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bippot · 7 months

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Summary: How many times does Vigilante need to get injured before Harcourt finally gives in and hires a medic to help out with the squad's injuries? Far too many times, that's how many.

When it's uncovered that a fancy hotel is linked to, not only what's left of the legion of butterflies, but also a string of weird deaths and missing persons reports, the only two for the job are lovesick Adrian and the newbie.

Will they both make it out of paradise alive?

Tags: Canon-Typical ViolenceGun Violence, Blood and Injury, Undercover as a Couple, Fluff, Idiots in Love. Fake/Pretend Relationship, Summer Vacation, Butterflies, Alien Invasion, Stitches

Music recommendation: Hot N Cold by Katy Perry

Peacemaker, Adrian Chase Masterlist - here

Previous Chapter: Butterfly Boobs

John had extracted all the information that he could from the USB they'd filled with encrypted files during the mission, and the team was currently working on deciphering the documents and linking all the information to stuff they already knew about the butterflies and newly acquired details about an establishment named The Monarch Hotel.

There was an abundance of records of their old dealings with the Glan Tai corporation, which was an obvious hint that something funky was going down.

Since most of their kind had been wiped out, the butterflies had been quiet as of late. There were always rumblings of activity here and there, but no proof of whatever they were planning. Because of course they were planning. Why wouldn't they? Maybe they wanted revenge. But of what sort? Were they trying to take what they had and make it stronger? Or did they want to expand further?

Either way, there was something odd going on, and the 11th Street Kids needed to find out what it was.

In the meantime, Y/N had been fitting in well. She'd wedged herself into the group quite comfortably.

Leota and Keeya often invited her to their apartment for wine nights.

Economos often went into lengthy conversations about video games and Y/N was always prepared to listen and add her input.

Emilia already knew her sister so well and, although it can be quite annoying to work with your sibling, it was nice to be together again. Over the years, they'd moved to different parts of the country and rarely saw each other. This was a nice change.

Chris approved of Y/N because she helped bear the weight of Adrian's affection. If Adrian was ever getting too much, which he often did, Chris just had to say, "I think Y/N wanted to talk to you," and Adrian would drop whatever he was saying and seek her out without question. It was a lot more efficient than having to come up with an excuse why they couldn't hang out.

And, obviously, Adrian liked having Y/N around. He'd taken her up on the offer of medical aid after every patrol, even if he didn't need it. After a week or two, he stopped phoning beforehand and just appeared at her motel door whenever he wanted to.

"What's the problem tonight?" She teased as she allowed him in, opening her door wide and stepping out of the way to let him through.

"I still don't think I'm over the Tiger Woods cheating scandal, you know? His wife didn't deserve that."

With a snort, she sat down on her bed and patted the space next to her. He obliged, sitting cross-legged in front of her and pulling off his mask to reveal his handsome face. He looked exhausted, which was usual, but the dark circles under his eyes were more prominent than she'd ever seen them before.

"When did you last sleep?"

His answer was a nonchalant shrug.

"Do you want an ambien?"

"Nope, just wanted to see you."

A goofy smile stretched across his lips in such a way that Y/N could hardly resist laughing. His whole body seemed lighter now, as if the burdens of the world hadn't hung on his shoulders anymore. He needed to be able to relax a bit more and if this had to be his moment of peace for the night, well, that wasn't so bad. Y/N didn't mind giving it to him, really.

It was clear that he was lonely and just wanted to talk to someone who was willing to listen without judgement. And she was happy to listen to whatever subject he was info dumping about that day. So she just smiled back at him and leaned forward, resting her elbows on her knees and her chin on top of her fists.

"How has your night been?"

"Really fuckin' boring."

That was an understatement. Nothing, literally nothing, had happened that night. Not even a mugging or any drunken fights or anything. It was frustrating, to be honest. It had been a complete waste of time.

"Okay then, tell me about something that's not boring."

"Like what?"

"Whatever you want."

His gaze dropped to his feet and he started fiddling with his fingers, looking lost in thought. Finally, he raised his head again, excitement etched on his features. "Baldur's Gate 3 just came out. Have you heard of it? Of the franchise? Cause, as you can guess from the title, there are 3 of them. They're amazing, like, so fuckin' good," he said as soon as he started talking, not pausing to let her answer any of his questions.

They were rhetorical, it seemed.

She watched him, amused by how animated he was about the game, and felt the corner of her mouth constantly morph upward. He was practically bouncing in his seat in anticipation of her response, eyes filled with passion despite how much they drooped. He was cute when he was all animated.

Accompanying his chatter was the sounds of a downpour outside, the heavy rain drumming heavily against the roof and windows of the building. It came to the point where she interrupted him to say, "You're staying here tonight, just in case. Okay?"

Adrian stopped mid sentence. Had she just suggested that they have a sleepover? That was beyond fine with him. Sure, he had trouble sleeping with other people in the room, but this was a chance to hang out with her more. So, he gave her a sheepish smile, cheeks dusted pink.

"Okay," he replied simply.

"Get comfy then."

Y/N gestured to all his weapons and armour that he'd yet to have taken off. He got to work taking all those pieces off, folding and placing them on the dresser that lay at the foot of her bed in a neat pile, then laying down, propping himself up on his elbow and watching her as she copied his position.

They were facing each other, and despite the fact they'd left enough space between them to fit another person, Adrian had never felt so close to someone before in his life. His fingers were itching to brush her hair away from her forehead, but his hands were frozen and he dared not do so lest she realised his intentions.

"So who did you romance in the game?" she asked, preparing for another bout of word vomit to be thrown at her. "I apologise if I fall asleep while you're telling me. I enjoy hearing you talk but I'm tired."

"I can shut up if-"

"No, no. Keep talking. I like it when you tell me things," she said, cutting off his words and leaning in closer to hear his voice better, her hand finding its way up to rest lightly on his chest. "Go on."

Oh fuck. Adrian swallowed thickly, closing his eyes as he tried to ignore the way her touch made his stomach flutter and his blood rush through his veins. Her fingers traced lazy patterns on his shirt and his breath hitched in his throat involuntarily. He was aware of how his breathing became more uneven and shallow as her gaze met his and the way she slowly tilted her head.

"You okay?" she asked.

He blinked, coming back to reality. "Yeah, yeah. Just... wow. Sorry," he stuttered, scratching the side of his neck. He needed to get back on track before she caught on to why he was distracted. "I, uh, Astarion, the vampire that I told you about, yeah. He's a rogue, does a lot of damage, and he's flirty and confident and arrogant sometimes, but he's not a bad guy." He paused. "Well, not completely anyway."

More and more information about each romanceable character spilled from his lips. As he talked, Y/N's thumb brushed idly over his chest as she listened attentively and he tried to ignore the way his heart rate skyrocketed at the simple touch. How was he supposed to focus on anything else when that sent shivers coursing down his spine?

After a while, he noticed how her eyes were slowly closing in the process of falling asleep and his heart clenched at the thought of her being comfortable enough around him to allow her guard to slip that easily. Was he really that easy for her to trust? He hoped so. He really did.

So, he gently pulled up the duvet to cover her more fully and stayed quiet as she settled in deeper. She was so relaxed, so peaceful and her soft breathing filled his ears and lulled him into a sense of calmness.

Maybe it wouldn't hurt to try to drift off. It would be weird if I stayed up all night and just stared at her until she woke. He knew that was a creepy thing to do. But, it was fine to indulge for a few minutes right. What harm could there possibly be? It was sort of similar to gazing at a beautiful painting in a gallery.

All he could do was admire her features and try to convince himself that this was only a friendly gesture, nothing more. Despite his dismissal of introspection, he knew this line of thinking was total bullshit. It had been a long time since he'd fallen this hard for anyone, and the feeling was unfamiliar to him as a whole but strangely natural nonetheless.

The longer he stared at her, the stronger this pull grew. Maybe it was the lack of sleep, or perhaps it was because of the fact that she trusted him, which he had never really experienced before, or maybe it was something else entirely, but there was no doubt in his mind what was happening. All he knew was that he was hopelessly, absolutely fucked.

When he felt her stir, he quickly moved his eyes away from her, quietly apologising, "I'm so sorry. I-I didn't mean-" but she didn't wake up.

Instead, she shifted her body so that her head nuzzled into his neck and her hand fell loosely around his waist. He didn't dare move; his movements might disturb her. She looked so comfortable and relaxed like this and god, he would love to see that every night. He couldn't keep the grin off his face as he stared at the ceiling, feeling a strange sense of euphoria wash over him. He hadn't ever expected his night to end this way - with Y/N snuggled under his arm and fast asleep with his heartbeat still thundering through his ears - but there he was, unable to stop the blush from rising to the tips of his ears.

"Uh, goodnight Y/N." He whispered to her, smiling and shaking his head with disbelief.

God, he was screwed.

Totally and utterly screwed.

And it would only get worse when their new mission was revealed. Because it felt like Waller had perfectly designed this new undercover mission just to mess with his feelings.

"I hate that this makes sense," Emilia complained. "Other than Goff - who Peacemaker still hangs out with, apparently - none of the butterflies have seen either of your faces so, yeah, of course you two would be the newlyweds."

Frankly, it wasn't exactly a surprising turn of events. Ever since the name The Monarch Hotel had come up in their research, it was just a matter of time before somebody was sent to investigate.

Vigilante needed to be trained in the ways of being a husband, though. Although she hated the idea of her sister and that mad man, Harcourt gave Y/N a quick rundown of everything she needed to make him aware of. And there was a need to remind her little sister that, "Don't be nicer than you need to be."

"Oh come on, that's bullshit."

"Don't you even try!"

"Try what?!"

"You've got a thing for psychos! And he is as psycho as they come, remember? You're going to attract unwanted attention, you know it and I know it."

Y/N rolled her eyes at her sister, crossing her arms over her chest defensively as she sat down cross legged on the top of Harcourt's desk. So what if there was a point somewhere in there? Sure, in the past, Y/N didn't have the best track record when it came to dating.

The glare she was getting was deadly. It was as if Emilia was attempting to fire Superman-esque eye beams at her. Y/N stared back. A standoff had begun, one of which neither of them gave any indication that they would concede anytime soon.

After a full minute of unblinking tense silence, Y/N finally broke the staring contest by groaning, slumping forward and covering her face with her hands. This was pointless. Emilia always won when they fought. She'd always managed to corner her, no matter how much Y/N tried to escape the conversation.

"Whatever. Fine. You win." A sigh passed her lips. "I will be as professional as possible with the cute nerd that likes guns."

That had been a terrible choice of words. Emilia immediately snapped her head round at her to give her a look so reproachful that Y/N could barely bring herself to meet her gaze. Damn, Harcourt was scary sometimes.

"I'm being serious, squish."

It must've been serious if Emilia was pulling out the childhood nickname. It was rare to hear such a loving sounding scold coming from her older sister. Y/N couldn't help but crack a small smile as soon as the sound reached her ears, knowing that Emilia was doing it on purpose.

"Stop smiling and just listen for once."

"Fine..."

"Now that's a good doggie."

"Oh shut up."

With a list of things she needed to discuss with Adrian before they went uncover, Y/N ushered him into her car under the guise of needing help on a coffee run to go over what she'd been told. Harcourt had given her a very formal physical list, but Y/N didn't have to do everything her sister's way.

Adrian was sitting in the passenger seat as they were parked in the lot, idly drinking his milkshake when he was asked, "How experienced are you with relationships, Ade?" and he almost choked.

"I, uh, you know I'm not the most charming person out there, Y/N," he replied hesitantly.

"I think you've got your own sort of charm."

"Oh. Oh, if you say so." He cleared his throat as he continued, "But no. I've had a few girlfriends, some girlfriends, y'know. They don't last long. A month at the most, tops."

Why they never worked out, he didn't really know. His vigilante commitments took up a lot of his time, so maybe that was it. He was out stalking the streets when he should've been paying attention to his previous partners.

Some self-conscious part of his brain believed that it was his core that caused his romantic endeavours to fall apart. There was something so annoying and unlovable about who he was as a whole that obviously any lovely lady was going to realise that sooner rather than later. He'd never admit it aloud to anybody, including himself, but the fact remained that he was a complete loser in the romance department.

"And are you usually affectionate during it? PDA or does that come later? Or not at all," Y/N questioned. There was no patronising tone or condescending attitude whatsoever in her voice. Just curiosity and genuine interest and concern.

Just the implication of casual intimacy between the two of them made him bashful. He cleared his throat once again, embarrassed, before giving her a small, shy smile. "I like it, you know, the touchy-feely stuff but I'm not good about initiating it." His response was simple, blunt and honest, and without an ounce of pretence. It was kind of refreshing actually, and made her wonder whether he was an open book to everyone.

Or was she special?

"During our mission, we'll have to do the whole married couple shebang. The hand holding, the hugging, the couple activities. It has to seem natural and believable. All that mushy shit, kissing and all."

Whatever entity out there allowed him the confidence to suggest, "Should we practise then?" deserved a thousand more prayers and maybe a few sacrifices, too. He hoped fervently that Y/N wouldn't laugh at the suggestion, but as soon as it left his mouth and he saw the mischievous glint appearing behind those eyes, he realised that he probably made a great move.

"Do you want to kiss me?" Y/N asked teasingly.

"No!" he exclaimed, then his voice lowered as he added a softer, "...Maybe."

She smiled. "Well, then," she said, shifting a bit closer to him, "Your move, champ. Kiss me."

The moment the words came from her mouth, he was leaning in close, slowly lifting a hand to cup her cheek. As his thumb ran across her cheekbone, he glanced across her features for any trace of repulsion or rejection. He wondered if she minded at all that their lips were only a scant millimetre away from each other. It seemed as if she didn't, however, because she closed her eyes and clearly gave him permission before tilting her head upwards to meet him halfway.

Their lips met, slow and tentative at first as they both held back as much as possible. That was until Adrian's hand slipped to the back of her neck. The facade slipped and both of their lips moved together in perfect sync, everything else fading away in a haze. It was sweet and gentle and perfect and warm and, oh god, did it feel good.

When it ended, when he broke free from Y/N's embrace to stare at her with a dazed expression, his lips redder and more swollen than they had ever been before, he nudged his nose into hers on instinct.

"Do you mind if I just step out for a sec?"

Y/N was far better at concealing how breathless she was than Adrian. He simply nodded and watched as she got out of the car to collect herself. She huffed out an overwhelmed, "Oh, holy fuck," counted to thirty and tried to push the temptation out of her brain and focus instead on the mission. Imagining the punch her sister would inflict her with helped distract her from the thoughts of Adrian's lips that lingered in her memory.

After she collected herself, she got back into the driver's seat as if nothing had happened. She looked over at Adrian, his mouth was slightly parted as his emerald eyes searched her face, looking for anything, any twitch to indicate that he'd made some wrong move or unknowingly done something to upset her. Y/N offered him a reassuring smile as if saying 'nothing bad,' although there was definitely something wrong; he knew.

Y/N continued the briefing, although she was far less playful while asking her questions. At no point was she cold or mean, just more reserved with her tone and manner towards Adrian. He found it a little weird how quickly the mood changed from happy and bubbly as he'd become used to it to distant and aloof.

It was the quickest turn in any of his relationships. Maybe he was not cut out for this, after all. Maybe this whole 'being loveable' thing just wasn't something that he could achieve. He was too busy chasing villains.

What kind of life did he even have in store for himself beyond his work anyway?

He didn't come to her hotel room that night.

Or the night after that.

But, the one after that? He couldn't help himself. It was late, he felt tired, his leg hurt, and some junkie had stabbed him in the shoulder so he needed that fixed.

Grunting, he stumbled to her hotel room once again and knocked a jaunty little tune against the door, waiting impatiently. When he heard footsteps approaching the door, he leant against the doorframe in an attempt to look cool despite the pain running through him.

The door opened after a few moments, and the first thing Y/N did as soon as she spotted him was hurriedly urged, "Oh, come in, come in! Let me fix you up, Ade." As she started fussing and guiding him to her bed, Adrian tried to hold his tongue and remain silent. He knew he was making a fool of himself.

But it was hard to ignore the warmth that radiated from Y/N whenever she was around him. Even if it was brief, it felt good.

They were quiet for most of the time Y/N fixed up his wound. That was unusual for the pair. Adrian was always one to fill the silence, always rambling on and on about absolutely everything and everyone, but he couldn't bring himself to do so in this case. He wanted to stay silent, but the longer he sat and stayed silent, the faster his heart beat. The nervousness of being alone in this situation with her grew stronger and stronger the longer it went on.

And once again, there was a heavy storm raging outside and rain was pounding down loudly against her windows. Evergreen was having a rainy fortnight.

"You're not driving in this."

"But-"

"No buts. You're not going anywhere."

Adrian sighed, dropping his gaze to where he was picking at his fingernails. He knew he could argue, but he honestly didn't care enough anymore. He didn't want to argue. Not tonight. She looked like she genuinely cared about what was happening and the pain he was going through, and that was enough.

Besides, he was exhausted. He was mentally and physically drained from fighting crime and rescuing people. Now he had the chance to sit down and allow himself to relish in her presence. No matter how awkward this might be, he had to take advantage of this opportunity.

"Do you ever get enough sleep?"

He laughed at her question. "Nope."

"Then you need your rest to heal. Come here, lay down," she insisted as she patted the pillow on the left side of the bed. He rid himself of his uniform, climbed underneath her covers and sat with his back against the headboard.

Judging by how stiff and uncomfortably upright he appeared to be, Y/N assumed she needed to make him relax more. She cooed, "Can you shuffle forward for me, champ?" and as soon as he obliged, she climbed in behind him, pulling him by the chest to rest against her. "Is this comfy?"

"Hmm..."

"Close your eyes, Ade."

"...Okay."

"Relax. Breathe deep..."

Slowly, Adrian let his muscles soften and allowed his body to sink deeper and deeper into hers, seeking the comfort and security he hadn't felt in years. He closed his eyes, feeling as Y/N soothingly scratched and stroked his hair to ease him into unconsciousness.

"You're nice and warm..." Adrian whispered in a drowsy, dreamlike state, almost forgetting she could hear him. "And pretty..."

The softest smile adorned her lips and she murmured back, "So are you." And she kept caressing his hair until he fell asleep.

He was pretty. Really pretty. She knew that already of course. And she was sure of it as she examined every part of his sleeping face, noting how the faint stubble along his jaw where he'd not had enough time or care in the past few days, how his lips were slightly parted and how his eyelashes fluttered gently. There were dark bags beneath his eyes and he looked worn out.

Yet, he still managed to look so...so...soft and peaceful despite what extracurricular activities he got up to when the sun went down.

A soft smile crept onto her lips. Yeah, she thought, she really liked this nerd. And what Emilia didn't know couldn't hurt her, right? After all, her sister didn't have her under surveillance. What she wasn't told, she wouldn't know.

So, Y/N wouldn't tell her.

Now she had no idea whether she'd fully date the guy, but was there any harm with doing a practice run for their mission. If they got closer and intimate before they flew out, it would seem more realistic. And if Emilia ever caught wind of how nice Y/N was acting towards Adrian, she could claim that this was a method to make him seem more comfortable and experienced in relationships.

Ultimately, Y/N's reasons were far more selfish. And that simply was because she felt something stir inside of her whenever he smiled at her; she felt that spark and burn everytime she gazed upon his beauty. His face was so expressive, his body language screamed his emotions without uttering a single sound and she loved it.

Loved seeing him happy, laughing and joking around like he didn't have a care in the world. Loved watching the way his lips curled into an affectionate smile, a small crinkle forming in his eyes.

As she'd said before, he had his own sort of charm. And he'd certainly charmed Y/N.

Next Chapter: No More Velvet

#adrian chase x y/n #adrian chase x female reader #adrian chase x reader #adrian chase #vigilante #vigilante x reader #peacemaker

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skaybrekker · 1 month

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Make you feel my love.

Pairing: Charles Leclerc x Plus-Size! Oc (Spencer)

Warnings: the protagonist has serious problems with food. Eating disorders are not explicitly mentioned, but one could interpret that she has one.

Summary: Spencer is having some problems with the food. Charles realizes it and he asks about it, worrying about his girlfriend.

Tags: comfort, fluff, kissing, established relationship.

Notes: English is not my first language, I’m sorry if there are any mistakes, I tried my best. This fic is honestly more to comfort myself, but I wanted to publish it anyways in case it comforted anyone else. I hope you like it.

Words: 1.2k

Eating has never been something easy for her for the past few years. If she had other thing that it wasn’t a salad or something healthy, dark thoughts would fulfil her mind for the whole day, making the hate for herself grow more and more. And as it went like this, it came to the point in which she never thought that somebody would ever love her.

She hated her body. Being fat in our society was one of the worst things that had ever happened to her. And she was trying so hard to change this, but it felt as if she was just stuck with her weight. Regardless of how much she trained or how healthy she ate, nothing seemed to work.

That’s one of the few reasons why eating was difficult.

And she refused to tell her boyfriend this.

Charles Leclerc was the first person capable of making her feel loved. When she met him in one of the Ferrari’s meetings (she was one of the engineers), the girl never though that the Ferrari’s Golden Boy was going to fell in love with her. Not even in her best dreams that happened.

But here they were, with one year of relationship already and Spencer could say that it had been the happiest year of her life. Charles was one of the kindest souls that ever existed in the world, always such a gentleman. She couldn’t ask for a better boyfriend.

It was not just the fact that he made her feel loved, but as well as all the details he had with her. Waking up and telling her that she looked beautiful, reassuring her that she was gorgeous when she felt awful, helping her to overcome her eating problems and her low stem. And even if she had to overcome all of that in her own, he was without any doubt, a great help.

However, in these moments in which she just wanted to stop eating and to go to the bathroom to repeat to herself how ugly she was and that she didn’t deserve that food at all, the girl had always been afraid of telling the boy that there was something wrong. Feeling a burden for her whole life, it was not an easy feeling to get rid of.

Nevertheless, she didn’t have to say anything. Charles could already feel that something was not quite right. His girl had not touched her food in the whole five minutes that they were eating, and she was just playing with her food, spacing out. He hated seeing her like this, knowing the kind of thoughts that were going through her mind.

“Everything okay, my love?” he decided to ask when he couldn’t hold anymore, the sight in front of him slowly breaking his heart. Spencer slightly flinched, her eyes widened a little, finally getting out of her own head. She was confused and lost at first, but when she saw the look of worry in her love’s eyes, she smiled.

“Yes, yes, everything okay Char.” she answered, and Charles frowned. He got up, walking in her direction. Grabbing one of the other chairs, he put it at the side of Spencer’s, sitting down. As soft as he could, as if she was a piece of glass that could broke at any moment, he cupped her cheeks with his hands slowly caressing them with his thumbs and angled her face to look at him.

“You know you don’t have to lie to me.” he mumbled softly. Spencer’s eyes became teary. What did she do to deserve him? Nothing. God, she loved this man.

