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svnflower-writes · 1 month

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i could never give you peace

description: James reached his hand out, gently cupping Regulus’ cheek and moving some hair out of his eyes. “Hey, little star.” Regulus leaned slightly into the touch, but didn’t speak. “Let’s get you to your room, yeah?”

in which James comforts Regulus after a particularly bad fight with his parents.

relationship: bodyguard!james potter x regulus black

warnings: mentions of child abuse, secret/forbidden relationship, hurt/comfort, angst, james may be slightly out of character but idk maybe he's just sad 😭

requested: yes!! @allyeardepression requested this about 4 months ago and i am SO sorry for taking so long writer's block has been kicking my ass omg i started writing as soon as you requested it but it sat there unfinished for far too long. anyway i hope you like it!!!

note: uh ok hi. this is the first thing i've posted in MONTHS and i wrote most of it in class so it's not great but fuck it i had to post something. also... sorry. the first thing i write in five months and it's heartwrenching angst, which is very typical of me. also based off a taylor swift song which is also very typical of me

ao3 link: https://archiveofourown.org/works/54453148

marauders taglist: (lmk if you want to be added or removed) @lovefolder @gu1lty-as-sin @dandelions-fly-in-summer-skies @a-beautiful-fool @optimizedchaos @qwerty-keysmash @lost-in-reveriie @tulips-best @nqds

James had to pretend that it didn’t affect him, seeing Orion and Walburga treat their children like they did. After all, he was there to work for all of them. But Merlin, he felt bad. The looks that flashed across the younger brother’s face were subtle enough that anyone else would have missed it, but James didn’t miss any small details—especially when they were to do with the little star.

This was one of these moments, James was positioned outside the closed door as he heard the screaming match going on directly behind him. He heard snippets of conversation, words such as ‘useless’ and ‘pathetic’ making their way to his ears and crushing a little bit of his heart. He supposed he was lucky not to be in the room while it was happening, but all he wanted was to rush in and protect Regulus from the harsh words and actions of his parents.

James allowed his head to rest against the wall, exhaling slowly as his eyes trailed over the dark tiles on the ceilings. The decor on the house was not to James’ personal taste, a combination of dark brown, green, cream, and black. He glanced down to the floor, the extravagant geometric tiles making him feel claustrophobic and sick to the stomach. Harsh black wallpaper covered the wall, the dull gold picture frames making a pathetic attempt to soften the unharmonious glare. The paintings in the frames were judging him, the upturned noses and narrowed eyes made that obvious enough.

James and Regulus had been quick to subtly remove the paintings in the hallway outside Reg’s room—Orion and Walburga didn’t tend to go up there, so no one noticed. Sirius had given them a knowing smirk when he’d caught them sneaking down a hall with a covered portrait of one of Regulus’ great aunts, but he had said nothing. Sirius held an undeniable feeling of respect for James, he could see how much he cared for his little brother, and for that he was eternally grateful.

A sharp, high pitched shout broke James out of his trance, and he glanced at the door with a grimace.

Walburga Black was his least favourite person in the whole world. He couldn’t clearly hear what followed the shout, but he had a few ideas of what it could be. He had been in the room when this had happened a few times before, and Sirius had always seemed indifferent to his parents actions—James knew he wasn’t, of course.

It was all just an act in the Black family, everyone simply pretending to be okay and pushing their feelings to the back of their minds. Regulus was less numb to the pain, and while Sirius just sat there sprawled out on the couch, ignoring his parents, Regulus always looked unnaturally stiff. He was trying to copy Sirius, that much was obvious. But it was clear that the words got to Regulus, the way his brows furrowed and he blinked quickly or looked away with fiddling hands.

Then again, maybe there was a reason that James noticed these things—not that he could take much notice of whatever underlying feelings there were anyway, since Regulus might as well be his employer. He knew Regulus felt the same, of course. There were signs, there had been since a mere two months after James started the job. Fleeting glances, brief touching of fingers as James passed him something to eat, waiting for him in the halls— the list could go on and on.

Regulus knew that James liked him too, as James wasn’t exactly subtle. He tended to forget himself when they were around others, such as Sirius or Pandora—which made for a lot of teasing from the two. Barty and Evan couldn’t say much, as they were in much the same situation.

So the two had kept up the secret whispers and hidden gazes, neither boy making any more to further the relationship, even behind closed doors. There was only so much they could get away with, and they were not embarrassed to admit that they were terrified. They were terrified of the nature of their world, the judgements and the prejudice that came with merely trying to exist. They would prefer to be open with each other about their relationship, but they would take whatever they could get at this point.

The door next to him flew open and Walburga stormed out, not even sparing James the slightest glance as she walked past him. Orion followed close behind, the harsh glare painting his face giving James an idea of the severity of the fight. After the brother’s exchanged short hushed whispers, Sirius walked through the door, offering James a small, polite smile. He walked past and James stopped him quietly. Sirius’ eyes narrowed slightly.

“Is there anything I can do?” At James’ words, Sirius’ expression softened.

“Talk to him. I’ve done as much as I can, but I think we both know that you’re better at this stuff.” Sirius pulled James into a quick hug, “and thank you. It means a lot that you try, seriously. It’s not exactly part of your job description.” Sirius being Sirius, he laughed, but it was obvious that he wasn’t actually amused. James had known Sirius for three years, and if there was one thing he had learnt about him, it was his use of humour as a coping mechanism.

“You go sneak out to Remus, I’ll take care of him.”

Sirius grinned slightly, reaching out to ruffle James’ hair, “aw, you know me too well.”

James groaned at his now messy hair—as if his hair wasn’t always a mess—pushing Sirius away and waving him towards the door, “go find your lover, Pads.”

Sirius was out the door without another word.

James glanced down the hallway to ensure it was empty and walked into the room the fight had just taken place in. Regulus was sitting on the ground and had his knees pulled up to his chest, arms wrapped around them, and head leaning against the cushion of the couch. He didn’t look up when James entered, nor when the older boy crouched down in front of him. His face wasn’t betraying what emotions he was feeling, but James knew.

James always knew.

James reached his hand out, gently cupping Regulus’ cheek and moving some hair out of his eyes. “Hey, little star.” Regulus leaned slightly into the touch, but didn’t speak. “Let’s get you to your room, yeah?”

Regulus nodded, mumbling something incoherent under his breath before looking up. “Good idea.” he took James’ outstretched hand to help him up off the ground. Even well after he had stood up, he kept his hand in James’, determined not to let go.

Regulus clearly had something he wanted to say, but his brain was not connected to the rest of his body, still in autopilot from the fight. His eyes were empty and his hands were clasped together in front of him as James gently rested his palm on his lower back to guide him up the stairs. Regulus subtly leaned into the touch, his heartbeat slowly calming and the goosebumps littering his skin beginning to fade.

Merely being near James brought him an unparalleled sense of peace.

James let his hand rub up and down his lower back comfortingly, and for a brief second he considered taking Regulus’ hand in his own but he decided against it. His brain was plagued with guilt, wishing he could rescue Regulus from the cruel reality that was his family. But no matter what James wanted, it wasn’t that simple. It never was.

James could never give Regulus peace.

Regulus stopped walking and James looked up from where his gaze had been fixed on the floor in confusion. He soon noticed that they were in fact directly outside the door to Regulus’ room. Regulus seemed to take notice of the fact that James was lost in his head and he squeezed his hand reassuringly.

After checking if the hallway was clear, James quickly opened the door. He wasn’t really supposed to enter any of the private rooms in the house, but Regulus had insisted many times that it was alright. No matter how safe Regulus felt around him, he couldn’t risk Orion and Walburga spotting him. He really was Regulus’ only source of comfort.

Regulus sat down on his bed with a blank expression on his face. James sat down next to him and pulled a bottle of water out of his bag. He handed it to Regulus with no words spoken, because the pair didn’t need words. This routine was very familiar to the two of them now, it was almost a second nature.

James quickly checked for any injuries—he hadn’t heard anything to make him suspect that there could’ve been a physical nature to the fight, but he had seen enough bruises on the Black siblings to make double checking an automatic part of the procedure. There was one on the side of Regulus’ cheek, and James pulled out the healing ointment from his bag and carefully put a little bit on the bruise.

James pushed the guilt at being unable to protect Regulus from his parents aside, knowing that this was not about him.

Once Regulus had finished, he slowly leaned into James’ side, letting out a sigh as he closed his eyes. The crook of James’ neck was like a puzzle piece that was made perfectly for Regulus’ head, and as the two slowly relaxed into each other's presence, James let his hands drift up to Regulus’ hair. His fingers slowly entangled themselves into the dark curls as he comfortingly stroked Regulus’ forehead.

It was clear to James that the support Regulus needed right now was not someone to tend to his wounds, but someone to hold him. So hold him he did. James’ right hand moved slowly up and down the small of Regulus’ back soothingly, showing an undeniable caution not to startle the younger boy with any quick movements.

He cared more about the little star than was possible to admit, and he prioritised his safety over everything else. The two lay in each other’s arms for what felt like (and probably was) hours. Suddenly, Regulus shifted in his arms, mumbling something under his breath.

James tilted his head like a confused puppy, gesturing for Regulus to repeat himself. Regulus cleared his throat and glanced away.

“Thank you.”

“For what?”

“For…” Regulus trailed off, and James was about to let it go—he wasn’t going to push for him to open up more than he was willing to do.

“...for keeping me safe.”

The dark haired boy’s voice was merely a whisper, head buried into James’ shoulder as he refused to meet his eyes. He was embarrassed, James realised. He didn’t know what to say, so he stayed silent.

James thought that the two were about to fall back into their silence, when Regulus spoke. “It’s peaceful.”

Giving him an inquisitive look, James turned to face Regulus.

“Being here with you. You’re peaceful.”

James stiffened slightly before slowly nodding, “yeah, I know what you mean. You’re peaceful too, little star.”

You deserve more peace than I can give you.

Regulus smiled up at him, entwining their fingers reassuringly. “I don’t think I’ve ever been more at peace than I am when I lie here with you.”

Merlin, it’s like he can hear my thoughts.

Finally, James responded. “You mean more to me than anyone else ever has, little star.”

There was a raw honesty in his tone. He may not love their situation, but he loved the boy in front of him with his whole heart.

No matter where this road was leading, James knew it was where he wanted to go. Whatever the roadworks along the way, he was in this for good.

#luc posts #luc writes #jegulus #james x regulus #james potter #regulus black #i'm so sorry this took so long #also its unneceseraly sad so uh #angst #hurt/comfort #marauders #sirius black #wolfstar mention #james potter x regulus black #marauders era #harry potter marauders #harry potter

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specialagentlokitty · 2 months

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Arthur(Merlin) x reader - in the snow

Hi! If you still write for BBC Merlin would you be able to write an Arthur x Merlin sister Reader? With the dialogue “Can you use magic?” “I feel unsafe answering that.” (from your 2024 prompt list). Thank you if you do write it! <3 - Anon💜

A/N: I realised I had spelled Gaius wrong after finishing this, but I’m really lazy and don’t wanna correct it 😂😭

You had no real interest in following your brothers footsteps to work for the royal family, you didn’t want to work for anybody else.

You were happy living on your own, away from the world with your house and your dog, your horse, your flowers.

You loved the way you lived.

And yes, every so often the knights would come to pick up your money you had to pay for your land, but since you grew your own food and sold your crafts in towns and villages it didn’t matter all that much to you.

Today was the day that they came to collect your payment, so you made sure to stay home.

Kneeling down in your garden, you were working on your flowers, carefully tidying them up and trimming them down.

You heard a bark, and you looked up.

“Rufus?”

Standing up, you brushed your hands on the cloth and looked to the dirt path where a few horses were coming down.

You grinned brightly when you saw a familiar face.

“Merlin!”

You quickly set everything down and made your way over, the moment your brother got down from his horse your crushed him into a hug.

“Hi!” You beamed.

Merlin laughed quietly, hugging you back.

“Hey, this place looks amazing.”

You pulled away, grinning proudly at him.

“I take pride in my work.”

You turned around to the knights and the prince that was with him, offering him a bow.

It was swift, elegant, you held a hand behind your back and one over your stomach as you leant down, lowering your head.

“Sire, it’s a pleasure to meet you. I’m (Y/N), I do hope my brother doesn’t give you too much trouble.”

“Nothing I can’t handle, thank you. It’s nice to meet you.”

You stood up, gesturing to the home.

“Rufus is no harm, I’m sure Sir Lancelot knows that.”

The knight smiled softly at you.

“It’s good to see you again.”

“You as well, I’ve got that tea you asked me for, would you like me to make you some?”

“Yes please, honestly you could open a tea shop because you make the best tea.”

You laughed a little bit, leading them all inside.

Only those three came inside, the other knights waited outside for them.

You sat them at a table, bringing over some bread you had made, and you made them all some tea, setting their cups down in front of them.

“Make yourselves at home, I’ll be right back.”

You went into your room, bringing up a floorboard to gather the money you owed before returning and handing it over.

Then you turned to Arthur.

“May I ask what brings you by sire? Normally this is not a matter for a Prince.”

“Merlin had been begging me for weeks to come, i guess it was curiosity to finally meet his sister. You’ve done wonderful things with this land. It was rundown the last I saw.”

“Thank you, the home itself was in good shape, it was a simple matter of getting some men from the village nearby to help clear it then set everything else up.”

Arthur nodded his head.

“How is it going? Have you been selling those crafts?” Merlin asked.

“Oh yes! People love them! They’re very helpful as well, especially for the farmers and the bakers, plant based baskets are easier to replace rather wood, and harder to break.”

Merlin nodded his head.

“You make things out of plants?”

“Yes sire, it is easier to get ahold of around here, they’re easier to work with as well. Especially Ivy. It is easy to manipulate the way it grows, and you can cut some away with the rest coming back.”

That was what caught his attention first, how compared to Merlin you were calmer, you were respectful to everybody even though you didn’t know them, and your craft.

Then there was your house, minimum decorations, just basic things you would need.

But outside was covered in flowers of all colours, the great wolfhound you rescued wondering in and out, and the horse outside just happily grazing in her paddock.

Arthur found himself coming back when he could, pretending to buy things that they needed in Camelot.

It was an excuse to see you, and he could try get there at least once a week since it was only a few hours there and back.

Arthur had to admit he was concerned when it drew to winter, because winter was harsh, and he couldn’t see how you would be able to survive there during the brutal winter.

“She’ll be fine, she always is. She knows how to get survive.” Merlin said.

