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citadelspires · 3 years

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since I’m more or less back in business I feel it’s past time I ramble about another au I will (probably) never write. I’ll start off simple with an amphibia owl house au I was thinking up last night at work. (slight disclaimer that I have not seen any of season 2 yet so this is with exclusively information through the end of season 1). Concept below the cut cause it’s a pretty extensive one.

The concept starts at the same point the owl house does, more or less. Camila is concerned, Luz is getting sent to summer camp etc. etc. This time she gets distracted by an unusually pink frog hopping into the woods, and decides she probably has time to go chase after it. So she follows it into the woods until she suddenly trips over something and falls to the ground, turning around she sees it to be a music box sticking out of the forest floor. Curious, she digs it up and starts examining it. She thinks it’s really pretty and she’s about to open it when she hears voices coming from nearby and goes to check it out.

She finds Willow and Amity in a small clearing, think essentially the scene in the actual owl house where she sees them for the first time, except here they’re both human, though Luz doesn’t know them because they both go to some pretentious private school, Amity because she’s a Blight so she had to, and Willow because she got a scholarship for it and didn’t have the heart to tell her dads she didn’t really want to go. The scene plays out in a similar fashion to how it does in the actual show, with the exception that this time without the magic element Luz doesn’t feel the need to keep hiding and instead marches up from her hiding place to chew out Amity for being a jerk. Unfortunately she stumbles on a tree root as she approaches and, still holding the music box, accidentally pops the lid open.

So that’s how the three of them get transported to Amphibia. I like the idea of taking the setup and world of Amphibia, which we’ve seen through the lens of the characters that got transported all being close “friends”, and coming at it from a different perspective, i.e. one of them is a complete stranger to the other two and the two that do know eachother are already not on very good terms going in. (Amity and Willow have essentially the same history in the au that they do in toh).

Luz is dropped right in the middle of Newtopia, and while she’s very excited about the prospect of a fantasy adventure, she’s also pretty worried that she has no idea how to get back home, and she doesn’t take to the city as well as Marcy did. Part of this is due to her having her doubts about the ruler of Amphibia, who in this case is not Andrias, but Lilith(I understand Belos is probably a more fitting character for the role but I just don’t know enough of his character or really care about him enough to implement him, so Lilith it is! She’s more interesting for the setup anyway, depending on what Andrias’ weird master thing ends up being, maybe that would be a belos type deal but honestly I’d probably just not implement that part into this. If you can’t tell this is much less a “amphibia but with the owl house cast” and more of a actual approach to writing something new with the old setting and characters).

This is mostly due to the fact that, while wondering around the city attracting suspicious stares from newts that have never seen someone like her before, she ends up bumping into a newt who appears to be running from the majority of the city guards. They both fall down and Luz helps her stand up, a showing that is enough to convince the guards that, whatever the weird creature is, it’s in league with the felon, so they begin chasing her too. The criminal newt, who is of course Eda, takes pity on her and brings her along to her hideout, where she meets a weird little robot that insists she refer to him as King. He begins to declare that his full title is “King of...” and then kinda falters off as he seems to realize he actually isn’t quite sure what he is. Luz gives Eda a concerned Look but she just kinda shrugs it off and says he always does that.

Luz finds out that Eda deals in the trade of questionable artifacts and considers herself pretty lucky to find someone like that as soon as she did, and she asks if Eda knows anything about a music box, describing it as best as she can, because she didn’t really think to take any pictures. For her part, Eda is pretty sure what it is, and that’s the moment where she resolves to watch over Luz, at first just because she’s Concerned the box is back in Amphibia, though it eventually ends up that she gets a soft spot for the kid.

Though Luz doesn’t find out a good deal of this until later, and it’s gradually, Eda is still Lilith’s sister here, meaning that yes, she had equal claim to the newtopian crown, but the history of the crown never sat well with her (i.e. she finds out newtopia was built on the foundation of bloody conquest, along with the fact that it’s encouraged they want to get back to that point and nopes out of there). While she’s on her way out she starts off her new life of stealing shiny things by grabbing a weird little statue that had always seemed kinda off to her. She figures she could sell it at least, but while looking over it after escaping she realizes that it isn’t a statue at all, but what she decides must have been a defective robot from newtopia’s past, being much smaller and more... expressive? Than it should have been. For some reason she decided to try fixing it, and though it took a good deal of time she eventually got it to work again, which is how she came to be friends with King.

Luz’ story is largely slice of life relationship building with her, Luz, and King, until the point where the path to the valley opens, and the three of them go on what Luz finds out is an annual trip Eda takes around the valley to see if she can find anything interesting to add to her stand, as well as find new customers in the valley. Luz figures if she has a shot at finding either of the two girls she came with, and hopefully the box too, it would be on that trip.

Willow gets thrown into Toad Tower before she even realizes what’s happening to her. She has no idea where she is, didn’t even get a good look at Luz before the teleportation happened back on earth, and is overall not having a great time. She’s not convinced she’s not dreaming until she’s literally tossed into her cell and the impact hurts enough that she’s sure she’s really there. At first she believes she’s alone in her cell until she hears an awe-filled voice ask what she is and why she’s there. She isn’t able to figure out where the voice is coming from until a tiny blue frog jumps up on her hand. She introduces herself as a human, which gets him very excited, and he introduces himself as Gus, explaining that he was thrown in prison for “almost kind of knowing things he shouldn’t” as he put it.

It turns out Gus is something of a scholar, though he admits that most frogs are more inclined to call him a crazed conspiracy theorist. All of his studies have to do with mysterious other worlds and their inhabitants, which he has always been stubbornly insistent do exist. He’s overjoyed that he finally has “a real life specimen!!” and Willow is excited enough at the idea that there might be someone who actually knows what happened to her that she lets that comment slide. She quickly finds out what the meaning behind his weird prison sentence is, as she brings up getting sent to this world from another, and he attempts for a wise nod as he goes “ah yes, you must have experience an encounter with the calamity bucket.” Still he’s kind of helpful and he and Willow get along pretty well, so they end up hanging out together for the rest of the story, he basically tags along everywhere with her Jiminy Cricket style.

Amity has arguably the hardest time adjusting to the world she suddenly finds herself in, as she ends up in the forest on the outskirts of Wartwood, and promptly determines that this is the worst thing that’s ever happened to her. Despite having the box that “weird girl” used to send them here, opening it and closing it over again provided no help at all, and trying to go into Wartwood provided even less. Still being in Full Blight mindset she is really haughty and superior and the townspeople do not take it well. Even deducing Toadstool as the only persons superficial enough to potentially care about her status, she can’t get anything out of him cause he views her as a massive publicity risk, which he’s already not doing super well at.

The only frogs in the village that seem to not turn away from her immediately are a mischievous pair of frog twins that joke around and mess with her, and though it’s all lighthearted she’s stubborn enough at first that when they do offer to help her out she flat out refuses them. Eventually between living in a cave and their hanging around her whenever she’s in town anyway she’s worn down enough that she begrudgingly accepts their offer of help.

Not being Blights in this au has done a good deal in the way of making Edric and Emira happier. While they’re just as much of tricksters as they always are, and they occasionally overstep a little in their jests, they’re quick to apologize, and lack any of the actual malice behind their knack for causing trouble. The two of them run one of the stands in the marketplace, something they get Amity to help out with eventually as the town warms up to her. The two of them find it easier to grow closer to Amity than the rest of the town does, maybe it’s cause they’re the only ones who have really tried, or maybe it’s cause they’ve got a reputation for being trouble in the town already anyway. Whatever it is Amity gets begrudgingly closer to them until she eventually refers to them as her siblings once, and though they refuse to let her hear the end of it for a few days, they’d been calling her their little sister since the beginning, and while Amity had been certain for a long time they were just doing it to mess with her she starts to like it eventually.

Like in Amphibia, the three girls all represent one aspect of the Heart, Strength, Mind trio. Figuring out what those all are takes a lot more for these girls than it does for the amphibia trio though. The focus of this story is less on the relationships the characters have, though that is definitely a part of it, and more on the attributes their assigned to and the personal growth they have. Each of them holds the attribute that is both their strongest and most repressed. The three all hold themselves at very little value in the areas they’re actually the strongest in, and through their journey in Amphibia they start to learn.

Willow had always believed that strength was an inherently negative thing. Strength equated to power, and people who had power used it to hurt others, without fail. People like, well, Amity. She prefers gentleness and peace, and to her that and strength is mutually exclusive. She reacts to the concept that she could be charging the box with the attribute of strength very negatively.

Through her time in Amphibia she gets to learn that her strength can come in different forms, and while she is undeniably strong physically, her physical strength is nothing compared to her emotional resolve and capacity to extend that emotional resolve in the strength of heart to pick up the people around her when they need it. She does, though, get to learn that power isn’t something that is inherently evil, and even that if she uses the strength she has to protect the things that are important to her, that doesn’t mean she’s forsaken any of the things believes.

aka she gets to punch a heron in the face. Boscha (captain of toad tower) is very impressed, though she pretends she isn’t. Speaking of Boscha, she gets to experience a similar development to Willow, but more on the reverse side of the coin. Having always been powerful, and that having always been enough to make her more important than everyone else, Willow strikes her as weak at first, given her lack of aggression. The longer she stays stuck with Willow though, the more she comes to realize some important things, foremost among them being that Willow could totally kick her ass, and just chooses not to, which isn’t something Boscha understands at all, and Willow ends up teaching her how to be more of a person than a weapon, even just leading by example.

Much to Willow’s complete disbelief, (she swears to Luz the box is broken and they’re doomed), Amity is the heart. Amity doesn’t really believe it either. Strength would’ve been Okay, but personally she would’ve picked the attribute of intelligence for her. It was like the box went through all the effort of looking into their souls and didn’t even bother to check her report card. Ludicrous. It doesn’t help her that her time in wartwood is miserable for a good deal of the start. For the first time in her life Amity isn’t perfect, and it’s all because there’s nothing to be perfect at in this stupid little town. She should have all the frogs praising her superiority, but literally None Of Them are impressed by her in the slightest. They didn’t even have a school!

The only thing Amity took to quickly in Wartwood was the town motto, resolving that she would be even slower to respect the citizens of Wartwood than they would her. This started off a bit of a rivalry between her and the town, but the longer she had the horrible influence of her parents replaced by the well meaning nagging from her frog siblings, and the more time she spent not being perfect because for once in her life she literally couldn’t be, she started to think it wasn’t so bad after all, and the little rivalry between her and the town became much less of a real one, and a lot more of the friendly banter type, though she couldn’t recall ever making a concious choice to do so it just sorta... happened.

Eventually she starts to think about the school she was initially so annoyed didn’t exist, and begins to wonder if really no one is gonna do anything about it being in ruins. Eventually, she starts going over to the ruined building and reading to whatever kids in wartwood were in the mood to listen. before she knew it she had built up the closest thing to a school Wartwood had in a while, and where she once would have felt a smug pride, she only felt a casual happiness that was new to her, but not entirely unpleasant.

Luz never would have considered herself good at any of the three options. She knows she’s not strong so that’s out. All the kids at school think she’s weird and she has no friends so she really doesn’t think the whole “heart” thing works in any capacity. But the only thing left besides that would be intelligence, and she’s had enough students and teachers alike call her out for being an idiot that she’s absolutely confident that isn’t it. It doesn’t help that since she’s with Eda, who actually knows what the box is, she ends up worrying over what she’s supposed to be from the very start. She spends a lot of the time before the valley opens up thinking the box made a mistake, and since she didn’t have any of the attributes it wanted it wouldn’t work again at all.

In the end she only finds out what she’s supposed to be through process of elimination. Knowing Willow is strength and Amity is heart she finally comes to the realization that she’s supposed to be intelligence, and her confidence crumbles. Of all the options that’s the one she’d been hoping it wouldn’t be the most. How could so many people be wrong after all? It was pretty unanimous back home that she didn’t really have much going on upstairs, and after hearing it enough time she had gotten around to believing it. Her path in the story largely focuses on coming to terms with her own worth, despite her insecurities and the weight of everything she’s ever heard to the contrary constantly on her mind.

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kalypsichor · 4 years

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fools on a hill [ george harrison x reader ]

summary: From childhood friends to fellow Beatles, George and you seem to have lived your whole lives under this tree. You wouldn’t have it any other way.

Request: hii could u do like, a mini beatle!reader x geo imagine where theyre best friends since they were kids idkk i trust u warnings: time skips

i’m posting this in celebration of our beautiful George’s birthday part one! i suppose tomorrow is part two. we’ll never know. and i am so sorry dear anon, you asked for a mini imagine and my brain just ran with it.

masterlist

There’s a boy sitting under your tree.

Well, it doesn’t belong to you, exactly. But you’ve been eating lunch under it every day since the start of primary school— a big old sycamore tree atop a small hill, the perfect hideaway from your annoying classmates— for a whole week! So you definitely have some claim to it. Yes, you’re going to give him a piece of your mind. And that’s the plan you have in your head as you march up to him, tiny fist clenched around your lunchbox. That is, until he looks up and you see that he’s got something cupped in his hands.

“What's that?” you ask, your curiosity overtaking any anger you might have previously held towards the boy. He looks startled at the fact that you’ve just gone and plopped yourself right next to him with a complete disregard for personal space. His answer is hesitant and quiet, and you lean even closer to hear.

“Some kinda cricket. I think.”

He relaxes his grip just a smidge and sure enough, you can see something small and legged moving around. You nod your head, satisfied, and open your lunch. The two of you sit in silence, comfortable in the way that children are when they owe nothing to each other, you chomping down on the sandwich your mum packed and the boy just staring down at the bug. Sometime after you open your juice box, he opens his hands and lets the cricket hop away.

“What’d you do that for?” you startle. “You’re letting it get away!”

He looks at you from beneath his messy fringe and shrugs. “It doesn’t belong to me,” he says.

You both watch as it pauses some distance away, antenna quivering as though searching for something, before disappearing into the boundless sea of grass.

---

The familiar sight of George leaning against the tree quells your feelings somewhat, but your lip is still trembling by the time you’ve thrown yourself onto the grass next to him. He closes his book and sets it to the side, waiting for you to speak first. You stew in your anger for a little while before it spills out.

“Why are boys so stupid?”

“We’re not stupid,” George says defensively, but you plow on.

“I was trying to draw a picture in class and Tommy Wood kept on pulling on my hair and telling me it looked ugly and I told him to stop but he wouldn’t! and every time Miss Gordie would come around he sat very still and pretended to be working but the moment she left he’d just he’d start pulling on my braids again! He’s so stupid and I hate him.” You punctuate the last sentence with a particularly harsh yank at some blades of grass.

“My mum says boys tease girls if they like them.”

“But you don't tease me, Geo, and we like each other the most.”

He contemplates this for a while, brows furrowed. “I suppose you're right. He’s just an arse then.”

You giggle and sit up, leaning a head on his shoulder “You can't call him that! My mum says it’s a naughty word.”

“Well maybe I'm just a naughty boy,” he says, grinning wickedly. Before you can anticipate whatever evil deed he's planning, he’s already got his hands tickling your sides.

“No, stop it, noooo! Geo— you can’t— stOP!!!”

Your laughter rings across the open field and soon Tommy is all but forgotten, carried away on the summer breeze.

“D’you remember when we first met here?”

The tree looks so small. As kids, it seemed like the biggest thing, an enormous leafy umbrella that protected you and George against the world. Now, you have to duck to stand underneath its branches.

“No, actually, you’ll have to remind me,” you tease. He nudges you in the ribs and you dance away, laughing. “‘course I do, Geo. It was the best thing that ever happened to me!”

As you walk around the trunk, trailing your fingers across its familiar notches and grooves, George flops down. When you’ve come full circle, he’s already got his head tilted back against the tree and his eyes closed, basking in the sun. It’s a peaceful scene. He looks like he belongs there, like he hasn’t moved since that day in primary school.

You must’ve stood there for a long time watching him because George slowly opens an eye and smirks up at you all cat-like. Uncrossing his arms, he pats his legs.

“Why don’t you come down here, love? The view is better.”

You snort at his terrible flirting but oblige and settle into his lap, hands coming up naturally to link behind his neck. Your head finds his chest and for a while you allow yourself to relax there. Ear pressed against argyle sweater, the steady beat of his heart lulls you almost to sleep.

“You know, I thought you were a weirdo.”

The moment is shattered and you look up, bewildered. “What?”

“That first day! There I was, sitting by myself at recess and some girl comes along and starts botherin’ me!”

You smack his chest lightly in mock-anger. “I’m the weirdo? You’re the one that sat under my tree-- not to mention you were catching bugs while everyone else was playing on the swings and the like!”

George’s eyes narrow with a playfulness and he catches your wrists before they can thump him again. “Your tree? It didn’t have your name on it.”

“‘S not like you could fucking read.”

“Hm, well, maybe not. But it’s our tree now, isn’t it?”

You don’t know whether you want to smack him or snog him senseless. “You’re so cheesy,” you grumble, and when you close the distance between your lips he’s still smiling. It’s a kiss you’ve had a thousand times, but George still feels the thrill of it spark in his chest.

“Hey hey! Lovebirds goin’ at it, huh? Oh, Paul, hold me. Their love is too much!”

It’s John with his smirky meerkat face trotting up the hill to where the two of you are sat, Paul and Ringo trailing behind at a much more leisurely pace. George sighs and pulls away.

“Can I kill ‘im?”

A tempting thought. “No, we don’t need the fans thinking that two of the Beatles are dead. It’s bad press.”

You two are giggling before you know it, shaking in each other’s arms. John’s standing in front of the tree now, bent down awkwardly to fit under.

“What are you two laughin’ about?” he demands.

“Your nose,” George says. You laugh even harder.

“You’ve got some nerve—”

“Well, now you know what it’s like.”

That’s Ringo, who’s grinning good-naturedly with a hand to his face to block the sun. Paul comes up a few steps behind and restrains John before he can throw a fit. The familiar back and forth of the group fills you with a funny sort of warmth that buzzes ever so slightly in your chest. You turn and slide off of George’s lap to cuddle into his side.

“Should we get back soon?” Paul asks this with an air that suggests he doesn’t really want to. “Eppy will be havin’ an aneurysm when he finds out we’ve ditched another meeting.”

The air is warm and sweet with the smell of summer. It’s lethargic, sinking into everyone’s bones like molasses. No one wants to do anything and you can see it in your bandmates-- how John allows his glasses to almost slide off the slope of his nose before pushing them back up, the way Ringo fidgets restlessly with his rings. George traces lazy, looping patterns into your arm and you shuffle even closer into his embrace.

“I think we deserve a little break,” he says. His voice rumbles in his chest and you can feel the vibration through your spine.

“A few minutes can’t hurt.” And with that, Ringo throws himself onto the grass spread eagle, smiling adorably at his newfound plan. The others follow suit without complaint. What a funny sight you must have been to any passerby— the famous Beatles all sprawled out under a little sycamore tree.

Well, it wasn’t just any tree. It was the tree that had grown up with you, had watched as you ate lunches and told jokes and fell in love under its very branches. It didn’t belong to you or George or anyone else but itself. And for this brief moment on a lazy summer’s day, you two belonged to it.

#george harrison x reader #george harrison fanfic #george harrison #the beatles x reader #beatles fanfic #request #fluff #kalwrites #i'm not dead!#and i'm posting this at a reasonable hour #yaaaaay #happy birthday george

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emidori-crossing · 4 years

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New Yards for Villagers

I finished the new layout for the town center, finished moving every last house, and now the very last villager has moved in. Thanks again to everyone who helped me get all the yard decorations I wanted! Now everyone can see them in use.

Flora’s House - right across from the tailor shop. I read that she has the “play” hobby and wants to be a gymnast, which is why she has a colorful playground gym and a colorful ball to bounce. I want to see about adding a pink inflatable bed if I can get one, but this is plenty good.