“Just me and my little problems, love. Nothing to worry about.” Of course, that it was something to worry about, yet she didn’t want to admit it out-loud. The boy sighed and decided to take her by her hips and put the girl quickly in his lap, staring to stroke her thigh. She grunted in surprise, but didn’t complain, curling up in his chest.

“Your little problems are something to worry about, Spencer. Don’t say otherwise, stop making your problems seem less just because they are yours. Now tell me what’s wrong, please.” the girl hesitated a few seconds more until she finally broke down.

“Sometimes eating is something so difficult for me, Charles. I can’t even explain it, but it makes me feel so foolish. I can’t eat and if I do, I end up staying awake the whole night, thinking about how I didn’t deserve that food and how I shouldn’t even eat at all. It’s so exhausting sometimes, to not being able to do something so basic because of my own thoughts.” now, Charles was the one with tears in his eyes. Seeing the woman of his life like this, hating herself because of some stupid stereotypes that the grew up with, it broke him.

It wasn’t the first time that she talked about this, but every time she did, it took a part of the boy’s heart. He wanted to her to feel beautiful, to understand that food was not something that she needed to win, to help her to eat and reach the point in which she didn’t have to cry every time she ate something out of her diet.

“Sweetheart,” he mumbled, his voice wavering. She glanced at him, tears now running through her red cheeks and Charles immediately brought her to his chest, hugging her as strong as he could. There, she sobbed, letting her exhaustion and sadness out. “You don’t know how much it breaks me to see you like this. You don’t deserve it, my love, you are so beautiful, and I know that my words are not going to change much, but you are, chérie. I’ve never seen a prettier woman than you and I hate the fact that you can realize of your own beauty.” the girl seemed to be crying even harder after his words. Charles decided to tear them slowly apart, putting their foreheads together and kissing her cheeks, trying to stop the tears from falling.

“Food is not something you need to earn, Spencer. Food is something that you need to survive, food helps your body to function and there is nothing wrong with it. I know that it might see as if you ate a piece of chocolate, you might gain weight, but is not like that. Your body needs the food, amour, it doesn’t matter how your body is or if you didn’t go to the gym today or if you are not going tomorrow, you need to eat, love. I would never be capable of understanding you, yet I promise that I will do my best to help you with this. And stop thinking that you don’t deserve me, you deserve the world and I´m going to do my best to help you realize of that.”

Usually, words of comfort never really worked for Spencer. However, her boyfriend´s world made her feel calmer and better, knowing that he was right about everything he had said, even if she was having a hard time understanding this.

“Thank you, love. Seriously. I love you so much.” She whispered, giving him a soft kiss and Charles hummed, giving her a smile that showed his dimples when they separated. He softly moved a stray of her hair from her face, rubbing slowly with his thumb one of her cheeks.

“I love you too, Spencer and I forever will.” Even if he couldn’t know the future, he had known from the moment he met her that she was going to be the love of his life and he was planning on staying besides her until death tore them apart.

"I could hold you for a million years To make you feel my love"

#charles leclerc #charles leclerc x oc #f1 x oc #charles leclerc fic #f1 imagine #f1 fanfic

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booburry · 3 months

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Madison's Folly// Part 3 // a Gale Dekarios Fic // WC 7.5k // Part 1 / Part 2 / Series Complete

Series Summary: Madison did not have a life of substance nor a life that invoked jealousy of the passing mind, but the few good things she had, she held dear. So when the man she loved unequivocally was left heartbroken by a goddess and a magical curse within his body, Madi found herself searching for any means to rid him of his life threatening burden, no matter the personal cost.

For all magic, no matter the greatness, comes with a cost to match.

AKA Madison does something foolish to prove her love for Gale without seeing the stark irony of the situation until it's far too late to step back.

A/N: Thank you all for waiting! Part 3 got a bit ahead of me, I felt like I needed to add more meat so it didn't feel like a constant info dump. I hope you enjoy and further A/N at the bottom to avoid spoilers for Part 3 ♥.

Tags: Angsty, Emotions, Unrequited Love, Established Friendship/Connection, Dialogue Heavy/Driven, Gale is moody and desperately in love, so much so that the guy isn't entirely thinking straight, spoilers for Act 2/3, Gale likes to see you sweat, they like to kiss cause they can't do anything more, they both have a flare for the dramatic, Companions are present (looking at Astarion & Karlach...), minor Tav x Astarion mentioned/in background

“She said we would find her in this land!” Gale argued as they stood outside the entrance to their party’s last point of interest.

“We’ve searched everywhere Gale, and she isn’t to be seen. Have you maybe thought that she changed her mind?” Shadowheart hotly argued back, Raphael having vanished ten minutes ago yet they still stood outside the stone doors because Gale refused to enter.

“I may not live to see past this bloody mess, so the least you can give me is being reunited with the woman I love!” Gale almost yelled, feeling his anger rise and spark to a boil the moment he heard Astarion’s ‘tsk’ of disagreement.

“Would that be Mystra or Madi? Or another mysterious lover with an M name…oh, is it Mizora? You dirty boy—”

“Shut. Up.” Gale growled as flames balled in his fists, Astarion simply sighing and showing no fear of Gale’s temperamental threats.

“Fine, have your no-fun tantrum but when you’re finished, I might ask you if your genius brain ever thought your little girlfriend might be in there?” He fixed Gale with his well-mastered ‘know it all’ smirk while shooting a thumb in the direction of the stone doors.

“Well…” Gale started to try to defend himself but found he was lacking the words, for, in truth, he hadn’t thought of that at all. He had been fixated on the word ‘land’, never thinking it would be under it. He felt quite foolish, and in his silence, Astarion continued with his point.

“The same place, mind you,” Astarion slowly sauntering towards Gale, “where I have a very personal matter to handle and where Shadowheart has her…thingy.” Astarion pouted at Gale, pausing a moment before straightening his expression and turning away from him. “I thought not. So let’s go, and if she isn’t in here then we search the whole bloody cursed lands a second time while taking the scenic route.” He concluded before turning on his heel to look back at Gale. “Is that agreeable? Or are you set to have another tantrum about it?”

Gale grumbled, displeased with the way he was being spoken to yet not being able to argue it wasn’t well deserved on his part. Silently, he walked towards the door, Astarion sighing into a smile and slinging his arm around Gale’s broad shoulders.

“Ah, a quiet Gale. My favourite.” He teased.

“I wouldn’t mind if you were quiet every once in a while, too,” Gale snarled as he shrugged Astarion’s arm off him, finding himself in no mood for his banter.

~X~

Madi sat in silence as she continued to wait another day for Gale and his companions to arrive. They were capable, surely—Gale alone should be able to complete Shar’s trial, so long as the tadpole didn’t do anything funny to his ability to cast his magic. She frowned at that thought, wondering if she should go searching for him, but every time she tried to leave, she was glued in her tracks.

She couldn’t walk further away from the destination of the deal she made with Shar, to kill the Nightsong, so now that she stood before the entrance into Shar’s domain, all Madi could do was wait and not move an inch closer or further from where she was destined to go.

She used this time to constantly run through her plan, rehearse the things she would tell Gale before they entered and then the other things for right before she made her ‘final act’—for she could only refer to it as that, even in her thoughts, until she was in a place where Shar could not have eyes on her.

The sound of grinding stone from behind her had Madi almost leap to her feet, immediately turning on her heels as the large stone disc that separated this entrance from Shar’s temple rolled to the side. Gale's head appeared within the first visible crack made by the moving seal, Madi immediately letting out a relieved smile before it faltered with the heaviness of the situation ahead.

However, a genuine laugh escaped her as she watched Gale shimmy his body through as soon as he could, practically shoving himself into the stone until it moved and made way for him, seemingly not wasting another second—quickly proving that point by running towards her the moment he could.

“You can have your lover’s reunion after I meet with my Lady,” Shadowheart called out, far angrier than Madi thought she should be, but perhaps their lengthy journey here had waned on her patience. No matter the reason, Madi couldn’t risk them going into Shar’s domain without speaking to Gale and the rest of them before they entered.

“I have waited for a long time,” Madi argued, fury behind every word, “the least you can—” Madi’s words were cut off as Gale thudded into her and clasped her within his arms, hugging her most fiercely.

Everyone, except for Gale, saw how Madi reacted. First, her arms froze in the air, her eyes wide and blank with fear, only to slowly close with a pained expression of regret before she clung to his body with every ounce of strength she carried, desperate to never let go yet holding onto him like it would be the last time she ever did.

“Whatever you need.” Shadowheart quietly whispered, all hostility lost in her tone as everyone but Gale felt the heaviness of an unknown moment slowly filling the room.

“We searched everywhere for you.” Gale breathed a large exhale as he told Madi, stepping away from his hold on her yet keeping his hands rested on her shoulders, only an arm's length away.

“Truly.” Astarion quipped from the back, Gale immediately rolling his eyes before closing them to take a deep, calming, breath.

“I’m glad you found me,” Madi softly told him, rubbing her hands along his robed arms, “but we should talk.”

“I am yours to command.” Gale was quick to reply, an enthusiastic smile on his lips.

“Well…in that case, I need you to cast Silence and Hold Person on me and then drag me to Lights Inn no matter how much I protest—is that in the realm of you being ‘mine to command’?” Gale smirked before drawing a hand up to scratch his beard, studying Madi who felt her focus cracking at the idea of commanding Gale under less dire circumstances.

“You have a strange way of flirting, you know that?” He paused, his smirk lingering before a prompt shake of his head and a wave of his arms. “Nevertheless, I wouldn’t be the gentleman I am if I denied my ladyher every desire.” He bowed to her with a flourish, Madi smiling and blushing at his antics and attention, forgetting what was truly ahead of her for only a moment.

But a moment was enough.

Enough to briefly envision a future where they walked away from this, together.

A vision that steeled Madi’s will to follow through with her plan. It was the only way she saw them having a chance at that future. Not walking away together, but just…any future together. It may come with slightly more risk compared to what Gale’s path had ahead of him, with Mystra’s request and what it would mean to defy her, but with a lot less calamity.

Out of the two options though? Her or Gale? Madi knew it had to be her to take the risk, to take the Karsite Weave within herself and stabilize and sustain it with her connection to the Shadow Weave and Shar’s magic that nested within her.

It also helped Madi wasn’t prone to the blinding ambition Gale historically demonstrated. She didn’t entirely hold it against him, the only exception being the obvious, however, she empathized and grew up seeing the effect of always being told you were the best or of the greatness you would attain had on Gale. How it nurtured his drive for power, for being better than he was the day before, that his magical abilities were all that mattered, was the only thing to focus on.

Among many other matters, Madi was also determined to make him see otherwise, but, for now, the power Madi would gain would be safe in her hands; safer.

Plus, this way, this short journey ends with Gale alive and free from Mystra’s clutches and that’s what mattered most to Madi.

A flash of Gale’s purple magic and she was frozen in place, her eyes remaining closed, but she felt the power within her creep up from her belly and through her throat; like a snake slithering to escape. Shar didn’t like this, didn’t want this to happen, and was manipulating the power she gave Madi to command the shadow weave placed within her, acting like strings for a puppet.

Madi felt her mouth open, unhinge itself almost, as a painful green flame festered and formed at the back of her mouth and at the perfect time Madi saw a scroll being read and silence suddenly cast upon her, the flame immediately evaporating, the weave nestling back into its slumber.

Without waiting, Karlach walked up to Madi and lifted her, set to carry her as they walked back to Light’s Inn.

~X~

Gale lightly brushed the hair away from Madi’s clammy forehead, worry growing roots within the pit of his stomach as he continued to wait for her to wake up.

“I’m sure things will be fine, Gale.” Astarion, uncharacteristically, tried to cheer him up. “You worry too much about it.” He paused a moment before glancing at Gale’s chest. “Besides, you have to be careful otherwise…‘undue stress’, I believe I heard you call it?”

“Thanks, Astarion,” Gale grunted, not caring for the reminder that he carried a bomb in his chest, a volatile orb that was not only at the center of his body but all of his troubles, too. His fanged friend just sighed and sat next to him on the bed.

“Look, I’m…no good at these things,” Astarion admitted with a frantic flourish of his arms, “and neither is Tav, but they are worried about you…and…well, I care what Tav cares about.” He finished with a huff, drawing Gale’s attention to his sudden vulnerability, knowing very well with a look at Astarion that it wasn’t just Tav who brought him here with concern. “Things weren’t exactly going super for you before we ran into her and every day since, well,” Astarion paused, pinching his expression as if trying to think of a way to not sound insulting, “you’ve not looked well, darling.” Gale smiled, a small huff of air leaving his nostrils as he looked back towards Madi.

“I haven’t entirely felt the best, truth be told,” Gale admitted, glancing back at Astarion as if to solidify his friend’s sincerity in his concern before continuing. “Surprisingly I think, without her, I would be a lot more indignant and intolerable than I already was.” Gale sighed deeply before his eyes fell back to Madi who was resting peacefully despite the horror it was getting her here and the fever that would not leave her.

The spells they had cast in the temple hadn’t lasted long once outside. Something managed to counterspell them despite their blessings and protections from the shadow curse, something far more powerful was at work here—a realization that had been the source of Gale’s nausea and unease since it crossed his mind.

He had watched as Madi’s eyes had become black the moment their spells were removed, immediately speaking in a tongue Gale did not recognize but from the way her whole body began to glow, they, collectively, knew it was not good.

Astarion was the one with the quick reflexes and reaction, knocking her out cold before Madi could finish her spell, whatever it had been. She was fine, despite being unconscious, until they walked into the barrier at Light’s Inn. Then she took a fever, her whole body shaking before they even got her into an open bed, unable to be awoken.

Gale desperately needed to understand what it was that she was dealing with, what stupid thing she did because of him, and by how much pain he saw her in, how changed and terrifying her powers had grown, he knew it was not good. He knew she reached for powers far greater than she should have, thinking that power was the only thing that could make a difference, that mattered.

Just like Elminster had said, if Gale took the moment to truly look closely at what she had done, he would see his very own actions.

Which only made him conclude that her power source was now directly entangled and connected with the very curse they sought to purge, the very curse Halsin, at the least, would fight to the death to end, and that was not someone Gale wished to face.

With this new perspective, Gale also now understood why Madi didn’t believe him when he said he would save her from this. He didn’t even understand its true nature but just from the power he saw, from the parts he could already gather, Gale knew it would be difficult to devise a plan.

“At times, I think there are things only you and I can understand out of our little group.” Astarion’s softer tone lightly carried Gale away from his thoughts, the elf’s expression pursed in sombre contemplation. “What it’s like to go from being surrounded by people to being alone yet never quite feeling the difference despite the company.” He offered, Gale lightly shrugging his brow in agreement. “Not needing the company of others yet striving to always be the best when you are.” Astarion offered a less favourable similarity, Gale having a harder time agreeing to it, but only because of his pride.

Astarion hesitated a moment before offering his third, his gaze finally acknowledging Madi.

“Lastly, I think I more recently than you, have found a single person who matters more to you than you could have ever imagined possible, despite the…problematic situations they’ve dragged us into.” Gale smiled, thinking of the precarious situations Tav had dragged them all into so far.

“I’m glad you have them.”

“I am too.” Astarion agreed with a soft smile, pausing a moment as he obviously thought of some memory or moment with Tav, before composing himself and returning his attention to Gale with a soft laugh. “I’m glad you have her too, but that is my point, Gale. If she has willingly done all of this,” he waved his hands dramatically in circles towards Madi, “to save this,” he waved his hands towards Gale, “then you have a chance. Besides, I haven’t met anyone who has made you act so foolishly and I can’t risk losing such entertainment.” Astarion lightly patted Gale’s shoulder. “So I’m invested, and you can count me in when it comes to saving your damsel.”

Gale tilted his head with a light nod, a smile spreading across his lips slowly in his bewilderment at how Astarion was talking to him, helping him, and Gale could truly tell it was authentic, it was truly him comforting Gale in this moment.

“You are a good friend, Astarion.” Gale warmly told him, a soft hand resting on his shoulder before he let out a soft chuckle. “I admit I—”

“Gale?” Madi weakly whispered, Gale immediately dropping to the side of her bed to take her hand into his, Astarion, without hesitation, got up and started walking towards the door saying how he would give them a moment before getting everyone, his tone nothing else but deadly serious.

“I’m right here, my love, you’re safe.” Madi breathed a weak smile, her chest rising with her unregulated panting.

“We made it?” Gale kissed her clammy hand as she struggled to get the three words out.

“I dutifully did as was commanded of me.” He told her, placing another kiss on her knuckles as he watched Madi close her eyes, her breathing becoming more laboured. “Tell me how I can help, Madi—please. I—”

“Nothing…not yet.” Madi groaned, almost hissed, at the pain inside her. Gale knew it was this new power she attained that caused this pain, caused this reaction, but he still couldn’t fully understand it until she told him! Gale found himself, quite honestly, growing impatient with continuously being left in the dark on the matter.

How was it that she was meant to help him, in all these grand ways he was kept in darkness over, yet he couldn’t do a simple thing for her? It was remarkably and unnecessarily unfair.

“You’re becoming more cryptic than Elminster,” Gale grumbled, not finding it in himself to be more cutting than that.

“I rue the day,” Madi whispered with an attempted, weak, playfulness before patting the bed with her free hand. “Help me move and lay with me. I will tell you everything I can.” Gale was quick to move, pulling from his robe a scroll of telekinesis they had found within a bookshelf in some place or another. He had been wondering when best to use such a spell, with it having so many uses, but ensuring Madi could be moved without pain, discomfort or Gale’s weak arms dropping her seemed like a just cause.

Quick and with a flourish, Gale cast the spell and gently repositioned Madi within the bed, allowing enough space for him to slide in. He held her suspended for a moment so that as she rested back into her pillow and mattress, it was also within Gale’s embrace. Madi smiled, her feverish sweat making her skin glow with all the candles and firelight flickering within the room.

“You are breathtaking,” Gale whispered to her, unable to stop himself from putting aside all other matters to just relish in this moment of being able to hold and love her. Madi’s finger slowly rose to boop the tip of his nose.

“You aren’t too bad yourself, handsome.” Gale watched as Madi’s soft and playful smile faltered into an expression of discomfort and fatigue. “I will be back to how I was once we return to the temple, nothing else that can fix this.” He ran a hand over her hair, clearing the stray strands that were in front of her face, before lovingly running a thumb over her cheek. It was taking every ounce of his energy to not panic, to not demand answers of what was going on. It helped to constantly loop through thoughts and reasons of why he loved her, of what she was enduring for him, what she had sacrificed, and that always reinforced his patience.

“And what, may I ask, is ‘this’ referring to?” He slowly, warmly, asked her, Madi smiling a little as if expecting such a response from him. However, Gale could hardly think of a more pressing question to ask, he just ensured to ask it with his decorum in mind.

“I have to kill the Nightsong,” Madi admitted after a small pause, Gale immediately turned from his thoughts, finding himself hanging onto her every word. “In exchange, Shar gave me the power to free you of your orb.”

“That’s who you made your deal with?” Gale immediately asked, purely out of shock as the answer was obviously ‘yes’. “Gods are not ones to seek favours from.” Madi was silent as she thought of how to respond, yet her silence was the only answer he required. Despite how profoundly Gale wished to lecture Masi on how diabolically hypocritical she was currently being, one wince of pain from her and Gale could only be left with worry.

“It was a deal I did not wish to make, but I was left no choice.” Gale felt immediately broken at her words, shattered from the weight of his guilt and shame of his action, that by stonewalling Madi he forced her down a dangerous path alone. “I found out what Elminster was instructed to tell you and I feared to my very core, Gale, that you would think yourself unworthy of living without Mystra’s approval and, quite frankly, kill yourself.”

Gale immediately wiped away the tears that started to form as Madi obviously sat with the thought of losing him while Gale couldn’t avoid empathizing with how deep the fear of losing him must have been for her to take such drastic measures. However, something told him that there was more to Madi’s deal to make it in Shar’s favour.

“I didn’t exactly give you any reason to believe otherwise, did I?” He asked, knowing the answer. “With being a shut-in within my tower, with how cruelly I ignored you…how desperate I was up until a few weeks ago to gain Mystra’s forgiveness.” Gale didn’t try to hide the contempt he held for himself being presented through his tone.

“Tara told me why you did it,” Madi was quick to tell him, her voice soft and full of compassion he did not deserve, “that you didn’t want to endanger me, that you had no idea what would happen with its volatility.” Gale just scoffed and shook his head at her justifications, it was hardly a reason to cause so much strife. Selfish.

“It doesn’t make up for it—”

“It doesn’t have to.” She cut him off again, seemingly impatient with his self-doubts and self-judgements. Madi had, however, been one to illogically against Gale’s standards while always finding the good in every poor choice made or quality had. As such, her opinion on the matter was quite biased—a point Gale felt necessary to keep telling himself. “You have plenty of time ahead to make up for it all. Promise.”

The reference to ‘time ahead’ had Gale immediately hit with thoughts of what that future was, with Madi, without the orb, and he felt desperate to have it. Yet something gnawed at him from the inside, like that future was just out of his reach from keeping.

The feeling struck fear in his heart—fear he would lose Madi, fear he would lose someone who saw only the best in his worst qualities, fear of losing the one person who seemed to make him better.

His heart sank to the bottom of his stomach, realizing that he risked losing all of this because of actions he drove her to take and he couldn’t allow her to carry that burden any longer.

“You don’t have to do this, we can find another way, a better way.” He begged her.

“No, Gale—” She tried to dismiss him but he wasn’t backing down, he had to fight for this, for her, for them.

“I’ll get stronger, better, I can figure a way to use this orb and save you—I am sure of it.” He promised her with all the honesty, sincerity, and desperation his heart could muster and carry.

“You don’t need to be ‘better’, Gale, please,” Madi begged him as she lightly stroked his cheek, “you don’t seem to understand how you have already been the best thing that is in my life, and it was never about your magic.” Gale chucked, lightly kissing Madi’s clammy forehead before cradling her closer to his chest, this not being the first, or probably last, time Madi had told him he was too reliant on his craft.

“I recall you being quite annoyed with me anytime I did cast magic for you.” He felt Madi smile against him, her finger bending and scratching against his chest.

“Yet you still can’t figure I don’t want you for your magical prowess.” Gale laughed with more force than he probably should have at the thought.

“Of course!” He told her. “What else could I possibly have to offer?” Gale felt Madi tug on his hair to make him look at her, her gaze looking so devastatingly serious he felt his breath hitch.

“I am not some goddess you need to impress. You could be a poor farmer with cursed crops, but so long as you were the devoted, doting, generous, caring, endearing, and intelligent man that you are then I would have everything I needed to be happy and fulfilled.” She drew her lips to his as Gale watched her with absolute shock, glazing over her comment of Mystra to focus on the way she described him and that Madi was serious with her convictions and not simply being playful with him.

He was so shocked he barely kissed her back but thankfully Madi did not seem to mind. Instead, she smiled at him with a weak but loving expression.