“Merlin we are looking at the worst winter we’ve seen in years. It’s not even winter and we’re already getting snow. Your sister will be isolated out there for months if this carried on.”

Merlin paused what he was doing for a moment before he carried on.

“She won’t come here.”

“Excuse me?”

“(Y/N), if you ask her to come she won’t come.”

“Why?”

“Because she likes her own space, she doesn’t like crowded places like this and wouldn’t be able to live here for that long, a week or so would be fine.”

Arthur didn’t say anything, he carried on reading the book that was sat on the table in front of him.

“She’s also coming next week, to visit Guis.”

Arthur snapped his head up.

“Really?”

Merlin smirked a little, lowering his head as he carried on working.

“Yes sire.”

Arthur threw the book at Merlin who just barely dodged it and he left the room.

You arrived a few days later, staying mostly with Guis or Merlin if you could.

Arthur finally managed to find you while he was heading back inside the castle, you were stood outside with Rufus catching snowballs you threw.

He made his way outside, standing next to you.

“It’s far too cold to be outside.”

You turned around, offering him a smile.

“It’s nothing I’m not sure to this time of year, I was actually thinking about taking a walk. Do you know any good trails?”

“There is one, it’s possibly the safest. I’ll accompany you if you don’t mind? If anything happens to you I won’t hear the end of it from Merlin.”

You laughed softly at him.

“Yes fine by me sire.”

“Right, come wait inside.”

You followed him, and waited in the hallway.

It took a short while for him to come back, and he held out a thicker more elegant cloak out for you.

“Wear this.”

“Sire I can’t, that’s much to rich for somebody like me.”

“(Y/N) put the cloak on, and call me Arthur.”

You didn’t want to disobey him, so you put it on and he led you outside.

You could see that a few people walked the trail, but not many, and you two held light conversation as you walked.

It was nice for him to not have to act so important, and you were talking to him just like a normal person, as if you two were from the same town or village.

You enjoyed stopping to look at simple things, animals in the snow, the way the sunlight gleamed on the snow making it sparkle.

Arthur was just entranced by you, and how you just seemed so happy.

“You’re always so happy when I see you, why?”

“What is there to not be happy about? I have a home, a brother, a mother, I have friends, food. There is always something to be happy about.”

Arthur hummed a little, nodding his head.

“You wouldn’t want more in life?”

“Not when I already have everything. You don’t need to be rich to be happy, as long as you find something or someone that makes you happy it’s alright.”

Arthur glanced at you, and he smiled a little.

“That’s a very different take in the world.”

You beamed brightly at him, kneeling down to make another snowball for Rufus.

“Hey, look out!”

Arthur went to grab you but it was too late, you slipped down the hill, and he was rushing as fast as he could behind you.

When he reached the bottom he knelt down.

“Hey, hey (Y/N)?”

You grumbled a little, lifting your head to look at him.

“Hey, are you okay? Are you hurt?”

“My leg.”

Arthur nodded, looking down at your leg, gently touching it and you winced in pain.

“Here, come on, let’s move you up.”

Arthur helped you up, and you guys slowly walked along the bottom of the hill to try and find a way back up.

After a while you had to stop, so he took his cloak off and laid it on the snow and sat you down.

Rufus laid next to you letting out a whine.

“I’ll try find a way, I’ll be right back.”

You nodded your head, watching him leave.

You knew there wasn’t going to be one, a hill like that there wasn’t going to be a way back up that wasn’t covered in snow.

Making sure it was safe, you held out your hand, whispering something under your breath, and a small trail in the snow fell away, creating a path up.

You ran a hand over your dogs head, scratching behind his ears.

Arthur wasn’t gone long, and he came back, shaking his head.

“I couldn’t find one, I’m sorry.”

He knelt next to you, looking at your leg again.

“I did find some sticks though, do you have anything in that bag to help me make a splint?”

“Oh, of course.”

Opening it, you pulled out your scarf, handing it over to him.

“It’s not the best, but it should help. We’ll sit here and rest, then keep going. I think there’s a storm coming in.”

“I think I saw a path just over there, could you look?”

Arthur looked at where you were pointing.

“Yeah, of course.”

He got up, checking.

He made sure it was stable before grabbing you, helping you up it, then he crouched down.

“Get on.”

“I can’t do that, a Prince can’t be seen carrying someone like me.”

“I don’t care, you’re hurt, get on.”

You sighed, climbing on his back and he stood up, making his way back where you guys had come from.

“I’ll take you to Guis, hopefully you leg isn’t that bad.”

You nodded, resting your chin on his shoulder.

“How did you see the path, I didn’t see it.”

“Maybe in the panic you missed it? Or it blended in the with snow?”

“No, no it definitely wasn’t there.”

Arthur went quiet for a few moment.

“There’s only one thing I can think off.”

“What’s that Arthur?”

He paused walking, crouching down to set you on the ground before turning around to look at you.

“Can you use magic?”

You tried not to react.

“I feel unsafe answering that.”

“(Y/N), can you use magic?

“If I say yes you’ll have me killed, if I say no you’re not going to believe me, and have me killed. I’m sorry but I can’t answer.”

Arthur narrowed his eyes a little bit, and he spun around to a noise behind him but there was nothing.

Turning back around his cloak and yours were on the ground, and you and Rufus were both gone, leaving not even a footprint in the snow

#bbc Merlin #bbc merlin x reader #bbc Merlin x you #bbc Merlin imagine #arthur pendragon imagine #arthur pendragon #arthur pendragon x reader #Arthur pendragon x you

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eunoiathewriter · 2 years

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.☼︎. 𝐀𝐥𝐰𝐚𝐲𝐬, 𝐅𝐨𝐫𝐞𝐯𝐞𝐫; 𝘱𝘳𝘰𝘭𝘰𝘨𝘶𝘦

— Mattheo Riddle x Reader

— Summary: y/n goes to a Flourish and Blotts with her aunt Janice, and there she meets a boy who's going to play a big part in her life later on.

— Word Count: 1.8k

— A/N: This is the prologue to my new Wattpad book that I've just started. My Wattpad is @/eunoiathewriter on there too and the name of the book is "Alwasy, Forever"

The smell of books, old and new, was strong as she walked into Flourish and Blotts. The smell of books had long been her favorite. During her nine almost ten years in the world, y/n had always loved whenever her aunt, Gail Wittiher, would come home with new books and they smelled just like books did or more like they should, according to the young girl. Earthy and woody.

On long days when she would be at home, her aunt Gail, out for work, and her second aunt, Janice, working in her office, little y/n would go into the small library her aunts kept in the small flat. Closing the doors and just sitting down on the floor.

The smell of books and candles seemed to have been embedded into the wallpaper of the room as it never seemed to become less strong. She would sit on the rug in the little home library and just listen to the grandfather clock tick each second by.

So, entering the cozy bookshop in Diagon Alley was always going to be one of her favourite things to do with her aunts.

Aunt Janice held onto the young girl's hand gently, just to make sure she was by her side and wouldn't wander off into the busy alley. It crawled with Hogwarts students getting their robes, books, wands, cauldrons, brass scales, and so much more needed according to the shopping list students got from the school.

Janice Wittiher knew that her wife's niece had a love for books. Whether it was reading them, the smell of them or just being around them, the nine year old loved them. This was why she had decided that instead of teaching the girl what every child growing up in a wizarding family needed to know before Hogwarts she took her on a little trip to Flourish and Blotts.

"Now," Janice turned to the y/n who excitedly looked around. "I have to get myself a few books for work, you're allowed to get two books today. I'll be down here if you need me. Understood?"

"Yep! Two books, no more." The h/c girl answered as she loosened her grip on her aunt's hand to go and look around.

"Remember, be respectful of other customers and for the love of Merlin, be careful." Janice sighed as she knew the girl had a tendency to be a bit of a clumsy kid.

"Understood, aunt Jani!" y/n immediately padded away towards the stairs that led up to her favorite section, astronomy. Janice stood up from her crouching position and shook her head, but still a smile adored her face before she went to find her books.

y/n found that the astronomy section of books always had her marvel. It was aunt Gail that had happened to mention something about supernovas during dinner which had her ask more. Having both her aunts read books for her about the wonders of the universe. Everything from galaxies to asteroids.

Her eyes skimmed over the bookcases, for such a young girl she knew how to read very well and therefore found it easy to search for that one book. Atlas of Celestial Anomalies was the book she desperately wanted to own and have her aunts read for her.

The floorboards creaked as she walked over them on the upper level, even though her young mind closed out the outside world, she could still hear the bell to the door go off whenever someone entered or exited. She could hear people talking in the background on the lower level.

"Ah, haha!" y/n cheered lowly for herself as she found the book. Thankfully it was on a lower shelf which made taking it easier. It was a hardback, bound with a blue color. On the spine The name Atlas of Celestial Anomalies read in gold. She looked at it with big eyes and hugged it to her chest. Happy to finally have it.

"What is that?" A voice broke her inner cheering. A boy's voice. She turned with a confused face to where the voice had come from.

She came face-to-face with a boy, around her age, if y/n were to guess. He had curly dark hair, pale skin and dark brown eyes, like dark chocolate.

"What?"

"What's that? What you're holding." The boy pointed towards the book she still hugged towards her body tightly.

"Oh, a book." The boy's face turned up in confusion at that. Were books new to him? No it couldn not, everyone had heard about books, y/n was certain about that.

"A book? Those are boring." He then told and it almost made y/n drop her jaw.

"Nah ah, they're the best."

"Not really."

"Yes they are. What is so much better then?" She was not about to have anybody disrespect books like that. They were her absolute favourite thing invented, except muggle TV.

"These," The dark haired boy pulled out two comics from behind him to show her. It made y/n shrug. She didn't exactly have a problem with comics, they were quite fine in y/n's mind to read when her aunts and her were on a train on their way somewhere. Since the two women then usually were not that very up to reading and explaining some things.

"They're okay, but I still prefer books over comics."

"What's that even about?" He was truly interested in what she was reading. And even more interested since the book was at least about four hundred pages from what he could see.

"Astronomy or astrology, I'm not really sure which." y/n furrowed her brows and tapped the book.

"Sounds cool," He actually didn't exactly know what either of that was. "What's your name? I'm Mattheo Riddle."

y/n smiled at him as he held out his hand for her to shake, something Mattheo had seen many grown-ups do when greeting each other. She happily took his hand in hers and shook it. "I'm y/n, y/n Wittiher."

Mattheo and y/n then proceeded to both look through each other's finds at Flourish and Blotts. Sitting down next to each other on a bench on the upper level.

Mattheo would flip to one side of his comic and both would gasp at the amazingly done art as it moved, then y/n would flip to a side in her book where drawings of different constellations were displayed. Both of them marvel at each other's finds.

It was that typical thing for most children, you meet someone your age, talk a little and then it's like the two of you are best friends, even though you've just met.

It had been quite a while now, maybe a good thirty minutes since y/n and Janice entered the shop. Janice had just found all the books she needed for her research but when she tried to locate y/n it was near impossible.

"Excuse me," A man in his late thirties walked up to Janice and tapped her on her shoulder. She turned and put her books down on a stool close to her.

"Is there anything I can help you with?" Janice asked with a sweet tone.

"Well yes," The man scratched his nose. "I am looking for a boy, you might not have seen him?"

At the face Janice pulled the man sighed and instead got more detailed. "He's nine, almost ten, about this tall," He held a hand to show the boy's approximate height. "Dark hair, pale and dark eyes?"

"No, I haven't seen him. I'm sorry." Janice smiled apologetically. "I'm actually looking for my wife- eh friend's niece."

The man scratched his nose once again and looked around. Odd. It was very odd according to both adults. But at least Janice knew she y/n were in the shop, it was just exactly where she was.

"Oh, well, I'm thankful-"

But he didn't have time to fully thank Janice for listening before he spotted the curly haired boy and h/c girl walk down from the second level. "Mattheo Riddle, what on earth are you doing?"

The mention of the name Riddle made Janice turn in a rush with a gasp, that last name was something Gail had mentioned a lot about ten years ago. But when she turned, she was shocked to find y/n standing next to a curly haired boy, confusion written all over her face as the boy, who had to be Mattheo Riddle, looked like a deer caught in headlights.

"I ehm... Mr. Martin.." Mattheo trailed off and quickly tried to hide the comics.

Mr Martin did not hesitate to walk promptly up to the Riddle boy and snatch the comics out of his hands. y/n was quickly pulled off to the side by Janice who held her close to her side. They both watched as Mattheo protested to the man about the comics, claiming he had enough money himself to buy it but Mr Martin was not having it.

"You, boy," Mr Martin placed a hand on the back of Mattheos neck and held him steadily. "Do not argue with me. Now, lets go."

His voice was firm as he started to lead Mattheo out of Flourish and Blotts. But the curly haired boy, though in slight pain from the man's grip, casted a last glance at y/n.

y/n smiled at him sadly and waved. But she was quickly stopped by Janice who grabbed her hand to stop her from waving, Mattheo sent her a last small smile. "Stop that." Janice told her off.

With that, Mattheo was out the door with Mr Martin leading him. And now Janice was quickly in front of the girl and looking her over like she was a lunatic. "What in the world were you doing with that boy, y/n?"

"He just asked me about my book and showed me his comics." y/n said helplessly, not understanding why this was such a big deal or why Mr Martin was so angry at Mattheo.

"I do not want you to speak with him ever again if you see or meet him."

"Why, what has he done?"

"That boy is trouble," Janice moved to pick up her books to pay, then grabbing y/ns book and inspecting it before moving towards the counter.

"How's so?" y/n were not finished with her questioning as she followed towards the counter.

"He just is. Now, you ought to forget him."

And she did forget him. She forgot how he looked, how he sounded, how nice he was to her and most of all, she even forgot his name. But not willingly or what others would call the "natural" way.

