair of them, despite the lies they've now been told. It's worth being a little alert, keeping an eye out.

He knows what he saw in Heaven, though, and he's heard what Aziraphale saw in Hell. They're not coming. They're scared. He knows that, and he thinks Aziraphale does, too.

But if Aziraphale needs a pretense to invite him in, it's better than not inviting him in at all.

Crowley jerks his chin in a nod, twists the key in the ignition, and pulls the Bentley into the nearest convenient alley, where it will at least not immediately announce his presence, if they're bowing a little to pretense. He scans the shadows before they get out, searching for the buckling ground, the rotten soil that will spill forth an enemy.

There is nothing. No holy light; no evil glare.

"Right," he says, and follows Aziraphale to the bookshop.

Aziraphale bustles past the door like it's nothing, like it wasn't just all on a lot of fire a day ago; he goes through the usual motions, double-checking that the sign is flipped firmly to Closed, casting around to make sure everything is generally in the right place, and then hurrying off to the back to make cocoa or maybe open a bottle of wine so that they can really work on this buzz they've been cultivating slowly all afternoon.

Crowley finds it a little harder to fall into routine. Usually he'd be in his spot in the back room by now, the chair that he's never seen Aziraphale sit in once, and heckling as Aziraphale prepares drinks, but he gets stuck halfway through this room he remembers burning. He doesn't shake, or tremble, Heaven forbid, but he does stop, with the claws of memory digging into his chest like they're intent on cracking his ribcage wide open.

He's still standing there, trying to force down the echo of his dramatics and his despair and all the other emotions those imply, trying to collect himself, when Aziraphale comes back, frowning. "What is it?" he asks, from across the room, and Crowley rolls his shoulders and tries to behave normally with a great force of will.

"Nothing," he says. "Just." He flaps a hand around, makes one of those garbled noises that he figures sounds very devil-may-care and entirely covers the fact that he doesn't know what to say until after it's done. "Checking it still smells weird, I guess."

Aziraphale approaches, still that little frown on his face, which is tipping dangerously toward concern. "Are you all right?"

Plan A, Crowley reminds himself, a touch frantically, Plan A, Plan A, Plan A. No guilting. Act naturally.

"Fine," he says, and has to despair at how unnatural it sounds. Lie better. Lie better, Crowley. "Just...weird day. Strange to see it all exactly how it was."

"Well," Aziraphale says dryly, "the William books are new. God knows what else." He's only about a foot away now, and he looks at Crowley with an understanding in his eyes that Crowley needs to shrink away from. Needs to shield himself from. "It's all right," he says, softly now. "I'm fine. See?"

And he picks up Crowley's hand, an action so startling that Crowley doesn't react at all, and tucks it between both of his own, holding it tightly between them.

Lie better, Crowley thinks, the scream of it repeating but fading back, back, back; Aziraphale knows, Aziraphale has seen through him, this is in violation of Plan A, this counts as guilting, even if he doesn't see any guilt in Aziraphale's face, just compassion. Nothing but that, in the touch of his hands.

The body is just that—a body, something that carries them around, irrelevant to the truth of them—but it is representative all the same. Aziraphale might call Velvet Underground bebop but he knows what a gesture like this means. He must know. It is hopeless to think that he knows.

Crowley cannot think of a single thing to say, cannot think of anything but his own agony on his knees on this floor, on the impossibility of Aziraphale returned to him, on his sharp and grasping greed. He could bury this like he has buried so many other things, create a distance enforced by barbed words, whatever it takes.

He opens his mouth to give it a try, and nothing worth saying materializes; he thinks of what he could say, the venom he could spit, and he's deterred by the memory of Aziraphale's arm around his shoulders, pulling him close and safe.

"Come have a drink," Aziraphale says, with the awful, patient kindness of millennia in his eyes, and leads Crowley to the back.

"What do we do now, exactly?" Crowley blurts out, when they've finished off two bottles of wine between them. They are well into the third; Aziraphale had fussed over choosing each of them until Crowley had threatened to break into the really old stuff if he didn't just decide, and Aziraphale had smiled and gotten into the dustiest bottles himself.

"It suits the occasion, I think," he'd said.

Now this—this feels old and comforting and familiar. As long as Aziraphale has owned this ridiculous bookshop, there has been reason to close it for a drink. There has been a late night with too much wine, here and there. Whenever one of them could think up an excuse for such an event, anyway, which Crowley has recently decided was not often enough at all.

"What do we do," Aziraphale repeats from where he's sunk down in the lumpiest chair in this hemisphere, posture finally forgotten. He makes it sound like he's comprehended neither the individual words nor the question they form together.

"Yeah," Crowley says. He leans forward, edge of his chair, almost far enough that his elbows are at risk of going right off his knees and he is at risk of ending up on the floor. "Whatever...whatever breathing space we've got, if we've got it...what do we do with it?"

Aziraphale looks across at him, blue eyes vague and puzzled.

"No one's going to tell you to go do a blessing in Edinburgh, is what I'm saying," Crowley says, forcefully, swimming through the murk of drunkenness with great effort. "Not after warning them off like that."

He tries not to let on what he's really asking. Whatever we're doing, are we doing it together? Asking that outright is a clear violation of Plan A.

Aziraphale snorts. "I wish I could have seen it," he says, a touch dreamily. "You said Gabriel started. He's never jumped at anything before. Certainly not at me."

"Angel," Crowley says; it sounds a great deal more endeared, and a great deal less exasperated, than he intended. "Focus."

Aziraphale squeezes his eyes shut for a long few seconds. When he opens them again, he says, "Did they even really need that blessing in Edinburgh, though?"

Crowley flops back in his seat. "You're not focusing."

"No, really," Aziraphale insists, and by contrast, he straightens up, pulling himself out of the very un-Aziraphale-like slouch he cultivates after this amount of wine. "Did they? And what about your people—your former people, I should say. They hardly ever told you to do anything at all, they just...pointed in a general direction, and then assumed."

"What're you saying?"

"I'm saying that humanity seems clever enough," Aziraphale says. "They don't need us looking after them."

"So you've ticked one off the list of things we won't do," Crowley says, an old acid rising with the words, familiar and affectionate scorn. "Well done. How about the actual question, then?"

"Are you at loose ends already?" Aziraphale asks, amusement touching his eyes, his smile. He seems a good deal less worried than he seemed earlier, like that brief anxiety in the Bentley has all blown away, dust in the wind. Like it was pretense, as Crowley guessed—knew. "I always thought you had a great deal to do, and work was just getting in the way."

The truth is much less glamorous-sounding, so Crowley keeps it to himself, lest he find himself inviting pity.2 "Oh, yeah," he says. "Loads." He gives his head a little shake, trying to rattle an example loose, something that will sound very legitimate and also very interesting. Threatening the plants probably doesn't count.

"Well," Aziraphale says, apparently not noticing that Crowley's grasping not so much at straws as air, "if you can fit me into your schedule, there's an auction I mean to go to tomorrow. Supposedly there will be a few first editions—maybe even annotated by the author—for sale." His lips purse, a great deal more severely than they would if he weren't drunk. "Though where they found them...well, let's say I have some doubts about their authenticity."

Crowley examines that invitation backwards and forwards, trying to find anything purposeful about it. Anything that means something other than, I'm doing this thing and I'd like you to come along so we might spend time together, in a venue that doesn't involve a great deal of duck excrement.

"So you intend to work," he says at last, because he can't accept anything gracefully—whole problem from the very beginning, wasn't it. "Not Work, but work. You don't even like selling the books."

"I might sell a few," Aziraphale protests. "I have sold a few. Before. Last summer? Maybe it was a few years ago." He subsides into mumbles. "You never know. The right buyer…"

"It'd be a weird human that meets your standards for what constitutes worthy of buying this book." Crowley flings a hand around, encompassing the whole room. Doesn't matter which book. All of them are Special to Aziraphale, and not just anyone gets to walk out with one.

Aziraphale doesn't argue. Perhaps he sees there would be no point. "Yes, I intend to work," he says, more firmly. "Watch after them—the humans, that is—when I notice any trouble, maybe. Keep my ear to the ground. This shop…" He looks around, perhaps unconsciously following the route of Crowley's hand, though more slowly. "I like it very much, you know." His eyes sharpen, and they fix on Crowley. "So will you come along? There's bound to be some kind of bidding war."

He extends that tidbit like a temptation. He hasn't forgotten that incident in 1593, then, when they'd been chased from the premises by someone or other Crowley had outbid: Crowley cackling the whole way, Aziraphale muttering laments under his breath about the Chaucer incunable he'd missed out on.3 There was so much mayhem to stir up in a place where multiple people wanted the same unique item very badly. Crowley adored it, and Aziraphale had never invited him along to another auction since.

"I can make room, I suppose," Crowley says, as nonchalantly as possible.

Aziraphale gives him a beatific smile. The entire insides of his chest—who knows what's in there at the moment, really, could be any old organ at all—wrench around painfully.

"Excellent. Well." Aziraphale pats his knees. "I'm going to sober up. Got to crack into those new books."

Crowley looks around, a little blearily, for the clock. Half-past one. "Just go to bed, angel. Sleep it off." He eyes the third bottle, considering the wisdom of finishing it off.

Aziraphale shudders. "I'd rather get it over with, thank you."

Crowley feels the loss of it when Aziraphale snaps back to sober. Left alone in his own swimming brain, knowing that the night is over, now. Aziraphale has made many such hints before, all polite, but they still add up to it's getting rather late, hadn't you better leave?

"Suppose I'd better, too," Crowley mutters, and if he sounds resentful, it's all perfectly above-board. It's how he usually sounds, in this sort of situation. He wonders if Aziraphale's ever caught on to why he acts like such a wretch when he's getting kicked out.

"Oh, not at all." Aziraphale gets briskly to his feet, brushing some invisible dust from his waistcoat. "You're welcome to sleep here. I have it on good authority that the sofa is very comfortable."

He nods in that direction, a particular look on his face, and Crowley—eternal optimist, maybe, tempered only with a recent dose of realism—knows it for what it is. Aziraphale is allowing him to stay. Asking him to stay.

And surely the only good authority who ever told Aziraphale that his sofa is comfortable is Crowley, and only because Crowley himself made it that way, on a night not unlike this, when he'd bullied his way into camping out on it, somehow. It's not even a sofa, not really. More a loveseat. But Crowley does not speak the inane names of furniture out loud, and besides, he likes to let his legs dangle over one of the armrests, which Aziraphale always complains about in the way he has when he doesn't actually mind.

"Well," he says. He cannot resist the lure of warmth. "All right, then." He bites back if it won't be a bother, because that is a very un-Crowley-like thing to say, and he's just coherent enough to know it.

He manages to cross the room without falling down, flops to the sofa without bashing his head on the arm rest, and wiggles to get comfortable. At some distance, he thinks he hears Aziraphale laugh—quiet, more a rhythmic expulsion of air than anything—and ignores it. Well, he doesn't react to it, at least. It's hard to ignore the sound of Aziraphale moving about his bookshop like a shepherd tending his flock; the creak of the floorboards and rustle of pages and clinking of spoon in a cup of cocoa all has a pattern, a familiarity, that does its fair share of lulling Crowley into a comfortable doze.