“I need no status, wealth or power Gale—”

“I know you don’t but I want to give that to you, a life where you are without wanting,” Gale confessed, still finding it absolutely preposterous that he, alone, as a simple commoner, could be enough for a woman such as her. Madi just lightly shook her head, tapping a finger into Gale’s forehead.

“We were so close,” she stressed with two taps, Gale letting out a small, soft, and shocked chuckle, “don’t get thick on me now.” She said, almost to Gale’s head or brain rather than himself, a notion he found both endearing and silly, but he listened to her words all the same.

“I guess I could try to understand.” He slowly admitted, instead shifting his focus to how he felt about her rather than thinking about what he deserved, as Madi was making it abundantly clear that he was no expert on that matter. He duly noted how she was pointedly telling him it was best to take her advice, and, despite how difficult it may prove in action, accept that her bias may be more deserving than he wished to accept.

A fact he could not ignore was how he had always been better off when taking her advice on matters, so despite his great reservations about such notions, all logic pointed to him resigning in this debate. And to think…the last time he disagreed with her was when he had just become Mystra’s lover and had foolishly run to tell Madi with immense pride at his triumph and elation—what a stinging realization that memory provided on multiple levels, Gale once again trying to pull his thoughts away from self-judgement and loathing.

“Sorry,” he apologized, noticing Madi’s playful expression slide into worry at his silence, “got lost in thought, but I say I should understand because when I think of the idea of a…future of this, of us, I do not picture anything but being with you and that is enough for me. More than enough, really.” He smiled, softly, fighting the constant berating he felt on the inside, the deprecation his mind begged to unleash.

Madi’s giddy laugh broke him out of those trenches, his excited and eager attention immediately making her tuck her face into the pillow, keeping it there until Gale scooped a finger under her chin and lovingly brought her shy and blushing gaze to his.

“Sorry—”

“I would happily hear that noise for the rest of my life,” Gale whispered, feeling an overwhelming, desperate, need to fiercely love and protect the woman he held in his arms.

“I don’t wish to say how long I have waited for this moment…not even knowing if it would ever come…I love you.”

“I love you too,” Gale spoke softly, “and never apologize for it. I would much prefer if you told me what I did to cause,” he drew his lips to her exposed ear, “such a heavenly sound.” Gale whispered, feeling his deep desire force his body to lean into his urges until he felt how hot Madi’s skin was, becoming instantly reminded of why he needed to be restrained.

“My appolo—” Madi placed a finger over his lips, Gale’s eyes drawn to look at her, seeing her breathe heavily, her skin glistening from the sweat of her fever—a detail Gale was trying very hard not to pay attention to so he could maintain his restraint.

“When we return to Waterdeep, we can nest within your tower and not leave the bed or balcony for a week, and we can live a lifetime of you whispering naughty things in my ear.” Gale huffed a laugh, caught off guard once more by her promises and how they made his heart and mind race. Stealing another moment for himself to look upon her beauty, admiring what he had foolishly overlooked for years, he couldn’t help but speak his regrets.

“How different things would have been if I had stopped searching elsewhere for the meaning I was lacking in life.” He thought out loud, knowing perfectly well he wouldn’t have this orb orthis tadpole, and Madi wouldn’t be in her current condition; facing whatever peril lay ahead of her. Madi simply shook her head in response and disbelief.

“You always had a flare for the dramatics.” She teased him, Gale smiling, knowing he had no defence to such truths. “Besides…this way we can save each other and have a story worthy of being written about.” Gale frowned, knowing Madi meant to be lighthearted but the notion only reminded him of three important and serious things: what he suspected the magic and power that festered within her was, how it connected to whatever she had planned with his orb, and how he was utterly terrified he wouldn’t be powerful enough to help her, stop her or save her.

But for right now he needed to be strong for her, needed to show her that he would save her from whatever peril she had ahead of her, whether he believed it himself or not. Gale smiled, drawing his face to hers once more.

“Then let us make sure it’s a gloriously romantic tale with a happy ending for the intrepid lovers, shall we?” He proposed to Madi, a small peck to her lips, pulling back to only see her lovingly smiling at him, a newly seen brightness behind her eyes.

“I like the sound of that.” She told him before tugging on his beard to pull his face back to hers.

~X~

They had managed to get back to the temple without issue, Karlach carrying Madi out of the protection of Lights Inn while still weak and sickly but, as previously stated, Madi’s fever was gone within an instant.

No longer was Shar trying to take control of her, to steal her mind and leave her body an empty husk of a follower—another to join the shadows, and a detail Madi ensured to withhold from her companions.

On their journey there, Madi explained how the Nightsong was not an idol but a person, an immortal, a daughter of Selûne and who is the source of Ketheric’s immortality, and how his reign allowed the continuation of the curse. She also informed Shadowheart that her goddess would task her with the same thing she tasked Madi with—to kill the immortal.

The fact that Shar had requested this task of more than one was not lost on many of their companions, or that Madi seemed to understand a great amount of intricate details related to the curse, Ketheric and the Nightsong. Within this explanation, it was understandable that Shadowheart was quick to dismiss the coincidence that would make her mission unimportant, claiming this was her destiny and that her lady called out to her here.

“Your lady calls to all in this land that will listen, ordering them all to do one thing: Kill the Nightsong. Ketheric demands it, her shadows hunger for it, you hear it.” Madi had told Shadowheart, seeing immediately a splinter in her belief and faith. It was not something Madi relished in, coming between someone and their god—despite what her past with Gale may attest.

But Madi heard the whispers of the shadows, heard the tales that the souls carried, and she knew Shadowheart was no more special to Shar than the next follower seeking her gaze and favour.

Thankfully she was able to convince Shadowheart of this truth long enough to temper her need to act hastefully upon meeting the Nightsong, long enough to allow a conversation between the immortal and Shadowheart that left her doubting and defying beliefs altogether.

It felt wrong to be grateful for such a thing, but it made what Madi had to do next a lot easier.

“Now, we free you,” Shadowheart announced, walking towards the immortal but Madi stepped in her way.

“Before that happens, there’s…one last thing,” Madi told the group yet she looked at Gale.

“I suspected as much.” Gale calmly explained which gave reason as to why he had been acting so strangely up until now, like every word or action of Madi’s was to be observed and added into an equation he was running in his mind. All this truth did now was beg the question of what he had figured out this far.

No matter what it may be, Madi felt that she needed to act as if he had not figured out her entire plan, yet.

“I knew you wouldn’t let me get to this point if I had told you.” She admitted to him, wracked with the guilt of her lies yet she knew it was the right thing to do. Gale only nodded, accepting her words, reaffirming that being a truth he had already established. “Please just listen Gale—I know I don’t have the right to ask…” Madi’s speech slowed as she watched Gale’s gaze soften.

“You have every right, you waited long enough for me, I can exercise patience.”

“That’ll be a first.” Shadowheart said with a bratty sneer before there was an audible thud and ‘oof’ from her, followed by a hushed ‘shut it’ from Karlach.

“I read the texts that your orb came from…” Madi continued but hesitated at how much she should tell him, “I know what it is Gale and it will destroy you…one way or another, its power will destroy the man who stands in front of me. I couldn’t leave it to a goddess who asks you to blow yourself up to fix it.”

“She does it—”

“I know why she does it, Gale!” Madi interjected, Gale immediately dropping his head into a shallow nod of agreement, his habit of defending his goddess a hard one to still break. Madi sighed, calming herself before continuing, “I understand her reasoning better than you do.” She pointedly cut at him, trying hard to hold her tongue at the real reason Mystra wished the orb to be destroyed and how she cared not about Gale’s life to do it—to remove the threat.

“Elminster explained to me, unintentionally, how Mystra was planning to use the Weave to sustain your orb and…theoretically, to destroy it, so—”

“You theorized what could be done with the Shadow Weave.” Gale completed, his eyes and voice carrying the shock of a lifetime until his expression twisted into one of fear and pain. “Madi…no! Nothing good could—”

“It’s too late Gale, I made my deal and she will kill me if I don’t make my end of the bargain happen. Either it’s the Nightsong or I that are leaving this place, Gale, but not both and…I, uh…” Madi’s voice quivered as she hesitated to say the last truth she needed to say, the truth that would cause her to act quickly before being banished from the realm of the goddess she was about to cross and betray.

Gale reached out to Madi who flinched at his touch, both of them shocked at her response.

Madi was scared, scared of what she was about to do, scared that a single touch from the man she loved would dissolve her courage and have her back away from the corner she had walked herself into.

“I need you to promise me a few things, right now Gale.” She hotly demanded, knowing she had to just rush into the perilous end she faced. Madi just needed to hear from him the words that would fortify her nerves.

“Madi, I—”

“Promise me, Gale!” Madi closed her eyes, unable to look at Gale’s twisted expression of concern and burgeoning distress.

“Okay!” Gale exclaimed, clearly wishing to calm her panic while his own continued to rise. “Whatever you ask.”

“Promise you won’t abandon me, you won’t forget about me…that you will try to save me.” Madi’s eyes opened to finally look at him, glimmering as her silent tears reliably returned to her. Gale softly took a step towards her, lightly reaching a loving hand towards her cheek.

“Madi—”

“Promise me!” Madi forcefully continued, knowing that she couldn’t stop, that she was growing weaker by the second out of fear of what she was about to do, what she was about to endure, but knowing she had to do it to free Gale from Mystra’s grasp. “You’ll return to me as you are,” she gripped onto his robes, her eyes frantic and wide as they searched Gale’s, “not Gale of Waterdeep, not Gale of something else, just Gale Dekarios the mortal man whom I have recklessly loved for far too long.”

Madi sputtered a laugh, her tears spraying from her mouth, Gale's cheeks glistening their tear trails as he silently watched Madi, waiting until he was sure she was finished.

“I promise you all of that and the world,” Gale whispered, seamlessly cupping her entire face within his hands only to bring them so close to each other their noses almost touched. “You will never leave my heart for a second. Every step I take, every thought I have, will be to get back to you, I swear it.” He promised, sealing his words with a kiss that was meant to hold a thousand love letters, a thousand moments of professed feelings of longing and sickening want, a promise of a thousand moments and more to come after their time apart. Madi’s whole world shook with the weight and the force behind his intentions, behind the way Gale held her, kissed her, and promised her an endless amount of devotion.

“Elminster has the other one of these,” Madi told Gale through a snotty inhale as they finally parted from the other, “or, well, had the other one. Here,” she added, dropping the ring into his hand, “I won’t be able to respond but I will be able to at least hear you.” Gale slowly clasped his hand over the ring before looking up at Madi.

“I will tell you about my every day.” He swore to her before his eyes softened and he slowly gave her a sad smile. “I promise.” Madi couldn’t help but return the smile.

“Very good, then, with that matter settled…there is just one last part that I need you all to agree upon,” Madi announced, opening herself up to stand in a space where she could look at everyone, Gale, his companions, as well as the Nightsong. “I can’t have you lift the Shadow Curse—”

Voices erupted from all sides, immediately drowning her out. Shadowheart getting heated as to why she sacrificed her faith, Halsin booming his immediate disagreement, Nightsong furious that she wasn’t going to be released.

“Let her speak!” Gale boomed, silencing them all into a hushed stillness before he turned to her with the softest smile of encouragement.

“I can’t have you lift the Shadow Curse right away. I need some time but I promise this land will be allowed to regrow and flourish, Ketheric will not be left immortal and you will be free, Nightsong.” Madi finished, turning to the immortal. “I just…need a few minutes between you being freed and when you can leave…and protection from whatever may come to try to stop me but once I—once I do what I need to, I will be able to protect you.”

Madi waited a moment until she saw Tav, Karlach, Halsin, Wyll and Gale nod at her, enough for her to know she would be safe to proceed. Sealing her fate, Madi reached back and placed a hand on the Nightsong, the seal holding her immediately releasing, while Madi just smiled at Gale weakly, pulling him towards her with her other free hand.

“I understand why Mystra made her rules,” Madi softly told Gale as she brushed some of his hair back behind his ear with the hand that had just freed the immortal. She could tell by the way Gale watched her that it was too late for her to be deceptive, he knew what she planned to do, but by how closely he stood to her, it was evident he didn’t know how. “Power like this shouldn’t be left to mortals who act upon the heart and not the mind.”

Madi brought her lips to Gale’s one last time, lingering in the touch as she slid one foot backwards and over the ward on the floor. Slowly her hand traced his scar from his eye, down his neck and only when her hand rested over his heart did Gale pull his lips away from hers yet found his body bound to her hand.

“The good thing about people like us, Gale, is that we are born sorcerers with a wizard’s training,” slowly the space around them lost the black and purple hue to fill with the pale green that Madi’s magic now appeared in. “We’re blessed with the ability to house, hold, comprehend and create terrible amounts of power,” Madi added, her eyes remaining closed.

The flame that was seared into Gale’s skin floated off of him only to slowly coil around Madi’s flesh, snaking up her arm but, unlike Gale, the lines continued to swirl over her entire body. Only when there was just a circle in her chest left of unmarked skin did her eyes fly open, glowing the green hue of her magic, demonic incantations sprouting from her lips.

Shadows appeared around them, the glyphs that once held Selûne’s daughter now filling with Madi’s magic. Gale’s friends sprung to action alongside the aasimar to protect Madi, as she had requested. Yet Gale could only watch in horror, even after the bond between them was severed, even as he watched the blindingly bright orb she held in her hand get placed into her body.

He could not think, could not move, only watch, slack-jawed, as he observed the woman he loved let out an infernal roar until the ward flared with magical energy and the shadows around them disappeared in an instant.

Silence lingered for a moment, Gale’s friends and the Nightsong looking around before turning to the two of them, Gale still watching Madi while looking completely helpless. Madi panted, trying to recover for a brief moment as she knew barely had a minute left.

“It was the Karsite Weave, Gale—Mystra wanted you to destroy yourself so she could destroy it,” Madi called out to him, feeling the final stages of her spell take effect. She knew she didn’t have enough time to explain it all and could see by the way Gale watched her, he had far too many questions.

“How—”

“No, Gale, listen! I—agh!” Madi groaned out in pain as her entire body went stiff and the feeling in her legs was completely gone. By the shock on everyone’s faces, she knew she was starting to turn to stone. “I combined it, Gale—listen!” She commanded his eyes back from her stoney form. “Shadow and Karsite, inside—ngh!” Another sharp pain and she felt nothing below her neck. “Check your tower! Tara—”

Madi was frozen, cast in stone, yet still conscious only by the magic that now commanded this pocket realm within Shar’s Domain, that coursed through her chest and the ward that kept her in place. Pale green magic still pulsed and illuminated in the swirls that creased her stone form. Unable to move or respond, she watched as Gale looked at her, absolutely gutted by what he saw.

She watched as his companions scurried behind him, pleading with him to move quickly to get back to Ketheric, but he shrugged them off while slowly putting on the ring Madi gave him, raising it to his lips to send a short message.

“I love you…never forget that, okay?”

Even encased in stone, Madi was flooded with pain at the inability to say it back to him, yet so happy to know he was finally without chains to Mystra. Those surges of emotions resulted in a swell of magic flaring up from the ward on the floor, a tendril licking under Gale’s chin, leaving him with a lighthearted chuckle.

“I’ll take that as a promise.”

And then he left, not to return for years, but that wasn’t something Madi was aware or knowledgeable of at this moment. All she could do, and would do, was wait, stuck in her stone form, feeling the aching pain of this morphed weave she bastardized for her singular purpose using her body as a conduit.

Yet she would grow immensely grateful for every short message of ‘I love you’ or ‘thinking of you’ that Gale would send frequently throughout every day leading up to their reunion, along with the nightly recounting of his day, even the ‘disastrously mundane’ ones—as Gale would come to call them.

Those became her favourite to hear about.

Tag list: @fangbangerghoul, @bearlytolerant, @endersnailz ♥ Hope you all enjoyed ♥

A/N:I have it planned to do short little ficlet, 1 to 2k fics of Gale's recounting to Madi as he continues his adventures in the main storyline and then him finding his way back to Madi. It will be slightly on the backburner and will be for when I just need some fluff and Gale silliness as I was blessed with an absolute brain rot of a Professor Dekarios PwP series that I am about to obsessively dive into ♥

#gale dekarios #gale of waterdeep #gale x oc #gale bg3 #gale romance #baldurs gate 3 #gale fanfic #gale dekarios fanfic #booburry writes

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tortugatalks · 1 year

Text

𝗖𝗮𝗻𝗱𝗹𝗲-𝗟𝗶𝘁 𝗗𝗶𝗻𝗻𝗲𝗿𝘀 𝘄𝗶𝘁𝗵 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗪𝗞 𝗩𝗶𝗹𝗹𝗮𝗶𝗻𝘀|ᴴᶜˢ

a.n. wine and dine? wine and dine! paisley paver and rex will be exempt from these hcs ahahem... i have yet to fully watch their eps, but they'll be here soon! trust 🤝

𓆉 gender neutral reader

𓆉 established romantic relationship

𓆉 no warnings!

Zach Varmitech

━ wild rats, wild varmints—ugh! it's enough to drive any evil genius insane! what better way to rid yourself of these burdens than to have a nice candle-lit dinner with your love? and you know what...? that actually sounds like a feasible idea! that settles it. he'll call in his zachbots and have them prepare the table and food for you and him. up in the city sky within his skyscraper, that's where! this is a night truly well deserved after all. your host? him of course!

━ type of guy that thinks he has it all planned out, but in execution? mmm, perhaps not. ever seen those really long tables in the movies? where two people sit opposite of one another and there's this entire space left in between? yeah, you both will be seated at one of those. it looks formidable and exquisite, sure, but when you two actually talk to each other? mans is just yelling out 'WHAT?'s whenever you speak and it's really not that efficient. he ultimately, and rather begrudgingly, has a zachbot seat you closer to him. does it kill the vibe? for him, probably, but for you? not so much!

━ his zachbots will be your waiters for tonight ooh la la, but like, c'mon, they're not entirely the best at double meanings and social cues. can't read the room! you'll have zach call them over to "fetch" him a bottle of wine and the bots take it a little too literally. it's chaos, but honestly? you'd be lying if you said you weren't having the time of your life.

━ little romantic moments with the self proclaimed genius inventor are few and far between, but in this moment, he likes to indulge in the fact that he's the one in control. no distractions, no green boy or blue boy to be seen; just you two. tries to be sauvé, and it works out for him at the start, but there's bound to be a few slip ups here and there. i.e. when he mistakenly initiates a flower protocol that instantly has his bots waltzing in with bouquets. they're decorated in pretty black wraps and ribbons, and for a second his face is crimson. he panics and yells that now wasn't the time and he tries ever so hard to get you to think that the flowers that just so happened to be your favorites "weren't" for you.

Donita Donata

━ she's worked terribly hard. fashion designing, evil schemes, organizing runway shows; it's an exhaustion that has her extremely burned out! so... why not plan a dinner date just for her? yes!! tell her about it and there's already sparkles in her eyes. she talks a lot about the kind of scented candles you'll have, the luxury wine, the appetizers—oh, she just has to call in dabio! and it must be in her glamorous mansion too! she gets so into it and completely forgets that you were the one who was supposed to be planning the night, but oh well!

━ dresses up nicely in luxurious clothes she knows you'll like! she's quick to put together something for you too, and without a doubt, its definitely matching. even dabio gets his own little fancy suit! (he'll be your lovely waiter for the night, of course!)

━ all lights are dimmed to a light pink once the clock strikes night time. if you're to pull out her chair and get her cozy in her seat, she'll let out a low but a loving hum. consider her impressed! bonus points if you compliment her, but c'mon, she already knows she owns the look! through it all, the mood is relaxing. conversations consist of casual flirtatious comments, plans for the future and so on and so forth. loves maintaining eye contact with you, so when you speak, you'll typically see her resting her chin on the palm of her hand with her elbow resting on the table, eyes trained on your face. if you're one to fluster easily, she'll have herself a fond laugh <3

━ would absolutely love to slow dance with you. stand up from your seat, offer her your hand and she'll be pleasantly surprised! she'll rock with you in your arms and give you tiny squeezes here and there. she loves toeing with the line of propriety and can be a bit of a tease every now and then!

Dabio

━ the sweetest ever! he hardly has any time for himself considering that he's always assisting donita with her fashion work. you gotta convince her to lay him off work for a bit, if just for one day! much to your surprise, she gives in to your wishes. just one day, though, but that's all you need before you're off planning a relaxing homemade date night for the both of you. tell dabio about it and he's just as happy, if not more than you! very excited and can't wait to spend the evening with you. he insists that he helps you cook, and you just can't say no to him <3

━ the dinner date isn't as fancy as the former two, but it holds a lot of love. despite not being on the job, dabio is ever the gentleman! he's fully decked out in the clothes donita made for him, he pulls out your chair for you, gifts you flowers, compliments you—the works! but of course, the dinner date is meant for him as much as he treats it like it's for you. if you happen to have a gift for him, he'll be on cloud nine! rest assured, whatever it is, he'll cherish it forever (or for as much as he possibly can!)

━ dinner talk is filled to the brim with laughter and conversations about practically anything you two can think of! he, however, loves to listen to you talk. whether it's about your day or your interests, dabio patiently and intently listens to everything you have to say while he eats and chimes in with a few comments of his own.

━ serve him some wine or offer to get up and get him a second serving and this guy has got hearts in his eyes! he absolutely adores your kindness and is very much appreciative, but don't think for a second that he won't do the same for you. he treats you like royalty and c'mon, to him it's only fair!

Gaston Gourmand

━ prepare to have yourself the most delicious and exquisite dinner you've ever had. having a dinner date was his idea and he takes it as an opportunity to woo you with his killer culinary skills and romantic gestures. the location he chooses isn't the most grandiose, but it's sweet with you in mind. he opts to dine somewhere familiar: out in the open (preferably next to a lake or river) in the foldout cafe area of his camper—string lights galore! surprise, surprise, he doesn't tell you what he has planned, but you know he's up to something with the way his tone dances as he speaks. all he does manage to tell you is for you to dress in comfortable clothes come night time! doesn't have to be anything particularly fancy—you'll look great in anything!

━ doesn't take long before he gets started on the cooking. everything will be made a la gourmand! he would like for you to feast on a rare dish, but it seems that whenever he does try to go and hunt something, green grape and blueberry are always there. he mulls over the thought a bit and ultimately decides that he doesn't want to go through all that for tonight at all. besides, he has exceptional cooking skills! whatever he makes will be jaw dropping and drool inducing either way.

━ very cheesy in execution. he does that thing where he covers your eyes with his hands as he leads you to his makeshift café. he pays close attention to your reactions and his heart swells with pride once you catch a whiff of a dish that smells particularly tasty! once he takes his hands off your face, he puffs out his chest with every compliment you throw at him. he may not look the part, but gourmand is determined to impress you!