Rosie’s House - diagonal from Flora and right next to Cherry. I read that she has the “music” hobby and is great at karaoke, so I made sure she has a microphone. I thought a swing would be nice for a high-energy lady like her, and...cat grass...well, of course.

Cherry’s House - between Flora and Rosie. I read that she has the “music” hobby and wants to be a dancer. So the CD player is for music to dance to, and the exercise bike is for her to keep physically fit like a dancer. The other elements are just flair for her rock-n-roll style.

I put Rosie and Cherry next to each other so they can join forces with their music-related hobbies. I chose Flora to be next to them, because their personalities blend well, and she wouldn’t mind loud music playing all day.

Willow’s House - across the path from Shari and also across the path from Rosie. Shari has some music going, but it’s not right next to Willow, and it’s music that Willow might like. I read that she has the “fashion” hobby and wants to be a designer. I combined both by giving her fashion magazines to browse through. I had also gotten a sewing project and a sewing box, but then I discovered she already has them in her house. This yard is full enough and nice enough as is, anyway.

Shari’s House - she’s across from Willow and next to Alice. I read that she has the “music” hobby and wants to be a figure skater. Not a whole lot I can do for ice skating at the moment, but she is a low-key type, so I gave her some relaxing, homey furniture. She does have the record player to sing along to.

Alice’s House - right next to Shari. And they have the exact same house type, lol. They’re both pretty low-key people, which I figured made them a good fit as neighbors. Her hobby is “education”, so I made sure she had plenty of books to read. She wants to be a stylist, and I was going to put the nail polish kit there, but it wasn’t quite fitting right. I thought a picnic blanket for outdoor lunch and a pile of cherry blossom petals to play in would suit fine.

Hamlet’s House - he’s across the path from Alice and connected to Biff and Zell. He has the “play” hobby, hence the multicolored tricycle. The tricycle is also a way for him to exercise his legs, because something like a treadmill or exercise bike might be too big for him. And he wants to be a soccer player, so I made sure he could practice. One of the reasons I chose to invite him to the island is because I thought Biff should have a jock friend, and I thought it would be funny having one who is a big and buff hippo, while the other is a tiny fluffy hamster.

Zell’s House - in front of Biff and Hamlet. I think smug villagers are a little more go-with-the-flow than snooty when it comes to personality clashes. I also think the jocks appreciate his stereo playing music while they train. In addition to his “music” hobby, he wants to be a film director, hence the chair and the projector. I think having his own spotlight fulfills the smug part as well as the director, really.

Biff’s House - above Zell and next to Hamlet. He has the “fitness” hobby and wants to be a basketball player, so he has a small court for his net and ball. The treadmill is to help him exercise his legs as a basketball player might. He shares a fence with Hamlet so the two can encourage each other.

Papi’s House - across the path from Biff. I did at first think that he shouldn’t be on his own and maybe Zell should, but while friendly, Papi seems more like the introvert type, and Zell the extrovert. Also, lazy types and jock types would be a big clash, I think. He wants to be a cartoonist, so I was going to get that kit, but I couldn’t find a right fit for it in the yard. Maybe I’ll just give it to him to put in his house. These furnishings reflect his “lazy” personality and his “nature” hobby. On that bench is a cricket and an ant farm, and of course a place to relax and eat pizza.

Funnily enough, it turned out that all the boys are next to each other, and all the girls are next to each other. I didn’t exactly plan it that way, but I’m happy with the layout choices.

I do think the fencing will be replaced by brick wall. The lattice is a bit too “busy”.

#acnh #houses #yards #design #layout

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clowndaydreams · 4 years

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Yan!Marvus x Reader

I hope you all like it!

“Can you pass me the potato chips?” You looked over to your companion. Marvus nodded and reached over to get said bag from his side of the couch.

“here ya go.” You grunted a quick thank you to the clown and started to dig in. You had been hanging out with Marvus all day. You still couldn’t believe how friendly you’ve gotten with the superstar since you met him at that concert you went to. It had been a few perigrees since then, but the clown had since made a habit of inviting you over randomly when he was free. You were just happy that he remembered you at all.

Currently though, you were both relaxing on the couch and watching some Slam or Get Culled episodes that he was in. Right now, a season finale was playing. He was the final challenge for that season’s top 2. They had to rap battle him and whoever fared better was the winner. You glanced over at him. He was in his usual facepaint, but was casually wearing a neon yellow ripped tank top and matching pajama pants with some designer troll logo and ‘JUICY’ all over them. How he managed to look so hot in that would forever elude you. You snapped out of it when he started speaking again.

“u kno, i thought ricard was the better 1 outta those 2.” You pretended to glare at him.

“SPOILERS!” You jokingly huffed, lightly shoving his arm. It didn’t move, as you’d expect.

“LOL! XoD sorry fam, seen dis crap 1000 times alreddy.” Wait, then why did he let you pick this episode? Or even agree to watch this with you? If this was boring you could do something else. And as if he could read your mind, he held up a hand.

“dun worry bout dis. is chill or w/e. butt srsly, u kno who gunna win.”

“Still! I wanna watch it!” You giggled. You both watched on in silence as Marvus was brought on to surprise the contestants.

“How were they behind the scenes?” You asked as you watched the confessionals for both of the contestants.

“ricards moirail b a clown, so me n him knew each other alreddy. he wuz p chill i guess lol.”

“What about Krayaa?”

“turns out she wuz a fangirl. foamin at the mouth n erythng.”

“Really?!” You turned to him to try and see if he was lying. He looked almost bored about it all. Like you were both talking about the weather or something. You wished you could be so relaxed about meeting a rabid fangirl and somehow living to tell the tale. Seadwellers were supposed to be stronger and more durable than landdwellers. At least, that was according Polypa anyway. Huh, you had to remember to check on her later after you got home too.

“ye. she wanted 2 pail after the shoot.” Your jaw dropped. Krayaa was a seadweller! Did he have to listen to her? She could have killed him for not listening!

“Nahhh, no worries,, the contract she signed for the ep woulda had her disqualified and mah bodyguards woulda whooped her b4 she had a chance. ;op” He chuckled. “If she managed 2 get thru them, I aint no wimp.” He added, flexing his arms a little to prove his point. You almost couldn’t stop staring. He had to know what he was doing to you…right? Granted, this was a crush you had no intention of pursuing. If you were speaking honestly, Marvus was a guy who probably didn’t want commitment due to his lifestyle. Even then, he had people throwing themselves at him constantly. People his own species. People who were a lot better fitting with his general aesthetic and not some poor wandering alien that he would DM when he was high when they both should have been sleeping. Your own concepts of relationships and types of love were different. But you could dream, right? You were content with just having him as your designated hot friend anyway. …That did mean you were allowed to drool over him in your mind. As long as it doesn’t get creepy to him. Yeah. You were fine.

“u gud (Y/N)? u tryna lure snacks into ur mouth or smth?” You snapped out of your stupor.

“Ew! Gross! I don’t eat bugs like you weirdos!”

“it aint gross. literally free snacks u can catch. :o)” He laughed.

“Where I’m from they’re gross!” Granted, there were places that did eat crickets and the like on Earth, but you would never tell him that.

“dun knock it till ya try it.” He got up and left the room, returning after a moment with a small box.

“…What is that.” You had a sinking feeling you knew what it was.

“chirp grubs.” He opened it and there they were. Disgusting caramelized crickets.

“I can’t.” You shook your head.

“more 4 me lol.” You looked away as he ate a few of the crickets. You looked back at him when his palmhusk rang. It sounded like a clown horn version of one of his songs. Fitting, honestly.

He glanced at it and rolled his eyes before silencing the phone.

“Who was that?”

“thottie.”

“Oh…” He looked bored again. Not good. What could you talk to him about to keep him interested?

“Uh…You ever get tired of the fans trying to aggressively pail you?” Ok, that wasn’t the best choice for conversation. Your bad.

“i meannn….in the beginning yeah. now its kinda the norm 4 me ufeelme?”

“Yeah, I guess. Does it ever make you feel like you can’t have a relation-er, quadrant?” You assumed it would, but that would also come with fame in general, wouldn’t it? You weren’t sure. Then again, if he didn’t want-

“kinda. i think its kinda funny how i can attract psychos, fans and thots, but not my crushes.” You sat up straight. Marvus had a crush?

“Wait. You…uh…are pale or um….red? for somebody?” You didn’t have the best grasp on quadrant terms.

“lol sumtimes i forget your an alien.” He leaned back onto the couch.

“butt yeah, i have a few crushes at the mo.” He smiled, staring at the ceiling. Few. He has more than one crush right now. That soft smile said it all. He had it bad.

“…Can you tell me who they are?” He looked over at you and looked sheepish.

“i…dun think is a gud idea.”

“Please? I have to know who the great Marvus Xoloto has a crush on.”

“u kno 1. itll be awk af :o(“ Now you had to know. Now you were thinking about whether or not Marvus had a type. What if they were all mega hot models? Wait! Did he have a crush on Chahut? They would totally have to know each other. Who else did you both know??? He heard of Cirava, but you didn’t think they talked. Who???

“…kk fine. only if u slam a faygo tho.” You gave him a look.

“Isn’t Faygo…not for non-clowns?”

“is just us. whos gunna kno?”

“You promise nobody’s gonna know?”

“on my life. u slam a faygo, n ill tell u who my flush be.” You thought it over. You remembered tasting the stuff at clown church when you went you went with Chahut that one time. Just a sip left you a bit tipsy. A whole bottle may have rendered you unable to be coherent enough to even process who his flush crush was. Would it be worth it? You felt a choice coming on. Either way you had to drink a certain amount in order to maybe try and learn this random troll’s identity. The question was, do you try and counter his offer or just slam the entire bottle and hope for the best?

…

It would be better to respect your own limits. A bunch of your friends had lectured you a few times over putting yourself out just to potentially make a friend. This would piss them off and would probably not end in your favor even if you did decide to just go with it anyway.

“How much faygo do I have to drink?”

“hm…” He got up, went to the kitchen and got a small can of Grape Faygo, a normal bottle for one and a whole 2 liter bottle. “imma b nice. u get a choice. u gotta try 2 finish the can. u get 1 q with the name if u finish the can. Smol bottle gets u 2 qs and the name n the 2L gets u as many qs as u liek. fair enough 2 u?”

…Now you wanted to chug the 2 liter. You haven’t even seen anyone try to down that other than the Grand High Blood once when you took Karako to clown church for the first time. But that guy was a clown and he is HUGE. You, not so much. But, you chose to respect yourself for once. You’d see how you felt after the small can and go from there. You picked it up, opened the can and took a deep breathe. Powers that be, let this not wreck you and let this answer be worth it. If he cops out with his answers, you would try to hurt him. You started chugging. You did your best to try and treat it like a shot like Cirava taught you so you wouldn’t taste the overly sweet flavor too much. After a moment of light agony and attempting to not drown in the soda, you reached the end of the can. You slammed it onto the coffee table and started panting. Ok, you weren’t feeling woozy like before. Maybe those tiny sips when you went to clown church helped your body get used to it.

“u gunna try the otha bottles?” You managed to shake your head. You weren’t gonna do that again. Your head started hurting. You looked over at him. Were his eyes always so vibrantly purple? Woah, now they’re flashing purple. What the heck? Was this Faygo high? You now understood why all the other clowns were so goofy after drinking a cup of this stuff. Crap, now your head was starting to hurt.

“Wh-Who….who is it..?” You started feeling like you were gonna pass out. You laid down on the couch. You needed to close your eyes. That was way too much for you. You felt Marvus pick you up into his arms.

“ye…after u wake up bb.” Wake up? Wait, did he just call you a pet name?! You were about to question him when he tilted his head.

“dangg,, u managed 2 stay awake with chuckles and faygo? ur stronger than i thought. Soz bout this babes.” His eyes became blindingly vibrant again and you blacked out.

#marvus #marvus xoloto #yandere!marvus #yandere!marvus x reader #olive fics #Let me know your thoughts!

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tiny-smallest · 4 years

Text

day twenty-five - sunshine

Rating: T Characters: Henry Warnings: mention of dismemberment; no graphic detail used Description:

that we may fall in love every time we open up our eyes

Also on AO3!

---

The cement was warm, almost hot, against his bare feet as he sprang outside onto their tiny patio with a giggle. A leaf blew by his face and he grabbed it, running back the way he'd come and almost slamming right into his mother on the way back in.

"Mama, mama, look!"

He held up the leaf and pointed to it, and she smiled.

He wouldn't remember the rest of this little event later, and he didn't need to.

---

"I'm giving her the puppy," his papa explained as he gently lowered the whimpering, whining, squirming thing into the box. Henry tilted his head.

"Why?"

"Because she'll adopt it like it was her baby all along." Hands on his underarms; he was lifted into the air. The cat in the box was calico. He wouldn't remember much else. "See? She's sniffing him."

She was. A moment later, she began cleaning the whining infant.

"Instincts are a powerful thing," he murmured, shifting his son to rest against his hip. "Your mother says it's amazing how many of them are geared towards love."

Henry watched the puppy begin to nurse, something warm inside him growing. "It is."

---

"You're really pretty," he murmured as he fed the hungry baby batting at the bottle with his feet.

Harry flailed his fists around. Henry managed a smile, wishing he had a free hand to rub his heavy eyes.

"You are," he cooed. "You're a very beautiful baby. And you're good. Like- good all the way down to your core, and I hope you know that. I hope I teach you that. I hope-"

The words hung in the still darkness of early morning.

"I hope I do as good a job with you as Mama and Papa did with me," he finished in a mutter as he set the bottle aside, trying to ignore the way his voice cracked. The little feet batting at the bottle now kicked at his chest, and he swallowed.

"They were so- they were good too, down to their cores, and they were nice, and they loved me, and I love you, and I hope I make you understand that as well as they made me understand it." He lifted the baby to his shoulder and burped him, trying to blink back tears.

"... I miss them," he whispered as he lowered the baby back to his lap after he heard the burp.

Harry looked at him with his large, dark eyes- the ones Henry could almost believe came from his own mother, and liked to pretend did, sometimes. There was a teeny knot in the baby's forehead.

Then his face crinkled. His mouth lifted.

He laughed.

Henry stared in shock, a tear or two sliding uninhibited down his face as wide eyes stared at the giggling, flailing baby.

Then a laugh fell from his mouth. Another. Another.

Harry reached to press his tiny, chubby hands to his cheeks, and Henry laughed and laughed as the room grew light with morning around them.

---

Sammy's tongue was sticking out of his mouth as he worked again. He scratched notes onto his paper, frowned, redid them, tuned his guitar, sounded out the new ones.

His tongue kept poking in and out of his mouth, especially when tuning. Henry set his art down just to watch.

"What’re you smiling at?" Sammy snorted when the feeling of eyes on him must have finally penetrated the concentration of his work.

"Just you," Henry beamed.

---

The world was choked out by dust and debris.

Henry had long ago come to consider himself... maybe not an atheist, but something close. If there was a god that claimed to be omnipotent, omniscient, and omnipresent, they had a lot to answer for.

He tripped over a leg. Just a leg.

A lot. To answer for.

Explosion to his left. He was just far away enough to avoid anything worse than a chunk of rock hit his head, but the force of the ground rocking sent him tumbling over, unable to stop his momentum in time before he started rolling down the hill.

He returned to himself to hear screaming nearby and scrambled to his feet, pushing onwards by blanking out everything else.

He did not fire his weapon. This time, he didn’t have to.

The dust eventually cleared. Henry felt the sunlight on his skin again. As he twirled in a slow circle, surveying the battlefield, the dust and dirt dissipating and leaving broken bodies in full view, something inside him snapped, and he sobbed.

A hand touched his shoulder, and he looked up (when had he collapsed to the ground?) to a face that would later be obscured by scribbles and stains on his memory, but at the time was warm and bright and weary but alive.

He clasped the hand and squeezed it tightly and even in a field of death at least there was this, at least there was this string holding him up.

---

It had been a long day. Unremarkable. Nothing particularly special.

He crossed the street on his way home, hands in his pockets. He might say he was enjoying the emptiness of his head, but really it was so empty there wasn't much of anything.

That was how he liked it, whenever the fog lifted enough for thought.

He stopped short at seeing a man sitting on a stoop as he rounded the corner. The other man's eyes turned away instantly, shoulders drawing up.

Henry walked softly up to the cup sitting beside him and peered in, then got out his wallet and dropped a few dollars in before giving him a gentle "good evening," and going on his way.

---

He had vowed to save them. To pull them all from the depths of this cold, dark, hole and end this nightmare once and for all.

And Henry had meant it when he said it, even as something within him knew he had no idea how, exactly, to do this. Not knowing how to do it meant nothing at the time; he just knew he had to.

That he managed it felt like a miracle.

It didn't feel truly real until he pushed the door open to find himself standing in the cracked parking lot, Bendy in one arm, Boris clinging to his other sleeve, staring out at the last few sunbeams of daylight touching the world golden and orange.

The slimy ink clung to his clothes and his skin. His breath shuddered, and his body straightened from putting his shoulder into opening the door as he stared around the parking lot, almost not daring to move any further.

The flowers in the cracks in the asphalt waved in the breeze, reaching up for the sunlight; for a wild moment, he wanted to do the same.

He managed not to cry, but only just.

There was still work to be done.

---

Henry clasped his hands around his coffee mug, breathing in the steam from the hot drink as he sat in the quiet of the blue-gray pre-dawn. He watched the sun rise slowly from the treeline beyond their yard through the back door, watched it stroke the trees, the grass, the pool. It sparkled on the dewdrops, jeweled light reflecting off the water droplets.

The last stars were disappearing, tucked in by the blanket of light to sleep until nightfall. Henry watched them wink out one by one. There went the Big Dipper, and Polaris, and that one that looked like a cat...

The crickets were quieting. Cicadas began to sing in their stead, maybe woken by the warmth. It would be a hot one today, but for now the breeze was cool and the earth was warm and the result was a comfortable atmosphere to sit in.

He stirred his coffee. The liquid sloshed against the sides of the mug.

The early risers would be up soon. In less than a half hour.

Heavy lids looked back from his drink to his kitchen.

The sun streamed through the windows and began to creep over the room, touching the counter, and the cabinets, and the tile. It lit up their bulletin board (and the note telling Bendy to clean the bathroom, he noted with a little frown as he remembered Bendy had yet to do that), and the little chalkboard on which they left notes to each other.

It embraced the numerous plants in the room, their leaves turning from blue-green in the shade to bright emerald in the light.

He closed his eyes and breathed it in as it lit upon him in his chair, hoping somehow he could put it into his body and light him from within, linger inside him and radiate outwards like a kaleidoscope.

That would be nice.

---

“Henry is very easily taken by the little things. Cicadas of summer, the little idiosyncrasies people do without thinking, sunbeams at sunrise, how animals will seek human help because they know humans will likely lend a hand.

He's not a child. He knows very, very well the world is also cruel and evil and dangerous.

But sometimes it is soft and golden and a cup of coffee at sunrise as the last stars are hidden by the sun and sometimes it is the first laughter of a baby and sometimes it is a mother cat accepting a newborn puppy as one of her own.

And sometimes it is the kindness we leave strangers with long after we are gone.

That's worth something.”

Something I wrote about Henry to describe why Sleeping At Last's Sun was so fitting of him. I'd meant to write a drabble of some sort based on this explanation and gave a go at it here, but I'm not sure if I'm completely satisfied with it and might revisit this concept another time.

#bendy and the ink machine #the ink demonth #the ink demonth 2020 #henry stein #batim henry #henry batim #batim henry stein #my writing #strike up the band au

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tinytourist · 4 years

Text

Rigmarole in Ruapehu

It’s been a while since my last post because we went back into lockdown the night before I was meant to fly to Queenstown for a 10 day adventure. Unfortunately, this was the second trip I had planned to Queenstown and the second lockdown that crushed my plans. For now, we’ll call it a coincidence but stay tuned to find out if I ever make it to the South Island.

