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luminescencefics · 3 years

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you feel like home - part five

“I’ve got to go,” Ryan says, grabbing her mobile in one hand and flicking off the lights until she’s standing in her entranceway, throwing a gentle look over her shoulder to make sure that Luna is still sleeping soundlessly on her couch.

“Have fun, Ry! Give me all the dirty deets tomorrow. I want a full synopsis on how Harry is in bed, and don’t leave out the size of his—”

The red button on the bottom of her screen has never looked more inviting.

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***

In Which the World “Date” is Used Lightly

“This was a stupid idea—I’m not going.”

Ryan is staring at her complexion in the vanity mirror as she swipes another layer of mascara over her dark lashes. Her mobile is balancing between a glass bottle of foundation and an eyeshadow palette, with Fiona’s wide-eyed expression staring back at her. When she gasps, Ryan’s dark eyes dart down to the grainy image of her best mate who looks as if she’s about to reach through the screen and shake Ryan repeatedly until she gets her head on straight.

“You’re absolutely barking,” Fiona scoffs. Ryan places the wand back into the mascara bottle, running a shaky hand through her freshly-dried hair as she tries to remember why she even said yes to Harry in the first place.

When she thinks back on it now, she’ll blame it all on a rare moment of bravery. Or quite possibly, amnesia. Because for some strange reason, her brain momentarily short-circuited, completely forgetting about every other time she’s been in Harry’s presence and how she rarely can get through a few sentences around him. Now that she’s agreed to spend an entire evening with him, on his own turf, under the watchful eyes of his observant toddler?

Ryan can already feel the bile rising in her throat.

“Fiona, I don’t know what I was thinking. I’m not even sure I was thinking!” She’s panicking now, pacing back and forth on the navy blue tiled floors of her bathroom to try and quell the thumping of her heart. “He definitely doesn’t think it’s a date. I’m just making a fuss, because he didn’t even use those words! He only invited me over because he feels bad that I had to watch his kid for a few hours. That’s it. Nothing else.”

She isn’t even sure who she’s trying to convince at this point, but she is sure that her pacing is causing her breath to come out in uneven spurts, her chest rising and falling as she slowly pushes herself to the brink of a full-blown panic attack.

“Ry, will you please stop moving? You’re giving me a bloody migraine,” Fiona calls out. Ryan acquiesces, coming to a stop once again and leaning forward on the countertop of her vanity so that Fiona can see the redness tinge her cheeks and her mouth fall open as she tries to catch her breath.

“I can’t do this.” Her voice sounds shaky and fragile, the same way Jackson’s did whenever he mentioned his mother in the past tense a few hours earlier.

Suddenly, Ryan wishes she was somebody like Fiona. Somebody who didn’t overthink every situation she fell into. Somebody who didn’t have a near panic attack at the trivial notion of making pizzas at her attractive next-door neighbor’s flat. Somebody who could just be normal, without the added pretense of anxiety and social awkwardness that sometimes felt all too crippling.

“Will you stop with that? You can do this. You will do this, even if I have to drive all the way to Hampstead during a lockdown and drag you five meters to his fucking door.” Ryan frowns at Fiona through the screen, wishing for the first time since moving out that she was in the room across the hall from her, close enough so that she can hear her friend’s words of encouragement in person instead of through the tinny speakers of her mobile.

“Okay,” Ryan says quietly, reaching for her mascara and beginning to unscrew the wand before she stops abruptly, an afterthought on the tip of her tongue. “He probably doesn’t even think it’s a date anyway.”

Fiona groans loudly, frustration etched on her freckled face. “He wouldn’t have invited you over if he didn’t want to spend time with you, Ry.”

“But Jackson will be there, too. And he even called it ‘a proper thank you,’ so there’s really no need for me to be freaking out, right? I’m not even sure why I’m putting makeup on in the first place,” Ryan huffs, dropping the mascara on the countertop before releasing her forehead into her hands, feeling overwhelmingly exhausted.

It’s quiet for a few moments, and Ryan lifts her head slowly, wondering if Fiona hung up. When she sees her friend leaning closer towards the screen, her big, blue eyes wide and full of patience (an emotion that rarely crossed Fiona Kitchen’s face), Ryan cocks her head to the side in surprise.

“Ry,” Fiona says through an exhale, “I know you’re nervous. I know you’re scared. And I know this makes you feel uncomfortable and awkward, but Ryan—” the added stress on her name causes her to stare back at her blue-eyed friend unblinkingly, wondering how Fiona could be so understanding, “You said you felt something, yeah? This afternoon?”

Ryan nods, remembering the way Harry looked with a blush covering the apples of his cheeks, the way his body shifted in his trainers when he fumbled over his words, the way his eyes looked at everything else besides the brown of her own or the glasses on her face. The way she somehow made him nervous for the first time, and the way her brain seemingly shuts off whenever she’s in his presence.

The way she blinked and he was practically inches away from her face, his green eyes swirling with fascination and desire and all the other feelings that caused Ryan’s stomach to flutter—and she wasn’t sure exactly what that meant, but she’s sure it had to mean something.

“See!” Fiona squeals, as if it were supposed to bring clarification. When Ryan stays silent, Fiona groans again in frustration. “He wants you to come! He’s probably just as nervous as you are.”

Ryan considers this for a moment, wondering if Fiona was on to something. “Stop harping on the word date, Ry, it’ll only drive you mad. He wants you there. You want to be there. Finish getting ready and have fun for once in your life!”

The proverbial kick in the arse from Fiona is exactly what Ryan needed, and in an uncharacteristic wave of confidence, she unscrews the mascara wand and finishes applying it to her other eye, brushes up her eyebrows so that they look somewhat even, and adds a bit of tinted lip balm to her pouty lips.

She settles on her trusted pair of light wash, straight-legged denim, a white thinly strapped vest paired with a chunky, cropped camel woolen cardigan overtop that hangs off one shoulder, and finishes off her comfortable look with an old pair of Reebok Club C trainers.

“Can’t you wear the brown booties I bought you last Christmas instead?” Fiona whines from her position propped up on Ryan’s dresser.

Ryan laughs, turning from the mirror to her friend. “It’s pizzas in his flat, Fee.”

Fiona scoffs and Ryan nervously pulls at the edges of her cardigan, obsessing over her outfit for the hundredth time, debating if she should have curled her hair instead of left it to air-dry into unkempt waves, or if she should add more makeup to her face, or if she should just strip it all off and wear leggings and an oversized jumper instead.

“Ry,” Fiona says through her mobile, and the urgency in her voice causes Ryan to spin on her heel, her back against the mirror and her eyes falling onto Fiona’s. “You look great.”

Those three words cause Ryan to finally breathe clearly for the first time since she started getting ready, and the relief that courses through her veins unfurl the tension-filled knots on her shoulders, releasing the rigidity of her neck. She feels pretty and she feels like she’s going to be okay, and when Ryan smiles brightly at Fiona, her friend imitates it, and suddenly she feels ready for her almost-maybe-sort-of date with Harry.

“Have fun, Ry! Give me all the dirty deets tomorrow. I want a full synopsis on how Harry is in bed, and don’t leave out the size of his—”

The red button on the bottom of her screen has never looked more inviting.

Ryan leaves the hallway light on and slips her mobile into her back pocket, opening the heavy oak of her door and closing it softly without turning the lock. She’ll only be next door, anyway.

With the last stretches of her confidence still flushing through her system, Ryan takes the short trek to Harry’s front door and knocks three times for good measure, leaning a bit forward when she hears the faint sounds of a record spinning on the slipmat, the needle creating that scratchy sound that only comes from choosing a turntable over a regular speaker. She can hear the indistinct echoes of Jackson’s giggles, and before she can hear anything else, the front door whips open and Ryan springs backward, standing upright as to not give away the fact that she was spying on her neighbors.

But the smirk on Harry’s lips and the upward arch of his eyebrows proves that she was caught red-handed.

So much for confidence.

“Hi, Ryan,” Harry says in that soft, slow voice of his that causes Ryan’s stomach to bottom out. When she finally lifts her eyes to fall onto his frame, she’s suddenly at a loss for words when she takes in his appearance.

His hair that was a disheveled mess earlier in the day with strands pulled upwards in every direction was now tamed, the ringlets forming perfect coils with the ends still a bit damp, as if he had rushed to take a shower before Ryan appeared. His torso was covered with another threadbare graphic shirt, the white sleeves falling just around the midpoint of his protruding biceps, with a blue tea towel hanging around his shoulder that had tiny flour fingerprints on the edge. Along his waist and down his legs were a pair of comfortable, camel-colored dress pants that Ryan would never think to match with a shirt that mentioned something about eating honey. And when Ryan’s eyes fall towards Harry’s feet, she sucks in a small breath when she realizes that he wasn’t wearing anything below—just the sight of his toes and what seemed to be lettering tattooed on his ankles.

Ryan was suddenly glad she chose not to add another layer of blush, because the way she was just so obviously checking him out made the colors of her cheeks flush a notable, deep pink.

“Hi, Harry,” she finally manages to say. And when her brown eyes finally creep up towards Harry’s face, she can see that his eyes are blown-out a bit, the greenness of the irises a bit harder to detect. His gaze seems to fall on the area of skin uncovered by the neckline of her cardigan, where a few layers of gold necklaces are stacked, practically tangling together.

Before they can redirect their gazes and gather their breaths, a loud “Ryan!” shouts out from behind Harry’s frame, where a messy-haired and bright-eyed Jackson can be found. He’s wearing pajamas and wielding a child-sized plastic rolling pin covered with flour, and the sight instantly brings a smile to Ryan’s face.

“Hey, champ,” she calls out, feeling herself regaining her composure.

“You and daddy match,” he says simply, his chubby finger floating between Harry’s trousers and Ryan’s chunky cardigan, the matching shades of brown distinguishable to the four-year-old standing in the entranceway.

Ryan offers a shy giggle and Harry looks at the articles of clothing, smiling when he notices that they are, in fact, matching in an off-handed sort of way. The trite realization brings a wide grin to his lips, and he begins to wonder what else he and Ryan have in common.

“Have you finished planning your toppings, Bubs?” Harry asks, opening the door wider so that Ryan can enter his flat, shutting it behind her once she’s infiltrated the entranceway.

Jackson goes off on a tangent, listing all of the possible toppings he could add to his personalized pizza. Ryan listens as she steps out of her trainers and leaves them near the shoe rack, trying her hardest to be polite. And when the trio enters the kitchen, she stops and watches Harry and Jackson fall into place behind the granite island, Harry lifting Jackson effortlessly on the barstool so that he can kneel on the leather cushion while spreading out red sauce over his much smaller dough, with Harry beside him beginning to roll out his own. Ryan averts her eyes to the floor when she notices Harry’s muscles constricting under his shirt when he pushes the rolling pin away from his body, stretching his long arms out just so that he can pull them back in.

When the spot near Harry remains vacant, he lifts his head up to see Ryan standing under the archway, wringing her hands in front of her body nervously. “C’mere, Ryan. We’ve got you a nice little setup.”

She notices the pre-floured area on the other side of Harry and slowly enters it, noticing how close she is to his body. The area isn’t as large as she once assumed, and when Harry continues to roll out his dough, she can feel his elbows brush against her arms and suddenly she feels a bit warm in his kitchen.

Ryan unbuttons the top button of the three on her cardigan so that the sleeves fall a bit lower on her shoulder, exposing her sweltering skin to the cooler air. The last thing she needs is to be a sweaty, awkward mess in front of Harry.

Harry notices her fidgeting in his periphery and stalls his movements when the olive skin of her shoulder closest to his body is uncovered. When she lifts her arms and begins formulating the dough, more inches of her skin begin to show from the looseness of the fabric, and when she reaches for her own rolling pin, he can make out the etchings of a small tattoo on the back of her shoulder blade.

He stays silent, gulping deeply when he realizes that he’s been staring for far too long.

“Ryan, can you help me with the pepperoni please?” Jackson asks from the other side of the countertop, and she stops spreading the sauce on her own pizza so that she can pop over and assist him. Harry’s a bit jaded, considering he’s usually the one to help his son make his pizza, but when he catches Jackson pointing at specific spots on the dough and Ryan placing the slices there expertly, sneaking a smaller piece into his hand so that he can munch on it quietly, Harry can’t help but sense that red-hot feeling of longing rush through his skin.

When Ryan goes back to her pizza, Harry finishes adding the mushrooms to his own before grabbing her attention. “Want a drink?”

“Please,” she responds, suddenly noticing how dry her throat had been.

“I’ve got wine, beer…” Harry sticks his head further into the fridge, “Juice?”

He smiles when he coaxes a pretty giggle from her mouth. “Beer works,” she calls over.

“Yeah?”

“Yeah. What’s a better combination than beer and pizza?”

Harry chuckles, grabbing two bottles of Carlsberg and opening them easily before handing one over to Ryan as she sprinkles cheese in a swirl over the red sauce of her pizza. He’s watching her as she brings the neck of the bottle to her lips and takes a generous sip, before reaching for the spinach and adding that to the dough.

“I lived off of this when I was at uni,” Ryan offers as she’s spreading her toppings generously, and Harry’s wondering if the distraction is allowing her to speak to him freely.

“Yeah?” he asks, coaxing.

She hums and takes another swig, and Harry finds that he can’t look anywhere else. “Every Thursday night during my final year. My best mate Fiona and I somehow got away with having no lectures on Friday, so every Thursday we’d order pizza and drink beer and watch The Only Way is Essex.”

“Sounds like my old flatmate, Niall,” Harry says between drinks. “Used to live above a kebab shack so we’d eat that almost every other night and whatever liquor was discounted at the shops.” Ryan sprinkles chopped up pieces of bell peppers over her unmade pizza. “Watched Great British Bake Off instead, obviously we were far more cultured.”

Ryan’s brown eyes lift to meet Harry’s, and she quirks her eyebrows in response to his obvious teasing. “Clearly you’re a far more sophisticated drunk than I gathered.”

“You gathered, huh? What were your predictions, then?” Ryan can’t tell if he’s flirting with her or not, because she’s never really found herself in this situation with Harry before. But when she takes in his direct eye contact and the half-smirk covering his face, and the way his attention only seems to fall on hers, she’s almost certain that he is.

“Sloppy, for starters.”

“Hey!” Harry interjects, facing her completely so that his back is towards Jackson, which in any other circumstance, would probably be a very bad decision.

Ryan giggles before continuing. “I mean, you take up far too much space as it is, I can only imagine a drunk Harry Styles flopping all over the place.”

“Aren’t you the clumsy one in this friendship of ours, Ryan?” Harry says with a small chuckle, flitting his finger back and forth between the pair of them. It’s only when he catches Ryan’s smile faltering, her body turning back towards her pizza and her eyes focusing on adding more vegetables, when Harry realizes that he’s said the wrong thing.

Before he can right himself, Jackson’s captured her attention, and suddenly she’s left him again—floating to the other side of the countertop and away from his body, and he tries his hardest not to frown when he no longer feels the warmth against his left side.

“Daddy, can I show Ryan my room, please? I want to show her the fort we made last night!” Jackson asks, and Harry looks up blankly, somehow forgetting that his son was even in the same room as them.

When two pairs of eyes fall on his frame, he blinks quickly before responding. “Right, uh, go ahead, Bubs. I’ll just pop these in the oven.”

Ryan feels a bit bad leaving Harry alone with their mess, but suddenly Jackson’s asking her to lift him off the barstool and onto the floor, placing his smaller hand in hers once his bare feet have touched the hardwood, dragging her through the living space and down the hallway into his bedroom at the end.

She takes in his room with childlike wonder, observing the deep blue walls and light wood flooring with a circular rug in the middle near all of Jackson’s toys. A twin-sized loft bed is nestled into the corner with a ladder leading up to the mattress. Underneath are two massive beanbag chairs surrounded by shorter bookshelves, and the hand-constructed fort put together by different items in the flat along with multi-colored quilts and stuffed animals.

When she cranes her neck up, Ryan can make out a cluster of stick-on neon yellow stars on his ceiling, and she smiles to herself, remembering how she had the same thing in her childhood bedroom.

Her neck swivels around the room as she takes in the little pieces of Jackson he’s left scattered around—Crayola-filled artwork hanging along the walls, small trainers and wellies falling out of the closet, a Paw Patrol juice cup on his nightstand. When Ryan takes a step towards it, she notices a picture frame behind the cup, an outline of three bodies upon first glance. It’s only once she’s stepped a bit closer when she realizes that it’s technically two and a half persons—a man, a woman, and a small baby.

With shaking hands Ryan clutches the wooden frame and immediately recognizes Harry as the body on the left. Albeit his hair was much longer and messier, there was no mistaking his boyish grin and sparkling eyes. This younger version of Harry still made her cheeks flush and her heart rate skyrocket, and for a brief moment she lets her mind wander at the prospect of potentially meeting this version of Harry when she was at a pub in uni, or out shopping around the city, or even running into him in the Underground. She wonders if she would fall for this version just as quickly as she did with the older version waiting right outside this very room, a version without a child and without responsibilities.

Ryan’s gaze falls to the figure his arm is wrapped tightly around, and with one look at the shape of her eyes and the slope of her nose, she knows instantly that this is Jackson’s mother. She’s beautiful—the type of beautiful that you couldn’t help but feel envious of, because her button nose and almond-shaped eyes and pouty lips and perfectly structured jawline were put together in such a fashion that made it seem almost unfair that one person could possess that type of beauty. Her blonde hair fell in curly ringlets down her back, and her eyes were so blue that Ryan was almost certain she could see herself through the reflection. She had that type of smile where her mouth sort of fell open and you could practically hear the laugh fall from her parted lips. Jackson was swaddled inside a green homemade quilt in her arms, and Ryan could only make out thin wisps of chocolate-colored hair, and suddenly she felt as if she was looking at an image that wasn’t meant for her eyes to see.

Before she could get caught, Jackson’s soft voice calls out to her from inside the fort, and Ryan’s forced to crouch down on her hands and knees and crawl her way through the opening.

“Do you like it?” Jackson asks once she’s seated across from him, her legs crossed underneath her torso so that the tips of her denim-clad knees brush against Jackson’s flannel ones.

“I love it,” Ryan replies, smiling when he flicks on the spinning nightlight against the wall, illuminating the inside. It’s only with the new light that Ryan notices the personalized touches Jackson added to the inside of his fort—the Tonka trucks along the floor, two grey pillows that seem to fit in a king-sized bedroom set, an iPad in the corner with a Marvel film queued up on Netflix, and a glamorous assortment of stuffed animals surrounding the border of the tent.

She’s quite impressed with his interior design skills, if she’s being honest.

“Me and daddy watched Spiderman here last night because we can’t go to the cinema no more. He asked me if I wanted to watch Harry Potter with him, but I told him no because we haven’t finished reading the book yet,” Jackson explains slowly. “I told him I’d only watch it with you anyways. I think he got a little sad about that.”

Ryan’s heart swells inside her chest. “Why will you only watch it with me, champ?”

“Because it’s our thing.” He says it so definitively that Ryan feels stupid for even questioning him in the first place, and the thought of him telling his father no, all because she spent an afternoon reading a few chapters with him, causes a warm feeling to rush through her insides. It’s a different type of warmth than the feeling she gets from Harry—instead of a sweltering wave of heat, it’s more subtle, more muted. It feels like wrapping yourself in a heavy blanket in the middle of winter when you’re laying on your mum’s couch, just before you’re about to fall asleep. It feels like comfort.

It feels like home.

Just as Jackson’s in the middle of telling her about the new Spiderman film, a fuller head of curls pops in through the front entrance. Ryan peeks over and sees that Harry’s smiling shyly, looking as if he’s afraid to interrupt their moment together.

“Pizza’s done,” he says quietly. Jackson practically jumps through the blanketed roof, pushing Harry’s shoulders so that he falls backward on his bum as he runs through the entrance with only the kitchen in his sight.

Before Ryan follows him, she makes sure to turn off the nightlight and rearrange the pillows she and Jackson were sitting on. When she crawls out of the tent on all fours, she looks up from the carpet and sees Harry watching her from the doorframe, a comical look in his eyes.

“Don’t,” Ryan says from her position on the floor, shaking her head in silent laughter once she hears Harry’s loud chuckles from across the room. Before she can get up on her own, she sees large bare feet in her line of vision, with a strong tattooed arm waiting to be held on to.

Her right hand clutches the outside of his own while the left falls into his palm, and with practically no effort, Harry heaves her upright so that she’s standing a few inches away from him. She blinks in the low light of Jackson’s room and realizes that she can still make out the freckles in Harry’s eyes. They’re suddenly in the same position as earlier when they’re standing far too close to each other and breathing a bit too heavy and saying absolutely nothing. It’s only when Harry reaches his right hand out to move her cardigan back into place on her exposed shoulder when she realizes that she’s still holding on to his left hand for dear life.

She unlatches her tight grip and lets her hands fall back to her sides, wondering if she’ll always feel as if her heart was going to burst through her skin whenever she stood too close to Harry. He coughs unnecessarily into his fist, stepping back slowly and giving her a forced smile.

“Let’s go eat.” His voice comes out low and scratchy, and it sounds as if he’s forgotten how to speak. Harry desperately is craving for a beer or water or anything to reprieve the dryness coating his throat, because he somehow has forgotten how to breathe correctly around Ryan, especially when she’s looking at him with messy hair and blown out eyes and tinged cheeks.

When they arrive back into the kitchen, Jackson’s already seated at the kitchen nook, working his way swiftly through his first slice of pepperoni pizza. Ryan slinks in next to him, already reaching for the stack of napkins in the center of the table and wiping his sauce-covered chin as if the motions were practically ingrained in her system. Harry watches a bit slackjawed, before refocusing and grabbing the half-emptied beer bottles from the counter and falling into the seat across from them.

“Thank you,” Ryan mumbles once Harry hands her beer over, and when their fingers brush during the exchange, she tries her hardest not to quiver from the rush of electricity crackling under her skin.

Harry nods and grabs a slice of his own, bringing it to his mouth and chewing. Ryan does the same, and when Jackson peers over at her pizza, squinting at each topping and trying to decide if he liked them or not, Ryan rips a small sliver and places it on his plate.

“What’s that?” Jackson asks through a mouthful of pepperoni pizza.

“Jackson, chew with your mouth closed,” Harry instructs from across the table.

“Sorry,” Jackson mumbles, trying his hardest to move his lips without opening his mouth, causing Ryan to giggle on the side of him.

“They’re bell peppers,” Ryan explains when Jackson holds a slice of green pepper in front of his eyes. He instantly squishes his face in disgust and places the vegetable back onto the slice, exchanging it for the pepperoni.

“Hey! Don’t knock it ‘til you try it,” Ryan exclaims from Jackson’s side.

He shakes his head so quickly that the curls on the top of his head begin to flutter. “I don’t like vegetables.”

Ryan rolls her eyes. “Oh yeah? Coming from the kid who eats dried fruits as a snack. I don’t believe you for a second.” Her light tone indicates that she was only teasing, and when she tickles Jackson’s side and he begins to laugh loudly, she giggles right along with him.

But Harry’s confused as he’s watching them interact, wondering how on earth Ryan knew that piece of information. “Dried fruits?”

Ryan nods when she realizes that Jackson’s chewing. “Yeah. He told me his mum used to feed him that for snack time.”

When she looks up and sees a look of puzzlement across Harry’s face, she’s suddenly wondering if she’s accidentally pried open Pandora’s box, unassumingly spilling out memories that he had forgotten long ago. Memories of a pretty woman with blonde hair and blue eyes who fed her son dried fruits and has slowly become the elephant in the room that neither Ryan nor Harry seem to want to address.

Ryan reaches for her beer, tipping the bottle back until its contents are sliding down her throat. When she notices Jackson’s cup of water is empty, she grabs it and sneaks past him out of the kitchen nook, recycling her bottle and filling up Jackson’s drink. Feeling Harry’s gaze on her lower back, she looks over her shoulder and asks, “Need another?” and it’s as if the uncomfortable interaction never even happened.

Once she’s back across the table from Harry, she looks down at her plate and realizes that Jackson’s stolen her piece with the vegetables, chewing slowly as if he were trying to decide right then and there if he enjoyed the taste.

Ryan feels her chest puff with pride and she’s not quite sure why the site of Harry’s toddler eating the vegetables off of her pizza makes her feel important in some odd, inconsequential way.

“I guess it’s okay,” Jackson offers, causing both Harry and Ryan to laugh loudly across from each other.

Not long after their plates are emptied and their beer bottles a bit lighter, Ryan can see Jackson stifle a yawn from her periphery. It’s cute, the way his eyes squint and his small fist tries its hardest to catch the breath leaving his mouth before anybody can notice. But Harry does, and he’s looking at Ryan with a knowing look on his face. “Think you tired him out.”

Expecting a fight from the sleepy toddler beside her, Ryan suddenly stiffens when she feels Jackson’s head rest against her arm, his tangled curls tickling below her chin. When she angles her head downward, she smiles when she sees him rubbing his eyes, expelling another deep yawn for good measure.

“It’s alright, we had quite the day,” Ryan agrees, ruffling Jackson’s hair softly. “Go ahead and take him to bed, I’ll put these plates away.”

Harry pauses halfway out of the kitchen nook, looking at the pretty girl with his sleeping son practically on her lap in wonderment. The domesticity of her proposal surges through his skin, causing his heart to pump faster inside his chest. He knows he’s being ridiculous—she’s probably just being nice, offering to put the plates in the dishwasher because she didn’t want to intrude on Jackson’s nighttime routine.

But still, his cheeks flush at the thought that maybe this could be a normal occurrence, and for a slight moment, he revels in it, thinking of all the what if’s and could be’s.

When he offers her a slight nod, Ryan places Jackson on the floor, before stacking the glass plates and bringing them over to the countertop near the sink. She turns around and smiles at the sight of Jackson holding Harry’s hand and leading him out of the kitchen.

But before he can get too far, Harry mumbles something that ends with Ryan’s name, and suddenly he’s ambling over to where she’s standing, blinking the sleep out of his eyes before he mumbles, “G’night Ryan.”

Ryan crouches before him, reaching him just at eye level. “Night, champ. Have a good sleep.”

All of a sudden, two tiny arms are wrapped around her neck, practically causing Ryan to fumble backward at the collision of Jackson’s small body falling into hers. She can feel his tiny hands gripping her brown hair, and after regaining her composure, her arms wrap around him fully so that she’s giving him a proper hug.

“Thanks fo’ today. I had the bestest time ever.” His sleepy admission causes Ryan’s breath to still, and that warm feeling is back—but instead of a warm quilt during winter, it feels like a heated blanket in the middle of summer, and suddenly she’s wondering what this all means.

And when he backs away slowly with a tiny wave, Ryan can only offer a shy smile, feeling far more confused than ever before. She’s too nervous to even look up at Harry’s face, because she’s almost certain that he’s probably horrified at the sight unfolding in front of him. Especially when he was fidgeting over her dried fruit comment, and the fact that Jackson’s mother’s beauty was incomparable to her own, and the fact that Jackson’s probably grown a little bit attached to Ryan, and she’s not sure if she can break his heart when she ultimately has to tell him the hard truth.

Ryan stands up quickly and gets back to loading the dishwasher, trying her hardest to focus on the task at hand instead of the whirring sound of her brain trying to formulate meaning to the situation she suddenly finds herself trapped in.

It’s only once she pushes the start button and takes a deep breath when she hears the familiar foot pattern of Harry entering the kitchen. She turns around and begins to tell him that she should probably be heading out too, but before she can even think to speak, Harry’s looking at her with an indescribable emotion in his eyes, and suddenly she can’t bring herself to move.

“You didn’t have to clean up,” Harry says slowly, reaching for his unfinished beer that Ryan moved to the island countertop, before bringing it to his lips with ease.

“It’s no bother, really. You did most of the cooking when I was in Jackson’s tent.” It’s a lame excuse and thankfully Harry doesn’t push it. Instead, he reaches into the fridge and offers up another beer, and how can Ryan say now when his boyish grin is back and she’s still trying to figure out what that look in his eyes means?

And that’s how they find themselves in Harry’s living room—with Harry perched on one end of the couch, watching Ryan fondly as she peers at all of the records lining his walls, figuring out which one to choose per his request.

“It’s not rocket science, Ryan,” Harry teases after a few minutes have gone by and his record player is still void of a vinyl.

“No, not rocket science. But it is quite an important decision,” Ryan counters, moving on to the next bookshelf and stopping at the K-N alphabetized section.

“Just pick what you like!” Harry exclaims through a chuckle.

Ryan stands up straight and turns around so that she’s staring at him head-on. “Music is your thing, isn’t it?”

Harry nods once he realizes that she’s waiting for a response.

“Right. So you’re going to judge me either way based on my decision—”

“—Whoa, who said I was going to—”

Ryan’s hand silences him. “It’s an internal judgment. Not a bad thing! I’d feel the same way if you were picking out a book in my flat.” She turns back around and bends at the knees, skimming through the M shelf.

“Fleetwood Mac is too easy. You obviously are into classic rock with the way you wear graphic t-shirts and have two Rolling Stones albums framed near your guitar. Also, don’t get me started on the George Michael lyrics tattooed on your ankles.” Ryan’s still scrounging through Harry’s record collection, therefore she can’t see the look of astonishment grace his features.

She stops right in the middle of her search and plucks a yellow album with a colored picture of mountains in the background. It’s simple enough and the cover of the album is what drew her in, and when she squints her eyes and makes out Joni Mitchell in loopy cursive, she shrugs, deeming it okay.

When Harry grabs it from her hands and looks at her with a shocked look on his face, she smiles back, feeling confident in her blind decision.

“Joni Mitchell? I’m quite impressed,” Harry says as he’s placing the vinyl on the record player, bringing the needle to the outer-most edge and heading back to his position on the couch once the cracking sounds of the first song begin to play.

“Don’t be,” Ryan responds, gripping her beer and beginning to follow him. “I only picked it because I liked the color.”

Harry’s head falls back in laughter, before asking, “I’m supposed to believe that you know nothing about music?”

“Exactly,” Ryan starts, walking past an end table filled with picture frames. “I’m just observant. You give off the classic rock vibe with one look at your workspace, and it doesn’t take an idiot to recognize Careless Whisper lyrics—quite the bold choice, might I add.” Before she can say anything else, she recognizes Jackson’s mum in another photograph, and suddenly she’s forgotten her point.

Harry’s arms are wrapped around her shoulders again, but instead of holding baby Jackson, she’s holding a beer and surrounded by four other people. Harry’s hair isn’t as long as in the first photograph, but it still falls well past his ears, so Ryan can only assume that this is from a time before Jackson was even a consideration. One arm falls around her shoulders, and his other arm is around the waist of a taller bloke with dark hair and a thick scarf around his neck. It seems to be winter, with the way everybody is wearing woolen coats and knitted jumpers. When Ryan squints, she can make out Christmas lights in the background, and she feels the elephant in the room come back, but this time she’s sick of running from it.

“Is this Jackson’s mum?” She’s not quite sure why she even bothered asking, because the way Harry’s eyes stop twinkling and the way his grin falls to a frown, Ryan already knows the answer without him having to speak.