━ as your dearly devoted partner, he takes full responsibility in serving you and making you feel content through and through. doesn't expect you to eat all proper, rather, he enjoys seeing you scarf down your dinner plate. he loves to talk big, his ego blinding, but he does like hearing you talk. he lets you get your own way in everything you do, not expecting anything other than the same from you in return <3

#wild kratts x reader #zach varmitech x reader #donita donata x reader #dabio x reader #gaston gourmand x reader

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chickensarentcheap · 7 months

Text

In a Heartbeat- Chapter Three

ANDOM: EXTRACTION

PAIRING: TYLER RAKE AND ESME DRUMMOND (ESTABLISHED OFC)

WARNINGS: angst. Big time angst.

SUMMARY: Dhaka nearly ended everything before it even began. In it’s aftermath and with Tyler’s life teetering on the threshold between life and death, Esme is about to realize just how strong she can be. And that love happens when it happens. There’s no rules. No rhyme or reason. No timeline.

Warnings: profanity, angst, mentions of childhood cancer and death, brief mentions of blood, brief mentions of gun violence, brief mentions of depression and anxiety

Link to Ao3: https://archiveofourown.org/works/48691714/chapters/127504024

Tagging: @tragiclyhip @youflickedtooharddamnit @secretaryunpaid @munstysmind @themaradwrites @ninjasawakenedmystar @asirensrage @residentdormouse @kmc1989 @karimac @arrthurpendragon @ocappreciationtag @occommunity @alisbackalleybbq @thebewingedjewelcat

****

One week later

“Tell me about the place. In Austria.”

His eyes are closed as he speaks, and his voice is low and quiet. It has started to lose the raspiness; a side effect from the irritation caused by prolonged dependency on life support. And while every day his wakeful periods increase, the weakness continues to ebb and flow: brief bouts of having the strength to attempt to feed himself mixed with moments of barely being able to lift his head from his pillow.

During those tough and trying times, he wears his emotions so plainly upon his face: the frustration that comes with the inability to properly hold utensils and the embarrassment that follows when she’s quick to tend to him. Always so patient as she does; never complaining or viewing him as a burden as she carefully and gently spoons soup or oatmeal into his mouth or holds the straw in place as he sips from a cup of ice water. And each time, it leaves him wondering what he’d ever done to deserve someone like her. A woman whose heart is so much larger than her diminutive frame; loving with every ounce of her body and soul.

Regardless of whether she receives the same -or even close to it- in return.

“You WERE able to hear me.”

“I don’t know if I heard everything you said, but I heard a lot. What I can remember, anyway.”

There’s a faint, audible squeak as she pushes her chair away from the side of the bed. “I probably annoyed the shit out of you, huh? Just talk, talk, talk, talk. I bet you were just dying to tell me to shut the fuck up.”

“Why would I ever tell you that?”

“Because I’m a chatty Cathy and you’re not. You’re a man of few words. I’m a woman of many.”

“Well, what’s that saying? Opposites attract?”

“We are about as opposite as you can get,” Esme muses. “In EVERY way. We make a pretty odd couple, you know. I mean, let’s start with the obvious. The enormous size difference.”

“I’ve only got a foot and three inches on you.”

Giving a small laugh, she perches herself on the edge of the bed. “‘Only,’ he says.”

“And about a hundred pounds.” His eyes flicker open as one of his hands comes to rest on his stomach; brow immediately furrowing. “Okay, maybe not that much NOW.”

“I wouldn’t stress too much about it. You’ll put the pounds back on in no time. I’ve seen the way you eat.”

A grin tugs at the corners of his mouth.

“And you haven’t lost THAT much muscle tone. The way YOU fight when the personal support worker tries to get you out of bed to take a shower? You’re like a man possessed. All those months in a coma, and you’ve suddenly got the strength of five grown men.”

“I don’t want his help. I don’t want some guy holding me up while I take a shower. It’s…I don’t know…wrong.”

“Tyler…” She clasps one of his hands in both of hers.. “...it’s his job. Impressive as it is, your dick isn’t the first he’s seen. And it won’t be the last.”

“I don’t give a shit. I don’t like it. The idea of it. So if you can’t do it, I’ll go a week without showering if I have to.”

“You’d be pretty damn ripe, that’s for sure. I was there, remember? In that warehouse. In that sewer. At Gaspar’s before you took a shower. I distinctly remember what you smelled like. And believe me, it wasn’t pleasant.”

“You didn’t complain about it then.”

“I was too in lust to think anything bad about you. You smelled like a man. MY man.”

“And now?”

“And now we’ve gotten past the honeymoon stage of being scared to insult one other. We’re in the comfort zone now; we’re able to say whatever we want without hurting feelings.”

“You’ve gotten past the honeymoon stage. You’ve had six more months than I have.”

“Through no fault of your own. And you still smell like a man. MY man. Just a much more pleasant version. I have to say, it’s pretty delicious; the whole coconut and honey and milk thing you’ve got going on. I’m starting to understand why you like it so much. Why you used to sniff my hair when I was sleeping. In Dhaka.”

“I never ONCE did that.”

“You admitted to it. When we had that fight.”

“I never said I sniffed your hair. Or you in general. I said I wanted you to stick close to me. So close I could smell your hair.”

“Mmmhmmm. Sure. You may have said that, but it’s not what you meant. You were just being a total creeper, weren’t you? While I was asleep.”

“If you only knew the things I would do while you were sleeping next to me.”

“Oh, I know the dirty things you were up to, young man. I wasn’t asleep EVERY time.” She laughs when a blush creeps into his cheeks; spreading along the line of his jaw and down onto his neck and all the way to the tips of his ears. And she leans in to peck the corner of his mouth; palm gently cupping his cheek when he turns his face into hers and kisses her in earnest. A long, dreamy sigh escaping her lips when she pulls away; her eyes closing and her nails lightly scratching at his beard as she rests her forehead against his.

He’s surprised by how much he enjoys it. How much he enjoys HER. The sound of her voice and her laugh, the familiar scent that clings to her hair and clothes, the touch of her hand and the taste of her lips. It’s profound and all-consuming; the depth of his feelings and the strengths of his wants and his needs. Emotions he’d long thought dead the moment he’d condemned himself to a life of solitude; punishing himself for the horrendous mistake he had made and opting to live the rest of his existence drowning himself in booze and painkillers while wallowing in grief, regret, and tremendous self-hatred.

It was what he deserved, after all. For abandoning his wife and child when they needed him the most. It was a loathsome, vile, and completely unforgivable thing he'd done; showing up at the hospital to say goodbye and not even having the courage to even go into the room. And only a monster would betray his own child like that; allow himself to be seen lingering in the hallway and then witnessed callously turning his back and walking away.

He’d been desperate for it to all end. The guilt and the regret and the profound grief that he just couldn’t shake. Lacking the courage to pull the courage himself, he’d instead prayed for a different ending; hoping he’d find himself in the direct path of a sniper’s bullet. Although he had briefly considered just staying in the water that day; simply allowing his air to run out and surrendering himself to the darkness that had haunted him since the day he’d walked away from his son.

But something had told him that it wasn’t his time yet; he still had unfinished business to tend to. He didn’t understand it, nor did he bother to question it; instead, he listened and obeyed and headed home. And within an hour, he’d discover the reason he was meant to continue his journey. All five feet, a hundred and ten pounds of it.

He wants to be better for her; willing to commit to whatever it takes to be the man that she already sees him as. Someone that she can be proud of and show off and brag about. The kind of partner that she wants and needs. And deserves.

He just doesn’t know where to begin.

She pecks the bridge of his nose and pulls further away. One hand still tightly gripping his as she reaches out with the other to clear wayward strands of hair out of his eyes and off his forehead. “What do you want to know? About the place in Austria?”

“I don’t know. Everything, I guess.”

“Well, it’s in the middle of nowhere. Rural Gmunden. VERY rural. And it’s just a little place; a cabin, more or less. There’s two decent size bedrooms, an open-concept kitchen, living room, and one and a half bathrooms. It’s pretty dated, though; I don’t think it’s been renovated or re-decorated in about twenty years. But we can worry about all of that once we’re in there and you’re back on your feet. STEADILY.”

“Whenever that’ll be.”

“It looks so beautiful, Tyler. Where it is. Surrounded by mountains and trees. And there’s a little lake practically right out the front door. We can fish and swim. Maybe even skate once it freezes over.”

He arches a brow.

“Okay, so I’LL skate. You can just hang out on the sidelines. And bring me hot chocolate. With tons of marshmallows and whipped cream. And maybe even coconut shavings on the top of it all.”

“Whatever you want. I’ll make you all the hot chocolate in the world. All day long. But you’re not getting me on skates. I just got my knee replaced. Let’s not take a chance and blow it out, yeah? ‘Cause I could do without another hospital stay. For the rest of my life.”

“You and me both, buddy. It’s been an adventure. To say the least. It’s almost over, though; it won’t be too much longer. And I know we’re going to love this place. It’s tucked away and it’s quaint and it’s cozy and it’s perfect for two people that are still in that ‘getting to know you’ stage. Mind you, most don’t immediately jump into living together, but…”

“I’m sure we’ll manage. I’m sure I won’t drive you completely insane the first week. I can’t make any promises about the second, though.”

“I think we’ll do just fine. If we can co-exist in that shitty little hotel room in Dhaka, I think we’ll be able to handle things in paradise.”

“Your definition of paradise is a lot different than normal people.”

“It’s nature at its best. Its most beautiful. I can’t think of anything better than that.”

“I keep forgetting. You’re a ‘freezing your balls off’ kind of weather girl.”

“I promise you that your balls will remain exactly where they are. I think it’ll be good for us; being away from noise and chaos and tons of people. And you were living like that before I ever came along. Not to mention you were completely alone. At least this time, you’ll have company. Unless…” Her eyes narrow as she quickly drops his hand. “...this is some passive-aggressive attempt on your part to say you don’t WANT company. Especially MY company.”

Heaving a sigh of disdain, he casts a scowl in her direction. “You really didn’t just say that.”

“I mean, a girl likes to know where she stands. And it’s not that we've been able to really talk about this kind of thing and…”

“You think you’d still be here if I didn’t want you to be? That if I didn’t want you here, I wouldn’t have just told you to ‘fuck off’ already?”

“Like, could be passive-aggressive or…”

“I don’t do ‘passive aggressive’. I know we haven’t known each other that long, but that should’ve been pretty damn obvious from the start.”

“You’ve got a point there. You’re nothing if not honest. Brutally, at times.”

“With you?” He scowls, trying to wrack his brain for a time and place. A moment -within the past week or even during their time in Dhaka- that he’d been unintentionally cruel to her; a moment when he may have been frustrated or tired and taken it out on the wrong person. Of all the people in the world who don’t deserve that treatment, it's her; all the patience and tenderness she continues to show and that assertive, tenacious way in which she fights for what’s best for him.

“You tried to choke me out,” she reminds him. “In Dhaka.”

“That’s not what I was trying to do.”

“But first, you threw a temper tantrum. When we got back to the hotel. You totally lost it on me, remember? Just completely pulled rank and flipped out and expected to get away with it.”

“Well, if you had just listened to me…”

“I don’t listen to ANY man. You’re not special.”

He smirks.

“Okay, MAYBE you are. Just a little bit special. But don’t let it go to your head, okay? Because I’m not afraid to put you back in your place.”

“You know, you’re awfully cocky for someone so tiny. Someone I can pick up and put in my pocket and carry around all day.”

“It’s always the little ones though, isn’t it? That you really have to watch out for? That cause the most trouble?”

“In your case? Yes.”

“I bring only the best possible trouble.”

“Yeah? And what’s the best possible kind of trouble?”

“The one that comes with blow jobs and orgasms. What better kind of trouble could there be?”

“Don’t talk like that. It’s going to be a while. Before anything like THAT happens. Hope you realize you’re in for a long wait.”

“How long could it possibly be? Months? I’ve already lasted six. I think I can handle a couple more.”

“What if it’s even more than that? Before things are working again?”

“Jokes on you, buddy. I’ve gone a lot longer than that without. I’ve gone YEARS. Besides, there’s more than one way to skin a cat. I’ve got two hands. I know how to order toys off the internet. You’ll just have to learn how to use them. I’m sure we can teach an old dog some new tricks.”

“You’re an evil little human, you know that?”

“However long it is, I’m sure we’ll both survive. We’ve gone this long, haven’t we?”

“I didn’t really have a choice. I wasn’t exactly conscious. You, on the other hand, stuck in a place with all kinds of single doctors. I’m sure you could have found one to…”

“You were in a coma and I wasn’t interested. I know how good the goods actually are. And believe me, they’re well worth the wait. And as far as this living in Austria thing…”

“Not this again. I don’t know what more you want for me. What else you need me to say.”

“I just want to make sure that we are on the same page. A girl likes to know where she stands. Especially when it comes to a guy. And if I’m just yapping on like a stupid bitch and you don’t want me there…”

“I can’t imagine NOT having you there. I didn’t know you needed me to say it. Or that you wanted me to ask you to come along. I guess I just assumed you knew. I thought it was pretty obvious; considering everything that’s happened in the past six months…”

“Sometimes women like to feel wanted. They like to HEAR it. They want to know they’re needed.”

“Believe me, you’re needed.”

Smiling, she leans in to peck the corner of his mouth; giving a small, startled squeal and then a musical giggle when a hand aggressively seizes the nape of her neck. A long, content sigh escaping her when he kisses her in earnest.

God, how she’d missed it; the taste of his lips and the delicious scratch of his beard against her skin. It had been so long; since they’d been able to share any of the most innocent and simplest forms of intimacy. And while she knows the wait will be long until they can finally venture further, she also knows -from first-hand experience- that it will be more than worth it.

******

“Mmmm…” She’s smiling as she pulls away. “That was…nice.”

“That’s it? ‘Nice’? For the first REAL kiss in six months? I spend half a year in a coma and put in all the hard work to wake up and all I get is ‘that was NICE’?”

“It was very nice,” she assures him, and presses a kiss to the top of his nose. Her eyes closing as she rests her forehead against his, and a hand reaches up to toy with his thick, unruly dirty blond tresses. It’s growing on her; the extra length and how it curls around his ears at the nape of his neck and the way it falls across his forehead.

“I need a haircut.”

“As soon as you’re released, we’ll get you to a barber. Or get one to come to you. Clean you up a bit.”

“For what it’s worth, you did a pretty good job. Keeping things under control.”

She laughs. “A hair stylist and beautician, I am not. But at least you don’t look completely homeless.”

“You did alright. I think I’ll keep you on the payroll.”

“Yeah? And what’s the hourly rate?”

“No actual pay. Just benefits.”

“And just what kind of benefits are we talking about?”

“The best possible kind. The only kind that matters, actually.”

Grinning, she affectionately ruffles his hair and then moves to the bedside table, winking at him as she lifts the remains of a takeout cup of tea to her lips. “You’re going to have a lot of benefits to hand out when you’re finally feeling up to it.”

“Well, hopefully, it’s sooner rather than later, yeah? For both of us? Keep our fingers crossed that it won’t stretch on until we’re both really old and really gray and I can’t get it up for other reasons?”

“Don’t worry, baby. If that ever happens, I’ll slip Viagra in your prune juice.”

“If I ever need that stuff, you have my full permission to shoot me in the head. With a very large calibre bullet.”

“Sorry, no can do. I like having you around too much. For reasons that far surpass your ability to…what’s a delicate way of putting it…pitch a tent.”

“You can’t tell me you’d be happy if it never happened again.”

“I wouldn’t be thrilled. I mean, I’d miss it. Being with you in the biblical sense. But it wouldn’t be the end of the world. I’m not solely with you because of your penis.”

“Solely?” He smirks. “So what you’re saying is that it plays a part.”

“I’m saying you have a very nice penis. And you know how to use it. Boy…” Sighing, she swallows the last of her tea. “...do you EVER know how to use it.”

“You’re not making me feel any better here.”

“Look, I’m with you for your body AND your brains.”

“Sure you are…”

“You can’t fault me for enjoying what you bring to the table. Maybe if you weren’t so good at certain things…”

“First you say shit like ‘that was nice’ and now you have the balls to complain about my skills? You certainly didn’t have a problem with them in Dhaka. When you were pulling my hair and biting my neck and shoulders and telling me to…”

“The only complaint I have is that we didn’t get longer than five days. Through no fault of your own, by the way. A bullet to the neck can really spoil the mood.”

“Technically speaking, I was actually shot six times.”

“And yet here you are, alive and well. And…” she shoots him a wink. “...already being an enormous pain in my ass.”

“I’m kinda bitter about things, too,” he admits. “That I only got five days to prove myself worthy. I never even got the chance to bring out the really big guns.”

“Oh, I’ve seen and experienced the REALLY big gun. It’s been six months and I’m still not walking properly.”

“I’m talking skills-wise. I didn’t give everything away. In Dhaka. I’ve still got a few tricks up my sleeve.”

“That are even better than the ones you already spoiled me with?”

“I mean, I’m my opinion, yeah.”

Frowning, she dramatically slams her empty cup down on the bedside table. “Now who’s the evil one? I can’t believe you have the goddamn audacity to tell me something like that! Especially when you know I have to wait Lord knows how long to find out if you’re bullshitting or not!”

“Doesn’t really matter, does it? Even if I did have the strength and the energy, it would be impossible. I still have a tube up my dick so I can take a piss.”

“Look on the bright side! You’ll be graduating to a bedpan soon.”

“Lucky me!”

“Does it soften the blow if I promise to wipe and powder your ass REALLY well afterwards?”

“Don’t make me call security and have you thrown out of here.”

“You should consider it both a privilege and a blessing that I’d even consider it, let alone do it. I don’t just wipe the ass of every man I know.”

“That’s not what I heard. I’m not the only one that has a rep in this circle.”

Smirking, she tosses the empty cup in his direction. “You cheeky fuck.”

He watches her as she tidies up the bedside table. Busily clearing away the remnants of that afternoon’s cafeteria-purchased lunch, the scissors, comb and nail clippers that she’d used to ‘tidy him up,’ followed by one many magazines she’d purchased the evening before at the gift shop. And the pen and pad she’d procured in order to let him doodle and scribble; a simple exercise for fine motor skills that wouldn’t take too much thought or strength and wouldn’t tire him out. At times resorting to providing ‘hand over hand’ support; when his movements became fluid and precise and needed a bit more control.

The admiration runs deep. And constant. This tiny, incredible woman that had been dropped into his life and showed no desire to leave. Her dark hair thrown up into a messy bun; loose tendrils brushing against the nape of her neck and dangling down the sides of her face. That petite frame clad in a jumpsuit; one of many outfits Nik had brought her within the past month alone. The shade of orange sorbet; the simple, smooth cotton boasting white and yellow pinstripes. And with no makeup gracing her features, he can clearly see the freckles that decorate the bridge of her nose and spread onto the tops of her cheeks. Making her look years younger.

“You’re beautiful.”

A slight blush creeps into her cheeks as a smile curves her lips. “I look like shit. But I appreciate you trying to boost my confidence.”

“You couldn’t look like shit even if you tried.”

Her smile broadens. “Those meds they have you on must be really good. You’re hallucinating.”

“I am completely lucid.”

“So you’re biased, then.”

“Just take a compliment, would ya?”

“Thank you. I still think you’re biased, though.”

“Maybe I am. Just a little bit. Doesn’t make it less true, though.”

Holding up a styrofoam cup of ice water, she raises a brow as she waves it in his direction. And when shakes his head, she returns it to the table before once more taking a seat on the edge of the bed. Regarding him with adoration as she reaches out to push the hair off his forehead and out of his eyes before once more taking one of his hands in both of hers)

“I’m sorry.”

She trails a fingertip along the scar that graces the bridge of his nose. “For what?”

“I got a little shitty. With you. I don’t mean to get that way. Especially with you.”

“I think you’re entitled to your less than sun-shiney moments. I mean, you were shot more than half a dozen times, you were clinically dead, spent six months in a coma, and you have a tube in your dick so that you can go to the bathroom. I think you’ve earned your right to be ‘a little shitty’ from time to time.”

“I don’t mean to get grumpy. Not with you, anyway.”

“Tyler, let’s be totally honest here. You were grumpy long before any of this ever happened.”

“I really will have you kicked out of here.”

“Bullshit, you will. You’d miss me way too much.”

“I would, actually. I really would.”

Smiling, she leans in to peck his lips.

“How long do you think it’s going to be? The whole being released thing.”

“I don’t know. They haven’t even given me an estimate, let alone an exact number of days. Gotta give it some time; you’ve only been conscious for a little more than a week. It’s going to take a bit.”

“Shouldn’t I be farther ahead than this? They haven’t even tried getting me the fuck outta this bed. I can’t lie here forever. Just going insane, staring at the fucking walls.”

“You’re not ready to get out of bed.” She keeps her voice gentle and soothing. Patient. I know you THINK you are, but you’re just not there yet. Like I said; you were clinically dead and in a coma for half a year. You lost weight and muscle tone and it’s going to take a while to get any of that back; to build up your strength and your stamina.”

“It’s just hard, you know. Being this way. I’m not used to this. Being this weak. This pathetic.”

“You’re not weak OR pathetic. You’re recovering. From one hell of an ordeal. Believe me, you are in way better shape and are healing a lot faster than most people would. Don’t rush things, alright? I know it’s frustrating; being stuck in bed. But your body is healing. Let it do its thing.”

“Can’t it do its thing any faster?”

“It happens WHEN it happens. You’re just going to make things worse; if you try and do too much. The more you force it, the bigger the setback will be if something goes wrong. I don’t want that for you. Complications keeping you in here even longer than you need to be.”

“I just feel like they’re wasting time. They could be working on things. Working on ME.”

“Babe, the first -and last time- they tried, do you remember what happened? How bad it went?”

He nods.

“You refused to use the walker for balance and wouldn’t let them help you and you fell. Flat on your face. And you ended up with six stitches in your forehead and a concussion to show for it. Can we NOT have a repeat of that, please?”

“I can’t live like this. Stuck in bed, completely fucking useless. I can’t…”

“This isn’t a permanent thing, Tyler. Sometimes it may seem like there’s no end in sight, but I promise you; you’re not going to spend the rest of your life like this. It’s just a setback. A little detour. And a year from now, we’ll look back on and find something to laugh about.”

“It’ll probably be about me falling on my face. You probably laugh about that already. When I’m asleep.”

“If it makes you feel any better, I’m laughing WITH you. Not at you.”

He scowls.

“I’m kidding. Obviously. I would never laugh about that. But I am telling you right now, you fall on the ice in Austria? I will be in absolute fucking hysterics. I’ll be on the ground and everything. Just dying. Peeing my pants and all. Because that shit is funny.”

“You really ARE evil.”

“I promise I will not laugh at any of your misfortunes. At least not out loud.”

A grin plays at the corners of his mouth. “Fuck off, Esme.”

“We both know you don’t mean that. You’d hate it if I weren’t around. I keep things interesting.”

“That’s one way of putting it.”