Obliviate

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whydon-twego · 11 months

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Merlin has succeeded in his intention. The Golden Age is beginning, Arthur is alive and Gwen is at his side, everyone knows he possesses magic and no one intends to harm him for it, Morgana is defeated and now there is only a need to return home, rest, pay respect and mourn for those who died in battle and then finally celebrate and see a rosy future. Merlin could not be happier. Nor more alone. He watches Arthur and Gwen stand side by side, waving to the crowd, cheering the beginning of a new era, and thanking Merlin for all he has done, for all he has ever done, and his heart is filled with joy when he hears the king withdraw the ban on magic in Camelot, at last, he and his people can be free. And now? He can now become Court Sorcerer, and he can continue to help Arthur build the best possible Camelot, but isn't that what any magically gifted person could do? After all this, what is left for Merlin? After his destiny has finally been fulfilled, what is left for him? His heart belongs to two people he can never have and his task is finished. Why stay? He has never seen the world, he has never been among his own people because he has always been too busy keeping up with Arthur, there are a thousand things he could do and see and his heart should only be joyful and not mourn a loss that is not his. A loss that can never be. Because Arthur is Gwen's and Gwen is Arthur's. And there has never been a place for Merlin between them. And with destiny fulfilled, Merlin is now free and can leave Camelot peacefully, knowing that nothing can ever happen to them again. So he decides to leave. Arthur doesn't even want to hear about it and Gwen can't help but ask why, why now when we can finally live in peace? Merlin can't answer. Arthur forbids him to leave. And Arthur is his king and Merlin must obey him, but they both know that it never has been, nor ever will be like this. Merlin decides to leave at night, a few days later, because he does not feel like leaving the city with all eyes on him. He has said goodbye in the previous days to those he had to and will leave the city knowing that he has done what had to be done. And for once he does it for himself. To protect himself. Because his heart is already battered and he would like to stay in Camelot forever near Arthur and Gwen but what kind of life would that be? He knows he will never love anyone like he loves the two of them, but he must give himself the opportunity to move on. Arthur and Gwen decide not to give him that opportunity. "We love you," says Arthur, with the serious face of someone who is delivering important news. "We are in love with you," continues Gwen as Merlin is about to open his mouth and say that he also loves them both very much but that he must leave. "And neither of us can think of a life without you, Merlin, so please stay." and Merlin thinks it is the first time the king's voice seems to plead and waver. The eyes of both monarchs are pleading for him and Merlin cannot believe what he is hearing. But then Arthur is kissing him while Gwen is stroking his hair and then it is Gwen who kisses him while Arthur grabs his arm and makes sure Merlin does not leave. "Stay," they both say.

And Merlin does.

#and then Merlin is finally made court wizard and consort of the rulers #mergwnethur #merthur #mergwen #arwen #arthur pendragon #merlin #guinevere pendragon #king arthur #queen guinevere #court sorcerer merlin #my writing

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nimrism · 12 days

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could you make this post? please, it's so fascinating i really want to hear your thoughts on it

"The Dark Tower" Morgwen Interactions Analysis

i've literally been waiting for someone to ask me this so i can go all out in answer, so you're literally my favorite- THANK YOU! i've tried to put all the thoughts swirling around in my head into one coherent post, so strap in and let's LOOK AT THE IMPLICATIONS (from my perspective)!

first and most importantly, i want to zero in on morgana's choice of kidnapee; she could've chosen anyone in camelot, any one of the knigts who were regularly privy to arthur's battle plans and schedule, but nope. if we're looking at it from the perspective of "she needs the closest person to arthur" wouldn't that be merlin? she could have kidnapped and brainwashed him; he would've made for a fabulous inconspicious mole in the court, and arthur literally goes to him for anything and everything. i actually think it would make for a really interesting au/fic if it were merlin who was kidnapped instead of gwen (love confession/magic reveal possibilities are ENDLESS), but maybe it's a little too close to the plot of "a servant of two masters" and the writers didn't want to be repetitive. i'm going to be biased and delusional in believing that morgana did choose gwen, in particular, for more personal reasons as well as for her nefarious ones.

the way i see it (and this is obviously very objective), by the time we get to this point in s5, morgana is LONELY, like, has-no-one-in-the-world-except-aithusa type of lonely, and her choice of allies has been lacking diversity as of late (why are they all men 💀), AND they all end up dying anyway. so, she needs a plan, and she needs a trusted ally (she also needs a bit of love and lip balm cause DAMN). BUT the thing is, why would anyone be loyal to her? she's never kept any allies (or friends) thanks to her wit and charm alone, she's only ever kept men loyal to her by striking fear in their hearts. it's the same for her friends and family, i think. she doesn't believe they even tolerate her existence, so she needs to be crowned queen to subdue them and FORCE them to respect her. the same goes for gwen. she was only morgana's friend when morgana was a naive and vulnerable girl, plagued by nightmares and unexplained fears, and the second morgana grew out of them (or learned to control them) gwen stopped being affectionate, stopped being open. that's how morgana sees it, and it only reinforces her belief that gwen would never understand the person she's become now, she wouldn't quite see what morgana was trying to do. unless morgana forced her to.

the whole kidnapping affair was to MAKE gwen understand, because she wouldn't do it of her own free will. gwen would never willingly be on morgana's side, so she had to jump through a few morally questionable hoops to bring her over. in the end, i do believe all morgana really wanted was a friend (maybe a little bit more, amirite ladies), though by this point her concept of friendship had become twisted beyond recognition, and in all the chaos, this was the only way she thought she could have one. throughout the episode, a lot of the old morgana shines through, even if it is portrayed as just manipulation, and i do think that was her either slipping back into old habits or forcing herself to, for the sake of the brainwashing and for the sake of their friendship that she's trying to rekindle.

a point that i've seen several people make is that between the niceties, the "real" morgana peeks through several times throughout the ep, but i kinda disagree. i don't necessarily think that just because her smile drops, it means that the niceties were a facade and her "evil" side pops back out. i read the sudden change in expression more as disappointment. gwen fights back with such vigour that it's probably painful for morgana to realize that her former friend sees her as nothing more than an evil witch who's hell-bent on hurting her, now. she's disappointed that gwen, who was supposed to know her best, believes what the others do, and doesn't believe that morgana is being sincere in her offer of friendship.

a small remark i also have is: why wasn't morgana one of the visions/hallucinations gwen had in the dark tower? it's interesting to see that the closest three people to gwen are her brother, arthur, and merlin, of all people. i feel like gwen's history with morgana has to have had a lasting effect on both of them, even if morgana is supposed to be "evil" now. you don't stop loving someone just because they've chosen (or BEEN chosen by) the dark side. morgana was one of the people gwen cared about most in seasons 1 through 3 (s3 is pushing it a little, but still), it doesn't really make sense for it all to be forgotten so completely like we see in this episode. i also think it would've been super interesting to see a hallucination of younger morgana in particular, partially as a reminder that part of gwen still cares about morgana and largely because i'd like to see how gwen would react to that vision... would it differ from the other three? what would morgana do? would she sneer and laugh like elyan and arthur? would she do a little rawr like merlin (😭)? i feel like a ficlet is in order for this concept cause i would like to see it but i have to imagine it first (but that's the hard part 😭)

NOW ONTO THE MOST DELICIOUS PART OF THIS ANALYSIS: THE QUOTES

M: "Would you prefer some chicken?"

i just found this one hilarious tbh like she's so out of pocket what are you doing offering your kidnapee some chicken and WHAT WAS THE OTHER OPTION, IF NOT CHICKEN?

M: "I know how lonely you must be, all by yourself in that room. At least you're not shackled, and there's daylight. You can move, you can see."

oof. she's obviously referring to her own capture and torture, pulling from her own experience. it's heartwrenching that morgana has been through all of this, traumatised beyond reason, but it's even more heartwrenching that she thinks she's doing gwen a service, like this. it might not seem like that to any sane person, but after everything she's been through, morgana's worldview is completely different. in her mind, however twisted and detached it has become, she's being merciful to gwen this way, giving her luxuries that she was never afforded when she was captured. (including a warm meal with chicken at miss havisham's table 🤩)

M: "I too have suffered, Gwen. I spent two years living in darkness. I spent two years chained to a wall at the bottom of a pit... You did not know."

goddddd this line... it's just so painful, so powerful, so indicative of SO MANY THINGS. it's EVERYTHING. every acting choice katie and angel made in this scene was brilliant but ESPECIALLY their facial expressions in this particular part WOAH. the way morgana's voice cracks on the word "pit" is DEVASTATING. i was floored. the way gwen's face falls as she processes her words and they properly set in... INCREDIBLE. the concern in gwen's eyes is palpable as she realizes the horrors inflicted on her friend. and the final "you did not know" was so, so powerful. morgana realizes that gwen didn't know about and clearly wasn't okay with what she went through. gwen had no part in it. morgana SMILES at gwen's reaction, but instead of it being a smile of malice or evil it's one of RELIEF, and one that she hides very promptly. she's reassured in the knowledge that gwen had no idea she had suffered so immensely, and that, more importantly, she wasn't involved in it. it's SO important to note that morgana has no idea whether arthur had a hand in her own torture or not. it's especially not a good look on him that he invites the sarrum as a friend of camelot so soon after the events of "the dark tower", so, as far as morgana knows, he could've been a "friend" when she was being tortured for years, too. i wonder what would've happened if morgana had kidnapped gwen AFTER the sarrum's visit to camelot... i feel like that would have complicated things with gwen much further, if morgana thought she was complicit in her imprisonment.

M: "I would have sold my soul for someone to show me kindness such as this."

only two points on this heartbreaking line: 1- FUCK the sarrum of amata. all my homies HATE the sarrum. s4 and s5 morgana might both be textbook cases of "evil", but they're two VERY different people with two very different worldviews and tactics. morgana's imprisonment turned her into the cold husk of a person she is by s5. and 2- this just further confirms that morgana thinks she's doing gwen a favor, dining with her and letting sunlight into her room and choosing not to tie her up etc.

M: "Your hands are cold... I have a warm fire going for you."

oh boy is this a MOMENT. the way morgana keeps her hand held out. the way gwen reluctantly puts her hand in hers (MORGWEN HAND-HOLD!) *ivy by taylor swift starts playing out of nowhere* {ohhhhh goddamn, my pain fits in the palm of your freezing hand, taking mine, but it's been promised to another, ohhh}

um anyway i digressed. then the way gwen wriggles her hand out of morgana's grasp, while morgana grips her fingers with unwavering determination... it's just delicious.

M: "Anything you want, you can have. I'll give it to you."

idk about you but personally i'm SOLD. take all my money. i read this as morgana trying her utmost best to sell gwen on joining her, but i can also see the manipulation laced in it.

G: "Why are you doing this?"

M: "Because we're friends. We always were."

to me, this reinforces the theory that morgana's just trying to get her friend back on her side. by stating that they've always been friends, morgana reaffirms their friendship as much to herself as to gwen. she was her friend once, and she can be again.

M: "I'm helping you. I'm looking after you."

this sort of feels like morgana is telling herself that, more than she's telling gwen. maybe it's just part of the manipulation process, but i do believe that this was morgana's conscience reassuring her that what she's doing is in gwen's favor and that she's being kind to her.

M: "It's alright, I'm here."

UGH this line. morgana is being the person she needed when she was imprisoned. this scene is also a parallel to all the times morgana woke up screaming in the middle of the night and gwen was there to comfort her in s1/2. this time the tables have turned and it's morgana comforting gwen. simply delicious.

M: "My darling, I was wrong to make you suffer."

TEA! to say that this line was spoken from the bottom of morgana's heart might just be a bit too delusional, but i like to think there's at least some truth to it. torturing gwen had a lot of paralells to morgana's own imprisonment and torture, and she did want to make her suffer, at least in the beginning. but it was also different from what morgana went through. this is NOT to justify torture, btw, torture is BAD, but her "manipulation" tactics got a bit too personal at some point, and i like to think at least a part of it was genuine.

G: "No. Whatever twisted game you're playing, I want no part in it. I would rather stay here and die."

ouch. gwen's resistance to the last possible minute shows such strength on her part (cause me? i would've given in before she even dragged me through the desert tbh) and it gave us such a delicious performance from angel; the reluctance? the uncertainty? the distrust? the relief that morgana is there but also the FEAR of what she's doing? the contradiction between the morgana that gwen once knew and the morgana that everyone KNOWS is evil? but the morgana that gwen once knew is shining through now, and she's saying everything gwen wants to hear... grade-A angst.

IN CONCLUSION they're gfs your honor, this was all just a plot to snatch gwen back from arthur cause morgana didn't think seducing her herself would work. (this phrase could be in reference to this ep or the "lancelot du lac" ep i'm cackling morgana really is hopeless) there are also SEVERAL psychological layers to it, but describing it this way is just easier.

SO... this is possibly the longest post i've ever made. it got a little more comprehensive than i originally thought it would be, but THERE YOU HAVE IT! that's my take on the morgwen interactions in the dark tower. if i seem a little biased, that's because i 100% am :) i hope that clears things up. this is an open invitation to keep sending me asks (even if it's about the most random things ever) cause i love them and i love every single person who sends in an ask, and a public apology for how long these answers get sometimes 😭

#the fuckass sarrum is public enemy number one #hate that guy #morgana defender til the day i die #yes she's done some questionable things but have you considered that she's baby #can you tell i'm biased #save me morgwen save me #morgwen will probably be my undoing at this point #they're so special to me #the dark tower #this episode was a whole rollercoaster #morgana's gf might've been stolen from her but she stole her BACK #and now she's dragging her across the desert #now they're having a lil heart to heart #back to torture #fruity #HAND HOLDING #torture again #bunch of other stuff happens #FRUITY AGAIN!#that's pretty much the summary #anyway i hope this is coherent enough to be read #feel free to discuss #include me in the discussion too i'm making an effort to socialize #bbc merlin #morgana pendragon #morgana #guinevere #morgwen #merlin theory

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dramioneasks · 4 months

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Christmas Fics 2023 (Part 5):

The 12th, 12th day of Christmas by Cat.st.claire - M, WIP - A holiday rendition of Groundhog day, with the added bonus of being Dramione.

sweet dreams of holly and ribbon by LovesBitca8 - E, one-shot - The war against the Dark Lord continues on, but Hermione is stuck at Grimmauld Place with the world's most annoying house guest.

From the Journal of Hermione Granger by Catmint and Thyme (Languish_Locked_in_L) - M, one-shot - Only one bed, rainforest edition. In which Hermione Granger goes on an expedition to Costa Rica in search of a magical (probably mythical) poinsettia with her insufferable colleague, Draco Malfoy, who she can't stop drawing. (It's not creepy, he just has good bone structure.)

darkest days and brightest nights by riddikulus_puff - T, one-shot - The Second Wizarding War destroyed many lives, families and businesses, who then struggled to come to terms with life after the defeat of Lord Voldemort. Many people were shadows of their former selves. Some changed for the better. Some for the worse. Hermione Granger went away to Australia for years, struggling to keep contact with all of her friends before travelling back to London and opening a tattoo parlour — which quickly came to be one of the most favourite businesses in Diagon Alley. Further down the street was the young widow, Draco Malfoy, who had taken over the ownership of his late wife’s favourite flower shop and was struggling to survive day to day with the upcoming Christmas holidays — especially with keeping things happy, mystical and festive for his son Scorpius.