“Yeah, her name’s Rachel,” Harry starts, placing his beer on the glass coffee table. “She’s just, uh, sort of not around anymore.”

It’s only once Harry’s still quiet, still looking pensive, when Ryan realizes how stupid she truly was. “Oh shit. I’m so sorry, I shouldn’t have asked.” She’s fumbling again and shifting her feet and averting her eyes, and suddenly she wishes she were anywhere but here.

“Wait, what? Oh. Oh,” he laughs, sipping his beer. Ryan stares at him wide-eyed, wondering how on earth he could possibly find this funny. “Christ, she’s not dead, Ryan. She’s just, uh, not really around.”

Ryan nods stupidly before falling onto the other side of the couch, finishing her beer easily and placing the empty bottle on the table.

“We grew up together,” Harry starts, and Ryan brings her eyes up to look at his face and finds that he’s alarmingly calm. “When I came back home after uni we just sort of started hanging out with our sixth form mates again. Rachel and I never really were anything, but it was during that time after uni when you feel really lost and have no idea what you want to do with your life, so we just found comfort in each other, I suppose.” He pauses and Ryan wants to tell him that he really doesn’t owe her an explanation, but before she can say anything he’s shifted his eyes from the floor to her face and she knows that for some reason he wants to tell her.

“I hate to call it an accident, because Jackson’s the best little guy I could have ever asked for. But all of a sudden Rachel was pregnant and I was panicking because a kid wasn’t ever in the cards for me. Not so soon. And not with somebody I—”

Ryan nods, assuring him that she knows exactly what he means even if Harry can’t bring himself to admit it.

“So we… tried, I guess. She couldn’t bring herself to, uh, terminate it—him,” he winces softly and Ryan suddenly wants to grab his hand and never let go. “After he was born, we really tried. Got a flat near Finsbury Park and really did the best we could. And I was in, I was fully committed, one hundred percent. But, uh, Rachel. Rachel wasn’t.”

Ryan feels incredibly sad for Harry all of a sudden. Not the Harry that’s sitting before her—successful, kind, handsome. But the Harry she never met, the Harry she imagined when she first saw the photograph with Rachel in Jackson’s room. The one with long hair and big eyes, the one who didn’t really deserve to deal with the burden of raising a child on his own. The one who did it anyway, selflessly.

“She wanted to go to law school. Had all these dreams about being a career woman and living in a posh flat in the middle of the city. A baby wasn’t in her plans, either, I suppose.” He pauses and offers Ryan an encouraging smile when he sees the look of anguish on her face. “It’s okay, really. Didn’t want to stick around where I wasn’t wanted, right? Didn’t want that for Jackson, either.”

“We’re okay, now. Still friends and such. She sees Jackson one long weekend out of every month, and I think he’s getting used to it. But with covid and everything, she just hasn’t really been around much. So it’s an adjustment.” Ryan can tell that Harry really isn’t okay with everything, because how could you still be friends with somebody you made a child with? That same somebody who decided it wasn’t meant for her? That same somebody who let the responsibility fall onto one parent?

But one look into his eyes, Ryan can see that even after all that heartache and stress and pain, that Harry somehow did it. He raised a great kid, he figured out a career path, he ended up doing it all on his own—and suddenly Ryan feels quite in awe of the man sitting across from her.

“You’re incredible, you know that?” The words fall from her lips without a second thought, and she can feel the brightness from Harry’s grin, her own eyes squinting when she takes in the image of a beaming Harry with fluffy curls and strong arms and a stupid look plastered on his face.

Harry suddenly wonders if he should scoot closer towards her on the couch. Because she’s looking at him with bright, brown eyes, pouty tinted lips and a look on her face that he just wants to unravel. But he’s timid, because he doesn’t want to overwhelm her with the story he just told her and the feelings that are brewing in his stomach.

So he changes the subject.

“Jackson really likes you.” His words cause the apples of Ryan’s cheeks to raise.

“Yeah, well, guess I can sort of relate to him in a way,” her words come out so softly that Harry had to lean forward to make sure he heard her correctly. Because suddenly Ryan’s giving him information while looking into his eyes—not focusing on spreading out her pizza toppings, not mulling over which record to pick. She’s looking directly at him.

And Harry’s almost certain this is better than sitting closer to her.

“How’s that?” he asks.

“Well, I was around the same age as him when my parents split up,” Ryan frowns when she realizes the direction their conversation is heading in. “I mean, not that you and Rachel were ever married or whatever. Or that you’re doing a bad job, I just, uh,” Harry encourages her to continue with a gentle nod, but suddenly Ryan is aware that her throat is closing up and her mind has gone blank. Her thoughts are just a swirling mess inside her brain, disappearing on the tip of her tongue the second she tries to formulate her response.

She can feel her social anxiety take hold, and she desperately needs a minute.

So she tells him. “Just, hold on. Give me a minute.”

Harry is nothing but patient, and when he can hear the breath lodged in her throat, her chest compressing as Ryan tries her hardest to push it out of her lungs, he reaches for the hand squeezing her thigh, rubbing soothing motions on the back of her hand with his thumb to calm her down.

Ryan’s eyes immediately look into green, and she can feel her chest fall as the breath finally leaves her parted lips. With one look into Harry’s eyes, one graze of his hand on the back of her own, she can feel her breathing regulate, and suddenly she’s calm for the first time all night.

“Lost you again,” Harry whispers.

Ryan nods thrice, feeling her skin prickle with goosebumps even though her insides are sweltering. “Sometimes I can’t think when I’m around you,” she admits.

“Isn’t that supposed to be a good thing?” Harry asks gently.

“Not really,” Ryan gulps harshly, forcing her eyes to look into Harry’s. “Not for me.”

It’s quiet, safe for the opening guitar riff of Car On a Hill playing softly in the background. Harry feels his body shifting just the smallest bit towards Ryan’s, so subtle that she can barely recognize it as it’s happening. She’s trapped in his eyes, swirling greens and golden hues spotted with freckles telling her to lean in, to come closer, to push herself into his personal space the way he’s been dreaming about ever since she left with his tea mug the day before.

And she wants to, so badly, that suddenly it’s all she can think about. The confidence Fiona instilled in her hours earlier is back, and when her eyes dart down to Harry’s cherry lips, taking in the chapped ridges and the way his tongue darts out to lick the dryness away, she’s almost certain he wants the same thing as her.

His hand is still on hers and that’s all of the affirmation she needs, so with one fell swoop she makes a move to close the gap between them. And just as Ryan is centimeters away from his lips and her eyelids are about to shut—

—Nothing.

At the last moment, Harry backed away the smallest of inches, but it was enough for Ryan to understand that he didn’t, in fact, want the same thing as her.

So with flushed cheeks and wide eyes, Ryan stands up abruptly, ripping her hand out from under his own warm palm, offering a lame, “I should go,” before grabbing her trainers from near the shoe rack and heading straight for his door without even stopping to put them on her feet.

Before Harry can hear his front door close, he kicks into high gear, running after Ryan before she can get away again. Because he’s an absolute fucking idiot for backing away, for his muscles turning rigid and his mind swirling with far too many thoughts.

But once he’s reached the entranceway, he finds nobody there. Just the sight of his door half-closed and the hallway rug upturned at the corner. And when he peeks his head out into the hallway and hears the sound of heavy oak closing, he realizes that he’s missed his chance.

And there’s nobody to blame but himself.

*** A/N: Hi guys, please don’t hate me. Here’s part five of you feel like home, aka the longest part I’ve posted so far. Originally I was going to have it be two parts, but because I didn’t want to create another title, it’s just one. I know this is probably not how we thought (or wanted) the “date” to go, but I promise there’s more to the story! Part six will be posted on Thursday December 3, so feel free to chat (or yell) at me in the meantime. This was a submission for the 1DFF Quarantine Challenge, which has other amazing writers participating as well, so feel free to check out the page! And to everybody celebrating tomorrow, have a safe and happy Thanksgiving. x

taglist: @stylishmuser @vikki1220 @greatestview @verorax @cronias13 @adoremp3 @ilovegolden @taintedwonder @stepping-into-the-light @onlyphysicallypresent @dontwanttobealone @justsaying20 @elemayox @awomanindeniall @ihearthemcallingforyou @halloweenniall @live-at-the-forum @kakayam @harryinsweatersandbandanas @hopelessly-harry @ficnarry @morethanamelodyy @niallgolden @harryswinterberries @caramello-styles @harrysstyle @greatestview @solllaris @niallgolden

#harry styles #harry styles fanfiction #harry styles fic #harry fic #harry styles x ofc #harry styles x reader #harry x ofc #harry imagines #1dff #1dffupdates #fic: home #1dffquarantine

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introductions-are-a-spook · 3 years

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Tag list: @kyuudomo @kissthe-gogoat @caloroso-cosmos @omrade-echorin < You said you like the last one so added you. Let me know if you’re okay with that, and sorry if not!

Let me know if you want to be added or taken off. Reblogs and feedback always appreciated!

Fifty miles from the Chapman house and twenty years ago, rain fell over an English boarding school. Children ran from building to building, clutching their bags under hunched chests in an attempt to protect them.

Visible through a window, one student sat huddled on a library bench, nose deep in a book. And of course they didn’t see through their concentration to the rambunctious upperclassman arguing with the librarian.

“I told you before, my father tore the book, not me. I can get the money to pay for it, it’ll just take a couple days!”

“That’s ridiculous. Just why in the world would a parent do that, hmm?”

“You obviously don’t know him like I do,” he snipped under his breath.

After a moment more of this, he sauntered over to where the bookworm- maybe a grade or two below him, sat. Flopping down, he groaned.

Finally the quiet one spoke. “Mrs. Kingsley’s going to wring your neck if you don’t replace the book soon, you know.”

“Yeah, I get it already. Geez.” The older boy looked at the younger with a raised eyebrow. “Hey I know you, you’re in my chemistry class. Mary, right?”

“Er, it’s Maxwell. And yes, what about it?”

“Isn’t that a bit too hard for you? You’re what, twelve?”

“Fourteen. You?”

“Aww, a little shrimp. I’m seventeen. Andrew, by the way,” although teasing, his tone lacked any genuine malice. He held out a hand to shake.

“Nice to meet you, prick.”

Andrew laughed. “Damn right. Whatcha reading?”

Maxwell tilted the book. A collection of Sherlock Holmes stories. “I want to be a detective when I get out of school, so I’m studying now.”

“That’s cool. We better get to class though, the bell’s gonna ring soon,” Andrew said, standing up and checking his watch.

Maxwell reluctantly closed his book and nodded. “Just try to pay for the book soon, okay? Mrs. Kingsley isn’t the only one who cares about this library.”

“Oh sure. I’ll just steal the money from my dad while he’s at church or something,” he said with a mischievous grin. “Nice meeting you, Maxwell!”

“Same here. Criminal!”

Andrew laughed and walked off. Maxwell allowed a chuckle as he went the opposite way.

~*~

Six pictures were laid out in front of Andrew. All of various bedrooms. Half he recognized- Maxwell’s, Isabella’s, and his own. The other three varied. There was a rather plain, maroon themed bedroom with several camera monitors in one corner. Another was coated wall-to-wall in weapons and a bright scarlet palette. The last of which was more pink and the most homely, with picture frames full of people everywhere. All belonging to Maxwell’s siblings, most likely.

And yet, Andrew was not confused. In fact, he was quite disturbed. He sat with his ferret, Brie, in his arms, petting her in an attempt to calm down.

He had finally worked up the courage to read the letter. Mr. Antigone had left a graphic plan of all the horrible things he would do if Andrew didn’t leave Maxwell as soon as possible. He detailed all the ways he could get away with it, and included the pictures as proof of his deadly seriousnessand capability.

Well if he hasn’t killed me yet, it probably means he wants me alive. He must be trying to beat me into submission.

What a mess. Within just a few weeks of going out with Max, Andrew’s world had turned upside down. Of all the people in the world, he had to fall in love with a detective.

A knock at the downstairs door stirred him. Quietly putting Brie in her pen, he cursed himself for not burning the letter as told. Walking down to the front on tiptoe, he slipped a kitchen knife into his pocket- just in case.

Another knock. Andrew took a deep breath, prepared for the worst, and opened the door.

“Maxwell! Oh, it’s just you, thank god,” he sighed in relief.

Maxwell raised an eyebrow. “Of course it’s me, who else would it be?” He cut Andrew off before he could respond. “Nevermind, it doesn’t matter. We need to talk.”

A twinge of fear settled in Andrew’s gut. “About what? Is everything okay?”

“Given that you feel the need to answer the door with a knife in your coat,” he gestured to how poorly it was hidden, “No, things are far from okay.”

Andrew studied Maxwell’s face. His handsome features were pulled into a grave expression, his demeanor uncomfortable.

“Why don’t you come in,” Andrew said, holding the door ajar for the other man.

“Thank you,” Maxwell responded, sitting down at an empty booth in the main shop. Andrew sat down across from him, and they sat in silence for a long few moments.

Maxwell slowly tapped his thumbs together. Andrew could see how his eyes faded in deep thought.

“Andrew.”

“Yes?”

“Are you…” he took a shaky breath. “No. I know you’re the thief.”

Andrew’s stomach flipped, but he calmed himself. “You’re good. Guilty as charged. Is this my day of reckoning, then?” His tone was bitter, almost scared.

For the first time since arriving, Maxwell looked Andrew directly in the eye. “I have an idea.”

“You didn’t answer my question, but go on,” he said with a dry chuckle.

“Tell me, who is Nikos Antigone?”

Andrew stood up suddenly. “What do you mean, has he contacted you? Have you met him?”

“So you do know him. He sent me a letter- or, as it turns out, two letters. The first ‘anonymously’ telling me to run away from you, the second saying that you robbed him. Tell me, have you ever used violence in your hijinks?”

“I don’t know how much you’ll believe me, but no, I haven’t.”

“I figured as much. So it was Antigone that broke your nose a couple weeks back?”

Andrew hesitated. Was this an interview? But Maxwell seemed so genuinely worried. “Yeah, basically.”

“I’m very sorry,” he said, brushing a finger over the bridge that was still sore. Andy winced slightly, causing Max to draw his hand away.

“I’m not going to turn you in. I want to help, but to do that, I need answers. Could you tell me more?” He was now surprisingly soft.

So with a heavy sigh, Andrew spilled his guts about everything, even ousting Isabella’s involvement in the process. He also provided some insight on Jennifer. She was the daughter of a nobleman, one that rudely broke off dealings with the Antigone family’s crime loop, when she was just a baby.

Despite this, all four of them had attended the same school without realizing. She and the young Nikos were the best of friends, before they all went their separate ways, and Nikos followed in his family’s footsteps. Andrew was doing jobs for him simply to make him money and to be a jewel in his crown.

“You won’t have to be for long. If we can find a way to get him in the wrong place at the wrong time, we can pin all of your wrongdoings on him.”

“Maxwell, no. You could lose your job if you did that!”

“I’m more than willing-“

“And besides, I’m the one at the wheel, I should take the blame-“

“You think I haven’t shuffled blame before? You know neither of us have ever cared about morals and virtue.”

“That may be true, but this is still a huge risk. One I’m not willing to let you take for me!”

“Well too bad, because I refuse to allow you to keep on like this. If you don’t let me help, I’ll find a way to do something on my own.”

“Max, what the hell has gotten into you? Why can’t you let me sort out my own problems- or just throw me in jail already?”

“Because I love you, you nitwit!”

There was a long, charged silence. The tension of argument melted away, leaving something else entirely in its place.

“I… I think I love you too. And I don’t want you to get hurt. You have no idea the things this guy will do to you.”

Max held Andy’s hand, up on the table. “You’re right, I don’t. But I know with our combined minds, we can outsmart him.”

Andrew took a deep, shuddering breath. “Do you really think so?”

Maxwell nodded. “The Antigone family has done enough damage. It’s about time someone put a stop to it. I only have one condition.”

“That being?”

“For both of our sakes, you need to drop your game. Once Nikos is in prison, well…”

Andrew nodded and pondered for a moment. “I’d need something else after the fact- to keep me entertained. But yes, for you, I will.”

“Then our plot can be your last heist. Any ideas as to a replacement?”

“You could marry me, and we could run away together. Be musicians in Vienna till’ we’re old,” Andy smirked.

Max giggled. “Ask me again in three years.”

And then he gave Andy the most lovestruck look. Andy returned it. They glanced at their pose- they were awfully close.

“I’d ask if I could kiss you, but there’s a table in the way,” Andy whispered with a quiet laugh.

“Just get over here, you,” Max then pulled a laughing Andy by his tie to the nearest wall, moving close, only to be stopped.

“Hang the hell on, you’re the short one, shouldn’t you be the one-“

Max swatted Andy’s arm. “Oh, shut up.” And with that, they finally closed the gap.

Andy smelled like fresh cakes, and Max like old books. Where the thief tasted like strawberries, the detective was like tea with milk; both felt like smooth butter.

Andy’s arms were strong as he lifted Max and held him so close. They stood like that for a long time, pausing only to dash upstairs. Andrew had only one thought before his mind went blank with bliss.

Antigone thinks he can use me as a puppet. Poor man has no idea what he’s messing with.

#📖 the detective and the crook 🖋#✒️ you write and i’ll read 📖#writing #my writing #one more people!!

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angelanimedesaray · 3 years

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Through The Looking Glass Chapter 5: Flickers In Time

AN: Okay, so there’s a lot of time skipping in here, just a lot of brief short moments as our little ones get a little older. The time frame is honestly all over the place for what happens when. I’m doing this before we get back on track because I realized a lot of these scenes I had planned I couldn’t string together in a cohesive linear fashion at the length I’ve been writing these chapters, so I decided just to do a time passing chapter, and here we are.

Also, congrats guys, the next chapter is our first MATURE CONTENT warning that I’m honestly a little nervous writing, but we’ll see how it goes.

Characters: Levi, Reader, Reader’s Parents (Mentioned), Kenny (Mentioned), Occasional OCs

Pairings: (Eventual) Levi x Reader

Warnings: Angst, Family Drama/Troubles, Running Away, Mentions of Divorce, (Is Fluff really a Warning??? I mean, if you don’t want to feel warm fuzzies, I guess)

Word Count: 10464

<---Previous Part Masterlist Next Chapter---->

Levi flickered in and out of your life in moments that could be fleeting like the pictures of an old film, or seemingly endless and frozen in time, held in your hands like precious gems.

Friends came and went as you grew older and the social cliques and popularity divided people further and further away at school. It didn’t help that your mother followed through with her threat and pulled you out of school to homeschool you for a year, and your family moved a few times for your father’s job. But despite all the rapid change in the space of a few years, Levi continued to appear at the most unexpected of times, a constant friend despite his inconstant presence. He grew more...distant, the older the two of you became. Not distant like your friends at school had become, simply more...reserved, withdrawn into himself, and wary of the world around him. But you could still get him to relax, get his guard to lower some when he was around you. He always arrived acting far more mature than his age, but you managed to get him to be a /kid/ with you at some point during his visits…

*Levi’s POV*

The trees outside had turned, a palette of oranges, reds, yellows, and lingering remnants of green, clinging to the thinning tree branches or littering the ground like paint spatter. Levi had stared at the colors in silent, wide-eyed fascination when he’d appeared, twirling an orange leaf between two fingers by the stem before Y/N had grabbed him by the arm with a happy exclamation of his name, dragging him deeper into the yard and insisting that he help her rake up a pile of leaves to jump into.

He’d been a little displeased when he saw all that hard work to rake up the yard disappear as she jumped into their pile and sent leaves everywhere, but the shrieked giggles and the wide grin on her face as she rolled around and continued to spread leaves everywhere helped make up for it. Plus, she was perfectly ready and willing to rake up the pile all over again so Levi could try doing the same--apparently she’d seen his skepticism over the point of it all.

He had to admit that there was a sort of childish thrill to jump in and cause an explosion of fluttering autumn colors all around him.

Afterwards, when the leaves were raked up into their final piles and they had picked all the bits of multicolored leaves off of one another, she had dragged him inside raving about caramel apples she said were a Halloween only treat--whatever that was. By now, he’d learned to just go with the strange things she said. They made sense to her, and he didn’t need to understand everything she talked about to enjoy what she was trying to share with him.

This time, it was green apples on sticks with a shining brown glaze and chopped up nuts sprinkled all around it. It was sticky at the same time it was juicy, since the apple was crisp and fresh underneath--sweeter than the things he was used to eating, but not enough to give him a stomach ache, thankfully. They both had the caramel and apple juice all over them when they finished, having to scrub at their faces and fingers afterwards. As with most of the foods and drinks she shared with him when he visited, it was another thing he’d been able to genuinely enjoy, part of him wishing the treat wasn’t seasonal like she’d told him it was so that he could look forward to maybe having one more often when he saw her.

*Levi’s POV*

The excitement practically oozed from Y/N when he appeared one day, and she dragged him into the house, informing him that her family bought a piano for her to practice with at home. This was something he was more familiar with by proxy, considering all the times she’d talked about learning to play the piano, sometimes at his prompting. As such, as soon as she said she had a piano, for once he knew what he was being dragged into, and he looked forward to it with enough curious excitement that he easily matched her pace. Curiosity and even some excitement radiated from him as they tread into a part of the house that he hadn’t seen since his first visit. At the foot of the stairs was the large living room, and pushed up against the wall was a light brown wooden piece of furniture with ivory white and onyx black keys, and a matching bench pushed underneath.

Y/N let go of his arm long enough to pull out the bench with a brief, frustrated grunt when it got caught on the soft rug, which did in fact cover the entire flooring now that Levi got to look at it. She slid onto the bench with ease and got off again to adjust it, doing this several times until she had it where she wanted it and could reach the pedals at the bottom and seemed to be able to reach the keys. At that point, she turned to look at Levi, who had walked up to the piano to investigate, hand gliding gently over the smooth wood and listening to the hollow thunk of her foot pressing on the peddles underneath as she tried to make sure she could reach everything.

“C’mon, there’s room for both of us. You can turn the pages for me, too!” she said cheerfully as she opened up a thin book that was propped up in the center of the piano above the keys on a built-in stand.

Levi racked his brain for the names of some of the songs she’d said she was learning to play on the piano in all their conversations, dismissing the ones she’s said were really easy, the first songs she’d learned to play. What had been the name of that one song she’d been looking forward to learning?

“Have you learned Furr A Lease yet?” Levi asked as he took a seat next to her on the bench.

Y/N lit up as he mentioned it, flipping through the pages of the book and settling on a specific one that had rows of bars and spots that made no sense to him, but clearly meant something to her. “You remembered! I had my teacher promise to teach me to play Fur Elise as soon as I could recognize all the notes, so I can! You’ll have to turn the page once for me,” she rambled, fingers hovering over and finding their place on the keys as her eyes flickered up towards the pages in front of her. A look of concentration fell across her face, and after a few moments of silence where Levi simply watched her, her fingers pressed down on the keys in semi-practiced movements, and a lovely sound started to fill the air.

Occasionally she pressed a little too hard or too soon on a key, and the sound was thrown off, but Levi was aware that she was learning. Even though it threw him off in the moment, he was still enjoying listening to her play. He could see she was trying hard, and the practice was paying off. The sound was nice and beautiful, and it was gentle, like her.

He only moved when she asked him to turn the page for her. He had to stretch with care to make sure he didn’t get in her way, but he apparently timed it right, because her playing didn’t hitch because of missing notes.

After that, whenever they were inside and she wasn’t intent on having him try something else out, he asked her if there was anything new she’d learned to play on the piano. Every time, she would drag him into the living room like he’d hoped and they would sit down side by side on the bench while she played for him.

*Reader’s POV*

One of the great things about Levi whenever he showed up was how he was willing to listen. He wasn’t much of a talker, anyway, he never had been. But even though he didn’t speak, and there was a distance as time went by, it wasn’t out of indifference or coldness. He did listen to what you talked about, and considering he was able to recall stuff even from past conversations and ask the occasional meaningful question, you knew he was, in fact, paying attention.

Considering you didn’t have anyone to talk to with some of your interests, it was a breath of fresh air. Even with your parents, some of the things you tried to talk to them about, they started using the mechanical voice, the one that told you that they weren’t really paying attention because they were giving automatic, short responses. And the few people your age that bothered to spend time around you didn’t understand some of the things you wanted to talk about, or gave a blank look and then switched the subject to something else entirely.

With Levi, you could go into depth about rudimentary energy conversion, or basic natural science--the basic stuff taught in elementary science classes that you were developing a stronger and stronger interest in as time passed. Most of the people your age that you knew didn’t really care about science unless they got to see something with fire, something explode, or got to do an activity they could barely put any effort into and goof off for the rest of class.

Even if Levi didn’t understand everything you told him, he tried to. And what you could demonstrate or explain, you did, with Levi paying attention and trying to follow what you were saying to the best of his ability. If he seemed like he wasn’t interested, as you’d been worried a few times by wandering eyes or a general look of disinterest, he usually put those worries to rest with a well-formed question that showed he was paying attention.

When he did lose interest, or perhaps gave up on trying to follow something you were attempting to explain, he would change the subject to something else that you enjoyed. That way the topic was still something you enjoyed and wanted to share, even if it was no longer the one you’d previously been talking about.

Which you understood. It wasn’t for everyone, and he wasn’t going to be as enthusiastic about it as you, no matter how much you talked about or explained things to him. He still did far more than most people you knew, and listened nonetheless.

Though you did notice that one time you talked about studying the human body and naming bones and such, he was already surprisingly knowledgeable, and even helped you study and remember some things you were struggling with. Like remembering the names of bones and their spots in the human body. It wasn’t that you thought he was stupid, it was just that you’d gotten so used to having to explain most of the sciencey things you talked about, it through you for a loop when he was rather knowledgeable about it. Especially the specific parts he was knowledgeable about: arteries and the like.

But, whenever you started to get that worried, pondering look on your face and your mind started to wonder how he knew those kinds of things so well, he usually caught on and managed to direct your attention elsewhere, the touchy subject forgotten before you could dig too deep and realize something unpleasant.

*Levi’s POV*

Warmth trailed uncomfortably from Levi’s nose and down over his lips, his jacket hanging halfway down the arm that was still clutching the bloodied knife in a tight grip. His eyes weren’t on the almost unconscious man underneath him, but on the tan coat and wide brim hat that was quickly disappearing from sight without so much as a glance back in Levi’s direction. His lips parted, intending to call out to the man, but he disappeared entirely before he could gather the words.

Gone, just like that, without a word from either of them.

And something inside him told him he wasn’t coming back.

His grip slackened slightly on the knife, stunned and still staring in the direction Kenny had disappeared. His smug accomplishment at winning the fight he’d picked with the adult now below him disappeared entirely in the wake of on setting abandonment as the reality of what had just happened settled in, and Levi realized he was now alone in the Underground.

He blinked, and while the lighting didn’t change much, the smell in the air did. The man below him was gone, the ground was different beneath his feet, and the lighting, while still dark, wasn’t from the absence of light from a nonexistent sky. There was no ceiling again, just the trees up above him, and open night sky with the moon and stars glinting around him.

The surface.

Which meant…

He didn’t have to look far. He simply turned his head a little to the side, and there was the wooden playhouse he’d slept in several years ago. Sitting atop it was the familiar form of Y/N, though she was a little hunched over. At the sight of her, Levi instinctively hid his bloodied knife, taking a moment to wipe it off in the grass below him before he put it away where she wouldn’t see it.

Like the day he’d found her sitting on the steps after that incident at the school, there was shouting coming from the house, mainly a woman shouting. There were pauses in between, and if he listened hard enough, he could faintly make out the sound of a man’s voice replying. He couldn’t make out what either of them were saying, but whatever it was, he was sure it was the reason she was hunched over on top of the playhouse like a depressed bird.

Levi pulled out his handkerchief, and barely managed to get it to his nose to wipe away the blood when she finally noticed him. Her posture straightened slightly upon seeing him, though she definitely hunched back over to wipe at her face first before she turned to face him more fully.

“Are you alright? You’re bleeding,” she stated.

Of course concern for his well being was the first thing she said. She was always worrying over him, it seemed. Even when there was clearly something upsetting her, she asked about him, first.

“It’s nothing,” he answered, finished wiping away the blood and secretly hoping it wouldn’t continue to bleed so she wouldn’t continue to fuss over something that equated a scratch for him. He was probably going to look a little rough no matter what he did, considering he was literally just in a fight.

As Levi walked over to the playhouse, Y/N leaned down and fixed his jacked, pulling the shoulder up from his elbow and back where it belonged before Levi could shrug her off and fix it himself. He didn’t need her fussing over him like a mother, because she wasn’t.

Partially sulking, and nowhere near wanting to talk about his own problems right now, Levi decided to draw her attention away from him again as he leaned his back against the side of the playhouse that was now too small for both of them to fit inside.

“You’re upset. What’s going on?” Levi asked, head inclined back towards the house for clarity since they could still hear voices from inside.

Y/N shrank again, and Levi’s gaze settled steadily on her once again. “My dad’s going back overseas,” she said quietly. Levi’s brow furrowed at the mention of overseas, no idea what she was talking about or what that was even supposed to mean. Context clues told him her dad was leaving again.

There seemed to be a lot of that going around right now.

“They’re fighting about it because apparently my dad’s already done his required military service. He doesn’t need to go back, but he is,” she clarified just as softly. “Mom’s insisting that he doesn’t love us enough to stay, and he wouldn’t go if he did.”

Levi looked away as she got especially quiet, and he suspected she might be shedding more tears. At the same time, Kenny’s retreating back flashed through his mind. Sure, Kenny didn’t love him, Levi wasn’t an idiot, he knew that much. But he’d thought, at the very least...well, he hadn’t expected to get abandoned in the street like that. And he felt betrayed because of it.

As much as he thought this would be a good distraction from his harsh reality like it usually was, this was just echoing his own pain right now, and he hated it, a muscle twitching in his jaw as his teeth ground together, and a bit of resentful anger starting to bud inside him towards a man he hadn’t met for making Y/N feel a similar sense of abandonment.

“She’s wrong, though.”

Or maybe not.

Levi looked up in surprise at Y/N’s entire change of tone, which went from small, timid, and hurt to firm determination with a bit of fire he hadn’t seen from her before peeking through. It wasn’t at all what he had expected from her, and she wasn’t done, either, wiping away residual tears as she continued to speak in that firm tone. The way she spoke, it was easy to tell she was venting out frustration that her mother didn’t understand this.

“I know he loves us. Just because he’s going away for a while doesn’t mean he hates us or anything. He’s going because he needs to protect people, it’s what he does, and it’s the right thing to do. It’s scary when he’s gone, and it hurts, but that doesn’t mean he doesn’t love us.”

Levi watched her as she smoothed her hair back with both hands, taking a deep breath before she hopped off the playhouse. He straightened up from his previous position leaning against the playhouse, but before either of them said anything, she suddenly wrapped both of her arms tightly around him. Levi stiffened, pain flaring up in his side where he’d been hit during that fight, hands starting to rise to push her off him in an instinctual reaction, but she was attached to him like a leech, and as his hands met her sides to push her off…

“Thank you for being my friend, Levi,” she murmured into his ear, and Levi paused.