Even so, he's not quite asleep when Aziraphale's footsteps pass close and stop, the scent of cocoa hitting Crowley's nose right before Aziraphale's hand runs slowly, lightly over his hair. He's not quite asleep, but he pretends to be, afraid that whatever is happening will stop if he's seen to be awake, and he remembers something strange and faraway: the way that Aziraphale's eyes had lingered on his shorn hair over oysters in Rome with something like remorse.

He often worries at these little memories—the drift of Aziraphale's eyes, the flex of his fingers, and something harder to describe, a knowledge of turbulence in his very essence that defies language—but it's been a long time since he's gone that far back for something to obsess over.

And then Aziraphale's hand drifts, the backs of his fingers just barely grazing Crowley's cheek, passing over the inked snake with something like tenderness. Crowley thinks he can identify that much. Probably. And holding himself still, rather than pushing blindly toward it, is the hardest thing he's ever done.

"Dear boy," Aziraphale murmurs. "Sleep well."

He takes himself off to his desk, humming very low under his breath, and Crowley tries to take the gift for what it is, rather than a burning memory that might scar someday soon.

Crowley usually does sleep well, as a rule. He adores sleep. The laziness of it—the pointlessness of it, for him of all creatures. He doesn't need it.

But his brain is somewhat pickled, and his essence does inhabit said brain, to an extent, and even if the first thing was not true, still. Sometimes, he dreams. Brains do this without the explicit permission of their owners, even if their owners are very frightening demons.

They're the inane, garbled dreams of a human. That's what comes of inhabiting a body. Limitations of the flesh, and all that. Which is to say that they convey a sense of Crowley's general anxiety about recent events—hard to escape, that—but in a roundabout kind of way. He's driving the Bentley right over the lake in St. James Park, knocking ducks this way and that, and someone is sitting in the back who shouldn't be, someone he doesn't recognize but who smiles the way that asshole Gabriel smiles, and he feels certain that if he just drives faster they'll be forced to get out, but then a hand closes on his shoulder and—

He wakes up still half-drunk. He breathes through the confusion, which takes only an instant to sort out. He doesn't have to gasp for air or wrangle his own beating heart; if he can put the fear of Crowley into some bullheaded ferns, he can very well put it into this body's own organs, and he decides he's had enough of being drunk at this point.

It never quite works the same, but his head is clear, at least. Clear enough to note—with exasperation and, all right, a little delight—the knit blanket once again draped over his person. His mouth and throat are profoundly dry. The weird gray pre-dawn light is creeping into the shop from the east; it alights on Aziraphale at his desk. He hasn't moved at all, settled down with one of those new books he'd scoffed about, and his back is to Crowley, so it's safe to turn over on the couch and stare at him, the better to shake off the nightmare. His cocoa has gone cold; Crowley can sense it, the sad sedimented separation of the liquid.

Drinking cocoa in the dead heat of summer. Only Aziraphale.

Aziraphale, here. Still here, in his still-here bookshop, all present and accounted for. Now that there's been a little sleep, disturbed or not, and the inevitable relaxing of the guard after a whole night without angelic or demonic interference, Crowley feels some kind of elation at that. Some relief.

"Tea's on the side table," Aziraphale says, absentmindedly, and Crowley tries to pretend he wasn't staring, or that if he was, it was perfectly normal, and anyway, it's not like Aziraphale's looked up and caught him at it.

He stretches a hand out to scoop up the tea, turning a little to do it, and that's when he notices the plant.

He was too sauced to even glance at it last night. He doesn't notice his cast-offs; he ignores them, pointedly, and they tremble even so when he shadows Aziraphale's doorstep. But he can't help but give it a terrible, threatening look now, because it's gone and sprouted flowers.

Not even the flowers you'd expect a plant to put out around Aziraphale. You'd expect something white or golden or maybe even pink or blue—nice, delicate colors, and nice delicate petals. These are far too rich, deep crimson that goes even deeper at the heart, distinguishable even though each of the dozen flowers is very small.

"When did it start doing that?" Crowley asks, glaring daggers at the plant.

"Hmm?" Aziraphale reaches for his cocoa. Crowley breaks off glaring at the plant—which has remembered its maker and begun to tremble—in order to give Aziraphale's stupid little winged mug a pointed look. The cocoa re-combines and heats up, a pleasant curl of warmth issuing from its surface, just as Aziraphale picks it up. He makes a pleased little sound in his throat and shoots a grateful glance over at Crowley, who's gone back to staring at the plant.

"Oh, that," Aziraphale says, lightly. "I like them, actually. Really brightens the place up."

The plant's shaking eases a little. A war between masters is occurring. It's not yet sure which way the battle will go.

"It's the wrong season for flowers," Crowley says, by which he means, there is no right season for this plant to flower. It does not flower. I picked it for that reason, when at first I thought it could properly contribute to the aesthetic, which I see now was a foolish assumption.

"It's summer," Aziraphale says, "surely that's close enough."

"It's not," Crowley mutters, but there's nothing for it; if Aziraphale can't be persuaded to properly maintain his plants, that's not Crowley's business. "Is the auction early?"

"We have time for breakfast," Aziraphale says, and snaps the book decisively shut. "Well, these don't really fit the collection I've cultivated here, but...they are pristine first editions."

"So you're planning to hoard them instead of selling them?" Crowley says, a smile threatening at his mouth that he has to keep down, for the sake of needling.

"They were practically a gift. Poor form to sell a gift."

"Convenient," Crowley says, and yawns, pushing the blanket off and into a tangled heap at the end of the sofa. He pushes his sunglasses back onto his face. "What's for breakfast, then?"

Aziraphale leads the way to one of his favorite cafes, where the chef himself comes out to greet them. Crowley stays well out of the interaction, but he doesn't miss the relief quietly radiating from Aziraphale, the gratitude that all is still right with the world if Chez Corentin is still standing and serving crêpes. Crowley only orders coffee and steals bites of Aziraphale's crêpes when he's not paying attention, too busy listing off the merits and pitfalls of the book he spent the night reading, and this, too, feels right.

Aziraphale is still talking, and Crowley is still mildly heckling him, when they arrive at the auction. Crowley takes a single glance around the crowded room—with people, yes, but so much stuff, too—and snorts.

"First editions, you said? Not bloody likely."

But Aziraphale is peering around in ill-disguised interest. Crowley notes the style of the various furnishings and knick-knacks with dismay. "There must be something of value here. Look at that, isn't that nice?"

He nods at a dresser, one of those early nineteenth century pieces that's far too heavy to bother with. The style's always looked odd to Crowley, though maybe that's because of how quickly the 1800s passed for him, being asleep for the majority of it, and all.

"No," he says. Aziraphale casts him an exasperated look.

"Maybe I'll tidy up the flat a bit. Make it more...livable."

"The thing above your shop isn't a flat, it's a storage room. When was the last time you went up there?"

"I keep meaning to do inventory, but. You know. There's always something else to do. My point is," Aziraphale says, as if sensing that Crowley's just about to hit his stride as far as mocking goes, "there's all the time in the world now, and not much else to do with it. Maybe I'll have a go at living like humans do."

"What, are you going to take up sleeping, too?" Crowley can't imagine it.

"Take up seems like awfully strong language. Implies a habit. I'd give it a fair shot, maybe."

Crowley follows Aziraphale through the narrow aisles, feeling vaguely disconcerted by this and not really sure why. When Aziraphale pauses by one of those awful little uncomfortable chairs, though—beautifully upholstered, of course, the craftsmanship can't be denied—he puts his foot down.

"Listen, angel, if you're going in for a remodel, at least buy some comfortable furniture," he says. "Give it a fair shot, as you say."

"You're just trying to get me to go to IKEA."

"No, no, I wouldn't call that furniture comfortable. And it's very stylish, and all, but damn pain to put together. Flat-packed boxes were one of mine. No, there are other stores, and they have chairs that were built sometime in the last ten years with comfort in mind."

Aziraphale glances again at the chair. "Perhaps I'll just get it for the shop, then," he says. "Discourage customers from lingering."

"Fine, yes, good."

"You know, I don't really know anything about shopping for furniture," Aziraphale says, with a sidelong look at Crowley. "Not functional things, anyway. Your flat is very nice, if a little…" He casts around for the word. "Austere."

Here is the trouble with Plan A: their long acquaintance has relied very heavily on Aziraphale hinting powerfully at things that he'd like to do, and trusting Crowley to take the final step of indulging him. And Crowley finds himself doing exactly this, like he always has, before he knows what's happened.

"It's meant to be," he says, and then, "I know a few places."

Aziraphale beams at him, which does the same funny thing to his stomach that it's done for a very long time. "We'll go after lunch, then."

There is a bidding war—over the chair, of all things. Crowley manages to swipe the only thing of value from a knocked-over pile of books before the looks turn too murderous, and without being spotted by Aziraphale, who's too busy trying to smooth over the mood with the other bidders.

"You wanted the chair, I was going to get you the chair," Crowley says, unable to help his grin as they hurry away, the very slender book tucked safely into his jacket.

Aziraphale huffs out a sigh. "I rather think you orchestrated all that so I wouldn't get the chair. Your point is taken."

They stop back at the bookshop to take a look at the space in the flat above. Crowley nearly trips over the pile of books right inside the kitchen. Every available surface—and there are few enough of them, besides the floor—is piled with books. The smell of them slowly decomposing is overpowering. Crowley doesn't even want to guess at the last time Aziraphale opened a window up here.

"How do you live like this," he mutters, picking his way more carefully across the battered old floorboards. What he can see of them, anyway.

"It's worse than I remember," Aziraphale admits. "I forgot that I'd been just sending things up here when I ran out of space. Or rearranged."

Crowley bites his tongue on a comment about how mad Aziraphale's attempts at rearranging are. His organization system makes sense to him, and no one else, and that is almost certainly by design, even if he won't admit it.

And Crowley won't admit that he finds the chaos of it stupidly, wonderfully endearing.

"You're going to have to move them to put any furniture in here. Even a dowdy old chair."

"Oh, I expect there's space somewhere," Aziraphale says vaguely, which Crowley takes to mean that he's already miracling up a new room for the bookshop downstairs, one which somehow occupies less square footage than it seems to, and doesn't encroach at all on his neighbors. "Here."

The books all vanish, leaving the flat very, very empty. There's a long-neglected kitchen with a halfhearted table where some of the books had been recently piled, but otherwise, the place is a completely blank slate.

Aziraphale sighs. "I don't even know where to start."

"Lunch," Crowley reminds him, "and then we'll look around."

By the end of the day, Crowley has a new appreciation for how shell-shocked humans look when they emerge from IKEA. It had been easier to stock his own flat, to make adjustments over the years; he has taste, he understands what aesthetic he's cultivating, even if he dimly recognizes that he's always about ten years behind.