United? by ce1estemccc - G, WIP - It's no secret Gryffindor's and Slytherin's have never gotten on, and a prime example of this is that of the Golden and Silver trios. However, important new details come to light about certain members of each respective trio, which makes the other question just how founded their mutual hatred is... Or Hermione and Draco meet on a train on the way to King's Cross one Christmas. Four hours certainly isn't enough for their whole respective world views to change... but is it just enough to sow the seed of doubt in each other's mind? You'll have to read to find out I'm afraid...

Everything Gold Can Stay by charingfae - T, one-shot - Draco Malfoy would give all the money in his vault for a chance to woo Hermione Granger. And he very nearly does. Year after year, he gifts her the most perfect, thoughtful, elaborate Christmas presents. So why in Merlin's name does she keep getting mad? One of these years, he's bound to get it right. Isn't he? Draco paused and drank in her radiant expression, her wisdom, her never-ending quest to make everyone in her sphere of influence better—all the individual components that added up to the mathematically impossible sum that was Hermione Granger. “I don’t agree with that. I’d argue that the things we love never stop being special. Not for a moment, Granger.”

The Scent of Her by Catmint and Thyme (Languish_Locked_in_L) - E, WIP - Sent to investigate a dark artefact, Hermione and Draco end up snowed in over Christmas. It’s a good thing Hermione’s a beta, right?

Not What It Looks Like by eveningstruggle - M, one-shot - A hot, panicky hurt begins to throb inside her chest. This doesn’t make sense. Is it some type of horribly misguided practical joke? Revenge for shutting him down a few months ago? Or—is it a parting gift? A “so long and thanks for the memories, now I’m off to fuck someone else?” ”What—” Her voice croaks. She clears her throat and tries again. “What the fuck is this, Malfoy?” Confusion creases his forehead. “They’re photos of you.” She’s five seconds from bolting back through the Floo. “I can see that. Why have you given me two dozen terrible photos of myself for Christmas?” Or: Draco gives Hermione a Christmas gift.

Merry and Bright by Biirdiee_Rose - T, one-shot - Draco comes home a little earlier from work than usual, finding his children playing out in the snow as his wife watches on happily. Or... Peaking in through a window of the Granger-Malfoy family as the holidays approach.

Ugly Christmas Swearer by aplthree - not rated, one-shot - Hermione forces Draco to wear an ugly sweater.

A Running Start by sundayviolet - T, one-shot - Hermione and Draco disagree with the DMLE’s assessment when their mutual friend and coworker, Theo, is poisoned. Alone at Hogwarts for Christmas, they must work together to find the truth. With their favorite buffer in the hospital, the two grow closer and finally admit what’s been long in the making.

Festive Ficlets by belladeexx - T - A collection of short works written for the holiday season.

Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow by JessicaLovejoyAO3 - not rated, one-shot - Would Draco and Hermione falling in love at Hogwarts have changed the events of the Second Wizarding War?

#christmas #dramione

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moondal514 · 4 months

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Just Leave a Comment Fest 2023 Holiday Edition

Final overall comment total for @justleaveacommentfest: 76

Here’s a very multi-fandom fic rec list of a few of the fics I read (reread in some cases), loved, and commented on that were on theme for each day of the fest:

Day 1: first fandom

(BBC Merlin is not technically the 1st fandom I was ever a part of, or even the 1st fandom I ever read fic for, but I do consider it my 1st real fandom because it’s the 1st fandom I interacted with as intensely as I interact with my fandoms now and it’s also the 1st fandom I ever wrote and posted fic for)

Fandom: BBC Merlin

Prick Love for Pricking by horsecrazy/ @cbk1000

In which Arthur and Merlin hook up at a sex party.

I haven’t felt the urge to read Merlin fic in years, but then I stumbled across this fic, which is honestly one of the funniest things I’ve read in a hot minute, and now my love for Merthur has reawakened within me with vengeance

And Down the River's Dim Expanse by horsecrazy

In which Arthur is a water spirit who tries to drown Merlin. Merlin is not impressed.

Literally obsessed with this fic from the second I read the 1st paragraph

Day 2: bookmark day

Fandom: All For the Game

never said that i didn't need you by incogneat_oh/ @incogneat-oh

"Aaron, are you ready to go? The emergency room queue isn’t getting any shorter.”

Aaron feels a thrill of nervousness pull unpleasantly in his belly. He doesn’t want to spend the night in a brightly-lit, overcrowded emergency room and have strangers prodding at him. He glances back at Andrew, who looks as disinterested as ever. He’s slouched over, hands in his lap and unmoving, face expressionless. He’s facing forward, but his eyes are on Aaron.

And Aaron’s halfway out the door when he swivels. Blurts, “You’ll come with me?"

Aaron and Andrew spend an evening hanging out in the emergency department.

One of my personal fave twinyard-centric fics

Fandom: The Historian

among some talk of you and me by Hokuto

Reader, I pray that you will have the strength to walk with me a little longer.

I remember when I 1st found this fic I was so shocked cuz I had no idea anyone had even written fic for this book, but this is literally a perfect little epilogue because it has everything I loved from the book (scholarly nerdiness, libraries, and Dracula)

Day 3: old favorites

Fandom: BBC Sherlock

The World on His Wrist by bendingsignpost/ @bendingsignpost

First, he is shot in Afghanistan. Second, he wakes to a phone call in Chelmsford, Essex. Third is pain, fourth is normalcy, fifth is agony and sixth is confusion. By the eighth, he's lost track. (John-centric AU)

An exceedingly old favorite of mine, like literally one of the 1st fics I ever read on ao3, but I just learned today that I had apparently never commented on it previously, which made it perfectly on theme for this day of the fest

Fandom: Haikyuu!!

When the Stars Threw Down Their Spears by umisabaku/ @umisabaku

"It’s hard to understand the hierarchy when a school like Nekoma exists, putting them all together like they belong, but by the time Kenma enters high school he understands the difference. Kuroo is a black panther, rare and precious; a large predator stronger than most any other foe.

Kenma is a calico housecat. His coloring is uncommon, but he is not special."

Shapeshifter!AU. Kenma struggles with a culture and the rules of courtship.

When I was in high school and at the peak of my sports anime phase, this was one of my fave fics, and so I loved revisiting it all these years later

Day 4: fandom curiosities

Fandom: Mysterious Lotus Casebook

Three Autumns by rageprufrock/ @rageprufrock

If Li Lianhua had known this mess would be waiting for him, he wouldn't have bothered to crawl out of his own grave.

The most I know of this show is what I’ve seen through a few gifs on my tumblr dashboard, but this fic made me fall so hard for the characters it’s not even funny

Fandom: Interview With the Vampire

hell and you by quensty/ @keithal

With respect to Daniel’s life, pain in the ass is spelled A-R-M-A-N-D.

I have read one (1) book and watched one (1) episode of the show, so I barely have any idea who these characters are, but holy shit this dynamic compels me

Day 5: rec a fic

Fandom: Mo Dao Zu Shi

a made thing by animediac/ @jaywalkers

Because at the end of it all, Wei Wuxian walks away with his happy ending and the rest of them are left with nothing.

(or, what comes after everything has gone)

Fantastic post-canon fic by one of the few writers that can make Chengsang convincing to me

Fandom: Scum Villain’s Self-Saving System

Life is (not) a Hallmark Movie by mellicindi/ @mellicindi

Shen Yuan isn't lonely. He's just overseas in a new city, trying to muddle his way through a business degree, and dealing with the side effects of his stupid intestines trying to kill him. So, maybe he sometimes watches ASMR to cope with his too-quiet apartment. Maybe he has a little bit of a parasocial-relationship-thing going on with one particular cooking ASMR channel. It's 2016, who doesn't? The point is, he's content with his quiet life.

And then Shang Qinghua strong-arms him into watching one Hallmark Christmas movie, and it all goes to hell.

Or: Shen Yuan is a Hallmark movie protagonist, Luo Binghe is a Lifetime movie protagonist, and somehow they make it work.

I sadly missed the read-along this year, but this fic has been on my tbr since pretty much as soon as I started reading fic for this fandom, so I got to finally read it and it’s really fantastic

As always, I’ll continue to comment on fics and show all you writers appreciation for your craft <3

#just leave a comment fest #fic rec #fic rec list #bbc merlin #aftg #the historian #bbc sherlock #hq #iwtv #mdzs #svsss #mlc

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callstolike · 1 year

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Tag Game - Fandom Edition

thanks to @phantomato for the tag :)

Your Name: m. / callstolike

Your First Fandom: in terms of actually being engaged in fandom as a community, it’d be bbc merlin. in terms of obsessive interest in media, it’d be harry potter - i didn’t know about fandom but i visited fansites and read and re-read the books over and over, and before i had internet access played pretend as a kid about it too.

Your Current Fandom: shadow and bone, hp (eternally), bbc merlin, paramore if we’re talking bandom. once something is a fandom for me it’s eternal though, so anything i’ve been into before is on the cards. also horror in general is something of an obsession, and i love we have always lived in the castle by shirley jackson.

How did you first get into fandom? I vaguely remember reading fic for wicked the musical as a 14yo, and being obsessed with billy elliot, but i wasn’t really aware of fandom as a community til i discovered it via bbc merlin and paramore, which are still two of my favourites.

How long have you been engaging in fandom spaces? since about 2008 roughly, although on and off because my anxiety used to be so bad i couldn’t maintain any social media/online presence.

How often do you read fanfic? It’s really very variable for me, and i’m more interested in reading fic for certain fandoms for others. i hadn’t read much recently for maybe 6 or so months, but i’ve been reading a lot recently.

Top three characters from your current fandom? i tend to focalise my entire interest in a fandom based on a character or pairing, so i’ll go for one of those for each: tom riddle for hp, the darkling from sab, and morgana for merlin. i’m predictably drawn to villains and antagonists lol.

Have you ever written a fic for a fandom and if so, shout it out! i’ve written for a couple of fandoms, including gotham and star wars, which i’ve either orphaned or deleted, but i have one fic for sab - the quality of mercy - which is a darklina one which i’m still quite happy with. i have another one which has been in half-finished for over a year which i might finally finish if i can get my arse into gear.

Have you ever drawn fan art for a fandom? No, i have awful fine motor skills to the point where drawing a straight line is hard, but if i could i would. i daydream about writing music on piano for certain characters but i haven’t written music in about ten years, so lol. i do feel like one song i wrote as a moody teenager is very aleks though.

Share a personal headcanon that you feel strongly about: i have one for both aleksander morozova and tom riddle: that merzost and horcruxes respectively are most interestingly interpreted (in my personal opinion) as forms of self-harm, the twisting of survival mechanisms into painful and destructive self-mutilation which only makes them weaker. as someone who identifies with those self-destructive drives i find it hard not to feel that both of them want to hurt on some level, or feel that self-destruction is a road to what they feel is necessary or desirable. it makes more sense of them as fallible individuals and victims of the world they exist in and are traumatised by than the assumption that they have crossed some invisible and incomprehensible magical line in their particular worlds.

You’re trying to convince a friend to get into your current fandom(s) with you. What episode, clip, or scene are you showing them? as a rule i don’t try to get people into things that they might not feel drawn to, but this youtube video of all of ed nygma’s scenes in gotham s1 made me immediately fascinated with (by?) him.

And finally, what does fandom mean to you? i would say community, because it was the first experience i had of other people who met my level of intensity in terms of obsession and love, and because i’ve met a few really lovely people through it. but also acceptance for the same reasons. and escape.

i tag @dead-ghost-walking, @malewife-darkling, @girlriddle, @getoutofthewater, and any mutual or follower who might like to participate <333.

#m #me #tag games #fandom

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thehat-taheht · 4 months

Text

Listening to Insanity in the Center of the Universe

From the Land of Enchantment:

Listening to Insanity in the Center of the Universe (Adapted from a speech)

=============

I have been telling people about how crazy living in Albuquerque was for a really long time. Most people didn’t give my stories much thought until ‘Breaking Bad’ debuted. It has only gotten better since then with ‘Better Call Saul’ and ‘In Plain Sight’ et cetera. Now people put a little more faith in my stories from New Mexico. One of my favorites is about crazy people.

In the early 2000’s I was a freshly minted high school graduate, chip on my shoulder, rucksack on my back, $2 in my pocket, and big ideas in my head. My best friend and I had moved to New Mexico on a whim after spending 5 minutes there over the previous summer. I wanted to study Psychology after being obsessed with the ‘X Files’ and reading “Archetypes and the Collective Unconscious” in high school. C.G. Jung was a hero of mine, but so was the Joker, so go figure. I wanted to be a criminal profiler, but figured that I would more likely be a family counselor.

Having quite an extensive history of drug use already by age 18 I had few illusions about how the world works and had already experienced a significant amount of abnormal psychology first hand. I had found an affinity with people of altered mental states and that I could understand them in a way that I felt was meaningful. There was one guy in my old neighborhood that would always refer to himself as King Arthur and eventually he came to call me Merlin. I felt that this bond had been positive and after a while Merlin was able to advise Arthur to get back on his meds.

Now before I get into the story I need to set the scene a little. I was about 19 and since 1995 I had taken to wearing a black long coat of some type (even during summer), a top hat, and round sunglasses. I had waist length brown wavy hair, and was usually covered in buttons and pins with funny or ironic phrases, like ‘Got Beans?’. In that particular coat I carried a small bag of pinto beans that I could present to anyone that asked about the button. Those are all other stories that you may or may not want to hear so I will avoid them for now.

It was shortly after I had enrolled at UNM that I was walking around campus, probably ignoring a math class, that I discovered a strange looking building with no doors in the middle of the quad. After closer inspection I found that it was a large sculpture/engineering project called ‘The Center of the Universe’. The structure had an opening in every cardinal direction and 2 more for up and down. As I walked through the Center of the Universe for the first time I looked out of the top, neck craned to look at the puffy white clouds rolling by, I was hit by the sudden urge to lay down.

Setting down my backpack I spread my coat out over the metal grating that covers the ‘down’ direction and propped up my head on my backpack. I had recently begun meditation so I tried to empty my mind and just let the world roll around me. My concentration was broken by a raspy ancient voice.

“Hey Merlin, get up.”

I still had my eyes closed and just assumed that it was a trick of the meditation or maybe a flashback to my conversations with King Arthur back home.

“You’re Merlin right?” the voice said.