Hesitantly, Levi returned the hug, his hands finding a place on her back as she clung tightly to him. She was warm, and it was comforting to be held like this again since…

Well...he didn’t want to think of how long it had been. Already he felt a slight burn in his eyes, a mess of emotions trying to bubble up and out of his chest as he clung tightly to Y/N in return, wrestling with himself to keep it under control. The hug felt good, but he could tell he was trembling, and with how tightly they were holding one another, surely she could tell as well.

Y/N’s arms loosened slightly, and she started to pull back in concern. “Levi, are you all right?”

Cursing himself for the outward display of weakness the whole time, Levi hugged her a little tighter in response, which gave her enough of a hint that she stopped trying to pull away. Instead, she secured her arms around him again in that comfort he suddenly realized he craved. Every moment he wasn’t here on the surface, he craved the clean air, the warmth of the sun, the energy that oozed off of her and helped lift his spirits, as well as the security he felt while he was here.

If only he had the security of staying. If only he wasn’t so sure that he would simply flicker away again, like every other time. If only this existence didn’t keep slipping through his fingertips like a mirage lost in fog.

If only people stopped flickering out of his life...like Kenny just had.

“Why do people leave?”

The words slipped past his lips before he could get control of himself again, and he cursed his stupidity. Why did people leave--it was a stupid question he already knew the answer to. Because the world was cruel and harsh, full of death and destruction that took without a care, with people that were just as cruel and destructive. And sometimes, when it seemed like people cared...well, he knew better now. Already he was forming another wall to try and keep people out before they could wreak that kind of damage on him again when they left.

Y/N, while she didn’t give him an answer--maybe she didn’t have one, considering her more sheltered existence--still gave him something to hold to. Though he wasn’t sure how concrete the promise really was, considering how they kept fluttering through each other's lives.

“I won’t leave, Levi. Not really. I’ll always be here when you need me most,” she promised, her words muffled since her face was still buried in his shoulder thanks to the hug. “I’m usually here waiting and looking for you to come back, anyway. You’re the only real friend that’s stayed with me so far.”

*Reader’s POV*

“What nonsense have you cooked up this time?”

By now you were done being surprised by Levi’s sudden appearances. If they hadn’t started when you were so young, perhaps this wouldn’t be normal to you, and you would wonder how he got into your house and in your room on the second floor without a sound or alerting your parents, but it had never occurred to you to ask those questions in the past, and before enough time passed for you to start asking those kinds of questions, it became normal for you. With Levi’s appearances being normal, you no longer thought it odd.

Not even looking up, you gestured to the chessboard on one side of you and the halfway finished game of solitaire on the other side. “I got grounded for lying, so I’m trying to entertain myself. Thought I would try to play some card games. Or practice some chess.”

For once, Levi didn’t look completely lost as he took a seat across from you in between the two games. It was like you had at long last spoken a language he understood, his eyes flickering between the stalemate on the chessboard and the game of solitaire you were too stubborn to admit defeat with.

It was a little difficult to play against yourself when you knew your opponent self’s every next move.

Levi’s eyes flickered around the room, probably noting the lack of...well, lots of things. Most of the stuff you usually played with. No video games, or movies, or music, or even books. You’d dragged this out of the family game chest for something to do. You weren’t even allowed friends over for a little while. It was your mother’s way of putting the pressure on you to stop lying and tell the truth.

“It must have been a pretty big lie,” Levi commented as his eyes returned to you. His comment earned a bitter snort from you, especially at the dark humor you found in him saying that.

“I wasn’t lying. Just, no one believes me,” you said with a sigh, glancing up at him before you shook away the depressing thoughts. Levi wasn’t always here, and when he was, you never knew how long he would be here. Every time he showed up, you had to make the most of it.

“Come on, this will be much more fun if you play a few games with me. Chess or cards? I am ready to teach,” you said excitedly, leaning forward and planting your palms on the ground as you came closer with a wide smile, gazing at him expectantly as you waited for him to choose.

“I know a few games,” Levi said, nodding towards the cards. You immediately brightened. Could you get right to playing games for once?

“Which ones do you know? War, slapjack, blackjack, rummy, go fish, poker--well, I don’t know how to actually play some of those, I just know they’re card games.”

Levi shrugged. “Basic gambling games. Like poker and blackjack.” A blush started to creep up in your cheeks as you realized he knew the games you didn’t know how to play. His sharp eyes didn’t miss the expression, and a first finally happened between you. “I can teach you.”

You nodded sheepishly, watching as Levi gathered up the cards that had made up your solitaire game and shuffled the cards, starting to explain how to play poker to you as he handled the cards. You never heard him talk longer than short sentences, so hearing him talk about something at length was new for you, and it was your turn to listen to him with quiet attention. He had a rather soothing voice. Steady and fairly low--at least for a boy his age--and occasionally he said his words like a sigh. It gave him a general carefree feel as you listened. If you had been tired, he probably could have lulled you off to sleep just listening to him. It helped that you were paying avid attention to give him the same respect he gave you when you were talking about things you were interested in.

Even though poker was usually played with more people, you and Levi played a mock version of it with CheezIts you swindled from downstairs. Needless to say, Levi was a little...too good at playing poker. For the life of you, you couldn’t read him while playing the game, which meant he won every time. Eventually, you got pouty. Sure, your dad never /let/ you win when you played chess with him to teach you how to really play, but this was ridiculous. At least you could take a few chess pieces off the board with your dad. This was just--just--

You huffed as Levi scooped the pile of CheezIts towards himself once more, looking mildly annoyed at the orange dust he kept having to wipe off his hands as they played. “You’re too good at this game.”

“You’re not good at hiding your expressions. You’re an open book. And you have lots of tells,” he returned bluntly, shuffling the deck once more.

Was he smiling? You could have sworn he just smirked, but it was gone before you could be sure. Dang it! You had to do something to get back at him or this was going to drive you crazy.

“Bah, enough poker for today. I at least know the basics of how to play now. Maybe we could do some chess?” you asked hopefully. Chess was something you knew but he didn’t. You’d have the advantage again. Hopefully you’d be able to beat him a few times and it would satiate your desire for a few victories.

Levi simply sat aside the cards after shuffling them, coming over to the chess board as you set it up. “You’ll have to explain this one,” he said softly, gaze roaming over the starting positions of all the pieces to commit them to memory.

“Don’t worry, you’ll get the hang of it pretty quickly,” you said cheerfully before you started explaining how each piece got to move and the goal of the game.

It was a nice respite from an undeserved punishment while it lasted.

*Levi’s POV*

For once, he found an upside to living underground, as when he appeared outside, he was almost instantly drenched in an unpleasant feeling with humid, hot air and the sun beating down on him, making him cover his eyes entirely and re-expose himself to the bright sunlight little at a time. At the same time, he shrugged off his jacket, pushing hair out of his face and looking around with a squint for Y/N. She had to be close, she always was.

“Levi!”

Levi turned at the sound of her voice, spotting her as she came out of her house pushing something slender with two wheels along with her, waving her hand excitedly with a fancy bag slung across her chest from shoulder to waist. She hurried over to him, hands guiding the wheels in the proper direction as she approached. She kicked out a metal bar and let the slender thing prop up on it when she reached him.

“I was just going to the store to get some treats--do you want to come?” she asked cheerfully.

“Might as well,” Levi mumbled, his jacket draped over his arm now, though he was considering using it to give himself some shade.

“You can put your jacket in my bike basket, and...um…” She frowned, turning back to look at the bike with a thoughtful look. There was only one weird looking seat, and he was certain both of them were not going to fit on it. “Well, I haven’t done it before, but you can try riding on the handlebars. Or I can try it, if you know how to ride a bike,” she said, looking back at Levi, who was already shaking his head no in response to the upcoming question.

“Handlebars it is,” she said with a nod, swinging her leg over the bike to get situated on the seat and kicking that bar of metal back, balancing the bike on the two tires. Levi put his jacket in the basket at the front, and then hesitated, looking at the way she balanced on the bike and the slender bar with her hands on either end.

This was not going to end well…

“Come on, it’s not that hard. I don’t think so, anyway. And I’m right behind you to keep you from slipping. It might take a few tries while I figure out how to balance with two people, but we’ll figure it out. It would be easier if I had bike pegs, but I don’t, so…”

Here goes nothing, Levi thought, turning his back to her and putting his hands just inside hers on the handlebars before he jumped up and back, partially landing on his hands. Y/N moved her hands to the very edge, allowing Levi to get his hands out from underneath him and move them off to the side as his ass hung over the edge of the bike. Her chest was pressed against his back as she leaned forward, though, giving him a bit of stability like she said as she leaned forward, head peeking around his shoulder so she could see. Levi kept a tight grip on the bike as she shifted from foot to foot, trying to figure out the balance and keep them from tipping over--something Levi felt happening every time she tried to lift her feet. She was going to make him a nervous wreck if she kept--

Instead of trying to lift her feet again, Y/N just started walking them forward slowly, getting the wheels to start moving instead of trying to balance in place. As they started heading down the brown stone walkway, Levi wondered why she didn’t just move onto the wider black stone street that looked like it would give them more room for error than this narrow brown stone path.

As they started to pick up speed, Y/N suddenly took her feet off the ground again--which Levi knew, because the bike wobbled. “Hold on!” she told him, which was entirely unnecessary--his knuckles were white on the bars as they started to go faster with a push he could feel, and the bike wobbled and veered from side to side as Y/N attempted to steer while Levi had the better grasp on the handlebars. Eventually they managed to find a sort of arrangement, and they were steering mostly in tandem, Levi feeling what direction she was trying to move the handlebars and watching the narrow path in front of them to see what direction they needed to go in order to avoid crashing into something. As they picked up speed and Y/N adjusted to what they were trying to do, the ride grew smoother, the wobbling stopped for the most part, and Levi was able to relax. Mostly.

As they navigated the streets in their precarious arrangement, Levi had to blink sweat out of his eyes and squint against the wind, Y/N occasionally switching which of his sides she was peering around as they continued to go down the path at a speed that he occasionally wondered if she had complete control over. He kept worrying she was going to accidentally swerve into something, or wasn’t going to be able to slow down before taking a corner and they would lose balance.

Finally, finally, she started to slow them down, and skidded to a stop in front of a red brick building with a glass and metal door. Inside he could see bright light from a light source other than fire that he wasn’t familiar with, and a cacophony of brightly colored packages on rows of shelves. Levi hopped off the bike and looked inside with cautious curiosity as Y/N moved the bike over to the wall and lowered that metal bar again, leaning the bike next to the wall out of the way before she approached him.

“I have enough money I’ve saved up to get us some soda and candy, or ice cream. Since it’s hot out, I think ice cream would be better,” she mused as she pulled open the door, letting him go in first.

And she was speaking gibberish again. Well, for the most part. He didn’t know what the soda or ice cream was, but he of course knew what candy was, though he usually didn’t bother with it because it was such a luxury, and that money could be spent on more important things.

And here the difference between him as the Underground dweller and her as the surface dweller was glaring.

There was a man behind a counter off to their left as Y/N came in behind him, a man who immediately eyed Levi was a narrowed look as he took in his ragged appearance and (current) lack of a coin purse or a bag. When Y/N bounded in with her clean-cut appearance and bag that obviously had money in it though, the dirty look eased, though Levi could still feel the man watching him to make sure he didn’t steal anything.

Y/N dragged him towards the back where there were more glass doors keeping certain products inside, with strangely shaped bottles and other containers with more bright colors. “I’m thinking we can choose a drink, and an ice cream, and we can have some over at the conservation site we went to that one time! Wait, no, the ice cream will melt by then...we can have the ice cream as soon as we get outside!” she amended as she brought him to a stop in the back in front of the wall of completely foreign foodstuffs. Levi looked blankly at everything in front of him, completely lost on what he should get. Hell, he’d never even seen half of the materials this place was made out of. He was used to wooden buildings and shelves, to dirt or clay walls with the occasional stone structure, firelight or darkness. He didn’t even seen any flames in this place, yet it was as bright in here as outside, but with more...artificial colors. This place was different enough he was unsettled by it, and he honestly wanted to leave as soon as possible so he could be back somewhere that felt more...comfortable or familiar.

“You haven’t had soda or ice cream before, have you?” Y/N asked, deflating a little as she asked it and realization flashed in her eyes. Levi shook his head, and she turned back to the wall of product with a slight frown, hands on her hips. “Well...what kinds of foods or drinks do you like? I like the really chocolatey stuff, or the fruity stuff. Mom’s always telling me to have less because there’s so much sugar in it.”

“I don’t have a lot of sugar,” Levi said quietly. Too much, and he might get a stomach ache, so he’d like to stay away from something packed full with sugar like she was claiming.

“You probably don’t want soda, then. It’s super sugary and bubbly.”

Well that last part just made him curious…

“Or you can start with something lighter, like Sprite, or ginger ale...or you can have lemonade instead…”

At this point she was just talking to herself, pulling open the door in front of them to start picking up and looking at the bottles. Levi shivered at the surprising blast of cold air, suddenly wishing he had his jacket as she held the door open, continuing to look at the bottles. Levi’s head was on a gradual swivel, taking in the sight of all the different colored packages around him and trying to figure out what everything was. This was nothing like the Underground, it was the exact opposite. He didn’t even recognize anything in here--so far, anyway. You would think they were from entirely different worlds.

“How about this--I’ll get a lemonade and a Sprite, I’ll let you try the Sprite, and if you don’t like it, I’ll just take the Sprite and you can have the lemonade,” she said, handing the two bottles to him and shutting the door, relieving him of that cold that would have been refreshing if it had been brief instead of constantly bombarding him while she held the door open.

The bottles weren’t made of glass, like he would have expected. He had no idea what this was, and he watched the bubbling drink and the yellow drink slosh around inside as she pulled them up to the counter. He was momentarily distracted and forgot she’d mentioned she was getting something else, but was now dragging them over to pay.

“I’d like to buy these two drinks, and two ice cream cones, please!” she said, leaning up against the counter on her tip-toes with Levi just behind her holding the drinks. The man glanced skeptically at Levi again, who just gazed steadily back at him in silence, the two bottles held tightly in his hands. He looked at the boxey...thing, in front of him, touched a few things that made strange noises to Levi, and then turned back to Y/N with a polite smile.

“That’ll be six seventy-four, little missy.”

Y/N dug around in her back, pulling out one faded green paper looking thing, and then another, and then reached back in to pull out a handful of coins, pushing them around in her hand and placing nine coins on the counter, pushing them over to him and dumping the rest into her bag.

“There you go,” she said as the man counted back over what she’d handed him, then put it in a drawer with a nod.

“Go ahead and get your ice cream,” he said, nodding down towards some strange thing at the end of the counter.

Y/N took the bottles from Levi and placed them in her bag, heading over to the thing at the end of the counter, grabbing yet another thing Levi didn’t recognize that was in a cone shape and dark brown, and she reached up and pulled down on a lever. Something thick and light brown came out, with Y/N’s tongue sticking out as she tried carefully to layer it before she pulled the lever back up, stopping the flow and handing it over to Levi.

“That one’s mine, don’t eat it. It might be too sugary for you,” she said before grabbing another cone and doing the same thing at a different spot. This time what came out was clear white, and she managed to be a little neater with what she was doing before she handed that one to Levi and took the brown one from him.

“Have a nice day,” the man called automatically as they passed the counter for the door.

“You too!” Y/N called, and then they left, re-entering the heat of the outside world.

Levi simply stared at the treat she’d put in his hands, seeing it start to glisten in the sun and able to feel how surprisingly cold it was. Like those red things she’d given him that one time. Beside him, Y/N started licking hers, apparently doing so in a very specific way to try and keep it from melting past her fingers, since she had to catch a few drops that started to trickle past the edge. Levi hesitantly followed suit, unsure if it was something he would like...

It was freezing cold, and sweet, but not so much that he pulled back. It tasted...well...he wasn’t sure how to describe it. It was good, though. And once more, he found himself associating something he was experiencing on the surface with clean because oddly enough that was the best he could do for describing the ice cream, as she’d called it.

Following her lead on how to eat it and knowing better than to bite into it after his experience with the red frozen treat, the two of them leaned against the wall and ate their ice cream until all that was left was the cone. Apparently that was an edible thing, since she crunched right through it and quickly ate it, too. It tasted similar to a cookie, actually, as he ate it. Not sweet like the ice cream, and a nice crunchy compliment.

When they were done with their ice cream, Y/N retrieved her bike, wheeling it around so it was facing the direction they’d come from. “All right--to the conservation site,” she said cheerfully, finding her balance on the bike again as Levi grumbled under his breath, reluctantly resuming the position on the handlebars.

Next time she better come up with a better way to travel, because he wasn’t too keen on this arrangement.

Their wobbly trip was longer this time, and more laborious considering this time she had to bike them up a hill this time, which she gave up on not even halfway through when she almost veered and lost balance while trying to struggle up the hill.

“All right, this isn’t going to work, we’re walking up this hill,” she huffed, waiting for Levi to hop off before she got off as well, walking beside the bike and guiding it by the handlebars.

“Well, at least most of the distance was easier to cover,” she said with a sigh, reaching into her pack and handing him the Sprite bottle as they reached the crest of the hill. It was somewhat nostalgic, coming back up here, with the memory of the long grass, the meadow and the pond with the berries and the wildlife. The only thing that was missing was slightly more forgiving weather and her carrying him, which he wasn’t about to let her do since he was perfectly capable of walking himself this time.

“I can actually swim, now, so we could jump in the pond. Mom wouldn’t be too happy with me getting my clothes wet, but it would be fun!” she suggested cheerfully.

“I can’t swim,” Levi returned bluntly. He’d most likely just be watching her bob around the entire time if she went through with that.

“Dang it...well, we can just stick our feet in the water, again, then,” she said, easily brushing off the disappointment as they crested the hill and she guided her bike off to the side into the rocks. Kicking the metal bar to lean it against again, she left it on the side of the road, pushing aside grass that wasn’t as tall as he remembered and gesturing for him to follow her once more to the pond.

Just like they had before, they dangled their feet in the water, and Levi took the chance to clean up any traces of ice cream that might have lingered on his face and wash away any dirt on his person. Meanwhile, Y/N was simply playing with the bottle of lemonade, watching him and waiting expectantly for him to try the Sprite so she knew if they had to switch drinks or not. Once Levi felt relatively clean, he followed the instructions of the little white arrows painted on top of the lid and twisted it open, hearing the bottle hiss at him as the air escaped and the drink inside bubbled drastically before settling down again. He glanced at Y/N, who was still waiting for him to try it, and, based off his past experience of trying the foods and drinks she gave him, started small with a little sip.

He pulled back a bit from the bottle, unsure how he felt about it. It was clear and sharp and refreshing, but the bubbles...well, he wasn’t used to his drinks being fizzy, and it threw him off. Maybe he would adjust to it? He’d probably ask for something more normal if they did this again, though.

Seeing that Levi was keeping his bottle, Y/N happily started on her own drink, taking big gulps before putting the lid back on and throwing herself back on the ground with a pleased sigh.

“I love summer,” she said, eyes closed as she soaked in the heat from the sun’s rays. Levi stayed quiet, watching the birds across the pond hoping around and pecking at the ground in search of bugs or worms. The water rippled occasionally from small fish coming close to the surface, and the breeze ruffled his hair and cooled him down slightly from the heat of the sun. He felt like a little kid again, looking around at a bright and new world.

Well, technically he still was a kid, but really, he’d grown up a long time ago. Yet every time he came up here...he felt like a kid again. And he felt much lighter and carefree. It just made him all the more determined to find his way to the surface.

*Reader’s POV*

It was dark and damp in the place that you were hiding, your sobbing echoing around the large metal tube and a small trickle of water at the bottom getting parts of your pants and shoes wet. It smelled musty and terrible down here, and you’d be colder if it wasn’t for the medium sized dog that was pressed against your side and partially in your lap. Your greyhound black lab Sabrina was attempting to comfort you, giving a few licks on your cheeks.

It was the middle of the night, and you were tucked away in a storm drain, cold night air whistling down the tunneled space. You’d been down here for a while now, and you didn’t know what to do. You were lost, practically alone, hungry, and scared, and it was your own doing.

Footsteps echoed down the storm drain, splashing water with each step, and you scrambled to your feet, ready to bolt from the stranger in the drain.

“Why are you down here?”

You relaxed considerably at the familiar voice, wiping the tears from your face as he drew close enough for you to make out features in the dim light provided by your flashlight. “Levi?” you said with another sniffle. Sabrina got on all fours and put herself between you and the stranger, starting to growl and causing Levi to pause before you pet her head and neck to calm her down and told her to sit and settle. She calmed down and allowed Levi to draw closer, though he was much more careful now.

You were still mid distraught crying, but he’d asked what was happening, and this was your chance to ask for some help and get what was happening off of your chest. After a few more sniffles and wiping at your tears to get yourself under control enough you could speak again, you attempted to explain what you were doing crying in a storm drain with a dog in the middle of the night.

“My parents are splitting up. I want to stay with my dad, but I’m going with my mom cause I’m apparently too young to decide. And I thought...I thought if I-I ran away…” God, now that you were saying it out loud, you could hear how stupid this whole idea had been. “That they might get back together while they were looking for me,” you finished in a very small voice.

You’d done it in a distraught panic, honestly. Clearly you didn’t have enough food smuggled into your backpack, because you were already out of food. You’d at least thought protection, which ended up coming in the form of Sabrina and a tiny pocket knife you got from your grandfather a year ago. Now you were here with five bucks, a dog, a pocket knife, no food, no blankets or pillows, a stuffed animal, a book, a game, and the feeling that you were absolutely--

“Are you stupid?”

You blinked in surprise when you heard Levi say it aloud, immediately blushing and hiding your face in shame as he said the very thing you’d come to realize but hadn’t wanted to admit out loud. This whole idea had been a stupid plan, and you’d executed it horribly, resulting in this mess.

“For someone so smart, it was stupid thinking running away was going to solve your problem,” he continued to scold you, coming to a stop just beside you and looking down on you with you could only assume to be some harsh judgment. “All running from your problems is going to do is make things worse. Your parents aren’t going to magically get back together because you’re missing. They’ll likely fight more.”

You hated how right he was. They were probably blaming each other, if you knew them well enough. This was really something you should have thought through before bolting when you did. You were curling into yourself with every word he said, and as much as you hated hearing him say it, you knew he was right, and he had a point. You never should have tried running from your problems. You should have tried to say something and made them listen. Running was only making things worse for everyone.

You felt his foot kick you--not hard enough to be mean or painful, but enough to get you to move and look up at him, tear streaks still on your face. “Are you going to sit there feeling sorry for yourself, or are you going to get up and head home?”

You wiped your face one more time, getting shakily to your feet. Your dog followed suit, standing expectantly at your side as you gathered your mostly empty bag. You didn’t have anything else, so you were ready for a walk of shame back home. There was only one problem.

“I don’t know how to get there. I got lost. And...and I’ve overheard Mom and Dad talking about a white van going around taking kids, so...That’s why I’ve been down here. Once I didn’t know where I was,” you said in a quiet voice Suddenly very aware of the terrible situation you’d put yourself in.

Levi was staring hard at you. His expression was blank, and he was still, but you could see him processing the information and deciding what to do next. Suddenly, he reached out and grasped your wrist, pulling you forward and towards the mouth of the storm drain.

“Standing around feeling sorry for yourself won’t get you anywhere,” he muttered, dragging you along with Sabrina following on her leash. “You can recognize the area your house is in, right?”

You nodded hesitantly. Moving to the suburbs had its drawbacks. No more were you surrounded by diverse streets, houses, and buildings--everything here was uniform, with rows of streets and houses that looked identical to you.

But what he said about feeling sorry about yourself was also right. So instead of thinking of what you couldn’t do, you wracked your brain for what you could do. You knew the name of the section of houses you stayed in, and what the park looked like, and the number on your house. You could also recognize one of the biking paths that ran along the edge of the housing area. So you had some landmarks you could recognize. If all else failed, there was the pool center or the school that you could recognize without hesitation, and if you waited long enough there, maybe someone could get you home. You knew your phone number. You had options.

Levi got you both to the mouth of the storm drain, and he stopped, staring at the sight in front of him. The last time you’d seen Levi, you’d been living on the east coast. Now you were in the southwest, and you’d gone from a lush green temperate climate to the desert. It was like he’d never seen the desert and was trying to process the entire change of terrain.

“Where the hell…”

Now he was the one just standing there, and you realized that if you’d still been living where you had before, he’d be able to recognize streets and houses and the like as well. He hadn’t been here before--this was all new to him. He was even more lost than you were. At least he was still making an effort.

You tugged him towards the slopes behind you. “That’s definitely not the right way. We have to go back to the houses,” you said, the two of you struggling up the steep slope and back onto the bike path you’d been following aimlessly before ending up here. You hesitated there, swinging your flashlight both ways before choosing to go left. “I’m pretty sure I came from this way. We can follow it until I recognize one of the town names.”

*Levi’s POV*

Levi let Y/N tell him where he needed to go, considering this was an entirely new area to him. He hadn’t even heard of barren land like this above ground, with just sand stretching out as far as the eye could see, and everything in earthen shades. It was completely different from where she’d been living previously, yet she didn’t seem phased by the strange sights. So, Levi tried to ignore the oddity of the landscape and let her give any signals for where they needed to go as needed. However, he stayed in the lead, holding tightly to her wrist with one hand as she crowded close to him, her dog trailing right behind her as they walked with their sides almost pressed up against one another.

Her comment about kids being taken in the area had him even more on edge than he would have been. Already he was keeping his head on a swivel and his eyes peeled since they were two kids traveling alone at night in a strange place, but her piece of information had his free hand consistently hovering near where he kept his knife on him. At the first sign of trouble, he was ready to draw it to protect her, but he was keeping it concealed for now in order to keep from panicking Y/N. She was already distraught enough over her situation, he didn’t want to upset her anymore. Even now, he could feel her burying her face in his shoulder to try and hide a fresh wave of tears. He didn’t say a word about it, continuing to guide them steadily forward along their path despite the tension in the air.

He still couldn’t believe she’d been foolish enough to get herself in this situation. He’d known she was a little...naïve about the more dangerous parts of the world, but this was just…

Levi let out a soft sigh, reconsidering his stance on popping the protective bubble she seemed to be secured inside. If naivety was going to lead to her doing something like this, maybe she needed a bit of a wake up call. Horrible people lurked in dark places at night, and she was an easy target. He wasn’t, but she was, and she was lucky she hadn’t been snatched in the time she’d been out by herself.

Right now wasn’t the time to disrupt that little protective bubble, though. She was scared enough, shaking and crying as she clung to his arm, the hand he had on her wrist giving it a small squeeze of reassurance in the hopes that it might help calm her down.

They followed the path long enough Levi started to worry that she had no idea where they were still, and was simply leading them even further away from her home. Eventually, though, she pulled on Levi’s arm to get his attention, bringing him to a stop a few paces away from a fork that they had passed that the other path had twisted into an opening in a stone fence that led to rows and rows of identical houses.

“I recognize that name,” she said, pointing towards the words scrawled on a sign just in front of the entrance. “It’s not the area I live in, but it’s close,” she commented, looking far more attentively around the area.

“How close?”

“I think...one over from where my house is. There should be another section that starts with C, and then it’ll be mind. If I can find the park, I’ll know the way home,” she said.

Good, then they were heading the right way.

Levi urged her forward, surprised by how...quiet it was out here. Besides their footsteps, he didn’t really hear any other sounds. Maybe the occasional voice from someone outside their home late at night, or a closing door, but he wasn’t hearing much in the way of wildlife like he would where Y/N had lived before. The loudest thing was their footsteps, which was a little disconcerting.

“You’re not going to do something stupid like this again, are you?” Levi asked as they continued to walk. He just wanted to make sure what he’d said got through her head, and she would know better from now on.

She nodded emphatically at his side, holding a little tighter to him as they continued forward. Well, hopefully she /would/ be a little smarter about this kind of thing in the future. Time would tell.

They continued their trip in relative silence besides Y/N’s occasional sniffles, with Levi staying protectively in front of her the entire way until at long last, after finding their way to the park she’d mentioned, they turned onto the street she said her house was on. There was one of those horseless carriages in front of the house she said was hers, a stark white one with blue markings and something red and blue and clear on top. On either side of the carriage was two men in black uniforms having some solemn discussion over the top of the low carriage. The sight made Y/N shrink beside him, and for a moment, Levi thought it might be trouble. Before he could draw his knife, she spoke up.

“My parents must have called the police,” she mumbled, the embarrassment clear in her voice.

He was pretty sure that wasn’t the uniform of the Military Police, but she didn’t seem to be panicked over the sight of them, just embarrassed and shrinking into herself. He still stayed on guard as they drew closer, the two men noticing them as they drew closer.

“Are you kids lost?” one of them asked while Y/N was still mostly hidden by Levi standing in front of her. However, she stepped out enough to be seen with Sabrina trailing behind her, her cheeks burning red as she spoke in a voice so quiet Levi thought the two might not have heard her at first.

“I live here,” she mumbled.

“Y/N L/N?” the other one asked as they both straightened, getting a better look at her as they drew just a little closer. She nodded, and her grip on Levi’s arm loosened slightly as she moved hesitantly forward, pulling the dog along with her. The two men approached, and Levi tensed, expecting trouble. “Your parents have been worried sick, where have you…”

Y/N pulled out of his grip, apparently perfectly fine with the two strangers in front of her house. Maybe surface police looked different? That didn’t make any sense to him, but she seemed pretty sure, no hesitation as she approached them. For a moment, as Y/N pulled free of Levi’s grip and both of the officers got on either side of her to make sure she was all right and take her inside, their backs were to Levi, only for a moment. But that moment was all it took. In a moment that was becoming quite familiar to him, Levi blinked, and the scene disappeared, and he was standing in the middle of the street in the Underground.

This, he wasn’t okay with. He didn’t even get to see her safely through the door to her home, didn’t even get to make sure those men really were safe. What if they hadn’t been? What if they had been kidnappers or something worse? What if he’d just left her in more danger than he’d found her? He didn’t know enough about the surface to feel confident that she was going to be all right until she walked through the door to her home, and he didn’t get that luxury.

He was going to be worried sick about her until he saw her again, which, hopefully, would be soon. He had to know she was all right.

Levi’s gaze was drawn to one of the stairwells to the surface, and his gaze intensified, expression contemplative.

Perhaps, for once, he could find his way to the surface and look for her himself. If he was careful, he might be able to stay out of reach of the military police above ground long enough to find where she lived. He knew what it looked like now.

But first he had to get up that stairway...

Next Chapter---->

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deathsmallcaps · 3 years

Text

@boopboopboopbadoop

April’s Story

Shrek premiered 20 years ago this month! So I decided to honor it with my own illustrated version of the movie for my Win A Commission Contest! If you’d like to see the illustrations in context with the text, please

Once upon a time, there was a lovely Princess

But she had an enchantment upon her of an awful sort, that could only be broken by True Love's First Kiss

She was Locked away in a tower, guarded by a terrible fire-breathing Dragon

Many brave Knights had attempted to free from this dreadful prison, but none prevailed

She waited in the Dragon's keep, in the tallest room of the tallest tower. Where she waited for her True Love and True Love's First Kiss...