Aziraphale, though. Aziraphale's knee-jerk reaction to something newer than 1950 is always no, and after a few hours, might only work its way up to maybe.

The sun is going down by the time the delivery people leave. Crowley might have suggested to the sales associate that they'd paid for same-day delivery when they hadn't at all, but Aziraphale tips the workers heavily, so the scales balance.

Crowley throws himself down on the new couch, which for the moment, sits against a blank wall; they hadn't really gotten as far as strategically-placed decoration, let alone a television, in the hours available to them. But it's a comfortable couch, if not to his own taste, a kind of warm ivory in color with a tartan blanket somehow already draped over the back of it. There's a pleasant little coffee table in front of it with room for plenty of books on the lower shelf. It's all very Aziraphale.

"Well?" he asks, folding his arms behind his head.

Aziraphale looks around the flat, wary but mildly appreciative. His eyes light on the plant—the stupid one putting out flowers when it definitely shouldn't—which has moved upstairs, onto the coffee table, and the wariness melts entirely into fondness.

"It's a start." He settles on the couch, too, not directly beside Crowley, but not far. "Perhaps we should do something less productive tomorrow, though. I don't know how humans manage." He makes a face. "If I am tired, after all that, the poor dears must be exhausted."

We, Crowley thinks. We should do something less productive tomorrow.

Crowley tries not to think about the last couch they sat on together, two nights ago now. But really, he can be neurotic by nature, a hellhound with demon gristle in its teeth, and this reminds him very powerfully of it. It reminds him how well, in that moment, that he thought they'd understood one another.

But maybe it was just a moment at the end of the world. Not the end of the world—just the end of theirs, judgment looming on the horizon. That makes people do funny things. He only has to think about his own ridiculous declarations over the last week to remember that.

Even if he meant those ridiculous declarations.

"I think they usually lay around and watch telly for a day or so, after so much exertion," Crowley says, forcefully shelving all of this. "Order takeout. Laze."

Aziraphale actually yawns. Maybe he's really going to give sleeping a go, after all. "Yours, then? I'm not having one of those things in my flat."

Like it's a given. Like whatever they do, they will do together. How many days will it last? How much time can Crowley steal?

"Yeah," he says, stretching his legs out. "I bet we can find something you like."

Aziraphale makes a face that suggests he doesn't believe this, but he doesn't argue directly. "I'll bring a book."

Crowley does go home that night, inasmuch as the Mayfair flat is home. It would be too easy to overstay his welcome, to cling. Heaven and Hell aren't coming after them. There's no reason to take up full occupation of Aziraphale's couch, much as he wants to creep back in after Aziraphale's fallen asleep and burrow himself under that stupid tartan blanket. He even briefly considers parking himself on the doorstep, which is how he knows that things have gotten really out of hand.

On his way out, he hunts down the Chaucer incunable that's been hiding in the bookshop and leaves it on Aziraphale's desk to find in the morning. After a moment's hesitation, he takes the other volume out of his jacket, a printing not even a century old yet, and thumbs it open, reminding himself of the words.4

"'Teach us to care and not to care,'" he mutters. "'Teach us to sit still.'" And he scoffs—aggravation welling up inside him—because sitting still feels unnatural, and one day of practice has not made him an expert, and he wants to march back up those stairs and demand answers of Aziraphale, tangible answers, whether he's ready to give them or not.

He almost leaves the book out, beneath the Chaucer, but in the end, the narrow printing of Ash Wednesday goes in the old hiding spot, well-buried within the bookshop. Maybe in a hundred years, Aziraphale will take him to another auction, and the cycle can repeat itself, indefinitely, across centuries. Maybe they really do have that much time.

Maybe, by then, they'll have figured one another out.

Aziraphale turns up to his door the next day with takeout and a plant.

"What's this?" Crowley asks, giving the thing a perplexed look. It's a Ceropegia wood, practically glowing with health, leaves already tumbling down around the rim of the pot.

"A gift," Aziraphale says, like he's talking to someone very slow, "obviously."

He holds it out, and his brief exasperation doesn't last. There's this thing that happens when Aziraphale is very happy—in particular, very happy with Crowley—that causes him to sort of...glow. People can't see it, obviously. Maybe witches could. It's more like a peek into another plane of existence, though, a place where the greater matter of Aziraphale exists, all bright golden light.

Crowley used to think looking too close at that light would probably burn his eyes out, or something. It's just like sunning on a rock on a summer day, though. Just barely too hot to be entirely comfortable, and for a snake, that's very comfortable indeed.

Crowley takes it and stands aside to let Aziraphale in. "What for?" he asks, also like he is talking to someone very slow.

"Well, I was admiring your plants the other night, and I thought this one might fit in. It's paltry in comparison, really. Where on earth did you find that incunable?"

Crowley doesn't bother pretending ignorance; it's not like Aziraphale lets just anyone wander unobserved in his bookshop. "In your shop, where it's been hiding for oh, I don't know—a hundred and thirty years or so? Thought you'd have found it by now."

"A hundred and…" Aziraphale frowns, clearly piecing things together. "Why, we weren't even speaking, then."

Crowley manages not to squirm, holding his new plant, which is getting entirely the wrong idea about the kind of gardener he is.

Aziraphale takes his silence for something, clearly, because he says, "Oh, Crowley," in a tone of voice that is far too soft and understanding. "I'm sorry I didn't find it."

He looks it, too, like he's feeling the absence of those long years between 1862 and 1941 just as keenly as Crowley.

"Forget it," Crowley says; the sun has become unbearably bright. "It's nothing."

Aziraphale seems like he might argue, but wisely desists. "What did you steal from the auction yesterday, then?"

Crowley shrugs. "Maybe you'll find it in a hundred years."

"You wily old serpent," Aziraphale says, horribly fond; he pats Crowley's shoulder as he passes by, fingers lingering so briefly, and hard as Crowley looks, he can find no trace of admonishment in the words at all.

They retreat to the sitting room, where the television is already going on one of those insipid reality shows that Crowley finds so entertaining and Aziraphale finds so irritating. They bicker about it over the takeout, a well-trod old argument. Crowley goes to hang up the new plant and give it a stern talking-to about expectations. By the time he returns, Aziraphale's worked out how to use the remote and has found something that isn't reality TV. He actually seems quite engrossed, admiring the costume design aloud. He would; it mimics the early 1800s very well.

Crowley complains, but he makes no real effort to steal back the remote. There's something about Aziraphale making himself comfortable in Crowley's flat that he wouldn't interrupt for the world.

The days pass like that, fading into weeks.

Aziraphale wheedles Crowley into helping decorate the flat above the bookshop. He invites him to lunches, dinners, walks in the park. And other things, things they've only done when rigorous pretense was firmly in place: attending plays, concerts; going sightseeing, inasmuch as there are any sights left that they haven't seen and actually want to see; lingering at one or the other's flat, late into the night, well past the time when Aziraphale would usually hint that Crowley ought to go away.

That new plant has started to put out flowers that it shouldn't, either, and the others are clearly thinking about it. They're not like the ones at the bookshop, which would have been bad enough; these are delicate, soft blooms, white and pale gold and traces of pink. Crowley can't decide what would be worse: that it's Aziraphale's continued presence that's encouraging them, or it's something in his own essence that's changed, and they're reacting to it.

What will happen if Aziraphale decides to go, then? Will the plants go back to the way they were? Will he?

"Listen," he says, one night early in September when they get back to the bookshop after Pericles.

He says it before he can think better of it. It slips out of his mouth like a plea, interrupting Aziraphale's chattering analysis of how this version differed from the original showing.

Aziraphale hangs his coat up on the rack. Stupid thing, wearing a coat this time of year, with how many layers he has already. Really stupid thing. But Crowley watches him brush the lines of his jacket straight with pained fondness, because it is so very Aziraphale, and he loves Aziraphale.

"I'm listening," Aziraphale says, though a little absently.

He could back out. Stick to Plan A. Let all this play out without hurrying things along, trying to see where the end of the road is.

But he's still scrambled from the way they stood in the theater, so similar and so different to how they'd stood in a technically different building centuries before. How there had been no attempt through body language or warning looks on Aziraphale's part to keep any distance from Crowley at all. In fact, maybe with the excuse of how packed the playhouse was, Aziraphale had spent much of it pressed lightly against Crowley's side, arm to arm, the backs of their hands occasionally brushing.

"Why are you doing all this?" Crowley asks, barreling onward, because the uncertainty of it is more than he can endure. He thought he could be patient, stand still. But it's so blessed hard to stand still when Aziraphale's running at him at ninety miles an hour. He'd anticipated less of an assault, more of a meandering.

"All what?" Aziraphale asks, but his eyes have sharpened, taken notice; he's not absent now.

"The outings, the food, the...plant." Crowley shoves his hands in his pockets and does not look down at the floor. He doesn't need to; the sunglasses conceal his eyes just fine, and he's not taking them off. Not for this.

"You don't like it?" Aziraphale asks, very much like he already knows the answer to that.

"That's not what I...that's not the point."

Aziraphale looks at him, too keenly for Crowley's comfort. "What is, then?"

It feels like Aziraphale has already seen through him, already knows everything Crowley could say, and the injustice of that wells up in him, threatening to spill over. Because, after all this time and all that's happened, he still doesn't know Aziraphale the way Aziraphale seems to know him; he still isn't sure of anything. Not sure enough, anyway.

"You weren't like this before," he says, and it comes out more accusatory than intended. "I had to bend your arm backwards sometimes just to get you to talk to me out of the side of your mouth. So the point is, what's changed?"

He half-expects Aziraphale to argue, to protest, but he doesn't. He deflates a little, though he doesn't fall to the mannerisms he usually does when he's uncomfortable; he stays where he is, and he meets Crowley's eyes.

"I wanted to be," he says, quietly, but not quietly enough to mishear.

"What?" Crowley says anyway. It's outlandish enough to demand clarification.

Aziraphale offers up a small, sad smile. "I wanted to be," he repeats. "If you can believe it. I didn't want to wait for you to hunt me down and give me an excuse to…" Here he hesitates, just briefly. "To be with you."

This is really more than Crowley bargained for. He never imagined that Aziraphale would just say it like that, out loud and plainly, revealing the answer to something that Crowley has wondered for so long—certain of it most of the time and uncertain the rest.

Aziraphale steps toward him. There's only a little distance left between them; there's something tentative in the motion, but Aziraphale still lifts a hand, still places it on Crowley's cheek. He can't move under the weight of it. Aziraphale's thumb runs over the serpent, tattooed into borrowed skin.

"Can I take these off?" he asks, fingers touching the stem of the sunglasses.

Crowley hesitates. Well, not really. He has to make a great, monumental effort to react at all, to move at all, which he tells himself is hesitation instead of paralyzing fear. But he nods, a tiny jerk of the chin, and Aziraphale gently takes the sunglasses and folds them and tucks them into a pocket in Crowley's jacket. His hand lingers there now instead, against Crowley's chest, and Crowley hopes he's not reading anything into the body's racing heartbeat, which he can't seem to control at this time.

