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fific7 · 3 years

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Dangerous and Divine - Part 3

Billy Russo x Reader

Summary: Billy Russo is an itch you don’t want to scratch. But he’s all over you like a rash.

A/N: This does not follow canon, it’s mainly lemon zest 🍋 The GIF is from Exposed, unreleased pilot show in case you’re wondering 😌... Billy vibes.

Warnings: 18+ NSFW due to sexual content including oral sex, between consenting adults. Some drinking & swearing.

(My GIF)

“Nothing to see here,” you muttered and scooted across the café as quickly as you could, heading for the sanctuary of your office.

Closing the door firmly behind you and heading straight to your fancy CEO swivel chair, you sat down and shakily placed your hands flat on the desk. You took some deep breaths. That stupid big idiot and his BDE! How dare he kiss you like that in front of everyone.

And even worse, leaving you all hot and flustered like some kid who’s never been kissed before! Let’s be honest, that’s what was really getting to you... he hadn’t actually bent you over the counter and fucked you, but by your reaction he might as well have.

How ridiculous, you told yourself sternly, get a grip! You put your forehead on the desk’s cool surface. They’d all been staring at you, and you could feel your face heating up again at the thought of them watching Billy kiss you really quite passionately. And you melting like a complete fool in the process.

After a couple of hours hiding out in your office, you knew you’d have to face the music sooner or later and made your way back down to the café. The regulars, you saw, had gone by now so that was something but by the mischievous looks on your co-workers’ faces, you knew you were in for some serious teasing.

You made your way over to one of the two monster Gaggia coffee machines in the café and started making yourself a cappuccino. “Anyone want one?” you asked over your shoulder. Jake said he’d have one too, but the other two passed. You could just feel their curiosity crackling through the air like electricity. They were of course fully aware of the Ex and that whole daytime soap plot, but were just about losing their shit as they didn’t know anything about this hot dude, who’d walked in to the café and kissed you like he knew you extremely well.

You handed Jake his coffee and helped yourself to a danish cinnamon pastry - yeah, eating the profits again - munching into it and then pointing at your staff members with it. “Okay, guys. Here it is. In its entirety. I went to little cousin’s cocktail party last night as you know, and met the guy who was in here earlier. We left the party, went for a couple of drinks elsewhere, he drove me home, I got out of his car and he drove away. Like, immediately I got out.”

You really didn’t feel the need to mention the kiss he’d stolen before you got out of his car.

Gabrielle’s mouth fell open, “You met him last night???” The implication being that A) how was that possible and B) where did that kiss come from if you hadn’t slept with him? You sighed, taking another bite of pastry. “Yes! And as I’ve just told you,” you looked around to make sure there weren’t any customers in earshot, “he did not stay the night, okay? He didn’t even get out of his car.”

“It’s just that it looked a bit ...” Steve trailed off nervously. “Well...umm... friendly... for someone you’ve only just met,” finished Jake. You nodded. “I’m aware of that. What you saw there was the Billy Russo Show, done purely to embarrass me. He’s a cocky big shit. And trying to get me to go out with him.” “Are you going to?” asked Gabrielle. “Oh, hell yes! Wouldn’t you?” Jake almost got whiplash, he nodded so emphatically, “Yes. Yes, I would.” You all had a good laugh at that.

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There were only 2 days to go until Friday, and you found yourself panicking. What to wear, what to wear? OK, after mentally reviewing your wardrobe you decided that a shopping trip was in order.

Hanging up your new purchase in the wardrobe, you felt pleased with your choice. Nothing too flashy - you weren’t sure of the venue, so went with smart/casual - a sleek navy number, wraparound style, mid-thigh length and showing only a hint of cleavage. Less is more right?

Teamed with a pair of metallic navy heels, it would be fine. You hoped. What if he was taking you somewhere really low-key? Oh well, you shrugged, if you ended up looking a bit like Cinders at the ball in some local pizzeria, so be it.

Jake and the others were still buzzing about your upcoming date, in fact you’d eventually asked them if they wanted to come along too. They’d at least had the decency to look guilty, but only a little. You were sure that if they found out where you two were headed, they’d follow you. You decided you’d better check for shadowy figures tailing you on Friday night.

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8pm on the dot, the buzzer sounded in your apartment, Billy’s voice announcing that he was downstairs. You were not quite ready, still had a couple of tweaks to make so buzzed him up. He strolled in as you opened the door, leaning in for a kiss to which you turned your head, so it landed on your cheek. “Lipstick!” you trilled, moving back towards the bathroom. “I won’t be long, have a seat. You’re looking good, Russo, by the way.” “Thanks,” you heard his voice from the other room, “and you’re looking absolutely gorgeous, sweetheart.”

You’d felt happier when you saw that he was also smart/casual.... what looked like a cashmere burgundy sweater over black jeans, with a leather jacket. He looked edible.

When you emerged back into the living room five minutes later - a veritable vision in navy, you mockingly smirked to yourself - Billy Russo was nowhere in sight. You stopped in your tracks, and then heard a drawer opening in your bedroom. You walked through to it, just in time to see Billy picking up a pair of your lacy silk panties out of your underwear drawer.

“Russo!” you yelled, “put those back, you perv!” He slid the smooth fabric between his long fingers, grinning devilishly at you. “Mmmmm, are you wearin’ something similar right now?” Before you could stop yourself, you bit back, “Who says I’m wearing any at all?” His eyes widened, a big grin appearing on his face. “Oh, really? Wanna prove it?” “No!” you replied, knowing your face was scarlet, “just forget I said that. I’m joking with you.” He shook his head, “Yeah, like I’m goin’ to get that image out of my head anytime soon.”

“Let’s go, Billy,” you said, walking to the front door and pulling on your own leather jacket. “Hey, we’re matching,” he laughed, pointing between your jacket and his, “ain’t that sweet!” “It’s creepy, actually. Matching clothes? Vomit-inducing.” He laughed, “You’re funny.” “No, I’m just not some soppy sappy woman who’s going to fall at your feet, Russo.” He took your hand as you closed and locked your front door, and the two of you headed for the stairs.

“Yeah, I’d kinda got that vibe already,” he grinned at you, “but it doesn’t matter, I know I’m gonna get you in the end.” “Just keep on telling yourself that,” you snarked back.

Looking at the back of his head as he walked down the stairs in front of you, you really wanted to run your fingers through that hair but managed to keep your hands to yourself.

Fastening your seat belt, back in the gleaming Wraith, you watched Billy’s fingers as he fastened his and then placed his hands on the steering wheel. You mentally shook yourself, you were beginning to fantasise about different parts of his body and you’d better snap out of it, you told yourself.

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He took you to a really nice Italian restaurant, not too posh, just nice and relaxed with friendly staff and really good food. The conversation from the night in the bar was picked up where it left off, each of you adding more and varied information. You learned that Frank had sadly lost his wife and kids when they innocently got caught up in a savage gang war gun battle. Billy told you that his friend had gone off the rails for a while, but had recently met a lovely lady called Karen and they’d started dating. He was really pleased for him, as he’d been so worried about him for a while. You thought you’d quite like to meet Frank sometime.

You told him something more of your life, thankfully not involving assault and cheating ex-boyfriends this time. He’d been fascinated and truly appreciative of the struggle you’d had to get your business off the ground, saying that he’d been lucky in having a major investor lined up before he’d even left the Marines.

You saw a dark look flit over his face for a moment, but then it cleared and he went on to ask you more questions about your business. You’d both chatted easily together until it was almost midnight, and you’d become “that couple” who were the last ones in the restaurant. You realised that, when he dropped the ‘Billy Big Dick’ nonsense, you really enjoyed his company and felt that you two had clicked even more this evening.

He drove away from the restaurant, and it took you a few minutes to notice that he wasn’t driving the route to your apartment. “Billy,” you sighed, “are we heading to your place by any chance?” That damn smirk was back on his face. “Yeah,” he said, “I’ve seen yours, so now you can see mine.” ”Oh, ha bloody ha. I’m not sleeping with you, you know.” A grin appeared on his lips as you glanced across at his profile, illuminated by each passing streetlight. “Just keep on tellin’ yourself that, sweetheart,” he replied mockingly. You laughed out loud, “You cheeky big bastard.”

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His apartment was everything you would’ve expected - open plan, with modern, sleek furnishings and decor in dark masculine colours. You settled yourself onto the large sofa, and he headed to the kitchen area; a moment later, you heard wine being poured then his tall figure reappeared, holding the two wine glasses. He handed one to you, and you took a sip - it was very good wine. “So, Billy... I’m guessing your li’l batchelor pad here sees quite a lot of action, and not the type you saw in the Marines, huh?”

That smirk. He sat down next to you, hand going to rest on your shoulder and playing with a strand of your hair. His expression became serious, “No. I don’t bring women back here.”

You scoffed, “Oh come on, Billy... you’re...” then you stopped, looking away from him. “I’m what?” You shook your head. “C’mon, what were you going to say?” “Never mind. Well, if you don’t bring them here, let me guess... you go to their place and disappear before the morning light?” He shifted uncomfortably on the sofa, breaking eye contact with you. “Okay... that, I can’t deny. How did you guess? And what were you going to say before?”

Oh to hell with it, you thought.

“I was going to say... you’re hot, Billy. So obviously - unless you’ve got a problem down there and need some little blue pills...” his eyebrows rose, his mouth dropping open slightly before he started grinning, “...you won’t be a saint and you’re more than likely a player.”

He leaned in towards you, eyes staring deep into yours, “Firstly, I have no problems with my equipment in any way shape or form,” ....smirk... “it’s in perfect workin’ order. And I’d be more than happy to prove that to you.” His lips met yours in a kiss, quickly growing heated. He pulled away, making eye contact again, “And you’re right, I’m no saint. A player? Yeah, maybe. But I can be a saint for you, if you want me to be.”

“But that wouldn’t be the real Billy Russo, would it?” His eyes were still on you. You carried on, “Look, I’ll level with you. I like you - when you’re not wearing your BDE persona. It’s a total clichè, but I really don’t intend to be just another notch on your no-doubt designer bedframe.”

He smiled at you, “I get it, I really do.” He trailed a finger along your cheekbone, “I wouldn’t be tryin’ to be someone I’m not. I just meant that I like you too, and I feel comfortable dropping the persona with you.” You smiled back. “OK, but Billy?” “Yeah?” “I’m still not sleeping with you.”

Laughing, “Oh, yeah?” pulling you against his chest, a hand going to your cheek as he kissed you long and hard. Breaking away, hand on his chest, you whispered, “Yeah...”

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Billy was poised above you, looking down at you as if you were something he wanted to devour. Your clothes had joined his on the bedroom floor a little while ago; you were both lying on his very large bed, and yes it was designer-made - you’d asked him.

He gently pushed aside a strand of your hair, before kissing your lips. His mouth then made its way slowly but surely down to your neck and collarbone, and you felt little nips on your skin before his tongue licked your skin slowly. He moved slightly lower and sucked your nipples while his hands were busy massaging your breasts. Your hands moved to his broad shoulders, pulling him down further so you could feel more of his skin against yours.

You heard a chuckle, “So yeah, I guess you really aren’t gonna sleep with me after all, huh?” You shifted out slightly from under his body, “Shut up Billy, and put this to good use,” letting your fingers trail down to his hard length. You slid your fingers around it and gave his tip a firm squeeze. His breath hissed between his lips, and those big hands pulled you back underneath him. “Don’t worry, I was gonna.” You smirked, “I confess I was impressed when I saw what you were packing,” another squeeze, another hiss, his mouth on your neck, “but actions speak louder than words.”

He laughed, “Be careful what you wish for, sweetheart.” Deciding to head for the mother lode, you gave him one last squeeze, firmer than before, sniggering as his hips shot forward. “Same to you,” you said, before sliding your hands into his silky hair at last. Running your fingers right back through it, you sighed out loud and grabbed a handful with each of yours, and tugged. “I see you like my hair,” he smirked.

You leant forward and kissed him, hard. He groaned, kissing you back even harder. Then your hands ran over the muscles of his chest, down the trail of hairs on his lower stomach, before grabbing his cock and wrapping your fingers round it. He growled, “And what ya gonna do with that, sweetheart?” You began stroking him firmly, “This.... until you decide to get off your ass and do something.”

He laughed out loud, and suddenly his hand was between your legs, his thumb on your clit, rubbing hard. His lips at your ear, whispering, “Something like this?” and you felt a long finger plunging into you, swiftly joined by a second one. He began sliding them in and out, curling them, and it had an instant effect on you, your breath hitching. “Billy,” you sighed, your hand stilling momentarily on his length. You heard his low chuckle, and he increased his pace. Okay smartass, you thought, and gave his tip a very firm squeeze. “Aahhh!” you heard, and gave him another one for good measure. “You minx,” he laughed, then picked up pace with his fingers again. Then they were gone from you, and you saw him moving his head downwards, hands moving to your hips, his tongue replacing his fingers. He was lapping at you, his thumb back on your clit, and now you really were in trouble.

You grabbed his shoulders, digging your nails in, beginning to writhe on the bed, and then his fingers were back, sliding in next to his tongue. The combination of thumb, tongue and fingers was like an incendiary bomb going off in your core, and you could feel your climax building by the second. His pace increased and that was it, the explosion happened and you now grabbed his head like a vice, keeping him where he was as the aftershocks of your orgasm washed over you in waves. Very pleasurable waves. Finally, you released his head and you saw his dark eyes meet yours, a satisfied glint in them. “That was only number one, angel,” he grinned, “fasten your seat belt.” “Cocky bastard. And I’m an angel now, am I?” He moved up and back over you, hands sliding up your body.

“For sure,” kissing your neck, nipping the skin lightly with his teeth. “And I’m so lucky, havin’ one in my bed.” He sat up, opening a drawer in his bedside table, scrabbling around until he produced a condom, unwrapping it and holding your gaze as he rolled it on.

His hands moved to your breasts, palming them then circling his thumbs over your nipples as they peaked once again. You grabbed that hair of his again, little gasps making their way between your lips. Your feet were flat on the mattress, knees either side of his thighs and you felt his hand moving down, then the head of his cock was between your legs, edging its way in. Billy thrust right inside you, and there were loud groans from you both as he sunk in. “Mmmm...” he kissed you, tongue diving into your mouth, then he pulled away, gazing at you, “you don’t know just how good you feel around me.” You shifted a bit, rolling your hips to his, “About as good as you feel inside me.”

A low growl, then he was moving on you, fast right from the get-go, his thrusts forcing a moan from you on each stroke. Your legs moved - seemingly of their own accord - around his hips, and this new angle obviously pleased both of you, as the noises the two of you made got even louder. You felt him deep inside you, and every time you squeezed and held him there, he actually whimpered.

“Good puppy!” you managed to gasp out, hearing an answering snort of laughter from him. “I am not...” he gasped back at you between thrusts, “...a fuckin’ puppydog, sweetheart.” “But Billy, you’ve got those big brown eyes ...” your own eyes closed at a particularly forceful thrust, “...and you are fucking me, so...”

His only answer this time was to pull one of your legs higher onto his back, thrusting deep as he did, and then his hand cupped your breast and massaged it hard. That shut you up.

His fingers were at your inflamed core again and then he was rubbing at your clit, making your back arch with sheer pleasure. He was switching between kissing you hungrily and nipping and sucking love bites onto your collarbone. Thank god he wasn’t targeting your neck, you thought, that would look so professional at work. You, meanwhile, were over-indulging in your obsession with his hair, running it back off his forehead with your fingers and tugging on it to your heart’s content.

Finally your over-pleasured body couldn’t take any more, and your climax hit you like a truck. Your nails dug into his muscled shoulders, grabbing him in a death grip and a small scream of “Billy!” exited your open mouth. You felt him give a few sharp thrusts, realising that he was about to come; you heard your name, then a long groan and he released his warm seed into you. He sunk down onto you, kissing you softly but with passion, long fingers laying gently along your jaw and neck as he did so.

“Angel....” he sighed.

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@blackbirddaredevil23

#ben barnes #billy russo #billy russo x reader #billy russo imagine #billy russo fanfiction

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ahsokasanity · 3 years

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Chapter Eight

A Court of Shadow and Ribbons Missed any Chapters? Go to the pinned post

Notes:

– With credit to song words (only slightly messed with) Melissa Etheridge “Do It Again”

Nessian mating ceremony.

Idisi comes from Nordic mythology around the Valkyries – ours didn’t want to be a replica of the original female warriors, but something new and their own.

Apologies if you’re fitting this in during lunch break (@TrashForAzriel !) It’s a bit longer than normal

Nesta was not nervous on the day. She was already so entwined emotionally with Cassian that it actually seemed a natural progression to confess it in front of a few important friends and family. Some of the training group would be at the service, some could not make the step from the House of Wind to Velaris proper. They had tentatively begun to call themselves Idisi – the name itself made them more a part of the Valkyrie mythology, Nesta grinned to herself as she remembered Gwyn coming to them with the idea “Well, we can’t just keep calling ourselves the training group or Cassian’s defenders.” Although Nesta quite liked the second.

Nesta had stayed at The River House overnight and Cassian, Azriel and Rhys were to fly as many from the library as they could. Mor was going to Windhaven to collect Emerie who would stay the night in Velaris. All of them might end up out on the town. Nesta was wishing for, and dreading that night as the first she would take as Cassian’s mate and the first time she would return to the nightclubs and drinking bars that she had frequented before her recovery. With Cassian by her side, she knew it would be a fun night. The House of Wind had been entitled to them and tonight she would host her friends. The House had promised to care for them all if Nesta was occupied once they got home.

Gwyn had agreed to sing but she was nervous about leaving the library. The last time she did was to support Nesta and they had ended up abducted. She knew the circumstances were entirely different and the River House was so very safe, but it did not stop the butterflies swarming in her gut or the slight vibrato when she did try to speak at breakfast. She’d put on her best prayers robe. It was a pale blue and pleated around the neck to be fastened at the waist with a gold thin rope. He feet were shod in thick leather slippers that would protect her while travelling and walking in the garden.

There were just five of them to attend from the priestesses and being that Azriel and Rhys could winnow, they took Margot, Lorelei, Deirdre and Roslin. Cassian was grinning at Gwyn. “I think that the first Idisi to cut the ribbon with her sword should have no problem getting a ride to MY mating ceremony with her best friend’s mate?”

Gwyn laughed a nervous laugh and pursed her lips. “No, you wouldn’t think so would you” She stepped toward him and stood at his side, offering her arm for him to take. Cassian wrapped one arm around her waist and took her forearm with his other hand. “I’ll hold you and I promise I will not let you fall”

She nodded but closed her eyes. The hand around her hip was firm not punishing and his other hand was gentle on her arm. She told herself over and over. It’s OK, this is Cassian, it’s OK”

“No harm will come to you” Cassian had sensed her thoughts and she tried to look up at him, to give permission for this flight. He grinned down at her

“Don’t have too much fun will you” and launched off the training area into the bright summer sky. Gwyn screeched, not in a scared way she surprised herself, but with exhilaration. Cassian merely flapped harder to get into the slip stream heading up the face of the cliff from the city. As they got into that rising warm air he extended his wings to their widest (Gwyn remembered something that Nesta had told her that night in the library of the House of Wind, about Illyrians wing spans), but she shut down that thought as they began spiralling down, down, so smooth, so free.