A large green hand ripped a page from the Book and revealed another part involving the whole kingdom celebrating on the Princess and her True Love's wedding day, laughing heartily as he slammed it shut.

"Like that's ever gonna happen!" A Scottish voice said dismissively. "What a load of-" A flush of a Toilet drowned out the last part of the sentence.

We look and see an outhouse. It was made of white birch wood, lashed together with a rope for a handle and a black crescent moon facing the right. There was some hanging moss on the tilted roof growing and a pathway of stones, weeds crowding in between. It was set right in front of a thick wood, facing towards a house. The strange thing about all of this is that the outhouse had plumbing with a flushing toilet.

The door slammed open, revealing no Prince Charming nor a Frog, but an Unlikely Hero: an Ogre. Yawning and stretching out before fixing his wedgie, he shook off a ripped page that was sticking to his shoe and stared at his house.

He lived in a giant, white, hollowed out mangrove tree, the trunk thinning out into a perfect chimney. Moss, ivy and weeds grew all around or on top of it, and there was a crude door and some small windows set into the side.

The Ogre breathed in and left the outhouse with the door slamming behind him as he began his day.

Using a bucket and scraping up some mud, he carried it over to a branch. The ogre undressed and pulled on a rope, causing the mud to pour onto him. He made an “Oof!” sound when it first hit him, but continued scrubbing himself with the mud like it was soap. He drank the last dregs of the mud and then spat it out, ending the shower.

Then the Ogre brushed his teeth. He grabbed a red caterpillar, and squeezing it like a tube of toothpaste, pushed its innards onto a bone. He scrubbed well, getting the insides of his teeth, then the outsides. It turned his already unhealthy teeth greener, and the putrid goo shown in his hideous smile caused his mirror to shatter and fall onto the floor.

Next, he plunged himself into a lake and made a huge splash, turning himself right and getting ready; the Ogre let out a loud, horrendous and terrible gaseous fart that bubbled behind him. Feeling relieved and making an “innocent” pose with his finger to his lip, he turned to see that there was not one, not two but three red salmon floating up to the surface; murdered by the deadliness of the stench that continued to plague the rest of the underwater native wildlife. He grabbed the one next to him and proceeded to leave.

Later army crawling into a hollowed husk of a fallen tree, pointing diagonally skywards, the Ogre pushed out a ton of mud as he climbed his way forward like a commando in the trenches of a battlefield. The final mud slopped out as his stained face popped out.

He smiled as he found a green slug right outside the tree trunk. The Ogre grabbed it and the slug squirmed in alarm as it was picked up by a giant green hand, leaving the small maggots once underneath the slug exposed to the air.

Closer to sunset, near a lake with verdant hills in the distance, the Ogre began painting a new sign. Having picked out a broken off- plank of moldy wood form his outhouse, he didn’t bother with a base coat of white. He spent several hours painting. Once he finished, the Ogre placed his palette down, took a good look at his newest masterpiece, and out of sheer joy of satisfaction he kissed the ogre in the picture on the lips. It left red paint all across his lips as he posted it next to an older sign that said, "STAY OUT". It was a rather hideous portrayal of his face with red eyes and red writing that stated, “BEWARE OGRE".

After The Ogre had ate his fishy and sluggy dinner and had lit a fire with the strength of his belch, he sat back on the crocodile flesh recliner. Just as he was settling in, the Ogre's tiny trumpet ears picked up a disturbance in the Swamp.

It was the sounds of people trespassing. With a groan he lurched to his feet and glanced out his window, spotting a group of Ogre Hunters in the far distance, mostly visible due to their torches. Within moments, the Ogre snuck outside his home and was tiptoeing behind them.

The Ogre Hunters, dressed mostly in green and sporting crappy haircuts, pushed aside the tall grass and foliage as they watched the Swamp House, lit from within by The Ogre’s Belch-Fire.

"Think it's in there?" The one with a bowl cut asked

"Alright... let's get it!" The one in the a tall hat declared, holding a torch and about to make a charge forward before he was stopped short by the one with the mustache next to him.

"Hold on, you know what that thing could do to you?" the mustached one said with fear.

"Yeah, it'll grind your bones for it's bread!" The one with the bowl cut told him.

They all froze when a loud chuckle echoed behind them.

Turning around, they saw the Ogre towering over them. He spoke in an almost friendly manner, but what he said was the opposite of friendly. “Ha, yes, well actually; that would be a giant!" He exclaimed, causing the men to back off. The Ogre stepped forward each time they stepped back. "Now Ogres, oh.. they're much worse! They'll make a suit from your freshly peeled skin!"

"No!" A man was horrified

"They'll shave your livers!"

“No!”

"And squeeze the jelly from your eyes!" The Ogre Hunters were cornered as the Ogre added, thoughtfully, "Actually it's quite good on toast."

The bearded Ogre Hunter swung torch at The Ogre’s face. "Back! Back, beast! Back! I warn ya!"

The Ogre simply raised an eyebrow before calmly licking his fingers and putting out his torch with a pinch and a smile.

"Right..." the Ogre Hunter dropped the extinguished torch.

The Ogre let loose an horrible and fearsome ear bursting roar directly into the faces of the cowering Ogre Hunters. Spit flew in their faces as their hair and hats were thrown back. They screamed in response as their torches extinguished as the roar continued. After a long moment, he stopped and wiped his mouth, but the Hunters continued to scream; when they finally stopped they looked like their wits had long been scared out of them.

The Ogre leaned in and whispered to them as the crickets and other hidden wildlife in the night went on in the silence. "This is the part where you run away..."

With a yelp they immediately dropped all their pitchforks and weapons and bolted out of the swamp as the Ogre chortled to himself. The bowl cut Ogre Hunter tripped but kept running in desperation.

The Ogre laughed whole heartily and yelled after the retreating party. "And stay out!"

A piece of paper they must’ve left behind caught his attention. He picked it up, and saw that it had the face of a solemn elf with a green leaf hat and white beard. There were bags of gold drawn around it, but no explicit price was given, just the word, “Reward” written in red. Above it he read, "Wanted: Fairy Tale Creatures...".

He realized they had wanted to capture him for the reward money. He looked towards the fleeing villagers in disgust and shook his head, throwing the paper to the ground as he went back inside to spend the rest of the night in peace.

The next day, as part of his new plan to get people to leave him alone, The Ogre set up some new new signs, even farther from his home. Just as he was setting up his last one (it had a green skull with the words ‘Keep Out!’ in the pupils), something ran into his butt.

The Ogre turned around to face what appeared to be a terrified mini-donkey.

Someone yelled, "He's getting away! Get him!" and the sounds of guards in armor scared the little donkey into hiding behind The Ogre. "This way! Turn!"

The local Captain of the Guard and his men ran up, stopping when they all saw the tall Ogre who stood before them. "You there... Ogre" The Captain grabbed a scroll his waist

"Aye?" Was The Ogre’s reply, hands on his hips and now seemingly irritated that his day was once again involving contact with humans.

"By the order of Lord Farquaad... I am authorized to place you both under arrest and transport you to a designated resettlement... facility...?" The Captain's voice was shaking and nervous due to the face that the Ogre was walking towards him slowly, now standing right in front of him as a deafening silence fell.

"Oh really?" He asked, leaning down so he was face to face with the Captain. "You and what army?" He asked as his teeth glittered with a smile, glancing behind him.

The Captain turned around to see what was once left of his men as their halberds fell down and a shield spun around onto the ground like a coin. He turned back to the Ogre; the mini-donkey smiled as the Captain took his men's example and made a run for it.

Now that confrontation is over with, the Ogre shook his head and walked away; but the mini-donkey had nowhere else to go and decided to follow his accidental savior. He trotted behind him.

"Can I say something to you?" He asked with the Ogre walking on. "Listen, you were really, really, really somethin' back here. Incredible!"

Now fully irritated, The Ogre turned around. "Are you talkin' to..." The Ogre saw no one else, just the ground lit by the sunlight within the forest of the tall trees. The voice was clearly gone. "Me?" He blinked and shrugged, turning before giving out a startled yell as the Donkey now stood before him.

"Yes I was talkin' to you. Can I tell you that you was great back here? Those guards! They thought they were all of that. Then you showed up and bam!" The little donkey caught up to The Ogre before getting up onto his hoofs in front of The Ogre and made a martial arts move with his right hoof, stopping him again. "They were trippin' over themselves like babes in the wood. I loved seeing that, made me feel happy seeing that"

"Oh, that's great. Really." The Ogre sarcastically replied

"Man, it's good to be free!" The burrito declared as the Ogre turned to him.

"Now, why don't you go celebrate your freedom with own friends? Hmm?" He suggested, leaning down to the little donkey, before walking off again.

"But... I don't have any friends, and I'm NOT going out there by myself!" Exclaimed the creature. A flash of inspiration came to him. "Hey wait a minute, I got a great idea! I'll stick with you" Donkey returned happily to the Ogre, deaf to his annoyance. "You're a mean green fighting machine! With you, we'll scare the spit out of anybody who crosses us!"

The Ogre halted and regarded Donkey for a moment. Then seemingly out of the blue, he fully turned and gave off an all might roar right into the animal’s face; hoping this would scare him.

The mini-donkey just stared, now with an impressed look drawn on his face. "Oh, wow! That was really scary!"

The Ogre just frowned and stomped away.

"Now if that doesn’t work, your breath will certainly get the job done, 'cause you definitely need some Tic Tacs or something 'cause your breath STINKS!"

The Ogre continued walking, but then looked back when he didn’t hear the none-stop chatterbox for about five seconds, to his relief and hope that he lost the annoyance.

To his irritation and surprise, the donkey appeared looking down at him from above; atop of a fallen tree over The Ogre’s path.

"You almost burned the hair outta my nose, just like the time..."

The Ogre covered the donkey's mouth, muffling his little obnoxious tale. The donkey still did not shut up as he kept it held there; continuing to talk either way; The Ogre removed his hand. "Then I ate some berries, man I had some strong gasses leaking out of my butt that day!"

"WHY are you following me?!" The Ogre asked, losing patience; nothing could shut this donkey up and he just needed to get away right now.

"I'll tell you why!" The animal leaped off the tree as he followed the Ogre, before breaking out into obnoxious song. "Cause I'm all alone, there's no here beside meeeee." He stopped in front of the Ogre as he wiggled his butt, the Ogre's right eye was half closed and his left eye was twitching in madness as the mini-donkey continued. "My problems have all gone, there's no one to deride me... but you gotta have faith-"

"Stop singing!" The Ogre yelled, he grabbed the burrito by the ears and tail as he moved him out of his way. "It's no wonder you don't have any friends!"

"Wow, only a true friend would be that truly honest!" The small donkey claimed.

The Ogre only groaned "Listen, little donkey. Take a look at me: What am I?" He held out his arms and stood tall before him.

The burrito looked from the Ogre's shoes to his head, whose face looked irritated while he thought to himself. "Really tall?" was his first guess. The mini-donkey wasn’t sure what The Ogre was asking.

"No! I'm an Ogre, you know. ‘Grab your torch and Pitchforks!’ Doesn't that bother you?" He imitated an Ogre Hunter before asking.

Donkey shook his head

"Nope." came the response

"Really?" The Ogre was a bit surprised.

"Really, really" The creature happily assured.

"Oh," The Ogre was not too sure on what to say next.

"Man, I like you, what's your name?"

The Ogre looked a little surprised. For all his time living alone in the Swamp, no one had ever asked him of his name. He had always been The Ogre, not a true individual to the people around him.

"Uhh... Shrek." He replied after a moment, before continuing his walk home.

"Shrek?" Th little donkey echoed, seeing if he got it right before following the now and forever named Ogre himself. "Well, you know what I like about you Shrek? You got that kind of I-don't-care-what-nobody-thinks-of-me-thing I like that. I respect that Shrek. You all right."

He continued to follow Shrek up the hill as they came overhead across a small grassy meadow hill above that overlooked Shrek's Swamp. Donkey (for that was his name) stared looked at the scene before him.

"Whoa! Look at that. Who'd want to live in a place a like that?" He asked with a hint of disgust, mostly discomfort, in his voice.

"That... would be my home" Shrek claimed, his hands on his hips before heading down the other side of the hill.

Donkey could only blink in response, he had really put his hoof in it now. "Oh! And it is lovely! Just beautiful. You know you are quite a decorator. It's amazing what you've done with such a modest budget!"

Shrek only shook his head as he continued downwards.

"I like that boulder, that is a nice boulder." Donkey followed him down. He continued after Shrek once again and stopped in front of the three signs: "BEWARE OGRE", "STAY OUT" and "DANGER". Donkey took a look at each of them all and asked,"I guess you don't uh.. entertain that much do you?"

"I like my privacy." Shrek claimed as he kept walking to his front door, Donkey trotting after him.

"You know, I do too. That's another thing we have in common. Like I hate it when you got somebody in your face. You've trying to give them a hint and they won't leave. Then there's that big awkward silence you know?"

Shrek turned to face him, silently willing Donkey to understand that the creature had just described their exact situation.

"Can I stay with you?" Clearly Donkey did not receive the hint.

"Uh, what?"

"Can I stay with you, please?" He added in the magic word.

"Of course!" Shrek declared lightheartedly as he smiled.

"Really?" Donkey asked.

"No." Shrek bluntly denied.

"PLEASE! I don't wanna go back there! You know what it's like to be living like a freak!" Donkey reconsidered for a moment as he looked at the large green humanoid before him as he pushed Shrek onto his front door with his hooves. "Well, maybe you do. But that's why we gotta stick together! You gotta let me stay, please, please!" Donkey was getting hysterical.

"OKAY! Okay..." Donkey dropped to the floor as Shrek opened his door inwards as he gave his one little stipulation. "But one night only." He was about to enter before Donkey bolted in.

"Ah! Thank you!"

"What are you...?" Donkey leapt onto Shrek's crocodile skin recliner. "No, no!"

"This is gonna be fun! We can stay up late, swappin' manly stories and in the mornin," He trotted around on the chair before sitting down as he finished with: "I'm makin' waffles!"

"Oh!" Shrek groaned as he held his hands out, as though he was planning to strangle the noisy intruder.

Donkey looked around and asked him. "Where do, uh... I sleep?"

"Outside!" Shrek screamed irritably.

Donkey's ears drooped upon hearing that response. "Oh, well, I guess that's cool. I mean, I don't know you and you don't know me, so I guess outside is best, you know. Here I go." He sniffled as got off his recliner and walked out sadly,"Goodnight..." He told him as Shrek slammed the door on him.

The mini-donkey kept talking, of course. "You know, I do like the outdoors. I'm a Donkey. I was born outside. I'll just be sitting by myself outside, I guess, you know. By myself, outside!"

Shrek looked out before shaking his head and sighing to himself, walking away from the door to enjoy himself for the rest of the day as Donkey began singing the same annoyingsong again; although more sorrowfully.

"I'm all alone, there's no one here besides me..."

That night, as the cauldron hanging by chains over the firepit bubbled solemnly; Shrek was enjoying himself with a nice dinner while Donkey was locked outside of his home. He dropped a eye on a stick into his martini glass and slurped it down as he looked at his dinner before him. There was a slug with orange eyes, what appeared to be green grapes, a jar of eyes, spice, worm stuffed pumpkin and a nice large piece of cooked skinless meat on his plate.

These were the times he enjoyed the most out of his solitary life, he was home, nice and warm and he wasn't bothered by anyone at all. Though he had to pause and glance at his front door. Shrek had ... mixed feelings about his new acquaintance. He talked WAY too much, but he was also the first person in a very long time to actually treat Shrek like a person.

He shook his head and sighed, scooting in further to his table as he felt that there was just something missing from the layout of the table. The man he figured out what ir was. He brought his hand to his ear and started to pull hard and painfully as the earwax built up came out like a spear and placed it atop a candle platform; lighting the wick made of ear hair afterwards with a match. Now he can enjoy his meal alone.

The same could not be said for Donkey, who peeked sadly into the window before making his way back to the front door. He laid down as he smiled bittersweetly and went to sleep at his new friend's doorstep.

Shrek continued to eat and enjoy his meal until the sound of his door creaking interrupted his silence.

He put his fork and knife on the table as he got up. "I thought I told you to stay outside." He was hoping to shove Donkey back outside, if that was what had come in.

"I am outside." Donkey’s voice came from the window.

In confusion, Shrek turned and saw a shadow move across the wall. Who was now moving around near his table? He returned and observed it. Everything was normal underneath the table, but then he heard voices from above.

"Well, gents, it's a farcry from the farm, but what choice do we have?" A blind mouse asked, tripping over Shrek's fork.

"It's not home, but it'll do just fine!" The second of the blind mice knocked over the jar full of eyeballs, spilling out the contents.

"What a lovely bed" The third of the blind mice was bouncing on the Slug, Shrek immediately caught him.

"Got ya!" However it escaped his grasp.

"I found some cheese" the third mouse said, biting Shrek's left ear.

"OW!" He cried in pain, grabbing at the mouse again who was now on his other shoulder.

"Blah! Awful stuff!" The tiny rodent jumped down onto the spoon and inadvertently launched a piece of gravy towards Shrek's left eye, which he wiped away immediately.

"Is that you Gordon?" One of them asked.

"How did you know?" A different one asked back.

"Enough!" Shrek grabbed all three of them by the tail, flipping the wooden spoon off the left side of the table as he turned his back and demanded angrily.

"What are you doing in my house?" The dinner on his table was then violently shoved off and Shrek's back was hit with an gold and glass fashioned coffin, labeled, ‘Here lies Snow White, under the curse by the Poison Apple infected by the Sleeping Death curse’.

"Hey!" He turned and saw the Seven Dwarves, one of the waved at Shrek.

"Oh, no, no, no. Dead broad OFF the table!" He shoved her coffin back to the Dwarves

"Where are we supposed to put her? The Bed's taken!" They shoved the coffin back to him.

"Huh?" Shrek stopped short. He hurried to his bed and opened the curtain separating the rooms and gasped. There laid comfortably and in grandmother's clothing, was a wolf of all creatures.

"What?" The Wolf asked irritably.

Shrek was now on the verge of rage, he dragged the Wolf out of bed and held him in the air through his house as the Seven Dwarves made themselves comfortable.

"I live in a swamp, I put up signs! I'm a terrifying Ogre!" He shoved his door open outwards. "What do I have to do to get a little privacy?!" He screamed as he threw the Wolf out of his house.

Then he saw a sight that would haunt him forever. "Oh no... oh no!" Shrek bellowed.

His Swamp. His lovely, silent, peaceful Swamp was no longer the way he intended it to be. It was now swarming with many, many Fairytale Creatures; many, many beings now living in his precious Swamp. Even the old woman brought her entire shoe to his Swamp, with many children running around. Tents were set up, fairies roamed around in the air, Pinocchio and a short yellow elf with a cone shaped hat were arguing and many people were conversing with each other.

“No!" A witch flew past him. "NO!" He screamed out, three more witches came zooming past him and Shrek had to jump for cover as they came flying down with elves helping them land.

"Wha?" Shrek turned his head to the side with the old woman hanging her clothes with a child and two other children pushing each other.

"Hey, don't push!" A girl in the blue shrieked.

The Pied Piper in red was calling over rats with his flute while many other Fairytale Creatures were waiting in line towards Shrek's Outhouse.

In the meantime, Papa and Baby Bear were sitting by the fire, the latter upset and being comforted by his father; no Mama Bear in sight, as many other Fairytale Creatures warmed themselves up by the fire before them. Elves, Lepricons, Dwarves, Fairies, Witches, Pigs, Wolves, a Unicorn and any Fairytale Creature you can think of were all there in Shrek's Swamp; shattering his peace.

"What are you doing in my Swamp?!" Shrek roared out as he got up, his voice echoed all over the sound of his Swamp; everyone and everything came an abrupt half as it was followed by screams and gasps. The Dwarves who held bowls to be fed with soup from the cauldron by the witch dropped them, the three fairies of Sleeping Beauty flew in the tent to hide and two Dwarves ducked out of sight and appeared holding each other out of fear behind a branch.

Shrek wasn't going to have all this; he eyed everyone and began to walk to some Elves and Dwarves. "Alright, get out of here. All of you, move it! Come on! Let's go! Hapaya! Hapaya! Hey! Quickly, come on!" He shooed them all backwards but some of the Dwarves and fairies ran into his home as Shrek turned back. "No, no! No, no. Not there, not there!" He ran after them as they slammed the door on him and a little green fairy, the door now unable to open despite his best efforts.

He stopped and turned to face the large group before them, especially on Donkey.

"Hey don't look at me, I didn't invite them!" Donkey replied.

"Oh, gosh, no one invited us" Pinocchio confirmed.

"What?!" Shrek came over, demanding to know what happened.

"We were forced to come here" He told the Ogre.

"By who?" He was flabbergasted until one of the Three Pigs told him.

“Lord Farquaad. He huffed and he puffed and he... signed an eviction notice." His brothers nodded in agreement.

"Alright. Who knows where this Farquaad guy is?" Shrek asked.

Everyone looked around at each other with no answer, until Donkey answered. "Oh, I do. I know where he is!"

"Does anybody ELSE know where to find him? Anyone at all?" Shrek was desperate to not to go with Donkey of all people.

"Me! Me!" Donkey tried to get his attention, jumping comically into the air. Baby Bear held his paw up, but was stopped by his father.

"Anyone?" Big Bad Wolf and a Green Wizard pointed to each other while Donkey continued

"Oh! Oh, pick me! Oh, I know! I know! Me, me!"

"Okay... fine." He reigned himself to being annoyed; Shrek knew that he would either go with Donkey or risk asking a human. "Attention, all Fairytale... things. Do not get comfortable, your welcome is officially worn out. In fact, I'm going to see this guy Farquaad right now and get you all off my land and back where you came from!" He pointed to the left before the entire crowd went wild.

Shrek shook his head and groaned before walking, four birds draping him in a flower cloak. "Doh!" He swatted them away as he sharply pointed directly at Donkey. "You. You're comin' with me" He told him darkly as he shoved the cape off him and started walking, the birds returning and dropping a flower crown on his head.

"Alright, that's what I like to hear man: Shrek and Donkey, two stalwart friends, off on a whirlwind big-city adventure. I love it!" Donkey rushed after the ogre.

Shrek tried to grab torch from a Dwarf while walking. He refused to let go, so Shrek simply shook him and then dropped the dwarf into the water where the dwarf resurfaced moments later.

"On the road again, sing it with me, Shrek. I can't to get on the road again!"

“What did I say about singing?" Shrek sharply turned to Donkey and grabbed his flower crown before throwing it off of him. They crossed a log that bridged the area between Shrek’s little island and the rest of the swamp.

"Can I whistle?" Donkey asked.

"No."

"Can I hum it?"

"Alright, hum it."

Donkey continued to hum ‘On the Road Again’ while Shrek

focused on the road ahead.

The two heroes marched off into the woodlands while being waved off by all creatures.

Art Explanation

So, it’s obvious I copied the title from the movie! It sure did make my life easier!

And I used a lot of references for my pictures. I hoped to make them true to the movie as possible.

The second picture is possibly my favorite, although I didn’t enjoy drawing all the scenery. It isn’t my specialty.

The third picture was fun! I remember being very jealous of Shrek’s belch power when I was little, lol.

To be honest, the fourth picture was my least favorite. It felt too busy.

The fifth picture is my other favorite, because it has Donkey!

The last picture was hard, for sure. I wanted to ge their reflections right, and not make the background look too crappy. It’s hard to adapt things from such a dark scene. But I think it turned out alright, although the scaling is a little funny :).

So, I was hoping to not have to write out these scenes myself, because it’s ten whole minutes of a movie and let me tell you, it’s hard to do from scratch. Luckily, I found a version, which I’ve left a link for below. I just polished it a bit.

Anyways, I hope you’ve enjoyed!

SOURCE

https://m.fanfiction.net/s/450448/1/Shrek-Adaptation

#shrek #shrek 20th anniversary #shrek twentieth anniversary #win a commission #wac

9 notes · View notes

blankdblank · 4 years

Text

Wicked

“Hey, Nat?”

Naturally poking a trained killer would have anyone on the wrong end of the death stick. But after your years of building a friendship after having literally totaled the top three floors of Stark Tower by having crashed into it stopping a shuttle from obliterating the city, post border crossing with some alien scavengers who had knocked it off course she knew how hard it had been for you. Years of reigning in your strength and even control of your voice that could sway others to doing what you wanted later, she smirked still every time you stole a successful pat on her arm without bruising it or knocking her around by accident.

“Hey, hope you enjoyed your day, just spent mine wrangling some four legged creepers out of the Dodgers Stadium.”

Steve from the other side of the counter in the kitchen called back, “Hey! That kid tripped me, none of that was my fault!”

Sam scoffed, still muttering to himself rubbing a cloth vigorously onto his jacket to get a mustard stain off of it. From the scuffle ending the pair of them on the news while Bucky was dangling from the balcony to the dugout shouting at one of the players who had made a kid cry after he’d gotten struck out yet again.

“Well, it was, mainly, online, browsing.” Her brow inched up noting your nerves peaking up again meaning things might start levitating around the room soon. “I have a question, favor really.”

“Sure, whatcha got for me? Anything to get me out of the on call pool tonight.”

“Well, you’re good at blending in,” she nodded, “And I got these tickets, but I don’t know how fancy is too fancy to go see a show on Broadway, and all I have might be a bit too sparkly after my sequin,” your tone slowed as she stood up and grabbed her coat, “Shopping, trip.”

You looked her over and she gave you a kind grin, “Let’s go shopping. Find you something stunning.”

Trotting after her on your toes you said, “Well, not too stunning, I mean I have some voom, but I don’t want to be too va va voom, to a show. It’s not my show, I’m just going.” Again she smirked at you hitting the button for the elevator, “It’ll be dark, but I don’t want to distract. I just, by all accounts I shouldn’t be able to afford the show, but I helped that guy with that bus crash and he said his son works the counter and knows another guy he didn’t name and they put me down for tickets for whichever show I wanted. Which really isn’t all that logical a gift I mean they’re losing out funds to give me two seats-,”

Her hand folded around yours pulling it from twisting around your shirt button. “Pluto, you stopped a bus from plowing through the theater on Broadway, everyone that works there owes it to you that they still have their jobs and the theater and production companies all because you flicked your hand to stop a bus and help an old man that stumbled off the curb. Two seats is so far from damaging to how badly that crash would have been. You earned it. Now what did you want to wear?” She asked stepping into the lift.

“Well, I wanted to wear one of my sequin minis, but again, sparkly, I didn’t want to distract. So, black perhaps. Many films have said that a simple black dress should be a staple to one’s wardrobe.”

“That it should. I prefer black, always does the trick, and don’t you worry about your va va voom. Only people worried about your voom will be dropping dead quickly enough from jealousy.”

“I don’t believe that is how jealousy works.” Making her smirk again and pat your arm, “Ah, another verbal intricacy.”

Over a black bandage dress set to hug you perfectly you looked to your friend while she suggested a pair of heels she had gone with you to buy months prior after seeing her sighing over a shoe sale advertised in a magazine you asked, “This weekend, are you busy?”

“Unfortunately. That when your show is?”

“Yes,”

“Well I could see if Bucky could stand in for me.”

Shaking your head you said, “No, they need a brain there. I can, ask someone, someone fun.” The sentence and sure nod you had given yourself in a sweeping glance over the store had her holding back a chuckle and glancing back to the rack of shrugs you might like with a bit of shimmer to fit your preferred palette of a tad bit sparkly and a blend of colors resembling galaxies. Her focus there bringing you back on your mental ramblings as to who to ask dipping back into picking out something to help keep you warm in case it got a bit chilly.

Back to the tower you went and through each room you went pausing to glance at each person inside, every person in varying levels of being accustomed to your awkward ways, always with Peter overreacting. That tingly sense he got that he was being observed while distracted ended up with him chucking his the mask Tony had just finished polishing for his new suit halfway across the room into the rubbish bin making Tony’s jaw drop open with a stunned scoff.

Noticing it was you however Peter turned and sprung across the room, “Sorry Tony, habit.”

Tony, “I just polished it…”

Peter, “Just so used to it being my Aunt, not Miss Pluto.” Digging it out and buffing it with the elbow of his sweater.

Passing that room you continued on to the study where you found your chosen target. Right onto the cushion beside the raven haired Prince, who was seated with brows furrowed in focus on his Mahjong game on his tablet, you sat luring his eyes right to you as your legs were crossed between you and your finger tapped his elbow. “You’re fun.”

The grin on your face causing him to lower the tablet to his lap and shift in his seat in confusion, “It has been some time since I have been told that. Might I ask the importance of my talents of amusement?”

“Well, see I have tickets to a show, and you’re a Prince, Princes go to shows all the time so I thought I might see if you wanted to go with me.”

“There are two Princes in this building.”

“Yes, however, I would prefer to not ask Thor, he would draw the wrong sort of attention while I am meaning to see the show, not distract from it. No doubt he’d get bored and start juggling chairs or something.” The thought making Loki smirk your way.

“That is my argument in my favor? The ability to behave myself in tedious situations?”

“Absolutely not.” You fired back making him smirk at you. “See, I have tickets and Nat helped me to pick out a dress and you’re a Prince and Princes go to shows but normally I don’t fit the look of someone who could afford Broadway tickets. I figured if you might go then I might not be taken as out of place because, well, Prince.”

The final word was accented with another poke only luring his smirk out more, “Even without me you would fit in perfectly.” In the sink of your brows he stated, “I shall go, when is the show?”

“Saturday.”

He nodded then looked you over as you moved to turn so you might stand asking, “Why do you let them call you Pluto? That is the name they have assigned your home planet, but not your name.”

Your eyes met his, “Not everyone has a name so kind to tongues as yours, Prince Loki.”

“Your name is very kind,”

“They lack the vocal vibration necessary to perfectly pronounce my name without issuing insult. Pluto is a lovely alias.”

“Why did you choose this planet?”

“My father tried to eat me.” His brow inched up, “Unlike Asgardians our Lords may only father one child.”

“He required a son.”

“No, he burned for one.”

“I suppose it would be safer for you to remain here then and not return home. Figures you might try to acclimate. Though Asgard would always welcome you.”

“Oh yes, who could be concerned with the Jotuns once a Plunoie has touched their golden grounds.”

“They would never treat you as I have been. You are the daughter of a Lord and will be treated as such.”

“Says you,”

“Even Thor is fond of your company and Mother has always been curious of Pluto. She would defend you.”

“All the same, enjoy your game Prince Loki. Go for the dragon.” His brow arched up and he looked to his tablet again finding the matching dragon tiles he tapped making him smirk at a lotus tile he needed.

There was no question of what you had chosen, merely the creeping joy that he was the Prince you had chosen to support you in this. He knew all too well just how fragile these creatures could be and how long it had taken him to master his own skills to remain among them for their safety. Far superior to their beings without a drop of cruelty in you he had to marvel how you pushed yourself to control easing yourself to safe levels among mortals within a few meager years while it took Asgardians hundreds with scarce blip of trips to Midguard to test their control among them. If you had asked for support in this support you would get from him on this occasion and any other.