In lieu of the failed QTN ski trip, we planned a roadie to Mount Ruapehu & Taupo. Luckily I wasn’t thwarted this time at my attempt to take leave. Baz, Greg, and I woke up and hit the road around 5 AM on Thursday morning and somehow I didn’t fall asleep in the car at all! I’m so grateful for that because it was one of the most scenic drives I’ve experienced. We watched the sunrise reveal the iconic rolling green hills of NZ which were speckled with sheep, cows, horses, and even alpacas. I couldn’t resist yelling out whenever I saw a tiny lamb (which was often).

Just over 4 hours later, snow-capped mountains appeared in the distance. It was the first snow I’ve seen since I moved here and was quite a contrast with the tropical plants and trees that I’ve gotten so used to. When we looked up the mountain conditions earlier in the drive, it was reported to have “unlimited visibility”. It turned out to be more like no-vis, as we could barely see 2 m in front of us.

Nevertheless, we managed to fit almost a full day of skiing in. Greg and I experienced our first T-bar rides. It didn’t end so well for Greg as he ended up falling straight onto the edge of someone’s board, but now he definitely knows how to ride the bar. Skiing on a stratovolcano is very different than the mountains I’m used to. Without trees, it’s hard to define where on the mountain you are, and instead of avoiding hitting a trunk, you have to swerve around volcanic rock.

We were totally wiped after skiing but had to drive back to Taupo to get to our Airbnb. Turns out that it was another drive worth staying awake for as we had a view of the most reflective and calm lake I’ve ever seen for the majority of the ride.

Aidan met us at the Airbnb and we ventured into town to grab sustenance. We got to catch the end of the sunset at the lake before eating some quality burgers at Pauly’s.

The rest of the Krew came through after dinner and we caught up for a bit before crashing. We woke up early the next morning and hustled to get to the mountain (sans Aidan). Turns out that Friday actually had the “unlimited visibility” that we were promised. A few of us headed up the mountain right away to grab coffee while we waited for the others to get their rentals. I then proceeded to spill said coffee all over my white ski pants....#classic.

The Krew had a great day on the mountain, filled with many snowball fights, a few cold ones, and a lot of laughter. At one point Baz led me, Jeff, and Kieran under the rope & off the trail. It was a fun path until I miscalculated and ended up almost falling off a cliff. Jeff and Kieran were in my eyeline and I asked them to wait while I climbed my way up but they skiied off. Baz ended up coming back to find me holding onto a tiny rock with my skis and poles spread along the mountain. She grabbed my stuff as I made my way back up to safety.

We tried that path one more time and I made an effort not to fall off of what Baz refers to as a “small hill”. It was much easier and more enjoyable the second time around.

To unwind and relax after a long day, we hit the hot pools at Wairakei Terraces. It was my first thermal pool experience and boy had I been missing out. Things got steamy as Jeff doled out foot massages and unflattering nicknames.

Once we had experienced the tranquility, we made our way back to the house where Aidan had prepared us a lovely roast. Apparently there are rules to a roast. The most memorable being that no ketchup, or ‘tomato sauce’, is allowed - even on the potato wedges!

We played a few rounds of stack cup and then broke out into a massage circle and some yoga to repair the wounds of the day. Theo then decided to display his Olympic-level tea towel whipping skills and the night took a turn for the worse. Later, Jeff did a shoey out of Nechi’s sneaker.

The next morning we got to have a leisurely time and make a nice brekkie with the whole Krew. Somehow, I was convinced to go mountain biking again. Alecia and I found a beginner path that was easier than what I was made to do in Rotorua but still a bit of a challenge. We ended up finding the rest of the group and going over to Huka Falls together. Everyone else ventured around the river while Alecia and I sat and watched the falls together.

Back at the house, we began a hearty game of backyard cricket while Greg fired up the grill. We stuffed ourselves to the brim and then were each given hats made of drink boxes. Multiple games of stack cup and glasses of Nitro lead to the guys breaking out into a scrum in the living room. We were able to fit both cricket and rugby into the weekend #sokiwi. Somehow Alecia got roped into doing her first shoey long after I went to bed. I can tell from the video that she was not happy about it...

Everyone woke up a little dusty from the long weekend. We still wanted to squeeze a little more out of the trip so we went to explore the market in Taupo. We saw a kid having a blast getting flipped by his dad, so Theo attempted to replicate the experience with me - it almost worked! Theo, Kieran, and Aidan then spotted some colorful bucket hats and negotiated a deal to get 3 matching caps.

All of that worked us up an appetite so of course we had to grab some pies. The last stop of the trip was at the AC baths where we raced town the hydro slides and sent some Manus before starting the beautiful drive back to Auckland.

#New Zeland #taupo #ruapehu

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secretarendelle · 4 years

Text

Hansanna For the Holidays

I didn’t write these in advance as I originally planned, but I am hoping to do a 13-part fic with each of the prompts setting the stage for a new chapter. I’m not entirely sure how I’m going to accomplish this, but I assume it will work itself out. Happy Holidays to everyone in the fandom. <3

Day 3 – Ye Olde Traditions

Anna shook the snowglobe again, watching the fake snow drift down over the dancing couple as the tinkling melody slowed. She hummed slowly along as the snow settled onto the snowglobe floor.

What a night it had been. After a lifetime being locked up, alone, she’d finally met the man of her dreams and been swept off her feet.

Only to be manipulated, lied to, and thrown away.

Looking at the snow globe brought up so many emotions. Thoughts she had done her best to put away. She had so many things to be thankful for now. A relationship with Elsa. Olaf. Kristoff. It was easier to just not think about Hans. About the way he’d made her feel when he walked away.

And the way he’d made her feel when he’d dropped to one knee.

She looked inside the box again. No note.

Why on earth had he sent this snowglobe to her?

“There you are,” said Kristoff, as he stepped into her new office. “I was calling your name! Didn’t you hear me?”

Anna almost dropped the delicate snow globe in her rush to shut it back in the box. “Sorry!”

Kristoff nodded at the box. “Whatcha got there?”

“This?” Anna jerked a desk drawer open and pressed the box inside. “It’s nothing.” She shoved the drawer closed.

“Looked like something,” he said. “Another coronation gift?”

She nodded, a little frantically. “Yes! That’s it! Just another coronation gift!”

“Um…okay.” Kristoff raised an eyebrow, but she just smiled in response. He shrugged. “I’m going to take Sven out to test my new sled runners. You wanna come?”

Anna grimaced. “Uh…I’m pretty busy.” She patted a thin stack of papers on her desk. “You know, gotta be the queen of Arendelle and all that.”

“Okay,” he said. “Maybe we can do something after.”

“You got it!”

But as soon as the door was closed behind him, Anna found herself opening the drawer again. She traced her fingers along the velvety ribbon.

What could it mean?

She meant to find out.

As soon she saw Kristoff and Sven leave the stable, she grabbed her cloak and headed into town.

Anna smiled as she breathed in a big lungful of crisp autumn air. She loved this time of year. So much color everywhere – from the beautiful leaves on the trees to the mysterious swirling of the Northern Lights. The people are Arendelle were dressed in the bright colors of autumn as well – dark reds and rich browns, navy blues and burnt orange. She couldn’t help but smile at everyone as she passed. All those years trapped in the palace, she could only see the colors from a distance. But now she saw all the hues – and her people – up close. She loved every minute.

She passed a bakery with the spicy smell of cloves and cinnamon drifting out the open windows, and a stall of shining red apples, and then came the inn.

She knew this was the place Hans was staying. She’d made it her business to know. She went inside and inquired of the owner, but was told Hans had been out for hours. Bother.

Well, she could at least make sure his horse had been delivered properly. She went behind the inn and peeked in the stable.

But it was empty. Nary a horse nor rider in sight.

Hmm. Well, maybe she really didn’t need to know why he sent the snow globe. It was probably a sign that she should just turn around and march back to the palace. Get back to work and focus on some sort of activity with Kristoff in the evening.

Even though the little tune from the snow globe kept running through her mind.

She turned to leave.

She was reaching for the door when it was pulled away from her. Bright sunlight came streaming in, along with a surprised prince.

“Anna!” he said.

Sitron whinnied a greeting from over Hans’ shoulder.

“I mean…your majesty.” Hans bowed deeply.

“You don’t have to do that,” Anna said. She nodded at Sitron. “I see your horse was delivered.”

“Yes!” Hans smiled broadly and patted Sitron’s back. “Thank you so much for sending him back to me. I missed him terribly. There’s no better horse than Sitron.”

“Well, I thought it only fitting to return him to you.” She smiled as Sitron rubbed his head against Hans’ shoulder. “And he seems to be glad to be back together.”

“He and I have been out celebrating.” Hans opened his rucksack, which was filled with the apples she’d seen earlier. “His favorite.”

“Celebrating?” she asked.

Hans’ cheeks turned light pink. “Well…it’s my birthday.”

“Really? Today?”

“It is. I thought I’d spend it all alone, but instead, I got to be with my best friend. So thank you for that. Really.”

“Well, happy birthday!”

“Thank you.”

Anna loved birthdays. Celebrating with those she cared about was one of her favorite joys. And although she didn’t really care for Hans - not anymore, at least - she at least felt like she could make his special day a little brighter.

“Did you get anything special? Did your family send gifts?”

Hans frowned. “Well, no…but I got Sitron. That’s really all the gift I need.”

Anna didn’t like hearing that. If she hadn’t decided on a whim to give him his horse back, he wouldn’t have gotten a gift at all. And the horse was barely a gift. She was merely returning what was his in the first place.

“Let’s go celebrate!” she blurted out.

Hans’ eyebrows raised. “You want to go celebrate my birthday?”

“Sure! We can at least get some cake or something. Blow out the candles and all that stuff. I know a great bakery.”

“A birthday boy?” Asked the plump woman in the bakery. She smiled at the couple. “I think I have just the thing. I actually baked it for my nephew, but his birthday’s not until tomorrow. I can make another.” She reached under the counter and pulled out a bizarre little cake shaped like a man, and covered with icing and chocolates.

Hans’ eyes lit up. “A kagemand? I haven’t had one of those since I was a boy.”

“What is it?” Anna asked.

She baker slid it toward them. “A traditional birthday cake of the Southern Isles. My homeland as well as his.” She nodded at Hans.

Hans laughed. “And don’t forget the best part!” He reached over and tore the head off of the man. And then he and baker screamed and shouted.

“Okay…” Anna said, but Hans was absolutely beaming.

“And how old are you, young man?” the baker asked, as Anna paid for the cake.

“Mmm, old enough,” Hans said.

Anna eyed him. “No, really, how old are you?”

He glanced down at her. “Twenty-five,” he murmured.

“Twenty-five!” the baker hooted. She reached under the counter again and pressed a tin of cinnamon into Anna’s hands. “Just take it out of my shop; I don’t want to be cleaning cinnamon off of everything!” With another joyful laugh, she handed the cake to Hans and sent them out of the shop.

On the sidewalk, Anna looked up at Hans. “Why’d she give me this cinnamon?”

Hans shrugged.

But as they walked back toward the inn, she noticed he wasn’t talking like he had before. And in the yard between the inn and the stable, she decided she’d had enough.

“Hans,” she began, “I think you know exactly what this cinnamon is for. And I want you to tell me. Right now!”

He cocked his head at her. “Is that a royal command?”

She crossed her arms. “If you don’t tell me, it will be!”

“All right.” He held his hands up in defense. “In my country, when a person turns twenty-five without being married, they’re pebersvend. So their friends and family cover them with cinnamon.”

Crickets.

Anna frowned. “Say what now?”

“It’s a tradition.”

“But…why?”

“I don’t know. Something to do with traveling spice salesmen years ago.” He chuckled. “Not many of my brothers made it to twenty-five without marrying, but when they did, the rest of us had such a good time spicing them up. My oldest brothers would even throw eggs on them first, to make the cinnamon stick really good. We’d talk about it for weeks beforehand, planning everything.” His face drooped. “Before I came to Arendelle last week, I kept listening, thinking maybe they were planning to do something to me, but no one said anything about it at all. I mean…I know I’m supposed to dread being a pebersvend, but I was sort of looking forward to it. Getting some kind of attention from my family.”

“I’m sure it wasn’t like that,” Anna said. “They were probably just keeping it secret.”

“I don’t think so.” He shook his head. “Ever since I got sent home in disgrace, my family has basically shunned me. I don’t know the last time one of my brothers even spoke to me. It’s almost like I’m dead. Except I’m still breathing.”

He winced. “I thought I knew how you felt, getting shut out by Elsa all those years. But I had no idea how bad it could be.”

Anna’s heart hurt for him. No one deserved to go through what she went through after her parents died and Elsa refused to open her door. She wanted to hug him and at least give him the warmth of a human embrace.

Then again, this was Hans she was talking about. And as moved as she was by his story, she didn’t want to get sucked in again.

Instead, she opened the lid of the cinnamon and poured it into her hand. “Maybe this will help,” she said, and threw it at him.

“What the—” Hans laughed. Then he sneezed.”

Anna sneezed too. She kept shaking cinnamon into her hand and throwing it at him, leaving tiny spots of tan on his cream colored jacket. Another handful went into his hair, and as he sneezed, a dusting fell out onto his nose, creating a crop of new freckles.

“Feel better, Pebersvend?” she asked, and laughed so hard she dropped the shaker.

Hans had it in his hand within seconds. Anna’s eyes widened.

“Now you’re gonna get it!” Hans shook cinnamon into his hand.

Anna shrieked and ran. “It’s not my birthday! Cheater!” But Hans was on her tail, laughing right along with her. They ran around the inn—

And there, in the street, was Kristoff and Sven.

Kristoff grinned when he saw Anna, laughing and having a good time. And then he saw Hans.

“Kristoff!” Anna’s eyes grew wide as she skidded to a stop.

And then she sneezed.

To be continued

#hansannaholidays2019 #hansannafortheholidays2019 #frozen 2 #frozen 2 spoilers #hansanna #hanna #hans x anna #frozen #prince hans #princess anna #hans #anna

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oingos-bitch · 4 years

Text

Another JoJo Mall Fanfic™ -- Rainforest Café (Part 1)

Part 5, Part 4 and Part 2 Spoilers!

"Y-YOU! YOU'RE THE ONE WHO STOLE MY LUGGAGE!"

Giorno gulped. The short boy stalked over to him, glaring daggers.

"I haven't forgotten about you, I hope you're ready to pay me back."

Echoes' summoning was stopped by a hand on his shoulder.

"Koichi, dude, are you alright?"

"Yeah, Okuyasu, I'm fine." He trembled in anger. "Unless you wanna help me put this blond son of a bitch in his place."

"Ohhh."

A bass-boosted fart could be heard as a blue figure appeared.

"Why didn't ya tell me sooner? Whose ass are we gonna kick first?!" Okuyasu cracked his knuckles.

"That blond bastard, who else?"

"Uhmm...Which one?" He whispered.

"Huh?"

It was then that Koichi noticed the much, much taller -- 'And scarier!' -- blond male sitting across from Giorno. And he did not look amused.

"Are you done yet, piccolino?"

"Wha- what?"

Caesar sighed. "I would just like to get my order without any trouble, if that's not too much to ask. However," his green eyes narrowed.

"If it's trouble you're looking for, then I'll be glad to indulge you."

His chair fell over as he stood up. Maintaining his glare, he spread his arms as a large bubble formed between them. Anticipating a fight, the two teenagers defensively posed, shouting their stand names. Caesar was just about to strike before Deus Ex Josuke appeared.

"Guys, as much as I would love to help right now, there's people here. . ."

Koichi's blood ran cold. He had the sense to immediately call back Echoes and nervously regain his composure, straightening his pose. Okuyasu, however, did not.

"So what?? Everyone should see this asshat get a well-deserved beatdown!" He growled.

"Okuyasu, no." Josuke pulled his best friend aside and leaned into him.

"I know you mean well, but we're probably gonna get fired -- and I don't wanna make my great-gramps sad!" Josuke slightly teared up at the thought.

Okuyasu's face flushed in embarrassment.

"I don't wanna, either! I-I'm so sorry, Josuke!"

He began to sob on the spot.

"I-I'll do better next time!"

"It's alright, man, just calm down a little." Steak-hair patted his back.

Everyone within a ten-foot radius stared wide-eyed at the scene. Even passerby stopped for a few good minutes! Josuke slowly got up and let go of Okuyasu, facing the crowd. He knelt down and waved his hands vigorously.

"Aaaaand, SCENE! Uh, we hope everyone liked it!"

Crickets.

He smiled from ear -to-ear, sweat beading down his temple. A lone clap sounded from the middle of the restaurant. A few more claps were soon drowned out by diners resuming their meals and their conversations. Josuke let out a relieved sigh.

He looked around to see if anyone else was staring -- 'Nope!' -- then proceeding to step towards Caesar, looking him square in the eye.

"Next time you mess with my friends, you may not be so lucky."

Caesar smirked and returned his icy stare.

"That doesn't sound like much of a threat, coming from someone like you."

"What's that supposed to mean?"

Caesar looked him up and down. "Look at yourself. . .A teenage delinquent, working at the only 'high-paying' job that'll accept you, picking fights with those obviously more experienced than you."

"You don't know how many fights I've been in!"

"Hm, no, but with that attitude, I can guess."

"Wanna find out?" Josuke grinned.

Caesar cocked his head to the side, the boy seemed familiar, but he just couldn't put his finger on it --

"Yoo-Hoo! Caesarino!~"

Caesar groaned and turned around.

"Hello, JoJo -- DIO MIO, JOSEPH, WHAT THE FUCK ARE YOU WEARING?!"

"It's my old outfit! I needed it for my job and it still fits perfectly!" He laughed heartily.

His friend buried his face in his hands. Joseph took this as a sign to flex in front of him.

"Whaddaya think?~"

Caesar pushed him away. "Awful, awful, everything's awful. If you're gonna dress in drag, you should at least do it right."

"HEY, that's what Jolyne always tells me!"

"And she's correct. Ugh, JoJo, you could have at least shaved your beard."

"But I think my beard makes me sexy. . ." He pouted.

"It does, but that's beside the point --" Caesar froze.

No, absolutely not, this was the last thing he needed today. The day had started off so badly already, he couldn't have Joseph knowing his secret, too! It would all be too much!

Thankfully, Joseph broke the silence quickly. Grinning, he posed some more.

"Sexy, eh? You really think so?~"

Caesar tried his hardest to sound annoyed. "If you say so, JoJo."

"Ah, but you're the one who said it.~ So, d'ya really think so?"

The Italian pulled his face away from his hands to get a look at Joseph. He didn't really need to look at him for so long to see that he was handsome, but he really needed to save his skin right now. So he eyed Joseph from different angles: profile, front, three-quarters view, even worm's eye view!

This went on for longer than expected, and Joseph began to whine.

"C'mon, you already got a good look, just tell me already!"

Begrudgingly, Caesar moved his eyes away.

"I guess so."

"Really?!" Joseph beamed.

He nodded. "I mean, I think Suzi --"

Inwardly, he groaned. He hated to think it, he hated how it sounds, and most of all he hated to say it, but he couldn't risk raising Joseph's suspicions. Or worse, risking their friendship.

"-- I really think Suzi thinks so."

For a moment, Joseph seemed surprised -- and a bit disappointed? No, must've been Caesar's imagination. He rubbed at his neck and shot Caesar his signature grin.

"Haha, well, thanks! I hope she thinks so!"

He placed an arm around him. Caesar jumped lightly at the contact. He knew it was friendly, something he was used to, yet he couldn't help but feel so wrong after what just happened. It wasn't fair to think about having a chance with his best friend when he already had a life to live, a wife and a kid, and a grandkid, for crying out loud!