The feeling was immense. She had shut herself out of this world for years now and could suddenly see what she might be missing. Yes, High Fae, Illyrians and half breeds like her, could all be cruel to each other. There was also this, flying (she was flying for the Mother’s sake) and heading to a celebration of love of togetherness and she loved her friends. She felt wonderful and alive and impatient to enjoy more.

The garden and lawn of the River House (it should be called the River Palace she thought), looked picture perfect today. Elain had worked hard on getting the flowers to bloom, in the right colour order to suit where Nesta would stand. Rhys had spared no expense in the set up of a pavilion and chairs, with a spread of food for all, once Cassian and Nesta had officially Mated.

Cassian could sense her excitement and a change in her scent from flat out petrified to wonder and a happy nervousness. One more thing that he could do to make her comfortable was to set her down where Mor and Emerie were talking at the outskirts of the party.

“Thank you Cassian” Gwyn stood on her tip toes to peck him on the cheek. “I did not know that it would be like that, so free. I can’t really explain it”

Cassian merely shrugged and replied “You don’t have to. I am glad that you are here, and that Nesta doesn’t have to attempt murder because I scared her friend!” He winked and headed off to Rhys and Azriel who were clucking over baby Nyx.

“Gwynie, oh wow, you are so lucky. How was the flight? It looked so glorious today and you took the slow way down. Oh, I am so jealous” Emerie was at her side and Mor a step behind.

“It’s nice to see you Gwyn” Mor intoned. There was more to that statement than your average greeting. It’s nice to see Gwyn in Velaris, it’s nice to see Gwyn outside the protection of the library. The first time that Mor had met Gwyn, she had just been repeatedly raped and her world was imploding. Mor here, in the sun on this grassy expanse of the river flat was a beautiful sight. Her words were a balm and Gwyn just nodded.

“It is so nice to see you again” she replied, again meaning a lot more than pure greeting.

Emerie took Gwyn’s arm but steered her close to Mor as they seemed to be in the middle of something “Just stay here until you have to sing will you Gwyn?” her friend insisted “I’ll get you a drink and we can applaud from here!”

Mor laughed at that and the two of them returned to talk of fabrics and colours and what Emerie sold in her shop and what Mor wanted to show her from Vallahan that was “like a second skin that shows every curve and highlights every asset” Whatever that meant. Emerie was immersed in the conversation and brought Gwyn in on it every now and then to suggest a colour for her or to ask her opinion. Gwyn was happily edging the topics as she was having more fun watching the others, Cassian being teased by his “brothers”, Feyre taking Nyx away from them before Rhys threw the boy high enough he’d have to learn to fly to get back, and Elain talking with some others whom Gwyn did not recognise. An auburn haired Fae with a mechanical eye. One of the sons of the Autumn Court by the looks. She remembered that Nesta did not like him much but that Feyre and he were on good terms. Elain seemed very quiet. Gwyn understood her shyness.

Emerie whispered to Gwyn “The red headed male is Lucien, Elain’s mate” she just nodded her head and looked their way. There was no explanation necessary, the relationship apparent. That mating was not the happy affair that Nesta and Cassian were celebrating. Elain looked a little more alive when Azriel joined their group, but Az stayed by Lucien’s side and spoke politely to all before moving to seat people around the central point of the yard, an altar and a table.

Gwyn was not at all present, she realised. The small tension of singing while Cassian and Nesta would be preparing and eating food together had been overtaken by the large stressor of being surrounded by people that she did not know. She found a place backing on to a heavily thorned rose bush bursting with red flowers. She felt better having her back protected. Little tremors shot up her spine and across her skin every few minutes and she held one hand in the other so that she could hold herself still. Deep breathing was the only thought that she had, her singing voice would not appreciate having no wind. Emerie touched her arm every now and then, but she was engrossed in the service and in leaning in to Mor’s side to whisper comments.

Gwyn found Emerie leading her toward the centre of the gathering and realised that she had better be ready to perform. A few strong breaths down into her stomach and she found her place, Nesta smiled through some tears as she moved aside to the table with food, Cassian so pleased, the look on his face many of them had never seen before.

Gwyn tried to look over the small crowd, but her gaze snagged on the darkness in one corner. Azriel. He gave her an encouraging nod and she was able to start

The song had originally been a nightclub hit, Nesta had played it for her on the Synphonia. Gwyn had tweaked it a little bit to be more soulful. More like a prayer.

Walked your fire I got a little bit burnt

Hold on tight cause I, I never did learn

You were the one they tried to warn me about

I jumped into your ocean knowing I could never get out

Oh darling it hurts, hurts to be in love

Oh darling it hurts but I do it just because

I walk straight through your mountain

Crawl right under your sea

And if you do not know it by now

You're the only one who does this to me

But I’d do it again

Yes I'd do it again

Even when I'm tired and my feelings are hurt

Never lost desire only made things worse

I hope I'm holding out for something good

Cause we're that combination yeah we're the kind that could

Oh darling it hurts, hurts to be in love

Oh darling it hurts but I do it just because

I walk straight through your mountain

Crawl right under your sea

And if you don't know, know it by now

You're the only one who does this to me

But I'd do it again

She looked up to see Cassian kissing Nesta passionately and smiled to herself. Only to become more self aware as people started to approach her with congratulations and it was hell.

Emerie was making her way to help, with Mor at her side, but Azriel and his shadows dispersed the few gushing admirers with excuses and subtle manoeuvring to suddenly be next to her. He lightly took her arm and guided her into the house and to the summer parlour by the kitchen. He sat her down on the nearest armchair and stepped back toward the door. “Wait Azriel, please” She was surprised to hear her own voice in such a clear request.

Azriel simply turned and stopped. He did not want to be closer to this woman than he already was. She was so beautiful and her singing always seemed to open a door to his emotions. He could not hear her without remembering old forgotten feelings of being held by his mother, of being full, not the furtive being that he had become. It was undoing his resolve, his very footing on the earth.

Gwyn composed herself and looked straight at Az. “Thank you for helping me out of that situation. I didn’t want to be with so many people, but I don’t want to be alone either.”

It took three steps for Azriel to be seated next to her and looking around the room, not at her. He looked at her all of the time. He couldn’t do it now. His chest was thundering. Do not ruin this Az, he thought savagely. This woman has been through hell. Do not overstep

“I have to tell you something Gwyn” he knew once he started he would have to finish this. “I have noticed you wearing a chain at training…”

“Oh well, it’s OK if I shouldn’t wear it, it’s nothing much”

Az swallowed his next words and re-thought where he was going with this. “Really, it’s nothing much?”

Gwyn blushed a little. “Well, I do really like it but it was an anonymous gift and I probably will never know who gave it to me, it shouldn’t be important to me”

Azriel decided then to struggle on. This could not stand. “It was me”

The room was silent. Gwyn’s face went through about fifteen expressions while he watched and waited. She looked sad then like she would yell at him, then pensive, finally she looked at him and spoke. “Why?”

“You are not going to like this, but I am going to tell you the absolute truth. That is all I can promise you” Azriel got out of the chair and started to walk this way and that about the room.

“I bought the jewel and the chain for Elain before Winter Solstice, I know that sounds bad, but please listen” Gwyn was discomforted but not scared. Azriel having feelings for her would be more scary.

“Rhys made me understand that any relationship outside of her being a sister to me was off the table. So Elain and I talked and she is my sister now. She will be making changes and I will support her decisions, but we will not be together”

Gwyn was struck dumb as to how she would feature in this story. How she became a part of this story.

Azriel could tell he was losing her. “After that night when you were training in the dark” She did smile at that “I wanted to give you something that was just appreciative of you”

“Do you think that Elain will see this and be upset?” Gwyn took the rose out of her top and it caught the sun. Azriel held himself together at the sight of Gwyn seated before him, rose between the thumb and forefinger and an absolute innocent look on her face.

“I, well, I hadn’t thought of that” he shifted to the far wall of the room and looked out over the gathering and smiled at his brother being fed bread by Nesta and laughing with less worry than he had even seen. He didn’t notice Gwyn had got up from her chair and approached him. When he turned back to her she was under his nose and he stepped back hurriedly

She had never felt threatened by Azriel, never nervous in his presence, but his closeness, his casual demeanour. He was not her trainer today. She held out the chain with the rose dangling and handed it to him.

“I think that it was a lovely gesture Azriel”, she liked the sound of his name and wanted to say it more, to moan it. “But, I think that you should take it back. Keep it until you can tell Elain that you found someone that you really want to see wearing it forever.” Azriel held out his hand and accepted the chain, quickly pocketing it with shame written across his downturned face at her words.

“Thank you, for thinking of Elain Gwyn. Five hundred years is not enough time apparently to turn me into a thoughtful male”

Gwyn could not bear the tone of his voice or the hunch of his shoulders. This was not Azriel on the back foot, this was him retreating. She knew the feeling. The self-loathing, the depression. It was not something that she wanted for him.

“Don’t say that. Don’t think that you are not every bit as noble as the best males in Velaris. You are thoughtful and you are kind. Think of all of our friends, our Idisi who are starting to feel, whole again.” She touched his cheek with a shaking hand “Think of me Azriel. I would be dead, and without the training I would be close enough to dead that there is little difference”

His eyes found hers but she stepped back away from him, hand still in the air between them.

“Azriel, would you walk with me in the garden?” She raised her elbow for him to take it, prayed that he would take it. He hesitated only a moment before sliding his arm through hers and they left the parlour then the house.

The party was getting properly started now, Cassian and Nesta had left, but that was no big deal, they would resurface later in the evening and it was the guest’s responsibility to eat, drink and enjoy themselves. It was being accomplished. Mor and Emerie were talking, heads close together by the edge of the crowd. Gwyn saw Elain speaking with Lucien in the company of Feyre and Nyx. That baby certainly garnered attention. Some of the priestess’ saw Gwyn with Azriel and waved them over.

They spoke for a little while, but the overall impression was that they were generally ready to leave. Lorelei and Deirdre had enjoyed perhaps a smidge too much strawberry wine and were giggly enough for the others to worry about their choices over the next few hours. The others had felt pleased and proud to be at the ceremony, but the ongoing music, drinking and laughing was not what they wanted for their first trip out from the library in an age. Azriel went to speak to Rhys, leaving Gwyn with the others with a smile and a nod that he would arrange transport for them.

Emerie found them and spoke to Gwyn “I think I’m going to stay here”, she nodded to Mor. “She has invited me to go out to Velaris to a night Club! I think I’m going to like it. Mor said she’d take me to the House of Wind to the guest suite whenever I wanted to leave.” Emerie’s cheek flushed as she said “I can’t believe she’s here talking to me,…. I really like her” the last quietly and aimed only for Gwyn

“That’s great Em, you seem comfortable today, you look; yourself” Gwyn had noticed the calm stance and the open face while Emerie talked with Mor. She was really at home here.

“I feel amazing Gwynie, not like anything I’ve ever felt before. Free and happy and maybe,…excited” She hugged Gwyn. “Do you want me to ask Mor to winnow you home?, you look tired. Oh, where’s your chain?”

Gwyn looked slightly unsettled “Can I tell you about that later? , it’s alright though” She smiled to show Emerie that she was really fine with the loss and added “Would it be silly of me to ask, could I suggest that Mor help with Deirdre and Lorelei and the others? I’d like to speak to Azriel”

Emerie noted the confidence in Gwyn’s request and the lift of her head. She was sure about this.

“OK, sure. I’ll see what I can do” Emerie squeezed Gwyn’s hand then turned to Mor who was speaking with Lucien now.

Gwyn focused on the rose bushes and wandered around the edge of the revellers. She wasn’t sure what she wanted to talk to Azriel about, but she couldn’t leave him tonight without another word. She wanted to make sure that he was good. That he knew she was a friend. She was happy with her decision to give up the necklace. Even though the thought that it had been from Azriel was thrilling and scary all at once. She had now made a plan that he would find in the future, a need to gift it back to her with emotions attached. She didn’t know why that thought had occurred to her. It was something she could not have imagined before today.

Azriel approached her as if summoned. He was looking down and around, anywhere but her face, so she lifted her hand for him to take and stared him down. “I wanted to ask you, if you wouldn’t mind, could you please fly me home?

Azriel’s shock at the request was covered quickly. What he did know was that Gwyn was asking for physical contact with him. Winnowing only required the slightest touch. A hand or an arm. Flying on the other hand would be body contact on a larger scale. This was her choice. He nodded his head, lost for useful words. He didn’t want to sound like a clumsy novice male. He merely stretched an arm out for her to step into his side.

Gwyn turned to Emerie and Mor who were organising the other Idisi and gave them a smile. Emerie grinned in return and Azriel wrapped her in an embrace that was solid and calming yet her blood pounded and her eyes blinked. She couldn’t remember feeling so safe.

His wings spread and flapped and Azriel bent his knees and sprung into the breeze of the evening. Gwyn found herself tightening her grip around his neck and bringing her face closer to his

“You’re safe” is all he said

Gwyn simply replied “I know”

The trip down with Cassian had been exhilarating and freeing, the flying back required going across Velaris, coming to life with street lights and coloured flashes from the restaurants and dance rooms opening for the night. Gwyn got the feeling that she was missing a lot so she turned her head and took in the marvel of the city, the lights and the sun setting across the ocean. “Oh my goodness, Azriel, it is so beautiful” Azriel smiled and nodded, but he too looked properly at that view re-appreciating what he always knew was there. Trying to see it as Gwyn saw it for the first time brought a wonder to his heart that he had forgotten.

Gwyn looked at his face, and he caught her eyes. It was a charged moment. Azriel composed himself first and looked out to the sea and the river. With his free hand he began to point out landmarks and favourite haunts. From the Rainbow where Feyre went to paint and to teach, to the townhouse in the residential area and of course the sparkling flashing lights of Rita’s – their most frequented nightclub. “I guess I’ll be finding Mor and Emerie and probably the others there later” he smiled to think of what he knew of Mor now and the simmering looks that she and Emerie had been sharing during the ceremony. Only happiness filled him at the thought.

Gwyn was getting comfortable and moved a little in his arms. She squealed as she felt herself slip, but Azriel simply held her tighter and put his other arm under her legs, carrying her through the air like a princess. She surrendered, just for now she told herself, to the warmth and the stillness here in his chest.

Azriel relaxed into the embrace and flew steadily ignoring the thundering of his heart and the closeness of her lithe warrior’s body. The distance was covered all too soon and he stepped onto the roof of the house, jogging a few steps toward the double doors before coming to a halt. He placed her on the ground feet first, before facing her with his arm still around her middle. Gwyn stepped away first and walked backwards toward the entrance. She smiled at him

“Thank you Azriel” She looked down as if remembering where that jewel had rested until this afternoon. “I did really love that chain” She winked, as she had to him once before. This was not a student teacher interaction, this was a suggestion, a question to his searching. He took a step toward her and she held up a hand

“See you at training” and she turned, with every fibre of her being she kept walking toward the library. Willing him to watch her, to make a plan for the future to stop her from walking away. But not today. She was tired, she was wrung out and she did not trust herself to spend any more time with this male. He had opened too many doors within her to be careful of her wellbeing. She needed more time.

Azriel was old. He had bedded women across continents and had held a candle for Mor since he could remember wanting. Gwyn had him questioning any reaction that came to mind. Instead of those he just whispered “You will” He meant more than training tomorrow. He fully intended to show her what a thoughtful, evolved Illyrian male could evoke in a woman. She would not have a straw of fear left for him by the time she came to him ready to accept the necklace as truly hers.

#acotar #Gwynriel #Nessian #acosf #mating ceremony #Elriel #flying #Angsty #No Smut yet

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wylanvnneck · 3 years

Text

This 2 part fic was written for the Secret Snusband Gift Giveaway hosted by @jurdannet and @jurdannetrevels for my lovely Knife Wife @lilacs-with-lavender.

Rating: T for Tyrannosaurus

Summary: Inspired by an episode of my favourite Cop TV show, ‘Castle’, in which a bet takes place with pretty high stakes, although the plotline has been tweaked to fit this fandom. My Knife Wife said she loved the Enemies to Lovers trope so that’s what I’ve (tried to) write here and I hope you enjoy the story of Homicide Detectives Jude Duarte and Cardan Greenbriar and their mutual enmity.

Warnings: Not so graphic descriptions of murder and mention of drugs. (Really not sure what I need to tag, so please let me know if I’ve missed something.)

Posted as a Gift on AO3 | Part 1 | Masterlist

Part 2

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“Lil, It’s 7.15 and I still need to decide on a dress, help!”

The ever helpful Liliver is currently perched on her bed, legs crossed and unruffled in stark contrast to Jude’s frantic rummaging of her sparse closet. She comes across a sparkly orange sequin dress that she holds up for her friend’s inspection.

“Honey. You’d look like a broken disco ball.”

“The girl at Saks said sequins were in.”

“She lied.”

Ugh. Damn Greenbriar for his stupid bets and his stupid dinners and his stupid brain which occasionally stumbled upon solutions. Defeat was a bitter pill to swallow.

She’s contemplating over whether to excuse herself for the night by pretending to have an infectious disease which requires keeping all other humans at a distance of five feet, when the doorbell to her apartment rings.

“Lil, would you mind answering the door for me please?” she asks, conscious of the fact that she was dressed in only her underwear.

“Sure, but when I come back you’d better not be wearing that ghastly hot pink dress I saw in there,” her friend calls as she unravels herself from the cozy mattress and leaves the room.

Foiled again. Jude’s just about out of options and the only thing that she can fathom being worse than having to be Cardan’s fake girlfriend for a night, was having to do so while being completely underdressed and out of place in a roomful of his father’s closest business associates.

“There was a package delivered to your doorstep,” Lil says as she re-enters the room, carrying a white parcel in her hands.

“A package? But I haven’t ordered anything.”

“Open it, maybe there’s a note,” she hands it over. The detective inside of Jude is wary, but she’s too curious to not open it so she gently rips open the package’s wrapping to reveal a large square box tied with a silver ribbon and tag attached to it. ‘Bibbidi-Bobbidi-Boo’ are the only words written on it. She knows immediately who it’s from and she feels an answering surge of anger along with an emotion that isn’t easy to decipher.

“I knew he was arrogant, but this-” She roughly unties the ribbon and tears open the lid and inside is the softest folded up material that she’s ever seen. Gently, she takes it out and it unfolds, turning into a simple but gorgeous black cocktail dress with an A-line skirt and off the shoulder sleeves, the picture of elegance.