Wicked. The word was splashed across the billboards and posters and at the door you showed your tickets that seemed to trigger a ripple of gestures ushering you and Prince Loki through the crowds with great ease straight to your seats right up front with what they called the best view in the house. The people around you and the task of getting here just barely enough to keep him from staring at you dumbly since Pepper had made sure that he and you managed to get into the elevator at all in the double sided stare down.

Settled down in place with legs crossed for you both Loki’s gaze shifted from the playbill in his lap to the lanterns on the walls flickering luring focus to you. Without missing a beat up his arm went to rest across the armrest between you to ease his fingertips between the palms of your hands tangling in your lap from nerves. Once your eyes fell on him through the vibrating pulses that had started to form in your hands his fingers eased to intertwine with yours acting as a buffer to stop the reaction interfering with the electronics in the block. Lowly he whispered to you mentally, “You are doing lovely so far. Just breathe.”

“Have you seen this show before?”

“No. Although I have read it is something of a prequel to the Wizard of Oz.”

“I do hope it does not bore you.”

Again his eyes shifted to glance at his hand fixed in yours stirring an urge to beam brightly like an idiot for finally claiming more than a greeting poke from you. The action a way of proving that unlike the mortals you didn’t have to hold back with him or be afraid to harm him, and have one person on this planet who didn’t leave you a nervous wreck to upset or harm by accident. Also unaware of how much his action had comforted you in his fearless taking of your hand. Finally having some form of contact with a being strong enough to equal yourself, at least in day to day tasks and situations.

“You could never bore me.” The words echoed in your head a few moments until a snap of a picture being snapped of the pair of you by a woman hurrying by had your focus on her. Only to see an usher come to escort her out for disturbing fellow ticket holders stirring up an argument from her she was unable to win as when told to delete the photo to get in she posted it online. “See, no one ever wants my picture.”

You glanced at him to the stroke of his thumb along the side of your hand, “No doubt more comments will pop up to see what I destroy this time.”

“Another reason why I am your ideal companion on outings, equally as culpable for damage to the public. I don’t mind playing the villain to spare you unjust scorn.” Softly he gazed back at you with an easy grin on his face shifting to the warning the show was beginning in a moment. Over the audience a hush fell and your eyes shifted to the curtain in the dimming of the lights signaling his own hand to tighten a tad from his own nerves and yours to fold around his.

‘No One Mourns the Wicked’ seemed to set the mood that they were setting up the lead role for Elphaba to be the main focus. ‘The Wizard and I’ though lovely seemed to make your stomach sink knowing how the sequel ends. By ‘No Good Deed’ you and Loki both leaned together, with your second hand clutching his sleeve at the elbow resting into his arm while he did the same to yours. Up with the crowds you stood with his hand keeping your hand he looped around his elbow saying, “You can just pat my arm.” Knowing your timid stance on clapping too hard so he clapped and you merely tapped finger tips around his arm easily disguised in the dim audience and while the lights rose an usher came to escort you both out first to keep you from being hounded by press while they lined up for the stage door experience.

“That-,” out of the pair of you for the show was all you could muster up to discus the flawless yet all too familiar notions behind the role. Good intentions landing someone as a named villain hounded and insulted at any chance given. Outside your car had been called by the valet and into it you eased with Loki strolling around to drive. Stealing a glance your way he buckled up then shifted in his seat with blinker on to pull out heading back to the tower.

Glancing your way again to your soft sigh he heard you say, “It’s so sad.”

“Yes it is. Wonderful, but sad.”

“I thought it was supposed to be happy. Pepper said it was the better choice of the two offered. Other one’s about chess. She said it was sad.”

Loki’s brows furrowed at the slowing of the traffic making him stop asking, “If the chess one was sad by her terms no doubt we would have left absolutely depressed.”

Sudden clunks of buildings going dark from a rolling blackout had groans filling the street and glancing around you checked the cars around you and lifted your hand to try and hover the car back only for Loki to pat the back of it saying, “I’ve got it.” One swish of his hand and the car was coated in green glowing smoke that in a flash had you parked in its usual spot back in Stark Tower Garage. “Now, for another surprise. I promised you dinner.”

Curiously out you climbed once he’d teleported to open the door with hand offered to help you up, making certain to keep close. Once again taking in each tempting detail of your unbelievable self just barely a foot in front of him. “Cooking? You cook?” You asked seeing him all but glowing in the faint light from the emergency beams in each corner while the tower whirred powering up on its backup generator.

At that he smirked saying, “I am now.” Again his hand melded to yours through your soft squeak. “Heimdall,” Bright lights flooded the garage to the Bifrost opening and once inside the golden dome your eyes dropped to the plume of a rainbow coated cloud of vapor escaping your lips. Lifting your hand you grinned seeing your skin again naturally glimmering with prisms of light, rainbows dancing across it in each movement. Looking up to Loki your eyes were no longer purple but in each glance away reflected the same galaxies the curls laid down your back in a dangling strip from the end of your rolled over bun Wanda had helped to pin securely.

“Welcome back Prince Loki,” the head of the gold clad guardian bowed to him then turned to you speaking in your own tongue rather roughly, “Welcome, Lady.”

Smirking at him you replied, “I take it-,” your words halted seeing the cloud escaping your lips much like the ones when freshly landed on Earth had caused earthquakes after affecting the atmosphere luring your free hand to your lips.

Loki stated in a pat of his fingertips on your arm, “You are safe to our planet,” meant exactly as he had said it, turning your head to catch his nod, “Our atmosphere is much thicker than Midguard. You are safe here.”

Facing the guard again you said, “You are Heimdall.”

“I am, yes.”

“Did you see the show?”

“Yes, while you are here perhaps you may prefer one of ours.”

Loki’s hand still holding yours shifted as he said, “For now, I am cooking us supper.”

Heimdall’s brow inched up, “I am not doubting your skill, however, Queen Frigga has put much effort into its preparation.”

Flatly Loki replied, “Breakfast then.” Making the guard smirk at his first step down the golden steps you looked down to taking a step at a time with the Prince pausing to see the pencil skirt fighting against the movement.

It was only two steps yet all the more adorable when you caught his eye saying, “I neglected to practice on stairs.”

Heimdall glanced away pretending the blush inching onto Loki’s cheeks replying, “Mastered already.”

Nodding you replied, “For every lie you tell me I expect five steps in a handstand,” he smirked at you and chuckled as you added, “I will waive this first offence.”

“I did not lie.” You paused with a brow raised and he repeated, “I did not lie! That second step, you mastered it.” Your eyes narrowed slightly and his dazed grin eased out making you turn away.

“I am watching you.” He nodded stepping as you did out into the bright moonlight that dimmed your impressive colorful shimmer to your shielded yet still glittering self cast in rainbows reflecting the bridge the Prince led you across.

“That I am grateful for.” He hummed pointing out clusters of stars until you got far enough from the Bifrost he could turn and point saying, “And that-,”

“Pluto.” Stepping back he watched your eyes dart to the bridge and up again to the distant city shining brightly making you ask, “Is it hard to clean, all that gold?”

Smirking at you he replied, “We have our ways to ensure it remains intact and glimmering for guests.” All the way across he pointed out different locations until the guards around the city curiously looked over the new guest everyone was curious about. Thor had brought handfuls of guests home but you were the first Loki had invited, as well as the first of your race, leaving no clue on what to expect.

Golden halls with thick tapestries ended in what you could take as the throne room by the massive golden throne looking far from comfortable. Each shadow you passed through between flaming bowl stands brought out your same glowing appearance from the Bifrost fading away again in the light of the flames cast your way. Right in front of the throne you eyed the blonde woman clad in an elegant green gown Loki released your hand to embrace. “Mother,” he said smiling looking her over to turn to you still smiling brightly halting your head nod her way a moment, “I would like to introduce my guest,”

Frigga cut him off, “Please do tell us your true name, I would not wish to disrespect you by using the name Midgardians can pronounce.”

Through a deep breath you wet your lips replying, “I am called, Ku-l’ua Jaqiearae.” The name a faint echoing hum from your lullaby tone.

Frigga nodded her head repeating, “Lady, Ku-l’ua,”

That had you giggle and say, “No, Ku is exiled, l’ua is Heir of what you might call Duke. On my planet my rank was T’y’pn-eo. Third Heir of, Duke. And it is said after my name, I was given the name but exile was my choice. But Lady Jaqiearae will suffice here, Queen Frigga.”

Frigga smiled saying, “We shall master your titles soon, Lady Jaqiearae. For now, we have a lovely meal waiting for you.”

“Thank you.”

Her arm circled Loki’s as he offered it and she asked, “How was the show?”

Loki’s lips pursed and he replied, “Well, for a rather light hearted theme it bore quite the drastic undertone.”

Dinner went well and at Loki’s shared comment on breakfast you were granted a spare set of pajamas flowing and not silken as they appeared, though much like in mangas you had seen with a frilly top and barely visible frilly shorts underneath in a pale blue. Either way you were here to sleep although wide eyed after simply touching the bed a waft of rose shot through the air in the puff of smoke erupting from the golden silk sheet under the folded back thickly embroidered comforter in a dark grey. Glancing from your hands to the sheets again you turned to your balcony Loki had commented being shared by his room, across a small gap of course, so he might call you out to see the first of their two suns rising. “Pst!”

Lounging in his favorite pajamas on his fainting couch with his favorite book his grin dimmed a moment turning his head to his open balcony, “Loki!” This time you had whispered a tad louder luring the Prince to close his book and stand up to venture out hearing a second, “Pst!” Not three steps later you repeated, “Lo-,” out he stepped with brows raised curious what the problem was while you took in his long forest green shirt clad self seemingly in no pants visible by the length of his shirt baring strips of his toned thighs. “I lit my bed on fire.”

His brows shot up more planting his hands on the rail between you trying to glance inside your room, “You-,”

“It’s out now.” His eyes were on you again then in a puff of green smoke he zapped to your side walking into your room, “I didn’t mean to. I just touched the sheet and, pfft,”

He glanced at you, “Smoke, makes, a, pfft.”

After a few blinks he asked, “Why does it reek of roses in here?”

“I can’t touch flowers,” He glanced at you again, “Pfft,”

Trying not to smile at your worried wide eyed star-like self he turned easing his hand around you to plant on your back guiding you to the balcony, “Stay with me tonight.”

“But, they said that’s my room.”

On the balcony you glanced around at the puff of green smoke coating then washing away on the breeze from you both at his zapping you to his balcony, “Well we certainly can’t stay out here. The guards change in two minutes.” Leading you inside to his much comfier looking silver and black monster of a bed on a raised platform coated in spotted fur blankets layered across it lit by the roaring fireplace behind his former reading spot. “No flowers here. Get some sleep, I planned on reading a bit first.”

Timidly you did climb into his bed laying an absurd six feet in directly in the middle with a huge fur pillow under your head. Twelve curious minutes you laid there wondering at the lack of a page being turned, looking again to Loki as you rolled onto your side, asking after nearly a half hour of failing to fall asleep. “What are you reading?” His eyes flinched up to you utterly forgetting the book in his hands or the subject it was on by your starlight self glowing so cozily from his bed.

Softly he sighed finding his feet and closing his book he carried over and once he had settled onto the bed in front of you a few feet away he propped himself up reading the cover to you before starting on the first page. “Are you tired?” You asked after his fourth time rereading a line he’d already read aloud to the shift of one of your feet or hands making you wonder if he was simply tired or if you were distracting him from the task at hand somehow. The thought made more amusing by the trickle of a faint blush across his cheeks.

“I believe a few more pages might be managed before I retire.”

“Perhaps I might try to sleep. I bid you a mortal goodnight rest, Prince Loki.”

Faking a shift to roll over you hid your urge to smirk when he looked your way asking, “A mortal goodnight,” with a sigh he said, “Perhaps one day you might share a Plunoie goodnight.”

“If you are certain, I will oblige.” Up you inched to prop up on a hip and hand closing the distance between you freezing the Prince in place to the fall of your shadow over his cheek. A whisper, or perhaps the tap of a nose or forehead, possible trace of a finger across skin or cup of a cheek. A slap would even have been expected before this, as from the square of his jaw across his cheek to his forehead the skin on his face rippled blue with ridges easing out following the trace of your tongue. “May asteroids barrage your nightmares, Prince Loki.”

Back you shifted to lay in your former spot feeling his wide red eyed stare following you, voice lost for only moments before he could ask, “Plunoie, lick, one another, to sleep?”

Shaking your head his mouth dropped open to your spreading smile, “Nope.”

“Ugh, trickster,” he said dropping his book at his side in a slide closer, “I will show you a goodnight of my own.” Ruffling up the covers to have nothing between him and your curled self drawing a squeak from you stirring a cloud of mist above the bed glimmering like a storm of stars in a sunset sky. To your giggle when his hands found your waist easing you up against his side the clouds spread to fill the room releasing a group of firefly like lights that flew around withering after moments while the multicolored blush more Technicolor strobe light than your usual rainbow prism glimmer across your cheeks split his smile wide in curiosity for what the sudden reaction really meant in that moment.

Leaning over you his hand rose from your waist to tenderly trace up your cheek opposite him, cupping it ever so gently ghosting his thumb slower to meet the rest of his fingers adoring the feel of the skin underneath he’d so longed to touch. From hovering above you his face lowered and cheek to cheek in a lullaby of a whisper in Asgardian, “To my star most precious and pure, dreams of adventure and bliss I bid thee, most dear one.” Eye to eye again when he drew back the lights spread again to the deepening of an adoring gaze from the Prince absorbing each intimate moment of this. Forehead to forehead his head rested to your mental count of four followed by alternating taps of his nose on either side of yours reaching that same number. “Rest well, Ku-l’ua Jaqiearae”

Back he pulled to lay back again in his old spot and you asked watching him, “What was the whisper?”

Bringing a finger to his lips in the lift of his book again he shushed you narrowing your eyes, “Sleep now.”

“Five steps, now.” Back to your face his eyes shifted seeing you point, “Handstand for the lie.”

“I did not lie. Merely said sleep now.”

“Now you order me about?”

“I would not dare.”

“Handstand.”

“No,”

“No?” You giggled out luring his eyes to the firefly like lights distracting him against your push on his side bumping him off his bed. To cushion his fall he stirred up a green cloud dissipating to lower him gently contrasting his otherwise painful landing.

Locking his eyes on you his narrowed in a sharp huff, “You boot me from my own bed?”

“You are not getting back in this bed until you give me my five steps.”

“Fine, next Saturday however you are entirely at my mercy, no arguments on my plans, not a one.” Without awaiting your response forward he forced himself off the platform onto his palms in a steady handstand halting a moment to the drop of the lower portion of the shirt folding over his torso revealing a strip of his belly above his shorts now revealed with buttons down the side of his thighs. One at a time once centered five steps were taken and on the sixth he turned dropping a leg to take his weight granting him a steady rise up in lowering the second to walk back to the bed. “Five steps, as demanded.”

Slyly through the spread of his smirk he hummed out, “Now,” back onto his bed he hopped easing from his knees to his former spot and closer still, “Sleep,” again you giggled at the tug you felt on your middle in his arm scooping you onto your side, back against his chest you settled with his one arm under your neck and the other around your middle. Colorful lights and mists thickened deepening the smirk hidden in the hair hiding the face burrowing into it. Down below the oddly colorful balcony steps from patrolling guards were heard passing by crossing to opposite check points, a sound like the again steadying of his heartbeat lulling you to sleep. Behind you however the Prince’s mind whirled out of control wondering what he might just plan, both for breakfast and again for next Saturday.

Somewhere between sleep and wonder a prickle down his arm triggered the droop of his arm heavier around your waist showing sign of his sudden drop off to sleep. A calming numbness knowing that you had fallen asleep on his arm somehow signaled a much needed rest to begin. A sign that unlike when he slept on his side alone held him in place to not wake you, where alone would have him rolling over. Surely remaining awake would only prolong the discomfort so his body chose for him to keep you in place. Breakfast promised however just before sunrise stirred him and groggily he murmured, “Jaqiearae,” the gentle shake he gave drew a grumble in return only urging his head rolling back to confirm by how much light in his room he had to the first of two sunrises had him ease back scooping you up in his conscious arm leaving the other to drop over your curled legs while it stirred.

Half awake his feet carried the both of you to the same balcony he charmed his lounge to the perfect spot to settle down feeling the deep waking breaths from you alerting you would not miss this stunning sight far from your beauty, yet one you had yet to see. Down to the kitchens he led you startling more than a few servants along the way but none more than those coming in to find your giggling self smiling to his oddly adorable lopsided waffle stick castle surrounded by a moat of eggs with meat monsters throughout to be flooded with the as yet unnamed but oh so delicious sauce inside the castle seeping out to mingle their flavors excellently. The mess once all eaten was cleaned up by the both of you ending to the bubble coated Prince chasing your shrieking and giggling self after a surprise attack giving him a fading mustache sliding down around his neck.

Clearing his throat however once he’d caught you the sight of his mother on the other side of the fountain you had been caught trying to avoid he nodded his head saying, “Mother.”

Grinning herself she nodded her hear replying, “Loki dear, do be certain to add the singing fountains of silver on the southern courtyard once you have finished your tour of this one.”

“Yes, I shall.” On your upper back his hand settled stating, “My Grandmother settled the arrangements for these stones herself, and were she not carrying Mother perhaps laid them herself.” Just past another statue and in his hand yours rose to his lips for a jaw dropping lick down the back of your hand. Right after he released you and it was your turn to chase the now fleeing Prince chuckling himself at your stunned squeak.

@himoverflowers, @theincaprincess, @aspiringtranslator, @sweeticedtea, @thegreyberet, @patanghill17, @jesgisborne, @curvestrology, @alishlieb, @jogregor, @armitageadoration, @fizzyxcustard, @here2have-fun, @lilith15000, @marvels-ghost, @catthefearless, @imjusthereforthereads, @c-s-stars, @otakumultimuse-hiddlewhore, @mariannetora, @shes-a-killer-kween, @ggbbhehe4455

X Loki - @pastelhexmaniac

X Marvel-Cast - @himoverflowers, @theincaprincess, @changlingkhat

#Loki x Reader OC #Marvel #Wicked #New Planets #New Friends #Trickster

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whatisthisidefk · 3 years

Text

The River, the Sea, and the Stars Part 3 (SFW version)

***

Andros danced with him in a wooded glade, willow weeds flowing like curtains around them. It was a wild dance, with no real steps, but they laughed and whirled around each other, hands clasped, until Andros pulled him close and kissed him. They fell to their knees on the mossy ground, then tumbled to lie under the moon in each other's arms.

Andros fought the choppy waves alongside him; they both needed every ounce of strength to make headway in the icy water. They reached the black rocks at the edge of the shore and hauled each other up to shiver in the early morning air. Andros tucked a lock of hair behind Therien's ear and leaned in to kiss him, salty like the sea.

Andros held him, golden skin reflecting the red of the fire beside them. Therien held him back, his arms wrapped around Andros's waist.

"I love you," he said.

"I love you," said Andros.

"I'm going to find you," he said.

Andros laughed, and said, "I'm waiting."

Therien woke.

The little room was cold and still, muffled from the outside world. If he closed his eyes, Therien thought he truly could be back in Provence. He'd felt removed from the world there, too. In those days, there hadn't been an Andros, nor a Dra, nor an American scholarship. All he'd had were a doting set of adoptive parents and a joy of swimming.

Grey morning light filtered through the thin paper blind and turned everything into a muted palette of cool greys and washed-out reds and blues. It felt like the air before a snowstorm, though it was far too early in the season for that.

Dra hadn't been joking. The dreams had been vivid and so real; he had to shake his head to dispel them. He'd never danced with Andros or made love to him like that, but they felt less like fantasies and more like memories.

If only.

He swung his legs off the bed and stretched. A hunt through his suitcase found him a clean change of clothes, though he figured he'd need to do laundry soon. Jeans and a t-shirt, with a hoodie from an international competition made it onto his body before he felt alive enough to emerge from his room.

"I'm awake," he called into the apartment. "Bonjour, Dra."

"Bonjour," came her reply from behind the rightmost door in the hall. "Go freshen up and I'll meet you in the living room shortly."

"Merci." He found the bathroom behind the middle door, or what he supposed was the bathroom. It was hard to tell under the forest of houseplants that grew in pots from every corner. Even the freestanding iron tub was surrounded not by a shower curtain, but a literal curtain of broad-leafed vines.

Therien caught a glimpse of himself in the mirror. He looked like hell, though better than he had the day before. He'd need a shave, but that could wait, as his kit was buried somewhere in his bag in the other room. He did manage to tame his unruly black curls into some semblance of fashionable and skimmed his hands over the short fade at the back and sides.

He scrubbed at his face with the washcloth. He hadn't properly washed since before the banquet, when he'd put on a hint of gold eyeliner to accentuate his eyes. Whatever brand it was, it lived up to its claims of staying power. He enjoyed the contrast against his dark olive skin and he'd wanted to feel as attractive as possible for whatever would happen with Andros.

That thought drove him to wash it off, as if that could wash away the fear and worry that still roiled in his gut. But once it was gone, he only felt more vulnerable, so he made a decision.

He dug through his suitcase to find the small toiletries bag and the eyeliner pen, then marched back to the bathroom to carefully apply the shimmering gold ink to his eyes again as if it was some kind of armor. When he finished, he stepped back.

Now he was ready.

***

Dra gave him an appraising look when she finally emerged from her own room. "Nice job on the eyes," was all she said, before she dumped an armload of things into the center of the living room floor. "Grab us each a cuppa, would you, love? Should be done steeping by now."

"What is all this for?" he asked, nudging a small hand axe with his foot as he went to the kitchen. "I thought we were going to find Andros. Are we camping?"

"In a way, yes. I hope you remember your time as an Éclaireur. You'll need it."

"I never told you about that, did I?" He handed her a teacup and sat on the ottoman to watch her sort through the pile.

"Oh, you most certainly did! 'Éclaireurs--Toujours Prêt!'" She laughed. "It was some college mixer where we had to tell things about ourselves. You were adorable, with your accent and your big eyes taking everything in."

"How you recall my scout motto after all this time is beyond me."

She shrugged a shoulder. "It was one of those phrases that stick in your mind. Once I learned it, it became a kind of chant. I liked how it sounded." She held up an old leather knapsack, the kind that would fetch hundreds of dollars at auction for its patina and excellent construction. Knowing Dra, she'd found it in some bargain bin at a thrift shop. "Here, you can have this one. We need to pack fairly light, but I don't want to be without a few comforts. You carry the firestarters, that little bag there."

Within an hour, the entire pile had been dispersed and neatly packed away between them. Therien had been given a belt--well, two belts, as one of Dra's was too small even for his narrow hips--and from it hung an array of bags and pouches of medical supplies, the hand axe, a multitool, and a wickedly sharp hunting knife that made Therien nervous. The satchel held the firestarters, a change of socks and underwear, and Therien's toiletries bag. Dra insisted that leaving a little space would be handy later, so he didn't argue.

Dra carried a similar set of tools, though she also added a variety of oilcloth bags of teas and herbs. Several vials of oils from the shop clinked in one of the square pouches on her own belt, and a coiled rope was fastened to her waist. Therien thought they rather looked like they were heading to a medieval faire rather than going to rescue his erstwhile boyfriend, and he told her so as they descended the stairs from her apartment into the empty shop below.

"That, my love, is because you don't know where we're going." They stood in the center of the shop, in a clear spot on the creaky wood floor. "I'm going to show you first, and then I can answer any of your questions. All right? Good. Now, stand back behind me. I need to concentrate."

Dra closed her eyes with a centering breath. She drew a large circle in the air and muttered something too softly for Therien to hear, then thrust both of her hands before her, crossing her arms straight out, fingers spread wide as she braced her legs as if against a strong wind. Her words came louder, more urgently, until she opened her eyes and flung her arms open.

With that motion, the air rippled and a faint sizzle of blue light scribed a circle before them.

Its edge rested on the floor like a tall oval mirror, but through it, instead of the opposite wall of the shop, Therien could see a wooded place, carpeted in yellow leaves. The scent of autumn came through and a breeze ruffled their hair. Therien felt weak in the knees. This shouldn't be real. It couldn't be real.

But then he remembered those golden chains stealing Andros away, and he decided that this was no less impossible.

"Step through," said Dra, her voice tight. "I can't hold this up for too long. I'm right behind you."

He wanted to hang back, but he made his feet start moving. Passing through the portal gave him a sense of vertigo, but once both feet were on the other side, it passed. He looked over his shoulder to see Dra stepping through after him. The image of the shop wavered as soon as she fully came through, then closed like an aperture and vanished.

Dra glanced around. "Not as close as I wanted to be, but it will do. This way." She strode in a seemingly random direction, though she moved with purpose. Even with his much longer legs, Therien had to hurry to catch up with her.

"Where...is this place?" he asked, looking around. "How did you do that? What was that??"

She laughed but kept walking. "That was a portal. It cuts down on travel time like you wouldn't believe." She paused, adjusted her direction, and continued along whatever path she perceived. "And we're in upstate New York."

He stopped in his tracks. "Wait--what?"

"You can't get to the Feywild directly," she called over her shoulder. "But there are places where you can pass through the veil, and this is the one I know best. Keep up, sweetheart!"

"The Fey...what?" None of it made sense, but he tried gamely to follow his friend. At least she seemed to know what she was doing.

The area they hiked through was hilly and cold, colder than Northampton had been. After an hour of endless trees and falling leaves, Dra called for a short break. They sat on a large, flat rock at the top of the hill they'd just climbed, and Dra handed him one of her homemade granola bars. "We're almost there. I should tell you about a few things before we cross over."

"That sounds ominous." As if Therien hadn't seen and experienced actual magic just that morning. But he was trying, so hard, to accept everything as it came.

Dra took pity on him. "I know this is hard to grasp, and we don't have a lot of time to go over everything. But I'm going to prepare you as much as I can." She shifted to face him. "Andros and I...we're Fey. We live human lives, but we weren't born here. We came from the Feywild, and that's where we need to go now."

"Both of you?"

"Yeah, what are the odds, right? Northampton is a hub for all sorts of weird and mystical things. That's why I settled there, and that's why Andros was drawn there to UMASS for the swim team. I mean, there are schools with better programs, but no others that promised him the shelter he needed."

Therien frowned. "You were both my best friends," he said. "How did I not know?"

"He and I figured it out not long after we met, and we promised to watch out for each other." She looked down at her hands, turning them over and flexing her fingers. "We both cared for you, you know. He begged me not to tell you because it's never good for a mortal to get tangled up in Fey politics."

"And yet--"

She shrugged ruefully. "And yet, here we are. Now, I come and go as I please, though not often these days. Andros, though...he was always running from something. That's why he took the name he did. Andros Kaitos. It's Greek, for 'man who runs away'."

"That wasn't even his real name." Therien took a shaky breath. "How much else didn't I know about him?"

"Not much," she reassured him. "Everyone has secrets, even you. But he was usually an open book with you, bar the obvious. And," she put a hand on his arm, "he loved you. Loves, I mean. I wouldn't be doing this at all if I didn't think it was worth the risk to both of you."

He covered her hand with his. "I know. Go on. I want to be ready for whatever happens."

She leaned back on her elbows and looked up at the trees. Therien couldn't hear any traffic sounds, just the wind in the canopy above and the calls of songbirds, the rustle of dry leaves on the ground.

"Andros had an assigned place in the Feywild. He was created to be a river guardian. You see them in Greek myth a lot, and I suspect that's where his story began. River guardians come in many forms, depending on their origins, and some don't conform to any particular country's lore. In general, though, they manage a certain river or stream, and they're meant to be tied to that place at all times. Andros, though--he just couldn't sit still. And the Court to which he belonged was not known for kindness. He loved being in your world."

"So he ran away," Therien said, a question. Dra nodded.

"He escaped," she clarified. "Honestly, I'm surprised he avoided capture as long as he did. He never set down roots anywhere because he was terrified he'd be found."

Therien toyed with a leaf that blew across his foot. "It's my fault, then."

"No, no," Dra insisted, "Darling, it's not--"

"It is," he cut her off. "He said it himself that night. He'd let his guard down. That's because I caught him by surprise."

Dra studied him for a moment. "That might be," she said at length, "but it's still not on you. It was bound to happen one day. At least he's not alone, you know? Imagine if he'd been found before you could tell each other about your feelings. Imagine if he'd just disappeared without anyone around!" She glanced away. "If he'd just vanished, you might not have thought to call me. You wouldn't have learned about any of this."

He tried to imagine it, as she said. What if he hadn't been there? What if Andros had just not shown up for practice, or if they'd never spoken of their feelings? He probably wouldn't have been frantic enough to reach out to her in a moment of need. "You're right," he said aloud.

"Of course I am." She pushed herself off the rock and brushed her legs down. "Okay. Once we reach the top of the mountain, I'll need you to step only in my footsteps. That's how things work."

"Oui, mon amie."

She kept up her lecture as they resumed their walk up the hill. "The Feywild is a beautiful place, but it's called wild for a reason. Things can be as deadly as they are pleasing to the eye, and trickery abounds. There are strict rules in place that may not be broken, and that has caused the Fey folk to learn and exploit every loophole imaginable."

The hill steepened, and Dra slipped a little on the leaves. Therien helped her stand, and stayed by her in case it happened again. Even at his current peak fitness level, Therien found himself breathing hard over those last few yards to the top of the hill.

Or ravine, he realized, looking back at the way they had come. The disturbed leaves showed their passing, the path stretching down and out of sight between the trees.

But when he turned around, the scene ahead made him gasp. Aside from the slight marring of the countryside by a row of power lines and a distant cell phone tower, he could see for miles of rolling hills that turned into mountains at the horizon. The valley floor was carpeted with trees in hues of orange, yellow, brown, and occasionally red. A pair of eagles sailed above in great circles, and a flock of crows took flight and resettled not far off.

If the entrance to the fey realm was anywhere, surely this seemed as good a place as any.

Dra tugged at his arm. "This way. Remember, step in my footsteps exactly. Even if it seems silly or redundant. Got it?"

"Got it." His heart pounded. He trusted Dra. He trusted her. He had to.

She checked behind her with each step to be sure he was following her instructions. They walked toward an apparently random tree, but then circled around it to the right--counterclockwise--until they crossed their original path. Dra wove them between a series of saplings and hopped over a pointed stone that stuck out of the ground. The next tree they approached, they went around clockwise and continued toward a natural arch formed of a fallen tree caught in the crook of another.

"Through that," said Dra, startling him, "and we'll be in the Feywild." She glanced up at him and held out her hand. "Ready?"

"I trust you."

The corner of her mouth quirked up. "I'll take that as a yes. Let's go save your boyfriend."

They walked through.