And he had. . . Well, nothing. Any chance he had before was snatched away so abruptly. When that bright light enveloped him and he found himself laying on the Earth's soil again, he was ecstatic! He expected to find everyone else in the same situation, waiting to reconnect. Embarrassingly, the first person he thought of was Joseph.

Oh, Joseph. That lovable, goofy bastard had no idea just how much he missed him. He had planned everything out -- how he'd introduce himself, how he'd explain his chance at a new life, how he'd spill his heart out to him and say what he never got a chance to say, and, hopefully, how he'd grin and say he felt the same way. And it'd all be uphill from there.

However, he did not plan to run into Lisa Lisa first. And he did not plan to sit down and catch up with her over tea. And he did not expect her to be the one to catch him up on what had happened while he was gone.

And he certainly did not expect Joseph to be married and have a kid.

The deep ache in his gut was incomparable to the pain he endured before his death, and it still haunted him whenever that damned memory was brought up.

Much like now.

Caesar smoothly moved Joseph's arm back to his side. Before he could dwell on the thought any longer, he changed the subject.

"So, what brings you here?"

"OH! I just wanted to see my son!"

"Your son?. . .I thought you had a daughter. . ."

Joseph smiled sheepishly. "Uh, yeah, about that. . .Let's just say, I don't think Suzi'll ever trust me the same again. . ."

Caesar's eyes widened. Inappropriately enough, his heart fluttered. Maybe he'd have a chance?

'No! He doesn't need his marriage damaged any further!'

While he was still deep in thought, Joseph brought over a familiar angry teen.

"Ta-Daaaa! This is my darling baby boy!"

Caesar did a double take. Oh, he couldn't be serious --

"T-this is your son?!"

"You bet! Doesn't he look just like me?" He brought the poor boy's face against his cheek.

"A chip off the ol' block!"

"Dad, stop it." Josuke averted his eyes.

"Awwww, but it's true! Isn't it, Caesarino --"

He scanned the room, searching for him. "Caesar?"

He found him by the aquarium, making his way to the bar.

"Oi, Caesar! Don't you wanna say hi to Josuke?"

Caesar reluctantly turned around. "Maybe some other time, JoJo. My lunch break is almost over, and I'm still waiting on my order."

"Oh, the pink girl and blond boy took it."

"Huh?"

"The pink-haired girl and the blond boy, they took your food." Repeated the elf-eared bartender.

"Oh, thank you. Where'd they. . go. .?"

The bartender pointed to the west of the mall.

"Ah, grazie." He made his way there.

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Trish had gasped once Caesar stood up, ready to fight, but soon lost interest once Josuke showed up and started speaking.

"So boring."

She and Giorno sat silently the entire time. There wasn't much to talk about, and she didn't recognize anyone else (yet), so she passed the time counting down the minutes.

She had attempted to ask Giorno about why the midget had a vendetta against him, but he just responded with an "I don't want to speak about it."

'Tch. You're no fun.'

Then Joseph appeared and she giggled. It was so much fun to see her usually stoic co-worker get so flustered by the old man, and it was amusing for a while.

That is, until he didn't make a move.

She spent the rest of the time reading over the specials pamphlet. Luckily, she soon heard a small "Excuse me, Ma'am."

"Hm?"

A tiny, tall-haired boy anxiously held up a stack of To-Go boxes.

"H-Here's your order."

"Oh! Thank you."

He hurriedly mumbled and speed-walked over to the waiter from earlier. Shrugging, she and Giorno stood up to leave. Once they realized Caesar would be a while, they exchanged glances and walked out of the place.

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Caesar found them sitting on the fountain, digging into their food. They nonchalantly looked up.

"Sorry, we just couldn't wait any longer."

"It's fine. Sorry I took so long."

Trish smiled. "Even with how long you took, you still couldn't flirt with him good enough."

". .Shut up. Let's go get Suzi's wings."

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is0gild · 4 years

Text

Ice Cream and Fire Oven Pizza - Chapter 9

Pairing: Elsa x Lea/Axel || Side Pairing: Riku x OC

Summary: Modern AU. She's an introvert ball of nerves who works at Ice Palace, a mall food court ice cream shop. He's the outgoing, sassy goofball who works at the Pizza Planet across the way. Hilarity, snark, and fluffy romcom hijinks ensue.

Word Count: 6,398

FIRST CHAPTER || PREVIOUS CHAPTER || NEXT CHAPTER

Credit for super friggin’ cute and super friggin’ amazing cover art goes to the super friggin’ talented ky-jane here on tumblr!

“What’s with the sour face? I know your idea of fun on a Friday night is locking yourself up alone in your room all by yourself, but come on! Going out with a few peeps for a night on the town ain’t gonna kill ya!”

I heaved out a sigh as Anna turned us into the same parking lot we’d just seen Xion’s car go into. “It’s not that, I just… I thought it was only going to be the two of us tonight. We haven’t seen each other since… well, you know… and so much has happened and I just wanted a nice evening, just you and me, talking and catching up.”

“And we can still do that,” she nodded, pressing a couple buttons on her dashboard. As the convertible’s top started to rise and all the windows slid back up, she parked in an open spot right beside Xion’s little blue Prius and powered down the engine. “But now we get to party at the same time! Besides, this way I can meet all of your new friends too!”

Snatching my Ice Palace cap off my head and tossing it into the back seat, I gave a tiny huff. “These people aren’t my friends.”

A couple of loud thuds against the left side of the car made us both jump in our seats before glancing to the source. Roxas and Xion had smooshed their noses up against the door windows, mouths wide open, lips suctioned against the glass and cheeks puffing in and out as they made funny faces at us. Anna snorted then burst out laughing, asking me, “Do they know that?”

“I wasn’t talking about those two. Lea and them are my friends. Well…” I snagged a pale tendril of my hair to twist around my finger as I worried my bottom lip between my teeth. “...sort of…it’s all still very new...” Then I shook my head and tightened my ponytail. “In any case, I meant everyone else that’s going to be at this thing. They’re not my friends because I don’t know any of them.”

“So this is how you get to know them,” she grinned, nudging her shoulder into mine. “Come on, sis, this’ll be fun! I promise!”

“Don’t go making promises you can’t keep,” I grumbled.

Just then, we watched Lea go sliding across the hood of Anna’s Porsche in one smooth motion, bringing him to my side so he could open the car door for me. He bent into a half-bow, sweeping one arm out with a smile, “M’lady.”

Anna giggled. “Ooooo, such a gentleman! I don’t believe I’ve gotten your name yet.”

“Lea,” he leaned into the car, stretching across me to shake hands with her. Once again, I caught the faint whiff of cinnamon and had to resist the urge to squirm at his closeness. He smirked at her and winked, “Also answer to Mr Hottie-With-A-Body.”

...so he had heard that.

Great.

Just dandy.

My kingdom for a rock to crawl under right now.

“And you would be the sister, I take it?”

She grinned, “Anna. I’m thinking I like you already, Mr Hottie-W-”

I discreetly pinched her arm, shutting her up.

He didn’t seem to notice as he looked past her to where the other two were still making like a pair of pufferfish against the glass. “And those gremlins out there are Xion and Roxas. They’re harmless, just don’t ever feed ‘em after midnight. Hey!” he raised his voice so they could hear him. “Knock it off already, twerps!” They both pulled away, Xion hiding a snigger behind one hand while Roxas razzed his tongue. Shaking his head, the smile returned as Lea at last backed out of the car to straighten up again, “Well then, shall we?”

To my credit, I only hesitated for a second before exiting the vehicle, tugging at the hem of my skirt slightly as I stepped out onto the asphalt. Ugh, I hadn’t even had a chance to change out of my work clothes before getting sucked into all of this, so I didn’t even have the small consolation of being dressed comfortably. My eyes followed Xion and Roxas as they ran ahead to 7th Heaven, or so the gigantic, yellow neon sign hanging above the door proclaimed. It was a rustic, wooden building with a small set of stairs leading up to the wraparound patio. There was a warm glow coming through the fogged windows and muffled music could be heard from within.

Anna pushed a button on her key fob and the Porsche beeped as all its doors locked. Then she latched onto my arm, practically skipping as we made our way to the entrance. Lea dashed out in front, taking the steps two at a time and holding the door open for us. As we climbed up onto the deck as well, I could now hear the murmur of voices and laughter coming from inside as well. I gulped, my stomach sinking.

If it weren’t for Anna clinging to me like a two ton anchor, I’d probably have made a break for the hills by now.

And she knew that, which was exactly why she was doing it.

Traitor.

And so it was that I, with little choice or say in the matter, was dragged by my sister into the dreaded bowels of El Diablo.

...I’m not sure what I’d expected to hear upon descending into the terrifying Underworld, but it certainly hadn’t been the perky pop beat of Barbie Girl.

A strange, but oddly fitting soundtrack for eternal damnation.

The music was coming from a small stage all the way in the back of the place where some young woman was badly singing karaoke under spotlights. Between us and her was a massive, dimly lit room packed with tables and people cheering her on as they drank their presumably alcoholic beverages. Off to one side was a long bar, crowded with customers and tended by a brunette who, ahem… could only be described as the very epitome of the term ‘one busty babe.’ The wall opposite the bar was lit up with flashing lights from a row of retro pinball and arcade machines.

“We usually stake out one of the back corners for ourselves and spread out from there,” I barely heard Lea say over all the noise. I glanced back at him to see him squinting as his eyes scanned the darkness before his face brightened and he pointed off to our right. “Over there! Follow me.”

Anna gave my arm a reassuring squeeze and I replied with a thin, shaky smile.

There were just... so… many… people.

We navigated through the throng behind Lea, his blazing hair like a guiding light in the shadows, showing us the way. With every step we took, the knots in my gut pulled tighter and my knees grew numb. This was it. It was time…

...to mingle.

(Shudder.)

The three of us came to a stop at a large table. Half the people seated were all still in their work duds too, making me feel a little better about my attire, but not by much. Everyone looked up to warmly greet Lea before all eyes turned to me and I resisted the urge to shrink behind Anna. “Hey guys!” Lea shouted over the roar of the pub. “This is Elsa and her sister, Anna! El here is the newest scoop slinger at Ice Palace, so you’ve probably already seen her around.”

“So you’re the fresh meat,” one woman smirked at me. I recognized her from the greek food place that was Ice Palace’s neighbor. “Pleasure. Name’s Megara. My friends call me Meg.”

“Tiana,” the girl sitting next to her in a cute green dress smiled.

“She’s a server at that lil Cajun grill also in the food court,” Lea supplied before cocking his head at her. “Boyfriend couldn’t make it tonight?”

She immediately frowned and averted her gaze. Meg gently pat her on the back, shooting him a tiny scowl, “Smooth move, ya knucklehead. They broke up.”

“Oops,” he chuckled awkwardly. “Hey, don’t sweat it, Tiana. You know what they say - gotta kiss a few frogs and whatnot.” Crickets from the table. “Heh, get it? Cuz you work at… aw, too soon?” He cleared his throat, “Oookay, moving on! Next, I’m sure you’ve seen these three over at Lucky Cat.” He waved a hand towards a familiar blue-haired chick, her stocky coworker with slicked back, chocolate locks, and what I was guessing was Roxas’s doppelganger, not Roxas himself. Lea pointed to each in turn, “Aqua, Terra, and Ventus.”

“You’re the place with the super sweet tabby I got to cuddle earlier!” Anna said excitedly.

Aqua laughed, “That’s Chirithy, Ven’s pet. He likes to bring him into work sometimes. The cat’s so well behaved, management doesn’t mind.”

Ventus scratched the back of his head with a lopsided grin. “Yeah, I’m lucky. He’s sorta become the unofficial mascot of our café.”

“Then Grumpy-Pants over here is Squall and-”

“That’s Leon,” a guy with a scar slashed across the bridge of his nose corrected with a growl into his beer.

“Riiiiiight, forgot you were rebranding,” Lea snerked. “He works over at Buster’s Swords, the replica weapon shop in the mall. And last but most certainly not least, this little one here is Naminé,” he indicated a petite blonde sitting between Ven and Leon, who gave a shy wave. “When she’s on the clock, you can find Nams at The Crayon Box for all your art supply needs.”

“Lovely to meet you both,” she nodded at us. “We’re currently rooting on our friend Ariel,” she pointed to the stage. It was only now upon second glance that I recognized the girl up there currently murdering Barbie Girl as the redhead from the fish store.

Lea winced as a particularly bad note was hit before he snorted. “Girl’s usually got a voice that’d put mythical sirens to shame, but she’s just getting over a cold. Couldn’t talk for three days. Now that she’s started getting it back, there’s no keeping her away from the mic. RIP eardrums.” Then he clapped his hands together once, “Alrighty, on to Table Numeros Dos!”

...numeros dos?

As in more than one? As in this wasn’t it? As in more people?

If I survived this night, it’d be a miracle.

At least the first table hadn’t been too bad. Everyone else had done all the talking, which was a-okay by me.

...unless… crud, did they think I was boring now? Or worse, that I was sticking my nose up at them? Well I wasn’t! Trust me, there was absolutely zero nose sticking up going on here! My nose was down! Way, way, way down! So far down, it was past the secret civilization of mole people and halfway to China by now!

Dammit, only five minutes in and pretty sure I was already screwing everything up. And I hadn’t even done anything yet!

Lea shifted a couple steps over to an adjacent booth against the wall and Anna followed, tugging me into a stumble after her. Grabbing the attention of this new group, he announced, “Yo, everyone! I’d like ya to meet-”

“Elsa?”

I locked eyes with a golden gaze I knew all too well at this point and blinked. “Rayne?”

She scrambled out of the booth to hurl herself at me and I staggered to stay upright under the sheer might of her hug. Then I heard her gasp, “Anna too?! Get in here, girl!” I grunted as Anna dogpiled into the embrace. “Haven’t seen you since you were an ankle biter at summer camp! What are you doing here?! In fact, what are you both doing here?”

“What are we doing here?” I repeated incredulously as we all pulled apart, my eyes flicking down to her belly then back up. “What are you doing here? Did you forget you’re, uh… drinking for two now?”

A squeal from Anna, “Oh my gawd, Ray-Ray, your friggin’ preggers?! Congratulations! Who’s the lucky stud who knocked dat fine ass of yours up?”

My sister, ladies and gentleman. Ever the classiest of dames.

Rayne turned, yanking her husband out of the booth and onto his feet beside her. Wrapping her arms around his waist, she smiled smugly. “This is Riku. Riku, meet Anna, Elsa’s little sister. And don’t worry,” she turned her attention back to me, rolling her eyes, “all my drinks are virgin.”

“Though Ray is what you might call an empathic drunk,” Riku snerked, slinging an arm around her shoulders.

I quirked an eyebrow, “A what?”

“The more people get liquored up around me, the drunker I get without sipping a single drop. It’s an odd phenomenon, I don’t do it on purpose, but not complaining either. All the perks of intoxication, none of the hangover!” Then she furrowed her brow at me, “But no, seriously, what are you doing here? This ain’t exactly your scene.”

“I kinda kidnapped her,” Anna hummed out a tiny, evil laugh. “She’s my hostage tonight. She’s gonna have fun whether she likes it or not!”

I was firmly in the “or not” camp.

Rayne grinned at her, folding her arms together, “Then that brings us back around to what you’re doing here… where did you even come from?”

As the two of them began to catch up while Riku listened in, Lea snagged my elbow, pulling me over closer to the booth once more.

Oh. Right. Socializing. I’d almost forgotten.

Ahhh forgetting. T’was a better, simpler, blessed time. Now, as I was presented with another small horde of new faces, I felt my heart rate spike and my chest tighten as the butterflies battled for dominance in my stomach again.

So be it. Once more into the breach! Come on, Elsa, you can do this!

“Now then, before I was so rudely interrupted-”

“Shove it, Red!” my roommate snapped.

“Screw off, Raindrop!” He stuck his tongue out at her, then sniggered to me, “Remember, verbal abuse says you care! Anyway, I’m sure you’re already very familiar with this mall rat we all know and love, given he’s almost a big an ice cream junkie as I am.” Sora beamed up at me from his seat. “But have you met this half-pint’s amazing, intelligent, beautiful and might I add way out of his league girlfriend, Kairi?”

He was gesturing to a pretty redhead dolled up in pink who smirked around the straw in her drink as she glanced out of the corner of her eye at Sora beside her. “Any comment to that?”

He shrugged, leaning back as he laced his fingers behind his head and his already impossibly huge smile somehow managed to get even wider. “Can’t argue facts!”

“She, like her boy here, is also a local mall rat, but we take pity on these poor schmucks who have nothing else in their pathetic, empty lives and let them hang out with us cool kids whenever we all get together like this,” Lea teased.

“Hey now, ex-mall rat!” she harrumphed before proudly puffing up her chest. “You’re looking at Mickey’s newest hire as of today!”

Lea arched an eyebrow, “No shit, really? Congratz, princess! Welcome to the crush of the daily grind. It sucks! Enjoy!”

Kairi snorted. “Please, it won’t be all that terrible. I’m gonna work a counter in the jewelry department. I can already tell my favorite part’s gonna be helping customers with the charm bracelets. Look!” she jangled the band she was wearing around her wrist before lifting up one of the little trinkets dangling from it. “This one looks like a thalassa shell star from my home, Destiny Islands!” Then she narrowed her eyes at Sora, one corner of her lips quirking up. “Now if only this lazy bum would get a job too, we’d be set!”

“Gimme a break, Kairi, I’m working on it!” Sora half whined, half laughed.

“Uh oh, do I smell trouble in paradise? We’ll leave the two lovebirds to it then,” Lea then turned my attention to a slender chick with short black hair sitting next to Kairi, who waggled her fingers at me with a crooked grin. “This is Yuffie! She works with Squ- ‘scuse me, Leon over at Buster’s Swords.” He lowered his voice to a whisper behind his hand, “She likes to steal the merch for her own personal amusement.”

She scoffed, “You shut your whore mouth, I don’t steal! I just… borrow for quality testing! I’m doing a community service here, really!”

He shook his head, “Uh huh, sure, whatever you say. So what’s on the menu for today?”

Couldn’t tell from where exactly, but she suddenly pulled out a pair of ninja stars as her lips curved wickedly. “Shurikens!”

“Nope!” Leon pressed one hand to the edge of his table, leaning his chair back onto its hind legs so he could stretch an arm across the booth and snatch the weapons from her grasp.

“Hey!” she lunged after them but only ended up faceplanting into her own table. “Give those back, jerkface!” He ignored her, just taking another swig from the bottle in front of him. “Wow, rude much?!”

This place was an absolute madhouse.

“Oof, that’s rough! Better luck next time,” Lea consoled her before pointing to the next person wedged into the booth, a girl with a blue bow tying back her brown hair. “And here we have Belle! Total bookworm, so no surprise her nine-to-five’s at Enchanted Castle Books.” She didn’t acknowledge us, just stared dreamily off into space while absently stirring the liquid in her glass with a straw. Lea sighed, “Yeah, she’s a real head-up-in-the-clouds sort.”

“I got this,” Yuffie chimed in before using a hand to shade her gaze as she raised her voice, “Hey, is that Gaston I see?”

Belle snapped out of it, eyes round in horror as she gasped, “Where?!” before ducking down to use the table for cover.

As Yuffie cracked up, Kairi swatted her in the shoulder, “Mean!”

“Gaston’s the local musclebound, meathead neanderthal who’s set his sights on Belle as his next conquest,” Lea explained.

“Don’t worry, sweetie,” Yuffie’s eyes gleamed as she produced a third metal star. “I’ll make sure he never bothers you again.”

“For the love of- another one?!” In a quick blur of movement, Leon had once again confiscated her toy, much to her dismay.