Lil’s silver eyes are wide when she lets out a low whistle, “Damn.”

Jude is speechless.

“Wow.” Cardan’s voice sounds slightly higher pitched than usual before he clears his throat, standing just outside Jude’s doorway. “You clean up nice, detective.”

With a little help from Lil, she had accessorised the dress with a silver choker necklace that had belonged to her mother and a small velvet clutch. Her hair was carefully put up with dozens of little bobby pins and she feels sexy and ready to conquer whatever the Greenbriar family had in store for her.

Cardan himself is dressed in a coal coloured suit, a silky scrap of fabric tucked into his jacket pocket, shiny enough to match his eyes. There’s the faintest shimmer of gold on his defined cheekbones and his curly locks are just untidy enough to look stylish and it’s unfair how handsome he is.

“So do you.”

He steps back and holds out his arm for her in the way that gentlemen did in those historical dramas that Lil was always forcing her to watch and it shouldn’t have made her blush as she clutches the soft fabric covering his arm, but it did. She blames it on the corridor’s harsh fluorescent lighting.

Together they glide to the elevator and wordlessy head to the garage where Cardan’s sleek grey Maserati stands out amidst the other rundown cars belonging to the other apartment tenants, her neighbours, yet another reminder of all the differences between the two of them.

“Your carriage awaits you, my lady,” he opens the door for her, something that most of her few disastrous dates had neglected to do in the past and she’s so used to thinking of him as an indecorous scoundrel that him being so courteous was almost unwelcome. She’s not used to spending time with him outside of work and she’s strangely out of her element.

Cardan goes round and gets in on the other side and Jude secures her seatbelt as he starts up the car and swivels his head around to watch the back of the car before reversing.

They’re cruising along in his car and the only noise is the smooth purr of the Maserati and it smells of the pine air freshener that he’s pinned up to the rearview mirror. She leans back in her smooth leather seat and watches as they pass by buildings and skyscrapers and shops, the city buzzing with nightlife.

“So, what exactly is it that I’ve gotten myself into?”

Cardan takes his eyes off of the road to shoot her a swift glance before focusing back ahead of him, one hand on the steering wheel and the other on the gear stick.

“Well, it’s a dinner party with some of my father’s closest friends, all of them snobs and all of them with their own agendas. I suppose I should also mention that this party is to celebrate the win of his company’s recent lawsuit.”

“Sounds like it’ll be wonderful.” Her words are dry with sarcasm. She has no desire to spend the night making polite conversation with aristocratic stiff necks who would look down upon her, but a bet was a bet and she had to admit that so far Cardan wasn’t making her regret her decision to agree to his challenge.

He surprises her by letting out a low and husky laugh, “You have no idea.”

There’s an awkward silence.

“Thanks for the dress, by the way.”

“You’re welcome.”

For the short remainder of the ride the only sound that can be heard are the songs being played on the radio.

The party is in high swing by the time they get there, champagne glasses clink, waiters in their smart uniforms walk around carrying trays of hors d'œuvre and the low rumble of conversation and piano music fills the air. The private outdoor venue is large and there are fairy lights strung on the bordering walls and tea candles on each table, creating an overwhelming effect.

There’s a slightly raised ramp at the other end of the entrance where a podium had been set up, complete with a banner displaying a fancy script that reads ‘Elfhame Enterprises’, which was the name of Cardan’s father, Eldred Greenbriar’s company.

Cardan has been holding her hand since he opened the car door once again for her and now, standing at the entrance of the party and waiting for his invitation to be accepted by the guard stationed at the gate, he squeezes her hand tightly in his and the act seems unconscious. There’s a tension clearly written on his face.

For once she doesn’t need to raise her head to speak to him, thanks to her three inch heels and she leans over to discreetly whisper in his ear, “You ok?”

This time the gentle squeeze that he gives her is definitely on purpose.

“I’m fine.” There’s the smallest of curves to his lips.

A diminutive lady with pale skin and Cardan’s sharp cheekbones and raven hair bustles up to them, a long stemmed wine glass filled to the brim held loosely in her hand. Jewels glistened on her long and low-cut gown, adding to the air of opulence that she exuded.

“Cardan, you’ve finally arrived. Oh and you’ve brought someone with you!”

“Hello, mother.” There’s a tightness in his smile. “Yes I did, allow me to introduce you to Jude Duarte.”

Stepping forward she firmly holds out her hand to Cardan’s mother and is graced with the barest of shakes in return, “You may call me Ma’am.”

Ma’am?

“Of course, thank you...Ma’am.”

Mrs. Greenbriar gives Jude a long and thorough onceover, dissecting her with cold eyes as if she were a mere insect and the feeling is extremely disconcerting. She looks to Cardan for support, but he looks just as out of depth offering her a look of sympathy with the features that so resembled his mother’s.

“So, Judie, what exactly is it that you do?”

She stands taller and staunchly replies, “I’m a Homicide Detective for the 12th precinct.”

“Ah. I see.” The words reverberate with barely hidden disappointment and distaste and just like that she no longer pays Jude any attention, turning to her son and reaching out to possessively clutch his arm and whisper something in his ear which makes him tighten his jaw further before bouncing off, wine spilling over from her glass.

“That was my mother.” Cardan says, unnecessarily.

“Right.” Jude couldn’t help what but wonder about what sort of a childhood he would have had to endure. Perhaps his mother hadn’t always been so disparaging. It seemed that there was a whole different side to Cardan’s life that she’d never known about.

“She's - hard to explain. I apologise for her behaviour though, she shouldn’t have treated you that way.” He’s sincere, but there’s also an underlying note of sadness. The type of sorrow that you would feel if you were let down yet again by someone that you always gave second chances to. Her heart gives a pang on his behalf. Before she can reassure him he continues, as if desperate to push the subject behind them. “Anyways, let me go get you a drink, what’ll you have?”

To the side of the grounds is a long table covered with a white cloth with various bottles of alcohol lined upon it, their colourful glasses glinting under the fairy lights. Behind the bar there’s a bartender in uniform, smoothly mixing drinks to order as rich elites look on.

“Um, maybe a Martini?” She names the first drink that comes to mind.

“A Martini, huh? Dirty, perhaps?” His trademark flirty smirk makes a reappearance and Jude knows exactly how to handle it.

“Yup.” She pops the ‘p’ in what she hopes is a seductive manner. “Just the way I like it.”

His pupils seem to darken just the tiniest bit and his mouth makes a slight ‘O’ shape before he promptly turns on his heel in the direction of the bar muttering, “I’ll be right back.”

After a few moments of standing near the entrance, moving only to accept a smoked salmon canape from a passing waiter, Jude pulls out her phone from her purse to find multiple texts from Lil.

So? How��s it going?

If you need me to call and be your ‘family emergency’ so you can escape, I can totally do that, just say the word.

Jude

Judeee

You alive?

Biting back a grin she reassures her dramatic friend that she was definitely still alive. She’s just pressed send when she senses someone’s stare on her and something about it makes her skin crawl. She looks up and is met by the sight of a tall girl in a jade green V-cut and backless dress with vibrant blue hair. Nicasia.

“Why, Judie, fancy seeing you here!” Jude inwardly grimaces. Nicasia’s voice hadn’t gotten any less painful to hear since their last encounter. Standing in front of her now, she can’t help but think that she looked slightly ridiculous in all her fripperies, opaque pearls dangled from her ears and around her neck, gemstones glistening on her hair and cerulean eyeshadow that completely overshadowed the rest of her face. Strange to think that the last time they’d met, Jude had been plagued with envy, not even really knowing why.

She plasters a carefully manufactured, artificial smile on her face. “Nicky! What a delight to see you again!”

Nicasia’s face twists for a mere second before her cheerful and friendly facade is back in place. “Quite. Although, I can’t imagine how you’ve come to be here.”

Her words are clearly a question, one that Jude answers beamingly, “Oh, I’m here with Cardan. As his date.”

She watches as the blue-haired girl’s eyebrows fly up her forehead, unable to contain her surprise. Jude knows a moment of smug victory and Cardan chooses this moment to walk up behind her carrying two cocktail glasses in his hands. He stops right next to her, handing her a glass with clear liquid and an orange twist inside it before slipping an arm around her waist, sending a zing up her spine. What the hell did he think he was doing? She briefly considers shaking him off, before realizing that he was holding her this way for Nicasia’s benefit. After all, she was his pretend girlfriend for the night.

“Nicasia! How lovely to bump into you!” His smile is just as fake as Jude’s had been and that fact shouldn’t give her a moment of satisfaction but it did.

“Why hello there Car! Yes your mother invited me, wasn’t that sweet of her? And I was just talking to Judie over here, it’s been lovely seeing her again.” She brings a hand up to her neck and starts twirling a pearl necklace. “I didn’t realise you two were an item?”

Cardan holds her even tighter against him. “Well, what can I say, she swept me off my feet.”

He turns his face to her and gives her a subtle wink before molding his expression into an excruciatingly sappy look of affection, the kind that only existed in extremely cheesy early 2000s Disney movies. Suppressing a smile she returns the look to the best of her abilities.

“Aww, Honey Bunch, you are too adorable!”

Go big or go home, right?

Cardan has difficulty not breaking into laughter but he manages to hide the hysteric sound that leaves his mouth as a deep cough and if this charade went on for much longer she didn’t think she could resist cracking up either.

“Only for you, Kitten.” That almost undoes her.

Nicasia makes a low sound of disgust at their little act and barely bothers to make up an excuse for herself before stalking off, her stilettos clicking against the paved pathway.

“Oh thank God she’s gone, I was afraid that we’d be regaled with ‘Nicasia’s Trials During Sea Travels, A Saga; Part II.’” He’s referring to her last conversation with Nicasia when she had dropped by the precinct to drop something off for him and had ended up spending almost half an hour recounting her issues with sea-sickness. By the end of that half hour Jude had felt like clawing her eyeballs out.

She can’t help but laugh at both his comment and the recollection of their ridiculous masquerade and he rewards her with a look of astonishment, before a slow smile spreads over his face, eyes unbearably soft. “There’s that laugh.”

He’s referring to their conversation at Fair Folk Inks when he’d accused her of being uptight. The recollection should prompt Jude to make a snappy retort, but instead she simply swallows against the sudden lump growing in her throat and her heart is beating quick enough for her to hear. What on Earth was going on? This entire night had felt strangely like being stuck in limbo, her and Cardan shedding their competitive workplace relationship for one that was a lot more informal, a lot more together.

She takes a sip of the forgotten Martini in her hand, trying to push her errant thoughts away. Before she can think of a way to defuse the situation, the tinkling sound of metal being struck against a glass rings out through the night air.

Unnoticed by her, an elderly gentleman in a midnight blue suit that contrasted heavily with his bright blonde hair and owlish bronze eyes had stepped up to the podium. In his ring clad hands he held a wine glass and a fork, explaining the sound that she had heard earlier. Standing a little behind him but at his side is Mrs. Greenbriar, gripping a re-filled glass of wine. There also appears to be someone else standing next to her on the ramp, but the crowd around it is so thick that Jude can’t quite make him out.

“And there’s good ole’ Dad.” Her date for the night doesn’t sound at all enthusiastic about the appearance of his sire at the podium. “Looks like he’s about to grace us with an Eldred speech.”

And indeed, the old man waits until everyone is paying attention to him before he sets down the fork and raises his full glass in the air as he speaks. “Ladies and Gentlemen, as I’m sure you all know; since otherwise all you blighters wouldn’t be here,” there’s a slight smattering of obligatory laughter, “Elfhame Enterprises has recently undergone a lawsuit, which we came out of with a resounding victory against the Seelie Corporation, as everyone knew we would. Nevertheless, let us raise our glasses in celebration and as a toast to many more years of victories and resounding successes!”

United, his entire audience dutifully raises their glasses in a toast and downs the contents, Jude herself takes the smallest of sips from her Martini out of respect, although the alcohol tastes more bitter than before. She had never been a huge fan of these big businesses that bribed and blackmailed and pocketed money for themselves at the cost of so many others and she’d been a detective for long enough to cement that dislike. Then, she makes the startling discovery that Cardan himself had not raised his glass, nor taken a sip, instead, the hand that clutched his drink was doing so so tightly that his knuckles had turned white. Before she has the time to question his surprising behaviour Eldred continues speaking.

“In regards to the many years to come for Elfhame Enterprises, well, as you all know I’m not as young as I once was, although I can definitely still party the way I used to,” more polite laughter,

“and it is very likely that I shall be retiring for good in a few years. Until that bittersweet moment arrives however, I am glad to announce that working right along beside me and learning the ropes will be my heir and the man to whom the running of my wonderful company will fall to...my beloved elder son, Dain Greenbriar!”

If a meteor had just flown across the sky and landed two feet away from her, Jude couldn’t have been more shocked than she was at that moment. Cardan had a brother.

She watches in slow motion as the previously hidden figure beside the now jubilant Mrs. Greenbriar steps forward to stand by his father. Unlike Cardan, Dain was the picture of his father, except 30 years younger. His blonde hair was light and shiny and his face was harsh and unforgiving, the angles seeming as sharp as a blade. His handsome but smug smile rubs Jude the wrong way, making her instantly dislike him. Next to her, Cardan wears a shield of uncaring resignation, but whilst she watches him watching his family, there’s an underlying sadness seeping from his countenance and she knows him well enough to detect it.

Jude had always taken Cardan at surface level, he was rich, came from a wealthy family with high connections and lots of influence and he was also a playboy. To her, that meant he had been given an easy life, one where he never had to work hard for anything and got a free pass into doing whatever he liked, so very different from the life that she had lived with her struggling single mother after her father had passed away during an accident at his forge. And now it looked like her disdain for his background had been unfounded. His mother seemed to only care about money and positions, his father was no better and from the self-satisfied grin on Dain’s face she could surmise that he was the golden child of the family, coveted by all and ‘overshadower’ of his younger brother.

The same younger brother whose existence his entire family and their friends seemed to have forgotten about.

Enough was enough.

She deposits her Martini onto a passing tray and does the same with Cardan’s untouched one which she wrestles from his tight grip, before reaching out to take his hand in hers. He tilts his head and considers her for a moment before surrendering with a slight shrug, his usual debonair sucked out of him.

“Come on, let’s get out of here.” She drags him out through the entrance, not stopping to consider if any of the guests was watching them in the turmoil of congratulating Dain and his father.

The moment they’re out of the gates she stumbles into a nearby deserted alleyway, towing a bemused Cardan along with her. They come to a sudden stop right next to a streetlight, and unhesitatingly Jude plonks herself down onto the relatively clean looking sidewalk, with no regard for her new dress.

“Sit.” She pats on an empty spot next to her.

Cardan raises an eyebrow at her, before giving in and seating himself in the place she’d indicated. Her heel clad legs stretch out next to his feet encased by fancy leather Oxford’s.

“Talk.” She silently encourages him with her eyes.

“I-” He starts, then stops. Struggling to meet her steady gaze he finally bows his head and forces himself to speak. “I suppose you could say that my family has never been the most loving,” understatement she thinks, “and ever since the day I was born I was nothing like my big brother, he talked; I watched, he walked; I crawled and it was always like that. He would excel at school, I used to run riot with my friends. I always knew that they loved him more.

“When it was time for me to find a job, I knew that I didn’t want anything to do with the corporate world, I’d seen what it did to my parents and my brother and I wanted nothing to do with it. So I decided I’d do the exact opposite. I’d try my hardest to fight for justice and go against everything that my family stood for, corruption, money and power. That’s why I became a cop, why I enrolled at the academy, why I used my father’s blood money to pay the fees, so I could give back to the community in even some small way. Needless to say, my parents weren’t very happy with that decision.”

His words hit Jude like a volley of arrows. She’d been so very, very wrong about the man sitting next to her. This man who fought so hard to escape his family’s legacy. Regret rushes through her and reaches out for his hand and squeezes it gently, the way he’d done to her earlier.

“Cardan, listen to me, what your family thinks about you doesn’t matter. I wish that you’d grown up with parents and a brother who loved and treasured you the way you deserved, but you know what?

“I think you should be proud of who you are. Because everything that you’ve been through has made you who you are today; Cardan Greenbriar, a pretty smart cop - despite what I said earlier, it wasn’t true and I’m extremely sorry for it - and a partner who always keeps up with me and someone whom I wouldn’t hesitate to entrust my life to and the man who manages to charm everyone in the precinct with his magnetism.”

He’s squeezing her hand right back and his eyes are glistening suspiciously as they burn into hers. A shaky smile manifests at her last few words after which he looks down once again and mutters, “not everyone.”

“Huh?”

“Not everyone.” His voice is stronger now when he raises his head again, more combustible. “You said that I’ve charmed everyone at the precinct, but there’s one woman who appears to be immune, despite being the one woman that I’ve had feelings for for quite a while now…it’s you, Jude.”

She can hear the blood rushing in her ears as her heart thumps. He thought she was immune to him? So had she, she’d thought she hated him, but now she’s wondering if what she felt for him was so much more than hate. Yes, he had her hackles rising faster than anyone else did and his occasional arrogance was a never ending source of annoyance to her, but he was also the man who understood her when she was working overtime on a tough case, always bringing her coffee whenever she pulled an all-nighter, always making sure to inquire after her mother’s health, always making sure she had a safe way of getting home. So many times he’d helped her out in little little ways, disguising his kindness as him merely trying to get under her skin and now her oblivious self was finally starting to realize it.

He smells like pine and Cardan in the aftermath of his confession, and he’d called her Jude, not ‘Duarte’ and he had feelings for her and what she’s about to do next was something that she never dreamed that she would do before, and yet, it was somehow inevitable. She leans over and kisses him.

His lips are so very soft, like a feather, and the moment they meet hers she bursts into flames. This kiss was unlike any that she had ever had before, It was a forge-fire hot conflagration and she didn’t care if it burned her. The flame that had always been there between them is stronger than ever and it felt as though all this time the ‘hate’ burning through them had been hiding a much more powerful passion beneath it.

He brings his hands up to her neck and gently tugs at the bobby pins holding up her hairdo. She barely notices as they skitter to the pavement, leaving her brown locks down for him to pull at. She does the same to him, carding her fingers through his thick curls, curls that felt as sleek as a puppy’s fur against her questing hands.

Panting, he pulls away first and she has to force herself not to follow his lips with hers. Slowly she opens her closed eyes and looks at him, so close now that she can see the slightest flecks of colour in his dark eyes as his breath stirs her loose hair.

“Wow. That...wow,” he babbles, “I - we should date, that was, I mean-”

“Cardan?”

“Yes?”

“Shut up and kiss me.”

He does exactly that and later, when he asks her out, she has no answer for him but ‘yes’.

The End.

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

Liles, this fic was for you and I hope you enjoyed it. It’s been really fun getting to know more about you through our anon asks and answers and feel free to PM me anytime💕

Once again, I’m tagging: @cupcakesandkittens and @aelinfeyreeleven945tbln

Please let me know (via ask or PM) if you’d like to be added to or taken off of my taglist!