"I was a coward," Aziraphale says, matter-of-factly. Crowley opens his mouth to argue—actually argue—but Aziraphale gives him a stern look and he shuts it again. "In some ways, I was. But I worried about your well-being, too, lest you think me entirely self-preserving. If anything happened to you, because we were...fraternizing." He makes a face, as if mocking his past self for word choice.

They would destroy you. How many variations of those words, repeated over the centuries, always when Aziraphale was trying to re-establish space between them—and usually succeeding?

"So I never could do enough." Aziraphale's fingers tense briefly against Crowley's shirt, and relax again. Stupid, the things the human body he merely inhabits does in reaction to that. The heart pumping like it's running out of time, the lungs trying to strangle him. "Never could match you. Always had to be reluctant, had to go along, at best." His features soften, just a little more, and there is that light. That glow. The sun shining on Crowley's scales instead of falling just wide. "I thought I...well, now I can. Do enough, I mean. Make up for it." Aziraphale's certainty finally falters here. "If you'll let me, that is, if you want..."

"Of course I want," Crowley says, holding down a despairing laugh. "That's the whole problem."

Aziraphale smiles, his whole face—his whole person—lighting up with the strength of it, just as Crowley leans in and kisses him. Somewhat clumsily, unfortunately; it's been a while since he bothered with this kind of thing. But Aziraphale's breath comes out in a rush against his face, and Aziraphale kisses him back, proving that he hasn't horribly misread a conversation that was actually about what good friends they are.

Which. They are. They're just also something else.

This goes on for a minute. Maybe two. Aziraphale keeps making these delighted noises, and Crowley doesn't want to pull away from the warmth of Aziraphale's hand on his chest, doesn't want to release the handful of crumpled jacket beneath his fingers, doesn't want to let go of Aziraphale, ever, ever again. They are not, strictly speaking, creatures of flesh, but they have been of the world for long enough to be so close as to make no difference, and this feels excruciatingly good, to be so physically close to someone he is already so close to, in so many other ways.

But at some point, Aziraphale does pull back, just enough to say, "That's not a problem. Not a problem at all. That's wonderful, really."

He sounds breathy in an entirely new way Crowley's never heard him sound before, and it punches him in the stomach, a little.

Crowley manages, "You could've just said. You didn't have to go to all this trouble."

"I'm afraid it's still hard to say things," Aziraphale says. "I'm in the habit of trying to make myself understood through my actions. Heavily-veiled actions, at that. And besides, words seemed inadequate, after everything." A darkness passes over his face that doesn't belong there; Crowley lifts a hand to smooth it away, and Aziraphale turns into it, lips brushing his palm without any hesitation at all. Something like static shock passes over his skin in reaction. "I've said many untrue things, recently. I thought you might not believe me. I'm sorry, my dear. I know I've taxed your patience greatly, but please let me intrude on it a little while longer."

"I forgive you," Crowley says, easy as breathing, and means it.5

Aziraphale looks a little astonished at that. Not offended, even. Just grateful. Like he wanted, needed, that forgiveness. Not something that the Serpent of Eden should really have the right to hand out.

But he's not the Serpent with Aziraphale. This is not a Temptation. This is his own feeling, maybe vice and maybe virtue but really, maybe just something that falls in the middle of all that, the way that they do. And it's no less good, or right, or powerful, for falling in the middle of things.

Aziraphale kisses him this time, and Crowley gets lost in the feeling even as he's trying desperately to memorize it. All of his confused, hopeful-but-guilty imaginings pale in comparison to this, to having Aziraphale enthusiastic and demanding in his arms.

When they pause for not-strictly-needed breath again, he says, with the awful grin that he knows Aziraphale half-hates, half-adores, "You've been courting me. Like a proper gentleman. You gave me a plant."

Aziraphale rolls his eyes, somewhat pink in the face. "Oh, shut up."

"You watched television with me."

"Just the one programme—"

"You took me on dates."

Aziraphale stares at him, half-infuriated, half-adoring. Crowley will remember this look for his entire existence. Forever.

"Please stop talking," Aziraphale says, and Crowley indulges him.

Footnotes

1. Yes, he had once told Aziraphale that he had plenty of people to fraternize with. And he did. Just no one he liked fraternizing with so much as Aziraphale.

2. It's nice that Aziraphale managed to catch on to the image Crowley's been going for all these years, but really, this is an inconvenient time for him to notice it out loud.

3. Crowley had it, of course. Stole it later that day, hung onto it for centuries, and slipped it somewhere Aziraphale would find it, preferably after a decade or so when their middish-1800s irritation with one another had cooled off. But he still hadn't found it. World's longest game of hide-and-seek.

4. He doesn't read, no. But on occasion Aziraphale, in the process of pontificating, will read to him. And this one came back to Crowley awfully powerfully in 1967.

5. He is the same person who kept trying to get Aziraphale to run away with him even when Aziraphale said no over and over again, in varied and hurtful ways. He will keep coming back, he realizes. And this time, it sounds like he won't even have to go away again.

#good omens #aziraphale #crowley #aziraphale/crowley #universe writes #A LOT MORE OF ME TALKING HUH #well i've had a good time

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writing-frenzy · 5 years

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I found a Manga that I’m gonna gush about :D (though it is a bit twisted)

So, recently I’ve found a really sweet Manga, called Negative Hero and The Demon Lord Army Leader.

Sounds like it could be a trashy novel, with a title like that, right? Wrong!

It basically follows Demon Army Leader Gouma Hyudor and his adopted daughter.

Spoilers below; warnings for some dark themes below, some of which involve this poor young girl, which will be detailed in the read more. (they will be in bold, so if you want to check and see if anything will squink ya, you can check it real quick. because this series does have it’s punches despite the fluff, so if you need to, make sure you take care of you. Let’s say for now that this girl does indeed earn herself the Woobie Title.

Okay, since you’re in spoiler town, here are the warnings for the story so far: Child Abuse (so far only mentioned) Suicidal Thoughts, Suicidal Idealism, Forced Child Solider, Painfully Low Self-Esteem, Emotional Breakdowns

Now, we’ve seen some darker themes on the other side of the Hero Occupation, from darkened and betrayed ones, to even plain unwilling ones.

But something I have noticed is that in stories with those who are born Heroes, they usually take the job happily, or only grow more and more disillusioned as the story progresses. But something that is usually noted is that they usually grow up happy, where even orphaned they get taken in by a kind and loving family.

This is not that kind of story; from a very young age, our Hero Rene has faced one hardship to the next with seemingly no stop.

Here is what we find out in the first fucking chapter:

First, her parents, who seemed to genuinely loved and care for her judging from her words at least, were killed by her fellow villagers because they blamed her parents for all the demons coming to attack. She also no friends whatsoever and casually mentions this.

Second, she says that if she doesn’t kill the demon king, even if she tries to go back they will probably just label her a Traitor and kill her for it.

Third, with tears in her eyes, she begs to just be able to sleep, she is so tired, she just wants to see her parents again and hope for their forgiveness.

My feelings exactly Gouma! Need I say this all happens in the first chapter, this devastating break down of this very much abused little girl, and it flows so naturally, at least to me.

The first chapter is only three pages.

Yeah, three pages, and we already find out this. Do you want to know what caused the breakdown?

A standard villain threat of how after you defeat the hero, you will also make sure all their family and friends will join them. The above picture is her part of her reaction.

Yeah, and the hits just keep on coming. When Gouman, who ends up feeling sorry for the girl, not only listens to her, lets her cry, and even when she is knocked out by her tears, even lets her stay in one of the Castle’s rooms to rest, waiting for her to wake up and figure out what to do with her.

When she wakes up? She thinks she is in heaven, because of how soft the bed is and how nice the room is.

And when Gouma asks about her name and she tells him... well, the scene best describes it honestly:

This girl. Has not. Heard her name. Since her parents died. (true, we don’t know how long they have been dead, but I’m thinking it has been a long time, seeing as she had to be trained to fight demons after all, which no matter what, would take a while)

Yeah...

Other things to note

She fainted on being given an (admittedly very) nice room.

She does not understand compliments very well or does not think she deserves them.

She never wanted to fight.

By her state orders, she has to spend an insane amount of time dedicated solely to her training ever damn day.

When she is given a simple, but still nice dress, she thinks she is unworthy of it. It is only when she is offered a better, obviously more expensive dress that was actually made with all the spare material left over (she tiny), does she accept it wholeheartedly.

Now, I’m not going to go over everything, because I want to save some surprises, but here are some things I loved and wondered about:

1: cute and lovable characters (Smol and Tol :3)

2: Demon with hobbies outside work and research (Gouma was the one who made the dress after all :D)

3: If there is any sort of fan service in this series, it would be the sheer moe of a PG hurt/comfort fic. Like, this story has it’s chances for it, but does not take it.

Examples: We have maids, and even the Hero is put in a maid outfit, the very dress that the guy above made for her because all the other uniforms were too big.

It is cute. It is wonderful on her. Yeah, even I would wear it! Now let’s look at the other maid.

Is she Dark Elf or Succubus? who knows, but she is indeed a demon woman with actual covering clothing... Huh, it probably isn’t a good thing to note just how refreshing I find this.

(honestly though, I love every demon design so far, even if it’s only been about four so far, like the traditional Skeleton Fighters to even Gouma’s, which I really like the most.)

Anyways, onto a little thoughts and wanderings now.

In my dark twisted brain, I honestly find this concept of just how those born with the job of a Hero could be treated fascinating, how if you look at it on the flip side, how heroes are nothing but trouble, being demon magnets, possible sources of finding hidden truths and corruption, and yet for sure to grow up with powers beyond imagination? Maybe they are even signs of darker things to come, an omen of sorts and if they fail, well, pretty much everyone is screwed usually.

It is horrifying to see what could happen to innocents with this job, being molded and forced into being a tool, until all you can feel is the pain and sorrow your very existence brings. To be so constantly tired (even after sleeping and living in the castle, she has such heavy bags under her eyes), to be so malnourished (after all, she is so small), and still weighed down by all these expectations..

well...

something will break in the end.

It is so telling, how all Gouma has to do is show some kindness and common decency, not to mention giving her a job where she doesn’t have to fight, that Rene so easily abandons her previous life to live in a castle of demons, probably the happiest she has been in years.

So, the story is only ten chapters as of right now, but I will still highly rec if the themes don’t get ya down.

#Negative Hero and the Demon Lord Army Leader #Manga Rec #Manga Recommendation

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practically-an-x-man · 5 years

Text

Good Omens Fic - “Another Dream”

Words: 1168

Type: Some angst, some fluff

(I may make this into a series, give me your opinions)

Crowley knew he was dreaming. There was that sort of hazy, just-slightly-off feel to everything. He had almost grown accustomed to the demonic visits by now. He had been visited almost every night for the past 6000 years, but they had gotten worse in the past 20. More vivid, more cutting. Less like wheedling away at an old wound and more like being stabbed in the heart with a screwdriver, over and over and over until he was bled dry.