“Finally,” Lea jumped in once again, clapping his hand down on the shoulder of a carrot-top sitting on the end with giant purple headphones covering his ears, “this regular chatterbox is Neku, who gets his paycheck from Towa Records, the lil music store around the corner from the food court.”

Yuffie huffed, “I dunno why Orangeylocks even bothers to show up to these things since,” she leaned across the table to lift up one of his hulking muffs and yell into his ear, “he never bothers to take the stupid ‘phones off!”

He slapped her hand away with a glare and said nothing, simply crossed his arms and slouched further down into his seat.

Still I hadn’t said a word to anyone besides Rayne. Partly because all the anxiety was squeezing my throat shut - trust me, the terror was real. But even if I had been brave enough to actually make small talk with this pack of total strangers, it was impossible to get a word in edgewise. It was all just happening so fast. But hey, maybe I could get away with the whole not talking thing. This Neku guy seemed to be and he was getting along just fine. Maybe the secret was in the headphones.

Note to self: look into the possibility of purchasing ear buds with first paycheck in the hopes of avoiding human interaction at all costs.

“Okay, almost done, just one more table to go,” Lea chirped.

Hearing that was both a relief and a minor heart attack all rolled together. The good news: one more table, woo! The bad news: one more table, ugh!

As Lea led the way once more, I snagged Anna by the elbow. It was her fault I was in this mess, so there was no way I was letting her abandon me. She was my security blanket, dammit! She managed to get out a hasty “we’ll talk more in a minute” to Rayne before staggering along behind me. We were brought to the neighboring booth which took up a corner so it was slightly bigger. Thankfully, that didn’t equal a larger group seated here. Even better, I already knew two of the faces.

“Rox! Xion!” Lea grinned down at them. “So this is where you guys got to. Was beginning to think I might have to send out search parties. I-”

“Kristoff,” the name escaped my lips before I’d even realized it as I locked eyes with my coworker.

Make that three faces I recognized.

His eyelids drooped before he looked away with a harrumph, taking a deep drag from his mug.

Well fudge. Guess he was still mad about the phone.

This night just kept getting better and better!

“Brr, did it just get a few degrees colder in here? Ah well, forget it, just leave Lord Sourpuss here to his brooding,” Lea snerked with a roll of his eyes. “For the rest at the table who haven’t already had the pleasure, this is Elsa, the Ice Palace newbie, and her sister Anna who tagged along for funsies.”

He tossed a hand towards a guy with amber eyes, messy raven hair, and was the poster boy for goth fashion. “That ray of sunshine over there is Vanitas - living, breathing proof that all our moms were always right: your face really can get stuck like that. Wow, misery really does love company, huh? Just look at those identical scowls.” Both Vanitas and Kristoff looked highly unamused with Lea. He responded with a smirk, leaning down to bring his face closer to Vanitas, “What’s with the pout, widdle man? Did one of the other kids steal your binky?”

“Bite me, jackass,” he deadpanned.

“You’d love that, wouldn’t you?” Lea waggled his eyebrows as he straightened back up. “Anyhoo, as you might’ve already guessed by just taking one look at the edgelord, Vaniboy here works at Halloween Town.”

“Halloween Town?” Anna echoed, tapping a thoughtful finger to her lips. “Isn’t that the line of shops that are kinda like Hot To-”

“Say that knock-off, poser, wannabe of a store’s name and die,” Vanitas sneered.

Lea said, “Don’t mind him, he’s just cranky cuz he missed out on afternoon naptime.” Vanitas flipped him the bird, which went totally ignored as Lea shifted his gaze to the other side of the table. “Woah, talk about a mismatched set. What are you two doing hanging out with Mr Negativity here?”

He was now addressing a sweet-faced brunette with bright green eyes and the boy beside her with sandy blonde spiked hair, a skull and crossbones printed on his shirt. The girl chuckled, “Oh come on, Van’s not that bad.”

“Yeah, once you get past his personality,” the guy sniggered. Vanitas just looked away with a soft tch.

“Meet Olette and Hayner. They- wait...” Lea glanced around the table a second time with a frown, “There’s usually one more of you. Where’s Pence?”

“Couldn’t make it,” Olette sighed, plopping her chin in her palm. “Had to finish his programming project for his Computer Sciences course. Said he’ll be at it all weekend.”

“Bummer,” Lea shrugged. “In any case, these two plus their missing amigo wait tables at Le Grand Bistrot, this hoity-toity restaurant on the opposite end of the mall from the rest of us. Though didn’t you guys get shut down recently for a rodent infestation?”

Hayner banged a fist against the table, “Ugh, will people stop talking about that already? We didn’t get shut down, it was one rat and it was just that klutzy garbage boy’s pet, got it?!”

A snort from Roxas. “Sounds fake, but okay.”

“Can it, pizza boy!” Hayner shot back.

“Touchy, touchy,” Lea tsked before his eyes made one more sweep of the surrounding tables. “Anyway, looks like that’s everyone! How ‘bout it? Got it all memorized? If not, don’t sweat it, it was a lot. And even more might show up later, who knows, these things are always sort of a random grab bag but that’s half the fun! In any case, feel free to take a seat.” He jerked a thumb over his shoulder, “I’m gonna go order a drink from the bar. Did either of you want me to grab you anything while I’m over there?”

“Is this a menu?” Anna picked up the glossy, colorful sheet of plastic from the table, looking over the list printed on it with a low hum. “I think a basket of the Cactuar Fries would be good for starters. As for drink, hm… Ooo, the Golden Chocobo sounds amazing! What about you?” she tilted it to give me a better look.

I shook my head, “Just water for me, thanks.”

Her tongue blew a raspberry, eyes returning to the menu. “That’s no fun. Lessee here… aha!” She smiled up at Lea, “She’ll have a Shiva, heavy on the rum.”

“I will most certainly not have a-”

“Got it!” Lea darted off across the room, cupping a hand to his mouth and calling out, “Oh, Tifa!”

Anna then proceeded to flump down into the booth next to Kristoff, giggling as she peeked up at him. “Hi! You’re cute!”

He blinked at her, all traces of the previous doom-and-gloom wiped clean off his face as it reddened slightly. “Uh…?”

She wiggled in closer to him, which seemed to fluster him more as he scrabbled over into Vanitas, who elbowed him back hard for making him almost spill his drink. Oblivious to the domino effect she’d created, Anna whipped her head back around to me and patted a hand on the space she’d freed up at the edge of the booth. “Whatcha waiting for, Sis? Sit!”

I stared blankly at her. She beamed back at me. I glanced over to everyone else. Everyone else watched me expectantly. I then flicked my gaze down to the open seat. It just lay there, being a cushion.

...psssst, dummy. Her telling you to sit? Was your cue to actually sit!

Still my feet didn’t budge an inch. Instead I looked over my shoulder back towards the door leading outside. So close, yet so far.

Clearing my throat, I took a small step backwards and held up a hand, “A-actually, you know what? I think I, uh... left something... back in the car! Yeah, that’s it! So I’ll just, er… I’ll go get-”

“I said sit!” Anna grabbed my wrist and jerked me down onto the plush bench beside her.

Well then. I guess I was sitting.

I suddenly felt a light brush of something against the back of my head and I twitched away, looking behind me. Rayne was leaning over the divider between our two booths, hands outstretched, apparently with the intention of petting both Anna and me. “Pretty,” she cooed in delight. “Pretty, pretty hair. So soft!”

From somewhere beyond the separator, I heard Riku mutter, “It’s starts.” His voice was muffled. I suspected due to facepalm. Taking a small bundle of my hair and tucking it between her palm and two little fingers, Rayne then set the other three fingers and hand to work unraveling one of Anna’s pigtail braids.

Anna didn’t seem to mind, instead just turning her gaze to the rest of our booth and flashing a smile big enough to rival one of Sora’s. “It’s so great to meet everyone! This is super exciting! Isn’t is just so exciting?” she asked me. I opened my mouth, but Anna was already gushing once more, “And oh my gawd, so, so, so, sooooo much fun! I’m already having a blast! Are you having a blast?” Again, this question was aimed at me. Again, I didn’t even get so much as a peep out. “Aaaah, lookit her, she’s having a friggin’ blast! This is awesome! So how long have you guys all been getting together like this? Who started it? Was it just a small group at first? Were you guys always friends even before these Friday nights began? Do you ever change it up, get food and drinks somewhere else? Or is it always the 7th Heaven? Why is it called the 7th Heaven anyway? What’s the story there? What’s the food like? No, what are the drinks like? Did I pick good ones? I hope I picked good ones! And I just love that they have karaoke here! Anyone else going to be singing later? Ooo, here’s an idea! We could all go up and sing one together!”

Typhoon Anna had struck again, leaving round eyes and silence in her wake.

I was guessing most everyone else at the table hadn’t even caught half of that, the torrent of words had been coming out in such a rush.

The hush over the table stretched until Vanitas at last broke it with a flat, “Yeah, no, I’m out. I’ve had about all the pep I can stand from that pack of idiots,” he flicked a wrist towards the half the table taken up by Xion, Olette, Roxas and Hayner, “without having to deal with… this,” he cringed, gesturing to Anna. Then he downed the rest of his beverage. “Later, losers.” And with that, he vaulted himself over the table, shoved his hands into the pockets of his leather jacket and slinked off.

“So…” Anna dragged out the syllable, “...he’s pleasant!”

Certainly one word for it.

“Vani bail early?” Lea rejoined us. “No shocker there, he usually does. He's always been more of a lone wolf. Make room, Fun-size!” he looked down at where Xion was seated at the opposite end of the booth from us. She scooched to clear a spot for him and he plopped on down, setting a full, opened bottle on the table in front of him bearing a red label that boasted the title Ifrit Amber Ale. “Ladies, your drinks n’ fries are gonna need another minute. Someone’ll be by to drop them off when they’re ready.”

A small smile braved my lips, “Thanks, how much do we owe you?”

Or rather, how much did Anna owe him? Since A, she was the one that’d ordered it all and B, I’d yet to earn a single cent to my name.

Soon though. Payday was coming.

He batted a hand, “Don’t worry about it, my treat. And, uh,” he snerked, “you might want to keep a closer eye on what Raindrop's up to over there.”

I blinked. I had been feeling a faint tingle in my scalp as Rayne had continued to play beauty salon back there this whole time, but I’d just been ignoring it. Now both Anna and I turned to discover she’d weaved locks of our hair together into one thick, auburn-and-platinum braid. “I made a pretty!” Rayne giggled, punctuated by a hiccup.

Biting back a grin, Xion called, “Hey Riku! Control your woman!”

A hand shot up and grabbed Rayne by the scruff of the shirt. With a squeak, she disappeared behind the booth separator.

“So,” Olette shook her head, one corner of her lips tugging up, “how are you liking it over at Ice Palace?”

...shoot, she was talking to me, wasn’t she?

I was so not prepared for this.

Glancing up from where my fingers had already begun disentangling the braid Anna and I shared joint custody off, I pursed my lips to one side. “Hmm, well… it’s pretty good actually. This is my first job ever, so I was a bit anxious.” Understatement of the millenia. “But it’s been going well. And I like the people I work with and get along with them and uh…” I eyed Kristoff out of my peripheral, who still seemed rather dazed by Anna and the apparent lack of the phrase ‘personal boundaries’ in her vocabulary, “...and they like me and are very kind and welcoming and… certainly not mad or anything at me for, oh I don’t know, hypothetically lobbing and busting their phones, like I would ever do something so silly as that, why would I even mention such a thing, that’s so random,” the jumble of words finished in a weak chuckle.

It was beginning to become clear to me that the tendency to babble might run in my family.

Only mine was of the nervous variety, whereas I don’t think Anna had a nervous bone in her body.

At last sensing my gaze on him, Kristoff shook himself out of his stupor and looked back at me. Then he frowned, narrowed his eyes and stared down at the table, nursing his drink once more.

“Oh yeah,” Xion snorted, “I can definitely feel the love simply overflowing from that side of the table.”

“Sounds like a sweet gig,” Hayner chimed back into the conversation with a smirk as he crossed his arms. “But then, anything’s gotta be better than working at some lame dump of a pizza place.”

“Ouch, shots fired.” Lea cocked an eyebrow, “What’s with the drive-by, my dude?”

Roxas snickered, “Ignore him. He’s still just sore about the whole rat thing.”

“There wasn’t a rat thing! I told you already, it was just some dumb pet so it doesnt count!”

“Sure,” Roxas sighed, “Just keep telling yourself that, man.”

“That’s it!” Hayner snarled, slamming both hands down on the table as he rocketed up to his feet. “It’s time we settle this like men!”

Olette groaned, burying her face in her hands. “Tell me you did not really just say that, you total caveman.”

Hayner stabbed a finger towards Roxas and growled, “You.” Then jerked a thumb into his chest, “Me.” He pointed at one of the arcade machines, “Struggle 9000. Loser buys rounds for the table for the next five Fridays.”

“Come on, you two,” Olette interjected, “is this really-”

Lea clamped a hand over her mouth, one index finger held up to his lips, “Shush, I want free booze.”

“You’re on!” Roxas shot back, eyes flashing. Then the both of them were ducking down and crawling under the table to exit the booth before dashing over to where the video games awaited them, elbowing each other the whole way.

“Wanna go root the boys on?” Olette asked Xion.

“Pfft, root nothing. I’m taking on winner and curb stomping his ass. Play my cards right and I’ll have them both buying our drinks for weeks to come.”

As Lea slid out of the booth so the two of them could get up and leave, Olette laughed, “Oh, I bet Hayner would be simply thrilled by that prospect.”

“Please, you think that bonehead’s gonna come out the champ?” Xion scoffed as they walked off. “Rox has got him beat, no contest.”

“Wanna bet?”

That was the last thing I heard from Olette before a happy shriek barely an inch to my left drowned out anything else that might have been said.

Gee thanks, Anna. Really, who needs hearing in both ears anyway?

Our order had arrived, which apparently was what had gotten her so excited. A heaping bowl of shoestring fries now steamed in front of us, covered and smothered in some chunky green sauce. Anna’s drink started out orange at the bottom and faded into a yellow at the frothy top where in the absence of one of the standard teeny decorative umbrellas, it was instead garnished with a fluffy, yellow feather. My drink was a chilly, neon blue color and served in a tall, skinny glass with wafting mist and a frosted rim.

“Bottoms up!” Anna singsonged, clinking her beverage to mine before chugging down half of it in one go. I pulled a face at her, scrunching my nose with a grimace. She puffed out a content sigh as she put the glass back down at the table. “Ah, that’s good!” Then her eyes darted between me and my drink a couple times. “Well? What are you waiting for? Get your drink on, gurl!”

“No thanks,” I nudged the Shiva away with a fingertip. “Someone has to drive us home, so I guess that someone’s going to be me.”

“Pssh, details,” she waved a dismissive hand while she tested out one of the fries. Eyes lighting up, she shoveled a couple more in her mouth before pushing my drink back towards me. “C’mon, one sip won’t kill ya! Besides, you’re hurting Lea’s feelings over there, he spent his hard earned munny on it just for you!”

“Nah, it’s cool,” he shrugged and grinned. “You do you, El!”

“Dude, work with me here! You’re supposed to back me up on this, I-” Anna cut herself off in a gasp. Seemed there had been a lull in the karaoke, so someone had kicked on the big vintage jukebox off to one side, which was now pumping regular tunes out of the overhead speakers. “I love this song!” Her hand clamped down around Kristoff’s wrist, “Dance with me!”

“Wha-?!”

I was all but shoved out of the booth as Anna bolted off, dragging a wide eyed and stumbling Kristoff behind her. I watched her go, shaking my head with a tired smile. Anna would never change. But then, who’d want her to? She was kind of perfect the way she was, chaotic energy and all. Sighing, I took a seat again and looked up.

That’s when I froze.

Because that’s when it hit me.

Somehow, my booth had gone from being packed to being empty. Well, almost…

There was still me.

And there was still a certain redhead.

And to be fair, my plan had been to spend the evening with a redhead. Just said redhead was supposed to have been petite, female, and my sister. The redhead before me now? Checked off none of those boxes.

So instead of the night of sisterly bonding like I’d been looking forward to, I’d somehow wound up in a bar.

At a table.

With Lea.

By ourselves.

Just the two of us.

Alone...

Help! SOS! Frantic smoke signals! I was not mentally or emotionally equipped to deal with this situation!

Commence cardiac arrest in three… two…

Author’s note: Hi, yes, welcome to Cameo Palooza, where we got references coming out the wazoo! This chapter and events in next chapter were originally all supposed to be one chapter, but the references just kept going and going… I honestly didn’t expect them to go on for as long as they did, but here we are xD Not gonna lie, I took an odd amount of pleasure in giving Lea and Elsa drinks to match to their respective elements/summons. Also lil fun fact: There are real alcoholic beverages out there called the Shiva and the Golden Chocobo, just google it if you’re curious and I think the recipes should pop up like the did for me! Also, there are in fact green Cactuar Fries out there in the real live world too - I’ve seen foodies post pictures!

Next chapter… how will Elsa deal with this latest challenge in human interaction she’s come face to face with? Will this be one step closer to strengthening the bond of her new friendship with Lea? Or will it all end in utter catastrophe thanks to her awkward penguin ways? Will we ever find out the secret of the Cactuar Fries’ green ooze? Stay tuned!

Thanks for reading, I super duper appreciate it! And an extra BIG thank you to any new followers out there (howdy! :D) and to those of you who’ve liked and reblogged previous chapters, seeing that always brings the biggest, goofiest smile to my face!

FIRST CHAPTER || PREVIOUS CHAPTER || NEXT CHAPTER

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scribbl-plink · 4 years

Text

ineffable

meraki

/greek/

/may-rah-kee/

noun.

to do something with soul, creativity, or love; to put something of yourself into your work.

---

“Look! I really captured the movement in this one. I fixed the iso and...”

Concentration stole the rest of her sentence. Mik showed me the camera screen, barely giving me time to glance her way in the silvery dark before taking it back. She fiddled around with a switch before leaning precariously over the railing again, earrings dangling toward the rushing waters below. A wave of sound enveloped me, drowning out the night.

“‘Kaela…”

Her eyes turned to twinkle at me, a glimmering laugh on her lips as she mimicked me. “Ella-a!”

She got the satisfaction of a smirk, and I turned to survey our surroundings. An almost-full moon was pinned in the sky, illuminating the dense bushland that hugged the river’s shores. Both railings on each side of the bridge were empty, their glimmering metal bars silent and out of place without the usual tourists. Snap, snap. Filtered streams of moonlight chimed down to us, liquidised into silver threads that made a tapestry in the rushing water- something inside me ached. Snap. I listened quietly to the hum of the crickets that faintly serenaded us in the background. A distant owl gave a low hoot. Snap, snap. Mik’s foot left the bridge as she leant further forward, tipping by the slightest of degrees. I heard her lens: snap, snap, snap.

It returned: snap, snap, snap.

Snap, s-

“Mik!”

---

yūgen

/japanese/

/you-gen/

noun.

a profound, mysterious sense of the beauty of the universe that triggers a deep emotional response.

---

The lake shimmers in silence, dull and meek. Rays of sun are swallowed up by the muddy waves as they lap apathetically at the ground. The air is frozen in heat- every tiny bit of space suffocatingly filled to the brim. I can’t read the words on the gravestone.

But I know what they say.

Mikaela Cowell - beloved daughter, granddaughter and friend - 2000-2019.

Black, fuzzy silhouettes are blurring in my peripheral. Petrichor drifts upward between black dresses and handkerchiefs from damp earth underfoot.

Everything echoes now. The words of the Pastor, the choked sobs, the merry twittering of sparrows. I’m hearing, feeling the words- their dead weight like web tangling my fingers together. They work together: threading themselves into each other and wrapping around my shoulders. Ends draw entwined and enveloped. Tighter and tighter they pull and tug until up and up towards invisible hands...