#tfota #dd writes #the folk of the air #the folk of the air fanfiction #tfota fic #secretsnusband #jurdannet #jurdannet revels #header edited by me

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pullakori · 2 years

Text

Febuwhump 2022

Day 1. Head wound (I took liberties, ok)

Charles was excited to use cerebro again. It was the first time he had felt anything akin to excitement for a long time, the last time being before Cuba, before Raven and Erik- No. Charles shut that thought down before it could dampen his mood. For one moment he just wanted to be free from the gloom that them leaving had left behind, their absence haunting him every hour of the day. Maybe now, just for an hour, he could forget. “You’ve done magnificent job Hank.” He praised the young man as he wheeled in the round room behind him and looked around. It was bigger than the first one had been and the panels shone their newness.“It was easier this time because I could use the data from our earlier calibrations. I tried to improve the accessibility by moving the control panel in the middle, so you are able to reach it too, but I feel there might be more minor tweaking to be done and even some major upgrades as we learn more about your reach and-““Hank.” Charles interrupted the scientist before his rambling could get out of hand. “Just accept the compliment, you’ve done great.” Charles kept his tone teasing, but gave the younger man a look that left no room for arguments. Colour rose to Hank’s face and he smiled sheepishly at the telepath.“Yes, well, thank you.”

Charles let the moment to sink in. Hank and the other boys had been a huge help in the past months and Charles could never thank them enough for it. Only when he was sure Hank knew the weight of his words, did he move his chair beside the other man.“Show me what you’ve done.” He prompted and followed Hank to the control panel as he explained how everything worked. The helmet looked different too, it wasn’t ass heavy looking and with much less wires. As Charles put it on, he remembered the last time he’d done this, but Hank didn’t mention anything about shaving his hair this time and once again Charles’ mind reminded him, that there were two people missing. Luckily he was able to distract himself by listening Hank talking.“I’ve put the settings on low for now, so we can modify them safely and you won’t be overwhelmed.” He pointed at sliders on the panel before he turned to look at Charles. “So, if you’re ready…” He left the question hang in the air and Charles looked at him, letting his excitement show on his face as he smiled at the scientist.“Let’s do this.”

Putting the circlet on his head made Charles almost childishly giddy. Using the cerebro had been one of the most incredible things that Charles had ever experienced and he could barely wait to feel it again. All those minds, reminding him how many of them were out there. Reminding him that he wasn’t alone. With one last nod to Hank, flipped a switch to start the machine with a low hum and after few more adjustment of some sliders, flipped another switch and for a moment, Charles felt free as the rush of other minds against his own.

But that moment was short lived when suddenly his head felt like it was splitting in two and everything else faded away. He knew this pain. He’d felt it before. The feeling of a coin pushing through his head. No, not his head, Shaw’s, but in that moment, there had been no difference, other than that Charles had not gained any physical wounds. But he had, it seemed, gained some mental ones. And they had not healed yet. It was like the coin was still inside, burying even deeper, carving more room for itself and hot white pain filled Charles’ head. And this time, there was no end. No matter how long the pain went on, there was no coin, there was no other mind that would flicker away as Shaw died. It was only him and a phantom pain of a wound in his mind that he hadn’t known of. A wound that hadn’t healed. Through the pain, he could make out a voice, Hank’s voice, calling his name. He sounded scared. Charles wanted to tell him that everything would be alright, but he didn’t remember how to speak.

When the pain finally disappeared, so did everything else.

#First day and I'm already taking liberties #Close enough #Light whump this time #it'll get better #or worse #Depending how you look at it #Charles whump #febuwhump 2022

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skatoonyfan1234 · 3 years

Text

'Micro Hiro One'

[Request for IHeartDreamworks, and set after the events of 'Big Chibi 6'. Hiro ends up shrunk to microscopic size by Ian's Size Ray Glove, when Honey Lemon tests it out. Warning: nudity at the end.]

It all began one day at KreiTech. It was a day or so, following the defeat/arrest of Ian, Krei's meek employee, who was also the gaming supervillain Hardlight, who had attacked Karmi's book signing.

Hiro, Baymax, and their friends, Fred, GoGo Tomago, Honey Lemon, and Wasabi were busy clearing out Ian's empty office - since Ian was now in prison, he was officially fired from KreiTech.

They were sorting through the things in Ian's office - Ian's Olaf coffee cup, the 'Slaughter Race' strategy guide, and the jam jars full of Ian's toenail clippings.

Fred apparently was taking the 'Slaughter Race' strategy guide, and Wasabi was emptying the jam jars which contained Ian's toenail clippings; emptying the contents of said jam jars into a wastepaper basket, almost feeling disgusted by them.

"Is it ok if I take this?" Honey asked Hiro, whilst holding the Olaf coffee cup.

"Yup." Hiro said.

"What about this?" Honey Lemon said, holding out a glove that resembled Hiro's super suit power glove, but in pink.

Hiro eyed the glove. To his eyes, it resembled his super suit power glove.

"The colour DOES look familiar, though." he said as he put it on, reminding him of Hardlight, the villain identity of Ian, the former employee of KreiTech.

He took it off his hand, and Honey put it on hers.

"It's a nice color." Honey said, admiring the glove that seemed to flop about on her hand a bit.

She tapped a few things on it, and the lights on the glove started to light up. "Wow!" she said, "It even lights up too!"

Suddenly, a pink beam shot out from said glove, and struck Hiro, who, almost immediately, seemed to vanish into thin air.

"Wow." Fred said, amazed. "That. Was. Cool!"

"Hang on." GoGo said, staring at a label. "This label says 'Size Ray Glove; a glove with the power of a size ray, to shrink things or people, or make them grow.'"

"Size Ray Glove?" Fred said, shocked. "Whoa."

"You can say that again." Wasabi said. "A glove that can change the size of things and people. Isn't that impressive, Hiro?"

But, Hiro didn't answer, because Hiro wasn't there.

"Hiro?" Fred called.

"Hiro?" Wasabi called.

"Down here!" squeaked a tiny voice, coming from a microscopic version of Hiro Hamada.

For you see, Honey had accidentally zapped Hiro with the Size Ray Glove, shrinking him down to microscopic size.

Thankfully, since the Size Ray Glove had it's clothes option set to 'yes', Hiro's clothes had shrunk with him.

"Guys!" I'm down here!" he called out. But it didn't work; he was too tiny to be heard. From Hiro's new size, his friends, and Baymax, were as big as the city skyscrapers of San Fransokyo.

Of course, Wasabi saw Hiro, but, unfortunately, he mistook him for something else entirely.

"Agh! A bug!" Wasabi screamed, climbing up onto the desk. "That bug is freaking me out! and it's wearing Hiro's clothes!"

"Wait a minute." GoGo said. She opened a desk drawer and picked out a magnifying eyepiece used by jewellers [which, of course, Ian used whilst clipping his toenails.], and looked at the 'bug'.

"That's no bug." she said. "That's Hiro!"

"YES!" Hiro said, his voice high and squeaky, "That Size Ray Glove shrunk me! Use it to grow me back again!"

"Got it, Hiro!" Honey Lemon said. She activated the Size Ray Glove, tweaked the settings, and aimed toward the speck where GoGo was pointing.

A blue beam shot out from said Size Ray Glove, and zapped Hiro, who immediately grew back to his normal size.

Hiro saw that he was now back to his normal size, clothes and all. "Thanks, guys." he said.

"Don't mention it." GoGo said. "That's what teammates do."

Wasabi got down off the desk. "I knew it wasn't a bug after all." he said, which earned him stern looks from GoGo and Hiro. "Well, more or less." he said innocently.

Hiro examined the Size Ray Glove Honey gave him. "It's amazing that Ian built this."

"Well," Wasabi stated, "I guess he got the idea when Officer Cruz used your super suit glove on him when he was Hardlight."

"Yeah," Hiro said, placing the Size Ray Glove gently down on the desk. "Still," he said, "in the wrong hands, a glove like this can be very dangerous."

"Hiro, take a look at this." Honey said, showing Hiro a book - a book called 'Swedish for Idiots'.

"Ian musta been studying Swedish." Hiro said. "Someone would think the Size Ray Glove could be Ian's Nobel Prize." Wasabi added.

"Well," Hiro said, "We'll make sure to have this Size Ray Glove under control in our possession. Ian won't even notice that his Size Ray Glove is-" he turned round and saw the Size Ray Glove has gone! "-Gone?!"

He was right; the Size Ray Glove WASN'T on Ian's desk anymore - it was gone!

"Honey Lemon, please tell me 'gone' is Swedish for 'it's right there'." GoGo said to Honey.

"And where's Fred?" Honey asked.

"Fred went outside with the shrink ray glove." Baymax said, pointing to the door.

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

They found the Size Ray Glove was outside, on Fred's hand.

"Fred, what are you doing?!" Wasabi asked, horrified.

"I wonder what happens if we use the Size Ray Glove's 'grow' function on someone?" he said, aiming the Size Ray Glove toward Alistair Krei, who was just standing around, minding his own business.

"No, Fred!" GoGo, Wasabi, Honey, and Hiro all said at once.

Too late; Fred used the Size Ray Glove's 'grow' setting on Alistair Krei. Immediately, Krei grew and grew and grew. As that happened, the team heard a loud ripping noise.

"Oh no." Baymax said. "You said it." Hiro said to the robot.

You see, since the clothes option on the Size Ray Glove was set to 'no', Krei's clothes hadn't grown with him, not even his underwear, so Krei grew and grew and grew til he was now a huge naked giant, about as high as the top of the KreiTech building.

"Oh boy." Krei said to himself. "It's very breezy up here today."

Honey gasped, and quickly hid her eyes. Hiro's jaw dropped.

"I am never gonna unsee that." Wasabi said. GoGo just gave Fred a cold glare.

"Don't worry, Krei," Hiro sighed, taking the Size Ray Glove from Fred, putting it on his hand, and tweaking the settings, "should have you back to normal in no time."

He aimed the Size Ray Glove toward Krei, set the glove to 'shrink', and shrunk him down to normal size.

He took the Size Ray Glove off his hand. "I think it's best we get this to Officer Cruz, so he can deal with it." Wasabi said. "We'll take it over to the police station immediately."

"And we'll make sure to keep Fred's hands OFF it till we get there." GoGo said, giving Fred a glare so cold, it almost made him wet his pants.

His friends headed off. Hiro was about to follow them when...

"Intern," Krei called, gettin' Hiro's attention.

"Yes, Mr. Krei?" Hiro said, as he turned around and saw Krei standing, covering his manhood with the tattered remains of his suit jacket.

"Can you get me a spare set of pants?"

#bh6 the series #bh6 #big hero 6 the series #short #micro hiro one #shrink ray #iheartdreamworks

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crispsevans · 4 years

Text

coloring tutorial (vibrant/high contrast)

Hey peeps!

Here’s another tutorial that has been requested as a psd before, but I thought I’d just show you how you can create your own, instead of using a psd all the time :)

So if you want to know how to go from this

to this

follow moi!

Ok the first thing I ALWAYS add is a curves layer. Depending on the darkness of the clip and also the skintone of the person in the gif. But my first curves layer looks something like this

(yes my photoshop is in german since i am german, but the tabs etc. are all the same i promise)

This is what we got now. Just a little brighter than before. One thing to understand about the curves tool is the way it works with the shadows, midtones and highlights. The graph in the back shows you the values from left to right of the image you are currently editing. If there are more values in the shadows (left two quarters, the right one being the lighter shadows), midtones (middle two quarters, right one showing the lighter midtones) or highlights (right one showing the lightest parts of an image). The curve gives you full control to change these values, the more points you make the more you can adjust the brightness and contrast levels of your image (and also colour levels, if you change the curves channels to red/yellow/blue). I mostly lifted the midtones and lighter shadows to brighten up the gif, I still added a little more to the deep shadows to contain the contrast.

Now from here I decide if I go for another curves layer or if I go into selective colour first. As the brightness was fine, I moved on to my second favourite tool in photoshop - the selective colour tool! I ALWAYS ALWAYS ALWAYS touch the blacks tab in my selective colour layer. It gives you back shadows and more contrast without blowing out highlights or midtones or funnily changing the colours of the other colours - so powerful! Also great for darkening dark scenes, without touching the skintones too much.

In the first selective colour layer I usually only tackle the blacks and more prominent colours. For this gif, I only intensified the blacks. I split my colouring into many layers, because it’s easier to control little aspects of the colourings this way.

so now we have this

You might think the difference isn’t too big, but it actually helps a lot. You can always go back to this layer to intensify the look if you want to.

Now I tackle the actual colours of the gif. I use a vibrance layer to increase the overall values of the colours, so I can see which colours are actually involved in his skin/hair.

The difference is, again, not too extreme, but you can see the yellows and reds start to pop (which are usually the colours to determine skin and hair colours.. I say usually, because sometimes the lighting messes up or people have different and unnatural hair colours)

Let’s add the second selective colour layer. I concentrated on the yellows and reds and intensified them to my liking. You need to decide yourself, if you prefer a cool tone or a warm tone for this one. I usually go for a warmer tone for my gifs in 95% of the times.

Now my gif looks like this

You could stop right here, if this is enough for your liking. Or you can save this as a base psd (but keep in mind that these settings always depend on the scenes you decide to gif!).

This gif is too dark for my liking and lacks in the highlights (they’re not bright enough for me), so i’ll add a levels layer. You could also do this with a curves layer, but as this gif is not too complex, I went for a levels one. The graph in the levels tab is based on the same idea as the graph in the curves tab by the way. The three sliders that you can move intensify the looks of shadows (left), midtones (middle) and highlights (right).

Now the gif has a crisper look!

The next step is optional, but I really want those colours to bop so I shoved in another vibrance layer, but I only touched the saturation this time

Ok so we ended up with this one, again not a huuuuge difference, but you can tell if it’s NOT there ;D

My last layer for this particular gif is a colour balance layer. Now this is probably one of the most powerful colour correcting tools out there, use it wisely!

I personally am not a big fan of the greenish look, so I use colour balance to tint it a bit more magenta (as magenta/red and green are complementary colours)

I start with the shadows

and then tackle the midtones

and that’s it actually

I go through this process with all of my gifs, I rarely use a psd (and if I do, I use one my own) nowadays, because I colour all my gifs from scratch. I’ve settled for this look in my gifs, because I like it a lot.

Here are some more examples of gifs where i’ve used these steps and approach to colour them (please note that you have to tweak the settings above depending on the scene you’re using!)

It also works with scenes that didn’t have much colour to begin with :) this can be a little more time consuming, but I still used the same steps, maybe you have to add another layer for an extra colour pop. You can control the look and intensity of colours when you use the selective colour and colour balance tools to your liking. You may also use hue/saturation layers, where you can adjust the hues of colours within a gif/image. Here’s an example I made with Tony Stark’s face in his Iron Man suit from Infinity War

before:

and after:

I hope this helped you a little on how to approach vibrant colouring in photoshop :)

Feel free to shoot me a message, if you encounter any problems or still have questions!

#colouring tutorial #ps tutorial #photoshop tutorial #userlexi #feedingmyinsomnia #userjoyce #completeresources #chaoticresources #hisources #tutorials #mine

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dearchikkie · 4 years

Text

Apple Blossoms

MARICHAT MAY 2020

Day 13: Flower Crown

A/N: woooo! had a lot of fun with this, especially the bonus at the end ;) this will prob be vv poorly edited since I chugged three glass bottles of konpeito so sugar is running through my veins :/ hope you enjoy :)

✧･ﾟ: *✧･ﾟ:* ✧*:･ﾟ✧

"Tikki? Tikki, where are you?"

Yet again, Marinette while out on a girls-day with her friends had misplaced her purse, unfortunately, containing Tikki. Tikki would have called out to her, but with Alya attached to her hip, there wasn't any room to alert for her rescue. So now, Marinette dug around the picnic area's grass in search for her. She should have been more careful; an akuma scare had threatened the girls day out, summoning Chat Noir to come investigate.

Luckily he had left quickly after finding out there was no akuma, but everyone still seemed shaken up.

"Marinette! Are you ok?" Marinette spun around, turning face to face with a certain leather-clad cat.

"Ah! Chat Noir! You're... still around?" Hastily, Marinette pushed Tikki deeper into her purse, secretly reminding herself to apologize later for the rough treatment.

"I just wanted to check on you... and everyone else! Everyone matters, of course, but you're the only one here, so I thought it was better for me to just focus on you,"

"Oh." Marinette stood stiff as Chat Noir picked up a flower crown made of dried lavender, twirling it around as he admired it.

"This is really good, Marinette, it's simple but really well-made," the noirette approached Chat, ushering him to sit down on the picnic blanket beside her.

"Sorry to disappoint, but I didn't make that. Juleka did; she's really talented when it comes to making these. We all think she learnt how to do it just to impress Rose," giggled Marinette. She reached over and held up a clumsily made flower crown of daisies, "This one is mine. I chose daisies because Juleka said they were the easiest, but I could barely get it to stay together."

"I think it looks fine,"

"Maybe, but compared to Juleka's it's pretty pathetic huh?"

Chat exchanged Juleka's flower crown for Marinette's, smiling ever-so-slightly at it. "Nah, I like yours." he placed it back down, careful not to damage it, "Aren't you a designer though? Stitching, weaving, sketching, this seems like something you'd be good at?"

"That's what I thought!" groaned Marinette, "But fabric is solid. It sits there while you tweak it; flowers are small and delicate and break with even a small amount of pressure," she grumbled.

Marinette flushed as Chat let out a bark of laughter, side-eyeing her as he did, "Sounds to me you need to be more careful."

"Ha ha. Were you really here to 'check-up' on me, or just to mock both my flower crow and designing skills?"

Chat frowned, affronted, "Neither. I like your skills in both." to prove it, Chat put Marinette's daisy flower crown on. It settled over his hair, poofing it out.

Chat grinned at the girl beside him, "Now we're both princesses.'"

Marinette tried not to, but couldn't help from smiling at the sight.

Marinette grabbed another of her flower crowns and held it up to Chat, "This one is with apple blossoms. They're my mamans favourite flowers, she used to have them in her garden when she was young and lived in China."

Chat took it in his hands and examined it, lightly touching a petal with his sharp claw, "Did you make this one?"

She shook her head, "I started it, but after a while I felt like I was ruining it, so I asked Alya to finish it for me."

After she finished, Chat quickly dropped it over Marinette's head. The noirette looked up in surprise, her flower crown lay serenely on her head.

"It suits you. Keep it on,"

"I don't want to break it," Marinette reached up to take it off, but Chat grabbed her hands, "Chat?"

"If you're going to take it off, at least take a picture with it first!" Chat pouted.

Meekly, Marinette grabbed her phone and tried to take a selfie. But no matter how she angled it, she couldn't get herself to hit the button, "I can't. It feels so... awkward just taking a picture of myself."