It wasn’t the same demon each night. If he was lucky, he’d get Hastur or Beelzebub, chastising him for going native. Those were the dreams of Falling, having the galaxies burnt away from his skin and wings as he plummeted. He’d feel the scales spread across his body, feel his bones shift and morph until he hit an icy floor, coiled as a snake. He’d experienced that dream countless times now, but every night was as vivid as the Fall itself. And those weren’t even the worst of the nightmares.

The worst came when he was visited by a higher-up, one of the true demons of torture. He never revealed his face, but Crowley could sense the power in a way he never got from even Beelzebub. In those dreams, Crowley would find himself in his bedroom, crouched at the foot of the bed. He held in his hands Aziraphale’s flaming sword. The angel himself was sprawled on the bed, with his reading glasses still perched on his nose. His chest rose and fell steadily, painfully real. Crowley felt himself lift the sword, his own arms betraying him. No matter what he did, Crowley couldn’t release the sword from his grip. He couldn’t even look away. With a vicious slice, Crowley brought the sword down, the blade lodging in the angel’s chest. Flames erupted in a blast of heat, winding Crowley and Aziraphale in a tornado of hellfire.

Aziraphale opened his eyes, meeting Crowley’s pained gaze. Tears welled in his Angel’s eyes, eyes that were wide in shock. Golden ichor flowed from the wound, slowing with every second that passed. Only now was Crowley able to take his hands off the hilt of the sword. The demon blinked back hot silver tears as Aziraphale weakly laid his hand over Crowley’s. It broke Crowley’s heart, the unwavering faith and love that his Angel had for him. Crowley held his Angel’s hand, squeezing too tightly. He saw the light fade from Aziraphale’s beautiful blue eyes, forced to watch as the burns spread over his body.

I TOLD YOU, CROWLEY. YOU HAVE ALWAYS BEEN ONE OF US. YOU CANNOT DENY YOUR NATURE.

The voice would seem to come from everywhere and resonate in Crowley’s soul, all at once. He couldn’t tell who it was, but he knew he never wanted to encounter the owner of that wretched voice. Crowley felt the tears run down his face, sizzling as they met the heat of the sword. Then the dream would leave him there, amidst the swirling tornado of flame, staring at what he had done to the one angel who didn’t push him away until the light of dawn finally broke the veil.

Those were the worst of the dreams. Even when he would wake up, it remained. Though he saw the golden light of sunrise, his mind told him flame. He saw the bed, the grey silk sheets mussed but unburnt, and still smelled the acrid smoke. Even the angel, peacefully asleep beside him, oblivious to the world, seemed fake, like any moment Crowley would see through the illusion and be faced with blackened skin and dull eyes.

This night was different. Crowley found himself in a familiar room, everything around bleached a supernatural, glowing white. It had changed in the past 6000 years, but a voice deep inside Crowley knew he was in Heaven. He felt his wings stretch behind him comfortably. He glanced around, wondering who was visiting tonight, what kind of sick torture they would inflict on him tonight. As Crowley spun to check behind him, he caught a glimpse of feathers, a thousand colors and swirling stars and pure white all at once. His wings.

Well, they were. Before...well, I’m sure you can guess. Crowley traced his hand down the feathers, feeling the flexible fibers of his primary feathers bend under his fingertips. He could see the constellations dotting his forearms, like glowing golden freckles. He marveled as if he had never seen them before.

Remember when it was like this, Crowley? Having the stars at your fingertips?

As with his usual dreams, the voice struck him to the core, like he was in the body of a guitar and somebody struck a power chord. However, this voice wasn’t hostile, not like the one in the Worst Dreams. This almighty voice was reminiscent, nostalgic almost. And it resonates with an incredible power, more power than Crowley could imagine (even if he was the only demon who could try)

Crowley was awestruck. Literally struck speechless by awe. This was God, communicating directly to him. Not Gabriel, not the Metatron, God Herself.

You are confused. Allow me to explain.

Crowley’s mouth twitched, like he was about to say something, but he remained quiet. She was right, he was confused. Why would She speak to him like this? In this manner?

I forgive you, Crowley.

The dream was already beginning to dissolve, softening at the edges. Perhaps it was Crowley beginning to wake up, perhaps it was too much power to be projected into his brain for this long. His astronomical, impossible wings were already flickering out of sight, the colors merging and blurring. Just before the dream faded entirely, Crowley heard a final message.

Holy water, Crowley.

Crowley opened his eyes, processing the dream. Holy water would destroy a demon, every demon knew that. But Aziraphale had shared a rumor with him. He said that the archangels believed holy water would return a demon to its angelic form, with no memories of being a demon. And God had given him direct advice that followed the same logic.

The demon blinked, rubbing his eyes. He looked to his left, at the angel slumbering beside him. At some point during the night, Aziraphale’s arm had wound up wrapped around Crowley’s chest, bringing them close.

No memories of being a demon. He would forget the last 6000 years, all the time he spend with Aziraphale. All the lunches, all the rescues, everything. 6 milennia Crowley had spend trying to get close to his Angel, and finally succeeding.

Maybe there would come a day where he would be desperate enough to take the offer. But that day hadn’t arrived yet. He would deal with the nightmares. After all, what he had when he awoke couldn’t be matched, even by Paradise itself.

Crowley pulled his Angel closer, basking in his warmth. Aziraphale let out a contented, sleepy sigh. The golden sunlight spread over them, washing away any nightmare that tried to show its face.

#good omens #fanfic #crowley #aziraphale #angst #fluff too

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puppetwritings · 5 years

Text

To Heaven and Back || Pt. 1 || Junhui

Pt. 1 // Pt. 2 // Pt. 3 // Pt. 4 // Pt. 5 // Pt. 6 // Pt. 7 //

➢ Word Count: 6121

➢ Genre: chinese mythology, fantasy, angst, fluff

➢ Summary: You had been a martial god, sitting at the helm of Heaven’s armies, for a very long time. So long, that you had began to forget what your human life was like but for some reason, recently, you were dreaming of past events again.

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You felt something soft and fuzzy nudge itself against your hand. Despite the pain coursing through your body, you slowly opened your eyes and smiled at the small white fox. You brushed your hand over his fur, making sure you didn’t use the one that was stained with blood. The fox looked up at you with worry in his eyes. Before finding this small fox, you never thought that animals could be so human and now, seeing the fox’s dark eyes and listening to his tentative whine, you didn’t think about your own pain—you thought about what might happen to this little fox once you died.

“I’ll be fine,” you assured him, but the weakness in your voice gave away the lie. The fox crawled closer, curling beside you. You pursed your lips. “No…no, you can’t stay here…if you stay here then—”

It was just then that the doors to the old temple slammed open. Your vision was starting to fade but you heard the heavy footsteps of soldiers as they surrounded you. You could make out a dark, burly figure stomping towards you and when he spoke, you could see the disgusting and twisted smirk on his face.

“So, even you can meet a day like this.”

You wanted to speak. You wanted to make a snarky response. You wanted to do something that would save you a little face but in reality, you couldn’t. What was face and dignity when you were already at death’s door?

The man stepped forward again, his rough hands outstretched and about to pull you up when the white fox beside you launched itself at him and bit down hard onto the man’s hand. You gasped and you wanted to reach out, to save your small companion but you could only watch as he was ruthlessly flung aside, slamming hard into the pole. A few worried soldiers circled the general.

“Take that little rat outside and gut it!” the general shouted. He ferociously turned back to you. “As for this girl—tie her up. We’ll see how the Wulian Kingdom feels seeing their beloved general’s head on a stake.”

When you woke, your forehead was coated with sweat. Your sleepwear clung to your figure and your bedsheets were moist from perspiration. You sat up, your heart hammering against your chest. You closed your eyes as you let out a shaky breath and tried to calm yourself.

“Another bad dream?”

Your hand instinctively flew to your sword but your fingers loosened around its scabbard when you realized who your uninvited guest was. You stood, pulling the robe from its hanger and slipped into it. “How rude, entering a woman’s room uninvited.”

Minghao let out a melodic laugh—one that would send most fairies, mortals, and even some lesser gods fawning over him. Instead of fawning, you stared and waited for an answer. “I knocked, did I not? That’s how you woke up.”

“So, not only did you come into my room uninvited, you also woke me up.”

“You were struggling, General, I think I have done a good deed,” Minghao replied, turning politely as you headed to the clothes that had already been laid out by your servant in order to change. “Thinking back on it, it has been about seven hundred years since you’ve ascended yet you’re still thinking about such a petty little event.”

“It wasn’t petty,” you spat, glaring at him as you shed your first layer of perspiration-soaked clothing. You paused a moment before adding, “Lord Xu.”

“Right, right,” Minghao nodded, tapping his fan against his chin as he listened to the shifting of cloth. “How insensitive of me. That was the event that caused your ascension! Your death didn’t break down the morale of your people but instead raised it—you become a martyr and after the war they erected temples in your name and burned incense to you. It was definitely not petty. Definitely not.”

You strapped the belt around your waist and slipped your sword into its strap before walking past Minghao. Minghao followed briskly.

“If you have no business here, then leave.”

“I have business,” Minghao said. “Of course, I have business. I wouldn’t wander into a martial god’s palace without business. I still value my little life.”

“Then say it, Lord Xu.”

The god of art and literature smiled his charmingly and looked as if he might begin reciting age old poetry but instead he simply said, “The Emperor has a job for you.”

“For me?”

Minghao nodded.

“Why have you come to tell me?”

“Because I play weiqi with the Emperor every Sunday and he knew of our relations so he asked me to pass on this message.”

“Our relations?” your eyebrow twitched when you looked at Minghao.

Minghao smiled, tapping his fan into his hand. “We are good friends.”

“When have we ever been?”

“In life and in death.”

“I never knew you in life,” you replied coldly.

“But you know me now in death,” Minghao spread out his arms, his sleeves lightly bumping against your leg. He smiled and retracted them when you glared at him. Your patience always hung by a loose thread, especially after a night of restless sleep, and Minghao knew this, but sometimes he couldn’t help teasing you. Through your years in heaven, you had developed the appearance of a young fragile maiden but your words were still that of a battle hardened general. It was amusing seeing and hearing the contrast. Disappointed that Minghao couldn’t hear you curse today without receiving a blow, he stepped back. “I will send one of my underlings to hand over the details later this evening. I still need to properly recount the details.”

“Why me?” you asked, stopping Minghao in his tracks.

Minghao’s fan spread out with a snap and he smiled, “Because the Emperor feels that you shouldn’t be cooped up in your palace for too long. Even a chicken would have lost all its feathers by now.”

“That—”

“See you, General,” Minghao waved his fan, not turning around to discuss whether his metaphor made sense or not.

You scoffed and shook your head. Still. Why you?

Your question was never answered and the timid underling of Minghao’s came late in the evening, like he said he would. You took the scroll from his hand and glanced at the hunched young boy who shivered despite there not being any cold air.