I am suspended in memory, on strings. It is not beautiful. It is not wondrous, and it tastes like bitter medicine except there is nothing to cure. Muscles strain and burn, circulation stops. One tremor on the side and my body jerks, a nonchalant flicker and I’m on my knees. The little expressions that were my beauty now hold me hostage. They used to guide me. Now they demand compliance.

I know everyone is looking at me, sympathy in their eyes, but I can’t meet their gazes.

The sun shines cheerily on, despite.

Perhaps resignation is part of humanity’s true destiny. Perhaps our brokenness is fated.

Snap.

I can hear it...

---

erlebnisse

/german/

/er-leb-nis/

noun.

the experiences, positive or negative, that we feel most deeply, and through which we truly live; not mere experiences, but Experiences.

---

Everyone has gone, grief trailing behind them. The lake continues to slowly soak up the warmth, and the breeze shivers. My puppet-body follows suit.

I’m still. Paused. Just feeling the breath from my nose mockingly kiss my upper lip before waltzing out into the air. Knowing I will probably inhale it in again. And again. Then always someone else’s breath becoming my own. It never ends. Only repeats, and continues giving. For how long will I be able to bear it? This cycle comforts me, morbid and undying.

My muscles tense. She’s here, beside me. Her faint outline is a mirage that shimmers out of sight, out of mind. Is she here? Or will she be forever in the cold embrace of those dark, silvery waters, never to resurface? Tears are pricking and the tension is moving inward, getting a two-handed grip around my throat.

Squeezing, twisting, stretching…

Then, release.

Release.

Snap goes the strings. She is cutting them- her memory holds the blade.

Snap, snap.

Snap.

Obligations and offerings fade. Suddenly, I know my words don’t have to cost who I am.

They are an overflow.

An echo.

---

ineffable

/english/

/in-eh-fuh-bl/

adjective.

too great or extreme to be expressed or described in words.

---

My post-grad existence was a blur. It was filled with drafts, editing at 4am, cold coffee and laptop batteries on 5%.

I eventually understood even more than the desire to capture memories, the necessity to let them fly.

It was after I wrote and edited and wrote again, after I tried wrangling my experiences, some part of myself into short stories and suites of poetry and novellas so that one day a college dropout could find my strings of words and try again. After I dreamt of taming each phrase into submission so a grandmother could experience fun again- as if every paragraph was a jack-in-the-box and all I had to do was fit each piece inside like clockwork.

At some point after all that I realised memories were not butterflies, waiting to be caught in a net- they were stars. With words, we aimed to define the indefinable. We look up at the celestial heavens and wish our phones would work against the great blackness but really, why should they? The most I could’ve ever done - the most anyone can do - is create an impression of those stars. An impression of that unending, fateful river. Its voice drifts back to me now, its memories: a soft, singing note with a trailing echo.

Snap.

Or…

Just an echo... . . . . . .

#the power of words #echoes #stars

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lycorogue · 4 years

Text

Marinette’s Song: Chapter 3

You can read Chapter 1 here. Chapter 2

UPDATE (2/15/20): You can also now read this story over on AO3, on FFN, or on DA.

Summary: Whenever Luka creates music it affects people. He can’t handle having to hide his music anymore, and so he goes to the Tom & Sabine Charms and Potions shop for some help. Can Marinette’s witchcraft allow Luka to finally share his music with the world? Witch and Mythological Magic AU

Rating: General Audiences

Words: 10,943 Words This Chapter: 1487

Status: Completed; 7 chapters

Disclaimer: I wanted to anchor Marinette’s magic in Wiccan as opposed to “Hollywood witchcraft”, but I’m Christian. I tried to do my research, but I also know I’m taking a lot of creative liberties. If you notice any glaring misrepresentation of Wiccan, please let me know.

Luka nearly forgot why he was at the charm shop. As long as Marinette held his hand, there was nothing wrong with him. No women sobbing because he hummed a sad song. No children too gleeful to notice traffic. No classmates hurling notebooks at each other when he drummed out an impatient tune on his desk. No need to hide.

He hoped Marinette could truly figure out where his power came from, because he wanted to lay bare and known before her. He wanted to be as open with her as he was with his mom and sister. He wanted her to know his secrets. He wanted to always feel as at peace as he did while she held his hand and lead him to the back rooms of her parents' shop.

When they passed through the first set of dark curtains, Luka was greeted with another one a couple meters in front of him, leading deeper into the back storage and office of the shop. To his left was a small alcove warmly lit with a string of lights running up the wall and outlining the ceiling. Nestled in the alcove was a small, circular table draped in a navy cloth with a galaxy design printed across it. Three black padded collapsible chairs circled the table. In the front corner, to the left of the table, was a small, corked ceramic bottle atop a simple metal stand. In the opposite corner, to the right of the table, sat an intricate bamboo stand filled with plain tan canvas drawers.

Marinette pulled out one of the two chairs on the side nearest the metal stand, and motioned for Luka to sit down. She then wrapped around the table, and opened three different drawers on the bamboo stand. Carefully riffling through the drawers, she placed four large white candles, four fist-sized crystals, and a pile of small stones on the table. Once she emptied out all she needed, Marinette rested her hand on a black polished-marble box on the top shelf of the bamboo stand. It had three moons carved into the lid: one waxing, one waning, and a full moon between them. After a minute of meditation, Marinette left the Tarot box on the stand, opting instead to simply sit opposite Luka as she set up the candles, crystals, and stones.

“Don't you need to be out front watching the shop?” Luka asked, thumbing past his shoulder. “I don't want to get you in trouble.”

“You brought money with you?” Marinette didn't bother looking up from her work arranging the table. Luka scooped the few bills out of his front pocket, and held them out to Marinette. “Good. Then you're not my friend visiting, you're a customer, and this is part of the services we provide. Besides, I can hear the bell from here, and if I get too engrossed, Tikki can alert me. Right, Tikki?”

A strawberry poison-dart frog poked her head out from under Marinette's jacket collar. Despite the vast variety of colors the species came in, Tikki was the perfect example of why this subset of poison frogs were named after strawberries. She was that rich red head to foot, and little black spots – like strawberry seeds – speckled her body. Luka wasn't sure if it was because she was a witch's familiar, or simply because of her adjusted diet to keep her toxins low, but Tikki was also nearly twice the size she should be: even with her legs tucked under her, she was roughly the length of Marinette's thumb.

The little frog nuzzled Marinette's cheek in acknowledgment of her responsibility, and her owner gently pet her head with a single finger. Tikki then let out a happy little chirp similar to a cricket's, and climbed out of the jacket and on to Marinette's shoulder; watching the curtained entrance, and listening for new customers coming in.

“See? All good.” Marinette flashed Luka a smile, then got back to work in setting the table. She lined the candles at the cardinal points, and marked the mid-points with the purple quartz crystals. Finally, she carefully laid the stones out in a single layer before her so she could see each one easily. Hovering her hands over the table, she scanned it quick to make sure it was properly set. Satisfied, she clapped her hands together. “Now, Luka, do you know the nature of your hereditary magic?” She lit the four white candles and whispered a little prayer while waiting his response.

Luka watched her, entranced by the subtle movement of her lips and the warm glow the match flame cast against her fingers.

Focus! he scolded himself. Ignoring the warmth pooling in his cheeks and forehead, Luka cleared his throat.

“My, uh, my music-” Luka played with the thick ring on his index finger, his eyes focused on the dark gray band rotating around his digit. “When I play, sing, hum, or even whistle a tune, it-” He wasn't sure how to explain it. “It affects people. Juleka's too.”

“You sing?” Marinette's voice was airy, wistful, then it snapped with surprise. “Wait, Juleka sings? For real?” She then smacked her cheeks to help her refocus. “I mean, what do you mean the music affects people? Affect them how?”

The whiplash of emotions from Marinette – from dreamy to curious and back to professional – helped ease Luka. Stifling a chuckle, he rested his forearms against his thighs, his fingers twitching against his knees.

“When I create happy music, people around me become joyful, no matter how stressed or sad they once were. When I'm more aggressive, those that hear it get angry, even if nothing irritated them. Melancholy music depresses others, even if they were just laughing. Lullabies put people to sleep, regardless of how alert they were. That sort of thing.”

Marinette hummed to herself as she scanned through her layer of polished stones; her hand hovering just above them. She plucked three out of the collection and held them out to Luka. “Here, hold onto these as I ask you a few questions.”

Luka held out his hand, and Marinette gently pressed each stone against his palm one at a time.

First was a mossy-green stone with brown splotches on it. “This is serpentine. It helps discover hidden mysteries. It also opens up powers of observation and instinct. With this we can better narrow down where your hereditary magic comes from.” She then pressed a purple stone with lighter purple veins running through it against his palm. “This is amethyst. It will help with your intuition, as well as potentially balance out your power. It also assists with communicating with a higher wisdom to help sort this out.” Last was a stone so polished and limited in imperfections that it resembled ice. “This is clear quartz. It will amplify your energy while also bringing clarity and awareness. With these three stones we should be able to find you a solution.”

Luka's body tingled with each stone, but he wasn't sure if it was due to the energy they brought, or the fact that Marinette's fingertips brushed against his skin each time. The notes for Marinette's song pinged in his head again. The skin contact made the notes clearer than ever before, and Luka struggled to resist humming them for Marinette.

He looked down at the quartz in particular, comparing it to the much more imperfect and nearly opaque-white crystal he had stashed in his treasure chest. Marinette's song buzzed louder in his head as he wondered if the crystal he had cherished the past four years had somehow come from Marinette's family shop. Maybe she had practiced with it when she was younger, and had lost it. Maybe it was his first connection to Marinette without either knowing about it. All of those years, and perhaps they had always been tied together somehow.

“Luka?”

“Hmm?” Marinette's song had grown so loud, Luka didn't even realize she had been trying to get his attention. With a slight blush, he deflated in his chair, shrinking into himself.

“You okay? You kind of drifted off when I handed you the stones. If this is too much for you-”

“No. No, I'm fine. Thank you, Marinette. I really need to figure this out though, if you don't mind.”

She nodded and reached her hands out, her fingers curling to beckon for Luka's. He complied, stretching his hands out to meet hers over the center of the table. Grabbing his empty hand, Marinette closed it over the one holding the stones. She then covered his enclosed hands with her own.

Luka smiled when he noticed that Marinette's hand couldn't fully stretch across his much larger ones. She seemed so tiny in that moment, but he always knew her as fierce. Suddenly, the poison-dart frog familiar seemed very fitting.

Read Chapter 4

@discoveringmiraculouswriters

Sources:

I chose a Strawberry Poison-Dart frog for Tikki because look at this adorable thing! It looks like it’s wearing a Ladybug costume! I also had to size her up because these frogs are TINY!

Stone information I got from Grove and Grotto

#ML #Miraculous Ladybug #fanfiction #LycoRogue writing #LycoRogue fanfic #Lukanette #Luka Couffaine #Marinette Dupain-Cheng #chapter story #long post #Secret Admirer event #for justknitstuff #story gift exchange #witches AU #mythical creatures AU #AU story #LycoRogue original

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mentalmimosa · 5 years

Text

this is you

Prompts: Don't let the photograph replace the memory and National Park.

What are you supposed to do when your memory becomes history? There’s a difference.

It’s not as though Steve’s ever forgotten that day, all those goddamn years ago: the smell of the sunshine, the heady crush of the leaves, the way Bucky’s grin never faded, not once, the whole day. He remembers what shirt he was wearing, which sweater vest; he remembers the crushed box that served as their picnic basket upending in the car and sending sandwiches and bottles of beer all over the backseat. And he remembers the girls who took their picture, a couple of blondes up from the city like them, their skin flushed from the fresh hair and the bottoms of their skirts stained green by the last of summer’s grass.

“Hey,” the one had said, the Brownie camera steady in her hands. “Smile!”

What the picture hadn’t captured was what had happened a few minutes before: shouted laugher that had turned into a tussle in the dirt and then--

And then--

The end of a friendship and the beginning of something else. A shifting of the solid ground that had always lain between them into quicksand, uncertainty, a new kind of vulnerability. You can’t see that in the frame.

He doesn’t see the picture until years later. Decades, in fact. But when he does, he realizes how little he’s wanted to remember. The image brings it all back.

“Holy shit,” Sam said, staring over his shoulder as the helicarriers burn overhead. “Is that you, Cap?”

The man who is Bucky is sitting on the ground between them, looking as wet and battered as Steve feels, but there’s a light in his face that wasn’t there before, bruises and broken bones be damned. The photo came from his pocket. When they’d found themselves beached, before either could muster the strength to put up a punch, he’d pulled it from some inner pocket in his armor and shoved it into Steve’s hands. Said:

“This is you, isn’t it?”

He has the same answer for Sam as he’d given Buck.

“Yeah. That’s me.”

“Well, what the hell was he doing with it?”

“Tch,” Bucky says. “I have it because it's mine.”

*****

They hole up at a safehouse Nat knows about way out in the wilds of nowhere. Steve’s pretty sure it’s one of hers, but she will neither confirm nor deny.

“There’s a well,” she says, giving them a perfunctory tour as they limp towards the front door. “Solar panels shielded from satellites. Food. We’ll be fine.”

She’s wary of the Winter Soldier. Steve doesn’t blame her. But she puts as much care into stitching him up as she does Steve, Sam standing in the corner the whole time, semi-glowering at them both.

“I don’t care how many broken ribs he has,” he says. “Come on, y’all. He’s a killing machine.”

Nat shoots him a look that’s more broadsword than dagger. “You’re seriously not helping.”

“I’m trying to be the voice of reason here, is what I’m doing. Steve, I get that this guy was your friend, but--”

“But nothing.” Steve’s voice feels like a scab. Damn it, everything hurts. “He’s Bucky. He stays or I go.”

“We’ve had this argument, gentlemen,” Nat snaps. There’s a prick in Steve’s arm, something cool and weird in his blood. “And we’re here, so we’re not having it again. Wilson, take your shit outside and see if you can get that pump running, huh? I don’t want to hear another fucking word about it.”

“Свирепый,” Bucky murmurs. “A red tiger, eh?”

Nat stands up between them, their two cots side by side. “Sleep, идиоты. Both of you. Or else I’ll snap something that’s still in one piece, ok?”

When he wakes up, it’s dark and the room is quiet, the air still. He can hear Bucky breathing.

It’s been a long time since they slept in the same room. They had when they were kids, on and off, camping out at one another’s houses, and they’d always shared the single bedroom in their apartment. But after that trip to the lake in that beat-up, borrowed Ford, it’d been different.

Awkward, at first. Neither of them had really know what that kiss meant. Steve sure as hell hadn’t. He knew what he wanted it to mean, but that wasn’t the same thing. And frankly, he hadn’t wanted to ask.

The drive back was quiet, that first hour back in their apartment even more so. Bucky had fussed about setting out supper, like he always did, and Steve had taken refuge in the bathtub, ducking his face under the lukewarm water, reluctant to scrub the smell of the pine needles away. He got a little stiff despite the chill, much to his chagrin. Got out and put on a clean undershirt and ignored it.

“Made you a sandwich,” Bucky’d said from behind the newspaper when he padded into the kitchen. “There’s coffee. Any hot water left?”

It wasn’t until Steve had done the dishes and Bucky was finished splashing that it came to a head again: Bucky emerging in a cloud of steam and aftershave, his hands curving around the jut of Steve’s hips.

“I’m looking for my book,” Steve had said, strangled.

He’d felt Bucky’s mouth brush the back of his neck. “You left it in the car.”

“Oh.”

A gentle catch of sharp teeth. “Want me to put some pants on and go get it?”

“No,” Steve had whispered, remembers saying as if were only yesterday. “Don’t you fucking dare.”

Laying in that safehouse all those years later, he remembers waking up in the small hours and being startled that Bucky was in his bed, that his best friend was spooned around him like a barricade, his skin warm and smelling like sex. He remembers that he made a sound, he must have, because even in sleep, Bucky had tugged him close again, sighing, murmuring something senseless in his hair.

There’s a tear on his cheek, a dozen, and he shoves them away, turns his face into the pillow. God, what he wouldn’t give for Bucky, even this hollowed out Bucky, to do that right now.

“That picture,” Bucky says rough in the darkness. “I stole it a long time ago.”

It takes Steve a moment to understand what he means. “Stole it? From where?”

“From your, eh, what is it called? National Archives.”

If Steve’s head was clear, he might question that. Right now, though, selfishly, he can’t. “Why’d you take it? Did they make you?”

“No.” There’s a pause. “I was sent for something else. They didn’t know I had this, that I took it. I found...it was hard to lie to them. But I found ways.”

“Why, then?”

He can sense Bucky’s head turning towards him. There are crickets in the shadows outside. “I saw it and I knew myself. That was the first reason. But also--there was you. There was me and there was you.”

There’s a pang in Steve’s heart, a different kind of pain. “You recognized me?”

“Not recognized, exactly. I did not know your name. Though I was sure, the first time I saw it, that I knew you.” A dry cough, a wince that Steve can here. “Only today do the pieces fit together. But I still cannot understand the picture they make.”

Steve’s face is wet again and the hope, oh the stupid fucking hope, at the back of his throat is champagne, fierce and bitter. “Well,” he says, “that’s a start, I guess. There’s me, now, and there’s you.”

*****

It takes months for Bucky to be able to think clearly, longer for Stark to figure out how to divest him of the HYDRA arm and give him what Tony calls a shiny, unfucked-up, non-killy version instead.

Time, suddenly, is something they have.

The team drifts back together, as it always does, inevitably. At the compound, secrets come out: what Bucky did, that some arms of HYDRA still live, that there are parts of the universe beyond the Earth and the moon that are bent on destruction. There are fights and occasional histrionics but in the end, the Avengers stick together. It’s all good, in the end. Gives Bucky the time he needs to heal.

The photo sits beside Bucky’s bed in a little wooden frame. They don’t talk about it, which is fine. It takes a while to remember how to be each other’s friend again.

One night, though, at dinner, Barton passes Steve a textbook cracked open to page 181.

“Will you look at that shit,” he says through a mouthful of taco. “My kid brought it home from school yesterday. You’re ancient history, Cap.”

Above , the caption says, in tiny block letters. Steve Rogers pre-Super Soldier serum, with James Barnes (1938).

“Hey,” Sam says, frowning over the edge of the page, “isn’t that--?”

Bucky isn’t at the table. He never eats with the crew; too many people, too much noise, he says. But Steve knows where he’ll be, where he is: in his room.

He’s smoking when Steve crashes in, leaning against the balcony in a cloud. There’s a half-finished tray on the coffee table and a book turned upside down beside it. He looks startled.

“What the hell, Steve? Since when don’t you knock?”

“Buck,” Steve says, shoving the textbook towards him. “Look. We’re history.”

Bucky whistles softly. His fingers drift up and brush the page, the washed-out image of them, of that day, the best day. A day that changed both their lives. “We’ve never been history, kid,” he says, rough. “But we never did get much here and now, did we?”

“No. I guess we didn’t.”

Then there’s no book in his hands and Bucky is smiling at him, sweet and sad. “What’d you think?”

“About what?”

Metal fingers on his cheek, cool against the heat. “Want to risk it and try again?”

They answer the call of the now in Bucky’s bed this time. They learn the changes in each other’s bodies and discover what’s the same and Steve remembers the joy of having Bucky loom over him, loving, cock buried inside and hips moving, churning, urging Steve towards the ecstasy of the other side, the side that time can’t touch, the side where memories never fade, the side where they once built things that even death couldn’t destroy and when Steve comes--the first time, the fourth, the fifth--it’s as if they’ve lived forever as the boys they were that summer day.