I opened my eyes to see what I assumed was a homeless man of about 50 or so, dreadlocked hair, tattered clothes, and very very pungent.

“Get up.” he says to me. I obeyed and gathered my things.

“Sir, do you know me?” I ask him using the honorific not because I was playing into his delusion, but because I was taught to respect my elders.

“Of course, you’re Merlin.”

This of course struck me as odd. My skin crawled a bit.

“Why do you think that?” I asked with more genuine curiosity than I had ever felt before in my life.

“It’s you. I know you.”

I want to stress to you that I had no idea who this guy was. Never seen or smelled anyone like him. This was at the time the singular strangest event that I had experienced, but I learned, in that moment I think, to roll with whatever the Universe throws at me and try to enjoy the ride

“Yes it’s me.”

I don’t know what I expected to happen at that moment. Maybe the Halls of Knowledge would burst open and Truth would flow like a river from the Doors of Perception, maybe I would become changed and realize my True self: an inner deity sleeping soundly as the world drifted by. Perhaps the very nature of the universe itself would change and I would receive an owner’s manual to reality and be able to unlock the 'Developer’s Mode'.

Instead all he said was “Yes I know… I just told you that.”

I was lying down at the Center of the Universe starring Insanity in the face and somehow felt disappointed.

“You are needed at Denny’s.” Which is a sentence that no one should ever have to hear.

“What is waiting for me there?” I asked, somewhat dreading the answer.

The man said nothing and walked away, muttering to himself. I thought about chasing after him, but didn’t want to destroy the illusion just yet. He seemed very cogent when talking to me and then seemed to revert back to some less aware state. This made my whole body shiver a bit.

I remember recounting my story to my roommates, this received the expected amount of laughter and head shaking. Due to our shared drug-use history this story seemed much more likely that I had experienced some flashback or had a dream or some such. Honestly, I hadn’t expected much, but wanted to make sure that someone else was aware of the story in case it became relevant later. For you see, I have seen a lot of movies, and there is always a point in the film of some fantastic tale, where you feel like yelling at the main character for not sharing information and I didn’t want to be ‘that guy’.

Nothing happened for months, aside from normal life stuff. I found my first job as a Kitchen Steward in the Albuquerque Convention Center Kitchen where I was hired for my ability to count to 100 in Spanish, English, and French. I learned a lot in those months about life and consequently quit that job to try to make more money at Denny’s.

Big Mistake. Not the biggest of my life, but it was up there.

I honestly had forgotten about the homeless man I met in the Center of the Universe so working at the Albuquerque Central Avenue Denny’s may have been some type of subconscious thing to indulge my curiosity. My tenure at Denny’s was short but intense. 6 months that aged me 6 years. During this time, I met a new roommate who would become the father of my nieces, dated a former model with a knife scar on her throat, rediscovered my love of poetry, stayed awake for 11 days, learned how to donate plasma, was on the TV show ‘Cops’ twice, faked my way into a Master’s level psychology class, saw the movie ‘Fight Club’, read ‘Food of the Gods’ by Terence McKenna, and decided I was never going to work another food service job in my life.

In my last week working at the Central Denny’s (now famous for the show Breaking Bad) I was asked to deal with a crazy person in the smoking area. I was the only non-smoker working there, but as the only person studying psychology, management felt I was uniquely qualified to handle the situation. More likely they probably thought I was crazy enough to be able to talk to the guy, and after having been on ‘Cops’ and telling the camera guy he had to stay outside, they knew I had no problem telling people to leave.

I walked over to the smoking area and there was a very large man dressed completely in denim, my mother used to refer to this as a Canadian Tuxedo. There were lots of pins on his jacket, studs on his lapels, a dark thick beard hid his face and dark sunglasses hid his eyes. He looked a bit like a biker, but more of a nomad. Arrayed on the table in front of him were about 20 coffee cups and 10 ashtrays all of them had coffee and cigarettes in them. I was told by another staff member that he had been taking them from other tables whether or not the table was finished with them. He would then sit back down and smoke and ask the waitstaff for ridiculous things like 40 eggs or to turn off the sound on the TV, which we didn’t have. Eventually the other guests had left the smoking section and he was now alone.

Ever the consummate professional, I approached the man to determine if he was just high or actually crazy. He didn’t seem violent yet, so there was no immediate reason to call the police. My goal was to keep him calm and get him out of the store, so I could go on making 2.15 per hour with no tips, you know like usual.

“Hello sir, I am sorry but our waiter was called away and I have been asked to help assist you. Is there anything I can help you with?”

He muttered something about silverware and ashtrays and ‘where are my eggs?’, but most of it was unintelligible. For those who know me they will tell you I have a hard time hearing, and I tend to read lips a bit to aid my comprehension. So I leaned in closer to make out what he was saying.

This very very large man grabbed my shoulder with a hand that belonged on a monster in a fantasy movie. His massive mit engulfed my entire shoulder and its weight felt far too heavy to be real. He brought my good ear close to his beard and whispered “Hello Merlin.”

My mind exploded a bit, with the memory of the homeless man and my friend in my hometown, and the message about being ‘Needed’ at Denny’s. The world faded a bit as my attention was focused on this man’s gruff road-hardened voice wafting through his unkept, unwashed beard, into my unprepared mind.

“Merlin, I have a quest for you. You are needed in Espanola.”

“What do I need to do?”

“You must walk into town and meet a wise man.”

“How will I know him?”

“He thinks he will know you, but he will not recognize who you truly are. You will know what needs to be done.”

My mind reeled from this exchange. So many questions, but they wouldn’t come. Instead I shut my mouth as he released my shoulder. I stood up straight and backed away. The man stood up bumping the table a bit and causing several cups and ashtrays to spill onto the floor. The man’s face seemed to get angry although I was never sure because of the beard. He lumbered for the door making a low humming noise, knocking over a table as he ran out of the door.

This is where my story gets weird.

--------

Months pass. I quit Denny’s and found work at a Circle K, became a manager inside a few weeks when my store manager decided to steal $5000 worth of money orders and leave the state. My district supervisor comes to the store and says ‘I guess you’re it.’ I get into a weird rhythm of working and quitting. I don’t know if you’ve ever worked in the C-Store world but the unwritten rule in the early 2000’s was that you can always request vacation, but it wouldn’t come ever. If you really needed time off, then you had to quit. They would hire you back if you were a good employee, because it was cheaper than hiring and training someone new.

So the cycle would go, work for 2 months with no breaks as there was infinite overtime available. Save enough money for 2 months of rent and then quit. Coast for a month, selling plasma, doing odd jobs for walking around money, do ‘other things’, and then get rehired. Easy-peasy. On these furloughs I would focus on school, study metaphysics and other pseudosciences, and read every religious text I could find. I devoured entire bookstores. Searching, researching, studying, learning, theorizing, and finally feeling that I was ready to make decisions about my life. I felt that I had learned something in the hodgepodge of religious soup that I had ingested for so long.

A certainty that every world religion has a nugget of Truth, a small piece that they got right. It was only after trying to see it all through the lens of Science and Understanding that my personal beliefs began to take shape. I felt that I had touched the Aether and it had changed me in the process. The world was brighter, more deliberate. My studies in psychology had reached a climax. I was too poor to afford more schooling, didn’t qualify for grants or loans, so I lied. I signed up to audit course after course using my knowledge of the subject matter to social engineer my way into higher level courses.

I journaled during this period and continued working and coasting. During one such coasting period, I scheduled a trip to the remote town of Espanola as I felt the time was right. A few years had passed, I had given up all drugs including caffeine and pledged to remain this way for 6 years. My friends could barely stand the sober version of me. Apparently I was an insufferable ass, that would constantly deride anything that others thought or felt and was consumed with reading and learning so much that I would ignore important parts of my life, like family and relationships. I tried sobriety and it honestly isn’t for me.

The trip was well planned and orchestrated. I had written out several scenarios for emergencies and eventualities. I hired a co-worker to drive me to the outskirts of the city and drop me off so I could walk into town. I was to play a character that I had devised to hide my intentions in the town. My name was Bill, I wore an old army jacket, tattered jeans, a wide brim military surplus outback style hat, and 10 year old chuck taylors (which were less shoes and more moccasins by this point). The Army jacket had a lot of holes in it that didn’t go through the lining so they made good hidey spots. I stashed about $500, an emergency phone, an extremely dented WWII canteen, 3 tin whistles of varying keys and an old battered wooden recorder.

In my rucksack I had several books, a change of clothes in a ziplock tucked away at the bottom, a journal and few pens, a summer sausage, a box of crackers, hank of rope, a mess kit, some dryer lint covered in candle wax inside a ziplock, utility knife and a firestriker. My hair was long and I had made sure not to shower for a few days before the trip.

After being dropped off in the desert about 5 miles from town, I rolled around in the dirt and dust and made sure to wear my jacket as long as I could stand in the sun on the walk in to get all sweaty to complete the ambiance of Bill the wayfarer. As I made my way down the mountain into town, I was greeted by the Welcome to Espanola sign with the message ‘LowRider Capital of the World’. If you are from California and want to dispute that, take it up with Espanola, that is their claim not mine.

My plan was to make a small splash when I entered town to announce myself, but not so big that it seemed planned. Just enough to let others know I am there. I entered town through the Santa Clara Pueblo heading toward the Rio Grande and came to the first restaurant I saw called La Cocina, which means the Kitchen if you don’t speak any Spanish. I don’t really speak it either, I spoke New Mexican which is fundamentally English with a lot of Spanish nouns and random verbs and curse words. Like Spanglish but with less Adam Sandler and more Carlos Mencia.

I picked a nice spot in the shade so that cars and people walking into the restaurant could see me, but the staff could not. I dropped my pack and used it as a seat, took off my coat and laid out all of my instruments on it. Then turned my hat upside down in front of me and started to play. I only knew about 10-15 songs, but could improvise a bit on the whistles and the recorder. I would alternate songs and even tried to play two whistles at once, poorly. Did everything I could to attract attention and eventually picked up a few dollars from passersby.

Took me about 45 minutes to make enough for 2 enchiladas with green chili and Spanish rice. Management demanded that I get it to go as ‘there was no seating available’. Big air quotes. I was then less politely told not to eat on the premises or continue to panhandle lest the authorities be notified. I picked up my stuff and tipped my hat to them and left. Choosing to cross the Rio Grande and head down a street called Riverside eating my enchiladas on the walk.

On my way down Riverside, I saw some Low Riders and some Police cars. I tried my best to be ignored by both groups, but a long haired 20-something dirty white kid playing a flute was bound to attract someone’s attention. When approached by police I played my flute and danced, whenever they weren’t looking I switched flutes. I made a game out of it. Try to make myself seem too weird or crazy to be dealt with.

When approached by anyone else, I tried to engage them as directly as possible. Attempting to match their speech patterns as closely as I could. If I was unable to do that then I would simply play the role that I would assume they see in me. If they were nice I was needy. If they were mean, I was crazy. If they were curious, I was a fountain of information and dialogue. I tried hard not to outright lie about anything including my name. I of course allowed them to think my name was Bill, because every time it looked like the conversation was headed toward my name, I would stare off into space and say ‘Just Bill…’ occasionally followed by a hand motion as though it was written on a Movie Theatre marquee.

I made my way to the end of town, which at this stage of Espanola’s development was just past the brand new Walmart supercenter. There was a bar in the parking lot in front of the Walmart and just past that on the road that stretched out into the open desert was an old 50’s style motel that I had assumed was condemned. I noticed that in the window was an old school orange Vacancy sign with the ‘No’ part off. After walking in I figured that it was likely less than a few days away from a health inspector walking in and shuttering the place for good. I haggled with the manager over an hourly rate room that I wanted to stay in for several days and he finally agreed to give me the one room that isn’t regularly used for hourly entertainment.

He almost lost his shit when I told him I would be right back once we decided on $25 per night. I explained that I needed to go make that money by playing my flutes and I would return before sundown for the room. He reluctantly agreed and I headed to the Walmart parking lot. It was hot and I was tired. I played outside the Walmart Super Center for about an hour and made a few dollars, but not enough to pay for the motel room. I noticed a few other vagrants trying to sponge the Walmart patrons for a few bucks. When a security guard in his little go-kart came around to roust them out, I felt that it was time to blend. Picked up my sack and shuffled after them. They all hid behind the walled dumpster area of a western bar that shared a parking lot with Walmart. I followed them in.

One of them spotted me and looked me up and down and then pushed aside a crate that was blocking a broken utility panel and stepped aside, waving his arms to usher everyone through. He yelled something, that I would later learn was the Hopi word for ‘inside’ or ‘indoors’ or some such, but I couldn’t pronounce it then and can’t repeat it now. We all rushed through the small opening, I had to drag my sack behind me. The native man that had helped everyone escape pulled the hatch closed and pulled a rope through a hole that was attached to the crate. Once completely taught it had hidden our escape route entirely. I heard the go-kart pull up with its sickly electric whine and heard the angry shuffling of security guard shoes grinding away at the heated asphalt in the desert sun outside.

Looking around in the space, once my eyes adjusted to the dim light that emanated from the emergency lighting and cracks in the ceiling and walls, I seemed to be in a seldom used storage area with a lot of empty beer cans and bottles, unwashed bedding, and piles of aluminum signs and lighting for the bar. Spiders and moths seemed to be fighting an unending battle in the rafters and there was the telltale small black lumps of chocolate that told of mice in the area. Standing up straight the Native man towered over me, by about a foot and a half, but it felt like 12. He looked down on me, face stern, but with a smile in his eyes. He extended his pizza-pan sized mitt and said, “Name’s John, people call me War Machine.”

Trying my best not to be intimidated by this huge man that I now found myself in a closed area with, I allowed my seemingly tiny, feeble hands be swallowed by his, looked to where I assumed his eyes were and said with a completely straight face, “My name is Bill, people usually call me ‘dumb kid’ or ‘hey you’.” I could hear the silence pounding in my ears, all of the oxygen ripped away from the planet and I was left falling into nothingness. I expected War Machine to rip my arm off and beat me to death with it. I imagined my death in a thousand different ways, but I remained calm and relaxed.

His grip tightened. He jerked suddenly, throwing his head back and a deep low rumbling like from the bowels of a volcano shook me. As the blood rushed into my ears the roaring sound was replaced by a raucous throaty laugh that left me dumbfounded. His enormous hand clapped me on the shoulder and he kept chuckling. “You’re funny Bill. Welcome to Espanola, did you just get here?” He let go of my hand and motioned for me to walk toward the back of the building.