“Are you alright?”

“Y-yes! Yes, General,” the boy stood straighter, but still did not look you in the eyes.

You let out a hm before turning back to the scroll after skimming it you waved a hand. “You may leave.”

“Y-yes, General,” the bow bowed several more times than he needed to and almost tripped on his way out.

You frowned at the boy. Were literary people always so fragile and on the verge of getting sick? Look at his pale face, one would think that Minghao never fed the little deities under him.

You turned back to the scroll. The details made you realize why the Emperor had chosen you for the job. You weren’t so powerful that you would cause the mortal realm to shake with your descendance but you were strong enough to take care of this type of job—an extermination of some vicious rogue demon. The scroll documented minor gods and stronger deities who had failed this job and that was why the Emperor now turned to you for help. You weren’t sure whether you felt elated or offended that the Emperor chose you. Minor gods and strong deities failed and now it was you? Does that you mean you were the bottom of the greats? Was he secretly giving you a chance to work harder with this new mission? You couldn’t help but feel your pride suffer a small chip.

Even when you were human, the people around you had always said you were sensitive about people discrediting your hard work. It was hard not to be. You had to strive and make great leaps and bounds to get to where you had been and you had to go further than that to keep your spot. If someone doubted you and slandered you, your progress would be set back. It had been a habit that developed. If someone pointed this out to you, you would have told them that you were a very sweet and humble child but it was just society that made you this much of a jaded grouch. And it wouldn’t have been a lie.

You sighed, tossing the scroll off to the side before leaning back in your chair and sighing. You looked up at the enchanted ceiling that twinkled like the night sky, mirroring the time of day outside. You felt a calm wash over you, but your fingers still tapped the arm of your chair restlessly. A mission. This would be the first time you stepped out of Heaven and into the mortal realm. The real mortal realm. Not just a place that was full of cultivation and strong spiritual energy.

You shook your head. You didn’t want to think about that right now. All you wanted to think about now was sleep. You prayed that you would actually get a good night’s sleep this time. Not one of those restless, nightmare ridden sleeps that you had been having the past few weeks. You wanted those dreams to fade off again like they finally had two hundred years ago.

As you got ready for bed, you wondered if this was some sort of ill omen. Why was it that suddenly, after two hundred years, your nightmares came floating back to you clearer than before? Was this trip going to be your demise? Were you going to get killed and have your soul crushed and grinded into fine dust?

No, that couldn’t be true.

Somehow, you stop thinking about the little white fox either. It wasn’t that you had forgotten about your animal companion completely, but it wasn’t until recently that he had resurfaced in your memories.

In every dream, he was there. Instead of focusing on battles, like you had in the later years of your nightmares, you found yourself making sure that he was okay. Of course, that was what it had been when you were alive but in dreams, the battles were usually the focus.

You slipped under the covers and stared up, your hands folded on your chest like a corpse ready to be buried. No, no, no. You shouldn’t think like that. Still, you turned on to your side your arm tucked under your head. The creepy feeling crawling up your back disappeared and you hoped, one last time, that you wouldn’t get any nightmares, before you cautiously fell asleep.

---------

Sleep had been sparse but at least you weren’t faced with the disgusting face of the enemy general, nor did you feel the soft fur of the little white fox against your hand. When you woke up, there had been a sense of longing for the soft fur under your hand but you pushed the ideas aside as you got ready for your journey.

“Would you like me to come along?” Minghao asked, following your brisk pace with elegance and ease. It almost annoyed you how he could keep up appearances while he was practically going at a jog.

“No, I would not. Lord Xu, I would very much like it if you stayed in your palace and busied yourself with poetry or art.”

“Ah, I see. You would like me to paint your gallant journey and write poems about your heroic feats,” Minghao said with a serious nod. s

You faltered in your steps and glared at him but Minghao only smiled politely, rendering you speechless. “You…you must have a lot of time on your hands, don’t you, Lord Xu.”

“I have enough time on my hands to be an idler,” Minghao agreed as his fan spread apart with a snap and as he flashed another charming smile.

“How did you manage to ascend,” you grumbled under your breath before stepping over to Heaven’s Gate.

“I will be here, General,” Minghao called over, your face reddening as the guards at the gates bit back a snicker. “If you need my assistance, just call for me. I’ll be watching your progress and painting glorious pictures of you.”

“Please, do not,” you said, loud enough for him to hear but soft enough to be considered speaking to yourself. You accepted the badge that the guard gave you—the badge that would allow you to come back up to Heaven when the time came—and took one step out the gates.

Behind you, the gates shimmered and slowly became clouded. You looked down and gulped. Despite being a god for more than seven hundred years, heights still frightened you. You were used to horses and used to even boats perhaps. But heights? No. Flying humans were anything but natural. However, you were no longer a human. And so, you closed your eyes and took one more step, allowing yourself to gracefully fall down to the mortal world.

But, maybe, “graceful” wasn’t the correct word.

Falling from Heaven wasn’t as terrifying as it sounded but one couldn’t be graceful if they had never done it before. You had never done it before. Normally, when a god or a deity descended to earth they would hop on a cloud and they would slowly, peacefully descend.

You missed your step, thus fell through the cloud and after what felt like hours, finally made it to the ground. Did your fall create an impact? Yes. Was it loud? No. However, there were two footprint shaped holes in the ground now that you had trouble covering up.

You coughed awkwardly, your ears burning at the thought of your disciples, underlings, or possibly even that stupid art and literature god watching you from above. You awkwardly brushed your sword over the footprints and dusted yourself off before you started walking. Thank goodness you had landed in a forest and not in the middle of a city.

You pulled out the map from your sleeve and unraveled it, looking around in confusion. You allowed your hand to pass over it and you stared intently until the map glowed a tiny spot, revealing your location. You were currently in the Ren Ning Forest and only need to walk out a little to get to the town of Ren Ning. You smiled cockily, happy for your success. You nodded a few times, mentally patting yourself on the back before you tucked the map away again.

You let out a sigh and your hand instinctively drifted to the hilt of your sword. Only then did you frown. You grappled for it, but it wasn’t there. You looked down and thought to yourself. You brought it down, hadn’t you? Of course, you had. You never left your room without your sword. Then why—no. No, you just needed to calm down. For now, it was safer to just go back to Heaven and…the badge. Where had the badge gone? Had Minghao somehow snatched it from you before you left? Impossible, you would have caught him…then…then where did your belongings go?

You slowly drifted over to a tree and leaned against it, your hand massaging the bridge of your nose. Where…? Just…had they fallen? You had fallen so there would be no reason that they wouldn’t have fallen either.

You pushed yourself off the tree and began to wander once you made a mark on the ground, making sure to know where to come back to. You walked a long way to the east then a long way to the west, the south, and the north. You came back to your footprint but still. Nothing. Your sword and your badge had just disappeared.

A feeling of panic began to wash over you. Now what? Without your sword you couldn’t fight the demons or monsters but without a badge you couldn’t even return to Heaven to retrieve another one of your weapons. There was no way to declare a mission success or a mission failure!

Suddenly, a lightbulb went off in your head. Aha! That freak, Xu Minghao. He said he’d be around to help you, right? He was an idler. There was no way this idler would have such bad timing as to choose now to have some business. You nodded, satisfied and happy with your smart solution. You can just tell Minghao to descend and hand you a new weapon. After fighting the demon, then you would find that badge. It wouldn’t be good to just leave the badge in the mortal realm anyway. Good, good, this was a good plan.

You sat on the ground in the lotus position and closed your eyes. You called out to him once. Then again. And then again. And several more times, but the god of art and literature didn’t answer. You frowned. Was he…upset with you? He might be. He was considered one of the top five most dashing gods and no one would dare to refuse something like poetry or art created by him but you had…no, no. Minghao might be frivolous and annoying, but he wasn’t petty. If he saw you, a friend, in this situation, there was no way for him to turn a blind eye.

You called out to him desperately again. Perhaps he was busy. Perhaps—oh. You just remembered something. The Heavenly Meeting. It was to take place for four mortal weeks starting today. Four mortal weeks was nothing for the celestial beings and sometimes nothing would even get done in that short period. But that also meant that Heaven (other than the guards that protected it) was out of commission. It would not be accepting wishes or complaints and the ones inside the Heavenly Hall were not to have any outside communication.

To put it simply? You were on your own.

You let out a sigh and leaned back against the tree. No sword, no badge—only your clothes and a pouch of money for emergencies. You didn’t need to eat and if you found one of your own temples, you wouldn’t have to pay for lodging…even then, you might just be able to camp out in the woods. You pursed your lips. This wasn’t the worst thing you encountered in your life time but you thought maybe after dying and ascending to godship, you wouldn’t have to deal with this anymore.

You sighed again and stood, brushing off the dirt. Some measly little spirit must be playing a trick on you. There has to be. Otherwise where would your sword and badge have gone! You looked all over and couldn’t find one damn—

Your thoughts were interrupted by the sound of giggling. Not just any giggling but the kind of giggle that echoed and rang all around you. That was never good.

You saw something run past you on the left and you frowned before chasing after it. You doubled your speed but still couldn’t catch the creature. You used a bit of your powers and yet you couldn’t reach it. It seemed the closer you got, the further away it travelled. Finally, you stopped. You let out a small huff in indignation. You looked around, knowing full well that giggly monster got away from you but your anger and irritation melted away to surprise when you realized where you were.

Ren Ning. This was the place that was experiencing the rank four demon. You pulled out the map again, just in case and scoffed. It really was this place.

You folded up the map and tucked it away. Had that little monster been leading you to town? Or had that thing been the one to steal your belongings? Either way, you realized you shouldn’t be dwelling on these details any longer. You sighed and walked into the city, the eyes of the townspeople naturally drifted to someone new.

Now, it wasn’t that you had the appearance of a god with twelve arms or had a snake head but it was obvious you were from out of town. Clothed in white, bathed in an almost ethereal light despite taking on the appearance of being a human. It wasn’t that you were a stranger and they were attracted to you but because you were beautiful. A beautiful maiden dressed in white. Nonetheless you continued forward before stopping at a street vendor and politely clearing your throat.

“Excuse me, where is the nearest in?”

“T-the nearest…” the woman running the stall stuttered a moment before pointing. “That way.”

“Thank you,” you frowned as you continued waling. Maybe taking on the appearance and energy of a mortal wasn’t enough. Perhaps you had to dull your appearance a little. This wasn’t a problem up in Heaven. In fact, you weren’t even ranked top fifty in terms of female goddesses. But why would that matter to you? You were a martial goddess, not the goddess of marriage or love.

Still, having learned your lesson you “dulled” your appearance before approaching the innkeeper. You asked for a room, paid the money, and was given the number. Only after you had checked your room for suspicious activities that you came back down to the restaurant and sat down.

Restaurants were nice in the mortal world because mortals liked gossiping. In a world where there was little entertainment, all there was to entertain was word of mouth. You sat silently, eating your lunch and sipping at the tea as you listened to the townspeople whisper and gasp over the details of the demon that had started haunting the outskirts of town.