Chat studied her. As Marinette looked away, Chat sidled up beside her, throwing an arm over her shoulder, "Then I'll be in the picture too! Pretend you're an adoring fan, crying over the chance to take a photo with me. Then it won't be so awkward!"

"Adoring fan, huh?"

"Ignore that part."

Marinette laughed, and reached back up to take the picture. Just like before, she hesitated. But then she saw Chat grinning into the camera, flower crown displayed proudly. How could she miss the chance to capture this?

The pair smiled up at the camera, letting go of each other as they heard the click. When Marinette opened it, she couldn't help the weird sensation in her stomach as she saw Chat beaming beside her. Beside her civilian form.

A week ago if you told her she'd be sat wearing flower crowns with Chat Noir as Marinette, she'd have laughed in their face.

It didn't seem so ridiculous now. Especially when she was with him.

"See, look how pretty we are without flower crowns,"

"I hate to admit it, but my flower crown seems to suit you more than me,"

Chat smirked at her, eyes staring intently at the picture, "Guess you'll have to keep me around then."

Marinette shut off her phone, shoving it deep into her purse as she stood up. "I better get going. Alya's looking for me, and I promised I'd be quick. She thinks I'm only picking up my bag after all!" a sudden thought struck Marinette, her face drained of colour, "Everyone else! I really need to get back now. Girls day out, y'know? What am I doing here with you, I should be with them!"

"Meowch."

Her eyes widened, "Not that I don't want to be with you-- no, I love being with you!" The girl flushed, "Love's a strong word! I mean, like! I like hanging out with you! Even though this is our first time actually really talking..."

After stuttering over herself, Marinette decided it would be best to just shut her mouth from talking at all.

Chat pulled himself up, dusting off any dirt stuck to his suit. A shrill 'BEEP' sounded in the air. Marinette instantly glanced down at his ring flashing brightly at the pair, "I guess you've gotta go too,"

The blond sighed. Marinette had other friends, he shouldn't take up all her time like this, "Seems so. Well, I know you'll miss me terribly, but this at's gotta run. See ya, Princess!"

With that, Chat extended his baton, bouncing into the air. He waved and gave a sly wink, before pushing himself forward and over the rooftops of Paris.

"That stupid cat. Running around wearing flower crowns and winking at me, I seriously need to discuss with him his flirtatious tendencies," grumbled Marinette. Tikki flew back up as soon as Chat had disappeared over the horizon,

"Shouldn't you be hurrying back to you're friends?"

Marinette gasped, "Shoot! Oh god, I need to get my priorities right!" the noirette allowed Tikki to reposition herself inside her purse, then ran back to the park's entrance.

✧✬✧

"Where is she?" groaned Alya. She sat down beside Mylene, who had edged herself on the side of the road.

"I'm sure she's on her way!" piped in Rose, "Maybe she just had trouble finding her purse?"

Beside them, Alix loudly snorted. She rolled her eyes, "Yeah right. A bright pink purse on dark grass. Marinette may be clumsy, but she isn't dumb."

The girls all stayed silent. Alix was right; how long did it take to pick up a purse?

Juleka mumbled, "Maybe she bumped into someone?"

"But we were the only ones around when we left," argued Alya.

"Someone could have sill entered through the west entrance,"

She shrugged in response, "I guess so," Suddenly, their attention was diverted when a black figure swung overhead, "Isn't that Chat Noir?"

He past by them, jumping over the streets below.

"Isn't that one of our flower crowns?"

"Of course not."

"Wait, if Chat Noir is around..." the girls shared anxious looks. Unbeknownst to them, Chat wandered the streets daily. Even with the absence of an akuma, Chat loved leaping over Paris, wind blowing through his hair.

Unluckily, this wasn't known by the group. The girls hastily packed up their stuff and rushed back to their hangout spot, "Marinette! Marinette are you ok?"

Alix ran ahead, the fastest one out of the bunch. She sprinted forward, swiveling her head back to stare at the group. Abruptly, Alix was knocked backwards. Her body fell to the ground, elbows scraping against the concrete. "Hey! Watch where you're goi-"

"Marinette!" Rose jumped forward and pulled Marinette into an embrace, "We were so worried!"

"Aw, Rose... Sorry I took so long,"

"Are you ok? We saw Chat Noir so assumed the worst!" joined Alya.

Marinette stilled in Rose's arms, "I-I saw Chat Noir, so I hid! Yes! I hid because of an akuma! That's what everyone would do, right?"

Alya laughed as she flung her arm over Marinette's shoulder, "Oh, Marinette. You seem kinda shaken, let's go get some ice cream!"

The girls cheered, Marinette smiling warmly at them all, "That sounds perfect, let's go!"

Chat watched from above, blushing furiously as he held Marinette's flower crown in his hand. He had meant to go back to return it, but her friends had already found her. Seeing her so at ease, smiling brightly at them all...

His face went an even deeper shade of red.

BONUS Adrien lay in bed, a daisy flower crown held up in the light. "A closet filled with designer, yet you become obsessed with some flower crown," snickered Plagg. Adrien glared at the cat kwami, "It's not just some flower crown; Marinette made it!"

"Aww, Adrien's first girlfriend!"

"She's not my girlfriend."

"Unrequited lover!"

"Plagg!" groaned Adrien. He knew Plagg was just teasing, but him talking about Marinette like this was starting to get on his nerves, "Marinette's just a friend, you know that. Besides," Adrien rolled over. He delicately placed Marinette's flower crown on his bedside table, "Marinette's great, but Ladybug is the only one for me."

Plagg snorted, "Yeah, kid. No to Marinette, yes to Ladybug."

"What? What's so funny?"

"Nothing, nothing. Now give me some cheese or go to bed!"

Adrien sighed at his troublesome kwami, but shut the lights off nonetheless.

"Goodnight Plagg."

"Night, Adrien."

As Adrien drifted to sleep, a few houses away Marinette sent her final messages of the day:

als <3 heyy mari can u send me the pics from sat?? wanna post them l8r

mariii yea sure let me find them ok they're sending wifi sucks rn so it might take a while

als <3 yess thank uu

mariii aa gtg maman forcing me to sleep byee

als <3 ok text me latrr byee

mariii: screenshot_235 screenshot_236 screenshot_237 screenshot_238 screenshot_249

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what-is-your-plan-today · 4 years

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Stark Spangled Banner Ch47: Use Your Words, Old Man

Intro: Jamie reaches another milestone, and 2021 ticks by with many more memories for the Rogers and Stark family.

Warnings: Bad Language words. Smut! (NSFW) No under 18s. Tony teaching his nephew bad words…

Pairing: Steve Rogers x OFC Katie Stark

Stark Spangled Banner Masterlist

May 2021

“Jamie…no!” Steve swooped down and picked up the tot who had been toddling, unsteadily albeit towards Lucky giggling away. Lucky, however, was fast enough to understand and jumped up bolting towards the door of the room, leaping over the baby gate to avoid Jamie’s vice like grip on his ears.

“NO!” The toddler giggled and Steve stopped dead. Katie looked up and her mouth fell open.

“Did he just…” she held her breath. The 14 month old had been uttering the odd thing that sound like a word for a good few months but nothing that anyone would recognise as a proper term until then.

“Yeah I think so!” Steve grinned, looking at her then his son “Did you just talk buddy? Did you just say no?” “NO! No, No!” Jamie wriggled in his dad’s arms, grabbing at his once more present beard. Katie, who had managed to get the last few iterations of the word on her phone camera grinned as Steve placed him back on the floor where he headed over to this play-mat and landed with a thud on the floor, picking up a pile of the large, coloured blocks he liked to play with.

“Of course his first word would be No.” She sighed as Steve sat on the couch next to her. He laughed and dropped a hand to her knee.

“To be fair, honey, that’s what we spend half our time telling him one way or another.” Katie snorted, that much was true. Since he had been fully mobile and walking unaided over the last two months they had constantly been moving things out of his reach or removing them from his grasp often followed by the word. Nine times out of ten the tot was content to let them do so, but the odd time he would throw a temper tantrum to rival those of Katie’s at which point Steve would simply sigh, throw him over a shoulder and wait until he gave in.

“NO!” Jamie called again, clacking the bricks together and Steve gave a grin and moved off the couch to drop by his son on the play-mat. Katie watched the two of them for a moment, smiling to herself. She knew it was a cliché but she literally couldn’t have wished for a better father for either of her kids. They were experiencing first parenting issues at both ends of the spectrum, with Emmy five months off her fourteenth birthday and Jamie two months on from his 1st. It wasn’t easy, hell, they spent half their time second guessing their decisions. Where they being too strict or too lenient with Emmy? Was Jamie developing right? Where his toys educational enough? Was the floor clean enough for him to be crawling or lying on with having a dog in the house? But, when she saw moments like this, Jamie now trying to push his large, red MegaBlock into his Dad’s mouth, Steve clamping his lips together and shaking his head making their son screech with laughter, all her worries faded away.

Jamie really was fast turning into a miniature version of his dad, which was another thing Katie loved. Steve himself didn’t see it, but there had been a moment a few weeks back where the soldier had recognised someone he knew, loved and missed daily in his son, and it had choked both Parents up.

Steve was led on his back on the bed, Jamie cackling away as his dad was holding him at arms-length and then bringing him back down again to blow a raspberry on his cheek, repeating the motion over and over again, until he paused and his eyes widened a little. Katie frowned slightly at the look on his face. Steve gulped as he looked into his son’s eyes, their familiarity hitting him like a brick.

“Honey what is it?” Katie asked, as his eyes misted up and he swallowed thickly.

“His eyes. Do you think they’ll carry on turning green?”

Katie frowned “I don’t know, I doubt it. Apparently most babies, if their eyes are gonna change, will have done it by six months. Why do you ask?”

“I just, well, I never thought I’d see those eyes again.” he whispered, gently resuming his actions.

“I’m not following.” Katie frowned

“They err, he has ma’s eyes” Steve said, his voice was choked as he looked at her, bringing Jamie down to his chest, a soft smile playing on his face.

“Then you see your mother’s eyes every time you look in the mirror.” Katie smiled, leaning over to give him a soft kiss as her own chest felt slightly tighter than normal. She wiped a tear Steve hadn’t even been aware he’d shed off his check gently with her thumb, leaving her hand trailing softly across his skin. “Because when I look at him all I see is you. Those eyes are yours.”

He looked up at her and smiled, “yeah?” “Yeah.” she nodded, “I think you’re more like your mother than you realise sweetheart, maybe not in looks completely but, well, she raised you single handed. You’re the man you are because of her.”

“She was a fantastic woman.” Steve sighed.

“Well then you should be proud.” Katie said, and he smiled looking over at her.

“ I am.” he replied softly, his attention going back to his son. “And you know what else I’m proud of?”

“What?”

“That you’re a Mrs Rogers too.” he looked at her again “I know it’s just a name but, I really am glad you took it. Jamie has a Rogers momma as good as mine, helping to carry the name forward.”

“You sentimental sap.” Katie sniffed slightly as her own tears threatened to spill from her eyes.

“I love you so much.” he beamed at her, pressing his lips to hers softly. “Even if you are still a Stark really.” She laughed against his lips and gently hit him on the chest “Jerk.”

Katie turned back to the laptop she’d been looking at, flicking through a few spreadsheets with the latest figures the SIDE accountants had produced. Steve and Emmy’s idea around the support groups had been well received by everyone involved with the foundation and as such they’d started drafting up the paper work and working out the estimated funding. Steve had consulted Rhodey about the programme and the Colonel had enthusiastically agreed it was a great idea, and as such they’d pitched it to the Government, President Ellis’ reaction had been the same as theirs – why didn’t we think of this before- As such, they were currently working up the particulars, how they set up across the country, mobilisation, publicity…and Steve had taken up control of the project, his natural leadership qualities made him a superb Project Manager. He’d also expressed an interest in actually running the ones across New York himself, another way he felt he could help. They were aiming to open the first ones in September, running 2 a week for the time being, just to see how well they were received and, from a purely selfish point of view, Katie was enjoying working alongside him again and having him at home permanently instead of traveling with the Military.

“How many groups do you think you’re gonna have eventually?” she asked and Steve tuned to look at her.

“I dunno.” he shrugged “I’d like eventually to maybe run them three times a week, twice a day. Give everyone who wants to come a chance to you know…why?” “Just drilling into these numbers. I reckon we have enough to fund that to start with,” she paused, “and if the government meet our request then we can step it up.” He nodded “I put the design idea in for the fliers and posters yesterday. Has to be the mot sombre thing I’ve ever drawn.”

“I know.” she said softly “But it’s gonna make a difference Steve, focus on that.”

He was about to reply but he was cut off when they heard the voice from the security system informing them that the gate had been opened by “Emmy Rogers”. Steve glanced at the clock and frowned.

“It’s not even 1?”

“They’re on half day” Katie didn’t look up from the numbers on the screen “Teacher training or something.”

Moments late the front door opened and the chatter of two excited teenage girls hit their ears and Lucky gave a bark, his nails clicking on the wooden floor as he trotted through from where he had been on his bed under the stairs to greet Emmy.

“I know…” Emmy was saying, as her voice grew louder “I mean, I never thought they’d do anything like this not after the Decimation but…hi buddy!”

They heard Lucky’s excited whine and then they appeared in the doorway.

“Never thought they’d do anything like what?” Steve asked instantly and Emmy rolled her eyes.

“Do you earwig into every conversation I have?” she rolled her eyes, opening the baby-gate and stepping into the room.

“Yes.” Steve deadpanned. “Spill.” “Geography field trip Mr R.” Brooke grinned “Hamilton for the Niagara Escarpment.”

“Canada?” Katie smiled before her smile turned to a smirk as she side eyed Steve “I had a vacation in Canada once…” Steve shot her a glare and his voice dropped to a growl “That’s not funny.” he said sternly. The memory of what she’d been through wasn’t a laughing matter as far as he was concerned. She flashed him a grin and he rolled his eyes.

“So when is it?”

“Last week of term in June” Emmy answered, reaching down to pick Jamie up who had toddled over to his sister excitedly chattering jibberish as he went “Just for three nights. I know it’s really short notice but apparently they weren’t sure they could pull it off. Hi Jay!” she swung him up and kissed the little boy on the cheek as Brooke gently tweaked his nose causing him to laugh.

“6 weeks, yeah that is short notice.” Katie said. “Do you wanna go?” Emmy’s eyes lit up and she nodded “I’d love to.” Steve took in a deep breath and Katie looked at him. She could see him grappling with something but Jamie spoke before he could.

“No!”

“Did he just talk?” Emmy’s eyes widened.

“Yeah, he hasn’t shut up saying it for the last hour.” Katie grinned “Look, have you got the details of the trip?” “In my bag.” she nodded. “Ok well leave them on the table, me and your dad will give it the once over and we’ll talk about it later.”

Emmy placed Jamie down on the floor and fished in her bag for the forms before she dropped them onto the coffee table with a soft slap. Jamie wandered this time over to Katie who set her laptop down and picked him up. He sat on her lap and gently wound his hand into her hair, rubbing his face into her neck the way he always did when he was tired.

“I’m gonna put him down for a nap.” Katie stood up and looked at the 2 girls. “What are you doing this afternoon?”

“Pool!” they both said, sharing a hi-five before Emmy looked at her mom, the familiar hopeful expression on her face she always got when she was about to ask for something.

“Can we get Thai tonight? It is Friday.” “Dontcha mean Thaiday…” Steve quipped causing Katie to groan as Emmy picked up a cushion off the couch with her spare arm and hit her dad with it.

“That is so lame” Emmy rolled her eyes as Brooke cackled. “C’mon…”

Katie watched as they left the room, Steve still chuckling at his own joke.

“She’s right.” Katie looked at him, gently re-arranging Jamie slightly as he had started to nod off “That was lame.”

Steve gave her a look of mock hurt, clutching his chest, before she left and he sat up to read the information Emmy had left on the table. He was struggling a little bit between wanting to let her go and also the worry that had instantly flooded his system about her being safe. He carefully read the information, the trip was almost three-fifty, not that it mattered, and was for three nights. They were to fly into Toronto and then coach down. The activities looked good, and quick google showed him the hotel looked fairly reasonable and was in a nice enough area…

“I knew you’d be on that as soon as you could be.” Katie laughed and Steve looked up at her from his spot on the floor by the table and he gave a sheepish grin.

“Busted,” he sighed, “I just wanted to look into it properly. You know I really want her to go and enjoy stuff like this but…” “We can’t keep her sheltered Steve.” Katie reasoned, “No matter how much we want to. She’s gonna be fourteen this time round.” “I know, I know.” He sighed “Do you think we should let her go?” “Yeah, I do.” Katie nodded “We’re lucky enough to be able to afford things like that for our kids, plenty of other families aren’t.”

Steve’s tongue poked the inside of his cheek for a moment as he considered his wife’s words. She was right. Emmy would never have been on a trip like this before, and it did look like a lot of fun.

“Alright.” He heaved himself up off the floor “You’ve convinced me.” Katie grinned “If only everything was that easy.” “It is.” he arched an eyebrow. “All you have to do is pull those eyes at me.” “What eyes?” she asked innocently. “You know damned well what eyes. Those eyes. The ones that can get me to do whatever you want.” “Is it working now?” she looked up at him, flicking her eyelashes. “Why, what do you want?” he asked, smirking, knowing full well what she was implying as her hands slid up his chest.

“Well the girls are out at the pool,” she said, her eyes now on the buttons of his Henley as she started to undo them, “and Jamie’s asleep…” Grinning he span her round, shoved her gently forward and aimed a smack to her ass causing her to yelp playfully “Get up those stairs Mrs Rogers.” He said, and the pair of them hurried off, giggling like a pair of naughty school kids till they reached their bedroom, where the giggles turned into shared moans, groans and happy sighs.

**** “Thanks for dropping Brooke off.” Jennifer smiled the next morning, placing a latte down in front of Katie.

“It was no problem, I had to come this way on my way up to the compound anyway.” Katie smiled and then frowned slightly as she noticed the look on her friend’s face.

“You alright?” She asked gently.

“Not really,” she said, sitting down. “Brooke called last night about the field trip…” Katie nodded “Yeah Steve wasn’t so keen but I talked him round. The girls seem to be looking forward to it.” “That’s the thing.” Jen sighed, rubbing her temple “I really want Brooke to go but, well, business hasn’t been what it used to be before, you know, and I’m not sure I can afford for her to go, not at such short notice.” Katie instantly felt like a jerk. She knew she was incredibly privileged to be so wealthy but was well aware many weren’t as fortunate.

“I haven’t had the heart to tell her yet.” Jen said. Katie bit her lip.