“You’re never leaving this bed again,” Bucky says when their bodies are still, when the world outside is, the small hours between dusk and dawn.

He reaches back and pinches Bucky’s thigh, snickers when he squawks. “I’m not, huh?”

“No. I’ve decided. You’re staying right here until I say otherwise.”

“I’d forgotten how territorial you can be.”

A flick of tongue against his ear. “Not territorial. Greedy. Head over heels in love with you. There’s a difference.”

It should be startling to hear him say it like that, almost casual: in love with you. It’s more like, though, coming home.

“You’re gonna have to let me up eventually.”

“Who says?”

“Me.” Steve lifts metal fingers to his mouth, kisses them. “And like or not, Buck, I’m bigger than you.”

Bucky laughs. “Well shit. That sounded almost like a challenge, Stevie.”

“Almost? Bullshit. It is.”

This time, all these years later, their tussle ends not in a kiss but with Steve coming over Bucky’s fist and Bucky creaming Steve’s ass and with them clutching each other and saying things, feeling things, that they never could have back then.

And when Steve falls asleep, finally, it’s with his eyes on that long-ago afternoon, framed at Bucky’s bedside. A memory, yes, he thinks, leaning back in Bucky’s arms, but not history, no. A beginning.

#stucky #post-winter soldier #canon divergence #first time in a long time #schmoop

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freedom-shamrock · 5 years

Text

Two are Better, But Three are Best - Chapter Four

Also on AO3

<<< Previous Chapter

There’s no on screen sex but the first scene clearly follows sexytimes. There’s also some talk of sexual history and past experiences.

⁂

Strategies and Best Laid Plans

The drag of Luka's fingertips over her skin spoke of love. The way he marveled over every part of her made the depth of his feelings clear. The breathy huskiness of his voice each time he spoke the words, "may I?" left her feeling treasured and safe. His insistence that she come first in all things only fueled her desire and affection for him.

Apparently it hadn't just been dirty-talk when he told her he wanted to narrow her awareness solely to him. Among her past lovers, none had ever approached sex with this mindset and goal, and she now had to admit, she was a fan.

As she lay with him, utterly relaxed, in hazy afterglow, she could only smile.

"C'mon Sweets," he murmured in her ear. "You need to use the bathroom before you fall asleep."

She let out an inarticulate grumble.

His soft chuckle gave her goosebumps. "You're beautiful like this, Nette." He brushed his nose against her ear and cheek. "I don't think I've ever seen you so relaxed."

"I'm not sure I've ever been this relaxed." Her eyes fluttered open, and she was struck with how pleased he looked. "You look like the cat who ate the canary."

His grin turned smug. "Ate something, that's fur sure."

She giggled and swatted lightly at his shoulder. "You naughty man." She ran her fingers down his bare arm, marveling at the smooth warmth. "God, you're sexy. You could give Adrien a run for his money on the modeling front."

Luka snorted. "No interest in that."

She felt the idea hit her, filling her with energy, and she grinned in delight. "But you'll model for me, right? You'll let me design you clothes for performances and events, right?"

His eyes went wide. "Me, in Dupain-Cheng originals? That'd be a dream come true."

⁂

She pushed their laden breakfast plates onto the counter that divided the living room from the kitchen. His tiny apartment was actually really well designed to make the most of the space. With a couple of stools, he could fit two people on either side of the counter, which meant he didn't need to set aside space or money for a table. His arms slipped around her waist from behind, and she smiled, relaxing into his hold.

"Hmm," he hummed as he kissed her cheek, resting his head on her shoulder. "Did I already tell you how nice it was to wake up with you?"

She giggled. "Only like ten times." She slid her hands up his wrists to grasp his forearms. "And I still agree. Last night was really nice, and waking up here, being with you this morning, is definitely the icing on that cake."

"I hope that means we can do this again." His cheek brushed hers in a clearly intentional caress. "I'd like it to become a habit. Even if it's just having you here with me."

"Me too," she agreed. "Being with you this last month has been wonderful. I'm so glad we finally stopped being stupid and high-minded about this."

"One of my best ideas ever," he pointed out. "Right up there with moving back to Paris to be nearer to this amazing gal I wanted to spend more time with."

"You make the best decisions," she said, feeling all warm and cuddly. "Not that you weren't always smart, but clearly your time in university stepped up your decision-making skills."

He tightened his hold for a moment. "I don't want to scare you off and I'm not trying to rush anything here, but I want you to know that there's space set aside in my dresser and in the bathroom vanity for anything you might want to keep here. Anything that will make it easier and more comfortable for you to stay when you feel like it."

A thrill of happiness raced down her spine to settle in her belly. "Really?"

"Mmm hmmm," he hummed.

"I'd like that."

⁂

"We still up for checking out that museum tonight?" Marinette asked, the moment Alya had picked up.

"Sure are," her best friend said brightly. "And I'm looking forward to it." Alya had expanded her freelance journalism to include art openings and reviews of smaller or less known destinations around Paris.

"And the dress recommendation is what? Semi-formal or classy club?" Marinette asked. She liked to make sure that both she and Alya fit in wherever they were going, and that they reflected well on her friend.

"Classy club," Alya said. "Where the heck are you, girl? The ambient noise is very rush hour."

"I'm walking home from Luka's," she said, stopping to wait at a crosswalk.

"Oooh. Walk of shame time!" Alya crowed with a laugh. "How was it? How's he measure up to… uh, what was her name? Ellie?"

Marinette rolled her eyes even though they weren't face-timing and Alya couldn't see her. "First of all, there's no shame here. I had consensual sex with my boyfriend. Definitely nothing shame-worthy."

"Yeah, yeah," Alya muttered. "You have no shame."

"Exactly," Marinette agreed, grinning. "And Ellie had nothing on Luka."

Alya squealed, forcing Marinette to pull the phone away from her ear. "But Ellie was the gold bar for Marinette's sexcapades."

"Key word, was , Al." The light changed and she looked before crossing the street. "Oh, it was amazing. He was amazing. Fifteen out of ten. Would do again." Part of the reason she didn't care for one-night stands was that she felt it took two or three tries to really get to know each other's bodies well enough to really get it right. In the case of Luka, they knew each other really well and had been getting a little hot and heavy for weeks now. So maybe that was part of the first-time success.

"You might have to keep that man, Mari," Alya said, as if she was giving serious advice, though from experience, she was only half-serious.

"I'd like to think that could happen," Marinette pointed out. "It's been really nice so far. I mean it helps that I knew him so well first. But there's still things we don't really know about each other. I'm not worried about finding a creepy dark side or anything, but it almost seems like it's been too smooth. Our disagreements have been… weirdly reflective and chill."

"Luka's kinda chill in general," Alya pointed out. "I'd assume he's a pot user, but he never smells like it, and he's too focused and sharp to be all dulled out that way."

"He doesn't smoke anything," Marinette said. Even when they were just friends, she didn't like that so many people assumed he was into the unsavory side of the rock and roll lifestyle. He drank a little, casually and socially, but never when he was upset and never to excess. She was relieved her parents had met him when he was still in lycee, and knew his unruffleable demeanor was just the way he was. She hadn't had to go through an awkward intervention with them.

"I know he's not a stoner," Alya insisted. "But he does give off the vibe."

Marinette huffed. "In would be nice for people to stop making assumptions about him."

"There are lots of things that would be nice," Alya agreed. "Hawkmoth going into genuine full retirement is on the top of that list."

"Truer words have never been spoken," Marinette agreed before wishing her friend a great day. While it was really nice to have Paris' magical terrorist in some sort of semi-retirement, she'd really love to close that chapter of her life. Having a slightly more stable extracurricular schedule would be great, especially now that she was with someone she could see a future with. If Hawk Moth kicked his shit up into high gear again, she was going to find him and break his teeth. With cricket bat.

Marinette had taken on most of the duties of the guardian of the miraculous, including storing the miracle box in a secure spot in her room. She still met with Master Fu to train on more esoteric elements of her dual role as Guardian Ladybug. While attending university full time, she'd effectively gotten a PhD in the history, lore and magic of the miraculous. It had been an intense few years. Poor Nooroo. He'd waited far too long to be rescued, but she was working on a plan for that. And maybe once that had been done she could come clean to both her boyfriend and her partner. Luka would deserve to know why she would inevitably flake on him in the future, and Chat Noir clearly needed a whole lot more support and love in his life.

⁂

It was two days after she'd spent the night, and the first time she'd been back to Luka's apartment since. They'd both had work and other things to, and he'd fortunately been able to join her family for dinner last night, so at least she'd gotten some time with him. He had a couple of late night shifts coming up, recording for some musicians who simply could not function before 17:00. One of the nicest things about his job with the recording studio, was that the odd hours meant they could get together during the day in the middle of the week pretty regularly. It might be less easy once her classes started up in the fall again, but they were already getting into a pattern they could strive to maintain.

She knocked on his door. "Oh sexy boyfriend," she called in a sing-song voice. "I'm here to take you on a date."

The door swung open, and she found herself face to face with a grinning Adrien.

"You are not my boyfriend," she pointed out.

"Oh, I'm not?" Adrien said, as if surprised. He glanced down at his shirt, smoothing the fabric unnecessarily. "I'm… Luka's proxy for the evening."

"Are not." She crossed her arms over her chest. "What have you done with Luka? Come clean and I'll go easy on you."

Adrien laughed and stepped back, waving for her to come in. "I'm helping him stall for time," he whispered. "He couldn't decide what to wear."

She rolled her eyes and smiled. "Honestly, I'm okay with nothing. It's an excellent look on him. But I suppose if we're going out, he has to at least not alarm the tourists."

"Luka," Adrien called toward the bedroom. "Mari's here and she brought her A-game sass." He gestured to the couch. "Have a seat. Can I get you a drink while you wait?"

"Oooh. Are you his butler now?" she asked. "Where's your black suit and tie."

His lips twitched. It was nice to see him in a happy and teasing mood. "I specialize in butlery for the millennial generation, Mari. Casual butlery."

"Hey Nette," Luka said, stepping into the living room. "Adrien and I were doing some strategic planning and I lost track of time. Sorry about that." She hadn't seen him sheepish often, and it was adorable.

"Pish," she said, waving off his excuse. "It's fine. Did you come up with a plan?" She alternated between looking at Luka and Adrien.

"Yeah," Luka said slowly. "But we're in the early stages here, so I can't tell you anything."

"Oooh." She grinned at Adrien. "You're just an extraordinary model with an underwhelming home life, but you have a secret !" She tried to make it sound like narration for a movie trailer. While both men were chuckling, she reached out to pat Adrien's arm. "I'm okay being left out of things if that's what you prefer. You have Luka helping you out, and I know he'll take care of you."

Adrien pulled her into a firm hug. "Thanks for understanding, Mari."

"Just remember that I'm here for you if there's anything I can do to help you out, okay?" She squeezed back just as tightly. "I've got your back for hugs, pastries, and a variety of support tasks."

"I'll be following up with you on those," he promised.

They all ended up leaving the apartment together, with Adrien excusing himself when they reached the sidewalk. Once they were well out of earshot, Marinette asked how their friend was actually doing.

"Surprisingly well, honestly," Luka said, nodding. "I think he's waited until he was so ready for this that he's going to have absolutely no regrets. Well, aside from maybe the thought that he could have kicked his sperm donor to the curb years ago. His rebellion is fully planned out. It's kind of scary how thorough he's being."

Marinette sighed sadly. "He has two modes. Dangerously rash, on par with Chat Noir, and meticulously organized. There's no middle ground."

Luka offered her a half smile. "I'd noticed that. Do you think he'll balance out a bit once he no longer has to rein himself in so much?"

She thought for a moment, then nodded. "Yeah. That sounds about right. He's so tightly controlled that when he snaps, he overcompensates by hauling ass to the other side of the spectrum."

"That's just sad," Luka said. "Does he ever get to be himself?"

"He is with you. With his close friends away from the limelight and paparazzi, who I swear function as Gabriel's spies." While she might have admired the man's genius at one time, she couldn't see past his treatment of his son. "I wish it didn't have to be like this, but I'm glad he's finally acting on it. He deserves to be happy."

"It's well past time," Luka agreed. "I think we should maybe try to invite him along to hang out with us some once he gets the ball rolling next week. Would that be okay?"

She nodded. "Definitely." They'd reached an intersection, and once they stopped walking, she pulled him down to kiss his cheek. "I love spending time with you. But I can share you."

"Oooh," he said, wiggling his eyebrows. "Sounds kinky."

She rolled her eyes. "I don't think Adrien does , kinky." Whether it was his conditioning or his preference, he was one of her few friends whose dating history and sexual interest were completely unknown. She'd gotten the feeling more than once that he wasn't comfortable talking about it. "We just need to make sure he doesn't feel like a third wheel."

An explosion several blocks over shook the pavement, and her head snapped up. Hawk Moth had been so quiet, and of course it was too much to expect him to stay that way. But she'd hoped her luck would allow it to happen when she didn't have to worry about hiding her secrets from Luka. Maybe she should start carrying Sass with her, because him becoming Viperion again would definitely mask her absence.

Luka kissed her forehead, his presence soothing her as her mind tried to spiral out of control. "I'm gonna head back to my place," he said in a whisper. "You go do your thing."

She stared at him, her other freak-out completely derailed by this one.

"No panicking, Sweets." His thumbs brushed over her cheeks. "I know, I'm not supposed to know, so no need to confirm, okay? No excuses needed. I get it, more than most would. Just be safe. I'll meet you back at my place."

⁂

Check out Chapter Five >>>

⁂

I miss breaks. Stupid fucking Tumblr.

Sorry this took so long. Been stupid busy, but it’s been mostly good.

And if you’re so inclined, feel free to support me over on Ko-Fi

#Miraculous Ladybug #Fanfic #My Writing #Marinette #Luka #Lukanette #Adrien #Two are Better

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writingamongtheroses-archive · 4 years

Text

Showtime, Chapter 8

Lights Out

"Aaaand done!"

Liza stepped back from the speakers, grinning proudly. She and Bun watched as she flicked the switch. Treasure Cove erupted in sound. "Yar har har! Welcome crew, to Captain Bun's Treasure Cove! Load your token in and let the adventure begin!" She chuckled at the recorded voice lines, watching Bun grin.

It was the second night of Liza's new project. After she finished cleaning up the office with Bun's help, she had set to work. "Okay, stripped wires are fixed..." Liza said, checking that off her list as she turned it off. She grunted when her scarf fell in her face- she hated this scarf, it always came undone too easily. "I'll have to stop by the hardware store to see if I can find some better rope." She finished redoing her scarf to make a grabby motion. "Hand me that broom, will ya?"

Bun handed over the broom. "What are ye gonna do, lass?"

"Sweep! It's really dusty in here." True to her word, Liza started sweeping. "I mean, does the cleaning crew even clean? This whole place looks..." She looked around, trying to find a word that wasn't insulting to the animatronics.

"Nothing like how it used to?" She nodded. The depressed tone was back in Bun. "Aye, I know what you mean lass." The rabbit sat on a nearby box. "I remember how it used to be. Children would come, laughing and playing. They would win tokens while enjoying their food and listening to the Captain and Kitpup. It was bright and it was beautiful."

Liza had stopped sweeping. "I wish I could remember it."

"Ye don't?"

She shook her head. "The first thing I remember...is waking up in the hospital. The doctors told me I have retrograde amnesia." She didn't notice Doll wince.

"Wha?"

"Memory loss caused by an injury. They told me I was in a really bad accident- they had to sew parts of my brain back into my head and replace part of my skull with this fake skull stuff. There was also a bit of a brain bleed..." Liza made a face at the dust pile she had made. "Seriously, have they never cleaned here-?"

The lights went out.

"The ovens!" Kitty yelled from the kitchen.

"NOT US! I don't think..." Liza grumbled, trying to stumble out of Treasure Trove. She heard Bun move before a fake fur-covered hand wrapped around her wrist. If she focused, she could feel the metal under it. She made a conscious effort to not focus on that. Bun led her down the hallway, opening a door.

Her eyes had adjusted enough to see Kitty pulling what looked like a pizza out of an oven that was still glowing. Liza looked around, wondering if she would hear the lullaby...she shook her head. No. Because of Puppet, Ted couldn't hunt her down.

"-the generators."

She blinked at Kitty's voice. "What? Sorry, just trying to get my bearings." Liza attempted a sheepish grin before something plastic was stuffed in her hand. She turned on the flashlight, making sure to shine it on the floor.

"I need you to turn the generators back on," Kitty repeated slowly as if talking to a small child. She gestured to the pizzas. "Bun will help me with this." The rabbit nodded.

The generators, right. "Those would be..." Liza asked with a tiny wince. "Where exactly?" Something niggled at her brain, saying You know this.

"Oh, sorry! They're on the south side of the building. You can get to them by leaving the back way I think? We're not allowed outside, and I really don't want to upset Ted more than he already is." Kitty winced, matching her own.

Was this a trap?

It felt like a trap.

"...so I can leave? It's okay?"

"Yep!" Kitty chirped, turning to her ovens as Liza headed out of the kitchen. "As long as you come back." Liza paled at the tone, speeding up. "Be careful!" she heard before the kitchen doors shut. She sounded friendly, so she decided to leave that alone.

Liza opened and closed the door behind her, humming the lullaby absentmindedly. The flashlight bobbed in front of her as she walked. She turned the corner, training the light on the wall. She could see that the light outside was still on, so there must've been another circuit box for outside lighting. But why just the front?

Something clicked.

She froze, feeling Doll's fingers clench on her shoulders.

There was nothing but silence as she stood there. The crescent moon shone down on her while crickets chirped. She could see fireflies dancing around. While the flashlight was helpful, it just cast shadows and shapes of the thin forest sitting on the edge of the back parking lot. Nothing but underbrush and trees.

There was another noise and Liza ran.

By the time she stumbled across the fenced area, her feet hurt and any other noise was drowned out by the blood rush in her ears. The door was open. Annoyance washed out the fear when Liza realized why she lost power so fast.

There was a gauge.

"You aren't supposed to be here," Liza said to it as she started poking. Sure, it could save a few pennies, but it also seriously messed with the restaurant's electricity. She could remember Rafael raging whenever he found something like this on his latest repair project. She ended up wedging the flashlight in her shoulder to stick her arm half under the generator, but she flipped a switch. She was awarded a crunch of machinery as it rumbled to life. She unlatched the timer, examining it in curiosity. She ended up sticking it in her pocket- it looked homemade. She was honestly curious about why it was made and how it worked.

She headed up to the side door, intent on saving time. She regretted it when she heard another noise. It sounded closer this time. She paused in the doorway, taking a breath and turning to the night's darkness. "Hello?" She called out, wincing at her volume as Doll gripped her shoulders tight. "Is...there someone there?"

"Who are you talking to?"

Liza let out a shriek, swinging out. Rex dodged easily, grabbing her collar and hauling her into the safety of the restaurant in one smooth motion. His brow raised as she peered outside. After a minute of silence, she straightened. "Did you hear something outside?" she asked.

"Other than you sulking around? Not a thing."

"I wasn't sulking around, I was turning the power on." she snapped. "You're welcome."

"I didn't ask you to turn on the power, Elizabeth," Rex said. She glared at him, but the motion was half-hearted. "You seem jumpy."

There was a testy "I'm fine." Liza stuck her hands in her pockets for something to do with her hands. She probably needed to take another pill soon- her thoughts veered off when her hand brushed against something. "Actually, one more question." She pulled out the gauge, showing it to the dog. "This look familiar?"

"Uh...no. What is it?" Rex was telling the truth- he sounded confused.

"It's a gauge," Liza said, sticking it back in her pocket. "It cuts off the power to whatever it's hooked onto. It was set up to run from midnight to 6." She started walking to the kitchen, intent on telling Kitty she could use the oven again.