***

#river sea stars #jenny writes #original fiction

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se7enforse7en · 3 years

Text

One — Great Tree Moon

synopsis: THE ALLURE OF DARKNESS WAS ATTRACTIVE TO THOSE STAINED IN THE LIGHT. Nyx Νύχτα grasped the idea long ago. The native to the empire had understood the balance between dark and light for too long. One couldn’t survive without the other. The darkness had stained her long ago while the light had barely reached out even in the light of day. Even now, as she was shrouded in darkness in the night. There was not a single soul who had only one within them. And while she had known that long ago, she found that lesson even more apparent in the company of the religious organization she's been aware of her whole life - the church of Seiros. Their influence had been felt all throughout Fodlan for quite some time. In that influence, stood the future of Fodlan nobility & lesser folk. The heads of Fhaerghus, The Empire, & The Ancestor Alliance are led into greatness by their time at the Monastery, a school meant to shape them into kings and queens. Hundreds of years of success have allowed boasting. However, in the year 1186, things don't go as easily. For Nyx Νύχτα, she's a part of an ugly score in a history she wished she never knew about.

pairings: multiple oc’s x multiple characters / mostly dimitri x oc / sylvain x oc / m!byleth x claude / f!byleth x edelgard

genre: angst, romance, drama

warnings: strong language, blood, death, basically over the top angst

parts: one / two / three / four / five

THE ALLURE OF DARKNESS WAS ATTRACTIVE TO THOSE STAINED IN THE LIGHT. Nyx Νύχτα grasped the idea long ago. The native to the empire had understood the balance between dark and light for too long. One couldn’t survive without the other. The darkness had stained her long ago while the light had barely reached out even in the light of day. Even now, as she was shrouded in darkness in the night.

She walked through the camp stationed in the woods, belonging to a certain Jeralt Eisner, The Blade Breaker. Her heeled boots created a pattern of quiet footsteps as she made a beeline for the man’s tent. Her cloak flowed around her, covering a majority of her figure. Her black but snug tunic was visible underneath, the arms being cut off for comfort. Her knuckles were adorned with fingerless gloves as her legs were hugged tight by her cotton but semi-gold laced pants. Her sword fit perfectly in it’s holder amongst her waist as the belt had been secured from long ago. Underneath her sheathed weapon, pieces of empire fabric had been tied around her waist with a gold trinket or two holding it in place. Over all of that had been an overcoat worthy of a rogue. It had contrasted the palette of her equipment with a glorious red & black lining apparent.

Her raven-like locks had been tied as a mod-long braid with somewhat intricate braid patterns. A braid in itself was found near the beginning of her locks to the back of it, making a braided circle of sorts. It had been a bit elaborate for the swordswoman but it had been functional for the time being. The tent’s flaps had been obstructed as she moved it aside, walking towards the twins she had been looking for.

The pair of dark bluenettes had their gazes on different maps, intently studying them. They had always been intense for their own good and perhaps their individual bad. Stepping further on, she alerted the two as they spared a slight glance in her direction. She slightly met their gazes quickly enough. “Byleth,” she called out to them both, not realizing they whipped their heads up simultaneously. “Eh, Aether?” She clarified awkwardly as Hemera, the other twin, had gone back to her intense study of the maps. “Where’s Jeralt? We need to talk, pronto.” She quipped a raised eyebrow at the armor clad boy as he thought about the last he had seen of his blonde father.

“I believe he was in the back of the tent over, Nyx.”

“Thanks,” she raised an obligatory hand as quick thanks before heading to the mentioned tent with motivation. As predicted, the blonde mercenary had been writing down a few things of his own. She could only assume it was some important document or something he’d only read. She smirked at his calm form, his eyes focused merely on his pen & quill. The candle near his face showed little way to his scars as well. “Still writing in that diary of yours?”

“You shouldn’t be sneaking up on people, kid.” His head shot up to her gaze as he stood up from his little writings. He bundled all the papers together, as to not have it so easily seen. “I thought you were coming next week for that village I told you about.”

“Well,” she reached into one of her several pockets for the pristine envelope. It had barely been touched so it’d contain it’s contents in a clean matter. “We need to talk about this.” His face morphed into confusion whilst she sighed. “Do not play dumb, Jeralt. You’re too old for that and I’m sure those wonder twins would delight in some secrets.” It had been clear the last few words had been in humor but even Jeralt could find it concerning.

“Maybe I just forgot about it for a moment?”

“Maybe.” She handed him the white envelope, sure to not crinkle it. His rough hands take hold of it. Opening it, his mind flooded with memories of writing the exact letter weeks beforehand. He sighs. He forgot just how pissed she was going to be at his most recent letter. “Mind explaining what the fuck you wrote?”

“Nyx—“

“‘There’s no more information,’ he says,” she mocks the older mercenary as recalls his exact words. “‘It will be fine,’ he says. No information, my ass!” Her eyes twitch in anger as he looks to the side, almost guilt ridden. “I know for a fact that there’s something you’re hiding.”

“What reason would I have to hide anything?”

‘Far too many,’ the voice rang in her mind. She scoffed at him as she thought on the voice she’d been too familiar with. His deep and firm voice held his usual tone of distrust. In her own mind, he slightly gritted his teeth as his smooth, golden brown skin felt aflame at the suspicions he held. He had his own qualms about Jeralt, the Blade Breaker or rather, Jeralt Eisner. They didn’t know much of him before his twins’ birth. It was natural to be suspicious. The only non-suspicious element was the twins, themselves. They felt. . . oddly familiar to them both and it was clear they held no unnecessary secrets. ‘He won’t say shit, especially if it concerns that pair.’

‘I know. We might as well be back at square one,’ she thought to herself, making sure not to voice her response to the voice she’d grown accustomed to. Narrowing her eyes, she crosses her arms. “If you don’t want to admit it, I have no safe way of getting it from you, anyways. I just hope whatever you’re hiding doesn’t harm those two.”

“We both share that hope, Nyx.” He sighed as he brought a hand to scratch the back of his head. He could still feel the woman’s glare upon him. He had his own reasons for his choices and he was sure nothing he did would be out in the open so soon. Too bad he couldn’t see the future. “Nonetheless, I need to know if you’re still willing to help for next week’s job.”

She laughed. He got right to business, even as she was pissed at the older man. The voice in her mind had an equally hearty laugh before settling in his hard throne. He stared forward with his golden but white tinted eyes. His black & white threaded hair fell behind him, allowing him to be at slight ease once more. Rolling her eyes, she raises her hands in a slumped manner to signal her defeat. “Fine. I won’t forget your little secrets or your wittle diary either, Eisner.”

“Hmph, I know—“ he began to chuckle before they heard the laboured breaths of his men. They came bustling in, undoubtedly tired with his armor weighing him down.

“S-Sir Jeralt!”

“What is it?” He had told his soldiers to not disturb him at many times of the night unless utterly necessary.

“T-T-There’s been an emergency, sir! Three kids. There’s bandits!”

‘Well, that’s intriguing.’

#fire emblem #fire emblem 16 #fire emblem three houses #fe3h #dimitri blaiddyd #felix fraldarius #sylvain gautier #ashe ubert #ingrid brandl galatea

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ngame989 · 5 years

Text

“Christumpmasday” - TGG SVTFOE Fanfic Collection Ch. 4

Writing: @ngame989

Art: @toxicpsychox (make sure to follow him for bonus pics from the story!)

Editing: @toxicpsychox, @seddm

Alternate fic links - FFnet, AO3

Summary: The holiday season is upon Earthni, and as her 16th birthday draws nearer, the blended festivities are leaving Star feeling down while they scramble to set up everything in time for the perfect Christumpmasday celebration.

Comic Page

Masterpost

Also doubles as a late @wholesome-week Holiday submission!

See below for the text, hope you enjoy!

“Is it… a dragon-cycle?”

“Nachos is too protective, if we got a second one she wouldn’t get along with them.” Marco ran his fingers carefully through the branches of the pine tree in front of him, giving it a gentle shake. Half of the needles fell to the ground.

“True, true. OK, what about, like, a cool sword or something?”

His focus was already on to the fourth tree in the row, ruling it out just as easily as the previous three. Disappointing. Didn’t anyone know how to properly maintain a healthy and good-looking evergreen? “Star, that’s just what you got me for my birthday. I’m not going to tell you your gift early. Besides, would you even want a sword? We can look for one sometime.”

“I’m good, just wondering. Just give me ooooone more guess… your abs?” He lurched forward in surprise, his reaction to the comment earning him a faceful of foliage. Shaking the needles out of his hood and spitting a few from his lips, he finally turned his full attention to his girlfriend, studying her as she leaned against the fence on the perimeter of the farm. She’d donned one of his hoodies overtop of her blue narwhal-embroidered outfit as emergency protection on the unexpectedly chilly day, as California’s relatively warm winters had mostly carried over to their slice of Earthni. Adorable rosy hues surrounded the heart marks on her cheeks, and he wasn’t quite sure it was from the cold - he was much more certain where his own flush was coming from, at least. “What? It’s super freezing and I’m super cold and I super do not like wood. I needed a distraction and my mind wandered back to the Neverzone after I mentioned the sword.”

“Well, don’t worry, because I found the one!” He beckoned her over with a small smile tugging at the corners of his mouth and pointed to the one in front of him. Relatively tall and thick by Christmas tree standards, but it would be sure to look fantastic in the monster temple foyer for the first annual culturally blended holiday. Why it had been dubbed Christumpmasday, and why the rest of the town had gone along with it, Marco might never know, but he was still excited no matter how unwieldy its name might be. She took his hand when she got beside him, but kept moving until she crossed fully in front of him, gently tugging his arm around her. Marco smiled and took the hint, wrapping himself snugly around her and tucking his chin into the crook of her shoulder; despite growing a bit in recent months, he was still a ways off from being a full head above her. “Better?”

She briefly nuzzled her cheek into his through his hood. “Much. Sorry for being a party pooper today… I just want to have a normal holiday, and my birthday, without having to worry about appeasing a giant angry log. Is that too much to ask?” There was a fire in her sparkling sapphire eyes that Marco recognized all too well: this was really bothering her.

As best he could, he threaded their gloved fingers together and reassuringly squeezed both the hand and the hug. “Maybe the Stump isn’t even around anymore… still, better to be safe than sorry for this year at least. Look on the bright side, if it isn’t an issue anymore, then next year we can just do what we do best here on Earth: keep traditional holidays around as an excuse to eat and have fun!” Star snorted in laughter and turned to face him with a smile, hesitant but genuine all the same, and he returned a sympathetic one of his own. “If you really want a hint about my gift, it’s something we’ll get to enjoy a lot when we get to hang out after all this is over.”

“Well if it involves spending time with you, then I know I’ll love it,” she teased, and the cold bothered Marco a bit less.

The moment was interrupted when Rafael entered his peripheral vision with an unfamiliar woman behind him. “Ah, there you two are. I have been looking all over the place!”

The woman, taller than Marco’s dad and almost as brawny and sporting a stereotypical lumberjack outfit, jogged ahead of Rafael, seemingly unbothered by the cold. She patted Marco’s head as he and Star scrambled to split apart. “I’m Dee, nice to meet you.”

“Ooooooh, I thought ‘Dees Trees’ was just wordplay,” Star responded, shaking her hand after Marco, who giggled in response.

“Well aren’t you two just the most precious things? So your dad here tells me that you’re looking for a tree?”

“Yep, this one,” Marco pointed to the one in front of him and the sign marking it at $65.

“That one’s certainly a beaut. Tell ya what, it’s on the house. As thanks for this whole Cleaving thing - best thing to happen to my business since that household tree burglary spree in ‘89!” she said jovially.

Star bristled a bit inside the hoodie. “You don’t have to do that-”

“Please, I insist.”

“We’re fine, thanks.”

“It’s the least I can do.”

“I said we’ll pay.”

Marco’s eyes bounced back and forth following the two as Dee remained fairly calm while the frustration in Star’s voice visibly mounted.

The heated exchange was interrupted by a loud rev; the three turned to see Rafael already midway into cutting down the chosen tree with his chainsaw. Dee helped the man steady it as it was fully detached from the base and he let out a victory shout while turning off his chainsaw. “This is my favorite part of the holiday season,” he chuckled, patting the handle on the tool.

Star sighed heavily. “We’ll take it, then. Thank you.” Marco was still worried by her sulliness; he’d ask her about it later.

“Take care, now!” Dee said as they hauled the tree to the Diaz car. Once it was secured to the roof, Marco hopped halfway into the backseat before Star grabbed his hand, holding him still. He looked up at her from halfway inside the vehicle and saw her reading something on her phone.

“Everything OK, kids?” his dad called from the front seat.

“Eclipsa just texted me, my dad’s been swinging around the temple using the holiday lights like vines to hang them up and he hurt himself.”

“River…” Marco facepalmed. “I told him I’d help with that!”

“Hold on, she just sent a correction.” Her brow scrunched up worryingly as she read the words. The tension in her shoulders finally released after a few seconds as she rolled her eyes. “Apparently those were two separate things. Lights are all set, but he sprained his back falling off the ceiling while trying to race Meteora around the castle after, so now he can’t go get a ceremonial stump like he does every year.”

“Maybe we can just see if we can take the one from our tree?” Marco offered.

“Good idea. But we’re paying for it this time,” Star insisted, puffing up her cheeks.

She took his hand and led him back into the farm to the same spot they’d been, stopping dead in their tracks at seeing the sign which had an additional description written on in red ink. “Don’t risk angering the stump! VERY special offer, guarantees no botanical horror attacks!” A zero had been added to the price tag, and Marco resigned himself to the inevitable as he pulled out his wallet for the familiar sum. “So that’s what she meant by us helping her business.”

***

The decor in the monster temple was splendid, Moon idly mused as she strolled through the corridors. There was a certain vivacity that Earth’s traditions brought into the holiday season that hadn’t been present for Stump Day alone. While she tended to prefer a more orderly, professional aesthetic, even she had to admit that a holiday celebrating the dead bottom of a tree could get dull at times with an almost exclusively brown wooden palette. If she had been told one year ago that come next Stump Day she’d be galavanting around the infamous Monster Temple, no longer a Queen, preparing to celebrate the holidays alongside Eclipsa, she’d have sent the laughable soothsayer to a therapist posthaste. But somehow she had settled into her new life with relative ease. Of course there were still lingering vestiges; many Mewmans still sought her advice about all sorts of mundane topics, albeit in a less… needy way, and she’d provided some counsel to the governments of the new world, filling in any information about the Mewman people and tradition. But at the end of the day, she was no more or less than any other woman in their new world, and after all the hardships she saw Mewni through - some, regrettably, by her own hand - it didn’t upset her as much as she might have thought it would.

She navigated the labyrinthian hallways until she reached the set of guest bedrooms Eclipsa had set up and walked over to hers to find the door open and her husband playing cards with Globgor.

“Moonpie!”

“Hello, darling. Hello, Globgor,” she waved. She walked over to the side of the bed and pecked River on the forehead before sitting down beside him, careful not to hurt the multiple casts he had on. “How are you holding up?”

“Never been better! Just some minor scrapes, really.”

“River, you fell three stories and landed on a hard stone floor directly on your back.”

“Bah, no matter, I’ve had worse! Besides some minor agony I barely notice it at all! Globgor here is teaching me some card games that the monster army used to play hundreds of years ago, it’s roaring fun! You should join us!”

“I think I’ve heard of some of the games…” Moon trailed off suspiciously, one eyebrow raised.

Globgor rubbed the back of his neck, clearly understanding her implications. “Ahem, well, I may have made some modifications to them. Most used custom decks that had lots of very, shall we say, unkind pictures of Mewmans on them, and most of the moves had unflattering names as well. While I was in the crystal I ended up remaking most of my favorite games without that stuff and playing matches with all kinds of imaginary characters in my brain,” he chuckled. Not that she was one to judge, after all - she’d already been through that song and dance with Buff Frog what felt like ages ago.

“Yes, and he’s really good at them!” River exclaimed in frustration as he tried and failed to counter Globgor’s most recent play. “You should join us, dear, you’re remarkable at these types of games!”

She patted his hand and flashed him a contrite smile. “I’d love to, but I still need to go through all the family belongings and find some Stump Day decorations. I’m sure at least some of them were salvaged from the castle.”

River clasped Moon’s hand with both of his own animatedly. “That reminds me! You just missed Star, she stopped by not too long ago to check up on her old man. She said they were going to set up the tree.”

“Shoot, I promised I would help them with that!” Globgor conked himself on the head, accidentally throwing his cards all over the bed in the process. “We can pick this up soon, so sorry about that!” He quickly gathered the strewn cards up and shuffled around the bed, closing the door on his way out.

“Not a problem!” River shouted after him. His volume lowered substantially as he and Moon were the only two left in the room. “It really is wonderful to have family holidays like this, is it not? Good food, good company, and best of all, no in-laws,” he smirked at her.

“River!” she jokingly admonished.

“Oh honey, you know that as much as I do. I love the Johansen clan dearly, but they can be positively insufferable at times. And don’t get me started on old Aunt Etheria…”

Moon laughed into her hand. “Yes, I suppose it is nice that the festivities will be much smaller this year.” After all the chaos and the dissolution of the Butterfly kingdom, their extended family (especially her own side) had some… mixed reactions. With Moon distancing herself from the power and prestige her family had been accustomed to, things were a bit tense and as such everyone had decided to stick to themselves for the holidays, which just left the main former Butterfly lineage and the Diazes to celebrate. Moon had grown rather fond of this new mixed-dimensional extended “family” of hers, which she supposed was a good thing since she had a sneaking suspicion that they’d become official family in due time. While she wouldn’t trade the last half a year for anything, it too had its own brand of chaos which made moments for just the two of them still rarer than she’d like, and now that they had one both seemed most content not doing anything. The comfortable silence lingered on for many minutes, both of his rough hands delicately clasped around one of her own while her other idly toyed with his beard, and neither seemed . Finally, their tranquility was broken by a knock at the door, which meant it couldn’t be Star. “Come in,” Moon said, separating from River and defaulting to a more proper pose.

She was greeted by a familiar red hoodie. “Oh! Um, sorry if I, uh, interrupted anything.”

River struggled to sit up and face the door properly, beaming brightly at the young man whose company he enjoyed very much. “Not a problem, my boy! Moonpie was just checking up on me. But don’t worry lad, I’ll be back on my feet in no time!”

“Oh, I know that. Star and I were just in the kitchen and thought you’d want the leftovers from tonight for a snack.” He held up a bag filled with what had to be a few pounds of meat and some corn.

Her husband’s eyes lit up like fireworks as he beckoned Marco into the room. “I see the holidays have come early this year, hah! Thank you, you know this old man quite well.”

“Well, I’ll leave you two alone,” Moon gestured to the bag and her husband, rolled her eyes playfully as he fished his meat blanket out from his beard and began to dig in.

She and Marco both walked out of the room. “Have fun with your boxes, honey!” he mumbled out as the door was closing, nearly unintelligible through the multiple drumsticks barbarously stuffed in his mouth.

Marco stopped and turned back to face Moon. “Oh, is there still something left to do for decorations?”

“I was planning on going through some of the Butterfly family possessions to find our old Stump Day decor, that’s all.”

He hesitated only a fraction of a second before responding, “Do you want some help? We finished everything with the tree already.”

Moon warmly grinned back at the boy. She’d noted his kindness and willingness to be by Star’s side through anything years prior, but what impressed her most was how it consistently extended to everyone else around him. “That would be lovely. They’re in the storage room, I’ll be up in a moment.”

“OK, I’ll get Star and we’ll meet you there.” He hustled off back to the main area of the castle, leaving her alone in the hallway.

She made her way to the storage room, getting lost a few times along the way, still not entirely familiar with the layout of the building. Her first task was to do a quick scan of the boxes and organize them. There was a notable lack of cohesion to the contents of each container, she noted with ire, but that was likely due to the haste with which they had been packed as the castle had been attacked. Forgivable. She’d noted around fifteen that possibly would contain the decorations she was looking for and had gathered them all together when a conversation from the hallway caught her attention.

“Why noooooot?”

“Star, they’re not going to let you use one of River’s clubs. Those things are like two feet wide and have spikes!”

“Yeah, those are his miniature clubs, which is why I want to bring them to miniature golf, duh!”

“It’s indoors! There will be kids around!”

“Oh, well why didn’t you say so! Dad has some indoor clubs for kids too.”

“He showed those to me, they’re even more dangerous!”

“Marcooooooo, come oooooon.”

“Trust me, it’ll be more fun with the normal clubs.”

“Fiiiiiine.” Just as they came into view through the door, she spotted Marco give a quick peck to the side of her head as she rolled her eyes at him, their fingers intertwined. Moon raised an eyebrow with a smug grin when they entered the room. They reminded her so much of herself and River when they were younger.

“Hi Mom!” Star said, leaving Marco’s side to give Moon a quick hug. “Marco said you needed help with something here, what’s up?”

“We just need to locate some of the Stump Day decorations from our usual family gatherings, shouldn’t be too long,” she responded, indicating the various boxes and bags on the floor behind her.

Star’s cheery expression visibly sunk. “Oh. Yeah, um, sure, we can help with that.” Moon’s brow furrowed in confusion briefly; she considered speaking up, but had learned it was best not to pry too much. No matter, they could finish this up quickly enough and all have a well-rested night before all the celebrations to come in the next few days. “So what exactly are we looking for?”

Moon pried open the nearest tub and overturned the piles of now-unneeded royal attire to see what lay beneath. “We’ll probably need a lot of mugs for the big dinner that Eclipsa is hosting for the locals tomorrow evening. And the diorama for River’s annual telling of the story of Stump Day, which he’s insisted he is still going to deliver himself. Perhaps a few of the hats as well, if we’re able to locate them. After last year, I don’t think we can quite play it too safe, after all.”

The three began to dig through boxes, clearing them out at a rapid pace. She noted a newfound chilliness even in Star’s interactions with Marco, responding to his antics making goofy voices with some old puppets with only half-hearted laughter. After about thirty minutes, they’d gathered everything they needed and began packing back up the belongings.

“Why do we even still have this stuff, anyway?” Star spontaneously spoke after a rather uncharacteristic bout of silence during their labor. Moon glanced over to see her holding up one of Moon’s old crowns, her hearts wrinkling as her face contorted in displeasure.

“Sweetheart, it’s a valuable heirloom. It’s still important to the tradition of this family to keep these things around, what if you or someone else might be interested in them in the future?”

Star scoffed and carelessly dunked the crown back in the box. “We’re not royalty anymore, Mom, and we never will be again,” Star retorted, dunking it carelessly back into the box.

“I know that, dear, but-”

Star’s voice, now risen to almost a shout, cut her off, echoing throughout the spacious room. “But what? I’ve moved on, I’m through with this, and you should be too. So what’s the point of keeping this, or this, or any of this unless you’re trying to hold on to the glory?” She held up the crown again, the top to one of the royal staves, and the medallion with the royal crest to illustrate her point. Moon and Star had butted heads enough in the past that this feeling of anger bubbling up wasn’t new to her, but it had been a while since her daughter had frustrated her to the extent she was right now. “Marco, back me up here!”

The boy raised a finger and stuttered briefly before an incensed Moon cut him off. “That’s not my point, Star. Even if it’s in the past, we can’t just toss away our history! What about things you did for your kingdom or your people? Don’t you want to at least remember that much?” she held up a few of the dresses and official portraits from various diplomatic events Star had participated in when she was younger. “These were things you did, not just stuffy royal artifacts. Surely that at least means something to you?”

Moon followed Star’s bright blue eyes as they darted intensely around the items she held until they suddenly stopped, fixated on a puffy blue and pink dress. The fury evaporated instantaneously and her expression morphed into shock. “Forget it, I’m done with all of it,” she sullenly intoned, dumping what she was holding on the ground and walking away. Marco tried to wrap an arm around her shoulder but she shrugged it off brusquely and marched out the door.

Marco took a step forward to follow her and then stopped, sulking and turning back to the pile of stuff, plopping to the ground and burying his head in his hands.

“What has gotten into her?” Moon vented through gritted teeth. “She just wants to be a normal teenager again, fine, but that does not mean she has to disrespect everything this family has done!” She took a deep breath to calm herself down before turning to Marco, not wanting to take anything out on him unduly. “Has she talked to you about any of this?”

His eyes remained fixed on the ground, playing with the zipper of his hoodie. “Earlier today she said she just wanted to have a normal birthday and not have to worry about Stump Day, but this stuff, it- I don’t really know. I mean, I- I get it, kind of, what she’s trying to say.” He looked at her with his brown eyes wide, as if asking permission.

“Go on.”

“Star… she spent practically all her time on Mewni trying to fix things, and trying to do whatever she thought was best for everyone. And- and when she gets an idea in her head about how to do that, she believes in it really hard, and it’s hard to stop her.” Both unconsciously smiled at the thought, and Moon didn’t miss the glimmer in the boy’s eyes as he continued talking about his best friend and love. “She still cares a lot about making the world better for everyone, even now. And the last big thing she believed in was that magic and Mewman queens and the whole Butterfly monarchy needed to be destroyed to do that.”

“So perhaps keeping everything squirreled away made her think I plan to use it again in the future,” she finished the thought.

Marco averted his gaze and rubbed his arm for a moment, opening his mouth a few times and failing to speak before finally choosing his words. “Do you?” he asked meekly.

The question stunned her, but upon a moment of reflection she couldn’t blame him. Time and time again, Moon had taken charge when she felt the time called for it, for better or worse. “No, heavens no. It’s been difficult at times, giving it all up, I admit. Even after Eclipsa took over, I still ended up doing what I thought was best to bring order. I suppose Star must get that from me, although she’s far better at it than I ever was.”

“I- I get it, though. On Earth we had a saying that I remember learning in school: ‘Those who can’t remember the past are doomed to repeat it,’ or something like that.”

“I like that. It works. Well, I’ll… give Star some time, and think about what to do with all of this, I suppose. I can finish the cleanup myself now, run along.” Moon was about to turn around as he went to leave but decided on one more thing to say. “Oh, and Marco?” She walked over to him by the door, noting that he was almost as tall as her now, and grabbed both his shoulders before placing a tender, motherly kiss on his forehead. The brown eyes she’d caught her daughter getting lost in all too often focused intently on her own amongst the surprised expression on his visage. “You’re still both teenagers, but you’ve grown so much. She wouldn’t be the admirable young woman she is today without you, and I suspect the opposite is also true. Thank you for being everything you are to my daughter.”

His mouth was slightly agape, unable to formulate any words in response. “T-thanks, um, Mrs… thanks.”

“Just ‘Moon’ is alright, dear,” she said affectionately.

“Thanks, Moon,” he finally stammered out before stumbling towards the door and out of the room at her gentle nudging. It only took a few minutes to carefully organize the remains back into their boxes and get the Stump Day items ready to set up. Turning one last time toward the belongings that had been neatly packed away, a few ideas began running through her mind…

***

Everything was a mess. Star the Screw-up strikes again. She sulked into the battlements of her balcony, gazing into the night sky. She’d bummed Marco out, she’d gotten all tangled up in the holiday lights, she’d yelled at her mom who really didn’t deserve it, and even after they’d worked it out over some tea later she still felt hollow inside. The fact she was out in the cold in just her nightgown didn’t help, either, but she couldn’t be bothered to do anything about it. Weren’t the holidays supposed to bring ‘tidings of comfort and joy’? It didn’t feel like it. She grabbed the pillow she’d dragged out from her bedroom and screamed into it, letting her head sink further down until she was almost laying flat on the ground.

“Hey.”

Star lowered the pillow from her eyes and saw Marco in his pajamas, fiddling idly with the bottom of his shirt.

“Hi,” she mumbled into the pillow.

“Mind if I join you? I brought some hot cocoa.”

“Mmh.”

He took it as an affirmation, slumping down on the cold floor next to her, seemingly unbothered.

“Sooooo… nice night out tonight, huh?” he asked hopefully, passing her a stump mug.

“Yeah, I guess.” Her gaze went skyward as it had been for the past dozen or so minutes while she thoughtfully sipped her drink, feeling the liquid warm her instantly. “The stars are really pretty from up here.”

“Yeah,” he replied, taking her hand in his. She rolled onto her side to find him already facing her, studying her intensely with a faint smile dancing on his lips. “Did everything go alright with your mom?”

She sat in silence for a moment, drinking in the soothing love his chocolate gaze was practically projecting into hers, and feeling the soft caress of his fingers on her hand. “It was fine. She apologized too, even if I was the one who messed it up… but I get it. She’s right, you can’t throw away history just because you don’t like it. Heck, I think I was the one telling her that like a year ago!”

Marco shrugged his shoulders. “Things change, stuff happens, we all mess up sometimes. Don’t beat yourself up about it too much.”

“I know, I know, it’s just… all this holiday stuff, all this reminiscing and being thankful for what you have and all this celebrating traditions from Mewni got me thinking about a lot. Stump Day, and my birthday, and princesses…” she paused for a moment, steadying her breathing. “...and you.”

His eyes widened a fraction. “Me?”

“You.” Star untangled her hand from his and brought both to her face, grounding the bases of her palms into her shut eyes to try and plug up any waterworks that she could feel working their way up towards the surface. “Stump Day just made me think of last year, and all the fighting and drama, and that made me think of all the other stuff, and… euuurgh,” she moaned.

“Star, it’s OK-”

“No it’s not,” she whimpered, not being able to stop the tears from dripping down her face this time.

“Woah, woah, Star…” he sat up, visibly scared for her, and pulled her up with him, but her body language was unyieldingly feeble as she shied away from his touch. “Just talk to me, OK? None of that was your fault.”

“Maybe…” she folded her arms and crossed her legs, leaning back against the merlons mulling over her words. “In the barn, you told me you felt like that since the beginning. And I know you didn’t, like, mean that you were head over heels in love with me while you were showing me around school or anything, but… I get it because I was the same way.” Once the words started, the pace quickly swelled until she couldn’t help but pour her heart out. “I pushed it aside, convinced myself it wasn’t there, ignored it when it was staring me in the face, and ate up the whole Curse thing like the cheapest, crummiest street corn. But looking back on it, that whole year on Mewni… it never went away then either. I was just too blind to realize what those feelings meant until it was almost too late. That’s what- that’s what I just wanted to forget.”

An arm bumped up against hers, and in her peripheral vision she saw him standing next to her, looking off the balcony into the distance. “It always feels better when you talk about it,” he offered meekly. How many times had she been the one trying to pry the truth out of him? Now that the roles were reversed, she fully understood why it had always been so hard. “What do your guts feel like?”

“Just one giant bleeeeergh,” she garbled, sticking her tongue out for emphasis.

“Well, you did have four glasses of cornnog.”

She smiled wistfully, staring down at her feet. “Touché, Diaz.”

The cool breeze whistling through the nooks and crannies of the temple was the only sound around them for a minute until he began again. “I won’t lie to you, Star… it stunk sometimes. It wasn’t always fun, sometimes it hurt. My feelings for you felt like an obstacle for so long…” In her mind’s eye, she could picture it all too clearly: wheeling on him, grabbing his arms and apologizing with rivers running down her cheeks to show him what he meant to her. But he cut that off only a beat later. “But I don’t regret a single day, because they were still with you.”