“Jen,” she leaned over the table dropping her voice, “if you want…” “No.” Jen shook her head, her lips pressing into a thin line, instantly understanding what Katie was offering “I’m not a charity case.” her voice was clipped. “No, that’s not what I meant.” Katie hastily assured the woman “Honestly, I didn’t mean to offend you.” “I know.” Jen shook her head “Sorry, that was really ungrateful.” “It’s fine.” Katie said, “But the offers there. We could consider it a loan if you liked.” Jen chewed her lip, and Katie saw her friend’s eyes begin to water.

“Look,” Katie gripped her mug “It’s a couple of hundred bucks. And this probably sounds crass but I make more money than I know what to do with.”

“Sorry, I just hate this, you know.” Jen hastily wiped her face “A few years ago this place was thriving and now, well I just about make enough to cover bills and the thought she is the one that has to miss out…” “Then let me help.” Katie pleaded, looking at the red head opposite her “Brooke’s been a good friend to Emmy and, well, from a selfish point of view I’d be a lot more comfortable if they were together.”

“That’s really kind of you.” Jennifer nodded after a pause “Are you sure? I’ll pay you back as soon as I can.”

“Whenever, it’s not a big deal.” Katie nodded, smiling “On one condition.” “What?”

“You sneak me one of your delicious brownies every once in a while.” Jenifer laughed “Oh honey, you and Steve can get free coffee and brownies for life.” “Erm, yeah, pretty sure in a month you’d be bankrupt if I told Steve that.” Katie grinned and Jenifer smiled.

“Would you like to come over?” she asked suddenly “The pair of you, for dinner maybe? Tonight? Emmy and Jamie as well, of course.”

“I think that should be ok.” Katie smiled “We’re not doing anything that I know of.”

“Great, well, Emmy can stay here if she likes, sure once I tell Brooke she can go they’ll be planning all sorts of mischief.”

“I dread to think” Katie mused “You know I went on a field trip to San Fran one year. I was 16. Me and my friend, a girl called Laura, I made some fake ID and we got plastered in a bar. Tony absolutely kicked my ass, although he told me a few years later he was actually quite impressed at the quality of my forgeries.”

Jennifer snorted “Yeah, this isn’t exactly filling me full of confidence.”

Katie laughed “Emmy is much better behaved than I was at that age.” She drained her mug and stood up. “I best be going.”

“Sure, see you tonight? What time will suit with Jamie?”

“Well he normally goes down about seven and he’ll just sleep in his car seat.” Katie smiled “So say six ish? I can feed him and settle him then at yours before we eat.”

“Fab.” Jenifer stood up and Katie mirrored her “And thank you.”

“My pleasure.” she smiled, and she handed Jen her mug. Once the woman was out of sight she dug into her purse and dropped the customary twenty bucks into the tip jar.

****

Steve was in the kitchen when he heard his wife come home. He didn’t move though, he was too busy watching his son, trying to figure out how the hell the fourteen month old had managed to climb up on top of the breakfast bar unaided. The only explanation was he’d used one of the stools as leverage, but even that was baffling him and there was no way he should have been able to manage that, at all. He had turned his back for thirty goddamned seconds to load the dishwasher and now his son was crawling along the unit.

“Thank you Dr Erskine” Steve grumbled as he swept his son off the surface “You’re gonna be the death of me, pal.” “No!” Jamie cackled, and Steve sighed, his son carefully held in his arms as Katie walked into the kitchen. “Hey, baby.” he said, dropping a kiss to her lips.

“Hi.” She greeted him, returning his gentle sign of affection before she blew a raspberry on Jamie’s cheek. He giggled as she made her way to the fridge and Steve deposited him on the mat at the corner of the room.

“How was Nat?” Steve asked and Katie sighed, grabbing out a bottle of water and opening it.

“Still insisting on flying out to Nepal.” she shut the fridge. “I’ve told her Barton doesn’t wanna be found, but…” she trailed off. “And Bruce has gone again.”

“Where to this time?” Steve frowned.

“Back to the lab in Seoul.” Katie shrugged “I don’t know what for. Anyway, I told her to come for dinner on Sunday and that if she misses it again this week imma kick her ass.” Steve smiled as Katie took a drink from the bottle “Oh, and speaking of dinner, we’re not doing anything tonight are we?” she asked,

“Not at the moment but I’m sure you’re about to tell me we are.” “Correct, Jen’s asked us round.” she said sitting down at the table

“That’s nice of her.” Steve said, pouring himself mug of coffee, Katie waving away his offer of one “You wanna go?”

“Yeah, and it’s kind of a thank you so we should do really.”

“What for?” he sat down opposite her.

“Well, she was upset about not being able to send Brooke on the Field Trip so I offered to help out money wise.” she shrugged, “You don’t mind do you?”

Steve shook his head. “No, of course not.”

“She didn’t want to take it at first but she agreed in the end. As long as it’s a loan”

“I’m glad she agreed to take it. I’m assuming Emmy has stayed with them for the day?”

Katie hummed a response.

“Those two are joined at the hip.” Steve snorted

“Another reason I really wanted Brooke to go.”

A movement caught Steve’s eye from the corner of the room and he looked up to see Jamie was now stood up again and was heading back towards the breakfast bar. He quietly observed his son, watching as the boy gripped the legs of one of the stools and pulled himself up, and was horrified to see that he was managing to lift his legs off the floor, swinging them onto the foot bar.

“James, No!” he said loudly. The use of their boy’s full name didn’t pass Katie by and she turned in her seat to see Jamie looking at his father before he let go of the stool and fell backwards onto his butt, the pout on his face reminding Steve so much of his wife that he had to stifle a laugh. Katie watched as he got to his feet and toddled towards her.

“He managed to get up onto the kitchen counter before.” Steve said as she picked him up and sat him on her knee. “What?” Katie asked, her voice high pitched as she whipped her head round to look at Steve “How the hell?”

“Beats me, although from that I suspect he was using the stool as a climbing frame.” Steve sighed watching as Jamie’s attention turned to the now empty bottle of water in front of Katie. “I was loading the dishwasher and in the time it took me to put the plates in he’d made it from his play mat to the top of the damned breakfast bar.” ��This is your fault.” Katie laughed, smoothing down her son’s blonde hair. “You and your damned super serum.”

“I know.” Steve shook his head. “I thought we could take him and Lucky out for a walk maybe see if that settles his energy.”

Katie checked her watch “Yeah, we could do. Maybe head to the park. If we go now then we should be back for his nap.”

“Or we can wait a while, and he can sleep in the buggy and I can take you for lunch?”

“Okay so that sounds even better” she grinned “You know, you’re not as dumb as-“

Steve never found out what he wasn’t as dumb as, because at that moment they heard a yell that made his breath catch.

“DADA!”

The parents looked at one another, a shit eating grin spreading across Steve’s face as he leaned forward across the table.

“Dada?” Katie asked, pointing at Steve, bouncing Jamie on her knee. “Dada!” Jamie babbled again, grinning. “Dada!”

“Typical.” Katie rolled her eyes. “I carry you for nine months, give birth, feed you from my boobs and you come out looking like your father and you say Dada first. That’s gratitude for you”

“Guess that means I’m his favourite.” Steve teased, slumping back in his chair, screwing his eyes shut and pumping his fist in mock celebration, a smug grin in his face. It earned him a glare from his wife once he opened them and he blew her a kiss, shrugging.

He was pleased, however that Katie didn’t have to wait long for her turn. A few days later when she went into Jamie’s room to get him up for the morning he beamed at her and held his arms up exclaiming “ma-ma!” Steve watched his wife on the baby monitor screen and felt his heart swell to what felt like 5 times its normal size as Katie picked up their son, her eyes pricking with tears and held him tight.

*****

June 2021

Katie woke with a start, pausing for a moment, wondering why it was so quiet. It took her a second but then she remembered Jamie was at Tony’s, staying for a sleepover. As Emmy was on her field trip, Pepper and Tony had taken the boy to give Katie and Steve a night on their own, the first one they had had in a very long time. Tony had rung them mid afternoon to ask who on earth had taught him the word “whatever…”, albeit in Jamie’s pronunciation “tever…” and Katie had laughed, that one was firmly down to Emmy. He hadn’t quite managed the sign to go with it yet thought, despite her best attempts.

They’d taken full advantage of it too. Steve had gone into complete romantic overdrive, coming home from a meeting at the tower with a bunch of calla lilies for his wife and told her to get dressed up as they were going out. They’d headed into Brooklyn for a meal at a small Italian (Katie only checking her phone five times…which was an improvement on the twenty the first time they’d left Jamie with his uncle) and they’d had a great time. It had been intimate, and they’d teased each other relentlessly meaning when they got home they hadn’t even made it up the stairs before they’d been clawing at each other, desperate touches and kisses shared in the hallway before they’d both tumbled into the lounge onto the rug in front of the fire. Grinning to herself at the slight tenderness between her legs, Katie turned over and glanced at Steve who gently shifted in his sleep, a sure sign that he was slowly waking. She scooted closer and rested her hand on his chest, her smile widening as he unconsciously let out a soft sigh of contentment. His eyes were moving under their lids, and as her hand started trailing down over his stomach he took in a deep breath, finally opening his eyes and meeting her gaze just as her touch dipped below the waistband of his boxers. He let out a low groan.

“You’re awake early considering the kids are away.” he murmured, kissing the skin in the crook of her shoulder, his beard scratching her skin slightly as she continued her strokes, teasing him lightly.

"Yeah, force of habit” she whispered back, sighing as he kissed her neck again and again. He wrapped an arm around her, pulling her close until she was pressed against him, his thigh between hers as he rolled them both over so she was nestled under him. His lips made their way to hers and he gave her a deep, languid kiss as she shifted so that her legs wrapped around his waist, pulling him flush against her. Steve propped himself up with his left arm while his other hand went under the shirt she was wearing, his shirt, to her chest, his fingertips barely brushing against her nipples. She groaned loudly at his touch, and he was just about to warn her to be quiet, but then he realised he didn’t have to. With the knowledge that he really could make her scream, he hastily pulled the top over her head and his lips crashed back to hers, the kiss hot and intentional as her legs gripped him tightly in an attempt to get a little more friction between them. He went to tug at the waistband of her underwear, barely breaking his lips away from hers for a moment.

“You want me?” he asked, his voice low and raspy.

“Please.” she said, aware of the desperation that flooded her tone and he let out a low growl, and she felt the tearing along one side of the thin lace garment he had hold of. She laughed into his mouth, remembering their first time together when he had done that as her fingers scrambled to push down his boxers as he repositioned himself slightly, gently working into her. Man and wife both let out a satisfied sigh as Steve’s hand grabbed Katie’s knee and hitched it over his shoulder, a move he knew drove her wild. She moaned loudly and her fingers dug into his arms as he starting pushing a little harder, a little faster, then faster, until he had reached a relentless pace making his wife curse and leaving her short of breath.

He slowed for a moment, making her look at him, letting out a noise of protest. “Don’t stop,” she begged, “Please Stevie.”

Grinning slightly he picked up the pace again, enjoying the noises she was making as she keened underneath him, her head pressing further back into the pillow a she gave another loud cry of his name before he felt her tighten round him, her nails biting at the skin on his arms. He continued to thrust three, four more times before the snake in his belly uncoiled and he jerked on top of her with a loud cry of his own and let go of her leg, collapsing onto her, his face buried into her neck.

“Morning,” she mumbled, her hands tangling into his hair and he let out a soft chuckle.

They stayed in bed for another hour or so, just laying with one another and talking before it was time to shower. They did that together too, and by the time they were climbing into the car to go and pick Jamie up, Katie was feeling literally and figuratively thoroughly fucked and fell asleep on the journey, Steve smirking to himself at the fact he could still tire her out like that after almost eight years of being with one another.

“Late night was it?” Tony quipped as Katie let out a yawn as she walked into his living room.

“Yeah, and an early morning” she shot back and Tony snorted, shaking his head.

“Dada!” Jamie giggled as he tottered over from where he had been sat on the rug with Morgan and Pepper “Mama!”

“Hi baby!” Katie swept him up in her arms and placed a kiss to his cheek “We missed you.” “Nee!” He said gleefully and Katie frowned, and it wasn’t until he pointed to his uncle and repeated the word that she understood “Nee!”

Steve let out a snort “Uncle Nee. Suits you Tone.” “Shut up, Spangles” Tony raised an eyebrow as Morgan laughed.

“Uncle Pangles” the two year old quipped as if on cue and Steve let out a moan

“Did you teach her that?” he looked accusingly at his brother in law.

“Of course he did.” Pepper sighed, sweeping the small girl into her arms as she stood up, smirking at Katie. “You guys eaten breakfast yet or were you too busy?” Katie let out a snort “If there’s any going I won’t say no.”

Pepper handed Morgan to Steve as she was trying to reach him and he took her, tossing her into the air ignoring the wince from Tony as he did so, catching the girl expertly.

“Again!” she pleaded and Steve obliged happily, knowing that it was winding Tony up only added to the enjoyment of seeing his niece cackle with laughter. “When’s Emmy back?” Tony asked, tearing his eyes away from where Steve was tossing his daughter in the air like he was wielding that fucking shield to look at his sister.

“This evening.” Katie answered. “Spoke to her last night, not sure she wants to come home.” “I remember your field trip to San Fran.” Tony mused, raising an eyebrow and Katie snorted.

“Yeah, so do I.” She smirked “I was telling Jen about that the other month. My first hangover.” “Ok, can you stop that now!” Tony rounded on Steve who grinned and rest Morgan on his hip and she pouted

“More!”

“Sorry, Moo.” Steve apologised and she gave a huff as he placed her on the floor and she headed off to find her mum in the kitchen. He arched an eyebrow at Tony who rolled his eyes.

“Dick.” he mumbled.

“Dick.” Jamie repeated loudly and Katie’s eyes widened. Steve looked at his son, utterly horrified, then to Tony who’s shocked expression was fast turning into one of utter glee.

“Oh you-” Steve glared at Tony as Katie bit her lip to try and stop her laughter “For f-“ he stopped himself, took a deep breath and pointed at Tony “You are an absolute…”

“Use your words, Old Man…” Tony grinned, delightedly and Steve’s jaw clenched as he turned so his back was to his son and raised his hand, flipping his brother-in-law off.

*****

October 2021

“Your daddy is gonna be soaked” Katie mused to Jamie as she looked out of the window “It’s absolutely pouring with rain.”

“Dada. Rain!” Jamie grinned, chanting the words back at her, ignoring the small piece of toast that was left on his plate.

Steve had gone for his morning run with Lucky before he headed out to the first of the two support groups he was running that day. Steve had held the first one in September in an old hall, and at first Katie was worried that more people would attend to take their anger out on him and had wanted to be there to help but Steve refused point blank. Her concern wasn’t completely unfounded as a lot of people were angry at first, but no one else hit him, and he said it was actually therapeutic for him too, as he could answer questions, and speak honestly and openly about how he felt about the situation too. Turns out Steve was a natural born councillor as well as a leader, and by the end of the month he had 6 different groups running through the week at different places across Manhattan. It was good for him and he was relishing the fact he could still be useful. Of course, there was one downside, that delectable beard had, once again, for the third time been vanquished. Because Steve was recognised as ‘Captain America’ at those support groups, or at least a version of.

And “Captain America doesn’t have a beard…”

The back door opened, and Katie could hear the man she was thinking about stepping into the small utility room off the side of the kitchen.

“Ahhh thanks, pal.” his voice dripped with sarcasm as she heard Lucky’s tag tinkling along with the noise of the dog shaking “That’s great. really great.” Katie chuckled to herself, picturing his face as he continued to grumble

“Could have waited until I got a towel.”

“DADA!” Jamie yelled at the sound of his dad’s voice, squirming in his seat, breakfast abandoned. “Ucky!”

“Hey, buddy” Steve called back, as Katie undid the straps from his high chair and they made their way into the utility area where Steve was drying Lucky off as best he could with an old towel. Lucky took the opportunity as soon as he could to scoot away and past Katie into the kitchen.

Jamie glanced at his dad and excitedly wiggled his arms and legs as Steve shrugged off his sodden waterproof running jacket.

“Hi!” he screeched “Hi Dada!”

Steve’s bright smile light up his face “Hi, son.” He kissed him once on both cheeks and he squeaked happily before Katie set him down and he toddled back over to the play-mat in the corner of the kitchen.

“What, no kiss from my baby mama?” Steve asked, sweeping Katie into his arms and rubbing at her neck with his cold, damp face.

She squealed and tried to pull away, to absolutely no avail and Steve continued to laugh and use her as a drying cloth.

“Ew! You’re cold and damp and sweaty!“ she wrinkled her nose.

“You don’t seem to mind my sweat when I’m chasing your fourth orgasm.” he said cheekily, dropping his voice to barely more than a whisper, making her laugh.

“That’s different.” “How?” he snorted

“Because that’s sex sweat, this is run sweat.” she shrugged in his arms. Steve laughed loudly “I didn’t realise I had different sweat pores for different activities”

“I didn’t mean that!” she rolled her eyes “I mean that I’m not sweaty now, I’m warm, and dry…” “Yeah, and if you give me a moment I can rectify that situation…”

“Dirtbag.” she grinned, his chuckle vibrating into her chest. "Go get showered and warmed up. I’ll make you some breakfast.”

"Kiss first, Kitten.” Steve muttered before he leaned forward and pressed a his mouth to hers. His lips were warm and despite herself, Katie leaned into his arms, her hands snaking up into his damp hair.

“Kissy!” Jamie giggled, and they broke apart to look at the tot who was sat on the floor clapping “kissy, kissy!”

“I’m gonna kill Emmy�� Steve muttered, and then he spotted Lucky expertly stealing the toast that Jamie had left on the highchair, before sidling out of the room with his precious cargo before he could chastise the animal. “And that damned dog.”

Katie laughed and gave him another peck on the cheek before he swept past his son, giving his hair a quick ruffle. She leaned back against the counter and smiled, before she sighed. They’d had almost three years now of pretty much non-stop domestic bliss, but she couldn’t shake the feeling that something surely had to come along at some point and turn it all upside down. That was how things went for them, right?

“Mama!” her attention flew back to her son as he toddled over to her and held his arms up “Hungry.” “Again?” she rolled her eyes before she smiled and with one arm placed more bread in the toaster. For now, she pushed any worries she had to the back of her mind, content to just enjoy what they had for as long as they had it.

Tags

@the-omni-princess @momobaby227 @geekofmanythings16 @angelofhell-666 @thewackywriter @marvelfansworld @cobalt-gear @asgardlover75 @jennmurawski13 @jtargaryen18 @saiyanprincessswanie @navispalace @patzammit @joannaliceevans-fanficblog @icanfeelastormbrewing @djeniiscorner @ayamenimthiriel

#stark spangled banner #steve rogers x original female character #steve rogers x oc #steve rogers #captain america #tony stark #iron man #mcu #mcu fanfiction #marvel #marvel fanfiction #avengers #avengers fanfiction #fanfic #fancfiction

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trulycertain · 4 years

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Unpopular opinion: god, Batman v Superman had some really good ideas that it chucked down the U-bend, and there are parts of it I really enjoyed. I don’t regret seeing it (and yes, I watched the Extended Cut. All three hours). I was just discussing this with @masutrout, and here’s a slightly abridged version of my thoughts.