Leaning in, she pushes a hand through his hair and presses a kiss to his forehead). “Listen, you’re doing great, okay? Everyone here? They didn’t expect you to even breathe on your own once they took you off the machines. And yeah, you need some help and it’s a struggle to do even the simplest of things, but you’ve got a lot of time left, Tyler Rake. To re-learn what you need to. To get your feet back under you. You shouldn’t even be on this side of the ground. But here you are. ALIVE.”

He sighs. Tears brimming his eyes as he considers her words.

“I know it’s frustrating; someone like you being cooped up like this. You’re so used to being able to rely on your body and your skills and your instincts and all of that. But you paid one hell of a price back on that bridge. For your mistakes. But you know what? You’ve made your amends. The slate’s been wiped clean. And now it’s time to rest. Believe me, you’ve earned that.”

“Have I?”

“Yes, you have. You have more than earned it. And now that we’re talking about more serious stuff…”

“I don’t think I like the sound of that.”

“Your primary nurse and I were talking; about how drastic your mood changes can be. How quickly you can go from chatty and upbeat to just downright…well…how can I put this? You can go from being friendly and cute to being a miserable fucking prick in two seconds flat.”

“Not with you.”

“You’re never like that with me. Probably because you know how fast I’ll put you in your place. But no one else can even get close to you without having their head bitten right off. They’re just doing their jobs. They’re trying to help you.”

“I don’t want their help. I have you.”

“But I’m not a professional. I’m not a nurse or a therapist or a doctor. I can only do so much, you know? But these people? They get paid to take care of you. And other people like you. They have the experience. So let them use it, okay? You have to trust them, Tyler.”

He shakes his head.

“They’re not the enemy. They aren’t here to hurt you. They’re here to HELP you. I mean, you trust ME, right?”

“With my life.”

“Then trust everything I’m saying. Let them help you. The sooner you comply and you let them do their jobs, the sooner you’ll get out of here. So if you’re not going to do it for yourself, do it for ME. Because I don’t want to see you hurting yourself or complicating things. I want you out of there just as badly as you want to be out here.”

“And these meds? That they want me to take?”

“It’s a combination. Of an anti-depressant and an anxiety med.”

“I’m not crazy.”

“No, you’re not. You’re sick. You’re healing. And what you went through? It was very traumatic. And it would fuck with anyone’s head. I was there. I saw everything. I know how bad it was for me, let alone you. If it helps, I’m on meds.”

“You are? When? When did that happen?”

“About three months after we got here. I fought the idea, too. I kept telling everyone I was fine. That I was just tired and stressed and worried. And if it wasn’t for Nik and Yaz nagging the shit out of me every day? About MY moods? Who knows where I’d be now. Probably completely insane.”

“So I AM a burden. To you.”

“No! No! That’s not what I said. And it’s not what I think. It’s the situation. It’s hard; seeing the person you care about go through something like this. And not just the coma and the ‘will he or won’t he’ when it came to dying. But what happened on that bridge; the things I saw and the things I had to do. It was a horrible, horrible thing to witness. And none of it was your fault.”

“If I had done things differently. That first night. If I hadn’t called Gaspar…”

“No. We are NOT doing that. We’re NOT playing the ‘what if’ game. Because it won’t lead to anywhere good. You did the best you could. You made the decisions you had to make. And no one is questioning that or blaming you for the outcome. Especially not me.”

“And these meds will help?”

“It’ll take a few weeks; to really notice the difference. And sometimes you have to try a couple of different kinds. But yeah, they will. They’ll help you. And that’s all I’m trying to do. Get you help?”

“If you keep taking yours, I’ll do it. I’ll take them.”

“Perfect!” She lightly tousles his hair. “Teamwork! We can be accountability buddies. Was it really that hard? To agree?”

“It hurt. A lot.”

“Smart ass. Now…” She kisses each corner of his mouth, followed by his lips, and then slides off the bed. “...you need some rest. You’ve been up a long time. The longest you’ve stayed awake since coming out of the coma.”

“I’m not tired.”

“Well, I am. I am in desperate need of a nap. So I’ll take on the chair, you take on in your bed. I mean, I’d climb in there with you if I could. But I don’t think that would go over well with your doctors. So…”

He snags her by hand when she turns away, fingertips pressing into her skin in order to capture her full attention. “Did you mean what you said?”

“When? You’re going to have to be a little more specific. I say A LOT, in case you haven’t noticed.”

“I heard what you said. Right before I woke up. The whole ‘love’ thing. Did you mean it?”

“I did. I DO.”

“I was wondering if maybe you just said it because of the situation you were in. It was a hell of a thing you went through, too. Not to mention you put your entire life on hold for a guy you barely knew. Fought for him to get the care he needed. Didn’t give up on him like everything else did.”

“I knew you were fighting your back. I also knew you needed time to do it. I wasn’t going to let them win. They were not taking you off that machine until you were good and ready.”

“Thought maybe it was all that…all the stress and the fear and whatnot…that made you say what you did.”

“I meant it, Tyler. I meant it then and I mean it now. And I needed to get it out there. Into the universe. You needed to hear it and I needed to say it.”

“I even thought maybe I imagined it. I’m still not sure what was real and what wasn’t. When it comes to stuff I heard. If I actually DID hear it or my brain just made it up.”

“You heard. It was real. And I don’t regret saying it. I needed to be honest with you and myself. So…” She shrugs. “...I was. And look, I don’t expect anything from you in return, okay? I don’t want you to feel pressured into saying it back. I know that it’s all so crazy. We haven’t known each other that long, and really, minus the time here, we only spent five days together. So don’t think you have to spare my feelings, alright? You don’t HAVE to say it back.”

“Esme…”

“I didn’t tell you to get another in return, is what I’m saying. I did because I felt it and I needed to say it out loud, you know? To really make it real. You probably think I’m totally nuts. Or that I’m some kind of weird, obsessive stalker or something; falling in love that quickly. But I swear; I am normal. Well, as normal as you can get, considering…”

“Esme…”

“You just take your time, okay? Don’t rush on my account. I can’t wait as long as it takes. Until you’re feeling the same thing. I can wait to hear it. Because I want it to be real when you do. Not just something you’re saying to make me happy.”

“Esme…” He tightly squeezes her hand to grab her attention. “...can I get a word in here?”

“Sorry. I ramble. When I’m nervous. I’m sure you noticed that already. In Dhaka. The morning after we…you know…the first time. And I was worried you were regretting it and that you were going to tell me it was a huge mistake and that it was NEVER going to happen again…”

“I love you.”

She takes a sharp inhale of breath, then releases it shakily. Her free hand coming up to her face; fingers fidgeting with the loose tendrils of hair that brushes against her left cheek. “Don’t say that. Not unless you mean it. I’ve had that happen before; someone saying it and getting my hopes up only to totally ruin me. In more ways than one.”

“I’m not him. I’m not anything like him.”

“I know that. I do. But when you get used to something, it’s hard to expect anything else. And that’s not a slight on you, believe me. It’s all me.”

“I’m saying it because it’s true. You should know by now; I don’t say shit unless I mean it.”

“Not even in a circumstance like this? To someone who’s spent half a year at your bedside? Taking care of you? Not even then?”

“Not even then. Not under ANY circumstance.”

“You REALLY mean?”

“I really mean it.”

“People are going to think we’re nuts. I’m sure a lot already do. Or at least they think I am. Giving up my entire life for a guy I barely knew. Falling in love with him so fast. Don’t you think it sounds crazy? That it SEEMS crazy? To feel this way so soon?”

“All I know is that it feels right. And that’s another thing you should know by now. I don’t give a shit what anyone thinks.”

“You do march to the beat of your own drum.”

“Who cares what people say? It’s just ‘cause they don’t understand it. ‘Cause it’s never happened to them. I sure as hell never thought it was possible; feeling this much, this soon.”

With a firm grip on his hand, she sinks down onto the edge of the bed. “It’s scary. How quickly this is all happening. It’s not normal, is it?”

“If you really think about…how we met and how things happened and everything on that bridge…you’d realize you and I are far from normal.”

“So what now? Now we’re both feeling it? Now that we’ve both said it?”

“We go to Austria. Shack up in that little cabin. And hope for the best. I might drive you crazy after a couple of months.”

“I’ve dealt with crazier than you, Tyler Rake. What if I drive YOU nuts?”

“You’re already there.”

Laughing, she leans in to peck his lips. “Asshole.”

Reaching up, he loops strands of hair behind her ears, then tightly grips the nape of her neck. “We just get to Austria, shut out the rest of the world, and take things one day at a time.”

She smiles. “Sounds good to me.”

“But first, I gotta get the fuck out here. And…” Lifting the blanket, he scowls as he nods down at the remaining tubes attached to his broken body. “...we get this tube out of my fucking dick.”

#Tyler and Esme series #Tyler Rake #Tyler Rake fanfic #Tyler Rake fan fiction #Extraction #Extraction 2 #Extraction fan fic #Extraction fan fiction #Tyler Rake x OFC #Chris Hemsworth #Esme Rake #Esme Drummond

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mangora · 2 years

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Everyone talks about weh weh all stars derailed my faves and yeah it did but if you’re gonna say that go all the way because it wasn’t just duncan gwen courtney etc like the second gen got hit ROUGH too. Zoey’s whole arc in season four was learning to be self-sufficient and stand up for herself even if it made her look bad, it was about learning to be confident and not fearing her peers’ judgment anymore. All stars, she’s a total people pleaser again and her whole store revolves around Mike, when Mike’s departure last season was what sent her into a character arc. Cameron, in a similar vein, learned to take pride in his own abilities, and use his kindness and intelligence to make a name for himself instead of cowering in the face of scrutiny for the skills he didn’t have. Now he’s a bumbling wreck again who can’t make simple observations for the life of him and never stands up for himself despite winning and earning so much good will for it, including from Scott and Jo and Lightning. Speaking of, Scott, Jo, and Lightning are…so weak in this season? I’ve heard a lot about Scott being nicer now because he figured Fang’s attack was Karma for his wrongdoings on Revenge, but even though I love the idea of that was the case it should’ve been established on the show. And with Jo and Lightning I feel like this is also Revenge’s finale’s fault but you think they’d change, after everything. Jo might’ve learned to be more respectful after Cameron not only bested her but still gave her part of his prize. Maybe Lighting would learn that winning means nothing and he will not be less of a man whether he lost or won the finale because the people who care for him are already here and making it that far is accomplishment enough and he will lose all the connections he has if he keeps pushing people away as if they’re obstacles also his dad is kinda ass. The only character who I’d argue not only holds continuity with his previous appearances AND gets better is Sam who I honestly loved watching become both more confident even without Dakota to help him, as well as do his best to contribute to his team both out of kindness and an attempt to make up for last season. He’s still sweet but has more drive directly inspired by Revenge. I’d complain more about Mike but honestly? He didn’t really even feel like a character that season. Besides his limited screen time, every appearance we do get from him is just him being like “oh no! My disorder is a burden again! Noooo Zoey!” Like yeah Mike and Zoey meant a lot to each other in S4 but they were still standalone characters. If Zoey weren’t here Mike would not have done anything in this season, it would’ve been total apathy. He’s just lost his edge. And I get it I guess, writers needed to make room for the focus on Mal who is also not very well written but I still love him and think they have so so much potential which should be obvious by now…but would it have been hard? To make them act a little less like card-board cutouts? Maybe have the S4-ers talk to each other outside of their teams? I like All Stars just for how absurd and fanfic-y it is, some of the episodes are even good as actual crossover episodes (I love No One Eggspects the Spanish Inquisition), but man. You could at least give a reason for the sudden character changes or even reversions if you wanna write them this way. Ok sorry lame rant over it’s just, Gen 2 deserves way better too they were ALL out of character and honestly at least characters like Duncan had changes that were interesting

#alex’s td rambles #this is sooo unnecessarily angry I’m sorry

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scalamore · 7 months

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(Analysis/thoughts) Lari's Cruelty/Intentions

Just like when the novel was released years ago, this climatic moment really sparked a discussion on the KKP comment section again:

There's a few camps you were part of: 1) Poor Lari 2) Poor Rupert 3) Poor both of them (me!) 4) Lari deserves to suffer and die alone because of how she treated Rupert, she doesn't deserve him at all. This fourth group of people absolutely hate Lari's characterization and development. I suspect it's because they don't quite understand her character arc and are massive Rupert supporters. What they say is, is that when Lari says that 'it's done, the perfect, complete, revenge' when she saw the devastated Rupert in a crying mess, they call her excessively cruel and she deserves to be alone for the rest of her life. After all, it's established that Rupert was justified in both timelines to get rid of House Belois, because they were planning/attempted treason against him. He is in the right to do so, to protect the imperial palace from those who rise against him without due cause. Also, as we have seen, Rupert's childhood is a mess full of trauma and neglect, and even now, at age 17/18 his inner child came out again as he's in full despair when he realizes that he'll lose Lari. They say that for Lari to take a look at this crying, sobbing, mess of a guy who hasn't ever harmed her in TL2 and heartlessly think "my revenge is done", is trash who harmed an innocent person who was already in despair. The emotional damage she caused him will cripple him forever kinda thing. She's so selfish for only thinking about herself and not him. She offered warmth and light to him, she should take responsibility until the end, but she gave up, how cruel etc. That's the point.

Lari is being selfish and cruel right now. Without a doubt. After years of walking on a tightrope every day, being betrayed, lonely, alone, trying to navigate TL2 full of uncertainties by herself, and then betrayed by literally everyone, even her beloved family, she's lost complete hope. What's she to do, wait for Rupert to betray her too? As she always says, that she's convinced TL2 will repeat just as TL1 did, because everyone is the same, making the same choices, acting the same as before with their same agenda, and thus, the end result will be the same. The tenacious, hard-working Rupert will become Emperor, and he will be justified in annihilating House Belois again because they're ready to commit treason. The last 5 years since her regression has been a complete waste. All her hard work amounted to nothing. The endless nights with nighmares of TL1, the sheer loneliness and the burden of her TL1 memories preventing her from seeing Rupert for who he really is this time... The single thing keeping her sane and from breaking down this whole time was the tunnel vision to protect her family and to avoid being framed and unfairly executed. So when that turned out to be a lie, her entire world crashed down. Over time, her wish to 'protect her family' had become something like 'protect the people who had loved me and given me good memories', and once that was over, she would leave the palace and Belois and live her own life on her own, finally free from everything. It's as if it was a duty she had to fulfill no matter what.

Another issue is that Lari had learned to cherish Rupert so much, that there was no way she could ever betray him. She didn't want House Belois to attack him and risk him getting hurt. She didn't want him exposed to any danger at all.

But during this climatic event, Lari is a completely depressed, anxious, shocked mess, freshly re-traumatized with the full extent of her PTSD triggered. Her emotions are jumbled and sky-high: She doesn't trust House Belois, she doesn't trust Rupert, she doesn't believe in anyone or have hopes for anything. She is utterly alone. But the contradiction is that she doesn't want either of them hurt. Since she's alone with no one who cares for her, it's fine if she disappears. After all, she's only a doll that exists to be pushed around and used as a tool, right? So when she's disappointed when she wakes up and is still alive, she gets hit by another bomb: Rupert truly does care for her, and loves her as a person, even. This is yet another mental load to her already fragile state: She was under the assumption that Rupert only cared for her as something he owned, so if she were to disappear, it's whatever. But now with the knowledge that he truly does care for her, enough to so desperately cling and beg for her to stay? that breaks her heart even more, completely shattering it at this point.

Despite her saying that she doesn't love him, readers know it's a lie. She does but can't recognize it because of everything else going on. Why else would she feel so guilty the moment he reveals that fact, and why she would worry about 'deceiving and pretending to love him back and remain by his side'? because she doesn't want to hurt him anymore. Her attempted death already broke him down this much, his feelings for her are genuine, and Lari right now, is too broken to even consider reciprocating those feelings.

What the story has hinted at, and built up, is Lari cannot move forward in her own life, as long as she is shackled to the past, especially after this event which forces her to learn and deal with the truth. Lari can't return Rupert's feelings, because she knows that to love someone is a commitment with honest feelings and to face them wholeheartedly, which is has no capacity to do right now. She thinks there's no crime worse than pretending to love someone in return when the other party is earnest with their own feelings. She doesn't want to play around with his feelings, because he's suffered so much, he doesn't deserve "fake love" but he should have the real thing from someone else.

Even then, Lari admits that right now, with Rupert is freshly crowned Emperor, all she sees is TL1 Rupert who killed her. She knows that the two Ruperts are completely different, but still, she can only see the one who killed her. She's overwhelmed with vivid reminders of fear, and despair, and it's not going away overnight, considering it's been plaguing her for 5 years already. She wants to give up and run away from everything.

Yes, she is selfish for leaving Rupert and causing him such distress, but we have to keep in mind - Lari is completely broken and needs time to heal. As Louis says later, it's not the best solution, it's not the correct one, but it's the right one for her at this moment. It's no one else's choice except for hers, and at that moment, it's what Lari truly wanted: to take a break and rest on her own.

She's spent all this time looking out for others, that she really does need to be selfish this one time, for her own sake.

And Rupert knows this. He's never seen Lari like this before, a crying, sobbing mess who doesn't want to talk to him, who basically has shut down and would rather die than be with him. While she was asleep and he was uncertain if she would ever wake up, he did ponder if he would need to resort to turn her into an alchemic doll: but his decision here really hints at his character: even if she chooses to leave, and it'll devastate him, there is no way he can ever force her to stay. Because what makes him the happiest is to see a happy and healthy Lari around him. There's no point if he forces her to stay, and she's a sad crying mess who doesn't want to talk to him or breathe the same air as him, and hates him more by the day for trapping her there. That would be him acting just like the Crazy Emperor. He'll ruin her. He thinks he's already ruined her.

So in the end, it's a devastating, bitter separation: Lari, who has to leave to heal from the trauma of her past, regain her sense of self and identity, and what to do for her future. For her, what she needs right now is simply 'time away', for her to recover. No more reminders of Rupert or House Belois, but just time alone. Besides, she feels that she's holding Rupert back, and he deserves someone who can love him back - not her. She doesn't want to 'pretend' to care for him, she wants him to experience a life with someone who truly returns his feelings wholeheartedly. So she completely rejects his feelings, hoping that it'll cause him to hate her for tricking him and move on from her completely and find someone else. Rupert, whose world shattered the moment Lari left without any explanations or answers. She told him to not love her, and he agreed which gave her some relief, but during this time apart, Rupert has to decide what to do on his own now: now that it's him and Tory again, what will he do? will he kill, will he choose peace? Lari told him to give up on her, but will he really? Will he find any answers as to why Lari did what she did, when there's no way he can reach her to talk to her? During the main story he was afraid of being possessive like the Emperor and chose to keep his distance, but during this separation, what will Rupert's resolution be regarding Lari? What will he choose now that she's gone, and he has to decide for himself on what he wants from her?

--- Going back to my original point of Lari saying how "her revenge on Rupert is complete", the intent is to show that despite it being aimed at the innocent TL2 Rupert, all she could see at that moment was TL1 Rupert, and by completing that revenge of causing him misery/causing him heartbreak and despair, she fulfilled one of the wishes she made during the start of her regression which was 1) protect House Belois and 2) take revenge against the Emperor as payback for the despair he caused her. (During the separation, she silently apologizes endlessly to Rupert for causing him that pain :( ) So by fulfilling that revenge, and by fulfilling the promise to save House Belois, she's completed those two conditions. She's no longer bound to them. She can finally move on and live her own life on her own terms now. It's symbolizes how she's accepted and moved on from the shackles of TL1 holding her back, and after she takes all the time she needs to recover, she can finally start living her own life now. A life where she doesn't belong to Rupert as a "thing", and a life where she doesn't belong to House Belois as "a political tool". She wants to live her life as just "Lari". No more secrets, no more masks, no more lies. It's unfortunate that Rupert is a victim in this situation, but in the end, both are suffering right now. Both will grow from this, and the next time when they meet again, they'll be able to face each other with the truth.

#your majesty please spare me this time #rupelali #manhwa #rofan #otome isekai

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quitethepirategal · 11 months

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@emcads

A CAPTAIN'S JOB WAS TO PUT THEIR CREW, their ship, before all else, and there lay a special sort of burden helming a crew such as this one –– a collection of the vulnerable, the world's UNDER-LOVED AND THRICE-WRONGED, with more reason to distrust the lot of humankind than love it. she was as much captain as mother. as sister. as lover. and it FELL TO HER to see them safe. SQUANDERING that ... it was a mandate of heaven buried under the heel. so she hadn't thought twice shouldering out in front of Jess to protect them. ( not that they needed protecting. but especially not the naturalist more than a foot taller, ripping with EARNED MUSCLE and unafraid to show it ) EL FLOR DE COHETES could wrench an assailant's jaw from their skull if asked for, and blow the lot of them to Fiddler's Green and BEYOND.

but not this. the captain could make out hints of their WRETCHED SUGGESTIONS underneath the tavern's din. she hoped Jess avoided the specifics, for their own sake.

❛❛ I don't see him. if Giles thinks he can stand me up in an establishment like this ... ❜❜

the captain's voice was level, but her knuckles turned white on the pommel of her rapier, itching for a fight ( and knowing better ). it didn't soothe the rage, though. and it didn't dole those bastards out what they deserved: no doubt Jess was only the LATEST in a long line of crude comments and RUDER GESTURES, and no one in their GOD-FORSAKEN LIVES had ever bothered to remind them how preciously close they were to the judgement of their Maker. if she hadn't had business tonight. if she had been alone, without a crewmate to model her behavior for, or had even a few glasses more to drink ... her jaw set, mouth tight in a thin line. the likes of Charles Vane stirred up bar fights. La Doña Pirata had a reputation to uphold. at least, for now.

❛❛ I won't keep you here, Jess. it's a pitiable crowd of men even without the god damn WEASEL in attendance. you have my leave to go home if you'd prefer. ❜❜

...wait...why were they were still laughing...?

Jess had snarled and turned her chest with balled fists, a clear sign of aggression and a threat but... nothing. Then her captain ( their superior! ) had made a similar face and stance and possibly cursed them in their direction ( from what she could tell )... but still nothing. Even with a threat, from a pirate and her captain, the men laughed and jeered and beckoned them closer with filthy fingers that writhed like worms for the taste of a lady’s skin. They didn’t care of who was strong and who was weak, did they? They didn’t abide by the same rules that Jess had always known true. A superior made a posture of demanding respect and they really acted as if the two had blown them kisses...

Gods. This was not the Neversea, and this culture was not her own.

Time and time and time again Jess had witnessed this sort of thing happen from the day she first set foot here on the Mainland, but only now did it truly sink in at last.

She really had no power at all here. They were just another girl.