Now she whipped around to face him, looking incredulously at his calm form hanging over the top of the stone. “Wha-”

“All that time I spent trying to shove away or ignore how I felt, it- it still meant something to me. I wouldn’t trade any moment where I loved you for anything, even when it hurt, even if you were with someone else, or, heck, even if I didn’t think it was love. Doesn’t matter.” He sniffled briefly, wiping his face with his arm, and finally turned to face her. The glossy trembling she’d expected to find wasn’t there, instead she only found a fiery resolve. “C’mon, let’s go inside.” She barely remembered to grab her pillow before his firm grip pulled her back into their bedroom. Star wasn’t sure how he could be so calm about all of this. Some nagging, self-loathing voice in the back of her mind told her this had been eating away at him too, that he was just trying to spare her feelings, that she’d been the one to screw up by taking too long to tell him she loved him, but it was dulled by her curiosity at his actions. He shuffled under the bed, rummaging around until he pulled out a long, thin box with baby blue wrapping paper and pink hearts all over it.

“Marco?”

“It’s your birthday present! I- I was going to give it to you tomorrow, but I think now is better.”

They both sat down on the edge of the bed. Star glared at him suspiciously, inelegantly removing the bow and wrapping paper to find a thick velvety fabric. She started to pull it out and it unfolded itself many times, quickly sagging to the floor as she held it up. The water built up on her eyelids once more, steadily beginning to pour out as she beheld the sight in front of her.

He scooted beside her, wrapping one arm around her midsection. “I, um, hadn’t realized all this stuff was getting you down this much or I wouldn’t have-”

She shut him up with a passionate kiss, weaving her fingers through his hair as the heat of the moment stretched on. Their foreheads stayed together when they finally separated, both panting for a moment as Star tried to recover from the tongue-tiedness. “Marco, you absolute dork,” she said breathily with her lips grinning as widely as the could. “I love it.”

Both their heads turned back towards the blanket as they each used one hand to hold it up. It was a beautiful tapestry of moments from their entire relationship, from beginning until at least one thing Star could pinpoint as only happening a few weeks ago. Her spare hand caressed the fabric, adoring each and every detail. “The day we met, that day you froze time for sixty hours, the Blood Moon Ball,” he pointed out one by one. “Our first kiss… in the booth. When I found you before you killed Toffee. Right before we went to destroy the magic. This is us, Star. I- I don’t want to pretend that this stuff didn’t happen even if it wasn’t always fun, because then it wouldn’t be what made you special to me. And also, our old Friendship-Thursday-slash-Thursdate blanket was getting nasty. It smelled like month-old nacho cheese even after Lavabo washed it,” he shuddered. “So now, every time we’re snuggled up together, we can remember everything that got us to this point, and- and I left some blank spots for more patches later, because I want to look forward to the future too.”

“This is way better than any of my dumb ideas from earlier today,” she chuckled, wiping the tears and snot from her face. “Maybe that’s what ‘Christumpmasday’ should be about. The past coming together and making something new and exciting without giving up what led to it.”

“...except for the actual evil Stump demon thing. We might still be better off without it.”

“Definitely.” Both sported a cheeky grin.

“Oh, and by the way, Star?”

“Hmm?”

His lips suddenly were on hers once more, catching her off guard for a moment before she reciprocated. He swung her around, hugging her body tightly onto his, setting her nerves ablaze and causing all the hairs on the back of her neck to tingle. She adjusted her legs and pushed him back down into the pillows, landing on top of him without breaking the kiss, both hungry for more of the other. When the moment finally ended, she propped herself up on her elbows, fingers toying with his silky hair as she gazed down at the love of her life. When his eyes left hers, she followed them to the clock on her nightstand. 12:06 AM. “Happy birthday, Star,” he grinned before pecking her on the cheek.

A warmth like no other spread from Star’s chest through the rest of her body when she curled into him, needing more than anything to hold him tight tonight. Her legs tangled themselves into his as her head found purchase on his chest. “I love you so much, Marco. I don’t think I tell you that enough.”

“Same. Love you so much too, Star.”

He tucked the blanket tighter around both of them and held her as closely as he could until sleep claimed him. Star planted one last languid smooch on his jawline, nuzzling her cheek into him hard enough that it squished against his body before she too drifted off, snug in their bed, while visions of sugar-stumps danced in her head.

#starco #svtfoe #star vs the forces of evil #moonriver #tgg svtfoe #fanfic

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gamechangeroo · 4 years

Text

Part 2/3

Click for Part 1/3

Or read ahead for Part 2, which is Chapter 1, because Part 1 was the Prologue. I acknowledge the pointless confusion.

Chapter 1: Should You Buy a New Moral Compass When the Magnetic Poles Switch?

It had been two weeks since Gintoki had been ‘knighted,’ and in that time span he had gained five kilograms, Shinpachi had gained two, and Kagura had only gained one, because, despite the fact that she was eating as much of the food as all the other moochers combined, she was a monster alien girl that would never have to worry about love handles. Ignoring the limits of physics, her body morphed food into energy with a ferocity similar to what one would find in the center of stars.

That is to say, excluding that one weight loss episode, Kagura consistently had a very high metabolism.

It is perhaps a strange way to start a Gintama story where food can no longer be a concern or motivating plot point, because the Yorozuya team now had any and all of it that they could ever need. One might venture to say it is stranger still that the dawn of a Gintama story breaks over a horizon where rent was also not a concern. Yet, by this time in the plot Gintoki had already convinced Otose to take their rent as an anytime, all-you-can-eat ticket to the Foryunthustoriphyxnarfyndalvnuduraqiualinoytfusian Embassy. With these two very large issues removed from the playing field, was there any motivation for Gintoki, Kagura, or Shinpachi to do anything? Would there be any growth or motion besides the outward growth of our heroes’ stomachs?!

Gintoki supplied his answer in a large, drawn-out belch, and lazily rubbed his newly accumulated belly fat. From his spot draped over one of the embassy settees he motioned vaguely to the other side of the room.

“Oi, Patsuan. Go buy me this week’s Jump!,” Gintoki managed to mumble through his food coma. As he moved his lips, a piece of beef that had been stuck to them slipped into his mouth. He chewed on it contentedly.

Kagura burped in response. “Shinpachi left hours ago, and I don’t think it was to buy Jump!.”

Cracking open his eyes for the first time since this chapter began, Gintoki peered around the banquet hall languidly. Shinpachi was indeed gone, and Kagura was still munching away at her place at the table as the Foryunthustoriphyxnarfyndalvnuduraqiualinoytfusian kitchen staff shimmered, glistened, and replaced plates here and there.

“He said if he stayed around here any longer,” Kagura continued, “he’d turn into a good-for-nothing deadbeat.”

“Hey, there’s nothing wrong with Hasegawa,” Gintoki defended his friend absentmindedly.

“Nobody was talking about me, Gin-san!” Hasegawa spoke up, mildly indignant. He sat across the table from Kagura, doing his best to keep on mooching on this food train, and, incidentally, had gained about 10 kilograms himself.

Ignoring the interjection, Gintoki suggested, “Why don’t you follow Shinpachi’s lead, Kagura-chan? Go out and see how the world has grown over the last two weeks. I’ve heard they changed the color palette, and the sky is turning from blue to brown.”

“Who cares about factory smog when I have factory-processed sausage right here?” Kagura asked, leisurely waving a link at Gintoki. “Go find your Jump! lackey somewhere else.”

Running his fingers through his perm in aggravation, Gintoki grumbled and debated the merits of standing up and walking to the convenience store, versus lying around and doing more nothing. Nothing really was very appealing.

However, after two weeks of nothing, its time had finally run out. It was at this moment that a Presence slid firmly into Gintoki’s brain. He blinked twice and shook his head wildly in an attempt to dislodge whatever it was from his mind and thoughts. He then whacked one ear, hoping it would pop out the other. Undeterred, the Presence poked around his mind with a sharp, callous intensity that was, frankly, incredibly annoying. It was bit like when customers come into clothing stores, throw the neatly hung up clothes carelessly off the racks, and expect the shopkeep to clean up after them without thought or concern.

To make matters worse, the Presence paused and encircled his thoughts about how walking to the convenience store to buy this week’s Jump! was too much effort. It hung there in silence, totally judging him.

“You don’t know my life!” He roared. “Get out, you asshole!”

At this, a huge darkness fell over the hall. Actually, it wasn’t the whole hall, there was just someone looming over Gintoki. Yup, it sort of looked like Kagura when she was about to go in for the kill. He paled considerably as he realized what was about to happen.

“Uh, wait, K-k-kagura-ch-chan,” he flailed. “That wasn’t… I wasn’t talking to you. I was talking to the thing in my head. Something’s in my head and judging me, so I told it to get out. I would never tell you to get out!”

Kagura halted her fist a mere hairsbreadth from Gintoki’s nose. She tilted her head to the side menacingly. Gintoki took that as an excuse to keep going.

“You… you see. All of a sudden, it just popped in there, and was looking down on me for not buying my own Jump!, which isn’t right at all! A man should have peace of mind in his own mind!”

“Not quite,” Hasegawa said through a mouthful of rice, with a small, jaded laugh. “When boys become men, even their minds have no peace.”

Kagura drew back her fist and stared quizzically at Gintoki. “Gin-chan is growing up?”

“He just grew a conscience, Kagura-san,” Hasegawa amended. “It means he can’t do anything fun anymore without feeling terrible about it.”

At this, Kagura’s face scrunched in concern, and she shook Gintoki wildly by the shoulders. “Is it true, Gin-chan?! Are you not going to come home drunk in the middle of the night anymore smelling of the scummiest parts of town?! Who will play midnight games of Five Finger Fillet with me now?”

In light of this new information, Gintoki blanched. What in the hell had Kagura been doing to him after he had blacked out on those nights?! Maybe a conscience could come in handy in having a heart to heart with Kagura about not playing evil night games with inebriated victims, but this new intruder stomping around in his head wasn’t a conscience.

“Stop putting stupid ideas in her head, Hasegawa,” Gintoki retorted. “The plot of my series is all about how I have a great conscience that orphaned children and crying women exploit to get me to save the day occasionally. It’s heartwarming, and people love it! I can’t grow what I’ve already got!”

“You’ve got it all wrong, Gin-san,” Hasegawa opined. “There are two types of consciences. The first type is the one you’ve always had: a hero’s conscience. That’s what gets Mario to save Princess Peach from Bowser all the time.

“The second type is a geezer’s conscience. That’s what makes Mario collect enough coins to pay for multiple life insurance policies, so his family knows they will be taken care of after he’s run into one too many Goombas. It’s an adult sense of responsibility, as the demands of society slowly crush his idealism and spirit.”

“Mario is such a caring hero!” Kagura enthused, spraying tofu in Hasegawa’s direction, as she settled herself back into her chair at the banquet table.

“Well, that depends on the player,” Hasegawa said with a knowing smile, and Kagura’s mouth shaped an ‘o’ of acknowledgment. A conversation about geezer consciences is where a Madao shines, after all.

“As for our Gin-san,” he continued, “his Player 1 has skipped all the coins on each level for so long that he doesn’t know what to do now that Player 1 is aiming for the life insurance policies.”

“Stop making profound statements using Mario!” Gintoki snapped. “And I am still skipping all my coins! I just head straight to Bowser, oi!”

Hasegawa just hmmed knowingly. The bastard. Look at him acting all high and mighty, while eating someone else’s food. What a terrible houseguest, who was stupid and wrong. Gintoki was the last person who would develop a geezer conscience. If there was another invasion of Earth where geezer consciences were aiming to occupy the heads of every human around, Gintoki would be once again on the front lines, but, instead of fighting Amanto, he would be fighting against the importance of mortgages and steady jobs.

“If you’re so sure, why don’t you ask your geezer conscience what it thinks of life insurance policies?” Hasegawa asked in challenge.

Gintoki narrowed his eyes, and dug into the side of the settee cushion to find a fork he had left there. He pointed it menacingly at Hasegawa. “It’s not a geezer conscience.”

“I bet it is,” Kagura chimed in again. “Or, if it isn’t, maybe it’s a brain parasite.”

Gintoki froze, a cold sweat sticking to his neck. He had not thought of that possibility. Could something have crawled into his head, and was now sucking away?! He did yank out a particularly big, green booger yesterday. Was that parasite poop?!

Though, come to think of it, he had not felt the Presence snooping around for a while. Maybe! Maybe it was gone! Maybe it leaked out somewhere! He focused his mind inward, poking around his own thoughts, and anxiously checking for any mental hitchhikers, while he dug around in his nose for any physical ones.

Just as he was about to breathe a sigh of relief, he found it. That thing. The parasite. It was there right in the back of his mind, at the bottom of his thoughts. It was just curled up in a deep mental corner, not really interacting with his head, but also definitely not out of it.

That’s it. Poor Gin-san was going to end up a drooling, brain-dead vegetable.

“Um. Hello. Excuse me,” he thought at it.

At his word-thoughts, the thing that was probably just about ready to suck his mind out through a straw stirred and came to life in his head. Gintoki could just tell somehow. It was more ‘there’ than it had been, even though it was not swirling all around his thoughts like it first had done. It was… to put it to words… paying attention.

“I was just, um, passing by in my head,” he thought as casually as he possibly could. “And I noticed you there doing your thing, and I was-I was wondering if you thought I should get a life insurance policy?”

His brain-parasite-death-machine appeared to consider the question, and he could tell the moment it seemed to scoff. It then pushed at Gintoki’s mind with a small pressure, which popped into his brain as a mental image. There stood Kagura and Shinpachi inheriting gambling debts and bar tabs from a dead Gintoki.

At this, Gintoki mentally laughed in borderline hysteria. “You’re right!” He thought shrilly. “The best I could do for those two brats is leave them as little as possible to clean up! How perceptive of you!!”

Catching his unstable tone, the cerebral terror seemed ready to push another image-thought at him, but Gintoki had had enough. He ran quickly from the depths of his own mind, resurfacing at the embassy with a heavy gasp.

Kagura and Hasegawa stared at him from the table.

“Gin-chan,” Kagura’s voice was uncertain, “are you-”

“I think I’m going to go out and get my Jump! after all!” Gintoki interrupted. “I just remembered the cliffhanger that happened last week. I need to know if Karbo was able to escape from Tommy’s Trial!”

He sped out of the room and zoomed out of the embassy before anyone could question him further. It was time to go to the hospital. They removed brain parasites right?

Gintoki asked this question at the front desk of the nearest emergency room. The nurses backed away and whispered to each other, as they stared at the bedraggled, permy man with a parasite in his brain. Patients in the waiting room made a dash for the exit, which was certainly the right move, as far as Gintoki was concerned. Who would want to stay in a room with a brain-sucking bug?! What if it multiplied and infected everyone?! What if the devil-bug made poor, innocent Gin-san go on a murdering spree?!

Gintoki asked these questions to the tired looking, old doctor who scanned his brain with this and that machine, and occasionally rubbed her chin hairs. After an hour of poking and prodding, the woman proclaimed him parasite-free, and threw him a bottle of pills to ‘make the voices go away.’

The fretful samurai wandered down the streets of Kabukicho in a near-delirious haze of nerves and fear. If the doctors could not find anything in his brain then what was this Thing?! Was it a parasite so crafty that even old doctors with notable amounts of chin hair could not spot it, or was it something else entirely? Should he actually be taking these pills? Was it too late to get a life insurance policy?

Gintoki asked these questions to the barkeep, as he downed his third and fourth beers. He just knew the solution to all of this was waiting at the bottom of one of these glasses, or he could just get drunk enough so that none of it really mattered, waking up the next morning missing a couple digits from an inebriated attempt at Five Finger Fillet a la Kagura.

By his eighth beer, he had enough liquid courage to sink back into his own head and once again confront the beast within.

“Oi,” he thought-yelled. “Bastard!”

The parasite-horror, which had been keeping to itself without any direct interaction from Gintoki, rose up. It pushed back defensively against his anger, as if to say ‘What’s your problem, asshole?’

“You can’t just set up camp in someone’s head when you feel like it! Get the hell out!”

The eldritch monster seemed confused at the accusation. It wobbled about, and poked at the surface of Gintoki’s thoughts. Finally, it pushed an image of its own toward him. The scene popped into his head as him leaving the bar and going home to bed.

“There are enough bouncers in real life, without you acting as one in my head you… you! Whatever you are. What gives you the right to tell me to go to bed when you’re probably just going to suck out my brain when I sleep, huuuh?”

Gintoki’s parasite seemed even more flummoxed by these words. It swirled to and fro, attaching to thought after thought running through Gintoki’s mind until it finally settled around Gintoki’s suspicions about itself. As it realized that the mind it was squatting in thought it to be a parasite, the parasite had the nerve to get extremely exasperated. It roughly pushed an image toward Gintoki, which he mentally squinted at crankily.

There was a yellow book with a weird pair of brown, long somethings on the cover playing with a beach ball. There were too many limbs for just two creatures, and was that a lightsaber?

A moment of heavy silence descended in Gintoki’s mind.

Seconds passed, until another image was furiously flung into his noggin. This time, it showed himself reading that yellow book, a look of dawning comprehension spreading across his features, as his scanned the words.

“So you’re telling me if I read this book about Jar Jar Bink’s summer vacation, you shitting on my brain will make sense?” Gintoki asked, starting to wonder if he had actually had a little too much to drink.

In response, his head-creature slapped another snapshot of the book at his mind’s eye with an aura of supreme pissed-offedness.

“Fine!” he shouted, fiercely ignoring the bartender pleading with him to stop making a scene all by himself. “I get it. Everything will be fine if I flip through this book! I’ll go do that immediately, Grand Supreme Parasite-sama! Post haste!”

…

“So you see,” Gintoki explained to the cashier at the 24 hour convenience store, as the night neared the 24th hour, “I need a yellow book with things playing with a beach ball on the front cover.”

The parasite was writhing in anger and exasperation. It punched an image of a convenience store with a red X through it toward Gintoki.

“Now, now, parasite-kun,” Gintoki mentally chided. “Have a little faith in the host you are munching on. A convenience store doesn’t always have the book you come in looking for, but it will, without fail, be carrying the one you need.”

As he thought this, the convenience store worker slid a yellow, cellophane-wrapped magazine toward him across the counter. On the cover was a beach ball being tossed back and forth between two fit bikini girls.

The parasite was reduced to a black mass of vibrating fury.

“I’m giving you a chance here and following your advice, so you should give me one too,” Gintoki addressed his mental guest with relative cheer, as he paid for the magazine. “Let’s see if I can achieve enlightenment through these pages, just like you wanted.”

Gintoki was humming to himself, happily swinging the bag that held his magazine to and fro, as he stepped toward the exit. This whole parasite thing did not seem like such a terrible ordeal with some alcohol in his gut and a dirty mag in his hand. The weird creature seemed like a bit of a prude anyway, considering the way it reacted to Gintoki’s new beach friends. Maybe he could scare it off with a little good old fashioned debauchery. Let it be known to the brain hijackers of the world that Gin-san’s noggin was not a hospitable place! He never cleaned it, and there were mysterious stains and smells everywhere!

As if at that very moment smelling something it should not have, the enraged presence in the back of his mind rumbled ominously. Gintoki simply sneered, thinking to himself the phrase ‘Just desserts.’

Lost in thought, he bumped into two masked men at the entrance to the store. One of them growled and pointed a sword at his face. The other one growled and pointed a sword in the face of the poor cashier, who immediately crumpled to the ground in the fetal position.

“Get up and give us all your money!” Robber #1 demanded of the trembling employee.

Gintoki sighed and shook his head. “You know, I’m really not in the mood for this.”

“We could not care less,” Robber #2 grunted. “Your wallet. Now.”

“Well, I just spent the last of my money on this great magazine. It gets the best reviews from alien brainsuckers. I was looking forward to reading it, but you can have it if it means that much to you.”

Gintoki threw the bag with his magazine in the face of the robber holding him at swordpoint. In this moment of confusion, he swept a leg underneath the man to send him careening forward, and slammed an elbow into the side of his head as he fell to knock him out cold.

Moving quickly, he drew his wooden sword, preparing to smash the sword out of the other robber’s hand, leaving him with no way to attack the cashier in retaliation. However, his hand’s connection with his weapon caused the parasite’s connection with his mind to flare brightly in response. The angered creature flew to the front of his mind, energized and alive, just as Gintoki swung Lake Touya down. All of a sudden, Gintoki lost track of where he ended, and the Other in his mind began – or, rather, there was no Other.

With a savage intensity that was his own, yet More, he cleaved through the robber’s sword, as his wooden blade erupted in a blast of white light that filled the store. The automatic door at the front of the building opened with a ding, providing an exit for nothing particularly corporeal.

Slowly, gradually, the large mass of light faded, and thick, sizzling tendrils of smoke took its place. Apparently, Gintoki had not only chopped the robber’s sword in half, but he had also burned a deep line through the wall of the store in the direction his wooden sword had been pointing for the cut. He could see cleaved electrical wires and singed ventilation. Following the line of his cut further down, there was a severe, charred groove in the linoleum floor, looking to be about half of a yard deep. The cut traveled along the ground, ending near Gintoki’s feet, where his wooden, infomercial-cheap sword pointed after its swing.

Um. What?

As he continued to gape at the wall, the conscious robber and shivering cashier screamed and scrambled out the door. As he continued to continue to gape at the wall, the sprinkler and alarm system both went off.

Rain dripping down his curls and squelching beneath his boots, he slowly walked toward the remaining robber passed out face-down near the front of the store. He stared at the man in the black ski mask for a few moments, before kicking him on his side and gingerly placing his smoking sword down in the slack grip of the man’s right hand. Rising, he looked ever-so-casually around, scanning the aisles of the store, and, seeing no one, began to walk toward the exit.

He was almost at the automatic doors before he turned around and quickly made his way back to the man. Gintoki crouched down and grabbed the bag with his magazine inside that he had thrown only moments before, and, with it in hand, he upped his pace, exiting the store with as much innocence as a soaked man fleeing a smoking convenience store at midnight could muster. Out on the street, he sprinted down the first alleyway he could find, disappearing into the night.

#gintamafanfic #Foryunthustoriphyxnarfyndalvnuduraqiualinoytfusian #incomplete

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lepussolum · 4 years

Text

@fabulumn (ft. Verona) ━ starter.

𝙰 𝚟𝚊𝚜𝚝 𝚜𝚎𝚊 𝚘𝚏 𝚎𝚋𝚘𝚗𝚢 𝚊𝚗𝚍 𝚒𝚟𝚘𝚛𝚢 𝚕𝚊𝚢 𝚜𝚝𝚒𝚕𝚕 ━ hush ━ as though the calm before the storm. Uniform soldiers that awaited their orders; the black and white ranks stood at the ready. Reverently raised mere inches above the intricately placed keys, two hands remained poised for their performance. The air about the small apartment room seemed to vibrate with quiet anticipation, though a single note had yet to be played. Within that all-encompassing silence only the gentle release of breath permeated the air. A sigh nigh imperceptible were it not for the otherwise vacant state of the tiny rec room. The space itself was sparsely decorated, walls painted a pristine white that seemed perpetually spattered in fiery hues from the sky beyond the far windows. A few boxes were scattered to corners here and there, the tell-tale signs of one recently moved ━ or perhaps merely reluctant to settle down out of fear of IMPERMANENCE .

Solitary, a grand piano sat as the only fixture of furniture within the room. Glossy black hardwood reflected the perpetual sunset beyond the glass panes; an indefinitely fading light which seeped through sets of sheer drapery. The gauzy fabrics rippled in the subtle breeze that crept through the open windows which they framed. Almost teasingly, the gust drifted about to bristle past sapphire locks and set them in a playful dance about the figure to which they accompanied. Perched upon the cushioned seat, he allowed the solemn presence of the space to fill him ━ to inspire. It was a fragile sense of peace, a fleeting daydream that could shatter with the slightest disturbance. His fingers flexed, eager to take their rightful place up the keys that stretched within his reach.

An nearly picturesque setting lay before those oceanic eyes ━ begging to be accompanied with a MELODY.

There was a sort of hesitancy as a single finger fell upon an alabaster key. The note rang through the air, familiar to the ear despite years out of practice. Another followed, and soon yet another until a slow and steady song filled the void. Reminiscent, yet not quite right.

Perhaps I’ve truly lost my touch...

The melancholic thought echoed through the confines of the former Nobody’s mind. Though the simple tune stirred memories of a life before the DARKNESS, Isa could not quite find the flourish he was once accustomed to. Logic told him years of neglecting to further nurture his hobby left him rusty, but paranoia spoke otherwise. Could one lose their previous talents upon having their heart torn away? Music had always been a source of solace for him, a sanctuary for the emotions he otherwise keeps carefully tucked away. Upon his restoration, Isa had been determined to make the acquisition of a piano a top priority. Now that his goal had been achieved, the diviner found himself somewhat disappointed to see just how far his skills had faded. Memory replayed old arrangements within his head, yet his fingers felt almost stiff in their response.

Feathery lashes fell to grace his fine cheeks as Isa merely allowed muscle memory to take control. Lengthy digits lightly ran across the line of keys without a sound, blindly becoming reacquainted through touch alone. Like old friends, he could recognize each key’s unique placement ━ picture them within his mind’s eye. Yet, try though he might, his fingers refused to take their proper place in a timely manner for the chosen song. Each note fell forced, if not sour in its approach. Something Isa could not quite put a name to was missing and with each passing moment his frustration grew. After his umpteenth attempt an irritated huff bellowed from his nose, lips set in a tight grimace. In a display which lacked his usual decorum, Isa folded his arms upon the keyboard with an unceremonious plop. His head quickly followed to mask his features marred with annoyance behind a sheet of tousled azure tresses. The motion let out a jarring collection of notes as the key whined beneath the weight of his person. Though his ears rang in protest to the noise, Isa could hardly find the will to care beyond his otherwise preoccupied thoughts.

Could my heart have not...fully restored? Or are those lingering fragments of my past self hindering its development?

Years devoted to studying the workings of the heart within Organization XIII could not provide him with answers to his musings which he so desperately sought. The heart that now settled warmly inside his chest would flutter at the slightest emotion ━ a fledgling bird so eager to take flight. Isa could not recall having this degree of emotional volatility since his youth, thus, in a sense his heart remained juvenile as well. Unable to rest, perhaps that was why he could not connect to music through the same PASSION he once had as a child. Remnants of his life as a Nobody plagued his thoughts constantly to set that tender light in a blinding frenzy of emotion. A distinct lack of focus and overwhelming sense of doubt tainted the serenity he once found through music.

Mournfully, Isa lifted himself from his slouch upon his prized piano, gaze downcast to the silver pedals beneath his boots. On numerous occasions during his time within the Organization he would contemplate what life would be like with his heart restored. At first they were little more than trifle idealizations ━ impossible, no doubt, but a means to idle the hours away within The Castle That Never Was. Yet somewhere within those foolish musings a seed of optimism took root that refused to be trampled. Saix began to hope that the peaceful days in the Radiant Garden of his youth ━ before his apprenticeship, before Xehanort or Nobodies ━ would return. After all, this had been his primary goal with Lea from the start, alongside rescuing Subject X. Now, alone in his apartment tucked away in Twilight Town he knew that to be nothing more than a passing FANTASY.

Once something is truly lost, I suppose one can never see its return. At least not ever quite the same.

Gone was the bright-eyed boy of his early years ━ nose buried in a book and hands which danced across piano keys ━ who feigned reluctance to follow alongside his free-spirited friend. What had been revived was a man still haunted by the ghosts of his past, eagerly attempting to piece a life back together and find purpose once more. It was difficult to find the inspiration his music so desperately craved within that grim reality. Isa thought that in pursuit of some semblance of a stable life in Twilight Town he would find closure, yet here he remained: hesitant and wracked with doubt at his loss of self.

Tearing his gaze away from the floor below, Isa fixed his sights on the vibrant sunset that painted the sky beyond his tiny apartment. Tree-shrouded mountains spilled as far as the eye could see beneath the heavens. Weaving over the sloping terrain, one could see the thin rail of train tracks which carried a locomotive along its journey. The sight was certainly preferable to the sterile architecture and endless night that plagued his prior surroundings. Overhead, the brilliant palette that dappled the clouds helped to ease the storm within his heart. This was REALITY. Perhaps not quite what he had anticipated, but not unfavorable and certainly preferable to his life as a Nobody. A second chance that he now knew better than to waste.

As if of their own mind, a hand reached for the keys once more as his eyes remained fixed upon the world beyond his window. A simple arrangement of notes began to flow, no particular song in mind. It was an improvised melody to accompany the never-dying light of his new home world. Each note flowed without care of fumble or folly in an assortment that made sense of its own accord. It was not until Isa sought to delve into a harmony with his free hand that he finally withdrew his gaze from the window. However, before he could focus back on the instrument beneath his fingers, an unexpected presence vied for his attention. The appearance seemed so abrupt that Isa completely faltered in his performance, immediately halting his motions along the keys.

❝ Verona...? ❞

#*･ ‧͙ ☾ ᶜᵃᶜᵒᵉᵗʰᵉˢ ˢᶜʳᶦᵇᵉⁿᵈᶦ. — ᵖᵃʳᵃˢ ☽ ‧͙ ･*#*･ ‧͙ ☾ ⁿᵉᵐᵒ ᵐᵃˡᵘˢ ᶠᵉˡᶦˣ. — ᵉᵖᶦˡᵒᵍᵘᵉ ☽ ‧͙ ･*#fabulumn #//lemme know if there is anything to adjust bby #//this is so appropriate as the first starter of my return #//isa struggling to remember how to play #//as i struggle to get back into the flow of writing #//but heCK IT'S GOOD TO BE BACK #//all this music musing reminds me of demyx #//and then i lowkey remember i headcanon half the reason saix got annoyed with demyx #//was because he still had his music even as a nobody #//this turned out a lot more emo than i originally intended

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velvyy · 4 years

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Hey, Rad... Alex... Alexlememe? I know that's the name you used to go by and I know you've kinda disconnected yourself from Viv's fanbase after ZP ended, and I remember your memes and such but I kinda just wanted to get your take on the Hazbin drama since you reblogged the headcanon blog's post on the subject. More or less regarding the issue of her being uncharitable to fans and non-fans alike, plus that one callout post on twitter?

So this is weird. I wasn’t expecting to get asks on the subject since like you said, I’ve generally been disconnected from the fanbase aside from the few reblogs here and there retaining to Hazbin and its more recent developments. But yeah I guess I could give my take on this since I mean.. old fans still follow me. Idk why, but they do!So, really. In regards to that callout post (which is now deleted) I really, really don’t care that much. For one thing, Initially I did because I really hated to see someone be slandered so viciously with inaccurate and uncharitable attacks, but I kinda just stopped because even when I linked the addresses from both Viv, and the Ken dude regarding all the drama mentioned, it was either ignored and resulting in me being called a “pedo sympathizer” or “It wasn’t even an apologyyyyy weh” and like, whatever. I stopped giving a shit.

Terms of the traced animation thing... Lol, ok. I mean homages do exist, and her animation thingy was based on a meme so whatevs.

Anyways,I knew from the very start that the whole “tracing” and “stealing designs” stuff was nonsense since there was an entire like, tumblr drama arc on the issue, and albeit Viv’s post is gone, there’s evidence of legal contracts regarding Jiji and that whole nonsense that was years ago. In regards to her drawing pictures of Blaire White and Shoe… Eh. I mean, yeah, fuck em, but she’s made it clear that she doesn’t support those views anymore, and she wasn’t even really aware of the other things they’d done at that point, and I see no real reason not to believe her because what does lying about that gain her? Yeah her comment on the “blackface” thing if you wanna call it that was dumb as shit, but considering 2016 was a rough year for her in terms of trying to find where she fell in the political sphere, I can relate because I was in the same boat. A lot of sjw cringe comps, shaming feminists, and purposely misgendering transpeople… Not a good time for me either! Course I’ve changed. I went from being a reactionary alt-centrist to an anarchist so. Whether that’s an improvement is up to you.