This demon (according to villagers) was ugly. It was tall, had skin tight against its skeleton, and its mouth drooped open and drool dripped from it. The drool was naturally red, having been mixed with the blood of its prey. It also stank. It let out a putrid smell. And worst of all, it only ate virgins—male or female.

You choked a little at this detail. What was with demons liking eating virgins? Was this true or had this always just been a lore?

“Oh, gosh, I hope those Taoist cultivators would come and exterminate all of these terrible demons,” a frightened young woman moaned.

“Those Taoist cultivators won’t come unless we shouted loud enough for the Emperor of the Heavens to hear.”

Well, you thought, lucky them. He had heard. You took another sip of your tea before you sat down on a seat next to them and scooted forward. “Excuse me, I heard you guys talking about…about a demon?”

The men looked at her with raised eyebrows, but the previously frightened young woman nodded her head. “Oh yes, it’s quite terrible! This has been plaguing our town for two hundred years. The demon comes back once every ten years and the reign of terror starts all over again.”

“Oh, really?” you gasped.

“You don’t know of this legend? You must be a stranger,” one man noted, looking you up and down.

You gave him a polite, but mirthless, smile, “I am. I’m travelling through town to see my uncle. But if it’s so dangerous here, it would probably be safer that I take the longer path, right?”

The young woman nodded. “It truly would. It’s better to be delayed than lose your life, miss.”

You nodded, taking it into consideration. “Ah, but, hasn’t anyone tried to catch it? There are so many strong men in this town.”

One man spoke up, “Of course some fool has! But do you think they lived to tell the tale? Of course not.”

“I heard a rumor that they didn’t even see the thing and they were eaten.”

“Does that mean they were all virgins?”

A slight giggle passed through the group. But after a moment you spoke up again. “Why virgins?”

“Because they taste good?” a man shrugged giving you a weird look.

“Right,” you mumbled. You frowned. What other information grabbing questions could you ask? Well, even if you didn’t ask, the topic continued.

“I heard Luo and his gang are going to take a few guys to go and try to kill the demon tomorrow.”

“That crook? Good riddance to him then.”

You felt that these mortals were cruel but curiosity prickled at you. “Who’s Luo?”

“Luo is the town’s bully. He goes around and picks on people just because he has a bit more money than the rest of us,” the previous young woman told you quietly. You nodded in understanding. What an odd town this was.

Once you felt you had gathered enough information, you dragged yourself back up to your room and sat down. You laid on your bed. As the scroll had said, it was a demon that ate humans. But a demon that specifically ate virgin humans? How were you going to lull that sort of thing out? Unless you grabbed a handful of virgin villagers…would a virgin god work?

You laid on the bed in silence, pondering this for a very long time. Say, even if a virgin god worked—how would you kill it once you lured it out? You had no sword. You had no badge to send up an emergency flare if things did go awry. You could use your spiritual energy, definitely, but in the end would that be enough? Perhaps some talismans…you turned to your bag and shuffled through. You let out a small sigh. Thankfully, your servant had been smart enough to pack a few for you. Of course, you could draw them out but you weren’t the most skilled at using talismans, as embarrassing as it was to say. But alas, you were a warrior not some great Taoist cultivator.

Once you had checked your inventory, you decided to spend the rest of the day planning. It was early in the morning when you decided. You would tag along with Luo and his crew but first, you needed a sword.

You stopped by the blacksmith with your new appearance—a handsome young man. Men, somehow, were more respected so you only did what you had to do. The blacksmith was skeptical at first because of your flowery appearance but after seeing how you handled a cheap sword, he willingly handed over one of the better ones. And it was a good sword. You made a mental note to not lose this one. When you got home, you would add it to your collection.

Once equipped, you went off to find this Luo and his group. They weren’t difficult to find. A bunch of bumbling, burly men who were too loud and obnoxious for their own good. Luo was a talker, you could tell as you joined them. He was giving the crew a pep talk. It reminded you of the soccer games back in Heaven when each individual team would have a huddle up before the actual game. It was ridiculous to the point that it made you smile.

“Hey,” one man glanced to his side and pulled you over by the collar of your shirt. “Who is this shrimp?”

You cupped your hands in front of you and bowed (as best you could with your current predicament). “My name is Wei Jialong, sirs. I have heard about the demon and I have come to offer my assistance.”

“You? You’re just a puny pretty boy!” the man grabbing you by the collar of your shirt laughed. The others followed.

You smiled politely, “But I am skilled.”

“Oh yeah? Prove it!” the man released you and took up a stance. He was on the ground in a second.

There was a stunned moment of silence as you put your sword, still sheathed, back in its holster. Luo stepped forward, “Fine, kid, you can come with us.”

You smiled, pretending to be grateful when in reality they should be the grateful ones. Who were they to act so high and mighty around you? But alas, puny humans didn’t know better.

The woods…felt normal. Compared to what you were expecting, there were only slight traces of demonic energy here and there. And on top of that, they were very weak. It was comparable to that of an ant trying to cultivate into a demon. It was threatening, but with one step that ant would do. That was how weak the demonic energy was.

You began to wonder if you had come to the right place. The energy level was the same as everywhere else. Contrary to popular believe, not every place could be completely clean—unless it was sacred places like Heaven or Kunlun Mountain. But down in the mortal realm? If there wasn’t demonic energy, then it would be fishy.

However, the further the group walked, the eerier the forest got. It was like those stories that you spent most of your time reading nowadays. The group huddled closer, their eyes darted in every direction. It was entertaining but you couldn’t be too relaxed, after all you didn’t have your personal sword with you.

Suddenly, there was a crunch. The group stopped. Everyone looked around and after a moment you frowned, “Is anyone here actually a virgin?”

“What?” Luo asked, glaring at you.

“I mean, the monster likes virgins, right? If there’s not virgins here why would it come out?”

“Are you not a virgin kiddo?”

You scoffed and put on your best cocky look, almost asking “with this face?”

Luo cleared his throat. “There is one among us. I won’t tell you though.”

Of course, of course. The most important thing to a man was his pride. How could he out his comrades?

With the assurance that there was in fact a virgin on board, you silently continued to follow the men, your instincts on high alert as your own eyes began to flutter around. There was something ominous about this place. This one area…

One of the man inhaled sharply and his friends looked at him. “You guys…you guys don’t hear that?”

You didn’t hear it. His friends didn’t hear it. Ah, you thought, this was the virgin. “What is it?”

“There’s…there’s a kid singing…” the man looked exponentially more frightened upon hearing that his comrades couldn’t hear this child.

“What’s it singing?”

“Just a nursery rhyme…any old nursery rhyme on the streets,” the man said.

You frowned, his eyes had glazed over and he stepped forward. His friends stepped back, afraid about this sudden development, but you followed him, your hand on the hilt of your sword.

Suddenly, there were echoing screeches from all around and the men drew out their weapons. You remained calm and slowly breathed in; the demonic energy was strong. Where had it come from that you hadn’t noticed?

“Everyone be careful,” you warned, unsheathing your own sword as a four-legged creature approached.

“W-what is that thing?!” one of the man asked, stepping back as the moonlight revealed its gnarled form.

The four legs were twisted and black and where paws might have been were human hands with skin taught to the bones. It had a face, yet it didn’t have a face. There were vague outlines of where its features might have been but instead there were two milky white eyes, set one above the other. Just the sight of one was enough to cause grown men to pee their pants, much less the crowd that slowly began emerging along with this first one. From the trees or on the ground, more pairs of milky eyes blinked open. You guys were surrounded.

“Th-this—”

“I have three words of advice for you all,” you said, your sword suddenly levitating, “Stay behind me.”

The men watched in absolute awe as your sword (though shaky) soared through the air and cut down ten of the gnarled monsters at once. It swerved back around and did the same. The monsters hesitated a moment, reluctant to come closer but eventually they bolted forward at an inhuman pace.

You quickly pulled out one of the talismans you had tucked against your chest and held it up. You muttered a quick spell before tossing up the paper. It formed a glowing ring above your heads which quickly dispersed and the men cowered as the first monster jumped on top. To their surprise, it burst into black ash and disappeared.

Although you had many fancy tricks up your sleeve, they continued to come in waves and waves. As this newly bought sword hadn’t yet completely absorbed your energy, it was shaky and you had to expert yourself more in order for it to levitate like this. After a moment, it flew back into your hand and one of the men gulped. “W-what’s wrong?”

“You guys stay in this circle.”

Honestly, these were low-level monsters that you normally would just walk away from. They never bothered gods but they always ate humans. You were human and one that seemed to have a high spiritual power, thus they were attracted to you. It was only until you released the seal you had put on yourself a little that the monsters realized their mistake. But the realization was too late.

With three more talismans, you conjured up the fire spell and threw them. Yes, it was a forest and yes it was prone to catching on fire. But what other choice did you have?

Fortunately, none of the trees caught fire and only the monsters did. Once there was a thin sprinkle of monster ash all around the area, you released the protection spell and the men stumbled forward.

“It’s best if you go back,” you advised calmly.

“Go...go back? Alone? What if the monsters—”

“There won’t be any. If you leave, they won’t attack you. They’re concentrated on this area and since they’ve received a warning already, nothing will happen to you if you turn back now.”

There was a moment of deliberation. Or pretended deliberation. As soon as the word “now” left your lips, several men had already started leaving and the rest only hurriedly followed. You let out a sigh. Of course, heroes were plentiful like trees in the forest up in Heaven, but on Earth? Thinking about accidentally running into a hero now made you laugh. A ridiculous idea.

You let out a sigh and continued onward, your sword held to your side. It was just then that there was a commotion to your left. At first, you thought that the humans had returned but to your horror it was more of those low-level monsters. A wall of them to be exact, crawling all over each other to get to you. What was happening? Weren’t they supposed to be afraid of gods?

You braced yourself but all movement stopped at the strum of four strings…four strings? Why would there be strumming in the middle of the forest?

You and your enemies halted—stupefied by the sudden, haunting sound. Each individual string was plucked and you suddenly recognized the sound. It was the sound of the guqin. Was it Minghao coming to your rescue? No, he specialized in flute playing. Aside from that, he wouldn’t be able to be here because of the meeting. Then…

As you searched your brain for who could possibly be lending a helping hand, you watched as the leaves swirled around your feet, piercing a few of the monsters. You heard a distant howling but it was not the howling of wolves. You looked back to the monsters. Their eyes squinted and their faces scrunched, they screeched in anger and displeasure.

The guqin’s sound grew louder until it echoed, like the monsters’ screeches had previously. You frowned and circled around, hand tight around the hilt of your sword as you searched for the source of the music. Detering monsters from interacting with you was one thing but frightening them into retracting was completely another.

The high-pitched howling sounds only grew in number and you turned back to watch the monsters slowly shrink away. In their milky eyes, you saw confusion but also fear. A copious amount of fear. That sent shivers down your spine. These monsters were supposed to be brainless—they only struck and ate and grew but now they were afraid? Who was the person playing the guqin?