Though her face kept its bared teeth, her furrowed brow began to crumble. Hands begrudgingly unraveled from fists to demurely clasp her bent elbows. Confusion and a pained acceptance diluted the rage into an irritation. She was not as angry as she should have been, not as offended as she should have been, and knowing that should have just pissed her off more. But it didn’t. It took the lewd irreverence of five vulturous men to render the stalwart guard dog into a helpless pinned butterfly. Jess vibrated with a discomfort that smothered her lungs like cotton. Her heart buzzed in her over stuffed chest and her spine rattled with a dull, alien dread behind her. She could almost feel a sweaty hand snake around her waist again. Anxiety bled into shame as she felt herself grow self-defensive. Her guts churned into knots as she could pitifully feel her arm lifting itself to actually wave hello at the louts. Pathetic isn’t it? To fawn instead of fight? To let your body move without you? To pretend you want what the world wants to save yourself the blame....

But thanks be to the Gods that Jessica was in the company of her Esme! For from within her uncomfortable cocoon of overthinking she finally noticed that her captain was attempting to address her, and she yanked her own foolish arm down with contempt.

“ Oh what? Sorry,” she snapped out of it, assuming for some anxious reason that the captain hadn’t heard her ( and overwhelmingly thankful for the safety she found in looking directly at her emboldened face. )

“ I said do ya think yer contact is here yet? What’s he look like? ”

#damn this... this made ME uncomfy #channeling everything I felt in collage for this one haha #...fuck #therapy is expensive but rp? rp is free #...#anyway #x; ADVENTURES { rp }#x; THE HEART IS A HEAVY BURDEN { heavy things }#au; THE PRICE OF SISTERHOOD { girl gang }#emcads

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sokkastyles · 3 years

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People usually says that Katara and Aang are best friends, but I really don't see this. Katara and Aang never shared any deep conversation or understanding, I mean, Katara does understand and protect and cuddle Aang, more like a mother would do, but Aang never does the same. Actually, I think he disrespected here more than just a couple of times. On "Southern Raiders" Katara even said that she knew Aang would never understand her. Best friends are supposed do be supportive, understanding and Katara knew that Aang wouldn't be able to do this for her. I don't think that Katara goes to Aang to share her burdens because she is constantly protecting him and he probably wouldn't be able to handle it. I do think they are friends, but never best friends. Katara gives and Aang just takes.

I'd like to hear your opinion.

I think it says a lot that Katara tells Aang in "The Southern Raiders" that she knew he wouldn't understand this part of her. Katara is always trying to protect Aang from anything, including herself and her darker emotions. That says to me more than just feeling protective of Aang, it says that she feels like she can't be her true self around him. Like when she yells at him in "The Waterbending Scroll," she immediately apologizes and is afraid of hurting his feelings. When she is praised for her bending skills in front of Aang, she deflects and says that Aang is the Avatar. Whether or not Aang actually does understand Katara (and I think it ALSO says a lot that he claims he understands but then completely misunderstands at the end of the episode, and is wrong about his assumption about what Katara would do) it is clear that KATARA thinks Aang wouldn't understand this aspect of her personality, and that's true not in just what she says in TSR but in the way she hides the darker or more selfish parts of herself when she is around him. Like how she waits until she is alone with Zuko to finish her threat to him. Or when she breaks down in the catacombs (again while alone with Zuko) because she has to always keep it together for Aang and the rest of the group.

If you look at that scene in TSR, Katara didn't even want to tell Aang where she was going.

Katara: I need to borrow Appa.

Aang: [Jokingly.] Why? Is it your turn to take a little field trip with Zuko?

Katara: Yes, it is.

Aang: [Slightly surprised.] Oh. What's going on?

Katara: We're going to find the man who took my mother from me.

Zuko: Sokka told me the story of what happened. I know who did it and I know how to find him.

Aang: Um ... and what exactly do you think this will accomplish?

Katara: [Shakes her head in dismay.] Ugh, I knew you wouldn't understand.

I mean. Look at the way Katara approaches this situation. She's not asking Aang's permission, they're already packed. She doesn't open with telling Aang where they are going and why or bring up her mother to appeal to what he already knows about her trauma. She just tells him she needs to borrow Appa. She's already decided that he's not a part of this, she doesn't want him to see this part of her, and she already knows Aang won't understand.

And Aang's response in the face of Katara's seriousness is to joke about it. And he's totally surprised when he realizes how serious she is. I'm supposed to think that these two people have a deep and intimate connection?

Moreover, Katara becomes even more defensive in response to Aang's levity. Her dialogue changes from "I need this" to "WE are going to do this." Meaning her and Zuko. Because she feels unsupported by Aang. She's already decided that Zuko will support her in a way Aang won't, and she hated Zuko like five minutes ago! But she trusts him more than she does Aang, the supposed wholesome option, her supposed best friend.

Another very interesting thing is that when she says she knew Aang wouldn't understand, it is to refute Aang's dismissal of what Zuko said. Zuko is speaking in support of Katara after Aang's initial dismissal of her, Aang is dismissive again, and Katara says what she said to Aang not only in response to his tone, which makes it clear that he doesn't take what she wants to do seriously, but she says it to defend Zuko. It is, like, hilarious when people use this episode as evidence that Katara and Zuko are toxic together because what they just did right there was support each other instantly, while Aang and Katara bicker with and talk past each other.

Katara could have said something like "Zuko says he knows where to find him and it's the only chance I have" or something to indicate that she didn't really trust or want to go with him, because she hasn't forgiven him yet, but she doesn't do that. Instead she lets Zuko explain the situation to Aang, who should know her better and who she should feel more comfortable with than a guy she only recently stopped hating.

The thing that gets me is that there were multiple opportunities to use this episode as a bonding moment between Katara and Aang, even as its purpose is to establish a bond between Katara and Zuko. Aang could have apologized to Katara for not understanding or used it as an opportunity to learn about her. Instead he assumes she'll do what he thinks she should do and is totally wrong, makes an assumption, and Katara's look of guilt when Aang says he knew she'd "make the right choice" is so painful. That look says so much. Because I believe Katara wished Aang understood. I think she wished she could show the more hurt side of herself to him without fear of judgement. It's the same look she gets when she overhears Sokka talking about how he thinks of her as a mother figure. And whether or not it is Aang's - or Sokka's - fault that Katara feels this way, the reality is that she does, and that is so sad.

It's sad that a fourteen year old girl feels that much pressure to be perfect, to not show anything that might be interpreted as ugly or uncomfortable for the people around her to deal with. To take care of other people to the point of feeling guilty for her own emotional needs.

What annoys me a lot of the time about this conversation is that a lot of people center Aang and how good of a person he is and how he "deserves" Katara, how dare you say Aang did anything wrong, etc etc. The problem with this - other than that no one deserves a relationship based on how good they are - is that it's not necessarily about what Aang did wrong, it's about Katara's needs not being met. And the show weirdly went out of its way in one of its last episodes that focused on Katara and her relationships to show that Katara's emotional needs were not being met in her relationship with Aang.

#katara #antikataang #the southern raiders #zuko #the runaway #the waterbending scroll

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vbpotter · 3 years

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Malfoy (James Potter x reader)

Warnings: Angst

A/n : I take requests <3

We all love someone . They say, that loving someone is the best feeling. They say that loving someone feels like you are floating in the air, their thoughts clouding your mind. They say that loving someone is peaceful, because you have finally found your home. They say that Loving someone is like having something to heal you, to carry you, to encourage you. They say that loving someone is worth living for.

But, only a few people know what it is like to not be loved. Only some people know what it feels like. Only some people know how much it hurts. Only some people know how it feels to be ignored, to be the second choice, to not be loved by your family, to not be loved by the person you have handed your heart to. Only some people know how much it hurts to be not loved , to always be the second choice, to always be the least preferred one, to always be not enough, to always be a disappointment, to live with no love.

Someone who knew exactly how it felt like was Y/n Malfoy.

Yes..... Y/n Malfoy.

The Youngest Malfoy of the family.

Now..... Growing up as the only daughter of the family, and not to mention the youngest child would have been easy, right? especially if you are from a rich family who has high standards and is very respectable, having elves to do your work left and right, to be raised like a princess?

Yes.... She was raised like a princess..... But not a normal princess..... She was raised as Rapunzel.

Trapped in a tower, hidden from the outside world , learning everything that the people of the tower taught her, believing that what the people of the tower said was always true ..... Until one day, she decided to know what the outside world was.

So she ran, escaped from under dozens of gazes, unseen. And..... For the first time in her life, she saw something worth looking at.

She happily skipped around, looking at the trees filled with flowers, that were so different from the dark trees surrounding her Manor. She saw beautiful birds chirping , multi coloured birds that were so different than the white peacocks that she usually saw at Malfoy Manor. She saw the sky, light blue with different shapes of clouds floating in it, it was so different than the dark ceiling of the Malfoy Manor.

She smiled and ran, admiring the scenery around her. That is when she reached an open area, that she guessed was a playground. She saw a couple with a young boy. That was the time five year old Y/n Malfoy met James Potter for the first time.

Since that day, Y/n would sneak out from Malfoy Manor every evening for an hour, during the time when her mum was at her daily Tea Party with her friends, her father in his library and her brother playing the piano.

She and James would play on the swings and chat happily. She even got to know his parents, Fleamont and Euphemia Potter, who were very happy that James had someone to play with ,since they lived in a large Manor at the edge of a small forest .

Everything went smoothly, until one day, her brother caught her sneaking out. That was probably the worst day of Y/n's life .She still vividly remembered her brother's harsh glare, her parents' disappointed looks and the punishment she received afterwards. That was the first time Y/n had been tortured with the Cruciatus Curse, not knowing that she would be receiving more of it in the future.

The Malfoys were forced to move away , since - the Dark Lord ordered them to .

Malfoy Manor was then established at an even worse place, in the Middle of a Dark Forest , its location unknown to everyone. Even Y/n didn't know in which part of the world they were living in , but, the life of the six year old Y/n was already ruined.

The next five years of her life were the worse. She felt as if she was trapped even more tightly in the tower, like Rapunzel.

There were house elves around her room every hour of the day. She was forced to wear long and puffy dresses , which she hated . She was forced to go to fancy Balls and meet new people, mainly boys her age. She hated it, her parents were determined to get her married at a young age to a respectable boy form a pure blood family, so that they didn't have to deal with her anymore. It was disgusting. They were trying to arrange or even engage a six year old with a boy her age, or even quite older than her.

She hated their ideas. She would wince, whenever someone talked about Muggles and Muggleborns.....in such a way t-that even the worst person in the world didn't deserve to be t-talked to or about. She had snapped at such people many times, and she had been punished...... The same number of many times. So much, that the cruciatus curse didn't hurt her anymore.

Her parents couldn't kill her, nor disown her. Because , the dark lord said that young children were valuable and that they would be useful for his army in the future .

Y/n still remembered ,the day when she was united with James Potter. She was on the Hogwarts Express , going to Hogwarts for the first time. Her parents had just lectured her about not to talk to 'filthy people ' and her brother had left her with a harsh glare , running towards the prefects compartment where he was to be sitting.

Y/n sighed after her brother left her with another of his classic Malfoy glares. She looked around and headed forward, searching for a compartment with the least people or no people at all. She finally found one, only one person was sitting in there.

" Hey! Can I sit here? " Y/n asked. The person who was staring out of the window looked at her, and Y/n felt her throat dry down when she was met by a familiar pair of Hazel eyes, only this time - they were covered by thick round glasses.

"J-James ?" Y/n muttered, her voice shaking.

" Y-Y/n?" The boy asked and Y/n felt a wave of Happiness overcome her.

And then after years, the two long separated friends embraced each other in a warm hug. But, James didn't know that Y/n was ten times more happier to see him than he was to see her.

As Y/n, now in her 7th year, sat in the couch of Gryffindor common room, she felt herself smile as she was reminded of the memory.

Y/n was sorted into Gryffindor, giving her parents and brother another reason to hate her.

She and James were quick to become close friends again , and soon, they were joined by Sirius, Remus and Peter - the 5 of them, together being the Marauders.

Since First year, James was obsessed over Lily , Y/n's fellow roommate. She and Lily weren't friends, per say, but - they didn't hate each other either. The two would always have small conversations and would often discuss their homework notes together.

Y/n never opposed to the idea of her best friends chasing after Lily . She always encouraged him to go forward , she always encouraged him that he could do it . But , It was in her fourth year did she realize that what she felt towards James wasn't just friendship . She realized that the little weigh she felt on her shoulders after hearing him ramble about Lily was not tiredness , she realized that the little churning of her stomach around him , the blush she got when he flirted with her without even realizing it .......all of it , was not just platonic ........at least not for her .

But, she didn't act Bitchy like others would have in this situation. She didn't get angry when James ditched her loads of times just to try to spend time with the red Head. She didn't get annoyed when he treated her like one of the boys.

All she did was smile. She plastered a fake smile on her face and encouraged him to keep going, to try and get the Red Head.

But, even though she felt the weight of the whole world on her shoulders, even though she felt her heart sink down day by day - she was happy. She was Happy for her best friend.She was happy when she saw him progress on the Red Head he had been chasing after, She felt happy when he was happy. And..... She knew that she shouldn't be Selfish. She had accepted her fate long ago, she had accepted that she and James weren't meant to be together. She had accepted that she had to stay with this weight her entire life. But a little part of her ...........It told her that she could at least hope ...................But then , another part of her told her that she was useless and worthless, nothing but a waste of space . And Oh-How it crumbled her .

Despite it all, Y/n always stood by him. She stood by him when he cried , she stood by him when he felt like he was not good enough , she stood by him when he needed to hold someone ..........he held onto her and she never complained .

James didn't know, but, he had landed all the weight of his life and feelings on the girl, and it broke her. But she still stood by him, every time, as a friend, never asking for anything, never asking for more, never caring about herself, never wanting anything other than helping him, even though her whole existence was the thing she needed help with.

She didn't only stand up alongside James. She stood up for Peter when he was bullied and body shamed for being fat. She comforted him when he cried.

She stood by Remus when he felt like he was a monster. She was the one to help him along with the other Marauders during the full moons .She was the one who would heal Remus's wounds in the middle of the night, in the early morning, or whenever Remus felt like he wanted someone to heal is wounds and whisper soothing words in his ear. She was the one who taught Remus that you always have something worth living for, even though she herself didn't know why she was living.

She stood with Sirius when he was disowned, when His Brother hated him, when Sirius felt like he was a mistake, a disappointment.

Despite, she never had anyone to hold onto . Her parents and brother , who were supposed to be her family, treated her like a piece of trash . She was alone , but she never showed it . Just because she didn't want to be a burden , just because she didn't want to be Selfish .

Sirius and Remus knew about her feelings for James, the two could look through her smile completely. Peter was an oblivious person and he never knew what was going on, but still, the three of them always were there to cheer her up , but - none of them saw the completely broken her.

Y/n looked around the Gryffindor common room she was currently sat in. She looked at the time and realized that the boys should have been back from their daily "boys time" by now.

Just as the thought crossed her mind, The portrait hole of the Common room opened and in came Remus , Sirius and Peter, laughing loudly.

" Good evening, gentleman. You are 5 minutes late " Y/n said, folding her hands over her chest and showing the three her watch. The three gave her guilty smiles and settled themselves on the couches around her .

" Guys.... Where is James? " Y/n asked looking around. Sirius and Remus exchanged a look and avoided looking at her . Peter was sitting as if he didn't know what was going on , like always.

The next second The Portrait Hole opened and In walked James and Lily, their arms wrapped around each other and their clothes and hair looking disheveled and.... Both of them had the biggest smile on their faces.

Y/n saw , as James led Lily towards the girls' dorm staircase . Lily whispered something in his year and the both of them giggled . Lily plated a kiss on his cheek , and then giving him a wink-she left , leaving James behind - Who's face was as red as Lily's hair.

He stared at her all the way until she disappeared . Then , he turned around swiftly - Smiling so widely that it looked as if his cheeks would split in half .

"SHE SAID YES! SHE SAID YES , GUYS!!!!!" James Shouted , his voice shaking a bit due to happiness .

In a second , Remus and Sirius's heads snapped towards Y/n - giving her sad looks . But , the reaction from her was not what they expected .

She smiled. And it wasn't a fake one - it was a genuine one .

Y/n felt her heart clench at James's words . But , she noticed how happy he was , she noticed how happy she made him . And in that moment, she completely accepted the fact that he loved Lily , and that the two belonged together . She accepted that Lily made him happy . She was happy that her friend finally found someone he deserved , finally found someone worthy of Him . Y/n always knew that she didn't deserve him , she didn't deserve to have him in her broken life . Even though she was distraught , her best friend's happiness was all she needed . And she smiled. She smiled because he was happy , she smiled because she finally figured it out , she smiled because she knew that he would be happy . And Y/n would do anything , anything to bring her friends happiness , even if it meant giving up her own .

" Ooohhh ..............Congrats , Romeo " Y/n said enthusiastically , smiling up at her best friend .

Part 2 coming up..........

#marauders #marauders era #hogwarts #angst #James Potter #lily evans #jily #james potter x reader #james potter x lily evans #Remus Lupin #malfoy #y/n malfoy #Sirius Black #marauders angst #i am going mad lol

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witchy-jadda · 3 years

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rott spoilers ahead

so i’ve given myself some time to think about everything and try to process it all and here are some of my thoughts on trollhunters: rise of the titans...

- straight off the bat, i loved the intro. opening with blinky telling the story of what happened up until this point was incredible. i would have loved if they had circled back to this though (i saw someone else say it should have been him telling the story to jim and claire’s kids and i loved that idea!)

- i also liked that they didn’t waste time at the start, instead they just jumped right into the action which was fun.

- honestly, i thought jim’s plotline throughout the movie where he basically thought he was useless without the amulet was just really not fun to watch. i understand why it was there and it played into the climax but i really did not find it one bit necessary seeing as i felt that we have grown beyond that. i felt it was overused. we’ve been there before and jim is aware that he’s the trollhunter, amulet or not.

- douxie being so soft with nari was genuinely one of the most heartwarming parts of the movie. i feel that we were really robbed of so much potential with douxie in this movie though. we didn’t see nearly enough of him. it seemed that the writers were picking and choosing when to remember how powerful he is. switching with nari and connecting to her are two examples of when they actually used his power, but aside from that they just disregarded it a lot.

- and speaking of forgetting how powerful people are... i’m genuinely so hurt and let down over what they did to claire. do they not realise how powerful she is? did they just forget about her character arc? it sure felt like it. she got to use her powers a few times (connecting to nari, portalling the titan, etc) but mostly it felt like she was saying she was spent and therefore unable to do anything. she is so strong and so powerful, and that’s just so empowering - especially for young girls. and then it kinda felt to me that rott was reducing her to basically nothing more than jim’s love interest.

- okay another quick note, it kinda felt to me that krel’s potential was also pretty wasted? he barely did anything and i just think he deserved more too.

- ew okay i don’t even want to think about it but i know i can’t discuss rott without talking about the mpreg thing. seriously, what the fuck was that? at first, i thought it was going to be a joke. i thought aja and krel were gonna wind steve up and see how far they could go with making him think he was pregnant just for a little bit of comic relief. but then he was actually pregnant. and so i laughed, because even though it was dumb it was kind of funny. weird and unexpected, but kind of funny. but by the time the movie was over it just didn’t sit right with me. looking past the fact that it was just more of them making steve’s character into a joke, i couldn’t see the logic in giving so much time to that subplot when other characters (claire, douxie) and other relationships (claire and douxie’s friendship) were sidelined. maybe if he had gotten a whole season the mpreg thing could have been included as comic relief or whatever, but with such limited time i really don’t see the point of wasting so much time on something so pointless.

- speaking of steve, i need to talk about creepslayerz... they really deserved more :( like i get that eli literally helped steve through child birth and then named one after him which was lowkey adorable but i loved their friendship so much and i was really hoping to see more of them. i was kind of hoping they’d get to do more as well. look i gave up on hopes of a romance long ago (even though i still really wished it would happen) but i hoped that at least we’d see some more of their friendship.

* by this point my brain has decided to forget absolutely every point i wanted to make... cue the brain fog (we don’t like her) and allow me to take a moment to read back and try to find my point again *

- i don’t think i can stress enough how much i loved the visuals in this movie. holy fucking shit it was just phenomenal. like wow. the art was absolutely fantastic and i’m really hoping for another the art of... book because i love the art of trollhunters and i feel that they could do with updating it to include the newer stuff. but yep, the animation quality was incredible and i don’t have a bad thing to say about it because just wow.

- speaking of art... a moment of appreciation for character designs. just wow wow wow. we love to see such intricately designed villains. we love to see growth in our other much loved characters. and the locations too? fantastic. beautiful. amazing. loved it.

- another moment of appreciation for jim. the hair. the scars. the injuries. the winter jacket. the fact that he looked a little older.... loved it. loved it, loved it, loved it. i cannot wait to spend hours pouring over reference pictures to draw them all.

- and claire... her armor being weathered and worn. her eyes!! her hair looked great as always. i just love her...

- nari nari nari... my goodness, her magic is so beautiful. i wish we got to see more.

- also, the jlaire moments were very cute. their kisses? so soft. they literally love each other so much. i adore them.

- what happened to the babies from the darklands btw? is not enrique just chilling in the lake’s house with a ton of babies?

- barbara deserved better. i would have liked to see her and strickler happy.

- on that note, why the actual fuck did they think a few explosives would win against magic?? literal ancient magic and these dumbasses were like huh i guess we should blow it up. i’m sorry, what?? y’all are stupid.

* currently trying to think of every possible point that isn’t to do with the ending because i really don’t want to think about that yet *

- the whole thing with archie and charlemagne felt super unnecessary. like usually characters sacrifice themselves and it’s like sad and you can see the reasoning and stuff. but they literally could have gotten out. i really did not vibe with that. it felt like they just did that to leave douxie with no one.

- that trollmarket was beautiful though.

- speaking of trollmarket... they really restored the heartstone just like that? are you joking? i was not impressed at all. the heartstone was dead and gone, could not be destroyed. did they just forget that? half the shit in wizards wouldn’t have happened if the heartstone could have been restored. very pissed off by that. it was dead, that was it.

- okay back to jim... love that he pulled the sword from the stone. it was cute that it was a group effort, kinda would have preferred if it was just him but that’s just a me thing. and maybe me and my daylight tattoo are biased here, but excalibur is not half as pretty as daylight.

- not gonna lie, jim yelling come on trollhunters! kinda got me. i was very emotional watching this.

- i think the most in character jim moment of the whole movie was when he dropped excalibur, he didn’t have his armor, he was all alone and he decided to make a fist and fight the wizard/god with literally no weapon or means of defence. i don’t think y’all understand how much i love this dumb self sacrificing selfless boy. i’ve said it before and i’ll say it again, he is literally one of my most favourite characters of all time. i love him with all my heart.

- the armor!! wow wow wow. that was a fucking cool scene. beautiful.

- jim getting stabbed or whatever with that fucking spear thing nearly killed me.

- okay here goes... toby. my sweet toby. jim and toby’s friendship is one of my absolute favourites ever. my goodness. and toby getting in the van and going to save jim was incredible and such a toby thing to do. of course he would think of doing that.