The dog followed, staring at her with narrowed eyes. "That's why this place runs out of power at night? Ted said it was because the pizzeria needed to save money."

Liza shook her head. "What it does is seriously mess with the restaurant's electricity and make us miserable."

"It wastes money," Doll said with a nod. "I remember...someone telling the construction company to not do something like that."

"Yeah, exactly!"

Rex let out some type of hiss. "Kitty's gonna have a fit. She hates not being able to bake. You should tell Ted."

She screeched to a stop. "W-What?"

"He's the boss. He should know somebody's been rigging stuff around here." She felt sweat roll down as she tried to give some excuse so she didn't have to talk to the animatronic who would take any excuse he had to stuff her... "Are you scared?"

Liza felt her hackles rise. "No! Look, I'll tell him tomorrow. I wanna take a look at this, see what I can find out!" She said when a frown appeared on Rex's face. "It looks homemade, so someone went to the trouble of making this!"

"Oh, you're scared."

"I am not! Look, I'm not trying to keep stuff from him-"

"What makes you think I won't tell him? In fact, I'll bet he'll be even more annoyed when I had to tell him."

Liza opened her mouth. She stopped when she recognized the tone. She sighed, staring at the ceiling and mentally wondering why me? "What do you want?" There was a chuckle and Rex nodded in a gesture that said: "Follow me."

She followed him, stiffening when they entered the dining hall. There was no sign of Ted, which made her relax. The dog made a beeline for Kitty's guitar, sitting on-stage and waiting for its owner. "You sound pretty competent with electronic stuff, right? At least, you didn't screw up with the generator. I guess you can't be too useless."

"Geez, thanks," Liza said with a roll of her eyes. She stopped when she took in the clearly broken lavender guitar. "What did Kitty do?"

"It wasn't her, it was some clueless cleaner." Rex held it out. "Tech doesn't work on us, so she can't get it fixed. You fix it and I won't tattle to Ted." Liza took it, considering the damage. Both age and the incident had caused clear damage.

"Deal."

"Good girl."

Liza rolled her eyes. She ignored the sarcasm to instead focus on the bigger issue. "Seriously, they don't work on you at all?" Rex winced, giving her his answer.

She only had the tools she could scrounge up. Rex was was surprisingly helpful, running to get the tools she needed. His clear desire to help his twin was a little refreshing. Liza couldn't help but wonder why the twins didn't act like this. The guitar was oversized for Kitty, meaning she didn't need any fine tools. Doll draped herself over Rex as they watched her in the working groove.

Half the issue was some pressure points where the guitar had been smashed. She would need to find a new casing. But, she told Rex, if Kitty was careful and didn't put too much pressure on certain areas, it would hold up. He nodded eagerly and she couldn't resist a smile at the cuteness.

"Kitty really needs to clean this more," she said when she took a rag to the inside. Much like when she swept Treasure Trove, she made a face at the dust she pulled out.

"She does!"

"The inside."

His ears flattened against his head. "Oh."

"But if nobody's working on you, I guess you guys won't know how to take care of your instruments." Tio Rafael was going to throw a fit six ways from Sunday when she told him. "I'll leave Kitty with some cleaning stuff. Tell her that if she keeps the dust out of here, it'll last longer!"

"Okay!"

Finally, she sighed. "Done!" Rex took it, batting Doll out of his lap, and played a few notes. Liza let out a weary smile at the noise, stretching in her spot. She froze when she heard music coming from down the hall.

"What are you still doing here?"

Liza scrambled to her feet when she saw Ted glaring at her. "I don't, it's only-" Exhaustion made her trip over her tongue. She glanced at the clock and paled, suddenly much more awake. "It's seven?!"

"Go on and get!"

"I'm going, I'm-" She fell with a grunt. Sitting up, Liza glanced behind her.

"Well?" The bear demanded.

"I'm stuck," she said, a little too calmly for the present situation. Ted took a look. The edge of her scarf had started to get loose and had gotten stuck under a floorboard that had been sticking up for ages. Liza stood and grabbed her scarf to try and yank it free.

"Just take off the scarf!"

"No!"

"Maybe you should just-" Rex said, moving to help her.

A tad bit of hysteria struck her. "I said NO!" she screamed, giving one hard yank.

Several things followed.

There was a very loud RIP! She staggered back at the sudden freedom, her foot catching on the end of the stage. There were several cries of "LIZA!" when she fell. She groaned when her shock cleared, looking up.

Ted stared back. Then his eyes moved up and she realized that her head was bared. Liza scrambled out of the bridal carry, falling on her butt with a grunt. She snatched her scarf off the stage where it must've fallen and wrapped it, a little too tight, around her scars. All the animatronics were staring at her. "I'm going," she said finally, pushing past Ted to disappear into the office. She came out a minute later with her stuff and disappeared into the early morning.

"She's not too bad nowadays," Rex said, handing Kitty her guitar. She squealed quietly. "I mean, she really was influenced by-"

"Not a word," he said. Rex shrugged as Ted stalked out of the room. He ignored the little girl that replaced his reflection.

"Blaming yourself for what happened to Elijah will not make the past heal." Of course, he would wander by here. The Puppet was still working at the crossword, considering the boxes. Instead of the calavera paint their creator had carefully done, it had a face full of tears and a red chin. "We need to get to work. Your twin has already warmed up to her."

"Would've preferred someone else, anybody else. Instead, you chose another night guard." Ted looked around the office. The kids' pictures were dulled with age. He chose to stare at one in particular. "You chose her."

"Time is running out."

"Hasn't she suffered enough?"

"We needed someone."

Ted nodded at the awful truth, turning to take his place on-stage. The Puppet huffed, disappearing into the box.

On the wall, a picture of a girl in yellow, standing next to her bear, stood staring.

#wip #heartbeat #heartbeat series #writblr #writeblr

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theawkwardterrier · 5 years

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things left behind and the things that are ahead, ch. 10

AO3 link here

Drea is the only one of his kids who Steve successfully gets into baseball. Rosie at age six tells him seriously that she has other, more important things to do than watch grownup men get excited about a ball, Em sits patiently through a couple of games that she clearly has no interest in, and Nate, when offered a chance to visit the ballpark for the first time at five years old says, "If you would be happy about it," in such a sweet, guileless way that Steve chokes up and tells him right away to forget about it. (Peggy is only too happy to have him look for someone else to bring - while she knows the rules by now and has watched a few games herself, he thinks that she'd have happily abdicated her seat to any passerby who wanted it. It's fine: she once tried to explain the rules of cricket, and he thinks he might still be comatose.)

But Drea loves it enough for all the rest of them, collecting cards, scanning the sports section each morning as the season approaches, and talking statistics like they're her second language. Nothing much has changed for her since they moved to Maryland: she has a group of boys to trade cards with, her best friends even as she enters junior high, and she's still a solid early choice in a schoolyard or street pickup game.

Steve's too cheap to shell out for Orioles season tickets - they live closer to DC, so getting to Baltimore is less convenient especially for weeknight games, but he's pretty sure that Washington loses their team sometime soon and he doesn't want his daughter getting attached and going through the same heartbreak he did - but he makes sure to take her to a few games a season, just the two of them.

It's a beautiful May Sunday, and the Orioles have just absolutely trounced Kansas City. Steve tosses their hot dog wrappers in the trash on the way out - four of his, one of Drea's - and wraps his arm around her, kissing the top of her baseball cap-covered head as they join the chattering crowd on the way back to their car.

"That was a great game," he says. "I think the O's have a good chance of making the series this year, huh?"

"I'm not very much like other girls, am I?"

It's more momentum than anything that keeps Steve walking. "What do you mean?" he asks carefully, looking down at her. The brim of her cap blocks him from seeing her face, but her shoulders hunch a little under his hand.

"I'm not like Mom," she says. "Or like Emma."

"Well that’s good, because I don't know if I could handle two Emmas. We'd never be able to finish all the desserts." Steve jokes. "And it would be a pretty big coincidence if you were like Mom." Everyone in town is used to the Carters by now, but when they had moved down from New Jersey five years ago, the variation in looks between the children and their lack of similarity to either parent had brought reactions ranging from pity to outright disdain.

"That's not what I mean." Drea starts to walk a little faster, even knowing that her dad can keep up. Her words come out in small, breathless bursts, and Steve aches a little at the bravery it is taking her just to keep speaking them. "It’s just...they know about girl stuff. Mom knows when to wear fancy gloves and pearls and it never looks weird, and Emmy just knows how to talk with other girls. They understand everything without even trying. They like this stuff. The only stuff I like is boy stuff."

"Hey," he says, pulling her to the side of the crowd so he can stop and bend to face her. He peers into the shadow beneath her ball cap, finding her jewel-dark blue eyes. "You're a girl. Anything you like is girl stuff."

She turns away from him. "Yeah, okay."

"I know that Em is a certain kind of girl—" Emma has already requested her own set of mixing bowls for Christmas. Practically the only time she wears pants is in the garden. She used to spend entire afternoons pouring “tea” for a dozen dolls and stuffed animals, signing politely to them as she sipped with an extended pinky. "But your mom put up with a lot during the war, and even now there are plenty of people who say that she isn't doing the things a woman should do. And what about Rosie? She doesn’t exactly fit into a box."

"It's different for me than it is for Rosie." That she says it simply, without a sigh or a teenage eyeroll, makes him sad. Even sadder than that: she's right. As much as he doesn't want it to be, it is different for her than it is for Rose, or Emma, or even Peggy.

"Okay," he says. "You're different than some girls. But that doesn't mean you're doing anything wrong. And I would hate for you to change the way you are or the things you love just because you felt that you had to fit in.” He tries to smile. “Besides, Bucky and the family are coming to visit over the summer and I promised them a good time, which means a trip to the ballpark with the two of us."

This time she does sigh, a tiny hiccup of not being entirely understood or at least of realizing that her father can't fix everything for her. "Yeah," she says again. "Okay."

Steve stands to his full height once again and hugs her against his side for a moment. He and Peggy have changed a lot, but there are some things even more stubborn than they are.

Tonight was supposed to be a date night with Steve, but there’s been a new FBI head for three, nearly four years now, and Peggy is only just getting around to inviting him and his wife for a collegial dinner engagement. Steve very sweetly said that he doesn't mind any of the time that he gets to spend with her, but she knows that this isn't exactly his idea of an enjoyable evening out. She'll have to remember to make it up to him.

"Which one?" she asks Drea, holding three dress options in front of herself. There's a deep, vivid scarlet number, a classic flared black, and a black and aubergine paneled silk with the tags still on.

Drea considers. "The red. Daddy likes it when you wear red."

"So he does." She strips off her robe and leaves it on the back of the chair as she slides the dress over her head, moving to the mirror to do up the last of the zip and smooth it over her hips. Peggy keeps herself fairly trim, but it's been a while since she wore this particular dress, and one never knows how things might have changed.

In the glass, she glimpses Drea, her black hair tangled and wild around her shoulders as always, her knees tented as she tucks nearly her whole narrow body into the white T-shirt she's wearing: one of Steve's undershirts, no doubt. Drea practically lives in them as it gets warmer. If it were prior to Lula-Cat's escape of the previous summer, the beast would surely be purring on the bed beside her favorite Carter, allowing herself to be petted as she got fur all over Peggy's clean pillowcases.

She is almost fourteen, Peggy realizes with a pang, and not only because her children are growing up even more quickly than she had expected. They will have another year of people plausibly believing her to be a late bloomer, perhaps not even that. She, Steve, Drea and her doctor have an appointment soon for a discussion, and Peggy makes a note to sit down Howard with as well. The little tools he's made for Emma - the vibrating clip for her swimsuit for when they go to the beach, the egg timer with its flashing lights - have been helpful, but the things he could make for Drea might be lifesaving.

As she moves to the vanity and fixes her face, traces on her vividly red lipstick with a practiced hand, thinks for a moment and adds pearl earrings and a simple crystal necklace which Steve gave her for their fifteenth anniversary, she fights to keep both the fear and calculation from her face. Drea already looks melancholy enough.

Peggy sits at the edge of the bed to put on her hose and her pumps. She is just about to get up and take in the final product when Drea says from beside her, "Mom, can you teach me how to put on makeup?"

Peggy pauses for just a moment, then asks, "What brought this on?" She allows only a tiny amount of surprise into her voice. It would be unbelievable otherwise, but the true amount of shock she feels at the question would be insulting, would drive her daughter away.

"Some girls at school are starting to use it. And I—" Her voice falters a bit, then comes back stronger, perhaps too strong, as if she's given herself a stern lecture. "I think I should also know how."

"I think you're a bit young for it, and I'm not sure that 'because everyone else is doing it' is a particularly good reason," says Peggy, continuing over the beginning of Drea's protestations. "But if that's what you truly want, I can certainly give you a lesson or two." She sighs, perhaps a bit theatrically. "Goodness knows I'd have liked for Rosie to ask before she made her first attempts."

It works. Drea laughs a little, remembering Rose's early experiments with cheap drugstore eye makeup and vending machine lip color in a particularly revolting shade of tangerine that gave her a rash.

Peggy stands, smoothing her dress one final time and going over to the closet. She takes out a handbag, and riffles through Steve's tie hanger, selecting a red one which will match her dress and coordinate well with the gray suit she had watched him put on earlier.

"Are you ready?" Drea asks, her voice a bit less dispirited than it had been a few moments earlier, and Peggy nods and moves toward her. Drea spritzes the perfume precisely, two sprays that float in the air for Peggy to walk through. She had always touched on her own scent, a bit at each wrist and at her throat, and just a drop or two on a sachet in her brassiere, but then the children had come along, and now this was a particular tradition whenever one of them helped her get ready.

"Be good for Rose," Peggy says as she leaves the room, and Drea calls back, "If she's good to me."

Rose herself is sitting sprawled out in the doorway of her bedroom, scribbling into a notebook. She is in the midst of a hard-fought campaign for presidency of the upcoming senior class, and lately seems to have decided to plop herself down whenever an idea might catch her. Her legs aren’t long, even at the end of her growth spurt, but she’s positioned herself so they stretch out into the hallway and Peggy steps over them as she passes.

"Don't forget about bedtime," she reminds her eldest, and Rose makes a vague affirmative sound before she places a firm full stop at the end of whatever sentence she is writing and, stretching, looks up at her mother.

"What did you say?"

"Bedtime," Peggy repeats firmly. "Your siblings must adhere to it. As should you. I know that school is coming to an end, but it isn’t here yet."

"Fine," Rosie says with a wave of her hand, and Peggy knows that she'll see the bedroom light snap off just as they turn up the driveway. She starts on her way again (if Rose wants to develop poor sleeping habits, that is her responsibility) but then turns back.

"And be kind to your sister," she tells Rose, dropping her voice a bit. "I think she's having a hard time."

"I can make her a Surprise," Rose suggests, and Peggy shudders, and not just because of Rosie's notoriously poor cooking skills. Drea is the only one of the children with clear memories of her birth parents - she was five when they were killed in a fire while out for their anniversary dinner. One of the things she remembers most clearly is the multitude of casseroles her birth mother made: Hamburger Surprise, Tuna Surprise, Potato Surprise... Peggy has no doubt that they were as ordinary, or perhaps as lackluster, as any example of such a dish, but Drea had built them up in her mind, built them up for Nate, who had no memories of their parents, such that she had spent her childhood requesting various types of Surprises for birthday meals or following an especially good report card.

Steve has turned into a good cook and with Emma at his side they can turn out almost anything, but a Surprise has never been Peggy’s idea of fine cuisine.

"Supper is already being taken care of," Peggy says, adding the thankfully for you only mentally. She can smell Sam's Cornbread in the oven now, can hear the airy silence downstairs, punctuated with little sounds that signify Steve refereeing a fight between Emma and Nate, likely about how much spice to add to the chili. "Just be nice to Drea."

"If she's nice to me," Rosie says, and Peggy refrains from lifting her eyes upward and asking why she had been given two daughters who were so similar and yet refused to realize it.

"Everyone's finished their schoolwork, but make sure that Nate’s book report ends up in his bag. And Emma is trying a new recipe for creamed Brussels sprouts - please tell everyone that they must at least taste it. Don’t simply take the whole pot and bury it in the garbage pail, and certainly don’t try to throw it in the woods the way you did the spinach," Peggy tells her shrewdly, but a new idea seemed to have struck and Rosie is back to her notebook again.

Peggy moves on. Rose has minded her siblings before, and Peggy doesn't want to be late to the dinner and cause an inter-agency incident; Howard would never let her hear the end of it. Besides, she and Steve will have an opportunity to discuss Drea in the car over - there comes a point where even a night away from the children is never truly away from the children.

Rosie lets Nate and Emma stay up for an extra half hour to cement herself as a Cool Older Sister. Once they're asleep, she knocks on Drea's door, barely waiting to be invited before she enters.

Drea is lying on her back on her bed, tossing a ball up and catching it.

"Be careful it doesn't hit your face," Rose says, hoping that it doesn't come out mean or bossy the way her words sometimes do when she's talking to Drea.

"It’s never happened to me before.” Drea doesn’t take her eyes off the ball. “Just because you’re still scarred from the Wiffle Ball Incident—”

“You said you wouldn’t ever mention that!” Rose comes in and closes the door all the way. “Ugh, just move over.” Drea groans as she sits up against the headboard, but she tucks her legs up to make room and Rosie takes a seat. “Look, I heard you asking Mom about makeup and stuff. Are people giving you trouble at school? Because I’ll give them a talking to if they are.”

“You’re not queen of the high school yet. No one has to just listen to you when you go blab in their face,” says Drea, jutting out her chin, although they both know that when Rosie gives someone a talking to, it not infrequently involves violence. (There had been a question about whether or not she was even allowed to run for the student council based on the number of detentions and suspensions on her record.)

“You’re my sister,” says Rose, setting her own chin. “And if someone’s making problems for you, I’ll take care of it.”

Despite herself, Drea laughs. “You sound like Jimmy Hoffa.”

“Maybe, but Mom would make sure that I covered my tracks better than he did.” Rose lies back across the bed, legs just long enough for her feet to still touch the floor. She turns her face, her hair fanned around her as she looks at Drea, curled up at the head of the bed. “You know I’m serious, right?”

“I know. But it’s not really someone in particular, it’s just...life.”

Rosie sighs. “Yeah.” She puts out her hand, and Drea scooches down to grasp it. “Life’s hard.”

Sarcasm is on the tip of Drea’s tongue - “Tell me more, oh wise one!” - but instead she stays quiet and holds her sister’s hand until their parents return.

Drea and Steve go with Bucky, Layla, and their kids to watch a blowout Orioles win during their vacation at the end of July - Drea cheers louder than anyone. In August, after they've returned from their own vacation, Peggy sits Drea down at the vanity and walks her a half dozen different beauty products, while Rose comments loudly from the bed. Just before school starts in September, Drea uses her allowance to get a flat iron and gives herself three burns learning how to use it.

The Orioles lose the Series to the Mets, and Drea starts wearing dresses for the first time since she was a child.

It won’t be any help, Steve realizes as she sits down across from him at the breakfast table, settling her skirt self-consciously, sitting up straight and crossing her ankles with awkward politeness, to remind her once more that she doesn’t need to do this. She has a good head on her shoulders, and she’s using it to process everything in the world that tells her otherwise. He remembers what Peggy has said about it, that she’ll come back to herself, she’ll come back to them, when she’s ready. So instead he says, “Hey, kid,” and when she looks up at him, he smiles and tells her, “there’s always next year, you know? Always another shot if we need it.”

And to his relief, she smiles back, the expression familiar, wild-edged and lovely, the same as it’s always been. Hello in there, he thinks.

“Yeah, Dad,” she says. “There’s always next year.”

More chapters here

#Steggy fic #Steggy #Steve Rogers #Peggy Carter #things left behind fic #probably nothing new next week while I do other fic prep

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