The monsters retreated further until you could barely hear their whimpering screeches. You turned around a few more times, finally finding the source of the sound. But as soon as you laid eyes on this figure, it disappeared. A swirl of leaves replaced where they had been standing and the forest was quiet again.

~~~

(A/N: check out the description or the thb ff tag on my blog for new chapters!)

#jun #junhui #jun fanfiction #jun fanfic #junhui fanfic #junhui fanfiction #jun scenarios #jun scenario #junhui scenario #junhui scenarios #seventeen #seventeen fanfic #seventeen scenarios #seventeen scenario #seventeen fanfiction #thb ff

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lurkingcrow · 7 years

Text

It has come to my attention that I maaaaaaay have gone a little far with that last bit of sad meta.

Just a tad.

So in honour of @fireflyfish I would like to tell you all how the Clone Wars ended with Peace Kittens and Cupcakes and everyone lived happily ever after.

So first of all you need to understand that it is all Qui-Gon’s fault. Sure, he may have been incorporeal for over a decade but it still comes back to him. And his strays.

See, when he was a young Knight, his hair short and braid freshly cut, Qui-Gon happened to be assigned a diplomatic mission to a rather wild and windy planet in the Mid Rim. Now as it happens, when he was caught in the middle of a blizzard seeking shelter amid the icy tundra, (because of course negotiations went explosively wrong) Qui-Gon felt the presence of a small animal in great distress. Being the Jedi he was, Qui-Gon just HAD to go and rescue the poor creature from whatever was threatening it.

It turns out that this particular planet is home to a rare species of large, vaguely force sensitive felinoids. Not sapient, but mildly empathetic. And they are fluffy. Very fluffy. Imagine something akin to a pale blue snow leopard.

And Qui-Gon has found a kitten, sadly curled up in the crevice between rocks and sending out a constant message of “lonely-lost-help-lonely-cold” and what is Qui-Gon meant to do except bundle the kitten up in his robes and murmer soothingly to her while she warms up?

He shares his food with her and sends lots of gentle emotions her way and the next thing you know the locals are absolutely stunned as the missing Jedi turns up from what should have been certain death with one of the sacred cats nuzzling contentedly at his neck.

Oh right. Legend has it that the cats are spirits of the snow, sacred messengers of… Yada Yada - look all you need to know is that they’re rare, and considered good omens and anything be who befriends one is considered somewhat holy. Qui-Gon’s furry friend has managed to single pawedly end the conflict he was sent to mediate without so much as a twitching her whiskers.

Qui-Gon is a bit reluctant at the prospect of leaving behind the kitten now his mission is over, but the locals are most accommodating - no, no they wouldn’t dare separate the holy kitten from her protector just yet, hey it’ll take some time to hammer out the fine points of the treaty so how about you take her with you and bring her back in about a year’s time when she’s full grown and she’ll be the symbol of our new peace? Ok?

Qui-Gon agrees and this is how the Mace learns to dread the prospect of Qui-Gon Jinn exciting returning to the Temple with a “souvenir” from his mission. “Treaty” as Qui-Gon names her is absolutely adorable and completely devoted to following Qui-Gon everywhere he goes. It doesn’t take long however before Treaty begins to grow. And grow. And the Temple has never been so grateful as the day Qui-Gon and his 300kg mass of fur and teeth leave to fulfil the conditions of the agreement. Even Yoda was somewhat relieved. Qui-Gon may have insisted that she was a sweetheart but the old Master did NOT appreciate the way she would hide in the council chambers and just STARE at them all until the tension was too much and someone would call a recess. Too much like her “parent” she was!

So off went Treaty and while he thought of her occasionally, Qui-Gon otherwise went about his business, finding trouble and collecting strays. And Padawans.

It’s now decades later and Qui-Gon and his Padawan are given the message that they’ve been specially requested for a mission officiating commemorations of this peace treaty. Wonderful! They land back on the windy planet and the locals are ecstatic to see Qui-Gon! Both furry and not so furry. Obi-Wan is a little worried when a giant blue predator seems to come out of nowhere and bowl over his Master, but he doesn’t seem to be in distress and oh, right! He’s heard rumours about “the devil cat” that once lurked about the Temple! She doesn’t seem so bad to him though…

The mission goes well and Treaty spends every moment twined around Qui-Gon’s legs purring like crazy or lazing beneath his chair playing with the edge of his robes. Until some idiot tries to set off a bomb and ooh, NOW Obi-Wan sees why the locals treat the giant cat with respect and awe!

So they track down the villains, attend the ceremonial renewing of the peace and are just about to leave when Treaty shows up after disappearing somewhere for a bit. With a kitten.

She seems rather insistent that Obi-Wan take the fluff all and the locals are in raptures about the luck this will bring, and so one again the Temple is greeted by a smug Qui-Gon Jinn accompanied by a small blue kitten (and one half heartedly scowling Padawan, because honestly you try to be annoyed with a kitten for more than a few minutes - it's impossible, especially when the kitten in question is an empathy who knows exactly when you're about to give in).

The pair find themselves constantly assigned to offworld missions for the next year or so in the basis that Obi-Wan needs to start preparing for Knighthood. They both know it's really because Mace starts to twitch at the sight of blue fur and no one ever did manage to remove the claw marks from the central fountain...

For the record, Obi-Wan named the kitten "Nobody" . He took great pleasure in answering the question of "Who you looking at?!" when posed by assorted badguys who would shortly learn just how much damage a Celine's claws can do. Eventually though the time came when Nobody went home, and Obi-Wan reluctantly admitted that maybe he might miss her. Just a little.

(Years later he has a Padawan or his own and Obi-Wan muses that it really was a good thing he had experience dealing with a rapidly growing mammal who was uncomfortably attached to him and had very poor impulse control. He was rather amused though when Anakin eventually did get around to asking who originally owned the nest of blankets in this cupboard and he could truthfully answer "Nobody.")

Skip ahead another decade and the Clone Wars are in full swing. It seems like they can barely get a moment to breathe and then General Kenobi receives as request he cannot turn down. That icy little planet is once more insisting on a Jedi presence at the renewal of the peace treaty. Because of its position they can't risk offending the locals or else there's a chance the Separatists might get a foothold. So off goes Obi-Wan and Anakin, because the message requested two Jedi and he was in the area anyway.

Again, a Jedi steps into the snow only to be taken down by an overly affectionate giant of a cat. Nobody is happy to see Obi-Wan. Nobody is overcome with joy. Anakin thinks Nobody is worthy of his former Master.

They spoil a separatist plot, and the ceremony goes as planned. It's time to go, and Nobody is waiting for them at the shuttle.

With a kitten .

Anakin names her "Angel" because he is a sap and is absolutely besotted with this tiny ball of fur that broadcasts love and affection at him non-stop. It makes Obi-Wan smile to see his former Padawan so happy. Also, he would be lying if he claimed not to enjoy the look on Master Yoda's face when yet another of Qui-Gon's line ends up with a feline companion. He outright laughs when the council realises that Nobody came back with them in the hold.

The 212th and 501st get used to cleaning up cat hair and eyeing every shadow with great suspicion. Nobody thinks the clones are excellent playmates. Angel just wants to be up high. Anakin's shoulder is her favourite perch (he will absent-mindedly give her scritches while he plans out the next assault and Rex SWEARS you can feel her rumbling purr through the floor panels).

They have many adventures together, but what you really want to know is how this all saves the galaxy. The answer comes from the fact that General Kenobi is infamous for the way his giant carnivorous sidekick has made him nigh on impossible to kill, or even temporarily disable. Nobody is as overprotective as Anakin as both Ventress and Grievous have learnt, much to their chagrin.

At the same time no one can separate Anakin and his Angel and the constant reassurance and love has left Skywalker calmer and more balanced than he has ever been! He and Obi-Wan have even managed to have a couple of serious talks about the nature of their relationship and the fact that they are both attached as all hell to one another. Oh, and Obi-Wan admits he knows about Padmé. When Anakin splutters and frantically asks how he knew Obi-Wan doesn't mention that they both have the subtlety of brick, but instead points out that Angel has a piece of Padmé's favourite feathered headdress beneath her claws and the synchronised "look at me, aren't I cute, don't I deserve a treat?" faces are not enough to distract Obi-Wan from the fact that it is they both slept at the Senator's last night.

So anyway. Sidious is irritated. Kenobi needs to go. Preferably so do the future rugs. But he can't do anything overt so subterfuge it is.

A Senate function is the perfect ruse. Knowing that Kenobi is allergic to a particular sort of space-durian, he arranges to have cupcakes catered using that fruit as the base. Oh, Kenobi will avoid the of course, but she will hardly be able to turn down the alternative Palatine had made especially for him! The alternative that of course has a high dose Force Suppressor added to the mix, which should temporarily render him vulnerable to external attacks. He has arranged a Patsy to do the poisoning, and all he has to do now is pretend to oversee the preparations.

His request for Anakin to show up early to check the security arrangements works as planned and once the bothersome beast disappears for a bit, the Chancellor takes the opportunity to reinforce his place as Skywalker's "trusted mentor". He should have been paying more attention. So should his hireling. Because just as the drugs were about to be added to the baked goodness his syringe bounces light into the corner of the room and Angel pounces. Down goes the Patsy, down goes the giant kitten and up, up ,up goes the special cupcake to go "splat" against the gaudy chandelier.

Because he doesn't want to risk the hefty payment he has been promised the would be poisoner takes a look around and sees another, slightly fancier than normal, cupcake and empties his payload into that one instead before opting to skedaddle as fast as he can. Giant cats were NOT what he signed up for.

So of course and the time comes it is not Obi-Wan who gets a mouthful of Force supressents but Palpatine. And the funny thing about being a wrinkled sack of corruption hidden behind Force illusions is that when your connection to the Dark is broken, even momentarily? All those nasty side effects come running back in and suddenly you look every bit of the Sith Lord you are.

And this was a well attended event.

The cat is out of the bag and Anakin and Obi-Wan are forced to fight this most unexpected of enemies. It's not an easy a fight as you might think because while his Force powers might be mostly out of commission a the Sith Lord's a lightsaber skills are phenomenal. Palpatine does of course attempt to both to sway Anakin to his side and set off Order 66 but there's one major problem.

Darth Sidious, Sith Master from the Line of Bane, Chancellor of the Republic and Future Emperor of the Galaxy... Is allergic to cats. Oh when he had his powers it was easy enough to suppress, but now? Now he is constantly sneezing and can barely concentrate enough to let out an occasional bolt of Force Lightning!

The fight goes on but in the end Anakin makes the final move and fulfils his destiny. Palpatine is no more! And everyone lives happily ever after because of adorable Peace Kittens and cupcakes!

That's it for now! I hope you enjoyed it 😁 Please let any and all good kitties in your life know that if they spot any Dark presences around baked treats, they should feel free to rectify the problem through judicious ankle biting I. Honour of Angel's glorious deeds! 😉

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