“Yeah got in this morning.” I found that the rest of the escaping vagrants had moved to the back of the room behind the aluminum signs. Above the door in permanent marker was a hand-drawn symbol that I had seen before. It looked like a block M where the middle line was facing up instead of down, or rather like a rectangle where the bottom line was removed and placed standing straight up from the middle of the top line. I was later told by War Machine that this was a sign that meant ‘good place’ or something similar. To this day I am not sure if it was a New Mexico, Native, or hobo thing, but I have seen the same symbol in other places.

When we got into the room and my eyes adjusted, I saw that there were makeshift beds, an old discarded couch, several crates and even a few chairs. A familiar hissing and popping sound was emanating from a large crack in the wall that was in darkness. The only light source in the room was some cracks in the wall from the outside and an emergency light that someone had rigged up to an electrical socket. One of the other guys in the room picked up the emergency light box and hung it on a hook above the crack in the wall.

Inside the crack were exposed compressed gas beverage lines each with a tourniquet of some kind around it and a label next to it on the wall. Most were indecipherable from this distance, but I recognized one at the top that said “Miller Light”. Almost everyone in the room produced some kind of mess kit cup or canteen or plastic bottle and passed it down the line. I took the last swallow of water out of my canteen and passed it down the line along with War Machine’s Aquafina bottle. Both of our receptacles came back filled to the brim with chilled Miller Light.

Now I despise Miller Light and light beers in general, in fact I don’t even like drinking much, but when you are tired, sore, hungry, and a little sunburned that Miller Light tasted like sweet Ambrosia. It was Manna from Heaven, sent to us hungry world-weary travelers to save us from the ravages of the waiting desert. I don’t remember much of the rest of the night except from a few tidbits here and there. The group of us played a game that involved some kind of nonsense words and repeated phrases that always ended in laughter.

Pretty sure that I paid for my room. I remember getting propositioned by an older hispanic lady repeatedly. I believe that she even snuck into my room somehow and I may have scared her away with the business end of a summer sausage that I swore to her was a knife. That could all be some kind of alcohol delusion, but it seems dumb enough to be true. I slept off the booze and tried to make a fresh start of it in the morning.

==================

The next day I continued my completely undefined quest, relatively sure that these vagabonds in the city didn’t need my help. As far as they went they were pretty set. They had places to be, food, and fun of a sort. So if the universe didn’t mean for me to help them, what was I needed for?

To try to sort this out I had an idea that the answer would hit me dead center in the face if I looked hard enough. I planned to continue to dodge cops, pretend to panhandle, and toot my flutes. For breakfast I had what was left of the cheese, crackers, and summer sausage with some water from my canteen. I filled up the canteen with some questionable water from the motel bathroom sink and strapped my knife to my boot. I took all of my possessions with me and set out.

It was hot again. The town danced in front of my eyes in the heat if I looked at it directly. There wasn’t much to the town on the main drag, but there were some chain restaurants like McDonald’s and SubWay. Now I know that you are thinking that going to MickeyD’s would be the right choice to try to panhandle and get some food if you were impersonating a homeless person, but I had a different take.

After spending so much time with real homeless folk in Dallas and in Albuquerque, I felt that SubWay was the better choice. At McDonald’s most of the folk who go there order from the dollar menu if they have to or from the regular menu if they can. Most patrons don’t spend time there unless they have kids, and people are not likely to give change in a drive through. McDonald’s is cheap, ergo people who eat there generally don’t have much to spare. If they do, they have kids and they don’t want homeless folk around their kids. Combine that with the fact that they are almost always on a separate lot and you are just asking for cops to harass you.

This made SubWay a much better choice. People actually spend time inside because of the lack of drive through, the culture in the restaurant promotes tipping, so money is more readily available, and people who eat there are usually sans family. Plus they are usually in strip mall box storefronts so it is easier to avoid police.

I popped a squat on the pavement outside the subway within earshot of the tables inside, but not in direct eyesight, as this tends to draw the ire of the employees quickly. I took out a D penny whistle and a plastic recorder and flipped my hat upside down on the pavement. I practiced both the rhythm and harmony parts of the theme song of Buckaroo Banzai. The rhythm part was my left hand on the recorder and the right hand played the penny whistle on the melody.

Once I was satisfied I knew both parts well, I tried my best to play both parts at once. Honestly I am sure it was horrible at first and most people just ignored me. Eventually I changed the rhythm section a bit to match the breaths of the melody and that worked better as I wasn’t running out of breath constantly. So I wasn’t playing the real song, but some new rendition of it. To my surprise someone actually put in some money while walking by, a dark skinned fellow in a white suit and white shoes. As his clothes reflected too much light I couldn’t tell much more about him at the time.

I switched to When the Saints Go Marching In on the recorder and dropped the penny whistle back into a hole in the lapel. When I assumed the guy went inside, I stopped playing and I dropped some more of my own money in the hat. To make sure that not too much attention was paid to my money, I kept playing until at least two more patrons passed by me, pretending to thank them for their generous donations.

After I felt enough time had passed I went inside the Subway after stowing my instruments and donning my hat. I ordered completely prepared to pay for my six inch Italian and chips, but I was told that my meal had been paid for and I could get a drink as well. Accepting a bottled water from the cashier, I was informed that the gentleman that tipped me earlier had paid for my meal. I approached him, not sure how to handle speaking to him. He seemed to be of Indian descent and was dressed in a nice looking white suit with no tie. He had friendly eyes and the hint of a smile at the corners of his mouth.

He gave off a certain confidence despite the strange situation that made me think that he had done this before. He offered me a seat across from him at the table and I cautiously accepted and decided to stop the crazy act I had put on for the police.

I feel it bears a reminder at this point to set the scene. The Subway, despite being brightly lit, has heavy tint on the windows to keep out some of the heat. I haven’t showered or changed clothes for over a week to make sure that my disguise is as accurate as possible. I rolled around in the sand and dirt on the outskirts of the town to give my vintage moth-eaten army surplus coat a fresh coating of earth. I have long hair that is matted and dreaded up and I am sure my breath smells terrible. People are staring at us as we sit there talking about food and desperation.

He offers to buy me another sandwich and I accept and tie it up and put it into my pack. He laughs at this and then starts to talk about himself. He indicates that he works with youths and would like to offer me a place to start over. He knows that being homeless is hard and that I seem intelligent but desperate. “All most people need is a place to get cleaned up and stability so they can get a job and re-enter society.” He explained. “I work at a place of worship and the people there could help you get back on your feet.”

“I would be very grateful for any help I get sir.” I felt that I wanted to appear very desperate and pliant. I had never heard of a guy like this randomly picking up homeless people so I had a hunch that this is why I was here. It was possible that he was just some kind of pervert, but I didn’t get that feeling with how he was speaking.

“That is good to hear.”

We packed up my kit and we headed out of the SubWay to his Lexus which was also white of course. I guarded my answers and responses closely to not let out too much of my real personality. Per my assumed identity I told him that my name was Rene Carter as a modification of my favorite philosopher René Descartes. Let’s call the man Raj, I will keep his real name to myself for this story.

We arrived at their compound at the edge of town in the early evening and he showed me to his house on the lot. It was a nice two story adobe filled with southwestern kitsch and Native American blankets. After getting a short tour we ended in a room filled with hundreds of crystals and candles. I honestly almost laughed when we walked in that room, but I stifled it. Raj told me that he was something called a ‘Light Giver’, which he explained was a form of shamanic healer that uses light focused through crystals or that emanates from his hands to “heal the body and uncloud the mind” as he put it.

He offered to let me use the shower and he gave me some donated clothes. Still not knowing what to expect, I briefly inspected the lavish bathroom for cameras and then showered off my finely cultivated layer of earth. My long hair was still matted, but I soaped it and tied it back again with a length of gaffer’s cord. The clothes fit well enough, they were plain and all tan. I insisted on keeping my jacket, and Raj offered me some scented oils to make my hair and jacket smell better. Honestly I just didn’t want anyone discovering the $500 I had hidden away in one of my flutes.

After I was a little more presentable, Raj took me outside and into the compound proper. For our purposes we can call it ‘la Hacienda’.

Albino peacocks and white people in bright Sikh clothing everywhere. It was kind of strange to look at like a bad episode of a scifi show where you are more worried about the actors getting heat stroke than following the plot. Not knowing they were Sikhs yet, I just assumed it was some sort of cult. In the end I guess I was right.

Now I had studied with some Sikhs in University and my favorite Indian restaurant “Kebab’N’Kurry” in Dallas is run by the nicest Sikh and his family you may ever meet. I knew Sikhs as a super friendly and approachable religious group that would never try to prosthelytize and despite having roots in the rougher times in India, it was all about the equality of men and women and a celebration of life and its mysteries. I knew that they rejected the Caste system of old and were all about working as a community to elevate everyone.

Armed with this information already I was agog at what I saw on the Hacienda. Not all men wore the Turban and few had beards, but the obviously traditionally garbed men let me know what was up. Raj looked more like a modern reformed Sikh that had that super suave beardiness still but kept his hair short, he wore white, but not the full dress like some of the others. Something else stood out that I didn’t quite catch at first.

There were no adult women present outside, just men and children. Red flags should have gone up at this point, but I was still in observation mode at this point. After walking the grounds a bit, Raj invited me to come eat supper with him and I followed. We ate and I tried to keep up my character, by being a bit cagey and fingering my flutes. Mostly he just wanted to sell the lifestyle to me it seemed. He talked about how there was always food, friendly people, stable housing, and community. I was told I was welcome as long as I wanted to stay. After the meal I was taken to a small single room house that had a lot of pillows and blankets with a thin plank built into the wall. I slept there that night and didn’t want to disturb any of the cult members by asking where the bathroom was so I just pissed in the nearby brush.

The next day I was taken to breakfast and was introduced to several random folk in the group that were doing menial chores. It seemed to be Raj’s intent to introduce me to people that were genuinely happy doing simple chores, thereby making me more likely to want to achieve the same level of happiness. Most of the day was spent going around la Hacienda with breaks for meals. Eventually we came back to his house and talked to me again about ‘Light Therapy’ and being a ‘Giver of the Holy Light’. At several points he seemed very serious and almost scientific, at others I was sure that ‘Giving someone the Holy Light’ was a euphemism for sex.

He offered me a ‘Light Healing’ session and asked me to take off my shirt and lie down on a massage table face down. After hesitating I obliged and he lit candles and incense, then turned off the light and began chanting. He selected a large crystal from the wall with his eyes closed and proceeded to wave it about, while chanting rhythmically. He touched the crystal to my back and rolled it up and down my spine. It was an interesting sensation as one side of the crystal was warm and the other cold. He abruptly stopped chanting and produced a bottle of some kind and began to put baby oil on my back. I instinctively leapt off the table and took out a few crystals on my way and grabbed my shirt and told him in what I thought at the time was a polite tone, that the session was over.

Raj took this in stride and announced that it was time to go out with the youth group anyways. I followed him outside where he met with some other adult leaders as a group of 15-19 year olds walked up the hill in jeans and t-shirts. Raj informed me that as soon as the adults changed into their ‘city clothes’ we would be heading into Santa Fe to see a new movie as a group. The situation was very strange as I was absolutely mobbed by most of the younger kids asking me lots of questions about the outside world. I did my best to remain in character as my new cult friends took me to go see X-Men which had only recently been released.

Going to the movies with a lot of anglo Sikhs in Sante Fe to see X-Men was one of the most surreal non-drug related experiences. I am sure that we looked very normal from the outside, but me knowing I was likely surrounded by a real bunch of cult members was super strange for me and hard to deal with. Consequently I had a hard time paying attention to the movie, and honestly they were really chatty. Rewatching the movie later, I realized how bad it was and felt less bad about missing the movie.

Normally during a social outing like this at this age I would honestly be looking to hookup with one of the girls that were with the group, but I was way too distracted to even think about anything other than maintaining my false identity. It didn’t even occur to me at the time that most of the girls that were with us were all sitting next to me, or that all of the boys were either trying hard not to look at me or were shooting me disapproving looks. It also didn’t occur to me that the social interaction may have been an exercise orchestrated by Raj to find out which girls I had chemistry with. I was so oblivious in fact that when the movie was over and we were on our way back to the compound that I didn’t pick up on the fact that Raj decided on the seating on the way back and surrounded me with girls that wanted to touch my hair and talk to me about where I was from.

As always I did my best not to lie too much and laid out half truths with other half truths making little misunderstandable truth sandwiches that those girls ate up with gusto. Meanwhile I tried to get some information about their little group from the talkative girls. They were not surprisingly pretty tight-lipped about the compound, but did talk to me enough about their religion for me to understand that it wasn’t entirely a pure Sikh ethos. There was a certain sense of misogyny in their words, a subtle hint that women weren’t being treated as equals. I found no outward obvious signs of abuse, but there was definitely some mental conditioning. At the time I just chalked it up to them being in a religious cult. After all even non-cult religions have their conditioning in some ways.

We got back to la Hacienda and the girls I had been sitting with insisted on washing my hair. As it was done in a public place I saw no problem with it and just did my best to enjoy the pampering. I had chest length thick brown hair, that despite my earlier shower was still pretty matted and they got all of the dirt out and I was very relaxed. They used some kind of homemade shampoo that smelled like hibiscus and honey and was like no product I have ever used before or since. The girls were extremely fit and very pretty and I remember letting my guard down around them a bit. They told me a bit more about the group. I learned that their highest guru was in la Hacienda and that his 70th birthday was in a few days, there was going to be a big ceremony and he would address the entire congregation.

===================

I think I passed out before dinner because I don’t remember much else that night and woke up to Raj telling me to get dressed so I could help with breakfast. The group was very much a ‘nobility in work’ group and they paid people that did the job around them in high esteem. With the pampering from last night, my hair was light and bouncy and I must’ve looked like a Penecostal white Jesus with sandals and white loose fitting white clothes and a scruffy beard, hair all flowing in the wind. The illusion was immediately dispelled when I got to the kitchen and they gave me a hairnet. I tucked in my hair and started cutting vegetables and fruit. Eventually I was asked to help make something called ‘prashad’, my job was to keep stirring a pot like a madman until someone told me to stop and then pour it out into a bowl, which was then blessed with some kind of knife or dagger.

It was actually interesting and I enjoyed helping these folks in the kitchen. It dawned on me again that no younger women were in the kitchen area or anywhere I could see. Breakfast was vegetarian again. Two days in and I was already missing bacon. I had eaten my remaining provisions on the first night and was now completely dependent on their food, which was excellent especially for vegan food.