- but like seriously... claire and douxie are so fucking powerful and they were both just like lol i guess we can’t do anything to help jim? i’m sorry what?? don’t tell me that claire wouldn’t go full on black and purple eyes and get herself up their to him. i just... i’m so bothered by the fact that they were sidelined y’all :|

- also, do not seriously try to tell me that aaarrrgghh!!! would let toby go on his own. he would have went with him. he would have followed him.

- literally as jim was falling the first thing that went through my mind was oh aaarrrgghh!!! is gonna run up and catch him.

- and while we’re on the topic of aaarrrgghh!!! why tf did they have such a build up that something was going to happen to either him or blinky for literally no reason? wtf

- aaarrrgghh!!! would not have let toby go alone!!! if he had been there, he would have protected toby, he would have saved him and none of that mess of an ending would have happened.

* ugh here’s the bit i was dreading... the ending *

- first off, i am choosing to ignore it.

- time stone? really? we’re... we’re gonna do this? literally one of the most original things i have ever watched is now - at the literal last possible minute - rip off another movie?? really?? whyyyy???

- i literally cannot express how much i hated it. it was so fucking unnecessary.

- he didn’t need to go back that far!!!

- i’m actually trying to block this out but i suppose i have to at least touch on it. jim would never ever put that burden on to toby. he just wouldn’t. before even looking at all of the other issues with toby getting the amulet, i need to say that. it just wouldn’t happen. he struggled so much with being the trollhunter, he wouldn’t put that on toby.

- also toby literally never wanted to be the trollhunter?? he never wanted the amulet? he wanted to be a duke and have his war hammer and go on adventures with his best friend and his wingman and eat mexican food.

- okay so um i guess they all just forgot about unbecoming? cool cool cool.

- seriously though, was it not established many times that jim literally had to be trollhunter? and if he wasn’t it would be draal and everything would go to shit? did they just forget about that??

- having jim just decide to give toby the amulet literally takes away from the entire meaning behind jim getting the amulet and becoming the trollhunter. the amulet chose jim. merlin chose him. out of all of the creatures in the world, it had to be jim. he can’t just give that to toby!!

- and as much as i love toby, he would not last a day as trollhunter.

- and that’s not even beginning to mention all that jim erased by not becoming trollhunter. no father son relationship between him and blinky. they didn’t stop steve from picking on eli so no steve redemption and no creepslayerz. is he just going to allow enrique to be taken? toby will not have the same incentive to go into the darklands to save him if that’s the case. strickler will not show any sort of sentiment towards toby either. and then the big one...

- IS THAT FUCKER REALLY GOING TO ALLOW CLAIRE TO NOT GET HER POWERS??? WHAT???

- if jim isn’t trollhunter and the whole thing with enrique doesn’t happen then claire will never get her shadowstaff. let’s be real, strickler probably wouldn’t even need angor rot with toby as trollhunter. somehow i can’t see him making it that far...

- if claire doesn’t have her shadow staff then the whole thing with morgana won’t happen. she won’t destroy the shadow staff and then she will never develop her powers. would jim really rob her of that?

- okay i can’t do anymore, it’s too much for me now...

- i touched on this already in a separate post but i gotta say it again... i did not enjoy the destiny is a gift bit at the end. first of all, jim having toby find the amulet literally takes the meaning of that speech and his destiny away instanty. and second, i just could not stand hearing emile hirsch say the words that belonged to anton yelchin. it was just uncomfortable.

aaand i think i’m done. maybe i’ll have more later but i have a headache now from all of this.

#rott #trollhunters #tales of arcadia #rott spoilers #jim lake jr #claire nuñez #toby domzalski #blinky #aaarrrgh #wizards #toa #douxie #rise of the titans #trollhunters spoilers #trollhunters rise of the titans

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kaekiro · 3 years

Text

The Two of Us

Pairing: Eren/Mikasa II Rating: T II Words: 2334 II [AO3] Warnings: Manga Spoilers for ch138 and mentions of sex A/N: Snippets of the life Eren and Mikasa could've had. Eren's POV.

He had long forgotten what peace was, what it felt like to be free of burden, and what it meant to be normal. But he rediscovers it in the songs birds sing early in the morning, the scent of pines just east of their home, and in her quiet but discernible breaths when she falls asleep at his side. He’s never seen her rest so much or known her to be the sleepy kind, but having led the life they did before finding this place, he thinks that she deserves the sleep more than anyone. The warmth of her body at his side is reassuring in its own way, and for once he doesn’t feel guilty for deciding to spend the day resting alongside her, because now they simply could.

They quickly established a routine once they had settled, taking turns with chores and cooking and small tasks in between. Bit by bit and day by day, the familiarity of it all puts him at ease, but it’s the changes between them that truly give him a sense of peace. It’s the softness of her hands and voice that makes him feel incredibly safe, and he relishes in how she relaxes when he reaches for and draws her near.

He learns and memorizes little things about Mikasa, her small habits and talents in sewing and embroidery, and how well she could carry a tune. She had been slightly embarrassed and shy the first time he had asked if she could sing for him, and he wondered if she was even aware of her own talent. During that time, they had decided to have lunch in a clearing she had found some time ago while hunting, one that was decorated with foliage and the greenest grass he had ever seen. Rays of sunlight seeped through and between the leaves of the tree they sat beneath, and he had reached a hand up to study how the light spotted his skin in an array of shapes. She took that hand in hers, and he looked up at her from where he lay against the trunk. Wordlessly, she coaxed him to rest his head upon her lap, closing his eyes as she ran her fingers through his hair. He could have never imagined being like this, unable to believe how different his life is compared to mere months ago. But he starts to become restless when the thought reminds him of everything they left behind, the pending consequences behind it.

“Sing for me,” he heard himself ask quickly, focusing all his attention on the light blush that colored her face. “Please.”

“You… you want me to sing? But… why?”

“I…” he began, tightening his grip on her hand when he failed to explain without going back on their promise to not bring up such things. But maybe it showed on his face because her expression shifted into a soft one, and she thumbed a short lock of hair away from his forehead in understanding.

“What would you like me to sing?”

“Anything,” he murmured, resting their joined hands on his chest, “anything you want.”

She nods, and he closes his eyes again, the beautiful melody of her voice lulling him to sleep.

----

They both wonder if they’ll ever be able to fully remedy the nightmares that plague them. He feels awful every time his yells or sudden movements scare her awake, and she apologizes when he wakes to find her crying. Perhaps there is nothing that will fully prevent such things from happening, but it brings them closer together anyway. The cabin had two rooms across from one another and, afraid to cross some unknown boundary, he originally slept separately from her. But soon enough, they found themselves walking across the hall in the middle of every other night when one of them had a nightmare. Sleeping next to one another from then on became normal, almost a necessity, and she didn’t question him the first night he went into her room unprompted just to lay beside her. Instead, she turned to wrap her arms around him and he fixed himself so that her head was tucked beneath his chin. His heart beats a fast but content rhythm at how natural it was to be like this, and though it scared him a bit, he sensed deep down that it was because he was somehow falling even more in love with Mikasa.

Over time, the furniture in his room collects dust.

----

Sometimes, they argue. The reasons range from small mistakes that come off as careless to things that have either of them venomously questioning whether they made the right decision in running away together. Though it very rarely happens, the latter argument cuts so far deep, effectively silencing and reducing them to stare at each other in a mix of hurt and anger. The argument never progresses farther than that though, and instead ends with her closing their bedroom door behind her and him engaging in work to distract himself. But when their emotions wind down, they seek one another out, and they work to resolve the issue no matter how long it takes. He knows that the hurtful things said were out of anger, but it does little to assuage that constant fear that deep down, a part of her regrets their decision.

“Do you ever wonder what would’ve happened if we stayed back there?” he asks her one night as he lays next to her, looking at the book at her lap and then up at her.

The question visibly startles her, and she stares at him with more concern than he expects. She promptly closes the book. “What?”

“It’s just that… sometimes I worry if…”

“If what, Eren?”

“If you are really okay. Being here with me. I’ve made a lot of mistakes… and I still don’t fully understand why you choose me.”

It’s silent for a moment as his words hang in the air, but then she twists her body towards him, taking his face in her hands. “Eren, listen to me. I choose you… because you’re you. I meant what I said that day, that hasn’t and won’t change.”

His eyes begin to sting as they look over her thoughtfully, and she implores him to believe her by kissing his forehead and lips and encasing his body with hers, whispering the only three words that could put his fears to rest.

----

He accidentally stumbles upon her as she dresses for the day, his eyes widening at the unexpected sight of her clad only in a skirt and bra, her blouse in one of her hands. He quickly turns away while apologizing profusely, feeling his face burn hotly as he drags a hand down the length of it in shame. There are sounds of clothes rustling, and then her footsteps as she crosses the room to stand in front of him. Her own face is tinged, but she offers a sweet smile when he finally manages to look at her.

“You have nothing to be sorry for.”

She walks out of the room then, leaving him to stand there, confused and unsure of what to make of her words. He swallows around the dryness in his throat, forcibly distracting himself with thoughts of other matters.

Though after the incident, he senses another change between them. Without realizing it, the few reservations they still had despite being together had disappeared, and they became comfortable with one another in ways they hadn’t before. More often than not, they get ready for the day and for sleep alongside each other instead of separately, and their affections are no longer prompted solely for consolation but within the little moments of their life. Sometimes she kisses him upon thanking him, and he takes her hand in his when they travel somewhere together. And sometimes, they crave more than chaste kisses and innocent touches.

The night had been like any other. She had just finished changing into her nightgown as he entered the room, feeling too lazy to get ready for bed just yet. He sat at the edge of the bed and fell back, unsure why he was more tired than usual. She moved to sit and plop right beside him, voicing the bit of concern she had. In turn, he insisted that it was nothing, but as he spoke, something caught in his throat that sent him into a coughing fit. He had to put his hand up and wave her off so that she’d know it was nothing serious, but she gets up and returns with a glass of water to help him anyway. He sits up and downs the entire thing in a few gulps, feeling instant relief.

“Thank you,” he says quietly, tugging on her hand and looking pointedly at her mouth. She leans over and kisses him, humming against his lips. She pulls back slightly, and they gaze at one another until she kisses him again, again, and again.

Mikasa uses his shoulders to balance herself, and he lightly runs his palms over her forearms. His eyes open in somewhat of a daze when she suddenly stops, and he gives her a questioning expression when she suddenly looks somewhat nervous and contemplative. Before he can ask if she’s okay, she kisses him fiercely and slips her fingers beneath the collar of his shirt. It takes him by surprise but he hardly thinks much of it as he returns her kisses with equal fervor, his hands moving from her forearms to the small of her back. It when she pulls back and she shifts to straddle his lap and press her body completely against his that he begins to pick up on what’s happening, and the room starts getting too warm because he is acutely aware of how her nightgown has ridden up on her thighs, how the heat of the newly exposed skin is easily felt through his own clothing. His wide eyes convey questions and concerns, and she answers by taking his hands and kissing his knuckles, guiding his fingers to the edge of her gown.

“Mikasa—” he whispers somewhat urgently, stilling their movements and she pauses, averting her eyes as she leans back.

“Sorry. I… didn't ask if this was okay.” He shakes his head immediately, keeping her from moving away.

“That’s not what I meant,” he says more firmly, curling his fingers around her wrists.

“It’s…” a sigh escapes him in a heavy, nervous breath. “What if I hurt you?”

Her mouth hangs open a bit, but then closes with a small but reassuring smile.

“I trust you, Eren,” she answers before kissing his cheekbone, her lips very close to his ear when she adds “only you.”

Her words and silent affirmations send a jolt through his heart and bones, and within moments they are nothing but a tangle of limbs as their mouths mesh and gasp for air between kisses. She helps him remove the thin cotton of her gown and undo the buttons of his shirt, and he leans back against the bed to feel the pleasant weight of her above him. They take their time in mapping out the expanse of bare skin, kissing nearly every scar and birthmark, and though their touches and movements are clumsy, it is nothing less than perfect because it’s with her.

In the morning, he finds her neck and chest dotted with light purple marks. It’s the ticklish sensation of his fingers smoothing over the marks that wake her up, and he feels relief when she says that they don’t hurt. He apologizes anyway and she shakes her head, moving her body to fill the space between them before falling back asleep. He doesn’t think he’s ever felt more content.

----

He tries so very hard to mask the effects this curse has on him, carrying an extra handkerchief in his pocket to quickly wipe away his nosebleeds, or alter his breathing to stifle his harsh breath after carrying something. But he should’ve known that not even this could slip past her. His days are dwindling, and she watches over him intently and holds him even tighter. If they had been younger, he probably would’ve snapped at her for it, assuming she thought him to be weak. But that was never the case. He knows she’s scared of what’s coming, and it devastates him. The last thing he wants is for this, for them to come to an end. He became so angry and frustrated because the closer he was to dying, the more he wanted to live. He carried guilt for having ended up this way, but it was her who told him that none of it was his fault, that life had dealt them a tragic and unfair hand.

“Hey…” she murmurs one night as they sit in front of a fire, looking up at the glittered expanse of sky. He moves a bit in her arms, letting her know that he was listening.

“Do you think we’ll get to meet again? In heaven? Or maybe in another life?”

The question stings. She sounds so tired but hopeful, and he does not want to lie and say yes when in reality, he had no clue. He tells her exactly that, and she only hums in response.

“Well… if there is… I’ll find you. And maybe we’ll have better luck then.”

The fire crackles, sending a cloud of embers into the sky.

“Not if I don’t find you first,” he answers after a few moments, his attempt at lightening the mood successful when she huffs in amusement. He pulls away from her, prompting her to meet his eyes.

“Mikasa… no matter what happens, we will always be together. Afterlife or not, I’ll be with you, and you’ll be with me.”

Tears pool in her eyes and cascade down her face, her voice choked as she says, “promise?”

He wipes away her tears, and though his own throat tightens, he smiles.

“Promise.”

#eremika #snk #writing #snk spoilers #WE WON BITCHEEEESSSSSS #I spent almost the entire night and morning writing this ashfsh #so sorry if it's a bit shitty lol #it was the first things i daydreamed about when thinking about their cottage core AU #kaleidoscopes #cottagecore au

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jasontoddiefor · 3 years

Note

at what point does eirtae realize that vader was having her teach luke things like politics because he was going to be made the emperor?

Anon how does it feel to be singlehandedly responsible for me updating this story again despite wanting to finish ALttCe first?

Luke was a sweet child, all of Padmé and Anakin’s eagerness and thirst for knowledge. He wasn’t necessarily a fan of sitting still for a prolonged time, but that was easy enough to accommodate. Eirtaé had never seen herself as a teacher, but she and Luke learned how to make it work together. Despite his young age, Luke could teach her plenty about making do with machinery and Eirtaé, in turn, taught him how to perfect his penmanship and grow plants from seedlings. She wrapped otherwise dry lessons up in stories of Padmé and invented ten new games a day to keep Luke interested, occupied, and away from Vader’s planning.

The man hadn’t involved himself too much in Luke’s education. In fact, he seemed to take very little interest in any aspect that didn’t pertain to the Force. He’d outright forbidden Eirtaé from even just mentioning the Jedi, but other than that, there were no instructions for her. Needless to say, it was unsettling. Eirtaé could think on her own, so she put together Luke’s lessons from typical children’s school plans and what she remembered from her own childhood. That it had been over two decades ago since she’d seen the inside of a school and had been training to become Queen at that point seemed to matter little.

So Eirtaé did her duties without knowing what such were. The longer this uncertainty lasted, the more aggravated did she become. It also didn’t help that Luke, ever inquisitive, asked her why he needed to learn a particular subject. Trying to elaborate on politics and law only worked by constantly reminding him that Padmé had been interested in politics. His disinterest wasn’t too surprising. Law mattered little on Tatooine, but Eirtaé would prefer it if she had a concrete answer for Luke besides a “because your father is a prick and won’t tell me why” hidden behind a smile and another anecdote of Naboo’s court.

When one Benduday proved to be the awaited opportunity with Vader appearing in a less awful mood than usual, Eirtaé seized her chance. She planted herself right in front of him, separating him from Luke, who was sitting at his desk.

“For what purpose did you bring me here?” Eirtaé asked without much preamble, staring directly into the dark lenses of Vader.

“Move,” Vader ordered, not particularly impressed, but Eirtaé wasn’t deterred.

“I asked you a question, My Lord.”

She said my Lord as one would say you bastard and hoped it wasn’t too noticeable, not that Vader didn’t deserve it. What wouldn’t she give to look at Anakin’s open face again, see all his micro-expressions.

“You are to teach and guide Luke. I assumed you had understood that.”

The man looked at her like he expected Eirtaé to move out of the way, cease being a nuisance and get back to her job. Luke was distracted still, doodling away in the room behind them. Eirtaé was smart enough to know that his nearby presence was the only reason that this wasn’t already escalating into a repeat performance of the first time she’d confronted Vader about his past. Much like Anakin, he didn’t take well to pushing. Unlike Anakin, he lashed out violently. Eirtaé had yet to carry lasting bruises, but it was only a question of time until she misstepped. It didn’t take a genius to figure out that Vader’s patient was thin on a good day.

“I can teach him. I am teaching him,” Eirtaé replied. “But I don’t know to what end. You could have hired any droid to teach Luke mathematics and as neurotic as Threepio was—” and as insane as Artoo had become while flying with Anakin, “—you easily could have built a droid like him to teach Luke. You don’t necessarily need me here.”

It was a dangerous admittance.

One of the first things she’d been taught in her training had been to make herself valuable. Naboo’s handmaidens were favored kidnapping victims as they almost knew as much as their monarch but weren’t special otherwise.

They were replaceable, and so they had to make themselves special and worth the hassle of keeping around. To tell Darth Vader that she wasn’t an essential tool to his son’s education, the one thing her life currently depended on, was a gamble.

Eirtaé had never been fond of games of chance, but she was running out of cards to play.

“I need to know what I’m preparing him for or I will fail regardless of what I am teaching him because it might not be the lesson he truly needs,” Eirtaé finished her argumentation.

“He is my son,” Vader said as if that were an answer.

Eirtaé wanted to scream in frustration. She wasn’t Padmé, who had mastered the art of reading her husband within a week, or Kenobi, who’d been able to predict Anakin’s every step right up until he hadn’t.

“That is a statement, not an answer I can work with. What exactly do you want for your son?”

She got the sense that he was narrowing his eyes at her, torn between just pushing the nuisance out of the way and giving her an honest reply.

Luke is there, she told herself. As long as Luke was within reach, he wouldn’t hurt her, too afraid of what his son would end up thinking of him for hurting his beloved aunt.

“Luke is the son of your Queen. You are meant to protect him.”

“Protect him from what?” Eirtaé hissed, ensuring to keep her voice down so Luke wouldn’t hear their argument. “Because I was also meant to protect my Queen and we failed because we didn’t know enough. I am loyal to my Queen and loyal to the Royal House of Naboo and that includes the child sitting behind me, but you cannot ask me to act on my loyalty and let me risk failing again at the same time.”

She didn’t think she’d be able to bear it. Eirtaé had been the first to understand why Padmé had been so foolish, for she loved the same way as her dear husband did, completely, entirely.

There were no fleeting crushes, no slow descend into love. It was a fast-paced rush. It had taken so much out of her to warm up to her Queen when she’d entered her court, jealousy still running through her veins, but once Eirtaé had been attached, she’d remained, unable to let go, to risk disappointing her Queen. Anakin Skywalker was just the same, as fiercely attached as Eirtaé could be and as Vader that quality only seemed to have twisted even more.

“You will not fail,” Vader said. “For now, teach him that he is the brightest star in the galaxy, that he was meant for all and everything there ever was and will be.”

All and everything, what a terrifying prospect from the Emperor’s enforcer—

Oh.

Eirtaé paled.

Nobody truly knew what Vader’s relationship to the Emperor was. The Emperor had no heirs by blood or adoption, and their Empire was too new to have established any kind of representative line in writing. Its form was not finished yet and Eirtaé dreaded the day it would be.

But Anakin Skywalker had spoken fondly of the Chancellor, his mentor. If Vader mentioned the Emperor at all in her presence, he called him Master and hissed that title in disdain. It did not resemble the love or adoration it used to carry when speaking of Kenobi.

Eirtaé also knew that it frustrated Vader to no end that he had to keep running missions for the Emperor and leave the two of them alone on Mustafar with nothing more than an upgraded droid squadron to protect them. Certainly, if the man knew that Vader had a child, a potential heir, he would give the man more time away.

Or he’d insist on raising the child himself, in the palace, far away from Vader’s influence and paternal care.

Eirtaé stepped aside, let Vader walk to Luke. The boy immediately perked up when he saw his father. Within the blink of an eye, he was out of his seat and had thrown himself at his father, blabbering away about his day and all he had learned today.

Did Luke know what Vader planned?

As soon as the question arose within her, Eirtaé discarded it. If he knew, he would have said something, made allusions to it. The boy was entirely clueless and for all sense and purpose, Anakin had never been a patient man and Vader wasn’t either.

He wouldn’t wait until the Emperor died of natural causes, he wouldn’t wait until his child was old enough and could understand the burden placed on his head.

He wouldn’t hide Luke away for a moment longer than necessary because his son was his sun, everything he loved and adored, the one pure thing in this galaxy.

Eirtaé swallowed as she watched father and son play, levitate little objects around the room.

All Hail His Imperial Highness, Luke Skywalker.

The Emperor.

#star wars #luke skywalker #anakin skywalker #darth vader #eirtaé #tiny emperor luke au #fanfic #lesbianjaskiers #ask

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pinkhairedlily · 3 years

Text

Utakata Hanabi

Prompt: Festival | AO3 link here. Connect with me on Twitter. Happy SS Month everyone! 🌸🍅🥗 @ssskmonth

Funny how things change over time – from Uchiha Sasuke, youngest heir among the biggest clan in Konohagakure, most handsome, the brightest, the one with highest potential to Uchiha Sasuke, the traitor.

It has become difficult to stay beside Haruno Sakura, the girl who bugged him to no end at the academy but now the world-renowned medical ninjutsu specialist, the peak flower of the Hidden Leaf Village, the most beautiful and the strongest but also the woman he loves.

Her admirers flock daily to the village’s hospital where she is the head of medical corps, and to her and Ino’s newly established mental facility. These so-called patients have a unique array of illnesses which often end up with a scolding prescription rather than a real medical certificate. He wonders if he deserves to monopolize her affections.

These thoughts stay with him even if she spends nights in his state-sanctioned apartment, her steady breaths against his chest, and her hair splayed between his fingers, even if she prepares him bento boxes for lunch as he gets ready to spend the whole day briefing the council of elders of his missions, even if she kisses him in the shower before leaving. No one knew they were even together. This is a burden he had to carry – the stigma of his name, the inability of society to forgive, the consensus that he doesn’t belong.