As for the whole pedo/zoo shit, I really don’t see it. I mean like, look, obviously porn art portraying people fucking feral animals is disgusting right. Not saying it isn’t problematic or anything, but to be fair, she did draw this shit like 8 years ago. I’ve seen worse from even more well-established artists and I don’t see people trying to cancel them? Also, the art was suggestive for one thing and not necessarily 100% porn. I mean it’s still creepy and gross, and I’d understand scolding them if they continued to do so but a lot worse, but I haven’t seen anything like that from Viv past those 2 drawings. As for the pedo shit… The relationship between a 17 year old and a 19 year old is… hardly creepy and reminiscent of pedo shit. So yeah no fuck that. Now with the drawing of Mirage and Kestrel and the tag that said something jokingly like “Mirage and her pedo tendencies” or whatever… Yeah idk, I can’t defend that lmfao. Again, Viv said she disapproves of those drawings and doesn’t care to think about them, but that one piece of artwork definitely had some baggage to it that made me feel uncomfortable after reading the tags.Only issue I took in terms of her addressing that, is that she was very adamant about it being an inside joke… Which if that’s true, you must’ve had some fucked up friends like damn.

I would also like to state that cub art is legitimately disgusting and I am of the belief that it can cause harm depending on the context since I assume the consumption of cub art can reinforce the urge for pedophiles to act on their desires instead of finding healthy coping mechanisms for it through therapy. There have been stories from younger users on the internet that older people have tried to groom them and have the notion of pedos preying on them be normalized by sending them art depicting kids in sexual acts with adults. Of course in isolation cub art isn’t as harmful as the actual act of raping a child, and I would argue that people have their priorities kind of messed up since the illustration being acknowledged should be part of combating pedophiles preying on children. However, people, typically twitter wokescolds tend to focus on the art solely and I don’t know why. There’s a lot of MAPS trying to find their way into LGBT spaces and it’s fucking gross.

Now with Hazbin itself… It’s meh. Initially I watched it with rose-tinted glasses and loved it. After watching it for like… the 3rd, 4th, 5th time? It’s alright. I don’t hate it, but it’s far from perfect. Now ofc I know it’s a pilot but a very lengthy pilot I’ll say. My biggest gripe with the pilot is that the editing is really fucking weird. Like the editing where Angel tells Alastor “I can suck yah dick!” and the scene that followed was really off. It seemed like too many cuts were made in that instance and seemed very cluttered. It also feels that way during Charlie singing “Inside Every Demon is a Rainbow” and how many little animated bits were like almost wiped off the screen by how fast it came by, and ntm there was just so much happening all at once on screen as well. I had to pause at points just to process everything that was happening. The palette is also very, very, verrrry red. There’s so much red going on and like… I get it, it’s in hell. But lemme rest my eyes on something else besides red, please. The palette they use needs to be better diversified, and the same goes for the characters too. Every character seems to have red on them. Whenever Baxter shows up later he’s gonna look really out of place. Some of the jokes were ok, and others seemed non-clever. I didn’t think Angel’s joke about sucking Al’s dick was funny. I did like the joke with Pentious and Angel though. “SON??” Some of it could’ve been written better too.

Regarding the drama with the show itself… Personally I don’t get it. Like, I don’t feel as if Angel is homophobic as a character since his queerness isn’t at the face of the jokes he makes? He just happens to be sex worker which… sex workers are fine? Support sex workers y’all, seriously. There’s also nothing intrinsically wrong with being sexually active either? As long as it’s within reason and you’re being trustworthy.The issue lies in the fact that people viewed the things I just mentioned as negative, and associate it with gay people as said negatively portrayed thing to push the sentiment of “Gay man do sex a lot therefore the gays bad” or that sort of thing. Also there’s a bit where it shows there’s more emotional depth to him and I’m hoping they’ll expand on that later. Honestly though, the criticisms in regards to that have been pretty uncharitable. Same with the criticisms for Vaggie. Apparently Vaggie is racist because… she’s loud and angry? Again, this is a case where people assume those traits are negative, and because it’s assumed to be negative, the negatively portrayed thing pushes the sentiment of “Being a loud fiery woman made, and latina women are that, therefore latina women bad” or some shit. There are stereotypes that are bad no matter what the context is like sambo-esque caricatures of black people. Then there are tropes that are applied to certain demographics that have the capability to be written well into characters without it being offensive or disrespectful. Vaggie is literally angry because she’s protective of her gf. Like. C’mon.

So, I think that settles what I think about that? It honestly seems like superficial shit to me tbh, and I’m saying this as an sjw-y beta cuck anarchist.

The only REAL gripe I have, is with what the mod from @zpheadcanons posted. Because I know this is probably true as much as it hurts me to say it. Faust def has a history of being pretty petty and bully-like to people she deems undesirable, and Viv harbors it by not criticizing it, and if anyone else within their friend group does it then you’re scolded vehemently and treated like garbage. Her attitude also stretches to harboring an audience full of white knights that I personally don’t approve of.

There’s also this

Faust has hurt distant people I personally know and… yeah. Maybe I’m biased but I can’t vibe with that. Sorry. If you don’t make an effort to criticize abusive behavior within your own friend circles then that makes you just as bad, because then you’re just a bystander to things you could have prevented.

This isn’t to say Viv herself hasn’t dealt with bad faith actors, or people who had the intention to hurt her, or very uncharitable criticism. Particularly from the badwebcomics forums which is honestly 4chan like in how they operate. It’s vicious as hell, and a lot of their criticisms boil down to insults and personal attacks, which serve to be nonconstructive. That’s not to say Viv has been kind to even the more charitable criticism though. I know because when I happened to send an ask to the zoophobia criticism blog (where did it go???) regarding something relatively minor and superficial, she blocked me from her blog. I’m still blocked lmfao. I’m not blocked on twitter though! (not yet anyways). Faust has me blocked there though, and I have no idea why. She’s had me blocked for years even though I haven’t spoken out against her till recently. So, there’s that.

As for her apology itself, I feel like it was fine. I think it could’ve been worded better? The take I disagree with in terms of that is like… If I made a mistake in the past, and I make it clear that I don’t care for what I did, I don’t feel as if me explaining why I felt compelled to do certain things negate me from still not caring for my past actions? That’s just me providing context. That’s a really weird take, but I guess that could be viewed as an excuse idk. Personally I think people are holding the bar super high to a state of irrationality.

*sigh* So yeah there’s that. I miss the old days where honestly I could be ignorant about this, but at the same time I look at my old obsessive posts and I kinda just… cringe. I was such an irrational stan I almost hate myself for it. Fuck XD

Edit: I’d also like to point out that I’m not saying Viv or Faust are totally awful or totally good people, and I know they’re capable of being better. It’s a matter of whether or not they wanna be better.

#vivziepop #hazbin hotel

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mysticsparklewings · 4 years

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Sparkle By the Sea

Pardon me as I just barely squeeze a MerMay piece of art in. I'll be honest with you guys, I've been pretty lacking in artistic motivation since NaPoWriMo ended. Although if you've noticed my lack of uploads, you probably could've already guessed that. This isn't abnormal for the aftermath of a month-long challenge for me, especially with a brand-new video game calling my name at every moment of the day, but even so I feel like this particular motivation drought was a bit different. Part of it definitely had to do with the changes to DeviantArt that I'm sure I don't need to remind everyone of, but that's been more of me dreading seeing what the state of the community is than anything else. (However, I have noticed I'm not a fan of the new tag system over the old category one, as confusing as the category system could be sometimes.) Rather, I think this lake of motivation has more to do with the fact that being largely absent from all social media during NaPo reminded me...well, that I hate social media. This is really a bigger discussion for a journal or something, but suffice to say it did not feel good to realize just how many literal hours I had previously been spending trying to desperately to scrape up just a little bit of support on other social media platforms (namely Twitter), versus the more natural growth I see here on dA that also feels a lot more genuine and less forced/obligatory. I can't really explain it, but that reminder/realization really helped my brain slip back into a place where I felt like creating again. And with that, I'll transition into talking about the art and save the social media talk for, as I said, a journal or something later on. Naturally, I've been seeing a lot of mermaid art this month and every year I feel the urge to get in on the fun, though I know better than to try actually doing the MerMay Challenge (especially not this year after having just done NaPo), so I usually either do a one-off drawing or if I'm too busy with other projects I just skip it. But I was starting to feel that need to make art in my brain again and I've had a specific set of stickers from the dollar store sitting in my stash for quite a while now that more or less sealed the deal for me. How do these stickers fit into the mix? Well, I originally fell in love with/picked them up because they are mermaid-themed and absolutely adorable--See for yourself! And I thought they would make for nice decals in a book project since they're wall stickers and therefore repositionable with minimal adhesive-yuck. And at first, I thought maybe I'd end up making them into said hypothetical book project in time for MerMay...except that felt a little cheap in combination with my lack of uploads. Did I really want to come back with a book project featuring mermaids I didn't even draw? And for MerMay of all things? So I sat on the idea and left the stickers out where I could see them, and eventually I sat down and took a closer look at them. The art style, upon further inspection, actually didn't look like it would be too far outside my usual art-making realms...Most of the coloring looks a lot like watercolor, except for the skin which I thought was flat and smooth like alcohol marker and the glitter accents which from my perspective pretty much had to be digital, but could potentially be replicated with glittery/metallic supplies... And that was the moment the idea hatched. I decided I'd try drawing a mermaid myself in the same style. This would work for MerMay, have something to do with the stickers, and based on my plans would work well for me as a mixed-media project, which as I'm sure I've said before is where I think my artistic talent shines best. I thought the scariest part was going to be replicating the looser and less strict line style, and to a point it was, but it wasn't nearly as bad as I thought it was going to be. I find it's usually kind of tricky to explain this, but really what this part of the process boils down to for me (if I'm replicating an existing style and not using my own), is really just studying the original artwork(s) and looking for patterns, then trying to stick to those patterns. For example, the style here features fairly large & rounded faces, and the hands are more like hand-shaped mittens (which was great news by the way because hands are always a pain in the butt for me), so I did my best to emulate those features. As per usual, I did start with a sketch, but I tried to keep it looser than usual, and then when I did the inking I started with my 0.2 Micron, again trying to keep things loose and no be too fussy if I could help it. Then I went back with a brush tip liner from Prismacolor to get more natural variation in the lines and to force myself to not have quite so much control over the line weight. I was also very careful with my choice of liners because I knew pretty much everything except the skin was going to see a lot of watercolors, which meant the lines had to be waterproof. And of course, I went with watercolor paper (my nice 100% cotton stuff this time) to make sure I didn't have any issues with blending or layering. Now, at this stage, I didn't know what I was going to do for the background, though I was leaning towards the idea of making one separately and placing the mermaid on top afterward, as sort of a nod to the original mermaids being stickers. But I wasn't totally sure yet. What I was sure of was how scared I was to just dive into coloring. The sketching and inking and gone so well I was thinking I was in for a rude awakening at any moment. So, just in case, I scanned my uncolored lines as a fall-back if I royally screwed up. With my paranoid mind set at ease (for the most part), I could begin with color application. I started with the skin since it was the easiest; Just one good layer of alcohol marker, leaving a little white space here and there like the artwork I was emulating. Although 1. The marker color turned out a bit darker than I was expecting and later blended too well with her tail, so I had to lighten it in Photoshop, and 2. because watercolor paper really soaks up the ink, I ended up with less white space than I thought I would. But beyond that, this step went off without a hitch. So then came the second-scariest part: The watercolor. I used a mixture of my Master's Touch watercolors and Mermaid Markers (yes, that was a very conscious supply choice ) and tried to take my time and be mindful of the color balance I was looking for. I'd decided ahead of time that I wanted to try and stick with a soft-ish palette like the original art, but I still wanted my choices to be different. Since yellow/gold is featured in the original but not used for a tail color, that's what I went with, and I opted for the blue-y-purple hair since a soft blue and purple are also prominent in the original and based on color-theory would be a nice contrast to the gold-orange tail. Though I did also try to get some pink in both the tail and the hair for a bit of unity and calling back to the pink in the original art. The trickiest part with the coloring was actually the tiny lips and blush spots. I ended up using a fluorescent pink for that turned out as more of a red originally and had to be touched-up via Photoshop because of that and also because of the lightening I did to the skin. It's more that it was a bit of a challenge to get the shapes of these much smaller areas right and in the correct place, since I had to use very minimal pencil markings, lest I end up with nasty graphite marks mixed into the paint. Getting the hair to be dark enough without being extreme compared to the rest of the drawing was also a great test of patience, but it ultimately worked out, I think. I also had a hard time deciding what color the piece of coral in her hair should be, which is why it ended up as this vague dusky-orange color. And I got more pink on the sand dollar next to it than I intended, but neither of those things is a huge deal. While I waited for all that to dry though, I had to decide how I was going to go about tackling all that extreme sparkle the original art had. I could have just added it in digitally and not even attempted it traditionally, but everything else had gone so smoothly that I decided to push my luck this time. Originally, I started with just glittery gel pens, but I found pretty quickly that they were sinking back into the colors underneath them too much and thus just weren't doing what I wanted. I wanted high-impact sparkle. After some brief consideration, I turned to the metallic watercolor sets I have made by Art Philosophy, which are very high-impact metallic and pretty opaque, which would work well over my failed gel pen and would work wonders for the areas where I wanted that high-impact over an opposing color. (I.E. Where I wanted the blue sparkle over a very orange-yellow area, which would normally make brown mud if the color on top wasn't opaque.) The funny part about that is that I originally used a different shade of purple and gold for those areas of sparkle that I ended up completely covering with different shades (the purple needed to be lighter and the gold needed to be darker/more gold and less yellow). And her eye shadow cover saw all three colors before I settled; The purple just seemed wrong, and the gold blended too well with her skin. I thought the blue wouldn't work so close to her blue hair, but it actually ended up looking the best out of the three. Although, I do have to make a full disclosure that the high-impact sparkle you see here is in fact where I went in and re-did it digitally once I scanned the artwork in. Unfortunately, glitter and metallic supplies just don't scan very well and usually end up looking too dark, dull, or flat by comparison. The metallic paints work just fine in person since you can move the art and see how they reflect the light, but it just doesn't work in a still image that's been captured by having a bright light uniformly shined over it. Still, re-tooling the sparkle digitally ended up being an interesting challenge, especially since it's been a fairly long time since I was messing with digital textures like this. Also worth noting is that I had to re-paint some of the metallic areas because they weirdly lifted off onto the plastic cover I used to protect the art when I pressed it onto the background to make the glue stick. I'm not sure if it's because those were the extra-layered areas and they hadn't fully dried all the way down to the paper, or if that particularly plastic just picks up this metallic paint really easily or what. And speaking of that background... Like I said earlier, I wasn't really sure what I wanted to do for a background for a while, but after reviewing my mermaid-centric Pinterest board I decided a simple rock seat and something to vaguely suggest the ocean/water without getting too detailed would suffice just fine. Based on that, I felt like using gouache would work nicely (and I just really felt like using the gouache since I don't find a lot of opportunities to use it) and that a color scheme that flipped her hair and tail colors would be best for the effect I wanted. I've found I really like the Strathmore 400 series mixed media paper for gouache because of how smooth it is, so I cut a piece down to size and got busy. For the most part, I just kind of went in with the colors doing whatever felt right, and trying to use some gouache I'd already mixed from past projects (since gouache can be reactivated and I've found this kind, in particular, seems to reactivate really nicely) either on their own or to mix the colors I felt like I needed. And I also tried to do a lot of blending straight on the paper to get more variations in color and make things a bit more lively. Oddly enough, this ended up being a good example of gouache's covering power because I accidentally started applying the colors upside down--using more greens and blues on top and more pinky-purple on the bottom--and not only had to flip the paper around but also had to do a fair amount of covering the colors I'd already put down with colors you don't really want to mix with them because they don't make very pretty results. But it worked out just fine, so yay! I also added some clouds for a little extra ambiance, which I think looks quite nice. Believe it or not, the most difficult thing about the background was the rocks. I spent far longer than I care to admit (or bothered to document, for that matter) trying and in many ways failing to mix the proper shades of gray I wanted, and the end result didn't turn out quite as clean and graphic as I had hoped, but by the time I put the mermaid on top, you really can't tell because you can only see a fraction of what's actually there. And I mean, the end result isn't terrible, it's just not quite what I was picturing in my mind's eye is all. Personally, I know it's kind of an odd choice, but I really like how there's no defining line between the water and the sky, and yet you still get a clear idea that they're separate and the rocks aren't just floating in space. I'm not sure how, but I think I'd like to work with this kind of ambiguity more often. It's like a step between abstract and more structured art. Anyway. With the background done, the next step was to attach the mermaid, which I felt like doing in a more 3D and less flat manner, so I chopped up a cardboard box that previously held a chocolate bunny I had on hand and glued some pieces together to boost the mermaid up a bit. This where those deep shadows between her and the background are coming from. Here I feel the need to insert a comment about how difficult it was to get my tacky glue to dispense the glue for me, though there's a chance this is because I need to poke the opening in the tip to be a bit wider. (You have to poke it open yourself and I always felt like I never did get it open quite enough...unless you like strenuous hand exercises...) Of course, once all the above was done then I had to scan the art in, which I was admittedly a bit nervous about after the incident with the plastic cover peeling off the metallic paint (though fortunately, the scanner glass didn't have the same effect), and then all that was left wad the digital retouches. Overall, I'm really happy with how this turned out. It doesn't blend in as well as I originally wanted it to with the original art, but in the end, that doesn't really bother me. It's just a nice piece of art on its own that is also unique from what I normally do...except it's still got a lot of similar elements to how I normally make art. It feels a lot like the days when all I made was fanart. The key difference here is that I know myself better as an artist now and thus can use that knowledge to my advantage. I can't promise this a return to regular posting for me, though I do hope it's a gateway to me posting more frequently at least, but I can say I do intend on getting back to working on art more often and therefore being more present online again. At the very least, I can happily tell you guys that I have a couple of new art supplies en route to me that I've been wanting for a while and am excited to share with you once they arrive. If nothing else, we at least have that to look forward to! ____ Artwork © me, MysticSparkleWings ____ Where to find me & my artwork: My Website | Commission Info + Prices | Ko-Fi | dA Print Shop | RedBubble | Twitter | Tumblr | Instagram

#mermay

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demaury · 5 years

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Some kind of mistake (cha. 2)

Ever since Eliott first came across the new resident of the apartment 320, he made peace with the fact that Lucas ‘Big Blue Eyes’ Lallemant would, one way or another, turn his life upside down. Thing is, he hadn’t expected that Lucas’ wife and Lucas’ daughter would play a part in it. Because, you know, he didn’t know they existed until it was too late. (ao3 link)

Eliott wasn’t a morning person generally speaking, mostly because his daily schedule included more often than not coming back home past two in the morning and sleeping off until noon, but he had at least assumed that all the noises he had been hearing since Saturday would stop on Monday morning. Because, you know, as Sofiane said, not everyone had a job like his.

Well, he was wrong. On Monday morning, it was yet another string of loud noises that woke him up, growing louder and louder as they pulled Eliott out of his heavy slumber a little bit more each time, until a final metallic thud resonated like a shotgun through the overall quiet building.

He bolted out of sleep, head spinning a little as he tried for a few seconds to gather what the hell was happening, where he was, what day they were and if, somehow, he could get his heart to start beating again without having to call an ambulance. His eyes kept fluttering from one corner of his room to the other as the thoughts streamed in.

The good news was that he was in his bedroom — alone, which was always a plus.

The bad news was that the clock on his nightstand read half past ten in the morning, and that technically, he was the one in the wrong, because technically, people were allowed to make noise at this hour.

He hated that.

Eliott dropped himself back onto his mattress with a sigh, rubbing his face with his hands, occasionally staring and blinking at the ceiling. Moving in wasn’t easy but apparently, Blue Eyes wasn’t the quiet type either — he knew he should have picked up on the name used on Saturday, but he just couldn’t remember, so Blue Eyes it was. So far, all he had heard from his new neighbor were yelled-out conversations during the entire duration of the weekend, in large part coming from his too loud friends, and the incessant come-and-go and rattling noises of someone settling in. Not much to make an opinion, one would say, but the other people living in their apartment complex were discreet, for the most part. In the nearly five years he had lived here, Eliott still had no clue what was his next-door neighbor's name. All he knew was that the man was probably in his forties, single and likely an accountant, or something equally unattractive and equally boring. They had passed each other by a handful of times, and he always looked like he was exhausted and drowning in his ill-fitting suits.

He was still staring blankly at nothing when his alarm went off, and Eliott grabbed it from the nightstand to shut it down as the first couple of notes from Boy Epic’s cover of City of Angels hummed quietly in the silent room. He had exactly thirty minutes to get up, get dressed, and get ready to go before the meeting one of his clients had scheduled with him (read: for him). He took a rapid shower and was heading for the front door when someone knocked. Once. Twice. Eliott frowned and unlocked the door, chucking it open when he found Blue Eyes standing in the doorway.

His hair was even more of a mess than it was already Saturday morning, and a few light bruises marbled his arms pocking out of his one-size too big tee-shirt. Eliott didn’t know why he found the whole thing alluring, but he did anyway.

“I was starting to think you had well and truly died this time,” he remarked with a cocked eyebrow.

Blue Eyes gave him a look and mechanically rubbed the bruised spot on his forearm. It was the exact gesture he had made on Saturday morning, after the bed base disaster, and Eliott could only guess that those were the casualties born from Murphy’s Law. “Nice to know you got worried, I appreciate.”

Eliott found himself grinning, and maybe he tried to contain it. It was only the second time they were talking but for some reason, it didn’t seem nearly as emotionally draining as it could have been. It felt easy. Almost Natural. Comfortable, somehow.

Blue Eyes cleared his throat a little, starting to fidget with his hands. “I- uh. I wanted to apologize for the mess I’m doing these days in the building. I’ve been told by someone from the first floor that it was starting to get on people’s nerves. And, like, my friends- they can be loud. Like, really loud. And messy. Back where we lived everyone was kinda used to it, but-”

His voice trailed off and Eliott tilted his head to the side, slightly intrigued by the sudden change in his demeanor. He hadn’t picked him as the rambly, dorky type — it left Eliott to wonder how those different personality traits didn’t just end up short-circuiting each other in such a small body.

“It’s fine,” he said with a casual shrug. “I got loud friends too.” After an awkward second of silence, he held out his hand, Blue Eyes glancing back and forth between his face and his hand before shaking it. “I’m Eliott, by the way. In case you need an alibi, you know where to find me.”

Blue Eyes frowned, looking rather confused. “An alibi?”

Eliott smirked. “Well, you stated that you were on the verge of murder, if I remember correctly.”

A smile broke onto Blue Eyes’ face, illuminating his features as realization hit him. “Oh. Yeah. Thanks for the offer, I might take you up on that someday,” he said, then he seemed to remember he was still holding Eliott’s hand and nearly dropped it right away. This time, Eliott well and truly bit back a chuckle. “I’m Lucas. Lallemant. Nice to meet you.”

Lucas. Right. It was a cute name. A cute name for a cute face. Back off, Demaury, you’re staring, a voice chided in his brain, and strangely enough it sounded an awful lot like Idriss’.

“Nice to meet you too.” He shoved his hand into his jeans’ pocket, cocking an eyebrow. “Was that all?”

“Yeah,” Lucas said, then he tore his eyes away to what Eliott just knew was an invisible spot above his shoulder before adding quickly: “I mean, no. I also wanted to thank you for helping me last weekend. It’s really not the best way to make an impression but you didn’t laugh at me and let me die a slow and painful death, so I figured maybe I could offer you a coffee at the very least. Well, only if you’re free, I mean.”

There he was, rambling again, and every single word made it harder for Eliott to restrain a large grin from splitting his face in two. His phone pinging made it a hundred times easier, though, as Eliott was suddenly brought back to reality. “I can’t right now, I was just about to go,” he admitted, and Lucas’ smile fell a little bit.

So that wasn’t just his brain messing with him. This guy really was an open book.

Lucas took a step back from the doorway. “Oh, right. Sorry for the bother,” he winced.

Eliott grabbed his leather jacket and from behind the front door and closed it behind him. For some reason he didn’t want Lucas to think it was just a made-up excuse, so he fished for his keys in his jacket’s pocket and started locking the door behind him. “Another time?” he offered, looking behind his shoulder, where Lucas was already retreating towards the stairs.

Lucas turned around. “Sure,” he nodded with a grin. “Anytime.”

“It needs to be perfect. The opening is all that matters, you get that, Eliott, right?”

“I already knew that a week ago,” he remarked as he glanced sideways at the blonde girl next to him.

Scheduling meeting with clients wasn’t something he was doing all that often. Not to be overly introvert, but he had found out early in his career that it was easier to review what the clients wanted once it was laid out on an email rather than simply spoken out in the open. But, eh. Daphné Lecomte was another level of enthusiastic. And nervous. Sometimes he wondered what she was on, because it sure as hell looked like it wasn’t legal.

They had met back when he was working on the opening of a club, the year before; at the time, Daphné was the new recruit of an event planning agency, and she had taken the habit of slipping his name to her boss every once in a while, when they needed to promote new places and book new events. Now she was a few months away from launching her own business, the project of a travel agency she claimed she had been nursing since high school, and it was entirely because she had asked him with her huge, puppy eyes (and, granted, because she had helped him out in the past) that he had agreed on helping her to design the perfect logo.

God knew he had come to regret his decision. It was the second meeting and she had yet to decide on a color palette. “You can do that without me,” Eliott had observed on their first meeting.

“No! I need you. I need to know things work fine,” Daphné had protested.

And so he had stayed. Far too long, if you asked him.

“Coffee, I need coffee,” she mumbled, running to the tiny kitchen adjoined to her office, where they had been locked up for two hours already.

Eliott rolled his eyes to himself and slumped back against his chair. Her habit of pacing back and forth while he was sketching things away was always making him dizzy after some time, and he was trying really hard not to tell her to sit the fuck down and shut the fuck up. It took another two hours after lunch for her to finally decide on a color palette, and by then Eliott had already made peace with the fact that they would need to schedule another meeting, if not two, to sort out the rest. He was already dreading the moment she’d have to pick a font.

It was four in the afternoon when he made it out, half-past five when he dragged himself to the bar next to Sofiane’s place, and almost eight when he came back home after both Sofiane and Idriss suddenly called it a night after Eliott suggested they go out.

“Are you kidding me?”, he protested, annoyed.

“Nothing against you, Demaury,” Idriss snorted, stretching out his long limbs high above his head. “Siham will just skin me alive if I get home late. Last time she got mad at me for a fucking week.”

“And she banished me from the flat,” Sofiane reminded, looking all gloomy in his drink.

Eliott shrugged. “She’s never mad at me.”

“No one’s ever mad at you, you fucker,” Idriss grumbled. “Not even your exes.”

“Joris did threaten to burn his apartment to the ground, though,” Sofiane observed carefully.

Idriss barked a laugh that made two girls behind them scoot around on their chair. “But he didn’t.”

“I wouldn’t call that a victory,” Eliott cringed, the story still leaving a bad taste on his tongue.

He and that Joris guy had been dating for about a month a few years ago, and half of their relationship was a blur leading to a manic episode he had very scarce memories of. He didn’t recall very well what happened after that, only that Idriss and his girlfriend Siham had taken him in for a few days while he was coming down from his high and going through the depressive episode that always followed. As it had turned out, Joris had never been heard of ever again and after some time Eliott finally obtained that Idriss and Sofiane kindly backed off and stopped acting like they were his bodyguards. Only Siham continued to treat him like he was her baby, but it wasn’t strictly babying per se — it was just keeping the door wide open whenever he needed anything and never getting mad at him for literally anything.

After separating with his friends, Eliott had taken advantage of the time spent in the subway, on his way home, to rapidly review his most urgent emails and to track his parcel through the Chronopost app — only to find that his precious, 300€ Wacom Tablet had been delayed. That was his luck, really, and that’s why he found himself knocking at the apartment 320 instead of going straight back home.

It didn’t take three seconds before the door swung open, taking him a little aback when a grinning Lucas exclaimed: “Not only on time but-” before his voice trailed off and his eyes widened a little bit when he realized Eliott wasn’t whoever he was waiting.

Technically, he would have found it funny. And probably made a remark. But right now he was too busy trying not to stare at the large patches of skin he could see thanks to Lucas’ denim button down hanging wide open.

Fuck he was fit. Who would have thought?

“Oh, shit, sorry. Hey,” Lucas said, clearing his throat a little bit, and it was thankfully enough for Eliott’s brain to snap back into place. It wasn’t the first six-pack he saw in his life, after all.

“It’s fine, no harm done. I need a small favor though,” he admitted, wincing a little.

Two days had passed since Lucas had popped up to his flat but Eliott hadn’t had much time left to make due on his rain check. The most they had taken together was the elevator so far, and some part of Eliott regretted not having told Daphné to fuck off on Monday, if only for a couple of hours.

Lucas tilted his head to the side. “Sure. What’s up?”

“Will you be home on Friday?”

Lucas’ eyebrows shot up and he blinked a little. “I, uh. I’m not sure,” he said carefully. “I mean, I guess it’s going to depend on the time.”

Eliott gave a small nod. “Yeah, right. More like, in the morning? I’m waiting for a really important parcel and I had cleared my schedule tomorrow to be able to be there when it’s delivered, but it got delayed. Not to be mean but I’d rather have it in your hands rather than literally anywhere else.”

“No problem, I’ll be there,” Lucas nodded, and he ran a hand through his messy hair. “I’ve got the rest of the week off anyway.”

“Awesome,” Eliott said, leaning back from the doorframe. “Thanks a bunch.”

Thanks a bunch. That was an Idriss thing to say, not an Eliott thing to say, and the worst part was that he was practically sure that the way Lucas’ brows furrowed a little bit meant that he was very much aware of that. He was going to strangle Idriss. That was all his fault anyway.

“It’s fine, let’s see if I manage to get it and then you’ll thank me,” his neighbor snorted.

Eliott huffed a laugh and started walking away when Lucas called him. For some reason, he liked the way he said his name, and he internally rolled his eyes at the cheesiness. He scooted around nonetheless.

“There’s still some coffee left,” Lucas said, and this time he was looking at him straight in the eye.

“Make it beers, make it my place, and make it Friday and I’m all in,” Eliott replied nonchalantly, his lips curving into a smirk just as the elevator dinged.

Lucas’ eyes traveled to his right, and Eliott couldn’t refrain himself from following where they had landed. One of the three guys he had seen in the hall the day Lucas had moved in was walking out of the elevator — the person he had been waiting before Eliott turned up, surely. He took it as his cue to leave, and before he could even think it through, he found himself giving Lucas a wink, before jumping up the stairs to his own flat.

#skam france #*skm #elu fic #lucas lallemant #eliott demaury #mine #*

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