I finally spotted some of the younger girls that I had seen at the movies coming out of the large building toward the front of la Hacienda. Most of them were wearing loose flowing white pants and bright cotton tops, very different from before. They walked away from where I was and into another building that looked more like a dorm.

The next morning I was practically pulled out of bed by a few of the younger girls who helped me dress and then pushed me into the large building I had seen them come out of before. There were lots of small thin mats on the floor and I was confused about the room’s purpose. The girls all helped me to go through some of the first poses in what had become my first yoga class. I had relaxed a lot by this time and constantly being on my game about my false identity was less on my mind. Consequently my hormones took over a bit and I started noticing exactly how fit some of these girls were.

So much so that I had some physical manifestations of my desire for intimacy. Naturally I felt that like everything else with the group, as a natural function it shouldn’t be hidden so I didn’t leave the room or try to cover up any more and just tried to keep going with the lesson. I tell you what though, it really did make some of the poses very difficult. I heard a few giggles from the class about my inappropriate situation. Between the young girls sweating and bending over into compromising positions and my head swimming with early 20’s hormones I am sure I was about to make some really dumb decisions.

We will ignore the details of what happened next as this is not that kind of story, but the facts you need to know are that I was beset upon by a group of girls that wanted to talk to me. Eventually there were very few girls, nature took its course and I was instructed in my first lesson in Neo-Trantic Yoga.

I was too inebriated on hormones to even think about what the consequences for this action would be. So I had little control over what started to happen after this. Luckily for me this wasn’t something that was going to get me killed or anything. No one even appeared angry and there didn’t seem to be any immediate attachment between me and the yoga girls. I suspected that the situation was likely intentionally manufactured to convince me to stay in the group as a sort of honeypot trap.

The rest of the day was spent with me learning various parts about the ceremony that was to occur the next day and my duties in the kitchen.

That evening I was again accosted by a group of the young girls and we talked about life in la Hacienda. I questioned them vigorously, completely ignoring my facade at this point.

So it turns out one or more of the girls were spoken for by other men in the compound, but many of the girls there were either runaways or homeless and had not always been with this group. I asked about how they were recruited and they all recounted similar stories to my own. Found wandering, a well-dressed man bought them food and convinced them to come live at la Hacienda, where they were shown care, comfort, and kindness. Then they were each shown the value of community and hard work, but also given rewards like going to the movies. From their stories the place was sounding less and less ominous. That was until of course one of the girls started crying.

The other girls in the group hugged and patted her until she could speak again and she explained that this is what they are supposed to say. That some of them had been required to marry against their will and that the elders in the group would sometimes touch them in intimate ways without permission. It was explained that the elders would test them to see if they were ready to bear children and marry. A few other girls admitted this was true and one even described some forms of sexual and emotional abuse. I pressed for details on the identities of the elders responsible, but they were very tight-lipped about it.

Needless to say but I was appalled and the illusion of civility that permeated this place was shattered. I felt my burden growing. I know this started as a lark, that it was a way to have an ‘interesting experience’ in the desert and to face the unknown, but now things were becoming serious. As a former Boy Scout who served the community in a variety of ways, I felt compelled to right this wrong. I had heard of this kind of thing happening in cults and other positions of authority, but this was my only experience with it directly. If I were to simply call the police the cult would likely shut down the investigation with well rehearsed stories and solidarity. I struggled with what to do the whole next day until it was time for the ceremony.

Turns out the ceremony was like hand-fasting. It was a marriage of sorts, but given the nature of the cult, it was likely not a marriage in a legal sense. Everyone walked down this low hill to a mostly dried riverbed just before dusk. It was quite a scene with everyone wearing white and carrying wrought iron lanterns, while walking through the desert landscape and drums by the riverbed played a driving beat. I noticed that many of the women had henna tattoos on their hands and feet while we were all walking together.

At the riverbed an ancient looking man was kneeling on a pillow that was on a raised platform. He had a long white beard, a gray mustache, and piercing eyes that looked like they knew the secrets of the universe. As the ceremony began, a couple knelt on some decorative pillows and the Guru started speaking about how this wasn’t just a marriage but a joining of souls to make a singular person. He talked for what felt like a long time as the sun washed across the landscape and bathed the entire ceremony in a soft pink light. Seriously pink. If you have never experienced a New Mexico desert sunset, you owe it to yourself to experience it at least once.

I zoned out through part of his sermon to inspect the couple. The bride was one of the girls I had met before who had talked about inappropriate touching. The groom was at least 10 years older than her, but I figured that she was at least 19 so it wasn’t an illegal kind of bad, but didn’t make me any more comfortable with what I was witnessing. In my head I was trying to figure out which of the elders they could have been referring to. I know that Raj had made me feel super uncomfortable and wanted to put his hands on me, but I suspected that it was less innocent than that based on their stories.

I started to listen to the sermon again and started to hear some of the most sexist, misogynistic, and outright old fashioned ways of thinking about women and their duties to their husbands. The Guru was telling this girl of 19 that she had no control over her body as it now belonged to the groom. He was dressing it up in flowery language and sprinkling it with spiritual mumbo jumbo, but he was still describing sexual slavery. Anger overcame me.

I don’t remember much of the rest of that night, but the next day was the guru’s birthday and there was to be a celebration in the temple at noon. I screwed up all of my courage and asked Raj if I could have a word with the Yogi. He said I would have to wait in line to give him his birthday wishes. So I did. Waiting in line I imagined what I would say, but couldn’t think of anything. I knew I needed to say something.

When I got to the front of the line I blanked out. Mind went completely blank and the world started to move in slow motion. I could hear my breath and feel sweat rolling slowly down my back under the white rough cloth shirt. Something happened to my mouth, and I saw the all-knowing look of the aged Yogi suddenly turn to anger. I realized I was speaking extremely fast and pointing at him. Suddenly I could hear my voice again.

“…this type of thinking went out with universal women’s suffrage. Their bodies belong to them and not to you or any member of your so-called religion. If you do not change your ways and teachings then you are leading all of your followers to destruction. This will not end well.” I could feel the eyes of everyone in the room staring at me. Inspecting me, judging and hating me. I was being dissected by their vision. Not knowing what else to do, I said “Happy Birthday.” and turned to leave the room. Raj and a few other men practically tackled me on the way out of the room and I was force-marched to the front gates and handed my already packed bag with all of my possessions. They had been cleaned and smelled like sandalwood.

Getting my bearings I walked the few miles back into town. Getting a fresh coating of dirt and dust on the way. When I reached the edge of town I spotted a Motel 6. I pulled my emergency cash from inside on of my flutes and rented a room. Then I took the longest shower of my life. I called my ride and he came to pick me up the next morning.

I don’t know what it all meant, but while writing this piece and researching it for accuracy, I found that the Yogi I had berated in public had died the next year and it was discovered that he did indeed have sexual relations with many of the members of his sect.

I strongly feel that some external force was working through me that day. Call it what you want, but I do feel as though I was meant to do something that day and it was done. I struggled with writing this as I now know what happened after I left and it is a strange set of events. Not the strangest of my life, but that is another story.

#Espanola #lowriders #new mexico #land of enchantment #land of entrapment #albuquerque #denny's #writing #breaking bad #tantric yoga #xmen #UNM #center of the universe #schizophrenia #true story #yoga #hobo code #motel 6

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justafairytailofinnocence · 2 years

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Sorry for bothering you with requests 😅 but I genuinely love the way you write so could I request a one shot about fem reader who liked snaps since they were in school together but didn’t approach it because she respected that he loved lily but after years she still held those feelings for him and maybe on a late night they drink and causally confesses like oh yeah I’ve always felt things towards you

Hello dear💖, thanks for your request.

Severus Snape x Reader✨

My old friend🌹

Working at Hogwarts is the best thing that’s happened to me, I get to be surrounded by warm people. I was a professor, a professor for the dark arts, although it’s only temporary after the incident with Lupin they’ve been searching around for a good teacher. I’ll explain during my younger years at Hogwarts I studied hard to try and become an aurora however my skills weren’t on the same level as the smarter witches. My family were well known in the dark arts division, my mother was a strong aurora who knew defensive spells while my father worked at Hogwarts. I was quite a strong witch, Dumbledore even stated “following your family’s path doesn’t mean you have to be great, you’re quite a strong witch on your own y/n and I admire your courage and bravery for such a dangerous life path”.

I wasn’t exactly rich in fact I was rather poor, finding a job with my skill set wasn’t exactly easy. I thought about owning a dark artifacts shop, they often come off as popular, but I want to do more then just sit around and wait for someone to buy something. I wanted to help the wizarding world and defend students from evil people, I met Dumbledore a few years after Hogwarts.

I was sitting in Hogsmeade alone, I had no one to talk to nor even have anyone to pay attention to. An old man sat next to me and asked me “Why hello y/n, it’s been sometime old friend hasn’t it” the glint in his voice sounded familiar. “Professor Dumbledore, Merlin’s beard it’s been years since I’ve seen you, are you grabbing a butterbeer too?” I questioned, Holy jumping crickets I would never expect to find him here. “No dear y/n, I’m afraid that’s not why I came you see, your family has been known to be quite famous in the dark arts” Dumbledore smiled softly, “I’ve seen many talented witches and wizards for my time, but none have come close to you, would you like a job in Hogwarts”.

I nearly spat out my butterbeer, my eyes were full of confusion and yet happiness. Dumbledore softly laughed to himself as he saw my face with a moustache of butterbeer across my lips. “Yes sir, uh Professor Dumbledore sir” I was rather giddy inside, Sweet Dragon pop rocks I’m finally something I’ve wanted to be.

So that’s how I earned my title as a professor, most of my students were rather kind and giving. Well, the Slytherins think I’m Ridiculous, I’ve had quite a handful of comments from Malfoy and his gang although a teacher has a few tricks up her sleeve. I had quite a few fans mostly from the Gryffindors and Ravenclaws, I had met a very famous young wizard indeed, Harry potter. I don’t think I’ve ever met a brighter young wizard in my life, Granger and Weasley on the other hand were certainly a delight. Granger often got all the answers correct and performed her spells at an excellent rate, she is rather fun to talk to. Weasley is quite goofy although he is brave at heart.

The classes were exceptionally hard at times, I wanted to help the students learn something great. In my younger years of Hogwarts, I wanted to be like my father, a Defence against the dark arts professor, although my mind was already set on becoming an aurora for the wizarding world.

I must admit when I was working here, I had no idea Severus would be working here as well, he was a potions teacher and a wicked one at that. I have memories of the small boy sitting in the corner of the class not speaking to anyone. I never really caught up with him as I didn’t want to be a bother but from what Longbottom and potter tell me he seems heinous towards his students. Believe it or not that potions professor used to be the only one I loved; I couldn’t approach him not because I was nervous but there was already a girl he fell deeply infatuated with.

When I heard, he was aiming to become a death eater, I could not bear to see him, they were the people my mother was trying to save us from. Death eaters if your wondering are very terrible, terrible people that support the dark lord. They’ve murdered countless of lives and by merlin they’ve nearly killed me when I was a child. I was lucky enough to have my father there although, it cost his life. My mother fell with grief, and I swore to help students who’s been affected by those terrible wizards.

I had heard the terrible news; the girl Severus knew had passed away. I felt so bad that I could not bear to see him miserable, it was never me anyways, it was always her.

So, if you are wondering where I am right now, I am drinking my old soul away with butterbeer. Hogsmeade is a good place to get away from the stress of teaching. I gulped the last cup for the night, it was Christmas after all, and I often spent it with my mother although tonight it was not the best time. I was lonely, everyone outside had left to go back to their families.

I got up from the chair and bid the bartender goodnight, stepping outside into the freezing air was rather unpleasant. “You’re here” a dull voice spoke from behind “oh Ah! Severus merlin’s beard you scare me”. I couldn’t move, my face went redder as the snow blew “it’s been some time y/n” Severus’s expressions hadn’t even changed, he was still the same stone-cold man many students had feared. “Yeah I, I suppose it has been Sevy” I felt weird saying that but back then that’s what I nicknamed him. Severus grabbed my arm from beneath his cloak and helped me inside “Your freezing y/n, have you been really that stupid enough to forget to that heating potion”.

I couldn’t even think, my nose was running like a cold, wet, dripping tap. “Your absurd y/n, you would’ve ended up catching cold” Severus was rather worried in a weird way, he never really took care of me before. “Don’t pressure yourself Sevy I’m fine” I shivered, he placed me in front of the fireplace “your cold you stupid girl” he complained “but Sevy-”.

“Hush” he firmly ordered, “two butterbeers” he pulled out some knuts and galleons to pay for the drinks. I smiled softly to myself; it was the first time anyone had cared about my safety “Thanks Sevy”. Severus raised an eyebrow and drunk the butterbeer, even I couldn’t understand how he didn’t get a moustache from that. “I do hope your forgetful mind will remember to keep warm during the winter” he raised an eyebrow “S-So how’s classes been Sevy”. Perhaps it was just me but when I knew the man when he was younger, he was so shy he couldn’t speak to anyone and Merlin he was bullied.

I was the one to stand up for him even after the marauders had damaged or harmed him. “Do you remember when we went nearby the black lake and we would eat together” I remember the day like it was no other, the sun was shining, our skin felt the warmth rays touching our faces. I was laying down and he reached for my hand, for the first time I saw Severus smile.

“My Classes are imprudent and yet tolerable if the students behave” he drunk more of the butter beer further continuing on the question I had asked, he answered “Indeed, it seems long ago” he softly muttered. I felt warmer with him, it may have been the fire but the tips of my cheeks and nose were going somewhat red. I had no intention of muttering these very words out, but it seemed like he had moved on and it was an emotional scene. “Severus back at school, back when we were young, I had always admired you, you were the only boy to make my heart pound like a troll beating a rock”.

“I knew you had your own life and friends but to this day I couldn’t stop thinking about you” I was a bit tired and misty eyes, so I thought about the memories we shared. I blame my emotional behind for getting weepy. I was expecting Severus to call me a “dunderhead” or “foolish” but instead what I got was “You’re an exceptionally talented witch y/n, even if you’re a dunderhead at times” he softly admits.

I felt a sensation coming over me, leaning in towards his lips was an interesting experience. I pressed my soft lips against his, it wasn’t at all like snogging. This was my first kiss and when I parted the scent of old leather lingered, Severus stared at me with widened eyes. He stuttered “Y-you care for me after all this time” it was like the little boy he used to be was back.

“Always”.