And so it catches him off guard when Sakura brings up the summer festival. “I already picked out a fabric for my yukata. It’s so pretty I don’t want it to go to waste.” She bats him with her puppy eyes impression – her emerald irises jumping at his defenses.

“Sakura,” he starts as he reaches for her hands on the couch. “I want to but you know how it is.”

“And you know how I don’t care about any of that, right?” She looks at their intertwined fingers, and she blushes, quite not used to with their intimacy although they are already quite far in that particular journey. “I just want to see the fireworks…together.”

“We can see the fireworks together. They’re on the same sky anyway.”

Sakura lifts her fingers away from his grasp. “I’ve spent countless summers watching them alone. Now you’re here, and you don’t even want to go. I think I’m gonna sleep early.”

She’s angry. Sasuke finishes creating new storage scrolls and climbs on the bed with her. He hugs her with his lone arm and breathes in the fading lavender scent on her hair. “Maybe I can compromise.”

Sasuke apologizes with a fancy dinner the next day, and by dinner, that meant miso soup, grilled mackerel, kani salad, and her favorite – blueberry muffins. Sakura beams seeing the freshly baked dessert on their table. She also sees two masks on the edge, the compromise he talked about while she was already drowsy in slumber.

He holds them up – a fox and a dragon – and he is rewarded with a grin. “Wear your yukata tomorrow, Sakura.”

--------

She is beautiful, she has always been, and he loved her long pink hair ever since they met. When she cut it off in the Forest of Death, he felt a slight of pang of loss, even more so when it was because of him. Finally grown to her waist, she lets them down for the night in a long single braid adorned with cherry blossoms and her fringes clipped to the side with two butterfly pins. Her yukata, white and adorned with stars, fits her like second skin. She is beautiful.

They walk together hand in hand in the lantern-lit street filled with the crowd. No one actually pays them attention, everyone is too busy catching fish, playing shooting games, and trying all food stalls. They find a space on the riverbank, and they sit together on the grass, hands still clasped with each other.

“Are you happy?” Sasuke asks behind his mask. He slightly regrets this arrangement since he cannot see her expression, and Sakura has these charming microexpressions, like she wears her heart on her sleeve, an open page for everyone to read.

Before she could say anything, a pair of young men also dressed in yukata taps her shoulder. Sasuke immediately lets go of her hand.

“Dr. Haruno! We were right to come tonight. You never fail to go to summer festivals.”

Sakura takes off her mask and smiles back at them. “How did you know it was me?”

“We can spot your pink hair anywhere, Ma’am.”

“We can immediately see you in the sea of crowd. Do you need company?”

“It would be sad to see your outfit go unappreciated.”

Sasuke can feel a headache coming on. He is never the jealous type but the audacity of these kids to hit on Sakura.

She tilts her head, and her voices takes on an apologetic tone. “I’m actually with someone.” To drive the point further, she reaches for his hand and returns her fingers to where they were before they came. “You can enjoy the rest of the festival.”

Sasuke eyes them through his mask, and true enough, they are unperturbed because why would Sakura spend this important social evening with someone hiding behind a prop. But they eventually leave, knowing when to respect her wishes and knowing what happens if they don’t.

More people start filling the riverbank, indicating the start of the fireworks. Sakura eases in closer to him and wraps her arm with his. To their surprise, an elderly man sits beside Sasuke and waves to Sakura.

“Dr. Haruno.” He surmises this must be a previous patient of hers.

“It’s nice to see you with company this year. I was actually thinking of introducing my son to you later this month.”

Sakura chuckles, sensing the annoyance ooze out from Sasuke. “Oh my, there’s no need.”

“I see that. You look happy, happier than I’ve seen you in the past years,” the old man remarks then he fixes his gaze on the man beside him. “You.”

Sasuke slightly shifts to face him and bows in respect. “Good evening, Sir.”

“I’ve seen this girl come to the summer festival every year without fail. She would sit on the riverbank, her hair done up, with some makeup on, and wait for the fireworks. And when they finally light up, she would allow herself to cry, hiding her tears in the celebration, thinking no one looks beside them when the sky is showered with beautiful explosions. I sometimes think why the hell would a gorgeous girl spend the festival like that and watch fireworks with her eyes on the ground. And this year again, she’s here. You better not make her cry.”

“Oji-chan, you can stop now. You’re traumatizing my date,” Sakura lightly protests. She gives him a smile and words a soundless thank you.

“My child, he deserves to know. Anyway, I’ll leave you two and my knees are starting to hurt again.” The old man starts to get up, but he stares openly at Sasuke, piercing the mask barrier with a glare. “I’m serious though, you better not make this girl cry again.”

Sakura laughs and pulls Sasuke tighter. “Of course, he won’t. You come visit me tomorrow Oji-chan so I can prescribe you some meds. Okay?”

The old man pats the top of Sakura’s head and walks away into the crowd. The countdown starts from the opposite of the riverbank, and they hear the explosion. Colors burst into the velvet sky, and her emerald eyes follow the bright traces of the sparkling lights.

Sasuke slowly lifts off his mask and places it on the grass. He foregoes the sight above and focuses on the one beside him, memorizing every line on her face, committing them to his memory, savoring the awed glint in her eyes. He stays like that for the duration of the show without care for anyone who might have recognized him.

She finally notices his look and shifts her attention. He lets go of her hand and allows his fingers to tuck a stray strand behind her ear then he brings her closer to him and plants a soft kiss on her lips, their first public kiss, shrouded comfortably by the distracted crowd and the ephemeral lights above.

“I love you,” he whispers against her ear, and she responds by leaning against his chest with his arm around her, enjoying the last seconds of the show, a giddy smile on her face.

Links for Utakata Hanabi: Youtube | Spotify

#ssm21 #sasusaku month #sasusaku #ssm21d2 #uchiha sasuke #haruno sakura #sasuke #sakura #fanfic #anime fanfiction

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robininthelabyrinth · 4 years

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the nie sect is known for strong, angry sect leaders and strong, angry women; nie mingjue is just the first to be both. she refuses to let this burden fall on her little brother, who is far too young for it (he's barely old enough to understand that their father is dead, and still sucks his thumb at night)--she can swing a saber like the best of them, and, well... it's not like there are many nie elders to object anyway

also on ao3

The stories said that Nie Mingjue’s mother was a goddess.

They said she descended down from the mountains, crisp as a winter breeze and tall as a temple statute; they said Lao Nie fell in love with her the first moment he saw her and married her the next; they said that the heavens were jealous of their love and summoned her to return –

It was a little nicer than saying that Nie Mingjue’s mother was a rogue cultivator that lingered in Qinghe just long enough for a marriage ceremony and a baby before remembering that she preferred living alone.

Still, as Nie Mingjue grew up – and she did grow up, up and up and up – people started passing around the old story more and more. Lao Nie rolled his eyes but didn’t stop the rumors, which Nie Mingjue interpreted to mean that he thought they were useful somehow, though she never quite figured out the reasoning there. What difference did it make if she were the child of a goddess or a mortal woman?

Either way, she was still a girl.

Oh, Qinghe was famous for its indifference to such things: in Qinghe they don’t care if you’re a man or woman, the story went, as long as you can swing a saber, and it was even mostly true. No one would raise an eyebrow if you shared your bed with a man one night and a woman the next, no one cared if you said you were one for a week and the other for a month…

Still, for all of Qinghe’s indifference, the Nie sect had never had a female sect leader.

At least, not officially – there were a number of sect leader’s wives who were terrifying enough to have deserved the title – and officially was what mattered, in this case. The sect leader was the fulcrum on which the sect turned, the core of their fearsome cultivation: if water ran downhill, then evil flowed up, and the sect leader’s saber spirit was always by far the fiercest in the sect.

That was why Nie Mingjue’s ancestors died so much more quickly than her cousins – why she had plenty of great-uncles and great-aunts, and a family consisting of only her father, herself, and her younger brother.

“Do you not want me to be sect leader?” she asked her father once, because he had deliberately gone out and gotten himself a new wife to have a child with, showing great relief when it turned out to be a boy. “Is it something I’ve done, or haven’t done?”

“It’s not that,” her father had said at once, with such surety that her fears of inadequacy had been relieved. “It’s only – there are sacrifices that must be made, if the sect leader is a woman. A saber spirit powerful enough to support the sect cannot be allowed to escape.”

She hadn’t understood it at the time, being too young, but then she got a little older and started bleeding, and an old auntie came and told her why the bleeding mattered.

The sect leader’s saber was too strong, too fierce, too alive: full of resentful energy, almost like a ghost, hateful and vicious, and their bond with their master was too close. Normal swords could be used by anyone; only the powerful refused any hand but their masters – the powerful, and the Nie sabers.

A sect leader who was a woman could never have a child, lest that child’s soul be stolen away in the womb and replaced with something else.

“So I won’t have children,” Nie Mingjue said, when her father died before his time. “Easy enough.”

There were elders enough in her sect, those that had been lucky enough not to be part of the main clan line and to escape the burden of being sect leader; they looked at each other with concern.

Nie Mingjue wasn’t about to let them put the title of sect leader on Huaisang, then only a child of seven, not when there was her father to avenge, and so she reached up behind her back and brought Baxia down on the table in front of them, cleaving the old wooden table in half.

“I have the bloodline, and my saber’s strong enough to bear the strain,” she said while they stared: that table had survived more than a few of her father and grandfather’s strikes, only to yield to hers as if it were nothing. “If you want to protest, challenge me now.”

In the end, they didn’t.

And so she became sect leader.

The sacrifice of any future children turned out to be the easy part.

Jin Guangshan stared at her breasts whenever she sat across from him, and tried to stumble into her to take advantage of the fact that the top of his head only reached her chin; she made sure never to accept any invitation to ever be alone with him, especially when he was drunk. His wife glared at her as if it were her fault that her chest and hips had grown proportionate with the rest of her, giving her curves that were relatively rare among her countrymen.

Jiang Fengmian might have been all right, she supposed, if his wife hadn’t hated her nearly as much: Madame Yu had been childhood friends with Madame Jin, Nie Mingjue vaguely recalled, but she suspected the real reason was the Jiang sect’s inclination to keep women away from politics no matter how high their cultivation.

“How are you supposed to ‘attempt the impossible’ if you refuse to let half of your population even try?” she asked Jiang Fengmian once, and he just shook his head and tried to pat her head (she glared death at him until he retracted the offending limb before it could be chopped off), and said she wouldn’t understand, that Qinghe was too idiosyncratic, too indiscriminate, that other places were different.

(His daughter gave Nie Mingjue a flower after that meeting, blushing red to her ears, and followed it up with a bowl of soup, and to this day Nie Mingjue still didn’t know if it was because of what she’d said or if everyone in Yunmeng was just as indiscriminate as Qinghe and they just didn’t admit it to themselves.)

Even the ever-polite Lan sect wasn’t friendly.

The irritating part was that she was sure they would have gotten on well if she had been born a man, or at least presented as one, as she would have if she’d been a misaligned reincarnation; alas, she wasn’t, she was a woman, and the Lan sect rules dictated that men and women could not grow too close or intimate. Lan Qiren guarded his nephews against her as if they were treasures, and it took quite a while before she finally met Lan Xichen face to face.

“Wow,” he said, blinking at her. “They weren’t kidding when they said you were a goddess.”

“No, that’s my mother,” Nie Mingjue said automatically.

Lan Xichen smiled, his eyes turning into crescents. “No,” he said. “I’m sure I meant what I said.”

Nie Mingjue felt something jump in her chest, which had never happened before. But she had fought long and hard to be taken seriously as a sect leader despite her youth and her gender, and she wasn’t willing to give that up by falling, like every other female cultivator her age, for the man ranked first on the list of most attractive young masters.

(Nie Mingjue was ranked seventh. She’s not even sure how she got on the list, but apparently there were plenty of female cultivators who were happy to vote for her no matter her gender.)

Besides, even if her heart did beat a little faster whenever Lan Xichen smiled at her, and even if he indicated through some hints that he might be inclined to feel the same, it didn’t matter. She knew, even if he didn’t, that she wouldn’t bear children in this life – she loved Baxia dearly, she did, but her willful, vicious saber would make a terrible child – and she couldn’t impose that on anyone else.

Anyway, she’d figured out pretty quickly that Lan Xichen’s younger brother was a cutsleeve – whatever Lan Qiren might think, pornography was a perfectly reasonable gift for a teenager, especially given how successful Nie Huaisang’s side business was – and that meant Lan Xichen had to be the one to have descendants.

Nie Mingjue had heard all the stories about what happens when a man marries one woman who can’t give him children and another who can, and she wasn’t interested in that.

So they were friends.

She wasn’t sure if it got easier or harder when she met Meng Yao, who was small and delicate and scheming in a way that she found ridiculously endearing.

He wasn’t expecting her to be a woman, she thought: he’d set himself up on a mountain path, buckets of water at his side and a pitiful expression on his face as he chewed on hard bread without even taking a sip of the water right beside him to wet his throat, and when she’d stopped right in front of him to ask him about it he’d looked up at her and his eyes had gotten to be half the size of his face.

Nie Mingjue might’ve fallen for the gambit if it wasn’t for the way she could almost see the way he was rapidly reevaluating his entire strategy in real time – it almost made her nostalgic about listening to her cousins teach each other the warning signs of a white lotus seductress selling misery and purity.

Still, in the end it didn’t really matter if he was deliberately exaggerating his misery to sell it to her – the responsibility for good behavior was on the bully, not the victim, so she went and scolded the people inside the cave.

Afterwards, she took him out to walk with her.

“I’d already spoken with some people about you; it seems like you’ve established your merits in the battlefield and off,” she told him. “You don’t also need to be pitiful to get my attention.”

Meng Yao smiled self-depreciatingly. “I find that men have a soft spot for people they think need them.”

“Well, I’m not a man, am I?” she pointed out in return. She thought about it for a moment, then decided, as always, to be blunt. “I might spend most of my time now with men, but I spent my childhood with women; a woman’s tricks don’t work that well on me. What is it that you want?”

He looked at her with raised eyebrows.

“Do you want to be my deputy? I’m willing, since you seem competent enough,” she said. “But if your goal is to get back into your father’s good graces by reporting on me, don’t bother. He has spies enough for that – he doesn’t need a son to do it.”

“Perhaps I just want to show him what I’m capable of,” Meng Yao said.

Nie Mingjue laughed. “At my side? If you’d like to try, I’m not going to stop you, but I’ll tell you now that the merits that Jin Guangshan values may not be to your taste.”

She made him her deputy, and he lived up to her expectations – he was efficient, capable, competent. He was good at understanding people, which she wasn’t, and he could figure out within moments what any given person wanted. Just as importantly, he lived up to the principles she prized, valuing the lives of the common folk as well as Nie cultivators; he did what she asked of him, and he did it well.

It would be a shame to lose him, she thought, but she still brought him with her to a wartime meeting with the Jin sect.

Afterwards, she made her excuses to leave early, as she always did, and when Meng Yao showed up later that evening to drop off the usual round of spies’ reports, Nie Mingjue could smell blood from where his nails had pierced his palms.

“He asked you if you were fucking me,” she said, accepting the papers. It wasn’t a guess. “You can tell him that you are, if you think it would help your standing with him.”

Meng Yao seemed repulsed by her suggestion, which amused her.

“Don’t you mind that half the camp thinks I got my position by climbing into your bed?” he asked her, a wrinkle in his brow suggesting that the question mattered to him. “Most of them can’t decide if I’m your boy-toy or merely stupid enough not to notice that I’m deliberately seducing you for my own ends, but either way the implication is highly unflattering. Don’t you care?”

“…not really?” Nie Mingjue said. “I’ve been sect leader since I was fifteen and more than half the sect leaders that currently report to me have been treating me like I’m a walking collection of fuckable female body parts since then; they get extremely irritable any time I open my mouth and remind them I’m not. Keeping a boy-toy is positively tame compared to the rest of it…you must have heard the one that says that I’m a frigid bitch that can only be satisfied by fucking my saber? That one’s a perennial.”

Meng Yao’s expression suggested he had, in fact, heard that one.

“My father always told me that the more people talk behind your back, the harder you have to work to leave them with nothing to say,” Nie Mingjue continued. “But I’ve found that they’ll find something to say, and if there isn’t anything, they’ll make something up. There’s no way to stop gossip.”

Meng Yao was frowning. “That seems unduly pessimistic. Not to borrow our enemies’ words, but if you shine like a sun in the heavens –”

“I’m the sect leader of one of the Great Sects,” Nie Mingjue said. “I’m a war hero. I have a reputation as a upright and righteous person. And yet between me and Wen Ruohan, who’s to say whose name is dragged through the mud more? They curse at him as the man who ordered the rape of their wives in one breath and talk eagerly about how much they’d like to rape me the next…Meng Yao, don’t take insult when I say this, but you could be as wise as a sage, as powerful as a landslide, as beneficent as a buddha and they’d still ask each other behind their sleeves what you learned from being a whore’s son.”

His expression was rather ugly – nothing at all like his usual calm smile.

“I usually get over it by associating myself with better people,” she added. “Have you met Lan Xichen yet?”

It turned out he had, and that they were rather fond of each other, too. Very fond, to judge by Meng Yao’s starry-eyed expression, and wouldn’t it be just her luck if the two men she was attracted to – and which she’d refused on the basis of not wanting to cut off their family lines – ended up pairing up together, which would also cut off their family lines?

Of course, Meng Yao was off limits for other reasons as well…

One day she overheard them talking about Meng Yao possibly leaving, probably intentionally on Meng Yao’s part, and she walked inside rolling her eyes already. “If you want to go, go,” she said. “I’ll write you a recommendation letter, for whatever it’s worth – he’s got a thick enough face that it might not do you any good, but he’s already noticed you, so hopefully that’ll be something.”

“Sect Leader Nie –”

“I didn’t promote you out of a sense of gratitude,” she said impatiently. “You’ve always wanted to get back to him, for whatever reason; I’m not going to hold you back.”

He smiled at that, and Lan Xichen smiled with him.

Really, there were limits to the sort of things you could expect a person to resist, even with willpower like hers.

“Have you decided that you will go?” she asked Meng Yao. “Is it your final decision? Let me know now.”

“It is.”

“Good,” she said. “You’re fired as my deputy. Also, I’d like to take the two of you to bed, if you’re similarly inclined.”

They gaped at her.

“What?” she said, crossing her arms. “He’s not my deputy anymore, there’s nothing immoral about it. Besides, nobody will get any stupid ideas about marriage if there’s three of us involved. It is only if you’re interested, though; I won’t be offended if you say no –”

Lan Xichen was kissing her before she even finished the sentence, so she assumed the answer was not, in fact, no, and Meng Yao’s reaction was equally enthusiastic – though perhaps equally wasn’t the right word, given how both she and Meng Yao ended up tied up in Lan Xichen’s forehead ribbon before the night was done.

“I knew it was a kink,” Meng Yao said, inspecting it with an expression of satisfaction, as if he hadn’t just demonstrated a fair share of his own. “Something so prominently displayed, Xichen-gege, for shame…”

Lan Xichen didn’t show so much as a hint of shame about it. “We’ll have to do this again,” he said. “I’m not even a fourth of the way down my list.”

“There’s a list?” Nie Mingjue asked, stretching out her legs to see how they felt after all that tossing around. “Tell me this is written down somewhere – no, tell me your uncle found it.”

Lan Xichen shuddered. “Thank you, da-jie. I didn’t need that mental image – it’d be like the time you gave Wangji pornography, only worse.”

Meng Yao decided the best way to muffle his laughter was in Nie Mingjue’s shoulder. With his teeth.

Nie Mingjue gave him a half-hearted shove. “Get off,” she grumbled. “I need to go drink some medicine to prevent contraception before we encounter disaster – this wasn’t planned, you know. I was intending on dying a virgin.”

“Da-jie, for you to die a virgin, that would mean – uh – that would – you were…? Mingjue!”

Nie Mingjue gave them both a glare. “Don’t tell me you two listened to those stupid rumors. I don’t take just anyone to my bed.”

“And you decided on two of us?” Meng Yao said, blinking at her. “Da-jie is very ambitious.”

“Not as much as you,” she said, rolling her eyes and pushing away their grasping hands. “What’s your real plan, anyway? You know Jin Guangshan won’t accept you as a son just because you show up and volunteer.”

“I don’t need to be his son, I just need to wear his colors,” Meng Yao said. “It’ll make for a better story when I defect to the Wen sect – as a spy, don’t look at me like that. You know I’d be good at it. And if I get close enough to Wen Ruohan, I can kill him. I’ll give you his head as a present, da-jie.”

“Unfair, A-Yao! I can’t compete with that,” Lan Xichen complained. “You have to let me help.”

‘Help’ turned out to be Lan Xichen allowing himself to be captured and Meng Yao stabbing Wen Ruohan in the back when he was about to start torturing the First Jade of Lan – Nie Mingjue had a headache and a strong desire to kill them both.

Even if they did bring her Wen Ruohan’s head.

“Stop looking so pleased with yourselves,” she scolded them – both Lan Xichen and Meng Yao, now officially Jin Guangyao (thanks to a bit of pointed haggling over which clan got what war merits and how that applied to the division of the spoils of war), looked positively smug. “What if you’d died?”

“But we didn’t,” Lan Xichen pointed out. “And now we’re here to claim our reward from our goddess.”

“Did I promise you a reward?”

Two sets of puppy dog eyes…and they did help her avenge her father.

“Fine. What do you want? If I can give it to you, it’s yours.”

They looked at each other, and Nie Mingjue immediately started to worry: they’d had time to think about it. That was dangerous.

“We want to marry you,” Lan Xichen said.

“Both of us,” Jin Guangyao said. “To avoid any jealousy.”

“That’s…not how that works,” Nie Mingjue said blankly. Men married multiple wives, not women multiple men: they had words for women who did that, none of them complimentary. Or legal, for that matter. “And anyway, I’ve already told you, I can’t have children. Huaisang’s my heir, and he always will be – you deserve to continue your family lines. Both of you.”

They exchanged looks again.

“That’s fine by me,” Jin Guangyao said. “Jin Zixuan’s the heir anyway.”

“I have plenty of cousins,” Lan Xichen said. “Can we go to bed now? I was injured in the line of duty –” He had a scraped knee and exactly three bruises, she’d counted. “– and I need some care and attention.”

“And an agreement of marriage from da-jie,” Jin Guangyao said, because he had a lawyer’s eye for such things.

This was almost certain to cause some sort of political disaster.

“Are you sure you wouldn’t settle for sworn brothers or something?” she tried.

They wouldn’t.

(The stories said that the leader of the Nie sect was a goddess – a war goddess, a goddess of the blade, sharp as the saber she carried and tall as a temple statute; they said that her two lovers fell in love with her the first moment they saw her and fought a war that upturned the entire cultivation world just to win the right to claim her hand; they said that they served as her right and left hands, and that when the three of them were together, the venerated triad, they could never be defeated.)

#mdzs #nie mingjue #lan xichen #meng yao #jin guangyao #my fic #my fics #da-jie #Anonymous

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