Look, I know no-one sets out to make a bad film, and with so many moving parts, a film getting released at all is a miracle. I know it’s not down to one person and (I’m quite glad) it’s not up to me, because I have no idea how to make films. But if I had, say, a magic lamp and a wish for an ideal BvS and DCEU in general... Here’s what I liked; here’s what I’d magically tweak in a parallel universe; here’s a rant. A 2.2k rant. An Extended Cut rant.

I know it's all desaturated and so on, but I genuinely really love Snyder's style. Dude can set up a shot, and he knows how to use chiaroscuro. In theory, I totally get why they'd look at him and go, "his shit is like comics brought to life, pick him." I wish he'd just... allow a bit more colour into it and let people colour grade properly, because the Metropolis/Gotham Clark/Bruce contrast could've been played up beautifully with visual language and colour too. I mean, I know he can do overwrought iconography and imagery, look at how they went to the trouble of CGI'ing Clark's cape in every scene because it was such a banner, and the pop of red.

I'll admit, I wasn't always all-in on Affleck's performance, though it was one of his best in his back catalogue (I am one of the few people I know who has zero problems with him as an actor and tends to find it more the material, but I grew up on Kevin Smith films and his shtick works for me, even if he has a manner. I'm not too discerning). But. A Bruce who's tired and broken-down and greying and has lost even more, and still in the aftermath of that, tries to find hope and "I can't let this happen to anyone else" again, in the wake of one more death? God yes give it to me. A Bruce who's taller than Clark and just plain tall in general, because maybe Kryptonian ideals are different and because it'd give Bruce one more thing to desperately play down? God yes. Just... in general, middle-aged Bruce but without a lot of the Batfam stuff (which I like, I have a love for several of the Bats, but my favourite stories are always solo) with a regimen of painkillers and who's turned Wayne from an "I'll just jump into the water feature" jackass to a schmoozer and flirt and maybe a drunk. Take out the branding. I wanted Bruce as a broken idealist, not a fascist. It's actually way more fascistic than the original Dark Knight Returns, even. But goodness, the whole idea of an established, tired Batman is good. There’s a reason the comics and animations keep coming back to it.

"Superman was just a story. Superman was just the dream of some farmer from Kansas." I forget the exact phrasing, but everything about that idea, and this idea that Superman is as much an ideal for Clark to live up to as everyone else, and he’s daunted by it? Yeah. There’s something in there.

I loved everything about Jeremy Irons' Alfred. Seriously, everything. Tech guru, little less RP, little rougher around the edges, clearly has some scars of his own. Absolutely biting, even more than most incarnations, and gets all the best lines. Yes, keep that, it'll do.

I liked the voice changer... halfway. To me it makes way more sense than putting on a voice, which is a bit daft and way more variable. I just wouldn't have gone that heavy on the processing, so that Bruce sounded less like a hacker from 1999. I also thought it was a good way of representing how Bruce desperately tries to emotionally distance himself when he’s the Bat, and how his anger has made him colder.

Batman as just a rumour or an urban legend is great, and a wonderful contrast to Superman, who’s this bright, transparent... common god. Bruce never did it for credit, he did it to get it done. It’s stretching the bounds of credulity, sure, but in this strange, semi-operatic storytelling with heavy myth feel, it makes a bunch of sense thematically.

Bruce meeting Martha Kent, and their first meeting being him saving her life. Even this broken-down Batman who thinks he’s a mess. Actually, just more Martha in the DCEU in general. I mean, I get why they didn't lean into it so much because they maybe wanted Bruce and Clark to feel more like equal peers, rather than Bruce being too dadly, but... god, again, more Martha. In JL, in something, if nothing else. Martha who's lost a son (Jason); Martha who later has a son in another city trying to do good and is worried as hell about them (Dick's canonically in Bludhaven PD at this point); Martha who is one of about five people in the world who knows who Batman is and hasn't spilt that information; Martha who saw Bruce at the cemetery and might have some really interesting things to say to him, angry or forgiving; Martha who is one of the few people who's seen the good in the Bat (when Bruce himself couldn't)... Man, I was so, so glad that fic leaned into that. I would read a regular comic book of just Martha and Bruce Being Reluctant Friends and Worrying A Little About Their Kids, But Maybe In An Enemies-To-Friends Way Because Holy Shit You Had A Fucking Spear What the Fuck.

No, really, wait, I’m going to go on about Martha again. The scenes in BvS where she was basically saying, "God, don't kill yourself for them, come home, if they're gonna hate you they don't deserve you..." On the one hand she could've been a contrasting voice to Jon, but this way also makes sense. "I know you want to help but please don't kill yourself..." It was always both parents in the comics who affected him equally, even if the Donner films had his father's death, iirc. It was Martha who pushed to keep him, Jon who taught him not to break people and show off, Martha who taught him how to cook and be gentle with things and in Superman: Birthright, which MoS is heavily, badly based upon (I love that miniseries, time to read it again) she researches alien sightings in the hope he won't be alone. I get why they went for a more "grounded" Kryptonian uniform thing, but Martha made his costume, in the original canon. In all canons, she was a huge help in creating the "Clark Kent" persona (yeah, sure, maybe a woman would have something to say about making yourself quiet and shrinking in a room and having to look helpful and nonthreatening all the time, but Snyder and Goyer were never gonna be the kind of people to explore that and even Waid, whom I love, barely touches on it). Every other film or comic book is crap, dead, or crap and dead dads. Clark's relationship with his mother and father is hugely important.

Getting to see Bruce doing the society beat, and just a little more philanthropy would've been great. You don't have time to build that character? Sure, OK. Take out the Flash dream sequence and the sleeping-with-random-women, maybe don't have a totally unnecessary but kinda hilarious shower scene, and replace it with some identity weirdness where Bruce and Clark are stuck interacting as civilians a little more. Or something about what the hell happened with Jason and the manor, though I don't mind most of it being unexplained. There, still building character, still serving a purpose, you can fit a brief scene into your three hour movie. Civil War had a ton of "Steve Rogers and Tony Stark brood or sit in rooms talking to each other."

If they were going to throw away all the secret-identity potential, they could at least have done it interestingly. That scene at the gala made it clear how hard they both had to act, and Jesus, the idea of Clark eventually, finally finding someone else who has to lie and cut off what they can do, who has to bumble almost the way he does... That could've been interesting and also maybe worried the shit out of him. Or made him want to talk to this crazy billionaire who goes round combat-booting people in the face and try and get what his deal was, which could've led to more interesting misunderstandings.

And then there's Diana, who's not a bumbler but a "nothing to see here, rich eccentric" type too (no wonder she and Bruce had weird insane chemistry in that "sizing each other up/I know exactly what you are" way), and why the hell does Clark basically never see her? I actually don't mind the whole "she's only here for her photo and never meant to get involved, so she's only needing to chase Bruce," that makes sense, but after Doomsday?! In Justice League?! She understands what it is for the world to be frightened of you, resistant to you, the urge to go and hide where it's safe with your family, the loneliness. I mean, just imagine MoS!Clark meeting her and the goddamn relief of it. And the way it could've played off the whole Jonathan Kent is a creepy "kill em all" weirdo now thing, if they insisted on keeping it.

Similarly, please god please show Clark being a journalist more. Perry chewing him out more. A mild hint of office politics. That's the perfect place to leaven a rough film with a dose of humour. People wouldn't have been so bothered by "Is she with you?", which is actually not that terrible a line next to some Marvel "zingers", except for it being so tonally inconsistent. A gentle thread, a few moments of it. Maybe have Clark save someone and have to scrabble to keep his identity a secret, like in MoS - maybe a minute, you could go for some physical humour or a mild sight gag. Obviously, this'd be pre-bombing the courthouse. Relatedly...

Take out Nairomi and the branding. They serve very little purpose, story-wise, basically never come back into the plot, and only serve to make Clark and Bruce look like dicks unnecessarily when if you want to inject flaws, you have a ton of opportunities to do it with how they deal with people and their loved ones, how they deal with perps, and their brooding moments.

Seriously, Bruce kicking the shit out of people and investigating shipments from the Black Zero and World Engine crashes would be enough to worry and piss off Clark, as would the whole "I am the night"/lack of transparency shtick. I mean, for a start, John Byrne retconned their first meeting that way in the 80s and that issue is actually great (Clark is trying to arrest Bruce when they meet, because he's young and idealistic and maybe a little up himself and he's been Supes for about five and a half minutes). Look: Clark is being revered and hates it. He blames himself for Black Zero, at least a little. He has excellent reason to be desperately projecting brightly-coloured not-a-threat and also hate that someone else is terrorising a city and violence is being revered, especially when Metropolis and Gotham are still so raw. I mean... Snyder and Goyer did the fucking stupid offensive 9/11 comparisons. Look at how that affected people and still does to this day; emotions run bloody high, and the entire point of Clark is that he's still human and terrified and guilty. And with Wallace O’Keefe and all the threatening notes... look, there's already a good plot in there!

Meanwhile, Luthor clearly knows Bruce has been sniffing around the K shipments and could've just tipped off Clark about that as well, saying, "He clearly is gonna use it for his own power, and with how sinister and opaque and violent he's already been, he's gonna hurt people." Having his heritage used against people is one of Clark's worst nightmares, it was implied pretty clearly in MoS, and you'd still have the righteous anger. No branding needed. Kryptonian artefacts and the entire masked violent vigilantism are already enough "this is someone who thinks he's above people and can decide their lives" to piss Clark off. He could even investigate that as himself rather than Supes. You need it to be an unanon tip-off and Keefe wouldn't have access to that information? Sure, OK, just filter it through Mercy Graves and make her a "worried confidential source." I mean, she's in the movie and completely wasted. Why not actually, you know, do something with her? Clark wants to believe the best in people, and he might dislike Luthor personally, but he doesn't know Luthor's out to get him yet - or wouldn't, if the writing was better. Again, Birthright, the text Goyer repeatedly ripped from, did this brilliantly. The brand... it's overkill. Grimdark overkill.

I actually... look, I had a really fun, if baffled, time with this movie, but goodness I’d like to see what it could’ve been. And now all the film sites are waving goodbye to Batfleck again while running DC retrospectives due to Birds of Prey, and Cavill’s blue tights are in doubt, it seemed like as good a time as any.

#tru goes dc #batman v superman: dawn of justice #batman v superman #bvs critical #but also kind of positive?#i'm trying to be positive here too #dceu #dc #meta #ie me rambling

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fehspinning · 5 years

Text

Guess This Blog Is Going Inactive as Intsys Works Hard To Make Me Quit

Recently there are a lot of problems with Fire Emblem Heroes that became apparent and enough is enough.

1. The duo Ephraim being one time only.

They have dug their heels in as of the time I am writing this; Ephraim duo will be a one and done period end of story. The duos are a HUGE power creep all around and they are going to be ultra limited which makes total sense from a business perspective. They want your money and they hate the player base as they have shown time and again therefore of course they will make the best units in the game buy only. Personally I am super tired of this bullshit when once I have a team I know can handle the content I can autobattle all the content to completion the first day it comes out.

2. The numbers on Legendary Leif were fucky.

When it comes to interaction online I tend to see a pool of three or four hundred people and for any given unit it tends to be between twenty and thirty percent of the player base gets the most sought after unit. Well I didn’t see that with Leif and then I started talking to people who had begun throwing money at the game and still no luck so I broadened my pool to a thousand people. One got Leif; OK so I went to close to two thousand people, two got Leif. There have been rumors that in the legendary banners this year there is a second set of hidden rarity where within their colour the featured person sits around ten percent while the others in the colour sit around forty five. I didn’t care about the last few but went back and looked online and...yeah it’s close. I think the numbers are closer to 40-40-20 but still. Again they want your money and they hate the player base as they have shown time and again therefore of course they will make the best unit in the pull ultra rare compared to others.

3. The power creep has made +10ing non-five star units as five star units obsolete.

I think I noticed during the last forging bonds was that the numbers looked off so I have sat down and compared an IV neutral 40+10 Lukas Sharp Soldier with 40+0 Forscyth. Lukas has: +2 HP -1 Att +8 Spd -5 Def -10 Res Total: Net of -6 So the range tends to be +/- 5% between the new 40+0 five star only characters and a 40+10 character that can be gotten at four star or lower. Add in the type of weapons these new characters can get compared to the weapons the four stars and under can get. Sure I can pour everything in terms of super rare abilities and stuff to cover that 5% gap but how many five stars will that take? Exceptionally high investment and how wide does that gap get when I put the average version of the same abilities on the 40+0 five star only? Sure you can totally stan your favs so you don’t need to care about these one time only duos except in order to stan your favs you need things like Heavy Blade 4 which means you need to get copies of things like one time duos to blow up. So you get all the grind and being screwed around with; with the additional resource grind. Yes new units should be stronger at 40+0 than a four star upgraded to a 40+0 five star. The new units should dwarf them BUT if I am spending the hours to gather a minimum of 200,000 feathers, plus pulling till I get 10 copies of the guy I want from a massive pool seeing as you naturally will dwarf me with your weapon and on board abilities I should at least have comparable stats to say a 40+1 character that is five star only.

4. I found a game that is player friendly gatcha and makes all your old investments good again with often without you needing to make any additional investment.

In Final Fantasy Dissidia Opera Omnia they don’t peek-a-boo you with characters at the last minute they at the beginning of the month show you what is coming over the next five weeks. You need gear and not characters and in order to guarantee the best gear in the game for a particular character you need to make a maximum of fifteen 10+1 item pulls costing you a total of 75000 gems. Every month they give away a minimum of about 25,000 gems. They also give away a minimum of fifty single shot tickets where the best item in a pull has a 1% chance of showing up. You don’t need to get the newest best item from every banner to rock the game; yes there are a handful of characters you really should have to ensure your ability to do end game content (Warrior of Light, Sharlotta, Ultimecia) but people can still clear content without them. And here’s the best part they upgrade the older characters to bring them up to the new base line, so for example I invested a lot into Zell and he did great for me for a long while but he fell off. This week or next, I can't remember off the top of my head his abilities will be changed to make him viable in the new age with no extra pulling or work required. Once they cycle through updating all the characters? They start over again re-updating all the characters so your favs never get left behind forever. Also when they introduce a new game mechanic everyone will eventually get it, so in my Zell case now that they have entered an ability level called EX+ Zell will one day get the EX+ and cause I have all his stuff I will have to grind item upgrade resources from weekly events and not have to pull a banner to give it to him. One day he will get something called a Burst, and for that weapon I will have to pull but I will be given a minimum of five weeks notice to save my tickets and gems to pull on it and it will be the only item at that rarity on it’s banner so they can't skewer the numbers against me.

5. They have trained me that I must have the newest unit to succeed and that sometimes requires dropping cash so I WILL.

The general level of content is always tweaked to match the power creep forcing you to want to whale in order to guarantee you can do it. Also the art and designs are always top notch and I have a weakness for pretty things.

After the Dimitri and Summer Wolt debacles I swore off not spending money on FEH but all the fuckery with Legendary Leif and how over powered he was, plus how pretty he was got me to spend a small amount anyhow.

If I stay around for the story they will eventually make Nils or a new Lukas alt or a Dimitri alt and given how fucking fucky they are being now in an attempt to exploit money from the audience I will give in. With the number of orbs that disappearing from things like the monthly missions every action they take says they are out to exploit every last penny from you and they give no fucks about how crude and absolute they have to be.

Things in term of exploiting funds have been becoming more transparent and aggressive as this year has gone on so there is no reason to doubt that these trends will continue to snowball and they can’t get me, and I can’t get mad at how little shame they have doing what they are if I don’t play.

#fire emblem #fire emblem heroes #feh #Intsys #Ephraim lyon #Ephraim

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stellar-chrondrite · 4 years

Text

Pridecember 2019 Day 26 - Universe

Ship: Yami Yugi || Atem / Seto Kaiba (Prideshipping)

Summary: One-shot. After another race to prove who is the better racer, Yami and Kaiba take some time out to stargaze and ponder about different universes.

Author’s Notes: An entry for the Riders AU! This is the last AU that needs a Pridecember entry this year so I can relax a bit now! Anyways, platonic as usual and takes place in the Riders AU. Enjoy!

It started with a late-night race, as per usual. Kaiba had blatantly challenged Yami to a race on the KC training circuit so he could relish in the glory of victory on home turf. Yami had accepted, no change there.

Kaiba had been thrashed by his rival’s superior skill on the Extreme Gear.

Afterwards the brunet had attempted to storm off in a huff, claiming that he didn’t deserve any pity from Yami, when he’d felt fingers enclose his wrist.

“Kaiba … perhaps a bit of … stargazing may help soothe your troubles?”

“Stargazing? … hmph. You’re digging deep for excuses to get me to stay, Pharaoh.”

“What else do you suggest? Go back to Domino and stay up until ridiculous hours tweaking your board?”

“Yes.”

“ … we’re going stargazing, Kaiba.”

“No, we aren’t.”

Yami had had a surprisingly strong grip and Kaiba had been forced to tag along up to the top of the cliff. From there they could see the city skyline with speckles of home light looking like twinkling stars. The brunet had conceded at this sight and laid down to look up at the stars, albeit in a sour mood.

Yami looked up at the night sky, eyes wide as he scanned the inky darkness. “I don’t know why,” he said in a wistful voice. “But I think I enjoy stargazing.”

“What’s so enjoyable about it?” huffed Kaiba, folding his arms as he stared up into space. “They’re just balls of hot gas that are goodness-knows how many light years away.”

“Does that make you a star?” Yami chided, to which he got an annoyed growl as a response. “Well, you said it yourself - if they are made of ‘hot gas’ you’d certainly qualify..”

“That wasn’t funny, Pharaoh,” sulked Kaiba, shifting a little so he could roll to his left, facing away from Yami. “ … I don’t know whether to take that as an insult or a compliment.”

“Let it be both,” replied Yami, resting his hand back on top of his chest where the other lay.

A peaceful silence passed between them. The wind gently tousled their hair and chilled their cheeks.

“Kaiba …”

The brunet glanced back. “What?”

Yami looked in his direction. “Have you ever wondered …” He paused.

Kaiba rolled onto his back and looked directly at his rival. “Again I ask … what?”

The tri-coloured teen’s eyes shifted away for a moment, and then back to meet Kaiba’s icy blue ones.

“Have you ever wondered … if there are … other versions … of us?”

Kaiba stared silently.

“As in … different versions of us … in different universes …?”

Yami sat up; his gaze fell on the grass upon which he sat.

“I mean … there could be a version of us that … oh I don’t know … plays card games instead of using Extreme Gears?”