Anyways that's all I have for now:

Ta Ta✨

Oneshot requests: open

#snape x reader #severus snape x reader #yound snape x reader #severus snape #harry potter x reader #harry potter request #harry potter oneshot #severus snape oneshot #harry potter fanfic #severus snape imagine #hp writing request #severus snape headcanon

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a-small-batch-of-dragons · 1 year

Text

Feathers to Fly

Prompt: if you ever felt like continuing Feathers for the Pillows, I'd love to see the knights finding out about Merlin's wings, maybe he finally tells them... and then everyone helping him take care of his wings and exercise them (maybe flying?) I love this story so much and reread it constantly! - anon

Read on Ao3

Warnings: none!

Pairings: merthur

Word Count: 2802

Be extremely careful what you promise the heirs of Camelot, Merlin has learned, for once you've given them your word, they will hunt you down to the ends of the earth to ensure you keep it.

That's how he feels at least when it's Arthur waking him up the next morning, insisting that they go and find out if Merlin can fly.

"Alright, alright, you great prat," Merlin grumbles as he drags himself upright, "I'm up. Now piss off."

"You never piss off in the mornings when I tell you, I don't see why I should piss off now."

"Maybe you'd have a bit more sympathy for me."

"Perhaps this will be the push you need to start showing me the proper respect in the morning."

Merlin snorts, flexing a wing and plucking a stray feather from the ground. "If I started showing you the 'proper respect,' you'd drag me to Gaius and insist something was wrong."

Arthur huffs and flicks Merlin's forehead but doesn't deny it. Smart. "Come on. Let's get some food in you."

"Why are you down here? You're the one that gets all the better food and I'm the one who has to go get it."

"Exactly. So get your lazy arse out of bed and fetch our breakfast."

Despite the arrogance and superiority oozing from his words, Arthur's hands are gentle and sure as he helps Merlin stand, motionless as Merlin re-orients himself on the floor and shakes his head a few times to clear it. His wings twitch, still not quite used to being seen so blatantly. Arthur notices—Arthur notices a lot of things, apparently—and rests a hand on his spine.

"Alright?"

"Yeah. Just give me a moment."

"Of course."

And just like that, there's no more teasing. No more roughness, no more brashness. Just Arthur, standing there, quiet as you please, letting Merlin get himself used to having someone here.

It's not as bad as he thought it would be.

"Okay," he says a few moments later, "clothes."

"Right."

Merlin stifles a noise at watching Arthur stare down the wardrobe like it's an oncoming army. "Tell you what, I'll get dressed and you can go get the food from the kitchens."

"Are you the prince now?"

"I'm the one who actually knows how to dress himself." He shoos Arthur out of the room and takes a deep breath.

Okay. Okay.

He's shown Arthur his wings. His wings that he knew about already. The wings that Arthur and Morgana and Gwen and Gaius all know about. His wings. The wings they want to see if he can fly with. The wings that he—

"Ah!"

"Merlin?" A few short footsteps later and Arthur's back, crouching down to hover around Merlin as he grabs for his shoulders.

"Sorry," Merlin gasps, "sorry, sorry."

"Don't apologize," Arthur scolds with far more concern than heat, "just let me help you. What's the matter? Do they hurt very much?"

"I molted not too long ago, they're still—" he stifles another noise— "they're still sore."

"Do you need to be carried?"

Merlin stares at him like he's grown two heads. "Who are you and what have you done with the world's biggest prat?"

Arthur cuffs him halfheartedly across the shoulder. "I'm serious, Merlin. Can you walk? Do we need to get Gaius in here so he can have a look at you? What's wrong?"

"Yeah, I'm serious too."

"What, don't think I'd care?"

"No!"

The instant the word leaves his lips, he wants to claw it back, especially when Arthur looks at him like he's just gutted a newborn pup right in front of him. He swallows, feeling the weight of Arthur's gaze and ducks away.

"…sorry."

"Oh, Merlin," Arthur's voice sighs, reaching out and carding his hand through his hair. "I don't blame you. I've not…I really messed things up, didn't I?"

"What?"

"By not telling you I knew. Or not acting on it in any meaningful way." The hand in his hair moves to tuck stray bits back from his face. "I…I didn't mean to."

Merlin takes a deep breath, slightly pushing into the touch. "I know."

"Come on," Arthur says in a much softer voice, reaching down to offer Merlin his hand, "hold on to me. I'll get you upstairs."

Standing up on its own is alright, and so is walking—once Merlin gets dressed properly, that is. Still, there is a certain kind of relief that fills him once they're out of the way of the castle halls and safely behind the doors to Arthur's chambers. Merlin lets out a long breath and his wings twitch, pulling slightly against the fabric of his tunic.

"You can let them out again if you want."

"I swear you just want to see me shirtless."

Arthur chuckles into his ear and Merlin startles. When did Arthur get that close?

"If that was all I wanted, you'd know it." And before Merlin can unpack that sentence anymore than he already is, Arthur turns to the table where the food has appeared. Has it been here the whole time? "I had another servant fetch it."

"Wait, when did you tell them to do that?"

Arthur gives him a strange look. "We passed Malwen not five minutes ago. You were standing right next to me. Did you not hear me?"

Merlin just gestures helplessly at his back. "The pain…"

Arthur sobers. "Right. Come here and sit, then, let's get food in your belly."

A strange thing, it is, to sit at the table he's served for so long and get to eat from it too. Arthur keeps eyeing his plate disapprovingly and putting more food on it.

"No wonder you're so skinny," he grumbles once when Merlin looks at him in shock after receiving two of his sausages, "just eat."

"I'm perfectly fine, actually."

"Oh, is that why I see you almost faint when you stand up too quickly on cold days?"

"Well…"

"Eat, Merlin," Arthur says, prodding him with the handle of his fork, "that's an order."

"Oh, it's an order, is it?"

But the smell of the food is intoxicating and Merlin can't exactly hide the way his mouth waters as he keeps eating. Arthur grumbles something that sounds like I told you so, but he can't quite hide the way he smiles when he thinks Merlin isn't looking.

Before they've even finished breakfast, there's a cursory knock on the door and in burst Morgana and Gwen, each looking more excited by the moment as they bustle into the room.

"So," Morgana says, throwing herself into the chair next to Merlin and ignoring Arthur's squawk of surprise, "are you excited to learn if you can fly?"

"Uh…"

"Let him eat, Morgana," Gwen says softly, even as she reaches out to ruffle Merlin's hair, "it's not every day you figure out if you can fly."

"Oh, no, please," Arthur says dryly as Morgana shrugs and helps herself to some of the food, "by all means, have what you want."

"Why, thank you. It seems your court manners are improving by the day."

"You poured your wine onto the last noble that visited, you can't talk."

"Only because he insinuated that I'd be of no use other than something to look at."

Gwen glances at Merlin and the two roll their eyes at the siblings as Merlin finishes his breakfast. No sooner has he pushed the plate away and drained the last of his goblet do all of them perk up eagerly. He scoffs. "You'd think I were coming to the kennels with a slice of meat."

"You're not a piece of meat, Merlin."

"You're a winged piece of meat. Hey!" Arthur swats at Morgana as she hits his arm. "Don't hit me!"

"Children," Gwen scolds, standing and helping Merlin clear away the dishes, "now, Merlin, is there somewhere you'd like to go?"

"Go?"

"To test your wings, of course."

"There's a large field about a league from here," Arthur says as he and Morgana stand up too, "it was supposed to be a farming field but the soil isn't quite ready yet. That should be big enough."

Another twinge in Merlin's back as the three of them begin planning. His wings shift about uncomfortably. Something coils and curdles in his stomach.

"Merlin?"

Arthur's voice comes from beside him again, his hand suddenly warm and solid on his back.

"Merlin," he asks gently, "are you alright? You don't look so good."

"I…" He swallows. "Sorry."

"Don't apologize," Morgana says, her attention turning to him as well, "is something wrong? Let us help."

"Why—why is this happening?"

"Why is what happening?"

"Why are you all being…so nice to me?" He fiddles with his hands as Arthur begins to rub soothing circles into his back. "This—this doesn't happen. You don't do this. Not—not like this."

"Do what, Merlin," Arthur says softly, "take care of you?"

"You're not taking care of me," Merlin spits, irritation sharpening his tongue, "you're talking about me like I'm some—some—some exotic beast brought in to be a spectacle. Like I'm some thing that you want to see perform."

"Oh, Merlin, I'm sorry," Gwen says, reahcing out for his hands. He takes hers and squeezes. "I didn't—I didn't mean for it to come off that way."

"No, neither did I." Morgana comes closer too. "I just wanted you to see that it wasn't bad. That you didn't feel like you had to hide it from us. That we accept you for what you are, you don't have to shave bits and pieces off so we'll tolerate you."

"You're my Merlin," Arthur agrees, an arm wrapping gently around his waist, "wings or no wings."

Merlin turns and buries his head in Arthur's shoulder, taking a shaky breath. His wings twitch and he winces, feathers hooking into the fabric of his tunic and pulling until it groans. Arthur makes a noise and reaches for the hem, carefully freeing it from the worst of the hangups and smoothing it down without touching the wings.

"You don't have to try flying if you don't want," he says, "but let's at least get you somewhere you can stretch, okay?"

"Okay."

"It's settled, then. Off we go."

Merlin stays close by Arthur's side as the women lead the way, chattering on about picnics and food and baskets. Arthur keeps a hand out for Merlin to take if he needs to, wary of how close others get so as not to accidentally brush against Merlin's back. They manage to get all the way down to the staircase outside the kitchens before they suddenly run into the knights.

"Sire," Leon says, taking in the four of them, "My Lady. Where are you rushing off to this morning?"

"A picnic," Morgana says, "the weather is simply perfect for it."

Out of the corner of his eye, Merlin sees Lancelot staring at him. He looks over and nods once. Lancelot smiles and steps a tad closer.

"Would you be terribly opposed," he asks in a voice meant only for him, "if you were to travel with an escort?"

"A-all of you?"

"Only if you want."

Leon, through whatever magic he has to always be perfectly observant of everything that goes on, turns to look at him. "It would be terribly remiss of us to allow the heirs of Camelot to leave the safety of the city without proper protection. Not that they could not protect themselves, of course."

"Good save, mate," Elyan mutters as Morgana raises an eyebrow.

"U-um—" Merlin glances around— "sure."

"Excellent!" Gwaine claps his hands. "I've been craving a good sandwich."

"You literally had one last night."

"Yes, and I woke up craving it again."

By the time they actually set out from Camelot, it's a proper caravan. All the knights are mounted in their signature red cloaks, Gwen and Morgana ride in the center with Gwaine and Percival behind them, Lancelot and Elyan either side. Arthur is in front, as always, with Merlin by his side, Leon just behind. The soft and sweet smell of a forest after rain follows them as they trek underneath the trees to a wide open field.

"Shall we eat first?" Gwaine takes the reins from Morgana. "I'm starving."

"You're always starving."

"Nothing wrong with putting food in a grown man's belly."

Gwen rolls her eyes fondly and helps Merlin set up the picnic as the knights tend to the horses. Soon enough everyone's sat under the sprawling canopy of a large tree, talking about everything and nothing at all.

It's…nice.

But soon enough, Gwaine tosses aside an apple core and stretches, leaning back on his hands. "So, why'd you actually want to come out here?"

Merlin chokes on his water. "Well…"

He looks up to see expectant eyes on him.

"…so I could stretch."

"Stretch?" Percival tilts his head. "Stretch what?"

"My—my wings."

Silence.

Then Gwaine smacks Percival's shoulder. "I knew it! Pay up!"

"Wait, wait, you—you what?"

Percival grumbles as he hands over two coins. "I thought it'd just be the magic, okay?"

"Magic that leaves feathers lying everywhere?"

"Merlin," Lancelot says softly when poor Merlin looks terrified that all of these people somehow figured out that he has wings, what is he going to do? "Merlin, it's alright. We only had hunches, nothing firm."

"Your secret is safe with us," Leon agrees, reaching out to rest a hand on his shoulder, "I swear it."

Gwaine snorts. "Yeah, don't think anyone's going to be a big enough idiot to try and mess with you."

Merlin can't help but scoff at that, only to see deadly serious looks on each and every face. Suddenly a few sudden ends to visits from nearby nobles make a little more sense. "You…don't care?"

"What, that you've got wings? No, not particularly."

"Nah."

"You're you, Merlin, weird comes with it."

"You are still the same man I've grown to trust."

Leon simply shakes his head.

"…oh."

"Go on, then," Morgana encourages, "stretch if you need to."

Merlin takes a deep breath and the air thrums with energy. Slowly, carefully he reaches back and pulls the outer tunic over his head and his wings unfurl, soft motes of golden light emerging too as the air ripples around them. A few stray feathers drift down to the ground.

"Blimey," Gwaine mumbles, "that's brilliant."

"They're stunning," Elyan agrees, "really stunning, Merlin."

Percival silently hands another coin to Gwaine.

"Magnificent," Lancelot says.

"There you are," Leon hums, smiling as Merlin grins sheepishly at him, "I was wondering where you'd sent your magic off to."

"Wait, can you fly?"

"Gwaine!"

"What? The man has wings, I'm not allowed to ask if he can fly?"

"I don't know if I can fly," Merlin says before they can devolve into another argument, "I've—I've never tried."

"Well, what are you waiting for?"

What, indeed.

Filled with a burst of energy, Merlin stands and walks a few paces away from the blanket. Muffled whispers and shushing sounds come from behind him as he's sure everyone jockeys for a better view. It's surprisingly endearing.

He closes his eyes and takes a deep breath.

Magic swirls around him, the tips of his fingers beginning to tingle. He opens his hands slowly, letting it pool in the center of his palms and swirl out again, back up his arms, to his shoulders, down into the wings. They twitch and turn, flaring out in the warm sun.

He flaps them once, twice.

The magic thrums and he opens his eyes, looking up at the sky.

When he was little, a bird fell from the sky and taught him what it was like to look up.

Now, standing in a field with his wings bared for all to see, he takes a step and launches himself upward.

Gwaine hollers as his wings beat against the wind, carrying him higher, higher, higher into the bright blue sky. He stretches out his arms to feel the air rushing against them, wings brushing the top of his skin as he swirls and dives, his magic telling him when he needs to pull up, when to tuck and roll, when to spread his wings and just feel.

He can tell he's smiling by the ache in his cheeks but he can't bring himself to care.

Every little child has dreams of flying at least once. This is so much better than anything he could've imagined.

#dragonbabbles #fic #merlin #bbc merlin #merlin bbc

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