At this Kaiba laughed. “As if, Pharaoh,” he scoffed. “Who would make such a big deal out of a card game?”

Yami chuckled a little, then fell silent again. He began to twiddle his thumbs.

“OK, what about … what about a universe where we are … in a magical world. With real life dragons, and castles, and magic existed and everyone accepted it and -”

Kaiba raised an eyebrow. “If that does exist,” he said. “I don’t want to know that version of me. He’d probably be a part of your geek squad.”

Yami was about to refute that last remark, saying that his friends were not a ‘geek squad’ or any other nasty name that the young CEO called them, but he bit his tongue and held back.

“Got any more ‘possible alternate universe versions’ of us?” Kaiba continued. “I’m starting to get interested in your ideas.”

“How’s about …” After a few seconds of thinking, Yami snapped his fingers. “Oh, I’ve got it! A universe where we are those … oh, what do you call them? You know, those guys who have those electric thingy-ma-jiggies. And they’re very stealthy and sneak into places.”

“Spies?” Kaiba rolled his eyes at that one. “That one’s a real stretch, even for you, Yami.” He couldn’t help but smile, though.

Yami smiled back. “Yeah, you’re probably right,” he said. “That’s a useless idea.”

He suddenly felt a hand gripping his own and he turned to face Kaiba. The brunet immediately blushed a deep shade of red and looked away.

“Doesn’t mean I don’t like it …” he muttered.

Yami didn’t react at first, but he eventually reached out and gently coerced Kaiba into looking at him. His fingers were a cooling touch to a red-hot cheek.

“There’s no need to be embarrassed,” Yami whispered. “ … maybe there’s a universe out there where we’re really close friends.”

Kaiba glanced at the fingers against his cheek, then back to Yami. A small smile broke out on his face.

“I think that universe is this one,” he whispered.

#yugioh #yami yugi #atem #seto kaiba #prideshipping #yugiohriders #ygopridecember #YGOPridecember2019 #stellarchrondriteart #please enjoy my rubbish writing again!#at least this au has an entry at last

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frankensteindotpdf · 5 years

Note

69-💯 ask meme GO

oh god here we go. under the cut

69. Extrovert or Introvert?

ambivert tbh...i usually spend a lot of time being alone or being with people and after too long i crave the opposite.

70. Have you ever been scuba diving?

nope. almost once but my mom said it was too expensive

71. What makes you nervous?

every single thing ever. legit just...everything. Being in a car. Talking to people. Not hearing from people. Eating. Not eating. Watching my nephews. Letting their parents watch them instead. Wearing clothes that make me look good. Wearing clothes that make me feel comfortable. Ghosts. The concept of just stopping existing instead. Like...name a thing that exists or doesnt and im nervous about it.

72. Are you scared of the dark?

yeah, sometimes. depends on my mood. Outside? All the time if im alone. Inside? a lot of he time if im alone lmao ok so usually yeah but not if im with someone else

73. Do you correct people when they make mistakes?

depends on the mistake and the person? but most of the time i do, yeah

74. Are you ticklish?

yes extremely so but if anyone tries it ill fuckin kill you

75. Have you ever started a rumor?

not that i know of. i try to stay out of drama. It’s exhausting.

76. Have you ever been in a position of authority?

just like...babysitting. Or I guess cadets (like military club for kids in Canada) counts but im terrible at it. I cant give orders

77. Have you ever drank underage?

hehe yeah

78. Have you ever done drugs?

not yet ;) nah real talk i wanna try edibles or smth but i also am worried about psychosis so im gonna wait till my brains a lil more developed (even tho weed is legal now yee yee)

79. Who was your first real crush?

oh god probably this kid in my class in SK...i had a crush on him for like 10 years it was nuts (unless you count fictional characters because lbr probably madeline or hermione)

80. How many piercings do you have?

just the classic earlobes, but im seriously considering getting a helix

81. Can you roll your Rs?

yep and my brother cant so i mock him all the time hehe

82. How fast can you type?

average for a person who has to look at the keys i suppose

83. How fast can you run?

not very fast at all. ive always hated running. im more of an endurance type of guy. ill walk for hours but i can only run for like...30 seconds

84. What color is your hair?

Supposed to be teal, faded to a minty green. (naturally brown)

85. What color is your eyes?

Hazel, leaning more towards green (though my mom would beg to differ) but my three year old nephew says they’re green and he’s v confident in his knowledge of colours so duh mom clearly they are green

86. What are you allergic to?

GOD i have seasonal allergies and on top of that im allergic to cats, apples, cherries, some scents and detergents, peanuts and tree nuts, maybe carrots?? and maybe this one brand of toothpaste??? i need to get tested again (THIRD time) i hate it. I still eat everything im not supposed to eat tho (aside from the raw fruits..those ones make my mouth hella itchy)

87. Do you keep a journal?

always wanted to, never had the commitment necessary

88. What do your parents do?

Mom’s a nurse, dad’s a business clerk at a hospital

89. Do you like your age?

yes. Im having a Great Time. I wanted to diiiieeee in high school but university is such a good time (im like a week away from my bday so like...not yet but in a week ill be having a Good Time cuz ill be able to buy alcohollll)

90. What makes you angry?

People judging other people, especially when you dont know em and also stubborn people??? like GOD nothing makes me more angry than a person who just refuses to do or try smth for no reason i dont know why other than that i dont really get angry too often (mostly just frustrated lmao)

91. Do you like your own name?

I DONT KNOW im having such a problem with it i just dont know its pretty femme and spelled weird and i cant decide if i like having a femme name or not cuz i dont like being percieved as feminine most of the time but i dont hate hate hate my name???? for now ill just say i dont like the spelling and idk if i like the name

92. Have you already thought of baby names, and if so what are they?

Nope. Im not carrying kids so i dont need to unless i end up with a partner that wants to (and the like....science and money to do so). I also like the idea of adopting, so if i do have kids they’ll already come with names lmao

93. Do you want a boy a girl for a child?

gender....is not important*

*obvs except when dysphoria is involved but like...it dont matter to me a kid’s a kid (also who says they wont be nb) (yes most sjw answer ik but i seriously could not give less fucks)

94. What are you strengths?

im pretty nice and good at art (in different forms)

95. What are your weaknesses?

im bad at admitting my strengths lmao and im a big ole hypocrite and i could keep making this list forever

96. How did you get your name?

My parents wanted to name me after my grandmas but their first names were a lil odd so they went with middle names, but then they didnt want alliteration so they changed a c to a k and then they also didnt like the way one name was pronounced so they tweaked it and now i have a name that seems obvious but is apparently both very difficult and very difficult to spell and say, considering no one ever gets it first try (Karaline, pronounced “Kara-line”)

97. Were your ancestors royalty?

Not that im aware of

98. Do you have any scars?

yeah, just little ones from scratching mosquito bites too much or random childhood injuries nothing too interesting Except for one/two on my arm from a staple sticking out of a chair it hurt so bad lmao and now ive got a scar that (tw) looks like self harm and i was so mad cuz like...i never did and now im stuck with this mark that looks like i did and PEOPLE HAVE COMMENTED ON IT i want to die everytime

99. Color of your bedspread?

grey and black cuz im EMO but also i have one that looks like a galaxy and i love

100. Color of your room?

purple and white

in conclusion f u lola but also this was kinda fun so maybe..not

#god that took forever #knicodiangelo

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darkmindsthinktwistedthoughts · 6 years

Text

Annual Leave

Modern Au short for Kat @forallyourikemensengokuneeds Warnings: just 1 playful kitsune

Masterlist

---

It was inches deep in snow outside and exactly the kind of weather where you want to just ignore the alarm ringing in the room and bundle yourself right back up into the duvet. That is what you wanted to do. You managed to drag the covers over your head blocking out the light. Who left the curtains open?

The light thump sound of something being put on the bedside table next to you reminded you of the fact you weren’t alone. Crud. Flashes of the evening before returned to you in waves. One of the guys you worked with suggested drinks and you ended up being joined by another group of guys working the same project as you but in a different department. Ach God my head hurts. A faint chuckle reached your ears followed by a weight on your head through the duvet and the mattress sinking.

“Not a morning person then?” That voice… You worked your fingers through the fabric over your face and came eye to eye with one of the new guys you met the night before.

“Does it look like I am?” Your voice was laced with sleep still throat a little dry. He didn’t falter at all just continued to smile.

“I made you some coffee I dare say you’ll need it.” He pointed to the mug next to you before removing his hand from your head and standing up from the bed.

“What no breakfast in bed?” It was a sarcastic retort you knew but something about feeling vulnerable this early in the day made you a bit cranky.

“I would not wish to make the situation more painful my dear.” He chuckled as he watched you emerge from the duvet to grab the steaming cup.

“I don’t follow.” Taking a sip, you closed your eyes and visibly relaxed. “Damn, this stuff is good.”

“I’m glad, it is about all I can actually do. I can’t cook. I tried a few years ago and apparently nearly poisoned half my team.” He shrugged his shoulders pulling a sheepish face. It was endearing even if it didn’t strike you as a face, he would usually show to someone.

“Well, then I suppose I should say thank you.” You said as you smiled into your next mouthful of coffee.

“What for?” He tilted his head and the light from the window caught in his white hair. It looked so soft. The thought of what it must feel like under your fingertips caused you to avert your gaze from him for a minute, so you could maintain control of your overactive imagination.

“Well for the coffee and having the good sense not to cook.” Vision clearing now you noticed you not only were in an unfamiliar room but the view from the window didn’t match any you knew to be from your house. “This is going to be a fairly obvious question but, I’m not at my house, am I?”

“No, my dear you aren’t. Sometime around the second group of guys leaving the bar you started to sway on your feet and I took you outside to call a cab.” He had taken a position by the door leaning on the wall. How exactly do you do something too mundane and look so good doing it?

“Right. So how?” Gears were turning in your head. Coffee could only wake you up so far. At some point, you had to ask your questions and have the blanks filled in to get you fully up to speed.

“I couldn’t get you to tell me or the cab driver your address so I brought you back here.” He didn’t look like he was lying. Hell, you knew he wasn’t. It had been a bad day in a long line of bad days at work. The whole reason why you agreed to drinks was because you wanted to get hammered and spend the weekend in bed trying to forget about it all.

“This is your house? Oh my God, I’m so sorry I… we…” Your eye widened slightly and you stammered over something you didn’t think you would have to worry about since college. Usually, if you planned to have a fling it was a lot more organised and you probably weren’t so hammered you had blanked out the whole experience.

“Forget about it, please. I was not about to abandon you in your condition it was my choice to bring you back here so just forget about it. As for the rest of what you were about to ask no, we didn’t. It might be some men’s style to take advantage but it isn’t mine. I slept on the couch.” Your heart was pounding hard up until he told you the arrangements from last night. He didn’t seem offended that you asked if anything he probably predicted it was coming and looked rather nonplussed about the whole thing. I wonder if he does this a lot.

“Ok, sorry… Thanks.” Your eyes go back to your mug.

“I have to say I’m rather impressed. You managed to go drink for drink against some of the guys in my team and remain more or less standing by the end of the night.” His voice was teasing. You knew it before you looked back at him. His golden eyes sparkled as he revelled in your discomfort. Ok, this I can believe is more you.

“you are making it rather difficult to ‘forget’ about anything now.” Your tone is chilled and you give him your best “you’re on an official warning” look.

“Ha-ha, yes I suppose I am. I’m sorry Princess I couldn’t help myself.” He laughed and pushed his hands into his pockets on his jeans.

“Ass.” You snorted as you drained the last of your cup.

“I’ve been called worse.” The guy laughed and took the mug from you before leaving to go downstairs.

A few hours later you had grabbed a shower and managed to get yourself together enough to make your way back to your place. A cab was waiting for you curbside and your knight in shining denim held the door for you as you got in.

“Thanks again.” You said from the backseat.

“The pleasure was all mine.” He leaned in through the driver’s window and handed over some cash before throwing you a wink.

“I can pay for my own cab you know?” For the life of you, you couldn’t seem to get a grip on what the guy was trying to do.

“I know and so can I.” He chuckled “See you are work.” He gave a half wave half sault as the car moved away. You couldn’t help but giggle at him. See you at work indeed.

---

The next few days blurred. They weren’t as bad as they had been, they were just endless mind numbingly boring days of repetitive data logging. You were thankful for the small office you were given. At least in here it was quiet and removed from the other areas where someone always seemed to put on the radio to “allow the festive spirit to fill the room.” The only festive spirit you were looking forward to was that bottle of brandy you had sitting at home.

You knew it made you sound like a grinch but the holidays were always just another day. It was a day for the kids and the families. Sure, you went home during them when you were on leave from work. You were surrounded by your siblings, their partners and the kids running around with whatever colourful bit of plastic they had just been given as a gift.

It was nice but it always came with the inevitable conversations of “So when are you going to settle down and start a family of your own then? Tick tock you’re not getting any younger.” You didn’t need them to tell you that. But you also hadn’t exactly been looking for someone either. Work was work and you loved it even if it came with a butt load of paperwork and a ton of people pushing that glass ceiling down on your head. How were you supposed to find someone willing to accept that?

-Knock, Knock -

You looked up from your screen to see the guy from a couple nights ago. Clean pressed shirt with sleeves rolled up past his elbows. His tie was nowhere to be seen now, long forgotten after the meetings for the day were over with. His suit trousers had small creases on them from where he had been hunched over his desk for so long. In his hands were two polystyrene cups.

“Coffee?” He didn’t exactly wait for your reply and casually walked over to hand you one of them.

“Thank you. How did you find me?” You held the cup in both hands the temperature of it makes you realise how cold your hands had become from sitting there typing all day.

“I can find anything when I put my mind to it, my dear. However, I must confess locating an attractive workaholic female who has not been seen outside of her office all day is hardly a challenge.” He smiled as he watched you. To some people that might have been unnerving but you found it strangely comforting.

“You wish me to be more of a challenge?” you enquired trying to gauge what he was planning.

“Only if you wish to play my dear.” The corners of his mouth tweaked up into a smile. “I’ll warn you now, I don’t lose.”

“Then maybe I should warn you too. I don’t either.” You matched his smile meeting the challenge in his eyes with one of your own. Neither of you was willing to break the contact locked in your impromptu staring contest. A phone began to ring cutting through the silence.

“Well someone has appalling timing.” He mutters as he pulls out his cell from his pocket and answers it. “Akechi.” He mouthed his apologies before leaving the room with his phone pressed to his ear. The loss of his presence hit you harder than you were expecting.

This strange man who you knew nothing about other than he was part of another department working on the same project. Who couldn’t cook but made some first-class coffee. This guy came out of nowhere and was suddenly under your skin. You didn’t believe so much in luck or fate. Destiny was a bit far-fetched as well. Still, you could not deny the fact that you might possibly be falling for him. He was interesting and what’s more, he held your interest.

You had had relationships before now where the men in your life had failed to capture your attention. So why this one?

---

Annual leave for the holidays was finally here and everyone had made their way home hours before you decided you could actually leave yourself. You hated to leave things unfinished, it annoyed you. Your brother had sent you a text earlier, that you missed because you were so fixated on getting your work done.

“Hey just checking to see if you had changed your mind or not.”

“Guessing not. Ok well, I guess we’ll all see you in the New Year at some point then. Dad says don’t work too hard.”

You were exhausted. Scratch that you were beyond exhausted. Your original plan to drive home for the holidays went out the window when news came about the system file logs for the test being lost. All of the data had to be located again and input again. There was even the horrible task you had of going into the lab and trying to locate the slides from the tests so you could take some new data and reach the new targets. There was no way you were driving that distance to see your family. It wasn’t the first time you had missed a holiday and you knew it wouldn’t be the last.

Your car was frozen over when you got to it in the car park. The bitter wind was howling through the trees and you shuddered at the thought of taking your hands out of your pockets to scrape the windscreen. Gloves or no gloves it always made your hands go numb. Sighing you pulled out your key and pushed it into the lock. Nothing. You couldn’t turn it and nothing clicked to open. Great. Apparently, you were the proud owner of a frozen ice cube. You started to dig around in your pocket looking for your cell when another car pulled up alongside.

“Need a lift?” The familiar voice had you smiling before you even turned around.

“Either you have excellent timing or I might think you planned this.” You joked as you climbed into the passenger side of his car.

“Let’s go with the timing thing. As brilliant as I am, I do not think I am capable of creating such appallingly bad weather.” He chuckled as he put the heating up in the car and began to drive.

“I don’t know apparently you are capable of turning standard foodstuff into weapons of gastric destruction.” You poke a little fun at him as you warm your hands over the vent.

“Touché.” He smirks “Clearly the temperature has not affected your ability to create witty retorts.”

“Disappointed?” The feeling was now back in your hands and you sat back in the seat again watching the world go by.

“Oh, my dear you could never disappoint me.” His words caught you a little off guard. Whatever you had thought of saying you blanked on it and silence reigned supreme for the rest of the journey home.

---

He pulled up by your house as if it was the most natural thing in the world.

“Since when did you know where I live?” You queried.

“Since I heard you tell the cab driver that day at my house what your address was.” He said it as if it was the most obvious thing in the world.

“And do you always remember small details like that? It was one time.” You were impressed, it wasn’t often that someone showed that level of retention of detail.

“It is my job to remember details however small they might be.” He turned his golden gaze on you and you felt your heart give a loud thump. How many times has he done that to me? I think I’ve lost count. “But I assure you, my dear, when it comes to you, I forget nothing, no matter how many times it happens.” You gulp. You tried not to but you couldn’t avoid it. This man had the ability to render you speechless, breathless and fry every circuit in your brain all with a few words.

“Would you like to come in for a drink?” You nearly whisper the question.

“If that is what you desire.”

---

Thank god for modern day timers on thermostats. Your house was a decent ambient temperature by the time you both entered it.

“Have a seat. What would you like? Coffee? Tea? Something stronger?” You played the part of hostess as you took off your outerwear.

You have no idea when it happened or even how. You hadn’t heard him move let alone see him. Yet there he was in front of you and so close you could feel his breath on your skin. He reached up with his fine long fingers and brushed your hair behind your ear letting them trail delicately along your skin tracing a line in an invisible pattern on your neck.

“You really are a cruel woman, aren’t you?” His words added to the sudden shock you felt.

“What?”

“Invite a man in. Knowing he is driving to then offer him something stronger than tea or coffee. You know that imbibing anything such as alcohol would hinder my leaving.” His low seductive tone had you trembling as he got even closer to you. His hand slid from your neck to the wall behind you. “Tell me, my dear. Is this what you want?”

You didn’t trust your voice. You weren’t even certain at this point you had one. You nodded slowly and he smirked as he hooked his free hand under your chin and drew you in for a kiss.

“Good Girl”

The evening turned into a morning followed by another evening until it had been a week later and time to return to work. Of all the holidays you had spent since becoming an adult and moving away from your parents. You couldn’t remember one where you had felt so happy and content.

---

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